Word of Salvation – Vol. 26 No. 16 – January 1981

 

Jacob’s Encounter With The God Of Grace

 

Sermon by Rev. F. L. Vanderbom on Genesis 32:3–32

Scripture Readings: 1John 3 & Gen.32:24-32

Psalter Hymnal: 37; 55:1,5, after Gospel 76:1,3,4; 450; 422:1,2,4,5

 

Most of us no doubt know some people who remind us a bit of Jacob. Perhaps you find yourself acting a little like Jacob from time to time. You see, Jacob would have been called “a hypocrite” today, and isn’t this what we sometimes hear Christian people called – “hypocrites”?

Jacob was born and brought up in what we might call a Christian family. Jacob’s parents were Isaac and Rebecca. They had claimed the promises of God’s covenant for their son, even though he had been born in a rather unusual way – with his hand clutching his twin brother’s foot. And this had been only the beginning of Jacob’s tricks. He had shown himself clever enough to trick his father into giving him the honours and privileges which were rightfully Esau’s. And then tricky Jacob had run away from home instead of facing the music. At Bethel, God had spoken to Jacob in a dream, and Jacob had promised to obey and serve the Lord from then on. But still the cunning and the trickery continued.

During the 14 years he lived with his uncle Laban, Jacob seems to have met someone he could not beat. Laban was even more corrupt and deceitful than Jacob, but Jacob also cheated his uncle. Now we meet Jacob on the way home. He would have to face his blind father whom he had so cruelly tricked. He would also have to meet his brother Esau again – Esau, who had been so terribly angry at Jacob’s scheming.

Our text shows us that it was just this difficult situation which the Lord took… – first: to test and humble Jacob – but also to bless Jacob.

We read (in verses 22-24): The same night Jacob arose and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. And Jacob was left alone.

It seems that Jacob made his plans well. He sent a gift on ahead to his angry brother. After the gift, he sent his young children and womenfolk on ahead, to move Esau to more tender feelings. He himself would meet Esau last of all, and he spent some time alone to prepare for the meeting. Was Jacob just working out what he would say? Or was he doing more than just that? We do not know. He knew that his situation was a difficult one. Perhaps even tricky Jacob realised that even when we are left alone we are not really alone. Perhaps Jacob just felt the need to be alone with his Lord. At last Jacob found himself in a situation where he was powerless with all his plans and tricks. Jacob was forced to recognize his weakness, and now he realised that only God could help him.

Some people go right through life without ever recognising this. Many of us live like covenant people; We may look as if we are Christians; we may act as if we are. We may even like Jacob at Bethel once have promised God our obedience. In actual fact, don’t most of us just continue to find our own way through life?

When it comes to the so called “hard facts” of business life, or when you are offered overtime, tax-free, in cash, or when you have to make those difficult decisions in your social life; then how do you come to make up your mind?

Don’t we often solve our problems with our own sinful wisdom, instead of with the wisdom which comes from a mind ruled by God’s spirit?

But on that night, Jacob the tricker, Jacob the hypocrite, was confronted by a Man. We read that “A man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day” (verse 24).

The text does not tell us any more about this Man. But Hosea (chs.6 & 7) tells us that this Man was the Angel of the Lord ― God Himself, in human form. God Himself fought with Jacob, and it was a hard struggle. The Hebrew word for “wrestled” implies that the dust really flew that night. It was a long, hard, tiring fight to the finish. God fought with Jacob, to make him see what a weakling he really was, despite his tricks and his schemes and his good Christian home. God fought with Jacob, to show Jacob what a fool he really was to keep trusting in his own cunning and wisdom.

God could easily have killed Jacob, in a show of His power. God could have killed Jacob because of his sin and double standards. What man can stand up to the Holy God and expect to live? But God only wanted to test Jacob. Some people think that they can run their lives their own way, and call on God for some extra help if they find that the going gets rough. God wanted Jacob to know that He is not just an emergency telephone number. If we ask God for things, we must be sincere and honest. It will not do to confess that we need God on Sunday, and to go through the week without Him. So God tests Jacob.

Is Jacob trying to “use” God’s power only because he is scared of Esau? Or is Jacob really a new man a person who has really come to see that “without God you can do nothing”?

Jacob had learnt a lesson. His prayer was a real prayer, not hypocritical. He did more than just press the panic button of prayer. He kept fighting with this Man, he wanted the Lord’s answer, he struggled on, until his strength had gone, and the dawn broke.

When God saw that Jacob was in earnest, we read that He touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh, and dislocated it. It was just a small reminder to Jacob of the real power of God, just a small reminder of that night. It was just a small reminder to Jacob that real prayer is wrestling, that the love and care of God are not automatic, that the Lord has no dealings with hypocrites.

When day broke, we read that the wrestling man wanted to leave (verse 26a). The Lord knew now that Jacob was a changed man, and that he had learnt a lesson, and that was enough. But Jacob had come to see that his opponent was no ordinary man. Jacob had often taken advantage of other people, but he realised that this Man had very much to offer. That was why Jacob refused to let the Man go until he received a blessing. Jacob had come to see that this struggle was not just another fight for his own advantage.

This struggle was for things which are far more basic. It was a struggle with the Lord God Himself. It meant recognizing his own past sins and his present weakness. This struggle had made him face the fact that running life in his own way was not good enough. And now that Jacob had faced up to these things, he felt that he needed to be sure of God’s care. If he decided to stop running his life his own way, he just had to know that the Lord would look after him.

So Jacob cried out in desperation, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me!” This is the second thing we should notice about this passage. The Lord does not only test and humble Jacob, the Lord of grace and mercy also blesses Jacob.

Notice how God blesses Jacob. First, He gives Jacob the Tricker a new name. In verse 27, we read that the Man asks Jacob, “What is your name?” Not that God did not know; God knows everything. God asked Jacob this just to remind him of his sinful past. “Jacob is my name, Lord. It means ‘he who takes someone else by the heel, someone who deceives, a tricker!”” And then the Lord gave his first blessing to Jacob. “Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with men and with God, and you have prevailed.” (Verse 28). “Israel” he who strives with God, and with men. Quite different from “Jacob” the tricker.

This new name will always remind Jacob of this night of struggling. It will remind him of repentance, his weakness, his need to depend on God for wisdom. It will remind him not just when he is in trouble, but it will remind him all the time.

Jacob was not given a permanently new name like Abraham was. Jacob would remain Jacob, the sinner, the weakling. But through the goodness and power of God, he would be at the same time “Israel” – the one who strives with God.

Just like Paul wrote many centuries later, in Romans 7: “I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members (= my body) another law at war with the law of my mind…… Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Unlike some Christian folk, God never promises us a total victory over the power of Satan on this side of the grave. Jacob would have to keep on struggling with God, but as long as he kept struggling, he had God’s promise that he would win. Jacob still seems to have had his doubts. Perhaps he wanted to be doubly sure that it was really God he had fought. Verse 29: “Then Jacob asked Him, “Tell me, I pray,your name.” The Lord now rebuked Jacob for his lack of trust. But at the same time,we see that the Lord gave Jacob a second blessing.

In the words of the text: “And there he blessed him”. This blessing includes the blessings of the Covenant. The Lord assured Jacob that the covenant He made with Abraham and Isaac was for Israel too. The God who had used Abraham and Isaac in His plan of salvation would also use Jacob. Jacob too would belong to the People of God, and the promise of a Saviour from sin was also for Jacob.

When God blessed Jacob, it also included a promise of strength and protection for that difficult meeting with Esau which lay ahead. God showed His mercy to Jacob. The Lord usually does this only when we become aware of what sort of people we really are before God: only as we confess our sins and our need of God. Only then does the Lord listen to us, accept us, and go with us.

God had faced Jacob with a very basic fact of life, and from now on, Jacob was a new man. A man with a bad limp, true, but this handicap would be to his long-term advantage. Jacob would not forget easily in future that a new man must live a new life. From now on, there would be the new nature – not just living side by side with the old, but fighting against the old.

Asking for forgiveness may never be something cheap, like an emergency phone call. The Jews thought that they could remember Jacob’s lesson by not eating “the sinew of the hip which is upon the hollow of the thigh” (verse 32).

History has shown us that this tradition in actual fact did not help the Jews much. There are people in the Reformed Churches who think of their baptism or their public profession of faith in that way. These things too can become a tradition, a sort of insurance, to make sure that God hears our prayers for help, should we ever get into trouble.

The Lord does hear prayer, but He wants them to be sincere, coming from a life that obeys Him, – a life that is not two-faced or hypocritical. If you trust God fully, you can be sure that He will look after you. That includes your business worries, your fears about being “left on the shelf”, your household budget and family finance problems. God did not let Jacob down, and Jacob found that there were situations in life which he could not manage alone.

Don’t live by your own schemes and that popular wisdom of the world. Before you set out in the morning, just take a moment to honour God as your Creator, and to remember that He has promised to keep you. Jesus is the only One who can give you real hope in life, because He is the only One who gives you Life.

Struggle and wrestle!

It is God alone who gives wisdom and happiness and courage for living, through the Holy Spirit of Jesus, Who said, “I have overcome the world”.

Amen.