202505011_IWillNotLeaveThee

[0:00] It's sown in dishonor, it's raised in glory. And we have the hope of the resurrection.! Our sister has gone home. But we know that being absent from us is present with the Lord, and we know that that body is going to be raised incorruptible, as are ours who have trusted in Christ.

[0:25] We're grateful for that, thankful for that. Thank God for His grace that makes that possible. So, Genesis.

[0:37] Back to Genesis chapter 27. Genesis 27. And by the way, now I didn't hear yesterday, but Joanne Smart's in the hospital too.

[0:58] Now, as far as I know. Is she still there? Does anyone know? Okay. I assume she is.

[1:09] So, we'll pray for her as well. And for God's blessing on His Word this morning.

[1:23] Harry, would you ask God to bless our time together this morning, please? In prayer. Thank you.

[1:58] Thank you.

[2:28] Amen. Amen. So, Jacob has, by mom's insistence, deceived his father Isaac, right?

[2:49] And Jacob took the blessing. And now, how does, well, chapter 27, start with verse 41.

[3:05] Start with verse 41 and read those six verses, if you will.

[3:16] Chapter 27, verses 41 through 46. After that, Esau hid his kingdom because of the brethren of my father himself.

[3:30] My father was in God. His dad was in. Then I was in. Did you see that? Did you see that? Did you see that? Thank you.

[4:10] Thank you. Now, how does Esau consider his brother Jacob at this point?

[4:35] Well, what did he say? He hated him. Now, did he hate him a little bit?

[4:51] Quite a bit. What's he say? Okay. He says, well, dad's old.

[5:04] He's about to go. And then I'll do, you know, I'll mourn for dad the appropriate amount of time, whatever that is.

[5:15] And then I'm going to get him. Now, what was the blessing? What was the blessing that Isaac gave to Jacob?

[5:28] You don't have to quote it necessarily, but remember, he's going to be blessed with prosperity, corn and abundance of wine, right?

[5:40] He's going to be blessed with that. And there was something about dominance in the family. You, you're, the rest of your family, go ahead.

[5:56] I'm sorry. You'll rule over your brother. Now, Esau's unhappy with this. Really unhappy with this.

[6:06] So, he says, man, I don't like this guy. So, I'm going to let this slide for a while.

[6:20] Probably because of Isaac and Rebecca. But he's going to let it slide a while. When his dad's gone, he plans to kill him.

[6:32] Now, what had God said to Rebecca about the twins? Terry.

[6:48] I don't know. I have a question about something else. Okay. You said that the blessing was the person that was blessed will rule over his blood.

[7:02] Right. The first to do his blood is not the person to whom he thought he was given the blood. Well, true.

[7:15] So, who was supposed to rule over his blood? Well, what did God say to Rebecca? The older will serve the younger.

[7:28] Who was the younger? Jacob. Who chose that? Did Isaac choose it? It apparent, apparently not.

[7:42] Did Rebecca choose that? She tried, yeah, she helped it along, but did she choose it? Because before they were born, the apostle says.

[7:57] In fact, Paul uses this to secure our salvation apart from law. But by grace and God's choice.

[8:07] And he uses it as an example. Before the twins were ever born, God said this. So, the person who's blessed is Jacob.

[8:23] The person who Isaac thought he was blessing was Esau. But God overruled man's decision.

[8:42] That's the way it appears. Now, I don't know that Isaac had a choice in the matter. It reminds me a little bit about Balaam.

[8:55] We're going to get in a time machine and go way forward now. Now, when the children of Israel have come out of Egypt, they're heading toward Canaan.

[9:08] And they encounter Balak. And I've forgotten the people group. I'm sorry. Somebody help me.

[9:19] But he, I think it's the Amalekites. But I'm not positive about that. I'd have to double check that.

[9:30] Obviously, this wasn't intended. But it reminds me a little bit about that. Because Balak, the king, hired Balaam, who was a prophet, to do what?

[9:45] Curse whom? He hired him to curse Israel. Balaam wanted the money. But he told him up front, I can't guarantee this.

[9:59] I can only say what God makes me say. So he went with every intention of cursing Israel. What did he do?

[10:12] He blessed Israel. Now, was that his intention? No. But God overruled it. That helps me when I read Romans 8.

[10:25] I find great comfort in that. Not because of all the mess up that goes in with it. But I'm thankful that when God tells us, look, you who are saved by grace through faith, everything.

[10:51] I will work everything for good. Now, I don't always feel that way. Well, I do, but you don't.

[11:05] No, I don't always feel that way. But I know it to be true. And I want to remember, personally, I want to remember very well that that is true.

[11:22] So that when the days get really dark. I don't have to wonder. Because there will be days when we don't feel good.

[11:33] Free will is a thing.

[11:45] Autonomy is not. But there is a free will of man.

[11:57] But man is not autonomous. Autonomous comes from the word self. What's nomos?

[12:10] No. Law. Self-law. So, man's not autonomous.

[12:21] He doesn't get to make up his own law. What do we see in society? That's not true because you don't know my lived experience.

[12:36] Now, those are code words, are they not? Those are code words for what? I get to make up my own law. I get to make up my own reality.

[12:48] Okay. Now, let's back up. Is there truth? How do you know? Jump off the roof.

[13:04] That seems over simplistic, but try it. Is there truth? How many times do you jump off the roof that you will not fall to the earth?

[13:18] Why? Yeah, you only need to jump one. Okay. But the point of it is, God is truth.

[13:34] My word is truth. So, there is an absolute truth. It's transcendent, and it's absolute.

[13:44] Absolute. Very modern thinkers will tell you that's not so. That's just a construct. But it doesn't really work that way, does it?

[14:01] Yeah. It doesn't really work that way. Life does not work that way. There is an absolute truth. So, back to the free will and the autonomy. I am not autonomous.

[14:14] I may think I am, but I'm not. Because ultimately, at the end, is there a judgment? Is there a judgment?

[14:27] Yes. Who's the judge? Me? God. God. So, man's not autonomous, but he is free to make his choices.

[14:41] So, when you're saying he's not autonomous, he can make his own decisions, but he doesn't get to choose his consequences? Exactly that. I can make my own decisions, but I don't get to choose how it works out.

[14:55] I don't know.

[15:10] It does seem weird. How? How? And I've been, incidentally, I've been working at that, but not as much as I've been working on some other things.

[15:22] It's been ancillary at this point. The calling of Israel, the whole calling of Israel at this point is, how did God decide to do this?

[15:38] Did he choose a people? He says so. Was it because they were good? No.

[15:49] He says that, too. It's because he decided to. It pleased him. Did Jesus commit sin for me?

[16:06] No. He who knew no sin became sin for me, but he didn't commit it.

[16:16] And it culminates in Romans where God, through the Apostle Paul, in the day of grace, says this is how it's all going to work out.

[16:30] I, it depends upon the grace of God. What? I'm not witness to people about the message of the Word.

[16:44] I want to say, The risen Lord Jesus Christ, He will be a prophet called, Jesus Jesus Christ. I can divide and turn the people off.

[16:56] It's like, you're messing with my Bible. But anyway, it was risen Lord Jesus Christ, and they all, He's just a prophet.

[17:06] Absolutely. It was the risen Lord Jesus Christ that gave the instructions in the beginning God created. The Trinity, the Bible is God's book.

[17:22] It's not mine. I am in there, thankfully, but it's God's book. And it culminates with God. I don't have an answer for why God chose this way.

[17:36] That I can't specifically prove by a proof text, other than, He says, for His glory.

[17:51] that I do know. That I do know. that He goes with Taken out of the interpretation.

[18:06] Okay. Okay.

[19:06] Okay. And in keeping with that, when did God first show us in the revelation of his word that that was going to happen?

[19:30] Yeah. And the captivity. It was Abraham. When he made that wonderful covenant, which by the way, he went through with Abraham, right?

[19:47] No. Who went through? God. With whom? Himself. And in fact, this is where in Romans, again, the apostle Paul reminds us, look, the promise that was given to Abraham is not set aside by a law that came 430 years later.

[20:16] And he uses that to make a promise to us, which is the just shall live by faith.

[20:27] Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Now, was Abraham righteous? We can remember that.

[20:40] No. No. He was, he might have been righteous compared to me. I know he was righteous compared to you, right? But, no.

[20:52] Was Abraham righteous as God is righteous? No. Why was he credited to be righteous?

[21:04] Because he believed God. Okay. Okay. That is upon which our faith is based and our promise of salvation is based.

[21:17] If we believe what God did, it's reckoned to us as righteousness. So, but now there is a righteousness apart from the law.

[21:33] And you mentioned that in a couple of weeks you're going to be getting into Philippians. That's going to work pretty heavy in Philippians.

[21:44] So, back to the point. I don't have an answer for that. The free will wasn't removed. Isaac did what he thought he wanted to do.

[21:57] But the results were changed. Well, did he have a choice to check on Esau?

[22:14] That is, he was, was he not suspicious that this was getting, this was happening? What did he say? The voice is the voice of Jacob.

[22:27] The smell is the smell of Esau. The hands are like Esau. Come near my son and give me a kiss. Ah, the smell of my son is like the earth.

[22:44] Like the fields that God has blessed. He was skeptical, wasn't he? Yet, the blessing came by God's direction.

[22:56] So, free will doesn't mean that I get to choose the consequence. Isaac intended to bless Esau.

[23:07] But the blessing is from, ultimately, from whom? God. And it's by whose choice? God's choice.

[23:18] Nathan. What? I think about Jonah. Jonah, God called him to go to.

[23:30] He didn't want to do it. God was buried from hell. Now ultimately, I think Jonah still has a freedom to walk away.

[23:48] Even after the finish, the storm, and all that kind of stuff. But for Jonah, he was like, there's sufficient motivation. Okay, I'm going to actually do what God said.

[24:01] But he could have, even after all that, no, I'm not going to do it. And there are other examples in the Bible where God killed people. He said, you're not going to do it.

[24:11] I'm going to kill you, and I'm going to find somebody else who will. And so, I think about John the Baptist's father.

[24:24] Zacharias. Zacharias. And, you know, he didn't educate them. And he made them just sound like a new John.

[24:37] And all kinds of different things that got him done. And influence people to do what he asked them. But ultimately, they have to write them.

[24:48] And have to teach them. Sometimes they have to write them. But like Rodney's saying, you have to teach them. And sometimes he has to write them other people.

[25:02] I think in this case, like Esau, Isaac, the father, after all of this is done, this is deception, could have said, no, wait, this is deception.

[25:18] I'm not going to go with this. I'm not going to go along with this. You guys just need me. I'm giving a blessing. He saw it. Like I intended.

[25:29] But I think he recognized God's hand in it, even though there's deception at all. He's amazing. That's kind of my thing.

[25:41] I don't know if there's some kind of tradition at play where he was like, you think of some tradition, like whoever you actually speak the blessing to, he's giving you how to walk through the prayer or whatever.

[25:52] I'm not sure if that was going on, but it seems to me that he recognized that God did his work and given the blessing to, could Isaac have made Esau ruler over Jacob?

[26:12] That's kind of the question here. See, because Isaac is conveying a blessing, but whose blessing is being conveyed?

[26:26] Who's really blessing? If God is blessing, can Isaac change it? That's kind of the issue.

[26:37] Here, Esau's planning to change it, isn't he? What's Esau planning to do? Kill his brother. He's going to, I'm not going to serve him.

[26:50] Can we say God's will will be done despite a man's plan? What does God say about that?

[27:02] Have I said it? Have I not said it? And will I not do it? Even his word goes out, and he says, it will not return to me void, but will accomplish all whereunto I send it.

[27:24] Now, I may not understand that. In fact, I freely admit, I don't understand. I don't understand a whole lot more about God than I do understand.

[27:37] I'm thankful for that part that I do understand, but God hasn't revealed everything, and he sure hasn't given me the capacity to discern everything.

[27:51] Yes? No. No, no, no. This has been, by the way, this whole issue is not new to this congregation.

[28:03] This has been going on since the Apostle Paul. Go ahead. It's a fraction.

[28:33] Yeah. Yep.

[29:04] By some. Yes.

[29:34] Okay. Right. Right. No, in Genesis, what we're reading about.

[29:56] And it is. But we're a long way from the law yet. The big role, it's not the only role, but the huge role is going to be the setting aside of the law.

[30:21] Because God's plan is unfolding. God isn't going to change his plan, but he's not going to reveal it all at once. He's revealed this much of it at this point.

[30:35] Actually, very little of it. And we aren't going to get a fuller revelation until God raises up Paul, an apostle.

[30:47] And right there, in fairness, Paul says, Paul called to be an apostle before I was born.

[31:03] To the Gentiles, yes. But I was called as an apostle before I was born, even though as an enemy. God set it up. And to Nathan's point, God sends Judah into captivity.

[31:21] But at that time, he talks about a man who's not going to be born for a few hundred years, or many years yet.

[31:34] And he's going to call him Cyrus, my anointed. Cyrus was a pagan. But he's going to reinstill Judah to Jerusalem.

[31:51] Yes. Yes. Yes. Well, okay.

[32:07] Ethnically, yes, he is. Because his forefather was Eber. From which we get the term Hebrew. But, so he comes from the line, and there's a long progression through here, by the way.

[32:25] But, that whole progression is going to be interrupted at the flood, which is a precursor of the final judgment. Is it not?

[32:37] Because all the world had corrupted its way before the Lord. I know we're way off from Esau, but we're going to get back. But, the whole world had corrupted its way, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

[32:54] Noah was from the line of Shem. From, who was Shem's father? Shem, Shem.

[33:12] Seth. He was from the line of Seth. She's right. I'm wrong. Just like at home. So, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

[33:30] He and his children were saved. Through the ark. Our ark is not made of wood. It's made of the blood and flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[33:49] And it's in him that we have our salvation. And an eternal promise, not just a temporal promise.

[33:59] So, back to the point, though. Yes? I have this in America. It reminded me of the only time that we do. And for the 15th of the time, it's a man's heart.

[34:12] And then, it's a man's heart. But it's over. The man's heart seems to play, but there's no direct system. God, Jesus, God, school, faithful.

[34:26] Rebecca. Rebecca. Rebecca. ...

[34:56] Thank you. Yes. And the eternal grand weaver, if you will, is God, who knits all things together after his will, said the Apostle Paul.

[35:25] Yes. Yes. Yes.

[35:44] Yes. God's plan will not, and I find great comfort in this, God's plan will not be thwarted by men.

[36:14] Now, imaginarily, and I know what-ifs don't work scripturally at all, but I'm going to force it this way anyhow.

[36:26] Although every human being would reject God, and though every angel would reject God and join with Satan, will that defeat God?

[36:42] No. There is one who inhabits eternity. There is one who is all-powerful. That is God.

[36:55] In fact, that's how these men that we've been studying, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they are, although the word in your scripture says Jehovah, or Lord, with all caps, that is the word used.

[37:12] First, you will find in Exodus, when God talks to Moses, he's going to say, though by this name they didn't know me, they knew me by the name God Almighty.

[37:26] But it's a reflection of God's nature, isn't it? And his power. So, back to that.

[37:36] And by the way, my mind's nowhere close enough to be able to discern what far more intelligent theologians have thought about for centuries.

[37:50] But I find great comfort in knowing that the God who says it is able to accomplish it. In fact, Paul will say this to Timothy at the end of Paul's life, when he's writing his last statements to his protege.

[38:09] He will say, I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day.

[38:30] I'm thankful that God is able to keep what I've committed unto him. He is able to keep us. So, no, I don't have an answer.

[38:42] The short answer is no, I don't know. I don't know why. I don't know why God did what he did, but he does.

[38:59] You were going to say one more. I was just going to say that I think it's important to engage the thing about the plan. You know what God is. He is determined. You will accomplish no matter what.

[39:11] And God allows you to do it. You know what I'm saying? You're good. You're good. You're good. You're good. You're good. You're good. You're good.

[39:22] You're good. that doesn't happen. We want that. That is his will for the whole person. And there's a controversy like this.

[39:34] Some people say they don't have faith. They don't have faith because that's God. And I think that's a reason why.

[39:46] And people reject God because of themselves. I think it's really interesting.

[39:57] And people listen to me about how long I desire to take you and leave my living. Because you are not there. You are not there.

[40:10] So a person who says God has a desire and has a will, and people reject God. But then there are a certain things. But God is going to be accomplished regardless of what anybody that I see about the Bible is doing, regardless of how many people reject Him or whatever they want to do.

[40:28] And I think this example of what we're reading about here is that I just want to make Jacob be there. Many people have got to make him.

[40:40] We actually do it on that one day. God can choose whatever He wants. It doesn't matter what anybody else says, what anybody else thinks, God's going to make this happen. But making that distinction between those things that God has to do.

[40:54] It's permanent. It matters. Judgment day. Nothing is going to stop judgment day from happening. God's got to judge the world. How many people rise up against Him or whatever it is.

[41:06] And just to remind myself, it's easy for me to equivocate.

[41:22] I use the word will of God in several different ways. And sometimes I wind up switching them. The will of God for a desire is kind of an anthropomorphic expression.

[41:37] It expresses God's heart, His desire. But it doesn't necessarily equate with His ultimate transcendent will, which will be accomplished.

[41:57] But it's clear. It's clear in the letters to the churches that not only is our salvation fully accomplished, it's fully.

[42:11] We have how many blessings in the heavenlies do we have now? All. Do I think that? Well, intellectually, yes.

[42:25] Emotionally, hmm. Not so great. Does that make it not true? No.

[42:37] No. Is it true regardless of how I feel? I need to remember that. Now, back to the will of God. It is clear that my salvation is fully accomplished and secured.

[42:50] Is it not? So, does He also say, you can really mess it up? Can I be a miserable Christian?

[43:05] You don't know any, do you? You know they're saved, but do they live in the freedom of grace? No.

[43:17] No. Or, they're saved, but do they live out that salvation in fear and trembling?

[43:28] You know, when God says, work out your own salvation in fear and trembling, the apostle is not saying, you earn it. That's a clear misrepresentation of the context of what He says.

[43:42] He's just saying, live it out. Now, is my salvation accomplished? Yes. Do I always live it out?

[43:54] Not so well. There are days you get up, well, not you, but me. I get up and look in the mirror and I say, man.

[44:11] I'm thankful for grace because we don't always live it out well. So, back to that free will, God gives us a lot of room to mess up.

[44:27] What's one of the bigger, what, next to trusting Christ for salvation, what's the biggest decision you're going to make? Most of us here have already made it.

[44:38] What's the biggest decision you're going to make? Who you're going to marry? Can you mess that up?

[44:51] Can you mess it up and be a Christian? You would think that a decision of that magnitude, God would actually spell out every detail.

[45:05] Or at least in my mind, He would. What's He say? Only in the Lord. Well, Lord, I'd like a picture and an address.

[45:24] He does give us instructions. And, in keeping with that, it's interesting to me, He gives me far more instruction about how to be the right husband than He does how to choose the right wife.

[45:38] Oh, by the way, Happy Mother's Day. I'm sorry, I forgot that, didn't I? See, it came around some, that's how everything happens, isn't it, dear?

[45:52] Okay, we're going to stop here, but, and we'll pick this up again and reiterate, God willing, on the 25th, right?

[46:07] Next week, next week, we plan for, for Brooks, Seacons, Seacons to be here. Is that not, we're, we're still on for that, aren't we?

[46:21] Okay. Moabites. Okay. Balaam, Balaam worked for the Moabites. Yes.

[46:31] Yes. Pamela, Pamela was talking, and it's the justification of how faith God is God, and we are not God. That's right. God's God, and I'm thankful for that, by the way.

[46:44] The temptation in the garden. Ah, you won't really die. God knows that, on the day you eat of that, you're going to be, like God.

[46:58] Okay. Okay.