Rebekah - The Anxious Matron

We come to our third sermon on the account in which Isaac unwittingly blesses his son Jacob with the blessing of the firstborn when he had intended to give this blessing to Esau instead. God had declared in an oracle that the Messiah would come through Jacob, but Isaac wanted it to go to Esau. Issac was ignoring the oracle and the unfitness of Esau to be the head of the home when he did not regard the special privilege of bringing forth the Messiah.
We saw that the ploy of Rebekah was successful in deceiving him so that he conferred on Jacob the blessing of the firstborn son all the while thinking it was Esau. Once Isaac realised what had happened, he repented of his sin in trying to redirect the blessing to Esau, and fully accepted that God had given the blessing to Jacob. The grace of God was still hard work in the old man, despite his folly, and he trusted in the Lord.
But this outcome in no way justified what Rebekah did! And it is to her part in this story that we turn our attention in this sermon as we consider how her part applies to us today as God’s people. We will consider what it is for us to be in difficult circumstances such as she was in; what we ought to do instead of taking matters into our own hands, as she did; and what the outcome is in either case.