(Second Sunday in Lent.)
GENESIS xxv. 29-34. And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the
field, and he was faint: And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray
thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his
name called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.
And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit
shall this birthright do to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this
day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.
Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat
and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his
birthright.
I have been telling you of late that the Bible is the revelation of
God. But how does the story of Jacob and Esau reveal God to us?
What further lesson concerning God do we learn therefrom?
I think that if we will take the story simply as it stands we shall
see easily enough. For it is all simple and natural enough. Jacob
and Esau, we shall see, were men of like passions with ourselves;
men as we are, mixed up of good and evil, sometimes right and
sometimes wrong: and God rewarded them when they did right, and
punished them when they did wrong, just as he does with us now.
They were men, though, of very different characters: we may see men
like them now every day round us. Esau, we read, was a hunter--a
man of the field; a bold, fierce, active man; generous, brave, and
kind-hearted, as the end of his story shows: but with just the
faults which such a man would have. He was hasty, reckless, and
fond of pleasure; passionate too, and violent. Have we not seen
just such men again and again, and liked them for what was good in
them, and been sorry too that they were not more sober and
reasonable, and true to themselves?
Jacob was the very opposite kind of man. He was a plain man--what
we call a still, solid, prudent, quiet man--and a dweller in tents:
he lived peaceably, looking after his father's flocks and herds;
while Esau liked better the sport and danger of hunting wild beasts,
and bringing home venison to his father.
Now Jacob, we see, was of course a more thoughtful man than Esau.
He kept more quiet, and so had more time to think: and he had
plainly thought a great deal over God's promise to his grandfather
Abraham. He believed that God had promised Abraham that he would
make his seed as the sand of the sea for multitude, and give them
that fair land of Canaan, and that in his seed all the families of
the earth should be blessed; and that seemed to him, and rightly, a
very grand and noble thing. And he set his heart on getting that
blessing for himself, and supplanting his elder brother Esau, and
being the heir of the promises in his stead. Well--that was mean
and base and selfish perhaps: but there is somewhat of an excuse
for Jacob's conduct, in the fact that he and Esau were twins; that
in one sense neither of them was older than the other. And you must
recollect, that it was not at all a regular custom in the East for
the eldest son to be his father's heir, as it is in England. You
find that few or none of the great kings of the Jews were eldest
sons. The custom was not kept up as it is here. So Jacob may have
said to himself, and not have been very wrong in saying it:
'I have as good a right to the birthright as Esau. My father loves
him best because he brings him in venison; but I know the value of
the honour which is before my family. Surely the one of us who
cares most about the birthright will be most fit to have it, and
ought to have it; and Esau cares nothing for it, while I do.'
So Jacob, in his cunning, bargaining way, took advantage of his
brother's weak, hasty temper, and bought his birthright of him, as
the text tells.
That story shows us what sort of a man Esau was: hasty, careless,
fond of the good things of this life. He had no reason to complain
if he lost his birthright. He did not care for it, and so he had
thrown it away. Perhaps he forgot what he had done; but his sin
found him out, as our sins are sure to find each of us out. The day
came when he wanted his birthright and could not have it, and found
no place for repentance--that is, no chance of undoing what he had
done--though he sought it carefully with tears. He had sown, and he
must reap; he had made his bed, and he must lie on it. And so must
Jacob in his turn.
Now this, I think, is just what the story teaches us concerning God.
God chooses Abraham's family to grow into a great nation, and to be
a peculiar people. The next question will be: If God favours that
family, will he do unjust things to help them?--will he let them do
unjust things to help themselves? The Bible answers positively, No.
God will not be unjust or arbitrary in choosing one man and
rejecting another. If he chooses Jacob, it is because Jacob is fit
for the work which God wants done. If he rejects Esau, it is
because Esau is not fit.
It is natural, I know, to pity poor Esau; but one has no right to do
more. One has no right to fancy for a moment that God was arbitrary
or hard upon him. Esau is not the sort of man to be the father of a
great nation, or of anything else great. Greedy, passionate,
reckless people like him, without due feeling of religion or of the
unseen world, are not the men to govern the world, or help it
forward, or be of use to mankind, or train up their families in
justice and wisdom and piety. If there had been no people in the
world but people like Esau, we should be savages at this day,
without religion or civilization of any kind. They are of the
earth, earthy; dust they are, and unto dust they will return. It is
men like Jacob whom God chooses--men who have a feeling of religion
and the unseen world; men who can look forward, and live by faith,
and form plans for the future--and carry them out too, against
disappointment and difficulty, till they succeed.
Look at one side of Jacob's character--his perseverance. He serves
seven years for Rachel, because he loves her. Then when he is
cheated, and Leah given him instead, he serves seven years more for
Rachel--'and they seemed to him a short time, for the love he bore
to her;' and then he serves seven years more for the flocks and
herds. A slave, or little better than a slave, of his own free
will, for one-and-twenty years, to get what he wanted. Those are
the men whom God uses, and whom God prospers. Men with deep hearts
and strong wills, who set their minds on something which they cannot
see, and work steadfastly for it, till they get it; for God gives it
to them in good time--when patience has had her perfect work upon
their characters, and made them fit for success.
Esau, we find, got some blessing--the sort of blessing he was fit
for. He loved his father, and he was rewarded. 'And Isaac his
father answered and said unto him, Behold, thy dwelling shall be the
fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above; and by
thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall
come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt
break his yoke from off thy neck.'
He was a brave, generous-hearted man, in spite of his faults. He
was to live the free hunter's life which he loved; and we find that
he soon became the head of a wild powerful tribe, and his sons after
him. Dukes of Edom they were called for several generations; but
they never rose to any solid and lasting power; they never became a
great nation, as Jacob's children did. They were just what one
would expect--wild, unruly, violent people. They have long since
perished utterly off the face of the earth.
And what did Jacob get, who so meanly bought the birthright, and
cheated his father out of the blessing? Trouble in the flesh;
vanity and vexation of spirit. He had to flee from his father's
house; never to see his mother again; to wander over the deserts to
kinsmen who cheated him as he had cheated others; to serve Laban for
twenty-one years; to crouch miserably in fear and trembling, as a
petitioner for his life before Esau whom he had wronged, and to be
made more ashamed than ever, by finding that generous Esau had
forgiven and forgotten all. Then to see his daughter brought to
shame, his sons murderers, plotting against their own brother, his
favourite son; to see his grey hairs going down with sorrow to the
grave; to confess to Pharaoh, after one hundred and twenty years of
life, that few and evil had been the days of his pilgrimage.
Then did his faith in God win no reward? Not so. That was his
reward, to be chastened and punished, till his meanness was purged
out of him. He had taken God for his guide; and God did guide him
accordingly; though along a very different path from what he
expected. God accepted his faith, delivered his soul, gave him rest
and peace at last in his old age in Egypt, let him find his son
Joseph again in power and honour: but all along God punished his
own inventions--as he will punish yours and mine, my friends, all
the while that he may be accepting our faith and delivering our
souls, because we trust in him. So God rewarded Jacob by giving him
more light: by not leaving him to himself, and his own darkness and
meanness, but opening his eyes to understand the wondrous things of
God's law, and showing him how God's law is everlasting, righteous,
not to be escaped by any man; how every action brings forth its
appointed fruit; how those who sow the wind will reap the whirlwind.
Jacob's first notion was like the notion of the heathen in all
times, 'My God has a special favour for me, therefore I may do what
I like. He will prosper me in doing wrong; he will help me to cheat
my father.' But God showed him that that was just not what he would
do for him. He would help and protect him; but only while he was
doing RIGHT. God would not alter his moral laws for him or any man.
God would be just and righteous; and Jacob must be so likewise, till
he learnt to trust not merely in a God who happened to have a
special favour to him, but in the righteous God who loves justice,
and wishes to make men righteous even as he is righteous, and will
make them righteous, if they trust in him.
That was the reward of Jacob's faith--the best reward which any man
can have. He was taught to know God, whom truly to know is
everlasting life. And this, it seems to me, is the great revelation
concerning God which we learn from the history of Jacob and Esau.
That God, how much soever favour he may show to certain persons, is
still, essentially and always, a just God.
And now, my friends, if any of you are tempted to follow Jacob's
example, take warning betimes. You will be tempted. There are men
among you--there are in every congregation--who are, like Jacob,
sober, industrious, careful, prudent men, and fairly religious too;
men who have the good sense to see that Solomon's proverbs are true,
and that the way to wealth and prosperity is to fear God, and keep
his commandments.
May you prosper; may God's blessing be upon your labour; may you
succeed in life, and see your children well settled and thriving
round you, and go down to the grave in peace.
But never forget, my good friends, that you will be tempted as Jacob
was--to be dishonest. I cannot tell why; but professedly religious
men, in all countries, in all religions, are, and always have been,
tempted in that way--to be mean and cunning and false at times. It
is so, and there is no denying it: when all other sins are shut out
from them by their religious profession, and their care for their
own character, and their fear of hell, the sin of lying, for some
strange reason, is left open to them; and to it they are tempted to
give way. For God's sake--for the sake of Christ, who was full of
grace and truth--for your own sakes--struggle against that. Unless
you wish to say at last with poor old Jacob, 'Few and evil have been
the days of my pilgrimage;' struggle against that. If you fear God
and believe that he is with you, God will prosper your plans and
labour; but never make that an excuse for saying in your hearts,
like Jacob, 'God intends that I should have these good things;
therefore I may take them for myself by unfair means.' The
birthright is yours. It is you, the steady, prudent, God-fearing
ones, who will prosper on the earth, and not poor wild, hot-headed
Esau. But do not make that an excuse for robbing and cheating Esau,
because he is not as thoughtful as you are. The Lord made him as
well as you; and died for him as well as for you; and wills his
salvation as well as yours; and if you cheat him the Lord will
avenge him speedily. If you give way to meanness, covetousness,
falsehood, as Jacob did, you will rue it; the Lord will enter into
judgment with you quickly, and all the more quickly because he loves
you. Because there is some right in you--because you are on the
whole on the right road--the Lord will visit you with disappointment
and affliction, and make your own sins your punishment.
If you deceive other people, other people shall deceive you, as they
did Jacob. If you lay traps, you shall fall into them yourselves,
as Jacob did. If you fancy that because you trust in God, God will
overlook any sin in you, as Jacob did, you shall see, as Jacob did,
that your sin shall surely find you out. The Lord will be more
sharp and severe with you than with Esau. And why? Because he has
given you more, and requires more of you; and therefore he will
chastise you, and sift you like wheat, till he has parted the wheat
from the tares. The wheat is your faith, your belief that if you
trust in God he will prosper you, body and soul. That is God's good
seed, which he has sown in you. The tares are your fancies that you
may do wrong and mean things to help yourselves, because God has an
especial favour for you. That is the devil's sowing, which God will
burn out of you by the fire of affliction, as he did out of Jacob,
and keep your faith safe, as good seed in his garner, for the use of
your children after you, that you may teach them to walk in God's
commandments and serve him in spirit and in truth. For God is a God
of truth, and no liar shall stand in his sight, let him be never so
religious; he requires truth in the inward parts, and truth he will
have; and whom he loves he will chasten, as he chastened Jacob of
old, till he has made him understand that honesty is the best
policy; and that whatever false prophets may tell you, there is not
one law for the believer and another for the unbeliever; but
whatsoever a man sows, that shall he reap, and receive the due
reward of the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or evil.