To Read: Genesis 32

“So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak.’ But Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’ The man asked him, ‘What is your name?’ ‘Jacob,’ he answered. Then the man said,, ‘Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.’ Jacob said, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he replied, ‘Why do you ask my name?’ Then he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying ‘It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.’” (Gen. 32:24-30) 

At the ford of the river Jabbok, God met Jacob. This is one of the great chapters of the Bible. For the third time, Jacob is in direct communication with God. When Jacob left for his uncle Laban in order to find a wife, he was supremely confident of his own ability. He made elaborate plans to pacify Esau in order to return home safely. On the night before meeting Esau, Jacob met with God. On this night, God transformed an independent, self-confident man into a prince. In the night, God met with Jacob in the form of a man. A wrestling match ensued and continued until daybreak. Jacob’s will was invincible.  Unless he was set free to will the will of God, the promise of God to Abraham would end in his grandson. When it was apparent that Jacob’s strength made him weak in faith, the wrestler touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched forcing him to walk with a limp for the rest of his life. Jacob was being Jacob when he refused the man’s order to release him saying, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” God doesn’t bless our natural strength. Now that Jacob was infirmed, his name was changed to Israel. Israel has survived to this day. Israel gave the world its savior. The Christian Church is the true Israel of God. 

For many years our family spend one week each summer at the Peniel Bible Conference. As a mark of identification, the conference called its insight regarding being “in Christ” the Peniel distinctive. In Christ, expresses a face to face relationship. 

To Read: Genesis 33

“’No please!’ said Jacob. ‘If I have found favor in your eyes, accept this gift from me. For to see your face is like seeing the face of God, now that you have received me favorably.’” (Gen. 33:10)

It was not only Jacob who God changed at the river Jabbok. Esau changed too. Esau came to wage war with Jacob, whose name was now Israel. It was in order to fight that Jacob’s brother came to meet him with four hundred men. Something Jacob could not have expected happened when the two men met. Rather than fight, “…Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept.” Esau doubtless came for revenge but sometime before he arrived he became a changed man. Are we not to understand that in order to bless Jacob the Lord needed to make Esau an instrument of blessing? In order to see God face to face and survive, Esau must change. We read in chapter 28, “Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. He said to himself, ‘The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” (38:41)

Jesus saw himself in the place of Esau. In order for Christ to bless the world he needed to be willing to forgive sinners. David revealed the attitude of a fallen world toward Jesus Christ in the 2nd Psalm. “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One.” Are we not the kings of the earth of whom David speaks? Do not sinners strive to rule their own lives? Is that not why the cry that Christ be cursed is a downright visceral? In order to bless sinners who seek his place, Christ did not, like Esau, need to be change. It was the God who is love who because incarnate in order to bless those who seek to enthrone themselves in the place that rightly belongs to Jesus Christ.

To Read: Genesis 34

 “Three days later, while all of them were still in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and attacked the unsuspecting city, killing every male. They put Hamor and his son Sheckem to the sword and took Dinah from Sheckem’s house and left. The sons of Jacob came upon the dead bodies and looted the city where their sister had been defiled.” (Gen. 34:25-27)

“It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. These words God spoke long after Jacob was dead. Neither did God enact a law that has done great good in millions of lives over the years. Moses, Levi’s descendant, spoke for God when he said, “…eye for eye, tooth for tooth.” (Ex. 21:24) Americans, who enjoy the rule of law and not men, have profoundly benefited by putting the principle of justice in the place of unbridled vengeance. We glory in making the penalty fit the crime. We abhor the slaughter of the Shechemites in retaliation for the rape of Dinah. Many no longer know that justice (eye for eye, tooth for tooth) comes to us from the Bible. God, who appeared on earth in both human form and written form, gives this protection we enjoy to us. Jesus is the human form of God’s Word and the Bible is the written form of God’s Word.

The Puritans believed Christs called for them to come to North America. John Winthrop, Massachusetts’ first Governor, offered that if they safely navigated 3000 miles of perilous North Atlantic, it would be evidence that Christ was behind the rise of the American mind. Since we live near Gloucester where the perfect storm was filmed, I drove to the fishermen statue to contemplate Winthrop’s stipulation. In front of the statue are ten concrete slabs on which are mounted ten bronze plaques containing over 5000 names of Gloucester natives lost at sea. About 25,000 Puritans traversed the Atlantic on hundreds of ships over a period of ten years and not a single ship is recorded as having been sunk. No one was reported lost at sea. One town lost thousands because the ocean is such a powerful adversary to those who ply its waves. Did the Lord spare the Puritans because they came here to plant the truth of divine justice in this land? The history of the United States would answer yes.

To Read: Genesis 35

“After Jacob returned from Paddan Aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him. God said to him, ‘Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel.’ So he named him Israel. And God said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will come from your body. The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.  Then God went up from him at the place where he had talked with him.” (Gen 35:9-13)

“God Almighty” is El-Shaddai the Hebrew. The name was first revealed to Abram when God changed his name to Abraham. In Genesis 17 we read, “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.” Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, ‘As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you the father of many nations.” (1:1-5) In Genesis 35, El-Shaddai (God Almighty) changes the name of Abraham’s grandson from Jacob to Israel as he reconfirms the covenant promise he made to Abraham. This is a warning that present day Christians must not fall victim to the cultures disregard of the claim that God guided the course of American history. Especially, this is a vital matter because much of our nation’s history has been rewritten in order to hide the truth from the present generation.

The God who renewed his covenant promise to Abraham by repeating the promise to Jacob, continues to fulfill that promise in our time to use us. The great missionary movement of the 19th century began in the First Church of Bradford. Like a spiritual explosion, good news of Christ landed on societies worldwide. The Byfield Parish Church now supports missionary efforts in nations on the continents of North America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. The honest observer who understands that the promise made to Abraham four thousand years ago is still being fulfilled, has good reason to believe in Christ.   

To Read: Genesis 36

“Esau took his wives and sons and daughters and all the members of his household, as well as his livestock and all his other animals and all the goods he had acquired in Canaan, and moved to a land some distance from his brother Jacob. Their possessions were too great for them to remain together; the land where they were staying could not support them both because of their livestock. So Esau (that is, Edom) settled in the hill country of Seir.” (Gen. 36:6-8)

Genesis 36 may seem like a chapter that would only interest census taker types. Three statements in the chapter alert us to a principle we must not ignore. Verse 8 says, “…Esau (that is Edom). Verse 9 states, “Esau the father of the Edomites…” Verse 19 says, “Esau (that is Edom) The chapter concludes, “This was Esau the father of the Edomites.” (36:43) By the continual intention to draw attention to the fact that Edom began with Esau, God shows the awful fruit reaped from the duplicity of Jacob in cheating his brother Esau. Jacob may have escaped the wrath of Esau personally, but his brothers’ anger became a harvest of hate reaped by the Israelites throughout their history.

 Obadiah reported, “The vision of Obadiah. This is what the Sovereign Lord says about Edom –  .”  Because of the violence against your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame; you will be destroyed forever.”(1:1,10) Herod was an Edomite. There is a powerful lesson taught us in the history of Edom. The ramifications of evil doing become a virus that infects a family line. This is  a lesson to fathers and mothers to do good as well as teach what is good to the children.

Saturday:  Genesis 37 

Sunday:  Genesis 38