40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 40 Minutes In The Old Testament: Episode 43

Episode Date: March 29, 2016

Chad and Daniel talk about praying badly, assuming the worst about someone and the God who lets you beat Him. Check it out!

welcome to episode 43 of 40 minutes in the old testament we had a brief we have two weeks off chad yeah pretty close to that i think i fell asleep and uh didn't wake up i went into hibernation for two weeks but uh we yeah yes uh but we are back and chad where are we at in uh in the 40 minutes in the narrative of genesis we are actually at a kind of a climactic moment here. We're in Genesis 32, and Jacob is just about to have his encounter with his estranged brother, but he's going to have an encounter with somebody else before we get there. All right, let's do it. All right, very good. So when we left off last time, we wrapped up the end of chapter 31, and if you remember, that was when Jacob bids farewell to

his exile and has that run-in with Laban, his father-in-law, and they kind of get everything settled. They make a treaty and both swear that they're not going to cross over this memorial stone back to harm the other. So it ends on a fairly positive note with Jacob and his father-in-law. We pick up with chapter 32 with Jacob's hesitation, fear with regard to his reunion with his brother. If you remember, it's been it's been two decades since Jacob stole the birthright from his brother and his brother wanted to kill him. And so the last communication that Jacob had with with Esau was was was murderous in tone. his brother wanted to take his life so Jacob takes off and and over the last 20 years as Jacob has has thought of his brother no doubt all he thought was that his brother's still angry and his brother

can't wait to get his pound of flesh at least judging from Jacob's reactions in this chapter that's that's what he what he still thinks so this has been eating in him for the last 20 years but he's going home God told him to go home he was ready to go home and so they are they are heading that way. But before he gets there, we're going to have a few things happen. And at the end of the chapter, the end of chapter 32, is where we have a very, very interesting episode of Jacob wrestling with a man who's an angel, who's also God. So we'll get there in just a few minutes. Now, this chapter starts out with kind of a strange occurrence. So the last chapter ends with these words it says then Laban departed and returned to his place and chapter 32 begins

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 so he named that place Mahanaim which in Hebrew means two camps and that's all that's said about it uh some angels meet him this is the first time that Jacob's had an encounter with angels, and he names the place Mahanaim, which becomes an important city later in Israel's history. Now, what's interesting about this is, first of all, Jacob has these angels. He's been under divine protection ever since he left the promised land 20 years earlier. The angels are still there with him, still watching over him, protecting him, just like they do us. so Jacob sees them and he names the place where he has this vision of the angels Mahanaim which

means two camps now this is going to become significant in just a minute so kind of bear that in mind this idea there being two camps of angels in a place called Mahanaim so kind of set that aside for a moment we'll come back to it in a minute but at this point we gotta we gotta we got to figure out how Jacob is going to deal with Esau, or Jacob has to figure out for himself what's going to happen. So he's got to have a twofold strategy here. His first plan begins verse three. He sends messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom. And he sends these messengers ahead with a very specific message. He tells them that they are to say to not his brother Esau, but to his Lord Esau, which is interesting. He calls Esau

his Lord. So, thus you shall say to my Lord Esau, thus says your servant Jacob. This is a direct quote this is what the servants are to tell are to tell esau i have sojourned with laban and stayed until now and i have oxen and donkeys and flocks and male and female servants and i have sent to tell my lord that i may find favor in your sight so i i guess what's going on here is that jacob wants jacob is not bragging he's not he's not uh sending his messengers ahead to to tell esau hey uh hey abro i just want you to know that i'm rich now and i've done really well for myself instead he's he's sending these messengers ahead to tell esau uh my lord esau I know that you're probably angry with me still, but I have enough possessions to be able to pay

you back for what I've stolen from you. That seems to be what's going on here. He's got these male and female servants, flocks, herds, and all of this. And so he's going to be able to pay his brother back for the crime of stealing his stealing his birthright so that's the plan he sends messengers ahead they have this very specific message to deliver to his lord esau and here's what happens the messengers get back and they say we came to your brother esau and furthermore he is coming to meet you and 400 men are with him now what's what's interesting about this is that the messengers don't communicate anything about what Esau said if he said anything presumably the messengers tell Esau this but they don't come back to Jacob

with any message from Esau in fact all they come back with is a description of how Esau is coming out to meet Jacob. And these 400 men with him do not bode well for Jacob. There's a few other places, in particular in 1 Samuel, where 400 men are associated with David. It seems to be sort of the biblical number for a militia. So you got these 400 soldiers who are with Esau. And when Jacob hears this, all that he can think about is that Esau is coming back for revenge. He's going to attack him. He's going to get his revenge that he's been waiting for two decades to get. So that's kind of the first plan that Jacob has, and it doesn't go so well. At least, that's Jacob's interpretation of it. He's going to try and buy his brother's favor,

with this message of how much he has and all that he hears in response is that Esau is bringing a militia out to meet him. Now we know Jacob. Jacob is a man of plotting and conniving and so he comes up with plan number two and it's kind of got two components to it. The first is a prayer that uh that jacob prays we'll get to that first and then the second part of it is he he divides up his possessions in order that he might send them ahead of him in order to uh in order to placate the anger of esau by giving him by giving him these gifts but before we get to those we have a very interesting verse here because after the men

come back, Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. So he divides the people who are with him and his flocks and his herds and his camels into two different companies. And he says to himself, if Esau

comes to the one company and attacks it, then the company which is left will escape. Now, got to step back from this story for a minute ask yourself would there be another way that jacob could go about this how about now this is just throwing out an idea there how about that jacob himself goes to meet his brother esau how about he goes out instead of sending messengers instead of dividing up his

family and all his possessions instead of as we'll see as the story goes on sending you know herd after herd after flock after flock to try and win favor from his brother how about jacob simply goes out to meet his brother esau i mean is that is that a is that is that not a feasible option no that's not what people do people do not go and say i'm gonna go and talk to the person with whom i have a problem it's not what it's not it's just not what happens it's not what happens in real life it's not what happens it becomes it becomes this elaborate game of uh playing chess yeah and making assumptions right isn't that what jacob is doing he's making assumptions about esau yeah he's like this guy has come he's gonna he's gonna bust me up because

i deserve it and uh so yeah i'm gonna divide my stuff and i'm gonna figure out how to appease him yeah that's exactly what jacob does he doesn't take the uh he doesn't take the honest approach he doesn't take the courageous approach he doesn't take the the the humble and uh self-sacrificial approach instead he comes up with every he eventually will interestingly when we get to chapter 23 but at this point jacob is being jacob jacob is totally being the uh deceiver supplanter uh the jacob who's always concerned about jacob so uh he uh he tries everything he can to avoid actually doing what he's supposed to do you know it's it's easier i think in some ways it's easier for jacob to believe the worst of esau because it it confirms it confirms uh his suspicions

that is the that is the way that the people are they always want to believe luther says in large catechism that people always uh prefer to believe the worst about other people they always rejoice more in the evil than they do than they do in the good well yeah what this is too i think what people do what jacob's doing too is you project your own dirt bagness onto somebody else and so you're like this is what this is how i would respond to this person so therefore that's how surely they are going to respond as well so jacob probably knows like man if if i was esau i would be looking to kill me i'd be looking to just i'd be looking to just go ballistic on me there's no way i'm talking to that dude because if it's true of me it's true of him and that's

Yeah, we all do that. Yeah, yeah, we all do. Yeah, very often our unworthy accusations against someone else are nothing more than an inward reflection of what's going on in our own heart. We're troubled by our own sin. We're troubled by our greed or our lust or whatever it is. And so we tend to think that that's exactly what's going on with someone else. So we read our own sin into someone else.

so jacob thinks his brother esau is just like him whereas we have seen throughout throughout this story that if anybody comes out looking like he's a pretty good guy it's esau it's not jacob jacob repeatedly uh is is a conniver is a plotter is a is a thief and esau just seemed like a pretty good guy who got the short end of the stick and it's not going to change because we'll see in Just a minute. Esau ends up being the good guy, the good guy in the story once more. So we have to spend a moment with this prayer that Jacob prays, because I find it even more illuminating about Jacob, because I won't read the whole prayer, but basically Jacob addresses God,

god of my father abraham and isaac and he quotes god he says you know you told me to go back to you told me to go back to my my country my relatives and i'm unworthy of all the love and the faithfulness that you that you've shown me uh and i want i want you to deliver me from the hand of my of my brother because i'm afraid he's going to come and attack me and the mothers of my and the mothers of my children now on the surface this prayer can kind of come across as a as a pretty good prayer i mean there's some there's some aspects to it which are uh which which are good but sanctimonious man if you look at it more closely it's yeah it's uh it's actually it's a very uh is jacobian is that is that is that a word it's a very it's a very jacobian

prayer. It's very much a prayer that reflects who Jacob is. Because when he quotes God, I mean, and he is, he's quoting God, he actually changes the words. Because God told him to return to his country and to his relatives, and God promised, and I will be with you. But when Jacob quotes God. He says, God, you told me to return to my country, my relatives, and you would prosper me. Literally the Hebrew, if there's anybody out there listening who knows Hebrew, it's a hyphil verb, which is a verb which means like to cause to happen. So literally it's to cause good to come upon me. And so with Jacob twice in this prayer, twice, he quotes God, but he, he inserts something into it, which is not there. God promised I will be with you. And Jacob says,

like you said, God, you promised that you would, you would prosper me. And then there's this other line. And this is what I find, I guess, most, uh, most humorous about this prayer, because he says, uh when i crossed the jordan god all i had was my staff and now i have become two companies the reason you became two companies because you just split everybody up so he's like he's like talking to god uh boasting about everybody how many blessings he has and he's really nothing doing more than he's reflecting his own plan of self-protection yeah i've got i got i mean i have so much i have two companies well of course you do you just split everybody up because you said if they strike one the other one will be safe so i don't know about

this prayer uh it comes across as is nothing more than jacob is trying to control god he's trying to control the whole situation and now he's trying to control god by this sort of prayerful manipulation of god way which is you know it's not uncommon how many times oh my gosh i i i would be a rich man if i had a if i had a dollar for every time that i prayed a prayer which is self-serving and attempts to manipulate god into doing what i what i wanted to do you know make try and make deals with god or pray pray things which are which are nothing more than a reflection of my own self-interest so just because a prayer is in the bible doesn't mean it's a good prayer it doesn't mean it's a pious prayer uh people talk to god in self-serving ways all the time yeah i

mean sometimes sometimes our prayers are that way not even because of um what we're asking for but we're just like trying to find like the most the the right words i mean like have you ever been in like like you ever been praying like maybe like a group of guys is praying and it becomes like a prayer competition oh yeah oh yeah yeah big time that's fantastic and uh and so then it just becomes like who can sound you know the most heavenly yeah right the most you use the most awe-inspiring words this is what jesus accuses the pharisees of right like lengthy prayers like flowery speech yeah exactly yeah prayers competitive prayers boastful prayers uh i can't remember praying one time making a making a bargain with god if he would i would

do this if he would do that and i was so angry when he didn't follow through with it I, I set up the whole situation, you know, uh, I was, I was in this relationship that I was afraid it was going to end. And so I, I, I came up with this, this deal, you know, I told God that I would, I would quit doing this and that if he would say this relationship. So I set the whole thing up and I, and I, you know, I, I obligate God to do something based upon my own actions and then when he doesn't follow through with what i obligated him to do i'm pissed when i came up for the whole situation to begin with all right so yeah it's pretty pitiful yeah yeah no that's definitely that's definitely a jacob yeah i was very i was i was jacob at that

moment i got two companies here's the deal here's the plan god here's the plan yeah let me tell you this is gonna go down oh so so jacob he prays his prayer and of course god doesn't respond uh there's no need to then but then he moves to that's the first part he's gonna kind of control god and he's gonna control his uh his brother so what he does is he uh he he takes all these goats and sheep and camels and cows and donkeys and all these animals 550 in all and he splits them up into several different flocks and herds and he appoints a servant to each one of these flocks and herds and he puts a little distance between each of them and he sends them on ahead and and each each shepherd or each uh each servant is is told to

say this he says like you know when you when you when you come to esau you're supposed to and esau says you know who are you where are you going just kind of questions him they are to say these belong to your servant, Jacob. And it is a present sent to my Lord Esau. And behold, he is also behind us. So what he's trying to do, and he admits this, he's trying to appease him with all of these, with all these presents, which I find very, very interesting because this is exactly the approach that his unloved wife has taken toward him and it never worked you know he was poor leo was was always trying to win the affections of her of her husband jacob by doing this or doing that burying all these sons doing all these things for him and it never worked but

jacob thinks that he can now win the affections of his brother by the same uh mechanism so that's his plan he's going to he prayed and so he's got everything set up for what god's supposed to do and now he's divided up his possessions and he's going to he's going to uh pacify his brother by giving all these these gifts to him now to kind of jump ahead uh over uh over the next, the next story, when we, when, when Jacob does finally meet Esau, I love Esau's response. Esau's more, more or less like, what's all this stuff? You know, why'd you send all these animals ahead of me? I don't need all this stuff. I'm rich. I mean, I've got plenty of stuff already. Why'd you, why'd you do this? And Jacob has to, has to press Esau to accept these gifts. Esau's

like, I don't need all this stuff. What's up with all these flocks and herds? So the whole thing was unnecessary but that's that's jacob for you okay now getting back to uh getting back to chapter 32 and to uh the the way this the way this this chapter wraps up it is the uh the story of jacob wrestling with with the mysterious visitor so this starts in uh i'll sort of beginning in in 22, what happens is Jacob ends up all by himself. He's at this place called the Jabbok River, which flows into the Jordan River. And he takes his whole family across. So he sent all his possessions ahead, all these gifts for his brother Esau. And during the night, he takes his wives and his co-wives and his 11 children. And he takes them all across the river. And then for some

reason, Jacob goes back across and he's there all by himself. So it's sort of a, it's like the end is like the beginning because Jacob leaves his homeland all by himself. And now here he is on the verge of going back into his home country and once more he's alone and not only that but when jacob left he had that uh vision of god the ladder extending to heaven during the night and once more this is a a night encounter that jacob has with god so it's sort of everything's come full circle he was in Bethel at night God appears to him now he's just about to go back into the home into the homeland he's alone and he's undercover of darkness and it says that it begins with kind of a mysterious description it simply says a man wrestled with him until daybreak

and that's all it tells us so presumably when this starts some guy jumps jacob and they start fighting together and jacob has at first anyway has no idea who he is he's just a just a man who is jacob's match in strength and ability because neither one of them are able to gain gained the upper hand and we'll kind of cover the story then we'll go back and talk about it so when the man saw that he couldn't prevail against jacob he touches the uh the socket of jacob's thigh and it's it's it's dislocated so he weakens jacob and then he says let me go for the dawn is breaking and it's at this point that we realize that jacob Jacob has come to know that

it's not just a man he's wrestling with it's someone who is much more of a man because he says I will not let you go unless you bless me and the man asks him what is your name he says Jacob and he says your name

shall no longer be Jacob but Israel for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed and then the guy the the man refuses to tell Jacob his own name but then Jacob to kind of wrap this up Jacob name the place Peniel for he said I have seen God face to face yet my life has been preserved so that's that's kind of the basic story which probably most of you were listening already know but uh let's go back and and uh and talk about this because depending

on when this when this uh this comes out uh right now we're we're recording on a couple days before good friday and this is actually a a perfect in my opinion a perfect time to to go over this particular story in jacob's life because as i'll as i'll explain in just a second this really is a Good Friday kind of story. It's one of those Old Testament stories which theologically gives us an insight into what happens on Good Friday, what happens in the crucifixion of our Lord. It's one of many of these shadows or images that we have in the Old Testament of what is going to take place when god becomes man and god as man dies dies in our stead but i'll i'll get there in a minute so uh we start out here with uh first of all one of the the many times in the old

testament when god takes on takes on human form he's called a man later on in hosea 12 when he talks about this he's called uh he's called an angel but he's he's all three uh this is god taking on taking on temporarily a human form so that he can in this case wrestle with wrestle with jacob you know this is uh dan this is the uh this is the most i guess i might say the most earthy encounter that any old testament figure has with god appearing in human form and they actually fight yeah you know this is this is not like early earlier i think that's genesis 18 where the lord and two angels appear to abraham and they sit down and have a a meal together and the lord and his angels are eating and drinking yeah that's that's earthy but this

is this is actually a fight that takes place it's also it's also the reason i believe that god is a vampire because he prefers nighttime he's like you gotta leave before the the dawn breaks right sun's coming up bro i gotta go i gotta go the light's gonna be here just a minute i gotta split yes yeah you know it's a that's for all those teen fiction uh novel readers out there yeah there you go there you go god is vampire little nugget you know it is uh it's quite fascinating me that uh that god not only appears as a man but and this isn't like an apparition this is this is a temporary assumption of flesh and blood i mean this is this is a man god as a man who is able to stand toe to toe with jacob and to get down in the dirt and wrestle which is

actually what the hebrew the hebrew word for wrestle there is related to the word for dust so it's this idea you know they're they're fighting on the ground there's clouds of dust coming up because they're they're they're stirring it up as they're as they're fighting with each other and it's not a you know a uh my son's a wrestler and his his rounds are either one or two minutes this isn't a one or two minute round this is this is an all-night kind of wrestling match that takes place i think it's really interesting that you know they're wrestling all night it says that you know that i mean basically that jacob like beats him right yeah yeah he can't he can't get the better of jacob right which is like obviously not true

because he's like i can't get the better of this guy i guess i'll just touch him on the hip and dislocate his i mean like it's like yeah right so like i mean so it's like oh man i really can't beat this guy like and then like she's my supernatural powers to dislocate his hip i mean like so dude could have like like stopped his heart right in a second or something like so uh so i like that there's this um uh there's this you know when jesus says that you know like no one no one takes my life from me i give it up this kind of thing yeah yeah and uh Like, you don't beat God in a wrestling match unless God makes you, like, so what God does here is he doesn't just take on flesh and blood, but he also, this and this, people get freaked out when you say things like this. But, like, God makes himself your equal.

Yeah. He condescends to the point that you could beat him and will condescend to the point that you could kill him only because he's willing to have it be so because he could just touch your hip or call down legions of angels or whatever. uh but he is a god that like on the regular makes himself makes himself low bring like makes himself your equal makes it to where literally makes it to where you could strive with god and prevail as uh as he says which is which is a crazy god it is a crazy god yeah um that's that's one of the reasons why I think this particular story gives us a deeper insight into the incarnation than perhaps any other Old Testament story. Because the incarnation is exactly what you're describing. God makes himself our equal. He's, he passed through every stage of life that

we do. He's conceived, he's born. He is a, is a baby. He's a toddler. He's an adult. He hungers, he thirsts, he bleeds, he dies. So everything that we experience as humans, he himself experiences. And as he does that, he opens himself up to the same hostilities from sinners to which we ourselves are subject. So he opens himself up to being cursed, to being lied about, to being betrayed to being arrested and eventually to being executed for the sins of humanity so what what this story does is it is it's a window into the willingness of god to subject himself fully to human limitations and to subject subject himself fully to death itself to being actually defeated by his own children in order that in his defeat

they themselves might gain the victory yeah that like uh that he would let he'd allow himself to be beaten it's odd jacob has his wits about him enough to know that a blessing would be a good idea because in god's in the defeat of god comes a blessing and literally the blessing to those who defeated him those who those who killed him which would be me and you yeah yeah yeah this is this is sort of a uh you know god is the biggest loser kind of story uh but and this is the this is the way that God works. So God allows himself to be bested, to be beaten, to be conquered by Jacob here on purpose in order that in God's loss, Jacob might receive gain. In God's death, we might receive life. I mean, if there's any story which tells us the

that there that there is no limit to what god will do in order to bring us back this is it so god i mean i don't know if i can i can't come up with the words to to communicate it well enough the creator of heaven and earth will will be will lose in order that we might we might gain yeah you have a god who is uh will go to the point of uh taking on flesh and rolling around in the dirt all night getting scraped up cut up you got a god god that's that's willing to just to have an all-night wrestling match on the ground that he made to bring this dude back yeah yeah that's a dude that seeks and saves a loss like like no other like no other yeah i mean And this is part of the story that we see throughout the rest of the Old Testament.

But it really comes to its climax on Good Friday. That's why I brought that up earlier. Because here we have on Good Friday, the God who is willing to wrestle with humanity, to be arrested by humanity, to be mocked and beaten and whipped and crucified. to be to be last to be the one who is betrayed the one who is abandoned the one who dies all alone to to suffer this tremendous loss but it's all part of the plan that we might gain the victory that our name might be changed to uh to saint instead of sinner to save instead of lost to alive instead of dead, to believer instead of unbeliever, to the children of God. So this is the way our names, too, are changed when God loses and we win.

So the name Israel means the one who has fought with God and with man and has prevailed. I mean, the name itself is astounding because the name Israel tells us the limitless grace of God, that he is willing to be beaten in order that we might gain the victory through his loss. It's astounding. And we do become Israel. We all get brought in. We all get brought in. We are the, as Paul says, we are the Israel of God, collectively as the church and individually as believers.

we and it's it's not a it's not a vain boast but it's a it's a divine gift god gives the name he doesn't say to jacob hey you know let's change your name what do you what do you want to be called now he gives the name change so the the one who is beaten in order that jacob might prevail gives him the name of prevailing you have striven with god with men and have and have prevailed and jacob realizes he's seen god face to face in this encounter and i there's more truth to his words i think than he realizes because not only is he seeing god face to face and in a physical sense he's been toe to toe with him but he's actually seen he's had revealed to him what the face of god is really like what god's character is really like how he presents himself to the

world, the face that he gives to the world. And it's a face that's willing to go to these lengths in order to give a name change to Jacob, in order to save us, in order to give us eternal life. So this is a face-to-face encounter with who God really is. And that God is a God of grace and mercy, and the God who gives us victory by being defeated by the very people that he came to save. so this this story has the crucifixion and the incarnation written all over it and it's a story that really is about the the strange ways of a god who loses in order that his children might win that's it and that's where we're gonna have to leave it chad we're gonna do it right there's a good spot to leave it go over to christ hold fast.org and if you enjoy this program or any

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