Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Resentment and Bitterness can ruin a life, a marriage, a family, a business, a church, a community and maybe even a nation. Have you found that to be true? Yesterday we witnessed one of the most devastating deceitful family schemes ever recorded, as Jacob deceived his father Isaac and stole his brother Esau’s fatherly blessing. To make matters worse, it was a scheme devised and executed by Rebekah, Isaac’s wife, and mother of both boys. We ended yesterday with Esau nursing his broken heart: “Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given to him. He said to himself, ‘The days of mourning for my father’s death are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” (Gen. 27:41)
We can well imagine Esau had told his two wives and probably his friends about the terrible wrong which had been done to him by his brother and it didn’t take long for Rebekah to overhear the rumblings. I see no evidence Rebekah has been identified as the culprit, but when she heard of Esau’s plan, she made a plan to protect her favorite, deceitful son Jacob, by sending him to her family several hundred miles to the north in Haran. In order for her to convince her husband Isaac it would be a good idea for Jacob to leave, she appealed to Isaac’s memory of Abraham’s plan to find a wife for his son Isaac. Rebekah said to her old, blind husband Isaac: “I’m disgusted with living because of these Hittite women. If Jacob takes a wife from among the women of this land, from Hittite women like these, my life will not be worth living.” (Gen. 27:46)
In truth the pain in Rebekah’s heart had little to do with the people who lived around them. Her broken heart was all about the sin of jealousy, and deceitfulness and manipulation in her own heart… that was making her life miserable. There’s a lesson here my friends. Often we can place the blame for our heartache on the behavior or attitudes or words of other people, when in fact our pain is rooted in our own dark, sinful heart. For Rebekah, one deceitful plan now needed another to save Jacob’s life, but sending him away would leave Rebekah with a blind husband, a son she disliked and who increasingly hated his mother, and two daughters-in-law who were Hittite women. Oh my, what an unhappy place the tents of Isaac must have been! Sin does that, doesn’t it my friends? As you look at your family heritage, can you identify the damage sin has caused in generations past, and even in your generation?
So old Isaac called for his son Jacob and sent him on his way to find a wife in the same place his father Abraham’s servant had found a wife for him! But Isaac’s farewell to Jacob was more than simply sending him to find a wife, look at the record: “Isaac blessed Jacob…May God Almighty [El Shaddai] bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples. May God give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now live, the land God gave to Abraham…” (Gen. 28:1-4) Oh my friends this was a very big moment. We have no record Jacob had gone back to his father Isaac and apologized for his deception regarding stealing Esau’s blessing.
Yet Isaac’s blessing of Jacob, by passing on to him the Covenant blessing God had made with Abraham, tells me Isaac had come to realize that Jacob, even though a deceitful man, would be the son through whom God would continue the Covenant blessing of a special nation of God’s people. How Isaac came to understand this I don’t know, but I presume after Esau married Hittite women, Isaac prayed a great deal and discerned from God that the Covenant line would NOT continue through Esau’s children born of Hittite women. My friends, this is one of many examples in the Bible which call us to understand the significance of spouse choice and why it’s so important marriage is first and foremost a spiritual union between people God has brought together and who have compatible spiritual values. Have you discovered that if a couple marries who are incompatible spiritually, eventually they will disagree on almost everything, or one will change their spiritual values to join the other.
After Jacob left, the record gives us a very special insight into Esau. Gen. 28:8,9 says: “Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac, so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, son of Abraham, in addition to the Hittite wives he already had.” What do you see here my friends? Is this family retaliation driven by bitterness and resentment? Does it appear Esau married three different women intentionally to disappoint and hurt his parents? Ishmael, you’ll remember, is Isaac’s older brother, the son of Abraham and Hagar. This marriage would have clearly been understood by Isaac to be a direct rejection of his father and even his grandfather Abraham, by Esau. Do you know any family which has experienced such deep marital dysfunction and pain?
I don’t think I could adequately describe the anger and discord in the tents of Isaac and Rebekah now. I imagine Esau took his three wives and moved his tents a good distance away from his parents. In fact we next meet Esau more than 20 years later in Genesis 33 when he and Jacob meet again. I notice in vs. 16 it says “So that day Esau started on his way BACK to Seir.” Evidently Esau moved far away from Isaac and Rebekah, even to the other side of the Jordan river to a place called Seir. Oh my how Rebekah’s deceptive plan destroyed their family!
Jacob left his family that day, sent on his way by his father Isaac, with a remarkable blessing which I doubt Jacob had expected or even fully understood. He was a deceiver, a liar. He had manipulated his brother Esau to steal his birthright and then deceived his father to steal Esau’s firstborn blessing. I would imagine Jacob felt totally unworthy to be any longer included in the Covenant promises God had made to Abraham and continued through Isaac, and yet Isaac had prayed a blessing over Jacob that included him in that Covenant blessing from God. How could that be? My friends, this is a powerful example of God’s grace and mercy… a theme of God that stretches throughout the entire Bible.
As Jacob walked that first day I’m sure he replayed over and over in his mind the words of his father Isaac and simply kept shaking his head in disbelief as he thought about his terrible integrity track record. He should absolutely be disqualified from any involvement in God’s Covenant with Abraham. There was nothing he could ever do to make up for all the terrible mess he had made of the miracle, covenant family into which he had been miraculously born. I imagine by evening Jacob had convinced himself that he was so terrible, he would likely die on the several hundred mile trek, or never see his family alive again… and he deserved that!
But God had other plans, and tomorrow we’ll look closely at one of the most amazing, life transforming experiences a man has ever had. You see my friends, God can clean up any mess, transform any life, turn despair into hope in any situation… are you in a place you need that today? It begins by acknowledging the truth about where you are in the mess and what your role in that mess is and if you are ready to turn to God seeking His HOLY help, then almost anything is possible with God, as we’ll see tomorrow.
For today… what do you think God might want to do in your life, in your family…even if it’s a mess? Do you understand what price Jesus had to pay with His life, so God can extend grace, forgiveness, hope and new life to you and me, and any person in a mess? Here’s a song to help you consider the hope God offers…
Today’s Scripture is Genesis 27:41-28:10.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Genesis 28
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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