Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Immutable Decree and the Bitter Harvest: Sovereign Grace Amidst the Ruins of Pragmatic Deception (Genesis 27:30–46)

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The Immutable Decree and the Bitter Harvest: Sovereign Grace Amidst the Ruins of Pragmatic Deception (Genesis 27:30–46) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to reformed thinking. Yes, welcome.
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  We are taking a massive deep dive today into a text of
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  scripture that completely shatters our natural, fleshly
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  assumptions about how God operates in the world.
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  We are setting our sights on Genesis chapter 27.
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  Specifically, we'll be looking at verses 30 through 46.
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  And to frame this scene for you, the listener, you really need to
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  picture the agonizing tension in the tent of the patriarch Isaac.
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  Right. Jacob is just stolen the
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  patriarchal blessing through this elaborate, deceitful scheme
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  involving his mother Rebecca. Jacob slips out of his father's
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  presence. The smell of the goat is still
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  lingering in the air. The savory meat was just
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  consumed. The flap of the tent falls
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  behind him and at that very moment his older brother Esau
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  walks in. The trap door opens on a
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  fractured Covenant home. Our sources for this deep dive
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  today are two robust theological expositions.
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  They're focused entirely on sovereign grace, pragmatic
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  deception, and God's Providence. Our mission today is to uncover
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  the intense collision between the scheming of human flesh and
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  the immutable decrees of God. Before we really get into the
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  narrative, we need to establish a firm theological baseline
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  right at the out. Yes, because this text is not a
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  moralistic fable about why lying is bad.
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  It's an immense theological window into total depravity,
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  unconditional election, and the Westminster Confession's
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  teachings on God's eternal decree.
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  You are not meant to read this narrative and walk away with a
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  simple moral lesson for your daily life.
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  No, you are meant to read this narrative and fall on your face
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  before the sovereign God of the universe.
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  The Holy Spirit has painted a scene of excruciating dramatic
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  irony here. We have Jacob fleeing the scene
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  of his crime. His heart is pounding in his
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  chest. And then Esau arrives with his
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  haunted venison, completely unaware that his entire future
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  has just been giving to the brother he despises.
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  So Esau walks into that tent. He's arrogant in his
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  presumption. He operates under the delusion
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  that earthly appetites and fleshly hunting skills can
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  secure heavenly promises. He announces himself with
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  complete confidence. He's expecting to receive the
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  dominion and the provision that was promised to his grandfather
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  Abraham and his father Isaac. He says, Let my father arise and
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  eat of his son's game, that you may bless me.
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  He thinks the blessing is a transaction.
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  Absolutely. He thinks he can buy the
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  spiritual inheritance of the world with a well cooked meal.
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  But what happens next is the shattering of human autonomy.
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  Isaac asks who are you and. When Esau answers, Isaac
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  realizes in a flash of divine illumination that he'd believed
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  a lie of his own making for decades.
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  We have to look at the history here to understand the gravity
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  of Isaac's realization, right? Isaac believed he could override
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  the divine decree spoken to his wife Rebecca years prior.
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  When the twins were struggling in Rebecca's womb, she inquired
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  of the Lord, and God gave her a direct, infallible prophecy.
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  God said that two nations were in her womb, 2 peoples would be
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  divided, 1 would be stronger than the other, and the older
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  shall be subjected to the younger.
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  Isaac heard that divine revelation.
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  He knew the word of the Lord. Yet he spent his entire life
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  trying to subvert it. He thought his patriarchal
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  authority, his status as the miraculous son of promise, could
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  dictate heavenly realities. He loved the taste of Esau's
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  wild game more than he loved the revealed will of God.
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  Tried to give the covenant promise to the reprobate Son.
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  So when Esau speaks, Isaac does not simply startle like an old
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  man waking from an afternoon nap.
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  No, the reaction is catastrophic.
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  We must look closely at verse 33.
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  The Hebrew text does something fascinating here grammatically.
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  It uses what scholars call a cognate accusative.
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  The phrase is wayyarad yarda gojula ad mage.
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  I know that is a mouthful, but literally translated it means
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  Isaac trembled, a great trembling unto muchness.
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  This grammatical structure creates massive, heavy focus.
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  This is not a mild surprise. This is a physiological
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  collapse. The theology of this trembling
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  is staggering when you consider what is actually happening in
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  Isaac's mind at that precise moment.
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  It is the visceral, bone rattling horror of a creature
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  who realizes he has been actively warring against the
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  creator. And he has been caught.
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  Isaac is suddenly aware that the sovereign God has completely
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  outmanex He is. Caught in the snare of God's
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  Providence. For years, he plotted in secret
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  to bless Esau. He told Esau to go hunt in
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  secret. He thought he could outsmart the
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  Almighty. But sitting on that bed, feeling
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  the weight of the realization, the fear of the Lord falls on
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  him like an anvil. He recognizes that God's decree
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  cannot be broken by human preference.
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  The trembling is the shockwave of a man whose functional
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  atheism has just collided with the living God.
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  We must contrast this heavily with the false doctrine of
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  Arminianism. The Armenian framework suggests
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  that God simply looks down the corridors of time, foresees
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  human actions and passively adjusts his plans accordingly.
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  That is a blasphemous view of the Almighty.
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  God does not look down the corridors of time to learn
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  anything. God.
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  He used the sinful, pragmatic deception of Jacob to accomplish
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  his holy will. God did not sit in heaven
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  wringing his hands, hoping Isaac would bless the right son.
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  God actively governed the entire situation.
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  He ordained the end, which was Jacob receiving the blessing,
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  and he ordained the means which included the sinful deception.
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  This ties directly to the Westminster Confession of Faith,
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  chapter 3 concerning God's eternal decree.
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  The confession states that God from all eternity did, by the
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  most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and
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  unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.
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  Furthermore, it brings us to Chapter 5 concerning Providence.
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  God in His ordinary Providence makes use of means, yet is free
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  to work without, above and against them at His.
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  Pleasure God utilized the deceitful means of Rebecca and
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  Jacob to fulfill His unconditional election.
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  He did not force them to sin. They sin willingly out of their
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  own corrupt desires. Yet God's sovereign hand guided
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  those sinful choices to perfectly execute the decree He
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  made before the foundation of the world.
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  I want you, the listener, to compare Isaac's blindness in
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  that tent to the modern believer stumbling in the dark.
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  How often are you confident in your own fleshly pragmatism?
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  Utterly unaware that you are on a direct collision course with
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  the Almighty. You scheme, you plan, you
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  manipulate your circumstances to get what you want, ignoring the
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  clear instruction of scripture. And then the trap door opens.
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  You think you can build your life, your family, or your
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  career on a basis of your own making, completely bypassing the
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  will of God. You prioritize your appetites
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  over obedience, just like Isaac prioritized the wild game.
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  And when God finally exposes your rebellion, the trembling
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  will come. We see Isaac a true believer, a
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  patriarch of the faith who had functionally become an atheist
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  in his methodology. He tried to force God's hand.
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  But look at Isaac's sudden submission to the decree in the
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  second-half of verse 33. He says of Jacob, Yes, and he
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  shall be blessed. Notice what he does not do.
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  He does not try to take the blessing back.
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  He does not ask God for a do over.
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  He does not tell Esau. Hold on, let me curse Jacob and
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  fix this. The trembling brings him to a
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  place of total theological submission.
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  He recognizes the eternal decree, and he bows to it.
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  He realizes that the blessing was not his to give in the 1st
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  place. It belonged to God, and God gave
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  it to whom he chose. That submission marks a massive
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  shift in Isaac's heart. He finally stops fighting.
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  But Esau has the absolute opposite reaction.
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  When Esau hears his father's definitive statement that the
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  blessing firmly belongs to Jacob, he lets out an agonizing
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  shriek. The Hebrew word here in verse 34
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  is sock. It is the visceral cry of a
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  condemned man. It is a loud, bitter, piercing
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  scream. He pleads for a blessing, asking
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  his father Bless me, even me also.
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  Oh, my father. But Isaac cannot manufacture a
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  covenant blessing out of thin air.
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  Isaac delivers a hard Oracle instead.
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  He tells Esau that his life will be marked by the sword, by
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  struggle, by dwelling away from the fatness of the earth, and by
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  subjugation to his brother. Esau's tears in this moment
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  require intense theological scrutiny.
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  We cannot interpret these tears emotionally.
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  We must interpret them biblically.
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  It is very easy to read this narrative and feel a sense of
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  human sympathy for Esau. He looks like a victim.
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  He looks like a man who has been cheated out of his rightful
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  inheritance by a manipulative brother and a conniving mother.
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  But the Holy Spirit does not allow us to view Esau as a
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  victim. We use Hebrews chapter 12, verse
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  17 as our infallible divine commentary on this passage.
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  The writer of Hebrews tells us that afterward, when Esau
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  desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, where he found
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  no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
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  That distinction requires us to separate worldly sorrow from
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  godly grief. Worldly sorrow is grief over
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  losing an earthly advantage. Godly grief is sorrow over
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  offending a holy God. Esau is crying because his
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  wallet has been stolen, essentially.
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  He is crying because he lost the cattle, the servants, the
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  prestige and the dominion. He.
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  Is not crying because he has grieved the God of his Father's.
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  He is not mourning his own sinfulness.
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  He is mourning his loss of capital.
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  Esau is the absolute archetype of the reprobate mind.
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  He desires the crown, but he refuses the cross.
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  He wants the blessing, the wealth, the dominion and the
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  prestige, but he completely despises the God of the
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  blessing. You see the sheer entitlement of
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  the unregenerate heart on full display here.
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  He screams in agony, but there is 0 confession of sin.
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  Let us examine verse 36 to expose the reality of total
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  depravity. Esau says.
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  Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted me these
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  two times. He took away my birthright, and
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  behold, now He has taken away my blessing.
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  Do you hear the blame shifting? He blames Jacob entirely.
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  He paints himself as the innocent bystander who keeps
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  getting mugged by his brother. He takes absolutely zero
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  responsibility for his own carnal appetite.
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  He conveniently forgets the history of his own profane
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  actions. Years earlier, in Genesis 25, he
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  willfully and profanely sold his birthright right for a bowl of
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  red Stew. He was hungry after a hunting
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  trip, and he traded his covenant inheritance, the promise given
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  to Abraham, for immediate fleshly gratification.
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  He despised his birthright. And now he has the audacity to
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  stand in the tent and say he took away my birthright.
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  No, Esau, you sold it. You despised.
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  It total depravity means that every part of man is corrupted
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  by sin, including the mind and the will, leading a man to
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  justify his own wickedness while blaming everyone else.
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  We must critique the modern therapeutic mindset that has
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  completely invaded the church today.
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  The prosperity gospel and seeker sensitive church movements look
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  at Esau's loud tears and they demand that God comfort him.
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  They mistake emotional breakdowns for spiritual
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  renewal. They see someone crying at the
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  altar, weeping heavily, and they assume a great work of the Holy
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  Spirit has occurred. They completely ignore the
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  reality that the person might just be crying because their sin
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  finally caught up to them. They lost their job, their
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  marriage failed, or their public reputation was destroyed.
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  They are crying over the consequences, not the offense
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  against God. I ask you directly listener,
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  when you are caught in sin, how do you react?
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  Do you point the finger at your circumstances?
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  Do you blame your spouse, your boss, or your upbringing?
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  Do you say, well, if my brother had not done this, I would not
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  have reacted this way? Or do you beat your breast like
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  the tax collector in the temple, refuse to even look up to heaven
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  and ask for mercy from a holy God?
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  True repentance takes full ownership of the offense against
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  God. True repentance says against
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  you, and you only have I sinned. Esau had none of that.
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  His sorrow was entirely self-centered.
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  And because his sorrow was worldly, it rapidly curdled in
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  something far more sinister. This brings the narrative into
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  the tragedy of pragmatic deception found in verses 41
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  through 40. 6 The text reveals that Esau's worldly grief
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  transforms into calculated hatred.
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  He makes a firm cold blooded resolution to commit fratricide.
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  He says in his heart the days of mourning for my father are
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  approaching. Then I will kill my brother
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  Jacob. He views the impending death of
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  his father not with grief, but as a convenient starting gun for
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  murder. He is just waiting for the old
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  man to die so he can take his revenge without upsetting his
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  father. Notice the terrifying
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  progression of unrepentant sin. It starts with an appetite for
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  Stu. It moves to a rejection of the
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  covenant. It turns into worldly sorrow and
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  bitter crying over lost earthly wealth.
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  And it finally hardens into a premeditated plan for murder.
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  Meanwhile, Rebecca discovers this murderous plot.
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  What does she do? She leans into her pragmatism
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  yet again. She cannot trust God to protect
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  the Son of promise, so she has to engineer another scheme.
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  She sends Jacob away to her brother Lebon and her on.
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  She tells Jacob to stay there for a few days until his
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  brother's fury turns away. A few days.
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  Her pragmatic calculation results in an exile that turns
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  into 20 grueling years. We must completely expose the
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  justify the Means philosophy that governs so much of human
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  behavior, even within the visible Church.
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  Rebecca and Jacob chased a promised end, the covenant
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  blessing which God had already guaranteed through sinful
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  manipulation. They achieved their goal, but
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  the result was not peace. The result was panic, fear and a
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  thoroughly fractured home. Sin violently dismembers
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  households. Isaac's private preference for
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  his carnal son Esau became public ruin.
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  Rebecca's cleverness cost her the son she loved most.
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  The biblical text indicates she never saw Jacob again before her
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  death. That is a staggering truth that
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  we must sit with. God's utilization of our sin
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  does not grant us immunity from the temporal consequences of
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  that sin. He chastises those he loves.
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  God ordained that Jacob would get the blessing, and he used
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  him. He used Rebecca's lie to
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  accomplish it, but Rebecca still paid a massive price for her
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  deceit. She died while her favorite son
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  was in exile. Jacob spent 20 years being
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  abused and cheated by his uncle Laban, a master deceiver who
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  gave Jacob a taste of his own medicine, the.
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  Rod of God's discipline is heavy.
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  God does not excuse the guilt of this scheming just because He
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  uses it for His sovereign purposes.
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  We also need to connect Esau's violent hatred to the ancient,
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  ongoing enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of
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  the woman first prophesied in Genesis chapter 3.
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  This isn't just a petty sibling rivalry over property rights.
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  This is the cosmic war manifesting inside a patriarchal
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  tent. Esau embodies the seed of the
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  serpent, hostile to the chosen line of promise.
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  He wants to murder the Covenant air just like Cain murdered
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  Abel. The seed of the serpent is
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  always trying to cut off the lineage that will eventually
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  bring forth the Messiah. Esau's hatred is satanic in its
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  origin and its goal. I want to challenge you, the
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  listener, to look critically at your own life.
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  Look at your business practices. Look at your parenting
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  strategies. Look at your church growth
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  tactics. If you or someone you know lies
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  to get ahead, manipulates numbers on a spreadsheet, or
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  twist the truth to achieve a supposedly good outcome, you are
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  utilizing the profane pragmatism of this fractured family.
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  You are operating like Rebecca. If a pastor waters down the
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  gospel, avoids talking about sin and wrath, and orchestrates an
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  emotional light show to increase attendance, thinking the ends
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  justify the means because more people are in the building, he
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  is operating in the exact same fleshly spirit.
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  He is attempting to help God out through fleshly manipulation.
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  He looks at the promise of God to build the church and he
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  decides God needs some pragmatic assistance to get it done.
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  The patriarchs are clearly broken and totally sinful.
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  If salvation depends on their righteousness, their honesty, or
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  their performance, humanity is entirely doomed.
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  Look at the key players in this chapter.
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  Isaac is rebellious and willfully blind.
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  Rebecca is a steaming manipulator.
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  Jacob is a deceiver. And a thief, Esau is a profane,
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  murderous reprobate. There is no hero in this
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  chapter. That realization forcefully
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  pivots our discussion away from human effort and points us
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  directly toward the true air. We cannot read this text and
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  conclude that we need to try harder to be good people.
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  The absolute moral failure of Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Esau
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  demands that we look for salvation completely outside of
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  ourselves. The narrative creates a holy
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  dissatisfaction within us regarding the patriarchs.
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  They are not moral exemplars for us to copy.
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  We should not have youth group lessons teaching kids to dare to
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  be a Jacob. The covenant line is upheld
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  entirely by divine faithfulness, not human virtue.
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  This text points with burning intensity to the absolute
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  necessity of a righteous substitute.
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  Let us draw out the Christological contrasts,
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  beginning with Jacob and Christ. Jacob obtained the blessing
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  through blatant deception. He walked into his father's
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  presence wearing another man's garments, smelling like his
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  brother, with goat skins on his hands and neck to hide his true
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  identity. He lied to his father's face to
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  steal a blessing he did not deserve based on his own merit.
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  Contrast that with Jesus Christ. Christ secured the eternal
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  blessing through perfect, flawless obedience to the
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  Father. He did not wear false garments
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  to trick the father. Instead, Christ willingly put on
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  the filthy garments of our guilt.
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  He took our sin upon himself. He stood before the Father on
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  the cross, not sneaking in to steal a blessing, but boldly
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  bearing the curse we deserved to give us a grace we could never
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  earn. Jacob was a deceiver.
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  Christ is the truth. Jacob stole the blessing.
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  Christ purchased the blessing with his own blood and freely
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  gave it to his enemies. Jacob hid his true nature.
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  Christ fully revealed the nature of God while taking on human
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  flesh. Now contrast Esau and Christ.
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  Esau wept bitterly, screaming with a loud voice entirely over
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  lost earthly privileges and material wealth.
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  He cried because he lost the dew of heaven and the fatness of the
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  earth. The true first born of all
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  creation, Jesus Christ wept bloody sweat in the Garden of
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  Gethsemane. Christ did not weep over lost
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  earthly wealth. He wept over the sheer horror of
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  bearing the Father's holy wrath to save rebels.
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  Christ possessed all the riches of heaven, yet he impoverished
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  himself for our sakes. He didn't weep for loss of
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  privilege. He wept under the crushing
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  weight of the cup of divine justice.
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  Those contrasts are striking. We also must analyze the theme
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  of exile present in this text. Jacob fled to Haran.
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  Why did he flee? He fled to save his own skin
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  from a brother he had wickedly wronged.
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  He goes into exile because of his own sin to escape the
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  consequences of his deception. But look at Christ.
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  Christ fled to the cross, going outside the camp, entering the
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  ultimate exile of being forsaken by the Father.
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  My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
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  Christ went into exile, giving his life for brothers who had
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  wronged him. He went into the dark to bring
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  us into the light. Christ goes into exile because
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  of our sin to bring us back into the presence of God.
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  You cannot look at the patriarchs without seeing the
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  brilliant light of the Gospel shining in the background.
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  The darker the sin of the patriarchs, the brighter the
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  grace of the promised Messiah appears.
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  God preserves his covenant through a line of sinners to
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  prove that salvation is of the Lord.
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  The blessing comes to us not because we wrestled it away from
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  God through cleverness, but because Christ earned it and
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  freely bestows it upon the elect.
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  I must state this plainly to you, the listener.
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  The gospel is not a reward for spiritual schemers.
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  We must fiercely repudiate moralism.
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  The Bible is not instructing you to read Genesis 27 and learn to
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  be clever. It is not teaching you how to
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  outsmart your rivals in the corporate world or in the church
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  to get God's blessing. It is teaching you that you are
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  just as sinful as Jacob, just as blind and rebellious as Isaac,
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  and just as prone to pragmatic as Rebecca.
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  Therefore, you desperately need the perfect, active and passive
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  righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to your account.
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  Having laid out the heavy theological weight of this
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  passage and its glorious Christological fulfillment, we
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  must bring these truths directly into your daily life.
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  This is where theology hits the pavement.
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  True reformed theology is never strictly academic.
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  It must penetrate every faculty of the human person.
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  We apply this to the head, the heart and the hands.
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  We begin with the intellect, the head.
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  You must establish your intellect in the firm truth of
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  God's immutable decrees. The decrees of God cannot be
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  thwarted by human hands. Therefore, you are instructed to
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  reject functional atheism. What is functional atheism?
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  It is when you profess with your mouth on Sunday that God is
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  absolutely sovereign, but you live your life on Monday
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  constantly trusting in a personal Plan B instead of the
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  Providence of the living God. When a financial crisis hits or
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  a medical diagnosis comes, do you immediately resort to
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  manipulation, lying, or frantic fleshly effort to fix?
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  It do you panic and try to seize control.
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  If so, your actions declare that your mind believes God is not
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  actually in control of this situation.
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  Trusting in your own scheming is a direct rejection of His
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  sovereignty. It is saying God, I know you
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  govern the universe, but you seem to be mishandling my
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  specific situation so I am going to take the wheel.
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  You must train your mind to rest in the doctrine of Providence,
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  knowing that the God who ordained the end has also
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  ordained the means, and He will accomplish His purposes without
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  any need for your sinful assistance.
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  When you face an impossible situation, let your intellect
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  rest on the reality that God is not surprised and His decree for
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  your good and His glory stands firm.
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  Moving from the head to the heart, this text demands A
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  rigorous examination of your affections.
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  We must address the idol of the God of the belly.
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  Look at Esau. Esau lived for his belly.
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  He lived for the immediate, tangible gratification of his
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  flesh. Whether it was a bowl of red
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  Stew to satisfy his hunger or the prestige of the patriarchal
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  blessing to satisfy his ego, his affections were entirely bound
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  to the dirt of this earth. You must force yourself to
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  evaluate your own sorrow and your own desires.
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  What? Makes you cry.
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  What makes you angry? What do you mourn losing?
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  When you are caught in a sin, or when you face the painful public
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  consequences of your actions, examine your tears with brutal
• 22:23
  honesty. Is your sorrow attrition, which
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  is hating the consequences of your sin?
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  Are you just sad that you got caught?
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  Sad that your reputation is damaged.
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  Sad that you are facing financial ruin or church
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  discipline. Or is your sorrow true
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  contrition, which is hating the sin itself because it is an
• 22:38
  offense against a holy, righteous and loving God?
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  Esau had attrition. He hated the consequence of
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  losing the blessing. He had 0 contrition.
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  He did not hate his profanity. Do not let your heart deceive
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  you into thinking that crying over a lost earthly blessing is
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  the same thing as repentance. True repentance breaks the heart
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  over the sin itself. True repentance looks at the
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  cross and mourns that our sins nailed the Savior there.
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  Ask the Holy Spirit to give you a heart of flesh that breaks
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  over what breaks the heart of God, rather than a heart that
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  only cries when it loses its earthly toys?
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  You need affections that are set on things above where Christ is
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  seated, not on the fading blessings of this fallen world.
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  Finally, we bring the application to the hands, the
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  outward daily obedience of the Christian life.
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  We must provide actionable instruction based on the utter
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  failure of this family. For the parents listening to
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  this deep dive right now, you must repent a favoritism.
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  Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game.
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  He loved the rugged, masculine hunter who tried him good food.
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  Rebecca loved Jacob, the quiet man who stayed among the tents.
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  Their home became a literal war zone of deception because the
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  parents divided their affections based on fleshly preferences and
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  personality traits. Look at the damage favoritism
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  causes. It breeds resentment,
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  competition and hatred among siblings.
• 23:58
  Furthermore, parents must stop playing the Holy Spirit in the
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  lives of their children. Stop trying to engineer their
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  spiritual outcomes through manipulation or coercion.
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  You cannot force the Covenant blessing onto a child through
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  sheer willpower, nor can you secure their future through
• 24:13
  deceit. You cannot steam them into the
• 24:15
  Kingdom of God. Trust the Lord with your
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  children. Preach the gospel to them,
• 24:20
  discipline them biblically, but leave their justification to the
• 24:23
  sovereign God who elects and saves.
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  For those of you harboring anger or holding onto a grudge against
• 24:29
  someone who has wronged you, you must put away the sort of
• 24:32
  vengeance and bitterness immediately.
• 24:34
  Look at Esau, he was wronged. Jacob did lie to him.
• 24:38
  Jacob did steal from him. But Esau's bitterness over being
• 24:41
  wronged festered in his dark heart until it became a
• 24:44
  concrete, premeditated plan for murder.
• 24:47
  Bitterness will rot your bones and destroy your soul.
• 24:50
  It will consume you entirely. Put away the sword before it
• 24:54
  turns to murderous intent. You are called to forgive as you
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  have been forgiven in Christ. Vengeance belongs to the Lord.
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  He will repay. When you hold on to bitterness,
• 25:04
  you're essentially saying that God's justice is not sufficient
• 25:07
  and you need to enact your own. I want to speak directly to the
• 25:11
  weary St. and the hardened center listening right now.
• 25:13
  To the Weary St. Stop striving to buy the
• 25:17
  blessing with your works, your perfect church attendance, your
• 25:20
  theological knowledge, or your tears.
• 25:22
  You already have the blessing in Christ Jesus.
• 25:25
  You are seated with Him in the heavenly places.
• 25:27
  Rest in his finished, perfect work.
• 25:29
  Stop acting like Jacob trying to scheme your way into God's
• 25:33
  favor. To the hardened Sinner,
• 25:34
  recognize the terrifying reality of God's immutable decree.
• 25:38
  Your rebellion will not succeed. Your pragmatism will.
• 25:41
  Collapse. You cannot outmaneuver the God
• 25:43
  who spoke the universe into existence.
• 25:45
  Turn to Christ before you find yourself crying out like Esau
• 25:47
  when it's too late, finding no place for repentance, though you
• 25:50
  seek it with tears. I must call to your memory that
• 25:53
  union with Christ alone empowers grateful obedience.
• 25:57
  We do not obey to get the blessing, we obey because we are
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  already blessed in the heavenly places.
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  Obedience is the fruit of salvation, not the root.
• 26:06
  As we move to wrap up our deep dive today, let us summarize the
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  intense collision we have discussed.
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  Human deception reaps vast, devastating destruction within
• 26:15
  families, churches and societies.
• 26:18
  Pragmatism leaves a massive Trail of Tears, fractured homes
• 26:21
  and broken relationships. Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Esaw
• 26:25
  left their family in absolute ruins.
• 26:27
  Yet above the ruins of our failures, God's sovereign grace
• 26:30
  stands as an unshakeable monument.
• 26:32
  His eternal purposes regarding the promised seed, the Lord
• 26:36
  Jesus Christ, cannot be thwarted by human hands.
• 26:38
  That is the immense comfort of this passage.
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  Despite the massive catastrophic failures of Isaac, Rebecca,
• 26:45
  Jacob and Esau, God preserved the line of promise.
• 26:48
  God is faithful even when every human involved is faithless.
• 26:52
  To strengthen your faith in these truths, look to the means
• 26:54
  of grace, specifically the Lord's Supper.
• 26:56
  The Sacraments of the visible Word given to the Church.
• 26:59
  When you come to the table, you see that the eternal blessing
• 27:02
  was not stolen by a deceiver, it was purchased by the precious
• 27:06
  blood of the Lamb. The bread and the wine testified
• 27:09
  that the covenant is secure not because of your fidelity, not
• 27:13
  because of your lack of pragmatism, but entirely because
• 27:16
  of Christ's perfect sacrifice on your behalf.
• 27:18
  Your inheritance is kept in heaven for you, shielded by
• 27:21
  God's own might, untouched by the corruption and scheming of
• 27:25
  this world. Before we close, I want to leave
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  you with a final, lingering, provocative thought to ponder on
• 27:32
  your own. We have talked extensively about
• 27:34
  the failures of Isaac and his family and the destruction their
• 27:37
  scheming brought upon their household.
• 27:39
  I want you to look at the ruins of your own pragmatic failures.
• 27:42
  Those moments in your life where you tried to force an outcome.
• 27:45
  Think about the times you manipulated a situation, lied to
• 27:48
  protect yourself or scheme to get ahead, and it blew up in
• 27:52
  your face, leaving behind pain, broken trust and intense regret.
• 27:56
  Ask yourself this question. How might God be utilizing the
• 27:59
  very collapse of your clever schemes to bring about His
• 28:02
  perfect will completely apart from your control?
• 28:05
  How is He using your total failure to drive you to your
• 28:07
  knees, forcing you to abandon yourself reliance and cast
• 28:11
  yourself entirely upon His sovereign mercy?
• 28:14
  Thank you for joining us today on Reformed Thinking.
• 28:17
  We pray this deep dive into God's Holy Word has fortified
• 28:20
  your mind, crushed your pride, and humbled your heart before
• 28:22
  the King of Kings rest in the finished work of Christ, the
• 28:26
  true first born. Grace and peace to you all.