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SIN AND GRACE: A ONE-SIDED CONTEST INTRODUCTION A month ago, I received a shocking piece of mail at the church office. It was from a ministry that I greatly admire and have been helped by and so, unlike most of the unsolicited mail I receive, I read it. The glossy, colorful brochure was advertising a video series. Here is what the brochure said, "In this remarkable video series, Dr…., shows that every Christian is supposed to move through seven predictable stages of spiritual growth. The stages are laid out in Scripture. They are the same for all people, in all cultures. Once we recognize them, once we have the map in our hands, we can get ourselves back on the road and start moving to the next level." The brochure went on to let me know that if I didn’t understand these steps and help people figure out where they were and how to move to the next step, I would be forever trapped, surrounded by stunted Christians and probably stunted myself. I would never be able to truly help people unless I bought the video series. There are a lot of reasons why this brochure offends me. How did the church survive through all these centuries without knowing about these seven stages? But the main reason this offends me is, God is not like this. Life is not like this. Christianity is not like this. My life and your life cannot be reduced to seven stages. Our problems are not going to give way to some shallow, artificial analysis of the human condition and life with God. Life is complicated and perplexing. It is no simple thing to discern the work of God in the midst of the chaos that is my life and your life. Don’t get me wrong. You can know God and you can make progress in your life with God. In fact, you must make progress in your life with God. But it is not going to be through seven stages or six tips or 10 rules. You will make progress because the grace of God is stronger than your love for this world and the work of Satan to destroy you. That’s what this book is about. It tells us the truth about ourselves and about the God who made us. It describes how it is that God saves his people through the messiness of our everyday lives. But it does not tell us these things the way this brochure and so much of modern Christian literature describes the Christian life. God’s word is not made up of "seven steps to overcome anger" or "6 principles to have a better marriage" or "The key to having obedient children". The Bible is a complex and perplexing collection of stories and laws and poetry and fantastic imagery. It’s just like our lives. The message of the Bible is clear but it is not easy, it is simple, but it is not simplistic. The story we are going to examine today is among the most perplexing in the entire Bible. It is difficult because it confounds every simplistic, formulaic attempt to describe how it is that God deals with us. It is difficult because it is so full of human evil and yet we are told that God’s will is being done. It challenges every idea we have about why God is kind to people. This story aims to shatter every illusion of human goodness and human merit that you and I hold on to. This story aims to put us down and to exalt God. MAIN POINT God’s determination to save a people for himself cannot be thwarted by human evil. God is so powerful that he even uses evil human choices to accomplish his purposes in salvation. NARRATIVE BLOCK ONE (26:34 – 27:4) This has been a sad day in the life of our household. Things have been said and done today in our house that can never be undone. Life will never be the same again, of that I am sure. But I’m getting ahead of myself. You can call me Ishmael. I am the chief slave of my master Isaac. My father was the chief slave of Isaac’s father, Abraham. I was given to Isaac when he wed his beautiful wife, Rebekah when he was 40 years old. I have served him for close to 80 years. I watched them suffer through 20 long years of childlessness and shared my master’s joy when Rebekah finally became pregnant. But, almost from the moment of conception, conflict entered our peaceful household. The pregnancy, to put it mildly, was difficult. Rebekah was beside herself with pain and fear until she sought the Lord to find out why she was in such distress. Our whole house was astir when Rebekah told us God’s strange word concerning the twins she was carrying. She was told that two nations were struggling in her womb and the older child would serve the younger child. As the twins grew into young manhood, it became very apparent that regardless of what the word of God meant for the future, Isaac and Rebekah had joined the struggle that characterized the twins from the womb. Isaac, because of his love for the taste of wild game, preferred Esau, his firstborn son, as he was a skilled hunter. Rebekah, on the other hand, preferred Jacob, the younger son. The competition and rivalry between these boys and their parents pervade every aspect of our life together. On occasion, it will erupt into open conflict but usually remains hidden, like an unseen cancer. One of those eruptions occurred quite a few years ago when the boys were in their early 20’s. Jacob took advantage of Esau’s impatient nature and love for food. He persuaded Esau to sell his rights as the firstborn for a bowl of stew. I watched this transaction with horror as Esau despised his birthright and Jacob deceived his brother. I am convinced that event determined the course of affairs that led to the tragic events of this day. How many times in the intervening years, have I seen Jacob rub Esau’s face in that sordid transaction? How many times has Rebekah reminded Isaac that God promised that Esau would serve Jacob? How many times have I watched Isaac respond to Rebecca’s reminders by doing something to show that he had no intention of letting Jacob get the rights of the firstborn? And so, we have lived in a divided household. Don’t get me wrong. We have shared many good years together. God remarkably preserved us and granted success to us while we dwelt among the Philistines in Gerar. My master became a wealthy and powerful man during those years. God protected us from the persecution of the Philistines and brought us safely back here, to Beersheba, to the land God promised to my master and his descendants. We have experienced many years of fruitful and peaceful living here in this land of promise. Yet, the rivalry hangs like a black cloud over all the happiness we have enjoyed. Several years ago, Esau made our lives more miserable. Both the boys were told, since their teens, that they were not to marry any of the local women. Isaac repeatedly told them that he would send back to Padan-Aram to obtain wives for them from among his father’s relatives, from among the family of Rebekah. Now, I love my master dearly and don’t want to speak unkindly of him but his laid back approach to life made it possible for Esau to do a very wicked thing. Esau made it clear for many years that he was ready to get married and wanted Isaac to get him a wife. However, Isaac kept procrastinating until Esau, in his impatient way, at the age of 40, went off and married, not one woman but two, from among the Hittites. He brought two women from among the idol worshipping people that God told Abraham he was going to destroy into our camp. The grief that these strange and pagan women brought to Isaac and Rebekah cannot be told. Isaac, due to his love for his firstborn son, did nothing to confront his son or correct the situation. Esau, for his part, scorned the disapproval of his parents and took up many of the idol worshipping practices of his wives. Early this morning, my master, who is now blind, called me from my post at the door to his tent to go and get Esau. There was an urgency in his voice that aroused my suspicions. I stayed close so I could hear what Isaac said to Esau. What I heard, I would not believe if not for all that has happened this day. My master told his son to go and hunt some wild game and then to prepare one of the tasty meals that he so loved. Then he told him that the reason he wanted him to do this was so that he could bless him. I almost gave myself away in my shock. When a father gives his blessing to his children he does it in a very public way and he does it with all of his children, not just one. It is to be a time of celebration for the whole family. It is to take place when death is imminent. Now here my master, still in good health apart from his eyesight, was planning to secretly give his blessing, not to both his sons, but to just his oldest. I saw in a flash that the division between Isaac and Rebekah over these sons was deeper than even I had imagined. Isaac was prepared to ignore the clear word of God concerning Jacob. He was determined that Jacob would not get the firstborn’s blessing as God ordained. In fact, he was planning on not giving Jacob any blessing. He was fixed upon preventing what God had clearly commanded because of his love of Esau and the food that Esau provided him. Esau, rather than protesting his father’s plan, grinned, like a wolf, from ear to ear and eagerly got his weapons and headed out of camp for the fields. Application Both Isaac and Esau deliberately disobeyed the clear instructions of God. Esau by taking two wives instead of one and by taking them from among the Hittites rather than from among the people of Abraham. Isaac by devising a scheme to give the blessing of the firstborn to Esau rather than to Jacob, when he knew full well that God had ordained that Jacob receive the right of the firstborn. They did what they did because they believed they could not be happy any other way. It’s so easy to condemn these men and pretend we would never do such things. Every sin and act of disobedience performed by us is done for exactly the same reasons. We believe the promises of sin. We believe that we must have what we want in order to be happy, no matter what God says. So, we do whatever it takes to get what we want. Esau wanted wives and he wanted them now. Isaac wanted the food that Esau provided and didn’t want Rebekah to win. Even though both of them knew that God wanted the exact opposite of what they wanted, they planned and executed their plan to get what they wanted. How should God treat these two men? How should God treat us? We will see that God is both just and gracious in the ways in which he responds to sinful people like us. NARRATIVE BLOCK TWO (27:5-27a) After I watched Esau quickly pass out of sight over the nearest hill, I turned to see Rebekah furtively leaving the side entrance to Isaac’s tent, heading in the direction of Jacob’s tent. She also had heard this early morning exchange. I nonchalantly followed her and inconspicuously positioned myself just outside Jacob’s tent. I could hear her rousing Jacob from his bed so I moved closer to the door to hear what transpired. "Jacob, quickly, get up. It’s time to act. I just heard your father tell your brother Esau, ‘Bring me some game and prepare me some tasty food to eat, so that I may give you my blessing in the presence of the Lord before I die.’ Now listen carefully to me and do exactly what I say. Go out to the flock and bring me two choice young goats, so I can prepare some tasty food for your father just the way he likes it. Then take it to your father to eat, so that he may give you his blessing before he dies." I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Was there no one in this family who had any sense? Was there no one who would trust God and do what was right? Jacob protested to his mother. He said, "But mother, my brother Esau is a hairy man and I am smooth skinned. What if my father touches me? He would think I was mocking him in his blindness and he would not bless me but put God’s curse upon me." I should not have expected anything different from Jacob. He was not concerned with the immorality and treachery of his mother’s plan, but only with being caught. Rebecca’s response turned my blood to ice. She fiercely whispered, "To hell with God’s curse. Just do what I command and get me those goats." Jacob didn’t even notice me in his frantic exit from the tent to do his mother’s bidding. I quickly moved to the side of the tent as Rebekah hurried out with her face to the ground and strode toward her own tent. Again, in stunned disbelief I followed her to her tent. I watched as she carefully went to a secret compartment in one of her travelling cases and pulled out a set of clothing I recognized as Esau’s. She had hidden a set of his princely clothing in her tent! She knew that this moment would come. She had carefully prepared for this day long before it occurred! Jacob returned with the two goats and helped his mother butcher them both. While the goats were cooking, she cleaned the goatskins and carefully fashioned coverings that she then fastened on the arms and hands of Jacob and on his neck. She worked with the certainty of one who had long rehearsed the steps she was now taking. She then dressed him in the clothes she had stolen from Esau and hidden in her tent. She put the food and the bread she had made into Jacob’s hands and he slowly walked to Isaac’s tent and entered by the side door. I took my position at the door to Isaac’s tent and listened for the outcome of this brazen deception. I heard Jacob enter and I was sure I heard the rustling of skirts behind him as Rebekah took her position to see that her scheme would succeed. Jacob tentatively spoke to his blind father. "My father?" "Yes my son. Who is it?" Isaac replied. Jacob, gathering his resolve, said to his father, "I am Esau, your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game so that you may give me your blessing." After a long pause Isaac asked (Could I hear suspicion in his voice?), "How did you find it so quickly, my son?" "The Lord your God gave me success", he confidently asserted. I had to put my hand over my mouth to keep from crying out over this blasphemy. Jacob’s determination to get his father’s blessing had not only driven him to extravagant lying but also to use the name of God to cover his deception. He was making the Lord a party to his sin. There was no doubt as to Isaac’s suspicions this time as he slowly said, "Come near, so I can touch you my son, to know whether you really are my son Esau or not." I could hear the shuffling of feet and imagined in my mind’s eye, blind Isaac grabbing hold of deceiving Jacob’s arms and hands as he stood over his reclining father. After some time I heard Isaac say in a voice meant to assure himself more than anyone else, "The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau." Then after a pause, "God’s blessing upon you my son." I knew then that Rebecca’s ruse was going to work. The aged and blind Isaac could not tell that Jacob was not Esau. Isaac asked his son to bring him some of the food he had prepared and for the next 20 minutes, there were simply the sounds of Jacob serving his father the food his mother had prepared and wine to wash it down. Isaac expressed his obvious pleasure in the meal by often smacking his lips and muttering his approval as I had often seen him do when Esau was serving him his favorite game. I could only imagine the look of growing anticipation and excitement on Jacob’s face as he silently served his father. Application: Rebekah knows that God has promised that Esau will serve Jacob. But Rebekah has absolutely no confidence that God is able to accomplish what he wills. She does not even think about how God would want to fulfill his promise. She is motivated not by a love for God or trust in his promise. She is rather motivated by lust for Isaac’s blessing for her beloved son. She wants Isaac to lose. So, she plots, plans, and comes up with a ploy to get what God promised. She relies on herself to get what God promises to give. No doubt she would claim that God is on her side, after all this is what he wants, right? No doubt, she would claim that her actions are OK because she is merely trying to get what God says he wants to give. Jacob for his part is in full agreement with his mother. His lies and his blasphemy show his complete disdain for God and for his father Isaac. Religious sinners are the worst kind of sinners. People who do wicked things in the name of doing God’s work deserve a more fierce judgement from God, for they act as though God approves of their wickedness. This explains the howling denunciation of Jesus towards the Pharisees and of the OT prophets towards the people of Israel. Claiming to know God’s will is a very dangerous thing to claim. If you know what God wants you must be willing to do it in the manner he prescribes if you are going to avoid his condemnation. Rebekah and Jacob is the classic picture of the religious hypocrite. You can bet they are condemning old Isaac and impatient Esau for their wickedness even while they carry out their wicked scheme. Paul’s words in Romans 2 are for people like Rebekah and Jacob, "You who say that people should not steal, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols? Do you rob temples? You who boast about God’s law, do you dishonor God by breaking his law?" It is so easy for people who take the Bible serious to presume they are doing God’s will simply because they know what it is. How easy it is for people who talk much about God to condemn all others while they justify their own wickedness. NARRATIVE BLOCK THREE (27: 27b-40) The silence was broken by a request that must have frozen Jacob in his place for at least a moment. Isaac said, "Come here, my son and kiss me." Again, the shuffling of feet and the picture of Jacob bending low to kiss his father on the cheeks while Isaac held his neck. What must Jacob have been feeling as he completed his deception with a kiss? What steely determination to rob his brother and abuse his father, while congratulating himself on doing God’s will! Then Isaac released his son and said, "Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed. May God give you of heaven’s dew and of earth’s richness—an abundance of grain and new wine. May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed." I sat in bewildered silence as I heard Isaac, in ignorance, give God’s blessing, the blessing of the firstborn, to Jacob, the deceiving second born son. This was exactly what God had said would happen. God’s will had been accomplished, but at what cost? How could anything good come out of such an abyss of wickedness? I cannot see where any of these people trusted God. Each of them was out for themselves. Each of them depended upon there own resources and pursued their own lusts and yet, in and through all their wickedness, God’s will was accomplished. I still cannot decide whether I should weep or rejoice or both. How can God bless a person like Jacob? How can he cause a scheme like Rebecca’s to succeed? What will become of these people? How can they be trusted to be God’s chosen people? How could God allow the recipient of his promises, Isaac, to be so duped? All these questions and more have flooded my mind since I heard Isaac’s blessing of Jacob. But at the time, I could not reflect on these thoughts because no sooner had Jacob and his mother left Isaac’s tent in victorious joy but Esau arrived carrying a deer over his shoulders and his bow in his hand. I sat in the door of my master’s tent and watched as he butchered the deer and prepared the meal for Isaac. I watched as he cheerfully marched into his father’s tent with his meal in hand to feed his father and receive the blessing of the firstborn. Unlike Jacob’s first tentative words, Esau cheerfully said, "My father, sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing." I could envision Isaac startled awake from his after dinner nap by Esau’s words and preparations in setting the table for the meal. Isaac asked with shock in his voice, "Who are you?" Esau, with a touch of confusion said, "I am your son, your firstborn, Esau." I never heard my master speak as he now spoke. His voice trembled with fear and dismay as awareness of what had happened swept over him. His body convulsed with horror as he said, "Who was it, then, that hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it just before you came and I blessed him." Then after a pause as the reality of what he had done, of what God had done, took full hold of him, "—and he will be blessed." I nearly jumped out of my skin as Esau let out a blood-curdling cry of hatred and pain. He knew in a moment what had happened. What he feared would happen, had happened. He fell on his face at his father’s feet and grabbed his ankles. In the anguished cry of an animal with its leg caught in a trap he pled with his father, "Bless me, me too, my father!" But Isaac said in a voice full of awe, "Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing." Then Esau, in a voice overflowing with venomous hatred said, "Isn’t he rightly named Jacob (which means "Deceiver")? He has deceived me these two times: He took my birthright, and now he’s taken my blessing!" I was struck by how Esau only saw Jacob’s sins against him and did not see any of his own sins. He blamed Jacob for stealing his birthright when, in actuality, he was the one who despised it by selling it for a bowl of soup. He was claiming that Jacob stole his blessing while choosing to ignore that God had promised the blessing to Jacob. He also chose to ignore that he was, only moments before, all too happy to get his father’s blessing on the sly and exclude Jacob. It is hard to discern who is more wicked, Jacob or Esau. Then he asked his father in a plaintive and accusing voice, "Haven’t you reserved any blessing for me?" Isaac answered him in a tone of voice that surprised me. He was confident and certain. He said, "I have made him lord over you and have made all his relatives his servants and I have sustained him with grain and new wine. So what can I possibly do for you, my son?" It was clear by the way in which Isaac responded to his son that while he cared for him, yet he now understood that God had over-ruled his scheme. In spite of his devious plan, God had accomplished what he had promised. He now knew that the blessing of the firstborn belonged to Jacob and that he could give nothing to Esau because God had determined to give nothing to him. Now Esau, full of self-pity and bitter hatred towards Jacob and disappointment with his father began to weep. With large, trembling sobs he said, "Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!" Then Isaac, with the certainty of a prophet pronounced God’s judgement upon Esau, "Your dwelling will be away from the earth’s richness, away from the dew of heaven above. You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck." In this pronouncement, I heard the echo of another judgement pronounced on another brother. In this word from God through Isaac, I heard God’s judgement on Cain. In amazement, I realized that God justly rejected Esau, just as he rejected Cain but that God also was going to provide for Esau while he lived on earth, just as he provided for Cain. It is a wonder to me as I think over the events of this day. God is full of mercy and love for miserable sinners like us. He is kind to those who do not deserve his kindness, like Jacob and yet he justly condemns those who hate him, like Esau. "Oh the depths of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgements and his paths beyond tracing out. Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? Who has given to God that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever, Amen." Application: Moses wrote this story for the nation Israel while they were preparing to go into the land of Canaan and wipe out all the inhabitants in that land. God told them that the reason he wanted to wipe out the Canaanites was because they were so wicked. The Holy and perfect God told them that he was going to live with them and give them success wherever they went. If you were told that God chose you to be his special people and he was going to use you to destroy some terrible people, what would you conclude about yourself? You would naturally presume there must be something special about you that would cause God to do this. So, Moses tells this story so that everyone could see that the reason God chooses people as his own has nothing to do with the people he chooses. The entire nation Israel is like their ancestor; Jacob, after whom they are named. Moses recorded this story to crush every vestige of self-righteousness in them and in us. We see in Isaac’s blessing of Jacob, the good news of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. Jacob is every Christian. If you are a Christian, it is not because of anything you ever did. All you ever did was sin, like Jacob. Yet God in his infinite grace, when you were completely dead and cut off from him, gave you life. Dear Christian, if you think that you are any better than any other person you are not thinking straight. If you think that God is kind to you because of anything you have done, are doing or ever will do, you are not thinking straight. Salvation, including any good thing you ever have done or will do, is entirely a gift given by the free, gracious, sovereign King of the universe for no reason other than his decision to have mercy on you. We have nothing to be proud of, nothing to boast in, except for Christ. He is everything. We are nothing. There is one final thing to see. Look at Isaac when he discovers that he has blessed Jacob, rather than Esau. In v. 33 we are told that Isaac trembled with a very great trembling. The word used for tremble is used 2 other times in the first five books of the OT. In both cases, people tremble out of fear of God and his work. The trembling of Isaac is fear of God. He knows that God has accomplished his will in spite of Isaac’s best attempt to thwart God. He knows he deserves to be crushed like a bug for his rebellion. Then at the end of verse 33, Isaac declares that even though the blessing was gained by deception, yet, Jacob was going to indeed be blessed. Isaac knew, by faith that all the promises of God to his descendants were going to go through Jacob. His refusal to give anything to Esau is another evidence that Isaac has been soundly converted. Isaac has abandoned his plans and given himself wholly to God and his ways. What he did ignorantly at first, he now embraces with a whole heart. This is the mark of the true Christian. The true Christian loves what God loves, no matter what loss it requires in this world. He gladly gives up his ambitions for Esau and happily agrees with God who has determined to bless Jacob, not Esau, the son he loves.
© Copyright
2001 John Swanson. |