Jacob I Loved, Esau I Hated

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All right, as I said earlier, we have been doing a verse by verse study of the Book of Romans now for quite some time.
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And the way that I do verse by verse studies is I first teach an overview of a long passage, something that holds a consistent theme.
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And then I go back through that same passage after having given the overview and I break it down into its individual part, particularly in regard to the language and how the words fit together and make sentences.
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And sentences, of course, create ideas.
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So what we are doing is having already spent two weeks doing an overview of Romans chapter nine, we are now doing a verse by verse breakdown.
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And I really don't have any desire to go fast when we do it this way.
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So if I stop on one verse one night and we do one night of one verse, that's fine.
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But if we do two or three verses or four verses or an entire paragraph, that's fine as well.
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We just do the study of each verse as it comes.
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So that's what we're doing tonight.
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We have already looked over Romans chapter nine, verses one through five.
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If you want to open your Bibles, we're going to read those again just to help establish the context.
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Romans chapter nine, and as I said last week, Romans chapter nine is, in fact, one of the more controversial sections of Scripture, particularly those who would deny much of what is taught in reformed theology, because Romans chapter nine deals with the very difficult subject of divine election.
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And Romans chapter nine is actually Paul's apologetic.
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And I've been mentioning that the last few weeks.
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Paul is giving a defense of his position.
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He's already said in Romans chapter eight that all things work together for those who love the Lord, who are called according to his purpose, for whom he foreknew.
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He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, for whom he predestined.
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He also called whom he called.
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He justified whom he justified.
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He glorified.
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And he goes on to say, then, who can bring any charge against God's elect? No one, because God has justified his people through the work of his son.
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And he gives that wonderful security passage there at the end of Romans chapter eight.
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And then in Romans chapter nine, we begin with the words.
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Sorry, that's Acts chapter nine.
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Let me jump ahead.
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Sorry, my Bible opened the wrong page.
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Romans chapter nine, verse one, he says, I am speaking the truth in Christ.
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I'm not lying.
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My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.
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Now, on your outline, your worksheet, verses one through three, we said that the first three verses deal with Paul's personal connection with unbelieving Israel.
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So for those of you who weren't here, if you want to fill in the blank, it is Paul's personal connection with unbelieving Israel.
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He says that he loves them.
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He loves his kinsmen so much that if it were a possibility that he would be willing to forgo his own salvation, if that meant the salvation of his kinsmen, his brethren, according to the flesh.
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And we talked last week a lot about that, how much love is demonstrated in that sentence.
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It's very similar to the love that Moses showed for his people.
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When God said he was going to cut off Israel, Moses said, well, Lord, then blot me out of your book as well.
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It's a demonstration of leadership, love and a love for the brethren and his kinsmen, according to the flesh.
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And then in verses four and five, we see God's personal connection with unbelieving Israel.
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Verse four says they are Israelites and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises.
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To them belong the patriarchs and from their race, according to the flesh, is Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever.
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Amen.
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And as we said last week, that gives God's personal connection with unbelieving Israel.
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He had given them all of these things.
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He had given them the covenants.
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He had demonstrated to them his glory through the shock cloud and demonstrating who he was.
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And he also demonstrated his holiness by giving them the temple and the priestly worship.
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And by giving them all these things, God showed a love for them, an elective love for Israel that was different than any other nation of the world.
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You have to think about it.
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If you look back into the ancient world, we don't see other ancient peoples having God's method of worship and God's method of understanding his holiness, God's method of sacrifice.
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All of that was contained within the nation of Israel because God had chosen that Israel be the vessel that he would give those things through.
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So that is where we are beginning tonight, starting at verse six.
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Verse six, we're going to start talking about Israel's unbelief being consistent with God's plan.
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Because that's the question that Paul is dealing with.
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Paul is dealing with the question.
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Wait a minute.
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If if you say Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation, but God's people, the Jews, have by and large rejected Jesus Christ.
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How can those things be consistent? How can the unbelief of Israel be consistent with God's call to Israel? So that is what verse six begins to deal with.
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And in verse six, the very first thing we say we see is that it is consistent with his promises.
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That's the first blank on your outline.
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It is consistent with his promises.
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We'll begin at verse six.
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Verse six says, But it is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.
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Beloved, that passage cannot be stressed enough.
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Just because a person is born of Israel does not ensure that they are a part of the true Israel of God.
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The Jews believe that their nationality, their heritage brought their favor with God.
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But it was God's choice, not their national heritage that brought his favor.
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In fact, Paul is going to show that natural descent did not automatically make a person an inheritor of the promise.
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And that's what he says in verse seven.
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And not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.
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But through Isaac shall your offspring be named.
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And that's hearkening back to what we've talked about over the last few weeks.
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Abraham had more than one son.
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Who was the second son of Abraham? We have some new people tonight.
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So I'm asking that question.
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Everybody, those of you who are here should know the answer to that question.
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Who was the second son of Abraham? Huh? I don't mean second in line.
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I mean, another one.
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I'm sorry that I am.
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I coming across confusingly.
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I'm sorry.
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Who was the first son of Abraham? Ishmael.
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Who came before him? Yeah, some adopted kid.
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You did not just do that.
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I'm going to get you.
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Cody's or Cody.
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Abraham had chosen an adopted heir prior to Ishmael.
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All right.
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Who was it? Was his name Eliezer? That's right.
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He had chosen a adopted heir because he said to God, when God said he was going to give him all these things, he says, why are you giving me all these things? I don't have anyone to give it to except Eliezer, this adopted child.
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I don't have an heir.
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That's a physical heir.
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Yeah, he was.
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And that's how it worked, is that they had a hierarchy.
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And then within the system, if you didn't have a son and you owned all these things, that there would be a person that you would choose out of all of your servants.
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There would be a child that you would choose as your inheritor.
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So he had already chosen this person, Eliezer, because this is the one who's going to get everything.
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And God said, no, I'm going to give you a son.
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So there was Eliezer and then there was Ishmael.
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Ishmael obviously came through Hagar, the handmaiden, and we know the story that goes along with that.
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But then who was the real son of the promise? Isaac, Isaac is the son of the promise, and that's what verse seven says.
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Not all are children of Abraham because there are his offspring, but through Isaac shall your offspring be named.
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This means and this is where we get to verse eight.
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This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
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You see, even though Ishmael could claim to be Abraham's offspring, he could not claim to be among the elect of God because he was not the one God had chosen.
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So some people might say, and we've talked about this, some people might say, well, the reason why God didn't choose Ishmael was because Ishmael came about in such a wrong way.
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Ishmael came about in such a in such a notorious way, you know, Sarah was upset because she couldn't have a child.
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So she conspired with Abraham to take his hand, to take her handmaiden, to give them a child.
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And and that's why God didn't choose Ishmael, because Ishmael came and I've heard sermons on this.
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Ishmael came through the work and Isaac is the son of the promise.
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And Paul actually uses that as an illustration in the New Testament.
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Paul discusses the concept that you have Ishmael, which represents trying to receive the promises of God by works, and then Isaac, who represents receiving the promise of God by faith.
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So there is an analogy there.
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But he goes on in chapter nine to make this point, he says, for this is what the promise said about this year, this time next year, our return and Sarah will have a son.
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And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac.
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Why do you think the focus there, he says, and not only so, but also Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac.
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The point is now we're going down the promise list.
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OK, we have the first promises of God given to Abraham and Genesis chapter 12 out of Abraham.
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You have Eliezer.
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Most people don't count him.
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I do.
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You have Eliezer, Ishmael and Isaac.
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Isaac is the son of the promise.
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So you have Isaac.
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But out of Isaac, there will also come two sons.
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There will be Jacob and Esau, and out of these two, one will be chosen.
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And as I said, if you consider Eliezer, Ishmael and Isaac, it would be easy for somebody to try to consider that potentially Isaac is the best of the three, because, hey, it's only one that belonged to Sarah.
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They were so old, so it had to have been the promise of God that brought about Isaac's life.
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So obviously there's something very physical and very something very visual that we can see about Isaac that makes him different from the other two.
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So it's obvious to say we know, at least we say we know why God chose Isaac, because he's the son of the promise.
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But now you become now you come to the harder.
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You get to the more harder and more difficult thing, and that is the question of God's choice of Jacob, because it says in verse 11, it says, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, if you stop right there, I've heard many, many sermons on the subject of the doctrine of election where people have attempted in one way or another to deny God's sovereignty in election, to deny that God ever makes a choice according to the counsel of his will and not according to our nature and not according to our will.
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I've heard many a sermon that attempts to get around this, but I don't know how Paul could have been any more clear than he's being in verse 11, because again, he says, though they were not yet born and had done nothing good or bad, the choice had already been made.
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Now, some people make the argument, well, God knew what they were going to do.
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God knew they were going to do good and God knew they were going to do bad.
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So even though they had not yet done good or bad, God is still basing his decision on what he knew.
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What's the problem with that? Those of you who have been those of you who went over the overview probably might remember what's the problem with that logic? What's the problem? And let me rephrase it.
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What's the problem with this logic? God chose Jacob because he was better than Esau because Jacob wasn't better than Esau, right? Because really, if you think about it as a person, Jacob was just as much a scoundrel, if not more than his brother Esau.
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So to make the claim that this is based on God's foresight of what they were going to do is really to just take one step back and say, but how can we make the claim that Jacob was somehow more necessarily righteous than Esau? In fact, the only thing that I can really say Esau did as an individual that was really a strike against his character is that he sold his birthright.
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But the only reason he sold his birthright was because his brother extorted his birthright.
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So really, if I had to if I had to choose which one was the more the more at fault there, I would you know, I would not say it's the one who sold the birthright, but the one who actually brought him in the condition of selling the birthright in the first place.
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Why even ask for a birthright for a bowl of stew unless you are a truly, truly devious person? Thank you.
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When you hear me say a word twice, I'm looking for the next one.
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So thank you, a truly devious person.
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And that's what he was.
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Jacob was a devious person.
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God's choice of him opening his heart, his electing grace changed Jacob.
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But you can't look at their life before God opening his heart and before God changing him and saying, hey, you've got one guy here that's more deserving of God's righteousness, God's love and God's concern.
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You can't say so anyone who would try to make that argument that the election is based on one being better than the other, even if God did foresee it, it doesn't hold and it doesn't stand the birth order.
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Absolutely, because God had chosen Jacob.
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And that, in fact, that's a pretty consistent theme in Genesis.
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God choosing the younger and not the one that would naturally be the heir.
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Go back to Cain and Abel.
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Who is the who is the older one? Cain, right, he was the first one born.
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Yeah, Josephus.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Oh, that and that wonderful story.
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All these good looking, scrapping young men walk by and Samuel keeps thinking that's got to be the king of Israel.
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And then and then here comes little David out of the field.
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And that's the one God chose.
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God's elected purposes, God's grace and mercy are lavished upon who he chooses.
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And it's not always it's not hardly ever the one we think it ought to be.
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So, again, just looking at the son of the promise, he's saying the promise started with Abraham.
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It went to Isaac and then it went to Jacob.
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But he doesn't just stop there.
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He makes sure we understand something about this promise.
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He says in verse 11 again, he says, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad.
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And then you'll notice in most of your Bibles, the next part of the sentence is in brackets.
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Is that the way it is in the NAS? Is there brackets here? Dashes.
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That's I mean, the dash, because this part of the sentence is being set apart because he goes on.
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He's explaining something here.
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And I didn't spend a lot of time with this when we went through the overview.
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But I want to stop here.
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And if we camp out here for the rest of the night, I'll be cool because this is so important.
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Because when he makes that he's giving what is called an aside, he made a statement about something and now he is giving an explanation in the text.
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Um, sometimes I'll be preaching and I'll say a word and I'll look out at the congregation and I'll see 40 or 50 people go home and I'll stop and I'll say the word means this and everybody go, OK, and then I'll keep going.
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Well, that's basically the verbal equivalent of what's happening here.
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We're getting an aside.
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We're getting a statement by the apostle where he is giving us an explanation of what he just said.
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So consider what he said, though they were not yet born and had nothing good or bad in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of his call that sentence by itself is vastly important.
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Number one, it tells us what was the impetus for God's choosing of Jacob.
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It wasn't because God foresaw anything good or bad in Jacob because he already said this happened before he was ever born, before we have an opportunity to do good or bad, before any of those things could be taken into account.
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God had already chosen him in order that God's purpose of election.
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And I don't know, I don't have an NASB in front of me.
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I know I know some of you do.
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What does the NASB say? Stand there in order that God's purpose of election might continue to stand and stand.
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OK, so we're going to go with stand.
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I like the word stand better.
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This is one of the places where I don't particularly care for the ESV rendering.
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I mean, it's not saying much different.
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But when you when he says that the the purpose of God, according to election, might continue, I don't I don't like what what it sounds like there.
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I like it better when it says so that the purpose of God's election might stand so that we would see a representation of the election of God in his word.
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We see it right here.
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This is a picture of God's elective grace on display.
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It is right here for us, not because of works, but because of his call.
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A few weeks ago, we did an entire hour on the subject of the call of God and how the call of God is what opens up someone's heart and the call of God is what draws someone to faith.
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And the call of God is something that the elect of God hear and respond to within our hearts, because God takes out the heart of stone and he replaces it with the heart of flesh.
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And that's the call that's being referenced here.
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He says it's not because of works, but because God has made a choice.
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And beloved, I have to say this is the most difficult thing in the world to get for so many of us, because when we start talking about God electing, God making a choice, God actually doing something before time began, it begins to make us ask the question, well, where do I play in this? It begins to make us ask the question, well, am I just some sort of territorial or rather terrestrial pawn in God's giant game of chess? If he's already making the decisions, if he's already working everything out and he's already got a plan, does that mean that I'm just some sort of robot who said the word robot? Oh, there you go.
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Yeah, and it does bring up those questions, which is why before we ever studied this, before we ever got to Romans nine, I spent eight weeks discussing those questions because I wanted to prepare all of us to dive into the study.
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So honestly, the reason why I'm bringing this up is if you haven't been here and you have those questions, these are not things that we have thought about.
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These are not things that we have not considered or desired to talk about.
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And I recommend, you know, if you have a question, ask it.
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That is why I like having service in here, even though as things get bigger, we may have to move.
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But I want you to feel confident that if you have a question, I may not know the answer, but we got some guys in the room that might know the answer if I don't.
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And but some of these things are real hard to get.
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My wife's been listening to another minister.
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I know, right.
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It was bad.
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Bobby Bacchum is a is a minister who he's tremendous speaker, wonderful teacher, and he's teaching or has taught the Romans nine.
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And she's been listening to some of what body had to say on this.
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And I've been kind of, you know, putting my ear to it, too, just because, you know, if they shoot out of one gun or shoot out another.
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So if he says it's good, I can say it will also be good.
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But the the thing that he talks about is how the gospel has become so man centered and has become so focused upon us.
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And if you think about it, he made this illustration.
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And again, if I use somebody else's material, I like to I like to at least say, hey, somebody else said this before I did.
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And one of the things he said that was very, very interesting, he said, if you listen to the modern representation of what is supposed to be, quote unquote, the gospel, it is all about you.
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It's all about how awesome you are and how much God loves you and how much God doesn't want to live eternally without you and how how much you need to come to God because you are so important that God couldn't stand to be an eternity without you.
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And it's all focused on us.
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It's all focused on the man.
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It's all focused on the individual, whereas Paul goes the other direction.
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He says, who are you, old man, to answer back to God? Now, we haven't got to that verse yet, but it's very important because it demonstrates that Paul's gospel is a God centered gospel.
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It is not a man centered gospel.
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And if we have a man centered view of the gospel, we will not understand Romans nine.
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We will not understand Romans eight.
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We will not understand Ephesians one.
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We will not understand Ephesians two.
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We will not understand John six.
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We will not understand a myriad of passages that deal with the subject of divine election because divine election is not about you.
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It is about God, it is about his purposes.
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It is about the way he manages his creation.
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And once we get there, then we will have an open heart to be able to understand these things.
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Now, I kind of went off on a side, but I wanted it because we're diving now into the hardest part of the text, because he says in the very next verse, he says in verse 12, well, let's read a verse that says, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad in order that God's purpose of election might stand not because of works, but because of his call.
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Notice, I use the word stand, I'm reading from the that's how my brain is conditioned, I said the word stand that says continue in ESV, I just read it.
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Verse 12, she was told the older will serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob I've loved.
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But he saw I hate it now, I want to deal with the first sentence first, because he says, first, the older will serve the young.
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I want to give a defense against one of the most common attempts that people make to read this passage to make it say what it's not obviously saying.
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One of the things that people often say about Romans nine is, well, the problem with the reformed people is when they read Romans nine, they see Jacob and Esau as individuals.
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And what Romans nine is really talking about is the nation of Jacob, which is Israel and the nation of Esau, which is Edom.
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And they'll say what's happening is we are seeing national election going on.
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And because we're seeing national election, it really doesn't have anything to do with individual election.
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First of all, that can be demonstrated as false at the beginning of the chapter and at the end of the chapter, because at the beginning of the chapter, Paul talks about the fact that not all who are of Israel or not all who are born of Abraham are of Abraham.
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So what he's saying there is it's not about nations, it's about individuals.
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So right there, the context proves it's not about nations, it's about individuals.
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And then later, he says those who are called not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles, proving again that it's about individuals and not about nations, because what he would say is it's not about those who are called out of nations, but nations wouldn't make sense.
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So either way, but I want to make this point, one of the ways that some people try to get around this passage, they say Esau never served Jacob.
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They'll say now, Edom at one point served Israel, the nation of Edom served the nation of Israel, but Esau never served Jacob.
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And because Esau never served Jacob, then this verse is not talking about them individually.
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Now, those of you who are strong reformed guys, I would ask you, how would you answer such a question? Well, the first way I would answer it, as I would say, by the very nature of the selling of the birthright, Esau became at that moment Jacob's.
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So even though there was no there was no physical service being done one to the other in order of the birthright, when the father died, the birthright child was given the position of authority and the other children were by nature his underlings.
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So when they sold the birthright, that power was changed.
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So that's the first thing.
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The second thing is what we have here.
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When you see the older will serve the younger, it is followed by this statement.
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As it is written, Jacob, I have loved Jacob, I loved, but Esau, I that one again will write that up here, that one again is used because where does that verse where do we find the verse Jacob? I love that Esau hated.
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Huh? Well, you find it.
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Thank you, Jim.
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Thank you.
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Esau, I hate it.
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All right, Jacob, I love Esau, I hate it.
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Where does this one come from? Malachi one, two, three, four.
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If you want to write that down, huh? OK, yeah.
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All right.
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It says, I have loved you, says the Lord.
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But you say, how have you loved us? It's not Esau, Jacob's brother, declares the Lord.
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Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau, I have hated.
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I have laid waste his his hill country and left his heritage heritage to jackals of the desert.
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If Edom says verse four, we are shattered, but we will rebuild the ruins.
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The Lord of Hosts says they may build, but I will tear down.
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Then they will be called the wicked country and the people with whom the Lord is angry forever.
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So again, people try to look at this verse and they try to find within this verse the nation of Jacob and the nation of Esau, because in Malachi chapter one, it is referencing the nations and that is not debated by anyone.
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We all understand that in Malachi chapter one, he's referencing the nation of Jacob and the nation of Edom or the nation of Israel and the nation of Edom.
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The question, though, is that when you go back to Romans chapter nine, what is the context that Paul has this verse in? Paul has this verse in the context of the individuals, Jacob and Esau, and we have to allow the New Testament interpreter to interpret it himself first.
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We have to allow him to establish his context first.
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For instance, there are many, many, many passages in the Old Testament that if you went back into the Old Testament and you read them in their context and then you went to the New Testament and found their usage, you would say, wait a minute, it seems like the New Testament person has taken this out of context.
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The reason is because when the Holy Spirit has inspired the New Testament for us, he has taken those verses and he has given us the proper context that we might understand what it means.
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For instance, there are a lot of passages about Jesus being a God's son, Jesus being a Nazarene, Jesus being born of a virgin, that if you look back at it, it'll say as it is written this.
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But if you took just that section and went back to where it was written, you'd say, man, that doesn't seem to be talking about Jesus.
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It seems to be kind of taken out of context.
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But the thing is, when the Holy Spirit is inspiring the New Testament writers to use this text, he's demonstrating this is the proper context.
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This is the way it is to be taken.
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So when the apostle Paul gives us this text, Jacob, I have loved and he said, I've hated and he gives it to us in the context of the individuals, because he begins by talking about what their birth, he says, before they were ever even born, before they ever had the opportunity to do good or bad, God had already made a choice in accordance with his elective power.
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And in doing so, he said the older will become the servant of the younger, as I as it is written, Jacob, I've loved Esau, I've hated.
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Yeah.
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Yes.
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And I don't have I don't have any problem saying that that God chose the nation of Israel.
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That's not debatable.
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The question is, did God choose Jacob over Esau? They'll say no, they'll say God chose the nation of Jacob, but not the individual Jacob.
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You see what I'm saying? That's the problem is that, huh? Yeah, absolutely.
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Yeah.
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God had already chosen Jacob.
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That's the key point, is that those who try to make this a national election saying it's only the nation, it's not the individual.
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See, what they're doing is they're trying to fit their their understanding into the text rather than allowing the text to simply speak for itself.
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Chapter three, verse nine says it's the condemnation passage where he says, read it for me real quick.
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Sure.
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And that definitely makes the point that all Jews and all Gentiles need to be saved.
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No one is no one is saved because they are a member of the Jewish people any more than someone to say because they're a member of the Gentile people.
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All our centers all need to be saved.
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The question that we're addressing is God's choice.
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Israel, many of the Israelites believe that God had chosen Israel as a nation.
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Does that mean every individual Israelite would be saved? And Paul's point is that, no, that's not the case.
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It's not every individual Israelite.
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In fact, it is the other way around, that God will choose whom he wills.
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It could be of the Gentiles or of the Jews.
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That's why Jesus said, I have sheep who are not of this fold.
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Have you ever wondered about what Jesus meant when he said, I have sheep who are not of this fold? Who's he talking to? He's talking to Jews.
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He says, but I have sheep that are not of this fold, I have sheep that are among the Gentiles and they will be called to salvation.
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My sheep hear my voice.
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What else did Jesus say to the Pharisees? You don't believe because you're not my sheep.
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He did say their father is the devil.
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But what did he say? I want you to hear that verse because it's very important.
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Think about Jesus's word when he says you don't believe because you're not my sheep.
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He didn't say you're not my sheep because you don't believe.
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He says you don't believe.
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He says, I have sheep that are not of this fold, I have sheep in the Gentiles, I have sheep among the Jews.
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The elect of God are in every tribe, tongue, nation and people, which is why we send missionaries out.
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Go find them and preach the gospel to them that they might believe and be saved.
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But getting back to here, when the Bible says the older shall serve the younger, as it's written, Jacob I love, Esau I've hated, the apostle Paul is using this in an individualistic sense.
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Can it be stretched out to the nations? Yes, but in this particular context, it is the individuals who are in view.
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God had an affection for Jacob and a choice that he made of Jacob that he did not make of Esau.
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And I know I'm circling for a landing now because we're getting close.
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I know people have a problem with this passage.
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There are people who see the words Esau I hated and they cannot come to a right understanding of that because their view of God is not big enough to allow them to come to a right understanding.
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Their view of God is that God, because of his omnibenevolent nature, he does not have the capacity for divine hatred.
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And that is why so many people have discarded the word hatred and they have replaced it with the word loved less because they cannot have the word hatred ascribed to God.
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So it says that he is angry with the wicked every day.
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Yes.
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Yeah.
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You have.
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Yes.
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On the whole, taking the hatred thing out, what I've heard people say about that where it talks about that your love of God should be so great that it's like hating your parents.
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Yeah, that it was as they say that, well, that doesn't literally mean that you should hate your parents and love God.
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Yeah, I've heard them use that for this.
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Like, well, it says it there.
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Same thing can be applied here.
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And actually, what's funny is you just use the same illustration that I talked about a few weeks ago.
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Like I said, we went over the over.
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No, it's fine.
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That's good because so many of you weren't here to hear this.
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That's very important because I had I had a friend, I always had a friend because I don't keep them long.
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Especially.
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Well, never mind.
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You all.
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I love you, Miss Ray.
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I'm recording.
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I need to get closer so you can say that loud.
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Love me some this.
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Anyway, I've told the story, those of you who were here, if you need to go, it's OK.
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But no, just this story is very important because this is so true to to to it really reminds us.
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It reminds us of how people look at the Bible.
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People develop traditions and then they go to the Bible to have those traditions affirmed rather than having the Bible give us our traditions.
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Traditions aren't wrong as long as they have the right foundation.
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Jesus went around accusing the Pharisees of what teaching the traditions of men.
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That's what's wrong.
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And one of the things that is so much a tradition in our world is that God's love is absolutely equal.
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Everyone receives the exact same amount of God's love, that God's benevolence is omnipresent and everybody has the equal amount of God's love.
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And I was having a conversation with a guy and he said that he says God loves everyone absolutely equally.
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I said, so God doesn't have an elective love.
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God is not able like I am able to love someone different than he loves someone else.
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Does that wouldn't that make God less of a person than you are? You have the capacity to love your husband or wife more than you love someone else.
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Does God not have the ability to love his elect more than he loves someone else? Are you more of a person than God? Because that really would rob him somewhat of his personality.
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But let's go further than that.
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Let's ask this.
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I'll tell you how the conversation went.
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He said God loves everyone equally.
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I said, so what you're saying is that everyone ever has always every individual has ever lived, has always received the same love of God, that it's all the same.
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He said, yes.
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So I gave him some time.
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I didn't want to I didn't want to I didn't want to jump right on it right then.
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I wanted to give that an opportunity to settle.
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So then I asked him later.
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I said in Romans chapter nine, it says, Jacob, I loved Esau, I hated.
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And he said, well, the word hate there means love less.
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But I want before we go there, he just destroyed his own argument because he argued that God loves everyone absolutely equal and there's no elective love in God.
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And I said, OK, I'll give you that.
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We'll see.
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We'll leave you.
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Then I asked him later, what is the word hatred mean? It means God love less.
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You see, there is an inconsistency to most people's theology that they themselves are blind to.
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You know, people got real upset with Rob Bell because Rob Bell wrote a book about how God loves everyone equally and God doesn't want to send anyone to hell and that God's ultimately going to save everyone.
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And everybody had a fit and said Rob Bell is a universalist.
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I don't believe Rob Bell is a universalist.
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I believe Rob Bell is a consistent Arminian.
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He takes the doctrines of Arminianism and he brings them to their logical conclusion.
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When we look at this text, I want to leave you with this thought.
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And those of you who are here, you heard this already, but listen to it again because it's important.
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If you read the words, Jacob, I love and Esau, I hated.
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And this is the part that offends you.
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Then you do not understand the holiness of God, because what really should excite you and really surprise you and really get your mind thinking is the fact that God loved Jacob because he didn't deserve it.
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He very much did, as do I and as do you.
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But he didn't deserve God's love.
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And the most powerful part of that verse is Jacob.
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Next week, we will look at how God's election is consistent with his person.
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That'll be actually is that the one we did tonight? No, we did.
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Tonight was consistent with his promise.
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Next week is consistent with this person.
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And that's where we'll begin.
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So let's pray.
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Father, we love you.
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We thank you.
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We praise you.
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We ask that you would apply the truths of what was taught tonight to our hearts.
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Keep us, Lord, from error as we study.
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And as we apply these things, I pray that as we move forward as a church, that we would seek truth in every area, even when it is not a truth that is that is being excitedly professed by the world.
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But we have not called to love the world nor the things in it, but we have been called, oh, God, to love you and to love your truth and to seek to proclaim your truth and to love your people so that all people would see us and see us loving one another and know that by our love for one another.
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That we are being consistent with your we pray now as we leave this place, that you would keep us safe, bring us back on Sunday to continue to worship you in Jesus name we pray.
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Amen.