When we looked at ch.27 we noted that blessing was very much the subject. Isaac wanted to pass on his blessings, Jacob did what he could encouraged by his mother to deceive his father and steal away the blessing Isaac wanted to bestow upon Esau, and Esau was beside himself as his father's blessing escaped him.

The whole of ch.27 was one long story of intrigue and deception – how very sordid it all was!

Now as ch.28 opens the subject is once more of blessing - 5 times in the opening 6 verses! – but the atmosphere is now different. The consequences of the sins of chapter 27 have still to be faced and yes Rebekah has still been scheming away but there is nevertheless radical change described in ch.28. What has brought about this change and what can we learn from it all?

The Setting of the Scene

Esau is breathing threats of murder – he wants to do away with his younger brother who has dealt deceitfully with him. Believing Isaac to be near death he bides his time – soon he plans to strike.

Rebekah is made aware of his plans and having been partially responsible for getting Jacob into this mess now seeks a means of getting him away to safety.

In her previous scheming Rebekah hadn't sought the LORD. And yet she had been "successful". So once again she makes no effort to turn to the LORD but resorts to her plans and to her schemes, to her deceptions and to her half-truths.

"Success" – wrought no benefits for Rebekah. She has got what she wanted but is about to lose her favourite son, never to see him again. She wanders further from the LORD as wrongful patterns of behaviour get a firmer grip of her life.

Yes, the LORD sovereignly advances His own plans and purposes using even human duplicity to further His ends but that must in no way encourage His people to continue in sin that grace may abound!

Jonah when running away from the LORD, refusing to go where he was sent, had "success" – he found a boat just ready to sail away in the opposite direction – there was even a berth available to him. He slept soundly on that boat as he disobeyed the LORD. At least he did for a while…

The NT too speaks eloquently of the dangers of pursuing the wrong kind of success, of evaluating success by the wrong set of criteria.

Lk.12 :16-21 "And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

Apparent success can actually be a total disaster!

Mk.8:36 "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?"

How does Rebekah proceed?

Well, she was open and honest with Jacob. She told him what the dangers were and she had a plan of escape ready. Jacob could go to her brother Laban up in Haran and take refuge there with him. She is frightened for Jacob's safety and urges him to flee!

With Isaac it's a different story. Rebekah doesn't mention the death threats at all. Maybe she has something of an uneasy conscience and doesn't want to give Isaac an opportunity of suggesting that she's brought all these troubles on herself!

So she says something which is true but not the real reason for her concerns to get Jacob away.

How easy it is to behave in this way – half-truths. A truth told in such a way as to conceal as much as it reveals.

Rebekah knew that Esau's choice of wives was not only a problem for her but also for her husband Isaac. So she complains to Isaac that her life will be unbearable if Jacob were to take a wife from amongst the local women. She is hoping that Isaac will send Jacob away to find a suitable wife and where else would he do that that from amongst her family clan far away in the north?

Isaac is a changed man

Well if "success" has hardly helped Rebekah it would seem as though "defeat" has proved to be a very salutary experience for Isaac! As we read about him in ch.28 he seems a totally different man.

Let's look at this more closely.

We noted last week that Isaac had planned to pass on his blessing to Esau and that this was something he should never have done. And we spent some time on how he was tricked out of doing so. As he discovered that he had been duped he had "trembled very violently".

How would he react to that experience?

Wouldn't it have been easy for him to be filled with bitterness and anger towards his deceitful son Jacob? Wouldn't it have been understandable if he reacted with hostility towards Jacob? Why should he help that little rat now that he'd got himself into hot water?

But as we read ch.28 we don't find anything of the sort! Isaac has been chastened by the whole experience. The blessing he'd tried to give to Esau had been granted to Jacob – as indeed the LORD had always intended it should be. Isaac knew that such a blessing could not now be recalled but he doesn't grudging accept that fact but brings himself fully into line with it!

Ch.28 opens with Isaac freely and knowingly blessing Jacob and with blessings that are if anything even more expansive than those pronounced in ch.27. We will come to this in a minute but first a question:

How do you react when your sin is exposed?

Do you react in bitterness and retreat into a defensive cocoon of self-justification? Isaac could so easily have done that. Many react like that today – "who are you to judge me?" is their attitude as they stagnate in defense of their wrongdoing. Do you react like that? How sad it is when men and women are found out in their sin and yet refuse to come clean!

It is part of the work of the Holy Spirit to convict of sin – to bring us to a realisation that all is not well with us and then to lead us to the Saviour who alone can deal effectively with the problem of our sin. To refuse this ministry of the Spirit is to cut ourselves off from Christ and to lead us into sterile byways and dead-ends.

I remember many years ago hearing of one lady who described her appreciation of her Minister, Al Martin, in this way: "I love Pastor Martin – he always shows me my sin." She wasn't a masochist who liked feeling bad but she was a lady who wanted to walk with God and knew that sin hindered that walk.

Isaac has been chastened by what has happened and he has been restored by it. We have to do with a much more spiritual Isaac in ch.28.

Yes, the consequences of sin linger on: Isaac has to send his son away – but he begins with blessing Jacob!

Here is no blessing that has been wrung from him by deceit and deception but Isaac now lines himself up willingly with the LORD God.

He blesses and directs his son as to what he must do. He sends him away to find a wife – Rebekah had told Jacob he must flee but Isaac sends him on a positive mission – he is to get a wife! Surely he remembered how his own father Abraham had taken such care to make sure that he, Isaac, didn't marry one of the local women doomed to destruction. Now he in turn counsels his son as to how he should proceed.

In vv.3-4 the terms of the blessing Isaac bestows on Jacob are spelt out.

First we should take note that Isaac invokes the name of "God Almighty" as he blesses Jacob. There is deep significance even in the use of this name. Back in 17:1 the LORD made Himself known to Abraham in this way when establishing the covenant of circumcision with him. So Isaac is deliberately lining up his blessing of Jacob with the blessing with which God had first blessed Abraham.

And just in case we might miss that Isaac is careful to invoke the same blessing as he speaks explicitly of the "blessing of Abraham".

This blessing that Isaac now passes on concerns:

- Fruitfulness and many descendants

- The ongoing blessing of Abraham – the promise of the seed of the woman

- Possession of the Land of Promise even as Jacob is being temporarily sent away from that land.

Encouragement

We should take heart from this change in the life of Isaac. Yes, he had taken some wrong decisions and made some wrong turns but he was not forever locked in by his rebellion and failure. Repentance and restoration were possible for him and so are for us.

If we take wrong turnings in our lives we are not forced to go on living outside of God's will and purposes. Yes, the mistakes left their trace upon family life but Isaac could be restored.

Have you made mistakes? Have you taken wrong-turnings? Do you sometimes think that somehow you've missed God's best? Consider Isaac and don't despair!

Yes, it would have been better for Isaac never to have lost his grip on what was right and to have focused upon the wrong things but he did and he was restored. The NT makes it plain that we too fall into sin, even as Christians, the way ahead is not to try to deny it, nor is it to try to ignore it all and certainly not to bitter about it being found out but rather to deal with it in the God appointed manner:

1Jn.1:8-10 "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."

Somehow through the trauma of failure and deception Isaac was disciplined and brought back to the LORD – and the LORD God is happy to be known as the God of Isaac v.13 – eight times in all 4 in the OT and four in the NT.

Esau is not fundamentally changed at all

The section we're looking at this evening ends with Esau and his wives. Bookends with 26:34.

He is still now trying to serve his own interests by his own efforts.

But his efforts always fail short. He has finally realised that his local Canaanite wives don't please his parents so he decides to take another wife. But he won't do it the way Abraham had sought a wife for Isaac nor the way Isaac is now doing it for Jacob. No, he'll take another wife nearby – but what a choice! A daughter of Ishmael.

How many folk try to do things like Esau! They do what they want and are careless about spiritual realities. They are then disappointed and surprised that God doesn't bless them. Surely that is what God owes them, isn't that what God is there for? And for these folk the Christian way is so narrow and so restrictive and so hard – surely God can bless me even if I choose to do things my way!

Listen in closing to our Lord's words in the Sermon on the Mount:

Mt.7:13-14 "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."

The narrow gate is repentance and the hard way is that of faith and trust in Christ alone. Will you go this way? There is no other way to heaven!