Jacob's Blessing

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Genesis 27:1-29

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27, and we're going to be reading up to verse 29, working our way through the text, and then next week,
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Lord willing, we'll complete Genesis 27. We want to consider this morning really the contrast between the deceitful plotting that really runs through Isaac's household, and then contrast that with the grace of God that despite the sinfulness that is broken these relationships, the sinfulness that is yet to be repented of, nevertheless
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God's blessing attends to Jacob. And so we hope to highlight the grace of God, and I hope it's a source of encouragement this week, and next week as we consider
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Esau and his reaction to God's blessing of Jacob, perhaps there'll be a little more reason to feel convicted, perhaps even tremble under the weight of that passage.
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It is very convicting, and so that's just a warning that we're gonna go from magnifying the gentleness and tenderness of God's grace to the severity of a hardened heart and God's judgment upon it.
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As we begin Genesis 27, we really begin one of the more famous episodes in Jacob's life.
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If there is a story to remember from the Jacob cycle, it is perhaps this story from Genesis 27.
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Nobody in Isaac's household comes out of chapter 27 looking very good.
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None of them come out with gold stars or high praise, they all come out looking rather deceitful, rather passive, rather hardened and stubborn in their rebellion against God.
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This is true not only of Isaac and Esau, but also Rebecca and of course
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Jacob, and by contrast we see the testimony of God's grace, really the testimony that where sin abounds, grace abounds much more, and so we're gonna consider first Isaac's scheme and then
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Rebecca's scheme and then Jacob's scheme before we consider the blessing that God gives to Jacob.
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Isaac's scheme, beginning in verse 1. It came to pass when Isaac was old, his eyes were so dim that he could not see, and he called
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Esau his older son and said to him, my son, and he answered him, here I am, and he said behold now
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I'm old, I do not know the day of my death, now therefore please take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, go out to the field and hunt game for me and make me savory food such as I love, bring it to me that I may eat, that my soul may bless you before I die.
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Now it's interesting that in a narrative where the blessing is coming and the patriarchal blessings often include a divine prophecy, we'll see that repeated further still, and yet that doesn't make
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Isaac a prophet, one who foretells the future in every instance.
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He doesn't even know when he's going to die, and by all indications he goes on to live another 40 years from the events of Genesis 27, but of course the effects of age have reached him, his health has deteriorated, he's no longer able to see very well, and so he says before I lose other senses, perhaps my ability even to speak,
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I better bless my son. Now of course the blessing we've already distinguished from the birthright, we remember how
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Jacob bought the birthright of Esau for a bowl of soup, and then we'll see later in this chapter, verse 36,
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Esau complains, is he not rightly named Jacob? Deceiver, twister, for he has supplanted me these two times, he took away my birthright and behold, now he's taken away my blessing.
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So there's a distinction to be made between the birthright and the blessing, however ultimately these are not divided.
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The birthright would have been the token of that which was to come, the blessing is sealing that, it's making it effective, that's what would be legally binding as far as the juridical world of the ancient
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Near East, a custom of primogeniture, in other words the firstborn becomes the heir of the father's inheritance, and so the birthright itself as a token throughout life is not necessarily legally binding, but what is legally binding in that context is the blessing, that final oral blessing, the ceremonial blessing of the father to the son.
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Now Esau ought to have objected, he had sold his birthright and so he perhaps was not expecting, if Isaac knew that this had taken place, he perhaps was not expecting this offer to stand, he must have been thrilled, he must have been delighted when he found out that Isaac intended to bless him.
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He thought, well now it doesn't matter what I did all those many years ago with Jacob, now my father's giving me the blessing, and he must have dashed off to hunt before his father changed his mind.
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This was a chance to regain the privilege he had despised, and we have no reason to think he doesn't still despise this inheritance, he's shown in his life other ways that he's despised the ways of his father and his grandfather, marrying two
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Canaanite women that are a grief, remember we saw a bitter spirit to his mother and father, and we cannot say whether Isaac really knew of this birthright exchange or not.
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I think there's reason to suspect that he did, but either way
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Esau has shown himself not to be the fitting recipient of Isaac's blessing.
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To receive the blessing of the father, to be the heir of the father's household, would to be the primary carrier of the family's heritage, to be the protector, the stream through which the family's lineage would continue, the family's economic and social and spiritual heritage would be bound up with the heir, the effective head, the covenantal head of the household, and so as Bruce Waltke points out,
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Esau would define the family's understanding of itself. Esau would become the head of the covenant.
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Isaac should have known just from what happened with the marriages that Esau was a godless man, a profane man as Hebrews 11 declares him to be, and this raises the question of whether or not
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Isaac knew the treachery of Esau, and if he did not know, just the fact that Esau had already intermarried would have said he has somehow forfeited his right to this covenantal blessing.
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He is in no manner fit to be the spiritual head of this household.
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God's blessing will not reside with this godless and profane man, Esau, and yet Esau is off hunting because Isaac loves
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Esau. Isaac, in other words, as we've seen him being passive, he seems to continue to be passive here.
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He's partial to Esau. Another thing we can't say for sure is whether Rebekah ever shared the prophecy that God had told her, that the older shall serve the younger.
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Perhaps he had been told that and needed to be reminded of it. Perhaps he had never known and should have then been confronted with it, but either way,
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Isaac should have discerned that God's blessing would reside on Jacob, the son who had kept himself from foreign wives, the son that Isaac had instructed and he had seen
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Jacob's willingness to obey him in that way, the son who was not a wild man, not running off out into the hills, running down to to court
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Canaanite women, and so he brings about this blessing in a very secretive, abrupt way.
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Notice that Isaac does not consult Rebekah. Notice that Isaac seems to do this sort of on a spur of the moment, and he sends him out right away without any real formal gathering of the family, no real time of prayer and seeking the
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Lord. For him just to turn away and hide, seeking his wife's counsel from this,
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I think tells us something about Isaac's spiritual state and what really drives him, his belly.
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Now, a ritual meal would have been part, perhaps, of this ceremony and certainly there seems to be a ritual function.
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You go and serve me in this dutiful way. You bless me as a son to a father that I might give you my final blessing as a father to a son.
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In fact, the text seems to imply that this has a ritual function, but beyond this, we already know that Isaac is a man driven by his belly.
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We read back in Genesis 25, Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved
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Jacob. So as we saw back in Genesis 25, partiality has begun to break apart the relationships in this household, and we'll see this as we continue in the following verses.
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Rebekah is sinfully partial to Jacob. Isaac is sinfully partial to Esau.
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Isaac is driven by his appetite and the needs of the moment rather than thinking clearly and carefully and with the counsel of his wife regarding the spiritual heritage of God's covenant.
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So that is Isaac's scheme. In fact, we have a parallel between the son who would sell his birthright for a meal and the father who would effectively sell his blessing for a meal.
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But not only do we have Isaac's scheme, we also have Rebekah's scheme, beginning in verse 5. Rebekah was listening while Isaac spoke to Esau, his son, and Esau went to the field to hunt game and to bring it.
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And so Rebekah spoke to Jacob, her son, saying, Indeed, I heard your father speak to Esau, your brother, saying,
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Bring me game, make savory food for me, that I may eat it and bless you in the presence of the Lord before my death.
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Now therefore, my son, obey my voice according to what I command you.
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Go now to the flock, bring me from there two choice kids of the goats, and I'll make savory food from them for your father, such as he loves.
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Then you shall take it to your father, that he may eat of it, that he may bless you before his death. We can't help but notice the language and it's replete throughout the whole passage of father, mother, brother.
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And every time you read this pronoun or a descriptor, it's meant to be a dagger adding to the sinfulness that's taking place in the scheming.
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Just notice the language. Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to Esau, his son, and so Esau is not her son, it's his son.
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Esau's being separated from Isaac. And Esau went to the field to hunt game and to bring it. Rebekah spoke to Jacob, her son.
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That's the one that she loves, not Isaac's son. Indeed, I heard your father, you know men already know, you're in trouble when mama says, go tell your father instead of go tell my husband, go tell dad.
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When you hear go tell your father, you know mom's not happy. Indeed, I heard your father speak to Esau, your brother.
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All of these are daggers. The family relationships have imploded. It's meant to highlight the fact that sinfulness has broken down the relationships within this household.
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Esau is Isaac's son, Jacob is Rebekah's son, Isaac is the father rather than Isaac my husband to Rebekah.
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And so we see the breakdown even in the way the language is used, and it only gets worse from here. And as we saw with Abraham, God is not only concerned with the sins of the individual in abstraction, he's also concerned with the sins of the family.
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He's concerned of sins within relationships, sins of the household, and we see that here in Genesis 27.
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We can see that Rebekah was not going to let her husband stand in the way of what she wanted for her son, and of course what she wants for her son is for him to receive the blessing.
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This is what she had been told when she inquired of the Lord, because she felt that her womb was convulsing.
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She didn't know what was going on or if she'd be able to bear a child, and God revealed to her, in fact, there are two within your womb.
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He said two nations are in your womb. Two peoples shall be separated from your body. One shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger.
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She tucked this into her heart and walked in expectation of the fulfillment of this promise throughout these many long years, and now she's devising this plot to keep that blessing for her favored son in fulfillment of God's promise.
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The older shall serve the younger. Rebekah knows this, and now having been at the door of the tent, she knows that Isaac is about to bless
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Esau such that the younger would serve the older, and so Rebekah, perhaps if we think most charitably at the very best of Rebekah, she's fearing that God's plan, that God's purpose, that God's promise are now in jeopardy, and so she undertakes to do what she can in her mind, what she must do to secure the blessing for Jacob, and so she creates this deceptive scheme, and immediately in this sinful plotting she pulls
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Jacob into it with all the weight of the serpent saying, listen to my voice, obey what
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I tell you to do, follow my sinful commands, and surely you will receive the blessing.
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Rebekah becomes serpent -like within the narrative, and apparently Rebekah picked up some of this scheming nature from Laban, who we'll see shortly, and then
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Jacob picked up the same scheming nature from his mother. Family sins.
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Now perhaps she had forgotten the promise that God gave her, unlikely but possible.
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Even there she is to walk by faith and not by sight, even in the worst circumstance she should have known better than to sin and think that sin can procure blessing, to think that somehow mistrusting
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God, trusting in the flesh, relying on a sinful deception would bring about and secure
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God's holy blessing. It's foolishness just to think of it, and foolishness leads to foolishness.
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She makes this whole ridiculous outfit for her son to wear, and he has to disguise his scent and his voice and his appearance, the texture of his skin, he must have looked like a clown walking into the tent of his father, and all of this foolishness and folly is a result of Rebekah choosing to walk by sight rather than walk by faith in God.
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Rebekah's sin was that she lacked faith in God's ability to fulfill His promise. Let me say that again.
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Rebekah's sin was that she lacked faith in God's ability to keep
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His promise, and so she had to do something. She couldn't let
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Jacob's place fall by the wayside. Yes, it would be something extreme, something radical, something sinful, but hopefully the end will justify the means.
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That was her thinking. Hopefully lying and manipulation, rather than a patient waiting on God, will somehow bring about the blessing that God has promised for Jacob, and Jacob doesn't come out as a saint either.
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We can't say that this grown man is somehow a victim. He never protests. He seems almost more than willing to go along with his mother's scheme.
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He immediately obeys her voice, follows her suggestions, even adding to it. I'm a smooth man.
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My brother's very hairy. What are we going to do about that? He's thinking through. Well, yes, we should do this, and let's think through all the possibilities that could go wrong.
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Let's do what we can to manage our sin and make sure that we never get caught in it. This is the way of a sinner, and so he joins into the lying and the manipulation.
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By the way, I mean, can we just imagine how hairy Esau is? I mean, I know that this has been described of him.
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In my mind, he's like, was this guy like Chewbacca or something? It's like just like covered in hair, like how hairy are
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Middle Eastern goats? The rabbis actually worried about this, and they said, well, perhaps it was a variety with less hair than the common goat, or it was taken from the belly where the hair is somewhat sparser compared to the back, and we'll leave that for the rabbis to debate.
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Apparently, this was a very hairy man, and I'm of the smooth man ilk myself, unlike perhaps all of us, but Jacob knows even that has to be carefully plotted, carefully plotted.
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Where is God in his mind? Is God somehow absent? Is God distant?
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Is God not present? Is God not the dispenser of this blessing? Is God to be manipulated by this scheme?
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Oh, what can I do now? The blessing was given. I guess I'm bound to this. Is God not
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God? And this is what sin reduces you to, that God is distant.
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God is absent. God is somehow bound, that my plot and my efforts and my sinful scheming will somehow secure blessing and favor and stability and wealth, rather than patiently waiting on God despite the odds.
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Please remember what Rebecca knew of her husband, that when he was about to have a knife plunged in his body on Mount Moriah, God sent an angel to immediately stop the hand of Abraham.
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Rebecca would have known that testimony. She should have waited by the tent and say, this is really getting close to the line,
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I wonder if God will send an angel to stop my husband from doing this, but instead she depends upon herself.
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So Isaac begins as the one who's dim of sight, he can't see, but now we see that Rebecca's dim of sight,
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Jacob's dim of sight. Sin has made them blind. Their efforts have made them blind.
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We talk about walking by faith rather than by sight, but to walk by sight is really just walking blindly.
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Jacob here, he shows almost no concern for the presence of God, the honor of God, the dignity of his father, the dignity of himself, and of course, beneath all of this,
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God doesn't need Rebecca's help. God doesn't need Jacob's sinful plotting.
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God does not depend on the the fleshly efforts of his people to bring about his purpose.
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God brings about his purpose despite the fleshly efforts of his people. Had they waited on God rather than schemed and plotted sin,
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God would fulfill his promised blessing in his own way, in his own time, in a way that would have brought glorious testimony to them and through them.
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Had they waited on God, the consequences of their sins wouldn't have been attached to them, and there are consequences to their sins, as we'll see, as we'll talk about.
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But the point I want to make here is throughout the lives of the patriarchs,
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God never depends upon their efforts to bring about his promises. God brings about his promises despite their efforts, despite their failures, and beyond that, even when they fail,
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God brings about his purpose not only in them, but through them, even through their failures.
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God's purpose cannot be thwarted. It is he who worketh all things according to the counsel of his will.
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He says through Isaiah, I will accomplish all my good pleasure, and that means that my greatest efforts, my greatest plots, my holiest, most sanctified schemes, or my gravest failures, my worst backsliding, cannot for a moment impede the purpose of God in my life and through my life.
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If God has purpose to bless Jacob, Jacob himself cannot sin his way out of that blessing.
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That's what we see in the patriarchal narrative. No man, no scheme, no sin frustrates the purpose of our
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God. When we think about the sovereignty of God, this ought to be a great, sobering reminder to us in our own walks with him.
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This ought to be something that humbles us and also encourages us, and this ought to be something that makes us bold in light of the hostility that we face, and perhaps our children will face more, and perhaps our grandchildren will face even more, and they need to have instilled within them this great confidence that by obeying
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God's way, they will walk according to his blessing, and by patiently waiting on him, they will be made secure.
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When you come to an understanding of God in this way, realizing that no effort of man, no scheme of a tyrant, no sin in my own life can somehow withdraw his purpose from me, and if I belong to Christ, that purpose is secure, that galvanizes my walk, it changes the whole way
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I live my life. But of course, where I fail to do that, where I refuse to do that, my sins will reap consequences, because God is not mocked.
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And Rebekah and Jacob, though ultimately God stands true to his word, and though Jacob will be blessed, they'll have to face the consequences of their distrust, the consequences of their sin.
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That's the moral world that the Lord has created. Rebekah and Jacob choose their own way rather than God's way.
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They choose urgency of the moment, no sense of how could it be any different, how will this actually come about,
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I have to do something like this, rather than waiting by faith and things that cannot be understood, even perceived in the moment, and yet being content because God has promised,
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God has undertaken, so God will do it. I love what the old writer, 19th century writer
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C .H. McIntosh said, nothing can be more truly blessed than hanging in childlike dependence upon God, waiting entirely for his time.
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Utterly childlike dependence upon God. True, it involves trial, but the renewed mind learns the deepest lessons and enjoys the sweetest experiences while waiting on the
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Lord, and the more pressing temptation is out of his hands, the richer is the blessing out of his hands, and it is so sweet to find ourselves dependent upon the one who finds infinite joy in blessing us.
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Jacob thinks he wants this blessing more than anything. Rebekah thinks she wants this blessing more than anything.
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They both pale in comparison to God's desire to bless Jacob. So Christian, please remember that when you feel like you have to undertake for yourself, you have to secure some blessing, some health, some opportunity, and you have to secure it, perhaps in a wrong way, or perhaps it's the wrong thing you're pursuing and you're thinking, this is the only way
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I can be blessed, I can be happy, I can be fulfilled, I can be content, I can be satisfied, and you forget that God has a far greater desire to bless you and satisfy you and fill your life with joy.
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We learn this, I think, most supremely in the wilderness trial of our
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Lord and the temptations he faced in the wilderness. A very similar situation, remember we've said
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Rebekah is serpent -like in the narrative. Jacob is called to heed her voice and walk by sin rather than by faith, to trust in his own ability to provide for himself and secure blessing rather than waiting on God to bring about blessing.
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And our Lord faced the same temptation in the wilderness when the serpent there approached him, calling him to heed his voice, to turn aside from this path of obedience to God's will.
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And of course, he's in the wilderness, he's destitute, he's starving, he has no sense that blessing is attending to him.
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He's hungry, he's starving, he's isolated, he's alone, surrounded by a wilderness.
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This is the conditions of curse. If a prophet wanted to make a metaphor of being under the curse of God, he would use this kind of imagery, this kind of language, and of course the serpent is there to point it out.
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How can you really be the beloved son if this is your life? You're starving, you're isolated, you're alone.
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Where is the fruitfulness that attends your way? How could you be the blessed son? Why don't you prove it to me? Why don't you prove it to yourself?
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Don't you have the power to make those stones bread? The weaving way of the serpent is to get
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Jesus to say, how else is this going to be? You've got to do it. You can't wait. You don't know.
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Does this look very promising to you? You need to do it yourself. Prove it. Take charge.
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In fact, I'll help you. I can give you the kingdoms of the world. All you have to do is just bow to me. Isn't that so much more gracious than your father?
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Your father would have you starve in a wilderness 40 days on end. All I ask you to do is just bend to me and then all the kingdoms are yours.
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Are you really gonna set your face like a flint toward the cross? You know, I would never ask you to do that. How could he love you if he calls you to suffer?
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I will never call you to suffer. In fact, I just want to give you wealth and prestige, the prestige that you deserve.
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Prove to me who you are. Bend your knee. I'll give you everything. This is the way of the serpent.
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How else will it be fulfilled? Take a look around. How else will it be fulfilled?
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And our Lord had to trust his father by faith, not by sight, not by circumstance, not by trial, but by promise.
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He knew that the father had promised to sustain him, a body you have prepared for me. To protect him, my foot will not dash against a rock.
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To provide for him, every word that comes from my father's mouth is my bread. He knew that it was his father's desire to give him a kingdom and the glory of the nations paying tribute to him.
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And he would trust his father even if it meant going the way of Golgotha.
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And so he never set about to bring about his own scheme, his own end, his own fulfillment in his own time, following his own way.
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He submitted himself perfectly to his father's will. If God had not provided food for him to eat, then he would not eat.
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If God had sent him into a wilderness rather than a lush garden, then he would stay in the wilderness. If angels wouldn't attend to his deepest needs and sorrows in that isolation, then he would live by faith in his father's provision.
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He would commune with his father by prayer, even if the father seemed to bring about trials and circumstances that were very difficult.
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You know, it's no different for you and I, brothers and sisters. It's no different. The circumstances may be different.
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The temptations may be different, but the issue is the same. Are we going to trust
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God's will when we have every reason in our flesh not to trust God's will?
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Are we going to patiently wait for God to bring about his promise, for God to secure his blessing, rather than choose selfish, fleshly, sinful ways to secure it ourselves?
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We're all here to labor for a joy that we do not yet possess. We all seek contentment, fulfillment, satisfaction.
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As Christians, we've come to learn that the only real satisfaction, the only lasting joy, is to be found in Jesus.
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But serpent -like, the world promises it can offer us much more for far less.
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The manner of temptation is different for all of us. Sometimes it's different because of past issues in our lives, past wounds, whether that we've caused or that have been brought to us.
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Perhaps it's due to our personality, different things that we've had to struggle through or encounter, things we've given ourselves over to, the consequences and scars of those things.
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Whatever it may be, it does not in any way remove you or somehow forfeit
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God's desire to bless you in Christ, God's providential power over your circumstances in your life.
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Jesus was tempted to make bread out of stones, it was effortless for him as the Son of God, but he realized it's no trivial thing.
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He knows what's at stake, and the question for every Christian is, when you're tempted, when you're tempted, do you know what's at stake?
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My son, we read in Proverbs 3. This is what Jacob should have heard, rather than my son, listen to my voice, put on this ridiculous outfit, go and disguise your voice, go and lie to your father, go and through sin try to get
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God's blessing. What should Jacob have heard instead? My son, do not forget my law, let your heart keep my commands.
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For length of days and long life in peace, they will add to you. You won't have to run off to Padneram, you won't have to live as a slave in Laban's household, you won't have to be distant from the mother who loved you enough to risk all this and bring the curse on herself, and you'll never see her again.
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Sin has consequences. My son, don't forget my law. You want peace, you want blessing, you want what sin seems to offer you?
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It never will get there, it will never provide it. Let not mercy and truth forsake you, bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.
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Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways, acknowledge him.
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He'll direct your path. Don't worry that Esau's dragging the rabbit back into the tent and he's about to start butchering it and Isaac's raising his trembling hands ready to bless him.
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God will direct your path, don't worry, just walk in his way. And don't be wise in your own eyes, fear the
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Lord, depart from evil. This will be health to your flesh, this will be strength to your bone.
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That's what Jacob should have heard. And so for the Christian, we're called from this passage to learn how to trust
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God. Despite the circumstances, despite the urgency, despite the greatest and deepest longings of our heart, our deepest ambitions, we cannot trust that which glitters, that which causes our flesh to pull.
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We must trust in what the Lord has called us to and we must trust that it is the
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Lord who ultimately blesses his people. It's the Lord who controls every molecule of the universe that he has made.
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We should say in light of Wiley, the cosmos that he has made. He arranges everything and he allows things to press upon his people, to try them and test them, to reveal their hearts before him, to open up opportunities for them to grow from strength to strength.
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He's sovereign, he numbers the hairs of our heads, he cares for us. We look at the sparrows,
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I love looking at the chickadees out my front window in the spring. We look to them, it's an easy thing to take for granted how they're provided for, but Jesus wouldn't have taken that for granted.
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Everywhere he looked in creation, he saw his father's provision and then he inferred, if my father is faithful to provide for such little things, of what worth am
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I? Can I not trust him when I'm in the desert? Can I not trust him when the serpent is whispering into my ear?
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Look at how the lilies clothe the field. If that was God's desire for the field, what is his desire for me?
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Could I not trust him? If he's sovereign over a burning supernova, he's sovereign over the life of his people, over the day -to -day experiences and trials and struggles, over their sorrows and their hopes, over the difficulties that they face.
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And we also recognize, as the hymn puts it, God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform.
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We're often not patient enough, content enough, to wait to see the mysterious way that God is going to move.
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So we take action, we intervene, we rush into things foolishly, sinfully often, and then we bear the consequences of that.
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When if we had waited, we would have beheld the truth that God moves in a mysterious way, would have had a testimony of how the
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Lord moved in a mysterious way, in a wonderful way. You remember that he's numbered your days.
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No trial disrupts this truth, no tragedy disrupts this truth, no famine, no earthquake, no pandemic, nothing alters the divine plan of God for your life.
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Nothing you try to do can alter God's divine plan for your life.
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In your book were written the days that were formed for me, even when there were none. Jacob should have known that.
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I can't rush into this, I can't speed along, I can't delay it, my father can't withhold it, Esau can't circumvent it.
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If God has promised to bless me, I will be blessed. If I walk according to God's way,
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I know that I will be blessed, no matter how difficult, no matter how sorrowful, if I walk in God's way,
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I know I will be blessed. We're gonna see this triumph of God's grace in Jacob's life.
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Jacob, I think, here has the foundational level of his sanctification begin with God, and he's gonna go on, and eventually he's gonna learn how to wrestle for the grace of God, and that's essentially what every
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Christian is called to do, to learn how to wrestle for the grace of God, for the blessing of God.
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Now the trust that we're speaking of here, the faith that is according to God's promise rather than our sight, it's not looking for the bright side of a situation, it's not optimism, as the world might define it, it's not some blip, you know, some little postcard that just gets us through, a motivational poster, come on, you know, cheer up, things will work out, they always do.
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It's an active, conscious, self -aware trust in God. It's not just putting on a cheerful disposition or trying to find the quote -unquote silver lining, it's being self -aware that you're trusting in God.
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I know that I don't want to, but I'm going to trust in God. I know that I feel like it's not gonna work out, but I'm going to trust in God.
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I'm gonna do what seems impossible, what's difficult, what's gonna bring a lot of issues into my life, but I'm gonna do it because I know
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God has made it clear. We never abandon
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God's plan to take matters into our own hands. We never abandon God's will to bring about our own will.
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We take God at his word, no matter how stressful, no matter how painful the situation is. This is what we must learn from Genesis 27.
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As we read on of the scheme, and I won't read all of the verses attached to it, but in Genesis 27, really 14 through 25,
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Jacob enters into the tent of his father, dressed ridiculously, and he goes before Isaac, and we remember that Isaac had his own scheme, as Rebecca had her own scheme, and now
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Jacob's carrying out his scheme, and of course he's deceiving his father
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Isaac. Isaac began outside of God's will for the covenantal headship to go to Jacob, and Isaac, of course, is blind, but as Jacob enters the tent, we see that Isaac loses all of his senses because Isaac's desire was against the desire of God.
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Not only does Isaac lose his sight, but he also loses his taste. He doesn't know the difference between Esau's meal and Rebecca's meal.
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He also loses his sense of touch. He doesn't know the difference between Esau's skin and goat hair. He also loses his sense of smell.
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Oh, you know, he, oh this is wonderful, he smells like the field. He's been out hunting. That must have been a lovely smell, huh?
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What do hunters cover themselves in? Deer urine? You know, BO? The smell of the field?
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Kind of weird that he enjoyed that so much, and even his hearing, he can't tell the difference between Esau's voice and Jacob, perhaps, lowering his voice.
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Hello, father. In other words, Isaac loses all of his senses. When you're against the will of God, you lose your senses.
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You don't think you have. You think Isaac really felt that way? He's unsure, but he's, you know, okay, all right, yeah, that's good enough.
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That's what it's like when you're in sin, when you're outside of God's will, when you're moving counter to what you know is
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God's desire for you, for your life, for your relationships, you lose your senses.
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Your conscience is no longer sensitive to sin. You no longer react as you should react.
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You no longer detect what you should detect. You no longer discern what you should be able to discern, what you would have discerned if you were walking according to God's will.
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And so, not only does Jacob come into the tent looking foolish, but Isaac is really reduced to a fool here as well, and that is what sin does.
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And then, of course, Jacob, he goes from sin to sin to sin. Perhaps he thought he could just walk in, maybe have his arm touched, and then he'd get the blessing and get out of there.
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But the way that the dialogue goes, he wraps himself deeper and deeper and deeper into sin.
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He has to pass off not only the touch, but the smell and the voice, and then he even has to bring
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God into his sin. How is it you found it so quickly? The Lord your
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God brought it to me. Now even God is brought into the sinful scheme of Jacob.
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Sin dragging God and the testimony of God through the filth of his will.
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And you would expect here, if anywhere, God to say, well, that's it.
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I know what I promised to Rebecca, but no. No way.
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You're gonna lie, and then lie, and lie, and then bring me into your lie? You're gonna essentially try to magnify me through your lie, and you think
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I'm going to bless you? You expect a bolt of lightning rather than a blessing.
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But what do we have beginning in verse 26? We actually have the blessing secured to Jacob. Come near me now.
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Kiss me, my son. And he came near and kissed him, and he smelled the smell of his clothing, and he blessed him and said, surely the smell of my son is like the smell of a field which the
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Lord has blessed. Therefore, may God give you of the dew of heaven, the fatness of the earth, plenty of grain and wine, and let people serve you, nations bow down to you.
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Be a master over your brethren. Let your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you.
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Blessed be everyone who blesses you. You see, really, a threefold blessing that is given to Jacob.
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First, we have the whole creational context. Of course, Abraham, the Abrahamic covenant is the step forward from creation to new creation.
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It's a great step forward in God's purpose to redeem a fallen creation. So no wonder that this blessing takes up the creational imagery.
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Rather than thorns and thistles, rather than the dry earth and the sweat of the brow, may you have abundance, may you have plenty, may you have fruition.
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So we have a creational blessing, grain and new wine, the fruition of cultivation.
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And then secondly, the preeminence, not only within his household, but over the nations.
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May nations bow down to you. And then third, the final two lines, we really have the repetition of the
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Abrahamic promise. Those who curse you, I will curse. Those who bless you, I will bless. And so in this threefold blessing, we have creation, we have
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God's missional desire for the nations, and we also have the
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Abrahamic blessing. Now, we said we'd get here.
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I need to touch on this. Even though Jacob has secured the blessing, because he did it in a sinful way, his sins have consequences.
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Because Rebecca chose to walk in her flesh rather than in dependence upon God, her sin has consequences.
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Rebecca probably imagined in the moment that she had very skillfully maneuvered how to get Jacob the blessing, and what lied beyond that?
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Let's not cross that bridge till we get there. Another way a sinner thinks, right? Let's not think too far ahead.
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Let's just get through the sin, and we'll deal with whatever we have to deal with. You can tell when you read verses 44 and 45, she really just thought it wouldn't be a big deal, maybe a few days.
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Yeah, Esau, I'll be mad. Give him a few days, it'll blow over, and then we'll all be so happy, and I'll be so happy.
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My little Jake, he'll be blessed, and it all worked so perfectly. Wasn't this great?
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We better hold on to that goat hair. It might come in handy again. I'm so glad things worked out this way. That's how the mind of a sinner thinks, but what really happens?
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She basically now has Cain and Abel in her home. Esau says, I'm gonna murder him. As soon as I'm done,
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I'm gonna murder my brother. So now she hears that, and now she has to say, you have to run away.
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So now the son that she wanted to be blessed, and she wanted to share in that blessing, and be a witness to that blessing, and be proximate to that blessing, to be there, and to see it unfold in his life, and to be there.
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It's a hobbled old great -grandmother, as Jacob's holding her up. Mom, thank you. Thank you for all that you've done.
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Now, because of the consequence of her sin, she'll never see him again. As far as we can tell, they never see each other again.
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When Jacob finally returns, only Isaac is mentioned, Rebekah's not mentioned. The only time that Jacob mentions Rebekah is when he says that she was buried in the cave of Machpelah, and he says it in a way that seems that he was not present for any of that.
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That's a consequence of sin. She thought it was gonna work out so well. Just a few days of anger.
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She never sees her beloved son ever again. Jacob never sees his beloved mother ever again. How different it would have been if they had waited upon God.
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How glorious it would have been. Can you believe the angel came right to the tent to stop
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Isaac, and then pronounced the blessing upon you? I'll never... That's just incredible how different it would have been.
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Instead of gaining the blessing for Jacob, she effectively loses both of her sons. Esau, he doesn't stick around either.
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He's already given his heart over to his Canaanite wives, and he moves to Edom. She sought to get an inheritance for Jacob.
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You're gonna be the head of this household. This is all gonna be yours. And what happens as soon as she sins to get it?
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He has to run away from it. So much for being the heir. He can't even be present among all his possession.
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She wanted Jacob to be the ruler over his brethren, and he has to be a slave for his uncle. This is what sin does.
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It promises you all the things it will never deliver, and it takes from you all that you had.
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And then Isaac was deceived. We've already said we shouldn't think he's this poor victim. He's the head of his household.
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He should have had a keen sensitivity to that covenantal lineage. He should have known from the beginning Esau has no place in the redemptive purpose of God.
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He should have been more loyal to God than he was driven by his gut or his affection for Esau because of what
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Esau could provide. And so we see him driven by the flesh and driven by an irrational devotion to a godless and profane son.
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But really, Isaac has a turning point in this passage, or at least we can say it gives us the context by which we can see a sort of conversion, to use
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J .M. Boyce's language. This is what he says. Some think conversion is too strong a word for one who had undoubtedly been raised in the love and knowledge of God, but I don't think it's too strong.
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Even if it was not a conversion in the sense of Isaac being changed from an unsaved condition to a saved condition, it was at least a conversion from the willful rejection of God's plan to an obedient acceptance of it.
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Notice that he never revokes, he never turns it into a curse. It seems that Isaac here takes a big step back once Esau enters the tent and the whole thing's been exposed, and he realizes this was
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God's providence. You know, I can't undo what's been done. This, you know, this was meant to be.
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That's what Boyce is picking up. In other words, Isaac would have realized Jacob is a deceiver,
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Jacob is a sinner, he's a fraud, he tricked his brother, he tricked me, but God has desired to bless him.
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He would have had now, again, a whole other testimony just like he had only a chapter ago when he said,
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Rebecca, please pretend you're my sister, and then God led him out of the land with blessing. He would have realized that God is a
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God of utter grace. Despite the deceiving, the sin, the trickery, the mockery, God had purpose to bless
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Jacob, and so Jacob is blessed. Despite Isaac's scheme, despite Rebecca's scheme, despite Jacob's own scheme,
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Jacob is blessed. Jacob is blessed despite his sin. Jacob is blessed despite his sin that God is going to root out.
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Jacob is blessed. That's true of every believer in Christ this morning.
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Despite your sin, you are blessed. Despite your sin, which
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God is going to work out, you are blessed. If you've read the narrative and your gut reaction is, why?
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You're thinking rightly. Why? Why would
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God still bless Jacob? God sees this.
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God knows this. God knows what kind of man Jacob is more than we do. He knows not just what the narrative shows us on the surface, he knows the thoughts and the intents of the heart.
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He sees just how deep that rabbit hole of sin and rebellion goes, so why would God still choose to bless
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Jacob? But really, Jacob's just a mirror. If we're even remotely, minutely self -aware, we know that we, too, have those same dark corners, those same willful, stubborn rebellions against God's way, against God's will, those same foolish efforts to provide for and supply for ourselves to secure a worldly blessing in a worldly way, often counter to God's blessing in God's way, according to God's time.
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We often follow our heart, our ambition, pursue what's fitting and comforting to us in the moment, out of stubbornness, rather than like the
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Savior to depend upon God, even in a wilderness, even after 40 days of being destitute. And so we're meant to ask, why
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Jacob? Why me? There's almost this beautiful imagery in Rebecca.
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Rebecca is serpent -like and all that she does, but if we're gonna redeem her character at all, we have to say that her love for her son was so strong, so passionate, that when
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Jacob said, what if my father curses me? What if the whole thing's exposed and he tears off the goat skin and I'm just left there shaking like a leaf?
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And then he says, blessing, I curse you. What if he pronounces a curse on the rest of my life? And what does
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Rebecca do? Let your curse be on me. My son, take heart.
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Let your curse be on me. I'll take the curse. I will suffer. I will live in misery, as long as you're blessed.
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And if there's any redemptive moment for Rebecca's character, it has to be that. That is Rebecca at her most
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Christlike, because Christ is the one who says, let me take the curse for you.
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I will take the curse for you, so that the blessing of Abraham will reside on you.
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Take my blessing as the firstborn heir, all that belongs to me, now I give to you.
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You will be blessed, and I will take the curse. How blessed we are this morning that Christ has taken the curse, that we might receive the blessing.
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And so when we wonder how it could be that Jacob is blessed, despite his sin,
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Jacob is blessed, we bend our knees at the foot of the cross, and we say, Savior, you have taken the curse from me, and despite my sin,
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I am blessed, and I will be blessed. Because when
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I'm unfaithful, God is faithful. When we are unfaithful,
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God remains faithful. He cannot deny himself. When he's undertaken a purpose to bless those who cry out in the name of Jesus, they will be blessed, despite their sin, despite their failure, despite their rebellion, despite dragging
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God's name and testimony through the mud. If he's undertaken to bless them, they will be blessed.
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And now perhaps with new eyes, and we close with this, we can say that the refrain of Psalm 46, the
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Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge, the
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God who desires to bless even those who sin against him. Let's pray.
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Father, we thank you for your Word, we thank you for this powerful truth,
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Lord, that despite our sinfulness even here this morning, we are blessed sons and daughters of God, that we have received every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, that we are seated together with the
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Savior who loved us and gave himself for us, that he bled and died upon the cursed tree, taking the fullness of that curse,
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Lord, that we might receive the fullness of the blessing. We are ashamed of our sinfulness, we are ashamed of the self -dependence, self -will, self -exertion, our forgetfulness, our neglect, our stubbornness, our desires to meet immediate hunger pains, immediate needs and comforts from this world in this life, how unlike this blessed
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Savior we are. May we learn from him, may his Spirit so animate us and dwell within us that we turn from sin unto righteousness, that we go from strength to strength in this walk of sanctification.
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We thank you, Lord, that you undertook to bless Jacob despite his sin, but that you didn't leave
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Jacob in his sin. You led him away from it, you let him out of it, you purged it, you refined it, you turned what was ashes into beauty, you covered over the wounds and you bound up what was broken, and in Jacob's life,
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Lord, you never stamped out that smoking flax, you never split apart that bruised reed, you are so tender and gracious with your people.
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We glorify you for that this morning. We beseech you to be tender and gracious to us still.
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Continue that work you've begun in our lives of patiently but purposely working our sin unto sanctification.
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May we never stray far from the cross, from the one who took the curse that we might be blessed. May this be the song on our lips and the melody in our hearts, and if there's one in this room who's a stranger to that very grace, we pray that they would be brought nigh unto