Redeemer Reformed Church of Oklahoma City

Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. And he came to a certain place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! –Genesis 28:10-12

Jacob was on the run. He had nothing, not even a knapsack to put under his head for a pillow! Perhaps he was ashamed, but he was at least scared and it is seriously doubtful that he was basking the promises, power, and protection of God.

Yet that’s exactly what came to him in his dream. He sees a staircase, the way one would ascend and descend those ancient Near Eastern ziggurats (stepped-pyramid temples). He sees angels, messengers of God going up and down between heaven and earth.

A lot could be said about what this means, but it’s really spelled out for us in John 1:43-51,

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” 47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” 49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” 51 And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

Among many other things, what we see here is that Jacob was viewing Jesus Christ in some form in this dream. Jacob had much to fear, and most of all, God’s righteous judgment. None of us should have any greater trepidation than that “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” (Heb. 9:27) But God came to him in all his fear of not measuring up to God’s holy requirements (and indeed he didn’t and never did his whole life long!), and showed him the true way or “gate of heaven.”

In natural religion, you know, that religion that grows naturally in our hearts and gives rise to all the major religions in the world apart from Christianity, the gate to heaven is a staircase too. This staircase goes from earth to heaven and sounds awfully like the five pillars of Islam, the eightfold path in Buddhism, or even the Ten Commandments. None of the steps of this staircase will get you there even if you had the ability to climb them!

There’s just one step, and it’s not from earth to heaven, but from heaven to earth. It isn’t something you do nor is it a philosophy. It’s the Son of Man, our Lord Jesus Christ. That’s who saved Jacob from his sins and depravity, and that’s who saves us from our sin and depravity. Surely Jesus Christ is the gate of heaven.

And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.

The related hymns we’ll sing are:
How Firm a Foundation
My Faith Looks Up to Thee
Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah

Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15. 

Visitors are always welcome!

Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take a wife from there, and that as he blessed him he directed him, “You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women,” and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and gone to Paddan-aram. So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac his father, Esau went to Ishmael and took as his wife, besides the wives he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth. –Genesis 28:6-9

Rebekah feigns disgust with the Hittite women (any woman at the time not under God’s covenant) to manipulate Isaac to agree for Jacob to leave and go to Paddan Aram. She wanted to keep him safe from Esau after the grand deception. Actually, she probably really didn’t like them, but “what good will my life be to me” if Jacob marries one of them is probably a little melodramatic.  Isaac tells Jacob in no uncertain terms that he is not to take a Canaanite wife, and Jacob obeys (this time!).

In the passage above we see something very sad. What a figure of tragic irony that Esau longs to please his father and belong fully in the family. But the poor fellow is so spiritually dull that he doesn’t realize until now that Canaanite wives are not appropriate for this family. So he decides to repent of his badness in pursuing Hittite and Caananite women and to take turn (it makes you wince, doesn’t it?) one of Ishmael’s daughters. An Ishmaelite? You’ve got to be kidding me!  Psalm 83 records an alliance of Ishmaelites against Israel, and this is probably where it started.

Repentance is often described as a turning from doing the wrong thing to doing the right thing. There is a real sense in which that is true. But this is not Christian repentance. It’s preached in churches up and down every street in America; nonetheless, it isn’t Christian repentance. Unbelieving Jews or atheists may decide to turn from wrong actions to right actions for a time. Christian repentance is turning NOT from your badness to your goodness; rather, Christian repentance is turning from your badness and turning from your goodness and turning to Christ. Christian repentance is turning from everything, including good works, and resting in the merits of Christ alone. What flows out of this is more sanctified behavior, but it is a result of repentance rather than the goal of repentance.

So what about Esau? His repentance was from the bad to the bad. He thought it was from the bad to the good. I suspect we are duped this way all the time. What should his repentance have been? It should have been to turn from his self-justifying efforts and turn to Jacob in full submission, seeking to bless Jacob in every way possible. Why is that? Because Jacob is the bearer of blessing. As Isaac had prophesied, “Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you!” (27:29). Esau needed to rest in the bearer of blessing, Jacob, who represented the blessing bearer of all, Jesus Christ. We must be careful about repentance. Christ alone!

By the way, when the great Blessing Bearer went for a bride, he got the church. That was the perfect choice because he does all things well. Let God be true and every man a liar!

And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.

The related hymns we’ll sing are:
I Sing the Mighty Power of God
There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy
O Father, You Are Sovereign

Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15. 

Visitors are always welcome!

Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it, Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “I heard your father speak to your brother Esau, ‘Bring me game and prepare for me delicious food, that I may eat it and bless you before the LORD before I die.’ Now therefore, my son, obey my voice as I command you. Go to the flock and bring me two good young goats, so that I may prepare from them delicious food for your father, such as he loves. And you shall bring it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.” But Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “Behold, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man. Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him and bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing.” His mother said to him, “Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice, and go, bring them to me.” –Genesis 26:5-13

Jacob protests his mother’s plan. That’s good, except the protest was not that God had promised so they should wait on the Lord or even that it was simply immoral. He protests because he isn’t sure the scheme is plausible. He is worried it won’t work and he’d get caught. Getting caught may well involve getting cursed by his father rather than blessed.

Rebekah’s answer to this problem is that she would take the curse upon herself. If we were going to be very generous with her, we might think that she had received the oracle from God while still pregnant with Esau (the older) who would serve Jacob (the younger), and she was choosing to believe it. She could risk accepting the curse because she didn’t think she could be cursed because of God’s promise. Maybe, but no one in this group is exactly on the up-and-up.

Something about which we do not have to speculate is that this passage is about blessing and curse. They wanted blessing, but curse was a real threat. What a picture of the cross! Jesus was like Rebekah in that he was cursed (Paul writes in Galatians 3, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.”) He took the curse we deserved thus the firstborn of all creation lost his firstborn rights. He dressed up like us and got what we deserved.

In exchange we are dressed up like him. Our aroma is that of another. Animals died for Jacob to be covered the way he was, in the same way for us without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness, no covering, for sins. We go in to the Father with the covering made for us by the shedding of his blood, then clothed in his righteous robes. And when he draws you near, he smells the goodness of the firstborn son. See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God!

And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.

The related hymns we’ll sing are:
O Worship the King
Baptized in Water
Thy Works, Not Mine, O Christ

The monthly Men’s Prayer Breakfast is this Saturday, June 5, at 8:30 at the church. All men are welcomed.

Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15. 

Visitors are always welcome!

Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me; now sit up and eat of my game, that your soul may bless me.” But Isaac said to his son, “How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?” He answered, “Because the LORD your God granted me success.” Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come near, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not.” So Jacob went near to Isaac his father, who felt him and said, “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” And he did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands. So he blessed him. He said, “Are you really my son Esau?” He answered, “I am.” Then he said, “Bring it near to me, that I may eat of my son’s game and bless you.” So he brought it near to him, and he ate; and he brought him wine, and he drank. –Genesis 27:19-25

The firstborn gets it all: the wealth, yes, but better yet, the approval and blessing of the father. The blessing of the father is what Jacob wants most of all. It is an immaterial thing with more power than all the material things in the world. After all, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can make (or break) my heart. Isaac knew it; Rebekah knew it; Jacob knew it. Rebekah and Jacob go to great lengths to get the words of the approving father on Jacob.

Jacob dresses up like someone else to try to get the blessing. He wants this approval and is willing to deceive in order to get it. How often do we dress up like someone else to get the approval of people! How often do we deceive even ourselves into thinking we can be someone else to get our heavenly Father’s approval!

This is a sad situation with Isaac’s family. It’s a sad situation with our own families.

But there was one who was truly the Firstborn of All Creation. There was one who had the blessing, the approval, of his heavenly Father. At his baptism, when the Spirit descended, the blessing rang throughout the universe, “This is my Son in whom I am well-pleased.”

This truly firstborn son also dressed up, but in the opposite way Jacob did. This one who genuinely deserved all the blessing and approval of the truest Father dressed up in human flesh and frailties so that the blessing would go to the undeserving children. This is how Jesus made all of his people able to hear the Spirit testifying with our spirit that we are indeed the children of God (Rom. 8:16). We have the approval and blessing of the Father: “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God!”

And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.

The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Come, Thou Almighty King
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty!
All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name

Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15. 

Visitors are always welcome!

Now there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech king of the Philistines. And the LORD appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

So Isaac settled in Gerar. When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he feared to say, “My wife,” thinking, “lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah,” because she was attractive in appearance. When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife. So Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought, ‘Lest I die because of her.’” –Genesis 26:1-9

Here comes another incident involving food. There is a new famine in the land, and presumably Isaac is going to leave the land of blessing (which is a hard place to live) to go down to the land of cursing (which seems like an easier place to live). God simply stops him before his messes up like his dad. Then they have a worship service of covenant renewal. Isaac hears in the sermon that he is the blessing bearer with all the same promises as his father Abraham.

So Isaac doesn’t leave the land of blessing, and trusts the promises of God to provide for and protect him, right? Nope, he still makes the same mistake his father made twice before him. He tells half-truths to protect himself since preserving his life was more important than obeying God. He doesn’t believe the gospel preached to him.

Now remember that this is the same guy who was himself to be the sacrifice on Mt. Moriah’s altar, but God instead provided a lamb. That’s the God who can’t be trusted?

Isaac was not reviled by the Philistines down in Gerar. He suffered not one bit and was not even threatened. Yes, there was some conflict over wells, but even that turned out fine. He had nothing to fear and everything to gain by obeying and entrusting himself to God. He didn’t though, yet was still accepted, protected, and cherished. God kept the covenant even though Isaac did not. That’s grace.

Thanks be to God that there is another Promised Son, the blessing bearer, who did not fear men. He did not fudge the truth to help himself. He did not protect his personal peace and safety. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. Jesus kept the covenant in perfect obedience on behalf of all those covenant breakers who God chose, like Isaac, before the foundation of the world.

And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.

The related hymns we’ll sing are:
I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord
Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove
Spirit of the Living God
To God be the Glory

Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15. 

Visitors are always welcome!

Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom.) Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.” Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. –Genesis 25:29-34

The Tree of the Knowledge of God and Evil, i.e., the Tree of Judicial Knowledge, stood before Adam. He would someday be ready for it, but not yet. Satan tempts them to hurry up and take the authority quickly. They did. It is sin to take even what the Lord has for us before he gives it to us, and it is costly.

Jacob is destined, like Adam, someday to have the authority. Satan comes along and offers a shortcut. God has already promised that “the older shall serve the younger.” But Jacob felt clever enough to snatch it before he was ready for it. This was sin, and it was costly.

Esau was willing to exchange what is of eternal value for a brief moment’s pleasure. He scarfed it down, jumped up, and left without a thought. It was costly. We would have room to criticize him if we didn’t do the same thing every day.

One of these men regards the blessing of eternal value less than a bowl of soup, and the other treats it as a commodity to be bought and sold. Which one should the Lord save? That answer proves that the grace of God is synonymous with the sovereignty of God.

Instead of a Jacob or Esau, what we have is a Savior whose birthright was to be equal with God and superior to all in creation. Yet he did not grasp it greedily or early, but freely gave himself up for others. He washed feet, touched the sick, and ate with sinners. While his people trampled underfoot their birthright, he bought it back with more than silver or gold: he bought it with his own precious blood, and that was costly.

And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.

The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Come, Christians, Join to Sing
The Beatitudes
Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us

Our Community Lunch is this coming Sunday following the worship service. For more information, click here.

Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15. 

Visitors are always welcome!

When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau. Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them. –Genesis 25:24-26

It looks like the descriptions of these twins make fun of them. First you have a hairy monster. This hairy guy’s name in Hebrew sounds like Seir, the place he ends up living—outside the Promised Land, no doubt. His beast-like nature, not unlike Ishmael’s (a “wild donkey of a man,” Gen. 16:12) is no compliment. The prophecy of his life to come is one of opposing the covenant of blessing God has promised. We see this all the way up to the birth of Jesus. Jesus is cruelly opposed by Herod, who is Esau’s descendant.

Besides the hairy monster, we also have the heel-grabber. But that’s not all his name is. Its etymology is an abbreviated phrase meaning “El (God) protects”. Several commentators mention that this is a common Semitic name. And God does protect him from himself and everybody else, especially Esau. Most of us are more familiar with the other aspect of his name. His self-reliant and self-justifying efforts sully the honorable “God protects” name with his deceit. Thus the pun of his name as one who “seizes by the heel, or goes behind someone to betray.”

Jacob, like all believers, is at the same time saint and sinner (simul justus et peccator). He is at the same time chosen/protected by God and the deceitful betrayer. Jesus says to his disciples in John 15:16: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you…” He chose betrayers like Jacob. This is because he has mercy on whom he has mercy, for “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that pleases him” (Psalm 115:3). The sovereignty of God’s choice does not depend upon him who wills or runs, but upon God who has mercy and offers hope to sinners.

And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.

The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Crown Him with Many Crowns
Beneath the Cross of Jesus
Jesus! What a Friend for Sinners

Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is up and running! Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15. 

Visitors are always welcome!

And Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife, because she was barren. And the LORD granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. The children struggled together within her, and she said, “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the LORD. And the LORD said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.” –Genesis 25:21-23

Like Sarah, Isaac’s mother, Rebekah conceived not merely by natural means (if there are any!), but by the Lord’s direct intervention. Like Abraham, Isaac’s father, God announced beforehand the outcome of the lives of the children. This outcome is downright shocking.

One of these boys would have his blessing and be the blessing bearer of God’s people going forward. The other one is under curse. Malachi 1:2-3, “I have loved you,” says the LORD. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” With tongue-in-cheek apologies to our brothers and sisters at one parachurch ministry, God did not love Esau, nor did God have a wonderful plan for his life.

Jacob got the blessing before he had done anything good or bad. It was God’s choice by God’s grace for God’s glory. God blesses and protects and prospers Jacob in spite of Jacob’s sins: the deceptions, the scheming, the betrayals that Scripture apparently doesn’t hide one bit. Jacob was not worthy of blessing. From his perspective, he stole it: he seized the advantage of his older brother’s weakness and he lied and cheated his father. From God’s perspective, he is granted the blessing.

Sometime people get angry about this. It just seems so unfair. But that is because we don’t quickly acknowledge our sin and utter unworthiness to be accepted before a righteous and holy God. God loved Jacob not because of Jacob’s loveliness; God loved Jacob because of God’s loveliness. He’s God and he gets to call the shots and he loves his people in spite of their unloveliness. He loves people who must rely on the righteousness of another since their own righteousness is foul. And that other, perfectly righteous one is Jesus Christ, the lamb who takes away the sin of the world. He’s the one who has promised that those he washes will share in the Kingdom of Heaven, like Jacob.

And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.

The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Christ the Lord is Risen Today!
Hallelujah, Praise Jehovah, O My Soul (Psalm 146)
Be Thou My Vision

MEN’S PRAYER BREAKFAST
Calling all men: this Saturday, May 1 is our next prayer breakfast. It starts at 8:30 (the food is great!) and we’re done around 10. Enter at the northeast corner of the building (we have signs posted).

Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is up and running! Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15. 

Visitors are always welcome!

These are the days of the years of Abraham’s life, 175 years. Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people. Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, east of Mamre, the field that Abraham purchased from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried, with Sarah his wife.—Genesis 25:7-10

Abraham (1) breathed his last; (2) died; (3) was gathered to his people; (4) was buried. We often think a phrase like “was gathered to his people” refers to something that happens at or after burial, but Abraham was not buried with his ancestors. His ancestors were in the land he left, the land to which he never returned. People were buried in their homeland and even though Abraham had to buy this cave at an enormous price (Gen. 23:16), it allowed him to declare to all the generations to follow: “This was our home!” So of course he was buried there even though the “gathering” would go on for a long time.

Abraham and Sarah in their day could hardly be described as residents of that land. Even Abraham calls himself a “sojourner and a foreigner” there. Yet the passage above says that he died “in a good old age, an old man and full of years.” This is apparently the ancient Near Eastern version of “happily ever after.” While Ecclesiastes 12 suggests that old age and the days of trouble go together, Abraham seems to have had it better than that.

Why? How come? Don’t we want to know because that’s how we want to die! Hebrews 11 reveals this in the most practical of answers. In that long roll call of faith, each saint is afforded one verse each except Moses who has 6 and Abraham who has 12. And in those 12 is a verse that should shake us to our foundation: But as it is, they [the saints mentioned there] desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.—Hebrews 11:16

There it is: why did Abraham die with a fully satisfied life? Because God was not ashamed to be called his God. Why was God not ashamed to be called his God? Because Abraham learned disdain for earthly things and was looking for a divine consummation, a new heaven and a new earth, ie., the true Promised Land.

When we cherish Christ and his work to bring us to that new heaven and new earth, when we live by faith rather than obeying ourselves to indulge in excessive love of this present life, then God is not ashamed to be called our God. That’s a good way to end life in this present age.

And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.

The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Thine Be the Glory
Great is Thy Faithfulness
Amazing Grace

Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is up and running! Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15. 

Visitors are always welcome!

Now Isaac had returned from Beer-lahai-roi and was dwelling in the Negeb. And Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening. And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, there were camels coming. And Rebekah 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 the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. Then Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her. –Genesis 24:62-67

There are no unimportant words in scripture. It means something that Isaac had come from Beer-lahai-roi. That’s the place, the well, where pregnant Hagar was when she was running away from the land and people of blessing (Promised Land and Abraham) to the land and people of the curse (Egypt). That’s the place God intervened and she gave up trying to save herself.

God promised her there that the child would be born, become a great nation, and she would be blessed (although she had to return to the land and people of blessing). He quenched her thirst, body and soul, there at that well: So she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi. (Genesis 16:13,14)

Who knows how long Isaac had been waiting for his dad’s servant to bring him back a wife! It may have been 3 or more years. He’s in his late 30’s already too. That’s why he went to Beer-lahai-roi; he went there to call on the name of the Lord who sees his affliction. And no sooner than he gets back, he lifts up his eyes, and behold, Rebekah! The Lord was looking after him.

When we wonder if God is looking after us, especially our thirsty souls, we should remember that Christ is the well of wells, the spring of living water. He is our Beer-lahai-roi, the one by which God sees us. He is the way we see the one who looks after us. It is in him that we drink to true satisfaction, that we call on the name of the Lord, and that we receive all the blessings of God. He is the one who stops our running back to the curse and turns us around to run to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. He is the one brings us to repent of trying to save ourselves by saving us himself.

And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in baptism and in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.

The related hymns we’ll sing are:
The Day of Resurrection!
Baptized in Water
My Jesus, I Love Thee

Our first adult baptism of the year is this Sunday…don’t miss it!

Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is up and running! Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15. 

Visitors are always welcome!