THROUGH THE BIBLE - Genesis..

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Would you please open up your Bible to Genesis chapter 33. Book of Genesis chapter 33. The Lord has extended his grace and we can come together and once again corporately read through a scripture. And we're going to be given a brief meditation on this chapter, chapter 33. I'm going to be reading from the English Standard Version and let's read together carefully with a reverent heart, paying attention to each one of the words.

Chapter 33 of the book of Genesis. And Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, Esau was coming and 400 men with him. So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two female servants. And he put the servants with their children in front and Leah with her children and Rachel and Joseph last of all. He himself went on before them, bowing himself to the ground seven times until he came near to his brother.

But Esau ran to meet him and embrace him and fell on his neck and kissed him and they wept. And when Esau lifted up his eyes and saw the women and children, he said, Who are these with you? Jacob said, The children whom God has graciously given your servant. Then the servants drew near, they and their children, and bowed down. Leah likewise and her children drew near and bowed down.

And last Joseph and Rachel drew near and they bowed down. Esau said, What do you mean by all this company that I met? Jacob answered, To find favor in the sight of my Lord. But Esau said, I have enough, my brother. Keep what you have for yourself.

Jacob said, No, please. If I have found favor in your sight, then accept my present from my hand. For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me. Please accept my blessing that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough. Thus he urged him, and he took it.

Then Esau said, Let us journey on our way, and I will go ahead of you. But Jacob said to him, My Lord knows that the children are frail, and that the nursing flocks and herds are a cure to me. If they are driven hard for one day, all the flocks will die. Let my Lord pass on ahead of his servant, and I will lead on slowly at the pace of the livestock that are ahead of me and at the pace of the children until I come to my Lord in Seir." So Jesus said, let me live with you some of the people who are with me.

But he said, when it is there, let me find favor in the sight of my Lord. So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir. But Jacob turned to Sukkoth and built himself a house and made boots for his livestock. Therefore, the name of the place is called Sukkoth. And Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem.

which is in the land of Canaan, on his way from Paddan Aram, and he camped before the city. And from the sons of Hamor, Zechem's father, he bought for a hundred pieces of money, the piece of land in which he had pitched his tent. There he erected an altar and called it El Elohe Israel. Amen. That's the word of the Lord, brothers and sisters.

What an unexpected encounter we have here in front of us. An encounter that is very particular between two men that are very different. We remember Esau and Jacob, they are very different in that which is physical. Humanly speaking, they are very different. One of them is very strong, a man of the field, a hunter of the field.

The other one is a shepherd, a man that is more calm, more quiet. Very different men. But it's not only that they are different in that which is physical, brothers and sisters. The Bible is very clear that these two men are different also spiritually. That one of them is a children of God and that the other one is a children of the devil.

That one of them is a righteous man, Jacob, and that the other one is an unrighteous man. that one of them has been born again by the Spirit, according to the abundant mercy of the Father, and that the other one has not been born again, but it is enslaved to his sinful nature. It's not only an unexpected encounter between two very different men, physically speaking, but these two men, spiritually speaking, belong to two different kingdoms. But what is very interesting about the passage is not that we are seeing here an encounter between two different men, but we are seeing an encounter with a very unexpected outcome. if we didn't have the revelation, the specific revelation that we have in front of us, and if we didn't know if all the information that we had was that everything that happened between Jacob and Esau when they were living together with their parents, and one would ask you, what do you think that is going to happen when Esau finds Jacob probably most of us would have said he is going to kill him because that's actually what he said back in a few chapters before he says that when he has the opportunity he's going to find revenge for what he did remember that Jacob took the birthright of Esau and he was filled with anger So brothers and sisters, what we have in front of us is not only the encounter between two very different men, humanly speaking and spiritually speaking, but we have a very unexpected outcome.

Even if you take this chapter 33 outside of chapter 32, one would say that the one that seems to be more in the realm of God is Esau. One would say that the one who has found forgiveness and who has changed his heart is Esau. Very different to what we actually see here in front of us. One would have expected that it's Esau, the one that is filled with anger, that comes and destroys his brother. But the text says that actually he comes, he approaches him, he kisses him, he goes to his neck, And everything that happened after that is just pure grace and mercy from Esau towards his brother Jacob.

A very similar narrative of that of the prodigal son. Similar language is used here in which Esau comes to Jacob and hugs him and kisses him on his neck. So, brothers and sisters, we have a very unexpected outcome of an encounter of two very different men. even if you pay attention and what is curious about this chapter is that the one who has had a personal encounter with God is Jacob. Jacob is the one who in the previous chapter had a very personal encounter with God and he wrestled with God during the whole day and he endured through that encounter with God and he's completely transformed.

People say that this is the moment in which in which Jacob is born again. But again, when we come to chapter 33, we have a very unexpected outcome. So the question that we need to ask ourselves is, why we have this very unexpected outcome? Why do we have a children of God? encountering a children of Satan, an unrighteous man, an Adamic man, a man who remains in the Adamic race, who has not been born again, who promised years before that he was going to find revenge against him.

Why do we have this encounter of these two men that should have finished or end up with a conflict between the two with pure grace from the evil one, from the unrighteous one, towards the righteous and the children or the child of God? The answer brothers and sisters to that question is given to us in the previous chapter So if you go to chapter 32, let's just read together and let me just build it from there the answer to that particular encounter unexpected encounter an Unexpected outcome of that encounter is found in chapter 32 in verse 9 Jacob here is going to speak to the lord who is going to pray and he's going to say and jacob said oh god my father Oh God, my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, oh Lord, who said to me, return to your country and to your kindred that I might do good. I am not worthy of the list of all the deeds of the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant. For with only my staff, I crossed this Jordan and now I have become to camps. Verse 11, please.

deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Iso, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. Brothers, the men of God, the one who had been drawn covenantally to an encounter with God, had prayed and requested from the covenant, from the God of the covenant, that he would be protected, that he will be delivered from the encounter that he was going to have with his brother Esau. Now, why is this important? It is God himself the one that is preserving and is God himself, the one that is keeping Jacob in this encounter that he has with Esau. Now, why is this very important, brothers and sisters?

Because the theology of the New Testament is speaking of the children of God, because the theology of the apostles and of the prophets in the New Testament is speaking of the circumstances of the children of God, of the child of God says, that the Lord is going to complete the great work that he has started until the day of Jesus Christ, or that all things work together for good for those who love him. And it's not that they love him, it's that God loved them first. And this means that all things for the children of God work, not always for things that we think that they are good, but rather for things that align to the will of God for those people, for his people. So what we have in front of us, brothers and sisters, is God Himself, in His restraining power, not giving Him something of goodness to Esau, because the Bible is very clear to speak of Esau as an unrighteous man, an unholy man. If you go to Hebrews, I want to show you that.

I just don't want to quote it. Because the Bible is very clear of speaking of Esau as a man who is unholy, who is unrighteous, who is sexually immoral. In Hebrews 12, verse 15, Look what the Bible speaks of this Esau who has shown, apparently, mercy and grace in this encounter with Jacob. Verse 15, it says, See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled. That no one is sexually immoral and unholy like Esau.

for who sold his birthright for a single meal. Esau, this Esau that we have in chapter 33 of Genesis, who seems to be showing grace and mercy towards his brother who he said that he was going to kill, the Bible later on in the New Testament calls him a sexually immoral and a person who is unholy. now what i'm trying to say here brothers and sisters is that the lord in his mercy in his sovereignty and in his power he restrains even the powers of the devil and the wicked powers of this present evil age to accomplish what he has said that he is going to accomplish with his people and with each one of the individuals that belong to his covenantal people. We have the certainty, brothers and sisters, that if we have been born again through an encounter with this God who speaks to us live and who gives us a new life by his grace and mercy, that it is this God, the one who preserves us and the one who takes us until the day that we are supposed to arrive. You see, there is a sense in which every Christian is immortal until the day that the Lord has assigned for that person to be taken up to glory or the Lord returns.

We have the certainty that if we are united to Christ by faith, it is God working all in his power to provide to us the means to endure and to persevere until the end. We have here Jacob, a child of God, being encountered or seeing or facing his brother, and what he receives from him is grace and mercy that does not come from Esau. It comes from the promise of God that he was going to take it back to the land and that he was going to protect him all the way till the end. What a peace and what a rest the Christian has that in this glorious relationship that we have with God, he works all together for good for us, accomplishing his will in our lives. But...

The Bible is very clear in saying that there's going to come a day, even speaking of the last day in which the Lord is going to remove the peace from the earth, in which the Lord is going to take these restraining powers so that the wickedness of men, it is clearly seen and is clearly revealed. And in that time, as we've said now many times, the existing church in that day is going to be persecuted. because then that which is unholy and that which is unrighteous hates that which is holy and that which is righteous. But even in that moment of tribulation and difficulty, brothers and sisters, we have the peace. that restraining the evil schemes of this world, or not restraining the evil deeds and schemes of this world, he has promised that through his power he will make us endure in our faith until the day of the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I don't want to move from this chapter without pointing to two very important aspects, brothers and sisters. If you go to chapter 33, we have here Jacob, a born again person, a child of God. And we can see here, first of all, that those who have been saved, that those who have been born again of God by grace through faith, are new creatures, are completely new creatures. They have the mind of Christ. The Apostle Paul will say in 1 Corinthians 2, when in Philippians, we have the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ, that that mind of Christ may dwell in our mind and be in us.

that it is Jacob, the one who had received the blessing and the promise that the older was going to serve the younger. We've studied that before. And also, he was the one that through means of a scene, of course, he received the blessing of his father Isaac. And in that blessing, it's said to Esau that he is the one that is going to bow down to Jacob, that his brothers of his people are going to serve Jacob. But here we have a new attitude of Jacob.

In chapter 33, verse 3, he says, he himself, that is Jacob, went on before them, bowing himself to the ground seven times until he came near to his brother Esau. the one who had been given the blessing that his brothers were going to bow to him, bow down to him. Now, after a personal encounter with God, with the mind of Christ in him, a completely different attitude. But in the same chapter, beloved, we can see that I transformed nature. It's not a nature unto perfection and to completion, but rather it's a nature that still struggles with sin.

Because this Jacob, who is a deceitful man by nature, he says in verse 14, Let my Lord pass on ahead of his servant, and I will lead on slowly at the pace of the livestock that are ahead of me and at the pace of the children until I come to my Lord in Seir. So he says, Esau, my brother, would you please go ahead? I will take a different path. I will go slowly and I will meet you in Seir. But then in verse 17 it says, but Jacob journeyed to Sukkoth, a different place, and built himself a house and made booths for his livestock.

Now, many people said here that we can see the deceitfulness of Jacob. Brothers and sisters, independently of this, those who are in Christ by grace through faith have been united to the triune God in Christ Jesus and the covenantal God who has saved us. He is making the way of our perseverance and of our endurance because He is faithful and He works all things so that His will may be accomplished in us, in conforming us and making us like Jesus Christ. May He give us grace in our path. Amen.