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The Coming Increase of Christ in His House
God has a strategy for filling the Earth with His glory. To understand His approach, it is essential that we spend time with Him and discover in His Word the way forward from where we are. While many have seemingly good ideas concerning the road to take, the truth is that we need to hear clearly from Him.
One obvious ingredient in the Lord’s eternal plan is that He chooses people. While it is true that He shows no partiality or favoritism (Acts 10:34), it is also true that He makes strategic choices among us for tasks to be done in His name. Such is His prerogative and His right.
When God determined that Esau would serve Jacob, He was not predetermining who would ultimately go to Heaven and who would not. Rather, His focus was on a task to be accomplished, a job to be done on Earth. The older would serve the younger. Clearly, Esau’s service would not take place in the afterlife from hell, but on Earth while they both lived.
Nothing would deter the Lord from His plan and priorities. The Scripture says that He loved Jacob and hated Esau. What does this statement mean? Jesus used the same word hate when describing how His disciples were to love Him more than their own families (Luke 14:26, Matthew 10:37). As much as those closest to us may try to deter us from following Him, Christ must be our first choice. We must choose Him above all that is dear to us. At the same time, the New Testament clearly directs us not to hate our families but to love them (1 Timothy 5:8).
So how does this work? In some parts of the world today when a young man decides to follow the Lord, his relatives may try everything they know to change his mind. Those observing may even speak about how this son hates his family. “Look how he disregards the counsel of his parents.” But the son, though misunderstood by all, has eternal life and now carries the hope for his family’s eternal destiny. Even if his loved ones are so offended that they kill him, the way he dies will carry the seeds of Holy Spirit conviction to hopefully turn their hearts toward Him.
So also, God loves the whole world, even though there are many like Esau in it (John 3:16). We must never doubt this truth. Yet nothing will dissuade Him from His chosen strategy for filling the Earth with His glory. He will continue to choose and to call men and women to himself for the sake of those around them.
Today God continues to make choices among people that through His chosen vessels He might make known His love for all. While it might seem that God loves some and hates others, such “hatred” is not an emotional revulsion coupled with rejection. Rather, it is a reflection of His priority to make known in His own way and in His own time His love for the nations.
What am I saying? Jesus prayed not for the world but for those who would believe on Him, “I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours” (John 17:9). Was He rejecting the world? No, He came that the world through Him might be saved. Rather, He was focused on Heaven’s strategy. God had chosen some men out from the world. Then as these disciples became one, the world would be able to believe.
God also made a choice among nations. Even though He so loved the world and sent His Son to die for humanity’s sins, He did not send Him to every country but to Israel. Then because Jesus was faithful there in His sphere of service, the ultimate result would be that many among the nations would glorify God for His mercy (Romans 15:8-9).
In Romans, Chapter 9, Paul is not teaching God’s predetermined eternal rejection of Esau. Rather, He is teaching God’s eternal calling of Jacob. Through the younger brother He intended to establish His purpose among men. Though He loved Esau, His strategy of choosing Jacob would be seen as hatred toward the older twin. Nevertheless, no matter what men said or thought, He would never be deterred from His plan of bringing forth the Savior of the world through the line of Jacob. As a result of His dealings with Jacob, Esau could then experience God in a new way.
Think about the tension between the two brothers. When Jacob deceived his father and stole the patriarchal blessing due his brother, he had to flee for his life because Esau wanted to kill him. But some years later, God required Jacob to go back and face the music. Then when he heard that Esau was coming to meet him with 400 men, he began to fear for his life (Genesis 32, 33).
But no matter what Jacob tried, sending presents, referring to himself as Esau’s servant, etc., his brother kept coming. Finally, Jacob was left alone and he wrestled with God. After struggling all night, he cried out for the Lord to bless him. It was at this point that God changed Jacob’s name to Israel and bestowed the blessing. But what blessing did the Lord grant? The answer seems to be that God arose and moved upon Esau’s heart and changed something deep inside of him. Then when Esau saw his younger brother, he ran, fell on his neck, kissed him and they wept. The feelings of rejection and the desire for murder had been removed.
Someone recently suggested that the name for the Jewish nation in today’s Middle East should be Jacob instead of Israel. While being facetious, his point is well taken. Today Jacob exists as a nation because God has called him back to the land of promise. There the Lord and His estranged servant are headed toward a great confrontation, a wrestling match, if you will. Meanwhile, the nation is full of self-strength and is surrounded by the descendants of Esau. Even though many politicians and national leaders have tried to bring peace to the Middle East, none have succeeded. But there is coming a day when Jacob will again find himself standing alone having run out of ideas on how to survive.
It is at such times of danger and seeming isolation that people often cry out to God for help. It will be no different this time. The Lord will hear Jacob’s cry, change his heart and bring him into relationship with himself through Israel’s destined Messiah Jesus. One part of the great heavenly blessing to come upon Israel will be that the Lord will arise to bring an amazing change of heart upon Esau. Deep repentance and reconciliation will occur between these descendants of Abraham and the world will marvel. Breathtaking change is yet to come upon the Muslim nations of the Middle East because of God’s great love and dealings with Israel (Isaiah 19).
To be clear, the Lord makes choices among the inhabitants of the Earth but not because some are more deserving than others. There simply is no room for pride or elitism. Our God loves the whole world. And He intends to fill the planet with His glory before this age ends. But He will not be talked out of His strategy.
Let us draw near to Him and discover His heart for the ones He sends us to. The consequences of our obedience to Him will amaze us and change the Earth. While millions might seem to be hated and rejected by the Lord, the overflow of grace from the obedient response of God’s people will reveal a heavenly strategy that always had the whole Earth in view.
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