Sermons from Lone Rock Bible Church
Stevensville, MT
Index of LRBC Sermons: www.sermonlinks.com/Sermons/LoneRock/Sermons
Ju.y 17, 2005

Fear and Dread at the Jabbok Crossing
Genesis 32:1 - 33.17

Before Jacob could complete his journey to the Promised Land, he had yet another unpleasant “loose end” to tie up: his angry brother Esau. His dilemma led to an all-night wrestling match and a name change in an episode we’ll now explore.

1. Background (32:1-5)
2. Up all night (32:6 - 33:3)
3. Happy reunion (33:4-17)

It seems to me there are two kinds of vacations. The first is the kind I remember from childhood. They were the vacations that began very early in the morning as we were rousted out of bed and loaded into the car. We would drive from Spokane to Minneapolis to Grandma’s house. That particular vacation is what I would call destination oriented. All we cared about was getting to Grandma’s house. Destination oriented.

Then I read, “Travels with Charley.” In that book, Steinbeck relates a journey that covered a lot of the same highway that we used to travel on our vacation. In Steinbeck’s view of things it wasn’t about the destination, it was about the journey. I am convinced that if Jacob has anything to teach us from the Bible it is that this Christian life, in which we are engaged, is about the journey. Yes, there is a destination but we are not there yet. God is taking us on a pilgrimage. The Bible talks about this over and over again. Through our pilgrimage -- we can call it a pilgrimage or a trip or a race -- maybe it is a marathon or maybe it is a sprint. It is about the time on the road in which God works in our lives and changes us and prepares us for the destination, which the Bible says the eye has not seen, the ear has not heard.  It has not entered into the heart of man how wonderful that will be. We are not there yet. It is about the journey.

Jacob is on the journey. You know how it is in the school of life, this journey we are on and how frequently we take the exam first and learn the lesson later. Jacob’s journey reminds us of our own. He is learning to trust God. We should be too. It is not easy. It is not natural to trust God. It is a practice that needs to be cultivated. Even though God has made Jacob a clear promise and repeated it, he still struggles with trust. He has to meet Esau today. Remember the last time we were with Esau. He hated his brother and fully intended to murder him. This fills Jacob with fear and dread. Have you ever had fear and dread? We have all known something of that. Perhaps fear and dread challenge us more regularly than most obstacles in life. Maybe we are most familiar there, regardless of what form it may take.

Today Jacob is going to meet Esau after many years apart. He is going to learn that it is far better to trust God even in the face of fear and dread. Often, this arena is best to meet him in. Then we can see how God comes through, how He deals with us, how He changes us.

Jacob is facing a very serious and a very formidable loose end in his brother Esau.  He had already faced down one bad guy -- Laban. Laban came to him in pursuit because Jacob had left a bit deceptively and had taken the household idol. But in the case of Laban, Jacob had leverage. After all, Laban had been wronging him for 20 years and Jacob had to get that off his chest. But it wasn’t like that in the case of Esau. The roles are reversed now.

One of the reasons Jacob is so full of fear and dread with regard to Esau is because Jacob had been wrong. Jacob had no moral, high ground with Esau.  Jacob had gotten his birthright but had stolen his blessing. Jacob had treated Esau with disrespect and had mistreated him making Esau so angry he wanted to kill Jacob. Jacob has no righteous leverage here. He needs mercy. So he has moved on from the hill country of Gilead. He has traveled a distance to the south and west and now is at the ford of the Jabbok River. The Jabbok River is a main drainage that heads west into the Jordan River from the hill country of Ammon. It is named for the word “wrestle.” It is named for the event we are about to discuss.

Jacob is thinking as he traveling along the way. He is thinking the business with Laban is handled but I know sooner or later I am going to have to deal with Esau. I am headed home. We share a common family.  I know he is out there and somehow, some way I have to tie this loose end up. I have to resolve this. I have to make peace. It worked with Laban. I am headed to the Promised Land. God has made me a promise, but somehow I have to deal with Esau.

The Bible says he took the initiative and sent out some messengers to find Esau. They would have had to go south but they didn’t go very far south before they met him. Esau was out on a military campaign. True to the promise his father, Isaac, had laid upon him decades before, that he would be a man of the sword and indeed he turned out to be. The messengers went out with a message of peace and conciliation to Esau. They met up with him and noticed that he was in the company of 400 armed men. They are probably expanding Esau’s holdings from the south toward the north. Jacob’s desire was to be at peace with Esau. He wanted his favor. He needed his favor.

Did he get a bombshell with verse 6!  Messengers came back and said they ran into Esau not too far away and he is headed here with 400 men. We could probably appreciate this news just a little bit. Unresolved issues. Strained relationship. Ever been there? At that wedding reception when someone showed up you were really hoping wouldn’t or maybe at the mall or at church this has happened? There is something about unresolved issues and strained relationships that can kind of turn us on the inside. Immediately, we can begin to appreciate something about what Jacob has going on here except, in his case, it could cost him his life. Jacob is a wealthy man with a lot of stuff, but he could not stand up to 400armed men on horseback and he knows it.

If we were reading this story for the first time I’m trusting we know what is coming. But in Jacob’s shoes he doesn’t know what Esau will do. So what does he do? What are we supposed to do when we come against a situation similar to this where there are unresolved problems, perhaps there is hatred and bitterness, and somehow now it is facing us and now we have to deal with it. We don’t know what that other person will do or say but we are pretty sure it not going to be fun. What are we supposed to do?  We are supposed to do what God’s word tells us to do. We are supposed to do what God wants, and trust God with what comes.

That is a lesson Jacob is facing. So what does he do? He stays up all night. He is in a state of fear and dread. He has heard perhaps the most alarming news he could hear and he is not sure. On the one hand he has the promise of God that he is to return home and that from his descendants God will raise up a great nation. He wants to hang on to that promise. On the other hand, here comes his brother who last he knew hated his guts and wanted his head and is capable of taking it.  He is on the horns of a dilemma.

Mostly, this passage of Jacob and Esau’s meeting, is remembered because of Jacob’s wrestling match. Jacob is wrestling with some guy in the night until the break of day. We have to remember before we talk about the wrestling event, that this is the context of it. He is scared to death of his brother and he doesn’t know what to do. His natural inclination pushes him to respond as his mother had responded, when she faced a crisis several chapters ago.

Oh my!   Esau is about to get the blessing, what shall we do? I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll take matters into our own hands. We’ll cook up a stew. We’ll fool the old man. He can’t see anyway and we’ll get that blessing for you, Jacob.”

Next crisis -- Esau is mad; he’s going to kill me. No thought on his mother’s part of trusting God or obeying God’s word. Just “Let’s just work this out. Let’s just jump in.” So Jacob, interestingly, has two responses. In the first, he makes a plan. He divides up his stuff in half, the people, the flocks, everything. If Esau attacks one, the other can get away. Maybe some of us will survive. He throws in his instant, emergency plan, which I suppose could be simply interpreted as prudent and not a bad idea. But then we see the new Jacob in verse 9. He makes a plan and then he prays. 

⁹Jacob said, "O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, '⁽Return to your country and to your relatives, and I will prosper you,'
¹⁰I am unworthy of all the lovingkindness and of all the faithfulness which You have shown to Your servant; for with my staff only I crossed this Jordan, 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, that he will come and attack me and the mothers with the children.
¹²"For You said, 'I will surely prosper you and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which is too great to be numbered.'"

We have a prayer that is characterized by a number of highlights we ought to own for ourselves. He prays based on his personal heritage with God. God of my fathers, I have known you. I am in a relationship with you. You have made a promise, God,  and I want to honor that. I want to live under that. It is a prayer of humility. God, I don’t deserve this.

This is not the Jacob who left home 20 years ago. This is a Jacob in whose life God has been working and molding and challenging and creating a new character from the inside out. He appeals to the character of God, loving kindness and faithfulness, the God of blessing. And then he does what we really need to learn to do. He gets honest. This is Jacob, king of deception. Jacob is the guy, who sneaks away. Jacob, the one who fooled his own father so radically. Now he is honest with God and it is good. We should be this way. I fear Him. I need mercy. God can handle our honesty. When we go to Him in prayer it is not necessary to conjure up platitudes and lofty phrases. “God, I am hurt.” God, I am scared. God, I am angry.” It is ok. Honesty from our hearts opens us to His healing work, clears the decks. It is good to lose pretense before the Lord. Jacob is doing that here. He is honest.

He ends on a note of practicality. By the way God, how do you intend to people this Promised Land without me? I think I ought to be there. Amen. And it is done.

Then he swings into action. He has lots of holdings. If you do the math, you realize he is going to give Esau a gift. Is he doing this just to buy him off? Perhaps, perhaps not. Remember he had stolen from Esau. He had deprived Esau of a position in the family that would have left Esau very wealthy. So perhaps what he is doing is saying “I can have a hand in replacing that.” He separates out animals to a total of 550 critters, breeding critters, so that Esau would have yet more, as if to say, “Brother, I am sorry I ripped you off. Can I make it up to you in some small way?” And he does.

In verse 20, he ends his instructions to his servants with this expression: “Perhaps he will accept me.”  That is his point. He wants to be right with his brother. He is separating himself from a lot of holdings in order to get it done. He wants mercy. He has already prayed about it. He has already done what he can to arrange for it. Now he takes himself into isolation, sends his family across the Jabbok Ford ahead of him and there he is alone.

²⁴Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.
²⁵When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob's thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him.

We are introduced in verse 24, to what is to many people, perhaps the most mysterious event in the Bible -- Jacob’s wrestling match. Everything he has and owns has gone on before. He is by himself. It is dark. It is wild country. He is meditating and praying. He is probably alternating between fear, on the one hand, and hopefully a growing confidence in God on the other. He is not sure what to expect. Does he hear a noise? Does somebody call his name? Is he walking somewhere and grabbed from behind? The Bible doesn’t say. It simply says a man met him there and wrestled with him. The word “wrestle” is only used here in all the Bible.

We know from Hosea chapter 12 -- we get some light shed back on this event. I believe, based on Scripture, that the angel of God, Jacob is wrestling with would be capital A, capital G, a pre-incarnate expression of Jesus Himself, the Angel of the Lord. He is wrestling with Jacob. It is a contest of strength and will. They are holding on to one another. One is trying to get the better of the other, trying to pin him. We know that if he is wresting with God, God is going to win.

The point is not who is going to win this thing, but who is going to surrender. Jacob would not quit. Jacob continued to exercise his strength and his will. Who will win? Here is the principal that Jacob is wresting with. All this time, probably through his entire adult life, but now his focal point is Esau., He thinks Esau is his enemy. He thinks Esau is the problem. It is not Esau. What he learns here is that the problem is God. You are kicking against God and His will and His design and His Word and His perfection and His plan. Jacob, God is your opponent here. Give in, because you are not going to win.

His opponent was really God and they wrestled for hours and Jacob would not quit. So since Jacob would not quit, the Angel broke him. OK, you have a strong constitution. The only way to convince you of what is really going on here is to disable you. So with a finger He reached out and touched him and dislocated Jacob’s hip so that Jacob could struggle no longer. Jacob realized what had happened. He realized that with a touch he had been disabled, taken to the point where he was helpless now to help himself. All he could do was hang on and he did.

²⁶Then he said, "Let me go, for the dawn is breaking." But he said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

The lesser is always blessed by the greater. Jacob now is not looking for a contest. He is not looking to prevail. He is offering a surrender and asking his divine adversary to bless him. I acknowledge you as greater and I acknowledge my need of you and I am tenacious in that. I’m hanging on until I get the blessing.  He is surrendered. He is realizing the identity of his opponent. That is why he names the place after God.

Jacob surrendered his strength and redirected his will. He ceased opposing and he redirected his will. Now he wants God to be his God. He wants to be in a subordinate  role where he belongs. His name gets changed at this point.

²⁷So he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob."

Jacob - the one who reaches out and trips up, the one who had a hold of his brother from the womb -- to mess him up. Jacob -- whose affairs goes this way toward other people in an attempt to take advantage -- that is who you have been. Now through the course of this long, night’s struggle, now that you have seen your issue is not with people, it really is with God, let’s just change your name from Jacob -- people oriented -- to Israel, God who strives. You realize now the focal point is different and He is the one with whom you primarily have to do. He will then handle the people part when you surrender to Him.

³⁰So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, "I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved."

Jacob gets a new name. He renames the place the Face of God. He knows he has confronted God.   His orientation is changed, as it needed to be. The sun came up and there he was, preparing to face his brother. Probably he looked off across the horizon. He could see the sunlight glint off the lance heads coming at him on horseback from the southwest. He is thinking, “OK, here it goes.“ This is Israel now. He has redirected his will and surrendered his strength.

¹Then Jacob lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming, and four hundred men with him. So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two maids.
²He put the maids and their children in front, and Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph last.
³But he himself passed on ahead of them and bowed down to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother.

He meets his brother in all humility. Esau was coming with 400 men. Jacob divided up his children, putting the maids and their children in front, then his wives and their children next. Jacob passes them from behind and goes on ahead of them.  Jacob is bowing down to the ground seven times as they are meeting Esau and his entourage coming toward them. He has total humility. You might call it sanctified groveling. He doesn’t know if on that last time to the ground a spear will pin him to it. What he experiences is the unexpected reunion of a brother, who is willing to let bygones be bygones.

⁴Then Esau ran to meet him and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.

That’s a marvelous conclusion. “Here, Esau, take all this stuff.” And Esau said, “I really don’t need it.” “Take it for my sake.”

¹¹"Please take my gift which has been brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me and because I have plenty." Thus he urged him and he took it.
¹²Then Esau said, "Let us take our journey and go, and I will go before you."
¹³But he said to him, "My lord knows that the children are frail and that the flocks and herds which are nursing are a care to me. And if they are driven hard one day, all the flocks will die.
¹⁴"Please let my lord pass on before his servant, and I will proceed at my leisure, according to the pace of the cattle that are before me and according to the pace of the children, until I come to my lord at Seir."
¹⁵Esau said, "Please let me leave with you some of the people who are with me." But he said, "What need is there? Let me find favor in the sight of my lord."
¹⁶So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir.

They knew they would be reunited again and they were. How interesting that the story ends on such a positive note. Could it be because Jacob reached that crisis? He said no matter what I’m going to trust God and do it His way and proceed. In this case he was blessed. Did God reach into the heart of Esau and soften it up a bit? Probably. Jacob did the right thing. He faced fear and dread. He handed it over to God and he realized before God that his problem really was not with the other person. It was with God Himself to whom he needed to surrender from the core of his being and then do it again if necessary and again if necessary, but never, ever let go.

Here is a parting statement. You cannot best God. You cannot change Him, you cannot manipulate Him, you cannot fool Him, you cannot hide from Him, you cannot beat Him. You cannot best God so do not let go of Him and He will bless you.

Far too often, we are faced with choices. Go God’s way or go our own way. We are so capable of coming up with many variations of the theme, trying to figure out how to change God’s Word or make it relative or tweak it just a bit or fit God into our prearranged plan. We try to find a way to get God to bless and honor us on our own merit. God says no, it is all about Me. It is all about what I have done, it is about your surrender to Me personally. It is not about your circumstances or the people, who give you grief, in your life. It is fundamentally about a relationship with Me.

God -- how do we know that you are there? How do we know that we can trust you? How do we know that you will bless us? Because Romans 8:32 “He who spared not his own Son, but delivered Him up in the place of us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things.” If He gives us Jesus, He need give us nothing more. Jesus did not die for some of my sins so that I have to perform real well and pay off the rest. Jesus did not make me responsible for the balance of my sin problem. Jesus died for all them before I was born. His offer is set. Surrender to Me. Give Me your heart -- all of it.