Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
We all need toi have the experience of going through struggles in life alone with God. Part 2.
Sunday, September 1, 2002
GEN 32:1-2 - angels were sent by God to Jacob to make him conscious of the divine presence and to assure him of divine protection.
Verses 3-8 - he devised a plan to try to appease his brother Esau who had threatened to kill him 20 years ago.
Verses 9-12 - Jacob goes to God in prayer and asks for the Lord to help him.
Verses 13-22 - he develops another plan and totally ignores his prayer toward God.
It is not until Jacob is left alone with the Lord that his name is changed from Jacob, the liar, deceiver, supplanter, to Israel, a prince with God.
HOS 12:2-5, Gen 32 - Jehovah, the God of Israel, is dealing directly and personally with Jacob to change his life and to give him a new name.
The Lord was desirous to break up and destroy Jacobs self-sufficiency forever and to begin the development of the people of Israel.
The objective was to reduce Jacob to a sense of his nothingness and to cause him to see what a poor, helpless and worthless creature he was without the Lord.
Prison - phulake = not an actual prison, but a reference to a system that Satan will use to attack you, not Satan himself.
Jacob is now brought to the point where his human devices and human resourcefulness can no longer serve him purpose.
Even though it costs him something, a physical disability for life, this hard struggle pays off and he learns to cast himself upon the mercy of God.
God does allow the prayer of men to be powerful in His sight.
HOS 12:4 - this “wrestling” on Jacobs part involved weeping and supplication, as well as physical tenacity and contact.
ACT 12:5 “So Peter was being kept in prison, but fervent prayer was made for him to God by the church.”
JOH 15:7 “If you abide in Me, and My doctrines abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.”
The object of this parable was to teach perseverance in prayer.
What an unworthy human does like this unjust judge who has no regard for man or God - we may expect much more from God.
In our continual praying we are to be specific as the widow was who day after day, approached the judge with the same petition.
Consequently, not only do we enjoy Gods blessing when it comes but we are also made stronger.
There is such a thing as prevailing prayer, when the request conforms to the will and the word of God, and Jacobs experience symbolizes all such prayers.
Whatever it is that prohibits a person from receiving Gods highest and best and stands in his way, God will touch it.
HEB 12:27 there will be the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, in order that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
You should ask God to show you what the “socket of your thigh” is that gets in the way of your relationship with Him.
GAL 6:3 For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
1CO 10:12 Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.
Robert R. McLaughlin All Rights Reserved 2002
REV 2:8,10 The first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life, says this: ..Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.
THE OPPOSITE OF THE CROSS IS SELFISHNESS
1 Pet 2:24: and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.
2 Cor. 5:15 and He died for all, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf
Matt. 20:27 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.
When you give yourself to the Lord, then He gives you to others
This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
1 John 3:14: We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.
1 John 3:16: We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren
2 Cor 4:10 Always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.
2 Cor 4:11 For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
2 Cor. 4:12
“So death works in us, but life in you”
Robert R. McLaughlin All Rights Reserved 2002