Tonight….We Wrestle! - By Minister Russell M. Rillie
Genesis 32:24-32
As a boy, I would love to get up on Saturday mornings, turn to channel 9 about 10 am & watch wrestling. Before the WWF ended up on cable, before there was a Wrestle mania, before they changed their name to WWE….there was simply Channel 9, 10 am on Saturday mornings.
They had men, women, midgets, etc. all running around the ring in some form of debauchery & violence. They would jump off the top rope. They would throw each other OVER the rope…into the audience. They would conveniently find tables & ladders from under the wrestling mat. They would conveniently find garbage cans to hit each other over the head with. The referee would always get knocked out & not be paying attention at the most UN-OPPORTUNE time….but ahhh…..THAT was wrestling as I know it.
I have two boys & a girl and they all LOVE wrestling as THEY know it today. My son and I often get into casual discussions about the wrestlers of today & who is, or was better. My list of favorites kind of goes like this…..Hulk Hogan, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Jessie The Body Ventura, Andre The Giant, Paul Orndorff, Greg The Hammer Valentine, Ricky The Dragon Steamboat, The Iron Sheik & my personal favorite, from the Isle of Samoa, standing 6ft tall and weighing 257 lbs, Jimmy…Super Fly…Snuka. You could throw in the Undertaker, Ultimate Warrior & Macho Man Randy Savage, but it stops there. His list…..Bret the Hit Man Hart, Shawn Michaels, Stone Cold Austin, Triple H, The Rock, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Kurt Angle, Rey Misterio, Edge, Randy Orton & John Cena.
Wrestling for men….is in our genes, it’s in our DNA, it’s in our make-up. That’s what men do! Every boy has wrestled or play fought with their father. Every father has wrestled or play fought with their sons. On a good night…we wrestle with our wives…and on a bad night…we wrestle with our wives. In your teens and twenties, it’s common to see men wrestling if they are in school, competing or in the military, but after 25…30, ah men, tell it, we don’t have time to be scrapping, fighting, wrestling, we’re not really trying to have another man touch us & have their hands all over us. We’re not willing to find ourselves with another man ON TOP OF US in ANY way, much less having to humble ourselves & cry out, or tap-out in submission to another man. That would mean DEFEAT, which would mean losing, which would mean swallowing pride, which would mean admitting that someone or some thing got the better of us! Often times that’s basically it…we are just not WILLING to SUBMIT! They’re going to talk about us! They are going to ridicule us! They are going to think I am weak! They are going to question my manhood! They are going to TELL EVERYBODY! My wife will think I’m a punk! She will have thought that I can’t hang anymore! I’m getting old. I don’t have it anymore! I am now the old dude in the club. Little kids aren’t calling me by my street name anymore…they’re saying Hey Mister! or worst yet…POPS!
Our text, our text our text….revolves around a man named Jacob. His story, like most of us men in here, if we tell it…is a LONG story. It starts with his birth in Genesis 25 & runs all the way through Genesis 50 where he is buried in the same cave with his parents, grandparents & one of his wives (Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca & Leah).
That’s 25 chapters containing the life, times & experiences of ONE man! The Bible says he was the son of Isaac and Rebecca, the grandson of Abraham and Sarah and of Bethuel, and the twin brother of Esau. He had twelve sons and one daughter by his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and their maidservants, Bilhah and Zilpah. The children were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, daughter Dinah, Joseph, and Benjamin. As a result of a severe famine in Canaan, Jacob resettled his whole family in Egypt, in the Land of Goshen, at the time when his son Joseph was viceroy. Jacob died there 17 years later, and Joseph carried Jacob’s remains to the land of Canaan, where he gave them stately burial.
Jacob & his twin are born to their parents, Isaac & Rebecca 20 years after their marriage. You would think after 20 years, they would have given up hope, but I presume by now they knew the story of his parents, Abraham & Sarah & didn’t want to go down the same Hagar road. Yeah, Abe had the 1st Baby Momma Drama in the Bible & Ike said I got a half brother & we am not even that tight, bump this….I’ll just wait on the Lord! So after 20 years, they get a double portion. Not one son…but 2 sons, but there was nothing ORDINARY about her pregnancy, or how they came out. They were twins, but one came out HAIRY & red all over. They were twins, but the second one came out grasping the heel of his older brother with his hand! Grasping the heel with his hand? Hmmmm.
The older one was named Esau, meaning rough or sensibly felt (handled if you may). The younger one….the baby boy, mama’s boy was named Jacob, meaning heel-catcher, supplanter, or trickster in some circles. A supplanter is a usurper, one who wrongfully or illegally seizes and holds the place of another. LORD HELP ME TO PREACH THIS WORD! Whose job did you wrongfully take? Whose money did you illegally seize? Whose place are you holding or occupying that belongs to somebody else? Whose house did you take? Whose wife did you wrongfully take? How many children do you REALLY have but you have wrongfully taken away their right to even know you. How many children’s lives did you wrongfully destroy because you decided to just pack up & go? How many children should you have had if you didn’t send that woman to the clinic for that A-B?
So we find Jacob, at this point in his life, after deceiving his brother by selling a bowl of bean stew to Esau for his birthright…HAVE WE EVER CHEATED OUR BROTHERS OUT OF WHAT WAS RIGHTFULLY THEIRS? After his momma helped manipulate a situation at his father’s death to ENSURE that HER boy, would receive the blessing, more deception…I mean he flat out lied when Isaac said the voice is of Jacob, but the hands are of Esau, are you really who you say you are…and he answered I AM! Have we ever had our mothers manipulate us for her gain & our own….Have we ever deceived our fathers or anybody & pretended to be somebody that we really wasn’t…just to receive something in return? The bible says that Isaac blessed him with the dew of the heavens, the fatness of the earth, and rulership over many nations as well as his own brother. So now Jacob has stolen not just his birthright….but his blessing as well. Jacob has stolen the right to have his father lay hands on his brother as the final act of a father to the oldest son before he dies. Have you ever longed for the touch of your father? For dad to pick you up? How many of us go wandering our whole lives looking for some other man to confirm us & tell us who we are & to tell who what to do & who to get there. How many of us lead secret down-low, bi-sexual, or homosexual life styles, JUST BECAUSE, Daddy’s gone & you need another man to tell you & show you how to be a man! So we grow up watching mom & our sisters. We wonder why some of us got more sugar than Dominoes. We grow up watching how we see men act on TV…but its TV…not REALITY. We grow up watching bad models of how men are supposed to be. The dope dealer, the crack dealer, the pimp, the hustler, rapper, the gang bangers and we WONDER WHY….we can’t be GOOD husbands & GOOD fathers, and GOOD brothers, and GOOD sons to our wives, children, siblings & parents. BECAUSE DADDY DIDN’T HAVE ANYBODY TO SHOW HIM AND HIS DADDY DIDN’T HAVE ANYBODY TO SHOW HIM AND HIS DADDY HAD NOBODY TO SHOW HIM….BUT TONIGHT!!!.....TONIGHT!!!! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! TONIGHT! WE WRESTLE!!!!
I wish I had time to tell you about Jacob’s ladder, I wish I had time to tell you about his marriages. I wish had time to tell you about the women in his life. I wish I had time to tell you about how he reaped what he sewed when his father-in-law switched the tables on him. I wish I had time to tell you that even the GREATEST players, get PLAYED! But my brothers and my sisters….I don’t NEED to tell you ANYMORE about Jacob. You know why….because you ARE Jacob! We are ALL Jacob. We all have a LITTLE Jacob in us; some of us have a LOT of Jacob in us. Yeah we know God, yeah we pray to God, Yeah we talk with God, Yeah God talks to us, but there is STILL something deficient in our lives! Yeah we go through the motions but there is nothing AUTHENTIC about our relationship with our God. Some of us are still getting by on Mommy & Daddy’s blessings & Mommy & Daddy’s prayers. But what do you do, when you have received or taken somebody else’s blessing and it JUST AIN’T WORKING FOR YOU ANYMORE!
What DO YOU DO…..when you’re on the run! You’re running for your life. As you’re running, you go from one situation to the next situation to the next situation to the next situation. Before you know it, you done involved this one’s family in your mess because you slept with THIS one; you done involved this one’s family because you hang with her brother. You done involved this one because you got THAT one pregnant. You done involved this one because you did not know the chick was MARRIED. You done involved your OWN wife because the chick’s husband was sleeping around and came home and gave his wife something dirty who gave it to you and now you sitting in a clinic on the remote side of town where you hope & pray nobody knows you having to stick a Q-tip up your penis, spreading your butt cheeks for some man to check up your rectum & giving a blood & saliva sample waiting 18 minutes for the result of an HIV test & in those 18 minutes you’re calling on the name of everybody in the bible! God if you just get me through THIS…I promise you!
So in this part of the story, Jacob has tricked Laban & fleeced him of all his stuff Jacob, his 2 baby mommas, all the kids & the maidservants…all there stuff are up out of there! Anybody ever been there before? Leave at night before dawn comes. God tells Jacob….GO HOME! That’s a message for somebody in here. You been on the run, you’ve stolen some things, you’ve done people dirty, but the Lord God simply says GO HOME! Where ever home is….GO to your kindred & thy people! The Lord will be with thee! It will be WELL when you get there! We all have an ESAU, but God has told me to tell you to simply GO HOME!
So Jacob, he still doesn’t trust God….all the way. Just like some of us. OK, I’m going to go home, but I got to butter them up first. So he sends over the brook of JABBOK in mini successions….all the goats and she asses & all the stuff. So that when Esau so this, they would tell him that your brother sends theses as gifts, he’s coming right behind us. Sometimes, people see our STUFF when they really want to see US. Sometimes, we buy our kids gifts, when they really want to just spend time with us. Sometimes we buy our wives stuff, when all they want us to do is just LISTEN…..to hold them and tell them that everything is going to be ok…just HOLD them…not sex, just HOLD them, reassurance. The same things that we want from our wives, they want from us! Adam looked at his wife & saw himself….this is bone of my bone…flesh of my flesh. I want her to give me attention…she wants it too. I want her to love me with all my mess & all my faults…she wants it too! She NEVER tells me that I still got it, she wants it too! She never initiates love making. She wants YOU to! She never recognizes what it is I do for her and the children…they want YOU to recognize what THEY DO! We’re supposed to love our wives as we love ourselves as Christ loves the church! OK….Christ loves the church; we got more churches then a little bit right now. The Gospel is being preached all over the world, so I understand that side of the equation. Christ loving the church is not the problem! Guess what, loving our wives REALLY is not the problem either. It’s HOW we love you ...that is YOUR problem ladies. But to us, the men, the REAL gut wrenching issue is WE DON’T LOVE OURSELVES! We hate the way we look! We hate what we CAN’T do, we hate what we’ve become, we hate what we HAVEN’T DONE, and we hate what we haven’t done yet!!!! When we can get to the point that we are really comfortable in our own skin & not trying to compete with every other man at the job, in the board room, in the bathroom & in the bedroom…THEN and ONLY then will you be able to get the love that you really desire most, because if we don’t love ourselves how in the world can we love you right!
So Jacob sends everything & everybody over the brook of JABBOK, which means to stir up or kick up dust. Sheep, gone, she-asses, gone, herd, gone, all the baby mommas, Rachel, Leah, Bilhah (Rachel’s servant), Zilpah (Leah’s servant) GONE, all he nappy headed children….Reuben Simeon Levi Judah Dan Naphtali Gad Asher Issachar Zebulun Dinah Joseph ….ALL GONE!. If you checking me Benjamin wasn’t born yet. Everybody’s gone & Jacob is left ALONE. Anybody ever been there? When the music stops, when the lights are out, when you are sitting alone in the dark….just YOU and your DEMONS and YOU and your VICES and YOU and YOUR GOD!
For the bible says….Jacob was left alone. No more masks, no more disguises. He had prayed for God to answer him and just like God, the answer came in a way that he least expected. My brothers and sisters, you have been praying for something for a long, long time and you have already mapped out in your little head how God was going to come & bring it to pass. Wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll guess what. The answer is right here! The answer is right now! The answer is EVER before you! The answer is coming right out of my mouth. This Word on tonight, if it hasn’t already, it’s about to sneak up on you & wrestle you. The Word is like a 2-edged sword, it cuts you going in…and it cuts you going out. When you are a minister of the gospel, the Word has to cut me 1st, before it cuts you. Sometimes, God will send us a Word of encouragement. Sometimes, God will send us a Word of Hope. Sometimes, God will send us a word of conviction.
There are some things in our lives that we’ve been wrestling with. There have been some things that we just couldn’t let go of. There’s been some strongholds that still got us beat. There are some soul ties that we just can’t break. There are some habits that we just can’t kick…..BUT I DECLARE. On tonight, God’s going to wrestle with us and we are going to wrestle that thing!
Sometimes God will wrestle us down to the ground because we’re too stubborn. We done prayed the prayer 50-eleven times and asked for the answer, but God has sent the answer back 50-eleven times and we still won’t receive it, we still don’t want to hear it because it is not the way we want it done. So sometimes, God has to leave his place up in glory to come and lay the SMACK DOWN on us! Sometimes he has to lay the DDT on us! Sometimes he has to put us in the Cobra-Clutch. Sometimes we’re so prideful that He can’t even use us. So we lose our church! We lose our ministry. We lose our Position. We lose our jobs. We lose our parents. We lose our wives. We lose our children. All our possessions are some where out there in our own LOST & FOUND! Most of us, would have said, OK GOD…YOU win! I GIVE! I’ll tap out. I CRY UNCLE, or I CRY ABBA! BUT NOT JACOB!
I done told you all that we all got a LITTLE Jacob in us. The angel of the Lord saw that Jacob was not about to give up. At first he might have been play fighting with him, but after while by & by…you know PLAY FIGHTS become REAL FIGHTS. Somewhere along the way, this became a REAL fight. JACOB didn’t know….who he was wrestling. Jacob didn’t know if it was Esau’s peeps. Jacob didn’t know if it was Esau himself. Jacob didn’t know if it was Laban’s sons. JJacob didn’t know, if it was Laban himself. It’s a sad state of affairs when you done tricked everyone out so much that you don’t even know who coming for you & when they coming for you…you just know simply that EVERYTHING you sewed…you going to reap it one day!
Jacob is fighting for his life. Can’t you see him in and God…fighting on the undercard at Wrestle mania. All the dust & dirt flying around by the river. God sees that he cannot prevail against Jake the Snake. They went at it for hours upon hours, almost to the break of day. I stopped by to tell somebody that the breaking of day is soon coming. You won’t have to wrestle with the thing anymore after tonight. The dawning of a new day is upon you. You will soon be free! God saw that this was no ordinary man. This by definition was a trickster, a supplanter. God couldn’t ALLOW Jake to supplant HIM. So God must have been from Brooklyn, cause you know the saying….AIN’T NO FAIR ONES…in BROOKLYN! God pulls his thigh muscle out of its joint….by simply TOUCHING his thigh. How many know all you need is ONE touch! One touch from God can heal you! One touch from God can make you REALIZE that you can’t beat HIM! Again, you would have figured that the match would be over. Jake is limping now. His leg is in excruciating pain. Jake the snake can’t continue…the match is about to be over...but NO! Jake finds some strength from somewhere to although be apparently beaten, does what we all do when we can’t fight anymore. I know you’re in pain, but you’ve got to HOLD ON! HOLD ON! HOLD ON! God is getting in his head now….LET ME GO! You didn’t want me before, don’t hold on to me! When I tried to talk to you…you didn’t want me! When everybody should have killed you, it was ME it was GOD that saved you & delivered you. You’re wounded now…now you’re trying to hold on to me. You’re in pain now….NOW you want me. You think your about to die because the dawning of your date with fate is at hand, NOW you want to seek my face….JAKE…LET ME GO! RUSSELL, LET ME GO! DARNEL, LET ME GO! TERESA LET ME GO! LEON! LET ME GO!
BUT I HEARD, I SAID I HEARD JACOB SAY, I’M NOT GONNA LET YOU GO! I NEED YOU! I’M NOT GONNA LET YOU GO! EVERYTHING I HAVE IS GONE! I’M NOT GONNA LET YOU GO, I’M ALL ALONE. YOU’RE ALL I HAVE! I’M NOT GONNA LET YOU GO UNTIL YOU BLESS ME! YOU ALREADY WOUNDED ME! I’M AS GOOD AS DEAD NOW. YOU HAVE TO BLESS ME. I’M NOT GONNA LET YOU GO…UNTIL YOU BLESS ME!
GOD ASKED HIM…WHAT IS YOUR NAME! AIN’T THAT SOMETHING TO ASK HIM. HE’S IN THE FIGHT OF HIS LIFE AND GOD IS ASKING HIM HIS NAME. NOT WHO IS MOMA WAS, WHO HIS DADDY WHAT, WHERE HE BEEN HOW MUCH MONEY HE HAD. WHAT IS YOUR NAME! THE SAME QUESTION I ASK YOU TONIGHT….WHAT IS YOUR NAME! HE SAID JACOB! HE GAVE GOD THE ANSWER THAT HE HAD BEEN HEARING HIS WHOLE LIFE. HE COULD ONLY TELL GOD WHAT PEOPLE CALLED HIM. HE COULD ONLY TELL HIM WHAT HE HAD RESIGNED HIMSELF TO BE. THY NAME SHALL BE CALLED NO MORE JACOB! THY NAME SHALL BE CALLED NO MORE HOOKER….GOD’S CHANGED YOUR NAME. YOU ARE NOW ISRAEL, BECAUSE YOU ARE A PRINCE! YOU HAVE FACED GOD AND PREVAILED. JACOB SAID TELL ME I PRAY THEE THY NAME! IF YOU GONNA CHANGE MY NAME, I NEED TO KNOW BY WHAT AUTHORITY & WHO YOU ARE! HOW YOU GONNA ASK ME MY NAME & YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHO YOU ARE? HOW IS IT THAT YOU DON’T KNOW MY NAME AND YOU PRAY TO ME ALL THE TIME. HOW IS IT THAT YOU DON’T GOD WHEN HE’S RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU! I AM THE GOD OF…..
SOME OF YOU ARE WRESTLING THINGS & DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT IT IS. YOU’VE NAMED IT, YOU’VE CALLED IT INTO EXISTENCE, BUT YET YOU DON’T KNOW WHO OR WHAT IT REALLY IS. YOU TRYING TO WRESTLE THE THING, BUT ITS A SPIRIT. FOR WE WRESTLE NOT AGAINST FLESH & BLOOD, BUT AGAINST PRINCIPALITIES, AGAINST POWERS, AGAINST RULERS OF THE DARKNESS OF THIS WORLD, AGAINST SPIRITUAL WICKNESS IN HIGH PLACES. BRING THAT SPIRIT UNTO SUBJECTION! BRING THAT SPIRIT UNDER SUBMISSION. GOD IS A SPIRIT & THEY THAT WORSHIP HIM, MUST WORSHIP HIM IN SPIRIT & IN TRUTH!
AND THE BIBLE SAYS…HE BLESSED HIM RIGHT THERE! I THINK YOU MISSED IT…I SAID HE BLESSED HIM RIGHT THERE! YOU STILL DON’T GET IT CHURCH THE BIBLE SAYS THAT GOD BLESSED JACOB RIGHT THERE. THE WHOLE TIME HE SPENT LIFE TRICKING EVERYBODY OUT OF THEIR BLESSINGS! HE TRICKED HIS BROTHER OUT OF HIS BIRTHRIGHT. ON HIS DADDY’S DEATH BED, HE TOOK HIS BROTHER’S BLESSSING FROM HIS FATHER. YES ISAAC BLESSED HIM! BUT MY GOD, AIN’T NO BLESSING BETTER THAN THE BLESSING THAT COMES STRAIGHT FROM GOD! WHEN GOD BLESSES YOU….OLD THINGS ARE PASSED AWAY, BEHOLD ALL THINGS BECOME NEW! WHEN GOD BLESSES YOU! YOU’RE NAME IS CHANGED! WHEN GOD BLESSES YOU! YOU CAN REMEMBER THE PLACE! HE CALLED IT PENIEL, FOR HE SAW GOD FACE TO FACE! YOU CAN REMEMBER THE TIME! WE CAN SAY THAT ON 7/24/09 AT ____ PM, AT THE MANHATTAN PRAYER TABERNACLE….WE WRESTLED THE LORD, & HE BLESSED US RIGHT HERE. OUR BLESSINGS ARE RIGHT HERE. WE DON’T HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL WE GET HOME. WE’RE BLESSED RIGHT NOW! (DEUT 28). WHEN GOD BLESSES YOU, YOU ARE MARKED FOR LIFE! WHEN GOD BLESSES YOU, YOU’LL CHANGE YOUR WALK! EVERYDAY FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE, EVERY TIME HE LIFTED ONE LEG IN FRONT OF THE OTHER, HE HAD A LIMP, HE HAD A LEAN, AND HE HAD A SWAGGER BECAUSE GOD HAD MARKED HIM AS A REMINDER OF THE DAY GOD TOUCHED HIM. MAYBE YOU HAVE A SCAR, MAYBE YOU HAVE A WOUND, AND MAYBE YOU HAVE A LIMP THAT IS TO REMIND YOU THAT YOUR NAME HAS BEEN CHANGED. GO GET YOUR INHERITANCE! WHEN GOD BLESSES YOU…YOU CAN GO BACK HOME! WHEN GOD BREAKS YOU. WHEN GOD MARKS YOU. WHEN GOD WOUNDS YOU. WHEN YOU HAVE A FACE TO FACE WITH GOD. WHEN YOU ACCEPT & FACE WHO YOU REALLY ARE. WHEN YOU ALLOW GOD TO TELL SHOW YOU WHO HE IS & WHO YOU REALLY ARE, WHEN YOU FINALLY BOW DOWN & SUBMIT YOURSELVES TO HIM, THEN GOD CAN USE YOU & THEN GOD CAN BLESS YOU! WHEN YOU KNOW THAT GOD HAS BLESSED YOU, YOU CAN SUBMIT YOURSELVES TO THE AUTHORITY OF ANOTHER MAN.
