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. 

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[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

Genesis 32:1-21 “Between Fear and Faith”

The struggle between faith and fear is a very real battle for Christians and even seasoned Christians. God however never intended us to set up camp in the middle of the two.

In   Genesis chapters 27&28 we had found Jacob fleeing from his brother Esau, who had threatened to kill him (Gen.27:41). 

In Chapter 28 on his way to his mother’s brother, Laban, Jacob met the LORD in a life changing way. Nobody encounters God and is not changed!  Jacob would later call the place of encounter “Bethel” (house of God), for he said, “Surely  the  LORD  is in this place… How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (Gen. 28:16,17).  God had become real to him, and in Genesis 28:20 -22 we find true words of commitment. He is a changed man.

Chapters 29 – 31  are the record  of Jacob serving  under his deceptive uncle  Laban, and here  he thoroughly  learns  that you will reap what you have sown. Their relationship becomes unbearable, and by God’s command (31:3) he prepares to return to his father, Isaac and  the place of covenant promise. He leaves with a large family, servants and large flocks of animals.

In Genesis 32 we find him nearing the land of his father (where his brother Esau also   lived). Two  things  dominated his thinking:  

(i) He greatly feared his brother Esau’s response (see 32:7,11). 

(ii)  He desperately wanted to appease his brother, for he knew that he had dealt deceitfully with him (see 32:20). 

So then, in Jacob we find a man who is possessed by great fears. He lies awake night after night as he tries to figure out the way forward.   Have you been there?  At  such times our God tends to be small and our enemy  tends to be  big.

Thankfully  the God of the covenant is always  one step ahead of His fearful servants. As we now  come to the 32^nd chapter we note that the God who had met with him at Bethel, and who had previously made great promises  to him  (see Gen. 28:13-15; 31:13)  is one step ahead of him.  

Let’s see  now how  Jacob’s life is lived  between  fear  and  faith.

1. Jacob’s protection (32:1-2):  “Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. 2 And when Jacob saw them he said, “This is God's camp!” So he called the name of that place Mahanaim.” (Mahanaim means, ‘two camps’).

Here is a remarkable illustration of God’s wonderful, faith strengthening care for his chosen man ashe moves into the proverbial lion’s den. Jacob is fearful, but thankfully  the  God  of Jacob had  already anticipated  that  fear and had sent His angels (i.e. His ministering spirits cf. Hebr.1:14)  to meet him.  When Jacob saw the angels, he called this place  Mahanaim  (two camps)  -  i.e.  the angel’s camp  (The sense is given  in Ps.  34:7 - The angel of the Lord encamps  around those who fear Him and he delivers them)  and  his own camp.  Jacob, by divine grace was enabled to see something which Elisha’s fearful servant, Gehazi,   was enabled to see in 2 Kings 6:16-17. He was helped to see that the angels of God around them were more than the army of Syria.

So, being given the ability  to see these angels  on his way to a fearful destiny would have strengthened Jacob’s faith, and he would have  known that  that God was indeed with him in this journey back to the promised land.

2. Jacob’s plans (32:3-8): 3 And Jacob sent   messengers before him to Esau his brother in the land of Seir, the country of Edom, 4 instructing them, “Thus you shall say to my lord Esau: Thus says your servant Jacob, ‘I have sojourned with Laban and stayed until now. 5 I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male servants, and female servants. I have sent to tell my lord, in order that I may find favor in your sight.’”6 And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him.” 7 Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. He divided the people who were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two camps, 8 thinking, “If Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it, then the camp that is left will escape”.

Jacob just had a wonderful faith strengthening  encounter with God, and yet  he returns   to  his own scheming in terms of how he should deal with his brother. While Jacob prepares the gift (appeasement) for Esau,  even while he knows that the angels of the LORD encamp around him,  one  can sense his fearful anticipation of this event.  In the message to Esau he  submits to his brother  Esau as his ‘lord’ (32:4- Hebr. “adonai”). And you say,  “Wait a minute!  Was Jacob not appointed by God to  be the ‘lord’ of this land?”   And the answer is, he is the lord of the land, but remember  that Jacob did violate  a biblical principle!  He cheated his brother. He took shortcuts  in getting the birthright and the promise of the firstborn.  Yes, God did appoint  him  to be the lord of the land, but he was to  get there not by wangling and by scheming. He was to do this trusting in God’s work and in God’s timing every step of the way.  

And so, because he has gone about this the wrong way he is now making some very foolish decisions  which are motivated  by  fear! That is what sin does. The essence of sin is self-reliance –not God reliance. Sinful anxiety  makes  Jacob  forget   his    heavenly  protection and inheritance, so that he now begins to cower  before the   intimidating  presence  of  Esau.  When  Jacob  hears that  Esau  comes  to meet  him with 400 men, as  we read  in 32:7, “… Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed”.

And now the  vivid  and real dream of the ladder to heaven  and  the promises of God and Bethel were forgotten. The camp of angels around him was forgotten.

Do we never learn?   Our faith so easily gives way to fear. The thought of 400 men coming to meet him shakes Jacob.  His confidence  in God is quickly diminished. Sin and fear cause us to loose heavenly perspective very quickly. Paul has to remind fearful  and timid Timothy  that  God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and love and self- discipline ( 2 Tim 1:7)  

So,  in rationalizing his fear,  Jacob divides  his  group into two camps (Mahanaim) – but  note (!) the  camp of angels don’t feature  here now! 

In  32:2  Jacob had  two camps,  his little one  and God’s great one.  But now in  32:7  he only sees  his little camp,  which now, on account of fear,   he divides  into two camps!

This always happens when we trust in our own resources.  When we become fearful we become inwardly divided and we  become actually become weaker. The fear of man lays a snare,   but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe. (Prov. 29:25).   The fear of man becomes a great snare, for this fear becomes greater than the fear of the LORD.

Jacob recognizes his weakness relative to Esau, but he is not taking stock of his weakness before God!   The  fear of man makes him forget  the principle  of which the apostle Paul had also  had reminded the Corinthians, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness…. When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor.  12:9,10)

And now, from  fear back to faith …

3. Jacob’s Prayer (32:9-12):  9 And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ 10 I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. 11 Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. 12 But you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’”

This is Jacob’s prayer. Thank God for the gift of prayer  by which we may present  all our requests to God. It is the true believers  instinct. When the Christian is in trouble he prays. It is his native air. 

Here we see a biblical form of prayer  in which we find:

(i)    A reverent approach (32:9): O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me … An appeal to the covenant keeping God , in whom alone can be our trust and hope.

(ii) A humble approach (32:10): I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant.

(iii) A  direct request (32:11):  Please deliver me.  The Psalms are full of such cries. No long words are needed. God is not deaf.

(iv)  An appeal to God’s promise/ covenant (32:12): Standing on the promises … Showing God His own handwriting.  

Note the vacillation between fear and faith.  In this prayer, Jacob is filled with faith, and the content of his prayer is truly wonderful and instructive. The confidence of such a prayer lies in the fact that God is true and faithful to all His promises. Such prayer does not fail, and we shall see that it does not fail here!

4. Jacob’s present:  32 :13-21   13 So he stayed there that night, and from what he had with him he took a present for his brother Esau, 14 two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, 15 thirty milking camels and their calves, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. 16 These he handed over to his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants, “Pass on ahead of me and put a space between drove and drove.” 17 He instructed the first, “When Esau my brother meets you and asks you, ‘To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And whose are these ahead of you?’ 18 then you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a present sent to my lord Esau. And moreover, he is behind us.’” 19 He likewise instructed the second and the third and all who followed the droves, “You shall say the same thing to Esau when you find him, 20 and you shall say, ‘Moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us.’” For he thought, “I may appease him  with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.”  21 So the present passed on ahead of him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp.

Again, let me remind you, that  two thoughts dominate  Jacob’s mind:

(i)               He wants to right  the wrong that he has done  to Esau. 

(ii)             He is not sure that Esau will accept this .

Notice how again he moves from prayer back to his  scheming. George Mueller of Bristol was once asked what the most important part about prayer was. He said, ”The 15 minutes after I have said, “Amen” . How easy it is to come from prayer (faith) back to fear.  15 minutes after  we have prayed we must leave our  Esau’s to God  and not  return to  our plans to bribe our way out of  a difficult  position. 

The  camp of angels  around him must have   begun to wonder whether  he would have  any need of their protection  after all, since he was doing so well  scheming his way through this trial, and so we ask, was this the man who had just uttered this wonderful prayer of faith? Was this the man who had stood on the covenant promises?  Was this the man who had reminded God that he was acting under divine orders?

Next time we will consider 32:22-32 (Jacob wrestling with God). In preparation  for this portion  I remind you that,  where there is no faith there is little sleep – but thank God  that  Jacob is ultimately  in the  hands of a great God, and in our next portion God  will  continue to   shape  Jacob into  a man after His own heart. 

Conclusion and application:

(i)       We were reminded that the presence  of the God of Jacob behind and before   is  also our   guarantee to persevering in  our  trials of life.

(ii)     We have seen  that   our life is so often  a curious mixture  of  faith and fear.

(iii)   We have seen  that reverent, humble, direct  prayer, based on  our confidence in  a covenant  keeping  God strengthens our faith, not by removing all danger and pressure, but by sustaining us through  our trials.

(iv)   We  have seen  that  our best efforts  in trusting God entirely come  short. Faith alternating with fear. This is also typical of our spiritual experience. How thankful we must be then that we are being kept by the grace of God. He is the God of our Exodus from this world into the next. In that process God is indeed the God who is behind us and the God who goes before us. 

Next  time  we shall  see how in that  process,   through it all,  God systematically  conquers us.

Genesis 32:22-24 - "Wrestling with God"

The next 4 sermons  in  our  exposition of  the book of Genesis will  focus on Genesis 32:22-32. Our focus will be  on the God who will not leave  His  chosen   children alone in their sin. He will wrestle them down  and   then He will restore them, and they will be conformed to His will.  

OUTLINE

1.     32:22-24   Wrestling with God

2.     32:25          The  Touch of God that Hurts  and Heals

3.     32: 26-28    Winning by Losing

4.     32:29-32    Reaching the Place of Blessing

1. WRESTLING WITH GOD (32:22-24) 

Jacob, after he has served his uncle Laban for 20 years in a self- imposed exile (motivated by fear for his brother, Esau) is now on his way back to the land that God had promised him and his descendants on oath.  God had sovereignly chosen Jacob to be the covenantal head of the chosen seed, from which the Messiah – Jesus, would eventually be descended according to the flesh (Gen.25:23).   Against the background of this high calling  we stand amazed  to discover that   Jacob is such a poor reflection of his high and holy calling. His sinful deviousness  is the reason why he spends  20 years  in a land  of no promise, and no  spiritual blessing, and  under  the yoke of  his uncle Laban,  who is more than a match for him when it  comes to being deceitful. 

In fact, it almost seems that the plan of God is undone at the hand of the sin of man. But the God of the Bible surprises us time and again – and just at the right time. Human sinfulness and evil appears to be capable of undoing God’s work in the world.  But God!  The supreme illustration of this fact is seen on the cross. Just when Satan and his demonic and human agents thought that they had disposed of Jesus, God raised Him up from the dead.  So too it is in the book of Revelation, Chapter 11.  Just when the beast that rises from the bottomless pit thinks that he has disposed of the two witnesses (Gospel churches and gospel messengers), they rise from the dead, after 3 ½  days. Evil comes close, but it never ultimately triumphs.

And so, here too we were fearing the worst for Jacob, but God commands His angels concerning him (Psalm 91:11,12)[1].  We learn from the Bible that God allows human sinfulness to take its course and its  time and its toll, BUT it cannot  ultimately undo the plan and purpose of God. God is sovereign, and not man. In the end   God’s will be done and not man’s.

And so we saw  in  32:1  that  the angels   that ministered to him as he left the promised land  (Gen. 28:10-22),  meet  him again as he prepares to come back to the promised land.   Right now Jacob, now on his way back  to where God wants him to be, wavers between faith and fear,  as he prepares to meet with Esau.   God has more work to do in Jacob, for at this stage Jacob fears Esau more than God. Jacob needs to be conquered by God.

How God conquers Jacob

Our story begins with the crossing of the river Jabbok (32:22).  Jabbok in Hebrew means “wrestler“[2]. At this river Jacob sends everyone and everything ahead (32:23), and we read that “Jacob was left alone…”.  This proved to be a VERY significant time in Jacob’s life, for it is here that we are told, “that a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day”. This is all very amazing. Jacob wrestles (Hebr. abhaq ) at the  river Jabbok - the “wrestling river”.

The significance of this encounter is that Jacob was left alone in this wrestling. There are times when we must wrestle alone.  There are times when nobody can be with us, because God has a work to complete in us.  He is committed to complete the good work that He has begun in us (Phil.1:6). Before Jacob could enter the land, he needed to be thoroughly humbled and be made more useful for God’s purposes. In this Jacob needed to be alone.

What was the work that God needed to do in Jacob? And now remember that for 20 years, away from home, away from Esau, Jacob had suppressed his sinful past. During these 20 years (Chapters 28-32) we read of no spiritual progress in Jacob’s life. The only prosperity we read of, is material prosperity. We read of no spiritual progress in this head of the covenant family -no progress in his spiritual walk with God. To begin with, he was in the wrong place.  I wonder whether you can relate to this.  Perhaps you have run away from a situation, and you find yourself not at peace with God, or  with  your fellowman or yourself.  Somewhere along the  line you had said to yourself,  “if only I  can escape  from this or that situation  or  this  place  of oppression  ( insert ....town/city/country)   I can start again elsewhere.“  By escaping from such a situation   we thought that we may forget our situation or our broken relationships, our sin and we think that by running away we have escaped that situation and the sin.  For a while we may think that we are succeeding. We may even prosper materially, but deep down there is a restlessness. We know that we are not in the right place.   Sin is not just a theory or a doctrine. It is a stubborn fact!  And suddenly, something unexpected happens.  The God who has called you into a covenant relationship loves you too much to leave you as you are. He will not give you any rest until you have dealt with the matter.  He stirs the memory, and the undealt with sin is resurrected. It stares us in the face once more.   It insists on being dealt with, decisively.  We must learn this lesson well. Sin that is not dealt with in Christ, is never buried. It remains there below the surface, in a place called the conscience. Even an unbeliever like king Herod, who had John the Baptist killed, was not able to forget that he had that righteous man executed. His conscience troubled him. At one time he even thought that Jesus was John the Baptist resurrected (Matt. 14:2). Peter’s conscience  in denying Christ  was not dealt with until Christ had dealt  with him (John 21) . John’s  first letter in chapter 1 urges us to keep short accounts with sin.  Christian’s though they are forgiven, still have to deal with ongoing  sin in their lives.  Douglas Mc Millan reminds us  that  “there is only  one place  from which sin cannot be resurrected, and that is the grave to which  the Saviour took it , when he paid  its price upon the cross.” [3]  Have your sins and your guilt been buried with  Christ? The gospel says that when God forgives our sins in Christ, then He forgets them (Jer. 31:34 à Hebr.  8:12).  

Here on the border of the land to which Jacob was returning, his memory and his conscience were awakened, “…and Jacob was left alone.”   He found himself between God and his undealt sinful past. There is a sense of loneliness and isolation when you are locked in between with God and your sin. He was somewhere between God’s will and his own will, and he now had no friend to help him or to counsel him. He was now wrestling with God alone over his prideful sin and God was going to humble him.

Some of our most profound experiences in life are the times when we are all alone. We are alone in birth. We are alone in death. We are alone in all the great crisis experiences of our life.  Each one of us must one day stand alone, before the great judgement seat of Christ, where according to Romans 14:12, “each of us  will give an account of ourselves to God”.

When our sins catch up with  us  we can feel very alone. Depression and bi-polarism or schizophrenia may well  be the modern diagnosis. It’s a lonely experience, and you may even have this  sense of loneliness  now  as you sit in this congregation. The very symbolic place of wrestling (i.e. the river Jabbok) is a lonely place for Jacob, and there is no one  who can deal with this situation,but God. Thank God!  He is there in the lonely turmoil of our struggles. We are not alone after all. Let the wrestling begin!

Wrestling with God

For the Christian person this too is part of God’s grace in our lives.  Our lonely experiences in the dark night of the soul are known by God and God’s grace is sufficient for such dark times.  Douglas Mc Millan in his book ‘Wrestling with God’ speaks about the ‘isolation of grace’[4].  God is actually the cause of that isolation. Because He loves us too much to leave us as we are, He brings  us  to that place  because  of wrestling. He the God that will sanctify us through and through (1 Thess. 5:23). He disciplines those whom he loves (Hebr. 12:6).  He will bring  us  to the place where He can have our undivided attention! 

In a greater sense this isolating grace had been operative in Jacob  in a sovereign way even before birth (Rom. 9:18). Like Jeremiah (Jer. 1:5)  and Paul  (Gal. 1:15), and like every true believer  (Eph. 1:4) Jacob was set apart from birth for God’s purposes.  He was isolated by God’s grace, for God’s purposes, and God has a way of making this known time and again in a believer’s  life in terms of crisis  experiences. And so, on this night, Jacob found himself alone at the river Jabbok - and yet  he was not alone. He was alone with the God who had isolated him for a purpose. This is how the Scripture puts it in Genesis 32:24, “and Jacob was left alone.  And a man wrestled  with him until the breaking  of the day.”

From 32:30 (Peniel… for I have seen God face to face ) and also Hosea  12  we know that the man with whom he wrestled  was not just any man, but God Himself  in the form of a man. The prophet Hosea[5] uses this incident of Jacob’s life to describe the contemporary   deceitfulness of Israel against God in his day. There we read,

The Lord has an indictment against Judah and will punish Jacob according to his ways; he will repay him according to his deeds. In the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in his manhood he strove with God. He strove with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought his favour. He met God  at Bethel, and there God spoke with us…” (Hosea 12:2-4)

Hosea tells  us that   Jacob’s wrestling  with God  was in the form of prayer: “… he wept and  sought his favour…”.  This was soul agony. God was dealing with the depth of his sin, and Jacob was alternatively defending, and then repenting and letting go of his sin.

Please do not come to the conclusion that this was a wrestling match in which the outcome was 50/50, and where poor God was at times close to losing the wrestling match. No! This is figurative language, and this is what happened. The angel of the LORD came to Jacob. He dominates the scene; he dictates the pace; he directs this encounter   until the breaking of day. Jacob’s stubborn persistence needed to be broken, and God allowed him to wrestle himself to the point of exhaustion.  Horses, I understand need to be worked with to the point of exhaustion – and when they are broken in, they become useful for service.

Isn’t that true for us Christians as well?  Is not a part of the problem that we have dwelt too long in the country of Laban? Our lives there are not lived in conformity to God’s Word and will.  We have prospered in Laban’s land, with material goods, homes and families, but we have been soft on sin, our personal sin. We know in our hearts that we are not at home with God.  We need to be broken and healed by God.  Next week I would like to consider the touch of God which broke Jacob and at the same time healed him.

May our good, gracious, sovereign God bring us in these days to the wrestling river and cure us from our sinful, obstinate stubbornness- whatever that may be, and it may not be the same for everyone.  It has different dimensions and degrees for everyone! Thank God that He is committed to changing us for our good, even though in and off itself this may be a painful experience. Such pruning is designed to make us bear much fruit (John 15).  Thank God that the end product is spiritual freedom and liberty, and peace with God, as our hearts grow more and more attached to Jesus, and less to Laban’s world.

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[1] Cf.  Matthew 4:6  - the devil actually quotes this Psalm  to Jesus

[2] H.C. Leupoldt: Exposition of Genesis (Vol2) , p.874

[3][3] J. Douglas McMillan , Wrestling with God , Evangelical  Press of Wales , p.51

[4]J. Douglas McMillan , Wrestling with God , Evangelical  Press of Wales , p.54

[5] Hosea  has been called the death bed prophet of Israel, because he was the last to prophesy before the northern kingdom fell to Assyria in about 722BC.