of Scripture, and he said, this
is one of the most hated passages in all the Bible. And I thought
I would rather he had said, this is one of those passages really
loved by the people of God, because it is a dear, precious portion
of Scripture to the saints of the Lord. Romans 9, you're there. Let's begin in verse 1. I say
the truth in Christ, I lie not. My conscience also bearing me
witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual
sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself
were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according
to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption
and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and
the service of God and the promises, whose are the fathers, and of
whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came. who is over all,
God blessed forever, amen. Not as though the word of God
hath taken none effect, for they are not all Israel which are
of Israel, neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are
they all children, but in Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, they which are the children
of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children
of the promise are counted for the seed. For this is the word
of promise, at this time will I come, and Sarah shall have
a son. And not only this, but when Rebekah
also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac, and here's
a parenthetical passage, for the children being not yet born,
neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of
God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him
that calleth, end of the parenthetical passage, it was said unto her,
the elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have
I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there
unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he said to Moses,
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. So then, it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. For the Scripture saith unto
Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I
might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared
throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom
he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. And I'll just say this, that
God showed mercy upon the Israelites, and to Pharaoh and his armies,
He heartened their hearts. Verse 19, Thou wilt say then
unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted
his will? Nay, but, O man, who art thou
that replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to
him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the
potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel
unto honour and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing
to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with
much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction,
and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the
vessels of mercy which he had aforeprepared unto glory, even
us whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the
Gentiles? As he saith also in OC, or Isaiah,
I will call them my people, which were not my people, and her beloved,
which was not beloved. It shall come to pass that in
the place where it was said unto them, You are not my people,
there shall they be called the children of the living God. Now as He said to Hosea, so He
says to Isaiah. Isaiah also cried concerning
Israel, though the number of the children of Israel be as
the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved. For He will finish
the work. Literally, He will finish the
utterance. He will finish what He has said.
and cut it short in righteousness, because a short work will the
Lord make upon the earth. And as Isaiah said before, except
the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma
and we had been as Gomorrah. What shall we say then? that
the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have
attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of
faith. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness,
hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by
faith. but as it were by the works of
the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling
stone, as it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone
and rock of offense, and whosoever believeth on him shall not be
ashamed." Let's ask God to bless tonight. Our Father, we are very grateful
that You hear us because of who our Mediator is and because of
His substitutionary sacrifice for us upon the cross of Calvary. We're thankful that Your justice
has been satisfied with the death of the Lord Jesus on behalf of
all of His seed. And there is no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. Thank you, Lord, for revealing
to us your gospel of grace, showing us how you can be just and justify
the ungodly. Thank you for revealing to us
such a wonderful and glorious Redeemer, One who loved us. He loved us to such an extent
that He laid down His life for us. He gave Himself for our sins,
and your justice was well satisfied with His sacrifice, and therefore
you raised Him from the dead. You received Him back to glory. This wonderful God-man is now
seated at Your right hand in the heavenlies. We come to You,
Father, through Him and by Him. We come to thank You for Him,
to bless You for this entire scheme of salvation, all that
You have purposed to do. Indeed, it has been fulfilled
through Christ Jesus, and all the people that You gave Him
have been redeemed, have been justified, and in due time shall
be called by faith, called to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, all that we are and all
that we hope to be we owe to Your your free and sovereign
grace. Thank you, Lord, for saving us. We do come to you tonight with
hearts that have mixed feelings. We certainly rejoice in the home-going
of our dear sister, Carolee. We thank you that you loved her,
you gave your son for her, You sent to her a true preacher of
the Gospel. The Spirit of God took that word,
that good seed, and quickened her. She was born again of the
Spirit and brought to faith in the Savior. You've kept her looking
unto Jesus all of these years. And we thank you for the ministry
that she's had within our congregation. for, as we said, about half a
century. We have been blessed by her musical
abilities and such a sweet lady. You gave her such a pleasant
personality. And we love her. We're sorry
that we will be deprived of her company, but we are also rejoicing
that she is in the presence of the Savior. And that's where
we all want to be. And we look forward to the day
when, arm in arm, all of the saints of God shall bless the
name of the Savior, praising Him forever for His blood that
redeemed us and for His righteousness that covers us and makes us perfect
in Your sight. For these other requests, we
will remember them. These faithful missionaries,
faithful preachers, and men that maybe we don't even know about.
Indeed, servants of God scattered throughout this world. Men who
lift up the name of our God, who seek your glory only. Men who are not ashamed of the
Word of God, the Word of the Gospel, the Word of salvation,
Men who are not ashamed to tell people who God is in your absolute
independence, in your sovereignty, in your holiness. Men who are
not ashamed to tell sinners what we all are by nature and how
we've fallen into sin. And we have no hope of salvation
if left to ourselves. And men who set forth the person
and work of Christ Jesus Lord, bless these faithful servants.
And I pray that you'll encourage them wherever they are in the
ministry and in the work to which you have sent them. Continue
to bless here. And we're thankful for the ministry
that we have been given, we have been entrusted with. You've given
to us the Word of Life. And it is our responsibility
and it is our great privilege to take this Word and send it
forth as far as we can send it. For we know that you will bless
the Gospel and you will drive it home to the hearts of those
who are appointed to receive it. Let's tonight as we look
into the Word of God and give us an understanding of these
two men Esau and Jacob. And may we see spiritual truth
that will be instructive for us and be a blessing to us. And may the name of our Savior
be magnified. We ask these things in His name
and for His sake. Amen. Go back with me now to
the book of Genesis chapter 25. the book of Genesis chapter 25,
and we'll talk about the births of Jacob and Esau. Now, we have been confronted
already with Ishmael. Last week we talked about the
generations of Ishmael. The Lord gave him a dozen sons,
and he prospered. And all 12 of these sons did
real well for themselves, at least as far as the things of
this world are concerned. But we've also seen a little
bit about Isaac. And Ishmael and Isaac are representative
men, and they represent two different groups of people. Ishmael represents
those who are only born of the flesh. Whereas Isaac represents those
who are not only born of the flesh, as we all are, but was
born of the spirit. The birth of Isaac was a miraculous
birth, physically. even as for His spiritual birth,
and for all of our spiritual births, that's a supernatural
birth. We have experienced the life
of God in the soul. Our Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus,
you must be born again. You've got to be born two times. You're born once, according to
the flesh. You're born the second time,
according to the Spirit. You see, Abraham gave heed to
the voice of Sarah who said, take my handmaid Hagar and you
go in under her and go ahead and have a child by her and that
son Ishmael, he was born, he was the son of the power of the
flesh. Nothing miraculous about that,
except in this sense, the birth of any child is a wonderful miracle,
right? We know that. But this was just
according to the powers of the flesh. But Isaac, he was not
born as a result of the power of the flesh because Abraham
was impotent. We've read in Romans chapter
4 that he considered not the deadness of Sarah's womb nor
his own impotence, his own weakness, his own lack of being able to
be a father. He didn't consider those things,
but he believed the Word of God. He believed what God told him,
that there would be this seed that would come from him, and
this seed would be as numerous as the stars of the sky and the
sand of the seashore. And Abraham believed God when,
to all things natural, that which God had said to him seemed absolutely
impossible. But you see, there is nothing
impossible with God. When we think about our salvation,
we think about our spiritual deadness, our spiritual depravity. And we look at one another, we'd
say, well, you know, salvation, for us to live toward God, to
believe the things of God, that's an impossibility. It is impossible
with us. But it's not impossible with
God. Because our God has been quickening spiritually dead sinners
for, well, about 6,000 years. And He spiritually quickened
Adam and Eve, we believe. And He certainly spiritually
quickened Abel and all of the rest of the saints of God down
through the centuries. Even until this very night. There's
nothing impossible with God. And He takes those things that
be not, and He calls them as though they were. We're the people
of God by the grace of God. Now, to the casual observer,
it appeared that Ishmael was the seed that was promised through
whom the promises of God to Abraham would be fulfilled. Remember,
God said to Abraham, I will make of thee a great nation. And most
people, as they begin to see that Ishmael, he got married,
he starts having one son after another, people are thinking,
well, this is where the promises of God are. They're all in Ishmael
because look at all these sons he's turning out. But Ishmael wasn't. He wasn't
at all the promised seed. Ishmael represents that which
is of the flesh. That which is of the power of
the flesh. Though the promises of God worked
with Ishmael, they were with Isaac. But again, to the natural
eye, you look at Isaac, and here, as this passage of Scripture
begins, look at chapter 25 and verse 19. These are the generations
of Isaac. We've already read about the
generations of Ishmael. He had 12 sons, a dozen sons. Each one of them wound up being
a prince over a separate tribe of people. They all prospered. These are the generations of
Isaac. Abraham's son Abraham begat Isaac,
and Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebekah to wife, the
son of Bethuel the Syrian of Paddan Aram, the sister to Laban
the Syrian, and Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife because
she was barren. So people looked at Ishmael and
said, he's got 12 boys. Boy, the Lord is really blessing
him. They looked over here at Isaac
and said, poor Isaac. He doesn't even have a son. So
you mean to tell me that this is the one who is the real heir? This is the one to whom the seed
belongs? This is the one whose seed is
going to be as the stars of the sky and the sand of the seashore? No, no, you've got it backwards. Ishmael, he's the blessed one,
and Isaac, he hasn't been blessed. You see, this is the way the
natural man reasons. I had a person spoke to me not
too long ago, and they said, you know, here we are in our
little group, And they said, all around us there are these
large religious organizations. And we, as far as they were concerned,
we don't even register. We're nobody. And the world says,
look at this massive congregation over here. Well, surely that's
of God. Well, that's the way they reasoned
with Ishmael. Well, he must be the one who's
going to have the promised seed. And poor Isaac, he's left out. And people see just a little
congregation meeting, maybe just a few people, maybe just a husband
and wife and children. And they say, you mean to tell
me that God meets with y'all and He's not with that big conglomerate
over there? The world goes by what is larger
Numbers! They got more people! It means
nothing. It means nothing. I've got a
quote in my office by Andrew Jackson. It says, one with God
is a majority. Well, it doesn't even have to
have one. You can just leave that out,
Mr. Jackson. God is the majority. And God's people generally in
this world, as our Savior said, fear not little flock. That's what He said, fear not
little flock. The world says, oh this is so
impressive, these large mega churches. And as far as a megachurch
is concerned, here in our congregation, we're nothing. We're not even
worth mentioning. But God puts the truth where
He will. And usually, it's just to very
few people. And I'm sure as folks looked
at Ishmael, and they looked at Isaac. Poor Isaac. He's 40 years old. Still doesn't
have a son. But look at Ishmael. Man alive. He's going to have grandchildren
soon. And going to be great-grandchildren. Man, his family is really going. God's really blessing, isn't
He? Don't be fooled by the numbers. Don't be fooled. Don't draw conclusions
based upon outward conditions. I think of the rich man and Lazarus. See that guy up there? See that
big mansion up there? Man, that guy's got everything
he could ever desire. Who hadn't God blessed him? He's
got wealth. He's got family. Anything he
wants, he can have it. Oh, God's really blessed him.
And did you see that poor beggar down there at the gate? Bless
his heart. He doesn't have anything. I guess
God just cursed him. Things are not as the outward
eye sees. Actually, that rich man, he's
the cursed one. And Lazarus, who's begging for
bread at his gate, he's blessed of God. He was blessed of God
in old eternity. David in Psalm 73, He said, I was envious of the
prosperity of the wicked. I saw all these Ishmael's of
the world. And boy, they got everything. You seen them? They got everything.
And there are no bands in their death. They don't seem to be
troubled when time comes to die. They don't suffer like the saints
of God do. David says, I was envious of
them. They prosper while the righteous are chastened every
morning. But then he went to the house
of God. And when he went to the house
of God, then he understood the end of the wicked. And he didn't
envy them anymore. He said, surely thou did set
them in slippery places. Thou casted them down to destruction. Oh, how are they brought unto
desolation as in a moment they're utterly, utterly consumed with
terror. Yet don't be fooled by Ishmael
with twelve sons and Isaac married twenty years and zero sons. earthly conditions are not an
accurate reflection of the spiritual blessings of God. And notice Isaac's prayer. So his wife has no children and
they've been married 20 years. Verse 21, and Isaac entreated
the Lord for his wife. And I think the better translation
of that would be, and Isaac entreated the Lord with his wife. That's actually a better translation. And Isaac entreated the Lord
with his wife because she was barren. He's 40 years old. when he was married to Rebekah,
and then 60 years old when these twins were born. Barrenness among
the Jewish women was thought by many to be a sign of judgment,
and therefore married women with no children would bear much reproach. Isaac prayed, and she prayed. We don't know how long. Scripture
doesn't tell us, but he prayed for his wife. He prayed with
his wife that she would have a child. And unlike his father
before him, think about this, unlike his father before him, and unlike his son Jacob after
him, Isaac did not go to the bed of a handmaid. Abraham did,
and Jacob did, but Isaac did not. Isaac did not approach the
bed of a handmaid. He did not take matters into
his own hands. And for that he is to be commended. Actually, God in His grace is
to be commended for restraining Isaac from doing what Abraham
did and what Jacob would do. It says he entreated the Lord. He pleaded with God. Oh, Isaac
knew the promise of God to his father Abraham, that his seed
would be numerous. Isaac knew that. He knew the
promise of God was real. He knew the promise of God was
very sure. And he knew the promise of God
involved himself. In Isaac shall thy seed be called. And yet, knowing those things
did not stop Isaac from seeking God's face in prayer. You see, the promise of God and
the purpose of God did not and does not make prayer unnecessary. Look with me at a scripture in
Jeremiah. Look at Jeremiah chapter 29. And I'm often asked, if you believe
God has predestinated all things, and let's be absolutely clear
about this, I do believe that. I do believe God has predestinated
all things. Everything will fulfill the will
of God, the purpose of God. All things are of God. Romans
chapter 11 says that. For of Him and through Him and
to Him are all things to whom be glory forever. I surely do
believe that God has predestinated all things. I believe His promises
are real. He will stand by His Word. But
that doesn't make prayer unnecessary. Look at Jeremiah chapter 29 and
verse 10. For thus saith the Lord, that
after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you."
We actually spoke a little bit about this. We got into this
a little bit this past Lord's Day evening because the Lord
would use Cyrus. He would raise up this Persian
leader to come in and he would relieve the Jews from their captivity
and they would be released in waves to go back to Judah and
go back to Jerusalem. And that was Cyrus. And God said
he's like a shepherd and of course in many ways he was a type of
our Lord Jesus. So he says, after 70 years be
accomplished at Babylon, I'll visit you. He would visit them
through that man Cyrus. And perform my good word to you
in causing you to return to this place. Now there's the Word of
God. He promises deliverance from
their captivity. He promises that they will go
back to Jerusalem. They will go back to their homeland.
They will return, He says, to this place. Look at verse 11. For I know the thoughts that
I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and
not of evil. The children of God, listen,
God has only thoughts of peace toward you. He doesn't have any
evil thoughts toward you. Evil is not in Him when it comes
to His people. to give you an expected end,
your desired end. What is your desired end? What
is the end that you desire? Is it not to be with Christ Jesus? This is what Carolee has been
longing for for a long time. This was her desired end. We're
happy for her. This is what she's wanted. And
this is what all of the people of God said. The Lord says, I
know my thoughts toward you, thoughts of peace. To give you
the end, the goal that you so much desire. To be rid of this
thing called sin. And to be in the presence of
the Savior. Now look at verse 12. Then shall ye call upon me, and
ye shall go and pray to me, and I will hearken unto you. Now
wait a minute. What is the use of praying when
He has already told them, after 70 years, I give you My Word,
I'm going to visit you. I'm going to perform My good
Word toward you and I'm going to cause you to return to Jerusalem.
And you see, the natural man says, well, what is the use of
asking God for it then? Why would you pray? You know why you should pray? I'll
tell you the first reason, because God tells you to. God tells you
to. And I'll tell you something else. Here's the second thing, and
this is mysterious. It's got something to do with
the will of God. That's prayer. Prayer's got something
to do with the will of God. The Lord has indicated what He
is going to do. And He said, and when you ask
Me for it, that's when I'm going to do it. He has ordained that
we seek His face and we ask Him. Did He not say, ask and you shall
receive? Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened
unto you. That's our responsibility. It
is our duty. It is our responsibility. It is our great honor to seek
the Lord in prayer. And so he says in verse 13, And
ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with
all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith
the Lord. And I will turn away your captivity. And I will gather you from all
nations, and from all the places where I have driven you, saith
the Lord. I will bring you." Don't you
love the Lord's I wills? I will bring you again into the
place whence I caused you to be carried away captive. I will
do these things. Ask me for them. That's what
he said. Ask me for them. Seek my face
for them. Prayer's got something to do
with the will of God. No question about it. So Isaac over here
in our text in Genesis chapter 25, he entreats the Lord. He asks the Lord. And apparently, he asked the
Lord with his wife. They joined together, the two
of them. And well, verse 21, the last
statement says, Rebekah, his wife, conceived. And then we read, And here's
the second thing. The first thing is Isaac's prayer. The second thing I want you to
consider is Rebecca's perplexity. The children, verse 22, they
struggled together within her. And she said, if it be so, why
am I thus? and she went to inquire of the
Lord. She sensed within herself a terrible
struggle. And we all know, those of us
who are parents, and you moms certainly, you know what it feels
like to have that baby kicked a little. And your wife says, feel right
there. He just did it. Did you feel that? Y'all remember
that? You remember when that happened?
Well, this was an unusual kicking or struggling. And such was the
extent of it that she says to the Lord, why am I thus? Why am I thus? And the Lord gave her some understanding
of what's going on here. Verse 23, the Lord said unto
her, here's what's going on. Two nations are in your womb,
and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels,
and the one people shall be stronger than the other people, and the
elder shall serve the younger. The Lord gives her some understanding
of what the struggling was about. It wasn't Ishmael that God was
going to bless. Now God's going to show some,
or excuse me, it wasn't Esau that God was going to bless.
It is Jacob that is the Lord's. even as we read over in Romans
chapter 9, because the Lord said, the elder shall serve the younger.
Well, the elder, as we will continue to look at this next week, was
Esau. He's the elder. He was the first
one out of the womb. And to the elder, with the birthright,
the privilege of being the priest of the household, A double portion
of the inheritance. The privilege of leading the
household. The elder is Esau. But he's going
to serve the younger. The younger one is Jacob. Because Jacob is the favored
one by God. We just read over there in Romans
chapter 9, and that's taken from Malachi chapter 1, where the
Lord said, Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated. I loved Jacob. I hated Esau. And I know people get all hung
up on that verse in Malachi and the one in Romans chapter 9.
And they say, that's beyond my comprehension. Mine too, because
I can understand why the Lord would hate both of them. What is beyond comprehension
is how He could love Jacob. This is the astounding thing.
that God would love the sons of Jacob. And that's what we're
called, the sons of Jacob. And there was within the womb
of Rebekah these two nations. The nation that is anti-God,
anti-Christ, that nation is the natural man. I believe Esau is
a picture of the natural man. We're all like that by nature.
But those who have been born again, there's a new man. The Bible talks about the old
man and the new man. Or the flesh and the spirit. That's the way the Bible expresses
it. There's no real warfare where there's only the old man. There's
the flesh. There's no real struggle. There's
no real warfare. The warfare comes in when God
creates a new man, Christ in you, the hope of glory. That's when the warfare begins. That's when the struggle begins. You can read in Romans chapter
7, Paul goes into this. When he was Saul of Tarsus, In
self-righteousness, in Phariseeism, he didn't have any real troubles.
He didn't have any inward struggles. But then the Holy Spirit created
within him life. Life. Spiritual life. The new man. The Spirit. And so then he talks about the
struggles of the Spirit and the flesh. And just like the struggles of
Jacob and Esau within the womb of Rebekah, all of you who are
the people of God and those of you who are watching, you know
the struggles that you experience within yourself of the flesh
and the spirit. See if this doesn't apply to
somebody, maybe some bodies. You decide you're going to read
your Bible and seek God's face in prayer. So you're reading
the Word of God and then some thought goes through your mind
that is just, you can't even believe that you'd think such
a thing. How can I be a Christian and
I'm reading the Word of God and that goes through my mind? Jacob and Esau. And Esau will
surely cause you trouble. You'll struggle. And you might
even be led at times to think, I don't even know if I'm a child
of God or not. And of course, John Newton wrote
a song to that end. Do I love the Lord or no? Am
I His or am I not? If I'm His, why these cold thoughts? Why do I have such a hard heart?
Why is it that sometimes the things of God just seem they
don't even move me anymore? And He says, say, is it thus
with you? Is there anybody else out there
having the same problems as this? And we all got that problem.
We all can appreciate what Rebecca was experiencing, the struggles
within. Jacob and Esau. Jacob and Esau. But I will tell you this, and
I'll quit, and we'll go back into this, the Lord willing,
next Wednesday. Look what the Lord says to her
in verse 23, the second half of the verse. And the one people
shall be stronger than the other people. Who do you think she's talking
about? Well, most people think that the Lord is saying the one
people, Esau, shall be stronger than the other people, Jacob.
I disagree. I disagree. Because you see, the Lord was
with Jacob. And He will be the stronger one. Because we are more than conquerors
through Him who loved us. Esau is not going to be the conqueror. He's going to be conquered. Jacob is the stronger. And here's
an amazing statement here at the end of verse 23. And the
elder shall serve the younger. Esau's going to serve Jacob. What does that mean? Would you, as you study it, and
those of you who are familiar with the Word of God, you've
read the story of Jacob and Esau a hundred times or more. Can
you remember any time when Esau ever did a favor for Jacob? Did
something good for Jacob? Hey brother, I'm going to serve
you here. I'm going to do something really
good for you. No! And yet he served his brother. You see, Esau got the birthright, but he sold it. And Jacob got
it. And the blessing. He despised that too. And Jacob
got it. And the wealth. Esau had that. Jacob got it. And Esau winds up unbeknownst
to him and even kind of against his will, he winds up serving
Jacob. Let me tell you something. Your flesh, the old man, is going
to wind up serving the new man. You say, how in the world is
it serving me? It serves to remind you that you are what you are
by the grace of God. Yeah, it serves you that way.
It serves to remind you, to remind you that all that you are and all
you'll ever be, if you amount to anything, is due to God alone. It serves you. It serves you. And it serves you in this way.
It reminds you. It is only because God saved
you that you're different. You owe everything to Him. That's
what the east saw within us. That's what it reminds us of.
Oh, now this old man, this flesh, he doesn't just blurt it out,
but it's just His very presence within us. And then we see God
giving us grace through Christ who died for our sins. So that
that old nature, if you want to call it, the flesh, It reminds
us, your salvation is due only to God's electing grace and Christ's
redeeming grace and the Spirit's calling grace. And so you see,
ultimately, your flesh serves the Spirit because you see all
things work together for good. You know what it says? To them
who love God, to them who are the called according to His pain,
according to His glory, according to His purpose. And that reminds
us of this, and I'll give this to you. Let's be patient with one another.
When the Esau within me, When He rares up and I say something,
do something, show a bad attitude, whatever it is, just say, ain't
that like an old sinner right there? And forgive me for Christ's sake,
because that's why God forgives me. Remember, it's all due to the
goodness and kindness of God. God our Savior. Do you sense that struggle? I
know you do. If you're a child of God, you
do. You go home and read the end of Romans chapter 7. Paul
says, the good that I would do, I'll do. And the evil that I
don't want to do, that's what I do. Oh, wretched man! You ever throw up your hands?
Oh! Man, what a wretched person I am. I bet there's nobody else
like me. I'll tell you a secret. We're
all like you. We all have that struggle. But
to God be the glory. He saves us by His grace. And
we keep on going. Well, I got some more things. I really want to get that Jacob,
I've loved, Esau, I've hated. I won't get into that deeper.
I didn't get to do that tonight, but I will the Lord willing next
Wednesday. Let's pray. We thank You, Father, for the
hidden truths in the Word of God that You're pleased to show
us. And we know something about Rebecca's struggles. Oh, not
physically, of course. some of these ladies do to an
extent, but we do spiritually because we sense the struggle
of the old and the new, of the flesh and the spirit, of the
old man and the new man. There's only one thing that's
going to settle that, Only one thing has to happen before the
struggle will be over, and our sister Carolee has experienced
that. You leave this world, Esau don't
go with us. He's done. The flesh is finished
then. Up until then, we'll be struggling
right along. Thank you, Lord, for your continuing
grace. for reminding us even through
the flesh that by the grace of God we are what we are. Thank
You for distinguishing grace. We owe everything to You and
we bless You. We thank You and we praise You
tonight. In the name of the Lord Jesus
and for His sake, Amen.