“Isaac’s Eyes Were Dim”
Sermon Title: Isaac’s Eyes Were Dim
Scripture: Genesis 27:1-25 ESV
Introduction
Have you ever wondered what our lives may have been like if the Fall never happened? I find myself asking this question often whenever I go through the OT because there are so many cases where the Bible shows us that “this is not the way things were supposed to be.” Our passage today in Genesis 27 is one of those places. Today, as we look into the life of Isaac and his family, we will see something that plagues us as a result of the Fall.
The first two verses begin by saying: “When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim, so that he could not see... He said, ‘Behold, I am old; I do not know the day of my death.’” (Genesis 27:1–2) In light of the following context of chapter 27, Isaac’s physical blindness introduces us to the spiritual blindness of Isaac’s family.
Covenant Gone Astray
Isaac calls in his favourite son Esau, the firstborn, because Isaac feels he may die any day now. He wants to bless Esau and pass on the blessings that would mark him as the inheritor of Abraham’s blessings. This is the part that should make us go, “Whoa, hold on a minute!” Because what did God say in Genesis 25:23 regarding Esau and Jacob?
“Two nations are in your womb... the older shall serve the younger.” (Genesis 25:23)
Isaac’s actions were not aligned with God’s will. What Isaac was doing was the normal thing to do according to the practices of the ancient world, but this was not a normal family. They were chosen by God to be a covenantal family that would lead towards the Saviour of the world. This is not the same Isaac who became a worshipper in chapter 26. Today, we see an Isaac who is shaped by his desires, his appetite, his senses, and his worldly concerns.
How did this happen? We don’t know. That’s the danger of spiritual darkness: you never know when it really began, and many times, you don’t even know when you’re caught in it. His preference is now imposed over God’s preference. His fear becomes wisdom that moves him to action. His desires and wants become a necessity. And ultimately, his plan becomes God’s plan.
Spiritual darkness doesn’t need some dramatic event or rebellion against God. It begins with the small things in your life: misplaced desires or dissatisfaction with yourself, your situation, or others; compromises with yourself and God; compromising with sin; deceiving yourself; hardening and closing your heart to God and other people; making room in your heart for the worship of other things—money, success, ministry, material things, or relationships. It all begins with small things that may not have started out as rebellion or sin. Maybe it was just a thought that crossed your mind when you were having a bad day, when you were hurt or stressed.
Spiritual Darkness in Isaac’s Home
Spiritual darkness affects not only Isaac but his whole family. Rebekah overhears Isaac’s plan and calls her favourite son Jacob. She takes matters into her own hands. Together they deceive and manipulate Isaac and steal the blessing. And while some may believe that God is using Rebekah and Jacob to accomplish His will, that is not the message of Scripture. Deception was never God’s intention nor His method. It is ours. Do you think God is so powerless that He has to rely upon our sins?
Having literally dressed the part of his brother, Jacob goes in and says: “I am Esau your firstborn... eat of my game, that your soul may bless me.” Isaac asks, “How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?” Jacob answers, “Because the LORD your God granted me success.” (Genesis 27:19–20) Later, Isaac asks again, “Are you really my son Esau?” Jacob lies and says, “Yes, I am.”
This conversation shows them speaking the language of the covenant. Jacob uses faith speech to sell out God to deceive Isaac. He explains his success by saying, essentially, “God did it.” When one is in spiritual darkness and sin, sometimes we will use the language of faith for the purpose of rejecting God’s Word. Jacob dressed the part and spoke the part. It sounds like faith and truth, but underneath it was all lies.
We also do this in the areas of our spiritual darkness. Sometimes we even do it in our worship, where we come to God saying, “I obeyed this, I did that, I did everything I was told—now God bless me!” By this God is proven right when He says in Matthew 15:8–9:
“This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me.”
God may have a certain purpose or command for us, but we may reject it with the language of faith. We dress it up to look like truth and wisdom, to look like the heart of God. It may even look, as far as we or other people can see, like good and godly purposes. But secretly, it may be self-serving purposes, editing the Word of God with our emotions, feelings, and desires.
Esau Rejected
Esau returns just as Jacob makes his exit. He prepares the food and brings it to Isaac, ready to receive the blessing.
Isaac asks, “Who are you?” Esau answers, “I am your son, your firstborn, Esau.” Then Isaac trembles violently as he realizes what has happened. But the interesting part is that Isaac doesn’t get angry that he was deceived and demand that Jacob be brought before him. He simply accepts it and says: “Yes, and he shall be blessed.” (Genesis 27:33) I believe this was the moment when Isaac finally remembered God’s words in Genesis 25 and submits to God’s will.
And how does Esau respond? He cries out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry: “Bless me, even me also, O my father!... Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me these two times. He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing.” (Genesis 27:34–36) He’s angry—very angry, very bitter. For the record, it was not two times, but one time that Jacob cheated Esau out of anything.
Isaac then tells him: “I have made him lord over you... What then can I do for you, my son?” (Genesis 27:37) Isaac once again shows his submission to God’s will by declaring that Jacob would be lord over Esau. Even though this family made a mess of things, God is sovereignly powerful enough to accomplish His will. The Lord used this mess that Isaac’s family had made to shock Isaac out of his spiritual darkness.
But there are still consequences to doing things your own way: Esau plans to murder Jacob, and the family is broken. Thinking Isaac would soon die, Esau planned to kill Jacob after their father passed away. Unfortunately for Esau, turns out Isaac’s pretty healthy! He lives for another 43 years and dies at the old age of 180.
The Heart of Esau
Was Esau justified in his anger? Maybe. But God’s will rejected Esau and chose Jacob over Esau. We don’t know why God chose Jacob, but the Bible gives us some clues about why God may have rejected Esau. Genesis 25 tells us that Esau came in from the field exhausted and asked Jacob for some stew. Jacob told him, “Sell me your birthright now.” Esau answered: “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” So he swore to Jacob and sold his birthright.
Well, it seems clear that no one cheated Esau out of anything; he sold it. No one forced him. He chose to do so. Was this exchange valid and binding? As silly as it may sound to us, yes, especially since Esau swore on it. But I think we can all agree: whatever a birthright is, surely it’s worth a lot more than a bowl of stew! You’d be an idiot to exchange it for some stew. But that is exactly what God wanted us to see—not that Esau was an idiot, but the magnitude of what it meant to sell off his birthright. The birthright involved the rights of the firstborn to inherit leadership of the clan and a double portion of the inheritance. But remember, this is not a normal family. Their birthright comes with the purpose of God’s covenant and will.
And Genesis 25:34 concludes: “Thus Esau despised his birthright.” In that whole interaction, Esau had no remorse, no second thoughts. He was simply led by his desires and appetite. He sold something truly precious and treated it as worthless. The key word is “despised.” Esau considered it vain, empty, a light matter—nothing to take seriously. Imagine your family runs a famous bakery that makes a lot of money. As the eldest child, there are expectations for you to continue the bakery and the legacy your parents, and possibly their parents before them, started. It’s more than just money. Everything in that bakery, every bread, is more than just a clump of flour. It represents an entire legacy of your family. But you, as the eldest child, say, “Whatever. It’s just bread. It’s just flour in the end.” That’s the attitude Esau had towards his birthright. And this was not just any birthright—it was tied to their covenant with God. Yet he sells it away cheaply and walks away with no regret or remorse.
This attitude may have been a reflection of his heart before God, as Hebrews 12:16–17 says: “Esau... sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected... though he sought it with tears.” The word “unholy” can also be translated as “ungodly”—to live your life where you have no fear of God, as if there is no God.
After losing his blessing, Esau had tears, regret, and grief, but we find no repentance. No repentance over taking his birthright lightly and his relationship with God vainly. And where did Isaac’s blessing come from in the first place? From God. Then why isn’t Esau crying out to God? His tears are vain tears that seek the blessing but not the One who gives the blessing.
In fact, no one in this entire chapter inquires of God about what should be done. Not even Rebekah, who inquired of God in her circumstances back in chapter 25. Instead, Esau is barking up the wrong tree, crying out to his earthly father who can do nothing for him. And like Esau, many Christians in our spiritual darkness want the blessings that Christ gives, but we don’t want Christ Himself, nor the cross that we are to carry as His followers. Like Esau, when you take your relationship with the Lord and all that is worship unto Him and place them on a scale, what is its worth to you? Is it no different than the normal mundane things in your life—optional things that you can afford to part ways with, just as Esau parted with his birthright for stew?
Conclusion
Now the question is: How do I get out of spiritual darkness? Especially when the danger of spiritual darkness is that most of the time, you don’t even know you’re in it.
First, return to the Word of God.
Isaac’s spiritual darkness was shaped by his sins, his affection for his firstborn, the culture of the times, his desires, worldly concerns, and maybe even fear of his own death. What Isaac needed was to return to the Word of the Lord that said, “The older will serve the younger.” When you can’t see clearly the way before you, go back to the Word of the Lord when it was most clear to you. What was the last time the Word of God, His will, was clear to you? What did God say?
Second, return to God’s will and submit.
Isaac had replaced God’s will with his preferences, his desires, his appetite, his son, his plans for his son, his priorities, his struggles, and his fears. Like this, it becomes very easy to substitute God’s will for our own. Therefore, the Lord calls us to examine our hearts and ask Him to reveal our hearts: “Search me, O God, and know my heart!... And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23–24) Allow the Lord to reveal the spiritual blindness in your heart, and surrender yourself and submit to His will and purpose.
Third, return to your first love in Jesus Christ.
Without Jesus there is no answer, no escape from spiritual darkness. He is the Light, the true Light. He is the brightest and clearest light that chases away the darkness and reveals the things hidden within the dark places of our hearts. Without Christ, there is only darkness.
God says in Jeremiah 2:2: “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness.”
And Revelation 2:4–5 says: “You have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.” Return to the Lord Jesus Christ. He will set you free.
Brothers and sisters, one last thing the Lord leaves us in today’s passage is to never despair or fall into shame or fear when you discover that you may be in spiritual darkness, as if the mistakes you’ve made could have ruined God’s plan for you. If you haven’t noticed, it’s really impossible to catch by surprise someone who literally knows everything. Thankfully, we have a God whose mind is so beyond our own that He can still work in and through our spiritual blindness and spiritual clumsiness, just as He does in the life of Isaac’s household.
God’s Word spoken in Genesis 25—that the older will serve the younger—still remains. People will always change, but God is unchanging in His Word, His character, His faithfulness and commitment to us. Sometimes God uses our brokenness and even the consequences of our spiritual darkness to shake us out of spiritual darkness, just as He did with Isaac. Could God have supernaturally stepped in, His voice booming from heaven, and stopped all of this from happening? Absolutely. Then why doesn’t He? Because, brothers and sisters, there are some lessons that we may understand here, in our head, but never here, where it is most important—so that we may know and understand that without Christ, we cannot fix anything on our own.
It was just two chapters ago that we saw Isaac and Rebekah living in the presence of the Lord. How quickly people change. How quickly we change. How quickly we forget our first love. Return to the Word of the Lord. Return back to His will in submission. And return back to the Lord, your first love.
For His Word, His grace, and His love for us never changes.
Reflection:
May the Lord confront you with the truth and the light of Jesus Christ and if or when you find that you have been living in spiritual darkness, do not fear; for we have a Saviour who can free us in Jesus Christ.
The Lord invites you to return to His word, His will, and back to your first love Jesus Christ.
