Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #5 in Genesis 36, and we will read Genesis 36:6-8:

And Esau took his wives, and his sons, and his daughters, and all the persons of his house, and his cattle, and all his beasts, and all his substance, which he had got in the land of Canaan; and went into the country from the face of his brother Jacob. For their riches were more than that they might dwell together; and the land wherein they were strangers could not bear them because of their cattle. Thus dwelt Esau in mount Seir: Esau is Edom.

As we were discussing in our last study, Esau took all his possessions – his wives, children, and animals – which he had gotten in the land of Canaan, and he went into the country from the face of his brother Jacob.  We explained that this had to have happened during the 40 years that Jacob was still in Haran, but in this picture Jacob is a type of Christ, and it is a similar statement to what we find in Genesis 3 after Adam and Eve sinned, and then they went from the presence of the Lord.  They went away, and they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord. 

So too Esau went from the face of his brother Jacob, and the word “face” is the same word translated as “presence.”  He left, and he took everything with him.  Because we understand that Esau is Edom (Adam or man), and a picture of mankind, we are curious why God would say he had gotten all his substance in the land of Canaan, which represents the kingdom of God.  In other words, let us just relate this to the people of the world because Esau does represent the people of the world.  God said, “Esau have I hated.”  God told his mother Rebekah that “two nations” were in her womb, and two manner of people.  So Esau represents the nation of the ungodly, or those that are unsaved, while Jacob represents the nation of the elect.  As we look out into the world, we can see those that are pictured by Esau, and do they get their riches (their families, their cattle, and all their substance) from the kingdom of God?  And the answer is, “Yes.”  Every human being that God created in His own image has been blessed with life and being.  He created the world, and He gave them a portion of inheritance, however temporary, in this world, and everything that mankind has comes from God.  God is the giver of every good gift.  He is the one who sends the rain so that man can have fruitful seasons and bountiful harvests.  Everything comes from God.

So Esau packed up everything God had given him in the kingdom of God, and he went “into the country,” or into the world, from the presence of his brother Jacob, or from the presence of God Himself.  He took all the riches and good things that God had given him, and He went away from God.  It was an ungrateful act.  There was no recognition of these things having come from God, and that they belonged to God, ultimately.  But man just consumes them upon his own lust.  He takes them for granted, and he fully expects they should be his, and that he deserves these things, and they belong to him.  But they belong to God, and God can take them from man at any point.

In some ways, this reminds us of the prodigal son, except that Esau was never saved, unlike the prodigal son.  We read in Luke 15:11-14:

And he said, A certain man had two sons: And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.

This young man is a picture of those God saves, but what he did was really an illustration of how the world lives.  So God is illustrating those that are out in the world and living in this manner.  They are taking everything from God the Father that they can possibly obtain, and they are devouring it and wasting it on vain pursuits in their vain lives.  Any life lived away from God, as it is lived without acknowledgement of God and service to God. is an empty and wasted life.   And Judgment Day will prove that as man is destroyed for evermore, and everything he has involved himself in – all his thoughts, plan, hopes, and dreams – will be gone forever.  That is the definition of “vanity.”  It is emptiness.  It will exist no more, and neither will the man.  The man will be no more because he will be annihilated out of existence, so everything he did in all his years was, ultimately, in vain.  And sadly, that is how it is in this world.  The world thinks that everything it does is of utmost significance, and people will say, “That will live on forever!  That will be remembered forever!”  But in our modern day, it will last about two weeks. 

To be honest, in times past when men would do great things among their fellow man, it would be remembered for a few centuries in the history books.  But at the end of the world, everything is gone, and no man will be remembered.  God will make sure of this, as we read in Isaiah 65:17: “…the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.”  

Going back to Genesis 36, Esau is going from Christ.  He is going away from the light of the Gospel, and away from the Light that is God Himself, and he is going to a more “comfortable” land for him, a land of darkness, and a land where he can feel that he is a good and righteous man.  And he can live his life as he pleases according to his own understanding rather than the things of God.  You see, this is because the kingdom of God and those that live by the Law of God are an abomination to the unsaved inhabitants of the world. 

However, the elect children of God have been saved out of the world, and we have been given a new heart that desires to do the will of God, and our righteous souls are vexed day by day by the unlawful deeds of the wicked.  The evils of the world are an abomination to God’s people, so we also seek to leave.  Esau was going in a wrong direction, going from the kingdom of God into the world, but God’s people seek to go in a proper direction, going from the world to the kingdom of God (and not just some outward representation).  However, if it were the time and season when the church age was still going on, we would go to a church, and we would be a part of the church because that was God’s will for the time and season of the church age.  But even then, the heart of the true child of God longed for a “better country.”  That is what we read in Hebrews 11:13-16:

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

You see, this is the direction that God’s people go in our seeking.  We are seeking “a better country,” a heavenly country.  It is a better country, and there is no doubt about that.  It is a glorious and beautiful country that is holy, pure, right, and just in every part of it.  It is an absolutely wonderful, glorious, and marvelous place, and this is where each elect child of God desires to go.  We are on the road there, on that path way that is the “narrow way.”  It is a way of much tribulation and affliction, and of being reviled and hated for the Word’s sake.  Nobody said it was an easy way to go to that country.  If you wanted an easy way to the “country” that is this corrupt world that is full of all manner of evil deeds, filthiness, and wickedness, then you can travel on that “broad way.”  It is right there – we all know where it is located.  It is very wide, very open, and it is a very easy to travel that road, but the only thing is that it leads to destruction.  It leads to annihilation, and an empty existence that is vain and without any purpose, and one that has no real substance.  Are we on this earth just to “fill our bellies,” or to see just how much our eyes can take in?  Are we here for just the natural earthly pleasures that are unfulfilling in the end?  No.  We are here to serve God.  We are here to do the will of God, to show forth our love for Him because He has loved us with an everlasting love.  And He has granted us an “extension of time” since May 21, 2011 when we first entered into the Day of Judgment.  It is all a special blessing and privilege for each one of us that we might offer up ourselves as a living sacrifice in service to the Lord Jesus Christ.

We call Him Lord, but if He is Lord, then why not do the things that He tells us to do?  Now we have the opportunity for another period of time, another short season of just a few more years, to do the task that God has given us to feed the sheep?  How are we going to respond?  What are we going to do?  While we are here and enroute to that “better country,” then let us do what the Lord would have us to do.  Let us “glorify JEHOVAH in the fires.”  By His grace and working of His Spirit within us to will and to do of His good pleasure, let us do His will, and let us carry out the task He has assigned to us, and let us do it heartily, as to the Lord.  Let us do it as we have never done it before. 

The performance of keeping God’s commandments at this time ought to be greater and better than in past time, because in the past time of the church age, there were both wheat and tares.  As we sought to do God’s will during the Great Tribulation leading up to May 21, 2011, there were numbers of people alongside of us that were not true elect children of God, as proved by the fact that they have now gone in a backward direction as God has put the fire to them.  And at this point, they are giving evidence that they were “wood, hay, stubble,” and not “gold, silver, precious stones.” 

And as we continue on the road that leads to the celestial city that is not far in the distance, there will be more purifying of the gold and silver.  That is, the dross is being purged away by the “fire” of Judgment Day, and the elect children of God all over the earth should be manifesting that they are, in fact, the elect children of God.  And our obedience ought to be greater than in past history, and I think we will see that as we move closer, and closer, to the coming last day of the prolonged Judgment Day period in which we presently live.