Hebrews - The Faith Lives of Isaac, Esau and Jacob

Hebrews 11. We come now to verse 20: "By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come." In verse 21 we have Jacob. So we have Isaac, Esau, and Jacob—three interesting men. "By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff."

1 Corinthians 2:14 through 3:1 tells us that there are three kinds of people in the world. There are the natural, unsaved people; there are the spiritual; and there are the carnal. The carnal are the saved people who don't live like saved people.

"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ."

In Isaac you have the the spiritual man, in Jacob you have the carnal man, and in Esau you have the natural man. Esau was not a believer in the covenant. He lived for his body and not for his soul. He despised his birthright; he despised the things that were spiritual. "Give me food lest I die. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die." And he lived for himself and not for others.

And he lived for time and not for eternity; he lived for the immediate and not for the permanent. And the tragedy came when afterward he wanted things to change and they couldn't change. Afterward he found out that the decisions he had made were going to stay, and he failed of the grace of God. Again, God's grace doesn't fail, but he failed of the grace of God; he did not use the opportunities God gave to him.

Quite frankly, I suppose we would have rather had Esau as a neighbor than Jacob. You were never quite sure what Jacob was thinking. Esau was open and interesting, a hunter, an outdoorsman. But Jacob was sort of quiet and meditative and a schemer. You never quite knew what Jacob was up to. But the key issue here is not personality or skill; the key issue is faith.

Here we have Isaac, the spiritually minded person, blessing Jacob and Esau. I fear that when this happened, Isaac was not as close to God as he should have been. Isaac was going to bless Esau, you remember, and Isaac knew better. Before those boys were born, God had said that the elder was going to serve the younger. Well, Jacob was the younger of the two.

You've noticed, I'm sure, throughout your Bible that God rejects the firstborn and chooses the second born. God rejected the firstborn in Egypt; the firstborn died. God rejected Abraham's firstborn, Ishmael, and chose Isaac. He rejected Isaac's firstborn, Esau, and chose Jacob. And he rejects my first birth; my first birth does not stand before God. I have to be born again; I have to experience a second birth. And the key issue here is faith.

Let's look at Isaac now as the spiritual man. Isaac is a picture of the believer. We're told in Galatians 4:28: "Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise." And so Isaac is a picture of the believer. Isaac was born miraculously. It was not a virgin birth; that was reserved for our Lord Jesus Christ, but it was a miraculous birth by the resurrection power of God. Abraham was too dead and Sarah was too dead to be able to have children, and yet God performed a miracle and Isaac was born.

In the death of my old nature, I could do nothing to please God. I was dead in trespasses and sins, but I trusted Christ as my Savior and new life was born within me. I was given a new nature, born anew into the family of God. And so like Isaac, I have a miraculous birth—born from heaven, born from above.

The name Isaac means joy, and of course our birth from above does bring joy. Isaac means laughter and he brought great joy to the family of Sarah and Abraham. And there ought to be joy in the Christian life.

We read that Isaac grew, he matured, and they weaned him away from his childish things. You know, you and I as Christians need to grow and be weaned away from things that are not good for us, and even from the things that are childish. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13 and said: "When I became a man, I put away childish things."

Ishmael persecuted Isaac. We read this in Genesis 21:9. Here's the conflict of the old nature and the new nature. Ishmael did not create any problems until Isaac came along. My old nature was getting along real well with me until my new nature came along when I was born again, and then there was trouble. Well, Isaac became the heir. He was born rich. Ishmael was born poor. My old nature was born poor, my old nature was born into slavery, but the new nature is born rich and born into liberty.

The interesting thing is this: Isaac did not have the exciting life that Abraham had. Most people are not like Abraham. Most of us are not great pioneers of faith like Abraham, but God needs all kind. Isaac did his job, Isaac fulfilled his purpose, just as much as Abraham did.

Isaac didn't have as exciting a life as Jacob did. Isaac was the son of a famous father and the father of a famous son; he was sandwiched between greatness and for that reason he's sort of looked down upon. But you know, most people today are garden-variety Christians who just live everyday faithful lives. They aren't going to have their names on the front pages of the magazines. But he was a man of faith.

And you know, the key to Isaac's life was the fact that he put himself on the altar. Isaac was willing to be a living sacrifice. That's what God wants us to be. Oh, it's a marvelous thing to be born miraculously from above and to bring laughter and joy into our lives, and to grow and to inherit the wealth that God has for us in Christ.

These are all very wonderful, but have we come to the place like Isaac where we put ourselves on the altar? "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice," not a dead sacrifice, a living sacrifice, "holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service," your spiritual worship.

I note something else about Isaac: he let God choose his bride for him. You see, when he got up from that altar, he was God's man. He may not have been an exciting person, he made some mistakes, he did some things he shouldn't do, he lived a rather ordinary life, God blessed him abundantly; but Isaac was a living sacrifice and he let God direct in his life. He let God choose his bride for him because he was a living sacrifice.

Something else about Isaac is interesting: he always left wells behind. You find Isaac is the well-digger. Now Abraham did too, and Isaac reopened those old wells that had been filled up. Every new generation of faith has to come along and reopen some of the old wells that get choked up, and let that living water flow out to be a blessing to others.

Now he blessed Jacob. Jacob would not be an easy person to bless. But you see, this was the patriarchal blessing. Abraham had blessed Isaac and conferred upon him the covenant blessings from God. Now Isaac is supposed to bless Jacob. You'll remember that before the boys were born, he was told this. He was going to bless Esau. Jacob and his mother heard about this and they tricked Isaac. Isaac was blind, and Isaac was so easy to trick in his old age. God ruled and overruled in all of this.

I don't think that Jacob should have schemed and tricked like he did. I'm sure Isaac should not have tried to give the blessing to Esau. We had a divided home here. Isaac was partial to Esau; he liked to eat the food. I wonder if in his older years Isaac had gotten just a little bit carnal. If perhaps he was more interested in food than he was in doing the will of God. Maybe not, I don't want to judge him. But I do know this: that God ruled and overruled so that Isaac had to bless Jacob.

Now he did give a blessing to Esau, but it was a material blessing; it was not the covenant blessing. Esau did not receive the very special covenant blessings that God had for Jacob. And you today and I today need to go out and be a blessing. "By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come."

In other words, he said, "Here is what God is going to do in the future." And when he put his hands upon Jacob and blessed Jacob, he imparted to him the kind of blessing that would last forever.

Here in Hebrews 11 we have four generations of faith: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. What a marvelous thing this is. You know, so often a mother and father who are godly will have sons and daughters who are not quite so godly, and then that third generation comes along and they're just plain worldly. And though that's such a heartache. Isaac was a blessing to his family.

Now I'm not saying Isaac didn't make mistakes; we all do. But you see, Isaac was able to involve his family in future blessings because he himself had the blessing and was faithful to the Lord.

If there's one message I would give from Hebrews 11:20, it would simply be this: as fathers in the home, as the spiritual leaders in the home, let's be sure we can bless our children. Let's not work so hard for material things, thinking that we're going to be a big help to them—it might ruin them.

The greatest thing we can do for our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren, is to be godly people who can pass along the blessing of the Lord the way Isaac did, that others might be able to share that blessing down through the years.

Let's look now at these two pictures of this great man of faith: Jacob the pilgrim, leaning on his staff. "By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff." That staff was the symbol of his life.

You see, with Abraham it was the tent and the altar. Wherever you go in Genesis where Abraham has been, you'll find the tent and the altar. The altar spoke of his worship of God, the tent his walk with God. The altar, the permanent things of eternity; the tent, the temporary things of time. Abraham, the tent and the altar.

Isaac, the wells. Isaac was the well-digger who dug new wells and also opened up the old wells that his father had dug. You know, it's a wonderful thing when a generation of Christians, a new generation, can open up the old wells and discover there was something good in the good old days.

Now with Jacob, it's not the tent or the altar or the wells; it's the staff. When Jacob crossed over the river on his pilgrimage, it was his staff that was with him. And that staff was for him protection and support and the mark of the pilgrim. In Genesis 32:10, when God met with Jacob in a very real way and wrestled with him, Jacob said this: "I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands."

In other words, years before when he had run away from home, all Jacob had was his staff. He came to Bethel and God met him there and promised to be with him. Jacob went and lived with Laban those many years, got himself two wives and a family and flocks and herds—became so wealthy he had to divide it up into two bands.

Now he's about to meet Esau, and God wrestles with Jacob to prepare him to meet Esau, to straighten out the mess that he had made many years before. God had blessed him. That staff was a reminder that God had blessed him. And that staff was a reminder that God had broken him.

That night when God wrestled, when the Lord Jesus Christ wrestled with Jacob, you remember he touched his thigh there in Genesis 32, and Jacob came back limping. Verse 31: "The sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh." That staff was a reminder that not only God had blessed him, but God had broken him. And you know, Jacob never really came into the place of full blessing until he let God break him.

The trouble with some of us is that we walk too straight; we don't know how to bow down. God had to remind Jacob, "Jacob, you've been a manipulator all of your life. You've been in control. Now you are out of control. You are going to become a new man, and to remind you of it, I'm going to give you a limp." And every time you start to walk, you're going to remember: God had better run my life; I do not have the strength to do it myself.

I have said before, and I will probably say it many times again: the worst thing God could allow in my life would be to let me have my own way—unless, of course, my way is God's way. So many Christians want to have their own way and you're going to run your own life. Well, you better be careful; God may have to give you a limp. God may have to show you how weak you are.

And so that staff was a reminder to Jacob he was a broken man and a blessed man, and that God had brought him through all of his trials.

In Genesis 48, when he is making his farewell, Jacob says in verses 15 and 16: "And he blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth."

Here he was saying farewell and blessing these two sons of Joseph, and he's reminding them that God had brought him through. "God fed me." That means he shepherded me. He shepherded me. Isn't it good to have a shepherd? "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." He kept me from evil. That word evil means ruin. God didn't let me make a mess of my life.

Now if he had left Jacob to his own decisions, Jacob would have made a mess out of his life, and so will I, and so will you. But God shepherded him and guided him and protected him and ruled and overruled. And you know, Jacob was a pilgrim to the very end. When he got to the end of life, when he's about to die, you know what he's doing? He's leaning on his staff. You know why? He was a pilgrim. You die the way you lived. "These all died in faith," says Hebrews 11:13.

And so he died leaning upon his staff. Whatever you're leaning on in life, you will lean on in death. You're leaning on your bank account? It'll fail you in death. You're leaning on alcohol? You're leaning on the things of this world? They will fail you in death. But if you're leaning on the Lord Jesus Christ, he won't fail you. "Thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." What are you going to lean on when you come to the hour of death? When you lean on the Lord Jesus Christ, it means life.

Jacob the pilgrim, leaning on his staff. Now, you remember that God gave to Jacob a new name. He said, "Your name from now on is not going to be Jacob, the supplanter, the schemer, the manipulator; it's going to be Israel, the prince." And so we see Israel the prince blessing his grandsons. You know, it's a blessed thing to have a new name. A new name means a new nature.

Throughout the Bible, God gave new names to people. He said Abram is going to be Abraham; Sarai is going to be Sarah; Cephas is going to be Peter; and Jacob the schemer is going to be Israel the prince with God. Some scholars maintain that the name Israel in the Hebrew means a God-controlled one—under authority. You see, when you scheme and manipulate and try to run things yourself, you are in control. But when you surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ, he is in control.

God had to break him in order to make him. God had to give him a limp in order to get him to walk straight. God had to get him to lean on that staff before he could give him the power to accomplish great things for the Lord. Oh, you may feel that God's breaking you—don't be afraid. He knows just what he's doing and he will make you. You see, God had to break Jacob in order to make him Israel. God had to break him to make him a blessing.

In the Word of God, anything that blesses is broken. The bread was broken to feed the five thousand. Mary broke that vessel to pour out her loving worship of the Lord Jesus—that ointment that was so precious. Whatever is a blessing has to be broken. The body of the Lord Jesus Christ was given for us. And you and I have to be broken if we're going to be a blessing.

Well, the two boys were standing before him, and it's interesting when you read the record in Genesis: he—Jacob crossed his arms and he put his—his right hand on the second born and his left hand on the firstborn. He was reversing the birth again. Joseph tried to stop him, but he said, "No, leave it this way."

Throughout the Word of God, God rejects the firstbirth, chooses the second birth. And this is what Jacob did. And so it is that when he blessed them, he shared the covenant blessings with these boys. He was adopting them into the family so that Ephraim and Manasseh became a part of the tribes of Israel.

It's rather interesting when you read Genesis 49 to find out what Jacob said to his sons. In verses 3 and 4, he said, "Reuben, thou art my firstborn... unstable as water, thou shalt not excel," because Reuben had gone up into his father's bed and had done something he shouldn't do. He'd been very lustful and wicked.

Reuben was the firstborn and he lost the blessings and the privileges of the firstborn. In verses 5, 6, and 7, Simeon was also rejected. And so he made Joseph the firstborn and adopted Joseph's sons. It's a remarkable thing. He says, "I'm going to give all this blessing that should have gone to Reuben to Joseph's sons. I'm going to make them a part of the tribe of Israel."

So we have Ephraim and Manasseh, the tribes of Israel. It's interesting how that he made Ephraim the firstborn when Manasseh was really the firstborn, because God rejects the first birth and he blesses in the second birth. I trust you don't think I'm being too fanciful here, but you remember that Jacob crossed his arms, he crossed his hands when he blessed the boys. There's a cross there. The cross erases my first birth and makes possible my second birth. My first birth need not be a handicap if I've experienced the second birth.

Jacob the pilgrim, Israel the prince with God, he leaned upon the staff and he shared his blessing with the boys. He was a man who learned how to limp, he was a man who learned how to lean, he was a man who learned how to be a blessing to others. May the Lord help us to be good pilgrims and good princes as we seek to be a blessing to others.