I asked to shorten the singing
so that we can try to hear the message before they get back
from that fire call, if that's possible. Let's turn in our Bibles
to Genesis 32. This will be the next popular
story in our series. Now the question I want to answer
this morning is, how does a weak sinner, a helpless sinner, prevail
over our enemies. Whether it's the curse of the
law, whether it's our own sinful flesh and unbelief, whether it's
ungodly sinners who would harm us, or whether it's Satan, death,
and hell, or be it God whom we've offended. How do we prevail with
God and over our enemies? How does an utterly weak sinner
do so? The title of the message is,
The Believer's Power to Prevail. The Believer's Power to Prevail. Now this is a familiar passage.
This is where Christ appeared to Jacob in one of his many pre-incarnate
appearances as a man. And Christ changed Jacob. Christ
changed Jacob. Christ changed his name. And
Christ blessed him there, and He gave him a needed word of
assurance. This is what He said to him,
verse 28. He said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but
Israel. It means a prince of God. A prince of God. And He gives
the reason for this name. For as a prince hast thou power
with God, and hast prevailed. And he gives this word of assurance
now. This is what he's saying here
in this passage. He's saying, by the same power
of God, thou shalt have power with men and prevail over all
your enemies. Now, that's true of all Jacob's
posterity, all his spiritual posterity. It's true of his people,
of Jacob's people. You and I who have been saved
by God's grace. Now the question we're going
to try to answer is, how did Jacob have power with God? How
did he have power with God? How did he have power with men
and prevail? How do we? How do we? Now usually preachers take this
passage. I want you to get this now. Usually
preachers take this passage and they preach on the power of prayer. They say here, And Jacob wrestled
with Christ and he wrestled with Christ until he got Christ to
bless him. And then they say, see, you see
what the power of prayer is. You can pray and pray and pray
and you can get God to do what you want Him to do. That's far
from what this passage teaches. Far from what this passage teaches.
First of all, let me tell you what we're going to see. We're going to see that this
passage shows how God preserves the life of His elect, even of
His believing child. God preserves our life by continually
turning us from our proud flesh to rest in Christ alone. He does
it in conversion and He does it the rest of our life. This
is the work He does. Now, the reason I want to preach
this message second is because before we heard Christ declare
how He's going to do this work through the preaching of the
gospel. Now we get a microscopic example of Him working this work
in somebody. Alright, now first of all, even
as believers, so you know this is true of an unconverted elect
child of God, but even as unbelievers, I mean even as believers, When
trouble comes, we're going to always look to our flesh to try
to save and preserve our life. We always do that. That's what
we do first. Until God turns us. We don't look to Christ, we look
to ourself. Almost, I'll say it, I'll back
up, almost every time that's what we do. If God lets us, leaves
us to ourselves, we certainly do this every time. Now remember,
at this point in his life, Jacob's a believer. Jacob's a believer. Last time we saw Jacob, he was
converted at Bethel when God revealed Christ the latter to
him. And God made those promises to him through Christ. And God
drew him through Christ to believe on Christ and believe on God.
So he was converted at Bethel. And it's been over 20 years since
that time. Jacob's got a large family. He's
got much riches now. And God had told him to go back
to the land of your kindred. Go back to the land of your kindred.
So we pick up now in verse 1. And Jacob went on his way. That's
important. That's important. Jacob had been
going on his way since he left his father's house. And now,
even now, before he goes back to his kindred's land, he goes
to his brother Esau. He's going on his way. Now this
is what we usually always do. We see a problem needs to be
solved, and we know what God's told us, but we go our way. We're going to try to make things
happen and fix things. Go our way. He went his way.
He went his way. But he's not fooling God. God
knew he was going to do this. He knew what he was going to
do. Look at this. And the angels of God met him.
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 Mahanim. These were God's angels. This
was a host of God's angels, probably appeared in the appearance of
men. But Jacob was made to know these
are God's. This is God's army. He sent them.
to protect me. And He sent Him two bands, or
two armies of these angels. That's what that word Mahana
means. He sent Him two armies. Remember
Christ said, I'm going to be your rear ward, and I'm going
to go before you to be your protection. Christ is our defense. He's our
protection. So here he's got this one man
to protect him from the rear, from Laban. He's got this other
man to go before him and protect him in the front from Esau, his
brother. But God knows something that's
about to happen. Jacob himself is about to be divided into two
bands. So God's going to have a host protecting one and a host
protecting the other. God's always going to be protecting
His people. He's always going to be protecting
His people. He's providing this for Jacob. Alright, now watch.
even after beholding God's host to protect him. Jacob didn't
trust the Lord to preserve him. Jacob didn't turn from his way,
even after seeing the host. I bet you I know what Jacob did.
What do we always do? Something good happens when we're
going our way. God's blessing this. God's blessing
this. I bet you that's what Jacob thought.
God's blessing this. Well, look what happened. When
we look to our own strength and wisdom and strength, here's what
he was doing. Verse 3, 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. Thy servant Jacob
saith thus, I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed there
until now. And I have Oxen, and asses, and
flocks, and men's servants, and women's servants. And I've sent
to tell my Lord, you Esau, I've sent to tell you that I may find
grace in thy sight." Grace in a man's sight. That's what he's
seeking. That's what Jacob's looking for,
grace in a man's sight. Jacob was still afraid of the
wrath of his brother Esau. Last time he saw Esau, Esau wanted
to take his head off because he took Esau's birthright and
the blessing. And Esau wanted to kill him.
Now you can take any enemy you have, be it the trial, if you're
at a trial right now, You take that enemy that's causing you
anguish and trouble and sorrow, be it your sin, be it the law,
be it something in this earth, whatever, you can put that in
the place of Esau here and put your situation right here. Put
you right here where Jacob's at and Esau where he's at. Now,
in order to put us where we need to be, for God to bless us, God's
going to take all our wisdom and all our strength and all
our planning and conniving, and He's going to make it very bad. He's going to make it come to
a very bad point to put us right where He wants us to be. Now
this is God working. We heard Christ declare what
He does through the Gospel. Now we see in Him how He does
it now. You see what I'm saying? You
hear me preach the gospel and sometimes I think people think
when they hear that God saves through preaching, that means
you're going to be sitting in a pew when He actually teaches you
in your heart. No, He's going to send the gospel
to you and preach the gospel to you. But then when you go
out in Providence, He's going to order everything in Providence
and you could be in a pew or you might be out in a field somewhere
like Jacob is, but He's going to come to you personally and
teach you this. You see what I'm saying? But He's going to
make you hear His gospel that He's going to do it in your heart
personally. That's what we're seeing here
now. So He's going to make this come to a bad deal for Jacob. Now watch this, verse 6. And
the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to thy brother
Esau, and also he cometh to meet thee, and he has four hundred
men with him. No mention of Esau's intent whatsoever. But where Jacob in his mind imagined
a very bad outcome. Now you know what we do? Most
of our trouble, you're right here. Think about what might
happen. Instead of God who controls what's going to happen. That's
most of our problem. Now watch this. It says, Then
Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed, verse 7, and he divided
the people that was with him and the flocks and herds and
the camels into two bands. God knew he was going to do that.
He sent two hosts to protect him. Now watch this. And said,
if Esau come to the one company and smite it, then the other
company which is left shall escape. Ain't nobody going to get smitten
in this because Christ is our wall of salvation. He's our gate
of praise and he's going to defend his people. Now watch now. So
then Jacob, after he's done all this in the arm of his flesh,
now Jacob says, I'm going to get religious as well. He says
a prayer. Hear me now. He said a prayer.
Look at verse 9. And Jacob said. Verse 9. Jacob
said. Jacob said. Not Jacob prayed. Not Jacob prayed. There's a difference
between saying a prayer and praying. Did you know that? Praying involves
repentance. Turning completely away from
your wisdom and your flesh and your strength. And it involves
faith, casting yourself entirely on God. That's not what this
is. Although everything he said in
his prayer is so true, but he's not praying. He's saying a prayer. Watch. He said, O God of my father
Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, covenant God, He says,
the Lord which said unto me, return unto thy country and to
thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee. That's the God
He's saying this prayer to. Now watch what he said, "...I
am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the
truth which thou hast shown unto thy servant, because..." Here's
why he said he wasn't worthy. "...because with my staff I passed
over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands." He said, I'm
not worthy of your mercy, Lord. I'm not worthy of the truth you
show me because I didn't go straight home to McKendree. I myself with
my staff came to where I am right now and now my host is divided
into two people. I did this. That's why I'm not
deserving, rather I got myself into this shape. That's self-righteousness. That's saying if I'd have done
the other, I'd have been deserving of it. But I'm not deserving
of it. Now watch this. And he says,
deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, verse
11, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him. I fear him. I fear him. Don't we sin a lot
in our prayer? We sin a lot when we're trying
to pray. I fear him, he said. Lest he'll
come and smite me and the mother with the children. Who should
we fear? The Lord said, sanctify the Lord with glory. Let Him
be your fear. Let Him be your dread. See Him
like He is, high and lifted up. See Him as holy and reverent
and almighty. And He'll be a sanctuary for
you. That's who we're to fear. But when we fear the enemy, we
give glory and we look to our strength and our wisdom. We give
glory to man, to ourselves, and to the enemy rather than to God. Now watch this. Verse 12, and
he says this in his prayer, 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. Now everything he said there
is true. Everything. You could preach a gospel message
from that. Everything he said is true. He was not worthy, and
yet God showed him all this. We say by pure grace. Pure grace. He got himself into that situation.
All our sins are on all of it. all the time. He asked God to
deliver him. Only God could deliver him. And
God does it because He promises to do it. I will surely do thee
good and I'll do your seed good, your spiritual seed. Everything
He said was true. But He wasn't praying. He wasn't
casting Himself on God's care entirely and leaving it with
God. How do I know that? Look at the
next verse. Verse 13, he wavers back to his
flesh. And he lodged there that same
night, and took of that which came to his hand, a present for
Esau his brother. Two hundred she-goats, and twenty
he-goats, and two hundred ewes, and twenty rams, and thirty milch-camels
with their colts, forty kind, and ten bulls, and twenty she-asses,
and ten foals. I don't even know what that would
be equal to in our day and time. It would be equal to a lot. A
lot of money. And He said, and He delivered
them into the hand of His servants, every drove by themselves, and
He sent them to His servants. That is, He put each kind with
each kind, and put their colts with them, then He put the other
kind with their kind, in droves like that. He said, Pass over
before Me, and put a space betwixt drove and drove. And he commanded
the foremost, saying, When Esau, my brother, meets thee, and asks
thee, saying, Who art thou, and whither goest thou, and who are
these before thee? Then shalt thou say, They be
thy servant Jacob's. It is a present sent unto my
Lord Esau. And behold, also he is behind
us. And so commanded he the second
and the third, and all that followed the drove, saying, On this manner
shall you speak unto Esau when you find him. And say ye moreover,
behold, thy servant Jacob is behind us. For he said, I will
appease him. This is why he's doing all this.
I will appease him. I will, Jacob said. I will. When
we say I will, Don, there's trouble. I will. If it's I will anything,
there's going to be trouble. I will appease him with the present
that goeth before me. And afterward, I will see his
face That's not whose face he needs to see. I'll see his face,
perventure he will accept of me. So went the present over
before him, and himself lodged that night in the company. Now
that's the gospel of free will works religion. Christ has sent
a bunch of presents to you, now will you just accept him? Perventure
you'll accept him. Notice he sent the present, but
he stayed behind. We don't really trust our wisdom
and our works. If he'd have trusted them, he'd
have been right there in the front leading it. He didn't trust it
was really going to work. Not completely. How often do
you make all your plans and all your scheming and everything
you're going to do, and then you lay awake all night long
wondering, did I do that right? Did I do enough? Did I do so
and so? Well, it's the same in salvation.
You're not going to save yourself, not before God and not in this
world, not by your works. You'll always worry, did I do
enough? And Jacob did. Jacob got up in
the middle of the night and put some more space between him and
Esau. Look here at verse 22. And he arose up that night and
he took his two wives and his two women servants and his eleven
sons and he passed over the four Jabbok, And he took them and
sent them over the brook, and sent over that he had." See,
he didn't. Now, brethren, look. When times
are good, we think we're strong in faith. When times are good.
I'm sure Jacob was marching along. He had all this increase God
had given him, all this great family. And he knows God's told
him to go home now to his kindred. And in his mind, he thinks that
means, go get Esau. Go get Esau. And he thinks, I'll
go get Esau, and I'll go home arm in arm with Esau in my hand,
and mom and dad is going to be so proud of what I've accomplished. Who would get the glory in that?
Jacob would. Jacob would. So all God had to
do was just, in his mind, make him think there was an enemy
coming to get him. And now Jacob is just scattered. You see, God
doesn't have a problem putting you where you need to be, putting
me where I need to be, so He can deal with us the way we need
to be dealt with. He has no problem ruling everything to make this
happen. No problem whatsoever. So we see what a believer will
do. Now, can Jacob be blessed right now? He said a prayer.
Can God bless him right now? God can't bless him right now.
He can't. Listen to the Scripture. If you
like wisdom, ask of God. He gives to all men liberally,
and He upbraids not, and it will be given to you. But let him
ask in faith, not wavering. For he that wavers is like a
wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. Let not that
man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double-minded
man is unstable in all his ways. Now you think about this. How
often do we just say a prayer? when really what we're doing
is looking to our flesh and our wisdom. We ask God to save us
from something, from a sin, when in reality we don't want to be
saved from it. Or, you know, we ask Him to preserve
us in some trial we're in, but all the while we're trying to
do it ourselves. We're not really doing it. He can't bless you
while that's happening. But that don't mean He's not
going to bless His child. That just means now He's got to bring you
to the point where He can bless you. Alright, secondly, Christ's
got to bring us to the end of ourself before we'll truly pray
and truly cast our care on Him. Alright now, listen close. I'll
try to preach loud. First of all, God's going to
separate us from all our many helps. Verse 24 says, Jacob was
left alone. He's left alone. He's alone from
all his defenses. Separated from his servants,
separated from his family, separated from all his riches. He's alone
now. He's alone now. Now, God can
deal with him without any distraction. God can deal with him now without
any distraction. You see, this is what I'm showing
you here now. I'm telling you, you're going to hear this message
now. It doesn't necessarily mean God's going to convert you right
now. If you're a sinner in unbelief, it doesn't mean that if you're
a believer walking in your own way that God's going to necessarily
turn to you right now. But He will somewhere out there
in that field, He will bring this Word to your heart and He'll
make you get it. He'll make you get it. Now look
here. Look here. Our proud flesh has
got to be dealt with. All these other things have been
separated from us. Now our proud flesh has got to be dealt with.
That's where Jacob is in his proud flesh. And that proud flesh
has got to be subdued. Subdued. Verse 24, And there
wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. Now
this man, began to wrestle Jacob. He just shows up and he starts
wrestling Jacob around like he's a little rag doll. Just moving
him wherever he wanted to move him. Whatever he wanted to do
with him. And this was a real struggle. It was a physical struggle.
It was a spiritual struggle. You might say, well, Christ is
not going to deal with me that way. You believers know better than
that. Yes, in everything in providence He can deal with you physically,
and He'll be doing it spiritually in your heart. And it's a real
physical and spiritual struggle. There's a war going on when this
happens. But He's turning us every way He will. He's wrestling
us, brethren. He's wrestling us. Remember who
this man is. Now, down the page in verse 30,
He said, I've seen God face to face. Where do you see God face
to face? Huh? There's one God and there's
one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. That's who this man is. No man
has seen God at any time. The only begotten of the Father,
He hath declared Him. He hath declared Him. God shines
the light so we can see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's where we see. That's whose
face He's looking into. That's who's wrestling Him. And
Christ is in sovereign control over Jacob. He can do with Jacob
whatever He wants to do. Jacob's not wrestling Him. He's
wrestling Jacob. See there, they wrestled a man
with Him until the breaking of the day. That's important to
understand. Why? You'll miss the point of the
whole message if you don't get that. The point of this message is
this. We saw the unbelief Jacob was in. And Jacob would have
stayed right there in that unbelief if God had left him to himself.
He wouldn't have been able to get out of that. It would have
got worse and worse and worse. He couldn't have saved himself.
And you and I can't save ourselves. You can't give yourself life.
You can't regenerate yourself, turn yourself, believe, repent.
You can't keep on believing and repenting. You can't, unless
He comes and works this in you. You see, Jacob's not wrestling
to get the blessing. Christ is wrestling Jacob to
give the blessing. That's the difference. That's
the difference. Christ could have turned Jacob
in an instant without Jacob even knowing he'd been turned. But
it's Christ's purpose to bless Jacob. He wants Jacob to prevail
with Him. You look here. So He wrestled
Him to the breaking of the day. to the breaking of the day. Christ
converts His child from the darkness of the night of our flesh to
the day star. Christ the day star dawns in
our hearts and we've got light to walk after Him. And He's going
to do that always. He saved us. That's what He did
in the first hour. He is saving us. That's what
He's doing for us today. And He shall save us. That's
what He's going to do for us tomorrow. till the breaking of the day,
till that perfect day. That's what He's going to do.
We have to be taught all the time that our flesh profits nothing.
It's easy to hear that. It's easy to say, I believe that.
It's hard not to show by our works that
we believe it. Most of the time we show we don't
believe that because we try to use our flesh to profit. when
the trouble comes. But He's going to show you your
flesh, prophets, nothing. Now watch this. Now that's why
I believe this verse should be read like this. Verse 25. When
Christ saw that Jacob prevailed not against him, or with him,
he didn't prevail. When Christ saw Jacob did not
prevail with him. You see, it was his will for
Jacob to prevail. He wanted Jacob to prevail. That
was his will for Jacob to prevail. But as he sat there and wrestled
Jacob, Jacob wasn't prevailing. Why was he not prevailing? Same
reason he wasn't prevailing when he was saying prayers and organizing
his stuff to make it happen by his flesh. He was still kicking
against the pricks. He was still trying to do it
by himself. He was kicking against Christ.
That's why he wasn't prevailing. And you'll never prevail that
way. Never, ever, ever prevail that way. We have no power with
God and we will not prevail as long as we're strong in ourselves.
We do not preserve our lives by our strength and our wisdom.
We do not. Our flesh is too strong for us.
And we can't even deliver ourselves from it. So what's going to have
to happen? Christ's got to come. He's going
to have to wrestle you. And he's going to have to do
it in power. Now look at this. Christ is going
to have to make us weak in our flesh. Verse 32 says... Is it verse 32? I've lost my
place. No. It says there, verse 25. When he saw he prevailed not
against him, he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh, and the hollow
of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as Christ wrestled with him.
What do you reckon happened when he touched the challah and knocked
his thigh joint out of joint? What do you think happened? He
hit the ground. He hit the dust. Now he's in
the dust. Now he cannot stand on his own
two feet. That's where we got to be brought,
to see we cannot stand on our own two feet. You think how painful
that must have been. You've seen fellas in sports
get their knee knocked out dislocated or something like that. Think
of your hip being dislocated. The point is this, every time
Christ does this work, it's very painful to us. Because in this
life, we get a lot of comfort from our flesh. We think it's
comfort. We think it's joy. And when He
takes it from us, we're just like a little baby where you
take something bad away from them and they just throw a tantrum.
That's how it goes. It pains us to have our flesh
subdued. It pains us to... You just insult
somebody and see how it pains us. That neck is stiffened up
and that chest is poked out and they'll turn on you like a hornet. It pains us. But when I'm weak, When I'm weak,
that's when I'm strong. That's when I'm strong. We're
strong when all we can do is cling to Christ and weep and
make supplication for Christ alone to save us. That's when
we're strong. Now look at here, verse 26. And
Christ said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And Jacob said,
I will not let thee go. except thou bless me." And Christ
said unto him, What's thy name? And he said, Jacob. There's where
we got to be brought. There's where we got to be brought.
It's Christ who's going to make us truly confess our sin. Now what Jacob confessed before
was, I got myself into this mess. I crossed this Jordan with my
staff, and now I'm divided into two bands because I got myself
into this mess. That's not enough. God's going
to bring you to confess all I am is a mess. All I've ever done
is sin. I'm Jacob. I'm Jacob. I'm Jacob. Lord, all I can do is hold on
to you and weep and mourn and beg you, please bless me. Please
bless me. Please bless me. That's when Christ alone is your
strength. No flesh or glory in Christ's
presence. This is where He's going to bring
us personally. Christ is the power that's going to make us
Jacob's. Trust Christ only for our strength and our wisdom.
You see here in Jacob how we're made willing in the day of His
power. That's what we're seeing here.
We're made willing in the day of His power. Willing to do what?
To bow at His feet and cling to Him and cry out for mercy.
That's all you can do. That's all I can do. That's all a sinner can do. We
can't work. We can't offer any sacrifices. All we can do is beg mercy. We're
the man strapped in the gurney. They're about to put the poison
in him. And I mean, what's that man going to do? All he can do
is ask mercy. Well, that's who we are all the
time. And this is where he's got to
bring us to see this. There's nothing you can do but ask mercy.
That's how he prevailed. Listen to this from Hosea 12.4.
It's hard to get to. I'll read it to you. Hosea 12.4. Jacob had power over the angel
and prevailed. How so? He wept and made supplication
unto him. You see, he really prayed. But
was it the power of his prayer that did it? No. It was the power
of Christ that brought him to make him do that. You see what
I'm saying? See what I'm saying? Alright,
now look. Look here now. Lastly, we see this. We saw that God gives wavering
sinners nothing. But now Jacob's not wavering.
Now he's brought him to the place where he's asking in faith now. He's trusting Christ alone now.
So look what happens. So Christ blesses his people
then. Verse 28, And Christ said, Thy
name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel. For as a prince
hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
And Jacob asked him, saying, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name.
And he said, Wherefore is it thou dost ask after my name? Think about that. And He blessed
him there. How does a weak, helpless sinner
prevail with God? By Christ, who is Israel. Christ is Israel. That's His
name. He's Israel. He's the power and
wisdom of God. Jacob didn't have any need to
ask Christ His name. That's the name Christ gave him.
Why are you asking me my name? I just gave you my name. I put
my name on you. How do we pray? In the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ. How do we come into God's presence?
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. How do we have power?
In the name of the Lord Jesus. How do we prevail? In the name
of the Lord Jesus. I put my name on you. God said to Christ, it's in Isaiah
49, and you can look this up. Isaiah 49, 3. He said, Thou art
my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. He's talking
to Christ. And as the Prince of Peace, Christ
prevailed with God. He had power with God and He
prevailed. How so? He went to that cross
and He satisfied divine justice for His people. And He has power and prevails
with men. We just saw it in our hearts.
He has power to come in and prevail. He's Israel. He's the Prince
of God. And when He prevails in your
heart, He's your power with God. He's the way you're going to
prevail with God. And He's your power over men.
Because you're under His name. His name. His name. We have that
illustrated for us. That's how Jacob prevailed against
this one Esau who was his enemy. That's how he prevailed. Watch
this, down at verse 4. I'm sorry, look at chapter 33,
verse 4. Esau ran to meet him and embraced
him and fell on his neck and kissed him and they wept. Who
did that? Jacob didn't do it. Christ did
it. He had power. How? He just begged Christ to save
him, preserve him. And that's what Christ did. He
preserved him. Is our power with God and men and our ability to
pray? Is it? Nay, in all these things we're
more than conquerors through Him that loved us. He's our power. And that's exactly what Christ
brought Jacob to confess. Look at verse 30. Genesis 32,
30 says, And Jacob called the name of that place Pena, for
I've seen God face to face, and look at this next word, and my
life is preserved. Who did it? He did it. How did
he do it? He brought him to see God face
to face. That's how he did it. He brought
him to see the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ
Jesus. That's how he did it. What happens when he does this
work? This is my last point. What happens when Christ does
this work in you? Well, the Scripture says this.
The Scripture says we're going to be changed into Christ's image. so that we obey by resting in
Christ. Let me read you a scripture on
this. He says here, I beheld God face to face. The scripture
says, we all, all God's elect, this is what's going to happen
because Christ does this in all His people. We all with open
face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord in the
face of Christ Jesus. That's where we behold His glory,
just like Jacob did. We're changed into the same image
from glory to glory. From that glory in our flesh
to glory in Christ. Resting in Christ. And it's done
by the Spirit of the Lord. He says that's the change. That's
what happens. And when that happens, it's not
us that makes us cease to walk in our flesh. It's not us that
makes us obedient to Christ. It's not us. It's not the power
of our prayer that changes anything. It's Christ, the power and wisdom
of God. Here's what it is. It's the Son
of Righteousness arising on you with healing in His wings and
shining into your heart and making you see He's ruling everything. When He does that work, He will
make you walk differently from then on. Oh, He'll have to come
and do it again to you. Change you a little more into
His image and make you walk after Him a little more. But eventually,
you'll start going in your own way. But He'll come and He'll
do it again in you. Bring you back. And that Son
of Righteousness will keep rising on you and shining on you. And
He'll keep making your walk totally different from how He found you.
That's what we have pictured here at the end. Verse 31, He
passed over Peniel, and the sun rose upon Him, the Son of Righteousness,
and He halted upon His thigh. He didn't walk the way He was
walking before. That's what God does. And the
Scripture says this, Scripture says that We're going to have
power with God and prevail because the Son of Righteousness has
to arise on us. He has to do this work in us
like He did it in Jacob. And He says He's going to keep
doing it, going to keep doing it more and more, so this is
what's going to happen. The path of the just is going
to shine more and more until that perfect day. You just think
about it, brethren. One of these days, one of these
days, Right now, He does it. Oh, it's just like looking in
a mirror when you see Him. It's like looking in a mirror.
It's surreal to us. We say, I've seen God face to
face. But one day, that day star is not just going to dawn in
our heart, in our spirit. That day star is going to dawn
in person. And we're going to see God face
to face. And when we see our Lord Jesus
Christ face to face, Nothing will be the same again. We're
going to be totally changed into His image, perfected inside and
out. And that, what a day. Man, what a day. We won't need
His chastening after that. We won't need this chastening
after that. We'll have Him. We'll be with Him. Won't that
be something? I pray He'll do this work in
you if you've never believed Him. And I pray if you walk in
your way now as a believer and trying to make things happen
your way, I pray He'll work this in you. Amen. Alright.