Left Over Blessings Series

Left Over Blessings (Genesis Part 47)

Text: Genesis 27:30-46

By: Ken McKinley

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Now last week; we talked about how God’s sovereignty always over-rules the will of man. If you remember; Isaac had fully intended to bless Esau, but it didn’t work out that way. God had said that Jacob would be the heir of the covenant promises and that’s exactly how it worked out. Now it’s true that Jacob and Rebekah didn’t go about getting the blessing in the right way. And I want to talk about that for just a minute before we go on. You see; just because God says something, or promises us something, that doesn’t mean that we have the right, or the freedom to engage in sinful behavior. Like the great protestant reformer, Martin Luther once said, “Grace is not a license to sin.” If you want to see a good example of someone who knew God’s will for his life, and then acted in the right way you could look at David, while he was waiting to become King of Israel. God had told them that he would be the king, but until Saul died, David patiently waited on the Lord and trusted in Him. Basically it comes down to humbly trusting that God will work all things together for good… it’s trusting that God will work it out. And if you know that story of David, then you know he wasn’t idle during that time, but he also wasn’t trying to become king in his way. Instead he waited upon the Lord and trusted in the Lord, and eventually; in God’s time, it worked out just like God said it would. Now some people will say, “Well I have to do something, because what if God doesn’t work it out?” And I would answer that question by saying, “Then it wasn’t His will to begin with.” And so Rebekah and Jacob sin in this. They sin in more than one way. Their first sin was not trusting that God would work it out, and then they sin in all the lies and deceit that we read about last week. And that brings us to our text this morning.

In verses 30 through 36 we see Esau return and all of a sudden the jig is up. Esau comes in and says, “Ok dad, I’m back. I’ve brought you food, go ahead and bless me.” And Isaac learns that he’s been tricked. And I want you to notice verse 33. First it says that “Isaac trembled exceedingly.” Now in the original Hebrew this actually has two meanings. It’s not an easy phrase to translate. Not only was Isaac physically trembling, but it goes beyond that. It’s almost like he was shaken to the core of his being. And the idea here is that, 1 – he’s angry because he has been deceived, and 2 – he’s fearful because he suddenly realizes that even though it was his will to give the blessing to Esau, God must’ve had other plans. And the realization that he had been going against God in all of this really shook him up. And that kind of helps us understand what Isaac means in the last part of that verse where he says, “I have blessed him, and indeed he SHALL be blessed!” In other words; Isaac is saying this. “Esau, I, in my own will and in my own desires wanted to give the blessing to you. I had every intention of it, but God in His sovereignty and His perfect plan, has seen to it that I didn’t do that. So the one who I blessed will be blessed, not because it’s what I wanted, but because it’s what God wanted.”

Now Esau’s pretty shook up about this, and you can’t really blame him. In verse 34 he says, “Bless me as well father!” He’s pleading with Isaac to give him a blessing as well. And this kind of shows us that Esau didn’t have a clue about the spiritual reality of the covenant.

He had already sold his birthright, and in doing that, he had given away his right to the blessing of his father as the covenant head. In Isaac we see that he’s suddenly aware that he’s been going against the will of God, and we see the signs of repentance. He understands that it was God’s will that Esau didn’t get the blessing; but in Esau, we don’t see anything like that. Instead he just wants something… anything, given to him. Here’s a guy who doesn’t even know that he’s lost, demanding more of what is causing him to be so lost. A great Scottish theologian said it this way, “Those who long for worldly blessings often receive them to their soul’s detriment.” The ancient Greeks said it this way, “Whom the gods would destroy, they grant them their wishes.”