Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Wrath: The Case of Esau

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

The story of Jacob and Esau is a great example of how anger works out in a family situation.  Esau and Jacob were twins, and Esau was the oldest. When their father is fooled into giving Jacob the birthright, Esau can’t get ahold of his anger. We’re told that Esau held a grudge against Jacob and consoled himself with thoughts of killing Jacob. And when Esau’s father does pronounce a blessing on Esau, he predicts that Esau is going to be driven by anger all of his life. How can you make sure your anger does not imprison and control you? How can you make sure that you control it? This passage in Hebrews gives us some principles: 1) it tells you what anger is, and then, 2) it tells you three ways to handle it. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 2, 1995. Series: The Seven Deadly Sins. Scripture: Hebrews 12:14-17. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. Why is the world so broken? And why are we capable of inflicting such harm even toward those we love? People point to politics, poverty, or psychology, but none of these fully explain what we see in ourselves and in history. This month on the podcast, Tim Keller is teaching from a series exploring the question, What's wrong with us? Showing us how the Bible's teaching on sin offers the only explanation deep enough to face the truth in all its complexity, and the only hope powerful enough to transform us.

The passage on which our teaching is based is print out in your bullet, and it's Hebrews 12, and I'm only going to read from verses 7, pardon me, from 14 to 17, from chapter 12 versus 14 to 17. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees, make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled but rather healed, make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy. Without holiness, no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. see that no one is sexually immoral or godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterwards, as you know, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears. This is God's word. And what we're doing is we're looking at all through the, through Lent,

We've been looking at sin, what it is, and we've been looking at seven case studies, seven deadly sins, and the last one we look at here today has to do with anger. Let me tell you two stories about anger, two stories about anger and how it works itself out in a family situation. The first story is the story referred to here by the Hebrews writer, when he refers to Esau is a great example of bitterness. And if you go back into Genesis 25, 26, 27, you see a story about twins, twin boys who were born to Isaac and Rebecca. And they were twins. Esau and Jacob, and Esau came out first. Technically, therefore, he was the oldest. And that was pretty significant.

Because the oldest got the birthright. The oldest got the headship of the family. The oldest got the headship, meaning that that one would be the one who set the family's priorities and values, who led the family, who got the bulk of the wealth, who kept on the line, kept the line going. But the Lord sent a prophecy to Rebecca, and therefore to Isaac, just before they were born. And in that prophecy, the Lord said, I want the elder to serve the younger. And this was God's way of saying, yeah, Esau came out first, but I want Jacob to be the head. I want Jacob to be the one who sets the course for the family. I want Jacob to be the one who carries on the family line.

Out of Jacob, will I bring the Messiah? Will I be blessing the earth? And Isaac and Rebecca both knew about what God's will was for their children, but Isaac turned his heart away because Isaac liked Esau best. Isaac favored Esau. And as a result, whenever you do this, whenever you say, I can really run my life better than God says. He made quite a mess of his family.

By showing favoritism in the way he did, he takes Issa and Jacob, and he puts a wedge between, Isaac puts a wedge between himself and his wife, Rebecca, a wedge between Esau and Jacob. And by indulging him and by doting on him and probably a lot of other things, Esau grows up to be a wild man. He grows up to be an impulsive man, an unstable man, a hot-tempered man, a man of anger. A man who's impulsive. A great example of it is one day he comes in from being out hunting and Jacob is cooking some stew and Isaac says, I've got to, Esau says, I've got to have this stew or I'll die. And Jacob says, you know the birthright thing that we've been talking about for years? Sell it to me. I'll give you the stew. If you let me be the head of the family and Esau says, sure, I,

what good is it to be the head of the family if I'm going to starve to death? Then he eats the stew and he forgets about, well, he doesn't forget it. He just forget, he laughs at the promise. He ignores the promise. And a day comes, finally, Isaac is very old. Isaac is now blind. And Isaac says, today I'm going to bless Esau. I'm going to, in a sense, officially make him the head of the family. So he says to Esau, go out, hunt me something up, fix me the meal, come back in. I will make you the head. I'll officially bless you. As Esau leaves, Rebecca hears it. Rebecca sent him. Jacob in, in disguise. Isaac ends up blessing Jacob and saying, your brother will serve you, and actually, without knowing it, confirming the Lord's will. Esau comes in a little bit later

and says, here I am, and Isaac begins to shake. And Isaac says, wait a minute, if you're Esau, Jacob was here and I made him the head I gave him the blessing I gave him the birthright now what's interesting the Bible tells us at that point I remember yeah

Genesis 27 verse 34 it says when Esau heard his father's words he burst out with a loud and bitter cry knew something and Isaac knew it too and that is that this blessing thing wasn't magic it wasn't magical it was fraudulent. Obviously, Jacob had fool Isaac, and it didn't mean that if Isaac wanted to, Isaac could turn around at that point and say, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, it was a fraudulent thing.

I was blind. I didn't realize that you're the head. He could have done that. Isaac wouldn't do it. Why? Because I think at that point, something came home to Isaac that didn't come home to Esau in his wrath. Isaac realized they've been fighting God all his life. Isaac realized that God was going to have his will done. and Isaac says to Esau, no, I can't change it. Isaac realized that Esau had been an idol in his life. Isaac realized that Esau had been more important than God, and Isaac got a hold of his anger, and Esau couldn't. And we're told that Esau had a grudge against Jacob.

Rebecca comes to Jacob, and he says, Esau is going to kill you when your father dies. Esau is consoling himself with the thoughts of killing you. that's a perfect example of a grudge. Great definition, too. He's comforting himself. He feels better when he thinks about how he's going to decapitate you. He holds the grudge. Jacob has to leave, and there's no need to go any further other than to know that when Isaac does actually, in a sense, pronounce a blessing on Esau, he predicts that Esau is going to live by the sword, that Issa is going to stay a man driven by anger all of his life. Let me tell you about another family.

Federici lives in the New York area, and she and her family was the subject of a major article in the New York Times back in January. Amy had a pretty hard life because when she was 26, she got married, and a few weeks after she got married, she found her husband had pancreatic cancer, and three months after that, he had died. And only one, she's a widow at 26. And one year later, she was commuting home from her Manhattan job to her home in Queens on Long Island and she was in the car and a man got up in a car turned around and started shooting everybody and she was one of the six people that were killed in the Long Island Railroad Massacre. She was part of a very close family and the article goes on to show how remarkable that family

was in its response to the whole tragedy. One of the first things that the family did was They donated Amy's organs to three people and saved their lives. And one of the experts in organ donation points out this family is so odd because generally when a family is able to give to donate organs, at a moment of crisis, a tragedy, grief, accident, they can't bear usually to see the person who got the organ. They don't want a relationship with them. They don't even want to see them. Yet this family reached out to those people, brought them into their lives, are now very good friends

and you know this is typical of the new york times the real story is this where did these people get this self-control this is what it says in the times get this it says instead of turning bitter as many of the others involved in this tragedy did the family is forgiven born again christians the family speaks gently of mr ferguson we have been much in prayer for that man they say their attitude is totally amazing to others and one of the organ recipients has said i could never have been that forgiving. Here's what's interesting. This family

look behind the death dealer to death. Look behind the evil doer to evil. And released and spent their anger on the death and on the evil instead of on the evil doer.

And as a result, instead of their anger spending them and controlling them and keeping them imprisoned in their past, they spent their anger to do some tremendous good. two different families, one in the Bible, one right here in New York. What's the secret?

How can you make sure that your anger does not imprison you and control you? How can you make sure that you control it? Well, the writer of the Hebrews gives us some principles, and I'm just going to briefly mention them. First of all, it tells you what anger is, and then secondly, it tells you three ways to handle it. Let's just look at them. Can't spend the time that we'd like to, but let's at least lay them out. First of all, what anger is? You know what it tells us about anger?

Esau was sexually immoral and godless, it says, and he had a root of bitterness. Now, the sexually immoral is probably a bad translation, it probably would be better translated apostate, but the interesting word is he was godless. And that's not a very good translation either. It's a word that literally means secular, a person, focused on the immediate. Now, let me put it in a very stark way.

I mean, we could lay it out in a kind of abstract principle. We could say anger is always tied to that which is your focus. But let me put it in a much more stark way. It'll get your attention. Anger is always an outgrowth of love. Anger is that which rouses you and rallies all of your faculties to defend that which you ultimately love. you get angry to the degree you love something. Anger is that which defends the thing which is threatened, which you love.

Your hierarchy of loves is your hierarchy of anger. Things that you don't love at all don't get you angry when they're threatened. Things that you love a little get you a little angry when they're threatened. Things that you love a lot make you very angry when you're threatened. You are as angry as you are loving and you are angry when that which you love is threatened. That's what anger is. and the reason that's very important to see it's very embarrassing when we see great injustice being done we gets us a little bit angry and when our plans for our day off are completely thwarted we're furious

when god gets angry and he's angry at sin all the time why because he loves the right the good and he loves his creation which is what sin is destroying When Issaa gets angry, it's because he loves his belly, he loves power, he loves the now. See, we put it to you that way. Suddenly it gets pretty embarrassing and it gets very telling. And it shows two quick things, two quick little things. When we realize that anger is a function of defending what you love, and to the degree you love something, you see, the way you find out what you really love is follow your anger.

follow your anger down what you most get angry at what you most get furious at and what you a little bit get furious at all that'll tell you what you love a little what you love not at all and what you love the most the reason i say it's very telling is it tells us two things first of all shows us why anger in the bible is not a sin in itself oh no it's not god gets angry jesus gets angry they're perfect in fact in psalm four and in ephesians four we are told this. Christians are told, be angry, but sin not. Be angry. Do you know that there's a place in the Bible, at least two places, Ephesians 4 and so on 4, where Christians are commanded to be angry. You know why? If you never get angry at anything, it means you love nothing. In fact, the Bible

says there are many situations in which a failure to be angry is a sin because of the failure to love. there's a lot of people around who say oh i'm a christian i don't get angry that is an eastern or a pagan stoicism it's not christianity you'll never see the bible talk about anger like that the stoics you know marcus areelius even a lot of eastern religions say the important thing if you want to have power and control if you want to be a strong person don't let anything get to you never let them see you sweat never let them see you you you know what you know what you what that is? Yeah, that gives you power. It kills your humanity. The Bible says, if you never get angry, it means that you have made yourself indifferent to everything except what? Your

self-control. Suddenly, the important thing is that I'm never affected. And that's the only thing you love is your equilibrium. And that's why you never get angry. That's a terribly wrong thing to say that Christians never get angry. If you don't ever get angry, it shows that things you ought to love, you don't. Everywhere we look, we see brokenness, wars, cruelty, and heartache. We feel it in the world around us and in our own lives. How did it get this way? And what can be done about it?

In his brand new book that's releasing this month, What is Wrong with the World? Tim Keller offers a clear and compassionate answer. Drawing from a series of teachings given at Redeemer, Dr. Keller shows how the reality of sin explains the pain we see all around us and how only the gospel offers lasting, freedom and healing. Whether you're overwhelmed by the state of our world, struggling with your own mistakes or choices, or looking for hope and joy, What is Wrong with the World

will help you see how the gospel speaks to both the heartache of our world and the pain within each of us. This newly released book, What is Wrong with the World, is our thanks for your gift this month to help Gospel in Life share the good news of Jesus. Request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now here. here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching. Be angry. It's a sin if you're never angry, but it also tells us how anger goes wrong. Here's how it goes wrong. When the things that are most important in your life also happen to be most important in reality, then when you get angry, because the right is being trampled on,

because the image of God and people is being trampled. And when you see people being cruelly used, and you know about their dignity as people in the image of God. When you see human dignity being trampled on, when you see injustice being done, justice being trampled on, when you see truth being trampled on, when you see the name of God being trampled on, those things are the most important things in the universe, and when the most important things in the universe,

also the most important things in your heart, when you get angry at them, you'll find that your anger does not control you, you control it. It's useful. It works. It helps. It pushes you to it. doing things that you ought to do. It helps you focus. But if the things that you love

ultimately are not ultimately important, you'll find that your anger is a way of getting you to serve those false ultimate loves. Anger is always a way that the things you love most chain you into their service. And this takes us back to the theme that we saw in the beginning. You know, we've been doing this theme on sin, all during Lent, all during actually the winter. And we lay this principle down before, and we lay it down one more time. Don't you see how it works? We said, sin is something that leads us to make things more important than God. Sin is what leads your heart to say, if I was married, things would really be happy.

If I had children, or if I was successful, or if these people accepted me, or if I had money, or if I had a professional acclaim, all of us have things that we elevate up ahead of God and we say, if I have that, I'll be happy. And we've talked about that, but now you see, that's what makes anger what it is. When any of those things are threatened, your anger rises up and you're chained to that thing. You can't stop. You're out of control. It's imprisoned you.

When something gets between you and this thing that you say, I've got to have to be happy, that's when the anger comes up, and that kind of anger will work evil. That kind of anger will control you instead of you controlling it. That anger will use you instead of you using it. That anger will do you instead of you doing it. That anger will spend you instead of you spending it. Okay. So how do you handle anger?

that you spend it instead of it spending you. How do you handle anger? Well, there's three things that are laid down here in this passage of Hebrews. Three things you've got to do. Three principles. All right. The first one is fairly simple but important. You need to be aware of the anger in your life. That may seem pretty obvious, but what the metaphor is here, it calls bitterness a root. Now, why does it call it a root? It calls it a root because roots are invisible. This is what ordinarily happens to us. We don't want to believe we're angry people.

You know, when somebody makes us extremely angry, we hate to admit how important that thing is to us. Anger is a way, you know, your slip is showing when anger comes up. You know, when you know that somebody's hurt your reputation and you get furious, you don't want people to know how important your reputation is to you. When something goes wrong at work and you get furious, you don't want people to know how important that project was, so you don't want people to know. In fact, you don't want to believe it yourself. And so what we do is we just get rid of it. We just stuff it. We say, I'm not angry.

There's a part of our heart that says, I want to get that person, but we say, no, nope, I've forgiven them. It's a way for you to feel in control of your life. But what happens is the roots there. And you will find that that root will defile you, it says. It will grow up eventually. Eventually, it'll distort your life unless you're willing to see that you really do have anger. People walk around all the time saying, I'm not an angry person, I'm not an angry person, I'm not an angry person. Suddenly, the right opportunity, a root may be down there, and the whole tree is in there. The whole tree, but it's little cold, or there's not enough rain, but the right opportunity

comes along, the right conditions, and suddenly up comes the tree. you say to yourself, I'm not angry, I'm not angry, I'm not angry, hmm? Suddenly a trapdoor opens, and this forest comes up, see? I'm not angry, I'm not angry, suddenly you see it's distorting your life. Some of you are cynical people. Don't you know what that is? That's bitterness. You've been hurt by somebody, and you're going to pay the world back by not trusting anyone again. That's bitterness. Some people say to me, I'm never going to be a Christian.

because I've seen such hypocrites. In other words, your bitterness toward people who have wronged you and disillusioned you, that's now distorting. It's defiling you. I've had people, I met a guy once who hated Japanese. He was in a prisoner of war camp years ago during World War II, and he hates the Japanese now.

You know what? He's more in prison now than he was then. The only way that a person who has wronged you can really keep controlling you is if you stay mad at them. if you stay mad at somebody that bitterness is defiling you it's controlling you it's controlling your behavior right now they've won evil has won you're defiled what are you going to do about it first of all be aware of it be aware i i have people who say to me well now i don't want that person

harmed you sure usually what people mean is i've forgiven them means i'm not going to try to hurt them. But would you like to hear somebody else doing it? Would you love to hear that somebody else did it? Would you love to hear that they've been hurt, that they've been brought down? You say, well, of course I would. That's a root. The second principle is this. The first principle is you've got to be willing to admit that it's there. Got to be willing to admit it. You've got to be willing to see it. Second principle is very important. Second principle is very important. Second principle is You've got to be willing, I guess, instead of being godless, be Godful. What does that mean?

Ask yourself, ask yourself, when you find yourself really getting angry, say, what am I defending? Under the Holy Spirit, your anger will probably not be able to hold up to that question if you're willing to go underneath. What am I defending? You know, I love to be productive, and if my days of preparation, preparing sermons and things like that are interrupted, I can get pretty angry. And I have to ask myself, what am I defending? Well, I say, I just want to be productive. Ah, but look at what's going on there, I have to say to myself, if you get your goals today, if you get everything done that you want to get done, in some deep recess of the heart, you're going to say, I'm an able person. I deserve to be senior pastor of a church.

and if I don't get it done, I'll say, I am nothing. I am inadequate. I am unable. And if somebody comes between me and my goal, I get furious. I have to say, what am I defending? God came to Baruch back in Jeremiah 45. And he says to Baruch, Baruch was pretty upset. He wanted his wonderful career as a scholar and a scribe, but because he got linked up with Jeremiah who completely crossed the establishment, and everybody was against Jeremiah, so everybody was against Baruch, and Brooke's career was going down the toilet, and he was discouraged and angry, and God comes to Baruch, and he says, seekest thou great things for thyself. Seek them not. He says, Baruch, if you make your career more important than me, you're always going to be angry,

and that's the reason you're an angry person. Make me your success, and you'll be free. May me your success. Don't you say, seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not. When you get angry, ask yourself, what am I defending? What is it? How am I being secular? How am I focusing on the immediate?

How are penultimate things become ultimate to me? I will not be controlled by these things. I will not seek these things. These things will imprison me through anger. I will not. I will not. I will not. Well, last of all.

So the first principle is you have to be aware of the roots in your life. Secondly, you've got to be willing to be God full. That means you've got to not just say, I shouldn't be mad, I shouldn't be mad, I shouldn't be mad. Instead, you've got to go underneath and say, why has productivity? Oh, Tim Keller, why has your productivity become so important to you? Oh, Baruch, why has your career become so important to you? You see, it's not enough just to say, why am I so angry? I shouldn't be angry.

Christians don't get angry. You've got to go underneath. How are you being godless? Anger that's out of control, anger that has got you under its control, anger that's distorting your life over the years is a form of godlessness, or a form of, you might say, false godfulness, put the right God back where he belongs. Last of all, look, it says, let no one miss the grace of God. Let know what? Let no root of bitterness spring up. See the last principle? grace and bitterness prevent each other. They are absolute antithesis to each other. They're like fire and water. When you bring fire and water together, either the fire is greater than the water and it vaporizes the water or the water is greater than the fire and it extinguishes the fire, but they cannot be together.

Either your understanding of grace will put out your bitterness or the bitterness will keep you from understanding grace. They cannot coexist together. And you know why? when Jesus Christ was up on the cross after he had paid the price for our sins he said to tell us I mean he says it's translated it is finished it is finished

but it can also be translated it is paid because it's an economic term but what he's really saying is I have finished the payment do you know what he did I don't understand much about hell but I know this I don't understand a lot about hell but I know this

hell is endless what does that mean it means that our debt to God what we owe God is so great that we never finish its payment let's not think about anything else for a minute let's not think of all your other questions you might have about hell, but just realize hell is eternal.

What that is saying is your payment is never finished, and yet when Jesus Christ died on the cross for us, he finished the payment. That must mean that whatever he experienced on the cross was far worse than what you and I could experience in hell forever. The only way and the perfect way and the absolute way for you to deal with what people owe you, how do you forgive people how do you say they owe me but i forgive they owe me but i let it go they

owe me but i will not demand payment you have to let what you owe god absolutely beggar absolutely overwhelm what they owe you in your mind you've got to say look what he paid he did not demand from me what I owed it is finished here's the bad here's the weird thing if you demand payment from people if you stick pins in their heart or if you just stick pins in them in your mind in your heart if you avoid them or if you can control them saying you owe me if you give little digs to them if you give little digs to other people If you say, I've forgiven you, but it's really your way of rubbing their nose in it, by your righteous mercy showing you how much of a better person you are.

There's hundreds of ways of making them pay. Jesus did not make you pay. If you try to make other people pay, it will never be finished. They will get more and more poor, and you will get more and more poor. But if you see Jesus saying it's finished, it's paid, then you can turn to other people and say, it's finished. I will not make you pay. He did not make me pay. You have to see Jesus dying like that. And if you do, it'll be over. It'll be finished. You'll be able to say, as he forgave me, I forgive them.

Can you do that? You know, the great ironies of the whole thing is being a bitter person is to say to people, you owe me. My parents, they owe me. My children, they own me. My children, they They owe me. This institution owes me. These people owe me. Here's what's so ironic. If you hold on to their accounts, instead of tearing them up, if you hold onto those accounts,

what's so ironic about it, the Bible says you will get poor and poorer and poorer. But look at Jesus Christ. When he paid your accounts, instead of demanding payment, does he look poor to you? He's rich. he came down right he emptied himself he paid the price therefore god has highly exalted him

the great irony if you demand payment you'll get poor and poor if you make the payment you'll finally get rich you'll finally be free you'll finally find the same freedom that that family found that even the new york times couldn't help but notice and other people will notice it in you as well Seekest thou great things for thyself. Seek them not. Let's pray. Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it

and that it helps you apply the gospel to your life and share it with others. For more helpful resources from Tim Keller, visit gospelandlife.com. There, you can subscribe to the Life in the Gospel Quarterly Journal. When you do, you will also receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other great gospel-centered resources. Again, it's all at gospelandlife.com.

You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X. Today's sermon was recorded in 1995. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Thank you.