1. 1 Hope for a Fugitive Jacob Takes Flight Lesson 12

2. 2 In our lesson today we will study three people: Isaac Jacob Esau

3. 3 How could Isaac change from a person who was submissive to his father’s (and God’s) will when he was young...

4. 4 to a person who rejected God’s will when he was older?

5. 5 First of all, Abraham, his father, was gone. He was no longer around to guide Isaac.

6. 6 Next, Isaac’s “affections were strong, and he was gentle and yielding in disposition. If united with one [in marriage] who did not fear God, he would be in danger of sacrificing principle for the sake of harmony.” (PP 171)

7. 7 For a person who is gentle and yielding, it is easy to want to get along and because of this, he or she will often compromise. Especially in a battle that is hard- pressed is it easy to give in, and in the battle with sin, it is always easier to yield to temptation than to do what is right.

8. 8 So, Isaac was gentle and and yielding, and when Satan suggested to him that Esau should receive the birthright blessing, it was easy to yield to this because he wanted it in the first place, regardless of what God had revealed to Rebekah, and because he really loved Esau more than Jacob. His disposition was not strong and determined, and he yielded to Satan.

9. 9 It is always easier to sin than to do what is right, and we would always sin if it were not for the enmity that was promised in Genesis 3:15.

10. 10 John Huss knew this. It was only because God loved him and he loved God that Huss could be faithful to God.

11. 11 Eleven teeth fell out, slept on damp, moldly straw, dirty, long fingernails, clothes rotted.

12. 12 Isaac sent Jacob away because Esau was so angry that he sought to kill Jacob. Isaac sent him to his mother’s relatives in Haran, specifically to her brother, Laban.

13. 13 What kind of attitude did Esau have about this? Genesis 28:8, 9

14. 14 The evening of the second day found him far away from his father’s tents. He was lonely, an outcast, and full of despair, afraid even to pray, but he did.

15. 15 He confessed his wrong and begged for some evidence that God had not forsaken him, but he found no relief. Wearied, he finally laid down.

16. 16 He awoke from his sleep in the deep stillness of the night, and he had a solemn sense that God was with him.

17. 17 hansschnier/flickr

18. 18 The ladder represented Jesus. He bridged the gulf that sin had made.

19. 19 Jacob had chosen the inheritance of faith. He had endeavored to obtain it by craft, treachery, and falsehood; but God had permitted his sin to work out its correction. (PP 208)

20. 20 Yet through all the bitter experience of his later years, Jacob had never swerved from his purpose or renounced his choice. He had learned that in resorting to human skill and craft to secure the blessing, he had been warring against God....

21. 21 He had learned the lesson of simple reliance upon the Almighty Arm, and amid trial and affliction he bowed in humble submission to the will of God. The baser elements of character were consumed in the furnace fire, the true gold was refined, until the faith of Abraham and Isaac appeared undimmed in Jacob. {PP 208.2}

22. 22 What was Jacob’s response to this dream?

23. 23 Jacob went on to Haran, 500 miles, and met Rachel at a well.

24. 24 The speckled and spotted cattle versus the brown cattle.

25. 25 Jacob leaves.