Let us turn again in the Word of God to the chapter we read, Genesis chapter 32, and reading at verse 29. 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. Considering in particular, as the Lord is pleased to enable us, the word is in verse 29, and he blessed him there. Jacob was a man who had lived by his wits. He was a bit of a trickster. That's what the word Jacob actually means. And he outwitted Laban. He was more than a match for Laban. But now he tried to bribe Esau, and it wasn't working. He wasn't going to get out of this by his wits. Esau was coming towards him with 400 men. Now, Esau was very dangerous because, if you go back a few chapters, he had vowed to kill Jacob. A man's foe came from his own house, his own brother. This, of course, was not something new. Cain killed Abel. for much the same reason, actually, because Abel had the blessing, the birthright, and Jacob had the blessing, the birthright. So here we have Jacob with no other recourse but to spend the whole night in prayer to God, because it really was a matter of life and death here, not just his own. but his family's death. He knew that he could not live without God's blessing, and that's why he held on. Perhaps you yourself have spent maybe not a whole night in prayer, but many hours leaning over your bed until you just fall asleep in exhaustion. That was probably your nearest point to God that night. Nowadays, we tend to take many things for granted. And a crisis is only something which is a real crisis. But we forget that we cannot get through even a day without God. In him we live and move and have our being. And he is as close to us as the air. which you feel upon your face when the wind blows. We are moving in him who is in every place. First of all, what was this blessing? Well, it was not conversion because he was converted at Bethel. It was a deliverance. It was perseverance. And you'll notice that he was wrestling which means he still has some strength of his own, and he was exerting it. You'll find that God has appointed the blessing for you when your strength has gone, when you have no strength. But Jacob still had strength, and he was wrestling with it. He didn't get the blessing, you notice, till his strength had gone, when he could no longer stand up and he had his arms round God, God in human form, then he received the blessing. And it was deliverance, strength to go on, strength to go forward and to meet his enemy. Strength to overcome his fear, and he was afraid. Stronger faith to overcome his distrust. Now while his confidence in himself had gone, now came the blessing. Now you might say, well, I've been praying for the blessing of strength, comfort, lifting up. But remember, comfort is only given when you're miserable. Lifting up is only given when you're cast down. And strength is only given when you're weak. And the apostle had to be brought to that weakness in himself to receive the strength of God to endure when he had that thorn in the flesh. So you have not had this blessing of deliverance or strength yet because you're not yet at your weakest point. You're still wrestling, perhaps even resisting. But in the end, Jacob could not have his way. He submitted to God and that God would have his way in the future. And it's the safest place for us to resign ourselves to the Lord's will. He was getting weary as he wrestled because he was in prayer, remember. And you'll find that the more you engage in spiritual exercises, the more weary you will become because these take a lot more out of you than ordinary exertions of your strength. That's probably why, maybe you've experienced it, that on the Lord's Day, often even at a communion on the Lord's Day, you're very weary by tea time. And you think, well, I haven't done that much. And yet you have. Your soul has been exercising faith and trust and hope and repentance, and you're trying to spend the day as you ought, and you're looking for communion with God, and the effect of that communion, this is all spiritual exercise, and it does make you weary. Look at Moses, for example. There he was up on the hill praying for Joshua as he fought against Amalek, and his hands grew weary. and he had to be held up. But in this case, Jacob was held up by the very person who took away his strength, so that he could then say with Paul, my strength is made perfect in weakness. Or 2 Corinthians 4, the excellency of God's power is shown in our weakness. Every hope had to be taken away, the bribe, the wit, the wisdom, his own plans and doings, his own trickery, and he gave himself up to God. Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain you. Yes, and cast yourself with it. Not just your burden, just cast yourself with it on the Lord. The Lord expects that. How do we expect to come up out of this wilderness? Leaning on, it says, leaning on the beloved. And the greater the weakness, the more you lean upon him. And remember that the Lord is honored by your trust, if it's entirely on him, and not divided between him, your circumstances, and yourself, and someone else. This blessing was strength, deliverance, the ability to go forward when all his fears were saying to him, go back. Now, he had not had a very good, shall we say, past life, but he wasn't heard because of his good works, remember. He was heard because of his faith. And what is faith but trust? And it's interesting that in the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for trust is the same as the word for lean. You only lean on something that you know will trust your weight. And you lean on Christ because you know he can bear your weight. Now, when you think about it, it's not just your weight. Think how many souls are resting on Christ. And as Rutherford said, there's room for yours also. There is yet room. He was looking for the blessing here, not because of his past life, his great achievements, or his pedigree in relationship to Abraham, as some do. No, he was looking for the blessing of the one that God sent to bless. This was more than a man here. He said, I have seen the face of God. He was a man in some form. Not yet the incarnation, but in some human form. And every blessing comes to us through Christ. Psalm 72, men shall be blessed in him, nowhere else. Nowhere else men shall be blessed in him. If we're not blessed in him, we're still under the curse of a broken law. But he was looking for not his first blessing, but blessings and blessings and blessings. And whenever a person is converted and they receive that blessing of forgiveness and righteousness, well, they're looking for more. In fact, a whole series of blessing begins with that first blessing. You get these people nowadays and they're looking for what they call the second blessing. Somebody asked that of the late Professor Finlayson. He said, it was a charismatic, he said, do you believe in the second blessing? He replied, I will take as many blessings as I can from God, not just two. But there's no blessing outside of Christ. Outside of Christ, there's wrath, curse, despair, the broad road that leads to destruction. But when Christ blesses, it comes from God. And like Aaron, God said, when you bless the people, put my name upon them. And so the disciples following Christ were called Christians at Antioch. His name was upon them. You'll notice that when he's praying here for this blessing, he's not praying for the destruction of Esau, his brother. Some people think that if we have enemies, we have to pray to God that he will remove them or destroy them. No, we have to remember that God can change enemies into friends. And while we pray to be delivered from our enemies, who doesn't, we also pray that the Lord would have mercy on them and change them. After all, were we not the enemies of God? According to Romans 5, that's how we started off. Enemies of God, ungodly. But then Christ made enemies into friends. And he said, greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. But we remember we were his enemies. We had no time for him. We saw no beauty in him that we would desire him. But Christ's blessing changed all that. But then we find we need his strength to go on. There's great joy in blessing and everything going wonderfully well, but it's also a blessing to endure. Sometimes he does lift what's troubling us, but sometimes he gives us the strength to endure it, to get through. Maybe not our choice, but nevertheless, it's part of our perseverance. It would be naive to think that every day is going to be H-A-P-P-Y. It's not. You might say the soul has to travel to heaven through many different kinds of weather. Some days, sunshine. Other days, storms and wind. And certainly in some parts up here, The wind's so strong some days you can hardly stand up. And David talks about having the whine of astonishment. And if you look in the margin, that word astonishment means staggering, staggering forward. When he talks of a man, Mr. Fearing, and he said he was so paralyzed with fear some days he couldn't take a step forward. But this I noticed, he said, he would not go back either. He waited for the strength, and then he went on. This blessing he had here, this deliverance from such a great danger, he would remember this all of his life. Maybe in future days, he would go back to Peniel, You'll find also that you'll go back either physically or maybe in your memory even to places where God gave you that blessing, not your conversion, but that place where you were delivered from your fears and given the strength to go forward and to meet what was coming against you, which you were trying to avoid. Maybe some people went back to that valley in Mispe, where Samuel put up that stone of help, and they could say, hitherto has the Lord helped us, and he hasn't changed. And that's an encouragement for the future. He helped us then, he will help us again. Sometimes you may be passing through a place, and you remembered what happened in that place, and it stirs up the memory. Maybe it's because of that stone and mispay that people developed the idea of putting up a cairn, a stone, reminding people of a great battle. But in the Christian's case, the battle is personal. That's where God gave the blessing. the point of greatest weakness and fear, when you didn't know what to do, but you knew it was the right thing to cast yourself upon him. That's what Luther did when he was called forth to defend the word of God. He said, here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders. God, hilfe mir. And he stood. And because he stood that day, the Reformation stood with him. What we need today are people like Luther who will stand and defend the crown rights of Christ and say with him, it stands written. It cannot be changed. God's word It commands us. And in this case, God commands the blessing, life that shall never end. Now Jacob come out of this a better man than he went in, but there was a cost. He limped for the rest of his life. That blessing marked him. And you'll find also that there will be a cost. Paul writes to the Philippians, to you it has been given to believe, great blessing, but also it's been given you to suffer for the name of Christ. Great blessing as well, and yet how often people put that away as if it's not a blessing. Surely it's better to suffer defending Christ than to sin by not defending Christ. A better man he came out, but there was a cost. And he was a better man, remember, inwardly. His faith was strengthened in God. And you will get used to being afraid and trusting in God at the same time. What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee, said David. You still tremble, but you also rejoice with trembling that you can trust God when very few people do trust God nowadays. He blessed him there. Now, to move on quickly here, this place of blessing, now we've mentioned there was a place of fear, a place of weakness, It was also a place of trial. You remember, many people in the visible church were going back at the end of John chapter six. They didn't like what Christ was teaching them. It was spiritual, eating his flesh, drinking his blood. They obviously didn't realize it was the language of sacrifice or taking of the benefit of the sacrifice. And then he spoke about man's inability to save himself and God's election. And we read, from that time, many of his disciples, known to be his disciples, went back. And the Lord said to the remaining ones, will you also go away? It was a place of trial. Would he hang on? How many people pray for something and then give up? Or they think, I haven't had an answer in a week, maybe two weeks. If you really want something, you will be at it every day until you get it. Prayer should be looking for answers. Thomas Goodwin has a very good thesis on that. He calls it the return of prayers. And he quotes David. He said, David prayed, and then it reads, and then looking up, looking up for the answer. No, of course, is an answer. Not yet is also an answer. God promised many things in the Old Testament, and at one point he said, through Ezekiel, I will that these things be inquired of, So we are to pray according to the promises, because although it tarry, wait for it, it will surely come in God's time, in God's place. So his weakness and his fears, well, it was sifting what was inside of him, getting rid of the false trust and all the dross. He was being refined on the inside. Now, you don't become better because your circumstances are better and you start prospering. You become better on the inside. And that means that distrust has to be refined out of your faith. And then when it's done, you realize how much distrust you had. Any chemist will tell you that in order to find out what's involved in something, you have to separate them. And God sets his people through trials which are beyond their strength. Psalm 102, he said, my strength he weakened in the way. Why? To make him feel bad? No, to draw him more to himself and trust him more and less in himself. John the Baptist had it when he said, he must increase, I must decrease. And the Lord said, you receive him as a little child. The child trusts his father, doesn't understand, but trusts him anyway. And there are many things that God has said and God has done in our lives, and we don't understand, but we trust him anyway. His word shall come to pass. And all things, despite appearances, they are working together for good. You can't judge a whole painting by looking at a corner and guessing the rest. You have to see the whole painting, the whole picture. And none of us can see that, and probably not even beyond eternity, into eternity. There are some things God reveals to us, some things he doesn't. Poor Job was always looking for answers, but he endured. And God never gave him any answers, but he could still say, though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. place of trial and sifting, place of prayer as well, of course. It was good to go apart and to be with God and away from everybody else. Things usually happen then in our thoughts. We're so used to distractions nowadays and media and instant communication. How few actually go apart to be with God. Maybe Jacob, and it looks like he tried everything else. And then when he had no hope left, then God drew him to himself apart. I remember reading of a woman and she had trouble with her family, how to feed them. And she tried this, and she tried that, and she tried the other. And at the end she said, oh well, we'll just have to trust in the Lord. And that's a common attitude nowadays. And instead of going to him first, people try any other way of getting what they want. God, in human form, a man, but more than a man, And Jacob realized that. He said, I have seen God face to face. The reason why so many in the world do not believe in Jesus Christ is because they only see a man. But there were others who said, we beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. 2,000 years ago, they thought Moses was greater than Christ. And there are many today who quote some theologian more than they do the words of the Lord Jesus. He must increase, friends. We must decrease. And everybody around us must decrease as well. When you're in the lowest place, Christ is higher. The more you come down and down and down, The more when you view Christ, he is higher and higher and higher. And it's the mystery of godliness, of course. God manifests in the flesh. And you think, I've just found out something new. I didn't understand before about Christ. But you'll find that when you find that out, something else comes into view, and you don't understand that either. It's like the man who climbs a great mountain thinks at the top, now I'm happy, I've done it. And when he gets to the top, he sees another mountain even higher. And so it is to grow in the knowledge of Christ. We never attain in this world. And even in the next world, there are things that will be not explained to us. Many things will be. But remember, even on earth, when they asked the Lord questions about, for example, what was going to happen in the future, he said to the disciples, it is not for you to know. And again, when will be the time of your coming? It is not for you to know. There are some things we have to submit to and put limits on our curiosity. And as Luther said, go back to your ABCs. Especially when you get older, you want things to be simple. The Lord's Prayer, Psalm 23, repentance, faith, love, and hope. These abide. Others, when they come to die, they'll just fall away. But these will go with us. Trust, love, expectation. Our time is passing here. We mentioned the place of weakness. And as you get older, you realize more and more what weakness is and how suddenly it can come to you. You can be very strong and then an hour later, you're just so weak you can hardly stand. or you're in physical health and you're going about and then suddenly you're confined to bed. These things can change, but Christ does not change. Jacob couldn't stand anymore, but he hung on. And it was the person that he was hanging on to who gave him the strength to hang on to him. We're not saved by our feeble grip on Christ. We're saved by his mighty grasp of us, a love that will not let us go. And it's good that to know because there are many things in us and around us and the devil that are trying to pull us away from Christ. And the backslider can go so far. but then the tug of the rope to bring them back in to that inner circle again. Third point briefly. Where did this blessing come from? It came from eternity. This meeting with Jacob was planned. Peniel, the circumstances were planned. Esau, fear, weakness. The blessing was also planned. He would get it when he needed it and not before. Some people look for the grace of this and the grace to do this. You don't get that grace until you need it. You don't get the grace to die until you come to die. But when we are weak, when we feel our need more greatly than before, then we see more of the greatness of Christ and what he has done and what he has said and what he's promised still to do. We're saved by faith and faith alone. And that's why the devil attacks faith, because he knows it will have a domino effect. When your faith goes down, so does your love and your hope. But when your faith is strong, well, they are strong with faith. In eternity, the blessing was planned. Paul writes to Timothy and he says, the grace, 2 Timothy chapter one, he said, the grace that was given to you, Timothy, before the world began. That was the purpose blessing, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Men shall be blessed in him. The other place where it comes from is, of course, the cross of Christ. It is there he conquered sin, Satan, death. Satan was bound at the cross. He triumphed over principalities and powers. The blood was shed, the blessing of peace. The obedience to the law was fulfilled, the blessing of righteousness. In every time of need, you have been upheld by God. And for every need that you have, it is supplied through Jesus Christ. And no wonder they said, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. because God's blessing, it comes in power, invisible power from Christ through the Holy Spirit, but it's also pronounced. And God made sure Jacob knew here that the blessing had come to him and he blessed him there. Now to conclude, our perseverance is in his strength. So they from strength to strength and wearied go, that's not ours. Until in Zion they appear before the Lord at length. We have to be emptied of our strength so that we will hold on more firmly to Christ and trust and will pray more. Have you noticed that your amount of prayer is in proportion to you feeling your need and weakness? Strong people don't pray much. They don't feel the need. Well, they pray in a crisis, but the motivation seems to be getting out of whatever they're in and not to stay near to the Lord and to explore his person according to the word by the Spirit. If you've not yet received the blessing you're looking for, You haven't come to that place yet in your experience. The Israelites journeyed through the wilderness. They were looking for refreshing, but they couldn't get it until they came to the oasis. Although sometimes God does intervene, and the rock was smitten, and the blessing came out in a totally unexpected way. And sometimes that's how the blessing will come to you. In an unexpected way, in unexpected circumstances in which you thought there couldn't be any blessing, but it came anyway. Like Jacob, you have prayed, you have set all your hopes on Christ. Another day dawns, now you have to go forward. to meet what is coming towards you in God's promise and in God's providence. But you have the presence of Christ. Lo, I am with you always, he said. Lean on your beloved. He does expect you to do this. There's no other way up and out of this wilderness. Strength gone, cast thy burden upon the Lord. And like Jacob, cast yourself with your burden upon the Lord, and he will hold you up, and he will give you that blessing that you need, which he has planned. He blessed him there. And may he bless his word to us. We shall conclude.