"Same Old Story (Genesis 25-26)” | 5/2/2021
Genesis 25-26 | 5/2/21 | Will DuVal
I had the misfortune of attending Vanderbilt University for my Masters of Divinity work. And the only thing worse than being a student at Vanderbilt Divinity School was being a FAN of Vanderbilt sports. During my time there, we suffered many disappointing losses - our basketball team blew a 4th quarter lead to a #2 ranked Kentucky team featuring John Wall and Demarcus Cousins - but of all the let-downs, none was more disheartening than our football team’s loss to the University of Georgia in my first year. At halftime, we were up 17-7 on the #6 ranked Bulldogs - led by future #1 draft pick Matthew Stafford. And I remember heading into the 4th quarter, turning to my buddy Ben and remarking hopefully, “We may just pull this off.” And one of our OTHER friends, two years our senior, overheard me and interjected, “Just wait. You guys are NEW to Vandy sports; but I’ve seen this script before. I know how this one ends.” 20-17, Georgia, on a last minute field goal, after we fumbled the ball away to them. When it comes to Vanderbilt athletics - and I know you Mizzou fans feel me on this too - it’s always the same old story, isn’t it? New season, same story.
Well we’re in the dead middle of the book of GENESIS this morning, chapters 25 and 26, if you have your Bibles and want to turn there. And the story is gonna transition here from tracing the life of the OG patriarch Abraham, to his son, Isaac. But lest we think that the THEME of the story is about to change, these two chapters emphasize for us the truth of that Ecclesiastical proverb: “there is nothing new under the sun”. New patriarch, same old story. Specifically, the recurring motif we’ve observed through the first half of Genesis was that God blesses us, we screw up, but then God remains faithful and redeems our sin. We saw it with:
Adam & Eve: God blessed them in the Garden of Eden; they broke his one rule and ate of the fruit; but God offered the first sacrifice on their behalf, to cover their sin.
Noah: God delivers his family from the Flood; Noah gets drunk and curses his own son; but God blesses and flourishes his lineage nonetheless.
Abraham: God promises him a land, a people “as numerous as the stars”, and to make him a blessing to ALL nations; but Abraham doubts God, he RUNS from the land, he pursues offspring illegitimately through Hagar instead, and he deceitfully LIES to the nations, nearly resulting in their destruction; and yet once again, God works in SPITE of Abraham to redeem his bad choices, and even USE them to further prosper Abraham.
And this morning, that theme is gonna continue in the life of his son, Isaac.
But I challenge you as we work our way through chapters 25&26 here, not to be content with mere Bible study; we want to look for opportunities for Bible application as well. In what ways have you seen this cycle - God blesses me, I mess up, God forgives and even redeems my sin - at work in your OWN life over time? In what areas might you CURRENTLY be guilty of continually falling into the same old sinful patterns and pitfalls, and need to be both convicted this morning of your need for repentance, but also comforted this morning by God’s promise of REDEMPTION in spite of you. THAT is the good news of Isaac’s story, it’s the good news repeated throughout the entire biblical story: 2 Timothy 2:13 - that “even if we are faithless, God remains faithful”. Friend: Is that the good news of YOUR life’s story? I pray it is; would you pray…
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Now I usually make you stand with me for the reading of God’s word, but since we’re covering two entire chapters, 69 verses, we’re just going to read it AS we work our way through. We’ll cover both chapters in order, but we’ll be ping-ponging back and forth in the outline in your bulletins, because that’s what the story does; it swings back and forth, three times, between OUR SIN and GOD’S SOLUTION for, his RESPONSE TO our sin, namely, to keep offering us even more GRACE. Grace ON TOP OF grace.
1) Abraham falls prey to the same old sin of INFIDELITY, in ch25, vv1-6:
“Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah. 2 She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. 3 Jokshan fathered Sheba and Dedan. The sons of Dedan were Asshurim, Letushim, and Leummim. 4 The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah. All these were the children of Keturah. 5 Abraham gave all he had to Isaac. 6 But to the sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts, and while he was still living he sent them away from his son Isaac, eastward to the east country.”
Now, you might ask, “Is that really infidelity? Didn’t Sarah DIE back in ch.23? Isn’t Abraham allowed to remarry?” And I admit: I don’t have an airtight argument for Abraham’s adultery here. But I will point out 2 bits of evidence for you: First, notice that Keturah is referred to in v6 as a “concubine”; 1 Chronicles 1:32 confirms that. This leads many to speculate that Abraham had already taken her as a “concubine” while Sarah was still living, and when Sarah died, Keturah got “upgraded” to the status of “wife”. Secondly, notice the text specifies that “Abraham sent [HER family] away, v6… while he was [still] living” - now why’d he do that? A 175 year old man, probably struggling to feed, bathe, clothe himself; why get rid of your family, your support system; he’s already exiled Hagar and Ishmael, back in ch.21. It makes me think there must have been bad blood again. Maybe Keturah’s kids weren’t content just getting some “parting gifts” in Abraham’s will; they wanted an equal cut of the inheritance. But ISAAC is the child of promise, so the question bears asking: Why did Abraham remarry AT ALL? Keturah seems to have just muddied the water again. Should her children even EXIST? That’s a real question. We KNOW that in the case of Ishmael, he shouldn’t. The whole affair between Abraham and Hagar should have NEVER happened. So there’s a very real sense in which Ishmael should have NEVER been born. And yet, we’re going to see in vv12-18, God BLESSES Ishmael nevertheless. THAT is the kind of REDEMPTION that the gospel offers us, friends: we can be brutally honest about our sin and its consequences, because we know that NOTHING, not even our WORST sin, can thwart God’s sovereign purposes. He has a plan, even when we THINK we’ve totally derailed it. We don’t HAVE that kind of power! One day I’ll have to explain to my son, in not so many words, that his mom’s one-night stand, her fling, with his father who we don’t even KNOW, should have NEVER happened; it was sinful, abhorrent to God. And YET, look what BEAUTY God can bring out of it! That’s the kind of GOD we worship! He can take even our worst decisions and bring out of them unimaginable GOOD and GLORY, for Himself.
Now I tacked the ENDING of today’s passage on here as well, ch26, vv34&35: “When Esau was forty years old, he took Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite to be his wife, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite, 35 and they made life bitter[f] for Isaac and Rebekah.” There’s NO debate this time; Esau should NOT have married Judith or Basemath; I don’t care HOW awesome their names were; they were Hittites, intermarrying was forbidden, this is absolute INFIDELITY. And Esau proves here once again: same old story. Same old SIN. “Like father, like son,” right? The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Maybe THAT’s you this morning: You’ve had an issue with pornography ever since you found YOUR dad’s Playboys under his mattress as a kid…
You are meddling and overbearing in your OWN children’s lives because that’s the way that your mother parented you…
You’re a workaholic because your father implicitly taught you that a person’s worth is dictated by his salary.
From what I can tell, we typically fall into one of two traps: we either unconsciously REPEAT our parent’s mistakes, or we REACT AGAINST their examples so strongly that we swing the pendulum too far in the other direction. If your mom helicoptered, you disengage and become distant. If your father was absent, you become clingy.
But how does God respond, to our infidelity? Is Abraham forever DEFINED by, remembered by, the sum of his worst mistakes? Hagar… Keturah...
2) No, despite his faithlessness, Abraham received the same FUTURE God had already covenanted to Him. vv7-11: “These are the days of the years of Abraham's life, 175 years. 8 Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people. 9 Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, east of Mamre, 10 the field that Abraham purchased from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried, with Sarah his wife. 11 After the death of Abraham, God blessed Isaac his son. And Isaac settled at Beer-lahai-roi.”
God gave Abraham a future, in the life to come; he was “gathered to his people”. In other words, he went down to Sheol just like everyone else in OT times, but the Bible says there were different places for the righteous and the UN-righteous within Sheol, and Abraham was gathered to HIS people, the God-fearers and followers. He is not judged by his worst mistakes; rather, he is REMEMBERED, in the NEW Testament - Romans 4, James 2, Galatians 3, Hebrews 11 - as a pillar and example par excellence of FAITH.
Moreover, v11: “After the death of Abraham, God blessed Isaac his son.” God’s promise of a future LEGACY of faith for Abraham, through Isaac, is only just beginning, as Abraham is laid to rest.
Friends: do you know that you can still be included in Abraham’s legacy of faith today, in God’s promise of a FUTURE, for you, personally, because of His son JESUS’ death and resurrection for you?! Galatians 3:29 “if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.” You too, will one day be “gathered to YOUR people”, either the righteous or the unrighteous, the saved or the damned, and it is only by faith in JESUS that you can inherit eternal life; “whosoever believes in HIM will not perish, but have everlasting life.” Have you received God’s promise of a FUTURE for YOUR life, personally, by faith? Trust in Jesus today, and you will be SAVED.
But #3 - even though God has promised you a future, that does not undo your PAST. The consequences of your sinful past may still follow you throughout your earthly life; if you’re like Abraham, perhaps all the way to your DEATH. The first thing we hear after Abraham dies is that God’s blessing passes to his son Isaac. That’s amazing. But the very NEXT thing we hear? Vv12-18: “These are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's [OTHER] son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's servant, bore to Abraham… [I won’t read all Ishmael’s descendants, but we hear in v18 that] He settled[a] over against all his kinsmen.”
In opposition to his kinsmen. Ishmael’s WARRING nature had been foretold even before his birth, you remember, ch16: “You shall call his name Ishmael… He shall be a wild donkey of a man,
his hand against everyone
and everyone's hand against him,
and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.”” (vv11-12)
And I told you that the religion of Islam traces its origins back to Abraham THROUGH the line of Ishmael. In fact, Muslims reinterpret the story of Genesis 22, such that ISHMAEL is God’s chosen son who is nearly sacrificed.
But you can judge for yourself whether Islam is a religion of peace, or a religion of the sword. The Qur’an commands Muslims to “make war on the infidels who dwell around you” (9:121), and contains over 40 references to “war” and NONE to “peace”. And NO people have been more targeted by Ishmael’s descendants throughout history than ISAAC’S descendants, the Jews. In a sense, Abraham’s past - his infidelity with Hagar - is still haunting his future to this very day.
How about you? What demons from your past can you just not seem to be able to shake? Maybe you’re still reaping the consequences 10, 20... 50 years later, of bad decisions a LIFETIME ago. Hold that thought; God HAS a solution...
But first, in vv19-21, we see Isaac dealing with the same CONCERNS, the same STRUGGLE as his father Abraham as well. Vv19-21: “Abraham fathered Isaac, 20 and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah… And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren.”
Now Isaac and Rebekah are struggling with infertility, just as Abraham and Sarah once had. We know that all brokenness in the world is ultimately the result of SOME sin, but every trial you go though in life is NOT the consequence of your OWN sin. In John 9, Jesus’ disciples asked him “Who sinned, that this man was born blind - him or his parents?” And Jesus replied, “Neither”. I mean, they’ve BOTH sinned; but that’s not the reason he was born blind. He was born blind “that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Similarly, Rebekah’s barrenness may not be a result of her sin, or Isaac’s sin - in fact, in CONTRAST to Abraham this time, Isaac does NOT take matters into his own hands and hook up with Rebekah’s servant instead; v21: He PRAYS, and just like the blind man, we discover that Rebekah’s infertility was God-ordained, so “that the works of God might be displayed”, when he miraculously opens her womb after 20 years of failing to get pregnant.
What’s the biggest struggle you’re facing today? Infertility? Debt? Unemployment? Family strife? Marital strife? Wayward children? Addiction? Loneliness? Depression? Mental illness? A physical ailment? It can be really difficult to see how “the works of God” are displayed through these circumstances, especially when they feel like the “same old struggles”; you feel like you NEVER see any progress, any relief. Is it possible, friend, that the “works of God” are evident in your faithful perseverance, despite that struggle’s persistence in your life? Perhaps the even greater testimony to the power of God in your life than your miraculous healing from that disease, your miraculous deliverance from that addiction, is your unwavering TRUST in the goodness of God, despite your continued battle with cancer, with alcoholism. Keep trusting in Him.
Thirdly here, vv22-34, to round out ch.25: we witness the same old CONFLICT. The same old SIBLING RIVALRY. First it was Cain & Abel (God favored the younger Abel). Then it was Ishmael & Isaac (God chose the younger Isaac). And now it’s the rivalry between the elder Esau and his younger twin Jacob, who once again, God will favor; picking back up in v21, with Isaac’s prayer, we hear: “And the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. 22 The children struggled together within her, and she said, “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?” [It was such a tumultuous pregnancy, that Rebekah asks, “Why did I even want to get pregnant in the FIRST place!?”] So Rebekah went to inquire of the Lord. 23 And the Lord said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from within you[c] shall be divided;
the one shall be stronger than the other,
the older shall serve the younger.”
In KEEPING with the biblical pattern, but BREAKING with ancient custom; God is emphasizing here that favor in MY kingdom is not a result of being older, or stronger, handsomer, wealthier, more powerful… actually, it has nothing to do with your merit AT ALL; it has EVERYTHING to do with MY SOVEREIGN WILL. Why did God choose Jacob and not Esau? Isaac and not Ishmael? Abel and not Cain? Why did God choose to save YOU and not your sibling? Because you’re a better person? If you believe THAT, then I take it back; you’re not saved after all! No! Listen to the way the apostle PAUL explains it in the NT, using this very example of Jacob and Esau: “When Rebekah had conceived children… though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— 12 she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”... So then it depends not on human will or exertion,[b] but on God, who has mercy… on whomever he wills, and who hardens whomever he wills.” (Romans 9:10-13, 16, 18) Unconditional election, irresistible grace, predestination… all 5 points of Calvinism; we don’t have time to take ANY of them up here, but they’re touched on at least tangentially. Reading on, v24...
“24 When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb. 25 The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau [aka, “Harry”; a terrible name, and I can say that, because we don’t have any Harry’s here at West Hills yet…]. 26 Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding Esau's heel, so his name was called Jacob. [aka, “Heel Grabber”, or Over-reacher][d] Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them. 27 When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents. 28 Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.”
Esau is a real man’s man, Jacob is more of the sensitive type. Isaac favored ESAU; Rebekah favored Jacob. This is actually WORSE than the Ishmael - Isaac conflict, because it doesn’t just divide two different families, Hagar’s vs. Sarah’s; this conflict threatens to split the family of faith itself, drive a wedge between Isaac and his bride Rebekah. And we will see that divide grow nearly to its breaking point next week in ch.27.
But ch.25 here gives us one quick but significant story to contextualize their conflict: vv29-34 “Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. 30 And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom (aka, “Red”).[e]) 31 Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.” 32 Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” 33 Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. 34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.”
What do we learn here? That Esau is impulsive, Jacob is conniving; and BOTH are sinful. Neither is the promised, sinless savior of Israel. And YET, God’s word proves true; the older SHALL serve the younger indeed, because NOW Jacob is legally entitled to a double portion of Isaac’s inheritance; that’s Deuteronomy 21:17, the law of primogeniture. The eldest son customarily inherited the lion’s share of the family estate. But not Esau. Cuz he just traded his birthright for… a bowl of lentil stew. Not filet mignon. Not even soup and salad, “You Pick 2”. If Panera listed 8 different soup options, lentil stew would literally be your LAST choice, wouldn’t it? But I think that’s the point: to emphasize just how LUDICROUS this trade is; who gives up their birthright for a bowl of Lentil Stew!? Who gives up PARADISE for a bite of an apple? Friends: You and I do, every single time we sin. We are effectively saying: “God, I choose this fleeting, impulsive indulgence of the flesh over intimacy with YOU.” Esau is a picture of US, in our sin.
So what is God to do? With all these skeletons from our PASTS, with all our CONCERNS, with all our CONFLICT, most of all, our conflict with HIM, our rebellion against HIM?
God could have said, “That’s it. I’ve given y’all 3 generations to figure this out now; Abraham was a sinner, Isaac’s about to prove himself a sinner momentarily here in ch26, and even BEFORE that, his sons Esau and Jacob both prove here to be flawed. But God doesn’t give up on them. Because he is faithful to his promises. Despite our repeated mistakes from our pasts, our sustained struggles, our continued conflicts… God offers us the SAME PROMISES that never fail; ch26: “Now there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech king of the Philistines. [Pause there for a minute; NOW Isaac has sinned. He was supposed to stay in the land of Canaan, and trust God to provide for him, but at the first sign of trouble in v1, famine, he naturally does the same thing HIS father Abraham had done under threat of famine, back in chapter 12: he FLEES. But before you point a finger at Isaac, check the 4 fingers pointing back at yourself; how often are YOU guilty of forgetting God, kicking him out of the driver seat at the first sign of trouble in YOUR life?
Now, where is Isaac heading here? v2: “And the Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. [Isaac is headed to Egypt because the Nile River allowed the Egyptians to continue farming and watering their livestock even during droughts. It enabled them to avoid having to TRUST in God. In Deuteronomy 11, God warned His people: “the land you are entering to take possession of - Canaan - it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it... 11 But [it] is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, 12 a land that the Lord your God cares for.” God purposely plants his people in the middle of a desert so they have to rely on HIM for provision, for rain. And he says:
v3: “Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you [first time God promises to be WITH someone in the Bible] and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. 4 I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed...” God RENEWS the covenant promises he made to Abraham; land, family, and blessing; a place, a people, and a promise. And God appears to Isaac a SECOND time in vv23-25, this time in Beersheba, and once again promises to “bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham's sake.”
This is your God, Christian; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is FOR you, not against you; He blesses you, despite your sin, struggles, and strife. Even when we are faithless, he remains faithful. Praise the Lord, for his undeserved mercy and grace!
But STILL, #5, we see Isaac falling prey to the same FEARS as his father Abraham. Ch26, vv6-11: “So Isaac settled in Gerar. 7 When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he feared to say, “My wife,” thinking, “lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah,” because she was attractive in appearance. 8 When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing [i.e., FLIRTING] with[a] Rebekah his wife. 9 So Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought, ‘Lest I die because of her.’” 10 Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” 11 So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, “Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.””
If you didn’t know any better, you’d think this must have been a COPYING error by the ancient biblical scribes, because this section is almost IDENTICAL, verbatim, to the account of ABRAHAM fearfully deceiving Abimelech, king of Gerar, back in ch.20. Like Abraham, Isaac not only fails to trust in God’s promise of provision in Canaan, and flees to Gerar instead; now he fails to trust in God’s protection as well, and LIES to save his own skin. The ONLY hope we can take from this is that Abraham repeated his sin TWICE - he fled to Egypt, and fled to Gerar; he lied in Egypt, and lied in Gerar; at least Isaac only screws up once. So I guess that’s progress. I guess Abraham did SOMETHING right as a parent; I sometimes joke that a parent’s job is to leave their kids a little less screwed up than they are. Abraham has succeeded, I suppose.
And YET, something is still badly wrong when a believer has to be reprimanded by a pagan - ““Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say, ‘She’s my sister’?”” Dude: that’s messed UP! Even a pagan Philistine like Abimelech knows it!
How about you today? Any FEARS causing you to FAIL to trust God, in a way that undermines your witness to the watching, non-Christian world? You know, I really thought and prayed that Covid might spark a revival in our country, the likes of which we’d never seen before. As unbelievers witnessed the unthwarted, other-worldly HOPE that we have in Christ, and turned from their fear, to FAITH in Jesus. But over a year later now, I’m afraid to admit: I’m not sure the church’s response to Covid has been ANY different than the world’s, by and large. Many Christians are proving they have far more faith in a vaccine, than in the Lord. Don’t mishear me: I am NOT saying we shouldn’t take the vaccine. I’m double vaccinated. Praise God for modern medicine. But I’ll tell you, friends: my ultimate hope isn’t in a vaccine; it’s in the LORD. “To me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” I know where I’M headed, where MY hope lies.
5b: Isaac doesn’t just suffer from the same FEARS as Abraham, he endures the same FEUDS as well. Vv15-22: “(Now the Philistines had stopped and filled with earth all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father.) 16 And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we.” 17 So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there. 18 And Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of Abraham his father, which the Philistines had stopped after the death of Abraham. And he gave them the names that his father had given them. 19 But when Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found there a well of spring water, 20 the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” So he called the name of the well Esek,[b] because they contended with him. 21 Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that also, so he called its name Sitnah.[c] 22 And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name Rehoboth,[d] saying, “For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.””
This is once again reminiscent of Abraham’s feud with Abimelech over his well back in chapter 21. What’s the point? That water was scarce in the Ancient Near East? Yes. But I think the takeaway for US today, is that we too should plan to face opposition FOR being a person of faith, just as our predecessors in the faith did. V14 says the Philistines ENVIED Isaac. Jesus said, “because you are not of the world, but I chose you OUT of the world, therefore the world hates you.” (Jn 15:19) Paul says in Ephesians that God has “blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (1:3), that He “does FAR more abundantly than all that we even ask or think, according to His power at work within us” (3:20). THAT’s what God has done for us, in Christ; you don’t think the world is going to ENVY it? Going to HATE us? Jesus promised they would.
But take heart, brother, sister in Christ, in conclusion, #6: even when the world HATES you, God BLESSES you. Isaac receives the same BLESSING that God had long ago promised his father Abraham.
Vv12-14: “Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him, 13 and the man became rich, and gained more and more until he became very wealthy.”
And in vv26-33, even Abimeleck is forced to acknowledge: ““We see plainly that the Lord has been with you… You are now the blessed of the Lord.””
Likewise, Christians, while Jesus promised that you would be hated, he ALSO promised: ““Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 5:10) But that’s what I want us to notice in closing: so much of this comes down to a matter of TIMING, and PERSPECTIVE.
Look back at our sin: our infidelity, its consequences, our concerns, our conflict, our fear, our feuds… ALL of that is a result of us getting bogged down in the PRESENT. Or even at times, getting stuck in the PAST. Now look at the other column, God’s salvation FROM our sin: He gives us a FUTURE, of PROMISE, of BLESSING - God has the FUTURE tense in mind. We need to keep an ETERNAL perspective in mind. Don’t lose the forest for the trees. And the BEST way that you and I can do that, is by remembering that God has ALREADY, once and for all, blessed us with a future of promise, with “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places”, through Christ Jesus our Lord. We have the promise of ETERNAL LIFE! Everything else is just gravy on top. Praise God for his faithfulness, despite our faithlessness. Amen?