In both the Old and the New Testaments, God sets before us His unlimited provision. We can either esteem that provision highly, or we can despise it. Three passages about the lives of Esau and Jacob illustrate this prerogative we have and provide a rich scriptural foundation for it.
Genesis 25:27–34: When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field, but Jacob was a peaceful man, living in tents. Now Isaac loved Esau, because he had a taste for game; but Rebekah loved Jacob. And when Jacob had cooked stew, Esau came in from the field and he was famished; and Esau said to Jacob, “Please let me have a swallow of that red stuff there, for I am famished.” Therefore his name was called Edom (which means “red”). But Jacob said, “First sell me your birthright.” And Esau said, “Behold, I am about to die; so of what use then is the birthright to me?” And Jacob said, “First swear to me”; so he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew; and he ate and drank, and rose and went on his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.
Romans 9:13–16: Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.
Hebrews 12:15–17: See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled; that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.
If we esteem God’s unlimited provision highly, we will receive it. Esau despised it; therefore he did not receive it.
Jacob did receive it, even though he deceived, and he lied, and he cheated. Why did he receive it? He finally reached the place where he realized that his struggle was not with people—to cheat Esau or to deceive his father-in-law, Laban. His struggle was with God. When he finally actually encountered God, Jacob was so devastated that all he could do was just cling to Him. What was Jacob’s response at that moment? “I will not let You go until You bless me” (Genesis 32:24–26).
The struggle Jacob experienced is coming to those in this end-time victory struggle. God is bringing us to the place where we too will say, “I will not let You go until You bless me.”
Jacob went through what we now call “devastation.” (That word is familiar to us, because we are experiencing it ourselves.) But Jacob’s devastation did not affect his determination. Neither should our devastation affect our determination. It would be good to write that down and refer to it often: “My devastation shall not affect my determination.”
That was not so, however, with Esau. He was not devastated; he was only hungry. But that need caused him to despise the birthright that was really his. As the firstborn, he was entitled to it. Jacob was not entitled to the birthright, but he was still determined to have it. If only we were as determined as Jacob was! How much more could we receive than even he did, since we are entitled to the full provision of the Lord! By God’s own law of inheritance, Jacob was not entitled to that inheritance (Deuteronomy 21:15–17); but that is not true of us. In Christ, all things are ours (I Corinthians 3:21–23). The complete victory is ours!
What was the viewpoint of the Lord toward these two brothers? “Jacob have I loved; Esau have I hated” (Romans 9:13). How could that be, when God Himself had arranged for Esau to be in line for the inheritance? After all, we know that God made the rules—including, “First come, first inherit” (Deuteronomy 21:15–17). You cannot argue with divine order—or can you? That may seem like a “rebellious” thought to you. You may be thinking, “I must be submissive to the divine order. What will be will be, and I submit to it.” Was it within the framework of what seemed to be divine order for Jacob to obtain the birthright? There were two babies in the womb. God could have predetermined that Jacob be born first, and the whole problem would have been solved. Yet God said, “Esau I hate.”
Why did God hate Esau? Because Esau was too passive, like most of us. We do not receive what God sets before us as we should. We do not dig into His Book containing all those promises of God and proclaim, “This is mine! Every bit of this is mine!” Instead, we despise it. You may think that you do not despise it, that you are only passive about it. But that is the same thing; that is the way Esau was. Esau also was only passive. To despise God’s promises, you need not go so far as to say, “I reject You, God. I do not believe You.” All you have to do is simply do nothing—then you are despising what God really has for you.
We either accept the entire victory that the Lord has given us and reach into it, or we remain passive and indifferent and we receive very little. If we reject, then we will be rejected. Is that not what happened to Esau? When he rejected his privileges and blessings, he in turn was rejected. Did God ever give him another chance? Hebrews 12:17 says he could not find a place to repent, though he sought it carefully with tears. Even Isaac, his father, recognized that once he had given the blessing to Jacob, it could not be withdrawn and given to Esau.
Genesis 27 tells us about this. Isaac was old and blind. Anticipating his death, he asked his oldest son Esau to hunt game from the field and prepare it for him to eat, so that he might bless Esau before he died. While Esau was hunting, Jacob came to Isaac with the skin of a kid on his hands, so that Isaac would think he was Esau, who had hairy arms. Jacob’s deception worked. Isaac felt the skin of the kid and concluded that Jacob was Esau—and gave him the blessing intended for his brother. Once Jacob had received the blessing, Isaac could do nothing to reverse it (verses 33–37).
Jacob was a domestic, peace-loving man—his mother’s favorite—quite different from his father’s favorite, the great hunter Esau. Yet Jacob had one quality that his family did not recognize. Jacob had something in his heart that would never give up until he received the blessing. He knew that it was there for someone to receive, and he determined that whether it was his by inheritance or not, he would have it.
Are you one who knows that the victory is available, but you wonder if it is intended for you? It is for you, if you want it. What you want to receive is mostly up to you. What will it cost you? I do not know. It cost Jacob a great deal; he went through many things. We do know that if we despise or esteem lightly this great victory and complete provision of the Lord, we will be rejected.
In a sense, Jacob was rejected—at his birth, that is. But he refused rejection. Therefore he became accepted. You, too, can refuse to be rejected. Even if God were to say to you, “I reject you,” you could say, “I refuse that; I am going to be accepted”; and then repent. But is it not true that God is unchangeable, immutable in His counsels, in His wisdom? (Hebrews 6:17.) Yes; yet apparently He did change His mind on a number of occasions. Why? Because He accommodates Himself to the fickleness of man. For example, He sent Jonah to tell the people of Nineveh, “In forty days you will be destroyed.” Then He changed His mind when they repented (Jonah 3).
The promise is ours, but sometimes we must fight for it and wrestle with God Himself to get it. Why must we do that? This is a way that God has of making His people draw near to Him. God said of Jacob, “Jacob have I loved”; yet Jacob may have wondered why God did not act like He did. It must have been a rather rough, grueling fight there at the brook Jabbok. Because of it, Jacob limped the rest of his life. The Jews would not eat a certain sinew near the hip socket of an animal, in respect for the thigh of Jacob that was dislocated when Jacob was transformed into Israel (Genesis 32:32).
How did Jacob become Israel? He did not deserve it. He was not in the line of inheritance. He cheated, he lied, and he stole, yet none of those things really helped him get anyplace. Finally he met God. Then he realized that his enemy was not Esau; his enemy was Jacob. When he contended with God for a change—for a blessing—he came into a totally new state of being.
This did not mean that Jacob’s circumstances were changed at that moment. In fact, when he went to face Esau the next morning, Esau would have killed him (Genesis 27:41) if God had not restrained him. If a man has the courage to face the reality that his ultimate struggle is with God, then God restrains the detrimental, destructive circumstances that would swallow him up.
Do we win the victory when we wrestle with God so that He cripples us and beats us? That is not what the Word is saying. Here is a key of victory: Victory does not come because we prevail with God until we can say, “At last, we have it!” Victory comes when we wrestle with God until we are totally submissive to Him. Oh, for the blessed battle where we fight with God until He wins!
Jacob wrestled with God at the brook, as the sun was coming up (Genesis 32:24–26). Hosea 12:3–4 recounts how Jacob “wrestled with the angel,” which was a manifestation of the Lord. The first chapter of R.A. Torrey’s What the Bible Teaches clearly establishes that God has manifested Himself in visible form, particularly as “the angel of the Lord.” The angel of the Lord is identified with the Son of God before His permanent incarnation. Other Scriptures (Hosea 12:3–4; Genesis 35:10–15; I Kings 18:31; and II Kings 17:34) confirm the indication in the text itself that Jacob had indeed been striving with God and had seen Him face to face (Genesis 32:28–30).
God wants to see our faith absolutely accept all of His provision of victory, and totally reject our exclusion from it. We should memorize that Kingdom Proverb. We not only recognize that the Lord has wonderful victory, but we also have a determination that we are going to receive it!
That is how Jacob became Israel, a prince of God (Genesis 32:28). He prevailed with God and man, because he refused to be rejected. Victory is achieved by the absolute, total acceptance of God’s provision of total victory, and our absolute refusal to believe that we are excluded from it. Reject the idea that the total victory is not yours. A phrase from a familiar hymn of Fanny J. Crosby says, “While on others Thou art calling, do not pass me by.” That was the cry of Jacob.
After Jacob prevailed with God, Esau faded away as a threat to him. We never read of him challenging Jacob again, because God had finally become to Jacob what He should be. This applies to us, too. When the Lord in His provision of victory is everything to us, then the assault of Satan will slide into the pit of insignificance. Here is an important truth about victory: victory is not obtained when God Himself alters our circumstances; victory is the level that He brings us up to as we remain in the midst of our circumstances. To repeat: Esau faded away as a threat and a challenge to Jacob because God had finally become to Jacob what He should be.
Do you realize that the only reason you can actually feel threatened by demonic harassment is because you are not magnifying the Lord and allowing Him to be what He is supposed to be to you? Your “Esau” will stand in your path with his threats to “kill” you until the day when you see what you are to be to God and what God is to be to you. When the Lord and His provision of victory are everything to us, then our “Esau,” the powers of darkness, will slide into the pit of insignificance.
Your struggle is simply to reach into God and allow Him to really be God. To receive victory, you do not actually fight the enemy so much as you fight yourself to let God be great—to let God be your source of victory. There is no problem as great as your relationship to God. What about the Esaus, the Labans, the circumstances? Do not worry about them. When you walk with God, He will take care of everything else.
Stop focusing on the fight against the things that are coming against us. Determine to be to God what He wants us to be: a humble people, crippled Jacobs. It is when we come to the end of ourselves that He can transform us into an Israel, a prince of God (Genesis 32:28).
It is significant that God is speaking to us from the book of Genesis. “Genesis” means “beginning,” and we are in a time of beginnings. I believe that as the Kingdom emerges and comes forth, we will continue to draw from the entire Word of God, but there will be a special emphasis upon the book of Genesis.
How shall we consider all that God provides for us? Are you thinking, “That is not meant for me; there are no prophecies over me”? I have observed that sometimes an individual who had wonderful prophecies over him later discarded them and left the church. Those abandoned prophecies and promises seemed to float over like a cloud and hover over that church. Then someone new would come in and claim those promises.
In other instances, when a word came over someone, another person present would desire that prophecy for his own life. Sometimes a prophecy is fulfilled in a greater sense through someone over whom it was never directly spoken in the first place. I have heard many say, “When a specific prophecy comes over an individual, I claim it for myself, too.” They are saying in effect, “Okay, ‘Esau,’ if you despise it, I take it. I am a ‘Jacob’ and I take it.” They will receive that blessing of the Lord and they will walk in it.
I believe in personal, directive prophecy; but I believe also that if I were to walk away from the Lord, someone else would come along and pick up and take everything that I did not walk in.
Actually, we can walk in any promise or prophecy we want to. We can have it, whether someone else walks in it or not. You do not have to wait for someone to reject his prophecy. If you see something that you want, claim it and walk in it. You can say, like Elisha, “I am going to walk in a double portion of the man of God’s spirit” (II Kings 2:9).
And you are still asking too little! If the blessing you want has not yet been specifically prophesied over anyone, look through the Bible. There you will find some fantastic words. You can be almost anything. According to your faith be it unto you. Matthew 9:29b. There is no limitation!
“The gifts and the calling of God are without repentance” (Romans 11:29). God is never sorry when He speaks a Word over a man’s life. Does this apply even to the apostle Judas? He rejected the Word and the ministry. Yet in Acts 1:20, it was written, “His ministry, his bishopric, let another take.” His anointing was given to someone else. Matthias was chosen, and upon him rested all that Judas had ever been commissioned to move in (Acts 1:26). Matthias was like Jacob; he refused to be discouraged or driven off. Judas was like Esau who sold out for a mess of pottage and found no place of repentance. They were just alike.
I refuse to disregard any promise of God. I am going to push in to walk in all of them. I will continue to prophesy over you, and if you do not want to walk in those prophecies, I will walk in them myself. I do not care if they were not spoken over me; all unfulfilled prophecies are like clouds overhead, ready to dump the latter rain upon us.
Hebrews 4 speaks of such an unfulfilled prophecy. “There remains yet a promise of entering into His rest. And those to whom it was given were not worthy; so it remains that some must enter in” (Hebrews 4:1–6). What does that mean? Time after time, the Lord gave that promise concerning His rest, yet no one really determined to walk in it. But here God was saying, “The promise is still there. Someone will walk in it. Someone will obtain that promise.” Can you believe that? Someone will actually walk in His rest.
Will you be a Jacob or an Esau? It is up to you. As for me, I will be a Jacob. There are many promises hovering over us. There are potent prophecies all around us. Will you actually walk in them?
What is the difference between an Esau who turns his back on his birthright, and the righteous man who falls seven times? Proverbs 24:16 says that the righteous man falls seven times, and he rises again; but the wicked will stumble into calamity. The righteous man may actually fall—either through weaknesses in his life that the enemy uses, or through opposition the enemy brings to him. Yet it does not make any difference how many times he fails; each time he gets up and goes on. That is where Esau was different. After just one bellyache from hunger, Esau sold out. Jacob did not do that. He lied, cheated, stole, fought, was devastated and filled with fear countless times through all the dealings of God; yet he still went ahead to meet God and wrestle with Him. He was crippled the rest of his life because he was determined to be blessed.
Jacob very likely fell more than seven times. Still, God honored the attitude of his heart more than any ability he had to walk with God. Both Esau and Jacob fell, but Esau did not put his serving God above his own ability to do it. On the other hand, there was something in Jacob that said, “No matter whether I am worthy or I am not worthy, whether I can do it or I cannot do it, I am going to persist and God will bless me.”
Esau did not have that quality. His response was, “Oh, I guess I’ll go hunting.” He did not really care very much for his inheritance. He came in from hunting, and he was hungry; so he sold out cheap. How cheap can a man sell out? There must be something wrong with anyone who would sell his birthright for a bowl of lentil soup. No wonder God hated him.
Esau “did not receive repentance even though he sought it carefully with tears” (Hebrews 12:17). What kind of repentance was it? Was something godly within him weeping? Or was he only mourning over what he had lost personally? No doubt his tears were the kind that you usually see when you visit a prisoner in jail—he cries, but he is only sorry that he got caught.
All of us fall flat on our face many times. But even if we feel as though we are rejected by God, there has to be the tenacity in which we say, “I refuse that. God, You are accepting me!” Precept by precept, line upon line (Isaiah 28:10), God is telling us we have the victory! Get in there and possess it. Take it. Appropriate it!
Like Esau, Cain too was the firstborn; the inheritance was his. He too felt threatened because of his unbelief and his lack of earnestness before the Lord. Because of his lack of wholeheartedness and earnestness before the Lord, he simply rejected the inheritance; so it fell to Abel. Afterwards, Cain became jealous and furious because of what he could have walked in if he had not failed. He was so bitter at Abel that he rose up and killed him (Genesis 4:3–8). The pattern was the same with Esau and Jacob. The inheritance belonged to Esau, but he rejected it. And it fell to Jacob, to Israel.
Now the birthright of the Kingdom is falling on us as a people. This should be a time of humbling for us, because God has opened up a tremendous flow with this Living Word. God will reject us or accept us in His Kingdom, according to our response to that birthright. If we are willing to give ourselves to it, we will be blessed.
You can make God’s provision of victory be to you as much as you want. Let us heed what God is telling us about humility and about how we relate to our spiritual heritage. God has given us the birthright of the Kingdom through His Living Word, and we do not want to see it passed on to someone else.
We can believe that we are the Abels, we are the Jacobs, because Babylon has already rejected the Word, and now that Word and its fulfillment are falling upon a people who are willing to be wholehearted about it. The Kingdom will be given to us as we lay hold of it. May God give us the eyes to see the value, the pearl of great price (Matthew 13:45–46) in our midst so that it will not pass on through our negligence. May He give us eyes to really see, so that something else does not rise up like Esau’s lentil stew to draw our focus away from the Living Word, and to draw our attentions and our affections out of the will of God. May the Lord bind us over to love and to seek the perfect will of God, and also to assume the responsibilities of maturity and the stewardship that come with that birthright.
The Lord spoke that the sons of the kingdom would be cast out and that others would come into the Kingdom of heaven and dine with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Matthew 8:11–12). It is not enough to have the promises of the fathers; it is not enough to be born into those promises. You still have to seize them by faith. You still have to lay hold upon them!
Jesus told the Pharisees that they were excluded; the harlots and the publicans would get into the Kingdom before them (Matthew 21:31). God is still waiting for the people who, like Jacob, seem to be the disinherited, the maimed, the halt and the blind, the outcasts (Luke 14:21), to come in and take possession of the promises of God and walk in them. God emphasizes in His Word that His unlimited victory and blessing are available to all of us, even if we seem to violate His own order of hereditary inheritance.