Hebrews 12:16-17 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.… There are certain features of character which, if they do not exactly enlist our admiration, never fail to secure our goodwill, and an instinctive sympathy with those who possess them. The man who along with his virtues, which by reason of their very nature lift him above many of his fellows, combines a few of those failings which bring him down again to their level, is by far the greatest favourite. Good men are glad to acknowledge his goodness, and for the sake of it are disposed to deal gently with his inconsistencies. The multitude find that they, too, have a share in him, and are pleased to recognise their own features in such respectable and perhaps unusual company. Now it is just such a character as this of which it is most difficult to form an impartial estimate.' And it is all the more difficult if the good qualities in question are of that striking sort which almost disarm criticism. For there are qualities that act in such a way. It seems, for instance, almost impossible to resist the impression which energy makes upon our minds, especially the energy that throws itself out upon the broad arena of practical life, and produces visible and manifest results. The same thing holds true, though in a less degree, of all that class of actions which we distinguish by the word " impulsive." We pardon a man a great deal for the sake of this particular temperament. If he does what is wrong, it mitigates the wrong that it was done on the spur of the moment, and not by a cool, deliberating wickedness. If he does what is good, it makes the good still better, because goodness that acts spontaneously is more genuine than a habitual calculating virtue. Besides, we give more latitude to impulsive actions, because they break through the routine of things. Hence the popularity of what is vulgarly called dash, a quality we all naturally admire. It serves as a sort of flourish that relieves the monotony of life. And we watch any singular display of it as a man watches a game of chance, knowing there may be some brilliant successes, but just as likely some ruinous catastrophe. The character of Esau, as it is brought before us in Scripture, partakes largely of this element. He was if anything an impulsive man. He had none of those faults which attach themselves to timid and more thoughtful characters, the tendency to equivocate, and compass an end by somewhat doubtful means .to bargain, and finesse, and sail close to the wind. A character like this shows, of course, all the more favourably when compared with such as one as that of Jacob. His faults spring, no doubt, from his peculiar temperament, but they are those which we regard with the greatest dislike. His virtues, on the other hand, had none of that spontaneity and freshness which makes an excellence doubly excellent, but were always unpleasantly prudential. They seem to have been developed only by infinite patience and a vast variety of discipline, and not to have come to very much after all. Yet Jacob was the man on whom God's blessing rested, whose nature was the most susceptible of Divine treatment, and most capable of receiving and transmitting the promise of the covenant. Esau, according to the Scripture, was a profane man, with little or no capacity for the spiritual and unseen, unable to understand it, whose strong earthly instincts and exuberance of life repelled everything of the sort, or hardly admitted of its approach. On what, then, is our sympathy with Esau grounded? He stands out as the representative of the warmhearted, high-spirited man of the world, whose sins, because they scorn the grosset attributes of meanness, seem little more to us than acts of extravagance. The growths of a rich though wayward nature, they carry along with them a certain savour of its richness, that renders them somewhat less unpalatable. And the fact that now and then he can do most liberal things, be touched with poignancy of sorrow, or rise into an ardour of affection, seems to prove that he cannot be a bad man. It shows he has it in him to throw his sin aside, and rise above it, that there must be an inward fountain of goodness, that but for untoward and embarrassing conditions, would be certain to obtain the ascendency. So we are inclined to argue. But the argument may he a mistake. For what determines the nature of a man's life, and stamps his character as good or bad, is the course of it in the main. A few glimpses of sunshine, however bright, will not make a fine day, especially if it pours heavily throughout the intervals. The stream that lingers in its deep pools, and doubles on itself in doubtful windings through the plain, is none the less surely seeking for the sea. So we are not to imagine a man good or bad because the level of his life is broken up by occasional deeds of goodness or the reverse. We are to look at the tenor of the whole and discover, if we can, the sovereign motive that governs its drift. Now it is unfortunately true that much generosity and warmth of emotion may co-exist with serious moral weakness, that a man's nature may break out at times into admirable actions, while its habitual temper is rigidly selfish, nay, that these actions themselves may only be selfishness working in a somewhat unusual way. For what is impulsiveness but the tendency to act at the bidding of one's own feelings? And to indulge our feelings, irrespective of those of other people, what is that but selfishness? A man who habitually lives for himself will, almost unconsciously, act upon the same principle of selfishness even in those very instances in which he seems to have most thoroughly broken away from it. His good deeds are, in all likelihood, so many acts of expiation by which he tries to make up for cases of neglect. Besides, even apart from such considerations, there is a subtle pleasure in being occasionally better than ourselves, in surprising people, and rising above their expectations, which is only another form of selfishness. It is as much as saying, "See how much more generous I am than you supposed. What an injustice you have done me in concluding I am hard-hearted and inconsiderate!" We must not be deceived, then, by the superficial attractiveness of the warm-hearted, impulsive type of character, nor forget that exceptional actions only prove their opposite to be the rule. Selfishness may disguise itself in a coat of many colours, and take its own way among a multitude of devices that seem to surround it with a contrary atmosphere, but which are all intended only to make room for it, and allow it to go on without interference. It is only when a man's life involves him in self-denial; when it recognises the claims of others and the claims of God, and submits to adjust itself faithfully to these; when it gives up its own waywardness, and curtails its freedom, to add to the happiness and well-being of those around him; only, in short, when he bows himself to the yoke of Christ, and begins to burden himself, as He did, with the sins and sorrows, the toils and struggles, of the world — that he learns the first lesson in the school of Christianity, and truly practises the fear of God. But it is not as a selfish but as a profane man Esau is held up as a beacon of warning; and by a profane man is meant one who has no perception of the sanctity of Divine things. But this profaneness simply describes the selfish man's character on that side of it which is turned towards God. He has no such respect for God as moves him to obedience. He removes religion out of his way as a serious hindrance, or shuts it up within so narrow a compass it never comes into collision with himself. What else can he do, if it only thwarts and annoys him? If it gives him no pleasure, and adds nothing to his resources, is it to be expected that it should be found anywhere except amid the lumber of his life? But there is another reason besides those I have mentioned which has much to do with our sympathy with Esau, and that is his misfortunes. We are apt to look at him as the victim of a fraud, and it seems to us almost a contravention of justice that the impostor should flourish in the favour of God and his victim be disowned and cast aside. But this is a one-sided view of the occurrence and falls short of the truth. No man can be cheated out of a Divine gift against his own will. God does not hold His benefits with so lax a hand, or dispense them with such indifference, as to allow them to be diverted from their destined possessor by the craft or subtilty of man or devil. Esau lost the birthright by his sin, sold it for a mess of pottage, and had himself and not his brother to blame for his calamity. But it was highly characteristic of Esau that he should not have seen this. It is the way of selfish, worldly men to resent exceedingly that their sin should find them out. And having his father on his side, who had the blessing to bestow, it seemed to him a settled thing that he should receive it. The old affair of the pottage was not so serious after all, and it would be absurd to suppose that so trifling a transaction would interfere with the stated rights of the eldest born. But though hand join in hand iniquity shall not go unpunished, and the conspiracy of sin was broken, and its purpose baffled, by an utterly unprecedented trick. It is a terrible illustration of the truth that as a man sows so shall he also reap; that every sin we commit, instead of passing into the past with the time that witnessed it, remains embedded among the forces of our life, that there it works and spreads, and dissipates its influence, till it brings us face to face with the measure of retribution. But even though it be granted that Esau suffered for his own fault, was not the suffering disproportioned to the sin? Was it not too trifling to be followed by so grievous a penalty? It might have been so if his sin had only consisted in the act that was the immediate occasion of his loss. But no sin stands by itself. And it is not the evil action that makes a man bad, it merely reveals the fact that he is bad. It is the outlet by which the inward wickedness issues' into broad daylight, and publishes the fact of its existence. Esau was a profane man, not because he sold his birthright; but he sold his birthright because he was profane. And there was nothing for it but to transfer it to some one who should watch over it with becoming pains, and yield himself to be fashioned by the hope of its fulfilment. It happened according to that saying of our Lord, "Unto him that hath shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly, but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have." And so, let us beware of cherishing a spirit of self-indulgence and of indolent yielding to our desires. Your nature may grow so enfeebled by selfishness you will not be able to rouse yourself to the call of God. Some critical moment may arrive, some day of grace, when there shall be set before you with a freer and more abundant entrance than ever the open door of the kingdom of God, and you will be too easy-going to be disturbed, too enervated by indulgence to seize your opportunity. Or, to keep more closely to the tragic example of my text, some long gratified desire may insist on being satisfied at the expense of fidelity to Christ. You may find that in some hour when you have least expected it you are faced with the alternative of denying yourself, or parting for ever with an interest in Him; and if you have not been bearing the Cross and enduring hardness as a good soldier, if you have not been accustoming yourself to sacrifice your own will to the will of God, how terrible the risk that in that hour of everlasting issues you may fail to stand the test, and barter your birthright for a worldly lust! (C. Moinet, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. |
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