Experiencing God No.3 The Example of Jacob

The ninth verse, you discover Jacob praying, that's quite early in the morning, then the afternoon goes by, and in the late evening, Jacob again prays to God. So let's take his prayer earlier in the day from verse 9 of Genesis 32. Then Jacob prayed, O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper.

I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two groups. Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children.

But you have said, I will surely make you prosper, and will make your descendants like the sands of the sea, which cannot be counted. Now to the 22nd verse, that night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven sons, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip, so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, let me go, for it is daybreak.

But Jacob replied, I will not let you go unless you bless me. The man asked him, what is your name? Jacob he answered. Then the man said, your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God, and with men, and have overcome.

Jacob said, please tell me your name. But he replied, why do you ask my name? Then he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, it is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.

The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of Jacob's hip. Because the socket of Jacob's hip was touched near the tendon.

Amen. I direct your attention to Genesis 32, verse 24. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.

When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip, so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, let me go, for it is daybreak. But Jacob replied, I will not let you go unless you bless me.

The man asked him, what is your name? Jacob. He answered, verse 30. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, it is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.

The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. One of the great statements of Christian faith is found in what is known as the Westminster Catechism. And there we are told that man's chief aim, his chief end, is to know God and to glorify him forever.

And let me explain for friends who are visiting this morning that I have been engaged on a series of addresses under the general title of Experiencing God. Experiencing God. I think that there is no more needy subject that needs to be proclaimed from the evangelical pulpit than this one.

In a very moving passage, A.W. Tozer in one of his books says, God waits to be known. God waits to be known. And he goes on to say that the tragedy is that in many, many people's experience, God waits so long, so very long, before he can disclose himself to them and before they wish to be known of him.

There is nothing more important, I argue, than to experience God. I'm not referring coming to church. I'm not always very convinced that going to church Sunday by Sunday, Sunday by Sunday, year in and year out is necessarily the way in which one always experiences God.

Don't misunderstand me. I believe in coming together as Christian people. But I think that we can form a sort of mechanical routine where we come to church, we sing our hymns, we listen to the prayer, we half attend to the exposition of Scripture and that's it, and we've experienced God.

It's possible to be in church for donkey's years and not experience the living God. I say that measuring each word, but it's a burden that's upon my heart. You see, the important thing is not to know the Word of God.

That has almost supreme importance, but it is not the supremely important thing. The Word of God is a medium by which the God of the Word is revealed to us. And therefore, I've argued time and time again, the important thing is not just a theology that you agree to with your mind.

It's a theophany that you experience in your heart. Theology affects the mind. Theophany, the realization of God's presence affects the man.

And you can have your mind affected without the man being affected. And what you have is an inadequate understanding of the biblical religion as revealed in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. One of the greatest tragedies, I tell you, of the 20th century is to see skeletons in the church which are, in effect, slumped over the pews.

And if Ezekiel were around today, he would say, cannot these bones live? Is there not more to Christianity than a mere acquaintance with the Word? Is there not an encounter with the holy God of the patriarchs, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? Well, experiencing God is something that is a burden upon my heart for us to consider for some time here at the tabernacle. Now, I resort this morning anticipating that some visitors would be here for a sort of one-off service. I resort to looking into the experience of Jacob because here it seems to me I can give you a study that's on its own and yet relates to the context of our preaching material during these last few weeks and on to the weeks that are to come.

Here is a man who has an experience with God and we're going to look at this man and his experience for a moment or two. Dr. Alexander White was a great preacher in Scotland and he gave birth to a couple of books which are known as Bible Characters. He believed that you could teach doctrine through the characters of the Old and the New Testament and we're following his pattern at least for this morning.

When you look into Jacob and his encounter here as declared in the 32nd chapter of Genesis you have an understanding of what I mean by experiencing God and I am claiming that the encounter that Jacob had in substance if not exactly can be something that you and I also are likely to enjoy if we enter into the promises of God and claim them for ourselves. Jacob was a pretty awful character really, wasn't he? A man who had spent 14 years in the employment of Uncle Laban. He'd left the place where he was born because he was scared stiff of his brother Esau who had murderous intentions toward him and when Jacob arrived in the homestead of Laban he was confronted with someone who was as crafty and as hard and as double dealing as Jacob was himself.

Scheming, plotting, outwitting. That was the stock in trade of Laban and the characteristic I say was also caught by Jacob. Jacob is known by Alexander White as being the Shylock of the Old Testament and that's a brilliant comment because all the qualities that come out in Shylock if you read Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice seem to be rife in the personality of Jacob.

Someone has said that Jacob is more like the corkscrew than he is like the plumb line, a twisted man. You wouldn't buy a second hand camel from Jacob if you've got any sense because he would always have the best of the bargain. Now, the reason why I make these comments by way of introduction is for this reason.

Some people seem to think that they have not the personality to know of repeated experiences with God. You know, they think of the John Bunyan's of this world and the Billy Brays and the Corrie Temboons and the Helen Rosevears as being in a completely separate category from their own. God has got this sort of spiritual elite within the body of Christ and they can experience the living God but lesser mortals cannot and that is a nonsense idea.

God has no favourites. The New Testament makes that very clear as does the Old. But God does have his intimates and God is prepared to come alongside any man or any woman who seeks after him so that that person can have an experience of his grace in a wonderful fashion.

Now, I say to you that Jacob is the most unlikely man ever to have an experience of God and that's why I lift him out of the Old Testament and placard him in front of you in case you say, well, look, I've been going for 20 years and 30 years in my life and I don't really know what you're talking about. But Jacob went through two thirds of his life before he came to Peniel and he wasted many years that have gone before as it's possible, alas, for people to waste years. And if ever there was a man at face level who you thought could never have an encounter with God, it's Jacob.

I can understand Abraham aligning himself with or God aligning himself with Abraham and talking in terms of the God of Abraham and I have equally a grasp how God could call himself the God of Moses but in Psalm 20, I think it is in verse 1, it talks about the God of Jacob granting us sanctuary and refuge and this to me is a problem. How can this holy God who's so straight have anything to do with this unholy man who is so crooked and yet the Old Testament speaks of the God of Jacob on far more occasions than it speaks of the God of Abraham or the God of Moses. Now you see the point.

That should immediately encourage you if perchance you have any thoughts this morning that you are in that low category within the body of Christ that you can't have a naked encounter with God. Listen to Oswald Sanders. There is an optimism in God.

He has a keen eye for latent elements of nobility and promise. He is the God of the difficult temperament, the God of the misfit, the God of the warped personality. He delights to begin where others have given up in despair.

He has the solution for every problem of personality or temperament. If men will surrender themselves to his hands for dramatic remedial treatment, he will bring into play all the resources of his love and grace. Only God saw the princely qualities in this unattractive man.

And Sanders goes on to use a very wonderful term in describing God and his attitude to ordinary people. He says this, God is undiscourageable. Let that sink in this morning.

God is undiscourageable. You may have failed for a decade or two decades or three decades, but God's not through. God is undiscourageable.

He stalks the path of Jacob because he has in mind something great for this man. And sooner or later, and in Jacob's case, later than sooner, God will catch up with this patriarch. And he will deal with him and reveal himself to Jacob.

Let's view the circumstances of this unlikely man just for a moment as we find them in this 32nd chapter. Remember, he's left Laban, his uncle, he's left him somewhat hurriedly. There have been a great number of differences between Jacob and Laban because their characters are very much the same and there's an explosion.

And Jacob leaves Laban with a sort of indecent haste reminiscent of the way that he left Esau 14 years before. And you recall how Laban caught Jacob up with his wives and his flocks and his servants just before he left the territory that might well be thought of in terms of Laban's land. And they came to a sort of agreement and they lifted, as was practiced in those days, they erected a tower and they determined that not one of them would bypass that tower and transgress on the other person's territory.

So, in one sense, Jacob had burned his boats behind him. But you remember, he's moving back into the land where he was brought up as a lad and that means Esau. Esau, the one from whom he filched the birthright, the brother with whom Jacob had dealt in a very deceitful fashion and he has news that Esau is coming with some 400 men and Jacob doesn't think that it's a welcome party that Esau has in mind to greet him.

Now, that's the situation as you find it in Genesis 32. If ever a man needed a theophany, an experience of God, it was Jacob. Trouble behind, thieving tribes all around and in front of him was Esau and who knew how Esau would react when Jacob's back on the scene.

So, Jacob sends his wives, his children, his flocks on in front of him and we're told in the scripture that Jacob spends a night alone before God in prayer. He's by the brook, the Ford Jabbok, verse 22 tells you that in this 32nd chapter and as I say, he is on his own and there by the babbling brook with the bejeweled starry sky as a curtain for the night and the stillness of the evening, Jacob is going to have an encounter with almighty God. He's alone as he considers the past and as he contemplates the future.

Alone when a moment of truth will arrive. Alone when he will have an existential experience and encounter with the living God. I've argued before that theophanies more often than not come when you're on your own.

I thank God for worshiping together in community but it seems to me when you look into the Old Testament and on into the New Testament that God delights to deal with men and women on their own and you are what you are when you're before God on your own and you are nothing else but that and if you can only sense and feel the presence of God in community, then I question what is the genuineness of your religious experience. So here is Jacob with this particular historical situation that I've sketched out for you and in this strange night, the like of which he'd never experienced before and he would never encounter again, we read that a man starts to wrestle with Jacob. Look at the 24th verse.

Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. What was this experience? Can it be explained just in terms of having nightmarish proportions? Was it purely psychological? After all Jacob's tense, he's strung up, we've explained the reason why with all the problems behind and at the side and in front of him. Was this a sort of dream that we've all known in which our beds become gymnasiums and our blankets the assailants? Sometimes we wake up cold in the middle of the night and discover all the blankets on the floor cowering it in a heap and we recognize that we haven't been sleeping very well at all.

Is that the way that you explain this experience? Not a bit. When did blankets cripple a man? When could a nightmare cause the reaction of within the personality of an individual like this encounter caused a reaction within the heart of Jacob? This is none other than God drawing alongside Jacob in the form of a man and engaging with him in a struggle, in a conflict. As the Lord Jesus extended his hands towards Thomas and said, look, feel the print of the nails there.

So in a very literal, in a very physical way, God draws alongside Jacob and he wrestles with him. All the hours of that night, can you imagine it, the cut and thrust of this wrestling? The arms locked round one another. Each of the assailants endeavoring to get supremacy.

What a remarkable experience this is. There are some who think that this is an illustration of prevailing prayer. But it seems to me that this is rather a revelation of the inadequacy of the struggling Jacob as compared with the all-sufficiency of God.

John White, a different character from Alexander White in a book that he penned some years ago, imagines as the night goes by and Jacob is engaged in wrestling that somehow or other the man with whom he's wrestling takes different personalities. He's wrestling no more with just some anonymous character. It's Isaac, his father, he's wrestling with.

Then he's wrestling with Esau. Then he's wrestling with Laban. And more and more as the night goes on and it bursts into the early hours of the morning, Jacob comes to a realization that really he is fighting himself.

All the hostility within his nature. The way in which he has believed that he could negotiate every circumstance. The philosophy that was his as being master of his fate and captain of his soul.

All this is brought face to face with Jacob. As God deals blow after blow at Jacob and tries to show him ultimately that this aggressive spirit, the way in which he has tried to control and maneuver and negotiate every situation that's come from his own abilities, it has to be put down. And you remember how ultimately as the divine assailant comes to grips with Jacob.

He touches him at one of the strongest points and makes the strongest point in his body. That of the greatest weakness. Look at the 25th verse.

When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip. So that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Jacob who has always been able to cope with his own circumstances has this physical illustration of the way in which his life has always been wrong in the sight of God.

Physically the strongest point within the body of the man is that socket between his trunk and the thigh of his leg. And when the angel wrestles with Jacob that strong point is touched and it's dislocated. And from that moment on Jacob will be physically a cripple.

But there is more to this story than just the idea of someone who is literally crippled. Basic to that encounter, that theophany is God demonstrating to Jacob what is the weakest point of his character. The fact that he is so twisted.

The fact that he seeks his own end. The fact that he believes that he's able to cope with life with no reference to God nor to anyone else at all. And so in the early hours of the morning you hear the question being put by his assailant to this son of Isaac.

What is your name? Verse 27. The man asked him what is your name? Not that the information was new, but he wanted to illustrate verbally what had happened physically and to point out the weakness that there was in Jacob's nature. And so the man answers, Jacob, which means twister, perverter, the one who will always take the advantage, the one who will always get the best in every situation.

And the divine assailant says no, no longer Jacob. Verse 26. But Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.

Here is not so much a dedication in terms of the granting of a name. Here is a coronation. There on the banks of the babbling brook, Jabbok, the Lord God refers to Jacob not in terms of a thief, not in terms of a twister, but rather in terms of someone who will be a prince, who will found a nation that traces its ancestry back to Abraham and ultimately will have as its greatest member the Son of God, even the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so the encounter between the divine assailant and Jacob is almost at its conclusion, almost but not quite. Jacob's strength is now gone. He can no longer fight, but now what he can do is something that he was unable, or seemingly so, to perform previously.

He can cling. Jacob has never been a clinger. He's always been a leader.

And you can never know God unless you become a clinger. Jacob has always felt that he was competent for every situation, but that competence must be destroyed. As A.W. Tozer comments, God cannot fully bless a man until he has first conquered him.

The degree of blessing enjoyed by any man will correspond exactly with the completeness of God's victory over him. And so you get, in the final part of this story, this remarkable theophany, the idea of Jacob clinging on to his assailant. Verse 26, Then the man says to Jacob, Let me go, for it is daybreak.

But Jacob replied, I will not let you go unless you bless me. You know what it's like when a man is about to drown? If there's possibility of clutching on to a hand, gripping on to a rock, or to some floating debris that's on the surface of the ocean, he clings with all his might. And that force is almost superhuman.

And that's the idea in this theophany. Jacob has been brought to the end of himself. He who was always the prime mover has now submitted his authority to someone else.

And he says, I will not let you go unless you bless me. It took God decades to get Jacob to that position of just being a clinger. I wonder, my friend, how long is it going to take God to get you and me to this position? For you cannot experience God and know Him unless He is supreme in your life.

John Wesley has this hymn that he composed about this particular experience, speaking for Jacob, My strength is gone, my nature dies. I sink beneath thy weighty hand, faint to revive and fall to rise. I fall, and yet by faith I stand.

I stand and will not let thee go till I thy name and nature know. Hell, earth, and sin, with ease all come. I leap for joy, pursue my way, and as a bounding heart fly home.

I stalk through eternity to prove thy nature and thy name is love. Jacob has come to an end of himself, and now he clings on to God. And you find at the end of this descriptive passage in Genesis 32, the picture of Jacob limping away, verse 31.

The sun rose above him as he passed Peneo, and he was limping because of his hip. Jacob, the lame man, has taken to pray. He's had an experience with God, and he'll go on to the next week, and to the next month, and to the next year.

And he'll never be quite the same again because of this holy encounter. Now, in my last couple of minutes, I ask this question to you as I've asked it to myself. Do you know anything like this? I'm not referring literally to the wrestling, but I am referring to the experience of knowing God, of feeling his presence, of having an affinity with the Lord.

You are in better circumstances than that of Jacob. He didn't have the New Testament. He didn't even have the Old.

He just had a sort of faith in God, and somehow or other, a knowledge that God could reveal himself in a dynamic way, and God did that by the brook, Jacob, Jabok. But you have the Word of God, and through the Word of God, he speaks. Through the Bible, there's a ladder that descends from heaven to earth.

Through the Bible, he makes himself known, and as you peruse these pages, as you meditate upon these truths, God can nakedly expose himself to you, and move into your situation in a way that you've never known before. Do you know that? I well remember some years ago, endeavoring to translate part of the New Testament from the original. I was doing it mechanically.

I was doing it with the limited abilities that I had of the original language, and I was into Romans, into that third and on into the fourth chapter, and suddenly the Word, it gripped me. It broke through my mind. It went through my emotions.

It took hold, a hold of my personality, as I realized that the way in which I was dealing with this Word was impudent in the highest degree. This is not just a word to be studied to pass an examination. This is not just a word to be translated, to be able to convince others that you have some knowledge of another language.

This is the Word of God, which has the signature of God behind it, and is addressed to you and to me, to all who will read it. And through this Word, God discloses himself. He makes himself known.

I ask you, do you take this Word, and do you read it? Not casually, but reading it as though it's God's hotline from heaven to you, for so it is. Read it knowing that if Jacob could change places with you, he would, because he only had a stream and an encounter and one or two visions as the total amount of knowledge from which he could make certain conclusions about God. You have the whole of his Word available to you.

Old Testament and New Testament. And it's through his Word that God reveals himself and informs us of what he is like and the way that he wants us to live and to react to its teaching. Remember, I ask, that encounter that Jacob had, that remarkable night by the babbling brook, as with wives on in front of him, hostility behind and in front and at the side.

God comes and reveals himself and reduces Jacob from a wrestler to a clinger. And when you start to cling to God, you get to know him more and more. Let's turn in our hymn books to Ask your blessing upon those who must go at this juncture.

We pray that each of us may increasingly have an experience of you. For Jesus' sake. Amen.