Would you please turn with me in the written word of God to the 32nd chapter of Genesis. As you're returning there, I am looking forward to being sent out this Wednesday to Chile and Argentina for the next two weeks to preach the gospel there. And it's important that you understand that as I go, it's not just a guy named Jerry Slate getting on a plane, traveling to Chile and Argentina and coming back home. It is this local church that is sending me out as an extension of our ministry. I'm looking forward to going. I'm not looking forward to leaving my family behind for two weeks, but neither am I looking forward to leaving you behind for two weeks. It's a joy to preach in these other lands, but it's not nearly as much a joy to me as it is to preach the Word of God to you in my own congregation, in my own church that I am a part of. And so I'm going to miss you, and we'll be praying for you while I'm away. You'll be praying for me as well. I'm going down into the pit, but you've got to hold the roast for me in prayer while I go down into that pit, as it were. We have the Word of God open before us. As I lead our children in family worship, I always ask them the question, how do we worship God when His Word is read or preached? And the answer is we listen, and we believe, and we obey. So may God grant us grace that we worship Him as His Word is read and preached this morning. In Genesis 32, we're going to begin our reading in verse 22, and then we're going to read all the way through chapter 33. And he, that is, Jacob, arose that night, and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the fort of Jabok. He took them, sent them over the brook, and sent over what he had. Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. Now when he saw that he did not prevail against him, he touched the socket of his hip, and the socket of Jacob's hip was out of joint as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaks. But he said, I will not let go, unless you bless me. So he said to him, What is your name? He said, Jacob. And he said, Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel. For you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed. Then Jacob asked, saying, Tell me your name, I pray. And he said, Why is it that you ask about my name? And he blessed him there. So Jacob called the name of the place Penuel, for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. Just as he crossed over Penuel, the sun rose on him, and he limped on his hip. Therefore, to this day, the children of Israel do not eat the muscle that shrank, which is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob's hip in the muscle that shrank. Now Jacob lifted his eyes and looked, and there Esau was coming, and with him were four hundred men. So he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two maidservants. And he put the maidservants and their children in front, Leah and her children behind, and Rachel and Joseph last. Then he crossed over before them and bowed himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother. But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and they wept. And he lifted his eyes, and saw the women and children, and said, Who are these with you? So he said, The children whom God has graciously given your servant. Then the maidservants came near they and their children, and bowed down. And Leah also came near with her children, and they bowed down. Afterward Joseph and Rachel came near, and they bowed down. And Esau said, What do you mean by all this company which I met? And he said, These are to find favor in the sight of my Lord. But Esau said, I have enough, my brother. Keep what you have for yourself. And Jacob said, No, please, if I have now found favor in your sight, then receive my present from my hand, inasmuch as I have seen your face as though I had seen the face of God, and you were pleased with me. Please take my blessing that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough. So he urged him, and he took it. Then Esau said, Let us take our journey, let us go, and I will go before you. But Jacob said to him, My Lord knows that the children are weak, and the flocks and herds which are nursing are with me. And if the men should drive them hard one day, all the flock will die. Please let my Lord go on ahead before his servant. I will lead on slowly at a pace at which the livestock that go before me and the children are able to endure, until I come to my Lord and say, And Esau said, Now let me leave with you some of the people who are with me. But he said, What need is there? Let me find favor in the sight of my Lord. So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir, and Jacob journeyed to Saqqoth, built himself a house, and made booths for his livestock. Therefore the name of the place is called Saqqoth. Then Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan Aram, and he pitched his tent before the city. And he bought the parcel of land where he had pitched his tent from the children of Hamor, Shechem's father, for one hundred pieces of money. Then he erected an altar there, and called it El Elohe Israel." Let's pray. Our Father, we ask that the Holy Spirit would anoint our time, that Lord you would anoint my lips with the Spirit of God, anoint the ears of your people as well. Grant us grace and open our eyes that we may see wonderful things from your Holy Word, things that perhaps we've never seen before. And Father, I would especially pray for anyone here who does not know the Lord. that Your Spirit would work in such a way as to convict them of their sin, to give them a broken and a contrite heart, and to draw them irresistibly to Christ by Your Word and by Your Spirit, that they might embrace Christ and see His beauty with the gaze of their soul, and be saved. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. The Lord had issued a command to Jacob to leave Haran and to come back to the land of Canaan after 20 years of living basically under his father-in-law's roof. And with that precept, He also gave him a promise, I will be with you wherever you go. Well, no sooner had Jacob been delivered from the hand of Laban, his father-in-law, who was pursuing him with murderous intent, than he has another issue right in front of him, and that is he's coming to see Esau again. Esau, who 20 years earlier he had stolen the blessing of the firstborn. And so now he's coming to see him. He sends messengers to tell him, I'm coming to see you. And the messengers come back and say, oh, Esau's coming to meet you, and he has 400 men with him. Was this filled Jacob with fear and anxiety as it would any person? And yet the Lord gave him comforts throughout all of this. He met a vision of angels and saw two camps of angels, as if the Lord was saying to him, just as I have taken care of you in the past by surrounding you with my angels of protection when Laban was coming after you, so I will surround you with my angels of protection when you encounter Esau. We've read of how Jacob prayed, and he prayed a wonderful prayer and cried out to God to make his concerns known. He acknowledged to the Lord his promises and reminded him of the things he had told him he was going to do, that he would be with him wherever he went. But he also was humbling himself to say, I am not worthy. of the least of your mercies." And then he was transparent enough to say, I'm full of anxiety. I'm terrified about meeting Esau. Would you please deliver me out of his hand? And then he ends by reminding the Lord of his covenant with Abraham to multiply him in the land, to make him more numerous than the stars in the sky. In other words, just like all the best of prayers, he prayed God's word back to him. He told the Lord what God had already said to him. And then when he got through praying, he did something. You don't just pray, then you do something. You say, what has God given me in my hand that I should do? Because God, the God of the ends, is also the God of the means. And so he organized three waves of servants ahead of him to meet Esau on the way. He gave him, entrusted to their care, 580 heads of cattle as presents, as gifts to him, the idea being as he meets each successive wave of servants, Hopefully it's going to pacify his wrath and cool him down, so by the time he gets to Jacob, his murderous intent will be gone. And so that's what he does. Verse 21 ends in chapter 32, with Jacob camping out next to the Jabbok brook, about six miles east of the Jordan River. We've been noticing, over and over again, how Jacob has been changing. He's becoming a different man. And this has been going on for many, many years. We first met Jacob. He was a tent-dwelling young man who was a mama's boy, not particularly diligent or thrifty, a man who was a deceiver, a manipulator. And yet God has been changing him as he's been drawing him to himself. How has he changed him? He's changed him in two ways. One, he's revealed himself to him. and showed him what kind of God he is, and the other thing is, he's taken him through adversity. How does God change us? He shows us who He is, and He takes us through adversity. And that's very much how God changes us as well. But as we've seen all these changes I have submitted to you, over and over again, that I don't believe that Jacob was truly converted until he wrestled with the divine man all night. I believe it's in the end of chapter 32 that we finally see him truly regenerate and truly converted. And so we've come to that place this night. As terrified as he may have been of Esau and of Esau meeting with him the next day, he met someone far more fearful, someone far more powerful, and he had to wrestle with him until daybreak. And so as we look at this this morning, I want to preach our text to you under three headings. We see Jacob doing three things. First of all, we see Jacob wrestling with a mysterious stranger. Secondly, reconciling with an estranged brother. And third, we see him communing with a reconciled God. So first of all, wrestling with a mysterious stranger. You get the impression from verse 22 of our text that Jacob didn't get to sleep much. He may have laid down and put his head on the pillow, but doubtless he would have been thinking about what's coming tomorrow, which was specifically Esau and his 400 armed men. And he tossed and turned, and if he got any sleep at all, it wasn't much, because in the middle of the night, he gets up and he sends his two servants, Bilhah and Zilpah, and then his wives, Rachel and Leah, and all their children, which they had 12 children, across the Jabach Brook. He was on the northern side of it. He sends them to the south side of it. And he's there left alone by the Jabach Brook. But it's there, as he's left to his thoughts in his isolation, that something terrifying happens. Out of nowhere, a man suddenly appears and begins wrestling with him. Now, if the anxiety about what's going to happen tomorrow isn't bad enough, now suddenly, here's a man attacking him in the middle of the night, throwing him to the ground, and beginning to grapple with him, and it's so dark outside, he cannot make out the man's features, but he's in a desperate death-or-life struggle with this man, and has no idea what his intentions are, what's going on here, and he begins to wrestle with him. And we know that he would wrestle all the way till daybreak. We don't know at what point in the night this man appeared, but obviously a very serious struggle is going on. Who is this unknown assailant? And what is happening here? When we get to verse 25, there's two things that are very obvious in our text. The first thing is very, very clear that Jacob is winning the contest. He is subduing this man who's wrestling with him. The second thing that becomes very obvious is that the person he's wrestling with is letting him win. Because he simply touches Jacob's hip. And just touching his hip, it's suddenly dislocated. And the muscle inside of it immediately shrivels up. In other words, the man's toying with him. The man is letting him win, but it's obvious this entire time, this man, whoever he is, this mysterious stranger, has power to simply speak the word, to simply touch any part of your body he wants to, and suddenly, you're lame. Now it reminds me of another man that we meet many centuries later, a man who was in a garden praying when a troop of soldiers came to arrest him. Of course, I'm speaking of Jesus of Nazareth. You ever noticed in the entire account of Jesus' arrest and trial and condemnation that was given to him by men, that it appears in one sense that the powers of darkness have a free hand, that they're the ones in control. But there are these constant reminders through the text that, no, they're not in control. They're subject to someone who is holding his power in restraint. For example, Brother Blackburn mentioned this just a couple weeks ago when he was preaching for us. When they come to arrest Jesus, Jesus turns to them and says, whom do you seek? And they say, we seek Jesus of Nazareth. And he says, I am. And you remember what happens to the soldiers? They all fall to the ground. They can't stay on their feet. And I agree with Brother Blackburn, that if I was a part of the arresting party, I would have said, OK, guys, you all go ahead. If you want to arrest them, I'm going back to bed or something. Because obviously, we have someone of superior power in front of us, a man who can simply say two words, and people can't even stay on their feet. Then Peter lops off poor Malchus' ear. And when he does so, what does Jesus do? He rebukes him and says, put away your sword. Do you not know that I could tell my father to send twelve companies of angels right now, one company of angels for every apostle, to fight for me? I have the power to do that, but I'm restraining that power. And then he picks the man's ear up off the ground, sticks it back on his head, and it stays. Then when he's standing before Pontius Pilate, Pontius Pilate is accusing him and assailing him, and Jesus stands there mute and won't speak to him. You can almost see the veins popping out of Pilate's head as he gets angry and says, Do you not know that I have power to crucify you or power to let you go? I've got you right in my hand, right where I want you! Jesus finally breaks his silence and says, You would have no such power were it not given to you from heaven. And suddenly the great and mighty Pilate is quaking in his boots and he's finding desperately a way to get Jesus off the hook, which will get him off the hook, some way to let him go. The entire point of all of these are that while it looks like the powers of darkness are in charge, they're not. It is the Lord himself restraining his power and holding it back when he could have just leveled the place if he wanted to. God is in control, even though it seems like the forces of darkness are. And that's exactly what's going on in the text before us. Here is Jacob wrestling with this man. And yet this man has absolute power over him, even though Jacob seems to be prevailing over him. It's very obvious he's allowing him to win. And when he touches his hip socket immediately, it shrivels up. Now I keep calling it another man, but you know, I don't think the man in Gethsemane and the man wrestling with Jacob are two different men. I think they're the same man. Because it becomes very obvious there's another similarity between Jesus and the man that's wrestling with Jacob, and that is, it's God in the form of a man. This is God Himself. This is a theophany, is what they call it. And I'm convinced that all theophanies in the Old Testament, Old Testament appearances of God, are appearances of none other than the pre-incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ. Because John tells us in John 1, that no man has seen the Father at any time. So when you see appearances of God in the Old Testament, it's not God the Father. That leaves only two other possibilities. It's either God the Holy Spirit, or it's God the Son. And I'm convinced that this is none other than God the Son Himself wrestling with Jacob. Well, the sun's beginning to rise, and the Bible tells us all throughout the Old Testament how many times people see God, and when they realize they've seen God, didn't know it at first, what do they always say? They come back and they say, I have seen God face to face, and no man can see God's face and live, and they're terrified and fearful that they're going to die, and the Lord has to reassure them, you're not going to die. despite the fact you've seen my face." Well, they're wrestling through the middle of the night, and the sun's beginning to come up. Jacob cannot see the features of this man's face clearly, and so he says to him, let me go, for the day breaks. And then Jacob's response may seem odd to us, but he's perceived who it is that he's wrestling with. A man who has the power to touch his hip and immediately shrinks up, he knows who this is. This is God himself. And so he clings to him even tighter and says, I will not let go unless you bless me. And God was pleased with what Jacob said. This apparently was the very thing he was wanting him to do. We know this because he blesses him. He responds and he gives the blessing in response to what Jacob has said. And he asks him, what is your name? Now, did he already know what Jacob's name was? Of course he did. But God condescends to our weakness. He says, what is your name? And he answers, it's Jacob. And that name has significance, doesn't it? Supplanter. The one who's always stealing from everybody else. The one who's always seeking the preeminence. And he gives him a new name. No longer should your name be Jacob. Now your name will be Israel. Prince with God, where you have fought with God and men and have prevailed. We've seen it with men. He fought with Esau from the womb, and he's prevailed over Esau. He fought with Laban, and he's prevailed over Laban. And now he's wrestled with God, and God has let him win. God's let him prevail. But he says, you're a prince with God, I'm going to name you Israel. Now, understand something here. This is the very first time in our Bibles that the name Israel ever appears. This, of course, would become not only Jacob's name, it would become the name of the nation that came from him. So you need to realize that really in verse 28, something important and significant is taking place in redemptive history. Because what had God said to Abraham, I will make of you a great nation. And now suddenly, that nation has a name. The nation of Israel. Well, the man had asked Jacob what his name was. Jacob returns in kind. What's your name? And you notice, again, how much like Jesus this is, because Jesus, very often when he's asked a question, doesn't give an answer. He just answers with another question. And what's he do here? What's your name? Why do you ask me what my name is? And he doesn't tell him. He doesn't tell him what his name is. Why? I find something very interesting, very significant here. A number of commentators point this out as well. And it's this. Revelation of God in the Old Testament is progressive. God doesn't reveal everything at once. He keeps some things hidden and mysterious. For example, in Acts 1, when Peter says to Jesus, he says, Is now the time that you're going to restore Israel, the kingdom of Israel? Jesus says, It is not for you to know the times the Father has chosen, but you simply be faithful to me, basically, is what he says to him. Even so, here, this man answers Jacob and says, I'm not going to tell you my name yet because you're not ready for it. But looking back with the benefit of hindsight, with the clear light of the New Testament, if this man had answered and told him what his name was, it would not surprise me if he says, my name is Jesus. That's who I am. But it's not yet time for that to be revealed. So he doesn't answer him, but he does bless him, and then he disappears. He suddenly just vanishes, and he's no longer there anymore. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, which means the face of God. And notice what it says. He says, "...for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." Now, I find that interesting. He doesn't say, I wrestled with God and I whooped Him. He says, I've seen God's face and I've been spared. There's a humility here. He understands it's not him who has conquered God. It is God who's conquered Jacob. And he understands he's been shown mercy. I've seen God face to face and he has shown me mercy. See how different a man Jacob has become than what he used to be? He acknowledges God has been merciful to me and he calls the name of the place Peniel. Now notice verse 31. When he crossed over Penuel, the sun rose on him, and he limped on his hip." Think about that. The same God who made him lame could have healed him, but he doesn't. So when Jacob comes to meet Esau, he's doing like this. That's the part of why I believe he made him lame, because he was showing, even Esau, as wicked and unregenerate a man as he was, is going to have mercy upon a lame man. No glory in killing a guy who's limping like that. I believe that's a part of what God is doing here, but I think there's something else. You'll notice in verse 32 it became a tradition that you didn't eat the sinews that connected the hip bone of an animal. Not by God's appointment, but it was a tradition carried on by the Jewish people. Because you realize, Jacob walked with a limp the rest of his life. God could have healed him, but he was lame for the rest of his life. Why? I believe God was reminding him, giving him a perpetual reminder. Remember the day I conquered you. Remember the day you became mine. Remember the day I gave you not only a new name, but I believe, a new heart. Remember the day I wound you and cut you to the heart and showed you who you really are. And we'll come back to that in just a moment. Well, we've seen, first of all, Jacob wrestling with a mysterious stranger. The second thing we'll see is him being reconciled with an estranged brother. Chapter 33, verse 1, Jacob lifts up his eyes and he sees this fearful sight. Here comes Esau, 400 men armed to the teeth with him. And he does something to protect his family. He's rejoined, he's crossed the Jabbok brook himself and he's reunited with his two concubines and his two wives and his 12 children. He divides them into three groups and the idea here seems to be that if one of them gets attacked, the other two can escape. And we see something here of the old Jacob. Because even though he's regenerate, even though you're regenerate if you're in Christ, don't you find the old man is still there and the old habits die hard? And we find his old favoritism showing itself here and asserting itself. Because he divides these into three groups, but notice what he does. He puts the two concupines, Bilhah and Zilpah, with their children closest to the danger. In other words, if his family is attacked, they're the first ones that are going to be attacked. Behind them, he puts his wife, Leah, and her children. And then after that, Rachel and Joseph are last. In other words, his favoritism of Rachel over Leah is showing itself here. Because he puts Rachel and Joseph, her son, the farthest from the danger. They're the least likely to be harmed. And we're going to find it later, Joseph's favoritism, or his favoritism of Joseph, which is going to cause all kinds of havoc in their family. It's because whose son is she? Does he belong to? Who's his mother? His mother is Rachel. His favoritism for Rachel is going to assert itself in Joseph and the consequences are going to be dire as a result. So we still see his favoritism here. Even though we are regenerated, even though God saves us, we still have to fight with the old man and the old tendencies and the old patterns of behavior. But that being said, Even if he's showing some partiality and prejudice, there is something redeeming here, and that is that Jacob puts himself in harm's way ahead of even Bilhah and Zopah. He's got three waves of servants ahead of him with 580 heads of cattle, but then all his family is behind him, and he puts himself in front of them so that he's going to encounter Esau before his wives and his children do. In other words, let him slaughter me first. that my wives and my children can escape and be saved. And there is something noble in that. In other words, he's playing the man. He's putting himself in harm's way. He's not running away like a coward. He's setting his face like flint towards Esau and is moving towards him. Well, notice then what he does as he goes towards Esau. Verse 3, "...he crossed over before them, and bowed himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother." Now remember what he was doing to Esau twenty years earlier, the last time they had met. He was stealing the firstborn's blessing, which meant that he had a double portion of the inheritance, and Jacob took that from Esau by stealth, by lying to his father Isaac. In other words, he had been usurping what belonged to Esau. He had been stealing his glory, wanting the preeminence, but what do we find him doing now? We find him in a posture of humility. Seven different times bowing himself down low before Esau. He gets up and he limps towards him and then he falls on his face. And then he gets up and limps some more and then falls on his face. He's basically saying, I am submitting myself to you. I'm humbling myself in your presence. I'm not running away, and you have the freedom to do with me as you will." Very UnJacob-like, isn't it? continues to change. And here is Esau. He sees his brother. He had been intent on killing him, but now he's received 580 heads of cattle from his servants, and it's had the desired effect. He's calmed down. And now he sees his brother limping towards him, and coming in a very different... He's a very changed Jacob from what he had known 20 years earlier. Coming in a posture of humility, and though he's a stranger to saving grace, he has some common grace in him. So rather than run toward Jacob and kill him and slaughter him and cut him up and throw him to the fish in the Jabot Brook, he comes running to him and embraces him. He wraps his arms around him and both men burst into tears. and we see them being reconciled one to another. Well, verses 5-17 detail the dialogue that goes on between Jacob and Esau. Very easy to survey, and we'll hit the highlights of it as we survey it. First of all, Esau lifts his eyes and he sees the women and the children, and he says, who are these? And notice how Jacob responds, "...the children whom God has given your servant." Now remember, several chapters earlier, we saw all the madness going on in Jacob's home, right? Where Leah and Rachel are competing to see who can be the most fertile. They're having all kinds of conjugal fights and arguments and all sorts of dysfunction. And then Bilhah and Zilpah are given as servants and all this stuff. You see the sinful neglect that Jacob is showing to Leah. All those horrible things, and yet we note it. In the midst of all their sin, God nonetheless is working. Because God works even despite our sin, and sometimes even through our sin, and He's multiplying the seed of Abraham. God's purposes are being fulfilled. Now, here's Jacob saying, despite all the madness, he says, God has given me these children. He acknowledges who it is, and in successive ways, each of the wives and children bow down on their faces before Esau, just as Jacob had done. And then Esau says in verse 8, What do you mean by all this company which I met? What in the world is all this that you've sent to me, these 580 head of cattle? What's this mean? And Jacob doesn't hide his purpose. He says, These are to find favor in your sight. I'm hoping you won't kill me, basically. I'm hoping to appease you. And Esau says, I have plenty. I've been blessed with plenty of material wealth. I don't need this. You keep these for yourself." But Jacob is insistent. Look at verse 10. No, please, if I have now found favor in your sight, receive this present from my hand. The idea being this. I'm going to put a condition here. You accepting these cattle tells me you're reconciled with me. that you and I are at peace. And then he goes on to say, for God has prospered me. God has given me this wealth. Again, this is very un-Jacobite. Because remember, when Laban had first made him a shepherd over his flocks, he had tried to manipulate and do some biological engineering to cause there to be spotted lambs and spotted rams and things like that that he could keep for himself, but now he's acknowledging God is the one who gave me the increase. It wasn't my sophisticated methods of reading that brought this about. God has given me this wealth. But he says, take this because it's a sign to me that you are at peace with me. That all is well between you and I. And notice he goes on to say, he alludes to what had happened the night before without outright saying it. He says, "...inasmuch as I have seen your face as though I had seen the face of God," as if that could ever happen, that it happened the night before, "...and you were pleased with me." The idea is this, it's as if he's invoking God himself to say, Lord, if you truly have prospered me, if you have turned your face to me, if you've blessed me, then turn Esau's face towards me as well, so that I can have peace with him. He says, please take my blessing that is brought to you because God has dealt graciously with me and because I have enough. And so he urges him. and he takes it. Now, Jacob isn't exactly making a covenant with Esau, but there are similarities to what happened between him and Laban. There's an exchange of gifts, there's a pledge of peace going on here that no longer are we going to pursue one another to do each other harm. And Esau accepts the gift implying that I am at peace with you, we are reconciled. Well, in verse 12, Esau's like, well, since we're having such a great reunion here, why don't you come with us and let's go back down to the mountains of Seir, to the land of Edom, south of the Dead Sea, which is where I live. And Jacob's response indicates that he says, well, this has been real and it's been fun, but it hasn't been real fun. Because I'm not going to go with you. He says, no, no, let's go down south and you come and live next to me. Well, Jacob's wise enough to know that while he's reconciled to Esau, living in close proximity to one another is going to be a recipe for disaster. Because if there's some common grace shown in Esau's life, there's no saving grace there. And he knows that. And his discernment serves him well. That being said, we still see another hint of the old Jacob because he bold-facedly lies to Esau. Well, you just go ahead and go down there, brother, and we'll be right behind you. And what's interesting is he doesn't go south and follow after him. He turns due west and goes towards the Jordan River. Well, then Esau says, you know how it is, Esau, I've got young ones and we've got young flocks and things like this, and the journey will be just too hard on them. But we'll be there soon enough. Well, he says, let me let some of my men stay with you and help you on your journey to make sure you don't get lost on the way. And Jacob says, no, no, no, no, we'll be just fine. Go ahead and go your way. Can we approve of his deceit? No. We can approve of his discernment, though. And we can recognize that even if the methodology was wrong, it was wise for him to part ways with Esau, though he should have been forthright and told him, I'm going to go over here. You go back home and we'll go to our place. So he comes to a place called Sakoth, which is just about four miles away from Penuel. And it's obvious he stayed there for a while. He hasn't quite fully come back into the land of Canaan just yet. He names the place Sakath because he actually stays long enough to build a house, to build basically little barns or booths for his cattle. And he stays there for a little bit. But then, we've seen then, he's wrestling with a mysterious stranger, he's reconciling with a strange brother. In the third and final place, in verses 18-20, we see Jacob communing with a reconciled God. Look at verse 18. It would seem that some years have passed because he's taken the time to build a house and now it's time to move on. So then Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan Aram, and he pitched his tent before the city, and he bought the parcel of land where he had pitched his tent from the children of Hamor, Shechem's father, for 100 pieces of silver. Then he erected an altar there and called it El Elohim Israel." This place is significant spiritually. There's a lot that's gone on in this place that he's called the land of Shechem or the city of Shechem. It's situated in a valley between two mountains. One of those mountains is Mount Ebal and the other is Mount Gerizim. You may recall that you've heard about that before. First of all, Shechem is the place that God appeared to Abraham for the very first time once he'd come into the land of Canaan. And it was while he was in Shechem that God said to him, this land I'm going to give you and your descendants. And Abraham, in Genesis chapter 12, built an altar to the Lord there. Now we've seen over and over again, everywhere he went, he would build an altar to the Lord to worship the Lord. But the very first one he ever built in the land of Canaan was in Shechem. Secondly, several years later, several centuries later actually, when Joshua would make his conquest of the land. Moses commanded him and says, once you come into the land, build an altar on Mount Ebal. And he does so in Joshua chapter 8. And if you remember, he has the people stand, half of the tribes of Israel stand on Mount Ebal, the other stand on Mount Gerizim, and they basically reconstitute themselves under the Mosaic covenant. They swear the terms of the covenant. If you remember, one group stands on one mountain and says, if you obey the Lord's law, you will be blessed. Another one stands on the other mountain and says, if you disobey the law of the Lord, you'll be cursed. Well, visually, there was a reason God had them do this. Because Mount Gerizim is a heavily forested and fruitful mountain, but Mount Ebal is barren. And so it was very visually stunning for them to say, if you obey the Lord, you'll be blessed, and there you're on Mount Gerizim, and look at this fruitful mountain. But if you disobey the Lord, you'll be cursed, and you're standing on Mount Ebal that's completely barren, and saying, this is what you're going to look like spiritually, if indeed you transgress the law of the Lord. There's one other event that took place in Shechem that I should tell you about. It took place even hundreds of years after Joshua had come there. Shechem was torn down and rebuilt over the centuries. But it was interesting that by the first century AD, it had a new name. Its name was Sychar. Do you remember the name Sychar? Because Jacob, while he dwelt there, we know he pitched a tent and he bought land, but we know from the rest of Scripture he did something else. He dug a well. which was called Jacob's Well. And in Sychar, there was a Jewish rabbi who had sent his disciples to get food in the city of Sychar while he sat by Jacob's Well. And a woman of Samaria came out to him to take of that well, and he said to her, I'm thirsty, would you give me a drink? And he says, how can you, being a Jewish woman, ask me for a drink? And he says, if you knew who was sitting here. You would have asked me for a drink. I would have given you spiritual water and you never would thirst again." And she doesn't understand what he's saying. And says, give me this so I don't have to come draw anymore. But what he's speaking of, of course, is spiritual thirst. It can be slaked by me. And he begins to tell this woman everything she's ever done. To tell her about her sins. And she changes the subject and says, Sir, I perceive you're a prophet. And she begins talking about worship. And then she says, we know that when the Messiah comes, he'll tell us all things. And he looks at her and says, I speak to you, am he. And it's here while he's in, she rushes back, forgets about her. her pot that she'd use to draw the water, she runs back into the city to tell all the people, there's a man who's told me everything I've ever done, could he be the Messiah? The disciples have meanwhile come back to Jesus, and he says to them as the people are coming out of the city, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white unto harvest. All that takes place here at Shechem. And notice that as he's there, he buys this field, he's now fully in the land of Canaan, He buys this field and he erects an altar. Do you realize this is the first time we ever read of Jacob building an altar to God? So that he could worship the Lord and so that his family could worship the Lord with him. Now I'm going to come back to that in just a moment. He gives it a name and we're going to talk about that name here in just a second. So I have two applications this morning that I want to make before you. The first is this. Jesus Christ gives a broken and contrite heart to every sinner that he saves. I've told you repeatedly that I don't think Jacob was converted until he wrestled with the Lord in the middle of the night. It's time for me to tell you why. Why do I say that? Well, the prophet Hosea talks about this particular incident in Hosea chapter 12. And he says this, in his strength, that is, Jacob in his strength, he struggled with God. Yes, he struggled with the angel and prevailed. Do you hear that in that text, Hosea is making a parallel between wrestling with God and wrestling with an angel? Because all throughout the Old Testament, we have these appearances of this person who's called the angel of the Lord, the messenger of the Lord. And when people first meet him, they think he's just a man, until something miraculous happens and they realize this angel of the Lord isn't just a man, it's God himself. For example, Samson and Samson's parents saw the angel of the Lord. He meets with them, and they think they're just talking to a man, and then they offer a sacrifice, and he literally flies up in the midst of the sacrifice and returns to heaven, and suddenly they're terrified. We've seen the Lord with our eyes. No man can see God and live. And the Lord reassures them, you're not going to die, though you have seen me face to face. The implication is very, very clear. that Jacob wrestled with this angel of the Lord, who is God himself." Now, with that in view, please turn in your Bibles over to Genesis chapter 48. The context here is that Jacob is in the land of Egypt, he's found out that his son Joseph is alive, and in verses 15 to 16, he is blessing Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. Look at verse 15 of Genesis 48. He blessed Joseph and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has fed me all my life long to this day, then notice verse 16, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil bless the lads. Do you hear what he's saying? The angel who redeemed me. That sounds like he's referring back to the night he wrestled with God all night. This angel with whom I wrestled, whom I thought I was conquering, but who ultimately conquered me, the one who redeemed me. May he bless you. May he bless your children. It seems to me Jacob is pinpointing that night as the turning point of his life, when the redemption that he needed so desperately because he was a sinner was applied to his own heart. But turn back again. to chapter 33 and we'll see something else. Then he erected an altar, verse 20, and called it Elohei Israel. What's interesting is the translation of this particular title that he gives to this altar. It means God, the God of Israel. Now, the reason I say that's significant is this. Have you noticed anytime Jacob says anything about God before this time, it's always, the God of my fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac. Even when he makes his covenant with Laban, he swears by the fear of Israel, as if to say, this is my father's God and he is God, but he's not prepared to say he's my God. But now, after wrestling with the angel all night, he builds this altar and he calls him God, the God of Israel. My God. It's not just that it's the God of Abraham. It's not just that it's the God of Isaac. It's the God, it's my God. This God of my father's has now become my God. I now belong to him and he belongs to me. Notice something though. When God saved him, if I'm right about this, God wounded him. He gave him a wound in his hip so he would limp the rest of his days, he would not be unchanged or unscathed by his encounter with the living God. He was reminded, he was humbled to show, I am in control of you, I control your destiny, all I've got to do is touch your hip, and it's dislocated. The point being this, when you encounter the living God, you come away changed. And He may not wound your hip, but He does wound your heart. And let me say this to you, if Jesus Christ has saved you, Jesus Christ has broken you. He has shown you your sin. You know, everybody and his brother here in the deep south says they know Jesus. I walked down the aisle. I prayed the sinner's prayer and I meant it. I was baptized and I was added as a member of the church, and that's where I'm a member to this day. What's the pastor's name? I don't remember. It's been a while since I've been there." Or if they do go there, how often do you see people professing to know Jesus, yet you listen to their language, you look at their lifestyle, and there's nothing to distinguish them from the rest of the world, except that they say they know Jesus. And it's become such a byword for us, we see it all the time, don't we? People living in lawlessness, their feet are taking them on the broad path to destruction, but they think they've passed through the narrow gate of conversion. And the problem is, when they profess faith in Christ, their profession is just that, an outward profession and nothing else. There's no substance to back it up. That's why they're still living in lawlessness. That's why God is not sanctifying them and making them to desire holiness. They're not changed people, yet they say, Jesus has saved them. Jesus gives that warning in Matthew 7, "...not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father." For many in that day will say, Lord, Lord, did we not preach in Your name, and do many wonders in Your name, and many miracles, and even cast out demons? Look at us, we're so religious! And I'll say to them, depart from Me, you workers of iniquity, for I never knew you. Many will say that. Many professing Christians will say, Lord, Lord, it's us, I know you, but I don't know you and I never have. This is not a two-way relationship because there's no brokenness. You see, that's the problem. If there's no repentance from sin, then there has been no salvation and no saving faith. Because when God saves a sinner, He transforms him from the inside out. And it doesn't mean that He makes you perfect. And it doesn't mean that when you come to know Christ, you stop struggling with sin. As a matter of fact, when you come to know Jesus, that's when you start struggling with sin. That's when the struggle really begins in earnest. But nonetheless, He does break you. He shows you your sin. He shows you your guilt. and shows you what you deserve. That if God sent me into hell, that's what I deserve. That's not God being mean, that's God being fair. And shows you what you deserve and causes you to fear Him and to tremble before Him. And I ask you a Judgment Day honesty, has God broken you? Has He shown you your sin? Has He given you a broken and a contrite heart that fears and trembles before God? James gives this devastating warning in his book in James chapter 4. He says, "...draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up." You children and young people, is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob your parents' God? Praise the Lord if He is. But you know what? Just because He's your parent's God doesn't mean that He's your God. Because you're not saved by osmosis. And your parents can't repent for you and they can't believe for you. Just as Jacob did not become the child of God until God broke him and saved him and gave him saving faith, God was the God of his father and the God of his grandfather, but there came a day when he became Jacob's God. God must become your God. You must be adopted by Him. You must experience grace in your own heart. You must experience the grace of adoption. And you must repent and you must believe. And no one can do that for you. You have to repent for yourself and you have to believe for yourself. You don't get it by osmosis or by being raised in a Christian home and therefore you're just kind of grandfathered in. You have to come before Christ and receive mercy for yourself. But the good news is, There's mercy to be had. There is mercy to be obtained. Today is a day of mercy. God has shown you such love. Think about it. He's given you a roof over your head. He's caused the sun to shine upon you and lots of rain to fall on you lately. And these are all evidences of His love. And He's postponed the day of His judgment. And He's shown you mercy today. And hasn't given you what you deserve today. And He hasn't given me what I deserve today. And the Bible tells us that His kindness is shown to you to lead you to repentance. So flee to Christ, who is able and willing to save anyone and everyone who comes to God through Him. Fly to Him and you will find Him a merciful Savior with pardon in His hands, a Savior who loves and delights to save sinners. The second application is this, and you probably saw this one coming, it's very obvious. We need to be diligent as God's people to seek God in prayer and to cry out, I'm not going to let go until you bless me. It has been a metaphor for prayer, Jacob's wrestling with God for centuries. I suspect it probably became a metaphor for praying to God when the ink was still drying on Moses' original parchment. Because it is a very apt application. So often we come to God casually. We come to God flippantly. We don't really exert energy in prayer. People talk about prayer being a privilege, and it is a privilege, certainly. It's been open to us because of Jesus dying on the cross for us. But the reality is, prayer is good old-fashioned hard work. And that's why we tend to avoid it. Because it just takes a lot of energy and a lot of thought. The Scriptures promise us that if we will seek the Lord, we'll find Him. But if you think about it, almost every text that says that has a condition applied to it. For example, "...ye will seek me, and ye shall find me, when ye search for me with all your heart." Hebrews chapter 11, "...he who comes to the Lord must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently Seek Him. Epaphras labors for you in prayer. It means literally he labors to the exertion of sweat, praying for you. It's hard work. It's hard work. And so often we come to God with half a heart, putting half an effort into it, and then wondering why He's not drawing near to us. He has cleared the way through Jesus Christ through us to come, but He's told us we must seek Him with all of our heart. We must seek Him diligently. If we come half-heartedly, why are we surprised when He doesn't answer? Because He's saying, draw near to Me. Be fervent in your prayers. Seek My face. This is what Jacob's doing. The Lord said to him, let go of Me. He grabs him and says, I will not let go until you bless Me. How often do we pray like that? Lord, save this man, save this woman who is so lost, and I'm not going to let go until you bless me." There's a prophet that literally says, give heaven no rest until he hears from heaven and answers you. I love that language, give heaven no rest. Come before God. That is what God wants us to do. He was pleased that Jacob said, I won't let go. until you bless me." Even so, we should say the same. If you're outside of Christ, if you're lost, come crying to God for mercy and say to Him, I will not let go until you bless me with salvation. If you're in Christ and you're wanting to grow in grace, Lord, I will not let go until you bless me. I want to be more like Jesus and less like me. Please help me. Please help me to be the man, the woman you want me to be. I'm coming out crying to you fervently. You've promised that you will be known to me if I will seek you with all my heart. Therefore, I'm seeking you with all my heart." God is pleased with such prayer. And God is pleased to answer. Prayers don't change Him. Your prayers never change God. He can't change. But prayer, God uses to change you. That's why the Scriptures say in Psalm 37, Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. It doesn't mean, well, delight yourselves in the Lord and you'll get that yacht, or that nice car, or bigger house, or something like that. What it means is, as you delight yourself in the Lord, suddenly the things that delight Him become your delight. The things that He cares about, you begin to care about. You begin to change, and then He gives you the desires, which have been transformed by drawing near to Him. So let's be more diligent. And any of us in this room say, I've got my prayer life down. I don't need any help with that. We all need to grow in prayer. So often we neglect prayer. We say, well, the tyranny of the urgent says I need to stop praying and go get some things done. And sometimes that's true. We do have things to do. We have a job to do. We have a house to take care of and all those kinds of things, certainly. But you know, Ian Murray says in one of his books, we actually waste time when we don't pray. We waste time when we don't pray because we think we can accomplish something for God's kingdom without prayer, and we can't. We are desperately needy of Him to do the work, and so that should make us desperate in our prayers to come out and say, Lord, I'm not sufficient, but You are, and that's why I'm drawing near to You, seeking Your blessing. Hear what Jacob did. He said, I will not let go until You bless me. Make that your model as well. Go and do likewise and imitate Him. May God grant us grace to be more fervent in our prayers that we might draw near to God and have Him draw near to us. Let's pray. Father, we praise you and thank you for your holy word and for the many things it teaches us. Lord, your spirit can make far more applications than I could ever make from all the things that we've seen this morning. I pray for this congregation while I am away in Chile and Argentina that you will give your every blessing to them. The spirit of God will be meeting with them in the coming weeks as individuals, as families, and as a congregation. Bless them, Lord. Watch over them and protect us. Protect us from those who would sow discord among us. Protect us as only you can, and help us, Lord, to see your kingdom advance here in Georgia and all around the world for your glory. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.