Good evening. Genesis chapter 32 is what we're going to be looking at tonight, so turn in your Bibles there, page 36 in the Pew Bible, if you want to use that. We're gonna be looking at the first 21 verses of this chapter. Last time, it's been a couple of weeks, we looked at the ending of chapter 31, Jacob's freedom from Laban. Remember, Jacob now is on his way back to Canaan. So he was, we'll say more about this tonight, but he was living with Laban for many, many years. Now he's on his way back. from Haran to Canaan, and we'll look here at the first 21 verses. This is the beginning of Jacob's journey back to Canaan, where he anticipates meeting his brother Esau, whom he hasn't seen in many years. So Exodus, Exodus, Genesis 32, verses 1 to 21. Let's listen carefully to God's word together. So Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. When Jacob saw them, he said, this is God's camp. And he called the name of that place Mahanaim. Then Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau, his brother, in the land of Seir, the country of Edom. And he commanded them, saying, speak thus to my lord Esau. Thus your servant Jacob says, I have dwelt with Laban and stayed there until now. I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, and male and female servants, and I have sent to tell my Lord that I may find favor in your sight.' Then the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to your brother Esau, and he also is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him." So Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. And he divided the people that were with him and the flocks and herds and camels into two companies. And he said, if Esau comes to the one company and attacks it, then the other company which is left will escape. Then Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, return to your country and to your family and I will deal well with you. I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which you have shown your servant. For I crossed over this Jordan with my staff, and now I have become two companies. Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him lest he come and attack me and the mother with the children." For you said, I will surely treat you well and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude. So he lodged there that same night and took what came to his hand as a present for Esau, his brother. 200 female goats and 20 male goats, 200 ewes and 20 rams, 30 milk camels with their colts, 40 cows and 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys and 10 foals. Then he delivered them to the hand of his servants, every drove by itself and said to his servants, pass over before me and put some distance between successive droves. And he commanded the first one saying, when Esau my brother meets you and asks you saying, to whom do you belong and where are you going? Whose are these in front of you? Then you shall say, they are your servant Jacob's. It is a present sent to my Lord Esau and behold, he also is behind us. So he commanded the second, the third, and all who followed the drove saying, in this manner, you shall speak to Esau when you find him. And also say, behold, your servant Jacob is behind us. For he said, I will appease him with the present that goes before me. And afterward, I will see his face. Perhaps he will accept me. So the presence went on over before him, but he himself lodged that night in the camp. And we'll end the reading of God's word there at verse 21. Well, if there's anything that a man does not like to do, it is follow instructions. So if a man is driving somewhere, and I'm sure many of you men in this church can identify with this, and he realizes that perhaps he's missed his turn or that he actually doesn't know where he's going, one of the last things he'll do is pull over and ask for instructions or directions or get his phone out to get it. Same thing is true when it's time to build the Lego set with the kids or put a toy together. You know that in the box there are instructions, but what do you really want to do? You just want to open the box, and you kids I know can identify with this, rip open all the little bags and start putting things together, right? But instructions are actually a good thing. We need instruction. We need direction. It's good to follow these things in life. Otherwise, things will not turn out quite as they should. Tonight in our passage, it's another one of these passages that may leave you wondering, what does this have to do with me? How does this apply to my life? How is this a relevant subject? And yet what I want you to see is that God is giving you instructions here, and hopefully you can see this as you just look at the outline that's in your bulletin. And in particular, he's giving you instructions as to how you should deal with fear in your life. And so we're gonna see some similarities tonight, in other words, between what we talked about this morning and what we're looking at this evening. This is all in God's providence. This was not planned by me in any way, but we need to take these instructions to heart because Jacob's experience with fear is one that we all struggle with as well. It was one that Israel struggled with, and it's one that we struggle with as well. So as we look at these verses, this is what God wants us to learn from it, and that is when you are afraid, here are the three instructions from this passage, remember God's angels, cry out to God in prayer, take appropriate action. So when you are afraid, remember God's angels, cry out to God in prayer, and take appropriate action. So let's see first here that you will identify at times with Jacob in his fear. I've already mentioned this briefly a little bit, but just to help us remember where we are, Jacob has just spent 20 years in captivity with Laban, his father-in-law, and yet God came to him and said that he was now to leave. He was to go back to his homeland of Canaan. And so Jacob and his family, they fled away from Laban's house. They started their journey. But then we also saw that once Laban found out about this, Laban and his men chased after them, not wanting them to escape. And yet, by the grace of God, we saw this at the end of chapter 31 last time, Jacob and his family were finally given full freedom from Laban, their captor. And in our passage this evening, we read of the continuance of this journey back to the promised land. And if you look at verse three here in our text, you'll see that upon arriving at the border of Canaan, Jacob reached out to his brother Esau. Verse three, then Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau, his brother, in the land of Seir, the country of Edom. And the question that should bring into our minds then is, why is Jacob doing this? I think if you're like me, when I first read this passage and you start looking at it, if you don't have a map, you think, well, Jacob must, on his way back to Canaan, have to go through Esau's land. And knowing that Esau was upset with him, in fact, that's why Jacob left his homeland 20 years ago, because Esau was so upset with him, he realizes, I need to make sure things are okay with Esau in order for me to go through his land. But if you look at what we're told about Esau, where he is in the land of Seir, the country of Edom at the time, and if you would look at that on a map, which I'm sorry I don't have for you tonight, you would see Jacob did not have to go through Esau's land to get back to Canaan. In fact, where Esau was at the time was largely out of the way, far from where he was going. So that helps us understand then, I think, a lot of what is going on here and what was in Jacob's mind and what was the reason for him reaching out to his brother. And I think when you put all the pieces of the puzzle together, you see that Jacob had a spiritual reason for doing this. Now, what have we seen about Jacob in the past? Jacob was the trickster. Jacob was the man who took advantage of other people and was known for doing this. But if you remember, we've also seen Jacob has now come to be repentant of his sin. Jacob has come to know the Lord. Jacob has learned many sanctifying lessons. These are all the things we've seen just in the past three or four chapters. And so Jacob, I think now realizes he needs to make things right with his brother. He has done a lot of sin against his brother and now he wants there to be reconciliation. And I think we see that repentant spirit of his here in the words that he gave his messengers to speak when they would come to Esau. Verses four and five. And he commanded them, saying, Speak thus to my lord Esau. Thus your servant Jacob says, I have dwelt with Laban and stayed there until now. I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, and male and female servants, and I have sent to tell my lord that I may find favor in your sight." So we see here, Jacob is humble in his approach. He refers to Esau as Lord. He refers to himself as Esau's servant. In addition to that, he makes it known to Esau that he has many riches. And he's not bragging here about what he has, but rather he's revealing to Esau that he's able to make restitution for all of the things that he has taken from his brother in the past. And we see that through these things, Jacob's hope is that Esau's anger would be removed and that he would find favor in Esau's sight. But Jacob is still a little uncertain, isn't he? And so we see here he sent messengers to convey this rather than go himself because he's not sure, is Esau still upset about this? Is Esau going to come after me? Again, this is why Jacob left in the first place. Esau wanted to kill him. Esau was out to get him. And so Jacob is concerned, but here we see in verse six, he becomes even more concerned. Then the messengers returned to Jacob saying, we came to your brother Esau and he also is coming to meet you and 400 men are with him. One commentator said, you do not come to be reconciled with 400 men by your side. Something else was going on here. In fact, this was the size of a militia in those days. And so verse 7 tells us Jacob was greatly afraid. Jacob was distressed. Because in his mind, Esau's coming with 400 men. Esau's not coming to be reconciled to his brother. Esau's coming in his anger and is still greatly upset with his brother. And for the Israelites in Moses' day, I think they would have been able to identify with Jacob in this because again, they too were on their way to the promised land of Canaan when Moses first wrote the book of Genesis and they too were in a scary situation. They were in the wilderness where there were many trials, many temptations. And they had the knowledge that when they got to the promised land, there were going to be many antagonistic foes waiting for them. And you and I will also be able to identify with Jacob because we are now in the wilderness where we also have many of these frightening situations. When I was in college, I went on a mission trip to the Caucasus Mountains in Russia, which if you don't know where that is, that's in southern Russia, not far at all from the country of Iraq. And when I was there, this was a part of the country. It's not as you would think of most of Russia. It wasn't Russian Orthodox. It wasn't a bunch of white people primarily. But it was very Middle Eastern. It was predominantly Muslim. And there were not many Americans there. And by and large, that was not an issue at all. I didn't have any issues when I was there. Except for one day, I decided to go find a bookstore on the outskirts of the town. And I took the tram out there. And I was walking around and literally, I think, every single guy stopped what he was doing and just stared at me. And I'm by myself. And as I think about that, I wondered, okay, maybe it's just they're all thinking, wow, I've never seen a blond-haired, blue-eyed, you know, pale guy. You know, what is this creature and what is he doing here? That very well could have been it. But there seemed to be a lot more just by looking at how they were viewing me. That it seemed to me, at least the way I took it was, your people are not welcome in this part of our country. They knew, right? This always came out. They knew that I was not from there, and I certainly was not a Russian. And to be honest, it was one of the few times in my life where I was actually scared for my well-being. And I tried as quickly as I could to get back on that tram and out of that area. There may be times when you experience that same thing. You actually feel scared for yourself that something might happen to you. But it also, there are many other ways that we can fall into fear. There's always the fear of the unknown. What's the future going to hold for me? What's my life going to be like? How's my health going to do? It could also be the fear of losing something, fear of something bad happening. I'm sure you could fill in your own blanks yourself of all the many things that you struggle to fear. And this is, there are many things that we can be afraid of. And this is why the Bible, interestingly enough, one of the greatest commands, one of the most frequent commands it gives to us is to not be afraid. Because the Bible understands that this is the human condition. There are many reasons to be afraid. So here's Jacob, he's trying to do the right thing, but he's afraid. And we too will be able to experience what He experienced at that time. And so with that in mind, I want you to see secondly here on the outline that when you are afraid, one of the things God wants you to do is remember His angels. Remember His angels. Let's look back at the beginning of the passage, verses one and two. So Jacob went on his way and the angels of God met him. When Jacob saw them, he said, this is God's camp. And he called the name of that place Mahanaim. So Jacob here, he's traveling back to Canaan. He sees the angels of God. Moses says they met him on the way. And given that angels are normally invisible to the human eye, this means Jacob's eyes were opened to see the invisible. And that is for a moment, he is given the opportunity to see what we cannot see, which is the presence of God's angels all around us and all throughout the earth. And we're told here that when he saw these angels, most likely he beheld a multitude of them. Verse two tells us that when Jacob saw them, he said, this is God's camp. And that word camp is one that's often used to speak of an army of soldiers in a time of war. So more likely than not, Jacob did not just see one or two odd angels off by themselves, but rather saw a whole myriad of them, a legion of angels. And we may think, well, this would have been perplexing to Jacob. Jacob would have been blown away by this. But remember, this is not the first time Jacob has come across angels in his journeys. Remember, 20 years ago, when Jacob first left Canaan to go to Haran, he also had angels appear to him. Genesis 28, verses 10 to 12. Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran, so he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven, and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it." And we saw at that time that the vision was intended to show Jacob that though his brother wanted to kill him, this is when he was first running away from Esau 20 years ago, the angels of God were there with him and were there for him. This was God saying that God was going to keep his promise to protect Jacob and bring him back safely through the ministry of the angels. And so now that he's returning to Canaan, also having to face the anger of Esau, his brother, again, what is God reminding him of? The same thing. the angels are with you. And he did it for the same purpose that Jacob would know. God is with you, God is keeping his promises to you, and God is going to protect you and bring you back. J.G. Voss puts it like this, he says, the appearance of angels betokened the near presence and special protection and favor of God. And again, if you think of Israel's situation at the time when Moses wrote the book, this is exactly what they needed to hear. They were facing fearful situations, and yet God's angels were also with them, ministering to them. And so they are for us today, every moment of every day of our lives. Hebrews 1.14, speaking of angels says, are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation? Psalm 91, you may have noticed this when we sang it at the beginning of our service, verses 10 and 11. No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling, for he shall give his angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways. In fact, this is true for all of God's people, in all places, at all times. We talked about this a couple months ago, but just to give us a brief refresher, how many times have we seen angels in the book of Acts, for instance? Acts chapter five, it was an angel of the Lord who set the apostles free when they were locked in prison. Acts chapter 12, it was an angel of the Lord who took the chains off of Peter's hands and opened the doors to set him free from the prison. Even this morning, if you noticed it, Acts chapter 27, it was an angel of God who came to Paul on the ship and gave him the message of survival. The angels were told even ministered to Jesus in his times of distress. After being tempted in the wilderness, being without food for 40 days, it was the angels who came and ministered to Jesus, Matthew 4.11. Later, when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying in agony, knowing that the cross was coming his way, it was an angel of God who appeared to him from heaven and strengthened him to go to the cross, Luke 22.42, because that's what angels do. They minister to the people of God, especially in their times of distress, to give comfort, to give protection, to give strength. Now, of course, that doesn't mean we're gonna see the angels or that we're gonna have a vision of the angels, but what it means is that we need to behold the angels with the eyes of faith. When we're scared, it means we need to stop and remind ourselves of what God tells us, which is we don't see them, but they are here. Now, just think about that for a second. Look around, you don't see them, but they are here. And when you go home tonight, you won't see them. but they will be there, and they are always there with you. I don't know if you ever climbed on a rock wall before. I know some of you students have, but when you get towards the top of a rock wall, especially if it's a high rock wall, and you're like me, who is very scared of heights, it gets a little frightening when you get to the top. There's a measure of success. You feel like, all right, I finally made it, but you look down and you realize, I need to get down there as quickly as possible. And yet for me, and just the few times that I've done this in my life, the thing that has comforted me is knowing that I might be high up, and I might have the potential of falling, but I've got a harness on. And so really at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. If my hand slips, my foot slips, I'm okay. This thing's gonna hold me up. I'm not gonna fall down to the ground. And you need to remember, when you are scared, whatever the fear is, you've got a harness on, so to speak. You have the angels of God who have been charged to care for you. Alan Ross says believers can take comfort from the revelation that the angels of God are present. This is why God wanted Jacob to see the angels and wants us to know about the angels today. They are there to give us comfort. They are there ministering to us on God's behalf. So that's step one, when you're afraid, remember God's angels. Step two, this brings us to our third point, when you're afraid, cry out to God in prayer. Cry out to God. So we look again at the text. Knowing Esau's coming with his 400 men, what did Jacob do? He immediately prayed. V. 9, then Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, return to your country and to your family and I will deal well with you. I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which you have shown your servant. For I crossed over this Jordan with my staff, and now I have become two companies. Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, lest he come and attack me and the mother with the children. For you said, I will surely treat you well and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude. So this is actually one of the best prayers in all of the Bible, I think, because it is so instructive for us in how to pray. Alan Ross, a very helpful commentator on the book of Genesis, again says, in both form and content, this prayer makes a significant contribution to our study of prayers. And there are six things I want you to see from this prayer in particular. First, we see it was a prayer with a petition. Now that may go without saying, we all understand that a prayer should have a petition, but it is important to see. He says, deliver me from the hand of my brother. So as he thought about what scared him, he brought that to the Lord and asked for God to intervene, to rescue, to come and give him deliverance. And we may take that for granted, but we need to remember when we are scared, that's something we have to do. Bring the petition to the Lord. So what do you need? Deliverance, strength, comfort, protection? Ask God. Philippians 4.6, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Second, it was a specific prayer. Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau. So Jacob did not speak in generalities, he spoke in particulars. This is the one I want you to deliver me from. And that's also important for us to keep in mind. God wants us to be specific in our prayers. And as we study many of the prayers of the Bible, we see that they often are very specific. So what in particular do you need in your times of fear? Third, it was an earnest prayer. Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother. Oh God of my father Abraham. You get the sense here, Jacob is fervent, he is earnest, he's not just going through the motions, he is wholeheartedly engaged in the activity of prayer. I find this to be convicting. How cold and lazy can we be in our prayers at times? Simply just throwing up the words we know to say, but not fervently seeking God. We should pray with fervency, with sincerity, with passion for what we need in our times of fear. Fourth, we see it was an honest prayer. He says, for I fear Him. He's acknowledging to God, God, I am scared here. I am scared of what my brother is going to do. So in other words, Jacob's not pretending to be someone he's not. Jacob is an open book with God. And I think when we pray, there's always that temptation, if you're like me, to kind of clean ourselves up a little bit, make ourselves look better, and then we can go to God and pray. But rather, we should, in the raw nature of who we are and all the things we're struggling with, go to God in prayer. Open prayer, honest prayer, telling God everything. We see fifth, it was a humble prayer. He says, I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies you have shown me. So as he's praying for deliverance, he realizes he doesn't deserve it. Doesn't deserve anything good from God. He realizes that he's totally unworthy of all the merciful things God has done. And that's also something we have to remember. God doesn't owe us anything, not a single thing. He mercifully gives us what we don't deserve. And so while, yes, we're given confidence to go to God in prayer through Christ, We need to do so knowing that He is the creator. We are the creation. He is holy. We are sinful. He is gracious. We don't deserve it. And then sixth and finally we see it was a faith-filled prayer. He acknowledges God as being the God of the covenant, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac. And notice he made his request on the basis of the covenant promises. Verse 9, he says, O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, return to your country and to your family and I will deal well with you. That's what God had said to him. That was God's promise to him. In verses 11 and 12, deliver me, I pray, lest he come and attack me for you said. I will surely treat you well and make your descendants as the sand of the sea." That's also God's promise to Jacob, that he would live in Canaan with a multitude of children. So Jacob here, as he's praying in all these ways, is praying on the basis of the truth of God, as God has revealed himself in the Word according to God's nature, God's character, and God's promises. Matthew Henry says, the best we can say to God in prayer is what He has said to us. God's promises as they are the surest guide of our desires in prayer and furnish us with the best petitions so they are the firmest ground of our hopes. In other words, when you pray God's promises back to Him, you're praying for things that are according to His will. And as a result, you can know that God will answer them. Whenever my kids get scared in the middle of the night, there's always something they do immediately. And even though you've never been there, I'm sure all of you could tell me what it is that they do immediately. Mom, dad, right? Then there's someone in the room. Dad, wake up, dad, wake up, right? This happens, it's instinctual that they don't have to think about it. This is naturally what just flows out of them because they know in their heart of hearts that what they need more than anything in their time of fear is their parents. And so it should be instinctual in our times of fear that what we need more than anything else is God. So much of the time when we're in fear, we think of, what can I do to get myself out of this situation? And we totally skip over the part of going to God in prayer. So this is what we need to be laboring for, an immediate crying out to God and following the godly pattern that we're given here in Jacob. Again, Matthew Henry is helpful. He says, times of fear should be times of prayer. Whatever frightens us should drive us to our knees and to our God. Such prayers are pleasing to God, such prayers will be used by God. Psalm 34, I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears. That's step two that we're given here, cry out to God in prayer. And then fourthly and finally on the outline, step three is when you're afraid, take appropriate action. Verse seven. So Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed and he divided the people that were with him and the flocks and herds and camels into two companies. So Jacob here is thinking that Esau is coming and is going to attack him and his family and so he made attempts to defend themselves. We're told here he divided his family into two companies. That way, if Esau attacked one of the groups, the other group could escape. If we think here that Jacob was willingly putting half of his family in harm's sake, we need to remember that unlike Esau and his 400 men, Jacob and his family were not an army. They were just a family. It was Jacob and his wives and a whole bunch of children. So this was really the best thing they could do. This was their only chance of standing against Esau and his 400 men. And then notice, after he prayed, after he separated his family into companies, we're told that he also sent a gift to Esau of many animals, verse 13. So he lodged there that same night and took what came to his hand as a present for Esau's brother, 200 female goats and 20 male goats, 200 ewes and 20 rams, 30 milk cows with their colts, 40 cows and 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys and 10 foals. So it's a large gift, it's a generous gift. Altogether, it comprised 550 animals. So boys and girls, you can just picture all of these animals. This was a large group of animals, and it was a gift that would keep giving over time because many of them were female, but he also made sure there were plenty of males to keep bringing about more and more offspring. And then we see in verses 16 and following that the animals would be divided into five groups, or five droves, as the New King James puts it. And there would be space between each of the groups or droves. But the idea was, as Esau was coming, he'd first meet the first group of animals. Then he'd keep coming, he'd meet the second group of animals, then the third group, then the fourth group, then the fifth group, and so forth. And this would be the way of softening, if you will, Esau's arrival to Jacob. The gift would come slowly but surely because Jacob's intention behind all of this was to appease his brother's anger. Verse 20, second half of the verse, he said, I will appease him with the present that goes before me, and afterward I will see his face, perhaps he will accept me. And this word appease is the same word that's used elsewhere in the Old Testament to speak of atonement for sin. So in other words, Jacob hoped the gift would wipe away Esau's anger towards him, that there would be forgiveness, that there would be reconciliation, that there would be a kind of atonement and oneness brought about between the two of them. And some would say here, Jacob was just trying to buy back Esau's favor. Ah, here's Jacob up to his old tricks again. But if it's true that Jacob did not have to meet Esau to get back to Canaan in obedience to God, but rather went largely out of his way to meet Esau, then I think we need to understand this not as being Jacob up to his old tricks, but Jacob living a godly life. This was Jacob not trying to deceive his brother, but this was Jacob humbly repenting of his past. I said earlier, Jacob here is making restitution for what he had earlier stolen from Esau. In fact, in Genesis 33 verse one, we'll see in a couple of weeks, Jacob will refer to this gift as his blessing. And by that, he doesn't mean that he's giving the blessing he stole from Esau back to Esau, but rather he's trying to restore what he had taken when he stole the blessing from Esau. But the point I want you to see in all of this is that Jacob took appropriate action. He was scared and he didn't just let go and let God. He prayed and he worked as he prayed. As he remembered the angels, as he cried out to God, he did whatever was needed to address the source of his fear, to appease his brother's anger. I didn't say this this morning, but that's also what we saw in Acts chapter 27. That's why Paul was saying, you need to eat food. That's why Paul kept the sailors from escaping. Because in God's sovereignty, yes, they were all going to survive. But God's sovereignty is always to be in harmony with human responsibility. And so if there aren't sailors, they're not gonna ground the ship where they should. If they're not eating, they're not gonna have the strength. So we trust in God's sovereignty, but we do that while also taking our responsibilities seriously. And that is what Jacob was doing. Trusting in God, crying out to God, relying on the angels, but taking the appropriate actions. And that is exactly what Israel was to learn as well. When they were coming up against all the enemies living in Canaan, the ones that they were called to drive out of Canaan, their prayers for victory were to be joined with their efforts for victory. They were to go in and fight, not just stand back and watch. And that's what God calls us to do as well. God is a God of means. And that is to say He ordinarily works in our life through the ordinary means of life. Through your sweat and tears, through your friendships and your doctors, through your locked doors and your healthy meals. This is why God tells you to pray for obedience, but then He also commands you to work hard for obedience. This is why God tells you to pray for your daily bread, but then commands you to go to work to get your daily bread, because the two always go together. They're never contradictory. Matthew Henry says, when we have prayed to God for any mercy, we must second our prayers with our endeavors. Else, instead of trusting God, we tempt God, or we put Him to the test. A few years ago, Anne and the boys were walking from the library in Bloomington back to our van that was parked down the road from there. It was a familiar route. This was something they had done many, many times. It was a safe route. And so as they were doing it, Anne let the older boy go ahead of the rest of the group. And thinking everything was fine, when Anne and the younger boys then got to the van, they realized the older one was nowhere to be found. And yes, it was a safe part of town, but you can imagine a mother's fear all of a sudden. What is going on? And so Anne, of course, I believe, started praying, obviously, but she started calling out to the neighbors. Have you seen my kid? Here's what he looks like. She got even more nervous. She called out to the police. I can't find my kid. What's going on here? Now, as it turned out, the kid got to the van, realized, you're still not here. I'm just going to go back and find you, but made a wrong turn, and then didn't meet back up with the rest of the family. He was fine all along, and they all met up again. But you see, she's very afraid, but she didn't just go off to a corner and say, God, please help me find my son. God, please help me find my son. That's important, she did that. But she looked, and she took every step she could to find her son. Prayer and work, that's the biblical paradigm. Pray and work. So if you're afraid of losing your job, work extra hard to preserve it. If you're afraid of having a heart attack, take care of yourself. Go to the doctor. If you're afraid of someone who may hurt you, learn to protect yourself. Get out of the situation. Remember the angels, pray to God, but also don't forget you have to take action. Because when you do these things, you will see God work in your life, just as Jacob did, to comfort your fears, to strengthen your soul in that dark hour. And that is because when Jesus Christ, the greater Jacob, was here on earth being ministered to by the angels, living in constant prayer with the Father, Jesus gave the greatest gift of all, to appease the anger of another. Jesus gave His very own life to appease the Father's wrath so that our sins would be forgiven, so that we would be accepted by Him, and so that we could have comfort in our darkest of times. Like Jacob, Jesus gave everything so that you would have favor in the eyes of God. And it's because you have that favor that you can be comforted and that you will be comforted in your fears today. So when you're afraid, here are the instructions. Remember the angels, cry out to God, take the appropriate action. Let's pray. Lord in heaven, we thank you for this portion of your word. We thank you that it's full of practical application for us to apply. Lord, as we think of storms as we did this morning, as we think of fears as we are tonight, these are things we don't like to think about, but we know we need to think about them because they are an ordinary part of living as sinful people in a sinful world. We thank you as we were reminded this morning that you are sovereign over all of this. We thank you that there is comfort for us to have even in our scariest of times. So Lord, we pray, help us to obey your word as we have heard it tonight. We ask that you would do it in the name of Jesus Christ, we pray, amen.