27 book of Genesis chapter 27 again thank the Lord for allowing us to be here tonight and I hope and pray the weatherman's wrong this weekend I was watching the weather and he said chance of snow Saturday night into Sunday so I pray he's wrong or something I hate to miss church, so let's pray tonight, God, and just let that pass through. It'll be rain or something or other, and we won't have to miss out on the Lord's day. Amen. I'm like the psalmist. I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. Not only am I glad to come to church, but I've been in this thing long enough to know how bad I need to come to church. I don't know about you, but if I miss a service, even if I am sick and I miss a service, I can tell it in my life. My family can probably tell it in my life too. It don't take me long to get out of whack without walking with the Lord. I appreciate Him to die. Genesis 27, let's begin our reading in verse 18. If you're able tonight, let's stand together. As we reverence God's Word, we'll read down to verse 33, and I want to look at a thought tonight the Lord had pressed on my heart earlier this morning, and a familiar passage of Scripture here, but I want to try to bring something tonight from this that I believe will be a help to us. Genesis 27, beginning in verse 18. The Bible said, and he came unto his father, and he said, My father, and he said, Here am I. Who art thou, my son? And Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau, thy firstborn. I have done according as thou badest me. Arise, I pray thee, sit, and eat my venison, that thy soul may bless me. And Isaac said unto his son, How is it that thou hast found it so quickly, my son? And he said, Because the Lord thy God brought it to me. And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come near, I pray thee, that I may feel thee my son, whether thou be my very son Esau or not. And Jacob went near unto Isaac his father, and he felled him, and said, The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. And he discerned him not, because his hands were hairy as his brother Esau's hands, so he blessed him. And he said, Art thou my very son Esau? And he said, I am. And he said, Bring it near to me, and I will eat of my son's venison, that my soul may bless thee. And he brought it near to him, and he did eat, and he brought him wine, and he drank. And his father Isaac said unto him, Come near now and kiss me, my son. And he came near and kissed him, and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed. Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth, and the plenty of corn and wine. Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee, and be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee. Cursed be every one that cursed thee, and blessed be he that blessed thee. And it came to pass, as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting. And he also had made savory meat and brought it unto his father. And he said unto his father, Let my father arise and eat of his son's venison. that thy soul may bless me.' And Isaac his father said unto him, Who art thou? And he said, I am thy son, thy firstborn Esau. And Isaac trembled very exceedingly and said, Who? Where is he that hath taken venison and brought it me? And I have eaten all before thou camest and have blessed him, yea, and he shall be blessed. Let's go to the Lord in prayer tonight. Father, thank you again for the privilege, the opportunity to be able to assemble here this evening. And thank you for the singing that's already touched our hearts. Lord, thank you for the prayer time, the testimonies. Lord, it's just good to be around your people tonight as always. Lord, I pray you'd help us for a little while as we look into this passage of Scripture and so many different thoughts come to mind when reading this, but Lord, I pray that you'd direct my thought to what you'd have me to say tonight. Lord, help us to be reminded of that we studied today and speak to us tonight, Lord. If you don't speak, then nobody will hear anything I've got to say. Lord, I pray you'd move in our hearts and do a work in our midst tonight. Change us, Lord, that we would be more like you And Lord, if there's one among us that's unsaved tonight, I pray you'd convict that heart, show them their sinful condition, and then lead them to the cross, Lord, that they might be saved. We love you. We thank you for first loving us. And we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Now what we read here tonight is a portion of the story of the blessing that Jacob stole from Isaac. Now if you're familiar with this and you know what this is about, if not tonight, you remember that Jacob and Esau were born of Isaac, they were twins, and the Bible lets us know that the elder would serve the younger. There was some prophecy earlier in the book of Genesis about that, and you're seeing some of that come to pass in what we read tonight. But I want to look at this maybe from a practical point instead of a prophetical point tonight. I want to notice Isaac and Jacob here and how Jacob came and stole the blessing of Esau. He had stole his birthright. You remember when Esau came in from the field and he had been out hunting in the field and he came in, he was weary and faint, and just for a small bowl of pottage, some lentils, and he sold his birthright to Jacob and gave it up, and now here Jacob being the supplanter, that's what his name means, Jacob is now deceiving his father Isaac and is going to steal the birthright from Esau, or the blessing from Esau. Now, a lot of times when we look at Jacob and Esau, we look at Jacob as a type of the spiritual man being the second born. We look at Esau as a type of the fleshly man being the first born. And typology is great. I love to preach it. I love to study it. Whenever I read the Old Testament, my mind is constantly in the gear of typology. I'm looking and I have to be careful sometimes that you don't force something into the Scripture that's not there. There's been some times I thought I saw something and then I studied on and said, no, that's not it. But tonight I want to look at Jacob and I want to look at Isaac just a little bit here. And I want you to notice Jacob tonight as doing something that is in line with the nature of the flesh. Jacob is the supplanter, he's the trickster. We all have a flesh nature tonight. Even if you say, Bridger, I'm saved, I'm going to heaven when I die. That's great, that's wonderful, but you still have a flesh nature. My pastor used to say it like this, and I say it quite often, we are two-thirds saved. Now, let me explain myself, amen? I'm glad salvation is complete in the Lord, but you're made up of body, soul, and spirit, just as I am. And when an individual gets saved, that soul and spirit gets saved, but that fleshly body is still as rotten as it's always been. Now it will get changed one of these days when the Lord returns. In a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, the Bible said, this corruption shall put on incorruption, this mortal, this flesh is going to put on immortality. And the older I get, the more I say, come on Lord, I can't wait. Amen? That's the battle I have. I heard an introduction to a radio broadcast today, and it said that the individual will be coming on talking about man's greatest enemy, and then he paused a second and said himself. Boy, that's true tonight. We are our greatest enemy. Our flesh nature is what gives us all the trouble that we have in our life. Now tonight I want to look at Jacob. I want to look at how Jacob comes in to Isaac and steals and works around a way to steal this blessing away from Isaac that was supposed to go to Esau. And I want to give you this thought tonight. What we see in Jacob in this passage of Scripture, we see the foolishness of the flesh, the foolishness of the flesh. Not only are we going to see Jacob being a type of the flesh in our text tonight, but we're going to watch Isaac make some fleshly decisions. And if anything tonight, I pray the Lord would warn us as His children to be careful about our decision making in our Christian life. You have two natures. That one nature is the flesh nature that every man has. And if you're born again, you have that second nature, which is the new man, the spiritual man, the new nature of salvation, the work of God that comes into our heart at the moment of salvation, the Spirit of God that takes up His abode inside of us. And if we walk following that new man, that second birth in our life, then we'll walk spiritually. and we'll live a life of victory and a life of power and a life that pleases the Lord. But sadly tonight, from time to time, we'll deviate to that flesh nature and follow that flesh nature. And when we do, the Bible tells us, if we sow to the flesh, we shall reap corruption. So we're going to see that in our text tonight. I want to give you about four things in the life of Jacob and Isaac here that illustrate the foolishness of the flesh. In verse number 18, notice the first thing that happens now. This plan has been going on. Earlier in chapter 27, Isaac is about to die. He asks them to bring him some savory meat. He asks Esau to go out into the field to kill some venison, bring him some of that savory meat. The first 17 verses of the text tell us a little about that. And we find immediately that Isaac is a man that is somewhat fleshly himself, even though Isaac is that promised seed, and he's that type of Christ in many places. In this particular passage, we see the fleshly side of him. He was a man that was driven by the flesh, as we so often are. So here he's about to die, and the one thing he's got on his mind is getting something else to eat. Boy, isn't that like the flesh, amen? That's what we think of all the time, feeding the flesh, satisfying the flesh. So he requests from Esau to go out and to get some of that venison and make that savory meat that he makes so well. Now, Jacob and Esau's mother, Rebekah, hears this. And Jacob was what we would call in redneck terminology today, Jacob's kind of a mama's boy. He was a plain man, the Bible said. He liked to stay in the house and wash dishes and sweep the floor. And if you're a man and you like to do that, then I'm praying for you. I will do that. I'll help my wife. I'll try to do what I can, but I really don't enjoy it in my flesh. I like to be outside. I like to be doing something out in the woods or outside working or one thing or another. That's the way Esau was. He was an outside man. So you notice tonight in verse 18 now, between Rebekah and Jacob working together, there's a plan that's schemed. And Rebekah was definitely not right. That's a different message within itself. But here she schemes and she gives Jacob a plan of how to be deceptive to his father and pull that blessing away from Esau to himself. And that's exactly what the flesh loves to do tonight. The flesh loves to steal and to rob our victory and to rob our power and to keep us from walking with God like we ought to. Now notice with me tonight in verse 18. Look at the intention of the flesh and how it will lie to you. Immediately in verse 18, the Bible said, speaking of Jacob now, He came unto his father. He's prepared this meat. He's dressed up like Esau. He has goat skins on his hands. He's got the raiment of Esau on. He's done everything he can to deceive and disguise himself. And he shows up in verse 18. The Bible said he came to his father and said, My father, and he said, Here am I. Who art thou, my son? So Isaac just gives an honest question here. Who are you? Isaac is old. According to the earlier verses of the chapter, his eyes are dim. He cannot see good. He cannot see who it is. He sees the form of one of his sons and he cries out, Are you my son? He's expecting Esau to come in with his savory meat. But it's Jacob, and Jacob comes with the wrong intention. That intention was to come and steal the blessing that Isaac had that needed to be given to Esau. Now I realize the Bible prophesied that this would happen. The Scripture told us this would happen, but I'm looking at it from a practical point tonight. And the practical point here is Jacob is a pitcher of the flesh. and the flesh would come into our life and love to rob us and steal the blessings that God has given us. That's the intentions of the flesh. I'm like what an old preacher said. He said he got up every morning, he went to the mirror and said, what are you up to today? Amen? That's the way we've got to treat our flesh. That's how we have to comprehend our flesh nature. It's always up to no good. It's always evil. The Apostle Paul gives us a great illustration in Romans chapter 7. He basically says in the latter half of that chapter, that that I would not, that I do. What is he saying? He's saying, what I don't want to do, somehow or another, I end up doing it. And that that I would, I do not. He said, what I want to do, when I want to do right. He said, when that's there, evil is present with me. And that's an illustration of the flesh nature. So the flesh nature here in the typology of Jacob comes in to steal. That's the intention that he has. Now notice his imitation in verse number 19. in verse 19, and Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau thy firstborn. He's lying. And the Bible tells us lying is a sin. Amen? And the flesh will lie to you every time you turn around. Amen? That's the nature of the flesh. We lie to ourselves. You say, no, I don't lie to myself. Well, the Bible said, be not deceived, God is not mocked. Now, why would the Bible say, be not deceived? Because it is very possible and very probable that mankind lies to themselves. People do it every day. There's people who get in front of the mirror and they think they're the best looking thing in the world. There are people who go out and about and they think everybody ought to bow to them and one thing and another, and they think they're just the stuff. And if we're not careful through our flesh, we will lie to ourselves. We will exalt ourselves. We will lift ourselves up to a place where we're not supposed to be. So here is Jacob, he comes in, his intention is to steal a type of the flesh. His imitation here is Esau. He's not really being honest. He's not really being transparent with Isaac and revealing to him who he is. And that's the way our flesh is tonight. Your flesh will lie to you. Jeremiah said the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things. That heart is part of our flesh nature. It's the changing of that soul and spirit that brings the new man into our life. It's that spiritual circumcision where the Holy Ghost of God goes inside a man and cuts away the flesh. That's a spiritual movement there of the Spirit of God when we get saved. That is the only remedy to deal with the flesh. If we'll walk in the Spirit, the Bible said, we'll not fulfill the lust of the flesh. So here you find that imitation that comes in, Jacob presenting himself as Esau, and then look at the instruction that Jacob has here, which again is a picture of how the flesh will lie to you. Look in verse number 20. And Isaac said unto his son, How is it that thou hast found it so quickly, my son? Now here's red flag number one. As you read this text tonight, you'll start seeing red flags that Isaac should have called on to. Here's red flag number one. Isaac said, How did you get that so quick, son? You know, you normally don't come back that quick, Esau. It normally takes you a little while. And Jacob, look what he says. Immediately, look what the flesh does. And he said, because the Lord thy God brought it to me. Well, that was another lie right there. If you read back in the text, God didn't bring him that venison. Rebecca, his mother, said, run out to the goats quickly, she said. Run out to the pasture there where the goats are and get me a couple kids and bring them in here. God did not send that to him as he said. He lied. He not only imitated Esau here, but his instruction was a lie to Isaac. And can I remind you tonight, if you don't already know this, your flesh will lie to you. Your flesh will tell you you need to do this. Your flesh will tell you you need to get involved in that. Your flesh will tell you you don't need to listen to the Word of God. You don't need to listen to the preaching. Your flesh, young people, will tell you you don't need to listen to mom and daddy. They don't know what they're talking about. They're old fogies. They're from another generation. Your flesh is the biggest liar in this entire world. Amen? And the quicker you figure that out and the quicker you realize it and understand that, the better your Christian life will be. So you find here in verses 18 through 20, the flesh will lie to you. That is a fact. It's illustrated how that Jacob, as a type of the flesh here, lies to his father Isaac. Matter of fact, Jacob is his own flesh, so to speak. He's the offspring of Isaac, so he's part of his own flesh there. There's his own flesh and blood lying to him, just like our flesh nature does. Notice secondly tonight, not only will the flesh lie to you, but the flesh will lead you. And can I say tonight, the flesh will not lead you anywhere good. The flesh will not take you closer to God. The flesh will not get you deeper into the Scripture. The flesh will not enhance your prayer life. The flesh will not enhance your marriage or your friendships and fellowship down at the church. The flesh will lead you away from the things of God every single time. That's why we have to have spiritual discernment tonight. We're going to see in the next couple of verses that Isaac didn't have the discernment he should have had. And we've got to have discernment. Brother Eddie Davis said it like this, and I don't think I'll ever forget this as long as I live. I quote it quite a bit. In these days, it's not knowing the difference between right and wrong that is the issue. Most people can give you the difference between right and wrong. But in these days, it's the difference between what is right and what is almost right. And we've got a lot of people today that are laying hold of what is almost right, but yet if it's almost right, it's all the way wrong. It's still wrong. And that's where the flesh nature comes in, pulls the wool over our eyes, makes us think it's okay, imitates things that are real when it's not real, and gets us to a place to where we follow the flesh instead of follow the Spirit. Now notice this, in verse 21, the flesh will lead you. Notice its route. Notice the route now that Isaac begins to go because of Jacob, a type of the flesh, coming into his life. And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come near, I pray thee. Notice what he said here. This is very important to the message tonight. He said that I may feel thee, my son. whether thou be my very son Esau or not." So in Isaac's mind, as he's sitting there, and he sees the form of his son, and he's still not real sure, he said, come a little bit closer to me. In Isaac's mind, he's thinking, if I can touch Jacob or Esau, if I can feel this form in front of me, the Bible lets us know that Esau was a very hairy man, a lot different from Jacob. Jacob, the Bible said, was a smooth man. That's what happens when you stay in the house all the time. Say amen right there. And then, you know, don't let the sun hit you a little bit, get a little dirt under your fingernails. I've met some people like that. I get real uncomfortable sometimes, amen, around smooth men. I think every man ought to have a little dirt under his fingernails. I know your job may not be like that. Mine's not that way anymore, but I do like to get out and work a little bit sometimes just to remind myself, yes, I am a man, amen. But notice this tonight. Notice the route of the flesh. He's going off feeling. This is what Isaac is doing. He's thinking in his mind, all right, if I can get this Esau closer to me and I can feel him, then I can discern whether or not he's really Esau or Jacob. That's red flag number two right there. If you run off feeling tonight, you are going to be a miserable mess. Amen? I know some preachers tonight that run off feeling. Their ministry has been up and down all the time. I know some churches tonight. I don't know about you, but I get nervous when I'm in a church that is a highly emotional church. I realize that our emotions are part of us, and our emotions are part of worship, and we have to exercise our emotions. But when a group of people are highly emotional, chances are high they're highly sensual too, and highly fleshly. And I'm telling you, those kind of things and that kind of lifestyle will get you in trouble if you've always got to feel good, if you've always got to feel it, if it's always got to feel right, and you can't run by faith, then you're going to have some serious issues in your Christian life. So the route here of the flesh is to run off feelings instead of what is proper off of faith in God and in His Word. Notice in verse 22, now here is a remedy that Isaac could have followed and fixed this situation. This is really what got me thinking of the message tonight. Look in verse 22. And Jacob went near to Isaac, his father, and he felled him, okay? Now we understand from previous verses that Rebekah has instructed Jacob to bring in the goats from the field, the kids, and she's put the goat skins on his hands. So get the picture tonight. As Jacob comes in into the room there where Isaac is at, he's got on Esau's raiment, he's got that goat hair and that goat skin sticking out from under the raiment on his hands so that he's going to look like Esau. And as he gets closer to Isaac here, the Bible said he went near and he felt him. So Isaac reaches out and touches Jacob, and immediately through the sense of touch, he no doubt thinks, hey, this is Esau, I'm right, this is Esau. But notice what he said. He said, the voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. Now Isaac was at a crossroads right here at this verse. If Isaac would have just listened to the voice instead of ran off of the feelings, he would have made the right decision. Can I say to you tonight and remind myself tonight? We've got to listen to the voice of this book. Amen? You say, I wish God would talk to me. He does. You say, Preacher, does God talk to you audibly? Oh no, it's much louder than that, amen? You get into His Word and He'll speak to you through this book tonight. And even though your feelings, your flesh may say, I need to do this, I need to go that way, I need to do that, I need to lay hold of that, the Bible, the voice of the Scripture, God's Word, will tell you every time what is right and what is wrong. I'm glad tonight. You know, these cults and all this stuff have these crystal balls and things. We don't need that tonight. We've got the Word of God. Amen? We've got the inerrant, infallible, inspired Word of God. It's always right. Brother Sammy Allen said your King James Bible will be more up-to-date than the newspaper that comes off the press in the morning. Amen? Now that's up-to-date. Amen? It is up-to-date. I don't care what this liberal crowd says. It is up-to-date. You can go back in the book of John, I believe it is. I wish I'd looked this verse up, but it just come to my mind. In the book of John where Jesus was talking about Abraham seeing his day and knowing him, he said, The Scripture foreseeth. That's what the Bible said. The Scripture foreseeth. We've got a Bible that knows something tonight. Why? Because it's God's Word. And that's what we have to live by. If Jacob would have just trusted the voice instead of the feeling, he'd have said, or excuse me, Isaac, if he'd have trusted the voice... I don't know why I always get those two names mixed up. But if Isaac would have just trusted the voice instead of feeling, he would have immediately said, oh, you're Jacob, quit playing a trick on me, and he wouldn't have made the mess that he's about to make. So you notice tonight the route of the flesh, the remedy of the flesh is listen to the voice instead of the flesh. Now look at the reassurance. When you're at that crossroads and you're trying to decide what's spirit and what's flesh, I'll promise you the flesh will turn it on to try to pull you away from the Word of God. The flesh will intensify. That feeling will intensify. Try to draw you away from God's Word. Look in verse 23. The Bible goes on to tell us this. And he discerned him not. That's why he discerned him not, because he didn't listen to the voice. Because his hands were hairy, as his brother Esau's hands, so he blessed him. What you find here is by the continual touch of his hand upon the hand of Jacob, He was reassured, so he thought, that this is Esau, this is not Jacob. He was running by flesh. He was running by feeling. That'll get you in trouble all the time. So you see how that Jacob here, a type of the flesh, is leading Isaac down the road he wants him to go? That's what our flesh will do. Why do men rob banks? Why do men commit adultery? Why do men murder? Why do people do crazy things? It's because they're running by the power of the flesh. I saw on the news today some crazy man robbed a bank in Asheville, robbed a bank in Johnson City. Now they think he robbed another bank in Middle Tennessee. I mean, he's just having a big time, amen? They got the FBI on him now. He probably won't last much longer. But they're looking for him, amen? I mean, he's just going across the country just doing whatever feels like he wants to do, amen? And that's the way the nature of our flesh is. Our flesh is unrestrained. It's never satisfied. It's what feels good. And if it feels good today, you're going to have to take it up a notch tomorrow for it to feel good again and take it up a notch the next day. And that's how the flesh leads you step by step into a life of destruction. So you see the flesh will lead you. Its reassurance is shown, but notice its ruthlessness here. Look in verse 24. Now this is Jacob. This is the son of Isaac. And he said, here's he questioned him again, Art thou my very son Esau? Now he's close now. I mean, they're hearing each other breathe. That's how close he is. He's touched him. He's came near to him. His father dying basically on his deathbed said, Are you my son Esau? And again Jacob said this in verse 24, I am. He lies to him. I mean the ruthlessness of the flesh. Jacob knows what he's doing. He's trying to take the blessing from Isaac and get it away from him so he can't give it to Esau. And he's robbing him ever so slowly. He didn't go in and stick a gun in his ribs and say, give me all your money. But he's robbing him little by little. That's what the flesh will do. You see, a lot of times we look for the big things to rob us. Solomon said it's the little foxes that spoil the vine, they meant. It's like the analogy of the frog in the boiling water. You throw a frog, I guess, I've never done this, people say it. But you throw, don't go home boys, don't go home and do this, okay? But you throw a frog in a pot of boiling water, they say it'll leap right out. But you put it in a pot of lukewarm water or cold water and you start working it up degree by degree, little by little, it'll stay right there and boil to death. Why? Because it gets used to that temperature change. And that's what happens to our flesh. Today, it'll hit you with something, you'll get used to it. Tomorrow, if you don't deal with it, it'll intensify a little bit, you'll get used to it. The next day, you'll get used to it. And before you know it, you will be neck deep in sin because your flesh has led you there like a lamb to the slaughter. So that's what's happening here with Isaac. Jacob is leading him. The flesh will lead you. Notice thirdly tonight, and I'm hurrying, the flesh will love on you while it's leading you. Oh, try to make it ever so feel good to be where you're at. Look in verse 25. Look at the satisfaction. Now we know what's on Isaac's mind because back in the earlier portion of verse 27, he's wanting some venison, he's wanting some savory meat before he dies. Here in verse 25, he said, bring it near to me. He can't wait no longer. His belly's growling. I mean, he's just starving to death so he thinks. He said, I will eat of my son's venison that my soul may bless thee. And he brought it near to him and he did eat and he brought him wine and he drank. So now Isaac is getting some momentary satisfaction. That is the way the flesh operates. The flesh is only interested in giving you and I momentary satisfaction. And see, we live in a generation now that that's the way most people think. A lot of people don't think like people used to think about the long view or the long run or what's going to happen down the road. Now it's just living for the minute, living for the second, living for the pleasure, living for today, forget tomorrow, don't worry about eternity. And that's the way the flesh operates. The flesh will have you doing things without a fault of what's down the road and the consequences of it. So here he is, all he's interested in is a belly full of meat. That's all he wants, amen? He's just wanting something to satisfy his flesh nature. And that's the way we are if we don't walk in the Spirit of God. So here he does this, and this satisfaction, but remember, it's only a momentary satisfaction. You could go tonight, you could leave this service tonight, go eat the best meal that you can find in this country, and guess what? You're going to be hungry again tomorrow. Now, you might eat enough to make it through breakfast and maybe even through lunch, but I'll promise you, by this time again tomorrow evening, you're going to be needing something else to eat. You know why? Because the flesh is never satisfied. Never, never, whether it's food in our belly or any other appetite of the flesh, it is never, never, never satisfied. And here he is, Isaac takes a bite of this, and oh, he thinks he's so satisfied. Look in verse 26. The flesh will love on you. It brings a little satisfaction, but then it brings a salutation. Look in verse 26. And his father Isaac said unto him, Come near now and kiss me, my son. And he came near and kissed him. In Bible days, that was a salutation, that was a greeting. It was a show of respect. So here is Jacob, a type of the flesh, and he's showing what we would say is respect to Isaac. So Isaac thinks the flesh is respecting him. Can I tell you your flesh does not respect you, it does not love you, it does not care about you. It's out for one thing, and that's to gratify itself. There are people tonight that are on drugs. And they're trying to find a fix for that need, for that downtime in their life. And they will do things sometimes that they know is going to take their very life to gratify the flesh. That's how wicked and depraved our flesh is. It will take things in such excess that it knows it's going to kill itself to satisfy that craving that it has. And that's where Jacob is at here as he is pulling Isaac ever closer to him and loving on him, if you will. He's almost acting as if he respects him, but you and I know that he does not respect him. He's going to rob him here in just a second. There's satisfaction, the flesh will love on you. There's salutation, He came near and He kissed him. Then notice the smell that is mentioned here in verse 27. What is smell? That's another one of the five senses. Everything that's happening here is a sensual thing, not a spiritual thing. It's touch, you'll see it right here in the text. It's touch, it's taste, and it's smell. And it's all those senses going on. He's blind, so that's not working out too good for him. But the touch and the taste and the smell are so-called making it real in Isaac's life that this is the right thing. He thinks this is right. You notice in verse 27, look what happens. And he smelled the smell of his raiment. Now notice this next phrase. This really jumped out to me today. It's almost like Isaac is trying to reassure himself. It's almost like he's still doubting, but look what he said. He said, and blessed him and said, see? Now who's he talking to? It's almost like he's talking to somebody that tells him, hey. It's almost like he's talking to himself and his self is saying, now, you really sure this is Esau and not Jacob? And look at this, he said, see? The smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed. So again, one of his senses Just make him feel a little bit more at ease that this is really, Esau, this is the right thing to do. Now let me give you one more thing and I'm done tonight. Notice this final thought right here, beginning in verse number 28. Here's the sad thing. All this led up to verse 28 through 33. In verse 28, notice this, the flesh will leave you. It will love on you. It will lead you around and pull you the way it wants to go. It will lie to you, tell you everything that you want to hear. But when it's all said and done, the flesh will leave you high and dry. There are people in prison tonight because they followed their flesh, and the flesh left them in a prison cell, some of them for life. I got a letter in the mail from a man just this past month, said that he picked up a Bible that we had sent down to the jail several months ago, and he's been in prison since 1984, so at that time it's 34 years, and he's got life in prison, he's 71 years old. I don't know what he did, he just wrote a letter to thank the church for the Bible, I think several years ago we sent some Bibles down. It's been a while. And he thanked the church for the Bible and asked me to pray for him. And I got his name, got his age. He's in a different correctional institution now. He's not here in Madison County anymore. But anyway, he's got life in prison according to his own testimony. The flesh led him there. I don't know what he did. I don't know what it was, but it had been something pretty bad to be in jail since 1984. That's what the flesh will do. It will leave you high and dry. The flesh will leave you hurt. The flesh will leave you dead. The flesh will lead you to hell for eternity without Christ. Notice this. Notice the robbery in verse 28. Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven. Here he is now. Isaac is pronouncing the blessing on Jacob. Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, the fatness of the earth, the plenty of corn and wine. Let people serve thee, the nations bow down to thee, the Lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee. Cursed be everyone that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee. The only problem here is Isaac thinks he's talking to Esau instead of Jacob. That's his problem. He's pouring out the blessing. I mean, he's doing what he has to do as a father, a one-time chance. We're going to see in just a minute, there's not a second chance to this. He's giving this blessing. He's surrendering the blessing, if you will. God has blessed us tremendously as His people. And you know what will happen tonight if we're not careful? If we follow the foolishness of the flesh, we'll surrender every blessing God's given us to the flesh. And when you surrender to the flesh, guess what? Most of the time you don't get it back. Isaac couldn't get it back. I'll promise you when he began to tremble in verse 33, he wished he could have got it back, but he couldn't. It was too late. He had gave it up. Young people, you give your purity up to this world and to the running of the flesh and you won't get it back. I'll promise you that. You'll carry that scar till the day you die. Thank God there's forgiveness. Thank God there's mercy. But it's a whole lot better to not even go that route. It's a whole lot better not to give up the blessings that God has given you than to try to recover them and spend a lifetime without them. That's what happens here. The robbery comes. Verse 29 and 28, you see that blessing. Jacob, very wily, if you will, very crafty here, and he takes that blessing away, not only from Isaac, but from Esau. And then in verse number 30, this is the old stinking rotten flesh, look at verse 30. And it came to pass, As soon, don't miss this now, as soon as Isaac had made an end to blessing Jacob. Notice our text tonight. When the last word of blessing comes off the lips of Isaac, when he finishes the paragraph or whatever he's saying with blessing, notice what the text said. And Jacob was yet scarce gone from the presence of Isaac his father, that he saw his brother came in from his hunting. What happened here? I can see the picture tonight that here is Jacob and he's on edge from the beginning. He's on edge. He don't want to be found out. And he's pulling, he's leading Isaac down this road. And then he's loving on Isaac. He's lying to Isaac. Isaac pronounces a blessing. And when the last word of blessing comes out of Isaac's mouth, you know what Jacob says? See you later. I'm done. He doesn't even say anything according to our text. He turns tail. He walks out of there and leaves his father on his deathbed. That's what the flesh will do for you tonight. That's what the flesh will do for me. When it gets everything that's any worth in your life, it will leave you empty and destitute. If you don't believe me tonight, just go to some of the big cities with the down-and-outers and the skid rows and places like that. Just go to some of the places where people are on the streets begging for the next meal and their bodies are eat up with disease and all kinds of things. Go to some of the prisons where people are serving a life sentence. Find some of these drug houses and these big cities where they're laid out, out of their mind for days with nothing to eat, and not even knowing if they're going to catch another day and live again. That is what the flesh will do for you. And I'm going to promise you tonight, there's people in those kinds... because I know some of you are sitting here, some of you young people sitting here think, ha, I'll never be there. Listen, I'm going to tell you something. There's church people, there's kids that grew up on church pews in places like that. I told the young people in chapel this morning, there's kids that grew up on a church pew, and they're in hell now tonight. They may not have went as children. They may have went as adults later on. But I'm telling you, it don't matter what you're in or where you're at. If you walk by the flesh, it will lead you astray. You look at the story of the prodigal son. As far as I can tell, he had a tremendous home life. He had a wonderful father. Everything was good. Had a luxurious farm, no doubt. Everything it could be imagined. But he left and went to that far country. And the Bible said he wasted his substance on righteous living. And when he came to the end of himself, That's where the flesh will take you to the very end of yourself. Many, many times people don't recover from that. You see the robbery, the running away. Let me give you this. I'm done tonight. Verse 31, down through the end of the text, verse 33. Look at the regret. And he also had made savory meat. Now this is speaking of Esau. Brought it unto his father. He said unto his father, Let my father arise, eat of his son's venison, that my soul may bless me. And Isaac his father said unto him, Who art thou? And he said, I am thy son, thy firstborn Esau. Notice the next phrase, verse 33, Isaac trembled. Can you imagine? Here's the old man Isaac about to pass on. He's sitting on his deathbed and he's shaking and he's trembling and his whole body is just quivering and his mind, no doubt, is racing a million miles an hour. Tears probably running down his face. His teeth are probably chattering from trembling. His words are probably broken. Notice what happens. Isaac trembled very exceedingly and said, Who? Where is he that hath taken venison, and brought it me? And I have eaten all before thou camest, and have blessed him, yea, and he shall be blessed. With a broken heart, Isaac dies with a broken heart. Now, later on you'll find out that he speaks to Jacob one more time, but he dies of a broken heart. Dies broken because the flesh has manipulated him. The flesh has deceived him. The flesh has caused him to do something that normally he wouldn't have done. And I want to leave you with this thought tonight. It's great foolishness when you and I follow the flesh. There's nothing but foolishness and folly when we follow the flesh. It doesn't matter how long you've been saved. It doesn't matter what kind of family you're in, where you go to church. If you follow the flesh, if I follow the flesh, we will end up being fools at the end of the road. Our flesh will destroy us. You've heard the saying that it will take you further than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, cost you more than you want to pay. True. I think of Samson tonight. The flesh took him to a... to a bad death. Everybody says, oh, Samson killed more in his death than he did in his life. That's not the way he was supposed to go out. If you read about Samson, he was supposed to deliver the nation of Israel, but he died a premature death because of the flesh, and Samuel had to come in and finish what Samson started. I'm telling you tonight, the flesh will rob you, it will blind you, it will put you in the devil's prison house. I beg you tonight that if there's anything in your life that the flesh is pulling you with, that you'll get some help from the Lord. You'll come to this altar. You'll ask God to get into your life. Say, preacher, what do I do? The flesh is pulling me. Where do I turn? What do I go to? Do like Isaac should have done. Get to the voice. There's a lot of voices out there tonight. They tell you do this, they tell you do that. You go down to the schoolhouse, they tell you do this. You go to the courthouse, they tell you to do that. You go to somebody else's house, they tell you to do that. Get into God's Word and do what thus saith the Word of God, and you can defeat your flesh. You can get victory over your flesh. Oh, it'll still be there, and it'll fight you, but there'll come a day when that flesh is laid down. And if we've lived a victorious life, we can hear, Well done, thy good and faithful servant. The only way we can do that is if we do not follow the foolishness of our flesh. You have the message tonight, I pray God, and help us with it and change our lives. Let's stand with heads bowed. Sister, if you come to piano.