Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Genesis 32:25 “The Touch of God that Hurts and Heals”


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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