“Months ago I read the twenty-fourth chapter of Genesis a number of times. I read commentaries, too. I really struggled as I considered all the people mentioned and all that took place. I couldn’t get over how soon after reconciling with Esau that Jacob would face another crisis. Over and over in Jacob’s life he was either deceiving someone, or being deceived by someone. Now he must witness his own sons’ use of deception in order to take vengeance…”
“I just love happy reunions! I also love it whenever a heavy burden of guilt and fear is lifted. I know Jacob was so relieved at that moment when Esau ran to meet him, fell on his neck, and kissed him. He was relieved that he and his wives, servants, and children were safe from harm. However, that wasn’t all. There was a huge bonus. Esau poured out his love on Jacob. I keep bringing up the fact that these men were not only twins, but at this chapter of their lives they were about 100 years old, and it just amazes me. Jacob was hobbling along because of his hip.”
“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
2 Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.
3 When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.
4 For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.
5 I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.” Psalm 32:1-5 KJV
“1 And Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, Esau came, and with him four hundred men. And he divided the children unto Leah, and unto Rachel, and unto the two handmaids.
“If I had to narrow it all down to the one subject that means the most to me it would have to be the subject of God’s Sovereign Grace regarding transformation and (carts and horses). Look again at this:
‘And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.’
It was the Lord who initiated this wrestling match.
Jacob kept holding on, even after the Lord (referred to as “a man”) touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh causing it to be out of joint (for the rest of his life). They conversed as they wrestled, and Jacob had to tell him his name. The meaning would indicate his character, and it wasn’t flattering. The name “Jacob” meant ‘supplanter’ or ‘schemer’.
It was also the Lord who gave Jacob a new name and identity. His new name would be “Israel” which means ‘Contender With God’”:
“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Romans 12:2 KJV
“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 3:18 KJV
” 1And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.
2 And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God’s host: and he called the name of that place Mahanaim.
3 And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother unto the land of Seir, the country of Edom.
4 And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall ye speak unto my lord Esau; Thy servant Jacob saith thus…
“…His children sometimes read into His promises, and see things that really don’t exist. We so easily set our hearts on earthly things such as material possessions, relationships, and roles. Our hearts cause us to map out a course, and set time tables. We set ourselves up for a world of hurt when we do that. Let’s pause and consider the last words Rebekah, one of the great matriarchs of Israel, spoke to her son Jacob:…”
“6 Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:
7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”Isaiah 55:6-9 KJV
<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3
“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.
“There is so much there. Talk about gifts! There are earthly gifts, and there are heavenly gifts. There are earthly blessings, and there are heavenly blessings. On this particular occasion we are furnished with glimpses of both kind… “
“And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” 1 John 4:16 KJV
“4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b]6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV
“14 I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him.15 That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.” Ecclesiastes 3:14-15 ESV
Abram and Sarai in Egypt
10 Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.11 When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance,12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live.13 Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.”14 When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.15 And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house.16 And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.
17 But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.18 So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.”20 And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had. Genesis 12:10-20 ESV
Abraham and Abimelech
20 From there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned inGerar.2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.”
And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him,
“Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.”4 Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, “Lord, will you kill an innocent people?5 Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.”6 Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her.7 Now then, return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.”
8 So Abimelech rose early in the morning and called all his servants and told them all these things. And the men were very much afraid.9 Then Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us? And how have I sinned against you, that you have brought on me and my kingdom a great sin? You have done to me things that ought not to be done.”10 And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What did you see, that you did this thing?”11 Abraham said, “I did it because I thought, ‘There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’12 Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.13 And when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is the kindness you must do me: at every place to which we come, say of me, “He is my brother.”’”
14 Then Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and male servants and female servants, and gave them to Abraham, and returned Sarah his wife to him.15 And Abimelech said, “Behold, my land is before you; dwell where it pleases you.”16 To Sarah he said, “Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver. It is a sign of your innocence in the eyes of all[a] who are with you, and before everyone you are vindicated.”17 Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children.18 For the Lordhad closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife. Genesis 20 ESV
Genesis 12 and Genesis 20 say a lot about people…..even people of faith. Those chapters say a lot about the Lord, too. I am so thankful He is patient and good even when I am older, but not much wiser. I am so thankful that we have a God who cares.
Do you have a Bible? If you don’t have one, you need not worry. Just click here:www.biblegateway.comThey have many versions and translations of the Bible that you can read. Some of the best things in life are free!
“29 Are not two [j]little sparrows sold for a penny? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father’s leave (consent) and notice.
30 But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
31 Fear not, then; you are of more value than many sparrows.” Matthew 10:29-31 AMP
“6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.’ 1 Peter 5:6-7 ESV
“1Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar.
2 And Sarai said to Abram, See here, the Lord has restrained me from bearing [children]. I am asking you to have intercourse with my maid; it may be that I can obtain children by her. And Abram listened to and heeded what Sarai said.
3 So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her Egyptian maid, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his [secondary] wife.
4 And he had intercourse with Hagar, and she became pregnant; and when she saw that she was with child, she looked with contempt upon her mistress and despised her.
5 Then Sarai said to Abram, May [the responsibility for] my wrong and deprivation of rights be upon you! I gave my maid into your bosom, and when she saw that she was with child, I was contemptible and despised in her eyes. May the Lord be the judge between you and me.
6 But Abram said to Sarai, See here, your maid is in your hands and power; do as you please with her. And when Sarai dealt severely with her, humbling and afflicting her, she [Hagar] fled from her.
But [a]the Angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness on the road to Shur.
8 And He said, Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where did you come from, and where are you intending to go? And she said, I am running away from my mistress Sarai.
9 The Angel of the Lord said to her,Go back to your mistress and [humbly] submit to her control.
10 Also the Angel of the Lord said to her,I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they shall not be numbered for multitude.
11 And the Angel of the Lord continued,See now, you are with child and shall bear a son, and shall call his name Ishmael [God hears], because the Lord has heard and paid attention to your affliction.
12 And he [Ishmael] will be as a [b]wild ass among men; his hand will be against every man and every man’s hand against him, and he will live to the east and on the borders of all his kinsmen.
13 So she called the name of the Lord Who spoke to her, You are a God of seeing, for she said, Have I [not] even here [in the wilderness] looked upon Him Who sees me [and lived]?Or have I here also seen [the future purposes or designs of] Him Who sees me?
14 Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi [A well to the Living One Who sees me]; it is[c]between Kadesh and Bered.
15 And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son whom Hagar bore[d]Ishmael.
16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael.” Genesis 16:1-16 AMP
Here we are in Genesis 16 facing an interesting situation. The Lord had spoken to Abram on a number of occasions concerning offspring (note the scripture below), and if you look at Genesis 15:6 you will see that it says that Abram believed the Lord. Abram was a lot like us. He had some information, but not all of the information. I think a lot of people in a situation like theirs would reason and conclude that a surrogate mother was the means the Lord intended them to use. I can sympathize with Abram, Sarah, and Hagar. However the Lord had His own plan. The same God who sees every sparrow that falls looked upon them….all of them. He looks upon us, too, and He cares for us.
1Now the Lord said[a] to Abram, “Go from your country[b] and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Genesis 12:1-3 ESV
14 The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him,“Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are,northward and southward and eastward and westward,15 for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever.16 I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted.17 Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.”Genesis 13:14-17 ESV
God’s Covenant with Abram
15 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision:“Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”2 But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue[a] childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.”4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him:“This man shall not be your heir; your very own son[b] shall be your heir.”5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him,“So shall your offspring be.”6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
7 And he said to him,“I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”8 But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”9 He said to him,“Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”10 And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half.11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him.13 Then theLord said to Abram,“Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years.14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterwardthey shall come out with great possessions.15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age.16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying,“To your offspring I give[c] this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim,21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”Genesis 15 ESV
On December 20, 2013 I started a series titled “A Loving Pursuit”. I am resuming my study tonight. Below are the links to the other posts in the series for anyone who would like to start from the beginning and catch up. Although I started in Genesis, and am working my way through the Bible I won’t make a post on every chapter of every book, so if you only wish to read occasionally it really doesn’t matter what order you read the posts or if you only read some of them.
Do you have a Bible? If you don’t have one, you need not worry. Just click here: www.biblegateway.com They have many versions and translations of the Bible that you can read. Some of the best things in life are free!
1 Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:
3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;
4 Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;
5 Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
6 The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed.
7 He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel.
8 The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.
9 He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever.
10 He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
11 For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.
12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
13 Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.
14 For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.
15 As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.
16 For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.
17 But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children;
18 To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them.
19 The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all.
20 Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.
21 Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure.
22 Bless the Lord, all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the Lord, O my soul. Psalm 103 KJV
This is a hard post for me to write, because I have reached Genesis chapter 5 which ends like this:
“28 When Lamech was 182 years old, a son was born.
29 He named him Noah, saying, This one shall bring us relief and comfort from our work and the [grievous] toil of our hands due to the ground being cursed by the Lord.
30 Lamech lived after the birth of Noah 595 years and had other sons and daughters.
31 So all the days of [a]Lamech were 777 years, and he died.
32 After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” Genesis 5:28-32 AMP
This tells me that God was about to destroy the earth. I don’t like to think about sin, suffering, death and destruction. These are touchy subjects.
There are many people who have seen these things going on in the world today, and have readenough of the Bible to know about the story of Noah’s Ark and many other accounts where the Lord dealt with mankind in ways that are hard to understand, and have concluded that either the God of the Bible doesn’t really exist, or that He does exist, but He isn’t loving. I suppose we could back all the way up to Genesis 2, and find things that have troubled some readers.
“15 And the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and guard andkeep it.
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and blessing and calamity you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 2:15:-17 AMP
I must confess that at times I am troubled when I contemplate things that are hard to fathom. I want you to know that I am not writing in order to prove that my faith in the Lord and His goodness is valid. I am writing merely to share glimpses I get from time to time from scripture that appear to affirm the hope I have inside me.
Chris Rice expresses this well.
So far as I have studied the book of Genesis I have noticed some things that people think and feel, and that they say and do. I have noticed things the Lord thinks and feels, and says and does. I have seen some causes and some effects. I have seen creation, and destruction, things that happened abruptly and things that happened over the course of time. Like I said above, I believe the Lord is Loving and good. I am looking forward to taking this opportunity to find and expose some of the various examples in these past chapters and in the chapters to come that will illustrate that.
You might like to do the same thing and when you read my next post you can compare your findings with mine. Please feel free to share them with me and my other readers. 🙂
Would you like to read more posts from this series? This link will take you to the Table of Contents. It has contains links to them:
Do you have a Bible? If you don’t have one, you need not worry. Just clickhere:www.biblegateway.com They have many versions and translations of the Bible that you can read. Some of the best things in life are free!
I have had this series on my mind. I took a break from it when I was not far from the end. This is the 3rd post….the 2nd after the introduction. I hope it blesses you.
Scripture reference;
Moore to Ponder 