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GREAT WRESTLINGS

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

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GREAT WRESTLINGS

Preface

(temptations / carnality)

Some of you are still wrestling old things, and you are sick of them. Every time you go to pray, and every time you go to believe God, that thing is standing there. Now is the time to believe God and wrestle on through to victory.

Jacob and Esau had a bad situation. Jacob was alone and wrestled till he got the victory. Sooner or later, you are going to be left alone to face God - on your own. You are going to have to reckon with that thing that does so easily beset you. When that time comes, wrestle through and get the victory!

GREAT WRESTLINGS

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

Genesis 32:3-6 says, “And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother unto the land of Seir, the country of Edom. And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall ye speak unto my lord Esau; Thy servant Jacob saith thus, I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed there until now: And I have oxen, and asses, flocks, and menservants, and womenservants: and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find grace in thy sight. And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to thy brother Esau, and also he cometh to meet thee, and four hundred men with him.”

Verse 24-28 of the same chapter says, “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 hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.”

Jacob and Esau were twin brothers that looked nothing alike. They struggled, even as they were being born. Jacob was a smooth man and was a man of tents. Esau was a hairy man and a man of the field. When they were grown, Jacob beguiled his brother. For a mess of pottage, Esau sold his birthright to Jacob. For the lust of the flesh, he sold him the spiritual things of his life. This had happened many years before what we read in Genesis, Chapter 32.

When it came time for Isaac, their father, to die, Jacob had convinced him that he was his brother Esau. He had come to him in wool garments and in such a way that he would be fooled, because Isaac’s eyes were so dim that he could not see. Jacob figured that since Esau had sold his birthright to him, he had a right to get his blessing along with it! Because of his trickery, Esau threatened to kill Jacob. Their mother told Jacob to flee to the land of Laban, her brother.

Many years later Jacob was coming back home, and he had to pass by Esau’s territory, his herdsmen, and men servants. Jacob was terrified, because he knew that he would have to face some things. That is the way it is when you leave home or your promised land. You have to come back and face some things! Some people won’t pray back through, because they know what they have to face. However, whatever it is that you have to face is nothing in comparison to what you are going to face if you don’t get things right!

Jacob was about to enter Esau’s country. He sent messengers and presents ahead of him, doing what he could to appease his anger. He didn’t know if over the length of time whether Esau’s anger had abated or gotten worse. He didn’t know if he held a grudge or if he just forgot all about it. Some people keep a grudge going until it destroys them.

Jacob’s messengers he had sent to Esau came back and told him that Esau was going to usher him through the land all right, but that he was bringing several hundred men with him to help him along! I didn’t have any problem understanding that he wasn’t coming to give him an escort; he was coming to destroy him!

Jacob sent forth great presents to try to appease his anger yet further. He was doing everything he knew to do. He sent messengers to intercede and to show his sincerity. He sent food and animals that were worth a lot of money to anybody in that day. He sent everything that he could in front of him. Then he strategically sent his family over in different ranks so that if Esau attacked one, the others could escape. However, at last Jacob was left alone.

Sooner or later, you will be left to face God alone. You will have to deal with all the things you have piled up. We come to the Lord, and we get His rest and peace. We weep, and vow to do better, and we decide to go on in the Lord. We have to reckon with that thing that does so easily beset us.

Everybody has to eventually face the “thing” that holds them to the world. It easily besets you and turns your mind away from the things of God, and the devil is going to be standing right there to give reenforcements to that “thing”.

That “thing” may be a diversion, a personal habit, or perhaps something else. It is just like Esau holding on to his vengeance. He had him an army now, composed of his grown children and men servants that he had acquired. He had gotten a certain amount of blessing from his father, Isaac, as he departed, but he didn’t get anything like what Jacob had, and he knew it. He was angry and was holding on to his wrath.

So, we find these twins coming head to head, and this night they were going to have to deal with their problem. Esau was holding on to his anger, and he was going to get vengeance at last. Jacob was holding on to his dependence on his own strength, intellect, and ability to finagle. Jacob was a finagler. Finagle means to work out devices, plans, and schemes, and to side step things.

Everybody has a certain ability to finagle. We try to side step things when the Spirit of the Lord begins to deal with us. We side step and try to justify ourselves. Hebrews 12:1 says, “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,”

You are going to have to lay aside the weight before you can run this race! You have to lay down every load and every burden. You have to lay aside the things of the world that so easily beset you, side step you, and occupy your mind. These are the things that turn you from God.

The Bible says Jacob had to wrestle with a man. You have to wrestle with the thing that you are holding on to! Jacob wrestled the thing that he was holding on to, and finally the man began to cry out! He realized he couldn’t prevail against him and cried out for Jacob to let him go because the day was breaking. Jacob refused to let him go until he blessed him!

God caused him to wrestle with that man that night! There is going to come a day or a night when God is going to deal with you, and that is your time to wrestle it out! That is your time to get the victory.

Jacob didn’t wrestle just for preeminence over Esau. Jacob wasn’t wrestling just for a pass for his family to go through the country. He was wrestling for his soul. He didn’t really have an option. He had to get a hold of God in some way. It was the only way that he was going to get victory, so he wrestled all night long.

Some people wrestle 15 minutes and give up. Others will wrestle an hour and give up. Some people wrestle all night and give up before victory! The breaking of the day came, and then something terrible happened. Genesis 32:25 says, “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.”

Have you ever cracked your knee up against something and knocked the knee cap sideways? That is painful. Multiply that by ten and you may know what he felt. Understand that the devil doesn’t fight fair! He is interested in getting the victory over you, and he doesn’t care how he gets it. He doesn’t care who you are, and he will run over you if he possibly can! Jacob continued to wrestle with the strength of a wounded man, knowing that if he ever let go he was a dead man.

Some have not yet reached this point of wrestling in their soul. Some are still pacifying, sending gifts before them. A lot of people are compromising, doing what they can to keep persecution at arm’s length. Some have never had their lives at risk. I wonder how many of us would say like Job in Job 13:15, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. . . .”

If the enemy told you it was either your family or Christ, what would you do? If you had to choose between everything that you ever dreamed about and Jesus, what would you choose? What you do in that moment determines whether or not you defeat the enemy the next moment!

I love this glorious gospel. The Lord told me that I have victory, that I am free, and that I am saved. He says He will sanctify me daily as I listen to Him, and as I walk in His Spirit. I am filled with the Holy Ghost, and the power of God that is over all the power of the world, the flesh, and the devil. He tells me in His Word and in my soul that His Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I am a child of God.

By the Spirit of God it is a fact that I can defeat the enemy. Therefore, when I can beat him it is ridiculous for me to compromise or to try to get along with him. It is time that we kick the devil in the mouth. It is time that we get the victory over him!

Jacob was in a special place. The only way to defeat the enemy was to lose his carnality and everything he had ever depended on. As far as he knew, everything that he sent before him to appease his brother’s anger wasn’t working. He had run after deceiving his brother, and had tried to put some time between them. There is an old saying that, “Time heals all wounds”. However, I want you to know that sometimes time just festers a grudge, and people just wait for the opportunity to get you back.

Jacob wrestled a man until the breaking of the day. He was wrestling with himself as much as anything else. There is a war going on, and souls of men are at stake. Eternity is at stake, and yet most people couldn’t care less. It is because they are not wrestling themselves. If you have never striven for holiness you will not understand. If you have not warred to keep from sinning, you will not understand. If you have never rebuked the devil and got victory over him when he was tempting you with something you really like, then you don’t understand. However, if you have fought the battle and won, you understand what I am talking about.

Sometimes the battles rage and seem to intensify, going to your heart more than ever before, but I have noticed something. As you overcome, there are fewer of them. Perhaps there are one or two things that are deeply ingrained in your soul, your reputation, and in your roots and life, that you are wrestling. You just haven’t been able to break free, because you think it is so much a part of you. Jacob wrestled, and fought, and WON.

There is an old saying, “If it feels good, do it”. In other words, don’t even think about it. If you think about it you might have a little morality about yourself and hold back. You might feel guilty. There is a difference between feeling guilty and being guilty. When you are guilty, you might not feel guilty, and you might not even be aware that you are guilty. However, when Jesus deals with you, you begin to realize when something is sin! Then you realize how short of the glory of God you have fallen!

As you press on with God you wrestle out these things. I have told the Lord on several occasions, “I wish I didn’t even know anything about it.” Jacob probably wished he hadn’t even sent messengers, so he wouldn’t have known that Esau and 400 men were coming to meet him! He probably wished he didn’t know about it, and that way when he hit him it would be over within a few minutes! Can you understand this mentality? However, we know that what you don’t know CAN destroy you.

I have said many times that fasting brings out your personality about crucifixion. It brings out the true you. Getting down in prayer, and not getting up until you pray through, brings out your true personality. Sometimes you wrestle with that which, in the beginning, looks like sin, and before you get done wrestling it looks like nothing! Then you will almost have any excuse for it, because you are tired of the wall, and you are tired of the wrestling.

That is what happens when you go to wrestling. I’m talking about being sanctified. I’m talking about getting rid of that ‘speck’ in your eye that you don’t realize is there. When God’s light shines on it, suddenly it becomes a beam! You can’t get the mote out of your brother’s eye until you get the beam out of your own eye.

We have an orange tom cat that my daughter saved from the dogs. It had an eye disease that, even though she doctored it, left crystal over his eyes. You can see that behind the cloud the eye is perfect, but that which is on the lens is all clouded. His right eye is totally clouded, and the left eye is half way cloudy, with the top part clear. That is all that he sees with. I think about what he has to work with.

Every so often this cat will look up at me with those eyes, and it reminds me what sin has done to the world! Even the animals have to suffer for our wretchedness. He sees with half an eye, and I’m thinking that I know people like that! He will run through the house, and because he knows his territory, he goes more by memory than anything. Sometimes if you play with him he will swat at you, but he will miss you, because he can’t quite get his depth right. It’s a constant adjustment, because his eyes are covered. We have that, don’t we?

Something was over Jacob’s eyes and heart. There was something that wasn’t squared away yet. God looks at us and clearly sees that something has to come out in order for us to see right. It is going to take some wrestling and some warfare. Some people don’t want to live for God because of that, and they are afraid that it is going to cost them something. You have to fight the devil all the way to the end to get the victory, but also you are going to have great, glorious times.

God gives us the ability to earn money. However, I noticed that people who just have money handed to them don’t cherish it, and the more that it is handed to them, the less they cherish it. They become wasteful. Whenever you struggle and war for something it is more precious to you.

Jacob was wresting for his life and his family’s lives. He was wrestling for reconciliation with his brother. By the time that he got done he was crippled. He felt like he was defeated, yet he believed God, and he got what he asked for when he got rid of everything that he had. You can’t keep both. You can’t have everything that you want, and what God has got. You have to lay your stuff down, because if your hands are full you can’t pick up anything else.

I see people whose hearts are burdened, yet they don’t open up to the Lord, so there must be something else in their hands and heart. Decide that what God has given you, no devil, no flesh, and nothing else in this world is going to take it from you! It becomes precious to you. At that point you and the Lord are going to wrestle it out, and you are going to make your decision to go on for Jesus. That is why we come to a stand still, and things don’t go any further. You have to decide to set your face like flint, and believe the Living God!

You can’t wait till you see a little more, and say that then you will go further. Don’t wait for revival to come to get in. You have to wrestle it out until it comes! It could be that God is waiting on you. You may have to wrestle all night long, but joy cometh in the morning!

Esau did not come just to greet Jacob with 400 men! That was not his original intent! He came to destroy him! When God got done with the situation, after Jacob had wrestled all night long, the Bible says in Genesis 33:4, “And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept.” They cried like babies, and then they started arguing over who wanted to bless who the most! This was in the beginning a life or death situation. It could have been where two enemies met and said, I’m going to kill you first!

Now, think about this. Esau didn’t do any wrestling. It was just Jacob, but God still brought the two brothers together. Maybe you will have to wrestle, and maybe the one who you are at odds with won’t care! They will sleep while you wrestle all night long, or they will be getting ready to destroy you while you are seeking God! Perhaps they won’t care a thing about God while you fast, and pray, and believe God. You are wrestling for not only your soul, but theirs!

Jacob and Esau were twin brothers at odds, and somebody was going to die! However, when God got done, because one individual wrestled and got the victory in his own soul, there was peace, and the brothers hugged each other. Isn’t that a beautiful thing?

Can you imagine your enemies hugging your neck and saying, Will you forgive me? I’m sorry. I never realized what God had for me. I never realized what sin really was. Then you end up saying, I never realized I had some aught. It is like getting a breath of fresh air. Relief doesn’t even come close to it. It is glorious! Now the two clans had come together and were at peace instead of at war!

Think what will happen when our brethren (Christ’s bride, His church) all over the world, became as one instead of at war. The only way that it will happen is if we wrestle it out, and then God will make the unity.

Some of you are still wrestling old things, and you are so sick of them. Every time you go to pray and believe God that thing is standing there. Now is the time to believe God and wrestle on through to victory. I pray that every soul who hears this message will comprehend it and turn from wickedness to righteousness, from self-centeredness to godliness, and from worldliness to sanctification, in the name of Jesus.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

LIVING HOPE FELLOWSHIP, P. O. BOX 111, GRAND CHAIN, IL 62941

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail

livinghopefellowship@lazernetwireless.net

These condensed Bible studies have been published to help new Christians in their new walk with the Lord. Kevin Badgley, the author, is the pastor of Living Hope Fellowship Church.

This is a Living Hope Fellowship publication.