ESAU.
Esau had the birthright given him.
In the olden times this meant not only temporal but spiritual blessing.
One day Esau took this birthright and traded it off for something to eat. Oh, the folly! But let us not be too severe upon him, for some of us have committed the same folly.
After Esau had thus parted with his birthright, he wanted to get it back. Just as though you, tomorrow morning, should take all your notes and bonds and government securities, and should go into a restaurant, and in a fit of restlessness and hunger throw all those securities on the counter and ask for a plate of food, making that exchange.
This was the exchange Esau made.
He sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, and he was very sorry about it afterward; but “he found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.”
There are sins which, though they may be pardoned, are in some respects irrevocable; and you can find no place for repentance, though you seek it carefully with tears. After wasting forty years, you can not get back the neglected advantages of boyhood and youth.