If I'm not mistaken, and if you follow Robert Murray McShane's Bible-reading schedule, Genesis 32 was one of the signed chapters, and I certainly felt, even as I read it, the Lord was drawing my attention to this well-known portion of the Lord's Word. Genesis chapter 32—we read the entire chapter this morning. I'm not going to do that tonight, but I am going to read the first twelve verses and then jump down to verse 22. Genesis chapter 32, verse 1. Let's hear the Lord's Word. Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God's host. And he called the name of that place Mahanaim. And Jacob sent messengers before him till he saw his brother under the land of Seir, the country of Edom. And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall ye speak unto my lord Esau. Thy servant Jacob saith thus, I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed there until now, and I have oxen and asses, flocks, and men's servants, and women's servants, and I have sent to tell my lord that I may find grace in thy sight. And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to thy brother Esau, and also he cometh to meet thee, and four hundred men with him. Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed, and he divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and herds, and the camels into two bands, and said, If Esau come to the one company and smite it, then the other company which is left shall escape. Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord which said unto me, Return unto thy country, unto thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee. I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth which thou hast showed unto thy servant. For with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands. Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me and the mother with or upon the children. And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude. We're going to drop down now to verse 22. And he arose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two woman-servants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the four Jabbok. And he took them, and sent them over the brook, and sent over that he had. And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day, And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. 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. And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. And as he passed over Penuel, the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh. 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. God will add His blessing to that reading from His own Word, for His name's sake. Could we bow our heads for a moment, please, in prayer? Let's seek our God. Let's all pray. Father in Heaven, as we come now to the preaching of the Word of God, we feel the weight of the Word the task that is set before the preacher, we realize, Lord, that if anything spiritual is going to take place tonight, if there's going to be any kind of heart dealings with those whom thou hast gathered together, whether in the sanctuary here or through the webcast, we're going to need the Holy Spirit to work He has been given to the church that he might reveal Christ to his people. They might understand who they are in the Lord, and they might understand better what the Word of God calls upon them to be and to do, but not only setting before us what we ought to be and ought to do, but thankfully enabling us to do what we ought to do and to be what we ought to be. We rejoice tonight, Lord, that we've not been left to ourselves to try to do this in our own strength. There's one far mightier than we, and we lean upon our Lord tonight. We lean upon him for help to preach, help to hear, and, O God, especially help to walk out of this place determined to follow through with what the Lord has said to us. We ask all this in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. I want to speak to you for a little bit this evening about this matter of spiritual growth, spiritual growth, spiritual progress from the life of Jacob. And I want to begin by asking you a simple question. Are you growing spiritually? Are you going on with God? Before you actually answer that question, let me first explain what I mean. I'm talking about, to use the terms of Scripture, growing in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, the end of 2 Peter chapter 3. Growing in grace. You need to know that. It's not being—I'm not focusing too much upon the experiential side of things for the Christian life, because if the Word of God says that we should be growing in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, it must mean we should be measuring ourselves. You can only know if you've grown if you have some kind of a measurement, some kind of a standard, some kind of a yardstick, as it were. How am I to know if I have actually grown? I've advanced. I've made progress. The key is growing. The idea is one of advancing, of increasing and maturing in those Christian graces that are planted in all of us when we are born again by the Spirit. They're mere buds on the branch when they first appear, but they're not ever intended to remain as buds on the branch. They're intended to blossom and to yield fruit that Christ will be honored by how you live your life and how I live my life. To go on with God means that your faith in Christ and his word is growing deeper and yet at the same time more childlike. Great faith is very childlike faith. Great faith simple childlike trust. It means, as you progress spiritually, it means that your love for the Lord and his people is maturing, and it's becoming more and more like the love of Christ for you, which is unconditional, looking beyond faults and seeing the needs of looking out for the welfare of the ones you love. At the same time, your hatred for sin and your hatred for this present evil world is also growing side by side with your love for the Lord, your love for truth and purity. Is your own personal joy in God deepening? the years roll on. Are you enabled more and more to rejoice in the Lord instead of your circumstances? Just in the Lord, in spite of the circumstances. And what about your own personal relationship with Christ? Is that progressing? Are you getting to know him better? Is His cross coming to mean more and more to you as you go on and walk in this world, as you, by the sheer fact of making spiritual progress, you find more sin in your life? The standard is raised. It gets higher. You see more of the spiritual nature of God's law, what he's actually calling upon his people to be and to do, and how they are to walk. So that's why I ask, is the cross coming to mean more and more to you? Because that is the only way to keep from going backwards when you are faced with your sin. It's the cross. I really feel that all of us who profess to be followers of Jesus Christ must, on a regular basis, stop and ask ourselves that question. We live in such a hectic day, a day of tremendous activity, and because of all the activity, it can easily turn into a day marked by so very little spiritual advancement. There are programs and church activities galore, but where are those Christians who are like that description of David in 2 Samuel 5, he went on going and growing. There isn't any shortage of church seminars, conferences, radio ministries, parachurch ministries, religious organizations of every stripe and color, all allegedly doing their part to take the church of Jesus Christ forward. But I am prepared to defend the statement that in spite of all these so-called ministries, it's been centuries since the people of God have known such spiritual regression as we're seeing in our day. It's true there's tremendous advancement—and I put that word in quotes—tremendous advancement being made in external organizations and activities, but where is the corresponding growth inwardly? Do not confuse outward growth with inward growth. Do not confuse church activities with church spirituality? Where is this biblical, old-fashioned holiness that marks a people who are maturing, progressing, advancing in their spiritual life—just old-fashioned holiness? Where are the disciples? There's plenty of decisions, but where are the disciples? There's plenty of baptisms, but where are the believers who go on with God after they're baptized? Where are the great prayer meetings that used to mark the church? Where is the spiritual power? That is why I say we need to stop and ask ourselves the question, am I going on with God? Am I progressing? Am I maturing? We can all too easily find ourselves traveling with that crowd which substitutes the external acts of religion—church attendance, Bible reading, saying of prayers, etc.—with inward spiritual growth. It's not hard to start walking down that road. It's the path of least resistance. Before us tonight in Living Color is the story of a believer who did go on with God, not without some great resistance from his own soul and difficulty. But he did. Few characters in the Old Testament grab our attention like that of Jacob. Few patriarchs have been detailed as this man Jacob in the Word of God. And few Bible figures have as much to say about spiritual progress as that man. And from this one little scene of his life, I want to speak to you tonight on spiritual progress. probably figure that out by now—spiritual progress. The first and obvious thing that we need to consider is the need for it. Why do we need to advance spiritually? Why isn't it enough just to, Oh, I'm saved, brother, and I'm on my way to heaven, and just stop right there? How come that's not enough? Why do we need to make spiritual progress? Well, the first place, we need to make it because there's something within us that would hold us back from making spiritual progress. And we have to face that. There's that within us that would hold us back. You don't have to read very much of Jacob's life before you find out that there was something in Jacob that was harming his own spiritual advancement. And it could be harming yours. It could be harming mine. I don't know what answers you would have given to the questions I asked a few moments ago. And I'm not asking anyone to stay behind and meet me in a private antechamber somewhere and tell me all those answers. You have to answer that for yourself. But as you think about those things and you think about Jacob, there were things about Jacob that just held back, held him back. He kind of blossomed late in life, can I put it like that? But why? He was one of two twins. His mom named him Jacob. The word means supplanter. A supplanter is one who usurps the place of another, either by force or by cunning, deception, plotting. And that marked Jacob—supplanter. Recall that the firstborn would get the rights. Well, the hand that comes out first tied to it, that's Jacob, it's not Esau. He's the one that gets the blessing. But there's a long way to go before he gets there. He connived, you might recall, to take away the birthright of his brother Esau, He sold, Esau did, his birthright for a bowl of oatmeal, porridge. That's it. He was more concerned, Esau was, about his carnal appetite and his hunger than he was anything to do with the birthright. Jacob got it. Jacob used deceit and lies to steal the patriarchal blessing from his father Isaac. You recall he dressed up in his clothes, the smell of Jacob about him, because Isaac was determined he was going to bless Esau and not Jacob, even though he knew better. He knew that Jacob had the blessing, the birthright upon him. All during this time of his life, there's not a shred of evidence that he ever had any faith in the Lord. You won't find one verse in Scripture that he was a believer. yes, he coveted the birthright, and he coveted the blessing from Isaac, but it would appear that it was only for carnal motives. And there are plenty of people who want blessing. They want God to bless them, but it's really only from carnal motives. They want things—comforts, ease, health and riches, fame, They're willing, like Jacob, to make a deal for that with God. Jacob wanted the land, he wanted the material possessions that would come down to him from his father, but he had no interest in the spiritual side of things until one night it all changed. You recall his mother, because of the birthright, the blessing from Isaac being taken from him and put upon Jacob, his mother sends him away because he knows the violent temper of Esau. She fears for her son's life, and she sends him away to her brother Laban. But while he's traveling, he comes to a place, and it's time to stop for the night, and he has a couple of stones for a pillow, and he goes to sleep. He's in the wilderness. It became known as Bethel, the house of God, because that night as he was sleeping, he has a dream, and in his dream he sees a ladder going from earth to heaven, and there are angels going up and down the ladder, up and down the ladder. And that night God revealed himself to Jacob and promised to bless him. It was a turning point in that man's life. Funny enough, Jacob, the supplanter, the schemer, the plotter, makes a bargain with God. You bring me back home again, and I'll tithe, and I'll do all these things for you. Just make sure you bring me back home again. The next twenty years of his life were sadly marked by more scheming and plotting, Because Jacob the supplanter always had a plan. He always had some sort of scheme to put himself on top. He was always looking for the advantage, and always getting it. You may recall, as we were reading through in the Lord's Day Mornings past weeks, about how he had a plan. To this day, no one knows how it worked, but he's the one that got the strongest sheep and the cattle from Laban's flock. was his plan. He schemed that. He figured out that way to plot and to steal away secretly from Laban while he's away shearing sheep. Ah, now's the best time to do this. I got my plan. He's now devising a way in this chapter in which he hopes to appease the wrath of Esau, who's now coming for him with four hundred men. It struck me as I was reading, it never has crossed my mind, how did his servants know there were 400 soldiers? Did Esau tell them, I'm coming with 400 soldiers? Did they stop there and count them as they walked by? I don't know, but there were 400 of his men coming to meet Jacob. The last time they had seen each other was not under good circumstances. So Jacob has a plan to deal with that. Yes, he's saved, and yes, he has put his faith in the Lord. He believes that this God is the only God and the real God, yet standing right beside that faith in his heart, there is this conniving, carnal, self-dependent, self-centered Jacob. And what was beating at the heart of all of that conniving throughout his entire life? What was beating at the heart of it all? Why? He had to have a plan. A scheme to get the advantage. It's one thing. It was unbelief. Unbelief, unbelief, unbelief. It's the seedbed of all sin. Unbelief. Unbelief. You see, when you trust the Lord, you don't have to scheme. You don't have to plot. You don't have to try to figure all these things out. You're trusting the Lord. He'll take care of it. If I'm doing His will, He'll take care of me, and I don't have to worry about it. Not Jacob. Let me tell you, Jacob was a supplanter, he was a plotter, he was a conniver, he was a schemer, and that tells me Jacob was a worrier. He had to make sure it came out right. Jacob always wanted to be in control of the situation. That stems from unbelief, not trusting in God. It was this which kept Jacob hindered, kept him back from advancing as he could have and he should have as a believer. Think about his response to this news that his servants bring him. He sends them on, telling them, just let them know that Jacob's coming home. And they come back. Well, we told him what you said, and by the way, he's coming with four hundred men. Verse 7, Then was Jacob greatly afraid and distressed. Did it ever strike you to ask the question, But why was he greatly afraid and distressed? Well, pastor, there's 401 men coming. Oh, but you forgot, didn't you, what we read in verses 1 and 2? As he enters the land of Canaan, lo and behold, he sees God's hosts of angels. He calls that place Mahanaim, which means two hosts. there were two hosts of angels on either side of him. What in the world did he have to be afraid of? I mean, what are 401 men compared to two hosts of God's angels? Tell me, please. A little problem with unbelief, wouldn't you say? matter of fact, just turn over to that chapter. Chapter 28 I was referring to a moment ago, there in that place which became known as Bethel, when he had that dream of the ladder going up and down. Let's pick it up, chapter 28 of Genesis, and verse 12. And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it, and behold, the LORD stood above it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac. The land whereon thou liest to thee will I give it, and to thy seed. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. And in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And behold, I am with thee. and will keep thee in all the places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land. For I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of." God Almighty said that to him. I've got you covered. Don't you worry. I'm going to bring you back. I'm going to fulfill the promise I just made to you. The whole earth is going to be blessed through you. You're going to have a seed that's innumerable. That was 20 years earlier. Now as he comes back to the land, there is God, there are the angels. They were there all along, you know, when he was with Laban for 20 years. But now he hears the word, Esau's coming with 400 men. Jacob, but you just saw there's two hosts of angels of God on either side of you. What are you worried about? It really was something getting in the way of his progress, and unbelief does that. It stymies the growth. It's hard to go on with God when you're not trusting God. It's hard to mature in the graces of the Christian life when faith The very foundation grace of all graces is being choked by the sin of unbelief. Is there not this Jacob in all of us that keeps us from going on with God? Is there not this within us that's so easily taken up as Jacob was with the temporal? The here and now. There's far more time and effort, energies. We expend our best energies and make all kinds of plans to get this or that possession, advancement, thing we want and think we need so badly, but we don't give a whole lot of time or effort to growing up in the Lord. Expending our energies upon those things that will make really a difference in how we live our lives and how we walk. We want a bigger, better home, a bigger, better car, and more clothes, and more wealth, and more position. We devote our time and our talents more to that which has no bearing at all upon our spiritual progress or the spiritual progress of others. It will all just go up in smoke one day. It won't amount even to a pile of ashes. How, like Jacob, we lean hard upon the arm of the flesh. We depend so much on human wisdom, our logic, our ability to do this or the other thing, And there's no utter dependence upon God. Utter. How so? Why would I say that? Because the great mark of utter dependence on God is prayerfulness. That's the great mark. A man who prays is a man who stays his trust on God. That's why he's praying. He's depending on the Lord. Lord, I need you. But little prayer is really a frank admission that we don't believe that we are utterly dependent upon the Lord. We don't really believe that we can't get through a day, and we can't overcome our sin, and we can't change without the Lord. It's really admitting that. Little progress, therefore, is made. And lying at the heart of all of this is the same sin that's found in Jacob, and that is the sin of unbelief. This old, rank unbelief. So, we need to make spiritual progress. We also need to make this progress because There's something waiting to be experienced and enjoyed and possessed by the child of God. The land of Canaan was the land, yes, of milk and honey, but that wasn't the main thing about the land of Canaan. The land of Canaan was the land of covenant blessing. That's what the land of Canaan was. You know, if you were If you were one of those carnal Israelites, then the land of Canaan, all your focus upon was, it's the land of milk and honey, the land of prosperity. We'll have fat sheep and fat cattle, we'll have farms and agriculture that's expounding because of this fertile land, and we'll live happily ever after. I wonder how many Christians are really—that's their pursuit in life, to have this fairy tale of living happily ever after. they never say that, but that's what it comes down to. We want to live happily ever after. So don't trouble my life with troubles and trials and anxieties and all kinds of oppression and attacks and persecution. I want to live happily ever after. Well, that's not how it works, folks. That's not what the land of Canaan is about. The land of Canaan is the land of blessing, covenant blessing for the Lord's people, the land of spiritual blessing. Yes, yes, there are times and people and places where God blesses temporally, and God does it, but it's not because those people were looking—that was their great goal in life. It's the old health and wealth false gospel. Jacob needed to go into the land and possess his possessions. Jacob needed, like you and I need, to go on with the Lord's plan and the Lord's purpose for his life in order to experience the blessing that God had for him. Because, see, Jacob was all about his plans. It was all about what he wanted to do. And the Lord wonderfully working here, but he's bringing Jacob to a place where, Jacob, it's not your plan. It's my plan that's important. It's what I want. It's where I want you. It's what I want to give you. It's what you need that's so vital. There are possessions to be possessed. You see, I am a firm believer there's a whole lot more to the Christian life than I know at present and that you know at present. I firmly believe that. I mean, I know heaven is, that'll be bliss. But I'm talking about here, something of heaven here. I know there's a lot more power in prayer that every one of us could experience. Power in prayer. I don't just mean we can pray longer. We could. We could. And I imagine I should use the word, we should. And we can learn better how to approach the Lord, because the Bible is so full of teaching about how God wants to be prayed unto, and how He doesn't want to be approached in prayer. We can learn all those things, but really coming down to this power where And I say it reverently, and I say it because it's only found in Scripture. We have our way with the Lord. We get what we want of him. We ask, and we get. We seek, and we find. We knock, and the door is opened. It's not an ongoing, perpetual, never-ending, asking, seeking, knocking, without any giving, finding, and opening. It's real power. Power with God. There is this advancement as far as our understanding of the Scriptures, our—not just the knowledge of the Word of God, we can have knowledge of doctrine, all of that, but it stops right there when it just becomes something academic. Now, the academics are necessary. I'm not downplaying for one moment academics. I teach homiletics in a seminary, so I'm not anti-academics. But, oh, I'll tell you one thing. If it stops there, we're all in trouble. If it's just academics, if it's just getting this—gleaning the theological truths of Scripture, and there is no transference of that into our wills, and especially into our hearts, where we are transformed by the doctrine we learn, then there's a real problem, and we're not going to advance spiritually. Knowledge puffeth up. You'll gain a lot of knowledge, you'll know a lot of facts about this and that and the other thing, and I'm not against knowing truths and facts of Scripture, but I'm saying if it's all that there is, there won't be spiritual advancement. It just is not going to happen. So there is a grasp of the Scriptures that does far more to sanctify us than any mere knowledge, academic knowledge of doctrine is concerned. A grasp of the Scriptures, which in turn really means the Scriptures have a grasp on us. I know there's much more by way in this land of blessing that we should be scheming for. I use that word in the right sense. There is a closer walk with God, as we sang about tonight. Don't you think there's something more to it? Don't you think there's a place of greater closeness to Christ than you have right now in your life? Isn't there more, a place where there's more freedom with Him? More love for Him? How will we actually go on? How will we make spiritual progress apart from that? Because closeness to Jesus means likeness to Jesus, and that is advancing. Everything that takes you away from Him—everything and anything and anyone that takes you away from Christ—you count it as an enemy to your soul. It's an enemy to your soul. if it draws you away from the Lord. And if I might borrow the scene with Samuel and Agag, you take the sword and you chop it to pieces. There's a lot more joy that comes with spiritual progress. Everything grows. Love grows, and faith grows, and joy grows as well. There's a lot more joy than we have. We're all different. We all have different personalities, temperaments. I understand all that, and there are some that, because of how they're made up, are just more prone to be They know more of the dark side of things than the bright side of things. I was reading a book the last couple of days, a book called An Encouragement to Pastors, and it's all from the Puritan writings. And there was one Puritan preacher who really struggled with clinical depression. Twenty years he was able to minister in his church and had an effective ministry, but he was always battling depression, always. It came to a point where he had to resign because it was so deep, the depression. But he wrote about it, and some of the most helpful things as far as dealing with people who are truly depressed that you'll ever read. Yeah, we have different makeups. But not for one moment does that mean that we can't know more joy than we have. But we have to go on with God. We have to make progress, grow. Joy is something that grows. And it grows in spite of circumstances in life. It grows in spite of people. Because it's not about circumstances and it's not about people, it's about the Lord, the source of all the joy. There is, I have to face this all the time, there is a far greater usefulness that you and I can have in the kingdom of God than we are presently. There's a whole lot more the Lord can do with you and do with me than is being done. Because we certainly aren't here to live to ourselves. This life is about other people. It's especially about living unto God. Useful as far as glorifying Him, testifying, being a light in a dark world. It's not about my comforts and my ease and making life flowery beds of ease, as the hymn writer said. But I have to grow. We have to grow. The more we grow, the more useful we become. Of course, underpinning all of this, there's this advancement, this blessing that's awaiting, and that is this faith in God. It's like, as I was thinking about this this past week, it becomes more and more evident to me, and that's, for lack of a better way of expressing it, faith is the victory that overcomes the world. Faith is it. It is the victory. The Lord just kept saying, only believe. Just believe me. All will be well. Don't fret. Don't worry. Don't get down. Just trust. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world. Well, how did we get there? How's my time? That's okay. We have plenty of time. How? There's the need. Now, what method does God take to bring that about? Because you do know, don't you? You do know that he has determined that we will advance. He's begun a good work in us, and he'll perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. We are his workmanship, created unto good works in Christ Jesus. So we know that that is something that God has determined He's going to do, but He's also tied all of this to our responsibilities to live out His requirements, to live out His commands, to do what He tells us to do. In other words, we've got to make use of the means of grace if you want to have more grace and open up the channels. What are God's methods? to take us forward. Well, as you think of Jacob here for a moment and how his progress came in his life, God speaks to us through his Word to take us forward. And I really pray that he's doing that tonight. As I said, when you see a chapter like this come up before you twice in the same week, and not by any design on your part, but by providence, it's the Lord just getting your attention and saying, Behold. It's like the red flag going up, and this is what you want to look at. God speaks to us through his Word. Jacob, as I said, had spent twenty years in Haran, laboring for Laban, his uncle, for the two wives, Rachel and Leah. He got not just two wives, but eleven children and a plethora of sheep and goats and cattle. But there wasn't, in spite of all of that temporal progress and amassing of substance, there wasn't a whole lot of spiritual progress going on in Jacob's life for those twenty years. Twenty years! There wasn't a whole lot of spiritual progress. By our standards, I don't care how old you are, 20 years is a long time. All that changed when God spoke to Jacob. I am the God of Bethel. Jacob, remember that 20 years ago? I am the God of Bethel. I'm the God who met you 20 years ago at Bethel. where thou anoint'st the pillar, and where thou vouch'st a vow unto me, now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred." So God's word came to Jacob when he was in Heron. And he reminded him of what he had promised him twenty years earlier, and had told him, Get back to the land of blessing. And you know, that is exactly what God still does through his written word to his people today. There's the child of God going nowhere, really but down spiritually. Oh, he may be prospering materially, but there's no going on with the Lord. But then, but then God steps in and speaks to his child through the Word. It might be a sermon, it might be the Bible is picked up, it might be something he's heard, but the Word of God comes in. Whatever manner it is, the same goal applies. The Lord will use his Word to just uncover the state of the heart that the believer has been trying to cover up the whole time and not fess up to, here's where I really am. I'm really not going on with God. I'm pretending. I'm playing at it, but I'm not really going on with God. And the Lord comes in, and through his word, he just lifts off the lid and says, here's what's really going on with you. You're not going on with God. You don't really have any heart desire for the things of God. No real cryings and yearnings for the Lord in the place of prayer. The Lord reminds you of a former day when you did have them, When you did call upon the Lord and you promised him at that time, I'll be anything and I'll go anywhere and I'll do anything. Lord, I'm yours. Yeah, that's how you felt at the time, but then time went on and nothing ever transpired. Like it was with Jacob. And the Lord will point you to that place of blessing that you used to know. Why, then, do we neglect His Word? Why do we read it so little? Why do we study it so little? Why do we have more interest in ridiculous, useless magazines and newspapers than we do the Word of God? Why? Tell me why. The way forward for you and for me is through this book. It's through God's Word, and there's no shortcut. God speaks through His Word. It's the only Word that's infallible and inerrant. You can depend upon it completely. A lot of good books, but none like this one. God does something else to take us forward. He brings us into great trials. We're not going to make any progress spiritually if we aren't brought into trials. It's one of God's chief methods of enabling us to really make advancements. As much as we hate it, yet there's no progress without them. James reminds us that we are to rejoice when we fall into all kinds of temptations, knowing this, that the trying of our faith, the testing of our faith, worketh patience, and let patience have her perfect work, in order that ye may be perfect and entire, mature and complete, lacking nothing. That's what he said. You want to be mature, complete, and well-rounded, and useful, and close, and all that? Well, then guess what God says? I'm going to send trials into your life. Jacob is facing a great trial right now. The name of the trial is Esau. God used that trial to bring Jacob to his knees, as you read tonight. There's no praying, you know, like the kind of praying that grows out of a heart that's overwhelmed with fear. The Lord knows that. Jacob learned something about prayer that day. He pleaded in that initial prayer, the first part of chapter 32. He pleaded the covenant of the Lord. Lord, you said, Lord, you promised, Lord, you said you would do this. And this is the same method that God takes with us. Sends the trials, to drive us to our knees. You're brought to a place where you say, I've got to pray. I have to pray. There's no other answer. I don't have any remedy for this. I don't know how to get out of this dilemma. Lord, I don't know what to do. I must tell Jesus all of my trials. I cannot face these burdens alone. In my distress, he kindly will help me. He ever cares and loves his own. So those testings, those trials you're going through, my brother and my sister, that trouble that just now brings fear, anxious thoughts into your heart, they're all appointed by God to develop you to deepen your faith and to grow your graces. You are to go on with God. And the Lord knows right well what happens when we just keep on going down a path of ease. It will turn us away from this pursuit of growing up in Christ. We become smug, spiritually smug, and self-satisfied with where we are. And in essence, it's saying, I've arrived. All I need to be, I'm all I should be. I'm OK. I don't need to hear any preaching about me needing to go on with God. Along these same lines, as you think about these trials that God sends into our lives, the Lord himself appears to be an antagonist toward us, not a protagonist, but one who seems to be fighting against us from going forward. There wrestles a man with Jacob. We know from Mosiah 12 that this angel of the covenant, this man, is Christophany, a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. Here is Christ seeking to, it seems like, oppose Jacob's progress into the land of Canaan. It's a death struggle. The stakes were high. This is serious business. Oftentimes when we face opposition to the efforts we make at spiritual growth, we fail to see the hand of God in it all. There's no doubt about it, there is a devil who does not want us to grow spiritually. He would have us to be spiritual infants all our lives, to be spiritual dwarfs and never make any progress. He's always about trying to hinder our growth. He is a true antagonist. But even when God seems to appear as an antagonist toward us, he's always a protagonist. He's always doing the opposing in order that we advance, not that we're held back. You see, the Lord wants us to be dead and earnest about this. Sometimes we talk as if we're dead and earnest, but, you know, when it comes, push comes to shove, we just all talk. The early dew of morning is passed away at noon. We were all gung-ho when we heard the message or preached the message, but it only took a day or two before it was all forgotten about. And we went back to our old half-hearted prayer life and occasional picking up of the Scriptures. Lost any thought about a burden for souls who know not Christ? Any thought of really what it is to wrestle with the Lord in prayer, wrestle with God? So the Lord puts Himself in the pathway to, we might find, He knows already, that we might find out how serious we really are about this. going forward. So what's he do? He does something the devil cannot do. In order to bring about advancement, he shuts up the Bible to us. You'll read it and you just get nothing from it. I've read that before, I've read that chapter, I can tell you what's going on in that chapter. That book right there is about this, and you have all the facts, but just the Lord's not speaking to you. Right? The devil can't do that. God's the only one who can shut the book, just like he's the only one who can open it. And he makes the heavens like brass. We speak to him, but there's nothing coming back for us from him. All along, all along, he's seeking to test us. Do you really, really want to go on? Are you serious about maturing and being more useful and being closer to Christ and being more prayerful and having more power with God and men? Are you really serious about that? Or is it just this romantic notion that you have? Oh, I'd like to be that, but it's just a passing thought, like a cloud on a summer day going across the sky. We also find another method God takes us forward, not only through His Word, not only by great trials, but He takes us forward through prayer. Jacob says he was left alone. It was while he was left alone that night that this man came to wrestle with him. It's one of the strangest scenes in Scripture. One thing I do know, I'm going to have to get along with God, whatever it takes, if I hope to make any advancements at all. Is that what you do? Is that what you do? You just, no matter what it takes, you get along with the Lord. No matter who you have to upset, what schedule has to be interrupted doesn't make any difference. You just get along with the Lord. Is that your interest? Is that your desire? Christ often drew away from the crowds so many needs people need to be healed, demons cast out, people saved, then stop him from getting alone many a time, all by himself. No matter how pressing life's needs may be, there's really after all only one thing that's needful. The dishes can wait, the laundry can just sit there, The return phone calls can wait until a little bit later. You can put the grocery shopping off for half an hour or so. That mail doesn't have to be read right then. Those emails don't have to be answered right away. That text is still going to be on that phone an hour later for you to answer it. Right? The kind of praying Jacob was engaged in that night turned into a wrestling match. I don't know, the Bible doesn't tell us how it got there. How the man approached, how the God-man, how Christ approached Jacob, But I can only conclude that Jacob knew that this one with whom he was wrestling could bless him. That's what I know. And you have got to believe that, or you will not pray with any kind of passion. You will not pray with that kind of deep desire if you don't believe that the one that you are praying to has the power to truly bless you. Moreover, that you will actually obtain the blessing that you're wanting. Why in the world did he keep on wrestling, even after the angel touched the hollow of his thigh, brought his hip out of joint, and all he could do was hold on for dear life? But that's exactly what he did. And when the angel said, it's morning, the time for the day, the work of the—I've got to go on! I will not let you go until you bless me. because I believe you can bless me. I believe you have a blessing for my life, and I'm not letting this grip go. All I can do is hold on to you, but I'm going to keep on holding on until you bless me." You know, you don't pray like that. Number one, you want the blessing, you want the blessing, you really want the blessing, until you believe he will give it to you. You just don't pray like that. And you'll be satisfied, and I'll be satisfied with the words of prayer and nice requests. They sound good, and they're biblical. But there was something else going on that night in that man's life. That's the prayer that moves the hand of God. It gives him no rest till he blesses. What's the upshot of it all? What are the effects of spiritual progress? We are blessed. In the verse 29, it says, and he blessed him there. I'm not going to let you go unless you bless me, and he blessed him there. Phew! There's a lot I realize I don't know about the blessing of God upon my life and how it may or may not appear. But I know one thing, when the Lord is blessing, there'll be no doubt about it. Won't have to question, is God blessing me? His situation didn't change. It was still the circumstances. Esau was still coming. And yet, he was blessed. We also are led to place a great honor upon the place of prayer. So he said, the angel did thy name shall be called no more Jacob but Israel for as a prince has thou power with God and with men and has prevailed. You wrestled with me, you sought me for blessing and you won because you sought me and wouldn't let me go. Now I'll tell you what the Lord did that time. He put a tremendous honor upon prayer. You see, there are just some things in the Christian life that we're not going to obtain apart from that kind of wrestling. You want power with men and power with God. Prayer is the place it's found. We're also humbled. Verse 31, he passed over, that's Jacob, Penuel. As he passed over Penuel, the sun rose upon him. The sun is rising, all night wrestling with the angel, all night. Now the sun's coming up, and he's limping, and he'll limp the rest of his life. because of that night. That was humbling for Jacob. He's now a guy that's walking with a limp. But he will never forget that night when he got that limp and what that limp says. I'd welcome it. I'd welcome the limp. I'd welcome whatever God—if the Lord would bless me indeed. In fact, finally, our path grows brighter. The sun was shining upon him. Nighttime, he was wrestling. Now he's blessed. The sun is shining upon the path. Oh, Jacob wasn't perfected. He still had a plan the next time he sets up a thing for meeting Esau with his wives and house and order it all out. But that night, the Lord promised him, you're going to prevail. You're going to prevail. you're going to go on with me." And Jacob was never the same after that. He had his ups and his downs. This guy, when he was an old man, he said, all these things are against me. You see, he was still Jacob. Do you remember that? And he thinks that His beloved son is gone. He's been eaten by a lion. No, no, not at all. They come back from Egypt. Now they have a younger brother. Oh, all these things are against me. He's still Jacob. But my, how He advanced that night. And I want that to be our experience, that we advance. We can. There's no problem with God's power. We're not too big for Him. May the Lord take us all forward for His namesake. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Let's seek the Lord together. At the end of this thy day, we pray that we will all find our hearts lifted heavenward. We all come from different backgrounds. We have different circumstances that we're facing. The one thing we do need, Lord, is to go on with God. Take us forward, we pray. Grow us, we ask. May you develop these graces in our lives. Show us how we can be like Jesus and not be like ourselves, like the world. Common, we would take the words that we sang tonight by old Calper, the dearest idol I have known. Whate'er that idol be, help me to tear it from thy throne, and worship only thee. Do that, Lord. Give us no rest as long as we hold on to idols, we pray. Grant our God that we will know what it is to even though we walk with a limp, we'll walk with the power of God upon us. In Christ's name we pray, amen and amen.