Connect with Skip - Skip Heitzig

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is Connect with skip Heidzig and we're so glad
you've joined us for today's program Connect with skip Heidzig.
It's all about connecting you to the never changing truth
of God's Word through verse by verse teaching. That's why
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(00:21):
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connect with Skip dot com. Now let's get started with

(00:43):
today's message from pastor Skip Heitzig.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
The twenty seventh chapter of Genesis is in view tonight.
It's a very sad story about four people a family.
Isaac married to his beautiful wife Rebecca, have by this
time had two sons. We read about them in chapter
twenty five as they were born Esau and Jacob. They

(01:12):
were twins, though Esau was born first and Jacob followed.
Those are the main characters in the story. Those four people,
and as you go through the story, there's one glaring
apparent truth. No one in this family trusts one another.

(01:35):
Isaac is the father. He does not trust his son Jacob.
He favors his son Esau, and he does not trust
his wife, Rebecca. The Lord had spoken to Rebecca and
said that the youngest son would one day be in
charge and the oldest son would serve the younger. In

(01:58):
this chapter, his heels are dug in and he's saying,
no way am I going to let that happen. I'm
gonna bless my oldest son before she even knows about it.
I certainly won't tell her, and I won't tell Jacob.
They've been holding on to that promise their whole life.

(02:18):
Then you have Rebecca. Rebecca is listening to the conversation
that Dad and number one son, Esau have together. She's eavesdropping,
and as she's listening, she starts scheming, manipulating, conniving, figuring
out a way to overturn the wishes of her husband.

(02:41):
Then you have Esau, who's always lived for himself, lived
for his own flesh. Then you have Jacob, who will
go along with his mother and has already in the
past proven to dislike his brother, and here will seek
to steal a blessing. So all four people in this
family are messed up. They don't trust each other. It

(03:05):
is one dysfunctional family. The greater truth behind chapter twenty
seven is that though it's a dysfunctional family, it's a
very functional God. God will function in the midst of
their dysfunction. Here's a dysfunctional family, but God will override

(03:28):
all of the weirdness, all of the superstition, all of
the stupidity, and get his will done anyway. So on
one hand, it's a sad story. On the other hand,
it's a wonderful story of how God uses messed up people.
That's why I like this chapter. The foolish things of
this world, the weak things of this world, are seen

(03:49):
in chapter twenty seven. Really, if you think about it,
this shouldn't surprise us. This is the continuing saga of
Abraham's family. Isaac was Abraham's son, like father, like son.
Abraham lied twice about his wife being a sister. Isaac

(04:10):
lies about his wife being a sister, So we shouldn't
be surprised that Jacob and his mom are tied together
and trying to lie and misrepresent their own will and
supersede that over God's will. It has run in the family.
It's been a family trait for a long time. But

(04:32):
on a human level, it's sad because you're going to
see some of the repercussions already by the end of
this chapter. It was Shakespeare who wrote, Oh, what a
tangled web we weave when at first we practice to deceive.
Be careful about how you represent truth. And some people

(04:53):
see no problem with what they call little lies or
white lives. Oh, it was just a little lie. It
was just a little lie. C. S. Lewis. She used
to say, a little lie is like a little pregnancy.
You might not notice it at first, but as the
months go on, it's a parent that there's a pregnancy.
And so it is with the lie. As years go on,

(05:15):
the lie will become more and more apparent. Now, Chapter
twenty seven, let's call it round three, shall we have
the fight between Esau and Jacob. Round one was while
they were still in the womb. Remember they were womb mates.
They were twins. As Rebecca was pregnant and she was

(05:37):
having a difficult pregnancy, and she called out to the
Lord and she said, you know, I don't know why
I'm having such a difficult pregnancy, but there's a lot
of movement. There's like a wrestling match going on inside me.
And the Lord said, well, there's two nations that are
in your womb, no wonder, not just one child. You
have two children who will become nations. Were struggling in

(06:01):
the womb. When the birth date came and Esau was
born first. The second one, Jacob, came out grabbing the
heel of his firstborn brother, as if he were grabbing
him to trip him or pull him back in. So
he was given the name Yakov supplanter, or one who

(06:23):
grabs the heel, or one who trips one another up.
We read about that back in chapter twenty five, and
I'm just gonna if you want to just turn back
a page. You can notice because that is the beginning
of chapter twenty seven. Chapter twenty six is a hiatus
from that. It says in verse twenty five of chapter
twenty five. And the first came out red. He was

(06:46):
also hairy, like a garment harry old baby, so they
called him Harry Esau. Afterward, his brother came out, his
hand took hold of Esau's heel and so his name
was Yakov. He'll cancher. Isaac was sixty years old when
she bore them. So their character, this is what I

(07:08):
want to show you. Their character shows up at their
birth one is going to trip up his brother. Now
that will continue through life. This is round one. Round
two is as the chapter goes on, Esa is hungry,
comes home to Jacob and says, look, I'm hungry. Cook
me that really great red chili stew that you love

(07:30):
to make. Jacob said, I'd love to make you a
bowl of red chili stew, but I want your birthright.
You're the firstborn son. I want to assume the privilege
of being the firstborn son. Esau's response was interesting, He
what good is a birthright to me? You can't eat it.

(07:51):
I'm hungry. I can't eat my birthright, and it says
he despised his birthright. Jacob knew the power of the
spiritual blessing behind the birth right, so he said, great,
it's a deal. A bowl of beans with red chilly
of course, for a birthright. That was round two. Round

(08:11):
three of this battle is in chapter twenty seven. Is
Now Jacob will knife to seal the blessing from his brother.
Now there's something you need to remember as we're working
our way through this chapter. Both Isaac and his wife
Rebecca had their favorite child, and that was bad. That
really divided the family because the kids knew that, they

(08:32):
saw that, they felt that. For Isaac, his favorite son
was Esaw because Esau was a man's man. He was
very masculine. He loved the field, he loved to hunt.
He had a gun rack in his pickup truck at
field and stream magazine all over the place. He was
an outdoorsman, like a northern New Mexico hippie, a man
of the field. And Isaac preferred a masculine son. Jacob,

(09:00):
on the other hand, was not like a northern New
Mexican hippie. He was more like a San Franciscan. That is,
he was cultured. He was a man of the city.
It says he was smooth skin. He loved to cook.
He'd watch Martha Stewart over and over again just to
learn how to make that soux fle so nice. Rebecca

(09:23):
preferred him. He dwelt intense. He was more cultured, not
a man of the outdoors. And so they each had
their favorite and that will widen the gap and the
animosity between these two boys as time goes on. We're
told that in verse twenty eight of chapter twenty five,

(09:44):
Isaac loved he saw because he ate of his game,
but Rebecca loved Jacob as much as Isaac loves his
son and wants to pass the blessing on to his
firstborn son. It was God who already said the elder
Esau will serve the younger. That is, the younger Jacob

(10:05):
will get the blessing. He's going to reverse the traditional
law that was God's order. Isaac wants to make sure
that doesn't happen. He's going to go against the revealed
will and word of God. There's a real lesson in
watching out for first impressions that we might have, just

(10:27):
as there was Esau and Jacob said, you know, this
is the guy that I want to have the blessing.
Surely this must be the Lord's choice. It's because I
like him. My choice must be God's choice. He's a
man's man, he represents masculinity. Well, that's going to be
my choice, but it was in God's choice. Our first

(10:49):
impressions can be misleading if we're going by image we
can be misled. If we go by feelings, we can
be misled.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
You're listening to connect with Skift Height before we get
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in the God speaks Biblical answers for today's issues. Collection
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(11:19):
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(11:41):
reach people around the world with the good news of
Jesus through connect with Skip Heizig. Let's continue with today's
teaching with pastor Skip.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
You recall the story of when Saul was rejected by
God and the Lord sent the prophet Samuel to the
house of Jesse to annoint the next King of Israel,
and the sons of David were brought before him, and
the first one that the prophet Samuel noticed was that tall, masculine, handsome,

(12:10):
regal looking Eliab. And when he saw the oldest Eliab,
Samuel immediately thought, surely this is the Lord's anointed, and
he was going to crown him as king, pour the
oil on him. And God spoke to his heart and said, no,
you won't. I've rejected him, for the Lord, said God.

(12:31):
The Lord does not see a man sees, for man
looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.
The very one that all of the family despised and
rejected was out in the fields. His name was David.
He was the shepherd boy. That was God's choice. It
was not Samuel's choice. It was not the family's choice,
but it was God's choice. We judge by appearance, We

(12:58):
vote by appearance. We want leaders that seem handsome and
look the part, and look as if they're intelligent, and
look as if they're decisive. That's who we want. We're
very image conscious, and that's tragic. That's a mistake because

(13:22):
our first impression may not be the right choice. American
politics changed from the fifties and the sixties. In a
very key debate between John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Richard Milhouse Nixon.
It was the first televised presidential debate. That's when everything
changed in America. Did you know that it is believed

(13:44):
that Kennedy won the election because of that televised debate.
People saw and made their judgment for Kennedy based upon
what they saw on television. So what they saw was
Richard Nixon, who was sick in the past. He was
sweaty on his brow and sweaty rolling sweat rolling down

(14:05):
his face, so he looked sickly and pale front because
because he had been sick. Plus his fashion statement wasn't
quite right. He wore a pale gray suit that sort
of washed him out, whereas Kennedy wore a dart suit,
had just come off of vacation and looked tanned and confident,
and he won the vote. And many pundits look back

(14:26):
on that publicized debate as what won the election, And
that's when in politics people started not looking at crucial
issues as much as image. Well, that's what's going on
in this house, Dad, is all about the image that
can't have this little puny, wimpy kid as the head

(14:46):
of my family. I want Esau well years go by
after this what we just read in chapter twenty five.
Now we're in chapter twenty seven. Thirty seven years are
between chapters two, twenty six and twenty seven. That's how
many years passed between just those two chapters. That's the
gap between twenty six and twenty seven, thirty seven years.

(15:10):
In chapter twenty seven, Verse one, Isaac is now one
hundred and thirty seven years old, and he's he's failing.
His eyesight is giving out, and he thinks he's about
to die. So let's watch what happens. It's very intriguing. Now.
It came to pass when Isaac was old and his

(15:31):
eyes were so dim that he could not see that
he called Esau, his older son, and said to him,
my son, and he answered, here I am, and he said,
behold now, I am old. I like the fact that
he admitted it. Didn't try to cover it up or

(15:53):
change it. It's just that I am who I am.
What you see is what you get. Behold now, like
look check it out. You can see this right. I'm old.
I do not know the day of my death. Now, therefore,
please take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and
go out to the field and hunt game for me.

(16:15):
In the King James Bible, it's venison, nothing like venison steak.
My dad used to be a hunter and would bring
it home. And my mom, like Rebecca, knew just how
to cook venison, and it's not easy to get the
taste right. So he was dreaming of it. He thought,
I'm old, I can't see, and this is a perfect
chance for me to get a great meal and bless

(16:36):
my favorite son. So it's just going to be a
deal between us two gentlemen. Oh, by the way, this
is going to sort of throw a wrench in your
whole view of this Blessing chapter. We have a Sunday
school view of Isaac being on his bed and blessing

(16:56):
his two sons, and we think, oh, his sons are
probably in their twenties. They were both seventy seven in
this chapter. So the whole Sunday school view that you
have growing up with this chapter of Isaac Blessing's young sons,
throw it out. He's one hundred and thirty seven, they're
seventy seven and still hanging around home. I find it

(17:23):
interesting that he's at one hundred and thirty seven. Now
that's old, but he's sure he's going to die. He
just knows he's going to die. I got to get
ready because I'm going to die. You know what really happened?
You know how long he lived another forty three years.
So I'm thinking that this guy was a little bit

(17:45):
of a hypochondriac. You know, he's the kind of person
that would go on WebMD when they have any kind
of an acre pain, and they'd read about every disease
and they think I have all of them. I knew it.
Or they talked to a friend, I know I'm going
to die, like the woman who had a tombstone and

(18:07):
it read sea, I told you I was sick. I
think that was Isaac. I think he was sure he
was going to die, but he wasn't going to die
for forty three more years. Why did he think he
was going to die? Here's my guess. His half brother,
Ishmael died at one hundred and thirty seven years old.

(18:29):
So when he got to his birthday, he thought, I
can't have much longer to live. Ishmael kicked the bucket
at this age. I got to get this blessing thing
all sewed up. So he called his son in told
him to go out and make him the savory food
as such that I love, and bring it to me
that I may eat that my soul. Verse four, may
bless you before I die. Now, Rebecca was listening. She's eavesdropping.

(18:56):
She's not in the room. She wasn't invited, but she's
close enough to overhear it. And she does. When Isac
spoke to Esau, his son, and Esau went to the
field to hunt game and to bring it. So Rebecca
spoke to Jacob, her son, saying, indeed, I heard your
father speak to Esau, your brother, saying bring me game,

(19:18):
make me savory food for me, that I may eat it,
and bless you in the presence of the Lord before
my death. Now, therefore, my son, obey my voice according
to what I command you. If you're wondering where Jacob
got his conniving character from, look no further than his mother.

(19:39):
His mother taught him the ropes. She was a pro,
she was clever, she was a master, and he learned
from the best. She had already concocted the scheme, go
now to the flock and bring me from their two
choice kids of the goats, and I will make savory
food from them for your father's such as he loves.

(20:00):
I'll make it taste just like the venison that he's
saying he wants from Esau. And then you shall take
it to your father that he may eat it, that
he may bless you before his death. Classic. Classic. Here's
a human being trying to help poor God out. Now,

(20:23):
God had said to Rebecca. It was to Rebecca when
she said, why am I having such a difficult pregnancy,
and God said, because two nations are in your womb,
and gave him the prophecy the older will serve the younger.
So she's thinking, how am I going to make this work?
What's the answer to that? You're not supposed to make
it work. If God said he'll do it, he'll do
it with or without you, through or not through you. You

(20:47):
don't have to manipulate or connive or help God out.
Now that's a trap a lot of us fall into.
Here's the trap knowing the word of God, doing the
will of God, but not doing it in the way
of God. That's the trap. The trap is that the

(21:07):
ends end will justify the means, doesn't matter how you
get to it, just arrive at that end. God said,
this is going to happen. I'll help God get there
knowing the will of God or the word of God,
doing the will of God, but not in the way
of God. Does it matter, Well, just ask Moses. God said, Moses,

(21:30):
you're going to be the next deliverer of the children
of Israel. Oh, he's all excited. Well he's nervous, but
he's all excited. He's still working in the courts of Egypt.
So one day when he sees an Egyptian mistreating a Hebrew,
he thinks, I got to do something about that. I'm
the deliverer. So he goes over and he rebukes the

(21:50):
Egyptian for mistreating the Hebrew because he is a Hebrew.
The Egyptian doesn't want to hear about it. So Moses
kills the Egyptian and he thinks, the Hebrews are going
to make me a hero because I killed one of
their enemies. Well, they did make him a hero. They
didn't trust him after that. In fact, they pointed the
finger on him, said you're the guy who murdered the Egyptian.

(22:13):
Once he found that he was found out, Moses fled
for forty years in the Midian desert, forty long, lonely years.
Now he'll be back, but it'll take forty years for
him to reach the lessons so God can use him.
Wasted years, but ears where God is molding and shaping

(22:34):
his character, all because he tried to help God out.
Didn't have to help God out. You just got to
do what God said, and he'll do it through you.
Or ask David if this concept is pertinent in his life,
he'll tell you. You know the story how that David thought
the Ark of God is out in Philistine country because

(22:56):
they captured it. We need to bring it up to Jerusalem.
So one day he arranged for a big parade. Twenty
thousand people were there and there was dancing and there
was singing, and he knew how to throw a party.
And so he takes the Ark of the Covenant because
he wants to take it from Philistine country up to Jerusalem.
And he puts it on a cart and he has
two people, one in front one and back one is

(23:18):
a hio up in front and in the back uza.
And as they're going down the road, the road gets
a little bit shaky and the wheels start to move
a little bit, and the arc starts tipping, and Uza
gets so afraid that the ark's going to tip over.
So I have to, he thought, steady the arc and
help God maintain his composure on his way up to Jerusalem.

(23:42):
So he touched the arc simply simply to steady it.
He had the best intentions, right, he had everything good
in his heart. As soon as he touched it, God
struck him dead. Talk about raining on one's parade. The
parade was over, everybody went home. David was totally bummed out.

(24:04):
He just couldn't believe God would do something like that.
And months went by and he was pouting and pouting,
and then one day he decided, I'm gonna read my Bible.
And as he read through the scripture, he discovered that
the way God prescribed the movement of the art wasn't
on a cart. For efficiency, you don't put on a
wagon or put in a pickup. It has to be

(24:24):
carried on the shoulders of the priest. That there's two staves,
one on either side, two priests in the front, two
in the back, and it's covered and that's how it
goes to its place. That's how God prescribed it. That's
his way. Knowing God's word, doing God's will, but not
in God's way is not good.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
Thanks for listening to Connect with skip Heisich. We hope
you've been strengthening your walk with Jesus by today's program.
Before we let you go, we want to remind you
about this month's resources that will help you confidently speak
God's timeless truth into our culture. Pastor skin lips, God
speaks biblical answers for today's issues. Collection of booklets is

(25:05):
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Call eight hundred ninety two two eighteen eighty eight. That's
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(25:26):
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Speaker 2 (25:28):
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Speaker 1 (25:49):
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