Jacob wrestled with God

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God can appear as an angel or as a man

Jacob did not wrestle with a man or an angel, but with God. God made a temporary physical body for Himself that looked like an angel or a man.

GENESIS 32:24 “And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.”

God manifested Himself by hiding in the body of a man. He wanted Jacob to learn a lesson. God had a message to give to Jacob.

GENESIS 32:30 “And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”

HOSEA 12:4   “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;”

The body that God was hiding in is also called an angel.

The word “angelos” means messenger.

Gabriel is an angel but is referred to as a man.

God sees a person who is delivering a message to someone either as a man or as an angel.

If a supernatural angel delivers a message from God, then he can be called a man.

DANIEL 9:21   “Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation.”

So, God can refer to a man as an angel if that man delivers God’s message to the people.

REVELATION 1:20   “The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.”

No historian ever mentions a church in Thyatira in the first hundred years while John was still alive.

Thus, John was writing to the future church because it had the characteristics of a future church age.

The names Antipas, Balaam, and Jezebel are never mentioned in the early church.

Balaam and Jezebel refer to different times or ages in Jewish history.

Thus, the names are referring to different ages or stages in church history.

Each age had an angel or messenger who tried to get the church to obey the New Testament Scriptures.

Each church age was also influenced by Satan to move away from Scripture into unscriptural ideas like Christmas, 25 December, Good Friday, Trinity, infant baptism, confirmation, one man being the head of a church, etc.

The endless struggle between Bible truth and error would carry on for 2000 years.

Jacob’s experience is a preview of the New Testament Christian experience.

We are sinners, just like Jacob was a deceiver. We can only meet God when we seriously repent and ask God to save us from our sins. God, by grace, places a small portion of His Holy Spirit within our hearts. Then comes a serious wrestling match between our old self and God’s Spirit, to control our minds.

Two dogs, a good dog, and a bad dog, wrestle or fight within us. Who wins? The one we feed the most.

GENESIS 32:25 “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.”

GENESIS 32:31 “And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.”

They wrestled until Jacob’s thigh was out of joint. Then he limped (or halted).

In other words, he walked differently.

A Christian has to wrestle with God until he dies to self and then walks very differently because God enables him to see the light of God’s Word.

The Christian now forsakes the darkness of self-gain and self-importance in order to walk in the Light of Scripture. I must love my enemies. It is better to give than to receive. Go the extra mile. A good Samaritan takes the wounded to the hospital and pays for the treatment.

One has to wrestle hard with God to achieve these insights. Christianity is not for sissies.

GENESIS 32:26 “And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.”

Thy Word is truth.

II Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.”

The great blessing of God is when you can wrestle long enough with God in order to realize that every Word of the King James Bible is true and can be trusted and believed. Hardly any Christians can do that anymore. They just give in to the modern translations that are very efficiently spread by the Jesuit Catholics. These are continually revised, and thus, people can never be sure what the next change will be. In that sea of uncertainty, where the seven-headed beast arises, (the Roman Catholic church on the seven hills of Rome), they then have to look for certainty by creating a so-called infallible Pope. But the Pope believes in the Trinity God Who has no name. They split God into three Persons, but cannot find one name for three Persons. So, their so-called Triune God has no name.

Thus, the Christians serve a Triune God Who has no name.

The Bible never mentions a name for the Holy Ghost.

The Father is called Jehovah in the Old Testament but is never called Jehovah in the New Testament.

The Bible never says God the Son, and never says God the Holy Ghost.

The Old Testament never says God the Father, but It does say Jehovah.

The New Testament says God the Father but It never says Jehovah.

Trinitarians cannot explain these facts.

But Jacob wanted to know the name of God.

So, Jacob came to his final request. What he really wanted to know.

What is God’s name?

But that was the great secret of the Old Testament. Nobody was allowed to know.

GENESIS 32:29  “And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there.”

Jehovah is a man-made word that means LORD.

The true spelling is JHVH which is unpronounceable.

God said to Moses, “I AM”. But that is not a name. That is a statement of eternal existence outside of time.

EXODUS 34:14  “For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:”

Jealous is not a name. But it warns us that God is very jealous about His name. If you get God’s name wrong you will be in serious trouble.

Samson’s parents saw God when He had created a temporary body of an angel for Himself.

They had also asked God what His name was.

In the Old Testament, there was this keen interest in knowing God's name.

JUDGES 13:22  “And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.”

Once again, God was hiding Himself in the body of an angel.

JUDGES 13:17  “And Manoah said unto the angel of the LORD, What is thy name, that when thy sayings come to pass, we may do thee honor?”

:18  “And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret?”

God’s name was a secret. Nobody knew.

There is no name for God in the Old Testament.

Jehovah was actually spelled JHVH or YHWH. That cannot be pronounced. Thus, it is not actually a name. You have to be able to pronounce a name.

Samson was a special case. When he pulled down the pillars of the big building on himself, then, he killed more of the enemy than he had killed when he was alive. In other words, when he died to himself then he most effectively served God.

Samson was a preview of Jesus.

Jesus was the secret name of God that the Old Testament did not know.

Emmanuel means God with us. The Spirit of God fully living in the body of Jesus.

COLOSSIANS 2:9   “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”

When Jesus died, that was His most effective service. That was the only way in which we could be saved.

That involved the secret name of God.

ACTS 4:10   “Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel,

that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,

whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead,”

ACTS 4:12   “Neither is there salvation in any other:

for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”

In the Old Testament, God was the Father, but was never called “God the Father”.

The Bible never says “God the Son” or “God the Holy Ghost”.

So, Jacob wrestled hard with God in order to walk differently in righteousness instead of deception. The Word is God. Therefore Christians have to wrestle hard to prove their beliefs just from Scripture.

Jacob limped. When he lost physical strength, he gained power with God. This means that God does not rely on human strength. God alone can open our thinking to understand His mysteries.

ZECHARIAH 4:6  “Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.”

Jacob wrestled hard with God in order to walk in the perfect Light of the Scriptures of the King James Bible instead of thinking that the King James Bible had faults, contradictions, and myths just because the serpent says “Hath God said?”.

Faith comes from the Word of God. You cannot build firm faith in a Bible that is flawed or needs revising.

ROMANS 10:17   So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

But Jacob also wrestled hard in order to learn the name of God.

Here most Christians fail dismally. To them, God’s name remains a secret.

They have been taught that God is a Trinity made up of three Persons. You cannot find one name for three Persons.

Thus, the Trinity God consisting of three Persons has no name.

This is cleverly covered up by substituting three titles.

They say, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost”. But they cannot tell us what that name is.

So, God’s name remains a secret.

You have to wrestle hard with Scripture (the Word is God) before God can open your eyes to realize that the name Jehovah (actually JHVH) is never mentioned in the New Testament. So, what is God’s name in the New Testament?

God had no name when He made a temporary human or angelic body for Himself. Or when He wrapped Himself in a Pillar of Fire or a Pillar of Cloud in the Old Testament.

But the great mystery was revealed when the Spirit of God wrapped Himself into a virgin born Baby. The Word became flesh. Emmanuel, God with us.

MATTHEW 1:21   “And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS:”

Jesus is the human name of God.

Once the name Jesus was mentioned at the beginning of Matthew, the name JHVH (or the man-made name Jehovah) was never mentioned again in the Bible.

The Jesus of the New Testament is the Jehovah (JHVH) of the Old Testament.

It takes a lot of wrestling with Scripture to see the light of this great revelation.

But it will change your Christian walk.

Especially, since the church will probably kick you out.