Spiritual Blindness

[0:00] Today the scripture reading will be taken from Genesis chapter 26 verse 34 through chapter 27 verse 40.!

[0:30] For Isaac and Rebekah. When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called Esau, his oldest 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.

[0:48] 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 like, and bring it to me so that I may eat, that my soul may bless you before I die.

[1:06] 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.

[1:20] 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.

[1:35] 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.

[1:50] 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.

[2:06] 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.

[2:23] Then Rebekah took the best garments of Esau, her oldest son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob, her younger son. And the skins of the young goat she put on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck.

[2:38] And she put the delicious food and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hands of her son Jacob. So he went into his father and said, My father.

[2:50] 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.

[3:01] 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.

[3:17] 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.

[3:37] 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?

[3:48] 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.

[4:01] 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 the field that the Lord has blessed.

[4:19] 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.

[4:32] Be Lord over your brothers, and may your mother's sons bow down to you. Curse be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you.

[4:42] 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.

[4:54] 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.

[5:05] 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?

[5:20] 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.

[5:40] But he said, Your brother came deceitfully, Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing. Esau said, Is he not rightly named Jacob?

[5:53] 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?

[6:05] Isaac answered and said to Esau, Behold, I have made him lord over you, and all his brothers. I have given to him for your servants, and with grain and wine, I have sustained him.

[6:19] 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.

[6:31] 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 the heaven on high.

[6:46] By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother. But when he grow restless, you shall break his yoke from your neck. Here is the word of God.

[7:01] Thank you very much, Joan. I want to begin by asking a question. Don't answer it up loud.

[7:11] Just think about it in the quietness of your mind. How was Jacob able to deceive his father Isaac to give him the blessing instead of his brother Esau?

[7:27] How was he able to do that? Now, if the answer is that he was blind and he wasn't able to see, on one level that's true.

[7:42] But I think when we look at this story more closely, the fundamental reason that Jacob was able to deceive his father Isaac was that Isaac was spiritually blind.

[7:55] not because he was physically blind. He was deceived because he was spiritually blind.

[8:06] He was blind to God's purposes, and he was driven and directed by his own sinful desires rather than God's purpose. And that's why he was deceived.

[8:18] That's why the blessing went to the son he was determined not to give it to rather than the one he wanted to give it to.

[8:32] But the big surprise in this account is that Isaac is not the only one who is spiritually blind. The big surprise in this account is they're all spiritually blind. Rebecca is spiritually blind.

[8:44] Jacob is spiritually blind. And Esau is spiritually blind. They are blind to the fact that God will fulfill his purposes, which he declared through Abraham, because no one can thwart the purposes of God.

[9:03] And in our remaining time this morning, I want us to see how this is true, how the four of these family members are all spiritually blind.

[9:14] But first, let's pray. Father, would you meet us now as we open your word? I pray, Lord, that as we consider the spiritual blindness of Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob and Esau, that you'd alert us to our own spiritual blindness, or convict us where we need to be convicted.

[9:43] And Lord, where we have received spiritual sight, I pray that you would help us to rejoice that your mercy and grace has come to us in that way. We ask, O Lord, that you would speak above my voice, and may we both hear and heed all that you say to us.

[10:02] And we pray you'd be glorified in all that is said and done this morning. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So first, let's consider Isaac's spiritual blindness.

[10:17] What we see in this passage is that Isaac was spiritually blind because he allowed his appetite for food, for delicious food that his son would prepare for him to cause him to seek to resist the purpose of God to bless Jacob.

[10:36] And instead, he tries to bless Esau. He does it all because he is blinded because of his appetite for food.

[10:47] Now, in order to see this, we have to reflect back to Genesis 25. And you'd remember back in Genesis 25, Rebecca was pregnant, and she was having a hard time with the pregnancy.

[11:02] The turmoil in her stomach was so great that it drove her to prayer, and she prayed, and the Lord said to her, there's a struggle going on in your womb.

[11:12] There are two nations that will come out. They will be divided, and the younger will be served by the older one. And the younger will be stronger than the older one.

[11:26] And essentially what the Lord told her was that the natural order between these boys would be switched. Now, it's highly unlikely that the kind of pain that Rebecca would have been going through, the difficult pregnancy that she went through, that one, Isaac did not know about it.

[11:45] And two, it's highly unlikely that after she heard from the Lord, she would not have told Isaac what the Lord said to her. Highly unlikely that he would not have known.

[11:58] So clearly, I think it's fair to say that Isaac knew what the Lord told Rebecca, that the roles of these boys are going to be changed, that the secondborn is going to be as the firstborn and the firstborn as the secondborn.

[12:14] Now, I don't think this was a problem when they were younger. They were just young growing up. But what we see is that as the boys grew up, when they became men, in Genesis 25, we see in verse 28 that Esau and Jacob, they grew up and Isaac and Rebecca had favorites.

[12:35] That's the point they had favorites because Isaac, we're told in verse 28 and chapter 25, he loved to eat Esau's delicious food.

[12:46] That's why he loved him. Quite sad. He loved him because he ate his delicious food. So when they were younger, no problem.

[12:58] And his heart turned towards his son because of the food that he ate. Now, these opening verses in Genesis 27, we find Isaac at perhaps the most important point in his life.

[13:15] This is the point where he has a sense that he doesn't have much longer to live. He's 137 years old. It doesn't tell us that in this text, but through the data that is in the book of Genesis, you're able to go through and calculate the age of Isaac at this particular point in the narrative in Genesis.

[13:38] So he's about 137 years old. He thinks he's going to die. Actually, he lives 43 years more. He dies at 180. And he calls his son.

[13:49] He says, you know, I don't know how much longer I have to live. And I want to bless you, but go and hunt some game for me, cook some food, and then bring it to me.

[14:01] What is so sad about this is that this is a sober and a weighty moment. This is the moment that the blessing that came to Isaac from Abraham is to be transferred to the next generation.

[14:19] And what is on Isaac's mind as he comes to this moment is food. And his desire to bless this son who he knows is not the one that God has said will inherit the blessing of Abraham and be the one who is the leader in the family.

[14:44] He does it all because he loves food. He's blind. But not only that, we see that Isaac was also indifferent to the ungodliness of Esau.

[14:59] One of the things that happens when we look at our Bibles is a lot of times the logical thought does not start where the chapter may cut off.

[15:10] And the reason we started in chapter 26 verse 34 is that really is the section that includes chapter 27. And what we see is Moses is helping us to see the context in which Isaac determines to bless Esau.

[15:33] He puts this description about Esau. He puts this bit of information about Esau. He tells us when Esau was 40 years old he took Judith the daughter of Beri the Hittite to be his wife and Basimath the daughter of Elon the Hittite and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebecca.

[15:58] You may recall back in Genesis 24 when Abraham is about to die Abraham calls his servant and he says put your hand under my thigh and swear to me that you will not get a wife for my son from among the Canaanites.

[16:14] and he sends them to Haran. He says you go to my family and you get a wife for my son. Isaac knew this. The servant told him the whole thing told him every single thing that was done.

[16:29] And here we have Esau who's doing what is contrary in that culture. Esau unilaterally gets married. He doesn't involve his mother.

[16:40] He does not involve his father. And not only that, he goes and he marries forbidden women. And he doesn't just marry one, he marries two of them.

[16:53] And so Moses brings in front of us the godless character of Esau and he sets that up to show us that this is the one that Isaac is determined to bless despite the prophecy about Esau, about Jacob despite the fact that Esau is an ungodly man.

[17:17] He's a rebellious man. He's a self-willed man. He has no respect or appreciation for the traditions. Doesn't value the godly legacy of his granddaddy Abraham.

[17:29] Doesn't value the role of firstborn that he is in, the place that he has to be the leader of the family and to carry on the spiritual legacy. He's indifferent to it.

[17:41] But what's worse is Isaac's indifference. Isaac sees that. As a matter of fact, Isaac is embittered by it. He and Rebecca were told these two marriages made their lives bitter.

[17:59] And there's no record of Isaac saying a word to Esau. No record of him correcting him. No record of him saying to him, what you have done makes my heart bitter.

[18:16] Why? Because he loves food. And he loves the food that Esau prepares for him. And it makes him spiritually blind to what should be right in front of his face that he should be able to see.

[18:30] He is in a sad, sad state. He's indifferent to what he should be very alert concerning.

[18:42] Now it's reasonable to say that there had to have been other evidences in Esau's life that showed him to be an ungodly man. You don't just pick up one day and decide that you're not going to let your parents be involved in your decision to get married, which is what was done, and go out and not just marry one forbidden woman, you marry two forbidden women.

[19:04] You don't just wake up and come to that kind of arrogance. I think it's indicative that over time, this is the kind of life that Esau led. Isaac would have seen it.

[19:15] It would have been on full display for him. Isaac is still nonetheless blind to this reality, and he is determined to bless Esau with the blessing of Abraham despite all that has been on display for him.

[19:40] His heart was set against the purposes of God to bless Esau instead of Jacob. Brothers and sisters, Isaac is so spiritually blind that he thinks he can establish his own purpose to bless Esau against God's determined purpose to bless Jacob.

[20:02] That's the height of spiritual blindness. Now when we look at the account further, we see further evidence of Isaac's blindness, his spiritual blindness, and the sad spiritual state that he finds himself in.

[20:23] Jacob goes to him disguised as Esau with Rebekah's cooking in hand. This is starting in verse 18. And what is clear when you look at this account is this.

[20:36] Isaac had his suspicions. He had his suspicions that he was being deceived by Jacob, but his spiritual blindness brought on by his undisciplined appetite caused him to ignore his suspicions.

[20:53] He had his suspicions. Notice the first question he asked in verse 20. He asked Jacob, how is it that you found it so quickly? I mean, now I think all of us know, you know, if mommy is cooking or the wife is cooking, and man, that food is coming early, you're just happy the food is earlier than you expected.

[21:16] And I think he was really saying, how come you found it so quickly? I don't think this was a puzzle. I think this was happy, how, this is a happy question, this was not a puzzling question. How do you find it so quickly?

[21:27] And Jacob, without any fear of the Lord, tells a bold-faced lie, and he says, because the Lord, not my God, your God, the Lord, your God, gave me success.

[21:41] But Isaac wasn't convinced. And look at what he does in verses 21-22. Then Isaac said to Jacob, please come near that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you're really my son Esau or not.

[21:56] 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.

[22:09] So Isaac recognized the voice of Jacob, but found that he felt like Esau. These are Esau's hands, but that's Jacob's voice.

[22:21] He had his doubts. And so in verse 24, he says, are you really my son Esau? And he answered, I am, in his Jacob voice, I am.

[22:38] Now think about that. Isaac asked the person in front of him whom he cannot see, are you really my son Esau?

[22:50] Despite the evidence in front of him that that was not Esau, or that it was highly unlikely that it was not Esau. And why does he do it?

[23:01] Because his heart is sadly fixated on food. And look at how Isaac ignores the contradiction of Jacob's voice and the hands of Esau in verse 25.

[23:18] He simply says, bring it near 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.

[23:31] What a sad state of affairs. Isaac, when he should be mindful of the next generation, mindful of being faithful to pass on the blessing, he's more interested in food.

[23:49] Not in the purposes of God to bless Jacob. He is interested in doing his own thing. And when you really think about it, it even appears that Jacob, sorry, that Isaac, the main thing that he was concerned about, he was concerned more about the food than even blessing Esau.

[24:18] He blesses, he goes on to bless Jacob in verses 26 to 29, thinking that he's blessing Esau, especially after smelling the clothes and being deceived by that.

[24:35] Now I want to ask you a question. Maybe I'll ask you two ways. All the parents, imagine one of your children deceived you in such a graphic and intentional way.

[24:50] How do you respond? Now I know at minimum, some of us will chew that child out. Those who are violent, the child may be visited in hospital.

[25:08] And those of you who may not have children, imagine if you did that to your parents. Think we would have known you? Probably not. Your picture would be he died at 14.

[25:22] Didn't reach adulthood. But here is a startling reality that we see in this account.

[25:36] There is no rebuke of Jacob by Isaac. No rebuke. Isaac. You read the account verses 30 to 38 and what you will find is that there is no rebuke from Isaac to Jacob for what he did.

[26:00] The nearest he came to correcting Jacob is a statement of fact in verse 35. He simply says, your brother came deceitfully and he has taken away your blessing.

[26:14] He says no more than that. How is it that Isaac was not more upset? Why wasn't he more upset?

[26:25] He was determined to bless Esau. He told him, go get the game, come back, I'm going to bless you. And yet not a hint of rebuke or displeasure comes from Isaac towards Jacob.

[26:41] But that's not all. When you read the account, Isaac does not even express sorrow over not blessing Jacob.

[26:51] When Esau weeps and Esau is in distress and violently crying out, give me a blessing. There is no kind of sympathy or sorrow or regret over not blessing Esau.

[27:10] Now why is this? Why is Isaac not upset at his son who deceived him and why is he not sorrowful over his son to whom he did not give the blessing, who he said he wants to give the blessing?

[27:26] The reason is that Isaac knew in his heart of hearts what God's plan was. He knew that it was God's plan all along to bless Jacob.

[27:40] He knew that it was God's plan that Jacob would supplant and take the firstborn place of Esau. So he didn't rebuke Jacob. And Isaac also knew that Esau lacked character.

[27:56] He lacked the necessary character to inherit the blessing of Abraham and to be the leader of the family. So he showed no anger towards Jacob and he showed no sorrow towards Esau.

[28:12] It's clear that Isaac's blindness was a willful blindness, consciously going against what he knew the purpose of God was.

[28:24] His spiritual blindness caused him to think that he could resist God's purpose for his own purpose. next week we'll continue into chapter 28 and we'll see how Jacob is again being blessed by Isaac and Isaac is sending him away to go to Laban's house to find a wife.

[28:54] And what is clear is he is submitting to what he knows the purpose of God is. Again, no objection, no anger expressed whatsoever.

[29:05] He eventually submits to what God's purpose was all along, that Jacob would be the one to be blessed. Next we come to Rebecca's spiritual blindness.

[29:19] More than anyone else, Rebecca knew that God had said that Jacob was going to be the one who was going to take the place of the firstborn. She knew, she prayed, she had the war going on within her between these two boys and the Lord told her in answer to her prayer that the firstborn is going to serve the secondborn.

[29:44] So why did she act as she did? The reason she acted as she did is she did not trust God to bring his purpose to pass. She thought God needed help.

[29:56] When she heard her husband call Esau and say, go get the game, cook it for me, I'm going to bless you, rather than trust God that despite what she saw, that God was going to perform his word, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

[30:17] And what's interesting is that you'd remember the account back in Genesis 24, how the Lord sovereignly and providentially brought Isaac and Rebecca together.

[30:31] And she forgot her own experience. She forgot how God is able to do whatever he plans to do. No matter what things look like, he's able to do it. And so let's look at her scheme, starting in verse 8.

[30:47] She calls Jacob and she says to him, 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.

[31:09] And you shall bring it to your father to eat that he may bless you before he dies. So Rebecca uses her authority and she commands don't overlook the language there.

[31:22] She commands him to do this. She doesn't say, hey, would you think about it? No, she commands him as his mother to go and scheme and deceive his father in the way that she orders him to do it.

[31:42] Think about that. I mean, Rebecca is calling Jacob to steal what God promised.

[31:55] The height of spiritual blindness. God promised her, I will do this. This is what I'm going to do. And she's seeing it play it out. She's watching Esau's character.

[32:06] She's watching Jacob's character. And yet, she calls him to engage in a scheme to steal what God had already promised.

[32:18] That is iconic spiritual blindness. You know, incidentally, Rebecca's name means to ensnare. It means to tie up or to capture.

[32:34] But Jacob, being the smart guy that he was, he sees a flaw in Rebecca's game. This is like two people planning to rob a bank. And they are going through. He says, no, no, that ain't going to work. That's not going to work because, notice, he doesn't object to the idea.

[32:49] He just is saying to her, there's a weakness in which you want to do. I'm smooth, and my brother is hairy, and if I go as I am, instead of getting a blessing, I'm going to be cursed.

[33:02] And here's the interesting thing. Rebecca ignores, at least she seems to ignore, what he says. She simply just tells him, listen, go and do what I have said for you to do.

[33:14] She said, in any curse against you, let it fall on me. Those are arrogant words. She arrogantly calls for his curse to come upon her, and she commands Jacob, despite his reservations, to go and do as she said and get these goats.

[33:37] Now, one of the things that we're able to see in this passage is that there's some unseen consequences that Rebecca could never have foreseen.

[33:51] She tells Jacob, later we'll see this in the account, we'll see this next week, she tells Jacob, she says, now your brother's angry against you, your brother wants to kill you, so go to my brother Laban, and when your brother's fury subsides, I'm going to send for you, and I'm going to bring you back.

[34:13] There's no evidence that Rebecca ever saw Jacob's face again when he left. He went for 20 years, and there's no record of him, of her, ever seeing his face again.

[34:34] Rebecca's name is mentioned only two more times after, what we find here in chapter 27. It's mentioned briefly in chapter 28 verse 5, where she is only referred to as Laban's sister, and then she is mentioned towards the end of Genesis, in the second to the last chapter in Genesis, Genesis chapter 49 verse 31, where it simply says that she was buried in the cave in the field of Machpelah.

[35:05] One of the things you'll notice in Genesis in particular, but in these narratives in the Old Testament, is deaths are memorialized. There is no reference to the death of Rebecca.

[35:22] Rebecca's nurse is memorialized, and she is not. all we get is that she was buried in the cave of Machpelah. And it appears that the curse that she arrogantly called upon herself, because she was indifferent to anything other than what she wanted to do, that curse did come upon her.

[35:47] Rebecca's spiritual blindness caused her not to trust the Lord and his ability to bring his purposes to pass. and she took matters into her own hands.

[36:00] Now we come to Jacob's spiritual blindness. Jacob's spiritual blindness is seen in the fact that although he, it wasn't his idea to deceive his father, he ran along with it.

[36:16] He ran along with his mother. It was her idea. She put the deceptive scheme to him, and he bought into it. And even when he expressed his reservation and she said, you go ahead and do it anyway, he obeyed her.

[36:31] It's not until verse 16 that he saw what his mother was going to do. He went and got the two goats, and only after he had gotten them, without her telling him, she used the skins of the goats on his hands and on his neck to allay his concern that this scheme might backfire.

[36:52] God will also see Jacob's spiritual blindness in verse 20, where he had no fear of the Lord, where his father asked him, how is it you found it so fast, that he would invoke God's name and say, the Lord your God helped me.

[37:15] He's spiritually blind. And we'll see this as we continue through Genesis because most of the rest of it is going to be around Jacob and we're going to see the transformation that came to his life.

[37:29] But he had no problem in this moment lying to his father and invoking God's name in it. And finally, we come to Esau.

[37:43] We come to Esau's spiritual blindness. Even before this account that we are considering this morning, we can reflect back on Genesis 25 and see that Esau was spiritually blind from back then.

[37:57] He thought nothing of selling his birthright in a moment of hunger. Actually, in verse 34 of chapter 25, we're told that he despised his birthright.

[38:13] He despised his birthright. Esau's spiritual blindness caused him to have no appreciation for the blessing that was his as the firstborn in a natural way.

[38:27] No appreciation for it. As the firstborn, he was going to get a double portion. As the firstborn, he was going to be the leader of the family, but he showed himself to be self-willed, wanting to do his own thing, doing it his own way, and this was evidence of spiritual blindness.

[38:46] We see a spiritual blindness in his decision to take these wives. No reference to his parents, not one, but two. He was entrenched in his disobedience.

[39:00] Look at what he says in verse 36 when he realizes that Jacob has stolen his blessing. He takes no responsibility for what has happened, none whatsoever.

[39:13] Look at what he says, referring to Jacob. 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.

[39:28] Then he said, have you not a blessing reserved for me? Now the truth is that Jacob did not cheat Esau out of his birthright.

[39:40] Esau willingly sold it. He willingly sold it. He traded the birthright for a bowl of lentil soup. And although Jacob did cheat him out of the blessing, Esau failed to realize that his not appreciating the birthright and selling his birthright gave evidence that he did not qualify for the blessing.

[40:07] He exposed his character that if you're willing to give up the birthright, you don't deserve the blessing. But he took no responsibility for any of that.

[40:19] He was ungodly, he did not have character, and everyone knew it. Isaac knew it, Rebecca knew it, Jacob knew it, and yes, even Esau knew it.

[40:32] And Esau thought that he could just curry favor with his father. He could just go along and give him food and that he would inherit the birthright in that way.

[40:45] But it didn't work. Look at verse 38. Esau said to his father, but have you one blessing, my father?

[41:01] Bless me, even me also, my father. And Esau lifted up his voice and wept. Esau wept, but he was unrepentant. The writer to the Hebrews helps us to see this even more.

[41:16] In Hebrews 12, 15 to 17, this is what the writer to the Hebrews writes about Esau. He writes, see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled.

[41:35] But no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.

[41:59] Brothers and sisters, Esau stands as a warning against unholiness. He stands as a warning against being self-willed and indifferent to God-given spiritual advantages.

[42:13] And I think this is something we all need to hear, but you know what? Especially our young people, you need to hear this. You need to hear that you must not disregard and you must not devalue the spiritual advantages that you have.

[42:33] You've been raised by godly parents, you've been raised in a godly home, you are a part of a faithful church, and those are blessings. blessings. Those are blessings that many of your friends don't have.

[42:49] And to act as Esau did, to regard those and to turn your back on those and to be self-willed and to be arrogant and not see the value in them, your lot will be like Esau's.

[43:07] You will have massive loss and massive regret over acting in that way. And like you saw, you will one day cry bitter tears if you turn away from it, if you don't regard it as valuable to hold on to.

[43:22] You will be bitter tears, you will cry out loud, and it will be too late to make a difference in the situation over which you have come to regret.

[43:36] And so I just encourage all of us, but especially our young people, value the spiritual legacy, the inheritance that you have in your parents, in a godly home, in being a part of a local church.

[43:50] Don't disregard it as Esau. We see more evidence of Esau's spiritual blindness and his unrepentance.

[44:03] After all that had happened, he had one determined plan in mind. He was going to kill his brother. We'll see this next week. He decides when my father dies, I'm going to kill my brother, unrepentant, spiritually blind to the purposes of God.

[44:28] Now when we consider this account, and we consider Isaac and Rebekah and Jacob and Esau, none of them is commendable. There's not one of them that we can point to and say, this one, follow that one.

[44:45] This one is commendable. They're all spiritually blind in one way or another. They're all flawed. They're all like the rest of Adam's race.

[44:58] Flawed and sinful like you and like me. all of our lives, to one degree or another, give evidence of spiritual blindness.

[45:13] All of us. When we consider this account, we come face to face again in the book of Genesis of why Jesus Christ needed to come.

[45:28] Christ needed to come to do for us what we could never do for ourselves. He needed to come so that we could have a perfect life that we could never live credited to us.

[45:41] That he would fulfill the law perfectly before God. And his perfect righteousness would be credited to people like us.

[45:53] He came to be a substitute for the sin of sinners to pay the price that we could never pay because the wages of sin is death. And he died the death that we all deserve to die.

[46:07] And in Christ, we see the opposite of Isaac. Christ came to do his father's will, not his own will. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus agonized over the father's will, agonized over drinking the cup of the wrath of God, so much so that he sweated tears of blood.

[46:31] But he said, not my will, but yours be done. In Christ, we see the opposite of Rebecca. Rebecca called down a curse on herself because she didn't think it would ever be realized.

[46:49] But Christ is our substitute, the one who took our place on the cross for our rebellion and our sin against God.

[47:00] He knowingly said, let their curse fall on me. He knowingly became the curse for us as he hung on Calvary's cross.

[47:14] And in Christ, we see the opposite of Jacob. Jacob secretly and deceptively put on garments that were not his own to avoid a curse, and to steal a blessing.

[47:29] Christ openly and humbly took on the garments of human flesh and human personality, which were not his own because he was God a very God.

[47:42] And he came to this world, he came to this earth to be a curse, not to avoid a curse, to be a curse and to give a blessing, the blessing of his perfect righteousness so that we, sinners like you and me, can be accepted before a holy God.

[48:03] And in Christ, we see the opposite of Esau. Esau was an unworthy and unfaithful son for whom a substitute was needed to continue God's plan of redemption, which he promised to Abraham.

[48:20] that Christ was the worthy and faithful son for whom no substitute is required. He is the true and faithful son of Abraham through whom God's plan of redemption and his blessing to the nations would come.

[48:43] And so this morning, brothers and sisters, rather than be preoccupied with Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob and Esau, let's be preoccupied with the one who's opposite to them.

[48:57] Let's be preoccupied with the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's fix our eyes on him. Perhaps this morning as we considered these four flawed characters, maybe there were nerves touched in your own heart.

[49:12] Maybe you were brought face to face and convicted about your own spiritual blindness. And if you were, praise God for that, but don't leave this place there.

[49:27] Leave this place looking to the one, the only one, the Lord Jesus Christ, who succeeded everywhere we failed. Everywhere we failed, he succeeded.

[49:43] We want to fix our eyes on him and rejoice in him, but we have his perfect righteousness. Because of Christ's blessing and salvation, we no longer have to be spiritually blind.

[50:02] And we can trust the purposes of God in our lives, no matter what things look like. We can trust God to bring to pass his purposes, no matter what it looks like. He's able to do that, and he doesn't need our help.

[50:14] We simply need to trust him. And he's able to bring his purposes to pass even when sin abounds, even when our sin abounds, because he is faithful, even when we are not.

[50:31] And brothers and sisters, that is good news. That is good news this morning. Amen. Let's pray. Oh, Father, thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who came and lived and died, lived the perfect life we could not live, died the death we all deserve to die, so that we can have his life, we can have his righteousness.