This sermon delves into the life of Jacob, highlighting his encounters with Esau, the importance of obedience to God's commands, the risks of moving out of God's will, and the consequences of living near danger. It emphasizes the need for humility, patience, and submission to God's authority, as well as the dangers of disobedience and delayed obedience. The story of Dinah serves as a cautionary tale about the perils of independence and moving away from God's protection.

Let's pray. Now, Father, thank you for this day. This is a day that's special to me. The first day of the week, resurrection day, a day that most of thy people would set aside to honor you and worship you. The days are nothing but the principle of worshiping, setting aside some time to honor you is special. You're worthy of all honor and glory. Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world. And we just thank you for the deliverance from our sins that has been offered by the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary. And Father, we ask that now you would honor us with your presence. You would send the Holy Spirit to just, in a special way, anoint our hearts, our ears to hear, our hearts to understand, our eyes to see, my lips to speak. We want you to be glorified, Father. You're worthy of all praise. You say there's no good thing in us. And so we ask that your word would accomplish that. Would you please, we thank you for this beautiful day that you've given us. This is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice in it. You want us to be a happy people. You want us to live above the circumstances, not under them. And now, Father, one more time, I ask if there be any that would be listening on this tape, this DVD, or anybody here that doesn't know Jesus as their personal Savior. They have never been truly born again. They have no spiritual connection with God. They are living in fear, living in doubt, living in darkness. Maybe however they're living, I pray that the power of the Spirit of God would open up their hearts to the love of God. You have nothing but good planned for them. You want them to be with you for all eternity. You desire fellowship with us, but we have to do it your way. We have to repent and believe, a surrender. Thank you now, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Keith, Daniel and I, we talk about ties. You better have a reason. Mine is just to honor my mom. Otherwise, I don't think there's going to be any in heaven. I thought after she passed away five years ago, okay, I'll be free from that. But the Lord seemed to work in my heart. Just keep honoring your mom. You know, when you're a kid and you go to church, you got to do things you don't want to do. Well, I'm going to start again, I guess, with Ganahl. And you folks have been really wonderful to be here. You're such a blessing and such a blessing to be here. And when Ezra, we talked about this and this subject was brought up, it's a pretty heavy subject. And I'm trying to give it to you in a way that we don't live under a lot of fear. We don't live under a lot of heaviness, but we live under the freedom that we have in Christ. I don't know Ezra really well. I just thought, you know, you're crazy. Nine messages. Okay, well, I must be crazy to do it. If he was to ask it, that, wow, I've never done that before. And it's been pretty heavy on me in the sense that I didn't have much time to prepare. And I've got a lot of material. But to be prepared ahead of time, you know, Keith Daniel will take hours for one message. You know, he'll pray and go over right down to the last minute. And so you pray for me. Ganahl on January 4th, just to read a little bit more from this powerful book on warfare. He said, the soldier is summoned to a life of active duty. And so is the Christian. The very nature of the calling precludes a life of ease. If you had thought to be a summer soldier, consider your commission carefully. Your spiritual orders are rigorous, like the apostle. I would not have you to be ignorant of this point and will therefore list a few of your directives. Those sins which have lain nearest your heart must now be trampled under your feet. And what courage and resolution this requires. You think Abraham was tested to the limit when called upon to take Isaac, thine only son, whom thou love us, and offer him up upon with his own hands. Yet what was that to this? So take the lust which is the child dearest to your heart, your Isaac. The sin from which you intend to gain the greatest pleasure. Lay hands on it and offer it up. Pour out its blood before you. Run the sacrificing knife into the very heart of it and do it joyfully. This is more than the human spirit can bear to hear. Our lust will not lie so patiently on the altar as Isaac, nor as the lamb brought dumb to the slaughter, Isaiah 53 7. Our flesh will roar and shriek, rending the heart with its hideous cries. Indeed, who can express the conflict, the wrestlings, the convulsions of spirit we endure before we can put our heart into such a command? Or who can fully recount the cleverness with which such a lust will plead for itself? When the spirit convicts you of sin, Satan will try to convince you. It is such a little one. Spare it, or he will bribe the soul with a vow of secrecy. You can keep me and your good reputation too. I will not be seen in your company to shame you among your neighbors. You may shut me up in the attic of your heart. Out of sight, if only you will let me now and then have the wild embraces of your thoughts and affections in secret. And so the battle rages. The deepest one probably is within our heart. And so we've been going through the life of Jacob. Looking at the life of Jacob and learning some principles from his life to apply to ourself. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. The heart is of Jacob. And without the cross, we have no hope of conquering the Jacob that lives within. And it's a, Paul said he had to die daily. So if we die to self, Jesus reigns. If we live to self, Jesus dies as far as influence. Well, things that I felt that the Lord wanted me to share this. But there are other things I wanted to, I wanted to get onto. And maybe it's all them bunny trails. I haven't gone as far as I would have liked. I was hoping maybe this morning to share something in the area of warfare and worship. But I think we should maybe continue on because now we've hit the heart of the issue with Jacob where he's going to, he's going to have a wrestling night with the Lord. And there are some really important things from there on that happened in his life. Yesterday, I forgot to bring, I've got a detailed outline, fairly detailed of his life. And I was going to look up this verse back over there, Isaiah, Jeremiah, somewhere where it says, the lame take the prey. Remember that verse? And we're going to see Christ crippling Jacob, breaking his power so that the Lord can put his power into Jacob's life. And we can identify with Jacob, at least probably I can, you know. So here we go. Um, you just pray as I go through some things. This is Jacob's day. And we're in Genesis and chapter 20, uh, not 28, but we're up to 32 now. And, um, he's heard that he's going to meet Esau. 20 years ago, he left Esau running for his life. And now we come up to, uh, verse 22, and I'll just read these verses and then we can slip back through and see if God can give us some principles to understand from it. And he arose up that night and took his two wives and his two women servants and his 11 sons and passed over the Ford Jaybach. 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 has thou power with God and with men and has prevailed. And Jacob asked him and said, tell me, I pray thee thy name. And he said, wherefore is it that thou does 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. 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. And to this day, because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank. And so here's Jacob. He's going to the place of the cross for his life. God has been bringing him to this point. It said he crossed, he passed over the Ford Jabok. Jabok means emptying. And so this is what God is going to do before he can pour himself into it. He's got to empty ourself out of ourself. A very painful process to go through. And he's sent them over to Phaisto while Esau looks very brave, trying to get all the scheming and everything. But after his night with the Lord, that's going to change. And he's actually going to go ahead and face him. And verse 24. And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. Now, alone with God. That's where the business is really done. And I said earlier, he who walks with God walks with God alone. But you've got to have that time when you meet with God. And God meets with you and something happens. But here he is, he's going to go out here and in the night, and he's going to be alone with God. It's his last night. Maybe he's going to pray and beg God. And all of a sudden, he's there. And all of a sudden, he gets attacked. Somebody jumps on him. You imagine they're in the dark and you get attacked and whatever. And he wrestles and he wrestles. And you imagine if you come back in the morning, he looked like he'd had a fight. You know, all disheveled and everything. And they'd say, what happened to you? And he would maybe come in and say, oh, I was just being blessed. You know, that's the way it is. We look like we're getting all beat up by God and the thing that we're going through. And we're being blessed. We don't recognize it at first. God says, my ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts. But it's like he's saying, I wish it would be. I wish you'd get to the point where you can understand my ways. God likes to do things backwards. And he likes to do things impossible. And he likes to do things the hard way because he's God. And it's a little bit hard to get into this because we want things to fit together. But God is looking to do something in your life. If you have a challenge and you need a miracle, you need a miracle working God. And that's Jesus. He can do it. And he likes us to get on board with him and believe him to do it. So he can do it. It's those that were healed. He said, according to your faith, be it unto you. Isn't that an amazing verse? All right. So here he is alone. He's attacked. And Abraham had his encounter with God alone. And Isaac had been alone also out there at the well, worshiping the Lord. And so here he is with him, with him. And God is with him this night. And God is with you and he's for you. And God is for him. But here's three things that's going to happen now in this wrestling match. One, he's going to break him from this self-trust and all this cleverness that comes out. And he's going to break him from this self-will and this scheming and this, I got to do it my way. And he's going to break him from self-confidence. And to bring him under, he's going to bring him under the authority of God. Which he's, he's, you know, he's missed that. And so he's going to bring him under. And there's an interesting thing here in this passage where it says, and Jacob in verse 24 was left alone. And there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. Looked like a man. I believe it was the Lord Jesus Christ in a pre-incarnate form. And that's backed up with scripture. I went over to Hosea to look at another verse on that 12, 4 and 5. Where it says, yet he had power over the angel and prevail. Let me start in verse 3. He took his brother by the heel. So we know who we're talking about for sure. In the womb and by his strength, he had power with God. Yea, he had power over the angel and prevailed. Whoops, did we say God? We did. He had power with God. Yea, he had power over the angel and prevailed. He wept and made supplication unto him. He found him in Bethel and there he spake with us. Even the Lord God of hosts, the Lord is his memorial. So that memory, that night is a night with God. And so, and there's other, there's other verses. And so here he is. He has all of a sudden had God get a hold of him. And he in turn grabs and gets a hold of God and they're going to wrestle it out. You need to learn to get a hold of God so that he can get a hold of you. And let him win. Sometimes in losing, we win with God and giving up. And so at 25, it says he prevailed not. And when he saw, let's say it like this. And when the Lord saw that he, that's the Lord, Jesus, prevailed not against him. That's Jacob. It's a little bit confusing. He, the Lord, touched the hollow of his Jacob, Jacob's thigh. And the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him. All these he's can be confusing. And so he, Jacob said, let me go for the day. Or he, the Lord said, let me go for the day breaketh. And he said, Jacob said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. Now you can see we can get some things out of this. So he, he prevailed, he overcame. And now God's going to bring him to the point to where he's going to, we've got to learn to rest in the Lord. Hebrews 3 and 4 are powerful verses. But we've got to come to the point where we will quit the striving against God, resisting God and rest in God and come to where we have strength to resist the enemy. Resisting God is not the way to get the victory. We resist the enemy and rest in God. So all this struggling and this wrestling is going to bring him into a blessing with the Lord. Now, the hollow of the thigh is interesting, I think, because it represents the thigh is a powerful muscle in our body. And so what God is going to do, he's going to take away Jacob's power and he's going to limp from there on. He's going to cripple him. Whatever he does to him, he's going to be a crippled man. And his resistance is now weak. He's weakened. The wrestler has to have the strength of his legs. They're helping him get, I'm not a wrestler, but anyway, I watched it a couple of times maybe, but he's going to have that strength weakened. And so all he can do now is cling, all his resources, all he can do is cling onto and he recognizes, he must recognize this is no ordinary man. This man is powerful and Jacob must have been a strong man because remember the time he went to the well and they're waiting for more men to come around to move the stone off the well. But he by himself took it off. So he just wasn't a little wimp necessarily. I believe he was a strong man, but he couldn't prevail this night. And so he said, I will not let thee go. A couple of things here. God is bringing him to the point to where one, he is all that Jacob would want. And two, he's bringing him to the point where he will see that he is all, God is all he needs. It takes God sometimes a while to get us to the point to where he's all we want. We want God and this and that in our life. But God wants us to see that he's all we need for our battles. He's all we need for our supply. And we go through lots of struggles when we try to mix our desires and the ways of man. And we got our fears and everything like that. Except thou bless me. He said, I'm not going to let you go unless you bless me. Would you like that in the Hebrew? Never give up. Never give up. Now I'm just being a little bit facetious there. But never give up. Years ago, somebody drew a picture and maybe you saw this, where this crane had a frog in his mouth. The legs are sticking out, some of the body. And the frog has grabbed the whole of the neck of the crane. It's a funny picture. And underneath the caption is, never give up. I mean, if that frog gave up, he's a goner. And so it's like a stalemate. The frog has got his hands around the throat and the crane has got the frog in his mouth. But never give up on God. This is what one of the things the enemy wants you to do is give up. Slacken your bow strings. Keep the tension on there, God says. Don't let up. Don't let up. And so here we have in 27. And he said unto him, what is thy name? And he said, Jacob. Jacob. What'd you say? I said, my name is Jacob. Your name is what? Jacob. Now tell me your name. My name is Jacob. And the Lord, he said unto him, what is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And here's what the Lord says. Thy name shall be called no more Jacob but Israel. For as a prince thou has power with God and with men and hast prevailed. And so here's a turning point. He has accomplished something in making contact with the Lord and the Lord making contact with him. He's going to get his name changed. And in the name is a whole lot of different, a whole lot of things there. Except thou bless me. And so, in other words, you're not going to be referenced as a deceiver anymore. But you're going to be referenced as a prince with God. Meaning of Israel means God's prince. He will rule. The prince of God. And so that's his name is changed. In other words, you have power now. You have power. You've prevailed with me, the Lord has said. Somebody said, and I have a note here, that names compounded with L or Yaw, when the other part is a verb, God is always the doer of what the verb means. Like when we went back over with Abraham in 22, Abraham named the place Jehovah-Jireh. In other words, God is provided. God's provided. So God's, God's a God of action. And so God's going to do some things in his life. And so he's God's prince now. He's God's prince. And like Daniel, his name was judge. Daniel, God is my judge. Gabriel, God is my strength. You have this all through the Hebrew. So here it's, he's a prince. And now as a prince of God, he has a new position. He has a new blessing. He's given a new name. And I believe that God this night is something, maybe he's given a new nature. We'll just say that. At least he has some new power, which when the Holy Spirit comes within us, we have a new nature. And now we have power if we let God work his will through his life, through our lives. And so he blessed him there. And the name of the Lord meant something. You remember back over in Exodus 33, I don't think I've marked this out, but when Moses had this encounter with the Lord, maybe I did. And he wanted to know his name, 33, 18, I did mark that. And he said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee. I will proclaim the name of the Lord. He wanted to see his glory, but God revealed his glory in his name. I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, show mercy on whom I will show mercy. You go over to chapter 34, verse 5, and the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. Moses was asking to see his glory, and God is going to reveal his glory to Moses through his name. There is a name I love to hear. And we've got all these songs about the name of Jesus. And so it's a beautiful thing. And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed. And so here's the aspects of his name, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the children's children. And so he brought out, and he went on about the third generation, so he brought out aspects of his name. And so he's changing Jacob's name. And Jacob wants to know about his name. And so he says, and 29, and Jacob asked him and said, tell me, I pray thy name. And he said, wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. He goes, Manoah, they want to know his name. I think that he'd said, it's wonderful. It's a wonderful name. And so here he is. And here's a lesson here on authority. In verse 10, he said, I'm not worthy. When he come, he's come, he's got away from Jacob. And he said, I'm not worthy of the least of the mercies of all of them. And so he's going down. And so because he's going down and God's going to be able to bring him up. I'm not worthy, he said. And get all the way up to the part where he's wanting to know his name. And so in these verses here, when he's saying, I will not let you go unless you let me. He said, I need you. Sometimes it gets a little bit hard before we will actually turn to God and said, I really need you. And I will not let you go until you meet this need I have. Desperate. And and so now he's not wrestling. We tell you he's not wrestling. He's hanging on. He's wrestling. And finally, he is conquered. God has conquered him. But yet in the process of wrestling, he is conquered, too, by not letting go. And we are more than conquerors. There's some really neat lessons back over in 1 John 5 on being overcomers. So he got the lesson by yielding and desiring God and he got his name and things like that. Now, at this point, he, him and Jesus, him and the Lord have had a personal spiritual relationship. And he comes out with power on his life. And he doesn't really realize it. Now he's a man under authority, under the Lord. And this is the authority principle. When we come under the authority of the Lord in every area of our life and Grinnell here, he was talking about there may be a one area the Lord is really still trying to get in our life. But here he is. I got a couple of principles on this. No man can yield until they have until he has been regenerated or changed or touched or born again or whatever. You'll never be able to surrender to God. You won't even have a chance until you've really been saved. And so that's your first need in life is to be born again, to surrender your soul to God, turn from yourself, turn from your sin, be repentant or however you're going to do it. But you'll never have real peace, joy and for all eternity, you'll die and go to hell until you really turn to God and say, I need you. And God will always be working up to the second that you die to try to get you to turn to him. But there are some points. I think there are some times when a line can be crossed. I remember sharing with a man. I had another friend, pastor friend, not a pastor friend. He'd been a former professor and I've mentioned him before, but we went to talk to a man one time about his soul when I was pastoring in my first church in Wyoming back in the 70s. And he knew he needed to be saved. He knew he had not made contact with God and he was crying. He knew he needed to be saved. He knew if he died, he'd go to hell. And we were pleading with him and begging with him. And he said, I can't, I can't. And we said, yes, you can. He said, no, I can't. There's a song that says it may be that there's a line you've crossed about that man. I wonder if he had just shut out the grace of God, the invitation to God so many times that isn't that interesting. And so do not, he that being often reproved, hardeneth his heart shall suddenly be destroyed for you, for Jesus to, to want to save you and be speaking for you to you right now. And you, you know, he wants you to surrender. And you say no. Each time you say no, you harden your heart a little bit more against God. If someone come up and offered you a $10,000, say, I want to give you a gift of $10,000. And you do some stupid thing like, well, I'll think about it. And you come back and you say, I thought about it. And I said, well, I'm sorry, it's too late. You had to take it when I offered it to you. And that's the way it is with a gift. When a gift is given to you, you either receive it or you reject it. And sometimes that offer is not there anymore. And so no man can yield unto the Lord until you've really been born again. You've been regenerated. You've been changed. And it takes an act of the surrender of your will. And so we see that God has been dealing with Jacob. And so now he has had a night with the Lord, an intimate night, and the power of authority is on his life. And he's prevailed. The Lord said, for as a prince, I was prevailed. And he's blessed. Now, let's move on to chapter, well, let me, there's some more things up here. I might come back to these. Let me go ahead and hit them in case I don't come back. But in 29, it asked for his name and he blessed him. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, for I have seen God face to face. And I don't know why it's spelled two different ways here. But in the last verse, it's spelled different. For I've seen God face to face and my life is preserved. And he passed over Peniel, there it's spelled different. The sun arose upon him and he halted upon his thigh. So he's limping. Now, where is he going? He's going to meet Esau. Had he entered that night in fear? How is he going to meet Esau now? Well, he's still got fear. The only thing is he doesn't recognize that the power of God is on its life. It doesn't, sometimes we don't recognize how much there is that we have being in Christ. And the devil doesn't want you to understand how much power, because he's afraid of you. The demons are afraid of you. Do you know that? And so they're always trying to work and to get you to be afraid of them. But it's our business to get, make sure that they're afraid of us. You know, Paul, I know Jesus, I know. But who are you guys? You know, they were afraid of Paul. They were afraid of Jesus because they knew the power of God was there. I've got a few little booklets on revival that I wrote about our revival and the wind for 18 days. And I might bring those this afternoon. If somebody would want a little copy. I mean, they're old. They were printed in 1985. And the ones I have, this brother that I talked about that we went to visit this man. By the way, that man, he died. Two weeks later, he died in the Presbyterian church. The pastor there was saying how glorious it was. He was in heaven and all this stuff. And I'm about sick. So he's in hell. And he knew he was going there. But he cried and he wept. But he couldn't turn himself over to the Lord. So in this time that we had in revival, one night, we fed the kids in town pizza. We brought them to the high school gym there and we preached the gospel. The evangelist did. He preached. He'd been saved out of drugs and rock. And he had some rapport with young people. And I don't know how many you had there. It's a small town of 2200. Maybe he had 100 teenagers there. And we did that two nights. We preached to them and then fed them pizza. And then the next night, we did it again. And God was working, convicting power on these kids. And I remember that night, we went back to the church. And some of the leaders in the young men, the football stars and stuff, came to the church where we were. And we stayed up to 2 o'clock in the morning talking with them of the claims of Christ and conviction was on some of them. And others are going into the mocking state. This is an amazing night. And one of them that God was really working on died, I think, two weeks later, just a few weeks later. He died. He got killed or something. But I got home late. And so about 5.30 in the morning, there was a pounding on the door. And at 5.30 in the morning, you go to bed at 2.30 or something. You're not very alert. In the world, yes. So I go to the door. And I open this door. And this Indian girl runs in, runs around the house. And we finally get her corralled. And we called my wife, called the police. Her cousin came. He was a police officer. We got her on the couch. And we're trying to talk to her. And I said, what are you doing here? Why are you doing this? And then I started saying, do you know Jesus? And when I would say, do you know Jesus? She would just start. And I said, do you know Jesus? And then she'd say, I'm afraid of you. I'm afraid of you. And I would say, why are you afraid of me? I've never seen you in my life. I'm afraid of you. It was the demons. It was a demonic attack. Why they would come into some place where they're afraid, I don't know. There's weird things that happen. And when we had our revival meetings, we would draw demonic people. We were in the Indian area up there in northwestern Nebraska. But anyway, I didn't know enough about this at that point to try to take authority over that demon and tell him to leave that girl and to get out of here. And see, this is the thing. The enemy is afraid of our authority that we have in Christ. But he wants to make us afraid. Jacob is still afraid of Esau. But he doesn't recognize. Now that as a man under authority, he is powerful. We just don't recognize that. I remember after I got saved and I went into the Air Force and I was over in Turkey. And I'm just growing in the Lord, memorizing scripture. And I had another one of my roommates who was raised in the Nazarene church. And he knew more scripture than I probably ever will know and memorize. And we would have these scripture battles. We put them up on our closets. And I didn't know it. But God was doing something in his life. I am seeking the Lord. I'm just a new believer. I didn't even know how to study the Bible. Here's how I started off studying the Bible. I had no notes or nothing in it. I just opened my Bible. And I said, God, would you teach me? And God would teach me. Oh, I've never seen that before. And we memorized the scripture and things. One night, I'd laid down in bed. And this, his name is Wally. He'd come up. We were on the third floor. He'd come up there and he'd come in the room. Blam! And he was mad. He was mad at me. And I'd gotten out of bed and he wanted to fight. I didn't want to fight him. He went over and hit a cinder block wall. Blam! Like that. And he wanted to fight. He was drunk. I didn't want to fight him. And he'd come over and he hit me. Blam! And then he did it again. Blam! And about that time, I'm saying, Lord, you said turn to cheek. And I've already turned both of them. I'm out of cheek. If he comes back again, we're going to go at it. We'd run out of my spirituality. And about that time, his buddies come in and grabbed him and took him down the hall and threw him in a cold shower. And I went back and laid in bed and I'm shaking. Oh, wow. This is a new experience. And then he comes back in a little bit, a few minutes. Comes back, the door opens. This time, a little wiser, I don't get out of bed. He comes over to my bed and I'm laying there and he sits down in a chair at the end of the bed. And he begins to cry. And he said, John, what you have, I want more than anything else in the world. I didn't know there was anything I had that he would want. But I had just about a year earlier had found Christ or Christ had found me and I got saved. And I really knew anything. But the power of Christ was there to convict him. And I wasn't even aware of it. But the conviction was there. And so this is the way Jacob is fixing to meet Esau. Jacob is still thinking mentally of the old Jacob, but now the power of Christ is on him. And I believe Jacob was really coming to whoop up on. I mean, Esau was coming to whoop up on Jacob with 400 men. I mean, he's been hot and burning for 20 years. But the Lord can get Esau since he's got Jacob. If you let God get you, then God can get that challenge, that problem, that issue in your life. But he's got to get us first before he can get that issue or that person or whatever. Our biggest problem is self. We've got to go to denial. We've got to go to the cross. So now he's met God and was blessed. And he's left his home with his father's blessing years ago. But I'm going to go through some things. He had obeyed his father and mother at first and had left. He'd done the best he could there with Laban and whatever. And now he's humbled himself. And now he's going to meet Esau. And let's look at this in 33. And Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked. And behold, Esau came. Esau came. And with him 400 men. And I believe at this point he'd moved out ahead of all of his scheming and everything. And he divided the children unto Leah and to Rachel. And we'll see that in a minute. And two, he put the handmaids and their children foremost. And Leah and her children after. And Rachel and Joseph intermost is still trying to psychologically affect Esau. And he passed over before them and bowed himself to the ground seven times until he came near to his brother. Seven times humbled himself. If we humble ourself under the mighty hand of God, we won't have to be humbled under the mean hand of man. Forsaken, humbled himself. Matthew Henry said, a humble, submissive carriage goes a long way towards turning away wrath. Many preserve themselves by humbling themselves. The bullet flies over him that stoops. The proud will not humble themselves. And so all of his punishment, all of his fears, all of his failures, all of his preparation, and all of this for this one moment. Seven times he bows before Esau. And Jacob won the battle. Look at verse four. And Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him and they wept. Jacob won the battle. By being humbled by with God that night and then humbling himself before Esau. It took a long time for him to get to the point where he'd be humbled. I mean, 20 years, but Laban was a process. But in that he had power. He had power over Esau because God had power over the Jacob now. Power and prevailing goes. Here's a principle I've wrote out. Being under authority always involves a humbling and submission. And some of these things, not all this stuff I'm sharing with you is mine. Some of it I've picked up over the years and stuff, and some of it is mine and whatever. I don't always know if it's mine or whatever. I try to put brackets and quotes if I remember this and I don't know. But being under authority always involves a humbling and submission attitude, a submissive attitude or response. And there he goes. You know many times why we might be getting beat up in a battle and the enemy is trying to get in. He's coming in on us. He's coming in on church, coming in on our family, coming in at work and whatever because of just a very simple principle. We resist and we resist and we resist. But the Bible says we submit ourselves unto God. James 4, 7, submit yourselves unto God. Then we resist. And so if there's a weak area of weakness in submission, there's going to be a weakness in our resistance to the enemy. And so when Jacob humbled himself, he broke the curse. These three things. He broke the curse. He broke Esau's power and he took charge. He was now in authority. All those years there. 1 Peter 5, 6, humble is under it in an inferior position. Thus to not humble ourself is to try to move to a superior position with God. God had to help Jacob. God has to help us. These things. And so now here Jacob's in the command position and Esau's going to still try to have some influence on him and try to get him to go his way. And there's some lessons here. So the devil's now been defeated. It was in Moses' meekness position that he had so much power. But it took 40 years out in the desert to get the Moses from Egypt. And to get the Egypt out of the Moses, it took 40 years. Now, some of us may not have 40 years left. But you might have 40 seconds for God to do something right now. Isn't it crazy? The more humble we will be, the more power there will be in their life. Moses in his meekness was in power. He's in a powerful position. And he halted upon his thigh. So he comes limping over there. He's bouncing sometimes. He's halting upon his thigh. You know, all this sort of began with an impatience. An impatience to wait on God from his mother. Impatient. Um, how many times do we get in trouble? Because they're not patient and waiting on God. Somebody said this. Lack of patience is one of the major causes of rebellion among teenagers. They just don't want to wait on parents. And they want to get what they want. And they won't wait. They just want to go ahead. Hebrews 6.12, who through faith and patience inherit the promises. The patience of Job, James 1. Now, here's Jacob's restitution from five. And he lift up his eyes, saw the woman and children. Here's he saw. He looks around. Hey, what's all this about? And said, who are those with thee? And he said, the children which God had graciously given thy servant. 33.6. Then the handmaidens came near. They and their children, they bowed themselves. And Leah also with their children. They came near and bowed themselves. And also came Joseph near. And Rachel, Joseph's around at this point, and Rachel. And they bowed themselves. And he said, what meaneth by all this drove which I met? And he said, these are to find grace in the sight of my Lord. Now, some of those went ahead. And Esau said, I have enough, my brother. Keep that thou hast unto thyself. And Jacob said, nay, I pray thee. If now I have found grace in thy sight, then receive my present. Receive my present. This is important. Receive my present at my hand. For therefore, I have seen thy face as though I had seen the face of God. And thou hast pleased with me. Take, I pray thee, my blessing that is brought to thee. Because God has dealt graciously with me. And because I have enough. And he urged him. And he took it. And he said, let us take our journey and go. Let us go. And I will go before thee. It's Esau saying this. And Jacob said unto him, my Lord knoweth that the children are tender. And the flocks and herds with young are with me. And if men should overdrive them one day, all the flock will die. Let my Lord, I pray thee, pass over before his servant. And I will lead on softly according to as the cattle goeth before me. And the children be able to endure until I come unto my Lord unto seer. And Esau said, let me now leave with thee some of the folk that are with me. And he said, what needeth it? Let me find grace in the sight of my Lord. So Esau returned that day on his way unto seer. And Jacob journeyed to Succoth and built him a house and made booths for his cattle thereof. And name of the place is called Succoth. And Jacob came to Shalem, the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, where he came from Paddan-aram and pitched his tent before the city. And he brought a partial of the field which he had spread, uh, where he had spread his tent at the hand of the children of Hamar, Shechem's father, for a hundred pieces of money. And he erected there an altar and called it El Eloi Israel, the God of Israel. In other words, my God. Now, let's go. I read those verses so we can just sort of slip through and see if there's any lessons that we can learn. In eight, he said to find grace. He's, it's a works principle here. He's trying to do all these things to impress, uh, Esau. And this is why, by the way, God says he's not impressed with our works to get ourselves saved. For by grace, he is saved through faith. And that knowledge of yourselves is the gift of God and not of works. So nobody can boast. Blessed man will boast. And so if you think that you can work your way into heaven somehow, uh, you're not going to do it. Because heaven has been provided for you as a free gift through the blood of Christ being shed for your sins. And it's a gift. Look in Romans several times for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God's eternal life. Like I said, what do you do with a gift? Um, many times I illustrated first on 5, 11, 12, and 13. I'd use an illustration and, uh, and I'd quote that verse. And I would say like this, let's say that, uh, my pen, sorry about that on the mic. My pen represents eternal life. I want to illustrate the gospel to you in a sense. My pen represents eternal life. You stand before God and, uh, and this pen is the key to get to heaven. You have to have, you have to have eternal life. You have to have the key. That's the key to getting into heaven. You have to have eternal life in you before you can get to heaven. And I'm going to quote to you first John 5, 11, 12, and 13. And this is a record. God's word is a record that God had given to us eternal life. It's a free gift. Eternal life is a free gift. And this life is in his son. Now this represents Jesus Christ. This book represents Jesus Christ. And this is a record that God had given to us eternal life. And his life is in his son. He that hath the son hath life. You have Jesus in your heart. You have life. He that hath not the son hath not life. These things have I written to you that believe on the name of the son of God that you might know that you have life. And it goes on a little bit there. And so that's it. It's very simple. You have to have eternal life before you die. But eternal life is all wrapped up in Jesus Christ. So many people want heaven. They want eternal life. But they don't want anything with Jesus Christ. They don't want to do it God's way. It's a humbling to recognize that you can't save yourself. There's not much we can do ourselves. Matter of fact, without God, there's nothing we can do. And so Jacob, he's had his encounter with Esau now. And let's see if there's a few little lessons here we could learn. Jacob is insistent in verse 10. And Jacob said, nay, I pray he's very insistent that he take this gift. Why? It's the principle of restitution. He had offended Esau. And it's very important to him that he make that right. He stole from him. And he wants to try to make it right. And so the principle is very important. And Jacob does succeed. And when he receives his gift, Jacob is free. 20 years of bondage and fear in his conscience knew he shouldn't have done that. And this, you know, so he succeeds. He's free. And that verse there in verse 11, and he took it. He took it. You know, he had taken away his birthright. And now he's given back this gift to try to appease what he'd done. This is spiritual restitution. No, this is a physical restitution. But it's going to affect his life. And so Jacob then refuses to reunite with Esau. You know why? He had enough of being connected with ungodly men. 20 years with Laban. He didn't want more time with Esau. Esau is not a spiritual man. How many times have we got ourselves into trouble sometimes by getting in connection with somebody that's ungodly? And how many young people have ruined their lives by marrying somebody that's not saved? You know, if you marry an unsaved person, you're going to have the devil for your father-in-law or your mother-in-law or whatever, because they're under that authority. And you're going to have problems. So Jacob refuses to reunite, to go home. Jacob then, he told him he was going to go, but he didn't. He went to Shechem. Instead, and then he bought some property there from Hamar, Shechem's father. He went there to, and he went to Shechem, excuse me, verse 13, the city of Shechem, which is in the hand of Canaan. And so, you know, let me just say this. He didn't go home. And that's what God had told him, to go home. And so what happens in 34? Here he is. He settles down on the border of trouble again. And Dinah goes out to see what's going on out there. And great tragedy happens in his life. And I'm not going to go into that. You know all about that. Matter of fact, I've got chapters here. But his battle with Esau was won at Peniel with Esau. But then he goes and he settles on the border of some trouble. And so he still, even though you have received Christ, you still got some lessons to learn, even though he's just met the Lord. He's not mature enough yet to realize that there can be some problems with settling in the wrong place. And so he'd been humbled and he met Esau and he's seen different things. And I get these things. Listen, let me just listen, list these things to you. If Jacob had not been made right with God, his scheming would not have done him any good. Two, his battle with Esau was won at Calvary, where the holy wrestler had pinned him down. And it was his humble approach that gave him the victory with Esau. And four, he was learning now to be patient with God. And that's a whole other area. But five, I went through all of that to tell you this. Give God the option of time. His mother didn't. She moved ahead and got this whole thing going. You see, in our problems and issues, there's one more fact that we may not know. There may be one more day that we need to wait on God and give God a chance to work. Sometimes, I'm going to illustrate this to you. Some people are responders. Some people are reactors. When something happens, which are you? I'm a reactor. You know, some people say, oh, okay, a great tragedy. But other people, well, I'm going to illustrate this, how it's very important that we listen to when somebody's trying to say us something. I have had some great tragedies just because I wouldn't listen to the counsel that was being given to me. And I'm going to illustrate this with this story. I don't know if it's true or not. But I want to illustrate how important it is for us to not get too impatient and react and move on till we've got all the facts. One day, there was a woman that was inviting her friends in for a meal. And she was not a great cook or anything. So she ordered some stuff. And I guess the story went like this. One thing had some mushrooms on it. And she wasn't sure if these mushrooms were good or not. And so just before the guest came, she had a servant there to help her. And she said, give the dog some of this and let him eat it. And let's see what happens. And so she gave the dog. The servant gave the dog some. And then the guests come in and they're eating. She forgot about it. And so they're eating things. And then all of a sudden, she thinks, oh, the dog. I wonder if these mushrooms are any good. And so about that time, the servant comes in. And she said, what about the dog? And the servant says, madam, the dog is dead. And she, ah, everybody, quick, get in the car and run to the hospital. We've got to go get her. But the servant is saying, ma'am, ma'am, never mind that. We've got to move quick. Let's go to the hospital. The mushrooms are poisoned. We've got to go get our stomachs pumped. And the servant is saying, but ma'am. And never mind, don't bother me. And so they all rush off to the hospital. And he's saying, but ma'am. And they're all gone. So they get their stomach pumps out. And she comes back home. And finally, he gets to say what he wanted to say. But ma'am, the dog was run over by a car in the street. Now the dog's dead. One more fact. How many times have we not given God time to do that one more thing? Now this next section, I go into things about exposed positions, about what he did moving there where he did. And would Dinah get into trouble getting herself marred? But she moves out of protection. I'm going to just run through these things quickly. And then we'll take a break. The danger of independence. I believe a wife and daughters need to, if all possible, can stay under their protection. She goes over there messing around doing something she shouldn't. Jacob doesn't appear to act on this. And so a couple of his sons come back in on Dinah's and find out what's been done to her. And then they are deceptive. And they murder a lot of people. And all these things happen. I've got these questions about Dinah. Why does she need to see the daughters of the land? And I'm getting to a point at the end of this. Did she need their clothes styles? Did she need their fellowship? Did she want to understand their ways? Did she want to be seen by men? Did she want to be defiled? No, she didn't plan on that. So it's always dangerous to move out from under authority. Was she content at home? We don't know. There's just dangers of not being protected. Because when she did, she moved out from under covering her protection. She lost her purity. She lost her purpose in life. The godly seed that was supposed to be produced in her life was lost. And she probably lived a desolate life. Just she's never mentioned again except in Genesis 46, 16. But that came about because Jacob didn't go back home. He settled down near a dangerous place. And so here's the process. Jacob had lied to Esau. He didn't go back home. He said he would go back home and he journeyed to Sukkoth instead. And he built a house there. He did build a tent altar there. He did sacrifice. He didn't go because he didn't trust Esau. And that's understandable. He refused his protection and pitched his tent in this place. But he paid a high price for this move. And it's actually a move of disobedience. I believe to not follow the Lord's command to go back home. He didn't have to live right next to Esau. But he does eventually go back home. And if you want some trouble, anybody ever need some trouble, just do this. Just disobey. Just disobey and delayed. By the way, you young people, delayed obedience is disobedience. I've got children too. I've got seven kids. We still got some at home. And I might say, go do this. And I've tried to, I've been trying to learn this. The best time to do that is right then. Go ahead and do it because you forget. And then we have things happen and stuff, you know. Don't lock up the chickens and whatever. And then you forget. And then because you delayed, the possum gets in there, or coon, and get some chickens and stuff. You know how that goes. Then so when God gives us a command, we better be more specific on it. Now in 3317, let's see, Jacob, the journey to Succoth, he pitched his tent. And I just asked this question, how did God feel about this? This stuff, and because if you come to 35.1, and God said unto Jacob, Arise and go up to Bethel and dwell there. In other words, this is not the place for you to be living, Jacob. You've had a lot of trouble here. And so he said, go back, go back. And I'm going to maybe just close up some lessons here. And then we'll take a break. Everywhere, number one, we turn, there are risks. But there are risks only if we're out of the will of God. Those risks will not be dangerous to us in the will of God. So when we move, we need to make sure we move in the will of God. I don't myself personally think it was the will of God for him to stay such a dangerous place. He did erect an altar. But after he got in trouble there, God says, go up to Bethel and dwell there. That was probably not too far from home there. Number two, living near Shechem had its advantages and disadvantages. Living on the border of the world may have some advantages and things. There may be some advantages because you can maybe go do something quick or whatever. But we need to be careful. There was defiling and desecration there, contamination and pollution. And he lost his reputation. I'll talk to you about that. But three, a heavy responsibility on Jacob. Why was Jacob so silent on the sin that his sons had done and so silent in that? He does finally rebuke his sons in 3430. And here's what he says. And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, you have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Pezrites. And I be in a few in number. They shall gather themselves together against me and slay me. And I shall be destroyed. I in my house. We back some of the old ways of Jacob, the fear, his reputation. And so this is the rebuke they got for taking upon themselves to do what their father was supposed to do. And they didn't do it probably the correct way. They just went in and murdered a lot of people. They deceived them. And so moving close to danger, fourth thing can lead to disaster. But here's the thing in making that move. He had no powerful testimony or witness for God there. And five, will a man for his convenience and pleasure put his children near danger? Where was his father? And when they move on in chapter 35, he has the fear of God is on everybody. They're afraid of them because they recognize these people are treacherous. They're treacherous. So some testimony was lost. All right, let's let's close in prayer and we'll take a break. Father, we've just been going through some things and and learning some principles. And there's still some more lessons for us to learn in his life. And there may be some more lessons for us to learn in our life. And I pray that you would help us to assimilate these things and apply them where they're needed. It may be some of these things we just need to stick into our pocket and remember them because we may need them next week or next year. And with the conditions that we live in in our world and with trying to raise our children and things, help us to be careful. But most of all, in our walk with you, help us to go the ways of your word and to be careful to try to know your will. Father, help us because some of these things are very hard for us and we make a lot of mistakes and we have some of us have some very bad scars already from mistakes. So I thank you for your word. I ask your blessing on everybody in Jesus name. Amen.