GENESIS 21-272012 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Genesis 21-27

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2012.

These are the chapters that we read this week going through the Bible in three years. So Genesis chapters 21 through 27. And I want to encourage you if you have fallen behind or dropped out, it's not too late. Again, just forget about the chapters you missed. Just start today with the chapter that's assigned for today and keep on going with us through the Bible in three years and God will be working in your life.

If you never had a chance to start, it's not too late. There's reading schedules on the back table. And of course, there's a lot of resources online on the website. So you can check those out. And I encourage you, join with us. And we're going to be doing this for the next three years. So it's an incredible journey that God has set before us.

Genesis 21-27

This book was written by Moses during the time that the children of Israel were in the wilderness. After they left Egypt and they're wandering around in the wilderness, Moses was writing down these things and recording these things for us.

The book of Genesis covers about 2,000 years of history. The first 2,000 years from creation all the way through, as we'll continue to see in the coming weeks, through the life of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and then on through Joseph and the things that were happening there. So we're covering quite a bit of territory. And the main purpose of the book of Genesis is to record for us the beginning of the Hebrew nation.

So we're seeing the nation of Israel really be established and where all of that began. And we're watching that take shape as we read day by day together. Well, on our timeline, as we see here, we've covered quite a bit of territory already. This is the portion or the span of time that we've covered on Wednesday evenings looking at the Bible in three years. And you can see we've covered about 2,000 years already with Ephesians.

Adam and the creation, the forefathers up to Noah, then the flood and the Tower of Babel. And then we slowed down. We covered, you know, a couple thousand years pretty quickly. And then we slowed down when we hit Abraham. And now we're taking a closer look at Abraham, his son Isaac, and

his sons, Jacob and Esau, this week, and the things that God is doing in establishing the nation through that. And so we've seen quite a bit of things take place. As we started right at the beginning, we saw creation, we saw the beginning of man, the beginning of woman, the beginning of marriage, the beginning of sin and offerings and sacrifice. We saw the first murder, we saw the establishing of the Hebrew nation and the promises given to

To Abraham, we also already have been seeing the prophecies of the Messiah, the Savior that would come. Already so much has been happening as God is kind of laying the foundation for the rest of the scriptures that we'll be studying over the next three years.

Well, like I said, we've slowed down now and we're looking more closely at Abraham and his sons and the descendants that will immediately follow. We saw Abraham in Genesis chapter 12 with that important call of God and promise of God with the promise to bless Abraham, to make him a father of many nations, the promise that his seed would

would bless all of the earth. That is a promise of the Messiah that would come through his line, from his descendants. And also the land that was promised to Abraham we saw as well. And we'll be referring back to that very often in our study of Genesis and Exodus. And so that brings us now to Genesis chapter 21. In Genesis chapter 21, the key verse is verse 2. It says, "...for Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age."

At the set time of which God had spoken to him. We saw last week that God had promised Abraham and Sarah a son. He promised them that within the year they would have a son. And that is indeed what happens here in chapter 21. There in verses 1 through 7 we see that Isaac is born. He is the son that God had promised to them.

Also here in chapter 21, we also have the account of Hagar and Ishmael. Now, Hagar originally was Sarah's handmaiden. She was Sarah's servant. They knew that God had promised them children, but they had not yet had any children. Sarah was barren. And so in Genesis chapter 16, last week we saw that they attempted on their own to fulfill God's promise, to do God's work. And that is, well, let's just...

take Hagar as Abraham's wife and through them or through her then they will have kids to fulfill God's promise that he would be the father of many nations. And so Hagar and Abraham get together. Ishmael is born.

We saw that last week. But now Ishmael's quite a bit older. He's probably about 15 years old or so. And so he is sent away along with his mom, Hagar, because God instructs them to do so.

We also see here in Genesis chapter 21, Abraham's covenant with Abimelech. Abimelech was the king of the Philistines. And so there was some disputes and some contention between them in the past, but they make a covenant together, an agreement essentially to live alongside one another in peace.

Now the fact that Isaac is born here in Genesis chapter 21 is very significant because it is God fulfilling his promise, doing a great miracle in bringing forth Isaac through Sarah who was barren for so long. Now many times we're asked the question, how long did Abraham and Sarah wait for this promise to be fulfilled?

The promise was given by God in Genesis chapter 15 verse 4.

We don't know exactly how old Abraham was at that point, but in the very next chapter is Genesis chapter 16, when they attempted to fulfill God's promise through Hagar, Abraham at that time was 85 years old. So he was at the very youngest, 85 years old, when God gave him the promise that a son would come forth from his own body to be his heir.

When Isaac is born here in Genesis chapter 21, it tells us in verse 5 that Abraham is 100 years old. So at the very least, they waited 15 years for this promise to be fulfilled. And you can understand why the...

attempted on their own as they're waiting and they're looking, they're trying to figure out how this is going to happen. And so they attempt on their own to fulfill God's promise of a son because they were already old and they're thinking time is running out. And so they attempt on their own to provide a son, but it turned out to be much trouble for them.

And so this promised son is now going to be the heir that carries on the line of Abraham in which God promised the Messiah would come and all of the earth would be blessed.

So Abraham is 100 years old. We walked through this last week. I won't spend a lot of time here, but you can see in Genesis chapter 12, when Abraham left Haran, he was 75 years old. So he's been in the promised land for about 25 years, and now Isaac is finally born, with Abraham being 100 years old and Sarah being 90 years old.

Abraham goes on to live 175 years. Sarah lives only 27 more years or 37 more years after Isaac is born. Well, Ishmael and Hagar are sent out from the midst of the camp. They're sent out and it says in Genesis chapter 21 that they go down to the wilderness of Paran.

So you can kind of follow the line there, the circular area. That's kind of the general region of the wilderness of Paran. And so that's where they go. They go from probably Beersheba or Hebron, which is where Abraham was dwelling. And they're sent out down to the wilderness of Paran. This is some very important stuff. And if you want to check it out later on, I would encourage you to look at Galatians chapter 4, verses 21 through 31.

Because Hagar and Ishmael being sent away is not only a practical solution to the problems that they were having, but Paul explains in Galatians chapter 4 that there's a very important spiritual picture being painted between the flesh and the spirit. And the freedom that is found in the spirit and then the captivity that's found in the flesh.

Now as we were reading through this last week, there were many people who expressed some conflicting feelings and emotions over Abraham sending Hagar away in this manner. It seemed cruel or not very good for him to do.

But I would like to point out that Ishmael at this point was about 16 or 17 years old because it was at this time that Isaac was weaned. And generally that would happen around two or three years of age. And so by this time, Ishmael is about 16 or 17 years old. So it's not as though Abraham is sending, you know, a little toddler out into the wilderness, but he's sending a young man along with his mom off to remove Isaac.

them from the family that God has called Abraham to protect.

The real wrong that happened to Hagar began when Sarah gave her to Abraham. And what we're seeing here in Genesis chapter 21, we'll see again this evening and many more times in the scriptures, and that is something you can always count on. It's this. Sin makes things messy. If you want to write that down, you can. Sin makes things messy.

Sure, it wasn't a pleasant thing for Abraham to send away Hagar and Ishmael. And it might make you a little bit uncomfortable. And I know it made Abraham uncomfortable. But it was in obedience to what God had instructed him to do.

But it was the result of their unbelief. Their attempting to fulfill God's promises in their own strength from their own resources. And in doing so, they made a mess. And there had to be some difficult choices made. And there had to be some casualties because sin brings destruction. It always does. It makes things messy. And you cannot make up for a wrong decision

or action by continuing in a bad situation. And so God gave him the instruction to go ahead and send away Hagar and Ishmael. Now ultimately we know that it was the right thing to do because God told him to do so. And so we can rest assured in that.

We also see here in Genesis chapter 21 that because Abraham sent them away, they got their own opportunity to connect with the Lord, to rely upon the Lord. And so God was with them. He was working in their lives. It wasn't as if they had been abandoned by the Lord.

But you can think about in your own life, I'm sure there's many examples. How many, no show of hands, okay, but how many families have difficult and messy situations because of sin? And there's difficult choices that have to be made. And that's what we see here in Genesis chapter 21.

Well, as we go on now into Genesis chapter 22, the key verse for the chapter is verse 2. It says, Then he said, Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I shall tell you.

And so here in Genesis chapter 22, we have God testing Abraham. And we see that there in verses 1 through 14. God declares ahead of time there in verse 1 that he's testing Abraham.

And so it is a test. God knew exactly what he was going to do each step of the way, and he knew how he was going to end the test and not allow it to be fulfilled. It is a test, but it's a serious command that God gives to Abraham, and that is for him to offer up his son Isaac as a sacrifice. And that is quite a command. I mean, that is...

The most difficult thing that God has ever asked Abraham to do. God is asking him to offer up as a sacrifice the thing that is most precious to him, his only son, Isaac. God wants to make sure. God wants Abraham to know that he is fully committed, that he withholds nothing from the Lord. It's a great example for us.

of our commitment to the Lord and how it needs to be without reservation. That we don't hold things back and say, well, God, I'll obey you in anything, but just not regarding my child or not regarding my job or not regarding my TV or whatever the case may be. I'll obey you in whatever, anything you want, God, but just not this. And Abraham had this all-out commitment to the Lord. He did not hold anything back.

And so what we see happening there in verses 15 through 19 is now the angel of the Lord puts an end to the test. He says, okay, Abraham. Now, Abraham was at the point, right? His arm was raised. I mean, he was going through with this. He wasn't just putting on a show or pretending or, you know, kind of holding back and hoping God would stop him. But he was ready to carry out the act of

Fulfill the command that God had given to him. And the angel of the Lord intervenes and calls out to him and says, stop, don't do it. And then he gives him a blessing there in verses 15 through 19. Very similar to the blessing that God promised in Genesis chapter 12. And so this blessing to Abraham is repeated here in Genesis chapter 22.

Hebrews chapter 11 is very interesting because it talks about the man of faith, Abraham, and talks about, it gives us insight into Abraham's heart during this time. It tells us in verse 19 that Abraham had concluded that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead since he was commanded now to

To sacrifice him. Because God had promised that his descendants would come through Isaac. And Isaac didn't have any children yet. And so Abraham's conclusion was, well, I guess God's going to raise him from the dead because that's the only way that this command comes

could be fulfilled as well as the promise that God gave me could be fulfilled. And so you see Abraham is really trusting in God here. He's clinging to the Lord. He believes the Lord and he says, well, God's just going to have to raise Isaac from the dead in order for him to fulfill his promises. He really believes God. And we saw earlier a couple of chapters before and so God credited it to him as righteousness.

Well, God sends him to do this. Well, actually, before I get to that, the final part of the chapter in 22 is the family of Nahor, and we'll look at those briefly. But God sends Abraham in order to fulfill this test. It says, to the land of Moriah.

So here's a quick map of the southern part of Israel. There you see the Dead Sea on the right-hand side, the Jordan River. Down towards the bottom, you see Beersheba. That's the general region where Abraham was, as well as Mamre. He kind of would go back and forth between those two places. And so he's down there in Beersheba.

And God calls him to the land of Moriah. And that's up by, you see it says Salem. That's an abbreviation or a shortened version of Jerusalem. And so that's where Jerusalem is. And the land of Moriah is right there in Jerusalem. And so God sends Abraham to the land of Moriah to this location that God says, I'm going to show you the mountain where I want you to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. And so God sends Abraham to the land of Moriah

Now I point this out because, well, it becomes a very significant location throughout the rest of Scripture. I want to take you through a couple slides to give you an idea of how important this place is. This is an illustration or a diagram of Mount Zion as well as Mount Moriah. On the top there you see Zion during the time of David. Mount Zion is where Jerusalem is built.

The original city of Jerusalem was much smaller than what it is today and even later on in Israel's history. And so you see there the outline of Zion, the walls that were there. And so that is Jerusalem that's built upon Mount Zion. Later on under King Solomon, the city of Jerusalem was expanded. And that's what you see on the bottom there is the walls now extend up higher. And so now the walls of Jerusalem include Mount Moriah.

And so Mount Moriah is part of the city of Jerusalem. Now, one thing I always like to point out as we talk about Mount Zion, Mount Moriah, we tend to picture in our minds mountains like, you know, we know mountains like Mount Everest perhaps, or, you know, Big Bear or Baldy or, you know, these mountains that we have around us. But you can see there the elevation. We're not talking about super high mountains, right?

we might even consider them more like hills because the peak of Mount Moriah is about 2,600 feet in elevation. The territory around it, the valley below, descends to about 2,000 feet. So if you're at the bottom of the valley and you walk up, you're only walking up, you know, a 600-foot elevation change from the Kidron Valley up to the peak of Mount Moriah.

Now, if you look up on the top, the top diagram on the right, you see it says Olivet. That's also known as the Mount of Olives. And so the Mount of Olives is right across from Mount Zion and right across from Mount Moriah. And that becomes important later on. By the way, I said, you know, we might consider it more like hills because if you, you know, if you're familiar with the Corona Norco area, then you're probably familiar with Beacon Hill right there in Norco.

Beacon Hill is an elevation of about 1,000 feet at the top and about 600 feet at the base. And so it's about a 400-foot change to climb up Beacon Hill. And so it would be somewhat similar to climbing up to the top of Mount Moriah. And that would be a similar type of experience as what Abraham would have had in walking up to the top of Mount Moriah in order to offer his son as a sacrifice.

Well, this location becomes increasingly important as we go through the scriptures and we'll cover this again, I'm sure, in many months. But Mount Moriah, here's another diagram of it.

And you see that white border around the outside, it says that's an outline of the present Temple Mount. So if you go to Jerusalem right now, there's the Temple Mount. That's the outline of it, and you can see it's right on top of Mount Moriah. Now just a couple landmarks, you see right there next to it is the Kidron Valley, and then just beyond that is Olivet or the Mount of Olives.

And so this is important geography for Bible students because this is where Jerusalem is built and many important things happen here. For example, the temple is built here on top of Mount Moriah later on.

If we back up a little bit before that, in 1 Chronicles chapter 21, David's sacrifice, you might remember when the angel was there in Jerusalem and cutting down people as a result of David's sin in 1 Chronicles chapter 21.

David goes and offers a sacrifice to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite, right? And Ornan, he sees the angel and his sons hide, but he stays and he's like, well, I'll just keep threshing wheat. Well, Abraham goes and he offers a sacrifice there. And it's that location, which is where Solomon builds the temple.

And so the place where Abraham is offering his son as a sacrifice is also the place where David sacrificed, is also the place that the temple was built. And then later on, it's also the place just above Mount Moriah, just more at the peak of Mount Moriah, is the place where Jesus was crucified.

And so this is a very important location as we're talking about Mount Moriah and as God gives him the instruction to go to this land, you can see the reason why God sent him to this particular spot because it is the spot that much is going to center around and it really is a vivid picture of what God is going to do with Jesus upon the cross.

Well, about five years ago, a group of us went to Israel. Here's a picture of us in case you wanted to see us there. This is what it looks like now. We are standing in this picture on the Mount of Olives. And so just behind us is the Kidron Valley. And then just beyond that, you can see the Temple Mount there with the Dome of the Rock in the middle. And so we're on the Mount of Olives.

There's the Kidron Valley. And then just behind us is Mount Moriah. And Jesus would have been crucified a little bit to the right and a little bit farther up. Then we can't really see it in the picture. But just to give you an idea, a sense of what is happening here, as God sends Abraham up this mountain,

there's some incredible parallels here, some important things that God is highlighting and illustrating as another son is going to be offered as a sacrifice later on in history. The son that God promised would come from the line of Abraham and come from the line of Isaac, which of course is Jesus Christ, the Messiah. And so that's the background, a little bit of detail on Mount Moriah.

Well, here we have a quick diagram of Nahor's family. I'm not going to get into it too much, only to point out he had a bunch of kids. Nahor is Abraham's brother, by the way. He had a bunch of kids. One of them was Bethuel, and he had at least two kids. He had Laban, which we'll get into later on this week, and then Rebekah, who becomes the wife of Isaac, and we'll see that a little bit later on in chapter 24.

All right, so now we hit chapter 23 of Genesis. The key verse is verse 19. It says, And after this, Abraham buried Sarah, his wife, in the cave of the field of Machpelah, before Mamre, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan. And so here in chapter 23, we have Sarah's death in verses 1 and 2. She dies at 127 years old.

And so Abraham goes about securing a place to bury her. And so we have the account here of him buying the cave of Machpelah and the field that includes that cave in verses 3 through 16. And then at the end of the chapter, verses 17 through 20, he buries Sarah in that cave that he purchased.

Chapter 23 is always interesting because, well, there's this transaction that takes place that we don't fully understand. It doesn't really make a lot of sense to us because Abraham says, hey, I want to buy this field. And the guy who owns it says, ah, you don't have to buy it. I'll give it to you for free. It's yours. You can just have it. And Abraham says, no, no, no, I want to buy it. And so then he says, well, okay, it's worth 400 shekels. And so Abraham gives him the 400 shekels. And sometimes that...

Confuses us a little bit. But it was actually part of the normal process of haggling and negotiation that was standard practice for them in those days.

If you've ever been to Tijuana, you might have a similar experience, okay? I remember going and on the corners and all down the street, right? You'd have the people calling you in. And one of the things, I don't know if they still say this today. I haven't been back to Mexico for a while. But when I used to go all the time, they would always tell you, it's almost free today. Come on in. It's almost free today.

And that's kind of a similar practice that was happening here. He says, hey, you can have the field. That wasn't a genuine offer, like just go ahead and have it. He wasn't just being generous. That was the beginning of the negotiation. And the way it would work is he said, you can have it. And Abraham would insist, no, I want to buy it. And so then the person selling it would say, okay, I'm going to give you the highest price. I'm going to give you kind of the max price.

You never pay that price, right? Because you know, well, you got to work it down. You got to, you know, haggle a little bit and work the payment down. But Abraham didn't do that. He just took the high, the overinflated price at 400 shekels and purchased it. And so it might seem a little bit strange to us, but it was normal for those times. Now, another interesting element of Genesis chapter 23 is this whole scene takes place at the city gate.

And that's important as we'll see later on in the scriptures as well. Business transactions and important dealings like this were always done at the city gate where there were witnesses. The elders of the city would gather there at the gate and this was part of their legal process that they would do these transactions at the gate where there would be the elders as witnesses.

they didn't have, you know, paper contracts like we have today. And so their contracts were done verbally in front of the elders at the city gate. So it was a public thing. It was something that, you know, there was witnesses to who were trustworthy men. There would be multiple witnesses so that later on, you know, those claims could be verified. And so that's what we see happening in Genesis chapter 23.

Now the cave of Machpelah, back here looking at this map, is there, kind of right in the middle, next to the Dead Sea. It is located in the city of Hebron, and it's still intact today. There's actually a building that's been built around it. It's a really old building built by Herod, but it still exists today.

It's under Muslim control, but the place is intact. It's preserved. And the cave is still there with the bodies of Abraham, Sarah, and a few others. Their names are escaping me right now, so I'll skip that. Genesis chapter 24, verse 40. The key verse says, But he said to me, The Lord, before whom I walk, will send his angel with you and prosper your way.

And you shall take a wife for my son, from my family, and from my father's house. Here in Genesis chapter 24, we have a beautiful picture, a beautiful account of Abraham providing a bride for his son Isaac. And so we see in verses 1 through 9, Abraham talking with his servant, taking an oath with his servant, or making his servant take an oath, that he would not provide a bride for Isaac from Isaac.

the people of Canaan, but instead that he would go back to Abraham's hometown, the area of Haran, and find a bride for Isaac from within his family that was there in Haran. And so the servant swears the oath as Abraham asks him to, and then he makes the trek up north to the city of Haran. And there he ends up meeting Rebekah there by the well.

And he had laid out kind of a fleece before the Lord. He said, Lord, please help me and let me know that this is the right woman. When she says, I'll give you a drink, but also I'll give your camels a drink as well. He came, you know, with a kind of a caravan of camels and many gifts and treasures. And so he sees Rebecca coming and he runs up to her and asks her for a drink. And then she

Says, okay, yeah, sure, have a drink. And hey, let me get water for your camels at the same time.

Now, he had 10 camels, watering 10 camels. It points out very specifically that she watered them until they were full, until they didn't need water any longer, which that's quite a big task for camels because they hold a lot of water. And for 10 camels, it's estimated it'd probably be at least an hour of hard work in order to water these 10 camels. And so she is...

quite the servant. You know, she comes and she says, yeah, I'll give you a drink and I'll spend the next hour getting water for your camels. That's quite a significant thing. And so the servants, they're puzzled. He's like, okay, is this you, Lord? I mean, really, this is what I asked for and then this is what she's doing. And so he's kind of blown away that God is answering in this way. But she does provide the camels with water and then she takes the servant to meet the family and

There in verses 30 through 61, and he explains why he's there. He explains about Abraham and Isaac. And she agrees to go back and to marry Isaac and become his wife. And so there in verses 62 through 67, we have them returning and Isaac marries Rebecca. And we'll begin to look at their life in the coming chapters.

Genesis chapter 24 is a beautiful picture of Abraham providing this bride for his son. But it's also, there's some spiritual parallels that we can consider, that we can look at and meditate on. Because we have the picture of Jesus being...

The Son, Abraham being the Father, the Holy Spirit being the servant who is preparing and securing a bride for the Son. You are probably familiar that the scriptures refer to the church as the bride of Christ. And

And the Holy Spirit is at work in the church right now to prepare us, to bring us so that we are a pure and spotless bride, a blameless bride, that we will be ready and prepared for when our groom returns or when we go to be with him. And so it's a picture of God at work.

In securing a bride, us, for his son, Jesus. And so there's some incredible and interesting parallels that you can consider there in Genesis chapter 24. Here's a quick map of what may have been the servant's journey. It says that he goes to the region of Mesopotamia, which is the area of land between the Euphrates and the Tigris River.

Kind of goes in that general direction. Haran is there up in the north, and that was the original area where Abraham was in Genesis chapter 12 when God calls him out away from his family to go into the land that he was going to give to him. He would have started...

In the southern part of this map, again, there's Beersheba at the bottom and followed a path maybe similar to that. It's not exact. Of course, it doesn't give us the details of the path that he took. But we estimate, we guesstimate that it was about a 500-mile journey that the servant went on to go up to Haran.

to meet Rebecca and then to bring her back to the family there and bring her back to Isaac to be his bride. And that brings us to Genesis chapter 25. Verse 23 says, And the Lord said to her, Two nations are in your womb. Two peoples shall be separated from your body. One people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger.

Here in chapter 25, we have a few things happening. First of all, in verses 1 through 6, we see Abraham getting remarried. Remember, Sarah died and she was buried. And so now Abraham is remarried to a woman named Keturah. And through Keturah, he has several more children that are recorded there in verses 1 through 6. Then we have Abraham's death there in verses 7 through 11. He died at 175 years old and he lived a good long life.

And then we also have the genealogy of Ishmael, which I'll look at in a few seconds in verses 12 through 18. We have the accounting of Isaac and his genealogy. And then we have the interesting story there in verses 29 through 34 with Esau selling his birthright. So Isaac has two sons through Rebekah, twins.

Now, while she's pregnant, she feels like, hey, something's not right. There's this, feels like a battle that's going on within me. So she inquires of the Lord, what's happening? If I'm okay and if I'm going to, you know, deliver this child okay, why is there all this turmoil within me? And God explains to her there in verse 23, it's because there's two nations in your womb. Rebecca, you're going to have twins, right?

And these two nations are going to have this struggle. And God points out something that's unique, that's very different than what was customary in those days. He said, the older shall serve the younger. Now the culture in those days, even still to this day in the Middle East, is different.

Well, it's very much structured based on seniority. Now, that's seniority of life. The father has seniority. The elder has seniority. And so, it would be very unusual for...

an older brother to serve the younger brother. It was always the other way around. The older brother, the older parent, the grandparent, whoever was the oldest surviving male of the family, they were the ones who had the authority for the family. They gave the direction for the family. They were the ones who were served. And so there was a very high esteem given to the eldest brother.

But God says to Rebekah, as she's inquiring of the Lord what's going on, he says, well, there's two nations within you, and there's going to be a struggle, and ultimately the older one is going to serve the younger. This is unique. This is different. It was going to be unusual. Well, we begin to see that take shape there at the end of chapter 25, as Esau comes into the house one day,

And he's really hungry. He's famished. He's not eating for a little bit. He's starving. He feels like he's going to die. And Jacob was there cooking some stew or some beans. And he cooks this soup. And Esau comes in. He smells it. He feels like he's going to die. And he says, I'm starving. Give me a bowl of soup. Give me a bowl of beans. And Jacob decides, well, here's my opportunity. I'll take advantage of this situation. I'll give you a bowl of beans.

You sell me your birthright. Now, the birthright was what we were just talking about. It was the right of the eldest to lead the family, to have authority of the family, to be the spiritual leader of the home. The eldest also would receive a double portion of the inheritance when the father passed away. And so Jacob says, all right, you're starving. You feel like you're going to die. I'll give you this meal that I've prepared.

And trade for your birthright. I want that position. I want that role. I want to lead the family and have authority here in the family. Well, we see that Esau despises his birthright. He doesn't care about it. It's not important to him. And so he makes the deal. He agrees. All right, you can have the birthright. Just give me the beans. And he was satisfied.

Here we have the family of Abraham and Keturah. These are the six sons that they had together and a couple of their descendants. These are outlined for you in Genesis chapter 25 verses 1 through 6. So in case you want to see that visually, there you have it.

Then we also have Ishmael's family. Ishmael had a bunch of kids as well. He became a great nation and had many descendants. I'm not going to attempt to pronounce all those names. You can look at them and read about it there in Genesis chapter 25. And then we have here Isaac's family.

It's a little bit zoomed out and so you might not be able to read all the names. By the way, the presentations that we show on Wednesday evenings are available on the church website. So if you want to look at them later on, you can download them. Just go to the Bible in three years page and they're right there.

But here you have Abraham there on the top. He's in red because the red is following that scarlet thread. It's the line of the Savior. We've been following it all the way back to Adam and come all the way through up through Abraham. He has his son named Isaac and Isaac has two sons, Esau and then Jacob.

And Jacob becomes the line that the Messiah will now be carried on through. And his sons will become, you know, the nation of Israel. So we'll see that. But here I also wanted to highlight that we looked at Rebecca earlier and her lineage. And so you can see how they were related. Isaac married his dad's brother's son's daughter. Okay, so that was a little bit unclear. Now it's clear, right?

His dad's brother's son's daughter, which makes her his first cousin once removed. So they're not that close as it might appear in the text. So that's his wife, Rebecca, and together they have Jacob and Esau. And that is the family of Isaac.

Now it's interesting, Jacob is named Jacob because when he comes out of the womb, he's grasping hold of Esau's heel. And so Jacob literally means heel catcher or another word for that is supplanter, which is one who wrongfully or illegally seizes and holds the place of another.

So in the way that Jacob negotiated in order to seize the birthright, that's what's pictured there under this word heel catcher or supplanter. And later on, Esau is going to declare in Genesis chapter 27 that Jacob is rightly named because that's what he does. He supplants, he illegally seizes and holds the place of another here in chapter 25, but then also again in chapter 27.

Well, that brings us to chapter 26. Key verses, verse 3, it says, Here in chapter 26, now we're focusing on the life of Isaac.

Abraham has died. Now we're paying attention to Isaac. We actually don't know a whole lot about Isaac and his life. The kind of the majority of the details are recorded here in Genesis chapter 26. And then in chapter 27, we're going to be changing focus again and focusing more on Jacob and his life. So not a lot is said in the scriptures about Isaac.

But here in chapter 26, we have a situation where there's a famine in the land. And we see some similar parallels to when Abraham first went into the land. Because when Abraham went into the land, there was a famine. And what did Abraham do? Well, he went down to Egypt in order to escape the famine. There in Egypt, he was a little bit fearful because his wife was beautiful. And so he

They agreed. All right, Sarah, say you're my sister so that they'll treat me kindly. And so he went down to Egypt and told that lie that Sarah was his sister.

Well, now it seems that Isaac is on a similar track. There's a famine in the land and he heads towards Egypt, but God intervenes there in verses 1 through 5 and he tells him, no, don't leave the land that I promised you. And so instead of going all the way to Egypt, Isaac stays in the region of the southern part of Israel, which was inhabited by the Philistines in those days. And so he goes

heads down there, but then God says stop. And so he stays there. And God also promises there in verses one through five, the same things that he had promised to Abraham. In fact, he says, I will perform the oath, which I swore to Abraham, your father in you. And so now we see that the carrying on of the promise, the carrying on of the blessing,

The things that God promised Abraham in Genesis chapter 12 verses 1 through 3 are now passed on to Isaac. God says, I'm going to bless you. I'm going to multiply you. I'm going to give you the land of the Canaanites, the land that you're dwelling in.

And, very important, he says, all the earth will be blessed through you. Which again is a prophecy that the Messiah will come through your line, through your descendants, the Savior will come. And so we see through this in Genesis chapter 26, it appears that Isaac never left the promised land. His whole life he dwelt there in the land that God had promised to Abraham and his descendants.

I always like verse 13 of Genesis 26 talking about Isaac because it says, the man began to prosper and continued prospering until he became very prosperous. So God wants you to get the idea. He prospered, he continued prospering and he became very prosperous. He wants you to know God was blessing him abundantly just as he had promised.

But as Isaac is now there in the land of the Philistines, he does follow the pattern of his father and he is fearful of the inhabitants of the Philistines. And so

Him and Rebecca spread the word that she is his sister instead of his wife. So he follows the example of his dad. His dad did it twice, you remember, once in Egypt and then once with the Philistines. And so they're following the same example and saying Rebecca is his sister.

Now this situation is a little bit different than Abraham and Sarah's though, because no one actually married Rebekah in this case like they did with Sarah. They didn't, you know, she wasn't added into the harem or anything like that with the king of the Philistines. She was there with Isaac, but it was well known that she was Isaac's sister. That's what they had the people believing.

And then we have the account where Abimelech looks out his window and he sees them, it says, kind of sporting together. He sees them being affectionate towards each other. And he realizes, hey, that's not his sister, that's his wife. And so he lets everybody know. He calls them to account. He says, hey, we could have, you know, brought guilt upon ourselves. Why did you tell us that she was your sister and not your wife? And again, he says, well, I was fearful.

I was afraid. I didn't know what you guys would do. And so in order to preserve my life, I said that she was my sister. So they work that out. Then we see that he becomes very prosperous. And then he continues to live in the land and he's digging well, whales, no, wells.

He's digging wells in order to provide water for... Well, he was prospering greatly. He had great herds and flocks. And so he had to provide for them. So he's digging wells. And there's some disputes that are going on between him and the people of the land as he's providing the water. And so that's recorded there in verses 17 through 33. And then we see...

Isaac, with his two sons Esau and Jacob, we see there in verse 34 and 35 that Esau marries two wives of the Canaanites. And so he marries some of the foreigners that they're living amongst, and it causes a lot of anxiety and trouble for the family. And that'll become important later on in chapter 27 and 28.

So here again is a map of the promised land where they were living. Again, the cave of Machpelah, Mamre, Beersheba, that's the area where they would kind of go back and forth between. And then more towards the coast, there on the left there is the Mediterranean Sea, and that's where the Philistines were. And you can see Gerar there. And so it was that region where Isaac moved to because of the famine, and that's where he was with the Philistines, saying that Rebekah was his sister.

and digging those wells and things that we see taking place in chapter 26. Well, we finish it up this evening with chapter 27. The key verse is verse 19. It says, Jacob said to his father, I am Esau, your firstborn. I have done just as you told me. Please arise, sit and eat of my game that your soul may bless me.

Here in chapter 27, we have a very famous account of Jacob's deceitful actions in pretending to be Esau to obtain the blessing from Isaac. And so in verses 1 through 29, we have Isaac blessing Jacob. Now he thought he was blessing Esau, but he blessed Jacob. And it happened because Rebekah overheard Isaac telling Esau,

I think I'm going to die pretty soon. So go get some game that I like. Go, you know, get some meat that I like. Prepare it for me the way that I like it. And then I'll be really happy. And then I'll be able to bless you. And so Rebecca hears this. She tells Jacob, all right, here's our plan. We're going to sneak in there and you're going to pretend to be your brother. Remember, they were twins. So there would be similar characteristics and features.

Their voices were different and their skin was different because Esau was an incredibly hairy man. I mean incredibly hairy because, well, they fool Isaac by Rebecca putting skin of goat on his hand and on the back of his neck. Now, goats are not known for their nice fluffy hair, right? It's thick horse hair.

And so they put this hair on his hands and on his neck to fool dad into thinking this is Esau. So he would feel his hand and go, oh yeah, that's distinct. That feels like Esau. And so he was a very hairy man.

But they disguised Jacob, and obviously Isaac could not see very well, and so he was relying upon his touch and his smell as well as his hearing. And so they fool Isaac into believing that Jacob is Esau. And so they give him a meal, and Isaac blesses Jacob. And then immediately after that, in verses 30 through 40, Esau comes in from the field looking for the blessing.

And Isaac realizes then what happened and he says, I already gave the blessing away. And so Esau sought desperately for a blessing, but he had already given it to Jacob. Well, then in verses 41 through 46, we see the plot begins. Now Esau is figuring, okay, dad's going to die pretty soon. Then I'm going to get rid of Jacob. I'm going to kill him.

And Rebecca hears about it and so now she continues her plan and we'll see tomorrow in chapter 28 they send him up back to Haran where the servant went to get Rebecca and back in Haran Jacob is going to be there for about 20 years working through some difficulties where God is working in his life. But here again we see the saying I said earlier you might want to write it down sin makes things messy.

Sin makes things messy. That's what we see happening here. Now, God had promised, God had declared ahead of time that the older brother would serve the younger brother. But what we have here with Rebecca and Jacob is them working and manipulating and deceiving and sinning in order to try to fulfill what God already said was going to happen. So instead of trusting God for

Him to fulfill his plan and to fulfill his promise. They took matters into their own hands to make it happen. There's a saying, I don't know who originally said it, but the saying is that faith is living without scheming. Living without scheming. It's not living where you're plotting, you're planning, you're trying to manipulate things to make them work out in your favor. That's not faith. This is what

Rebecca and Jacob were doing. They were scheming. They were applauding. They were figuring out a way to accomplish what they wanted with their own strength instead of letting God do the work that he wanted to do. And so they deceive Isaac and steal away the blessing from Esau. But here's something I would have you consider. Jacob's deception. Did it work? Was it successful? Well, yeah. He succeeded in deceiving his father and

But did he get what he wanted out of it? You see, in the very next chapter we're going to see Jacob flees for his life with nothing. So even though he got this blessing and Isaac says, you have everything. Everything is yours. It all belongs to you. He left with nothing.

On top of that, he leaves for 20 years. He never sees his mom and dad again. He loses his family. He loses all the stuff. Esau ends up with that anyways. And so all he obtained really by his deception was a lot of hurt and a lot of heartache. He took matters into his own hands to try to fix it, to try to make it happen, but he didn't really succeed in obtaining those things. Instead, he just brought upon himself

Sin makes things messy. And there's a great danger in doing things our own way. And that's kind of where we end this evening. We saw in Genesis chapter 21 where we began the mess that was created when Abraham and Sarah took things into their own hands and brought forth Ishmael, the son that God did not promise.

It was their own flesh. It was their own manipulation, their own scheming to try to make things happen. And it brought hurt. It brought heartache. It brought sorrow. It brought trouble. And then we end in chapter 27 with Jacob doing something very similar. Taking matters into his own hands, plotting and scheming, trying to fulfill what he wanted and fulfill what God said. But he only ended up bringing upon himself hurt and heartache and sorrow.

Sin makes things messy. And so as we finish up this evening, I want to encourage you, don't live in sin. Don't live scheming and planning and plotting. Don't try to manipulate. Instead, trust God. Live in obedience to God. Don't take matters into your own hand. But let Him do the work in your life that He wants to do. Let Him accomplish it. You might succeed in your plan,

But only in a sense. You might think, yeah, I pulled it off. But you'll discover when you do that, just like Jacob did. You end up not getting all the things you were striving for. Instead, what you get is hurt, heartache, sorrow, trouble, mess. So don't take matters into your own hands. Trust God. Let Him work out His plan and His time. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you for your word and these powerful examples for us. God, that we could learn this lesson. Lord, even as you told us through the Apostle Paul to the Church of Corinth, that these things are our examples, that we would learn not to lust after the things that they lusted for. And so God, I pray that you would help us not to follow the same pattern of taking matters into our own hands, knowing that you've promised us things, knowing that you want to work and

Lord, may we let you do that and not try to scheme and plot and plan and manipulate to accomplish those things. And so God, I pray that you would help us to trust you. Lord, that we would rest in you. And Lord, that we would allow you to accomplish your will for your glory, for your purposes, because ultimately that's what's best. Not only for us, but for everyone around us. And so Lord, you be glorified in our lives as we wait for you to be faithful and

to provide for us, to meet our needs, to work in us and through us for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of his word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.