I titled this lesson, Alone with
God. Alone with God. Now Jacob divides
up his possessions, and he allots them out, and he sends one drove,
then one behind it, and then he's behind that, and he's trying
to appease Esau for what he did to him, for the deception. And
he's afraid. He's greatly distressed. It says
over in the latter part of the other chapter that he was greatly,
greatly distressed over this and afraid of Esau. And Jacob,
and we looked last week where Jacob had prayed You know, there
in verse 10 of chapter 32, he says to God, I'm not worthy of
the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which Thou
hast shown unto Thy servant. And he gives this prayer and
he asks the Lord to deliver him. For he says in verse 11, Deliver
me, I pray Thee, from the hand of my brother and from the hand
of Esau. And after doing so, then he does this dividing and
he still can't sleep. He tries to, you know, him and
his wife and his family, they try to go to bed at night, and
Jacob can't sleep. He's just too distressed to sleep.
It's like, you know, like all of us, we take our burdens to
the Lord, but cannot leave them there. You see, Jacob did. He took his burden to the Lord,
but he couldn't leave it there, and he just couldn't say. So
what he does, he sends his family over the brook, and all that
he has, In verse 24, Jacob, it says, is left alone. He's left
alone. You remember he said in one place,
I came here with just a staff. I came across this brook with
just a staff. And here he is now, standing there all alone. All alone. He came with nothing,
and now 20 years later, he's standing before God with nothing. But he's right where God brought
him to. He's right in the place God brought him. To recognize
his great need of deliverance from his brother Esau, and only
God can do that. Only God can deliver us from
our sins. When I look at Esau, in this
picture, I look at Esau as Jacob's sin. That's his great sin is
Esau and what he did. And only God can deliver us from
our sin. In this life, we will never fully
realize the evil and the wickedness of sin, which is exactly what
I am. I am sin. And I know in this
life I'll never realize the full evil of what I am by nature. But I do realize that I am sin. And I do realize something of
the evil of it. And I do realize that I need...
Listen, I don't need a helper. I don't need a helper. I need
a deliverer. I need one who can save me. Not just help me, but save me.
Save me from my sins, save me from the curse of the law, save
me from the power of Satan. I need one who is able to save
me. And that's what Jacob realized.
And that's why God made him to be alone. This matter is going
to be between Jacob and God, his Savior, his Lord, his Master. It's going to be between them.
Like Jacob, you and I get ourselves in messes, don't we? Not only am I sinned, but because
of my sin, because of my nature, I get myself into troubles. Soul
trouble. Outward trouble. And I know this, after 63 years,
I know my greatest need is the Lord Jesus Christ. I know that. He's not one of my needs, or
I don't have a bunch of needs, and I need Him to help me meet
them. No, I have one great need, Jesus
Christ. If I have Him, I have deliverance,
I have acceptance, I have forgiveness, I have righteousness, I have
everything I need if I have Jesus Christ. He's my greatest need. And I tell you, what a blessing
if God enables a sinner to realize this. I'm your greatest need. I'm your greatest need. So Jacob finds himself alone
here with this man. And all the people I've read,
and I believe this, this is a pre-incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. This
is who I believe this man is. And Jacob, it says, wrestles
with this man. And I do believe there is a physical,
there's not only a pleading going on by Jacob, there's really a
physical contact going on here. There's real physical contact
because the angel said, let me go. Here's a model prayer too. Jacob is clinging on to Him for
life. I mean real life. That's what
we cling on to Christ for. We cling on to Him for life.
Real life. Spiritual life. Eternal life.
We cling to Him. We cling to Him. And what we
see here, first of all, a great need. When I was reading this,
I was going over it and over it, and finally these points
came to my mind. I see a great need here. Esau,
400 men coming to meet Jacob. Now, I think Esau's intention
when he left was not good. But God changed his heart between
when he left and when he got there. You see, the heart of
the king is in the hand of the Lord. And like the rivers of
water, He turns it whithersoever He will. I mean, why would Esau
bring 400 men to meet Jacob? I think his intentions were not
good in the beginning. And there was a great need of
salvation. Jacob had deceived his brother. Jacob caught his brother at his
weakest point. Instead of feeding his brother,
he says, you give me the birthright, I'll give you something to eat.
Now you know and I know we ought to feed our brother without asking
anything for it. But Jacob said, no, I'll give
you something to eat here, you give me your birthright. And
Esau thought nothing of that birthright. He said, okay, what
good does it do me if I die? It's not gonna do me any good.
So he does. And then when it comes time for the blessing,
Isaac is gonna give it to Esau. But Jacob, you know, deceives
him. Jacob lives up to his name. He lives up to his name. He's
the supplanter, deceiver, and it deceives him. And he needs
God to save him. Because he knows he's about to
die. And listen, not only does he believe he's about to die
if God does not do something, but his family is going to die
because of his sins. His wives and his eleven sons
and all that he has is going to be destroyed because of his
sin. You know that. Spiritually, you
know that. And I know that. If God doesn't
do something about my sin, I'm going to die. I'm not only going
to die, I'm going to perish. I'm going to perish. Then what I see here in this
chapter is not only the great need of salvation for Jacob to
be saved, but I see a great person. A great person. This is no ordinary
person that Jacob is speaking with. This is the Lord. This
is the Lord. This is the One who can save
him. The One who can save him is there in front of him. Here
is the Lord Jesus Christ. He can meet Jacob's need. That's why I said, my greatest
need is Jesus Christ. In Him, the Scripture says, you
are complete. There's not one thing that I
lack in Jesus Christ. There's not one thing that I
need to provide that I do not have in Him. In Him, I have wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. In Him, I have
atonement. In Him, I have acceptance. There's a great person standing
here before Jacob that can save him. And Jacob realized it. Jacob knew who this man was. He knew this man's his savior.
This man's his hope. This man's his life. This one
can do something for me that no one else can do. And then
there's a great striving. A great striving. I tell you
what, it's not easy business for a sinner to do business with
God. That's not easy work. To do business
with God Almighty. To wrestle with the Lord. To be in contact with God Almighty,
the Creator of heaven and earth. But the thing that stood out
to me is not only is there a great striving But here, this really
stood out to me. I see great mercy. I see great mercy. That God would
allow a deceiver, a supplanter, to wrestle with him, to strive
with him, to strive with him. This just jumped out at me as
I was reading this over a few times. God made himself available to
Jacob for Jacob to wrestle with him,
to strive with him, to argue with him if you would. God made
himself available to let this maggot Isn't that what God called
Jacob one time? Thou worm, Jacob. Thou maggot,
Jacob. And He allowed Jacob. God Almighty
came into this world and made Himself available to us. He made
Himself available that you and I could come to Him. He said,
Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll
give you rest. God has made Himself available
to us in Jesus Christ. To come to Christ is to come
to God. To come to Christ is to come
to the Father. He that has seen me has seen
the Father. He made Himself available. That thought just stayed with
me. God has made Himself available
to me. We have a high priest in Jesus
Christ. We have a high priest that can
be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He can be touched
with them. He has opened Himself up to us. He has opened Himself up to needy
sinners. Boy, you'd think we would avail
ourselves of that more than we do. to really sit down sometime,
get by yourself, and meditate upon what God has provided for
us in Christ. God has provided Himself for
us in Christ. He's available. And how little
use we really make of it. I'm talking about us who believe. How little use we really do make
of it. You would think that we would
be absolutely obsessed in knowing God. Our Creator. Our Savior. And yet, most of
the time, He has to bring us into trouble to get us alone
with Him. Just like Jacob here. Most of
the time, that's... When are you really serious in
prayer? Have you ever really wrestled? with God in prayer over something.
Something that you're so stressed out about, and you knew only
He could do something about it, and you've wrestled with Him.
That's prayer. And He made Himself available. God is present in true prayer. He's present in true prayer.
And notice how the Lord tested Jacob's resolve. In verse 25,
he touched the hollow of his thigh and it was out of joint. Now, you're not going to do business
with God and let it not be evident something happened. That's what
I see. You're just not going to do business
with God and there not be a change. It's just not possible for a
creature like us, a worm like us, to do business with God Almighty
and walk away the same. It's just not possible. You remember
when Moses was spent 40 days and nights up there on the mountain,
and he had the law, and he came back, and when they saw him,
they said, his face shone. He had to put a veil over his
face. And the disciples, when some
people observed them, they observed this. They had been with Jesus. They said they recognized they
had been with Jesus. There's a difference. There's
a difference. And here, the Lord touched his
thigh. But it didn't stop Jacob. He
wrestled on. You know why? His life's at stake.
I tell you, when God makes a sinner to realize that life is at stake
here, life and death. I promise you, you'll wrestle
with God. You will not let him go till
he blesses you. Lord, you said, you said, he
that comes to me, I will in no wise cast out. You said that
and you'll hang on to that. You'll not let that go. Because
hanging on to that is the same as hanging on to Him. Hanging
on to His promises is exactly the same as hanging on to the
Lord. You're hanging on His Word. He
is the Word. You can't separate the written
Word and the living Word. You can't separate them. They're
one and the same. You can't know Jesus Christ apart
from this book. You can't separate them. But Jacob, as I said, he wrestled
on. Jacob was confident the Lord could deliver him. That's like
Paul said, I'm persuaded that he's able to keep that which
I've committed unto him against that day. Persuaded. When God saves a sinner, that sinner
is persuaded, and God persuades that sinner that his hope is
in the Lord Jesus Christ and no place else. No place else. Jacob held on to the only hope
he had, Christ. The Lord said, let me go. Let
me go. He said, no. I will not let you go till you
bless me, until you take care of this matter. Because it's
sink or swim. I'm going to die. If you don't
do something, I'm going to die and I'm not going to let you
go. You've got to love Jacob's resolve here. Everything's at
stake. Everything's at stake. Jacob, I want you to notice this,
Jacob was at his strongest when he was physically at his weakest.
When he touched his thigh and he... And he went limp. The Lord could have done anything
right here. He could have laid him in the dust. He could have
broke him in half. He could have took his life.
But in mercy, he let Jacob know his weakness. He just touched.
He didn't do a karate kick. He just touched his thigh. And Jacob went down. All he did was just touch his
thigh. Job said this in Job 23.6. Job was talking about coming
before God and pleading His cause. And he said, Will He plead against
me with His great power? And when I come before God, listen,
when I come before God to pray, will He plead against me with
His great power? And Job answers like this, no,
he'll put strength in me. He will enable me to wrestle
with him. Where is Jacob getting this strength
to wrestle with the Lord? Where is he getting the strength
to do this? The Lord's given it to him. He doesn't even realize
it. The Lord's given him the strength
to argue with him and to wrestle with him and to hang on. The
Lord's given him the strength to hang on. No, Job said, no, but He will
put strength in me. He'll enable me to do it. He'll
enable me to come to the throne of grace. He'll enable me to
plead with Him. He'll enable me to do it. He won't plead against
me with His great power. He'll use that power to enable
me to plead with Him. Now the angel said, let me go.
In verse 26, let me go for the day breaketh. Now, you know,
It's not like the day had some kind of a thing over the Lord
here. Like, you know, Hollywood has
these vampires. Daylight breaks and they get
weak and they go... No. Here's what this means. The day
breaks. There's a time to pray. There's
a time to pray. There's a time to plead with
God. There's a time to wrestle with God. Then there's a time
to get up and go about your business. or is it time to get up and do
the next thing? Whatever God has purposed for
you today, it's time to be about it. The day breaketh. Jacob,
it's time for you now to gather your family and go meet Esau. This matter's going to be taken
care of. He's laid his petition before the Lord all night, wrestling
with him all night. I mean, that's a match now. And
now it's time to stop and it's time to go. Every day has its
agenda and today is your day, Jacob. You're going to meet Esau. And he's going to see, we'll
see this later, and he's going to see that what he thought was,
what he believed and knew to be against him, ended up being
for him. Esau had just completely changed. Completely changed. The Lord
makes Jacob face his fears. His fears of Esau. He's going
to make him face his fear, but he's going to deliver him. You
know that. We already know the story. But Jacob says in verse
26, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. I'm not going to do it. You know
David. Remember David? When Bathsheba had that baby
and it was sick, and David wept, he just fell on his face and
he wept and he wept and he wept and he wept and he kept praying
that God would spare that child and kept praying and he wept.
And then when the child died, he got up, wiped his face, and
just like it was done. You know, David said, well, he
can't come to me, but I can go to him. And this matter's over
with now. God has made his will known. It's over with, but, Until that happened, David never
quit praying and weeping for that child. He never stopped.
He never stopped until God's will was finally revealed. Jacob says, I'll not let thee
go except thou bless me. This kind of praying, boy, this
is commendable here. It's earnest, it's sincere, it's
a real display of faith. It's a real display of need.
Recognizing one's need and recognizing the Lord is able to meet that
need. And the angel, the Lord, said, What is thy name? Now,
he knew Jacob's name. He knew Jacob's name. But he
wanted Jacob to say his name. What's your name, Jacob? And back in that day, names meant
something, and Jacob knew what his name meant. The Lord made
him say his name, supplanter. What's your name? Supplanter. Deceiver. Well, that is who you are by
nature. That's who you are by nature. But I'm going to change your
name. You're going to have a new name. You're going to have a
new name. Isn't that what the Scriptures
say? You're giving us a new name? Sons of God. There's a new name. God changed His name to Israel. He said, because as a prince
hast thou power with God. Now you believe the gospel. Let
me ask you something. Do you believe you have power
with God? When I ask you to pray for me,
you know why I ask you to pray for
me? Because I do believe you have power with God through the
Lord Jesus Christ. In the name of Christ, when we
go before God, we have power with God. Why would you ask me
to pray for you if you didn't think that, if you didn't believe
that? Why would I ask you to pray for me? All of you, all of you who believe,
every one of you are Israelites. You're sons of Jacob. You're
sons of Israel. And as a prince in Jesus Christ,
who has made us kings and priests unto God, you have power with
God. Think about that when you go
home. When you get home, don't just toss this aside, think about
it. If you and I could actually learn how to do this, what Jacob
did here this night, wrestle with this angel, the Lord, in
prayer. This is not disobedience. This is commendable. When the
angel said, let me go, that wasn't disobedience. Jacob said, no,
not till you bless me. Not till you bless me. I need
help here. I need forgiveness. I need mercy. I need saving. I tell you this, if one worm
can have power with God, maybe another one can. Maybe another
one can. And Jacob said, what is your
name? And the angel said, what's that
to you? What's that to you? My name? I tell you what, over here, let
me read you something. I've got it marked. Listen here in Amos. No, not Amos, but the book of
Judges. I thought I marked that. Hold
on. Judges. And Noah said unto the
angel of the Lord, What is thy name? This is Judges 13, 17. What is thy name, that when thy
sayings come to pass, we may do thee honor? And the angel
of the Lord said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name,
seeing it is secret? And in the margin, that word
means wonderful. It's wonderful. Who is this angel wrestling with
Jacob? It's the Lord, whose name is
Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father,
the Prince of Peace. In verse 29 it says, and He blessed
him there. there that night in that struggle. Great blessings are often given
after great trials, after great striving with God. And one day,
I preached a message from this years ago, one day we will look
back on all our trials and we're going to say, and he blessed
me there, He blessed me there. And he called the name of the
place Pineal. Pineal, I believe that's how
it is. I've seen the face of God and lived. Jacob was thankful that God met
him, he answered him, and he lived to tell about it. God said
in one place, no man shall see my face and live. And Jacob said,
I've seen the face of God. and I'm alive and live. If you and I can see the face
of God, we will see it in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Jacob carried with him evidence
of his meeting with God, and he halted upon his thigh. That
morning, And the Lord left him there, and he went back to his
wife and family. Then he didn't run. He went and
met Esau. He didn't go hide. He went ahead and faced up to Esau. And whenever he went to meet
his wife, there he went. It was like, what's wrong, Jacob? What's wrong? I met the Lord
last night. I wrestled with the Lord last
night. You'll never be the same. No sinner can ever be the same
that meets God. You can't be. All right.