I think I understand the hesitancy in going to the Space Center. It's because Senator Glenn, an older person, was sent into space just recently, and I'm certain you're afraid you're going to be the next volunteer. Now, I think it's a particularly good idea to send some of our senators into space. Maybe some in the executive branch as well. What do you think? I'm particularly happy that my good friend Joe Cumming was asked to open our service in prayer. Joe served as vice president at the college for a number of years, probably the most meaningful years in the history of the college as to future directions. It was Joe's idea that we open up an elementary ed program. and we presently have graduated four years worth of students teaching around the world in elementary education both in public schools and mission schools and private christian schools and there's seventy students in that stream of l ed presently in the college state certified by the state of iowa and received broadly throughout the country and it was a wonderful idea meant a lot of work for a lot of us but a wonderful idea. And Joe and Marion contributed greatly to the ongoing ministry of the college during their voluntary service after retiring from Rockwell organization to come and help us out. And beyond that, they have become very good and godly friends. We appreciate that very much. God's people are good, aren't they? Really are. You've all received a handout. I'd just like to look at some of that. This morning was a message type message. We'll teach a little bit from here on in and exhort and encourage as well, I hope. The first page, page one, is a breakdown of the life of Jacob. It revolves around some of the crises in his life, and I've entitled it or subtitled it Life with Rebecca, his mom. Life with Laban, that was some trickery. Life with Esau, watch out. Life with the twelve, what an embarrassment. Life with Joseph. And then finally his patriarchal prophecy, life in the future. On page two you have a detailed outline of that same thing. And we will look at a number of these events. You can use this for your own personal studies as you can glean many lessons from These passages in the book of Genesis concerning the life of Jacob. This is a chronological listing of his events with the references of Scripture next to those, and we will select certain events throughout as we look at it throughout the week. And those are particularly outlined on page three. We'll look at Roman numeral one, the birth of Jacob this evening, and some of these other lessons subsequently. You turn in your Bibles then to that section that deals with the birth of Jacob in Genesis chapter twenty-five and we'll read just a brief portion and then see something of the great importance of this passage. Isaac, like his father Abraham, needed the miraculous intervention of God. if God was going to fulfill the promises that he had made in bringing forth the Messiah from that promise line. Verse twenty of Genesis twenty-five, Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebecca as wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Paden, Aram the sister of Laban the Syrian. Now Isaac pleaded with the Lord for his wife because she was barren. And the Lord granted his plea, and Rebecca, his wife, conceived. But the children struggled together within her, and she says, If all is well, why am I like this? So she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said to her, Two nations are in your womb. Two peoples shall be separated from your body. One people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger. So when her days were fulfilled for her to give birth, indeed there were twins in her womb. And the first came out red. He was like a hairy garment all over. So they called his name Esau. Afterward his brother came out, and his hand took hold of Esau's heel. So his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them. Forty years old when married, sixty years old when the children were born. Again a product of God's intervention. The birth of these two boys was a miracle of God. And God had specific plans in view that he prophesied concerning the coming of these two boys into the world. He had a plan in mind, a plan that was originated in eternity past. There's an amazing statement in the book of Titus I'd invite you to turn to this. Only recently has the force of this struck me. And in Titus chapter one, we read this. Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledgement of the truth which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God who cannot lie promised before time began, but has in due time manifested his word through preaching, which was committed to me according to the commandment of God our Savior. The phrase that occurs over and over again in the book of Titus is the concept of the Savior God, God our Savior. And in verse two we read that the God who cannot lie promised before time began. I want to ask you a question. To whom did He make the promise? It was made before time began. When there was only God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, within the councils of the triune God, A great covenant was made between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the God who cannot lie. A promise was made. And that promise related to our salvation. I hope that's exciting to you. Before there was anything but God, God planned. for you and me. He entered into eternal covenant, the God who cannot lie. He made promise. And in time in history, as Titus tells us, it was manifested to us through special revelation, through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ to each one of us. Let's think about that plan a little bit. God had innumerable options of plans he could execute. Is that correct? Could have planned in any number of ways. Here are all the choices. It could have been Mars, the inhabited planet, instead of Earth. It could have been, it could have been. There were so many options, multiplied millions of options. when you think of the detail of the revealed plan. Because God is God and He is holy and omnipotent and omniscient and righteous, that plan must be the best plan. Must be. God could not choose other. than the best plan, else he would be less than the perfect God. And that plan includes all that we understand and many things that we do not understand as to how he carries out that one only best plan. That one only best plan involved In addition to the creation of the heavens and earth, the creation of the angelic world, the creation of human life involved a great mystery of the incarnation, that second member of the Godhead. That one foreordained to bear our sins in His body on the tree. It included that great mystery. It includes the great care that God evidences in the lives of each one of us. We should not have the picture of a distant God who spun that plan out, and now it's carrying it out by its own force and momentum. No, he's involved in the smallest details of our lives. Listen to his son speak in the Sermon on the Mount. as a bird flies by. And he says, do you see the sparrow? That sparrow does not fall to the ground apart from your heavenly Father. And you are of more value than sparrows. God attends the funerals of sparrows. He is intimately involved Do you see this day lily that is here today and gone tomorrow? Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as like one of these and are not you more valuable than flowers. So don't be anxious about what you shall wear, what you shall eat, or about tomorrow. For your heavenly Father cares for you in detail. The plan is a detailed plan. It goes Roman numeral one, capital A, number one, lowercase A, one in parenthesis, A in parenthesis, all the way down until we can't imagine the detail of God's plan. It involves you and me, and we'll talk about this later. We are His workmanship. Created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which is before Dane, that we should walk in them. The choir singing tonight was part of his plan, wasn't it? The hymns that are... Oh, do we get a hold of the greatness of our God and the detail of the plan? As we look back on our own lives, from the vantage point of a few years, we see the plan of God working out in its detail. So much more easily seen from spiritual and adult maturity than from the group that I teach most of the time, eighteen-year-olds. Have you seen the hand of God in your life? little testimony concerning my wife. Can I do this? Melzi was the last of seven children with a twelve-year gap between her and the next. She was a surprise. Been surprising a lot of people ever since. father died when she was eight her mother died when she was six reverse of that six and eight an unsafe family her older sister was coming home as her mother was on her deathbed coming home from philadelphia where she had just been divorced by the medical doctor that she had put through medical school immediately upon him getting his degree. Some unknown person handed her a track as she got on the train. And on the way home, she was saved. She went to the church that she had normally gone to in Baltimore. and it didn't match up with what she had read in that track, so she walked the streets of Baltimore looking for a church that preached the gospel. And came across a little chapel and went in and my father greeted her. As mother died and Melzi's future was to be determined, They asked her who she'd like to live with. And she said, Jean, the only Christian in the family. And subsequently, Mel and I were in the same Sunday school class growing up in that little chapel. I didn't notice her. She didn't notice me. Because when you're little boys and girls, you don't notice. But there came a day. We noticed. Part of the plan, a little track. We don't even know who that person was. And yet through my good wife and her good sister, hundreds of young people have been touched by the hand of God. And do you know what? We could go across the rows and see the plan of God just like that in enormous detail. Do you see it? Do you see it in your own life? So miraculous. God is involved with us from the very good girl. He had some wonderful plans. And he had that plan focused on this one young man, particularly this little boy that was born Jacob. because through Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Judah would come our great Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. A detailed plan. This little story becomes a dominating story of the Bible. Here it is early in the book of Genesis. The prophetic statement that the Lord said to her, If you're looking at page five of the notes, two nations are in your womb as we've read. Two people shall be separated from your body. One people shall be stronger than the other. And the older shall serve the younger. That's at the very beginning of the Old Testament. In the book of Malachi, there is that great debate that God has with his people, Israel. And these questions surfaced. And God says in Malachi the last of the books before those four hundred years of silence, I have loved you, says the Lord. And Israel says, In one way have you loved us. And God says, Was not Esau Jacob's brother, says the Lord. Yet Jacob, I have loved. The next statement is very hard to say, isn't it? And Esau, I have hated. All of a sudden, we want to start apologizing for the language God used to describe himself, don't we? Well, God, that doesn't sound like you. It is a relative thing, obviously. Jesus will say, unless you love me and hate brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers. You cannot follow me. He's not telling us to hate. But he is saying the affection that you have to have for me should be so significant and so wholehearted that relatively it would make everything else look like hatred. And the way God treated Jacob in showering the nation of Israel with blessing as opposed to the way he treated Esau seems to be that. Because of Jacob and to the Jews are all the covenants and the promises and the seed and all that special revelation and care and protection and eternal promise made to the saved Israelites. And it makes his relationship to Esau pale into insignificance. In a way he is blessed. Jacob, have I loved the Old Testament, he says to his ancient people, is a history of me showering love and love and love upon the children of Israel. Jacob, have I loved? Esau, have I hated. If you turn the page to page six, you have the third reference in the Bible or the second reference, the third citation of this historical event. And we find it in, I think, the most difficult chapter in all the Bible, Romans chapter nine, a much debated chapter. And in that chapter, he refers to this. Here Paul say in Romans nine, and not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one man, even by our father Isaac, for the children not yet being born, not having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls it, was said to her, the elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, and he jumps over to Malachi, Jacob I have loved, but Esau have I hated. And we say, that doesn't sound like God. And Paul says, what shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not. And the verse goes on to say, I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy. And I will harden whom I will harden. That's a difficult verse. We understand that. I want to emphasize the positive side of that. I would be glad to talk to anyone on the limiting and negative side of that privately. But I would like to emphasize the concept, this great concept that God introduces here. I will have mercy. Are you glad for that? I want us to think about that a little bit. Just last week I was teaching the freshman class, hundred-ten of them sitting out there. It's that exciting. Hundred-ten young people in the freshman class studying the Word of God. We're going through Survey of Doctrine. One of my favorite classes. All my classes are my favorite classes. Life of Christ, Hebrews, Survey of Doctrine. How can you miss? Wonderful subjects. I enjoy doing that. We're teaching them the attributes of God. One of the attributes of God is that He is free. God is free. That means He functions according to the perfect harmony of His attributes. And He is not restricted. He is restricted only by His perfection. He is free. God acts independently of anyone else. We understand that, don't we? God does not need us. We need God. God is free. He is not obligated to do anything. for anyone there is a striking verse in Hebrews chapter two where the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ is being spoken to and that great concept that one day he would be the man to take Adam's place as king of the earth one day he would rule over everything supreme One day there will be a great millennium when our Lord, not the one we're talking about every day in the news, but that great millennium when our Lord comes and reigns on this earth. And in comparing or contrasting that with angels, it says he did not say to angels, give angels rule over the coming age, but he did. to this man, the Lord Jesus Christ. We see Jesus, his human name. He will reign as the perfect man, the God man, in that coming day. And tucked away in that great passage is this. God did not take hold to help angels. But he took hold to help the sons of Abraham. By sons of Abraham, he means people of faith, each one of us as well. He did not take hold to help angels. There is a host of fallen angels, Lucifer, now Satan, all the demonic hosts who fell in rebellion against God, And God did not take hold to help any one of them, did He? We as a race represented by Adam, perpetuated by our own sins, rebelled against God in the same way the angels did. But God took hold to help us. Are you glad for that? I will have mercy. Didn't say that to angels. No mercy for fallen angels. No John three sixteen for fallen angels. Holy, holy, holy is what the angels sing. And I expect to help them make the courts of heaven rain. But when I sing, Redemption story. Angels fold their wings. For angels never had the joy that my salvation brings. God is free. God is complete. My wife and I chatted with a lonely lady today on the deck outside the dining hall. Some of you have sensed loneliness, have you? I don't like to come home to an empty house. Loneliness is rugged. I'll go talk to the dog. Turn on the radio. Put a record on. I guess we don't do records anymore. CDs. Okay. Kids don't even know what a phonograph is. Victrola. That's a good word, isn't it? Tough to be alone. We understand that. That's why friendship, hospitality, friends that can support us are so important to us. God was never alone. A philosopher Christian philosopher said this, if there is a God, there must be a Trinity. There must be Father, Son, Holy Spirit. If there were only Father alone, even in the Godhead, well, one would be enough. Father and Son, one more. Now, full relationship comes when two persons can focus together on a third person. That's why children are so important in marriage philosophically, because husband and wife love one another more as they together love their offspring. A fullness of expression, a fullness of communion argues for a Trinity God. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. We believe in one only in true God. But in the unity of the Godhead, there are three persons, the same in essence, sharing equally all the attributes of Godhead, but distinct in subsistence, being God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. God was never alone. He didn't need us for communion. He didn't need us for meaning to His existence. There was no boredom in heaven as the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent members of the Godhead for eternity passed had perfect harmony and love relating to one another. God is free, not obliged to save us. God is complete. He does not have need of us. In Him we live and move and have our being. God has rights to I'm amused at people who argue for animal rights. I watched a little clip of a nature thing this afternoon on the television. They're very informative. But there was this one cow-like animal in the heat of the day who wanted to get into this cool, warm, cooling mud where there's some water. Have you seen this one? And he gets in shape, gets into the mud. and can't get out. It became her grave as the other animals came and gnawed her to death. That's when we turned it off. I like happy animal stories, like Lassie come home. Animal writes, could you see them all picketing? You shouldn't be eating this animal? You have to have a code of ethics to have rights. God has rights. One of God's rights is this. God is sovereign. By the very nature of being God, He rules over all supreme. If He doesn't, we're all in trouble. And God can say, I will not take hold to help angels. I will take hold to help fallen man. And He can say more detailed things than that, pursuing that same line of reasoning. I will have mercy. And upon each one of us, in this room, not out of obligation, not out of loneliness, but out of His great grace. God has reached out in mercy for us. And as Paul echoes that in Ephesians one, he keeps saying this to the praise. Do you know the rest of the glory of his grace? For by grace are we saved through faith. And that's not even of yourselves. It's a gift of God. Not of work. lest any man should boast. I will have mercy. And we rejoice that we have each one of us, by the great grace of God, had that mercy extended to us. Notice it is God who reached out to Jacob. Salvation is of the Lord. It is God who reaches out to us. Because Scripture is clear, we do not reach out to Him. Do we? Hear it? There is none that seeketh God. No, not one. There are none good. No, not one. The Apostle Paul will say to the Galatians, when you found God, were known of God, when you came, let me start, when you came to know God, or rather when God knew you. Right in the beginning of the life of Jacob, We see God's eternal plan working out as that supplanter reaches out and grabs the heel of his brother. An inauspicious start, showing some of the roughness by instinct in this Jacob. But this Jacob was the one who received the mercy of God. and we will see because of God's working in his life Jacob conclude his life by being that great worshiper of God what strong theology what theology that escapes some of those lines of reasoning that we would like to be able to put together and have a neat package but God says to Jacob I will have mercy. And he said to each one of us, praise God, I will have mercy. When David was made king, in his great prayer, he says, Who am I and who is my people that I should be so blessed? You ever had that? concept of worship to God. Why me? While others make a wretched choice and rather starved and come. God's great grace. He gave somebody a track. And salvation visited us in the coming of our Savior. I will have mercy. Jacob, I will have mercy. Let's see what I'm going to make of you. A worshiper of the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Let's pray together. Oh, our great God, our gracious Savior God, we stand in awe and amazement. that you took hold to help. You took hold to help us out of your freedom, out of your completeness, out of your grace. And we praise the glory of your grace, even this hour.