Well, good morning. If you will,
turn to Genesis 27. Genesis chapter 27. I'm thankful
to be here. I hope I thank you several more
times. It's been a privilege to get to know you and meet you. You are an encouragement to me. And I have a good report to take
back to San Diego to be an encouragement to them. And so I'm thankful
for you. Genesis 27, I want to look at
a few verses here, verses 41 through 45 and ask a question. We looked there Thursday night,
who God is. Last night, what he's done, what
he's done for me. But then once I know who he is
and I see what he's done for me and in me, Ain't that right? He may turn
me upside down, but I'm still me that's upside down. And so
I have some trials in this world. I have trials with others in
this world. And I think that's common. That
happens, doesn't it? Why is there turmoil between the people of
this world and believers, especially blood relatives? I'm certain
that happened with you. It happens with me. Why is there
trial and tribulation and trouble between blood relatives because
of the gospel? Sometimes we have a fight on
our hands. So I titled this fight then flight. I hope I can give
you some comfort in those struggles that we all have across this
globe. If we know the Lord, give you
some comfort with that and then on that fight and then tell you
about a flight we have. Here in Genesis 27 verse 41,
you know the story of Jacob and Esau. Jacob dressed like his
brother, wore the clothes of his brother, had hair, felt like
his brother, brought his brother's venison in one hand and bread
in the other. The bread of life, the meat of the gospel, the sacrifice
of Christ and him crucified. And he went to his father and
didn't say anything. He just said, I'm my brother. I'm my brother. I'm Christ. I'm in his name and
smell like him. I'm dressed in his clothes. He's
our elder brother. Father, I come to you in him
alone. And Isaac blessed Jacob. And
he said, once I blessed, he's plumb blessed, as we say where
I'm from. He's not gonna stop being blessed. When the father
gives gifts and repentance, his callings, in life, it cannot
be undone. It's without repentance. When
he gives us repentance, he's without repentance. He doesn't
change his mind. That doesn't change. And so Esau was mad,
and he was sad, and he repented, and he cried out, and wept with
bitter tears, it said. We read there in verse 41, and
Esau hated Jacob, but there's not a period there, is there?
It says, because Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith
his father blessed him. And Esau said in his heart, he
didn't say out loud, he said in his heart, the days of mourning
for my father are at hand. That's why Isaac had blessed
him. He thought he was going to die. He lived another 40 years,
but he thought the end was near. He said, the days of mourning
for my father at hand, then, once he's dead and we have him
in the ground, then will I slay my brother Jacob. He thought
this in his heart. And these words of Esau, her
elder son, were told to Rebekah. And she sent and called Jacob,
her younger son, and said unto him, behold, thy brother Esau,
as touching thee, concerning you, doth comfort himself, purposing
to kill thee. Now therefore, my son, obey my
voice and arise. Flee thou to Laban, my brother
Herod, and tarry with him a few days, until thy brother's fury
turn away, until thy brother's anger turn away from thee, and
he forgot that which thou hast done to him. Then I will send
and fetch thee from thence, Why should I be deprived also of
you both in one day? Rebecca gave good instruction
here to Jacob. When we see the gospel in this,
we also see some comfort for us. Those that the Lord has revealed
himself to and you who know him, who he's worked in. It says Esau
would kill Jacob after Isaac died, after he was mourned because
he had blessed Jacob. the younger brother. That's why
my family would kill me. I got two brothers and a sister,
and they would cut my head off and kill me in a field if it
were possible. That's why, because there's a
division because of him. That's awfully outdone. There
was a division. There's a division because of him, because of Christ,
because of this gospel, because God saves people. And that's
why. Let's turn over to Matthew 10.
Why do those that do not bow to the Lord Jesus Christ and
worship Him, why do they want to kill you? You may say, well,
my loved ones and brothers and sisters and mommies and daddies
and my family, they don't want to kill me. They're just a little
upset. If the gospel was the topic and there were no rules,
oh, yes, they would. Yes, they would. Look here, Matthew
10, verse 16. Matthew 10, verse 16, our Lord's
speaking. He says, Behold, I send you forth
as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents
and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will
deliver you up to the councils and they will scourge you in
their synagogues. And ye shall be brought before
the governors and the kings for my sake for a testimony against
them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you up, take
no thought of how or what you shall speak, for it shall be
given you in that same hour what you shall speak. For it is not
ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh
in you, in you. This isn't something good you've
done, this isn't good a way of formulating an argument that
you have come up with. This is your testimony and you're
testifying to other people's. The Lord's gonna speak through
you. In His power, He will use you to say He did it. In His
power, He will use you to say, I'm the workmanship of the Lord. Growing up, my dad, he'd tell
everybody. He would go pump fuel at a gas
station, and he'd say, come to church with me. Come to church
with me. And he'd tell people where he
worked at and anywhere, strangers on the street, come to church
with me, come to church with me. He had a company and he put
all his employees on the payroll. And he said, I'll pay you eight
hours if you'll come on Sundays and go to church. Boy, that first
week, the place was packed. Standing room only. The next
week, there's missing about 10 or 15 of them. The next week,
about half of them were there. And after a month or two, none
were there. He said, I'll pay you eight hours
to come listen to this gospel being preached. I've got something
else to do. Had something else more important,
didn't I? I thought he was crazy. I said, Dad, why do you say this?
He said, come and see. Come and see. Come hear about
a man. Nobody listens to you. I thought that was so foolish.
20 years later, I realized it took the power of God for him
to say that to those people. What a blessing that would be.
It takes the power of God to invite people to church to say,
come and see, come here by the name. Verse 21, the brother shall
deliver up the brother brother to death and the father of the
child and the children shall rise up against their parents
and cause them to be put to death because of the gospel. So that's
not happening. People aren't sacrificing their
children. There's no way. Here in a few weeks or months,
Brother Angus, you're going through John as well. There in John 9,
that blind man was taken to the temple, and the Pharisees questioned
him. And they said, well, his parents are there. Get them. They said,
has he been blind from birth? What happened to him? And they
didn't want to lose their standing in the church, and their benefit,
and their privilege being in that church. And they said, I
don't know. Ask him. They backed the bus over their
son. They threw him under the bus,
as we say. They sacrificed their child to preserve themselves.
The Lord said this would happen. He said, verse 22, why is this? Who's telling you this? Why is
this happening? Verse 22. And ye shall be hated
of all men for my name's sake. But he that endureth to the end
shall be saved. He that endureth to the end shall
be saved. For his name's sake, everybody's gonna hate you. Everybody's
gonna hate you. And you know, people know that.
It don't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the Lord's
done a work in somebody. This isn't hidden in a closet.
That candle's not underneath a bushel somewhere. Children
can know. What happened to Peter? The Lord
said, you'll deny me three times. He said, I never will. He said,
you'll do it three times before the cock crows. And there's some
grownups there, but he went by a fire, and there's a doorkeeper,
a little teenage girl. She said, hey, I know you. You
follow Christ, don't you? You follow that Jesus of Nazareth,
don't you? He said, no, I don't. Little
stranger. A teenage girl knew that, didn't
she? Verse 23, but when they shall,
they persecute you in this city, flee to another city, for verily
I say unto you, you shall not have gone over the cities of
Israel till the Son of Man come. The disciple is not above his
master, nor the servant above his Lord. It's enough for the
disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his Lord.
If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much
more shall they call them of his household? You go out and
preach the gospel, you go out and declare that man's nothing,
and behold, you're God, and you're gonna have some problems. Christ
came into this world, and he preached Christ, and they crucified
him. They hated him, they pursued
him, they wanted to stone him and kill him, give him a Roman
death. How can we expect anything different,
huh? You know, this has happened a long time. This wasn't new. Turn back to Genesis four. This
is what happened between Jacob and Esau, isn't a new thing. These very first siblings that
was on this earth in Genesis four. Cain and Eve. Genesis four, verse one, it says,
and Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived him, bear Cain,
and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. We look for his
coming, don't we? That's what Paul said. You look
for the one that saved you, you look for him to come. You look
for Christ to come. The Lord told them, you're gonna
have a seed, and it's gonna crush a serpent's head. It's gonna
bruise his head, but it's gonna kill him. It's gonna crush a
serpent's head. And she had Cain, and she said, the Lord's fulfilled
his promise. Here's the man of the Lord. She was wrong. She
was mistaken, but that's who she was looking for. She said,
I've got the man from the Lord, verse two. And again, she bare
his brother Abel. Abel was the keeper of the sheep,
but Cain was the tiller of the ground. And in the process of
time, it came to pass that Cain brought the fruit of the ground
in an offering to the Lord. And Abel, he also brought the
first things of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord
had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and
to his offering, he had not respect. Cain was very wroth, and his
countenance filled. And two, that's the person and
what they bring. A man or a woman's sacrifice,
what they bring to God is not independent of them. You are
one with it. And you're either one to your
works and your self-righteousness and your acts of good deeds,
or you're one with the Lord Jesus Christ. It's one or the other,
isn't it? Cain was wroth, his countenance
fell. Verse six says, and the Lord
said to Cain, why art thou wroth? Why your countenance fell? If
thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? What's he said?
Same thing that John wrote in 1 John. Doing righteousness,
that's to believe Christ and love your brothers. That's to
have that new heart in that has instinct that can't do anything
but that. I can't keep from loving you. You have the same father
I have. We're family. I can't keep from believing Christ.
I have his seed in me. You do too. You can't stop it.
You may get mad and stomp off for a couple years or whatever
for a season, but if you're his, you can't stop believing him.
That life's in you, isn't it? He said, if I do well, if you
do right, you'll be accepted. You know that your whole life.
Adam's told you that. Your daddy's trained you well.
He said, there must be blood. A covering must happen from something
innocent for you. You can't cover yourself. And
if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall
be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. The Lord said,
you know these things. You know, this gospel's been
preached to you. There must be blood. If I see
the blood, I'll pass over. Not your blood, not your works.
Not you growing pretty vegetables and picking them. Life must be
given. But something must die. The wages
of sin is death. So they discussed it, verse eight.
Cain talked with Abel, his brother. What do you think they talked
about? Football games? Soccer? No. They talked about
this gospel, didn't they? And Abel said, that's what you've
been told. That's what I've been told. We grew up in the same
church. There's only four people on earth. And it came to pass when they
were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother.
and slew him. He slew him because of the gospel
sake, because of the Lord's name sake, because of the Lord Jesus
Christ and what he's done, who he is and what he's done. That's
why Cain was so mad. The first siblings on this earth,
the elder killed the brother because of this. And nothing's
changed between this world and the Lord's people. Isaac was
blessed greatly during the famine. This great drought came, nothing
would grow, people starved to death, and he planted a garden.
It doesn't make any sense to me. It ain't rained in years,
let's put a garden in the ground. And the Lord blessed it a hundredfold,
and those Philistines, they envied him. They didn't want him to
have it. They weren't jealous, it was envy. I want what you
got, I don't want you to have what you have. Later on, parents
of that blind man, John 9, they turned their son over, didn't
they? David, those in his own household were after him, Not
to get him. In our day too. But it's not
about us. It's not about you. They're mad
at you. It's not about you. They're mad
at the Lord. That's what it is. Why does that happen? I hope
I've established the pattern. This has happened from the beginning.
There's been struggles in families. Why? Why is the Lord pleased
to allow this to happen? The very first reason is to keep
us humble. To keep us humble and to know
He's the Lord. My pastor went down to Mexico
to preach one time, and they were so thankful to have him.
Boy, they were thankful. And one of the people had a house
up on the hill as a rancher, and they had a little bit of
money, and they put an American flag up. And then they had a
big banner. It said, welcome, Brother Henry.
And they just wanted to love on him, you know? And that was
fine to them. He come back, and he said, you
know what? He goes, that's dangerous for him, to grow up in his head. He had to be humbled. And so
the Lord sends things to humble us. Shimei came to David and
cursed him. Cursed him. He was riding on
a horse and just yelling at him, kicking rocks and throwing things.
Cussed him. David's right hand man said,
I'm gonna take his head off. He ain't gonna talk to my king
that way. And David said, leave him alone. God said, curse David. God sent him to me for him to
cuss me. Leave him be, leave him be. Lord
knows how to keep his own. He knows how to humble his own.
So with that said, if Brother Angus has a message for you,
and it just blesses your heart, tell him. His head ain't gonna
puff up. The Lord knows how to keep him.
You go ahead and tell him. But the Lord sends us these struggles
in the world to keep us humble. And it's also to make us to cry
to him for help. To cry out to the Lord for help,
because you feel helpless. And I don't mean, we'll cry over
anything, won't we? You get a flat tire or you run
out of gas or something, little happens, can't find your keys.
Oh, Lord help me. Well, a fool cry out for help
like that. I mean a soul cry. When it's
your own flesh and blood and there's misery and there's no
one else that can help. The Lord is our help. He's our
strength. And we'll begin to cry out to
him to keep us humble, to keep us crying to him and to make
us see our need for God's people. I have earthly brothers and sisters,
and they're against me for this gospel's sake. They keep standing. But the Lord said, there's not
a man, a woman on this earth that's forsaken mother and father
and sister and brother and aunt and uncle and however else you
want to cut it, homes. For my sake, I will not increase
them a hundredfold. And he said, in this lifetime
also. What's he mean by that? He's telling the truth. We know
that. You know, right now, each of you on a Honda CRV in San
Diego County, California. You come over there, you drive
it as long as you want to. Run it out of gas and get flat
tires. I don't care. You have a home there. Bunch of homes.
Bunch of people there. It's yours. Take it. Take it. I have a home here. Angus opened
his home up to us. Fed us good. Lisa's fed me and
then fed me again and fed me one more time. Lord shows us
this, that across this world, I have brothers and sisters,
and I need my family. Sheep need other sheep. A sheep's
greatest fear is being alone. They're a herd animal. They gotta
be together. Lord sends us these trials to
make us know that. We want to be with those that
worship the true and living God while we are on this earth and
wanna be together. And, so He makes us humble, He
makes us cry to Him, makes us see our need for God's people,
and he makes us desire to leave this present evil world. This earth is not my home. I
look for a kingdom that's above, an eternal kingdom, not built
with hands. I can't have no fellowship with
darkness. I get along okay in the world. I'm not piss-fighting
people in the streets or nothing like that. I get along okay,
but this ain't my home. This ain't my home, and the older
I get, I desire this world, the more I see this isn't my home,
and I desire it with my Lord. We get sick and we get tired
of this world. That's four reasons why we have
so much trouble in these personal relationships and these families
that we have. And I hope that helps you. That's
the fight we have while we're here. We have troubles and tribulations,
it's promised. And I hope that's a comfort to you. But here's
the flight. Here's what all that makes us
do. Look here in our text in Genesis 27. There are four characters in
these few verses, and it's a beautiful declaration of the gospel. There's
Esau, the elder brother. He's the law. He's God's holy
law. There's Rebekah. She pictures
the Holy Spirit come speaking to the Lord's children. There's
Jacob. That's me. Sinner, supplanter,
deceiver. And there's Laban, the brother
in Herod. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. Read this with me. Verse 21,
Genesis 27, 41. And Esau hated Jacob because
the blessing wherewith his father blessed him. And Esau said in
his heart, the days of mourning for my father are at hand. Then
will I slay my brother Jacob. Esau's a picture of the law.
He's against us. You get that? The law's against
us. People say, well, this is just
a rule of life to do well. No, the law is not your friend.
It's against you. You can't keep it. You've offended
it. You can't make it happen. Don't run to the law. Don't go
there looking for comfort. It's against us. Paul wrote that
to the church at Colossae. He said, and you being dead in
your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened
together with him, having forgiven all your trespasses, blotting
out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us. It was against
us. It ain't in our favor. We've
ruined that, which was contrary to us. And he took it out of
the way, nailing it. to His cross. Man said one time,
said, well, that handwriting of ordinances, that was man's
ordinances. Well, the Lord didn't carry that to the cross, did
He? It's His ordinances. His hand wrote it in stone, done
bendable. And He nailed that to His cross
for His people, having spoiled principalities and powers, and
He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. He
hung on that cross and said, it is finished. Because it was
done. It was complete. Nothing can
be added to it. He's done that. The law says
die. We deserve death. We are guilty
at every point. Then what happens when we see
that? Verse 42, that's the facts. Genesis 27, 42, and these words
that Esau, her elder son, were told to Rebekah, and she sent
and called Jacob, her younger son. Now he said that in his
heart. How did Rebekah hear that? That's the Lord's law. He wrote
it. The Holy Spirit knows what that
law says. He sent and called Jacob. She sent and called Jacob,
her younger son, and said unto him, Behold, thy brother Esau,
as touching thee, concerning you, it pleases him. He doth comfort himself to kill
you. She sent and called Jacob. We're called with a holy calling,
aren't we? The Holy Spirit comes to us and speaks to us, calls
us by name. What's the first thing that Holy
Spirit tells us? Sin. Sin. It's what we are. It's not
something we've done, not some acts we've committed. It's our
nature. It's who we are. It's a noun,
not just a verb. Sins come from that. We're not
sinners because we murder. We murder because we're sinners.
That's the problem. Rebecca, the Holy Spirit says
the first thing to a sinner, the law is against you and you're
going to rightfully die. That's what's gonna happen. And
then she tells him a little something more. Unless you flee to the
one I tell you to flee to. This is just, this is right.
You're gonna die unless you flee. In our day, I'm sure it's no
different here. The popular sales tactic and
pitch is God loves you and Jesus died for you. God loves everybody. Jesus died for everybody, and
he's just pretty pleased bringing his hands and wishing you'd just
help him out and get on his team. What nonsense. That's hogwash. That's ridiculous. Not once in
the prophets, not once did the apostles, not once did God's
earthen vessels in our day, ever. They haven't, they don't, and
they ain't going to. If he sent them, did they ever
say that poor little Jesus just want to save you? God's trying
to do something, never. The Lord doesn't want, He's God. That's who He is. He lives up
to His name. If He wants it, it's so. If He
purposes it, it comes to pass. That's who He is. Any of those
people that preach such a thing, a little, gee, God, they're liars,
they're thieves, and they're charlatans. I'll stand on the
rooftops and tell them I don't care. Laugh at them. Elijah mocked them, didn't he? God's servants come and they
say, thus saith the Lord your God. In a sense, I tell our brethren
that, in a sense, I have the easiest job on earth. I just
tell you what the Lord said. That's it. What about this? Well, the Lord says this. That's
it. It comes out a little harder
than that, plays out a little harder than that, doesn't it? But in
theory, I got the easiest job in the world. I'll tell you what
the Lord says. Thus saith the Lord your God. What's the thing
he says? All flesh is grass. Mankind ain't nothing but the
grass of the field. And you knowingly and unknowingly,
I've knowingly and unknowingly, willfully broke God's holy law
and I can't be in his presence. I'm convicted of sin. The soul
that sinned, it must die. People say, well, I ain't done
nothing that bad. And Paul said, you that want to keep the law,
don't you hear the law? Don't you know what it says?
They don't. I love medium steaks. I don't really like well-done
steaks. I don't like them where they're just kind of gray. I
don't want them raw. I want that thing still moving, you know,
moving at me. I like medium. They have medium
well. Do you know if I took one bite of a medium well steak and
I want to keep the law, I'll go to hell forever. You can keep
that whole law, the whole law, and live in a house right over
there and not have a railing around the top of that house
and you'll go to hell forever. You start reading them Levitical
laws, boy, we're in a mess of trouble, isn't it? We're in a
mess of trouble. Paul said, don't you know what
this is? All flesh is grass. We've sinned against the holy
gods, what the Lord's people say. And they say, behold your
God. You ain't nothing, look to Him. We're convicted of sin
and there is righteousness. Look at Him. Look at Him. Read
over in Isaiah 40, verse 10. What's man's part of that? Well,
we're carried and led. Lord does everything else, don't
he? The one that saves sinners is holy. This God that does this
work is holy. God's holy. Jonah came preaching
to Nineveh and he said, 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Repent. Repent. You've sinned against
the holy God. John the Baptist came in those
days. He was preaching in the wilderness in Judea and he said,
repent ye for the kingdom of God is at hand. Peter there in
Acts 3 said, repent ye therefore, be converted, that your sins
may be blotted out. Our Father sent the Son, the
Messiah, God in human flesh, and he began to preach and said,
repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. What's that mean?
Turn from yourself and your way of thinking and what you think's
right and turn to the holy God you offended. How could that
be? What? No, he's the one I've offended. He sent his mediation. He sent
his lamb. Turn to his son. He's the only
one where mercy can be found. He's the only physician that
can heal. And he delights to show mercy.
He delights to show mercy. And he can be just and justify.
Man can't do that, can he? Rebecca's warning Jacob here.
She's warning him. Our Lord warned us, he said,
Holy Spirit will come and will prove the world of sin and of
righteousness and of judgment. Once a man's convinced, once
a person's convinced of our condemnation, once we are convinced and approved
of our sin that we are, and once we're convinced that the Lord's
hope, Christ is righteousness. He's our only hope, our only
righteousness. Once we see that, we flee to Him. We flee to Christ. Look here in Genesis 27, verse
42. And these words of Esau, her
elder son, were told to Rebekah. And she sent and called Jacob,
her younger son, and said to him, behold, thy brother Esau,
as touching thee, doth comfort himself, purposing to kill thee. Now therefore, now therefore,
my son, obey my voice and arise. Flee thou to Laban, my brother,
to Herod. What's Rebekah saying? Flee to
Calvary. Flee to the Savior at Calvary.
Flee to Christ and Him crucified. That city of refuge, run to it. Run to it and enter it. There's
a whole lot of people that can tell you all about that city
of refuge. How many bricks are on the wall, what color it is,
what kind of mortar they used, how many nails are in the door.
They ain't went in it. If you know you're guilty, you
go in. Desperate, thirsty, hungry, starving,
needing, Mediation, don't we? It says in verse 44, and tarry
with him a few days until thy brother's fury be turned away. Stay at the foot of the cross
until the Lord shows you that your enemy has been taken care
of, that that foe's been defeated, that the law's been satisfied
in our Redeemer, that every jot and tittle has been worked out
perfectly by his hand, and it's his doing, on our behalf. that
he's righteous and he's magnified that law in what he's done. He
had to live that perfect life for me. I see why he had to come. I see why he had to die. And I see where he is now. When God turned his back on God,
this whole world went dark for three hours because I was on that cross in
my redeemer. He finished the work, He satisfied
holy justice while remaining just, and then He's risen. Went
to the tomb and laid, and He's risen. And He's seated at the
right hand of the Father right now, interceding for us. He ever
lives to make intercession for us. I see why He had to do that,
because of what I am. And I see where He is now. Once
I see that, do I go anywhere else? Judgment's been satisfied, and
this is just. It's right. It's right for God
to justify us because of Christ, because of his blood that was
shed, and it blotted out our sin. It removed our sin as far
as the east is from the west. If he'd have said north or south,
I'd have been in trouble. You can go north, and then once you
hit the top, you start going south. You hit south, you start
going north. If you go east, try to get to
west, you just keep going east. It's magnificent. It says in
verse 45, until thy brother's anger turn away from thee, and
he forget that which thou hast done to him. How could that happen?
The Holy Spirit says of Christ, his brother, that he's one with.
You stay with Christ until that law forgets what you've done
to it. How could that be possible? How? The God who changes not,
the God who cannot forget says, Our sins and iniquities, he'll
remember no more. He broke the law. Flee, flee
like a gazelle getting chased by a lion. Run with all your
might to Christ and stay there forevermore for love's sake.
For love's sake. See what he's done. Thank you
for it. Thank you. Amen. That's prayer. Father, if you're pleased, bless
this word to our hearts and make us see what we are, make us see
who our Redeemer is. Lord, enable us to praise him
and glorify his name. Thank you for this hour. Thank
you for your children that you've gathered together and what a
blessing it is to us, Lord, to have brothers and sisters in
this world that have the same God we have. Let us worship together
and see our need and be thankful for this family you've given
us. What a great gospel we have for them. Give us grace to tell
others. Give us a word to say, come and
see. Behold this land of God. It's in his name that we ask
it. Amen.