HOW TWO BOYS GREW UP
J. Lovie
I have read from this section because it deals with two boys who were growing up, two boys born into the same family. They had the same father, they had the same mother, and they were twins. Esau was the elder, and it says that the boys grew. The parents would see their growth—they grew physically, but what I would like to speak of tonight is as to whether there is any growth proceeding in love for Christ. It is evident, as the record shows, that one of these boys despised what was really his, the birthright. The New Testament shows us that he became profane. It is very sad in a family when the elder one, who should give a right influence to those coming after, seeks to go off into the world.
I want to speak specially to you dear young people here tonight, because you are growing.
There are a good number of boys in this room and you have been born under the influence of godly parents, fathers and mothers who love Christ and love the glad tidings, love the things of God, and love the people of God. You have been born into that atmosphere and environment. You are accustomed to hear the Scriptures being read; you are accustomed to be in the presence of prayer when your father kneels down and prays; you are accustomed to your food being given thanks for every time you sit round the table. All that is bringing God into your life, the One with whom you, yourself, must have to do. Every one of you here must
have to do with God. And God is being brought into your life through the environment into which you have
been privileged to be born. That is a wonderful favour. Thank God if you have come under the influence of godly parents who love Christ and the things of Christ. They are wanting to bring you up, not for man’s world, which is soon to come down anyway, but for God’s world.
What a fine thing that is that there should be those concerned about you as to how you are going to grow in relation to being available for God’s world.
What you find in this poor world around us is that man is his own object, and this is man’s day; it is a little day, and all that man has built up in the great cities of the world is soon to come down. But God is carrying through His thoughts in smallness. He is carrying them through despite all that the enemy is doing in seeking to ensnare youth by what the world offers. Moses was a remarkable young man. He was brought up as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, and Pharaoh was the king of Egypt. He was brought up as a prince in the court of Pharaoh. There came a time when Moses made a decision. Then he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt. I am specially speaking to you young boys here in this meeting tonight because there are many of you, and that is not by chance, and the fact is that you are growing, and God is drawing near to you that you might give Christ a place in your heart.
In this scripture it says, “The boys grew, and Esau became a man skilled in hunting, a man of the field”; that is, his outlook was toward this poor world with all its sport and entertainment, calculated to allure men and women and boys and girls. Then it says that Jacob was “a homely man, dwelling in tents.” That is, he was a simple man, dwelling in tents. The tent is a provisional thought. A tent is pitched for the night and taken down, and then pitched for another night. It involves this provisional time in wilderness life, and the wilderness journey. That is, we are not sending down our roots in this world that has given Christ a cross. In whatever way we have to touch this world we touch it as of necessity. We give God thanks for everything He gives us in His goodness, and find all that can be available in view, of His interests here. So Jacob was a homely man dwelling in tents.
Isaac loved Esau because venison was to his taste, and Rebecca loved Jacob. That is, Rebecca loved what God loved. God does not say that until you come to the last book of the Old Testament, when He says, “I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau”, Malachi 1: 3. God waits until the responsible history is finished until He says that. God, then, is giving you an opportunity.
We are all under trial and test from this viewpoint. There was a remarkable young man who was given a very distinguished place in Israel’s history; that was Saul, a man who naturally was attractive, head and shoulders above other men. God put him under trial and test. You get circumstance after circumstance when God is putting everything in his way favourably to see how he will answer to the test. Alas, Saul made shipwreck, and you find him dead, slain among the enemies of God’s people on mount Gilboa.
The time comes when you have to make a decision. You may be at the point of decision for Christ, and God is appealing to you tonight. He would ask you whether you have given your heart to the Saviour. You cannot be too young to do that. Samuel was a young boy when he gave his heart to God, when he listened to God speaking to him and answered, “Speak, Jehovah, for thy servant heareth”, 1
Samuel 3: 9. So maybe God is drawing right alongside you tonight and saying, “Samuel, Samuel”; He is, maybe, bringing you to the point of publicly confessing the name of Jesus.
Maybe, if I were to ask you personally you would tell me that you love the Lord Jesus. Is He not worth loving? You may tell me that you love Him, but have you reached the point in your history when you are prepared to confess His Name, to tell people that He is your Saviour, that He is your Lord?
It is a vital matter that you should establish, as early in life as possible, contact with the precious Saviour of sinners, who died on the cross at Calvary, shed His blood, and suffered in the sinner’s stead, the Lamb of God, the taker-away of the sin of the world. Very soon the Lord is going to remove from this world the effects of sin. He has put away sin by being made the thing itself, for He was made sin. He has taken it away sacrificially and has removed sin from before the eye of God. And very soon He is going to remove the effects of sin from this poor world.
So, as I said, these two boys come under the same instruction. It is a very sad thing when you find that, in a family, you get the same care, the same affection, the same teaching, the same influence, and some may decide to give up the birthright, that is, they seek to go into the world that has given Christ a cross. Sometimes you wonder why it is. Maybe it is to bring out divine feelings. God, through Isaiah, says, “I have nourished and brought up children; and they have rebelled against me”, Isaiah 1: 2. Those are the feelings of a father. It would bring out depth of feeling in persons who think for God, who feel like God, as to what God feels. How He felt Israel’s going away; how He feels about you if you are seeking this way, if your outlook is in relation to the world that gave my Saviour a cross.
So Jacob wants the blessing. I think that is wonderful! Is your heart such tonight that you are concerned that you get it, that you are determined to get the blessing? Peter at Jesus’ knees said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord”, and yet at Jesus’ knees he is going to get the blessing.
It is then, the history shows, that God deals with Jacob. He deals with him personally. Esau goes on his way and becomes an opposer. He becomes a profane person. Alas, there are many like that. But let it be that in your case you are answering to the opportunity that has been put within your reach in that you are opening your heart’s door and giving room to the Saviour.
Maybe, as I speak, the Lord is speaking to some of you young boys here. You are growing, and as you are growing physically it may be that the work of God is growing too, and
developing, and you are opening your heart and giving more place to Christ. And maybe tomorrow as you go out to school you will tell your companions that Jesus is your Saviour, and is your Lord, and as you confess His name you will find that that is a tower of strength.
That is present salvation. Not only are you then assured of salvation for eternity, a place with Christ in heavenly glory for all eternity, but you will know the blessedness of present salvation in a world of evil, where sin is so rife and rampant, a world out of which Christ has gone judicially.
The Lord Jesus in John’s gospel left this world judicially; He went out of it, as that gospel shows, having a judgment of everything that was in it. Therefore this world is already judged. Soon the execution will take place, and how terrible it will be for the persons who have not given their hearts to the Saviour. But you, who have had such advantage, I say to you, do not break down the hedge that, in divine care, God has placed around you through the influence of parental affection and the teaching of the Scriptures in your home. God has put you in that environment so that you might be blessed, so that you might early come to the Saviour for yourself, that you might not break down the hedge, because if you break down the hedge the serpent will bite, Ecclesiastes 10: 8. Oh, do not pull away the shoulder as they did when the prophet spoke, Zechariah 7: 11(A.V). It says they pulled away the shoulder, like a deliberate turning away from the influence of divine grace through God’s messengers.
Let it be that the word is coming into your heart and you are making resolves, it may be for the first time, that you are going to live your life for Jesus. You learn that little song—
I want to live for Jesus every day,
I want to live for Jesus come what may,
Take the world with all its pleasure,
I’ve a more enduring treasure,
I want to live for Jesus every day.
You young people, learn that, learn to sing it every day, and as you grow you will find that you are growing, too, and making room for Jesus in your heart.
I leave this appeal, because you are growing up; the time is so short; and if we remain here you will soon be up into your teenage years when you will be tested by what
this world has to offer. Let it be that in early days you learn to put your trust in the Saviour by faith. That is not only listening to your parents as they pray, but learning to speak to Jesus for yourself, and learning to speak to Him as knowing Him; not only to speak about Him, but to speak to Him as knowing Him.
We find these two histories go on. The one turns to the world; he becomes a profane person, Esau, the Edomite, the one who becomes violent; he pursued his brother with the sword, he cast off all pity; that is Edom, that is Esau. Jacob, on the other hand, comes through the
discipline of that life in his experience with God. He goes out a worshipper. What a wondrous triumph! As an old man who has come through years of discipline in the school of God and developed in the knowledge of God, he goes out a worshipper leaning on the top of his staff.
May the Lord grant that some impression may be left in some of the young minds in this company that the time is now, when you are growing, that you should grow in making more room for the Saviour in your heart, and find the enjoyment, the happiness, the peace, the confiding restfulness, that a link with Jesus would bring into your soul.
Preaching at Sandwell (Birmingham)
11 November 1973