Genesis 32:26

Genesis 32:26

Esau, with all his amiable qualities, was a man whose horizon was bounded by the limitations of the material world. He never rose above earth; he was a man after this world; he lived an eminently natural life. Jacob, on the other hand, was a man of many faults, yet there was a continuous testimony in his life to the value of things unseen. He had had wonderful dealings of God with him, and these had only the effect of whetting his spiritual appetite. When the opportunity came he availed himself of it to the full, and received from the hands of God Himself that blessing for which his soul had been longing. Notice:

I. He was thoroughly in earnest; he wrestled till he got the blessing.

II. If we wish to gain a blessing like Jacob's we must be alone with God. It is possible to be alone with God, even in the midst of a multitude.

III. Jacob's heart was burdened with a load of sin. It crushed his spirit, it was breaking his heart; he could bear it no more, and so he made supplication. He wanted to be lifted out of his weakness and made a new man.

IV. In the moment of his weakness Jacob made a great discovery. He found that when we cannot wrestle we can cling; so he wound his arms round the great Angel like a helpless child. He clings around those mighty arms and looks up into His face and says, "I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me."

V. He received the blessing he had wrestled for. As soon as Jacob was brought to his proper place, and in utter weakness was content to accept the blessing of God's free gift, that moment the blessing came. He received his royalty on the field of battle, was suddenly lifted up into a heavenly kingdom and made a member of a royal family.

W. Hay Aitken, Mission Sermons,3rd series, p. 38.

Though no vision is vouchsafed to our mortal eyes, yet angels of God are with us oftener than we know, and to the pure heart every home is a Bethel and every path of life a Penuel and a Mahanaim. In the outer world and the inner world do we see and meet continually these messengers of God. There are the angels of youth, and of innocence, and of opportunity; the angels of prayer, and of time, and of death. To those who wrestle with them in faith and prayer they are angels with hands full of immortal gifts; to those who neglect or use them ill they are angels with drawn sword and scathing flame.

I. The earliest angel is the angel of youth. Do not think that you can retain him long. Use, as wise stewards, this blessed portion of your lives. Remember that as your faces are setting into the look which they shall wear in later years, so is it with your lives.

II. Next is the angel of innocent pleasure. Trifle not with this angel. Remember that in heathen mythology the Lord of Pleasure is also the God of Death. Guilty pleasure there is; guilty happiness there is not on earth.

HI. There are the angels of time and opportunity. They are with us now, and we may unclench from their conquered hands garlands of immortal flowers. Hallow each new day in your morning prayer, for prayer, too, is an angel an angel who can turn "pollution into purity, sinners into penitents, and penitents into saints."

IV. There is one angel with whom we must wrestle whether we will or no, and whose power of curse or blessing we cannot alter the angel of death.

F. W. Farrar, The Fall of Man and other Sermons,p. 236.

References: Genesis 32:26. J. Van Oosterzee, The Year of Salvation,vol. ii., p. 363; I. Burns, Select Remains,p. 87; M. Dix, SermonsDoctrinal and Practical,p. 180; Preacher's Monthly,vol. i., p. 192.