Take your Bibles this evening and turn to Genesis chapter number 28. Genesis chapter number 28 this evening. Lydia and my wife are getting pretty excited before the service. They're excited for the message. Then I realized they were excited that I only had a half a page of notes. They said, is that all you got tonight? I said, wow, it's going to be short. I said, no, that's no guarantee of anything. Right, Rick? Amen. I could have a word on a page and we could be here now. Oh, my goodness. But anyway, I said, no, we'll deal with Genesis 28, the first nine verses. I said, because I can't really get into 10. That's a whole nother. a hold of the message, a hold of the thought as Jacob encounters God on his way to Paddaneram. But the first part of this chapter sort of lays the groundwork for that. What's wrong about his journey to find his bride and what all God was doing in his life. But a title to thought for tonight, Too Little Too Late. You'll see that as we get through the course of the message tonight. But let's all stand together. Genesis 28, Genesis chapter number 28. We'll begin in verse number 1 and we'll read down through verse number 9. The Bible says that Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and charged him. And said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan? Arise, go to Badan-aram, to the house of Bethuel, thy mother's father, and take me a wife from Theth to the daughters of Laban, thy mother's brother. God Almighty bless thee and make thee fruitful and and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people. And give thee the blessing of Abraham to thee, that I see with thee, that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham. And Isaac sent away Jacob, and he went to Badan-aram unto Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob's and Esau's mother. when Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddaneram to take him a wife from thence, that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan, and that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother and was gone to Paddaneram. And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father, Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had, Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebuchadnezzar, to be his wife." Let's pray. Father, again, we love You tonight. We thank You for this sweet time together. God, speak to our hearts. Teach us Thy Word. And Father, as we always desire, God, would You strengthen our faith and God, speak to us in a very real and very special way from Thy Word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen and amen. You may be seated tonight. It has been some time since we've been back in Genesis. I was looking, I think this is a month since we've actually been back here on Sunday night. And so a lot's been going on in the lives of Isaac and Rebecca. Of course, life is ending and coming to a close soon. For them, I think we ended basically with the deception of Jacob and how he, at the urging of his mom, deceived his dad to receive that blessing. And then Esau comes in afterwards and he's crying, he's pleading, is there not a blessing for me? Isaac does bless Esau, but again, he's already given the double portion that belonged to the firstborn by birthright to Jacob. At this point, Jacob's in trouble. Esau hates him even more. He has sold Jacob his birthright, and now he's stolen the blessing. which were the two primary, I guess, desires and goals for that firstborn. He knew those were always waiting for him. The blessing of the birthright, the leadership of the home, the double portion that the father would leave to that firstborn was sort of the thing they always looked forward to. They were to be the leader. They were to be the head. And the blessing of the posterity of the name and carrying all those things on. And now, Esau's lost them all. Esau's lost them all. And even though he does bless Esau with a blessing, he says that you'll always be the servant to your brother. Of course, at some point down the road, you'll be able to cast off that yoke, but that's a hard thing for a man to bear in that day and time. By the way, it would be a hard thing for a man to bear in this day and time. But in that culture and in that day, Esau, at the end of that story, he's made a determination. As soon as dad's dead, Jacob's dead. I mean, he's taken everything I have, and the day's coming I'm gonna be able to vent my rage and my anger on him. Of course, mom gets wind of what's going on, and she calls Isaac and said, we gotta send you away. All of those things have brought us to a preparation for what we run into here in chapter number 28. So let's get right into it. There are two basic portions of these first nine verses. The first thing we'll notice is the blessing of Isaac. The blessing of Isaac. And it covers the first five verses. The Bible says, And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife, of the daughters of Canaan. Now, obviously, some time has passed. Jacob has moved past that point, excuse me, Isaac of being deceived by his son, and everything we're about to see here seems to indicate, at least by the tone of the conversation and what Isaac says to his son, that he understands that for whatever reason, somehow God is at work. God has worked in the situation. The deception, unthankful for that, and it's very frustrating. But at the same time, he sees the hand of God at work because of his response to his son. He's not harsh with him. He's not bitter toward him. He's not angry toward him. He's not accusatory toward Jacob. But he blesses him. He blesses him. He blesses him. But then he gives him a charge. He calls Jacob, he blesses him, and then he gives him a charge in the latter half of verse number 1. He says, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. If you're going to be the blessed child, if you're going to carry the blessing of the double portion and the birthright, he said, whatever you do, don't take a wife of the Canaanites. Who you marry is going to be critical. You're carrying on the family name. You're carrying on the blessing of God. You are being bestowed with the leadership, really, of the family and our posterity. And he said, I'm charging you, do not, do not marry a daughter of the Canaanites. Understand that Esau is already married to the Hittites in that line of the Canaanites. He's already married to, and of course we know from Scripture, they were a thorn in the flesh to mom and dad. I mean, it just was not a good situation. And so he charges Jacob, Isaac does, do not, the charge, do not marry one of the Canaanites, and he gives him some specific directions in verse 2 all the way through verse 5. He says to her, to go to Pedanaram, verse 2, arise, go to Pedanaram to the house of Bethuel, thy mother's father, and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban, thy mother's brother. Now again, We read texts like this, and again, in the context of 2023, and people are like, oh, what do you mean? He's gonna marry his first cousin? Yeah, he's gonna marry his first cousin. It sort of goes back to the question of who was Abel's wife or Cain's wife? It was one of his sisters. I mean, when you only got two parents and they're having children, well, guess who the children marry? And you say, oh, that's great. Well, again, when that's the way it's been set up, that's the way it develops. All right, it was until later in the word of God. God forbids close marriages. And he puts down some parameters that you can't marry those that are close kin to you. Of course, on the lighter side, I did make a note in here, don't say anything about West Virginia. My wife was born and raised in Beckley. Our dad's from there. But any time you start talking about marrying close kin, from where we're from, it's just the joke. They don't think it's funny, but everyone else seems to laugh. But anyway. Marrying cousins and those things, in this case, his first cousin was security, if you will, in their day, spiritually speaking. because within the family there was that understanding, that belief in God and that knowledge of the blessing and the goodness of God and to step outside of that in these early days of human history would be to step into the realm of idolatry and to unbelievers. And so it really falls into the realm what Isaac is telling Jacob here would fall into the scriptural admonition to be not unequally yoked together. That is the biblical principle that we see Isaac exhorting Jacob, because the Canaanites are idolaters. The Canaanites don't know God, and they don't want to know God. They're following other gods, and so Isaac is concerned about the spiritual welfare of his son, and so he gives him some specific instructions about who to marry. He sends him, again, to Paddanerim. He's going to his grandpa's house, your mother's father. He's going to Grandpa's house and he's going to marry his cousin. He's going to marry his cousin because they're of that godly line and again, come from a people of faith. But notice the results of that. Look down in verse 3. and God Almighty bless thee and make thee fruitful and multiply thee that thou mayest be a multitude of people. Isaac is wanting to set Jacob up for blessing. But to be set up for blessing, it's going to be important the life he lives. The life he lives is going to be important who he marries. And so he says, OK, first of all, you got to marry the right woman and then understand that God wants to bless you. He is going to bless thee. He's going to make you fruitful. He's going to multiply you. And again, in verse three, he's going to make you into a multitude of people. Verse four, he really is. He's now zeroing in on a bigger picture. I say zeroing in, it looks smaller, but he's zeroing in on a bigger picture here of really why I think you see a change in Isaac's demeanor. He's not angry, he's not frustrated, he's not bitter toward what happened. He understands God is working here and this is how God is working all this together and God is going to work all that out because he says this. Verse four, and give thee not only the blessing of posterity and multitude of seed, and give thee the blessing of who? of Abraham. He knows that it is through Jacob that the Abrahamic covenant is going to carry on. Jacob is going to be the one that's going to carry on that promise that God made to Abraham. He says, And give thee the blessing of Abraham to thee, and to thy seed with thee, that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham. This is huge. This is a major turning point, I think, for Isaac. Because of his acknowledgement and recognition of really spiritually who Jacob was earlier on. He wanted Esau to carry on the line. Esau's his firstborn, his oldest son. He's like his hero. He's a great hunter and a good cook. He just loves so much about Esau, the rugged man's man. But at the end of the day, he had to come into realization that Jacob was God's man. There was a plan God had for the life of Jacob that I think Isaac is coming into view with. And so he not only blesses him, he's sending him away, he blesses him, but he tells him specifically that through you God is going to carry on and fulfill the promises that he made to Abraham. Verse 5, he finalizes his instruction basically by now sending him away. Everything has been said that needs to be said. And the Bible says, And Isaac sent away Jacob, and he went to Badanaram of the Laban, son of Bethuel of Assyrium, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob and Esau's mother. I'm going to back up and mention just again the significance of that, but I want you to catch on to the first part of verse 6 because that's a big transition phrase. When Esau did what? Sought. Now we don't know how close Esau was to the proceedings that are going on in verses 1 through 5. We know Isaac called for Jacob to come. Was Esau close by? Was he in the tent? Was he in the town? Was he outside where he was? We don't know. But what we do know from verse 6 is that Esau saw the proceedings. Esau saw what was going on. He saw what was happening. And what Esau is seeing is that God, his father Isaac, is blessing Jacob. You know, maybe, maybe, and one writer was saying, Dr. Morris, in his book called Genesis, made this comment. He said, maybe up to this point, maybe, maybe, just maybe. He saw in the back of his mind, may harbor the thought, okay, but I'm still Dad's favorite. I'm still Dad's favorite. Maybe somehow, maybe somehow this is gonna work out and we'll be able to rearrange this thing, and maybe, just maybe, because Dad's on my side, Mom's on Jacob's side, maybe I'll still come out on top. But when Esau saw what happened in verse 1-5, he knew it was a done deal. Because dad calls Jacob in again, and this time, knowing full well who he is, no deception, no sheepskin on his hand, no mama making savory meat, he knows who Jacob is. Isaac blesses him. He not only blesses him, he gives him instruction on how to preserve the blessing through the marriage within the family. He also tells him, and this is huge, this is significant, that through him is going to carry on the Abrahamic blessing. Esau sees it all. Again, how detailed he saw, whether he saw the demeanor, whether he saw the exact conversation, the Bible doesn't tell us exactly that, it just says, and when Esau saw, when he saw what Jacob did, when he saw that Jacob was blessed, I think Esau maybe, maybe, just maybe, and I'm not trying to imply too much or read too much into it, I'll explain this in a minute, but maybe, maybe Esau for the first time was saying, you know, maybe I've gone about this the wrong way. Maybe my priorities have been a little off, and I'm selling my birthright for a bowl of beans, and when I'm marrying daughters, then I know they don't believe what we believe, and they're worshipping the gods of the Canaanites. But I thought, hey, I like them, I love them. That's our word, right? If you love them, you just marry them. But regardless of character, as long as you have emotion toward them, you just marry them. Maybe that was Esau's line. I'm going to marry them anyway. I don't care what mom and dad say. Maybe, just maybe, Esau for the first time is understanding the significance of what he's done and where he's at spiritually. Because now, from verse 6 through verse 9, it's all about Esau. The first five verses are about Isaac blessing Jacob and Isaac sending him away, giving him instruction, giving him the blessing, letting him know that he's going to be the patriarch of the family, if you will, carrying on that Abrahamic blessing. But verse 6, again, is a transition. And we see the Bible says, When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him away to the Danaran, to take him a wife from Thence, and that as he blessed him, he gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan, Verse 7, this is still going on in his mind. And that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother and was gone to Badan-ur-Am. And Isaac seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father then. There's a lot of things going on in Isaac's mind right now. There's a lot of things going on in his heart right now. Esau sees the blessing that God gives to Jacob. Esau hears the instruction that his father gives to his brother. Unfortunately, the father couldn't have even at this point now given him to Esau because Esau had unmarried two heathen women. So it's not like he could turn around to Esau and give the same instruction because Jacob at this point is unmarried. He's going to be looking for a bride and so dad says, make sure you do it right. Well, Esau's already messed things up. And so he's hearing all these things and you have to wonder in the back of his mind if he's not thinking, man, I messed up. I mean, man, I blew it. I mean, all the things that could have been mine, all the things that by birth should have been mine, I blew, I wasted, I did not value at all. And now they're gone. Now they're Jacob's. Now Jacob gets my blessing. Now Jacob gets the birthright. Now Jacob gets the instruction from the Father about who to marry. Now Jacob is going to receive all the things that could have been mine. Esau saw those things. Esau heard those things. Verse 7, Esau knew some things. He knew about Jacob. What did he know? He knew that he obeyed his Father. Look in verse number 7. He says, and that Jacob obeyed his father and mother. Makes me think in Ephesians 6.1. Children, obey your parents and the Lord for this is right. But it goes on to say that that blessing, that first promise, that command is the first promise or command with a blessing attached to it. Children who obey their parents, God's going to bless. Children who disobey and dishonor their parents, God's going to judge. And so he's seeing in Jacob obedience. He's seeing in Jacob a man now that's listening to the counsel of his father and mother, the Bible said, and was gone to Paddanarem. He's gone. He not only knows about Jacob, but he knows about his father. Look at verse 8, and Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father. You almost want to say, Esau, why are you just now figuring that out? Why is this just now a concern for you? Did you not know that those daughters would not be pleasing to your father? And again, we can't answer that fully other than we know they're Canaanitish women. They're Hittites. They come from an idolatrous tribe. Esau, what were you thinking? But Esau now is being confronted with these things. He's seeing these things. He's hearing these things. He knows these things. But then we come down to verse number 9. And we come to the thought of the message tonight, too little too late. Because I want you to see what Esau did. The Bible says, after he sees, after he hears, after he knows these things, verse 9, then went Esau unto Ishmael, of course, Ishmael personally has passed, but his family is still there, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebuchadnezzar, to be his wife. It's almost like Esau is trying to fit in. It's almost like Esau is trying to do, okay, if the daughters of Canaan don't please Dad, I'll go marry one of my other cousins. I'll go marry one of Ishmael's seed, one of his daughters. But again, it's like Esau, the first round you married two heathen women, now you're going to marry one from Ishmael's line. And again, God's already said of Ishmael, he's going to bless him because he's the seed of Abraham. He's going to be a wild man. I mean, his hand's going to be against every man, every man's hand's against him. Flip back there, I want you to see that. It's back in chapter 16, a few pages back. Genesis chapter 16. Look at what God says about Ishmael. In Genesis 16 and verse number 12, the Bible says, speaking of Ishmael, the young boy, the lad, and he will be a wild man. His hands will be against every man, and every man's hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. So even though Esau makes an improved choice, you're like, Esau, you're still not getting it. I mean, you marry two heathen, two idolatrous tribe. And so now, you know, dad doesn't want us to marry someone that's not of our line and our seed. And so he goes out instead of, you know, thinking, well, maybe there's another daughter of Danaram. Of course, he couldn't do that, because that's where brother was going. That wouldn't work out well. You know, the older woman would have fallen younger. He says, well, I'll still do this my way. And I'll choose one of our family in the seed of Ishmael. But it's too late. It's too little, too late. Not only that, knowing what he knows, again in my mind I'm thinking, okay Esau, if you're wanting to make a step in the right direction, if you're wanting to do something right to maybe offset the wrong you've done or to correct some errors in judgment, why don't you go ask mom and dad what they think you ought to do? I mean they gave Jacob instruction and so he did it. But Esau seems to be of a temperament, well I know and so I'm just going to do. Oh I heard what they said, I don't need to ask for anything else, I'll do it my way. I think they wrote a song about that. Doing things and it always gets you in trouble. It always got Esau in trouble. You know, he's going to satisfy his hunger, his way. I'm dying of hunger. Jacob, feed me from the pottage. Birthright? Yeah, okay, I'll give you my birthright. He was doing it his way. Always doing things his way. And it always got him into trouble. It seems that he's trying to make some amends and trying to make some correction because he's seen the blessing now of his dad. He knows his chances are over. And so he's trying, maybe, just maybe, to get back into good graces, but he's still, he's Esau. He's a man of the flesh. He's a man who always wants to try to do things his way, it seems. Not always horrible, wicked things, but he's going to do things his way. I'm going to marry who I'm going to marry. I'm going to do what I'm going to do. And it cost him. It cost him the blessing. It cost him the birthright. And even though now he is married to someone at least in the line of descendant, if you will, a descendant of Abraham, he's still no better off. Now he's got three wives. You know he's not better off. He's definitely not better off. But now he's got two Hittite wives and one of the seed of Ishmael. The only thing that Esau could have done is to have repented of his sin and asked for forgiveness. Now the Bible speaks of that in the New Testament. He wanted later. He wanted at a point in his life for God to bring that restoration, but he had already sold it all. You do know God can't restore what we sell. He can still bless and forgive and help and strengthen. But what we give away foolishly, wickedly, it's gone. It can be our time. It can be our talents. It can be all sorts of things. That's the interesting thing about time. God gives us a wealth of time. But once we waste it, it's gone. He gives us a testimony as a new believer, a testimony of the new birth. And it's ours. It's ours to by faith build by His grace and build upon the foundation of Jesus Christ in obedience to His Word and grow in our walk with Him. But again, if we harden our hearts or if we stiffen our necks and we say, but I know you saved me, but I think I can do it now. It could cost us. It can cost us influence. It can cost us testimony. And by the way, if you lose those things, those opportunities themselves are gone. And I've spoken to many people throughout my life, and those who, like me, have gone through some challenging times, and some made good decisions, some made bad. You can never regain what you've lost. You can build on what you have left. Oh, that's horrible. Oh, how depressing. No, that's just the facts of life. You cannot regain what you have had. Now, again, you can build on what God has left you in a remnant. God, you can build again on those things, but you can never go back and try to rebuild what has been destroyed in that sense. I think of friends that I've had growing up Sin devastated their lives and cost them a lot of things. They could never go back and regain what they one time had. Now, I've also seen God bless their lives. Because they repented and asked God for forgiveness. Can they go back to where they were? No. Did it cost them dearly? Yes. But can God give forgiveness and grace and help you to build from that point on? Absolutely. But from that point on, you build recollecting the scars. And you can build and God can use in a wonderful way, but you can never go back to that unscarred place. So that's why it's so important as we live our lives that we do what God bids us do when He bids us do it. That we learn to grow in our faith and respond to the Spirit of God, respond to the Word of God in obedience and faith. Because there are some decisions in life, and I don't know if they're daily decisions that we make that are small, we would say, in nature. But there are some decisions in life, as Esau found out, that change the rest of your life. They change the rest of your life. The spiritual things you value or devalue, who you choose to spend your time with and who you choose as a life mate, those things will determine A lot of things spiritually. Now, can God do the miraculous? He always can. And also understand that Esau made those choices knowing better. Knowing better. I'm not talking about decisions we make not knowing. I'm talking about what we do as a child of God and the decisions we make as a child of God. Let's prayerfully make decisions that honor Him. Let's prayerfully live our lives each day so that we don't have to come to a point in our life where we're trying to make up for lost time. We're trying to make up for bad decisions. And by the way, there's a little bit of that that's going to be in life. If I wasn't trying to make up for bad decisions, I probably wouldn't be doing much sometimes. When I look back on 44 years of being saved. But I also do realize when I look back through that life, Charlie, I've lost some opportunities and I can never gain them back. As a Christian, I've lost opportunities and lost influence in certain situations when I was younger, and I realize I'll never get them back. So what do you do? Well, I realize the cost But I purpose in my heart I don't want to make those decisions again and go that route again. I don't live in the depression of understanding what I lost. If you live in what you lost all the time, you're going to live a miserable life. You've got to live in the forgiveness and grace and mercy of God and build on what you have left. You have to. But he saw we're in that too late. And even when he decided to build, it was just too little. Let's pray. Father, we love You tonight. We thank You and praise You for Your Word. We thank You for Jacob and Esau. We follow the lessons that they teach us about grace. Father, both men who dealt with the flesh, and Jacob the supplanter, the deceiver. Lord, we understand in the coming verses and chapters, he's going to come face to face with who he was. And God, You're going to deal with him in his heart. But Lord, He always desired the good things. He had a tricky nature, but God, His heart was to receive the blessings of God and the goodness of God. But Lord, You're about to humble him as a man. And Father, teach him complete dependence on You as You desire to teach us. But Father, help us not to be like Esau, always, always just seeking his own. always making decisions of what He wanted and what would help Him and what would be best in His eyes, until it was just too little, too late. Father, help us to put You first, to seek You first, the Kingdom of God, as Jesus encouraged us. Seek You first, the Kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto You. Lord, help us to seek You first in all that we do. For it's in Jesus' name we pray.