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Muskegon SDA Church

Lessons from the Book of Genesis

Kameron DeVasher

The Eden Family

The Fallen Family

The Flood

From Babel to Abram

The Faith of Abraham

Isaac & Rebekah

Jacob’s Troubles

The Children of Israel

Of Joseph and Jesus

We've been going through a study of the book of Genesis, not exhaustive of course, because there's many things that we could go into deeper, but looking at some of the lessons we can pull out from the stories in Genesis and looking for the application in our lives today.

We've seen recently the development of the face of Abraham who would become the father of the faithful in years to come and that it wasn't immediate it took time it grew until he was the man that we know of him now we've seen the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca and how the Lord brought that together in a beautiful way.

And now we turn our attention to Isaac's children and specifically his child, Jacob, in a message entitled, Jacob's Troubles.

We'll be studying, by the way, Genesis 25 through 32.

And again, we will not be able to Exhaustively wring out from this every drop of meaning possible.

But as you go home and study it Not if but when you go home and study it.

I would encourage you also to correspondingly read chapters 16 through 18 in Patriarchs and Prophets, the inspired commentary on those chapters.

So Genesis 25 to 32 with the added line of the chapter 16 through 18 in Patriarchs and Prophets.

But before we get started studying today, let's begin with a word of prayer.

Heavenly Father, thank you again for the sunshine outside, but most importantly for the sun shining inside today.

Thank you for the fellowship that it gives us the opportunity to have.

Thank you for the freedom for having a Sabbath worship at all.

Lord help us to never take that for granted, but Help us in these times, in these moments, right here today even, to be attuned to your Word, to be sensitive to the leading of your Holy Spirit.

And Lord, let us be changed as we too become like Jesus.

If you would, go with me to Genesis chapter 25, starting with verse 19.

Genesis chapter 25, starting with verse 19, gives a nice transition from the messages we've seen previously in our last several Sabbaths and brings us to where we are today.

Again, Genesis 25 starting with verse 19.

This is the genealogy of Isaac, Abraham's son.

Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebekah's wife, the daughter of Bethuel, the Syrian of Paddan-Aram, the sister of Laban the Syrian.

Now, if you've been following along, that name Laban has come up several times.

It's just kind of giving us the context for where we're headed here.

But going back to Isaac and Rebecca, we read in verse 21, Now Isaac pleaded with the Lord for his wife, because she was barren.

And the Lord granted his plea and Rebecca, his wife, conceived.

But the children struggled together within her.

Notice it just said she conceived, but that then mentions children, plural.

Struggling together within her and she said, if all is well, why am I like this?

Now having just had a child again, it's a unique experience to be able to see and feel inside that child that's soon to be on the outside, right?

But you can imagine Rebekah's situation here.

She has been barren and now she finally has a child and not just a child but 2 children inside of her and she's never had the experience of having even 1 inside of her.

Now she's got 2 and those 2 are fighting.

And her prayer is simply this, why am I like this?

And notice carefully the Lord said to her, The Lord does not come to Isaac in this, this is a prayer of her heart and he answers her directly and it kind of sets up an interesting intrigue within the family.

And the Lord said to her, 2 nations are in your womb.

Obviously the heads of 2 nations, not the nations themselves, But 2 nations are in your womb.

2 people shall be separated from your body.

1 people shall be stronger than the other.

Now that is strikingly contrary to the custom of the time.

It is even popular now that the eldest, especially the eldest son, is the heir, is the birthright inheritor.

He's the 1 who's going to be the progenitor of the family name.

But it's heritably to Rebecca the Lord says specifically that the younger shall master over or the older shall serve the younger.

So we read in verse 24, So when her days were fulfilled for her to give birth, indeed there were twins in her womb.

Afterward his brother came out and his hand took hold of Esau's heel.

Isaac was 60 years old when she bore them.

And Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field.

I guess it goes along with his, you know, red hairiness or whatever that comes out.

But Jacob was a mild man, dwelling in tents.

And verse 28 sets up what's gonna be a long sorrow in that family and Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game he was he saw was the hunter he was the rugged he was outdoorsman and that kind of resonated with the father.

And he said, that's my boy, the eldest son, that's my hunter, that's the...

Now I haven't been a parent that long, but I can already imagine that loving 1 more than the other is going to lead to problems.

Now, apparently, Rebecca hid in her heart, or at least remembered very significantly, that prophecy given by the Lord when she was pregnant that the younger would serve, would be over the older, that the older would serve the younger.

And apparently that was told to Isaac, but Isaac's heart was connected to Esau.

And much like the Lord had said to Abraham, a child would come from your body, and he said, no, no, no, let Eliezer live before you, right?

Isaac is tied to his oldest son, even though the command of the Lord had said otherwise.

But Rebekah loved Jacob and apparently recounted to Jacob the great destiny to which the Lord had appointed him.

So you have the father saying to Esau, you're the oldest son, surely the Lord will work through you.

I'm expecting you to take over this place, you're the only 1 who can run it, blah blah blah blah blah.

And then Rebekah saying, no, you're the child of promise, through you is the covenant going to be given and so each had an expectation Esau of course as you probably know the story was not interested in the spiritual leadership of the home he didn't care about being the that kind of man but we wanted the possessions he wanted the title he wanted the land he wanted the the position of that where Jacob on the other hand didn't really wasn't interested in the money but he wanted to be the spiritual leader.

He wanted that position, and he feared he wouldn't get it as things stood.

Commenting on this, we read in Patriarchs and Prophets 178, with secret longing he listened to all that his father told concerning the spiritual birthright.

He carefully, this is Jacob, he carefully treasured what he had learned from his mother.

Day and night, the subject occupied his thoughts until it became the absorbing interest of his life.

But while he thus esteemed eternal above temporal blessings, which we should do, Jacob had not an experimental knowledge of God whom he revered.

So he loved the look of being a spiritual man and leader on paper, but hadn't had that personal conversion that's prerequisite to that position.

She continues, his heart had not been renewed by divine grace He wasn't abhorrently wicked.

He just hadn't been truly converted and Notice this now he believed that the promise concerning himself could not be fulfilled so long as Esau retained the rights of the firstborn.

So he said, God has seen this, but Esau's in the way, so I need to...

And he constantly studied to devise some way whereby he might secure the blessing which his mother held so lightly, which his brother held so lightly, but which was so precious to himself.

So I need to find a way to make this thing happen.

Again, his heart had not been renewed by divine grace.

It seems like every member of the family suffered from this.

They knew the promise, but they wanted their own way and didn't trust God to lead in his way.

All the knowledge of the topic did them no good without this.

Everyone understood it on paper, but in person, they weren't living up to the expectations.

You can read the story of what transpired next in chapter 27, especially verses 1 through 40, and we're not going to take the time here, but just to briefly recap, Rebecca, Jacob's mother, hatches a scheme.

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Lessons from the Book of Genesis

Jacob’s Troubles

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