Hebrews chapter 11, we'll be
looking at verse 20 this morning, Hebrews chapter 11 and verse
20. The title of the message is. The the immutable. The immutable will of God, the
immutable will of God. And we see this through the faith
of Isaac. You see this in verse 20. It
says, By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things
to come. Now, the account of this blessing
of both Jacob and Esau is found in Genesis chapter 27. And here
in Genesis 27, we find Isaac now old. having had the promises given
to him, having known the promises of God concerning his sons, he
is now old and ready to die. He's blind. And so he calls in
Esau to bless him. He calls in the eldest son, and
he had full intention, full purpose, to bless Esau even in spite of
the revelation of God. Now, he believed God's Word concerning
his seed. He believed God's Word concerning
the coming of Christ from his seed. But yet, we all understand
sin. We all know sin. And Isaac was a sinner, just
like we are, saved by grace. Isaac had the eldest son at his
heart. He was his choice. You see, Esau was a manly man
and so was Isaac. If you read the account of Isaac
and how he was out there and he dug the wells and they filled
in the wells and he had to go in and dig those wells again
and he'd dig a well and they wanted that one, he'd move, he
dug another one, they took that one away and he moved. Isaac
was a man who worked. He was a manly man. And so he related to Esau, no
doubt. No doubt. Esau wasn't afraid
of work or being in the field. But Jacob, on the other hand,
was more feminine. He was the one that was in the
kitchen cooking or being around Mama. He was Mama's boy. In spite of what was revealed
to Rebekah, God says this, the elder shall serve the younger. The elder shall serve the younger,
and Isaac knew this. Isaac knew the prophecy, and
yet he had intentions of blessing Esau with the blessing of Abraham,
with the blessing of God concerning the seed of Christ that is to
come. And God appeared even after this
unto Isaac and gave him the oath again. Go over to Genesis chapter
26. Genesis chapter 26 and verse
2, it says, And the Lord appeared
unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt, dwell in the land
which I shall tell thee of, sojourn in this land, and I will be with
thee, and will bless thee. For unto thee and unto thy seed
will I give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which
I swear unto Abraham thy father." And I will make thy seed to multiply
as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these
countries. And in thy seed shall all the
nations of the earth be blessed." Why? Because that Abraham obeyed
my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes,
and my laws. Isn't it wonderful to see even
in this the principle of representation? How that God would bless the
seed because of Abraham. Now let me ask you, did Abraham
fulfill all the commandments of God in all of his law that
was written in his heart? No. We know Abraham sinned. This
is speaking of Abraham's Lord Christ who should come. He, because
of Him, Sinners are saved. Because of Him, we are given
the promises of God. So we see that this representation
here, that this blessing was given to Isaac because of Abraham. So Christ was faithful. And so all His spiritual blessings
in heavenly places were given to us because of Him. When were these spiritual blessings
given to us? When were these promises given
to us? They were given to us in Christ before the world began. We were in Christ, the Scripture
says. And so because of Him, we were
given these promises even from eternity by the representation of Christ.
And so Christ, the promised seed of Isaac, was to come for the
salvation of the elect out of every nation." Now, even though
Isaac believed the promises of God concerning the seed, he did.
He had no doubt about the promise of God. That's why he was distributing
the blessing. He was going to anoint him with
the blessing because of the promises of God. He did this by faith. And yet he refused to bless Jacob. even though that was God's chosen
man, that was God's chosen vessel. Isaac loved Esau, no doubt, more
than Jacob, and desired to bless him. And Isaac was set to do
this. He was ready to do this. He was
ready to forego what God had said and do it unto Esau. And so he sins for Esau. But
what happens? It just so happens by chance
that he wanted some venison, that he wanted some of that meat
that Esau was so good at making. And he said, go out, Esau, and
go hunting and find some venison and bring it to me, and then
I will bestow the blessing. It just so happened that Esau
had to go out and hunt. And it just so happened that
Rebekah heard this. Rebecca, the one to whom was
given the promise of God, it just so happens she heard this
and instructs Jacob to get two goats and make the same type
of meal for Isaac. She said, you get those goats
and I'll make it taste exactly the same as Esau's. And he said,
you go in there and take these goat skins and put them on your
hand. You see, Esau was a very hairy man. And so they had to
wrap goat skin around his hands so that when his father would
feel for his hands, he would feel the fur as though it were
Esau. And they did it around his neck as well. And not only
that, they went so far as to grab his clothes to make sure
that he smelled like Esau. Esau being a man of the field.
All of this was to deceive Isaac, to deceive Isaac. And so then, Isaac hears the
voice. He says, Are you Esau? And Jacob
says, Yes, I'm Esau. He lied. He lied to his father. And his father said, Well, that's
the voice of Jacob. But he retched out to feel his
hands. He said, Well, those are the hands of Esau. And then he reached around and
he felt around and throw him near and he wasn't really sure,
so he smelt him. And he said, well, that smells
like Esau. And with that, he blessed Jacob,
the one that God had chosen for him to bless. The overruling,
immutable counsel of God will not be thwarted by any man's
determination. God rules over all things. His will shall be accomplished. It will be accomplished. He said, for Jacob have I loved. But Esau hath a hate." Now, I'll tell you what, it was
the opposite, it seemed, with Isaac. Isaac did love Esau, and he would have blessed him
had God not intervened. But, of course, God did intervene
because he had already purposed Jacob to be the chosen vessel,
the seed by which Christ would come. But notice how this is
the difficulty, then, of our text. I want to see the difficulty
of this text. How, then, if Isaac blessed Jacob
by mistake, not knowing it was Jacob, how, then, is it the Scripture
says, by faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning the
things to come? Isaac blessed Jacob by mistake. He had no intention of blessing
him. And the whole time he was blessing
him, he thought it was Esau. The whole time he was blessing
him, he thought it was Esau. How then was the blessing of
Isaac given by faith? Well, because he believed God
is sovereign over all things. We can see this because Isaac,
even after he had found out what was done, even though he had
found out it was Jacob and not Esau, that he had been deceived. We know he believed in the immutable
counsel of God and sovereign will of God because he did not
retract the blessing by faith. He realized that Jacob was the
chosen vessel. He was the chosen vessel. He
did not retract the blessing they gave to Jacob. We should see the sovereign,
immutable purpose of God in this, and His overruling power over
all men, all desires. Who among us, believer, has not
had a desire that has been overruled by the Lord God? Every one of
us and most all of our desires have been overruled, save one,
that we love Christ and be found in Him. That won't be overruled
because that's the will of God. It's always good to pray for
the will of God, isn't it? Because you know you have what
you ask for. Because God's will shall be accomplished regardless
of what men do. regardless of how men feel. John Owen said this, he said,
we may see herein the infinite purity of divine will, effectually
accomplishing its own purpose and designs through the failings
and miscarriages of men without mixture or approbation of their
iniquities." In other words, God does not approve and never
did approve of the means that they used to trick Isaac. He
never did approve of what Isaac did in rebelling against His
Word. Instead, God used that to fulfill
His own divine purpose. We can see this obviously in
the death of Christ, can't we? Can we not see the overruling
power of God in the death of Christ? You remember that the
Apostle said that for he was delivered by the determinant
counsel and foreknowledge of God and you by wicked hands have
crucified and slain the Lord. You see, they did what they wanted
to do. All of this was what they desired
to do. And unknowingly, they fulfilled
the law of God, the will of God for the salvation of His people. And God did not excuse those
evil men, nor did He excuse Rebekah and Jacob from this, or Esau.
Believe me, they were chastened for their sins. You think about
this, Rebecca didn't see her son after he left. And Isaac had to deal with the
fact, the truth, that his son Esau was lost. What a chastening hand it is. when we rebel against God, but
we have this faith, we have this assurance that in everything,
God is working out His will in every part of our life. There's
not one thing that happens by chance, not one thing that happens
by accident, but all is by the purpose of God. And so it is
with Isaac, Esau, and Jacob. Isaac, against the will of God,
wanted to bless Esau. Esau wanted to be blessed even
though he sold his birthright. He knew he had no right to be
blessed, but he wanted that blessing. Rebekah wanted Jacob to be blessed
because God said that he should, so she thought she would help.
I'll tell you what, one thing we don't need to do is help God
do anything. We're not helping God. God must
help us to do His will, to wait patiently. And she did it by
lies and deceit. Jacob wanted the blessing and
used deception, just like he did the birthright. He was rightly
named Surplanter, the guy that trips you up. And that's exactly
what he did. And yet God overruled all of
this for good. For good. because it was by Jacob
that Christ would come. Numbers 23, 19 says this, God
is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he
should repent. Hath he said, and shall he not
do it? What has God said that he will
not do? And so by faith, Isaac believed
even the trickery of Jacob was by the sovereign purpose of God. In other words, Isaac bowed down
to what he knew was right. He believed the truth. that the
elder will serve the younger. Now, he did everything he could
to change that, but I know this, God showing him that his will
is immutable. He bowed down to the will of
God in the blessing of Jacob. He bowed down to the unchangeable
sovereign will. Isaac humbled himself under the
will of God, even though it crushed his own desires. And he knew from this that Christ
should come, that he was a chosen vessel. Believer in Christ, there
are many discouragements. This life is full of them, full
of intentions. We always may even have good,
sincere intentions, but we know that many times these
are not the will of God, what we desire, and it breaks our
hearts. It does. We do feel the pain because of
these things. And doesn't it seem that all
the circumstances go against the promises of God? In this
thing of Isaac, when he was about to bless Esau, when he sent him
out to hunt, you would have... What in the world? could be done. It seemed as though Esau was
going to be blessed. All the circumstances was against
what God had said. But yet God overruled those circumstances
for His own will. Jesus said to us, believers,
peace I leave you and peace I give you. My peace I give unto you. Yet our lives seem anything but
peaceful. Isn't that right? I don't see anything around me
that looked very peaceful in this world. Jesus said, My joy
I give unto you, and yet I don't go along skipping and smiling
every single day of my life. Jesus said that He would never
leave me nor forsake me, and yet many times I feel as though
He has left me alone, as though I have no Savior, as though I
have nobody to redeem me or to hold me. I have those feelings. It feels as though the world
is about to swallow me whole. And Zephaniah says that we should
sing and rejoice because the Lord's taken away my judgments.
Now, do you feel like the Lord's taken away your judgments? Or
does your conscience condemn you constantly? Does it feel
like he's cast out the enemy? Or do you feel as though you
struggle with him every single moment of your life? You're struggling
with the enemy that resides in your own breast. It said, The Lord is in the midst
of thee, and thou shalt not see evil any more. And yet I look
around, and what do I see but evil? You see everything that
appears against what God has said, that's just it. It's just
an appearance because it's not real. It's not really true. Christ has never really left
me. Never. Just because I feel, you know,
just because Jacob felt those goat skins and thought it was
Esau, that didn't make it Esau. And just because we feel something
doesn't make it so. What God says makes it so. He
has given me His peace. By the blood of His cross, I
have peace with God. And whether I feel at peace or
not, I have peace. Joy! I have joy! Not like the
world thinks joy should be. But I have joy in Christ. I rejoice
in Christ. And I know this, that He has
washed me every wit. Jesus said, And he saith unto
them, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but
is clean everywhere. What does he mean by the washing
of the feet? He means that this is the conscience. Our conscience
becomes filthy in this world. With our conversation of sin,
the sin that we commit in this world, our conscience becomes
defiled and it's pricked. And so we need that assurance
again of the forgiveness of sins, and so we confess. And guess
what God says? If we confess our sin, He is
faithful. And this is what cleanses the
conscience. And just. He's right to forgive us of our
sins. It's just right for God to forgive
you. It's just right. It would be wrong of God to not
forgive you. Why? Because Christ has already
paid for sin. He cannot demand twice payment.
He wouldn't be just. Praise God for His overruling
grace. I'm so thankful He rules over
all things. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here. And neither would you.
I'm sure that God overruled many things to bring you here. Things
we don't even know about. But praise God for His immutable,
unchangeable grace. And I'll tell you what, if we
would see this, if we would by faith take hold of this, no matter
what happens to us, believe God. Believe God. we would experience more of his
grace and mercy. I pray that God would bless this
to your hearts this morning.