Thank you for directing your internet connection to this sermon audio page for Christ Orthodox Presbyterian Church. You can learn more about ChristOPC by visiting our website at www.christopcatl.org. ChristOPC meets for worship each Sunday at 11 a.m. and 5.30 p.m. Sermon text this evening comes from the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 36, verse one through chapter 37, verse one, and I will be reading it in its entirety. So hear now the holy, inspired, and error word of our God. These are the generations of Esau, that is, Edom. Esau took his wives from the Canaanites, Adah, the daughter of Elon the Hittite, Aholibamah, the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zibion the Hivite, and Basmoth, Ishmael's daughter, the sister of Nabioth. And Adam bore two Esau Eliphaz, and Basmoth bore Reuel, and Aholibamah bore Jaush, Jalam, and Korah. These are the sons of Esau who were born to him in the land of Canaan. Then Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, and all the members of his household, his livestock, and all of his beasts and all of his property that he had acquired in the land of Canaan, and he went into a land far away from his brother Jacob, for their possessions were too great for them to dwell together. The land of their sojourneys could not support them because of their livestock. So Esau settled in the hill country of Seir. Esau is Edom. These are the generations of Esau, the father of the Edomites in the hill country of Seir. These are the names of Esau's sons. Eliphaz, the son of Adah, the wife of Esau. Roel, the son of Basmoth, the wife of Esau. The sons of Eliphaz were Taman, Omar, Zepho, Gatham, and Canaz. Timnah was a concubine of Eliphaz, Esau's son, and she bore Amalek to Eliphaz. These are the sons of Adah, Esau's wife. These are the sons of Reuel, Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mitzchah. These are the sons of Basmath, Esau's wife. And these are the sons of Aholibamah, the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zibion, Esau's wife. She bore to Esau, Jeush, Jelam, and Korah. And these are the chiefs of the sons of Esau. The sons of Eliphaz, the firstborn of Esau, the chiefs, Teman, Omar, Zepho, Kenaz, Korah, Gatham, and Amalek. These are the chiefs of Eliphaz and the land of Edom. These are the sons of Adah. These are the sons of Roel, Esau's son. The chiefs Nahath, Zorah, Shammah, and Mitzrah. These are the chiefs of Roel and the land of Edom. These are the sons of Basmoth, Esau's wife. These are the sons of Aholibamah, Esau's wife. The chiefs, Jehus, Jelam, and Korah. These are the chiefs born of Aholibamah, the daughter of Anah, Esau's wife. These are the sons of Esau, that is Edom, and these are their chiefs. And these are the sons of Seir, the Horites, the inhabitants of the land. Lothan, Shobah, Zibion, Anah, Deshon, Ezer, and Deshon. These are the chiefs of the Horites, the sons of Seir in the land of Edom. The sons of Lotan were Hori and Hamam, and Lotan's sister was Timna. And these are the sons of Shobal, Alvan, Manahath, Ebal, Shefo, and Onan. And these are the sons of Zibion, Ayah and Anah. He is the Anah who found the hot springs in the wilderness as he pastured the donkeys of Zibion his father. And these are the children of Anah, Dishan and Aholibamah, the daughter of Anah. And these are the sons of Dishan, Himdan, Eshban, Ithran, and Keron. And these are the sons of Ezer, Bilhan, Zavan, and Akan. And these are the sons of Dishan, Uz, and Aran. And these are the chiefs of the Horites, the chiefs of Lotan, the chiefs, Lotan, Shobal, Zibion, Anna, Dishan, Ezer, Dishan. These are the chiefs of the Horites, chief by chief, in the land of Seir. And these are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the Israelites. Bela, the son of Beor, reigned in Edom, the name of his city being Denahaba. Bela died and Jobab, the son of Zerah of Bozrah, reigned in his place. And Jobab died, and Husham of the land of the Timanites reigned in his place. And Husham died, and Hadad, the son of Bedad, who defeated Midian in the country of Moab, reigned in his place, the name of his city being Avith. And Hadad died, and Samlah of Masqera reigned in his place. And Samlah died, and Sha'ul of Rehoboth on the river reigned in his place. And Sha'ul died, and Baal Hanan, the son of Akbor, reigned in his place. Ba'al Hanan, the son of Akhbor, died in Hadar, reigned in his place, the name of his seeding being Pa'u. His wife's name was Mehithabel, the daughter of Matre, daughter of Mechaz. These are the names of the chiefs of Esau according to their clans and their dwelling places. By their names, the chiefs Temna, Alva, Jehreth, Aholibama, Elha, Penon, Kenaz, Temnon, Mibzar, Magdiel, and Eram. These are the chiefs of Edom. That is Esau, the father of Edom, according to their dwelling places and the land of their possession. But Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojournings, in the land of Canaan. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever. Well, for a number of generations, Americans have been quite interested in our descent. It's probably because we're largely a country of immigrants, if you go back far enough. And kind of the idea of where you came from is really descriptive of who you are. The last 20 or so years have seen a resurgence in this desire with the advent of these websites that can help trace these things for you and DNA kits that can give you even more detailed analysis of the people groups from which you descend. And whenever we think through our genealogies and we go to these websites, probably the main question on our minds is that question, from whence have I come? Who are those who came before me? Am I 50% British and 25% French? Or these sorts of questions come up in our minds. And even if you do a family tree as maybe a school project or something like that to children, you what? You start with yourself, then you go to your parents and then your grandparents and your great-grandparents. And if you're super ambitious and want an A, you'll have your cousins and second cousins and so on and so forth as well. Well, long before America ever came into existence, the Bible was very concerned with genealogies as well. There are a good number of genealogies in the Bible, and Genesis 36 is just one of them. But the genealogies of the Old Testament tend to ask and answer a very different question from the one we tend to ask and answer. We often want to know from whence we come. But when reading the genealogies of especially the book of Genesis, they actually go the other way. See, the question of these genealogies is not so much where do we come from, but it's more about where are we going. In fact, if you noticed it, even as we were reading Genesis 36 a few moments ago, it doesn't begin with a great, great, great, great grandson of Esau and make its way back to him. It starts with Esau and it makes its way down on the generations. And the genealogies of the Old Testament are structured that way because they are forward-looking rather than retrospective. Now, that's not to say they don't answer the question, where do we come from? But it is to say that the main emphasis is on where these peoples are going. Well, Genesis 36 is part of answering that question. And the question that is answered in Genesis 36 is really, where is Esau going? Where is the twin brother of Jacob going to end up in terms of his descendantry, those who come from his line? And the answer that Genesis 36 gives us to this is that Esau is going to have a nation to come from him, the nation of Edom. And the nation of Edom we could describe as the twin nation of Israel who is going to stand with robust animosity against the people of God from generation to generation and generation afterwards. You see, Genesis 36, we could say, traces the non-elect line of people who stand outside the realm of promise with rulers, kings, that stand adamant in their opposition to the people of God. It's a genealogy that traces, we could say, the seed of the serpent from Genesis 3.15, rather than the seed of the woman. We'll see this in three parts this evening. First, we'll consider the non-elect line in verses one through five. Second, in how they are outside the promised land in verses six through eight. And then lastly, the chiefs and kings from the line of Esau in the rest of the chapter. Well, if you're reading Genesis 36, it's one of those passages that stand out as odd for more than one reason. Genealogies themselves are kind of hard reading for many of us here in the West. We can't pronounce the names anyway. And so we often just kind of skip it in our annual Bible reading plans. But on top of that particular difficulty is the additional one that here we read a bunch of people that have nothing to do with the line of salvation that climaxes in the person of Christ, who is born of the line of Abraham, the greater descendant of David. And so we look at Genesis 36 in particular and say, what on earth does this have to do with us? But what it has to do with you, brothers and sisters, is really to get into the reality that the book of Genesis is a book of genealogies. And as it's a book of genealogies, the theology of Genesis really is an exposition of the conflict from Genesis 3. We're in Genesis 3.15, as I was mentioning a short moment ago. Immediately after the fall, when Adam and Eve associated themselves with Satan rather than with the Lord, and they became friends of the devil rather than friends of God, the Lord proclaims the first utterance of the gospel with words of animosity, where he says to Eve, I will sow enmity, enmity between you, the serpent, and the woman, Eve. And that animosity, that enmity, extends beyond the individual to the peoples. Descendants, your children, your offspring, will have enmity against her offspring, peoples that come from their line and eventually a climactic conflict. He, the individual, shall bruise your heads and you shall strike his heel. Well, if you're reading through the book of Genesis, The second level of animosity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman is really the outline for the rest of the book, where all of the genealogies in the book of Genesis actually follow the pattern of the genealogy of the seed of the serpent followed by the genealogy of the seed of the woman. We find it first just after the fall in Genesis 4, where we have the narrative of Cain and Abel, how Cain, who is of his father the devil, as the Apostle John calls him in 1 John, murders his righteous brother Abel. And at the end of chapter 4, we have a genealogy of Cain. And the genealogy of Cain quickly turns to the genealogy of Seth in chapter 5. A righteous one whose line climaxes with Noah, the one delivered from the flood. We see the same thing in the table of nations in Genesis 10, where you have the non-elect lines of Japheth and Ham prior to the genealogy of the line of the name, the line of Shem, which goes to Abraham. And then you have it again in chapter 25, where you have the genealogy of Ishmael before you have the generations of Isaac. And then you have it again here in Genesis 36. where you have the genealogy of Esau before we get the generations of Jacob, which picks up in Genesis 37.2 and carries on through the end of Genesis chapter 50. But this poses, I think, a very important question. Why on earth Would the book of Genesis and Moses' composition of it be so concerned with giving us all of these names of non-elect peoples? I thought the Bible gave us the story of redemption. And so why in all of these occasions are we having examples of those who aren't saved rather than those who are saved? And I think the answer to that is that whenever Moses is taking us to first see the seed of the serpent through Cain and Ham and Canaan and Ishmael and the Nesau, and then turning around and taking us to the line of faith, it is to reckon with the reality that apart from the grace, mercy, and love of God, we would find ourselves amongst the seed of the serpent. that spiritually speaking in Adam all of us are situated against God and against his people. And so in order to illustrate the reality that salvation comes from God alone, he repeatedly illustrates the reality of the fallen nature of man over and over and over again in the genealogies of the book of Genesis. What is it that separates out Seth over Cain, or Shem over Japheth and Ham, or Isaac over Ishmael, or Jacob over Esau? Well, the answer from the book of Hosea comes from the Lord, for Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. It illustrates with a repeated, even expansive focus the reality that the only hope that anybody has is the love of God. That apart from God's love, apart from his work to bring a distinct people to himself, as we even confessed earlier about part of the work of the reign of our Savior, we would find ourselves enslaved to sin and misery. We would find ourselves among the descendants of Esau, rather than united and adopted to sonship in Christ. But how especially is Esau revealed as the non-elect line here in verses one through five? Well, firstly, we need to remember that part of the theme from Genesis 25 when Jacob and Esau are born is the reality that Jacob is the elected son and Esau is not because the Lord says there, the older shall serve the younger. But even as that is there in Genesis 25, the focal point here on Genesis 36 is really on who Esau marries. And here we find that he marries three different women, Adah, Aholibamah, and Basmath. You see, Esau is a polygamist. One who has multiple wives, and if you read earlier on in Genesis 26, we know he has at least a fourth wife whose name is Judith there. So he has at minimum four wives, possibly even more beyond that. And this reminds us of the first polemagus who is mentioned in the Bible, Lamech. who's of the line of Cain back in Genesis chapter four. And to emphasize the point even more, Esau's first wife actually shares the name of Lamech's first wife, who in Genesis 4.23 was Adah. But more than just a polygamist, we do find polygamy among Israelites as well, which is everywhere condemned in the Bible. The people from whom Esau's wives come from illustrate this for us. You'll notice in verse two, Esau took his wives from the Canaanites. And not just one family group of the Cainites, the Hittites, the Hivites, and the Ishmaelites. On every level, everything Esau is doing, from the reality of his own life and now to his many marriages, as he is associating himself with the non-elect line. And we need to remember from his brother Jacob and then his father Isaac, whenever they would go to find wives, there's the repeated emphasis that they can't marry among the Canaanites. And so not only that Esau is a polygamist, but also whom he marries is illustrative of his status as non-elect. He is doing everything he can to pursue the life of a Canaanite. He intermarries with them and he spiritually associates himself with them rather than with the people of Shem or the people of promise. It is interesting to ask the question why Esau would be so adamant in having these multiple wives from these multiple Canaanite groups. And we'll get more detail on this as our passage unfolds, but I think the answer is that Esau is doing everything he can to have various alliances and to exalt himself among the peoples of the land, and especially, we'll see here in just a little bit, among the people of the territory he's about to move into, the territory of Seir. See, marriages were often alliances in the ancient world, weren't they? And so by Esau taking wise from these multiple people groups, and even as we'll see later, chiefs among those people groups, he is working in ways to advantage himself, to make the name of Esau great, to secure the glory and the wonder of the house of Esau that is Edom. You see, spiritually speaking, what Esau is after all along is his own glory and his own prosperity. He is not for the name of the Lord, he is for the name of Esau, that is Edom. And to make it even more clear as to where exactly Esau's heart is, he names his firstborn son Eliphaz, which in Hebrew, that name means my God is gold. You see, Esau's God is himself. He desires to make much of himself. He desires to prosper himself and to exalt himself above all things. And he does this, even at the expense of his own family. Due to marrying these Canaanite women, it tells us in Genesis 26, 34, that they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah. This association with these Canaanites women was an act of lack of faith. It's expressive of a heart condition that is not living in fidelity to the Lord, but rather seeks to make much of oneself. But this isn't just found in whom Esau marries, it's also found in where he decides to live. Verses six through eight, we find that Esau takes his many wives and his multiple children through them, and he moves away from the land of Canaan, and he went, the end of verse six and end of verse seven, into the land away from his brother Jacob, for their possessions were too great for them to dwell together. It's a near verbatim quote from Genesis chapter 13 where Lot says something similar to Abraham. Where due to their many possessions, their herdsmen were in strife with one another and Abraham, remember there, tries to dissolve the situation by allowing Lot to choose any territory in the land of promise that he would possibly want and he chooses instead to go east outside of the land of promise to dwell in the territory of Sodom and Gomorrah. Well, here in Genesis 36, Esau does the exact same thing. He dissociates himself from the line of Jacob, the line of promise that had been given, and instead he moves himself out of the territory of promise as well. Now, from a worldly standpoint, it sounds very plausible that if there's simply not enough room, you gotta pick up and move somewhere else. You start having a bunch of kids and you only have a two-bedroom house, you go get a three-bedroom house, so on and so forth. But there's something more being communicated by the geography of these verses. You see, whenever the people of the patriarchs who received the promises of God to have a a prosperous progeny and a realm that is promised to them. The author of Hebrews tells us that if they were really just pursuing their own prosperity and desiring a homeland, then they would have had an opportunity to return. They could have exited the promised lands and they could have gained a place that, worldly speaking, was better for them. But as it is, the author of Hebrews tells us they desired a better country that is a heavenly one. See, Esau is fed up with sojourning. He doesn't want to live in tents amongst his brother Jacob. He would rather go and depart the place of promise and dissociate himself from the people of promise such that he could gain his ascendancy in the territory of Seir. And the reality of this is even more pointed when we think back a little bit in the life of the patriarchs with Esau's father Isaac. Well, just after Esau was born in Genesis chapter 26, Isaac has a series of encounters with the Canaanites, where essentially what happens is everywhere he moves, all the Canaanites say, we don't want you here, we don't want you here, and we don't want you here. And it seems like for a while that there's no room for the promised patriarchs to even sojourn in the land that is promised to them. But what happens? Eventually Isaac goes and settles in one place and digs a well and no one comes out to confront him. And then he names the promised land this, Rehoboath. Rehoboath, which means broad places. Or you could even translate it as, there is room. There is room in the land. There is plenty of room for Jacob and Esau to dwell together. Are not the descendants of Israel far more numerous than two brothers? There is plenty of room, unless what you want to do is forego sojourning and gain prosperity and prestige. What Esau saw as no room for him was more no room for the life that he wanted. He did not see a way for him to ascend his line to the level of chieftain and even king in the land of Canaan. And so he willingly departs to the east out of the place of promise such that he might make his own line great. This is, in essence, a voluntary exile out of the land, a voluntary dissociation from the people of promise and the place of promise. Once again, in Esau's life, he is disregarding the promises of God and living for the promises of himself. It seems as though every decision that Esau was making was really for his own worldly good and prestige, rather than living a life of humility and a life of faith. And the next section of the passage, I think, really confirms that goal of Esau's departure from his brother and into the hill country of Seir. Because very, very quickly, We find that Esau advances from the level of brother to his children and grandchildren, the level of chieftain, and from the level of chieftain to the level of king. And the level of king, as verse 31 even says, kings long before any king reigned over the Israelites. See, Abraham had received a promise, hadn't he? he'd received a promise that kings would come from his line. And even by Moses' day, that promise of a king is crystallized even more with the law concerning the king of Deuteronomy chapter 17. But if you were to place the promises of God upon a timeline here, it's almost 1,000 years from the promises to Abraham to the reign of King David. And from the days of Esau, it's probably closer to around 800 plus years. That's a long time to wait if you're really after your own ascendancy and after your own rule. Don't have power, don't have prestige, don't have authority for eight or more centuries. That was the lot for the people of Israel. And that's the lot that Esau takes himself out of. by leaving the promised land and going to live in the territory of Seir. We find this revealed to us in a fairly profound way in the second half of the chapter. You'll notice in verse nine there's another phrase, these are the generations of Esau, which actually began our passage in Genesis 36.1, these are the generations of Esau. And so I think what Moses is doing by giving us this phrase repeated twice is he's drawing our attention to another motif of the line of Esau. And the emphasis of this part of the chapter is the fast-paced ascendancy of the children of Esau to a kingdom rather than sojourning in oppression. So you'll notice in verses nine through 14, The sons of Esau, his five main sons, Eliphaz, Raul, Jeush, Jelom, and Korah are repeated along with some of Esau's grandsons, especially the children of Eliphaz and Raul. And the reason why these children are repeated and the genealogy expands a little bit there is revealed to us in verses 15 through 19, where these sons and grandsons of Esau, they're not just descendants. They're more than that, they are chiefs. Where we find Eliphaz's seven sons, Taman, Omar, Zepho, Canaz, Korah, Gatham, and Amalek, all become chiefs in the territory of Seir. Raul's son, Esau's son's sons, Nahah, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizhah, they all also become chiefs. And then the three sons of Esau through a holy mama, Jaush, Jelom, and Korah, become chiefs even before the others. And if you counted up in these verses 15 through 19, there are 14 chiefs. in the descendants of Esau, 11 of his grandsons, three of his sons rise to the level of chieftain. And to make this point very clear, Moses uses a distinctive word here in Genesis 36 for chieftain. There's a lot of different words in Hebrew that could be used, but he uses a specific one that only occurs 60 times in the Old Testament. 43 of them are used in this chapter. It's almost like he's trying to make a point. What is Esau after? What is he doing in terms of moving his family and having these many wives? What he's pursuing is chieftainness and eventually a kingdom that would come from his line. To illustrate this even more, we get an even more interesting genealogy here in Genesis 36. not of Esau, but rather of the people of Seir. Verse 20, these are the sons of Seir, the Horites, the inhabitants of the land. Now if it's weird that we have a descendants of Esau, it's even weirder that we have a descendants of the sons of Seir, until we keep reading in this genealogy. When one of the chiefs, which Seir the Horite has seven sons who are seven chiefs, and the chief of the chiefs is a man named Anah. Anah who found some springs of water out in the wilderness. And if you know the territory of Seir, it is very arid. And so to find these springs of water gives the necessary things you need for life and therefore a city that you can build. And Anah has a daughter, and his daughter's name is Aholibama, who becomes Esau's wife. You see, what Esau had done as he is moving his family into the territory of Seir is he has married the daughter of the greatest chieftain of the people of Seir. And this is why his own sons become chiefs, but his grandsons from his other children become chiefs. He is making political moves where as quickly as possible, The descendants from Esau could rise to a status of authority over the people of the land and eventually become chiefs rather than sojourners and wanderers. Eventually, the narrative's not told here in Genesis 36. The political intermarrying, the ascendancy of his sons, gives way to outright war. Where in Deuteronomy 2, verse 12, we find that the descendants of Esau war against the inhabitants of Seir, conquer them, defeat them, and found the kingdom of Edom. A kingdom that is around for at least eight generations before even the days of Moses. Because Moses gives us in verses 31 through 39, eight different Edomite kings. And if you noticed as we were reading through it, none of the kings are the son of another king. It's possible that these aren't just kings, but rather dynasties. Eight dynastic families that come and reign in the territory of Seir as the sons of Edom gain a kingdom and a land and inheritance and gold and strength and might generations before the people of Israel are ever brought out of the territory of Egypt. You see what the spirit of Esau was and the nature of his sons who come from them. These children, this line is all about ascendancy, all about their power, all about their prestige, all about making much of themselves, even as we'll see at the expense of the people of Gont. You see, Edom, was to be a twin nation for the people of Israel. Having come from the twin brother of Jacob, the nation that comes from Esau gets a more lenient position among the foreign nations than any other one in the Bible. Where if an Edomite goes and lives in the midst of the people of Israel, within three generations they would be considered a natural born Israelite, joined to the communion of God, joined to the people called to worship and make much of God most high. But what we find throughout the pages of scripture is generation after generation of the Edomites take the opposite stance. Everything they do and everything they are is to stand against the people of God. Indeed, it's in Moses' day, when Israel is finally being brought out of the nation of Egypt after 400 years of servitude, that they come to the border of the land of Edom, the territory of Seir, and they petition, it says there in Numbers 20, their brother to allow them to pass through. They won't even drink the water. They will eat nothing of the land without paying for it, but still, the Edomite kings gather their armies to stand against the people of God, not even allowing passage. for this wandering congregation to make its way to its inheritance. Indeed, the animosity was so great that Numbers 24, the prophet Balaam would offer up an oracle there where he's saying that Edom shall be dispossessed and that one from the line of Judah will have dominion over it. He predicts and he looks forward to a time of conflict and war between the descendants of Esau and the descendants of Jacob through Judah, and there is. Intense war, especially during the days of David, where for a short period of time, the Edomites are subjected under the Davidic king in 2 Samuel 8. Until even during the reign of Solomon, David's own son, who builds the temple in light of his infidelity through his taking on of many wives and his heart being led astray through that. Who is it that rises up against the people of Judah and Israel but the Edomites? Hadad of the ruling house of Edom stands as the thorn in the side of Solomon, the king in Jerusalem. And the Edomites throughout the rest of the history of Israel will take their counsel together with the rest of the nations to stand against the people of God. Esau exhibits, and is perhaps the main expression of that Psalm 2 identity we sung about earlier, and how they counsel together against the Lord and His anointed. In fact, in Psalm 83, this is explicitly applied when Edom joins the nations in counsel together, a direct quote from Psalm 2. And what do the Edomites say? They say, come, let us wipe Israel out as a nation. Let the name of Israel be remembered no more. And what nation was it? That when Babylon rose up against the city of Jerusalem and sacked it in 586 BC, that secured the highways and the byways and prevented any child of Jerusalem to escape the devastation and the slaughter, but the people of Edom, who came down against their twin nation, down against their brother, and wielded the sword of animosity against the people of God. It's the nation of Edom, according to Lamentations chapter four, that rejoices at the destruction of Jerusalem. And it's because of this. that we get prophecies like that in Amos 1, verse 11, where the prophet says, for the three transgression of Edom, even for four, I will not revoke punishments. Because he pursued his brother with the sword, he cast off all pity, and his anger tore perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever. It's because of this casting off of all pity, this perpetual anger and wrath, this animosity against the people of God, that the prophet Amos speaks against Edom, that the prophet Obadiah tells of a day when the nation of Edom will be brought down from its lofty dwelling in Seir and humbled because of their proud self-exaltation. And they are. For a period of time, during the intertestamental period, another people group called the Nebateans come. They sack the territory of Seir. They defeat the nation of the Edomites, and for a period of time, Edom seems like it has lost on the world map of politics. Until we reach another point in history, we're approaching the birth of our Savior, a particular Edomite rises to the throne of Jerusalem. Now in this period of time, the Edomites go by a new name. And their name is the Edomians. And the most prominent Edomian that you have all heard of is a man named Herod the Great. And it was Herod the Great A king descended from the line of the Edomites, who ruled over the people of Judah as a proxy king for the Romans. And it was Herod the Great, who upon hearing of the birth of the Messiah, charged his soldiers to go to the city of Bethlehem in Matthew chapter two, and to slaughter all the young boys of the city, and the off chance that he might be able to slay the Messiah before he could complete his work. See, you might not have known it, but this is actually a Christmas sermon. We often hear it from the side of the angels rejoicing, the shepherds bowing the knee, the wise men offering up their gifts. And we love that story, but we forget the other side. where Satan and those who are spiritually associated with him are doing everything they can to stop the Messiah from coming into the world. This is what Pharaoh did back in the Exodus, isn't it? Why would Pharaoh try to kill all the young boys of the Israelites? Because if all the young boys are dead, then there's no possibility that a child could be born, a son could be born from the seed of the woman who had crushed the head of the serpents. And why does Herod the Edomite do it here? Because if he succeeds now, then he can stop the program of redemption. But the wisdom of God is not the wisdom of man. While the serpents will stand against the people of God and those spiritually associated with them, like Herod, will continue to do so, the wisdom of God is at work. such that through the oppression, through the suffering, through the animosity, God will gain the victory. And indeed, the animosity from the Edomites continues. And it continues through a number of, wouldn't you know it, herods. See, there are seven herods in what's called the Herodian dynasty. Six of them are mentioned for us in the New Testament. It's another Herod, Herod Archelaus, who is on the throne when Joseph brings the baby Jesus back from Egypt, whom he must flee to go live in the city of Nazareth, and which the gospel writer Matthew tells us to fulfill the word of the prophets that he would be called a Nazarene. It's his brother, Herod Antipas, who is on the throne, who slaughters John the Baptist. And it's Herod Antipas who's on the throne when Jesus himself is brought to come to the courts for him to be put to death by the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And it's even through the interactions that happened with Herod that Pilate and Herod become best buds just on the day of Christ's death. You see, while the Edomites and the seed of the serpent that they are associated with will continue to fight against the seed of the woman. The wisdom of God is through that fight, through their animosity, God would work to win the salvation of his people, such that an Edomite, would take part in the slaughtering of the son of God, the seed of the woman who is to come into the world. And through that very act of animosity against the seed of the woman, salvation would be won for you and for me. You see, this genealogy is for you. because it tells you of the work that the Savior was to come and to accomplish. It tells you of the line that would stand against your Redeemer, and it tells you the manner of your salvation as Christ would come into the world to bear the curse for sin and the animosity of Satan for your sake. But Satan still prowls around like a roaring lion. And even in the New Testament, the Edomites were still at work. There was yet another Edomite and yet another Herod. Herod Agrippa I, the grandson of Herod the Great, that strengthens his hand violently against the church, that slaughters James with the sword and imprisons Peter in Acts chapter 12. It's an Edomite that utters blasphemous words that get him struck down by God himself later on. in Acts chapter 12, and it's another Herod, Herod Agrippa II, to whom Paul preaches the gospel in Acts chapter 26, and who responds with scorn, saying, would you in one day make me to be a Christian? You see, Satan and those spiritually aligned with him still stand against Christ Church. But our Savior reigns even now. while the kings from the line of Esau might wage their wars and counsel together with the other nations to stand against the Lord and to stand against his people as Psalm 2 tells us they do so in vain. The Redeemer, the bloodied lamb who has earned the right because of his suffering and death to sit upon the throne of his father as our Redeemer. reigns now and will come again to bring in the kingdom of his perfect righteousness. The day of the Lord is coming, the prophet Obadiah said, and on that day, our savior will rule over Mount Esau and all who stand against him will be condemned, but for his people, they will be brought to the city of our God, secure to the mountain of our Lord, adopted in the son of God that we, might be counted among the saved. That we would not be spiritually associated with Satan, but brought to the kingdom of righteousness and the hope of heavenly glory. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you that there is hope for salvation and your son who has come into the world and saved sinners who bore the animosity and the hatred of even the house of Esau, the brother of Israel, that he might be the redeemer of all true Israel, the people that you have called to yourself. Lord, give us hope in him, we pray this night in Christ's name, amen.