Jacob and Esau.
Looking at these two men in their natural state Esau certainly seems the more attractive of the two. He is a commander, with those bold strong traits of character which men generally admire and submissively bow to. Jacob is crafty and wins in an underhanded way-a thing men ever despise.
Be the natural character this or that, however, is little matter to God, for He sees the selfishness and sinfulness of man in the one as in the other.
The immense difference between these two men in the sight of God is this:They both knew well the extraordinary promises which God had made to their grandfather Abraham (Gen. 17:1-8) and repeated to their father Isaac (Gen. 26:2-4), promises which indeed wait still for their fulfilment at the coming again of our Lord Jesus as King of the Jews (Ezek. 37:21-28). These promises of everlasting blessing to the individual, of prosperity, peace, and imperial position to the nation over all the nations of the earth, might well be valued by them, for it was an inheritance above every other. Esau despised it, and chose above it the momentary gratification of present enjoyment. Jacob valued and secured it.
What greater insult can there be than slighting the proffered gift of sovereign grace ? What more base than to barter away for a mere passing trifle that which is of immense and eternal value! Such was the insult Esau threw into God's face. He was a mere natural man, unable to appreciate anything but the present.
Jacob on the contrary, believing the promise God had made to his father, cast his eye on the future glories it involved. There might be no sign of that yet. There might belong waiting for it, for the God of eternity need never be in a hurry. There might be years of deep and painful discipline on the way. All this might be, but God cannot lie, and such an inheritance promised by Him is well worth waiting and suffering for. Such is faith and its nature even in such a naturally crooked man as Jacob.
Such is faith now in every quickened Jacob. It has now greater things in view than Jacob had, for the God of Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob is revealed to us as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; and since Jesus Christ has come, greater things still have been promised to faith. Let all who are of faith rejoice, for the fulfilment of all promises, whether those to Abraham or to the Church, is fast nearing.
"The trial of your faith"(l Pet. 1:7).
"My! Oh my! What shall I do? I have now only the great God to look to!"
Such was the exclamation of a Roman Catholic girl as, by accident, the crucifix she carried about her neck had fallen down the stone steps and been broken to pieces.
Many less superstitious and better instructed may smile at the poor girl's dismay, who yet might be no, less distressed if they really found themselves with none but God between them and their circumstances. Nature shrinks from the removal of props, weak and failing as these may be. It wants to see something, even if it be but a piece of glass. Faith only it is that shrinks not from being left absolutely alone with the living God. And is it not to rid faith of what is of nature still that God puts it again and again into the furnace even as gold is tried in the fire to free it from amalgamation ?
Peter, who is especially the apostle of the wilderness, tells us of this:"That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." Let us not fret under the process, but peacefully submit ourselves to God, the eye fixed on the blessed results at the end.
"Ye are dead" (Col. 3:1-4). Once we have seen what sin is by the sufferings of Christ on the cross, where He "was made sin for us," there is no getting free from the distress of indwelling sin save by receiving in simplicity of faith the double fact that we are both dead and risen with Christ. It is not that we ought to be dead, or ought to be risen, but the fact that we are so. Not only were our sins laid on Christ but "our old man is crucified with Him" (Rom. 6:6). This separates us from our evil self as well as from our sins, and we are no longer in bondage. Then we are "risen with Christ," and thus brought to the place of fruitfulness.
The open Red Sea let the people out of the land of bondage, and the open Jordan let them into the land of vines and fig-trees. How full is the grace of our God, who will not only have a free people but also a fruitful people-a people who, if newly "created in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:10), are created " unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Christianity has wonderful dogmas, all of which are living, active, operative dogmas. No wonder Jude would have us contend earnestly for them.
The Jews.
Russia, in the wonted brutality of her intolerance and of her deep-seated hatred of the Jews, is driving them gradually from her territory. Massacres, some loud and public, others more or less hidden, all tacitly countenanced by the authorities, take place from time to time, and public edicts that they leave the country by such a time compel them to dispose hurriedly and at great sacrifice of what they possess, and remove to other countries.
Whilst their sufferings may well excite the compassion of all compassionate people and make all true Christians blush at the thought of such things being perpetrated by a people calling themselves Christians, God is no doubt making use of it to bring about the end of His own purpose of grace and glory toward Israel. Many thus driven away from their homes are turning to the land where the promises made to their fathers are yet to be fulfilled. The Turkish government once so oppressive to the Jews is now exceedingly favorable to them, and will doubtless end in restoring to them the land which, by divine right, belongs to them. When this is done, and the rising desire of the Jews to be a nation again is accomplished, the thirty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel will be fulfilled. This portentous event may now take place at any time-portentous indeed! for the Church which has been meanwhile the sphere of the Spirit's activities is then taken to heaven, and the nations of the earth with their kings and mighty ones must one and all be abased to let Israel and her King step to the front and rule them. What moral and political convulsions then to bring about such a mighty change! Then will Russia, in her last endeavor to crush and spoil Israel and satisfy her pride, prove that God's judgment of her prophesied in the thirty-eighth chapter of the same prophet is, alas, but too true.
The Church may well be now as a bird with outspread wings on the topmost bough.
But what moral convulsions must these poor Jews also pass through before they are ready to recognize that the Jesus whom they crucified and still hate, is their promised Messiah, by whom they are to be elevated to such heights!
The. nations of the earth are prepared for gigantic conflict. Alas, they are not preparing in vain! It will come indeed, ere they are willing to take submissively the place assigned them by the King of kings in relation to His people Israel.
There is much talk of peace also, and that will also come, but under the reign of Christ, not of any international court. When the nations have, by the manifestation of His power and glory, bowed submissively to Him, then shall they enjoy peace- universal peace-but not before.