We read in Deuteronomy 28, God's
promise to bless his people, not occasionally, not here and
there, not partially, but to bless in all things, all the
days of their lives, when they go out, when they come in, when
they rise up and when they lie down, even blessing them before
their enemies, causing them always to be the head and never the
tail. And it puts a condition to the promise. If you keep my commandments and
never depart from them. Well, that kind of shuts us out
of the possibility of blessing, doesn't it? No. The Word was not written
for nothing. This is His commandment. That you believe on the name
of His Son, Jesus Christ. By faith in Christ. We keep the law and honor the
law and magnify the law. For you see, the Lord Jesus Christ
has satisfied every demand of the law by the sacrifice of himself
and by his perfect obedience as a man, as our substitute. And every sinner, believing on
the Son of God, honors God's law. And God blesses him. Always. Not partially, but completely. When he rises in the morning,
when he lies down at night. When he goes out to the field,
and when he comes in. blesses him before all his enemies,
blesses him in time, and blesses him to eternity. Let's read about
a blessed man. Genesis chapter 32. Genesis chapter
32. We'll begin reading at verse
24. Jacob has got to do something
he hasn't been looking forward to. He's left Laban and he's
going back home now. And he's got to deal with his
brother Esau. And he's scared to death. He's scared to death. I expect when he was a boy growing
up, Just judging by what I read in the scriptures of the two
men, Jacob was frequently whipped when he was growing up by his
brother Esau. I suspect that Esau constantly kept Jacob whipped
under him. And now Jacob's got to go meet
this man who swore to kill him. The last word he heard from his
brother years before, soon as my daddy dies, you're a dead
man. I'm going to kill you." And now
he's got to go meet Esau. Verse 24, and Jacob was left
alone. Oh, that's a good place to be. Alone. He had hundreds of people
around him, but he was completely alone. He was left alone, and
there wrestled a man with him. Now, the book doesn't say Jacob
wrestled with a man. There wrestled a man with Jacob.
Wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that
he prevailed not against him, when this man saw that he didn't
prevail against Jacob, 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
day breaketh. And now Jacob starts to wrestle. Before Jacob wrestles with this
man, this man comes to wrestle with Jacob. But now Jacob starts
to wrestle. And he said, I won't let you
go. I will not let thee go except thou bless me. And he said unto
him, what is thy name? And he said, Jacob. Tricky. Supplanter. Deceiver. Wavering. Unstable as water. My name's
Jacob. And he said, thy name shall be
called no more Jacob, but Israel. Israel means God commands or
God prevails. For as a prince, thou hast power
with God and men and hast prevailed. What a strange form of words
we have here. Your name shall be called God
prevails because you have prevailed. Now hear me, when the Lord Jesus
Christ conquers you by His grace, when He comes to wrestle with
you and He subdues you and squeezes from you, that which you will
never acknowledge otherwise, the confession of what you are.
When he prevails with you, you have prevailed with God. And
you're a prince with God named Israel. Read on. 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? Why did he ask that question?
You notice he doesn't answer it here. Because he had already
made his name known to Jacob before. He's that one who appeared
like a ladder back in Genesis 28. He's that one who appeared
to Jacob and said, I'll be with you. I'm your God. And I'll not
leave you nor forsake you. Why are you asking after my name?
And he blessed him there. Jacob said, I won't let you go
except you bless me. And now he blesses him. Blessed. After preparing this message,
I thought it might be smart to look that word up. A lot of times
we just take words for granted, presume we know their meaning.
The word means basically to salute or to name. It means to speak
well of. That's what Jacob wanted from
God. He wanted the Lord God to name
him and to speak well of him. And when God names you his and
speaks well of you to you, then you are blessed, blessed of God. And Jacob called the name of
the place Peniel, for I have seen God face to face. No man shall see my face and
live, God said. Is that what he said? That's what he told Moses. No man will see my face and live.
Not going to happen. And yet Moses writes this history
of Jacob, and he says, Jacob called the name of this place
Peniel, for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. How come? Because we see God
face to face by faith, when we see the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ, this man who came here and wrestled with Jacob. That's the only way a man will
ever see God and live. And that is to see him by faith
in his darling son. And as he passed over Pineal,
the sun rose upon him. And he halted upon his thigh. He wasn't so strong anymore. He wasn't so confident anymore. He was weak, halting because God had smitten
him and fixed him so that all the days of his life he had to
halt through this world. Oh, now hear me. I pray that
this day The Lord God will come and break your strength. And He will come to you and wrestle
you to the ground and subdue you by His almighty grace. He halted upon His thigh, therefore,
The children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank which
is upon the hollow of the thigh unto this day, because God touched
the hollow of Jacob's thigh and the sinew shrank." Here's Jacob
alone, confused and afraid. He's waiting for his brother
Esau and his 400 men to come and kill it. His only living
relative, his only brother, he's terrified of him. And this man
comes to Jacob at night and wrestles with him. I have already told
you this man who wrestled with Jacob is the Lord Jesus Christ,
the pre-incarnate God, our Savior. As you read through the Old Testament
and you see The angel of the Lord coming and making himself
known to men at various times. You see God coming down and speaking
to men at various times. God came down to Abraham. The
Lord God came down to visit Abraham. The Lord God came down and revealed
himself to Manoah and his wife. Time and time again, we see the
angel of the Lord coming down to the earth to visit men. That
angel of the Lord is but Jesus Christ in his pre-incarnate manifestation
to his people as the messenger of God, the Word of God, by whom
sinners are saved through the power and grace of God. And this
angel of the Lord was known by those to whom he was revealed.
Well, how do you know that this angel of the Lord is God? Because
we read in verse 30, Jacob said, I have seen God face to face. I've seen God. I've seen God. Here's a man. A man. Jacob said, I've seen God. Folks,
those Old Testament saints, they didn't know as much as we do.
They didn't have as clear a light as we have because they didn't
have the whole of divine revelation. But Jacob knew that God, our
Savior, would come in this world as a man. He understood the promise,
God made day for him. In thy seed shall all nations
of the earth be blessed. This man wrestled with Jacob.
Now, I used to do a little wrestling. When I was in high school, I
was on the wrestling team. And you know what our object was
in wrestling? What the object was, it wasn't just get out there
and handle sweaty bodies. Our object was to pin the fellow. Our object was to fix it so that
this man is pinned to the mat and you conquer him. This man,
the God-man, our Savior, came to Jacob to wrestle with him,
to pin him to the mat, to bring him into subjection, to put him
down. That's how God saves sinners. That's how God saves sinners.
He renders him utterly helpless, touching the hollow of his thigh.
But when he touched the hollow of his thigh, renders Jacob helpless,
and he says, now let me go. Jacob said, oh, no. Not now. Oh, no. I will not let thee go
except thou bless me, except you name me. except you speak
your good word to me, except you salute me and speak well
of me, I will not let you go." Now, Jacob knew exactly who he
was talking to. He knew exactly who he was talking
to. He wasn't concerned about some
man speaking well of him. He wasn't concerned about some
man naming Him. He's concerned that the God-man,
our Savior, speak His name and name Him as His own and speak
well of Him. He says, I can't go without you. I don't know when God first made
Himself known to Jacob. I don't know when Jacob first
believed God. We're not told in the scriptures
because God doesn't intend for us to pinpoint it. But the Lord
God had spoken often to Jacob through his mother, through his
father's instruction. God had told Jacob many things.
The Lord revealed himself to him in Genesis 28 as that ladder
that Jacob saw in his dream. And he saw the angels of God
descending and ascending upon that ladder, speaking of Christ
the mediator. And Jacob says, Lord, it's come to this. I give up. I've got to have you. I've got to have you. And I ain't
going to let you go until I've got you. I've got to have you. Turn back to Genesis 25. Let
me show you something. Jacob's mother told him of God's
blessing. You remember how Paul speaks
and said, the children being not yet born, neither having
done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election
might stand? Not of works, but of him that
calleth. It was said to her, the elder shall serve the younger.
As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Now, do you reckon Jacob's mama
kept that a secret? Somehow, I don't think there's
a woman alive who could hear those words from God and never
convey them to her son. It may not have done Jacob any
good early on in his life, but Jacob's mother told him he was
loved of God, chosen of God. and his brother rejected. Look
at Genesis 25, verse 23. This is where Paul is referring
to. The Lord said to her, two nations
are in thy womb, and too many a people shall be separated from
thy bowels. And the one people shall be stronger
than the other, and the elder shall serve the younger. Look
in Genesis 28, verse 15. We've referred to it already.
God himself promised to bless Jacob. God spoke his word and
Jacob heard it. Genesis 28, 15. And behold, I
am with thee and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest,
and will bring thee again into this land, for I will not leave
thee, watch this, until I have done that which I have spoken
to thee of. What a word. What a word. Now
you go down there at the appointed time, I'll bring you back. And
you're going to learn some things while you're down in the house
of Laban. But while you're there, I'll be with you. And the Lord
had greatly blessed this man prophetically. He's now a wealthy
man, got two wives, house full of children, cattle and servants
and riches in great abundance. But these earthly blessings, All the wealth he had, and he
was a mighty wealthy man, could never bring satisfaction and
contentment to his heart. Therefore, he tugged hard upon
the Lord. He said, Lord, I've got to have
something besides these earthly riches. He had servants, wives, children,
cattle. He said, God, this isn't the
blessing I want. It's not what I need. He wanted peace with
God, and therefore he cried, I will not let thee go except
thou bless me. You see, Jacob understood something
he had never understood before. He understood that if he had
peace with God, that would bring him peace even with his brother
Esau. It seems as though he had been
instructed with the wisdom of Job who said, acquaint now thyself
with God and be at peace, thereby good shall come with thee. He
knew that if he could prevail with God, he could prevail with
anybody. So he held on to the Son of God
and said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. And then in verse 29, Jacob got
what he wanted. We read here, and he blessed
him there. Genesis 32, 29. He blessed him there. In the place where God Almighty
met Jacob, revealed himself to Jacob. and conquered Jacob. That was the place where he blessed
him. What was this place of blessing? And what was the blessing Jacob
received? Let's look first at the blessing. Look in verse 11
of Genesis 32. Jacob's praying, delivered me,
I pray thee, from the hand of my brother and from the hand
of Esau. For I fear him, lest he will
come and smite me and the mother with the children. The blessing
was deliverance from great danger. Esau had sworn to kill it, and
Jacob fully deserved it. He had deceived Esau and tricked
Esau and got the blessing of his father, which contained the
blessing of God. The patriarchal blessing was
the blessing of covenant privilege and covenant blessing given.
And Jacob understood it. Eakub despised the birthright,
but Jacob cherished it, and he tricked Esau into getting it.
And now Esau comes against him with 400 men. And Esau is a mighty
warrior. He's able to destroy him. Jacob's
only hope is that God would step in. Now hear me. You who are
without Christ, you are like Jacob in a place of great danger.
The wrath of God is upon you. He has sworn the soul that sinneth,
it shall die. You fully deserve for God to
send you to hell. You fully deserve it. And your
only hope is for God himself to step in, for God himself to
do something for you, to turn away his wrath, to turn away
his wrath by satisfying his justice, to turn away his wrath by fulfilling
his righteousness, to turn away his wrath by bestowing upon you
his grace. We were dead in trespasses and
in sins. Children of wrath, just like
everybody else. And then God stepped in. Revealed His Son
to us. Quickened us together with Christ.
Oh, may He do that for you. Jacob had this for his blessing
too. He was forgiven of his great
numerous crimes. Look at chapter 33. Verse 1,
Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau came,
and with him four hundred men, and Jacob divided the children
to Leah and to Rachel, and to the two handmaidens. He said,
if he kills one of you, maybe the rest will escape. But look
at verse 4. What a picture. Esau ran, ran
to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck. and kissed
him. And they went. What a relief! What a joy Jacob experienced! He saw his brother. He hadn't
seen him in fourteen long years. He runs to meet him. They'd been
at odds for fourteen years. Esau had been seething for 14
years, and Jacob had been fretting for 14 years. And now, Jacob
goes out, here comes Esau, Jacob's scared to death, and Esau runs.
That big, strong, burly man grabs him and falls on his neck and
kisses him. Oh, can you imagine how relieved
Jacob was? Can you imagine the joy of his
heart? Can you imagine how delighted and relieved Esau was? And Jacob,
he'd been all this time scared to death of me. And now, we are completely united
and reconciled. Oh, that's wonderful. But I want
to tell you something more wonderful. I read in the book of God of
another man, another man who's got one who's
treated him as his enemy, his own son. And now his son
is destitute and poverty stricken. And he said, I'm going to go
to my father's house. It might be he'll make me as
one of his hired servants. I don't have any choice. I want
to die if I don't go back. And he goes to his father's house.
And when he did, His father saw him when he was yet a great way
off, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And that man represents to us
God our Father, receiving his prodigal sons, lost and ruined
by their own deeds, returned to him by his mighty grace. When Jacob obtained Esau's forgiveness,
a great breach was healed. Esau forgave everything. He forgave everything. And Jacob and Esau were reconciled. under the terrifying sins of
God's holy wrath. And I was scared to death of
God. I was scared to death of God, and had every reason to
be, because I sinned against Him with every breath. Until the Lord God, by the sweet
constraint of His grace, calls me to come to His Son. And believing on His Son, now
this is going to be hard for you to get hold of unless you've
experienced it. Believing on His Son, there is now no breach between
me and God. Did you get that? God Almighty
has no cause to be angry with me. And blessed be His name, I'm
no longer angry with Him. In Christ, we are one. And the Lord God gave Jacob this
new name. He said, what's your name? My
name's Jacob. Not anymore, it's not. From now,
you're going to be called Israel. Now listen carefully. Jacob continued
to call himself Jacob. Other people continued to call
him Jacob. But God calls him Israel. A prince with God. A prince with
God. One who prevails with God. One
who has favor with God. and prevailing with God, and
having favor with God, then you prevail over all your foes, and
all things will bring you good favor." All things. Jacob's life
was never the same. He had seen God face to face,
and the Lord God made him a prince. And then Jacob obtained A fresh
anointing from the Lord. As I said before, I don't know
when God first made himself known to Jacob. I don't know when he
first believed God. But here Jacob has a fuller revelation
of God's grace. A fresh word from God. And he
was from this day a better man because of God's blessing. So
great an impact did this event have on Jacob? That when he was
dying, he referred to it. Listen to what he said, you can
read it later in Genesis 48. The angel of the Lord redeemed me
from all evil. Even the God which fed me all
my life, all my life long unto this day. Those are the blessings
with which Jacob was blessed. But what was the place of blessing?
Let me give it to you just briefly. Look at verses 6 and 7 of Genesis
32. Jacob was blessed in a place
of great, great trial. The messengers returned to Jacob
saying, we came to thy brother Esau and also he cometh to meet
thee and 400 men with him. And then Jacob was greatly afraid
and distressed. God had promised him that he'd
be with him, hadn't he? God had promised him that he'd
never leave him nor forsake him, hadn't he? God had promised him
that he would keep him wherever he went, hadn't he? But here
comes Esau. And Jacob is afraid and sorely
distressed. Now, when I was 20 years old,
I'd have read that and thought, shameful thing for Jacob, and
it is. But now I read that, and I think,
what a shameful thing. Oh, Brother Jacob, I'm so much
like you. I have God's Word, the experience
of His grace, His promise, His goodness, His power, things I've
tasted and experienced all the days of my life. And when trouble
comes, I'm so easily sore, afraid, and distressed. But the fact is, the time of
trial is the time when God makes us to know our utter weakness. And in the time of trial, in
our weakness, causes us to look to Christ our Redeemer for all
our strength and all our hope and all our righteousness, not
only for eternity, but for the present time as well. For God's
saints, every time of trial is a blessing in disguise. Every
trial is the forerunner of a blessing. Cowper had it right. Ye fearful
saints, fresh courage take. The clouds you so much dread
are big with mercy and shall break in blessing on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his
grace. Behind the frowning providence, he hides a smiling face. His
purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. It may have a bitter taste, but
sweet will be the flower. Jacob's blessing was in a place
in which God the Savior revealed himself to him. And when Christ
was revealed to him, Jacob was broken and subdued. When the Lord Jesus comes in
the saving operations of His power, He comes to break you,
to subdue you, to conquer you. And He keeps on breaking us,
and subduing us, and conquering us. When Christ is revealed as our
crucified, glorified Savior and Lord. He makes us to know something
of our own hearts and breaks us, confessing our sin, confessing
what we are. Causes us to bow to Him. Conquers us. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, that you would not
leave me to myself, but you graciously conquered this stubborn rebel. The place of blessing was a place
where Jacob had the Lord Jesus revealed to him, and he was conquered
by his grace. It's a place of divine revelation. Ask him after his name. The Lord
said, why do you ask after my name? But he called that place
Pineal, for he said, I've seen God face to face. The place of blessing is the place of conscious weakness. Paul said, when I'm weak, then
I'm strong. And God Almighty graciously grants
us His blessing when He makes us to know our utter inability,
our utter weakness, our utter nothingness before Him. Not otherwise. Not otherwise. The place of blessing
is the place where Christ is. You see, God blessed us with
all spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ before the world
began, back yonder in eternity, in covenant mercy. We sang about
it earlier. And God has blessed us and continually
blesses us with all things in Christ, only in Christ. The blessings of God are in Christ. All things are yours for ye are
Christ and Christ is God's. He comes and brings trials, difficulties to make us look
to Christ and to bless us anew in Christ. He comes and brings
heartache, trouble, to make us look to Christ, to cast us down,
to cause us to know our nothingness, and graciously force us to cling
to Christ. How I thank God that He won't leave us to ourselves,
don't you? He graciously forces us to cling
to Christ. Some folks he leaves, lets them have what they think
they want. He left Esau, left him with a pocket full of money,
left him with a house full of children. left him with wives
and cattle, power and influence. He had it all. And Esau said,
Jacob, I don't want what you've got. I have enough. See what I've got. I have enough. And Jacob looked at all that
he had. Rachel and Leah and his sons and his daughters and his
cattle and his wealth and his power and his influence. He looked
at all that stuff that Esau looked at and Esau said, this is enough!
And Jacob said that ain't enough. And he looked to God who blessed
him. And he said to Esau, I have enough. Christ is enough. Christ is enough. One day nearly 38 years ago,
as a young man full of guilt and sin and fear, I heard the
Savior come to me, and I'll give you rest. And I came to Him,
and He gave me rest, and He blessed me there. Soon after that, I
heard my master say, why tarryst thou? Rise and be baptized. And
I obeyed his voice and baptized. And he blessed me there. A little
while later, he thrust me into the ministry. I preached here
and there, trembling, fearful, incapable. There wasn't any man I knew less
fit to preach to anybody. But he put me in the work. I've
been doing it a while now. I'll tell you something. He blessed me there. He blessed
me there. Soon he gave me this dear lady.
Gave us a daughter. Then he gave us a son. It was
a son-in-law and those two grandchildren. And he blessed me there. He's
blessed my going out and my coming in, my rising up and my lying
down. He's blessed me in the field
and in the city. He's blessed me before my enemies.
And I've watched him cause those enemies who came at me one way
to flee seven ways. He blessed me there. And I have,
over the years, met with a few difficulties, a few hardships. But I can truthfully say, in them all, and with them all,
and by them all, he blessed me there. This has been the experience
of my life from the day that God called me to this hour, uphill
and down on the mountaintop and in the valley, walking in the
peaceful sunshine and walking through the valley of the shadow
of death and joy and sorrow and sickness and health throughout
my pilgrimage here. Every step of the way. all the way. He blessed me there. And my conclusion is, surely
goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. And when God gets done, I'll
dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen.