We're going to be looking tonight
at Genesis chapter 32, and I want us to consider this chapter in
two parts. Now, for those of you who haven't
been with us along, we're looking at Old Testament types and pictures. We're looking at Jacob, a picture
of God's elect, and his two wives, the picture of the bride of Christ. And all of these things are pictures,
they're types and figures and spoken about in the New Testament.
But I've decided to break this chapter into two parts. I want
to look first, and that's what we'll be looking at tonight,
this coming of Jacob back to his angry brother. And then I
want to look, well, it won't be next week because of the conference,
but the week following that we'll be looking at this thing of God
wrestling with Jacob. Now, the elect of God have a
threefold relationship with this world. We've been studying about
Laban. Laban is a picture of this religious
world. The father of lies is the one
whose servants they are. We're told that time and time
and time again in the New Testament. It refers back to these like
it did with Abraham's two sons, and tells you that these two
sons are two covenants, one the covenant of works, one the covenant
of grace. He talks about these two women,
Hagar and Sarah, and talks about their being figures. And all
through the New Testament we're taught these things are figures
and types of these things. But the world, as it's revealed
to us, is revealed in a threefold relationship to this world. We're
born in it. We're born in it. We're of the
world. There's nothing I can do about
it. I'm born in it. I'm born of it. I'm born by it,
and it's all around me. It's in me and around me, and
I have to deal with it. It's this world. But secondly,
believers are called out of it. set apart from it by divine election. Believers are not under that
curse. They're not bound by that curse
any longer. They've come to find out that
God has chosen them, set them apart before the foundation of
the world, made provision for them. Otherwise, there's no difference
between us and the world. There's no difference in my heart,
Charles Manson's heart, except the restraining grace of God.
We're called out of it, set apart by divine calling and an eternal
election of grace. And then thirdly, we're called
to live in it, to walk in it and minister to it. And I believe
we miss it here. I really do. I believe we miss
it here. This is the thing that requires
our attention and requires some study, too. And that's what this
lesson's all about tonight. Now the world itself is revealed
to us in different ways. It's revealed first by the Jew.
Whenever you go into the Old Testament and you're looking
there and studying Israel, studying that natural Jew and that nation
of Israel as they walk with God, you'll get so confused because
God comes down to Egypt and He sends plagues upon Egypt. But
none of them fall out on Goshen. Goshen's out there where the
Jews are, and nothing falls on them. They're safe from the plagues.
Plagues doesn't affect them at all. And then he delivers them. He makes provision for them,
and he sends a messenger into them, and he delivers them. He
splits the sea for them and allows them to go across the sea. But
they no sooner get across the sea than they start grumbling.
They start grumbling at the sea. Where are we going to go? He's
led us in here into a trap. We can't get out. God's been
against us all along. We'd have been a lot better off
if we just stayed back in Egypt. Back in Egypt, they were crying,
wasn't they, for deliverance? And now, here they are, delivered
of God. Not even a dog barked in resistance
when they walked out. They walked out with all the
wealth of Egypt with them. They just gave it to them. Just
gave it to them. Here it is. Get out of here.
And they left. And now they're out here grumbling
against God. They watch a sea split before their eyes and walk
across on dry land. No sooner get on the other side
and they're grumbling about God. Grumbling about God. Grumbling
about this deliverance. What are we doing in a wilderness?
We've been a lot better off over there. So it's revealed in the
Jew. The Jew. And he stands for this
religious world. The world to which our Lord referred
to when he told his disciples, he said, if you were of the world,
the world would love his own. That's that religious world.
And then secondly, he reveals the world to us through the Greek.
Worldly philosophy, science, go down to the schools, the college
professors, all this type of thing. Wisdom and prudence established
by fundamental principles of science and reason. Our Lord said this, those Jews
laughed him to scorn, and the Lord said, he bowed his head,
and he said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
you hid these things from the wise and prudent. You hid it
from them. They think they know something,
but they don't. Oh, they know how to build bridges.
They know how to build skyscrapers. They know how to run nations,
but they don't know anything spiritual. completely void of
all spiritual understanding. And then thirdly, this world
is revealed in its raw paganism by certain governments like the
Babylonian government. You go over to the book of Revelations
where he's dealing strictly in pictures and visions and things
like that and types, and you'll find out that he represents all,
all pagan religion by the Babylonians and the Romans. Paul said his
gospel had prevailed among the Greeks and to barbarians, both
to the wise and the unwise. And so as much as any of them
was, he was ready to preach the gospel to them also at Rome. At Rome. Just raw paganism, savage,
immoral, no shame in their actions, no limit to their lust and pleasures,
living for the moment, taking all they can get from wherever
they can get it. prizing this life and what it
has to offer above all else. You see how the world's revealed.
It's not just revealed in the scripture in one aspect. I know
I talk a lot about worldly religion when I'm up here because I fear
it worse than anything else. But this world's to be feared
in all of its revelations. And what I'm seeing in Esau is
a representative of the world. He'd been down here dealing with
with Laban, who's a picture of worldly religion, the old father
of lies. And now he has... In fact, I
titled the message when I first titled it this evening, Out of
the Frying Pan, Into the Fire, because that's pretty much what
was going on. He just... God had just delivered
him out of the hands of Laban, and he turned right around. Now,
here he is. He's got to go face Esau. And
the last thing Esau said when he left, The days of mourning
is at hand. But as soon as this mourning
is over, you're a dead man. You're a dead man. So that's
what I see in Esau. I see this natural world. And
I want you to look at two or three things tonight in this
coming of Jacob to meet Esau. And the first thing I want you
to see is this. Jacob was shut up of God to go
back and live in the land of his angry brother. He didn't
want to. It's the last place in this world
he wanted to go. He stayed down there with Laban,
who was nothing more than a liar, lied to him constantly, promised
him and wouldn't give him. He stayed down there for 20 years. That's how much he didn't want
to go back and be with his angry brother. He feared him. Back in chapter 27, after having
taken advantage of him by his birthright, and then by covering,
put on him of another, he stood in his place and received his
father's blessing. And now Esau was filled with
a hatred for his brother. And in chapter 27, verse 41,
it said, Esau hated Jacob because of 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. As Cain despised Abel over divine
favor, so Esau hated Jacob. Jacob must return with his house
to the land of his angry brother. I'm going to tell you something,
and you're just going to have to learn it for yourself. I heard
these things, I heard these things thirty years ago. And I agreed
with them. I read them in the book, and
I agreed with them. But I didn't know diddly about
what they meant. And I'm telling you, I've come
to understand what these things mean. This world hates God. It hates God. It despises God. Not their God, but the God of
the Bible. The God of the Bible. cherished
child, and when he gets of age, set him down, and when he starts
telling you all about, or she starts telling you all about
what her friends believe, and all he believe, and you tell
them it's a bunch of hogwash, and this is the truth, and begin
to set it out, and you watch their face get red. They'll listen to you if they
fear you enough, but it ain't going in here. It ain't going
in here. This world despises the Christ
of God and any man who dares identify himself with Him. I told you in the beginning that
the world's revealed in the Jew and the Greek and the Romans.
I want you to listen to this scripture over an axe. For of a truth against thy holy
child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed both harried and Pontius Pilate. That's wrong. That's wrong. with the Gentiles, that's the
Greeks, and all the people of Israel, that's the Jews, were
gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined
before to be done." In their hatred and envy and jealousy
of Christ, they took him out and nailed him on a cross, and
the Romans said, that's good for us. We can have some peace
now. We can have some peace. That'll
satisfy them Jews and we can get what we want. Made sense
to the Greeks because it was foolishness to them anyway. Let's
get rid of him. He's just a problem. This place where Jacob's going
is called in the Bible, Edom. Now, if you remember from our
previous studies, I told you this word means red. That's what
it means. Red. And if you look it up and
follow it through, you know, when you look something up in
the concordance, it's going to say this word came from this
word, and you go back and see what that word meant, and then
that word came from this word. Well, what they're telling you
is, and if you look at the spelling up at the top, they're telling
you what composes that word. They're telling you the, I'm
just going to throw something at you, they're going to tell
you that the H-E-M at the beginning of it means this, And SAT in
the middle of it means this, and something else at the end
of it means that. And so you put this word together and you
see where it come from and what's compounded to make it mean what
it means. But this was, when I looked this
up, I was very surprised. And you can go back and you'll
find these terms EDEM, Edomites, Idomaea, Esau, every last one
of them means red. That's what it means, red. It
don't ever change. It's the same. I don't care if
you're talking about Esau or you're talking about Esau's world
or if you're talking about Esau's country, it's all the same thing.
All the same thing. And when God addresses you and
tells you what's in your heart, He's telling you what's in the
world's heart, too. Same thing. because it's people
just like you that make up the world. Why is this world so angry? What are they upset about? What
did Esau have to be upset about? He's the one that sold the birthright. He sold it for a bowl of porridge.
It didn't mean nothing to him. What's Esau upset about? What
it was, he was going to cheat Jacob, and Jacob got him before
he could get Jacob. Now that's what it was all about.
He sold it to him, but he didn't really sell it to him, because
he knew his daddy was going to give it to him anyway, because
he was the firstborn. But it didn't work out that way,
did it? Why is this world so angry? Well, they're not angry
with one another, they're angry at God. Esau had rules to obey. Esau had a lifestyle commanded
of him to live. Esau had a birthright to consider. He had the light of the promises
of God in Christ to learn about, and he ignored those things.
It wasn't that he didn't have light, he had light. You can't
tell me that his mother Rebecca and Isaac didn't tell him these
things. I know that they did, but they
didn't mean anything to him. Oh, if you got him out on the
corner and said, what do you think about old Abraham and all
that nonsense? Well, he'd probably take up for
him. He'd say, look, that's my grandpa. Yeah, I believe those.
But he didn't believe them. How'd I know that? Because they
didn't mean anything to him. They didn't mean anything to
him. He had the light of the promises of God in Christ. He
had them told to him, taught to him from a child. But he put
those things aside and did what he wanted to do. Esau loved this
present world. He loved it. He represents this
world. Hebrews 12, verse 16, it refers
to Esau as a profane person and a fornicator. You read it for
yourself over in Hebrews 12, verse 16. A profane person and a fornicator
who for a morsel of meat sold his birthright. It didn't mean
anything to him. He lived according to the lust
and desires of his heart. He sought out and chased after
every pleasure and desire this flesh and this world had to offer. And he was fine. He was fine
with it until God blessed Jacob. When God blessed Jacob, he got
angry. He got angry. And the more he
heard about the living God and His authority and His blessing,
the more he despised it. Finally, he found himself separated
from God. Now, if you want to read about
those things, you can read about them in Romans chapter 1. It'll
tell you that. It'll go through there and tell
you what's the problem with this world. They did not like to retain God
in their knowledge. They didn't want any knowledge
of God. They didn't want to be taught of God. They didn't want
to come down here on Sunday morning and be reminded of who God is. To them, that was a thorn. It's
like walking barefoot through a thistle patch. I go because
I'm expected to go, but I really don't want to. And then when
I do go, it's just like eating thistles. It just, boy, it just
won't go down. It just won't go down. Well, that's the way it is with
unbelievers. He said, you did not like to
retain God in your knowledge. He said, professing yourself
to be wise, you become fools. And you change the glory of the
corruptible God into an incorruptible like you are, a man, a four-footed
beast, birds and creeping things. Jacob was despised by Esau because
Jacob was the object of God's love. And he blamed Jacob for
everything that he'd given up. When you begin to talk to men
and women about God and they get angry, listen to what they're
saying. You don't have to throw back
a book. Just sit and listen. Open your
ears and listen. Just let them talk. Let them
talk and listen to what they're saying. Find out what they're
angry about. They're angry because they believe
they have the authority to do what they will without any consequence. You know, we talk a lot about
what David did, and he was a believer, and see there what David did?
I'll tell you what, there was consequences to what David did.
Oh, yes, there was. There's consequences to what
you do. Took me a lifetime to figure
it out. There's consequences. Consequences. And they're angry
because they believe they have the right and authority to do
what they want to without any consequences. This world's angry
because they believe they have a right to the inheritance in
spite of who and what they are. Well, you mean God has an elect. That's not fair. Not fair? You mean if you're sitting down
there on death row, there's ten of y'all, all ten of you condemned. All ten of you waiting on the
hangman to come. And the judge comes down and
says, you, you, and you, pardon. You mean that ain't fair? You
didn't have anything coming. You was already condemned, wasn't
you? You was already condemned. They
believe they have a right to the inheritance in spite of their...
He sold his inheritance. He didn't have any right to it.
This world is angry with God and angry with the objects of
His grace because they feel cheated of the blessing. They didn't
want the blessing. They didn't want the blessing.
Election is not fair. Sovereign grace is not right.
Effectual calling is not right. Saving some and passing by others
is not right. Well, it's not right if you deserve
to be blessed. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't
be right if you cherished the birthright. It wouldn't be fair
if men were willing and able to walk with God. But neither
Jacob nor Esau were worthy. Neither had a right to it of
themselves. And I want to make this statement.
What was given to Jacob was based on the rights of another, not
on his. Did you hear what I said? What
God gave to Jacob was based on the rights of another. I preached
that to you Sunday morning. On the right of Christ, on his
behalf, it's given unto you to believe. And what was denied
Esau was denied him because he didn't have any use for it. He
didn't have any use for it. Now you don't, God's God. God's
eternal. God sees the end from the beginning.
There's no need to let this thing play out. It's just because,
well, you know, Abel went this way and his brother Cain went
this way, but it might not be, that might not be the case with
the next one. That's going to be the case all the way down.
All the way down. They're not going to change.
It's always the same. Always the same. Always the same. All a sinner can do is sin. That's
all he can do. Sin. What's amazing is when a man
turns. That's what's amazing. What made
him... Who maketh thee to differ? That's
what Paul said. He said, you go think about that.
What was denied Esau was denied him because he didn't have any
use for it. And if left to ourselves, all men will live just like Esau. They'll think like Esau, reason
like Esau, chase after the pleasures of this world like Esau, and
be jealous of those to whom God shows mercy and feel cheated
and disgusted by the presence. You know that the natural man
like Esau, everything in his life was measured good or bad
in a monetary fashion. It wasn't the promises of God
in Abraham, that promised seed, that promise of Christ that Esau
repented of. Repented and cried and wept and
wanted it back. That's not what he wanted. He
was sad because he lost his father's monetary inheritance. That's
what he was upset about. It went to Jacob. It went to
Jacob. Everything you talk to men and
women, and if they got good health, they say they're blessed. Well,
I suppose that's right, but God could bless you by giving you
polio. Yeah, he could. We had a man up at 13th Street
years ago. He was an airline engineer. I
mean, he was a brilliant man. Worked for Boeing. Had it made. He just... Well, he got MS. And his wife left him. His daughter
didn't want anything to do with him. And he sat at home and he
was listening, trying to find some help somewhere. He couldn't
find it in these churches. And he was sitting at home. He
turned the TV on one Sunday morning. Henry was on there preaching.
And he heard him. And he went and hired a man to
drive him to Ashland so he could come and hear him personally.
And after hearing him several times, John sold his house and
moved to Ashland. And he sat up there in awe how
he used to just thank God with big tears coming down his face
for giving him, blessing him with multiple sclerosis. Blessed
him with it. He'd have never sought God if
God hadn't given him that. Never would have. Never would
have. And we just can't, you just can't. But the worldly man,
he looks at his health, he looks at his bank account, he looks
at his children, he looks at these things and that, and he
says, I'm blessed. Well, in a sense, I suppose that's
true. But not in a spiritual sense.
Not in a spiritual sense. This world is an angry brother. Hard to think about this world
as your brother, ain't it? Huh? We both got the same daddy. Both got the same mama. This world's my brother. It's
my brother. But God has set one aside by
His electing grace, and He's blessed him. And his whole life
is a constant turning to God. His whole life is arranged and
played out for the glory of God. His wives, his children, his
job, the whole tenor of his life is governed by the sovereign
grace of God. He just, I'm telling you, I look
back in my life and it, honestly, it looks like a maze. I don't
know how I come through it. But you come through it by grace.
But the one thread that I see going back is this thread where
he just keeps turning me. He prevents me from going here
and shuts me up to go here. And then here. And then here.
And then here. And he turns you. That child
of grace, that elect of God, which is what Jacob represents,
is a man being turned. He's being turned. While his
brother gathers up all he can get, Goes after the brass ring. Jacob learns to be satisfied
with whatever comes his way. Feels cheated. He was the biggest
cheater there was, and he felt cheated. Got upset at Laban for
cheating him. Well, he cheated his brother. This world hates and despises
the elect of God. They bear his image. They bear
Christ's image in their lives. They bear His testimony in their
mouth. And they're the light of this world. And our Lord said,
when a man approaches that light, his sins are exposed and he won't
come any closer. He won't come any closer. It
exposes too much. Well, here's the second thing
I want you to see. realizing the utter lack of his
ability to reconcile his brother Jacob. You're not going to reconcile
this world. Did you know that? You can talk
and pile promises up. I wrote an article one time and
I said you can bury, you can just pile up the promises of
God until he's just buried in them. He can't deny them. Here
they are. Just bury him with these things.
He ain't going to have them until God changes his heart. Well, that's where Jacob was.
That's what he's learned and that's what God's teached him.
He realizes the utter lack of his ability to reconcile his
brother Jacob. And so he turns to God. Listen
to his prayer. Jacob said, O God of my father
Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, and the Lord which settest
unto me, return unto thy country and to thy kindred, and I'll
deal well with thee. I am not worthy of the least
of thy mercies, and of all the truth which thou hast shown unto
thy servant. And now here I am, and I have
crossed over this Jordan, and now I am in two bands. Deliver
me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother." And then he finishes
out the prayer. Well, there are many things in
this prayer that we could talk about tonight, but there are
two things that I want you to see. In verse 11, he confesses
to the Lord a genuine fear for Esau. Do you fear this world?
I fear this world. I fear it. Now I'm telling you
something, if you can just flippantly walk into the bar down here with
no fear, or step in here, or step in there, or just carelessly
do things, if you can do that, I doubt you really know the Lord.
I doubt it. Once you understand what's in
this world, do you understand how easy it is for this world
to swallow you up? It can scoop you. You won't even
know you've been swallowed. This world can have you in its
grip before you can blink an eye. I don't know how many times
I've read it to you and pointed out to you in the New Testament
where he talks about being sober. That's what he's talking about.
Sober up! Listen. Watch. Open your eyes and look. All around you, people just getting
swallowed up by it. Not just religion. The church
houses are full. I know that. Old false religion
and Babylon. I understand that. But look at
the world. Is the world not swallowing them
up too? Swallowing them up. I don't know what it is. It could
be anything. It takes so many forms and fashions
and changes with this and that. It can be anything. It can be
fame. It can be reputation. It can be fishing. It can be
anything. Anything. Anything that draws
you away from Christ. And that's what this world does.
It has an insatiable appetite you'll never satisfy. Never satisfied. Oh, Esau, you can read the story
of Esau and you'll find out that he was a hunter and he did this
and he did that, but he laid the things of God totally aside.
Well, preacher, you're saying it's wrong to hunt and fish?
No, I'm not. I'm saying it's wrong to leave
the things of God aside to fish and hunt. That's what I'm saying.
And I won't say it as clear as I know how to say it. Don't take
anything this world has to offer and set it in the place of worship. Don't do it. Don't do it. It'll swallow you up. Next thing
you know, worship don't mean nothing. Don't mean nothing. You don't believe me, you just
go on and do it. You'll find out. You'll find out. It'll swallow you up. Pretty
soon you'll find yourself, well, You know, I'd just as soon go
down there. I'd just as soon go down there and go over there.
I said, that's exactly where you'll be, too. He had a genuine fear of Esau. He feared him. And I see Esau
as a representation of this world. Angry, upset, powerful. You know, Jacob, he always liked
to fix things. He always liked to, until God
wrestles him down, which is what we're going to talk about on
our next study. But here, he's still fixing. He's still trying to fix. And
he sends off this ambassador, and he says, you go tell my lord
Esau. He's talking in true humility,
and he fears Esau. And he sends this, and that ambassador
comes back, and he said, well, I went and told your brother
you was coming, and he told me to tell you he's coming, too. And I tell you, that man's knees
started knocking then, and he's bringing 400 men with him. Yeah. He's talking about gifts and
camels and she-goats and all this thing gonna appease Esau,
and Esau's got an army coming. He ain't got no presence. He's
angry. He's upset. I tell you, to know your own
heart is to know this world. And to know this world's history
is to know this world. To know my own thoughts, motives,
and desires is to know this world. Jacob feared Esau because he
knew his own heart. He knew his own heart. It doesn't
take anything, a subtle look, tempting promise, delightful
pleasure. What does it take? What's it
take to swallow? The intimidation of a loved one?
What's it take to swallow you up? Our Lord said, If any man
love father, mother, sister, brother more than me, he not
worthy of me, not worthy to be my disciple. His heart, the hearts of every
natural man is set to his own destruction. Our Lord said, Out
of the heart proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornication, murders,
thefts, lies, and all those things. Now, I want you to listen to
this. Maybe this will make some sense in the light of what I'm
trying to preach tonight. Our Lord said, whosoever will
save his life will lose it. He'll lose it. And whosoever
will lose his life for my sake, he'll find it. He'll find it. And it's the heart. That's where
the work's done, in the heart. The heart has to be conquered. Our Lord said, the kingdom of
God is within you. It's the rule of Christ established
in you. It's His way over the way of
the world, His will over the will of the world, and His glory
over your glory. And I believe what Paul said
when he stood up. He knew something about these
things. He's experienced the religious world. He experienced
the regular world. And old Paul stood up and he
said, who's sufficient for these things? Nobody. Nobody. We're either of God or showed
up by divine appointment to dwell and walk and minister in the
land of our angry brethren. This world's angry. Angry. And this is where we have to
live. This is where we have to go. This is where God's left
us. Realizing the attitude and potential of this world, we beg
God for His presence and power. I hope we do. I hope we do. Because you're not going to get
any headway without it, I can tell you that. You can just stand
and argue all night long. And then thirdly, Jacob's coming
to Esau was not to change what God had decreed, or to lord his
birthright over Esau. That's not what he wanted. That's
why he went and told Esau that I have these camels, I have these...
He wanted Esau to know I wasn't coming home to take the birthright.
I'm not coming home to take your wealth. I'm not coming home to
take money from you. But his coming was to reconcile
his brother to himself and to God. That's why God leaves us here. He's left us the ministry of
reconciliation. That's what He says. It's to
reconcile. The whole tenor of our life needs
to be governed by this. We want to reconcile. I don't
want to divide. I want to reconcile. Now, I can't
compromise the Word of God. I can't compromise the Gospel.
But when people come in here, I'm not doing my best to run
them off. I'm doing my best to reconcile them to God. They have
to be reconciled to God. It's a ministry of reconciliation.
And when I see Jacob, there's some wisdom to what Jacob did.
When Jacob come to deal with his brother, Jacob, he purposed
his gifts. He's going so many goats and
seagoats and he goats and rams and ewes and all these things.
He got all these things together, but he didn't just send them
out in one big band. He said, I want you to take this
drove, and I want you to take off, and I'm going to give you
so many hours head start. You get down the road there about
four hours, I'm going to send the second drove along. And then
when he gets down there four or five hours, I'm going to send
the next drove, and so on. He had about five or six droves
of gifts that he was coming to his brother with. And so that
when his angry brother was coming out to him, he was constantly
met. by tokens of grace, constantly. And by the time he got there,
he wasn't even angry. He wasn't even angry. Now that's
what has to be done. God has sent... You look at what
He's done. He's given us His Word. He's
given us His promises. He's given us patterns and types
and pictures. He's given us preachers. He's
given us all kinds of grace. We're just constantly, through
this life, meeting up with tokens of grace. Just constantly. Once that's pointed out to a
man and God opens his eyes to see it, it reconciles him, don't
it? You know that it says in the
scriptures that the goodness of God, he said, don't you know
that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? It's that
goodness of God. God just has to open your eyes
to see it. I stand in here on Sunday morning, I see folks get
mad, they get angry, You know, I can just tell they're sitting
their jaw and they don't want to hear what it is I'm saying,
but when God, I look over here and here's one over here, God
done got a hold of his heart. And he's over there just drinking
it in and he's, you know, tears rolling down his face and he's
eating this thing up. He's loving this, why? Because
God made him to see these are tokens of grace. Tokens of grace. All the way Father Esau, Esau
come, who are you with? Well, I'm with your servant Jacob,
and he sent this out as a present, a present to you. But I tell
you, I asked myself this this afternoon, is this really what
I'm all about? Do I live that way? Do I treat
my children that way? Is this how I pray? Does this reconciliate? That's why we're here. Well, how much of that shows
up in the tenor of my life? Do I live with my wife or my
husband in a state of wanting to reconcile? Jacob wanted to
hug his brother. He didn't want to fight with
him. Yes, he feared him. I fear this world. But I'm not
trying to run them off. I want them to hear. I want them
to see. And I want as best I can, if
God will give me the wisdom to stand here, I want to call their
attention to this constant, there's a train of tokens of grace that
just continually come. And it's purposed to come your
way. Who did that? Our Jacob did that. Purposed
them to come our way. He's arranged his providence
in such a way that evil men receive certain gifts and favors. And
in those gifts and favors, even to the condemned, like Esau.
Esau was condemned. God hated him. Jacob didn't know
that he was a reprobate, even though he feared him. But even
these evil men, they receive certain gifts and favors that
restrain them and reconcile them to tolerate their brother whom
they hated. They'll tolerate you. Jacob, and I'm going to close
with this, but Jacob gave himself and a lion's portion of his living
to minister to his angry brother. Well, here's a lesson for us
right here. Here it is. He gave by grace what grace had
given to him. He had nothing. He had nothing. God called him away from his
brother. His brother was going to slay him. He was going to
slay. God called him away from him.
Jacob knew that God's blessing was on him. He went down and
he saw God's hand on him. God's protection of him all the
way. When he came to deal with his
brother, he gave the lion's share of everything he had into that
ministry of reconciliation. That's what he did. He purposed
to do it. When he got there, old Esau said, well, I don't
want that. I don't need that. I'm a wealthy
man. I don't need that. I'm not worried about the inheritance
anymore. I got my own. He said, please take it. He wanted
him to have it. He wanted him to have it. His heart was to reconcile him
because Esau was his brother. Our Lord said, Grace turns the
cheek. He gives up. He said, somebody
comes to sue you at law and wants your coat, give him your cloak
too. Give him the coat, give him the cloak. No need to go
to court. If he smacks your cheek, turn
over. Grace, if he says, can you go
with me a mile? Yeah, I'll go too. I'll go to. Grace loves the neighbor, and
grace loves his enemies. Ooh, that's tough, isn't it?
Loves his enemies. Blesses them that curses him. Prays for them that despitefully
use him. And the Lord said this. He said,
if you love them that love you, you ain't any different than
the publicans. That's how the publicans operate. Ain't no difference. No difference. What this grace does, this grace,
I'm telling you what I know. Grace will cause a man to give
himself to this ministry. It's just having his eyes open
to see what it's about. That's what it is. Satan in this
world has us so blinded and tempted and tried and just throw one
thing right after the other, every kind of stumbling block
there is in front of you to keep you from seeing it. Once you
see it, Lock in on it! See it! It'll consume you. It'll take the lion's portion
of everything that you've got. You'll get it to this reconciliation.
Because you see God's hand in it. You see His hand in it. Jacob went to Esau with everything
he had. His wives, his children, his
servants, his living, and his own life. To live in this world
as an heir of grace involves a total commitment, one hundred
percent. And we talk a lot about grace,
and we talk a lot about the ministry of grace, and we talk a lot about
what we believe and what defines the work of grace, but there's
nothing that defines the work of grace in a man's soul more
than this, commitment. Commitment. I'll give you two
cents for the man who won't commit. Grace conquers the man and he
commits. Love commits itself. What's a
marriage if you won't commit yourself? Huh? Husbands love your wives as Christ
loved the church and gave himself for it. Committed himself. And I tell you this, he had no
guarantee he was going to be successful. Neither do we. His
family could have been destroyed, his living taken from him, and
his own life sacrificed. And I said a while ago that there
were two things in Jacob's prayer that I wanted you to see that
he genuinely feared Esau. Here's the second thing. He told
the Lord, he said, Thou saidest. Huh? Thou saidest. That's how
he closed his prayer. You said it. That's why I'm here. You said it. Now go with me.
Go with me. Going to Esau. One other thing
God does before he goes down the road to meet his brother.
God wrestles him down. He wrestles him down. We'll talk
about that next week.