Our passage this morning is Genesis 25, verses 19 to 34. Let me just make one slight explanation. I'm accustomed when the covenant name or the personal name of God in the Old Testament text appears in most of our English Bibles, it's the LORD, and LORD is written in all caps. And that is... That's the covenant name, the personal name of God, often called Yahweh, and I'm used to using that, Y-A-H-W-E-H. So, instead of an old dog having to learn new tricks, when that occurs, let me go on my custom way, and you just translate it back to the Lord, if that makes it easier for you. Let's hear the Word of God. Genesis 25. and verse 19. And these are the accounts that flow from Isaac, the son of Abraham. Abraham fathered Isaac. Now Isaac was 40 years old when he took as his wife Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel the Aramaean, from Padan-Haram, the sister of Laban the Aramaean. And Isaac prayed to Yahweh in his wife's presence, because she was barren. And Yahweh answered his plea. And Rebekah, his wife, became pregnant. Now the boys kept smashing against one another inside of her. And she said, if it's like this, why am I here? So she went to seek direction from Yahweh. And Yahweh said to her, two nations are in your womb, and two peoples coming out of you will be divided. and one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger. And when her days were fulfilled to give birth, why, there were twins in her womb. The first came out all reddish-like, like a hairy garment, and they called his name Esau. And afterwards his brother came out, and his hand was grabbing Esau's heel, so they called his name Jacob. And Isaac was 60 years old when they were born. And the lads grew up, and Esau became skilled in hunting game and outdoorsman. But Jacob was a contented man dwelling among tents. Now Isaac loved Esau because he enjoyed eating his game, but Rebekah kept her love on Jacob. And Jacob cooked up stew. And Esau came in from the field and he was famished. And Esau said to Jacob, let me gulp down some of the red stuff, this red stuff, for I'm famished. That's why they call his name Edom. And Jacob said, sell me right now your birthright. And Esau said, I'm about to die and what good is a birthright to me? And Jacob said, go on oath to me right now. So he gave him his oath and sold his birthright to Jacob. And Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and got up and went off. So Esau despised the birthright." This ends the reading of God's written word. You may be seated. Sometimes there are glimpses, you know, of later troubles that before they ever come. For instance, the whole matter of the question of slavery in our country. Patrick Henry, one of the so-called founding fathers, I suppose, admitted that slavery contradicted the ideals of the revolution. And James Madison called it a deep-rooted abuse. And there was, from the very founding of our republic, a lot of debate about the whole matter of slavery. It was just percolating. It didn't just come up all of a sudden in, say, 1861 and so on. And there's something about the way it is here in our passage in Genesis 25 at the end of the chapter here. There are certain things in place that show that there's going to be some tensions to come. They're already kind of in place. And you sense that, well, there's a brouhaha in the making. It doesn't flame up here, but down the road, get into chapter 27 and so on, you're going to see there are some problems already. You notice that our text begins, the usual translation is, these are the generations of Isaac. Now that word generations maybe isn't the best translation of the word. The root word is to give birth or to produce, and so generations of. Now sometimes when that word is used, there is a kind of a genealogy following, but not always. And here when it says the generations of Isaac, the idea is what is what is produced from, what develops from Isaac, the stories that develop from Isaac. So it won't necessarily be primarily about Isaac. In fact, as you read on in Genesis 25 to 35, you find out the generations of Isaac, what's produced from Isaac, mainly involves Jacob. And so he's the focus of the story at this point. Sometimes you come to a passage like this, and it frustrates, I think, we Westerners, because there's no particular cohesive binding theme in this passage. We like it kind of neatly packaged and so on. And yet, there's not necessarily, beyond this literary, perhaps, indication that there are things simmering that will come about later. But there's no one cohesive theme. So what do you do? Well, I think you just look at the text and you say, well, what are we meant to see here? What is the teaching that the text wants to give to us? Whether it's about one theme or about three or four themes. So what's the text want us to catch? So that's the way I come to it. In football, we call it punting. And we're punting today. What does this text mean to teach us? First of all, I think it wants to underscore the typical difficulties of God's people. The typical difficulties of God's people. You see that in verses 19 to 21, and also we'll pick up on 24 to 26. Now look at the situation there in verses 19 to 21, especially 21. Rebekah, Isaac's wife, was barren. She's childless. That says, oh, we've read that before in Genesis. This is the Sarah rerun. You remember in chapter 11 verse 30, Abram's wife Sarah was barren, she had no child, and the story takes up 10 or 11 chapters of Genesis until finally Isaac is born. They have one child. And now we have the same situation again, only it's with Isaac's wife Rebekah. It's very hard. When the Lord promised Abram to make of him a great nation, it's hard to do that without a biological starter kit. And again, here is barrenness. Now, Isaac and Rebekah don't resort to the Hagar method as Abram and Sarah did in Genesis 16. Rather, Isaac prays to Yahweh. And he prays as... John Currid says in his commentary, in his wife's presence, the preposition there seems to be not just that he prayed for Rebecca, but he prayed in her presence, in front of her. And Yahweh answered his plea, and Rebekah becomes pregnant. Now, you notice that it says Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebekah. In verse 26, he was 60 years old when the twins were born, so there was 20 years of childlessness in this marriage. It didn't look like the great nation was going to get off to a roaring start at all. Now, It's even more interesting when you look at the context. Now this isn't interesting. You go back to chapter 25 and verses 12 to 18, the preceding paragraph, and there you have these are the generations or these are the accounts of Ishmael. And then you have a kind of a Family tree or genealogy. You say, what's that got to do with anything? Well, you probably don't care much about those kids, Mibsam and Masa and so on, but there are 12 of them. So here's Ishmael, the non-chosen line, and he has 12 sons. The non-chosen line has fertility coming out its ears, but Isaac and Rebekah have one conception. You see the typical difficulties of God's people. So the prospects of the people of God in this world look pretty bleak and hopeless. There's not much there. There's one pregnant woman. Sometimes we run into that sort of thing. James Humes, in one of his books, asks us to imagine having a young man sitting in front of us, and we're interviewing him for a position. And we find out that he stutters, that he has a lisp, that he has no college degree. In fact, he'd never attended college, and that at one of his first public appearances, he fainted. He's referring to Winston Churchill, of course, but it didn't look like much at the beginning, did it? And that's the way the people of God often appear, as they do here. Weak and fragile and apparently fruitless and of little account, a pretty unimpressive lot. And that's what the Belgic Confession indicates in its article 27. There's one place where the Belgic Confession says, this holy church is preserved by God against the fury of the whole world, although for a while it may look very small and as extinct in the eyes of man. Well, it sure does here. And Genesis 25, small and extinct, but there. Now what I want you to see, and what I think the writer wants you to see, is something like this. God so frequently begins His work with next to nothing. And God's people are not necessarily going to be the most impressive bunch of folks in this world. You see it here, the typical difficulties of God's people. Now secondly, I think our text wants us to see the surprising announcement of God's decision. Verses 22 and 23. The surprising announcement of God's decision. Now this was a nasty pregnancy for Rebecca. In fact, you almost want to say to Rebecca, Rebecca, don't be so discouraged. They're not kicking you. They're punching each other. Says the boys kept smashing themselves. against one another inside of her, but it was a terrible pregnancy. She's driven to distraction. Her question in the middle of verse 22, if it's like this, why am I here? Her question in the Hebrew is almost untranslatable. She must have been in so much distress she could hardly speak about it. But what does she do? Well, she seeks direction from Yahweh, the last of verse 22. That's a mystery. So where does she go for that? Was there some kind of prophet around that she went to that we don't know about? Was there some sort of faithful priest somewhere at that time that she conferred? Well, I don't know. Nobody knows. All we have is what Yahweh said to her in verse 23. And you notice that the climactic point comes at the end of verse 23 when He's talking about the two peoples and so on. One will be stronger than the other, last line, and the older will serve the younger. That's a reversal of the expected. You would expect the older, in this case Esau, to be the one with the leadership, etc., and the dominance. But he says the older will serve the younger. Now that's, in a way, typical of Yahweh, because he tends to be unconventional. He does not necessarily follow society's expectations, nor does he kowtow to its standards. Paul picks up on this text, doesn't he, in Romans 9 verses 10 to 12. And he underscores what a sheer sovereign decision it was. It was before their birth. It was before they had established any behavioral records and so on. He said, the older will serve the younger. It's a sovereign decision. Sort of like Seymour Morris in one of his books. tells of the time when President Lincoln was having a cabinet meeting and the flow of the discussion of whatever the issue was, was kind of going against Lincoln. It, of course, it was just advisory. They didn't have any ability to coerce or determine the direction of things, but he was wanting to get their advice, and it was all mostly negative and against what he was thinking. And so he summed it up at the end of the discussion. He says, well, there are seven nays and one aye. The ayes have it. He could say that because he was the president. He was sovereign in that situation. He could say how it was going to be. And that's what you see here. You see this sovereign note in the text. The older will serve the younger. It's a sovereignty that goes against the stream, against the way things would normally happen. And it's only because of this unconventional pattern in God's ways that we have hope. You remember what Paul said to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 1, verses 26 and following. He called it, didn't he? The foolishness of God. He said to the Corinthians, well, just look around at yourselves in your fellowship. There aren't many wise, there aren't many mighty, there aren't many blue bloods among you. What's the explanation for that? Three times he uses the same subject and verb, doesn't he? God chose the foolish things of the world. God chose the weak things of the world. God chose the insignificant things, the despised things, the things that are nothing. That's why we have hope. We have a God who goes against what the world would expect because of this surprising sovereign God. Now there's a third matter that the text wants us to see, and that is the natural folly of God's servants. The natural folly of God's servants. Verses 27 and 28. You have the twins' birth then, and then next in verse 27, they're already grown up. Interesting, isn't it? You can bypass childhood, and puberty, and adolescence, and so on, and there you are. That shows you, doesn't it, that the Bible isn't giving you a comprehensive biography of these folks. It picks up certain aspects, certain accounts, and so on. So, you go from birth and now they're already grown up in verses 27 and 28. So, gobs of time and experiences are omitted there. Notice that there's a characterization of Esau and Jacob. Esau is the outdoorsman and so on. He likes to hunt game and so on. Skillful hunter. Jacob was, it's hard to know how to translate it, a contented man, a quiet man, whatever. Dwelling in tents probably means he was more adept at handling domestic things like herds and flocks. kind of thing. So the boys are different. Nothing wrong with that at all. Then you notice what happens in verse 28. Now Isaac loved Esau because he enjoyed eating his game, but Rebekah kept her love on Jacob. Their parents had their preferred affections, really their favoritism. And it must have been obvious. And of course, that will bring trouble in chapter 27, won't it? When Isaac decides to fly in the face of God's decision about the older serving the younger, and he's going to give his blessing to Esau. And Rebecca knows about it, and so she, rather than confronting Isaac and so on directly, goes around in and joins in a plot and gets Jacob into it in order to hoodwink their dad and get the blessing for Jacob. But all of this comes from this kind of favoritism already noticed here in verse 28. And it brings trouble later even for Jacob if you go into chapter 37, where Jacob obviously has a blatant preference for Joseph, and then there's all kinds of envy among the family and so on. So it's a nasty thing. I think it was South African Airlines, called Kululu Airlines, that would tend to do little take-offs on these, well, kind of mind-numbing introductions when a flight was to take off. You know how people are so used to it that they don't pay attention to how to fasten your seatbelt and all that sort of thing. like the Lulu Airlines had little twists on it to kind of liven things up. And one of them was, in the unlikely event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen mass will drop down from above you. Take yours and extend it and then make sure that you attach it behind you after you place it over your face and so on and all that. That's all very normal. And should you be traveling with a child, make sure that you take care of yours first before you assist your child. Then If, however, you're traveling with more than one child, pick your favorite. It was just their little twist. Well, there would be no doubt with Isaac and Rebecca, whom their favorites were. Now, there's a blinking yellow light here, isn't there? Maybe you say, well, this doesn't apply to me anymore, but we ought to notice it. There's a blinking yellow caution light here about parental favoritism. And it implies the need to exercise wisdom about that. Now, sometimes there are those who say, oh, we shouldn't. We shouldn't make Old Testament narratives. Teach us little things about morals or ethics or instruction. There are some people who say, we need to keep our eyes on what preaches Christ in the Old Testament. And you'll hear things like, the Old Testament's all about Jesus. Well, it's not all about Jesus. There's a lot of other stuff there rather than just about Jesus. In a general, broad-brush way, you can say it's all about Jesus. But in particular, no, there's a lot of other stuff than just to think how an Old Testament passage points to Christ eventually. Sometimes there's stuff in the passage for the instruction of God's people. If the Lord didn't want to instruct us about the danger of parental favoritism, why is this passage in here? Why does he tell us about it? Well, because we need to be alert to it. Now, you have to be careful here. Because don't let your kids tell you whether you're being favored or not. Well, that might be wise to listen to it, but you know, kids will tend to say, well, you know, you're showing favoritism to Watson's name and you always give me the short end. That's not a very good gauge, okay? So you have to be careful there. But we need to think about this. When we see a passage like verses 27 and 28, We ought to say, you know, that's a very natural folly, isn't it? That's something you can slip into rather easily and perhaps even without your knowing that you're doing it. And so, verse 28 should goad us to prayer. We ought to be begging the Lord to keep us from doing anything so blatantly stupid in our own family. It should be a caution light. The natural folly of God's sermons. Now, there's a fourth matter here in the text, and that is the casual attitude toward God's gifts. Verses 29 to 34. The casual attitude toward God's gifts. And here we particularly focus on Esau. So here's now one incident that takes place after the boys were grown. And in verses 29 to 34, you have the scene. Well, here's Jacob and he's cooking some stew. And Esau comes in from hunting and he is, the text says, famished. And that's what he himself says later there. And so Esau in verse 30 says, let me gulp down some of the red stuff, this red stuff, for I'm famished. Esau sees stew, Jacob sees opportunity. So Jacob says, okay, sell me right now your birthright. Esau says, I'm about to die, what use is a birthright to me? Jacob says, make it legal. That is, go on oath about it. Sign on the dotted line, as it were. And so Esau did that. and stew was served. Now, that's the scene. Now this birthright affair usually belonged to the firstborn, so it would be naturally Esau's normally, though it was transferable. And later in Israel, we can see it in Deuteronomy 21.17, the birthright apparently conveyed a double portion of the family inheritance on the recipient. So a certain provision. And also probably a position of leadership in the family. That's the birthright. Now the birthright is distinct, it seems, from the blessing. In chapter 27, the dispute's over the blessing. And they're not exactly the same. The birthright was probably the normal pathway to the blessing. But they're still a bit distinct. Now, that was just a little tangent. Back here now to this incident. Now, there are some who look at verses 29-34 and they malign Jacob for taking advantage of Esau's distress. Well, just how dire was Esau's distress? Well, what's it mean? Does that mean that he's literally starving? Or does that... Is that exaggerated? When he says, I'm about to die. Well, does that mean, does he mean that literally? Or is he speaking in hyperbole like we often do, I'm about to die. And the text doesn't have marginal notes that says, take it this way or that way. You kind of have to divine. But I think Esau was exaggerating here. Notice the verbs in the first part of verse 34, what I call the post-stew verbs. After Jacob gave him the stew, then notice, And he ate and drank and got up and went off. Business as usual. It suggests a certain casual, nonchalant, as I say, business as usual approach. But we don't even have to guess. Because in the last of verse 34, the writer tells you how you're to interpret this incident. He says, so Esau despised the birthright. Now that's supposed to control the way we look at this. So the writer says, was Jacob being slick here? Well, yeah, in a way. But there wasn't anything decidedly unethical about it. necessarily at all. But where the fault is, is in Esau's attitude. He didn't give a rip. So the point is not, look at the conniving of Jacob, isn't that awful? No, no. The point is, look at the apathy of Esau. He despised the birthright. That's the way the author wants you to take it. Sometimes it's important to know who's to blame. You've heard of David Livingston, the missionary and explorer famed for his work in Africa and so on. David Livingston married a girl by the name of Mary Moffat, hardly out of romantic passion. He described Mary Moffat as sturdy, And, matter of fact, it's a rather interesting description. Well, throughout their journeys over half a dozen years, she gave birth to five children. And the fifth one was born in September 1851. David Livingston recorded in his journal at that time, he bemoaned his wife's Frequent pregnancies. That always kind of baffled me. I don't want to get into sex education here. Who, pray tell, was responsible for those frequent pregnancies? Who's to blame? Well, that's the issue here with Esau. Who's to blame here? Not Jacob. Jacob's got his own problems and so on will come up later. But Esau despised the birthright. Now, please understand, the writer's not criticizing Esau's way of life. because he was an outdoorsman, etc. He's not saying, ah, look at that style of life. No, no, no, he's not putting that down at all. You can imagine if it was a more modern situation, Esau sitting beside his Coleman stove out somewhere, grilling maybe some meat, and reading his copy of Field and Stream while his rifle was nestling on the gun rack in his pickup truck, and so on. Nothing wrong with the style of life. Some people were like that, it's not a problem. But there's something else. He had no interest about covenant matters, about divine promises or divine privileges. If he would have had the birthright, the Lord had made promises to this family that there was going to be a great nation from it. There were going to be a people that multiplies and so on. There was going to be a place. There was going to be a land given to them. There was going to be a program. in this people and through this people, all the families on the earth would be blessed eventually. All of this meant nothing to Esau. In other words, he didn't give a rip about gospel matters. Now, there have always been Esaus, even in the church, who have said, No thanks. I really do prefer the outer darkness. How often, O Lord, your word ends on a sober note. How we pray that you would keep us from despising our birthright, that was purchased at immense cost by the Son of God, and that we would not think lightly of what was bought for us by the blood of Jesus. We pray in His name and for our sake. Amen.