October 1, 2004

Genesis 32

WRESTLING WITH GOD

We all face numerous crises over the course of our lives. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some are big and life-threatening. Others are small and irritating. Some come and go quickly. Others drag on and on. I suspect that everyone in this room has faced a crisis during this past week. Many of you have one hanging over your head even as I speak.

Where do we turn in a time of crisis? What do we do? Where do we go when the going gets tough and the seas of our lives get rough? Our response to crisis tells a great deal about our faith quotient. How we respond and where we turn for help in our times of need shows us where our true source of confidence lies.

Today, we are going to look at Jacob’s responses in a time of crisis. As we analyze his response, my hope is that we will be able to learn from his experience; that we will be able to assess our own faith quotient; and that what we learn will help us grow in faith.

We are looking at Genesis 32. The fascinating thing to me is that in the very opening words of this chapter, we find that God is preparing Jacob for the crisis. But first of all, what is the nature of the crisis that Jacob is about to face? If you recall the story, Jacob with his family and all of his possessions is returning to Canaan, to the land that God had promised to give to him and his descendants.

But who is he going to have to face when he arrives? His brother, Esau. Why is this problematic? Because the last contact or word that Jacob had about his brother was that he was planning to kill him. In his fury over being deceived and cheated out of his birthright and his blessing, Esau threatened to kill Jacob. As far as we know, no word of communication has passed between the two brothers since that time. So Jacob has no way of knowing what his brother’s current feelings are toward him. He can only assume there is still a state of hostility.

So we can feel for Jacob’s predicament. God himself can sense his fear and uncertainty and so God sends Jacob a wonderful message of reassurance. In 32:1 we read: And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.

Do you remember where Jacob saw the angels of God before? That’s right. At Bethel. In his dream, he saw a ladder between earth and heaven with angels going up and down on the ladder and God standing at the top. It was a very reassuring image of the fact that heaven and earth are linked, and that God messengers are coming and going to fulfill God’s purposes. He had that dream as he was leaving the promised land. Now, as he is about to re-enter it, the angels appear again. It is God’s way of saying to Jacob: “I am with you. I will protect you. See, here are my angels all around you.”

So, with this reassurance to bolster his confidence, Jacob proceeds on his journey. As he travels, he sends messengers on ahead to make contact with Esau and inform him of his return.

The messengers return with the word: “Your brother is coming to meet you, and he has 400 men with him.”

Does that sound like a crisis to you? Your brother, who, in your last communication with him, threatened to kill you, is coming to meet you with 400 men!

Where do we turn in a time of crisis?  Our response in a time of crisis reveals our faith quotient. It reveals our source of confidence. All of us as Christians know how we should answer the question. We should say: I turn to God in prayer. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that what we should do?

Well, I am glad to tell you that Jacob did that in his time of crisis. He went to God in prayer. And it is a wonderful prayer. In many ways, it is a model prayer. We’re going to look at his prayer in just a moment.

But I would like to point out that, while going to God in prayer in a crisis is the right thing to do, and does reveal a great deal about our faith quotient, there are two other critical points in any crisis that are even more revealing of our faith quotient.

The first is what we do before we pray! Look at Jacob. We read in 32:7-8: In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well. He thought, “If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape.”

Notice what Jacob does first. He panics. He is overcome by fear and distress. Then he divides his group into two, with the very weak hope and strategy that maybe half of them will survive. Now I must admit, I’m torn here. I’m torn between sympathizing with Jacob on the one hand and marveling at his faithlessness on the other. On the one hand, I’ve never been in his situation, with 400 men and an angry brother coming after me, so I don’t know how I would respond. But on the other hand, I’ve never seen the angels of God assembled around me either.

So, the first thing Jacob does in the crisis is to panic and then throw up a very weak, almost pathetic human strategy in the feeble hope that half of his people will be able to escape. Not exactly a high faith quotient.

What about us? How do we respond in a crisis? Specifically, what do we do before we pray? Is prayer our first response? Or is it our last response, when we’ve exhausted all other strategies? What does our pre-prayer response indicate about our faith quotient?

In the next few verses, though, Jacob, to his credit, does pray. And what a marvelous prayer it is. As I said, in many ways, it is a model prayer. Let’s look at it together.

Verse 9:O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, ‘Go back to your country and your relatives and I will make you prosper.”

He starts by addressing God specifically as the God of his grandfather Abraham, and the God of his father Isaac. He addresses him as Yahweh. He then reminds God of his instructions. “I’m here, God, because you told me to come back. I am doing this according to your command and your word.”

He then confesses his own unworthiness and remembers God’s gifts to him: Verse 10: I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two groups. Remembering God’s faithfulness and his past blessings is a great way to build our faith in prayer as well as give him thanks for his goodness. It’s also good to remember that all of God’s goodness to us is an expression of his grace and kindness. It isn’t something we have earned.

He then specifically calls on God to help in his time of crisis. Verse 11: Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children.

He then concludes by once again claiming the promise of God. Verse 12: But you have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea which cannot be counted.’

In other words, God, you promised to make me prosper and multiply my descendants. You can’t do that if we’re all dead. If you are going to keep the promises you made, you must protect us and keep us alive, and save us from Esau.

It’s a great way to pray. Call on the name of God. Confess your dependence on him in the past and in the present. Tell him what you need. And claim his promise. Study Jacob’s prayer. Use it as a model. Revise it to fit your situation and then pray it. Jacob knew how to pray. His prayer reveals a very good theoretical knowledge of prayer.

But I said before, that in addition to our actual prayer, there are two other points in a crisis that reveal our faith quotient. The first is what we do before we pray. The second is what we do after we pray. In fact, what we do when we get up from our knees may tell more about the level of our faith than what we say when we are on our knees.

Jacob got up from his prayer and he began to assemble a gift for his brother. Read Genesis 32:13-20a.

Now, not all commentaries agree on whether what Jacob did here was appropriate or not. Did his actions demonstrate a lack of faith, or was he simply being culturally wise and generous. Certainly at this point his actions are not immoral. These were his possessions. He had the right to give them as gifts if he chose. But I do believe that they demonstrate a lack of faith. I say that, based on what was going on in Jacob’s mind at the time. In this case, we don’t have to guess at his thought process. The narrator tells us specifically in the end of verse 20: For he thought, ‘I will pacify him with these gifts I am sending on ahead; later, when I see him perhaps he will receive me.’

Jacob prays for God’s protection and then immediately rises from prayer to implement his own human strategy, so that “I can pacify him and ­perhaps he will receive me.”

What we do when we rise from prayer may tell more about our faith quotient than the words we speak while we are on our knees. Do we leave the matter in God’s hands? Or do we immediately take it back into our own hands and start devising our own strategies again? The reality is that Jacob’s strategy was unnecessary. When Jacob and Esau finally meet in the next chapter, Esau’s attitude has completely changed. He welcomes Jacob with an embrace and a kiss, and says: “I don’t need your gifts!”

How often do we waste precious resources of time, energy and material things crafting our own solutions, when God has already solved the problem if we would but trust him?

This matter of faith quotient and response to crisis has brought us very close to the very heart of Jacob’s character and the revealing of the basic flaw in his character. A very clear pattern has been revealed. Let’s think it through together.

God would make a promise. I have chosen Jacob to inherit the blessing of the first born. I will provide for you and make you prosperous. I will give you many descendants. I will protect you.

Jacob desperately wanted the things, the blessings God promised. This is to his credit. This is the strong point in his character. This is where he differed from Esau. Esau despised the birthright and the blessings that came from God. Jacob desired them passionately.

Jacob’s character flaw was that he could not trust God to keep his promises without his help. He took advantage of Esau’s weakness to take the birthright and then deceived his father to steal the blessing. He couldn’t trust God to prosper him financially, so he relied on elaborate breeding schemes to enhance his chances. He didn’t trust God to protect his family from Laban so he fled secretly. And now, even after an eloquent prayer, he cannot trust God to protect his family from Esau without an elaborate scheme to pacify his brother. It all reflects the character trait revealed in his name: Jacob, the schemer, the deceiver, the heel-grabber.

And so, on this critical night, at the height of his personal crisis, God met Jacob to confront the basic flaw in his character. It is often so. It is in the crucible of a crisis that God meets us to purge, to cleanse, to purify, to bend, to mold us to his will.

The text reads simply: Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.

The account says that the struggle was long and intense. They wrestled together until daybreak, neither one able to overcome the other. If you have ever done any wrestling, you will have some sense of how exhausting it can be. In competitive wrestling bouts, the rounds are usually limited to 3 minutes at a time, and after two or three of them, the two wrestlers are frequently exhausted. There, in the darkness of the night, on the bare and dusty ground, Jacob wrestled with the mysterious man. Each was striving for advantage, seeking for the throw, the hold that would disable the other and end the bout. Neither was willing to concede or give quarter.

As the first traces of dawn began to etch the eastern sky, the man, whether by divine power of by clever wrestling strategy we do not know, reached down to Jacob’s hip, and it was wrenched out of joint. Waves of pain swept over Jacob. His mobility and agility was gone. His strength was at an end. But still he refused to concede. With the strength of desperation, he clung to the man with all the strength that was left in his arms.

‘Let me go,’ the stranger said, ‘for it is daybreak.’

We are given no clue as to when Jacob realized that his opponent was actually God in human form. But he knew it now. He replied: I will not let you go until you bless me.

The prophet Hosea, when referring to this event in Hosea 12:4 described it this way: He wept and begged for his favor.

What is your name? the man asked.

Jacob, he answered. Heel grabber, schemer, deceiver.

Now remember that the giving of a new name in Scripture is an event of huge significance. The man responded: Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.

I have wrestled with that sentence all week. It is not an easy one to unravel, and the commentaries do not agree. First of all there is the name itself. What is the etymology of the name Israel?

The KJV translates with the word “prince with God”. Recent scholarship indicates that this is based on the use of a wrong Hebrew root. The actual root in view is one that means “to persist, to exert one’s self, to persevere.”

This root is then attached to the syllable –el, for God. That leaves the next question. Does the name mean God struggles or contends, or does it mean the one who struggles with God?

I think in the explanation, we must choose the second interpretation: because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome. (v.28)

That brings us to the final question. Is this a complimentary name? Is struggling and contending with God and overcoming a good thing to do, or not?

Our interpretation of this name and this incident lies at the very heart of our understanding of the life of Jacob, and what it has to teach us.

Jacob had one very admirable character strength. It is one we should all emulate and pursue. That is, he passionately desired the blessing of God on his life. He wanted all that God would give of his blessing for this life and the next. I believe that is a good trait. I believe that is at the heart of this new name that God gave him. Israel, one who persists and perseveres with God.

But there is another part to this lesson. For all of his life, Jacob has insisted on pursuing the blessing of God with his own strength, with his own schemes, relying on his own intelligence and craftiness. This is symbolized in the long wrestling match, throughout the long, dark night. Until finally his hip is dislocated. His strength is now gone. He can wrestle no longer. And what does he do now? He clings to God and pleads for his blessing. His desire for the blessing of God remains undaunted, but his reliance upon human strength and scheming and strategy is now at an end.

And so the wrestling match ends. Jacob says: Tell me your name. I think what he is really asking is: Are you who I think you are? And the man responds: Why do you ask my name? You know who I am.

Then he blessed him. No human strategy, no scheming, no human strength left to give, just the glorious blessing of God upon his life.

Jacob named the place Peniel, which means the face of God. Because, as he said, I have seen God face to face. As the sun rose, Jacob crossed over the river to meet his brother. But he walked with a limp. It was a limp that would ever after remind him of his encounter, of the night he wrestled with God. The night he came to the end of his own strength. The night he realized that the blessings of God come not through human strategies and schemes, but through faith in the promises and provision of a gracious God.

Where do we turn in the crises of our lives? Is it to our own strategies and schemes and strength? Or do we, in our weakness, cling to God by faith and plead for his blessing? The New Testament says it so well: When I am weak, then I am strong. (I Corinthians 12:10)