OUTLINE: Genesis
32:22-32
1.
32:22-24 Wrestling with God
2. 32:25 The Touch of God that Hurts and Heals (Today's Focus Text)
3.
32:
26-28 Winning by Losing
4.
32:29-32 Reaching the Place of Blessing
Last time we focused upon the wrestling of Jacob with God,
and the loneliness of Jacob’s experience in that wrestling. Our exposition
focuses on those times when God
wrestles us into submission. I
believe that this experience relates uniquely to God’s covenant people, and
this experience relates to the reality of remaining sin in God's people.
Although God’s people
have been cleansed from the power of original sin, and are justified through Christ’s death, they will still have to face
the sin of the world, the flesh
and the devil. They are not slaves to these, but they have to fight these on a continuous basis with the help of God. God, because He is our Father, and because He loves His
children, continues to deliver His children from the presence of sin. Although these times are not happy experiences
in themselves (in fact, they can be very painful, since sin has deep tentacles),
we saw that when God is behind these trials (e.g. James 1:2-4; Hebr. 12:3-11), they will ultimately always serve to
strengthen us. These times will ultimately increase our joy, as freedom
is increasingly experienced from the slavery of
remaining sin. Truly, God hurts in order to heal.
We saw that the angel of the LORD met Jacob at the Jabbok
river[1].
It was there, that God allowed Jacob to wrestle with Him through the night and until day break.
We will now consider that process – that Job like
experience, the wrestling and the touch
of God, which hurt
Jacob and healed him at the same time.
24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the
breaking of the day. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob,
he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled
with him.
We will consider this experience by means of asking three
questions
1. Why did this have to happen?
2. What did actually happen?
3. How did this experience change Jacob? (Six Lessons)
1. Why did this
wrestling have to happen?
a. This had to happen,
because Jacob was chosen by God (25:23).
He was chosen, even though he was an imperfect human being. To that end the Divine
Potter will shape this unruly, sin infected chosen lump of clay for His own
purposes and for His own glory. This
experience is described here in terms of wrestling. Whatever the nature of that
wrestling is, we cannot say. In context, it would probably be the fear of the
unknown, as Jacob must settle back into the promised land, with so many great
responsibilities, and also as covenant head, a time when his name will be changed to Israel ( He strives with
God). God allows Jacob to strongly engage him. The pain is Jacob’s – not God’s.
He will have the limp at the end of the day.
He needs to be humbled. He is chosen to be conformed to God’s will.
b. This had to happen,
because Jacob was also a son of Adam – a sinner. We have seen earlier that Jacob was an accomplished
sinner. He was a schemer and deceiver. Jacob was as yet an unfinished product
in the hands of God. Jacob was work in
progress. This is true of all true
believers, redeemed from Adam’s curse. And,
the more responsibility God has for His chosen vessel, the greater will have to be
the chastening and disciplining process. We know that God has a great work to do for Jacob(see
God’s choice of Paul as an apostle , and the suffering
that goes with that. Acts 9:15,16)
In this process God appears
to Jacob as an enemy. What? Surely God is not an enemy of His chosen
vessel? The Bible declares that He is our friend! He is for us. Yes, that is
true, but remember that God is no friend of the remaining sin in His people. For this reason He will purify us. He will
struggle with us until we abandon self – will, self -reliance and follow Him,
meekly like a lamb - like a broken horse. Ultimately we must learn what the
apostle Paul learned. We are weak people
in the hands of a mighty God. Paul learned that
“God’s grace is sufficient for me,
for God’s power is made perfect in weakness… for when I am weak then I am
strong.” (2 Cor. 12:8-10).
God is teaching us through
wrestling lessons of humility, obedience and trust. These don’t come naturally to us. Wrestling is a very good analogy of the nature of spiritual life. The Christian wrestles in many fronts. We
wrestle with the powers of darkness (Eph.
6:10ff) because they are contrary to the life of God in us. But we also wrestle with God, because our
remaining sin is contrary to His nature in us.
We need to learn to distinguish between the two. The outcomes are vastly
different. When we wrestle with God, He
hurts to heal us. When we wrestle with the flesh, the world and the devil, we
struggle to escape the hurt that will destroy us. Pray that you will have the ability to see
in your own wrestlings what is happening. When God is at work, embrace your sufferings.
When Satan is at work, resist him and the sin
by which he seeks to entangle you, and he will flee from you.
In this case we have Jacob who
needed to be purified from remaining sin and assured
that God was with him in this
journey… this is seen in v.26. “I will not let you go unless you bless me”.
2. What did actually happen?
a. God confronts Jacob
at the river Jabbok. God
confronted him on the eve of a new phase in his life, for which Jacob
needed to be prepared.
b. Jacob initially felt
that it was a man that wrestled
with him.
Initially it was not apparent to Jacob that it was God. This wrestling is happening in Jacob’s mind and soul. You can relate to this. You sometimes have battles in which you
struggle with someone in your
mind – sometimes even
to the point of exhaustion. Sometimes
these struggles even may keep
us awake all night! What you
may not always appreciate is that
this battle that you are having in your
mind is not actually with a person, but with God! Jacob’s antagonist had not revealed himself as an angel. In
Jacob’s mind this is a man, and Jacob
engages the man in his mind as an enemy.
It must have had to do
with what was lying ahead for Jacob. In Jacob’s mind he was
perhaps thinking of his estranged brother Esau. Esau was a powerful, fearful figure
in Jacob’s mind. 20 years earlier
he had to flee from him for his life, hiding in the home of his uncle Laban, for
Esau had threatened to kill him (27:41). What is clear is that Jacob has an antagonist
before him. He wrestles tenaciously with
this man of mystery in the dark. They
appear to have been evenly matched until,
at daybreak, the man simply touched his hip sockets, and the battle was instantly
over! The Hebrew language apparently employs
a mild term for this touch – like
the touch of Isa
6:7, where the angel touched
Isaiah’s lips with a live coal. A light touch, not a heavy, crushing
blow – and it was over!
c. The turning point!
It is only now in v.25 that
Jacob discovered that this man had supernatural powers, when at the mere touch
of his hip-joint he became disabled.
This experience of pain changes everything.
Truly, “pain is God’s megaphone to
get the attention of a deaf world” [2]
(C.S. Lewis). Until this moment he was fighting and he was not giving an
inch the whole night. Now that his hip
is painfully out of joint, he is
physically incapacitated. He cannot wrestle any longer, but what he does
now is that he clings to the man, and
in v.26 (at daybreak) the man says to him “let me
go!” Jacob refuses to let him go,"I
will not let you go unless you bless me“. This is the turning point in which
something dies in Jacob. He is humbled. He now knows that he is in the
presence of a greater, for he now seeks His blessing. His self-confidence and
self- reliance has taken a knock. He now appeals for grace, “I will
not let you go unless you bless me.“ He is now in the place of someone who
needs help and assistance. He was left disabled. God had touched him ever so gently in a
vulnerable spot, and left him incapacitated. Thank God that He deals so firmly
and yet so gently with us!
3. Six LESSONS on how this experience changed
Jacob
a. Jacob learned that
God was patiently powerful. God allowed Jacob
to wrestle him to the point of
annoyance , and then by a simple touch , God put him out of action and showed
him that he was actually
weak, and vulnerable and
dependent.
b. Jacob learned that he
was going to have to enter Esau’s land
as a weak, vulnerable man,
dependent on God.
God did not need him as a helping hand.
God was more than able to sort out Esau, just as He was able to sort out Moses’ Egyptians and Joshua’s Canaanites
and David’s Philistines and all of Israel’s enemies. God did
not Peter’s sword to protect Christ from the enemies who put Him to death. God’s power was greater than death. God did not need a strong Jacob. He needed a
humble Jacob, who would listen, for God had already decreed Jacob’s
future: “The plans of the Lord
stand firm forever, the purposes of His heart through all generations.” (Ps.
33:11). We all need to learn that
natural ability will not win
spiritual battles. Paul says, “the weapons of our warfare are not of the
flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. (2 Cor. 10:4).
c. Jacob learned that God was a more formidable opponent than Esau.
Away with the fear of man. Fear God only!
d. Jacob learned that
God is tough and tender. God is unyielding when it comes to His own truth
and purpose. He will not change His plan to accommodate us; but He is
graciously tender in touching (even with pain) without destroying us. He is utterly committed
to take sin out of our lives. God has
sometimes taken our plans and put them
out of joint in ways we had never expected. Jacob had never thought that he would be away for 20 years. He had anticipated a short while.
But in all things God works out everything for the good of those that love Him and who
are called according to His purpose (Rom.
8:28).
e. Jacob learned that to wrestle, when crippled, is not easy. When the truth of God’s Word
eventually wrestles us to the ground, it cripples us. It takes away our false
pillars, false securities, pretence
and our sense of self reliance upon which we tend to want to build our lives. Cripples have to
live by grace through faith
alone. Cripples are dependent people.
They need someone to help them. If you
are blind you need someone to lead you.
If you are lame you need someone to carry you.
When God puts your life out of joint, then you are finally brought
to the place where He can carry you, He whose power is without limit, whose mercy is
without equal, whose grace is
always sufficient, whose love towards
His people is deep and unquenchable.
f. We learn
that there is pain when God puts our lives out of joint.
As CS Lewis
wrote in his book “The problem of Pain” (p.81), “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in
our conscience, but shouts in our pains : it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf
world.” All must hear this, but
younger people, in particular, must listen now. Your pride, your feelings of
being invincible, your prejudices, your plans for your life…. If you are God’s man or woman, then expect Him at times to take these plans and
put them out of joint. That can be painful.
Don’t think that this is the devil spoiling your
future. You are not in the hands of an
almighty devil. You are in the hands of an almighty God, who is committed to
making you more like Jesus. He is committed to produce in you fruit that will
last. He will spur you on to love, humility, obedient service, and prayer until
you begin to understand that the life worth living is lived from dependence
upon Him alone. It is to Him that you
must learn to cling, like Jacob, and pray, “I
will not let you go unless you bless
me.” We look for the touch that hurts and heals, because we know that this is the hand of God, and it is good.
[1] Jabbok means wrestling – note the symbolism
of the place names associated with Jacob’s journey cf. also
Mahanaim Gen. 32:2
[2]
C.S. Lewis: The Problem of Pain
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