Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from the “Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide”, is titled “Jacob, the Supplanter”. (The following is an excerpt from E. J. Waggoner’s incomparable book “The Everlasting Covenant”).
“Jacob had bought the birthright from Esau for a mess of pottage, and had through deceit obtained the blessing of the firstborn from his father. But not by any such means may anybody obtain the inheritance which God promised to Abraham and his seed. It was made sure to Abraham through faith, and no one need think to inherit it through fraud or force. “No lie is of the truth” (1 John 2:21). Truth can never be served by falsehood. The inheritance promised to Abraham and his seed was an inheritance of righteousness, and therefore it could not be gained by anything unrighteous. Earthly possessions are often gained and held by fraud… for a time. But not so the heavenly inheritance. The only thing that Jacob had gained by his sharpness and deceit, was to make his brother an everlasting enemy, and to be an exile from his father’s house for more than 20 years.”
“Yet God had said long before that Jacob should be the heir instead of his elder brother. The trouble with Jacob and his mother was that they thought they could work out the promises of God in their own way. It was the same kind of mistake that Abraham and Sarah had made. They could not wait for God to work out His own plans in His own way. Rebekah knew what God had said concerning Jacob. She heard her husband Isaac promise the blessing to Esau, and thought that unless she interfered, the Lord’s plan would fall. She forgot the inheritance was wholly in the Lord’s power, and that no man could have anything to do with the disposition of it, except to reject it for himself. Even though Esau obtained the blessing from his father, God would have brought His own plan about in good time.”
“So, Jacob became doubly an exile. Not only was he a stranger in the earth, but he was a fugitive. But God did not forsake him. There was hope for him, sinful as he was. To some it may seem strange that God should thus prefer Jacob to Esau, for Jacob’s character does not, at that time, seem any better than Esau’s. Let us not remember that God does not choose anyone because of his good character. ‘For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life’ (Titus 3:3-7)’.”
“God chooses men, not for what they are, but for what He can make of them. And there is no limit to what He can make of even the meanest and most depraved, if they are only willing and believe on His word… Esau was an infidel. He regarded the word of God with contempt. Jacob was no better by nature, but he believed the promise of God, which is able to make the believer a partaker of the Divine nature… While Jacob believed the promise of God sufficiently to enable him to secure its fulfillment by his own efforts, he did not understand its nature well enough to know that God alone could fulfil it through righteousness.”
I hope you enjoyed E. J. Waggoner’s treatise on this subject. May your Memorial Day weekend be blessed!
With brotherly love,
Jim