ASI Southern Union 2013: For Such a Time...

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ASI Southern Union

ASI Southern Union 2013 Plenary Sessions

Alistair Huong

When Men Have Labor Pains

Randy Skeete

Mine is Bigger than Yours

Frank Fournier

Identity Crisis

No Strings Attached

Our story tonight is primarily going to take place in Genesis chapter 32, so I invite you to turn your Bibles there with me now.

But while you're going there, let me set the stage for you.

Jacob has been in somewhat of a self-imposed exile, away from his homeland, away from his family for many years now.

But God is calling him back to the land that he has promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and to him, Jacob himself.

And so Jacob is returning now to the promised land, not as he left a single man with nothing more than a staff and a cruise of oil.

He's coming back heavy laden with gold, with goods, with flocks, with his wives, with his children, with his servants, a large company coming back to claim the promise that God has given to him.

Problem is, he hears tidings that his brother Esau was marching against him with 400 men of war.

Jacob and his family, his company, completely unarmed, unprepared for any hostile encounter.

He was in trouble because he recognized, he remembered well, what led to his brother taking this vow of vengeance upon him.

It was his guile, his deceit, his craftiness.

And so now he finds himself in a very peculiar situation.

And as any decently minded father would do, he tries to save the innocent.

He sends some gifts ahead to try to appease the wrath of his brother.

He divides his group into different companies to send them on in different directions so if 1 gets fallen upon and massacred, perhaps the other 1 might escape.

And it is here that we pick up the story because there's something left for Jacob to do.

In Genesis chapter 32, we begin reading in verse 23, and he took them, Jacob did, and sent them over the brook and sent over that he had.

There's the babbling brook, Jabok, his children, his wives, his servants, his flocks, they're gone.

The sun has set, there's a cool night breeze in the Palestinian wilderness, and there we see a lone figure.

Jacob was left alone but that was not the only way he was alone.

Jacob that night was alone in every sense of the word.

He was alone because he had no place to call his home.

The land that God has promised was before him, but the way was barred by Esau and his army.

He could not turn back to where he had come from.

That was Laban's land, and we all know how pleasantly they split ways.

His mother who loved him dearly, unfortunately was unfortunately, she wasn't with them anymore, but more unfortunately she was really the cause of this problem also.

Even Rachel, His beloved dear wife for whom he labored for so many years, what could she do for him now?

No 1 to turn to, nowhere to hide, nowhere to go, but Jacob, the supplanter.

He had a plan how he could use a bowl of lentils as leverage in a special deal with his brother for a birthright.

He and his mother concocted a plan, remember?

To get the blessing from the blind father Isaac.

When he started working with Laban, His full business acumen took over and he had a plan to 1 up his father-in-law.

But what could any of his human plans help him now?

But what could all his wealth do for him now?

How often we try to seize the situation and to solve it in our own feeble human ways.

And so sometimes God waits, he waits until we are left alone, like Jacob.

But this night, more than in any other way, Jacob was alone because he recognized that he alone was responsible for this peculiar predicament.

He could not plead innocence like Daniel in the lion's den.

He was not innocent like the 3 young men who were thrown into the fiery furnace.

Yes, he had already confessed his sin to God, but yet the memory haunted him.

And you can be sure that there is an accuser of the brethren that night that would not let him forget that.

Jacob, it is because of your sin that your brother marches against you.

There's no sense of loneliness like the loneliness of being guilty for sin that we can no longer remedy.

Jacob was left alone, very alone, but that night I believe he remembered another evening, many years ago, in similar circumstances, by himself, at midnight, in the wilderness, with nothing but a stone to lay his head, and he sees in his dream that angel ladder.

The ladder that reaches straight from the earth, straight up to the presence of God.

He saw the angels ascending and descending.

He heard the voice of God Himself speak those words of reassurance, of promise, of protection and deliverance.

God was with him that night when he thought he was all alone.

This night he sends everyone away because there's 1 more thing he's got to do.

He wanted to hear once again the words of that God, the same promise, the reassurance, the protection that God has promised him, because honestly, he has nowhere left to turn.

No more plans, no more schemes, nothing left, no 1 can help him.

And it is in this part of the story that we expect, ah yeah, we rub our hands in eager anticipation.

Everyone watch, This is where God is about to step into our experience.

Just like the children of Israel at the shores of the Red Sea.

The water before them, Pharaoh's army behind them, the rocky mountains on either side, nowhere to go.

The disciples on the storm-tossed sea, water filling their ship, too far from shore to swim.

Daniel in the lion's den, the 3 Hebrew worthies in the fiery furnace, Nowhere to look, nowhere to hide, no 1 to turn to.

In those moments God specializes in delivering His people.

But tonight, Jacob expects some divine intervention just like we do.

We expect some miraculous moving of the arm of God for deliverance and we know the end of the story, right?

But before we get ahead of ourselves, what actually happens?

Let's continue reading verse 24, Genesis 32, 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.

Imagine with me, Jacob bowed low near the ground prostrate before God.

His mind is tormented with a memory of his wrongs.

The responsibility of the lives of his innocent men, women, and children under his care.

All of a sudden a strong arm seizes him and flings him to the ground.

Jacob realizes this was not the gentle touch of a loving Savior.

This was someone seeking to take his life.

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ASI Southern Union 2013 Plenary Sessions

When Men Have Labor Pains

Transcript

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