Fellowship in the Word

Guest (Male): Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bil Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

Bil Gebhardt: In fact, when you read the story, there's not anything good about any of them. But there's nothing good about any of us either. All of sin and fall short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no, not one.

Wow. That's why he's such a great poster child. You see, he's going to receive the unmerited favor of God, the grace of God, and he doesn't deserve it. But he keeps thinking, "I have to keep controlling and manipulating my circumstances for my behalf." So, God decides, "I've got to teach him a lesson here." And that's the crossroads moment for Jacob.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bil Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bil Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's word meets our world.

Bil Gebhardt: There are crossroads moments in our lives. You've been a good employee, and you've navigated for yourself quite a nice career. And if things got tough, you just put in longer hours and worked even harder. And then the economy went into freefall and your company went under. And all of a sudden, your world is spinning completely out of control.

Your marriage has been a struggle for some time, but you've managed to stay together. But things seem to be getting worse and worse. You're running low on hope, and weeks have gone by and you barely speak to your spouse. And your life feels like an endless wrestling match. And you wonder, "What is the next step?"

Or you're able to keep your addiction as a relative secret. And you've been able to manage your life pretty well up until now. But you didn't see the light turn red. And now you've been in a severe accident, and you realize that a breathalyzer test is coming. And your life is about to change.

Life often comes down to the choices we make at moments just like the ones I've described. These kind of moments happen to all of us. They've happened to me, and I'm sure they'll happen to you. And they happened to Jacob. And it happened to Jacob in a place called Jabbok.

Jacob, you see, had now left Laban. He's in his rearview mirror. And he arrived penniless and left with great wealth. Twenty years have passed, and he has two wives and 11 sons and a daughter. He has countless servants, herds of sheep and goats, cattle and camels. And now it's all before him.

The land of his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac. The place where he stole his brother's birthright and deceived his father to get his father's blessing. Where he heard the warning of his controlling mother, who told him he'd have to flee for his life or his brother would take it. I believe for 20 years, virtually every day, Jacob thought about Esau.

And he kept thinking about what's going to happen to me whenever I meet Esau again. That's where we are today. Open your Bibles to Genesis 32. And Jacob and his entourage are about to enter into the Promised Land.

The first two verses are a spiritual high for this whole section. It says, "Now as Jacob went on his way, the angels of God met him. And Jacob said when he saw them, 'This is God's camp,' and he named that place Mahanaim." And Mahanaim means an army encampment.

But this is interesting. He saw angels on the stairway to heaven when he left the Promised Land. Twenty years later, he's about to enter and he sees angels again. You see, and in between, nothing. Nothing really at all. So the question comes down to, in this sense, why? Why did this happen to him?

And the answer's pretty clear: God's trying to reassure him. God is saying, in a sense, just what He said for the last 20 years to Jacob: "I got this. I'm going to be able to handle this. The angels are here. I got this." That's not how Jacob thinks, though. Boy, if you've learned anything about Jacob, he never stops thinking.

Jacob is the ultimate manipulator, deceiver, and schemer. He has a plan for everything and he can take advantage of anyone in any set of circumstances. And I am sure that he has thought for 20 years, "If I ever go back to the Promised Land, I need a very detailed plan to deal with Esau." And that's what he thought of.

So it said then Jacob sent messengers before his brother Esau into the land of Seir, in the country of Edom. And he also commanded them and says, "Thus you shall say to my lord Esau: 'Thus says your servant Jacob: I have sojourned with Laban and stayed until now.'" Now notice the typical brotherly introduction to each other, because this is how brothers always talk, don't they?

One of you is the lord and one of you is the servant. Now what is he doing? You see, what in the world is he doing? He's manipulating. That's what he always does. "I'm going to call Esau lord." It'll get worse.

He said then, "I have oxen and donkeys and flocks of male and female servants, and I have sent to tell my lord that I may find favor in your sight." The other thing I want you to tell Esau is I have a whole lot of stuff. I've got money. I've got wealth. You see, that's a good thing for Esau to see. Maybe he'll be motivated by my wealth, you see, to help me. So he said, "There's my first plan. Go ahead out and do that."

Well, the messengers returned to Jacob and said, "We came to your brother Esau, and furthermore, he's coming to meet you with 400 men are with him." Uh oh. Nothing. Not a word from Esau. And he has 400 armed men with him. Esau's coming to meet you.

Well, then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. See, for Jacob, it's like, "I've got more plans, I've got more layers to this," but boy, that's not a good sign for the first step that I'm taking here. Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed, so he divided up his people who were with him and the flocks and the herds and the camels into two different companies.

He now, he said, "I'm going to divide it up. We're going to have two groups of us." And he says, "If Esau comes to the one company and attacks it, then the other company which is left will escape." Now which company do you think Jacob's in? He's in the escaping company.

You see, I'm going to send that company forward. I hate to lose half those people, but hey, it's life, you see. And but I'll be able to be protected from this. Wow. Hard to imagine.

Well, and he said, "If Esau comes to the one company attacks it, the other company will be left." Then he prays, and it sounds like a wonderful prayer, except he doesn't believe everything he's praying. He said, "Oh God of my father Abraham and the God of my father Isaac, Oh Lord, who said to me, 'Return to your country, to your relatives, and I will prosper you.'"

Okay. "I am unworthy of all the lovingkindness"—that's the great Hebrew word *hesed*, and it means, as again, grace, mercy, forgiveness, patience, loyal love. "I am unworthy of all the lovingkindness and all the faithfulness which You have shown to Your servant." He said, "For with my staff only I crossed the Jordan, and now I have become two companies."

His prayer he says to God, he said, "You said to me return to your company and to your relatives and I will prosper you." Question: Is that true? Or is God lying? Is it true? Does Jacob remember that it's true? No, he remembers it. You see, he remembers it, but he's got plans. I've got to scheme this. I've got to work this. This has to be done a particular way. I've got to make this happen.

See, if God tells you something, you have to believe it. And by the way, we can't be too hard on Jacob. I've been here long enough and counseled with enough people, and here's what they say to me often in the dilemmas they find themselves: "Oh, I know what the Bible says. But—" Wow. Apparently you don't believe what the Bible says. You know what the Bible says, but you don't believe it.

So consequently, there's no peace for you. "I know what it says, but—" and then you describe the circumstances. "I know what God said," but he doesn't necessarily believe that at all, as you'll see in just a moment as it goes on. Here's his request: "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."

And God, are You going to forget about the children? There's little ones with us, God. You need to remind God there's children? Or are you playing on something here? You see, are you trying to manipulate God in the sense, "God, You have to understand there's some children here?" Wow.

"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.'" Now he knows that's true. Does he believe it? No. If he believed it, he wouldn't be setting up these plans. You see, he doesn't believe that. He knows it, but that's all.

So he spent the night there and then he selected from what he had with him a present for his brother Esau. He said, "200 female goats, 20 male goats, 200 ewes, 20 rams, 30 milking camels and their colts, 40 cows and 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys, and 10 male donkeys."

Wow. Now in that world, that's substantial wealth for Bedouins who basically move around from place to place where they find pasture, but that's tremendous wealth. He delivered them into the hand of his servants, he said, every drove by itself, and he said to his servants, "Pass on before me and put space between the droves."

So now he's got about like five or six different droves. He said, "Let's put them all like this, but I don't want to overwhelm Esau. I want to impress him." So I want a whole group to go, and then he sees them, then a space. Then the next group comes. Then a space. Then another group comes. Then a space.

You see, I want him to say, "Oh my goodness, look at the wealth of Jacob." See, wow, I think I can move him this way. Now remember, he understands that Esau sold him his birthright for a bowl of soup. You know, so he thinks, "I got him with this. I think I can really manipulate him." Wow.

Then he commanded the one in front saying, "When my brother Esau meets you and asks you saying, 'To whom do you belong and where are you going and to whom are these animals in front of you belong?' then you shall say, 'These belong to your servant Jacob. It is a present sent to my lord Esau. Behold, he is behind us.'"

You see, I'm not just going to call you lord and call myself servant. I'm going to bribe you. I'm going to give you stuff. And a lot of times you can manipulate people with stuff. Just start giving them stuff and they'll start agreeing with you. And he thought that might work here.

Then he commanded the second and the third and all those who followed the droves, saying, "After this manner you shall speak to Esau when you find him. And you shall say, 'Behold, your servant Jacob is behind us.' And I will appease him with the present that goes before me."

"I can calm him down. You can get your way with stuff, okay? You give people stuff, you can kind of get your way." And that's what he thinks is going to work here. Hmm. Well, he said that after I appease him, he said, and he goes before me, then afterward I will see his face. Perhaps then he'll accept me.

So the present passed on before him, while he himself spent the night in the camp. Now he arose that same night and took his two wives and two maids and his 11 children and he crossed the ford at Jabbok. And he said he took them and sent them across the stream, and he sent across whatever he had and he stays there.

So right up until now, he's on the verge of the Promised Land meeting Esau, and he's come up with his plans to control it. This is something God does not like at all about His children. God does not like that at all. What God is clear all the way in the Old and New Testament is, "Are you dependent on Me? Are you dependent on Me?"

And by the way, we're not good that way. You see, in its truest sense, I say without question, Jacob is the poster child of grace, the unmerited favor of God. You've seen the story so far. Tell me one good thing about this guy. Anything. There's nothing good about this guy.

In fact, when you read the story, there's not anything good about any of them. Oh, I got to say, but there's nothing good about any of us, either. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no, not one. Wow.

That's why he's such a great poster child. You see, he's going to receive the unmerited favor of God, the grace of God, and he doesn't deserve it. But he keeps thinking, "I have to keep controlling and manipulating my circumstances for my behalf."

So God decides what He's going to do here. God decides that He's going to do something different here. God decides, "I've got to teach him a lesson here." And that's the crossroads moment for Jacob. Then Jacob was left alone, and it's a short passage. And a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

If there are 200 commentaries on Genesis, there's about 100 different views here. Who's the man? You see, who's the man that wrestles with them? He wrestles with them all night. Jacob will tell us who he thinks he is. I guess I owe it to you to tell you what I think it is.

I think he's the Son of God. He is the Angel of Yahweh. He is the Angel of God in the Old Testament, the Son of God. He's not Jesus Christ because remember, Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, fully God and fully man. He's the eternal Son of God.

So it says he wrestled with him until daybreak. And when he saw that he had not prevailed against them, okay, now this is interesting. He gives Jacob, I think, a lot of—I can't imagine what the night was like. I think Jacob needed to stop and rest at times. I'm not too sure about the Son of God. I don't think he had too, too much.

But there were probably some headlocks and a lot of—they're just going on and on here, trying to do it. And Jacob can't prevail. You see, he's tenacious. This guy, he's going to work it. And so finally, by daybreak, the Son of God says, "This is long enough."

He says, he touched his socket of his thigh so the socket of Jacob's thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him. And the way I see it, Jacob's doing a lot of things like that, and finally, you know, it's just like the sun's coming up and the Son of God just went—and now has dislocated his hip. Jacob's hip is now dislocated. That becomes a permanent sign, by the way. He'll limp the rest of his life.

So it says then he said—he says—"Let me go. Dawn is breaking." And he said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." He's tenacious for this. He wants to earn this. So he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob."

Now that's a nice name for us, and if you have a son named Jacob, that's—that's wonderful. But the name in Hebrew means a heel grabber. Okay, he was grabbing Esau's heel. He's a heel grabber. He spent his whole life grabbing heels. It means deceitful, scheming. A lot of things—that's who Jacob is. "That's my name. My name is Jacob." You see, that's who I am.

And he tells him that honestly. And he said, "Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed." I'm going to change your name. That's where the name Israel comes from.

Israel means "God fights." That's what Israel is. Israel's name means "God fights." In other words, what's God trying to tell him? "I fight." You see, who fights for Abraham? God. Isaac? God. Jacob? God. Jacob just doesn't see it that way. He says, "Your name's going to be God Fights."

Then Jacob said to him, "Please tell me your name." But he said, "Why is it you ask my name?" And he blessed him there with that term. "Your name's changed to Israel." So every time you'd meet someone in that culture that understood your language, you'd say, "Hello." When they say, "What's your name?" "My name's God Fights."

You see, instead of heel grabber, my name means God Fights. Wow. So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, "I have seen God face to face and yet my life," he says, "has been preserved." That's interesting.

Allen Ross, a fine Old Testament scholar, says that Jacob explained that seeing Esau's face was like seeing in the face of God. This statement refers directly to the preceding narrative in which Jacob saw God face to face in the nocturnal struggle and was delivered. Having seen God's face, he now could see Esau's, or Esau's favorable reaction was like God's gracious dealings just prior to this meeting.

And so what it happens therefore in this day, the sons of Israel do not eat sinew of the hip which is on the socket of the thigh, because he touched the socket of Jacob's thigh in the sinew of the hip. This is interesting. That's not in the Law. The Law doesn't come for 400 years. There is no Law.

There's nothing written in Scripture. This is Genesis, written 400 years later. So the point is, but the Jews decided on their own: "We'll never eat meat from the hip because of what happened to Jacob." This wasn't God's idea; this was their idea.

So as soon as chapter 33 starts, it's fascinating to me because God says, "Okay, here what—let's test this. If we're going to do this, let's just test how this is going to work." So Jacob lifted up his eyes and he looked, and here comes Esau. Right the next day, here he comes. 400 men are with him.

Jacob said, "Oh go go." Now remember, what'd God just teach him? "God fights," right? Why'd He show him the angels? "I got this." Jacob: "I got to work it. I got to figure this out. I'm going to make this happen."

So it says he saw them coming, so he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two maids. Now watch this. He put the maids and their children in front. He's a fine father. This is Father's Day. Jacob is a fine father. Look, "You guys die first. That's okay with me." You see, first the maids and your kids, then Leah, but Rachel, Joseph, stay with me.