Genesis #37 - Unlikely Grace #9 - "Unlikely Grace in the Face of Real Threats" (Genesis 32:1-33:17)

Jacob Faces Esau’s Threat on the Way Home

All right, Genesis chapter 32. Genesis chapter 32. We're going to be covering another long section in Genesis this morning. Just the narrative covers a chapter and a half, essentially. But to get us started, Genesis chapter 32.

And I'm going to read the first eight verses. So Genesis chapter 32 and the first eight verses. If you have one of the Bibles that we give away, that's page 27. Page 27. Genesis chapter 32 and verses 1 through 8.

Page 27 in the red hardback Bibles that we give away. If you're able to do so, can I invite you to stand with me out of reverence for God's word as we read it. We like to do this when it comes to our sermon text, to show submission to God's word, even with the posture of our bodies.

So Genesis chapter 32. Beginning in verse 1. Genesis chapter 32 verses 1 through 8. Brothers and sisters, these are God's words. Jacob went on his way and God's angels met him. When he saw them, Jacob said, this is God's camp.

So he called that place Mahanaim. Two camps. Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the territory of Edom. He commanded them, you are to say to my Lord Esau, this is what your servant Jacob says.

I have been staying with Laban and have been delayed until now. I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male and female slaves. I have sent this message to inform my Lord in order to seek your favor. When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, we went to your brother Esau.

He's coming to meet you. And he has 400 men with him. He was greatly afraid and distressed. He divided the people with him into two camps, along with the flocks, herds and camels. He thought, if Esau comes to one camp and attacks it, the remaining one can escape.

I pray that God would bless that reading of his word and grant us understanding as we come to it. Allow me to pray, ask for the Spirit's help and we will get to work in God's word this morning. Let's pray together.

Well, our Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you have revealed yourself to us. Though you would be perfectly fine in not saying a word to us as your creatures, you've been gracious to us and you've given us a revelation of who you are as we open up the scriptures.

So Father, I pray that as we open up the word of God and we seek to hear it speak to us as your people, pray that you would give us willing hearts to hear, to receive, and to live out what we read from your word.

May you comfort us through your gospel, through the good news of salvation, full and free in Jesus. Father, it's our habit to pray for other area churches each week. Take a moment to pray for Trinity Baptist Church who hosted us last week for their quick weekend.

Thank you for their generosity and kindness and letting us use their space. Pray for Pastor Jake who serves as the pastor there as he is preaching through the letters to the Thessalonians. Pray that you'd give him great grace even as he's preaching right now.

May he know your spirit's help as he opens up your word for the edification and comfort and equipping of your people. Father, we pray that for Trinity Baptist and we pray that for ourselves even now as we open up God's word.

We ask all this in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Amen. Please be seated. When Jacob was robbing his brother of his birthright many chapters ago in our study of Genesis, do you think that he fully grasped the world of hurt that he was putting himself in when he did this?

When he hoodwinked his dad with the help of his mom, did he ever think that those chickens at some point would come home to roost? I mean, if you think about it, it's an interesting question, ain't it?

Did he fully realize the implications of what he was doing in that moment? I mean, obviously, I don't think it's a question we can answer with any certainty because the text doesn't answer it. But the reality is he is going to have to face the music and as we come to chapter 32 of Genesis this morning, that moment has come.

If you remember, Jacob started his journey back home in our last message in Genesis together. Having received clear divine instruction that it was time to leave the house of Laban, he left Laban's house and began the long journey back to the land of promise.

But as we come to Genesis chapter 32, the journey home has put him on a collision course with his brother Esau. Do you remember the story of how we got to this point? This has all the ingredients for a very unhappy family reunion.

It's especially the case if you remember what Esau's last words that we heard from him were. Stand back with me for a moment to chapter 27. Genesis 27. Genesis chapter 27 and verse 41. God's word says to us that Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him and Esau determined in his heart, the days of mourning for my father are approaching.

Then I will kill my brother Jacob. The last time we left Esau, he was not a happy bunny and rightfully so. But since we read these words, 20 years has passed. 20 years is a long time for the thought of vengeance to just stew and fester.

The question really becomes, is Jacob going to make it out of this alive? If his brother wanted to kill him in the immediate aftermath, how must he feel with 20 years to sit and stew and plan? Now I'm going to give you something of a spoiler alert.

Maybe it's anticlimactic. I don't know. But let me just tell you up front, Jacob will make it out of this alive. We can all calm down. He's going to be fine. But for most of this chapter, at least as the events are happening, Jacob doesn't know that.

We know that because we have the privilege of being able to read ahead. Jacob doesn't know that. For much of this chapter, the threat of his brother is still a very live threat. You think, okay, Kofi, what does this have to do with me on a Sunday morning?

Chances are, if you're sitting in this room, you will never face a threat that is this existential, this real world. Chances are, you're not going to face a threat quite as big as this. And let's be clear, this is a very real threat for Jacob.

But if you live long enough in this fallen world in which we live, stuff can, does, and will happen. Overwhelming, difficult, uneasy stuff just happens. You may not have a brother in this room who's out for your blood, but if I were to walk around this room, I imagine I wouldn't get too far before I find a story or a present situation, whether in the past or in the present, that has at some point felt some kind of threatening.

And the question becomes, how do we approach moments like that? Is the grace of God to be found in the face of very real threats? Well, you probably know the answer I'm going to give. Of course, the grace of God is to be found in very real threats.

And I think what we're going to see in this passage is going to help us to answer that question. See, here's the question of the morning I think we all need to consider. When moments of real threat, when moments of real try come, when those seasons come a-knocking, as it were, how do we as God's people handle those moments?

I think that's the big question we need to ask and answer as we come to this text. Here's my proposal for the morning. First, it's a simple one. It's a simple one to say anyway. Beloved, the only way we successfully navigate the threats of life, and there are many of them, the only way we successfully, and please note the word successfully there, you can try and navigate the threats of life all different kinds of ways.

I'm going to argue most of them are not successful ways to do it. The only way we can successfully navigate the threats of life is by relying on God's providence, provision, and protection. The only successful way to navigate the threats of life, the only way we'll ever be able to do that is by relying on God's providence, provision, and protection.

As we march our way through this section of God's Word this morning, that's going to be very, very, very apparent as we move through it. Once again, the only way we successfully navigate the threats of life is by relying on God's providence, provision, and protection.

I'm just going to just march our way through this passage, and we'll stop as we need to and learn the lessons that we need. So I invite you to consider with me five moments in this threatening episode in the life of Jacob.

Five moments in this episode in the life of Jacob that should make us all the more dependent on the grace of God. Five moments in the life of Jacob in this rather threatening episode that should make us more dependent on the grace of God.

Jacob’s Preparations in the Face of the Threat

Well, let's begin by considering, first of all, Jacob's preparations in the face of the threat. Jacob's preparations in the face of the threat. So in verse 3, we may think, what am I doing? Did he just skip two verses?

We'll come back to him. But in verse 3, the stage is set for us when the text says, Jacob sent messages ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the territory of Edom. Brief geography lesson.

Seir is kind of in the center of this area of the Middle East where much of what happens in Genesis takes place. Jacob is trying to go south. For him to go south, which is the direction of home, he has to pass through the area that has become the territory of Esau, become the land of Edom.

This is the sort of tribal lands which Esau has come to occupy. And you get the sense that Jacob knows what is at stake. This is not just a, you know, simple journey going back home because, did you catch the language that he uses?

He sends messengers ahead, which was the custom in the ancient Near East. When you were passing through someone's land, you sent messages that said, hey, we're passing through. Can we have safe passage as we go on our way?

And so he sends these messengers, but he doesn't just send them and say, hey, we're passing through. Can we come on by? He recognizes, I know who I'm speaking to. I need to do this properly. Did you catch that he refers to Esau as my Lord Esau in verses 4 and 5?

That he refers to himself as his servant Jacob in verse 5? And that he says that I'm essentially doing this to seek your favor, literally to seek your grace in verse 5? You get the sense that Jacob realizes that what he is about to do and ask is a big ask, knowing what he did.

He's terrified. I think rightfully so. And if Jacob seems a little bit terrified, if he seems a little bit paranoid, you know the saying, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

Well, he's got good reason because look at verse 6. When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, we went to meet your brother Esau. He is coming to meet you and he has 400 men with him. Now let's be clear, you don't send 400 men to go have a picnic.

Esau, at least at this point, wants to pick up right where he left off 20 years ago. You know how we say, uh, you know, you've heard this phrase before, time heals all wounds. You know, something happens to someone and we essentially, we're trying to comfort them.

So we tell them, you know what? Yeah, I know this happened to you, but listen, time heals all wounds. Just give it some time. You'll be fine. People, it's a cliche. You know, you want me to say a cliche?

Just something we say to make people feel better and to basically say something. People may mean well when they say that, but let's all be honest, if we think about it long enough, it's a load of nonsense, isn't it?

Because the reality is time doesn't heal wounds. Actually, time just gives wounds an opportunity to fester. Do you know what actually heals wounds? I'm in seminary. I'm learning to study the Bible and all this stuff.

You know, the theological answer for what heals wounds? Healing wounds. But more than that, actually, the actual theological answer is only God can actually heal. Time doesn't heal wounds. Not at all.

And apparently, Esau still very much felt the wound of what his brother had done to him almost two decades before. And again, Jacob knew his brother. He knew the fury of his brother. His brother was out of control enough that he could kill everything with a pulse.

He could kill everything with a pulse. And so Jacob recognizing this, he's got 400 men coming. I know my brother, this is not going to end well. Verse 7 says that Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.

He divided the people with him into two camps along with the flocks, herds, and camels. He thought if Esau comes to one camp and attacks it, so he clearly knows what the 400 men are for. Well, if he comes to one, at least the other one can escape.

I think we could all agree that Jacob's fear is somewhat warranted. This is not an irrational fear on his part. It's warranted, but can I suggest, and I don't mean to be insensitive when I say this, but it's also a little bit unnecessary.

I mean, Sophie, what do you mean it's unnecessary? Esau is coming. He's got 400 men with him. Esau himself is a crazy guy, which you can probably guess. He's surrounded himself with equally crazy men.

But here's why I say that the fear here is a little unnecessary. You see, if the story started with the threat of Esau, I'd get it. But I told you I skipped the first two verses except verse 1. Jacob went on his way and God's angels met him.

When he saw them, Jacob said this is God's camp. So he named that place Mahanaim. Mahanaim simply means two camps. Okay, where are you going with this, Sophie? Think about this. Jacob is about to face the biggest challenge of his life.

And before he faces that challenge, the first thing that he encounters is not the challenge. It's the presence of God's ministering angels. In fact, the word for camp is an interesting one. It's a military term.

We would say a military installation. That's kind of the meaning behind this word. It's meant to signify a meeting of soldiers for strength and protection. You see, Jacob could plot and prepare all he wanted.

But if he was going to survive this showdown with his brother, it was going to require divine intervention. And that's where this passage begins. The passage begins not with the threat of Esau, real as that threat is.

The passage begins with the presence of God. Okay, Kofi, where are you going with this? Real simple. Let me put it in the form of a question. When tough situations arise, do you face those situations trusting in your own planning and power, or do you trust in the protection and provision of God?

Let me ask that question again. When tough situations arise, do you face them trusting in your own planning and power, or do you trust in the provision and the protection of God? I'm going to put it in New Testament terms.

Does the gospel, the good news of Christ work in and for you? Does the gospel give you your frame of reference for dealing with tough times, or is it something else? You may think, I'm a Christian. Of course it's the gospel.

Can I put it to you that even Christians can lose sight of the fact that the gospel is God's comprehensive answer to every problem you face. The temptation can be so easy to grab. I know what God's word says, but is it something that you've always done?

Is it just, well, I've always done this when this situation arises. I'm going to do this again. Is it what you've always done? Is it what you always, is it what you feel? I mean, we live in a culture where I think our friend Steve, when he was with us last week, talked about this, that emotions have basically been deified.

Is it what you feel? Is it what the culture around you says? Is it what your family says? Is it what your favorite in this day and age talking head or pundit or your favorite YouTube or streamer has to say?

Beloved, you can't wait till moments of trial come to figure out what your foundation is. Before moments of trial come, you need to settle what it is that is going to be your foundation before those trials come.

Jacob is given a grand opportunity to put his trust in the God who, by the way, called him to this moment. And so the reality is that yes, Jacob makes his preparations, but his preparations will mean little without the presence of God.

Now, before I give Jacob too hard of a time, Jacob does more than just prepare for this impending threat. You see, Jacob, to his credit, rightly understands that preparation in the face of the threat has to give way to secondly, prayer in the face of the threat.

Prayer in the Face of the Threat

Prayer in the face of the threat. Jacob, I think, recognizes that it will take a literal act of God to make it on the other side, through to the other side of this impending danger. And so he does what he should do, which is he goes to God.

And so we have a prayer recorded from him in verses 9 through 12. And I love his prayer here. It's short, but I think it's rich with some helpful pointers that will actually help you and I when it comes to praying through moments of difficulty.

Can I just point out three features of his prayer here? To help out with this, I'm going to put them up on screen for you. Three features of his prayer here. In the face of a threat, how should you pray?

Well, first of all, pray with an understanding of God's covenant relationship with you. Pray with an understanding of God's covenant relationship with you. So look at verse 9 and how he starts. Verse 9.

Then Jacob said, God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac. Did God not know who Jacob's dad and granddad were? Of course he did. And that's precisely the point. Jacob grounds his prayer in the covenant that God had made with Abraham and had reaffirmed with Isaac.

Jacob doesn't presume that God should act just because Jacob asked. No, Jacob prays knowing that God had sovereignly entered into a relationship with Jacob for his good. And here's take home for you believer.

If you are here today and you're a believer in the Lord Jesus, the good news is that God has entered into a covenant relationship with you. Hebrew chapter 8 verse 6 puts it like this. That Jesus has obtained a superior ministry and to that degree he is the mediator of a better covenant which has been established on better promises.

I don't know if you ever thought about this, but Christian, have you ever thought about the fact that prayer is primarily a covenant activity? I mean, what do you mean it's a covenant activity? Well, let me swap it.

Stop the word covenant for a word that we use all the time. It's a relationship activity. Around the room, some of you are married or have been married. Where's one of the primary ways in which a relationship grows?

Communication. You can't have a relationship if you don't communicate with the other person in the relationship. Prayer is a covenant activity when we read the Bible. How do I know this? Have you ever wondered about this?

Why does the Bible make such a point about us praying in the name of Jesus? You ever thought about that? Why does the, why does it even, Jesus goes out of his way before he leaves in John 13 through 16, what's called the upper room discourse, the fact that he's about to leave.

Before he goes, he makes a point of telling the disciples over and over, ask the father in my name and he will do it. Why does the Bible make a point of calling us to pray in the name of Jesus? Can I put it to you?

The Bible makes a point of calling us to pray in the name of Jesus because Jesus is the one through whom we have a relationship with the triune God. Remember what Jesus said, John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

I love it. It's because of Jesus's all obedient life and his atoning death that the Bible says, first Peter 3, 18, that he died to bring us to God. The fact that you have a relationship with God is only because of what Jesus has done for you.

And so when we pray, we have to pray with an understanding of the fact that in Christ, God has entered into a covenant with us as his people. And so we pray with an understanding of God's covenant relationship.

But if we look at Jacob's prayer, he doesn't just ground it in covenant relationship. That's great and wonderful, but he takes it a step further. So look again at verse 9. Then Jacob said, God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, go back to your land and to your family and I will cause you to prosper.

Can I give you a second lesson for your prayer life in moments of trial? Don't just pray with an understanding of God's covenant relationship with you. Secondly, pray with an understanding of God's clear revelation to you.

Pray with an understanding of God's clear revelation to you. I think God, where'd you get that from? Very simple. Who told Jacob to go home? Remember our last message in Genesis? Jacob had the desire to go and then it couldn't happen, but when time came for him to go, it was God who spoke and said it was time to go home.

Who asked him to go knowing that this would be the way? Jacob might not have thought about that, but God clearly did. No, God is the one who spoke to him. God had revealed his will and in light of the fact that God was the one who had revealed his will, who said this is the time and this is the way you need to go.

Jacob prays in light of that fact. Allow me to pull it into 2024 for us. Is there a safer way to pray than for us to pray in light of God's revealed will in his word? You ever thought about that? There's no safer way for us to pray than to pray God's word back to him.

All you have to do is look at some of the great prayers in the Bible and you realize that they all have this thing in common. They're not trying to say anything new. In essence, not that God has, God doesn't have a memory and even if he did, he doesn't forget anything, but essentially they're trying to remind God of what he has already said.

So let me just give you some examples. Nehemiah chapter 9. Nehemiah is praying this prayer of confession and he starts off by grounding it in one of the great self-confessing statements of God. Exodus 34, 6, and 7.

That God is gracious and compassionate. That he is slow to anger. He grounds it in the revelation that God has already given. Or Daniel chapter 9, where Daniel is praying in confession as he realizes that Israel is in the exile and the exile is going to be 70 years.

He's praying in response to, he says he was reading the prophet Jeremiah. That's Jeremiah chapter 29. How about in the New Testament? Acts chapter 4. Apostles are being sanctified rebel rousers like they always are.

They're beaten and told not to preach in the name of Jesus. Their response isn't to cry and say, oh they said we can't preach. Now Acts chapter 4, as soon as, I remember correctly, Peter and James who are arrested, once they're released, they go back to the church and the church prays.

And it's interesting in Acts chapter 4, their prayer is grounded in what Psalm 2 said. Why do the heathen rage and why do the peoples imagine a vain thing? They have raised themselves up against the Lord and against his anointed.

They recognize the persecution we're experiencing, this is, this is not new news. This is how this was supposed to go. The Lord, give us boldness so we can proclaim the message. Have an idea, have an idea.

Check me out here. What if we didn't just sprinkle our prayers with a few cherry-picked words from the Bible? What if, crazy idea, but what if we actually prayed the Bible? In this week's study guide, in the recommended resource, pretty much all the resources I recommended are resources that help us think about this idea of praying, not just from the Bible, but praying the Bible itself.

If I can recommend one of them for you, my friend Dr. Will Varner who teaches at Master's University out there in SoCal, he's produced what he calls a handbook for praying scripture. Cool little thing, I use it personally.

There's some simple ways to incorporate the prayers of the Bible, the words of the Bible, into our prayers. I don't know about you, but do you ever have moments where prayer feels kind of stale? It shouldn't.

I think we all recognize it shouldn't, but again, we're human. Sometimes prayer feels stale. Can I encourage you, one thing that's really encouraged my own praying the last few years is making sure that God's Word is more central to my prayers.

Let me encourage you to give that a try. And I think we have good warrant from this passage because that's what Jacob does. He reminds God, as it were, of what God had already said. God had spoken. God had brought him to this place.

And if this is where God brought him, then the implication is, well, God, you're going to have to make a way here. So we pray with an understanding of God's covenant relationship. We pray in with an understanding of God's clear revelation.

But there's a third thing we learn. I'm not going to read verses 10 through 12 in full, but there's a third lesson we learn from verses 10 through 12 and what Jacob prays. Because he also prays with an understanding of his creaturely reality.

He prays with an understanding of his creaturely reality. What do I mean by that phrase? Simply this. Pray remembering that you are not God. You are you. You're a creature. You're not the creator. We do not go into prayer demanding things from God.

We go into prayer asking things from God because he is the one who created us. I said I wasn't going to read, but actually I will read it. Look at verse 10. Jacob says, I am unworthy, speaking to God of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant.

Indeed, I crossed over the Jordan with my staff. In other words, all I had was the clothes on my back and the staff in my hand. And now I have become two camps. Please rescue me from my brother Esau, for I am afraid of him.

Otherwise he may come and attack me, the mothers and their children. You have said I will cause you to prosper and I will make your offspring like the sand of the sea, too numerous to be counted. Nothing did he have, nothing did he possess, nothing did he call his that wasn't a kindness of the ever loving God.

I love that Jacob's prayer here has no sense of self-entitlement. There's no sense of self-elevation here. This is not the prayer of a self-made or self-confident person. I, some of you have heard me say this before in the pulpit of Redeemer that I don't believe in what some call the worm theology.

You ever heard that phrase before? You know that, you know, basically when I come to God, I'm nothing but a worm. I'm nothing. I'm less than nothing. The Bible is not quite that imbalanced. However, can we agree that we live in a culture that's practically pickled in the toxic juice of self-esteem and self-love?

I don't think all of it's bad, but I think a lot of it isn't helpful. I think one of the biggest ways that it's unhelpful, one of the ways that I fear that it can be a danger even for people who sit in church, is that it makes us uncomfortable with the fact that we are, wait for it, creatures.

That we are needy, that we are dependent. Think about it, our culture preaches independence as though it is a virtue. Now there's a sense in which independence is a virtue, if you have it in the proper perspective.

Our culture basically says if you ever need anything, if you are ever dependent, if you are heaven forbid weak, that's a problem. But can I put it to you that you actually can't be a creature until you recognize that you are again a creature.

When the creature starts thinking it's the creator, that's a problem. When the thing that is made thinks it's equal to its maker, that's a problem. As a practice in my preaching, I try to avoid super long quotes when I preach.

But in preparing this week's preaching, I went back to one of my favorite paragraphs in all of literature, and as I tried, I wanted to try and summarize it. I was like, I can't, I just need to read this, because all of it is sober.

It's the opener to the classic Christian work, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, by John Calvin. Don't have to agree with everything Calvin said, I don't. But I think he nails it here. I'm going to read a really long quote from him, and to help you follow along, I'm going to put it up on screen.

This is what Calvin says as he opens his work, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. He says this, quote, nearly all of the wisdom we possess, that is to say sound, true and sound wisdom, excuse me, consists of two parts, the knowledge of God and ourselves.

But while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern. In the first place, no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God, in whom he lives and moves.

But quite clearly, the mighty gifts with which we are endowed are hardly from ourselves. Indeed, our very being is nothing but subsistence. In other words, the state of being alive in the one God. By these benefits shed like dew from heaven upon us, we are led as by rivulets, as little rivers to the spring itself.

Indeed, our very poverty better discloses the infinitude of benefits reposing in God. The miserable ruin into which the rebellion of the first man cast us especially compels us to look upward. Thus, not only will we in fasting and hungering, and he's being metaphorical, he uses that language of fasting and hungering, by the way.

Thus, not only will we in fasting and hungering seek thence what we lack. In other words, it's not until we recognize our need that we won't go looking for filling that need. But in being aroused by fear, we shall learn humility.

For as a veritable world of miseries is to be found in mankind, and we are therefore despoiled of divine raiment, our shameful nakedness exposes a teeming hoard of infamy. That's a fancy way of saying the reality that we are creatures and we are sinful creatures exposes the fact that we are people of many problems.

Calvin goes on, each of us must then be so stung by the consciousness of his own unhappiness as to attain at least some knowledge of God. Thus, from the feeling of our own ignorance, vanity, poverty, infirmity, and what is more depravity and corruption, we recognize that the true light of wisdom, sound virtue, full abundance of every good and purity of righteousness rests in the Lord alone.

To this extent, we are prompted by our own ills to contemplate the good things of God, and we cannot seriously aspire to him before we begin to become displeased with ourselves. For what man in the world would glad would not gladly remain as he is?

What man does not remain as he is so long as he does not know himself, that is, while content with his own gifts and either ignorant or unmindful of his own misery. Accordingly, the knowledge of ourselves not only arouses us to seek God but also, as it were, leads us by the hand to find him.

Allow me to summarize that in a way that even I can understand. You cannot know who you are until you know who your creator is, and it is only when you know who your creator is that you can understand life the way it was designed to be lived.

I don't know how many of you are on social media. I hear a phrase used a lot in social media, especially among the younger generation. The phrase, it grammatically doesn't make a lot of sense, but okay.

The phrase is, I am him. You heard people use that phrase before? It's used a lot, especially in the sports world nowadays. When someone is a really good player, they'll say, you know, the guy will celebrate and he'll pound his chest and say, I'm him, I'm him.

It's meant to be a statement of self-sufficiency and self-assertion, but can I put it to you that you are, if I can say this, not him or ladies, you are not her, neither am I. The only person in the world who can say I am him is God.

Can I put it to you that if you remember that, life will make a lot more sense. If you reject that, on the other hand, life will become utterly meaningless, and so I have to commend Jacob because Jacob shows incredible spiritual awareness, even in his faith.

We have to commend him for this, credit where it's due, but of course, this is Jacob. Jacob, as we have seen, is imperfect. He is fickle. At times, he flounders in his faith, and the reality is, yes, he knows to pray, and I think he prays really well, but prayer doesn't change the facts on the ground.

Esau is still coming, and this calls for a third movement in our passage. Calls for some plotting in the face of the threat. Here, I'm going to do a lot of summarizing so we can move quickly. Essentially, Jacob plots in two different ways.

First of all, he says, you know what, let me pander with some gifts, verses 13 to 20. If I offer him some gifts, maybe that will soften the blow a little bit. So, verses 13 to 20, you see this listing of animals, 550 if you count them all, of varying amounts of value, but none of them are cheap.

For a tribal chieftain like Esau, this is not a small portfolio to acquire. Jacob is clearly a very rich man at this point. He can afford to give up this much, but even if he didn't have it, he recognizes this is worth giving up if it means I can leave with my head still secured to my shoulders.