jacob – Grace Still Amazes

Faith Rests in God’s Promises for the Future, part 2 (Hebrews 11:20-22)

We are in Hebrews 11, that great “Hall of Faith,” were we are presented with men and women who walked by faith and glorified God. Some of them received some of the promises but no one received everything promised. While none of them were perfect, they did express faith in God’s covenant promises.

Last week we began discussing the three men captured in Hebrews 11:20-22, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. Each of them expressed faith in God’s ability to keep his promises to their children, their grandchildren, or to distant generations of the covenant people.

20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future. 21 By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff. 22 By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones.

We are discussing Jacob and his life of faith captured in the two acts of blessing Joseph’s sons and worshipping God as he leaned on the top of his staff. These two acts illustrated Jacob’s faith.

The event of blessing the sons of Joseph occurs in Genesis 49. Jacob had brought his sons and their families to Egypt at the request of Joseph in order to ride out the famine. Joseph, hearing that his father was ill and possibly close to death, took his two sons to visit his aged father. Jacob recalled God’s own appearance to him, when the Lord reaffirmed the Abrahamic covenant to him in Genesis 48:3-4.

Jacob said to Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and there he blessed me and said to me, ‘I am going to make you fruitful and increase your numbers. I will make you a community of peoples, and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you.’” (Gen. 48:3-4)

Then he claimed Joseph’s two sons as his own in order to bless them as his heirs. In effect, this meant that Jacob was designating Joseph as the firstborn, receiving the double portion of the inheritance through his two sons. Reuben, the natural firstborn, had forfeited his portion by having relations with his father’s concubine, Bilhah (cf. Gen. 35:22; 49:4). So now Joseph’s two sons will each receive their own full portion of the inheritance. So in verse 5 Jacob says, “Now then, your two sons born to you in Egypt before I came to you here will be reckoned as mine; Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are mine.”

Now, Joseph’s firstborn son was Manasseh; Ephraim was the second born son. So when Joseph presented his sons before Jacob to be blessed by him, Joseph arranged Ephraim on his right, Jacob’s left hand, while Manasseh was on Joseph’s left and Jacob’s right hand, the hand of blessing. However, when Jacob went to lay hands on these two young men to give his blessing, he deliberately crossed his hands, laying his right hand on Ephraim, the younger son, and his left hand on Manasseh, the older son. Joseph was troubled by this and tried to correct his father, but Jacob knew exactly what he was doing. Even though his eyesight was not all that great, his spiritual sight was right on. So verses 14-16 say…

But Israel reached out his right hand and put it on Ephraim’s head, though he was the younger, and crossing his arms, he put his left hand on Manasseh’s head, even though Manasseh was the firstborn. Then he blessed Joseph and said, “May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked faithfully, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the Angel who has delivered me from all harm —may he bless these boys. May they be called by my name and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they increase greatly on the earth.”

Both sons would be great in Israel, but Ephraim would be the greater (Gen. 48:19) and in the future Israelites would bless one another saying, “May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh,” and our text concludes, “so he put Ephraim ahead of Manasseh.” Jacob did this by faith.

One lesson we learn from this is that God’s ways are not man’s ways; God’s ways are according to His sovereign choice and will always triumph over man’s ways. The natural order would have been for Manasseh, the first-born son, to have preeminence over his younger brother. This is what Joseph reasoned. But Jacob chose to bless Ephraim ahead of Manasseh by faith.

In spite of human ignorance and sin which chooses to do things our way, God’s way and His choice will always ultimately triumph.

This applies to the issue of salvation. Man’s way is according to human choice and/or human merit. Good people who make the right choices are in; bad people who make the wrong choices are out. But God’s way of salvation is according to His choice and purpose and His work, not according to man’s choice or efforts (Luke 10:22; John 1:13; 6:65, 70; Rom. 9:11, 15, 16, 17, 18). As James 1:18 puts it, “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.” (ESV). Our salvation rests on God’s will and God’s power, not our will or efforts.

A second lesson we can learn from this passage is how important it is for us parents and grandparents to bless our children with spiritual blessings rather than worldly possessions. The greatest thing you can do for your children or grandchildren is to pass on your faith in Jesus Christ.

Ephraim and Manasseh were the sons of the second most powerful man in Egypt. Joseph’s wealth and influence were quite impressive. These boys had been raised in, what was at that time, the most luxurious conditions in the world. I imagine they grew up buddies of the sons of Pharoah. Servants attended to their every need. They received the best education available at the time. They were heirs to a large financial estate. They easily could have succeeded in whatever careers they chose for themselves in Egypt.

Thus, it would have been quite natural for a grandfather to bless his grandsons by saying, “May you prosper in Egypt as your father has prospered. May its wealth and riches flow into your life. May you enjoy the best that Egypt has to offer!” Instead, Jacob, the lowly shepherd, who was really a pilgrim in Egypt seeking to avoid starvation in the land of Canaan, adopts these two princes as his own and bestows upon them the blessing of Abraham.

While some may have thought Jacob crazy to bequeath a double-portion of some famine-stricken land, of which he barely owned a square foot, just a cave, when they could have whatever their hearts desired there in Egypt. But what Jacob was really giving his grandsons was faith, faith in God’s promises. Faith in something that was of greater and more lasting value than all of Egypt’s riches (as Moses would also choose). Even though there was not one shred of evidence that God’s promise would actually become reality at this moment, Jacob believed it and he passed it on to his grandsons so that they, too, would believe it.

Steve Cole remarks:

It is a tragedy that many Christian parents today hope more that their children and grandchildren will succeed materially than that they will succeed spiritually! They would be thrilled to hear that one of their kids got accepted into medical school or landed a fat contract with a professional sports team. But if they heard that the kids were headed for the mission field in a poor country, they would try to “talk some sense into them.” They wouldn’t want them to “throw their lives away” with nothing (materially) to show for it. Besides, they’d rather have the grandkids nearby. That is a thoroughly worldly attitude! First and foremost, we should want our children to walk with God, wherever that may lead them in terms of a career or a geographic location.

Another way that Jacob revealed his faith was the fact that he worshipped God “as he leaned on the top of his staff” (Heb. 11:21). This he did in the years since that fateful night when he wrestled with God and came away with a limp. This is revealed to us in Genesis 47:29-31

When the time drew near for Israel to die, he called for his son Joseph and said to him, “If I have found favor in your eyes, put your hand under my thigh and promise that you will show me kindness and faithfulness. Do not bury me in Egypt, but when I rest with my fathers, carry me out of Egypt and bury me where they are buried.” “I will do as you say,” he said. “Swear to me,” he said. Then Joseph swore to him, and Israel worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.

Jacob’s staff was a reminder of the battle he had with the angel of the Lord, in which he came away with a blessing and a limp. That limp reminded him for the remainder of his life how dependent he was upon the Lord. Here was an old man, whose body was weak and crippled, but whose faith was strong in God’s promises. Although all of his descendants were now living comfortably in Egypt (for the last 17 years, Gen. 47:28), Jacob doesn’t want to signal to his children that this is what he wanted or what God wanted. It is when Joseph agrees that he will make sure that Jacob is buried in Canaan, not Egypt, that Jacob worships God because he sees in Joseph’s promise a glimmer of hope that God will ultimately fulfill His promises.

That staff also indicated that Jacob knew that he was living a pilgrim life, just as Abraham and Isaac. His hope, ultimately, was not in this life, not in the here and now, but in God’s promises for a better country, a heavenly one (Heb. 11:16). So even though he was dying as a poor man in a foreign land, he died believing God’s promise.

Joseph’s Faith

Now, in verse 22 we see that this same faith was passed on to Joseph. The last patriarch mentioned here, Joseph, was convinced that nothing would annul God’s promise that Israel would one day possess the land.

By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones.

This is remarkable because he had left Canaan when he was seventeen (Genesis 37:2) and lived in Egypt until his death at the age of 110 (Genesis 50:26). But in fulfillment of his faith’s directive, Joseph’s mummy was carried out of Egypt by Moses in the exodus (Exodus 13:19) and then later was buried in Shechem by Joshua when he conquered the land (Joshua 24:32), hundreds of years later!

As Joseph lay dying, he told his brothers that God would bring them back to the land which He had promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Then he made them swear that they would carry his bones with them when they returned to Canaan. Of course, it was not them, but their descendants several generations later that carried out Joseph’s wishes.

Genesis 50:24 reads, “And Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.’”

Now, where did Joseph get the idea that the tribes of Israel would one day leave Egypt and possess the land of Canaan? I can imagine that one of the stories that Abraham told over and over again to his children and grandchildren was God’s promise to him in Genesis 15:13-16.

Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

Now Joseph, even more so than Isaac or Jacob, demonstrated many instances of strong faith in God throughout his lifetime. He had resisted the seductive advances of Potiphar’s wife. He had remained true to God while imprisoned unjustly and forgotten. His faith enabled him to interpret dreams on several occasions. He dealt in a godly manner with his brothers who had wronged him, leading them to repentance and reconciliation. He administered the food program fairly, without greed.

But the author of Hebrews skips over all of these demonstrations of faith and chooses what he said while he lay dying (Gen. 50:24). Why is that?

I believe it is because it shows us a man facing death at a time when God’s promise seemed least likely to ever be fulfilled. God’s promises to Abraham had been 200 years ago! Now his descendants were living in Egypt, not Cannan. And of course, it would get worse before it got better, for one day a Pharoah who knew not Joseph would rise to power and enslave them in Egypt.

It would be several hundred years more before Moses would lead them out of Egypt and 40 years after that before they entered and conquered Canaan. Yet Joseph made mention of that exodus and ordered that they take his bones back with them when they left Egypt.

When Joseph died he was never buried. His coffin laid above ground for the 400 or so years until it was taken back to Canaan. It was a silent witness all those years that Israel was going back to the Promised Land, just as God had said.

Through this pact with his brothers Joseph was disassociating himself from all of his success and fame in Egypt and associating himself with God’s people and God’s promise. That was what was important to him, just as it would be later to Moses (Heb. 11:24-26)

He didn’t want a grand tomb or pyramid erecting in his honor in Egypt. He wanted his final resting place to be with his family in the land of God’s promise. His burial instructions would remain a strong exhortation to his people not to be satisfied with the blessings of Egypt, but to look forward to the blessings of Canaan.

People in poverty regularly long for heaven; those who lives are rich and comfortable seldom crave heaven. The story of Joseph’s bones should remind us not to put our hopes in material accumulation in this world, but to recognize how empty all these riches are compared to riches and glories of heaven. What does it profit us to gain the “whole world” Jesus says, if we lose our soul (Luke 9:25; 12:15-21).

Moses took Joseph’s bones with him, for he made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here” (Exod. 13:19). And in Joshua we read, “As for the bones of Joseph, which the people of Israel brought up from Egypt, they buried them at Shechem, in the piece of land that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred pieces of money. It became an inheritance of the descendants of Joseph” (Joshua 24:32). Joseph’s bones were buried in land allotted to the tribe of Ephraim.

Many years ago now a ship known as the Empress of Ireland went down with 130 salvation army officers aboard, along with many other passengers. Only 21 of the Salvation Army people survived. Of the 109 that drowned, not one had a life preserver. Many of the survivors told how these brave people, seeing that there were not enough life preservers to go around, took of their own and gave them to others, saying, “I know Jesus, so I can die better than you can!” (Our Daily Bread, Fall, 1980)

Faith faces death trusting God to fulfill His future promises, if not in this life, then in the life to come. When we trust in God in the face of death we join with Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, who all “died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar” (Heb. 13:16), looking forward to that better reward.

I love what Spurgeon says here: “The Holy Spirit in this chapter selects out of good men’s lives the most brilliant instances of their faith. I should hardly have expected that he would have mentioned the dying scene of Joseph’s life as the most illustrious proof of his faith in God… Does not this tell us, dear brethren and sisters, that we are very poor judges of what God will most delight in?”

Will you and I hold on to our trust in God’s promises, even when all seems to shout against them, even when it seems impossible to believe that the best is yet to come? When we do, our faith will impact future generations.

Faith Rests in God’s Promises for the Future, part 1 (Hebrews 11:20-22)

One thing the Puritans did that seems to have disappeared in our evangelical churches today is emphasizing the importance of and preparing people in dying well. In today’s world, if you Google the term “die well,” most of the articles are about palliative care during suffering or about “dying with dignity” that preserves the dying person’s wishes. These represents the world’s resignation that there is nothing you can do about dying except to make yourself or your loved one as comfortable as possible and to fulfill your or their “bucket list.”

But, in the Puritan’s day, to “die well” most simply meant that you were prepared to meet God, that you had lived your life well, and that you were ready to move into eternity. The English Puritan Edmund Barker said, “Every Christian hath two great works to do in the world, to live well, and to die well.”

Philip Ryken, the former senior pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia after James Montgomery Boice, wrote a 2006 article entitled “Dying Well” on Tenth Presbyterian’s website.

Ryken said, “… not everyone dies well, but only those who are strong in faith, bold in courage, and well prepared to meet their God… We can prepare to die well by thinking often about death and the life to come.”

Paul was ready to live or die for the glory of God. In Philippians 1 he stated that he desired that “Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.” Matthew Henry wrote:

“Though the grace of faith is of universal use throughout our whole lives, yet it is especially so when we come to die. Faith has its greatest work to do at last, to help believers to finish well, to die to the Lord, so as to honor him, by patience, hope, and joy-so as to leave a witness behind them of the truth of God’s word and the excellency of his ways.” (Matthew Henry’s Commentary [Revell], 6:946).

When he was on his own deathbed at age 52, Henry said to a friend “You have been used to take notice of the sayings of dying men—this is mine: that a life spent in the service of God and communion with Him, is the most pleasant life that anyone can live in this world.”

Facing death still trusting in Christ’s sufficiency and looking forward to the fulfillment of all His promises is the acid test of our faith. Will our faith sustain us at that time? We will be confident in the face of death, or filled with fears and anxieties?

As the author of Hebrews gives to us multiple examples of those who lived and died in faith, he briefly mentions Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. He calls attention to each man’s life just before each of them died. In Isaac’s case, he does not state specifically that he was near death, but this incident did happen when he was very old, feeble, and blind. In the case of Jacob and Joseph, our author states specifically that they were in the process of dying. In each case, as they faced death, none of the promises of God were near fulfilling. All circumstances seemed contrary to their fulfillment. But like Abraham (11:13-16), these men had lived all their lives hearing about and believing in God’s promises, even when all hoped seemed lost, even when fulfillment seemed impossible, and how God had fulfilled some of those promises (the birth of Isaac). Even so, these men all died with their faith and focus on things yet to come, believing that God would keep His word. They teach us that faith faces death trusting God to fulfill His future promises, even when circumstances seem to contradict those promises.

That is found in Hebrews 11:20-22.

Notice that their faith is oriented towards the future. Each of them peered a little further in the future than the preceding man. Isaac saw the future for his children Jacob and Esau. Jacob gave blessings to his grandchildren, Joseph’s sons. Joseph spoke of the generation that would leave Egypt. People of faith influence the future by living a legacy of faith that they pass on to future generations.

While there are some different lessons to be learned from the life of each of these patriarchs, the author uses them together to drive home the same basic point. Each one died with faith in God’s promises, even though their circumstances seemed to contradict those promises. They all were convinced that death would not frustrate God’s purposes—that his word would be fulfilled.

Of the three, Isaac and Jacob had some glaring failures in their life of faith, and yet, by God’s grace, they crossed the line with a strong flourish of faith. They illustrate what Paul wrote in Philippians 1:6, “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

What God has started in your life He will bring to completion. Even “if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). If, by God’s grace, you and I have begun the life of faith, by that same grace we will die resilient in faith, demonstrating to others that God’s promises are true, no matter the odds.

At your funeral, what kind of testimony do you want to have? Will people be able to see that you walked by faith, believing God’s promises even when everything shouted against them? Will your life impact future generations because they see true men and women of faith among us?

The principle here is that each of these men expected something greater to happen because of the promises of God. This gave the generations the expectation that something greater and better would happen, despite the current circumstances. We need that kind of faith today!

Will the next generation want our God? Statistics show that the kind of God we believe in is not one that wins the loyalty of this current generation. The reason is that we believe in a God who is weak and does not keep His promises, at least that is how we live.

Don’t get your definition of life from the daily news, but rather in the historic faith of the Christian church that points forward to an adventure with God!

Isaac’s Faith—Trusting God with Your Children’s Future

First, notice the importance of blessing your sons. Isaac does that for Jacob and Esau, then Jacob does that for Joseph’s sons (and all of his sons, too). That’s it. That’s what put these patriarchs onto the same list that includes Abraham (who obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going), Joseph (who endured years of persecution), and Moses (who received the Ten Commandments & performed incredible signs and wonders).

It doesn’t seem like much, but it was an important act of faith. This is a lost rite of passage today and yet it is something that our children need as well.

In that culture, a blessing implies a guaranteed future. If you don’t receive a blessing about tomorrow, then you aren’t assured a destiny. We live so much in the “here and now” and give little thought to the future or to eternity. Blessings like this orient us to the future.

Second, blessing is given only when you have something to offer. While our blessings today might come in the form of material possessions or money, what Isaac and Jacob offered to their sons was related to the promise of God, specifically the promises that God had made to Abraham.

And that reminds us that the most important thing that we can leave to our children and grandchildren is not an inheritance of material possessions, but rather a strong foundation of faith in God and a strong expectation of God’s future grace.

Finally, blessing implies that I see this life as about more than me. Blessing is oriented towards others and their lives. For example, even though David was not allowed to build the temple, he spent a lot of time and effort getting contacts and workers and materials ready for Solomon.

How are you investing in the next generation? What example of faith are you leaving them? What blessings can you pronounce over them?

My dad left me an example of integrity, kindness, patience and wisdom.

Isaac’s story comes from Genesis 27. At this point Isaac was old and practically blind. Knowing that his death was on the horizon, he called his favorite son, Esau, and requested that he go hunting for some fresh game and cook it up his favorite way. That would be the occasion on which he would give Esau his blessing.

Now, in the Ancient Near Eastern culture, a father’s blessing involved conferring a double portion of the family inheritance on the firstborn son, coupled with prophetic words guaranteeing a good future. But this had been complicated by the birth and subsequent divine prophecy given about Jacob at their birth.

21 Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was childless. The LORD answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. 22 The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the LORD. 23 The LORD said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.”

So Esau and Jacob were twins and although Esau was born first, God had chosen for Jacob to receive the blessing, saying that “the older will serve the younger.” Isaac, however, had a liking for Esau, so on this occasion Jacob was either ignorantly or obstinately attempting to give the blessing to Esau.

When Rebekah overheard that Isaac was about to do this, she sprung into action with a plan to secure the blessing for her favorite son, Jacob. Whether she thought that she was rescuing God’s prophetic word from oblivion or whether she was just running interference for her favorite son, isn’t obvious, but the evidence seems to lean toward the latter.

Isaac may not have been going against God’s Word, but just didn’t remember it or understand its significance. He was just following custom. We don’t see much effort in inquiring of God about the meaning of the prophecy or how to apply it. He seems to be ruled more by his stomach than his spirit.

You know what happened. Jacob dressed in his brother’s garments, probably smeared some animal secretions on himself, and took Rebekah’s stew to his aged father to con him and his brother out of the blessing. In being deceived, Isaac inadvertently fulfilled God’s earlier prophecy to Rebekah by conferring the blessing on Jacob. He said…

28 May God give you heaven’s dew and earth’s richness— an abundance of grain and new wine. 29 May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed.”

One might wonder, “How did Isaac act “by faith” (Heb. 11:20) when he was deceived (Gen. 27:35)?

I think it is likely that his faith was exercised not in who was being blessed, but in passing on the Abrahamic blessing to his son. He did believe in the promise so surely that he passed it on to his son, whether Jacob or Esau.

To his credit, when Isaac did discover that he had been deceived, he did not revoke the blessing in anger or prejudice. Rather, he seemed to recognize in these events that God’s word to Rebekah at the birth of the twins had truly been fulfilled. So he told Esau that he had blessed his brother and then affirmed, “and indeed he will be blessed!” (Gen. 27:33).

Then, just before Jacob fled to Haran, afraid of his brother’s anger, Isaac charged him not to take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. Then he prophesied over Jacob, “May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples. May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now reside as a foreigner, the land God gave to Abraham” (Gen. 28:3-4).

At this point Jacob had no descendants; he didn’t even have a wife. He owned nothing in Canaan except a burial plot. Yet “by faith” Isaac pronounced this blessing over Jacob. He acknowledged that he believed that God’s promises extended to his son and would not fail, even though there was no indication at this time that they would ever be fulfilled. One day, Isaac believed, “you make take possession of the land where you now reside as a foreigner, the land God gave to Abraham” (Gen. 28:4b)

Even though Isaac “trembled violently” (Gen. 27:33) when he realized he had been tricked, the author of Hebrews choses to focus on his faith in making and then reaffirming that God’s promises to Abraham would be fulfilled through Jacob and his descendants. David Guzik says,

When Isaac trembled exceedingly, he was troubled because he knew that he had tried to box God in, to defeat God’s plan, and that God beat him. He realized that he would always be defeated when he tried to resist God’s will, even when he didn’t like it. And he came to learn that despite his arrogant attempts against the will of God, God’s will was glorious.

Isaac recognized that God had chosen to bless Jacob, and that he could not reverse or alter God’s plan. Isaac had already given the primary blessing to Jacob, and so he could only give Esau a secondary blessing. (Genesis 27:30-40). But even though Esau received the lesser blessing, Isaac still fully believed that God would fulfill this blessing in Esau’s life also. And indeed, God fulfilled both blessings in both sons’ lives. In faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, and in faith Isaac accepted God’s will for his sons as expressed through the blessings.

Well, nobody comes off looking good in this story. Isaac seemed more interested in a tasty meal than God’s prophetic word. Esau was overall a profane man, caring nothing for his spiritual heritage, again only interested in filling his empty stomach. Rebekah was a deceiver and encouraged her son to lie. Jacob went along with those lies, taking advantage of his blind father just as he had earlier taken advantage of his famished brother.

But God used the whole soap opera, even though each character acted selfishly without regard to God or one another, to fulfill His sovereign purpose. You see, God had chosen Jacob and rejected Esau. His purpose according to His choice would stand (Romans 9:11-13).

This all shows us that it does not depend upon us fully understanding God’s purpose. Isaac doesn’t seem to have understood it until afterward. Also, it doesn’t depend upon us obeying Him (although we should). God did use Rebekah and Jacob’s deception to fulfill His purpose. Paul expresses this reality when he says in Romans 9:16 that God’s purpose does not depend on the man who wills (our decisions) or the man who runs (our actions), but on God who has mercy.

The story of Isaac blessing Jacob and Esau (and he did go on to bless Esau, Gen. 27:39-40) is there in the Bible to encourage us to trust God, even when circumstances seem to contradict His promises. This means that we can believe Him even when things seem impossible or all hope seems lost. These predictive future blessings (esp. Gen. 27:28-29; 39-49) demonstrate Isaac’s hope for the future.

Now, this doesn’t mean we should be apathetic and inactive. It ought to encourage us to be faithful in spite of the discouraging realities of sinful people and overwhelming world events. It should encourage us to be steadfast and immovable in the Lord’s work, knowing that our work is never in vain in the Lord (1 Cor. 15:58).

If part of faith is trusting God with the future, then one of the lessons you can learn from Isaac is to trust God with your children’s future. That’s an important lesson to learn, because as a parent you can waste a lot of time and energy worrying about your children’s future. But part of Christian faith is learning to trust God with your children’s future instead. Hebrews 11:20 says: “By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.”

Jacob’s Faith—Trusting God Rather Than Taking Things into Your Own Hands

Our next example of trusting God with the future comes from Jacob, Abraham’s grandson. Abraham was one hundred sixty years old when Jacob was born, and then Abraham lived another fifteen years, so he got to know his grandson growing up. Maybe Abraham shared stories from his own life with Jacob as he was growing into his teenage years. Maybe he told Jacob about the time he and Sarah tried to “help God out” by sleeping with Sarah’s handmaid Hagar, so that Abraham could have a son and “fulfill” the covenant.

Part of trusting God with the future is learning to trust God rather than trying to control people or events. This is a difficult lesson for anyone to learn, and it was especially difficult for Jacob. In many ways it took him his whole life to learn.

Jacob was born into this world grasping his brother’s heel, and that really became a metaphor for his whole life. Jacob would spend most of the rest of his life grasping for control.

Hebrews 11:21 says, “By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.”

There are two incidents here—Jacob blessing his grandsons and worshipping on his staff. Since the first action (blessing his grandsons) happened “when he was dying,” this action happened last, but it is mentioned first here because it has to do with the same issue we saw with Isaac and Jacob. Isaac blessed Jacob, assuring his future in the covenant plan of Yahweh. When Jacob blessed the sons of Joseph, he was assuring them of their part (along with Joseph, their father) in the covenant promises to Abraham.

Isaac passed the promises and the blessings along to Jacob (Gen. 27) and Jacob shared them with his twelve sons (Gen. 48-49).