Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20081123.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Genesis: Explaining The Foundations Of History
Part VII: Explaining God's Plan To Bless Men Regardless Of Apostasy
V. Learning In Towering Trials To Abandon Self-Sufficiency For God
(Genesis 32:1-33:20)

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

Worldwide, people are facing seemingly overwhelming trials, a fact indicating God is letting them occur to elicit a response from man:

(1) Locally, glancing through my Prayer Meeting prayer request book of just the last month's prayer meetings, I count 12 severe crises that have recently occurred to people in our body, or to those we know!

(2) Statewide, talk show host, Brad Davis on Torrington's am 610 radio program, "The Talk of Connecticut" spoke on November 18th with Thomas Lips, Senior Vice President of Investments at UBS Financial, the Hartford office of a large Swiss Bank, and he claimed we face a deep 3-to-5-year recession. He explained that economists refer to a "V-shaped" recession where we financially drop down on a graph and come right back up, or a "U-shaped" one where we go down and come up more slowly. However, this recession will be shaped like a bathtub!

(3) However, our nation faces this crisis, too: in 1999, General Motor's stock sold for a high of $93.63 per share, and Ford's stock sold for a high of $39.10 (Morningstar.com). Yet, last Tuesday, you could buy GM stock for $3.37 and Ford stock at $1.79 a share! To think that the media has reported on the threat of bankruptcy for America's largest corporation, General Motors, or for the Ford Motor Company that gave us the assembly line, businesses that built such classics as the Corvette and Camaro, or the Thunderbird and Mustang, cars that have become a part of our culture, seems almost unbelievable!

(4) The world faces this crisis, too: on November 17th, national conservative radio talk show host, Glenn Beck interviewed U. S. Republican Senator, James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma who agreed with Mr. Beck that the world's nations are in dire financial straits!

This observation was verified in Mr. Lips' report to Brad Davis as he reported the securities markets worldwide have lost $20 trillion worth of assets over the last year! To fathom this, that represents an average drain of $634,197.83 per second all year long!

(5) I spoke last Sunday evening by phone with a believer who was a child during the Great Depression. She commented on the world situation, confirming my belief that the crises the world faces are so intense and vast, God must be allowing them for His purposes!

That being so, we ask, "If GOD is letting all this trouble rise for us and the whole world, why, and how are we to respond?!"

(We turn to the sermon "Need" section . . . )

Need: "If GOD is letting not only us, but the WHOLE WORLD face TOWERING trials, WHY, and HOW should we RESPOND?!"
  1. God let Jacob corner himself into an overwhelming crisis in life:
    1. When God had told Jacob to return to Canaan to leave an angry Laban in Genesis 31:3, Jacob did not know if Esau in Canaan still wanted to kill him, so he had to make peace with Esau to insure his safe return.
    2. The visitation of God's guardian angels in Genesis 32:1-2 encouraged Jacob to send messengers to Esau to tell of his coming, and humbly to ask Esau to let him return to Canaan in peace, Genesis 32:3-5.
    3. The messengers returned to Jacob, reporting that Esau was coming out with a force of 400 horsemen to meet him, Genesis 32:6!
    4. Having cornered himself by his past dealings between an angry Laban behind him in Haran to where he could not return, and a furious Esau near Canaan in front of him where he had no choice but to go, Jacob was terrified, and worked hard to help himself, Genesis 32:7-24a:
      1. Jacob separated his company into two groups, thinking that if Esau destroyed one group, the other one might escape, Genesis 32:7b-8.
      2. He then prayed, claiming God's promise to bless if he returned to Canaan and admitting he was unworthy of His help, Gen. 32:9-12.
      3. Jacob also arranged for separate groups of gifts of animals from his herds to precede him so as to placate his brother, Gen. 32:13-20.
      4. He next sent his family ahead to meet Esau, Genesis 32:21-24.
    5. Then, after all these efforts to protect himself, "a man" menacingly approached Jacob and "wrestled" with him through the night, 32:24.
  2. God's REASON for letting this crisis occur was to teach Jacob and ALL men to cease all their "wrestlings" and trust in God, 32:25-32:
    1. Jacob's crisis had been caused by his bent to "wrestle" others for gain:
      1. In his mother's womb, Jacob had "wrestled" with his brother, Esau, and even at birth, he had grabbed his brother's heel, Gen. 25:22, 26.
      2. Jacob's tendency to "wrestle" others for gain later led him to cheat Esau and to manipulate Laban's herds! (Gen. 25:29-34; 27:1-30:43)
    2. However, these "wrestlings" had only cornered Jacob in an overwhelming crisis in life, so the Preincarnate Jesus Christ arrived to "wrestle" Jacob in order to teach him to cease all such "wrestlings" by crippling him from aiding himself that way, Genesis 32:24-25:
      1. We know the "man" wrestling with Jacob was from God since He disabled Jacob by merely touching him on his thigh, Gen. 32:25.
      2. Hosea 12:3-4 identifies this "man" as God's angel, and Genesis 32:29-30 that reports on Jacob's later conversation with this "man" reveals He was GOD, or, the Preincarnate Jesus Christ!
      3. So, like he had always wrestled others for gain, Jacob wrestled with Christ, but suffered a crippling defeat that left him helpless!
    3. Sensing for the first time in his life his utter helplessness, Jacob held onto Christ as he had held onto his brother's heel at birth, and in this position, he SOUGHT Christ's HELP, Genesis 32:26 with 25:26!
    4. Christ replied, graciously renaming Jacob: his name had meant "heel catcher," "trickster" or "supplanter", the one who "wrestled" others for gain, but Christ renamed Jacob "Israel", meaning " God fights." This taught Jacob that true blessing came in ceasing from his own "wrestlings" to trust in God, Genesis 32:27-28; Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978 ed., ftn. to Genesis 25:26; Bible Know. Com., O. T., p. 81.
    5. So, by this event, GOD revealed that the NATION "Israel" that descended from Jacob was to TRUST in GOD for BLESSING!
    6. As the NATION Israel is to bless the WORLD via the Abrahamic Covenant (Genesis 12:1-3), the name "Israel" teaches ALL men to cease from their own "wrestlings" and trust in God for blessing!
  3. God then kept His Word, safely taking Jacob to Canaan, 33:1-20:
    1. Seeing Esau arrive, Jacob by faith in God went to meet him, 33:1-3.
    2. God led Esau to greet Jacob peaceably in an emotional meeting, 33:4.
    3. Their meeting was nevertheless guarded, for Esau refused Jacob's gifts, and Jacob refused Esau's protective escort, so the brothers parted company from one another, Genesis 33:5-17.
    4. Jacob then bought a parcel of land in Shechem, and there built an altar and named it, "a Mighty God is the God of Israel"; this honored God's protection of Jacob from his overwhelming foes, Laban and Esau, Genesis 33:18-20; Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978 ed., ftn. to 33:20!
Application: In an overwhelming crisis, (1) we must cease our efforts and trust in Christ for eternal life, John 3:16; Ephesians 2:8-9. (2) We must also abandon proud self-reliance and humbly trust God for His help! (3) If the crisis causes us to recall an earlier event in our lives like Jacob's wrestling of Christ recalled his wrestling at birth, God is exposing a realm of great need He strongly wants us to overcome by faith! We must earnestly respond, trusting God in it!

Lesson: God let Jacob "wrestle" himself into an overwhelming crisis, and there have to wrestle in a losing match with the Preincarnate Christ to teach him and ALL men to abandon their proud efforts and trust in God.

Conclusion: (To illustrate the sermon lesson . . . )

In view of this sermon's lesson relative to the meaning of the name, "Israel," I believe God is allowing the crisis our world faces to occur to show man his need to trust in God and not his own efforts:

(1) According to James Madison, one of the framers of the Constitution of the United States, our forefathers held the government they designed would be effective since, in Madison's own words, "We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." ("Things You Should Know," Progress , International Reform Federation, 12/2004, p. 7.)

Accordingly, we as a people with all good intentions have tried to "sell" this idea of good self-government to the world for its welfare!

(3) However, regardless how NOBLE the INTENT, it was sabotaged from the start, for Scripture declares NO man can ACTUALLY KEEP God's law; our government leaders as well as we the people are all sinners, and that ruins the process! Romans 3:19-20 NIV explains: "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin."

(4) Accordingly, God has allowed the overwhelming crisis we and our world face today to reveal what he revealed to Jacob in his time of overwhelming crisis: man is NOT ABLE to ensure his own blessing because he, as a SINNER, CANNOT KEEP the LAW of GOD, and so he can NOT EARN or OBTAIN BLESSING! God is thus calling us today to do what Jacob finally learned to do -- TO SHIFT FROM PROUDLY TRUSTING IN OUR SINFUL SELVES TO TRUST IN HUMILITY IN THE BIBLE'S GOD FOR BLESSING!

May we (1) trust in Christ and NOTHING ELSE for salvation from sin, John 3:16; Ephesians 2:8-9. (2) Then, may we trust in God's indwelling Holy Spirit -- NOT OURSELVES -- for godliness in living (Romans 8:3-4) (3) so that GOD might bless us.

Like Jacob of old, may we grasp God in prayer and faith and not let him go as we beseech Him for His help and blessing!