Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Next post will be on 1/3/2011. Have a wonderful time with friends and family. Remember the biblical words that conclude the founding document of Exeter, "that we might live quietly and peaceably together in all godliness and honesty." May the peace of Jesus Christ be with you all.

Immanuel #3

http://epcsermon.blogspot.com/2010/12/with-us.html

Immanuel #2

http://epcsermon.blogspot.com/2010/12/let-that-baby-be-born.html

Immanuel #1

http://epcsermon.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-is-it-that-god-with-us-came-to-be.html

Bible Survey - #12 - Exodus 19-20

Why then the Law?

Our God is a consuming fire. Israel had been delivered out of Egypt to worship the Lord. Yet as they come near to Him to hear His commandments, the experience they face is shockingly frightening. They conclude that they cannot bear to hear the voice of the Lord, and that Moses must function as their mediator, lest they die.

When God gives Israel the Ten Commandments, He teaches us about love for Him, and love for our neighbor that must flow from our sincere devotion to the One who created us all. He insists that loving Him forbids our having other Gods. We cannot make our own idols. We must tremble before the Lord's Name, and we need to fully rest in His grace and mercy for us.

We must also submit to the rulers He gives us. We must not murder. We must be true to God in our most intimate affections. We cannot take from our neighbors what is not rightly ours. We must not tell lies against others. We must be satisfied with God's provision for us.

The Lord has given us these laws to expose our sins. Yet He will not leave us in that crucified condition. His Son has taken the penalty we deserved and conquered our death through His cross and resurrection.

You are the Lord of heaven and of earth.

Your Law is holy. We must all obey.

Yet we have broken every last command.

But Jesus kept the Law and died our death.

Genesis 38

Where did Jesus come from? That story is very complex. Jesus is and always has been the Word, the eternal Son of God. But in the fullness of time the Word became flesh. In His human nature He had a heritage. Part of that heritage goes back to Jacob's son Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar. Mary, the mother of our Lord, came from the tribe of Judah.

The tribe of Judah would be the tribe of kings. They were a very fruitful and important tribe, but the beginnings of the tribe described in Genesis 38, were not particularly promising. Judah became connected with a Canaanite woman who bore him three sons, two of whom died way before their time.

These two sons were judged directly by God. They were wicked, and the Lord put them to death. The wife of the oldest was a woman named Tamar. When her husband died, by Judah's direction, the second son took the place of the first son in order to produce offspring with Tamar in his brother's name. When that second son also died, Judah promised to give his youngest son to Tamar in due time. However, he was quite unwilling to keep his promise. This is the sad beginning of the line of Judah: Three sons, two of whom died, leaving him with one younger boy and a daughter-in-law who had no children. Judah had determined to ignore that daughter-in-law, Tamar, in her misery and loneliness.

Tamar had another plan. After the death of the Canaanite woman by whom Judah had the three boys, Judah eventually came to a town to sheer his sheep. He found a woman there whom he supposed to be a prostitute. Little did he know, the woman that he had relations with was Tamar, who was not content to be abandoned and ignored by her father-in-law. Tamar became pregnant by Judah without Judah knowing that it was her.

When it became known that Tamar was pregnant, her presumed intimate actions were considered scandalous. When Judah heard about it he commanded that she be burned to death. She came to him personally with the proof that the father of her child was none other than Judah himself. She had his signet, his cord, and his staff which she had kept as a pledge for a future payment when she was posing as a prostitute with her head covered so that Judah did not recognize her. She said to him, “By the man to whom these belong, I am pregnant.”

Judah was convicted by what Tamar had done. He said, “She is more righteous than I,” since he had not given his youngest son to her as he had promised.

This story is in the heritage of all the kings of Judah and is part of the account that ultimately leads to the birth of Jesus Christ many centuries later.

The story of the line of Judah is a story of death, and not accidental death, but the loss of the lives of two men by the direct judgment of God. Two of the three sons of Judah were deemed to be so wicked that they should not live another day. It is hard to think of a providence more distressing than that in the life of any father.

Yet the story does get worse. It includes the record of Judah's entrapment by a woman he supposes to be a prostitute. This is a very embarrassing way to begin the continuing story of what will be the tribe of kings. The patriarch of the clan went into his daughter-in-law as she was posing as a prostitute.

We are tempted to think that nothing good could come from such a beginning, but we need to find a way to celebrate the gift of life under even the most challenging circumstances. The problem is our sin, not the child that may come from that sin. The child is always a gift of God.

In this case there was more than one child. Tamar had twins, Perez and Zerah. Those two boys had such a fruitful heritage, that the tribe of Judah, despite its very modest start, became one of the biggest tribes among all the clans of Israel. When Ruth and Boaz were getting married many years later, the people of Bethlehem gave these words of blessing concerning their union: “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you act worthily in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem, and may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman.”

What had been a story of shame, by God's grace had become a blessing to be desired by others seeking the Lord's favor. How much more blessed was the union of Judah and Tamar when we consider that the Messiah came through this tribe.

God is able to put to death the wicked in a moment. This we must acknowledge with great sadness, recognizing what we ourselves deserve because of our sin. But the Lord is also able to bring His Son into the world through humble people who are counted as nothing by those who would presume to judge every baby to be worthy or unworthy. The Lord is God, and He has saved us through Jesus of Nazareth, a descendant of Judah through Tamar.

Genesis 37

Who can understand the mind of God? We bow before the One who not only reveals, but also conceals. He knows all things. It is His glory to choose when to keep a matter to Himself, and when to show it to the sons of men. It was His choice to use the favorite son of Jacob, Joseph, as the one who would receive His revelation and communicate it among men.

That special gift was known to Joseph even as a young man. When he was seventeen years old and living in Canaan, his brothers began to hate Him. The fact that Joseph spoke for the Lord did not change that hatred. It added to it.

In his dream, Joseph saw his preeminence over his brothers and even over his mother and father, and he spoke of this to his family. Even Jacob rebuked Joseph for his report of his dreams, but his father kept the words of his son in his mind.

The hatred of Joseph's brothers led to a horrible attack against him, and a ruthless deception against their father Jacob. The older boys sold him into bondage in Egypt, and gave his special clothes to his father, blood-stained with the life of a goat, and presented them to their father for him to draw his own conclusions.

The story is a very powerful one which began years of lowliness for Joseph that speak to us of the humiliation and suffering of the Son of God. Through the story of Joseph, we are prepared to feel the facts of the abuse of Jesus more forcefully.

An long period of intense grief began for Jacob, the boy's devoted father. If Joseph's sufferings prepare us for the coming of Jesus, and for the cross, Jacob;s grief reminds us that the Father loved the Son, but gave Him up for us all. The illustration must fall short, since Jesus was a willing victim, and His Father, while truly feeling grief, did not allow Himself to be deceived by us.

We find our place in the drama of the ages in the position of the brothers. It is because of us that Jesus went to the cross. In the flesh, we would be those who bring the blood-stained garment back to Jacob, acting innocent. We would allow a man to grieve for years if we could maintain the fiction that we were guiltless.

The brothers did have some struggle and intrigue before settling on the eventual plan that would lead to Joseph's slavery in Egypt. Their first inclination was to kill him themselves. “Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams.”

It was Reuben, the oldest, that told them not to take the boy's life, and who even had a private intention to get Joseph out of the pit after a little brotherly discipline to teach the boy a lesson. But that was not to be.

They were all a part of the tearing down of the one who truly had a Word from God, a Word of his royal authority that would fit into the Lord's plans for the salvation of his people. They would not hear that Word in their hearts. They tore off the boy's robe and threw him into a pit.

Reuben stepped away for a moment, and the rest of the brothers came up with the wicked idea to sell Joseph to some slave-trading Ishmaelites who were on their way to Egypt. They even made themselves sound good in their restraint. “Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” Think of the chief priests and the elders of Israel. They wanted to be ceremonially clean so that they could eat the Passover. ...Let Judas do his part. Let the Romans be the ones to strike the final blow. We can remain guiltless regarding what happens to Jesus of Nazareth.

When Reuben returned he saw that his own intention to secretly rescue Joseph had now been thwarted, and he despaired of the consequences to himself, the oldest brother, because of what the others had done to their father's favorite son. “The boy is gone, and I, where shall I go?”

That is when they took Joseph's robe, dipped it in blood, and brought it to their father. “This we have found; please identify whether it is your son's robe or not.”

Something died in Jacob that day. Grief and unending sorrow began. The only thing that could have taken away this loss would be to overturn it with resurrection.

He thought he knew for certain what had taken place. “It is my son's robe. A fierce animal has devoured him. Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces.” The deception had worked. But God knew. And Joseph knew. Would the brothers every tell the truth? Will we ever admit that our sin brought Jesus to the cross?

The Lord who not only reveals, but also conceals, knows the truth, and He knows the right time to reveal it openly. Though men do what they will by their own hands and by the hands of others, God works all things for good.

Joseph's going down to Egypt would fit in with the Lord's good plan. The cross of Christ would also work tremendous good centuries later. His resurrection would bring joy to the Father and to all those who would be cleansed by the blood of the Lamb. Draw near to God and tell Him the truth about yourself that He already knows.

Genesis 36

Jacob was the chosen man of God in his generation. Does anyone care what happened to his older brother, Esau? God does. Genesis 36 records the story of the generations of Esau, whose descendants would become the nation of Edom, a neighbor, and enemy of the Israelites.

We remember that we were earlier told about the women that Esau married. They were local girls from the nations that the Lord would eventually remove from the land of Canaan. Esau's mother, Rebekah, could not abide with them, and hearing this, Esau determined to get a third wife from the daughters of Ishmael. These marriages were the beginning of a significant ancient people.

Each of these women bore children for Esau. What that means is that during those years when Jacob was away from home, when Jacob's family was growing, Esau was also experiencing a similar blessing. One wife bore to Esau, Eliphaz. A second bore Reuel. The third bore Jeush, Jalam, and Korah. These were the first children of Esau, while he was still living in the land of Canaan.

Just as Jacob eventually left one country and settled in another, Esau had his own migration. He took all of his children and his considerable property, and he went into a land away from his brother Jacob. This fulfilled God's earlier blessing to Jacob. The land of Canaan and all God's associated covenant promises would go to the descendants of the younger twin. The elder was to serve the younger. But Esau moved away from Jacob's land.

However the timing of this coincided with Jacob's return from Aram, we can at least say this: God had greatly blessed both of these men, though only one could be the father of the line through whom the Messiah would eventually come. That would be Jacob. Yet the Lord chose to record the progress of Esau and his descendants too. They settled in the hill country of Seir, the land that would be Edom.

So what happened to them? The descendants of Esau would be known as great men who had impressive chiefs. But they would not willingly take the place that God had announced for them as servants to the people of the Messiah, the descendants of Jacob, now known as Israel.

Their generations and leaders were not irrelevant to God and His people or they would not be recorded for us in the Scriptures. Even the names of the chiefs are entered here. Chiefs Teman, Omar, Zepho, Kenaz, Korah, Gatam, Amalek; Chiefs Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah; Chiefs Jeush, Jalam, and Korah. Just as Jacob's sons had names, so did Esau's. Just as Jacob's sons became clans, so did Esau's.

In addition, there were other leaders and clans that the Edomites lived near who were inhabitants of the land that became Edom. Jacob's descendants were not to be together with the local people. The Shechemites had sought such an alliance, and they were repulsed with deception and violence. But there was no divine instruction keeping Esau from being named with the local Horites and others.

They prospered for a time. They had kings in their land generations before David was God's chosen king in Jerusalem. We read the names of Bela, Jobab, Zerah, Husham, Hadad, Samlah, Shaul, Baal-hanan, and Hadar. These men of renown had special cities, famous wives, military victories, and many other achievements. What do we know of them now? What has come down to us? Are they not like all the other inhabitants of this earth? They were here for a time, but now they are long gone.

When Israel was being led by Moses on her journey through the wilderness, which group would have seemed more likely to have staying power, the Edomites, or the Israelites? The generations that came from Esau had enjoyed decades of living in their land. They had notable leaders and cities, and they had found their place and made their mark in the land that was Seir. What about Jacob's descendants? All this time they had been slaves in a land that was not their own. They still, after some 400 years, did not possess the land that God had promised to give to them. They were despised by the powerful people who had enslaved them. They were poor and helpless, crying out to God as those who had no kings, no military, and no hope.

But God had set His affection upon the descendants of Jacob, and His word is more powerful than all the chiefs and kings that the world can offer. He is able to make one seemingly insignificant life count.

The key to having a lasting difference in this world is to be connected to the suffering and glory of God's one eternal King. Moses chose to be associated with the people of Jacob rather than to have all the advantages of the courts of power in Egypt, an empire far more powerful than Edom.

Long before the Exodus, God had spoken a word about Jacob and Esau. The best thing that the descendants of Esau could have done in order to be people of lasting influence would have been to find their place as servants in the Lord's house according to His Word of promise.

The way to greatness is found in submission to the King of kings who gave Himself for us on the cross. Though His people may be at a disadvantage at one point in history or another, He will surely accomplish all of His purposes. Find a lasting inheritance in Him. Serve Him and live forever.

Bible Survey - #11 - Exodus 16-18

On the Way to The Promised Land

The people of God had been delivered from their captors, but they were not yet home. They would have to follow their God. They needed to grow and learn.

They would be hungry and thirsty, and their sin would be exposed. Was the past really that bad in Egypt? They would forget, and would fall into unbelief and rebellion. The Lord had provided Moses as a deliverer for the people, but at times they were ready to stone him.

The Lord would protect His people from enemies in the desert, and he would discipline them for their faithlessness. He would also provide for them food and water, and leaders to come alongside Moses.

The pathway to The Promised Land was very difficult. The life of trusting the God who led them in the pillar of cloud and fire was not the rest that they hoped for. Even Moses was not the perfect man of faith.

In our own era when the Lord has given us His Son, His Holy Spirit, the full Word of God in the Scriptures, and a world-wide community of faith, the life of following Him is still a serious challenge. We need Him; the Bread of Heaven. We need the Rock from whom all blessings of true life flow. Only in Him will we continue through the wilderness to a better Promised Land.

Can God provide His people what they need?

How will they have the bread that they must eat?

Can water flow forth from a desert rock?

Our Jesus is the answer; He gives life.

Genesis 35

The vicinity of Shechem was not to be the final place for Jacob to lay his head. The murder of the Shechemites excited Jacob's fears concerning his safety in a land of potentially hostile neighbors. But then, how is it that the people of God can find safety and security anywhere in this world? Even in our own souls a battle is raging, and we can be our own worst enemies. We long for a place where our sin is gone and where we can dwell in peace with God.

Meanwhile, we have to live somewhere. The Lord directed Jacob to Bethel, the place where Jacob had made a commitment to the Lord on his way to Aram. God had helped him thus far, with Esau, with Laban, ... Surely the Lord would help him again. Jacob instructed his household to put away all their foreign gods, a great step in the right direction. They would try to leave the past behind in Shechem, purifying themselves, as they headed out for Bethel, the house of God.

God did carry them through their most immediate danger. The Lord caused all the peoples that Jacob feared in the wake of the murder of the Shechemites to fear Jacob and Jacob's God. They all let Jacob and his family go without pursuing them.

Jacob had become Israel, and God not only commanded Jacob to be fruitful and to multiply, He also blessed him with descendants and possessions in a world where your neighbors may be thinking way too much about how they can take the things that you own. It was the Lord's settled intention that a company of nations would come from Jacob. Jacob's descendants would have the land of Canaan, though they surely did not have it yet. But God's promise stood firm. It would be accomplished.

Generations come and generations go. People live their years in this world of danger, and then they are gone. Despite all that the Lord had done for Jacob, this great man could not keep his beloved Rachel alive. She died in childbirth as young Benjamin, the brother of Joseph, was born.

Not only was death unstoppable, so was sin. Jacob's own son Reuben lay with Bihah, his father's concubine. His second and third sons, Simeon and Levi, had murdered the men of Shechem. Jacob knew these things about his family. You can relocate from Shechem to Bethel, but you cannot get away from sin and death unless the Lord will provide the way to heaven for mankind.

Despite the futility of life in this fallen world, Jacob had twelve sons. They would live on, and have children of their own. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad and Asher would not just be the names of individual men, with all their shortcomings and offenses. They would be tribes.

Isaac would ultimately breath his last, and Esau and Jacob would bury him in hope. This is the life that God has given to the sons of Adam. But Jacob and the Israel that would come from him would be more than just the descendants of Adam. They would form an Old Covenant community with a special way of life, and a peculiar worship given to them from God.

All of these people in the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob came from Aram. They traveled back there to find wives. They were given the land of Canaan, but it was not exactly theirs yet. They had to live as strangers in a strange land. They received the promises of God, but they could not even really settle anywhere or accommodate the cultural practices and religions of all of the other peoples around them. God was for them, and He caused their neighbors to fear them. Yet the way that God was for them was not to immediately make every trial into an obvious triumph.

They were sinners and saints, and they needed a Redeemer. They could not save themselves.

There are two facts that we see in all the history of Israel: First, the people of the promise could not solve their own sin problem. Second, they could not stop death. They also could not find any place to lay their head where they could finally say, “I am safe and I am free.” They were God's chosen people, but they needed His hand to rescue them.

Then what was the point of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? What is the benefit of being blessed by God as His chosen people if you still sin and you eventually end up in a grave just like everyone else?

Perhaps it will help us to remember that Abraham is, Isaac is, and Jacob is. They are alive now. The Redeemer would come through their family line. This one descendant of Israel would find the way back from sin and death for us.

That is why people are alive today in heaven. Jesus died, Jesus rose again, and Jesus ascended into heaven. We live because of Him. He is the Savior that we could never be for ourselves.

It is frustrating that we still face the troubles that come with sin and death during our days on earth. Nonetheless Christ has won the battle for us. The way to a life of true and everlasting freedom has been found.

Genesis 34

Dinah was the daughter of Jacob and Leah, and the sister of Simeon and Levi, among others. As Jacob and his family came back home and began a new life far away from Laban and even from Esau, they settled in Shechem. But Dinah became involved with the women of the land, and an important young man noticed her, seizing her, and laying with her. He humiliated her.

This situation became somewhat more complicated and entangled because, we are told, “his soul was drawn to Dinah the daughter of Jacob. He loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her.” He asked his father to arrange a marriage, so that he could have Dinah as his wife.

Where was Jacob, her father, when all this was happening? We understand that he heard that the young man had defiled his daughter, but it was the brothers who moved toward action. When the boy's father came to make the arrangements for Dinah to be his son's wife, her brothers spoke to him before he met with Jacob.

Moses records the right assessment of what has taken place here: This young man “had done an outrageous thing in Israel by lying with Jacob's daughter, for such a thing must not be done.” Whatever else anyone might say about this situation, we must not allow ourselves to be swept up in our imagination about a love story between this prince of the land and Dinah. What took place here was wrong. It was “outrageous.” The right order of family engagement in decisions of marriage was not followed.

This man of Shechem does not want only one marriage to result from his contact with the sons of Jacob. He is looking to use this situation to build a very close tie between their peoples, and this with the goal of gaining their many possessions. Here we have another Laban, who loves what the world has to offer, and is willing to use people in pursuit of his higher goal of wealth.

The son also spoke not only with Dinah's brothers, but also with her father Jacob, professing desperate need for Dinah, and a willingness to pay a great bride price for the woman he had already taken without her father's permission. This order may fit in with the culture practices of Shechem, but it is certainly not the Lord's way. It is not for a boy to force himself emotionally or physically upon a girl, then to decide that he likes her enough to be his wife after he has already taken her, then seeking to make things right with her family.

The family, and especially the father, should protect the young woman from this kind of abuse, even when she may seem to be in favor of what is taking place. Just because a young girl may like a young man, that is not permission to consummate his desires. The Lord would have a father protect his daughter, even if that means protecting her from her own will, which might be too easily swayed by the words and advances of a man.

There is more to marriage than romance, lust, or even love. It is through marriage that the next generation comes. Some may wish to get a woman for their own strange purposes. Greed, selfishness, and many other depraved motives could move a person to be convinced that wrong is right, and not to be denied. Other more experienced protectors must stand in the way of those who would deliberately or even innocently take advantage of a girl.

More than that, the Israelites are God's covenant people. They are not to be swallowed up by the Shechemites because one of the leading fellows of the land takes someone that is not his. Something bigger is at stake than the impulses and desires of a girl and a boy. God does not want his people to mix with the people of the land.

There is no evidence that Dinah's brothers understood all of this. We do see that they are indignant and full of vengeful hatred. They come up with a plan to use the Lord's ordinance of circumcision to deceive and weaken the Shechemites, so that they can more easily murder them. The men of Shechem take the bait, convinced that they will gain all of the goods of Jacob's people by combining with them through submitting to circumcision.

This plot was not commanded or commended by God. They do rescue Dinah back, but Jacob is very displeased with what Simeon and Levi, in particular, have done. They have murdered and looted people without God's direction. Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land.”

The plan of God in Christ is not murder and stealing, but sacrificial love and protection of the weak. Christ came as someone far better than Laban, Esau, Shechem, and even Jacob. Many men will fail us. They will neglect their wives and daughters, treat them as property, belittle them, or in other ways ignore them as fellow-heirs of the grace of eternal life. Jesus has not treated us that way. He did not rape us, and then try to marry us out of lust or to secure our possessions. He never abandoned His commitment to protect us. He secured every blessing we have now through His blood. He loves us as His bride. We can trust Him even when all the men in the world seem to fail us.

Genesis 33

What do you see when you lift up your eyes? Do you see an Esau coming toward you with four hundred strong men? Looking further out, who do you see? Is the return of the Lord Jesus and the coming of the heavenly host on your mind? Who are you looking for and waiting for? Is it only some near-term danger that you fear, or are you aware that any present trouble is not worth comparing to the glory that is coming your way?

Jacob is limping toward Esau as a man who has been blessed by God. He did everything he could to smooth the way for his reunion with his twin brother. Along the way he met a mysterious Man from God, a representative of the Almighty. Has the perfect love of God cast out some of the fear that had consumed Jacob at the contemplation of his reunion with the brother who had once wanted to kill him?

Jacob presented himself to his brother as a servant before a man who is far greater than him, bowing himself to the ground seven times. Esau's reaction was very different. He approached Jacob with enthusiasm and brotherly affection. This is great news! Esau embraced Jacob and kissed him. He was happy to see his prosperity, and wanted nothing from Jacob's wealth. After twenty years with Laban, and an awareness of his own deceptions, Jacob can be excused for not entirely trusting the motives of Esau. Nonetheless, Esau appears to be sincere in his positive enthusiasm for Jacob at their reunion.

Jacob testifies to the truth about all the blessing that He has received. These are “the children whom God has graciously given.” Laban, Jacob's father-in-law had insisted that Jacob's family and possessions were really property of Laban. Jacob knows that God is the one who has kindly supplied in such a rich manner.

As it turned out, all of the staged messengers of benevolence and generosity toward Esau were not necessary. Esau was not nearly as big a problem for Jacob as his own stubborn insistence to do things his own way. But God has blessed Jacob. He has been humbled, and he is a different man than the one who left Canaan two decades before.

Esau insists that he does not need anything from his brother. “I have enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself.” Jacob wisely persists in his plan to give a gift to Esau. He is so thankful to hear the news that his brother is happy with his return, that he is very ready to give up some of his possessions in order to exchange this tangible sign of friendship and peace. To see the face of Esau at peace with him again is like seeing the face of God. Jacob is accepted.

Now look beyond Esau once again, and see the face of Jesus coming toward you. Is He coming in love with His heavenly host? Isn't it a fact that the wrath of Almighty God was once coming toward you with death and hell close behind? Yet now you see the judge of the living and the dead coming toward you in peace, because of the blood of the cross. He embraces you with joy. He kisses you as a brother. He wants to be near you forever. He does not need any of your gifts. He has gifts and great blessings for you. Your reunion with Him can be very happy.

Jacob was still unsure as to whether he could really trust this new friendly Esau. He seems to invent an excuse as to why they cannot journey together. He will not settle in the same place as his brother. Esau will go back to Mt. Seir which is in the land of Edom. He would have left some servants to help Jacob on his journey, but Jacob refuses the offer. He travels instead to a different place, Succoth, and then Shechem in Canaan, and sets up a life for himself and his family there.

How do you feel about the entreaties of Jesus toward you today? Can you take Him at His Word? He says that He will be with you always, and that He will take you to heaven. He insists that where He is you also will be. He tells you that He has prepared a place in heaven for you. He says that He can send His servants, the holy angels, to watch over you on your way to this life, lest you dash your foot against a stone. Do you trust Him? Will you open your heart to His promises? Will you open your ears to His words that He speaks to your soul?

Jacob could not really trust Esau. The history of his brother's hatred for him was still fresh in his mind after twenty years. He knew about Esau's resentment concerning Isaac's blessing. It was very possible that Esau was still very unwilling to believe God's Word to his mother Rebekah, that the older son, Esau, would serve the younger son, Jacob.

You have no similar reason to distrust Jesus Christ. He has never done you any wrong. Everything that you have is a gift from Him. He gave His life so that you will be with Him forever. You can trust Him to bring you into eternal habitations in the Lord's greatest land of promise. He will bless you in the home that He has for you above. You can certainly trust Him to lead you now on the remainder of your journey home. You can believe Jesus. He is the Son of God, and the God and King of Israel.

Bible Survey - #10 - Exodus 7, 12-14

Out of the House of Bondage

God is able to rescue His people from the worst slavery imaginable. He could have been rid of Pharaoh in the twinkling of an eye. Yet He chose to bring His people through an experience of redemption that Israel would remember for many generations.

The Lord sent Moses to Pharaoh, even though He knew that the king of Egypt would not obey His voice. We are even told that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. The ruler of the land became an example of stubborn humanity. God would show forth His glory in the rescue of His beloved and weak people.

The Almighty brought ten plagues against Egypt. In His wonders He made a distinction between the Egyptians and Israel. Finally he brought death against the firstborn of Egypt, but He spared the descendants of Jacob through the blood of the Passover lamb.

The Lord brought the Israelites into the desert so that they might worship Him. But their enemies were at their heels intending to do them hard. Israel went through the sea on dry land, but their adversaries were destroyed.

Jesus is our Passover Lamb. He has not only saved many chosen people from the Jews; He is the Lamb of God, who has taken away the sins of the world.

The Lamb of God, with blood above the door,

Was given that the chosen flock might live.

Though rebels rail against the Lord's own sheep,

The people of Messiah shall not die.

Genesis 32

With Laban and the Aramean relatives behind him, and the land of Canaan and the prospect of seeing his brother Esau again after twenty years in front of him, Jacob was understandably afraid. When he last saw his brother, Esau was comforting himself with the prospect of killing him. Now the angels of God encouraged Jacob on his way home. Despite the obvious risk, Jacob was on the right pathway, and he needed to keep on going. God's camp was traveling with him.

Jacob sent servants ahead as his ambassadors to ease the way to Esau. They were messengers of peace and blessing, but would they be received well? They returned to Jacob with a word from Esau that was ambiguous: “We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him.” Jacob became even more afraid. He made a plan to divide his family and possessions into two camps so that if one was attacked the others might still live. Then he called upon the name of the Lord.

Jacob humbly reminded God that this trip was in response to the Lord's clear direction. Now he needed the Lord's help! He did not come before God in his own worthiness. He said, “I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant.” He recounted the facts of his solitary departure from Canaan, and acknowledged before the Lord his present prosperity. The Lord had blessed him. Would it all be for nothing? Would his brother murder him and slaughter all his descendants after all?

This was a key moment in the life of Jacob. He sent everyone ahead of himself until he was alone again as he had been when he first journeyed away from Esau and Canaan on his way to Aram and Laban. Once again he was brought to a recognition of his desperation, and once again, the Lord met him.

Through our deepest struggles, in our most needy moments, we quickly think of the Esau coming against us, rather than the Jacob within us that finally needs to change. What are the fruitless thoughts and patterns of life that must be put off at this moment when the Lord has our fullest attention? How do we think of ourselves and others in ways that must change? What patterns of speech and action must stop now before it is too late? What do we already really know from the God who we need, but from whom we have been running away?

Now is the time to be serious about life. Now is the time to remember the promise of the Lord. “I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.” This was God's promise not only to Abraham and Isaac, but also to Jacob. This promise was inconsistent with the complete slaughter of his family, though the Lord can surely raise the dead. Remember the promise of God, and speak to the Lord about the ones he has given you when you are afraid for them and for yourself. Remember the death of His Son and His resurrection, and speak to God as one whom God has purchased and redeemed through the blood of His only Son. Remember that you have been brought into the household of God through the Spirit of adoption.

Jacob needed to be changed that day more than Esau needed to be restrained. Could it be the same for you today?

Jacob was left all alone, and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. That Man was somehow God, perhaps through an angelic mediation or a preincarnation of the Lord's eternal Son. But Jacob would not be beaten. Are you like that? Are you stubborn about what needs to change in you? Will you fight, even fight with God, rather than give in to His gracious correction?

When God's man from heaven saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he took the next step. He brought injury upon Jacob for Jacob's own good. Before Jacob would be blessed, he needed to be wounded and weakened. Jacob did not choose the pathway to holiness through a hip injury. God chose that for this man who would be Israel. Blessed be the Name of the Lord! And injury became the vehicle for receiving the Lord's blessing, though Jacob did not immediately give up the fight, even after he was injured. God does wonderful things. The greatest mercy that God ever performed required the death of His Son.

Jacob knew that He had been with God. He would face other very significant trials recorded for us in the book of Genesis. But Jacob was a changed man. God had met him on the way to Aram, and now God met him again on the way back home to Canaan. He met him in this moment of great fear, and He changed him.

This struggle was something for Israel to remember. We remember it too, now with the brighter light of the cross of Christ. God is for you, and He is changing you. Let Him bless you today.