God chose Jacob rather than Esau. Some people say that God hated Esau before he was born. This is not the teaching of Scripture, even though one of the minor prophets long years after mentioned it. God says to Jacob after he had been in Haran for so many years: “I am the God of Bethel. Arise and dwell there.” Jacob ought to have been proud, and should have left Haran like a prince, but instead he steals away like a thief. He starts off, and his uncle and father-in-law pursue. God took care of him. God was determined to keep His vows, and there is no doubt that, had not God interfered, Jacob would have been slain. We find that Jacob stays behind, like a miserable coward, after he had sent his effects away. A man out of communication with God is a coward always. There was a man who wrestled with Jacob. He was Christ. When did Jacob prevail? When his thigh was out of joint all he could do was to hold on and get the blessing. The man who is the lowest down is the man whom God lifts up the highest. The man that has the greatest humility will be the most exalted. A great many say that Jacob was a different man. Would to God his thigh had been left out of joint, so that there was no more of the flesh in him. The next thing, we find Jacob and Esau embracing, and we would suppose that he would be filled with gratitude. But no. He goes down to Shechem and builds an altar and calls it by a high-sounding name. Jacob in Shechem, with this altar with a high-sounding name, was no better than he was in Haran without an altar. He built an altar, finally, at Bethel. He said that he would go to Bethel and build an altar to his God, as if the Shechem altar was no altar. He called it El-Bethel. Just the moment he came to Bethel the Lord God met him. The next thing we hear is the saddest episode in the career of Jacob--the death of Rachel, his favorite wife. His sons go back to Shechem, and hunt up the old idols. His sons bring him back news from there that his most dearly loved son was dead. Do you see how Jacob begins to reap the harvest of the sins of his early days? For twenty long years he mourned that beloved boy. He deceived his own father, and his own sons, in turn, deceived him. What a bitter life! What was Jacob’s dying testimony to Pharaoh? It would take ten thousand Jacobs to get one convert like Pharaoh. “Few and evil,” said Jacob, “have my days been.” He started with a lie in his mouth. He died in exile. He died in Egypt--not in the land which God had promised him. He would not let God choose for him. He was saved by fire--or, as Job said, by the skin of his teeth. JACOB’S SONS.