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Ready? This morning, continuing on with
our study in Genesis and stories of the Old Testament. We've studied about Abraham. Now we're in the family of Isaac. There's not much left of the
The story of Isaac himself, he's getting, we'll see it today,
he's getting to be of old age. He's not going to live much longer.
And so we're studying his family, specifically his two sons, Jacob
and Esau. And if you remember from last
time, the last part of Chapter 26, in verse 34 he says, and
Esau was 40 years old when he took to wife, and he mentions
these two women here, the Hittites, which were a grief of mine unto
Isaac and to Rebekah. We'll see a little bit more about
Esau today and the grief that he causes with the family. And,
you know, well, first, you notice he was 40 years old. So we know
him and Jacob being twins, they're both 40 years old now. So there,
when we get to checker 27, we have a timeline of about well
how old they are uh... as far as we know this is the
first time either one of them has married uh... and and you
notice it Esau marries outside the family remember the the tradition
so far has been you know abraham himself married in the family
so did isaac and uh... jacob will also but Esau doesn't
Now remember Esau, we looked at where he gave up his birthright
to his brother because he was hungry and starving. He gave
up his birthright, sold it for a bowl of stew. But there's other things, and we'll
look at this today also, there's other things that go along with
that birthright. there's the blessings of what's
referred to as the blessings from Isaac, his father. As Isaac
is about to pass away, Isaac knows his time is short and he
wants to bless the one that has the birthright, the one who is
the heir. The birthright simply means that he was the heir to
all that his father owned. And the same way Isaac was with
Abraham. And Abraham gave to Isaac the
birthright and a similar blessing, if you remember. And, of course,
Abraham and Isaac, Sarah and Rebecca, all four of them knew
the promise from God. And they had passed it down to
their children. Jacob, if you remember, was mostly
raised at home with his mother, so she had taught these things
to him. Isaac, on the other hand, saw
Esau as the favored son, even though that's not what God said,
not what God wanted. He still favored Esau and we'll
see that in this chapter also, that he still favors Esau, even
up until the time of his death. Isaac is still expecting Esau
to be the promised one, the promised one whose seed would become the
great nation. But it's not so. It's not the
will of God. And I mentioned there in verse
35, which were a grief of mine unto Isaac and Rebekah, like
I said, Whoever the promised one was
to be, whether it was Esau or Jacob, their bloodline had to
be pure according to God. They had to be of the family. And we refer to the family of
God. They were to marry within the family. So Esau has already married outside
the family, hasn't he? Remember, Abraham did something
similar, didn't he? He married Hagar. And he had
a son by Hagar Ishmael. We'll see Ishmael mentioned a
little later. I don't know if we'll get to
it today or not, but Esau will marry again and will marry two
women who were the daughters of Ishmael. So he just keeps
on, you know, If you're the favored son, you would think you would
at least be trying to follow the Lord and follow what he has for that one. But
Esau's not even trying. Every time we turn around, he's
doing something to rebel against God. Now, we know that that's
also in God's plan. But he still, he didn't have
to marry these women from other tribes, did he? He could have
married within the family. But we'll talk more about Esau
in a bit. In Genesis 27 verse 1, And it
came to pass that when Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim,
so that he could not see, he called Esau his eldest son, and
said unto him, My son. And he said unto him, Behold,
here am I. Now Isaac He's old. He's blind. Can't see. He can't tell who's in front
of him, but he recognizes voices. And we'll see this a little bit
later also where it comes up again. But he recognizes Esau. He calls for Esau to come to
him. He recognizes his voice. He knows who he is. There's no
doubt. And Esau immediately comes and he says, and he said, behold,
now am I old. I know not the day of my death.
Now, therefore, take, I pray thee, thy weapons, thy quiver,
thy bow, and go out to the field, and take me some venison, and
make me savory meat, such as I love, and bring it to me that
I may eat, that my soul may bless thee before I die. Now, Esau, remember, is a hunter. He's a worker, a farmer. He's
a man's man. He's everything that a father would
want in his eldest son. The one who he's going to leave
is his heir. Abraham, we have already seen
in this story once where Isaac loves venison. That's his favorite
meal. And Esau knows this. Esau, it
seems as though pretty frequently Esau brings his father venison
and cooks it for him. And you notice his son cooks
it for him. And in this case we see it again
that he asks Esau to cook it for him. His sons are good cooks. They've been taught well. They
can survive on their own. And he says, make me savory meat
such as I love. It's the best thing Abraham,
I'm sorry, the best thing Isaac has ever had is this venison
that Esau cooks. And then in verse four, we see
he says that, that my soul may bless thee before I die. Isaac,
I'm gonna get Abraham out of my mind. Isaac here is preparing for his death. And
in preparation for his death, he wants one last really good
meal. And he wants to placed his blessing
upon his favorite son, his eldest, the one who he believes is going
to be the heir. Then we see Rebekah. And Rebekah
heard when Isaac spake to Esau his son. And Esau went to the
field to hunt for venison and to bring it. And Rebekah spake
unto Jacob her son, saying, Behold, I heard thy father speak unto
Esau thy brother, saying, Bring me venison, and make me savory
meat, that I may eat, and bless thee before the Lord before my
death. Now therefore, my son, obey my
voice according to that which I command thee. Now Rebekah is
there. She hears this. She knows the
process or the custom of the birthright and the blessing.
She knows that once Isaac gives this blessing to Esau, Jacob's
out of the picture. It's humanly speaking. Now we
know God has other plans, but to follow the tradition and to
follow and Some say that this was something that the Lord had
taught them, how to do these things, which makes sense, that,
you know, if you had an heir, you were to give this blessing
to him before you passed away. They're just following what they've
been taught. And he saw, or Isaac is about to, it's as soon as
he eats and is As he sees that his days are
numbered, his days are short, he's going to give this blessing
unto Esau. And remember Abraham, when
Abraham did this with Isaac, he gave Isaac everything that
he owned. And then he gave gifts to his
other children. I remember Abraham had other
children. He remarried after Sarah passed
away. He also had Ishmael from Hagar. He gave gifts to them, but they
didn't get the main inheritance. They didn't get everything. It
tells us, in that story, it tells us that Abraham gave everything
to Isaac. This is what this blessing is.
It's going to give everything to the heir, whether it's Esau
or Jacob, it's going to be everything. The other one will get something,
but basically they're not going to get to home wherever they
lived. They're going to have to move.
They're going to have to leave home. They're going to be forced to
leave home. If you remember the story of Abraham, his other children
were forced to go to other lands to live because they were no
longer, they're still part of the family, but they're no longer
under Abraham's protection or under Abraham's place there. So Isaac inherited everything
that Abraham had. His other siblings had to leave
once Abraham died. The same thing's gonna happen
to Esau. Once Isaac dies, he's gonna have to leave because his
brother's gonna get the birthright and the blessing. And Rebecca
knows this. She knows all this. She knows
for Jacob to continue on with the promise
of God, he's got to receive the blessing from Isaac. That's the
only way it works. And she tells Isaac, do everything
I tell you. I'm going to tell you what to
do to make this happen. So we commonly think Jacob is
the one here that's working the trickery here, that he's the
one that's being the conniving and the sneak and all that. But
notice Rebecca is just as bad. And she's, actually she's the
one that instigates it. And she says, Go now to the flock
and fetch me from thence to two good kids of the goats, and I
will make them savory meat for thy father, such as he loveth,
and thou shalt bring it to thy father, that he may eat, and
that he may bless thee before his death. So she's going to
give him goat instead of venison. Now, I don't know if you've ever
had goat before, But you could season it up to make it taste
like venison, I believe. It's the same texture, pretty
close, you know. So they're going to, not only
are they going to trick him with their words, but they're also
going to trick him with the meal. He's not even going to get to
eat his favorite meal. He's going to get a goat instead. But they're going to do all this
before Isaac dies. You notice it seems like they're
in a hurry here. One, Esau's going to be coming back soon,
whether he got something or not. He's going to be coming back.
Plus, Isaac is so ill, they don't know when he's going to die.
It could be any time now. So they want to hurry up and
get him this last meal and get the blessing from him before
that takes place. And Jacob said to Rebekah, his
mother, behold, Esau, my brother, is a hairy man, and I am a smooth
man. There's a big difference, not
just in their voices, as we mentioned before, and we'll see that again
later, but also Esau, he says, is a hairy man.
He's got hair all over his body, and I'm, Jacob's bald. You know? He says, I'm not. I'm smooth. And he says, my father,
per venture, will fill me. And remember, he's blind. So
he's going to fill to make sure there's going to be things that
he's going to do, not the voice, the filling of him. He knows
how Esau cooks and what he's going to bring him. There's several
things that Jacob's, I mean, Isaac's going to do that would
give it away if things are not right. And he says, and I shall
see him, seem to him as a deceiver. And I shall bring a curse upon
me and not a blessing. So here's the other process.
If you tried to cheat your father out of the blessing, instead
of a blessing you get a curse. That's the tradition. That's
how it works. It's to protect the heir. Here, Jacob knows if he gets
caught deceiving his father, he's never going to get the blessing. It will never happen. And his mother said unto him,
upon me be thy curse, my son. Only obey my voice and go fetch
me them. Rebecca's willing to take the
blame. If you get caught, don't worry about it. I'll take the
blame. For one, I believe Rebecca knew
that God's in this. It seems like deception, but
God's in this. This is how the Lord has caused it to come about. This is the way it's going to
happen. And she knows this. And so she's willing, if he gets
caught, she's willing to take the curse and not Jacob. And he went and fetched and brought
them to his mother, and his mother made savory meat such as his
father loved. Notice, Isaac asked Esau to cook
the meat for him. Here, Jacob, their mother, Rebekah,
cooks it for him. So obviously Jacob didn't even
know how to cook it for his father like Esau did. He had to rely
on his mother to do it for him. And Rebekah took goodly Raymond
of her eldest son, Esau, which were with her in the house and
put them upon Jacob, her younger son. And she put the skins of
the kids of the goats upon his hands and upon the smooth of
his neck. And she gave the savory meat
and the bread which she had prepared into the hand of her son Jacob.
So they put the skins of the goats on his hands and his neck.
That tells you how hairy Esau was, doesn't it? Because I don't
know if you've ever felt of a goat, but it's a lot hairier than most
men. I'll tell you that. You would
know a difference if you had been around both. But we'll see that it works. Isaac falls for it. He's blind,
of course, but he still he's got his touch, his feelings. And he came under his father
and said, My father, and he said, Here am I. And notice Isaac says,
Who art thou, my son? He recognizes right away that
it's not Esau, but the voice. And Jacob said unto his father,
I am Esau, thy firstborn. I have done according as thou
bidest me arise. I pray thee, sit and eat of my
venison, that thy soul may bless me. So we see the deception here. Jacob lies to his father. not only with the meal, but also
about who he is. He portrays his brother Esau. And not just by telling him so,
but by putting on his clothes, by putting the goat skins on
his hands and his neck so he feels like his brother. Isaac has no idea, other than
the fact he knows it's not Esau's voice. And Jacob said unto his father,
I am Esau, thy firstborn, I have done according as thou hast badest
me arise. I pray thee, sit and eat of my
venison, that thy soul may bless me. So he's insisting on the blessing here.
And Isaac said unto his son, how is it thou hast found it
so quickly, my son, and he said, because the Lord thy God brought
it to me." Now things got serious, didn't
they? He brings the Lord's name into this and he lies about the
Lord. Well, we say that, but remember,
this was He says, the Lord thy God brought
it to me, which is not totally a lie, but it is a lie because
he didn't bring to him what Isaac asked for. And he's lying about
who he is. Oh, that's the lie. The Lord
did provide the meal, but not in the way he sang. And Isaac said unto Jacob, and
don't forget, we'll see at a later time, this comes back on Jacob. Because remember, when he gets
ready to marry, what happens to him? Yeah, he's plagued by
this lie the rest of his life. And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come
near, I pray thee, that I may fill thee, my son, whether thou
be my very son Esau or not. And Jacob went near unto Isaac
his father, and he felt 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, here's the blessing. Not yet. He's going to bless
him. And he said, Arthael, 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, near now and kissed 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. And therefore
God give thee of the dew of heaven. Here's the blessing that he blesses
him with. Therefore God give thee of the
dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn
and wine. Let people serve thee, and nations
bow down to thee. Be Lord over thy brethren, and
let thy mother's sons bow down to thee. Cursed be every one
that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth 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 he saw his brother came in from his hunting." Now,
they're fixing to get caught in the lie, but it's too late.
This blessing is like a covenant, in a way, that it can't be broken. It's a promise. The father has
blessed his son, who he thought was his oldest son, but is really
not. Legally, it's legal because remember Esau had given his birthright
to Jacob. That's what sealed it. His birthright
was given to Jacob. And then, now he has the blessing. Now he's the heir. It doesn't
matter if it was all a lie or not. According to the law, or
to their customs and their laws in that day, it's as good as
done. Isaac has just blessed the wrong
son, or in his eyes the wrong son, but it is the son that God
had chosen. And then we see Esau has come back
now. He wasn't gone very long. just long enough for all this
to happen, a few hours maybe. He comes back, and he also had
made savory meat. He's cooked the meal for his
father, and brought it unto his father, and 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. So now Isaac's confused. What
are you talking about? We've already done all this. We've already been through all
this. And now this is not the same voice. 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, he shall be blessed. So, Isaac is not happy. It troubles him so that he trembles. He knows he's given the blessing
to the wrong son. Or at least in his eyes, the
wrong son. We know that Jacob was the chosen
one from the beginning. So, it is the right son, but
it's not the eldest. I remember God had told them before.
He had told Rebecca when she was with child, with the two
babes in her womb. Remember when they were fighting
in the womb? The Lord told her then that the eldest was gonna
serve the younger, didn't he? So she knew. And Isaac, he says, well, I've
blessed him. It's good. It's done. It's too
late. He said, yea, and he shall be
blessed. That means it's done. It's too
late to change. Esau's been cheated out of his
inheritance again. He was cheated out of his birthright,
and now he's been cheated out of the blessing. And now he's
just like the the rest of the family, the rest of the children.
Even though he's the firstborn, he's not the heir. And when Esau
heard the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding
bitter cry and said unto his father, Bless me, even me also,
O my father. And he said, Thy brother came
with subtlety and hath taken away thy blessing. And he said, It is not he rightly
named Jacob, for he hath supplanted me these two times. He took away
my birthright, and behold, now he hath taken away my blessing.
And he said, Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me? Now, he's
all blaming this all on Jacob. And, humanly speaking, we think
rightly so. But remember, with the birthright,
He didn't have to give it up. He could have turned down the
bowl of stew, couldn't he? That's all it was. He was starving to
death. He was hungry. And Jacob threw that out there
and said, give me your birthright and I'll give you something to
eat. He didn't have to take it. He had a choice. And the choice
he made was to give away his birthright. And so now, it's a little different
this time. He didn't have a choice in this
matter, did he? He went to do what his father asked him to
do. And when he come back, he laid his mother and his brother.
And notice he doesn't bring any blame on his mother, does he?
He brings it all on his brother. Because these two brothers, remember,
have been fighting almost since conception, it appears. They
fought in the womb. They've not been, you know, we
think oftentimes twins, whether they're boys or girls or one
of each, Usually they're close friends, at least most of their
lives. But not in this case. These two
brothers are bitter enemies. Total opposites. And we can tell by one of them being hairy and one
of them being smooth that they weren't identical twins, were they? There
was a difference in the two. And now Esau, he's asking Isaac,
do you have a blessing reserved for me too? Can you give me a
blessing too? Where's my inheritance? And he
says, Isaac answered and said unto Esau, Behold, I have made
him thy lord. In other words, I've put him
over you. And that was another tradition.
The older son was supposed to be over his younger siblings. But again, we go back to when
they were in the womb and God told Rebecca, the eldest was
going to serve the younger. This is what happens. He says, Behold, I have made
him thy Lord and all his brethren have I given to him for servants
and with corn and wine have I sustained him. And what shall I do now
unto thee, my son? I've got nothing left. There's
nothing left to give you. And Esau said unto his father,
Hast thou but one blessing, my father? Bless me even me also,
O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice
and wept. Esau sees what's happened. He's lost everything. Notice
he's more concerned with possessions and with his father's blessing
than with anything of God. And Isaac his father answered
and said unto him, Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness
of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above. And by
thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother. And
it shall come to pass, when thou shalt have the dominion that
thou shalt break his yoke from off his neck. And this plays
out later in the Old Testament in the days of Israel, and well,
actually down into the time of the split kingdom with Israel
and Judah. And in Judah, the descendants of Esau will
become the nation of Edom. They will become basically the
servants of Israel for many generations. They will serve Israel. They
will live in a land that's not very prosperous. And they will
have to live by fighting, mostly. They will be robbing and stealing
from others to live, from their neighbors. But it was in the days of Judah. And I believe it was in 2 Kings 8 and 20 through 22. We won't turn there this morning.
But if you look at that and see in the days of Joram, the king
of Judah, He was, I believe, the fifth
king after the split of the kingdom after Solomon. He was the fifth
king of Judah. They would, Edom would win some
battles and would break free from Israel. They never conquered
Israel, but they would break free from Israel, free from their
bondage. And for a short time, they would
have their own kingdom. All that would go away when Babylon
come. and destroyed all of Israel's
enemies in Nebuchadnezzar's day. So these two brothers are going
to be, even though Edom is going to be under Israel for many generations,
they're going to be bitter enemies from now on because of all this
that has happened. The Edomites are going to feel
cheated from their inheritance because of all this. because
of all that's happened between these two brothers. And Esau
hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed
him. And Esau said in his heart, the days of mourning for my father
are at hand, then will I slay my brother Jacob. So as soon
as we're done mourning our father's death, I'm gonna kill him. And these words of Esau were
These words of Esau, her elder son, were told to Rebekah. And
she sent and called Jacob, her younger son, and said unto him,
Behold, thy brother Esau, as touching thee, doth comfort himself,
purposing to kill thee. So isn't that how oftentimes
we, in our grief, especially if we think someone has wronged
us, especially if it's concerning family especially and sometimes
even church members, friends, co-workers. And when someone, especially
when someone passes, we're already grieving that loss. But if we're
someone that has caused us problems, we often lash out at them and
try to blame them for things that have happened. That happens
a lot. And in this case, that's what
happens is Esau was so, notice he wasn't upset at his father's
passing. He's upset because he didn't
get the blessing. Because he was cheated out of being the
heir. And his answer to that is, I'll
kill my brother. Well, was that saying we have
two wrongs don't make a right? You know, if he kills his brother,
that's not going to make everything right, is it? That's not the
attitude to have. The attitude that he should have
had was he should have went along with it and just dealt with it. There was nothing else for him
to do. Instead, he's going to be a bitter
enemy and he's going to continue the rest of his life to stray
further and further from the ways of God. and we'll see more
of that in a later time also. Now, Rebecca tells Jacob, Now
therefore, my son, obey my voice and arise. Flee thou to Laban,
my brother in Haran, and tarry with him a few days, until thy
brother's fury turn away. Let him cool off, son. Well,
if you remember, she says a few days, but it was, remember when
Abraham sent his servant to find Isaac a wife. We see it took
17 days by camel to get from where they were to Haran. Well,
where they are now is not much difference. They're not that
much closer than what Abraham was. It's going to be a couple
of weeks at least before Jacob could get there. It's a
long journey. But she tells him to go there
for a few days and let him cool off a little bit. And until thy
brother's anger turn away from thee, and he forget that which
thou hast done to him, then I will send and fetch thee from Theons.
Why should I be deprived also of you both in one day? So, I don't know why Rebecca would
think that Esau's gonna forget this. This is something, this
is pretty serious. He's, his birthright and his,
at least in his eyes, his birthright and his, his inheritance has
been stolen from his brother. And she says let him forget about
it and come back after he's forgotten about it. He's not gonna forget
this, ever. And we see death of the generations,
as I mentioned before. His seed is not going to forget
this either. And Rebekah said to Isaac, I
am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob
take a life of the daughters of Heth, such as these, which
are the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me? So before Isaac dies, they have
this conversation. We've got to do something with
Jacob. He's the heir. We know what God's promise is
and who the bloodline has to go through. He has to marry someone not of
Canaan, remember? And that's where they're living
is in the land of Canaan. The daughters of Heth, where they
live, or the people of Heth that are there, she doesn't want her
son to marry into that tribe. She wants him to marry, like
his father, out of his own family, out of her family. And she requests
that Isaac send him back to Haran to marry, or to find a wife of
her brother Laban's, or I'm sorry, her father, is it her father
or her brother? Her brother Laban. It's in Haran. And he does that. Isaac, the
very first part of the next chapter, Isaac gets with Jacob, blessed
him again, and charged him to go and take a wife from Haran,
from their family, his mother's side of the family. And he does
that. And next time, When we get to
the next chapter, we'll see a little bit about that. It's very similar.
Well, it's very similar to how Abraham had done with Isaac,
other than the fact that Jacob goes himself. They don't send
a servant. But it's the same process. He goes to the family
to find a wife. And we'll also look at this dream
that Jacob had while he was on his journey. And we'll, I don't know, there's all kinds of thoughts and doctrines
built all around this dream that he has. A lot of it's false doctrine
you have to be careful about. We'll look at some of that. Jacob's ladder, as it's called.
Our Sunday school teacher mentioned it this morning. There's people that try to take
it literally here, and you'll see these pictures they'll paint
of an actual ladder going up to heaven. But this is one of
those places where it's figurative. It's not an actual ladder. It's a dream. It's kind of like,
you remember in the New Testament, Max, Peter, the Lord showed the
big sheet to him and all the animals that were in it and told
him to eat. That wasn't literal, it was figurative. And it's the same way here. And
so we'll look at that next time.
The Family of Isaac: Part 3
Series Stories in the Bible
| Sermon ID | 820231550513192 |
| Duration | 42:36 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Language | English |
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