JACOB’S DECEPTION OF ISAAC
Gen. 27:14-30
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: When God Rocks Your Boat
1. In the late ’50s I was working construction, leveling the corner of a house that we had jacked about 4 inches above the ground. One of the jacks slipped and the house came down with a loud bang.
2. The next thing we knew, the owner, who was a minister, ran out and looked up at the sky. “I thought the Lord was coming!” he told us. We all had a good laugh. [Reader’s Digest]
B. TEXT
14 So [Jacob] went and got them[goats] and brought them to his mother, and she prepared some tasty food, just the way his father liked it. 15 Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. 16 She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins. 17 Then she handed to her son Jacob the tasty food and the bread she had made. 18 He went to his father and said, “My father.” “Yes, my son,” he answered. “Who is it?” 19 Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing.” 20 Isaac asked his son, “How did you find it so quickly, my son?” “The Lord your God gave me success,” he replied. 21 Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near so I can touch you, my son, to know whether you really are my son Esau or not.” 22 Jacob went close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” 23 He did not recognize him, for his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he proceeded to bless him. 24 “Are you really my son Esau?” he asked. “I am,” he replied. 25 Then he said, “My son, bring me some of your game to eat, so that I may give you my blessing.” Jacob brought it to him and he ate; and he brought some wine and he drank. 26 Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come here, my son, and kiss me.” 27 So he went to him and kissed him. When Isaac caught the smell of his clothes, he blessed him and said, “Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed. 28 May God give you heaven’s dew and earth’s richness— an abundance of grain and new wine. 29 May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed.” 30 After Isaac finished blessing him, and Jacob had scarcely left his father’s presence, his brother Esau came in from hunting. Gen. 27:14-30
C. WHY ‘DECEPTION’ IS A BIG DEAL
1. The deception of Isaac by Rebekah and Jacob is one of the most startling deceptions found in the Bible. The consequences were vast. The deception was brazen.
2. Jacob, in person, impersonated his brawny, manly brother Esau and was able to deceive his father into giving him the family fortune. What relevance does this have with us? It points out how easy it is to be deceived.
3. One of the greatest dangers of the Last days is deception. According to Scripture all the world will be deceived.
4. The very nature of deception is that you don’t know you’re being deceived. Many people are willingly deceived. Ex.: More than one in five smokers think the dangers of smoking are exaggerated, and half of smokers don't consider lung cancer to be a smoking-related illness. Reader's Digest April 2009, p. 18. Some things can appear to be true, but not be.
5. Or like Adam and Eve in the Garden, the devil implants a half-truth. As someone pointed out, rat poison is 99.99% good food. It’s the 1% poison that kills you!
6. It’s the same with the deception. You can be mostly right but still go to Hell. The Pharisees knew the Scriptures and lived righteously, but they went to Hell because they didn’t accept Jesus as their Savior!
7. A plane that was only off it’s flight pattern by 1% ended up 1,000’s of miles off course, ran out of fuel, and ditched into the ocean.
8. The title of tonight’s message is “Jacob’s Deception of Isaac.” In considering deception we’re going to look at four things that brought about the deception of Isaac.
I. DECEIVED BECAUSE IGNORED GOD’S WILL
A. ISAAC IGNORED WHAT GOD HAD SAID
1. Rebekah didn’t deceive Isaac for no reason: When Rebekah was pregnant with the twins, God spoke to her that the “older will serve the younger” Gen 25:23.
2. This meant that Jacob, the younger, was supposed to get the blessing, not Esau. Isaac was aware of this, but he let his personal preference for Esau take precedence over what God had said.
3. Rebekah was trying to assist in the fulfilment of God’s Word, but did so the wrong way. She should have confronted Isaac and demand he bless the one God had indicated.
4. But Isaac ended up being deceived because he ignored the Word of God spoken to his wife. If we ignore the Word of God, we also become more susceptible to deception.
B. WE MUST LOVE THE TRUTH AND HONESTY
1. The Bible says that the whole world will be deceived because they don’t esteem truth (2 Thess. 2). If we are not honest, sincere, and truthful with ourselves, we can’t really tell right from wrong.
2. When David finally confronted his sin with Bathsheba, he admitted his self-deception; “Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom” Ps. 51:6, NKJV.
3. It’s only if we prize truth that error can be exposed. It’s said that U.S. Treasury Agents don’t study counterfeit bills in order to catch them. Instead, they study every aspect of the genuine $100, $50, and $20 bills, so that if they see a counterfeit, they immediately spot it.
4. Similarly, if we study and hide God’s Word in our hearts so that when the enemy comes along and offers us a lie, the Truth in our hearts immediately shines a spotlight on the error and we don’t accept it.
5. Conclusion: If we’re not reading and studying the Word, we become, like Isaac, open to deception.
II. DECEIVED BECAUSE SPIRITUALLY BLIND
A. ISAAC WAS BLIND TO SPIRITUAL THINGS
1. Another reason Isaac was deceived was because he had lost the ability of seeing. If he’d had his sight, he would never have been deceived by Jacob.
2. This is a spiritual metaphor; it was prophetic that he had lost the ability to see spiritual things.
3. One time Elisha and his servant became surrounded by a powerful hostile army. The servant panicked. Elisha prayed and the servant’s eyes were opened and he saw the they were surrounded by an angelic army superior to the earthly one (2 Kgs. 6:17).
4. There IS a spiritual realm that may be seen with spiritual eyes. If we could see into that realm, our whole perspective of what’s important would change.
B. THE POWER OF BEING “PRAYED UP”
1. If we’re to be aware of what’s going on in the spiritual realm, we must be prayed up and in touch with God. If we are, then even if we were blind, we would still be aware of what was going on in the spiritual realm.
2. There was a prophet name Ahijah in the Old Testament. He was very old and was physically blind. A rebellious king, Jeroboam, sent his wife, disguised, to inquire of Ahijah. Ahijah recognized her with his spiritual perception and exposed her subterfuge (1 Kgs. 14:4-6).
3. Even though Isaac was blind, if he’d been prayed up, he could have had the same spiritual perception to detect the deception of Jacob. But he wasn’t prayed up.
4. This is a lesson to us that if we don’t stay sensitive to the Holy Spirit, walk in the Spirit, and stay in prayer, we may leave ourselves open to some kind of deception!
5. Our enemy uses many disguises. Sometimes he comes at us with temptations, subtle thoughts, inferiority complexes, depressions, difficult circumstances, etc. We must be able to “see” that the thought/motive/emotion is not from God.
III. DECEIVED BECAUSE OF CARNAL APPETITES
A. HIS STOMACH MADE THE DECISION!
1. One of the fundamental reasons Isaac was deceived was because he had gotten into the habit of yielding to carnal appetites. This story begins with Isaac desiring to eat some of Esau’s BBQ. Isaac told Esau, “Make me savory meat, such as I love…that my soul may bless thee.” (vs. 4)
2. Notice that Isaac connected the blessing he bestowed to the venison he was to eat! It’s like a millionaire giving away his fortune to whichever relative can cook the best, rather than to the heir!
3. No doubt, Isaac was letting his stomach decide who was going to get the family blessing.
B. FASTING STRENGTHENS THE INNER MAN
1. This is a warning to us not to allow food to dominate our lives. Many a saint of God has been brought low by food.
2. Paul talked about people, “Who’s God is their belly (stomach) and whose glory is in their shame” Phip. 3:19 (Rom. 16:18). We don’t live to eat, but eat to live.
3. When the 9 disciples couldn’t cast out the demons at the bottom of the Mt. of Transfiguration, they asked Jesus why they couldn’t. He replied, “This kind comes not out but by prayer and fasting” (Mt. 17:21; Mk. 9:29, KJV).
4. Fasting food helps strengthen the inner spirit-man/ woman. Since food is our primary appetite, when we fast food, we weaken the carnal/fallen nature and allow the spiritual nature to gain ascendancy (that is – if we’re praying and reading the Word).
5. So fasting strengthens our spiritual perception and spiritual judgment. If we push back our plates occasionally and fast, we’ll find that we won’t be as susceptible to deception!
IV. DECEIVED BY SENSE-KNOWLEDGE
A. RELYING ON THE FIVE SENSES
1. The final piece of the deception puzzle was that Rebekah had Jacob put on Esau’s clothes and put goat fur on the backs of his hands and on his neck.
2. This was done to fool Isaac if he required a close inspection before blessing his son. In the absence of sight, Isaac had to depend upon hearing, smell, and touch – three of his senses.
3. Isaac detected that the voice wasn’t right, but the smell and the feel was right to be Esau. With these two, plus the taste of the BBQ, Isaac fell for the deception.
B. DEPEND ON THE HOLY SPIRIT FOR GUIDANCE
1. This shows us the error of depending on our senses. Many a child of God has picked a wife or a husband by their look and feel instead of listening for the voice of the Lord.
2. Many a decision has been made by logic or practicality, rather than inquiring of the Lord for His guidance – for which city we should live in or where we should work.
3. Many Christians pick a church simply because of its programs or worship service instead of asking God His will for which Body they should belong to.
4. Instead of relying on sense-knowledge, we should seek to discern what the Holy Spirit is saying in our hearts. If we get quiet before God and ask for wisdom, God promises He will give it to us. But we must seek the Lord and not be in a hurry.
5. God wants us to care about what HE THINKS – enough to stop our running, get on our knees before Him, and wait for a reply to our request for wisdom.
6. If Jesus is LORD, then HE should be directing our lives, not us doing it and pretending that we’re giving Him the chance to.
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: The Ghost Army: The Inflatable Tanks That Fooled Hitler. Megan Barber, The Atlantic, 5-22-13.
1. During WW2 there was a special battalion of troops, the 23rd, who’s top secret job was “tactical deception” -- their job was to fool Hitler. They were artists, actors, movie prop specialists, special forces, etc.
2. We now known them as the "Ghost Army." They set up inflatable tanks, rubber airplanes, sent elaborate radio codes. They placed speakers that blared pre-recorded soundtracks into the forests of France that could be heard for up to 15 miles.
3. The Ghost Army, some 1,100 men in all, staged more than twenty battlefield deceptions during 1944 and 1945. Their "illusions" often took place within a few hundred yards of the front lines.
4. They staged elaborate plays designed to intimidate and/or confuse the Axis powers; to cause chaos and confusion. Some actors in the Ghost Army would also play the parts of Allied generals and visited towns where enemy spies would see them.
5. They created "Spoof Radio," impersonating radio operators from real units and talking as if they were invading a certain place. Their aim? To create the illusion that our military force was bigger and more powerful than it actually was.
6. The Ghost Army's story was only declassified in 1996 and shows us how much we still don’t know about World War II.
7. It was a big hoax to confuse and discourage our enemies, and it worked! The devil constantly employs these kinds of tactics against God’s people. We must be on the alert.
B. THE CALL
1. None of us plan on being deceived, but are we ignoring God’s will? Can we hear God’s voice? Are we desiring to know the truth, even if it hurts?
2. Is our spiritual vision good? Are we prayed up? Can we see through the adversities and ploys of the enemy?
3. Do we need some fasting? Have our appetites gained greater power over us than the Holy Spirit?
4. Are we depending on our logic or natural understanding to guide us? Have we sought the Lord for His wisdom?
5. Let’s take some time and consider these thoughts. Why don’t we go to the altars and spend some time waiting on God?
