A Backslidden Home

Genesis 27
Gary Wassermann | Sunday, September 25, 2022
Copyright © 2022, Gary Wassermann

In Genesis 27 we see a backslidden home.  The event depicted there is a momentous occasion in this family’s life when the blessing is to be passed on.  But all of them—Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, and Esau—conduct themselves badly, and the account given in this chapter is unflattering to all of them.

The Bible does not present the saints as angels.  It does not idealize the lives of the people of God.  We saw in the course of Abraham’s life many triumphs of faith, but also from time to time some failures.  This unvarnished presentation of the lives of God’s people is one evidence of the truth of Scripture.  It does not try to paint some imaginary ideal.  This is also instructive for us, because we can relate to their weaknesses, and we can take warning from their failures.  Things don’t automatically go well for us just because we have confessed Jesus Christ is Lord.

What makes this scene in Genesis 27 particularly sad is that this is the house of Isaac, one of the patriarchs.  He had received the blessing from his father, and now Isaac and his family held a uniquely significant position in God’s redemptive purposes on earth.

I want to begin this morning by showing the godly history of Isaac and Rebekah, and then show by way of contrast the state of their home in Genesis 27.  The contrast between these two conditions shows us what can happen in our homes if we are not careful to practice God’s will.

A Godly Beginning

Isaac’s history is not as detailed in Scripture as Abraham’s or Jacob’s, but Isaac was a godly man.  He was uniquely favored by God, as it was by God’s miraculous provision that he was born, and he was the one to whom Abraham especially entrusted the knowledge of God.  In the test on Mount Moriah, it was primarily Abraham’s faith that was at issue being tested, but Isaac had faith too.  However exactly old Isaac was we do not know, but he was surely big enough and strong enough that Abraham could not have overpowered him, so Isaac had to cooperate with being bound and laid on the altar to be sacrificed.  That surely reflected the knowledge of God that had been instilled into him from infancy.

In his marriage in Genesis 24, Isaac himself doesn’t appear until nearly the end.  He appears to have had peace about submitting his choice in marriage to God and receiving as a bride this woman that his father’s servant had found. Rebekah was chosen by God to be the wife of Abraham’s heir.  Rev. Broderick spoke about her faith a few weeks ago, so I will just briefly summarize.  When Abraham’s servant encounters her, she is beautiful, unspoiled, and godly.  She serves eagerly and graciously.  She recognizes the leading of God, and in great faith she goes with this servant right away to marry a man she has never met.

The way that Isaac and Rebekah came together in marriage has been the model for God’s people ever since it took place.  It was not just how they came together, but their marriage itself was exemplary.  The chief command to wives in Ephesians 5 is to submit to their husbands. Submit, of course, includes respect.  Rebekah did not have the book of Ephesians, but when she first saw Isaac and was told who he was, she covered herself with her veil, a sign of respect.  For twenty years she did not have children, but in that time she did not lose patience and demand children as either Sarah did in the Hagar solution or as Rachel did when she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I’ll die!”  She put herself under her husband to be prayed for by him.  When her pregnancy was unusually tumultuous, she had the understanding to say, “This is from the Lord, and the Lord has an explanation.” So she went and inquired of the Lord and received the Lord’s answer.  She submitted to her husband even when he exposed her to danger by telling the men of Gerar that she was his sister.

On the other side, the chief command to husbands in Ephesians 5 is to love their wives.  Isaac also did not have the book of Ephesians, but from the very beginning of their marriage, we read in Genesis 24:67, “So she became his wife, and he loved her.”

Childlessness was a trial for both of them, but it especially weighed on Rebekah.  Isaac was sympathetic and he prayed for her.  Among the early patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—Isaac stands out uniquely as a one-woman man.  Now it is true that Isaac repeated the sins of his father in trying to save his own skin by telling the men of Gerar that his wife was his sister, but even then, in a strange, sort of paradoxical sense, Isaac’s lie was discovered when he was observed expressing affection to his wife.

So Isaac and Rebekah were both godly people. Their marriage was arranged by God and their marriage in its beginning was a model marriage.

Let us now look at Isaac and Rebekah’s household in Genesis 27.  It is a fractured home.

A Fractured Home

Isaac had been a believer for a long time, but at this point in his old age he appears pitiful, shameful, and immature.  He knew about the oracle that the older would serve the younger, but he didn’t want to accept it.  He rebelled.  Esau was his favorite child.  Now, he knew what sort of a person Esau was and what the trajectory of Esau’s life was leading him to be.  Esau had married Hittite women.  He had disobeyed his parents by going outside the clans of Abraham’s relatives for marriage.  He brought paganism and polygamy into the home, and these wives were a grief to Isaac and Rebekah.  Nevertheless, Isaac was determined to favor Esau.

It was the custom of that day when the father was old to gather his family together to give each of his children an appropriate blessing.  Jacob did that in his old age in Genesis 49.  This was a momentous affair that was supposed to involve the whole household.  It would have been appropriate to have a formal feast and for each person to come wearing his best clothes.

Instead, Isaac comes up with a sneaky plan to give the blessing to Esau without the rest of his family even knowing.  He tells Esau to go and get the food that he likes.  Isaac is backslidden into gluttony.  His weakness for food showed up first in Genesis 25, where in the ESV it says that “Isaac loved Esau,” not because he was more manly, but “because he ate of his game.”  This is the example he set for his son, and so in one sense we should not be surprised that Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of soup.  Isaac says to Esau in verse 4, “Prepare me the kind of tasty food I like.”  In verse 9, Rebekah says she will “prepare some tasty food . . . just the way he likes it.”  And again in verse 14, “She prepared tasty food, just the way [he] liked it.”  The whole family knew that Isaac loved food.  The smell of cooking pervades this whole scene.  Here is a man whose self-discipline has collapsed, and he has given way to lusts. Lusts of one sort or another are not only the affliction of the young.

Look at Rebekah.  We will return to her in greater detail later, but for now look at what shows the condition of the home life.  Rebekah was interested in seeing God’s will carried out, but because of that and probably in response to Isaac’s showing favoritism to Esau, Rebekah overreacts and shows favoritism to Jacob.  When she overhears Isaac’s plan, she comes up with a sneaky plan of her own.

The whole chapter is a series of two people conniving all the time.  Isaac talks to Esau.  Rebekah talks to Jacob.  Jacob talks to Isaac.  Isaac talks to Esau.  Esau talks to Jacob.  At no point in this whole chapter do they ever come together as a family to sit down and talk things out. They hide things from each other.  They are divided.  Isaac does not confide in Rebekah, and in return, Rebekah is eavesdropping.  She says to Jacob in verses 6, 9, and 10, “your father.” She never says, “my husband.”

It was not this way from the beginning.  Where has the love gone?  What has happened in this home?  How did they drift away from each other?  They seem like strangers now—hostile and suspicious of each other.  She gives goatskins to Jacob to cover his skin and Esau’s best clothes for Jacob to put on.  The whole thing is shameful.  It is a shoddy scene.

Look at what can happen to a home.  These are the people whose beginnings in marriage are a model for us.  If the happy home of Isaac and Rebekah can degrade to this point, that tells you that marriage takes work.  And if that work is neglected, it will decay.  Suppose you are as godly and as favored as Isaac.  Suppose you are as godly and believing and hardworking as Rebekah.  Suppose your marriage was directly arranged by God, and you began your life together living according to the pattern of the Scriptures.  All of these things were true of Isaac and Rebekah, and yet their marriage came to this point.  And if these things were not true of you, if you were somehow below their standard, how much easier and more likely it is to end up where they ended up.  This means that all married people must continually invest time and effort into marriage.

The same is true personally.  We must all continually invest time and effort into our personal walk because the degradation in Isaac’s home was, in one sense, an outworking and a reflection of the degradation in each of their individual lives.  Keep on presenting your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.  Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world but keep on being transformed by the renewing of your minds.

1. Marriage

First, I want to address marriage.  A good marriage requires three: the husband, the wife, and God over both of them.  Neither Isaac nor Rebekah were rank atheists, but the practical recognition of God’s presence and authority was missing in their home.  The Christian marriage has been diagrammed as a triangle with God at the top and the husband and the wife at the two corners so that, as they draw near to God, they are drawing nearer to one another.  When God’s presence and authority is recognized, then there exists at least the practical foundation for problems to be resolved.

Then, communicate with each other.  Perhaps the most evident problem here is that Isaac and Rebekah did not talk to each other.  Isaac pitted himself against Rebekah, and she in turn worked against him, but never openly.  Proverbs 27:5 says, “Better is open rebuke than hidden love.”  How much better is open rebuke than hidden contempt, or hidden divergence, or hidden opposition!

It seems that in Isaac and Rebekah’s case, this probably began with Isaac favoring Esau because of the tasty food.  Certainly in this chapter Isaac is at greater fault.  He had no business blessing his son in the manner he intended to do.  He was not submitting himself to the will of God.  But perhaps this could have been avoided if the two of them—Isaac and Rebekah—had talked to one another over time.  Husband and wife must talk openly about all sorts of issues with each other.  They must share their weaknesses and be able to be honest with each other.  They must help realign each other to the will of God.[1]

When these things are left unspoken and under the surface, a separation begins to happen.  Sometimes the original issue is entirely forgotten, and you have sniping at each other or game-playing.  And usually this sort of thing then spills out beyond the bounds of the marriage.  The husband talks to someone else, maybe one of the kids, about his wife, and the wife talks to another of the kids about her husband because they are not talking to each other and they are not listening to each other.

In marriage, God makes the two to be one.  Positionally, that happens right away.  In God’s sight, the two are one.  But there are many aspects to this.  There is a physical aspect.  But relationally and functionally, it develops over time.  Husband and wife must continue to work to become one.  If they don’t, they will think and act like two.

This becoming one requires time and work.  It requires taking time to do things together, sometimes just the two of you, which requires forethought and planning, especially in the days of raising children.  Think as one.  Don’t go separate ways.  Function together.  Submit yourselves to the Lord and give yourselves wholly to one another.  The husband must give himself to his wife, and the wife must give herself to her husband.  Husbands, love your wives.  If you loved your wife in the past, that is good.  So did Isaac.  But his love faded.  Love your wife anew.  Wives, submit to your husbands.  Rebekah had submitted to Isaac, but that too had faded.  Submit to your husbands anew.

2. Parenting

Regarding parenting, train your children in the way they should go.  Unregenerate children are a great grief in the home.  Jacob and Esau were not children at this point. They were men, well into adulthood.  But Esau had clearly not come to saving faith, and it does not appear that Jacob had either, at this point.  What a grief! What a hole!  What a sore in the home!  Esau to some extent became what Isaac would have been without grace, choosing a meal over the gospel.  Jacob likewise showed to some extent what Rebekah would have been without grace, living by his own strength and acting deceitfully.

Parents, don’t waste the years you have with your children.  We cannot cause them to be born again, but we can instill in their minds the truth of God through instruction, and we can instill in their hearts the fear of God through proper discipline.  There is a ditch of presumptive regeneration in which we assume that since they are born in a Christian home and raised in a Christian church, and that we ourselves in our own history eventually became Christians, that either they are or they inevitably will become Christians themselves, and that leads to a fatal passivity.  But there is also another ditch—a ditch of despair.  To put it in extreme terms, we could call it presumptive reprobation, or at least presumptive futility.  This also leads to backing off during the years when they are impressionable.  Truly believe that God often does begin his saving work in childhood.  Pray on.  Press on.  Keep on sowing God’s word into them.  Keep on making proper use of the rod. And look for that word to sprout and to grow in due time.

Finally, don’t have favorites.  Isaac loved Esau, and Rebekah loved Jacob.  This did not have to be.  This sort of favoritism leads to jealousy, bitterness, and hatred, and it can continue for generations.  The favoritism of the parents in part explains the deep division between Jacob and Esau.  Jacob may also have carried this on in his own home by showing favoritism to his son Joseph, that then inflamed the hatred of Joseph’s brothers.

Parents must love all of their children equally.  That is not just a trite saying.  That doesn’t mean that all children are equally easy.  One child may be more compliant or more naturally endearing in some way, but it is possible, and blessed is the home where this is true.  That also doesn’t mean all children are treated identically, but they are all treated with the same standard, and their good—their ultimate good—is sought equally earnestly.  Don’t be stricter toward one and more lenient toward another.  Parents must discipline themselves not to live selfishly by doing what is preferable to them or what is easy to them.

Having looked at this home generally, with particular focus on Isaac and his leading guilt in this whole situation, I want to come to some of the other members of the household, in particular looking at Rebekah’s dilemma and Esau’s tears.  Jacob, I will comment briefly, handles himself perhaps the most contemptibly of the four of them.  He lies to his father’s face, taking advantage of his old father’s weakness and blindness, and he blasphemously brings the name of the Lord into it.  But I am not going to deal with him in more detail this morning.

Rebekah’s Dilemma

Rebekah had a history of faith.  I touched on that earlier, and Rev. Broderick preached on it more extensively.  But beyond that, Rebekah consistently showed herself to be a competent person.  She was energetic and decisive.  These are all good qualities.  She could understand a situation and recognize a need or identify a problem.  She could see how to meet that need, and she was quick to get her hands dirty to do the work that needed to be done.  See her in Genesis 24.  She saw the man who asked for a drink and recognized that his whole caravan had been traveling, and they all needed water.  So she offered and then ran quickly to draw all the water for all the camels.  This was a big chore that reflected incredibly well on her character.  And she has these same abilities and these same character traits throughout the rest of her life. They show up in multiple times even in Genesis 27. She continued to be a competent, energetic, decisive person throughout her life, and we have daughters of Rebekah here in our church.

In Genesis 27, Rebekah saw that Isaac was about to bless Esau.  Of course, that aroused her indignation because Jacob was her preferred son.  But we can reasonably hope that mixed in with that was a concern to see the will of God done.  God had clearly revealed that the older would serve the younger.  This was not just a word about the dynamics that would play out within the members of her own household.  This was something far, far more significant.  This concerned the covenant through which the blessing of salvation would come to the world.  That covenant had come first to Abraham.  By God’s will, Abraham had passed it along to Isaac.  And God’s will was that Isaac pass it along to Jacob.  But in front of Rebekah’s face, that purpose was on the verge of being frustrated.  God’s salvation for the world was at stake.  There was a train wreck of the largest proportion about to happen, and Isaac didn’t seem to care.  All he was interested in was tasty food.

This was a real trial of faith.  What was Rebekah to do?  She assumed, evidently, that speaking to Isaac and Esau would have been useless.  Esau was headstrong and self-willed.  He stood to gain personally from gaining the blessing for himself, and probably he had not listened to her for a long time. Isaac was weak, and he had intentionally excluded her.  If she had said anything, she expected that he would probably say she was just taking the side of her favorite son, and an argument that had been dormant would have erupted again.

It is hard to sit and do nothing while a disaster unfolds in front of your eyes, and you can see a means of averting it.  That is why she came up with this scheme involving the deceit and the goatskins and Esau’s clothes and the food that she would prepare.  But it would have been far, far better for her to do nothing and leave it in God’s hands.  God had spoken, and no one can frustrate his purposes.  And in this matter, she was not involved until she inserted herself.  She was not in charge.  She was not answerable to God for this.  Isaac was.  No one was asking her to sin.  She did not have to do anything, and it would have been faith for her to hold her peace.

And surely as this was God’s covenant and God’s word, she could have prayed.  The faith that will trust that God will take care of the problem is also the faith that looks to God and prays.  Prayer really accomplishes things.  God listens to the prayers of his people, and he acts, and especially so when his people bring to him his own word and say, “God, you said it.  Do as you said.  This is your concern.  Bring about your good purposes.  You said the older will serve the younger.  Bring these things about, that your redemptive purposes may be accomplished in this world.”

And having prayed, if Rebekah wanted to appeal to Isaac, perhaps she could have done so, following the example of Abigail speaking to David.  Abigail also was not in charge, but with all humility, wisdom, and tact, she was able to win him over by pointing him back to the will of God, to the purposes of God that would surely ensure that he would become king, and to show him that it was in his interest that when he became king, he would not have the guilt of innocent blood on his hands.  Perhaps Rebekah could have done similarly. She did not have to, but if she came in humility and faith, perhaps she would have been received.  Instead, she gave in to self-reliance under pressure.

King Saul fell to the same sin, when he “felt compelled” to offer the sacrifice in order to start the battle (1 Sam. 13:12).  David “thought to himself” that eventually Saul would catch up to him and kill him, so he went off to the land of the Philistines (1 Sam. 27:1).  None of these people solved their problem by self-reliance.  Rebekah did not save the day.  God would have accomplished his purpose some other way if she had left it in his hands

In fact, Rebekah’s solution made the problem much, much worse.  Consider what would have been if she had held her peace.  God would have accomplished his purposes, and at the very least Isaac would have had egg on his face for trying to do this sneakily, trying to push his own will, and seeking his own appetites.  But at least Isaac would not have had anything against Rebekah.  If she had looked to God in faith, I am sure that as she saw God’s purposes worked out, her heart would have been glad, and it would have been no difficulty to forgive Isaac from her heart for what he had tried to do.  (GMW)  And Isaac, for his part, would have had nothing to forgive against Rebekah. And perhaps the two could have come together happily and harmoniously as they ought to have done from the beginning.  As it was, the division between them was reinforced, since she had made him look like a fool, and he knew about it.  How were they going to come back together now?

Again, if she had left the matter in God’s hands, she could have led her son Jacob in exercising faith too.  When he then got the blessing, Esau would not have had grounds for thinking that Jacob had wronged him.  Perhaps Jacob and Esau could have lived on good terms with each other, even if Esau was a worldly man.  As it was, Esau nursed a grudge against Jacob to the point that he wanted to kill him.  Jacob had to be sent away, and it appears that Rebekah never saw her son Jacob again.

Competence without faith is self-strength, and this is what it looks like.  It does not solve problems; rather, it makes them worse.  Keep the fear of God always in view.  When you are not in charge, don’t insert yourself.  If you are a wife and your husband is not cluing in as he ought to, don’t step in and manipulate.  Exercise faith.  Look to the living God.  Be a help as you have opportunity, but submit, and then use your God-given ability when it is appropriate to do so in God’s kingdom order.

Esau’s Tears

Why was Esau not blessed?  Did he not want to be blessed?  If this scene in Genesis 27 were all that we were considering, Esau would seem to be someone we could sympathize with.  Verse 34 says he burst out with a loud and bitter cry.  He pleaded three times for his father to bless him, and finally he wept aloud.  This was no performance.  He was not trying to put on an act.  This was the real, anguished cry of his heart.  He lost the blessing, and his brother had run off with it.

But the truth is, Esau did not have grounds for his complaint against his brother.  Esau knew exactly what he was participating in when he agreed to his father’s sneaky plot for him to go get the blessing without the rest of the family knowing about it.  Esau also knew that he had renounced his claim on that blessing when he sold it to Jacob for a bowl of soup.  So at this point, in a real sense, it was Esau who was trying to cheat Jacob out of his rightful blessing.

Esau could reasonably have felt cheated by the bargain he made using the bowl of soup, and he could have gone to Jacob and said, “Look, that was made under duress,” or, “It is all out of proportion,” or, “It doesn’t make any sense. Let’s look again at the bigger picture.”  He could have argued his case with Jacob face to face right up front. But he never did that.  Perhaps he could have tried to compensate Jacob in some way to make Jacob more willing to agree to his terms.  But Esau has no real God-consciousness here.  Esau is not the kind of man who will keep his oath even when it hurts.

Now Esau cries out in anguish as he sees all his efforts to get the blessing fall short.  He really tried to get it, but no secrecy in planning with his father, nor success in hunting, nor skill in cooking, nor tears could get that blessing for him.  It is hard to say how much he really comprehended of the spiritual dimension of that blessing, but at least it is evident that he began to value what he once so much despised.

In all this pain of seeing that blessing slip through his fingers, Esau might at least have been able to avoid the sting of regret if he could say that this was happening because of God’s oracle.  But he could not.  He never once made any reference to the word of God.  The oracle declared God’s will, but it did not declare Esau’s will.  Esau had made his own decision and declared his own will in despising the birthright.  If he had believed God’s word, he never would have considered the birthright his own to sell.  He would have joined with Jacob in the common cause of an interest in the Messiah, who would then be a descendant of Jacob.

But for all that, even at this point, when the blessing had been given to Jacob, the door of opportunity was not closed to Esau.  Only one of the two brothers could get the blessing given to Abraham, but it was not the case that only one of the two of them could be saved.  God never designed a plan of salvation that excluded those who wanted to enter or permitted only a few by virtue of their descent or their station in this world or in this life.

Earlier, in the days of Abraham, God called Abraham and gave his covenant promises to Abraham, but the words of the Lord did not exclude Lot.  There was room in God’s kingdom for Lot.  Lot could have remained with Abraham in his household and been blessed.  God had said to Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen. 12:3).  This blessing was passed on to Isaac and it was passed on to Jacob.  And in blessing Jacob, Isaac had said, “May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed” (Gen. 27:29).  This was the blessing that ultimately would come through Jesus Christ.

Later, during the time of the nation of Israel, it was never God’s plan to limit the door of salvation to those who descended from Jacob.  God had an interest in Gentiles too.  God speaks of this in Deuteronomy 32, in the life of Naaman the Syrian, in the book of Jonah, in Romans 10 and Romans 15, and elsewhere.

My point here is that the door of salvation was there, open to Esau.  On the level of human activity and human decisions, nothing prevented him from having a saving interest in the Messiah.  I am not dealing with the realm of election and reprobation.  I am not dealing with the realm of God’s sovereignty.  I am dealing here with the realm of human responsibility and human decisions.

Now, if Esau would have wanted to have a saving interest in the Messiah, how would that have looked?  Esau would have had to believe God’s word and submit to it.  God had said that Jacob would inherit the birthright-blessing, and so Esau would have had to respect Jacob as the rightful heir  of this blessing. He would have dwelt with Jacob, or at least near him, in a subservient role, and he would have looked to Jacob or, rather, to the Messiah, who was to descend from Jacob, for an interest in this blessing that he seems to want so much.

But that was the problem.  Esau had previously despised the birthright-blessing because he rejected God, and now he saw something of what his life would be without it, but he still would not submit to God and to God’s way of gaining the blessing.  He wept and he called out, but he did not acquiesce to God’s word or seek the way of blessing in the only direction in which it could be found or in the only name through which it came.

Now, Isaac, by contrast, did repent here.  Isaac realized that God had brought his will to pass in spite of all Isaac’s efforts to the contrary. That realization came to him when he trembled violently, realizing that he had given the blessing to Jacob.  And at that point, he agreed with God and God’s word, and he said, “Jacob will be blessed.”

But Esau did not, and Esau’s sad story of a horrifying awakening is still being repeated today.  The worldly man, on in his life, in the quiet of the night or when he is alone, is haunted by the realization of what he gave up when he chose the world at the expense of his soul.  At one time, the world and what it had to offer seemed real and satisfying.  What need did he have of Christ?

But now he senses in some way the immortal hope that he has lost.  He feels the lack of what Christ had offered even in this life: assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Spirit, and increase of grace.  He wants to have favor with God and men, but all of these are out of reach.  Despair, remorse, anger, and hatred fill his heart.  If cries and tears had the power, he would cancel his past and change his choice.  But in all of this he never submits to the sovereign will of God.  He will not repent of his sins.  He will not return and submit to the authority that he rebelled against.  He won’t renounce himself and follow Christ.  He feels regret and frustration as though he has been cheated, but he will not change and become like a little child.

This is the danger of despising the gospel of salvation by choosing something else instead.  Eventually the weight and the curse of that decision become unbearable, but that does not inevitably bring humility.  Your heart can become thoroughly hard—not beyond feeling pain, but beyond bending to God.  God does not respond to the tears of regret and terror of the one who continues to reject him.

Proverbs 1:24–31 gives wisdom’s reply to the one who rejected wisdom’s call.

Since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you—when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you.  Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me.  Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord, since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.

Two weeks ago, Rev. Broderick said that anything you would choose instead of Christ, from an eternal perspective, is no greater than a bowl of soup.  What is it that is in front of you?  What is it that tugs at your heart to choose instead of Christ?  What is your price to sin?  Look at it and know that you cannot have it and have Christ.  There have been people who consciously chose to sin, saying, “We will repent later.”  The repentance they planned for never came.  Your choice is a real choice that becomes a part of you, and it is no small thing to change and to come under Christ.  I say, “Fear to sin.  Fear to take that first step because you may not turn back.”

What if you have sinned?  Here I mean something decisive, perhaps at a turning point in your life, a high-handed sin that despises God.  I am not preaching a message of despair, but this is a message that time does not wash those sins away.  The decision of your heart is still there until you repent of that sin and of the heart-rejection of God.  That takes deep digging, but do it.  You cannot come to God saying, “I will hold onto the life I have made for myself.  I will hold onto my reputation.  I will hold on to what I got by making that decision that is important to me.  But now I want your blessing too. Now I want salvation.”  It will never work. You must lay everything on the altar.  Turn away from all these things and seek God only. The door of salvation is open, but it is a low door, and to go through you must go down. Few find it because the human heart is proud.

Now, God has not closed the door of grace.  But it requires, as I said, humility. It requires that you humble yourself.

But for those who will submit to God’s terms, for those who will become Christ’s disciples, and who will live by repentance and faith, the grace that is in Christ is worth it.  He welcomes us to himself.  He upholds us.  He provides for us.  He leads us in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. He has a future for us in eternal glory with him forever. I pray that we all will follow Christ and be satisfied with the lasting blessings that he gives.  Amen.

[1] Dr. Joel Beeke, “How to Handle Problems at Home,” SermonAudio, September 28, 2013, https://www.sermonaudio.com/playpopup.asp?SID=102131539401, (accessed September 19, 2022).