Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: I want to talk about how to live upside down. It's very important we live upside down. What do I mean? Well, in the Acts of the Apostles, there's a verse that says the early church turned the world upside down. Actually, they turned it right side up. But before you can live right side up, God has to turn you upside down.

And of course, that's Jacob's story. God wrestled him down to the ground one night and turned him upside down literally. And he became a prince with God instead of a pain. And I want to investigate how that happens.

Twelve men in the New Testament caused a spiritual and societal upheaval. God got His hands on them, and He wrestled them into shape, and they returned the compliment by doing the same with the world.

So, how do you and I do that? How do we become sensitive to the fact that even though we might be, as I so often say, dust people, we are dust dignified with divinity because God lives in us? We are His suit of clothes, as it were. How do we walk into this world and help the world to become aware of who we possess so that they'll give Him a hearing? How does this actually work?

Well, buried in the past, there's a story for the present that can change our future, and it's the story of Jacob, a man who God literally turned upside down. Now, if you've ever wrestled with life, if you've ever wrestled with love, if you've ever wrestled with the Lord, this talk is for you. The rest of you can have a little snooze.

But that's what it's going to be about. It's going to be about the spiritual wrestling match we have with God, with ourselves, and with other people. Genesis 28:10: This is not the beginning of the story, but this is where I want to begin.

Guest (Male): Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. And when he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. And taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and he lay down to sleep. And he had a dream in which a stairway resting on the earth with its top reaching to the heaven and the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

And there above it stood the Lord. And He said, "I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham, the God of Isaac, and I will give you and your descendants the land on which you're lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread over to the west and to the east, to the north and the south. All people on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring."

"I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land, and I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not. This is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven."

Well, early the next morning, Jacob took the stone he'd placed under his head and set it up as a pillar, and he poured oil on the top of it. And he called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz. Then Jacob made a vow saying, "If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I'm taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father's house, then the Lord will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house. And all that You give me, I will give You a tenth."

Jill Briscoe: Now, in a sense, this man had fallen asleep in church. God had not been able to get his attention while he was awake. And so He walked into his dreams, and He woke him up to some spiritual realities and possibilities that he apparently was not aware of, and he's never the same again.

It's amazing when you meet God in unexpected places. And God wants to meet you and I just as He met Jacob in life's unexpected places. When you're down to God, when you're suffering the consequences of your own silly choices, when you're bearing the brunt of somebody's vengeance and anger as Jacob was, when you're a victim.

When you feel you're absolutely on your own, when life is not working out as it's planned, that's when He'll turn up. And I can think of places in my own life when I have said, "Oh, surely God is in this place and I knew it not. Surely God is in this place." And you have, as it were, a God sighting.

You're just not expecting Him there, and He shows up. And He wants to do that. He wants to walk down the stairway of heaven right into our hearts and make us aware of His personal interest and concern. He wants to bless us. That's what He came to do down that stairway of heaven. He blessed Jacob.

So, why was Jacob there? He'd been living up to his name, which means deceiver, twister, liar, somebody that's full of guile, portraying that which is false. That's what Jacob means. And at this point of his life, he's 77 years of age. He's 77. He is single. He has no children.

He has a brother called Esau. He has a mother and a father called Isaac and Rebekah. And Isaac, of course, is the son of Abraham. So, Jacob has grandparents called Abraham and Sarah. And he is from this big, important family, although at this point of biblical history, it's not a big, important family. It's a small family.

Now, he's swindled his brother at the age of 77 out of his brother's birthright and blessing, and I'll explain those in a minute. And he's been found out. He's been caught. He has a manipulating, controlling mother, and she has been manipulating him for 77 years. And he has been allowing it to happen because it's to his advantage.

And so, with her help, he has swindled his brother out of his rights as the eldest son in this important family. And Esau is not a happy camper. Esau has just found out about this. And it says in the scriptures he is consoling himself with the thought of killing Jacob.

Well, we all know brothers like that, don't we? It's not unusual for brothers to have these thoughts. In that little book, *Children's Letters to God*, I love the one that says, "Dear God, my brother is a rat. You should give him a tail. Ha-ha." Well, that's sort of cute. When you're 77, both of you because they're twins, it's not cute.

And he really means business. He is consoling himself with the idea when Isaac dies, Jacob's had it. Let me get my hands on him. And so, Rebekah goes into Isaac, deceives her husband into thinking that Jacob is going back to their relatives in Paddan-aram to find a wife. At the age of 77, it's time to get married.

And she deceives Isaac into thinking this is why Jacob is leaving, not because Esau is waiting in the wings to kill him. And so, Jacob listens to his mother again, and he gets ready to go. And Rebekah says to Isaac, "You know, if Jacob takes a wife from among the woman from the Hittite woman like these, my life will not be worth living because Esau is married two women: Judith and Basemath."

And they are from the Hittites who are a wild sort of group of people. When Esau was 40 years old, he married Judith, and then he married Basemath, and they were a source of grief to Isaac and Rebekah. In fact, Rebekah says, "My life will not be worth living if Jacob marries anybody from around here where we are."

Well, Isaac falls for this. He blesses Jacob and he sends him on his way. "May God give to you and your descendants the blessing He gave to Abraham so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as an alien, the land God gave to Abraham." And he prays for him.

And Rebekah says to Jacob as she's seeing him off—Jacob is her favorite son; Esau is Isaac's favorite son. So, here you've got the family dynamics going on behind the scenes here. But she says, "As soon as your father dies and Esau's anger is assuaged, I will send for you and bring you back. Why should I be bereft of both of you in one day?"

It's 20 years before Jacob returns, and Rebekah is gone. She doesn't know she'll never see him again. But she sends him on his way, and he runs for his life towards Paddan-aram, the land of his uncle Laban, who is the brother of Abraham. Now, wouldn't you say there is some dysfunction in this family?

This is a family with issues, big time. And it is one of the first dysfunctional families you find in the Bible. The first was Adam's, who produced the first murderer and murderee. In *Children's Letters to God*, wonderful book on the subject, it says, "Dear God, maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each other so much if they had their own rooms."

Guest (Male): I like that. I think that's cute. It works with my brother, Love Larry. Well, outside the gate of heaven, it doesn't matter how many bedrooms you have in the house or the tent. It's who sleeps in the house and the tent and whether they've signed up for the wrestling match. Whether they've signed up for the inner struggle to be spiritual in a non-spiritual environment. And that's what this story is all about. And that's what the story of our lives is all about: the struggle, the wrestling match we go through to be spiritual when we're not, when we don't feel like it, when we don't want to be. That's what makes the difference.

Jill Briscoe: And of course, God is the one alone who can respond to us as we struggle and prevail until His hands are all over our life and we're different. God was there and he knew it not. There was a shadow over his life. What had happened was Jacob had stolen what we call the birthright.

Birth order was very important. And let me remind you, if you're not familiar with the story of Jacob, what had happened was Jacob and Esau were twins. Rebekah was not able to have children for years and years and years. And Isaac prayed for Rebekah, it says in the Bible, and God blessed with the gift of life. And she found herself pregnant in answer to prayer with twins.

And as the babies were growing in her womb, she was aware of something—well, she didn't know what it was. And what it was was a wrestling match going on inside her. Those of us that have had children have a little tiny experience, and those of us that have had twins probably understand this very, very well indeed. But that's not all of us, obviously.

Guest (Male): What was going on was they were wrestling before they were even born. And Esau, being stronger and hairier and just bigger, won in the womb. And he came out first. But Jacob came out grabbing his heel. They were born within 30 seconds of each other. 30 seconds. And I can see Jacob saying, "God, where are You? This is really very unfair. The whole of my life is affected for 30 seconds because I didn't make it out first. Because he beat me to the post just then at the gate. That's not fair." But then life, of course, isn't fair. And we wrestle with the things that happen in life like birth order. Maybe it doesn't matter here in the West, but it sure matters in the East. Everything depended on it in this culture.

Jill Briscoe: What depended on it? You got a double go at everything. You just got double. You got double money, you got double land, you got double positions, honor, gifts. You had the authority in the family to make a decision where you'd live, where you'd go. You had all the birthright blessings of that particular culture in those days.

And for 30 seconds' difference, Esau won the match. And Jacob for 77 years struggled to be significant because of this. He just didn't see any significance to his life whatsoever because all the significance in that culture was tied up in the firstborn. And so, here was Esau who didn't care a rap—and there, of course, life isn't very fair either, is it?

He didn't care a rap, who got all of this when Jacob wanted it. Now, Jacob, I do not believe at this point in his life wanted it for the right reasons. He just wanted it. He just wanted it. And Jacob surrendered to the wrestling match at that point inside him to his worst nature. Jacob's worst nature and best nature were wrestling, and that's what happens in all of our hearts.

Guest (Male): And he was wrestling with the inequalities of life and what had happened to him in his own particular family. Well, of course, he had an opportunity when he was probably 50 or so to steal these rights from his brother. And if you remember the story, Esau had gone off hunting. He was a wild man. He just loved it out there, and he would go off hunting. And Isaac loved Esau because he'd bring him back venison and wonderful game from the wild places.

And his father and Esau would celebrate together. Jacob was a quiet man. He dwelt among the tents. He was a shepherd. He was a shepherd, and a very good shepherd, and a very good cattleman. He wasn't a rancher. He produced sheep and goats and did it very well. And a man's wealth and honor in those days in that culture was often wrapped up in his cattle and his herds and his ability to do those things.

And one day Esau came out of the field, and apparently, he had not caught anything, so he hadn't eaten anything. And he was famished. That's the word. "I'm famished!" And Jacob was making some stew. And Esau said, "Give me some of that or I'm not going to make it. I'm not going to make it. I haven't eaten for days." And Jacob said, "Sell me your birthright."

And Esau said, "Well, what good is it to me? I'm going to die if I don't get something to eat." And so, he swore to Jacob that Jacob could have all his rights as a firstborn. He gave his word and swore to it. So Esau, it says in the Bible, despised his birthright. And so, Jacob obtained it. He obtained it on the word of Esau.

Well, it wasn't a few more years then the time came for Isaac to be sick enough to be dying. And the time came then for that patriarch to bless his children. With the birthright went the blessing. Does seem a little bit one-sided. So, you got the birthright and you also got the blessing. And what was the blessing? It was the invoking of God's hand upon the firstborn's life.

And in this particular instance, it took with it the blessing of the whole world because through this family, Christ was to come, the Savior of mankind. And so, there was spiritual power and prestige and all sorts of spiritual blessings wrapped up in this particular prayer and gifting as Isaac was dying. And again, that manipulating mom Rebekah saw her chance and said to Jacob, "Why don't you go in? Your father's blind. He won't know it's you. Esau's out in the fields hunting game for him. Why don't you say you're your brother?"

And he says, "Well, my voice is so different and my skin is smooth, and he's hairy." And Rebekah thought up this wild scheme of killing some goats and putting the goats when Isaac touched him to bless him. And it worked! Even though Isaac was suspicious. "The skin is Esau's, but the voice is Jacob's. Are you really my son? Are you really my son, Esau?" "Yes, father," said Jacob.

And so Isaac blessed him. Isaac blessed him. Shortly afterwards, Esau came home, found out what had happened, and Jacob ran advisably for his life. And he gets to this wild place. He comes to this place outside the city of Luz, and he puts a stone under his head because of the snakes—that's why you do that—and he fell asleep. And he has this dream. And God walked down the stairway of heaven into his life, certainly into his dreams, but He woke him up.

Jill Briscoe: Have you ever felt the shadow of God in unexpected places? I mean, Jacob was absolutely overwhelmed. But when you're overwhelmed, remember you're overshadowed. That's a principle of the Christian life. Remember Mary? Angel comes to her. She's just minding her own business, getting on with life. 13, 14. Goes to get water from the well. Suddenly Gabriel appears. "Surely God is in this place and I knew it not," she says.

I mean, you don't expect God at the kitchen sink or the well of water, but there He is. And she's overwhelmed. Absolutely overwhelmed when the angel says to her, "You will be the one that will bear the Savior of the world." Every Jewish girl wondered if they were the one. Every Jewish mom and dad wondered if their daughter was going to be the virgin that would conceive and bear a child.

But Mary was told by no other person than Gabriel himself that she was the one. And the Bible says she was absolutely overwhelmed. And she said, "But how can this be? How?" That's the question you and I would ask. She didn't say why. She said how. She didn't say, "Why me? Why pick on me? Why ruin my life with a baby nobody's going to understand?" No, she said, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it unto me as You wish."

But before she said that, she said, "How are You going to do this?" And God said, you remember, "The power from on high will overshadow you." When you're overwhelmed, don't forget you're going to be overshadowed. How? The Holy Spirit will come upon you. And God's overpowering, overshadowing, overruling nature is something that's going to have to permeate into our mind down to our hearts as we wrestle with the whole subject of the unfairness of life, of what's happened to us that has been totally outside our control.

And we wrestle through to realizing that surely God is in this place and we knew it not. And our sense of significance does not lie in birth order, and it does not lie in anything that we are or have. It lies in our relationship with God and His plans and purposes. That's where it lies. Then we'll be significant when we get that straight.

So, there's this huge struggle for purpose and meaning, and it's wrapped up in the blessing of God for all humankind. It's wrapped up in Christ. It's wrapped up in Jesus and what God wants for the world. You know, God said "Jesus" and Christ was born. God's last word, God's best thought lay in a manger.

And all of that was involved in the struggle of this man Jacob. I am quite sure hadn't a clue what was involved in what was happening in his life. But when he came to the struggle points, when he came to the wrestling points, he began to get it. And there, as he was frightened, lonely, out of his element—remember he didn't like it out there in the wilderness. Esau would have known what to do in that place outside Luz in the wilderness in that wild, wide place. Esau would have been very much at home, but not Jacob. He was a quiet man that lived in tents.

And yet there, in the most unexpected place, surely God was there. Now, I wonder when the spiritual realities of his heritage clicked in. Kids love to talk about heritage. Have you noticed? When I go down to see my daughter's children, I know what they will demand of me. They'll want a story. "Tell us a story, Nana!" And it's got to be a true story. They want a true story.

But not just a true story. They want a story about our lives, our heritage, our family. It's got to be about their mommy or their daddy, and they love it. When I tell them about Judy getting lost when she was five years of age on the beach and how the policeman found her and—oh, they love it, they love it! And so, then they—and what they love most of all, which always surprises me, is my stories.

They say, "Nana, tell us a story, a true story about you." And the ones they like best are police stories, I don't know about that. But anyway. So, I've sort of run out of those because I've told quite a few of those. And so, I was driving down thinking, "Oh, goodness, I've got to think of a story. Okay, heritage story, heritage story." And they love the driving things. And I thought, "Well, I've told them all the driving stories. Oh no, I haven't!"

So that night as I was putting them to bed, "Tell us a true story!" and they even got into bed earlier because they were looking forward to this story. And I lie on the floor and they're all in their bunks and everything. And I said, "Well, when we came to America, I had to learn to drive on the wrong side of the road." And it took me a little while. I wouldn't take my test for about a year because I didn't do it very well and kept going the wrong way up the right way or right way up the wrong way.

And so, there was one day shortly after I got there, and the kids were in the car, and we had one of these long station wagons in those days. And remember those things? Sort of long, and you could put all the kids in and had a slanting back window, you know, and it was great. Well, I had the three children in the back and turned the wrong way up Mayfair Avenue because I was all discombobulated and they were screaming, "Ah, mommy! All the cars are coming down our side of the street!"

And I said, "Oh, don't worry about it. I don't know what all these silly people are doing driving down the wrong side of the street." And then I turned around, got back, and they were a little bit miffed. And then one of them said, "Mommy, we've heard about the car wash. Can we go in a car wash?" And we didn't have car washes in Britain in those days. And I said, "Yeah, if we can find one." "There's one! There's one, mommy! There's one!"

And so, I zoom off and it is hot. It is August. Okay. I'm not really used to the car, I'm not used to the way it works, I'm not used to anything. So, we get there and I see, "Oh, it says enter," and so I do the thing, and it says, "Put the engine off." So I put the engine off. And we start into this car wash. First experience for me. I've left all the windows down. It's hot! And I haven't figured out about air conditioning. I don't even know if it had air conditioning. And so, they're all down.

So, David, who's in the back, says, "Mommy!" as the sheet of water starts at the front end of the car. "Mommy, better put the windows up!" "Yes, yes, yes, put the windows up! Where's the—where's the—?" Well, there wasn't any because it's buttons. So I start poking the buttons, and of course, I don't understand I have to have the engine on to put the windows up.

So, by this time, we have about this much water in the car because that sheet of water has gone back and the back window is down. And then it starts to come back again! And we are screaming! All of us are screaming, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!" Not only is it coming back, but there's all those things going each side going in this way! And we are absolutely drenched!

And there are three young men with cloths looking into the car wash, their mouths are hanging open. But they are ready presumably to dry us up. I think that's what—but what are they standing for? Oh, that's what they do in a car wash. They wait until everybody's soaked and then they mop you up at the end. Well, the kids really loved this story, and I know I'm going to have to tell it again.

And after every heritage story, I always manage to add to it some sort of story about how God brought us to America or something that He did. And "Surely God was in this place and we knew it not" on the airport, even in the car wash, God was there, you know. I think. I think. And so, after all the fun stuff and the crazy adventures, I talk—I just talk about the plan of God and how wonderful it is and how He's with us in the ordinary things of life and how He has a plan for everybody's life.

And think about Jacob's bedtime, will you? Think about Isaac. Jacob's favorite story was the one about the day his father Isaac was shaken awake before dawn to go camping with his grandfather Abraham. They'd be making a sacrifice to the Lord at Mount Moriah while they were there. And as they walked along, his father Isaac—Isaac asked a question, "Father, here's the fire and the wood, but where's the lamb for the burnt offering?"

Guest (Male): Jacob's grandfather replied quietly, "God himself will provide a lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And they get to Mount Moriah, and Isaac said his father began behaving in the strangest way. And he took a rope and he tied Isaac's hands together, and then he picked him up and he laid him on the pyre of wood they'd built. "Why didn't you struggle?" Jacob would ask over and over again. "Because it was my father who I knew loved me and I trusted him" was always the quiet reply.

And Jacob's eyes would widen in wonder as Isaac would tell the story. "I was very frightened, Jacob. My father raised the long knife and I realized it was actually going to happen. He was going to sacrifice me!" God had not provided another animal. I, his beloved son, was to be the sacrificial lamb. And there would be a long pause as Isaac remembered. "How could you ever forget? How could God ask such a thing of your father?" Jacob would whisper again and again.

And Isaac, wrapped in his memories, would with difficulty say, "Jacob, I looked up to heaven expecting an angel to save me. But all I saw was the flash of the blade. My father's face contorted in anguish and tears streamed down his cheeks." And then Jacob would prompt even though he had heard the story. "Then came a voice from heaven! A voice such as I'd never heard before! A voice that sounded like many waters: 'Abraham! Abraham! Do not lay a hand on the boy! Do not do anything to him! Now I know that you fear God because you've not withheld from Me your only son!'"

"And just nearby there was a ram caught in a thicket. My father, trembling greatly, cut the ropes around my wrists and I was saved! And the ram was sacrificed! It was my substitute! Surely God was in that place and I knew it not!" "Surely, my son," Isaac would reply. "Surely." I wonder as Jacob lay by the brook and had his dream if he remembered that story. Surely God was in that place when my father was on the altar and they knew it not until His voice came from heaven and provided the answer. Saved them both: Abraham from sacrificing his son and his son from being sacrificed.

Jill Briscoe: And as Jacob went on in his life, he struggled spiritually with all these things. What was it all about? What was that lamb all about? And he began to realize that God wanted to catch him up into the purposes of God. Even though he was second-born, even though he was nobody, even though the birth order said he had no significance whatsoever.

His significance could lie in wrestling through to saying, "I am going to be involved in what God is all about. Yes, I am. Yes, I am." And all of us have been born with a Jacob heart. And all of us have to come to that point and say, "This heart of mine wants my own way, this heart of mine wants all the wrong things, this heart of mine is self, self, self, self, self." And I give You permission to wrestle the Jacob out of me. That's where it begins.

And so he wrestled with life and God began to overcome him. And then he wrestled with love. And this is a wonderful story. I just want to show you one verse here. But near the chapter that I read you in Genesis 28, he goes on, he meets his uncle, he settles in, he begins to farm for him, he gives him good wages. And he has two beautiful daughters. He has Leah who is weak-eyed—it means she has a squint—and he has Rachel who's gorgeous.

And guess what, or which one, Jacob falls in love with? Well, he falls in love with the beauty and he asks for her hand. And he says, "I'll work seven years for her" because he has no dowry. He has nothing to bring to this. So it wasn't just a whim, "Oh, I'll work for seven years." He had to work for seven years to enable him to have enough gift money for Laban to accept Jacob as a son-in-law.

And remember, if he'd been the firstborn, he would have had all that cash with him. But he had nothing. He arrived with nothing, absolutely nothing. And so, he worked for seven years for Rachel. And the time came and he said, "Now give me my wife because my time is complete. I want to lie with her." So Laban brought together all the people and they gave a feast, and when evening came, he took his daughter Leah.

And he gave her to Jacob, and Jacob lay with her. And Laban gave his servant girl Zilpah to his daughter as her maidservant. When morning came, there was Leah! Will you explain that to me? Think about it. I think that's one of the most extraordinary verses in the Bible. When morning came, there was Leah! I don't get it. He didn't know. I think I get it a little bit more when you think of the Taliban. You think of the Afghan women. You think of the burqas that are now very familiar to all of us that we see on our television screens.

It was dark. There was a burqa. But I still really don't get it that it wasn't till the morning he figured it out. There was Leah. And the twisted twister is twisted himself. The deceiver is deceived. And you know, it always comes around. Be sure your sin will find you out. And Laban, who's a better twister and liar and cheat than Jacob, must have been laughing all the way up his sleeve and to the bank because it meant that he had to serve another seven years. Not until he got Rachel. He got Rachel after the first week.

That was Leah's week as their custom was. So he married Rachel a week later, but did he ever marry trouble? Two sisters. One was hated, the Bible says. Who hated her? Jacob. Who hated her? Rachel. Poor Leah. I have a whole talk on poor Leah. Just imagine. And a wrestling match began between the two sisters for Jacob's affections. Of course, Rachel seemed to win most of the time. And because God saw Leah was hated, He opened her womb and she began to have children. And Rachel didn't.

And so, you have the same scene working out all over again. And Jacob is here wrestling with love, with all the things that have come into his heart and his marriage that he never expected. But he's beginning to recognize God's shadow. God's shadow, you have to start and recognize God's shadow. Look for it. Become aware of it. Because God's shadow is there, believe it or not.

When he was overwhelmed with these two women fighting and scheming and buying him off and buying a night of sex with him and all the stuff that goes on in this story that is unbelievable, somehow God's overshadowing is still there. What did God say when he was overwhelmed? He told him while you're overshadowed, and I will bring you back and I will bless you, and the place you're lying on, you are part of my great and glorious plan, Jacob. And yes, you'll forget it here and there. But I will help you as you wrestle with love.

And maybe you can't relate to this and maybe you can. Maybe you've married Rachel and one morning you woke up and there was Leah. And you never saw the woman in the woman until you got married. And the huge disappointment and shock is what you're dealing with and wrestling with in your life. There was Leah. I have counseled many, many people that say or tell me, "I married this man or I married this woman, and I really thought they were a beautiful Christian. He said he was a Christian, he acted like a Christian, came to church with me. But on my honeymoon he said, 'I'm not a Christian, I need you to know that. I just said all that so that I could get you to marry me.'"

And there was Leah. Now, that's a dramatic thing. It doesn't need to be that dramatic. You can be disappointed in the person that you married because they're not the person they appeared to be. And Jacob wrestled with life and he wrestled with love. In his youth, there was Esau. In his work, there was Laban. In his bed, there was Leah.

And God is moving on this man. And the shadow is still there. Nothing's gone wrong, although nothing's going right, it appears. But God is working His purposes out. And what happens is Jacob goes on doing his swindling bit until he's got all Laban's flocks and Laban doesn't have too many anymore, even though he'd been very wealthy. And Laban's face is not towards him as it used to be, quite understandably. And Laban is beginning to console himself with the idea of killing Jacob. So here we are again.

And so, Jacob calls his wives out to the field and he says to them, "Listen, your father's face is not towards me as it was before. He's changed my wages ten times. We've been wrestling in this work deal all these years. And God appeared to me last night and told me to get myself home. I have absolutely no idea if I'm going back and Esau is still intending to kill me. I have no idea what I'm asking you to come with me into, but this is the scene. Do you want to stay with your father? Do you want to come with me?"

And the women said, "We'll go with you. Our father's cheated us, our father's manipulated us, our father has done all these things with us as well as with you." And so, they flee one more time. And they come to this place, Jabbok. And Jacob, in true fashion, sets the women and the children in order: Leah first, poor Leah, with her kids to meet Esau who's coming to meet him with 400 men. And at the back, Rachel and her children.

How do you think Leah felt about that? She was a sacrificial lamb, if you wish. And presents—he sent presents to buy him off. He's still Jacob. And he's left alone by this brook. And suddenly there was God! Surely God is in this place and I knew it not. And God's hands are all over his life, and this is showtime. And God says, "If I do not wrestle that Jacob heart out of you, you're done. You're in your 90s now, Jacob. It's all over. And you and I have to have this thing where you surrender everything to me."

And they wrestled and they wrestled and they wrestled and they wrestled. And in the end, the Angel of the Lord, capital A, second person of the Trinity, God Himself, put out Jacob's hip. And he submitted. He submitted. And God said, "You've prevailed with me, Jacob. At last you're laying hold of what I want you to lay hold of: My blessing. I won't let You go unless You bless me! I won't let You go—" "Good, Jacob, you're getting there! Okay, I will bless you if you will submit everything to Me. Become obedient."

And there by the brook, God changed this man. He wrestled the Jacob out of him. You know when Jesus called His disciples, He called Nathanael. Philip went to get him because Philip was Nathanael's friend. And Jesus said to Nathanael, "Here's a Jew in whom is no Jacob." Do you know that's what He said? Here's a Jew in whom there is no guile, but the word is literally Jacob. No Jacob in this man. He's a good man, this Nathanael.

And Nathanael said, "Truly You're the Son of God!" Have you ever wondered why he suddenly said, "Truly You're the Son of God" because Jesus said that to him? And Jesus said, "Well, I saw you under the fig tree." Well, it was obvious Jesus couldn't have seen him under the fig tree because He wasn't anyone near. But under the fig tree, what was happening? He was praying. What was he praying? We believe he was praying about that passage of scripture I read to you.

He was praying about Jacob and a ladder up to heaven and trying to figure it out. And what did it mean? There was access to God and God was going to come down to man and the angels were ascending up and down on this ladder. And as he was meditating under his fig tree and thinking about it, Jesus saw it. And when Philip went, it was the timing that was perfect, just like God. And he said, "Come and find the one. We've found the Christ. Come and find the Christ."

And so Nathanael's very confused and he comes. And Jesus said, "I saw you under the fig tree. You're a man in whom is no Jacob." And he said, "You saw what I was thinking? You saw what I was praying?" And Jesus said, "Oh, you think that's a miracle? Nathanael, you're going to see the angels of God descending and ascending upon the Son of Man. I'm the ladder! I'm the ladder, Nathanael!" And Nathanael said, "That's it." He left everything and followed Jesus.

Here's a man in whom is no Jacob. And God is still wanting to wrestle the Jacob out of us just like He did in the story. And so, what do we do then? We go back to Bethel like he did. We go back to the place where we began, as it were, and we began to review our life and say, "You know, I've wrestled with this and I've lost. I've lost to my selfishness, I've lost to my sinfulness."

And I go back to my marriage and I go back to my family and I'm thinking, what a mess, what a mess I've made of it! Here's Leah, here's Rachel, here's this fighting, here's this mess, and it's all my doing and I didn't do it right. And if I'd done it this—and half of it isn't my doing and yet that's what life is like. And we're very down and we're very hurt. And what we have to do is we have to get alone with God. We have to intentionally put ourselves into the presence of God and give Him a chance to get His hands all over our life.

That can happen in your bedroom, that can happen here in church, that can happen in your car on the way home—I don't care where it happens. What I do care is that it happens. Because there has to come a moment alone with God when we let Him hurt us, as it were, put our nose out of joint, put our hip out of joint. We have to accept the hurt He has allowed because of His sovereign permissive will and realize it's all part of the plan to bring us to submission.

And to bring us to the realization that we're sick of being Jacob and we want to be Israel. We want to be a prince with God. We want God to turn us upside down. We want to live upside down all right side up so that we can do the same for our world. And that requires surrender. We have to let Him hurt us, we have to let Him heal us of our grudges and our gripes and the bitterness and what we feel about Esau, and we have to try and make amends and we have to try and reconcile with God. And then we have to let Him help us and say, "I will not let You go! I will not stop this prayer time until You put Your hands on me and bless me and change me!"

And when we do that, God will. God will. God will. And you will become a blessing to your world. I always think of Jacob, the age of 120 in Egypt. Thought he'd lost Joseph, remember the story? Joseph turns up assistant to Pharaoh, saves the whole of Egypt from famine. Wonderful story. And the brothers come and don't know that he's the brother they put in the pit and sold as a slave.

And then it's all found out and it's all forgiven. And Joseph, assistant to Pharaoh, says, "Bring my father. I'll care for him in the famine. I'll give him the best land." And there's this reconciliation in the desert. "Oh, my son, my son," says Jacob. "Now I can die. Now I can die in peace. I thought you were dead and now you're alive." And Joseph presents Jacob to Pharaoh. Remember that?

And Pharaoh—and Pharaoh's had a problem. For Pharaoh's life was a terminal disease. Like it is for everybody, but it sort of was a quicker terminal disease than it was for everybody else. And most Pharaohs only lived about 30 years. Most Egyptians, they said, only lived between 30 and 40 years. That was their lifespan. That's why when they're digging all these Pharaohs up, they're finding their boy Pharaohs because the whole population, the lifespan was so small.

And when this Pharaoh saw Jacob at 120 years old, he said—first thing he said: "How old are you? How old are you?" I'm sure he'd never seen a man 120 years old. And Jacob said, "You think I'm old? Let me tell you about my father Isaac and my grandfather and the people before them. I'm just a kid." And then it says Jacob blessed Pharaoh. I love that picture!

I mean, he was Pharaoh! He was the ruler of that world at that moment! And God took this man that He'd wrestled to the ground and wrestled the selfishness out of him, wrestled the Jacob out of him, and He made him a prince. And He sent him into his world and He took him to the throne room of the authority of the world at that time. And Jacob blesses this man! Jacob speaks to this man for God!

What do you want for your life? Want to just live your life and, you know, play tennis and go shopping? Fine. But what you really want, what you really want, you want to turn your world upside down. Well, there's only way, if God turns you upside down—or right side up—at Bethel. Pray with me, if you will.

Lord, these are really real people. And it just amazes me that You didn't choose the angels, You chose us when You decided to interfere in the affairs of sinful men. You chose people like Jacob, people who were twisted and hurt and angry and full of guile and deception and fighting their way to the top of the ladder. You chose people who were not content with their lot in life. You chose people like us.

And You offered us a chance to be changed that we might change our world. Lord, it doesn't come without wrestling: the wrestling to be spiritual when we're not in a non-spiritual world and environment doesn't come without facing up to who we are and who we're not and who we should be. It doesn't come until we go to Bethel and understand the stairway to heaven and the Lord who came down it into our lives and into our dilemma.

And it doesn't happen until we've had enough of our own manipulation and our own contriving, trying to make life work for us until we give it all up and we allow You to get Your hands on us and deal with this ugly Jacob thing inside of us. And Lord, I would speak I know for many people here in this moment, in this still moment, and invite You—a little bit scared what it means—but invite You for surely You are in this place and we knew it not to deal with the Jacob in us.

May we submit to You. We will not let You go in this quietness until You bless us, Lord. Bless us. Help us. Heal us. Change us, Lord. Turn us upside down. We ask it for Your sake and in Your name we pray. Amen.