THROUGH THE BIBLE: Genesis 2..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Genesis chapter 25, by the grace of God, we continue with the corporate reading that we do of scripture every week that the Lord brings us here together. And this evening we are arriving to half of this chapter, Genesis 25.

This is a very important chapter, brothers and sisters. Here we come to the end of the story of Abraham. So let's read with much attention and with reverent hearts the words of God in Genesis chapter 25. Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah. She bore him Simra, Yokshan, Midan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shua.

Yokshan fathered Sheba and Dedan. The sons of Dedan were Ashurim, Letushim, and Leumim. The sons of Midian were Ifa, Hefer, Hanok, Abida, and Eldah. All these were the children of Keturah. gave all he had to Isaac.

But to the sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts, and while he was still living he sent them away from his son Isaac, it were, to the east country. These are the days of the years of Abraham's life, 175 years. Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years, and was gathered to his people. Isaac and Ishmael, his sons, buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephraim, the son of Sohar, the Hittite, east of Mamre, the field that Abraham purchased from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried with Sarah, his wife.

After the death of Abraham, God blessed Isaac, his son, and Isaac settled at Bir Lahairoi. These are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar, the Egyptian Saraservant, bore to Abraham. These are the names of the sons of Ishmael, named in the order of their birth. Nebaioth, the firstborn of Ishmael, and Kedar, at Bil, Mipsan, Mishma, Duma, Masa, Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Nabhish, and Kedama. These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names by their villages and by their encampments, 12 princes according to their tribes.

These are the years of the life of Ishmael, 137 years. He breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people. They settled from Havilah to Shur, which is opposite Egypt, in the direction of Assyria. He settled over against all his kinsmen. These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son, Abraham father Isaac.

And Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, the Aramean, of Paddan Aram, the sister of Laban, the Aramean, to be his wife. And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife because she was barren. And the Lord granted his prayer. And Rebekah, his wife, conceived. The children struggled together within her.

And she said, if it is thus, why is this happening to me? So she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said to her, Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided. The one shall be stronger than the other. The older shall serve the younger.

When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak. So they called his name Esau. Afterward, his brother came out with his hand holding Esau's heel. so his name was called Jacob.

Isaac was 60 years old when she bore them. When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man dwelling in tents. Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. Once, when Jacob was cooking his stew, Esau came in from the field and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted.

Therefore his name was called Adon. Jacob said, Sell me your birthright now. Esau said, I am about to die. Of what use is a birthright to me? Jacob said, Swear to me now.

So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentils too. And he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus, Esau despised his birthright. Amen.

Beloved, this is the words of God. We, as I said in the beginning, before I started to read this chapter, we arrived to a very important point in the book of Genesis. And it's very important for us to remind ourselves of the nature of the promise that was given to Abraham. And that's because here in chapter 25, Abraham will be no more. He dies in chapter 25.

So it's very important for us to remember the nature of the promise that was given to him in chapter 12. The Lord said to Abraham back then that I will take you from this land and I will take you to a different land. After that, he said, I will make you a great nation. And not only I will make you a great nation, but I also will bless you. Whoever blesses you, I will bless.

And whoever curses you, I will curse. So there is a sense in which, brothers and sisters, we can divide this promise or the nature of the promise that was given to Abraham in these three aspects. The land, I will take you from this place to this another place. I will make you a great nation or I will multiply your offspring. So we have the land, we have the offspring, and then I will bless you.

The land, the offspring or a great nation, and then we have the blessing. And this is very important, beloved, because the promise that is given to Abraham is connected to the promise that was given in Genesis 3.15. And when we read the Old Testament, what we're reading is the progressive development of the story of redemption, as we sang in that hymn, the upholding or the opening of God's plan of redemption. So, from Genesis 3.

15 all the way through the Old Testament, we're seeing how this promise of redemption that was given to the woman, that the offspring of the woman will crush the head of the offspring of the servant, is now being developed. Now, when we arrive to Genesis 12, this promise of redemption has a different nuance. Now, chapter 25 is very important because now the promise is also going to take now a higher level of revelation. And we will see as we progress through the Old Testament, when the nation of Israel appears and the sacrificial system appears, that this promise of redemption takes higher and higher levels of promise. And then we need to understand what the substance of that promise was, because that's the heart of it.

So we have the land that was promised to Abraham. Now we also have, I will make you a great nation or the offspring. And also we have the blessing. Abraham was the personification. I don't know if I'm making that word up, but Abraham was the personification of this promise.

And now here in Genesis 25, Abraham dies. Abraham dies and now the personification of this promise is going to be his son, Isaac. Now we are told here that in the beginning of the chapter, we're told about the last years of Abraham and how these promises passed on to Isaac. Now, beloved, Moses is going to do two things in this chapter 25. He is going to give us two comparisons of two people.

First, he's going to compare Isaac and Ishmael. Isaac being the descendant or the offspring of Abraham. And once he has given us that comparison between Ishmael and Isaac, he is going to take through Isaac and he's going to compare Esau and Jacob as the offspring of Isaac. So I want to take your eyes to how the author of Moses compares between Ishmael and Isaac as the promise. Now, this promise as I said to you is land, offspring or a great nation and the blessing now put your eyes if you want please in genesis in in verse 12 Because now Isaac was living with Abraham in the promised land.

And Isaac was the offspring of Abraham. But I want you to see the treatment of Moses comparing the sonship of Ishmael with the sonship of Isaac. In verse 12, he says, these are the generations of Ishmael. Abraham's son, whom Hagar, the Egyptian, Sarah's servant, bore to Abraham." So, the author of Genesis says that Ishmael is Abraham's son, but he says after that that he's the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, Sarah's servant.

But now, compare the words that the author speaks of Isaac in verse 19. He's going to use a similar language, but now he's speaking of the son of the offspring. In verse 19, he says, these are the generations of Isaac. So in verse 12, he said, these are the generations of Ishmael. And now he says, Abraham's son, but now he's not going to say Sarah's son, but rather Abraham fathered Isaac.

The author is recognizing the headship of Abraham over Isaac differently to the headship of Hagar over Ishmael. But beyond that, if you go to verse 5, we are going to compare here that it is not only this way of referring to the son, but how this son is heir of things. In verse 5, it said that Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac. Everything that he had was given to Isaac. But now compare that in verse 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." So here, beloved, we see the different treatment of the sons of Abraham, how they are heirs of different things. Isaac was an heir of everything that Abraham had while the sons of the concubines were given gifts. But not only that, Abraham sends them away from where Isaac was.

Isaac was living in the promised land where Abraham was. He was the offspring of Abraham. But not only that, just as Abraham was blessed by God, the chapter says to us also that he was blessed. In verse 11 says, after the death of Abraham, Put your eyes in the text. In verse 11 says, After the death of Abraham, God blessed Isaac, his son.

The blessing was upon the offspring. Different treatment that it was given to Ishmael. But now, beloved, we know that Isaac knew that he was not the consummation of the promise that was given to the woman in Genesis 3.15. He knew of his unrighteousness.

He knew that he was not the man that was going to crash the head of the serpent. So he knew that from him, the fulfillment of the promise was still pending. And now he was facing a problem because his wife was barren. And if the offspring needed to continue, then he would have need to have a son. So he said in verse 21, that he prayed to God.

so that Rebekah, his wife, might give him a child and the Lord heard or pay attention to the prayers of Isaac and actually now Rebekah conceives. Now here we can see, remember that in the last couple of times I said to you, imagine an Israelite will be reading this and then they will be seeing the tension of how the promise of the offspring is preserved. But now in Isaac, we have now two people. Now here's where the promise is going to take a higher level. It's not going to be only a person, but rather is going to be two nations.

The text says in verse 23, Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided." So Jacob now represents not only a person as the offspring or the heir of Isaac, but Jacob rather represents now a nation. Now this promise of the offspring of a great nation, of multiplication, of many as the stars, as the Lord will say then to Isaac, starts to take to take shape. Now it is not only one person, but now it's going to be a nation. Now we have here in the loins of Isaac, two different peoples.

And the Lord is going to say something very important. In the end of verse 25, he says, the older shall serve the younger. The older shall serve the younger. And we know that the older is Esau. and the younger is Jacob.

Now the author is going to move now to give us the second comparison. Second comparison now is he has compared Isaac with Ishmael and now he's going to compare Jacob with Esau. And now he starts saying that Esau is a hairy man, is a strong man, while we know of Jacob that he is rather weak and he, what do you call it, smooth skin? No, hairy. He's a weak person.

Now, the author also says of Esau that he's a man of the field, a skillful hunter. while the other man, Jacob, is rather a quiet man, a man of the tent, the text says here. And also we know there's something more particular that the author of Moses says about Esau, that he was loved by his father, that he was loved by Isaac, while he says of Jacob that he was loved by his mother. Now, it's not that the love of a father and the love of a mother are different, but when you're speaking about offspring, the blessing of the father takes preeminence in the context of this culture. So when you see it from a natural perspective, Esau was the person through whom the promise of the offspring should have gone through.

However, the Lord said, the older shall serve the younger. Have that in mind. And I'll go to Romans nine, go to Romans nine, because then the apostle is going to use this story to give us a glorious truth. The apostle Paul is going to give us is going to interpret this for us. And he's going to give us a glorious truth in Romans nine, in Romans nine, If you go through verse 9, when the Apostle Paul has spoken about not everyone who is of the flesh is a true Israelite, then in verse 9 he says, for this is what the promise said.

about this time next year I will return and Sarah shall have a son." So the apostle is now remembering the promise that was given to Abraham through Sarah. And in verse 10, he moves to the higher level or to the lower level, whatever you see it, in Isaac. And not only so, but also when Rebekah, Rebekah is Isaac's wife, had conceived. Now remember that Isaac prayed because she was bearing children by one man, Again, and not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad.

Now, you're going to have what is called a parenthetical comment. You may have parentheses or two little lines. Pay attention to what a puzzle says in order that God's purpose of election might continue. that the purpose of election of God may continue. Why would the apostle say continue?

Because he had already started the process of electing the offspring that he had promised in Genesis 3.15. When Abraham came, he tried to have a son of the flesh, Ishmael, but in order that the purpose of election of God would continue, he gave the son of the promise, Isaac. So this purpose of election in Isaac continue when he said this, the older will serve the younger. But the apostle finishes, and let me just read the statement again, in order that God's purpose of election may continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls.

So the apostle is saying, Esau in the eyes of the world was the strongest. Esau in the eyes of the world was the best or the better candidate to be the offspring of Isaac. But it is not according to the works of the flesh, but it's according to the purpose of the one who calls, and the one who calls is the trying God. So she was told the older will serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.

What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means. This is what the mind of a person will ask then. If it's not according to that, and if he chose, so is this injustice?

And then he says the apostle, by no means. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on who I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. The question and the glorious thing that we see here, brothers and sisters, is that God promised that he was going to give us a way to redeem us from the entering of evil and sin in the world through the disobedience of Adam. And when he promised that, he worked out his way in his providential work throughout history, and he preserved the offspring.

Why? Because from the loins of Isaac, from the loins of Jacob, the people of Israel will be conformed. And from the people of Israel, the Messiah will be born under the law, full of truth and grace. He will fulfill the requirements of the law on behalf of his people. So then when Isaac was promised the land, when Isaac was promised this great offspring, and when Isaac was promised blessings in Christ Jesus, He is the heir of all things.

He is the one who will give us the new heavens and the new earth, this promised land that is not of this world. And then because we are in him, we are citizens, not of this world, but of the world that is to come. in Christ the heir of all things as Paul will say in Galatians that when he when when the Lord was speaking to Isaac as the seed of the offspring was speaking of Jesus Christ then in Jesus Christ we are heirs of all of these things and even though we live in this temporary world We belong, we're citizens of heavenly places. And then it's not only the land, it's not only the offspring beloved, but it's also the blessings that in Christ Jesus, we have been chosen before the foundation of the world. And in him, we receive all the blessings that belong to him.

Why? Not because of the works of the law, but because he says, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. Now, and if you are in Christ, He had mercy on you. So the gospel says, come to me, all the ones that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Why?

Because by grace through faith, we are recipients of all of these things. And the mercy of God is extended to undeserving sinners like us. Amen.