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We begin to read this evening in the book of Genesis and chapter twenty six. Book of Genesis, chapter twenty six, and we shall read sundry excerpts from this and the following chapters. And there was a famine in the land beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech, king of the Philistines, unto Gerar. And the Lord appeared unto him and said, Go not down into Egypt, dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of.
Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee. And I will bless thee. For unto thee and unto thy seed will I give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swear unto Abraham thy father, and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heavens, and I will give unto thy seed all these lands, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. Verse twelve: And Isaac sowed in that land and found in the same year an hundredfold, and the Lord blessed him.
Verse twenty two: And he removed from thence and digged another well, and for that they strove not, and he called the name of it Rehoboth. And he said, for now the Lord hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land. And he went up from thence to Beersheba. And the Lord appeared unto him the same night and said, I am the God of Abraham, thy father. Fear not, for I am with thee and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake. And he builded an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac's servants digged a well.
Verse twenty seven: and Isaac said unto them, that is the Philistines, wherefore are you come out unto me, seeing ye hate me and have sent me away from you? And they said, we saw plainly that the Lord was with thee. And we said, let there now be an oath betwixt us, even betwixt us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee that thou wilt do us no hurt as we have not touched thee, and as we have done unto thee nothing but good, and have sent thee away in peace. Thou art now the blessed of the Lord. Chapter twenty seven. And It came to pass that when Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called Esau, his eldest son, and said unto him, My son.
And he said, Here am I. And he said, Behold, now I am old, I know not the day of my death. Now therefore take, I pray thee, thy weapons, thy quiver and thy bow, and go out to the field and take me venison and make me savory meat, such as I love, and bring it to me that I may eat, that my soul may bless thee before I die. Verse twenty seven: and he came near, that is Jacob came near, and kissed him, and he smelled the smell of his raiment and blessed him and said, see, the smell of my son is as the smell of the field which the Lord hath blessed.
God give thee of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine. Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee. Be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee. Cursed be everyone that curseth thee, and blessed be everyone that blesseth thee. 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. And he also made savory meat and brought it unto his father, and he said unto his father, Let my father arise and eat of his son's venison, that they, that thy soul may bless me.
And Isaac his father said unto him, Who art thou? He said, I am thy son, thy firstborn, Esau. And Isaac trembled very exceedingly, and said, Who then is he that hath taken venison and brought it to me, and I have eaten of all before thou camest, and have blessed him? Yea, and he shall be blessed. When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with an exceeding great and bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me, even me also, O my father. But he said, Thy brother came with guile and has taken away thy blessing. And he said, Is he not rightly named Jacob?
For he has supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing. Chapter twenty eight, verse one. 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. Arise, go to Paddan Aram, to the house of Bethuel, thy mother's father, and take thee a wife 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 company of peoples, and give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee and to thy seed with thee.
Verse six: now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan Aram to take him a wife from thence, and that as he blessed him, he 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 Peden Aram. And Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father. And Esau went unto Ishmael and took unto the wives which he had, Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebaioth, to be his wife. And Jacob went out from Beersheva, and he went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place and tarried there all night because the sun was set.
And he took one of the stones of the place and put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed. Behold, a ladder set up upon the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. Behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood by it and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac. The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed. Thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee whithersoever thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land, for I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. And he was afraid and said, how dreadful is this place? This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. Jacob rose up early in the morning and took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil upon the top of it. He called the name of that place Beth-el. The name of the city was Luz at the first.
Jacob vowed a vow saying, if God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God, and this stone which I have set up for a pillar shall be God's house, and of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth to thee. God give us true and good understanding of his holy word. If we have followed our readings this evening at all closely, we shall have seen that the dominant topic in this part of the book of Exodus is the topic of blessing.
Now, I suppose that when we Christians come across the term blessing in Holy Scripture, inevitably our minds go flashing across to the New Testament, and we think of all those spiritual blessings with which God has blessed us in Christ in heavenly places. For with us the blessing of God is predominantly a spiritual thing. We live in an advanced age when the purposes of God have been very fully, uh, developed, and we as Christians are taught of the greater reality of those spiritual blessings in the heavenlies where Christ is, than anything that could possibly be here in this temporary world.
When, however, we read these chapters in the book of Genesis, we shall be made aware that when they speak of blessing, they are thinking in particular of God's blessing in material affairs, in the provision of bread and corn and wells and water and sheep and cattle and wives and children. Yes, it is true, as we read these passages, we shall become aware that in the distance there are bigger blessings, some of them vaguely described, but real enough that these early patriarchs set their hopes on them and embraced them.
They saw them afar off and welcomed them. The great promises of God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for instance, that kings would come out of their loins, that one day there should be the privilege of reigning for God. The glorious prospect that one day in them and in their seed would all the nations of the world would bless. And we who can read the end of the book of Genesis and know it from the beginning, so to speak, can see what to Isaac at this stage was hidden, that the blessing of God for him would not merely be the provision of an odd well or two in the land of Canaan, but one day his descendant Jacob would come down to Egypt, and in the stateliness of his old age and bright experience, and in the consciousness of the blessing of God and the presence of God with him, he would stand and lift up his hands and bless Pharaoh himself, conscious that the less is blessed by the greater, conscious that Jacob is now the greatest man in all the then known world, so
far greater than Pharaoh himself, that he has the right to bless Pharaoh. We who can read the end of the Bible from the beginning can see that when God promised to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob these great problems, promises that in their seed should all the nations of the world be blessed, and the kings shall come out of their loins, there was in the far off distance towering that great omnipotent figure of Jesus Christ, our Lord, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. So that even in those early days, God's blessing to these men included things spiritual, vast and big and eternal.
But while that was so, they had still to live. It was a great blessing to be the bearers of God's promises, to have faith enough to count upon them as reality, to be prepared to be pilgrims, pilgrims on foot and pilgrims in spirit, looking for the great and eternal city. But goodness me, you had to have your porridge in the morning, didn't you? Still like anybody else. And you don't find porridge growing on trees, and it's got to be got from somewhere, and you'll need a cup of water, preferably flavored with a little tea, and and all these other things that go to make up life. Because while spiritual things are doubtless preeminent, you can't even have spiritual things in this world without first having physical things, can you?
And so not unnaturally in these far-off days, the blessing of God loomed large in the mind of these patriarchs as God's blessing in material things. In corn, in crops, in water, in digging wells, in marrying wives and children, and goodness knows what else. And I do trust that while we all doubtless have got our values right, we hope we have, and we see that the biggest things in life are the spiritual things. And I trust we're down upon earth enough to see that we can't even have those without being dependent upon God for his blessing.
In material things, we still have to live. In spirit, we may be seated with Christ in the heavenly places, but our, our feet are very much on terra firma. We still need housing. We still have to pay rates and shall have to pay more electricity. We still have to find water and tea and milk from somewhere. For us too, these chapters stand as a tremendous encouragement that there awaits for us at this lowly but very practical level an experience of God, an experience of knowing the very blessing of God in the daily provision of our material needs.
And so we're told that God blessed Isaac. He needed to, for Isaac, you may gather, was a very timid man. Brought up under the shadow of the great Abraham, it is perhaps not surprising that Isaac was a far more timid fellow. Often happens, doesn't it? Great fathers with tremendous personalities, their sons somewhat overshadowed by them, remaining for the rest of their lives rather lesser personalities. And Isaac was one of those. And then, in addition to that, he had a problem that Abraham didn't.
Isaac was called upon not to pioneer some great spiritual movement, as Abraham had been. With all the romance of setting out from Ur of Chaldees and coming to Haran, and from Haran moving off into the unknown with God in the true pioneer spirit, with all the romance of discovery. Isaac was just asked to stay at home and maintain the vision that Abraham had won. That's a harder task sometimes, isn't it? Certainly it's tough even at the spiritual level to be a pioneer evangelist, to stalk the earth, preaching in odd places and, uh, setting up churches.
But when they've been set up, and the fears and trials and excitement has died down, then to go on maintaining them, that very frequently calls for a different kind, if not a bigger kind, of patience. And you see, life for Isaac was made a little bit more difficult than it would have been if he hadn't have had these glorious promises in the future, wasn't he? When there came a famine, we read, Isaac was for saying, well, there's not much around here, I must get me down to Egypt.
Please not, said God, you'll stay in this land. My purpose for you, Isaac, old boy, is to stay in this land and maintain the vision that I have given to your house and to your seed. I want you to stay put. But then with, uh, supplies running a bit difficult. Inflation and fanning. Ah, let me break off here. Good. It's a good job we're talking about down to earth material things, isn't it?
Therefore, I say Isaac finds it a bit more difficult. He's got to maintain this vision, and therefore it was going to make even his daily bread and butter and the getting thereof more difficult. And then, of course, there was another complication for the dear man. He was living as a pilgrim and a stranger in a country where he had really no rights, no legal rights. The Philistines and their kings were well established. And there was a sense, wasn't there, if, if the Philistines had really understood what Isaac was saying or knew in his heart, they mightn't have been altogether pleased always with Isaac. Kings will come of Isaac? I can imagine Abimelech saying, really, old boy, well then we better take precautions that they don't come around here.
Which all added up to the fact that the ordinary everyday things apply for a man like Isaac were that bit more difficult than they were for an ordinary unbeliever like a Demeter. And mutatis mutandis, the same things remain true of us, don't they? You could have it more easy, my brother. Couldn't you? If you didn't have to tithe your money, or do you do more than tithe? If you had no responsibility to your church, if you had no responsibility to missionaries on the field, if you know had no responsibility all around you, if you didn't have to attend weeknight meetings and Sunday meetings and goodness knows what else, and spend time as an elder of your church in pastoral work, look at the things you could do.
A lot more spare cash, wouldn't you? Or you could devote a lot more time to your business. But just the sheer fact that you are a believer, and being a believer carries for you extra responsibilities than the man of the world has. It makes that life, life that little bit more difficult, doesn't it? To say nothing of the affair. That when it comes to digging wells, you may find that the worldly man is utterly unprincipled, and the spirit of competition is so enormous that you as a believer are going to come unstuck a little bit.
At least that's what Isaac found, didn't he? He digged a well. It was all his own effort. In fact, it was a well that Abraham had pioneered. But away came the Philistines when they thought he had struck something good, and they tore the thing and drove him off utterly unprincipled. Now, if Isaac had been something, he'd have turned around and bashed them. But that he wasn't in a position to do, so he tried another well, and they competed for that as well, ruthlessly, unprincipledly. Life's that bit more difficult for him, and will be for you too. In a world where competition is exceedingly heavy, and the unconverted man isn't too choosy as to what principles he'll use to compete and snatch the oil well that you found and have started to dig.
And it was in those situations that God blessed Isaac, blessed him with corn, and in the year in which he particularly needed, and things were going very, very difficult, provided him with an unusually heavy crop. Didn't do it every year, but it was marvelously providential that that particular year that he got such a, a marvelous bump of crop, a hundredfold. And then in spite of the unprincipled competition, God made room for them. Provided him water and provided him corn and provided him a niche in the business world of the time.
As I read this chapter, it seems to me that the biggest slice of blessing that Jacob came by was not merely that he did get caught and that he did get a well eventually, and there was room made for him. The biggest slice of blessing was that in the course of the ordinary round of the daily task, Isaac had an experience of the Lord in his business. Twice over in this chapter are we told that the Lord appeared to Isaac, repeating his promises of blessing, but gearing them now to Isaac's immediate, uh, business circumstances.
The Lord appeared to him. What a lovely thing it was. When one day Isaac was overwhelmed in spirit, with a sense that in the hurly burly of business life, God had at last made room for them and dug them and had them a well, but when he dug the well, he built an altar, and sitting down by his old well and by his altar, he had a session of worship of the God that had appeared to him in the ordinary matters of daily living. Oh, what a blessing.
To eat your dinner is good anyway. It's a good gift from God. To eat your dinner with a sense welling up in your heart that God has just given you that dinner. That is an extra dimension that defies description, and only they who have experienced it know what it is. The Lord appeared to him. You say, but wasn't that a long while ago? Does the Lord appear to us in business?
Well, I should hope so. The term is interesting, isn't it? It is the term that is used in the New Testament in John chapter fourteen when our Lord said to his disciples that he would not leave them orphans, he would come to them, and he would manifest himself to them. And Judas, not the Iscariot one, began to scratch his head and said, sorry, Lord, I don't quite understand this. What do you mean you will manifest yourself to me? How will you manifest yourself to us and not into the world? And said our Lord, if any man loves me, he will keep my commandments, and I will love him, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him.
And so that we should not be left wondering what this thing means, there are given us at the end of our gospels certain illustrations of what it means to have the Savior appear to you in the daily affairs of life. Oh yes, in those days before he went home to heaven, he appeared in such form as certain were privileged to see him bodily. He doesn't guarantee to do that to us. And yet he has promised to appear to us. He appeared to two men as they walked on the road to Emmaus. He appeared to them in their study of Holy Scripture.
He appeared to them in the breaking of bread, and they knew in their hearts it was the Lord. But think for our purposes of another occasion, recorded for us in John chapter twenty one. Peter and the apostles, obey- obedient to the commission they had received from our Lord, went up to Galilee. And here they were, sitting on a mountain in Galilee or on the seashore, expecting some great spiritual happening. They didn't know quite what, but the risen Lord was going to appear to them, and what he would say, they hadn't really a clue, but some great spiritual experience was going to burst on them, so they were sitting by the shore. What would you have done?
Oh, I think I would have prayed and sang some hymns. Quite dare say they did. But, you know, walking around on two legs as they did as all mortals, they got a bit tired of, um, seeing him. Says Peter, I'm going fishing. Sensible Peter. There are those, of course, I know who will say, oh, wicked Peter. Ain't he turning back from the work and going fishing? What unholy things to think of when he was an inspired apostle. What nonsense. Spirituality has never meant that five pound notes come floating down from heaven. Yes, of course he was going to be charged with great spiritual responsibilities, but you've got to eat, haven't you?
Forty days is a long while to wait for the Lord to turn up, and no breakfast for forty days is difficult. You've got to eat, haven't you? And what about all the other folks got to eat? Am I going to sit here with my mitre on, says Peter to himself, and expect to be assisted to turn up the fish I don't know from where? Of course not. I'm going fishing, says Peter. Plenty of fish in the bank. Good old Peter, feet well down on earth. There goes the fishing. And the Lord? He doesn't say, well, I'd never think of talking to that chap while he's in such a worldly state of mind, actually fishing. Goodness. He will appear to Peter and the rest as they've gone fishing in order to fill their, uh, the needs of their stomachs and perhaps make a bit of money to spread the gospel as wither.
The Lord appeared. It was merely a stranger on the shore, as far as they know. Where after fruit- fruitless hours of toil, catching nothing, the stranger directed them, then suddenly their nets were full, and in that very moment they sensed that this wasn't an ordinary thing. You could have argued with Peter till the cows come home. Oh, that's just your luck, Peter. It just happened to strike a good soul of fish. But you couldn't tell Peter that, nor yet John. There was something in their very spirit that sensed it. It's the Lord.
And it wasn't the Lord. It appeared to them in their daily work. Marvelous through late, when they came ashore, he'd already got the breakfast for them cooking on the stove. Never fish tasted so marvelously. I guarantee any one of you would have preferred that morning breakfast with fish cooked and handed to you by Christ than you would have chosen any five-course dinner anywhere else. Oh, what a wonderful thing it is.
Sense, yes, you could never prove it maybe to anybody else, not even to your co-believer, but to sense in your spirit that in your need, in this or that or the other circumstance, in your job, in your child's health, or whatever it may be, that you've not only had success, but it came from the Lord's hand, and you have sensed his presence. And to go through life without it, ah, what a barren thing it would be, even though our coffers were so full that they overspent.
Oh yes, I know someone will come back at me and say, ah yes, but you know, isn't this thing liable to abuse? I mean, aren't we all ready to see that it and think it was of the Lord when we have, uh, been successful and imagine it was the Lord blessing us when perhaps it wasn't him blessing us at all? Precisely so, we are just that. So easy, isn't it, to think it's the Lord when things go well and to doubt the Lord when things go more difficultly. Yeah, and we can add another danger. It is so easy to get it into our heads that somehow we're God's blue-eyed favorites, and therefore God is bound to bless us, bother other people. But we shall see if we, if we live that long and come here on Saturday.
We shall see that Jacob made those kinds of mistakes, and we shall learn how God had to disabuse his mind, and how painfully on times God had to train him and teach him the difference between God's blessing, which is a real thing, and spoiled boy favoritism, which is merely a sorry figment of Jacob's imagination. And we shall have to learn to see God's hand of blessing in the crippling things of life too. Let that be Saturday's lesson. Let us tonight enjoy the wonder of the possibility, and I trust the reality, of knowing God, knowing his blessing, and knowing the Lord appearing to us in the details of our daily living.
But then we must move on to our second major lesson this evening. As to what blessing is exactly. And not merely where it is, but where its heart lies. For in the next chapter, chapter twenty seven, we read a very, very sad story. That Isaac, the man who in Genesis stands before us supremely as the man who experienced the blessing of God, how Isaac was deceived on this very topic.
What do you mean by blessing? Isn't it a curious thing, or perhaps it's not curious, that the men who are used of God to teach us the great lessons of scripture and seem to be the very giants when it comes to learning them, are the very men who make the biggest mistakes in that very topic. We do well to praise God gratefully, not merely for the successes of others, but praise God thankfully for the mistakes of other men, from which we may learn. Isaac, I repeat, made one tremendous mistake over this matter of blessing.
Came the time when, as father of the race, now grown old, he must bless his son. And blessing the son in the ancient world wasn't merely saying, I hope you live happily ever after, my boy, darlin' with you. Committing the blessing of the family to the firstborn son was an exercise of faith that the ancients felt did actually confer upon that person the privilege and the blessing that God had designed. And Isaac comes to do this solemn, responsible task of handing on the blessing to posterity.
He made his mistake for two reasons, or perhaps they are one and the same. Isaac had a clear word of God, given to him and to his wife, while as yet Esau and Jacob were in the womb and not yet born, that the elder should serve the younger, and that the younger should be head of the older. And therefore, if Isaac had, uh, done as Isaac should have done, he would have conferred the blessing directly on Jacob.
Trusting God, obeying God, and being guided first as last by the explicit statement of the word of God. But not Isaac. Why not? Because he loved Esau. And that is understandable, isn't it, because Esau was his oldest son, and sometimes older boys get spoiled. Fathers think their men like them. But it wasn't merely that, uh, Esau was naturally the firstborn.
There was another reason given us in an earlier chapter. Now, Isaac loved Esau because... Esau was a very spiritual lad. Sorry, no. Isaac loved Esau because he saw that Esau had great potentiality for God. Sorry, no. Isaac loved Esau because Esau was very good at catching venison and cooking it, and Isaac did eat of the venison. Oh, you say, what a, what a low fellow. Oh, is that the reason why?
Oh, you be careful. Wait on just a moment before you condemn him too hard. You see, venison was the blessing of God, wasn't it? Didn't these dear hunters, uh, feel that when they caught their prey and brought in a lovely stag or something and cooked it, that this was the blessing of God? Haven't we been laboring the point that blessing of God to them very often meant sheer material things, food to put in your mouth and water or wine, if need be, to drink. What was wrong with enjoying blessings? What was wrong, therefore, with enjoying venison? Wasn't it the blessing of God?
Ah, yes. But then you say, but you know, good as venison might be, if God's will lies this road, and you deliberately turn away from the word of God and his written will, and go down this other path, simply because you like venison, you say you're bound to come unstuck, aren't you? Yes, indeed you are. You know, it is not always our flagrant sins that take us away, is it?
It's sometimes the most innocent things, in themselves quite good, but because we enjoy them, because we prefer them, we are all stupid enough on times to let our preferences and our enjoyments take us away from the declared Word of God. Oh, I know it's hard, and you perhaps will reproach me and say you represent God and spiritual life as being a very hard thing.
Well, yes, and I suppose in a sense it is when you are faced with a lovely thick bowl of soup, and the smell is delightful, and tender meat, and a few Brussels sprouts. I mean to say, what a real thing it is. I mean you real. And the bare word of God. I mean, does God expect us to turn our back on Brussels sprouts and good gravy bisso and... We'll just go for the... something we don't like. We don't prefer. What do you mean by blessing, my brother?
What do you mean by blessing? We have to watch it, don't we? Lest we think that we have the blessing in the gift by itself. So that as long as we have the gift, we have the blessing. That is a fall. You cannot have the blessing without the giver of the gift. Is that not the first temptation that was put to our Lord in those famous three temptations?
That he make these stones into bread? There is nothing wrong with bread. Man shall not live simply by bread alone. Turning our back on the word and will of God. We go for what we think in our standards of measurement is the best and highest blessing. We shall find presently that the gravy loses its flavor, and the tender meat gets a bit tough. And then we shall have started a slippery slope.
Or unless very soon we see our mistake and in repentance turn back to the Lord, we shall then imagine, oh, I think this the reason why I didn't enjoy that particular plate of venison is, oh, it wasn't quite enough, so we shall eat the venison on, only to get progressively worse indigestion. And the feeling of being blessed of God evaporating and getting more distant and more distant. At the very heart of the lesson lies this. Blessing resides in the blesser himself. Therefore, we must learn to put aside our presenthood, if need be, and follow him, and follow his word.
If you first, said Christ, the rule of God, then all these things shall be added. But first, his rule. And then secondly, Isaac made another big mistake over his blessing, didn't he? And for that, I shall have to explain things, uh, a little bit in detail, so forgive a less more true in psychology. My apologies to my younger brethren to whom I tried to explain this not very well on Saturday night. I mean, I tried to explain it well, but didn't manage to explain it very well. But now let us consider ourselves just for a moment.
And what intricate and complicated creatures we are. Somebody gives you a gift on your birthday, perhaps. And first of all, you didn't think that that person was going to give you a gift anyway. You forgot his birthday, so why should he give you a gift? But he gives you a gift. And then the gift is, oh, so much more than ever you expected. Ah, and just the thing you wanted. Yes. You feel overwhelmed with it. You feel a bit of emotion fluttering in your breast, and if you're a little bit more sensitive still, perhaps a, a, a lump in your throat, and if you're really sensitive, an odd tear or two jutting down.
Now consider what is happening when somebody has given you this gift. The gift itself, valuable in itself, and with the love and kindness of the giver, yeah. And that moved your emotions, and you have all those emotions of joy and gladness and surprise and whatnot in your brain. And I got the gift and you got the emotion. But God in his mercy has made us, uh, given us a little extra plusage. He's not only made us com- capable of feeling emotion. And first of all, you didn't think that that person was going to give you a gift anyway. You forgot his birthday, so why should he give you a gift?
But he gives you a gift. And then the gift is, oh, so much more than ever you expected. Ah, and just the thing you wanted. Yes. You feel overwhelmed with it. You feel a bit of emotion fluttering in your breasts, and if you're a little bit more sensitive still, perhaps a, a, a lump in your throat, and if you're really sensitive, an odd tear or two jutting down. Now consider what is happening when somebody has given you this gift. The gift itself, valuable in itself, and with the love and kindness of the giver, yeah. And that moved your emotions, and you had all those emotions of joy and gladness and surprise and whatnot in your brain.
And I got the gift and we got the emotion. But God in his mercy has made us, uh, given us a little extra plusage. He's not only made us com- capable of feeling emotion, but when we feel emotion, it spills over into sensation. So you see some folks, when they feel very deeply moved, all their whole skin goes like goose pimples and stands up on end, they want to know, and somebody else will, uh, shed a tear or two. Feeling, sensations, if you like. So now we've got three things. We've got the original gift, we've got the emotions it provoked, and then we've got the sensations that were expressed as the result of the emotions.
Yeah. Sensations, you must observe very funny things on them. You, you, you, you hit somebody on the head hard or tread on his toe, and he cries. You give him a marvelous gift, he cries again. Hard, isn't it? Same sensation as before, but one day it was, uh, tears of, uh, of pain and sorrow, but the next day it's tears of joy. Same kind of sensation, but somehow, uh, it serves to express different things. Sensations are very funny things. You couldn't really be guided by sensations, could you? Not if you were an outsider. And you saw that woman over there and she's shedding tears, you'd have to say, now I wonder what for?
Is she shedding tears for joy or for sorrow? Yes. But so then we've got the reality, if you like, the gift or whatever it is, then we've got the emotions, and then we've got the sensation. And it is important that we get the right end of the stick and know where the blessing really resides, isn't it? Consider, for instance, some very homely, uh, examples to the matter. I'll come to more exalted spiritual things in a minute. Hold your patience. Here's a good man who's coming to dinner. He's ravenously hungry, and he comes into the dining room, and there his wife has his place set and the placemats and the knives and the forks and the soup and all the rest of the things.
Marvelous, and he eats this good food. Well, the food was good, marvelous gift. Comes with the love and kindness of his loving wife, and that's even better still. And in between the, uh, mouthfuls, he sang, thank you, my darling, and this is superb, I'm glad I married you and all that that they say. And he's enjoying it. He wishes it lasts a little bit longer. Oh, the lovely sensation he's getting down here somewhere. So he knows not merely that the thing is doing him physically good, but he has this extra additional gift. You're marvelous. He's got lovely sensations. And so he gets through his five course. Half past nine at night, his wife comes into the dining room, there's the chap still sitting at the table.
Oh, she says, hello, Tom, my darling, what are you doing here? Uh, you're still hungry? You're never hungry still. Oh no, my dear, he says, no, I'm not hungry. Oh, what are you doing sitting at the table? Oh, he said it was such a lovely feeling I got when I ate that dinner. I'm trying to work up the feeling. I kind of lost it now, you know. I had such a marvelous when I began to eat that beef steak, it was a lovely feeling, but I kind of lost it, and I worried because I kind of lost it. Which you'd say, I think you better go to bed and rest a bit. Rest your head a bit. Yeah? Which is dark looking for sensations like that, isn't it?
I mean, sensations are things that come when you're doing something else. But to make the sensation the whole goal of the thing, that would be a nonsense. Yeah? Let's come up a, a peg or two. Sometimes people fall out with each other, don't they? So I'm told. Fathers with sons and husbands with wives, and that's a miserable affair. But then comes that exquisite moment when it's all over and they make it up, and oh, what a lovely feeling it is, isn't it? You couldn't really describe it. What would you think of a couple who constantly had rows in order that they could make it up and have the lovely sensation of making it up?
That would be dark. Yes. Let's come infinitely higher. Once we were guilty sinners, burdened with feelings of guilt and distance from God, which by God's grace, his Holy Spirit made worse as he applied his word to our hearts, and we felt absolutely miserable. Then came the moment of repentance and faith. And all the wonder, we were given forgiveness, but it didn't register merely as a logical fact that we had been forgiven. It thrilled our hearts, maybe, with all sorts of emotions, the wonderful relief of it, the joy of it, the peace of it.
And if our guilt had been really deep, probably the feeling of relief, uh, gave vent perhaps to a tear or two. What would you think if you found a believer ten years after that singing, where are those lovely feelings I had when once, when first I knew the Lord, when first I felt my heart melt with contrition? Oh, I do wish I could get that feeling of contrition back. You'd say he's queer, wouldn't you? Before, it looks very much as if the man is kind of seeking the sensation, but because it was a nice sensation. Hope you don't need to feel that sensation again, my brother.
I hope since then you've been walking so near the Lord that you don't need to have those sensations of having a deep guilt complex resolved. What would you say of that? Isn't it wonderful to be forgiven? Of course it is. The blessing, the real center of the blessing, wasn't in the tears of repentance that you shed, or the feelings that you had when you came to Christ and he saved you and forgave you. The real center of the blessing was in the forgiveness, and you've got that still. The real center of the blessing was in the fact that Christ has received you.
You've still got that. And if now you're not feeling goose flesh pimples all around your face and constantly shedding buckets of tears because you've been forgiven, that doesn't mean you've lost the gift of forgiveness. But it happens, doesn't it? It happens to us at the spiritual level sometimes, that somehow we mistake where the real center of the blessing lies, and we go chasing feelings and chasing sensation. Now, let me repeat that God gives us plenty of feelings and plenty of sensations.
Yes, and if one of these days you had a great preacher come to Abseley and he preached so that you lifted you up to the very heaven of heavens with delight. You'll go out dancing and slapping each other on the back and say, wasn't it marvelous, and isn't God good, and hallelujah, and wow, your blood pressure will be up a bit and the adrenaline working, you'll get all sorts of sensations. Now, suppose God sent another preacher, and he had to call you to repentance and put his finger on some sore spots and make you squirm. That would be God's blessing too, wouldn't it? You see, if we were guided by pleasant sensation, then we should want to avoid the nasty bit, shouldn't we?
And thus avoid some of God's blessings. Watch then, if you can, with fellow feeling, the dear old patriarch, how he made his desperately bad mistake over this matter of blessing. First of all, as I say, he went against the word of God out of preference for his own likes. Now he comes to bless. He's facing the task of to bless his son in the name of the Lord. You can't do that just like that, can you?
We'll have to work up a suitable sort of a feeling, won't you? You'll have to get some atmosphere about it. Must you? Couldn't you just claim the Lord's word, meaning what it said, and say, my boy, you know, my boy Jacob, do you know what God has said? God has said this. In the strength of that word, Jacob, oh boy, I as a father bless you in the authority of God's word. Now, Jacob, Isaac didn't feel that was quite good enough. No, you want to work out a bit of theme, you see. Make it feel more real.
All right, work out some theme. How should we do it now? Esau, he says, um, I'd like to bless you, but I want to get in the mood first. So go out and catch some venison and cook it, you know, like you do with a bit of garlic and whatnot. Cook it and and make it smell nice so that my soul may eat it, and when I'm feeling good, I shall be in the mood to bless you. So Esau went his way, but it so happened that Rebecca was listening at the door. Hm. Did I know a thing at all?
In God's word, it says that my boy Jacob is the one that's going to have the blessing, but we're going to get it. You know the story, how she dressed him up and cooked a bit of tinned meat and, you know, put the artificial flavoring in, uh, to represent venison, you see, and got it all done very quickly. Yeah. And in went Jacob. Now watch old Isaac and his five senses. Five of them, you know, let me remind you what they are. There's a sense of sight, isn't there? And there's a sense of taste, and there's a ten- sense of touch, and there's a sense of hearing, and there's a sense of smelling.
Five senses. And he comes to bless. Alas, his eyes were dim. That was a pity, because eyes are perhaps better things for discerning than smellers, but still, his eyes were dim. We could hear who he knew he said, and the voice came back, I'm Esau. Doesn't sound much like it to me, he said. You sound like Jacob. Are you sure you're Esau? Oh yes, I'm Esau.
Doesn't sound like it. Now you must make sure of these things, mustn't you? Because he didn't want to bless Jacob by mistake. He was determined against God's word, Matthew, to best he saw. You come here, my boy. Let me feel you. Yeah, he's now got hold of something now, something real, I can feel it. Ooh, yes, he's nice and hairy. Yes, that's the stuff. I can feel it. This must be real. Well, then give me the old venison, he says, and I can taste it.
Cool, delicious. And then when the venison was over, he said, just to make sure, finally, come here, old boy, and let me smell you. Oh, now, if I were going to decide what blessing is, I shouldn't like to rest it on my smell of Esau when he'd come home from hunting, for smelling Esau when he came in from hunting wouldn't be my ideal blessing. Had he been guided by your smell at such a situation. But there it was, his concept of blessing. Come in, let me smell you, he said. Jolly good, the real thing. And you laughed.
It was sad, wasn't it? Because of all the things that convinced him he was right, they were the very things that were wrong. He went by his touch. It wasn't Esau, it was Jacob. He thought he was an expert in tasting venison. It wasn't venison, it was, um, tin meat or something. Cooked up like old Rebecca knew how to to deceive you now. And he went by smell. That wasn't his or either. And the poor old boy sat there cruelly deceived.
Instead of resting on God's word, he simply went by his sensations. It seems to me we shouldn't be above learning the lesson. We may not have to learn it at this lowly elementary lesson, but it applies, doesn't it, at the spiritual lesson? My dear young Christian, if you want blessing, seek the Lord. Yeah?
Learn to seek him. Learn to believe his word. Thank God for every emotion and every sensation he gives you as a result of believing his word and fellowship with him. And he will, from time to time, fill you with the most delightful emotions and their consequent sensations. But beware, my dear good brother, beware of seeking the sensation. For you stand to be most cruelly deceived if you base your idea of blessing on sensation.
We use sensation as a judge of how well we're getting on. What do you think's going to happen in the days when we come, say, to middle life, in the midst of bereavement and harassment and partial nervous breakdown, maybe, with all sorts of curious sensations. If we thought that real blessing in the last analysis depended on our sensation, how the devil could deceive us. Perhaps if we know it, the blessing is in Christ and in his declared word and in his promise, and we dare to believe it, then we should be saved. We should be safe in those days when believing the promise and experiencing the Lord brings sensations of joy, emotions of joy and sensations of bliss.
And we should be safe when believing God's word and trusting the same doesn't bring great emotions of joy, but perhaps sorrow and sensations of difficulty. And we should be safe so. And we should be safe in the deeper sense, for it is possible even at the spiritual level to be sinful, isn't it? When in our unconverted days we went about living, just generally we made our feelings the guide and yardstick.
It was what I enjoyed, what I wanted to do. These were the yardstick of whether life was successful. It is all too easy in spiritual life to slip into the notion that my satisfaction is the final yardstick. I'll come to the meetings if I enjoy. I'll do the Lord's work if I enjoy it. Let there come trial, let there come hard work, let there come experiences that I don't enjoy. Cut it. Before I know what I've done, I turn spirituality back to front, instead of making it seeking God and then enjoying what emotions and feelings he gives me, I turn it back to front, and I'm seeking my own emotions and sensations with God tacked onto the end to make it look respectable.
And to do that is to open ourselves to being deceived. That was a curious sermon, wasn't it? But it seems to me practical and necessary. Let's end on a positive note. God who has redeemed us, concerned as he is for our spiritual blessings in high places and our eternal blessing with spiritual things. God that stands, yes, beside our breakfast table, beside our workbench, beside our sewing machine, longing to bless us.
But all the gifts and paraphernalia in life are, in the last analysis, but the external thing through which and by means of which God is seeking to make himself known to us. Oh God, grant us the wisdom. Not merely to content ourselves with the blessings that we get once a week at the prayer meeting for an hour and a half. Not to content ourselves with the blessings that we get through his word morning and night as we read it. God, save us from throwing away eight hours of the day, every day of the week, all our working life.
Grant us the right walking in his fear, to expect to see, from time to time, this and that circumstance of our business life, that the very thorn bush of the desert that we keep our sheep may from time to time glow with the burning fire of the presence of the Lord. And we come in from our keeping of sheep, not merely glad that the sheep have been successful, and this year we've got more lambs than ever. But we come in from the lambing scene, sense of the very presence of God upon us, of our work today.
The Lord appeared to us, and we knew him present, and we felt nearer to him as a result of our work. The Lord has the word today when we got his namesake. Shall we? Father, we thank thee for thy holy word. We thank thee for those exalted passages therein that raise our spirits to the heights of thy heaven. But we thank thee for the rest of thy word that deals with daily living and daily life.
And we thank thee, Lord, for the wise proportion of thy word. That so much of it concerns our daily living. Help us, we beseech thee, to feel no divorce or dichotomy between these two things. Help us to experience thee as the God of daily life, as well as the God of church and spiritual things. Help us, Lord, even in this advanced and unprincipled and competitive world, to know thee and to have experience of thy care and thy guidance. That we might know thy blessing, that we might fulfill thy purpose, and that experiencing thee and thy ways at these lowlier levels, we might be trained in them for those larger tasks and those bigger blessings that lie ahead for us when the Lord shall come.
Grant us, Lord, experiencing thy blessing as a reality. We may be those of whom it could be said in their smaller way, in thee and in thy family shall the neighborhood be blessed. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
