The Things of Esau

“How are the things of Esau searched out!
how are his hidden things sought up!”
Obadiah 1:6
(Read the whole chapter)

Esau was a religious man yet a profane man. He sold his birthright for a mess of pottage in a moment of perceived need. He was a man who relied greatly on his own strength. He was an earthly man; he walked in the things of this world and loved the things of this world. Esau was a picture of a man who looks good and speaks with the language of the redeemed but walks in the ways of the world.

“If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes,
and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
And the world passes away, and the lust thereof:
but he that doeth the will of God abides for ever.”
1 John 2:15-17

Esau was a self-righteousness man; he looked upon the calamity of others with callousness and pride. He distanced himself from the afflictions of his brother. In his pride he said, “Who shall bring me down to the ground?” When Jacob was being carried away into captivity Esau was unmoved.

“For thy violence against thy brother Jacob
shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off forever.”
Obadiah 1:10

God considered Esau’s indifference to Jacob’s trouble an act of violence and His recompense was severe. We see throughout the history of God’s people that indifference and complacency brought great injury and judgement to His House. It was the Levite and the Priest who passed by the beaten man; it was the Pharisee who looked at the woman who wept at Jesus’ feet with contempt; it was the Pharisee who prayed thanking God that “he was not like other men”.

The indifference of our hearts to the needs of others who have fallen, been beaten and are suffering will result in us missing the blessings of our God. We reveal our hearts by what we do.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”
Matthew 5:7

For the believer the way to receive is to give. The way to live a life filled with His Blessing is to give of what we have to those around us. The loaves and fishes from a child can feed the multitudes. A word of hope to one that is struggling or an act of kindness to a stranger should be the daily outflow of a life lived in Him.

“And there are also many other things which Jesus did,
the which,if they should be written every one,
I suppose that even the world itself
could not contain the books that should be written.
Amen.”
John 21:25

Jesus’ life here on earth was active; He was constantly about His Father’s business. His life was neither passive nor uneventful. Neither should our life be one of faithless inactivity. Let us provoke one another unto love and good works.

Ω

“Faith, like light, should always be simple and unbending;
while love, like warmth, should beam forth
on every side and bend to every necessity of our brethren.”
Martin Luther (1483–1546)

Brian Troxel
www.aword.info