Value in the Names Genesis 36

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When we read the Bible, we come across certain passages that make us think, I'm going to skip over this.
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You may have guessed that I'm talking about genealogies or historical records with lots of names.
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Most of these names you can't pronounce, and you would never name your children any of them. And the temptation on our part is to skip over these and think what value is this going to be to my life?
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But to skip these historical records, or even just to quickly glance over them is a mistake.
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We must be reminded about what 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17 says.
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All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
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So what this means is that every sentence in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation has value for us.
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There is treasure for us everywhere if we will just only look and see.
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The value in a genealogy is not that we would know facts to be trivial pursuit type people, but the value is that even these verses will help us in our walk with the
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Lord. So these list of names teach us something. And as we just read in 2
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Timothy 3, every verse in Scripture will train you in righteousness so that you may live a life pleasing to God.
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So today, we are going to look at one of those historical records with lots of names.
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And we are going to look at what we need to see as 21st century Christians in this text.
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There will be important application for us. The historical record we are going to look at is in Genesis 36, so I encourage you to turn there with me.
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It is the record of Jacob's brother Esau's line. This is the end of the road of the story of Esau.
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And we must learn from this tragic man's life. If you're using a red
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Bible, the Bible in the pews is on pages 35 and 36. We're going to be looking at this whole chapter.
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And this sermon is titled, Value in the Names. Value in the Names. And our big idea, our proposition, is this important historical record in Scripture must not be glossed over.
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This important historical record in Scripture must not be glossed over. And we're going to see two vital instructions from this text.
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The first vital instruction is churchgoers must learn from the lessons of Esau.
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We'll see this in verses one through eight. But before we jump into our text, I want to give a little recap of last week's sermon.
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We looked at the end of two lives, Rachel and Isaac. Jacob said goodbye to them for now, since they both belonged to the
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Lord. And he knew that he would see them again. And by burying them, he was showing his faith that these bodies would rise from the dead.
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So our big idea that we saw in the text last week is that death no longer is an oppressive enemy for the believer.
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And we saw two reasons why death is no longer this enemy. The first reason is that believers are able to grieve as those who have great hope.
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As I just mentioned, Jacob buried the body with the great hope that he would be reunited with his beloved wife,
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Rachel, again. So we too, as believers, not only have the firm confidence that this life is just the beginning, but we also know that we will see our loved ones who knew the
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Lord again. And when we say goodbye, it's only goodbye for now. We also saw the end of Isaac's life.
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Genesis 35, 29 said that Isaac breathed his last and he died and was gathered to his people, old and full of days.
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And his sons, Esau and Jacob, buried him. We focused in on the phrases that Isaac was gathered to his people and that he was old and full of days.
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To be gathered to his people meant that his soul went to be with the saints and by extension, the
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Lord. The second phrase, old and full of days, meant that Isaac lived a faithful life to the
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Lord. At the end of his life, he did not hold on to his life in this world like an unbeliever would, not wanting to die.
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Rather, he was at peace and longed to depart from this life and be with the
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Lord, which is what the believer's approach should be. He had this confidence because he knew the
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Lord and lived a life pleasing to Him. Every believer has the same confidence.
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As you leave this world, you will have peace and the feeling of comfort that the Lord is coming to take you to be with Him.
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And this happens when you know God and live a life closely following Him. This leads us to our text today in Genesis 36.
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You may have noticed that at the end of the passage last week, it said that Jacob and Esau buried their father.
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So this was a segue to an entire chapter devoted to Esau. And you might wonder, why would an entire chapter be devoted to this man,
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Esau, who was not chosen? The Lord prophesied in Genesis 25 -23 to Rebekah, Jacob and Esau's mother, two nations are in your womb and two peoples from within you shall be divided.
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The one shall be stronger than the other. The older shall serve the younger. So the
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Lord predicted that Isaac's son, Jacob, would be the blessed one through whom these great
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Abrahamic promises would continue. Therefore, Esau is not the blessed one to continue the chosen line.
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In order to understand Genesis 36, we need to understand this prophecy that I just read. Genesis 25 -23 says, the older shall serve the younger.
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Esau is the older. He's the one who's going to serve the younger Jacob. And by the way,
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I joked, that's my life verse because I'm the younger of two brothers, but that's another story. An entire chapter is devoted to Esau to describe his offspring and their powerful growth as we will see.
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However, chapters 37 through 50 are devoted to telling Jacob's offspring as that story will focus on the 12 sons of Jacob.
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So in the remainder of Genesis and the Old Testament, Jacob's line are the main characters in the story and Esau and his line are in the background.
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So today we are going to see the power of Esau's line, but we must understand that their power will pale in comparison to the power of Jacob's line.
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Indeed, we will see the prophecy of 25 -23 is fulfilled that the older shall serve the younger.
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Now in chapter 36, we are going to start by looking at Esau's genealogy that started when he lived in the land of Canaan.
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The remainder of the chapter, as we will see in point number two, will describe the power of Esau's line.
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But these first eight verses are going to tell us much about the story of Esau and not in a positive light.
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So let's look at these first eight verses of chapter 36. These are the generations of Esau, that is
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Edom. Esau took his wives from the Canaanites, Adah the daughter of Elam the
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Hittite, Olabamah the daughter of Anna, the daughter of Zibion the
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Hittite, and Basemath Ishmael's daughter, the sister of Neboeth. And Adah bore to Esau Eliphaz, Basemath bore
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Ruel, and Olabamah bore Jeush, Jalom, and Korah.
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These are the sons of Esau who were born to him in the land of Canaan. 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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Then he went into the land away from his brother Jacob, for their possessions were too great for them to dwell together.
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The land of their sojourneys could not support them because of their livestock. So Esau settled in the hill country of Seir.
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Esau is Edom. What we just read is the line that goes through Esau.
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You will notice in verse one that another name for Esau is Edom. That's because in Genesis 25, 25, we are told that Esau came out red.
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And the word for red in Hebrew sounds like Edom. So the nation predicted in Genesis 25 would be known as Edom.
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These are the people that came from Esau. And we saw several months back in Genesis 26, 34, that Esau took wives from the
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Canaanites. Remember, the Canaanites were the wicked people of the land that the
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Lord would later have his people drive out in order to inherit the promised land. And we already know that Esau was not chosen of God.
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And the fruit of this would show in that he married the wrong women. The holy thing to do would have been to marry from the relatives.
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That's what Jacob did. But Esau didn't do that. He married from the wicked Canaanites. And Esau not only married from the
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Canaanites, but he also married Ishmael's daughter. Do you remember why
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Esau married Ishmael's daughter? Genesis 28, eight and nine said that when
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Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac, his father, Esau went to Ishmael and took as his wife, besides the wives he had,
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Mahalah, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Naboth. So, in other words, he wanted to win the good graces of his parents, specifically his father,
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Jacob. And so he figured, well, if I marry from the other line from Abraham, remember
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Hagar and Ishmael? That was the other line from Abraham. He says, if I marry from that line, then
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I will please my father, Jacob. But of course, he was just people pleasing.
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This wasn't true morality. Verse four tells us that through these three women, two
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Canaanite women and the Ishmaelite, five children were born to him, Esau, when he lived in the land of Canaan.
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But when Esau was not mentioned for quite some time in Genesis, we didn't hear from him again until Jacob was returning from the 20 years he spent with his father -in -law
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Laban up in Paddan Aram, way to the north. When Jacob was returning to the land, that's when he meets
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Esau again. So that's when Esau enters the story. And when we heard from Esau, he lived east of the land of Canaan, east of the
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Dead Sea in the land of Seir. What's fascinating is that we don't find out how
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Esau ended up in Seir, outside of the land of promise, until our text today.
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The text says in verse seven that their possessions were too great for them to dwell together.
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There weren't enough resources in the place they were living in the land of Canaan to support the line that came from Isaac and the new line that Esau started.
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We have some farmers in this church, of course, and imagine if someone came to your property and said,
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I don't know how they would do this, but just for the sake of the illustration here, they said, we're gonna use part of your land.
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I mean, that would cause problems, right? Because you need that land. You need all those resources to be able to make a living, to be able to support yourself.
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And so in this situation here, what happens is Esau and Isaac's line, they're all there.
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Remember, the Canaanites are also in the land at this time, so they didn't have all this land to themselves.
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So they're thinking, I can't support my family on this land. And so they went east, east of the
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Dead Sea. He was forced to go to a new land and start a new life there. But what we must see is that the
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Lord providentially moves Esau away from the land of Canaan.
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This land did not belong to him and his offspring. This land would go to his brother
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Jacob because Jacob is the child chosen to belong to the Lord. His family would be the ones who would enjoy these earthly blessings of many offspring and inheriting the land occupied by the
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Canaanites. This narrative in these first eight verses of this chapter detail Esau's rejection.
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The fulfillment of Genesis 25 -23 is happening before our eyes. The older will serve the younger.
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And as he moves east, this means that his blessing is blessing that was once his.
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Remember, this was his as the firstborn child. To have all of this, to have the chosen line go through him, to have the land be his.
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All of this is now behind him, never to be his again. So symbolically here, as he walks away, he's walking away from this blessing.
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And the opposite happened with Jacob's family. Remember a couple weeks ago when the
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Lord told him, you need to leave these gods behind? Remember Jacob was worshiping Yahweh, the
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Lord, but he had some family members who were kind of torn between the Lord and they had these figurines, these false gods that they were worshiping.
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And the Lord told them, you need to leave these behind never to return to them again. And what did they do?
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They left them behind and they went towards the promised land. The opposite is happening here.
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He's leaving the promised land never to be blessed again. And so this is a tragedy playing out before our eyes.
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Now the tragedy of Esau is not only that he misses out on physical earthly blessings, but infinitely more important,
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Scripture teaches that he missed out on eternal life. He was cut off from God.
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So his permanent move east is symbolic of his departure from God. To go from the land of promise to the land of seer.
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The life of Esau describes many people in our world once thought to be believers.
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They were once in the church and were surrounded by the things of God. People even thought that they were sincere believers.
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But the test of time proves the authenticity of those who are real or fake in the faith.
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1 John 2 .19 says, they went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.
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But they went out that it might become plain that they all are not of us.
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It is true that God did not choose Esau, but it is equally true that he himself rejected
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God. Willingly rejected him. Esau forfeited his birthright for a single meal.
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He forfeited something heavenly for something earthly. He forfeited the things of God for the things of earth.
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In our day, this is what people who once appeared to follow Jesus have done. In the
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New Testament, the Apostle Paul had a former friend in the faith that walked away from God.
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In 2 Timothy 2 .10, he describes his friend Demas, who was once a partner in ministry, and he says,
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Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.
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We were talking about this yesterday in the men's breakfast. There's two ways. You either choose the sinful world that Satan rules, or you choose
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God. There is no in -between. There's either one or the other, and a lot of people like to have a foot here and a foot there.
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You know, they like the things that, you know, they like eternal life. They like what Jesus said.
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They like that he died for their sins. But you're thinking, you know what? I'm more in love with the world. So who are you more in love with?
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Are you more in love with Jesus Christ and that which is eternal, or are you more in love with the things that are passing away?
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That's what pulled Demas away. That's what pulled Esau away, the things of this world. And it happens to everybody, or I shouldn't say everybody.
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It happens all the time around us. It happens to too many people. And if you look at the world, it seems like more people go this way than this way.
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And that's what Jesus said, right? The wide path leads to destruction. And it's wide because so many people are traveling down it.
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And he says the narrow path leads to life because so many fewer people are going that way. And it's so true.
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And you may wonder, how can I prevent this from happening to me? The Bible tells us to persevere in the faith and not be like Esau.
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Hebrews 12, 16. And we do this through the team effort between the Holy Spirit and us.
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Galatians 5, 16 says, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
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Second Peter 1, 3 -11 is so helpful for us when we look at perseverance and assurance of salvation.
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The Apostle Peter wrote this. Listen closely to what he says here in these eight verses.
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His divine power, so God's divine power, has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
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For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self -control and self -control with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love.
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For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.
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Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities, you will never fall.
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For in this way, there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our
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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So what Peter is saying is as we live out the word of God by the spirit, we start to reflect him.
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We start to look like God. And as we see his fruit shown in our lives, we have confidence that we will never fall.
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The text actually says you will never fall. We will never walk away like Esau from the things of God and settle for short, unsatisfying things that the sinful world offers you.
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My old pastor, I've heard him say this, and it's totally biblical. Nobody runs away from the faith.
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It's not like one day you're following passionately after the Lord and then the next day you're gone.
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People walk away. It happens slowly over time. I had lunch with him this week and we were talking about this theologian from the 70s and the 80s who's still alive today, who's still teaching.
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He was a rock solid doctrinal Christian in 1970. Today, he's barely holding on to any semblance of Christianity.
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And it happened little by little, day by day, over time. He was going in the wrong direction. And it's hard.
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It appears that he doesn't even know the Lord anymore. We want to be moving in the right direction, running towards Christ.
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And if you do that, you will never fall. It's just proving your genuine faith in Jesus Christ. And so as we see here, as we see the story of Jacob and Esau, we see a story of triumph on one end and a story of tragedy on the other.
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Jacob received fullness of joy and Esau received eternal misery. So verses one through eight are a fulfillment of Genesis 25, 23, that Esau would not be the blessed one, but Jacob would be.
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And it's equally true to say that Esau chose his own way, away from the presence of God. So an important historical record as this one in scripture must not be glossed over.
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This is the first vital instruction that churchgoers must learn from the lessons of Esau, namely not to be like him, but to be those who persevere in the things of God over the long haul.
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The second vital instruction that we must see from this important historical record is that churchgoers must understand the precision of the
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Bible verses nine through 43. Now, as we move on to the second point, we are going to see the expansion of the line that came from Esau, known as the
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Edomites. This nation is going to grow powerful, but not as powerful as Israel, the line that came from Jacob.
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And what I'm going to do in this second point is read each paragraph and then make a few comments.
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And once I'm done reading these sections, I'm going to tie this second point together to show you what we need to see here.
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Because you might be thinking, nine through 43? Don't we have a potluck today? Yeah, we do. And we will get to that.
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So we're just going to do kind of a breeze through here. And I just want you to get the main point here. So once Esau moves away from the promised land, east to Seir, he has more children, verses nine through 14.
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And there's a lot of crazy names here, so please pray for me as I read this. These are the generations of Esau, the father of the
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Edomites in the hill country of Seir. These are the names of Esau's sons, Eliphaz, the son of Adah, the wife of Esau.
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Reuel, the son of Basemath, the wife of Esau. The sons of Eliphaz were Teman, Omar, Zepho, Getam, and Kinas.
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Timnah was a concubine of Eliphaz, Esau's son. She bore Amalek to Eliphaz.
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These are the sons of Adah, Esau's wife. These are the sons of Reuel, Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizah.
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These are the sons of Basemath, Esau's wife. These are the sons of Olabamah, the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zibion, Esau's wife.
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She bore to Esau, Jeush, Jalom, and Korah. Okay, so these are the children who came with him, and some were added to his family after moving.
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And you can see that the population of this nation, Edom, is growing. And as they grow, they get big enough to have chiefs over the people.
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Okay, now let me take a breather. Here we go again, verses 15 through 19. These are the chiefs of the sons of Esau, the sons of Eliphaz, the firstborn of Esau.
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The chiefs, Teman, Omar, Zepho, Kinez, Korah, Gadam, and Amalek.
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These are the chiefs of Eliphaz in the land of Edom. These are the sons of Adah. These are the sons of Reuel, Esau's son.
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The chiefs, Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizah. These are the chiefs of Reuel in the land of Edom.
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These are the sons of Basemath, Esau's wife. These are the sons of Olabamah, Esau's wife.
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The chiefs, Jayush, Jalam, and Korah. These are the chiefs born of Olabamah, the daughter of Anah, Esau's wife.
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These are the sons of Esau, that is, Edom. And these are their chiefs. So Esau's sons and grandsons make up 14 chiefs.
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And what this tells us is the Edomites had 14 tribes. That's in contrast to Jacob's line, which had 12 tribes.
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So it's good for us to know that about this nation. So the sons listed in verses nine through 14 are the ones who were chiefs over the people.
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You may have noticed a repetition of names there. So Edom gets big enough to have their own rulers known as chiefs.
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And as this happens, they are getting as big as those who lived in this land before they got there.
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In verses 20 through 30, we will read about the people who were in the land of Seir before them.
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Verses 20 through 30. These are the sons of Seir, the Horite, the inhabitants of the land.
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Lotan, Shobel, Zibion, Anna, Dishan, Ezer, and Dishan. These are the chiefs of the
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Horites, the sons of Seir in the land of Edom. The sons of Lotan were Horai and Hemim, and Lotan's sister was
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Timnah. These are the sons of Shobel, Elvin. There's a name I recognize, right? Different spelling, though.
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Menahoth, Ebel, Shefo, and Onam. These are the sons of Zibion, Ai, and Anna, and Ismianah, who found the hot springs in the wilderness as she pastured the donkeys of Zibion, his father.
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These are the children of Aenah, Dishan, and Olabamah, the daughters of Aenah. These are the sons of Dishan, Hemdan, Eshban, Ithran, and Cheran.
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These are the sons of Ezer, Bilhan, Zavan, and Achan. These are the sons of Dishan, Uz, and Aran.
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These are the chiefs of the Horites, the chiefs Lotan, Shobel, Zibion, Aenah, Dishan, Ezer, and Dishan.
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These are the chiefs of the Horites, chief by chief in the land of Seir, okay?
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If you don't think names matter, the Bible tells us that names matter. It's funny, we have downstairs, we have some records of our church, and there's just members going back 100 years ago, and we're thinking, what's the point of this?
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But these are people who lived, right? This is important. Think about it, 100 years from now, if Christ hasn't returned yet, our names will be on the directory, and we're gonna be grateful that our names are on there, right?
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And so we need to remember people, and Scripture does that by listing people, and we do that by listing people as well.
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Now, after listing these people, the Edomites become more powerful than the natives of the land of Seir. That's what the author's doing here.
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He's showing us this, and he's gonna show us this in verses 31 through 39. These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom, before any king reigned over the
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Israelites. Bala, the son of Beor, reigned in Edom, the name of his city being
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Dinhabah. Bala died, and Jobab, the son of Zerah of Bozah, reigned in his place.
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Jobab died, and Husham of the land of the Temanites reigned in his place. Husham died, and Hadad, the son of Badad, who defeated
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Midian in the country of Moab, reigned in his place. The name of his city being Aveth. Hadad died, and Samlah of Masgareth reigned in his place.
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Samlah died, and Chal of Rehoboth, on the Euphrates, reigned in his place. Chal died, and Bal -Hanan, the son of Akbor, reigned in his place.
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Bal -Hanan, the son of Akbor, died, and Hadar reigned in his place. The name of his city being
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Pah. His wife's name was Mehetabel, the daughter of Matrid, the daughter of Meshavah.
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Okay, so I probably got about half those names wrong as far as trying to pronounce them. And thankfully, at least people aren't here right now, because they'd be like, you just messed up every name.
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But no one here knows how to pronounce these names, so we're good. Now, the fact that kings are listed here tells us that the
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Edomites took control of the land of Seir. Furthermore, you may have noticed in verse 31 that the name of the land changed from Seir to Edom.
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The Edomites have become powerful and taken over this region that was once occupied by the people we just read about in verses 31 through 39.
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And the last section, verses 40 through 43, lists chiefs over the dwelling places in the land of Edom.
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Okay, so this is the last reading here. These are the names of the chiefs of Esau according to their clans and their dwelling places by their names.
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The chiefs Timnah, Elvah, Jetheth, Olabamah, Elah, Pinnan, Kinez, Teman, Mibsbar, Magdiel, and Eram.
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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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So why is the rise of Esau's people important in the larger narrative of Genesis and the larger narrative of Scripture?
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That's what I'm going to show and what I want you to see in this second point. Now, while verses one through eight sum up nicely the prophecy of Genesis 25, 23, that the older will serve the younger, that Esau and his people would serve
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Jacob and his people, this section fits better with the prophecy of Genesis 27, 39, and 40, the prophecy that Isaac made about his son
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Esau and the experience that his people would have in the future. So I'm going to read this prophecy here in a second and then explain how this played out historically in what we need to see here.
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But let me first explain this. Once Isaac gave the blessing to Jacob, he told the
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Abrahamic promises to him in chapter 27, verses 27 through 29, that a dominant nation would come from him, the nation of Israel.
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This was a prophecy of blessing that was given by Isaac to Jacob. And after Isaac gave the blessing to Jacob, he gives what's been called an anti -blessing or a curse to Esau.
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This is what he says to him. And this is a prediction that Isaac is making about the
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Edomites, Esau's descendants. Behold, away from the fatness of the earth you shall your dwelling be, and away from the dew of heaven on high.
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By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you shall break his yoke from your neck.
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Stop right there. So the first part of this prophecy is fulfilled in verse six of our chapter, specifically that Esau would not be blessed and his brother
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Jacob would be. Jacob's descendants would live in the land full of milk and honey, the promised land, while Esau would live in an arid wilderness east of the
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Dead Sea. But verse 40 is pointing to what happened in verses nine through 40.
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The prophecy in 2740 says that by your sword you shall live and you shall serve your brother.
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So in the land they would live in, they would live by the sword. We can see that there would be a lot of war happening here.
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They would be using the sword to maintain their existence there. Now Isaac also prophesied to Esau that when you grow restless, you shall break his yoke from your neck.
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And what this symbolizes is the power of the Edomites. They will be known for the sword and will attempt to break free from their stronger brother,
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Israel. What this is, this is a struggle for superiority. As Israel rules over Edom, remember
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Israel's on the west, Edom is east of the Dead Sea. As they rule, Edom is gonna try to break free from Israel many times.
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And the prophet Amos condemned Edom in Amos 1 .11 because they used their sword against God's chosen people,
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Israel. And throughout the history of the Old Testament, there would be a seesaw battle between these two peoples with Israel being more dominant as the prophecy foretold.
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The little brother, Edom, however, always longed to be free from their big brother,
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Israel. This might sound familiar to us. This sounds a lot like how our country was birthed.
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Great Britain was arguably the most powerful nation in the world at that time. They had colonies all over the world.
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And one of the colonies they had was us, the 13 original colonies. And of course, there was a number of reasons why the colonies wanted to break free.
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One of them was taxation. They were being unfairly taxed. And they said, we need to pursue independence from Great Britain.
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And of course, we know the story. That's what started the Revolutionary War. And they broke free.
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And what's interesting is that over the last 250 years, America has become the most powerful nation arguably in the history of the world.
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Now, Edom does break free later in Israel's history. However, they would never be stronger than Israel.
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And they would always have this rivalry. But there's a day in the future, and we need to understand that the big picture here, there's a day in the future when
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Edom, and not just Edom, but all the nations of the world will gladly submit to their
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Messiah. There's a prophecy in Amos chapter 11, or sorry, chapter 9, verses 11 and 12.
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And it says this, the Lord predicts this about Edom and the nations of the world. It says, in that day,
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I will raise up the booth of David that has fallen and repair its breaches and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old, that they may possess the remnants of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name, declares the
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Lord who does this. And this is the Messiah's reign in the future over the world.
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What's gonna happen is that Israel is gonna have a mass conversion, and Christ is gonna reign over the earth.
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And there's gonna be lots of people who are gonna believe in the Messiah during that time, including
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Edom. And so there's gonna be a kind of a reunion of this people that once broke off from the people of God, and they are gonna be joining the people of God.
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So what we need to see here in scripture is that prophecy tells us history. I hope you understand that the
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Bible is a supernatural book. It alone tells the future in detail. One author has said that prophecy is history told beforehand.
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Esau would be kicked out of the land and then live by the sword, and then he and his people would be subject to Israel as the prophecy foretold.
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And I just want you to see in the second point the amazement of this. As we see this genealogy, and as we see the future of Edom, and as we trace their history throughout the
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Old Testament, and not just the Old Testament, but the whole Bible, we see God's big plan for this people.
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It's a story of subjection, as the prophecy foretold, being under the rule of Jacob and Israel.
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But in the future, they're gladly going to submit to Jesus Christ, the Messiah.
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So this important historical record in scripture must not be glossed over. And churchgoers must understand the precision of the
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Bible. If we just scanned this, if we just said, nope, let's skip from chapter 35 to 37, we would miss the jewels that we saw today.
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So I hope we can see this together. This chapter closes out the story on Esau.
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And as I mentioned before, Esau is a tragic figure in scripture. One author has said that he's right up there with Judas, the one who betrayed
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Jesus. Last week, we saw the legacy of Isaac and what a rich legacy he had. His story ended well.
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It was a life full of days, and he went to be with the Lord. Today, we have seen the tragic legacy of Esau, a man whose people would have strength, but they would be subordinate to his brother, his big brother,
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Israel. And that would have been sad to Esau, to see his ancestors weaker than his brother's ancestors.
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But the greatest tragedy is Esau's personal salvation. He forfeited his relationship with God for a single meal.
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He gave up the things of God for something earthly. And as we close out this historical record on Esau, may we be wise to learn from this man's life.
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I had a friend once tell me that sometimes we learn what to do by learning what not to do.
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And we do the opposite. In Scripture, Esau is one of those figures. He's a warning for all of us in the
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Bible. And may we heed these vital instructions from this historical record that put a cap on this tragic man's life.
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May we not do what he did. May we follow God's way and not go the other way. It's going to look appealing.
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The world is going to look appealing. We all know that. But don't be fooled. Follow the eternal path of Jesus Christ.
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Now next week, we're going to take a week off from Genesis. And this is a very taxing chapter.
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I'll admit that here. I'm sure it was taxing for you, it was taxing for me. And so I think it'll be nice to take a week off from Genesis.
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And we have to, because it's Resurrection Sunday. So we're going to talk about the resurrection, the victorious resurrection of our
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Lord, Savior and treasure, Jesus Christ. So I encourage you to invite your friends next week, not just the next
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Sunday, but also the Good Friday. We have those cards on the back and may be a rich time together.
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Let's pray for that together as a church. Let's close in prayer. Father in heaven,
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I thank you for the preaching of the Bible. Lord, it's work to listen to a sermon like this.
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I understand that, Lord. And I appreciate, Lord, that the people are willing to listen and willing to learn and willing to grow.
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This is how we grow, Lord. It's from the Word of God. There is no other way to grow, to become more like you other than to dig in deep to the
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Bible. And that's what we're trying to do, Lord. And may you bless this, I pray.
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May we not be like Esau. May we learn from him. May we learn from his people. The tragedy,
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Lord, of turning away from you. And may we learn from Jacob what to do to seek you in our lives.
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And certainly, Lord, we know that Jacob had flaws. We know that he sinned in many ways, but we also know that there's a clear difference between Jacob and Esau.
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And may we be like Jacob in that we pursue you and give ourselves fully to you and walk with you closely all the days of our life.
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In Jesus' name, Amen. Okay, so I'm gonna come down here and...