Sunday Night, August 4, 2019 PM

That victory is assured, although there is much to be concerned with in the present. And so we've traced the story from Adam and Seth, and we've moved on down to Noah and Shem, and we've seen from the line of Terah that Abraham, God comes to Abraham and promises that in his seed, in his offspring, all the nations would be blessed.

And God speaks not only to Abraham, but his son Isaac, and now Isaac's son, Jacob. And as I talked about this morning, Jacob had leveraged the birthright from his brother Esau, although Esau wasn't all that interested in the birthright.

He was interested in the blessing, but not the responsibility. He was interested in the benefits, but without the identity. And so Esau is one of those pictures that we have in Hebrews of what it's like when people like to associate with the church for the blessings and the benefits, but don't actually want the identity in Christ.

And so he's a warning for us, an example for us, but Jacob does swindle, he does lie, he does deceive. He lives up to his name, supplanter, and he takes the blessing away from Esau, and Esau swears to kill him.

And so Rebekah is concerned that she will lose both her sons in one fell swoop for, as God said in Genesis 9, by if man's blood is shed, well then by man, this person must die, right? And so she recognizes that if Esau kills Jacob, then Esau must die, and she's gonna lose both of her sons.

And so she sends Jacob away under the pretense of going to find a wife, not from the area. And so he goes to Laban's household, and there he finds Rachel, and he's in love with Rachel, he wants to marry her, and then Laban tricks Jacob, and he ends up marrying Leah first, and then Rachel, and then ends up marrying both of their handmaidens so that he has four wives, he has many sons, 12 sons, and a daughter.

Dinah. So Jacob, he and Laban go 12 rounds of cheating each other and trying to outmaneuver each other until Jacob prevails, and he has almost all of Laban's flocks and wealth and so on, but he also has all of Laban's ire, especially from Laban's sons, who feel like Jacob has taken all of their inheritance.

And so Jacob heads out and tries to get away from Laban. Laban comes and confronts him, but God protects Jacob, and Laban and Jacob make a treaty, they make a truce, and set up a pillar of watching, and they both say, okay, we're not gonna harm one another, we're not gonna cross, so Laban's not gonna cross this border anymore, and Jacob says, I'm not gonna cross that border anymore.

So he burns his bridges, so he can't go back. But as he moves forward, he's coming back home to the area where Esau has influence. And so he can't go back, but now he has to go forward, and here's Esau, of whom he's very afraid.

Now, to give some context for why Jacob might be afraid of Esau, beyond just the threat, right, just beyond just the promise of many years ago that Esau in a hot moment swore to kill Jacob. I mean, beyond that, why would Jacob be afraid of Esau?

Well, if we go back to Genesis chapter 27, after Jacob steals the blessing, Esau comes in expecting to get his blessing, and oh, Jacob's already been there. When he realizes what has happened, he is in great turmoil, pleading his father to give him some kind of blessing, and Isaac's kind of floundering, trying to figure out, well, what can I say?

I mean, I've given really everything to your brother, and so he's trying to come up with something to say, so this is what he says over his son Esau. In verse 39, then Isaac, his father, answered and said to him, behold, away from the fertility of the earth shall be your dwelling, and away from the dew of heaven from above, by your sword you shall live.

And your brother you shall serve, but when it shall come about, when you become restless, that you will break his yoke from your neck. So he says, by your sword you will live, and this is a foretelling of how Esau would make his way in the world, how he would make his wealth.

I believe it's Genesis chapter 36, where we hear 43 verses about Esau, about the empire that he carved out and his descendants, and he did that by the sword, which means he did so by mercenary action, he did so by martial action, by going around and conquering, and pillaging, and plundering, and so on, and so he was a pirate on land, essentially, and this is how he would do things.

Now, this is the kind of man that is Jacob's brother, and so this is why Jacob is greatly afraid, and Jacob's been busy trying to make preparations, trying to get ready to encounter Esau, and he had sent his servants on ahead to basically tell Esau, I am back, to see what's going on, and the servant comes back and says, Esau's coming with 400 men, which is a pretty large army for this time, I mean, this is pretty significant force of men, and so Jacob is incredibly afraid, and then we have this story that after all the preparations that Jacob has made, Jacob ends up wrestling with Christ.

God identifies himself in the passage, and so we know that no one has seen God at any time, but it is the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father who has revealed him, so every time we have somebody in the Old Testament seeing God and yet living, now, we know the scripture says that no one has seen God at any time, so who do they see?

They're seeing Christ, the one who reveals God, they're seeing the second person of the Trinity in a bodily form, in a theophany, in a Christophany, and so this is who Jacob wrestles with, and after this moment, after he wrestles with Christ and prevails by being put on the ground and giving a limp for the rest of his life, and having his name changed, after this, I think he realizes if he survives this, then what else can possibly happen to him, and if he learns to fear God, who else does he need to be afraid of?

But he's still a little bit nervous, so let's see what happens here in Genesis 33. Then Jacob lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming and 400 men with him, so he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two maids.

He put the maids and their children in front, and Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph last, but he himself passed on ahead of them and bowed down to the ground seven times until he came near his brother.

So there's no running away from Esau. I mean, he's gonna have to confront him. Before he has his encounter, he is sent on ahead of him in, I think it was, I don't know if it was in seven droves, but there was 550 animals that he sent on ahead, all kinds of animals, and you can read about that in the first part of Genesis 32, but he sends all these animals ahead to Esau with his servants.

Every time the servant shows up with a bunch of animals, he says to Esau some kind of grand kind of praise, some kind of nice thing to say to Esau, and here, all these animals are yours. So Jacob has already sent ahead a mighty gift in waves to Esau, and now he arranges his family.

He puts his favorite wife and favorite son in the back, you know, but he goes out in front, to go meet, and he bows himself seven times, and he's doing everything he possibly can to protect his family, and trying to placate Esau, hoping that there won't be any drastic measures taken by Esau.

Well, as I think about these first three verses, you know, I think about Jacob. He limps to the front of the caravan. He's playing the man. He's gonna confront Esau. He should be the one who talks with Esau.

He's not sending, he sent servants and gifts, but he's still gonna come up and talk to Esau, and I think in perspective, I mean, Jacob has wrestled with God and prevailed, so what is this fight? You know what it's like after a near-death experience.

Everything is in a different kind of light, so he's coming up to Esau, and I just, we have a little pause here, because when we have Jacob arranging his household, you can get a little rankled. It's like, here he is, playing favorites again.

He's putting his favorite wife in the safest position, his favorite son in the safest position, and we were reminded of the playing favorites theme that we've seen in his life and in other instances, but I think while we, you know, tsk, tsk Jacob for that, I think we're reminded of something else going on here.

Why is it that Esau is running around like a mercenary of 400 armed men trying to make his way in the world, while Jacob has a large and abundant household and is able to give 550 animals away as a kind of peace offering, but still has enough animals and livestock that he can't move very quickly, as he'll say later, so I mean, he didn't give away his whole flock.

Why is Jacob so blessed? Why is he in the position that he is in versus the position of Esau? What's the answer? Well, when we go back to Genesis 25 and verse 23, we get an answer for that. Genesis 25 and verse 23.

We were reminded of Rebekah. She was with child, with children. She had twins and things weren't going well. The children struggled together within her, verse 22. And she said, if it is so, then why then am I this way?

So she went to inquire of the Lord and the Lord said to her, two nations are in your womb and two peoples will be separated from your body and one people shall be stronger than the other and the older shall serve the younger.

Okay, so what did Esau do in the womb to warrant being second class?

Nothing, right.

Paul says later in Romans nine, nothing. Okay, so why is it that Jacob is the favored one? Because of his stellar character? No, no, he didn't have a stellar character at all. He was a swindler, he was a scoundrel.

But while we tisk Jacob for playing favorites and we probably have a case against Jacob, we recognize at the same time that between the two sons, Jacob and Esau, God has played favorites and he has chosen Jacob over Esau.

In fact, he says in Malachi, Jacob I have loved but Esau I have hated. And Paul says, and this was something that happened before they were born. And so this is a hard thing for us to be against playing favorites in our own families with our own children and we see that happen, we see the destructiveness that it causes in a family somewhere else.

But you know, when it comes to God, every time we raise our fist to do this to God, like, well, he made the fist. So all the arguments kind of go away. And Paul ends up in Romans nine, settling it the way that Job did.

And that's, he's like, who are you, oh man, to say to the one, why have you made me like this? And so we do have questions and we may have complaints and it does make us feel uncomfortable. And yet here it is.

So don't get distracted by Jacob playing favorites. It's God who chose Jacob over Esau. And that's why we're in the situation that we're in. I'm curious that right when you're in the story, the prophecy was that the older would serve the younger, but it looks like the younger is serving the older right now.

So let's see how this turns out. Beginning in verse four. Then Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him and they wept. He lifted his eyes and saw the women and the children and said, who are these with you?

So he said, the children whom God has graciously given your servants. Then the maids came near with their children and they bowed down. Leah likewise came near with her children and they bowed down. And afterward, Joseph came near with Rachel and they bowed down.

And he said, what do you mean by all this company, which I have met? And he said, to find a favor in the sight of my Lord. But Esau said, I have plenty, my brother, let what you have be your own. Jacob said, no, please.

If now I have found favor in your sight, then take my present from my hand, for I see your face as one sees the face of God and you have received me favorably. Please take my gift, which has been brought to you because God has dealt graciously with me and because I have plenty.

And thus he urged him and he took it. I've often, I've thought about, as I've read through here in verse four, if you take out the embrace and the kiss, then you have what Jacob was afraid of, Esau running towards him and falling upon his neck.

He was, you know, but with the, you insert the embrace and the kiss and, you know, it's like, oh, this is a good thing. Now, as we think about this coming together, Esau, the last thing it appears that's on Esau's mind is killing his brother, right?

And who is it who protected Jacob from Laban's murderous intentions? It was God. God intercepted Laban and said, don't you harm Jacob. And who is it who has made provision for there to be peace between Esau and Jacob?

Well, it's the Lord again. In fact, Jacob acknowledges this when he says, please accept the gift from my hand, for I see your face as one sees the face of God. Well, he's just finished wrestling with God.

So there's an allusion to that, but he has come to recognize that all the abundant provision that God has given to him and the way that God has, and even in this moment, that God is providing a safety for Jacob and the abundance of possessions that he's given as he gives it to Esau, he feels like he's just giving it back to God, that he's able to make some kind of restitution to Esau for the wrong that he did to Esau.

He's able to give him all of this. And there was no bloodshed and no violence through it. And he was able to do this for his brother whom he had wronged, but he's able to make good on that now. And there is a truce and peace between Esau and Jacob in this moment.

Now, Esau has two questions which really highlight Jacob's favored situation. His first question is about Jacob's household. His second question is about Jacob's possessions. Now, when you think of the household and the possessions of Jacob, that's a great way to sum up the status of Jacob's blessing.

Look how large his household is. Look at all the children that he has. And look at how many possessions he has. God is in the process of nation building. He began nation building with Abraham and Abraham became a very great man with many possessions and a grand household, enough for 318 servants of his to go do battle against foreign forces.

God continued the nation building with Isaac and he's continuing it now with Jacob. God is getting them ready to become a great nation. And so Esau notices those two things and asks about them. And so those things are highlighted here as evidences of God's special favor upon Jacob.

And so it's just as the blessing was. Isaac gave the blessing to Jacob and so it is. He's blessed just in the same way that Isaac said. And then here's Esau with his band of 400 men going around making his living by the sword.

So it is just exactly as Isaac had spoken over Esau. So this generous gift is given from Jacob to Esau and the closest association we could make with it is it's like a subservient nation paying tribute to the conquering nation.

It doesn't really look like the younger is ruling over the older right here. In addition, all of Jacob's wives and their children come before Esau like he's their new king and they all bow down before him.

And Jacob is using all this language of you are my Lord and so on and so forth. And so it appears at this point, the younger is serving the older and this must be very gratifying for Esau since that was the whole complaint earlier that here he is and he feels like he's in charge and everything is going his way.

But it's interesting that for all of the tribute and the obeisance paid to Esau, not one of his three instructions are followed. Esau says three things and Jacob obeys none of them. The first one was, he said, I have plenty.

Why don't you just take all this stuff back? And Jacob insisted that Esau take it. Now, sometimes it's kind of a little bit of politeness. Oh, no, no, no, I couldn't, you know. But we remember the story of Abraham buying the field from Ephron the Hittite.

And he had to really wheedle it out of Ephron the Hittite about how much the land was worth. And so he went ahead and paid it despite Ephron saying, oh no, what is, you know, trying to figure out the price and Ephron, oh, what is 400 shekels of silver between us, you know?

So, oh, that's the price. And so he went ahead and paid it. It may be something of that, but it was important. It was important to Jacob that Esau take the gift. This gift appeals to his brother's material concerns.

He runs around with his sword, pillaging and plundering. This is how he makes his way in the world. This is probably the biggest haul he's ever made. It's important for Jacob to give this to Esau. Esau should have no reason to ever come plunder and pillage Jacob again.

Also, it does make restitution for his previous deeds. And it actually ties up his brother's 400 men because now they have 550 animals to watch, right? So they're busy, you know, playing cowboy. They probably didn't know how to do very well.

It keeps them all very occupied and uninterested in getting anything more from Jacob. They have more than they can handle. And so even though Esau says no, Jacob says yes, and that's the way it happens.

So Jacob gives the animals as he would give it to God, showing his generosity. And in this, Jacob is very clear about who gave him his household. God gave me this household. He's very clear about the animals.

I give it to you as I would give it to God. He's very open about who the true God is and who has blessed him. And so Jacob gives this witness to Esau. Israel gives this witness to Edom, who the true God is.

And by highlighting the blessing that God has upon Jacob as the descendant, as we're tracking the seed, ultimately there's a pointing towards God's whole redemptive plan. And so in Genesis 33, verses 12 to 17, we have a little bit more to this story.

It says, then Esau said, let us take our journey and go, and I will go before you. But he said to him, my Lord knows that the children are frail and that the flocks and herds, which are nursing are a care to me.

And if they are driven hard on one day, all the flocks will die. Please let my Lord pass on before his servant, and I will proceed at my leisure, according to the pace of the cattle that are before me and according to the pace of the children until I come to my Lord at Seir.

Esau said, please let me leave with you some of the people who are with me. But he said, what need is there? Let me find favor in the sight of my Lord. So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir. Jacob journeyed on to Succoth and built for himself a house and made booths for his livestock.

Therefore, the place is named Succoth, which means basically barns. Welcome to barns, you know. There's some really strange named towns in Arkansas and Missouri, and there's a few in Oklahoma too. Jacob named it barns.

Now, so what happens here, Esau is trying to be in charge. I mean, he's just received great tribute. He's received all of his honor. They're calling him Lord. So he says, okay, well, here's the plan. I'm gonna travel in front, you travel behind.

We'll just all go down to Seir, which is the name of the place was later known as Edom. And if you look in your Bibles and you look over on the right-hand side of the Dead Sea, and you just track all the way down to the low right-hand corner beneath the Dead Sea, over in that corner, you're gonna find Edom or the land of Seir.

And if you take that same finger and you go all the way back up the Dead Sea, up the Jordan, up to the land of Gad, the future land of Gad, you're gonna find a town named Succoth. So it's pretty far away.

It's 110 miles north of Edom. And Jacob said, oh yeah, sure, I'll follow you. I'll be there in a little while. And he stops 110 miles north of Seir and builds a house. In other words, he ain't coming.

Esau said, let's do this and let's do that. And Jacob said no both times and went his own way. So the appearances were, and it looked like that the younger was serving the older, but in fact, he didn't serve the older.

And that there was a separation, a parting of ways at this point. And so he builds his house in barns in Succoth and he names it. He names the place. So he just plops himself down in a place and names it like he owns it.

Because of course he did own it because God had given them the whole land. And so he does as Isaac did. He does as Abraham did. The patriarchs went to and fro, back and forth across the promised land, building altars, naming places, because it was their land and their descendants would possess it after them.

And these are acts of faith. Just him just sitting down on the spot on the promised land and naming it as an act of faith. Because hey, God gave this to me and he named it. Some observations here, I think.

Although it looked like the younger was serving the older, God's purposes would be done. When God says, these are the way that things are going to be. These are the arrangements that I make. And we look around the world and say, well, it doesn't really look that way to us.

Well, give it a little time. Have some faith. It's going to be that way. I think sometimes we get pretty discouraged, but then we remember Jesus saying, the gates of Hades will not prevail over. I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail over it.

We need to remember that.

We look around and say,.

Well, this doesn't look very promising, but have some faith. Give it some time. Trust in the Lord's work. And we see that there is a split really between Esau and Jacob. Is it in Proverbs or Ecclesiastes?

How can two walk together unless they are agreed? But 2 Corinthians chapter six, 2 Corinthians 6, 14 through 18, would be a good passage to read. I was thinking about where Jacob and Esau split ways is not really simply in the places they choose to live, although that's important.

Esau lives outside the promised land. Jacob lives inside the promised land. But that the God that Jacob serves is different than the God that will dominate the land of Edom. And there's a difference in what they believe.

And 2 Corinthians 6, 14, it says, do not be bound together with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial?

Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. Just as God said, I will dwell in them and walk among them and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

Therefore come out from their midst and be separate, says the Lord, and do not touch what is unclean. And I will welcome you and I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.

So, you know, Esau was telling Jacob, well, let's go do this and let's go do this. And Jacob begs off and begs off. And he says, you know, there's a whole lot of people who want the church to do this or do that.

And the world is saying, why don't you be more like this? And why don't you be more like this? And why don't you come all the way down to Edom? And our answer should be, no, thanks. No, thanks. Don't need to.

Don't have to. We don't have to take the pulse of the world, say, okay, what's important this week? And then say, okay, now let's change what we do. We have one master. His name is Jesus Christ. Israel would dominate Edom.

The gospel came to Edom in 2 Samuel 8, verse 14. Let's go over there and take a look. 2 Samuel 8, 14. And it came as Jacob exercised dominion over Edom and did so for quite a long time. This was as promised in Genesis 27.

Isaac told Esau, you are going to serve your brother. The prophet Balaam prophesied in Numbers 24 that Edom would serve Israel. And indeed, it all came about under David's reign. 2 Samuel 8, verse 14, we read that he put garrisons in Edom, in all Edom he put garrisons and all the Edomites became servants to David and the Lord helped David wherever he went.

Now that doesn't sound like a very exciting thing. He put garrisons in Edom. What he did was he put God-fearing Israelite soldiers in Edom who ate a certain way and washed a certain way and prayed a certain way and went about their business in all these different ways and observed the Sabbath and so on and so forth and took their pilgrimages back to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices at the feast days and so on and so forth.

And all of these shadows of Christ were implanted in Edom. The gospel came to Edom and was there quite a long time. And so there was a gospel witness to Esau. And later on, as the Israelites were corrupted and as they followed after idolatry and they were destroyed, we read that Edom basically jumped in and got his kicks in as Israel went down.

And for that, for Edom piling on in Israel's destruction, they received judgment. You can read about that in the book of Obadiah for their crimes in bringing extra punishment that they were not called to do.

This all is then, that's not the last note. When's the last note that we have in the scriptures of a conflict between Edom and Jacob, between Esau and Jacob, Edom and Israel? Do we remember what the? Yes, Herod was an Edomite, an Idumean, we read in the New Testament.

Herod was of Esau. And he saw his opportunity to go kill the heir of Jacob and he went after the heir of Jacob trying to kill him. But of course, God protected him and Herod ended up being the loser in the battle.

And we'll talk more about that instance coming up this next Sunday morning. Okay, we are at the close of our time of our Bible study. Let's go ahead and sing the doxology, which is our custom and then.