The Cost of Living by Feelings Instead of Faith

[0:00] This language stuff, because from a guy who took remedial English, but the word decide, right?! The last C-I-D-E, side, that means killing off. Think about suicide, killing yourself. Pesticide, killing plants, little bugs.

[0:17] Side is killing off something. So if you make a choice, you're choosing one thing and all the other options are dead to you. Now, when I married my wife, I loved her and I hated all the other women. Now, I don't hate them as people, but I chose her.

[0:32] God chose Jacob, and that means all the other choices were dead to him. That's all that means. So Esau was not hated as a person. God loves him. I even think about Cain.

[0:43] You know, God gave opportunity to Cain to repent of the sin that he did, and what happened? Cain chose not to. So choices. So Isaac, he disobeyed God's command. He wants to give that blessing to Esau, and he knows it's not right.

[0:58] Isaac is living by his feelings here. We see it's apparent that maybe he's blind or very, he can't see very well, and so he's rejecting faith, and he's living by his own senses. We see here in verse 4, 9, and 25, he's living by taste.

[1:14] He's got a taste of this venison that he thinks he's having, which maybe his taste was gone too. I've never had, you know, baby goat, but that's what this meal was that they prepared for him, and he thought it was venison.

[1:29] He thought it was from his best-cooked son, Esau. So touch, you know, he felt his son's hands. The Bible says that Esau was hairy, a lot of hair, and the Bible says that Jacob is a smooth man.

[1:47] So he had to put this hair on him, so, you know, Isaac feels out, and he's like, oh, yep, that feels hairy. It says, hearing, he asks, you know, in verse 22, he went near, and it said, the voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. So he was living by his senses.

[2:04] Smell, he even, Isaac even smells the clothes, and Jacob says, see, I smell just like Esau. I'm Esau. Living by his senses, living by his feelings. That's a dangerous place to be when we live like that.

[2:18] This world tells us, just follow your heart. The Bible tells us the heart is wicked, desperately wicked, the Bible says. It's deceitful. Who can know it? So we have Isaac. He's supposed to be the leader of his family, and he's more concerned about the skill of his oldest son, who's a hunter. He lives by what he catches.

[2:41] You know, there's times I wish I could just leave this world behind, go up and live in the mountains, and just live off of what it has. I'll probably last like two days and die, but at least I'd be free.

[2:52] You know, no bills, no electricity, nothing. And that's how Esau lived. Everything that he got, it was worked by the strength of his back, by the sweat of his brow. He was out there working.

[3:04] We see even here at the end of this chapter, everything that he was going to get blessed with, it was stuff that he was going to have to work hard for, fight for, overcome for, until he broke that bondage with Jacob. We have Rebecca. She shows deception. You know, just again, faith is living not by scheming. Faith is obeying God, no matter how we feel. You know, both Isaac and Rebecca knew that this blessing was supposed to go to Jacob and not Esau. And here she is. I think it's a selfish thing. I think it's a selfish thing. I think it's a selfish thing. I think it's a selfish thing.

[3:51] It's not in God's design for women to have those roles. I don't want to get real political here, but a lot of what we see nowadays by voting is because there's not men who are taking a stand.

[4:03] And it's been left to women to try to take that place. And it's always going to fail. That's just not God's design. And here she is now. She's left to her own devices to try and make things right for herself and for her son. The obedience of faith was the secret of Abraham's life, but the absence of obedient faith brought trouble to the home of Isaac and Rebecca. She resorts, in verse 5, we see the eavesdropping. You know, she hears Isaac speaking to Esau. He says, Esau, go out, kill some venison for me and bring it to me. She hears this and immediately a plan goes into action. So she's thinking, I got to get Jacob to get that blessing. You know, she was getting kind of adept, I think, at knowing what's going on around the property. We know that they're very well off. So she probably has a little network of servant spies that if they hear things, they let her know. That's how in verse 42, it says that it got to her that Esau said he was going to kill Jacob. Someone went back to her and told her, hey, this is what's going on. So eavesdropping. Verses 6 through 10, we see scheming. Isaac, he's depending on his physical senses, but Rebecca, she's depending on the wisdom of the world. And the wisdom of the world always leads to trouble. She's trying to make this all so that Jacob can be blessed. It's sad that a husband and wife like them, who had once dedicated to the Lord each other, have excommunicated each other. They no longer discuss these things like the Lord would want them to. You know, I think about there was a time where Isaac was praying for a wife. Abraham sent the servant to go get her.

[5:51] And the Bible says that she comes to Isaac. And, you know, if you wanted to say love at first sight, they see each other and they just run towards each other. And they get married. And immediately, it was like, boom, off to a good start. But again, a good start doesn't always give us a good ending.

[6:11] See here, we have the decline, the deception going on here. Let's look at Jacob. He's cooperating in this scheme. The Bible says that Jacob was a plain man, okay? And then Esau was kind of a man of the field. Now, I heard it just one time where they said plain man was Hebrew for mama's boy. And that's funny to kick around. But the reality was where Esau was an outdoorsy type, Jacob was more domesticated. He was inside. His heart was more towards the things of God. You could say he was more studied. He was more churched, if you will, okay? And his mind was not so much on the things of this world, but other things. He's cooperating in the scheme. And Jacob, he's only obeying his mother. And he could have refused, suggested that they just face the situation with honesty. Hey, maybe let's go talk to dad. But they didn't choose that confrontation. What does Jacob do?

[7:17] He puts on the clothes. You know, sometimes I wonder how long did this whole ordeal take to make this disguise, you know, to cook a decent meal. Take this all, you know, we see here Jacob starting to be true to his name. He lies. Yeah, I think this is kind of the beginning of his maybe little, you know, he got his name as a deceiver. And maybe this is where he's really starting to hone his skills. Verses 18 and 19 of chapter 27. It says, And he came unto his father and said, My father, and he said, Here am I. Who art thou, my son? And Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau, thy firstborn. So he's lying here. He lied about the food.

[8:12] There in verse 19 it says, I've done according as thou badest me. Arise, I pray thee, sit and eat of my venison that thy soul may bless me. And Isaac said unto his son, How is it that thou hast found it so quickly, my son? And he said, Because the Lord thy God brought it to me. So he's lying about the food.

[8:33] Now he's lying that the Lord brought it so quickly. I think that's a dangerous place to be. He claimed that he was just obeying his father's wishes. He called the goat meat venison. That's lie number three. Lie number four. He gave credit to the Lord for helping him find it so fast.

[8:54] You know, all these lies, they're causing troubles. All this getting ahead of God. You know, we see that even today. What happened with Abraham? He was told, Sarah's going to have a son. And Abraham decided, yep, it's not in our timing. I'm going to go ahead and make it happen. And Ishmael comes along.

[9:16] We are literally still seeing the effects today over in the Middle East because of Ishmael and Isaac.

[9:27] I mean, the Bible says, Whatever a man sows, that will he's going to reap. We're still seeing that today. And I think that's an important, I guess, analogy is, you know, you only sow a seed and then it brings forth this multiple, you know. So if you're out there planting, you know, what they call your wild oats, you're going to receive that much more. We see all this lying that he has.

[9:54] We see Esau in despair. That's important to know that Esau, his thing, he's not concerned about the blessing, that birthright, because it's from God. There's almost a superstitious or magical, the way he's thinking about this. Like it's going to give him, you know, he's thinking about the material things that he can have with this. You know, Jacob had a close call. The Bible says, let's see here, I believe in verse 30, And it came to pass, as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out from the presence of Isaac, his father, that Esau, his brother, came in from his hunting. So I don't know how scarce a time that was. Maybe Jacob was coming out the back of the tent while Esau was going in. But it said, Not that much time had passed.

[10:50] I kind of wondered to myself, if Jacob and Esau had ran into each other. You know, Esau, you know, don't know how the hunt went. Maybe it was a tough one. And he's sweaty, and he's, you know, trying to get this stuff for his dad. And he bumps into Jacob wearing this get up, looking like him.

[11:07] I know as an older brother, I'd be like, why are you touching my stuff? That's what I'd be like, hey, we told you you could do that, you know. But what Jacob would have lied again. You know, it's interesting what's going on here. We see in verse 30, 33 through 33, that once this is revealed, because Isaac asks, who are you? And Esau says, it's me, dad. And Isaac is like, well, then who was just in here? Someone just fed me. I literally just ate it all, and I blessed them. Who was this?

[11:40] And it says that, you know, Esau, he's angry. Isaac is trembling. I think that reality set in for Isaac. God is going to have his way regardless, and it happened. We talked about Jonah in the beginning, the first service. You know, God's going to bring it to pass. I think about Joseph. You know, he had blessings in his life, and God had an important task for Joseph, and it didn't matter that his brothers sold him into slavery. It didn't matter that he got sold into slavery again. It didn't matter he was thrown in prison. Whatever God is going to have for you, it's going to happen regardless. And I think that reality hit Isaac. He's shaken. He's trembling. But then we see Esau in verse 34, and when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry. These are kind of crocodile tears, because he's not mad because he's lost this blessing. He only wanted it for the material things. In Hebrews chapter 12, I think this is kind of God's commentary on Esau's tears. Hebrews chapter 12, and we'll start reading in verse 16.

[12:59] It says, Lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright, for ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.

[13:19] He didn't want to repent. That's the thing. There was no repentance. There was no genuineness to these tears. He was angry. You know, again, we talked about blame shifting earlier. It wasn't Esau's fault. It was Jacob's fault. It was his crafty brother. It was his mom who didn't love him as much as she should. It was their fault. He's angry. We see Isaac's blessing upon Esau.

[13:47] Verse 39, Isaac does have a little bit of blessing for Esau. It says, And Isaac his father answered and said unto him, Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth and of the dew of heaven from above. So basically, you're going to get what you put into the ground. You're going to get that. You're going to have to work. Verse 40, and by the sword shalt thou live and shalt serve thy brother. And it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck. So he said, you're going to work hard and you're going to have to fight and struggle for everything that you get. But there will be a day where you won't be subject to your brother. Isaac's blessing upon Esau put him away from the blessings of land and sky that had been given to Jacob. Instead of ruling, Esau was going to live by the sword. If you read through the rest of Genesis, you see that the Edomites who are descended from Esau or Edom, they built their nation on Mount Seir at the southern end of the Dead Sea.

[14:55] They were constant enemies of the Jews. During David's reign, the Edomites were subject to Israel. But when Joram was king of Judah, the Edomites rebelled and they won their freedom. So again, even what was back then, it came to fruition. God always will make a way for what the things that he has. We see Isaac, Rebecca, and Jacob here now as they depart. And I think about there's a lot going on in this chapter. And Rebecca, she favored Jacob. She loved him. She wanted to make sure that he had that blessing. But as we find through scripture, as we see here, whatever man sows, he's also going to reap. She loved him so much she wanted this. But this is the last time that she ever gets to see her son. You know, I believe that was the price that she had to pay for going against what the Lord had. Finally, the believing family members got together and made some wise decisions.

[15:58] Okay, at the end here of chapter 27, she's telling Jacob, you better run. Esau's mad. He's going to kill you. You run, you go to my brother's house, and you just stay there. And when it's safe, when Esau has forgotten everything, I'm going to send for you. Well, if we pick up in verse 1 of chapter 28, it says, And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. So there's a little bit of time here that they've, on speaking terms, verse 2, Arise, go to Paddanaram, to the house of Bethuel, thy mother's father, and take thee away from thence of the daughters of Laban, thy mother's brother. And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people. And give thee the blessing of Abraham to thee, and to thy seed with thee, that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham. And Isaac sent away Jacob, and he went to Paddanaram, unto Laban, son of Bethuel, the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob, and Esau's mother. When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him to Paddanaram, to take him away from thence, and that he was blessed, that he had had him blessed him, and gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan, and that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to

[17:30] Bindamaram. And Esau, seeing that the daughters of Canaan, pleased not Isaac, his father, then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives, which he had, Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife. If you ask me, Esau's not over it yet. So now that Jacob had the covenant blessing, it was important that he marry the right woman, and not go and marry one of the pagans, but he was sent away. Isaac spoke kindly to Jacob, and gave him an extra blessing. This time, it was the blessing of Abraham. It was important that the fulfillment of God's promise to bless the earth through Jacob's descendants. I think sometimes in our lives, we can be, even in the midst, I guess, sometimes, of when we're not in the Lord's will, we're not doing the right things, sometimes there's moments, I guess, of clarity. And Isaac had these moments with Jacob.

[18:31] All around, their family unit is crumbling, and it's no different than today. You know, one thing we see through scripture is that man's nature never improves, and we still have the same old enemies, and the family unit is still under attack today. We see dads who put their will before God's will, and it leaves the family in shambles. We see mothers, because of the dad's unwillingness to lead. They're put in that place of leadership, and, you know, it doesn't take much to watch the news. You see a lot of these, especially celebrity moms parade around their confused little children who think that they're opposite gender. It's sickening. And this is what happens when people aren't following the Lord's will. We have families that are at each other's throats. These brothers are trying to kill, you know, the one brother is trying to kill the other.

[19:39] We see all this. It's not what God has for us, and it's because all this family is so out of whack. But God still has a purpose, and obviously, that purpose is ultimately so Jesus Christ can be born and enter into this world through this line. And I think it's important that we may make mistakes in our life. You know, I think if people had written our lives in Scripture, you know, what would it say about us? That's one thing I like about Scripture. It doesn't gloss up anything. It just shows us who these people were, and I think what's important is you can sin, but go back to the Lord. He can forgive you, and you're still usable. Just like, I think it's so humbling, too, to know sometimes, like I said, we look at people in the Bible, and we think, oh, I could never live up to Paul. I could never live up to Peter. They were just people like us. They had the same temptations. They had the same opportunities to choose things, and it's up to us. Are we going to choose the flesh, choose the world, our own desires, or are we going to choose what God has for us? And those are choices that we have every day.

[20:51] Thank you.