On Holding On.

A POOR old foreign missionary is this Jacob, so weary of it all. He has sent on ahead both wife and baggage, children and household. Over the Jabbok brook have they all passed, and Jacob now remains alone for the battle and for God. That Jacob versus Esau affair of the morrow is a figment—a dream, of course. It always is. The true combat is Jacob versus God. Yes, Jacob, poor old foreign missionary that he is, is now left alone; and there wrestled with him a Man until the breaking of the day. A long night indeed for the old missionary; yet a longer day is soon to dawn. Jacob's millennium this, really: the thousand years—what are they in God's sight? As a watch in the night. Millennia are twofold—of glory and of sorrow. The millennium of glory eventuates ever in a Gog and Magog Armageddon; the millennium of sorrow, on the blessed contrary, has fruition in everlasting joy. Such is the millennium which in God's sight is as a watch in the night. Here Jacob is on the watch all night—the night that is worth a thousand years!
So long, too, this wrestling; and God prevaileth not. Will the creature defeat his God? Surely the hairs on Jacob's head will come out of all this as white as snow; surely the brow of this old foreign missionary will be a much wrinkled one! Yet still the wrestling; still the Divine duel, and so wearying, too, that God must break the man who will not bend. Man attacks man at the weakest point, but God strikes him at his strongest. The wrestling thigh must wrestle no longer; the strongest point must now become the weakest. Jacob is God's, yes, but God's apostate—apostate in this particular, that is to say, that he uses his strength against and not for God. God then, perforce attacks in power the seat of all this vaunted strength, attacks it unto victory. The wrestler is now sore broken. The signal fact, indeed, is that, of course, as a wrestler he is done for ever. As a man, God has spoiled Jacob for life. No, he cannot wrestle now, this old foreign pioneer, yet his days of real power are at last beginning. Broken though he be, he can at least do life's one supreme and kingly thing—he can hold on! Holding on to God is not holding out against Him. He rests who holds on; he battles who holds out.
But God is thinking of the breaking of the day, thinking that the night is far spent and the day is at hand! "Nay," saith Jehovah, "let me go, weary one, for the day breaketh; give it up, weary pioneer, for the day breaketh, and at least a little sleep is human, for sleep is for the night.'' But Jacob, the old missionary, is he not, too, thinking of the dawning of the morn, thinking with joy that with the first blush of dawn, he is going to see the face of God? Yes, see it and feel fresh as the dawn himself! "Let Me go—give it up!'' saith Jehovah. "I will not let Thee go," comes the weary cry in answer, "except Thou bless me!"
Look at him, the old veteran in rebellion. He has taken no furlough in his farming business these twenty years; has worked night and day, until success has crowned his labours. But it was only farming—that; rebel farming, too. And now, the grand old man is as zealous toward God as he was for himself. He will not take a snatch of sleep the long night, will not let God go, will not give the battle up until he is victor! "Thou hast broken me," cries Jacob. ''Thou shalt bless me!"
But why not just a little rest? Why not a furlough, dear veteran missionary, for it is near daybreak? God Himself wants to know about this. "Who art thou—what is thy name?" is God's question to the holder-on? Who indeed is this man so to talk with God? "Ah, I who indeed, my Lord," saith the poor broken-of-thigh missionary. "Weary of battle, weary of self; I am Jacob, a worm and no man at all now, for Thou hast broken me." Yes, Jacob the prosperous farmer and cripple saint; Jacob first in commerce and last in grace. Lo! such is his name.
This Jacob himself, however, at last brings about the glorious conclusion of the long night duel, God the Victor asking the worm Jacob to share in the fruits of victory. God crowns him victor. Saith God to this cripple saint, "Thou then shall never again be called Jacob, for thou, even thou, art a prince of a man (a prince of missionaries), for thou hast power with God and man and didst hold on." Yea, a prince of pioneers this, for though broken of thigh, though left all alone by the Jabbok brook, he has prevailed by holding on!
This Jacob; look at him. He stuck to Laban, did he not?—hard, austere man though he was, he stood by him for twenty years. Why should he not then stick to God? Why not hold on the long weary night? He prospered temporally by holding on, and with God there is no other way. Had not God held on to Jacob?
Let, then, the beggars of this life pass by on horseback. Be ye, my veteran brethren, God's princes, content to hold on your pilgrim way on foot, hard, weary way though it be. See to it, too, that in all your prevailing, you first prevail with God, and then the prevailing with man will follow as surely as did Jacob’s happy meeting with Esau succeed Jacob's happier time with God. Lo! this is princeship: to first prevail with God, then with man.
How much bastard princeship there is of the opposite kind! How often the crowds of men are first conciliated, first won, and God, no partner in the concern. But this, surely, had been Jacob's sin all his days. Jacob could prevail with men, could give them an easy start and win—the Jacob, alas! Who had turned his back on God.
A type, all this, of course, not of one night in Jacob's life merely, but of all his nights and days since Bethel. For twenty long years, it had been all night, Godward. A successful man, this hard Jacob, as man counts success. A hard life had hardened him; in the day the drought had consumed him, and the frost by night, and his sleep departed from his eyes. So, too, at Penuel. There is no sleep for Jacob until God has made an Israel out of him; no strength for the man but in brokenness; no conciliation with Esau unless first conciliation with God.
And now at eventide, it shall be light. As he passed over Penuel, the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh. Here at last is furlough for the old missionary. The sunrise; the crossing of the river; the halting on the thigh. He has been crowned—crowned of God and Israel; he who has been broken—broken unto the halting on his thigh.
Penuel man named the place, but Jacob knew it was Peniel. One letter makes all the difference to God's prince. It often is that in life, the old place becomes a new place, even as the old name Jacob becomes the new Israel. The new man makes the new place. Our circumstances are what we are, and as cold and cheerless the man, so cold and cheerless the work. What then is this "U" in life that wants changing into "I"? What the dark rebellion that is making a PenUel, where all might be a glad, sunbathed Peniel? Jacob at least gives us the key to his sunrise, if not his darkness, "And he called the name of the place Peniel, for he said, I have seen God face to face." So long avoided, so long dreaded, at last he deals with the God so often forgotten. Face to face all night with God, the Jacob who had lived his life with his back to Him!
DANIEL CRAWFORD (Garenganze Mission).
"All Nations" 1903-4 v4