This picture of Jacob wrestling with a God-man can be considered as one of the most bizarre encounter in the Bible.
• He was all alone, having sent his family and all his possessions across the stream.
• It was in the night, and he wrestled with this God-man until daybreak.
Many see him as a hero in this fight.
• He struggled on, even though he was crippled and exhausted, and overcame the resistance.
• He made his demands and succeeded in extracting what he wants from God.
At first glance, the lesson to learn is to wrestle in prayer that way Jacob did.
• Make your demands and stick to them.
• Fight on and you will prevail the same way Jacob prevailed.
• We will eventually get what we want in prayer. God will give in to you.
At a glance, it seemed that way. This is incorrect.
Think for a moment. How can this be?
• How can we ever prevail over God?
• Can man ever wrestle with God over what we want?
• If there is a true wrestling match, can man win God?
We have to ask, why there was this struggle at all.
• If God is Almighty and man feeble, why is Jacob not immediately overwhelmed?
• Does God need to cripple Jacob?
• Does a mouse wrestle with an elephant? Would an elephant even be concerned if a mouse were to strive with it?
The first thing we notice about this story is that Jacob is not the aggressor.
• He did not pick a fight with this man.
• The wording is quite clear: “Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him…” (v.24)
If a man hits you, you have 2 choices – (1) you may hit him back, (2) you may run away.
• If on the other hand, a man wrestles with you, you have no such choice.
• Whether you wish to flee or to fight back, you are obliged to wrestle on.
• You struggle either to break away from his grip, or to teach him a lesson.
Jacob did not wrestle because he chose to, but because he was drawn into it.
• He was ‘forced’ by the situation to respond in this way.
• The God-man wrestled with him and he was forced to respond.
Actually God was the One who wanted this match.
• Why did the Lord want to wrestle with Jacob?
• God wants to engage him. It was not so much God wanted it but Jacob needed it.
BACKDROP:
- It was the night before Jacob’s reunion with his brother Esau, across the stream.
- The last time Jacob saw Esau was when he had tricked him out of his birthright. Jacob wasn’t the eldest, but he wanted the blessing of his father just before he died. So he tricked him into blessing him rather than Esau.
- The result of all this is that Esau wanted to kill him - the last words he heard from Esau were “I’m going to kill you.”
- Now Esau and 400 of his men were on their way to meet him. Feeling that his only hope is to appease Esau, he sent his servants up front to present gifts.
- And then he sent his wives, children and servants. He really does not know what his brother would do.
MORE THAN THAT, God needs to deal with him.
• Jacob needs to know that God wants to bless him. He might have sought it in a cunning and unethical way, in the past but God is not respecter of persons.
• He had been such a “schemer”. His whole life was marked by getting into trouble and then running away.
• The past wrong had caused him misery, but he need not have to go on that way.
In this encounter, he was ‘forced’ through this wrestling match to turn to God and cry out: “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” (v.26)
• These are the words God has been waiting to hear from him.
• For once, he has no choice, no other hope, except to turn in the right direction.
In the wrestling he came to know that the One he was wrestling with was God.
• And that’s why he asked for His blessing.
• Heb 7:7 “And without doubt the lesser person is blessed by the greater.”
• He would not have asked for Him to bless, if he did not recognised that He was the greater and he the lesser.
You see, God has a high calling for him.
• God said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel…” (v.28)
• He became the patriarch of the people of God, Israel.
It reminded me of Moses - Melvin sent an email just a couple of days ago, about Moses seeing the burning bush - the same thing.
• Moses killed an Egyptian soldier and fled. It was an error.
• And now he is in the wilderness, an ordinary shepherd, tending the flock.
• And then God engaged him - Exodus 3:1-3
1 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up."
He need not have to be hiding all his life. God wants to bless him.
• He has a higher calling for Moses – to lead His people out of Egypt.
• God came to him – in a burning bush.
God draws us to Himself in different ways.
• For Jacob, it’s a wrestling match. For Moses, it’s the burning bush.
• But both intentions were the same. God wanted to engage the man.
Today God wants to engage us.
• Sometime it’s more like a wrestling match with had with Him. We really struggle quite a bit, and then realised that through it we’re drawn closer to God. God caught our attention.
• Sometimes it’s more like the burning bush – not a struggle but a revelation.
Whatever the experiences, we look back and realised that it was God.
• He was present in these encounters. It might be uncomfortable and painful, but it did not destroy us.
• Rather we were led to a deeper understanding of God, and a higher playing field.
• God’s desire is to bless us. If we do not know it, He will engage us.
• Don’t let your past failures distort your view of God. He wants to bless you.
And in these encounters, both Jacob and Moses recognised their limitations.
• Moses said he cannot talk well. How could he face Pharaoh?
• Jacob realised by his own strength he cannot overcome.
He wrestled all through the night and it appeared that it was going to be a draw until the man dislocated Jacob’s hip with a simple touch (v.25).
• It was as if God allowed Jacob to give Him his best shot and then God showed His complete superiority with a single touch.
• And so the right response was this: “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.”
It’s like Paul’s description of a thorn in the flesh.
• He struggled with the pain, and pleaded with God.
• 2 Cor 12:9 “But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”
Jacob walked away limping, but he learnt his limitations and God’s sufficiency.
• John White says, Jacob was conquered by dependency.
• Only when we see our true condition will we understand our need of Him.
• The proud will not need God. The self-sufficient ones will not need God.
God puts us through experiences that will cause us to have the right appreciation of self. We come to know we are limited and weak.
• You may have tried to do things in your own strength. Trying to do the right thing, or trying to manufacture a holy life.
• Trying to give up a bad habit by sheer will power and strength, like Jacob.
• And now you realise you cannot. We are “forced” to admit, through wrestling matches that we cannot.
• What is left for you to do is to cry out for His blessings.
Is God wrestling with you today? Is there something you’re withholding from Him?
Why are you resisting Him?
• God does not wish to bring you to some experiences in which you have no choice but to cast yourself on His mercy.
• Yet He will do it if He has to. Or maybe He has already done so in your life.
• You will come to a point when you say, “Well, I guess there’s nothing left to do now but to trust the Lord!” Trust should come first, not last.
At the end of the day – or in Jacob’s case, at the dawn of a new day, he was left standing alone.
• The man had disappeared. But he was able to say, “I have seen God face to face.”
• It’s a blessing.
• After that, things would never again be quite the same. His name is now ISRAEL.
SUMMARY:
The whole experience of PRAYER is not to wrestle with God over our demands, but to know the heart of the One who seek to bless us and call us to a higher purpose in life, and help us understand our utter dependence on Him for success.
God wants to draw us into prayer. He wants to engage us, in order to bless us.
