material things.
And so Esau has to go into a far country.
You say, why is that significant?
Why does that matter?
Well, go to Romans 9 if you would, Romans chapter 9.
We're going to come back to Genesis 36.
But anyway, we see that Esau is very wealthy, very prosperous.
He goes into another land and his descendants become powerful.
They become dukes and they even become kings, okay?
Go to Romans chapter 9 and this becomes extremely significant.
And there's a reason why God puts these things in the Bible, because they matter.
Go to Romans 9 and if you would, start reading in verse number... and I'd really love to
read the whole chapter and explain the whole thing, but for the sake of time, let's just
start reading in verse 10.
And not only this, but when Rebekah also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac.
Now remember, Rebekah and Isaac are the parents of Jacob and Esau.
For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose
of God according to election might stand, not of works but of him that calleth, it was
said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger.
As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
Now, Romans 9 is the passage that more than any others Calvinists will use to try to force
their doctrine into the Scripture.
Their doctrine is foreign to the Scripture.
Every part of Calvinism is false.
Calvinism teaches that Jesus didn't die for everybody.
The Bible says that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man.
The Bible says he is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for
the sins of the whole world.
The Bible says that he is the, especially of them that believe, how does it go?
Somebody help me out.
It's on the tip of my tongue.
I've got all these anti-Calvinist verses that I just want to just, he is the savior of all
men, thank you, especially of belief.
That means he's the savior of those that don't believe.
Now, the Bible says, unto them the word was preached as well as unto us, but the word
preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
So he is the savior, but that's not going to profit you unless you believe.
But he's the savior of all men, especially of those that believe.
The Bible says that false prophets in 2 Peter 2, he said that they even deny the Lord that
bought them, and he said their damnation slumbereth not.
These are unsaved false prophets to whom it will one day be said, depart from me, I never
knew you, and yet it says that they deny the Lord that bought them.
That means that the blood of Christ paid for their sins also.
He died for every man.
He's the savior of all men.
He said he will have all men to be saved, will meaning he wants or is willing, that
all men would be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
And Calvinists, they have a lot of arguments, but they don't have scripture.
They'll come at you and say, oh well I guess God's just this weak God that's relying on
us and he's not powerful enough.
No he is powerful enough, but he chose to give us free will.
And he gave us the choice, he said whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
He said you will not come to me that you might have life.
If someone goes to hell, it's their fault, not God's fault.
God did everything he could to reach out and they rejected.
He said I've called but you've refused.
See all of this that I've just said over the past few minutes is all contrary to Calvinism,
which teaches an irresistible grace, an irresistible pull.
Calvinists will take scriptures out of context, like they'll take the scripture where Jesus
said no man can come unto me except the Father draw him.
But they don't read a few chapters later when Jesus said and I, if I be lifted up from the
earth, will draw all men unto me.
They don't read that part.
Or they'll find verses where Jesus says to the disciples, you've not chosen me but I've
chosen you.
But what they forget is the verse where he said if not I've chosen you twelve and want
to use a devil.
Because when he said he chose them, he's saying he chose them to be his disciples.
That doesn't have anything to do with salvation.
Because he chose Judas.
Was Judas saved?
But he still chose him.
So the choosing isn't about salvation.
See how they twist verses and twist scriptures and take them out of context.
Well there, I mean if you had to pick one chapter that is the Calvinist's favorite chapter,
it's Romans 9.
And I'll be honest with you, when I was a teenager, Calvinists would hit me with this
chapter and it kind of threw me for a loop.
I knew Calvinism was false.
Because when you see something that goes against so many clear scriptures, you know it's false.
But I saw this chapter and it kind of threw me for a loop.
And they love this part where it says, see the children, they weren't even born yet,
they hadn't done anything, and God already said Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated.
Right out of the gate he already chose Jacob and rejected Esau totally apart from their
own free will.
And they try to spin this about salvation and here's what Calvinists will tell you.
They'll say Esau could have never gotten saved, he was just condemned to hell from the beginning,
he had no choice in the matter because God already foreordained it and they use that
as proof that God foreordains who goes to heaven and goes to hell.
Wrong.
God is not willing that any should perish.
He's long suffering to us, he's not slack concerning his promise, but as long suffering
to us we're not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
And I prayed to God as a teenager, I was about 17, I prayed to God and I said God,
I want you to reveal to me the meaning of Romans 9, and I prayed and I spent about two
weeks praying about this chapter and I didn't want to go to the commentary and go to man,
I went to God and I just prayed and asked God.
And after two weeks it just dawned on me.
And once I saw it it was so obvious, it was like how did this chapter ever bother me?
But it's because they had put a false idea in my head that this chapter is about salvation.
This chapter is not about salvation at all, it's not about personal salvation, I'm going
to prove that to you quickly.
And Genesis 36 helps prove that this is not about personal salvation.
First of all, the whole chapter, we don't have time to read it, but the whole chapter
is discussing the difference between basically physical Israel, the physical seed of Abraham,
and spiritual Israel, or the spiritual seed of Abraham.
And he explains his will and so forth on that score.
And I'm not going to go into it for the sake of time, I've preached whole sermons on this
chapter, but let me just point out to you a blatant error in the Calvinist's interpretation
of this chapter.
He says in this chapter, for the children being not yet born, verse 11, neither having
done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not
of works, but of him that calleth, it was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger
as it is written, Jacob of I love, but Esau of I hated.
So he gives two Old Testament quotes there, does he not?
The first one is that it was spoken to Rebekah while she was pregnant, the children not yet
born, not having done any good or evil, the elder shall serve the younger, and then he
says as it is written, Jacob of I love, but Esau of I hated.
Now go back if you would, because whenever you run into quotes in the New Testament and
something confuses you, go back and look it up in the Old Testament, it comes crystal
clear.
Go to the Old Testament, Genesis 25.
Keep your finger in Romans 9, go to Genesis 25, and watch how clear this is when you just
do a little studying, Genesis chapter 25 verse 23 is where that quote comes from.
It says this, and the Lord said unto her, two nations.
So are we talking about the individual person?
Are we talking about the man Jacob and the man Esau at all, as the Calvinist will have
you believe that Romans 9 is about personal salvation?
Wrong.
We're talking about nations, not individuals.
It says in verse 23, the Lord said unto her, two nations are in thy womb, and two manner
of people shall be separated from thy bowels.
Notice the plurality again, people, two manner of people, two types of people.
And the one people shall be stronger than the other people, and the elder shall serve
the younger.
Question, is the man Esau going to serve the man Jacob, or is the nation of Edom going
to serve the nation of Israel?
It's the nation.
Nothing to do with personal salvation.
Their whole doctrine falls apart because it's based on a lie that it's oh, oh Esau, he had
no chance to be saved.
We're not even talking about being saved, because we're not even talking about Esau.
We're talking about the nation of Esau and the nation of Israel.
That's what we're talking about.
Now the proof of this is in Genesis 36, because in Genesis 36 we see that Esau is dwelling
nowhere near Jacob, is he?
Not only that, we're seeing he's extremely wealthy, extremely wealthy.
Do you see any evidence that he's serving Jacob and has to come crying to Jacob and
Jacob's ruling over him?
And Jacob's charging him money?
If anything, Jacob was giving Esau stuff a few chapters ago.
He was giving Esau cattle.
He was serving him, if anything.
There's no evidence in the Bible that Esau ever served Jacob.
In fact, the Bible flat out tells us he went to a distant country and became extremely
wealthy and had dukes and kings come out of his loins and was thriving and prospering.
He was not serving Jacob.
Now let's go to the other quote, Malachi chapter 1.
Last book of the Old Testament, Malachi chapter 1.
This is important doctrine, because you'll get hit with these by these false teachers
and Calvinists and man, this is the answer right here.
It's very simple, it's just a simple matter of looking up the Scriptures in their context
in the Old Testament.
Let's go to Malachi 1, let's see if we're talking about the person or the nation.
Look at verse 1.
The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.
I have loved you, saith the Lord, yet you say, Whereinest thou loved us?
Was not Esau Jacob's brother, saith the Lord?
Yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the
dragons of the wilderness.
Let me ask you this, did Esau the man, did God ever lay his mountains and his heritage
waste for the dragons of the wilderness?
No.
God did not attack Esau.
God did not lay his mountains waste.
God judged and attacked his descendants, the nation of Esau, which is known as Edom.
Look at the next verse.
Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places.
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down.
And they shall call them the border of wickedness, and the people against whom the Lord hath
indignation forever.
So who did God hate?
He hated the Edomites.
He hated the nation of Edom, not the man Edom.
The man Edom, we don't know a whole lot about him.
Did God hate the man Edom, possibly?
Was he a very wicked sinful man?
Well we knew that he had three heathen wives.
We knew that he despised his birthright.
We knew that he was profane in that sense, and that he committed fornication.
But these two scriptures in Romans 9, first of all, it wasn't said unto her while the
children were in the womb, Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated.
Oh no.
It was said unto her while they were in the womb, the elders shall serve the younger.
That prophecy was fulfilled in Malachi with this statement, Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated.
Nothing to do with the person, all about the nation.
Not the Old Testament, the whole nation is known as Jacob, or the whole nation is known
as Israel, or the whole nation is known as Edom or Esau, because men's names are used
to denote nations.
For example, sometimes they're called the Moabites, but sometimes they're just called
Moab.
Sometimes they're called the Amalekites, sometimes they're just called Amalek.
Sometimes God would just use the name of the person who was the founder of that tribe.
You know, he'd just call them Reuben or call them Levi, call them this, because that was
the founder and the ancestor of them.
So in Romans 9, understanding that, it's clear and it fits the context of Romans 9, because
the whole discussion of Romans 9 through 11, 9 through 11 talks about the fact, and this
is the subject of those three chapters, they form a trilogy.
Romans 9 through 11 explains the fact that by and large, the physical seed of Abraham,
nation of Israel, rejected the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul wishes they would be saved, but they're not saved.
And he's talking about the fact how only the remnant of the nation of Israel are the true
Israelites, the ones who believe on Christ are the true Israelites, they are God's chosen
people.
The others have been broken off of the olive tree.
And he says those who basically believe in Christ, they're part of the olive tree.
Those who don't believe in Christ, they're not part of the olive tree.
And he's explaining the difference between spiritual Israel and physical Israel, okay?
Spiritual saved, born again Israel versus unregenerate, basically what we would call
Jews today, people that are just Jews but they don't believe in Christ, he says they're
not my chosen people.
He said, it's just like Hosea, say unto them you're not my people, say unto them lo am
I, which means in Hebrew, he defines it for us in Hosea 1, you're not my people, I'm not
your God.
And that's the message of the Bible to the children of Israel today that don't believe
on Christ.
He says lo am I, I'm not your God and you're not my people, because if you don't have the
Son, you don't have the Father.
But he that hath the Son hath the Father also, okay.
So that's a really key thing that we get out of Genesis 36, go back to Genesis 36 if you
would.
So not only does the Bible prove when we look up those two Old Testament quotes that we're
talking about the nation not the person in both cases, not only that but it fits the
context of Romans 9, which is a discussion about the nation, not a discussion about individuals,
it's a discussion about the nation.
It's a discussion about groups of people in Romans 9 and 11.