Jacob is such an interesting
character in the Scriptures. You would almost say he doesn't
have any redeeming qualities. But as I mentioned in praying
just now, we're the sons of Jacob, and he's kind of a reflection
of us. He's ever dependent upon the
Lord. He does conduct himself foolishly,
but don't we? And he, as we go through his
life, as we have been studying about him, we find that he's
often a frail man, he's a fickle man, he's a foolish man. And
those words pretty much sum up us as well. We're just sinful
people. But Jacob, though he was a scoundrel, Yet he was loved of God. He is an object of God's sovereign
mercy. The Lord told his mother when
he was yet in the womb, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. Jacob, his name was written down
in the Lamb's Book of Life before God ever made this world. And
unbeknownst to Him and unbeknownst to us, we had an eternal surety
who stood for us in the covenant of grace. He represented us in
that covenant. Our elder brother. And our Lord
Jesus, He's never been ashamed to call us brethren. Hebrews
chapter 2 says that. And He was made according to
the nature of Abraham's seed. He wasn't made after the likeness
or after the seed of Adam. He didn't come to represent Adam's
seed. He came to represent Abraham's
seed, that is the spiritual seed, spiritual Israel. That's who
our Lord Jesus came for. He came to save all of His Jacobs. And though Jacob himself had
in himself no redeeming qualities, he was a man saved by the grace
of God. And the Lord in this portion
of Scripture that I have read to you, He confronted Jacob. And Jacob never gets over this. And the evidence of that is that
from then on he limped. He had a hip that was out of
joint. He kind of walked on cane the
rest of his life as a reminder that God dealt with him in sovereign
mercy. And the things that God put him
through, such as what He did with him here, what our Lord
did with him here in the hollow of his thigh, touching that and
it being out of joint, the Lord knows how to make His people
fully dependent upon Him. Jacob has got to learn, and we've
got to learn, that without our Lord Jesus, we can do nothing. We need Him always. Always. And He will do that which is
necessary to bring all of us to the end of ourselves, to where
we have to lean only upon our God. And that's the way the Lord
deals with Jacob. Now, 20 years before this, Jacob
had seen the Lord. He saw a picture of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that ladder that reached from earth to heaven.
And I do believe that's his salvation experience. That's when he saw
Christ. That's when he saw the Savior.
That's when Jacob saw that the only way he could ever be accepted
of God is in this One who is represented by a ladder. And
the Lord has continued to teach Jacob and continued to lead Jacob. And now He's going to further
instruct Jacob in Jacob's weakness. He is to rest in the Lord's strength. Because you see, God's strength
is made perfect in our weakness. And the only way we're ever going
to come to lean on the Lord and trust the promises of God is
for the Lord to put us in a position where we've got to trust Him.
And those involve afflictions, they involve sickness, they involve
disease, they involve various hardships. The Lord knows exactly
what is needed for each one of us. That's the reason no two
lives are alike and no two troubles are alike or trials are alike.
The afflictions are different, but the purpose is always the
same. It's to bring us back to the
Lord Jesus that we lean on Him more fully and realize the sufficiency
of His grace. You say, I can't do it. I know
you can't do it. And you've got to be made to
know for certain that you can't. You can't do anything without
the Lord Jesus. Well, Jacob has just finished
a very honest prayer. Let me read that to you. Let's
go back to verse 9. And this is good to kind of set
the stage for the rest of it. Jacob says, now he's worried
about Esau. Verse 9. And Jacob said, O God
of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, The Lord
which said unto me, Return unto thy country and to thy kindred,
and I will deal well with thee." Here's what he says, I'm not
worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth
which thou hast showed unto thy servant. For with my staff I
passed over this Jordan, and now I'm become two bands. He's
divided his family into two groups. Deliver me, I pray Thee, save
me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I
fear him." That's honesty, isn't it? We kind of get a little arrogant
sometimes and say, well, I don't fear anything. I'm not afraid
of anything. Well, now wait. Just be honest. Her brother Barton said one time,
honest people don't wind up in hell. Be honest with God. Be honest with yourself, with
your own heart. He says, deliver me, I pray thee,
from the hand of my brother, 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, Lord, I remember
what you said. I will surely do thee good and
make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered
for multitude. What a tremendous prayer. Now let me show you several things
here. Number one is we'll go through
this. Here he's going to, number one, try to appease Esau. This is verses 13 through 23. After he finishes this prayer,
it's a wonderful prayer, isn't it? It's a tremendous prayer. And we're thankful to the Lord
that this is recorded for our edification and for our instruction. But after he finishes this prayer,
he goes back to his old conniving ways. And he arranges this vast gift
to give to Esau with the hope that such generosity would cause
Esau to deal very kindly with him. It's almost as though he has
forgotten the visit of the angels. And it's like he's forgotten
that he just prayed. He's spoken about how unworthy
he was of the mercies of God. And he's reminded God of His
covenant promises to him. And just as soon as he says,
Amen, he's back to calculating how he can maneuver things and
this will come out to his good. Kind of like we do. We pray about
a matter, and not much after we've said amen, we go right
back to worrying and trying to figure out, alright, what can
I do about this situation? We're sons of Jacob. A wise old preacher was asked,
What is the most important part of prayer? And he said, well,
I would say, here's Jacob. Took his burden to the Lord. Did he leave it there? No, he
didn't leave it there. He just took it right back. and
he's going to use his own ingenuity, his own intelligence, he's got
his own scheme as to how this is going to work out good for
him, he's going to give this lavish gift to Esau, hoping to
buy his kindness. He isn't dependent upon the Lord
at all. And we see ourselves in Him in
this. You see, God in His wisdom, He
put Jacob in this position. Jacob was often troubled and
afflicted. You know, Esau, he wasn't troubled
and afflicted. It's almost like Esau didn't
have a care in the world. Man, he's got the world by the
tail on a downhill pull. It's just smooth sailing for
Esau. In fact, when Jacob sends all
this stuff to Esau, go over to chapter 33 and verse 9, Esau
says, here's this massive droves that Jacob has given him. And
he says, I brought this to you to find grace in your sight.
And Esau said, I have enough, brother. I've got so much now,
I don't hardly know what to do with it. He didn't have the same
kind of troubles and trials that Jacob had. It's like David in the psalm. He said, I saw the I saw how
the wicked prospered, and I was envious at them. He said, I was foolish, because
then I saw their end. Jacob, he had his troubles, he
had his trials, there's no question about it. He said, well, I do
too. Well, you're a son of Jacob, you see. And the Lord is going to keep
on knocking the props out of us because the only way we're
going to know the reality of the promises of God is to need
those promises in a time of difficulty. So He is going to put us in situations
where we will have to lean on Him or just be miserable. That's what the Lord does. And I know Jacob prayed about
this, but then he just sinks right back down in the mire,
as it were. Psalm 55, 22 says, Cast thy burden
upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee. He will never suffer or
permit the righteous to be moved. God in His wisdom gives you trouble. May God give us wisdom to go
to Him and rest in Him in the midst of the trouble. Well, immediately after praying
about this meeting with Esau, he doesn't trust the Lord, He's figuring out how he can
appease his brother. How he can appease his brother.
Look at verse 20 again. It's a very interesting word.
32 verse 20. And say ye moreover, behold thy
servant Jacob is behind us, for he said, I will appease him. I tell you, that word, most of
the time in the Old Testament, you know how it's translated?
Atonement. Make atonement for. Make satisfaction
for. Reconcile. And in this way, if I may draw
a spiritual application from this, Jacob is like a man of
the world. who gets concerned about his
eternal state before God, and he thinks he can do something
to appease God, to propitiate God. That's a good word right
there. to propitiate God, that is to satisfy God's justice. To make God look more favorably
upon you. See, this is exactly what Jacob
is doing to Esau, I want you to look more favorably upon me,
and so I've got all these droves together, all this cattle, all
these sheep, all these goats, all these camels, all these asses,
I've got them all together in order to propitiate you, to satisfy
you, to earn your Mercy. This is what the man of the world
does toward God. That's exactly what he does.
He's trying to appease God, to satisfy God. But nothing will
ultimately satisfy God or propitiate God. Nothing will appease the
justice of God except the bloody death of his son. That's all.
Our Lord Jesus made atonement for our sins. He paid them in
full. Note the gifts. They go from
less valued to most valued. In the order, He took goats,
sheep, camels, cattle, asses, and he sent them separately,
a continual parade of gifts for Esau. And the gifts, as I say,
went from least valued in the desert to the most valued. The least valued in the desert
were goats. The sheep were a little bit more
valuable, and camels still more valuable, and cattle even more
valuable, and asses even more highly prized. In other words,
Jacob, he stretches them out. He even tells the servants, now,
here are these droves, and there are three droves. put a big space
between them so that they'll look like even more. And it will
be so impressive to Esau that he will think, I'm going to deal
kindly with my brother. They were calculated to reach
Esau like mounting bids from an auctioneer. And here they all lined up. Now,
look at it another way now. Here's another way of looking
at this. Jacob, I want you to consider that he is a picture
of our Lord whose blessings and mercies come to us drove after
drove. There's no end to the blessings
that our Lord sends to us. There's no let up. According to here in verse 19,
so commanded he the second and the third drove, three droves,
three tremendous gifts. Well, that reminds me of the
Trinity and it reminds me of Ephesians chapter one. And I
think about the drove of gifts, of blessings that God gives to
us. There's the drove of the gifts
of the Father. He chose us unto salvation. He chose to make us holy and
without blame. He ordained us to be adopted
into His family. That's the Father's drove. Who
can measure the immensity and the greatness of the drove of
the Father in the blessings, the spiritual blessings that
are ours? And then there's the drove of
the Son of God, redeemed by His blood, the forgiveness of sins. And He's going to raise us all
up together one day and be one body, one church. And then there's the drove of
the Holy Spirit's gifts, who gives us faith, who seals us
unto the day of redemption. Thank God for the spiritual gifts,
but mainly thank God for the giver of the gifts. That's one of the reasons I picked
out that song, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. If we're not
careful, we will be so wrapped up in the blessings that the blesser is somewhat
overlooked. I tell you, in that passage in
Ephesians 1, the Apostle Paul, he didn't overlook the gift.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He
nails it down. It isn't just the gifts, it's
the giver of the gifts. And all the gifts of God are
given to us in Christ Jesus. And if you have Christ Jesus,
you got all the spiritual gifts that God can possibly give. And then notice this, I'll do
it quickly. In verses 24 through 32, Jacob is all alone with God. Look at verse 24, and Jacob was
left alone. Now, understand this, he really
isn't alone. Is he? He's not really alone. The Lord's with him. The Lord's
with him. But in his own mind, he's thinking,
I'm out here. I'm out here. There's nobody
with me. There's nobody with me. Was there
ever a man more alone than Jacob? In fact, his whole life filled
with trouble and disappointment. Now he's going home, fearful
for his life. When he heard that Esau was coming
out to meet him with 400 men, man, he went to pieces. He's very confused. He's very
frightened. He's very afraid. And he's very
alone. And yet, to be all alone with God is a
good place to be. That's a good place to be. He is shut up to the sovereign
power and will of God. Like Israel at the Red Sea. What can you do? What can you
do? Moses, what are we going to do? Hear the Egyptians behind us
and they've got the most powerful army in the world. What are we
going to do? And you know what God says? Stand
still and watch Me work. All alone. Saul of Tarsus, he is always with the Pharisees. Busy doing this, busy doing that
on the Damascus road. And the Lord deals with him as
though there was nobody else there. A woman caught in adultery. Woman, where are those thine
accusers? No man, Lord. I'm here all by
myself. It's just you and me. Just you
and me. It's a good place to be alone
with God. You know, there's a time for
activity. There's a time to be busy. And
there is a time to just stand still. Wait on God. Well, Jacob's all alone with
God. Here's the third thing I want
to show you. A man wrestled with Jacob. All of a sudden, in the night,
and Jacob is afraid of every shadow. As the moon shined down
upon him, every little rustling in a bush. Who is that? Is that
Esau? Is that one of Esau's 400 men? He's afraid of everything. And
then all of a sudden, a hand grabs hold of him. Boy, I bet
he about had a heart attack, don't you? Oh yeah. A man appears, takes hold of
him, and wrestled with him to the breaking of the day. Who was this man? This is the
God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is Christ in pre-incarnate
form. This is the Son of God, the Angel
of the Covenant. Listen to this reference. You
can turn to it if you want to. I'm going to be there here in
just a few seconds. Hosea chapter 14. Listen to this
reference in Hosea chapter 14 in verses 3 and 4. No, chapter 12, sorry. Hosea chapter 12. The Lord also
hath a controversy with Judah, and he will punish Jacob according
to his ways. According to his doings will
he recompense him. He took his brother by the heel
in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God. That's
all about this passage over here in Genesis chapter 32. Who is
this? Well, whoever he is, he has the
awesome power and might and authority to give this man a new name. And Jacob knew who he was. Jacob knew who he was. Look at
verse 30. And Jacob called the name of
the place Peniel, for I have seen God face to face. Face to face. And I live to tell
about it. My life is preserved. Now some people use this portion
of Scripture to illustrate taking hold of the Lord in prayer. But it's not Jacob taking hold
to this man. So that's not a good conclusion
to draw or good illustration to use of having prayer, being
very serious in prayer and just not taking no for an answer.
This isn't a good illustration of that. Because it isn't Jacob
taking hold of the Lord. It's the Lord taking hold of
Jacob. It's not about that. Jacob did not initiate this encounter. He imagines danger on every front. This is not Jacob taking the
lead. It doesn't say Jacob wrestled
with a man, but a man wrestled with Jacob. The Lord of glory wrestled with
Jacob to make him see and know and understand his nothingness. To make him see what a poor,
helpless, weak man he was. It's good for us to recognize
our weakness, for his strength is made perfect
in our weakness. As long as we think we can do
it, I got this, I got this, That's pretty much Jake's attitude. Even though he prayed about it,
he said, I've got this, I've got the solution, all of it.
An appeasement gift. Jacob, I wonder when you'll ever
learn. Jim, I wonder when you'll ever
learn. All the children of God, I wonder
when we'll ever learn. to fully depend upon the Lord,
trusting Him to fight our battles for us. In verse 25, this man, when he
saw he prevailed not against Him, he touched the hollow of
his thigh, didn't say he couldn't prevail against Him. Oh, he could have. And he did. Because finally he just touches
his thigh and man, his hips out of joint. That's how powerful
this man is. But he's bringing Jacob to this
point, verse 26. The Son of God said, let me go
for the day breaketh. You've had a little religious
experience now, Jacob. That's enough for most people.
It's like, you remember, some of you old enough to remember
the commercial briole cream? A little dab will do you? That's
the way it is with most people with religion. Just a little
dab will do. Don't go crazy over religion. I'll tell you what, may God make
us fall in love more deeper with the Son of God. to believe Him
more fully. The voice said, let me go, for
the day breaketh. This has been going on all night
long. Now, you're ready to quit, Jacob? And Jacob said, I will not let
thee go till you bless me. to You bless me." So I bring this point. Is this
a religious experience or a meaningful encounter with God? Most people,
as I say, just thankful for a religious experience, but they don't want
to go hog wild. They don't want to go hog wild
on it. I kind of put my feet in religion
a little bit, but don't go crazy over this. Jacob sought the blessing. What
is the blessing? Well, it really doesn't say.
One blessing he got that he didn't know he was going to get, he
got a name change. The Son of God said, what's your
name? The Lord reminds us what we are. Come on now, what's your
name? Your name is Jacob, isn't it?
Yeah. You're a supplanter. You're a
deceiver. You're conniving rich. But I've got another name for
you. A new name. Israel. You're a prince with
God. And as a prince, you have power
with God. You have power with God and with
men, and you've prevailed. I'm going to give you what you
want. You have the privilege to speak
to me, to pray unto me, and I'll give you according to my will.
See, we have power with God. That's amazing. That doesn't
mean we tell God what to do. But it does mean this, we can
come into the presence of God through the blood of our Lord
Jesus Christ, and we can ask of God what we will according
to His sovereign will. He says, I'm going to give it
to you. That's what He said. That's what He said in the book
of John. You're a prince with God. Maybe this blessing is protection,
he'll get that. Maybe this blessing is guidance,
he'll get that. Maybe it's posterity, that seed,
that's Christ Jesus, he'll surely get that. Martin Luther had an interesting
thought on this. He believed that the blessing
was that Christ revealed Himself to Jacob and that He is the One
who would come one day to put Jacob's sins away. Well, I tell
you what, He was and is the seed of the woman. Maybe that's the
blessing that our Lord Jesus revealed that to him, though
it isn't said in the Scriptures. I'll tell you what my guess is.
It's the blessing of the assurance of the salvation of his soul
through Christ Jesus our Lord. That's the blessing he wanted.
I'll tell you, if God would bless us tonight, with what we sing
about sometimes, blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste
of glory divine. He assures Jacob of his everlasting
safety. Now, to be certain, the battle
is not over for Jacob. There are more battles for him
that wait in the future. But he doesn't want to fight
any more battles until he's sure he's safe in Christ. He's heard the promises of God's
blessings. Now he wants them in truth. Oh,
he's still Jacob. His past is clouded with sin. His future is going to involve
more sin. But he is now assured, I'm the
Lord's, and He's mine. Up until now, Jacob certainly
had an interest in the Lord, there's no doubt about that.
His brother was a man of the world who had no interest in
God. Jacob did. He was solemn. He was serious. He prayed. But
he lacked joy. He lacked peace. He lacked assurance. He felt
guilty. But now he has seen the face
of God. Don't tell me Christ Jesus isn't
God. Jacob called Him God. Hebrews
chapter 1, God called Him God. He says, I've seen God face to
face. And I'm preserved. I'm preserved. I'm saved. I'm saved. Jacob is made to realize he looked
into the face of God Almighty and lived to tell about it. Let
me tell you something. The glory of God shines in the
face of Christ Jesus. And we see that glory by faith. Jacob had what I'd call a close
encounter with the Lord. And if that ever happens to you, You'll never be the same. And you'll limp the rest of your
life. The evidence. God dealt with
you. God dealt with you. And you know the interesting
thing is, I'll give you this and I'll quit. The children of
Israel, it says, In verse 32, they didn't eat of the sinew
which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh. They didn't
eat that thigh muscle unto this day. You know what the reason
was for that? Superstitious religion. That's
all that is. See, that's what the natural
man takes away from things like this. Oh, we've got to avoid
eating the thigh muscle. Don't eat the thigh muscle. I'm
going to preach on that next Sunday morning. Next Saturday
morning, some rabbi said, I'm going to preach on don't eat
of the thigh muscle. Because God touched Jacob's thigh,
knocked his hip out of joint. See, the natural man makes conclusions
like that. Because the natural man is religious
but lost. We look to the living Christ
who loved us and who gave Himself for us. Let's pray. Lord, take the things that have
been spoken tonight magnify yourself and humble us in the dust and
make us to see that in and of ourselves we're nothing. And may nobody under the sound
of my voice try to appease your justice by lining up droves of
good works which they think will impress you. You're only impressed
with your son. And Lord, He's our hope. He's
our confidence. He's our Savior. He's our righteousness. He is our all in all, and we'll
look to Him for all things. And deal with us in such a way,
Father, that we don't get over you wrestling with us. Lord,
take us down. And in the language of wrestling,
Lord, You pin us. You pin us to the mat. Lord,
show us that we're nothing and You're everything. We're weak
and You're strong. You're the mighty God. You're
the only one who can help us. You're the only one who can save
us. And Lord, thank You for Your grace that's been given to so
many of us that we look to Christ Jesus. the only Savior of sinners. And He has assured us, I will
never leave you, and I will never forsake you. Lord, sanctify the
afflictions and the troubles for our good. Things that you
send our way, they may be hurtful to the flesh, but Lord, if in
your wisdom you deem it necessary for us to go through these difficult
times, then Lord, send them. And we know that if you send
them, you'll give grace to endure them too. So we rest our souls
and our bodies, our lives and our future in this mighty Man,
Christ Jesus the Lord. We thank You for Him. For Jesus'
sake I pray, Amen.