A. Sin Follows You

Jacob has broken up the family. He has deceived his father and cheated his brother. Now Esau wants to kill him and he must flee. So he travels to the far side of the fertile crescent. Yet when he gets there, his old sins are there waiting on him.

He uses and manipulates both Laban, his uncle and Leah his wife. His setting has changed, his position has changed but he has not changed.

In the words of Clint Black – wherever you go, there you are.

What sins are you trying to escape, and how far are you willing to go?

If you are a liar now, then a new job will not change that personality. Eventually you will lie again, and another job will eventually be ruined.

Are you like the majority of foolish romantics who think marriage will change them? If you live an utterly immoral life now, what makes you think a wedding vow will change that? I can line the men and women up who will tell you it won’t.

Jesus said everyone who commits a sin is a slave to sin. You cannot escape it by moving, something greater than sin must come and rescue from slavery.

B. Sin Affects Everyone Around You

Sinning is not throwing a rock into a quarry, where it bounces off a few things and settles. Sin is throwing a boulder in the ocean, it creates ripples for miles and miles.

Where does the sin in this story begin? Isaac favors Esau over Jacob. Esau becomes arrogant, strong willed and spoiled – he practices violence instead of self control. Ultimately threatening Jacob and forcing him to move.

Jacob grows up angry, feeling rejected he begins to use people and manipulate them to get what he wants. Ultimately he provokes Esau’s anger forcing him to flee for his life.

Jacob then gets manipulated by Laban, and is tricked into marrying Leah. Though he does not love her, he continues to use her and she has 6 sons. Those sons know that Jacob despises their mother and loves Rachel. Joseph, Rachel’s son grows up arrogant and pretentious because he is favored. Leah’s sons hate him for being the favorite, and the first chance they get bind him and sell him into slavery. They then lie to Jacob and tell him Joseph is dead.

Favoritism, deceit, selfishly using people instead of loving them, all of these sins visit Isaac’s family until the third generation. How does that apply to you?

Are you obsessed with your appearance, afraid to go out in public unless you look just right? Do you find yourself continually reprimanding your children for their appearance, or even comforting them with the words – You’re so pretty? Have you realized that you are passing your neurotic obsessions down to them yet?

Do your isolated sexual fantasies cause you to disdain the wife you actually have? Do you force her to get her identity from the children, who then grow up spoiled or overdisciplined?