“Isaac”
[Hebrews 11:20]
October 6, 2013 Second Reformed Church
Faith is the way we receive God’s
Word. We receive what God has said and
have absolute assurance – no doubt at all – that what God has promised – the
things we hope for – will come to pass exactly as He has promised them. And we receive what God has said about those
things we have not seen – the things which occurred before us and the things
which will occur after us – and the invisible beings that God created – and we
believe – we are convicted that these are true and do exist because they are
spoken to us in God’s Word.
“By faith Isaac invoked future
blessings on Jacob and Esau.”
By looking back at Isaac and the
early history of these two brothers, we see five things:
First, God is sovereign over our
lives.
Second, God is sovereign over our
sin.
Third,
Isaac had absolute assurance that what God had promised for his sons would come
to pass.
Fourth, God is sovereign over our
futures.
Fifth, God is sovereign over our
salvation.
First, God is sovereign over our
lives.
“These are the generations of Isaac,
Abraham's son: Abraham fathered Isaac, 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. And Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife,
because she was barren. And the LORD granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife
conceived. 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. 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.’
“When her days to give birth were
completed, behold, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, all
his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau. 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.”
Some years after Abraham’s test,
Isaac marries a woman named Rebekah, who is barren. For years Isaac prays that God would open her
womb that they might have a child, and when Isaac was sixty years old, God
granted that prayer and Rebekah became pregnant with twins. And God told her that the twins would be the
fathers of two different nations – that they would fight with each other and be
divided from one another – and the older son would serve the younger.
The first child born was covered
with red hair, so they named him, Esau, which means “red.” The second child born was born holding onto
his brother’s heel, so they named him, Jacob, which means, “supplanter,
overthrower.” In their very birth, there
are signs of what God has promised.
As you read through the Bible,
notice the number of women who are barren whose wombs God opens to bring forth
someone who would be a part of God’s salvation plan. Think of Sarah, Rebekah, Hannah, Elizabeth,
and others. Also notice the number of
times God’s throws tradition on its head to achieve His purposes – the older son
was supposed to be the chief inheritor, but God often made the younger son His
man. Think of Isaac, Jacob, David, and
others.
These things did not happen – and
they were not done. But God is sovereign
over our lives. God has planned out
everything that ever happens to any of us – we are all part of God’s plan.
Second, God is sovereign over our
sin.
What do I mean by that? I certainly don’t mean that we can sin and
not worry about it because God will work it out. No, we are not to sin – we are to strive
against sin and seek to follow all of God’s commands. However, when we do sin, it is no surprise to
God, because God knows everything that will occur, because God has sovereignly
ordained everything that will happen.
So, though our sin is wrong, God has already worked it into His plan so that
everything He has chosen to have happen will occur.
“When the boys grew up, Esau was a
skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in
tents. Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.”
Isaac and Rebekah, though people of
faith, believers in God and His promises, were sinners. Isaac loved his son, Esau, and Rebekah loved
her son, Jacob. Do you know that this is
going to be a problem, even if you don’t remember what happens next?
“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 am exhausted!’ (Therefore his name was
called Edom.) Jacob said, ‘Sell me your birthright now.’ Esau said, ‘I am about
to die; of what use is a birthright to me?’ Jacob said, ‘Swear to me now.’ So
he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread
and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau
despised his birthright” (Genesis 25:19-34, ESV).
Esau was a hunter. Jacob was a momma’s boy. One day, Esau went out hunting and when he
came home, he was exhausted and hungry.
Jacob had been in the kitchen making a red lentil stew. Esau demanded that Jacob give him the stew –
red lentil stew for the man named red who would become the father of the
Edomites, which means “the red people.”
And Jacob, who knew what God had told his parents about the reversal of
their status – that the older would serve the younger – said, “I’ll make you a
deal, I’ll give you the stew, if you give me your birthright – if you declare
that I am to receive everything that would have come to you as the firstborn, I
will give you the stew.” And Esau said,
“Fine.”
Jacob sinned in asked his brother
for the birthright, and Esau sinned in despising his birthright and exchanging
it for the stew – but more sin was to come:
“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.’ He said, ‘Behold, I am old; I do
not know the day of my death. Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your
bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me, and prepare for me delicious
food, such as I love, and bring it to me so that I may eat, that my soul may
bless you before I die.’
“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, Rebekah said to her son Jacob, ‘I heard your father speak to your
brother Esau, “Bring me game and prepare for me delicious food, that I may eat
it and bless you before the LORD before I die.” Now therefore, my son, obey my
voice as I command you. Go to the flock and bring me two good young goats, so
that I may prepare from them delicious food for your father, such as he loves.
And you shall bring it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before
he dies.’ But Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, ‘Behold, my brother Esau is a
hairy man, and I am a smooth man. Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall
seem to be mocking him and bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing.’ His
mother said to him, ‘Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice, and
go, bring them to me.’
“So he went and took them and
brought them to his mother, and his mother prepared delicious food, such as his
father loved. Then 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. And the
skins of the young goats she put on his hands and on the smooth part of his
neck. And she put the delicious food and the bread, which she had prepared,
into the hand of her son Jacob.”
Isaac was getting old, probably
around 150 at this point, and he figured he didn’t have long to live, so he
told Esau to catch him some lunch and prepare it, and then he would give him
the blessing of the first-born. So, Esau
ran off to catch lunch.
Rebekah had her ear to the tent and
heard what Isaac said, so she told Jacob to hurry up and make his father lunch
and to go into the tent and tell his father he was Esau, so he would get the
first-born’s blessing, and fulfill the promise that God had made about the
older son serving the younger. You see,
Rebekah was afraid that if she didn’t help things along, God’s promise might
not come to pass. Rebekah sinned in
doubting that God could bring to pass what He had promised. (Just like Abraham and Sarah doubted God and
Abraham had a child by Hagar.)
But Jacob pointed out a problem –
Esau smelled like the fields and he was a hairy man, while Jacob was
smooth-skinned. So Rebekah told him to
wrap his arms in sheep skin, which would fool now blind Isaac.
We see in what follows, that third,
Isaac had absolute assurance that what God had promised for his sons would come
to pass.
“So he went in to his father and
said, ‘My father.’ And he said, ‘Here I am. Who are you, my son?’ Jacob said to
his father, ‘I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me; now sit up
and eat of my game, that your soul may bless me.’ But Isaac said to his son, ‘How
is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?’ He answered, ‘Because the
LORD your God granted me success.’ Then Isaac said to Jacob, ‘Please come near,
that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not.’
So Jacob went near to Isaac his father, who felt him and said, ‘The voice is
Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.’ And he did not recognize
him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau's hands. So he blessed
him. He said, ‘Are you really my son Esau?’ He answered, ‘I am.’ Then he said, ‘Bring
it near to me, that I may eat of my son's game and bless you.’ So he brought it
near to him, and he ate; and he brought him wine, and he drank.
“Then his father Isaac said to him, ‘Come
near and kiss me, my son.’ So he came near and kissed him. And Isaac smelled
the smell of his garments and blessed him and said, ‘See, the smell of my son is
as the smell of a field that the LORD has blessed! May God give you of the dew of heaven and of
the fatness of the earth and plenty of grain and wine. Let 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!’
“As soon as Isaac had finished
blessing Jacob, when Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of Isaac his
father, Esau his brother came in from his hunting. He also prepared delicious
food and brought it to his father. And he said to his father, ‘Let my father
arise and eat of his son's game, that you may bless me.’ His father Isaac said
to him, ‘Who are you?’ He answered, ‘I am your son, your firstborn, Esau.’ 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.’ 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!’ But he said, ‘Your brother came deceitfully,
and he has taken away your blessing.’ Esau said, ‘Is he not rightly named Jacob?
For he has cheated me these two times. He took away my birthright, and behold,
now he has taken away my blessing.’ Then he said, ‘Have you not reserved a
blessing for me?’ 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?’ 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.
“Then Isaac his father answered and
said to him: ‘Behold, away from the
fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be, and away from the dew of heaven on
high. By your sword you shall live, and
you shall serve your brother; but when you grow restless you shall break his
yoke from your neck.’
“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.’ But the words of Esau her older son were told to Rebekah. So she sent
and called Jacob her younger son and said to him, ‘Behold, your brother Esau
comforts himself about you by planning to kill you. Now therefore, my son, obey
my voice. Arise, flee to Laban my brother in Haran and stay with him a while,
until your brother's fury turns away—until your brother's anger turns away from
you, and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send and bring you
from there. Why should I be bereft of you both in one day?’” (Genesis 27:1-45,
ESV).
Esau returns and makes his father
lunch, assuming that he will receive his blessing, but when he goes in, his
father is thrown – he thought he had just blessed Esau. And then realize Jacob – the supplanter – the
overthrower – has taken the blessing.
And Isaac says, “Yes, and he shall be blessed.” “This is how God is accomplishing the promise
He made about my sons. God has used the
deceit of Jacob – the sin of Jacob – and his mother, Rebekah – to accomplish
His will.” And we see that God gave
Isaac the ability to foretell the future as he blessed his sons:
To Jacob – disguised as Esau – Isaac
blessed him and told him that the day was coming when his descendants would
inherit the land promised to Abraham and be prosperous, he and his descendants
would rule over other peoples, he would rule over his brothers, and those who
blessed him would be blessed and those who cursed him would be cursed.
To Esau – Isaac blessed him and told
him the day was coming when his descendants would inherit another land – not
the Promised Land – which we know was Edom – to the south east of Canaan, that
they would be a warrior people, that, for a time, he would serve his brother,
but, eventually, he would break free from that servitude.
As we go through the book of
Genesis, we see exactly all of these things happening.
And Esau makes a fatal mistake – he
sins – which was according to God’s plan – he swears that he will kill his
brother.
Rebekah hears Esau and tells Jacob
to run and hide at her brother, Laban’s, which was exactly where he needed to
be to fulfill God’s plan. Because there,
he would meet and marry Rachel and continue the line of David – or to David,
since David hadn’t been born yet.
And so we see that, fourth, God is
sovereign over our futures.
Just as God had a plan for Isaac and
Rebekah and Esau and Jacob and Rachel and on and on through history, so God has
a plan for your future and my future, which will carry out exactly as God has
planned it. Due to sin in the world and
our sin, we won’t always like the plan as it unfolds, but we, humans, brought
sin into the world, and God is not to blame for it. Our hope and our trust is that God’s will
will be done and all we who believe in the Savior will be brought into His
Kingdom.
And that’s why Jacob had to end up
being over his brother – not to excuse his sin – he should not have sinned –
God would have brought about His plan in another way if he had not sinned. But Matthew shows us that Jacob had to be in
the line, right where he was according to God’s promise – bear with me:
“Abraham was the father of Isaac,
and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of
Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and
Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon
the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the
father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king.
“And David was the father of Solomon
by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the
father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph the father of
Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of
Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and
Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh
the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah
and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.
“And after the deportation to
Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of
Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of
Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok
the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of
Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob,
and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who
is called Christ” (Matthew 1:2-16, ESV).
God put Jacob in the place over his
brother so Jesus would be born and we could be saved from the Wrath of God and
made righteous before Him. God has put
us in this place and that place – we may not always see or understand why we
are where we are or what is happening to us, but we can be sure that we are
where we are and going through what we are going through because God loves us
and desired to send a Savior for His people.
If we’re in the midst of something awful, that may not seem like much of
a comfort, but if we have believed the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then Romans 8:28
is true for us: “And we know that for
those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called
according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28, ESV).
One more thing we ought to notice
is, fifth, God is sovereign over our salvation.
Paul writes about the brothers as he
explains why not all of biological Israel will be saved, but all of spiritual
Israel will be saved – all those who believe in Jesus the Savior are spiritual
Israel and will be saved:
“But 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 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 who are the children of God, but the children of the promise 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
Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they
were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God's
purpose 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’” (Romans 9:6-13, ESV).
Just as God chose to make the covenant
through Abraham, and then through Isaac over his brother, and then through
Jacob over his brother – God’s choice to save them and make them His people had
nothing to do with anything they did or did not do – as Paul says – but God
made the choice and glorified Himself by it – electing some to faith – to
receiving the Gospel. These and only
these will ever believe and will ever be part of God’s Kingdom. So, if you are a believer this morning, it is
not due to anything you did, or any prayer you prayed, but because God chose
you to believe the Gospel and made you able to believe – you were God’s choice
before you chose Him and began to follow Him.
And some people say, “Well, then it
doesn’t matter what we do or believe – nothing mattered in the life of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, because they were predestined to be saved, so let’s do what
we want and God will sort it out in the end.”
And the problem with that is
two-fold: first, if we truly believe, we
won’t want to remain in sin – we will fight against sin out of love of God and
what He has done for us. And second, God
has told us to proclaim the Gospel to the whole Creation. God chose to have His Gospel spread through
us opening our mouth and telling others.
Since that is the case, let me just
say three things to you who will have children or do have children or are ever
around children:
Seek to teach your children the
Gospel early and often. Tell them again
and again that God came to earth in the Person of Jesus, lived a holy life
under God’s Law, died for the sins of all those who would ever believe, and
physically rose from the dead and ascended back to His throne. Tell them again and again and again so they
know.
Trust
God for your children. Believe in faith
that God has a plan for everyone and everything and He is carrying out that
plan. Trust that our Sovereign God knows
what He is doing.
Pray
for your children. And pray for your children
– that they would believe, that they would be faithful, that they we run from
sin and seek to be obedient – and so forth.
Praying for your children does not mean that you don’t trust God – it
means that you do trust Him and believe that He alone can truly and eternal
care for them.
And
then, let us remember from this text and this history:
God
is sovereign over our lives.
God is sovereign over our sin.
Isaac
had absolute assurance that what God had promised for his sons would come to
pass.
God is sovereign over our futures.
God is sovereign over our salvation.
Let us pray:
Almighty and Sovereign God, help us
to receive what you have said through this history and through the words of
Paul – that You are sovereign in all things, all of history, all of our
lives. Help us to believe, to trust You,
to proclaim Your Gospel, and to teach and pray for the children in our lives. For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
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