The Patriarchal Blessing

Today on Renewing Your Mind.

When Abraham was giving his inheritance to his descendents Amir.

They had to be concerned about how many tents they got and how many cattle they got them all the rest of the thing. But the chief importance of Abraham's inheritance. In the book of Genesis is the question who inherits the blessing blessing was the one headed down from father to son. The blessing that at first come from God to Abraham and to Isaac blessing held the promise of a Redeemer, one who would bless every nation.

Welcome to Renewing Your Mind.

Today we continue Dr. RC Sproul series just boring in order to understand the coming of Christ. We need to go back to where it all began with history that is recorded for us in the book of Genesis is sometimes called the history of the patriarchs or the history of the patriarchal. Because the featured characters in this narrative include people like Noah and Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob, and so on. These are the leading characters throughout the history of Genesis now a patriarch in Old Testament days. As the name suggests, indicates a father who is a roller that is the authority in this environment and this system is invested in the father. We'd also known cultures that we call matriarchal where the ruling authority is vested in the mother when a queen is on the throne in a monarchy at that time the monarchy is matriarchal as it were, as opposed to patriarchal, but the term patriarch indicates more than the head of an individual household in the ancient Scriptures that patriarch. For example, Abraham was not only in a position of leadership and authority over his own immediate house, but also over his extended family, and as long as he was alive even after his sons were born and so on. He remained the patriarch of the wider family. In fact, it went beyond that to include headship over clans and over tribes. Remember that the ancient Hebrews before they were organized in the cities and so on were semi nomads.

They were tribal people moving about the middle east and the head of their tribe would be called a patriarch and now when we look at the Old Testament character of God before God reveals his name to Moses that his name is I am Yahweh.

The normal way in which God is identified is by the phrase, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob because those three men Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are the principal. Three men, through whom the patriarchal blessing is transmitted now.

We notice in our last session that God made this promise initially to Abraham the promise of a land nation of many descendents and of a blessing and that covenant promise was a promise that would then be carried on from generation to generation and in the customs of the day. The inheritance of a family would normally go to the firstborn son or the eldest son and that person would get the lion share of the inheritance. Now when Abraham was giving his inheritance to his descendents Amir.

They had to be concerned about how many tents they got and how many cattle they got them all the rest of that thing. But the chief importance of Abraham's inheritance.

In the book of Genesis is the question who inherits the blessing that is who inherits the covenant promise that God originally swore to Abraham and again, remember that in the New Testament, Abraham S is seen as the supreme patriarch because he is described as the father of the faithful so that in a very real sense, any person who is incorporated into the family of God is in a specific sense, a descendent of Abraham and air of this patriarchal blessing.

Now the book of Genesis is filled with intrigue and suspense and conflict about those who were seeking to possess the richness of this inheritance and we've already seen how that when Abraham sired a son is firstborn son was Ishmael. But it was not God's design that Ishmael would inherit the patriarchal blessing, and God insisted that that blessing be given to Isaac rather than Ishmael.

Again, as the apostle Paul elaborates in the New Testament. It is through the seed of Isaac, God's people would be called so that not everyone who was a direct descendent of Abraham was included in the blessing and to this day. If you pick up a newspaper and you read about conflict that is going on right now in Palestine between the Palestinians and the Israelis you will be reading about an ongoing hostility and conflict between the descendents of Ishmael and the descendents of Isaac, but God declared it is in Isaac that my seed shall be called and so the blessing then was given first to Abraham, then from Abraham to Isaac.

Now Isaac's wife has two sons who are twins and those two sons are Jacob and Esau and the first of those two sons that is born is Esau. So in terms of this whole schema of the transfer of the patriarchal blessing the person who is in line to the throne is at work. The person who is in line to inherit the blessing is Esau, not Jake. Recently I had the opportunity to hear a sermon preached by Ravi Zacharias and just in passing he made a brief almost footnote anecdote.

Referring back to an incident that took place in the life of Jacob, and it's the story that Genesis records about that moment when Jacob fleeing from the wrath of his enemies engages in a wrestling match with the angel of God, and I'll let's look at that briefly for second to see the dynamics that are taking place here. We read in Genesis chapter 32 beginning at verse 23, he took them and send them over the brook and sent over what he had and then Jacob was left alone and a man man is capitalized here because this is the theophany. This is a manifestation of God and then a man wrestled with him until the breaking of day when he saw that he did not prevail against him.

He touched the socket of his hip in the socket of Jacob's hip was out of joint. As he wrestled with them and he said let me go for the day breaks. That is the angel of the Lord was been wrestling with Jacob all night long calls out to Jacob and says let me go with this Jacobson I will not let you go until you bless me this all night contest this fierce agony of struggle between the representative of God, and Jacob is all about a struggle for the blessing of God, and Jacob is fighting with all that he has even to the point of being cripple when he saying I'm not going to let you go God until you bless me now, what is the angel/what is your name and he said Jacob I don't how many times in my life I've referred to that text to illustrate something that was significant in the Hebrew culture about the revealing of a person's name and I've always thought that the full significance of this passage was that when the angel asked Jacob his name.

He was asking Jacob to surrender by exposing his identity and exposing his name. It's like a child today in a wrestling match, where one says to the other say uncle and I'll let you go.

It was a statement of yielding to the authority and the superior strength of the angel. But I had completely forgotten. Another connection to this text until Ravi Zacharias reminded me of said this is not the first time in Jacob's life that he saw the blessing and that directs our attention back earlier to an episode of treachery of deception of dishonesty and of corruption that was so characteristic of the life of the patriarch Jacob in chapter 27 of the book of Genesis, Jacob schemes, together with his mother Rebecca to deceive the aged father Isaac into passing on the patriarchal blessing not to the older son Esau, but to give it to Jacob. So what's taking place.

Here is a conspiracy plot between mother and son to deceive father and husband. In a word, what Jacob and Rebecca are planning here is an attempt to steal the patriarchal blessing for Jacob rather than for Esau unless look at the text in chapter 27 verse one it came to pass, when Isaac was old and his eyes were so dim that he could not see that he called Esau his older son and said to him, my son and answered him here I am, they said, behold, I am old. I do not know the day of my death, therefore take your weapons your quiver in your bow go out to the field and hunt game for me and make me savory foods, such as I love and bring it to me, that I may eat that my soul may bless you before I die.

You see the picture Isaac now is not the young man bound by ropes and placed upon an altar looking up at the upraised knife of his father there at Mountain arrive now. Isaac himself is of advanced age and he knows that the moment of his death is near and so he says to his son Esau, who is paying for his skill as a hunter he said son go out in the field. Shoot me some game.

Prepare me this meal. My last meal as it were the kind of food that I savor from your hand. As I begin to prepare give you bless and in obedience.

Esau leaves the time of his father to go out in the fields to do his bidding. Listen to what happens now Rebecca was listening when Isaac spoke to Esau his son and when Esau went to the field to hunt game in the bring up a Rebecca spoke to Jacob saying. Indeed, I have heard your father speak to Esau. Your brother sign bring me game makes savory food for me that I may eat it and bless you in the presence of the Lord before my death. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice. Go to the flock. Bring me from there to choice kids the goats and I will make savory food from them for your father, such as he loves, and then you shall take it to your father that he may eat it. He may bless you. Before his death Jacob said the Rebecca look Esau my brothers a hairy man and I'm a smooth skinned man. Perhaps my father will feel me and I will seem to be a deceiver to him that will bring a curse upon myself rather than a blessing to see was going on. Jacobson's work and one father finds this out and he sees through the deceit. He's not gonna bless me he's going to curse me and then were all going to be in serious trouble.

His mother said let your curse be on me. My son only obey my voice and go do it. He went and got them and brought them to his mother and his mother made the savory food and then Rebecca took the choice close of her elder son Esau, which were with her in the house, put them on Jacob her younger son and then she put the skins of the kids of the goats on his hands on the smooth part of his neck and then she gave the savory food in the bread which she had prepared into the hand of her son Jacob. So Jacob goes in to the presence of Isaac his father and he says my father and he said here I am.

Who are you, my son Jacob said to his father. I am Esau your firstborn. I've done just as you told me. Please, arise, sit and eat of my game that your soul may bless me, but Isaac said to his son. How is that you found it so quickly and he said because the Lord your God brought to me to see the corruption of this.

Not only is he lying to his father and stealing from his brother, but he is answering these questions and trying to confirm his life by calling on the assistance of God's of the reason I was able to get this food so quickly is that because the Lord God help me to do it. Isaac said to Jacob.

Please come near that I may feel you. My son, whether you are really my son Esau or not you imagine the terror that strikes the soul of Jacob. At this point Jacob went near to Isaac his father. He felt him and said the voice is Jacob's voice but the hands are the hands of Esau, and he did not recognize him because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau's hands so he blessed him. Many said again. Are you really my son Esau and Jacob said I am and so Isaac said bring it near to me and I will eat of my son's game so that my soul may bless you and he brought it near to him.

He ate brought in whiny Dragon than his father Isaac said to him, come near kiss me. My son kissed him smell the smell of his clothing and blessed and then what follows in the text is the blind, failing aged Isaac transferring the promise that God had given to Abraham to this treacherous lying thieving, undeserving son.

How can this happen. As part of redemptive history, the Paul the apostle Paul answers of the ninth chapter of Romans Jacob have I loved before either one of them was born before they had done anything good or evil.

God had determined from the foundation of the world that the promise to Abraham would go not through the elder son Esau, but through even the hands of this treacherous son Jacob that the graciousness of God's redemptive promise may be made fast of appointed Ravi Zacharias made about this text that's so excited my soul was that later on in life. When Jacob encounters God at the mall and Brussels all night and he begs the angel of the Lord to give him the blessing before the angel will accede to that request before God will bless Jacob in his struggle God says to him, who are you what's your name. Now the one who is wrestling with Jacob on this occasion is not blind.

He knows perfectly well.

Jacob is Jacob can all of a sudden put on the smell of his brother and the close of his brother and deceive his heavenly father. Now is not asking his earthly father for the blessing he's asking his heavenly father blessing, and God says what you and this time he doesn't say Esau. This time he spends my name is Jacob.

This may be the first time his whole life ever told the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth and the name Jacob means supplant her steel her my name is Chuck and God blessed and gave him the patriarchal blessing that he would then later on pass on to his own sons to his own descendents. There's a pattern in the Old Testament.

In this transfer, and in the whole movement of redemptive history. There's a pattern of fall there's a pattern of salvation we remember that creation began with the creation of a single individual. Adam and then the creation of a helpmate Eve and this first family became the head of the human race, and they fell in their sin was dreadful but immediately following their sin. Sin broadens and widens as it expands first to fratricide when Kane rises up and kills his brother Abel and then we see this wickedness expanding through all of the descendents of Adam and Eve, so that the whole world is corrupt and doing what is right in their own eyes and only one man is left obedient whose name is Noah and we understand that then God destroys the whole human race say for again one man and his family and then out of this small beginning with Noah comes Abraham and then Abraham passes down to Isaac and then to Jacob. Now we have 12 tribes, and now we have a nation of Israel but the nation becomes more and more corrupt and now the blessing and the promise of redemption begins not so much to widen as to narrow again, as now, the promise is restricted not to everyone who's of the seed of the Jewish nation but to the remnant and this narrowing again to the remnant is further narrowed to the point of one man. The new Adam who embodies Israel, the supreme descendent of Abraham, who is Jesus and then what is the history of the New Testament, but that this process reversing from Jesus is now the gospel goes to the remnant of the Jews and then to the Samaritans, then to the Gentiles and then throughout the world. So first, it narrows that it broadens so that even to this day. This one who started here with Abraham. The blessing comes down through history and now is being dispersed throughout all and so that history of transfer pre-shadows and prepares us to understand God's redemptive plan for his people, and for his that's not Jersey's role in your listing to Renewing Your Mind on.

We Webb and I have to say that the disconnection of the new covenant to the old is something that was eye-opening for me many years ago when I first heard RC teach. I begin to understand what Paul meant when he said if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. RC believe this series dusted glory is one of the most important teaching series we produced.

Looking your ministries in 57 messages. He explains the major themes and events in Scripture and as we saw today he helps us tie those pieces together would like to send you the full series just request it with your donation of any amount that today is the last day were making this offer available so I hope you'll contact us soon again it's dusted glory is an eight DVD set that you can find us online@renewingyourmind.org work. You can call us with your gift at 804 354-3430 with all of the cultural confusion that were witnessing today people have a lot of questions and there are many answers being offered. The problem is that the not all of those answers are true, looking your ministries stands on a bedrock commitment to the truth of God's word, and so we thank you for standing with us with your prayers and your financial gifts where we able to claim the God's word is true, I hope you'll join us next week as Dr. Michael Kruger critiques the most common objections to the origin of Scripture and presents abundant evidence that the books of the Bible are the authentic and inspired word of God that's beginning Monday on Renewing Your Mind