I bring our greetings from the
United Kingdom and from the north of Ireland. I bring greetings
from our friends, your friends in Eggleston and other places. And I trust that you will share
with them in the love of the Lord and in the gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ as we press on together in the good fight
of faith. Turn with me please in your Bibles
to Genesis chapter 32. Genesis chapter 32. And I trust
you won't have too much difficulty with my accent. I know some of
the words that I say will be pronounced quite differently
from the way you pronounce them and vice versa. So you be patient
with me if I look at you with a perplexed look when you're
telling me something a little bit later on today. Genesis chapter
32. We'll read from verse 1 because
I want to pick up some of the themes that we have in the earlier
part of the chapter as we come to think about the later verses,
the end of the chapter. Verse 1 of chapter 32. 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, Mahanaim. 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 ye 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 to thy brother Esau, and also he cometh
to meet thee and four hundred men with him. Jacob must have
been quite terrified at that prospect. And we can see that
his first response and reaction was to go to the Lord in prayer. 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 he shall 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, the
Lord which saith 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 colts, 40 kine, and ten
bulls, twenty 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 are
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 ye speak unto Esau, when ye find him. saying ye moreover
behold the servant 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 and then these verses are given to us so went Verse
22, And he rose up that night and took his two wives and his
two women servants and his eleven sons and passed over the ford
Jabbok. And he took them and sent them
over the brook, and sent over that he had. And Jacob was left
alone, and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of
the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him,
he touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's
thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him. And he said,
let me go for the daybreak, He said, I will not let thee go
except thou bless me. And he said unto him, what is
thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he 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
and said, tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, wherefore
is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. Jacob called the name of that
place Peniel, for I have seen God face to face, and my life
is preserved. And as he passed over Penuel,
the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh. Therefore
the children of Israel ignore of the sinew which shrank, which
is upon the hollow of the thigh unto this day, because he touched
the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank. This is a very interesting passage. It speaks to us of a man with
whom we have much in common. I had thought of presenting this
as Jacob, my friend, because Jacob has so much in his life
that I see reflected in my own. Jacob at this stage was a believer
in the Lord Jesus Christ. He knew the salvation of God. He had heard the promises that
God had given and though a believer before the incarnation, although
a believer before the Lord Jesus Christ came, yet he trusted in
the Lord for the deliverance that was promised to him. Some
people tell us that this incident in the life of Jacob had to do
with his conversion. I don't think that's right. I
think we can see very clearly in the verses that we read at
the beginning of the chapter that Jacob was able to say, Oh
God, my father, Abraham, God of my father, Isaac, the Lord,
which said unto me, return to the country. He had been obedient
to the word of the Lord. He trusted in the word of the
Lord. He was a man who knew God. And he knew the promises that
God had given to him. And yet he had work to do. He had to be obedient to the
call of God and as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ that
falls to you and I also. We have the word of God before
us, we have the direction that the Lord gives us, we have the
commands of scripture which are set down for us to follow and
the Lord says press on, press on into the country that I will
give you, press on and take the inheritance that is mine for
you. But sometimes we face difficulties
when we seek to do those things. Sometimes we are challenged.
Sometimes we begin to fear. Jacob had good reason to be afraid. He was a man who knew what it
was to have a fearful brother. Listen to what it says of Esau
with respect to Jacob and his deceit and his betrayal of Esau. We're told that Esau hated Jacob
because of the blessing wherewith his father Isaac had blessed
him. And Esau said in his heart, the
days of mourning for my father are at hand, then will I slay
my brother Jacob." That was what he said. That is what Jacob heard
from his mouth and that was the thought that prevailed in Jacob's
heart as he anticipated returning to this land that God had told
him to occupy. We know that Esau was indeed
a man of great temper. When he discovered that his father
Isaac had blessed Jacob in his place, the first thing he did
was he went to the land of Canaan and he took a wife of the local
women. Why? Was it because he loved
her? No. Was it because he thought that
she was attractive? No. He took a wife, and that's
a big step for any man to take, he took a wife because he knew
that it would upset his father. He was so determined to show
his mark to half his way that he even married a woman simply
to spite his own father. This was the man that Jacob was
about to meet. And we are told that he was afraid.
He had heard the promises of God. He had received the word
that had been given. He knew where he was to walk. He knew how he was to go. But
when that moment came, he was afraid. I don't think it's a
terribly unusual thing for the people of God to be afraid. Indeed,
we find that the Lord Jesus says as much to his church. He tells
us, fear not little flock, it is your father's good pleasure
to give you the kingdom. The Lord recognises that there
is a fear that resides in the heart of His people, legitimately
so. And while we say that perfect
love casteth out all fear, and we acknowledge that we have no
ground for fear, Yet it is the experience of the Lord's people,
as we see the false doctrine around about us, as we see the
massed opposition that there is to us, as we see our frailty
and fickleness in the face of the challenges of this world,
to know what it is to fear. This was Jacob's lot. He was afraid. You see, there
is a price to being a prince of God. There is a price which
has to be paid. There is a price which has to
be borne. And here Jacob, as he anticipated
entrance into this land, he was afraid. And he goes to God, and
I like this, he goes to God and he asks God to give him help. He reminds God of the promises
that God has given to him. He says in verse 11, 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. I like this. Jacob sometimes
gets a bad press, and rightly so. He was a deceitful man. His name means supplanter. But
he was a man also that was ready to show God that he was willing
to trust him and to look and to ask for the deliverance that
he required. I like that. That is a man who
is honest with the things of God. That is a man who is earnest. Now he demonstrated to some extent
some practical elements, the things that were within his control
to do to protect and defend and preserve his family and his people. We've been speaking a little
bit about that over the past few days together as we've been
fellowshipping around dinner tables and things. that he did
the things that were within his control. He divided his family
into two. He said, perchance Esau will
destroy one, the other might escape. That was wise. That wasn't
a mark of unbelief. That was wisdom. He did not know
what was going to befall him as Esau with 400 men came down
upon him. But then we come to this moment
where he has sent all across the Brook Jabbok. And we find
that Jacob is there in the nighttime. In verse 22, we're told, he rose
up that night. So he'd already gone to bed that
night. That's interesting. He rose up
that night. So it's dark. And in the darkness,
There wouldn't be any lights around, there wouldn't be any
ways of discerning what was going on around about. In the darkness,
he sent his family across and he remains alone. Why did he
do that? I think that Jacob was looking
for the answer from the Lord that he had requested. In verse
11, when he said, deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of
my brother, he was looking for some reassurance. He was looking
for a word from the Lord. Remember, he didn't have the
scriptures as we have. He had had experience of visionary
experiences that God had given. He had seen things that most
men never got to see. And there in the darkness, I
believe he was waiting for the Lord to help him. The thing that
happened was very strange. He was looking for a word from
the Lord. He was looking for the Lord to
come and speak to him. What he didn't expect was that
he would be accosted by a man who would fight him. That's a
strange thing. Indeed, we're told that Jacob
was alone. Jacob was a man alone. It's a
good thing for us to be alone sometimes. It's a good thing
for us to share fellowship together under the sound of the gospel.
But it is good also for us to be alone half times when the
Lord can speak to us, half times when we can speak to Him. And
when we come before the Lord, looking for Him to fulfill His
promises, looking for Him to give us those times of consolation,
times of comfort when we feel in the depths of our stomach
the anxieties that that little flock has, then it is good for
us to be quiet in the presence of the Lord. What happens if
when the Lord comes to us at those moments, he comes to us
not as a friend, but as an adversary, not as a comforter, but as a
fighter. What happens if the Lord comes
and wrestles with us? Let me tell you something. It's
something that I think we always ought to remember. Whenever the
Lord speaks to his people, It is a mark and a testimony of
grace whenever he speaks. And if he speaks harshly, it's
a mark of his grace. If he speaks softly, it's a mark
of his grace. Every time he speaks, No matter
the tone, no matter the experience, no matter the way that we are
understanding the word that comes to us. Every time he speaks,
it is a mark of grace. This was a mark of grace. The
Lord showed grace to Jacob this night by fighting with him. For
he had a lesson to teach him. He had something that Jacob must
know. And as we look at these verses,
we can see that Jacob begins to wrestle. Jacob was left alone. He thought he was alone. But
there, as he was alone, he wrestled a man. I don't think that this
was a dream. I don't think that it was a vision.
Some suggest that it was. But I think that there was a
very physical dimension to this, a very real and tangible experience
overtook Jacob as he wrestled with this man. And it was a wrestling
that went on for some period of time. It was a wrestle that
was engaging his energy and his strength and all of his faculties
as he sought to overcome this stranger that had come into his
presence, into his company. He may not even have seen this
stranger coming at any distance. He was sitting in the darkness
and suddenly he was assailed. I can only imagine that it would
be the man's obvious reaction to engage this unknown combatant
in fighting and to their struggle with him. We find that this fight
went on for a period of time. What was it that was happening
here? How can we think of this as a
testimony of grace? I think that what we have here
is the Lord showing Jacob That while he was afraid of Esau,
it was a mark of his lack of faith in God. That God had made
a promise to Esau and that that promise would be fulfilled. And
he's saying, sorry, Jacob, God had made a promise to Jacob and
that promise would be fulfilled. And while Jacob feared for his
life against Esau, it was a mark of his lack of trust in the Lord. The Lord could easily have said
to Jacob, don't you worry, Esau won't raise a hand against you
tomorrow morning when you meet him. In fact, even now, I am
visiting him with my death angel and he has been slain in the
night time. You're free, Jacob. You're at
peace, Jacob. Go and occupy the land. Enter
in without any fear. But that wasn't the way of the
Lord. The Lord was looking for Jacob to take courage and to
face this brother with strength and hope. And he did that in
a most unusual way. He allowed Jacob to have power
with God. He allowed Jacob even to prevail
against the Son of God. That there as the Lord manifested
Himself as a man, He allowed Jacob, He gave him the strength
to prevail against Him. In so doing, showing him that
if here a man could prevail with God, what need he fear Esau,
a natural mortal? He gave him the strength that
was required in order to face the challenge of the day that
was about to come. I think that's lovely. We sometimes
think, how can it be that there would be a wrestling match? How
can it be that there would be a fight? One of the things that
I can look back on and remember with greatest pleasure as a father
is wrestling with my son. We don't do it now. He's 23 years
of age, he's 6 inches taller than me, and he's a lot broader
on the shoulder too. We don't wrestle anymore, but
I loved to wrestle with him. And he liked it too. I have a
daughter as well. I used to wrestle with her. Ladies,
I used to wrestle with my daughter too. And it was so good. It was so good just to embrace. It was so good just to hold.
But we were wrestling. We were fighting. But you know,
for all my strength as an adult, I didn't hurt them. I gave them
the freedom to wrestle with me. And that's what the Lord did
with Jacob. The Lord could have laid Jacob
low in an instant, but he gave him power to prevail against
him. Why? Because he had a lesson
to teach him. Then we can see in verse 25, that the Lord saw that Jacob
was prevailing against him. And as the Lord saw that, so
Jacob would know. If you're in a fight, you know
whether you're winning or you're losing. And Jacob realized that
he was prevailing also. The Lord saw that he prevailed,
that is the Lord prevailed not against Jacob. And in that moment,
there was another lesson to be taught. He had shown Jacob that
Jacob was able to have power with the Lord. And now he had
to teach Jacob the second part of the lesson. And in doing so,
He reached down and he touched the hollow of his thigh. Now,
I don't know whether you have different kinds of wrestling
from we have in the UK. We have a certain kind of wrestling
where men will get down and they will take each other around the
shoulders, head to head, and they will squat down and they
wrestle to throw one another. You can't do that with a broken
leg. You can't do that with a disjointed
hip. It's impossible. The fight was
then over. What the Lord had done was he
had shown Jacob, firstly, that he prevailed with him, but secondly,
that he was helpless. As soon as the Lord took that
act of hitting him on the hip, dislocating his joint, Jacob
holds on now. It's all he can do. There's no
more fight left in him. He can hold on. He's simply waiting
for the final blow that will finish him and end this fight. But here again, we find that
the Lord uses grace and he says, let me go for the day breaketh.
He says to Jacob, let me go. You've seen that you've prevailed.
You've seen that you need my strength because now you are
no longer able to fight. And he said, I will not let thee
go except thou bless me. Once again, we see Jacob's understanding
of the person that he was dealing with coming to the fore. The
greater always blesses the lesser. This is a statement of Jacob's
recognition of the glory of God. If he had been victor in this
fight, then he, by right, should have blessed the loser. It's
an admission of his recognition that God was glorious and he
was less than him. That though he had prevailed
in the wrestling, he still needed the support of God. The lesson
had been learned. He says, I won't let you go except
you bless me. And here we see the third part
of this lesson. So much here in these verses.
He said unto him, what is thy name? And he said, Jacob. That in itself was a great admission. of his true nature. What did Jacob mean? We've thought
about it already. It means supplanter. It means
deceiver. It means that I'm a cheat. It
means that I'm a liar. It means to remember all the
things that I have done. You're getting ready to face
your brother tomorrow and you're frightened in your heart. Whence
this fear? Where has this fear come from? It comes from the way that you
have acted. It comes from the things that
you have done. It comes from the person that you are and the
weaknesses that you have demonstrated in your life in the past. That's
the reason for your fear. Because you know yourself and
you know the kind of person that you are. Jacob had to learn to
know himself. What's your name? When the Lord
says to a sinner, what's your name? He is saying to that person,
I want you to be honest. You need to confess. You need
to be true. You need to tell it the way that
it is. And for anyone to be blessed
of the Lord, there needs to be that integrity, that honesty
before the face of the all-knowing God. What was he going to do?
Try and trick God? Try and play the deceiver? Try
and play the supplanter? My name is cheat. That's the
kind of man I am. My name is deceiver. So we come
to confession. We confess before the Lord the
things that He knows already, but the things that He will have
us admit and confess before Him. And then that wonderful verse
28, and he said, thy name shall be called no more Jacob, no more
cheat, no more supplanter, no more deceiver. Thy name shall
be Israel, for as a prince thou has power with God and with men. and hast prevailed. That's lovely. You see what it is to know Christ. You see what it is to have that
confidence in the Saviour. You see what it is to be brought
into his family, to be made an heir and a joint heir with him,
to become a prince with God. and have power with God. What a wonderful statement, what
a wonderful opening up of the blessedness of that union that
we have with God through the Lord Jesus Christ, a prince with
God. Here is a deceiver, here is a
cheat, here is a man who is despised by his family and those around
him for the kind of things that he has done. There's no pedigree
here. There's no history of valiant
actions and honourable conduct. Here is a man who was a cheat,
but a man who has been made a prince with God. Why? Because God had
showed him mercy. God had given him grace. Thou will be a prince with God
and with men thou hast prevailed. Jacob asked him and said, Tell
me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it
that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. It's
very interesting that the Lord didn't reveal this to Jacob. Jacob had to tell the Lord his
name. There it is, that honesty, that
confession. But the Lord didn't reveal himself
in the entirety to Jacob. There would come a time when
that revelation would be made. And we see on Jacob's deathbed
that he speaks about the coming of Shiloh. He speaks about Christ
and how Christ would reign and bring law to his church and the
people of God as the revelation of God unfolded. Jacob saw that
in later years but now the name was withheld from him. There's
a lovely little verse as Jacob in his deathbed is giving blessings
to his family. He says of Dan, he says. Dan shall be a serpent by the
way, an adder in the path that biteth the horse's heels, so
that his rider shall fall backward. Then he says, I have waited for
thy salvation, O Lord. Jacob had further revelation
to receive. He had a journey to make, crossing
the brook Jabbok, entering into the land, facing his brother
Esau. These things were given to him as he pilgrimaged through
this life with the Lord before him. revealing to him, blessing
him, leading him into truth. And as he grew in grace, as he
acknowledged and understood the things that the Lord had for
him, so he understood the salvation that he waited upon. He understood
the name of Christ, Shiloh, that would come. And then finally,
and I'm finished now, Jacob called the name of that place Peniel,
for I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved." That's
a wonderful statement for a man to make, a man who is a sinner,
a man who has known the deceptiveness of Jacob's experience. And is
that not true with us also? What a wonderful blessing we
have that we have seen the Lord face to face and our life has
been preserved. Why is that? Because we've no
sin. Because we have no guilt. Because we have no condemnation
anymore. One has taken it in our place. One has stood in the gap. One has received all that anger
and judgment and wrath. upon himself on our behalf. We see God face to face in union
with Christ, and we have lived by the grace of God. Such is
the mercy, such is the wonder of the plan of salvation, that
sinners like you and like me can find Christ to be true life,
eternal life, as we have our life preserved in him. And he
passed over Penua, And the sun rose upon him, the son of righteousness,
the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking there of that deepening experience
that he had with the Lord, having learned his lessons. He halted
upon his thigh. He was going over to his family.
His family would see him coming in the distance. They would say,
who is this that is coming? It's Jacob. No, it's not Jacob.
Look, whoever that is, is walking with a limp. It can't be Jacob,
but it was. His gait was changed. His walk was different. He was different in appearance
because he had dealt with the Lord and prevailed. Isn't it
a wonderful thought that we have been so blessed of God that he
has given us not only the privilege of life by taking away our sin,
but of the very righteousness of Christ itself, which has made
us what we could never be. Our walk is different. We are
a different people. He has changed us. He has converted
us. He has given us a new walk. We
walk in a new way. We walk in Christ and walk in
the Spirit. I trust that as we look at these
Old Testament passages, think about their application, see
what the Lord has done with his people in times past. we too
will be able to apply them to our own experience and learn
lessons for ourselves in our own dealings with Christ. Not
that we should live through the experiences of others and say
that that is simply what we must have, but to experience them
for ourselves, to know that we have seen the face of God, that
we have prevailed with God, that we are princes with God, and
our walk is different thereby. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us and encourage our hearts in them. Amen.