Book: Genesis

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Summary

The story of Joseph forgiving his brothers (Genesis 42–46, 50) reveals God’s sovereign plan working through human sin and suffering. We are reminded that true forgiveness acknowledges real wounds while trusting God’s sovereignty, and that restoring broken relationships requires both forgiveness and acknowledgment of sin.

Key Lessons:

1. We often see ourselves as “honest” and “good” until confronted with our sin — like the brothers who claimed to be honest men despite terrible deeds.
2. Forgiveness does not mean declaring the offender innocent; the wounds are real and require genuine healing, not just the passage of time.
3. Restoring a relationship requires two things: one side must forgive, and the other side must acknowledge their sin.
4. God’s sovereignty works through even the sinful actions of people to accomplish His purposes, as Joseph declared: “It was not you who sent me here, but God.”

Application: We are called to forgive others because we ourselves have been forgiven by God. We must resist the urge to take vengeance, trust God’s sovereign plan even in suffering, and not hide our sins but confess them so that healing and restoration can take place.

Discussion Questions:

1. Are there unhealed wounds in your life that you have assumed time would fix? What steps can you take to pursue genuine healing?
2. Is there someone whose sin against you you need to forgive — not by declaring them innocent, but by releasing vengeance to God?
3. Like the brothers who hid their sin for decades, are there sins you are concealing that are hindering your spiritual growth and relationships?

Scripture Focus: Genesis 42–46 and Genesis 50 trace Joseph’s testing and forgiveness of his brothers, revealing God’s sovereign plan. Genesis 50:20 captures the theme: what was meant for evil, God meant for good. Romans 12:19 teaches us to leave vengeance to God. Matthew 6:14–15 connects our willingness to forgive others with God’s forgiveness of us.

Outline

• Introduction
• Background and Context
• Joseph’s Brothers Come to Egypt
• Joseph Recognizes His Brothers
• Joseph Tests His Brothers
• The Brothers’ Guilt Awakens
• Observation and Interpretation
• The Brothers Called Themselves ‘Honest Men’
• Why Joseph Tests His Brothers
• The Brothers Return to Canaan
• Reuben and Judah’s Contrasting Approaches
• The Brothers Return to Egypt
• The Silver Cup and Benjamin’s Crisis
• Judah’s Sacrificial Plea
• Judah’s Transformation
• Joseph Reveals Himself
• It Was Not You, But God
• God Reassures Jacob
• The Brothers’ Lingering Fear
• Forgiveness and Restoration
• Principles of Forgiveness
• Wounds Are Real and Need Healing
• We Forgive Because We Have Been Forgiven
• Application Questions
• Discussion

Introduction

Welcome to Sunday school.

We continue with the series of the patriarchs and today we have lesson 15. The title of the lesson is Joseph forgives his brothers. For this lesson we will go on Genesis from chapters 42 to 46 and a passage in Genesis 15.

So let me pray in order to start.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this morning that we can study your word together. I ask that you bless this time, that you bless my words, and that this study can be a blessing for everybody here and everybody listening to this Sunday school in Jesus’ name.

Amen.

Background and Context

Okay, let’s see the outline of the lesson. As you see, there is a lot of material. Because we’re going through different and several chapters in the Bible, I will be going through all of this. If you have any question particularly about the topic that we are going through, you can ask your question, raise your hand, and we can take that. But if it is a general question or a general comment, please leave them to the end. I’ll make sure that we have some time before the hour to go over general questions or comments that you would like to.

For the last three weeks, we have been studying the life of Joseph. We have seen how he had gone through trials, but also we have seen how God was with him in the middle of the trials and how God blessed him also through those trials.

In last week, we saw that Joseph was in Egypt and the Lord revealed through him through the dreams of Pharaoh that there were going to be seven years of plenty and seven years of famine in the land. And now the biblical camera is going to shift to Jacob and his sons in Canaan. And that’s where we’re going to start this lesson in Genesis 42.

So I’m going to read now from Genesis 42:1-25. “Now Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt. And Jacob said to his sons, ‘Why are you staring at one another?’ He said, ‘Behold, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt.

Go down there and buy some for us from that place so that we may live and not die.’ Then 10 brothers of Joseph went down to buy grain from Egypt. But Jacob did not send Joseph’s brother Benjamin with his brothers, for he said, ‘I am afraid that harm may befall him.’

So the sons of Israel came to buy grain among those who were coming from the famine. For the famine was in the land of Canaan also. Now Joseph was the ruler over the land. He was the one who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed down to him with their faces to the ground.

Genesis 42:6: “Joseph’s brothers came and bowed down to him with their faces to the ground.”

Joseph’s Brothers Come to Egypt

When Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them. But he disguised himself to them and spoke to them harshly. He said to them, “Where have you come from?” They said, “From the land of Canaan to buy food.”

Joseph Recognizes His Brothers

But Joseph had recognized his brothers, although they did not recognize him. Joseph remembered the dreams which he had about them, and said to them, “You are spies. You have come to look at the undefended parts of the land.”

Then they said to him, “No, my lord, but your servants have come to buy food. We are all sons of one man. We are honest men. Your servants are not spies.”

“Joseph remembered the dreams which he had about them.”

Yet he says to them, “No, but you have come to look at the undefended parts of our land.” But they said, “Your servants are 12 brothers in all, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan.”

Joseph Tests His Brothers

And behold, the youngest is with our father today, and one is no longer alive.” Joseph said to them, “It is said to you, you are spies. By this you will be tested by the life of Pharaoh. You shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here. Send one of you that he may get your brother while you remain confined, that your words may be tested whether there is truth in you.

But if not, by the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies.” So he put them all together in prison for three days. Now Joseph said to them, “On the third day, do this and leave, for I fear God. If you are honest men, let one of your brothers be confined in your prison. But as the rest of you, go carry grain for the famine of your households. And bring your youngest brother to me so your words may be verified and you will not die.” And they did so.

They said to one another, “Truly, we are guilty concerning our brother because we saw the distress of his soul when he pleaded with us, yet we would not listen. Therefore, this distress has come upon us.”

Reuben answered them, saying, “Did I not tell you to not sin against the boy, and you would not listen? Now comes the reckoning for his blood.” They did not know, however, that Joseph understood, for there was an interpreter between them.

Then he turned away from them and wept. But when he returned to them, he spoke to them. He took Simeon from them and bound him before their eyes. Then Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain and to restore every man’s money in his sack and to leave them and gave them provisions for the journey. Thus it was done for them.

Now we are going to do our observation and interpretation using the same mechanic that we have been doing during this series. I have some questions here about this passage starting with this: What was Jacob’s concern?

We have the answer there. He thought that the family would die if they did not buy food from Egypt. The famine had affected Canaan as well as Egypt. Which of the brothers were sent?

Genesis 42:21: “Truly, we are guilty concerning our brother because we saw the distress of his soul when he pleaded with us.”

The Brothers’ Guilt Awakens

The 10 brothers were sent while Benjamin stayed behind. Were they the only ones seeking food in Egypt? No. We can see that there were other people looking for food as well.

How did the brothers approach Joseph? They bowed before him with their faces to the ground. Here we can see one of Joseph’s dreams now becoming reality because he precisely had this dream that the brothers were going to bow to him.

“One of Joseph’s dreams is now becoming reality — the brothers bow before him.”

And now this is literally happening.

Observation and Interpretation

This is coming to place here in this scene. Why did the brothers not recognize Joseph? Well, he was dressed like an Egyptian after many years. He was an officer of Pharaoh, and it had been many years since they had seen him. In fact, it had been 22 years.

How do we know that it’s been 22 years? He started to serve Pharaoh when he was 30. Then there were seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Now we are in the second year of famine, as indicated later in Genesis. So he’s now 39 years old, and he was sold when he was 17. So 39 minus 17 is 22 years since they have not seen each other.

Why would a spy be sent to the land of famine? This is what Joseph is telling his brothers: “You are spies.” He’s making this accusation to them. They would be looking to see if the land was vulnerable to attack because of the famine. Joseph was making a reasonable accusation.

Also, since Egypt was the only place in the land where there was food, probably some others would like to attack to take the food. What did the brothers believe had happened to Joseph? In some versions of the Bible, in the ESV, they use the phrase “is no more” in verse 13. The version that I read in the ESV says “he’s no longer alive.” But if you are reading the ESV and you see the phrase “is no more,” this is an expression that means basically the same thing. It means that Joseph is dead. So the brothers believed that Joseph was dead by now.

What test did Joseph propose? Joseph starts some sort of test with his brothers. Initially, he tells them that one of them must return and bring back their youngest brother. But later on, we see that he changes the plan. He locks them up for three days, and now he says, “Okay, you can go, but I will keep only one of you.”

What did the brothers believe about the adversity they were facing? They thought they were being repaid for the treatment of Joseph many years ago. We can see this in verses 22 through 23. At that moment, they start to realize, “Oh, maybe this is happening because of what we did to our brother.”

What language had been used in these discussions? We can see in verse 23 that there was an interpreter. So it means that Joseph was speaking in Egyptian and his brothers were speaking Hebrew. Why was it important? When the brothers start to realize that this is happening because of what they did to Joseph, they are speaking among themselves. They don’t think that Joseph can understand them. But Joseph can understand them.

At this moment, we see that Joseph was overcome with emotion. He goes away and he wept. This is interesting because Joseph had gone through many trials in his life, many difficult situations. But the Bible does not record any reaction from Joseph during those situations until now. The Bible records that Joseph wept. Even though he went through all those difficult situations, the situation he’s experiencing now is no doubt more difficult and more emotional for him.

“Joseph was overcome with emotion. The Bible records that Joseph wept.”

Next question. How did the brothers part? Joseph kept Simeon as hostage and sent the other brothers back home with their sacks full of grain. He also put the money in their sacks and gave them provisions for the journey.

And that’s how this text finalizes.

The Brothers Called Themselves ‘Honest Men’

And now I have a couple of points for interpretation about this text. First point, how do the brothers describe themselves when they were accused of being spies? This is a good point to interpret because in verse 11 they say that they are honest men. That’s how they describe themselves to Joseph. And then in verse 13 they say that one of his brothers is no longer alive or is no more. But why is that brother no longer alive?

Well, because they saw him, they are the ones who are guilty of that. And they say, “Oh, we don’t know. He’s no longer alive.” And not only that, if we see other passages, previous passages in Genesis 35:22, we see that Reuben committed adultery with Bilha, who was Jacob’s concubine.

“They say they are honest men, yet they are the ones guilty of what happened to their brother.”

Why Joseph Tests His Brothers

On Genesis 34, we see that Simeon and Levi killed all the men of a city and plundered the city in a savage act of vengeance. In Genesis 38, we see that Judah had left the house of his father and was living a selfish and immoral life. Yet they say, “We are honest men. We are good men.”

That is pretty much the way we see ourselves, right? When we look at the people around us, we all say, “I’m a good man. I am a good person. I’m honest. I’m okay. I’m fine.” Until we are confronted with our sins, until God calls us, and then we realize that we are sinners and we need Jesus.

You may say, “Well, but I haven’t committed these terrible things that the brothers had done.” Yeah, you may be right. But according to the Bible, there is no one righteous, not even one. So we are sinners and we cannot claim before God that we are honest men, good men.

Now the next question: Why does Joseph test his brothers? This is a little bit more difficult to answer because the text doesn’t say specifically what Joseph’s intention is when he starts this test on his brothers. Probably Joseph isn’t even totally sure of what he’s doing because he says one thing in the beginning—that he’s going to keep nine and let one go—and then later he changes his plan. Three days later. So probably during these three days he’s meditating on how he’s going to proceed.

But in any case, this sort of test that he’s doing is producing good results on his brothers. Now when they are in jail, they start to realize about the sin. They start to say, “Okay, this is happening to us because of what we did to our brother.” So that’s how they start this process of recognizing the sin. They go from “We are honest men” to “We’re not so honest. We did this, and maybe this is happening because of what we did to our brother.”

Okay, next point. In the next sections of the text, I’m just going to go through the text making a summary. We won’t be doing the observation and interpretation because we wouldn’t have time for that. I’m going to make a summary of what happens next.

The next part is Genesis 42:26 through 38, so basically till the end, and Genesis 43. After that, the brothers are back in Canaan and tell Jacob what happened in Egypt. They tell Jacob that in order to go back to Egypt and get more food, they have to take Benjamin with them. Jacob is distressed about that. He doesn’t want them to take Benjamin to Egypt with him.

Then we see that Reuben talks to Jacob, his father. Reuben is the oldest brother, so he tries to take the leadership in that sense and convince Jacob. But he doesn’t have success. So then Judah steps in and talks to Jacob, and finally Jacob reluctantly agrees to let Benjamin go.

Let’s see here quickly how Reuben talks to Jacob. We can see that on verse 42:37.

“According to the Bible, there is no one righteous, not even one. We cannot claim before God that we are honest.”

The Brothers Return to Canaan

It says, “Then Reuben spoke to his father, saying, you may put my two sons to death if I do not bring him back.” Meaning Benjamin, you put him in my care, and I will return him to you.

“This test is producing good results — the brothers start to recognize their sin.”

Reuben and Judah’s Contrasting Approaches

This proposal, this idea of Reuben, may seem good while he’s offering his own sons. But in reality, how can Jacob see this? I mean, okay, you say that you will bring my son back and Benjamin back. But then if not, then what am I supposed to do? I kill my own grandsons. I’m losing one child and I’m supposed to kill my grandson. It’s not very logical.

But now let’s see how Judah talks to Jacob. We can see that in Genesis 43:9. Then Judah says, “I myself will be surety for him. You may hold me responsible for this. If I do not bring him back to you and send him before you, then let me bear the blame before you forever.”

“Reuben’s proposal seems good, but how can Jacob accept killing his own grandsons?”

That sounds like a better approach, more sound and logical approach. I’m taking the ownership. I’m making myself responsible. If something goes wrong, put the blame on me.

So then, as commented, Jacob agrees and they have no other option. They have to get more food, otherwise they will die. So their brothers are back to Egypt. And now that is in chapter 43, they are back in Egypt.

And when they are back in Egypt, what happens?

Genesis 43:9: “I myself will be surety for him. If I do not bring him back, let me bear the blame forever.”

The Brothers Return to Egypt

They Joseph sees them and he orders them to be sent to his house. The brothers are in Joseph’s house. Simeon is brought back to join them. Simeon is released.

When Joseph gets into the house, the brothers bow down to Joseph. We see this scene again for the second time. They bow down and Joseph is overwhelmed with emotion when he meets Benjamin especially and he weeps. We see again this scene, the boy, the brothers bowing down and Joseph with all these high emotions weeping when he meets Benjamin.

“The brothers bow down and Joseph is overwhelmed with emotion when he meets Benjamin.”

Then Joseph and the brothers eat and drink and Benjamin receives an extra portion of food. This is particularly interesting because why this special treatment for Benjamin? Well, let’s remember that Benjamin was son of Rachel. So he was a full brother of Joseph.

Also, we can tell that Benjamin did not take part when the brothers sold Joseph because Benjamin at that time was very young and the brothers, let’s remember, they were away from home working with the flocks. So it’s very unlikely that Benjamin had taken part in that event and that may explain why there is this special treatment for Benjamin.

And we can also say that’s probably a part of the test that Joseph is doing. Let’s see how the brothers react. If I am showing favoritism to Benjamin and give him some more, there is no reaction from the brothers. Everything goes well and they end this time happy.

The text says that Benjamin received five times more food than the brothers. I wonder if Benjamin ate all that food. Giant amount of food and everything seems to be going well for the brothers. Now they are going back to Egypt with Benjamin, with Simeon. They are going back to his father.

But something unexpected is going to happen.

The Silver Cup and Benjamin’s Crisis

We see now that in Genesis 44, Joseph had his silver cup hidden in Benjamin’s sack as the brothers returned to Canaan. He did this in secret.

They didn’t know. Joseph then ordered his steward to go after the brothers.

His steward caught up with the brothers shortly after they left and accused them of stealing Joseph’s cup. They initially denied it, but then the steward opened each of their sacks and found the cup in Benjamin’s sack. At that time, the brothers were in total distress.

That’s exactly what they didn’t want to happen. That’s exactly what their father told them—bring Benjamin back—and now this is what may not happen. Imagine that moment for the brothers. It must have felt like this cannot be happening to us.

“That’s exactly what they didn’t want to happen — exactly what their father feared.”

They tore their clothes in a sign of repentance and humbled themselves, but they were brought back to Joseph. That’s what the steward had to do. They were brought back to Joseph, and this was the third time they encountered Joseph. What happened? They fell before Joseph to the ground.

So now we see this scene again when the brothers bow to Joseph for the third time. Joseph reviews the situation and says, “Okay, Benjamin was the one who took the cup, so I’m going to keep Benjamin as a slave.” What happens then? Well, Judah offers to take Benjamin’s place to avoid his father dying of grief, having lost his two favorite sons.

So what can the brothers do? There is not much they can do. They are innocent, and the text doesn’t record what was the reaction of Benjamin if he argued that he had not done it.

Judah’s Sacrificial Plea

The text doesn’t say what was the reaction of the other brothers if they tried to blame Benjamin. Why did you do this? There is no detail on that. But when they are before Joseph, the evidence is overwhelming. Even though they are innocent, the cup was in Benjamin’s sack. So what can they do at that time? The only thing they can do is ask for mercy. There is nothing else you can do but be merciful on us.

Then Judah—remember, Judah had offered himself to be responsible for Benjamin. Judah steps in again and gives this very emotional words to Joseph. We can read part of this in Genesis 44:30-34. I’m going to read this now.

“Therefore, when I come to your servant my father”—so he is talking about himself. “I come to your servant, my father, and the lad is not with us. Since his life is found in the lad’s life, the lad is Benjamin.

When he sees that the lad is not with us, he will die. Thus, your servants will bring the gray hair of your servant, our father, down to Sheol in sorrow. For your servant became surety for the lad to my father, saying, if I do not bring him back to you, then let me bear the blame before my father forever.

Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the lad as slave to my lord, and let the lad go with my brothers. For how shall I go to my father if the lad is not with us? For fear that I see the evil that will overtake my father.”

This is interesting because, if we remember the story, why did this drama happen? One of the main reasons was because Jacob’s favorite son was Joseph. That’s why the brothers hated Joseph.

Genesis 44:33: “Let your servant remain instead of the lad as slave to my lord, and let the lad go with my brothers.”

Yeah. And did Jacob change? No, he didn’t change. He only changed his favorite son. He no longer had Joseph. Now Benjamin took that place as his favorite son.

Judah’s Transformation

But he didn’t change that sinful habit of showing favoritism to one of his sons. But who is changing here? It’s Judah. Judah is the one changing here. It’s like he’s saying, “Hey, dad, I know that you don’t love me as much as you love my brother. I know that I’m not your favorite.

Probably you don’t really love me. Simeon is held captive and Jacob doesn’t even care about Simeon. All he cares about is Benjamin and Benjamin and Benjamin. But he says okay, doesn’t matter. I’m going to love you and I’m going to honor you in spite of all that. And now he’s pleading to Joseph for mercy on Benjamin because he doesn’t want to cause more pain to his father.

“Judah is the one changing. He’s willing to honor his father and sacrifice himself despite not being the favorite.”

How did this man change? There is not much about Judah’s life, but we see at the end of chapter 38. I believe when he talks about Judah there is a small detail that happened to him that seems to have changed his life. It’s an event that happened to him and that seems to be the event that the Lord uses to change his heart.

And now instead of being that selfish man, he’s a man that is willing to put himself in place of his brother. By the way, they keep talking about Benjamin as if he’s a boy. Some versions refer to him as a boy. Here they talk about him as a lad. He’s not really a boy now.

“Instead of being that selfish man, Judah is now willing to put himself in place of his brother.”

I mean he was born before Joseph was sold, and that happened 22 years ago. So by this time Benjamin is in his mid-20s, probably late 20s. So he’s not a boy really, but why do they keep talking about him as if he’s a boy? It’s probably because for his father, for Jacob, he was still his boy. He was the youngest of his sons.

He kept seeing him as his boy, his boy, his boy. And now the brothers still call him a boy. This happens in families sometimes. The youngest son is forever the boy, and this is happening here.

Joseph Reveals Himself

So after these emotional words of Judah, we get to the climax of this story in Genesis 45:1-9. I’m going to read this.

Then Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him. And he cried, “Have everyone out from me.” So there was no man with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. He wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it and the household of Pharaoh heard it.

Then Joseph said to his brother, “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed by his presence.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Please come closer to me.” And they came closer. And he said, “I am your brother Joseph whom you sold in Egypt. Now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here. For God sent me before you to preserve life.

For the famine has been in the land these two years and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth and to keep you alive by a great deliverance.

Now therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God, and he has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his household and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry up and go to my father and say to him, “Your son Joseph says, God has made me lord of Egypt. Come down to me, do not delay.”

This is highly emotional and you can feel the emotion. You can feel it in the words of Joseph and in his weeping. We saw the brothers bow down by the third time and now Joseph weeps by the third time and this weeping is even stronger than the other two.

He tells everybody in his house to go out and still the Egyptians can hear his weeping. This is the overwhelming answer of Joseph to his brothers.

Genesis 45:4-5: “I am your brother Joseph whom you sold into Egypt. Do not be grieved — God sent me before you to preserve life.”

He’s offering now the forgiving of what he did to them in the past. Joseph weeps loudly and the brothers are speechless. They cannot believe what is happening.

But Joseph reassures his brothers, kisses them and keeps weeping on them.

It Was Not You, But God

And what is the reading that Joseph does on everything that has happened so far? What is his conclusion?

This is illustrated in Genesis 45:8 when it says, “It was you who sent me here. It was not you who sent me here, but God. And he has made me a father to Pharaoh and the lord of his household and ruler over the land of Egypt.”

So in the end of all this drama, in the end of all this situation, Joseph’s conclusion is it was God behind all this. It wasn’t you, it was the Lord.

Now this may seem contradictory because it was actually the brothers and the brothers sinned against Joseph. It was not that the brothers thought about this. They meant evil for him. But Joseph said, “Okay, regardless of that, God had a plan and this plan was accomplished.”

That is an amazing declaration by Joseph—how he reads and understands what happened to him and how he expressed that to his brothers.

Now Joseph tells his brothers to bring all the family to Egypt and they do that. They go back to Jacob.

Genesis 45:8: “It was not you who sent me here, but God, and He has made me lord of all his household.”

God Reassures Jacob

They tell everything that happened and the family is moving now down to Egypt. But before that there is an interesting passage in Genesis 46:2-4 because if they are going down to Egypt, then what happens to God’s promise about the land, the land of Canaan? Is that then something that is going to happen?

In this passage, God speaks to Jacob and it says God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, “Jacob, Jacob.” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you a great nation there. I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will surely bring you up again, and Joseph will close your eyes.”

This I think has a lot of relationship with the declaration that Joseph had done before to his brothers. It was not you but it was God. Now in a certain way God is telling something similar to Jacob. He’s telling Jacob, okay, do not be afraid. Go down to Egypt. What has happened? Everything that is happening with Jacob, with your other sons, it’s not beyond my control.

Genesis 46:3-4: “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you a great nation there. I will go down with you.”

My promise, what I told you about the land, is going to be accomplished. This is not something that escaped my control, my abilities. It is part of the plan. So do not be afraid. Go down to Egypt. The promise is still valid. It’s going to be fulfilled.

So do not be afraid and go down to Egypt and you will come back. Now we know that he didn’t come back. He died in Egypt. But we can interpret that God is referring to his descendants. They are going to go back and we know that happened later on.

So at this point we could have thought that everything settled down and the brothers and Joseph were now okay. The relationship is fine.

The Brothers’ Lingering Fear

But still there is something that happens many years later, and we see that in Genesis 50, the last chapter of Genesis. The passage is there. I’m not going to read it, but basically what happens is that when Jacob dies, the brothers still feel the need to talk to Joseph because they fear that now that their father died, Joseph may take vengeance on them.

It’s been 17 years that had gone by when they came together again, and from the time that his father died there were 17 years because Jacob arrived in Egypt when he was 130 and Jacob died at 147.

So 17 years have gone by, and after the father dies this topic comes up again in the brothers’ minds.

Why did they think about this?

Is it that Joseph had not forgiven them? I think Joseph had shown that he had genuinely forgiven them, but yet they are not in peace. They still have that in their hearts.

“Joseph had shown genuine forgiveness, but the brothers were still not at peace.”

Forgiveness and Restoration

And it’s one thing to forgive and another thing to restore the relationship. In order to restore a relationship, one side has to forgive and the other side has to acknowledge their sin.

We have seen through this that apparently the brothers had not really acknowledged their sin to Joseph. That part seems to be missing.

“One thing is forgiving; another is restoring the relationship. One side must forgive, the other must acknowledge their sin.”

Now this part is being done when they go to Joseph. They send a message to him, and they don’t even do it in person like in a straight communication to him. They use this story of their father telling them to go to Joseph and ask for forgiveness.

But even though they do this, they are now trying to acknowledge their sin and restore the relationship.

We see also this pattern again of Joseph weeping when the brothers spoke to him, and the brothers also falling down before him. This pattern repeats, and this is the last time that it will be shown. Now the brothers have bowed down to Joseph before, but without knowing that Joseph was Joseph. Now this time they do know it, and they bow down to him.

Joseph’s answer is again overwhelming in mercy and in loving kindness for his brothers. He tells them basically what he has told them before: Do not be afraid. I’m not going to take any vengeance against you. And so he comforted and spoke kindly to them.

Now as I said, the brothers are restoring the relationship by acknowledging their sin, and that brings the relationship together again. But the forgiving—Joseph’s forgiving—is not depending on the other side to acknowledge their sin. We are told to forgive regardless if the other side acknowledges their sin or not.

But for the relationship to be restored, it is good to have this combination of forgiving and acknowledging their sin.

Principles of Forgiveness

This story involves forgiving. In order to shape down this idea of forgiving, I have this slide here based on the words of Joseph when he answers to his brothers. We draw here some conclusions or some ideas about forgiving because forgiving is not easy.

It’s one of the most difficult things that we are called to do. I don’t know about you, but for me it’s really difficult. It’s one of the things that I struggle with, and this is helpful for us to think about it and to analyze.

When Joseph says to his brothers, “Do not be afraid. Am I in God’s place?” he’s telling them that he understands that everything that is happening is part of God’s plan. It’s God’s sovereignty.

Joseph is acknowledging God’s sovereignty in his life and in everything that’s happening in the world. Also, Joseph is saying that by asking “Am I in God’s place?” he’s saying that he is not the one to take vengeance or to apply judgment on the other side.

“Joseph acknowledges God’s sovereignty — he is not the one to take vengeance or apply judgment.”

He’s leaving that to the Lord as we see, for example, in Romans 12:19: “Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, and I will repay,’ says the Lord.”

Joseph is making this point: I am not God. I am not the one who takes vengeance. That will be left upon the Lord.

One way that God may execute this justice nowadays is through our civil authorities, for example. In the Old Testament, it was through Moses’ law that justice was applied. But even if the authorities do not do what they are supposed to do, even if justice is not served, we are still called not to execute vengeance on ourselves. And that’s what Joseph is saying.

Wounds Are Real and Need Healing

Also, when Joseph says “you meant evil against me,” he’s not saying the brothers are okay. It doesn’t matter. You didn’t do anything wrong. No, you did something wrong. You sinned against me and I was hurt.

The wounds that we have as a result of someone sinning against us are real, and we need healing. It’s similar to when we have a physical wound. Let’s say you are walking down the street and you fell to the ground. You get up and you just have a few scratches on your knees. You go home, you wash your wounds, you apply some antiseptic and band-aids, and it hurts, but no big deal. In a couple of days, you will be fine.

But if God forbids, you fell and you break your leg. Now you probably need to go to the hospital, and your healing time will be longer. It will require more than just a quick antiseptic and band-aid.

In spiritual terms, you may require some counseling. You may require some brothers or sisters to go with you, to cry with you, to pray with you. The wounds that you have are bigger.

Forgiveness is not declaring innocent, and we need to heal our wounds. In the case of the brothers, we saw that there had been 17 years, and that was still there. We sometimes think that time will heal everything. That doesn’t happen. You forget about things, but if those issues are not healed, they will be there. You will not remember them, but they will be there. At some event, something happens and those come back again, and they start hurting you, as it happened with the brothers. Their father died, and now these wounds are alive again. They come up because they have not been healed.

Finally, we forgive because we have been forgiven. In this story, we probably tend to identify with Joseph. We probably think that we are Joseph, and that may be real for some of you. But what if we are the brothers?

“Forgiveness is not declaring someone innocent. The wounds are real and we need healing.”

We Forgive Because We Have Been Forgiven

What if we are the ones who cause sin on someone else? And what if we go to God in repentance and ask for forgiveness? What is God going to tell us? Is he going to apply full judgment and say you will not be forgiven, or is he going to forgive us? I think we know the answer. If we go in repentance, he will forgive us.

“What if we are the brothers? If we go to God in repentance, He will forgive us.”

That’s what we have to keep in mind ourselves.

Application Questions

Matthew 6:14 and 15. For if you forgive others for your transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. Keeping that in mind will certainly help us to forgive.

I have here some application questions for you to think about this lesson.

Matthew 6:14: “If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.”

You can see them on the screen. This basically revolves about forgiveness, about going to God in repentance, and also about trusting God. As we saw, this story is not just a story that is in the Bible. It’s part of God’s story. God was always in control, and it’s also something that can help us to trust God.

God’s promises were not affected by this, but on the contrary, they were displayed in a bigger way to us. We see all of God’s mercy, loving kindness, and wisdom displayed in this. Sometimes we wonder why things have to be this way. Why do things have to be so hard for Joseph and his brothers?

Couldn’t this have been done in an easier way? Could God have just worked out these things without having Joseph and his brothers go through all this?

Probably he could, but if he had done that, we wouldn’t be reading this and we wouldn’t be amazed by all this great story that God has prepared for us. That was the last point.

You may say, “Okay, well, but in this case, Joseph’s story ended up well. Everything went well for Joseph and the brothers, and in my story this has not happened. I’m still suffering from the sin of others, and I do not see anything good that has happened to me.”

Well, that might be the case, but let’s not forget that probably you are not at the end of your story. There may be something else coming up for you. And what is for sure to come is eternal life with Christ. That is a great hope.

“You may not be at the end of your story. What is certain is eternal life with Christ — that is a great hope.”

Let’s also remember that, as Romans says, for the ones who love God, everything works for their good. That’s the end of my presentation. Now, questions or comments?

Discussion

Yeah.

I think about the Lord. He does test us and he knows what’s in our hearts, but we don’t need it. We don’t see it, and sometimes we have to go through those tests over and over. Even taking communion, if we don’t examine ourselves—and I’m not talking to the point of morbid introspection—if we can’t acknowledge the layers of the onion in our hearts, then we can’t even mortify the flesh and we can’t get over conflict because we can’t even acknowledge it.

I thought of Judah, where he sees his father favor Benjamin, and yet he honored because he had been transformed. He understood three things: because every conflict comes down to the sovereignty of God over every situation, even though his father was favoring. Then the authority and then the submission—like every single conflict that we have. God puts us through things and gives us tests. Examine what am I supposed to get out of this? How am I supposed to be conformed? And then submit to God’s will, as Joseph understood it was all from God.

Even though it hurts, the test hurts, but it’s for our benefit to just examine our hearts so that God can do a work and just acknowledge that’s who we are and that’s going to go on till we face the Lord and he’ll be faithful to complete us at that point.

There’s so many deep attributes in that one story, which is applicable to us all the time.

That’s right. It’s part of our growth in the Lord.

Glenda and then Arthur.

Sometimes we act just like the brothers. God has forgiven us of our sins, but we keep going to him all the time for forgiveness. They didn’t realize Joseph had forgiven them. It’s just because they could not forgive themselves.

Seeing their brother has forgiven them of all the things that they did to him, Joseph kept telling them it was not you. God sent me—this happened to me because God sent me to preserve life. But because they couldn’t forgive themselves, they just kept wondering, “Well, when our father dies, he’s going to do this to us. He’s going to do that to them.”

So we sometimes are like that. God has forgiven us, but we keep going over and over and trying to go to him for this same sin that he has forgiven us. We just can’t forgive ourselves. Sometimes we’re like the brothers.

Yeah. And probably the reason why we cannot forgive ourselves is because we don’t trust God. We don’t believe that his promises are real, and we have not acknowledged our own sin as well. So we need to acknowledge our sin and humble ourselves before God.

Yeah. Something that I wanted to point out, and I believe this is really important for us to understand: God gives us the story of Joseph, how it fits into his will. But we got to recognize that there are details that are left out only because God wants us to focus on the fact that despite human error and sin, his plan is carried out.

What I wanted to point out though is how disgusting it was for Jacob’s family. They were hiding from their father all those years that they had sold his son into slavery. Every day they looked—or how often they actually visited their father—this sin was always present in their lives. When it was mentioned about why it was difficult for them to forgive themselves, it’s because over time they were hiding this from their father all those years. Imagine they had children.

How serious this sin was, and yet they were raising their children. I point this out because there are sins in our lives. In Proverbs it says, “He who hides his sin shall not prosper.”

That could be taken as physical blessings or it could be taken as spiritual blessings—in other words, how we develop mentally and spiritually. Here we find in Jacob’s family, even though Joseph and Yen says what they intended for evil God meant for good, yet the damage that was done because of this hidden sin. We can see it even when God delivers Israel from Egypt. We can see there’s certain characteristics within Israel that becomes their doom when they’re delivered from Egypt.

So there’s some sense that can linger on for who knows how long. And I only mention that because when we talk about forgiveness, I’ve shared this with a few people. There were two deaths in my family. My grandfather—I don’t think they meant to kill him. He was a pastor. He was beaten in the street. No one was ever charged for the crime. My family comes from the south. A relative of mine was set on fire. No one was ever brought to justice—was never charged with that crime.

And I’m thinking, yeah, even though I’ve forgiven them, one of the members of my family that has forgiven them, the fact that they lived—whoever perpetrated these crimes lived with that until they passed away. Very serious.

We should never hide our sins. We’re told to confess our faults to one another. Hiding sin can be very damaging, not only to our lives but to our children.

That’s right. That’s right. The only way to overcome our sins is by confessing our sins.

And he said, “What you meant for evil, God turned it for good.” And he fully forgave them. But there was still this apprehension that even after Jacob passed away, they thought that this was his moment for him to take retribution.

But no, it was a complete forgiveness.

We see the similarities on the cross. Jesus says, “Father, forgive them because they don’t know what they’re doing. What it is that they meant for evil, this is going to usher in the ultimate salvation and forgiveness of sin for mankind.” And there’s an old Puritan pastor, Richard Sibs, that says there is more grace in Christ than there is sin in us. That forgiveness is complete. Nothing can be added to it.

Nothing can be taken from it. Yeah.

Yeah. Very right. Yeah. There are a lot of parallels between Joseph and Christ.

I didn’t go through them because they would take probably another lesson. But yeah, there is a lot of that.

Well, we have come to the end of the lesson. Let me close in prayer. Father, thank you for this time that we could go studying this lesson. Thank you for your word. We ask that you bless us during the rest of the worship service and thank you for everything that we have studied this morning. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Auto Transcript

Note: This rough transcript was automatically generated by YouTube’s AI algorithm. We provide it here for your convenience, but know it will surely contain errors as it has not been proofread or edited by a human.

Well, good morning everybody.

Welcome to Sunday school. Today we have lesson 11. The title of the lesson is Jacob Returns to Canaan and it is based on Genesis chapters 32 and 33. Let me pray in order to start. So heavenly father, we thank you for um this time that we can spend studying your word. We thank you for our Sunday school. Um I ask that you bless this lesson, that you bless my words and that um what we study this morning is a blessing for for all of us, for the ones here and the ones uh listening online. In Jesus name we pray.

Amen. Amen. So let me start now with a introduction. As I mentioned the introduction is based on Genesis 30 and 31.

So um last week we were studying with Ian about Jacob going to to Haran and um once in Haran uh Jacob um went to the house of his uncle Lean and um he worked for seven years because he wanted to marry Rachel but we saw that he ended up having two wives. He married also Leah and a result of as a result of that he had to work for seven more years. So in total he spent uh 14 years. Now after the first seven years when he had married Leah and then Rachel we see that um the babies are coming up.

he starts to have several babies and most of the babies are coming from Leah.

So Leah unlike uh Sarah and Rebecca who were barren, Leah is the opposite. She has a lot of babies. She has uh six babies, six sons plus one daughter, although it’s not totally clear if the daughter was born during those seven years or later on, but the Bible mentioned uh six sons and one daughter.

And that um causes uh her sister Rachel to be very jealous of her. And in order to have children, Rachel keeps her servant Bilha to Jacob with the idea that if uh Jacob had children with Bilha, the children would be Rachel’s. This is the same thing that uh Sarah did with Abraham and with Hagar. So they repeat the same process and this uh works in that sense because Bilha gives birth to um two two children, two sons. Let me now uh put here the correct slide. Okay. So we are going through Jacob’s family multiplies. So, as I said, children start to come. Um, and then, um, once Rachel gives her servant to to Jacob, Leah counters and does the same thing, she gives her servant also to Jacob. She gives Sila. And Sila has two more children, two more sons. And then at the end of this seven-year period, the god uh god remembers Rachel and Rachel gives Laura to a son and the name of that son is Joseph. So during this short time frame of seven years, we see that there are 11 sons and probably one daughter. So we see here the opposite of what happened in the prior generations that there was just one child or one or a two children but only one was going to be the the son of the promise. Now we see here the explosion of of children, the multiplication and um what’s happening here is God starts to fulfill that promise that he made to Abraham and Isaac in the sense that their descendants would be huge in number. And this is very similar to what we see in Exodus uh chapter 1 verse 7. That’s the beginning of the book of Exodus. We see here that there was this same process of multiplication. It says, “But the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly and multiplied and became exceedingly mighty so that the land was filled with them.” So this is a similar situation. Now this was the beginning of that multiplication appears here in this in this moment with Jacob and and all the the children. And now we’ll continue in Exus. So this is uh Jacob’s uh family multiplication. Um now the second point here on this introduction is Jacob’s uh first attempt to return to Canaan. At the end of those seven years, he tells Lean um I want now to go back to to Canaan. I fulfilled my commitment to you to work seven years first for the first wife and seven more years for the second wife. So I want to go back.

But Lean tells Jacob, “Hey, I want you to stay with me. Don’t go.” Um, and uh, you tell me, “What do you want, and I’ll give it to you.” And um, to this moment, we have to remember Jacob really didn’t have anything. He left his home um, without anything. And he has been working there with uh, Lean for 14 years. But all that work had been to pay for the wives. So he really didn’t have anything by himself. So when he hears this this um proposal from Lean, I I think probably was a big temptation because I don’t know if you have ever received this proposal that someone tells you, hey, work for me and tell me how much you want to win. No, it’s it’s a big temptation. No, I haven’t haven’t received that offer, but definitely would be something that I could say, “Oh, okay. Maybe maybe I I want to do this.” No. So then um Jacob decides to stay and he makes an agreement with Lean and Lean is going to pay him in form of animals. That’s the way that people acquire um possessions at that time. and they made an agreement and uh the agreement is that if the animals that are born with certain characteristics um are going to be for Jacob and the animals that are not born with those certain characteristics are going to remain with Lean. The agreement seems favorable to to Lean because it’s not very likely that the animals born with those characteristics. But here we see that surprisingly most of the animals started to born with those characteristics. So Jacob now accumulates wealth. That’s the third point. Jacob’s accumulates wealth.

Surprisingly in those six years now Jacob has big family and also becomes rich. He’s now a rich man. That uh lead us to the next point. Jacob’s conflict with Lean. Lean and and his sons are now jealous very jealous about Jacob because he has acquired a lot of animals and they accuse him of stealing their their possessions. So the situation becomes very very tense, very difficult between them. There is a lot of family conflict and at that moment the Lord steps in and communicates directly with Jacob and tells Jacob, Jacob, now it’s time for you to go back to to Canaan. So Jacob obeys that and he leaves, but he lives secretly for Canaan. He doesn’t tell Lean that he’s going to go. He uses a moment where Levan is not around. And then at that moment, he’s run runs away with his family with all his animals, which is kind of a naive decision because it was obvious that Lean was going to learn about that. And it was also kind of obvious that Lean was going to go after him. He was not going to let him go just like that. And that’s what happens. Lean goes after him and he gets to him shortly. But what happens there?

The Lord steps in again and communicates to Lean and tells Lean, “Hey, be careful to not do any harm to to to Jacob.” Um, so they get together and they have an argument. Uh, but at the end they come to an agreement. They make a covenant and uh Levan says bye to to Jacob and uh his daughters and the grandchildren and they they go in peace.

So in all these in all these points we see the hand of God going with um Jacob. Uh first God multiplied Jacob’s family.

Then we see that uh God multiplied Jacob’s wealth. Both of these actions the family took place in a laps of seven years and the the wealth took um place in a time frame of about six years. So definitely the hand of God was behind those um those facts. Um God instructs Jacob to go back to Canaan and then finally that’s how Jacob decides to go to go back to Canaan and finally God protects Jacob’s uh from from Lean. Lean was upset that Jacob left and was upset with him even before but in the end Jacob protected I mean the Lord protected Jacob and uh they came to good terms with with Laban.

So we see again the the hand of God um protecting Jacob in all this and and blessing Jacob as well.

Now after all this Jacob is finally on his way to Canaan but there is a problem going back to Canaan. And the problem the big problem for for Jacob is his brother Esau.

Because let’s remember what was the reason why Jacob left his house and went to Haran. It was because Esau wanted to kill him. Iso was very mad that Jacob had stolen the blessing and Jacob wanted to kill him. So now we will see what happens once Jacob approaches the land of Canaan.

So let’s now go to the to our passages.

Let’s um um analyze our first passage in Genesis 32 verses 1 to 21. So I’m going to read uh to read this. Now as Jacob went on his way, the angels of God met him. Jacob said when he saw them, “This is God’s camp.” So he named that place me. Then Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom. He also commanded them, saying, “This you shall say to my lord Esau. Thus says your servant Jacob, I have to with lean and stay until now. I have oxen and donkeys and flocks and male and female servants and I have sent to tell my lord that they might fain favor in your sight. The messengers returned to Jacob saying we came to your brother Esau and furthermore he’s coming to meet you and 400 men are with him.

Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. And he divided the people who were with him and the flocks and the herds and the camels into companies. For he said, “If Isue comes to one company and attacks it, then the company which is left will escape.” Jacob said, “Oh God, my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, oh Lord, who says to me, return to your country and you to your relatives and I will prosper you. I am unworthy of all the loving kindness and all the faithfulness which you have shown to your servant. For with my staff only I crossed the Jordan, and now I have become to companies.

Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother and from the hand of Isu. For I fear him, and he will come and attack and and attack me and the mothers with the children. For you said, I will surely prosper you and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which is too great to be numbered. So he spent the night there. Then he selected from what he had with him a present for his brother Esau.

200 female goats, 20 male goats, 200 use and 20 rams, 30 m milking camels and their calls, 40 cows, 10 balls, 20 female donkeys and 10 male donkeys.

He delivered them into the hand of his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants, “Pass on before me, and put a space between droves.” He commanded the one in front, saying, “When my brother Esau meets you and asks you, saying, to whom do you belong and where are you and where are you going? And to whom do these animals in front of you belong?” Then you shall say, “This belonged to your servant Jacob. It is a present sent to me by to is a present sent to my lord Esau. And behold, he also is behind us.” Then he commanded also to the second and third and all those who follow the drop, saying, “After this manner, you shall speak to Esau when you find him.

And you shall say, “Behold, your servant Jacob is behind us.” For he said, “I will appease him with your with the present that goes before me. Then afterward I will see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.” So he saw the present pass on before him while he himself spent that night in the camp.

Now he arose the same night and took his two wives and his two maids and his 11 children and crossed the fort of Jacob. Okay. So this is the first uh the first reading. Now let’s do the process of observation and interpretation that we have been doing throughout this series.

So we have uh here um the passage starts with angels meeting Jacob. We see that on verses one and two. He went on his way and the angels of God met him. So this is pretty straightforward.

Angels are meeting Jacob. And a question for interpretation is what does it mean for for Jacob? What does it mean that angels are are meeting Jacob here?

Well, angels have appeared before Jacob.

Also, we uh remember last lesson uh he had that dream with when he saw angels coming up and down through the ladder and now he sees angels again here. Now, this is not a dream is live angel angels.

So we can say that this is a form that the Lord is um assuring him that uh he will be protected during this um difficult situation that he will face when he meets his brother his brother Esau.

Next point, Jacob sends messengers. From verses 3 to to five, we see here that um Jacob sends messengers to meet to meet Esau. And um it is interesting here that um um Jacob is is telling um in in this passage that um he’s calling himself as a servant. In verse four, he tells the the messengers um you shall say to my lord Esau this thus says your servant Jacob. So he’s telling the messengers to tell Esau that he is Esau’s servant. So he’s humbling himself. He’s calling himself a servant and he’s putting his brother Esau as his lord. So he’s in this process of humiliating himself towards his brother in order to trying to try to gain favor on the eyes of his brother.

Right? Then the next point, the messengers report. So the messengers go and come back and the report is very intriguing because the report doesn’t really say much about Iso’s reaction.

The report of the messenger only says that um hey um your brother Esau is coming to meet you. So your brother Iso is coming. So that’s possibly good news. But he’s coming with 400 men. So what does that mean? Why is he coming with 400 men? I mean Esau has now a reason to be really concerned because coming with 400 men that’s likely that he wants to attack him because otherwise other otherwise why is he coming with 400 men, right?

And at that point it’s worth to to remember as we go to interpretation of this. I mean why why there is not more information about this. I mean the the the tension in the passage we can see it’s growing up. No the way that Moses is writing this really take us to this moment and really we can really feel the tension. No I mean there is no indication whether Esso is coming in good faith or not. It’s just that yeah, he’s coming, but he’s coming with 400 men. So, let’s remember what happened in Genesis 27 43 and 45. Let’s see what happened when Esau left um um his his house. Genesis 27. Now this is Rebecca is talking to to Jacob and it says now therefore my son obey my voice and arise. Flee to Haran to my brother Lean. Stay with him a few days until your brother’s fury subsides until your brother’s anger against you subsides and he forgets what you did to him. Then I will send and get you from there. Why should I be ber of you both in one day? So this is this was the original plan that Rebecca told Jacob. Go for a few days. And how long has he been there? 20 years. Those few days turn out to be 20 years. And did he ever receive a word from his mother, from Rebecca? We never see that he get anything from Rebecca.

So he doesn’t know anything. the plan that they had in the beginning obviously didn’t didn’t work.

Um so it is very understandable that Jacob is very concerned during those 20 years that he spent um at um with his father-in-law. He didn’t get any war from from his brother and now he’s coming after him with 400 men. It’s understandable that he’s concerned about that.

Now let’s go to the next point. Point number four, Jacob is afraid and divides his camp. So the first action that he does here is kind of a logistic action. He says, “Okay, well I’m going to divide my camp and if ifo attacks one, at least the other can run away. So kind of a logical decision.” Um but um still very very if you know I mean it’s not a guarantee of anything.

And then we go to the next point. Jacob prays. Now we see here Jacob praying on verses 9 to to 11. Jacob finally prays.

And how does he pray? Well, it’s basically he prays in in three in three points. He remembers God’s promises.

That’s what we see at the beginning of the of the prayer. It says, “Oh, God, my father Abraham, a God of my father Isaac, oh Lord, who says to me, remember your country and your relatives and I will prosper you.” So, he’s remembering, he’s telling God, you promised this, Lord.

So, please don’t forget about that. And then he is um recognizing that he’s unworthy.

verse uh 10 he says I am worthy of all the loving kindness and the faithfulness which you have shown to your servant. So now he’s humbling before the Lord. He has humbled himself before his brother Esau on on the way that uh he um told the messengers to to meet Esau. Now he’s humbling himself before the Lord and then he’s asking for deliverance. In verse 9 it says deliver me I pray from the hand of my brother um from the hand of Isu. So that’s basically what he’s praying. So now how do we interpret this prayer point for interpretation when he’s and especially on the second point when he’s saying I am unworthy what is what does it mean? So basically we can read this as finally recognizing that he has to repent.

Throughout this time the Lord has appeared to him several times and somehow he has worshiped the Lord. Every time that the Lord appears to him he worships the Lord but he has not recognized his condition. He has not recognized that he’s unworthy. And now in this in this in this time he finally recognizes I am unworthy. I have to repent. I have to turn back from my old ways and get in in new ways. So this is this is the prayer of of in in some way a prayer of of repentance and recognizing that he is a sinner.

The next point, Jacob prepares gifts for Esau. Verses 13 to to 21. He prepares uh a lot of animals. In total, there are animals. Um I don’t know how we can quantify that in our present terms, but that seems to be a pretty generous uh present for for ISO. 550 like okay.

Yeah, that seems to seems to be good. Um, and now here, how do we interpret this? What question for interpretation? Um, after Jacob has prayed and asked God for deliverance, is this act of preparing this generous gift for for for Esau, is this is this a good thing? Is does it uh shows a a lack of faith that uh the Lord will deliver him or is this a good thing that he’s doing because um he says okay well the Lord will provide but um if I can do something I will I will do it. Um what do you think about this? Is Jacob uh showing lack of faith or is is it okay for him to do this? Yeah, Glend. It seems as though he was so you got to go back to Canaan. Mhm.

But he seemed to God is telling him, “You have to go back to Canaan.” But it seems as though he’s finding all things to do for himself by saying, “My brother is coming and I’m going to split up the camp. So if he catch one, the others will get away.” But it seems as though he was l to me he was lacking faith there because God told him to go back. But I don’t the Bible didn’t say anything about Esau. But Jacob like he was wondering about what condition my brother’s going to be in. I know what I did to my brother but God is telling me to go back. So I believe that prayer he’s praying. He’s praying the prayer but yet still he’s trying to work it out for himself.

Yeah, he’s showing signs of faith and he’s showing the signs of repentance when he says that he’s unworthy, but still he has a long way to grow in his faith, right? Um and we will see that um later on and many more situations that Jacob will face. His his faith is is still not very strong. Now the fact of preparing this presents um yeah we may say shows a lack of faith but we also can say that okay if I can do something that is sound that it is reasonable okay I will do it you know we put our faith in in God but if we can do something uh that is in our hands okay I mean it’s it’s okay that we do it no we don’t know how the lord will uh work and probably this uh presence will have a favorable effect on on ESO or or probably not because when you offer this type of gifts to presents to someone it may have the opposite effect.

I mean people may may feel offended. Why are you giving me all this to me? Do you think I’m needed? Do you think I’m needed? I don’t want it. No. So it can go both ways. But on any case, I think if uh u we can give the benefit of the doubt to Jacob. I mean he does this um probably not because of lack of faith because he’s thinking that well maybe the Lord will operate through this to gain favor um with Esau. So that um concludes the first the first um section of um of our study. Um any any question on this? I mean there’s no question can ask him now. I mean if you have comments you can leave them to the end of the of the lesson and we’ll try to make a few minutes for comments but okay then we’ll continue to the next uh section. The next session is Genesis 32 22 to 32.

So now he arose that same night and took his two wives and his two maids and his 11 children and cross the fort of Jacob.

He took them and sent them across the stream and he sent across whatever he has. Then Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh.

So the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated when he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.” But he said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.” He said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you, for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him and said, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And he blessed him there. So Jacob named that place Pineal, for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved.” Now the sun rose upon him just as he crossed over Pineuel and he was limping on his side. Therefore on this day the sons therefore to this day the sons of Israel do not eat the senior of the hip which is on the socket of the thigh because he touched the socket of Jacob’s thigh in the senue of his hip. Wow. What a an intriguing passion, right? It’s very similar to the the passes we saw last week with about the the ladder. No, this is another very very intriguing and very mysterious passage. So, let’s see what we can uh what we can um analyze uh observe and interpret on this mysterious passage. So, we start the passage um with Jacob being being alone. No, he is very distressed.

He’s very um afraid that Jacob is going to go after him. So he sends his family um to one side and he goes away by himself. It’s obviously he cannot sleep that night. He’s sleepless. And uh maybe you have gone through some of these nights where you cannot sleep and you are very nervous, very anxious. This is what Jacob is going through. And in the middle of this anxious uh night uh we have this strange and intriguing event. Erh he wrestles with a man. Now um we don’t know how where this mind came from. It just suddenly appears there.

Um and who is this man? Who is this man?

The passage doesn’t explicitly tell us who this man is. However, there are some clues in this passage that can give us an idea. Um, first um, Jacob asked to be blessed by that man. No, we we see that he asked the blessing and um in the end towards the end on verse 30, Jacob says, “I have seen God face to face yet my life has been preserved.” So it appears that this man is a man from the Lord. He’s some sort of um um Lord presence in there.

And this passage in Hosea um 12:4 that it’s it’s there in the screen it also give us more information about this it says this passage he I’m referring to Jacob he str with the angel and prevailed he wept and sought his favor he met God at Bethl and their god spoke with us so now is he giving this passage is giving us more information that this mysterious man is definitely The Lord is is is some some form of a divine um being that came to to Jacob. And we can think this as um type of Christ appearing in the Old Testament similar to Moses experience in the burning bush when when he also received that divine presence. This is similar. This is the the Lord himself appearing to God in a type of of Christ in the Old Testament. Now, why do they wrestle? Why do they start to wrestle? Huh? The Pure doesn’t say so. We don’t know. And interesting uh wrestling is um is a sport where you don’t really uh aim to knock out your opponent. In wrestling, what you are looking for is to dominate your opponent. Now in wrestling nowadays you win when you put your opponent with his um back on the ground. That’s how you win. And that’s means that you have dominated and the opponent is on on the ground. Uh uh so he can he can no longer wrestle with you. I mean you have dominated him. So you are not uh looking to to anniate or to knock out your opponent. You’re just looking to dominate your opponent. And this is what we can see. It is like a an activity where one is looking to dominate the other one and who is winning who is winning this this um wrestling. Um in verse 25 it says that the man that mysterious man that um type of Christ had not prevailed uh until he does this move of touching his Jacob’s side.

So apparently maybe a a move that probably would be a foul nowadays in in wrestling. So until he does this that move, then Jacob is is uh um put sort of um out of um um contest in in the match.

Um but um why are they uh wrestling? Um we don’t know. And uh and how come Jacob seems to be winning the match? No, Jacob seems to be prevailing until that moment that uh this man touches his thigh. So now we have a question for interpretation here. How is it possible that Jacob is winning the match? Can anybody win against God? Well, the answer I think is pretty obvious. No, I mean no, we we obviously we cannot win against God. However, here we see Jacob is kind of winning against God. How is that possible?

Well, one way to explain this is um for example, when you have a if you’re a father, if you’re a mother, and you have a a children, you’re playing with your children, you’re wrestling with your children, and your children wins is because you let him win, right?

Otherwise, your child will not be able to to to defeat you in in resting. So I think we somehow the Lord is letting Jacob um prevailing in this in this match and um Jacob doesn’t give up. No, even though he has been injured, he still keeps resting and still keeps telling uh this man uh bless me. I will not let you go until you bless me. And finally this man blesses blesses Jacob and the Mandy um and and that’s where where the resting h finishes. Let’s continue with what happened on this on this um on this passage. After that um this this man changes the name of Jacob and uh now he tells you are no longer going to be Jacob but Israel and what’s the name the meaning of Jacob is a suppler is a hill catcher and the meaning of Israel is he who struggles with God he who strives with God right so what’s happening here what does this mean that uh the Lord is changing the name well I think First uh the Lord is showing his authority. We see that um when you name someone else it’s because you have authority over that person. For example, when we have uh our children, we name our children because we as a parents have authority over our children. H when Daniel and his friends were taken captive captive to to Babylon, they were renamed because the Babylonians now had authority over them. So they changed their names. And interestingly we see that uh the Lord um through these three patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Lord somehow named these three characters. For example, to Abraham uh he he was originally Abraham and the Lord changed his name to Abraham. To Isaac, the Lord didn’t change his name, but he assigned his name before he was he was born. We can see that in Genesis 17 17:19.

Um so but God said no but uh Sarah your wife will bear a son and you shall name and you shall call his name Isaac and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. So we see him the Lord indicating the name for Isaac and now he’s changing the name for Jacob to Israel. So these three characters have been given the names directly their names directly by by the Lord. And in the New Testament we see similar situations. Uh Simon was not and Peter was originally Simon and Paul was originally Saul. So the Lord changed the the names and the names have a meaning.

In this case we see Jacob was a suppler and now he will be the one who struggles or the one who strives with God. But interestingly, how did God change the name to to Jacob? He not only told Jacob, now you your name is Jacob and now you will be named Israel. He start this by asking Jacob, what is your name?

And Jacob replies, I am Jacob. So by doing that, Jacob is saying I am a suppler.

And that’s what he has been throughout his life. A suppler, a deceiver. He deceived his brother, his father, his father-in-law. That’s uh that’s been his life. And the Lord now is telling him, okay, this is what you have been, but now you will be the one who strives with God, the one who struggles with God. And and that’s now Israel. Um now, it’s interesting that as from this moment, the Bible will refer to Jacob uh sometimes as Israel and sometimes as Jacob. This is different in the case of Abraham because when Abraham was um named as Abraham, the Bible kepts keep um referring to him as Abra Abraham. So with a new name, not the old name. But with Jacob, the Bible will refer to him as sometimes Jacob or or Israel. And this is interesting. And uh some commentators say that that reflects the nature of Jacob that even though he has a new name, he still goes back to his old name.

He is still wrestling in that sense. And this is same case for us. No, we have a new identity in Christ, but we still sometimes fall back to our old identity. We have this constant wrestling uh between the new and the old. And um as a Christians, of course, we are called to um make the new name, the new identity grow. That’s the process. No, the new the new name has to grow. The old name has to diminish to decrease.

That’s what we are called to to to be.

And um finally, one more point on this renaming. uh when the Lord um renames um Jacob as Israel, he’s not only changing the name to this character in particular, he’s also giving the name to that nation that God is creating through these characters because that will be the na the name of the nation of Israel, the nation that will eventually take possession of the land in Exodus and the nation that still exists nowadays.

Now this nation is not only a a physical and earthly nation. This nation is also a spiritual nation. It’s a nation that uh where you and I are also members of that nation of that spiritual Israel.

And we can see that in Galatians Galatians 3 7-9. Here Paul talks about that. Therefore be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. The scripture for seeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying all the nation will be blessed in you. So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham the believer. So in an spiritual sense, we are are also um descendants of of Abraham, we are also part of that spiritual nation, the spiritual Israel. So this new nation has a name and the name is is Israel and we are also part of that. Finally, the last point, Jacob is now limping and he names that place pineal. So this encounter of Jacob with the Lord has left marks in him. A physical mark is now limping and a new identity identity given by God. And that is what happens when you have an encounter with God of of this nature.

When you are have this so close encounter with God, you are not the same anymore. You you are a different person.

and and that’s what what we can see here in in the case of Jacob. Now we have gone through this passage analyzing different details but I would like to also put a general context of what this mysterious passage means and I think um we can see that in two different ways. Uh first one is God is reassuring Jacob that he will prevail on the encounter with Esau that is just going to happen and we can see that um in verse 28 where the Lord is renaming Jacob. He says your uh name shall no longer be Jacob but Israel for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed. And that was literally true. Jacob uh was has been striven with his family all the time. He has been um deceiving them and now he had literally been striven with God with this mysterious man. So that uh was literally done and now if he had prevailed in in those events now he should give Jacob confidence that he will prevail when he meets Esau. Right?

So that’s a way of assuring them, assuring Jacob that that uh that he will prevail. But there is also another important interpretation that we can take of this and uh pastor Dave um commented about this in the in when he gave a Sunday school some years ago about this same the same topic is that God in through this uh mysterious appearance and through this wrestling process he is inviting somehow Jacob to try with him to wrestle with him and he’s in fact command comm commending Jacob because of this action we he we can feel this in this passage that God is pleased with Jacob the way that Jacob Jacob is asking the blessing the Jacob that is the way that Jacob is persisting with God the way that Jacob is telling God do not leave me until you bless me is something that is pleasing God and that’s what the Lord wants from from us no that That’s what the Lord want us to to do to persist on his ways to ask his blessing to um keep asking him day and night um in our difficult moments and our not so difficult moments all the time. Persist and seek the Lord. No. And uh pastor that illustrate this is Matthew 7 7 and 8. Ask and uh it will be given to you.

Seek and you will find. Knock it. Knock and you will and it will be open to you.

For everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds and the one who knocks it will be open. So that’s what uh Jacob was doing and that’s how the Lord sees that and and he’s pleased with with this Jacob’s um actions.

Um so any question about this this passage? Okay then let’s go to the last um the last section that’s Genesis 33 1-20. Um I’m not going to read this because we are uh running uh short of time but uh the full passage is when Jacob meets um meets Esau. Now after all what’s happened this uh this long night for for Jacob. Now the finally the expected moment is is coming. Jacob is now going to meet Esau. And this passage starts with um Jacob dividing his family on verses one to to three.

Here we see Jacob um probably acting like the old Jacob. He makes a decision that um probably was not the best was maybe a bit uh reckless because he’s dividing his family and he puts the mace in the front then puts Leah then puts Rachel.

So it seems like uh Jacob is putting his family in the order uh in the priority that they they have for him. So okay, for me the less important are the maze then Leah and the Rachel. Oh, because the ones at the front are the most likely to be heard or to be killed in case wants to to do harm to them.

Um so that speaks about uh how God uh how Jacob sees his his own family and that’s reflects also a deep problem uh when you have multiple wives. Oh, you assign priorities to them and then ones are more important than the others. And we don’t know the reaction of the wives and the and the children. But um I guess that given the stress that Jacob Jacob was going through and the situation, they most likely they perceive also this stressful situation, they perceive the danger that they were in. And I can imagine those children that were at the front if uh at some point they asked Jacob, “Hey, dad, you put me in front of the line. Why did you put me in front? Was I less important than the others?” Tough situation. Tough situation for Jacob. Then the next point, Jacob and Isue are reconciled. Finally, the moment comes here on verses 4-7, that expected moment. Esau gets to Jacob. And here we have an amazing situation. Esau goes in love to to Jacob.

Uh Jacob receives more than what he expected because Jacob remember he only pray for deliverance, right?

But uh the Lord is giving him more than deliverance from Esau. He’s giving a reconciliation to both for others. And it’s so beautiful to see to read these passes where they go and hug each other and kiss each other. It’s is so nice.

And um how does this how does this happen?

We don’t know. I mean, did Esau change his heart since long ago at some point?

Or did Esau change his heart when he was on his way to meet Jacob with the 400 men? I mean, we don’t know. We don’t know how the Lord operated, but the answer from the Lord is is is fantastic.

And um I would like to point out here that um when we think about miracles, we usually think about supernatural things like uh Jesus healing sick people, Jesus walking on water, um Jesus um bringing the death to to life like Lazarus. But uh if you think about the how difficult it is to restore family relationships, I think this is no nothing short than a miracle because in our day-today lives, we see families broken. We see brothers that don’t talk to each other for for for years or sons that um do not talk to their parents, parents that do not talk to their children. And it’s very very difficult to restore those relationships and it’s very sad and sometimes even people die and they never restored the relationship. So what we see here I I would like to say is nothing short for a miracle uh of the Lord.

Um, if you are looking for a a reconciliation with a with a within your family, um, this this uh passage is is very interesting, but probably it’s not very comprehensive. Uh, because here the restoration came just like that, just like a miracle. I would say probably the situation of Joseph and his brother may offer you a better example of how a family restoration can be taken can can can be done because in that in that um um in that event we see how the process work. We see how the sins are confronted and we see how it takes time. No, usually takes time. Doesn’t usually happen like that. Of course, the Lord can operate a miracle and produce this, but um most often nowadays the restoration of the families require a process and we’ll see that in a future lesson about Joseph and and and his brothers. So finally then Esau accepts the gifts uh the gifts that um um Jacob had prepared. They are received by by Esau. And then we see um Jacob declines Esau’s offer. No, we see that Esau um offer invited Jacob to to go with him.

And Jacob said, “No, I I can’t because the children, all the animals, I’m going through a slower pace than you, so you go.” Then Isu offers um Jacob some of his men to be with him. And and Jacob says, “No, thank you. I mean, it’s not necessary.” So he politely declines. So even though the relationship was restored, but it was not going to be a close relationship anymore. It’s not like uh they were going to spend Thanksgiving together. That didn’t happen. Uh the next time that we see them together is when um Isaac, their father, dies and they are together. But other than that, we don’t see them together anymore. And that uh I think has to do with the thing that uh Jacob was going to be the son of the promise and Esau wasn’t. So a separation was somehow necessary unavoidable and that’s what we see what we see here. And u finally point number five Jacob returns to to Canaan. Uh that’s where he should have been. That’s what uh God had determined for him to be. And even though he went away and even though we saw the drama that happened with Esau and all that, now the Lord is bringing him back to Canaan where is the land of the promise and we see in all these situation how the Lord worked through uh Jacob and through all the events that happened to bring him back to to the promised land.

So God is now fulfilling his promise that this will be the land the land for them. Uh he spend 20 years in in Haron and he’s coming back to to Canaan at the age of uh around 97 years old. Seems pretty old. Uh he left uh his house when he was 77. Now the the the way to calculate the age is a little bit uh complicated. There’s a lot of mathematics that we have to do and these are related to also to Joseph’s age. Uh but yeah, I mean according to those calculations, he left his house when he was 77 and he’s coming back now that he’s 97 and that’s remember at that time people live longer than than us nowadays but he’s he’s now back in the promised land. And finally points for our application. Having uh gone through all this fantastic story and events of Jacob, what can we take for us? Well, I have here three points. Do you trust God in times of trial or your own plans and efforts? Here we can relate to Proverbs.

Proverbs 35-6. This well-known passage.

Trust the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make a stray your plans. How much are we striving for God?

Yeah, remember Jacob was really persistent when he was wrestling with with that man. So how are we doing in that sense? We can refer to the parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18 1-8.

And um interesting if we just read the first verse when Jesus is going to tell this parable to the disciples he tells the disciples from verse one. Now he was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not become discouraged. So that was the reason why he is telling them this this parable that at all times they off to pray and not to become discouraged. And that’s what we see when when Jacob uh was wrestling and persisting to get the blessing of of God. No. And finally, do we strive for God in a righteous or unrighteous way? This is also um a topic I didn’t mention um before, but uh that um persisting with God can be done in a righteous way as we saw through these passages with Jacob, but uh can be also done sometimes in an unrighteous way.

Sometimes we can demand that God does something for us um instead of going in a humble attitude and ask him. In this case, for example, going back to Jacob, he could have said what you need to deliver me because I mean you put me into this situation. It was your fault that I am going through this trial. That’s not the right attitude. He could have also put the blame on others.

He could have said the Lord. I mean I am here and it was not my fault. It was my mother’s fault. He was the one that she was the one that did all his plan that ended up in me having to go away and now my brother hated me and wanted to kill me because of my mother or he could have blamed his father. No, it was because my father never loved me. He loved more iso than me. And uh sometimes we fall into that. We fall into those situations blaming the circumstances, blaming others. We don’t see that here. We see Jacob acknowledging his own sin, saying, “I’m not I’m not worthy, but please God, please uh deliver me and uh bless me.” So, Ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes 5:2, it says, “Do not be quick with your mouth or impulsive in thought to bring up a mother in the presence of God, for God is in heaven and you on the earth.

Therefore, let your words be few.” So, that concludes uh the class of today. I mean, it’s been a lot is time basically, but um if anybody would like to have a final quick comment on this. Yes. One of the things that struck me as I was reading it, Jason, Jacob, oh, sorry, Jacob was left alone. And that is a picture of salvation. And not only salvation, but throughout life, when we encounter something, we have to get alone with God. We can run to all kinds of people.

I can run to my husband. He’s different than me. We process things different. We stand alone before the Lord. So we wrestle and you’re pressing into God.

And then when you see his way is faithful. It’s building a history that you can look back and see how faithful he was. And it reminded me of the prodigal coming to the end of himself.

We have to do that over and over and over. It says a righteous man falls down seven times but he gets back up. So we’re building this history and God allows us to sin and he uses that and then he when he touched them he humbled them because in that culture that was a shame. You couldn’t bring a blemished lamb and sacrifice it. It was a shame to have that but it was it was humbling. It would always remind him of that time with the Lord. It’s necessary. And I think of Jesus in the garden. His friends disappointed him. He said, “Take this cup from me.” It’s that alone time with the Lord when we wrestle with him and we do see him. We we build an intimacy with him. And so the whole thing just sees like salvation over and over and over and we’re going to have that a lot of times when we go into him.

Yeah. Yeah. Very right. Time alone with the Lord is is very necessary. Yeah.

People are it’s good for us to have the company of the people, but it’s also very important for us to have our time alone with the Lord. That’s that’s where we meet God personally. Oh, Arthur.

Um, yeah, this is kind of a geek comment for those of you who are geeks, but if we go back to Genesis after um when God is um dishing out the punishment for man’s rebellion and uh he he finally gets to Satan And um we have that prophecy about the heel and bruising the head and the or what is it? Yeah. Bruising the head and um well, you know what I mean? The head and the heel prophecy. And we relate that to um one of the first prophecies regarding um Christ and and the struggle um with sa Satan. Um so the word heal is used.

We come to um Jacob and his name the name given to him Jacob means grasping you know we understand grasping the heel whose heel was he grasping his brother Esau’s heel.

Um, and then we find Jacob receiving another name, Israel. His name is changed to Israel.

Um, and I’m not going to take away um the brethren’s opportunity to think about this, but here’s the second time the word heal is being used. Mhm. Um how all that relates to uh Christ, the struggle uh between good and evil, how God’s sovereignty um uh appears in all of this is is really important. And I just say that oh let me be quick. I I just say that because we as readers, we as um being blessed because we have God’s word, we have these thoughts. Well, you know, you know, why was uh Jacob behaving the way he was? Why wasn’t he recognizing right from the beginning that um you know God was working in his life um intending to carry out his plan because there always seems to be doubt behavior on Jacob’s part that is an indicator of doubt doubt that not full faith not full faith and um I I think we need to understand that because we can do the same thing.

Yeah. That resting resting will continue with Jacob. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much for your attention. Let me close in uh prayer and God. Thank you for the time that we could spend studying your word. Thank you for this lesson. We ask that you bless us through through the um worship service and the other activities. And uh thank you again for the time that we could spend doing your words in Jesus name.

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9:00 so it’s time to start our Sunday school of this morning so today we have lesson seven the title of the lesson is a bride for Isaac and um this is included in Genesis 24 that’s the the main chapter for our lesson today this is a beautiful story it’s a story about romance um but uh not only that there is also a lot of points for applications in our lives and this is a story that also show us the character of God the outline for the lesson today we will have an introduction and a timeline of of the events that will be a fun activity uh then we have uh the reading in Genesis 24 we will be reading the passages we will be doing basically three readings and uh then we will be doing our observation and interpretation then H we will go to a special section the interpretation of the main characters of of this uh of this passage and then we will finish with the application points so let me pray in order to start Heavenly Father we thank you for this morning we thank you for this time that we can spend studying your word and uh thank you for this Sunday school um I pray that you put uh your words in me and that we can be blessed by by Your Word this morning in Jesus name amen all right so as the title says we are making now a transition from Abraham to Isaac from the beginning of this series we have been following Abraham and then and also Sarah in this journey from their Homeland into the promised land and um but time has been going by there’s been some years and now time for Abraham and Sarah is H is getting close is getting close for them to go into the presence of the Lord in uh fact in Genesis 23 the previous chapter to Genesis 24 we see that s dies and we will see that in Genesis 25 the next chapter Abraham will die we are not going chapter by chapter in this series we are just going through selected topics so you you want to get the full context of the of the series I suggest that you read all the the passages so get the the the full context and a idea now um the introduction to this to this chapter 24 um it will be useful for us to read the end of chapter 22nd because in chapter chapter 22nd chapter 22 we see an important detail that serves as an introduction for us in to chapter 24 so in um chapter 22 from verses 20 20 to 23 we see um it says now it came about after these things that it was told Abraham saying behold Mila has also has also born children to your brother nahor W his first born and B his brother and Cel the father of Aram and shiid and hasso and filad and Jihad and beel bewell became the father of Rebecca this a Mila were Tor Abraham’s brother so probably my pronunciation was not the correct one with all these names but uh we see here an important detail in verse um 23 in verse 23 it me Rebecca is mentioned thew became the father of Rebecca so Rebecca eventually is going to be the bride for Isaac oh the title is Bride for Isaac so Rebecca is going to be this bride and we see that there is a family connection between Isaac and Rebecca so on the next chart we can see this family connection this is a a family tree um on top we see the name of Tera he was uh the father of Abraham and uh Abraham had also two brothers Haron and nahor we know that Aban married Sarah and um together they had Isaac now Sarah was also um her father was also Tera but he had a she had a different mother Abraham also took Hagar the Egyptian slave and together they they had Ishmael and after Sarah died Abraham took Cura that’s on chapter 25 and they had six more children now heran the other brother of Abraham he had lot and we know lot went together with Abraham to the promised land and we saw that they separated later on and the third brother Nur he married Mila and together they they had betel with several other children and from betel came Rebecca and Lavan Lavan is important because he will appear later on in the story of Genesis so this is the relationship between Isaac and Rebecca um there were and I think the correct term is cing to be removed I think that’s the correct um name for this relationship now you may be wondering why they married if they were relatives well that was a local um custom at that time in that culture and um if we go back to the beginning of the of the Bible in Genesis that’s the way that um um the world was populated there was only one couple in the beginning Adam and Eve and then after the flood there were only four couples remaining and they they were relatives so that’s how the the world became populated again after the flood later on um we see when God gives the law to to Moses there are some limitations that God establishes for these family relationships and that’s pretty much what we used today in our daily lives so this is the context of the of the story and the the relationship now um the Bible and particularly the Book of Genesis tell us this fantastic stories but also tell us a lot of data there’s a lot of data there’s a lot of information that we can retrieve from The Book of Genesis and with that information we can trace some timelines some dates of the important events and that is uh useful because that’s a way that um tell us that these stories were real the the stories in Genesis were real with real people with real events that really took place so let’s do a this uh fun exercise where we are going to use information provided in the Book of Genesis to answer these questions so the first question how old was Isaac when his mother died there are two things that you can use to answer these questions this this question um two passages first one is Genesis 1 in Genesis 231 we see that Sarah live how many years 127 and in Genesis 1717 we see that um this is Abraham when he’s talking to the Lord Abraham says uh he fell on his face and love and said in his heart will a child be born to a man 100 years old and will Sarah who is 90 years old were a child and this is when he is receiving the confirmation from God that they are going to have a child and they have the child just immediately after that so Sarah was about 90 years old depending on the months probably a year or older but we can use 90 as as the date so if he was 90 years old when he uh had um um Isaac and he died at the age of 27 how old was Isaac when his mother died 37 right now the next question how old was Isaac when he married Rebecca that’s um pretty straightforward answer because the Bible tell us exactly in Genesis 25:20 40 years old right and the next question how old was Isaac when his children were born there is also a direct answer in Genesis 2526 60 years old right now the last question did Abraham live to see his grandsons later in the story we see that uh Isaac and Rebecca they have children so the question is did Abraham live to see these children do you say yes yes anybody says no yes yeah the answer is yes um we can see that um in Genesis 2520 um I’m sorry Genesis 25 uh 26 we see that Abraham um 257 yeah I’m looking for the the time when Abraham um died yeah 257 thank you um so Abraham live 175 years right and how old was Abraham when Isaac was born 100 years so yeah and then um Isaac has uh um the children when he was 60 so that means that Abraham was 160 years old when the children were born so he had a chance to see the the the the grandchildren born and he live uh until the the children were actually teenagers until they were about 15 years old so what a blessing for Abraham to see their grandchild and to see them growing until they were teenagers right okay now let’s um go into the Ring of the passage we’ll go to uh Genesis 24 which is the the passage that uh we’re going to analyze this morning so turn your bies on Genesis 24 Genesis 24 is a very long chapter we’re not going to read all the chapter are going to uh read three sections of the chapter and then we’ll go to the observation and Analysis and observation and interpretation questions so in order to do the reading I have asked my daughter Anna to do the reading so and if you could please read Genesis 24 from 1 to 9 okay now Abraham is Old Well advanced in years and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things and Abraham said to his servant the oldest of his household who had charge of all that he had put your hand under my thigh that I may make you swear by the Lord the god of heaven and God of the earth that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among among whom I dwell but will go to my country and to my Kindred and take a wife for my son Isaac the servant said to him perhaps a woman may not be willing to follow me to this land must I then take your son back to the land from which you came and Abraham said to him see to it that you do not take my son back there the Lord the god of Heaven who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my Kindred and who spoke to me and swore to me to your off spring I will give this land he will send his Angel before you and you shall take a wife for my son from there but if the woman is not willing to follow you then you will be free from this oath of mine only you must not take my son back there so the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master and swore to him concerning this matter thank you okay now let’s um have some questions and um do this process of uh um observing and uh interpreting some of the key points in this passage so the first question we have is who is the servant the Bible doesn’t say the name here in this passage but if we go to Genesis 15:2 Genesis 15:2 we see this is where um Abraham is talking to the Lord and the Lord is telling him Lord you’re going to have a a child but Abraham replies to the Lord Abraham Abraham said oh Lord what will you give me since I am childless and the hair of my house is a laser of Damascus so this servant eler of Damascus he was going to be the hair because he was the most important servant he was the top servant so now that we see this passes here where um Abraham is talking to his servant and uh putting in charge of this important task then most likely it was eliser from from Damascus the the servant that is going to do this task next question why did what did Abraham ask his servants to promise him in verse three so we go to verse three and we see that he asked his servant to promise that he will not take a wife for his son for Isaac from the daughters of the Canaanites now here the question that we may ask ourselves is why why did Abraham ask this to his servant why not taking women from the Canaanites any thoughts on this yes little yeah because the Canaanites were of the IES and they were dwelling in the land that God is going to throw the IES out mhm so he didn’t want his son to be wife take a wife from the Canaanites when eventually in the end the Canaanites the malachit and all the ice would go so he didn’t want him to have a wife from the canit yeah I think that that’s a that’s a um a good a good answer um as cenda was commenting God had promised to give that land to Abraham and their and his descendants but not to the Canaanites the Canaanites eventually were going to be expelled from that from that area Al although if we see the history later on we see that it was not completely that way but the land was promised to Abraham and his descendant so if uh Isaac married a Canaanite there would be a conflict because of the land because the their descendants would be like half Hebrews half Canaanites and that would create a conflict so uh in order to avoid this situation um Abraham is is saying to his servant you will not take a woman for Isaac from this land right yeah there there’s one more way you can look at this is that when God made the promise that Abraham regarding his seed um and that Sarah would be the mother when God originally made that promise what did Abraham and Sarah do Sarah gave Abraham her handmaiden mhm so they were basically trying to accomplish or or trying to bring about God’s promise through another means If Abraham hadn’t repented this is to me this is a sign of repentance because on the other hand if God had promised Abraham the land of the Canaanites why not marry in there and bring it about that way so yeah to me that would be a sign of repentance that he wouldn’t do that yeah I thank you that’s also a good comment at that time they tried to help God U by having that child with um AAR but that was not the child of the promise and we can we we already went through through that um so the next question who was the servant to Seri and what what was the sign of the of the OES um so in um in verse three we can see that that uh Abraham asked the servant to swear by whom by by God by the Lord the god of Heaven and the god of the earth and then he asks to confirm that that oath on um verse um n um we see the servant place his hand under the tithe of Abraham his master and swore to him according to this matter so that seems to be a weird way to make a not placing your hand on the the other person’s side it’s a very intimate part and uh seems qu to us but that was a custom that uh people did at that time and we can see that also in uh chapter 47: 29 of Genesis 4729 here we have Israel uh talking to to Joseph his son and he says when the time for Israel to die Drew near he called his son Joseph and said to him please if I have found found favor in your sight place now your hand under my thigh and deal with me in kindness and faithfulness please do not worry me in Egypt so he’s asking Jacob is asking Joseph not to bury him in evil and he’s asking to do this ritual of placing his hand under his his tith so it’s a it’s a custom that was on at that time when these matters were highly important and they require something special to to make sure that the person was going to fulfill that promise last question what was the objection in verse five and how did Abraham respond in verse five we see the servant telling uh Abraham suppose the woman is not willing to follow me should I take your son back to the land and we see that uh Abraham response is an emphatic no no you are not going to do that and here we have another question why why Abraham rejects that uh uh request in that emphatic way why he doesn’t want Isaac to go to to his land any thoughts on this I think verse seven uh says it clearly to your seed I will give this land so he said this is the land you’re gonna right right then that would you like to PL I was saying that because um God brought him out right so he didn’t want his son to go back in that was not problem come out so my son is not going to go exactly if um Abraham allow his son to go back then he would be acting against the promise of God because the promise the request from God was for them to leave their land and go to the the promised land now you may say well but uh they would be just going for a few days to take the bride and go back yeah but if they go back if Abram went if Isaac went to to the land there may be a Temptation for him to remain there after all he was going to meet all the relatives the the family and U it may um it may create a problem in fact we see exactly that the same situation later on with Jacob Isaac son he actually goes to back to to their um fathers their grandfathers land and um things um are kind of a mix there is a blessing but there is also some sort of course and then he goes back to the promised land so by doing this emphatic no Abraham is saying no we are not going uh against what God has asked us okay let’s now do the next reading the next reading is going to be in Genesis 24 in the same chapter vers 10- 26 so Anna could you please then the servant took 10 of his master’s camels and departed taking all sorts of choice gifts from his master and he arose and went to Mesopotamia to the city of nahor and he made the camels kneel down outside the city by The Well of water at the time of evening the time when women go out to draw water and he said oh Lord God of my master Abraham please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master Abraham behold I am standing by the spring of water and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water let the young woman to whom I shall say please let down your jar that I may drink and who shall say drink and I will water your camels let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac by this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master before he had finished speaking behold Rebecca who was born to bethu the son of milka the wife of nahor Abraham’s brother came out with her water jar on her shoulder the young woman was very attractive in appearance a maiden whom no man had known she went down to the spring and filled her jar and came up then the servant ran to meet her and said please give me a little water to drink from your jar she said drink my Lord and she quickly let down her jar upon her hand and gave him a drink when she had finished giving him a drink she said I will draw water from your camels also until they have finished drinking so she quickly emptied her jar into the trough and ran again to the well to draw water and she Drew from all his camels the man gazed at her in silence to learn whether the Lord had prospered his journey or not when the camels had finished drinking the man took a gold ring weighing a half a shekele and two bracelets for her arms weighing 10 gold shekel and said please tell me whose daughter you are is there room in your father’s house for us to spend the night she said to him I am the daughter of Bethal the son of milka whom she bore to nahor thank you okay let’s uh see now this um three questions what signal did the servant ask God in verse 14 so the servant arrives to the land of Mesopotamia and um he asked a signal to to the Lord he asked to uh meet a girl who um offers him to drink and also offers to drink uh the camels to to water the camels right so you may think okay well um why did he ask God for for this signal to have a woman that gave him to drink and also the camels and I think uh we can we can explain that uh in this way if um the servant asked uh just for a woman who gave gave him to drink I think um basically any woman would be willing to do that right it wouldn’t be that difficult hey can I have something to drink yeah sure uh does not represent an extra effort but if the woman also offers to we the camels then that means an extra effort means an extra job an extra task extra time and at that time not every woman would be willing to do that so he’s asking God to uh have a a woman that is willing to do this this extra task and the next question how did God respond to that request we see that God responds in an amazing way providing just even before the servant finished the prayer Rebecca appears and she does exactly what uh the Sant had requested God she offers him to drink and she offers also to water the camels and uh she was not carrying just two or three camels you remember how many camels he was he was taking there were 10 camels so whether in 10 camels I understand this was not an easy task because camels can drink a lot of water so you can imagine Rebecca going for water and water and water until the camels finish drinking that’s a that’s an amazing response from from Gods to this uh prayer request now next question what did the servant ask Rebecca on verse 23 and why was this important so the servant met Rebecca and he’s Amazed by how Rebecca performs that task of watering the camels but there is also another important in question question that uh has to be answered and in this um in verse 23 um we says that um the Ser we see that the servant ask whose daughter are you please tell me is there room for us to lunch in your father’s house this question was important because Abraham has told the servant to look for a woman from his relative right so he had to know if Rebecca was from Abraham’s family and then we see again the amazing reply from God to this to this uh to this question uh Rebecca says yes I am a child of um um Bedwell the son of milka whom she B to nak so at that time the servant understood oh she is from uh my my Lord’s uh family so yeah she she fulfills that request and not only that also Rebecca offers him to go to her house and to offer food and to offer room for him so we see an an amazing uh reply here from from Rebecca and uh which is in the end a reply from God to to this um request from from from the servant so from um verses 27 to to 52 we will not read those on on those verses we see that the servant goes to Rebecca’s house he’s introduced to Rebecca’s family uh he meets um his um her her father and her brother and basically the servant tells all the story to to the family he tells basically who he is what is his mission and um after all this story he asks a the father and and the brother in this case we see the brother is taking also a leadership position in the family like uh which is basically the one as we would say the one calling the shots in the family and uh after all the the story then um we see that the conclusion of um the brother and the father is in verse 5050 we see verse 50 we see here it says then lean and beel replied the matter came from the Lord so we cannot speak to you b or good and verse 51 here is Rebecca before you take her and go and let her be the wife of your master son as the Lord has spoken so we see here another amazing answer from the Lord because beel and La they after hearing all all this story from the servant they say okay this is coming from the Lord so here is Rebecca he can she can be a um your master’s son wife and God is answering again is I would like to go back to what is what signal did the servant ask God for if what I see the prayer of ela Abraham’s servant it was a direct prayer he said because women come to the the you know to water the Camas all the time he prayed I want this woman who is going to come this is what I am looking for and he said he said um let me see he he as specific prayer that the the woman that is going to water my the one is going to give me a drink the one is going to water the camel so it was a specific prayer that he prayed to God and it wasn’t it it was God’s Providence that Rebecca came at that time so he had Rebecca in mind God had Rebecca in mind not eleasa Ela was only praying to God look I want this to be a sign and the person that’s going to come May that person be and that was Rebecca so sometimes we pray and if we pray outside God’s Will and we don’t get answer we upset but when we con see that eleasa prayed directly in God’s will that this young Maiden would be the one for the my master servant my master son and that was that’s what I look at when we pray in his will he answer and elasa prayed in God’s Will and the right person came to give him a drink yeah right right um yeah we can pray uh we can we have the the the freedom to direct our prayers in different directions we can just pray in general terms but it’s also valid to pray in a specific terms and see how God replies in those circumstances uh and yes the the reply Rebecca was coming it she was not coming uh just randomly it was the Providence of God that put Rebecca just right uh at the right time in in that moment um yes Jacob also said in verse S when he saying you the microphone Jacob also said in verse 7 when he was saying the god of heaven and of Earth will um he who swore to me about this land he also said he will send his Angel before you and you take so he already put his faith into he’s putting his faith yeah Isaac is putting his faith in in in in God for this yeah good point so let’s do the last reading of this passage and that uh is in Genesis 24 53 to 67 now we see how this story ends so Anna could you please 53 to 67 and the servant brought out jewelry of silver and of gold and garments and gave them to Rebecca he also gave to her brother and to her mother costly ornaments and he and the men who were with him ate and drank and they spent the night there when they arose in the morning he said send me away to my master her brother and her mother said let the young woman remain with us a while at least 10 days after that she may go but he said to them do not delay me since the Lord has prospered my way send me away that I may go to my master they said let us call the young woman and ask her and they called Rebecca and he said to her will you go with this man she said I will go and they sent away Rebecca their sister and her nurse and Abraham’s servant and his men and they blessed Rebecca and said to her our sister may you become thousands of 10 thousands and may your Offspring possess the Gate of those who hate him then Rebecca and her young woman arose and rode on the camels and followed the man thus the servant took Rebecca and went his way now Isaac had returned from be heroy and was dwelling in aob and Isaac went out to meditate in the field towards evening and he lifted up his eyes and saw and behold there were camels coming continue and Rebecca lifted up her eyes and when she saw Isaac she dismounted from the camel and said to the servant who is that man walking in the field to meet us the servant said it is my master so she took her veil and covered herself and a servant told Isaac all the things that he had done then Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother and took Rebecca and she became his wife and he loved her so Isaac was comforted from his mother’s death thank you so we see here the conclusion of the story um and uh let’s um answer a few questions here when the servant requested to leave the next morning how did the family respond well we see the family hesitated at that moment and and they said okay well why don’t you stay a a few more days uh let’s say 10 more days and um so we can say goodbye to Rebecca and and the servant replied no ER this is a mission that I have to accomplish this is coming from God so there is no point in in delaying this so the family then went to Rebecca and asked okay well Rebecca would you like to go and now we see here another amazing response from Rebecca that is being directed by the Lord and and Rebecca says yes I will go probably Rebecca was listening to the story of the servant when the servant went to their house and uh the servant told all the story to the father and and the brother maybe Rebecca was listening there too and she was amazed by that story as well and she understood that this was not just a a wedding this was a call from God and she responded and she said yes I will go next question how did Rebecca’s family sent her off we see that um on versus um 59 through through 60 um she was sent up with her nurse in verse 59 and then also with her maid in verse 61 but she was also sent with a prayer prayer in a beautiful prayer in In verse 60 it’s a prayer that has some similarities with the blessing that uh with a promise that God had uh given to to Abraham right that Abraham was going to be the father of multitudes and in this prayer they are say they are praying to Rebecca uh for Rebecca to become um the that they descendants become 10,000 so there is this similarity with the the promise from God to to Abraham and and his descendants so there she goes there she goes Rebecca and the next question in the next questions we see finally Isaac appearing in in this story and what was Isaac doing before he sees the camels approaching his home well we see that he had gone to meditate right and some commentators said this meditate maybe equal to to prayer uh so this tell us about the spiritual life of Isaac he was dedicating some time to spend alone with the Lord and just right uh after that time he sees the camels approaching his home and final question how did Isaac receive Rebecca well he took her for a wife and he loved her but before that he heard the report of the servant right he heard from the servant everything that had happened and then at that time uh Isaac understood okay this is the the bride that the Lord has provided me I’m going to take her and I am going to love her so this is the the end of this beautiful passage in Genesis 24 let’s now analyze it from the perspective of the characters of his story first of all we have Abraham a wise father the passage the chapter 24 starts with Abraham he is the one who puts in motion this plan who request the the servant to to do the task and in verse one of um chapter 24 we see that the Bible describes Abraham as all advancing age but also blessed the Lord has blessed Abraham in every way so Abraham was getting old but uh for people who are getting old and for people who have a had a chance to spend many years in the in the knowledge of the Lord the time doesn’t mean that they are just getting older time doesn’t mean that only that our bodies are aging time means that also they are getting more wise they are getting more faithful they are progressing in the knowledge of the Lord so it’s not just getting older but it’s getting older in the Lord and this is what we see in in Abraham uh here because um as um Leila was commenting when he puts this plan he is not trusting in himself he’s not trusting in his plan he puts a good plan and it’s according to the Lord’s will but it’s not uh putting his trust in him and it’s not putting his trust in the servant he choose the right person for this task but in in the end he’s not putting this uh uh um confidence in neither in himself nor in the servant and we can see that expressed um in um verse um the end of verse seven and and this is what Lea was commenting that he says to the servant he will send his Angel before you and will um take a wife for my son from there so the trust is in in in God and he is using all this experience all these years that he has working that he has been working in the Lord to um bless his family and Bless the people around him now um let’s go to the next character a laser the faithful servant so what a level of responsibility and commitment and Zeal for the mission we see in the servant right he OB immediately he prepares 10 camels and uh once he gets to Mesopotamia he asks for God’s guidance he asks for God’s signals God responds in a in an overwhelming way and what does he do in response to to to to what he praises the Lord twice in verse 26 we see the servant bow bowow on Worship the Lord then again in in verse 52 the servants heard the words he bow himself to the ground before the Lord then when he arrived to Rebecca’s house there is also another detail he ER was invited to to eat but he said I will not eat until I tell you what I am here for so he didn’t even want to eat until he explain his mission and when the the family requested him to stay for a little bit longer he said no my mission is more important than my comfort so I need to go back now to my master and there he went um this servant uh remind us of uh Ephesians 6 five and um five and six where Paul is talking about the servant so it says slaves be obedient to those who are your Masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling in sincerity of your heart as to Christ not by the ways of I service and Men Pleasers but at the SL of Christ doing the will of God from the heart the servant was putting these principles in application in doing this task now next character Rebecca what a nice young lady Rebecca is portray here right she Waters the camels she do us does that quickly she goes back and forth she uh offers the this man who was a strange man for her I mean she didn’t even know know know him and um when the man ask uh about um his family she invites a man to to her house so um Rebecca is uh showing signs of being a hardworking generous compassionate hospitable and on top of that she’s beautiful very beautiful so what a bride Isaac is is is going to take Rebecca remind us of proverbs 31 right when we see the The Virtuous Woman definitely rebea had these characteristics then the next character I Isaac the Beloved son Isaac uh was praying was meditating before meeting ER Rebecca and he had gone to a special place he had gone um we can see that um in verse um six two yeah Isaac had come from going to bir halai Roy this is the place that um was named that way because that the place where the Lord appeared to haar when haar was running away from Sara yeah so that that was a special place where the Lord appeared and he has been going right to that place to meditate uh in in the word of of God and um as commented when he sees Rebecca he takes Rebecca he understand that understands that Rebecca is the woman that the Lord is giving him and he takes Rebecca as as as a wife if you like to draw parallels between Isaac and Christ we can take chapter 22 and chapter 24 and and run a a beautiful parallel because in chapter 22 we see Isaac is going on his way to sacrifice as Christ did and in chapter 24 we see Isaac standing there ready to receive his his bride as CH is Christ is uh ready to to receive the the bride the chores that are us at at the end of time so that’s a a a beautiful parallel and taking these points this these four characters we can summarize the story and I heard this from a commentator this a beautiful way to summarize this story we see a wise father sending a faithful servant looking for a virtuous Pride for his beloved Son and I think that’s a a beautiful summary to to this U story um and now here we will be thinking okay and then they live happily ever after well the answer unfortunately is not totally that we will see the next uh the next lesson um because we live in a sinful and and broken World um their family is going to go through this Brokenness and there will be a big family drama with them and with their children that will be part of the next of the next lesson so um having read this this this beautiful lesson have here some points for for application and first point since this is a passage that U tell us about romance and marriage first point that I would like to share with you are looking for are you looking for a spouse well if you are looking for a spouse that’s a good desire we can see in Proverbs 18:22 Proverbs 18:22 it says he who finds a wife finds a good things a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord so it’s a good desire to look for a spouse now let’s say that um you are praying because first of all you have to start praying we can see the prayer in this story is fundamental it starts with Abraham then goes with a servant and then ends with Isaac and we see this cycle of continuous praying and relationship with the Lord so that’s how you should start but let’s say that you find a person that is generous hospitable kind um like uh the servant on Rebecca initially is that uh is that enough well we see in the story that that was not enough in the story of Rebecca there was another question that had to be answered the second question was who is your father and here we’re not talking about the the the Earthly family but we are talking about the Heavenly family so you meet a nice person but who is his father who is her father are they are child of God or not because if the answer is not then that’s not coming from God now let’s say that you find this person and this person is is a child of God you find a beautiful uh generous hospitable and godly lady let’s say that you find a handsome attractive hardworking and godly man is that the final point and the answer is not not yet there was another question that had to be asked another question that was asked to Rebecca will you go with this man it’s not until that point where you can be sure that that person is for you because if that person uh if that uh lovely young lady says no then she’s not for you or if that um attractive uh strong uh and godly man does not paying any attention to you well the answer is no it now you may say okay well but the negative answer can change yeah it may happen it may change that negative could eventually become a positive but the bottom line is unless you get a positive reply to that answer then that person is not for you okay so yeah I’m sorry I okay I I should have said this before I was holding back because I I just wanted to hear what you said so um but I I got a back step so that what I say will make sense when you ask the question why did Abraham not want his son to marry a Canaanite I think it’s the the answer that we didn’t give and I think that’s also a problem when you’re choosing uh when a single person male or female is choosing their mate is that we have to remember and this ties into the the other part you were talking oh boy I’m I’m sorry I’m gonna destroy you with all my connections but but um when you asked about Abraham his wisdom the wisdom of older people Abraham was aware of the fact that the Canaanites were Wicked people they were idolatrous um they practice um abominal practices um as far as uh concerning sexual practices they were an abominal people and so Abraham was aware of that he did not want his son to um to he did not want to mix his line with with that kind of people but then the other issue is which ties into something you were talking about and um I think uh Pastor Dave brought this up timing you know we talk about God’s will um we understand that Abraham was faithful to God if you’re faithful to God um you are in God’s plan you are in God’s Will and so timing the timing was perfect for Isaac and Rebecca and it the scripture reveals that she was at the well he was meditating this is showing us timing when we’re talking about single people they may use puberty as their sign for now it’s time to get married no puberty is a time to get control of of a gift that God will allow you to use at a later time but the only other thing that I that I wanted to say about it is that um that that’s the problem with our culture today is because we don’t recognize you know um the importance of letting God prepare a spouse a wife or a husband we don’t we don’t see the fact that God will prepare us for that and then one final point I want to make that brings us all the way back to the beginning um when when uh Adam names his wife um uh when he he calls her woman why um the the wife of man uh because she was taken out of man again God prepared the idea the idea of wife that God is in that process of preparing someone for us so timing is very important yeah right you mentioned a lot of um interesting points yeah on the first point about the the the Canaanite woman yeah that that was um yeah another another reason why Abraham didn’t want Isaac to marry them they they they they were a wicked wicked Nation um however the Abraham’s family back in Mesopotamia they also worship idols so um there is um that that point which I think it’s a valid point but um his family back in Mesopotamia they they also had idolatry so that’s why I didn’t mention that I think the point of of the land is offer us a um a more clear perspective on why Abraham didn’t want uh Isaac to marry marry Isaac and and to marry a canite woman and um and yeah to point about the timing yeah I mean it’s it’s part of the the pray and our preparation how to how to to um um prepare us for for this and uh how to discern the perfect time that the Lord wants for us in the case that uh we are willing to to to get married to have a spouse um okay next uh next Point looking for signals and that’s a an interesting point as well because we see that in the servant the servant goes and he ask for a specific signal something like a very very specific right so how do we interpret that how do we apply that to our lives in in in our time uh do we have to to pray for specific things to to happen in order to make a decisions and in reality we don’t do that nowadays no it’s it’s um not a thing that that we do and it’s not a the a way that God uses to communicate with us nowadays he communicated with people directly in the Old Testament but now he communicates to us through his word to the Bible right um it’s um very unlikely and highly contestable that uh that we can say oh God spoke me and and told me this and that I I will be very hesitant to to think that that is direct communication from God or that God gave me this signal or or that other because everything that God want want to tell us is in the Bible it’s in his word now you may say okay but the Bible would not tell me if I have to take this job or this other job or if I should move to this city or that other city or if I have to study this maor or this other maor or buy this car or buy this other car no that’s right the Bible will not tell you the specifics but the Bible will provide you uh the general frame toward you can check and see if your decisions are aligned and if you feel that um you need more wisdom you can ask for more wisdom and the in fact the Bible encourages to to take um to look for most more more wisdom in uh in James we see that James is encouraging us um in James 1 15 it says but if any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God who gives to all generously and without reproach and it will be given to to him so ask for Wisdom ask for discernment and um also some commentators say okay as as a guidance um check if your thoughts if your ideas are first align with the scripture exlore yourself and see if your desires are being moved by the spirit if what you want is is really coming from the spirit and as a third um step you can check the circumstances around yourself what is going on what is happening is is God opening the the door or not other commentators said okay and you can also add um counseling if you are still not sure you can talk to a a brother or a sister it at Le someone who is more mature more experienced in in the Lord and ask for for guidance if you are still not sure what to do in a given circumstance and finally this beautiful story that we have heard um it’s uh delightful for us to to read it but uh it’s part of a bigger story it’s part of a a bigger picture what is happening here is God fulfilling his promise the promise that he made to Abraham that he was going to be a father of a big nation now Abraham only had Isaac as a child of Promise so Isaac needs a to continue the promise and we see here God working towards that promise working to accomplish the purpose by providing a a right to to Isaac so that same God that uh fulfill the promises in Abraham and Isaac is the same God that is now working to fulfill his promises to fulfill his will in you and me so the same God 2,000 for 3,000 years ago is the same God nowadays and you can trust him because if he deliver for Abraham and Isaac he is going to deliver also for you and for me because we are also children of God so wanted to to finish with this passage of Romans 8:28 and we know that for those who love God and all all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose so that’s the lesson for today um sorry we don’t have time for for more questions um but if you have any other question or comment you can see me afterwards let me finish with a word of prayer God thank you for this time that we could uh spend um studying your word thank you for for this for this lesson for this beautiful story and for reminding us that um no matter what no matter when or no matter where you are in control you were in control in the past you are in control in the present and you are in control in the future help us to trust in your word help us to trust in your promises in Jesus name amen thank you