Genesis chapter 33 and verse
1. And Jacob lifted up his eyes
and looked, and behold Esau came, and with him four hundred men. And he divided the children unto
Leah, and unto Rachel, and unto the two handmaids. And he put
the handmaids and their children foremost, and Leah and her children
after. and Rachel and Joseph hindermost. And he passed over before them,
and bowed himself to the ground seven times, until he came near
to his brother. And Esau ran to meet him, and
embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and they
wept. And he lifted up his eyes, and
saw the women and the children, and said, Who are those with
thee? And he said, the children which
God hath graciously given thy servant. Then the handmaidens
came near. they and their children, and
they bowed themselves. And Leah also with her children
came near and bowed themselves. And after came Joseph near and
Rachel, and they bowed themselves. And he said, what meanest thou
by all this drove which I met? And he said, these are to find
grace in the sight of my Lord. And Esau said, I have enough,
my brother. Keep that thou hast unto thyself. And Jacob said, Nay, I pray thee,
if now I have found grace in thy sight, then receive my present
at my hand. For therefore I have seen thy
face, as though I had seen the face of God, and thou wast pleased
with me. Take, I pray thee, my blessing
that is brought to thee, because God hath dealt graciously with
me, and because I have enough. And he urged him, and he took
it. And he said, Let us take our
journey, and let us go, and I will go before thee. And he said unto
him, My lord, knoweth that the children are tender, and the
flocks and herds young are with me. And if men should overdrive
them one day, all the flock will die. Let my lord, I pray thee,
pass over before his servant, and I will lead on softly, according
as the cattle that goeth before me and the children be able to
endure, until I come unto my lord and to seer. And Esau said,
Let me now leave with thee some of the folk that are with me.
And he said, What needeth it? Let me find grace in the sight
of my Lord. So Esau returned that day on
his way unto Seir. And Jacob journeyed to Succoth,
and built him an house, and made booths for his cattle. Therefore
the name of the place is called Succoth. And Jacob came to Shalem,
a city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came
from Padinarum. and pitched his tent before the
city. And he bought a parcel of a field,
where he had spread his tent at the hand of the children of
Hamor, Shechem's father, for a hundred pieces of money. And
he erected there an altar, and called it El Elohe Israel. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. We have been anticipating this
encounter for some time now. As we've been working through
the story of Jacob and his return to the land of Canaan, we have
had this meeting in the background all the time. And we should not
forget how full of worry Jacob was with respect to this meeting. Indeed, if it was not that the
Lord had sustained him and encouraged him, then perhaps he would not
have been able to make this journey at all. But he had no friend
in Laban who was behind him now, and he had no friend in Esau
who was before him, and he felt that he had no helpers along
the way. And but that the Lord had sent
angels to guard his journey, he felt very much alone. But he had the Lord's protection. You see, Jacob was never alone
because the Lord was always with him. What was behind him was
past. and what was before him lay under
the control of God his friend. And as I was thinking about Jacob,
I was remembering that sometimes in the scriptures, preachers
are called angels. And when we think about the way
in which we make our journey through life, the things that
are behind us and the things that are before us. We sometimes
feel as if we are on our own as well. But that is the value
of the preaching of the gospel to us. That's why we come together
to hear the gospel preached. That's why we read the Bible.
That's why we study the Bible. It's why we wait to hear the
Lord speaking to us from the Bible. Because these are his
angels. The preachers that he sends to
explain the scriptures to us are like our angels that minister
good things to our heart and to our soul that we may be protected
and we may be defended on our life's journey. how frail and
feeble we are, how prone to doubt we are, how slow to believe and
how readily we are overtaken by anxiety, just like Jacob was. But someday we will see that
all our troubles in this world were really merely vehicles by
which the Lord God planned to do us good. We have gospel truth
given to us and it is to our left and to our right, it is
forward and it is backward, it is all around to preserve us
and to bless us and to comfort us and encourage us, to minister
to us and to protect us. And if we had but eyes to see
and faith to believe, then we would be much comforted in these
doctrines and truths of the person of God and the Lord Jesus Christ
and his help for us. but now Jacob must face the biggest
challenge of his life. Except it wasn't. As Esau approached
Jacob with these 400 men that he brought to meet him, it wasn't
with anger, but with affection that Jacob was met. It wasn't
a war cry that Jacob heard from Esau, but it was a cry of joy
and happiness. Jacob's fears were not realised
and Esau treated him much differently than he had expected. Do you
remember when we were reading about Laban pursuing Jacob, that
God met Laban the night before he met up with Jacob and warned
him not to do Jacob any harm? Well, here we find that God had
been at work with Esau as well, and that Esau's heart was softened
towards his brother. The Lord had everything in control. Let us remember that our God
is eternal. That means that he's in the past,
he's in the present, and he's in the future. Time has no meaning
in that sense to our eternal God, who lives outside of time. So that God is already in our
future. We don't know what the future
holds, but God is already there. And he has prepared our way. into the future so that all of
our unknowns are known to him. What is it that the hymn writer
says? He who is too wise to be mistaken is too good to be unkind. That's what we have to hold on
to. Our God is in control and the
love of God towards us and his goodness and his mercy will be
our portion no matter the challenges that we have to face. William
Cooper, another hymn writer, he might have been speaking to
Jacob himself when he wrote, ye fearful saints, fresh courage
take. The clouds ye so much dread are
big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head. You see, God had promised that
as a prince, Jacob had power with God and with men. And here we see that that power
with men was demonstrated. Everything that Jacob desired
from Esau, he obtained. Nothing that Jacob feared came
to pass. Never let us forget that God,
our Father, and our Friend, is in charge of all things. We're told that after meeting
with Esau, and although we're not told, Jacob probably went
to see Esau in Seir, and then from Seir went on to Succoth. But he moved on to Succoth, and
then to Shalem, a city in Shechem in Canaan. This was the land
that he was going to, the land that God had promised to give
him as an inheritance. That little word there, Shalem,
it might well be a place that Jacob stopped at along the way,
or perhaps it can be translated as he came to Shechem safe and
sound, protected and preserved. because God was faithful to his
word and never forsook him along the way. And there Jacob bought
a little piece of land, a parcel of a field, not even a whole
field, but just part of a field. All the land of Canaan was his
by the promise of God. Everything that he could see
would be his and his family's. but for now he had to buy a little
plot and to put up his tents and to make it his home. That
teaches us a lesson too. The Lord's people are heirs of
all things. And what the Lord has planned
for us is wonderful and rich and satisfying beyond our imaginations. but it is still a short way off. We haven't moved into the full
possession of all those promises yet, just as Jacob had not entered
into the full possession of God's promises to him. It remains just
over the hill. Jacob handed over his money to
buy this little piece of ground and he didn't protest. Rather,
he believed. He erected an altar, he made
a sacrifice, he looked towards the coming of his Saviour and
the glory that would follow and Jacob worshipped God. God, the
God of Israel. Do you remember that Israel was
the new name that the Lord had given to Jacob? So Jacob, in
saying that this place, this altar, was to the worship of
God, the God of Israel, was making a personal testimony. He was
personally confessing his faith in God and in the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is saying the Lord Jehovah,
the Lord Jesus Christ is my God. And that is what we should do
too. Look to the Lord Jesus Christ. Look forward to his coming. Worship
him for who he is and what he has done. And await his good
timing and his good purpose. He is God, the God of you and
me who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and he does all things
well. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us and encourage our hearts in them. Amen.