Let's be turning to Genesis chapter
32. Genesis chapter 32. I want to begin reading the first
two verses. And Jacob went on his way. I'll give you a minute. Genesis 32. Jacob went on his
way, and the angels of God met him. And when Jacob saw them,
he said, This is God's host. And he called the name of that
place Mahanaim. Now everything that our Lord
does is according to purpose. This is not an accident. This
is not just mentioned here for no reason. This is according
to purpose. Our Lord even tells us here that
the angels of God met Him. They met Him. They were there
to be seen by Jacob on purpose. This was according to purpose. And we're not told what they
ministered to Him there. Probably, who knows what they
said, if anything. But they made sure that Jacob
saw them. Their purpose was to be seen
by Jacob and for Jacob to recognize these are the angels of God. This is God's host here, and
he called it Mahanaim. And again, our margin tells us
there that Mahanaim means two camps. two camps, two hosts,
or two camps. Now, the first thing about Mahanaim
here is its location. Its location. Now, I'm not talking
about its physical location. I mean, if you must know, it's
in what would today be known as the tribe of Gad in the Mount
Gilead region there between Paddan Aram and Canaan. And to the south,
Edom, where Esau's inheritance was. That's the physical location,
but what we're interested in is why it's located here in the
scriptures. Why did the Lord put this here,
in this particular spot? That's the location. Now this
thing, this Mahanaim, it serves as a landmark. A landmark. Now, we know landmarks, right?
Physically, you would say to someone at the Quick Mark gas
station, take a left. That would be a physical landmark.
Well, this is a landmark. This is a marker in time that
is given for Jacob, for Jacob to know. And it testifies to
Jacob, your God is faithful. He is faithful to you, Jacob. He is faithful to his word to
you, Jacob. And this is a marker, this is
a reminder to Jacob, your God is faithful. Faithful. You are his. You are his chosen,
precious, redeemed child, Jacob. And that's important for Jacob. First of all, when our Lord appeared
to Jacob in Bethel, when he was going out from Canaan, out from
his father's tents to Laban, in Genesis 28, verse 15, the
Lord told him, Behold, I am with thee. and will keep thee in all
places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this
land. For I will not leave thee until
I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. And so the
Lord has fulfilled his word in bringing Jacob back home safely,
back from Paddan Aram. And his coming back was actually
punctuated, even. It was stamped with an exclamation
mark by Laban's coming out to him. Laban pursued after Jacob. He went for him. And Laban says,
hold on, young fellow. And he put him on trial, and
he began to examine him, looking and searching for any reason
to take back from Jacob his possessions, whether it was his wives, his
sons, or his cattle. He was looking for a reason to
say, that's it. You've gone beyond what the agreement
was, and now let's go. This is all coming back here
to Paddan Aram. And we know that Laban had changed
the wages of Jacob 10 times. They don't tell us every single
time, but they changed 10 times. And so surely Jacob messed up
there, right? Surely there was a mistake. Surely
there's some sin, something to find in Jacob. But Jacob, being
upheld by the Lord and being a type of Christ, who served
for his bride under the law and fulfilled all the law perfectly
and so justly has redeemed his bride to himself and we cannot
be plucked from the hand of Christ. So we see here that picture. in Jacob, who navigated all the
rules and regulations and changing of Laban, and nothing was found. No fault was found in him. And it reminds us of what our
Lord said just before the cross to his disciples. When he said
of the devil, he said, he hath nothing in me. He's got nothing
to hook in me. There is no fault in me. There's
no fault in your Savior, child of God. He has fulfilled all
righteousness perfectly. And you that hope in Him, He
is your righteousness. And God accepts you and receives
you and loves you and blesses you for Christ's sake. For Christ's sake. And just as
Laban leaves in the morning and it reminds us of Christ who came
and went into the wilderness being tempted for 40 days and
40 nights by the devil and it says in the morning the devil
left him. Or it says, and the devil left
him, and behold, angels came and ministered unto him. And
that's a picture here. In the morning, Laban gets up
and leaves, and these angels are here ministering to Jacob. They're ministering to Jacob.
And so the Lord revealed to Jacob, just as I said to you in Bethel,
I will bring you here safely again. I will not leave you and
I will bring you safely again. And it shows us. One of many examples in this
chapter of just how gracious our Lord is to us. He doesn't
have to show us how He's fulfilling His word, and yet it pleases
Him to testify and bear witness to us that He is faithful to
His people. He's faithful to His word. That's
how He's faithful to His people. He's faithful to his son and
he keeps his word, and he blesses his people richly, abundantly,
for Christ's sake. And that's one thing that we
see here. Now, is this the only purpose that this camp serves?
Remember, mehinayim means two camps. And so some have said
that perhaps we see, perhaps Jacob saw two camps, one as a
rear guard, behind him, where he was just delivered from Laban,
and one that is ahead of him that speaks to the trial that's
coming up for Jacob in facing his brother Esau. And Jacob,
for 20 years, has been anticipating the day when he would have to
face Esau, his brother. And you can imagine how all the
things he did for those 20 years would come back in his mind from
time to time, and it would hit him. I know from my own life
how there's things that I've done or said, and some of them
silly things, and it just It makes me feel shame for those
things. And I would not want to have
to give an account for those things. And Jacob knows I'm going
to have to give an account to my brother Esau about what's
happened. And that's weighing on his mind
here. But this is a marker that just
as the Lord has been faithful to you in past mercies, So he
shall be faithful in providing for you for future trials and
hardships and difficulties. This is a marker for Jacob in
this, and it's a marker for us as the Lord has been faithful
to you in Christ, he will continue to be faithful to you in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And he traces that out. He shows
his people. And it pleases him to do that
for us graciously. We may not realize it in the
midst of a trial. We may think we're all alone.
We may think we're in total darkness, shut up, and being punished justly
by God. But the reality is the Lord means
it for our good. And he is blessing us. And he's
providing for us. And he's doing that which we
need, because he will bring forth fruit in his planting, in his
child. He will have his fruit. And it's
to the praise, glory, and honor of his name, and we're the happy
recipients of it. We come out the other side, as
we'll see later in the second hour when Jacob comes through
that wrestling that the Lord did with Jacob, how he was blessed. He was the happy man, the blessed
man. And he didn't do anything to
deserve it, nothing at all, yet God was gracious to him. So Jacob has been thinking about
this time when he's going to meet his brother Esau. And he's
thinking about what he might say about that. And as you read
this chapter, if you feel like Jacob's scheming, it's because
he is. If you look at it and you read,
sounds like he's still trusting his wisdom and his clever ways,
it's because he is. He actually is. He's a schemer. He's a contender. This man's
a fighter. And he doesn't go up and duke
it out with you face to face. But he has his ways of getting
over on you. And he did it to his brother
many times. And so there's a fight coming here. And he's guilty.
He's got a guilty conscience. And if you've ever had a time
where you've had thought about All right, I know this is coming.
And I'm going to have to talk to dad. And you're thinking,
what am I going to say to justify my actions, justify why I did
what I did or what I said what I said? And you're hoping it's
going to hold water because you know it probably isn't. I can
testify a lot of times where I thought I prepared and did
not prepare and did not realize what was coming out. And so anyway,
he's He's preparing and he's thinking about this and relying
on his ways. And so let's read in verse 3
what he does. Jacob sent messengers before
him to Esau his brother unto the land of Seir, the country
of Edom. And he commanded them, saying,
thus shall you speak unto my lord Esau. Well, right here we
can see Jacob's being very careful not to mention anything about
the birthright that he took from his brother or the blessing that
his father gave him, which was Esau's blessing, which was, you
shall be lord over your brethren. But Jacob took that blessing.
That was his blessing. And he's steering clear of saying
anything about the things that he did to his brother Esau. And
he says, thy servant Jacob saith thus, I have sojourned with Laban
and stayed there until now. Well, the reality is Jacob fled
to Laban. It wasn't like he just woke up
and said, you know, I think I'm going to make a good living over here.
in Laban's place. No, he was fleeing from his brother
for what he had done, for what wrong he had done to him. And
so he says now, In verse 5, I have oxen and asses, flocks and men's
servants and women's servants. And I have sent to tell my Lord
that I may find grace in thy sight. And it seems here he's
saying, I have plenty. I'm not going to be a burden
to you. I'm not looking for anything from you. I'm just letting you
know that I'm coming into town. And I'd like to see you. I'd
like to see you and hope everything's all right. And so in response
to this, it says in verse 6, The messengers returned to Jacob,
saying, We came to thy brother Esau, and also he cometh to meet
thee, and four hundred men with him. Now that's an awfully big
party. to be coming out to bring your
brother into the homestead with. He's got to pay for all those
guys. He's got to feed those guys. He's probably promised
them some reward, it would seem. You don't employ 400 people to
do this. And that's what Jacob's thinking.
Jacob's thinking, uh-oh. I've got my comeuppance now.
This is going to be bad for me. And it looks like the response
of a man who says, I know my brother Esau. I know my brother
Jacob. He's a schemer. And I don't trust
him any further than I can throw him. And so I'm going to meet
him. I'm going to be prepared for
what he might be planning to take from me, as he normally
does. And if you remember, Esau knows
him well. When he came in for the blessing
with the venison that he had hunted and prepared for his father
and said, I've got the food. Bless me now, my father. And
Isaac said, too late. I've already given your brother
the blessing. And what was Esau's response? Is he not rightly called
Jacob, which means supplanter, a man who takes something wrongfully. He took power wrongfully. He
took from me the birthright wrongfully. He took from me the blessing
wrongfully. And that's what he's seeing. And that's what he knows. And
so he was going to kill him. But a long time's passed now.
And the Lord's hand is in Esau's response. The Lord knows exactly
what he's doing here. and he's in this response because
he's bringing his child into a trial because the Lord will
have fruit in his people, in the planting of the Lord. He's
going to bring forth fruit in its season. And so that's what
the Lord does. He gives trials to his people. He brings us into hardships,
difficulties. We see our foolish decisions. We see the trouble we've made
for ourselves. And we're brought into difficult,
hard situations. And we beat ourselves up about
it, and are brought into dark places about it. But the Lord,
if we're the Lord's, it's according to purpose, and He's going to
bear fruit. He's going to bring forth fruit
in His children that when all is said and done, we're brought
nearer unto the Lord. And we're blessed in that. That's
a blessing. When you come through the trial,
hugged up on the Lord, and in His embrace, and desiring Him,
and hungering, and thirsting for His righteousness, and to
keep you. And you see how near death you
were by your own actions, and yet the Lord kept you. You're
made thankful. There's thankfulness on your
lips. There's thankfulness in your heart. And it's not made
up or mechanical. It's real fruit brought in you
by the grace of God for you. Now for this hour I just want
to focus on Jacob's prayer that comes in response to these 400
men coming out and you'll notice that there's a lot of steps that
Jacob does in addition to this prayer. A lot of things that
we could find fault with, that we could take exception to. Why
did he do that? He shouldn't have done that.
Why did he do that? Didn't he trust the Lord? And we can poke
a lot of holes in what Jacob did, and yet it testifies to
us how immensely gracious the Lord is. Because I don't read
anything where the Lord chided with Jacob about the things that
he did. It wasn't even mentioned. Jacob
maybe saw the folly in it, but it's not mentioned, and it shows
us just how gracious the Lord is, that even when we would do
good, evil is right there with me. So that we have nothing to
boast him, nothing to say, this is because I did this. Because
there are people that look at this and say, wow, Jacob is something
else. He earned this blessing. Let
me tell you something, we don't ever indebt God to us. God's
not indebted to us. We don't receive blessings of
the Lord because we did something. If we did anything that is good,
it's the fruit that our Lord has wrought in us and brought
forth to the praise, honor, glory of His name. When we read of our coming into
heaven, heaven's kingdom, the Lord says, well done, thou good
and faithful servant. Enter into thy rest, prepared
for thee from before the foundation of the world. And we're thinking,
What have I done? And we cast our crowns at the
feet of Christ because we know all that we've done is his work
in us. And he deserves and receives
all the praise, honor, and glory. And so we don't indebt God to
us for our prayers or our works that we think were good. Everything
we do and touch is tainted with sin. And that's evident here
in this chapter, but understand that God isn't rewarding Jacob
for his prayer and his shrewd actions. God's being very gracious
to Jacob in spite of Jacob. And that's what he does for us.
He's very gracious to us in spite of us for Christ's sake. Because out of this, you'll notice
Jacob wasn't proud and puffed up and thinking, I've gotten
in now. Jacob was very humbled. coming
out of this. He was a humbled man. The Lord
had humbled him, and that's what the Lord does. If we're coming
out proud, there's a lot of flesh there. It's all flesh. And if
we're coming out humbled, it's because the Lord has shown us
He did it. He did it. Peter tells us, be
clothed with humility, right? Be clothed. That means doesn't
just put on a change of clothing once in a while of humility.
It's always be clothed with humility, brethren. Go about. wearing the
garment of humility, because what have we to be proud of in
ourselves? For God resisteth the proud and
giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore,
under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due
time, casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you. And this is what he does for
us, brethren. So the Lord brings Jacob very
low. And we know this because he divides
his company of the people and all his possessions into two
bands, into two companies. Four, he says, while Esau's slaughtering
the one company, at least the other one will get away. And
so he's gone down into some dark places. And I get that. When we come into trouble. I
personally tend to go to the worst case scenario. I go to
a dark place. And that's what he's done. He's gone to a dark place. And
here Jacob begins to pray, verse 9. And Jacob said, O God of my
father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord which
said unto me, return unto thy country and to thy kindred, and
I will deal well with thee. Now, let me just add here that
this is actually the first prayer where it's detailed of the contents
of that prayer. This is the first prayer in Scripture,
recorded in Scripture. We know men were praying. Genesis
4 tells us, then men began to call upon the name of the Lord. And we know that Abraham was
a prophet, and the Lord told that king that took his wife
Sarah, he's a prophet, and he'll pray for you. So men were praying,
but this is the first outline that we're given, and nothing's
changed. To this day, brethren, this is
still the prayer that the Lord gives to his people. Now Jacob
was venturing to call upon God upon a covenant relationship,
upon a covenant relationship in Abraham and God revealing
himself to Abraham and Isaac. And brethren, when we come, And
when you call upon the Lord, you that trust in Christ, you're
coming in a covenant relationship established for us by the blood
of Jesus Christ. That's the covenant relationship
we come in. They were looking to the coming
of the promised seed, we're looking back to Him who came and fulfilled
that promise unto us. And that's how we come to the
Lord is in that covenant established for us by the faithfulness of
the Lord Jesus Christ, who laid down His life for ours, who shed
His blood to cover our sins and put them away from God forever,
and to give us life in Himself, and to testify of our justification
in Him by His resurrection, which He raises up in us by giving
us His Spirit, testifying of His grace and mercy and love
and kindness for us for Christ's sake. Secondly, he reminds his
Lord of his word of promise. God told Jacob to return. When he was in Pat-on-A-Ram,
he came and said, time to go, Jacob. Get up and return. It's time to go. I'm bringing
you back. And he reminds him of that. And when we go to the
Lord, We remind him of the promises that he's given to us even when
we don't feel ourselves worthy. I'm sure Jacob did not feel himself
to be worthy of the Lord hearing his prayer. He's very mindful
at that time of all that he's done to Esau. and how he's gotten
things, blessings, if you will, in the world for himself by his
own craft and hand. And now he's got to answer for
it. And so he's mindful of that. So that's how we come, though. The Lord tells us, I will never
leave thee nor forsake thee. That's his word to you. He tells
his church, and I will be with you unto the end of the world. I'm not leaving you. Even when
you deserve it, in your own mind, I'm not leaving you. I'm not
going to turn from you. You'd be destroyed. Because he
says, without me, you can do nothing. So he's not going to
leave us to be destroyed. His seed remaineth in us. And
that's part of the promise, as we'll see. His seed is in us.
He's not going to leave us to be destroyed. Paul says, my God
shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ
Jesus. These are promises unto us. And
I know when we see our sin, the last thing we think we should
be able to do is come to the true and living God. and seek
His face and beg Him for mercy. And yet, He even tells us that
in His Word, that if any man sin, we have an advocate with
the Father. We have an advocate, one who
will stand between us and Holy God, and show Him His hands,
and show Him His blood, which was shed for us. And He says if we confess our
sins, which He does, He brings us to confess our sins, He's
faithful and just to forgive us our sins. Because, yes, we
can do that in a mechanical sense, and I know there's times when
we do. But there's a lot of times where, by His grace, we're brought
to see. Lord, I've messed up, and I am
ashamed to show my face to you, but Lord, please have mercy upon
me. And He does. He does, He's so
gracious, He's so merciful to His people. Now verse 10, He
says, I'm not, here it is, I'm not worthy of the least of all
the mercies and of all the truth. In the Hebrew it's, I'm less
than all these mercies that you've shown to me. I don't deserve
them. I've never earned one of them.
I'm beneath them. and of all the truth which thou
hast shewed unto thy servant. For, and here he gives an example,
for with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become
two bands. And so we see how Jacob here,
as unworthy as he was, goes to the Lord with a heavy heart laying
before him his burden, casting his care upon him because the
Lord cares for us. And we see it right here. You
know, the question is, when are we ever worthy to come to the
Lord? That's folly. If you come to
the Lord because you deserve to come to the Lord, that's ignorance. That's darkness. That's not being
honest with what we are. We're Jacobs. And that's not
being honest before the Lord. And we're never worthy. We don't
deserve God to even hear our prayers, let alone answer them,
and bless us for Christ's sake. And then one of the mercies is,
he says, with my staff I passed over this Jordan. In other words,
when I left Canaan, all I had was this staff. And now I'm coming
back in abundance. And how was it when the Lord
found us? We had our staff, our provision, our providing, our
strength. We leaned on that staff. That
was our rule. That was our laws, our ways. And it was nothing. And when
the Lord brings us to heavenly Canaan, it'll be in the abundant
riches of the Lord Jesus Christ. All the provision that Christ
has made for us. That's how we come into his kingdom. In Christ's abundant provisions.
And Jacob sees that. And next, now he makes his request
made known to the Lord in verse 11. Deliver me, I pray thee. from the hand of my brother,
from the hand of Esau, for I fear him." And that's, it's so pitiful. And we know we shouldn't be afraid. And yet there are times when
we're being honest, we are afraid. And that's what he says, I fear
him. And the Lord makes us very honest before Him. He knows our
heart. We're not getting anything over
on Him. We're not doing anything by putting a stiff upper lip
and keeping our chin up. Lord, if you're going to pour
out your heart to anyone, pour it out to the Lord. Lord, I fear
Him, lest He will come and smite me and the mother with the children. And so we're made very honest
before the Lord. Notice, there's one sense in
which we see, all right, he's a husband and a father, and he's
praying for the good of his wives and children here, but there's
something more to be understood here. And there's something more
for you and me to know when we come before the Lord. He said,
verse 12, and thou saidst, I will surely do thee good and make
thy seed. That is of reference to the promised
seed of Christ. And the Lord said, I will make
thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for
multitude. Now that promised seed was out
there in them wives and them children. Jacob knew your promised
seed is out there. It's in there. And if Esau comes
and destroys them, Lord, what does that do for your promised
seed. What does that do for the promise
that you've made to bless us in Him, who was promised from
the foundation of the world there, even in the garden. And so He
was venturing, trusting, Lord, I know you won't allow your seed
to be destroyed. And so it is when we pray, Christ's
seed is in us. And we trust, Lord, preserve
that seed. Don't destroy me. Don't deal
with me as my sins deserve. Have mercy upon me, Lord, for
Christ's sake. Save me. Recover me. Deliver
me from this folly. Deliver me from my foolish ways
and my wickedness. And keep me, Lord. Preserve me.
Don't destroy me, though that's what I deserve. But I promise
thee, Lord, what you've done. And that's how we come, trusting
that for Christ's sake, Lord, you'll keep me. You'll keep me. And he will. He does. That's
exactly what he's done. And so our hope is fixed in Christ. And he makes us keenly aware
of this in all that we do or say. And as he settles us in
Christ, more and more, that's our desire. More and more, Lord,
keep me that your name be honored and glorified and not blasphemed.
Because the wicked tried to destroy the seed of Christ. Herod tried
to destroy the seed by slaying all the two years old and younger
in Bethlehem. But the Lord delivered him. The
Lord didn't let it happen to his child and he won't do that
with you that are his. He won't do that with you that
are his. And he makes us jealous for his seed just as he's jealous
for his seed. So that we're turned from wickedness
and kept in the way of truth and life, which is the Lord Jesus
Christ, not because of us, not because of what we do. We, like
Jacob, would wreck everything, but overruling it all in spite
of us, God be praised. His grace is seen in providing
for Jacob. And he brings forth this fruit
of Jacob in its time. After that, we see the Lord's
grace in holding him up, and it says in verse 13, Jacob lodged
there that same night. At least he started to that night.
The Lord was gonna reveal more to him just how he loves Jacob
and provides for Jacob. We'll see that more in the next
hour, but there's a marker there. The hope that He puts in His
child, that we have and know right now, in Christ. In Christ. That God is faithful to His Word,
and He brings forth that fruit in His people through the trials,
through the difficulties, through the hardships. He's going to
have His fruit. To the praise, honor, and glory
of His name, brethren. And He does this that men should
honor Him, that we should fear before Him in faith and love,
and trust Him for Christ's sake. For Christ's sake. That's what
I pray the Lord show you is the blessing of Christ. God make
a name. Amen.