Let us bow in prayer.
Dear Lord Jesus, we have come this evening,
we have come to thee.
We have not come to men, we have
not come to things which threaten us and
lead us into despair, but we have come
to that sprinkling precious blood of our dear
Saviour, which speaketh better things to guilty consciences
like us than that of others.
Dear Master, come, come and sit with us
here and explain and support us by thy
grace in Jesus.
I feel I need your prayer very much
this evening from many angles.
One prayer that one will survive these atomic
lights and shots I see about around here,
because your continent is a continent, we say,
a space continent, and one has, in coming
here, we who come from Africa, have to
be very careful just in case, in case
we find ourselves in the atmosphere.
But I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ
has been here.
This is the second evening of our meeting,
and my brother William and I can say
that this is rather a very extraordinary experience
for us.
Extraordinary because everywhere when people with hungry hearts,
people with the desire in their own inner
man, meet, they meet with that wonderful personality
called Jesus Christ.
Of course, the subject which has been announced
to you is a very familiar subject, and
it makes one feel a bit trembling within.
One wonders what you expect in that world,
very much of a word called revival, and
it has got so many, many experiences that,
well, let me tell you this so that
you may sit back and feel safe with
me.
I'm not a revival, and I'm not a
technician in revival either.
In fact, I was saved, and for quite
some time, I never knew that I was
saved during a time of revival, and I
never heard the word revival until about eight
years after having been saved.
Because, you see, I was not saved by
revival.
I was saved by a man called Jesus
Christ, and it is that wonderful man, that
wonderful God, that wonderful personality, Jesus Christ, that
living risen Savior, I will like, I should
like to share with you tonight because I
know, and I know without any shadow of
doubt, that where he is, there is revival.
And therefore, I think there is no better
introduction to this subject than what we have
just sung in Charles Wesley's hymn, Long my
imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and
nature's night, Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,
that is revival.
The eye of vision, looking at people like
us here, it is that look which revived
Peter's soul that night, that terrible night when
Peter was in great darkness after having denied
his master.
What else could have brought hope again to
that terrible experience of a soul trembling with
guilt?
And he turned and he looked at Peter,
and Peter wept, that was revival.
You see how it begins?
It's very near, isn't it?
It is in the eye of Jesus.
I know that's what has happened, as we
are going to say a few things here,
and I must not beat about the bush,
because I think we were, we really must
mean business.
God is here, and he has been here
through the talk, through the Bible reading, through
the messages of today and last night, as
our brother Billy gave the message.
The Lord Jesus himself has been here.
We are not introducing something new from Africa.
The world is full of new, new, new
things.
In fact, there is nothing new really.
That's what the Bible says.
There's nothing new under heaven, even these atomic
bombs, they're not very new.
So what we want to share tonight, revival,
as I have remarked already, is when the
eyes of Jesus meet the eyes of a
sinner.
Or let me put it the other way
around.
When the eyes of the Lord Jesus meet
the eyes of a saint, and I believe
you are saints here.
Believe me, saints have many problems, I can
tell you that.
Believe me, believers, saved people, can be in
utter despair.
Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in
sin, and night, and nature's night, thine eye
diffused a quickening ray.
I woke, and the diamond flamed with light.
It was revival for that soul.
It was revival in the soul of Charles
Wesley.
It can be that tonight.
It must be tonight if you meet that
wonderful person called Jesus.
It was that when I met him, but
let me say this, it is not, it
was not a meeting him once and for
all.
It has been a meeting the Lord Jesus
for the last 20 years of my life,
and it has made such a difference.
Yes, call it revival.
I'm not ashamed of that, as long as
you connect it with my dear Savior.
But if you think about revival apart from
him, I take off my hands because I
don't know anything like it.
Revival, yes, if Jesus is there, and I'm
sure he's here.
But perhaps this is a word, as I
said, a bit of a word.
People connect it with all sorts of things,
and therefore I'm not going to talk about
revival tonight.
That's a rather disappointing thing, isn't it?
That one should refuse to speak about a
subject which has been assigned to him.
But let me say, I want to talk
about something better, the very source of the
blessing.
And I'm going to take, to begin, where
does revival begin?
Where does the Lord Jesus bring a blessing?
I take a text from Deuteronomy, just to
encourage myself and you.
And this, this is the word.
In Deuteronomy chapter 32 and verse 9, there
is a short verse which reads like this,
for the Lord's portion is his people.
Jacob is the lord of his, inheritance.
The Lord's portion is his people.
Jacob, with emphasis, Jacob, with emphasis, is the
lord of his inheritance.
What a lot!
Fancy that God should have gone and looked
around, and in hundreds and thousands of other
lots, that he should have looked around, and
in a corner, as it were, he might
have seen a lot labeled Jacob.
And he went, because he's God, he graciously
went right around, as it were, winding through,
and he picked up that label, that parcel,
that lot, as the Bible puts it, called
Jacob.
And he said, this is going to be
my lot.
What a, what a wrong choice it must
have been for God.
You know what that name means?
A cheater, a supplanter, a sinner.
All wrong within that lot.
Nothing at all, nothing right, nothing good, nothing
straight, and yet God chose that lot as
his own lot, and as his inheritance.
Will you take off the label, take off
the name Jacob, and carefully write yours, carefully
put yours in the place of Jacob, and
see whether you fit in.
I'm sure there are many people who have
come to Urbana, here, in this crowd here
of young people and old people, and some
of us are not very young really, we
just, you know, young means below 90.
Well now, take that lot, put the label
of your name, and that is where God
begins.
God chose this poor lot as an inheritance,
a name called Jacob, in which there was
nothing, and God started to bless this name.
The intention of God was to make this
poor lot, this broken lot, into something wonderful,
and I think this is how revival begins.
It simply begins when God choses a very
poor lot, just as he chose it.
Some of you perhaps think that you, in
order to experience the life-giving water which
Jesus brings, the fullness of the Lord Jesus
himself, you need to be an extraordinary person.
Well, I don't believe in that, simply because
I have never been extraordinary.
In fact, I've lost my hope of ever
being an extraordinary at all.
I can't come to that, but there are
some lucky ones who can be, I cannot.
And thank God, I want to encourage my
brethren, my brothers and sisters, like you needn't
to be extraordinary at all.
Keep your label on, your life, keep it
on, and you will see that before you
leave Urbana, before you leave this place, you
will have experienced something wonderful.
Remember, this poor lot is in the hand
of God.
This poor lot, Jacob, is in the hand
of a master, very skilled hand, and I
want to tell you, no other hand could
have chosen that lot.
Impossible.
No one could have ever chosen that lot,
and if they tried, they would be terribly
disappointed.
But the hand that chose that lot, Jacob,
was a master hand, and I want to
tell you tonight, you are in very good
hands.
You are in very good hands tonight.
It doesn't matter who you are.
Don't you get worried about it, and don't
quite change your label.
Keep it on, and you will see that
Urbana, this place here, you will go from
this place completely a different path.
Now the problem with Jacob is the problem
with us.
God chose that lot.
Will you turn to Genesis and see what
happened?
God having chosen that lot, that poor lot
called Jacob, in his mercy and grace, just
as he chose you, just as he chose
me, and I tell you he chose a
poor lot when he chose me in 1941,
in October.
I was not a religious young man.
I had just finished college in my first
year of teaching.
You see, I'm not very young, and at
that time, a young man away in Central
Africa, completely given to the bottle, if you
know what I mean by that.
You know these bottles which make your head
go round, and in desperate seeking that I
in that, perhaps, and another thing, and pleasure,
and terrific amount of smoking, and pleasure, and
all night dancing in villages, and little towns.
You haven't got big towns back here.
It's just the same thing anyway, and in
that desperate, in that struggle, trying and failing,
brought up in a mission school, had about
visas since I was 11.
You see, my parents were Tagans, and I
grew for the first 10 years.
I was a Tagan born.
I worshiped a bit of the old spirit,
but then I left, and I went to
mission school, and they heard the gospel.
They was baptized and introduced into the church,
Church of India.
You call it here Episcopal, I suppose.
I don't know what that means.
Sometimes in East Africa, you say that in
some very keen evangelical mission, people sort of
raise their heads and say, what?
Can anything good come from over there?
But you see, remember the text said, and
Jacob is the Lord of my inheritance.
He chooses that, and he met this poor
young man one afternoon, and he chose that
poor Lord.
I was coming from a drinking party.
It was Sunday afternoon.
I remember it as if it were just
yesterday, because it is one of the most
unforgettable moments when a sinner meets a wonderful
Savior.
It was not in a church.
It was on the road, and I was
driving madly with a drink in my hand,
and I was stopped by a young man
with whom I was speaking, and he looked
me full in the face with the glow
of Jesus in his eyes.
He had met the Lord Jesus three hours
before, and he said to me, do you
know?
I said, what?
He said, I have found Jesus just a
short time ago, and I want to tell
you I know he's in my heart now,
and I want to say goodbye to you,
my dear friend, and he said, I want
to apologize for the sort of thing we
have shared and said against him.
He said, I'll never be like that.
I belong to him.
Three hours after his conversion, and God used
him to win the hardest young man.
Two hours later, I came to Jesus, so
he won a soul within three hours of
his conversion.
That's wonderful, isn't it?
He was still a trembling Jacob.
He couldn't preach to someone at all.
He didn't even know how to begin a
testimony or where to end.
You see, you don't need to be a
technician in this matter, but yet God used
his word.
That was all.
I repeated exactly what he said to me,
and that was all, and the Spirit took
that, and he applied it to a needy
soul like mine, and he pushed me to
my house.
I closed all my doors, knelt by my
bed, and I looked Jesus in the face,
and in utter despair, and what a difference.
I've never been the same.
Well, that's a poor lot, wasn't it?
And that was the beginning of a poor
lot.
So take courage, please, tonight.
Let us look at Jesus tonight together.
Let us see where the change can come
over.
The problem with Jacob was not that God
was not prepared to bless him, and that's
where many people, many evangelicals, many of us
make a mistake.
We speak about praying for revival for 30
years.
We speak about wrestling with God as if
God is mean and unwilling to bless, and
yet last night, didn't you hear carefully that
he paid a tremendous price at Calvary's cross?
For what?
To bless me, and then the devil says,
having paid that tremendous, that colossal price of
the blood of his dear son Jesus Christ,
then we turn around and we say, I
am wrestling with God because he's not willing
to bless me.
What a mistake.
Can he really buy that wonderful mighty blessing,
and by mighty blessing, I mean all that
is in Jesus for me, for you, a
trembling sinner.
All that is in Jesus for a defeated,
all that is in Jesus for a shaky
young convert.
Like the one who gave his testimony to
me, he was only a babe, but a
lovely babe, wasn't he?
He won us all.
Yet there were people who had been in
the church and perhaps who had been Christians
for 20 years who had never heard him.
Anyway, Jacob spent a long time, and this
was the trouble.
I want to be quite brief and simple.
The problem is that we try to be
simple and then we become terribly complicated.
Look at chapter 27 of Genesis.
You see there one of the clues which
may be the problem tonight for you.
This may be your problem.
It necessarily doesn't mean a young convert has
this problem.
You may be 20 years old, as I
am since I met the Lord Jesus, and
you may still be suffering from that terrible
problem.
Jacob wants the blessing.
The Lord has chosen this poor lot, and
in Jacob's heart there was that longing for
the blessing, not created by Jacob, but created
by the God who chose Jacob.
So you see, the longings which are in
your heart are not your own.
You've not stirred them up.
They have been created there by the God
who chose you, you Jacob.
And because the longing was there, Jacob wanted
a blessing.
But let me show you where things went
wrong.
Look at verse 14, I think, will give
us one of the clues.
Chapter 27 of Genesis, verse 14, it says,
Jacob went, and he said, and he brought
them his mother.
And his mother made several meat, and such
as his father Isaac loved.
And Rebekah took good raiment of her eldest
son, Ethel, which were with her in the
house.
And he put them upon Jacob, her young
son.
And she put skins of the goats upon
his hands, and upon the smooth of his
neck.
That was the trouble.
Jacob, the poor lot, is now trying to
run away from his level.
You see what, where the trouble lay?
He starts on the wrong track.
He's a Jacob, but look what is happening.
He's putting on the garments of Esau.
Yes, I love, I long to be blessed.
I long for revival, but God cannot bless
me.
Jacob, as I am, I need change.
I must be a wonderful Christian.
And he put on a beautiful garment, which
were not his own.
And then skins of goats on his arms,
around his stiff neck, he put that.
Of course, he couldn't bend it.
There he was, Jacob, in Esau's garment, with
goats around his neck, with goat skins on
his arms.
For what?
For one simple reason.
He doesn't like to appear as Jacob.
He wants to be another.
He wants to be Esau, the elder brother,
the blessed one, so called.
And he runs away from what God has
labeled him to be.
And there may be people here, at this
convention, who are trying to run away from
what God says you are.
Seeking the blessing, but trying to be wonderful,
wonderful Christianity, victorious outwardly.
And listen, it goes on.
Garments of Esau, skins to cover his poor
Jacob arms, very poor, nothing on them.
Skins to cover the old hard neck of
Jacob.
Yes, and then he beautifully clothed himself in
the garments which did not belong to him.
And listen what went on.
It's wonderful.
As skins on, verse 17, he brings with
the savory meat and bread in his hand.
And he comes, verse 18, my father, and
he said, hear my, who art thou my
son?
In other words, I know you, my son,
who art thou?
You see that that question was unnecessary.
Why, who art thou my son?
And Isaac had only two sons.
He knew who this chap was.
And he said, who art thou?
In other words, God is using Isaac to
confront Jacob with the fact of, who are
you?
Are you prepared to say who you are?
My son, I know you, but who are
you?
You have to make that confession yourself.
You have to admit who you are if
you want the blessing.
And that was a very crucial moment, wasn't
it, in the life of Jacob.
And it can be a crucial moment here,
tonight, in a man's life.
That's how you answer that question.
Who are you, my son, says God tonight.
Who are you?
Don't you try to change your level.
I know you've got skin.
And Jacob said this, and some of us
may do it.
Verse 19, and Jacob, Jacob, you see how
it begins?
Scripture is wonderful.
And Jacob said unto his father, I am
Esau.
Oh, what a pity, what a miss.
God had chosen Jacob as his poor lot
in order to change Jacob into something.
And here is Jacob saying, I'm not a
Jacob.
I can't admit I am a Jacob and
get the blessing.
Well, God never brings revival or life to
those who don't admit who they are.
Whether it is in a school, whether it
is in a church, whether you are a
wonderful pastor for your congregation, when the Spirit
of God comes, you'll have to be what
you are.
I have had that experience of being what
I am before my class as a schoolmaster,
and schoolmasters don't like to be what they
are before their students.
I remember one afternoon when God had said
to me, be what you are, and it
was a very costly business.
But thank God he gives the grace.
So Jacob made the mistake.
I am not Jacob.
I am Esau.
Listen to that terrible thing.
I am not Jacob.
I'm not defeated.
I'm a victorious Christian.
I belong to a very evangelical church.
I have been brought up by wonderful parents,
or a church, or a mission, or a
board, or a doctrine, all these wonderful things.
I can't be anything but a victorious Christian.
I'm Esau.
And then you wonder why the blessing doesn't
come.
You think you have not prayed enough.
You pray, you pray, but you are praying
over Esau all the time.
You are not willing for the skin to
be taken off.
You are not willing for your neck to
appear.
You are not prepared to take off the
garments of Esau and be what you are.
Now as soon as you are that, the
whole thing changes.
Look, it says, Jacob has denied, but Isaac
is still being used.
He says, verse 21, And Isaac said unto
Jacob, God is giving you an
opportunity.
Come nearer.
You say, yes, I'm all right.
Yes, all right.
Come nearer still.
The Lord Jesus said, I won't steal you.
In fact, of course, the Lord Jesus doesn't
need that.
Poor Isaac, he was blind.
But the Savior you are dealing with tonight
is not a blind Savior.
He's absolutely, his eyes are like the flames
of fire seeing through you.
And he loves you so dearly because he
shows you a poor lot who you are.
How God brings survival.
He brings survival to poor lot.
Are you prepared to join the gang?
You ready to join the company of poor
lot here?
It's not easy.
I have seen pastors weeping as they joined
poor lot gang.
You know, these crowds of nobody at the
feet of Jesus Christ.
It's very, very contradicting.
In my home, when the Spirit of God
comes to me, and I have a wife
who loves the Lord Jesus, whom I think
is the best wife in the world, of
course, um, that's what husband thinks.
And he loves Jesus, and we walk together
as poor sinners saved by grace.
But you know, the surprising thing is that
many times I can't tell you when I
have put on skins, goat skins of hypocrisy.
Not intending it, mind you, because I love
Jesus, that's all.
I don't like to be a hypocrite.
And yet I find myself a hypocrite, times
without number, sitting, and when all is not
well, and I put on this wonderful borrowed
smile, you know, wide wonderful borrowed smile, to
impress my wife that I'm a wonderful Christian.
I'm not.
The Lord Jesus knows I'm not.
All is not right.
I know there's something crooked which has come
in, which has interrupted the fellowship, which has
made me cold, but I don't like other
people to know me for what I am.
I want them to think I'm a victorious
Christian, a successful preacher, a wonderful man.
Yes, I may impress this crowd here, but
it's very difficult very often to impress your
wife that you're all that wonderful.
And thank God for that.
She has been very faithful with me.
If I preach, if you were in this
congregation and I shouted at you, when I
go outside, she would take me by the
hand and said, look here, dear, you had
microphones.
Why did you shout?
So you see, it's a wonderful thing to
have somebody who really is faithful with you,
and it's a blessed thing.
And some of you may be as faithful
as that.
It's a wonderful thing.
But you see, I've been playing that game
of saying I'm not Jacob to my own
loss, and it may be that loss.
It is that which stops revival from coming
into home.
It is that which interrupts Christian serenity.
No one wants to be what they are.
Everybody's trying to be what he's not or
she's not.
And it takes God a long time to
bring us to that point.
Come near, come near.
And Jacob came tremblingly, and he was felled.
And the old man said, in verse 22,
the voice is of Jacob.
Oh, what a terrible discovery.
The voice is Jacob.
Oh, what a waste of time.
All those garments, all this skin.
I am still Jacob within.
Yes, you are.
Yes, you may be wonderful on the pulpit.
Yes, you may sing beautifully.
But that little, that small, whispering voice of
Jacob is still there.
Parents, sometimes I have got four girls who
keep me in order many times, and they
sometimes not whisper in that voice.
Although I'm smiling, but the whisper, that angry
tone comes in.
You are Jacob.
You are pretending you are Esau, victorious, wonderful,
lovely.
But what about that in?
What about that angry, critical voice in you?
That's Jacob.
You may as well not waste time at
all.
And Jacob, you know how it took him
a long time?
God meant to bless him very quickly, just
as he means to bless you tonight.
You don't have to wait for 20 years,
or 10 years, or two hours at all.
But you know how long it took Jacob?
20 years of hard work.
Jacob was struggling, and preaching, and he had
to leave his country.
He had to go to Lebanon, in Sadanaam,
spent there.
Oh, grueling years of trying to be blessed.
20 years of hard work.
I wonder how long it's taken in this
struggle and pain in business.
Some of you, perhaps, it's four years, three
years.
Some of us, 20, perhaps, 15.
Inwardly, you feel defeated.
You long for the blessing.
It was as if God is refusing to
bless.
No, it is not.
The key lies with you tonight.
Jacob might have been blessed before those 20
years of grueling effort, futile effort.
Had he done the simplest of things, had
he admitted he was a Jacob.
It took 20 years.
I wonder how long it has taken you.
Now look here, let me be brief and
finish, because I think we must be very
simple tonight.
Many years passed, and God said to Jacob
in chapter 32, God said to Jacob, after
many years, long time of defeatism, cheating and
being treated, no satisfactory, outwardly very prosperous, inwardly
very dry.
Don't you feel that time?
Even sometimes when you're preaching, as I'm preaching,
you can feel very dry.
I can tell you many times, I feel
very dry.
God is teaching me to tell William, my
brother, when I'm dry, even before I come
preaching here, I tell him, I'm very dry,
pray for me.
It's a wonderful thing to admit you are
a Jacob.
After all, that's what you are.
In chapter 31, verse 3, and the Lord
said unto Jacob, return to the land of
thy fathers and thy kindred, and I will
be with thee.
That was a wonderful message after 20 years.
Return, which is the way.
How am I going to get back into
this land of blessing, of Abraham and Isaac?
The way, Jacob, the way you are going
to go back lies where Esau lives.
Not that.
The way back to this land is not
going to evade Esau.
The only way you are going to go
back is through Esau's country.
Chapter 33, chapter 32 tells you the story.
Jacob, verse 3, Jacob sent messengers before him
to Esau, his brother, and to the land
of Seir, the country of Edom.
Verse 6, and the messengers returned to Jacob
saying, we came to thy brother Esau, and
he also, he cometh to meet you and
400 men with him.
Now you have come to Jacob.
Poor Jacob.
You evaded it.
20 years you hid.
Here you are again.
Esau is coming, and he's coming with 400
mighty men with their weapons.
Poor Jacob, now he can't hide.
Kings can't stand this kind of dilemma.
Yes, the governments cannot really stand it.
Nothing can stand this at all.
And so Jacob is now trembling.
There are many people trembling in the world
with great confusion and trouble.
Fear has made hold of God's people.
They have faced these situations.
Jacob had to.
Verse 9 says, Jacob said, O God of
my father Abraham, and God of my father
Isaac, the Lord which has said, stand to
me, return unto thy country, and to thy
kindred, and I will be with thee.
I am not worthy of thy, of the
least of thy mercies, and of all the
truth which thou hast showed unto thy servants.
For with my staff I passed on over,
and now I've come in peace.
Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand
of my brother, from the hand of Esau,
for I fear him.
He is beginning to be Jacob now, do
you see?
Many years away, but now he's coming near.
I wonder whether you have faced a situation
which makes you tremble, and fear, and despair.
And you wonder what to do.
This is the beginning of good things.
Good news is starting, but I must hurry
on and just leave you to the last
part.
But you know the old Jacob doesn't die
quickly.
He has prayed now, but look, if you
have time, read on and you see, after
he has prayed, then he begins to scheme.
Then he puts goats, and sheep, and cattle
ahead, and says, I'll keep in the kinder
part.
I'll keep at the back.
It reads here, verse 20, and say, moreover,
behold your servant Jacob is behind us, behind
us.
See, Jacob is behind all this stuff.
He's pushing cattle, and goats, and servants, thinking
that that will be a sufficient sacrifice to
atone for his sin.
He's still scheming Jacob.
Very clever.
For he said, verse 20, he said, I
will appease him with the present that goes
before me, and afterward I will see his
face.
Peradventure he will accept of me.
That is Jacob.
The blessing doesn't come that way.
This is the wrong way of coming to
blessing.
Appeasement.
Trying to make him forget.
You wronged him.
You wronged her.
You said a nasty word, and you want
to put on smiles and give a cup
of tea.
I remember in Africa some time ago, when
things went wrong between us and missionaries before
the Lord began to revive us, the missionary,
if you knew something went wrong, the missionary
would invite you for a cup of tea.
Then you go sit there, and Africans knew
how to be very nice boys.
You sit there, and pretend that you've got
a lovely face, and you smile.
And the missionary thinks you're a wonderful boy,
and he gives you the cup of tea,
and you think, oh wonderful.
And yet underneath, you know there's something wrong.
There's strained relationship.
There's an issue to me, whom you offended.
And our Lord Jesus said, even if you
have gone as far as the altar, and
you remember that your brother has got something
against you, leave the sacrifice there.
Walk, because there were no motokazos there.
Walk to your brother, and put things right
with him first.
Face your ethos.
Face him for what you are.
Jacob failed there.
And he schemed, and many of us are
scheming beautifully.
Mind you, I'm not saying that planning and
scheming is a bad thing.
And Jacob had a wonderful gift in scheming.
He was a man of gifts.
He had it all on his fingertips, as
it were.
Goat here, cows there, servants over there.
Everything beautifully done to meet ethos.
And after doing all that, listen what happened.
Verse 22, he had done beautifully.
Verse 22, and he rose up at, he
rose up that night, no peace at all,
no sleep.
Even after the scheming, and the beautiful planning,
and every clever way, no sleep at all.
No peace in the heart, no reconciliation.
They are very futile, aren't they?
They fall short, these things, and the blessing
doesn't come that way.
Don't you try to scheme tonight.
And if you remember, there is an issue
somewhere in America.
Tonight, just be what you are.
If it means writing a letter, if it
means having to go back and put that
thing right.
In Africa, sometimes, we have seen people who
live in a convention like this, take their
bicycles and go 50 miles, and put things
right, and come back and give a testimony.
Be practical, be very simple, because that is
what God wants you to be.
And that is what Jesus died for.
And so Jacob had no sleep.
Verse 24, and Jacob was left alone.
I hope this is going to be your
experience tonight.
He put all these things aside, and he
was left alone.
And we read, and there wrestled a man
with him until the breaking of the day.
There wrestled a man.
I believe that man is Jesus Christ.
I can't see an angel.
Here it doesn't say an angel wrestled with
him.
It says, and there wrestled a man with
Jacob.
Many people put it the other way around.
They said, Jacob wrestled with man.
No, scripture says, and a man wrestled with
him.
In other words, the battle, the hardness was
not on the man's side, but on Jacob's
side.
20 years of growing experience, and then a
whole night, God struggling and wrestling with Jacob
to bless him, and Jacob was a man.
I think that word, in capital letters, he
was a man.
A man hard, a man with a stiff
neck, a man not easily giving in.
And it took God, the God sent man
a whole night.
I don't know how it has taken Jesus
with some of them.
Years of wrestling, because you see, he came
from heaven, because he saw Jacob in this
dilemma.
In this miserable 20 years of defeat, and
cheating, and failure, Jacob was a missionary.
He was chosen by God to be a
missionary of good news to the nation.
Through him a savior was going to come.
He was a missionary, but a defeated missionary.
20 years hard work.
The battle was over, and thank God that
he intervened at the right time, and he
ended this struggle, and he wrestled until the
breaking of the day.
Some of us, it is nearly the breaking
of the day.
Is Jesus, the wounded man of Calvary, still
struggling with you tonight?
Are you one of those men who are
hard, sticking to your doctrine tenaciously?
Oh no, I can't admit I'm a failure,
because if I do, then it means I
was not properly trained.
You see, what we might think if I
say that I've been defeated.
There are many people who are defeated in
the world today.
Men who live under the cloud of impurity,
and the cloud of jealousy, and hatred, and
fear, and criticism, and unforgiving spirit, and pride
in their heart, and they dare not admit
it, because if they do, what about the
society in which they live?
What about those who have respected them?
The Bible comes when a Jacob admits who
he is, and I must think now, and
about 25, and when he saw that he
prevailed, when the man saw that he couldn't
prevail against Jacob, Jacob was too strong for
him, he touched the hole of his thigh,
and the hole of Jacob's thigh was out
of joint as he wrestled with him, with
the man.
As the man wrestled with Jacob.
Now tonight, there are some of you who
have their strongest points tonight, and the man
called Jesus Christ, this wonderful man who was
wounded for you and for me, whose hands
were nailed on the cross because of your
jealousy and mine, because of your pride and
my pride, because of those things which you
hide, this wonderful man is going to touch
somewhere.
What is your strong point brother?
Can't you remember it?
What is your strongest point in life?
Are you willing for this man of Calvary
to touch it?
He's tired, he's tired of wrestling, he started
two days ago over that particular point about
which you are terribly strong.
Do you know why you are not blessed?
Do you know why churches are dry?
They are too strong to bless.
Yes, mighty men, strong men of valor, of
doctrine, they have no weakness as far as
they are concerned, although they are very weak.
He touched, I hope he will touch somewhere
tonight, I hope he will touch in the
heart, and he will put you out of
joint on that particular point.
And as he did it, then he said,
let me go because really I can't go
on like this, and Jacob said, oh you
can't leave me Lord, I'm too weak now,
you can't leave me, I want the blessing
now, I'm no longer strong, I'm halting, look
I'm nearly falling, I'm no good, I'm defeated.
And then listen to the question, verse 27,
and mark it carefully, and then answer it
tonight.
And the man said unto him, what is
your name?
Again, after 20 years, the same question comes,
what is your name?
This time he answered quickly, Jacob.
Thank God for that.
Jacob, and that is the key to the
blessing tonight.
If all the people here in this room,
if you will be sincere enough to say,
Jacob, Lord, is my name, a keter, a
supplanter, a defeated Christian.
Yes, I hide it from people, but Lord
Jesus, you know what it is, and tonight
can be a wonderful, memorable day.
And he said, you are no longer Jacob,
you are now Israel, a priest with God.
See, the whole thing has changed.
As soon as you admit you are weak,
then your weakness changes into strength.
The Bible has come.
As you read on, you'll find Jacob is
halting, but light has come upon him.
The sun rose upon Jacob, and do you
know what happened?
He said, this place is painless because I
have seen God's first faith, and my life
has been saved.
And he learned a new way, if I
may finish now.
Jacob learned a new way.
No longer scheming.
Chapter 33, he put everything behind.
He went forward to meet his brother.
Yes, he was still weak.
The problem was still there.
The dilemma was still there.
The 400 men were still coming.
Esau was still the same man, and Jacob
went forward.
How?
Strongly?
Read what happened.
He went forward in a different way completely.
He went bowing seven times.
That's what he had never done.
His neck bowed, and every bow brought him
nearer to Esau.
You want to come anywhere near your brother?
Bow tonight.
Bow at the cross of Jesus, and you'll
find you are coming nearer every time you
are bowing.
Every bow of Jacob was a confession.
I am the one who did it.
I am the one at fault.
It was not Esau.
The problem is not Esau.
It is I.
It is me, Jacob.
And as soon as he did that, he
came near, and after the seventh bow, it
says, and he bowed seven times until he
came near to his brother, and Esau ran
to meet him, and he embraced him, and
he fell on his neck, and he kissed
him, and they wept.
There was revival there.
I want you to see this wonderful meeting
play.
What has caused this?
Because a man has admitted what he was.
He admitted he was a Jacob, the cheater.
The problem was not with Esau.
The problem was with Jacob himself.
Now, many of us think that the problem
is with communism, and and these other isms,
which I can't name tonight.
The problem is not with those things.
It's with us.
As soon as you cease to be a
problem tonight, as soon as you face up
to what Jesus says you are tonight, then
you will be surprised.
You'll see Esau weeping, running, embracing, kissing.
Wonderful.
That was unexpected, and Jacob said that he
saw the face of God in the face
of Esau.
Are you willing tonight to say, I am
Jacob?
Are you willing tonight to say who you
are, say to your neighbor?
Then America can see many Israels going from
Havana.
Hoping, yes, but full of life and glory.
Home, school, colleges, and such Jacobs are wonderful
pieces of work in the hands of God.
I want to give my brother William this
little time.
I'm sorry I've been a bit too long,
but I think we have got time.
Shall we then bow our heads in a
sense action which no one can see save
yourself and your Lord as we have heard
tonight from the Word of God.
Do make this sense action in the quiet
of this meeting, not merely for the sake
of our time here together, but for the
sake of the Church of Christ around the
world in our generation.
It's not a matter of our emotions, for
they will disappear in a few days as
they should.
It's not a matter only of our intellect,
for we will forget.
Our Lord desires our will tonight.
Our loving Father, wilt thou take tonight the
message that we have heard and burn it
into our hearts and minds, that we may
not forget thee.
That in the days ahead, no matter what
the circumstances may be, whether we see thee
or feel thee near, that we may look
around us upon a world from which thou
dost seem to have departed, and yet we'll
trust thee.
Grant us, our Father, this night that the
words that we have heard may not be
forgotten.
Grant that we may be Jacob's in thy
sight and be made princes of God for
Christ's sake.
This message is also part of the book,
Commission, Conflict, Commitment, published by InterVarsity Press.
Full information on this book of the 1961
Urbana Convention can be obtained by writing InterVarsity
Press at 1519 North Astor, Chicago 10, Illinois.