Beginning of the End: The Final Struggle

 The experience of God’s people will be like this in their final struggle with the powers of evil. God will test their faith, their perseverance, their confidence in His power. Satan will try to terrify them with the thought that their sins have been too great to receive pardon. As they review their lives, their hopes will sink. But remembering God’s mercy and their own sincere repentance, they will cling to His promises. Their faith will not fail because their prayers are not immediately answered. The language of their souls will be, “I will not let You go unless You bless me.”

If Jacob had not previously repented of his sin in obtaining the birthright by fraud, God could not have mercifully preserved his life. So in the time of trouble, if the people of God had unconfessed sins to appear before them while tortured with fear and anguish, despair would cut off their faith, and they could not have confidence to plead with God for deliverance. But they will have no concealed wrongs to reveal. Their sins will have been blotted out by the atoning blood of Christ, and they cannot remember them.

All who try to excuse or hide their sins and leave them on the books of heaven, unconfessed and unforgiven, will be overcome by Satan. The more exalted their profession is and the more honorable the position that they hold, the more certain is the triumph of the great adversary.

Jacob’s history assures us that God will not cast off those who have been betrayed into sin but have returned to Him with true repentance. God taught His servant that divine grace alone could give him the blessing he craved. This is how it will be with those who live in the last days. In all our helpless unworthiness we must trust in the merits of the crucified and risen Savior. None will ever perish while they do this.

Jacob’s experience testifies to the power of persistent, urgent prayer. It is now that we are to learn this lesson of unyielding faith. The greatest victories are not those gained by talent, education, wealth, or human favor; they are gained in the audience chamber with God, when earnest, agonizing faith lays hold upon the mighty arm of power.

All who will lay hold of God’s promises as Jacob did, and be as earnest and persevering as he was, will succeed as he succeeded.