October 16, 2008
Day Five of Week Five
Destructive Consolations
Today's Treasure: Genesis 27: 42
"Your brother Esau is consoling himself with the thought of killing you"
Please read Genesis 27: 41 – 46 and complete the following exercise
On day 3 we witnessed a heart broken Esau, weeping "aloud" over his forfeited blessing. List the evolution of Esau's emotions fro m the grief he demonstrated in verse 38 to the unchecked feelings and the resulting plans that followed:
-He became full of a desire for revenge and married women that his parents did not approve of
-He was angry with Jacob after being betrayed by him and planned to kill him
-He was betrayed by Jacob and his mother and lost his blessing from Isaac
-He was bitter and despised his birthright when Jacob tricked him out of it
-He sold his birthright without a thought of what it meant
Read verse 42 carefully. How can thinking vengeful thoughts towards people who hurt us be a means of consoling ourselves?
Thinking of a way to take anger out on someone else makes us feel better for a time; however, we become so consumed with the anger that it takes a bigger toll on us than the person we are angry with.
Read Zechariah 3: 1. Circle the word you can assume is the masculine noun, and put a triangle around the word you believe to be the coinciding verb.
"Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him"
I circled he and Satan
I put a triangle above showed and accused
If we diagram Esau's progression of emotion it would look like this:
Cried…………held a grudge………………premeditated murder……………consoled himself
;
We need to remember that not everyone premeditates murder as a way to console him/herself after being hurt or betrayed. I certainly have a tendency to feel sorry for Esau because he really never had a chance. Yes, he was his father's favorite child; however, he was betrayed by everyone he loved and left to fend for himself with no blessing to cover him. Yet, his choice in ways to deal with the matter was not good. Beth suggests that his need for killing to console himself was a sign of psychopathic personality. She points out that normal people do not murder. Everyone gets hurt and angry. They may insult others or even act unkindly, but they do not premeditate a murder. It is unchecked emotions that lead to this type of behavior.
According to verse 8:44, what is the evil father's stated desire?
Lying and killing in order to carry out the father's desires
When a person premeditates murder, they want to carry out the desires of Satan. Satan has been a murderer from the beginning. Beth points out that she is not implying that all murderers are demon-possessed or that they cannot repent and be saved. She is simply saying that the desire to murder is a desire to carry out the devil's wishes.
The hate-filled Pharisees that Christ called "children of the devil" considered themselves to be children of Abraham. How did Christ explain the evidence of true parenting from His point of view in John 8: 39 -41?
Your children are a reflection of you, doing as you do
Look at Hebrews 12: 14 – 17
What impact does Hebrews 12: 16 have on our understanding of Esau?
That he was sexually immoral and godless.
0A
Read Hebrews 12: 16 – 17 again and record the main idea
Your actions always have consequences
Esau missed the grace of God from his actions. Esau became committed to his own sense of entitlement and forfeited the grace that God had in store for him. The reason God offers this grace is to avoid bitterness in the challenges we face.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment