Returning to our study of Genesis tonight, we are in chapter 25 and the story of Esau and Jacob, the story begins with the prayer of Isaac that his wife might bear children and in this setting ends with a tragedy of faithlessness – and an interesting peek into God’s sovereignty working out in practical life. Last week we looked at the promises and the prayers discovering that even when God has a plan, he will sometimes not work it out till we pray.
The other side of that wonder is how the hand of God works to develop and bring about his will in the lives of people who seem completely oblivious to his existence and yet by their very actions and attitudes God’s will is accomplished. Of course the end result of looking at both of these texts which are so closely compressed together is not only a greater understanding of how God works to accomplish his will, but I believe also a greater trust, a greater peace and a greater assurance that God’s purposes of redeeming those he has called. I think too that for our own lives in the here and now understanding the potency of the sovereign hand of our God will help us to keep our eyes on him in these troubled times.
While I sat in a Haitian church two years ago, with people fighting, throwing bricks, swinging 2x4’s and people running around outside with Guns – It was enormously tempting to get caught up in the middle of the ferocity of the moment, but God by grace continually called me back him in the words of Isaiah 41:10
“Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” (NASB95)
It was not my strength that held me there, it was not my abilities, it was my double assurance that 1) God had promised his presence to me.
2) God was sovereign – even over the hearts of men consumed with bitterness; and with no apparent regard for Him.
A firm grip on the sovereignty of God can also give us hope when life comes unraveled. When the phone rings at 1 AM, and the voice on the other end comes through tears. When the doctor says the words we didn’t want to hear. When life ends too soon; when suffering continues in all these things God is sovereign.
A firm grip on the sovereignty of God will sustain us and give us peace amidst the turmoil of making daily decisions. Should you stay in your Job, or move on? Should you go to the left or to the right when you come to the fork in the road of decision making? I believe that with a grip on the sovereignty of God we can absolve ourselves of much agony in understanding that as we look to the Lord for wisdom, and consult him in prayer and then make our choices we can be assured that even in these sometimes trivial – sometimes monumental choices that God is sovereign.
So look at this text with me, starting in Genesis 25:19-34 at the unfolding story of Esau and Jacob. It’s a text replete with the blatant realities of Birth, Life, and God’s sovereign promise, and God’s sovereign hand, and the clumsy maneuvering of sinful men trying each to accomplish their own goals and through it all unwittingly living out the revealed – and sometimes mysterious will of God.
While God’s sovereignty and prayer seem to the be the focus in the first half, God’s sovereignty period is played out beginning with God’s answer to Rebekah’s prayer in verse 23
Genesis 25:23 The LORD said to her, "Two nations are in your womb; And two peoples will be separated from your body; And one people shall be stronger than the other; And the older shall serve the younger."
It’s a prophecy that turns everything on it’s head, and yet reassures that God’s plan is being accomplished. One of the major promises to the patriarchs from their perspective is that God will make of them a great nation which means lots of children and so forth, so for Rebekah to hear that there are “two nations” in her womb it was a testimony to God’s fulfilled promise taking shape. The second half however turns things around because the first born child was supposed to receive twice the inheritance of every other child, almost as if they were two people; so that for instance in this case of two children, Esau would normally have received 2/3 of the inheritance while Jacob would receive 1/3. In addition they were supposed to then take the leadership of the family and so forth. But God’s decree is that the reverse here will be true. In a sense then, everything that follows about Jacob and Esau is the fulfillment of this prophecy from the selling of the birthright to the stealing of the blessing.
In it all however we see the fulfillment of another verse with which we are familiar Romans 8:28, “God causes all things to work together for Good to them which love the Lord.” Even though God is not the author of sin, he is able to take the faults of men to accomplish his goals. Murdering the son of God by nailing him to the cross was perhaps the most evil deed in history, but in that deed was the accomplishment of God’s plan. The evil deeds of Jacob are not excused because we know that they accomplished God’s plan. God’s plan would have come to completion without Jacob’s deception – in fact as we’ll see over time Jacob’s faults were cause for God to work on him throughout his life to make him holy.
I’d like to take an intentional rabbit trail for just a moment by looking at verse 25:
Starting in verse 25, I am impressed here with the genetic diversity of this one birth. These boys are twins, apparently fraternal twins, and yet the differences between them are enormous and points clearly enough to a time when genetic diversity was so strong that the typical family characteristics that we see today were apparently not so severely pronounced. To the contrary - these boys are as different physically from one another as can be. Esau is covered with red hair that is so wiry and coarse that it can be likened to goat skin (Genesis 27:16,23). Jacob on the contrary was smooth skinned with little or no hair upon his hands and arms and neck (Gen 27:11,16). The condition of Esau’s hairyness by the way is no exaggeration. There’s a fellow in China named Yu Zhenhuan who has hair covering 96% of his body everywhere but the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. He loses the Guinness book listing though by a pair of Mexican brothers - Victor and Gabriel Ramos Gomez who have 98% hair coverage.1 The brief lesson is that Jacob and Esau point to a time early enough in History in which the gene pool was exceedingly rich which is merely proof that all as Peter Acknowledges in Acts 17:26 God “made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth,” And it serves to provide a devastating blow to racism which is not the product of religion but the natural result of atheism and evolution.
But the evidence of God’s sovereignty unfolding unbeknownst to these boys comes in rapid fire fashion from their birth, their lifestyle and the record of Esau’s tragic choice.
As the boys are born, Jacob comes out literally dragging himself behind his brother.
Esau’s name means hairy, while Jacobs invokes the idea of “He’s pulling your leg.” So the twins’ births had great significance for later events in their lives.2 As they grow, their lives begin to exhibit differences more than physical. The New English Translation Bible footnotes mentions that Jacob’s tendency to dwell in tents meant he was "calm and even-tempered,... which normally has the idea of ’blameless’."
“And when we discover that not only are the personalities of the brothers so contrary but that the devout parents are both showing partiality, we know that it is only a matter of time before this family is split wide open.”3 In fact the treachery that a parent should love one child over the other is the shortcoming that leads to the shenanigans unbecoming of a godly family - Rebekah later tempting Jacob to lie, and Isaac trying to overcome God’s declaration of who would be blessed. Fortunately, God is no respecter of persons - he does not change his judgments like the shifting tide based upon his emotions but works always in perfect harmony with his love and justice.
With the stage set we finally turn to the soup kitchen scene...
Looking to verses 29 and 30 and considering the circumstance and the question it rapidly becomes clear that Jacob cooked this meal on purpose - his request for the birthright demonstrates that he had been pre-planning this event knowing his brother’s hunger would drive him to accepting any bargain.4
As you consider this transaction in verse 31 and the story that follows from it, it’s clear that not only did Esau honor this transaction but so did God, even though it was obviously God’s plan all along, (Gen 25:23b)) Therefore one might assume that if Jacob hadn’t resorted to trickery he still would have achieved the promise. How strange that he felt the need for treachery to get what God had promised, but this very pattern is seen in Abraham’s sleeping with Hagar (Genesis 16:1-4) where God’s plan is usurped by our need for instant gratification.
Before we’re too hard on either boy, let us judge ourselves and the thought’s and attitudes of our hearts. We try to connive our way into blessing and we sacrifice the sacred for the mundane. This text is an open challenge to our own hearts. Will we manipulate or will we trust God?
Jacob didn’t have to resort to all this trickery and that which would follow, God had already promised his blessing, but it was Jacob’s own insistence on doing it his way that lead to so much heart-break and even more and deeper treachery than this – all Because Jacob wanted to make sure that God didn’t somehow forget to give him what he wanted. The problems in Jacob’s life therefore are not a result of God’s proclamation of preference for him, but are written in Jacob’s own hand with the blood of his own blackened heart which God must tame in order to bring about his blessing. God who is able to make all things work together for good (Romans 8:28) takes even the treachery of Jacob and turns it to the accomplishment of his fore stated purpose.
Considering the circumstance and weighing it against Hebrews 12:15-16 which tells us to “See to it... that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. ”
I think Esau’s claim that he was about to die was merely dramatic hyperbole which really serves to emphasize Esau’s shortsighted wickedness. But again, Esau’s fault is a reflection of our own but to live with the purpose of always satisfying our own appetites will inevitably lead to a lack of love for spiritual things.5 “Those who cannot see beyond the moment forfeit their future.”6 Which is exactly what Esau did.
The conclusion is bone chilling in it’s importance. Esau was indeed a godless man who thought nothing of his rights as firstborn. How very much like many Christians who do not recognize the glory of our inheritance to come and by our steadfast love of this world choose rather to demand the gratification of this passing world rather than to accept with grace the promise of glory yet to come.
Esau weighed the promise of God’s continual presence and blessing against a bowl of soup—and valued the soup more highly. What a revelation of Esau’s character. He was a man who valued the present rather than the future, the material rather than the invisible. The momentary satisfaction of physical desires seemed more important to him than the approval of God. The body, not the spirit, dominated his scale of values.
I can look at Esau’s act and be amazed by it. But what I need to realize is that this act of selling the birthright was an action that is in character, not out of character. It was the result of a long process of character formation, a long history no doubt of choice after choice which shaped Esau’s personality.
Right now I may look at Esau with wonder and say, “I’d never do that.” Instead I ought to look at the action as an expression of character, and wonder: In what direction are my daily choices leading me? Do I so value my present experiences that I fail to discipline myself to wait when waiting is best? Do have to have the pleasures of gluttony despite being overweight? Is God high enough on your priority list to cause you to spend time with Him, or do other things push Him out of our thoughts?
I can shake my head in wonder at Esau, but I had better realize that unless I make a daily habit of rejecting Esau’s values, I might someday be faced with a similar choice—and make the wrong one!7
Of all the lessons in this story, here are two.
1) I don’t have to take Jacob’s road to blessing. Instead, I can trust God and commit myself to do the right thing at all times because God is sovereign and I don’t have to manipulate reality to bring about the blessings he promises. Truth, not lies, will serve me far better. God’s will still will be done, and I’ll be able to live in harmony with those around me. How great it is to shrug off all sense of pressure and to commit my way to God, confident that as I daily do His will, His good purposes will be performed.8
2) We cannot have it both ways, we cannot have both the broth and the birthright.
And the fact that God was able to use men like Jacob to forward his purposes may shock us, but it should surely encourage us, too, for at times we fall as badly as he did. If God could use him, may he now graciously use us.9 And as God’s sovereign hand continues to fashion the rising and falling of kingdoms, nations and even the daily lives of common people – we can be assured in the words of a familiar teacher that,
“God is still on the throne and his plan has not changed.”
So then, even as our Lord taught us to pray, “Father in heaven... thy will be done!”
