God's Camp

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Genesis 32:1-21

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Well, I can certainly say it's it's good to be back. I don't know that it was good to be back a few days ago
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Leaving the Florida climate, but it's certainly good to be back among the Saints this morning here a couple weeks ago as we
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Worked our way through Genesis 31. We're reminded that God had called
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Jacob to leave the land of Haran to leave Laban and his influence and his shadow and to return to the land the land of his own family the land of his inheritance to return to Canaan Jacob had spent 20 years under the shadow of Laban weathering the storm
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He was not led by blessing nor by trial to depart He was only led by God's Word by God's command to depart and now
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Of course he didn't depart in the best way as we saw but now having been Delivered from Laban in the shadow of the pile of Gilead.
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He is returning to Canaan But as we begin chapter 32 we find our protagonist our twisting
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Protagonist jumping out of the boiling pot of his encounter with Laban into the frying pan of an inevitable
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Face -down with his brother Esau for 20 years There's been this seething murder plot as far as Jacob knows
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And so we're gonna begin chapter 32 this morning. We're gonna look at the first 21 verses in five parts five parts
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Jacob's path secondly Jacob's panic third
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Jacob's prayer fourth Jacob's present lastly
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Jacob's peace so path panic prayer present peace
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That'll get us through verse 21 first Jacob's path we read
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Jacob went on his way and the angels of God met him When Jacob saw them he said this is
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God's camp and he called the name of that place Mahanaim First notice in verse 1 the text says
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Jacob went on his way Of course, we know that this is really not Jacob's way. This is
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God's way for Jacob all along This has been God's path leading him not only to Bethel and on to Haran But now out of Haran and back toward Bethel back into the promised land itself
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So Jacob is on his way and because of God's work in Jacob's life Jacob is also on God's way all along if we've been reading carefully
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We've seen God's work evident in Jacob's life step by step however
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Small and sprouting it may be God's guiding hand has been evident Now if Jacob had somehow lost sight of the fact that God was guiding him if he had what we call
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Christian amnesia where we are quick to forget God's blessings and revelations and we're quick to write in cement as Spurgeon would say
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All of our trials and woes if he somehow had forgotten that it was
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God's command that he leave Laban Or if he had even forgotten that divine intervention that spared him when
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Laban and his band of thugs Confronted him he would have found God's guidance here in verses 1 & 2 with this angelic reception
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Jacob went on his way and the angels of God Met him
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Now this phrase is significant the angels of God as a phrase It only occurs here and back in chapter 28 verse 12 so we have bookended his departure from Bethel where he had encountered
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God when he was Leaving the promised land and now after 20 years he encounters the angels of God again, as he returns toward the promised land and so Jacob's vision of these angels is a
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Marker almost a signal of the fact that Jacob is walking in God's will that he is entering into his
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Inheritance and also we can see something even more intimate in terms of God's interaction with Jacob He knows how weak
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Jacob's faith is He knows that part of the reason he stayed under the the wretch
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Laban and the treachery of Laban's dealings with him is because of the fear he had for his wild hunter of a brother
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Esau and so as he takes these weak steps of faith back toward the land back toward this inevitable showdown with Esau God sends his ministering angels to reinforce his strength
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To comfort him and give him a sense of resolve you may persevere in this very difficult way
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I am with you Jacob Remember the promise I made to you at Bethel that I would be with you that I would protect you and bless you that I Would be your
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God. Well here I am Jacob We see the truth of Hebrews 1 14, don't we the writer of the
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Hebrews says are they not all ministering spirits? Sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation
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We read Genesis 32 and we say yes. Yes, they are They are ministering spirits.
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God sends them forth to minister to those who will inherit salvation It's exactly how these angels are working in the life of Jacob And that's exactly how angels work in our life
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Now that strikes you as something strange. I think that says a lot more about our views of the divine realm of Spirituality in our
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Christian faith perhaps more than it does about the text. I Remember having an assignment some years ago in a course to write a sort of confession of faith
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It was sort of like a 30 page confession of faith and you had to hit all the big issues in systematic theology And I didn't have too many red marks
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Thank the Lord, but I did have one on the very last page, which was you never addressed
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Angelology you never dealt with angels Don't you know angels are in the Bible? Don't you know that part of God's revelation includes?
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Descriptions of angels and angelic activity. So why didn't you address it? And I realized it's because they have no function in my worldview
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That's a problem because they have a function in God's worldview They have a function in the world that God has made in the lives of his people
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Are they not ministering spirits that God sends forth to minister to us? Yes, they are Angels are present even now to minister to us and notice this is in the plural.
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This is angels This is not a you get one angel. Well, I want a different angel. No, this is the angel you get
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Now this is angels We read of the routing of the
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Assyrians by night when 185 ,000 soldiers are killed by the passing shadow of one of these angels
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Really only does need one angel But God is so generous. So omnipotent
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Give him more than one give him a whole host If you go back to the Targums of the rabbis They say well a host that which dwells within the
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Shekinah glory is never less than 60 ,000 how they arrive at that number who knows so they say here at two camps.
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This is a doubling This must be upwards of 120 ,000. I Angels of God But knowing even the power of one of these
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Messengers sent on task by the Lord ought to say something of what God is trying to help
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Jacob understand Those that are with you those that you cannot see Jacob are far more than those that you think will come to get you
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Angels are present to minister to God's people in in less than evident ways, but no less real ways.
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We may not see them as they meet with Jacob. But nevertheless, God has so ordered his world and ordered his people's lives that they are ministering spirits which he sends forth to minister to us.
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And significantly, when we approach Genesis 32, we realize just like Jesus' wilderness trial, when he endured the temptations of the enemy, at the very end of that trial, after 40 days of deprivation, 40 nights of weariness, we read that the angels of God ministered to him.
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And so even as these angels ministered to Jesus after his trial in the wilderness, we see these same angels ministering to Jacob as he's about to approach his trial.
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And we can take this as a theological pointer. Angels are not sent to prevent
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God's trials. Not for Jacob, not for Jesus, not for us. Angels are not sent to prevent
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God's trials, but rather to minister to those that God is trying.
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Though we cannot see the activity, being so weak in the flesh, so slow of heart to believe, so stubborn, so imperceptive, the reality is the same in the life of the
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Christian. Angels for Jacob are like a chapter division. Quite literally, they mark out this great episode that's about to unravel in chapter 32.
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God wants Jacob to know how much He cares for him. It's Psalm 91 embedded within Genesis 32.
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He has so commanded His angels that harm will not come to you, Jacob. So take up faith, take up courage, gird yourself like a man.
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God is with you. The God of Bethel is with you. You're in God's camp.
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And that's what Jacob confesses, isn't it, in verse two. This is God's camp. Mahanaim, that's a
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Hebrew noun. Hebrew's interesting. You don't just have singular or plural nouns like in English. You also have a dual form.
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And this is a dual form. So it's a double camp. And he says, this is not just my camp.
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This is God's camp. And so the angels are marking out for Jacob that he's in the right place at the right time.
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He's where God intends for him to be as painful and as fear -inducing as it may be,
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Jacob is on the right path. This is God's camp indeed. And as David could report in Psalm 34, it's what
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Jacob could say. This poor man cried out, the Lord heard him, saved him out of all of his troubles, the angel of the
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Lord encamps all around those who fear him. The term camp here is not camp
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Manadnock, right? It's not summer camp. It's not recreational. In the
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Hebrew here, it's often used to be the staging area, the encampment for some military endeavor.
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And so the forces assemble and they camp before some battle, before some engagement.
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This is the staging area. It's also used as you would expect it even here, a staging area for the next leg of a long journey.
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But significantly, as we'll see, not only this week but next week, Mahanaim is also
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God's staging area in the life of Jacob. God's staging area for the culmination of the deep work he's been doing for 20 years.
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God's military encampment for the battle of faith that's about to unfold. Now in God's camp, for Jacob and for us, in God's camp, there's a lot of unknowns.
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There's a lot of unanswered questions. There's a lot of unresolved issues. There's a tension. There's a lot of heartache.
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There's a lot of concern. But it's still God's camp. You may not have angelic visitors telling you that you're in the right place at the right time, but don't take your circumstances or the adversity or the trial you're facing to somehow mean that you're outside of God's will.
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The trial, in fact, shows that you are in God's camp. You are in the staging area for the work that God is doing in your life.
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And for Jacob, though it's been in the back of his mind, perhaps deep down in the layers of his conscience, he knows that there's a 20 -year -old debt that remains unpaid, and he's about to pay it in full.
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Genesis 32, beginning in verse three. Jacob sends messengers before him to Esau, his brother in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.
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And he commanded them, saying, speak thus to my lord Esau. Thus your servant Jacob says,
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I have dwelt with Laban and stay there until now. I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male, female servants
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I've sent to tell my lord, so that I may find favor in your sight.
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So we have Jacob approaching the land, and now he's sending messengers to deal with this unpaid debt, this unresolved issue with Esau.
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And we find Esau in the mountains of Seir. John Gill, a 17th century commentator, he reminds us that the land of Seir takes its name from Seir of the
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Horite. Esau married into that family. And so he's sort of taking his possession, that which belongs to him now, by marital right.
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And he gives it the name Edom, that is, Moses gives it the name Edom. I don't know that it was called
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Edom initially until after Esau had taken possession of it. So we read, for instance, in Deuteronomy 2, verse 12.
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The Horites, these would be the people that descend from Seir the
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Horite. The Horites formerly dwelt in Seir, but the descendants of Esau dispossessed them and destroyed them and dwelt in their place.
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So this is what Esau's been doing for 20 years. You know, he's been taking domain.
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He's been dispossessing the sons of Seir. He's been kicking them out and setting up his own inheritance in the land that becomes
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Edom. Edom being a play on his name, Esau. And we ask the question, why?
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Why didn't Esau just stay in Canaan for 20 years? He could have basically recovered his inheritance in Canaan.
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He could have stayed under the influence of his father Isaac. But as Calvin says, in order to pass his life free from authority,
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Esau chose to live in a state of separation from Isaac. He disregarded the inheritance still, and he left it by God's will for his brother.
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So in God's providence, Esau has no interest in Canaan, no interest in his father
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Isaac's household, even though he could somehow fight for that and grapple for that, he's already abandoned it.
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He has still no concern, no interest for that spiritual lineage of Abraham. He's off in the mountains of Seir, dispossessing the
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Horites. And this is part of God's providence, Calvin says. Jacob's coming to an empty homestead.
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He can claim it now much more readily. And clearly we see God's providence in this.
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Not only do we see God, invisibly as it were, guiding Esau away from Canaan, away from the inheritance of Jacob, we also see
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God guiding Jacob toward Canaan. And significantly, Jacob does not take the easiest path back to Canaan.
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Geographically, if you're returning from Haran and you're taking this long journey southward, and where we're going after Penuel is
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Bethel, well then you just need to stop kind of in the northern part of the promised land. But he's going far south, out toward Edom.
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He's taking a much longer route around the promised land, well beyond Bethel, in order to address his brother
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Esau. And so you can see there's no reason that Jacob would go past the promised land, southward toward Seir, unless he was attempting to deal with Esau, his greatest fear, the biggest threat, out of hand.
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And Derek Kidner points out, this very sequence is in fulfillment of Matthew 5.
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Remember what the Lord Jesus said there, that you cannot go to bring your offerings to the altar of God when you remember that your brother has something against you.
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Leave the offerings, go address your brother, and having reconciled with him, then go bring your offering to God.
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Well, Jacob, as it were, is being led by God into Canaan. When he gets to Canaan, he's gonna build altars and he's gonna worship
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God. He's gonna bring gifts of sacrifice to his God. But on the way there, he remembers, my brother has something against me.
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And so he does not enter, he does not build the altar. He goes to reconcile with his brother before he comes to worship the
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Lord in Canaan. This is kingdom ethics in the life of Jacob, something we have not seen very often.
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20 years before this, when he was fleeing with nothing but a staff in his hand, Esau had sworn to murder him.
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But look at Jacob now. Not only does he go well beyond Bethel to reach out to Esau, he doesn't reach out to Esau in a belligerent way.
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He doesn't say, hey, it's me, the one that dad said would inherit everything. I just want you to know how much
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I have going for me, and I'm sorry if that means any, no. What does he say? Your servant,
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Jacob. My Lord, Esau. This is not the twister we saw 20 years ago.
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Before Jacob had fled, he was lording it over Esau, doing whatever he could to pinch and squeeze the birthright and the blessing into his own hands.
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But now, the one who it was prophesied that his elder would call him
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Lord is saying, no, no, no, my elder brother is my Lord, and I'm his servant. Once more, there's kingdom ethics here.
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Remember in Matthew 20, the sons of Thunder, the sons of Zebedee, it doesn't say it in the text, but it has to be this way.
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They put their poor old mom up to going to Jesus and saying, can you please give my boys the best of the best in the kingdom?
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Can't they sit on your right and your left? Hey, mom, come on, do us a solid. Go up to Jesus and ask this for us.
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And of course, when this comes out of the hat, Jesus addresses them. It almost shows the fact that he knew it was from them and not from their poor old mother.
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Are you able to drink the cup that I'm to drink? Yeah, we're able. You don't even know what you're talking about.
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And then it all opens up to the other 10, and now there's this division in the group, and so Jesus calls them all over to himself.
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He says, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them. And those who are great exercise authority over them.
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Not so among you. Whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant, let him be your slave.
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Whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave. This is what
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Jacob's essentially doing. He will become greater than Esau. He will become lord over his elder brother.
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But as a result of 20 years of God's patient work of grace in his life, he comes to his brother, not lording it over him, but saying,
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I'm your slave. You're my lord. Command as you will.
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That God's word may be true in my life, that I might be first and preeminent over you, I will be your servant.
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And more than this, you remember, it's a reversal of what Isaac's blessing was, though he thought at the time he was giving it to Esau, truly indeed,
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Jacob shall be blessed, and the blessing was that the elder would serve the younger, but as a result of God's grace, the younger seeks to serve the older.
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And so as a result of God's work in Jacob's life, he's preparing to give the blessing back to Esau.
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Now that's not really up to him. Indeed, he shall be blessed, Isaac says. God's word will stand true.
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But as far as Jacob is concerned, whatever I can give, whatever I can do to undo the damage and manipulation that I've done,
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I'm willing to do it. You're my lord, and I'm your servant. Let's get back to how it was meant to be.
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As much as that depends upon me, if it's not obvious here that he's seeking, as it were, to give back the blessing, we'll see it later on.
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I'll make mention of how Jacob refers to his present in chapter 33. Jacob is now subservient.
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Not manipulating for the edge. There's no spirit of Laban within him.
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Jacob has been humbled. God has untwisted him. Jacob lists the abundance that God has given him, his flocks, his cattle, his servants, but he doesn't do it to boast.
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He says, I want you to know, while I was sojourning under Laban, I want you to know that I've been blessed, and I want to find favor in your sight.
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He's like, I want to pay reparations. I want to give you tribute. I want to say
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I'm sorry that I've wronged you. I want to bless you. I want there to be peace between us. I've sent to tell my
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Lord so that I can find favor in your sight. This is not the
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Jacob we knew 20 years ago. Well, the messengers go out, beginning in verse six, and when they return to Jacob, they say, we came to your brother
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Esau. You can imagine Jacob hanging on every syllable that's coming out of their mouths. What did he say?
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They can't get it out fast enough. He's coming to meet you. Oh, this is good, this is good.
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And 400 men are with him. Not good. We read verse seven,
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Jacob was greatly afraid. This is soul fear. He was distressed.
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And he takes immediate action, evasive action. He divides his people, divides his whole possession into two.
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He sets up, as it were, a subterfuge, a sacrificial camp.
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Hopefully they'll only attack one and the rest of us can escape while they're in the middle of hacking apart this other false camp.
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And he says, verse eight, if Esau comes to the one company and attacks it, the other company, which is left, will escape.
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Which company do you think Jacob's gonna be in? When that report comes back,
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Esau's coming for you. 400 men are coming for you. Esau's imagination goes to the worst.
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You don't assemble 400 men unless you usually have less than noble purposes. This is
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Esau's militia, for all we can understand. Their intent is to destroy him.
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And Esau's not just content to deal with Jacob, he's raised up 400 men to destroy everything that belongs to Jacob.
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Remember in Genesis 14, how when that battle between the five kings and the four kings began to rage and then
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Lot was taken as part of the captive train of Keterleomer, how Abraham raised up 318 men.
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318 that then defeated the king Keterleomer's armies.
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Four armies. He completely gutted them out. They were exhausted from all the battle.
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And so with 318 men, he decimated their forces and rescued Lot. Well, Esau has even more than that.
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What kind of damage could he do? 400 men. And so what does Jacob do?
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He panics. This is the panic of Jacob. When Laban confronted
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Jacob, and he had a force that was up to no good, God so intervened that Jacob had courage and he rebuked
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Laban to his face. And I think he had that courage because he knew not only that God was intervening, that God was protecting, but also that he was in the right.
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And so there was a courage that came from that conviction, that righteousness. He could rebuke forthrightly
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Laban to his face, but he's not in the right with Esau. Part of Jacob's panic is, isn't this just what
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I deserve? Isn't this justice? The fact that he didn't have this righteousness toward his brother, it took away his courage.
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And even the angels of God that met him at Mahanaim, they didn't take away this panic.
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Esau's coming to kill him. He's convinced of it. Remember how Rebekah, when she sent
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Jacob away, she said, it will just last a few days. And when your brother's rage is subsided, I will send for you to return.
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And that was 20 years ago. Rebekah never sent. As far as Jacob knows, his brother's been plotting his murder for 20 years.
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And now the time has come. It's the reckoning. This is the showdown.
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Esau's about to exact his revenge. It's unavoidable. I was watching a video, this was some time ago, of a state trooper, and it showed the whole dash cam.
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There were calls coming in. I forget what part of the country it was in. That a driver, presumably drunk, was going in excess of 80 miles an hour the wrong way, on a four -lane highway.
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And so without hesitation, the state trooper pulled off on the exit, got onto the highway ahead of where this driver was coming, and parked as best as he could in the middle of those lanes, trying to take up as much as possible.
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And he knew at any moment, as these lights beamed across the horizon, at 80 miles an hour, he was about to get slammed.
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It was unavoidable. There was no dodging it. There was no time to get out of the door.
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There was no time to do anything but park and wait for about three seconds. How do you prepare for something like that?
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Jacob is bracing for impact. The headlights of Esau's rage are screaming toward him, 400 men behind him.
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How do you brace for something like that? Well, Jacob gives in to that panic.
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He's filled with fear of the prospect of what Esau will do, not only to him, but to the mother, to the children, to everything that he has.
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He's gonna be decimated. Now that fear, in and of itself, that fear is not the problem.
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You're not human if you don't have fear in this circumstance, right? Fear is not the problem.
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So many commentators and preachers fault Jacob for being fearful. He shouldn't have been afraid.
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Did he not see the angels? He shouldn't have been afraid. It's like, are you kidding me? Yes, he should have been afraid. Who wouldn't be afraid?
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Jesus greatly feared in the garden of Gethsemane. He sweat drops of blood. Fear is not a lack of faith.
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Fear in itself is not sinful. The problem is what the fear led him to do. I love what
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Calvin says on this. They who fancy that faith is exempt from all fear, you know, pure faith has no fear within it, have never experienced the true nature of faith.
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Faith in the midst of fear. That's true faith, Calvin is saying. God does not promise that he'll be present with us in order to remove us from danger.
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He promises that he'll be present with us in the midst of danger, that he'll preserve our faith so that despair and terror will not overwhelm us.
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That doesn't mean it won't feel like you're treading water. Doesn't mean you'll have some sense that it's all gonna work out splendidly.
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Again, the fear in and of itself is not the problem here. It's what the fear causes Jacob to do.
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We sense that he loses that trust, he loses that faith in God's protection as soon as his first reaction is to say, okay, what can we do about this situation?
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Let's split up the camp. This camp's gonna have to be the camp that everyone gets killed, but at least if that's starting to happen, we can all run for it.
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You just get the sense, no, no, Jacob, this is not the way you should be thinking. This should not be your first,
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Jacob, you're going back to your old ways. Fearing the worst, he splits his whole group in half.
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And when he divided his camp in half, he was prepared to lose half of his livelihood.
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He was prepared to lose half of his God -given abundance. He was prepared to lose half of the loving relationships that he enjoyed, and when he made that decision, he lost half of his trust in God's protection.
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I think we can say Jacob should have trusted God to protect all that he had.
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It would've been a fearful thing no matter what, but he could've said, here we stand, we can do no other.
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You know, so help us, God. This is my camp, this is my abundance from God, and I have to trust that God will protect it, and that God will protect us.
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I think we have a misstep here, genuinely, a stumble, a backslide into old ways, and I feel more confirmed in that because of what remains in the chapter.
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Apparently, Jacob's gonna need even more of an encounter, not just with God's angels, but with God himself.
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There's more contending and untwisting that God is going to have to do before Jacob goes over the yabbik, but in the meantime, we can say this.
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God's patient work has not been wasted, and in what happens beginning in verse nine, it's as if that weak, trembling, fearful foot recollects and cautiously goes out and takes another step forward.
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He sort of recovers his balance. He's like Peter sinking in the Galilean waters.
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He prays. Panic gave itself over to the old paths, but then there's a recovery, and this is the fruit of God's grace, too.
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He almost catches himself, and he prays. Jacob said, oh,
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God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, return to your country and to your family.
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I will deal well with you. I'm not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which you have shown your servant.
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I crossed over this Jordan with my staff, and now I've become two companies.
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Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau. I fear him, lest he come and attack me and the mother with the children.
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For you said, I will surely treat you well. I'll make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.
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Jacob's panic gives way to Jacob's prayer, and just look at the anatomy of this prayer. He begins by invoking
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God. Oh, God. And notice, it's not just with the name
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God, it's not just with who God is, but he invokes God also on the basis of what
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God has done. Oh, God of my father Abraham, the God of my father
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Isaac. In other words, the God who has been faithful to his covenant, a covenant of which
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I am standing in. And then he brings that covenantal faithfulness from his grandfather to his father, right down to himself.
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The Lord who said to me, return to your country and to your family. Well, here I am,
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I'm back in the country. Here I am, I'm back with my family. And you said you'd deal well with me.
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So he's recounting God's promises to him. Here, the reference, return to your country and to your family,
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I will deal well with you. Here, this is the promise that we just read in chapter 31. The promise at the end of the 20 years.
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But when he recounts God's faithfulness, it's not done in this attitude of merit. It's not done as though God coldly is obligated to Jacob.
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As he begins to recount the promise that God had given him, the promise that he's been shakily, but genuinely walking after by faith, begins to melt his heart into humility.
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Verse 10, I'm not worthy. I love that.
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It's not this blame. Oh God of my father and my grandfather, and you said to me, return to your country.
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How could you let this happen? 400 men are after me now. This is ridiculous, I should have met. No, what does he do?
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He recounts the promises and he says, I'm not worthy. That's like taking a huge step out of the situation and just saying, everything that has happened to me up to this point,
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I have not been worthy of. I have been worthy of the least of your mercies.
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He's like that incessant widow that keeps begging the judge. And now that Jacob has addressed
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God's account, God's faithfulness, God's goodness, he begins to recount his own journey. We begin, as it were, going from the end, the promise of 31, and now we're gonna end up kind of retrograding all the way back toward Bethel.
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I crossed over this Jordan with my staff. When I fled from my brother 20 years ago, all
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I had was a walking stick. And here I am again, 20 years later, and look at.
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I have four wives. I have sons and daughters. I have flocks and cattle.
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You have blessed me. I ran away with nothing. You brought me back with everything.
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And then we find that thankfulness turns over to the plea.
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How interesting that he first addresses God, then he addresses
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God, not just in terms of who God is, but what God has done. Then he recounts the faithfulness of God.
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And as he recounts that, he humbles himself and confesses where he has been and what God has done in his life.
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And it's not until he gets that thankfulness up toward the Lord in his prayer that he turns to the plea.
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Brothers and sisters, how often do we just go, oh God, plea. Oh God, plea.
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Rather than taking the time to say, oh God, plea. The God of my fathers, the
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God who has blessed me, the God who's been patient with me, a servant who deserves nothing and has been given everything.
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Until we tune our hearts by his grace to be thankful, we should not enter into the plea, even though he's panicked.
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He's cognizant of the fact that he must praise God and thank God before he asks God to intervene.
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And when he asks God to intervene, look at his heart. Deliver me,
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I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau. And now he becomes boldly honest.
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He's not hiding his genuine feelings toward God, even though God knows him, knows his frame, knows his heart, knows how he feels.
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He just puts it out there. I'm afraid. I fear him. Yeah, I know
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I was big stuff when I dragged that wellstone off to impress the ladies, but I'm afraid of my brother
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Esau. He used to put me in a headlock and never let me go until I cried uncle. He's a wild hunter of a man.
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I'm afraid of him. Lest he come and attack me, not just me. Lest he kills my wives and my children.
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And then how does he end his prayer? At the conclusion of this, he once more returns to the very promise of God, which shows that he will not allow his mind to circle over this dilemma.
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He will not let his thoughts, which they naturally want to do, go round and round in orbit around the crisis and around the fear.
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He forces his mind and his heart to put his thoughts in orbit around God's promises.
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So he's not recounting his fears so much as confessing them, but what he is recounting continuously are the promises of God.
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You said, I will surely treat you well and make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for their multitude.
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He's in this precarious, vulnerable position, and yet by grasping on, even by feeble fingers, the promises of God, he's given peace.
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And so though his prayer is filled with this genuine expression of fear, even when he recounts the promises, this is meant to bring a salve, to assuage his fear.
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He's essentially saying, don't let my descendants be killed. Don't let my infant sons be dashed by my vengeful brother.
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I'm afraid, Lord. I can't stand against him. I can't withstand his anger. Don't let my seed be cut off from the earth.
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In fact, you promised that my seed would go on to bless the earth. Remember, Lord, what you promised.
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And he's essentially saying, remember, O my soul, what the Lord has promised. And so when he says the promise of the seed, he's now recounting the promise of chapter 28.
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He began his prayer at the end of 20 years, but in the midst of the prayer, he went all the way back to 20 years before.
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Between verses nine and 12, Jacob is encompassing two decades of God's work in his life.
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The grace of God's work between Bethel and Haran, and here he is on his way back to Bethel, and in his prayers, this echo of God's promise at Bethel, reinforcing the weak man of faith.
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The rehearsal of God's promises in orbit in his mind, helping this feeble disciple who at this very moment is saying,
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Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief. And we have not only the echo of Bethel's promise, but here in the language of the seed, the echo of Abraham's promise, and therefore, the echo of God's unchanging, unfailing, covenantal faithfulness.
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You can fear Jacob, you can fear Isaac, you can fear
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Abraham, but God is faithful. And what more could grip us in the panic of our trials, brothers and sisters, than rehearsing the promises of God, laying hold of them, even by feeble hands, letting them orbit in our minds until we're recounting more of the promises of God than we are our own fears?
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What more could steal your resolve to plant that next trembling foot, to make sure that you will not run away, you will not leave
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Mahanaim, you will not go back to the pile of Gilead, but you will stay, you will face by faith whatever's coming your way, 400 men in all.
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And so we have here a paradigm for faithful prayer in the midst of trial.
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We'll come back to that at the very end of the message. We go from prayer now to Jacob's present.
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We read, beginning in verse 13, he launched there that same night, took what came to his hand as a present for Esau, his brother, 200 female goats, 20 male goats, 200 ewes and 20 rams, 30 milk camels with their colts, 40 cows and 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys and 10 foals.
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Don't know if one of those foals was a Tennessee walker, but it might have been. Then he delivered them to the hand of his servants.
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Every drove by itself and said to his servants, Passover before me, put some distance between these successive droves.
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And he commanded the first servants, saying, when Esau, my brother, meets you and asks you, saying, to whom do you belong?
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Where are you going? Whose are these in front of you? Then you shall say, they are your servant,
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Jacob's. It is a present sent to my Lord, Esau. And behold, he also is behind us.
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The present here in Hebrew, later in chapter 43, it's translated as tribute.
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Earlier, all the way back in chapter four, it's translated as offering. It's that which is brought to the
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Lord as tribute, as a present on the altar. But Jacob, in his own recounting, not in Moses' words, but in his own recounting in chapter 33,
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Jacob calls it the blessing. The blessing. And this is why, again,
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I say, Jacob is prepared to restore the blessing to Esau. Now, that's not
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God's will. Indeed, Jacob shall be blessed, but he's so humbled by the grace of God, he's, as it were, found the true inheritance of Abraham that he's prepared to return whatever physical gain there has been to Esau.
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Esau, is this the blessing you expected? You can have it. So he commanded the second and the third and all who followed the drove, saying, in this manner you shall speak to Esau when you find him.
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And also say, behold, your servant Jacob is behind us. For he said,
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I will appease him with the present that goes before me, and afterward I will see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.
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Again, we see this humility of Jacob's language, the way he regards himself as a servant, the way he regards
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Esau as Lord, the droves of this elaborate gift that wave after wave are meant to break down any remnant hostility between Esau and him.
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And then as the cherry on the top of this great elaborate gift is Jacob himself. Just when he's admiring the milk camels, here comes another gift.
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It's just like one of those Russian dolls. There's just more and more and more. But the servant also says,
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Jacob is behind all this. Do you like this? There's more coming, and Jacob's at the very end of this. And hopefully, whatever bitterness and resentment and murderous intent, by the time all these cattle and servants keep coming, it's just been worn down.
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And he says, oh, this is more than I could ever want. How can I hold this against you, Jacob? That's the plan.
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Jacob will be at the end of this train. I love what one said. It might have been
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R. Kent Hughes. For the first time in his life, Jacob wanted to be last. His whole life, he wanted to be first.
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Now, he's at the end of the train for good reason. Wouldn't want to be first on this occasion. There's all this wordplay, which is so easy to miss between verses 20 and 21.
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The Hebrew idiom of face is used in many different ways, and there's sort of a poetic usage here.
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We're gonna see it again next week in the remnant of chapter 32. If we were to read verses 20 and 21 literally, not translating the idioms, but reading it literally, it would go something like this.
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I will see his face with the present that goes before me, and afterward, I will see his face.
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Perhaps he will lift up my face, and so the gift passed over upon his face.
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That would be a literal rendering, and you get already this little key that this word face is gonna be very significant, intent, for next week.
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Afterward, I will see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.
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Perhaps he will lift up my face. Perhaps he will forgive me. That's Jacob's heart.
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From the thieving manipulator who could care less about his relationship with Esau, what damage could be done to it, he just wanted the blessing.
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Whatever Esau had, that's what Jacob wanted. Whatever damage that would cause, who cares? He has no regard for Esau, but now look at him.
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Esau can have everything. I just want him to forgive me. I want us to have peace.
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I want to atone for the wrong that I've done. That's the result of 20 years of God untwisting the twisted.
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And it leads not only to Jacob's present, Jacob's prayer, but lastly,
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Jacob's peace. Doesn't say he has peace. In fact, I'm quite sure he didn't have much peace that night but I digress.
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Verse 21. So the present went on over before him, but he himself lodged that night in the camp.
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This is gonna be a long night. The narrative all along has been building the tension of this encounter.
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Part of our problem when we read the Bible is it's a little too familiar to us and we forget what it's like to read the story for the first time.
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If we could forget how the story ends, we would start to feel some of the tension that Jacob is feeling now.
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As far as Jacob knows, this night could be his last. He's in this camp and he's not leaving and it could cost him everything.
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He could wake up the next day to 400 men brutally tearing apart everything that God had given him over these 20 years.
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And then even himself, he could watch his sons dashed, his wives torn, his cattle slaughtered.
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It's gonna be a long night. He's praying and we get the sense that it wasn't a one -time prayer.
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You can imagine he's recounting these promises, pleading with God, confessing his fear. This camp could cost him everything.
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It could ruin him, but he stays. He lives. He stays.
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He lodges himself, we read. He lodges himself in God's camp.
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Because even though it's a place of great terror, even though it's a place of great pain, even though he's filled with anxiety, he knows that it's
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God's place. And if it's God's place, then he'll stay by faith and he'll wait on the
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Lord. It's God's camp. And so we leave our passage here.
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We leave Jacob at verse 21, looking through the flapping door of his tent, perhaps staring restlessly up in the swirling stars of the night sky, knowing what
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God had promised and wondering how are you gonna fulfill it? Like Abraham all those years before was looking up at the night sky, looking at the starlight and saying,
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God, I know what you promised, but how are you gonna fulfill it? Pondering yet trusting.
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Fearful, sweaty forehead, a lot of rolling around on the pillow, and yet he stays.
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Three applications as we close. First, redemption involves relationships.
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Redemption involves relationships. We see that so clearly in the life cycle of Jacob.
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Redemption involves relationships. God will not let Jacob go until he's dealt with the wrong between him and Esau.
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According to Titus 2 .14, one of the reasons that Christ gave himself for us, who believe, is to redeem us from lawlessness.
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That is, we're to be redeemed from a state of lawlessness by Christ's death into a state of lawfulness.
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We're to come to the law of liberty. And the law is not only concerned with a redeemed, a reconciled love toward God, but also a redeemed and reconciled love toward neighbor.
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We remember the first and greatest commandment, of course, is to love God, and Christ's death so affects us that we're reconciled to God's love.
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We're reconciled by God's love. We're able to make peace with God because God has made peace with us through Christ.
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But do not forget that the second commandment is also like it, and that is to love neighbor.
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And therefore, Jacob must be reconciled to Esau insofar as it depends upon him.
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And I say that as a caveat only here because I don't wanna lose the significance of the point. I realize sometimes reconciliation is not up to us.
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Reconciliation is a two -way street. Loving neighbor is a two -way street. Insofar as it depends upon us, we are accountable to God.
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And if I can speak frankly, brothers and sisters, it's usually a little bit farther than we want it to be when we say insofar as it depends upon us.
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I've done what I can. Have you really? Have you really?
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The law is not only concerned with a redeemed and reconciled love for God, but also a redeemed and reconciled love for neighbor.
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Jacob must be reconciled to Esau. Paul must be reconciled to Mark. Uodium must be reconciled to Syntyche.
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This is God's will. This is God's will for the neighbor. This is
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God's will for the neighbor. Why? God wants to show to despisers and blasphemers and enemies something of His forgiveness through our forgiveness.
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Those who are blind and at enmity against God rarely see anything of God's blessing or patience or forgiveness in their lives, but we become a tangible signpost, a tangible deposit, some semblance of what the patience and forgiveness of God looks like.
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And so this is God's will for our neighbor. This is the kindness that God would have them experience, something of His patience,
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His long -suffering, His unfailing compassion. Christians are commanded not to let the sun set on their anger.
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It's a sad thing when Christians let years set on their anger. It's unchristian.
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It's not only God's will for the neighbor, it's also God's will for us. Redemption involves relationships because God is doing this untwisting work in our lives too.
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And this untwisting work of sanctification does not occur in a vacuum. We need relationships to grow in holiness.
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And often God will use both positive and negative relationships to grow us in holiness.
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We need both. We don't just need the sweet, we need the sour. Imagine if Jacob had stolen the blessing, deceived his father, manipulated and wrested his way and got everything he wanted.
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And then everything, 20 years ago, after that moment, with Esau fuming and his father deceived, and everything after that went swimmingly well.
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Went, you know, as the English say, went perfect. Jacob never had to leave at all. Esau was fuming, but then he just said
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I'm outta here and he went down to eat him. He got over it, maybe, who cares? Jacob had everything he wanted.
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His flocks began to overflow, wives came along somehow, and here he is sitting for 20 years.
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He lied and stole and cheated. Yeah, but hey, at least in the end, I made it. If God let him function in that way, how little
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Jacob would know about God? How little Jacob would know about himself? How paper thin, if at all, would
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Jacob's sense of God's blessing and presence become? How shallow and immature would
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Jacob's life be, filled with unchecked sins, unreconciled relationships?
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But as hard as Haran may be, as unnerving as Mahanaim may be,
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God appoints Laban's and Esau's, as much as Leah's and Rachel's, in other words, bad and good relationships, difficult and blessed relationships for the growth of his people, so that they will know him, and knowing him, they will know something of themselves, and they will see his presence and his blessings, and they will begin to live a life by faith, and a life of righteousness, and like Jacob, they'll begin to undo the damage and find redemption, not only in themselves towards God, but redemption in their relationships.
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Redemption involves relationships. Secondly, we see here in this chapter that molds require pressure.
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Molds require pressure. I used to work at a plastic factory, as some of you know, for about seven years, and it was several machine rooms with these giant hydraulic plesses, plastic injection molding machines.
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You'd have these massive steel plates that these machines hydraulically would pull apart, usually five, six, or seven different plates, and they would, under tremendous pressure, tens of thousands of pounds of pressure, they would be pressed together while hot plastic was hydraulically injected into the mold, and that pressure got that plastic to fully encompass the mold, and when those plates opened and the piece dropped out, you had a fully formed plastic mold.
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It had conformed fully to the mold it was set in. If you somehow lost pressure from the injection, what you would pull out of the machine was a misformed, misshapen, and therefore useless product.
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The corners would look like melting Jell -O. It wasn't anything you could sell or even salvage.
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We ground it up and threw it away. I'm sorry for you environmentalists. That's how it was done where I worked.
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Mahanaim is God's camp, and it's a place of tremendous pressure for Jacob. There's the pressure of an unknown future in the
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Promised Land. He had something going for him for 20 years, but this is a whole new direction in his life, and he doesn't know what will come of it.
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There's the pressure of an unknown threat from a vengeful brother who's steaming toward him with 400 men. There's pressure in Mahanaim, but this is
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God's camp, and he's staying. And so it is with the work of grace in a believer's life.
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The Lord brings us to these places, to his camps, and there's pressure, and the overwhelming steel plates of trials and relationships and troubles and heartaches they press on our lives.
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And then God gives us this pressure so that we'll be molded and fully formed by his grace, and without that pressure, without that tension, without that trial, we would be left misformed, misshapen, useless.
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But when God presses these things into our lives, and there's this pressure, it causes us to fill out every contour of the life of Christ who is our example.
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We become molded into conformity to Christ by pressure.
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Molds require pressure. Third and last application, prayer brings peace.
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When you're being pressed by those plates of trial, when you're being panicked like Jacob was panicked, we need to take a lesson from Jacob's playbook.
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Prayer brings peace. When you're facing the pressure of God's camp in your life, if you remember what
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Jacob does between verses nine and 12, as I said, we have a paradigm for faithful prayer in the midst of trial.
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And really, I see four major movements here. First, confession of God. Second, confession of self.
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Third, thanksgiving. And fourth, a plea. Now, in each of these four points, you also want to include the fact that God's promises are being orbited around.
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In, behind, before, around, every one of these four movements. Confession of God.
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Not only who he is, but what he has done. So there's a rehearsal of God's promises, of God's past.
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Second, confession of self. Letting those promises begin to frame your humility.
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You take stock of where was I, where am I now? How did I get here? What has God been to me? What has
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God done for me? So you're rehearsing not only what God has done, but more specifically, what
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God has done for you. How God has dealt with you. Third, that leads to thanksgiving.
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In thanksgiving, you're talking about your walk before this current place, this current camp.
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In thanksgiving, you say, this is what you have been, have done, have promised. Everything before this point.
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Taking mind to God's faithfulness. That's thanksgiving. But then comes the plea. And now you're praying about this point, this camp, and you're being boldly honest about your fears.
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Devastatingly honest about your needs. This is how I feel, this is what I need. I don't know if this is coming across pious, this is just how
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I feel, Lord, help me. But even there, you don't allow that plea to take over the prayer.
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You quickly let that plea give way to another rehearsal of God's promises. And so you move from confessing
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God and yourself, thanksgiving and pleading, but interwoven between these movements is a rehearsal of God's faithfulness.
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When you pray like this, you will have peace. It may be a long night, but you'll be staying in God's camp.
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You're not going anywhere. Beloved, Spurgeon said, I say to you, one and all, study much the promises of God.
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Have them at your fingers' ends. Remember what God has said. It's kind of the beauty of Jacob's prayer, isn't it?
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He's like, remember, Lord, what you said. Remember, Lord, what you said. And he's really speaking to himself.
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Remember, Jacob, what God said. Remember, Jacob, what God said. And that's how it is with the Christian. We're pleading the promises of God, not as though God has forgotten them, but as though we are quick to forget them.
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And so we're stealing up our faith in the promises of God. Be anxious for nothing when you're in God's camp.
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In everything, by prayer and supplication, make your requests known to God. With thanksgiving, this peace of God which surpasses all understanding, it will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
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In our passage, one thing that stands out to me is this repetition between verse 13 and 21.
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It comes right off the heels of prayer, Jacob's resolve. He doesn't run, he doesn't hide, he doesn't scheme.
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He just waits. He's just waiting on the Lord. He's not moving, he's not doing anything else.
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He's not digging ditches and sharpening spears like William Wallace. He's just waiting. And so we have it doubled for emphasis.
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Verse 13, he lodged there that same night. Verse 21, he himself lodged that night in the camp.
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He's in the camp. He's gonna face Esau head on. Perhaps there's anxiety that's pressing out prayers in your life this morning, forehead sweat, rolling on the pillows by night, but I think as a
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Christian, you have access to the same persevering peace of Jacob. It's not a comfortable peace.
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It's not a peace that makes you feel like you're on a bed of daisies and there's nothing but blissful sunshine ahead of you, but it is a peace from God that transcends, surpasses your understanding of the present crisis, the pressure of the trial.
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It's a peace that causes you to stay. Not easy. It's a hard -fought, hard -won peace, but the peace causes you to persevere.
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And that prayer brings peace. And so when we're like Jacob, considering what is unknown about the trial that's yet to face us, our uncertain future, the difficulties that we're beginning to experience, the difficulties that are rushing toward us on this narrow and thorny way, we're like Jacob in God's camp.
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And in God's camp, we rehearse like Jacob, God's faithfulness, God's goodness, even when we're bringing our fears and our pleas before him.
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Because in prayer, we ascend that staircase of Bethel. We come to the throne room of the infinite one, infinite in wisdom, infinite in goodness, infinite in love.
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And that's how prayer brings peace. With that, let's pray.
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And I'll read as our prayer, the words from Isaiah 26, beginning in verse three.
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Oh Lord, you keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you.
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Trust in the Lord forever. The Lord God is an everlasting rock. He has humbled the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city.
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He lays it low. He lays it to the ground. He casts it to the dust. The foot tramples it.
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The feet of the poor, the steps of the needy. The path of the righteous is level.
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You make level the way of the righteous. In the path of your judgment, so Lord, we wait for you.
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We wait for you. Your name, your remembrance is the desire of our soul.
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Amen. Now is our time for interaction.
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Brother, thank the
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Lord. Amen. Thank you for your encouragement, brother. It's good to be back. I enjoy
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Burke Parsons very much, but would rather be here. I wish
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I had known what the angels had said to Jacob. It seems they're giving such short thrift to the angels.
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Jacob comes upon the angels and says, oh hi, and then just moves on with the narrative.
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It seems that way, doesn't it? Yeah, like, does this happen often,
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Jacob? Or just what was the purpose of the camp of the angels?
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Was there something else going on, or was it just to minister to Jacob and encourage him on his way?
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Like a halfway point in a marathon. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. The significance of the phrase only throughout the whole entire
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Old Testament, not just Genesis. Only 28 and here in 32 do we find that exact phrase.
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Of course, we see angels all over the place, but this phrase is unique. And so I think that's a way
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Moses is signaling the significance of Jacob's exile and return being marked by angelic presence.
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If we take that all the way back to the Garden of Eden, Adam's exile being marked by angelic presence, and so now we have the promised land as it were, and think of Israel's history,
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Moses writing through the Exodus, the promised land being bordered as it were by the angels.
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The promised land now taking on the mantle of Eden, God's Edenic presence, and the temple that will be built within it.
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So I think there's a ton of significance about the travel of Jacob and these cross points when he encounters the angels of God.
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And I too would like to know what they said. Probably something like, fear not, you worm
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Jacob, as the psalmist would say. Just curious that Jacob arranged this elaborate parade of all of his possessions to sort of humble himself before Esau, but I think he probably did that out of fear, but you wonder how the
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Lord would have handled it had he not done that. And here comes Esau, hot -blooded and everything. I just wondered, it would have been interesting to see how the
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Lord would have made it work had he not done that. Yeah, I think you're exactly right.
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He's fearful and he's trying to assuage his brother. The way he speaks of it, he's trying to return or make reparations for what he's done, which shows his humility and his desire for there to be reconciliation.
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But it's also, he's trying to break down any hostility. And here, I don't necessarily fault him for that.
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There's Solomonic wisdom in a gift pacifying anger, a secret gift pacifying anger.
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So I think there's something to be said about perhaps the cleverness of Jacob, not just in saying I'll just give him a ton of cattle, but sort of sending these waves, like that first wave might not do much.
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And by the time he gets through it, those memories are gonna come flooding back, and so send a second wave, even that probably won't.
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Send a third, it's like he's really stretching that out, and then at the end, coming out of the cake, here's
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Jacob, is it for good or real that you're glaring at me? And to appreciate,
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I think, the fact that he stays should be the biggest takeaway. Jacob, 20 years ago, he would have been a fugitive again.
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Jacob stays in God's camp, and I think that, more than anything, tells us about the growth of grace in his life.
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But we're not done with the chapter yet, and there's more work to do before Jacob is named
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Israel. And also, I think, as rough as Esau was, maybe he actually saw that, okay, my brother realized he screwed up, and he's older now, they're both older, so you know how it is when you're younger, you're a lot more hot -blooded, you get older, maybe you mellow out a little bit, and he probably realized, okay,
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Jake knows he screwed up, but maybe he's changed, and he might have been amused a little bit by the whole thing, too,
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I think, at this point, so. Yeah, amen. Yeah, just to add to that, what was just said,
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I think it's a good point that we can take from this, or at least keep in mind and apply in how we look at the passages, that when we pray to the
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Lord and trust in him, that doesn't manifest itself in sitting on our hands. Right. You know, I think we see that all through the scriptures, that someone who is actually trusting in the
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Lord will take action in faith. Yes. There's just a huge difference between taking action, trusting in your own smartness or strength, and taking action, trusting in the
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Lord. But trusting in the Lord is not defined as doing nothing and waiting for, just waiting for the angels to come and deliver you.
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Amen, that's an important point. So I agree with you, I would not fault
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Jacob for doing what he feasibly could to assuage his brother's anger.
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As long as he's doing that with trust in the Lord. Amen. And he doesn't run and put goat hair on his wives to say, pretend you're foreigners.
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So that's growth there. I think we, like you're saying, brother, we need to follow Cromwell's dictum, pray to the
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Lord and keep the powder dry. Do what you can while you're trusting in the Lord. Because God uses means.
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The instruction or the encouragement to just memorize God's promises and how that'd be such a great source of comfort to be able to meditate on.
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And I was thinking of the Psalms when you were talking about how Jacob kind of kept going back to God's promises.
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Because you see that pattern in the Psalms too. You know, when I believe David is crying out to the Lord and asking for help and everything.
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But he continues, he always closes it with just kind of a recollection of what God has done and who
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God is and his promises and things like that. So you can tell it was a source of comfort to him as well. So when you kind of see that pattern again, it's not just like that was
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David's style of writing. You know, there's something there. Yeah, you know, when you're in the camp, so to speak, when you're in trial, something's gonna be orbiting in your mind.
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And you know, if you're not thinking wisely and spiritually, what's gonna be orbiting around your mind and thoughts and saturating your prayers is your fear.
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And so I think one of the big takeaways from how Jacob's praying is that he doesn't allow that to happen.
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He forcefully puts in orbit God's promises and lets that saturate his prayer.
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So he has more to say about God and God's faithfulness and God's promises than he does to say about his fear.
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When he reports his fear, it's very simple. And it's almost just to kind of get that out there and then go back to the promise.
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That's so instructive for us when we think about prayer. And then as Paul says, with thanksgiving, that's how we need to make that request known.
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And Jacob does that. Jacob has kingdom ethics shining through these verses. And it's not a coincidence, right?
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It's by design. This is what God's grace looks like in the lives of his people, in their prayers, in their desires for forgiveness, in the steps they take to trust him when it's difficult.
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I'll just say that as we've gone through these chapters in Genesis and looking at the life of Jacob, Ross, I can see why you're looking so forward to getting to Jacob.
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Just how he receives the counsel of God and his promises and where he would, look where acting, and we all do this, but look where acting on your own experience with your flesh and your circumstances and situations that you're in, whether you're at work or whatever, just acting on that alone, where that gets you.
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And you see where Jacob's life was headed if it wasn't for the Lord intervening in him, him wanting his counsel and wanting to know him, right?
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And you see it in the life of Esau. I mean, Esau conquered a land. I mean, I'm sure Esau thought his life is going great from his experiences, what he's doing, learned to live by the flesh, fight by the flesh.
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He has his own little promised land. He really does. And I'm sure he thought things were great and even has this experience with Jacob where this reconciliation, he can walk back to seer and just feel good about himself.
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And I'm not trying to say there's not this, he knows he's sinning, he doesn't know that he's sinning, but he certainly should feel conviction of the way he leads.
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But we can easily fool ourselves. And the only difference is the Lord, is really the
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Lord and looking to his promises. And what do we have? We all make this mistake.
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We revert back to our knowledge, our experience, which is important. And oftentimes without going to what are
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God's promises, which is his word, right? Which is, you know what I mean? He spoke his promises, right, to Jacob.
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Jacob didn't have his word written down. Now he may have written them down, but he didn't have it.
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We have his scripture and oftentimes once we experience things and do well, it's so easily to set it aside.
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And Jacob did well in learning that. No, no, his life was a life of, he learned to believe in God's promises.
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We and I need to do the same thing. We need to do the same thing. And so we won't live a life like Esau, right?
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Amen. And be grateful for his, as he said, God's mercy and his truth and he doesn't deserve it.
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Not to take either of those things for granted, God's mercy and his truth.
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Often I think Christians, we look to take his mercy not for granted and we end up just this unbridled kind of love and whatever with no truth, right?
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He speaks of his mercy and his truth. Amen. Yeah, mercy without truth is let's just go to Bethel and save this for another day and that other day is perpetual.
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But mercy and truth is no, let's keep going south. I've got to deal with this. And then when the going gets hard and it doesn't go as he initially hoped, he stays.
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And to your point with Esau, Esau for 20 years has been dispossessing the
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Horites. He hasn't been sending messengers to find Jacob. He doesn't come and send, you know, gets to Jacob.
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Jacob is the one who seeks out Esau. I think that's saying something about the work of grace in Jacob's life.