The Method of Grace

Introduction: Jacob as a Pattern of Salvation by Grace

0:03 This message was delivered at the 1991 Northeastern Reformed Baptist Family Conference. Now, as we come to this second study in the life of Jacob, particularly considering Jacob as a pattern of salvation by grace, I would ask you to follow in your Bibles as I read two portions of the account in Genesis relative to the life of Jacob, and then a brief passage in the New Testament which, in a very wonderful way, gives us the distilled essence of that which we will consider this evening.

0:45 First of all, then, Genesis chapter 25, beginning with verse 27. Last night we read the birth account of Jacob and of Esau, and constantly...

1:04 on that which the Spirit of God tells us is underscored of the grace of God in that birth account. Now we read of what happened as the boys began to grow. Genesis 25 and verse 27. And the boys grew, and Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, and Jacob was a quiet man dwelling in tents.

1:33 Now, Isaac loved Esau because he did eat of his venison, and Rebekah loved Jacob. And Jacob boiled pottage, and Esau came in from the field, and he was faint. Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage, for I am faint. Therefore was his name called Edom.

1:59 And Jacob said, Sell me first thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am about to die, and what profit shall the birthright do to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me first. And he swore unto him, and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.

2:21 And Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils, and he did eat and drink, and rose up and went his way. So Esau despised his birthright. Now, over to chapter 28, if you will, please, and beginning with verse 10. And here we have the account of how Jacob must leave that beloved home and must leave his father and mother fleeing from the anger of his brother Esau, whose heart is set upon murdering him.

3:00 And we now have the account of what God did when Jacob is running for his life from his angry brother Esau. Genesis 28, 10. And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set.

3:22 And he took one of the stones of the place, and put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep. His only purpose was to give his weary body rest, so weary that even a stone made a comfortable pillow. But God had other purposes. And he dreamed.

3:41 And behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am Jehovah, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac, the land wherein thou liest. To thee will I give it, and to thy seed.

4:06 And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth. And thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. And in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee whithersoever thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land.

4:31 For I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. And Jacob awaked out of his sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. And he was afraid and said, How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

4:59 And now the brief passage from the New Testament, Galatians chapter 1, where the apostles, Paul speaking, of God's sovereign grace and saving mercy to him, writes Galatians chapter 1 and verse 15. Galatians 1.15 But when it was the good pleasure of God who separated me even from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles,

5:44 straightway I conferred not with flesh and blood, but the concentration upon the words, when it was the good pleasure of God to reveal his Son in me. As we come to this, our second study in the life of Jacob, I would simply remind you that for reasons spelled out in our initial message last evening, I have chosen to focus our attention on various incidents and aspects of the life of Jacob, which constitute a pattern of salvation by grace.

The Operations of Grace in its Application: Election Unto Salvation

6:25 And in our initial study we saw that Jacob's life illustrates, first of all, the sovereignty of grace as to its subjects. And in that study it was demonstrated that as with Jacob, so with all of the true children of God, that salvation has its ultimate origin in the free, sovereign, loving choice of God himself. This humbling reality is captured in the language, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. And in the inspired commentary upon these words,

7:09 by the great Apostle Paul, who wrote, So then, it is not of him that willeth, nor of him who runneth, but God that hath mercy. So then he hath mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardeneth. Now in our next two studies, we shall seek to concentrate our attention on the operations of grace in its application. Having seen the sovereignty of grace as to its subjects, we now move on to consider the operations

7:49 or the methods of grace in its application to men. The same Bible which unashamedly teaches the doctrine of free, sovereign, electing grace and love as illustrated in the person and experience of Jacob, teaches us with equal clarity that this election is unto salvation, but it is not salvation itself. According to Ephesians 1 and verse 4, we are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world in order that we should be holy and without blemish before him.

8:31 We are chosen in order to become something, but we do not become that apart from the actual application of salvation by grace to our own hearts and lives in our own life history. And the Apostle Paul in that same epistle of Ephesians says that before the grace that marked us out before the foundation of the world and sovereignly chose us and gave us to Christ, before that grace actually brings us into union with Christ, we are, Paul says, Ephesians 2, 3,

9:13 children of wrath, even as the rest. While election is eternal, justification is not eternal. Repentance and faith and conversion are not eternal. And if it were possible, though it is not, we might say that an elect sinner who was not brought to repentance and faith would be damned.

9:37 An elect sinner who failed to be brought to repentance and faith would be damned, for the Bible says, he that believeth not the wrath of God abideth upon him. But that is not possible. And everyone whom God has loved from eternity out of his own free sovereign grace and love as he loved Jacob will in time be brought to repentance repentance and faith and he will discover God's sovereign electing grace to him as he is brought into union with the Savior.

10:20 Now when God determines to bring an elect sinner into an actual state of grace, into the possession of those blessings for which he has chosen him, how does he do it? By what means does God bring elect sinners into the possession of salvation? Well, I answer that if the Bible teaches anything with unmistakable clarity, it is this, that there is a broad spectrum of diversity in the specifics of how God draws sinners to repentance and faith. And there is an equally broad spectrum of diversity in the various means by which God draws sinners to repentance and faith.

11:04 That is the same meaning by which God matures his people in the grace into which God has brought them through his own power. And therefore, I warn you, beware of any teaching, however well-intentioned, which rigidly stereotypes the operations of grace either in its initial application or in its ongoing development and conferral upon the people of God. However, without taking back anything I've already said, it is equally accurate to say that in the biblical accounts of the application of grace,

11:43 there are broad categories of God's dealings to be seen and understood, categories which God ordinarily uses in bringing elect sinners to the knowledge of himself. And it is some of these broad categories which are illustrated in the life of Jacob as a pattern of salvation by grace, not only the sovereignty of grace as to its subjects, but in the operations or methods of grace in its application. So then, in the next two messages, tonight and, God willing, tomorrow night,

12:24 we'll look at three categories of the operations of grace as seen in the life of Jacob. First, first of all, his preparation for saving grace, then the revelation of saving grace, I hope to cover those two tonight, and then, God willing, tomorrow night, his transformation by saving grace. So, preparation, revelation, transformation. You all can remember that, huh?

Jacob's Preparation for Saving Grace: God's Work, Not Man's

12:48 That's not too hard. They're 50-cent words, but they all kind of stick together. Preparation, revelation, transformation. All right, first of all, then, let's consider, Jacob's preparation for saving grace.

13:04 And the moment I say the words preparation for saving grace, some of you feel your spiritual heels digging in. And let me clear away any possible misconceptions at the outset. We are considering the operations of free, sovereign, electing grace as they come to application in the life of Jacob. Therefore, we must not read into the word preparation, any notion whatsoever of Jacob making himself ready or worthy of salvation by grace.

13:39 That's a contradiction of terms. Salvation by grace is salvation of the unworthy and of the ill-deserving. We're not speaking of nature in Jacob, preparing him for grace from God, but we're speaking of God in grace, preparing Jacob for mortgage. And the same grace that marked Jacob out in eternity as a vessel of election was operative in his life, preparing him for the time when God would reveal himself in saving, converting, transforming grace.

14:21 And therefore, it is not wrong to speak of his preparation for saving grace so long as we understand it was not nature, in Jacob, preparing himself and earning grace or making himself fit for grace. It was grace paving its own way as the point in the arrow prepares the way for the shaft and the feathers. So it is one arrow and it is one revelation of grace and it is the arrow of God's own work preparing Jacob to receive that full revelation, the revelation of his grace. I again refer to our confession of faith

15:05 which states this so accurately and beautifully. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability to will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation. So as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good and dead in sin, is not able, by his own will, by his own strength, to convert himself or to prepare himself thereunto. Man cannot, in his own strength, either convert himself or prepare himself thereunto.

15:46 But God does prepare people. Behold, my servant, God says, who shall prepare the way for me. And the very message and ministry of John the Baptist was a message and ministry of God. A message and ministry of grace to prepare people for him in whom the fullness of grace was to be revealed, even the Lord Jesus.

Grace Constituting Parental Influence

16:11 Now I want you to notice with me four ways in which God was preparing Jacob for saving grace. First of all, we see grace constituting his parental influence. Grace constituting his parental influence. While we do not believe that the Bible teaches that God's electing and saving grace is necessarily and covenantally bound to bloodlines, yet Jacob did not choose to have a godly father and a praying mother.

16:50 Jacob did not, in some state prior to being conceived in Rebekah's womb, have a little confab with God, saying, I think I would like the privilege of being a child of my mother's prayers and a child of my father's prayers and surrounded with a man who so walks in your fear that one of the names that you will take to yourself, God, is the fear of Isaac. I think I shall choose to be born in a home where Jehovah, God of the covenant, is known and loved and where I'll receive with the milk from my mother's

17:30 the knowledge of the truth which alone can bring life and salvation. No, God graciously and sovereignly imposed upon Jacob the wonderful influence of godly parents. Now, they weren't perfect parents, and the Bible doesn't gloss over their faults. There was favoritism. We

17:54 read that Isaac loved Esau, and he loved him particularly because Esau could fill his belly and tickle his palate with his well-seasoned venison. He loved barbecued venison. And it was such an elementary appetite as food that bound him more to Esau, even though he knew that the elder shall serve the younger, and that the blessings of covenant grace and mercy were pledged to Jacob and not to Esau. That's a despicable thing in Isaac. And then there's something not very pretty about Rebecca

18:32 when she's teaching her son to be a clever schemer and a liar. I've overheard your dad say this. Do this. But, Mom, don't worry. I'll take care of that. I'll cover your tracks.

18:43 She taught him to sin, and then she said, I'll cover your tracks when you do sin. The Bible's very honest about the failures of these parents. Favoritism, assisting them in a course of sin. In the case of Isaac, apparently even attempting to overpower the elder shall serve the younger. The Bible is not fastidious about laying bare the failures

19:05 of good and godly men and women, but they were truly godly. For the Scripture tells us in Genesis 31, 42, and 53, something to which I've already alluded. Jacob can say this concerning God and concerning his father Isaac. In Genesis 31 and in verse 42, he says, only twice in the Scriptures do we find God referred to this way. Genesis 31 and verse

19:37 42, except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac had been with me, surely now you had sent me away empty. As Jacob is speaking to his uncle Laban, he identifies God. He identifies God. He identifies God. He identifies God. He identifies God.

20:00 He identifies God as the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and, you notice the capital letters, the fear of Isaac. Isaac was so dominated in the whole overall tenor of his life that God allows Jacob to give to himself as one of the avenues of his self-revelation. The names of God are the avenues by which God reveals himself to men, and God allows himself to be called the fear of Isaac. Isaac's whole life, as its overall pattern, was so

20:38 immersed in the fear of God that God is called the fear of Isaac. And a similar reference is found in verse 53. Jacob knew from what his parents told him in infancy that he was a child of faith and of prayer. No doubt he had heard more than once the voice of God in the lovely story of how his parents were brought together in the will of God from that marvelous story that we read in Genesis chapter 4, so that the very native air in which Jacob

21:15 was reared, along with Esau, was air that was fragrant with a real God in the life of his mom and dad. They did not simply have the time each day or once a week when the name of God and the ways of God were revealed to them. They did not simply have the time to enter into the household. God was the native atmosphere of that household. And

21:38 blessed is that man or woman, boy or girl, who can say that God graciously constituted for me a parental influence where one thing I knew, growing up in the home in which I grew up, if God is not real to anyone in the world, I know he's real to my mom and dad. I understand too well that there are many things in the Bible which need to be mentioned, and I am very concerned about the fact that this gives us a lot to understand. But I know that I am very pertinent in the fact that Jesus is the creator of the world. And I am very What a gracious influence was given to Jacob.

22:10 The preparation for saving grace was grace constituting that parental influence. And let me say briefly by way of application to those of you who with me have had that influence, do you bless God, if not daily, regularly, for the grace that sovereignly, graciously imposed upon you a mom and dad, who with whatever their faults and failures may have been, they knew God and you knew that they knew God.

22:44 One of the ways I knew that my parents knew God, I could not get away with doing anything on the slide. Somebody was always around to tell my mom and dad. And we'd have a little judgment day. And they'd sit me down whenever everyone went to bed.

22:59 And they'd say, now, son, and I was called Sonny until I was 21. I didn't even know my name was Albert, except I had to write it on my papers in school. But I was Sonny until I was 21. And they'd say, now, Sonny, when everyone else goes to bed, we want to talk to you.

23:14 And I knew, uh-oh.

23:17 And they'd sit me down and lovingly tell me that this means or that means. Word got to them that I'd done this or said this and done the other. And then my mother and dad. My dad would say, son, when will you learn?

23:29 When you have a praying mother and father, God won't allow you to get away with sin. What a legacy. What a legacy. Among many other things.

23:40 Well, I didn't choose that. In that very neighborhood, as far as I know, stepping out on the front porch, looking as far as I could, up Soundview Avenue to the north and to the south, and all the other streets, I don't know, another home within sight. Where the fear of death. Where the fear of God was the native atmosphere of that home.

24:01 And I said, Lord, why me? It was grace that constituted that parental influence. And for those of you who with me had that influence, look upon it as God's gracious dealings with you. And for those of you who may not have had it, but God has brought you into the orbit of His grace.

24:20 See what a privilege it is to exert that reality that when your children are pummeled from the influences of their own reignings, sin until they're converted, and then remaining sin after they are converted. And the unbelieving, skeptical influence of the world, and of an educational system and political framework that denies the existence of God and acts as though He doesn't exist. For them to have stamped upon every cell of their inner being the knowledge, if God's not real to anyone on earth, I know He is the fear of my mom and dad. What a marvel.

25:00 God's privilege to be a vehicle of grace to our children. Not that we're going to be perfect any more than Isaac and Rebecca were perfect. But our God is real to us, and our kids know it. And to you children, any one of you here can rise up and say, Pastor Martin, you know, before I was born, an angel appeared to me and said, You're going to be born in a Christian home.

25:28 Or an angel appeared to me and said, Where would you like to be born? In a Christian home or not? In a non-Christian home. Dear children, it's gracious of God to put you in a home where you've got a mom and dad who bring you away for a conference like this.

25:42 You sit down with you and open the word of God and tell you there is a God, and you're accountable to that God, and there is a heaven, and there is a hell, and there is right, and there is wrong. Oh, I know there are many times you don't like it. I didn't like it. When the kids in the neighborhood could cuss and tell dirty jokes and laugh and do it with abandonment, and I'd try to do it, and I always felt so dirty and unclean.

26:01 I used to get mad.

26:04 I had parents. It would make me feel so bad when I do the things that the other guys seem to do and they're so happy about it. But, dear children, it's God's grace that has given you those influences, those influences that were there not only for Jacob, preparing him for special grace, but even there in common grace to Esau, the same influences were there. But then we see in the second place, in his preparation for saving grace, not only grace constituting.

Grace Forming Early Inclinations

26:36 His parental influence, but grace forming his early inclinations.

26:43 Look at Genesis 25, 27, a fascinating verse.

26:48 Grace forming his early inclinations.

26:54 We read in Genesis 25 and verse 27, And the boys grew, and as they grew, two very distinct and different personalities and lifestyles began to emerge. Esau. Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field. And Jacob was a quiet, a harmless, a perfect man, dwelling in tents.

27:25 Esau, he liked the freedom of tromping through the woods. He liked the adrenaline rush of seeing the game and seeking to bring it down. He lived on the high of bagging game. And on the liberty of...

27:42 ...of tromping through the woods and through the fields.

27:46 He didn't like the structure of the domestic situation. Perhaps he didn't like it because there was too much of God in that home. And he liked to put on his knapsack and roll up his sleeping bag and go off with his rifle. I know he didn't have a rifle, bow and arrow, I'm just putting it into contemporary language and go on a three day hunting trek, for three days there would be nothing of talking about the God of Abraham.

28:13 Not talking about Noah and the flood and creation and how God deals with the wicked and how God deals with the righteous. And in the early formation of those inclinations, the Spirit of God underscores that Jacob was a quiet man. And that word quiet means complete or pious, gentle or upright or harmless. He found an affinity for that household and he wasn't a fag.

28:43 And he certainly wasn't a queer. He was an obviously very virile man. He had twelve sons.

28:55 But in spite of that virility and the strength that we see later on as he becomes a laborer for fourteen years for his uncle Laban, there was something that inclined him to want to be around that godly mom and dad and be in proximity to those influences that would constantly, constantly remind him of spiritual realities. You see, the emphasis in this contrast falls upon the hedonistic, hot-blooded, freelance, free-spirited temperament that he saw and the more reflective, less passionate temperament of Jacob.

29:37 Furthermore, we see in Jacob, in his early inclinations, a pliant and submissive will to parental authority, and directives. In chapter 28, verses 7 and 8 we read, And Jacob obeyed his father and mother, and was gone to Paddan Aaron. As a full-grown man, when they gave him directions, he obeyed them. He didn't say, hey, wait a minute, I am no kid anymore.

30:04 I am legally of age! I'll do my own thing! We find in Genesis 26, 34 an exactly opposite disposition in Esau. When Esau was 40 years old, he said, was 40 years old. He took to wife Judith, the daughter of Berai, the Hittite, and Basimoth,

30:23 the daughter of Elon, the Hittite, and they were a grief of mine unto Isaac and Rebekah. He violated God's institution of monogamy, and he went and took wives from the heathen nations around them. And we see that in these early incarnations, there was the passionate, free-spirited, flesh-indulgent Esau, and the more reflective, less passionate, submissive,

30:54 obedient Jacob. Now we ask the question, who made them to differ? And the answer is, we heard about it this morning, when God was there in that womb where these twins were being formed, it was God putting together. Those elements from the gene pool going right back to Adam that would constitute Jacob's temperament, by nature a more pliant, more submissive, reflective temperament, as it

31:36 was God who was forming the substructure of the more hot-blooded, passionate, free-spirited temperament of Esau. And then as the boys developed, and that temperament began to take on, teenage expressions, and then full adult expressions, who was there hedging up Jacob, and leaving Esau to the base inclinations of that temperament driven on by indwelling sin and by the power of the devil? Who makes them to differ? And we see in the life of Jacob then, his preparation for saving grace, not only in grace that constituted his parental influence,

32:21 but grace that formed His early inclinations. And so it is with us. Have some of you wondered why was it that as a child I had serious thoughts about God and heaven and hell and people all around me never thought about those things? I think in my own instance, I cannot remember a time, I cannot remember a time going back to my earliest years when I did not pillow my head every night fearful I might die and go to hell.

32:56 So that when I sinned my worst, I never could sin with abandonment. And as I've intimated earlier, it used to make me angry because my buddies could sin with abandonment and I couldn't. And sometimes it was just the thought, if I did that, how could I look my mother in the face? I played first string on the football team, state champs my junior year.

33:24 No specialties then. You took your 11 mess, best men and played them both ways, offense and defense. You played all 48 minutes or all, yeah, 48 minutes, four 12-minute quarters.

33:35 But there was this sensitivity. If I did that, how could I look my mother in the face? Who was forming that inclination that kept me from God alone knows how much sin? Wasn't anything in me.

33:49 I know enough of myself to know I could have rivaled the most base, wicked, profligate kid in our high school. It was grace. Preparedness. It was preparing, as in Jacob.

Grace Guiding Early Choices

34:07 But then we see, thirdly, this preparation for grace in the life of Jacob is also seen in grace guiding his early choices. Grace guiding his early choices. And you see, one of the tragic realities of life is there are certain choices we make at certain periods in our life. And no matter what God may do to forgive the consequences of that choice, the choices can't be undone.

34:34 They're done. If you stupidly, stupidly and foolishly as an 11-year-old kid went out against your father's knowledge and wishes and his approval and took a sharp axe and tried to split wood and cut off half of your index finger on your right hand, you've got to live with that stupid 11-year-old choice until you go to your grave. And we see in the life of Jacob how the grace of God was guiding his early choices. Let's just look at a couple of such instances.

35:06 Turn to Genesis 25. Genesis 25, 28. In this whole matter that most of us are familiar with, this matter of the birthright. You say, what was the birthright?

35:19 Genesis 28 and verse 34. I'm sorry. Genesis 25 and verse 34.

35:35 Esau was out hunting. And he comes in from the field and he says, and I really doubt that it was that bad, unless he'd been on a hunt for an awfully long time to wait another hour or two, while he could fix a meal. I doubt he would have died. But here was his passionate, impetuous, he was the prototype of the now generation.

35:56 Instant gratification. And when he comes in, his brother does something that isn't very nice. He's got a hungry brother and he won't feed him. He's there at home learning his mother's recipe for making lentil soup.

36:11 And it looked awfully good to a hungry man. Had some substance to it. Wasn't all thinned down. It was more like what we'd probably call a stew.

36:19 And it had some, good solid nourishment in it. And when he saw it, he said, I'm faint and I've got to have some of this red soup. And Jacob said, verse 31, sell me thy birthright. What was this birthright?

36:33 Well, the birthright was the right of the firstborn that involved not merely, it did involve this, but not merely, not merely the privilege of being head and lord over the rest of the family. It also involved, in the instance of these two boys, the succession to that spiritual blessing which was promised to Abraham that would flow out to all the nations and would include the possession of the land of Canaan.

37:10 And Esau knew that's what was bound up in the birthright. But you see, it was all...

37:16 ...and touch it and eat it and put it in a bank account and read the numbers now.

37:25 Right now I've got a hungry belly. Who cares about a birthright? And though God didn't need to bring about his purpose through Jacob's nasty manipulation and selfishness, God overruled it to accomplish his purpose. Jacob said, first of all, make an oath that you'll sell me your birthright for that mess of lentil soup.

37:50 And Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage and he did eat and drink. Now notice, he didn't even have a second thought that he'd done the right thing. He wrote, He rose up and went his way so Esau despised his birthright. Now when you despise something, you treat it as a thing of no account and of no worth.

38:11 He despised it. Being the firstborn, humanly speaking, even though God had said the elder shall serve the younger, that which for all appearances was to come to him and he knew what was involved in it, he said, this pottage soup means more to me than a birthright. But you see, I've obviously been thinking about the blessings bound up in the birthright. The blessing of God's covenanted mercy and grace.

38:41 The blessing of being the recipient of the peculiar favor of Jehovah, the God of his father and the God of Abraham. And there in those early choices, what shall I set my affections upon? What objects will I pursue and seek to gain? With all my powers and all my faculties.

39:06 Esau never looks into the future. He's only taken up with the rush of the hunt and with the satisfaction of a full belly and with the hedonistic delights of two wives.

39:21 But Jacob has his heart set upon a worthy goal. He chooses those things which are of more worth than the things that can be touched and felt and possessed. And recorded in a bank ledger. Now what gave him that differing perspective?

39:42 It was grace. Grace guiding his early choices. We see it in the matter of the choice of a wife in Genesis 27. We read in chapter 27 and verse 46, Rebecca said to Isaac, I'm weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth.

40:03 I'm weary. What I see, what I see happening because of the marital choices of Esau is taking me to an early grave. I'm weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth such as these,

40:22 of what good shall my life be to me? If Jacob follows and makes the same critical choices that Esau did, I see the influence of these ungodly women upon our son. If Jacob goes the same direction, I'd rather die than live to see the fruits. And though he's a full-grown man, he shows that he's prepared to make a choice about a wife that goes beyond her measurements, her face, and her form.

40:51 He's prepared to follow the directions of his parents to seek a wife from a context where the fear of God would be known and where a young woman would have been reared to know the God of Isaac and Rebecca. He is obviously a man with all of his native and natural appetites and passions, but he's concerned to make such a choice on higher principles than fleshly desire and carnal attraction. You see, the two areas that are highlighted in those choices, physical appetites, social relationships, life's values, Esau is the contrast of a man

41:36 who made choices early in life, hear me now, that he had to live with for the rest of his life, for the rest of his days, and for eternity.

41:46 For according to Hebrews chapter 11, when he came to the place where he did place any value upon those things, it was too late. The choice had been made. He found no place of repentance in his father, though he sought it with...

42:03 Some of us look at the wrecks all around us. We say, oh God, how is it that at a critical period in my life it was a fork and had I gone this way, and certain irreversible things would have happened. Lord, I didn't know you. I didn't love you.

42:23 I wasn't seeking you. But I made that choice. Why? It was grace guiding those early choices when you didn't have enough sense to make the right choices.

42:37 And some of us were in a state of grace when we chose a wife, but I tell you, we didn't hear anything from the pulpit or pastoral counseling from our parents in explicit counseling to give us a framework of making that choice. And in my case, it was silly, irrational, freaked out, infatuation at first sight. Yes, it was. Now, thank God it grew into a lot more than that and it stuck and gets gooder and gooder after 35 years.

43:09 But I think of how foolish. Suppose that brown-eyed young woman that just snared my heart with the first look of her brown eyes had been a deceiver. I didn't have enough sense to flush it out. But God graciously guided me.

43:27 It was grace. Grace, all of grace.

43:32 And so it was with Jacob. And so it is with you. How many of you, how many of you can sit here tonight and look back and say, why, why? It wasn't that I consciously said, this is the noble, the right, the best.

43:46 This will glorify God and secure my greatest usefulness. My friend, it was grace that had marked you out and given you to the Lamb that was guiding you in those early choices. Even as in the life of Jacob. But then there was a fourth area in which we see the grace of God preparing Jacob for saving grace.

Grace Superintending Strategic Crises

44:07 And it was grace superintending the strategic crises in his life. Grace superintending the strategic crises in his life. There was the crisis of the birthright. We've already looked at that.

44:22 And grace was working with some pretty crooked tools. But it was nonetheless grace that had marked me. Grace at work. The crisis of the birthright.

44:32 Then there was the crisis of the blessing. You talk about even more crooked tools. Genesis 27. His mother coaching him on how to willfully take advantage of her husband's poor eyesight and his weakening powers.

44:47 Scheming Rebecca. Shame on her.

44:51 But what was the result of it? Nothing was pronounced to cause the wonder of Jacob's life. Only you can take such crooked instruments and bring such good. Now you don't go out and use crooked instruments and say oh boy let's see what God and grace will do.

45:09 No, no. That's turning the grace of God into a license for sin.

45:13 But God records this to let us know that it's he who is superintending these strategic crises in the life of Jacob. The crisis of the birthright. The crisis of the blessing. As we shall see God willing in a few minutes the crisis at Bethel in chapter 27.

45:32 So that all the way through God overrules and God guides and hedges up his servant so that in the language of Paul the God who separated him from his mother's womb when it pleased that God to reveal his salvation to Jacob he was a man prepared by grace for the revelation of saving grace. And so it is with each one of us. For some of us early incarnations early choices and influences the superintendence of God in strategic crises brought us to an early conversion

46:17 and how we bless God for it. Others early incarnations and early choices and apparently the absence of any influence to hedge you up into a way of righteousness made you an early prodigal and caused you very early to feel the gnawing pain of the fact that you're a prodigal but whatever diversity there may be in the externals God gets his Timothys and his prodigals and brings them to the feet of Christ.

46:52 Timothy nurtured from a godly mother and godly grandmother but not all are Timothys some are like the prodigal. There is a Josiah who from his youth manifests God's hand upon him there's a Manasseh whose very name epitomizes wickedness and yet God magnifies his grace and so though the path is different in every case it is the God of grace who prepares us and brings us to the place where we are desperate to receive that saving grace that he freely confers in the Lord Jesus. So we come now and a bit more briefly to the revelation

The Revelation of Saving Grace at Bethel: A Unique Encounter

47:36 of saving grace we've looked at preparation for grace now secondly the revelation of saving grace and as we come to this critical aspect in our study I want to convince your judgment that if we can say there is a time when Jacob was converted when the grace of God was revealed to him at the level of his own consciousness so that he consciously became in New Testament language a child of God a true disciple of the Lord Jesus of Jehovah the God of the Covenant it is at Bethel as recorded in Genesis chapter 28 now I want you to turn now

48:19 to Genesis chapter 28 and in verses 10 through 22 we have that account that I read in your hearing now what I want to show is that in Jacob's later life this incident has an absolutely unique place in his whole understanding of God's dealings with him turn to chapter 30 31 verses 11 to 13 chapter 31 verses 11 to 13 and the angel of God said unto me in the dream Jacob and he said here am I and he said lift up your eyes and then he gave him some directions verse 13 now here is how the angel of the Lord identifies himself

49:04 I am the God of Bethel where you anointed a pillar where you vowed a vow unto me now arise get thee out from this land and return to the land of thy nativity when God is determined to give a precise identification of himself to Jacob by which he will exert his rights over him in grace he says I am the God of Bethel the place where you anointed a pillar and you vowed a vow unto me Genesis chapter 35 notice the same emphasis verse 1 God said unto Jacob arise

49:48 go up to Bethel and dwell there and there make an altar unto God who appeared unto thee when you fled from the face of Esau your brother then Jacob said to his household and to all that were with him put away the foreign gods that are among you purify yourselves change your garments let us arise and go up to Bethel and I will make there an altar unto God who answered me in the day of my distress and was with me in the way which I went when God says up to Bethel immediately to Jacob's mind comes the claims of this gracious God and he says to all of his household

50:31 put away all foreign gods prepare ourselves we're going to go up to Bethel the place where God became my God in covenant promise and from that point onward I've experienced his unique covenant blessing verses 6 and 7 the same chapter so Jacob came to Luz which is in the land of Canaan the same as Bethel he and all the people that were with him and he built there an altar an altar and called the place El Bethel that is the God of Bethel because there God was revealed unto him when he fled from the face of his brother Bethel is unique

51:15 in God's revelation of himself to Jacob in his grace verse 15 and Jacob called the name of the place where God spake with him Bethel the emphasis again upon the uniqueness of Bethel and then all the way over to chapter 48 of the book of Genesis we see the significance of Bethel again Genesis 48 in verse 3 Jacob said unto Joseph God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz that was the name of Bethel before he named it Bethel in the land of Canaan and blessed me and said unto me in other words as an old man

51:59 about to depart this world he goes back to Bethel as the place where God appeared to him God himself entered into covenant with him the statement in one of the well-known Bible dictionaries I believe captures the biblical witness and its significance listen as I read these few sentences in its significance for his personal history the first of these revelations at Bethel was unique Bethel witnessed Jacob's choice evidently for the first time of his father's God as his God and though we find Jacob later tolerating idolatry in his household

52:43 and compromising his religious testimony by sin we never find a hint of his own unfaithfulness to this first and final religious choice this is further confirmed by the attachment of his later revelations to this primary one as though this lent them the significance of continuity and made possible the unity of his spiritual experience in other words everything that follows Bethel takes its lines from Bethel so that when he looks back he says the God who's dealing with me here and now in this way is the God who appeared to me

53:27 at Bethel and all of the history leading up to Bethel is history in which there are no clear definitive evidences that God was anything other than the God of Jacob's father and mother and had not yet become his own personal God now I hope I've convinced your judgment of the significance the unique significance of the Bethel experience now consider with me quickly three elements in that revelation of saving grace to Jacob at Bethel three elements of that revelation of God's saving grace at Bethel and the first is this

Elements of the Revelation: Divine Initiative

54:12 the divine initiative is the basis of the divine initiative of that revelation Genesis 28 the divine initiative is the basis of that revelation how do we know that well you remember the story his parents charge him not to take a wife of the daughters of Canaan but to go to his uncle in Paddan Aram and take a wife from thence and in the light of the fact you remember that Esau was breathing out murder and he never forgot that he said Bethel the place I was found when I was fleeing from my brother Esau so what is Jacob doing Jacob is making a lonely journey

54:56 no doubt his mind filled with the horrible fruits of his own deception and this collusion with his mother to deceive his brother and now he has stirred up the anger not of a patsy now remember this was a hot blooded experienced hunter he could have nailed him with an arrow from a hundred yards he's scared he's running no doubt filled with an accusing conscience and few things will both make you more weary and yet take away the sleep which the weariness longs for more effectively than an accusing conscience and this night he lies down to do but one thing we read in verse 11

55:41 of chapter 28 he put the pillow under his head and lay down in that place to sleep it doesn't say he girded up the loins of his mind to seek God under the stars he stirred himself up to a season of intense prayer he's going to sleep as a weary frightened no doubt man with a wearying influence of an accusing conscience and what happens while he is sleeping and there's nothing in which we are more passive other than death than when we're sleeping that's why the bible likens the state of a Christian's body in death to sleep next to dying we're never more

56:25 helpless and passive than when we're sleeping now what's God going to do he dreamed and behold a ladder and he knows it is no ordinary dream in which you can dream all kinds of weird things it's amazing isn't it you get up some mornings and say how in the world did my head ever spin out such a weird concoction half ludicrous and half monstrous and all when we dream most of the time we just get up if we remember anything about our dreams we either laugh about them or we shake our head and say can the potential to be that loony lie in my brain it must because it came out in my sleep but when he woke up the next morning he knew this was

57:09 no ordinary dream that this was nothing other than a revelation of God now here's the point is there anything other than divine initiative in this revelation of grace he takes his rock for a pillow and lies down to sleep and while he's sleeping God appears in a dream and in that dream God unfolds the purposes of his heart to Jacob God reveals his intention to bless him and to be his God and to care for him and when he awakes he's afraid and says this is none other than the house of God the gate of heaven

57:54 heaven has been opened to me while I slept and if that doesn't underscore the divine initiative in grace I don't know what can the divine initiative is the basis of this revelation of grace this was God's time and God's place and God's circumstances to reveal his son to Jacob and he did it and it's interesting that in the book of Hosea this very element is picked up and emphasized by the prophet and I don't believe I saw this for many years but I saw this for many years but in the book of Hosea chapter 12 verses 3 to 5 listen to these words the book of Hosea

58:38 chapter 12 right after the book of Daniel verses 3 to 5 in the womb speaking of Jacob he took his brother by the heel and in his manhood he had power with God yea he had power over the angel and prevailed he wept and made supplication unto him now notice he wept he that is Jehovah the angel of the Lord he found him at Bethel and there he spake with us even Jehovah

59:22 Jehovah finds him at Bethel and he finds him in order to reveal his grace and his salvation and as with Jacob so with everyone who is truly saved the divine initiative is the basis of the revelation of grace of his own will he begot us by the word of truth James 1.18 who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God John 1.13 the language of Paul in Galatians 1 when is an adverb of time Paul when did you get saved don't you wish

60:06 you had been saved earlier he said no I got saved right now on the dot of God's time God separated me from my mother's womb had his hand upon me throughout all of my days at the precise time in the precise set of circumstances in which the most glory would come to God and the most good to the world God revealed his son in me and while it is proper like David to mourn the sins of our youth that have long since been pardoned and cleansed and say remember not against me the sins of my youth and while it is right to say in a kind of sanctified wish

60:50 oh look to God I had been converted earlier don't go through light crippled saying if only if only if only God saved you right at the time God knew it was best to save you and don't you question his wish he took the initiative and just like the Canadian Mountie who always gets his man when King Jesus goes forth upon the horse to conquer in grace he always gets his man and he got his man in grace but the divine initiative was the basis now quickly the covenant promise was the framework within which grace was revealed if the divine initiative was the basis of the revelation of grace

Elements of the Revelation: Covenant Promise as Framework

61:35 the covenant promise was the framework of the revelation of grace look at verses 13 through 15 Genesis chapter 28 13 to 15 while he's sleeping and he sees this ladder or this structure going up into heaven and the commentators debate it's the only use of this Hebrew word in all of the Old Testament dreams aren't often logical some commentators say it would be ludicrous to have a ladder tottering but dreams aren't logical necessarily others say the root of the word means a pile of stones so it could have been like something like the Tower of Babel but I'll not bother you with all that business one thing is clear something went from earth to heaven

62:19 and on that structure whether it was a ladder or an ascending mound of rocks with various levels upon which men and angels could ascend and descend notice verse 13 Jehovah stood above it and said I am Jehovah the God of Abraham thy father the God of Isaac the land wherein thou liest to thee will I give it into thy seed thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth thou shalt spread abroad to the west the east the north the south and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed and behold I am with thee what is he doing? God is bringing

63:03 the covenant promise as the framework within which he's revealing his grace he doesn't stand and say Jacob you're a scoundrel you deserve to go to hell but I'm going to forgive you and make you a child of God that's not the framework within which God reveals his grace God had made a gospel promise to Abraham and if you don't believe it's a gospel promise read the book of Galatians God preached before the gospel unto Abraham saying in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed that was a gospel promise and it was reiterated to Isaac and now it is spoken to Jacob this

63:48 word of covenant promise in which God in grace is committed to bless through Abraham Isaac and now Jacob all the families of the earth now listen carefully that's cosmic in its implications but in the midst of it he says I'm going to be your God look at it how personal it is and behold I am with you and I will keep you wherever you go and I will bring you again into this land and I will not leave you till I've spoken till I've done that which I've spoken to you you see in the covenant promise God not only envisions the salvation of his elect

64:32 from all the nations but he commits himself in personal pledge to be the God of everyone to whom he comes in covenant mercy so the covenant promise is the framework of the revelation of God's grace and to whom was this promise given to a man who dis father to a man who be brother supplanting heel snatching cunning Jacob and God comes and says it's not a matter of your desert but a matter of my grace

65:17 and all of this is revealed in terms of the covenant promise and as with Jacob so with us the divine initiative is the basis of the saving grace of God to us but likewise the covenant promise is the framework of God's revelation of grace to us not the covenant made in the language of this covenant but finding its full expression in the language of the new covenant in which the Lord Jesus the mediator of the new covenant promises that he will forgive all of our sins give us a new heart he will be our God and we shall be his people you see when God

66:01 came to Jacob that covenant promise had the significance of God's purpose not only to bring a savior to the world but to be the savior of Jacob and the apex of the saving privilege of grace according to John 17 3 what is it this is life eternal that they may know thee the only true God in Jesus Christ whom God has sent and what is the very heart and soul of covenant blessing it is to have God is our God God himself to be our God pardoning all of our sins keeping us in his ways

Elements of the Revelation: Appointed Mediator

66:46 and accomplishing his purpose to bring us home safely at last to heaven and then thirdly and finally notice the appointed mediator of that grace the appointed mediator as the conveyor of that grace what is this ladder ascending up from earth into heaven and angels messengers of God ascending and descending upon it and at the top of it or by the side of it there is a visible personage the angel of the Lord himself as the subsequent passages indicate this pre-incarnate revelation of the Lord Jesus it's not spiritualizing to identify this with Christ for Jesus said in

67:31 John 1 51 Nathaniel are you surprised what I've done I've told you things that none but an omniscient God could tell you I saw you under the tree before you ever called to me and if that blows your mind what and if you shall see the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man that is it amaze you that I've exercised a dimension of God like qualities omniscient you ain't seen nothing yet Nathaniel you will live to see that I am the mediator between earth and heaven and between

68:15 sinful men on earth and the God of heaven and angels of God ascend and descend upon the son of man that is the son of man is the one mediator who joins earth and heaven in sovereign grace to hell deserving sinners you see God did not reveal his grace to Jacob in any other framework than the same framework within which he reveals it to us through the appointed mediator who is the conveyor of that grace the very one who said I am the way the truth and the life no man comes to the father but by me and had I the time for you preachers I commend to you the comments

69:00 in Edersheim page 112 his Old Testament history he beautifully summarizes this the staircase with the stones or the ladder reaching to heaven and the presence of the angel of Jehovah point to the Lord Jesus and as then so now God comes to us sovereignly in the framework of his promises but supremely in the person and work of the only appointed mediator between man in his sin and God in his holiness while you may not be a fugitive from an angry brother you are a fugitive from an angry God and if there's any hope for your salvation it's to be found

69:44 exactly where Jacob found it in the God of divine initiative the God of covenant promise the God who comes in grace through the appointed mediator you see how the gospel is there and what a privilege it is to stand before you and say look upon this gracious God who's prepared you for this hour why are you here not out in some place tonight blowing your mind on booze or drugs why are you not out somewhere else why are you here it's not an accident God has hedged you up and brought you to this place God has done many other things known only to you and God to get you to think seriously about heaven and hell

70:29 and life and death and the world to come and what you're living for and what is life all about and God says to you in the Lord Jesus here is the way to life behold my son behold my son who lived the life you're not living and can't live but should live behold my son who died the one mediator between God and man himself man who died that just for the unjust that he might do what bring us to God there it is again there's the emphasis here's the ladder between earth and heaven he brings us to God no man comes to the Father but by me don't be an Esau here you

Conclusion: Don't Be an Esau

71:14 have things that you can't see and touch and feel sensuous immediate gratification things are not set before you tonight don't be an Esau and say ah more of that gospel smoshples more of these preachers getting excited about Christ and the cross what is that to me oh dear children and young people don't be an Esau I believe conferences like these become to some young people what Esau's mess of pottage was and decisions are made from which there is no recovery and I've lived long enough I remember some family conferences years ago and the spirit of God came with power

71:59 and when there was a peculiar appeal to young people and some of those young people who stiff armed the appeals and overtures of the gospel and said give me my pot of soup they've lived and some of them have died with their pot of soup they've been Esau's oh dear children and young people don't be Esau's God put you in that Christian home God put you under the influence of those parents that have brought you here that have taught you the catechism that have sought to live not perfectly no they're not perfect and they don't hide their sins any more than the Bible hides the sins of Isaac and Rebecca but they do ask you to forgive them when their sin is plain to you

72:43 don't be an Esau but by the grace of God be a Jacob whom as we shall see God willing tomorrow night when the grace of God was revealed to him he was done he said if God comes to me this way and pledges to do all this for me what can I do but vow a vow to be his servant and to give him my life and my substance and my all and he enters into covenant with this God and now he's in heaven with the Lord Jesus and some of us before long are going to join for they're going to come from the east and the west and the north and the south and sit down with Abraham Isaac

73:26 and Jacob in the kingdom if we could get Jacob down from there tonight and stand him here and say Jacob tell us tell us Jacob are you ever sorry what you said and what you did there at Bethel Jacob would look it up and say hey are you crazy man sorry for all these centuries I've been in the presence of the one whom I saw but imperfectly there that night and yet what I saw by his grace I embraced and now I've enjoyed his presence oh my dear young person adult may God this night show you by the same working of his grace

74:11 what he showed to Jacob and may you become the willing bond slave of the God of grace who comes in grace to ill deserving sinners and pledges forgiveness life and himself let's pray our father we thank you for your holy word we thank you for your grace and we thank you that you have given us these marvelous pictures of how your grace comes to needy sinners real sinners whose sins are described

74:54 we thank you that you've not allowed these things to float by in abstract terms but you give us living pictures and we thank you above all that you sent your son and that John could say that he had seen him and touched him and felt him and handled him and we thank you that he lived and died and rose again and now in the word and by the spirit he comes to us even as he came to Jacob offering himself and all of the blessings of covenanted mercy sealed in his own blood oh Lord may there be no Esau's who would despise such wonderful privileges but would you not make us one glorious happy

75:39 company of Jacob's be to us our God oh God of Jacob we ask for your dear name's sake amen