THE K I N G ’ S B US I NE S S
995
of their father, whom they both loved. How many family reconciliations have taken place over the still form of some loved one. How wonderful that the great reconciliation between God and man was consummated at the death of Him who was both Son of God and Son of man. How sad that some men still persist in refusing to be reconciled. Has God’s love won you to His side? Is God’s love in you winning others to Him and testifying to His grace, and causing others to glorify Him for what he has wrought in you? The man of prayer is still the man who has power with God and men. Have you? Why not? : ' ■ ____ _ A suggestive outline for this lesson would be, (1) Remembering the Past, 1 (2) Reverencing Esau,‘ (3) Reconciled to Esau. What a pity it is that the story of a life so full of HEART OP THE lessons so much LESSON needed by every PRACTICAL POINTS Sunday School t e a c h e r a n d scholar should be given us in three bits. How can one do justice to the lesson of today without having the other great lessons in Jacob’s life as a foundation? There are the twenty years of toil and service behind Jacob. Now he is out of the hands of Laban,— cruel, crafty slave-driver, and his face is homeward set. God gave him another angelic vision, but Jacob cannot close his eyes to tbe past. Long years in a strange land have not sufficed to silence con science, nor to blot out from his mem ory the face of his cruelly-wronged brother, nor to quiet the fear of his heart that his brother, like himself, carries with him the remembrance of those days of his suffering at Jacob’s hand. In dealing with Laban, it was '•‘dia mond cut diamond”, for skill in craft and deceit, but Esau is of another type. The Bible is the great character book.
Nowhere else is therfe such a revelation of human nature and whoever studies the Bible without giving very definite attention to the unfolding of the nature of man, fails shamefully. We see our selves— our own nature; we see our fel lows; we learn how to apply the great principles of the Word of God to our selves and to our scholars. This is the great purpose of the record which God has given to us. Jacob is shrewd, calculating. His nature has not improved, but has the rather been highly developed in the conflict with his father-in-law. He goes to pray with a heart full of fear. A man tackles him. It is night. His guilty conscience perhaps imagines that Esau is his foe, and not until the finger of the angel puts his thigh out of joint does he cease to combat, and com mence to cling. In pleading for mercy,- in clinging to God, there comes to him a revelation of Jehovah. The finger of God sent him limping away with a new nature and a new name. Jacob has not lost the old nature, however, and fear has not departed from him. All of his plans avail noth ing. He is compelled to receive Esau. He calls him “ My Lord” acknowledging the birthright possession. Look straight at the picture of Jacob limping into the presence of that wronged brother and humbly going before him and according him the honor he had pur chased for a farthing and had never entered into possession of. God’s mills grind slowly, but sometimes they grind exceedingly small. The brothers are reconciled. Esau has not changed. His father’s blessing has brought him prosperity. He is the same good-natured “ hale fellow, well met” who sold the birthright for a song and forgot it. He has not harbored any ill- will towards his brother. He is inde pendent and sweeps away the proposed gifts, but Jacob is wily and insists upon putting the burden upon him, and he finally accepts.
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter