Interesting, that name, because people want to talk about how good Jacob was and how bad Esau was And they say this, the reason why God chose Jacob and he did not choose Esau was because Jacob was good and Esau was bad But that is not so We spent a long time last week and I know if you were here last week, you're like, he's saying the same thing Beloved, hear it again, because these things are being taught to you because they are important Why did God choose Jacob over Israel? I'm sorry, why did God choose Jacob over Esau? The text tells us right here, go back into the text It says in verse 10, and not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad All right, so before we go any further, was the choice of Jacob and Esau based upon the goodness or badness of the individual? The text clearly says it wasn't, OK, so that's out But it goes on to say in order that God's purpose in election might continue or in some translation says might stand So that God's purpose in election might be displayed, not because of works, but because of his call God called Jacob with a special calling He was told the older shall serve the younger And we see that in Scripture, Jacob stole his brothers both right through manipulative tactics And as such, Esau became the secondary child Remember, Esau was the one who was owed the birthright, but he sold it for some food, some stew And he is now underneath Jacob in the line of family, in the blessing Then later, his dad was going to give Esau the blessing anyway, and he stole it again And we told that story last week If anybody in this story has strikes against their character, it's Jacob Which leads me to where we ended last week We ended last week on the statement in verse 13, as it is written, Jacob, I loved, but Esau, I hated Very quickly, let's think about that statement Jacob, I loved, but Esau, I hated All right, who is speaking? In this case, the Lord God of heaven This is a statement that God has made He has made two bold declarations in this statement He said one, Jacob, I loved, and he says two, Esau, I hated The word love means love And the word hate, just in case there's a question Well, maybe the Greek says this or the Greek says that You know, I'm being, really, love means love, hated means less love You could say less love You could make that, as I said last week, some people have attempted to make it be a lesser form of love Because it is not within the theology of many people for God to hate anything And much less for God to hate anyone One of the things that I find interesting is in discussions with people I had a young man, he was a teenager I was teaching the youth at this point And I said, God hates sin And he stopped me And he says, wait a minute I've been told my entire life that God doesn't hate anything And I said, well, you've been told wrong I make no apologies and there's no reason to argue about it The Bible clearly says there are six things that God hates The S7 are an abomination to him And it goes on to describe many things that God hates The Bible says God hates divorce A lot of people don't know that The Bible says that God hates sin A haughty eye, hands that shed innocent blood These are things God hates, but it doesn't stop there The Bible also says that God's wrathful judgment is upon the wicked And those who do not flee to his mercy and grace for salvation will spend eternity in a lake of fire I don't care what Rob Bell says Eternity is an eternity They're not going to have a chance of parole after 10 years or five years or 50,000 years It's not that way And to teach such a thing, huh? I'm sorry to teach such a thing is to if the word eternity, when the Bible says that they will suffer eternally If that word eternity, because this is what I don't know if you know who you don't even know if you know who Rob Bell is But he's the newest He's the newest, you know, real night, you know, fancy glasses wearing, you know Real cool clothes wearing guy who's out there proclaiming that everybody's going to get to heaven eventually Because God loves everybody Everybody's going to get to heaven eventually That's his teaching This is Rob Bell's description of heaven and hell is that, well, hell's not eternal because the Bible uses the word ION And ION doesn't mean eternal Well, if ION doesn't mean eternal when it talks about hell, then ION also does not mean eternal when it talks about heaven Because it's the same word Huh? That's it And there's a lot of problems with that theology Most importantly, of course, that it's not biblical Yeah What is kind of promising about the whole situation is how much backlash we've gotten Oh, yeah Yeah, well, and it's not and it's it is sad, though, how many people they want that They want that teaching So they they they tend to lend to it Stuff like this is not popular That word right there is getting me kicked out of 90% of churches And what's funny is it used to be It used to be the other way around People don't want to even hear that, number one, that God would choose and, number two, that God would choose in accordance with his will They don't want to hear that And this this idea that you saw, I've hated it I want to propose to you a concept that maybe you've heard, maybe you haven't But I want to propose this to you because this is where I should have ended last week But I totally missed it, looked at my notes later and I said, I forgot to say it So I wanted to mention it tonight If you look at this statement here and you have a problem with Esau, I have hated I would I would submit to you.