VICTORY THROUGH DEFEAT
Gen. 32:28; Gal. 6:14
Morning Meditation 5/23/16
Genesis 32:28 “And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.”
Galatians 6:14 “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”
This meditation might also be called “where Jacob received a new name.” This morning meditation is based on a chapter in a book by A.W. Tozer named “the Divine Conquest,” printed by Christian Publications, Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. Probably most of you who receive Morning Meditations are acquainted with the writings of Tozer. If not, you need to buy all his books. I would recommend that you start with the Pursuit of God.” The late Dr. Tozer is called “a twentieth century prophet” and I agree.
Dr.. Tozer says, “The experiences of men who walked with God in olden times agree to teach that the Lord cannot fully bless a man until He has first conquered him. The degree of blessing enjoyed by any man will correspond exactly with the completeness of God’s victory over him. This is a badly neglected tenet of the Christian’s creed, not understood by many in this self-assured age, but it is nevertheless of living importance to us all. This spiritual principle is well illustrated in the Book of Genesis.”
We do not know when Jacob first met God in a saving way. The Bible does not reveal this. His trickery to obtain his brother’s birthright shows definite faith. Even though this was not the right way to obtain the birthright, it was God’s will for him to have it. Not this way, but it was still God’s ultimate will. Jacob had to run for his life because his brother Esau had a definite opinion of how he was going to get the birthright back! So Jacob gets his Nike’s and heads for uncle Laban’s with the speed of the mountain goat like the one he killed and cooked for his father Isaac and told him it was a deer. On his flight to Haran he stopped for a nights rest at Bethel and there he had the vision of Genesis 28 with the angels ascending and descending on it. It was a great experience but evidently not the first time Jacob had met the Lord. Jacob spends 20 years with Laban and winds up running when he leaves Haran. That brings us to the present scene. He is on his way back home. He is not sure if Esau has cooled off. He is desperate. He needs God’s help. He knows he is not welcome back at uncle Laban’s. He is not sure he can survive a meeting with Esau. So, between death in two directions he resorts to Peniel and God.
Tozer says, “Jacob was the wily old heel-catcher whose very strength was to him a near-fatal weakness. For two thirds of his total life he had carried in his nature something hard and unconquered. Not his glorious vision in the wilderness nor his long bitter discipline in Haran had broken his harmful strength. He stood at the ford Jabbok at the time of the going down of the sun, a shrewd, intelligent old master of applied psychology learned the hard way . . . His hope lay in his own defeat . . . this he did not know at the setting of day, but had learned before the rising of the sun . . . It was only after he had gone down to humiliating defeat that he began to feel the joy of release from his own evil strength, and the delight of God’s conquest over him. Then he cried aloud for the blessing and refused to let go till it came. It had been a long fight, but for God (and for reasons known only to Him) Jacob had been worth the effort. Now he became another man, the stubborn and self-willed rebel was turned into a meek and dignified friend of God. He had ‘prevailed’ indeed, but through weakness, not through strength.”
God said to Jacob, “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.”
It is not through our own personal strength that we have power with God, it is through our weakness. God has to bring us to the place of ultimate weakness before we will trust him alone for our strength. Tozer says, “A little acquaintance with our own hearts will force us to acknowledge that there is no hope within us, and the briefest glance around should show us that we need expect no help from without . . . Deliverance can come to us only by the defeat of our old life.” And probably I am safe in saying that God has to situate us between Laban and Esau so that death is seemingly the only option that we find our Peniel, wrestle with God, limp away permanently wounded with a changed name, i.e., Christian. It is one thing to be a Christian it is another to be called a Christian (Acts 11:26).
The cross is our Peniel. Paul said, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” Until the Christian has faced the cross and sees that it is the terminator of the old life in Adam as well as the originator of the new life in Christ, he has no limp. He struts and continues his self dependent life and glories in men. Tozer says, “How eagerly do we seek the approval of this or that man of worldly reputation. How shamefully do we exploit the converted celebrity. Anyone will do to take away the reproach of obscurity from our publicity-hungry leaders: famous athletes, congressmen, world travelers, rich industrialists; before such we bow with obsequious smiles and honor them in our public meetings and in the religious press. Thus we glorify men to enhance the standing of the Church of God, and the glory of the Prince of Life is made to hang upon the transient frame of a man who shall die.”
After the night in Peniel Genesis 32:31 says, “And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.” And this experience was celebrated by Israel forever afterwards. Genesis 32:32 says, “Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank.”
Do we celebrate our weakness or our strength? Paul was given a “thorn in the flesh” for which he besought the Lord for its removal. The Lord answered thusly in 2 Cor. 12:9, “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
