Genesis 32.25a-The Significance of the Lord Not Prevailing Over Jacob
Tuesday September 5, 2006
Genesis: Genesis 32:25a-The Significance of the Lord Not Prevailing Over Jacob
Lesson # 199
Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 32:24.
This evening we will continue with our study of Jacob’s wrestling match with the Lord Jesus Christ, which is recorded in Genesis 32:24-32.
In the first part of Genesis 32:24 we saw Jacob alone in prayer prior to his encounter with Esau and entrance into the land of Canaan, which was in obedience to the Lord’s command.
Then, in the second half of Genesis 32:24 we saw Jacob wrestling the God-Man, the preincarnate Christ.
This wrestling match between God and Jacob is a “microcosm” or “symbolic” of Jacob’s struggles in life with men, which in reality were with God.
The wrestling match with Jacob did “not” teach any spiritual lessons to Jacob but rather the divine discipline that he underwent in the form of the fourteen years of hard labor for his deceitful uncle Laban taught Jacob many spiritual lessons, which are symbolized in the wrestling match with the Lord.
Remember, the divine discipline only lasted fourteen years since at the end of the fourteen years we see Jacob operating in faith in his proposal to Laban regarding flocks, which is recorded in Genesis 30:25-43.
If you recall, Jacob proposed to Laban that all speckled and spotted among the sheep and goats and the dark colored lambs were to be his wages and the pure white sheep, the dark goats were to be considered Laban’s property.
The spotted and speckled lambs and goats and dark colored sheep already in Laban’s flock would be removed so that Jacob had no breeding stock of his own.
These spotted, speckled and striped animals that were removed from Laban’s flock were segregated from Laban’s solid colored flocks and were “not” later considered Jacob’s property since he has already stipulated in Genesis 30:31 that he wanted nothing that was Laban’s!
Jacob actually proposed to start with nothing from the outset and that his pay would consist of only those animals yet unborn that would be less desirable to Laban because of their markings.
Since Jacob’s proposal to Laban left him with no breeding stock of his own, the only way that Jacob could possibly succeed and prosper was if the Lord intervened for Jacob.
Any spotted or speckled lambs or goats and dark colored sheep born in the future would be Jacob’s property.
Jacob’s proposal put himself entirely at the mercy of the Lord and was a great act of faith in the Lord on his part and which faith the Lord honored.
So clearly at that point in his life, Jacob was operating in faith and no longer under divine discipline.
Also, in Genesis 32:24, we noted the significance of Jacob’s wrestling match with the Lord taking place at night, which is that it is a picture or symbolic of the divine discipline he underwent in the form of his fourteen years of hard labor for his deceitful uncle Laban.
Lastly, in Genesis 32:24, we noted the significance of the wrestling match ending at daybreak, which is that it symbolized or was a picture of Jacob no longer under divine discipline but rather experiencing fellowship with God.
This evening we will study Genesis 32:25a and note the significance of the Lord not prevailing over Jacob in their wrestling match.
The Lord did not prevail over Jacob in the sense that the Lord could not refuse Jacob’s prayer requests because they were according to His will and because Jacob persevered in prayer.
Genesis 32:24, “Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.”
The Son of God condescended to Jacob when He appeared in human flesh and did not destroy Jacob when wrestling him.
The Son of God condescended two thousand years ago in Bethlehem when He added to His deity a true, sinless human nature, thus becoming permanently, the God-Man.
John 1:14, “And the Word (Son of God) became flesh (a Man), and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only uniquely born One from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
The fact that the Son of God did not destroy Jacob while wrestling with him was a manifestation of His gentleness and gentleness by way of definition is power held in reserve.
At any time, the Son of God could have body slammed Jacob through the earth, but did not because He is gentle, His power was held in reserve.
Therefore, since the wrestling match symbolized Jacob’s struggles in life with God and men, the fact that the Lord was gentle with Jacob depicts God being gentle with Jacob when administering the divine discipline to him during the twenty years of service to Laban.
The gentleness of God has made Jacob great.
Psalm 18:35, “You have also given me the shield of Your salvation, and Your right hand upholds me; And Your gentleness makes me great.”
Genesis 32:25, “When he (the Lord) saw that he (the Lord) had not prevailed against him (Jacob), he (the Lord) touched the socket of his (Jacob’s) thigh; so the socket of Jacob's thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him.”
The fact that the Scriptures state that the Lord did not prevail against Jacob does “not” impugn God’s omnipotence but rather as we will note does effectively portray the power of persevering in prayer with God.
God does allow the prayer of men to be mighty in His sight when they persevere in prayer and offer that prayer in faith.
The fact that Jacob is physically broken and yet will not give up is symbolic of Jacob being broken through the divine discipline in the form of fourteen years of hard labor for Laban and yet not quitting on God but in fact he persevered in his relationship with God in prayer by claming the promises God made to him!
Therefore, the statement “he (the Lord) had not prevailed against him (Jacob)” means that Jacob would not give up in the wrestling match with Lord, which was symbolic of Jacob’s prayer life in that he did not give up but rather persevered in prayer.
Jacob had learned the power and importance of persevering in prayer, which is called by theologians, “prevailing prayer.”
Perseverance is the capacity to continue to bear up under difficult circumstances.
Matthew 7:7, “Ask repeatedly, and it will be given to you; seek repeatedly, and you will find; knock repeatedly, and it will be opened to you.”
Luke 18:1-2, “Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart, saying, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man.’”
Luke 18:3, “There was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him, saying, ‘Give me legal protection from my opponent.’”
Luke 18:4-5, “For a while he was unwilling; but afterward he said to himself, ‘Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection, otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out.’”
Luke 18:6-7, “And the Lord said, ‘Hear what the unrighteous judge said; now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them?”
Luke 18:8, “I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”
The prayer of Jacob that appears in Genesis 32:24-32 was unlike the prayers that we in the church age are to make.
Jacob spoke directly face to face with the visible manifestation of the Son of God whereas in the church age we are commanded by the Son of God to pray directly to the Father who is invisible (Jn. 16:26-27; Eph. 3:14).
The fact that Jacob wept in prayer according to Hosea 12:4 makes him a type of Christ who according to Hebrews 5:7, “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence (for the Father).”
The statement “he (the Lord) had not prevailed against him (Jacob)” implies that God opposed Jacob but not just in the wrestling match but in a spiritual sense, namely, in prayer.
God opposed Jacob in the sense that when Jacob first got saved and was first learning to pray as a spiritual child of God, he like most spiritual children, asked for things from God that were against His will or he asked for things for selfish reasons.
James 4:3, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.”
So early on in his relationship with God, God opposed Jacob because his prayers were not according to the will of God.
1 John 5:14, “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.”
1 John 5:15, “And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.”
Now that Jacob has matured spiritually, God did not oppose his prayers because they were according to the will of God.
Therefore, the statement “he (the Lord) had not prevailed against him (Jacob)” means that God could no longer oppose Jacob’s prayers because they he had matured to the point spiritually that his prayers were according to the will of God.
In fact Genesis 32:9-12 records Jacob’s prayer for deliverance from Esau and in this prayer he claimed the promises that God made to him, which are recorded in Genesis 28:10-15 and 31:3, thus Jacob was praying according to the will of God since the promises originated from God.
Genesis 32:9-10, “Jacob 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, I 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.’”
Genesis 32:11, “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.”
Genesis 32:12, “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.’”
Now, we must remember that when the Lord initiated the wrestling match, Jacob was alone in prayer presenting to the Lord his fears concerning confronting Esau the very next day.
So Jacob was actually already “wrestling” in prayer with the Lord in the sense that Jacob was trying to reconcile the advance of Esau with four hundred men and God’s promises to be with him and protect him and to return him to the land of Canaan.
While in prayer, he was fighting the good fight of faith in the sense that in his soul, he was fighting the temptation to give in to his fears and not trust God to protect him from Esau.
1 Timothy 6:12, “Fight the good fight of faith.”
The fact that the Lord said to Jacob in Genesis 32:28 that he had prevailed indicated that Jacob had won this battle over his fears of Esau in prayer by clinging to the promises that God made to him to protect and prosper him, and which promises are recorded in Genesis 28:10-15 and 31:3.
There are times when prayer is a struggle in the sense that we must fight the temptation to enter into fear and instead rest in God’s promise of protection.
Paul speaks of struggling in prayer.
Colossians 2:1, “For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea.”
By means of meditating in prayer upon the promises that God made to him, which are recorded in Genesis 28:10-15 and 31:3, Jacob was assured that God had a plan for his life.
Therefore, because he prevailed in prayer by being fully assured that God had a plan for his life and would keep His promises to protect and prosper him, Jacob in a sense had prevailed over men and in particular Esau.
While in prayer, Jacob came to a point where he was fully convinced that God would protect him and therefore trusted God and by doing so, Jacob appropriated the omnipotence of God so that he would prevail over Esau in the sense that Esau would not attack him but rather would be conciliatory.