r own. And we would give worlds to blot
out their record, and to repair the evil which has been wrought; but it
remains engraven with an iron pen in the rock for ever: man cannot
obliterate it, and God will not.

To complete the subject, let me ask you to consider two thoughts.

1. These dread seasons of crucial trial, on which the future of life,
nay of eternity, is hanging, never come upon us in a moment.

It would appear from the text that one morsel of meat settled the
question of the birthright; that one hard, hot morning's chase settled
the destinies of peoples for all time. That is one side of it, the
outside. But the real settlement of the question was made already; any
trifle will serve to disclose what has already established itself as the
permanent character within. Esau had nursed his contempt for the
birthright by a thousand daily lustings and cravings; many a bitter
scoff too he had flung at Jacob's pious and meditative mood. Things like
this never stand alone. The life of the chosen family is described in
words of wonderful beauty and power in Heb. xi. 8-14. "_By faith
Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after
receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither
he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange
country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with
him of the same promise. For he looked for a city which hath
foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Through faith also Sara
herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child
when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.
Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as
the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea
shore innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the
promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and
embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on
the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek
a country._" This life Jacob believed in profoundly; this life Esau as
profoundly despised. He despised it all, and made his contempt
abundantly apparent. "_And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife
Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of
Elon the Hittite. Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah_"
(Gen. xxvi. 34, 35)