Wrestling in Prayer by Wm. W. Patton, D. D.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 12, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 23.

Wrestling in Prayer.

By Wm. W. Patton, D. D.

JACOB had deceived his aged and blind father, Isaac, and obtained the blessing which was intended for his elder brother, Esau, having also, on a previous occasion, taken advantage of the reckless Esau's hunger, to sell him some pottage at the price of his birthright. He fled from the country, for his life, hearing of Esau's deadly threats. After an absence of many years, during which he had grown rich in flocks and herds, he ventured to return, and, on coming to the confines of the land, heard that Esau was advancing to meet him, at the head of four hundred warriors. Consciousness of guilt, and a remembrance of his injured brother's wrath filled him with fear, lest this should be the hour of bloody revenge. Resistance would be unavailing, and his imagination pictured a scene of plunder and slaughter, in which he, his two wives, his children, and his servants would be the victims. In this terrible emergency the night fell about him. Esau would be there in the morning; his only hope was in God; his only salvation must be prayer! And upon the true principle that prayer is not a substitute for appropriate human efforts, but a means of rendering it successful, he took measures to propitiate Esau, and then, sending his family over the river Jabbok, remained alone in the darkness, to plead with God.

We can understand the earnestness, and even agony, of the prayer, when everything was at stake, as also the arguments he would use. Indeed a prayer of the previous day furnishes an outline of the petition. See Gen. 32:9-12. We thus learn that he fell back upon two arguments—that God was pledged to him by the general covenant made with Abraham and Isaac, and by the special promises given to himself, in the famous vision at Bethel, at the time of his flight to Mesopotamia, and on the occasion of his setting out to return. This was firm ground, upon which a rational faith could plant itself. He also confessed his own unworthiness, and with gratitude acknowledged what had already been done for him. As he was thus praying and humbling himself, in the midnight darkness, he was conscious of a presence with him, as of a human form, which he recognized as a divine manifestation; and he laid hold of the person, to insist upon a blessing. The seeming man struggled to depart, and wrestled with Jacob, to break away. But the patriarch clung to him desperately, even till the day began to dawn, and after his thigh had been dislocated, saying, "I will not let thee go except thou bless me!"

He was rewarded with victory! God graciously allowed himself to be overcome by the importunate petitioner; while, as an encouragement to others to imitate his example, he changed the patriarch's name from one which commemorated his sin, to one which immortalized his victory. "And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob [supplanter]. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob [supplanter], but Israel [prince of God]; for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed." And so the name Israel, which passed first to the chosen nation, and then to the whole Christian church, is a perpetual reminder of the power of importunate prayer. Scarcely had the assurance of safety been given, than Esau was seen in the distance, at the head of his armed men, mounted on camels, probably, and sweeping down like a modern band of the Bedouin. But lo! when they reached the helpless group of Jacob, instead of drawing their swords and beginning the slaughter, they quietly stopped, while Esau ran to meet his brother, "and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and they wept!" And so, in answer to prayer, fratricidal hatred was turned into fraternal love! It is not surprising that, in every succeeding age of the church, this scene at Penial (or God's face) has given tone to the prayers of believers, and has introduced into religious phraseology the words "wrestling in prayer."—Wm. W. Patton, D. D.