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Jacob into a nation, and how he preserved them and set them on their course to carry the role that he had given them to perform down the centuries. And we have been noticing what qualities it was that God was developing in that nation, and by what disciplines and providences he was forging their characters and bringing them together so that they, as a unit, would glorify him on the earth, and through Jacob and his seed, all the nations of the world would be blessed.
Of a Sunday evening, it was our intention to take the earlier section of Genesis that deals with the life of Abraham, and to consider together the chronology of his life and the way it shows his developing experience of God and the principles of salvation that we can learn from Abraham's developing experience. And indeed, we have spent two weeks on that topic. There remains, of course, a great deal of detail in the stories about Abraham that we haven't so far discussed, but it seemed to me that this evening, the last of these Sunday studies, my young people might prefer it if instead of burdening them with further detail, we moved on tonight to consider the intervening section.
That is the section of Genesis that intervenes between the end of the story of Abraham and the story of Jacob and his twelve sons. And that at least will give us a bird's eye view of the second half of the book of Genesis, the three great sections that fill the second half of that first book of the Bible. So here, I don't know if you can see it from where you sit. If you can't, pray be, feel free to come up to the front here. There are some spare seats, a lot of them, eh, eh, they are more expensive, fearfully more expensive, but then we'd like to make a lot of money out of you, and if I can't persuade you by any other means, let me try tonight.
I've tried compassion, and I've tried I don't know what in the former weeks, and nothing has worked, so perhaps a little profit making will do a good job. Won't you help us to make a lot of profit by coming up to the front? Anyway, here it is. Mr. Dornan so kindly has mapped it out for us, the contents of this fifth major section of the book of Genesis. And if you can't see, just let me remind you what are the major contents. It starts off in chapter twenty five, verse twelve, with a list of the names of the sons of Ishmael. And they are very soon gone through, and then the story is going to tell us about Isaac in the land.
But, uh, it first of all tells us a story about life in Isaac's family. The story about the birth, the conception indeed, and the antenatal experience of Isaac's wife, Rebecca, and the eventual birth of her twin sons, Esau and Jacob. And you remember that when she went to inquire of the Lord about these children before they were born, God announced to her that she should have twin children, the elder should serve the younger.
An interesting instance of the sovereignty of God, as Saint Paul was later to comment, the children not having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might be sure to stand. God thus intervened in his sovereignty. Interesting story, nonetheless, of human struggle, the children struggled within Rachel before they were born. What a world ours is, isn't it? Full of keen, sometimes ruthless competition, as you businessmen know too well.
And I think sometimes the ladies also know a little bit about it when it comes to, but then they don't do it. I nearly said competing for a husband, but of course they don't do that. But I shall have to think up some better example of competition for the ladies. Yeah. Yes, anyway, it's a world of competition, and sometimes it starts extraordinarily early, as the infant in his kindergarten is made aware of the struggle to try and be the best and win life's praises. And dear, oh dear me, where should we be if there weren't such a thing as the kindly, sovereign will of God that overrules all human struggles to our good.
What a sorry universe it would be if behind all these struggles and above them there were nothing but the mindless mechanisms of chance. Thank God cutthroat competition doesn't have the last word. We live in a universe that is ultimately personal, coming from a creator who reserves his sovereign right to exercise his sovereignty and choose amongst men and distribute his blessings ultimately as he pleased, for our good, if we can learn to content ourselves and rejoice in his sovereign will.
Ah, and it's the story, as you may remember, of greed and profanity. When Esau grew up, greed on Jacob's part and profanity upon Esau's, and the result was that Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. And having told us that little story about the family life of Isaac, then we move out to see Isaac among the Gentiles, and once more God's sovereignty in maintaining Isaac in the land of Canaan, in spite of the vigorous and ruthless competition, uh, that the Gentile Philistines showed towards Isaac.
You may remember this is the part that tells us that no sooner had Isaac's servants dug a well in this or that place, but away came the Philistine's servants, and they fought and took the well away. Be careful if you've got a bright idea in your factory, get it patented very quickly, won't you? Or some other Philistine will come, and he'll steal your idea and make the money you should have. It's a competitive old world, isn't it? And yet God maintained that man among the Gentiles, in spite of all his fear and the envy and strife of the Philistines.
And experienced thereby did Isaac the reality of God's covenant. When God had said to Isaac, stay in this land and I will bless thee. God intended to fulfill his sworn covenant. And if it meant that to stay in the land, Isaac needed corn and cattle and wells for water. God, in his faithfulness, would see that Isaac had enough. And if Isaac sought the kingdom of God, these things should be added.
Then there comes the great central section, I've called it three here. It is filled with the story of the blessing. How that Isaac proposed to bless his sons and would have blessed Esau, only taught by Rebecca, uh, uh, Jacob stole the blessing from his aged and now nearly blind father, and in consequence had to run away, and uh, eventually went down to his relatives, Laban and company, and lived amongst them, and worked for his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and then worked to amass some capital to support his wives and children on, and then there breaking out strife in the family, how, uh, Jacob had to come back again.
We notice that sorry state of affairs. By stealing the blessing, Jacob enraged Esau and had to run away. By behaving as he did in his business life down amongst Laban and his relatives, he incurred their jealousy and anger, and once more he had to run away. There being nowhere else to run, he had to run back to Palestine and once more face Esau. So that now in section four, we have a part of Genesis where Jacob is now back again in the land.
So you see his life starting off in the land with Isaac, and then Jacob running away and amongst the Gentiles for twenty one years odd. And then Jacob obliged to come back, and now here he is again, back in the land. A much chastened Jacob. For you notice that in the course of this section three, as he ran away from home, God appeared to him at Bethel and gave him that famous vision of God's government and sovereignty, the vision of the house of God.
And then again, when Jacob was on his way back, God appeared to him, the angel of the Lord appeared to him at Peneiel, and gave Jacob once more an experience of the living God and of his government, and the much chastened Jacob comes back into the land. His name now changed to Israel. But you would be premature to think that because Jacob himself had now had these vivid experiences of God, all his family were necessarily converted because they were back in the land.
For now we read, first of all, of their experience among the Gentiles, and in particular, how the prince of Shechem raped one of Jacob's daughters, how the two of her brothers deceived the Shechemites to make a bargain with them, and did it in the name of religion, said they would consent to the marriage if all the males of Shechem were circumcised in the manner of the Israelite religion. And then, when the operation had been performed, these two men took advantage of the weakness of the Shechemites and slaughtered the whole of them.
With the inevitable result, as Jacob expressed it to have, to his sons, you have made my name stink among the Gentiles. I say it would be premature to think that just because Jacob has had these big experiences and now he's back in the land, that the lot of them are necessarily converted. Of course, as we think about these things, there being no law against it, we shan't necessarily try to prevent our minds running forward in time. To think of Israel, who were in ages past in their land.
And then, like Jacob, had to get out of it, and have lived centuries among the Gentiles, and here and there have made themselves a great lot of money and capital, until the Gentiles have on times turned against them, enraged because they can see so many banks in the high street are owned by Jews, and so many factories and so many industries. And in the end, the Jews have had to flee back to their land. Where else could they go? In desperation have gone back.
I say again, you'll be, it would be premature of you to think or to suggest that because they've gone back, they're all converted. And alas, they too, since they've gone back, have committed such outrages. As has made the name of Israel begin also to be disgraced among the Gentiles. Not yet is the nation converted to God. And we notice that indeed, for when these two sons of Jacob had committed this outrageous crime in the name of religion, if you please, because they were God's special people, sign of which was circumcision.
After they had committed it, God summoned Jacob and his family to repentance. And lo and behold, as they came before God and began to search their lives and their homes, they discovered, yes, these old scallywags who'd gone around preaching deceitfully their circumcision to the Shechemites, found that in their families they were bung full of idols. Serving the same idols with the same ideals and the same ambitions. And the same false gods as the Gentiles around them.
How easy it is to mouth religion and go through with religious ceremonies and still have the same standards, ambitions, ideals, and goals as the men of the world. God brought them through disciplines here aimed at bringing the nation to repentance. And now finally, for Jacob, a little story of his family life. Upon their repentance, God appeared to him again and reassured Jacob of his faithfulness and his covenant and his blessing.
And said he to Jacob, be fruitful and multiply, for I'm with you, Jacob. So Jacob proceeded to do that. Hadn't God given him the promise? He was going to be fruitful and multiply. So presently his favorite wife, Rachel, was with child. I wonder, did Jacob dance for joy? Oh, how marvelous of God. He's going to bless me after all. He said fruitful, be fruitful and multiply. Now Rachel dear is going to have another child. Marvelous. Never could stick Leah myself much and all her endless children.
Always wondered why God didn't allow me more children by Rachel. Only had one, Joseph, and now God is going to be marvelously good and bless me. And Rachel died in childbirth. You say, what on earth does God mean? Telling a man to be fruitful and then letting that happen. Is that a blessing? Oh, how easily we talk of God's blessings when things appear to go well.
And sometimes the bigger blessing is when things appear to go wrong. And as if that wasn't enough. Round about that time, as if old Jacob didn't have enough sorrow in his family. What were those boys slaughtering the Shechemites? And now Rachel gone home. He heard one day that Reuben had gone up to his own bed. You say, is this really the story of a man whom God promised to bless?
What on earth is blessing? Yes, now that's a point, for let's look just for a moment and try to put this particular part of Genesis into its context. We saw the other week, let's just remind ourselves of it, that when Abram came out of Ur of Chaldees, God promised him a number of things. Come out, he said, and come into a land that I will show you of. And then presently he said in, uh, your servant shall not be your heir, but one that shall come out of your own loins, he shall be your heir.
In thee and in thy seed shall all the nations be blessed. And then said God, I will make you a blessing. I will bless you. And your seed, of course. And then finally, in thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. And true to his word, God fulfilled those promises. He will fulfill them one of these days in a far bigger way, but he fulfilled them at their first level in those far off days. For in chapters eleven to fifteen, Abraham came into the land, and God said to Abram, now Abram, this is the land, it's this land I'm going to give you.
Though you'll have to be a stranger in it for many years and centuries, yet this is the land, here it is, and in chapter fifteen, he covenants the land to Abram and to his seed. That's chapters eleven to fifteen. And of course, chapters sixteen to twenty five are the story of the birth of the promised seed. And we thought about that section last week and its chronology and why the whole process took so long. In our Thursday studies, we have been looking at the final chapters in the book, chapters thirty six to fifty.
and we have seen there, of course, what is quite obvious, how that final promise was fulfilled at its first go. When God sent Joseph and ultimately all his family down to Egypt, and Joseph proved to be the key that saved Egypt and all the little surrounding nations from starvation. So that now it had come true that in Abram and in his seed, all the nations were blessed. That is obvious to any careful reader. That leaves us with these chapters here, doesn't it?
Chapters twenty five to thirty five. What are they about? Well, they are about not the land so much, nor yet the production of the seed, but now the fulfillment of God's promise, I will bless you. Before I make you and your seed a blessing to the nations. We therefore have to, uh, focus our minds tonight on this topic of blessing. You will notice it if you have a Bible anywhere near you, how the term now begins to occur very frequently in this part of Genesis.
Look in chapter twenty six, if you will, verse three: Sojourn in this land, says God to Isaac, and I will be with thee and will bless thee. Verse twelve: and Isaac sowed in that land and found in the same year an hundredfold, and the Lord blessed him. Verse twenty four: and the Lord appeared unto him that same night and said, I am the God of Abraham, thy father. Fear not, for I am with thee and will bless thee. Verse twenty nine, even the Philistines have to observe the last part of verse twenty nine, Now thou art the blessed of the Lord.
This section is going to be about blessing. God's going to fulfill his promise and bless them. And of course, uh, it's obvious you won't need me to point it out, that not only is that how we begin, but then this whole middle bit of Genesis is the famous story of the blessing of Esau and Jacob. And then again, to cite just one other example for the moment, uh, when uh, Jacob was on his way back, and in a panic of fear at having to meet Esau, there wrestled with him that dark night the angel of the Lord.
And as Jacob, in his desperation, clung to the angel, he said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. And he blessed him there. It lies on the surface, therefore, lies on the surface, therefore, that this part of Genesis has to do with this topic of blessing. And that's a topic we all know a lot about, isn't it? I know you do because I've heard you talking about it.
All the blessings. Oh, we had a blessed time. We pray God to bless us. There was blessing the other night, says somebody in the meeting. Let me be a sheer Philistine for the moment and ask you, what on earth do you mean by blessing? What is blessing? Oh. I can tell you what it was in those early days, uh, for Isaac.
For instance, he sowed in that land that year, and the Lord blessed him, and he reaped the whole harvest. Ooh, it was a field full of corn. Blessing. Ooh, you say, that's rather a lowly concept of blessing. I wouldn't think of the blessings of the Lord like that. You don't. Well, Isaac did. No, you say, blessing to me. Ooh, it's a much more exalted thing, let me tell you. Let me think, for instance, you know, like Ephesians says, he blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Oh, that's what I mean by blessing, real spiritual blessing.
Marvelous. I'm glad that's your sense of proportion. Mm. But who is it that makes your corn grow or your bank balance grow? Isn't that a blessing? And a roof over your head and a settee to sit on? Here I say, where did you get them? Oh, sir, I, I mean those things. Oh, you go to business to get them. And, uh, let me give you some advice, young man. When you get out into business now, it's a cutthroat world, and you better look out for number one. Oh, I see. Well, that's how everybody else does.
Oh, that's how you get the sofas and the settees. Oh. Blessing is the spiritual thing. I'm sure it's right and proper for us in this age to attach much more importance to our spiritual blessings than we do to other kinds of blessings. But you know, if ever we're going to have spiritual blessings, we shall have to start off as little children with a lot of physical blessings, and as adults as well.
For if God doesn't bless us with enough food and clothes, we shan't survive enough to learn our spiritual lessons and trust the Savior and enter int- uh, enter into those spiritual blessings, shall we? So for us too, the Lord's blessing concerns itself first with physical things. And then, of course, for us with far greater things, spiritual blessing. Ah yes, but even for those ancient Israelites, at the level of their physical blessing, corn and sheep and camels, there was present, thank God, from time to time a sense that in the getting of these physical benefits, there was required of them a certain faith in God and an obedience to God.
And that without that faith in God and without that obedience to God, these material benefits very often lost that bloom, that sense of richness that surrounds the humblest of gifts, when we perceive it comes to us as a gift from God. The most comfortable beds to sleep on are not necessarily the sleep eases or the slumberland mattresses.
In the end, the most comfortable beds to sleep on is the bed that God gives you when you dare trust and obey him. So we're going to look at some of the attitudes to blessing that we find in these stories, and I must be arbitrary, arbitrary, like all preachers have a right to be, and just select some of these stories because we haven't the time to cover them all. Varied attitudes to blessing.
Let's start with Esau. He was a man, by the providence of God, born first in his family. Therefore, he had the birthright. Now, in the ancient world, birthright gave a man certain privileges. It also gave him a double portion of inheritance, so that birthrights were things that you could, if you wanted to, put a commercial value on. You could even sell them. You could sell half a birthright if you wanted to.
It was in part a commercial thing. But of course it did, uh, include some other facets. The spiritual privilege of being the head of the next generation, and so forth and so on. With any son of Abraham or Isaac. The position of firstborn, of course, carried an immeasurable privilege. Because God had promised that in Abraham and his seed, not only would all the nations of the earth be blessed, but he had said to Abraham, kings shall come of you.
It was the patriarchal belief that out into the future were the great promises of God, of sovereignty, of reigning, of being kings. Not only a little patch of corn, not only a little well down the road that Philistines would quarrel over. There lay a tremendous future of glory. And if that were true, when it came to pass, the firstborn would carry the chief honor, position, and glory.
And he's always the firstborn. You say what an incalculable blessing. Yes. I'll tell you what he thought about it. Came in one day, he'd been hunting as usual. He was keen on the dogs, and hunting and shooting and fishing, things of that order. Well, manly sports, of course, jolly good chap, nice and hairy and brawny. I suspect he ran marathons in his day. Why shouldn't he? Very manly thing to do.
He came in one day, and he was very faint by, uh, I suppose he hadn't taken anything in the hunt. And as he round the corner and came near the tent, he smelt a most delightful smell, like the famous Bisto twins are supposed to have done. For Jacob was seeding some pottage. He didn't run marathons except when he was in trouble. He was a homely type and knew all about cooking. I don't know how that came about, but he did. And he was seeding some pottage, you see, and Esau was very hungry. And says Esau, with his characteristically masculine, clipped speech, give me some of that red.
He meant the pottage, the red pottage. Got a few beans in it or something and made it red. Ha! But Jacob might be a plain man, but he had an eye to business. Yes, Esau, he said, yes, it's jolly good stuff. But unfortunately, the price of beans has gone up tremendous just recently. And you see, you really can't afford to give things away in this world, Esau. Oh, all right, he says, I'll pay for it. What do you want? Well, he said, uh, that birthright of yours, Esau. So Esau thought for a minute.
Birthright. Why, yes, birthright. You know, do you believe all about that, Jacob? All that stuff that old Abram with his beard used to talk about? God appeared to him, you know, and he was justified for something or other. Didn't know what old grandfather used to say? Justified. And that one day, uh, King Messiah was going to come. You don't believe all that stuff, do you, Jacob? I mean, this is the modern world, Jacob. Well, Jacob says, yes, I do believe that. Oh. Haven't got over your childhood myth- childhood myths yet.
Well, I don't, he says. You want the birthright? No use to me. What's the good of a birthright when your stomach's empty? You can't live on birthrights, Jacob. You can't live on promises. They don't feed your stomach. They don't fill it. All right, Jacob, he says, you give me the pottage, you can have the birthright, old chap. And for a mess of pottage, and for present immediate satisfaction, he sold the glory and the future.
I told you, didn't I, that even though it were ordinary material things, to enter the blessings of God will require faith. It will force upon us choice. It will test our comparative sense of value. Esau decided to go for immediate satisfaction, and satisfaction at a very lowly level.
Many people have done it since. The most famous Edomite, descendant of Esau, that is, forever after that they called him Edom, the red one, because of his old choice about the red pottage. The most famous Edomite was, of course, Herod, the Idumean, as the New Testament calls him. When the wise men came a knocking on Herod's palace door, they said they had come seeking the king of the Jews.
Where is he that is born king of the Jews? What's that, said Herod? King of the Jews, they said. You don't believe that stuff and nonsense, do you? All these messianic prophecies, uh, these queer little sects in Judaism still believe in the literal Messiah that's going to come one day and be king. Well, no sensible politician believes that, goodness me, no. Anyway, says Herod, I'm king here. I intend to be king. You can have all your promises and hopes for a coming Messiah. I intend, says Herod, to be actually king now.
Just in case there should be anything in those promises, I'll have all the heads of the babies under two cut off. That'll show there's nothing in the promises. There were kings in Edom before there were kings in Israel, comments Genesis. Herod intending to reign now and not believe in the true promises of God's future. To go from Herod to genuine believers is a big jump, isn't it?
Now Paul had on occasion to tell the Corinthians, you know, you Corinthians, you puzzle me. Seems to me that you want now to reign as kings now. While we apostles are made the off-scarring of the earth, and we go often with an empty stomach and beaten and bruised and have no certain dwelling place. Would to God that you reigned, really reigned, for that would mean that the Savior had come, and we would reign with you. And the Corinthians were impatient to have their stomachs full now, and couldn't abide a little suffering for the Savior's sake, that they might reign with him when he comes.
Sooner or later, the choice will come to us all, will it not? Beware, says the writer to the Hebrews, to those that had professed salvation. Beware, lest there be any profane person among you, or fornicator. Profane person like Esau, who for a morsel of meat sold his birthright. We cannot lose our salvation, can we? And every believer will be with Christ when Christ comes to reign.
What position will I have, my brother? How big then the blessing? It is possible to sell what could have been mine in that glory. An exalted position in the government of Christ. To sell it? Because I'm not prepared to go sometimes and occasionally with an empty stomach to make sacrifice for Christ's sake, believing his word and his promise.
I demand to have my full now blessing. Can't always have everything. We have to choose. What about, um, Isaac? Isaac isn't listening just now, because I wouldn't really like him to hear what I'm about to say, in case I have to meet him when I get home to heaven.
Oh, I don't think he minds, though. Not such a big figure as Abraham, is he? Abraham was a great pioneer of the faith. Man of vigor and determination. God appeared to him in Ur of Chaldees, he came out, and if his father settled halfway, well, eventually Abram comes on the whole vision of a Wesley, isn't it? Without criticism, I know of churches calling themselves after that dear man's name that have given up the whole concept of evangelization, the necessity of conversion.
Marvelous days, weren't they, when the old independents, the old Baptists, the old congregationalists discovered in God's word the principles of church government and organization. What marvelous freedoms they won for us. By daring to stand at the cost of prison and persecution and death, some of them. For the right of believers to meet according to God's holy word, without the trammels of the tyrannies of great ecclesiastical structures. And then we come on behind.
To find sometimes that enthusiasm for keeping the New Testament doctrines of the church have somehow, I don't know, evaporated. And instead of maintaining them, people let them go. No longer convinced that the way to God's blessing is to obey God in these matters too. Full marks for Isaac, who dared to believe God that the way to blessing was to trust and obey.
And he dwelt in the land and proved God in spite of all the opposition. God made room for him. He sowed, and the Lord blessed him, and he reaped. If we can commend him for that, I don't know that we can comment- can commend him for what follows, can we? For now we come at last to the great story of the blessing by Isaac. Of his two sons. And I must be careful what I say, for the New Testament says that by faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.
I mustn't speak, therefore, as if the man in blessing had no faith. He did. Certainly, as Hebrews points out, he had a faith in the coming future. But who can read the story of how he was tricked into blessing Jacob and feel that all was absolutely well. So that we might see a thing in a helpful framework, I'm going to ask your permission to diverge for five minutes, and then come back to the topic.
However far I now roam in my diverging, I haven't forgotten that I'm meant to be expounding Genesis. But I wonder, have you found with me that there is a certain sequence in our experience of the blessing of God. At whatever level we think about this, let's think about it ourselves at the higher levels of spiritual blessing. We start with the word of God. Some promise, some statement of God's holy word. We are called upon to believe it and then obey.
And when we believe God's word, it results in blessing, whatever the blessing should be. To the blessing there comes on our part a reaction. If the blessing concerned was a harvest of corn, like it was with Isaac, then of course our reaction would be physical satisfaction as our wives cooked it and we ate it. And not uncommonly, with that kind of reaction, there also comes a sensation. Go back to Isaac just a minute. God said, Isaac, stay in the land, and I will bless you.
It was hard going, but he believed God and had faith in his word, and he stayed in the land. As a result, God blessed him, and he reaped sevenfold that year. Blessing of harvest. Can you imagine what follows? I can, I think. They collected the corn, and uh, Rebecca cooked it into pavlows and other such things, as people of that day were wont to do, plus a little venison that old Esau got. Ooh, what my soul loves. You wouldn't be advised to think that that was a kind of a spiritual reaction necessarily, when he said his soul loved it.
I rather think he was talking about that, how shall I describe it? That marvelous sensation that goes a tickling through you when you're hungry, and there's a luscious beef steak. It doesn't just satisfy your hunger, does it, and fill you with proteins and those other ugly, funny things and keeps you going, but in the mercy of God, what a lovely God he is. Along with the blessing of the beef steak or the kettle of cornflakes, there comes the physical satisfaction. Of course, that's the main thing, that's what it's for. But on top of the physical satisfaction, a sensation, and if you don't enjoy your pavlovas, well, I'm sorry for you, because the sensation, oh, marvelous.
Yes. Let's take it at a higher level. We read the word of God at the spiritual level. Some such word as, to him give all the prophets witness that whoever believes in him shall receive forgiveness of sins. There's the word of God. And we believe it. Marvelous. And we get the blessing. And you say, what is the blessing? Why, forgiveness, of course. Marvelous blessing. Who shall describe it? We've got the blessing, it is forgiveness. And then very often there comes a reaction, doesn't there?
It may not be so violent as, uh, King David's, but, uh, now and again we get the reaction anyway of gratitude for God. And we might say with David, in our joy at forgiveness, all the blessedness of the man whose sins are forgiven. Our gratitude to the Lord. And I tell you what, God in his magnificence not only gives us to know that reaction of gratitude and joy at the level of our emotions. I have seen some believers so overjoyed at having forgiveness that there has followed a very curious sensation.
They wept for very joy. Ah. Now God loves even our spiritual blessings to overflow in emotion, and then indeed lead to sensation. God is no utilitarian God. Here we find another scripture, Romans one to three or something, or Ephesians five, and it convicts us of sin. We believe it.
That brings us a blessing too. What is that? Why, repentance, of course. That tremendous blessing that is repentance, facing ourselves, having the illusion stripped away and seeing reality as reality is, and how nasty sometimes it can be, and taking the first step of release, that is repentance. What a blessing. And there's a reaction.
Yes. Sorrow very often. Godly sorrow. Not put on pie stuff, but real godly sorrow. For sin. That's a blessing indeed. For those who sorrow like that shall be comforted. It's one of the early steps towards glory. I tell you what, that when God thus speaks and we believe and get blessing and are brought to repentance, and the reaction is sorrow, sometimes that emotion again will lead over to sensation, won't it?
And people in their sorrow will shed some tears. What a funny thing. It is, isn't it? And people, when they're so full of joy, it overflows in the sensation of tears. And when they're full of sorrow, it overflows in the sensation of tears. These sensations are funny things, aren't they, what? You say, what are you talking about? Well, let me just observe an- an in a minute I shall be back to Isaac. Sometimes, have you ever known it for a person to come to Christ in repentance, hear his word, repent and believe, and receive the blessing of forgiveness and the gift of eternal life?
And the result is, oh, full of joy and gratitude to the Lord and wonderful experiences, they say. It's like walking on air or something like that, and sky above is deeper blue and things and what ho. And there might even be some sensations of not walking, not merely walking on air or tears or something. Like the hymn has it. Oh, blessed moment are when first I felt my heart with deep contrition melt. I felt it, says the hymn writer. You know, the sensation. Isn't that lovely? But then I suspect many of us will recognize what I'm now go- about to say from our own experience. Presently, the sensation fades.
And the joy fades. And then what do we do? Ha. We try to r- work up the sensation again. And work up the joy again. Where is that blessedness I knew? Well, it's gone, my brother. Of course it has. Ah, but you want the nice feeling. And people get worried because the feeling's gone and the sensation is gone. And we tell the young convert, look here, you'll have to learn a thing or two.
They were lovely, uh, emotions and they were lovely sensations, but you mustn't put your faith in them, you know. You mustn't let your life be guided by them. You've got to start here with the word of God, you see. Let the sensations go, let the reactions go. Come back to God's word, some new promise, something fresh to believe, and repeat the process. And sooner or later, and sometimes it's later, but if we do believe God's word and obey it, there will come blessing further and more. And maybe in God's goodness will lead to further emotions and sensations. But pray don't put the cart before the horse and begin to put your faith in these things and try to work up this.
That will be pseudo and lead you out eventually into an emotional unreality and into an emotional desert. The only safe place for blessing is to put my faith in God's word. And here came Isaac. We're back on track at last. And he was going to bless his sons. And I meant, Isaac, you've a word of God about this, haven't you? Can't bring myself to believe that Isaac didn't know what God had told Rebekah.
He had a word of God about it. Should he not have sought the Lord's face like his wife had sought the Lord's face? Should he not have said, Lord, what am I to do about this word, the elder shall serve the younger? Oh, I know parents have their preferences. So did Joseph. When Jacob reversed the order of the children and blessed the younger first. But there was God's word. He seems not to have taken it into consideration.
What would move him now to bless? Says he to Esau, Esau, go out and get me some venison, you know, the sort that my soul loves. Wow, there he sits, poor old boy, licking his lips at the thought of it. Lovely, rich gravy, venison chips. Beautiful. And dress it just like I like it cooked, you know, not too much, not too little. Serve it up with the spices he saw. When I've got that inside myself, marvelous good, and then I'll bless you.
Oh, I see. So he's going to work up his mood, is he? Got to be in the mood to bless, haven't you? He's going to work it up. By a lovely beef steak. Say, what's wrong with it? Nothing wrong with it. Do you suppose that the taste of a venison steak is a good ground for blessing a young man on? The text tells us, well, I don't know. If you're not going to go by the word of God, well, what will you go by?
Isaac decided to go by his senses. He had five, like most of us have. Two of them weren't much good. For he was old, and his eyes were dim, and he couldn't see. So it wasn't any good trusting them. When Jacob came in dressed up like Esau, he couldn't see him, but he listened. And he said, hello. The voice is the voice of Jacob.
Here, who are you? he said. And the reply came, I am Esau. And he says, that's funny. Because, uh, you don't sound like Esau. Alas. He decided not to trust his hearing. He didn't trust his sight, couldn't. And now, alas, he didn't trust his hearing. That would have guided him more safely, wouldn't it? So what will guide him? The other three senses. Oh, but lovely, lovely venison, he says, just like Esau cooks it.
Tastes beautiful. So going by his taste. Poor old boy. That deceived him. Now, it wasn't venison at all, it was a bit of spam cooked up. Rachel told Jacob how to do it. Here, just to check, he says, come here a bit. Let me feel you. Hm, seems solid here.
