as much more as the fish put into it. So all their learned arguments fell to the ground. So, when we are talking about election, the best thing is to say, “Put aside the doctrine for a moment, let us see what are the facts?” We walk abroad; we open our eyes; we see, there are the facts. What, then, is the use of our discussing any longer? We had better believe it, since it is an undeniable truth. You may alter an opinion, but you cannot alter a fact. You may change a mere doctrine, but you cannot possibly change a thing which actually exists. There it is — God does certainly deal with some men better than he does with others. I will not offer an apology for God; he can explain his own dealings; he needs no defence from me,
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain;
but there stands the fact. Before you begin to argue upon the doctrine, just remember, that whatever you may think about it, you cannot alter it; and however much you may object to it, it is actually true that God did love Jacob, and did not love Esau.
6. For now look at Jacob’s life and read his history; you are compelled to say that, from the first hour that he left his father’s house, even to the last, God loved him. Why, he has not gone far from his father’s house before he is weary, and he lies down with a stone for his pillow, and the hedges for his curtain, and the sky for his canopy; and he goes to sleep, and God comes and talks to him in his sleep; he sees a ladder, whose top reaches to heaven, and a company of angels ascending and descending upon it; and he goes on his journey to Laban. Laban tries to cheat him, and as often as Laban tries to wrong him, God does not permit it, but multiplies the different cattle that Laban gives to him. Afterwards, you remember, when he fled unawares from Laban, and was pursued, that God appears to Laban in a dream, and charges him not to speak to Jacob either good or bad. And more memorable still, when his sons Levi and Simeon have committed murder in Shechem, and Jacob is afraid that he will be overtaken and destroyed by the inhabitants who were rising against him, God puts a fear upon the people, and says to them, “Do not touch my anointed, and do no harm to my prophet.” And when a famine comes over the land, God has sent Joseph into Egypt, to provide grain in Goshen for his brothers, so that they would live and not die. And see the happy end of Jacob — “I shall see my son Joseph before I die.” Behold the tears streaming down his aged cheeks, as he clasps his own Joseph to his bosom! See how magnificently he goes into the presence of Pharaoh, and blesses him. It is said, “Jacob blessed Pharaoh.” He had God’s love so much in him, that he was free to bless the mightiest monarch of his times. At last he gave up the ghost, and it was said at once, “This was a man whom God loved.” There is the fact that God did love Jacob.
7. On the other hand, there is the fact that God did not love Esau. He permitted Esau to become the father of princes, but he has not blessed his descendents. Where is the house of Esau now? Edom has perished. She built her houses in the rock, and cut out her cities in the flinty rock; but God has abandoned its inhabitants, and Edom is not to be found. They became the bondslaves of Israel, and the kings of Edom had to furnish a yearly tribute of wool to Solomon and his successors; and now the name of Esau is erased from the book of history. Now, then, I must say, again, this ought to remove at least some of the bitterness of controversy, when we remember that this is the fact, let men say what they wish, that God did love Jacob, and he did not love Esau.
8. II. But now the second point of my subject is, WHY IS THIS? Why did God love Jacob? Why did he hate Esau? Now, I am not going to undertake too much at once. You say to me, “Why did God love Jacob? and why did he hate Esau?” We will take one question at a time; for the reason why some people get into a muddle in theology is, because they try to give an answer to two questions. Now, I shall not do that; I will tell you one thing at a time. I will tell you why God loved Jacob; and, then, I will tell you why he hated Esau. But I cannot give you the same reason for two contradictory things. That is the place where a great many have failed. They have sat down and seen these facts, that God loved Jacob and hated Esau, that God has an elect people, and that there are others who are not elect. If, then, they try to give the same reason for election and non-election, they make sad work of it. If they will pause and take one thing at a time, and look to God’s Word, they will not go wrong.
9. The first question is, why did God love Jacob? I am not at all puzzled to answer this, because when I turn to the Word of God, I read this text; — “Not for your sakes, do I do this says the Lord God, let be it known to you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways oh house of Israel.” I am not at a loss to tell you that it could not be for any good thing in Jacob, that God loved him, because I am told that “the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election might stand, not by works but by him who calls.” I can tell you the reason why God loved Jacob; it is sovereign grace. There was nothing in Jacob that could make God love him; there was everything about him, that might have made God hate him, as much as he did Esau, and a great deal more. But it was because God was infinitely gracious, that he loved Jacob, and because he was sovereign in his dispensation of this grace, that he chose Jacob for the object of that love. Now, I am not going to deal with Esau, until I have answered the question on the side of Jacob. I want you just to notice this, that Jacob was loved by God, simply on the footing of free grace. For, come now, let us look at Jacob’s character; I have already said in the exposition, what I think of him. I do think the very smallest things of Jacob’s character. As a natural man, he was always a bargain maker.
10. I was struck the other day with that vision that Jacob had at Bethel: it seemed to me a most extraordinary development of Jacob’s bargain making spirit. You know he lay down, and God was pleased to open the doors of heaven to him, so that he saw God sitting at the top of the ladder, and the angels ascending and descending upon it. What do you suppose he said as soon as he awoke? Well, he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I did not know it. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is nothing else except the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” Why, if Jacob had had faith, he would not have been afraid of God: on the contrary, he would have rejoiced that God had thus permitted him to hold fellowship with him. Now, hear Jacob’s bargain. God had simply said to him, “I am the Lord God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac: the land on which you lie, I will give it to you, and to your seed.” He did not say anything about what Jacob was to do: God only said, “I will do it,” — “Behold I am with you, and will keep you in all places wherever you go, and will bring you again into this land; for I will not leave you, until I have done what I have spoken concerning you.” Now, can you believe, that after God had spoken face to face with Jacob, that he would have had the impudence to try and make a bargain with God? But he did. He begins and says, “If” — There now, the man has had a vision, and an absolute promise from God, and yet he begins with an “If.” That is bargain making with a vengeance! “If God will be with me, and will keep me in the way that I go, and will give me food to eat, and clothes to wear, so that I come again to my Father’s house in peace, then” — not without — note, he is going to hold God to his bargain — “then shall the Lord be my God: and this stone which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that you shall give me I will surely give the tenth to you.” I marvel at this! If I did not know something about my own nature, I would be utterly unable to understand it. What! a man who has talked with God, then begin to make a bargain with him! who has seen the only way of access between heaven and earth, the ladder Christ Jesus, and has had a covenant made between himself and God, a covenant that is all on God’s part — all a promise — and yet wants after that to hold God to the bargain: as if he were afraid God would break his promise! Oh! this was vile indeed!
11. Then notice his whole life. While he lived with Laban, what miserable work it was. He had fallen into the hands of a man of the world; and whenever a covetous Christian gets into such company, a terrible scene ensues! There are the two together, greedy and grasping. If an angel could look down upon them, how would he weep to see the man of God fallen from his high place, and become as bad
