Imagine this. Jacob does everything in his power to trick his father he was Esau, so that his father would bless him with the birth right and it actually works! He gets the blessing, he gets to carry on the lineage of Abraham! THE FATHER ABRAHAM!! But it doesn't come without a cost, only because he decides to be shady and shidty, he has to leave his mother and father's home because his brother Esau is out to get him, LITERALLY. He actually say that, "When I see him, I'm going to kill him." I paraphrase, but you get the point. So he goes into the wilderness has this dream about gates in ladders that kind of tells the whole future of mankin (but who knew that then?) to end up at Laban's house. When he gets to Laban's town he lays eyes on the most beautiful woman he has ever seen and decides that'g going to be his wife, only to find out that her dad, (his uncle) is an even bigger trickster than he is.... Buckle up this is Bible School!!
After Jacob has convinced Esau to sell his birth right in a moment of weakness, the trickery continues. We learn a plethora of things here in this passage:
1. Esau was guilty of bartering divine privilege for carnal gratification.
2. Don’t think you have to help God. If Rebekah would have not devised the plan God would have worked it out his way.
3. Don’t be blind by you own affections to what God wants to do. Isaac was stuck on Esau, God was stuck on Jacob. Isaac wasn’t sensitive to the prophecies of God.
4. Did Jacob earn the blessing? Nope. Something worthy of being grateful for, in our own weaknesses.
5. Jacob found the acceptance of his father by hiding behind the name of the first born beloved son. He was clothed in his clothes (type of Christ: we’re clothed in his righteousness).
Today we chronicle through Genesis 23 to see Abraham preparing to bury his wife Sarah. We see how he appraches the elders of the city, and how God has made room for him to thrive and obtain everything that he needs in a foreign land. There are some practical ways that Abraham approaches his business dealings that as Christians we often avoid, which can leave us holding the bag in situations we were meant to thrive in.
The Father of the faithful, a man listed in the Hall of Faith, Abraham is truly a man that goes down in the bible's Who's who. To understadn where he came from will set the ground work for your understanding of much of what will transpire in the 65 books that follow Genesis.
Soooo, if we all came from Noah....where did all theses countries and different racial backgrounds come from? How did we get so far separated? How did some groups become notoriously good and others bad?
We met, Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel. We talk about the line of Seth all the way through Enoch, Methuselah and here we are at Noah. The man who found grace in the eyes of God. The man who found righteousness, but being a mess, but his heart was turned toward God.
We all ask the question, "Where does hate come from?" Guess what... We find our answer right here in the foundation of the World. Hate has long had it's root in the fall of man, but it crept in with Cain and Able, ever since we haven't been able to shake it's ugly disposition.
In the Beginning God created the heavens and the Earth... Sure most of us have heard it, but how mmany of us truly believe what exactly happened. How many of us truly have a grasp on what was in the beginning. When was the beginning. Who was there? Let's dive in the word, and find out.