Genesis 25 Esau's Folly

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Pastor John and Pastor Jeff teach the book of Genesis

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And Pastor John, would you mind opening us in a word of prayer? Our Lord God, we come to you with hearts desiring to know you better.
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As we come into the book of Genesis, we learn about your dealings with people. We learn about the children of Jacob.
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But Lord, through all of this, we pray to have hearts drawn to you. Speak through Pastor Jeff, we pray this afternoon, in Jesus' name.
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Amen. Amen. This afternoon, I almost said this morning. This afternoon we're talking about events that happened about 4 ,000 years ago.
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The year 2 ,000 BC. And as time has gone on, doesn't it look like we're coming very close to the end?
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Have you noticed the signs of the times? It's very easy to think that we are the terminal generation.
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I want the Lord to come on November the 2nd. So we never have this election?
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Just be done with it. We could fly out of here. But of course, what we realize is, as much as we see the signs of the times, nobody knows the day or the hour.
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And it could be that the Lord will tarry for another generation, or two, or three.
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Is it even possible that he might tarry for another few hundred years? It is.
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We don't know the difference there for certain. We hope that he's coming soon, and the signs certainly seem to be pointing to a soon coming of Christ.
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But whereas we don't know the time, we do know our instructions. And we have to be occupying in the things he's told us to do.
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Thinking not just in the short term, but preparing for the long term. Esau is an example of someone who lived only for the moment.
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For the experience, for instant gratification of the flesh.
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And of course, today we're going to be talking about his red stew. Give me some of that red stew.
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But he had no concern for the future seed promise and the coming generations that Isaac was so concerned about.
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Alright, so we have prayed. Let's dive right in. And Rick, could I ask you to open us up with verses 1 -6.
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We're in Genesis 25 today. Genesis 25, and it is,
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Rick is about to read the end of the story of Abraham. Genesis 25.
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Abraham took Medan, Midian, Ishbach, and Jachfen, fathers
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Sheba and Dedan. The sons of Dedan were Asherah, Latushim, and Luban.
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The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hannah, Abida, and Eldah.
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All these were children of Kekurah. Abraham gave all he had to Isaac.
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But to the sons of his concubines, Abraham gave gifts. And while he was still living, he sent them away from his son
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Isaac eastward to the east country. Very good. Was it a sin for Abraham to remarry?
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Remember at the end of chapter 24, Sarah dies and is buried. Or was that at the end of, it was a little earlier, where Sarah died.
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Was it wrong for Abraham to remarry? No. Correct.
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There is no sign that there's anything wrong about remarrying. In fact, we learn from later revelation that to remarry is no problem.
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Okay. I was watching recently Mike Winger, who's just a great YouTuber.
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Really well reasoned and handles the text very well. He was doing a review of a modern day
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Christian polygamist. This man was making the argument based on Abraham and Jacob, who married both
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Leah and Rachel, and David, who had multiple wives, and Solomon, who had something like 300 plus 700 concubines, that God does not prohibit polygamy.
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Well, Mike Winger took that idea to task. He did a wonderful job. Now, the guy who was advocating for this, he was wearing a tank top, and he was all muscle bound, and he was trying to be that alpha male to act like he's the man and all of these women.
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But Mike Winger made the point that this guy isn't living what he's saying because no decent godly woman would join him in this venture.
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Although the Mormons have a history of polygamy in their situation, and even today, the fundamentalist
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Mormons still do that at some level. But in practice,
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Christianity has completely deposed polygamy in Christian societies, right?
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That's no accident of history. That is revelation. Now, there's a problem here in our text.
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And if you look carefully at verse 6, Keturah, who is the second wife, and I think, even though there's debate about this,
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I think that he marries Keturah after Sarah dies. The reason we would assume that is the chronology of the text.
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Keturah is not even introduced until after Sarah dies. But many, including
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I think Calvin and some commentators, have thought that he probably had her as a concubine prior to the death of Sarah.
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And one of the reasons they might assume that is because if you'll notice verse 6, it's not a singular concubine.
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It's plural. But to the sons of his concubines.
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And so the question is, and the issue, was Keturah even a wife, or was she basically a concubine, who then when
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Sarah died, got promoted to wife status? Was she a concubine all along?
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Because the implication of mentioning the sons of the concubines is that the ones mentioned in verse 3 and 4 are also included in this.
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Now, to add a little bit of weight to that argument, John, would you mind finding for us 1
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Chronicles 1 .32? In fact, I'll make it easy for you. It's right there on your nose. I found it. You found it so quickly!
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Read for us 1 Chronicles 1 .32. The sons of Keturah, Abraham's concubine.
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She bore Zimram, Jachshem, Medan, Midian, Ishpak, and Shua, the sons of Jachshem, Sheba, and Dedan.
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All right. And if you recognize what Rick just read for us, pronouncing those names, John also, it's the same
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Keturah. And what is she called here in the text? Concubine. Concubine.
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Very interesting. And there's no condemnation of that. And there's no condemnation. So now you've introduced the problem.
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How is it that he has concubines? Now, remember the chart of Abraham's life?
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How early on in the walk he would dip down in these bouts of unbelief where he'd pretend that Sarah was only his sister and not his wife, kind of throw her under the bus.
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And then there'd be peaks in his walk where he would have faith in the promise.
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Genesis 15 .6, he believed God and that was credited to him as righteousness. It was up and down.
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And then in Genesis 22, the heights of faith that he would even take Isaac, his own son, to Moriah to sacrifice him there.
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And in that chart we showed, it seems to just shoot up into infinity that from that moment on, it was nothing but victory after victory.
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That chart is probably a little skewed at that point. Because what we're learning from Genesis 25 .6
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is that Abraham continued to have children by concubines.
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What are we to make of that? Why is there no condemnation of this polygamy?
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Was there anything revealed prior that would have outlawed polygamy?
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Genesis 2 .24, there you go. Genesis 2 .24 is an implication of monogamy.
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Because the concept there is a man shall leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife, which is a singular word.
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And the concept there in the Hebrew of an edzer kenegdo is that she is a helpmeet in English.
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That term helpmeet, we don't really use that anymore. So what does it mean? It means to be a helper who differs from him in a corresponding way.
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In other words, that she completes him and he completes her. That together the two have become, how many flesh?
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One. Which outlaws this concept of multiple women. Because the two have become one.
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So it's already implied, but it's not spelled out by an explicit command.
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So this polygamist that we talked about, he says, Abraham did it. Jacob had
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Leah and Rachel. How would you argue against that? Leah and Rachel, two sisters even.
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The answer to that is many of the things that the Bible describes are not prescribed for us.
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The difference between description and prescription. Who's an English guy? What's the difference between a prescription and a description?
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Look at me. We're all looking at Rick. Prescriptions and descriptions. Yes. Yes, it's an order.
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It's a command. But what's a description? Just the way things happen.
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Exactly. Just because something is described in the Bible doesn't mean that it's prescribed for us.
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In fact, what ends up happening is that as the Bible brings new revelation, meaning the entire 66 books were not just dropped out of heaven on a silver platter.
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How did they come to us? In time. Through men, prophetic men who are carried along by the
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Holy Spirit, and this comes to us as progressive revelation. Now, let me ask you a question.
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What was that word that you used before that we didn't understand? Prescription and description?
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No, no, no. Before that, when I raised my hand. Oh, I probably just skirted right past it. I didn't know it was a debated word.
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There was a word that you were describing when we were going into plague. You used some kind of…
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It sounded like a Jewish word. Oh, oh, I defined it.
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Ezer connecta. Yeah, yeah. Yes, that means help me. Oh, okay. You did explain it, but I didn't understand it too.
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I just said the Hebrew… Yeah, it means there are two correspondingly different…
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Yeah, I got it, but I didn't know exer connecta. Yes, that's just the Hebrew for a help meet.
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Okay. Yeah, a help meet to him, which means corresponding in a different way that completes him.
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Yes. Okay, so here's the big concept. Yes, Stan. Well, when
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I'm looking at the Scriptures here, okay, this is new here. It says in verse 1,
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Abraham took another wife. Then down in verse 6, his concubines.
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But there's nothing mentioned up to this point between him and Sarah that he had concubines.
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Right. Okay, so I'm taking it from the beginning. It was just he and Sarah. Now we get here to chapter 25, and it says in verse 1, he took another wife.
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That's a former concubine. Right. He took another wife, even though it goes down to verse 6, gifts of his concubines.
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This is the first mention of concubines. Isn't it mind -blowing when you come across this?
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You're like, Abraham, what are you doing here? Well, in our notes, if you notice, Jameson, Fawcett, and Brown tried to explain what's happening here.
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Another great commentary. They say this was not from any inordinate lust, which his age and eminent grace, meaning his progress in sanctification, which is indicated in the text, would sufficiently events, would show us.
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But from a desire of more children, this is the motive, and of accomplishing
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God's promise concerning the great multiplication of his seed.
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This, again, I think, is Abraham hearing the seed promise that his descendants would be like what?
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The stars. The stars in the sky or the sand of the seashore. That he is taking matters into his own hands.
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As he approaches death, he's seeing, you know, there's just Isaac, and poor
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Isaac has had a time, a hard time finding a wife, right? He was 20 years old.
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No, he was 40, we learned. And then he doesn't conceive until he's 60.
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This seed promise of the sand or the stars is looking like it's just not gonna happen.
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Because he's not thinking long -term multiplication. He's thinking more in the flesh of what he conceived.
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Now, was she first a concubine? Don't minimize the fact that 1
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Chronicles 1 .32 called her a concubine. So what might be happening is she gets promoted to wife status when he takes a wife.
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A concubine had a lesser status than a wife. Now, question.
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Is he getting this concept of a lower status woman? Now, she would be devoted to him, but he could have other concubines.
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Is he getting that idea from revelation or from the culture?
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Culture. That's Near Eastern culture. That's something he probably learned in Ur of the Chaldees. It's just common throughout the
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Middle East, and he's doing what the people do. That doesn't justify it.
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Now, notice. Progressive revelation becomes more and more specific as to what's prescribed or outlawed.
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Forbidden. And there is in the law of Moses, just 500 years later, when Moses brings the law of God, somebody turned to Leviticus 18 .18.
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Tim, did you get that? Not everybody's having to hunt. The polygamist said, well, what about Jacob?
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He married Rachel and Leah. Did that come before or after the law of Moses?
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Before. So, as revelation is progressively given, we see more and more of the heart and mind of God revealed.
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It should have been clear from Genesis 2 .24. Ezra connecto, one man, one woman, one flesh.
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The implication is right there. But it's not spelled out as a prohibition until Leviticus 18 .18
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.10. So, is it okay to marry a sister only if the first one died?
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Sounds like it is. It is if she dies. But if she's still living, it says you can't have a sister and another wife.
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These two being sisters. So, Rachel and Leah were sisters. So, we learn later in progressive revelation.
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Now, that's interesting because when you come to the time of Jesus, do you expect the progressive revelation to give us more insight or to relax the law?
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More. More. Deeper insight. Progressive revelation. When Jesus is asked about marriage, does he cite
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Abraham, Jacob, David, or Solomon? No, he cites
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Adam and Eve. When they question him about divorce, it's the Hillel school versus Shammai.
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Can you just divorce your wife for any and every reason? His answer is, it was not like this from the beginning.
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He permitted divorce. God overlooked certain things, which would have included polygamy in the time of David.
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He's overlooking for what reason? Because of their hardness of heart,
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Jesus says. But he says it was not like this from the beginning. So, it doesn't reflect God's standard.
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His perfect standard of right and wrong. And so, what he does, Jesus will cite
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Adam and Eve as the prototype. God's design. But because these people were living in a perverted culture and other reasons that for some reason, maybe even unbeknownst to us,
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God overlooked what Abraham was doing. So, Rick, I think you're right.
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I don't think God says anything against what we see here in verse 6.
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But that's a description of what God in his sovereign will allowed for a time, not a prescription of his kingdom and for the children of God.
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Now, interestingly, in the New Testament, when the full progressive revelation of the Bible has been given, could
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I even stand here and teach the word today as a polygamist? Why not?
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Got to be the husband of one wife. Correct. And that's Titus 1 .6. It's also in 1
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Timothy chapter 3. The husband of one wife. In the Greek, that's a one woman man.
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So, if you can't even teach the word of God, elders. Now, when people, when the gospel advances into a polygamist culture, in order for that person who comes to faith to become a church leader, he would have to separate from the wives he's added to his original wife.
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Now, does that mean that Christianity would abolish polygamy in every culture it goes into? Yes, in time.
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But it wouldn't mean that the missionary would have to send the extra wives into the hills like,
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You see? God did not say that, well, there's an implication from the elder teaching that this is
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God's plan and his standard. But in time, it works out in a culture. So, yeah. So, great question.
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Well, it would be the entire Leviticus 18 .19, the holiness code of sexual ethics.
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Any violation, it's spelled out in more detail. See, the law is not 10. It's something like 613 laws, right?
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So, there is an entire chapter. Is it Leviticus 18 or 19? I think it's 18. Leviticus 18, which includes the more specific details of what would be under that banner of adultery, any kind of fornication.
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Alright, so that's a very interesting passage because what we're seeing in Abraham is that there's still a sin nature.
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He's not perfected in this world. So, what justifies him? Why is he counted righteous?
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Genesis 15 .6. He believes God. He's counted righteous because of his faith, not because he's reached the status of perfection.
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That line of his sanctification doesn't just shoot off into heaven. He did have enough revelation to not have done this.
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And ultimately, what comes of the children of Keturah?
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Many nations surrounding them. The most famous are the Midianites.
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You remember how Moses married a Midianite girl. When he was driven out of Egypt, that Midianite priest, he got her daughter, one of seven daughters that he had.
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She was a Midianite. But these surrounding peoples would eventually become friends or enemies of Israel.
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Enemies. So, when you see the big picture, Abraham's attempt to do good by his own carnal reasoning ultimately is not a blessing but a curse to future generations.
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So, we're going to get to Esau in a moment because his sin is different. Esau will have no regard for future generations.
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He's only concerned about the flesh. Abraham may stumble, but he's still trying by faith to fulfill the seed promise.
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And that birthright, which is what Esau will forfeit, is something that he just disregards. Esau has no regard.
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So, Abraham and then Isaac represent faith in the seed promise, whereas Esau disregards.
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Let's get to that. So, Sandy, would you mind reading for us 7 to 11?
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Yes. This is 7 to 11. These are all the years of Abraham. Abraham breathed his last.
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An old man, unsatisfied with life. And he was gathered to his people.
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Then his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Mechapelah in the field of Ephron, the son of Zohar, the
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Hittite, facing Mamre. The field which Abraham purchased from the sons of He, there
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Abraham was buried with Sarah, his wife. It came about after the death of Abraham that God blessed his son
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Isaac, and Isaac lived by Be 'er L 'Chaim. Good job.
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That was a hard one to pronounce. Remember, just be confident. If you don't know, just say it confidently.
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Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints, or of his godly ones.
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Psalm 116 .15. This is a holy moment. You don't think of death as a holy moment, do you?
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But death is a precious moment in the life of every believer. That moment when we come to the very end, and we're struggling in physical pain, and then we give up the ghost.
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That moment is precious in the sight of the Lord. Abraham was precious to God, and here he gives up the ghost.
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He dies at age 175. But did he go, did he finish well?
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Because it almost, you see verse six and you think, he kind of lost it at the end. Concubines.
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No, actually, those concubines may have begun earlier than the death of Sarah.
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It could have been part of his Ur of the Chaldees mentality that was with him the whole time, that he's now putting off.
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It certainly lasted for at least like 40 or more years, because look at how many sons were born.
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Not just the ones born to Keturah, but also to the concubines, plural. So that wasn't his last thing.
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Notice verse six. He gave gifts to these sons. But that's not the thrust of the verse.
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He's giving them, you know, flasks of water and making sure they're taken care of. Maybe some cattle.
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But giving those gifts in order to what? Send them away from the son of promise.
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And that's the issue. I don't think he fully understands that the seed promise that goes through Isaac and becomes
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Jacob and Israel. That then, like Revelation 13 pictures
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Israel bringing the Messiah into the world. That the seed is pointing to Christ.
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But notice that that seed promise, as much as Abraham could understand it at the time, is what he truly values.
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It has to do with God. It says in verse six that he sent them away from his son
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Isaac. And the result of this in verse 11 is that after the death of Abraham, God blessed
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Isaac, his son. You see the thrust here? Abraham's faith was built around the seed promise of Genesis 12, 1 -3.
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And Genesis 15, 1 -5. Repeated in Genesis 18, Genesis 22.
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Four times we're given that Abrahamic covenant. And it's all built around God blessing the world, all the nations, through the promised one, the seed.
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That's what is motivating Abraham. So his dying move was not sin.
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That had been an ongoing theme in his life with the concubines. His dying move was to safeguard the inheritance and the promise and the land and the blessing to Isaac.
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And not to the concubines' sons. Send them away and keep
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Isaac at home. That's the issue, yes.
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These other gifts were just enough to ensure their survival and to be good as a dad, right?
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Like he brought them into the world, take care of the kids, right? He's doing what he can to send them away.
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But his heart and treasure is all revolving around Isaac, the son of promise.
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And he gives everything to him. That means the land that he secured from the
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Hittites. And the whole promised land. And all of the wealth of the family. All of the inheritance, it's all to Isaac.
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That's the big idea here. It is good to leave an inheritance. Better to leave a legacy of faith.
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A good man leaves an inheritance to his children. Proverbs tells us that, right? It's good to do that.
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But the greatest thing you can leave your children is a legacy of faith. And notice
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Isaac is taking that in verse 11. God now will bless Isaac on account of receiving this seed promise.
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So that's the last thing Abraham does. He safeguards the seed promise to the son of promise,
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Isaac. It is an act of faith, not of sin. He doesn't go out in a bad way.
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He goes out on top. And this thing about the concubines, I think it was part of the dispensation in which he lived.
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He lived in dark times and God overlooked that kind of error for a time.
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But it doesn't excuse it. Ultimately, though, it was the faith, not his self -righteousness, that justified
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Abraham. Okay, make sense? Any questions? All right,
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Carol, you got this. Twelve to eighteen. Okay, Tim, you got this.
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These are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom
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Hagar, the Egyptian, Sarah's servant, bore to Abraham. These are the names of the sons of Ishmael, named in the order of their birth.
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Nebiyah, the firstborn of Ishmael, and Kedar, Advil, Mipsum, Mishmah, Duma, Massah, Hadad, Temah, Jetur, Naphash, and Kittimah.
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These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names. By their villages and by their encampments, twelve princes according to their tribes.
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These are the years of the life of Ishmael, 137 years. He breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his people.
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They settled from Hebola to Shur, which is opposite Egypt in the direction of Assyria.
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He settled over against all his kinsmen. Okay, so the legacy of Abraham was one of faith in the seed promise.
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The legacy of Ishmael, now the location of his inheritance, the twelve tribes, across from Egypt, so across the
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Red Sea, into that peninsula. What's that peninsula called? The Arabian Peninsula, where we have
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Saudi Arabia just across the Red Sea is what we call Mecca. The Arabians, toward Assyria, that means towards the east, that Arabian Peninsula was occupied by the descendants of Ishmael, the
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Ishmaelites. Who do the Muslims claim as their forefather?
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Abraham. And from Abraham through? Ishmael. They even say that it was
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Ishmael that God took up on the mountain and that Abraham almost sacrificed, but he was blindfolded and Ishmael slipped off of the altar and put a lamb in its place.
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That's their story from the Quran. Islam develops around here.
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Where is Mecca? In Arabia, the Ishmaelites. Who is it that stands against Israel?
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The Muslims who are based out of Mecca, the Ishmaelites. Now look at this interesting verse, the last part of verse 18.
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It actually says of these twelve tribes of Ishmael, which is essentially a counterfeit of the twelve tribes that would come from Isaac, these he settled over against all his kinsmen.
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Meaning the descendants of Isaac, his kin. Especially.
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The Ishmaelites would be a warring people. Ishmael himself was a wild donkey of a man. And here we stand today, in 2024, and there are seven open war battlefronts that Israel is waging against Muslim people.
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Any coincidence? Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis and some smaller proxies of Iran.
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All of them Muslim, all bent on the complete annihilation of Israel from the river to the sea.
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Yeah, but God. So here you have the legacy of Ishmael. The key verse there in verse 18 is over against all his kinsmen.
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And not only were the sons of Isaac kin to Ishmael, but so were the sons of Keturah.
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Did you know that within Islam, Shia, Sunni, the Shia being more associated with Iran and the
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Assyrian side, and the Sunni being more Saudi Arabia, Egypt. Even within Islam, these two sects are against each other.
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The Sunni hate the Shia, the Shia hate the Sunni. There's just this concept of constant friction amongst this particular people group.
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Now, does that mean that someone who's born in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan as a
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Sunni can't be redeemed? No, of course not.
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The gospel is what changes the heart from the inside out, and anybody can be redeemed. But as an ethnicity descending in this land from Ishmael, there is this,
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I don't know if you want to call it a curse, but this destiny, this legacy of not trusting the seed promise.
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He settled over against all his kinsmen. And that's how it's been and is still to this day.
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You can't deny 4 ,000 years of history. So now we're running out of time, but we've still got to get to Esau.
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So let's just read it out. Stan, would you mind? Just read 19 to 34, and then we'll talk about it.
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Yes, and this is the account of Abraham, 40 years old.
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Abraham, and sister of Laban, Isaac, prayed to the
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Lord on behalf of his wife because she was barren. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife became pregnant.
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The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, why is this happening to me?
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So she went to inquire of the Lord. The Lord said to her, two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated.
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One people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.
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When the time came for her to give birth, there were two twin boys in her womb.
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The first came out with red in his old body, so they named him
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Esau. After this, his brother came out with his hand grasping
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Esau's heel, so he named him Jacob. Isaac was 60 years old when
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Rebekah gave birth to them. The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country.
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While Jacob was a quiet man staying among the tents. Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved
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Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob. Once, when
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Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country. He was famished, and he said to Jacob, quick, let me have some of that red stew.
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Famished, that is why he was also called Edom. Jacob replied, first, sell me your birthright.
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Look, I'm about to die, Esau said. What good is a birthright to me?
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But Jacob said, swear it to me first. So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob.
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Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and they got up and left.
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So Esau despised his birthright. And that, that last phrase,
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Esau despised his birthright. That's the key to understanding what's happening in this chapter.
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Remember at the beginning, Abraham loved and cared for the birthright, meaning
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Isaac and the seed promise of future things to come. Isaac valued it so much that he's going about it the wrong way.
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He's swindling and deceiving in order to get it. But what is the birthright?
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The birthright is the seed promise of blessing on future generations.
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It's not something that they're going to see much with their own eyes. Both will have kids, but they won't see this nation, generations to come, who are blessed under the promise of Abraham.
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It's too distant, and this is the big idea. For Esau, he comes in from the field, he's famished.
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And you can see how the day just sort of snowballed. He went out to work like any other day, but he might have been extra hot that day.
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And he's sweating, and he didn't find water like he thought he would. And he's working really hard, burning his energy.
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Maybe he doesn't quite catch the game he was after. Comes home empty -handed, frustrated.
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But as he comes stumbling in the front door, it hits him. He's actually in trouble, medical trauma here, that he needs some food.
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He's about to pass out. You ever feel like that, where you're just like you can barely stand, right? He's in trouble here, and he realizes what good is a birthright?
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Some future seed promise that Abraham used to talk about, and Isaac used to tell us about.
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What good is that if I die? You see what he's thinking? Himself.
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That's as far as he can see. His own flesh. And so the issue here is he won't delay gratification and trust
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God with his body, ask for food, ask for help. Instead, he agrees to Jacob's swindle, the deceiver.
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And the result, of course, is only a fulfillment of what God had predestined. Now, a whole sermon could be preached on this, and it will be, when
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I get to Romans chapter 9, because there's the commentary on this. But did
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Esau change the course of history by his willful sin?
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No, because even while they were in the womb, they were already struggling, and God had already said to explain what was happening to Rebekah, what did he say?
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There are going to be two nations. Two nations, Israel and Edom. One will be stronger than the other. Which is stronger,
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Israel or Edom? Israel. But who's the firstborn? Esau, Edom.
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The older one. The younger is Israel. The older one is
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Edom. But Israel will be the blessed nation of God. And Edom, of course, we know their history.
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Read the book of Obadiah. It's all about the Edomites' destruction. One of the last living Edomites was at the time of Jesus, and his name was
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Herod. The fake king in Israel.
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Truly an Edomite, but standing in the throne that belonged to the true king, Jesus Christ.
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So you have the seed promise versus this counterfeit, and it was predestined to be this way.
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Now, does that mean Esau wasn't responsible for his own carnality? No, this is what we call compatibilism, the responsibility of the sinner, namely
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Esau. He's held accountable for that, and he loses the birthright.
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And we're even told, listen to this, from Hebrews 12, verses 16 and 17, saying that we should see to it that no one is sexually immoral.
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That's one category of sin. Or here's a different category. Or unholy like Esau.
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Esau's sin was not sexual. It was an unholiness of what sort?
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He sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he wanted to be blessed like Isaac would have blessed the other son,
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Jacob. He was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
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Now, that's another sermon, if we can have a chance to spend time in Hebrews chapter 6 and Hebrews chapter 10.
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It's impossible to renew them again to repentance. Esau had come to a point where all he could consider was his own blessing, his own life, and he couldn't come to genuine faith.
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He was given over to the destruction that he himself chose that was also predestined for him before the foundation of the world.
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So, two difficult things to hold together, but both are true. Yeah? Well, a couple of things here. I'd say what
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Esau thinks. Yeah. So, where did
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Jacob get the idea that give me your birthright? Where does he get that from?
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Well, here's the irony. For him to value the birthright means the birthright is the seed promise.
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That's a good thing. It shows he has faith like his father, Isaac, faith like Abraham, in the seed promise.
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But his problem is he's carnal in his methodology. He's the deceiver, the heel grabber.
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And it keeps going through his life until God will use Laban to trick him by switching
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Rachel and Leah. And he gets swindled, and then he has to have this all -night wrestling match with God when he's finally broken, touches his hip.
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And from then on, he doesn't really live as the deceiver in methodology. He learns to trust in God.
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So, he was always wrestling, trying to get for himself. It was the methodology, but there was something in him, even this early stage.
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He valued the birthright. Esau didn't. Where did that come from? He's the true child of promise that God had said he would be.
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He's being given a gift of faith here, even though he doesn't know how to walk in that faith and live it out.
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Does that make sense? I have a good summary statement here. What is striking in all this is that Jacob was not morally superior to Esau.
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Both were wrestlers. Yet, God chose to set his love on the younger, rather than...
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Wow, that's good. Thank you. And so, there you have it. Jacob and Esau. Esau's whole thing just snowballed.
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He didn't know when he went out hunting that day that by the end of the day, he would have sold his birthright and ultimately be sealed in this hateful position with God.
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Right? Jacob, I loved. Esau, I hated. That he would never be able to get it back. For all his tears when he's older, wishing he hadn't given away the birthright because he wants to be blessed.
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He wants to leave something to his children. It's too late. It was already gone at this early place.
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That's a terrifying thought. And that's actually the destiny of everybody who's in hell.
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There comes a point when there is no more repentance. There's no repentance after death.
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So, the lesson from Esau is don't be like him. And that's what Hebrews does. Don't be like Esau.
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But while there's time, Hebrews 3 and 4 talks about that. This is the day of repentance.
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This is the time to turn from sin, trust in Christ, hold on to the promise, and be like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
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Blessing future generations. Laying up treasure, but more importantly, a legacy of faith.
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So, Esau thought the birthright would be no use to him if he died. But Abraham looked beyond his own death hoping to bless
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Isaac. Abraham and Isaac held to the seed promise despite what they experienced.
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Esau, just to live by experience. His own flesh. Wouldn't delay gratification for the sake of the future.
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He just took what he could in that moment. Alright, let's close up with a word of prayer that we can talk a little more after.
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John, would you mind closing us? Lord, we look at the stories of our forefathers.
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We know from Hebrews 11 that these are seen by God as teachings and examples of faith.
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We think of Abraham. We think of Sarah. We think of Isaac and Jacob. And we know they are not perfect.
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But we know that they are called by God as faith. It's the heart. We pray,
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Lord, that these stories would encourage us to follow after you despite circumstances.