"Bless me, even me also, O my father."--_Genesis 27:34._
GOD had called Abraham from his home, and promised to give his children
the land of Canaan, and that in his Seed all the nations of the earth
should be blessed. This was renewing to Abraham the great promise of
the Seed of the woman that had been made to Eve; and Abraham believed,
and was glad. But though his children were to have the land, none of it
was his; and he went up and down in it a stranger, living in his tent,
without house or home, only trusting in faith to God's promise to his
children. His son Isaac lived like him, with no home, but looking on in
faith to what God promised.
Isaac had two sons; and as Esau was the eldest, he had the first right
to these promises. But Esau did not care enough about them; he did not
seem to get anything by them, and he liked what he could get at once
better than what was a long way off. He had no faith.
One day he came home half dead with hunger, and saw his brother Jacob
making soup over the fire. He said he would give all these rights for
a meal of the soup; for if he died of hunger, what good would his
birth-right do him? So for a mess of pottage he sold his right to the
land of Canaan, and to be the forefather of our Saviour.
A time was to come when he would be sorry for what he had done. His
father was old and blind, and thought he was going to die; so he bade
Esau, whom he loved the best, bring home some meat and make a solemn
feast--which was the way then of giving a blessing. Esau went, and in
time brought home the meat to his father; but when he came in, Isaac
cried out, and trembled! His brother Jacob had come in his stead, and
Isaac had taken him for Esau, and given to him the blessing that gave
the right to the promised land, and to all God's promises!
[Illustration: ISAAC BLESSING JACOB.--Gen. 27:28, 29.]
Then Esau cried out with an exceeding bitter cry, and asked if his
father had but one blessing! Isaac was grieved for him, and blest him
with all his heart; but there was no changing back, no taking away what
Jacob had won and Esau had lost.
Esau did not know what he was doing when he took the pottage at once,
rather than wait patiently for the glorious inheritance that was
to come. This was the reason that he was allowed to be so cruelly
disappointed. This is a warning to us. We have the inheritance of the
kingdom of heaven promised to us; but we are tempted not to care about
it when we want something here in this world, whether play, or dress,
or anything that seems a great deal to us now.
But if we trifle away our right to these great promises that God made
us at our baptism, there will come a time of bitter grief, when it
is too late. And when we are dead, it will be too late to change!
Therefore, now while we are alive, we must have faith, and show it by
taking care that the things we like here on earth do not make us lose
the better things in heaven.