So Genesis chapter 32, and we're
going to read from verse one. And Jacob went on his way, and
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 Mahananim. And 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, flocks
and menservants and womenservants, and I have sent to tell my Lord
that I may find grace in thy sight.' And the messengers returned
to Jacob, saying, We came unto thy brother Esau, and also he
cometh to meet thee and four hundred men with him. Then Jacob
was greatly afraid and distressed, and he divided the people that
was with him and the flocks and herds and the camels into two
bands, and said, If Esau come to the one company and smite
it, then the other company which is left shall escape. And Jacob
said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, and
the Lord which said, unto me, return unto thy country and to
thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee. I am 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 am become two bands. 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, I will surely
do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which
cannot be numbered for multitude. And he lodged there that same
night and took of that which came to his hand a present for
Esau his brother. 200 she goats and 20 he goats,
200 ewes and 20 rams, 30 milch camels with their coats, 40 kine
and 10 bulls, 10, 20, she asses and ten foals. And he delivered them into the
hand of his servants, every drove by themselves, and said unto
his servants, Pass over before me, and put a space betwixt drove
and drove. And he commanded the foremost,
saying, When Esau, my brother, meeteth thee, and asketh thee,
saying, Whose art thou? and whither goest thou? and whose
are these before thee? Then thou shalt 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 droves,
saying, On this manner shall ye speak unto Esau when ye find
him. And say ye moreover, Behold thy
servant Jacob is behind us. For he said, I will appease him
with the present that goeth before me, and afterward I will see
his face. Peradventure he will accept of
me. So went the present over before
him, and himself lodged that night in the company. Amen. May the Lord bless to us this
reading from his word. Having left Laban, Jacob and
his family pressed on towards the land of Canaan, the Promised
Land, as it was called, because it was the land that was promised
to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and their descendants. But first,
there was the matter of Esau, Jacob's twin brother, and perhaps
Esau's desire to kill Jacob. And Jacob had to face this, and
it was something that caused him great anxiety and fear. Indeed, Jacob had fled his own
country originally some 20 years previously because he was afraid
of his brother Esau. And now 20 years later, would
Esau still want revenge on Jacob for the deception by which Jacob
had obtained Isaac's blessing? Knowing what he knew of Esau,
Jacob feared. that that is exactly what he
would want. But several interesting things
happened on the road as Jacob made his way towards Canaan. The first thing is that he met
two hosts of angels on the road. The second thing is that he learned
that Esau was coming towards him with 400 men. and he prayed
to God for help. Another thing that happened was
that Jacob divided up his company into two groups, hoping thereby
to safeguard at least some of his family. And another thing
that Jacob did was to send valuable gifts of sheep and cattle in
order to appease Esau. Now I think there are some lessons
in these that I just want to, as it were, touch upon as we
move through these verses that we might learn a lesson from
them. The first one is this, that the
fact that the Lord sent these companies, these hosts of angels
that Jacob was able to see, gives us a gracious demonstration of
God's protection of his servant. The Lord was protecting Jacob
as he made this journey. So not only was the Lord preparing
this country that Jacob would go to, but he was protecting
Jacob Throughout his journey, from Laban behind him, Esau before
him, saw two hosts of angels travelled with Jacob along that
road. They appeared as two armies or
two companies and it may well be that one was on the left hand
side and one was on the right or one was up ahead and one was
behind. Whatever it was that was the
layout of this company of angels. It was designed to comfort and
encourage Jacob on his journey. And it's an early example of
God employing angels as ministering spirits to guard and protect
his church and his people. And it's an amazing thing for
you and I to realise that we have guardian angels who watch
over us and who walk with us in this life's journey. Our life
is like a journey. We start off and we grow up and
we get a little bit older, and our life is like a journey through
time. And along that journey, God provides
help and safety and safeguarding by the ministering angels that
come to us. Upon reaching Esau's country,
Jacob sent a messenger to announce his arrival. But that messenger
was soon back with Jacob, telling him that having delivered that
message, Esau was coming to meet Jacob with 400 men. And that filled Jacob with great
fear. Now we might wonder at this.
We might say, well, Had Jacob not been given promises by God,
and had he not been given these two hosts of angels that were
safeguarding him along the road? Well, yes, that's true. Both
of those things are very true, and it's good that we note them
and notice them. But I don't think we should be
too critical of Jacob. Because Jacob's fear was not
only for himself, but also for his family. And I don't think
that this showed a lack of trust because we also find that while
Jacob was becoming fearful and anxious, he prayed to God so
that the feelings that he had generated a proper response in
that he took his concerns to the Lord. I think that reminds us that
it takes fearsome things to test our faith. We may say that we've
got faith, we may think that we've got faith, we may rejoice
in our faith, But we don't prove our faith until it is tested
by things that trouble us and things that cause us concern. It's the hard trials in life
that bring out our trust in the Lord. And Jacob's prayer in this
fear is commendable. And note how he prays. He is
humble. He says he's not worthy of the
least of God's mercies, and that's true. And he reminds God what
God has promised him. He reminds God of the promises. This is a beautiful pattern of
prayer that is set before us. He takes the very words of God
back to God, and he says, Lord, Be faithful to me. These are
the things that you've promised. You gave me these things first
of all and now I am bringing them back to you. He confessed
how unworthy he was. But he asks for grace. And so
in a very real sense this prayer is full of gospel truth. Many,
many years before the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and
the sending forth of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, here
was Jacob testifying that we need humility before we go to
God. We need to recognize we are unworthy
of his goodness and his mercy, but we need to know that it is
only from him that mercy and grace has to be found. Gospel
truths, gospel principles at work in the life of this man
Jacob so many years ago. Every good that God gives to
us must be by grace because we are a sinful people and we only
deserve his judgement, not his mercy. Note also that Jacob divided
up his company and then he sends even more gifts to Esau so that
as Esau is coming along the road to meet Jacob, he encounters
these groups of gifts, these companies of gifts that have
been sent on ahead. Valuable gifts, livestock, camels
and cattle and sheep and goats. male and female in good numbers,
enough to enrich anyone. And it is Jacob's hope that these
may appease any anger and wrath and vengeance that Esau has towards
Jacob and his family, to remove any anger that he might feel. And someone might say that it
doesn't show much faith on Jacob's part that he should do these
things. Here he is praying to God but at the same time he's
dividing up his flocks and sending them on as gifts to appease the
wrath of Esau. But I think too that this is
also too harsh for us. Because God gives his people
wisdom. to use the means that are at
our disposal to help ourselves. Now, let me just explain a little
bit about what I mean, because you may think, well, if we pray
to God, we're asking God to help us, why should we be helping
ourselves? Why should we be trying to help ourselves? That proves
that we've got a lack of faith. No, no. If we are unwell, We
pray to the Lord for healing, but we also go to the doctor
because the Lord has provided a means by which we are able
to put into practice God's good providences in helping us in
our condition and in our state. If we're anxious at school, about
our exams and about our studies, we pray to the Lord that he might
help us. But we can't expect to go into
our exams not having done any study, not having read any books,
not having listened to any lectures or any lessons. And because we've
prayed to God that he'll give us full marks in our exams, that's
not how it works. We pray to the Lord that he will
help us with our exams, but we revise our textbooks as well.
We learn our lessons. And if we're eager for the Lord
to save our family and to save our children and to save our
friends and to save those that we love, we pray for their salvation. but we take the gospel to them
as well. We take them under the gospel,
we help them to learn the word of the Lord, because we're using
the means that God has given us, not in unbelief, but in practical
gratitude for the Lord's provision for us. God has promised to bless
us in the Lord Jesus Christ with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places. He says that in Ephesians chapter
1 verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. All spiritual blessings
are ours. We have justification. by the righteousness of God. We have redemption by the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have new life and holiness
by the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit. These things are
so, these things are true. But we only discover the knowledge
and the reality of these blessings through hearing the Word of God
preached, through believing and trusting the Gospel that we receive,
through the experiences of God's mercy and grace in our day-to-day
life. It is those who make the use
of the means of learning and discovering God's goodness and
kindness in the Gospel who benefit from what the Lord has given
us, benefit from his grace. And that's why studying the Bible
is so important. That's why listening to gospel
preaching is so essential. It's why we learn how to pray. It's why we read good books that
help us to grow in our knowledge of the Lord and in his rich blessings
towards us. We are not to be lazy in Bible
things. We're not to be lazy in the Gospel. We're not to assume that God
is going to drop all the blessings that he has for us into our lap
without us studying to show ourselves approved, labouring to understand
the Gospel and the Word of God and the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It just won't happen. God blesses
the wise use of the means that he has given, and that's what
he did here for Jacob. So we can see in these things
that happened in Jacob's life, how the Lord was bringing about
his purposes, and yet Jacob had to experience all the fear and
the anxieties, and he had to think about how he was dealing
with them. and he was a witness to us of
how also we are to handle these things in our own lives as a
pattern by his example. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us and encourage our hearts in these studies. Amen.