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Feb. 9, 2021
Raw Honesty of the Bible (Walk Thru the Bible Week 2)
This episode complements the daily readings from our Walk Thru the Bible reading plan for February 8th-14th, covering Genesis chapters 20-33.
The story of Abraham continues this week with the birth of Isaac and then the birth of Isaac's twins: Esau and Jacob. We will discuss the raw honesty of the biblical accounts. We will also warn against faulty interpretations of the Genesis accounts that have led to centuries of injustice and error.
Show Links:
Walk Thru the Bible Reading Plan –http://icejusa.org/walkthrubible
The Daily Bible - https://www.icej.store/store/product/books/theology/daily-bible
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https://www.facebook.com/susanmichaelicej/about/
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More info on Susan: https://www.icejusa.org/susans-blog
Transcript
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Welcome to Walk Through the Bible, Susan Michael's 12-month journey through the most exciting
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book on the planet.
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It will transform your life one page at a time.
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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes that will ignite your faith and bring your Bible
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to life.
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Now, let's join our host, Susan Michael.
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Well, hey there, and welcome to week two of Walk Through the Bible.
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This week we're talking about the patriarchal period, and we're covering pages 39 through
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68 of the Daily Bible or the dates January 8 to 14 in the Daily Bible.
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I want to review quickly last week.
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We our first week, we covered Genesis 1 through 11, which was the creation of man and the
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fall of mankind into sin in a very desperate place.
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And out of this context then, Genesis 12, everything changes.
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And the God that created the universe, that created man to be in fellowship with him,
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announces a plan to a man named Abram.
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And this plan is going to create a people and give them a land.
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And through them, God's going to redeem mankind and reestablish that fellowship that he so
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desires.
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So this week, we want to continue the story of Abram.
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And we're going to stop and look at some of the religious and cultural context of Abram.
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And we're also going to talk about two oversimplifications in the story that I want you to avoid.
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If you listen to my 3D Bible series, you know that I like to point out oversimplifications
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that get us into error.
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So we're going to talk about two of those in today's story.
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So let's pick up our story.
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We, first of all, I want to set the context for Abram that it is in a context of a polytheistic
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world.
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There's national gods, there's family gods, there's regional gods, there's gods of the
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weather and gods of this and gods of that.
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And it's in this context that the God of the universe speaks to Abram.
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And this is so astounding because the gods of the time were all there in need of service
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and of being appeased.
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And so you always try to appease the gods so that they would then bless you or they would
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not do bad things.
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Or if you needed rain, that the God of rain, you would appease the God of rain.
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You needed this, you needed that.
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You were always trying to appease the gods.
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But the God of the universe, the creator of mankind, speaks to Abram and he doesn't make
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him do anything to appease him.
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Instead he makes promises of what he's going to do.
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This is so amazing and so different from any god that Abram has ever heard about.
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And Rabbinic tradition has it that Abraham's family were a family of idol makers.
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So I think that when this God spoke to him, he knew it was real.
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And he knew how different that this God was speaking and being portrayed than the others.
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So the only thing God tells him to do is follow me and I'll give you a land.
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I'll make you a great nation.
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And everybody that blesses you will be blessed.
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And through you, I'm going to bless all the families on the earth.
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These are amazing promises.
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And so we know from this story, Abram packs up and follows.
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He follows God and when he gets into the land of Canaan to Bethel, God speaks and says,
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This is the land I'm going to give your descendants.
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Now the first problem is there's famine in the land.
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So we read last week how Abram went to Egypt and this curious story of how that he lies
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to Pharaoh and says that Sarah is his sister and not his wife in order to save his life.
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I just want to point out two things.
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One is the honesty of the scriptures that they tell these kinds of stories that make
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the patriarch Abram look a little weak in faith.
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He didn't trust God for his safety, but instead he lies.
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Of course, he says later he didn't really lie that she really was his sister in that
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she was the daughter of his father, but not of his mother.
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And so at the time it was acceptable that they be married.
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So he's saying that really he didn't lie.
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But we have the same story three times in the book of Genesis.
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First with Abraham and Pharaoh, then with Abram and the king of Gerar, Abimelik.
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And then later we have the same story with Isaac and Abimelik.
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So obviously there was a problem at the time where the king or the Pharaoh, the ruler, could
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just take women, they took women as political alliances or for any reason.
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And this put their husbands who were the lower subjects in danger, obviously.
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But Abram and Sarah, they survived this in Pharaoh, they come back to the land and then
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we have a focus on the second problem in the story of Abram.
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The second problem is Sarah is barren.
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And the one thing that Abraham's called to do, which is to birth a nation, which starts
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with one baby, he couldn't do.
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So it's really amazing that God had called him to do something.
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God knew that Abram and Sarah could not produce the child that was required.
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So Sarah resorts to a well-known and actually legal part of a marriage contract that if
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she cannot bear an heir to her husband, that she can use a maid servant, a female maid
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servant to act as a surrogate.
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And the birth from that surrogate mother would be considered a child of the wife for full
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inheritance purposes.
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We know from marriage contracts that have been found of the time that this was written
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into marriage contracts.
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Now I'm not saying that Abram and Sarah had a written contract, but I'm just saying that
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from the time we know that this was a legal provision.
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So it wasn't just acceptable.
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It was actually expected in these situations.
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So she offers up Hagar, Abram goes into Hagar, Hagar is pregnant, she begins to despise Sarah
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and she is sent away and she's out in the desert and the angel of the Lord comes to
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her and says, the Lord has heard your cry, go back, you're going to have a son, his
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name will be Ishmael, which means that God has heard.
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And she does, she goes back, she has Ishmael.
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And this is just a short little review from last week, but because we continue the story
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into this week, I wanted to repeat the very beginning of the story.
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So Hagar goes back, Ishmael is born and for the next 13 years, and I want you to think
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about that 13 years is a long time.
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Abram thinks that Ishmael is the promised son.
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He is the heir that came from his own loins.
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And so he's preparing Ishmael to be the heir and to take over.
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I'm sure he's teaching him all about the worship of this God that Abram is following.
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I'm sure that he is training him up in the ways of the household to take over.
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And then when Ishmael is 13 years old, God speaks to Abram again.
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And this time he says, sorry, Abram, but the promise is going to come from Sarah.
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And I'm now changing your name to Abraham, the father of many nations.
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And I'm changing her name to Sarah.
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And so Sarah is going to bear you a child.
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Well, when Sarah hears this, she laughs.
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So a year later, when she's giving birth to a child, he is named Isaac, which stands
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for or means laughter.
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So now here we have Ishmael, who's about 14 years old, and he's got a baby brother.
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And all of a sudden, the baby brother is the promised one.
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And I just want you to think about this because I've heard a lot of sermons about Ishmael
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and Isaac.
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And I've heard a lot of blame of Ishmael.
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I've heard a lot of blame on Abraham in the story.
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And I will always remember the day that I decided to reread this story, as though I had never
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heard it before.
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I set aside all the negative sermons, and I just read what the text says.
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And I read every scripture about Abraham and the rest of the Bible because I wanted to
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see how God felt about Ishmael and what Abraham had birthed here.
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And I see this as the first oversimplification that I want you to know about, because when
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the angel met with Hagar in the desert, and he said, God has heard you, go back to the
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camp, you're going to bear a son and his name will be Ishmael.
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He also gives a word to her that he is going to be a man that's like at war with his brothers.
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His hand is against other men.
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And so the church has taken that and has kind of run with it in an oversimplification that
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all the descendants of Ishmael are prone to war, and it's almost as though we've written
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them off.
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And so this means that today in the church, many times, there is a negative association
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with the Arab people that they are the descendants of Ishmael, and they're just the cause of
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all the problems in the Middle East.
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When you reread this story, as though you've never heard those negative things, you're
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going to find Abraham loved this son, he poured his life into him, he thought he was the promise.
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And when God said, no, the promise is going to come from Sarah, he said, but don't you
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worry because I'm going to bless Ishmael.
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And we know that Ishmael is 14 years old, and yeah, he's jealous of the baby that's
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now going to be the heir.
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And I just say anyone that's had children and teenagers and babies, and I mean, it's
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almost normal that there's jealousy.
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This is a hard thing for Ishmael to take.
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And so he mocks Isaac, and so Sarah says, Abram, we've got to get rid of them.
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They're troublemakers, I fear.
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And so Abraham, I'm sure it broke his heart, sent Ishmael away.
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And Ishmael is met in the desert by God himself.
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I mean, God speaks to Hagar, miraculously provides water, miraculously saves his life,
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and then assures Hagar, just like he assured Abraham, I'm going to bless Ishmael.
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And it just then says that he grew into mankind, and we know he had 12 sons and a great nation,
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and God did bless him.
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So it's a little bit of a different emphasis than what we've heard in a lot of sermons.
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And the Middle East is a very complex region, and yes, there are some Arabs that descend
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from Ishmael, but there are others in the Arab world that claim they do not descend
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from Ishmael, that they're from an earlier line.
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And so my point is here, we can't oversimplify these things and make these huge, broad assumptions
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that in a way disregard a whole people group, Jesus died for the whole world, and that includes
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the Arab people, it includes the people of the Middle East, it includes the Muslims today,
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and Jesus himself is appearing in dreams and visions to many Muslims.
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And I think that it's time that the church reassess this negative teaching that we have
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had.
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So now moving on.
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So Ishmael has been sent away, he's now into manhood, and it seems like Isaac is probably
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about 18, 20 years old himself when we have this story, very odd story to those of us
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in the 21st century reading this.
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It's what's called the Binding of Isaac, or when God speaks to Abraham and says, take
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your only son up to Moriah to the hilltop, I will show you, and offer him as a sacrifice.
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Now you and I are like, what?
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Child sacrifice?
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What?
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I mean, this is like a very troublesome story.
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So let me just calm you by pointing out upfront, God never intended Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.
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It didn't happen in the story, and it was actually never intended in the story.
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So this was first and foremost, according to the scriptures, a test of Abraham's faith.
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But then you might be saying, why on earth would Abraham even think to do that?
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I mean, doesn't he know we all know that's not God?
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Well, actually, Abraham was surrounded by a world that believed in child sacrifice.
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So maybe he actually didn't know he didn't have the Mosaic Law.
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The Mosaic Law didn't come until 500 years later.
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So he didn't know this was prohibited according to the God of the universe, and he obeys and
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he takes his child.
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Now, we see all the pictures that looks like Isaac is like eight or nine years old, and
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he's carrying wood, and he's going up the mountain with Abraham.
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But in all honesty, Isaac was probably closer to about 20.
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He needed to be strong to carry enough wood up the hill for a sacrifice.
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So more than likely, he was full capability.
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He could have rebelled.
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He could have run, but he follows his father and takes the wood.
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So first of all, it's a test of Abraham's faith.
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Secondly, it is the introduction of the concept of an animal sacrifice substituting our own,
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a human sacrifice.
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This is the first time it's seen in the scripture.
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When Abraham tells his son, God will provide a sacrifice, and sure enough, they're caught
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in the thicket.
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It was a ram that they then killed as a sacrifice.
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So this is the first time substitutionary animal sacrifice is introduced.
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Thirdly, and probably most importantly, is that this story is seen as a type and shadow
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of the day roughly, oh, 2,000 years later, 1,500 years later, when God sacrifices his
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only son on Mount Moriah.
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It's believed that this took place on the very hilltop that Jesus was sacrificed.
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And Jesus has this curious verse when he's talking to his disciples.
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He told them, he said, Abraham saw my day and rejoiced in it.
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Now when is he talking about?
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It could be that it was this day that on that mountain top, when Abraham saw how God substituted
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for his sin with this animal, that the day was coming, that God's only son was going
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to be substituted on that very hillside.
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So this is the richness and the depth of this story.
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Later on, the law does forbid any type of child sacrifice.
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So now let's move on.
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The next story we have is that Abraham buys a cave.
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Very interesting Middle East negotiation goes on here.
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I chuckle when I read it.
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But in the end, he buys a field with a cave in it where he can bury his beloved Sarah,
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who is now passed away.
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So then we enter into the story of Isaac.
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Isaac needs a wife.
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And so Abraham sends his servant up to his homeland, to his family in Heron, and finds
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Rebecca for Isaac.
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And Rebecca comes back.
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And then we have the story where later years are going by quickly in between these stories.
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But Abraham dies, and he is buried in the same cave that he purchased for Sarah.
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At the end of our stories, we're going to find that Abraham and Sarah are buried there,
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that Isaac and Rebecca are buried there, and then Jacob and Leah are buried there.
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And it's called Cave of the Patriarchs.
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Today it's a very hotly contested area in the city of Hebron, which is in southern Israel,
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part of what's known as the West Bank.
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So there are Jewish residents there, and there are Palestinian residents.
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And it's just a very, very hotly contested area because these patriarchs are considered
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also patriarchs of Islam.
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And Herod the Great built a huge building over the cave.
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So it's a really big and respectable site, a holy place for two religions, and in a very
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hotly contested political area, the Cave of Makphila, or it's known as Cave of the Patriarchs.
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Our story then continues with Rebecca is pregnant, and she's pregnant with two nations that are
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battling inside of her and born our Esau and Jacob.
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And Jacob is holding onto the heel of Esau when they're born.
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And I just want to take a minute here to talk about a second oversimplification that I want
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to warn you against.
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You know, the story here of Esau and Jacob being born, they're twins.
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And it's prophesied over Rebecca that the younger will rule over the older.
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But when they're born, the younger one, Jacob, is holding onto the heel of Esau.
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And so the younger Esau, this says, is kind of hairy and red when he's born, so they named
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him Esau.
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And Jacob is holding onto the heel.
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So they named him Jacob.
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And the controversy here is over exactly how do we translate the name Jacob.
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And there's one translation, which is a negative translation.
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And Esau kind of later refers to that when he says, well, he's true to his name, he supplanted
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me.
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And that Jacob may mean supplanter, or we would say, you know, a deceiver, manipulator.
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But there's another meaning, which is that it plays on the word for heel.
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So it may have had something to do with the one that is grasping onto the heel, or that
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it's something about blessing behind them that they're heel, and it's a hard translation.
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And so throughout history, the Christian church has kind of focused on the negative translation
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for Jacob.
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And there have been actual anti-Semitic theories come out of this, that Jacob, the father of
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the people of Israel, was a deceiver and a manipulator.
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And in this story, he's just a deceiver and a manipulator, and he stole from Esau his
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inheritance and he stole from him his blessing.
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And it plays into an anti-Semitic negative view of the Jewish people.
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We really have to guard against such an oversimplification and realize that there may be another translation
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at play here.
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And then let's look at the story.
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So yes, Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of beans lentil soup.
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He didn't trick him.
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I mean, Jacob didn't really trick him.
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Esau easily sold his birthright.
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The birthright is your inheritance.
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And as the firstborn, Esau was set up to inherit twice as much as Jacob.
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This is in property and in goods.
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He quickly sold that right to Jacob in order to have this bowl of beans.
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So it showed that he didn't have a high regard for his inheritance.
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And so Jacob, hey, he buys it from him.
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But then we have the later story where Esau, who was gone and married two pagan women, so
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he also didn't have any respect for the family lineage and what had been passed on from Abraham
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to Isaac.
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And I'm sure Isaac was passing it on to his children that they needed to marry within
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the family line and not mix with the pagans.
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And yet Esau goes, he marries two pagan women.
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And so Rebecca says to Jacob, you need to go get the blessing.
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And so he deceives his father.
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And he takes the blessing.
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The father thinks he's blessing Esau.
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It ends up he's blessing Jacob.
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So yeah, there's some trickery there.
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There's a little bit of deception there.
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But Esau was not very serious.
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He wasn't taking serious what was required of him to be the one to carry on the family
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line.
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And then later in the story, which I'm going to jump ahead, we have this story where Jacob
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struggles all night long with this angel of the Lord.
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It's almost as though it's a God himself in the form of this angel.
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And he wrestles with Jacob all night long.
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And then at the end, Jacob says, bless me.
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And the angel of the Lord says, who are you?
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And I think he's calling Jacob to account.
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Are you Jacob?
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Are you going to be honest?
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And he says, I'm Jacob.
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And he says, from now on, you're going to be called Israel because you struggled with
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God and with man and you prevailed.
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So God condones this thing in Jacob where he goes after what he feels is right and good.
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And he wants it.
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Yes, he wants it for himself.
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But actually, God condoned that because now he had somebody that actually wanted to carry
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on the family line and the blessing of Abraham.
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And so in the end, Jacob is given the blessing of Abraham.
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So this is a little bit of a different story than what our anti-Semitic Christians have
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taught at times in history.
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And this is why I wanted to take a few minutes to bring it out.
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Now moving quickly, our next story is that then Jacob has time for him to have a wife.
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So he goes to Heron to the family lineage to marry within the family.
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And of course, he goes there to also get away from Esau because he's afraid of his, for
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his life.
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And he goes to Heron and Jacob, the deceiver or the one that outsmarted Esau meets his
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match in Laban.
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And we have an interesting story here between Jacob and Laban and who can outsmart the other
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one.
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And at first Laban outsmarts Jacob and then Jacob outsmarts Laban.
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And then we find Laban is outsmarting Jacob and then Jacob leaves.
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So I'm not going to review the whole story.
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I encourage you to read it, part of your reading this week.
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But there is one interesting element in the story I do want to bring out.
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As the end of the story of Jacob and Laban, it says that Jacob asked for permission to
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take as his portion of the flocks all the ones that are spotted.
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And there's this story of how that he uses, it's a mixture of like folk, folk medicine
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to breed the sheep in such a way that the spotted ones become more than the non-spotted,
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which is highly unusual.
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Usually the spotted ones are just a small percentage.
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But it says in there that he used divination.
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And this word divination, I mean, it's kind of a shocker.
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It's like what?
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Jacob, Israel, the father of Israel, one of the patriarchs used divination.
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What is this?
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Once again, I want to point out the honesty of the scriptures.
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They're not whitewashing anything here.
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They're telling you what the story is.
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Secondly, yes, Jacob had been raised by Isaac, had been raised by Abraham to follow this
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God.
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However, they were surrounded by a polytheistic world and his family in Heron were all still
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polytheistic.
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They hadn't had this experience that Abraham had.
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So they still had their family gods and their tribal gods and their regional gods and all
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of this polytheistic world.
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And of course, magic and divination is a part of that.
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And maybe Jacob just became influenced by the family.
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Obviously, it was a bad influence because later on in the law of Moses, God says, it
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is forbidden.
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At this point in our story, they had not been told that divination was forbidden.
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So therefore, in our story, it's actually not a forbidden thing that Jacob did.
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Exactly what he did, we don't know.
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Exactly how did he get those spotted, the spotted lives that we really don't know.
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But that's the story.
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So now Jacob leaves and we know the story that Rachel steals the family gods and brings
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them with her.
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And I just want to point out, she didn't bring them with her because she was believing
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in them or worshiping them.
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According to the story, Laban had tricked them.
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And even though Jacob had worked for seven years to earn each bride, Laban had not set
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aside those wages so that they would be paid to the brides, which was a custom in marriage
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at the time.
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And so Rachel and Leia actually have nothing.
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They discover that Laban did not handle this right.
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So she steals the gods because of their value.
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Of course, it brings a problem on them and Jacob makes them get rid of them in the end.
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So this is the story that we have read this week.
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Jacob is now back in the land.
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He has 12 sons and one daughter.
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Or he eventually, by the time he does have some children are born in the land.
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So let me reword this.
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He returns to the land.
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All together he ends up with 12 sons and one daughter, birthed by two wives and two maid
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servants.
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His absolute favorite wife is Rachel and her two children, Joseph and Benjamin, end up
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his two favorite children.
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But he has a large clan.
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God has given him peace with Esau.
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He's given him peace.
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He has passed on to him the blessings of Abraham and the calling of Abraham.
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And this is where we end our reading this week.
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What is the story behind the story?
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What is it that we've just covered?
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We have covered that God has established the family line through Abraham, Isaac and now
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Jacob.
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And he is fulfilling his promises to Abraham.
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But first he has established the family line.
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And now we have 12 tribes and the family will grow from here.
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Can't wait to see you back here next week.
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I hope you're enjoying your reading.
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I use this time to review the reading, but there's so many details that I cannot cover
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in our short time together.
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So I hope you're reading each week and that I'm helping you with some of the troublesome
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spots in the reading and I'm helping you to understand that story behind the story.
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So I will see you back here next week for week three and I can't wait until then.
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God bless you.
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,180
Welcome to Walk Through the Bible, Susan Michael's 12-month journey through the most exciting
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book on the planet.
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It will transform your life one page at a time.
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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes that will ignite your faith and bring your Bible
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00:00:15,140 --> 00:00:16,140
to life.
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Now, let's join our host, Susan Michael.
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Well, hey there, and welcome to week two of Walk Through the Bible.
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This week we're talking about the patriarchal period, and we're covering pages 39 through
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68 of the Daily Bible or the dates January 8 to 14 in the Daily Bible.
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I want to review quickly last week.
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We our first week, we covered Genesis 1 through 11, which was the creation of man and the
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fall of mankind into sin in a very desperate place.
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And out of this context then, Genesis 12, everything changes.
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And the God that created the universe, that created man to be in fellowship with him,
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announces a plan to a man named Abram.
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And this plan is going to create a people and give them a land.
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And through them, God's going to redeem mankind and reestablish that fellowship that he so
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desires.
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So this week, we want to continue the story of Abram.
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And we're going to stop and look at some of the religious and cultural context of Abram.
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And we're also going to talk about two oversimplifications in the story that I want you to avoid.
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If you listen to my 3D Bible series, you know that I like to point out oversimplifications
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that get us into error.
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So we're going to talk about two of those in today's story.
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So let's pick up our story.
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We, first of all, I want to set the context for Abram that it is in a context of a polytheistic
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world.
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There's national gods, there's family gods, there's regional gods, there's gods of the
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weather and gods of this and gods of that.
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And it's in this context that the God of the universe speaks to Abram.
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And this is so astounding because the gods of the time were all there in need of service
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and of being appeased.
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And so you always try to appease the gods so that they would then bless you or they would
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not do bad things.
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Or if you needed rain, that the God of rain, you would appease the God of rain.
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You needed this, you needed that.
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You were always trying to appease the gods.
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But the God of the universe, the creator of mankind, speaks to Abram and he doesn't make
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him do anything to appease him.
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Instead he makes promises of what he's going to do.
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This is so amazing and so different from any god that Abram has ever heard about.
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And Rabbinic tradition has it that Abraham's family were a family of idol makers.
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So I think that when this God spoke to him, he knew it was real.
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And he knew how different that this God was speaking and being portrayed than the others.
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So the only thing God tells him to do is follow me and I'll give you a land.
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I'll make you a great nation.
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And everybody that blesses you will be blessed.
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And through you, I'm going to bless all the families on the earth.
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These are amazing promises.
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And so we know from this story, Abram packs up and follows.
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He follows God and when he gets into the land of Canaan to Bethel, God speaks and says,
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This is the land I'm going to give your descendants.
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Now the first problem is there's famine in the land.
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So we read last week how Abram went to Egypt and this curious story of how that he lies
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to Pharaoh and says that Sarah is his sister and not his wife in order to save his life.
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I just want to point out two things.
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One is the honesty of the scriptures that they tell these kinds of stories that make
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the patriarch Abram look a little weak in faith.
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He didn't trust God for his safety, but instead he lies.
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Of course, he says later he didn't really lie that she really was his sister in that
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she was the daughter of his father, but not of his mother.
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And so at the time it was acceptable that they be married.
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So he's saying that really he didn't lie.
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But we have the same story three times in the book of Genesis.
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First with Abraham and Pharaoh, then with Abram and the king of Gerar, Abimelik.
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And then later we have the same story with Isaac and Abimelik.
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So obviously there was a problem at the time where the king or the Pharaoh, the ruler, could
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just take women, they took women as political alliances or for any reason.
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And this put their husbands who were the lower subjects in danger, obviously.
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But Abram and Sarah, they survived this in Pharaoh, they come back to the land and then
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we have a focus on the second problem in the story of Abram.
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The second problem is Sarah is barren.
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And the one thing that Abraham's called to do, which is to birth a nation, which starts
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with one baby, he couldn't do.
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So it's really amazing that God had called him to do something.
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God knew that Abram and Sarah could not produce the child that was required.
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So Sarah resorts to a well-known and actually legal part of a marriage contract that if
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she cannot bear an heir to her husband, that she can use a maid servant, a female maid
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servant to act as a surrogate.
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And the birth from that surrogate mother would be considered a child of the wife for full
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inheritance purposes.
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We know from marriage contracts that have been found of the time that this was written
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into marriage contracts.
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Now I'm not saying that Abram and Sarah had a written contract, but I'm just saying that
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from the time we know that this was a legal provision.
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So it wasn't just acceptable.
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It was actually expected in these situations.
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So she offers up Hagar, Abram goes into Hagar, Hagar is pregnant, she begins to despise Sarah
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and she is sent away and she's out in the desert and the angel of the Lord comes to
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her and says, the Lord has heard your cry, go back, you're going to have a son, his
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name will be Ishmael, which means that God has heard.
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And she does, she goes back, she has Ishmael.
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And this is just a short little review from last week, but because we continue the story
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into this week, I wanted to repeat the very beginning of the story.
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So Hagar goes back, Ishmael is born and for the next 13 years, and I want you to think
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about that 13 years is a long time.
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Abram thinks that Ishmael is the promised son.
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He is the heir that came from his own loins.
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And so he's preparing Ishmael to be the heir and to take over.
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I'm sure he's teaching him all about the worship of this God that Abram is following.
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I'm sure that he is training him up in the ways of the household to take over.
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And then when Ishmael is 13 years old, God speaks to Abram again.
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And this time he says, sorry, Abram, but the promise is going to come from Sarah.
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And I'm now changing your name to Abraham, the father of many nations.
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And I'm changing her name to Sarah.
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And so Sarah is going to bear you a child.
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Well, when Sarah hears this, she laughs.
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So a year later, when she's giving birth to a child, he is named Isaac, which stands
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for or means laughter.
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So now here we have Ishmael, who's about 14 years old, and he's got a baby brother.
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And all of a sudden, the baby brother is the promised one.
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And I just want you to think about this because I've heard a lot of sermons about Ishmael
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and Isaac.
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And I've heard a lot of blame of Ishmael.
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I've heard a lot of blame on Abraham in the story.
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And I will always remember the day that I decided to reread this story, as though I had never
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heard it before.
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I set aside all the negative sermons, and I just read what the text says.
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And I read every scripture about Abraham and the rest of the Bible because I wanted to
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see how God felt about Ishmael and what Abraham had birthed here.
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And I see this as the first oversimplification that I want you to know about, because when
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the angel met with Hagar in the desert, and he said, God has heard you, go back to the
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camp, you're going to bear a son and his name will be Ishmael.
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He also gives a word to her that he is going to be a man that's like at war with his brothers.
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His hand is against other men.
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And so the church has taken that and has kind of run with it in an oversimplification that
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all the descendants of Ishmael are prone to war, and it's almost as though we've written
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them off.
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And so this means that today in the church, many times, there is a negative association
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with the Arab people that they are the descendants of Ishmael, and they're just the cause of
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all the problems in the Middle East.
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When you reread this story, as though you've never heard those negative things, you're
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going to find Abraham loved this son, he poured his life into him, he thought he was the promise.
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And when God said, no, the promise is going to come from Sarah, he said, but don't you
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worry because I'm going to bless Ishmael.
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And we know that Ishmael is 14 years old, and yeah, he's jealous of the baby that's
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now going to be the heir.
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And I just say anyone that's had children and teenagers and babies, and I mean, it's
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almost normal that there's jealousy.
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This is a hard thing for Ishmael to take.
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And so he mocks Isaac, and so Sarah says, Abram, we've got to get rid of them.
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They're troublemakers, I fear.
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And so Abraham, I'm sure it broke his heart, sent Ishmael away.
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And Ishmael is met in the desert by God himself.
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I mean, God speaks to Hagar, miraculously provides water, miraculously saves his life,
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and then assures Hagar, just like he assured Abraham, I'm going to bless Ishmael.
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And it just then says that he grew into mankind, and we know he had 12 sons and a great nation,
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and God did bless him.
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So it's a little bit of a different emphasis than what we've heard in a lot of sermons.
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And the Middle East is a very complex region, and yes, there are some Arabs that descend
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from Ishmael, but there are others in the Arab world that claim they do not descend
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from Ishmael, that they're from an earlier line.
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And so my point is here, we can't oversimplify these things and make these huge, broad assumptions
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that in a way disregard a whole people group, Jesus died for the whole world, and that includes
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the Arab people, it includes the people of the Middle East, it includes the Muslims today,
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and Jesus himself is appearing in dreams and visions to many Muslims.
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And I think that it's time that the church reassess this negative teaching that we have
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had.
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So now moving on.
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So Ishmael has been sent away, he's now into manhood, and it seems like Isaac is probably
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about 18, 20 years old himself when we have this story, very odd story to those of us
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in the 21st century reading this.
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It's what's called the Binding of Isaac, or when God speaks to Abraham and says, take
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your only son up to Moriah to the hilltop, I will show you, and offer him as a sacrifice.
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Now you and I are like, what?
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Child sacrifice?
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What?
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I mean, this is like a very troublesome story.
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So let me just calm you by pointing out upfront, God never intended Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.
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It didn't happen in the story, and it was actually never intended in the story.
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So this was first and foremost, according to the scriptures, a test of Abraham's faith.
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But then you might be saying, why on earth would Abraham even think to do that?
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I mean, doesn't he know we all know that's not God?
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Well, actually, Abraham was surrounded by a world that believed in child sacrifice.
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So maybe he actually didn't know he didn't have the Mosaic Law.
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The Mosaic Law didn't come until 500 years later.
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So he didn't know this was prohibited according to the God of the universe, and he obeys and
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he takes his child.
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Now, we see all the pictures that looks like Isaac is like eight or nine years old, and
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he's carrying wood, and he's going up the mountain with Abraham.
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But in all honesty, Isaac was probably closer to about 20.
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He needed to be strong to carry enough wood up the hill for a sacrifice.
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So more than likely, he was full capability.
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He could have rebelled.
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He could have run, but he follows his father and takes the wood.
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So first of all, it's a test of Abraham's faith.
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Secondly, it is the introduction of the concept of an animal sacrifice substituting our own,
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a human sacrifice.
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This is the first time it's seen in the scripture.
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When Abraham tells his son, God will provide a sacrifice, and sure enough, they're caught
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in the thicket.
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It was a ram that they then killed as a sacrifice.
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So this is the first time substitutionary animal sacrifice is introduced.
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Thirdly, and probably most importantly, is that this story is seen as a type and shadow
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of the day roughly, oh, 2,000 years later, 1,500 years later, when God sacrifices his
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only son on Mount Moriah.
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It's believed that this took place on the very hilltop that Jesus was sacrificed.
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And Jesus has this curious verse when he's talking to his disciples.
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He told them, he said, Abraham saw my day and rejoiced in it.
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Now when is he talking about?
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It could be that it was this day that on that mountain top, when Abraham saw how God substituted
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for his sin with this animal, that the day was coming, that God's only son was going
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to be substituted on that very hillside.
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So this is the richness and the depth of this story.
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Later on, the law does forbid any type of child sacrifice.
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So now let's move on.
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The next story we have is that Abraham buys a cave.
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Very interesting Middle East negotiation goes on here.
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I chuckle when I read it.
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But in the end, he buys a field with a cave in it where he can bury his beloved Sarah,
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who is now passed away.
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So then we enter into the story of Isaac.
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Isaac needs a wife.
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And so Abraham sends his servant up to his homeland, to his family in Heron, and finds
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Rebecca for Isaac.
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And Rebecca comes back.
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And then we have the story where later years are going by quickly in between these stories.
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But Abraham dies, and he is buried in the same cave that he purchased for Sarah.
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At the end of our stories, we're going to find that Abraham and Sarah are buried there,
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that Isaac and Rebecca are buried there, and then Jacob and Leah are buried there.
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And it's called Cave of the Patriarchs.
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Today it's a very hotly contested area in the city of Hebron, which is in southern Israel,
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part of what's known as the West Bank.
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So there are Jewish residents there, and there are Palestinian residents.
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And it's just a very, very hotly contested area because these patriarchs are considered
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also patriarchs of Islam.
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And Herod the Great built a huge building over the cave.
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So it's a really big and respectable site, a holy place for two religions, and in a very
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hotly contested political area, the Cave of Makphila, or it's known as Cave of the Patriarchs.
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Our story then continues with Rebecca is pregnant, and she's pregnant with two nations that are
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battling inside of her and born our Esau and Jacob.
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And Jacob is holding onto the heel of Esau when they're born.
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And I just want to take a minute here to talk about a second oversimplification that I want
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to warn you against.
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You know, the story here of Esau and Jacob being born, they're twins.
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And it's prophesied over Rebecca that the younger will rule over the older.
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But when they're born, the younger one, Jacob, is holding onto the heel of Esau.
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And so the younger Esau, this says, is kind of hairy and red when he's born, so they named
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him Esau.
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And Jacob is holding onto the heel.
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So they named him Jacob.
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And the controversy here is over exactly how do we translate the name Jacob.
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And there's one translation, which is a negative translation.
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And Esau kind of later refers to that when he says, well, he's true to his name, he supplanted
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me.
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And that Jacob may mean supplanter, or we would say, you know, a deceiver, manipulator.
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But there's another meaning, which is that it plays on the word for heel.
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So it may have had something to do with the one that is grasping onto the heel, or that
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it's something about blessing behind them that they're heel, and it's a hard translation.
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And so throughout history, the Christian church has kind of focused on the negative translation
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for Jacob.
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And there have been actual anti-Semitic theories come out of this, that Jacob, the father of
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the people of Israel, was a deceiver and a manipulator.
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And in this story, he's just a deceiver and a manipulator, and he stole from Esau his
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inheritance and he stole from him his blessing.
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And it plays into an anti-Semitic negative view of the Jewish people.
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We really have to guard against such an oversimplification and realize that there may be another translation
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at play here.
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And then let's look at the story.
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So yes, Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of beans lentil soup.
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He didn't trick him.
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I mean, Jacob didn't really trick him.
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Esau easily sold his birthright.
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The birthright is your inheritance.
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And as the firstborn, Esau was set up to inherit twice as much as Jacob.
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This is in property and in goods.
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He quickly sold that right to Jacob in order to have this bowl of beans.
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So it showed that he didn't have a high regard for his inheritance.
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And so Jacob, hey, he buys it from him.
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But then we have the later story where Esau, who was gone and married two pagan women, so
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he also didn't have any respect for the family lineage and what had been passed on from Abraham
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to Isaac.
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And I'm sure Isaac was passing it on to his children that they needed to marry within
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the family line and not mix with the pagans.
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And yet Esau goes, he marries two pagan women.
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And so Rebecca says to Jacob, you need to go get the blessing.
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And so he deceives his father.
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And he takes the blessing.
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The father thinks he's blessing Esau.
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It ends up he's blessing Jacob.
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So yeah, there's some trickery there.
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There's a little bit of deception there.
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But Esau was not very serious.
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He wasn't taking serious what was required of him to be the one to carry on the family
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line.
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And then later in the story, which I'm going to jump ahead, we have this story where Jacob
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struggles all night long with this angel of the Lord.
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It's almost as though it's a God himself in the form of this angel.
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And he wrestles with Jacob all night long.
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And then at the end, Jacob says, bless me.
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And the angel of the Lord says, who are you?
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And I think he's calling Jacob to account.
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Are you Jacob?
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Are you going to be honest?
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And he says, I'm Jacob.
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And he says, from now on, you're going to be called Israel because you struggled with
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God and with man and you prevailed.
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So God condones this thing in Jacob where he goes after what he feels is right and good.
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And he wants it.
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Yes, he wants it for himself.
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But actually, God condoned that because now he had somebody that actually wanted to carry
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on the family line and the blessing of Abraham.
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And so in the end, Jacob is given the blessing of Abraham.
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So this is a little bit of a different story than what our anti-Semitic Christians have
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taught at times in history.
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And this is why I wanted to take a few minutes to bring it out.
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Now moving quickly, our next story is that then Jacob has time for him to have a wife.
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So he goes to Heron to the family lineage to marry within the family.
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And of course, he goes there to also get away from Esau because he's afraid of his, for
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his life.
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And he goes to Heron and Jacob, the deceiver or the one that outsmarted Esau meets his
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match in Laban.
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And we have an interesting story here between Jacob and Laban and who can outsmart the other
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one.
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And at first Laban outsmarts Jacob and then Jacob outsmarts Laban.
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And then we find Laban is outsmarting Jacob and then Jacob leaves.
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So I'm not going to review the whole story.
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I encourage you to read it, part of your reading this week.
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But there is one interesting element in the story I do want to bring out.
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As the end of the story of Jacob and Laban, it says that Jacob asked for permission to
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take as his portion of the flocks all the ones that are spotted.
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And there's this story of how that he uses, it's a mixture of like folk, folk medicine
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to breed the sheep in such a way that the spotted ones become more than the non-spotted,
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which is highly unusual.
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Usually the spotted ones are just a small percentage.
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But it says in there that he used divination.
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And this word divination, I mean, it's kind of a shocker.
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It's like what?
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Jacob, Israel, the father of Israel, one of the patriarchs used divination.
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What is this?
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Once again, I want to point out the honesty of the scriptures.
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They're not whitewashing anything here.
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They're telling you what the story is.
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Secondly, yes, Jacob had been raised by Isaac, had been raised by Abraham to follow this
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God.
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However, they were surrounded by a polytheistic world and his family in Heron were all still
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polytheistic.
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They hadn't had this experience that Abraham had.
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So they still had their family gods and their tribal gods and their regional gods and all
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of this polytheistic world.
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And of course, magic and divination is a part of that.
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And maybe Jacob just became influenced by the family.
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Obviously, it was a bad influence because later on in the law of Moses, God says, it
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is forbidden.
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At this point in our story, they had not been told that divination was forbidden.
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So therefore, in our story, it's actually not a forbidden thing that Jacob did.
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Exactly what he did, we don't know.
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Exactly how did he get those spotted, the spotted lives that we really don't know.
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But that's the story.
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So now Jacob leaves and we know the story that Rachel steals the family gods and brings
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them with her.
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And I just want to point out, she didn't bring them with her because she was believing
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in them or worshiping them.
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According to the story, Laban had tricked them.
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And even though Jacob had worked for seven years to earn each bride, Laban had not set
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aside those wages so that they would be paid to the brides, which was a custom in marriage
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at the time.
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And so Rachel and Leia actually have nothing.
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They discover that Laban did not handle this right.
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So she steals the gods because of their value.
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Of course, it brings a problem on them and Jacob makes them get rid of them in the end.
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So this is the story that we have read this week.
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Jacob is now back in the land.
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He has 12 sons and one daughter.
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Or he eventually, by the time he does have some children are born in the land.
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So let me reword this.
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He returns to the land.
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All together he ends up with 12 sons and one daughter, birthed by two wives and two maid
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servants.
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His absolute favorite wife is Rachel and her two children, Joseph and Benjamin, end up
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his two favorite children.
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But he has a large clan.
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God has given him peace with Esau.
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He's given him peace.
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He has passed on to him the blessings of Abraham and the calling of Abraham.
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And this is where we end our reading this week.
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What is the story behind the story?
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What is it that we've just covered?
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We have covered that God has established the family line through Abraham, Isaac and now
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Jacob.
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And he is fulfilling his promises to Abraham.
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But first he has established the family line.
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And now we have 12 tribes and the family will grow from here.
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Can't wait to see you back here next week.
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I hope you're enjoying your reading.
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I use this time to review the reading, but there's so many details that I cannot cover
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in our short time together.
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So I hope you're reading each week and that I'm helping you with some of the troublesome
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spots in the reading and I'm helping you to understand that story behind the story.
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So I will see you back here next week for week three and I can't wait until then.
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God bless you.
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