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The Midnight Wrestle · Israel: A Prince with God

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  Chapter nine of Israel A Prince with God by F. B. Meyer.
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  This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Mirian Chapter nine The
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  Midnight Russell Genesis, chapter thirty two. The Son of Righteousness on me hath
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  rose with healing in his wings, withered. My Nature's strength from Thee.
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  My soul is life and succor brings. My help is all laid up above
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  Thy nature, and thy name is Love. Contented now upon my thigh,
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  I halt till life's short journey end all helplessness, all weakness. I on
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  THEE alone for strength depend Nor have I power from THEE to move Thy nature,
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  and thy name is Love. Wesley. On the morning after his interview
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  with Laban, Jacob broke up his camp on the heights of Gilead and slowly
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  took his journey southwards. He little knew that that day was to be the
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  crisis of his life. Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth,
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  not of evil only, but of blessing. It may be that this day
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  had been predestined from all eternity to be that of thy transformation from the craft
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  and cunning of years to a life of subjection, to the will of God
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  and of power over men. This wondrous scene does not, in my opinion,
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  correspond to that change which we call conversion, that was determined surely by
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  the Angel vision at Bethel. But it may rather be compared with that further
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  blessing which sometimes comes to a Christian after some years of religious experience and profession.
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  There is no reason in the nature of things why it should be so,
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  there is no reason why, at the moment of conversion we should not
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  at once step into the realization and enjoyment of all the possibilities of Christian living.
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  But still, as a matter of fact, it very often happens that
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  some years of wilderness wandering do intervene between the deliverance of the Passover and the
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  passage across the Jordan into the land of promise and rest and victory. Many
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  a child of God, who has no doubt of acceptance and forgiveness is conscious
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  of a broken and fitful experience, often foiled and overthrown, wishing to do
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  good but unable to do it, full of self reproach and bitterness of soul.
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  Then there comes a time when he is almost forced into a new experience.
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  He passes into a climate that brings into glorious fruitage the seed germs which
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  were lying in his nature undeveloped. He receives an abounding freshet of grace that
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  lifts him sheer above all the former levels of his existence and launches him on
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  the flood tide of blessedness. If you have never known this in happy experience,
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  you can hardly understand what an extraordinary change comes over all things, or
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  how great a contrast severs the old from the new. Such an experience fell
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  to Jacob's lot after that memorable night. The three events are near in this
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  chapter, corresponding to morning, afternoon, and night of that memorable day.
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  One in the morning we are told that the angels of God met him.
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  Those words tremble with mystic and indescribable beauty. How did it befall? Did
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  they come in twos or threes? Or as he turned some corner on the
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  mountain pass, did he see a long procession of bright, harnessed angels marching
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  for abreast, with golden bands girding about them their luxurious ropes? Whilst the
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  music of heaven beat time. Would it not remind him of Bethel that lay
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  across the chasm of five and twenty years, would it not nerve and prepare
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  him for coming danger? Doubtless, these angel bands are always passing by us.
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  Only our eyes are holden so that we do not see them. But
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  whether we see them or not, we may always reckon on their being at
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  hand, especially when some heavy trial is near. The Angel of the Lord
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  in campeth round about them that fear him and deliver them. This is Mahanaiam.
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  Here two hosts are meeting. The mountain is full of horses and chariots
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  of fire around us. More are they that are with us than they which
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  are against us. Two. As the day wore on to afternoon, Jacob's
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  spirit was shaken to the center by ominous tidings. He had sent messengers,
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  as Arab chiefs would do still, to announce to Esau his return and to
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  ascertain his mind. They now returned in breathless haste to say that Esau was
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  coming to meet him with four hundred men at his back. Jacob was panic
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  stricken, and while he might be his always at stake, wives and children,
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  herds and cattles, the careful gains of six laborious years, the midst
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  of tower barred the way back. His bridge was, so to speak,
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  burnt behind him. Around him were robber tribes eager to seize on the rich
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  booty if he showed the least signed of vacillation of fear. But to go
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  on seemed to invoke a risk of inevitable ruin. There was just one alternative,
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  which most men will only turn to when all other expedients have failed.
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  He could at least pray, And to prayer he betook himself. It might
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  have been a long time since he prayed like this. For years his nobler
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  self had been overgrown by a noxious growth of weeds, and drugged into unconsciousness
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  by the cares of this life, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts
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  of many things. The evil conscience cannot pray, prayer, cannot live in
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  the heart with deceit and craft and villainy, but passes out unnoticed and unmissed.
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  But now under the shock of this terrible danger, the olden spirit revived
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  in him, and the hair of consecration began to grow again see Numbers,
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  chapter six. Is not this the key to God's dealings with all of us?
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  He brings us into sore straits, He shuts us up in a corner.
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  He causes the walls and ceiling and floor of our room to draw together,
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  as if to crush us. At such moments, there is only one
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  resource left. It is himself. We must fly to God to escape from
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  God. We are driven to our knees with no language but a cry.
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  And though that cry consists mostly of a confession of unworthiness, yet it is
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  enough. The silence is broken, the avenues are cleared of their choking undergrowth.
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  The child has already left the far country and is on his way home.
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  Was not this the experience of the Syrophoenician woman. Her utter misery made
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  her seek Christ. She found him out in a retirement which would have concealed
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  him from all save one. In Her dire need, and his apparent denial
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  drove her to climb an altitude of faith and to utter words of desperate boldness
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  from which she would have shrunk except under the pressure of that terrible agony of
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  soul. The love of God is great enough to cause us pain, if
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  only it can force us to positions from which we had heretofore shrunk, but
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  from which we shall never again recede. There are many healthy symptoms in that
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  prayer in some respects it may serve as a mold into which our own spirits
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  may pour themselves when melted in the fiery furnace of sorrow. He began by
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  quoting God's promise. Thou saidest, he did so twice Verses nine and twelve.
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  Ah, he had got God in his power. Then God puts himself
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  within our reach in his promises. And when we say to him, thou
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  saidest, he cannot say nay, he must do as he has said.
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  If here was so particular for his oath's sake, What will not our God
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  be be sure in prayer to get your feet well on a promise. It
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  will give you purchase enough to force open the gates of heaven and to take
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  it by force. He next went to confession, I am not worthy.
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  There passed before his mind his deceit to his aged father, his behavior to
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  Esau, his years of trickery to Laban. All the meanness of his heart
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  and life stood revealed as a landscape is revealed when the midnight sky is riven
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  by the lightning flash. Conscience came forth from its retreat in the dungeons of
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  his nature and climbed the stairs, and stood in the throne room of his
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  spirit, as Nathan before David, or John the Baptist, before Herod,
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  or Paul, before Felix the Roman governor, who trembled as he spake of
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  righteousness, temperance and judgment to come, and as the sea of memory gave
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  up the dead past to a terrible resurrection, and as it all stood in
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  vivid minuteness before him. Was there not plenty to justify his penitent confession.
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  I am not worthy great soul anguish will generally wring some such cry from our
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  startled and stricken hearts. If there is one position that better becomes us than
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  another, it is that of the publican with downcast eyes. Nor can we
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  improve on his prayer, God, be merciful to me the sinner. Then
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  he passed on to plead for deliverance. Deliver me. I pray thee from
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  the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau. It was of
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  course quite right to pray us, But I cannot feel that it was a
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  whole hearted prayer, for he had hardly finished it when he reverted to the
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  plan on which he had been busy before he turned aside to pray Jacob's first
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  thought was always a plan. He had a plan for Isaac's blessing, another
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  for his property, and now another to appease Esau. Of course, I
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  have no word to say against planning, when that is evidently God's method of
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  delivering us. But I am desperately afraid lest our planning should take the place
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  of simple waiting on God till the cloud rises and moves forward and shows us
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  our path across the trackless sands. We are all so apt to pray and
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  then to try and concoct a plan for our own deliverance. Surely the nobler
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  attitude is, after prayer, to stand still for God to develop his plan,
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  leading us in ways that we had never guessed. The blessed life of
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  our Lord was absolutely planless. There is too much selfhood in Jacob, as
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  there is also in us. This must be broken down and put in the
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  place of death. The eye life must be crucified before the christ life can
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  take its place. The sinners of the old nature must be utterly shriveled that
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  the new nature, whose only strength is to cling, may be manifested in
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  power. This was the object of that mysterious conflict which left so deep an
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  impression on Jacob's life. Three it was midnight. Jacob had already sent across
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  the Jabak, his property, his children, even the beloved Rachel. It
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  seemed as if, amid the awful pressure of that anxiety, he could not
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  bear the noise of the camp, the prattlings of the children, or even
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  the presence of the only woman he ever really loved. He caused them to
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  pass over the brook and sent over all that he had, and Jacob was
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  left alone. When the soul enters this gassemone, it with draws a stone
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  cast from its most trusted friends. Around him was the profound stillness of those
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  most desolate regions beside him, the murmur of the rapid brook, over the
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  stones, above him, the infinite depths of heaven, but jeweled with stars.
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  There alone he considered the past, and anticipated the future, and felt
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  the meanness of the aims for which he had sold his soul, and saw
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  the wretched failure of his life. And so suddenly he became aware that a
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  mysterious combatant was at his side, drawing him into conflict half literal and half
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  spiritual, which lasted till the break of day. Was this a literal contest.
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  There's no reason to deny it. We know that the Son of God
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  sometimes anticipated his incarnation by assuming literal physical shapes. His delights were of old
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  amongst the sons of men, and it would have been as possible for him
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  to wrestle literally with Jacob as for him to offer his hands to the touch
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  of Thomas after his resurrection. The physical must have been largely present, because
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  when he resumed his journey, Jacob halted upon his thigh. It was a
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  physical fact, physically commemorated by the Israelites to this day, who have stained
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  from eating of that part in animals, which corresponds to the sinew that shrank
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  in Jacob's thigh. Men do not become lame in imaginary conflicts, But in
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  any case, the outward wrestling was only a poor symbol of the spiritual struggle
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  which convulsed the patriarch's soul, and is as real in the experience of earnest
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  men today as when the world was young. Remember that conflict originated not with
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  Jacob, but with the Angel there wrestled a man with him. This passage
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  is often quoted as an instance of Jacob's earnestness in prayer. It is nothing
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  of the sort. It is an instance of God's earnestness to take from us
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  all that hinders our truest life, whilst we resist him with all our might
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  and main. It was not that Jacob wished to obtain aught from God,
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  but it was that he, the angel Jehovah, had a controversy with this
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  double dealing and crafty child of his, desirous to break up his self sufficiency
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  forever and to give scope for the development of the Israel that lay cramped and
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  coffined within. There's an illustration of this in the life of Moses. For
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  forty years he lived in the retirement of the desert. At last he set
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  out for Egypt, accompanied by his wife and children. Concerning those children,
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  in deference to their mother's wish, he seemed to have neglected a right binding
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  by divine command on every son of Abraham. And it came to pass in
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  the way that the Lord barred his journey and even threatened him with death until
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  he had obeyed the injunction he had ignored, and then he let him go.
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  So it was with Jacob. There was much in him that needed to
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  be laid aside, much self sufficiency requiring to be broken down, much dross
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  that had to be burnt out by consuming fire. And so the love of
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  God drew near to him on that solemn night, to wrest these things from
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  him at whatever cost. Has not this man that wrestled with Jacob found you
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  out? Have you not felt a wholly discontent with yourself? Have you not
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  felt that certain things long cherished and loved should be given up, though it
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  should cost you blood? Have you not felt that you should yield your whole
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  being to God? But there has been a rebellious uprising of self will within
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  you, as if it were impossible for you to make the surrender. Have
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  you not felt in an agony between the sufferings of God's good spirit on the
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  one hand, and the preferences of your own choice on the other. Have
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  you not felt as if some mighty power were wrestling with you, against you
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  and for your good. Surely, these convulsive throes, these heaven born strivings,
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  these mysterious workings, are not of man or of the will of the
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  flesh, but of God. It is God that worketh in you and wrestleth
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  with you. Glory be to Him for his tender patience, interests, and
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  love. At first Jacob held his own. He saw that he prevailed not
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  against him the strength that years before had rolled the stone from the well.
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  For Jacob's sheep was vigorous yet, and he was in no humor to submit.
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  And thus we do all resist the love of God. We carry out
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  our own plans, We follow our own will. We are strong in our
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  own self sufficiency. When thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkest
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  whither thou wouldest, Each one of us dowered with that wonderful power of holding
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  our own against God. And he knows sorrowfully that he cannot prevail against us
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  without taking some severe measures, which will give us no alternative but to yield.
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  The angel touched the hollow of his thigh. Whatever it is that enables
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  a soul whom God designs to bless to stand out against him, God will
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  touch it. May be the pride of wealth, or of influence, or
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  of affection, but it will not be spared. God will touch it.
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  It may be sometimes as natural as a sinew, but if it robs a
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  man of spiritual blessing, God will touch it. It may be as small
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  a thing as a sinew, but its influence in making a man strong in
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  his resistance of blessing will be enough to condemn it. And God will touch
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  it, and beneath that touch it will shrink and shrivel, and you will
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  limp to the end of life. Remember that the sinew never shrinks, save
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  beneath the touch of the angel hand, the touch of tender love. This
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  is why your schemes have miscarried, and your children have faded into untimely decay,
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  and your life has been haunted by disappointment. God has touched the sinew
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  of your strength and it has dried up. Oh you who are still holding
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  out against him, make haste to yield, lest some worse thing come upon
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  you. Then Jacob went from resisting to clinging. As the day broke,
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  the Angel would be gone, but he could not because Jacob clung to him
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  with a death grip. The request to be let go indicates how tenaciously the
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  life patriot clung to him for support. He had abandoned the posture of defense
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  and resistance and had fastened himself on to the Angel. As a terrified child
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  clasps its arms tightly around his father's neck. That is a glad moment in
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  the history of the human spirit, when it throws both arms around the risen
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  Savior and hangs on him and will not let him go. It is the
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  attitude of blessing. It is the posture of power. It is the sublime
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  condition in which Christ will whisper his own new name, which no man knoweth,
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  saving him that receiveth it. Have you ever come to this? Have
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  you abandoned the art of self defense for the artlessness of clinging trust? Have
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  you felt able to rejoice in your inability to stand alone because it has made
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  the Lord Jesus so real? Have you reached the point of self surrender?
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  If not, ask God to show you what sinew it is that makes you
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  too strong for him to bless you, ask him to touch it so that
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  you shall be able to hold out no more. And then you will discover
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  the threefold blessing, which is yours one the changed name. In olden days,
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  names were given not for euphemy or by caprice, but for character.
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  A man's character was in his name. Now when Jacob came into the attitude
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  of blessing, an attitude which has two parts, viz. Absolute abandonment of
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  self and a trust which clings to Christ. Then immediately the angel said,
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  what is thy name? And he said, Jacob, by nature, I
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  am a supplanter, a rogue, and a cheat. Never shrink from declaring
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  your true character. My name is sinner. And he said, thy name
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  shall be no more Jacob, But Israel a prince with God. The changed
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  name indicated a changed character. Jacob was swallowed up of light. He was
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  closed upon with the name and nature of a prince. There's only one way
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  to prince, Linus. It is the thorn set of self surrender and of
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  faith. Why should you not now yield yourself entirely to God and give him
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  your whole being? It is only a reasonable service, and out of it
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  will spring a tenacity of faith, and a power for service, and a
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  royalty of character enough to make you willing to bear the limp which proves that
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  your own strength has passed away forever. Two power. The better rendering of
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  these words would be as a prince. Hast thou power with God and with
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  man, thou shalt prevail. We sigh for power, power over ourselves,
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  power for service, power over the principalities of wicked spirits. But before we
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  can receive power with the creature, we must obtain it from the Creator.
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  The man who would have power with men must first have it with God.
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  And we can only get power with God when our own strength has failed,
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  and we limp. I glory in infamy, that the power of Christ may
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  rest upon me. For when I am weak than I am strong. Oh,
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  for the withered sinew of our own strength, that we may lay hold
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  on the strength of God. Three, the beatific vision. I have seen
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  God face to face. Our moments of vision come at daybreak, but they
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  are ushered in by the agony of dread, the long midnight vigil, the
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  extreme agony of conflict, the shrinking of the sinew. Yet when they come,
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  they are so glorious that the frame is almost overpowered with the brightness of
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  that light and the exceeding weight of glory. The price is dear, but
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  the vision is more than worth it. All the sufferings are not worthy to
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  be compared with the glory revealed. This is life, a long wrestle against
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  the love of God, which longs to make us royal. As the years
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  go on, we begin to cling where once we struggled, and as the
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  morn of heaven breaks, we catch glimpses of the Angel, face of Love,
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  and hear his whispered name. And as he blesses us, we to
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  find ourselves living and face to face with God. And that is heaven itself.
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  End of Chapter nine.