COME AS A CHILD LESSON 74 - AN UNCHANGEABLE BLESSING

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Isaac grew very old and he was blind.  He knew he was about to die.  He called Esau to his side and told him to get his bow and arrows and go out to hunt some wild game for him.  He said when Esau returned and they shared this meal he would give him his blessing. 

They did not know that Rebekah was listening and that she overheard the conversation.   As we will soon see, ease dropping is a very dangerous way to pass your time.  I've often wondered how things would have turned out if Rebekah had been busy  minding her own business and going about her own life that day and had not had the time or inclination to be listening to other people's conversations.

When Esau left Rebekah told Jacob what she overheard.  

She instructed Jacob to go out to the flock and bring her two young goats so that she could prepare the tasty food that Isaac liked.  She then wanted Jacob to take the food to him and receive the blessing from him.  

Jacob argued with her that Esau was hairy and he had smooth skin.  He knew when his father touched him he would know he was Jacob.  Jacob could imagine himself getting discovered and getting cursed instead of blessed by his dying father.   Isn't it strange that this was the argument instead of the fact that they would be deceiving Isaac with a lie.  Jacob wasn't worried about doing wrong; he was simply worried about getting CAUGHT doing wrong.  This whole set up was sadly of the devil.

Rebekah said the curse, if it happened, could be blamed on her.  She begged him just to go and do what she was telling him to do.  Just as Sarah had done previously when things were not going exactly her way, Rebekah took matters into her own hands instead of trusting God.  She made her own plan and included Jacob in her scheming.  Neither of them gave one moment's thought to the fact that what they were doing was wrong!

So Jacob, as usual, pleased his mother.  He brought her back two young goats and Rebekah prepared the food just the way Isaac liked it.  She found some of Esau’s clothes and put them on Jacob.  She covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with goatskins.  Jacob took the tasty food she had prepared in to Isaac.

Now Jacob smelled like Esau and he had the feel of Esau, but Jacob was not Esau.  Sometimes things look and feel like the right thing, but they are not.  That is usually when we make the same mistake as Isaac in this story; we bless the counterfeit instead of the original.  This is always a serious matter and it changes lives and outcomes in ways that we never dreamed would happen.  Christians should take this thought seriously today, as we go through end times.  Jesus warned us not to be deceived.  Is your worship real or counterfeit?  Are you truly following the path of God or is it a counterfeit that Satan has stalled you out with.  Are your ways and actions true or are they done for convenience and acceptance?  Are they just superficial or genuine before God?  In the end it is God who gives the blessing.  Unlike Isaac, our All Knowing God will not be deceived by only what He sees and feels.  God is not blind.  He looks straight through us and sees our hearts and our true intentions.  He KNOWS who we are and we cannot fool him with all of our worldly trappings that fool the world.

When Jacob called his father “My Father” Isaac asked who it was.  Jacob lied and said he was Esau.  Jacob told Isaac to sit up and eat some of the game he had brought and to then bless him. 

Isaac was not so dumb.  He asked:  “How did you find the game so quickly, my son?”  He was referring to the meat in the meal.  Jacob replied, “The LORD your God gave me success.”   It is one thing to lie, but to lie in the name of God is truly disgraceful!

Much like Jacob in this story, the church is full of fake Christians.  They come and offer the meat from other gods and if we are not very careful, we will partake of the wrong meal.  We are so easily deceived, just as Isaac was in this story.  Jesus told us about this in a parable about a wolf in sheep clothing.  Things are not always what they seem.  Test them with the Word and the Spirit of God before you partake.  It is a serious matter that we face.  It was a serious matter that Isaac faced. 

Isaac still seemed doubtful, and he told Jacob to come near so he could touch him to be sure that he was his son, Esau.  Jacob went close to Isaac who touched him and Isaac noted that he sounded like Jacob, but his hands were the hands of Esau.  Isaac seemed convinced finally, and he proceeded to give the blessing to Jacob.  Right before he started Isaac asked one last time; 

“Are you really my son Esau?”  Jacob replied “I am.”  We see here that just like Peter when Christ was being tried, Jacob lied three times about who he actually was.

Jacob fed Isaac the game and they drank some wine.  Then Isaac told him to come near to him and kiss him.  So Jacob kissed him.  Then Isaac could smell Esau’s clothes and he began the blessing:

"Ah, the smell of my son

is like the smell of a field that the LORD has blessed.

May God give you heaven's dew and earth's richness -

An abundance of grain and new wine.  

May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you.

Be lord over your brothers, 

And may the sons of your mother bow down to you.

May those who curse you be cursed, And those who bless you be blessed."

Thus, Jacob, right or wrong, received the blessings passed down from God to Abraham to Isaac.  A blessing is forever.  It cannot be changed or reversed.  When it is spoken, it is spoken.  There is no going back.  Jacob would be blessed no matter how it came about.

Sometimes things happen in life that seem out of order.  There is still no need to worry about the fact that God is in control and working through every action of every human being.  God let this happen.  In the end, it worked out for the best, though it seemed wrong at the time.  

God sees the end of the picture, and we can only see where we are right now in time.  God knew that of the two men, only Jacob truly worshiped Him.  Even though Jacob sinned terribly, he still recognized that God was God.

Apparently Esau was caught up in a pagan world.  He did not appreciate, understand, value or respect these blessings, but Jacob did.  

Actually, if you look at their sins; neither son was deserving.   

Perhaps that is why it happened the way it did.  There are probably a million other reasons that we could point to on this side of history, but for now we just have to know that things transpired the way they did,  and God allowed it.  

The mistake of this blessing brought about change in many ways for both of Isaac's sons, as we will see later.  Both of these men's characters were completely reformed from the actions and events that spun out of this one incident in time.  The whole time God was in control.

No sooner than Jacob left his father’s side after this blessing, Esau returned.  He prepared the game and brought it in to Isaac.  He told his father to sit up and eat the game so that he could then give him the blessing. 

Isaac asked “Who are you?”  Esau replied:  “I am your son, your firstborn, Esau.”

How devastating it must have been for Esau when his own father did not recognize him and suspected HIM of being the impostor!  Esau had plenty of faults, but the one thing he had going for him all along was that he was close to his father.  They shared a close relationship and Esau truly loved Isaac.  This must have bothered Esau more than losing the blessing.

Trembling with anger and dismay Isaac asked, “Who was it, then, that hunted game and brought it to me?  I ate it just before you came and I blessed HIM – and indeed he will be blessed!”

Esau let out a loud, bitter cry and said “Father – Bless me – me too, my

Father!”

But it was too late.  Isaac told Esau how his brother came deceitfully and took his blessing.  Esau noted in the conversation that Jacob had been rightly named!  Remember that Jacob means to trick or to deceive.  Esau said “that is the second time he has taken advantage of me:  He took my birthright, and now he has taken my blessing!”

Once again Esau turned to his father and asked:  “Haven’t you reserved ANY blessing for me?”

Isaac, sadly and more or less thinking out loud shook his head and told Esau he had made Jacob lord over him, all his relatives and his servants.  He said he had sustained him with grain and new wine.  

What was left for Esau?

Esau wept and begged for a blessing until his father finally, in his frustration and dismay, said this over him:

"Your dwelling will be away from the earth's richness,

Away from the dew of heaven above.

You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother.

But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck."

Is that not the strangest blessing you have ever heard?  

At first it almost sounds like a doom-filled curse, but a little hope is offered in the end.  Esau must have been beside himself with regret at this point.

Thus, the grudge between Jacob and Esau grew even wider.  Esau made a pledge to himself that he would kill Jacob after he had mourned his father’s death.

Someone told Rebekah about Esau’s intentions, and she immediately sent for Jacob and told him Esau’s plan.  She insisted that Jacob flee to her brother Laban’s house in Harran.  She told him to stay there for awhile until his brother’s fury subsided.  She said she would send for him when this had come to pass.  Her words were “Why should I lose both of you in one day?”  Of course she meant she would be grieving for Isaac and did not want to lose Jacob too.  

 Sometimes when you make your own plan instead of trusting God to do his work; you lose.  Rebekah was about to lose the two most precious men in her life.  She wasn't just losing them, she was losing them after she had done harm to them.  It must have been a terrible time for Rebekah.  Her heart must have been breaking more and more each minute.

Then Rebekah turned to Isaac and told him how disgusted she was with living with Esau’s Hitite women.  She told him that she wanted Jacob to take a wife from among the women of her home.  She convinced Isaac that Jacob should leave for Harran to find a wife.  It was a great plot to hide him from Esau for awhile without disturbing the last days of Isaac.  I'm sure by now Isaac, as disgusted as he was with Jacob's actions, also feared for his life and the wrath of Esau.  

Can you imagine how miserable Isaac must have been to have been deceived by his son and his wife so close to the end of his life?   

Troubles from the world come to everyone.  Isaac; the one who had been willing to give his life so many years ago for all of mankind, suffered from the actions of the three human beings that meant the most to him because they had not followed the ways of God.  They had taken their own paths and listened to the lies of the enemy.  They had let the devil chose their way instead of God.  This surely would not have been the way Isaac wanted to leave this earth, but that is the way it happened in spite of all the good Isaac had done. 

Rest assured that God does His best work when mere men fail.  

God had not forgotten Isaac's faithfulness, and He was in control of all of these descendants of Abraham; even when they refused to listen.