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Gen 35:16 - 37:1

Date: 11.9.25

Recap of the Text:

Explanation of the Text:

• Overview: a conclusion for the brothers. Not the last we’ll hear.

I: Twin Tragedies (16-22a)

• Rachel’s hard labor (v16-17) leads to her death (v19) and burial (v20).

• He erects a pillar - a place of remembrance (cf v14) But moves on (v21).

• Grasping for control? (v22a). Possibly, again.

II: Listing of the sons, v22b-26

• Not by birth order—but Leah’s listed first.

• Paddan-aram, inclusively. Benjamin notwithstanding. Point? God brought him back.

III: The closing of Isaac’s story, v27-29

• 27:1, 4 - at 137 Isaac was preparing for death 43 years earlier; but apparently there was some warning here - Jacob came to his father.

• Some will say the concept of life after death is absent in the OT, but “gathered” clearly indicates such an idea

IV: Toledoths of Esau, 1-43

• unique set (v1, v9)?, immediate descendants & separation, with v31ff being a later insertion. This includes a longer descent

• - remember what Isaac spoke over Esau: 27:38-40

  • If the land “could not sustain” you might expect the one who never left to stay; but no!

  • Esau settles “away from the fatness” not the land where Abraham or Isaac had origins!

• Compare ch 36:6 to the base list of 12 in 35:23-26

  • Who is multiplying greatly? Who has chieftains and clan leaders & kings? Esau!

Question: will God be faithful to his Word?

• Jacob’s family is in the process of falling into disarray - his beloved dies; his son violates his concubine; his father dies (regrets?); all we have is 37:1.

• But all is, of course, an understatement. That God brought him back is remarkable - & is a down payment on future fulfillment

• Friends, we have a fuller, clearer understanding of God’s promises than Jacob did - and an even better down payment: His presence & the Holy Spirit himself

  • Eph 1:11-14

Brothers & sisters, it can be tempting to doubt God. To doubt his promise of salvation. To doubt his presence in your grief. To doubt his ordering of history. To doubt whether he can forgive your sins. When you doubt consider this: The God who did not spare his own Son but graciously gave him up for us all, will also with him give you everything you need. If you look to him, he will bring you safe to Canaan’s land.

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Transcript generated by AI. The sermon was not. Please comment if you notice any errors.

The Place of Prudence in Providence

If you spend enough time reading the Bible over the course of years, and there’s different ways you can read the Bible. A lot of us, if we do read the Bible, a lot of us, we just leave the Bible on the shelf and let other people read it for us. But even if you’re reading it, it’s very easy to fall into the habit of just, I need a little bit of a nugget to get me through the day, some kind of encouragement, some kind of a pick-me-up.

Ideally, what we’re doing when we’re reading the Bible is we are listening to what God has to say. God has revealed himself through the scriptures. And so as we’re reading, we want to understand what the author who is inspired by the Holy Spirit is intending to communicate. If you do that over the course of time, there’s going to be certain places where you feel like there is tension.

And one of those tension points is between the principle of grace, of self-giving love, self-sacrificing love on the one hand, and the call on the other hand to wisdom, to prudence, to thinking decisions and actions through very carefully. Now these two things, wisdom, prudence, and self-giving, self-sacrificing love, they aren’t actually intention. They are not opposed to one another because they’re both expressions of God’s own character.

And one of my favorite classical doctrines of God in the history of Christianity is the doctrine of God’s simplicity. Not that God is easy to understand, but what that means is that God is not divided. God is one. And so his attributes, his characteristics are not fighting against one another. In the mind and heart of God, his justice and his love aren’t fighting a war. And it’s like, oh, is God’s justice going to win here or is his love? No, both are just ways that we describe how God is all of the time toward us as his creatures.

And so the same thing here, wisdom is not opposed to love, but sometimes it can feel that way, especially living this side of the fall. We face circumstances, we face times when it is hard to tell. Do I need to emphasize love here? Do I need to emphasize taking a risk? Or do I need to emphasize walking wisely, considering my steps?

The Proverbs say that the wise man looks and he sees the pit that’s coming, but the fool just stumbles right into the pit. Well, how do I know? Am I supposed to emphasize looking for the trap, looking for the pit, or am I supposed to emphasize I’m just going to trust the Lord and do the loving thing? It’s hard to know sometimes.

Let’s read our passage this morning. It’s Genesis chapter 30, verses 25 to 43. And if you do have a bulletin, the title is different than what I have in the bulletin. The title of this sermon probably more accurately would be the place of prudence in providence. The place of prudence in providence. Genesis chapter 30 beginning in verse 25 says this:

So there’s some weird stuff in here, but we’ll get to that. The first thing we should see in verses 25 to 33 is that prudence is necessary to protect your family. Verse 25 says, as soon as Rachel had born Joseph, Jacob goes to Laban and says, send me away, which means he has fulfilled his seven years of service to Laban.

So Joseph is the 11th son of Jacob, his 12th son. Benjamin won’t be born until he is returned to the promised land. So his last son born here in Paddan Aram is the son Joseph, which means that he has 11 sons and at least 12 children born in the space of seven years.

You think sometimes when you get later to the story of Joseph and you think of his older brothers, you think, wow, you know, this is a huge family. These guys are 15, 20 years older than him. They’re not. They’re all born together in a pretty tight window. All 11 of them are within seven years of each other.

And Jacob sees that he has this burgeoning responsibility with this large family. He needs to take care of them. And God has promised him that the land of promise, the land of Canaan is where God is going to bless him. And so he sees a need, like I need to get back to the land of promise, to the land where God has promised to provide for me in order to take care of this family.

And it’s kind of a side note here, but I think I mentioned in an earlier sermon, one of the things you notice with Jacob is that he is at his best when he is taking proactive steps. When Jacob is sitting back and letting other people make decisions for him, his mom telling him what to do, his wives telling him what to do and kind of pulling him around all over the place. If he’s letting other people make decisions for him, things go poorly. But when he takes initiative, things tend to go much better. Things tend to be moving in the right direction.

Jacob recognizes here at this point, after seven, this is 14 total years of service, right? He had served seven years for Rachel before Laban snuck Leah in and he married Leah. And then after a week, he gave him Rachel for seven more years of service. He’s been serving Laban for 14 years, seven years with a family. And now he wants to move back to the land. And so he goes and he tells Laban, hey, send me away. Give me my wives and my children. I’ve served you for this long. And now you know, you know that I’ve served you honestly. You know the service that I’ve given to you.

But here’s what Laban says to him. Laban does not want to lose Jacob’s service. He doesn’t want to lose his work. He says, if I have found favor in your sight. So he’s trying to curry some favor with him. Like, hey, listen, listen to me for a minute. I’ve learned by divination, and that’s not entirely clear in the text what that means, but maybe he’s used some kind of witchcraft, or he’s gone to someone who gave him an omen, or maybe the Lord just appeared to him in a dream, and it’s not super clear in the text how this happens.

But he has learned somehow that his blessing, the prosperity of his flocks, has come through the presence of Jacob. And we know from a few verses later that this is accurate. Jacob shares that assessment that the blessing of Laban, Laban didn’t have very much when Jacob showed up. But after 14 years of Jacob serving him, Laban is now a wealthy and prosperous man.

And Laban says, hey, here’s the deal. You’re really valuable. Name your wage. I’ll give it to you. Name what you want. And it’s yours. This is a great place to be in as a worker, right? You tell your boss, I want to leave. And he says, I’ll pay anything to keep you. You tell me the wage and I will give it to you.

And so then Jacob, Jacob is shrewd. You can tell as he starts into his reply to Laban’s offer here, name your wage and I’ll give it to you. Jacob’s setting it up to drive a pretty hard bargain. He says, you yourself know how I have served you and how your livestock has fared with me. You had little before I came and it is increased abundantly. And the Lord has blessed you wherever I turned.

So as he’s replying, he’s setting it up to like, I am going to make a big ask here. And you need to remember, you basically wouldn’t have any of this if it weren’t for me. You’d still be dealing with shepherds who wouldn’t even roll the stone away for your daughter when she showed up with the sheep. That’s who Laban had working for him before. Now he has Jacob and he’s become wealthy and prosperous. And Jacob says, remember that before I set this up.

Now, how am I gonna provide for my own household? I’ve made you rich. I’ve made you prosperous, Laban. But now what am I gonna do for me? And Laban comes back very quickly with, what shall I give you? What can I give you to make up for this? What can I give you to sweeten this deal, to make you want to stay?

And Jacob, this is where I see his prudence and his shrewdness come in here. He says, you shall not give me anything. Jacob knows who he’s dealing with in Laban. Laban’s not a trustworthy man, obviously. Laban’s proved that multiple times, and he’s going to show that again. And Jacob does not want to take a gift from someone he knows is not trustworthy.

Why is that? Like, if that person’s not trustworthy, but they’re giving you a gift, what’s it matter? It’s a gift, right? But what Jacob understands, what they understood in the ancient Near East, and what we as modern Americans tend to deny, but we still know, is that gifts come with obligations. Gifts come with obligations. There is always a string attached. That string may not be negative, but it exists with literally every gift that is given.

Advertisers know this. So you get those little flyers in the mail. We’ll give you this free gift if you listen to our presentation and you’re gonna feel obligated because they gave you that gift to listen to the presentation, the sales pitch. Like they’re not dumb when they say, I’m gonna give you this $40 thing to try to sell you something that costs $3,000, right? They know that that gift gives you a sense of obligation to that person, to that company.

This is true even in families where there is genuine love. But if you give a gift to someone and you don’t at least get a thank you, do you not feel wronged? If you give a gift and that person then turns around and relationally stabs you in the back, they start talking poorly about you after you’ve just done something kind for them, do you not feel wronged? Because you have been wronged. That gift came with an expectation of a reciprocal relationship.

This is true even in salvation. Some people would throw up salvation as a counter to this. Well, God gives us his grace freely without any expectation in return, but that’s not true. His grace is completely freely given without condition in us. We don’t do anything to earn or deserve God’s favor. But if we have received salvation from him, there is a reciprocal piece of this.

The apostle Paul says in Romans 12 verses one and two, after he’s spent 11 chapters of the book of Romans unfolding the freeness of God’s grace, the extravagance of God’s grace towards those who by nature are his enemies. Like we don’t do anything to earn or deserve salvation through Jesus. But he says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind and in view of God’s mercies, the reasonable, the acceptable sacrifice in return is to offer yourself as a living sacrifice. This is your reasonable act of service. The reasonable response to the gift of salvation is to give your whole self to God.

And so then the rest of the book of Romans is Paul explaining how you then live as a Christian in light of having received the gift of salvation. So even salvation is a gift and the string that is attached is glorious. It means living as God’s child. But if you refuse to live as if you are God’s child, then it’s perfectly fine to question whether you actually receive the gift of salvation to start with.

All gifts have expectations attached to them. And Jacob here prudently knows, I don’t want ambiguous expectations of relationship attached to my interaction with Laban. Everything needs to be clear cut. Everything needs to be written down. I don’t want, well, I did this favor. I gave you this gift in the past. And so, you know, maybe you really ought to stick around. He doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want that expectation of reciprocal kindness attached to someone he knows he can’t trust further than he can throw him.

So Jacob prudently refuses the gift and says, instead, let’s make another business deal. You give me all the striped and speckled of the flock and all the black lambs. So these are going to be less common colors of the goats and of the sheep. He says, you pull those out of the flock. They’re mine. And for the extent of this time, it’s going to be six years that he works for Laban for these flocks. All of the goats and the sheep that are these colors belong to me. All the rest belong to you, Laban. And I’ll keep shepherding your flocks. I’ll keep growing your business as long as I get to grow mine on the side. And you’ll be able to look at my flocks and see if I stole anything that belonged to you. It’s going to be pretty obvious.

And Laban says, that sounds like a great idea. And then immediately, the second thing we see here is that dealing with deceitful people demands prudence. Because Laban immediately then pulls all of those colors of goats and sheep out of his flocks and gets them three days journey away from Jacob. He immediately undercuts the deal. But nonetheless, there is clarity in what was agreed upon.

Laban is exceedingly shrewd in a way that’s unhinged from obedience to God. In the gospel of Luke chapter 16, Jesus tells a parable about an unjust but shrewd business manager. He owes his employer a large sum of money and he’s about to get fired because he hasn’t done a good job managing. He’s the opposite of Jacob. He’s got all these accounts that haven’t been collected because he hasn’t done a good job as a manager. But then he goes, he knows he’s going to get fired and he thinks he might face some pretty severe consequences. So he goes to each of the people who have these open accounts. He’s like, you owe, we’ll put it in our terms, you owe $1,000, here, pay $100 and we’ll call that account good. And he goes and he does this with all of the creditors. And the guy who’s about to fire him says, you know what? That was pretty shrewd. Like, I’m not crazy about how you just did this, but I’ve kind of got to hand it to you. That was the right thing to do. Because what did he do? He then made friends with all of these other people who owed his employer this money.

And Jesus says then in Luke chapter 16 and verse eight, that the sons of this age, the people of the world, those who aren’t driven by righteousness and the desire to honor God are wiser, they’re shrewder, than the sons of light, than the children of God. They’re more likely to act in a way that is wise in this world. And then Jesus tells his disciples, use unrighteous mammon, use your earthly wealth and talents and gifts in a way that is shrewd so as to win friends in this world.

Now, as Jesus is saying this, he’s not endorsing dishonesty. He’s not endorsing doing things that are foolish or sinful, but he’s saying just because you’re a Christian and called to love doesn’t mean you need to be an idiot. Like that’s what Jesus is trying to get across here. Use wisdom in how you deal with people in this world and use the things of this world, the money that God has given you, the skills that he has given you to curry friends, to win favor with those around so that when you come to them with the gospel, they know you’re not just some crazy person. Like you’re an intelligent human being that if they’re saying this, maybe they’re living differently than me, but I can kind of trust what they have to say. They’re not dumb.

So, Laban is someone who is shrewd in a way that’s unhinged from obedience. By trying to remove all of Jacob’s wages, we see that in verse 35. But I think the question is put to us as we read about Laban, who is the Laban in your life? Who do you deal with, either occasionally or regularly, maybe you’re related to them, that you need to be more careful about how you deal with them? You probably should trust them less than you do.

This is, again, where we can feel that tension as Christians. Love is motivated by the good of the other. It’s motivated by doing what’s best for someone else. Isn’t that intention with being prudent and wise and looking out for the dangers in relationships with people? It can feel that way, but it’s not. Love does take risks, but loves must be ordered. This is in classical Christian theology, like the understanding of the order of loves, Ordo amoris. That’s actually kind of come up in politics a couple months ago when JD Vance started talking about the orders of loves in how we relate to people in different parts of the world. Like we can’t actually love everybody the same right? You only have so much capacity and sometimes loving this person would seem to be in conflict with loving this person and so you have to order starting with your own family and then your own immediate community, your church and your town. Like you’ve got to order your loves and it starts with loving God first.

I want to use a couple of examples here. Think of an addict in your life. This may be an obvious one, but one thing that people with addicts in their life often do is enable them. They don’t act wisely towards them. They try to be loving and they try to keep them on their feet and they’ll give them a place to land, a place to stay, no matter how they respond to that because they want to be loving.

But if you keep enabling behavior that is destroying someone’s life, is that actually loving? Are you motivated by doing what’s best for that person or are you motivated by the discomfort it gives you to see them suffering from their own decisions? That’s an important question to ask. Are you motivated by the discomfort that you feel or are you motivated by what’s actually best for that person?

Same thing with someone in your life who’s dishonest. They don’t tell the truth and you can try to skirt around that and try to keep everything smooth relationally. Not bring up when they lie to your face or when they’re doing things that violate the nature of your relationship. You can be afraid of the conflict that will come if you call that behavior out or when you just refuse to go along with their lies. Like, if you contradict those things, it will create tension, it will create conflict, especially if they have more explosive personalities. But are you driven by what’s actually right for them, what’s good for them, or are you driven by what will keep everything calm? Those aren’t the same thing most of the time.

One of my favorite verses, I quote it all the time, Leviticus chapter 19, where Moses says to reason frankly with your neighbor, reason frankly with your brother if he’s offended you, if he’s wronged you, and do not hold bitterness in your heart.

Our fundamental responsibility in this world as Christians, is to be godly. It’s to honor the Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. The second commandment’s like it, love your neighbor as yourself. Those two things are never truly in conflict, honoring the Lord and loving our neighbor. They sometimes feel like they are, but we always have to pull ourselves back to, regardless of how I feel, objectively what will honor the Lord in this situation. We are responsible to the Lord to trust in his direction for that. His direction through his word, his direction as we come to him in prayer, not to try to judge how others are going to feel or respond to that.

Other people’s responses to our attempts to live wisely before God are not our responsibility. And so as long as you’re trying to calculate and figure out how am I going to act based on how I think they will respond, you are living based on the fear of man rather than the fear of God.

Jacob here is okay with offending Laban. I’m sure Laban, well, Laban, to be honest, probably doesn’t take the time to feel offended because he’s just figuring out how he’s going to get the upper hand, which is often the case. We think people are going to be offended by the way we act, but really they’re just busy trying to think, how do I deal with this situation? They’re not actually thinking about what’s inside of you. That’s another topic.

The third thing we see in this text when we get to verses 37 to 43. So we’ve seen that for Jacob to protect his family, he has to act in a way that is prudent. And we see that that’s necessary because of who he’s dealing with. And we often deal with people like Laban in our lives. So we too must act with prudence. The third thing we see in this text, though, is that we have to remember God’s providence in every situation.

Jacob makes this deal with Laban and Laban immediately undercuts it. And now Laban is given Jacob a flock that has none of the things that they’ve just agreed will be given to Jacob. There’s no more striped and spotted goats. There’s no more black lambs. And Jacob is not an idiot. He knows he has been double-crossed. But that doesn’t really seem to faze him at all.

Instead, he does this really weird thing. He goes to the place where they water the flocks, and he goes there with some sticks that he has peeled, and he puts the sticks down, and the sheep and the goats would breed where they went to water. There’s basically three ideas that commentators give associated with this. That as he’s put these sticks here, thinking that as the sheep and the goats breed, they’ll be looking at these sticks. He only does this for the strong ones. The weak ones, he pulls the sticks away. Like, I don’t want the weak ones affected by this. I only want the strong ones affected.

Some people think, number one, first possibility, he’s basically participating in some kind of witchcraft, that this is like a voodoo deal, that if you put these sticks out here, it will magically make the babies turn the color associated with the peeled sticks. I basically completely reject that option because Jacob has shown he’s turned a corner here. He’s not all the way turned towards like sold out, worshiping God, serving God, but he clearly is acknowledging the presence and power of God in his life. He’s in his interaction with Laban credited God with the fact that the flocks have become prosperous.

Later on in the next chapter, when he’s dealing with Laban again, he’s going to respond to Laban’s accusations that Jacob was stealing from him or that everything still really belonged to Laban. Jacob’s going to say, no, God has prospered me. So Jacob understands God’s providence in all of this. So I don’t think he’s turning the opposite direction and going towards witchcraft.

The other two options are variations of the same theme. In the ancient Near East, it seems that there was an idea, and this actually carried on through not just to the ancient Near East, but really until within the last couple centuries as we started to understand genetics, which is not even the last couple centuries. That’s really within the last few decades. But there was this idea that if animals were breeding and they had a visual focus on something, whatever they were visually focusing on would affect their offspring.

So some of the premier biblical commentators in the 19th century were Keil and Delitzsch. And they cite several references to this, like examples from people who were professional sheep breeders that they would use this same technique. And this is in the 17 and 1800s where they would set these peeled sticks in front of them and it would affect the coloring of the animals.

So the two variations of this are, number one, Jacob was doing this because he knows something that we as modern people don’t know. We chalk everything up to genetics and he’s actually got information that we would just reject because, well, ancient people are superstitious. And he’s right and we’re wrong. That’s a possibility.

The third possibility is that that’s what’s going through Jacob’s mind, that he’s setting these sticks out here because he thinks it’s going to affect the coloration of the animals. And it doesn’t actually affect the coloration of the animals, but God in his providence still allows those animals, the stronger ones, to produce the coloration that Jacob needs to grow his flocks.

Either one of those, I think, are acceptable from the text. I lean towards the last one. I am a modern person. I do believe in genetics. But Jacob certainly, he sees that he’s taking an action here beyond just selective breeding, but trying to more quickly impact the coloration of his flocks by putting these sticks out here. I don’t think they probably do affect anything.

There’s one word in verse 39. It says the flocks bred in front of the sticks and so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled and spotted. But that word so in our English Bibles is inserted by translators. It’s not actually there in the Hebrew text. The Hebrew text just gives you the order. He did this and then they gave birth to these speckled, spotted and striped offspring. It doesn’t tie his actions directly to the result. It just tells you this happened and then this happened. And I think we probably should just follow the Hebrew presentation of it there, that this is what happened. Here are Jacob’s actions. Here’s what happened afterward. The flock gave birth to these different colors from the stronger of the flock.

So I don’t think Jacob’s technique here does anything for him, to be honest. God is blessing him. But I also don’t think we should judge him for it. He’s just acting in a way that’s consistent with their understanding of breeding animals at the time. And so he’s just doing something that’s in line with how any other sheep or goat herder would have acted at that time. And he still seems to have trust that it’s God’s providence that brings him the blessing that he needs.

And we get to the end of the chapter and in verse 43 it says thus the man increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants and camels and donkeys. So his flocks have grown to the point where not only does he have a massive amount of sheep and goats but he’s obviously able to turn around and sell enough of them that he’s able to acquire more servants, acquire donkeys, acquire camels. Like he has become enormously rich through this process. God has continued to bless him.

The narrator doesn’t pass negative judgment on Jacob here for doing what seems to us very strange with the peeled stick deal. So I don’t think we should pass judgment on him either. Instead, we should see a positive and needed example in Jacob in this chapter. It’s that he is seeking to live in a way that is prudent and wise. Not depending on the efficacy of his own prudence and wisdom, but depending on the providential care of God.

Those are two things. Again, they feel like their intention, but biblically they’re not. We are required, we are expected to live with the most wisdom that we can. Book of Proverbs. How do you get wisdom? Seek wisdom. That’s what Ryan talked to us about last week. Pursue wisdom. And in all of that, don’t trust that your wisdom is what’s going to save you. Trust that God has a plan for you and he will protect you and he will provide for you.

Pursue wisdom and trust in the providential protection and care of God. That’s what he calls us to on this earth. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And the end of wisdom, the telos, the goal of wisdom is to live a life that brings honor and glory to God. And that’s the direction that Jacob is turning here. His narrative arc has moved from just like doing things his own way. And then he’s kind of getting pulled around by other people. But he started to turn towards desiring, not perfectly, but desiring to honor God. And God is caring for him. And God is keeping his promise to Jacob. And that’s the most important thing of all.

Jacob’s imperfect and he fails. We are imperfect and we fail. But God had given promises to Jacob and God fulfills those promises. And God gives promises to us that if we trust in him, he will be there for us. He will be our rock and our fortress and our deliverer. And so we can trust in him as well.

Would you pray with me? Father God, thank you for your kindness towards us. Thank you for your provision. Thank you for your care. Help us to be wise in how we deal with those around us. We want to put your love on display, Father. But help us to have love that is governed by biblical wisdom, not by feelings, not by emotions, the emotions of ourselves or others, but rather ordered by a right attention to what your word teaches. We need your help in this, and so we ask for it in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.

Text

Jonah 2 (ASV)

Then Jonah prayed unto Jehovah his God out of the fish’s belly. ² And he said,

I called ^[a]by reason of mine affliction unto Jehovah,
And he answered me;
Out of the belly of Sheol cried I,
And thou heardest my voice.
³ For thou didst cast me into the depth, in the heart of the seas,
And the flood was round about me;
All thy waves and thy billows passed over me.
⁴ And I said, I am cast out from before thine eyes;
Yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.
⁵ The waters compassed me about, even to the soul;
The deep was round about me;
The weeds were wrapped about my head.
⁶ I went down to the bottoms of the mountains;
The earth with its bars closed upon me for ever:
Yet hast thou brought up my life from ^[b]the pit, O Jehovah my God.
⁷ When my soul fainted within me, I remembered Jehovah;
And my prayer came in unto thee, into thy holy temple.
⁸ They that regard lying vanities
Forsake their own mercy.
⁹ But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving;
I will pay that which I have vowed.
Salvation is of Jehovah.

¹⁰ And Jehovah spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.

Prayer Focus: The Gift of Salvation

Poem

As the sailors heave me over the prow,
I've nowhere to go, sinking deeper down now--
the fish swallows me. Why to run did I try?
Out of the depths of Sheol hear my cry!
Salvation belongs
Salvation belongs
Salvation belongs to the Lord

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Transcript generated by AI. The sermon was not. Please comment if you notice any errors.

If you want to take your Bibles in turn, we’re going to be in Genesis chapter 29 this morning is where we will start. Genesis 29. Andy told me last week that I was a little academic. So hopefully it won’t be quite so academic this week. It’ll be a little bit more in the story that we are reading. Genesis 29, beginning in verse 1 will read down through verse 14 to start with. Says then Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the people of the east. As he looked, he saw a well in the field, and behold three flocks of sheep lying beside it, for out of that well the flocks were watered. The stone on the well’s mouth was large, and when all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep, and put the stone back in its place over the mouth of the well. Jacob said to them, “My brothers, where do you come from?” They said, “We are from Haran.” He said to them, “Do you know Laban, the son of Nahor?” They said, “We know him.” He said to them, “Is it well with him?” They said, “It is well, and see, Rachel, his daughter, is coming with a sheep.” He said, “Behold, it is still high day. It is not time for the livestock to be gathered. Water the sheep and go pasture them.” But they said, “We cannot until all the flocks are gathered together and the stone is rolled from the mouth of the well. Then we water the sheep.” While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherdess. Now, as soon as Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother’s brother, Jacob came near and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth and watered the flock of Laban, his mother’s brother. Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept aloud. Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s kinsman, and that he was Rebecca’s son, and she ran and told her father. And as soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister’s son, he ran to meet him and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house, and Jacob told Laban all these things. And Laban said to him, “Surely you are my bone and my flesh,” and he stayed with him a month.

So chapter 29 begins with the word “then.” Then what? After what happened? Well, last week we looked at chapter 28 and beginning in verse 10 of chapter 28. God had met with Jacob at Bethel. Jacob’s running for his life. He’s afraid that his brother Esau is going to kill him. Esau wants to kill him. And so he’s taking off. His mother and his father have sent him to Padan Aram to Laban, the brother, rather, of Rebecca. And so as he’s going, God meets him there in a dream and promises him that he is going to receive the blessing that God had promised to Abraham and to Isaac before him, and then adds to that a personal promise that God would bring Jacob back to the land that he was leaving. He was going to come back to the land of promise. Verses 2 and 3, as Jacob goes on this journey, he rises from that place at Bethel and heads, continues on, towards his mother’s family. We meet some shepherds. He gets to a place where he sees a well, and wells are significant meeting places in the Bible, and here is no different. He comes and he meets these shepherds at a well, and then we get a little bit of background as to how these shepherds operate. When all of their flocks get together, then they move the stone, and then they start drawing water to water their sheep. But they’re just laying around here in the middle of the day. There’s apparently a flock that’s waiting to come. And Jacob initiates conversation with these men. He says, “Where are you guys from?” And they say “Haran,” which is exactly the place that he is wanting to get to. This is where Abraham’s family is from. It’s where Rebecca’s family is from. He’s trying to get to this place, and he has made it here. God has providentially led him to the right place and also at just the right time, because when he finds out that they’re from here and he says, “Hey, do you know Laban?” And they said, “Yeah, we know Laban. And hey, look, there is his daughter Rachel coming right now.” God has led Jacob to just the right place, at just the right time. And here comes Rachel. And Jacob here is seen initiating. That’s important. He initiates the conversation with these men. When Rachel comes with the flock, he immediately moves the stone that these men have been saying, “Yeah, we wait until everybody gets here.” Well, as soon as Rachel’s there, he moves the stone. He tells Rachel who he is. He kisses her. This is just a kiss of greeting. Laban’s going to kiss Jacob the same way in a few verses. So this is not like love at first sight, romantic kissing. This is just like, “Hey, hello, we are relatives. It’s good to see you.” And then, Rachel runs and tells her father, and Laban welcomes Jacob in as a member of the family. There doesn’t seem to be anything duplicitous, anything hidden in Laban’s actions here. He just welcomes his sister’s son, as if he is a member of the family, which he is. So we get to verse 15. So Jacob has come, he started to stay with Laban. Then Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?” So Laban welcomes Jacob in, gives him a job, and then he says, “Okay, after a month, I’ve seen this guy work. I should probably quit treating—I shouldn’t treat him like a slave, but I can’t treat him like a son. I already have sons. They already get the inheritance, so I need to pay him something. Tell me, what shall your wages be?”

Now, Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance. Jacob loved Rachel, and he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter, Rachel.” And Laban said, “It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man. Stay with me.” So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love that he had for her. So again, Laban looks at Jacob and says, “This is probably a good worker, a guy who understands what he’s doing with the sheep,” and we’re going to see later on in Jacob’s story that God actually pours out a great deal of blessing upon Laban because of Jacob’s diligent efforts. And so after a month, he says, “Hey, tell me, how can I pay you? How can I make it worth your while to stay here?” And Jacob, in this time has fallen in love with Rachel. The comparison here between the two sisters says that Leah has weak eyes, and this could just be a metaphor saying that she’s less attractive than Rachel, or it could be like a literal description. One of the ways that beauty shines through in people, and I would say, well, I’m on thin ice here, I probably should have thought this one through first. But like, women in particular is like the vivacity of their eyes. Like, you can see beauty coming through someone’s eyes when you’re looking at their face. And so that description of Rachel seems to be that she, in contrast to her sister Leah, who has weak eyes, Rachel is beautiful in form and appearance. Jacob is taken with her, and he says, “I will work for you for seven years in order to have your younger daughter, Rachel.” And that idea of treating a woman as if like, oh, we have to pay for her, that might strike our modern ears as strange, but it was a normal custom, that there would be some kind of bride price that a young man, if he wanted to marry a woman, he would have to bring forward this bride price. That was a normal part of, honestly, most human cultures until the day before yesterday. And you would have, in this society, an exchange, basically, like the man brought forward a bride price, and then the father would give a dowry with his daughter, so it was a transaction of sorts that took place. And Jacob offers something that is over the top. Seven years of labor is a long time. That’s a massive bride price, and he himself has initiated it. It seems that his intention here is, “I’m going to tell him something he won’t say no to.” You know, seven years of labor. Okay, I’ll take that, Laban says. That sounds fine to me. I mean, you know, I’d hate for her to marry somebody around here. Like, you’re much better. Yeah, I’ll take seven years of labor, young man. But then you have, honestly, probably one of the most romantic verses in all the Bible. Verse 20 says that those seven years were just like a few days to Jacob because of the love that he had for Rachel. So his story, even though it starts off pretty bad, like, he’s running for his life from his brother Esau, he gets here, and he meets her at the well, and now these seven years of labor for her father is just like a few days for him. It starts off like some kind of fairy tale. Until we read verses 21 to 30, where Jacob gets out-Jacobed.

Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife, that I may go in to her, for my time is completed.” So Laban gathered together all the people of the place and made a feast, but in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and he went in to her. Laban gave his female servant Zilpah to his daughter Leah to be her servant. And in the morning, behold, it was Leah. And Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Did I not serve you for Rachel? Why then, have you deceived me?” Laban said, “It is not so done in our country to give the younger before the firstborn. Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also, in return for serving me another seven years.” Jacob did so and completed her week. Then Laban gave him his daughter, Rachel to be his wife. Laban gave his female servant Bilhah to his daughter, Rachel, to be her servant. So Jacob went into Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah and served Laban for another seven years. Verse 21, we have our first indicator that something might be wrong in the relationship between Laban and Jacob. Jacob is having to remind Laban, “Hey, seven years have passed. Like it’s time for you to give me my wife.” Like, Laban didn’t lose track of time here. Laban knows it’s been seven years, but Jacob’s having to remind him, “You owe me. Okay, let’s get this marriage thing settled.” Laban says, “Okay.” And he gathers all the people together, and we don’t know, we don’t have hardly any information about weddings in ancient cultures like this. In the Old Testament, I think really the only clear pictures of weddings we have are this one here, and in Judges 14, where Samson gets married. But from what we know of later Jewish weddings and from the data that we have here, it seems like this is a week long celebration, which is also the case even in the time of Jesus. And you have this great, big, long celebration, and at the first night, the husband and the wife are supposed to be able to be together, but it seems that there’s been quite a bit of celebration happening already. And Jacob, whether it’s because it’s dark or his wife’s wearing a veil or he’s consumed too much alcohol or maybe all three, doesn’t notice when Laban sends Leah instead of Rachel, until the next morning. And he goes, “You are not who I thought you were.” And he goes to Laban, and he’s furious, and for good reason, he’s just worked seven years, and you know, Laban, maybe he didn’t have this plan in mind at first, but over the course of seven years, he’s thinking, “I could get another seven years out of this guy. If I slip in Leah, and you know, she’s not that pretty, I haven’t had somebody come and offer to marry her, but I could give her instead of Rachel, and then I could get rid of both of them, like get them both married off, and seven more years of labor out of Jacob.” This is he’s scheming away here, and the irony that we can see as the reader, that maybe not immediately apparent to Jacob, or maybe it is, and it makes him even more mad, is that Jacob, who by deceit, had stolen the right of the firstborn from his brother Esau, who by deceit had stolen his father’s blessing. He now, by deceit, has wound up with a different wife than he thought he was working for. He has been out-Jacobed by Laban. He’s been out-tricked. He’s furious, but he still ends up, Laban says, “Well, here’s the deal. Finish out this first week with Leah. Then I’ll give you Rachel.” So in eight days, he has two wives now, the one he wanted and the one that Laban snuck in on him. And Leah here certainly is not unaware of what it says in verse 30. It’s one of the most devastating verses in the Book of Genesis. Jacob went into Rachel also and he loved Rachel more than Leah and served Laban for another seven years. Gordon Wenham, Old Testament commentator, he points out that these second seven years, those first seven years, they pass like a few days. And Wenham says, the second seven years didn’t go quite so fast for Jacob. And we see that through what follows.

The Lord saw, verse 31, that Leah was hated. That term “hated” in the Old Testament is generally, like it’s a Hebrew euphemism for “loved substantially less.” See the same thing in the book of Malachi when it refers to Jacob and Esau, that the Lord loved Jacob, but he hated Esau. It’s a term of comparison. And here, it’s not that Jacob has no affection for Leah at all, but it’s nothing compared to what he has for Rachel. The Lord saw, though. The Lord saw that Leah was hated. He opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. And Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben, for she said, “The Lord has looked upon my affliction. Surely now my husband will love me.” And she conceived again and bore a son and said, “Because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also,” and she called his name Simeon. Again, she conceived and bore a son and said, “Now this time, my husband will be attached to me because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore, she called his name, Levi. So, Leah is seen by the Lord, and the Lord hears her cries that she is not loved, that she is not cared for by her husband, and the Lord chooses to open her womb rather than Rachel’s. So unlike Rebecca, unlike Sarah, who had waited 20 years and 25 years in order to have a child, Leah is able to conceive and give birth right away. It seems like these children are just coming one right after the other, but then listen to these names. These names are devastating. The name Reuben means, I mean, these are what commentators call folk etymologies. Like it’s they’re word plays in Hebrew. It’s not that this is like literally where this word comes from, but this is what it sounds like. And what the word “Reuben” sounds like, the name Reuben sounds like “see, a son.” Like, “Look, now my husband’s gonna love me because I’ve produced a son for him. Maybe he didn’t care about me before, maybe I’m not as pretty as my sister, but I have produced an heir for him.” And then she has a second son, Simeon, whose name means “heard.” Like, “The Lord has heard my cries. And now my husband is going to love me. He’s heard of my affliction,” and then the third son’s name is Levi, which means “attached.” And she’s, you can just hear in the names that she’s giving these children, she is desperate, though the Lord has opened her womb and given her children, she is desperate for the love of her husband. “Would he be attached to me now that I have borne him three sons?” And by the time her fourth son comes, it seems she has given up hope of her husband ever actually loving her. Verse 35, and she conceived again and bore a son and said, “This time, I will praise the Lord.” Instead of desperately hoping for her husband to love her, she’s simply going to praise the Lord, for giving her Judah, and then she ceased bearing.

And then we come to chapter 30. And Rachel has the opposite problem. She has Jacob’s love. Jacob cares for her, he is affectionate toward her, but Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, and she envied her sister. And she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I shall die.” And Jacob responds, and probably pretty reasonably. Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel and said, “Am I in the place of God who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” Jacob obviously spends a lot more time with Rachel than he does with Leah, and yet God has withheld children from her, and he says, “Who do I look like? Do I look like God?” And we can all answer with Jacob, “No, you don’t look like God, you don’t act like God.” But Rachel here, though she has the love of her husband, is desperate, because in that society, and I like not just in that society, like this is something that crosses times and cultures, a woman’s identity can be wrapped up in children, and she feels like her sister is beating her, is winning a competition with her, is in some sense, more valuable and valuable than her because she is able to have children when Rachel is not. It’s interesting here that in this whole passage, all of chapter 29, here in this first half of chapter 30, the only place Jacob mentions God at all is here in a flippant way of saying, “Do I look like God to you?” It’s the only way he refers to God in this entire text. Verse three, Rachel has a plan, and it’s a plan that we’ve heard before. It’s a plan very similar to Sarah’s back in chapter 16. Rachel says, “Here is my servant Bilhah. Go in to her that she may give birth on my behalf, that even I may have children through her.” And Jacob should say, “Hey, I’ve heard this story before, and it doesn’t go very well. Like, let’s not do that.” But instead, he simply listens to the voice of his wife. She gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob went in to her. And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. And then Rachel said, “God has judged me and has also heard my voice and given me a son.” Therefore, she called his name Dan, and Dan just means, like, it sounds like the word for “judged,” “vindicated.” Like the idea is, Rachel is saying, “Well, now that I have done this, I have given my servant to my husband to have a child with, God has vindicated me by giving me this child,” and so his name is Dan. And verse 7, Rachel’s servant Bilhah conceived again, and bore Jacob a second son. Then Rachel said, “With mighty wrestlings, I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed,” so she called his name Naphtali. So like her idea with this name is like she’s in this competition with Leah, and now she’s got the upper hand. Not only does she have her husband’s love, but she has two children as well, even if they were through the means of her servant. Well, Leah says, “Two can play at that game. Two can play at that game.” Verse 9, Leah saw that she had ceased bearing children, so she took her servant Zilpah, and gave her to Jacob as a wife. Then Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son, and Leah said, “Good fortune has come.” So she called his name Gad. “Good fortune, I have been blessed above my sister again.” And Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son, and Leah said, “Happy am I, for women have called me happy,” so she called his name, Asher. And she’s just rubbing it in to Leah, or to Rachel, rather, that God has continued to bless me over and above what he has you, little sister.

And then we get this micro story here in verses 14 to 18 that is again filled with irony. In the days of wheat harvest, Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother, Leah. So Reuben is the oldest son at this point. He’s maybe four or five years old. He goes out into the field, he finds these mandrakes and the mandrakes were a fruit that was thought to contain properties that would improve the relationship between a husband and his wife and would also be thought to improve fertility. And so Rachel sees this, verse middle of verse 14. Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.” And Leah says to her, verse 15, “Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son’s mandrakes also?” And Rachel said, “He may lie with you tonight in exchange for your son’s mandrakes.” Rachel says, “OK, I have him most of the time, I’ll let you have him tonight in exchange for these mandrakes that are going to maybe bring me the child that I desire.” When Jacob came in from the field that evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, “You must come in to me, for I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” Let’s think about what a disaster this family is if these are the conversations that they’re having. So he lay with her that night. So Rachel has him most of the time and now has the mandrakes. Leah has purchased him for one night, sold him for one night. And God listened to Leah verse 17, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. The mandrakes don’t work for Rachel, but the one night with Jacob works for Leah. Verse 18, Leah said, “God has given me my wages because I gave my servant to my husband.” So she called his name Issachar. The situation is totally a disaster. It’s also very evident that their understanding of God and his blessing is a disaster. She thinks that she has gotten pregnant here because she had previously given her servant to her husband. She’s saying, “God has given me my wages here by giving me another son.” And Leah conceived again, and bore Jacob a sixth son. Then Leah said, “God has endowed me with a good endowment, and now my husband will honor me because I have borne him six sons.” And so she called his name Zebulun. Zebulun’s name just means “honor.” Like it sounds like Leah thinks, “I’ve given him six sons now. Surely he is going to give me the honor that I deserve. I’ve brought him so much.” And afterwards, she bore a daughter, verse 21, and called her name Dinah. And Jacob probably has other daughters that’s kind of indicated by chapter 46, that he doesn’t just have sons and this one daughter. But Dinah is named specifically because chapter 34 is going to be, she’s going to be at the center of that story. So her name is mentioned here, whereas the other daughters are not. And then, finally, in verse 22, God remembers Rachel. And God listened to her, and God opened her womb. She conceived and bore a son and said, “God has taken away my reproach.” And she called his name Joseph, saying, “May the Lord add to me another son.” She calls him Joseph, which sounds like the words for “may he add,” but then also sounds similar to “he has taken away.” And so she believes that God has taken away the reproach of not having any children, as God gives her this son.

This story is terrible. It’s just absolutely, it’s like so many of the stories of Genesis. The story is terrible. And so here’s some of the lessons we can learn from it. First of all, Jacob’s sins come home to roost. We saw last week that God had initiated a relationship with Jacob in chapter 28, even though Jacob didn’t deserve it. But God coming to Jacob and initiating that relationship did not remove the earthly consequences of Jacob’s decisions and his actions. And his deception comes back to haunt him as ironically, he is out-deceived by his future father in law, Laban. And I think this is an important thing for us to realize, is we can look at our lives and see all the ways that God is bringing things about what we’ll talk about this in a minute, and see the good that he brings about, we should not think that that is going to necessarily remove the negative consequences of our decisions and our actions. And Jacob is going to feel that again and again throughout his life, that he makes a foolish decision, and bad things happen from it. That happens here. Second, this is more indicated in a negative way here, but normally, when Jacob initiates in his life, things go well. But when he does not, when he’s just following the advice of others to sin, when he just follows along into it, things go poorly. That happened before when he listened to the voice of his mother, who said, “Deceive your father.” And he followed through with it, even though he had qualms, even though he was like, “I don’t know if this is a great idea.” He still follows the voice of his mother, and it has disastrous consequences for him where he ends up driven out. Here, the same thing happens. He is just listening to the voices of his wives. Rather than thinking, “What is the right thing to do in this situation? What should I be doing? Should I listen to the voice of Rachel and take Bilhah as a concubine here?” The answer is clearly no. We’re not to the law of Moses yet. They would clearly prohibit this, but he already has the pattern of how God made things in the beginning. He has the example of his grandfather with Abraham and Hagar. He knows this is the wrong thing to do, and he does it anyway, and the consequences are disastrous. Likewise, later on, instead of saying, “Wait a second, is time with your husband something that we purchase and trade as if it’s a barter transaction down in 14 through 18?” Instead of leading in his home and initiating, Jacob is just kind of taking whatever comes his way. And it goes very poorly, not just for him, but for everyone around him. But the third thing we see is that even in spite of all of this train wreck of a family, even in spite of the fairy tale turning into a soap opera, God is still at work. God is still building Jacob’s family. He’s actually fulfilling his promise to Jacob in chapter 28 to be multiplying his offspring. And so God is going to, with these children from four different women, still use these as the foundations of the people of Israel. These are 11 of the 12 sons who will become the twelve tribes of Israel. Benjamin won’t be born until they’re back in Canaan. Here are 11 of his sons. And even though the origin story of their lives is not necessarily good, God is still going to use them. God is still going to be at work through them. God is still going to bring blessing to the nations through them. I think of this specifically there of Judah, at the end of chapter 29. The first three sons, Leah bears, she thinks they’re going to cause Jacob to become attached to her. And in the fourth son, she says, “I will praise the Lord.” And it’s that fourth son who’s going to become the progenitor of the tribe of Judah from which the Messiah will come, the line of David, and ultimately the Christ comes through the line of Judah. God is still at work. And I take a great deal of comfort from that because I’m looking at a lot of these families in this room, and like me, you have a train wreck, at least in parts of your family. And you know what? God can still be at work through all that. God is not restricted to working through perfect, wonderful Christian families. God works providentially through every family. And for those who love him, I know I quote it all the time, but Exodus chapter 20 says that God is a jealous God visiting the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. Our bad decisions, our rebellion against God has real consequences that ripple out. But his steadfast love goes to the 1000th generation of those that love him. Our sin has consequences, and loving God has ripples that way past that. And I think you see that in Jacob’s life. His sin has consequences that ripple out, but the fact that he ultimately ends up trusting the Lord and walking with him has impacts that still hit us today. The Lord has blessed the nations through the family of Jacob. And so we can take confidence that no matter what our sins, no matter what our disaster around us, God is at work, and if we are trusting him, he’s going to be at work for good, in us and through us, to those around us. Would you pray with me? Father God, we thank you that you are not restricted to working through perfect people because there aren’t any outside of your son. And so, Lord, we thank you for him. We thank you for sending your son into this world to take on a true human nature, bear the weight of our sin and our rebellion. And we thank you that you are a sovereign God who is able to use both our obedience and our disobedience to bring glory to yourself, and to bring about your plan in this world. Help us to trust in you and to have confidence in you, regardless of what is going on around us, regardless of how chaotic our families may be, help us to trust you in every circumstance. We pray in Jesus’ name.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Ever since our first parents fell, Adam and Eve, and were cast east of the Garden of Eden, human beings have been trying to return. We've been trying to get back, back to the Garden, back to the Mountain of the Lord, back to the Tree of Life, or sometimes we call it the Fountain of Youth. We've been trying to get back into the presence of God. And that explains the irrepressible religiosity of humans across time and across space. Every part of the world, human beings are religious creatures. Aristotle called mankind a rational animal, but it would be just as accurate to call mankind a religious animal. We develop systems of worship. We build temples. We go to high places. We appoint mediators, religious leaders, officials, priests, and the like. We develop cultic practices. Human beings from our very earliest days have been religious, trying to find some way to get back to what we lost in Genesis 3. The psalmist asks, who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord? And we all know deep down that on our own we can't. So that's why we develop these practices to try to get some way there. This text this morning starts us into God's answer for how can a human being come into his presence.

So let's read it. It's Genesis chapter 28, beginning in verse 1. Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and directed him. You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women. Arise, go to Paddan Aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and take as your wife from there one of the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you so that you may become a company of peoples. May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you so that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham. Thus Isaac sent Jacob away. And he went to Paddan Aram to Laban, the son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob and Esau's mother.

Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and had sent him away to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there. And that as he blessed him, he directed him, you must not take a wife from the Canaanite women. And that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Paddan Aram. So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac, his father, Esau went to Ishmael and took as his wife, besides the wives he had, Mahaleth, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebaioth.

Jacob left Beersheba and went towards Haran. And he came to a certain place and stayed there that night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south. And in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.

Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it. And he was afraid and said, How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. So early in the morning Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called the name of that place Bethel. The name of the city was Luz at the first. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God. And this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house. And of all that you give me, I will give a full tenth to you.

This text can be summarized, I think, under three headings. The heading of blessing, one of blundering, and one of beholding. So first we see the blessing. In the first five verses, Jacob receives the blessing of Abraham from his father Isaac. Verse 1, Jacob was called by Isaac, and Isaac blessed him and directed him. You must not take a wife from among the Canaanite women. Arise and go to Paddan Aram. And if you remember where we were last week in the previous chapter, Isaac had planned to bless his older son, Esau, his favorite son, Esau, and had told him to go out into the field and to kill a wild animal and to prepare delicious food because Isaac loved the food that Esau made. Rebecca overhearing this has Jacob pretend to be Esau. They kill a goat, make food with that instead, and brings that to Isaac. And they trick Isaac into blessing Jacob instead of Esau. And Esau, understandably, when he comes back, is a little bit upset about this and decides, I'm going to kill my brother. When my dad dies, I've got free reign. I can do what I want. I'm going to kill my brother and then I'll have my blessing back. And again, Rebecca overhears this and decides, I need to convince Isaac to send Jacob away so that he doesn't end up dead. And so that's the backstory here is Rebecca has said to Isaac, Ah, Esau's Canaanite wives are ruining my life. Would anything be worse than Jacob taking one of these Canaanite wives? And Isaac agrees this would be pretty bad. And so he decides, okay, we're going to send Jacob away. And so he calls him, he blesses him again, which we'll talk about in a moment, but then he sends him away.

Why is it important? I mean, the idea of not taking wives from among the Canaanites, these women genuinely were making life hard for Isaac and Rebecca. It tells us that back at the end of chapter 26. And part of it is that there would be a deep cultural difference. That probably is mostly what Rebecca is talking about here. There's a deep cultural difference between these people who have come from Mesopotamia and the Canaanites of the land. They have a lot of differences in the way that they act, the way that they dress, perhaps. They would have deep religious differences. And those religious differences mattered to the people of God. They mattered to God himself. He called his people to be holy, to be distinct, to be different. And it mattered to Abraham back in chapter 24 when he had told his servant, you need to go get a wife for my son Isaac. And you remember, I said the longest chapter in the book of Genesis is chapter 24, where Abraham sends his servant to go back to his home country to get a wife for Isaac. He did not want Isaac marrying one of the women of the land. And it would be, I think the central reason is a religious one, that it would be hard to establish a home where God is at the center and if the wife that Isaac took was not of the same mindset as him, or even if, so we're going to see Jacob's wives, actually at least one of them clings to some household gods from her country. But it's different than the people of the land. And so it'll be easier for her to leave those gods behind when she comes to a new land rather than if she has the same gods as everyone around her trying to say, no, we're only going to worship the true God. So I think the key thing here is the religious difference is the reason why this is important. But in the story, Rebecca's just trying to get Jacob out of there. She's just trying to save her son's life.

But Isaac calls Jacob to himself. And the next thing we see is that he issues him the blessing. And this is really an indictment of Jacob. Jacob is a man who has bought the birthright from his brother. In that case, he didn't use deceit. He just played on his brother's weaknesses and buys his birthright from him. And then in the last chapter, he has stolen the blessing. Now, it was a blessing that was supposed to go to him, but it winds up being a partial blessing that he receives from Jacob there in chapter 27. If you look back in chapter 27 and verses 28 and 29, it's an abundant blessing, but it's not the fullness of the Abrahamic blessing that God had promised to the descendants of Abraham. When he's trying to steal, he only gets what was given to Esau. But then, here in chapter 28, Isaac freely gives the fullness of the Abrahamic blessing to Jacob as he goes on his way. Verse 3, God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. And this echoes what God said to Abraham in chapter 12. I'll make you a great nation. It echoes what he says to Abraham in chapter 15 about the stars in the sky being the same number as the number of descendants you're going to receive in chapter 22, the sand on the seashore. God had promised Abraham that he would have a multitude of people come from him. And here that's reiterated by Isaac to Jacob. You may become a multitude, a company of peoples. May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring after you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham. So the promise that God had given to Abraham initially and that had been then given to Isaac in chapter 26 is now passed on to Jacob as Jacob is leaving the land, as Jacob is about to head for Paddan Aram. So Isaac sent Jacob away. He went to Paddan Aram to Laban, the son of Bethuel.

The theme here in these first five verses is simply that God's faithfulness to Abraham and his line continues, even though the family is a train wreck. The family is not worthy. The family hasn't done anything to deserve the blessing of God. And yet God is going to continue his covenant faithfulness to them. The next section here, we see Esau's blundering attempts to curry favor with his father. Esau sees that Isaac blessed Jacob and sent him away. And here's the instruction. He must not take a wife from among the Canaanite women. And then Jacob leaves and Esau saw that the Canaanite women whom he had married did not please Isaac, his father. And as we saw last week, Esau lives for the pleasure of his father. You know, when he finds out that the blessing has been given to Jacob, he is clearly heartbroken. He cries out, do you not have another blessing for me? Do you not have anything that you can give to me, father? And at that point, Isaac had said to him, You're going to live away from the fatness of the earth. You're going to live away from the dew of heaven on high. You're going to live by the sword. He kind of blesses him when he tells him that eventually he's going to break the yoke away, that the brother lays on top of him. Eventually he'll break free from his rule. But it's almost a curse that Isaac lays on Esau. And Esau here, he's like, how can I... Dad doesn't like my wives. Mom doesn't like my wives. How can I make dad more happy with me? Well, he's sending Jacob away back to our mother's family. But, you know, Ishmael's family is close by. I could marry one of their daughters. And so he goes and he adds to his initial polygamy yet one more wife. But this one's a little better. She's not a Canaanite. She's an Ishmaelite.

I think in verses 6 and 8, both here use the language of Esau saw. He sees how Jacob is treated by Isaac. He sees that Isaac says these certain things to Jacob about the Canaanite wives. And I think that's a damning indictment of Isaac's parenting, of his fathering. Here, Esau and Jacob are at least in their 40s at this point. You know, because it says earlier that Esau at 40 years old took these two Canaanite wives. And there's been enough time for Rebekah to say, wow, they're really making our life miserable. So these men are at least in their 40s. And he hasn't heard from his father what is expected in terms of like, hey, who would have been a good wife to marry? What would have been our expectations culturally, religiously? What would have been a good fit? No, he's seeing how Isaac is responding to Jacob and instructing Jacob. And having to figure out from that, what should I do? Isaac has done a very poor job of passing on the faith. He here, as Jacob leaves not to be seen again for 20 years, he tells Jacob what he ought to do in terms of looking for a wife. But he hasn't had any conversations with Esau about that, apparently. And if you just see how the brothers treat one another, they've clearly not been brought up, as Ephesians 6 says, in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Isaac is, in a lot of ways, a failure as a father.

Esau's actions here then, I think, give us a pretty stark picture of what human effort to get things right looks like. He's trying to correct his previous mistakes, but by doing that, he's still choosing a wife who's not among the people of God. Ishmael had been sent away from the presence of Abraham, sent east out of the presence of the Lord. And so Esau is still taking a wife from among the peoples of the nations, and he's practicing polygamy, which in the book of Genesis never goes well. Any time in history doesn't go well, but specifically in the narrative of Genesis, it does not go well. Esau thinks he's trying to get back into dad's good graces. He thinks he's trying to do the right thing, but unaided by the light of divine guidance, Esau's trying to get it right only makes things worse. He's bumbling around in the dark, continuing with blunder after blunder. He needed, like we, the light of divine guidance in order to point him in the right direction.

Jacob needed that too. We see that in verses 10 to 22. Jacob left Beersheba and went towards Haran. And he came to a certain place and stayed there that night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed and behold, there was a ladder set upon the earth and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie, I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth. You shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south. And in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.

I think a key thing to notice as we see Jacob's vision of God and of an access point between heaven and earth is, first of all, God is the one who initiates this contact with Jacob. Jacob has gone out from his father's house and we have not seen Jacob himself mention God yet in the book of Genesis. Jacob hasn't interacted with God at all. He's trying to buy birthrights and steal blessings and he's a man of deceit and scheming and cunning. He's not out here looking for God in the desert. He's not gone out to have a desert experience with the Lord. He's running for his life and he lays down one night and God comes to him. God initiates with Jacob. And he gives Jacob the promise. The same promise that Isaac in his blessing had said, May God Almighty, may the God of Abraham and my God bless you, O Jacob. May he give you the blessing of Abraham. God personally comes to Jacob at night and says, I am giving you that blessing. Period. I will give it to you. I will give you this land. I will bring you back to this land. And you are going to multiply. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth. Now, there's a lot of sand on the earth, but you add the dust too. That's an awful lot of people. You're going to spread all over north, south, east, west. And in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Again, repeating what God said to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12 and verse 3.

But then God adds a personal aspect to this promise with Jacob. It's not just a general, your descendants are going to be blessed and the world is going to be blessed through them. But he personally promises Jacob, you will be brought back to this land safely. Verse 15, I am with you. And will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised for you. God promises Jacob that he will be brought back to the land in safety. And that's going to become a key point in the story going forward. So God initiates with Jacob. He makes him a personal promise. And Jacob recognizes when he awakes, he recognizes the holiness of the place he saw. the text here in the ESV says a ladder, but it's probably more likely a flight of stairs. Angels are going up and down at the same time. That'd be really tough to do on a ladder. I don't know if you spend any time on a ladder, but multiple people on the ladder is usually a bad idea, especially if you're going opposite directions. It's probably a flight of stairs. In all likelihood, it's actually like a ziggurat, an ancient pyramid-like structure with a flight of steps that goes up to the top, like the Tower of Babel was in Genesis chapter 11. These ancient temples were often structured this way so that you would be going up to the top and in a temple symbolically what you have is it ascends up to the heavens. But here what Jacob sees is literally the top is in heaven and God is standing at the top speaking to him.

Jacob sees a window from heaven to earth and sees the angels coming up and down ministering. He sees and recognizes the importance of this place. He wakes up and is terrified by it. That's what we see in verse 17. He was afraid and said, how awesome is this place? This is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven. Every time you see someone encounter God face to face like this in scripture, it is a terrifying experience for them. And that's the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs chapter 1 and verse 9 says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Chapter 9 and verse 10 of Proverbs says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And this is the beginning of wisdom in Jacob's life. He's still got a long ways to go. We're going to see him still make some big mistakes. But the beginning of his story turning in the right direction, away from deceit, begins with God initiating and giving him a vision forever. That terrifies him, that scares him, that puts the fear of God into him.

Early in the morning, Jacob responds to the Lord's initiation by making the stone that he had put under his head used as a pillow. And he sets it up as a pillar and he pours oil on top of it. He anoints it. He recognizes it as a holy place. He renames it. It's no longer called Luz, which was just the cultural name given by the people of the region. And instead, he renames it Bethel, which means house of God. He calls it the house of God, and then he names it the house of God. And then he makes God a vow. He says, okay, God, I've never dealt with you before, but you just made me some pretty cool promises. And if you follow through on your end and bring me back the way you said, then here where I set up this stone, I will build a house of God. I will build a temple to you. And I will give you a full tenth. He promises to tithe. This is before any kind of instruction to tithe, before any kind of commandment that we see later in scripture about a tithe. But Jacob recognizes the fittingness of committing 10% of what he has to the service of the Lord if God brings him back here. And we'll see later on that that's exactly what he does.

Jacob here is fleeing for his life because of his sin. And yet he is personally pursued and assured by God that the blessing of Abraham would continue through him. So what does that have to do? I mean, that's neat. That's a really cool story. That's really nice that God interacted with him that way. What's that got to do with us? What's that got to do with our need to connect with God Almighty? And we've got two hints at this story of something that's really important. Number one is going to be Isaac's alteration of a promise. And number two, Jesus's interpretation of this story in the Gospel of John.

So Isaac's alteration we see in verse 3 says, He promises or blesses Jacob and says that you may become a company of peoples. Before, what God had promised to Abraham and what God had promised to Isaac is that God would make them a great people. He would make the people that descended from them, singular people, a massive number. And here, Isaac says to Jacob, God's going to make you a company of peoples, plural. And that's a strange thing to say because both Abraham and Isaac did have multiple nations descend from them. Abraham has Ishmael, his older son, from whom 12 princes descend. And then he has all the children after Isaac with his second wife, Keturah. And so he has a massive number of peoples who descend from him. Isaac has both Jacob here, but also Esau. And Esau's people become the people of Edom, the Edomites. So he has multiple nations descend from him. Jacob has one nation descend from him. His 12 sons become the 12 tribes of the singular nation of Israel. So what does it mean that he has multiple peoples who come from him? I think part of what we're seeing here is the first glimmer that the way that God is going to bless the nations through the offspring of Jacob is that those peoples are going to become part of Jacob, that they are going to be numbered among his children. Even if they aren't physically descended from him, they will be numbered among his people.

Well, how would that happen? And Jesus is going to give us a hint as to how that would happen. In John chapter 1, there is a... It's an interesting interaction. Jesus has started his ministry. And then that was down in Judea in the region where John the Baptist was baptizing people. And that's where Jesus's first followers came from. And then he goes back to the north to his home region of Galilee. And he gets there. And this man from the town of Bethsaida, who's a friend of Andrew and Peter, probably his name is Philip. And he meets Jesus and Jesus says to him, follow me. And Philip follows him. But then he goes to get his buddy, Nathanael. And here in John 1, verse 45, it says, Philip found Nathanael and said to him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. So this is some 2,000 years after Abraham, the time of Abraham. And so probably, you know, 1,800, 1,900 years after this story with Jacob. And as you come into the time of the New Testament, the people of God are waiting for a Messiah. They're waiting for the promised Savior of Genesis 3. They're waiting for the descendant of David who's going to come and liberate them from their oppressors. He's going to make Israel great again. That's what they're looking for, is they're looking for a Messiah, a Savior. And Philip comes to Nathanael and says, we found him. It's Jesus of Nazareth.

And Nathanael says... Can anything good come out of Nazareth? I still haven't figured out exactly what that town is around here that compares to this. Where I grew up, I grew up on a reservation. And so like everybody around us just looked down on all of our towns. But one town in particular on the res was called De Smet. And everybody was like, if you said something really amazing was coming out of De Smet, everybody would turn their head and kind of like De Smet. Like, I don't believe it. That seems to be the reaction to Nazareth here. Nathaniel says, nothing good is coming out of Nazareth. But they walk to Jesus, and when Jesus sees Nathaniel coming in verse 47, he says, behold, an Israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit, no guile. He's telling it like it is. He's not trying to be deceitful. And Nathaniel says, how did you know me? How do you know that's true about me? And Jesus says... Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. So he reveals that he has divine knowledge of Nathanael. Even before Philip went and called him, Jesus knew who Nathanael was, and he knew that he was coming.

And Jesus said, well, Nathanael responds to Jesus then, and he says, Rabbi, you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel. And Jesus answered him, Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? you will see greater things than these. Okay, how is Jesus going to describe the greater things? Verse 51, he said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man. So when Jesus is speaking to Nathanael and explaining to him, yes, I am the son of God. I am the son of man, the promised one coming as in Daniel's prophecy in Daniel chapter seven. Yes, that's who I am. And how, what are you going to see that shows that to you? You're going to see the angels of God ascending and descending. He takes this image straight out of Genesis chapter 28 and Jacob's vision here at night.

What is Jesus saying to Nathanael here? He is saying to him that he is the connecting point between God and man. This place where Jacob promised to build a temple and then it becomes a place of worship when he returns to the land and the people of Israel are going to, at different times, have worship centers set up here at Mount Gerizim. Jesus says... I'm greater than that. I am the meeting place of heaven and earth. I am the place where God has connected with humanity. This is part of John's temple theme in his gospel, that Jesus is the greater temple. John chapter 2, Jesus says to the people gathered around the temple, tear this temple down, and in three days I'll build it up again, speaking about the temple of his body, chapter 2, verse 21. And then in chapter 4 of John's gospel, he meets a woman at a well, jacob's well near mount gerizim near bethel and she says to him okay our fathers worshiped on this mountain you jews say we should worship in jerusalem which one's right jesus says and so far as that question goes basically the jews are correct salvation is of the jews god moved to the center of worship from here to jerusalem. But the time is coming and is now here when neither on this mountain or in Jerusalem will you worship, but the true worshipers will worship in spirit and in truth. And God is seeking such people to worship him.

How do you worship in spirit and in truth? You worship the one who is the truth and who pours out the spirit, Jesus. When the disciples asked Jesus in John chapter 14, How do we get to the house that the Lord is preparing for us? How do we get to heaven? Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life. Jesus is the meeting place of God a man. He is the point of Bethel. He is the true Bethel, the house of God. So why does the story with Jacob matter? God is initiating with Jacob here. And showing him a window from heaven to earth. But that window is fulfilled. That meeting place is assured through Christ himself coming. Because ultimately, as human beings, we can't climb that ladder. We can't climb that staircase to God. We can't do it. We don't have the power. And if we're like Jacob, we don't even have the interest to look for it. God comes to us and Jesus came to us. He came into this world. He took on flesh and dwelt among us so that he might die for us, cleansing us from our sins and offering us the reconciled relationship with God that each of us longs for and knows we need, whether we consciously know it or not. At a gut level, we know there is something missing. Jesus is the one who provides that.

So by referring back to this story, Jesus is saying that it has perennial importance, not because we need to go to sleep out in the desert and have an experience with God that way, but because Jesus himself is the meeting place of heaven and earth. Through faith in him, we can have access to forgiveness, to cleansing, to the reconciled relationship we need with the Father. We've become part of his people through faith in the son. And in doing so, we're not only welcomed into his house, but we become his house as part of the church. That's what Paul says in first Corinthians. So Peter says in first Peter chapter two, that the church is the temple, the dwelling place of God. If we trust in Christ, we trust, become the meeting place of heaven and earth in our union to Christ. The spirit dwells within us and we become a connection point. That's why the people of God can be the light of the world, not because we have any light inherent to ourselves, but because his light is pouring out through us.

And this is better than any religion devised by man. We've been searching, we've been striving since the beginning. We could grope forever in the dark, looking for a way to God and not find it, not knowing which way to turn. But in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham has come to the Gentiles. That's what Paul says in Galatians 3. He has sought us out. And like Jacob, he has promised to be with us, all of those who trust in him, until he takes us home, not back to a earthly homeland, but to a city whose founder and builder is God.

Would you pray with me? Father God, we don't pursue you on our own. And so we need your initiation. We need your help. We need you to make our dead hearts alive. And having been made alive, to see the terrifying reality that we stand under your judgment, And yet the beautiful reality that we can be forgiven because of your son, Jesus Christ, who came from heaven to earth to bear the weight of our sin, to carry it away, and to bring us to you. He died for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God. So thank you that in Christ, heaven has come to earth and that we can have the promise of eternity with him, with you, if we would bought trust in the sufficiency of his sacrifice. Lord, help us to live in light of that reality. If we embrace that, everything else in this life that seems to bog us down and weary us and frighten us, It's relativized. It is so much less important than the reality of knowing where we stand with you. So thank you for your son. Thank you for connecting heaven and earth in him. And help us to trust in him, we pray in his precious name. Amen.

Transcript generated by AI. The Sermon Was Not. Please comment if you notice any errors.

Do the ends justify the means? Now, if I phrase the question that way, you're all pre-prime to say, no, of course not, unless you're a pragmatist, in which case you say, yeah, maybe. So I'll rephrase the question a little bit. If the end of something is God's blessing, does that endorse everything that happened beforehand? If God pours out his blessing, does everything that came before that blessing represent things that are endorsed by God?

We're about to look at a familiar story here in the 27th chapter of Genesis. And that question is a big question that is raised by this passage. Does God endorse the means by which Jacob acquires blessing from his father?

Now, before we get going, I'm going to do something I don't normally do. Normally, I would read the passage, and then if I had comments on how it was structured, I would spell them out there. But because this is a familiar story for many of us, I'm going to talk about the structure ahead of time, just so you can kind of see what's happening here, and it's not just a familiar story washing past your ears and being ignored.

This chapter, actually starting at the end of chapter 26, we're going to look at chapter 26, beginning in verse 34, and read all the way through the end of chapter 27. And this story is bracketed by two references to Hittite women. And that technique of bracketing the story is a common one in all storytelling, but especially ancient storytelling where they were mostly oral cultures not like he's writing down a final product here but this story has been passed along by means of speech for years and years and years and years and inside of those brackets i think what we actually have is also a chiasm which is if you're looking at a piece of paper a story that kind of does this it comes down to a point and then it comes back out and if you're reading things outside of biblical studies, they'll call this a ring composition because it circles down to the story and then circles back out. It works in rings.

And I just want to point out a couple of these things to you. If I'm wrong about this, blame me. I didn't find this in any of the commentaries. I just noticed it as I was reading. I think the... Like I said, the brackets we have there. So if you were writing out a chiasm, I'm gonna nerd out here for a minute, okay? If you're writing out a chiasm, you would write out, here's section A, here's section B, and then in this case, you go C, and D is the center. And part of what the storyteller is doing when he comes down to the center is he's emphasizing that thing that's in the middle of the story it's not that everything else doesn't matter but this thing is the focal point and so this argument goes a or the story goes a b c d and then it comes out c prime matches up with c b prime matches up with b a prime matches up with a and so a and a prime are The reference to Esau's wives at the end of chapter 26, who are Hittites. And then at the end of chapter 27, Rebecca tells Jacob she doesn't want, or she tells Isaac that she doesn't want Jacob to marry Hittite women. So that's bracketing this story.

Then in between, we have what happens where Isaac is an old man. And he is concerned about the fact that he needs to pass on his blessing to his son. But instead of blessing the son who is chosen by God, he instead wants to bless his preferred son, his favorite son, Esau. And we see references to his age in verse 1, his death approaching in verse 2, the fact that he wants Esau to use weapons in verse 3, and that he's going to bless him in verse 4. And down in verses 41 to 45 We see Isaac's death approaching. Esau planning probably to use weapons to kill his brother Jacob. Esau lamenting over the fact that his blessing has been stolen. And in both of those sections, verses 1 to 13 and verses 41 to 45, Rebecca overhears what's happening and then goes and talks to Jacob.

And then verses C in our outline here, verses 14 to 25, we read of Jacob going out. Verse 30, Jacob went out. Verse 14, Rebecca prepares delicious food. Verse 31, Esau prepares delicious food and so on. So what I'm wanting to say is that as the story moves, it kind of moves down to a point and comes back out. And the author, Moses, wants us to see The emphasis that lays in the middle of the story, which is where Isaac blesses Jacob. That is, there's all kinds of other things going on in this story, but the center of what is being told to us is that God continues to bless the family of Abraham. And in this case, it's in spite of themselves.

So having said all that, we're going to read the text. I know we just read Matthew 23, which is pretty long. Genesis 27 is pretty long too, and we're going to add two verses here. Genesis 26, beginning in verse 34, says this.

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Genesis 26:34-27:46 (ESV)

34 When Esau was forty years old, he took Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite to be his wife, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite, 35 and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah.

27:1 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.” 2 He said, “Behold, I am old; I do not know the day of my death. 3 Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me, 4 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.”

5 Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it, 6 Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “I heard your father speak to your brother Esau, 7 ‘Bring me game and prepare for me delicious food, that I may eat it and bless you before the LORD before I die.’ 8 Now therefore, my son, obey my voice as I command you. 9 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. 10 And you shall bring it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.” 11 But Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “Behold, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man. 12 Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him and bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing.” 13 His mother said to him, “Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice, and go, bring them to me.”

14 So he went and took them and brought them to his mother, and his mother prepared delicious food, such as his father loved. 15 Then Rebekah took the best garments of Esau her older son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob her younger son. 16 And the skins of the young goats she put on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. 17 And she put the delicious food and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob.

18 So he went in to his father and said, “My father.” And he said, “Here I am. Who are you, my son?” 19 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.” 20 But Isaac said to his son, “How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?” He answered, “Because the LORD your God granted me success.” 21 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.” 22 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.” 23 And he did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands. So he blessed him. 24 He said, “Are you really my son Esau?” He answered, “I am.” 25 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.

26 Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come near and kiss me, my son.” 27 So he came near and kissed him. And Isaac smelled the smell of his garments and blessed him and said,

“See, the smell of my son

is as the smell of a field that the LORD has blessed!

28 May God give you of the dew of heaven

and of the fatness of the earth

and plenty of grain and wine.

29 Let peoples serve you,

and nations bow down to you.

Be lord over your brothers,

and may your mother’s sons bow down to you.

Cursed be everyone who curses you,

and blessed be everyone who blesses you!”

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. 31 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.” 32 His father Isaac said to him, “Who are you?” He answered, “I am your son, your firstborn, Esau.” 33 Then Isaac trembled very violently and 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.” 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, O my father!” 35 But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing.” 36 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?” 37 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?” 38 Esau said to his father, “Have you but one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father.” And Esau lifted up his voice and wept.

39 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.

40 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.”

41 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.” 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. 43 Now therefore, my son, obey my voice. Arise, flee to Laban my brother in Haran 44 and stay with him a while, until your brother’s fury turns away— 45 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?”

46 Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I loathe my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women like these, one of the women of the land, what good will my life be to me?”

First point, as we look at this passage, is this. No one deserves the blessing of God. This story centers on a blessing, but no one in the story deserves it. And this is a point that is made clear for us explicitly, numerous places in scripture, that no human being, this side of the fall, deserves God's blessing, his kindness, or his mercy. Romans chapter 3, beginning in verse 9, says, There is no one righteous, no, not one, no one understands, no one seeks for God. Together they have turned aside. Altogether they have become worthless. That's Paul's authoritative, Holy Spirit-inspired description of humanity. We naturally hate God. That's what Romans chapter 5 says, is that we are born at enmity. We are born enemies of God. And you see that in this story, all four characters. We're just going to walk through them by just like in a movie in order of appearance. We'll list them out here and look at the fact that they don't deserve God's blessing.

And the first is Esau. He's introduced to us there at the end of chapter 26. And we're told that age 40, he marries two Hittite wives. Not a good start for Esau. Okay. First of all, he's practicing polygamy, which... We don't have the law yet given through Moses, but we do have the pattern. Genesis chapter 1, and it's very clear from the very beginning of Scripture that any time a man starts taking multiple wives, he's running away from the Lord. This happens when Abraham obeys the voice of his wife Sarah and takes her concubine, or takes for himself her servant as a concubine, like he's moving away from God's will for his life. And every time one of the patriarchs or those in their family take multiple wives, they're moving away from God's design. And so we see Esau doing that. Furthermore, he's taking wives of the land. He's taking Hittite wives who would come, coming with them would come the Hittite gods and Hittite religion. And it is making life miserable for his parents. So in that sense, he is not an admirable character.

Now he does some other things in the story that are perfectly fine. He's a man of the field. He goes to hunt game for his father. He's a good cook. Like, that's great. There's things about Esau that there's nothing wrong with that are even admirable. He prepares game for his father. He desires the blessing of his father. That's a normal, natural desire. That's a good thing about Esau. But when that blessing is stolen from him, in verses 34 and following, we see that his response is not a response of godliness. It's not a response that has any indication of faith. When Esau heard the words of his father, he is angry with his brother. He desires to kill Jacob. We see that later on in the passage. We can have empathy for him. I mean, you just hear his words and you hear like the pain, like Do you only have one blessing, Father? Can you not also bless me, Father? And yet when Jacob does give him or Isaac gives him some sort of blessing, kind of a mixed blessing in verses 38 and 39, what Esau does afterwards is start to plot the death of his brother. He starts to plot the death of Jacob. He's understandably angry, but he's far from guiltless in this story.

The second character that we meet is Isaac. And what we are told about Isaac in verse 1 is that he is old. And if you Google, I don't really suggest Googling answers to Bible questions because you get some weird stuff, especially now with AI. Like, AI will make up answers to things in the Bible. But if you Google, how old was Isaac when this happened, you're going to get all kinds of answers. But the... Most common answer from commentators is he was probably about 137 years old when this happened. And so Isaac is old. It says his eyes have grown dim. He can't see clearly. Now, he's not about to die. He's not going to die until he's 180 years old. So he's actually got 43 years of life left. However, he is probably thinking about his mortality because his brother Ishmael, who was 13 years older than him, had died at age 137. And so if Isaac is also 137 here, he probably is considering that my days may very well be numbered. And so he calls in. his son to bless him before he dies. This is the right thing to do. It's the right fatherly procedure. The blessing needs to pass from Isaac down to the next generation.

But the problem is, instead of listening to the prophecy that God had given in chapter 25, that the older son was going to serve the younger, so here he should be blessing Jacob, he's instead planning to bless his favorite son, And we see back in chapter 25 that Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. So instead of listening to the plan of God, Isaac's going to listen to his personal preferences and he seeks to bless his older son. As blindness here is mentioned because it's a physical reality that's important for the story, it's also a spiritual reality. When the Bible mentions physical details, almost always there's something more going on than just the physical reality that's being talked about.

An example of this elsewhere in Scripture would be like in 2 Samuel 4, when Eli, the priest, is old and fat. He's heavy. He falls over when he hears the news of the Ark of the Covenant being captured and breaks his neck. While his fatness had come from his sons stealing the fat off of the Lord's sacrifices. And then that word heavy is similar to the Hebrew word for glory, kavod. And... What happens when his daughter-in-law gives birth is that she names her child. The glory has departed because Eli had died and the Ark of the Covenant had been taken away. So the reference there to his weight helps explain why he died when he fell over and landed on his head. But it also indicates a spiritual reality that he had grown fat and dim and dull because of his... turning a blind eye to his son's sin. Similar thing here with Isaac. His blindness is a physical reality that plays an important part of the story. He's also spiritually dim to the things that are happening in his home and in his life. Though he, as we saw last week, is a true worshiper of God, he is not a sinless man. He is faltering here big time by choosing the wrong son.

The third character that we meet is Isaac's wife, Rebecca. And she maybe is a little bit more of a sympathetic character than Isaac, because if you remember what we looked at last week in chapter 26, Isaac had taken her to a foreign land, to the land of the Philistines, and said, hey, can you pretend to not be my wife? Like, maybe she doesn't really trust this guy. And furthermore, he's, again, acting contrary, she knows, to the word of the Lord, to prophecy. And so she doesn't have confidence in his judgment. She doesn't have confidence in his abilities to do the right thing. And so instead of going to him directly and saying, hey, why are you planning to bless Esau and not Jacob? Instead of confronting him directly, which is what Leviticus 19 would say to do, Don't harbor bitterness in your heart against your neighbor, but go and reason frankly with him. Instead of going and reasoning frankly with her neighbor or her husband here, she instead decides to deceive him. And she ropes Jacob in on this plot to deceive his father.

And when Jacob, whose name means like a schemer or a swindler, He doesn't even like this scheme. He's like, I feel like this could falter and not turn out so well for me. She says she treats blessing and curse as if it's a flippant thing. She says, let your curse be upon me. So she's not concerned about being cursed, presumably by God. Then at the end of the chapter, After her plan kind of works but also kind of backfires because now Esau wants to kill Jacob, instead of telling Isaac, here's the situation, your older son wants to kill your younger son, we should send him away, she instead turns to manipulation and gives just enough of the facts in hopes that Isaac will do what she wants. She's lying all throughout the story. I mean, this is characteristic of people who give themselves over to lies, isn't it? Like if you hear one lie from someone, do you ever trust anything else they say? Maybe if they're a small child, then you feel like the issue was corrected. But if you hear it from an adult, you're probably not going to trust that person again. And for good reason, because lies become a characteristic pattern of the human heart. And that's what's happened here with Rebecca. She's characterized by falsehood, not by truth.

Finally, we come to Jacob, who in some sense is going to become the focal point of the story for the next number of chapters in Genesis. Now, the schemer here, even he doesn't like this scheme. He says, hey, this could backfire. Like if I go to dad and pretend to be Esau, he's going to notice that Esau's a big, strong, hairy guy, and I'm kind of a little not. Like smooth, I don't have the testosterone that he does. Like I can't produce the facial hair or the arm hair or whatever. And what if he curses me? Now, it's interesting here, Jacob's thought process. He never mentions God. He doesn't think about the potential of the blessing All he's worried about is the curse that could fall upon him.

And it was interesting reading this week about blessing language in the Old Testament. And ancient Near Eastern societies were run primarily, no, I shouldn't say primarily. One of the key features of ancient Near Eastern religion was this emphasis upon curses. So like huge parts of ancient Near Eastern religion are focused upon breaking curses. And so you would have these treaties or these covenants that were administered by a Lord and the with them would come blessings and curses we see this even in the book of Deuteronomy where god gives the law a second time and then he gives blessings if the people obey the word of the lord and he gives curses if they disobey but the dominant note of the old testament of Hebrew and Israelite religion is that of blessing the focus like the curses are present but blessing is the focal point

And the concern is not so much, oh, we don't want to be cursed. The concern is I don't want to walk out of the blessing of God. But the religions all around them were the opposite. There's very little mention of blessing and there's lots of mention of cursing. And so Jacob's priorities here seem to be ordered along the lines of the nations all around them. He's more worried about curses than about anything else. He doesn't want to fall under a curse. Nonetheless, he still listens to the voice of his mother here at probably about 77 years old. He can't decide for himself what's right and wrong. He just listens to his mom.

And there's an interesting thing here, like to jump back to Rebecca for a minute. Like the instruction of a mother is supposed to be a blessing. Proverbs chapter one, verses eight and nine says, it's a father speaking to his son and he tells him to listen to his instruction and do not forsake the teaching of your mother. And if you hold onto it, it's going to be like a garland for your head, a pendant for your neck. Like a mother's instruction should be a blessing to her children. It should lead him or her towards godliness and maturity and wisdom. But here, Rebekah is going in the opposite direction. She's leading her son into deception and into sin.

Isaac is oblivious to this. Jacob follows his mother's instruction. And when he comes to his father, he tells at least four explicit lies. Verse 19, he says, I am Esau. Verse 19, again, he says, I've done as you told me. I went and I killed this game and I made this food. And when Isaac says, how so fast did you kill something and make food already? Well, Jacob invokes the name of God in this lie. He says, the Lord your God has granted me success. So he's not only lying to his father, he's also blaspheming the name of God. He's taking the Lord's name in vain, using it in a flippant way to... stamp an endorsement on his lie and in verse 24 when Isaac again asks are you really my son Esau—Jacob says oh yes I am so there's not a character in this story who is guiltless there's not a character in this story who has earned the blessing and the favor of god all are in some degree some measure pursuing disobedience rather than obedience.

The second thing that we see here though is that the blessing of god is invincible The blessing of God is invincible. God had promised in chapter 25 before the boys were born to lift Jacob over Esau. Does Isaac's rebellion against that promise or Jacob's practice of deception invalidate the promise of God? No. Romans chapter 11 and verse 29, the apostle Paul says, the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Like they can't be called back. Once God has spoken a blessing, he's not reeling it back into his mouth. When God has poured out his blessing, it's there. And so their sin does not change, does not overthrow the plan of God.

And we see when Isaac blesses Jacob, It doesn't seem like a very spiritual blessing, and that's characteristic of Isaac. He's not a man with a very spiritual mind, it seems, throughout his life. But he blesses him richly with physical prosperity. Verse 28, may God give you of the dew of heaven, the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine. So he's pouring out verbally this blessing from God. He's also promising earthly prestige. Let the people serve you. Nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers and may your mother's sons bow down to you. So everyone who descends from your mother is going to honor you as their lord, as their king, as their covenant head.

And then a reiteration at the end of verse 29 of the promise given to Abraham in chapter 12 and verse 3. Cursed be everyone who curses you. and blessed be everyone who blesses you. Isaac passes on the blessing to the correct son, not because he planned to, but because God determined that's what was going to happen. And so he uses the deception of Rebecca and Jacob in order to pass on the blessing to Jacob, even though Isaac wasn't intending to do that. He's speaking here, Isaac is speaking, an authoritative prophetic word over Jacob's life.

And we see that when Esau comes and says, hey, why can't you just give the blessing to me? Like, don't you have an extra one? And if the understanding of blessing in the Old Testament were the same as we have today, like just some nice words that you say to someone... Isaac would be able to reel it back here and go like, Oh, I made a mistake. And you could call Jacob on the phone and say, you dirty, rotten trickster. Why in the world would you lie to me like this? I'm writing you out of the will now. And until he saw, yeah, you do get everything, but that's not what happens instead. Isaac recognizes that this blessing was spoken with the authority of God, even though he was unconscious of having done it to the right person.

This happens in other places in Scripture, the story of Balaam and the book of Numbers. It also happens in the New Testament. Caiaphas, the high priest, after Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, The Sanhedrin gets together and they're trying to decide, what are we going to do about this Jesus? Everybody's following him and now he's popular enough that we can't really do anything about him. And Caiaphas, the high priest that year, it says he was speaking under the influence of the Holy Spirit. What he's about to say, he means one way and God means something else by it. And what Caiaphas says is, do you not understand that it would be better for one man to die than for the whole nation to perish? And he's thinking, if we don't kill this guy and get rid of him, the Romans are going to come in and cause the nation to perish. But he's speaking prophetically, being high priest that year, because of his office, God speaks through him.

and god is saying through Caiaphas that when Jesus dies the people of god's sins will be paid for so that they do not have to perish and it's not just the people of Israel who trust in him but he's dying to gather into one the people of god who are scattered abroad john 11 and verse 52 says so this is a thing that happens in scripture god speaks through people better than they know and that's what's happening here with Isaac he tries to bless the wrong son But God works and he so blesses the correct son. And that blessing is irrevocable. He can't take it back. He can't change his mind.

God didn't leave Esau completely out in the cold like Ishmael before him. God says, I'm not going to bless. Ishmael, he's not the child of promise. Isaac is. But God still gave earthly prosperity to Ishmael. He became a father of 12 princes. He became a great and mighty man. Same thing's going to happen for Esau. He's going to become the father of the nation of Edom, which is going to become a prominent player in the Old Testament history. Even into the New Testament, King Herod, who calls himself king of the Jews, is actually an Edomite king. who tries to kill baby Jesus. Like the Edomites still play a massive role in the scriptures narrative.

And here in verse 40, he says, your brother, you shall serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you shall break his yoke from your neck. And eventually during the reigns of David and Solomon, the Israelites rule over Edom. But eventually after that time, the Edomites break away and help actually conquer Israel and Judah. through the Assyrians and the Babylonians. So God gets his work done in this world, often in spite of his servants. Even though all the people in this story, all the human characters are failures, God is not a failure. God's plan will not be stopped even by our sin.

But the third and final point here is God's blessing does not excuse our folly. To come back to our original point, A wrong inference from this story would be to say that God blesses their deception. Deception is culpable and condemnable before God. But God wasn't waiting for Jacob to be worthy of his promise, worthy of his blessing. So, don't worry... Don't worry. This is something that Christians worry about a lot. What if I mess up God's plan? What if I screw up his plan for my life by this sin? Or what if somebody else does something to me that messes up God's plan for my life? Human beings can't mess up God's plans. We don't have that power, so don't worry about it. What you do need to worry about is being faithful and obedient where he has put you.

Here, Jacob and Rebecca are grasping for the thing that God had already promised to give. That's folly. God's promise to give was not going to go away. They did not need to grasp for it. They did not need to walk into sin here. Which brings us to our second point. Don't use God's providence, the fact that he can work all things together for good. Don't use that to whitewash sin. We can look at the result and say, well, Jacob got the blessing. That's good. But that doesn't excuse him. It doesn't excuse Rebecca. Don't use it in your life to excuse your own sin or the sins of others against you. It's so easy to say, well, I can see the good and the growth that came from this. So it wasn't that bad what they did to me. That's never the way the Bible treats sin. Call sin what it is. Even if God brought good about it, that's because God is good, not because the event, the thing was good.

Third, The fact that God is complete in his providence, Providence is comprehensive over every single thing that happens, does not excuse us from making unwise or cavalier choices. Our actions still matter. And you see that in this story because Rebecca's favorite son is Jacob, right? And she plans this scheme to make sure he gets the blessing. But then Esau hates him so much he wants to kill him and she has to send him away to Paddan-Aram. And what we don't see yet, but we're going to see as the story continues, is that Rebecca disappears from the story. And probably what that means is that she dies before he comes back 20 years later. Her sin leads to her not seeing her favorite son again in her lifetime. So God brings good about, but there are still real painful earthly consequences to their sinful actions here. So don't be cavalier and unwise about your actions.

Fourth, Finally, do have confidence that the word of the Lord will come to pass. Nothing that you do, that others do, that any human being can do, will stand in the way of God bringing about his purposes in your life and in the world. That's what we read in Psalm 2 as we opened up the service. The kings of the earth gather together to plot against the Lord and against his anointed, and he who sits in the heavens laughs at them. God is not intimidated by human actions. So neither should we be. Brothers and sisters, we need to trust God to be God. Do not trust in your own schemes. Do not trust in your own wisdom, your feelings, your experiences, or your ability to manipulate the situation to bring about what you think is the desired result. Trust in the Father who, according to his promise, will abundantly supply all your needs according to his riches in Christ Jesus. Would you pray with me?

Father God, we thank you. for your goodness. We thank you that you are in control of everything. And so we pray now that you would give us hearts that have a firm confidence in your capacity to do good because you are good. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Transcript generated by AI. The sermon was not. Please comment if you notice any errors.

If you want to take your Bible and turn, we're going to be in Genesis chapter 26 this morning, Genesis 26. If you need a colored pencil, there's a few on the floor now.

Do the promises of God depend upon the worthiness of the recipient? Do the promises of God depend upon upon the worthiness of the recipient. Do you need to check certain boxes before God is willing or able to work through you or for you? Those are important questions. Think about the things that are promises from God. Salvation is a promise. Forgiveness of sins is a promise. Eternity with Christ is a promise. Do those promises ultimately depend upon God, or do they ultimately depend upon you? That's a crucial question to answer, and Genesis 26 is going to help us answer those questions this morning.

Genesis 26, we'll read the first five verses. We'll just move section by section through. We won't go all the way to the end of the chapter. We'll stop at verse 33, but we're just going to read the first five verses here. Genesis 26, verses 1 through 5.

Now there was a famine in the land besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech, king of the Philistines. And the Lord appeared to him and said, Do not go down to Egypt. Dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land. and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and I will give to your offspring all these lands, and in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws."

Cade, can you do me a big favor? Could you go turn the AC off for a minute? I don't think I'll preach long enough for it to get hot in here. But I'm going to roach my voice trying to yell over the top of it.

Before we get going, we should just like re-situate where we are in the book of Genesis. So chapter 25 introduces us to Isaac. And we had met his wife, Rebecca, in chapter 24. Okay. And then here, after the end of chapter 25, where we meet Isaac's sons, Jacob and Esau. Thank you. Here we come into chapter 26, and the focus pulls off of the sons and goes back onto Isaac. And probably... It actually goes back in time. So a lot of times these Old Testament narratives aren't necessarily given to us in chronological order. And so when we get the generations of Isaac and then it starts telling us about his sons, that's a normal narrative pattern in the book of Genesis, the generations of Isaac. Now we're going to talk about his sons. But then there's this story from Isaac's life that Moses wants us to know about. And so he pulls us back in time, probably back before Isaac, Jacob and Esau were born. And he tells us there was a famine in the land.

And in the story that we're about to read, there's two stories that are very similar to it in the life of Abraham. And so a lot of times critical scholars will say, well, these are all just various legends of the same story. You know, there's these two stories with Abraham where he goes into a foreign land and tells the ruler that his wife is actually his sister. And now the same thing's happening with Isaac. It's all really just one event. These are just three versions of it. I think that's utter nonsense. And Moses points out to us that this is a distinct event. Verse one, he says, now there was a famine in the land besides the former famine in the days of Abraham. So he's making a clear distinction between this event and what happened in Genesis chapter 13. There's also a distinction between what happened here and when Abraham also interacts with a Philistine king named Abimelech in Genesis chapter 20. These are unique situations.

Now, it's interesting that the time frame, this is before Isaac's children are born, but it's still a long time after the incident with Abraham and with Sarah. But the king's name is still Abimelech. So it could be that this is a family name. And so this is Abimelech from chapter 20. This is his son or his grandson. Or it could be just a royal name like Caesar or Pharaoh. It could function in the same way for them. We don't know for sure. But this guy has the same name as the one whom Abraham interacted with in chapter 20.

It's also interesting, like, if you're reading... like secular history, and they talk about the Philistines, they'll point out that the Philistines don't come to inhabit this region. They came from another part of the Mediterranean and they were a seafaring people. They don't settle permanently in this region for another 700 years. So what's going on? Why is Moses telling us that Abimelech is a Philistine king? And probably what is going on is something similar to like when the Vikings, who were a seafaring people, went to iceland and then a couple of them got kicked out of iceland and keep going west and you get a settlement of vikings in newfoundland you know 600 years before there are permanent european settlements in the new world you still have colony there and that's probably what this is like the philistines are probably a very small group in the land of canaan at this time they're not they're not fully moved to the area yet that's still several centuries in the future so let's just come some of the historical background here but what's happening in verses two and following

After this famine comes, Isaac is obviously considering moving down to Egypt. His dad had done that in the face of a famine again in chapter 13. But the Lord appears to Isaac and he says, do not go down to Egypt. Dwell in the land of which I shall tell you, which sounds very similar to what God said to Abraham in chapter 12. Go to the land that I shall show you. Verse three says sojourn in this land. So dwell here, even though you're not a permanent resident, even though he's not going to build houses, he's not going to live in any fixed place. He says sojourn in this land and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and to your offspring, I will give all these lands and will establish the oath that I swore to your father, Abraham. And what is happening here is that God is reiterating the promise promises that he had made to Abraham. He's now promising those things to his son, Isaac.

So if you remember the whole story with Ishmael earlier in Abraham's life in chapter 15, uh, Abraham and Sarah had tried to help God along with his promises. And God said, no, I am not going to bless you through Ishmael. I will give Ishmael blessings, but you are going to have a son by Sarah. And so then when... They do have a son. God says, I will bless you through Isaac. Isaac is the one through whom your offspring are going to be named. And now God comes to Isaac himself and says, here are the blessings, the blessings that God promised in chapter 12, that you're going to become a great nation, that you're going to multiply, that you're going to bless the nation. The nations are going to be blessed through your family. God is giving that promise to Isaac here.

These aren't new promises. The promise for his descendants to be as numerous as the stars in the sky. God says that to Abraham in chapter 15 and verse 5. He's not giving him a new promise about all nations of the earth being blessed through him. Again, that was in chapter 12. He's... He's saying, Isaac, you are the child of promise and you can rest secure in the fact that everything that I promised to Abraham is going to be yours.

Why did God pass on these promises to Isaac? That's a very interesting question. The way that God puts this in verse five is interesting to me. God promised to bless Isaac because of Abraham's obedience. That's what verse five says. Chapter 26, verse five. Because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, my rules. How does that work? That the promises of God come to Isaac because of Abraham's obedience.

God came to Abraham before Abraham believed in him. God gives promises to Abraham before Abraham obeys. And yet God says to Isaac that the fulfillment, that the continuation of the promise is because Abraham did obey him. God's gifts are unmerited. We're gonna see that again shortly. Nonetheless, they are conditionally received. And what is the condition of receiving the promises of God? That condition, according to chapter 15 and verse 6, is faith. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. But what does faith look like? Faith is not in the Bible. Now, the way we think about faith as modern Western people is totally different than how the Bible portrays faith. Faith is not just a hope, like a feeling inside where you're, yeah, I feel pretty confident about that. Or I think that's probably right. It's not just an intellectual agreement to a set of factual statements. Yes, I believe in the words on the page that Jesus is God, that he died for my sins. To just nod your head with that is not faith, as the Bible talks about faith. Faith always leads to action. Faith is a commitment of your whole self. And so Abraham had faith, and that's counted to him as righteousness, but how did it live out in his life? Abraham obeyed my voice. He kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

Real faith always follows out with obedience. This is what James is talking about in his letter when he says, you say you have faith and I have works. Well, I'm going to show you my faith by my works. They're not in opposition to one another. Good works, obedience should always follow faith. And obedience brings blessings. Obedience brings blessings. How obedient then was Isaac? We'll see that in verses 6 through 16.

So Isaac settled in Gerar, like God told him to. When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, She is my sister, for he feared to say my wife, thinking lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah, because she was attractive in appearance. When he had been there a long time, a long time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebecca, his wife. So Abimelech called Isaac and said, Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say she is my sister? Isaac said, Because I thought lest I should die because of her. Abimelech said, What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us. So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.

So how obedient was Isaac? Well, when Isaac is in this land and he sees that the king has power, he probably has a harem of other women. And he goes, you know what? Rebecca is a beautiful woman. I am terrified that they are going to kill me. Now, remember, he's just received God's promise that God is going to give him offspring, that God is going to bless the nations through him. And yet his first response to this difficult situation is fear. He's afraid of what might happen, and so he lies. He follows in the footsteps of his father, Abraham. He doesn't obey what God would say. Instead, he... He doesn't literally run from the situation, but he's running away from the danger by putting on this pretense for, we don't know how long the long time is, but it kind of makes you wonder. So like back in the previous chapter, you know, for a long time, 20 years, Rebecca is barren. They don't have any children. And it might have something to do with the fact that they were in Gerar for a long time, pretending to not be married. Like, how long is this? We don't know. But they're spending a long time not being visibly, apparently, with one another.

Isaac... Isaac shared the fear of his father, repeated the failure of his father. And I think this is an important principle for us that like living out of fear is always going to lead you to sin. Living out of fear is a shortcut to sin. When Paul is writing to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1 and verse 7, he is encouraging him to continue in his ministry, to live into the calling that God has given him. And he says, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of sound mind. God does not desire his children to live out of fear. He's just given Isaac a promise. Now, God... is not waiting for Isaac to get it right in order to protect his family. God supernaturally protects Isaac here in spite of himself and protects Abimelech from sin. He protects him by Abimelech overseeing something.

Now, you read verse 8 and the king looks out his window and sees Isaac laughing with Rebecca and calls Abimelech. Isaac in and says, well, she must be your wife. Now it's possible, possible that you didn't ever laugh with someone of the opposite gender in the ancient world. I think that's probably pretty unlikely. A lot of English translations will bring this word into English, not as laughing, but as something like caressing. They're obviously acting in a way that's married. And Abimelech is able to look at how they're acting and go, he's a liar. That's not his sister. And so he calls Isaac into his presence and says, why did you lie to us? Why did you put us in this position? Isaac, by his fear, not only was putting himself in sin, but he was putting his wife in danger of sin. He was putting his host country in danger of sin. Living out of fear had put him in position to bring great shame and sin upon all of those around him. But God protected him. God protected him from his foolishness. He protected him from his fear and he protected him from himself.

In verse 12, Isaac then sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him and the man became rich and gained more and more until he became very wealthy. He had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants so that the Philistines envied him. Now the Philistines had stopped and filled with earth all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father. And Abimelech said to Isaac, go away from us, for you are much mightier than we.

I wonder when you read Isaac's temptation here, obviously it's very easy to go, wow, what a loser. To pretend your wife isn't your wife just to save your own skin and then put everybody else in danger. Like, duh, you shouldn't do that. But where are you tempted to try to just blend in, to fit in with the people around you, whether it's friends or family or others to, as Jesus says, hide your lamp under a bushel in order to... just to save your own skin, whether that's probably in our society, not a literal thing. You're not literally worried about being put to death for standing up for Christ. But people might think you're weird. People might think you're strange. If you don't participate in the sinful things that they participate in, or if you openly express your faith, if you question their actions based on the standards of God's word, Where are you tempted to hide those things in order to just make life smoother and easier? Basically, that's living out of fear rather than out of confidence in God's promises. And what that does is, obviously, it inhibits your ability to experience God's blessing because you're actually moving away from him, not towards him.

I was just talking to some high school kids this week, and the point I was trying to make to them was like, there's really no neutral in the Christian life. There's no place you can go and just kind of, like if you have a stick shift, you understand this. You put the car in neutral, and if you're at the top of the hill, you don't actually stay there. You're rolling one direction or the other. Neutral isn't really a thing. If you're, because the world actually isn't the top of the hill where you can go either way, we live on a hill headed down to destruction because of sin. And so either you are in gear trying to get up the hill, the hard road towards life, or you're Yeah, trying to just coast, while coasting takes you the opposite direction of where you need to go. And living out of fear is almost like putting it in gear going down the hill, faster than you really even were going on your own, right? That analogy kind of broke down, because going in gear can actually make you go slower down the hill. But anyway, you understand what I'm saying?

The road towards Christ, the road towards Christ, honoring God is up a difficult road that where Isaac in this situation could have said, I am going to tell them who she is. She's a beautiful woman. I don't have any power here. They might kill me. I'm afraid of that, but I'm going to tell the truth. I'm going to protect my wife to the best of my abilities. He could have done that, but instead he acted out of fear and he put other people at risk. God protected him from his own selfishness, his own fearfulness. He overcame Isaac's lying. And God is also capable of handling enemies, not just inside of us, not just our own folly, is also capable of handling the enemies outside of us.

So. In verses 14 and following, the Philistines start to envy Isaac, and they are filling in the wells that Abraham had made, and they tell him in verse 16, go away. Verse 17, Isaac departed from there and encamped in the valley of Gerar and settled there, and Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of Abraham his father, which the Philistines had stopped after the death of Abraham. Amen. And he gave them the names that his father had given them. But when Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found there a spring of water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen saying, the water is ours. So he called the name of the well Essek because they contended with him. Then they dug another well and they quarreled over that one also. So he called its name Sitna. And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called his name Rehoboth, saying, For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.

So the Philistines get jealous of Isaac and say, get out of here. Let's create some distance. Now, we don't know exactly where this city of Gerar, where Abimelech was king. That's disputed where that is. The best suggestion I heard is that it's the same city as what becomes Ziklag in the days of David. So it's in the southern region of Judah, what would become Judah. And then they drive him out from there to the valley of Gerar, it says. So probably this is the Negev. So again, this is a river valley in the southern part of what would become the kingdom of Judah. And then he moves down there and the Lord continues to prosper him. And this is an area where Abraham had spent quite a bit of time, had dug wells to water his flocks. But after he had left, the Philistines had filled those in. And so as Isaac is down there, he starts to dig them out. He starts to remove whatever earth they'd filled those wells in with and to access the springs of water. But he encounters this problem. The herdsmen who live in that area say, ah, that's actually, that's our water. You can't have it.

And so the first place that they dig this well, Essek, its name means contention. It means a place where there is tension and fighting over these wells. The next one, the Sitna, it means enmity. So you've got these two places. peoples who are at war with one another over this water. And Isaac, I can't tell what Moses is trying to tell us about Isaac here. Like is Isaac being too passive? He's not contending for those things that God has given to him. I don't know. Maybe he's just trying to be a good neighbor as he just keeps moving, keeps moving, keeps looking for another well. And finally, third time's a charm. He comes to Rehoboth, which means broad places or room. There's expansive. There's enough room for us here. They quit fighting me for this region. Now I can have a well. Now I have a place where I can water my flocks.

Isaac, when he leaves this region, God continues to provide for him, even in the face of tension, even in the face of difficulties. So Isaac's moved from trying to lie to preserve himself to now he's trying to be peaceable and he's living faithfully in the land. As we move into the next section, God is going to reveal himself to Isaac. But just because God has revealed himself to him does not mean all of the earthly problems disappear. Just because God has given him the promise that all of the blessings that were to flow to Abraham are going to come through his family, that does not mean his life is easy and free of toil, free of trouble. Following the Lord does not mean a smooth path with no roadblocks. It means that he will provide even when roadblocks and quarrels and fighting and difficulty come.

Walking by faith requires in the face of those roadblocks, in the face of the people fighting over the well, confidence in the character and the competence of God. And what I mean by that is, is that when we are facing difficulties, when either the difficulty is caused by our own sin or the difficulties that are caused by sin in the world around us, by people we interact with, not honoring God with their choices, not being for us in the way that they live. We need to have confidence in God's character, that he is the kind of God who actually keeps his promises, that he hasn't told us one thing and he's pulling a bait and switch on us. He's actually, he's told us he's going to lead us into green pastures besides still waters, but actually he just wants our life to be hard and awful. I think it's easy to think that about God. I've spent years of my life thinking that about God. that he really doesn't have my best interests at heart. But we need to have confidence in God's character, that he really does have what's best for us in mind all the time. And then we need to have confidence in his competence. We need to trust that he actually knows what he's doing, that his ways are higher than our ways, that he, in fact, as God, knows what he's doing.

We see in verses 23 to 25, God come to Isaac again. From there, he went up to Beersheba. Beersheba is the place that Abraham names at the end of chapter 21, I believe it is. Yeah, at the end of chapter 21, where Abraham had made an oath with the Abimelech of his time. They had made an oath together, uh, At that time, Abimelech and Phicol, commander of his army, come out and they say to Abraham, let's make a treaty. And Abraham is not so sure he really wants to, but then he does. He starts sacrificing animals and says, we're going to make this treaty, but we're going to make it in the sight of God. And then he names the place where they do this, Beersheba, which means well of an oath. And so Isaac comes here to this place where his father had a history and the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, I am the God of Abraham, your father. Fear not. He's about to reiterate the promise, but he adds those two words in the front end. Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham's sake. So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac's servants dug a well. Again, they're excavating where Abraham had first built a well, but now they're re-digging that well.

God comes and he reiterates to Isaac that he's going to bless him. He's going to pass on the gifts of the promises to Abraham. And he tells him to fear not. And he tells him this because we've just seen where fear led Isaac. Fear led Isaac away from obedience to the Lord. Fear led Isaac into endangering his wife. Fear led Isaac into giving opportunities... for the people around him to sin rather than opportunities for them to turn towards the one true God. And the second time that God comes to Isaac, Isaac responds by offering worship. He builds an altar there and he calls upon the name of the Lord. And that language of calling upon the name of the Lord in the book of Genesis refers to true worship of the one true God. And so that's what Isaac does.

It's... The story that follows is a near repeat of the end of chapter 21, where Abimelech comes to Abraham. Here, Abimelech recognizes Isaac's wealth and his status and his power, and he comes and wants to make a treaty. Verse 26, when Abimelech went to him from Gerar with Ahuzath, his advisor, and Phicol, the commander of his army, Isaac said to them, Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you? They said, we see plainly that the Lord has been with you. So we said, let there be a sworn pact between us, between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you that you will do us no harm just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the Lord. So they recognize that as God had blessed Abraham in the past, now God is pouring out his blessing upon his son, Isaac.

There's a temptation... When you're in a situation like Isaac's, Isaac has been asked by these people to leave them. They started to see his wealth grow and they said, hey, get out of our land. And Simon, they've basically said, you're not welcome among us. And the Lord has continued to prosper him. He's grown more and more wealthy, more and more visibly powerful to the world. and now that they see he's gotten really powerful they come to him and say hey make a treaty with us and i think there would be a temptation in isaac's position to say no why would i do that why why would i trust you You who have sent me away. I mean, you see, he is suspicious. Why have you come to me seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you? There would be a temptation even to be petty here and to just say, I can't trust you. I won't let you trust me. But instead, he responds not out of fear, not out of that initial suspicion. He responds out of faith. He welcomes them. He made them a feast and they ate and they drank.

I was just listening to a book this morning and they're talking about it's a biblical theology of the city of God. But he was quoting from Exodus chapter 24 and pointed out that same language there where after God gives the Ten Commandments and he calls the 70 elders of Israel up on to Mount Sinai. Their God hosts a feast for the elders of Israel, and they sat down and they ate and they drank with God in Exodus 24. And here in Genesis chapter 26, Isaac is hosting the nations. And that idea of table fellowship in the scripture is tightly tied to the idea of welcome and of blessing. The idea that we as Christians are welcomed to the table of the Lord at communion is a symbol of our welcome into his family. We remember what he did for us so that we could become part of his family. The end of the scriptures, Revelation chapter 19, the Lord Jesus is hosting the wedding supper of the Lamb. And so it's the same idea in Exodus 24 where God is hosting the elders of Israel. They are welcomed into the blessing of God's presence, and he hosts them at a meal. And here, I think what we see in verse 30 is God starting to fulfill his promise to Abraham and Isaac to bless the nations. Here these ungodly Philistine rulers come to Isaac and he, the prophet, the one through whom God is working in the world at that time, he welcomes them to the table. I think this is a little indicator to us, just this one sentence in the text that Moses is giving us, that God is starting to bless the nations through the family of Isaac.

We also see Just a principle of when Isaac is living in faith, when he's living in a pattern of worship, instead of potentially bringing sin on the nations around him, like he did earlier, by lying about Rebekah, he put Abimelech in danger. Here, when he's walking in a pattern of worshiping the Lord, the Lord blesses him and is bringing peace to the nations through him. it makes me, just on a personal application level, think about Proverbs 16 and verse 7, which says, when a man's ways are pleasing to the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

There is so often, I think this is especially true in our modern American world, where Christians aren't popular, right? To actually follow the Lord isn't isn't the most popular thing to do. But there is a world of difference between being persecuted for righteousness' sake, like Matthew chapter 5 talks about, and being of such a character that nobody just likes you because you're a jerk. Sure, you hold to the truth in some form or fashion, but you're not a very loving person. You're not a very agreeable person. Well, Proverbs 16, 7 says if you're actually living in a way that's righteous, yeah, there's still going to be persecution that comes. All who desire to live godly and righteous will be persecuted. But the majority of the time, actually, you'll be at peace even with your enemies, even with people who don't like what you stand for because they won't be able to question your character. still are going to have some measure of respect and want to be at peace with you. And I think that's what we see here in Isaac's life. He's standing for something completely different than what the Philistines are standing for. And yet they want to be at peace with him because they see the blessing of God on his life. If we are walking in a way that honors the Lord, it will be visible to the world around us. It will be visible to the world around us. That's my last point here is that God's promise to bless becomes visible to others.

So was there anything in Isaac that deserved the promise of God? No, on his own, Isaac is the kind of guy who is willing to put his wife in danger of being taken into someone else's harem. Like Isaac doesn't have native to himself merit that deserves the blessing of God. Nonetheless, God pours out his grace. He pours out his promise. He pours out his unmerited favor. But Isaac, like his father, was responsible to receive that promise by faith. And that is true for us as well. God holds out the promise of his blessing, the promise of salvation freely. Not because anybody deserves it. None of us do. But we are responsible to receive Have faith in him. We are responsible to respond with trust. And faith works its way out through worship and obedience. Blessing follows obedience, not because obedience earns God's favor. We can't ever put God into our debt. But because God is a God who keeps his promises and he's promised to bless those who trust in him.

So we don't live a life based on fear of like, oh no, have I obeyed enough? Have I trusted enough? We live a life based on, I trust that God keeps his promises. And I am going to order my thoughts and my affections and my actions towards the God who keeps his promises. I want to live in line with him. So don't live a life based on fear. Live an obedient life, a life that displays confidence and the competence and the character of God.

Father God, we need your help in this. We naturally are fearful. We do wander far from you. All the time. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. But Lord, we do pray with the words of that song. Take my heart. Oh, take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. Give us hearts that trust you and that seek to obey you in all that we do, all that we say, all that we think. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Genesis 25:12-34 (ESV)

12 These are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s servant, bore to Abraham. 13 These are the names of the sons of Ishmael, named in the order of their birth: Nebaioth, the firstborn of Ishmael; and Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, 14 Mishma, Dumah, Massa, 15 Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah. 16 These are the sons of Ishmael and these are their names, by their villages and by their encampments, twelve princes according to their tribes. 17 (These are the years of the life of Ishmael: 137 years. He breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his people.) 18 They settled from Havilah to Shur, which is opposite Egypt in the direction of Assyria. He settled over against all his kinsmen.

19 These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham fathered Isaac, 20 and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife. 21 And Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife, because she was barren. And the LORD granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. 22 The children struggled together within her, and she said, “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the LORD. 23 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,

the older shall serve the younger.”

24 When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb. 25 The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau. 26 Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.

27 When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents. 28 Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

29 Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. 30 And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom.) 31 Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.” 32 Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” 33 Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. 34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

Following sermon transcript was generated by AI. The sermon was not. Please comment if you notice any errors.

So we've got basically three chunks of text here. The first is verses 12 to 18, the generations of Ishmael. And why would we care if Ishmael is not the son of promise?

So Abraham has these sons. He actually has a number of other sons later by his second wife, Keturah. But earlier on in Genesis, we saw where God had promised to Abraham that he was going to become a great nation. But at that point, he was 75 and he didn't have any children. So after about a dozen years, his wife, who is only 10 years younger than him, is now at this point, she's also well into her 70s, says, hey, you know what? How about I give you my servant and you have a child with her and that child will be counted mine. And Abraham says, okay, sounds fine. And they decide to do that. That's a common practice in the ancient Near East. The children of the maidservant would have been considered the wife's children. And they do that. And Ishmael is born. Abraham has a child with Hagar. And God says, no, this was not my plan. It is not through Ishmael that your children will be named. I'm going to give a child to Sarah. And it's still then another 13 years before that promise comes to fruition. And God does give a child to Sarah. And this child's name is Isaac.

And as Isaac is growing and he starts to get a little older, Ishmael starts to make fun of him and is poking fun at him. And Sarah, remember this was all her idea. Sarah says, get that woman and her child out of here. Send them away. And Abraham doesn't want to. Abraham doesn't want to send away his son, his firstborn son. He loves him. He cares about him. He cares about Hagar too. And he does not want to send them away. But God comes and he says, no, listen to Sarah. Send them away, and then in chapter 17 and verse 20, God promises that he is going to make Ishmael into a great people as well. Twelve princes are going to come from him. And here in chapter 25, we see that God is fulfilling his promise to Abraham. God is making Ishmael into a great nation, and these twelve princes, twelve tribes that become the people that today we would consider Arabs, they are descendants of Ishmael. So this is significant because we see God's faithfulness to the promise that he gave to Abraham to bless Ishmael, but at the same time we also see that this isn't the line of promise, these are not God's chosen people, and so we see a theme recurring that starts in Genesis all the way back in chapter four.

And that's the theme of tension between brothers, between those who are the chosen people of God and those who are not. There is a tension, a division between them. And that happens with Cain and Abel. And we know how that results. And then it happens again here with this tension between Ishmael and Isaac. And Ishmael is blessed, but he's not the chosen one. And it's going to recur with Isaac's own children.

So the second section we see are the children of Isaac. And if you remember it, here the text reminds us that Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, the Aramean of Paddan Aram, sister of Laban, the Aramean to be his wife. The longest chapter in Genesis was one of the last ones we looked at, and that's chapter 24. And chapter 24 of Genesis is this great, big, long narrative of Abraham realizing my son needs a wife. And he should not be taking a wife from among the people of the nations, the Canaanites, who would lead him away from God. Lot did that. Lot moved into the same area. He followed Abram into the promised land. But then he took a wife from among the people of the land and raised his family the way that everybody else in that area did. And it was a disaster for Lot. It undid his life and he eventually loses his wife and things don't go well with his daughters.

Abraham doesn't want that for his son. And so he sends a servant back to his home country and says, find a wife for my son. And so in chapter 24, you get the story of the servant coming and meeting Rebekah. And then the whole story is repeated as the servant repeats it back to Laban and his father. And it's kind of a head scratcher. Why does the author spend so much time informing us of how Isaac got a wife? But the point of the story is that God is providing miraculously for the people of God. He's miraculously providing for the line of promise to continue. Even though Abraham was so old when his child came, and now his son is getting old to be getting married for the first time, 40 years old. God is providing for him.

So Isaac has this wife, Rebekah, but then she too, verse 21 tells us, is barren. She's barren just like her mother-in-law was. And so it's another 20 years of waiting for the promise of God. Waiting for what is going to happen here. And Jacob, Isaac rather, Isaac prays for his wife. And he prays for her to conceive. And she does conceive, which again, this is like a really important theme in the biblical narrative. If someone who is barren or someone who we don't expect to get pregnant gets pregnant, something important is about to happen in salvation history. It's true with Sarah, it's true with Rebecca, it'll be true later on with Rachel and then Ruth and then Hannah and then most importantly with Mary. All these people you don't expect to be pregnant either because they're old or they're barren or with the case of Mary, a virgin, like something significant is happening when the unexpected happens concerning a birth.

And here, Rebecca conceives, but then she's miserable, and it seems more miserable than the typical pregnant woman. She's to the point where she goes to inquire of the Lord. And we don't know what that means specifically. I think it's entirely possible that she actually goes to her husband, Isaac, who we'll see later on in Genesis, seems to function as a prophet. Like, it seems that she probably goes to him and inquires, says, okay, ask the Lord for me. Why? Why is this struggle taking place within me? And she receives this prophecy. The Lord said to her, two nations are in your womb. And two peoples from within you shall be divided. One shall be stronger than the other and the older shall serve the younger. So she receives a prophecy concerning her children that they both will turn into nations and they will be at enmity with one another. One's going to be stronger and the younger is going to be the one who is the head. He's going to be the one who receives the blessing. He's going to be the chosen of God and the older will serve him.

So then the boys are born. And the first one, we're told, comes out all red. And so he's all hairy and his name is then given to him. His name is Esau. And the second one, his name is really significant because as he comes out, he grabs hold of the heel of his brother. And the name Jacob means like a heel grabber, but it can also be taken to mean a deceiver or a trickster. And that, as we walk through the Jacob story, is going to be very indicative of the kind of man that Jacob is. Jacob is a deceiver. He is a trickster. He's a schemer. Even this word here in verse 27, where it says, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field. Jacob was a quiet man. Could be taken to mean that he's a contemplative man, that he's sitting here, he's thinking. He's thinking about things and he's scheming how to get ahead.

So you see these two brothers, they're different kinds of men. Esau is a man of action. Every time I say man of action, I think of the line from the Princess Bride where the man in black says to the six-fingered man, we are men of action, lies do not become us. Esau doesn't really seem to have a lying bone. He doesn't have a thinking bone in his body. He's just a man of action. Whereas Jacob is the schemer. These two brothers have very different trajectories, but those trajectories bring them into conflict.

Again, we see in this section of verses 19 to 26 that God has been faithful to his promise. God is bringing about children to keep the line of promise going on, that God had promised that he was going to bless the world through Abraham's family, and against all odds, his family continues. Even though these old men and old women are having children, well, through the fact that they are having children, God is continuing to bring his promise to fruition.

But then we start to get into the narrative proper of Jacob's life with his first story, which is, it's really a sad story. Verses 27 to 34. When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man dwelling in tents. You see the start of the tension here. Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. Not a good deal. It's clear to everyone including the narrator that there's two kids and mom loves one and dad loves the other. This is not a good setup.

Once when Jacob was cooking stew Esau came in from the field and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob let me eat some of that red stew for I'm exhausted. Now I don't know if you've watched brothers interact. They often speak to one another in this sort of way, this rough, confrontational, not very kind way. Now, nonetheless, you are reading the story and you're thinking, okay, if you know how the story goes and you know Jacob's the chosen one, Jacob's the one who's supposed to be like God's servant, how should he respond? How should he love his neighbor as himself here? How should he love his brother as himself? Maybe he should like throw some insult back at him about what a jerk he is and then give him a bowl of stew, right? Like he's... That's what you would expect a brother to do. Yeah, maybe he's going to throw an insult back and say, wow, maybe you could go out to the manor's tree and pick something but but he's gonna give him a little stew but that's not what happens instead the first thing on the tip of Jacob's tongue is sell me your birthright you're reading that you're like wait how did we go from stew because I'm hungry to birthright.

And what is obvious as you're reading this text is Jacob's been thinking about this. Jacob has been scheming. I have got to find a way to get the birthright. Now, we don't know for sure whether Jacob knows the prophecy that was given to his mom, that the older is going to serve the younger. But I think it's entirely possible because Jacob is the one that Rachel loves, that Rachel has told Jacob this prophecy that you know someday that your brother is going to be serving you. And just bide your time. I know he's bigger than you and he beats you up sometimes, but someday he's going to serve you. And Jacob's sitting here scheming, going, how am I going to make that happen? How can I make him the heel that I take hold of and bring into submission to me? Here I am making this stew and in comes my brother and I have an opportunity. I have an opportunity to exercise my will in this situation and put him in his place.

Jacob said, sell me your birthright now. And Esau said, I'm about to die. What good is a birthright to me? Why do I care about a birthright? And Jacob is not happy with the, well, I don't care answer. He says, no, swear to me, swear to me that you will give me your birthright now. So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew and he ate, and he drank, and he rose, and he went his way. Thus, Esau despised his birthright.

You read that story, and you walk away going, I don't really think God could use either one of these guys. They're both kind of losers. One of them is absolutely unthinking. I mean, the chapter concludes with a negative reflection on Esau. The text does not say, oh, poor Esau, he got tricked. It doesn't say, oh a bummer thing for him. It says he despised his birthright. The birthright was everything. To be the oldest son means you would inherit your father's household, either the entirety of the household or at least a double portion over what everyone else would receive. And he looks at that and says, yeah, it doesn't matter. I'm just hungry. He's driven by his stomach. And the text holds him guilty for that. He is not well reflected on here.

On the other hand, you have Jacob who's, he's a little bit more of a long-term thinker. He's driven by selfish interest, but not the selfish interest of right now, but he's driven by the selfish interest of, I'm gonna get mine out here in the future. I'm gonna lay things in place so that I can have what is coming to me or what I want to be coming to me, whether it should be or not. And that's really the point of this story is to introduce us to these two characters, both of whom are undeserving of anything from God. Both of whom are undeserving of God's mercy and his grace. Neither one deserves God's involvement in their life in any way except for judgment.

But the point, longer term, thinking theologically, thinking through the whole of Scripture, that the Apostle Paul draws from this text is that though neither one of these two men deserves God's mercy, salvation does not ultimately depend upon our worthiness of God's mercy. We all deserve God's judgment, and yet God chooses to pour out mercy and grace. In the book of Malachi, God is bringing an indictment against the people of Israel because they have rejected him. He has poured out his love and his mercy on the people of Israel, the people who descend from Jacob over and over again. And they have chosen to reject him. They've acted like Esau and they've said, Paul, what good is it for us that we're God's chosen people? Oh, well, what good does that do us? They just keep rejecting him. And in Jesus, Malachi chapter 1, verses 2 and 3. God says, you say, what does it matter? You say, what good is it? Is it not written that Jacob I have loved and Esau I have hated? He has loved Jacob so much that his treatment of Esau seems like hatred in comparison.

I have loved you, says the Lord. But you say, how have you loved us? Is not Esau Jacob's brother, declares the Lord? Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I hated. I have laid waste to his hill country. I have left his heritage to the jackals of the desert. If Edom says, We are shattered, but we will rebuild the ruins, the Lord of hosts says, They may build, but I will tear down. They will be called the wicked country and people with whom the Lord is angry forever. Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel.

So God holds both of these brothers accountable, and Esau is ultimately held accountable for his rejection of God. When it says the people of Edom, these are the people who descend from Esau. We saw there in chapter 25 of Genesis, Esau asked for this red stew, and God changes his name to Edom, which means red. His descendants are called the people of Edom. who like red stew, like, I don't know, the association there. And they live to the south of Israel and become a thorn in the people of Israel's side for centuries to come. And God ultimately says, but I'm bringing judgment on them in a way that he does bring judgment to Israel, but not in the same way, not in the ultimate way that Edom is destroyed. And that's not because of anything inherent in either one of them.

The apostle Paul picks this language up in Romans chapter 9. beginning in verse 6. It is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all who are children of Abraham, not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but through Isaac shall your offspring be named. This means that it is not the children of the flesh or the children of God, but the children of the promise who are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said, about this time next year I will return and Sarah shall have a son. And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing good or bad, in order that God's promise of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls, she was told the older will serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.

I think when we see this story, we see Paul uses it as an illustration here of the fact that salvation does not ultimately depend on us. We are responsible for how we respond to God. Esau is held guilty because he despised that which was most important, the salvation, the blessing that was held out to him. He despised it. He didn't care about it. And God holds him guilty. But Jacob is the same kind of man. Jacob is just as sinful as his brother. And the fact that he will ultimately come to faith, that he will come to salvation, is because of the initiating love of God. The love of God that was determined for him before he was ever born.

And so the truth I think that we should draw from this text is that we each are responsible for how we respond to God. But if we respond to him rightly with faith and obedience, it is not because we're smarter than our brother. It's not because we just know so much better and we're so much more enlightened. It's because God and his mercy has been gracious to us when we did not deserve it. Romans 9 there, Paul said, before they had done anything good or bad... God determined to show his love to Jacob. And if you have trusted in Christ, it's not because you are better than anybody else. It's because you, like Jacob, are an undeserving recipient of the love of God. And that's good news. Because if we look to ourselves as the basis of our salvation... and we look to our good works as the basis of our salvation or our wisdom as the basis of our salvation, we will rightly come to the conclusion that I don't have enough. I don't have enough wisdom. I don't have enough good works. I've got too much of a mess still going on either out in my life or inside in my head and in my heart, which Jesus says is just as culpable as the things that you do outside of you. If you sin in your heart, you've done it.

You need a salvation that comes from the outside. And you need a God who is desiring to save you despite you. Despite your inclinations. Despite your unworthiness. And that's what we have in Scripture. A God who initiates. A God who sends. We're going to see that in Jacob's life where God will initiate with him over and over again. And we see it in the history of the world as God, the son himself enters into human history, takes on flesh and dwells among us. And in him, we have beheld the glory of the eternal father. And in him, the wrath of God is poured out and satisfied so that we might have a relationship with him so that we can respond to him in faith. But that's all a gift. It's not anything we deserve.

And so as we jump back into the narrative of Genesis, we jump back into Jacob's story, jump into Jacob's story for the first time, we need to realize nothing that is good in our lives is because we deserve it. It's because God is gracious. God is going to pour out his love in Jacob's life, not because Jacob is good, but because God is loving. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you. that you are a good God, that you are a gracious God. And we ask that you would give us the grace and the mercy to respond rightly to you. We need your help in this. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

2 Samuel 21:15-22, 23:8-39; Remsen Bible Fellowship; 11/20/2022

Introduction

Societies need men. Churches need men. Families need men. Those three statements, hopefully, seem like common sense to you. But you are also well aware that in many parts of our society those statements would need a trigger warning attached. We hear frequent drumbeats of the dangers of patriarchy and toxic masculinity. Is masculinity a dangerous thing? Is it something to steer boys away from, and to protect women from?

The Bible doesn’t seem to think so. Which, given that the Bible is God’s word, means that God doesn’t seem to think so. He created us male and female in His image. There is something about the distinctions between, and the resultant fitting together of men and women, that expresses God’s likeness in a way that androgynous humanity simply wouldn’t.

We can all think of texts which celebrate various aspects of femininity and female strength. The stories of Ruth and Esther, the woman of Proverbs 31, and many of the women in the Gospels and Paul’s letters shine forth showing the way to what competent, beautiful, female, image bearing looks like. Where do the men turn?

One answer would be our two passages from 2 Samuel this morning. We begin with 2 Samuel 21:15ff.

15 There was war again between the Philistines and Israel, and David went down together with his servants, and they fought against the Philistines. And David grew weary. 16 And Ishbi-benob, one of the descendants of the giants, whose spear weighed three hundred shekels of bronze, and who was armed with a new sword, thought to kill David. 17 But Abishai the son of Zeruiah came to his aid and attacked the Philistine and killed him. Then David’s men swore to him, “You shall no longer go out with us to battle, lest you quench the lamp of Israel.”

18 After this there was again war with the Philistines at Gob. Then Sibbecai the Hushathite struck down Saph, who was one of the descendants of the giants. 19 And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, the Bethlehemite, struck down Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. 20 And there was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number, and he also was descended from the giants. 21 And when he taunted Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimei, David’s brother, struck him down. 22 These four were descended from the giants in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants. (2 Samuel 21:15-22)

Rather than slowly walk through each detail of our two passages, I want to highlight the obvious theology of these texts, and then spend the end of the sermon meditating on potential applications for us today.

God’s Preservation

We have to remember where these texts are situated - in the epilogue of 2 Samuel, the conclusion of the narrative about David’s years as king. Though much of what takes place in these texts is from earlier in David’s reign, and some even before he becomes king, the author places the material here for us to see God’s hand at work preserving his anointed ruler, and preserving his chosen people. This is especially clear in 21:17-18, where David’s life is on the line. He is tired from fighting, and Ishbi-benob, a giant, takes notice. This mountain of a man, who wields a spear with an eight pound point on the end and who had some form of new weapon (the Hebrew is unclear if it was a new sword or new armor or new something else - but it was new and shiny and ready for a test against David) is about to slay the king. Until Abishai steps in and saves the day.

In this section of chapter 21 there are four different giants who fall by the hand of David and his men, and the material here is to help us see that the promise made by God (quoted in 2 Samuel 3:18) that Israel would be saved from the Philistines through David, has come true. God has delivered. Just like 1 Samuel 17, a giant once again comes out in v21 to taunt Israel. And just like in 1 Samuel 17, a descendant of Jesse once again slays the loud-mouthed giant. Standing against Yahweh never pays off, and taunting him certainly doesn’t. God will not be mocked. God will destroy his enemies and preserve his people.

Sometimes God does this through miraculous intervention (giant hailstones, splitting the red sea in two, bringing down the walls of Jericho), but very often he is at work through more ordinary means. Like preserving a nation through brave warriors.

At Work Through Men

8 These are the names of the mighty men whom David had: Josheb-basshebeth a Tahchemonite; he was chief of the three. He wielded his spear against eight hundred whom he killed at one time.

9 And next to him among the three mighty men was Eleazar the son of Dodo, son of Ahohi. He was with David when they defied the Philistines who were gathered there for battle, and the men of Israel withdrew. 10 He rose and struck down the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand clung to the sword. And the LORD brought about a great victory that day, and the men returned after him only to strip the slain.

11 And next to him was Shammah, the son of Agee the Hararite. The Philistines gathered together at Lehi, where there was a plot of ground full of lentils, and the men fled from the Philistines. 12 But he took his stand in the midst of the plot and defended it and struck down the Philistines, and the LORD worked a great victory.

While the focus of 2 Samuel never shifts from how the nation and Davidic dynasty are preserved - the Providental working of God - the author is clear about how God worked. “The Lord brought about a great victory that day” (v10). “The Lord worked a great victory” (v12). How? He delivered his people from fearsome and brutal enemies by means of fearsome and brutal warriors.

Jeshob-basshebeth wielded his sword against 800(!) men. That’s the sort of man you put in charge of the elite forces.

Eleazer, son of Dodo, was a man of great bravery, so much so that when all Israel fled, he was among the three who stood with David against an entire Philistine host. He fought until his hand literally froze to the sword. When the rest of the army came back, it was only to strip the bodies of the slain.

And then there was Shammah, defending the lentil field. Lentils were a staple crop, and it appears the Philistines had come to raid Israel’s food. Again the troops fled, but Shammah took his stand, and struck down the enemies of God’s people.

Then there were the three unnamed men of verses 13-17,

13 And three of the thirty chief men went down and came about harvest time to David at the cave of Adullam, when a band of Philistines was encamped in the Valley of Rephaim. 14 David was then in the stronghold, and the garrison of the Philistines was then at Bethlehem. 15 And David said longingly, “Oh, that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem that is by the gate!” 16 Then the three mighty men broke through the camp of the Philistines and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate and carried and brought it to David. But he would not drink of it. He poured it out to the LORD 17 and said, “Far be it from me, O LORD, that I should do this. Shall I drink the blood of the men who went at the risk of their lives?” Therefore he would not drink it. These things the three mighty men did.

This seems to be before David’s time as king, during the wilderness years. David’s hometown of Bethlehem is under occupation, and he longingly wishes things were back to normal. “Oh that I could grab a drink in my hometown” might be a modern paraphrase. But three of his men take him literally, and sneak behind enemy lines to get him a glass of water. What devotion! Joyce Baldwin gives a helpful comment here, explaining why it made sense for David to pour this water out before the Lord: “The story of such devotion to a leader became part of Israel’s literary heritage, especially as the leader was humble enough to admit that only the Lord was worthy of such sacrifice. That is why he poured it out to the Lord as a libation: it represented the life-blood of three brave men.”

And then the author goes back to naming names:

18 Now Abishai, the brother of Joab, the son of Zeruiah, was chief of the thirty. And he wielded his spear against three hundred men and killed them and won a name beside the three. 19 He was the most renowned of the thirty and became their commander, but he did not attain to the three.

20 And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was a valiant man of Kabzeel, a doer of great deeds. He struck down two ariels of Moab. He also went down and struck down a lion in a pit on a day when snow had fallen. 21 And he struck down an Egyptian, a handsome man. The Egyptian had a spear in his hand, but Benaiah went down to him with a staff and snatched the spear out of the Egyptian’s hand and killed him with his own spear. 22 These things did Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and won a name beside the three mighty men. 23 He was renowned among the thirty, but he did not attain to the three. And David set him over his bodyguard.

Abishai, Joab’s brother, wielded his spear against 300 - and though he was not listed among the three, his name was right up there. For a time he even led David’s army.

And then there is Benaiah. The ultimate man’s man. He struck down “two Ariels of Moab” - we don’t know if these were sons of a man named Ariel, or if Ariel was a special name for Moabite elite warriors. We do know that this must have been impressive, because of the feats which follow in the list. He crawled into a pit, with a lion, on a day when snow had fallen. The rocks were slippery, the lion was hungry. Why is he going down there? Did the men need a sheltered place to get out of the weather, and was this lion in the way? We don’t know. We do know that Benaiah walked out of the pit, and the lion didn’t. He didn’t just “go down” into pits to chase lions. He “went down” to an Egyptian, a man whom 1 Chronicles tells us was over 7 feet tall. Handsome, impressive, a lot of man. And he held a spear, while Benaiah carried only a staff. But Benaiah used his staff to disarm the Egyptian, and then ran him through with his own spear. David had an eye for talent, and said, “that’s who should be in charge of my bodyguards.”

There is an unflinching celebration of the men in these verses as warriors. And while we will discuss later that this is not how the kingdom of God advances in the church age, we nonetheless should see the nobility in mighty men standing up for their people and their nation. These men were loyal to the leader whom God had ordained. And so today, we should not fail to thank God for those who volunteer to fight for the country we live in, nor should we be squeamish about celebrating those who do so in an extraordinary way. We need to make a distinction between the kingdom then and now, but we don’t need to be ashamed of violence in its proper place. In a fallen world, where evil abounds, God has given the sword to the state. And that sword is intended to be carried by valiant men.

24 Asahel the brother of Joab was one of the thirty; Elhanan the son of Dodo of Bethlehem, 25 Shammah of Harod, Elika of Harod, 26 Helez the Paltite, Ira the son of Ikkesh of Tekoa, 27 Abiezer of Anathoth, Mebunnai the Hushathite, 28 Zalmon the Ahohite, Maharai of Netophah, 29 Heleb the son of Baanah of Netophah, Ittai the son of Ribai of Gibeah of the people of Benjamin, 30 Benaiah of Pirathon, Hiddai of the brooks of Gaash, 31 Abi-albon the Arbathite, Azmaveth of Bahurim, 32 Eliahba the Shaalbonite, the sons of Jashen, Jonathan, 33 Shammah the Hararite, Ahiam the son of Sharar the Hararite, 34 Eliphelet the son of Ahasbai of Maacah, Eliam the son of Ahithophel the Gilonite, 35 Hezro of Carmel, Paarai the Arbite, 36 Igal the son of Nathan of Zobah, Bani the Gadite, 37 Zelek the Ammonite, Naharai of Beeroth, the armor-bearer of Joab the son of Zeruiah, 38 Ira the Ithrite, Gareb the Ithrite, 39 Uriah the Hittite: thirty-seven in all.

It’s worth noting before we turn to applying the text to our day, what an interesting and varied group this is. Men of Judah, as we would expect, David’s kinsmen. But also men of Benjamin, in fact Ittai is from Saul’s hometown. Several of these men we don’t know where to place geographically, but a bare minimum of three (and perhaps several more) are Gentiles, not of the people of Israel. Eliphelet is of Maacah, Zelek is an Ammonite, and Uriah is a Hittite. And by concluding with Uraiah, the author draws our mind back to the incident with Bethsheba, Uriah’s wife. Remember, that though the central human character of 1-2 Samuel is David, David is not the hero. God is the only hero in this book.

What Can We Learn?

So, what can we learn from a text like this? There are the twin temptations, the first to read this in shock and horror at what an uncivilized time this was, and wonder how God could speak so approvingly of such awfully violent men. That would be wrong because it would suggest that we know better than God.

The flip side, the opposite temptation, is just to meditate on the gore and glorify a pagan-like warrior culture. Maybe start watching Braveheart for bible study. This is increasingly popular in many circles - to point out how demonized men have been, and to respond by living up to all of the negative stereotypes. “They want to call me a meat-eating Neanderthal? Well, I’ll show them how really uncivilized I can be! Nanny nanny boo boo!” And this type of masculinity, which might well be described as toxic, really misses the point. David was, after all, the warrior poet, the “sweet psalmist of Israel” (2 Samuel 23:1). He was a man of many layers. He was not afraid of battle, and neither were his men. Their confidence in God gave them the strength they needed to accomplish great feats. But David, rightly, also rebukes bloodthirstiness.

So if, “go sharpen your swords,” or “buy more reloading gear,” isn’t the right lesson to draw from the text, what is? I think what we see here is that God works through men. And so, if we want to see God work here, we need to be the sort of men he’ll work through. This is not to deny how frequently and powerfully he uses ladies as well! - but that isn’t the point in this text. When I speak here of God working through men, I’m talking about XY chromosome men. Males.

David’s kingdom was built and defended in no small part because these faithful men sacrificed themselves for the good of the kingdom. Some lived long lives of service, others gave their lives in service. But all sacrificed for God’s anointed.

In the New Testament era, this side of Jesus coming to earth, living a perfect life, dying for our sins, rising from the dead, and ascending to the Father’s right hand, the kingdom is not tied to a political nation or leader in the same way it was in Jesus’ day. Rather, Jesus promised in Matthew 16 that he would build his church. And in Matthew 28 he makes clear that the way he intends to do this is by sending his followers into the nations, proclaiming his authority over everyone and everything. So what does this have to do with men?

Well, the charge is to be led by men. When Jesus chose his 12 apostles, he chose men. When the apostles were laying out the requirements for pastors and elders, both the assumption and explicit teaching of Paul and Peter are that such persons would be male. While there is definitely debate about the office of deacon, there is no question that the first deacons were themselves male.

Moving backward in time to the creation order, in the home God gives the man the role and responsibility - the duty - of leadership, of headship. This is not some special privilege where he gets to act like a big baby demanding his way. It means that the buck stops with him. How his wife is doing spiritually is his responsibility. How his kids behave and respond to authority is his responsibility. It is, in fact, the shouldering of this responsibility in the home that Paul uses as the primary indicator for how a man displays fitness for the office of pastor, or elder, or even deacon.

Again, none of this is to diminish what women do or are capable of. To draw a specific analogy from our text, we know that women were the ones primarily responsible for harvesting grain in Israel (at least in the time of the Judges, see the book of Ruth). But when Philistines are at the field, those ladies can’t go to work. It takes a Shammah to make a stand, clearing the field of enemies, to make it a safe place to work. For women to flourish and reach their full spiritual potential in our homes and church, then we as men must step up to carry our share of the load.

This is true right now, even as a small church. It’s also true for the future. This is a truth for me, for Scott, for Thomas; but it’s also a truth for Owen and Calvin and Wesley. If we pursue the Lord with our whole hearts, not being content to coast through life, but looking for opportunities to grow, and then not only grow, but to help lead others toward maturity in Christ, that will not diminish the ladies in our midst - it will enable them to be all that God has meant for them to be. Leaning into this kind of spiritual leadership - taking initiative in prayer, diligently searching the Scriptures in order to know the Lord, seeking to understand and serve our wives, discipling our children in godliness, setting an example in our workplace of diligence, excellence, and integrity, coming to church and joining voices in song as we proclaim Jesus’ Lordship over all - these things are profoundly counter-cultural. And they are exactly the need of the hour.

They’re probably not the sort of thing that will get your name in a history book. Getting up, reading your Bible and praying, going to work and doing your best, and then coming home and finding ways to serve your wife probably won’t sit alongside slaughtering 800 Philistines in most people’s minds. Showing up to church every Sunday might not seem as impressive as jumping in a snowy pit with a lion. But this is the very sort of faithfulness the Lord Jesus calls us to, and in places like Ephesians 6, he calls it warfare.

I’ve often thought over the years of the old Steve Green song, “Find us Faithful.” And I think that’s the testimony David’s mighty men left, more than anything else. God was pleased to do remarkable things through them, to be sure. But sometimes preserving David and took such big miracles because so few of the faithful were left. We have no idea what God will do through us, big or small. But if we remain steadfast and faithful, available to him, then we can be sure he will accomplish everything he wants through us, whether it looks big in our eyes or not. It’s his perspective that matters. So, in closing, let me encourage you with the words of 1 Corinthians 16:13-14,

13 Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. 14 Let all that you do be done in love.

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Good morning, everybody. I will say at the gospel mission, they had a nice big podium for me to spread out on down there. Oh, it was custom made for me, don’t know, nice. Alright, good morning, everybody. Good morning. Again, you know who I am. It’s an honor to be here again preaching to you guys and teaching you the word of God. This week was a little bit of a challenge as Will always does. He’s getting me to make different types of sermons, challenging me in ways that I have not been challenged before. As it was said earlier, luckily, we have the Holy Spirit to lead us through these things. But he gave me one sentence to make a sermon off of, and that’ll be in Proverbs 10 verse one. Don’t dive too far deep because that’s where we’re stopping. And the text is: a wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother.

I had the honor of going to the gospel mission last night and preaching this, and I feel like there’s more that can relate to this as far as the children go in this room. But the rest of you, you might be thinking, I’m not a child. Why does this even apply to me? So this was written by King Solomon. He was speaking to his child, to his son, and he’s giving him advice, and we’ll dive through more of that advice as we go through this. But I want you to kind of think about if you hear that you are a child, oftentimes, we can automatically go to that I’m a child of God. That’s who I am in this world. But Ephesians tells us that that’s not how we’re originally created, that we are naturally children of wrath. We don’t naturally follow God. We don’t naturally seek after him, but Ephesians 2:1-3, it says, and we were dead in our trespasses and sins in which we once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince and the power of the air. That is Satan. You guys, naturally, we follow him and not God. The spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

Each and every one of us, we are a child, so we can relate to this. But when we first read it, we might think for that first son that is bringing gladness to his father, naturally, that’s not the case. We are born as the second son who is bringing the sorrow to his mother. So as you’re sitting here today, any of you, do you have one that you think you more relate with? Are you that one that makes your father glad or the one that brings sorrow to your mother? Sadly, we are all the second one originally. Romans tells us that because we are naturally that child of wrath, we don’t seek God, but not only don’t we seek him, we can’t. There’s no way on our own that we can earn our righteousness by ourselves. I’ll read it, Romans 3: “What then? Are we Jews any better off? No at all.” So none of us have any upper hand on anyone else in this world. We are all, so no one has a better hand. “Are Jews any better off? No. Not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jew and Greeks, are under sin as it is written. No one is righteous. No. Not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. We’ve all turned aside together and have become worthless. No one does good. No. Not even one.”

I want you to start to listen to, think, does this describe who you used to be or who you still are today? Their throats are like an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is on their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, and their paths are ruined in misery. In the way of peace, they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. I can think of my life before becoming a child of God that this sadly described me. When I spoke to people, it was not love and kindness that came out. It was bitterness, curses. When you would look at me, what came out of my mouth revealed what was inside of me. We are naturally looked at, and you can see the death and the lack of life that is within us. So, again, I asked, which one do you relate to sitting here today? Are you the first or second child? Do you relate more to this child of wrath or to a child of God?

The Bible is full of examples. Even when I ask you this question, you can naturally think, of course, I’m this first child. Of course, I bring honor and glory to my father, but there’s countless examples in the Bible of people who would answer that question that they are wise and they have understanding. One is found in the book of Matthew. We have three different cities run by these Jewish leaders. Jesus went and did most of his works in these three towns. And, again, these are people who devoted their life to the scribes and the Sadducees. They would say, yes, I’m righteous. I’m holy. I’m wise. I have this understanding. Yet Jesus himself, he denounces them. He went there. He showed them who he was, and they rejected him. He says, woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Bethsaida. He says, woe to you, Capernaum. Capernaum is where he was raised. Like, he went back to that town to where he was raised with Joseph and Mary. He says, do you think you’ll be exalted to heaven? I came here and I told you who I am and yet you deny me. Do you think you’ll be exalted to heaven? He says, no. You will be brought down to Hades.

Oftentimes, we can think that we are righteous. We can think that we are wise. We can think that we have this understanding, and we can fool ourselves just like they did. They thought they were the best. The townsmen would look to them as something to aim for as being righteous and holy and wise, but yet they are being cast down to Hades. They too were naturally this child of wrath. Jesus goes on to describe them with the very words that we’re speaking of. He called them wise and understanding. But what he’s doing here is either being a little sarcastic because they think they are or they have the earthly wisdom, not wisdom that is from above. Do you go about your life today thinking you are wise, but yet knowing the word of God and rejecting it, thinking just like they did? I don’t need this repentance thing that you’re talking about. I don’t need to turn away from my sins. I can do it better on my own, God. That’s exactly how they were thinking, but I plead with you. You are being that second child who is bringing sorrow instead of that gladness.

You may ask, okay, you’ve covered the children aspect of this. Why did the father even get brought in? Why did the mother get brought into this passage today? We did cover that it is a literal father writing to literal children, his literal son. Another thing that we have to think about is as parents, as kids, that there are roles that we have to do when we are in those positions. God tells us we have jobs to do as we are in those roles, and King Solomon was fulfilling that, and we’ll dive through some other proverbs that he has written to us showing that he fulfilled this. But as fathers, if you’re sitting here in this room, we’re told not to just make our kids angry for no reason. Don’t just provoke them, but bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. This is what we see King Solomon doing as he’s writing these proverbs. He’s instructing. He is disciplining his child. Mothers, on the other hand, if you notice, the father is glad, but there’s sorrow in the mother’s heart. If you’re a mother sitting here today, Proverbs has a great example of what you seek in your life, how you live out your life to your kids if you’re following what the Bible says. It says the mothers, when they open their mouths, what comes out of her should be wisdom and kindness. When you look at her tongue, it’s not that death that we saw, but it’s wisdom and kindness that’s on her tongue. And when she looks at her household, she has gladness in it. Mothers, at least the mother of my children and maybe you too, there’s a lot more emotional connection to our children, and so they take it more personally. When their children are not wise, when they are this foolish child, it hurts them even more to the core. To see a child who they brought up in this instruction, they did everything that God said. When we see them just throw it away, that brings real sorrow to her.

So how can you and I not be this second child? Because we are. How can we not be it anymore? One, we can listen to the instruction of our parents if they are biblically foundational. If they follow these rules, then we should listen to them, children in the front row. If you are not living at home with your family, there’s good news that we do have another father and he has instructed us and has given us the key to how to be wise, to have this understanding. But we also have other passages that Solomon wrote that we can look at. Did I say King Saul at some point? Solomon wrote these. I apologize. Sorry. Solomon is writing this to his children. But I do wanna read something that gives us hope. Ephesians 2, we read it where we were children of wrath, but we don’t have to stay that way. Verse 4 in Ephesians 2 says that, but God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love in which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, even though we’re those children of wrath, he has made us alive together with Christ. By grace, we have been saved and raised up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus. It is by grace that we have been saved. We don’t have to stay this child of wrath. It is by grace that God has chosen us to adopt us as his children; we can live our life for him. It is a gift. Nothing that we did. These scribes and Pharisees, they tried on their own, but all they could do is boast on themselves. A true relationship for God to be your father, for you to be a child of him is for you to put your trust in him, and it’s nothing that we did to deserve that.

So how again can we not be this child of wrath? We know that we need to put our faith in God. We need to be submitted under him, but we need to not have this earthly wisdom. We can’t be set in stone thinking the fact that we have wisdom when in fact it might not be the right wisdom. So how can we know? Am I fooling myself, or am I truly having godly wisdom, wisdom that is from above? The book of James tells us a little bit about this. He asks you straight to your face, who is wise and understanding among you? The same exact words that Jesus used to describe those leaders. He says, by his good conduct, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. You can see it through your good works. Works don’t save you, but if you have this wisdom, you will do good works. But here’s how you can tell. But if you, again, sitting here today with this wisdom that you think you have, but if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not wisdom that comes down from above, but it is earthly, it is unspiritual, and it is demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exists, there will be disorder in every vile practice.

I can think of the time when I was not saved. I thought I was. I was going to church for a good year before God actually saved me. If you ask me, yes, I was a believer. Yes, I was wise. Yes, I knew some scripture. That’s not what showed in my life. It was unspiritual. It was earthly. There was definitely jealousy in my life. Everything I did was out of selfish ambition. Even going to church, I selfishly went so that I could be seen. They saw me there so they wouldn’t question if I truly was saved or not. The chaos that ensued in my marriage showed the true disaster in every vile practice that was truly there. I was fooling those around me and fooling myself into thinking that I was wise and had understanding. So how do we know if what we have truly is? How do I know standing here today that I’m not fooling myself anymore? And James tells us, but this wisdom that is first pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial, and sincere. That is the wisdom that we want. That is the wisdom that is from above.

So when you think, when you are wise, challenge yourself. Am I doing the things I’m doing for God or am I doing them for me? Am I doing them to better my own life or to glorify him? The rest of our time will be in Proverbs. So if you do want to open up there, we will look at Proverbs 9:10. This is talking about how do we gain this wisdom. So we talked about what is it? How do I know if it’s earthly? How do I know if it’s from above? How do I get this wisdom and stop being this child of wrath? Proverbs 9:10 tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. We cannot have this truly biblical wisdom if we don’t have a right perception of God. That right perception of God comes with fearing him. That doesn’t mean I should be scared to open up my Bible or scared to talk to him, but it’s having this awe and reverence of the true power of the creator of this universe and putting him in the place that he should be in our lives. I can say all day long, Jesus is Lord of my life, but if I don’t listen to him, is he truly?

So Solomon, does he say any more about this? I do apologize. I hope last night I did not just say Saul the whole time, but Proverbs 1, if you wanna flip there, we see him instructing his son even more. We see him doing that duty as a father to bring up his son in the instruction and the discipline of the Lord so that his son is not the second son anymore, but instead can move into that place of the first one that’ll bring him gladness and fulfill the roles and duties that he has as a father in this world. Proverbs 1:8-9 says, hear my son, your father’s instructions, and forsake not your mother’s teachings for they are a graceful garland for your head and a pendant around your neck. When I first read this, I was thinking, like, why is she decorating me? Why is my mother supposed to be putting this onto me? When you think about the fact that when you are a child of God, when you are out in this world, you’re supposed to be representing something beautiful. You’re supposed to be representing Christ and God’s handiwork. And so we read earlier the mother’s job was to instruct and to give you knowledge and information, and she was going to make you beautiful to this world. When people look at you, they should see Christ. And so she decorates you with these graceful garlands, puts a pendant around your neck. When people see you, they will see that you are different.

My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say come with us, let us lie in wait for blood. Let us ambush the innocent without reason. Like Sheol, let us swallow them alive and whole. Like those who go down to the pit, we shall find all precious goods. We shall fill our houses with plunder, throw in your lot among us. We will all have one purse. He’s saying, son, please listen to me. There will be people in your life who will try to entice you. They will promise you gifts. They will promise you a purse filled with this money. They will promise you these things that they have no right to promise you. But they don’t care who gets in their way. We need to be careful who we are around. Son, listen to my words. Do not even consent to be with them. He continues on, my son, do not walk in the way with them. Hold back your foot from their paths for their feet. They run to evil. They make haste to shed blood. For in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird, but these men lie in wait for their own blood. They set an ambush for their own lives. Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain. It takes away the life of its possessors. These people that will come into your lives don’t just not consent to go with them. Don’t even be on the same path that they are on. They don’t care who gets caught in the net. It says for in vain, they spread a net in the sight of any bird. They don’t care what the catch is. They just want to have gain from it. They will go through anyone and do anything to get what they want in their lives for this unjust gain. So don’t consent to be with them. Don’t even go on the same path they were on. We have people in our own lives today that will try to drag us down these paths, and we have to be cautious and wise about who we are with.

Proverbs 4, you can turn there if you’d like. He continues to instruct his son. This is his duty. It is his job to make sure his son is wise so he continues to do so. He says, hear, oh, son, a father’s instruction and be attentive that you might gain insight. This word insight is the same as the understanding that we’ve seen. So pay attention, son, so you might gain this understanding for I give you good precepts. Do not forsake my teaching. He speaks about how his father did the same. When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother, he taught me and said to me, let your heart hold fast to my words. Keep my commandments and live. Get wisdom. Get insight. Do not forget and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Again, he is pleading, son, don’t go with those people, but also get this wisdom and insight so that you can know better. Don’t turn away from my commandments. He now starts to talk about wisdom as a her. He says, do not forsake her, and she will keep you. Love her, and she will guard you. The beginning of wisdom is this, get wisdom. I always chuckled at that, but as if you’re looking and waiting for a place to start, you just need to jump in. If you want wisdom, you need to just go and get it. But whatever you get, get insight. Prize her highly, and she will exalt you. She will honor you if you embrace her. She will place on your head a graceful garland. She will bestow on you a beautiful crown.

There’s many passages to choose from, but I wanted to tie this one in for this graceful garland. We read that that’s what the mother did when you were underneath her care. Children, she will bestow this upon you. It comes with the wisdom. But now you keeping this wisdom that you should have will continue to do so. This wisdom in your life will continue to adorn you in these things. He says, hear my son and accept my words that the years of your life may be many. I have taught you the ways of wisdom. I have led you in the paths of uprightness. When you walk, your steps will not be hampered. And if you run, you will not stumble. Keep hold of instruction and do not let go. Guard her for she is your life. Do not enter into the path of the wicked and do not walk in the way of evil. Avoid it. Do not go into it. Turn away and pass on. Again, even in this separate proverb, he is warning against those around you, those that are evil who are trying to drag you down.

What’s interesting is how he describes them here next. These people that are in your lives even today that try to drag you back into the sins of which you once lived, it says they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong. They are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble. For they eat of the bread of wickedness and they drink of the wine of violence. But the path of righteousness is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until a full day. The way of the wicked is like the deep darkness, and they do not know over what they stumble. A fun experience I was pleased to have last Wednesday at Lamar’s Bible Church is the youth group does this thing called underground church. You get middle schoolers, I think, did it last night. High schoolers is the group I was involved in. We got to do it Wednesday night. It is pitch black. You turn off all the lights in the church. The leaders lovingly get to walk around with pool noodles and try to smack tag them. We were wearing bells to entice them, and, there’s different levels to this game. At first, we could only be in the hallways of the church, but the whole church was for a game. And you could just jingle that bell, and you would hear people tripping and falling and stumbling. That was a great example of the image of what is said here. It was pretty dark, wasn’t it? Yeah. But the amount of blindness that we have when we are in this darkness, we can be in a room that you could normally traverse perfectly fine. But when you’re blinded by this darkness, you don’t know the path of which you’re on. It says the way of the wicked is like this deep darkness. They do not even know what they stumble on. But what he does say is that the righteous is like the light of dawn. So you could have that same very room right after hearing these kids stumble. Could turn on the light, and they could walk out perfectly fine. If you’re living your life in the light, you can see the path of which you’re walking on.

So he continues on. My son, be attentive to my words and incline your ears to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight. Keep them in your heart. For they are a life to those who find them and a healing to all the flesh. Keep your heart with all vigilance. From it flows the springs of life. Remember, the light is stronger than the darkness. Even the sun makes the night scatter. So how much more will the wisdom of God make these second child’s wisdom flee? He says, put away from you crooked speech and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet, then all of your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left or turn your foot away from evil. Being a Christian or at least walking in the path of how God tells us to is purposeful. You don’t wake up one day and accidentally follow God. It is a purposeful path that in the light you can perfectly see, contrasted to the darkness where we trip and we stumble and we fall.

So how do we get there? Again, you and I were born this child of wrath. How do we get there? How do we get this wisdom? It’s not easy. Satan is alive, and he is strong, and he is out there. He will try to stop you every single step of the way. He did it in the Garden of Eden. He went there when they had this perfect environment. They walked with God himself, and yet he came and tempted them away. The opposition to this wisdom that we want is described in Proverbs 9 as woman folly. And when you read this description of what this foolishness or this folly is, it really brings it to light. It says that she stands in the city and she yells out. If you’ve ever had a sin or a vice that keeps drawing you back, you know it whispers in your ear. It tells you, come back to me. I am better. She is loud. She will catch your attention. Says that she is seductive, and she will draw you in. The devil knows your weaknesses. He knows what will try to lead you astray. But if you follow her, Proverbs 9 tells us that the guests in her house are in Sheol. If you follow this seductive woman, this woman of folly, it will only lead you to your own grave.

So we need something stronger than this opposition that we are up against. That is Christ. Today, sitting here today, we need Christ Jesus to be the Lord of our lives and to shine the light so that we can see the path that we walk on. We don’t wanna continue to be the second child bringing sorrow to our mother. We want to be this one making our father glad. We’re told that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead, that you will be saved. The words that I just uttered are not my own. They are promised from God himself that if you make Jesus your Lord and believe those things, you will be saved. God loved us so much that he sent his son into this world because we cannot do it on our own. We’re told if we fail at one single point of the law, we failed at it all. We don’t just kind of miss the mark a little bit. We completely flunk this test of life. That’s why Jesus had to come for us. We are naturally the second son. But he sent him, and he can keep us. Nothing can take us from the hands of God if you put your trust into him. Not angels, not demons, not other humans. Nothing can snatch you from the hands of God.

But are you in the hands of God sitting here today? Do you trust him enough for you to actually make that step into his hands? Are you just kinda sorta hanging out next to him? There’s a difference of him being the Lord of your life and you knowing a lot about him. Even the demons know a lot about God. Remember that we all were this foolish child. We all started out as this wrath. Nothing can take us from him if we make that leap of faith into his hands. But also remember that just because you say you’re wise doesn’t mean you are. Just because you say you’re a child of God doesn’t mean you are. There are countless people like the scribes and the Pharisees. Maybe even people in this room that when the day of judgment comes, we’ll hear the words I never knew you. We need to be in his hands, secure in him, not just kind of hanging out around him and around his children.

The one thing that we do have and that we know we can rely on is that we have a loving God. But what that means is that we have a God that’s not gonna force us to be with him. We have a God that gives you this opportunity. We have free will down here on this Earth. But if you don’t wanna be with him here, he’s not gonna force you to be with him in eternity. He loves you too much to then force you to come kicking and screaming into his kingdom. So have you made this leap of faith? He will not force you to. But if you love him and you go into his hands, he will keep you. Do not separate yourselves from him. Instead, run towards him. I plead with you that if you are still this child of wrath, even hiding like I was in the church pews, cry out to him. He will accept you. He loves you.

I pray that as we continue out our weeks, as madam Folly, day in and day out, entices us, calls to us that we walk in the paths of Christ and not towards her house. Well, thank you guys for your time. Dear God, I wanna thank you for this opportunity to dive into what wisdom truly looks like when it’s from you, Lord. I pray that we don’t rely on our own understandings, our own thought of what wisdom is. I pray that we look towards you, that we are not falling into the paths of those around us that try to drag us into our graves, Lord. I pray that we turn to you, the only one who can bring life to us. You don’t just say that we’re lost. You say that we are a pile of dead and dry bones. Without you, we cannot have the life that we need to be with you eternally, Lord. I pray that if there’s anyone here today that has not made you truly the Lord of their lives, that they take that step and they step into your hands, Lord. I know that you will take care of them and you will love them until eternity. In your name, amen.

2 Samuel 20, 11/06/2022, Remsen Bible Fellowship

Introduction

Death, power plays, political intrigue, and kingdom and covenant in crisis. Folks often think of the Old Testament as a boring collection of books with meaningless history and lots of lists of people and names. And while there are plenty of lists, even those lists are set in place to help us understand the background of the intense drama which unfolds before us in the pages of the text. When you read the Bible, it is helpful to do so imaginatively. Remember that the stories are real stories that take place in the lives of real people. Try to set yourself there and start asking questions. What would it be like to be part of a kingdom in political turmoil? How would you feel if your son had rebelled against you, and was now dead? These kinds of questions help us get into the skin of a story, and then spark our interest as we ask more objective questions, like: what is the message the author is trying to communicate? What lessons should a reader 30 centuries removed take away from this narrative?

This morning we need to remember where we are in David’s story. He is a man approaching 70 years old, very near the end of his life. His son Solomon is the intended next king, but nothing has been formalized yet. In the presence of David’s weakness, and with a plausible claim to the throne himself, his son Absalom stages a coup, in which many high ranking officials, including David’s closest counselor, Ahithophel, take part.

By the end of chapter 19 that rebellion has been put down. After Joab led the military victory, and then disregarded David’s orders by slaying Absalom, there needed to again be a king. David sends messengers to the people of Judah, and they bring him back to Jerusalem. Things are back on level footing, right?

Well, maybe. The problem is that David’s move with the people of Judah created more narrative tension - he displaced Joab as commander of his army with the rebel leader Amasa. And he further exacerbated the division between Judah and the rest of the nation. And so we come into chapter 20.

A Sad and Familiar Situation, v1-3

Now there happened to be there a worthless man, whose name was Sheba, the son of Bichri, a Benjaminite. And he blew the trumpet and said,

“We have no portion in David, and we have no inheritance in the son of Jesse;

every man to his tents, O Israel!”

2 So all the men of Israel withdrew from David and followed Sheba the son of Bichri. But the men of Judah followed their king steadfastly from the Jordan to Jerusalem.

3 And David came to his house at Jerusalem. And the king took the ten concubines whom he had left to care for the house and put them in a house under guard and provided for them, but did not go in to them. So they were shut up until the day of their death, living as if in widowhood.

This feels like another verse of the same song, doesn’t it? A worthless man rises up and calls the people of Israel to himself. In 19:43, the people of Israel are contending with the people of Judah, saying “we have ten shares in David!” But, having lost that argument, Sheba’s rallying cry becomes, “we have no share in David!” Every man to his tents, this is the time for war.

And the text tells us that “all the men of Israel withdrew from David and followed Sheba the son of Bichri.” Now all Israel withdrew probably doesn’t mean that he pulled the entire army of Israel together, given what follows. But their loyalties again shifted away from David and to a challenger. They would be happy for Sheba’s rebellion to be successful, they would not remain loyal to David.

The effect of this upon David’s household can be seen in verse three. This verse is loaded with a sad irony. David, who had left these ten concubines in Jerusalem to take care of the house when he fled, now returns. As we remember from chapter 16:20-23, Absalom had violated each of these women in broad daylight in order to lay claim to the king’s household. Now David has returned, and with the renewed threat against the kingdom, he ensures that from now on these women are safe. But ironically, this means that they will be shut away, left to mourn the rest of their days. If you remember, this whole saga with Absalom began when his sister Tamar was violated, and she then lived, a desolate woman, in Absalom’s house for the rest of her days. He was so furious about that sin that he murdered his brother. But now he has committed the same sin against 10 women. It’s a brief detail in the story, but worth pausing simply to mourn with these women. Again we cry with the Psalmist, “how long oh Lord?” Will you forget the down cast forever?

Who’s In Charge Here?, v4-13

The drama keeps moving, though, as this rebellion of Sheba must be dealt with.

4 Then the king said to Amasa, “Call the men of Judah together to me within three days, and be here yourself.” 5 So Amasa went to summon Judah, but he delayed beyond the set time that had been appointed him. 6 And David said to Abishai, “Now Sheba the son of Bichri will do us more harm than Absalom. Take your lord’s servants and pursue him, lest he get himself to fortified cities and escape from us.” 7 And there went out after him Joab’s men and the Cherethites and the Pelethites, and all the mighty men. They went out from Jerusalem to pursue Sheba the son of Bichri. 8 When they were at the great stone that is in Gibeon, Amasa came to meet them. Now Joab was wearing a soldier’s garment, and over it was a belt with a sword in its sheath fastened on his thigh, and as he went forward it fell out. 9 And Joab said to Amasa, “Is it well with you, my brother?” And Joab took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him. 10 But Amasa did not observe the sword that was in Joab’s hand. So Joab struck him with it in the stomach and spilled his entrails to the ground without striking a second blow, and he died.

Then Joab and Abishai his brother pursued Sheba the son of Bichri. 11 And one of Joab’s young men took his stand by Amasa and said, “Whoever favors Joab, and whoever is for David, let him follow Joab.” 12 And Amasa lay wallowing in his blood in the highway. And anyone who came by, seeing him, stopped. And when the man saw that all the people stopped, he carried Amasa out of the highway into the field and threw a garment over him. 13 When he was taken out of the highway, all the people went on after Joab to pursue Sheba the son of Bichri.

David is giving orders - but David is clearly not in charge in this situation. In v4, David calls Amasa (the new military leader) to himself and says “gather the army in three days.” However, we see in v5 that Amasa either cannot or simply does not do as David says. I think what we’re supposed to draw from that delay is not poor intention on Amasa’s part, but rather an implied contrast with Joab - Joab is a man of action, effective in getting things done and leading the army. Amasa couldn’t even pull them together in three days. Then in v6, David tells Abishai to call together “your Lord’s men”. Notice that David does not call Joab back, he needs the sons of Zeruiah, but he will only deal directly with Abishai. But notice in v7 that the first reference is not to “David’s men”, but to “Joab’s men.” David has no control in this situation at all.

So Joab and Abishai take off after Shaeba, and when they come to Gibeon, just to the north of Jerusalem, Amasa meets up with them - presumably with his army now in tow. Joab, ever the sly fox, heads over to greet Amasa. But for some reason the belt on his soldier’s garment was a little loose. As he hurries to greet the leader of the army, his sword falls from his sheath. But as he bends over, he picks it up not with his right hand - the dominant hand, the hand of war - but with his left. He uses the right hand to extend a greeting, taking hold of Amasa’s beard to give him a kiss, which was the standard cultural “hello” for those to whom you were close. Amasa, thinking nothing of the sword in the left hand of Joab, is then taken completely by surprise when that sword is buried to the hilt in his belly.

Joab, ever the opportunist, has struck again. It reminds us of how he executed Abner in 2 Samuel 3:27. It calls to mind the death of Ehud executing Eglon the king of Moab in Judges 3:21-23. And the betrayal with a kiss takes us to the garden of Gethsemane on the night Jesus was betrayed.

Back in charge of the whole army, Joab and Abishai lead the pursuit of Sheba, and one of his soldiers stands in the road and calls for loyalty - loyalty above all. “Whoever favors Joab, and whoever is for David, let him follow Joab.” We hear many such calls today from modern Joabs. If you’re a real Christian, you have to…fill in the blank with something the Bible doesn’t say. Beware of teachers who tell you that you have a Christian duty to do anything that isn’t in the Bible. We certainly can exercise wisdom and be informed by biblical principles far beyond the explicit black and white statements of Scripture. But when questionable deductions or pet projects get lifted to the status of “litmus test for faithfulness”, what you have isn’t real Christianity - not real loyalty to David’s Son - what you have is a false gospel.

Beheaded Rebellion, v14-22

For all Joab’s faults, though, we should give credit where it is due: he was effective at his job.

14 And Sheba passed through all the tribes of Israel to Abel of Beth-maacah, and all the Bichrites assembled and followed him in. 15 And all the men who were with Joab came and besieged him in Abel of Beth-maacah. They cast up a mound against the city, and it stood against the rampart, and they were battering the wall to throw it down. 16 Then a wise woman called from the city, “Listen! Listen! Tell Joab, ‘Come here, that I may speak to you.’ ” 17 And he came near her, and the woman said, “Are you Joab?” He answered, “I am.” Then she said to him, “Listen to the words of your servant.” And he answered, “I am listening.” 18 Then she said, “They used to say in former times, ‘Let them but ask counsel at Abel,’ and so they settled a matter. 19 I am one of those who are peaceable and faithful in Israel. You seek to destroy a city that is a mother in Israel. Why will you swallow up the heritage of the LORD?” 20 Joab answered, “Far be it from me, far be it, that I should swallow up or destroy! 21 That is not true. But a man of the hill country of Ephraim, called Sheba the son of Bichri, has lifted up his hand against King David. Give up him alone, and I will withdraw from the city.” And the woman said to Joab, “Behold, his head shall be thrown to you over the wall.” 22 Then the woman went to all the people in her wisdom. And they cut off the head of Sheba the son of Bichri and threw it out to Joab. So he blew the trumpet, and they dispersed from the city, every man to his home. And Joab returned to Jerusalem to the king.

The army pursues Sheba, and it seems that his actual fighting force ends up being not much more than his own family, the clan of the Bichrites from the tribe of Benjamin. They head for a fortified city in the north, the very thing David feared, and they go all the way to Abel of Beth-Maacah. If you have maps in the back of your Bible they probably don’t show Abel of Beth-Maacah, but they will almost certainly have Dan in the very north of Israel. This city is to the west of Dan, in the far reaches of the kingdom.

Joab and co. set up siege works in order to destroy the city and get to that traitor Sheba. Then a wise woman comes to the wall. As we saw with the woman of Tekoa in chapter 14, it seems like the title “wise” wasn’t just a descriptive adjective, but was perhaps some form of formal title whereby she was able to speak on behalf of the city and/or enter into negotiations with Joab. She argues that the city of Abel has been a faithful mother to Israel, a fount of wisdom, and that Joab and his men are seeking to swallow up the Lord’s heritage by destroying this peaceful and faithful place.

Joab, ironically, protests that he’s not the swallowing up or destroying type. All they want is Sheba. The woman says, “how about his head?” And she then convinces the other townspeople of the prudence of one man dying, rather than the whole city. At this point the rebellion ceases, and Joab and the troops are able to return to the king.

All’s Well that Ends Well?, v23-26

23 Now Joab was in command of all the army of Israel; and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was in command of the Cherethites and the Pelethites; 24 and Adoram was in charge of the forced labor; and Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was the recorder; 25 and Sheva was secretary; and Zadok and Abiathar were priests; 26 and Ira the Jairite was also David’s priest.

These concluding verses place a bookend to the portion of 2 Samuel beginning in chapter 9. Starting next week we’ll see some summary information that is presented not in chronological order, but meant to tie up a number of loose ends and prepare the reader for the narrative of 1 & 2 Kings.

What should we take from this list of names? It seems like everything is “back to normal” and maybe the kingdom can breathe easy. But if you keep reading in 1 Kings this is not so. There is yet another rebellion before David’s death, but that time Joab will not be on his side. I think the big overarching point of the text is that God is working out his ends in the people of Israel and the life of David in spite of the human characters in the story, who seem to do everything then can to get in the way. But as we close, I want to spend a little time pondering how to think about Joab and apply the lessons of his life to our own.

In his fiction book, The Great Divorce, CS Lewis takes his readers on a bus ride. This bus ride begins in hell, where it collects a number of passengers and then begins flying. The final destination? The outskirts of heaven. Now, if you had just been in hell and were dropped off in heaven you might think that was a pretty good deal. But what these characters find as they disembark the bus and begin to move around is that the world they have entered is too solid for them to enjoy - or even tolerate. Some complain, and head straight back for the bus. Others try, slowly, painfully, to explore. The grass is more solid than their ghostly feet. The water, though moving, is impenetrable to their shadowy forms. Messengers are then sent to each of these visitors, inviting them to abandon the bus and hell, and to come further into heaven. Yes, it will be painful now, but as you grow more solid your joy will likewise increase.

But for the most part, the ghosts decline this invitation. They can’t stand what they’re experiencing and hearing about the place. Why, they allowed a known murderer in! One woman is invited to stay and be reunited with her husband, but she can’t stand the thought because he didn’t appreciate all of her nagging in life seeking to “improve” him. On second thought, perhaps she will stay - but only if allowed to really have free reign in how she “handles” him. One scholarly Anglican priest thinks it could potentially be okay if he is “allowed to make some contributions” morally and intellectually.

No, heaven will not apologize for allowing repentant murderers. No, you will not be engaged in manipulating or controlling anyone. No, you won’t be making any contributions to the God who is already complete.

Now, in that book Lewis isn’t suggesting that people actually get a second chance after they die. Not indeed, is he suggesting that anyone experiencing hell thinking they would prefer it to heaven. What he does through that fictional story, though, is lay bare the problem of the human heart here on earth. We’ll say yes to heaven - to God - on our own terms. You may be happy to wear the “team Jesus” jersey, and even be fiercely loyal to the cause, but you want to call your own plays. You want Jesus as your savior, but you struggle to submit to him as your Lord.

As we read the Samuel narratives, we time again run into Joab. And Joab is David’s most fiercely loyal servant. And Joab will always do what he thinks is right for the kingdom and Davidic dynasty. But Proverbs 14:12 and 16:25 - verses with a message so important that it’s a word-for-word repetition - say “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” Are you walking the road to death this morning? You cannot love, follow, and serve Jesus in a way that he accepts without this crucial component: obedience.

Jesus makes that about as clear as possible in John 14:15, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

And he puts it in stark terms in Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

Allegiance to Jesus - verbalized and even felt, is not enough. You must obey him. This has applications for us both as individuals and as a church. As individuals, we each ought to take stock of our lives. Is there a particular passage of Scripture you really don’t like? Is there a sin in your life that makes you really offended when people point it out? When you cherish your sin it will destroy you. Be willing to put your sin to death. Obey Jesus, no matter what it costs you. Don’t cling to your lust, or your pride, or your own definition of love, or your bitterness. Cling to Jesus, and follow him.

As a church, we can face the same temptations. To do “what works.” To look for someone with the shrewdness and effectiveness of Joab. What does it take to draw a crowd? You can go the way of the seeker-sensitive model, watering things down and not talking about the hard edges of the Christian faith or expecting commitment. Just come as you are, and stay that way! Or in our day, you can draw a crowd by doing the opposite. Take strong stands on controversial issues, that way everyone will know what side you’re on! That can draw a crowd in 2022.

Or we can do what faithful churches have done for close to 2,000 years. Preach the Bible. Pray together. Eat together. Baptize new believers and regularly remember Jesus’ death for us in communion. Pursue holiness and obedience to him in every area of life. We can refuse to be carried around by the winds of the moment, and remain firmly fixed to the foundation of our faith, the anchor of our soul, the Lord Jesus Christ.

In another of his books, Lewis makes the statement that God will surely use you in his plan - but it matters a great deal to you if you play the part of Judas or John. We might alter that and put it this way - don’t imitate Joab. Don’t justify your disobedience by thinking that, “at least I’m on the right team.” Spend your life obeying Jesus.