Book of Genesis - Ch. 32, Vs. 1-32 (05/08/2016)

Oh my. I didn't know that existed back in my day. Okay, are we about ready to get started?

Jacob’s Flight From Laban and Fear of Esau

Okay, we are in Genesis 32. Jacob has just had his meeting with Laban, and they left on, I guess, as good a terms as they could be expected to. They set a boundary up between them, and they said, we both agree not to cross this boundary to do hurt to one another.

And Jacob went on his way. That's the beginning of chapter 32. And Jacob went on his way. What's he on his way from? He's on his way from Laban and his 20 years of servitude. He's on his way from Laban and the threat that Laban presented him right at the end of the 20 years.

A threat not carried out only because of the intervention of God. Laban himself at the very end of 31 said, it is in the power of my hand to do you hurt. But the God of your father spake to me yesternight saying, take thou heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad.

And I had problems with that particular verse for a long time. And then I recognized what he was talking about is, don't try to entice him to stay by offering something good and don't threaten him by threatening something bad.

Not that you can't speak to him, but no threats. But he's on his way from Laban. He's on his way to what? To Esau. Out of the frying pan into the fire as we used to say. Laban came at, even a greater threat than Laban.

Laban was only coming after Jacob to take Jacob's stuff and the gods that he thought that Jacob had. He was going to leave Jacob alive but out in the wilderness. He was going to take his wife and his kids and all of his stuff and his gods back.

But Esau offers a greater threat. Esau hated Jacob. This is chapter 27 verse 41. Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him. And Esau said in his heart, the day of the mourning for my father are at hand, then I will slay my brother Jacob.

Now there are two interesting things about this. Number one, how far off his timing was. He thought his dad was going to die just any time now and I'm going to kill my brother. Jacob's not going to die for a long, long time.

I'm sorry, I said the wrong name. Isaac. Isaac doesn't leave the scene until chapter 35. So he is way off on his timing. There's somebody else that's going to be way off in their timing just in a minute.

And these words of Esau, her elder son, were told Rebekah. And she sent and called Jacob her younger son and said unto them, Behold, my brother Esau, as touching thee, doth comfort himself, purposing to kill you.

Now therefore, my son, obey my voice. Arise and flee thou to Laban, my brother, to Haran, and tarry with him a few days, until thy brother's fury turn away, until thy brother's anger turn from thee, and he forget that which thou hast done.

Then I will send and fetch thee from thence. Why should I be deprived of both of you in one day? Well, when did she send for him? She never sent for him. She died first. Jacob stayed in Laban's household for 20 years.

His mother is long gone. So his mother actually lost Jacob that day. Never saw him again. Okay, then Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God's host.

And he called the name of that place Mahanabi. That literally means two camps. When I was looking at Dr. MacArthur's commentary, he took that to mean the camp of Jacob and the camp of the angels. But Arthur Pink had a little bit different take, one that I like better.

He took it to mean two camps of angels, one in front of Jacob to protect him from Esau, and the other behind Jacob, the band that protected him from Laban. Now, I like that better. I don't know that that's true.

In fact, I told someone, the guy at school that we chat, I chat with sometimes, that probably, I believe probably Dr. MacArthur is, has the better, has the right answer, because he is more scholarly than Arthur Pink.

On the other hand, Arthur Pink has a lot of good stuff. And I would prefer it to be Arthur Pink's version. It just kind of fits the bill much better than to say there's these angels out there in this camp, and there's me and my people over here in this camp.

So I don't know. But there's no question that Jacob is concerned about his reunion with Esau. After all, he and his mother, his mother sent him away because Esau was planning to kill him. So Jacob did what all of us might have done.

He took steps to protect himself. So here's what he does. And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau, his brother, unto the land of Seir, the country of Edom. And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall ye speak to my lord Esau, thy servant Jacob, this is what they're to say to him, thy servant Jacob saith thus, I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed there until now.

I have oxen, and asses, and flocks, and men's servants, and women's servants, and I have sent to tell my lord that I may find grace in thy sight. So what's he doing? What's that message intending to deliver?

I'm not alone, I have people too. Okay, that may be one of the things. I don't really think that's the major thing. Why did he leave? Why did Jacob leave? And why was Esau going to kill him? Okay, he particularly wanted to kill Jacob because Jacob stole his stuff.

Jacob got through deceit and trickery what Esau regarded as his. He had no real regard for it because after all he traded it for a bowl of soup. But that he forgot. He wants to assure Esau that he's not coming back to reclaim or to claim his inheritance.

He's saying to Esau, don't worry about the deal we had for the stuff that my two portions and thy one portion that we exchanged and I got the two and you got the one. I'm not coming back for that. I've got stuff of my own.

I don't need any of your stuff. That's what he's telling him. But he wants to assure Esau that he's not coming to claim the inheritance that he and his mother went so far as to obtain. They went to trickery of Isaac to inherit it.

The inheritance that was rightfully Jacob's. Esau thought the inheritance was his. The inheritance really was Jacob's and was from the beginning. In Genesis 25 we have the story of the birth of the twins.

Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife because she was barren. The Lord was entreated of him. Rebekah, his wife, conceived and the children struggled together within her. She said, if so be, why am I thus?

She went to inquire of the Lord. The Lord said unto her, two nations are in thy womb and two matters of people shall be separated from thy bowels. The one people shall be stronger than the other people and the elder shall serve the younger.

From the beginning, the inheritance belonged to the younger, not the elder. It was designated that way by God. So all of the trickery that Jacob went through to obtain the inheritance was his anyhow. I think so, but Esau showed no real desire for that blessing.

The blessing bringing with it the head of the spiritual leader of the clan. He got a greater share, but he was also designated as the spiritual leader of the family. Neither one of those mattered so much to Esau.

So from the beginning, the inheritance belonged to Jacob, but that didn't keep Jacob from scheming to obtain it. First, he traded a bowl of porridge for it. And Jacob sought pottage, and Esau came from the field and was faint.

And Esau said to Jacob, feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage, for I am faint, therefore his name called Edom. And Jacob said, sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, no, the birthright is worth way more than a bowl of pottage.

He said that? He didn't say that. He said, the porridge is here right now. Behold, I am at the point to die. What profit shall this birthright be to me? And Jacob said, swear to me this day. And he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob.

Thus, Esau despised his birthright. He didn't care about it. Well, that was the first instance. So right now, by agreement, the birthright belongs to Jacob. Then, along with his mother, he sought to obtain the birthright by tricking the father.

Rebekah spake unto her son Jacob, saying, Behold, I heard thy father speak to Esau thy brother, saying, Bring me venison, and make me a savory meat, that I may eat and bless thee before God before my death.

Therefore, my son, obey my voice, which I command thee. Go now to the flock, fetch me, thence, two good kids of the goats, and I will make of them savory meat for thy father, such as he loveth. And thou shalt bring it to thy father, that he may eat, and that he may bless thee before his death.

That was his mother. Jacob, being more practical, said, Wait a minute. I've got smooth skin. Esau has hairy skin. Maybe he will touch my arm, and he will know that I'm not Jacob. I'm not Esau. And he will feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver.

I thought that was so funny the first time through. What was he? He was a deceiver. He said, My father pre-eventual will feel me, and it shall seem to him as if I were a deceiver. And I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing.

That was his fear. And his mother said, Don't worry. I'll let the curse be on me. And Jacob said, Okay, if you'll take the blame, I'll do the deed. And so he did. And so she made the meal, and she put skins of goats on his hands and on the smooth of his neck.

And Jacob took the meal to his father. His father suspected something, but he finally decided that it wasn't, after all, Esau. In fact, he asked him. And he said, Who art thou, my son? And Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau, thy firstborn.

And I have done according as thou badest me. Arise, I pray thee, sit, and eat of my venison, that thy soul may bless me. And Isaac said to his son, How is it that you have found it so quickly? And he said, Because the Lord brought it to me.

And Isaac said, Come near, and I pray thee that I may fill thee to make sure whether you're Esau or not. And so he did. And his father said, Well, the voice is the voice of Jacob, but the arms feel like Esau.

And then he said, Art thou my very son Esau? And he said, I am. And he said, Bring it near me. And I will eat of my son's venison, that my soul may bless thee. And then he blessed him. And he said, Therefore God give thee the dew of the heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and the plenty of the corn and wine.

Let the people serve thee, and let the nations bow down to thee. Be thou Lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee. Cursed be everyone that curseth thee, and blessed be everyone that blesses thee.

And that was the story, and that was the reason that Jacob had a good reason to be concerned. If you had left under those conditions, you also would have been concerned. So he sent his messengers to tell Esau that Jacob is coming back, and he's got lots of stuff.

He doesn't want your stuff, and he's waiting for their response. And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to thy brother Esau, and also he cometh to meet thee with four hundred men. How would you feel if you got that message?

Okay, you are more... Jacob is a man like all of us, but more so. He is like an amplification of all the good and evil in us. Well, I think there is a difference between people in the Old Testament and people in the New Testament.

I think they are more susceptible to the comings and the goings. Maybe we should be better, maybe we should be better than we are. But certainly Jacob is an amplification of the way that we are. I guess you might be right, because of the rare occurrence of God being in their presence.

They were more aware of it when he was there. We are less aware because we are immersed in it all the time.

He's breaking out of everything he has gained. And he hadn't heard from God, hadn't seen God, that I know of. It's not in the Bible, but I mean, he had a measure of faith. I'm sure you can say he was a measure of faith.

I'm sorry, I'm just... Well, I'm sure he had a measure of faith. He was out of communication with God. He was out of communion with God. It says nothing about a tabernacle. It says nothing about an altar, a place of communication with God.

During the full 20 years. Right? I'm sorry? The Lord told him to go back. The Lord told him to go back, and that was the first evidence we have of communication between the Lord and him. And we talked about that last week.

That even though he had apparently forgotten about the Lord, the Lord had forgotten about him. No, no, that's good. And showed him a band of angels. That's why I like Pink's version better. And showed him a band of angels.

This band of angels just protected you from Laban. And this one is out here to protect you from Esau. What are you worried about? But he was focusing on the 400 men. That's right. Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.

Not comfortable in the fact that he had a band of angels in front of him to protect him. But greatly distressed and afraid because of what he knew that he had done. And he knew that he was deserving of the wrath of Esau.

But he had a guilty conscience. Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed, and he divided the people that were with him, and the flocks, and the herds, and the camels into two bands. And he said, if Esau come to the one company and smite it, then the other company which is left shall escape.

A reasonable plan, but a worldly one. Now we're going to come to a verse that shows just how far Jacob has come, or has grown in his relation to the Lord. Now comes his prayer. You say, how can he go from?

It's just like a windshield wiper. One way and then the other. That's Jacob. And Jacob said, you read this prayer and tell me what you think of Jacob. And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham and the God of my father Isaac, the Lord which saith unto me, return to thy country and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee.

So he is stating to God in his prayer, this is what you told me. I know that I'm going because you told me to go to my country and to my kindred, and you said I will deal well with you. And then he says, but I know.

I am not worthy of the least of all of thy mercies. A very humble man. A man coming to God not afraid of telling God what God already knows, that he is on his way because the Lord told him to, and that he is under God's protection because God said he was, but also recognizing that he was not worthy of any of this.

And of all the truth which thou hast shown unto thy servant, for with my staff I have passed over this Jordan, and now I am becoming two bands. Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him.

Well he is right, he did fear him, and he was also right that the deliverance that he had would not come from his own doing, but would come from God. For I fear him, lest he come and smite me and the mother with the children, and thou set us.

I will surely do thee good, and make thy seeds as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered from multitude. So what is he telling God? He is reminding God of the promises he just did. Now, is it bad that he did that?

Yeah, it is okay in our prayers that we remind God of what he told us he would do for us. It is not like we think he forgot, it is like us telling him that we have not forgot. I wish I had that, I would put that in.

All of that though, I mean, it is the windshield wiper. Over here, over here. First he divides his camp into two bands because he is afraid that Esau is going to come upon him to smite him, and if he kills one group, the other group will escape.

Then he is over here, he recognizes that he is protected by God, that God told him to go, and that everything is in God's hands. Now he is over here again. He could not resist the effort to solve his own problems by his own method.

That is what we do. God tells us to do something, we say okay, and then we lay awake all night planning what we are going to do to solve the problem. That is just the way we are. Well, I would only argue with one word, Mrs. Mitchell.

You said we learn, I do not think we learn. We ought to learn, but we seem never to rely on it. So he lodged there that same night and took of that which came into his hand a present for Esau, his brother.

Two hundred she-goats and twenty he-goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty milk camels with their colts, forty kine, those are cows, and ten bulls, twenty she-asses and ten foal. And he delivered them into the hands of his servant.

Every drove by themselves and said to his servants, Pass over before me and put space between drove and drove. And he commanded the foremost, saying, When Esau, my brother, meeteth thee, and ask thee, saying, Whose art thou, and whither goest thou, and those which are before thee?

Then thou shalt say, They be thy servant Jacob's. It is a present sent unto my lord Esau, and behold also he is behind us. And so he commanded the second and the third and all that followed the drove, saying, Of this manner shall I speak unto Esau when you find him.

So that's Jacob's plan. He's going to send presents to Esau, one after another, things that Esau might like. And the hope is that Esau will accept these gifts and accept the commitment that he's not coming after Esau's stuff and make peace with him.

But not even Jacob is confident in this plan. Here's what he says. And moreover, behold, thy servant Jacob is behind us. For he said, I will appease him with the present that goeth before me, and afterwards I will see his face.

Peradventure, he will accept me. So what's his conclusion? I'm going to send all this stuff. I'm going to send it in pieces. I'm going to give him three or four messages that these presents are from thy servant Jacob to you.

Jacob is thy servant. You are the Lord. These are coming to you. And after all of these gifts, I'm going to be there, and I'm going to look at his face, and maybe he'll forgive me. Maybe this will work.

The Believer’s Fleshly Schemes and God’s Sovereign Grace

Now, I'm going to pop over to something that I picked up from Arthur Pink's commentary. Right here at this verse, he says this. Proceeding further, we would pause to consider a pertinent and pressing question which naturally arrives out of what we have seen above.

How is it possible for Jacob to turn to fleshly schemings and efforts of his own to appease Esau when just before he had a prayer with such earnestness to God and had not failed to plead the divine promises?

He hadn't failed to ask God for the promises that God had promised him. Was Jacob, after all, an unbeliever? Then he answers, Surely not. God's dealing with him previously dispelled the idea. Had he then fallen from grace and become an unbeliever?

And again, we must reject any such suggestion, for the Scriptures are plain and explicit on the point that one who has been born again cannot be unborn. A faithful and unworthy child of God I may be, but I'm still his child.

Romans 11 .29 says the gifts and the callings of God are without repentance, without a change of mind. When God gives you something, he never takes it back. The gifts of God are without repentance. Once a sinner has been called out of darkness into God's marvelous light, and once God has given him light and salvation, he never undoes that calling or withdraws his gift.

For the sinner did nothing whatsoever of himself to merit God's gift, and he can do nothing to demerit it. The basis on which God bestows his gifts is not that of works or human desert, but on sovereign grace alone.

Well, we've been hearing that message for a week or so. If you have nothing to do with it, you have nothing in your power to undo it. This, however, does not argue that we shall therefore be careless and free to sin as much as we want, for that would only go to prove that we had never received God's gift of salvation.

Rather, we shall be more careful and have a greater hatred of sin, not because we are afraid of the consequences of wrongdoing, but we are desirous of showing our deep gratitude to God by a life which is pleasing to him in return for his abounding mercy and goodness to us.

But this still leaves unanswered our question concerning Jacob. Jacob was a believer in God, as a careful study of his prayer recorded in Genesis 32, that we just read, evidences. But though Jacob was a believer, there still remained the flesh, the old evil nature in him, and to this he gave way.

The flesh is ever unbelieving, and where it is not constantly judged, breaks forth in God-dishonoring activities. This clearest exemplification and demonstration of the two natures of the believer is to be seen in the history of Jacob, recorded faithfully by the Holy Spirit, not for our emulation, but for our warning.

For the same two natures are in every child of God today, the spiritual and the carnal, the one which believes God and the other which disbelieves. It is because of this that we need daily to cry out, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.

Well, when I read that passage, I couldn't help but just copy it down and pass it on to you. What do you guys think? That is kind of like a summary of Brother David's sermons over the past six months or longer.

And leaving it with this, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. He didn't go to the point of spelling it out for us like Brother David has, that the one belief is the belief of God, but our belief, our belief is fickle.

Our belief wanders, it strays. We believe, and then we don't believe. We believe, and then we don't believe. If we want to really believe, we've got to have God's belief or God's faith.

More or less taught us that God was capricious and had the word of the day. You weren't going to get anything from God, and nobody knew what the word of the day was. And this is one thing that this church and this teaching has done for our lives.

It has taught us that God is not capricious. He is rock solid. He absolutely has his plan, and he absolutely is going to follow it. And if it derelicts you, or you think it derelicts you, then that's just too bad because that's God's plan.

And the one thing that has given me such comfort in this church is the rock solidness of that belief. It's hard to explain unless you've been appraised in a church that we're just not supposed to understand everything in the Bible because that part, we'll find out about that in heaven.

And God's not always going to do what we expect.

I think there are things that we'll only learn in heaven. But I think the important things for us, we could and should know now. And the one thing that we could and should know is that there is someone in charge of our election, and it's not us.

There is someone that did something to earn our salvation, but it was not us. There is somebody that could undo our salvation, but he won't. Because we had nothing to do with our salvation. There's nothing that we can do to undo it.

The constancy of that all is just amazing. And it gives you, what do we call it? Assurance, but in the tulip word. Perseverance. The perseverance of the saints. Romans said the gifts of God are without repentance.

He doesn't take back what he gives. Well, Jacob should have known that a band of 400, even against one angel, is hopeless. And he has a band of angels going out before him. But it wasn't the spiritual Jacob that was concerned.

It was the fleshly Jacob. It was the human Jacob. It was the old Jacob. They said, Jacob, we all have. And that's why, like Arthur Pink, and like me, and like everybody else, we need to cry daily. Lord, I believe.

Wrestling With God at Peniel

Help thou mine unbelief. So went the present before him, and he himself lodged that night in the company. And he rose that night, and took his two wives, and his two women servants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the fort for Jacob.

And he took them, and he sent them over the brook, and sent over that he had. Now I want to read something, and I want to leave this on your mind, because I have a dilemma here. I'm going to tell you my dilemma, and I'm going to tell you I haven't resolved it.

Maybe one of you can. So Jacob is now alone on the other side of the river. And it says, and Jacob was left alone. And there he wrestled with a man until the breaking of the day. And he saw that he prevailed not against him.

Now, who prevailed not was the man, and him is Jacob. So the man did not prevail against Jacob. And he, the man, touched the hollow of his thigh, Jacob's thigh. And the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint.

And he wrestled with him. And he said, let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said unto him, what is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said to him, thy name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel.

For as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked him and said, tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him, and Jacob called the name of the place Peniel.

For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. And as he passed over Peniel, the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh. Therefore the children of Israel, eating out of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh unto this day, because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank.

All right, that's what the next lesson is going to be about. And my problem is this. Why or how did Jacob manage to prevail? Or if he didn't prevail, keep the Lord from prevailing? He knew that it was the Lord he was wrestling with.

So he didn't prevail against, the Lord didn't prevail against Jacob because it was not the Lord's intent to prevail against Jacob. It was the intent to make Jacob wrestle all night. So that the next time he had a decision, the next time he had a decision, that he was a man that had power with God because God gave him the power.

He was able to wrestle all night with the Lord because God gave him the strength to do it. Okay.

Okay. He had a son, so he fights with him, but he lets him win.

Well, he didn't force him into a defeat. At least he had a stalemate. Okay.

Uh-huh. He prevailed all night. I love those who seek to struggle with him. To seek him diligently.

Okay. That was just a little aside because I knew I was having some issues with, we know how powerful God is, and we know that no one could wrestle even for a second with the Lord. In fact, when Satan and all of his armies meet the Lord at Armageddon and they have the great battle at the end of the age, there was no battle at all.

He just said, and it's done.

We're going to struggle. Uh-huh. We ask him, why did you bring me to this place? Why do I have to go through this? Why does this happen? Why does that happen? Why did that person do this? How could you let him do that?

We did it all the time. And he lets us struggle with him without killing us, which is amazing to think about. Because he's our father. He's not just God of the universe. He's our father too. So he allows us to do things other people would die if they tried it for one second.

Yet, he does touch the thigh, which means we're injured when we wrestle with him. When we don't have pure faith and just rest, we struggle. We're injured when we do that.

We're told we have to have comfort with him, to rest in him, not to struggle with him.

I'm sorry? Rest means we're to rest in learning how to do a wrestling. And he lets us win sometimes. That's amazing. That's what this lesson is about, isn't it?

Uh-huh. Well, he lets us prevail. He doesn't—we don't really win in the sense of winning over from God anything. But— He's destroying us.

I think so.

But, again, I told you that I stopped prior to this because I was unsettled on a lot of issues. And just because I'm settled on it, by the way, doesn't mean that I have settled on it correctly. I still make wrong—.

No, I think Brother David said it. It was to show us that when we struggle with God, there will be consequences. And they will prevail. He hobbled all of his life. That mark remained with him. And, in fact, every time he stumbled on a step, he had to remember what caused him to stumble.

And the fact that he was struggling with God and the fact that God was with him and God would protect him. And that's what he didn't have earlier with regard to the dread at meeting Esau. He was truly afraid.

And the Lord is telling him, you shouldn't have been afraid. After all, you've got me with you.

If—. Not giving up, in other words. Like, whenever I struggle, it's like I'm trying to hold on to two different things and I'm just—. You know what I mean? I think so. Yeah, it's like I'm holding on to God.

I'm not going to let him go. But to try and hold on to something else, that is a cause of struggle.

That you can't possibly hold on to at the same time.

Would there be a struggle if all you were doing was holding on to God?

No, there would not be a struggle if all you were doing was holding on to God. And that's because of the old man that was still in him. Like the old man that's still in us. That's why we struggle. If we didn't— If the old man wasn't there and Satan wasn't there to tempt us, we wouldn't worry about when God promises something, we wouldn't worry about it.

We'd consider it as done, like he does. When God promises something, it's as good as done. To God, it is done. But unfortunately for us, we don't believe that. We don't believe it's done until we see it done.

And that's the issue I think we're dealing with. Well, I think we're running over. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for all the things that you have given us. Thank you for the place that you've given us to come and worship.

Thank you for giving us your Holy Spirit to read and discern the things that you have for us. Go through us and protect us through the rest of the day. In Jesus' name we pray.