“And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.”

(Genesis 32:24)

“We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

(Ephesians 6:12)

What is life like — yours and mine? I don’t mean the outside, seen part of life — the front we put up, or even the true portraits of our hearts that now and then flash briefly through the veil of flesh and the distractions of circumstance. What is that inner, real, yet invisible life of yours and mine like?

Is it a placid pool of consciousness — of knowing and feeling on the unrippled surface of our souls? Is it a well-ordered control room which receives impressions and messages from the outside and, with smooth mechanical motion, shifts the gears and steers the direction of life?

No, everyone knows that our inner life is not like that at all. We all know, not only from the testimony of the wisest of men, but also from our own experience, that our real inner life is more like a struggle, a warfare, an endless wrestling. “Man’s days upon earth,” says Job, “are as a warfare, a field of battle.” And St. Paul says of our lives: “We wrestle — we wrestle, not against flesh and blood, but we are always wrestling against the unseen powers of personality and the universe — the rulers of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in high places.” We read with intimate understanding those words of the Genesis story: “And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day,” for here is a mirror of our perennial experience. We are forever wrestling in the loneliness of our spirits. We are wrestlers all.

Suppose it were possible for every worshipper here this morning to have hung around his neck a spiritual photograph — an accurate pictorial account of just what has been going on in his mind and heart and soul for the greater part of the last 24 hours. What would we see? I venture to guess we would see one picture after another of wrestlers grappling in ceaseless struggle.

Here is a young person who is wrestling with the question: “What shall I do with my life? How can I best invest this priceless possession?” Here is an older man who has completed the term of his useful labors and is facing the problem of retirement without sufficient income to support him. Night and day he wrestles with the anxiety of insecurity. Here is a businessman wrestling with the many headed and multi-handed giant of too much, and to quick, financial success. His real life of the spirit is about to be crushed, and the integrity of his soul is about to be thrown — but he wrestles manfully on. Here is a brave woman wrestling with circumstance — with how to carry on for her children because she’s widowed indeed, or because her husband has given up the fight financially or spiritually and left it to her alone. Here is one wrestling with fear, fear of failure, fear of the future, fear of the past, fear of what people think, fear of what they say, fear of death. Here’s another who is wrestling an unending match with resentment toward another member of the family, or a friend, or an enemy. Another who has wrestled for years with an old habit from which he cannot free himself. And so on and on. We are wrestlers all. There’s not a one of us who has not a struggle of some sort on his hands.

What help and comfort is there for us who find ourselves caught in this combat and struggle? Well, first there is this, and to you who are terribly tired with your long grappling, it may seem poor comfort indeed — just this, you’re not by yourself — this inner struggle of the spirit is the common lot of man — for the worst of us and the best of us. The saints are not exempt any more than the scoundrels.

Surely you were impressed with this when you listened to our two scripture lessons for today. Perhaps you wondered, as did I: “What are we to make of this: Jacob the trickster, the cheat, wrestling with God, and Jesus, the perfect man, God’s own son, wrestling with the Devil?”

But both stories are true, not only for Jacob and Jesus, but for us as well. In each one of us there is that bit of the divine, that light which lighteth every man coming into the world, which impels us onward and upward to perfection, even as God is perfect. With that upward looking angel of our souls the hosts of hell wrestle in everlasting tussle.

But there is also in each one of us that taint of original sin, that old Adam, that self-love, scuffling with God’s Holy Spirit, a constant antagonist and rebuker of the righteousness which is God.

Yesterday’s Day by Day devotional guide directed us to pray for “the Reverend and Mrs. William Junkin that they may soon be able to return to their mission posts in China.” When you prayed for that courageous, saintly couple, did it occur to you what a struggle they’ve had? Remember Bill Junkin’s standing in this pulpit four years ago and telling us how he and his wife were just ready to begin their missionary activities in China, for which they had been preparing for years, when the war broke out, and instead of proclaiming the gospel to the people of China as they had intended, they were separated, sent to a Philippine concentration camp? Their little son was born during those months of starvation and confinement. The two of them had to bear the burden of being separated through that great event. Every day they were permitted by their captors to meet in the center of the compound for a few minutes and, standing three feet apart to converse, Mrs. Junkin could hand over their little son for Bill Junkin to cuddle in his arms. Then finally liberation came and the Junkins, thin, emaciated, were returned to the States to regain their health and strength. After many months, happily they set out again to return to China and again, within a few weeks, Bill was injured in an automobile accident and brought back to an American hospital. Now over China, civil war has spread blocking and frustrating this courageous Christian couple. What a struggle they’ve had — these best of people — wanting nothing from life but the opportunity to serve others in Christ’s name.

Yes, it may be small comfort, but surely it’s some to recognize that we are not alone in  fighting our own personal, unseen wrestling bout. We are a fellowship of those who wrestle and struggle with the issues of life.

And this should be of some help to us also, to realize that, though there is no escaping the spiritual wrestling of this life, there is a struggling and wrestling that is better and more admirable than others.

Albert Schweitzer, in one of his great lectures on Goethe, has pointed out that “a spirit like Goethe’s lays three obligations upon us. First, to wrestle with conditions, so as to make sure that men who are imprisoned in work, and being worn out by it, may nevertheless preserve the possibility of spiritual existence. Second, to wrestle with men, so that in spite of our continuously being drawn aside to the external things which are provided so abundantly for our age, they may find the road to inwardness and keep it. Third, to wrestle with ourselves, and with all and everything around us, so that in a time of confused ideals, ignoring every claim of humanity, we may remain faithful to the great humane ideals of Christianity, translating them into the thought of our own age and attempting to realize them today.”

Yes, better than wrestling with conditions in order to get ahead of one’s fellows or to squeeze all the profits for oneself — how much better to wrestle with conditions to keep the life of the spirit from being crushed out of self and others. Someone asked me the other day: “Is it just High Point or is all America growing more materialistic? Increasingly, here, people seem to care more and more about dollar values and less and less about personal and spiritual values.” How infinitely more noble to wrestle against conditions as the champion of human values than to wrestle for selfish cash gain.

And better than wrestling with men to beat them in a trade or at collective bargaining — the kind of wrestling in which Jacob was so adept — how much better it is to wrestle with men to keep them from being turned aside to and completely enmeshed with, the externals, to lead them to find the road to inwardness and keep it.

That’s what Granny Kincaid was trying to do for her little grandson in the picture, How Dear to My Heart. You will remember how she chided the little boy when she overheard him praying in their poverty-stricken home for some cash. “Don’t pray for money in this house, Jeremiah Kincaid. Just pray for the things of the spirit.” And also again, when Jeremiah’s beloved black lamb ram was lost and the little boy was sobbing broken-heartedly, “Jeremiah,” said the old lady, “you’re not grievin’ over Danny. You’re thinking about them blue ribbons you hoped to win at the fair and it’s your pride that’s hurt.”

How much more worth a wrestling bout for us, rather than wrestling with men to get the better of them in a business bargain, to wrestle with them to turn their eyes away from the passing externals to the eternal inner values of the soul. When Archbishop Temple first heard Reinhold Niebuhr preach, he exclaimed: “At last I have found the disturber of my soul.”

Yes, and how much better than all else to wrestle with ourselves — to make our souls heed the wisdom of the writer of the proverbs: “He that hath no control over his own spirit is as a city that is broken down and without walls … He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty and he that ruleth his own spirit than he that taketh a city.” The Alcoholics Anonymous have a wonderful prayer: “O God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” There’s a prayer worthy of all our praying as we wrestle with ourselves.

When the War Between the States broke out, Dr. R. B. McMullen was president of Southwestern Presbyterian University at Clarksville, Tennessee. The student body gathered on the playing field, organized themselves into a military regiment with one of their professors as commanding officer and marched away to war. President McMullen was left with a campus of empty buildings. Shortly thereafter, when this regiment of Southwestern students and other Confederate troops were defeated by the Federals at Forts Donelson and Henry, President McMullen turned the empty Southwestern College buildings into a hospital for wounded Confederate soldiers. Later, when Clarksville fell into Union hands, President McMullen gave his permission for the use of the college as a Union hospital. But so shamelessly did the Northern troops damage and destroy the college property, breaking out windows, wantonly destroying expensive scientific apparatus, and burning furniture, that Dr. McMullen wrote an indignant letter to the Board of Trustees reporting this ungrateful vandalism. But the record shows that this same Dr. McMullen, who had been so incensed at the Yankees who destroyed his beautiful college buildings, yet went to those same soldiers a few weeks after when a small pox epidemic broke out among the wounded, nursed them in their illness and contracted the disease which brought on his death.

Yes, we are all wrestlers in life. We’ve all got a struggle on our hands. There is no escaping it. But some choose a more noble contending than others: they wrestle with conditions, not so much to better themselves, but to preserve the possibility of spiritual existence for common man; they wrestle with man, not to best them but that men may not be turned to the externals and miss the life of the spirit; they wrestle with themselves that they may be true to the highest ideals of the Christian faith — of love and forgiveness and righteousness.

Finally, this should comfort us in our struggle: we have the assurance that God calls us to this higher wrestling and His grace supplies us with help, if we choose to make our skirmish there.

How does God impart His help? See the source from which Jesus drew His spiritual strength contending with the Temptor — from the scriptures!

“If Thou be the Son of God,” says the beguiling voice of Satan to the hungry Jesus, “command this stone that it be made bread.” “It is written,” replies Jesus — it is in the Holy Writings — “that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

“If Thou be the Son of God,” comes back the Devil, “cast Thyself down from the pinnacle of the Temple, and make a show of yourself, for,” says Satan, quoting scripture himself — out of the context and spirit, “it is written He shall give His angels charge over Thee to keep Thee and in their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest at any time Thou dash Thy foot against a stone.” Again, Jesus replies in the words and spirit of the scriptures with which he had filled His heart and mind: “It is written, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”

Finally, Satan says to the Master, showing Him all the kingdoms of the world: “These will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.” And again, Jesus throws His antagonist with scripture: “It is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve.”

Yes, here is a pointer for us in our wrestling with life, of where to turn for direction, light, and strength to gain the help we need.

How else does God mediate His grace to us than in the soul’s venture of prayer? Harry Emerson Fosdick speaks of one kind of prayer as “the battleground of the soul,” where some devout souls have learned they can fight out the issues of life — Jesus, in Gethsemane, praying: “Let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not my will but thine be done,” — Jacob, at Peniel, wrestling all night with the angel, saying: “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me,” these prayer periods were “battlegrounds of the soul”. There, the unseen, vital issues of life were fought out in the very presence of God, and decisions affecting all of life reached.

And God’s part? Just this — the praying soul, in trust and faith, holds up the soul’s sincere desire — its dominant demand on life — or its nagging sin, in the white light of the goodness and glory of God, and there, with God as a strong ally, the whole business is disposed of — the issue settled — the victory won.

Fight the good fight with all thy might

Christ is thy strength, and Christ thy right;

Lay hold on life, and it shall be

Thy joy and crown eternally.

Run the straight race through God’s good grace,

Lift up thine eyes and seek His face;

Life with its path before us lies,

Christ is the way, and Christ the Prize.

 

INVOCATION

“Almighty and most gracious Father, who girdest the feeble with strength and clothest the dry and barren soul with righteousness and power; awake us to the glory of Thy presence in earth and sky. Set our hands to works of faith and charity and so create us anew in the likeness of Thy Son, that we may toil and not faint, suffer and not complain, and meet all trials with a steadfast and enduring mind, having our treasure in heaven.”

 

PASTORAL PRAYER

We thank Thee, our heavenly Father, for the heritage of courageous steadfastness that is ours; for our Master’s unwavering fidelity to His high calling before all the onslaughts of the world, the flesh, and the devil; for all the glorious company of the martyrs who mocked the torch and flame; for all our comrades’ steadfast courage in the struggle of life whose support and stay strengthens us. We thank Thee for all this unseen resource of faith and trust and valor and patient endurance which Thou hast provided for us by Thy mercy in the church.

And now we ask Thee, while so conscious of how Thou has supplied our need, to support and comfort those who are bearing crosses today in body, mind or spirit.

Forgive our sins which have wrecked our own little worlds and brought new calamities upon Thy whole world. Supply the strength and the courage to meet our individual needs in life and the social needs of our generation as it strives to find a way out of our welter of blood and force into an era of peace and good will, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

• Scripture Reference: Genesis 32:24-0 • Secondary Scripture References: Ephesians 6:12 • Subject : Contending; Struggle; 614 • Special Topic: n/a • Series: n/a • Occasion: n/a • First Preached: 4/16/1950 • Last Preached: 7/6/1952 • Rating: 2 • Book/Author References: How Dear to My Heart, Harry Emerson Fosdick; Day by Day, Albert Schweitzer