Lessons from the Life of Jacob

And how God sets them free with the Passover. At last, Pharaoh lets them go, and it is the Passover, the killing of the lambs. It's good that we go back and review and understand the Old Testament Passover. In fact, that helps us to appreciate the New Testament Passover all the more.

But what I'd like to do this afternoon is to go back and set the stage, you might say, or the prelude, to where we many times begin with the Old Testament Passover story. And that is how the Israelites ended up in slavery in the first place. And we're going to go back and especially look at the life of Jacob.

Now, we have many times had sermons in the past about Abraham, how God called him when he was 75 years of age, and how God gave promises to him. And then Isaac was born a son of promise. And when Abraham was 100 years old, and then how God tested Abraham. But he also tested Isaac, and to see if Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son. But Isaac himself, there are different ideas as to exactly what age Isaac may have been. Some think he may have been 25 years old, others maybe 33 years old.

I think one even tradition is 36. But he was somewhere along that age. He was certainly a young adult, and he was willing to let himself be sacrificed. And so Isaac certainly lived a life that is just outstanding. The only sin that is actually given of Isaac is that he lied about Rebecca being his sister instead of his wife, because she was a beautiful woman, and he was afraid that he would be killed because of that. Well, today we want to especially focus on Jacob, because at the end of Jacob's life, we find Israel in Egypt.

And that sets the stage for Israel being in the condition of slavery in the land of Egypt. The last half of the book of Genesis focuses on Jacob. Now, I'm going to go down and get something I want to hand out to you. Mr. Parks, maybe you could get that. It's in the folder right in front of you. And would you pass out, please, a chart? Maybe we could have somebody over here to help pass these out more quickly on this side. Okay, that folder should have charts.

Let's see, it's not that one. It's underneath the songbook. The other one that is there. Okay. And that should be one that has charts that will help us a little bit to appreciate what we're going to be studying this afternoon. All right. Let's see, is that a chart? That's not a chart either. Maybe it is. Let me go down and see if I can find that. I want you to have it just a moment.

I've got all kinds of folders, so we just had to find the right one. So if each of you, then I think we'll have enough for every one, husbands and wives, to have a copy of this. And I think you'll find it interesting as we study the life of Jacob this afternoon. And we'll also be focusing some on Joseph, but maybe a little bit to a lesser extent. And the message is going to tie in with the Passover, especially as we get to the end of it, and kind of set the stage.

There'll be a prelude to some more comments and things later about the Old Testament Passover, and Israel being in the land of Egypt and coming to be in a condition of slavery, and how the Passover set them free. Okay, let's see. Most everybody has a copy by now, so I just wanted to go over a couple of things on the chart with you. It is a comparative age chart of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, as you see.

The upper left-hand side has Abraham, who lived 175 years. Coming to Canaan at the age of 75, Isaac was born when he was 100, somewhere around 125 or 30, maybe. He had the willingness to offer his son Isaac. Okay, Isaac now, the second column coming across is, Isaac was born when Abraham was 100, and Sarah was 90. You can see different events in the life of Isaac. We notice, as far as at the age of 60, that is the point. At the age of 40, for Isaac, he married Rebecca.

And then at the age of 60, Jacob and Esau were born. Other events in the life of Isaac come down until his death at 180. Then the third column is for Jacob, who was born when his father Isaac was 60. This is what we're going to be especially looking at today. Notice that, actually, Abraham was still alive the first 15 years of Jacob's life. When you put this together, that's interesting. You get to know his grandfather Abraham then, for at least the first 15 years of his life. Somewhere in his 20s, we would think he bought the birthright. We'll get to that. And then at the age of 57 is when he stole the birthright. He went to Harrim. And he left Harrim at the age of 97. We're going to be covering this in more detail. And his death at age 147. Joseph was born. We can establish this beyond the doubt when Jacob was 91 years of age. We don't usually think of that, do we? He wasn't too far younger than Abraham when Isaac was born. Yes, Joseph was born when Jacob was 91. Truly was the son of his old age, as it says. And then the extreme right-hand column is for Joseph, which we're not going to be getting into quite as much as for Jacob. Brethren, I want us to focus on Jacob because his life is an interesting one. There's a lot of detail given about it. And actually, I think there are some things that help us as far as our own preparation for the Passover that is coming up. Let's go ahead and begin with the birth of Jacob in Genesis chapter 25. And beginning in verse 20. Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebekah as wife, his wife. But he wanted to have children and they were not able to. Five years went by. Ten years went by. Fifteen years went by. Eighteen years went by. And somewhere along there, we come to verse 21. Isaac pleaded with the Lord for his wife because she was barren. Okay, after about maybe about 19 years of marriage. And the Lord granted his plea and Rebekah, his wife, conceived. They'd been married for 19 years when that happened. The children struggled together within her. And she said, if all is well, why am I this way? And she went to inquire of the Lord. The Lord said to her, two nations are in your womb. Two peoples shall be separated from your body. One people shall be stronger than the other. And the other shall serve the younger. Think of that. Rebekah then was told the elder will serve the younger. And she knew then that Jacob was the younger. She knew that Esau came out first. He was the first born of the twins. Oh, so Esau was going to serve Jacob. But you know, it's apparent that Isaac did not know. And if Rebekah shared this with Isaac, he did not really comprehend it.

Because when it comes to granting the birthright blessing, Isaac believes that the birthright blessing is to be passed on to Esau. We'll get to that in just a few minutes. So interesting that God told Rebekah which one was going to be the stronger. Well, when her days were fulfilled to give birth, indeed there were twins. The first came out red like a hairy garment, big old wad of hair. And they called his name Esau, which means simply hairy. Look at your margin. Afterward, his brother came out and his hand took hold of Esau's heel. We're going to see this as a major character weakness or character flaw in Jacob. We didn't have any major character flaws in Abraham. He did lie and weaken about Sarah being his wife a couple of times. No major character flaws in Isaac. He did lie once about Rebekah being his sister instead of his wife. But we're going to find that there are some character weaknesses or character flaws in Jacob. Notice in your margin, if you have a marginal reference, that Jacob means supplanter. Supplanter is one that will try to take advantage of someone, supplant them, or deceitful, the margin says. One who takes the heel. So we're going to find that Jacob has this problem, has this weakness to manifest itself. Notice that it says Isaac was 60 years old when she bore them. So it was 20 years into their marriage when the twins were born. All right, the Bible skips ahead so quickly. You go to the next verse, and lo and behold, maybe 20 years or so have gone by. So the boys grew, and Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, but Jacob was a mild man, dwelling in tents, and Isaac loved Esau, an ulterior motive for doing that because he ate of his game. He loved that wild game that Esau brought in and fixed for him, but Rebecca loved Jacob. You know, it's not good parents to have favorites, just don't have favorites. If you tend toward one more than another because of maybe temperament or personality, don't let it show. But you should love all of your children equally well and not have any favorites. Well, along this time, probably when the twins were in their 20s, I would think, in verse 29, now Jacob cooked a stew, and Esau came in from the field, and he was weary. He was bone tired. And Esau said to Jacob, please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary. Therefore, his name was called Edom, which means red. But Jacob said, now here we have that supplanter. We have the catching by the heel. Jacob said he saw his brother down and out. Was this a right thing for Jacob to do? Take advantage of his brother when his brother was weak and hungry and faint and about to starve. Was that a right thing, way to treat his brother? Well, no, absolutely wrong to do that. Why did Jacob do this? Had his mother already told him, son, I was told that the older will serve the younger. And had Jacob been thinking about that, and maybe, oh, the birthright then should come to me. I don't know. We just are not given that information. But anyway, Jacob seized on this opportunity to try to purchase or buy the birthright blessing. Sell me your birthright as of this day. The birthright went to the firstborn. So it was natural if we go to Esau then. He was born before Jacob. Well, Esau, when Jacob said, sell me your birthright, Esau said, well, look, I am about to die. So what profit is this birthright to me? And Jacob said, well, swear you've got to enter into an oath.

Raise your right hand and swear to me, as of this day. So Esau swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. We're all very much aware of this. But you know, Jacob saw something of value here. On the positive side, there was something of great value that Jacob wanted. On the negative side, he took advantage of his brother. And on the negative side for Esau, Esau did not esteem his birthright highly at all. And he would later with tears, want it back and could not have it.

Well, in verse 34, of course, we know that it was God's intent all along that it would go to Jacob. And God would have worked it out. Guess what? God is all powerful. He would have worked it out. So the birthright promise went to Jacob. That's God's doing. God works by, you know, drawing people and choosing whom he might choose. That's God's choice and his prerogative to be able to do that. So verse 34, Jacob went ahead and gave Esau bread and stew of lentils, and he ate it and drank and arose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. He didn't really esteem something of great value. Okay, you know, this story is given because it is important, and this kind of sets the stage for Jacob's life. We're going to see him in the early part of his life making mistakes along this line, not trusting God to work it out, taking things into his own hands. Well, the next chapter, chapter 26, shows how Isaac was successful. They had trouble digging wells with local Canaanite people. Finally, they were able to establish peace and make a covenant and have water from the wells that they dug.

But something happened when Jacob was 40 years of age that is noteworthy in verse 34 of chapter 26 when Esau was 40 years old. Well, Jacob would have been 40 years old also. They were twins. Then Esau took two of the local women to wife. Interesting, Jacob did not take any of the local women to wife. Jacob then remained a bachelor, actually, for about 17 more years.

So during his 40s, Esau with these two wives, and probably Esau began to have children from these wives. But guess what? The next verse, the last verse of the chapter, verse 35, these wives that Esau took were a grief to the mind of Isaac and Rebekah.

And then we get to that story. And I spend a little bit of time on these early chapters because it kind of sets the stage for Jacob's problems and weaknesses. But later we're going to find Jacob to master and to conquer and to overcome every one of them. He's going to end up okay. We know that. But he began with certain character weaknesses or flaws. And in chapter 27, we have this same thing coming out of supplanting, being deceitful about it, taking things into his own hands instead of trusting God. So chapter 27 in verse 1, it came to pass, when Isaac was old, and his eyes were so dim he could not see. He called his older son Esau, and he's now ready to confer the birthright premises. I want you to look at your chart at this point. And under Isaac there, you will notice at age 117, age 117, now blind, Isaac will bless Jacob as it turns out.

Do you notice something there? He had a lot of years of his life remaining. He would live to be 180, but at age 117, his eyes were so dim he couldn't discern Esau from Jacob. He was blind.

How many years had he been blind already? We many times don't realize that the patriarchs or men and women of God had great trials and difficulties to go through. How would you like to be blind for, well, at least 63 years of his life, and he had probably been blind a few years before this. So maybe we might say around 65 or possibly more years of his life he was blind. You know, that would be quite a trial, wouldn't it? What a blessing it is to be able to see. And yet Isaac was not able to see for at least the last 63 to 65 or so years of his life.

Well, we know the story here that Isaac says, get me some of that venison that you know that I like so well and fix it up for me. So Esau goes out to get his game, but Rebekah has overheard what is about to happen. And so Rebekah gets Jacob and they have this scheme and they kill an animal. They get it all fixed up like Esau to taste like the food Esau would fix for his father. They put skins on the arms of Jacob to make him feel hairy like Esau, make him smell like Esau smelled. And Jacob comes in and Isaac is kind of leery. Is this really you? Kind of sounds like Jacob. Oh no, this is me. And finally, skip on down to about verse 26 here. Genesis 27 verse 26. His father Isaac said, come near now and kiss me, my son. And he came near and kissed him and he smelled the smell of his clothing, smelled like Esau, felt like Esau, sounded like Jacob, but he went ahead and blessed him. And look at the birthright promises that Esau sold for a bowl of soup.

Surely the smell of my son is like the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed. Therefore may God give you of the dew of heaven, the fatness of the earth, plenty of grain and wine. Let people serve you, nations bow down to you. Be master over your brethren and let your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone that curses you and blessed be those who bless you.

Boy, what tremendous promises here are given to Jacob. Esau came in, they found out Isaac then surmised what had happened. He had already given the birthright blessings to Jacob and he could not then give the same blessing to Esau. Not at all. Well, you know, Jacob and Rebecca, his mother, could have done it a different way and it would have caused a lot less problems. But old supplanter, the deceitful Jacob, fell right into it and his mother, you know, told him what to do. And Jacob went right along with it and that could have trusted God. The birthright blessings were going to go to Jacob. Now, I don't know how God would have worked it out, but he would have.

They would not have gone to Esau. It was going to be the elder that would serve the younger. It would be the younger that would be the stronger of the two. That was ordained even from the womb. That's God's doing. So God would have worked it out, but and he would have helped Isaac to come to see, hey, nope, the birthright promises and blessings are to be passed on to Jacob.

God would have helped Isaac to understand that at this point. But, you know, Jacob, his nature, his weakness, his character flaw would lend itself to what happened. And guess what happened? Well, verse 41 happened. Genesis 27 verse 41. Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father blessed him. And Esau said in his heart, the days of mourning for my father are at hand. Then I will kill my brother Jacob. He's going to kill his brother, his own brother, his own twin brother, his womb mate. He was going to kill. Well, the words got to Rebecca. She told Jacob about it, and she wanted him to go to Haran, to Laban, her brother Laban, and stay there until Esau's wrath had passed. And then Rebecca wanted to hasten this on. She told Isaac in verse 46, I'm weary of my life because of the daughters of Heath, which Esau had married. If Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of Heath, like these who are the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me? I'd rather die. And so Isaac calls in Jacob and says, you shall not marry the daughters of the land. Chapter 28 verse 1, go to Haran then. And notice that Isaac now is at last fully on board with the promises, the birthright blessings going on to Jacob. Verse 3, may God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may be an assembly of peoples and give you the blessing of Abraham to you and your descendants with you, that you may inherit the land in which you are a stranger, which God gave to Abraham. You know, brethren, I'm going to cut on through the story of Isaac quite a bit, but we've set the stage here. Here's a man that would supplant, here's a man that would take advantage of, would misrepresent himself in order to get what he wanted to get. He made a lot of mistakes, but he's about to meet his match. Laban is going to be more of a supplant or more deceitful. Jacob ends up in Haran, and he meets Rachel right away, and she helps him to water his animals and brings them on to her father. Jacob, right away, was infatuated with Rachel. She was beautiful. She cut his eye in his heart, and he kissed her, it says, even. There, like on the very first date or meeting, he kissed her. And so he let it be known that he would like to marry her. And Laban, the father, said, well, that sounds good to us. If you will work seven years, then you can have her. Well, you know, being infatuated as he was, Jacob didn't think that through too much. Did he have to work seven years?

I mean, the servant from Abraham came and Rebecca took Rebecca back. There was no charge, no labor, no working for her. But you see, Laban is a deceitful person like Jacob, but only worse.

He's one that would take advantage of. So he takes advantage of the situation. Okay, you worked for me seven years. Here's Jacob. He's already 57 years of age. He's got to wait seven more years before he can have a wife. So guess what? He works seven whole years. And then he says, give me my wife. So Laban throws a feast. The father throws a wedding feast, and he gives, well, let's notice what he gave. He, verse chapter 29 and verse 22, Laban gathered together all the men of the place and made a feast. After Jacob said in verse 21, give me my wife, my days are fulfilled. Well, it came to pass in the evening that he took Leah. Laban then didn't give Jacob Rachel. He gave Leah, brought her to Jacob, and he went into her. It seems like he went in in the conjugal way, and he gave the maid Zilpah. And it came to pass in the morning.

Behold, it was Leah. It was Rachel. Wow. And he said to Laban, why is it that you've done?

What have you done? What is this you've done to me? Was it not for Rachel that I served you?

Why then have you deceived me? Jacob is beginning to get some of his own medicine. That's a good way for a person to come to see his sins, meet someone that's like him, has the same weaknesses. Laban has the same weakness that Jacob will take advantage of. He will deceive. Laban said it must not be so in our country to give the younger before the firstborn. Tell you what, he's going to take advantage of Jacob some more. Fulfill her week. You go ahead and go ahead into her for a week. You consummate the marriage with her for a week.

And then we will give you this one. We'll give you Rachel. But for the service that you will serve with me, still another seven years. Wow, he's got to work seven more years for Rachel.

And so Jacob agrees to it. He's a little bit naive, I think. I don't know that he had to do it this way. He could say, well, no, this seven years is a two-for-one deal. But Jacob gave into it and worked these seven more years. But after a week, it didn't have to wait seven years before the marriage to Rachel. Just a week. And so at the age of 64, he ended up with two wives, two sisters.

One of them he loved, Rachel. The other he really didn't love. And the one that was not loved felt it.

She realized she was the one that was not loved. And you can read about it in the verses down from where we came. But guess what? God opened the womb of Leah. And she bore Jacob in the next several years four sons. But Rachel had no children. And year after year and even two or three decades went by and Rachel did not have any children.

So a long many, many years passed before finally Rachel was able herself to have Joseph and then later Benjamin. But guess what? Rachel could not have children. So she told Jacob, give me children or I'll die. And Jacob said, well am I God? And so Rachel gave Jacob her maid.

Her maid's name was Bilhah, two wives. And said, I'll have children this way. That same thing Abraham had tried with, you know, with Abraham and Sarah had tried with Hagar. Well, so now Jacob has three wives and sure enough Bilhah, the maid of Rachel, does bear a couple of sons.

Then Leah sees that she's not having children anymore and she wants to have more. So she gives Jacob her maid, Zopa, and she has a couple of children. But guess what? All of this was going on and Jacob was having many, many children during these well about a couple of decades here actually of time. And these two sisters were not getting along with each other. It wasn't really working out. Look, for example, at chapter 30 in verse 8. This is when Rachel has a second son through her maid. And Rachel said, with great wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister.

And indeed I have prevailed. Now that I've had two sons through my maid, she felt like she was getting into the upper hand. But you do notice that she and her sister had great wrestlings. I find that interesting, don't you? These two sisters were at each other.

They were married to the same man. And Jacob, what a frustrating thing this must have been for him to have seen the two wives Rachel and Leah not getting along. Then he had these two maids also. Four wives.

This man went out and worked hard every day. Just at night come in. And which tent do I go to tonight? You know? And have more children. That's about the story. You think this is easy? No, it's not. And men don't get jealous of anybody that has four wives. God ordained one. And that's the way it really works. Well, Jacob was there then and he was being taken advantage of by his father-in-law, Laban. This man took advantage of him every way he possibly could. Finally, Jacob could take it no more. And right after Joseph was born, when Jacob was 91 years of age, and that would be many years then, well over 20 years after he had come to, I guess it'd be about 27 years, I believe, after he had gotten married to the two sisters, about 27 years had passed by that time. And Joseph was born when Jacob was 91 years of age. Then Jacob said, let me go back to my homeland. Laban persuaded him to stay. And so Jacob stays for six more years, but for wages to be paid.

And certain animals, the brown and the speckled, worked to be his. And the others worked to be Laban's. And Jacob had some very shrewd selective breeding where most of the animals were born, the brown and speckled, and became his. And Laban's became less and less, and his became more and more. Until notice the last verse in chapter 30, chapter 30 and verse 43, Thus the man Jacob became exceedingly prosperous, and had large flocks, female and male servants, and camels, and donkeys. Well, then we have the story of Jacob fleeing from Laban. He began to pick up that Laban was no longer favorable toward him, and so he fled without even notifying his father-in-law. He got his wives in agreement with him. They packed up everything. They headed out. Laban found out about it, caught up with him. But God warned Laban, before meeting Jacob, don't harm the man. God warned Laban. And so they end up making a truce after Laban corrects him for sneaking away like he did.

So Jacob comes on down to the land of promise. He had been 40 years when you put it all together. 40 years he had been in Haran. 40 years in close association with Laban. He more than met his match.

And when he leaves Haran, he is no longer the same man. We know that Esau, with 400 men, came to meet him, his brother. Jacob wondered, is God going to allow Esau to destroy me? He knew that though God had told him to come back to the land. And I want you to, in chapter 32, notice what a different man Jacob is. He's no longer the same supplanter. He's no longer that deceitful person. He's no longer going to be the one that would take advantage of his brother or anybody else.

And so, chapter 32 in verse 7, Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed when he heard that Esau was coming. And so he began to make preparations for that. And the big thing that Jacob did in verse 9, Jacob said to God, he prayed, O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, return to your country and to your kindred and I will deal well with you. Notice what a humble and meek attitude this is in verse 10. I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and all the truth which you have shown your servant. Your brother, that's a good attitude for us to have. That's a good Passover attitude to have. I'm not worthy of the least of all your mercies and all the truth you've shown to me. You feel that way yourself? You know, you should. That's a good attitude. God has respect on a heart that feels that way. I'm not worthy of the least of the mercies and the truth and the calling. He goes on to say, I crossed over this Jordan with my staff and now have become two companies. Deliver me. He looked to God. He was not going to trust in his own ability now. Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau.

For I fear him lest he come and attack me and the mother with the children. For you said I will surely treat you well and make your descendants as the sand of the sea which cannot be numbered for multitude. I tell you, we have a different Jacob here, one that is converted in heart and mind.

Well, you know, I'm going to cut on through this because of lack of time. I may be referring back to this. I mean subsequent sermons just ahead. But Jacob comes on down to the land and not too many years after coming down to the land he has tragedy to strike. He sends Joseph out at the age of 17 to carry or to see how his brothers are doing. When they see him coming they throw him into a pit, end up drawing him out and selling him to Midianites who took him down to Egypt into slavery where he was sold to a man, an officer of Pharaoh. Interesting. Joseph was sold. Did God have something to do with this? He did. He was sold to an officer of Pharaoh, Potiphar.

Well, he was falsely accused by Mrs. Potiphar, thrown in prison for many years. At the age of 28, at the age of 28, now that would be 11 years after being taken down to Egypt, he interpreted two dreams for a butler and a baker. One would be restored to good favor with Pharaoh, the other would be killed. It happened. Joseph said to the two men, when you, to the butler, when you are restored, remember me. I'm in here unfairly. I'm not supposed to, it's not, it's from something I have done that I'm in prison. Well, the man forgot, the butler forgot. But two years later, Pharaoh had dreams, two dreams, the years of plenty, seven years of plenty, and seven years of drought.

Well, of course, that was the interpretation of the dreams. And Joseph, when he was drawn out of prison at the age of 30, was able to interpret the dreams for for Pharaoh. And Pharaoh appointed Joseph then to oversee the storage of grain for those seven years of plenty. By the time the seven years of plenty ended, Joseph was 37 years of age.

And then we know the story of Joseph's brothers coming down. Brother, this is some interesting reading. Very interesting. It's in the Bible for a purpose, and it shows that Joseph then himself had matured. He treated his brothers rather harshly and did not identify himself, hid his identity. They had to come down a second time. They had to bring Benjamin. He took Benjamin. Somebody had to stand for him. Finally, Joseph revealed himself. And can you imagine what that would be like? That 22 years after Jacob thought his son had been torn to pieces by a wild animal, he found out that Joseph was alive. You know, you can read the story. And so Joseph then told his brothers to go and bring their father down to Egypt. And so all of Israel then is brought down to Egypt. I think I'll save some of that and read it maybe as we get into the Israelites, being in the condition of slavery at a later sermon. But when Jacob came down to Egypt, we do want to pick up this verse. And let's see, that is in chapter 42. In chapter 40, no, there's not chapter. It's chapter 47. Genesis chapter 47. When Jacob came down to Egypt, that is what he said to Pharaoh. Joseph brought him in before Pharaoh. And he said, Jacob said that Pharaoh, the days of the years of my pilgrimage are 130 years. That's how we are able to determine some of the ages. This 130 years when he stood before Pharaoh corresponds to Joseph being 39 years of age, the second year of the famine. So Joseph was 39 and Jacob was 130. Well, the days of the years of my pilgrimage are 130 years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life. And they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage. How did Jacob look back upon his life as being a hard life?

Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life. You know, Jacob brought a lot of these things upon himself, actually. And that's why he had to learn some lessons. He had used deceit. He had taken advantage of his brother. He had not trusted God, but he had to learn. He had to grow.

And Jacob did. The one thing that Jacob did see, he embraced the promises. The promises were valuable to Jacob. The birthright. He wanted it, and he valued it highly. He just went about obtaining it the wrong way. But Jacob had his mind on the kingdom of God. Hebrews 11 brings out that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all dwelt in tents. They all looked for a city whose builder and maker is God. So Jacob came to embrace the same promises and the same vision of God's kingdom that Abraham, his grandfather, and Isaac, his father, had. He had the same vision of God's kingdom.

He came to embrace it, and he came to straighten out all of those weaknesses and flaws in his character. In one occasion, he wrestled with God. And we should read that. I believe that's chapter 32. Chapter 32. And around verse 24, Genesis 32 and verse 24, when Jacob was waiting to meet Esau, then a man wrestled with him. This man is capitalized. It's actually God. It's the Lord of the Old Testament, Melchizedek. Now, when he saw that he did not prevail against him, I tell you, Jacob was a pretty good wrestler. The Lord did not prevail against him. Then he touched the socket of his hip, and the socket of Jacob's hip was out of joint as he wrestled with him. And Jacob still would not let him go. That must have been a little bit painful. He said, let me go. The Lord said, let me go for the day breaks. And he said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. So he said to him, what is your name? He said, Jacob. So the Lord said, your name shall no longer be called Jacob. But Israel. That means one who prevails with God, one who overcomes. For you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed. You know, brethren, we have to struggle with God and men as well. We have to prevail. We have to be in Israelite. We have to do like Jacob, not let go. Wrestle with God until we get the blessing, the promised blessing given to us.

Well, so Jacob did grow. He did keep his eyes on the promises of God's kingdom.

And even though his life was not easy, he did learn. He did face up to his character flaws and weaknesses and he did overcome them. I want to read just one final thing in the life of Jacob, and then we'll have one final verse after that. Let's go to Genesis chapter 50, just two passages, and we'll wind this down. Genesis chapter 49, rather. Genesis 49, it's interesting that when Jacob was about to die, all of the Israelites are now in Egypt. They'd all moved down to Egypt at this time. They've been there about 17 years when Jacob is ready to die. In verse 29, Genesis 49, this is after the blessings that were given to Ephraim and Manasseh, and after also the pronouncements for the 12 sons in this chapter. Verse 29, he tells his sons, I'm about to be gathered to my people. He says, bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephraim the Hittite. That was the cave that Abraham bought. Verse 30, he goes on to say, there they buried Abraham and Sarah, his wife, and there they buried Isaac and Rebecca, his wife.

All right? And let us interestingly, there I buried Leah. Oh, the one that Jacob loved so much was Rachel. But she had died on the way back down from Haran, giving birth to Benjamin, and she was buried in the vicinity of Bethlehem on the way on down. But it was Leah.

Leah lived on a while, and Jacob buried Leah, and he wanted to be buried beside her.

Did Jacob and Leah draw closer in their relationship? Was even Leah the more converted of the two? We just don't know. But it's interesting the way it turns out that Jacob would...

And so after he died, you can read in chapter 50 that Jacob then is taken by his sons. They make a big procession. After he died, they go up to this burial plot, family burial plot, and they bury Jacob beside Leah. That's interesting. Brethren, we'll read one final scripture then.

Alright, let's go to Matthew chapter 8. Matthew chapter 8. Won't it be interesting to sit down with these men and maybe get more of the story? One day, you and I will sit down with these great men.

If we go on to be an Israelite, if we go on to prevail with God, keep on wrestling is all I can say. Don't ever give up. Keep on wrestling with God and men like Jacob did. Don't let go. Even if your hip joint is thrown out, don't give up. Don't let go. Here in Matthew chapter 8 and verse 10, the centurion had said, you don't even need to come to my house. Just speak the word and my servant will be healed. Jesus said, assuredly I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel. And I say to you that many will come from the east and west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. We, one day, will have that opportunity if we carry on and if we overcome and prevail to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. The sermon today has been the prelude to where we usually come into the story. We usually come into the story with Israel in Egypt in a condition of slavery. This is the prelude to that, so I think it's good to have this well fixed in mind as we go on into the book of Exodus and we find Israel delivered by the Passover. So maybe we can tie that in in some of the sermons just ahead.