Month: August 2022

Genesis 28:18-19 And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it. And he called the name of that place Beth-el: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.

The Lord appeared to Jacob in a dream, repeated the Covenant of Abraham for him, and added that He would be with him. Jacob’s response was to believe the promise and worship the Lord. And a part of his response was to set up a stone pillar as a shrine, anointing it, and calling it Beth-el (house of God).

It was (mistakenly) believed that certain spots of land were ”portals” into the spiritual world. At that place the invisible, heavenly God met the earthly man. To Jacob, this was a holy place. He set up a shrine for worship to remember with thanksgiving the time and place where God met him. It marked the Presence of God.

Shrines become tabernacles; tabernacle becomes a temple; the temple becomes the man Jesus; Jesus becomes the church, the body of Christ; and the body of the individual believer becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit, the very presence of the living God on earth. ”The day will come when true worshipers will worship in spirit and truth,” anywhere, not in any particular holy place.

God appears to us today in the Gospel and the Sacraments. The Gospel makes a time and a place holy ground, wherever two or three gather in Jesus’ name. We may remember a time and place where God met us. Wherever the Lord meets us with His Word of Grace and Promise becomes a shrine, a temple, a holy place, a church. And it is the preaching of the Gospel that makes Sunday a holy day and the church building a holy place. And so we respond to God’s meeting us in the Gospel by “setting up a pillar.” Meaning: support the church for the sake of the Gospel.

Genesis 28:17 And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

The Lord appeared to Jacob in a dream of a ladder reaching into heaven. In this appearance the Lord reaffirmed to Jacob the same Promises of the covenant He had made with Abraham and Isaac, with the addition that He would be with him. Jacob’s first response to the Presence of God was fear. He experienced the awesome glory of the Holiness of the Lord, along with the overwhelming Love of God in meeting him and giving promises to him.

The place where he had lain down to sleep must be dreadful. Dreadful because the holiness of God touched the sinful world. Jacob was afraid because he instinctively became aware of his sin, guilt, and judgment. The Law had done a work in him. It was also dreadful in the positive and powerful sense of awe and majesty, for the Lord’s covenant was full of love and promise. The Gospel had done its work in him.

Jacob’s fear turned into humble worship of God and reverent thanksgiving. ”This place must be the house of God (Beth-El).” It was the meeting-place of God and man. Jesus told Nathanael, ”You will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man [John 1:51].” Jesus is the Bethel, the meeting-place, of God and man. Every time we hear the Gospel, with the Law, we see heaven opened, and that “dreadful” experience strikes us with fear and love. Our response: Worship!

Genesis 27:41 And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob.

Jacob had deceived his father Isaac into giving him the greater blessing meant for Esau. This was a sin, but now it is what it is. In Esau’s eyes, God had shown favor to his brother. This is what mostly made him hate his brother, though also he hated him for his deceit and trickery. This reaction is very similar to the incident with Cain and his brother Abel: God favored and blessed one and left the other out; hatred began to simmer; such bitter resentment led to murder, or, at least in Esau’s case, the intention to murder. In both cases there was certainly some resentment toward God, for there always is (“Why? I don’t deserve this.”).

The sin is the same for both Esau and Cain: murder in the heart, ”Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer [1 John 3:15].” And Matthew 5:22: ”Everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.” The meaning of the Commandment is this: hatred in the heart = murder. Esau is just as guilty of murder as Cain, even though he couldn’t carry it out, for Jacob fled.

The anger response is a warning to us. First, see it as murder. Second, repent and receive forgiveness instantly and constantly. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath. Anger/murder is a problem for all of us, but we have the Lord in us to lead us to repentance and faith. Cain and Esau were both exiled from God, as wanderers. Both could have stopped the consequences, but unfortunately did not.

Genesis 26:7 And the men of the place asked him of his wife; and he said, She is my sister, for he feared to say, She is my wife; lest, said he, the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah, because she was fair to look upon.

Like father, like son. In a similar circumstance, Isaac repeats the unbelief of his father Abraham some years ago. Isaac was in Gerar because of famine, and he was afraid of the men of the place, that they would kill him in order take his beautiful wife. Like Sarah, Rebekah was put in jeopardy, but more importantly, the Covenant Promise of God was put in jeopardy. Isaac wavered in unbelief. He lied to save his own skin. If he had fully believed God would keep His promise, he wouldn’t have had to resort to sin. But he doubted.

Isaac was a solid and true believer, for the Bible mentions the ”Fear of Isaac,” which means his faith in God. Hebrews lists Isaac among the heroes of faith [11:20]. Yet in this fearful situation he lied and sinned in doubt and unbelief. He feared (was afraid of) man more than he feared (believed) God. Jesus says, ”Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, rather fear Him.” He did not fear, love, and trust in God above things.

If this could happen to Abraham and Isaac, the heroes of faith, it can happen to us. We also believe and are saved, no doubt about it; yet fear of man, sin, doubt and unbelief remains. We confess, ”I believe; help my unbelief.” Proper fear of God overcomes and replaces fear of man. Though we waver when push comes to shove, the Lord will work us through the doubts and we emerge stronger. This is because God is good, loves us, and is faithful to His promise.

Because God is faithful, He blessed Isaac and made him very wealthy, so much so that the Philistines sent him back to his land, where he belonged. Though we fail, Jesus never fails.

Genesis 26:5 Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statues, and my laws.

The Lord had just repeated to Isaac the same Promises of the Covenant that He made with Abraham, his father. God promised Isaac seed, land, and blessing. Just like Abraham ”believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness,” so Isaac was given the same heart to receive the Covenant, believe it and obey it.

Abraham did not cause God to make a covenant promise to him because he was obedient. Rather, Abraham obeyed and kept the charge because God called him and promised. The order is important for us: we love Him because He first loved us. The order is not: God loved us because we were good and deserved His grace and blessing. Grace is first; then faith receives the free gift; and then we respond with obedience and good works. God acts in Christ to reconcile the world to Himself; the Holy Spirit creates faith in the heart through the Gospel; the Spirit in the believer moves him or her out of faith to obey.

The faith in the promise of this gospel message stirred Abraham, and Isaac, and us, to obey and keep God’s Word. Why did God choose Abraham and Isaac to bring the “Blessing to all the nations of the earth?” Just grace. Why did God choose me to believe and be saved? Just grace. How I respond to that? With the obedience of faith.

Genesis 25:33, 34 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.

Esau responded to the Lord’s wonderful promises by trading his birthright for a mess of pottage. In doing so the Word says that he despised his birthright. Esau was, by a few seconds, the firstborn, and by primogeniture rights would receive the lion’s share of the inheritance and the major blessing from his father Isaac. But that was a long way off; right now he was hungry and and wanted to satisfy the present desires of the flesh.

The issue, however, is not that he disregarded the earthly inheritance of riches, which may come in the future. The real problem, the sin, is that he regarded the covenant promise of God as trivial and unimportant. Esau could have been, maybe should have been, the father of the Promised Seed, the Savior of the world. The Sin: he did not believe, or else he just ignored God and His Word. He did not “see” the invisible God or the future promise; he could see only the red lentil soup. He rejected God. He was like Eve in the garden, who saw the tree and didn’t believe God.

It is also a severe, and frequent, temptation for us to exchange long-range happiness for a momentary thrill. Many sins come from seeing the earthly moment instead of believing the heavenly promise. For instance, it seems a trivial thing to miss going to church, but God says, ”Do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.” Other Commandments have the same ”feeling only the present moment versus believing the eternal promise” temptation.

The lesson is obvious: believe the promise even if you don’t see it now. ”Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Genesis 25:21, 22 And Isaac intreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren: and the Lord was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the Lord.

Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife to conceive and have a child. This was not an ordinary barrenness, for the Covenant Promise of God was at stake. Isaac responded in faith to the promise of the Lord. Because Isaac believed God’s promise had to be fulfilled, he could pray in faith according to His will. God knows what He promised and what Isaac needs even before he prays. He would certainly grant a son, but He wants Isaac to be involved in the carrying out of His will. So He tests and strengthens Isaac’s faith relationship with Him. Isaac responds with believing prayer.

In this way our Lord tries and strengthens our faith at times by allowing us to wait in faith and leading us to talk to Him and deepen our relationship. He already has the answer in hand; He is just waiting for us to ask. The Lord responds in His time and way to our prayer and to His own word. And along the way we are drawn closer to Him.

Rebekah also had the faith to talk to God. She prayed; she asked ”Why?” The Bible never says we should not ask Why. It is the challenging attitude and defiant spirit with which we question God that is forbidden. The Lord doesn’t mind an honest conversation about why things happen, but He doesn’t guarantee He can give you an answer you can understand. In this case, He answered her inquiry: the struggle of the twin fetuses is a foreshadowing of two nations in strife. Rebekah got her answer, but it was not a comfort for her. Nonetheless, the Father commands us to ask and pray and promises to listen. So we pray, ”Thy will be done.”

Genesis 24:58 And they called Rebekah, and said unto her, Wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go.

Abraham’s servant, Laban, and Bethuel were all convinced of God’s will, that God had guided this thing. But one more person had to be convinced by the Spirit of God, and that was Rebekah herself. She responded in faith and obedience. She also saw the hand of God and was convinced that God was in this thing. The Lord can do amazing things and even move heaven and earth to get His will done on earth, but a believing response is still required on the part of humans.

The Lord initiates, plans, and carries out His good and gracious will for salvation, but He still needs us to respond in willing submission to His will. The Lord must with signs, wonders, and overwhelming love bring us to faith. Then, out of faith, with the Spirit’s working in us ”to will and to do of his good pleasure” we respond in willing obedience.

This is a difficult work for God to do, because our human will is by nature stubborn, selfish, resistant, and opposed to God. God gives us free will, but the only thing our will can do is resist God and reject His will. He overcomes our resistant will by the hearing of the gospel and the revealing of the overwhelming love of God in the Cross and the Empty Tomb. The Word and the Spirit create faith to make us willingly obedient. After receiving such great love we say, “I will go.” If Rebekah could be made willing to leave her familiar home to go with a stranger to marry an unknown man in an unknown land and an unknown future, then the Spirit can make us willing to go with Jesus wherever He should lead us.

Genesis 24:52 And it came pass, that, when Abraham’s servant heard their words, he worshiped the Lord, bowing himself to the earth.

The Lord had granted success to the mission of the servant sent by Abraham. It was clear to everyone, including the servant and Rebekah’s family, that God’s miraculous providence and guidance was behind these events. Laban and Bethuel gave their consent to let Rebekah go. The servant’s response was to worship the Lord. He knew that the Lord did a real work in this case by answering his prayer and accomplishing His will.

God had given the servant the faith to pray to the Lord and trust Him to answer. The unseen God responded by intervening in human affairs to get His will done. He moved the servant to pray according to God’s will. What God begins He will finish. The believer knows God’s will, prays it, believes it, and sees God at work to answer the prayer. Faith sees the unseen working of God. Worship and thanks during all the hours of life is the expected response to the awareness of the goodness of God.

We do not worship to be noticed by God or to move Him to be good. We do worship in response to what God has already done for us and our salvation. Worship comes from a heart that has been blessed by the person and work of Jesus Christ. The Christian life is one of continual worship and thanks, for God is always good.

Genesis 24:50 Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, The thing proceedeth from the Lord: we cannot speak unto thee bad or good.

We don’t really know whether Laban (Abraham’s nephew and Rebekah’s brother) or Bethuel (Abraham’s brother and Rebekah’s father) actually believed in the God of Abraham or not. The suspicion is that they did not believe as Abraham believed. Either way, after they heard the servant recount the whole story of how the angel of the Lord was with him and how God guided the whole process, the two of them acknowledged that ”this thing has come from the Lord.”

It was quite evident for all to see that this was a ”God Thing,” a God sighting, as it were. They were not joyfully excited, praising and thanking God, because of the Lord showing up in their lives, but they did have to admit ”God is here.” They did not say bad or good about it, that is, they were not particularly moved either for or against God or His request. But they had to agree to the truth: God did something! Thus they were willing to let Rebekah go. (Note: they also saw the rich gifts the servant brought for them.)

The Lord God is alive, active, and present in our lives as well, very often leaving leaving tokens and giving evidence of His presence and guidance. Any God sighting leaves room for doubt, chalking it up to coincidence or happenstance or luck, but it also leaves room for faith, seeing God in the thing. With the eyes of faith and the attitude of thanksgiving, we respond by confessing: ”This thing has come from the Lord! Praise You, Jesus!”