COME AS A CHILD LESSON 72 REPEATING THE PAST

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

When loving godly families fill the land, God's love is spread across the earth.  Isaac and Rebekah had a godly family, but they struggled with the influences that the surrounding cultures had on their children.

So Isaac and Rebekah, still very much in love with one another are continuing their lives in the midst of a constant struggle between their two very different sons.  

Isaac had not yet been told that Esau traded his birthright to Jacob, but they found themselves constantly experiencing many disappointments around how Esau was living as he matured into a grown man.  He did not seem to relate to God.  He cared little for their family worship.  He did not seem to want to be a part of their family culture.  He was always living "outside the camp."   

Esau wanted to blend into the culture that surrounded them; one that was very different from the godly culture that Abraham and Sarah had developed for their children and their family life.  The people surrounding the family in this land were very pagan and ungodly.  There was a whole different world outside of the household of Isaac and Rebekah.  Esau found that world too tempting, exciting and adventurous.  Isaac, more than anyone else, held on to the hope that Esau would change and mature as he grew older, but there was no evidence of that so far.    

Much like in the time of Abraham, a famine struck the land where Isaac was living with Rebekah and Jacob and Esau.  Isaac considered taking the family to Egypt to find food, but the Lord gave him a dream and told him not to leave the land of his birth.  

God led Isaac in a different direction than he would have normally chosen in a famine.  

Remember how Abraham had told Eliezer not to let Isaac leave the land where he was born?

  Abraham had expressed this to Isaac also.  He must stay in the land that God had promised. 

In Isaac’s dream God basically repeated what he had promised to Abraham.  God now told Isaac that his descendants would be as many as the stars in the heavens, and God said He would give these descendants the land of Canaan.  God repeated that he would bless the descendants of Abraham through Isaac because Abraham had been faithful to do the things that God had commanded of him. 

God passed on the promises he had made to Abraham to Isaac.  It was the first time Isaac had heard them directly from God.

Isaac had heard these promises from his earthly father many, many times while he was growing up.  His whole life had been a preparation to seek these very blessings, and he had even willing laid down his life for God; but this was the first time that Isaac actually heard of the blessings himself, directly from God!  It must have been exciting for him to actually hear from God directly and not by way of another person.  In all that Isaac had been through, God had finally spoken to him! 

Many of us live in this place like Isaac where we are doing all we can and seeking God’s will in our lives and trusting Him with all our heart, yet; we are not hearing God speak directly to us.  We begin to wonder if we should make our own decisions because of God’s silence.  We do not always realize that God has put us in a time of waiting on Him.  Sometimes God wants us to wait on His timing.  He wants us to have faith and to trust Him in all circumstances, even the hardest of times, even when He is silent.  Even Isaac had to wait on God until God chose to give him directions.  When the time is right, God will intervene and speak.  It is our part to keep listening and trusting.  The results of hearing from God after a long trusting wait are always joyful!

Sometimes there is nothing to do until we hear from God.  We must learn to wait on Him.

After receiving this word from God Isaac built an altar and worshiped God in the place where he had heard His voice. 

It must have been very sobering too to realize that God was doing all of this simply because Abraham had kept God’s commandments and honored the covenant.  It was nothing that Isaac had done, even though he had previously been willing to lay down his life for God.  It was because of God’s covenant with Abraham.   Isaac understood this and he decided against going to Egypt.  Isaac was obedient in staying in the land where God had promised to bless him.  He was full of joy when God answered him and he worshiped! 

A word of caution here.  When you reach a place of deciding to obey God with all your heart and it brings you to the place of doing something different in your life because God has spoken to you; do not let down your guard.  There may be more than one test ahead and the devil loves to catch us off guard.  It is the desire of the devil to trick every child of God into making a wrong turn.  Never bask in the fact that you obeyed God once.  Keep the eyes and ears of your spirit open to God’s will even when things seem to be perfectly clear. 

Life as a child of God is one long continuous act of submission to God’s will.  Don’t let down your guard after a hard test is over and you have obtained a momentary answer or victory.   The Christian life is an on-going battle between following God’s way and giving in to our humanity.  This was the trap that Isaac had set before him by Satan, who would love to see Isaac fail before God.  The devil is a careful deceiver.  If you are not paying attention and listening to God every minute he will make you think you do not need to seek God’s face again the next time.  You will mistake over-confidence for over-coming.   There is always a NEXT TIME.  There is one for all of us, just as there was one for Isaac.

 There was still this problem of the famine in the land.  So; Isaac went to Abimelech, who was still the reigning King of the Philistines in Gerar.  Remember that Abimelech was a family name or a “title” for kings, so this could have been either the Abimelech that Abraham had encountered or even possibly his son or grandson after him. 

The men of Gerar though Rebekah was extremely beautiful.

The experience of Isaac and Rebekah in Gerar was very much like the one that Abraham and Sarah had twice experienced in their days before the birth of Isaac; once in Egypt with Pharaoh, and once with King Abimelech in Gerar.  This is no reason to think that the story didn’t happen exactly like the scriptures read. The same situation was repeated.  Some like to think that a writer got confused and wrote the same story twice.  How silly!  How many times have you seen a son repeat the same mistakes that his father made?  This is just a prime example of how real life is lived out.  Usually one generation is given the same set of problems and temptations as the next.  Some sons learn from their fathers and some sons tend to repeat the process of relearning. 

It is the exception, not the rule, when a son doesn’t repeat his father’s sins.  This passage simply shows us the fate of humanity when we do not let God guide our every step.  Isaac was human.  He made the same mistake that Abraham did.

The men of Gerar thought Rebekah was extremely beautiful and they asked Isaac about her.  Isaac lied and told them she was his sister, just as Abraham had done with Sarah in the same circumstances many years prior. 

The scriptures plainly say this time that Isaac was afraid they might kill him and take Rebekah for themselves if they knew he was her husband.  But; one day King Abimelech saw Isaac caressing his wife, not in the way that one would treat his sister, and he realized Rebekah was actually Isaac’s wife.  The king asked Isaac why he had lied to him about Rebekah being his sister.  Isaac admitted that he had been afraid for his life.  This made Abimelech angry with Isaac and he asked him, “What if one of my men had taken Rebekah for himself as a wife?  We all would have been guilty of doing wrong!” 

Even through Abimelech was angry, he gave orders to his men not to harm Rebekah or Isaac, and they were then safe to live in that area until the famine was over.  This is yet another situation where humanity did everything wrong and God’s mercy prevailed. 

Isaac, like Abraham before him committed two sins.  First, he lied.  Second, and worse than the first sin, he did not trust God to take care of them.  Isaac, like his father before him in such circumstances, caved to the culture he found around him.  When it came down to it, Esau's father was (this time) as guilty as Esau, it just wasn’t as obvious.  He feared mankind instead of trusting God.  God had promised both Abraham and Isaac that He would be with them and protect them, but they still feared men in spite of this. 

I suppose there are a million people living in the same circumstances today.  So often we let the ungodly people from the cultures living around us make our decisions for us instead of following God's ways and trusting God to see us through.  Why should we ever fear our enemy when we know for a fact that our God is bigger and full of might?  We usually default to our humanity instead of trusting in our divine God.  Isaac just repeated the sad story that is common to all other human beings.  Both Abraham and Isaac failed this same test.  So do most other men.  If a man can rise above his circumstances following God through all situations, he is truly a righteous man indeed.

We should never remove our focus from God.  We should not let the dangers around us control us and make us forget what our God has promised us. This is a very important fact to remember as we live through the last days of this earth.   We must keep trusting God to guide us, and we must keep striving to do the right thing and rise above the cesspool of humanity we find ourselves living in on planet earth.  Did God not say that two nations would come from Rebekah’s womb?  Had God not told them He had great plans for them?  Keep remembering the promises!  “I will never leave you or forsake you!” 

Now we have seen that God had spoken directly to Isaac and even in a time when Isaac temporarily forgot to trust in God’s sovereignty.  God does not forsake His children, even when they make terrible mistakes.  He is patient, merciful and loving and He will wait until our hearts are right again and bring us to the purposes that He has designed for our lives from the beginning of time.  Isaac’s purpose was to be the father of great nations!  God did not forsake him or turn His back on him.  We ALL have a purpose.  Every soul that enters this earth has a purpose designed by The Creator, even if they cannot yet see it.  Have faith, God will show you in time.

 This is a very strong lesson that should apply to the heart of every Christian person living today.  Even great godly men like Abraham and Isaac failed this test and had to rely on God’s great mercy and forgiveness.  Our God is not controlled by the pitiful, sinful, circumstances of humanity.  He will look after His people when they trust in Him and obey Him. 

God always keeps His promises.  We must always believe this.  Unbelief looks at the difficulty but faith looks at God’s promises.  Isaac should have had more faith in this situation.  He should have told the truth.  So many of us do the same thing; we have strong faith for some life and death situations, but we slip in the day-to-day decisions of being truthful and honest.  We forget to consider God’s will for EVERY moment we are living through.  If it isn’t BIG, we forget and default to our own decisions.   

God protected both Sarah and Rebekah when their husbands forgot to call on Him and trust Him for deliverance. This should give many women of today hope.  You might find yourself living in hard circumstances with a husband who has forgotten to call on God.  Do not forget to call on Him yourself.  He is there waiting, ready to deliver you from your misery and oppression.  He is ever faithful!   It is up to each person, individually, to call on God.  No one else can do it for you, not your husband, not your children, not your earthly mother and father.  God wants to hear from YOU.  

God had mercy on Rebekah and Isaac and brought them to safety in spite of their lack of faith and sinful lies.  They did not starve, and they were kept safe through the famine in the land.  Isaac did not have to leave the land where he was born, and that was very important in keeping the covenant of God and the promises that Isaac had made to Abraham.  If we wait on God in all of our hard circumstances He will make a way to bring His will about in our lives.  We must trust God to do this, always.

Once again we learn of a time when God took a very bad situation and worked it out for good.  God always keeps His promises!

COME AS A CHILD LESSON 71 ESAU EATS AN EXPENSIVE MEAL

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

One day Esau went hunting and had no luck.  He must have stayed in the fields and the woods entirely too long without eating, just thinking that the next hour would bring him victory in the hunt.  He did not find the prey that he wanted to find.  He came back home empty-handed this time, and he wasn't very happy about it.   A long time had passed as he stalked his prey without success, and he was without food the whole time.  He walked into the camp feeling very tired and faint only to find Jacob standing over a fire, cooking a delicious lintel stew, one of Esau's favorite dishes!  

The aromatic scent drifted across the breeze over the fire where Jacob was preparing the meal.  Esau had never smelled anything like it!  Just what he was craving!  He was SO hungry!  He felt if he did not have food soon he would surely pass out.  He strolled into his brother’s kitchen area like a bull in a china shop and loudly proclaimed “Give me some of that stew!”

This must have completely annoyed Jacob who sat clean and orderly before the meal he had prepared for himself only.  He must have noticed that Esau smelled horrible after so many days on the hunt, being outside in the land without bathing or changing his clothes.  By now in their lives Jacob had grown very tired of Esau’s way of always barging into what was his and just expecting him to give it up.  Esau seemed to think since they were twins that everything was community property and he could just grab whatever he wanted whenever he wanted.  Why couldn’t he be satisfied with all the blessings that he had?  After all, Esau was the oldest (by a few priceless minutes) and the one who would inherit the birthright from Isaac. Why should he want what little was left over to Jacob?

Jacob must have pondered what a waste this inheritance of Esau was going to be.  Esau had no respect for people or possessions.  For Isaac to turn over 2/3rds of his possessions to Esau one day seemed tragic to Jacob who was probably a diligent worker, a detailed planner and a very careful steward.  He must have wondered why Isaac did not see this trait in Esau every time Esau came along charming him by bringing home the wild venison that he hunted down and cooked for him.  Isaac had been fooled into loving and favoring this son by a few stupid bowls of wild meat, venison to be exact, which Esau always cooked for him after his hunts.  Well, apparently there would be no cooking for Isaac today. 

All of this must have been in Jacob’s head when he answered Esau’s pleas for Jacob’s delicious, perfectly prepared dinner. 

“Let me buy your birthright for this bowl of porridge” said Jacob in total sarcasm, probably wondering if Esau could be that stupid or wondering if Esau could be as foolish as Isaac was being in favoring Esau's stews.  Jacob was merely being sarcastic, knowing that Esau would not even realize what he was saying.  Surely Esau would not answer “yes” to that question; or so Jacob thought in his irony and sarcasm.

He looked up to see Esau actually considering his question! 

Esau’s eyes were on the juicy stew made from well-feed beef and freshly

grown lintels.  It had been flavored with homegrown spices and herbs, with just the right seasonings to blend with just the right fat, giving the tender long-and-slow cooked stew an awesome flavor.  Esau’s mouth watered.  He had never smelled anything to equal this stew and his appetite was working overtime.  He had to admit to himself that Jacob was the best cook in the land.  He thought it was a stew perfect enough to feed any very royal king.  Why should he not eat this stew instead of his brother?  Surely it didn't matter as much to Jacob.  Had Esau not been the one out doing the work of chasing down wild game for their father to enjoy while his brother sat in the luxury of the tent and filled his belly?  After all, there his brother sat all calm, clean and rested, and Esau suspected their mother had spent the hours while he was away waiting on him hand and foot.  Esau thought about how very spoiled Jacob was.  He detested how his mother treated him.  All she could ever talk about was “Jacob did this” and “Jacob did that.”  She was brainwashed.  Why should Jacob have all the luxury of this day?  He did not deserve it.  Besides, Jacob had been here eating regularly every day and Esau was hungry!

So he wanted the birthright……it all went back to the birthright, everything did. 

So much of the birthright was simply spiritual blessings; nothing that would really matter to someone like Esau who did not actually believe that this God from which Abraham first received the blessings existed.  Why should he care if Isaac bestowed these same words to him by laying hands on him at the time near his death?  Would that bring his father back to him after he was gone?  No!  Then Esau would have to take care of all those his father had looked after all his life; Rebekah, Keturah, aunts, uncles, cousins, servants, DROVES of servants.  What did Esau need with all of these leaches?  It all evolved around the fact that this God they believed wanted this done.  Esau did not believe that this God even existed.  He was sick of them shoving Him down his throat.  It was nice to feel important sometimes, but this birthright was not going to be worth all the work and trouble that would be tied to it.  It would totally interfere with Esau’s freedom.  Esau did not like being told what to do.  He valued his freedom to come and go and often went away for days at a time.  He did not like being tied down with heavy responsibilities.  Things were hard enough now.  Inheriting the birthright would only make things more complicated and take away even more of his time.  He would never be able to just take off on a hunt for days at a time again.  

In so many ways, Esau actually detested his birthright. It meant that he had to learn cultured things and go to school and think about handling money and making investments and being responsible.  If he complained he was always reminded of the birthright and his responsibilities.   His parents kept trying to push him in this direction; or Isaac did anyway.  Rebekah was always busy with Jacob’s refinement. 

To Esau, all that mattered in life was that the sun rose each morning and he had a bow in his hand aimed at a large buck off in the field.  Life was the hunt and the hunt was life.  What else was there?  

He cared nothing for the dignitaries and the oh-so-proper people that his parents often invited to dinner.  They sat at the table and talked more than they ate.  They discussed religion and war and money.  He cared for none of that.  All he needed was an open field and the sunshine. 

Esau knew his brother Jacob was quite a different story.  Jacob was always Johnny-on-the-spot, holding on to Rebekah’s coat-tails, coming to the table with a million questions and a hunger to learn all the answers, impressing everyone with his knowledge of everything.  Esau thought him greedy, arrogant, never satisfied with what he had, always seeking more.  Now he was asking for Esau’s birthright. 

Esau paused for a brief moment to consider that the birthright did not really mean much to him, and he looked at the stew with longing eyes.  All Esau ever considered in life was the very moment that he was in at the time.  His only hesitation was the fact that, for some strange reason, he kept seeing Isaac’s face in his mind as he considered this. 

What would his father think? 

Did he even have to know?  

Esau had tried to tell Isaac over and over that he just was not interested in carrying out the family business. Isaac had always expressed to him that he should just be patient; that it would mean something to him one day.  Well, Esau was a grown adult man now, and that birthright still did not mean any more to him.  What he wanted was a good bowl of lintel stew.  Yes!  He would solve two problems at once.  Isaac need never be told, and Esau could fill his belly RIGHT NOW and be content.  Right now was all that ever mattered to Esau.  He gave no thought for the future, he let that take care of itself.  That was his philosophy!

“Okay, I’ll trade.”

Jacob could not believe his ears!  How foolish could a man be?  How could this excuse of a human being be his brother, much less his twin?  Such a man as this did not deserve his father’s hard earned fortune!

It was going to be a good day for Jacob.  

He had long pondered the words of Abraham to Isaac in the giving of the birthright.  How Jacob had yearned to be the one receiving such words!  Some day Isaac would repeat them to the son who owned the birthright.   Esau had been in line automatically to receive the very same words that Abraham had repeated to Isaac, the very words that God had said to him!  Jacob had memorized them, long from his childhood because his mother had often whispered them into his ear.

“I have made you a father of many nations.  I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations from you.  I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.  The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you, and I will be their God.”

The birthright contained this promise from God to all of Abraham’s descendants!  What could be more important?  Jacob realized this was a very sacred thing.  He also realized nothing was sacred to Esau.  Should he take this foolish bargain from his brother? 

Would it be wrong?

Well, maybe it was an opportunity for someone to make the birthright turn out the way it should.  His brother would certainly never follow through with any of it.  All would be wasted if Jacob did not take it!  Even the one third that Jacob stood to inherit would go down the tubes too with Esau in charge of everything.  He consoled himself with this fact, never considering the other part of the facts; that it would mean he would become the ONLY heir to his family’s great wealth which had been passed on from his grandfather Abraham.  He would tell his father this when the time came.  No need to rush.  There were years left to do it.  Someone had to protect Abraham’s blessing from Esau, and he might as well be the one to do it since his father was not going to ever say no to this undeserving but favored child named Esau. 

Jacob slowly dipped out the stew and handed a very full bowl to his eagerly waiting twin brother.  

For a few priceless minutes Esau enjoyed the best stew he had ever tasted.

Soon Esau had filled his stomach to the brim and lay snoring right in the middle of Jacob’s kitchen floor.  For once Jacob did not care.  He quickly ran off, smiling all the way.  He had a lot to confide, and he must find his mother to tell her all of the details.

COME AS A CHILD LESSON 70 THE BIRTH OF TWINS

 (Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Abraham was buried at the Cave of Machpelah next to Sarah in the field that he bought from Ephron the Hitite, to the east of Mamre in the land of Canaan.  All of these details are important because God had promised Abraham that his descendants would possess the land where he was buried.  We read about this in Genesis 12:1-3.  

We can also think of and be thankful for the fact that Abraham, like Sarah, was probably resurrected from the grave after Jesus was resurrected and ascended to Heaven after him at the Ascension as part of that great cloud of witness.  Anyone seeking Abraham's grave site today would find an empty tomb!  He is known as the one who had faith to believe even before the Messiah had come.  Abraham will forever be revered by the people of God for his great faith.

After Abraham died we are told that Isaac moved to the home which Abraham had established at Beer Lahai Roi.  Isaac was now the rightful owner of all of Abraham's property.  This must have been the property where Abraham had lived with Keturah, and perhaps Isaac looked after her when Abraham died.    We know this home was near the well where she (then named Hagar) had experienced a theophany, and that was the place where she personally met God for the first time.  She had named this well that sprang from a fountain of a spring "The Well of The God Who Sees Me" and some had also begun to call it "The Well of The Vision of Life".  It was the well where people traveling would stop as they passed through on the way to Shur.  Abraham had bought this well from King Abimeleck.  The well and the cave at Machpalah were the two pieces of property that Abraham had bought and paid for during his life time.  Now Isaac had moved his home to the place of the well.

More than likely this new home of Isaac’s was in close proximity to where Ishmael was living too.  This again indicates that the two brothers had finally come to agreeable terms and were getting along with each other. They both could live in the land in peace.  This was a great accomplishment!  

Ishmael had twelve sons.  Each of the twelve sons was considered a prince and each established their own township that carried their own name, and each of those towns eventually became nations.  Ishmael lived to be 137 years old.  

It was said that many members of Ishmael’s family lived in the area from Havilah to Shur, which was east of Egypt as you go toward Assyria, and for some reason the bible mentions that Ishmael died in the presence of all his brethren. This seems to indicate that his family was close and that they bonded together and cared for one another, and that Ishmael was well respected among them, but that is just my own interpretation of the passage.  I had to wonder if this scripture meant that Isaac too was there among his other family members when he came to the end of his life.  There is no way to know how this really played out.

The name of Ishmael’s wife is not mentioned, but we do know from study of scripture that Hagar had once traveled to Egypt to find her for Ishmael, so it is supposed that she was an Egyptian woman, though some people dispute this.  Either way – we know that Ishmael took a foreign wife and we do not know her name.

Isaac also became the a father.  He was forty years old at the time he married Rebekah (a native of Syria) but Rebekah did not conceive a child right away.  Isaac, who was very anxious to have children, prayed for her and pleaded to God for her to be able to have children.  Finally, Rebekah became pregnant with twins which were born when Isaac was sixty years old. These Two boys were the very first twins that we know of. and they were as different as night and day.

During the pregnancy Rebekah could feel the two children struggling within her womb and their disturbances worried her.  She inquired of The Lord about this.  This is what she heard from the Lord in answer to her prayer:

“Two nations are in your womb,

Two peoples shall be separated from your body;

One people shall be stronger than the other,

And the older shall serve the younger.”

When the first child was born he had a ruddy red coloring and his skin was very hairy.  It was like he was wearing a hairy garment.  They named him Esau.  The noun for Esau in Hebrew means "hairy."  The verb for Esau in Hebrew means "to do or to accomplish, " or "he that acts or finishes."  A simpler definition of the Hebrew would translate as "doer."  

The next son was born holding on to Esau’s heel and they named him Jacob, which means "to press or to squeeze," or "to grab the heel," or "to trip up."  It also means to supplant or to deceive."  The verb of this word for Jacob is often used for one who ambushes an unsuspecting party."  Another way of saying this would be "trickster."  

The two boys grew up to be young men.  Esau was a man who loved to hunt and he was always outside walking through the fields looking for his next game.  Jacob was a mild-mannered man who enjoyed dwelling inside the tent.  Isaac loved Esau and related better to him than Jacob. He enjoyed the stews that Esau would make for him from the meats that he hunted.   Rebekah loved Jacob and related better to him than Esau.  Jacob was quiet and enjoyed staying in the tent with Rebekah and tending to household chores with her.  He enjoyed the art of cooking..

The prenatal striving of the twins in Rebekah's womb foreshadowed the relationship of conflict that would exist between these two sons of Isaac and Rebekah.