Well, it's a joy to be here with all of you this evening. It's been some time, but it is good to be back here to Cornerstone. If you would open up your Bibles to the book of Genesis, specifically our sermon passage this evening is Genesis chapter 36. We're reading Genesis 36 one through 37 one. This is the holy inspired and air word of our God from Genesis chapter 36. These are the generations of Esau, that is, Edom. Esau took his wives from the Canaanites, Adah, the daughter of Elon Hittite, Aholibamah, the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zibion, the Hivite, and Basmoth, Ishmael's daughter, the sister of Nebioth. Nadah bore to Esau Eliphaz, Basmoth bore Rewel, and Aholibamah bore Jeush, Jalom, 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 his beasts, and all his property that he had acquired in the land of Canaan. And he went into the land away from his brother Jacob, for their possessions were too great for them to dwell together. The land of their sojournings could not support them because of their livestock. So Esau settled in the hill country of Seir. Esau is Edom. And 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. Reuel, the son of Basmoth, the wife of Esau. The sons of Eliphaz were Timon, Omar, Zepho, Gautam, and Kinaz. 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, Shema, and Mitzra. 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 Jaush, Jelom, and Korah. These are the chiefs of the sons of Esau. The sons of Eliphaz, the firstborn of Esau, the chiefs Timon, Omar, Zepho, Kinas, Korah, Gatham, and Amalek. These are the chiefs of Elphaz in the land of Edom. These are the sons of Adar. These are the sons of Roel, Esau's sons, the chiefs Nahathah, Zerah, Shammah, and Mitzah. These are the chiefs of Roel in the land of Edom. These are the sons of Basmoth, Esau's wife. And these are the sons of Aholibamah, Esau's wife, the chiefs, Jaush, Jalom, 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. These are the sons of Seir, the Horite, the inhabitants of the land, Lothan, Shobol, Zibion, Anah, Deshon, Ezzer, 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 Timnah. These are the sons of Shobal, Avon, Manahatha, Ebal, Shefo, and Onam. 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. These are the children of Anah, Dishan, and Holibama, the daughter of Anah. These are the sons of Dishan, Himdan, Eshban, Ithran, and Kiran. These are the sons of Ezer, Bilhan, Zavan, and Akan. These are the sons of Dishan, Uz, and Oran. These are the chiefs of the Horites, the chiefs Lotan, Shobal, Zibian, Anah, Dishan, Ezer, and Dishan. These are the chiefs of the Horites, chief by chief, in the land of Seir. 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 Dinehaba. Bilad died, and Joab, 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. Husham died, and Hadad, the son of Bedad, who defeated Midian in the hill country of Moab, reigned in his place, the name of his city being Avith. Hadad died, and Shamlah of Masraqah reigned in his place. Shamlah died, and Sha'ul of Rehoboth on the river reigned in his place. Sha'ul died, and Ba'al Hanan, the son of Aqbor, reigned in his place. Ba'al Hanan, the son of Aqbor, died, and Hadar reigned in his place, the name of his city being Pa'ul. His wife's name was Mechabel, the daughter of Metrid, the 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, Ava, Jeheteth, Aholibama, Elah, Penon, Kenaz, Teman, 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. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let's go before him in prayer and ask his blessing upon it. Father, we do thank you that you have revealed everything we need for faith and life in your word. And as we come to it tonight, we ask that you would open up the text of Genesis chapter 36 to us, that we would through it come to see the work of your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, and to lay hold of him by faith and to trust upon him more in our lives, to be encouraged to live the life that he would have us to live. And we pray all of this in the blessed name of our Savior Jesus. Amen. Well, as many of you probably just got back from traveling for the holiday season, so also my family and I just hopped off of a plane on Friday night. And we were taking off earlier in that day from the bustling metropolis of Amarillo, Texas, where my wife and I are from. I was marveling at my one-year-old as he was looking out the window, oohing and awing. And I was marveling, because if you've ever been to Amarillo, Texas, there's not a lot to ooh and ah about. The place is quite dead and desolate. The ground is almost always yellow. There's hardly a tree in sight. And if there's any water there, it's because a person put it there by building a dam. See, my wife and I are from a place that you might call a flyover area, a riff off of a flyover state. Now, why are these areas called flyover states and the like? Because you really don't want to drive through them or to be from them. There's more cows than people. Everything you see outside of your window is just wheat-filled after wheat-filled after wheat-filled. In fact, if you put your car on cruise control, you could probably go down the highway for about a hundred miles taking a nap because there's not even a turn in the road. You want to fly over it. You don't want to spend any time in it. Well, I fear, when we come to passages like Genesis 36, we see it as a sort of flyover text. We treat it like those flyover states. We can't pronounce the names anyway. It comes from a genealogy of a line that doesn't have anything to do with Jesus, or so we think, from the front end. And so we're left wondering, what on earth does this have to do with me at all? At best, we might see them positively in our Bible-reading plans as something we can just skim through and maybe mumble holy-bama or something like that as we're trying to get through our Bible-through-a-year-reading plan. We very seldomly slow down and chew on genealogies and to think, what exactly is the Lord seeking to teach us through these passages of his word? You see, if we're honest with ourselves, there are times when we question what Paul says in 2 Timothy 3.16, that all of Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for our reproof and our correction and for our training in righteousness. We wonder if he actually read Genesis 36. Well, I hope that after this evening, you would come to the conclusion that I have come that Paul had indeed read Genesis 36. and that there is indeed much that is profitable for us from this particular chapter of God's Word. Because what we find here in Genesis chapter 36, is a spirit of animosity of the nations that rage and plot against the Lord and against his anointed, ultimately looking forward to the time when the nations and kings will rage against our Savior Jesus Christ, even putting him to death on the cross. But as we read a short while ago in our opening, with the call to worship, the nations rage and they plot in vain. Because the plan of salvation is that in spite of their raging and their plotting, and even through the suffering and death of our Messiah, our salvation would be accomplished. That he would rise again and ascend to the heavenly Zion where he reigns even now, ruling over his people, his church, today. You see, Genesis 36 traces a non-elect line that ends in kings that stand against the people of God, against the Lord himself, and who will eventually have a hand in putting our Savior to death. In order to look at this this evening, we'll see it in two parts. First, we'll be looking at verses 1 through 8, and how Esau is part of the non-elect line outside of the promised land. And then we'll be looking at verses 9 through the end, and how this non-elect line moves towards rulers that stand against the people of God. Well, how do we know that Genesis 36 is a genealogy of the non-elect line? Well, really, it's because Genesis is a book of genealogies. The structure of the book of Genesis proceeds along the lines of, these are the generations of so and so. We have one of those beginning our passage this evening. These are the generations of Esau. But the burning question is why? Why is the book of Genesis a book of genealogies? But I would submit to you that the thesis statements of Genesis comes back in Genesis 3.15. when immediately after the fall, the Lord utters the first proclamation of the gospel, that the Lord will sever the bond of fellowship with sin and Satan that Eve and Adam partook of when they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then where he said, I will sow intimacy between you, the serpent, and the woman, between her seed and your seed, and he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. Well, beginning from that very point on through the rest of the book, Genesis really traces the lines of the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. And it does it in an interesting pattern. Maybe you've noticed it in your reading through the book of Genesis, but Moses always structures his treatment of those two lines in a pattern of dealing first with the seed of the serpent and then turning to the seed of the woman. It is at first in Genesis 4 and 5, where he addresses the first major genealogy of the book with the genealogy of the line of Cain. You remember who Cain was, don't you? The brother of Abel, who murdered his righteous younger brother, who the Apostle John tells us is of his father, the devil. He is a representative of the seed of the serpent, and his line progresses towards the even more wicked Lamech, A ruler who takes multiple wives, who we'll see is very important for our text this evening. Then after Genesis 4 comes, remarkably, Genesis 5 and the genealogy of Seth, the righteous line, the son provided for Adam and Eve as a child of promise to descend from him, eventually climaxing the person of Noah and his three sons. It does it again in Genesis chapters 10 and 11. where maybe you notice that Jephthah and Ham, the non-elect sons, are treated prior to Shem, the elect son. It does it again in Genesis chapter 25, where you have a genealogy of Ishmael before you get the generations of Isaac. And it does it again right here in our passage, where we have the generations of Esau before we get the generations of Jacob. That begins in Genesis chapter 37 in verse 2. But why? Why does Moses over and over and over again give us the genealogy of the non-elect line prior to giving us the genealogy of the line of faith or the elect line? Well, I think to riff off of my favorite theologian Gerhardus Voss, the reason is because God, through the inspired author Moses, wants to emphasize one important theological point. And it's that he wants to show us the downward progress of sin and misery before he shows us the redemptive grace and work of God and the life of his people. You see, by beginning with the genealogy of Cain before moving to Seth, and with Jephthah and Ham before moving to Shem, with Ishmael before Isaac, and now with Esau before Jacob, over and over and over again, the Lord and Moses is making the point that the only hope you have to be a child of God is the love of God. That is the might and the power and the love of God himself who takes fallen sinners and makes them his people. He wants you to first reckon with the reality of sinful descendants coming from Adam and Eve. before he reveals to you the promises that he will bring a people out of that and unto himself. Well, how do we see in our text this evening that Esau is of the non-elect line? Well, first we know this from Genesis 25, when in the birth of Esau, the text explicitly tells us that the older shall serve the younger, and we know from the prophet Hosea that the Lord loves Jacob and hated Esau. But those doctrinal points are revealed by actions in verses 1 through 8. And three particular actions stand out to highlight the ethical life of Esau as a non-elect individual. And the first one we see in verses 1 through 5 is his partaking in polygamy. Did you notice as we were reading it here, three wives are revealed to us in Genesis chapter 36. He does have more, we find them in Genesis 26 and in Genesis 28, but three here in Genesis 36. The first one being Adah, the daughter of Elon the Hittite. Then Aholibamah, the daughter of Anah, the Hivite, and then Basmoth, the daughter of Ishmael. Remember when I was mentioning Lamech just a few moments ago? Lamech was the first polygamist in the Bible, and Lamech was notably a descendant from Cain. And for those of you who know your Bible trivia well, the name of the first wife of Lamech was Adah, the shared name of the first wife of Esau here in Genesis chapter 36. but more than just the act of polygamy and violating God's law for marriage between one man and one woman, it's also important to note who Esau marries. Notably, he marries among the non-elect lines as well. See, as you're reading through the patriarchal history, there's a repeated theme, and the generations of Isaac and then again of Jacob, that they cannot marry among the Canaanites. Instead, they're sent out of the land to go and find a wife from the line of Shem. But here, Esau, following through with earlier actions in Genesis 26 and 28, tells us about his wives, notice verse 2, from the Canaanites. Nadah, a Hittite woman, Aholibamah, a Hivite woman, and Basmoth, the daughter of Ishmael. So not only do the partaking of multiple wives and the act of polygamy, but also the particular people groups with whom he is marrying, show Esau's spiritual state. is not following the law of God. Perhaps some of you might be thinking, wait a minute, I thought Jacob had multiple wives. And he did. I thought Abraham took a second wife in Hagar, and he did. I thought David and Solomon took multiple wives, and they did as well. But if we think much even about our own spiritual lives, is it actually that surprising that Christians sin? See, in those moments for Abraham and then for Jacob and even for David and for Solomon, they were acting in ways inconsistent with their confession. And you know that all of those episodes ended poorly in each of those acts. But for Esau, His particular marriages are outside the line of faith. They're expressive of a spiritual condition that does not trust and rest in God, and he makes them, as we'll find later on this evening, for the point of making much of himself. But not only does his act of polygamy show how he is non-elect, but also how he moves away from his brother, and he moves outside the land of promise. See, to the patriarchs of Israel, two key promises were made. And those two key promises was to have a prosperous progeny, even more numerous than the stars of the heavens, and, in particular, territory that many centuries away from the time of our text would be made their own. And I want you to notice what Esau moves away from in our passage. First, it mentions that he went into a land away from his brother Jacob. Remember Genesis chapter 12? As the Lord spoke to Abraham, Jacob's grandfather, he told him, those who bless you will be blessed and those who curse you will be cursed. Blessing is to be found in association with the line of promise. And so for Esau to dissociate himself from Jacob, to separate himself away from Jacob, shows his dissociation from the promises. To move away from the patriarch is to move away from the promise of God. And to rub salt into that wound, we need to remember that Esau is the twin brother of Jacob. Who should have been closer to him than to Esau? Yes, they had their history, but they had reconciled. And if you look later in the biblical testimony, even the people who descend from Esau received a special allowance where they could become natural-born Israelites if they live among them for about three generations. But here he is now, and the history of the nation that comes from him repeatedly and consistently dissociate themselves from the people of promise. And they also dissociate themselves from the place of promise. Notice how, in verse 7, it tells us how he's going away from his brother Jacob. For their possessions were too great for them to dwell together. The land of their sojournies cannot support them because of their livestock. Then verse 8, so Esau settled in the hill country of Seir. This is really Genesis 13 revisited. where Lot and Abraham had a little bit of a conflict, and Lot's choice in light of that conflict was he was going to depart away from his spiritual father because their possessions were too great, literally a direct quote from that passage. And he goes to live in the midst of the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. But both in Genesis 13, And again, here in Genesis 36, we really want to pose the question, what were their possessions too great for in the land of Canaan? Because there is a sense where we need to recognize that in terms of just worldly maintenance, there is plenty of room in the land of Canaan for Jacob and Esau to live together. And we know that because Isaac, Esau's father, has an experience back in Genesis 26, where for a period in his life, over and over again, everywhere he moves his tent, the Canaanites go out to him and contend with him, and they don't want him to live amongst them. But within the land of promise, as he moves and moves and moves again— and you all know how hard it is to move— finally, As Isaac is clinging to the promises of God, knowing that he is to sojourn in this place, he finds room for himself. In an exclamation of praise, he names the land of Canaan Rehoboath, which means, get this, there's room. There is room. Worldly speaking, physically speaking, there is plenty of room within the territory of promise for Jacob and Esau to live together. Isn't it the case that a great nation will descend from Jacob and will come, and they'll have plenty of room? That's far more than just these two brothers. So what is it? What is it that drives Esau to see the situation of Canaan to where there's not enough room for him to be with his brother Jacob? I believe that that's what the rest of our passage answers in verses 9 on through the end. See, it's not that there's not enough room for him to dwell there. There is plenty of room. It's that there's not enough room for what Esau really wants. Because what Esau really wants is to separate himself from a time of sojourning and wandering and living in tents to a time where he has power and prosperity and prestige. See, Esau is sick. with a patriarchal life. He is tired of living in tents, humiliated by the Canaanites. When they say, move, you pick up your stakes and go. He's sick of it. And instead, what he wants to do is to find himself and place himself in a situation where he and his descendants can quickly rise to a place of power, prestige, and prosperity in a place away from the promises of God. Well, how do we see this in verses 9 through 43? Well, it begins with an emphasis on a quick-paced history of the line of Esau. So you'll notice in verses 9 through 14, Esau's genealogy is repeated very briefly with the addition of some of his grandchildren. specifically the grandchildren of Eliphaz and Reuel. And the reason why it's repeated with the addition of his grandchildren from these two lines is revealed to us in verses 15 through 19, where we find that the grandchildren of Eliphaz, Reuel, and the children, the sons of Esau through Aholibamah, become chieftains in the territory of Seir. Do you see the movement from sojourner and wilderness wanderer to now within one generation for the descendants of holy Bama, or to his grandchildren for the descendants of his other two wives in this passage, they are promoted from sojourner to Chieftain. And I find it significant for that that Genesis 37.1 is actually part of this passage. Remember what I mentioned earlier. The phrase, these are the generations of, provides the structure for the book of Genesis. Well, that doesn't occur until Genesis 37.2, where it says, these are the generations of Jacob. And so when we read Genesis 37.1, how Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojournings, in the land of Canaan, that places a sharp contrast, doesn't it? A sharp distinction between what Jacob's doing and what Esau is doing. Where Jacob is living as a sojourner and in tents, but Esau is securing for himself a political lineage in the territory of Seir. And something, just a little statistic that I think makes that point exceedingly clear is that this chapter uses a very rare word for chieftain in the Hebrew. You don't need to know what the Hebrew word is, but the statistic is this. 43 out of the total 60 times that this word occurs in the Old Testament are right here in this chapter. 43 out of 60. It's almost like Moses is trying to make a point, isn't he? that what Esau is really after is to gain that political power and that political prestige. He doesn't want to be a soldier. He wants to be a chief. He wants to ascend the political rankings of the ancient world. In fact, in verses 15 through 19, he does it fairly well, because among his grandsons and his sons, 14 chieftains rise up in the territory of Seir. a number of them from Eliphaz and Rehul, his grandsons, and then three of his sons, Jeush, Jelom, and Korah, from his wife, Aholibama. But then after this, there's an interesting little snippet in verses 20 through 30 that takes us away from Esau to consider the inhabitants of the land. And if it's weird that we have a genealogy of the non-elect line with Esau, then it's even weirder that we have this random genealogy for the sons of Seir. We can at least understand Esau, Jacob's twin brother, having a genealogy in the Bible, but what about all these other random people that we don't hear of in any other place? Why are they here? Well, they're here because it tells us something about what Esau is up to. You notice it as we were reading a short while ago, that one of Esau's wives is named Aholibama. And in verses 20 through 30, we have another Aholibama. Well, the same Aholibama, but the name comes up again where we find that she is actually the daughter of Anah, one of the chieftains of the people of Seir. And Anah wasn't any slough chieftain. We read a little snippet of his life where we find that he is the Anah, verse 24, who found the hot springs in the wilderness as he pastured the donkeys of Zibion, his father. Now, I know we don't all know our ancient Near Eastern landscape equally, but the territory of Seir is a dry and arid place. to find a spring of water, a natural spring of water to boot, would have been a very significant find and something that you could use to build things like cities and fortification to protect yourself and to protect your family. And a little helpful interpretive tip for you, if you're ever reading a genealogy and if you have a little story like this one here, then you're to know that that is extremely significant. And what I think it's telling us here, is that of the seven chieftains of Seir, Anar was the chieftain of chieftains. He's got the living waters. He's got the place where you need to find and found a civilization. So why is it that Esau is intermarrying with all of these different Canaanite clans? Well, they're political marriages, aren't they? To take Ahol-Ibama as his bride is a quick-step way to make his own children in the line of the chieftains of Seir. And remember, it's his sons, through Ahol-Ibama, that rise to the level of chieftain right away. Or his grandsons, or his other sons. It takes a whole nother generation. And by the way, did you notice that Seir only has seven chiefs, but Esau has 14? You see, Esau's departure from his brother, his going to live in the territory of Seir, and his taking of these multiple wives had one and only one goal. It was to make much of the name of Esau, to glorify Esau, to protect his lineage and his prestige, and to ascend to a ranking far above what any other Israelite could have for centuries to come. Moses himself makes that point, doesn't he, in verse 21, where Esau's line very quickly moves from chieftain to king, where he tells us these are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom, hear this, before any king reigned over the Israelites. From the days of Jacob, to the days of the first kings in Israel, it's going to be almost 800 years. But not for Esau. For Esau, within one generation, his children are chieftains. Within just a handful of others, we're not entirely sure how long at this point his chieftains get promoted to the level of king. And in fact, if we look at other places in the Bible, we learn that his subtle politicking with intermarriage gives way to outright war, where we learn in Deuteronomy 2, verse 12, that the descendants from Esau wage war against the inhabitants of Seir, and they win, and they found the nation of Edom. Edom, long before there was ever a king in Israel, hundreds of years before there was ever a king in Israel, ascended to a throne and gained a secure place and asserted for themselves a reign over a kingdom that they claimed for themselves. But they do so in a way that establishes an enduring, long-lasting animosity to the line of faith. See, these kings of Genesis 36 are really updated until the days of Moses. And the Edomites don't show up again in the narrative of the Bible until the days of Moses. where Moses and the Israelites go, and they tried to parley with one of these Edomite kings. You do remember what they say in Numbers chapter 20? When Israel goes to them and pleads with them as their brother, the twin nation to the nation of Israel, they plead with them, let us pass by to go into our inheritance. The centuries of our sojourning are ended. It's time for us to acquire the land of our promise. Let us pass through. We won't even drink the water. Just let us pass through, and what does Edom say? Even take a step into our land. We will summon all of our armies against the people of Israel, and they extend the wanderings of the nation of Israel. Because of this, it's Balaam, a false prophet whom the Lord yet uses, that he proclaims an utterance that because of their maltreatment of Israel, Edom would be dispossessed, and one from Judah shall have dominion over them. And for a short period of time, it's true. See, David subjects the Edomites to under his reign in 2 Samuel 8. But due to the sin of Solomon, instigated by his polygamy, by the way, The Lord raises up an adversary against the people of Israel, and it's none other than Hadad the Edomite of the royal house, and we have a Hadad here in Genesis chapter 36. And Hadad the Edomite stands as a thorn in the side of Solomon, and from those days forward, the Edomites are some of the greatest enemies of the people of Israel. whole prophecies are dedicated to it, like the prophecy of Obadiah. Whole sections and oracles against the nations are dedicated to the nation of Edom because of their intense animosity against the line of faith. In fact, Edom joins the cry of the other nations in Psalm 83.4, where they say, in a fashion very similar to what the nations say in Psalm 2, Come, let us wipe Israel out as a nation. Let the name of Israel be remembered no more. They rejoice at the destruction of Jerusalem in Lamentations 4.21. They join the Babylonians as they sack the city of Jerusalem and they rejoice at the slaughter of all of the Israelites as they flee from the falling city. That's not the end of their animosity. Their animosity continues out of the old and into the new. Now, you won't find the name Edom in the New Testament in terms of what they do, but you will find a new name that they go by. See, from the close of the Old Testament into the New Testament, the nation of Edom undergoes a political shift where they're defeated by another army that invades them, and they go by another name called the Edomians. And there's one very important Edomian for you to know of. and his name is Herod the Great. See, Herod is a descendant of Esau. an Idumean, an Edomite. And it was Herod the Great, upon hearing of the word that the Messiah had been born in Bethlehem, that when he is deceived by the wise men, he commissions his armies to go and to kill all the children of Bethlehem under the age of two, in Matthew 2, verses 16 through 18, channeling the spirit of Satan that we find in Pharaoh earlier on in the book of Exodus. It's Herod's son, also an Edomite, also named Herod, specifically Herod Archelaus, that Joseph feared on their return from the land of Egypt that led to him going and dwelling in Nazareth. It was his other son, Herod Antipas, who killed John the Baptist and was reigning over the people of Israel when Jesus himself was killed. As Herod Agrippa I, the grandson of Herod the Great, an Edomite that kills James in Acts chapter 12, and imprisons Peter, and blasphemes the name of God, and is struck down by God himself. And as Herod Agrippa II, also an Edomite, also a descendant from Herod the Great, that Paul the apostle preaches the gospel to in Acts chapter 26, and his response to the hearing of the word of God is, would you so quickly make me to be a Christian? You see, this genealogy in Genesis chapter 36 takes us to Christ as we see the line that stands against the Lord's anointed. the people that rage and plot against the Lord and against his begotten Son who came into the world to save sinners. And they raged and they conspired together to such an extent where they will murder, they will slaughter, they will strike fear, and they will even play a part in killing the Messiah himself to try to stop the program of redemption. But they do these things in vain. because they don't have the wisdom of God, that through death salvation could be given because the penalty of death would be born by a Messiah. They don't have the power of God to recognize the resurrection that would come through the death of our Savior, and they don't understand. that the way that Christ would reign is not in spite of the cross, but through the cross, and that it's only through the suffering, through the humiliation, at the hand of the Edomites, at the hand of even the Israelites, and all of the nations conspiring together, that he would now ascend to the throne of heaven on high. and reign over his people today, where he has become the heir of a kingdom that will never be shaken, the last eternal, and that he gives to all of his children, whom he calls to himself, even to you who are here today. So what does Genesis 36 have to do with you? Well, I'd argue, brothers and sisters, it has everything to do with you. because it tells you of the way of salvation. It tells you that the serpent will plot and rage against your Messiah, but he does so in vain, because God's purposes will be accomplished. Your salvation will be, and indeed, by this time, has been won. It has much to do with you as well, because from Genesis 36, in light of what we have seen throughout all the scriptures and all the work of the Edomites, We learn a little bit about what it means to be a Christian in this age, don't we? Because we're enjoined, as the Apostle Peter does, to live lives as sojourners and aliens in this world. It is often the case, isn't it, that we get angsty and desirous to have prestige and power for ourselves. We want that, don't we, at times in our lives. And there are times in our lives where we even look up to the Lord and say, will you get this done already? I'm tired of waiting centuries for the promises to be fulfilled. But looking at Genesis 36 drives us to rest, not in our own personal labors, not in the work of our hands to go and gain political power or prestige or even prosperity, but rather to rest fully and solely in the promises of God. It is by resting in the promises of God that Jacob and his children from him would endure centuries of sojourning, centuries of suffering for the hope that was set before them, and beloved, so also for you. It is by resting in the promises of God that you are able to endure in this age of sojourning, in this age of suffering, looking forward to the kingdom of heaven, the place that can never be shaken, an inheritance that will never fade, because as you cast your gaze there, you can endure living in a tent here. You can endure the lack of prestige and power and prosperity here, because your inheritance is far greater than anything that this world has to offer you. So, beloved, the good news for you this evening is that that kingdom is yours in Christ Jesus. That the inheritance of heaven has been won by your Savior and is offered to all of those who by the power of the Spirit have faith in him. So look to that kingdom. Look to the heavenly Zion where our Savior Jesus Christ sits on his throne even now. And as you look to that Zion, be invigorated to live the life of faith today. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you that you are a God who brings your people to yourself, who redeems us out of the kingdom of darkness and into your marvelous light. And Lord, we pray. that we would rest all the more in your promises this evening, that we would seek to live in light of your promises, which would allow us to have that heavenly mindedness to cast our gaze to Zion itself and to live in a manner where we could forego all the prosperity and power and prestige of the world for the sake of inheriting the world to come. And we pray that you give this to us in the name of our beloved Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.