Well, if you would, please turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 27 as we take up this particular chapter and reflect on it tonight. A lot of drama in this chapter, as we've seen in some of the other chapters. And the theme of the chapter is God's sovereignty and his sovereign will will be accomplished overruling our own sin. And we've seen this theme in other places in the covenantal history of Abraham, that Abraham lied about Sarah, his wife, and put himself in a situation in Genesis 20 and in Genesis 12, put himself in a situation he could do nothing about. So he sinned in unbelief, and yet God sovereignly protected his promise in the covenant. and made sure that his will would be done. And we have a lot of reminders in scripture of this truth, that God overrules man's sin to accomplish his will. On the day of Pentecost, when Peter's preaching, he makes the comment, this man, Jesus, was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge. and you with the help of wicked men put him to death by nailing him to the cross." So, the people that crucified Jesus are accountable and responsible, and they did what they wanted to do. They sinned against God in putting Jesus to death. But God's sovereign purpose was being accomplished in spite of their sin. And that's really what's going on in this particular chapter. The psalmist in Psalm 7610, surely the wrath of man shall praise you. God causes even the wrath of man to glorify him. And it seems Surprising to us, it seems amazing, but he does that. Now what's very significant before we get into the drama of this particular chapter, chapter 27, is to remember the background to this. And so keep your finger there on 27 and turn to Genesis 25, verse 23. This is the dilemma that Rebecca was having, she had these two babies in her womb. And they're fighting in the womb, and she's dismayed by it and wondering, what's happening to me? So she goes to the Lord, and in verse 23 of Genesis 25, and the Lord said to her, two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided. The one shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger. And so we have this prophecy of the two sons, Esau and Jacob. And the prophecy very clearly is that the younger, the older will serve the younger. The younger is going to have the preeminence. He's going to be the one in charge. Usually the oldest gets the preeminence, and the younger follows after him. But in this case, God had prophesied very clearly He couldn't mistake it, that Esau is to serve Jacob. Well, whether Isaac or Rebekah or Esau liked it or not, that's the will of God. And what we see in this chapter here in particularly is Isaac and Rebekah and Esau And to some degree, Jacob, all fighting against the will of God, trying to thwart and overthrow the will of God. That's their goal. That's Isaac's goal. That's Esau's goal. Rebecca, her goal is to make sure the prophecy is fulfilled, but she does it in unbelief. She does it conniving, scheming. And so what we have in this chapter, and just to look slightly ahead in verse two, Isaac says, behold, I am old, I do not know the day of my death. Isaac is expecting to die anytime, so he knows he needs to bless his son and get that out of the way before he dies. Well, he's gonna live another 43 years. I mean, he's not anywhere even close to death in his life. But he is an older man, because he lives to 180 years. So this puts him in the neighborhood of 135 or 137 or something in there. And his eyesight's bad. So that all figures into the story. But Isaac is going to, craft a plan to bless Esau, because Esau was his favorite. Jacob was Rebecca's favorite. And so Isaac was planning to bless Esau, contrary to the will of God. And so he has to do it secretly. He has to, because he knows Rebecca wouldn't stand for it. And so he has to do it without letting anybody know. There's this jealousy, deceit, suspicion, competition that's going on in this family when it comes to the reading of the will. And sadly, this has been a true statement, a true scenario in families throughout history. The suspicion and the competition. Even in my limited experience, I've seen families just have a horrendous mess when it comes to the reading of the will because of competition and suspicion. And they go to scheming to get what they want. And there's plenty of that to go around. So let's work our way through this chapter. but keep this broad main point in view. So we have two to three people very clearly plotting to overthrow the will of God. And Jacob, I'm not being quite as hard on him because he's kind of nervous about the whole affair that his mother is gonna get him into. Although he's a schemer too. But you have these three or four people who are scheming to overthrow the will of God. What will happen to the prophecy? What will happen to God's will? What is gonna turn out to be that way? Esau, as we get ready to read in the first part of chapter 27, Esau had married some Hittite women. We're going to come back to that again in another time. He had done something which displeased both Isaac and Rebekah. But nevertheless, Isaac still favored Esau. He was his favorite son. He was the hunter. He could go out and get him some venison and come back and fix him a meal that he loved. And so what we find in the first four verses is the sinful scheming of Isaac and Esau. Verse one. When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called Esau, his older son, and said to him, My son. And he answered, Here I am. And he said, Behold, I am old. I do not know the day of my death. Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me, and prepare for me delicious food such as I love, and bring it to me so that I may eat, that my soul may bless you before I die. So he asks Esau to go hunting and get some food and prepare him a meal. And you wonder, why did he need to have him make a meal? Why was that even necessary? Why didn't he just say, Esau, why don't you come in here for a minute? I want to bless you before I die. And you can see that, to some degree, Isaac's stomach is his god. He wants a good meal. In case he dies before it's all said and done, he wants to taste that venison one more time. So he gets Esau, and Esau's agreeable to this. He wants the blessing. Remember, he despised the covenant and sold his birthright for a bowl of stew. He is not interested in the covenant antithesis, that is the distinction that believers should have from unbelievers, so that he intermarries with these pagan women. So Esau doesn't have an interest in the true covenantal blessing, But he wants to get the inheritance. So he wants the goods is what he wants. So he's joining with his father in this plot for him to get the blessing. So he goes hunting and Esau and Isaac are united in their opposition to the will of God, to the decree of God. And they rejected Jacob as the chosen one. And this is so true throughout history about the Chosen One, Christ. Israel rejected the Chosen One when he came. Thanks be to God, there were a number of Jews who did believe. The apostles did, others. On the day of Pentecost, 3,000 were saved. So God was working even in those Jewish people according to the flesh. But as a people and the leaders of Israel, they rejected the Chosen One. So we see the same thing here. Jacob is the Chosen One. But even his father, Isaac, and Esau, his brother, reject him. And they make this plot for Esau to get the blessing from Isaac. That's a brief one. The next one's a little bit longer. We have, secondly, the sinful scheming by Rebecca and Jacob. Now, it's possible that she kind of knew what was in Isaac's mind. You know, a wife has a way of having a sense of, you know, her husband's thinking. But to be sure she gets it, she eavesdrops on Isaac. So in verse five we have, now Rebecca was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it, Rebecca said to her son Jacob, I heard your father speak to your brother Esau. "'Bring me game and prepare for me delicious food "'that I may eat and bless you before the Lord, "'before the Lord, before I die. "'Now therefore, my son, obey my voice as I command you. "'Go to the flock and bring me two good young goats "'so that I may prepare from them delicious food "'for your father such as he loves. "'And you shall bring it to your father to eat "'so that he may bless you before he dies. But Jacob said to Rebekah, his mother, behold, my brother Esau is a hairy man and I am a smooth man. Perhaps my father will feel me and I shall seem to be mocking him and bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing. And his mother said to him, let your curse be on me, my son, only obey my voice and go bring them to me. So he went and took them and brought them to his mother, and his mother prepared delicious food such as his father loved. Then Rebecca took the best garments of Esau, her older son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob, her younger son. And the skins of the young goats she put on his hands, and on the smooth part of his neck, and she put the delicious food and bread which he had prepared into the hand of her son Jacob. So Rebecca has this elaborate plot, and she gets Jacob to go along with it. Perhaps he has a bit of an interest in it, but he's nervous. He's afraid if he gets found out that a curse will be put on him instead of a blessing. Whether he still held fast to the prophecy and was trusting God is not totally clear. But he was a little afraid of this scheming that his mother was getting him into. You'd like to think that Jacob trusted in the prophecy, but it isn't completely clear. Rebecca, on the other hand, it seems like she probably still believed the prophecy. But because of what Esau and Jacob had plotted, she was afraid it wouldn't take place. And if you think back, who does that remind you of? Well, it reminds you of Abraham and Sarah and Hagar. Abraham was supposed to have a son, but he hadn't. And is he going to trust in God's promises? No, he doesn't. And Sarah doesn't either. So Sarah says, take my maid, Hagar, and have a son by her. And so they take it into their own hands to accomplish what is God's will. So Rebecca, perhaps there's kind of a mixture, maybe a blending, a combination that she still believes the prophecy, but she doesn't think God can pull it off. I mean, how often do we think that? Well, God, I know you've said this, but can you really pull it off? And Rebecca didn't think God could pull it off. And so she does this scheming, tells Jacob, well, if there is a curse, let it fall on me. And she devised this clever plan for Jacob to get the blessing from Isaac. And so we have the third element of this chapter's story is the blessing on the deceiver, the deceiver being Jacob. So we have in verse 18, so he, that's Jacob, went into his father and said, my father, and he said, here I am, who are you, my son? And Jacob said to his father, I am Esau, your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Now sit up and eat of my game that your soul may bless me. But Isaac said to his son, how is it that you have found it so quickly, my son? And he answered, because the Lord your God granted me success. Then Isaac said to Jacob, please come near that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not. So Jacob went near to Isaac, his father, who felt him and said, the voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. And he did not recognize him because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau's hands. So he blessed him. He said, are you really my son Esau? And he answered, I am. Then he said, bring it near to me that I may eat of my son's game and bless you. So he brought it near to him and he ate. And he brought him wine and he drank. Then his father Isaac said to him, come near and kiss me, my son. So he came near and kissed him. And Isaac smelled the smell of his garments and blessed him and said, behold, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed. May God give you of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth and plenty of grain and wine. Let people serve you and nations bow down to you. Be Lord over your brothers and may your mother's sons bow. Cursed be everyone who curses you and blessed be everyone who blesses you. So Isaac hears the voice, and it sure sounds like Jacob. And so he has him come near to him. Well, he smells like Esau. And the food tastes good like Esau's. And so he thinks, well, maybe it really is Esau. He's still doubting it. And you get the repetition of the story and the event as Moses is recording it for us. and he has him come near, and he eats and he drinks, and then he offers him a blessing. But if you notice, the blessing is not really the complete, full blessing of Abraham. And so, you tend to think that Isaac probably has some misgivings here. You know, he can't say that he's not Esau. He says he's Esau, he smells like Esau, the food's like Esau's, so it must be Esau. But he doesn't give him the unfettered Abrahamic blessing. It's restrained a little bit. And so you tend to wonder, is Isaac kind of rethinking this? Is he beginning to realize, you know, this isn't the prophecy. The prophecy said Jacob's to get the blessing. Maybe I shouldn't be blessing Esau after all. Maybe he's getting a little uncertain besides the conflict with whether this is Esau or not. Maybe he's getting a little concerned whether he should be doing this or not. The will of God said, you should not be doing this. But maybe Isaac's beginning to have questions about his course of action to bless Esau instead of Jacob. And Jacob is receiving a blessing, but again, it's not the full blessing of the Abrahamic covenant yet. So we have this dilemma, this kind of drama that's kind of working its way under the surface. We know that Isaac's not doing the will of God. He's plotting against the will of God. Rebecca's plotting to accomplish the will of God, but by human means. And so Isaac gives this blessing to Jacob, thinking he's giving it to Esau. And then the fourth element of this drama is the blessing that ultimately comes to Esau. The first thing that we see, which is the dramatic turning point of the whole story, is Isaac finally has his spiritual eyes opened. And so we see in verse 30, as soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, when Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of Isaac, his father, Esau, his brother, came in from his hunting. He also prepared delicious food and brought it to his father. And he said to his father, let my father arise and eat of his son's game, that you may bless me. And his father Isaac said to him, who are you? And he answered, I am your son, your firstborn, Esau. Then Isaac trembled very violently, and he said, who was it then that hunted game and brought it to me, and I ate it all before you came, and I have blessed him? Yes, and he shall be blessed. So Esau comes in with his food, and when he says he is the firstborn son, Esau, he sounds like Esau, he smells like Esau, he's brought the food like Esau, and Jacob begins to understand, no, this is Esau. And the text tells us, and he trembled very violently. So many commentators miss this completely. What's the significance of that? It's that God finally got through to Isaac what his will was and he realized he had been fighting against Almighty God. And he trembled because he understood his guilt and his sin before the Holy One of Israel. The Bible has a couple different reflections on fear in the life of a believer. One is, there's the statement over and over to us, don't be afraid. That is, don't be afraid of circumstances, of evil men, of trials that come your way. Don't be afraid of that. If evil men plot against you, don't be afraid. God is on your side. But there's another statement that's told to us many times, and that is, fear God. Remember, Jesus said, do not fear him who can kill the body and do no more. But this is who I will tell you to fear. Fear him who can kill both the soul and the body in hell. Yes, I say to you, fear him. This is finally what's taking place in Isaac's life. He's brought to tremble in fear before the Lord. God, through the prophet Isaiah, says, this is the one to whom I will look, he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. You and I are reminded and called, and seeing Isaac and his dilemma, we're called to remember that we are called to fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. Isaac finally saw that he had been challenging God and the will of God, and when he finally got that through his head, he trembled. and feared before the Lord. And then when he's asking the question, well, who was it that came in and brought the food to me and I ate it and I blessed him? And then it finally dawns on him that was Jacob. And so he affirms, and he will indeed be blessed. Jacob is the chosen one. He's the one to be blessed, and he will indeed be blessed. Well, we have Esau pleading for a blessing. Now, remember, he despised the covenant birthright. He is not at all desirous of living a covenant-ordered life. So what is it he's crying out for? Well, he wants the goods. You know, he wants the inheritance. That's what he wants. That's why he's distraught. And so in verse 34, as soon as Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry and said to his father, bless me, even me also, my father. But he said, Isaac said, your brother had came deceitfully and he has taken away your blessing. Esau said, is he not rightly named Jacob, for he has cheated me these two times? He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing. Then he said, have you not reserved a blessing for me? And Isaac answered and said to Esau, behold, I have made him lord over you, and all his brothers I have given to him for servants, and with grain and wine I have sustained him. What then can I do for you, my son? And Esau said to his father, have you but one blessing, my father? Bless me, even also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice and wept. Then Isaac, his father, answered and said to him, behold, away from the fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be, and away from the dew of heaven on high. By your sword you shall live and you shall serve your brother, but when you grow restless you shall break his yoke from your neck. And so he doesn't have a true blessing, he does in a sense you could say bless him, but it's really a curse. You're not going to live by the fruit of the land, although that wasn't his profession anyway. Your dwelling will be away from the dew of heaven on high. By the sword will he live? And we know the scripture says, if you live by the sword, you'll die by the sword. And then at some point in the future, when he grows restless, he'll break the yoke of his brother from his neck. So he has bitter sorrow. He wants a blessing. He can't really get a blessing from Isaac, not in the true sense of it. And he weeps and cries out. But remember, this was not the weeping of repentance. This is the weeping of just bitter disappointment. The writer of Hebrews helps us to appreciate that. He tells us, see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled. That no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau. who sold his birthright for a single meal, for you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears. He wept in disappointment, but he didn't repent. So we tend to feel sorry for Esau. Oh, he's cheated and what a poor person he is. Oh, how sorry we are for Esau. The Bible tells us, don't you dare think like that. He despised the covenant. He rejected living by the covenant. And now he has bitter tears simply because he wanted the goods. He wanted the riches of the inheritance that he would get from Esau. And so far from being a blessing, his pronouncement on it was a curse. And the people of Esau, the Edomites, were gonna be the enemies of Israel throughout their history. It's really, to me, kind of an interesting marvel. You see the conflict between the Jews today and the Muslims, the descendants of Ishmael. And you wonder, why are they fighting? They're brothers. And the same is true with Jacob and Esau. You know, why are they fighting? They're brothers. And that the conflict is there. Well, the last thing we see as we come to wrap up the chapter, and I'll do that quickly, is the hard consequences of the deceit. The first thing we see in verse 41 is Esau plans to murder Jacob. Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him. And Esau said to himself, the days of mourning for my father are approaching. Then I will kill my brother Jacob. Esau was a murderer. And he is showing that he is not a child of the woman, he's part of the seed of the serpent. Because the serpent was a liar and a murderer from the beginning. And that's who Esau is descended from. That's what he's displaying. And we find in the last part of this chapter in verse 42, but the words of Esau, her older son, were told to Rebekah. So she sent and called Jacob, her younger son, and said to him, behold, your brother Esau comforts himself about you by planning to kill you. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice. Arise, flee to Laban, my brother in Haran, and stay with him for a while until your brother's fury turns away, until your brother's anger turns away from you and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send and bring you from there. Why should I be bereft of you both in one day?" consequences of deceit for Rebecca is that she not only loses Esau as a son, but she's also losing Jacob. She may think she's going to call him back, but she never sees him again in this life. And her deceit leads to the bitter pill, both of Jacob having to go to Haran where he will spend 20 years learning the hard lesson that deceit is not a good path to go. So Jacob will experience the bitterness of the deceit. Rebecca is going to experience the bitterness of the deceit, and that Jacob has to be sent away. The one last thing I'll point to, which we probably will come back to next time, is what we see in chapter 28. We'll just look at this real briefly. Rebecca convinces J. Isaac to go ahead and send Jacob away so he can get a wife from her family and not of the Gentile women. And in Chapter 28, J. Isaac is going to give this assignment, this command for him to do that, but what we need to see is Beginning at verse 3 of chapter 28, here's where Jacob finally gets the Abrahamic blessing. Isaac says, God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you that you may become a company of peoples. May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham. And so here we have the announcement in the name of God Almighty, El Shaddai. Here's one of the covenant names, the covenant-making name of God that's been seen here in Genesis. And so Isaac identifies the promises coming from the covenant-making God, El Shaddai, and he pronounces on him the blessing of Abraham, the blessing of the land, the blessing of a fruitful offspring. And combined with the earlier that nations will come under him, we have here the fullness of the Abrahamic blessing. Finally, Isaac gets it. And he would have gotten it anyway because God had said he was the chosen one. But Rebekah, Isaac was fighting against it. Rebekah didn't trust it. Jacob, in some ways, was kind of a pawn. But he was complicit, at least, in the plan. And Esau was opposed to Jacob being the chosen one. And yet, God's will was done. In spite of Isaac's sin, in spite of Esau's sin, in spite of Rebekah's unbelief, in spite of Jacob's fearfulness, God's will was accomplished. And the thing that you and I can take encouragement from that is When you reflect on the promises of God and the will of God for you and for your life, is to take hope and confidence in the sovereign purposes of God that you can rest in His care and His will will be accomplished. And you can rest in Him and trust in Him. And may we do that by His grace. Amen. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you so much for your word and how it reminds us of your sovereign power and purpose. We thank you that it reminds us that we need to not take the matters into our own hand, that we need not pursue our purposes and our goals. We need to not operate in fear, but we need to rest in you and depend upon you and trust in you to I sovereignly accomplish your purposes, which is for your glory and your honor. May you give us this encouragement and this hope, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.