NOTE: This is an unedited transcript and, therefore, contains imperfections and is not for publication or quotation in whole or in part by anyone without the express written consent of Pastor Conley. The audio tape of this message delivered in the evening service on August 30, 1998, is available and may be purchased from the Church.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF A SOUL

Genesis 32:22-32

Dr. J. Drew Conley, Pastor

Tri-City Baptist Church, Columbia, South Carolina

His way is perfect. How much it is our nature to doubt that God’s way really is. It is our nature to run from God. We fear submitting to Him. We fear trusting Him. We fear taking up our cross and following Him. We fear losing our plans, our potential, our hopes. We fear losing ourselves. We are just like Jacob. God promises us good. As He did for Jacob, God providentially blesses us over the years — even before we come to faith in Him. God reveals Himself to us from time to time in unusual ways. While we, like Jacob, might give Him some acts of worship, in our hearts we hold off from Him and bargain with Him because we cannot fully trust Him to be for us what He says He will be. That really is the essence of mankind’s great trouble. That is your trouble, and that is mine. Unless and until there comes that moment in our lives that converts our heart attitude toward God, we will remain in that fearful, distrustful attitude toward God. But in that moment of conversion there is an inner transformation that changes everything about how we look at God and whether we yield to Him, and that is exactly what happens to Jacob in the passage before us this morning which lays out for us "The Transformation of a Soul."

I would suggest to you as Martin Lloyd Jones has pointed out that: "This particular passage is really the key to understanding Jacob’s history from this point on." I would add that it is the key to understanding what has happened up to this point. It is the great turning point of his life. It is, secondly, a demonstration for us as to what always happens in true conversion — what always happens when a person is born again, when he enters into new life and is transformed from the inside out by God.

 Follow with me beginning in verse 22 of Genesis 32: "And he rose up that night and took his two wives, and his two womenservants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford 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 [the man] said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he [Jacob] said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And He [the man] said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And He said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel [means, prince with God]: 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 [means, the face of God]: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. And as he passed over Peniel 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."

Note with me first, in the transformation of a soul, there comes a crisis. We see the crisis in the words of verse 7: "Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed." Why is that? Twenty years before he had fled from his home for fear of Esau who had vowed to kill him for Jacob had by trickery stolen both his birthright and his blessing. So Jacob had to leave. Now after 20 years of letting those dogs lie, they are nipping at his heels again for he is about to face Esau. He has sent messengers ahead to Esau to let him know he is coming (that he has now been prospered) in the hope that he would hear back from Esau some word of welcome, some kind of easing of his conscience and his fear that Esau was now no longer intending him harm. Instead he receives grim silence from Esau and the report that he is coming with 400 armed men.

What is Jacob to do? Well, he schemes first, then he prays. You find in verse 9: "O God of my father Abraham, the God of my father Isaac [notice, he has not said ‘my God’ yet], the Lord which sayest unto me, return unto thy country, and to thy kindred [God had told him to come back at this time], 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 shewed unto thy servant; for with my staff [that is all he had] I passed over this Jordan [20 years ago]; 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 the children [phrase for brutal destruction that spares neither women or 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." He pleads the promises of God, but in this prayer Jacob is revealing that his attitude has changed some over the years. He evidences, for the first time we have seen it in the Scriptural record, a conscious helplessness (a reiteration of God’s promises made to him long ago) and a full sense of his own unworthiness to receive any help at all— not only that which God has promised to do, but that which God has already done. It will only be the worthiness of God’s character that will save him at all.

It is at that crisis moment, having sent his family and goods over the brook Jabbok, he returns to the other side alone (verse 24 "And Jacob was left alone"). This experience, this crisis with God, is something a man must wrestle through for himself. It is intensely personal to the point of being excruciatingly lonely — no one else can do it for you. It is a struggle you must face alone. Notice the next words are, "there wrestled a man with him." Jacob doesn’t initiate this conflict. Jacob doesn’t cross over Jabbok in order to have a wrestling match all night. In fact, I imagine Jacob would like to sleep to prepare for whatever is going to come in the morning. I imagine he had great trouble sleeping, but he doesn’t get the choice because a man (a stranger—seemingly an enemy) confronts him in the dark and begins to wrestle with him. The great question is, Who is this man? According to verse 30, Jacob realized who it was. "Jacob called the name of the place Peniel [face of God]: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." He asked the name of this individual and the individual won’t give him his name because Jacob already has enough information to know who this is, and I think as we continue to look at this story, we will see quite conclusively that this is, in fact, God.

Martin Lloyd Jones points out that: "The essence of this vital experience of conversion [this transforming of a soul, this crisis moment] is that the individual comes into personal contact with God. God is no longer some mystical thing (no idea, no impersonal force); He becomes real and personal, one to whom we speak, one to whom we must speak (He speaks to us and we speak to Him) and one with whom we must deal." Martin Lloyd Jones goes on to say, "We must not think of Christianity simply as a matter of morals or of actions. We must not think of it merely as a matter of ideas or principles. Christianity is not a point of view. It is not just an attitude toward peace and war, or education and industry. It is not primarily a message about what can be done for society. No, in the first instance, it is this: A man coming to a personal encounter with God." "Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him" (verse 24).

According to the prophet Hosea in chapter 12, verses 3 and 4, "[Jacob] took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God: Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him." In other words, Hosea identifies this unnamed man (this person) as the angel of Jehovah (the angel of God). Who is the angel of Jehovah? We find Him throughout the Old Testament. Perhaps some of the most enlightening passages are Genesis 16 where the angel of the LORD comes to Hagar when she has been cast out or has run away from Sarah, and in Judges 13 where the angel of the LORD announces the birth of Samson to his parents. In both of those passages, which are representative of many others, you find the angel of Jehovah is referred to by the Scripture writer as distinct from Jehovah, yet in the same passage is called Jehovah. This angel of Jehovah is held to be a person distinct from God and yet synonymous with God. This angel of Jehovah appears in bodily form. It leads us to the unavoidable conclusion, because there is only one person who appears in human form in the Scriptures who is at the same time Jehovah God and yet is at the same time distinct from Jehovah, and that is Jesus Christ. The angel of Jehovah, is the pre-incarnate (that is, before He came to the earth born of a virgin) Old Testament appearance of Jesus Christ.

So here we have Jacob wrestling alone with a stranger who happens to be God Himself. It must dawn on us where our real problem lies. Jacob thinks his crisis has to do with Esau. He thinks his big problem is Esau, but in reality it is not Esau — it is God! In reality it is not Esau: It is Jacob’s inadequate relationship to God — specifically as this angel is identified — specifically, his relationship to Jesus Christ. He is not living the life God created him to experience. We give most of our effort and time and worry as human beings to problems that are really not the real problem — that are really not the real danger. If you were Jacob, you would be worrying about Esau, about the vengeance that this man wanted to bring against you because you had done him wrong years ago. You would view this as a family problem from the past that not only brought danger to yourself but now to your wives and children, your servants and your goods. It represented to Jacob the loss of goods and family and maybe his own life — and that certainly seems to be an extreme problem, but it was not the major problem.

For most people this day, most of the worry and fretting and laying ourselves out trying to solve matters has to do with wealth (if I could only have a little more money my problems would be solved; if I could just get out of debt, my problems would be solved; if something would just come out of the blue, and I could pay this or that off; if I could just have a little bit more, I could have the money for the doctor bills that are coming in; if only I had gone to school a little bit longer, if only I had majored in a different subject, if only I had taken a different kind of job, if only I didn’t have this problem with my mother, if only I didn’t have this problem with my dad, if only my children would respect me, if only I could get along with my boss, if only my co-workers would not be so difficult — perhaps you take a more humble approach: if only I didn’t have this gnawing weakness in my own life, if only I didn’t have this terrible flaw in my character, if only I could make a new start, if only God could give me some kind of break, if only I had some kind of opportunity to start all over again, if only these things would change, THEN MY PROBLEMS WOULD BE FIXED! No, those aren’t the main problems. Those things are not the crucial issue. The world focuses all their time on solving problems that are not the real problem. God is my problem. My inadequate relationship to Him is my problem, and nothing will ever be right for me ever (a 1000 years from now, a 1,000,000 years from now) unless I deal with that matter first.

As one preacher put it, "Esau isn’t the problem, the atomic bomb [he was speaking in the late 40s] isn’t the problem, industrial conditions are not the problem [and we might add to that a whole list of other problems that get people all worked up: communism, until a few years ago, is not the problem, health care is not the problem, corruption in our government—in the highest places of the land—is not our chief problem], YOU, YOURSELF, are the problem. Ultimately, not Esau, but Jacob himself was the problem."

Not being what I am meant to be, not land and possessions and goods, but the loss of my immortal soul and the jeopardizing of my eternal future — that is the problem. This wrestling match is only indicative of what has been going on in Jacob’s life all along. Jacob has been wrestling with God all his life. In fact, the prophet Hosea seems to be pointing that out when he says, "He took his brother by the heel in the womb." He was striving with his twin brother in the womb and his mother asked God what it meant, and it had to do with the fact that Jacob was going to get the blessing and was going to rule over his older brother Esau. "He took his brother by the heel in the womb and by his strength he had power with God" (Hosea 12:3). In other words, this event capsulizes what has been happening with Jacob even before he left his mother’s womb, even as he was being born. We see it in the history of his life as he wrested the birthright and the blessing from his brother Esau; and, ironically, these things were promised to him by God from the start. He was fighting, using deceit and cunning, to gain what God had already promised to give him.

Alexander MacLaren observes, "This is a revelation to Jacob of what God had been doing with Jacob all of his life and was still doing. Was not that merciful striving of God with him the inmost meaning of all that had befallen him since the far off day he left his father’s tents and had seen the open heavens and the ladder? Were not his disappointments, his successes, all the swift changes of his life, God’s attempt to get him to yield himself up and bow his will? Was not God striving with him now in the anxieties which gnawed at his heart and in his dread of the morrow? Was not He trying to teach him how crime always comes to roost with a brood of pains running behind it?" What a picture of man: fighting others, fighting God to enjoy the blessings that God would give if we would yield to God, but somehow we just can’t trust Him. We just can’t get our faith to center on Him. I would have you note that this crisis was not of Jacob’s making. He was not wrestling because he wanted to wrestle — he was wrestling because God took action. This was God’s action. It was entirely on God’s account that Jacob comes to this realization. He did not choose to wrestle that night — God chose to wrestle with him.

What makes a man a Christian is not something that he does, it has been observed, it is something that God has done and that God does. My problem with God is big enough that I can’t really solve the problem, but that is okay because God has already dealt with the problem. Before the foundation of the world He planned to deal with the problem. He created man with the full knowledge that man would sin and run from Him, that man would be duped by Satan, that man would feel somehow God was cheating him out of something he could have by disobeying God — and man has been doing that ever since. God dealt with it while we were yet sinners: He demonstrated His love for us in that Christ died for us then. He planned for our redemption long before we ever were born, or our parents, or our grandparents, or even Adam and Eve. God took the initiative. God made the way. God has taken the step, and God creates the crisis that brings us to this point. Our problem is not anything more or less but God and our relationship with Him.

Second, I would have you see the turning point. "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" (verse 25). Did you catch the astonishing paradox of this verse? Here is a wrestler whom we know to be God who prevailed not against Jacob, and yet He has the power to just touch the hollow of his thigh — just to touch it — and it goes out of joint. If you ever doubted with whom Jacob was wrestling, this verse settles it. But if the wrestler with just a touch can dislocate Jacob’s thigh, how is it that He cannot prevail? I believe this gives us insight into the very character of God in how He deals with us. It is almost holy ground. God’s desire is not to crush a man. Such an outward victory would be a trifle for Him. It would be easy. What God wants is for man to yield to Him. God desires the inward victory of a heart that turns in love and trust to Him. This gives us insight into the very history of mankind. Many impugn the character of God in saying that He has let sin and all of its ravages prevail so long without crushing it — that He has let Satan have his day to strut upon the stage for so many centuries with so great suffering in his wake. The Scriptures answer this: God is "long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish" (2 Peter 3:9). He does not crush the problem because in so doing He would crush us. He waits that we might turn in our hearts to Him. He has the power to cripple us with a touch and the power to crush us with a word, but He chooses not to do so.

In verse 26, He says to Jacob, "Let me go, for the day breaketh" and suddenly there is a transformation (a change) here — this is the turning point. Remember Jacob didn’t start this conflict, God did. Jacob wasn’t intent on wrestling, God was; and now God says, "I’m going. I’m done. Let me go," and Jacob says, "Wait a minute. Hold on. I’m not letting you go. I won’t let you go unless you bless me."

MacLaren notes that "Jacob has been fighting God in his own strength and in so doing has only been able to thwart God’s merciful purposes toward him, but he is powerless as a reed in a giant’s grasp if God so chooses to summon His own destructive powers. It is not until God touches Jacob’s source of strength — not until God cripples the power on which Jacob has been relying as he wrestles with God (whether it be his thigh or his trickery and deceit, even as his birth name conveys: Jacob the supplanter or the deceiver) — not until that reliance is broken — does Jacob change in his purpose and desire." In the words of Paul, "When I am weak, then am I strong" (2 Corinthians 12:10). It is then that I cast myself on God. Somehow at this moment the realization finally came to full shining that God was not someone to dread — He was not a threatening enemy in the night — but He was, in fact, the source of blessing Jacob craved: the one most needful and desirable person of all. "I will not let you go."

God says, "Let me go for the day breaketh." Why does God say that? Isn’t Jacob responding exactly like God wanted him to respond? Then why does God say, "Let me go." I believe for the same reason that Jesus, on the road to Emmaus with the two disciples who did not recognize Him, made as though He would have gone further so they would constrain Him to stay. For the same reason as when He came to the disciples on the water in the midst of the storm and made as if He would pass by and they cried out. "God desires to go," MacLaren says, "if we do not desire Him to stay, and He will go unless we keep Him. So it is that God creates in the human heart the startling realization that we are about to miss the blessing we most need, and now suddenly most desire. Now Jacob is no longer fighting to get away — he is fighting to hang on. "I will not let thee go, except [unless] thou bless me," and in this request, Jacob prevails. In this fight, he prevails. What God means at the end of this passage when He says to Jacob (now Israel) "You have prevailed with God." In other words, you have laid hold of Him; you have owned for yourself the great blessing that He has intended you to have; but you cannot have that blessing unless you want it enough to fight for it. Christ said it this way of John the Baptist, "The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force" (Matthew 11:12). You must reach a place of holy violence where you are fighting to hold on to God — where He becomes more precious to you than anything else you could worry about. This is exactly where you must come to if you are ever to be saved, or if there is ever to be this turning point in your life.

I love the words of John Piper, and he wasn’t referring to this passage but he eloquently states the truth, "Saving faith is the heart felt conviction not only that Christ is reliable, but also that He is desirable. It is the confidence that He will come through with His promises, and that what He promises is more to be desired than all the world." Your relationship to God is the problem, and it must at some point dawn on you that it is the most important thing of all the things to be had at all cost. "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

Note with me the transformation beginning in verse 27, "What is thy name? And he said, Jacob, and he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob [no more deceiver/supplanter; no more the one fighting for his rights, fighting for what is not his right to have; fighting, tricking, using people to get ahead], but Israel [prince with God]: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed." This new name reveals the new nature of his relationship with God. You will find in his subsequent history that he is not always called "Israel" but is sometimes called "Jacob." Why is that? I believe this new name denotes his spiritual standing and his new character. It is a new name passed on to his descendants (you will note in verse 32) and to all those who are true believers who have been overcome by God and have, therefore, prevailed with God — forever changed by conversion (being born again). The old name when it is used reveals that the flesh is still there and comes to the forefront from time to time. After Jesus changed Simon’s name to "Peter," there were significant moments when He called him "Simon" again. He says to him in Luke 22:31, "Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." That was after he said, "Lord, this shall not be unto you" [You are not going to go to the cross.], and He is saying, "You are savoring not the things of God but the things of men — you are thinking like Satan thinks."

Jacob was the prince of God, and all those that come to faith in Him, become sons of God — kings and priests before God — and like Jacob, heirs of God’s promise. "The whole creation groans," we are told in Romans 8, "for the manifestation [the revealing] of the sons of God:" that day when we shall be publicly adopted, when we shall receive the kingdom, when we shall taste finally and fully of the salvation that we have now just begun to taste. Death’s work shall no longer clutch us, tears are no more, pain is gone, and temptation has no power. In the meantime we bear both names: we are "new creatures" but we still fight the flesh, the world and Satan.

Not only has Jacob’s identity changed, but his future has changed — he is never the same again. He halts on that thigh. He is daily, hourly and moment by moment reminded that his power is insufficient to gain what he most desires. It is his relationship with God that matters, and it really does change everything. It rewrites his future, and every person who so struggles with God and so yields to God and so lays hold of God, and thus is converted to God, his future is changed — it will not be destroyed when sin and death are destroyed. He will not spend eternity in the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels; he will be a prince of God to live with God face to face forever. He will know as he is known. His purpose, created in the image of God, will reach full flower. He shall be their God, and we will be His people.

Second Corinthians 5:17-21 says, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature [creation]: old things are passed away; behold all things are [have] become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit [that is], that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them [this isn’t about Jacob’s deserving to be so treated by God — it isn’t about our deserving to be so graciously treated]; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray [beg] you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

Have you experienced the transformation of your soul? The time is now. Will you lay hold of the God who laid hold of you and experience the change.

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