Great Prayers of the Old Testament
Part 4: Hang on to the Lord and Never Let Him Go!
Genesis 32:13-31
Sermon by Rick Crandall
(Prepared October 16, 2024)
BACKGROUND:
*Today, we will explore one of the most interesting answers to prayer in the Old Testament. The Lord's answer was life-changing for Jacob. -- and it should be life-changing for us.
*But first we have to remember that in Genesis 32, Jacob was walking into a terrible crisis. This chapter took place 20 years after Jacob left home with nothing but his staff. Jacob had left his parents to visit his mother's family in Padanaram, about 500 miles away from home. He had gone there in part to find a godly wife. But Jacob was mostly running away from his angry brother Esau. Jacob had tricked his older brother out of his birthright. Then Jacob tricked his father into giving him the blessing that Isaac wanted to give to his firstborn son, Esau.
*We say "God bless you" without giving it much thought. But God's blessing makes a huge difference for all eternity. And Esau was filled with murderous wrath over his brother's trickery. Now 20 years later, in Genesis 31:3, "The LORD said to Jacob, 'Return to the land of your fathers and to your family, and I will be with you'" That's why Jacob was going home with his 4 wives, 11 children, and the vast fortune God had put into his hand.
*Twenty years had gone by, but as far as Jacob knew, the danger had not gone away. We can see the possible danger in vs. 3-8:
3. Then Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.
4. 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.
5. 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.'"
6. 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.''
7. 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.
8. And he said, "If Esau comes to the one company and attacks it, then the other company which is left will escape.''
*This great threat led Jacob to the prayer we studied last time. Please listen to it again in vs. 9-12:
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':
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. 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.'"
*Jacob passionately prayed, and this is one of the best things we can ever do. Jacob cried out to God in faith, looking back to the performance of God, and looking forward to the promises of God. Jacob knew that God was faithful, so he prayed.
*But in vs. 13-23, Jacob also planned. Please listen to his plan from the New Living Translation:
13. Jacob stayed where he was for the night and prepared a present for Esau:
14. two hundred female goats, twenty male goats, two hundred ewes, twenty rams,
15. thirty female camels with their young, forty cows, ten bulls, twenty female donkeys, and ten male donkeys.
16. He told his servants to lead them on ahead, each group of animals by itself, separated by a distance in between.
17. He gave these instructions to the men leading the first group: "When you meet Esau, he will ask, 'Where are you going? Whose servants are you? Whose animals are these?'
18. You should reply, 'These belong to your servant Jacob. They are a present for his master Esau! He is coming right behind us.'"
19. Jacob gave the same instructions to each of the herdsmen and told them, "You are all to say the same thing to Esau when you see him.
20. And be sure to say, 'Your servant Jacob is right behind us.'" Jacob's plan was to appease Esau with the presents before meeting him face to face. "Perhaps," Jacob hoped, "he will be friendly to us."
21. So the presents were sent on ahead, and Jacob spent that night in the camp.
22. But during the night Jacob got up and sent his 2 wives, 2 concubines, and 11 sons across the Jabbok River.
23. After they were on the other side, he sent over all his possessions.
*Jacob had a plan. But the LORD had a different plan. And God's plan changed Jacob's life forever. Let's read about it in Genesis 32:24-31.
MESSAGE:
*How would you feel if the enraged brother you ran away from 20 years earlier, was heading toward you right now with an army of 400 men? -- You would probably be terrified, right? That's the way Jacob felt in Genesis 32.
*And Jacob wasn't just worried about himself. When he cried out to God in vs. 11, he was praying for his family, "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."
*Jacob was in this terrible danger, partly because of his disobedience. He had been a thief and a liar all his life. But Jacob was also in this danger because of his obedience to God. After 20 years away, the LORD had commanded Jacob to go home. And he was going home.
*Whatever the reason, sooner or later, we all will face times of desperation. And just like Jacob, we should pray. God had a life-changing answer for Jacob. And the Lord's answer helps us to see how God wants to work in our lives today.
1. FIRST, NOTICE JACOB'S STRUGGLE WITH GOD.
*Starting in vs. 24, "Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day." We know that this Man in vs. 24 was no ordinary man, because down in vs. 30 Jacob said, "I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."
*This Man was obviously an appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ. God was answering Jacob's prayer. But what an answer! "God please help me." -- Then, wham! The Lord jumped on Jacob, and they wrestled all night.
*How do you think Jacob felt when the Lord jumped on him? -- "Lord, what next?!?" Sometimes when we think everything that can go wrong has gone wrong, something else goes wrong. That's what happened to Jacob. And like Jacob, sometimes we get totally unexpected answers to our prayers.
*Sometimes it can seem like God has abandoned us. And God's answer does not always make us feel good, though many times it will. Sometimes God's answer to our prayer will keep us up all night. -- Any parent with a new baby knows that's true. Many times, we will not understand what God is trying to do in our lives. God has promised to answer our prayers, and many times He will answer just as we ask. But He is God, and He knows the best way to answer.
*Mary and I got a great lesson on this truth when we first got to McClendon Baptist in 1983. Back then, associate pastors lived in the parsonage right next to the church, and that's where we moved in September of that year.
*A few weeks later, I went out to get the paper: Barefoot, gym shorts on, cup of coffee in my hand. I started back to the door, and there was a vicious looking Doberman Pincher standing in front of me. He was crouched down low and growling. What was I going to do, hit him with my newspaper?
*After I talked to him a little bit, very nicely, he went back home next door. Boy that dog was mean! What was my first clue? His name was "Satan". "Nice doggy, good Satan." That doesn't sound right, does it?
*After I got back in the house, we thought, "Great, here we are: New neighbors. We've got a five-year-old, a two-year-old, and a mean dog next door named Satan. We didn't want to make enemies right off the bat, so we prayed.
*About two weeks later I was standing out in the parking lot talking to a missionary, who had parked his motor home there for the night. I looked up and here came this Doberman running across the parking lot toward us! No place to run. No place to hide. But instead of acting mean, this dog came up wagging his tail and licking my hand. I thought, "Praise the Lord! God has zapped that dog and changed his personality!"
*The next morning when I went to the office, he was lying on the mat by the door. I called my next-door neighbor and told him that His dog was over at the church. He said, "No, -- my dog is sitting right in front of me."
*We couldn't find his owners, so we named the new Doberman, "Casey." He was about 20 pounds heavier than Satan. And one time they got in a fight. Casey didn't do any permanent damage, but he put a hurting on that other dog, and Satan never came in our yard again.
*God may not answer our prayers the way we expect. But He will answer our prayers at the right time, in the right way! That's why we need to have great confidence, both in God, and in God's will. As the Apostle John wrote in 1 John 5:14-15, "Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him."
*For most of my life I thought, "Well that makes sense. If we ask anything according to God's will, of course He's going to answer." And I left it at that. But a couple of years ago the Lord led me to start praying more about things that are surely God's will.
*One example is from Matthew 9:37-38 where Jesus told His disciples: "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.' Church: We can know for sure that God wants us to pray this prayer, because Jesus has told us to do it. And God wouldn't tell us to pray for it, if He wasn't going to answer. So we can be absolutely sure that somehow, someway, God is going to answer.
*Now, almost every day I pray for more laborers in His harvest, and sometimes I use a world map to guide me. I call these "100 percent prayers," because God is sure to answer every one.
*Another favorite example for me is from Ephesians 5:25 where Paul wrote, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it." Men: There is no way we can do this in our own strength. So ask the Lord to help you love your wife like Jesus loved the church and gave Himself for it. Keep praying for it! God will surely answer those prayers, and over time, you will see some remarkable changes in your heart.
*God may not answer our prayers the way we expect, but God surely hears our prayers. And He will answer in the best possible way, at the best possible time.
2. THIS IS THE LESSON OF JACOB'S STRUGGLE WITH GOD. BUT ALSO NOTICE GOD'S STRATEGY WITH JACOB.
*What was the LORD God thinking? What was His concern? When Jacob prayed, he was worried to death about the 400 men bearing down on his family. But do you think God was worried about those 400 men? -- Not a chance! Would the Lord have been worried if it was 4,000 men? How about 40 million? Never! And in Genesis 33, the Lord did deliver Jacob from his brother Esau, not by killing the 400 men with Esau, but by softening Esau's heart toward his brother.
*But what was God's concern as He wrestled with Jacob? Take another look at the fight in vs. 24-25: "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."
*Verse 25 begins by saying that the Lord did not prevail against Jacob. But you can never win a fight with God, unless He lets you win. And that's what had to be going on here. Did you ever let your children win a game, or a race, or a wrestling match? -- That's what the Lord did with Jacob.
*But He wanted Jacob to know that you can't beat God. So the Lord simply touched Jacob's hip, and out of the socket it went. You can't wrestle anyone with your hip out of joint, and Jacob was immediately in intense pain. The Lord wanted Jacob to stop trusting in himself.
*Then in vs. 26 when the Lord said, "Let Me go, for the day breaks." Jacob replied, "I will not let You go unless You bless me!'' Could the Lord have gotten away? -- Of course! But God wanted Jacob to get to the point where he would hang on to the Lord no matter what! And the Lord was thrilled when He heard Jacob say, "I will not let you go!"
*God wants to teach us to hang on to Him at all cost. "I've been up battling all night, but God I will not let you go!" "I'm in great pain, but God I will not let you go!" "Things are going from bad to worse, but God, I will not let you go!"
*Nazi death camp survivor Corrie Ten Boom once said, "When a train goes through a tunnel, and it gets dark. You don't throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer." (1)
*When I get discouraged, I have often been renewed by one of the heroes of our faith. His name was Allen Gardiner, and he was one of God's faithful missionaries in the early 1800's. Allen went through many physical difficulties and hardships as he served the Lord. But Allen said, "While God gives me strength, failure will not (overwhelm) me."
*Allen died in 1851 from disease and starvation while serving on Picton Island at the southern tip of South America. He was only 57 years old. And when his body was found, they found his little diary lying nearby. It told the story of Allen's hunger, thirst, injuries, and loneliness. The last entry showed the trembling of Allen's shaking hand as he tried to write legibly. But with all of his suffering and all of his hardship, Allen's last words were, "I am overwhelmed with a sense of the goodness of God."
*Allen Gardiner repeatedly went to South America. He even gave his life trying to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost people in South America. And Allen died of starvation without seeing a single soul saved. But the South American Missionary Society he founded has been sending out missionaries and winning souls for almost 200 years! (2)
*That's the kind of faith God wants all of His children to have: Faith that hangs on to the Lord, no matter what! In Deuteronomy 13:3-4 God's Word gives us 6 tests to show that we you love the LORD our God with all our heart and with all our soul: "Walk after the Lord our God, and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice, and serve Him, and hold fast to Him." "Cleave unto Him" the KJV says, and the idea is to cling to the LORD, stay close to Him, stick with Him, and follow Him closely. So, hang on to the LORD in faith, and never let Him go!
3. THIS IS THE LESSON FROM GOD'S STRATEGY WITH JACOB. BUT ALSO NOTICE JACOB'S SUCCESS WITH GOD.
*In vs. 26 Jacob cried, "I will not let You go unless You bless me!'' So in vs. 27 the LORD God said to him, "What is your name?'' -- And he said, "Jacob.''
*John Phillips asked, "Didn't the LORD know Jacob's name? -- Of course, He did. But 20 years before, Jacob's blind, old father had asked him the same question. And back in Genesis 27:19, Jacob lied to his father and said, "I am Esau!"
*Now Jacob was ready to confess to God. Now he was ready to tell the truth: "My name is Jacob!" cried the broken man. Jacob! It means one who grabs you by the heel, someone sneaky, someone who trips you up. "Oh LORD," cried Jacob, "You know me. I am Jacob. I am just a liar and a cheat." And John Phillips said, "That is all that God wanted. He simply wanted Jacob to be broken in His presence, seeing himself as he really was in himself. Now God could work, because the man broken by God could be blessed by God." (3)
*So God began to bless Jacob, like He wants to bless us, because when the Lord touches our lives, He will change us, just like He changed Jacob.
[1] WE SEE THE FIRST CHANGE IN VS. 28, WHERE JACOB GOT A NEW NAME.
*And in the KJV, God said, "Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed."
*We give names to our children, maybe because it belonged to someone else we love, or maybe it was the name of a hero, or someone famous. Sometimes we give biblical names to our children, and sometimes we just like the sound of a certain name.
*But we need to understand that names in the Bible had much more significance. Jason Dulle explained that "A person's name signified their person, worth, character, reputation, authority, will and ownership." So in vs. 28, God was saying, "Don't call this man 'Liar' and 'Cheat' anymore. He is a new man, with a new character and a new family. Call him a prince, a child of the King! (4)
*When the Holy Spirit convicts us of our sins, and we open our hearts to receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we get a new name. We are Christians, followers of Christ. And 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."
[2] JACOB GOT A NEW NAME. THEN IN VS. 30, HE GOT A NEW TESTIMONY.
*"And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: 'For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.'" God gave Jacob a new testimony of the Lord's work in Jacob's life. And the Lord wants to give us new testimonies of the great things He has done. We often miss seeing it, but Christians, God is at work in our lives every single day to give us correction, comfort, wisdom, and strength. Every new day can give us new testimonies of the Lord at work in our lives.
[3] JACOB GOT A NEW TESTIMONY. THEN IN VS. 31, HE GOT A NEW WALK.
*"Just as he crossed over Penuel the sun rose on him, and he limped on his hip." Jacob could say, "God might have bruised me. But He sure has blessed me!"
*John Phillips pictured Jacob crossing the Jabbok, leaning heavily on his staff and limping into the camp where his wives and children were waiting in the morning light. "Wives! -- Children!" he would call. And they would come running, staring at a different Jacob. "What happened?" they would ask. "Why," he would say, "I met with God last night and I will never walk the same way again." (3)
*Christian: Maybe you need a fresh touch of renewal today. Ask the Lord for it, and somehow, someway, He will touch your life in a new way. And when the Lord touches our lives, we get a new testimony and a new walk.
*But Christians, we know that through the cross of Jesus Christ we already have gotten so much more! Forgiveness, an everlasting home in Heaven, the one true God who will never fail us, and who will answer our prayers in the best possible way at the best possible time.
*But if you have never received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior call on the Lord to save you now. This is the most important thing we can ever do in life. Jesus knows all about every single one of us, but He still loves us so much that he died on the cross for our sins. Three days later, Jesus rose again forever from the dead. He is the only way to eternal life in Heaven, so please put your trust in our living Lord today. You can do that right now as we go back to God in prayer.
(1) SermonCentral sermon "Don’t Lose Heart" by Steve Shepherd - Matthew 11:1-11
(2) Sources:
-SermonIllustrations.com - GOD, goodness of
-https://churchmissionsociety.org/
-https://churchmissionsociety.org/about/south-american-mission-society-sams/
(3) Adapted from EXPLORING GENESIS by John Phillips, Kregal Publications, Grand Rapids - "Jacob’s Confrontation with God" - Genesis 32:24-32 - Downloaded to "Bible Study 6" from Olive Tree Bible Software, Inc.
(4) Adapted from: "The Biblical Significance of Names, Particularly as it Relates to Prayer and Baptism" by Jason Dulle - JasonDulle@yahoo.com - Topics: Prayer, Baptism - http://www.onenesspentecostal.com/names.htm
