20250406_IWillNotLeaveThee

[0:00] Genesis chapter 25. Now, we're coming to the time when Isaac asks his son to go hunting.

[0:17] ! I said 25. It's 27. It's 27. It's 27 definitely. I was backing way up, wasn't I?

[0:30] Okay. Now, he asks Esau to go hunting. Why? Well, he wants the meat. But so that my what?

[0:45] So that I can bless you before I die. All right. So, Esau goes. Now, Rebecca overhears that Isaac's planning to bless. What does she? She comes up with a different plan, doesn't she? We're in verses 5 through 13, at least, of chapter 27. 5 through 13. We'll refresh ourselves there. And as we are, we don't know. It's not revealed to us if Isaac has been appraised of what God told Rebecca. What did God tell her? It was during her pregnancy. What did God say to her? Two nations. Is that all he said? No. They were going to be opposed? Oh, this is like dragging us. We want the rain. Come on. So what happens? The younger is going to rule over the older. So when they're born, the midwife tied a string to who? To whom? Sorry. No.

[2:27] Esau. Esau. Esau. Because Esau came forth first and then drew back. And Jacob is born grasping the heel, pulling his leg. Anyway. So then they grow. And Esau goes a-hunting.

[2:57] And here we come to part of Esau's character, right? Because he comes in from hunting and Jacob is doing what? He's cooking. All right. Jacob's got a meal ready. He didn't prepare it specifically for Esau as far as we know. But he already has a meal ready. And what's Esau say? I'm hungry unto death. I'm going to die if you don't feed me now. Okay. And what does Jacob say?

[3:37] I'll sell it to you. You have something I want. I have something you want. Now, what did Esau have that Jacob wanted? I hesitate to use that word wanted. Wanted really literally means needs but doesn't have. But he desired it. What did Esau have? A birthright. So what? What's a birthright?

[4:14] Right. We don't use that term anymore. Right? Now, if it's just birth order.

[4:25] Now, this had to do with sons. But let's say it's just birth order. We have one person in here who's all for the birthright business. At least one person that I know for sure. So what did the birthright entail? Well, leading the family. But what else? Property. What about the property? He inherited two shares. Right? So if there were two sons, they split it into fifths. Okay? So the oldest gets two, a double share. So that was pretty important. That's a big leg up in business, isn't it? This is an agrarian society. So what does Jacob have that Esau wants? Food. A meal. Okay. A single meal. Did Esau see that this was a good deal?

[6:06] At, there's a good point. At the time. What does it say in Hebrews? It says, let none of you be a godless person like Esau or a profane man like Esau who for a single meal sold his birthright. And afterward, though he cried about it later, he couldn't get it back.

[6:48] That's a principle in life that sometimes we make decisions at the spur of the moment on what feels good to me right now without any thought about the future. And then, though I want to repent of it and say, pull it back, pull it back, you can't pull it back. It's a, that is the principle that God has instilled, that is, a man shall reap what he, what he sows. If I want to mess up my life very quickly, forget the law of the harvest. Forget that I reap what I sow.

[7:42] Conversely, if I want to reap what I sow. Conversely, if I want to reap corn, I'd better quit sowing thistle. Right? So, that's the, that kind of lets us in on Esau. We also know that they go on now, and we'll, we'll, we'll take up right away here. So, Isaac is coming, he's old, he's blind. At least, essentially, he's blind. He can't, he can't see well enough to even get close and see him. So, he said, look, I'm old. I don't know when I'm going to die.

[8:32] Go out, fetch me some venison, such as I love, make that meal, bring it to me so that my soul may bless you before I die. Okay. Now, we don't know, at least in the revelation, we don't know if Rebecca has shared with Isaac what God told her. We do know that Rebecca loved Jacob and Isaac loved Esau. That part we know, that's been revealed. If she has shared it with him, then Isaac is trying to do an end around on God as far as the blessing he intends to give. As far as I know. I'm surmising some of that.

[9:30] Who'd I just think of? I just thought of Balaam. We'll get to that. You'll, you'll remind me of that. So, if she has not shared it with him, he's acted in ignorance and he intends to bless Esau.

[9:50] Either way, is this God's plan? Is Esau getting the blessing God's plan? No, the blessing given originally to Abraham, then to Isaac, and now it's going to be given to Jacob.

[10:16] So, God's plan is that Jacob is going to carry this. Or just to bestow the blessing. Why was, why was there a need, if God made the covenant, why was there a need for the Father to bestow a blessing upon the Son?

[11:02] Now, in my human, well, does anyone want to wade in before I share my ignorance? God is establishing, I believe, God is establishing through the humans his plan.

[11:26] I don't understand the plan of salvation. You may have heard, I have heard, well, why didn't God just save everybody in the beginning?

[11:45] Why didn't he just do that? Or, why didn't he do this, or why didn't he do that? And the answer is, I don't know. Well, all I know is that God says, and I'm, part of this is, part of this is revelation, and part of this is my interpretation of the revelation.

[12:08] But as we get into the Pauline epistles, Paul says, look, salvation was in the mind of God from the beginning. That's why in Revelation, the Lamb is, the Lamb who is slain from the foundation of the earth.

[12:25] God knew. Now, how God knew, and the free agency of man, which we do know, he holds us responsible. I don't necessarily know how all that works.

[12:38] But, this much I do know. He says there that in salvation, he is going to lead, as it were, the church.

[12:48] In that specific, I think it's in Colossians. He's going to lead the church before, as a display of his grace before angelic beings, principalities and powers.

[13:00] So, God is using human agents to accomplish his will as part of his display.

[13:19] Now, why they needed to? So, blessings were apparently bestowed anyway, yet I take it that this is a prophetic blessing that God said, and we'll get to that.

[13:37] In fact, we're going to read the two blessings as we come up here. But I think, for instance, of Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar, we're in the time machine now.

[13:53] We're going way forward in the future from where we rest. But God's going to use Nebuchadnezzar not only to punish Judah, but also to establish his plan for restoration and use Nebuchadnezzar, as we will read late in the New Testament, especially in Revelation, as an example of God's working and what happens with human thinking.

[14:37] And if you go back to Daniel, where Nebuchadnezzar has the dream about the great tree and everything, you can do that. I'm not going to go clear on the aside, but Daniel explains that by God giving him the revelation.

[14:56] So, God uses human agents. There probably, in my thinking, there wasn't a need for a blessing.

[15:06] God had already given the blessing. But as far as the way he exercised it, this is the way he exercised it.

[15:19] And, well, that's an insufficient answer. Go ahead, Nathan.

[15:30] Right.

[15:42] Right. That the promise would be exercised.

[15:56] Right. Jacob blesses his two sons. And there is a, and there is, you know, one is ahead of the other, the foot ahead of the other, but they're both, they're both part of the promise.

[16:12] They're both part of the promise. They both received a blessing, but one received the right-hand blessing and one the left, which, by the way, Joseph didn't like. Right. I don't know.

[16:28] So, back, the reason I came up with Balaam. Balaam was hired to curse Israel. Remember when they were coming into the promised land. We've, we've come back a little in our time machine, but we took a stop.

[16:45] Balaam was hired to curse them. Did Balaam curse them? No. No. Did he try to?

[16:56] Yeah. God didn't let him. In fact, he tells the king, look, I told you that I wouldn't be able to say anything but what God let me say.

[17:10] Right. So, now, by the way, Balaam wasn't a nice guy because Balaam also then counseled them as to how to undermine Israel, which was, by the way, successful to an extent.

[17:33] Okay, back, back to Genesis chapter 27. Okay, so, Rebecca has a different plan than Isaac's.

[17:52] What did she tell Jacob to do? Go get a couple of kids. Of the goat variety, yeah.

[18:07] Incidentally, does anyone come up, has anyone answered my question from last week about where did we get that? I hope it's not a reflection of the heart of man, but anyway.

[18:24] Okay, go get a couple of kids. Do what with them? Bring them to me. I'll kill them.

[18:34] I'll fix a meal. It's going to taste like the venison your father loves. Okay. And then what?

[18:52] Jacob has a... Yeah, Jacob has a... What about this question? What was his question?

[19:08] Yeah. I have smooth skin. Esau's hairy. Dad's going to know. What's he going to do?

[19:21] Well, what's Jacob think he's going to get? I'll get for myself a curse rather than a blessing. See, if I'm going to do a deception, I'd better think of what could happen, right?

[19:42] That's not the biblical instruction here. Okay? So what does she say? Okay. I'm going to...

[19:54] Okay. I'm going to put the skins on your arms and on your neck, and... If he touches you, he's going to feel all this... Esau must have been really hairy.

[20:06] Every week he shaved and knit an army blanket. Yes.

[20:22] She said, well, let it fall on me rather than you. I'll take the blame. Well, incidentally, not everybody who says that means that.

[20:39] But, so what does Jacob do? Yep. So, she gave the meat and the bread to Jacob.

[20:53] He takes it to his dad. What... Take us through this. What happens? Well, we're...

[21:04] I know, I realize now, we're down into verses 14 through 29, just in case we need to keep moving. Okay.

[21:21] And... He said, I'm Esau. Now he lies. I'm Esau, your favorite.

[21:37] And Isaac may be old, but he's not crazy. What's Isaac ask? Okay.

[21:53] The voice is not Esau's voice. That's one thing. What else? How'd you get that so fast?

[22:03] How'd you get that so fast? At the moment, he's still out hunting.

[22:21] And... I mean, Isaac's not completely crazy. He understands it's not that easy to do. I don't do much anymore, but I...

[22:40] When I did hunt, it never came that fast. Okay.

[22:52] How so? How so? Yeah.

[23:08] Now... This brings me to a bit of a dilemma, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Not only have I lied, but now I've drawn...

[23:21] I've drawn... I've drawn God into it. Let's go back to Adam and Eve. I'll get right there.

[23:33] Let's go back to Adam and Eve. God walking in the garden. He said, hey, Adam, where are you? Now, he knows. And Adam says...

[23:47] I... I hid from you because... I'm naked. And God asked him another rhetorical question.

[23:59] What is it? Who told you? See, up to that time... It didn't... Well, it didn't matter.

[24:12] Because they were innocent. They had not the knowledge of good and evil. At the time that they got it, they knew.

[24:25] So God says, hey, who told you? Did you eat of the tree? Now, Adam... What's Adam say?

[24:39] The woman you gave me did it. Now, Eve on her part said, the serpent deceived me.

[24:53] And I ate. So, passing the blame... See, Adam said... He didn't just say, the woman gave it to me.

[25:05] The woman you gave me did it. See, God, if you had made Sherry differently, I wouldn't have done that.

[25:17] Now... That's not true, is it? That's not true. So, Jacob brings God into it.

[25:30] He said, the Lord gave me this success early on. So, is Isaac all in on it? What's Isaac say?

[25:48] Come here. Come here. Come here. See, he's not... He... Okay.

[26:03] The voice is Jacob's, but the hands are Esau's. Yes. The patriarchs are going to often say this.

[26:24] And I don't have an answer for it. Because, remember Abraham's servant when he went to get Rebekah? The God of Abraham gave this to me.

[26:43] Gave her. Or brought her. So, I don't really understand that. I don't think... I do not buy...

[26:54] Because several of them will say that. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I don't buy that that means that they didn't say he was their God.

[27:05] I'm not convinced of that. Oh. Yeah.

[27:19] I have heard, by the way, people try to build a whole concept on, well, this meant that he wasn't really in on God.

[27:31] He was saying, it's your God, maybe not my God. We...

[27:45] We... All we know is that they came from idol worshipers. At this point, there's no mention of any other gods with Abraham and Isaac.

[28:02] Now, that's going to change in our time machine a little bit. But, we're not quite there yet. There will be a time when the teraphim show up.

[28:17] But we're not... At least in the revelation, we don't know that for sure. We do know that God says, look, your fathers worshipped idols beyond the flood.

[28:29] That part we do know. Abraham did come from idol worship. He had been an idol worshiper and God called him out. Not unlike me.

[28:45] Problem is, Abraham actually went and sometimes I kind of... Well, not me, but, you know, somebody I know. See, it is something of a picture of our salvation where God...

[29:03] God doesn't just save us by grace. He does call us out to a different style. You know, the apostle Paul spends nearly almost every letter.

[29:20] Not Philemon, but almost every letter. The apostle Paul says, look, this is what you are in Christ. Therefore, this is what you do in Christ.

[29:33] So, and they're almost equally weighted in my mind. was there something else? Yes. I would assume so.

[30:04] Right. Right. Well, that's going to come up here in a sentence or two. Yes.

[30:28] Yes. Okay. anyone else?

[30:41] Let's keep going then. So, he still seems, that is Isaac, still seems a bit incredulous, doesn't he?

[30:55] He says, so, what does he ask Jacob, thinking he's Esau, what does he ask his son to do?

[31:08] Come near, let me kiss you. Why? My eyes may not be good, but my ears tell me one thing.

[31:25] I'm going to let my nose tell me another thing. And so, he smells the scent of the outdoor, of the fields. That's what he says. Okay.

[31:37] Now, the blessing.

[31:48] the blessing. Verse 28, so what does he say this is Isaac giving his blessing to Jacob thinking he's Esau this is by the way this is why I think it's a prophetic this is God's working through him because he actually thinks it's somebody else he thinks it's Esau so what's he say God do what right okay so he's asking for material prosperity

[32:48] God give you material prosperity okay now we get to power what else may nations serve you and what else be Lord over your brethren and your mother's sons bow down and now he whether purposefully or not by God's ordination I believe he reiterates some of that Abrahamic blessing and what is it okay there you are that was part of God's blessing or promise to Abraham and Abraham's descendants and God has ordered this now if well I'm

[34:03] I don't want to jump too far ahead look at verses 30 through 40 and we're going to bring Esau back okay Okay.

[34:39] Okay. So we have the possibility that Isaac knows what God had said.

[34:54] There is a possibility that he doesn't know. And he's trying, nevertheless, I'm going to ask that question, hang on to that question.

[35:08] So, what happens? As soon as he's through blessing Isaac nearly, or Jacob, I'm sorry. Isaac is through blessing Jacob.

[35:24] So Esau comes in. Okay. So he prepares the meat.

[35:35] He brings it to his father. And he says, get up, Dad. And eat. This is what you asked me to do.

[35:46] I brought it. Help me out. So Isaac says something.

[35:57] Who are you? And the response? Yeah. Yeah. I'm your firstborn Esau.

[36:12] And Isaac trembled exceedingly, violently. So this tells me that Isaac probably did not know that Jacob was deceiving him.

[36:33] He may have been somewhat incredulous. He may have thought something's going on here. But it must be Esau. And nevertheless, he said, where's he that's what?

[36:58] I blessed him. That's not all he said. And indeed, he shall be blessed.

[37:08] Okay. Now, what's Esau's reaction? Yeah. He's, well, that's okay.

[37:22] No. What's he say? Yeah. He cried with a bitter cry.

[37:34] And he says what? Give me a blessing too. What?

[37:48] Now, what's Isaac say? Your brother came with subtlety or tricked me.

[38:01] And has what? He has taken your blessing. Now, we kind of approached this last week. I can give a blessing ever so earnestly.

[38:18] But that doesn't mean it will come to pass. Well, I never curse. But someone of you might deliver a curse ever so earnestly.

[38:30] And it may never come to pass. In fact, that fell into Proverbs last week with a curse given without reason will not alight.

[38:45] It's like a bird flitting off. Nevertheless, here, it is going to stick. Because this is God's doing.

[38:58] That's pretty important. This isn't my decision. It's God's decision. So. The blessing.

[39:11] It doesn't hold.

[39:25] It doesn't hold. Right. So why would he. Was that part of some kind of a tradition? Or did he recognize it as the work of God?

[39:36] Is that why? I don't know. How could Israel be based upon the fraudulent acquisition of the work right? I mean, that's just ridiculous. How can that be God's will unless he was trying to say, Hey, listen.

[39:50] Even Israel has fallen. And the only thing that can save anybody is the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, he hasn't come yet. He hasn't come yet.

[40:03] But he is prefigured. And there lies the good point. And that is, Israel, God says to them even at Mount Sinai when he delivers the law.

[40:22] Now, he doesn't tell them at Sinai that, by the way, you're never going to keep this. He's not going to say what Peter will say later, that this is a yoke that neither we nor our fathers could bear.

[40:38] He isn't going to say with the Apostle Paul that the law wasn't given that could save. For if salvation could come by the law, we didn't need Christ.

[40:54] So, there is the good point. Yes. In fact, there were a lot of things Israel did that shouldn't have been done.

[41:07] But it was God's ordination that this is going to happen. And I think that's probably the reason. And as far as salvation, even there, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

[41:28] It wasn't that Noah... Now, Noah was the most righteous, apparently, in his generation. An upright man. Nevertheless, a remnant was saved in the ark.

[41:48] Not every single person... And here's where universalism falters. In that, while Christ died for the sins of the whole world, The whole world is not going to believe.

[42:07] And if they don't believe, It's not imputed. And our righteousness is imputed righteousness because of Jesus Christ.

[42:22] So that when I stand before God, it's not going to be on my total integrity all my life. It's going to be because Christ is righteous.

[42:39] And there is a great mystery, if you will, of grace. So that when Jesus Christ looks at you, He...

[42:50] When God, in judgment, looks at you, He sees Jesus. Is that not something?

[43:00] One other thing I think is going on here, Is a typology...

[43:12] There are actually several stories here, In the midst of the siblings swaps, Where the younger received the blessing, right? It's not so famous, it's also Jesus.

[43:23] You even see this with Jacob's marriage, right? Now you're jumping pretty quick here, buddy. Yeah.

[43:34] Yeah. The second Adam.

[43:57] Yeah. And even for the offer of the kingdom. Remember Jesus? When He talked about the offer of the kingdom.

[44:08] And to illustrate, Hey, Those who have tried to keep the law, Now, this isn't what He said.

[44:19] This is what He's teaching. Those who have tried to keep the law all this time, Will not get more preferential treatment, Than those who very recently repented and kept the law.

[44:33] And it had to do with the guy going into the marketplace, And he says, I can pay him whatever I want to. Now, As far as human fairness, It wasn't fair.

[44:48] I worked all week. I worked all, Or, In this case a day. I worked all day, For this amount of money. They came in, They only worked an hour.

[45:01] And you're paying them the same thing. What's up? And the owner says, I made a mistake. No.

[45:13] What's Jesus teaching? I can pay who I will. I can give one. And Paul will reiterate that in Romans, Where he says, Look, It doesn't depend on you. It depends on what God did.

[45:26] Well, I've taken enough time. God bless you. In a couple of weeks, God willing, We'll be back. If it, If it keeps raining like this, Some of you won't be here.