The Disdain and Decadence of Apostates, Part 2 (Hebrews 12:16-17; Genesis) | Worship Service

Good morning and welcome to Kootenai Church. We're glad you all are here today. Would you please stand as we begin our service this morning?

We're going to sing, Let Your Kingdom Come. I'm going to read

Psalm 62 this morning. Surely my soul waits in silence for God. From him is my salvation.

Surely he is my rock and my salvation. My stronghold I shall not be greatly shaken.

How long will you assail a man that you may murder him, all of you, like a leaning wall, like a fence thrust down?

Surely they have counseled to thrust him down from his high position. They find pleasure in falsehood.

They bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse. Surely wait in silence for God, oh my soul, for my hope is from him.

Surely he is my rock and my salvation. My stronghold I shall not be shaken. On God my salvation and my glory rest.

The rock of my strength, my refuge is in God. Trust in him at all times, oh people.

Pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. Surely men of low degree are merely vanity and men of rank are a lie.

And the balances they go up, they are together lighter than a breath of vanity. Do not trust in oppression and do not put vain hope in robbery.

If riches increase, do not set your heart upon them. Once God has spoken twice,

I have heard this, that strength belongs to God. And that to you, oh

Lord, belongs loving kindness for you repay a man according to his work. Let's sing together

Psalm 62, my soul will wait. He surrounds and my heart from stage within.

When the darkness overwhelms and my fears are pressing in,

I will trust in you, oh Lord. In the silence

I will wait, I will stand upon your word.

You're my solid rock and my salvation, my steadfast hope that won't be shaken.

My soul will wait, my soul will wait for you.

My stronghold and my shield in the midst of every threat.

Though the wicked tempt us like a pest,

I know the outcome's sure. Satan's evil plans will fail, in your power

I'm secure. You're my solid rock and my salvation, my steadfast hope that won't be shaken.

My soul will wait, my soul will wait for you.

My sure foundation, my soul will wait, my soul will wait for This is love

I can't explain, this is mercy unreserved.

Through your sacrifice so great, I have peace that's undeserved.

For the battle has been won and I fear no shame or loss.

Now the sting of death is gone. You're my solid rock and my salvation, my steadfast hope that won't be shaken.

My soul will wait, my soul will wait for you.

You're my cup forsaken, my refuge and my sure foundation.

My soul will wait, my soul will wait for you.

Hearts beat for trust in you.

Perfect savior, strong defender.

We will trust in you.

Hearts beat for you. We will trust in you.

Perfect savior, strong defender.

We will trust in you.

Mercy is shelved forever. And so happy in Jesus' new language, my rapture can tell.

I know his presence with me doth continually dwell.

His infinite mercy is child and forever I am.

Blessed redeemer, I think of him I see.

For I cannot be silent, his love is the theme of my song.

His infinite mercy is child and forever I am. I shall see in his beauty the king in whose law

I take my footsteps and giveth me songs in the night.

His infinite mercy is child and forever

I am. You may be seated.

And while you're turning there, I give you two announcements that I want you to be aware of. There are a few things in the bulletin.

So please take note of those things in your bulletin, but two of them that I wanna highlight for you, on July 25th, we have a men's breakfast here at the church.

We'll be previewing a little bit about what is gonna be going on with the men's study in the fall, as well as a breakfast for the men.

So we invite you to join us for that. That's July 25th. And then as promised, we are having a church barbecue on the last

Sunday in July, July the 30th. The cost is $5 for that because we're doing smoked tri -tip for that meal.

And there is a registration link on the church website. If you wanna go there, you have to enter in your name, how many people are in your party and an email address.

And then you should get an email response back making sure that you are registered. That's our only way of making sure that we are pretty tight with the amount of tri -tip that we're buying.

If we're just buying chips, it would be no big deal, but it's tri -tip. So take advantage of that, go to the church and register on that link that is there.

And I'll be sending out an email to everybody this coming week. Psalm 99 is our scripture reading.

We'll read together the entire Psalm. The Lord reigns, let the peoples tremble.

He is enthroned above the cherubim, let the earth shake. The Lord is great in Zion and he is exalted above all the peoples.

Let them praise your great and awesome name. Holy is he. The strength of the

King loves justice. You have established equity. You have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.

Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his footstool. Holy is he. Moses and Aaron were among his priests and Samuel was among those who called on his name.

They called upon the Lord and he answered them. He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud. They kept his testimonies and the statute that he gave them.

Lord our God, you answered them. You were a forgiving God to them and yet an avenger of their evil deeds.

Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his holy heel, for holy is the Lord our God. Will you stand with me as we pray?

Let's bow our heads. Our Father, we gather together to worship and honor you for you are worthy of our worship and our praise.

It is our joy and our delight as those who have been called by your name and who love you because of your great grace and the work of grace that you have done in our lives.

We delight in worship and we delight in fellowship. We delight in your word and in the truth of your word.

And all of this is the work that you have done in our hearts by your spirit, for your glory and all by your grace.

And so we thank you for that, for our salvation, for the forgiveness of our sins. We thank you that though we are unworthy in every way of being shown any mercy for our sin or any grace, that you by your sovereign hand and your good grace have reached down to redeem us and included us amongst the great number of your people, your sheep, whom you have loved from eternity past.

We thank you for that great grace and we worship you for it. We thank you for our salvation.

We have nothing of which to boast, not our repentance, not our faith, not our good deeds, not even our desire to worship can we take credit for.

And so we love you and we thank you for these things and pray that you would strengthen our heart to sing with robust praise, worship and adoration to your great name.

May all the world hear it and may you unite our hearts in wonder and in love and affection for Jesus Christ our

Lord, our savior and our redeemer and the one who has given to us every spiritual blessing because of his work on the cross on our behalf.

We pray this in humility and with love in his name, amen. ♪

O take the father's love for us ♪ ♪

How vast beyond all measure ♪ ♪

He should give his only son ♪ ♪ To make a wretch his treasure ♪ ♪

How great the pain of searing loss ♪ ♪

And yet he joyfully falls ♪ ♪

As wounds which mar the chosen one ♪ ♪

Bring many sons to glory ♪ ♪

My sin upon his shoulders ♪ ♪

Ashamed I hear my mocking voice ♪ ♪

Fall out among the scoffers ♪ ♪

It was my sin that held him there ♪ ♪

Until it was accomplished his dying day ♪ ♪

My dying breath has brought me by his face ♪ ♪

I will boast in any gifts, no power, no wisdom ♪ ♪

But I will boast in Jesus Christ ♪ ♪

His death and resurrection ♪ ♪

Why should I gain from his reward? I cannot tell ♪ ♪

But this I know with all my heart ♪ ♪

His wounds have made my wrath ♪

Psalm 90 verses one and two. Lord, you have been our dwelling place from generation to generation.

Before the mountains were born, or you brought forth the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting.

You are God. Let's end our music this morning and sing Psalm 90 from Everlasting.

♪ Oh God, before the mountains were brought forth ♪ ♪

Jesus sprang and summer filled the earth ♪ ♪

Trusting you, he dwelt beneath the stars in ancient skies ♪ ♪

A thousand years are nothing in your sight ♪ ♪

Trusting you, days are held within your hands ♪ ♪

Your perfect love and favor have no end ♪ ♪

Rest within the wisdom of your plan ♪ ♪

Everlasting God ♪ ♪

And tragedy combines us, life is but a sight ♪ ♪

From everlasting, days are held, ways are known to you ♪ ♪

Grace you're making all things new ♪ ♪ So satisfy us in our numbered days ♪ ♪

Establish hell within your ♪

Maybe seated. And now, if you'll please turn to Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews chapter 12. In a moment, we're gonna read verses 15 through 17,

Hebrews chapter 12. And before we do, we will ask the Lord's blessing on our time before we begin. Our Father, we come to your word because it is in your word that we read of you and of your will for us, of your great grace and the glory of your name.

It is in your word that we read of the encouragements and the comforts as well as the joy as well as the warnings and the exhortations and reproofs and rebukes.

And so we pray that you would reprove our hearts where it is necessary and encourage our hearts where that is needed as well.

We pray that as your people, as we gather before your word, that your word would inform us, our minds, our thinking, as well as our affections.

We pray that you would do your work in us through your word, bringing salvation to those who are here who have no knowledge of Christ and no true faith as of yet.

And we pray that you would be in comfort and encouragement to the hearts of your people as we reflect upon your great grace and the warnings that you give to us in your word.

Be magnified now we pray in the name of Christ our Lord. Amen. Our study of Hebrews chapter 11 gave us the opportunity to admire men of great faith, men and women who looked past the pleasures and treasures of this world to the promises and blessings and joys of the world that is to come.

By faith, they saw the promises of God and they were willing to go without things in this world for the sake of faith in and belief in and securing those blessings that would come in the world that is to be.

In Hebrews chapter 11, or sorry, in Hebrews chapter 12, we're given the opportunity to observe the exact opposite.

A man who sacrificed everything in the world to come and all the blessings that were promised by God to his father for the sake of a bowl of soup.

And that is Esau, Hebrews chapter 12. Apostates are always a reality for the church and it's the same story in every age.

Apostates are willing to glom on to superficially that is the people of God, so long as being with the people of God and enjoying the blessings and the joys of that scratches an itch or meets some temporary need.

But then when another itch needs to be scratched or another need needs to be met and something in the world comes along that offers them satisfaction for those needs and itches, then they're willing to exchange and trade

Christ and his church and his people for the passing pleasures of sin or for a temporary satisfaction.

And that is exactly the type of man that Esau was. Scripture calls him here in our passage, a godless and immoral person who sold his own birthright for a bowl of soup.

And I said last time we were together, it wasn't even a good soup and somebody reminded me this last week, the first time we had you over for dinner,

I gave you lentil soup and so I hope that that wasn't a commentary on your, and I said if I had not liked it and I had remembered that,

I never would have used that as an illustration. So if there's anybody else here who has had me over for a bowl of lentil soup and you think that I was somehow dissing you last week, that was not my intention at all.

Hebrews chapter 12, begin reading with me in verse 15 through 17. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble and by it many be defiled.

That there be no immoral or godless person like Esau who sold his own birthright for a single meal.

For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.

In that passage, we have noted the essence of apostasy which is captured in that phrase, he came short of grace or came short of the grace of God.

The effect of apostasy is the bitterness or the bitter person or the bitter root that springs up and defiles many people.

And then the example of apostasy is Esau an immoral and godless person. And last time we started to look at Esau's example in Genesis chapter 25, to see why the author uses him as an example of apostasy and why the author describes him as a godless and immoral person.

And today we're going to observe the second event in the life of Esau that demonstrates why he is such a perfect example of apostasy.

There are three things about Esau that we see here in Hebrews chapter 12. And this was our outline that I gave you a couple of weeks ago.

We noted these three things in the Genesis account back in chapter 25 a couple of weeks ago,

Esau's carnality. He is described here in the passage as a godless and immoral person. He was driven by his flesh, driven by his lust, driven by his desires, a man who caved to those and they governed everything that he did in his life.

Second, we notice Esau's contempt that he sold his own birthright for a single meal, or as Genesis 25 verse 34 says, thus

Esau despised his birthright. That is his contempt. He showed disdain for God and for his promises as his carnality and his contempt for the promises of God and the

God of the promises, they go hand in hand. And then third, we notice Esau's consequences, that is his destiny.

He was rejected, Hebrews chapter 12 says, for he found no place for repentance. What he did in trading his birthright for a bowl of soup could not be undone.

It was irreversible. And then the effects of that work out later on when Jacob steals his blessing.

So his carnality, his contempt and his consequences, his carnality describes his character.

He was that type of a person, godless and immoral. His contempt describes his actions.

This is what he did because character always determines actions. And then these are the consequences of what he did, eternal and irrevocable consequences.

Character determines your actions and actions determines your consequences and your destiny. So his carnality, his contempt and his consequences.

We focused on these when we were in Genesis 25 last time, and we saw that the purpose of God for Jacob and Esau was accomplished through two events in their lives.

The first was Esau selling his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of soup. The second was

Jacob stealing the blessing from Esau later on in life. Those two events. We looked at the first one in Genesis 25.

Esau sells his birthright. There it reveals his immorality, his godlessness, his profaneness, the fact that he is a man driven by his lusts and desires.

So turn back now to Genesis chapter 25, and we're gonna look at the second event in the life of Esau that defines him and shows us why it is that he is such a good example of apostasy.

Esau sells his birthright, Genesis chapter 25. And I'm not gonna review any of it except just to read the passage in chapter 25, verse 27.

When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field, but Jacob was a peaceful man living in tents.

Now Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for game, but Rebecca loved Jacob. When Jacob had cooked stew,

Esau came in from the field and he was famished. And Esau said to Jacob, please let me have a swallow of that red stuff there for I'm famished.

Therefore, his name is called Edom. But Jacob said, first, sell me your birthright. Esau said, behold,

I'm about to die. So of what use then is the birthright to me? And Jacob said, first, swear to me. So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob.

Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went on his way.

Thus Esau despised his birthright. And there is his carnality and his contempt. He showed contempt for the future in preference for the present.

He showed contempt for the spiritual and preferred instead the physical. And he showed contempt for that which is truly valuable and preferred instead things that are absolutely worthless.

He's a godless and immoral person driven by his physical desires. The promises of God and the

God of the promises meant nothing to him, and he was willing to exchange them to satisfy a temporary desire, which temporary desire would return in a matter of only a few hours.

That's an immoral and godless man. Now, the second event, Jacob steals the blessing. This is over in chapter 27.

So you're gonna have to turn there to chapter 27. And this is where Esau's destiny is sealed. And here is where the consequences of his carnality and his contempt really come into plain view.

Between these two events, these two significant events in the life of Jacob and Esau, Jacob, Esau selling the birthright and Jacob stealing the blessing, between these two events, there are a number of significant things that happen in chapter 26.

And I'm not gonna give you a full explanation of them, but I want you to notice three of them because I think that these three events really sort of set the stage for this next episode.

First event is God reiterates the promise to Isaac and his descendants. Look at chapter 26, verse one.

Now there was a famine in the land besides the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham.

So Isaac went to Gerar and Abimelech, king of the Philistines. The Lord appeared to him and said, now here's

God reiterating the promises that he gave to Isaac's father, Abraham. He's reiterating those promises to Isaac now.

Verse two, do not go down to Egypt. Stay in the land, which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you.

For to you and to your descendants, I will give all these lands and I will establish the oath which

I swore to your father, Abraham. I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and will give your descendants all these lands.

And by your descendants, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because Abraham obeyed me and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

Isaac lived there with Abimelech for a period of time and then ended up moving to Beersheba. Later in the chapter, look at verse 23.

God reiterates this promise of all these blessings that Esau has now sold to Jacob for a bowl of soup.

Here they are again in verse 23. He went up from there to Beersheba. The Lord appeared to him the same night and said,

I am the God of your father, Abraham. Do not fear for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of my servant,

Abraham. So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there. And there

Isaac's servants dug a well. Now that is the birthright that Esau bartered away for a bowl of soup.

The land, the blessing of God, God's presence with him, multiplying the descendants. God had already told

Rebekah when she was pregnant with these two twins that the older would end up serving the younger, which you will remember is the exact opposite of the natural order.

And Paul says in Romans 9 that God's choice of Jacob over his older brother Esau was in order to demonstrate that God's election and his free choice in salvation and pouring his blessings out on somebody, it is according to his choice and not according to what we do.

Paul uses this example as an illustration of the sovereignty of God in choosing some for salvation and passing over others.

He says before Jacob and Esau were even able to do anything good or bad, God revealed his purpose so that his intention by his choice would stand.

And it was to come to Jacob and not to Esau. And this is what he saw bartered away, all of these blessings that God promised to Abraham and then gave to Isaac and now would come from Isaac to one of those two sons.

The second event is that Isaac increases in wealth. Look at verse 12. Now Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold and the

Lord blessed him and the man became rich and continued to grow richer until he became very wealthy.

Do you notice something that's emphasized there repeated? He became rich and he grew richer until he became wealthy.

In other words, this man, Isaac, he's richy rich. He has everything that he could possibly want.

He has been, God has poured out on him untold and lavish and tremendous blessings in accordance to what he had promised to Abraham.

Look at verse 14. For he had possessions of flocks and herds and a great household so that the Philistines envied him.

The pagan nation, the Philistines, the nation envied that one man because of his wealth and the blessing of God.

The other civilizations were jealous of him. And the third event that is significant before we get to Jacob stealing

Esau's blessing, the third event is that Esau got married. Look at verse 34. When Esau was 40 years old, he married

Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Basemuth, the daughter of Elon the Hittite. And they brought grief to Isaac and Rebekah.

That is key. Jacob, sorry, Esau, did he choose godly women to marry?

He did not, he chose Hittites. Did Esau consult his parents in the decision?

Obviously not because later on Isaac and Rebekah would send Jacob out of the land to go find a wife who was not among the

Canaanites, a cursed race. Nor did he show any kind of spiritual inclination or concern for God's program because rather than just marrying one woman, he ended up marrying two women and not just two women, but two pagan women who were from a line that was cursed all the way back to Noah.

Descendants of a nation and a people that were under the curse of God, those Hittite women, all of their descendants and their nations, all of them would be destroyed and judged by God when

Israel would come back into the land to conquer them and to take that land. So he chooses the worst possible spouses.

These are the women among whom Esau took wives and not just one, but two. And they brought grief to Isaac and Rebekah and it is not difficult to see why.

And in that phrase, verse 35, they brought grief to Isaac and Rebekah. In fact, in verse 34 and 35, you see the tale told of so many people that you know, don't you?

Godly parents who watch otherwise godly children raised in a godly home go away and make horrible, foolish decisions in marrying somebody that ends up bringing grief to the entire family.

That is a tale that is old as time. That has been told hundreds and hundreds and thousands of times.

And Esau in this way is a morality tale, a warning to all of us. They brought grief to Isaac and Rebekah.

Now, let's look at this stolen blessing. So those are the three significant things. God reiterates the promise to Isaac.

He increases in wealth. Esau takes wives. Now we come to chapter 27. We covered this chapter in this event back in Hebrews chapter 11, but we did it from a bit of a different angle because in Hebrews chapter 11, our emphasis was on the faith of Isaac because Isaac's faith was highlighted in Hebrews chapter 11 when he says by faith, he passed on the blessings to Jacob and Esau.

So we looked at this entire event from a different perspective, that of the faith of the transfer of the blessing and Isaac giving that to Jacob and Esau and the faith of Rebekah and the faith of Jacob in the midst of all of that.

Now we're gonna look at the same event from a different perspective. And probably it's been so long ago that if I would have asked you to remember when the last time we went through this event was, you wouldn't have been able to even tell me.

So this would be like the first time for many of you going through this on a Sunday morning. Now we're gonna look at it from the perspective of Esau and what is going on there and the consequences that unfold that result from what he did earlier in chapter 25, when he sold the birthright to Jacob.

Chapter 27, verse one, now it came about when Isaac was old and his eyes were too dim to see that he called his older son

Esau and said to him, my son, and he said to him, here I am. Isaac said, behold, now I am old and I do not know the day of my death.

Now then please take your gear, your quiver and your bow and go out to the field and hunt game for me and prepare a savory dish for me such as I love and bring it to me that I may eat so that my soul may bless you before I die.

Notice in verse two, he says, I'm old and I do not know the day of my death. Now that turns out to be very true because Isaac would end up living for another 50 years after this event.

In fact, we're not introduced to his death until chapter 35. This is after Jacob goes to Haran, gets a wife, has all of his kids, not gets one wife,

I should say, he gets four wives, has all of his kids and Joseph, the very last of them comes out of Haran.

Remember, he's coming back, he's reconciled to Esau, that's between chapter 27, chapter 35.

Chapter 35, verse 28 says, now the days of Isaac were 180 years. We have to do some complex math to come up with the fact that he is about 50 years before he dies here in chapter 27.

Now the days of Isaac were 180 years. Isaac breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people, a man of ripe age and his sons

Esau and Jacob buried him. So that burial, that death would take place about 50 years after these events.

Now, I mentioned last week and I wanna put something into context, that wasn't last week, sorry, I didn't preach last week, but I mentioned last time we were here, the ages of these men when all of this is unfolding.

Scripture doesn't tell us how old Jacob and Esau were when Esau sold his birthright to Jacob.

It doesn't tell us how old they were when Jacob stole the blessing from Esau. Those two ages are not given to us.

So we have to read forward in the book of Genesis to get some events, some dates, some times, some ages, and then we can start to piece together some of that working back.

And I'm not gonna, I'm gonna do the math for you, but I'm not gonna show you my work. I'm just gonna ask you to trust me that my work is reliable on this because it would take too long to work this all out.

But later on in Genesis, we get the date that Jacob goes down to Egypt, how old Joseph was when

Jacob got to Egypt, how old Joseph was when he became prime minister of Egypt. Then we can work back to how old

Joseph was when he was sold into Egypt. Then we can work back from that to how old

Jacob would have been. Yes, how old Jacob would have been when Joseph was born because we know how long he spent in Haran.

So we get some idea of how old he was when Jacob stole the blessings from Esau. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Jacob and Esau were probably in their late 20s, early 30s when

Esau bartered away his birthright for the bowl of soup. You know how old they were when this whole event, now the deceptive event takes place where Jacob steals the blessings?

If you do all the math, you come up with Jacob and Esau being somewhere in their late 60s to early 70s when this happens.

So these are old, I mean, not guys, sorry, if you're 70. Yeah, these are older.

These are older men, allegedly wise, mature, clear thinking men.

These are not teenagers tricking one another in a practical stunt, a practical joke of some sort.

Okay, so they're in their late 60s, early 70s. There's a window there because we're not sure, but that's about how old they were.

Remember Esau took a wife when he was 40. This event takes place when these twins are in their late 60s, early 70s.

Jacob is gonna take his wives later on. So that means that Jacob was in his 70s by the time he married

Rachel and Leah, maybe even close to 80, which means that, Jacob, yeah,

Leah and Rachel, Jacob and Rachel, which means that Jacob would have been an older man taking a wife and Rachel would have been probably a very young woman, not nearly as old as Jacob was.

That was not uncommon in that age and in that culture. You see it happening even today in our own day, mostly with men who are very wealthy, but it does happen.

You were thinking it, I said it. So Isaac's intention here, he senses that his death is near.

He doesn't know he's gonna live another 50 years after this, but just in case, he wants to make sure that he gives this blessing away to the son of his choice,

Esau. Now, if Isaac is successful in this, he will end up blessing Esau with the blessings that come from Abraham and giving to Jacob the estate.

In God's minds, these two things are connected and they're inseparable. So I don't know exactly what is going on in the mind of Isaac, but he knows already because it has been revealed to Rebekah that it is the older that will serve the younger.

So he already understands that because it's been divinely revealed, he already understands that the purpose and plan of God is for all of it to go to Jacob.

That was what God revealed. And now Isaac is putting together this scheme to give the blessings to Esau and not to Jacob.

And Isaac is going to find out that all of the planning and schemery of men cannot overthrow the purpose of God.

Esau is still his favorite, and that is why he calls Esau and comes up with this thing, go out and give me something to eat, and when you come in,

I'll eat and be satisfied. He wants to give the blessing in exchange for the food, which may indicate, and this is speculation, but it may indicate that Isaac is a man who is somewhat given to his own desires as well.

He wants to be well satisfied and fed, and then when he has what he wants, he will give these things to Esau and bless

Esau with these things. And it's stunning to me that Esau is still the favorite in spite of the fact that Isaac by this time would have known that Jacob had traded the birthright to, man,

I'm getting the names confused here. It's stunning to me that Isaac would have known by this point that Esau traded the birthright to Jacob and that still

Esau would be his favorite son, a favorite son whose choices of women had brought his mom and dad tremendous grief.

Isaac knew this, and he knew that his son was a craven man given to his desires, given to the lust of his flesh, who had rebelled and done something that brought their family tremendous grief, and yet Esau is still

Isaac's favorite, and he still wants to give the blessing to him. Verse 20, chapter 27, verse five,

Rebekah was listening while Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So then Esau went to the field to hunt for game to bring home.

Rebekah said to her son Jacob, behold, I heard your father speak to your brother Esau saying, bring me some game and prepare a savory dish for me that I may eat and bless you in the presence of the

Lord before my death. Now therefore, my son, listen to me as I command you. Go now to the flock and bring me two choice young goats from there that I may prepare them as a savory dish for your father, such as he loves.

Then you shall bring it to your father that he may eat so that he may bless you before his death. So Rebekah comes up with this deceptive ploy, and by the way, there is sin on behalf of every character in this narrative.

Every one of these players is sinning. Isaac has his own sin, Jacob's doing his thing, Esau's got his thing going,

Rebekah, she's crafting this whole thing. There is sin, there is enough sin to go around this entire family.

It's pouring out of the edges outside the, underneath the tent curtains, sin all over the place. But God uses sin, sinlessly to accomplish his purposes.

And that's what God is doing in this narrative. Now Jacob saw the danger in this, verse 11, he answered his mother

Rebekah, behold, Esau, my brother, is a hairy man, and I'm a smooth man. Perhaps, I went to high school with a guy like that, a hairy man.

Isaac, by the way, later on would mention that Esau or Jacob smelled like the field, smelled like animals.

I went to school with a lot of people like that, but I went to school with one person who was particularly hairy. Perhaps my father will feel me, then

I will be as a deceiver in his sight, and I'll bring upon myself a curse and not a blessing. But his mother said to him, your curse be on me, my son, only obey my voice and go get them for me.

So Rebekah is scheming and Jacob, obviously a full -grown man by this point, goes along with it. Verse 14, so he went and got them and brought them to his mother, and his mother made savory food such as his father loved.

Then Rebekah took the best garments of Esau, her elder son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob, her younger son, and she put the skins of the young goats on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck.

She also gave the savory food and the bread which she had made to her son Jacob. And he came to his father and said, my father, and he said, here

I am, who are you, my son? Jacob said to his father, I'm Esau, your firstborn. I've done as you have told me.

Get up, please, sit and eat of my game that you may bless me. Isaac said to his son, how is it that you have it so quickly, my son?

And he said, because the Lord, your God, caused it to happen to me. Notice how Jacob takes

God and brings God into his lie. That is such an act of blasphemy.

That is such an act of blasphemy. He drags God into this blasphemous lie, basically implying that it was

God's will for Isaac to give the blessing to Esau and not to Jacob. That's the implication of that.

He's also suggesting that God must want Esau to get this blessing. And Jacob is using

God as an excuse for his disobedience. God has blessed me.

How is it that you have this so quickly? Well, God is obviously in it. So now he has just drug

God into his lies as he has fabricated this deception to deceive his father who obviously cannot see at this point into thinking that he is his brother.

This is identity theft, by the way, before the age of technology. This is what it looked like. Verse 21, then

Isaac said to Jacob, please come close that I may feel you, my son, whether you are really my son

Esau or not. And Jacob at that moment had to be thinking, oh, okay, the jig is up.

Surely he's not gonna be deceived by goat hair on my neck and my hands that I'm really

Esau. So Jacob came close to Isaac, his father, and he felt him and said, the voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.

He did not recognize him because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau's hands, so he blessed him.

I mean, Esau must have been a hairy man. I didn't believe in Sasquatch until I read this passage.

And I thought, well, that could be the precursor to the Sasquatch. He said to him, are you really my son

Esau? He said, I am. So he said, bring it to me and I'll eat in my son's game that I may bless you.

And he brought it to him and he ate. He also brought him wine and he drank. And his father Isaac said to him, please come close and kiss me, my son.

Now, this is just another opportunity to try and spot the lie. And scripture doesn't say this, but Jacob had to, his heart had to be pounding at this point because it all hinges on whether he can pull off this deception.

If Isaac catches on to what's happening here, he will curse Jacob and the blessing will go to Esau.

That's obviously a hypothetical counterfactual scenario, but his heart has to be pounding as his father asked him to come in closer.

Verse 27, so he came close and kissed him. And when he smelled the smell of his garments, he blessed him and said, see the smell of my son is like the smell of a field which the

Lord has blessed. Now may God give you the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth and an abundance of grain and new wine.

May peoples serve you and nations bow down to you. Be master of your brothers and may your mother's sons bow down to you.

Cursed be those who curse you and blessed be those who bless you. That's the utterance. That's the blessing.

He says it with his mouth. It was somehow determined that Isaac's conferral of these blessings upon one of his sons would be the thing that would seal the deal.

And now he has uttered the blessing and given it to Jacob instead of to Esau. So the deed is complete. And now the family inheritance, as well as all of the promises that God gave to Isaac's father,

Abraham, they have all now been conferred to Jacob, the younger son. The physical blessings, the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth.

Notice the language that is used there. The abundance of grain and new wine. Nations would serve him, bow down to him.

His brother's descendants would serve him. Kings would come before him. That last phrase is the language of Genesis 12.

When God first gave the promise to Abraham, I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you I will curse.

And in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. It is Isaac's intention. And he thinks full well in his own mind that he is giving all of those blessings to Esau, but it wasn't

Esau, it was Jacob. Verse 30, now it came about as soon as Isaac had finished blessing

Jacob and Jacob had hardly gone out from the presence of Isaac, his father, that Esau, his brother came in from hunting.

Then he also made some savory food and brought it to his father and said to his father, let my father arise and eat of his son's game that you may bless me.

Isaac, his father said to him, who are you? Now he must have at that moment thought to himself, you know, dad's farther gone than we thought he was.

He just sent me out just a little while ago to go get game. And now he's wondering who

I am and what I'm doing here with food. But I think that Isaac by this point is starting to say, oh yeah, the voice was

Jacob's. The feel and the smell were Esau, but the voice was Jacob's. And so he says to Esau, who are you?

And he said, I'm your son, you're first born. Esau, and Isaac trembled violently and said, who was he then that hunted game and brought it to me so that I ate of all of it before you came and I blessed him.

Yes, and he shall be blessed. Isaac knew, Isaac knew who it was. He knew who had tricked him.

He knew that these blessings had come to Jacob. How did he know that? In part, because God had already revealed the older will serve the younger.

These blessings, the whole Abrahamic gig will all go to Jacob. And now it has actually happened that way.

Isaac is not genuinely curious. I wonder who it is that came in here and gave me the food and I gave him the blessings and he shall be blessed.

Who might it have been? He's not questioning that at all. This is him, this is a start.

This is him unable to even comprehend what it is that he has done. How God has taken all of his intentions and flipped them right on their head and absolutely reversed everything he had intended to do.

And God has got the last laugh in this whole scenario. Verse 34, when

Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceeding great and bitter cry. Notice those words.

Remember the words of Hebrews chapter 12. He found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears. Here come the tears.

Here come the waterworks. When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceeding bitter cry and said to his father, bless me, even me also.

Oh, my father. And he said, your brother came deceitfully and has taken away your blessing. And he said, is not he rightly named

Jacob for he has supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright and behold, now he has taken away my blessing.

And he said, have you not reserved a blessing for me? Jacob's name, Jacob means supplanter or heel catcher, heel holder, refers to one who would trip somebody up by grabbing their heel, reaching out, snatching their heel.

That's what the name Jacob means. But notice what Esau says concerning that other event that we looked at last time.

He has taken, he took away my birthright and now he has taken away my blessing. Who does

Esau blame for not having the birthright? He blames Jacob. Does that look like repentance to you?

That is not repentance. He took away my birthright. Stop for just a second.

Point of order, Esau. He didn't take it away. You sold it for a bowl of soup. But he has no remorse over that whatsoever.

All he can see is that Jacob is to blame for getting the birthright. And now, of course,

Jacob is to blame for stealing the blessings. But Esau sold him the birthright. Esau at this point takes no responsibility for his own culpability in this matter.

He sees himself as not in the least bit responsible for what has happened to him. He's a victim in all of this.

That's how he sees himself. Not as the perpetrator who because of his godlessness and his immorality sold his birthright for temporary satisfaction of a felt need.

That's really what he should have said. And he should have, if he had repented, he would in this moment say,

I'm the one who sold my birthright. I'm the one that is to blame for that. I gave into my craven desires.

I did this to satisfy myself. I made a stupid and rash decision in the moment that is illogical, irrational, and completely inexcusable.

And for that reason, now this has unfolded and it has happened exactly as God determined that it would happen. But even for this event,

I have no one to blame but myself, for if I had not sold my birthright, I would certainly have the blessings. That's what repentance would look like.

And all of his crying would not be over the physical blessings that he thinks he's missing out on, but instead his crying and his weeping would be the fact that he understands his own guilt and responsibility for what he has done.

For there is a difference between mere superficial repentance that simply mourns over the consequences of an act and a repentance that mourns over the act itself and the sin against God himself.

Esau has no place for repentance for he is taking no responsibility for his own immorality and godlessness.

Verse 37, but Isaac replied to Esau, behold, I have made him your master and all his relatives I've given to him as servants and with grain and new wine

I have sustained him. Now, as for you then, what can I do, my son? Esau said to his father, do you only have one blessing, my father?

Bless me, even me also. Oh, my father, so Esau lifted up his voice and wept.

Now, you might say, well, the weeping there seems to indicate repentance, does it not? I mean, he's weeping and crying.

Certainly, this is evidence that he's mourning over his sin. I don't think so. What is it that explains the weeping over this event and the lost blessing?

Is it possible that this is simply fake sorrow that's been suggested by commentators, that it's fake sorrow?

This is all put on because this man has had no desire whatsoever for any kind of blessing up to this point, and so now it's just all a superficial lament over his sin?

It's possible that he is simply driven by his lust in this moment to get his own way, and now that has been denied him, and so he is angry over that, he is weeping over that.

It is typically true that people who are driven by their lusts, who desire nothing but satisfaction of physical and felt needs in the moment, that no matter what it is that they desire, even if it is for this plan to go unfold as it is, that when they don't get what they want, however small it is, however insignificant it is, they just come unglued, because they cannot handle being denied something that they want really a lot.

They can't handle being denied that, and so it could be that his weeping is just, he's been denied something that he wanted.

He went, he got this, he wanted the blessing, he wanted the physical things, and so he is weeping and upset, not over the fact that he has lost these blessings, but simply that he has been denied the satisfaction of what took place that he had planned.

There's nothing, notice there's nothing in the Abrahamic blessings that God, that Isaac gave to Jacob, there's nothing in those blessings that has been reversed now with what he is doing with Esau.

Hebrew chapter 12 says, afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.

He was rejected because he had already bartered it away. He had already bartered all of this away back in chapter 25.

He blamed Jacob for it, he took my birthright, but still Esau sees only the material blessings.

Remember that Isaac has grown incredibly wealthy during this period of time between these two events, and now

Esau sees not the spiritual blessings that would come to him through the Abrahamic covenant, but he sees the entire inheritance that he thought he was gonna somehow be able to finagle through this, getting the blessing from Isaac before Jacob caught wind of it, he sees all of that crumbling down, and what

Esau sees that he has missed is not God who has always promised to be with him, he has no interest in that, he took pagan wives, idolatrous pagan wives who were sacrificing to idols and sacrificing children, this is the culture out of which they came.

He has no inclination whatsoever for spiritual things. It's not the God of the promises that he wants, what he wants is the material blessings that Isaac had.

He had grown rich, he became richer until he was very wealthy. He's richy rich and he has the entire estate and Esau sees the opportunity to get that, it's the material blessings that he desires, it's the material blessings that have vanished in heartbeat now because Jacob has been given all of those things as well as the spiritual blessings and Esau is weeping and he's angry about it.

Then Isaac, his father answered and said to him, behold, verse 39, behold, away from the fertility of the earth shall be your dwelling and away from the dew of heaven from above, by your sword you shall live and your brother you shall serve, but it shall come about when you become restless that you will break his yoke from your neck.

That is the closest thing to a blessing that is in that statement. It's the closest thing to a blessing and the way it unfolded was that the children of Esau and the children of Jacob were at war with each other for as long as the descendants of Esau lasted.

They were the Edomites and eventually it would come to pass toward the end of the Old Testament era that the nation of Israel would be judged for their sin and God would bring an invading nation against them, the

Assyrians and the Babylonians and that the Edomites would stand by and they would watch their brother nation,

Jacob's descendants get plundered and they would actually be turning over the descendants of Jacob to the plunderers.

You read about that in the book of Obadiah, which is addressed to the descendants of Esau as a judgment and Obadiah says, because of what you did to Jacob, all your deeds will be returned upon your own head and the

Edomites were eventually wiped out. So that kicking away from and that breaking the yoke off of their neck, that is what is described there in verse 40 and that's what happened later on.

But these are the consequences. Now notice that Isaac did not reverse his blessing on Jacob and his curse on Esau.

In fact, he doubles down on it and just gives Esau basically that one little blessing or promise, you will break his yoke from your neck.

Isaac now understands and sees how it is that the older will end up serving the younger and all his scheming and all his sin could not overthrow the purposes of God and he is recognizing that here, that these are the consequences.

Now, why didn't Isaac come up with a bunch more stuff to give to Esau?

How come he didn't invent some blessings, come up with some blessings? Why didn't he do that? Scripture doesn't answer that question, but it's my suspicion and this is my speculation.

It's my suspicion that in this moment, Isaac recognized the purposes of God and he had to yield to it.

I have no other blessing to give you. God has so worked through all of his sin and he's done so sinlessly as to accomplish his predetermined purpose and plan that Jacob would end up be served by Esau, that Jacob would receive the blessings that you would normally expect to come to Esau.

God has thwarted all of this and accomplished his purposes and I think finally at this moment, Isaac would recognize who am

I to fight against God. I have to do what God has already revealed that I was to do and he is now yielding, coming to terms with the fact that he has given the blessings to Jacob and he would later reiterate those blessings to Jacob and he is now coming to terms with the fact that this is all that Esau is gonna get and this is what was due

Esau from the beginning. All of his intentions to do otherwise have come to naught.

Look at verse 41, so Esau, not Nate, all the weeping, all the crying, all the remorse and the lamenting, the wailing, the drama queen, all that stuff that Esau has done up to this point, does it indicate that he is repentant?

The next passage should answer that. Verse 41, Esau bore a grudge against Jacob. By the way, does that remind you of Hebrews that no root of bitterness springs up, defiles many?

This family was wrecked because of Esau's bitterness. He bore a grudge against Jacob.

Because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him and Esau said to himself, the days of mourning for my father are near, he didn't know they were 50 years away yet, the days of mourning for my father are near, then

I will kill my brother Jacob. Does that sound like a repentant man? Not in the least. He is now driven by another lust, by blood lust.

So he has a lust for food, so he sells his birthright. He has a lust for material blessings, so he connives to try and get them and he has that taken away from him and now he has a lust for revenge.

And all he can think about is, I'm gonna count the days till my dad is gone and when dad dies, I will kill

Jacob and then I will be the lone and sole heir because by this point Jacob had no wives and he had no offspring, so if Esau could kill

Jacob, Esau would have everything. So yeah, dad might give it all to Jacob, but if I kill him, if I kill the only heir, then

I get it all anyway. That's his plan, that's what his purpose. This is not a repentant man. All the weeping and wailing aside, this is not a repentant man.

Verse 42, now when the words of her elder son Esau were reported to Rebekah, she went and called her younger son

Jacob and said to him, behold your brother Esau is consoling himself concerning you by planning to kill you.

Now therefore my son, obey my voice and arise. Flee to Haran to my brother Laban. Stay with him a few days until your brother's fury subsides, until your brother's anger against you subsides and he forgets what you did to him.

Then I will send and get you from there. Why should I be bereaved of you both in one day?

That's a reference to Isaac, right? If he were to die, Esau would kill Jacob before the sun set that day.

You got almost a guarantee. Why should I be bereaved of both of you, that is Isaac and Jacob, in one day?

Rebekah said to Isaac, I'm tired of living because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of Heth like these from the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?

Now what about later? Didn't Esau repent later? Like if we were to fast forward through this story a little bit,

Jacob goes to Haran, he gets the four wives, he has the children who become the 12 tribes of Israel all the way down to Joseph.

He does some of his own little finagling with Laban and gets two women for that and a couple of handmaids and a bunch of goats and sheep and camels and all that good stuff from Laban and he serves him for 20 years there and then he comes back out of the land and do you remember that Jacob and Esau were eventually reconciled?

And do you remember the story? Jacob divided his company up into different groups and sent when he knew that Esau was coming out to meet him with 400 men, scripture says,

Jacob can only conclude my father's wrath has not subsided or my brother's wrath has not subsided, my brother's anger is still burns with the white hot hatred of a thousand sons because he's coming out to meet me in my lone company with 400 armed men.

So Jacob sends ahead of him all of these waves of people and blessings and camels and sheep and goats to give to his brother

Esau, hoping that if Esau is met with wave after wave of these gifts that his anger would subside and it would sort of soften his heart so that by the time

Jacob gets there, they could kind of maybe negotiate something and Esau wouldn't be willing to kill him. But do you remember what

Esau does when Jacob and Esau finally get together? They embrace and they weep and they cry and yes, they are reconciled, but Esau says to Jacob, why is it that you sent all these animals out and all of these gifts?

I don't need any of these things. And Jacob insists, take them. And Esau says, no, I don't need them.

I have plenty of my own. In other words, by that time, Esau was just as wealthy as Jacob.

So why was Esau's wrath subsided before his dad even died some 20, 25 years after Jacob had left and gone to Haran?

Why had Esau's wrath subsided? Think about it. Because he already had all the wealth that he needed.

What did the blessing mean to him by that point? Jacob says, there's waves of gifts.

And Esau says, I don't need any of those. I don't need any of it. You know, I'm not angry anymore. You think

I need your camels? You think you need your sheep? I don't need any of that. I have plenty of my own. I'm a wealthy man.

Even without the blessings, I have everything I want. A godless and immoral person.

Even without God, I have everything I want. That was Esau even at the end. This is not repentance.

This is not a turning from sin. This is a godless and immoral person who he wept when he wanted the blessing.

He couldn't have it, but he found no place for true repentance. That is Esau. His fleshly passions by that point were still driving him, except now they were satisfied by all the wealth that he had acquired.

He had been able to live off of his father's estate. Probably been able to use or leverage some of that to acquire quite a hefty estate of his own.

He doesn't need any of that. So even without the blessings, it's irrelevant to him by that point. He's not fine with Jacob because he has repented of his sin.

He's fine with Jacob because he's not interested in anything Jacob has at that point. He has everything he wants. So we have observed here now

Esau's carnality and his contempt and now the consequences, his destiny. He flippantly traded

God and his eternity away for a bowl of soup. And here he is reaping the whirlwind of what he has sowed.

And he is the quintessential apostate. Esau is the Old Testament equivalent of Judas. In a moment, he cried and he wept.

That's what Judas did. When Judas had to live with the consequences, the guilt of what he had done. But Judas, unlike Peter, who betrayed the

Lord Jesus, unlike Peter, Judas didn't turn back to Christ and seek forgiveness. Judas instead went and hanged himself.

He just wanted the guilt to be over with. He wanted to be out from underneath the burden of that. So Judas is the

New Testament Esau. Esau is the Old Testament Judas. Man, he traded away everything for a bowl of soup or even 30 shekels.

That is the definition of an apostate. Now, in this story, as I said, with Jacob and Esau, Isaac and Rebekah, there is no one who is without sin.

And let me tell you something, there's no one in this room who is without sin either. It is true that God uses our sins sinlessly to accomplish his sovereign purposes.

And he works through it, he works around it, he works in it, but that doesn't excuse any of it. And there is only one remedy for our guilt and one remedy for our sin, one path to reconciliation.

And that is through the Lord Jesus Christ who provided the only insufficient atonement for our sin. And if you have spent your life bartering away

God's blessings so that you can satiate your lusts and your blasphemy, your murderous thoughts, your idolatry, your lying and your self -centeredness, your greed and your covetousness, if you have done that,

I tell you today that without Jesus Christ and the atoning work of his work on the cross, his sacrifice, bloodshed on the cross, that you are even right now under the wrath of God.

For all of those crimes, all of those sins against a most holy, benevolent, loving and gracious King, you deserve his wrath and you are under it even now.

And without an atonement and a payment for your sin, if you were to die right now without Christ, you would perish everlastingly.

That's the bad news. But the good news is that God sent his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to live a perfect life and make an atoning death and sacrifice on that cross to bear the sin price and the burden and the debt for any and all who will come to him in faith.

That is how much God loved the world. That is how much God loves sinners. And if you will come to Christ in repentance, not just being sorrow for the consequences and the guilt of your sin, but if you will come to Christ in repentance, sorrowful over the fact that you have sinned against a benevolent

King who has lavished you with his blessings from the moment of your birth until this day, and that you have transgressed against his holy law and you have spit in his face and cared nothing for his blessings, if you will turn from that sin and repent in genuine sorrow for your sin and the fact you've sinned against God, he promises you that he will give you eternal life, forgive your sin and give you the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

That is God's promise to you. Christian, believer, you and I must see the warning that is

Esau. That in this life, though, you and I, if we are in Jesus Christ, cannot forfeit our salvation, we can forfeit tremendous blessings by our sin.

And if we are willing to trade away blessings and promises and grace so that we may satiate temporary and passing and fleeting desires, we will be like Esau and weep and lament over the consequences of that, because the consequences of it are painful.

But the answer is the same as for the unbeliever. We have in Jesus Christ an advocate with the

Father. We have in Jesus Christ an atonement for our sin. We have in Jesus Christ one whose righteousness avails for us so that even after we have sinned and even after we have transgressed, we can come back to God in faith, reminded of the fact that my standing before God does not depend upon me and my ability to keep his law, me and my obedience, me and my righteousness.

It's based upon my standing before him avails because of what Jesus Christ has done in Jesus Christ alone.

We are righteous in his sight because of Christ, even if we have sinned in the same manner and after the same pattern as Esau.

And for that, we rejoice and give him thanks. Let's pray. Our Father, we love you and we thank you for your righteousness.

We thank you for the reminder that though our sin is great, that we have an even greater savior in Jesus Christ.

Thank you for pouring out upon him all the wrath that I deserve, that your people deserve.

And thank you, Lord Jesus, for bearing in your own body all our sin and taking the Father's wrath for us so that now there is no condemnation to those who are in Jesus Christ.

We rejoice in that, we thank you for it. And Father, we love you for your great gift of salvation and the righteousness that is in your son.

May you do a work in the hearts of all who are here and all who hear these words to bring glory and honor to yourself by drawing sinners to salvation in Jesus Christ, showing them their need for him, granting them repentance and faith.

And may you be glorified in the hearts of your people as we return to you praise and adoration for the gift of so great a salvation.

We ask this in the name of Christ, amen. Please stand and let's end our service this morning and sing,

Great is thy faithfulness. ♪ Great is thy faithfulness ♪ ♪

O God is the shadow of turning with thee ♪ ♪

Thou changest not thy compassions ♪ ♪

Safe as the husband now for ever ♪ ♪

Great is thy faithfulness morning by day ♪ ♪

Great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me ♪ ♪

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest ♪ ♪

Good at start in their courses above ♪ ♪

Joined with all nature in manifold witness ♪ ♪

To thy great faithfulness mercy and love ♪ ♪

Great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness ♪ ♪

Mercy's I see, unto more sin and a peace that endures ♪ ♪

Thine essence to cheer and to guide ♪ ♪

Strength for today and pride for tomorrow ♪ ♪

Blessings all mine with 10 ,000 peace ♪ ♪

Is thy faithfulness, mercy's

I see ♪ ♪ All I has thy faith is

Lord unto me ♪ Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast and movable, always abounding in the work of the

Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Have a great week.