In verse 24 of Genesis 32 and
look what it says And Jacob was left alone and
there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of day Alone
with God And Jacob was left alone You know to be left alone with
God is the only, only true way, the right way of arriving at
a right knowledge of ourselves and have the right knowledge
of our ways and our ways. No matter what anybody else may
think about us, what our neighbors, our husbands, or our wives may
think about us and others may think about us, it's what God
thinks about us. It's how God views us. And you
know the only way you can answer that question is how God views
you. And how you can learn anything
from God is to be left alone. Left alone. Away from the world. Away from self. Away from our thoughts, away
from our reasonings, and our imaginings, and our emotions,
and left alone with God. You know, Jacob, I mean, you
know, Job, when it was all said and done, Jacob was left with no one but
God. And that's a good place to be
left. Job was left with no one but God. His friends forsook
him and miserable comforters. Nobody left but him and God.
And that's what it says here, Jacob was left alone. Jacob was
left alone. Is there anybody, anybody that
was ever more troubled than Jacob was? Frightened? Confused? More alone than Jacob
right now? His whole life had been a life
of disappointments and trouble. When he was born, he was born
second to Esau. And he was inferior to Esau. And his father preferred Esau. He really did. And then his mother
talked him into deceiving his father, who was blind, to steal
the birthright. And then his brother said, I'm
going to slay him just as quick as the time of my father's sorrowing
is over. I'm going to slay my brother
Jacob. So he had to leave. He had to leave. And you remember,
he went to Bethel. And God met him there at Bethel.
God promised him blessings to Jacob and confirmed what his
mother had already told him. She said, I have this struggle
in my womb. And the Lord told her, she said,
there's two nations in you. Two nations in you. Two types
of people in you. And the Lord told her, the elder
is going to serve the younger. And that's exactly what happened.
Esau ended up serving Jacob. And Jacob got the birthright
with deception. And then he had been deceived
by Laban when he went down to his mother's brother's house.
He got down there. And you all probably know the
story. What will be your wages? Well,
he saw this beautiful woman, Rachel. And he kissed her. Fell head over heels in love
with her. Said, I'll labor seven years. I'll work for you seven
years if you'll give me her for my wife. Okay. Well, seven years
went by. He didn't do it. Gave him Leah
instead. He said, well, you done deceived
me. What do I got to do now? Seven more years. Then he got
Rachel. He worked 14 years to get the
person that he loved. And he had deceived him so many
times. And all he was told by God in
Genesis 31, 33. He said, now you return home.
You go back. You go back. You go back home.
You go back to where your mother and daddy live. Go home. And
then, you know, when I read it to you, when he's on his way
home, he said to tell his brother Esau, said, Oh, listen, I've
got lots and lots of stuff and I've got presents for you. And,
you know, and then they come back and told him, said, Your
brother's coming to meet you. And he got 400 men. Jacob just,
I mean, he got scared tea totally to death. He said, oh my, what
am I going to do? He's coming to get me now. I'm
a gone Jesse. He said, this is it. Well, so
what he done, he split his family up in two groups. And he sent
one group out in the front. He said, if Esau gets them, then
the rest of them will get away. And he said, oh my, I said, oh
Lord save me. He said, he's going to smite
me, and smite my children, and smite my children's mother. So
here's a man, he's in trouble. He is really in trouble. He's
scared to death. He's frightened. He's confused.
And now he's alone. And he's afraid. And he is helpless. Helpless. He can't, what's he
going to plot now? How's he going to get out of
this? No plotting. No more scheming, no more manipulating. He shut up to the sovereign mercy
and power of God Almighty. Huh? It's like Israel, when they're
at the Red Sea. Pharaoh was coming up behind
them. Oh, they all got scared. God
said, listen. Stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord. And the Red Sea parted. But they
thought that was it. And it was like Jonah when he
was in the whale's belly. He found out that salvation was
of the Lord. Just like Israel did at the Red
Sea. And that's what Jacob is fixing to find out that salvation
is totally in the hands of God and God alone. And I know this
that everyone that God is pleased to save and reveal His mercy
and His grace to in the Lord Jesus Christ will all be brought
to the place of human helplessness and inability. And God will take
away all room for boasting all room for glowing in the flesh
He'll do that. He's written that no flesh should
glory in his presence Now look what happens here now, so Jacob's
left alone That's where men need to be. They need to be alone
with God That's where they need to be. That's where people need
to be. They need to be left alone with
God and I'll tell you beloved that's a That's the thing, being
left alone with God, and God will bring us down to our inability
and helplessness. And then look what it says there,
And I wrestled a man with him until the breaking of day. Now
he's laying there and he's all alone. And then all of a sudden
a man come and grabbed a hold of him. Jacob didn't grab a hold of a
man. A man came and got a hold of Jacob. Well, who is this man? Well,
it was the Lord Jesus Christ, of course. You know, you go through
the scriptures. He appeared to Abraham twice. He appeared to Abraham in the
tenth door. And I tell you what, our Lord
often appeared in the Old Testament And then He appeared in human
form, showing that He would eventually come in incarnation and live
on this earth. But I'll show you how it's the
Lord Jesus Christ. Look what it says down here in
verse 26. And the Lord, you know this is Christ speaking, let
me go the day breaketh. And He said, I will not let thee
go till thou bless me. Now who in the world can bless
but God? Who can bless but the Lord Jesus
Christ? And then look down there in verse
28, and he said, Thy name shall be no more called Jacob, but
Israel. You're not going to be a supplant
anymore, but you're going to be a prince that has power with
God, and with men, and has prevailed. Now who can tell him you got
power with God? How do you get power with God?
We become sons of God, not by flesh, not by blood, not by the
will of man, but by the power of God. We become the sons of
God by God, born again by God Almighty. Then look what he says
down here in verse 30. And Jacob called the name of
that place Peniel, for I have seen God face to face, and my
life is preserved. So I tell you what, only the
Lord Jesus Christ, only God can bless a man, only God can give
a man a new name, only God can whip a man, and only God Can
bless a man and the old all the blessings that he has for a man
is in the Lord Jesus Christ So I'll tell you what and Nick work
has said here in verse 28 said said it In verse 25, excuse me,
and he prevailed not against him. Oh He prevailed not against him
now, you know when it says that Jacob there when he told him
there in verse 26 let me go the day breaketh and he said I'll
not let thee go except thou bless me now this is not an example
of a saint power in prayer that's not what this is about at all
I know a lot of religion tells us boy if I tell you what if
you tell God you know people say it live on how many times
I hear people say I really I prayed real hard If you play real hard,
how do you pray real hard? I mean, you know, here was Jacob,
and this is not a picture of a saint prevailing in power,
in prayer, and making God do something for him because he
prevailed in prayer. That's not what happened here.
Jacob was not wrestling with this man to obtain a blessing. The man was wrestling with Jacob
to get something from Jacob. What did he want from Jacob?
He wanted Jacob to find out you ain't nothing and can't do nothing
and you're going to find that out. You'll find that out. What it does, God's intention
here was to reduce Jacob to a sense of nothingness and to cause him
to see what a poor, helpless, worthless creature he really
was. And to bring him to the place
where he had no confidence in his flesh. Oh, and I tell you,
God's going to do us that way. I mean, and I'm telling you something
else. He's going to do us that way
over and over and over again. All of us at times get the feeling
we're really something. We get the feeling we're something.
And when the Lord's got us, when we feel like we're something,
He's got to bring us to where we really realize we're nothing.
Without Him, we're nothing. And can't do anything. And I'll
tell you what, beloved, Jacob was an object of God's love and
an object of God's mercy. And our Lord Jesus Christ laid
hold of him in sovereign power and laid hold of him in sovereign
purpose. He says, you know, that Jacob
hath a loved, and Esau hath a hated, and the children not yet being
born, never having done any good or evil, that the purpose of
God, this was on purpose. Why do you think that God told
us that the elder is going to serve the younger? This is on
God's purpose. And I'll tell you what, He laid
hold on him. I mean He laid hold on him. It's
like the Lord Jesus Christ, when He went into the wilderness,
when a sheep was lost, He went into the wilderness. And He looked
and He found that sheep, and when He found that one lost sheep,
He put it on his shoulder and he brought it all the way back and said, Rejoice with me, this
my sheep that was lost is now found. And that's what's happening
here. God had a purpose in doing this
to Jacob. He met him over in Bethel and
he saw that ladder going up and down, them angels going up and
down on that ladder. Our Lord Jesus Christ. And here he is, Christ has got
a hold of him now. It's not just an angel going
up and down on a ladder, it's the Lord Jesus Christ got him.
And He's got him on purpose. And I know this, God's got to
lay hold on a man. He really does. And I tell you
what, and there's Jacob down here in his loneliness, in his
fear, and in his need. My brother's coming, he's got
400 men. I'm here by myself. He's lonely. He's afraid. And he has a need. And when he
had that need and that loneliness and that fear, I tell you what,
he laid hold of Christ. And there was something going
on this night. This was a physical battle. It was a mental battle,
and it was a spiritual battle, and it was a conflict that's
going to be resolved tonight, and when God gets on a man, there's
going to be a conflict, and I tell you what, it won't be over until
it's resolved. Now who's going to win? Oh, there's a struggle going
on here this night. Struggle going on this night.
But oh God is sovereign. No doubt about that. And man
is responsible. No doubt about that. God's gonna
have His people, but His people's also gonna have Him. Ain't that
right? Yeah, He said, all that the Father
gives me, they shall come to me. Oh, we is given to Him. We're given to Him. But we're
gonna be brought to Him. We're gonna come. And our Lord
Jesus Christ is King. He's King by right. He's King by decree. King by
His death. And He'll be King in the hearts
of His people. by us surrendering and submission
to Him. That's got to happen. It's got
to happen. And then look what it says, and they wrestled. And he saw that he prevailed
not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh. They wrestled
all night till the break of day. It's no brief encounter. I mean, they started struggling
and the day is coming up. The daylight is coming. This
is no little old passing encounter between God and man. No, no. This is not an indifferent
decision that people make up in front of the church. It's
more than just making a confession and joining a church and coming
down the aisle. You see, there's great, great issues at stake
here. Eternal matters. Eternal matters. And they're
going to be resolved right here. Christ personally meets Jacob
God's gonna bless and God's gonna use Jacob But it'll be a conquer
Jacob It'll be a surrender Jacob, and it'll be a subdued Jacob
It'll be them and then look what it says there in verse 13 and
verse 25 again and when he saw that he prevailed not against
him he touched the hollow of his thigh and And the hollow
of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him. You know, he touched the hollow
of his thigh. It didn't look like, you know,
he couldn't prevail against him. And the Lord could easily, easily
have subdued Jacob. I mean, just like that. All he
had to do was put an end of Jacob was just to touch the hollow
of his thigh. But he wanted Jacob to be whipped and whipped good.
He wanted Jacob to find out that it's a struggle. That he has
to be whipped. He has to be brought to nothing.
He has to understand that he cannot do anything. That he can't
be a deceiver, a supplanter, and a manipulator anymore. And
all he had to do, he could have brought him to the end of himself
at the beginning. But they wrestled and then he touched the hollow
of his thigh. Brought him to nothing like that. And this thing
that happened this night, this great warfare between God and
the Lord Jesus Christ and Jacob, there was no doubt that how it's
going to come out, no doubt how it's going to come out. I don't
know different times over the years people have come under
conviction here. I can name two or three people
right now got under great conviction. Somebody come and told me that
they was you know, they're so troubled about their soul And
said why you going? You know what y'all think y'all
to go talk to him. I said no. No, no, don't go talk
to him That's the last thing you can do. I need you to talk
to him Leave him alone with God Leave him alone. I Went to visit
Elbert Blaylock. You've all heard this story so
many times. I went to visit Elbert one time And went in in his hog
house Sit down on an old white bucket. And he started telling
me, he said, Brother Donnie, he said, I'm nastier than these
hogs. I'm garbage. I can't tell you
how bad I am, how awful I am, what a miserable wretch I am,
how worthless I am. He just wouldn't tell me all
the bad things that's wrong with me. I just sat there and listened. And he said, why do you think?
I said, well, I know that God already done something for him.
But I couldn't tell him that. Only God could tell him that.
Then I walked out of there and sure enough, God saved him. There was a woman one time, got
under awful conviction. Awful conviction. People come,
you need to go talk to her, you need to go talk to her, you need
to go talk to her. I said, I ain't going to talk to her. That's
the worst thing, that's what preachers mess up, talking to
folks and talking them into anything. If God's got his hand on somebody,
if he started the work, he'll finish it. We don't need to tell
them what God's done for them, let them tell us what God's done
for them. Ain't that right? And I'll tell you what, and I'll
tell you this, the outcome is not going to, there's going to
be no doubt about it. But God's people, we're not robots
and we're not puppets. God in His blessed, blessed revelation
and He sends us revelations, He sends us trials. And He deals
with us. And we've got to see and we've
got to feel and we've got to experience the frailty of this
flesh. And he brings us to see the emptiness,
emptiness of this world. Jacob had all, he turned up and
told all of it to his brother, all this information of all that
I got. And just as quick as he found
out his brother had four other men coming, he said, this ain't
nothing. He said, I'm going to die. What's it going to matter
to you? So we got to learn the emptiness
of this world. It surely says at all times that
God's going to wean us from this world. Your mother used to say
at all times that God's got to wean us off this world. Bring
us to the place where we'd rather be with Christ than to be here.
And He brings us into these dealings where this world, we see the
emptiness of the world and the frailty of our flesh. And oh,
and God blesses us to see the glory of God in His blessed Son,
and we desire above all things in this world, God's salvation
in His presence. Above all the things that we
want in this world, that's what we want more than anything else.
And finally the Lord struck that crippling blow, and Jacob went
down. And then in verse 26, he said,
Let me go, for the day breaketh. Daylight's coming up. And Jacob
said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. God's work's
accomplished. Jacob couldn't wrestle anymore.
All he could do was cling. We talk about clinging to Christ
and clinging to his cross. That's all Jacob could do. He
just held on. He just held on. He had been
brought to the place where he leaned all his weight on the
Lord Jesus Christ that night. He just clung to him. Just clung
to him. Leaned all his weight on him.
And he said, I'll not let you go. I'm not going to let you
go. And it's like that song we sang,
Other refuge have I none, clings my helpless soul to thee. And
I'm not going to let you go. You've got the power. You've
done, you've showed me you've got the power. You've showed
me you've got the authority. So, oh Lord, bless me. Oh bless me. Huh? Oh, Jacob had
an unusual revelation. He'd wrestled with God and he'd
been wounded, but the battle's not over until he's assured,
until he's assured that the permanent blessings of God is upon him
and peace is his. He said, Oh Lord, I've got to
have you. And I've got to have what? You're
the only one that's got it. You're the only one that can
bless me. And I'm not going to let you go until you bless me.
Oh Lord, give us showers of blessing. Showers of blessing. And I tell
you what, beloved. Oh, He said, I've got to have
you. I've got to have your permanent blessings. I've got to have your
presence. And this was a life and death battle for Jacob. And
I tell you, this battle will not be fought again between him
and the Lord. God had told him about all of
his promises, told him about all of his blessings, but now
he said, I've heard about them, and you've told me, but now I
want them in truth. I want to know them in my heart.
I want to know them in my soul. I want to experience them. I
want to experience them. And here's still Jacob. His past
clouded with sin. He was a wanderer. He was a stranger
in a strange country. And he still has to go face Esau. And he knew it was no better
off for this experience unless he had the Lord Jesus Christ's
approval, acceptance, and presence. What good will it do if I don't
have Him? Oh God, accept me, approve me,
and give me His presence. And then look what happens here
quickly, let me tell you this. Let me see where we're at. And I said, and look what he
said in verse 27. The Lord asked him, what's your
name? What is your name? Well, he got to tell him the
truth. Jacob, a deceiver, manipulator, taking things by deceit and supplanting
people. He said, Jacob! In fact, God
called him, thy worm, Jacob, one time. Cheat! Supplanter!
Deceiver! Holder of the birthright by human
effort. Oh my! We're going to bring us
to, we're going to admit what we are. And oh my! But the Lord, look what He says
now. He said, thy name shall be no more called Jacob. It's
going to be called Israel. And Marge said, a prince of God. Oh my, gave him a new name. Gave him a new walk. He didn't
walk the same after that. And oh my, you've got power with
God. And oh, hast thou power. Thou
hast convinced. Thou hast prevailed. And I tell
you what, and he says, you have now called Israel, and that means
God commands. What he's saying is that, God,
you ruin my life now. You're the one that makes all
the commands. You're the one that controls everything. And
he says, you have power with God. And he didn't get this by
his merit, because he had none. He didn't get it by his works,
and he certainly didn't get it by his will. How did he get it? By the power and grace of God
coming and doing for him what only can do. And then he said
in verse 29, and Jacob asked him, he says, Tell me, I pray
thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it
that thou dost ask that to my name? And he blessed him there. Oh, he gave him that blessing.
He said, Oh, Lord, I ain't gonna let you go. Well, he blessed
him. He blessed him. He blessed him. Why do you ask
my name? Well, I tell you one thing, he
asked because he thought, you know, maybe out of curiosity,
maybe I know that I could have, if I know who this was, have
a little pride and ambition and be on first name basis with God.
But I know this, Jacob's not going to be carried beyond the
boundaries of faith. And this we know that it was
Christ that met him, Christ that did this, because in verse 30,
Jacob called the name of that place, Pena Peniel, for I have
seen God face to face. And oh my, God says, no man has
ever seen God and lived. Jacob said, I've seen God face
to face. And my life is still preserved. I've seen God face to face, too.
But in His blessed Son. In His blessed, blessed Son. Our Father, in the precious name
of Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, we bow our hearts before You.
humbled before you, in need of your presence, in
need of your power, like Jacob was. And Lord, if we get taken
up with the world, get taken up with ourselves, get taken
up with pride, self-righteousness, and ambitious, O Lord, save us
from it. Wean us from it. Wean us from this world. Show
us the emptiness of it. And show us the frailty. Just
show us how frail. David said, Lord, teach me how
frail I am. Make me to number my days. So,
Lord, we're frail. Lord, you said that you pity
us as a father pities the child. Because you remember that we're
just dust. So, Lord, have mercy on us. And
we're like Jacob. Oh God bless us because you're
the only one that can. We thank you for your blessings
that you've given us in Christ. Thank you that the blessings
of every day and pray your blessings to continue as only you can give
them for Christ's sake. Amen. Amen.