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Genesis 25, verse 19. And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son. Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Paddan Aram, the sister of Laban the Syrian, to be his wife. And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife because she was barren, and the Lord was entreated of him. And Rebekah his wife conceived, and the children struggled together within her, and she said, if it be so, wherefore do I live?
And she went to inquire of the Lord, and the Lord said unto her, two nations are in thy womb, and two people shall be separated even from thy bowels, and the one people shall be stronger than the other people, and the elder shall serve the younger. And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. First came forth, red all over like an hairy garment, and they called his name Esau. And after that came forth his brother, and his hand had hold on Esau's heel, and his name was called Jacob. And Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them.
And the boys grew. And Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field, and Jacob was a plain man dwelling in tents. Now Isaac loved Esau because he did eat of his venison, and Rebecca loved Jacob. And Jacob sought pottage, and Esau came in from the field, and he was faint. And Esau said to Jacob, feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage, for I am faint. Therefore was his name called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die, and what profit shall the birthright do to me?
Jacob said, Swear to me this day, and he swear unto him. And he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils, and he did eat and drink and rose up and went his way. So Esau despised his birthright. We shall read the New Testament's comment upon that, found in the Epistle to the Hebrews and chapter twelve. Hebrews 12, beginning at verse 14.
Follow after peace with all men, and that sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord. Looking carefully, lest there be any man that falleth short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby the many be defiled. Lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Ethel, who for one mess of meat sold his own birthright. For you know that even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected. For he found no place of repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.
God speak his word to our every heart here this evening. The salvation that God has provided for us in Jesus Christ our Lord is gloriously large. It meets, of course, the need of individual. And indeed, it is as individuals that we must enter into the benefits of God's salvation. We cannot enter in as families or as nations or as groups of people. We must enter into the good of God's salvation as single.
There is enough in Christ to meet our every need as individuals. But then God's salvation concerns itself with bigger things even than the salvation of the individual person. God has designs in Christ to fill this world to overflowing with the glory of his light and his peace and his salvation. It was for that reason that Jesus Christ, our Lord, taught us to pray. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and every true Christian heart, as he prays that prayer, finds his heart leaping within him.
For our Lord certainly did not teach us to pray a prayer that shall find no fulfillment. The very fact he told us to pray is guaranteed that God shall fulfill our prayer, and God's will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven. And I must leave to your imagination what a glorious thing it will be, and magnificent beyond description, when God's will is in fact done on our sorry old planet, even as at this moment it is done in heaven. It shall be glory that beggars description. Now, in our study of the book of Genesis, we have hitherto been concentrating on the experience of the patriarch Abraham, and in him we see God saving an individual man.
We have followed the steps in his personal spiritual pilgrimage, how he as an individual came into personal relationship with God and was saved and found eternal security and friendship in God. Now, as we move further into the book of Genesis, we shall find it begins to concentrate on the other side of the story. True enough, it will still for a long time be dealing with individuals, but in these individuals we shall see God beginning to prepare for his great program of bringing deliverance and salvation to the world at large.
So at the end of Genesis, when the story for the moment reaches its initial climax, we shall find God's great savior and deliverer, Joseph, rescuing the then known world from its economic difficulties, from its inflation and deflation and bankruptcy, from its problems of environment and pollution, and bringing the whole then known world through its dangers and to the blessing of God as nation. And in him, of course, we find God's, one of God's prototypes of what Jesus Christ our Lord will do on a vastly bigger scale when he comes again, when he takes over the economics of our world and the problems of its currency and the problems of its pollution and growing shortages.
And he shall deal with the root problem, which is sin in the heart of men, and dismissing those who are unfit to rule, shall institute his own government, and by that means bring a period of unparalleled blessing to this world. He demonstrates how this world can and should be run to the glory of God and the blessing of men. Now, as I say, as we read our second part of the book of Genesis, we shall see God taking his early steps at preparing the great program that would eventually bring in our Lord and Messiah.
We are told, way back in those early days, that God had already made his decision, that he should, for the purpose of bringing in the Messiah, sovereignly choose the nation of Israel as the vehicle of his blessing. And we who now live centuries after may find in this particular a striking piece of evidence. For that nation upon whom early rested God's sovereign choice, have lived down the centuries to prove that they are indeed unique among the nations of men.
Unique in their history, unique in the book that they have given us, the Old Testament. Unique, unique supremely in that they were the nation that produced Jesus Christ our Lord after the flesh. And unique in this, that for centuries after AD seventy, they have had no secure homeland, indeed for centuries no homeland at all, and those scattered among the nations without any base, have remained a distinct nation, universally recognizable, and now in this late day are wa- back once more in their country.
Some people, when they hear the Bible talking about God's sovereign choice of the Jew as his elect people, his special people, find a number of difficulties. They first think that it is very unfair that God should choose somebody and give him special blessings and privileges. But then, of course, that is true of every man and woman that walks on the face of the earth, isn't it? You, sir, are a pianist, a brilliant pianist, and when you sit down to play, everybody stops talking and listens. How did you get that gift? Not by your merit, was it?
You were born with it. You, madam, have a tremendous skill at arranging flowers. Everybody gasps when they come in your front door to see your arrangements. They make the rest of us look amateurs. Where did you get that gift from? We've read all the books on flower arrangement. We can't do it like you. You were born with the gift. Yes, you see, every single man and woman born into this world has certain gifts by the sovereign providence of God. That Israel as a nation should be given a special task and a high privilege to be the nation through whom God would give us his Old Testament, through whom God would give us his Messiah and our Savior, through whom God eventually will govern this world, is no exception to the general rule that God's gifts are given by his sovereign choice and arbitrary, though blessed, decision.
It is not unfair. If God has chosen you to be a daisy and not an oak tree, thank God for being a daisy. Be a jolly good daisy and don't try to be an oak tree. Uh, but let us think again. God's sovereign choice, his sovereign giving of various gifts to men, doesn't, of course, mean that those men or women are automatically good men. You, sir, may be a very good man as as well as being a a a good pianist, but there are plenty of brilliant pianists that are morally very sorry people.
We must learn to distinguish between a man's gift and a man's moral character. And let us all and at once remember, and especially those who may be specially gifted in ordinary gifts, that the possession of many distinguished gifts doesn't mean that you are automatically saved. Doesn't even mean that you are specially good morally. And of course, goodness is infinitely more important than gift.
And so we shall see it as we follow the histories of the early children of Israel. And they in turn will become for us prototypes of what has happened to the nation of Israel herself. In these early days of Genesis, as you will see from our analysis here, Jacob, destined eventually to become Israel, father of that special nation, was in his early days a thoroughly unregenerate type, spoiled his own family relationships by his inordinate greed, ruined his, uh, life with his in-laws, the Gentiles, by his hard and ruthless business tactic, had to flee from his own country and get lost for a while among the Gentiles.
And eventually, because of his practice, found no longer favor among the Gentiles and had to hurry himself back to his own land, for survival's sake. And back in his own land, the story went on the same. Ruinous maltreatment of the people around and hideous perversion of religion. Till the name of Israel stank among all the nations around. What happened to Jacob has at last happened oftentimes to his successors. We who are Gentiles must not try and justify the wickedness of the treatment that Gentiles have sometimes meted out to Jews in the infamous autodarpes of, uh, Spain and the pogroms of Russia, the infamous torture and maltreatment of the Jews in England in med- medieval times and in Hitler's Germany in more recent days.
We as Gentiles must bow our heads in shame at what has happened. But on the other hand, Scripture indicates that because Israel are God's chosen people, are the vehicle that his sovereign choice has decided for the bringing in eventually of his blessing to men, then God must needs discipline them more than he disciplines anybody else. His choice of Israel is no spoiled boy favoritism. You only have I known, says God to Israel through the prophet, you only have I known of all the nations of the earth, therefore I will visit your sins upon you.
And alas, just like those brothers, the Israelites rejected their very Messiah and Savior, whom God sent to save them and save the world, and sold Joseph to the Gentiles. So even has Israel as a nation done, sinning against God to witness her own prophets in the time before Christ, and so sinning that at length her heart was hard and her eyes blind, that when her own Messiah came, she failed to recognize him and spiked him to a cross. Because of it has wandered through the Gentiles, lost these many centuries.
While on the one hand, there has been a great deal of ordinary goodness among many Jews given to pious works and alms deeds, and even we Gentiles must thank God for some of the wonderful institutions that good Jews have created in our society. There is the other side of the story, unscrupulous, ruthless business. Prompted perhaps by the fears that beset old Jacob, that if he wasn't ruthless, he wouldn't survive among the Gentile slit throats. What happened to Jacob has happened to that nation. Sometimes the Gentiles have suddenly woken up one Thursday morning and found that all the leading banks and the capital of their nation was in the hands of Jews.
They have become furiously jealous, and the Jews have had to get out in a hurry. Yes, there is badness here too. Just as those early brethren of Joseph were eventually reconciled to him, and it became a tremendous blessing to the world at large, so one day Israel shall be converted and reconciled to her Messiah. And then the blessing that it shall ensue for mankind will be so marvelous. God's word describes it as a very resurrection from the dead. Therefore, I say we must keep the two things distinct in our thinking.
God's sovereign gifts to men, his sovereign choice of certain people to be vehicles of his purpose, on the one hand, and on the other, the question of those people's moral character. And we must above all remember that whatever gifts God has given us as creator, we still need to learn our spiritual bankruptcy and ourselves personally to find salvation, to be born again and reconciled to God. We shall therefore this evening follow this lesson in the two boys experience, the two boys who were born to Isaac in the land.
Esau and Jacob were born into a family of believers. Indeed, not only their father, but their grandfather had been a believer. And having suffered the same thing myself, I don't know whether to say it was a wonderful advantage or a disadvantage. I'm sure it was a glorious advantage to be born into a family of believers, to be saved from the deeper sides of sin. And yet, and yet. I think sometimes it was a bit more difficult for Esau and Jacob, don't you?
You see, grandfather Abraham had had a conversion. There was no doubting Abraham's conversion, because he wasn't born in a believer's home. He was born in a home as godless and idolatrous as ever you could have found one. He knew by personal experience what it was to be in life without God, without hope, without Christ in the world. He knew the senior side of life. He knew the moments of blank hopelessness. And when Abraham got saved, he got saved.
He was there when it happened. He never forgot it. And he didn't allow many other people to forget it either. Abraham was the type of man that, if you were at a party with him, might even get hold of your lapel and say, tell me, old chap, how are you getting on with the Lord? And there would come a sort of a, a embarrassed silence. But you don't know God? Conversion to him was real. His son Isaac too found, uh, God as savior. Though Isaac wasn't the man that Abram was, he was a timid old boy. It took him a lot of courage to profess his faith, though he did manage it on times even before the Philistines.
But then there came the third generation. They do have it tough, don't they? They've heard about salvation all their lives from the cradle upwards, from Sabbath schools, if not Sunday schools. But then they never were allowed to do this or that because their parents kept them back from the seamier side of life. They scarce knew the meaning of sin in some of its more lurid senses. And they constantly had urged upon them trust in God and personal faith. They found it difficult to see the difference sometimes. And perhaps in tens of years, uh, because they saw it pleased their parents, they were moved to say, Mum, I think I trusted God.
When they got up to about fifteen or sixteen, then they weren't quite sure what it all meant and whether anything had happened or not. For all I know, I speak to somebody like that here this evening. Your grandfather had a conversion. Somebody wrote a tract about it, maybe. Your dad got saved too, but you? You weren't quite sure whether you did or did not in Sunday school, and now real life is upon you. You're dithering. You see, because you hadn't seen the senior side of life, the world to you looks a jolly decent place.
Don't you know many jolly decent men? And they're not saved, and they don't believe in being saved. And are they going to hell, you say to yourself? Can I believe that holy old doctrine of hell that grandfather Abram used to believe? And the world seems very attractive. And on the other side, your grandfather Abraham had a vision of God and was forever talking about it, but but you... You mouth the phrases sometimes, you have the language.
But the reality. Scares would take you to the state, would it, if the communists were here tomorrow. So it happens sometimes that the grandchildren of believers stand on difficult and very slippery ground. Let's think then for a moment of Esau. He was a very pleasant fellow. I have every admiration for Esau in one sense. He was an outdoor man.
Not one of these academics in their ivory towers. Rough and hairy. Sporting old boy. Shooting, hunting, and all that kind of stuff. Manly man. And a good-hearted fellow too. Oh, he could fly into a rage, particularly over that nasty little squirt, Jacob, when Jacob, that religious, uh, old hypocrite, did his underhanded deals. Esau wasn't that kind of fellow with anything underhanded in him. But when the years wore by, well, there was Jacob and his religion, and here he was coming.
Well, said Esau, there's no sense keeping up old feuds, is there? And he forgave him freely and frankly. A very nice chap was Esau. That's not what the New Testament says about him. The New Testament's comment is that Esau was a profane man. What does that mean? He had no concept of anything sacred. No faith in God, no faith in God's word, no faith in God's promise.
He lived simply for the present and for the satisfaction of his bodily need. Oh, I can remember, I can imagine, I mean, I can imagine the conversations that went on after dark some nights when Isaac was a snoring. The conversations between Esau and Jacob. Enough of it, says Esau, all this talk, being saved, and do you believe the Lord and all that kind of thing. I know I'm supposed to be the firstborn. Oh goodness, I've heard it till I'm sick of it.
That God has a great, uh, uh, uh, uh, future for our nation, and one day there's a Messiah coming, and we're going to be the head of the nations, and God has a plan for the world. I know it all, says Esau, to tell you. And I know I'm supposed to be the firstborn, and when this Messiah comes, I shall have a special place to reign with him. Don't think I believe that, do you, Jacob? Poppy cock. What I say is live for now, old boy. Enjoy yourself now on this empty promises of the future. There it was one day that Esau came in from hunting, and he had not taken much, and he was feeling hungry.
And with that wild exaggeration that people give into who live merely for the present and for things physical. Says he to Jacob, my man, I'm ready to die. He's been without his breakfast and his lunch. I'm ready to die, says he. Well, there wasn't much else in Esau's life except eating and drinking, and if he didn't get a good square meal, well, what about the... You know, I know some businessmen, and that's what they live for too. You listen to their conversation. They've had a big meal here, and they've had a big meal there, and they had a bigger meal than somebody else. And then they did a bit of golf. And then?
Well, and then. Ja- Esau was one like that. He's gone without his lunch and his breakfast and had no dinner. What's that? What's life? I mean, there wasn't anything in life, says he. And it so happened that at this moment, Jacob was cooking a little bit of pottage. That wasn't the kind of occupation that Esau went in for. He thought Jacob was a bit of a woman. But this he, um, oh, it smelt nice, marvelously good. Mm, says he, give me of your pottage, old boy. Jacob, who was never slow to see a possible business deal, said, yes, but you know the price of sausage has gone up considerably nowadays, and it is so scarce, and you can't get the ingredients anywhere.
Well, I could perhaps sell you a little bit, um, but I should want my prize. And what would you want, said uh, Esau? I would want your birthright. That's right. Take it, old boy. Good riddles to it. If you attach any importance to those kind of promises that one day the Messiah is coming, ah, and we're going to be the head of the nations. Well, Jacob, you can believe it if you like. I don't. Take it, old boy, welcome. What I say is, get your stomach full now. Enjoy yourself Now! Jacob bought the birthright, and Esau sold it and filled his stomach, went away feeling supremely satisfied with a plateful of potty, having abandoned completely.
Enough of it, says Esau, all this talk, being saved, and do you believe the Lord and all that kind of thing. I know I'm supposed to be the firstborn. Oh goodness, I've heard it till I'm sick of it. But God has a great, uh, uh, uh, uh, future for our nation, and one day there's a Messiah coming, and we're going to be the head of the nations, and God has a plan for the world. I know it all says and so, to tell you. And I know I'm supposed to be the firstborn, and when this Messiah comes, I shall have a special place to reign with him. Don't think I believe that, do you, Jacob?
Poppy cock. What I say is live for now, old boy. Enjoy yourself now. This empty promises of the future. There it was one day that Esau came in from hunting, and he had not taken much, and he was feeling hungry. And with that wild exaggeration that people give into who live merely for the present and for things physical. Says he to Jacob, my man, I'm ready to die. He'd been without his breakfast and his lunch.
I'm ready to die, says he. Well, there wasn't much else in Esau's life except eating and drinking, and if he didn't get a good square meal, well, what was there? You know, I know some businessmen, and that's what they live for too. You listen to their conversation. They've had a big meal here, and they've had a big meal there, and they had a bigger meal than somebody else. And then they did a bit of golf. And then? What of then? Ja- uh, Esau was one like that. He's gone without his lunch and his breakfast and has no dinner. What, what life?
I mean, there wasn't anything in life, says he. And it so happened that at this moment, Jacob was cooking a little bit of pottage. That wasn't the kind of occupation that Esau went in for. He thought Jacob was a bit of a woman. But says he, um, oh, it smelt nice, marvelously good. Mm, says he, give me of your pottage, old boy. Jacob, who was never slow to see a possible business deal, said, yes, but you know the price of sausage has gone up considerably nowadays, and it is so scarce, and you can't get the ingredients anywhere. Well, I could perhaps sell you a little bit, um, but I should want my prize.
And what would you want, said, uh, Esau? I would want your birthright. Birthright. Take it, old boy. Good riddance to it. If you attach any importance to those kind of promises that one day the Messiah is coming, ha, and we're going to be the head of the nations. Well, Jacob, you can believe it if you like. I don't. Take it, old boy, welcome. What I say is, get your stomach full now. Enjoy yourself now. Jacob bought the birthright, and Esau sold it and filled his stomach, went away feeling supremely satisfied with a plateful of potty, having abandoned completely all faith in and hope in any future with Christ.
Oh, I wonder, do I speak to somebody here like that? What's your philosophy in life, sir? What is life about? That's eating and drinking and hunting and a bit of sport and... satisfying your physical needs now. Nothing wrong with satisfying physical needs. Don't take me up the wrong way, will you? Say so, is that all? What about the future? What about the claims of Christ? What about God's promises that Jesus shall come again?
Any interest in his second coming? Any hope to be in his kingdom? Any thought of having a place of honor and dignity with him? You ever said, like that broken, disillusioned political activist, and hung on the cross beside our Lord, you ever said like him, Lord, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom?
Or do you affect to believe that all those hopes are a nonsense? So where I do you say. stand? For making this bargain and selling his birthright for a mess of pottage, Esau got a nickname, Edom. For the pottage was red, and the Hebrew word for red is Edom. So Esau was called Eden.
And we may trace the influence of his choice down the centuries with his people. Let me quote you just one famous example. In the time of our Lord, there were certain rulers in his country called the Herods. A generation or two of them there were, and all of them tarred with the same brush, with the same outlook. They were nationally not Jews. They were Edomites. Only by the time of the New Testament, the New Testament quotes their name in the Greek form, which is Idumean.
The Herods were Idumeans, that is, Edomites. And said our Lord to his disciples, beware of the leaven of Herod. He too had his pottage. So I say in your ears a double warning, beware of Esau's pottage, won't you? And beware of the leaven of Herod. You say, what was that? But let's take the first old Herod, Herod the Great and the Notorious. It wasn't a dim religion.
Not if you could get some political advantage out of it. Indeed, he was not a Jew, but he had great aspirations to being king of the Jews. Now, there were some of these Jews, even in his day, and they still believe the prophecies of the Old Testament, that one day the Messiah should come, savior of the world, and the Messiah would rule from one end of the earth to the other, and Israel should be God's firstborn nation. Said Herod to his wife, fancy believing that? Well, let them, it'll keep them quiet anyway, you see, and it's always good to have a little religion to keep the people satisfied.
But my dear, said he, I don't believe it. Christ, come back. You've got to be practical in politics, my dear, he said, and I'm getting the throne now. Off he toddled to Rome and pulled the necessary wires and got himself the kingdom. Now, a bit of religion goes well with politics. So he built the Jews a temple. That kept them quiet, didn't he? Herod too was a profane man. He didn't believe that God had any purpose, that God had any savior, that God had any Christ.
He was king. One day there came a knock at the palace door. There were 3 very quaint fellows all dressed up in Eastern garb, Babylonian garb. What on earth did they want? They were Babylonian scientists and philosophers. They came asking, um, where the Christ should be born, where the King of the Jews should be born. You're talking to him, said Herod. I'm the King of the Jews. No, no, no, no, they said. No, not you. We don't mean you. Of course we don't mean you. We mean the great Messiah that, uh, God is going to send into the world to be the savior of the world. Where's he? Oh, I, I don't believe that rubbish, he said. Nonsense.
Oh, but we've seen the signs of him. We've seen his star in the east. We have come to worship him. It is gloriously wonderful what God will do to bring some men to Christ, isn't it? Those poor men hadn't got the Bible. They got a bit of science and a good deal of quackery, and so they mix their astronomy with their astrology. But any way of getting at them, God will get at them. They'd be interested in the stars, well, he'll talk to them through the stars, if by any means he could bring them to Christ. And so Herod, uh, summoned the priests and the Parsons, and they hunted up the Bible, what it said that the Messiah should be born in Bethlehem of Judea.
Then Herod thought, ah, he said, ah, you know, I think I would like to see him too. If you should find him, mind you, I don't think there's anything needed, but if you should find him, please bring me word where he is. Herod had a notion. He didn't believe all this about prophecy and the coming of Christ. But, but he said, we'll make sure it isn't going to come true anyway. And he sent a squad of troops, and they murdered all the babes under two to try and make sure it didn't come to pass.
When you're a heretic like that, and you've lived your life without God, and you've lived by your philosophy that this life is all, it's mightily be disturbing. Faced with prophecy fulfilled and Jesus Christ, the Messiah, born, aiming to be your Lord. Ryer results in a big battle and a contest in a man's heart. Is it going to be me? Or is it going to be Christ? Tonight, there's someone knocking on your heart.
You're not a wise man from the East. It's a poor faltering preacher from Belfast, and behind his knuckles is the hand of Christ himself, knocking on your heart, seeking entry as Lord and King. Offering you forgiveness. Offering you salvation. Offering to reconcile with God.
Offering you a future glorious, more glorious by its power than all your pottage put together. His terms are that you receive him as king. What do you say to him? Don't believe it? Well, sir, open your eyes before you decide. See a tiny, tiny little bit of light from the dawn almost of history.
You see how it worked eventually, with Israel in the land, then cast out of the land, then back in the land again, final stage of the coming of the great Messiah. Just as that was so fulfilled, so we have those extraordinary prophecies by Jesus Christ our Lord. When they were about to crucify him because they didn't believe he was Messiah, he said, I'll tell you what will happen. You crucify me. Then the nations will come, and they shall destroy your city.
Israel shall be scattered among the nations until time of the Gentile people fill. Then present, you see the sign of the Son of Man coming in heaven. It's happened thus far. Israel was. Now we have lived after centuries and centuries. See the next big stage in the program, and Israel is back in her land, or not yet converted.
You bet. It is but one straw in the wind, isn't it? Think, friend, before you dismiss it as a nonsense. Jesus shall come. How will he find you when he comes? Trying to be a king yourself. As a rebel against him, therefore against God. Shall he find you ready?
Ready to greet him and to welcome him as Lord. There remains one solemn word. It comes to us in that passage that we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and it is addressed to people who at least outwardly profess to be Christian. Whether they were or were not real, genuine Christians at heart is doubtful. And I will tell you the reason why it was doubtful.
Here were a group of Jews, of Hebrews, of Israelites. And the gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord had been preached to them, the wonderful forgiveness through his sacrifice at the cross, and peace with God, and eternal life, and a place in his coming kingdom. But more recently, Christianity began to get sorely unpopular, and persecution broke out. Many of these good folks, for their profession of faith in Christ, lost their jobs, and then they lost their homes, and they lost their furniture, and some of them lost their very lives.
And in many of them, there came to be that empty, all God. gone. Terrible doubt. Is this thing real? Once they had been good and religious. They had gone to their synagogues and to their Jewish temple, and they had been hailed fellow well met with everybody. And now they had professed to believe this Jesus, that he was the Son of God, that one day he would come again. Didn't the preachers tell them time and time again in their early gatherings, yet a little while, and he that shall come will come and will not tarry?
But he hadn't come yet. There was this empty, empty thing. Persecution. Loss. Raised a very big question now. Is Jesus real? Is his coming again real? Could they afford all this loss? Suppose Christianity weren't true. Some of them began stopping coming to the meetings of the Christians and forsook the assembling of themselves together.
Dangerous sign there. Why were they doing it? Do they really believe? Or didn't they? Perhaps they were believers who had grown cold. Perhaps never had been really saved. What would you say to them? As their inspired shepherd and pastor takes his pen to write, mine goes back to the Old Testament.
To a boy born in a believing family, his name was Esau. Brought up to believe all the prophecies and promises and the covenant of the coming of the great Messiah. The Back man for to a last loss. made his decision. He wasn't going to have this empty feeling. He demanded to have his stomach full now. And he chucked his birthright, despised it, sold So. it. That birthright went to blessing.
One day, he woke up. Ah, like many men. He wasn't for the believing, but he wanted the blessing, don't we all? They aren't the joy of life. We want a future. We want life to make meaning. We want the blessing. Ah. The boy came to his father. Said, bless me, father.
His father said, are you really Esau? But I've given your blessing. I've given your blessing to Jacob. Oh, but bless me, he said, and he cried bitterly, bless me, my father. Countess there. Bless Blessed him. of the first one has gone to another. It's no use repenting because the thing can't be undone. He found no place of repentance.
Do you not see that there are some things in life that once you do them, they can never be undone? Let's get it clear. You can always repent in the sense of trusting Christ for salvation. Though you have wandered and wandered here, you'll come back to Christ at the end of life in genuine repentance. As the prodigal came to a father, father's arms, the receiver.
Remember, there are some things that can't be undone, no matter how much you repent. Oh, my dear Christian, you trusted Christ. Now you've wandered. Yes, come back when you're ninety nine and confess it, and God will receive. Come back when you're ninety nine, and not all the repentance in the world give you back your life that has been wasted and gone forever.
Listen, for those that trust Christ, there is salvation. For those that follow him and suffer with him, there's a crown of glory. There's a place in his government with him. There are honors and there are occupations. There are offices and there are responsibilities, bright with glory and wonder and joy and gladness and fascinating interest. God's desire is that we shall not merely be saved, not merely be with Christ when he reigns, but actually and positively reign with him, serve in the government, and execute office under Christ.
And dear fellow believer, even though you be a believer, waste your life apart from Christ. Faith in his coming grows dim. You live just like the world for present satisfaction. Yes, when at last you repent, when you see him, he'll accept you. There'll be no reigning with him. No reward. No office. Save...
souls by fire. All the bitter tears. But you can't bring back a life that has been wasted. The Lord write these things upon our hearts. Make himself real. Need be, let us now repent. Turn to God in prayer. Ask him to renew within us the reality of his promise and the glory of our Lord's coming, that we might receive him as Savior and live for him as Lord.
Now, Lord, we bring thee thy holy word, bright with the glory of the promise of the coming of Christ, bright with all those wonderful things that thou, God of infinite ingenuity and boundless love, has designed for the blessings of men when Jesus comes again. We thank thee for thy word. Now we pray. Speak to every one of our hearts. O nurse, how in the rush of life it is difficult for us sometimes to sense these things as real. The world is so much with us.
Sleep now, we beseech thee. Make thy worth, make thy glory, make thy person real. If any of us have been content just to be religious and to not really save, if Christ still, in fact, stands outside, never yet enthroned. Oh God, even as we have heard his knocking hand. God, now this moment, we may spring to open the door and let him in.
If Lord, we have done that long since, but have grown cold and wan. O Lord, thou knowest our hearts. What should we do without thee, of whom it is written, thou restorest our souls? Restore us now with a secret, that saved we may live for thee with all our might and serve thee with all our heart until Jesus comes and we reign with him, who here have suffered with and for his name's sake.
