Hebrews chapter 11. I want to
look at one verse in Hebrews chapter 11 today in verse 21. In verse 21 we read this, By
faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph
and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. I want
to look at that verse with you today. I've entitled this message
by faith, Jacob. Let's pray. Gracious Father,
you know, Lord, that we are but dust and ashes and that there
is nothing good in us. What we have is all in the Lord
Jesus Christ, and the Lord Jesus Christ we trust in us has given
us this precious faith to look to Him, who is alone our Savior,
who is all-sufficient to save, and who is able to save to the
uttermost those who come to God by Him. And we trust, Lord, that
it is Your grace that has brought us to this point in our lives
where we see something about our sin and something about your
holiness and something about the Lord Jesus Christ as our
entire salvation. And so we pray, Lord, that you
would receive us for Jesus' sake, that he would be all to us as
he is for your people, to you, all to you, for them. Thank you,
Lord, for the Lord Jesus Christ and your saving grace in him.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen. In this text of scripture in
Hebrews 11, 21, by faith, Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed
both the sons of Joseph and worshiped, leaning upon the top of his staff. There's really three things we
see here. Number one, Jacob's faith. Number two, that in believing,
in faith, he worshiped. And number three, he leaned upon
the top of his staff while he was doing this. Now the setting
is back in Genesis, and we want to look in Genesis at some things
there today about Jacob's life. First turn to Psalm 146. There's a very significant verse
here that summarizes the importance and the blessing of Jacob's life. In Psalm 146, in verse 5, it
says, Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help. Whoever Jacob's God is, if he
is our God, then we are happy indeed. Happy is he that hath
the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his
God. which made heaven and earth,
the sea and all that therein is, which keepeth truth forever. So there we see something significant
that's obvious when we read the Old Testament, that God is the
God of Jacob. When we understand what that
means, it will mean something very important to us, that God
is the God of Jacob, and happy is that one who has the God of
Jacob for his help. It says in Hebrews 11.21 that
Jacob lived, or that while he was dying, he blessed both the
sons of Joseph and worshiped, leaning upon the top of his staff.
Now, I don't know how old Jacob was when he first came to know
God's grace. I do know something about the
time, but I don't know really how old he was. I do know, though,
when he died, he was 147 years old. Scripture makes that very
clear. And he had a son, Joseph, who
was very dear to him because he was the son of Rachel, and
Rachel was the wife that Joseph loved. more dearly than he loved
Leah, his other wife. But that said, because Joseph
was dear to him and Joseph had been taken from him at the age
of 17, he was sold by his brothers to the Men who were traveling
to Egypt, the Ishmaelites, and then Joseph endured a lot of
affliction. Jacob thought he had been torn
in pieces because his brothers had lied to their father. And
Joseph ascended to the throne of Egypt. He was over the whole
land of Egypt at the age of 30. And so at that time, Jacob was quite old. In fact,
when Joseph was the ruler over the land of Egypt, he called
for his brethren. Remember the famine that was
in the land and Jacob and all of his family came down into
Egypt. And at that time, Jacob was 130 years old. So he spent
17 years in the land of Egypt. And at the end of his life, which
was common for the patriarchs, the fathers to do, he gathered
his children together and he blessed them. And I don't know
exactly why men waited till the end of their life to do that,
but it was common for them to do that. I think one of the reasons
is that whatever a man says when he's about to die, will be the
straight truth. It's the way he sees things.
He's not gonna hold back anything. It may offend, it may upset people,
but he's gotta tell them. He's got this last moment when
he can tell them the truth. And that was Jacob's position
here. Now I find it interesting, very significant, that of all
the things that God said about Jacob in Hebrews chapter 11,
we see a couple of things. In this verse we just read, but
also it speaks of Jacob earlier in chapter 11, when it said that
when Abraham In verse 8, when he went out and sojourned, and
on down a little bit further, it says in, let's see, it's in, in verse nine, by faith Abraham
sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country dwelling
in tabernacles or tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with
him of the same promise. So Jacob and Isaac and Abraham
are all the heirs of the same promise. And you remember what
that promise was? Remember God spoke in Galatians
3.8 and said the promise God made to Abraham was that in him,
in his seed, Christ, all the nations of the earth would be
blessed. In other words, that God would justify the heathen
through faith. That was the promise. And that
promise of justification included the promise of everlasting life
and eternal glory. And you remember what it says
in Romans 4, those things that Abraham believed when he believed
God. First, it says there that he,
in Romans 4, verse 5, it says that he believed that God was
the God who justifies the ungodly. That's the first thing. Abraham
believed God is the God who justifies the ungodly. So did Isaac, so
did Jacob, because they were his children. The second thing
that Abraham believed was that God calls those things which
be not, at least to our perception, to our understanding, to our
experience, he calls things which are not as though they were.
He named Abram Abraham, which meant a father of many nations.
Abraham had no children. God called what was not as though
it was already done. That's the way God speaks. In
the Old Testament, a lot of times you'll read a prophecy, it's
talking about something in the past, but it's prophesying of
something yet to come. That's the way God does that.
He lives in eternity. What he says is done. When he
says it, it's as good as done. Because it is done, he calls
those things which be not as though they were. Abraham believed
that. When God called him Abraham, Abraham believed that he was
most definitely going to be the father of many nations and that
God, through Christ, would justify the Gentiles and all the nations,
the Jews, the Gentiles, anyone believing Christ would be justified
because of Christ. That's what he believed. So those
two things. And third, he believed that God
raises the dead. Abraham couldn't have children.
He was dead. Now, Isaac and Jacob were the
heirs with Abraham of the same promise. And in Romans 4, 13,
it says, for the promise that he should be the heir of the
world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but
through the righteousness of faith. And that righteousness
is Christ doing and dying. What he did is our righteousness
before God. And there is no other righteousness.
And so Abraham believed these things. He believed God's promise
in Christ. He believed he would be the heir
of the world. And all the time of his life,
he wandered in that promised land as a stranger. In fact,
he looked for another land. He looked for a city which has
foundations. He looked for a country. He looked
for a heavenly country. And it says in Hebrews 11 verse
16, because he did so, God is not ashamed to be called their
God. And so Isaac and Jacob believed these things. They believed God
justifies the ungodly, that he raises the dead, calls those
things which be not as though they were, and gave them promises
of eternal life and eternal glory, giving all things that were Christ
to them in Christ. That's what they believed. That's
what every believer holds to. And so we see here that they
had the same promises given to them. And believing those promises,
they therefore were the children of Abraham, the true children
of Abraham. Ishmael was a son of Abraham,
but not by Sarah. And he was therefore not a child
of promise. He did not believe. The Spirit of God didn't birth
him into the kingdom of God as one of God's sons. But Isaac
and Jacob did. Abraham lived on the promise.
He wandered in Canaan as a stranger. He looked for Christ. John chapter
8, Jesus said, he rejoiced to see my day. And he saw it and
he was glad because he saw that his eternal life, his righteousness
before God, all depended upon what the Lord Jesus Christ would
come into the world and accomplish and ascend into glory where he
would then go to be with him when his body died. The other
thing, too, about these three men, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
is Jesus said that God, when He spoke to Moses in the burning
bush, He said, I am the God of, what? Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And then Jesus pointed out, He
says, He's not the God of the dead. He's the God of the living. Therefore, Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob are alive. They're not dead. Yes, their
bodies lie in the grave, but these men are living. Just like
every believer, after death is still a living person. Jesus
said, whoever liveth and believeth on me, though he were dead, yet
shall he, I mean, he shall never die. The one who lives and believes
on Christ shall never die. So it is with us. Now I just
summarize these things to help us capture again what God has
said about Abraham. Remember Isaac? He was the man
of the well. He was always at a well. Somewhere
in his life he was always either digging a well or staying by
the well. Maybe he was afraid he was gonna run out of water
in the desert. Whatever it was, he stayed by the well. We know
he was at the well Lehiroi for a long time, a long period of
his life. And Lehiroi, if you remember,
the name there means the well where God sees. God sees. God sees, just like Abraham told
his son Isaac when he was about to offer his son up, he said,
father, where's the lamb? And he said, my son. God will
see. He'll see to it. He'll see the
need and he'll see to it and he'll provide and in that he
will be seen. God will see. And so Isaac lived
by that well called Lehiroi. And he had to dig several other
wells. A lot of those wells were taken
from him. And he learned, he named one
the well of strife, the other one the well of hatred. And then
there was the well Beerlehairoi, which meant the well of the oath,
because he lived on God's promises, his oath. So Isaac was a man
of the well because he lived on the living water of the Lord
Jesus Christ, whose blood and righteousness was given to him
by God. And that was all of his life,
all of his hope. These men lived upon Christ.
They weren't just looking for a physical land of Canaan. And
it's easy for us to read through those scriptures in the Old Testament
about God's promise of the land and see it nothing further than
that land surrounding that boundary of the nation of Israel. That's
not what he was talking about. We just saw in Romans 4.13, that's
not it. But how do we summarize, how
do we condense Jacob's entire life in a short amount of time. Well, we really can't do it justice,
can we? God is the God of Jacob. But
here, God has taken the entire life of Jacob. And this is quite
astounding, isn't it? That he would take a man's life
and distill the entire life into what he says in these few verses
in Hebrews chapter 11. He was a dweller of tents. He
saw the promise, he saw it afar off, he was persuaded of it,
he embraced it, and he confessed, I'm a stranger and a pilgrim
in this world. And then he, at the close of
his life, when he was dying, as we just read in verse 21,
he blessed both of the sons of Joseph and worshiped God leaning
upon the top of his staff. What a picture. Sometimes we
read about these men and we don't understand, we don't get a sense
of what their life was like. Do you know that Jacob, when
he was born, it says in Genesis, in fact, turn back to Genesis
25. We'll try to do a little review of some of the highlights
of Jacob's life. And I encourage you to read through
Genesis in order to get the better picture. But Genesis 25. The God of Jacob, happy is the
man whose God is the God of Jacob. I want the same God as Jacob
had, don't you? In Genesis chapters 25 and verse
24, or actually backing up, it says in verse 19, these are the
generations of Isaac, Abraham's son. Abraham begat Isaac, and
Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah to wife, the
daughter of Bethuel, the Syrian, of Padon Aram, the sister to
Laban, the Syrian. So Rebekah and Laban were sisters,
and both were the children of Bethuel. Verse 21, And Isaac
entreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren. And the
LORD was entreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. Notice
that Isaac He observed the fact that his wife wasn't having children,
and she couldn't have children. This is a problem. Because God
promised that through Isaac, the whole world would be blessed.
And so he asked the Lord to do according to his word, according
to his promise. He didn't presume it's gonna
happen. No, he went to the Lord and asked
for it. And the Lord was heard. The Lord heard him. In verse
22, and the children, struggled together within her. Within Rebecca's
womb, there were two children struggling. And she said, if
it be so, why am I thus? And she went to inquire of the
Lord. And the Lord said to her, two nations are in thy womb,
not just two boys, but two nations of people. And two manner of
people shall be separated from thy bowels, and the one people
shall be stronger than the other people, and the elder shall serve
the younger." That was God's word to Rebecca. It was the foundation
on which the rest of the lives of these two men would unfold,
and it would be best if Isaac and Rebekah paid close attention
to what God said here, and us too. Verse 24, and when her days
to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her
womb, and the first came out red, all over, like a hairy garment,
and they called his name Esau. That would have been something. Look at this hairy boy. He stayed hairy all his life,
by the way. Verse 26, And after that came his brother out, and
his hand took hold on Esau's heel. And his name was called
Jacob. And Isaac was sixty years old
when she bare them. So you see the picture. Who was
born first? Esau. Who was the oldest? Esau. What did God say? The elder shall
serve the younger. What did Jacob do when he was
inside the womb with Rebekah? He struggled with Esau. They're
constantly struggling in the womb. Already, in the womb, these
two boys are fighting. Jacob started his life, before
he was born, struggling. Struggling against his own brother.
They were twins. That's amazing. They didn't seem
to be anything alike, except that they had the same parents. And he says that when he was
born, his hand took hold on Esau's heel, and they gave him this
name, Jacob. And that's what the name means.
Someone who trips up, who grabs hold, and manipulates in order
to get his way by tripping up others. You see, Jacob wasn't
the kind of guy that you really wanted to be friends with because
he was sneaky. He was witty and wily. He was able to manipulate circumstances
to his advantage. If you were to compare him to
a person today, you might consider him to be a car dealer. I mean,
that's a common profession where you think, this guy's gonna,
he's gonna take something from me. He's gonna get the advantage.
Even after I walk away and thinking I've got this, he's probably
has the advantage on me and I didn't even know it. That's the way
Jacob was. He's already born, struggling with his brother,
grabbing a hold of his heel. And so a little later on, it
says in verse 29, well, first in 28, it says, Isaac loved Esau,
even though God had promised that it would be Jacob that would
be blessed and that Esau would serve Jacob. And in Romans 11,
I'm sorry, Romans 9, verse 11 through 13, it says, God, before
they were born, said, Jacob, have I loved? Jacob have I loved,
Esau have I hated, yet Isaac here says Isaac loved Esau because
he did eat of his venison, and Rebekah loved Jacob. It says
in the verse before that, the boys grew, Esau was a cunning
hunter, a man of the field, Jacob was a plain man dwelling in tents.
So you can see that his father, and you've heard people say before
Esau was a manly man, And Jacob, just an ordinary man, and his
father loved Esau more because he was a great hunter. Well,
that's true, but Jacob was no wimp by any means. If you read
later in Genesis, you see that he took from the Amorites with
his bow and arrow. And you know through his life,
he was crafty. He got his way most of the time
through trickery, by making good deals. And so it says in verse
29, Jacob sawed pottage. In other words, he was at the
stove cooking. I don't know what the stove was,
probably an open fire or something. Anyway, Esau came from the field
and he was faint because he was hungry. And Esau said to Jacob,
feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage. because he
was red. For I am faint, therefore was
his name called Edom. And Jacob said, notice here he
is making a deal, sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau
said, behold, I am at the point to die. What profit shall this
birthright do to me? And Jacob said, swear to me this
day. And he swore to him, and he sold
his birthright to Jacob. Esau did not consider The God-given
right that a boy had by being born first, he did not consider
that worth more than a meal. That says something about Esau's
character, and we're gonna see a lot more about Esau's character
here in a minute, in contrast to Jacob. It says, but Jacob
wanted the birthright. Why? It was an advantage. Now
physically, at this point in his life, he may have thought
no further than just being the firstborn and getting that. But
anyway, later on, it really signified the fact that he wanted the blessings
that God promised to Abraham, which were, as we just discussed,
the blessings of faith, eternal life in Christ because of his
righteousness, justification before God in the Lord Jesus
Christ. That would come later. Here,
he wants the birthright, and so he gave it to him. Esau let
go of his birthright. In Hebrews chapter 12, it says,
Esau was a profane man. He did not care at all, no more
than a simple meal for the eternal blessings of God in Christ. You can see why he was hated,
can't you? But here, but that was before
they were born, God said that because God sees all things from
the beginning to the end. He didn't base that on Esau's
character. That came out of God's will.
God is sovereign. He withheld eternal life from
Esau by his own will, just like he gave it to Jacob by his own
will. He left Esau to reap the reward
of his own deeds. He did not leave Jacob to reap
the rewards of his own deeds, but to give him the rewards of
Christ's deeds. That's what it means when it
says he loved Jacob. Some people say God loves everybody. If God loves those in hell, what
kind of love is that? Will that kind of love save you?
If God's love allows people to die in their sins and go to hell,
will that love save you or me? It won't save me. I need a love
that saves, a love that is sovereign, a love that overcomes my sin,
even and in spite of my obstinacy against God. I need a love that
conquers me. That's what love does. That's
what God's love. God's love is eternal. It has
no beginning. It comes from himself. It doesn't
consider the objects of his love as the reason for it, but it
comes from God's own nature. God is love, and that love is
in Christ, and that love is saving, and that love is unchanging. God's love is what saves us. We need sovereign love. And you
can say all you want about Jacob. In himself, he was a sneaky,
manipulative, seeking for himself throughout his life and struggling
to get for himself. and always frustrated, a lot
of times receiving back the same that he dealt out to others,
Laban in particular, deceived him, his brother Esau hated him,
sought to kill him, and Jacob was most of the time of his life
in fear and struggling because of these things, driving, driving
forward trying to get And yet, in contrast to all that he was,
he was loved of God. Now, if we learn nothing else
from Jacob's life, that should be a huge, huge lesson to us,
a life-changing lesson. You know yourself. You struggle. You go here and there. You're
like an ant on a hot griddle. You're moving about. You're doing
all kinds of things. It's frenetic energy. And you're
looking to get things for yourself. And you think that by your wit
or by your craft, you're going to get things. And so you're
struggling and looking. In spite of that, God drives
you and leaves you with Christ alone. That is grace. That is
love. And we could go on here about
this, but we need to go forward. I want you to, First of all, back in Genesis
27, how Esau responded here. You know what Jacob did. His mother, Rebekah, instructed
him. Isaac was old at the beginning of chapter 27. Genesis 27, Isaac
was old, it says, and he was well stricken in age. His eyes
couldn't see. They were getting dimmer and
dimmer. And as the tradition was, he thought he was near death,
and so he called his two boys together. It turns out he wasn't
that near death. By all estimation, he still lived
another almost 40 years. at this time. But in any case,
you know the story, Rebekah told Jacob, now I want you to go in
and get the blessing from your brother Esau. After all, she
didn't say this, and he didn't say it either, Jacob didn't say
it either, but Esau had already sold his birthright. But Isaac
was determined to bless Esau. He had forgotten God's promise
to Rebekah when the twins were in the womb that the elder shall
serve the younger. and that God loved Jacob and
hated Esau. Isaac hadn't come around to that
way of thinking yet. But here it says in Genesis chapter
27, look at verse 28. This is Isaac
talking to Jacob. Isaac is blessing Jacob. Notice
how he lavishes these blessings on him. Therefore God give thee
of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty
of corn and wine. Let people serve Thee, and nations
bow down to Thee. Be Lord over Thy brethren, and
let Thy mother's sons bow down to Thee. And notice, cursed be
every one that curseth Thee, and blessed be he that blessed
Thee. There's nothing left out here.
Everything's given to Jacob. Verse 30, it came to pass as
soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob and Jacob was
scarce, gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau
his brother came in from his hunting and he also had made
savory meat and brought it to his father and said to his father,
let my father arise and eat of his son's venison that thy soul
may bless me. And Isaac his father said to
him, who art thou? And he said, I am thy son, thy
firstborn, Esau. And Isaac trembled very exceedingly
and said, Who? Where is he that had taken venison
and brought it me, and I have eaten all before thou camest,
and have blessed him? And notice, it almost seems between
that, between those words and the words that follow, Isaac
had a light come on. Yea, and he shall be blessed. And when Esau heard the words
of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter
cry and said to his father, Bless me, even me also, O my father. And he said, Thy brother came
with subtlety and hath taken away thy blessing. Notice Esau
is bitter at this point. Verse 36, he said, Is not he
rightly named Jacob? For he hath supplanted me these
two times, he took away my birthright, and behold, now he hath taken
away my blessing. And he said, Hast thou not reserved
a blessing for me? And Isaac answered and said to
him, Behold, I have made him thy lord, and all his brethren
have I given to him for servants, and with corn and wine have I
sustained him, and what shall I do now unto thee, my son? Everything
was given to Jacob. But Esau pointed out it's because
he's a sneak and a cheat. You see what he was like? Look a little further here in
chapter 28. In chapter 28, Isaac and Rebekah send away Jacob. And they tell him now, do not
take a wife from the Canaanites. I want you to go to Rebekah's
brother Laban in the land of Haran and take a wife of the
daughters of Laban. And so guess what Jacob did?
He obeyed his father and his mother. Now that's significant,
because at this point in his life, if you calculate his age,
he was either 57 or 77. I think it was 77. 77 years old, not yet married, and
he follows what his mom and dad told him to do. You know what
that's called? Honoring your father and your
mother. And so he goes and does that,
and Esau heard that Isaac and Rebekah had sent Jacob away and
that they told him, don't you get a wife from Canaan. And so
Esau, I might've said the wrong name, but Esau went and took
another wife of the Ishmaelites. He thought, well, okay, I won't
take any more wives from the Canaanites. He'd already done
that at the age of 40. So Esau had already messed up then. He's
trying to figure out how to get back into Isaac's good graces. But Jacob takes off and goes
to Laban. And while he's on the way to
Laban, he comes to a place, in verse 10 of Genesis 28, Jacob
went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran, and he lighted
upon a certain place and tarried there all night, because the
sun was set, and he took of the stones of that place and put
them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.
And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set up on the earth, And the
top of it reached to heaven, and behold, the angels of God
ascending and descending on it. Now this is quoted in John chapter
one, verse 51, almost verbatim. Jesus said to Nathanael, he said,
you shall see the angels of God ascending and descending on the
Son of Man. This text of scripture was a
prophecy of that. The latter is Christ. and God's
ministering angels come to his people to serve them who are
the heirs of salvation. So Jacob here is a beneficiary
of God's grace through Christ. And so he says in verse 13, and
behold, the Lord stood above it, on this ladder that Jacob
saw in his dream, and he said, I am the Lord God of Abraham
thy father, and the God of Isaac, the land wherein thou liest,
to thee will I give it, and to thy seed. Notice verse 14, and
thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt
spread abroad to the west, to the east, to the north, to the
south, and in thee And in thy seed shall all the families of
the earth be blessed. That's exactly what he said in
Genesis 12, 3 to Abraham. So God has given the same promise
to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And notice. He said in verse
15, Behold, I am with thee, and I 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. God is never going to leave us
or forsake us because he will bring us to himself. He will
be with us. Jacob is struggling, he's trying
to reach and grasp and hold on to things and manipulate life
to his advantage, looking and thinking for himself, and what
happens? The Lord says, I'm gonna give
you everything because of Christ. He was a cheat, he was a sneak,
he was everything you could hate, and yet he was loved and blessed
because of Christ. And notice in verse 16, Jacob
awaked out of his sleep and said, surely the Lord is in this place.
And I knew it not. And he was afraid and said, how
dreadful is this place? This is none other than the house
of God. And this is the gate of heaven. And Jacob rose up
early in the morning and took the stone that he had put for
his pillows. And he set it up for a pillar and poured oil upon
the top of it. And he called the name of that
place Bethel, which is house of God. But the name of that
city was called Luz, the first. And Jacob vowed a vow. Notice,
here comes his salesmanship. And Jacob vowed a vow saying,
if God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go
and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on so that
I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord
be my God. He's putting conditions on it,
hasn't he? Look at chapter 32. Time passed. Jacob went to Laban. And if you were to read the account,
you'd find that when he got there, he learned that Laban was truly
his mother's brother, Rebekah, Rebekah's brother. And so the
woman he first saw there was Rachel. She was beautiful. Jacob
immediately fell in love. And he made a deal with Laban
for Rachel. Laban said, what do you want
me to give you? If you're gonna stay with me
and work for me, he said, I can't let you go unpaid. And Jacob
says, I don't want anything. I'll work seven years for Rachel.
Seven years I'll work for you. And in Hosea chapter 11, verse
12, it says, for a wife, he kept sheep. For a wife, Jacob kept
sheep. Who kept sheep for a wife? Jacob. But who else kept sheep
for a wife? The Lord Jesus Christ. He married
those. He loved them, like Ramel was
saying earlier. He thanked his God. and blessed the body he broke
and the wine he gave to his people. With desire have I desired to
take this supper with you. He loved that. He loved the church
and gave himself for it. For a wife, he kept sheep. But
here we have Jacob. He went through this. He saw
Rebekah. He made this deal with Laban.
Laban said, sure, I'll give you Rachel for seven years. Labor,
after seven years, it says that it didn't seem like anything
to him because he loved Rachel. During that seven year period,
I'm sure that every time he saw Rachel, he just quickened his
pace. He was working hard. Time just flew by. At the end
of seven years, he said to Laban, OK, I've been here seven years.
I want my wife. And Laban tricked him, gave him
Leah instead. Now he's got Leah. And he said,
what did you do, Laban? Laban tricked Jacob, the tricker. What goes around comes around.
We receive a lot of trouble in our life because we're troubled,
huh? We receive the same kind of trouble
we dish out, don't we? Because we're striving and struggling
and living our life with this anxious grasp for things or whatever
our particular proclivities are, whatever our unique nature is,
we suffer because of it, don't we? So did Jacob. So he had to work another seven
years. Laban said, it's not right for us to give the firstborn
after the younger one, so you have to take Leah first. Now
you gotta work another seven years. So now he has two wives
and actually has their servant, ladies two, and during that time,
for 20 years, he served seven for Leah, seven for Rachel, and
then he served another six as Laban's shepherd, taking care
of his flock. And God blessed Jacob. And Jacob
manipulated things. He made a deal with Laban. He
said, I don't want any payment from you for anything. This is
what I want you to do. You just give me all the speckled and
spotted and ring-streaked cattle in your flock. I'll separate
them today, and you can have all the pretty ones. And Laban and
his boys were happy about that. But Jacob immediately tried to
manipulate the situation again, and so he peeled the bark off
of these branches and put it in front of the sheep, thinking
that if they see these striped things that they'll have speckled,
spotted, and ring-striped sheep when they bear babies. And so they did. And he only
put the strongest rams in front of those peeled bark, and he
put the weak ones, he didn't put them in front of those. So
all of Laban's flock bare, speckled, spotted, and ring-striped. And
Laban and his sons were very angry because Jacob, it looked
like, had taken all of his stuff. Jacob spoiled Laban and his sons. They had nothing left. And so,
at this point in time, Jacob realized that Laban's countenance
was not like it was before. He said, in verse chapter 31, he heard
the words of Laban's son saying, Jacob has taken away all that
was our father's, and that which was our father's, hath he gotten
all this glory. So Jacob had somehow emptied
the vault where all of Laban's riches were, the sheep and the
cattle, and had taken them. That's what they were accusing
him of. And Jacob beheld the countenance of Laban, and behold,
it was not toward him as before. And the Lord said to Jacob, return
to the land of thy fathers, to thy kindred, and I will be with
thee. There, God finally speaks again to Jacob back when he was
running, not running, but headed out to go to Laban. And his mother
and father said, don't take a wife from Canaan. Go to Laban. He
left. He went there. All that time after the time
that the Lord spoke to him at the ladder in that place called
Bethel, all that time, there's no mention of the fact that God
spoke to Jacob again until here. That's a long time, 20 years. I don't want the Lord to not
speak to me for 20 years. Do you? I need Him to speak to
me every day. I need Him to remind me of His
grace, the gospel of His grace in Christ every day. And so,
to summarize, what happens next is that Jacob calls his wives,
and they all get up and get out of there, and they're leaving,
and on the way, on the way out, this is what happens in chapter
32. In chapter 32, in verse 1, 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. And Jacob sent messengers before
him to Esau, his brother, unto the land of Seir, the country
of Edom. And he commanded him, saying, Thus shall you speak
unto my lord Esau. Thy servant Jacob saith thus,
I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed there until now. And I have oxen, and asses, flocks,
and men's servants, and women's servants, and have sent to tell
my lord that I may find grace in thy sight. And the messengers
returned to Jacob, saying, We came to thy brother Esau, and
also he cometh to thee to meet thee and four hundred men with
him. And then in verse seven, then Jacob was greatly afraid
and distressed, and he divided the people that was with him
in the flocks and herds and camels into two bands and said, if Esau
come to the one company and smite it, then the other company that
has left shall escape. So he's in a terrible situation.
He remembers Esau was out to kill him. Esau hated him. Remember? Verse nine, Jacob said in a prayer,
now Jacob is calling on God. O God of my father Abraham, and
God of my father Isaac, the Lord which said to me, return unto
thy country and to thy kindred and I will deal well with thee.
I'm not worthy of the least of all thy mercies, all the mercies
and of all the truth which thou hast showed unto thy servant. For with my staff, all I had
was a staff, I passed over this Jordan and now I'm become two
bands. He's recalling now God's oath
with his father, Isaac and Abraham, concerning Christ, and his promises
to be with him all the time of his journey and sojourn. And
then he reminds the Lord of how he had blessed him. I had this
staff, now I have just, I have two bands. all his hosts, deliver
me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother and from the hand
of Esau, for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me and
the mother with the children. And thou saidst, I will surely
do thee good and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which
cannot be numbered for multitude." He's recalling God's promise.
Why? He's facing Esau, about to face
Esau, and he thinks he's about to lose his life and going to
destroy his family. So he's leaning now upon the
promise of God concerning that fact that he was going to bless
him and multiply his seed. How could God keep his promise
if Esau destroyed them? So he's leaning upon God's word. In other words, like David said,
Lord, do as you have said. And that's the way we come to
God, do you? Do you come to the Lord and say,
Lord, I have nothing to offer. All I have is Christ. Isn't that
the way you come? At night, at noon, in the morning,
and you say, at the beginning? See, that's the point here. Jacob
didn't just die in faith. But when he was given faith,
from that point forward, he lived by faith. All who are given faith
begin in faith, continue in faith, they grow in faith. Through these
struggles, they're brought lower and lower, and Christ is exalted
higher and higher, and their faith matures so that they depend
upon him and him only more and more. That's the life of faith.
And we die in faith so that at the end of his life, you see
Jacob now, He's blessing Joseph's two boys, Ephraim and Manasseh. He's leaning upon the top of
his staff. He's worshiping God. It's a different kind of man,
isn't it? And this is why it happens here in Genesis 32. There's this transformation that
takes place. And notice in verse 24, and Jacob was left alone.
Jacob is left alone. He sent his flocks, his servants
forward, three groups. You go forward. And he sent the
servant ladies, Bilhah and Zilpah, with their children next. And
then he sent Leah with her children and finally Rachel with Joseph
at the last. And he was at the end. He's going
to follow them up, but it's nighttime now, and he's left alone. Think
about this. He lived outside in tents. He suffered cold. He was, at
this point in his life, I think he was over 100. Let's see. Well, I don't need to calculate
it. But he's an old man. If he went to Laban at 77, he
had these 12 children plus a daughter. That took him about 20 years
there. So 20 plus 77, he's like almost
100 years old here. And he's alone. And Jacob was
left alone, and there wrestled a man with him. I always think of it as Jacob
wrestled an angel. But that's not the case. Jacob
didn't initiate this. The man did. And it wasn't an
angel, it was a man. See, Jacob was left alone, and
there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.
Look at verse 30. And Jacob called the name of
the place Peniel, for I have seen God face to face. So the
one who wrestled with him was who? A man who is God, the God-man,
the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ comes to
Jacob now, this one who manipulates, who's always striving and grasping
and trying to make things happen for his own benefit. And for
his own protection, trying to figure out, I'm going to go back.
And when he learned that Esau was coming, he sent all these
things to him and tell him, you're my lord. And he starts fawning
before Esau. And he sets it up so that Esau
thinks he's submitted to him. In fact, Esau later, meets him
and tries to say, okay, well, follow my men, you know, off
to Seir. And Jacob even promises, I'm
going to come to Seir, the place where the Edomites lived. Jacob had no intention of going
there. He's manipulating things again, trying to get Esau to
believe that. But here, here, the Lord Jesus Christ comes and
gets a hold of Jacob and wrestles with him. And it took all night.
It says, when he saw It says that he wrestled with a man until
the breaking of the day, and when he saw, the Lord Jesus saw,
that he prevailed not against him, so Jacob wouldn't quit. He was still depending on his
own strength, his own ability to manipulate the situation.
And so the Lord does this. When he saw that he prevailed
not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh. He could
easily have beaten him at any time. but he wrestled with him. Why does God do that? Why does
God wrestle with us? Why does he do a long time? Why does he do it at night when
we're alone? It's because we're hard-headed
and proud. We don't know our own sinfulness.
We don't come to that point in our life where we need sovereign
grace. If it isn't sovereign, it won't
save me, because I'll have some part in it. I can manipulate
it. But when I'm truly guilty, and it's all my fault, and God
is holy, and I have to answer to him, and I have no answer,
then I need mercy, you see. And so he goes on. So he touched
the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was
out of joint as he wrestled with him. And the man, which we know is
Christ, said, let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said,
Jacob, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. So now
Jacob has been disabled. His leg can't function anymore. He's very weak at this point.
But he's holding on. You can sort of see him limp
and lame, and yet grasping a hold of the Lord Jesus as the man
now appearing to him. I won't let you go until you
bless me. Many times in scripture this
same scenario was painted. There was a woman in Matthew
chapter 15 and 21 who was a Syrophoenician woman, an outcast, not a Jew,
and came to Jesus and said, a devil is troubling my daughter. And
the story goes in Matthew 15 that Jesus didn't answer her.
And she kept asking the disciples, and the disciples said, Lord,
she's bothering us, send her away. He said, I'm only sent
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And she kept pleading
with him. She said, help, Lord, help, Lord. And he says, it's not right to
take the children's bread, give it to dogs. This was everything
she tried to come to, every argument she used seemed to get shut down.
And she said, truth, Lord, but even the dogs, the little dogs
eat the breadcrumbs that fall from their master's table. He
said, woman, great is thy faith. And He gave her what she trusted
Him for. And so it is. God struggles. He doesn't struggle with us,
but we struggle against His grace. We struggle against the way of
our salvation. We struggle in our life, always
trying to grasp and manipulate and make things right. But the
only one who can set it right is Christ, and we have to be
brought down. And the night was long, and it
was nighttime, and it was a long wrestling match. How could a
man at almost 100 years old wrestle all night? We do that, don't we? Our whole
life through, until the Lord makes us weak in ourselves. And so the apostle Paul said
in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, when I am weak, then I'm strong.
Then God's power is perfected in my weakness here. And so he
says, I will not let thee go unless thou bless me. In verse
27, he said to him, what is thy name? And notice what he answered,
Jacob, cheat, a manipulator. See, the Lord, when he brings
us down, he brings us to what Paul said. I was alive once until the law
came. When the law came, I found out
that I was full of sin. And then he cried out, oh, wretched
man that I am. Never think that that was easy
for Paul to come to that realization, or that it was pleasant. It's
not pleasant when we have to confess to the Lord what we truly
are. This is what I am. I am a hypocrite,
proud, stubborn, ignorant, I'm everything that would preclude
me from being one of yours. That's the way, that's all I
am. Notice what it says here. And he said, thy name shall be
called no more Jacob, but Israel. What did he do there? What does
the name mean? Well, as the man's name is, that's how he is. How
could Jacob, who was a cheat and a scoundrel, be named Israel,
which means, he says here, Israel, for as a prince hast thou power
with God and with men, and hast prevailed. How could anyone just
say, okay, you're no longer a scoundrel, you're Israel, you're a prince,
you have power with God and men? The only one who can say that
is the Lord. Because with the word comes the work. When God calls those things which
be not as though they were, he makes it so. Yes, he was Jacob,
but he was named Israel because like us, when the Lord saves
us, he gives us a new nature, a new man. So when the Apostle
Paul said, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from
the body of this death? He quickly added, I thank God
through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind, and with
the flesh I myself serve the law of sin, but with the mind,
I serve the law of God. In the spirit, he was a new man. But in the flesh, he was the
same old Jacob. You see? So he says, you have
power with God and with men. What does it mean to have power
with God? Is power somehow in us? Do we like flex our muscle
and say, yes, I'm strong now? I've gotten the knowledge now,
I've learned the doctrine, I know what to do, I know how to get
God to do what I want him to do. Is that what he means? No. Power with God. God has all the
power. Nobody else has any strength,
unless the Lord, we talked about it earlier, about the young lions,
they roar and seek their meat from God. The Apostle Paul said,
I am what I am by the grace of God. We have nothing that wasn't
given to us. A man, John the Baptist said,
can receive nothing except to be given him from heaven. So
anything that we have was given to us by God. All that we have
belongs to the Lord, but we don't know that. But when the Lord
brings us down in ourselves and makes us weak, then we see all
of our strength is in Christ. all of what God thinks of him,
and all that Christ himself lives in me, and his life in me is
the reason I believe and hold to him. And so he has power because
God hears him. The one who has all power hears. He has God's ear. And how do
we have God's ear? Because God hears his son. It's
not that we ourselves have any cred or credibility or something
with which God would consider us, but because he considers
his son for us and sees us in Christ. When he looks on us,
he sees his son, all by grace. That's the way we have power
with God. He says, your name is now Prince with God. He sees us in Christ. Christ
is the prince. And he calls us by our name.
The nature we have is his. Verse 29. And Jacob asked him
and said, tell me, I pray thee, thy name. He said, wherefore
is it that thou dost ask after my name? I always wondered why that was
so. But I wonder if it's not this. It's not so much what we
know, but what Christ knows. It's that our name was written
by God in the Lamb's book of life. The foundation of God standeth
sure, the Lord knoweth them that are his. The apostle wrote to
the Galatians, he told them, when you knew God, or rather,
when you were known of God, you see. So Jacob needed to learn,
you're not going to manipulate, and you're not gonna say, because
I have this name now, I have an advantage on others. You're
left with nothing. The only assurance you have is
that God has promised Christ to you and promised you the blessings
in Christ in the gospel. That's the gospel, isn't it?
And God had given him faith here. And so Jacob asked and said,
tell me, I pray thee thy name. And he said, wherefore is it
that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. He
blessed him where? There, where is there? In Christ. All spiritual and heavenly blessings
are only found in the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember Ephesians 1.3?
God has blessed us, our Father has blessed us with all spiritual
and heavenly blessings in Christ. And Jacob called the name of
the place Peniel, for I have seen God face to face, and my
life is preserved. And he passed over Peniel, and
the sun rose upon him, and notice, he halted upon his thigh. What
was that? My weakness. He can't walk straight. He's tripping up. Therefore the
children of Israel eat not the sinew which shrank, which is
upon the hollow of the thigh, and to this day because he touched
the hollow of Jacob's thigh and the sinew that shrank. Not only
are we made weak, but we're left weak. That's what faith teaches
us more and more. And so at the end of Jacob's
life, what does he do? He blesses Manasseh and Ephraim. In blessing them, he was holding
with full assurance of faith God is going to fulfill his promise. He blesses them and he passes
on to them the same gospel he believed and heard from his father
Isaac and from his grandfather Abraham. And then he worships
God. and he leans upon his staff.
All of his life, he carried a staff. He was a shepherd. Before he
left his mother and father to go to Laban, he was a shepherd.
When he got there, he was a shepherd. When he came back, he was a shepherd.
At the end of his life, he still had his shepherd's staff. He
speaks to his children as a shepherd. because all true shepherds speak
to their children about Christ, the chief shepherd. And he spoke
of his promises, he spoke of his weaknesses, and he spoke
of Christ's strength. You can read about it in chapters
48 and 49 of Genesis. and he comes to this point in his life,
and he worships God. There's only one way to worship
God. It's in spirit and in truth. In our spirit, God gives us his
spirit, Christ in us, and he gives us the truth of the gospel,
and we see that our salvation is in Christ. We understand who
God is in Christ, and that faith God gives to us causes us, like
Jacob, to worship, not only at the end of his life, but even
before. and he's leaning upon that staff because all of his
trust and confidence and strength was in the staff that God gave
to him, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who is our strength.
by faith. He began in faith, he continued
in faith, he ended his life in faith and it was all to the glory
of God because Jacob was brought lower and lower in his own opinion
of himself and Christ was exalted higher and higher. And so he
spoke of things yet to come to these grandsons, Ephraim and
Manasseh. And he spoke to his son Joseph
with such love and such confidence in God's promise that he would
do all that he had promised. What a blessing we have. We struggle,
we fight, we find ourselves trying to get things to happen and we
get anxious and we won't rest. The Lord takes away our strength.
He brings us to, like what Jehoshaphat said last week, I have no power
and I don't know what to do. Our eyes are upon thee. That's
all I have. At the end of my life, I can't
even hold myself up. I'm leaning upon the top of my
staff, worshiping my Savior. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for
your words. Thank you for the Lord Jesus,
who is the word, the revelation of God in human form, the incarnated
God, We pray, Lord, that you would give us such a sight of
Christ and such a low opinion of ourselves that we would flee
away from all that we are, like the Apostle Paul said, everything
else but Christ is dung. And I want to be found in him
alone. And we pray, Lord, that this would be the story of our
lives when you record in your book of remembrance, what you've
done for us, what you've done in us, it would all point back
to what the Lord Jesus Christ has done, and we would have no
other salvation. We would come before your judgment
throne with no other answer but the answer of our Savior. In
his name we pray, amen.