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[0:00] Genesis 36, 1-43. These are the generations of Esau, that is Edom.

[0:11] ! Esau took his wives from the Canaanites,! Adah, the daughter of Elon the Hittite, Oholibama, the daughter of Anna, the daughter of Zibion, the Hivite, and Basimath, Ishmael's daughter, the sister of Nebaioth.

[0:29] And Adah bore to Esau, Elipaz, Basimath, bore Ruel, and Oholibama bore Jeosh, Jalem, and Korah.

[0:40] These are the sons of Esau who were born to him in the land of Canaan. Then Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, and all the members of his household, his livestock, all his beasts, and all his property that he had acquired in the land of Canaan.

[0:58] He went into a land away from his brother Jacob, for their possessions were too great for them to dwell together. The land of their sojournings could not support them because of their livestock.

[1:09] So Esau settled in the hill country of Seir. Esau is Edom. These are the generations of Esau, the father of the Edomites in the hill country of Seir.

[1:20] These are the names of Esau's sons. Elipaz, the son of Adah, the wife of Esau. Ruel, the son of Basimath, the wife of Esau.

[1:32] The sons of Elipaz were Taman, Omar, Zepho, Gatham, and Canaz. Timnah was a concubine of Elipaz. Esau's son, she bore Amalek to Elipaz.

[1:48] These are the sons of Adah, Esau's wife. These are the sons of Ruel. Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizah. These are the sons of Basimath, Esau's wife.

[2:01] These are the sons of Oholibamah, the daughter of Anna, the daughter of Zibion, Esau's wife. She bore to Esau, Jeosh, Jalam, and Korah.

[2:13] These are the chiefs of the sons of Esau, the sons of Elipaz, the firstborn of Esau, the chiefs Taman, Omar, Zepho, Canaz, Korah, Gatham, and Amalek.

[2:28] These are the chiefs of Elipaz in the land of Edom. These are the sons of Adah. These are the sons of Ruel, Esau's son, the chiefs of Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizah.

[2:42] These are the chiefs of Ruel in the land of Edom. These are the sons of Basimath, Esau's wife. These are the sons of Oholibamah, Esau's wife, the chiefs, Jeosh, Jalam, and Korah.

[2:57] These are the chiefs born of Oholibamah, the daughter of Anna, Esau's wife. These are the sons of Esau, that is, Edom. And these are their chiefs. These are the sons of Seir, the Horite, the inhabitants of the land, Lotan, Shobal, Zibion, Anna.

[3:17] Deshaun, Ezra, Deshaun. These are the chiefs of the Horites, the sons of Seir in the land of Edom. The sons of Lotan were Ori and Himam.

[3:28] And Lotan's sister was Timnah. These are the sons of Shobal, Alvan, Manahaf, Ebal, Shepo, and Onam. These are the sons of Zibion, Aya and Anna.

[3:44] He is the Anna who found the hot springs in the wilderness as he pastured the donkeys of Zibion, his father. These are the children of Anna, Deshaun and Oholibamah, the daughter of Anna.

[3:56] These are the sons of Deshaun, Hemdan, Ishpan, Ithran, and Shiran. These are the sons of Ezra, Bilhan, Zavan, and Akan.

[4:09] These are the sons of Deshaun, Uz and Aran. These are the chiefs of the Horites, the chiefs, Lotan, Shobal, Zibion, Anna. Deshaun, Ezra, and Deshaun.

[4:22] These are the chiefs of the Horites, chief by chief, in the land of Seir. These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom, before any king reigned over the Israelites.

[4:33] Bela, the son of Beor, reigned in Edom, the name of his city being Dehanabah. Bela died, and Jobab, the sons of Zerah, of Bozrah, reigned in his place.

[4:45] Jobab died, and Husham, of the land of the Temanites, reigned in his place. Husham died, and Hadad, the son of Bedad, who defeated Midian, in the country of Moab, reigned in his place, the name of his city being Aveth.

[5:01] Hadad died, and Samla, of Masraka, reigned in his place. Samla died, and Shaul, of Rehoboth, on the Euphrates, reigned in his place.

[5:12] Shaul died, and Baal Hanan, the son of Agbor, reigned in his place. Baal Hanan, the son of Agbor, died, and Hadar reigned in his place, the name of his city being Paul.

[5:25] His wife's name was Mehetabel, the daughter of Matred, daughter of Mesahab. These are the names of the chiefs of Esau. According to their clans, and their dwelling places, by their names, the chiefs, Timnah, Alvar, Jedeth, Oholibama, Elah, Pinon, Kenaz, Timan, Mibzar, and Magdiel, and Aram.

[5:49] These are the chiefs of Edom, that is, Esau, the father of Edom, according to their dwelling places, in the land of their possession. Here ends our reading for today.

[6:00] Thank you very much, David. Well, this morning we are continuing our sermon series in the book of Genesis, and last Sunday we left off at Genesis 35.

[6:16] The end of Genesis 35, we saw that Esau and Jacob were together as they were burying their father, Isaac. But Esau and Jacob had very different futures.

[6:30] They were together, but yet they were very much apart. And I think this account that we have come to this morning makes that very clear.

[6:44] It begins in verse 1 with the words, these are the generations of Esau, that is, Edom. There are 10 such divisions.

[6:55] You may remember this as we were working our way through Genesis. Each time we came to these words, these are the generations. I tried to point out that it marked a division, a new section in the book of Genesis.

[7:10] There are 10 of them. And this one that we've come to in Genesis 36 is the 9th. We'll come to another new section in chapter 37, in verse 2, where it says, these are the generations of Jacob.

[7:25] And so we're nearing to the end of our study in the book of Genesis. And one of the things that I want to point out to you this morning is that very similar to when Abraham died, we see Moses taking a very similar approach that he takes now at the death of Isaac.

[7:55] I think we could ask ourselves the question, why is it necessary to put all these names in and to give us this genealogy of Esau and his descendants?

[8:12] Could we just pass it over and just move on to the more substantive story that we will come to in Genesis 37?

[8:22] But what Moses is doing is, Moses is writing history. He's recording for the children of Israel their history to understand not just the world, but also themselves and to understand this land that God was going to take them into the land of Canaan.

[8:45] And so you'll recall, hopefully, in Genesis 25, at the death of Abraham, Moses goes on to record the genealogies of his two sons, starting with Ishmael.

[9:03] And then he goes on to Isaac. And the pattern is that he gives the genealogy of the son through whom the covenant did not continue.

[9:16] So he gives us the genealogy, back in chapter 25, of Ishmael, through whom the covenant did not continue. And now, here in chapter 36, he's doing the same thing.

[9:29] He is giving us the genealogy of the death of Isaac, of Esau, through whom the covenant did not continue before he goes on to talk about the generation of Jacob, through whom the covenant did continue.

[9:48] And so this morning, as we consider what seems to be perhaps just random details about the descendants of Esau, I pray the Lord will speak to us from it.

[10:06] And what I want to do is I want to share three observations from this account of this genealogy and what we can actually learn from it. And I want to say to us this morning, brothers and sisters, this is God's word.

[10:20] This is as much holy and inspired as the other parts that tell us a story, some kind of a narrative. This genealogy as well is telling us God's story.

[10:35] And I need God's help to help us to see that we all need God's help to help us to hear this. So let's bow in prayer. Father, we come to you this morning and we ask for your help.

[10:52] We ask, Lord, that you would, in this moment, help all of us to have our hearts postured to hear what you would say to us. Lord, would you grant illumination to all of us as we open your word this morning.

[11:08] Lord, this is your holy and inspired word. I pray you would speak to us through it. Lord, use it for our good.

[11:22] Build up this local church, we pray, for the glory of your great name. We pray all these things in Christ's name. Amen. So why did Moses include this genealogy of Esau?

[11:37] Why didn't he just leave it out? And I think we can answer these questions in multiple ways, but I want to share three important answers in our remaining time.

[11:52] The first reason that Moses, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, included this genealogy of Esau is to teach us history.

[12:04] It's to teach history. Esau and his descendants were part of Israel's history.

[12:18] And again, remember that the purpose of Genesis was to teach the nation of Israel how the world and the people of the world and how Israel as a people, as a nation, came to be.

[12:33] Israel's history could not properly be understood if these details about Esau and his family were left out. There would be a gap.

[12:44] There would be no details about Esau and his descendants. And after all, Esau and his descendants were the close relatives of Jacob and his descendants.

[13:00] So here in Genesis 36, Moses recounts Esau's history starting with the wives that he married in verses 2 and 3. Look at those verses again. We read, Esau took his wives from the Canaanites, Ada, the daughter of Elon, the Hittite, Aholibama, the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zibion, the Hivite, and Basimath, Ishmael's daughter, the son of Nabiah.

[13:30] Now I think we should hopefully see from the outset that this is not a positive statement. In the hearing of Moses' original audience, they would have understood that Moses was highlighting Esau's ungodly decision to marry the wives that he chose.

[13:56] Moses' original audience would have recalled the great lengths to which Abraham went to ensure that Isaac did not marry a Canaanite that's recorded in Genesis 24.

[14:08] They're hearing this story. They've heard this story about how their great-great-grandfather, Abraham, got his servant to swear that he would not take a wife from among the Canaanites.

[14:24] And the reason was not motivated by race. It was not spiritually, it was not racially, sorry, motivated. It was spiritually motivated.

[14:36] Abraham had come to worship the true and the living God and God had called him out of the land that he was in into the land of Canaan. God promised to give him that land and an obvious requirement was that he was not to intermarry and intermingle with the people of the land.

[14:56] But Esau showed himself to be ungodly by rejecting the spiritual value, by choosing a wife from among the people of the land of Canaan rather than choosing a wife from among his own people.

[15:17] The original audience would have remembered how Moses recounted the pain that Esau's decision brought to his mother Rebekah and to his father Isaac.

[15:31] It pained them greatly that he took wives from among the Canaanites. But again, this demonstrated the ungodliness of Esau by defying his parents and marrying Canaanite women.

[15:46] From this account here in Genesis 36, Israel would have understood how Esau's descendants came to be called Edom, a national name, in the same way they became known as Israel, which was a national name.

[16:03] So here you have these two brothers' children, Esau, his descendants become known as the Edomites, and Jacob, his descendants become known as the Israelites.

[16:16] So this is the history that they are being given, that Moses writes for them. So they were first cousins. They were two brothers' descendants.

[16:27] They were two brothers' children. This account also tells us how Esau came to live in Seir, in the hill country. Both Isaac and, sorry, both Esau and Jacob started out in Canaan.

[16:44] But we read in verse 8 that Esau moved to Seir with his whole family. And when you look at, look at the language that is used to describe his move.

[16:56] Look at verse 6, sorry, look at verse 6. It says, then Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, and all the members of his household, his livestock, his beasts, and all his property that he acquired in the land of Canaan.

[17:16] He went into a land away from his brother Jacob. And so the language is this was a comprehensive move. He did not leave a thing belonging to himself in the land of Canaan.

[17:30] He made a decisive break away from the land of Canaan. No doubt he was motivated by what his eyes saw, economic interest perhaps.

[17:46] But the bottom line is that Esau's move away from Canaan also signaled his move away from the covenant God who made a covenant with Abraham and Isaac.

[17:59] And this was yet another indication of Esau's ungodliness. by moving out of Canaan, Esau was showing himself to continue to be an ungodly man.

[18:14] Now once again, it's important to remember that Moses is on a journey with the children of Israel. They have been released out of slavery. God had freed them out of slavery.

[18:26] They are on their way to the promised land and Moses writes these five books for them to give them this history of the world, give them this history of themselves as well. So Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, Moses wrote for this purpose, to fill in the gaps for them.

[18:44] They had been slaves for over 400 years and that's all they knew in Egypt. And much of this history, they had lost it. So Moses wants to give them a God-centered view of things, of the world, how it came into being, and also of themselves as a nation.

[19:05] So how were the Israelites to view and treat the Edomites? The Lord gave instructions to Moses in Deuteronomy 2, 1-5, as they're leaving Egypt, as they're in the wilderness going on to the promised land, the Lord gave Moses some instructions.

[19:28] Deuteronomy chapter 2, verses 1-5. You don't need to turn, that should be projected. This is what the Lord said to Moses, this is what Moses records. Then we turned and journeyed into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea, as the Lord told me, and for many days we traveled around Mount Seir.

[19:50] Then the Lord said to me, you've been traveling around this mountain country long enough, turn northward, and command the people, you are about to pass through the territory of your brothers, the people of Esau, who live in Seir.

[20:07] And they will be afraid of you, so be very careful. Do not contend with them, for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as for the sole of the foot to tread on.

[20:23] Here's why. So the Israelites were to recognize the descendants of Esau, the Edomites, as their brothers, and they were to accept that the land that they occupied was given to them by God.

[20:45] That was not the land they were to go in to conquer and to take possession of. And what we see is though they were related, they were also separated, they were separate people.

[20:57] The Israelites and the Edomites were separate people. It's worthy to note in verse 12 that Amalek descended from Esau's firstborn son, Eliphaz.

[21:16] Amalek was the father of the Amalekites who were an arch enemy of Israel. We are told in Exodus 17 and when Israel, they were on their way to the promised land, the Amalekites came out and attacked them for no reason, unprovoked, came and attacked them.

[21:35] And from this history that we have recorded here, the Israelites would have understood that the Amalekites were descendants of Esau through his son Eliphaz and his concubine Timnah.

[21:48] and I think what we should see right away is that this is not fairy tale that we're reading. This is real people. This account helps us to see that this is authenticated history, not fable, not fiction.

[22:06] These are real people and God inspired Moses to know and to write this particular history. These historical records can be relied upon and they add credibility not just to Genesis but to the Bible as a whole.

[22:25] So these are historical records and this account teaches us history, the history of Esau and his descendants, the Edomites.

[22:36] But second, this account of Esau and his descendants also confirms prophecy. And that's my second point. Esau's genealogy here in Genesis 36 confirms that the prophecies spoken over him and his brother Jacob were not empty words, but they came to pass.

[23:03] Although Esau was the older brother, the covenant blessings to Abraham and Isaac, they continued through Jacob. Esau instead of through Esau, though he was the older brother.

[23:19] And this prophecy was first uttered by God himself to Rebekah back in Genesis 25. Again, the original audience, they have all this context, they have all this history. This thing has been spoken, but really up to this point, we don't really see the, we don't begin to see the fulfillment of it yet.

[23:37] So this prophecy that the Lord spoke to Rebekah was that the older brother and the nation he represented was going to serve the younger brother and the nation he represented.

[23:51] The prophecy was that the older brother would be weaker and the younger brother would be stronger. This prophecy was again confirmed in Genesis 27 when Jacob deceived Isaac and stole Esau's blessing.

[24:08] In blessing Jacob, Esau said to him, 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.

[24:22] Now what's interesting about these words is that Jacob only had one brother. Yet Isaac refers to brothers and refers to sons, the sons of your mothers, but Isaac and Rebekah only had two sons.

[24:38] And so what is clear is that Esau represented his descendants over whom Jacob and his sons would rule and would reign.

[24:50] And so the prophecy was that Jacob and his descendants, the Israelites, would rule over Esau and his descendants, the Edomites. and we see one aspect of the fulfillment of this prophecy in Esau's decision to leave the land of Canaan and to settle outside of it.

[25:13] In doing so, Esau was showing that Jacob was in the superior position, that Jacob was the one who had the promise of the land and that the land belonged to him.

[25:23] when we read this account, what we see is we see this development though of Esau and his descendants, of Edom, of the Edomites.

[25:35] We see them developing from being clans and tribes and they actually develop into a nation. It's quite interesting to read and see how they were growing in civilization.

[25:49] We have this reference to Anah who founded the hot springs in the wilderness. He was pastoring donkeys. We see in verses 31 to 39 that they developed to a point where they were no longer able to just be clans but they had a structure of kings and these kings were leading in succession long before Israel had any king.

[26:18] If you were to look at the early history, of Edom, and compare it to the early history of Israel, it would appear that this prophecy over Jacob that was given first by God and then also by his father Isaac, that it had failed.

[26:40] It would appear the prophecy had failed. Because Edom in its early days looked nothing like a nation over which Israel was ruling.

[26:52] Edom had a head start over Israel as a nation. Israel was enslaved in Egypt for 400 years. And Edom existed.

[27:03] And Edom was going along. Edom was developing. Edom was prospering while the nation of Israel was in Egypt in slavery.

[27:15] when Israel came out of Egypt and they were wandering around in the promised land, wandering around in the desert on their way to the promised land. Edom was an established nation and as we see, they had a succession of kings ruling over it.

[27:33] in Numbers 20 verses 14 to 21, we have some insight into how much further ahead Edom was as a nation than Israel when the Lord set them free out of Egyptian captivity.

[27:54] Listen to what it says in Numbers 20 verses 14 to 21. Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom. Thus says your brother Israel, you know all the hardship that we have met, how our fathers went down into Egypt and how we lived in Egypt a long time and the Egyptians dealt harshly with us and our fathers and we cried to the Lord.

[28:25] He heard our voice and sent an angel and brought us up out of Egypt and here we are in Kadesh a city on the edge of your territory. Please let us pass through your land.

[28:38] We will not pass through field or vineyard or drink water from a well. We will only go along the king's highway. We will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed through your territory.

[28:54] But Edom said to him, you shall not pass through lest I come out with the sword against you. And the people of Israel said to him, we will go up by the highway and if we drink your water I and my livestock then I will pay for it.

[29:14] Let me only pass through on foot, nothing more. But he said, you shall not pass through and Edom came out against him with a large army and with a strong force thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through its territory so Israel turned away from him.

[29:36] Edom therefore became an enemy of Israel. But we should remember that this is not just a matter of a wicked heartless ruthless king.

[29:52] This was the outworking of prophecy from the lips of the God who cannot lie. He was working in the midst of human situations and human circumstances.

[30:13] Now was king of the king of Edom, was he personally responsible for his wicked actions? Yes, he was. He knew the plight of Israel, Moses said, he said, you know, you know the hardship we went through.

[30:29] Please serve us in this way. And he wickedly and ruthlessly said no. He was responsible for his actions. But in the midst of it, God was fulfilling his prophetic purposes.

[30:41] And this is a great example of human responsibility what the king of Edom did, who was making his own wicked decisions, and divine sovereignty, what the sovereign Lord was doing, bringing his purposes to pass.

[31:02] Now, it was much later, some 400 years later, after this particular account, that we see the fullness of this prophecy where Samuel, in 1 Samuel chapter 14 verses 47 to 48, where Saul, the first king of Israel, defeats the Edomites and subjects them to forced labor under his rule.

[31:32] This is what it says in 1 Samuel 14 47 to 48. When Samuel had taken the kingship over Israel, he fought against all his enemies on every side, against Moab, against the Ammonites, against Edom, against the kings of Zobah, and against the Philistines.

[31:55] Wherever he turned, he routed them, and he did valiantly, and struck the Amalekites, and delivered Israel out of the hands of those who plundered them.

[32:09] So approximately 200 years later, during the reign of Jehoram, this is in 2 Kings chapter 8 verses 20 to 22, Edom rebelled against the Israelites.

[32:25] So for some 200 years, they were subjected to the rule of Israel and the king of Israel. Israel, and during the reign of Jehoram, they rebelled, and they set up their own king once again.

[32:44] And Edom continued to be a thorn in the side of Israel for many years. As a matter of fact, when the Babylonians invaded Judah and took them into captivity, the Edomites continued to raid them mercilessly and to mock and discorn them.

[33:07] And then we read in Ezekiel 25, 12 through 14, God gives this prophecy concerning the Edomites. He promised to destroy every one of them and everything in Edom and to make Edom a desolate wasteland.

[33:23] And so we see this prophecy that was given very early on, taking centuries to actually be fulfilled.

[33:34] But it was fulfilled. The Israelites ruled over the Edomites. But the ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy, that Israel would rule over Edom was fulfilled in Israel's greater son, Jacob's greatest son.

[34:02] His greatest son is the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who is king of kings and the one who is the ruler of the nations. So this prophecy of the oldest son, Esau, and his descendants, serving the youngest son, Jacob, and his descendants, took centuries to be fulfilled.

[34:23] But brothers and sisters, it was fulfilled. Interestingly, this prophecy was not fulfilled in the lifetime of many who heard it.

[34:37] It was not fulfilled in Isaac's lifetime, though he gave it. It wasn't fulfilled in Rebecca's lifetime. It wasn't fulfilled for centuries. They had all died.

[34:49] Many of their descendants had died, but it was fulfilled through Saul when he subjected the Edomites to Israel.

[35:01] And as they observed this powerful nation that was well ahead of them, developed as they were just slaves coming out of Egypt, who would have thought that what God spoke could possibly be fulfilled?

[35:17] fulfilled, but it was fulfilled. It was fulfilled not because of Israel's own strength. It was fulfilled because of the God who spoke it, bringing it to pass.

[35:30] And brothers and sisters, may this serve to remind us that all of God's prophecies, whatever they may look like, whatever the circumstances might be presently, they will all without exception be fulfilled.

[35:49] And one prophecy that I believe that we especially need to remember and we need to hold in front of us is the prophecy that one day our Lord is going to return.

[36:04] And when we look around and we see the world going on as it is, it is almost like I imagine what Israel would have seen when they looked at Edom. this entrenched nation, civilized beyond anything they could have imagined.

[36:21] And yet these prophecies that one day you're going to rule over this nation. I think when we look around the world today, it's almost like we can buy into that lie.

[36:32] Where is the promise of his coming? Is he really coming back? Brothers and sisters, God keeps all of his promises and that prophecy that one day Christ will return and he will judge the world, he will punish the wicked, he will reward the righteous, and he will usher in a new heaven and a new earth, God is going to fulfill his word.

[36:56] Let us not be moved by what we see, brothers and sisters. Let us be moved solely by a God who cannot lie and the word that he has uttered, that his son will come again and he will receive his people to himself.

[37:18] So this genealogy of Esau teaches us history, it confirms prophecy, and third, finally, and briefly, this genealogy of Esau and his descendants proclaims mercy.

[37:40] How does it proclaim mercy? It proclaims mercy in a surprising way, and that's the nature of mercy.

[37:52] Mercy is always surprising because mercy doesn't make sense. Mercy doesn't add up. Mercy is surprising because when received, it's never deserved.

[38:09] It's never earned, and therefore it's not expected. This genealogy, though it's about Esau and his descendants, proclaims God's mercy to Jacob and his descendants.

[38:29] Esau remained in the land of Canaan, according to Genesis 36, 1 to 5, and he had five sons who were born there to three different wives.

[38:48] When Jacob left and he went to Paddan Aram, Esau was in the land, Esau stayed, Esau worked the land, he had massive herds, had three wives, and he had five sons.

[39:03] They were all born in the land of Canaan. But what we see is that in this genealogy, on the one hand, Esau, who was born in the promised land, he himself was born there, and remained in the promised land, and his five sons who were born in the promised land, are leaving the promised land.

[39:34] On the other hand, we see Jacob, who was born in the promised land, but left it, ends up inheriting it with his sons who were not born in the promised land.

[39:49] They were born outside the promised land. But here we see them coming back to the promised land, and they are the ones who are inheriting it with their father who had been gone for some 20 years.

[40:05] If anyone was deserving of receiving the promised land, inheriting the promised land, having a right to the promised land, it was Esau and his sons. He stayed when Jacob left, and his sons were born there.

[40:19] We have this thing where we think that those who are born in a particular place have a greater right than those who come to belong to that place having not been born there.

[40:42] Imagine it was no different. Imagine the sons of Esau could have rightly said to the sons of Jacob, you all were not born here, you all don't belong here.

[41:00] But those who didn't deserve the land, Jacob who left, and his sons who were not born there, they're the ones who inherited the promised land.

[41:14] And the ones who seem to have a right to it, Esau born there, never left, his sons born there, grew up there, they didn't have a right to it.

[41:30] Why didn't they inherit it? They didn't inherit it because it was all a merciful gift by God to Jacob and his sons.

[41:42] They didn't deserve it, they didn't earn it, but they received it because of God's mercy. Israel was supposed to connect the dots to what happened to Esau and his sons and connect it to themselves and God and to be reminded that they were not inheriting the promised land because they were special.

[42:13] they were not inheriting the promised land because they had earned it. It was not a matter of right.

[42:24] It was a matter of mercy. mercy. And they were supposed to go into the land and live in the land humbly because this was God's gift to them versus not giving it to Esau and his descendants.

[42:47] And brothers and sisters, when we truly understand mercy, when we truly understand mercy, we live as debtors to mercy. when we are truly grateful for whatever we receive from the hand of God, we live as a debtor to his mercy.

[43:10] We live lives of gratitude to the one who has shown us mercy. But sadly, most of Jacob's descendants came into the land and they felt entitled.

[43:25] They were ungrateful. people. They did not live as debtors to mercy. They were proud and they felt they were better than the people around them. They forgot that those who had more entitlement to the land than they did, God moved them out and God gave it to those who had no obvious entitlement to the land, all because of his mercy.

[43:53] They believed they were better and in truth, they were not better. And they didn't live as debtors to mercy and what they did was they rebelled against God and the Lord expelled them from the land.

[44:06] And he sent them into captivity. And brothers and sisters, not only did Israel have to connect dots based on this account.

[44:20] They needed to connect dots to understand God's mercy. We need to do the same brothers and sisters. We need to connect dots to God's mercy in our lives.

[44:34] All that we are and all that we have is because of God's mercy. Our salvation and the many blessings that God has bestowed upon us are not a matter of right.

[44:47] They are a matter of mercy. And when we see the lost, when we see a person far away from God, if we're connecting dots, we'll be able to say, but for the grace of God, there go I.

[45:09] Those of us who know Christ this morning, those of us who are at peace with God, those of us who know that our sins have been forgiven, we don't stand where we stand because we're smarter or more righteous or more upright and morally good.

[45:27] We stand where we stand because God has been merciful to us. God has been kind to us. God has opened our eyes to enable us to see our sin, that we could repent and turn to him and be dead us to mercy.

[45:51] We need to be reminded of this day by day. And the more we are reminded, the more we will live, not as those who feel entitled, but those who are amazed that God has had mercy on us.

[46:07] if you hear this morning and you have not yet repented of your sins, you have not yet received forgiveness for your sins, hear the good news of the gospel this morning.

[46:24] Jesus Christ is a merciful Savior. He doesn't deal with us according to what our sins deserve. He gives us mercy instead of judgment and wrath.

[46:41] And so I say to you this morning, come to Jesus. Turn to Jesus. And you will know pardon for your sin.

[46:52] And you will know the mercy of God. And every day that you remember that it is only by the mercy of God that you are saved, it will cause you to live a life of gratitude and a life that seeks to please him.

[47:13] We sing a song, Hadib, the Father's love for us, and the last line of it says, why should I gain from his reward?

[47:24] I cannot give an answer, but this I know with all my heart, his death has paid my ransom. Brothers and sisters, God has been merciful to us.

[47:40] This is what he says in Romans chapter nine, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. We see it with Esau and Jacob.

[47:53] God surprisingly had mercy on Jacob and his descendants, not on Esau and his descendants.

[48:05] Brothers and sisters, let's connect the dots to our lives. Let us live by the grace of God as death is to mercy. Because that's the only reason that we have been translated from death to life, the mercy of a merciful God.

[48:28] Let's pray. Father, would you help us this morning to connect the dots between the people we are and the mercy that you've given to us.

[48:47] Help us to live as debtors to mercy. Amen. Help us to live as debtors to mercy alone.

[49:01] We'll fill our hearts with amazement that you have given us grace and mercy that are undeserved. We pray in Jesus' name.

[49:14]  Amen. Amen. Bum Bum Bum