Title: Jacob Victory Through Prayer
Contents
Jacob victorious through prayer (Genesis 32:24-32)
As I approached the new year of 2008, I was reminded of Jacob, who won the victory through prayer while deeply meditating on the keyword that will be the center of faith for this year. Among the people recorded in the Bible, looking at Abraham, who is called the father of faith, and many other people who are called leaders, I don't have much respect personally. We come to realize that the value of the beholder and the way God sees people are different. At the same time, we who are weak will gain hope.
Through Jacob, who is not worthy of human respect, we want to obtain God's inspired grace with the theme of Jacob victorious through prayer.
1. It was Jacob who looked back on his sinful self.
Jacob was, in a word, a deceiver. Almost all of his life was illegal, and he was a man who became rich later, but his life was a failure. There is no other person in the Bible who deceived his father and older brother, deceived his uncle, and his life was more consistent with deceit. Because of his personality, he cannot be recorded as a person in the Bible.
As Jacob was born as twins, he seems to have a more feminine personality than his older brother Esau. Considering that Esau is a hunting man and Jacob is a man who makes red bean porridge at home, he must have had little charisma.
In Genesis 27, when his father Isaac, who was on the verge of death, was about to leave after blessing his children while he was blind, Jacob conspired with his mother to receive the blessing of the birthright instead of his older brother Esau, and held hands like an older brother. I put goat hair on it and my father gave me the blessing that my brother would receive.
When his older brother Esau, who came after him, knew this and became angry, he ran away. He went to his maternal uncle's house and lived hard, but in the end, he couldn't give up his temper and spent his entire life collecting money by deceiving his uncle, and he got two wives and came back to his hometown. It seemed as if they were coming for arrest, and the sins of the past rose from the bottom of their conscience.
Stuck, he had no choice but to pray at the river Jabbok.
Personally, when I first believed in Jesus, for a long time, I couldn't understand why the sermons were propagating Jacob's blessing and Jacob's blessing while propagating the deceiver Jacob. As the years went by, I realized that I was a person who was completely weak in life, and when I realized what was more righteous than Jacob, I realized God who intervenes in my life with faith through Jacob. Even when he was running away, Jacob prayed to God and built an altar. I did. Jacob is usually referred to as the man of blessing and the man of prayer.
Genesis 28:18-19 "Jacob got up early in the morning, took the stone he had been pillowing on, and set it up as a pillar, and anointed it with oil, and he called the name of the place Bethel. The original name of the city was Luz."
However, on the day he returned home, he was so terrified that he was afraid to go to meet his brother because of the sins buried in his heart, and he could not go any further.
11 “I pray thee, deliver me from the hand of my brother and from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, lest he come and strike me and my wives.”
He first sent a large number of livestock to appease his brother with gifts in the usual human way.
14-15 “Two hundred female goats, twenty male goats, two hundred ewes, twenty rams, thirty milking camels and their young, forty cows, ten bulls, twenty female donkeys, and ten young donkeys.”
It was a material offensive of the so-called bribery character, but my heart was still uncomfortable. Yes. Conscience is not solved by material things. If conscience is settled with material things, it is already a dead conscience.
Relying on God in life, praying, etc. is possible only when there is a real lack of self and awareness of suffering with sin. The reason unbelievers do not believe in God is because they do not consider themselves a sinner .
The secret of faith and grace is to look back at the lack of self first.
We are supposed to pray to solve our sinful problems with Ham.
Luke 5:32 “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” The Lord said to the Pharisees who thought they were righteous.
John 9:39 "Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind."
John 9:41 "Jesus said, "If you had been blind, you would have no sin; but if you say that you see, your sins are simply there."
In the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, and in the history of Christianity, there was a common spirit of those who were empowered by God.
Paul was also humble.
1 Corinthians 15:31 “By the boasting in you, brethren, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I declare that I die daily.” 2 Corinthians 12:10 “Therefore, for the sake of Christ I I rejoice, for when I am weak, then I am strong.”
2. He was a person who fought through prayers until he was blessed
Some people seem to be angels, but there are people who say Jesus before He came in the flesh, and there are interpretations that they are the angel Michael. Angels are faithful workers who carry out God's work.
Hebrews 1:14 “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?”
Jacob wrestled with the angel for forgiveness for his sinful self, who could not see his brother now. He fought all night, and this is Jacob's repentance. It was a nightly struggle for self-transformation. We need this prayer. The testimonies of the precious servants and the saints who received grace in the past is that they prayed and persevered as if they were dying and followed the Lord.
After original sin, people who left Eden and were colored by the world live in the world, the realm of the devil, where everyone can transcend the environment and live a sinful life. You cannot live according to your will. For this reason, it is right for everyone to pray and struggle to develop their faith personality. Prayer is not the duty of a specific person, but all believers must pray to receive blessings.
1 Thessalonians 5:17 『Pray without ceasing』 The important thing is that we need patience and waiting in order to obtain the miraculous life of faith. So, among the words the Lord gave for many lessons on prayer, who
In the 18th chapter of the Gospel, he used parables to explain why we should not always be discouraged. In a city, there was a very bad judge who did not believe in God and was reputed to be ignorant of people. A widow believed in the judge's law enforcement authority to make a petition in order to get rid of her grudge, but she went to visit him every day. It was saying that if I ask my father like that, will he not hear me?
Luke 18:8 “I tell you, he will avenge him quickly, but will he find faith on earth when the Son of Man comes?”
Matthew 21:22 “For whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive it.”
Proverbs 8:17 “I love those who love me, and those who seek me earnestly find me.”
3. Jacob who became a person of blessing through prayer
Jacob sends an ambassador from the river Jabbok and hears about his brother coming to meet him. When he hears that he is coming with four hundred soldiers, he mistakenly thought that he was coming to arrest him because he was afraid of sin rather than the promise of grace from God. In fact, his brother welcomed him. was coming
Life fears God.
But God came to visit us by giving His Son into the world, and He still calls us. God is a savior before he is a judge. But before we can meet God the savior, we must have our repentance. Otherwise, you will still die as a sinner at the Jabbok River. No more progress.
Jacob prayed and wrestled until his hip bone was broken, and the angel, who was impressed by his struggled prayer of repentance, blessed Jacob.
There are some instances in the Bible where God calls and changes his name. It is a symbolic event, and the name of Abram changed to Abraham (Genesis 17:5), Sarai to Sarah, Simon to Peter, and Saul to Paul was a change in their spiritual existence, a person under God’s management and a person whose vision was fulfilled. It is to show that you are a being to be blessed in God's household.
To us, the title of Christian is the most noble name of the family of God in the world. The title of saint is the supreme, most honorable Nick given to us, and it is a nickname for the great blessing of being a child of God.
In order to become a new person of grace, who is renamed as a person, we too must be people of prayer.
It is a compound word of the word laer:c]yI, which means 'to fight,' and the word lae, the Almighty. In other words, it contains the meaning of moving the heart of God. After receiving the blessing and finishing the wrestling, it is said that the sun rose when he got up and walked limping. This record has the meaning that the light of salvation was unfolded.
31 “The sun rose as he passed by Peniel, and he was limp because of his hip bone.” Until Jacob was blessed,
1) There was repentance to the point of death.
2) A dark and painful night had to pass.
3) Received after the upper bone trace of the thallus bone.
Gal 6:17 “From now on, let no one afflict me, and I will leave the marks of Jesus on my body.
I have”
Today's church started properly after 10 days of prayer in Mark's upper room after Jesus' ascension. Before that, the disciples were sleeping in the Garden of Gethsemane. They were not zealous in prayer. However, on the Day of Pentecost, they prayed until they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and after that, they became apostles who continued to pray.
The world will still turn around with change in the coming year. What problems may arise and other depressing events may occur in the global village. We just have to do our best to pray in order to receive blessings and live as we are called to be God's people. All we have is a weak, faulty, and weak past like Jacob, and we have only a weak heart that cannot cross the Yabbok River at will.
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Source: Cyber Theological Seminary View original Author: nulserom