A History of Edom (Genesis 36:1-9; 40-43)

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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We are in a lengthy study of the book of Genesis.

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And today we are at another of the genealogies which are in Genesis, and it is very common when we come to long lists of names that we would simply skip those portions.

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People are very apt when they're reading their Bible to come to these portions and simply either glance over them or just simply skip this portion.

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And I'm not able to do that because of a commitment to verse-by-verse preaching.

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I believe every verse matters.

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And so we're not going to skip this chapter, but we are not going to read the whole thing in our opening.

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This is one of the longest chapters in Genesis.

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It is literally a list of just name after name after name.

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And you don't need to hear me stumble through some of these very difficult ancient names.

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But this is going to be the subject of today because what we have in this text is a genealogy of the history of the Edomites.

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And we need to understand the value of genealogies because they do two things for us.

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One, they remind us of the history of important biblical figures, but they also provide for us an authentication of the Bible's claim to being truth.

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Because the Bible does not claim to be a book of myths.

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The Bible claims to be a book of truth.

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And therefore, when it speaks of history, when it gives us historical information, it's giving us true historical information.

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And it authenticates that by giving us lists of names of men who were the families that came out of these different lines.

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This is an important thing about Jesus.

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When we come to the New Testament, two of the Gospels have genealogies for Jesus.

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One goes back to Abraham, one goes back to Adam.

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And why do we have genealogies for Jesus? Because it's authenticating that he was a true and living man in a specific period in time.

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And he was born to a specific family.

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And it tells us who that family was.

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Well, in Genesis, there are many genealogies.

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For those of you who've been here for the last two or three years, however long we've been doing this, we've gone through several genealogies.

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And each time, I like to remind you that each one of these breaks up the book of Genesis into its 10 parts.

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We have 50 chapters in our English Bible, but the original writing of Genesis did not have 50 chapters.

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It had 10 generations, or what were known as the Toledotes.

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And what we see is with every generation, it begins a new part of the book.

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So we go all the way back to Genesis chapter 2.

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These are the generations of the heavens and the earth.

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And then we go on to the generations of Adam.

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Then we go on to the generations of Seth, and to the generations of Noah, and the sons of Noah, and on and on.

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Each one of those Toledotes, and the word Toledote is the Hebrew word for these are the generations of.

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Each one of those creates for us a new division within the book, marking out 10 divisions in the book of Genesis.

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And I wanna show you something very specific about today's Toledote, because the way it falls in the history of the Bible, it tells us something.

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If you would bring up the next screen.

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This is how this breaks down for us.

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And this is important because what we see, there is the generations of Abraham.

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When Abraham dies, his two sons come together.

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Remember Abraham had two sons, Isaac and Ishmael.

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Isaac and Ishmael come together in chapter 25.

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And then immediately after that, we get the generations of, or the Toledote of Ishmael.

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And then we get the Toledote of Isaac, which lasts 10 chapters.

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Notice the generations of Ishmael only last a few verses, but the generations of Isaac lasts 10 chapters.

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Then Isaac dies, and this is what we learned last week.

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Isaac dies, and we get Jacob and Esau coming together in a very similar way that Isaac and Ishmael come together.

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Jacob and Esau come together.

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And immediately after Jacob and Esau come together, we get the Toledote of Esau, one chapter.

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And then the rest of the book is about the generations of Jacob.

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So you see how that breaks out.

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It follows a consistent pattern.

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So where we are today is on the generations of Esau.

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But notice it's focused on the death of the patriarch.

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Abraham dies, his two sons come together.

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We focus on first, the non-elect.

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Notice that.

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The first one that we focused on was Ishmael.

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He's the non-elect.

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And then we focus on Isaac.

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He's the elected.

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Notice him, he gets 10 chapters.

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Then we get to Isaac.

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We focus on his two sons.

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Which one do we focus on first? The non-elect, Esau.

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He gets a whole chapter.

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But when compared to his brother, 10 chapters or more, 37 through 50, 13 chapters are devoted to Ishmael, or to Isaac, rather.

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And what we're seeing here, really, is we're seeing the two-seed motif that I've been talking about.

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Ever since the beginning of Genesis, I've mentioned that there is a two-seed structure to the book of Genesis.

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The seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.

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Remember in Genesis 3.15, God spoke to the serpent, and he said that there's going to come one who is going to crush your head and you're going to strike at his heel.

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And we said that is a promise about the Lord Jesus Christ.

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That's what we call the Proto-Evangelium, or the first mention of the gospel in the Bible.

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That one would come one day who would crush the head of the serpent, but the seed of the serpent would nip at the heel of the seed of the woman.

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And so we have a two-seed motif that runs throughout, not just Genesis, but throughout the Bible.

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It is always the seed of the woman who is at war with the seed of the serpent.

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It is the ones who are of God who are at war with those who are ungodly.

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Brother Andy's been preaching through Proverbs, and he talks about the two-seed...

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Well, he didn't call it the two seeds, but the two lines in Proverbs.

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The wise and the fool, right? The righteous and the unrighteous.

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The godly and the ungodly.

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That is the way the Bible is broken out.

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There's two seeds.

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There's two lines.

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And we're Calvinists, so we can say it.

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The elect and the non-elect.

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So we use those terms.

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So this chapter really is about the non-elect.

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This is about Esau, which will give rise to the Edomites, who will become a nation that God will use throughout the Bible to be a watchword or a byword for all the evil nations.

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Edom is not just one evil nation, but Edom becomes the analogy for all evil nations.

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I'm going to show you that today as well.

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I'm going to show you how this genealogy doesn't end with the last verse, but this genealogy continues through the history of the Edomites all the way to the Lord Jesus Christ.

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And we'll see all that when we get there.

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All right, so let's do this.

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We're going to read the whole chapter, but we will read verses one to nine.

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Then we're going to stop.

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We're going to jump down to verse 40.

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And you're going to thank me later.

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And we'll read verses 40 to 44.

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So let's stand together.

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Boy, I do smell that food.

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It's it's wafting pretty strong.

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These are the generations of Esau.

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That is Edom.

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Esau took his wives from the Canaanites, Ada, the daughter of Elon, the Hittite, and Ahol Obama, the daughter of Ena, the daughter of Sibion, the Hittite, and Bassamot, Ishmael's daughter, the sister of Nebaioth.

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And Ada bore to Esau, Eliphaz, Bassamoth bore Reuel, and Ahol Obama bore Jeyush, Jalem, and Korah.

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These are the sons of Esau who were born to him in the land of Canaan.

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Then Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, and all the members of his household, his livestock, all his beasts, and all his property that he had acquired in the land of Canaan.

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He went into the land away from his brother Jacob for, excuse me, for their possessions were too great for them to dwell together.

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The land of their sojournings could not support them because of their livestock.

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So Esau settled in the hill country of Cyre.

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Esau is Edom.

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These are the generations of Esau, the father of the Edomites in the hill country of Cyre.

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Now, moving down to verse 40.

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These are the names of the chiefs of Esau, according to their clans and their dwelling places, by their names, the chiefs Timnah, Alva, Jatheth, Ahol Obama, Elah, Penan, Kenaz, Teman, Mibzar, Magdiel, and Irem.

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These are the chiefs of Edom, that is Esau, the father of Edom, according to their dwelling places in the land of their possession.

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Our Father and our God, as we seek to understand today's text, and moreover, Lord, to understand the Bible's structure in regarding the elect and the non-elect, those who are of God and those who are not.

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Lord, I pray that we would have a truly a mind to understand what your word says and a heart to receive it.

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But Lord, you must give that.

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You must give us eyes to see and ears to hear.

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You must give us a mind that can understand and a heart that can receive.

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And I do pray, Lord, for those who are here who do not know Christ.

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Lord, as this message is not is not truly about the Edomites, but Lord is about Christ, because as we will see.

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That as the enemies rise up against the Lord, the Lord shines even greater as he vanquishes his enemies in the end.

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And Lord, we know that your word tells us you will make your enemies your footstool.

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So, Lord, help us to trust in you as the world gives way to war, as there are throughout the nations, wars and rumors of wars.

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Lord, let us not lose heart, but trust that you, O God, are the God of the genealogy, the God who raises up nations and will bring them love in Jesus name.

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Amen.

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It is my normal methodology of preaching to read the text and explain it and then continue with an application.

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But today it's going to be more interwoven, because rather than reading each verse of this text and giving an explanation, I want to instead look at it as a whole and talk about how it is structured and why it is structured the way it is.

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Because, again, most of it is just names.

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And as you heard me stumble my way through just a few that I did read, you're probably thankful that I'm not going to try to do the whole chapter.

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So let me pull up another screen for you.

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I made a few screens this week because I knew this chapter was long and we wanted to look at it.

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The next screen is the outline of the chapter.

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And the outline is actually fairly simple.

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It is a genealogy, but it still has a structure.

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It's not just this one, we got this one and this one, we got that one.

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It actually has a structure.

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The first five verses talk about Esau and his wives and his children that were born to him in Canaan.

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Now, remember, Esau lived in Canaan while Jacob was in Paddan Aram.

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Jacob, his brother, had run away because Esau had threatened to kill him.

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And so he ran away to his uncle's house, Laban's house in Paddan Aram, and he lived there for more than two decades.

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Well, during that two decades, Esau had chosen two wives from among the Canaanites and one wife from his uncle Ishmael, and he had taken them as his wives and he'd had children with them.

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Well, verses one through five gives us those children and who they are.

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The next few verses, verses six to eight, we see Esau moving from Canaan to Syre.

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Now, Syre is an important place because Syre would eventually be known as Edom.

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Syre, Mount Syre, is where the Edomites would have their land.

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So he moves out of the promised land, south of the promised land to Syre, where he claims the land and he builds his family there.

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And that place eventually becomes called Edom.

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And notice, by the way, when we read the text, notice what it kept saying.

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Edom.

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This is the father of Edom.

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It says Esau, Edom.

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It makes that connection for us because it wants us to understand who this is and what it's about.

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Verses nine to 14 give us an expanded list of his sons and grandsons.

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Verses 15 through 19 gives us a list of the chiefs.

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We're going to talk about them in a moment.

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And then in verses 20 to 30, something interesting happens.

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It stops talking about Esau for a minute.

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It actually doesn't, but what happens is it stops talking about the descendants of Esau and it says, oh, and there were also the descendants of Syre.

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And verses 20 to 30 give the descendants of Syre.

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And we'll talk about why that's important in a moment as well.

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And finally, the last few verses, verses 31 to 43, gives an extended list of the kings and the chiefs of Edom.

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And so what I want to show you, I want to show you five points of consideration from this genealogy.

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I'm going to make these relatively quick we're going to go past the genealogy into later history, but I want to show you five points of consideration.

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If you'll bring those up for me, please.

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Thank you.

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Number one, the wives of Esau.

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If you notice in the text, if you look with me in the text, it says these are the generations of Esau, that is Edom.

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Esau took wives from the Canaanites and it lists two Canaanite wives and one Ishmaelite wife.

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Here's the problem.

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That's not the same ones that we get back in chapter 25.

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If you go back to where it talked about, and by the way, this, if you want the verses for this, this is actually Genesis 26, 34.

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It says in Genesis 26, 34, when Esau was 40 years old, he took Judith, the daughter of Berei, Basimath, the daughter of Elon, and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah.

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Y'all remember that? We talked about that.

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He took two Canaanite wives and it made his parents unhappy.

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By the way, can I say this children or anybody unmarried? If you go out and take a wife or a husband, that's an unbeliever.

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That's not good.

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It's not good to marry an unbeliever.

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They might say, well, that's not the point of this text.

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Well, we don't know why it made them unhappy, but I can tell you the paganism didn't help.

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And marrying pagans is not a good thing.

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And so we see in the text, whatever was the reason these children marrying pagans did not do good by their family.

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So Esau decides, well, I want to make mom and dad happy.

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So I'm going to go get a wife from uncle Ishmael.

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Good choice.

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But they run from one group to another that isn't exactly in the line of blessing.

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So he goes from the Canaanites, he goes over and he chooses a wife in Genesis chapter 28 verses one to five.

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He chooses a wife from the Ishmaelites.

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But here's the here's the thing I want you to notice.

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In Genesis 26, the names are Judith, daughter of Berei and Basemath, daughter of Elon.

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But when you get to 36, it's Ada, daughter of Elon and a holy Bama, daughter of Aena.

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And you say, wait a minute, that's that's not the same names.

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And that's right.

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And I could have totally not mentioned that, by the way.

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I could have made this sermon a lot easier if I just overlooked that.

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And just because probably y'all wouldn't have gone back to chapter 26 and back to 28 and double checked it.

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But I couldn't help myself.

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Because as soon as I noticed the names were different, it bothered me.

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So I started, I said, now, wait a minute, is this, you know, because the atheists are all the time trying to get us to believe that there's errors in the Bible.

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And one of the things that they try to point out is factual errors, right? And so they try to point at things like this, say here is a factual error.

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You've got two women mentioned in Genesis 26, Judith and Basemath.

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And in chapter 36, you've got Ada and you've got a holy Bama, which if you're from the South, it's oh holy Bama.

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Anyway, that was actually Brian Borgman's joke, but I thought I'd steal it.

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The oh holy Bama, oh holy Bama.

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And so you see the names are not the same.

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And even the name of the Ishmaelite is not the same.

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In Genesis 28, the Ishmaelite is named Mehaloth.

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And in 36, it's Basemath.

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So how do we reconcile this? Well, Ibn Israel, who is a Jewish commentator, not a Christian, but still a student of Old Testament history and Jewish literature, he says, it's the same people, they just had different names.

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Now, is that possible? Absolutely, it's possible because Abram became Abraham, Sarai became Sarah, Esau became Edom.

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I mean, the names are subject to change.

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And so that's not a problem if that is the case.

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The other possibility, and this is also in some Jewish literature, is that he had six wives.

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He could have had 20 wives that we just didn't have a list of.

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The only issue I take with that one is it seems relatively complicated that they would mention two Canaanites and one Ishmaelite in the latter chapters or the former chapters, and then they would name two Canaanites and one Ishmaelite.

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It would be like he doubled down on what he already knew was wrong because he knew the Canaanites had bothered his mom.

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So if it's not the same, I think it's just the same person with a different name.

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That's my interpretation.

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Take it and do what you want with it because it doesn't matter anyway.

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But at the end of the day, it's either that or he's got more than the three wives.

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And either way, it's fine.

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But understand this, what's most important about this, whether it's three wives or whether it's six wives, these wives are a point of contention in the household of Esau with his family.

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It's a point of contention with his parents.

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Now, we're not told why.

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All we're told is he made life difficult for them by marrying these women.

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And so now these women become the matriarchs of the Edomic society.

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I just made up a word.

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We just say the Edomites.

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They become the matriarchs of the Edomites.

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These three women.

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And that's another reason why I think it's the same three women, because it doesn't mention children from anybody else.

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And the two Canaanites and the one Ishmaelite.

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So we get these three women.

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They become the matriarchs of all of Edom.

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And then we see the next point, and that's the move from Canaan, which I believe establishes the promise of God.

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You say, what do you mean by that? Well, let me explain.

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The text says they moved from Canaan to Syre, which is what would become Edom.

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Why did they move? Well, the text tells us why they moved.

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It says, then Esau, verse six says, then Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, and all the members of his household, his livestock and all his beasts and all his property that he had acquired in the land of Canaan.

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And he went up to the land away from his brother Jacob, for their possessions were too great for them to dwell there.

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The land of their sojournings could not support them because of their livestock.

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So here's what the text is saying.

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It's saying that Esau and Jacob somehow came to an agreement that Jacob was going to get his father's land and Esau was going to move out of his father's land because they were both too large to live together.

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Now, does this bring up a story in your mind? Maybe about a man named Lot.

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Remember Lot and Abraham had the same problem.

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Lot and Abraham, they were getting so large and both of them were getting so large that they weren't able to share the drinking places or the watering holes and they weren't able to share the pasturing fields.

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And so one day Abraham comes to Lot and he says, to deal with this division between us, you get to choose.

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If you go right, I'll go left.

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If you go here, I'll go there.

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And we'll divide, we'll divide amicably.

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We'll divide in love, but we're going to divide because we both can't dwell together.

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That's okay.

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Sometimes that happens.

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Sometimes you can love somebody and not live under the same roof.

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I love you, dad.

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But I think it would be tough to live at home with dad because we're two grown men living under the same roof.

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That's tough, right? I'm not saying it wouldn't be all right for a time, but after a while, you got to get out.

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So there's this need for division.

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Now, the only thing I want to mention, I think there's more to it than the text tells us.

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Now, I'm not saying the text is not being honest.

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Obviously, I believe in every word of the Bible.

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I believe the text is being honest.

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But sometimes there are underlying things that the text simply forgoes mentioning.

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And here's the thing.

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The promised land is big, y'all.

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The promised land is very large.

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And even though Jacob is, by this time, a large nation in himself, he's got 12 sons.

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He's got a large nation in himself.

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The Shechemites felt like they could live together.

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If you remember last week, the Shechemites wanted them to come and live with them.

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So the idea that the land wouldn't hold them, and that was the only reason, is sort of difficult.

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So here's what I think, and again, take it for what it's worth.

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Earlier, in chapters 32 and 33, Esau had already been in Syre.

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By the way, I think this is where the issue of the verses 20 to 30 come in.

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He's already been there.

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He's already scoped it out.

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And in my opinion, he's already taken his plot.

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He's already come in and intermarried and made his place.

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He knows where he wants to be.

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So here comes Jacob.

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Jacob has what? Jacob has the blessing.

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Jacob has the authority because it's been given to him by his father.

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He sold his birthright.

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He lost his blessing.

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I don't want to live with this guy who's in charge of me.

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I don't want to live with this guy who's got this authority over me.

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I've already taken control of the south land.

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I've already taken control of Syre.

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All I got to do is go down there and I can have my place and my land where I am in charge.

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So we can't live together.

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Our places are too big.

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No problem.

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I already got a place.

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I've already chosen a spot.

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So I'm going to go down there.

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But again, you say, well, how does all this factor into the real story? And that's the story of God's promises.

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What is the promise that God gave to Jacob? The older will serve the younger, right? Jacob is the younger.

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Esau is the older.

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The younger one's going to have the blessing.

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The younger one's going to have the promise.

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And the younger one is going to be the one who receives the land.

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Remember the covenant that God made with Abraham about the land? He renewed it with Isaac and he renewed it not with Esau, but with who? With Jacob.

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So as Jacob comes into the land, God sends Esau out of the land.

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So this establishes the promise that God had made to the mother of Jacob and Esau when he said to her, the older will serve the younger.

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This is the establishment of that promise.

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He is going to receive this land.

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Now, number three points to consider.

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This is a big family.

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When we read through the text, this is an enormous family.

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And what we see in an enormous family is we see all kinds of prosperity.

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In fact, I want to point this out.

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And I almost named this sermon something different when good things happen to bad people.

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Because a lot of people ask, oh, why do bad things happen to good people? I always say, because there aren't any.

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There are no good people.

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You're all sinners.

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I'm a sinner.

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We're all sinners.

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Bad things happen to us because we're sinners.

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That's just the rule.

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But why do good things happen to bad people? That's really the question.

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Not why do bad things happen to good people, but why do good things happen to bad people? I didn't name it that because I'm doing a history of Edom.

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But honestly, what we're seeing here, we're seeing massive prosperity in the line of the non-elect.

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Why? Two things to consider.

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Number one, Esau is still a descendant of Abraham.

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And the Bible promises to all the descendants of Abraham that they're going to prosper.

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So even though he's not the elect, even though he's not the son of the promise, simply because of his connection to Abraham, he received certain blessings.

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Ishmael got the same thing, remember? Remember, Ishmael was given 12 sons and all those sons were blessed.

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They were given blessings.

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Why? And we are told this by the angel of the Lord because he is a son of Abraham.

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So Esau gets a blessing because he's a son of Abraham, but also this.

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And here's the thing I really want to point out.

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I hope you understand this and I hope this makes sense.

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Y'all, unbelievers prosper all the time.

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And it happens.

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Unbelievers get rich.

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Unbelievers take advantage of other people.

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They get richer.

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It happens.

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See, one of the things the prosperity gospel gets wrong is the prosperity gospel says that just because you have something, that means God has blessed you.

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Sometimes prosperity is a curse.

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Sometimes the more you have, the more you want, and you never have enough.

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And you become like a well that is just so deep that it can never be full.

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And we see prosperity after prosperity after prosperity in the family of Esau.

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And you know what we don't see in this whole genealogy? We don't see anything bad.

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You know where we do see stuff bad? In the line of the elect.

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We're going to see the next chapter.

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Joseph's brothers are going to sell him into into captivity.

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The chapter after that, Judah is going to take a prostitute and have a child with him.

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That child's going to end up in the line of the Messiah.

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And then we're going to go on down through the line and we're going to see over and over and over again, God's people suffering.

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And you say, wait a minute, it seems like it's backwards.

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No, it's not backwards.

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Understand this.

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The devil is not in the business of attacking his own.

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But the devil will always be in the business of attacking God's people.

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And God is not in the business of sanctifying the unbeliever.

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But he is in the business of sanctifying the believer.

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And he does that through trials.

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So why do bad things happen to good people? I just answered.

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Why do bad things happen to the elect? Because we have an enemy who is like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

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That's number one.

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And number two, God is sanctifying us through those trials.

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God's not in the business of sanctifying the unbeliever.

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So yeah, we see prosperity in the line of Esau.

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But to what end? To what end is the prosperity of Edom? Nothing.

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They become no people after the New Testament.

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There's no more Edomites.

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People today talk about, oh, Russia's the Edomites or Ukraine's the Edomites or these are the...

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No, there are no more Edomites.

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They became the Idumeans during the intertestamental period and then they went out of existence.

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You trace your line back to Edom, I'll be very impressed.

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And then worried for you.

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But the point is this enormous family does indicate prosperity but does not indicate the blessing of God.

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You can't always equate prosperity with the blessing of God.

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And I can point to several billionaires who don't know Jesus.

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And the Bible says, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and yet loses his soul? All right, number four.

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We see the change in focus to Sire the Horite.

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Just look with me at verse 20.

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Because right before that, verse 19, it says, these are the sons of Esau, that is Edom, and these are the chiefs.

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And by the way, that's another way it shows prosperity.

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It shows chiefs.

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It shows one person in the line who's like an explorer.

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They found the hot springs and like an entrepreneur, they raised mules, which is like, you know, cross breeding horses and donkeys like that.

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There's a lot in the story that kind of tells us there's a lot of prosperity going on here.

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But then it stops with that and it gets to verse 20.

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It says, these are the sons of Sire.

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Who is Sire? Well, this is obviously the one who the area of Sire is named after.

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He is a Horite and he is the inhabitants of the land and it gives his son's names.

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Why would it give us the sons of Horite? Why would it mention them? Well, it mentions them because Esau overtook them.

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Esau overtook the land of the Horites.

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You want proof? I'll give you proof.

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Go to Deuteronomy chapter two.

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Always seem like you're challenging me.

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I know you're not.

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I'm just saying you want proof.

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No, I didn't mean it that way.

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I'm just saying you want it.

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I'll show it to you.

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Deuteronomy chapter two.

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Now, this is in the context of a longer sentence.

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So this is going to seem like we're coming in mid sentence.

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We are because this is in the context of something greater.

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But look at verse 20, as it's talking about the sons of Lod, talking about possession.

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Verse 20, it says it is also counted as a land of Rephaim.

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Rephaim formerly lived there, but the Ammonites called them Zamzumim, a people great and many as tall as the Anakim.

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But the Lord destroyed them before the Ammonites and they dispossessed them and settled them in their place.

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Look at verse 22.

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As he did for the people of Esau who lived in Seir, when he destroyed the Horites before them and they dispossessed them and settled in their place even to this day.

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Notice what it's saying.

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Esau dispossessed the Horites and took their place.

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So when you go back to chapter 36, why does it mention the Horites? Because they got connected to the Esau or to the Edomites because Esau went in and dispossessed them.

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But notice what Deuteronomy says.

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It says God did this for Esau.

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Look at it again.

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He says, as he did for the people of Esau.

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Who is he? In the context, that's God.

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God is doing this.

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God is dispossessing Seir and giving it to Esau.

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So the whole reason, going back to chapter 36, the whole reason why verses 20 to 30 are there is because verses 20 to 30 tell us about Seir who was dispossessed by Esau when he came in, took the land, intermarried with them and basically took control.

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All right, number five.

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The kings of Edom are juxtaposed.

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That means set apart from the kings of Israel.

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Notice verse 31.

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We're back in chapter 36.

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Look at verse 31.

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These are the kings.

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Speaking of the kings of Edom, it says these are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the Israelites.

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Now, I want you to just think about this from a historical perspective.

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Who's writing Genesis? Moses, right? Did Moses live before or after King Saul? Before, which means Moses is writing at a time when he was, in one sense, unaware that kings were coming, except for by prophetic God's prophetic illumination.

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He didn't know that there would be a King Saul or King David, except for by divine providence, right? Because he didn't live in that time.

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He lived before that time.

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This is why all of y'all should take the Old Testament history class.

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This is important.

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Understanding where things fall.

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Because Moses is writing before King Saul, before there was ever a king.

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But he mentions in this verse that the Edomites had kings before Israel did.

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So we have to interpret that one of two ways.

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Either somebody else later entered in that sentence into the text, like a scribe somewhere wrote that in, or Moses is speaking prophetically about the kings of Israel.

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I tend to think it's the second one.

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I tend to think Moses is speaking prophetically, saying there are coming kings of Israel, but guess who got kings first? Esau.

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Guess who had kings coming through his line first? Esau.

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See, Israel is going to go through 400 years of bondage.

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Then they're going to go through several hundred years of judges before they ever come to the point where God raises up a man named Samuel, and Samuel will be the prophet who anoints the first king, who is Saul.

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But way before that, the Edomites have kings.

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Again, it's showing the prosperity of this line.

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Again, Israel is going to go through slavery.

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They're going to go through the judges.

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And by the way, the judges is just a constant circle of failure and redemption.

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Failure and redemption.

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Thousands of years of failure and redemption.

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Hundreds of years.

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But Esau's got this land, kings and dukes.

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By the way, King James says dukes.

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I like the word duke.

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Makes me think of John Wayne.

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But dukes in the ESV is chiefs.

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It's translated captains in some Bible.

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So he's got captains.

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He's got kings.

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He's got all this prosperity.

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But you know what he doesn't got? He doesn't got God.

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You have all the prosperity in the world, but not have the Lord.

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It won't matter at all.

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All right.

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Now let's move on a little bit more history.

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We're going to sort of move out of the text now and start going our way down.

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Because now I want you to notice something that's not in the text.

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You can look all the way down to verse 43 and you know what you won't find? Esau's death.

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Esau's death is not mentioned.

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In fact, you can look through all of Genesis and you won't find Esau's death.

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Which is a very interesting.

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Absence, because, of course, we hear about the deaths of so many others, but we don't hear about the death of Esau.

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You say, well, how did he die? When did he die? We don't know.

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But there is an extra biblical story from the book of Jasher.

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Now, if you've ever read 1 Samuel or you've or excuse me, Joshua or 2 Samuel, you've heard the word the book of Jasher because the book of Jasher is mentioned there.

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The book of Jasher is not in the Bible.

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The book of Jasher is not a biblical book.

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But the book of Jasher was a historical book, which was held among the Jews in high esteem.

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Was not scripture.

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There are other books that are not scripture, but they were still held in high esteem.

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I talked about this in my course on the book of Jude, because Jude mentions the book of Enoch wasn't held as scripture, but it was still held in high esteem.

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Well, the book of Jasher tells us a story about how Esau died.

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Now, you may come to me later and say, do you believe this story? I don't know.

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Because it's not biblical, I don't have to believe it.

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But it's interesting because what it says is this.

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It says when Isaac, I'm sorry, when Jacob died, remember Jacob and Esau brothers.

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And Jacob's death is mentioned.

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And what does it say about Jacob's death? It says his sons took him back and buried him in the cave of his ancestors, which was at Machpelah.

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Well, according to the book of Jasher, as he was being taken back to the cave at Machpelah, Esau became indignant, did not want him buried with his ancestors.

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And there arose a battle between the descendants of Esau and the descendants of Jacob.

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And according to the book of Jasher, a son of Dan took his sword, ran after Esau and whopped off his head.

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You might say, why did you tell that story? It's not in the Bible.

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Well, there's no story in the Bible.

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So I gave you something.

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No, here's the reason why.

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Because if the story is true, great.

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But if the story is not true, it tells us something about extra biblical Jewish literature.

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In extra biblical Jewish literature, the Edomites were always considered the wicked.

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And Esau was the fountainhead of that wickedness.

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So can't you imagine someone sitting down to pin a tale of the death of the fountainhead of wickedness by saying one of our sons chopped off his head? You see how that works.

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So how did Esau die? We don't know.

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But it gives us insight into how the Jews saw the Edomites.

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The Jews saw the Edomites as separated brothers who were, in a sense, the evil side.

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They saw them as the evil brothers.

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But the scripture doesn't say that to them.

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In fact, I want to show you.

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Now we're going to start jumping through some scripture.

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So get your get them ready.

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Turn to Deuteronomy 27.

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I want to show you something.

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Or 23.

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Deuteronomy 23, verse seven, because when Moses is talking about the Edomites, Moses says something to the people of Israel.

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And I want you to see this with your own eyes, what he says about them.

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And Deuteronomy 23, verse seven, Moses says, do not abhor.

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That means hate.

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Do not hate an Edomite.

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For he is your what? Your brother.

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See, Moses tried to instill among the Israelite people that the Edomites were their extended family.

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They were their brothers.

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But the attitude the other way was not there.

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And I'll show you that if you would turn to the book of Numbers chapter 20.

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In the book of Numbers, we have.

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An incident where the people of Israel are in the exodus.

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Remember, they're going from Egypt to the promised land during the exodus.

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They want to pass through Edom.

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And so they request to be able to pass through the land of Edom.

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Notice what it says in chapter 20, verse 14.

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Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, thus says your brother, Esau.

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You know, all the hardships that we have met, how our fathers went down to Egypt.

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We lived in Egypt a long time and the Egyptians dealt harshly with us and our fathers.

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Notice, by the way, the Edomites didn't go through that.

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The Israelites went through the slavery, not the Edomites.

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That's just a key distinction, right? You guys have been fine.

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We have been suffering.

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We're supposed to be brothers.

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And goes on.

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And when we cried to the Lord, he heard our voice, sent an angel, brought us up out of Egypt.

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And here we are in Kadesh, a city on the edge of your territory.

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Please let us pass through the land.

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We will not pass through field or vineyard or drink water from a well.

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We will go along the king's highway.

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We will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed through your territory.

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But Edom said to him, you shall not pass through lest I come out with a sword.

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Against you, you come into our land, we're going to kill you.

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Goes on, verse 19, and the people of Israel said to him, we will go up by the highway.

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And if we drink your water, I and my livestock, then I will pay for it.

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Let me only pass through on foot.

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Nothing more.

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But he said, you shall not pass through.

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And Edom came out against them with a large army and with a strong force.

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Thus, Edom refused to give Israel passage through this territory.

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So Israel turned away from him.

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So Israel is coming, trying to make it through the promised land.

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The Edomites come out and say, you come through here, we'll kill you.

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Please let us come.

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We have had a difficult time.

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We're in a difficult situation.

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Let us pass.

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We won't drink your water.

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We won't eat your bread.

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We won't take from your vineyards.

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We won't take from your livestock.

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We won't do anything.

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You come through here and we'll kill you.

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This lays a framework for the relationship between Edom and Israel, which will go on throughout the scriptures as this begins a relationship of animosity, where Israel and Edom are no longer seen truly as brothers, but are enemies.

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And we see this throughout the text.

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We see this with Saul and Edom.

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First Samuel chapter 14.

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There's battles there.

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David and Edom.

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First Chronicles 18.

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Solomon and Edom.

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First Kings 11.

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Jehoram and Edom.

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Second Chronicles 21.

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Second Kings 8.

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And Amaziah and Edom.

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Second Chronicles 25.

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11 to 14.

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Over and over and over the Edomites become the perpetual enemies of Israel.

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And then an entire book is dedicated to the destruction of Edom.

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Now, I'm going to ask you to go to Obadiah, but I'm going to give you a minute.

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Because it's a little book.

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But turn to Obadiah.

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Obadiah is one of the minor prophets, of course.

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He is actually the most minor of the minor prophets.

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Not in the way of importance, but in the way of size.

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Obadiah is the smallest book in the Old Testament.

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And we go to Obadiah chapter 1.

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Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah.

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Okay.

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Keep passing it.

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Obadiah.

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In some of your Bibles, it's one page.

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Some of your Bibles, it's two pages.

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Depending on if you're like me and you need big letters.

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But notice what it says in verse 1.

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We're not going to read the whole book.

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It's 21 chapters.

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We'll just read just the first few verses.

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Notice what it says.

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It says, the vision of Obadiah.

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Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom.

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We have heard a report from the Lord and a messenger has been sent among the nations.

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Rise up.

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Let us rise against her for battle.

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Behold, I will make you small among the nations.

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You shall utterly be despised.

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The pride of your heart has deceived you.

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And you live in the clefts of the rock in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, who will bring me down to the ground? Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars.

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From there, I will bring you down, declares the Lord.

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We'll stop there at verse 4.

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This whole text is an oracle of doom on the people of Edom.

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Why? It tells us why it says the pride of your heart has deceived you.

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You've lived in the clefts of the rock.

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What is the clefts of the rock? That's places of safety.

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You think you're safe from the hand of Almighty God.

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You are not.

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Who will bring me down to the ground? That's a word of pride.

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If I stand on this rock, no one can knock me off.

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The Lord of glory has no problem knocking you off the stone.

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And he will.

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Though you think you soar like an eagle, though you think your nest is with the stars, the God of glory is going to bring you to destruction.

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This is God's promise through Obadiah to Edom.

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The people of God were being taken into captivity.

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And rather than coming to their aid, Edom mocked them.

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In their destruction.

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So God sends Obadiah to them and tells them you who mocked will be mocked.

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Now, one more Old Testament passage.

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Turn over Malachi chapter one.

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This is the last book in your Old Testament.

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Malachi chapter one.

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By the way, this is the last prophetic voice before the intertestamental period.

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Remember what the intertestamental period is? Between Malachi and Matthew, 400 years of silence from the Lord.

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This is the last prophetic voice from God.

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And this is what it begins with.

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The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.

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I have loved you, says the Lord.

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But you say, how have you loved us? Is not Esau Jacob's brother, declares the Lord.

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Yet I have loved Jacob.

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But Esau, I have hated.

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Understand in that text, he's not just talking about Esau, the man.

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But he's talking about Edom, the nation.

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He says to Israel, Israel, Jacob, I have loved.

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And Esau, Edom, I have hated.

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And he goes on.

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I have laid waste his hill country, left his heritage to jackals of the desert.

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If Edom says we are shattered, but we will rebuild the ruins, the Lord says they may build, but I will tear down.

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And they will be called the wicked country and the people with whom the Lord is angry forever.

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Your own eyes shall see this and you shall say, great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel.

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He says, Edom, you may try to rebuild.

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I'm going to tear it down every time you may try to come back.

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And I'm going to destroy you.

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So I thought God is love.

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God is love.

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God loves righteousness and hates wickedness.

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And he demonstrates his hatred of wickedness by willing being willing to judge the wicked.

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And Edom is a picture of wickedness.

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The nation becomes a byword for the evil nations.

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Now, during the intertestamental period, there was something called the Maccabean Wars.

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During the Maccabean Wars, the Edomites were subjected by the Jews and were forced to convert to Judaism.

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Greek became the common language under Alexander the Great.

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And as Alexander the Great brings Greek as the common language, the Edomites go through a change of identity.

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They are no longer called the Edomites, but they are called the Idumeans.

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You've heard the term Idumea.

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When you read the New Testament, it talks about the area of Idumea.

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Well, that's the area of Edom.

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The Edomites become the Idumeans.

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And one of those men who was converted to Judaism, who was an Idumean, had a son.

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And that son was raised up as king over Judea, and his name was Herod the Great.

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And years later, three wise men would make their way into Herod's territory and say to him that a son, a king, has been born.

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And Herod, continuing in the spirit of his ancestors, rose up against the king of glory and slaughtered every child two years old and younger in an attempt to kill Jesus Christ.

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Herod the Great was an Edomite, and he is exemplary of his ancestors, those who hated the people of God.

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The Idumeans, after that time, would eventually disappear from history.

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But their attitude would live on in the nations which rise up against the Lord and against his people.

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And Esau would become an analogy for the evil nations of this world.

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Do you understand that the world hates Jesus Christ? I know people put his picture up on their refrigerator and all these other things, but the world hates the word of God and hates the Lord of the word.

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And the world hates the people of God.

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It desires to see us suffer.

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It desires to see us in distress.

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It laughs at our despair.

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It relishes in our pain.

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And while it may appear to be prosperous, ultimately it will perish just like the Edom of old.

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You see, the picture of Edom is a picture of all of those who come against the Lord and will find their place as his footstool.

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Their end is destruction.

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We often say there are two types of people in the world.

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Saved in the lost.

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But might I throw a different thought at you today? There are two types of people in this world.

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Spiritual Israel and spiritual Edom, those who are of God and those who are of the world.

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Where are you today, beloved? Are you in Christ? Or are you comforted by the prosperity that this world has given? And looking forward to the end that all of God's enemies will find.

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Last thing, turn to Isaiah 34, and I will end with this scripture.

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As soon as I'm done, I'll pray.

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Isaiah 34 prophesies about Edom, but it also mentions all the wicked nations.

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Hear this prophecy against Edom and all the wicked nations.

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And think of today the nations in the world that stand opposed to Christ.

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And don't just think about Russia and China and all those.

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Think about America who kills thousands of children every day in the womb.

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God will not allow that to go unpunished.

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Think about America who allows debauchery and sin to be exalted.

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And righteousness to be trampled.

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And pray for your nation.

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As we read this text, Isaiah 34, verse one.

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Draw near all nations to hear and give attention, O peoples, let the earth here and all that fills it, the world and all that comes from it.

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For the Lord is enraged against all the nations and furious against all their hosts, he has devoted them to destruction, has given them over to slaughter, their slain shall be cast out and the stench of their corpses shall rise.

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The mountains shall flow with their blood.

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All of the hosts of heaven shall rot away and the skies roll up like a scroll.

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All their hosts shall fall as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree.

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For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens.

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Behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom.

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Upon the people I have devoted to destruction.

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The Lord has a sword.

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It is sated with blood.

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It is gorged with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of kidneys of rams.

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For the Lord has a sacrifice in Basra.

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By the way, that's the capital of Edom.

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A great slaughter in the land of Edom.

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Wild oxen shall fall with them.

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Young steers with the mighty bulls.

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Their land shall drink its fill of blood.

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Their soil shall be gorged with fat.

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For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

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And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, her soil into sulfur.

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Her land shall become burning pitch night and day.

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It shall not be quenched.

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Its smoke shall go up forever from generation to generation.

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It shall lie waste.

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None shall pass through it forever and ever.

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And we will end at verse 10.

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None shall pass through it forever and ever.

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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.

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Lord, it is a lot that we have looked at today, and many may see this as simply a history lesson, but Lord, it's not.

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This is a lesson about life, that there are only two lives that a man may live.

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One that pursues God and one that pursues the flesh, one that pursues holiness and one that pursues the world.

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And I pray, God, that we would see this as a call to repentance to the nations and to the individuals that make up those nations to turn from Edom and turn to Christ.

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In Jesus' name, amen.