[0:00] As we come to this chapter 25 in the book of Genesis, you may or may not be aware that this chapter is actually unique within the entire scriptural record.
[0:11] And what makes it unique is that it is the only chapter of the Bible in which Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the sort of tripartite patriarchs of the Israelite nation, are all alive together in the same chapter.
[0:30] And we know this because you can do the maths and work out, you know, that it says that Abraham gave up the ghost and died at a good old age. He lived 103 score and 15 years. In other words, he's 175 when he died.
[0:42] Now, we know from chapter 21, verse 5, Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born. That means that when Abraham dies, Isaac is 75 years old.
[0:54] And we're told further down in the same chapter, verse 26, Isaac was three score years old when she bare him, when Rebecca had the twins Esau and Jacob.
[1:04] So there's still 15 years left of Abraham's life when Isaac's twins are born. So in other words, Jacob and Esau are 15 years old and Isaac is 75 years old and Abraham is 175 years old when Abraham dies.
[1:20] Now, we don't know if they all lived together in the same encampment. It's possible they did. It's perhaps less likely. And we'll come to that in a wee minute. But the fact is that they are all contemporary, all together in the same one chapter, this chapter 25.
[1:37] And this is the only chapter when it happens. So today's useless piece of information. But there it is. That is the chapter that is unique. Abraham's age, of course, is that which is, it's the whole theme of why God's promises are seen to be miraculous.
[1:54] The fact that he is 100 years old when his son, the covenant son, Isaac, is born is in itself a miracle. He is, of course, 86 years old when Ishmael is born of Agar the Egyptian.
[2:08] And there's reference to that also in the chapter. Remember, he's 137 when Sarah dies. The end there, as we saw, of chapter, beginning of chapter 23.
[2:20] Sarah's 127 when she dies. And we know from chapter 17, verse 17, if you want to look it up, that Abraham is 10 years older than Sarah. So if she's 127 when she dies, Abraham's 137.
[2:34] Isaac marries Rebekah when he is 40. That means there's three years between the death of Sarah and between Isaac taking his wife, Rebekah.
[2:44] Now, why does that matter? Well, the suggestion is, although the Bible isn't telling us things in a continuous linear history, it's going more sort of in waves and in events.
[2:56] And we'll explain that in a wee bit in a minute too. The fact is that, or the implication is, it's not until after Isaac takes his wife, Rebekah, that Abraham then, almost as it were, feels free, perhaps, to either set up an alternative campsite away from Isaac, so he's the undisputed leader of the clan, of the tribe, or to take another wife in companionship, perhaps, once he's seen that Isaac is himself safely settled with the bride of God's choosing.
[3:29] Abraham has grieving to do, yes, but he's also flesh and blood. He's a human being. And, you know, old men can experience loneliness and lack of companionship in their widowhood, just as perhaps younger men can too as well.
[3:44] So we read, at the beginning of chapter 25, Abraham, again, Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah. Now, by this stage, Abraham is more than 140 years old.
[3:56] Now, the stage at which David, when he is 70 years old, he's been 70 years old, and he is practically on his deathbed by then, half of Abraham's age, and that's when they give him Abishag the Shunammite to look after him, to effectively act as a nurse to him, in 1 Kings chapter 1, and she sleeps with him, lies with him, but it's literally only sleeping, because it says that he didn't know her in the biblical sense.
[4:23] There's no marital relations between them. Now, it's perfectly possible that Abraham takes another wife here, perhaps to act more as a nurse, as a carer for him, but they also live together, sleep together, have normal husband and wife relations, and, as the Bible specifies here, there are six children who are born from this union.
[4:46] Obviously, not all at once necessarily, maybe over a period of time, but in the normal way of things, Abraham's second wife, Ketcha, whose name means fragrance, we don't know what age she was, we don't know, she must have been quite a bit younger than Abraham, obviously, but we do know that these are the six children, Zimran, Jokshan, Nida, Miriam, Nishpat, and Shua, who are born from this union.
[5:11] We're also told that Jokshan then has two more sons of his own, Sheba and Dedan, and Dedan in turn has three children, Asherim, Letushim, Leomin, and also likewise, Midian has five further sons as well, Ifa, Ephra, Hanoch, Abida, and Elbeah.
[5:28] Okay, so we've got 16 offspring from this union. Six children, seven grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, that we know about.
[5:39] The likelihood is, because when we see that the great-grandchildren describe in verse 3 there, Asherim, Letushim, Leomin, the I-M, the I-M suffix at the end of a name, usually implies a plural.
[5:55] It implies that this isn't just an individual, but it is probably the people that sprang from these individuals, the people that came from, the Asherim coming from Asher, the Letushim, the Leomin.
[6:10] It's a nation almost, or a family, a clan. So, in other words, the descendants of Abraham are seen to be, even in his old age, multiplying. There's no suggestion that this is a rival to the covenant line.
[6:25] There's no suggestion that these children, or this second wife, have the same status as Sarah and Isaac. They are the covenant people. Isaac is the covenant line.
[6:36] The promises are inherited by Isaac. We read verse 5, Abel gave all that he had unto Isaac. But nevertheless, even at the purely physical level, God is seen to maintain his promises.
[6:51] Remember way back, Genesis 15, where God says to Abraham, I am your shield, you're exceeding great reward. And he says, Lord God, what will thou give me?
[7:02] Seeing I go childless, the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus. And we looked at Eliezer when he went to be the steward that went to find a wife for Isaac. And the Lord said, Behold, the word of the Lord came, this shall not be thine heir.
[7:17] But he that shall come forth out of thine own battles shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars that thou be able to number them. And he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
[7:29] And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness. Now it's not saying, Oh, the covenant seed will be this massive and like the stars of the sky. But rather, God is making his promise to Abraham.
[7:43] He is keeping his promise to Abraham. Yes, Isaac will be the covenant child. Isaac will be the one through whom the blessings of relationship to the Lord are preserved.
[7:54] But Abraham also is flesh and blood. And although, yes, in the culture, in the historical context, if a marriage was childless, then all the blame got put in the women.
[8:08] That was a kind of convenient way of shifting any anxiety on the part of the man. So Sarah got the blame, no doubt, for all those years of barrenness. But also, Abraham, in truth, would have to live with the probably questions behind his back.
[8:23] And maybe he just wasn't able to produce children and so on. And maybe the birth of Ishmael might have knocked some of that on the head, perhaps. But there's always going to be, if not the secret shame, then certainly, certainly, the unashamed sorrow for all the years of childlessness, which Sarah, yes, has had to bear, but which Abraham also has had to bear.
[8:48] But here's God now in this chapter producing, presumably within Abraham's lifetime, 16 offspring from this one union, this latter marriage.
[9:03] Not in the same plane as the marriage to Sarah, but here's this companion of his late life, whose name means fragrance, producing from six sons and then seven grandchildren and then three great-grandchildren, 16 offspring from this union.
[9:18] Plus the fact that you've got Ishmael here, who, as we have listed from verse 12, almost produces 12 sons of his own. 12 sons who go on to build cities, this is their names, by their towns, by their castles, 12 princes, according to their nations.
[9:35] So the seed of Ishmael is exploding into multitude. And again, the implication is that in his long life of 137 years, Ishmael lives to see all this expansion of his progeny and that Abraham sees the beginnings of it too.
[9:53] Although God is true to his promise about the covenant and about the blessings of all the more spiritual things, just because his plans for us are greater and deeper and higher and more spiritual and eternal than the things of the earth, the Lord does not forget that we are flesh and blood.
[10:18] We are not made of stone. Not that we pure spirit like the angels. We have human flesh and blood needs of aching hearts and wounded spirits that have waited long upon the Lord and whose faithfulness he will not forget.
[10:36] He doesn't forget his faithfulness to Sarah, for example. You know, we think, I mean, Isaac is 40 years old when he marries Rebecca. By then, Sarah has been dead three years.
[10:48] Now, the Lord doesn't bless Sarah's patience with multitudes of children. She's not asking for that. You know, one miracle is enough for her. A child, a son of her old age, but, you know, probably the cruelest thing the Lord could have done is wait until Isaac was barely 20 and then along comes some pretty young thing to take him away from his mother and so she barely has him any time at all.
[11:13] Isaac is spared to his mother for all the rest of her life. He doesn't take a wife for the rest of her life. She has him, in a sense, the child of her old age who she has longed for and waited for and her patience to the Lord in a sense rewards that she never has to share him with anyone.
[11:36] She gets to keep her precious covenant child all to herself for all of her life. And you might think, well, that's not very healthy, is it? No, but, on the other hand, the Lord is being merciful to Sarah.
[11:49] He's being kind to her. He is remembering that she, too, has a human heart, human needs, human frailties, human suffering that she has endured for decades.
[12:02] And now he is blessing her by sparing to her the child of her old age until she herself is taken away. Then Isaac is comforted after his mother's dead.
[12:14] And likewise with Abraham here, when he takes this second wife, there's no suggestion that she's replacing Sarah in his affection or in his heart. You know, we don't read that when he dies he goes and gets buried beside Keturah.
[12:28] He gets buried beside Sarah. The likelihood is that he sends Keturah and her sons away when it says that he sent them away from Isaac, his son, while he gets ripped eastward into the east country.
[12:43] This is a reference almost certainly not just to sending away Hagar and Ishmael when Ishmael was young, but also he sends away, if not Keturah, then certainly Keturah's children.
[12:56] Maybe she went with her sons. Maybe she stayed behind with Abraham. We don't know. It is possible that one reason Abraham took this second wife was to establish, as it were, a second camp outside of Isaac's sort of ruling of the clan.
[13:15] We mentioned that at the end of chapter 24 here, but the point is that God is not unmindful of his servants. He doesn't just expect them to rely on pure spirit.
[13:27] He knows they are human beings. He knows they have human needs. They have human aches in their heart. They have human sorrows. and he is kind to Abraham in his old age.
[13:41] He gives him children in his old age. He gives him companionship in his old age. He enables him to see his son, his covenant son, happily set up with the bride of God's choosing.
[13:54] He enables him to see Ishmael, his firstborn, albeit by Hagar, blossoming and progressing and producing family, which themselves go on to become strong.
[14:06] God blesses Abraham and he is able to see in his own lifetime with his eyes of flesh in the days of his flesh to see God beginning to bring his promise to pass.
[14:19] It's not all just, oh, well, eventually, you know, in the scheme of heaven and eternity, all these things will be settled. God's people already have to exercise faith and patience for many years.
[14:31] God is kind. God is merciful. He is merciful to say that. He is merciful to Abraham in his old age with companionship, with family, with children, with the comfort that they will bring.
[14:45] We read that he is merciful and good to Isaac. It came to pass, verse 11, after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac and Isaac dwelt by the well that I wrote.
[14:56] Now, whatever this blessing meant in the case of Isaac, it clearly didn't mean blessed him with a multitude of sons just yet. Isaac and Rebekah have to wait 20 years before they have any children.
[15:10] Now, it's nothing like as long as Abraham and Sarah had to wait, but it's still long enough, perhaps, to start them panicking and worrying and being anxious.
[15:21] Verse 21, Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife because she was barren, and the Lord was entreated of him, and Rebekah, his wife, conceived. And so she has a hard time during the time when she's expecting the children struggle together with inertia.
[15:36] If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to inquire of the Lord. You see how this couple here are each putting the Lord at the center of their marriage and of their family life.
[15:47] They are each inquiring for the Lord in their time of difficulty. When there are no children, Isaac goes and inquires to the Lord and prays for his wife. When there are children, Rebekah is having such a hard time with him, she goes to the Lord and asks him, this is exactly what we should do.
[16:04] In the midst of trials, anxieties, difficulties, problems, whether it is lack of blessing that we had hoped for, or whether it is difficulty, suffering, and problems that we perhaps didn't anticipate, when something that we thought would be a joyful thing ends up being a hardship, we should go to the Lord.
[16:23] That is what these examples teach us, we should go to the Lord with it, because the Lord answers, the Lord answers Isaac, the Lord answers Rebekah, the Lord was entreated of him, verse 21, she went to inquire of the Lord and the Lord said to her, two nations are in my womb, two manner of people shall be separated from my bones, and the one shall be stronger than the other, and the elder shall serve the younger, and when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold there were twins born in her womb.
[16:58] So here we have this promise, this fulfillment of God's kindness, God's goodness to his people, yes, we are to be faithful, yes, we are to endure, yes, we are to walk by faith, not by sight, and there will be plenty of all of that, but God is not unmindful of his people, he does not forget their human requirements, he does not forget that we are flesh and blood, he does not forget that we have a need for hearts to be healed, for blessings yet to be received, for comfort to be had, we read verse 11, God blessed Isaac, and Isaac dwelt by the well of the high boy, now whether that meant he blessed him by deepening his relationship with Isaac, whether he added to his material wealth, which we know, for example, from verse, chapter 26, that he did that, if we look ahead to verse 12 of chapter 26,
[17:59] Isaac sowed in that land, received in the same year a hundredfold, and the Lord blessed him, and the man waxed great, and he went forward and grew until he became very great, for he had possession of flocks and herds and great store of servants, and the first lines envied him, this is the covenant lie, Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac in the fullness of time begat Esau and Jacob, but God is not unmindful of the others, Abraham gave up the ghost in a good old age, verse 8, and died an old man full of years, he was gathered to his people, a hundred, three score and fifteen years, now remember that God does not leave himself without a witness, that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is likewise the God of Noah, the God of Shem, the God of all the forefathers that have gone before in the covenant line, now you may or may or may not have mentioned this before, but you know when you do the maths, when you do the arithmetic, go back to chapter 11 if you will with me, chapter 11 in
[19:07] Genesis, and we read there verse 10, these are the generations of Shem, Shem was a hundred years old and began Arfaxad two years after the flood, and Shem lived after he began Arfaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters, and then it goes on down to the end of chapter 11, it mentions also Salah, verse 14, lived thirty years and begat Eber, he lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, begat sons and daughters, Eber lived four and thirty years and begat Peleg, Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hundred and thirty years and he begat sons and daughters, the dominant life, what we don't realise until and unless we do the maths is that at the time when Abraham dies at 175, Shem is still alive, Shem is still living when Abraham dies, not in the same place, different part of the world, yes, no doubt, whether it's in Ur of the Chaldees or whether it's in Hanan or whatever it may be, but the God of
[20:07] Shem is still being worshipped by Shem, all his descendants are not still alive, Salah, his grandson, is still alive, Eber, his great-grandson, is still alive, Eber of course is the one from whom Abraham takes his title at chapter 14, where it says in verse 13, there came one that escaped and told Abraham the Hebrew, Hebrew means the descendant of Eber, Eber is still living when Abraham dies, Salah is still living when Abraham dies, Shem is still living when Abraham dies, all the subsequent generations aren't necessarily doing so, but you know, you've got to get your head around the fact that the huge longevity of those in the pre-flood days, and remember that Shem was born before the flood, none of the others were, and followed after him, but the huge longevity which is gradually decreasing with the generations, so that Shem lives 600 years, Noah had lived 950 years, you know, the first generation to be born beyond
[21:14] Noah's lifetime is Isaac, Isaac is the first generation to be born beyond Noah's lifetime, beyond Shem's lifetime, the first generation to be born is, as Genesis has, Joseph, Joseph and his brothers and so on, Shem has died by then, but that's how long these patriarchs are living, that's how long the witness of the worship of God is continuing in a different place, even while Abraham is being faithful in what would become the land of Canaan, God doesn't leave himself without witness, and although the Bible ties off neatly different sections and different people groups and brings them to a conclusion and puts the full stop as though they're in neat little boxes, it's not actually like that, it's in waves, now you look at a wave coming on the seashore, now the top bit of the water is going and breaking on the sand and then it's pulling out, but the next load is coming in while the first load is being pulled off down the sands, it's like waves overlapping with each other, because even while Abraham is living out all of his life and having his sons and his grandsons and so on,
[22:27] Shem is still living, Shem who has seen the flood, Shem who remains faithful to the God of his father Noah, and to the God of all the faithful who have gone before, Noah remember himself was the first generation to be born beyond Adam's lifetime, Noah's the tenth generation, Abram's the twentieth generation, these are people living huge amounts of time and those who are loving and serving the Lord continue to do so, he does not leave himself without a witness, and so we fight, when Abram dies, Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, the field which Abram purchased of the sons of Heath, there was Abram buried and Sarah's wife, came to pass after the death of Abram, God blessed his son Isaac, and Isaac dwelt by the well and the high body, the Lord blesses him, no doubt deepens his relationship with him, no doubt blesses him also with material well being, but the one thing he longs for, he doesn't yet have, until he goes directly to the
[23:34] Lord and entreats him for his wife Rebecca, and then, not one son but two, but as is so often the case, one proves to be the covenant line and the other proves not to be, despite Isaac's own personal preference, the boys grew, Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field, Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents, might be a bit too much to say he was a bit of a sissy, but he certainly wasn't the rough and ready man's man, hunter of the field that Esau was, maybe he wasn't ephemeral, obviously he couldn't have been with the number of children he produced, the number of wives he had and so on, but he preferred to be at home amongst the women in the pots and the pans, he liked to cook food, here he is, cooking the potage and Esau comes in from the field, Isaac loved Esau, his elder son, he ate of his venison, he no doubt he made him proud because of all that he could achieve but Rebecca loved Jacob, now we don't know why that's just because he spent time where she was, maybe he gave her the time and the sort of affirmation that Esau didn't, off doing his own thing perhaps, we don't know, but we do read that when
[24:53] Jacob is busy cooking, Esau came in from the field and he was spent, and Esau said to Jacob, feed me I pray thee with that same red potage, potage of lentils, for as I am faint, therefore was a name called Edom, Edom means red, it's the red potage, the lentils that Jacob is making this potage with, and Jacob said, sell me this day thy birthright, you know, he's up all things, where's this coming from, absolutely out the blue, this isn't out the blue, that's not something you don't just pick up and say, what will I ask him, I know I'll ask him this, no, clearly Jacob has been plotting this for quite some time, Jacob has been thinking about, well he's the elder brother, he's going to get the blessing, he's going to get the inheritance, I want that, what can I do, how can I work that, I can't beat him in combat, I can't excel him with the success of the hunter of the field, and so on, what can I do, we already know that Jacob, his name means supplanter, crooked, yakul, after his brother came out, his hand took hold, verse 26, on Esau's heel, and his name was called
[26:09] Jacob, Isaac was 60 years old, when she bared him, so he's been planning, he's been plotting this, what can I do, how can I get this birthright, and here comes Esau absolutely worn out, tell me this daylight birthright, Esau said, behold, I'm not the point to die, what profit shall this birthright do to me, now, he's probably exaggerating, after a drink of water and a wee bit of food, he's not going to be actually on the point of death, even if he just rolls over and goes to sleep just now, he's not going to be on the point of death, he may be exhausted, he may be weary, but when this question comes out of blue, he doesn't smell a rat, he doesn't think of the solemnity or seriousness of it, instead he thinks, how do I get this food, Jacob's there with his bowl of steaming potty jeer, and with the bread and the lentils and everything, it smells so good, I'll say anything, I'll just do whatever it takes just to get what I need, just now, I'm at the point that I, what profit shall this birthright do to me, and Jacob might have said, you're right enough, yeah, you're about to die anyway, and then
[27:15] I'll be the eldest, that's okay, no, swear to him this day, and he swore to him, and he sold his birthright unto Jacob, then Jacob gave Esau bread and potage of lentils, he did eat and drink and rose up and went his way, thus Esau despised his birthright, now this question of the birthright, often this story perhaps gets told in isolation, but really the context of this story that is told between Jacob and Esau, it's coming at the conclusion of a chapter which involves Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Abraham and his subsequent children who are not covering life, Isaac to whom he gives everything and whom the Lord blesses, Ishmael, the son of Agar, and he sends him away, and all his brothers, and all his sons, and all the other members of the family, we don't quite know if verse six means that there were other women as well, concubines, the likely who knows that this reference to concubines means Hagar,
[28:22] Sarah's maidservant, and Keturah as a sort of second wife, not having the status of Sarah, the principal wife, that's like it, we're not told of any other, you know, maidservants or liaisons that Abraham had, there's nothing to suggest there were, but rather it's these children that are sent away, those who are not covenant line, not privileged, not blessed in the way that Isaac was, are sent away, yes they get gifts, he gave gifts to them, he gave them blessings, yes sir, but they went away, he gave them gifts and sent them away, he gave them things of the world, but the real riches were the things with which the Lord would bless Isaac, the things which Esau would stand to inherit, now Ishmael of course didn't inherit these blessings, not being covenant line, son of the slave girl, but no question about that with Esau, you can't say that Esau is the son of an Egyptian slave girl, you can't say that he's not legitimately from the marriage with
[29:23] Rebecca, the love of Isaac's life, you can't say that Esau is whichever way you're looking at, the firstborn, the first in line for the covenant mercies, he is the one who at the conclusion of this long chapter about Abraham and his other families and Isaac and God's blessing on him and Ishmael and all his multitudes of children and cities that they build and castles but not the covenant line and the problems and the struggles that Isaac and Rebecca have and they entreat the Lord and she conceives and then she entreats the Lord because she's struggling during the time when she's with child and then she delivered the twins and the one comes out red and haiti and the other is all smooth and the one grass hold of the heel and the other and this is the relationship between the two boys they go out so different the one cunning smooth a smooth operator the other just blazing the trail the hunter the haiti man the man of the field the man with the bow and arrow the man who's the man's man and then he's up there but here he is in great weakness and Jacob's got something he wants and it is in this context that Esau does not think all the heritage of this chapter all the generations that have gone before that remember when Abraham dies
[30:52] Shem is still living all the descending of the covenant line from Shem from Noah right down through the generations which Esau himself stands to inherit he stands to be the man of God God's chosen carrier on of the covenant line God's chosen man he should be he's the firstborn he's the strong one the hunter the powerful man he's the one who should inherit this and the fact of the man is he couldn't care less about it he doesn't smell around he doesn't think oh wait a minute no I want to be the one who inherits the covenant mercy I'm the favorite of my father Isaac the saint of the lord no no no no no no I'll go and get food from somewhere else I'm not having your potty cheer if it's going to mean selling my birthday no he didn't give it a second thought he'd eat and drink and rose up and went his way that's it done I've got what I need I've got my bodily requirements satisfied on to the next thing this is what
[31:56] Esau despised because the lord has given to his covenant people all the blessings of this world and heaven too the promises of eternity that the lord would always provide upon earth we've talked earlier about his great kindness his kindness to Abraham his kindness to Sarah his kindness to Isaac and to Rebecca here his kindness to all his people he remembers that they are weak he remembers that they are flesh and blood remember what Jesus says in the sermon on the mat all these things do the Gentiles seek your heavenly father knoweth that you have need of these things he knows Abraham needs companionship in his old age he knows that he has promised him physical children that will be as numerous as the stars of heaven he keeps his word he remembers his kindness to Sarah he remembers his kindness to Isaac and Rebecca your heavenly father knoweth that you have need of these things but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you see the context of this chapter see how it begins with Abraham see how it continues with all the families and all the children that didn't inherit with all those who may be physical offspring but they're not spiritual offspring they are not the covenant line they are not those under the blessing of God and Esau stands to be in line for the blessing of God all that stretching all the way back to
[33:38] Shem and beyond he despised his birthright now I don't doubt for a minute that Esau probably thought that the words he uttered then didn't carry any weight at all what's the worry about this you know okay I'll say whatever he likes just give me the food I'm dying here just give me something to eat and he thought that what he said would count for nothing it was just idle words we have the blessing the privilege of the God of Shem set on one side for a bowl of pottage a mess of pottage and verse 34 here sums up the bearing the attitude not just of Esau but of the whirling never mind the promises of God what can I get now what can I get for myself here how can I gratify the desires of right now the desires of my body for now how can I satisfy the material wants of the here and now whatever I need to say whatever I have to do change
[34:46] I'll do it sell whatever you've got just as long as I get what I need right now but you get it you eat you drink you get up you wipe your mouth you walk away and it's over what are you left with and what have you sold Jesus said remember in Mark chapter 8 what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul what shall a man give in exchange for his soul Esau doesn't get the world he gets a mess of potty share and he probably thought that what he was saying was just idle words which counted for nothing and that's probably what Peter thought with all his denials we looked at Peter last last week remember on the morning and how my own personal view he was caught out he just wanted people to get off his back yes I'll say no I don't know the man just leave me alone I'll say whatever it takes I'll just speak whatever it takes I just want you to get off my back
[35:48] I just want you to leave me alone he didn't think that what he said would actually count for anything it was just idle words but what does Jesus say Matthew 12 verse 36 I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment but by thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned that's a bit harsh isn't it I mean it's just meaningless words it's just idle words and Jesus says no the words that come out of your mouth are indicative of what is in your heart so we go back to the previous couple of verses and we see verses 33 either make the tree good and his fruit good or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt for the tree is known by his fruit oh generation of vipers how can ye being evil speak good things for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speak a good man out of the good treasure of the heart bring forth good things an evil man treasure of his evil treasure bring forth evil things the words he speak they're not just
[36:59] I do what is Esau saying here he's not saying I'm a bad man I don't deserve God's blessing what he's saying is look whatever covenant mercies there may be I don't care about them whatever God's promises may be I don't get no use to me now James give me what I need now I'm not prepared to wait I want what I have my material requirements and I want it now I'll do whatever it takes I'll say whatever it takes give me and give me now that is the attitude of the worldly it's the attitude of those who see nothing beyond this material tangible world if I can't see here smell touch taste it it doesn't exist as far as they're concerned the covenant meant nothing the promises meant nothing the God Abraham and Isaac meant almost nothing there is no doubt from later chapters that Esau had a dear and tender love for his father Isaac and it was mutual but lots of people who have no love for the
[38:09] God of their fathers will have perfectly tender legitimate love in the flesh for their mother or their father or their grandparents but despise and reject the God who most same fathers and mothers and worship Esau is not saying he hates the Lord he's not saying that he's evil and set on wicked ways all he's saying is look he's still used to me I don't care about these things I don't care about the covenant I don't care about the promises I don't care about my birthright we're twins after all for goodness sake just give me the pottage just give me what I need this is the attitude that he's out about it refuses to see beyond that which is discernible by the senses it is short term it is immediate but the pottage that Esau gets it will be used up he'll go hungry again he'll be thirsty again he'll hunt again and he'll need food again
[39:14] I thought we'll get so old by then in the meantime yes we have physical needs Jesus says your heavenly father knoweth that you have needed these things he knows you need food he knows you need water he knows you're human you need companionship he knows about the flesh and blood he understands all these things he became human himself and he experienced all these things hunger and thirst and cold and tears and sorrow and need for sleep and all these things but the Lord teaches us to look beyond merely the immediate we see back into the covenant mists of time and history we see that the Lord still has his people in generations that we thought were long done with gems still loose Jacob is already on the scene Esau despises his birthright God continues to unfold his purpose he does he does it with the most unlikely characters somebody once said the God of Abraham yes you can understand why he's that because he my good soul saint of the
[40:25] Lord the patriarch the God of Isaac yes the devout saint of the Lord they for one wife his whole type serve the Lord love the Lord bless the Lord but the God of Jacob that chancer that twister that supplanter how could he be the God of Jacob but he is God takes the crooked and the supplanter and the sinner and the weakling and the worldling and the persecutor like Saul of Tarsus and the doubter like Thomas and he takes them and he makes them his disciples there's none of us who can say oh well it's not really for me sorry you know I've got these things to be concerned with I'm not a saint of the Lord like Isaac I'm just ordinary I've got these needs I've got these things wrong with me I've got these defects I've got these faults I've got these failings yeah so what Jacob and yet this is the one the Lord chose to inherit the promise to achieve the birth right to continue the covenant line the Lord takes sinners like you and me the Lord takes those who are the least likely candidates because the
[41:34] Lord delights in the doing of the impossible that is what he desires to do with the likes of you and me that is what he did with Abraham that's what he did with Isaac and most spectacularly of all that is what he does with Jacob because Esau despised his birth right love and he let's do