Deliverance from Esau - By Pastor Ituah Ighodalo


(1) Preamble

The Bible especially the Old Testament is representative of what we call in spiritual terms types and shadows of things that happen to people in our present day period. Most of the stories that you find in the Old Testament are spiritual examples and parallels of things that generally happen to people. The stories themselves are true stories but they have been interpreted in spiritual terms. The Bible is a book of strong literary content and it is full of allegories. It is a very powerful and interesting book. It is from this point of view that we are looking at the story of Esau and Jacob. This story tells us a few things about Esau and Jacob and we will take a look at a few of these things and how they affect our individual lives.

The genesis of the story of Esau and Jacob which forms the background for this book can be found in Genesis 25: 19-34 and Genesis 32: 1-11. These passages tell us of the story of Esau and his brother Jacob and of the struggles they went through even starting from their mother’s womb. The Bible tells us in this story that a woman called Rebecca got married to her second cousin called Isaac and for 20 years they were both barren. Isaac got married to Rebecca when he was forty and Rebecca must have been about 19 or 20 around that time. It is very interesting that Isaac and Rebecca were barren because the Bible tells us that Isaac was a child of promise, a child of destiny who was destined to become someone important. Isaac was the instrument that God was going to use to fulfil his promise to Abraham that he will be the father of many nations. Yet in his life at this point in time nothing seemed to be happening. Then the Bible tells us that to make something happen Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife. (This is a word for husbands to begin to pray for and with their wives. A lot of husbands are not having their prayers answered because they are not praying for their wives or they are quarrelling with them.)
 
The Lord answered Isaac’s prayer and Rebecca got pregnant. But in spite of the fact that the Lord responded to their cries, there was still turbulence in Rebecca’s heart. During the pregnancy Rebecca knew there was a struggle within her womb and she decided to enquire of the Lord. God answered her and showed her the future and the future that God showed Rebecca eventually came to pass. She was told that there were two nations within her womb and the elder would serve the younger. Esau was born first and Jacob came after. Israelis are very particular about the sequence of birth of their children. Whosoever is born first is the inheritor of the father’s resources. It is the first son that becomes king; it is the first son that continues his father’s line. So being a first son is a very important thing that determines the future and that guarantees the wealth of such a first born. The first born son was dedicated to God as a first fruit offering. Therefore when Esau was born, there was rejoicing and happiness because an heir apparent had been born. But there was a prophecy from God that he was going to change the tradition and the people began to wonder how God was going to reverse a tradition that had been established for many years. God’s word to Rebecca was that Jacob will become the first born and inherit the blessing which should have gone to Esau naturally. We therefore come to a situation in the story where Esau and Jacob began to compete. Esau was sticking to his birthright which was naturally his and Jacob was running after him to take that birthright from him because he believed it had been given to him by God. Jacob knew that the birthright will be his in fulfilment of the prophecy concerning his life.

One of the things that this story teaches us is that in every man’s life there is an Esau and there is a Jacob. Jacob represents the things of the spirit; that which is born of God or comes forth from the commandment of God. Esau represents that which is born of the flesh. Esau represents the aspects of human personality and character that tends towards the body and towards the flesh. Jacob represents the aspects of human character and personality that tends towards spiritual things and aspires in the direction in which God is taking a particular individual. Esau represents the things that make a person earth bound, things that want to make a person stay here on earth. Jacob represents the things of the future, things of the spirit, things spoken by God into a person’s life.

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Lessons from the story of Esau & Jacob

Let us take a look at some of the things we can learn from this story of Esau and Jacob:
 

1. Esau and Jacob were twins conceived in the same womb, born on the same day within minutes of each other to the same parent in the same house. The Bible tells us that as Esau came out, Jacob held on to his heels. They started life together, started life in a similar way but they did not end their life together and did not end up in the same way. They had the same circumstances and the same opportunities. This tells us straight away that two people may start together, have the same background, have the same opportunities but may not end up in similar ways. The Yoruba people have a saying that twenty children cannot play together for twenty years. A lot of people born in the same situation, in the same environment, with the same opportunities never end up the same way. A friend was sharing with me that he went to a particular secondary school and in that school there were a group of them that were friends. They wore the same uniforms, went to the same classes, went through the same exams, all had the same opportunity to succeed in life. Then about 20 years after they had all graduated, they all met together for a re-union. When they met they discovered that some had become doctors, some lawyers, some successful businessmen and there were some amongst them who were still non-starters. He then said to me that what really surprised him was that one day when he went to Port-Harcourt, he had missed his way to the meeting that he was going to and along the way he saw a man wandering around one of the gardens of the city and as he saw the man there was a flicker of recognition in both his and this man’s faces. He couldn’t remember where he had known the man from but the man called him by a nickname that he had been referred to when he was in secondary school. As they spoke there was a dawn of realisation in that man’s face that they had been classmates. Then he turned to him and asked him what he was doing wandering around the garden in the hot sun and the man replied that he was trying to get to America. Apparently the man had lost his mind. These men went to school together and had the same opportunities but ended up differently.

1. The second thing that we can learn is that Esau represents the two aspects of your personality that could help to either fulfil or destroy your potential. There is an aspect of your life that if you develop it will take you one way and there is the other aspect that if developed will take you the other way. There are two things in your life fighting against each other. Paul said in his epistles that his body and his spirit were always fighting against each other. There was always a battle going on in his life. There was this young lady who came to see me recently. She had just graduated from school and was trying to make a living and survive. She said she had two sides to her life. A side that is good and wants to do the right things, say the right prayers, go to the right places, and be nice and decent. She said that she also had another side that wants to explore the world, wants to date, wants to have the enjoyments and have the benefits of the world. She said she is always wondering what this other side will be like where you have the sugar daddies, who in exchange for five minutes of sex will take you on a trip to London and buy you Gucci bags and other good things of life. Somehow I was angry with the society that is made up of such men offering our young girls this kind of life. I was also angry with the Church because we sit in our caves and cocoons and we are not aware of what is going on outside. We wonder why some people are committing these sins but these are people with great needs that have to be met. These are real life people with real life issues and the church is telling them not to do these things or engage in that but the Church is not meeting their needs. When Joseph was in Potiphar’s house, he was faced with two options: should he sleep with Potiphar’s wife and become great in the flesh or should he keep his chastity and become great according to the vision that God had given him. Everyday people are faced with choices and compromises. If you do not bribe Mr. X you would not get Mr. Y’s contract. Society is going to try and force you to do what society wants because evil is reigning in the society. Evil, corruption, bribery, sex and drugs, fornication and adultery are the rule of the day.  You have an equal opportunity to determine which way your life will go. Some people think they are born again but sooner or later they go back to the things of the world because of material benefits and compromises. Anything that is material is ephemeral. Today you buy a brand new car and two to five years later it is old and useless. For example, you are a young man, grown up and find yourself rising through the ranks to the top of your profession. You have all the money and all the women but you are not born again and are doing things according to the way of the world. You think you are getting on in life but a closer look shows that you are not satisfied with all your women and you are not satisfied with all your money. Your health is in shambles, your first son wakes up one day and suddenly dies in a plane crash, your second son drives down the road and breaks his two legs and then you suddenly wake up one day and in the midst of two women you die. A lot of people are making money today, riding high but without God in their lives. They are compromising, cheating, and lying, stealing and are not truly born again. All this is due to the spirit of Esau. An Esau is the natural way of a man when God is not paramount in his life, when he is not fully born again. An Esau is the way you will go if God was not in your life. An Esau is that which destroys you, that destiny which you would have become if God had not favoured you.

1. An Esau is those things you do when you have decided against God. You have decided that you are not following God again like Saul did. You have been following God for a while but then your flesh, your desire to satisfy people and satisfy your flesh makes you decide against God. A lot of us are faced with these temptations everyday. The desires of our flesh are warring against our desires for God. Such people come to church as a social obligation. They hear the Word but they have become like iron. The Word does nothing to them. Such people have a good and clear destiny but are going the way of the world. I would give you a few examples: The Bible tells us the story of Samson in Judges Chapters 13-15: He was destined to become great but ended up in the prison of life because of his lust and desire for women. There is usually a Delilah or a Bathsheba in everyone’s life and you need to know when that situation arises and how to tackle it. The Bible tells us in 2 Kings 5 of a gentleman called Gehazi who was supposed to be great but ended up being great in a leper’s colony. He should have ended up being a great prophet but ended up a leper because of his love for money which the Bible says is the root of all evil. Samson ended up being a great prisoner instead of being a great king. 2 Samuel 13-18 tells us about Absalom who was destined to become king after David ended up great on a tree because of his choices for lust. Everyday that you live without consulting the will of God for your life, you might find yourself in a serious situation. There was the story of this professor who was always sitting at the gate of a school. The man knew world history from back to front. The students would always go to him asking him questions which he always answered confidently. But the man was mad. Whenever they give him rice to eat, he would pour it into the sand, mix it up together and begin to eat it. This was a man destined for greatness but for one reason or the other ended up at the lower rungs of life.

1. The fourth lesson we learn from this story is that there is always something in our past which if we don’t take care of and settle once and for all can hinder us from our destiny. After several years of wandering around, Jacob was on his way back home to claim his inheritance. He had become successful and was at the point of fulfilling his destiny. As he approached his house and his destiny, he remembered that there was something that he had left behind and if that thing was still alive and not addressed there was no way he could make it to his destiny. He remembered Esau. An Esau is something in your past that waits for you at the point of your destiny and at the point of your success. Something in your past that you left behind in your attitude and in your desire to succeed which you have not dealt with. The problem about Esaus is that we can’t kill Esaus and Esaus don’t die. No matter how long you have been running, your Esau will be for you waiting at the point of your destiny. It is waiting to destroy your destiny and spoil your testimony and make sure you don’t get to where you are going. It might be something that you were born with or something that you experienced in the past or something that you left behind in the back burner such as a personal characteristic, a habit, a life experience that haunts you and prevents you from full and complete joy. It is a gruesome reminder of a terrible past that is waiting for you at the point of your destiny. It is one of the scars of life that never allows you to get to where you are going. It is something that has not been erased in your life. There was this story of this man who was in America and who had committed a traffic offence several years before. He never paid the fine nor served the term. He forgot about it. Many years later, he was running for governorship of a certain state and won the primaries and the election and got to the point where they were about to swear him into office when someone went to the records office and brought up the minor traffic offence. He had spent all his money and all his time at getting to this position and all of a sudden someone shows up with a traffic offence. There are some things that you have done in the past and have forgotten about and at the point of your destiny they show their ugly heads. There are some things that you do that will never go away. Some things can never be changed. You need to be careful what you do. Maybe you cheated previously in an exam and somehow you have forgotten all about it and tomorrow you are running for office and someone says that man is a cheat. There are some things about you that are not right, a fault, a weakness, a demonic influence that you have not got rid of, a secret sin not repented of. About twenty years ago, a lady engaged and about to be married to somebody suddenly travelled and during her visit met an ex-boyfriend. They spent the night together and afterwards both went their separate ways. Then she came back home and about 2 or 3 months later found out she was pregnant. Meanwhile her fiancée was in another part of the world entirely. She knew the baby was not for her fiancée and in her panic not to be discovered decided to keep the pregnancy. After nine months a baby bounces out. The fiancée of course claims the baby but twenty years down the line the episode still haunts her. A lot of people have been through multiple boyfriends, abortions, orgies, drugs, incest, parties, and children outside wedlock. They are all an Esau in the past waiting at the point of destiny.                                                                

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The Characteristics of Esau

Some people no matter how hard they try never succeed. They are never satisfied or content. They never fulfil their destiny. An Esau is that aspect of your character that never allows you to succeed. It is a feature built into your character that has been there right from the time of your birth. That thing that shows up at odd times that makes people change their mind about you. One minute you are doing well and progressing, people seem to like you and all of a sudden they just change their attitude towards you. Maybe you start a job and after a while your boss suddenly changes his mind about you. Or maybe you are in a relationship and it goes on well for a few months and then all of a sudden your partner changes his mind about you. Or you make a new friend and you and your friend are about to start a business and then all of a sudden there is a small quarrel and one person is not talking to another one.

An Esau is that thing that all of a sudden when people realise that you have it makes them change their mind about you. Initially they didn’t know that you had that thing. When they saw you they saw a nice and delightful person and then as they began to know you a bit more they realised that in your background there is an Esau. Something they just discovered about you that makes them change their mind negatively about you. It could be an unprintable past. It could be an unacceptable background. It could be a previous prison sentence. It could be a virginity loss. A lady was telling me about how she had tried so hard to keep her virginity and she had succeeded to an extent until she met this man that she liked. Then strange thoughts began to occur to her and strange friends began to advise her that she had been a virgin for too long so she was asked to play around a little. She was being asked how she could endure having only one type of sexual experience her entire life. Then just at the point of her breakthrough her body is crying for that which she had kept from it for so long. 

How do you know that there is an Esau operating in your life?

1. When your breakthroughs are delayed and take a long time coming it means that there is an Esau lurking around the corner. The Bible says that Isaac was forty years old when he got married. Esau got married to a Hittite when he was forty. Isaac got married late and it took the prompting of his father who sent his servant to get a wife for him. Esau got married to a tribe which the Israelites had been warned against marrying.  
2. When there is a long period of financial, emotional or physical barrenness then it means that there is an Esau waiting to be born. The Bible says that Isaac and Rebecca were barren for a long time. They were barren for twenty years and then Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife and fruitfulness came and both Esau and Jacob came. When you entreat the Lord for fruitfulness you must tell the Lord that it is only Jacob that you want. The truth of the matter is that both Esau and Jacob were prayed for and they both came from God.
3. If you have been struggling all your life even from before you were born there is an Esau there. The Bible says that the children struggled within Rebecca’s womb. There are some people who have been struggling from the day they were born, and the day they were born was a day of problem.  I am sure you know the story of the late Bishop Idahosa who when he was born, it was a struggle to keep him alive. His father took him and threw him on to a dunghill because he was sickly but his mother took him and nurtured him and he survived. There are some people that it is a struggle to go to school. For some families it is a struggle to feed.
4. There is an Esau present when your mind is troubled. The Bible says that pregnant Rebecca was troubled. If you are about to have a breakthrough and there is trouble on your mind; if there is confusion in the midst of blessing; if in the presence of potential there is something that is just hunting you down then there is an Esau in the background.
5. An Esau is present when you continually make the wrong choices. The Bible says that Esau had a choice between becoming the first son and becoming nothing and he made the wrong choice. There are lots of people who are continually making the wrong choices. Some people have made the wrong career choices. I was talking to a lady who was a lawyer, beautiful and with a masters but she couldn’t get a job. I told her she shouldn’t have any problems getting a job and she smiled and said there was a problem that she had a third class. I asked her why she had a third class and she said she made the wrong choices. At the time she should have been reading she was sleeping or partying around. Some people have made the wrong choice in marriage. Some people have made the wrong choice of friends.
6. An Esau is present when you are wrongly positioned and you do not get to where you are going on time. There are some people like that who are always wrongly positioned. When a blessing is being distributed they are not there. When a miracle is about to happen they are not there. When prayers are being said, they are not there. For such people who miss their blessings and their breakthroughs there is an Esau pulling them down. Just when you are about to be promoted there is an embargo on promotion then there is an Esau in your life.
7. There is an Esau in your life when people like you only for what they can get out of you. The Bible says that Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his venison. There are some men that the ladies like only because they have some money and a good car. There are some ladies that the men like because they are beautiful and because of the sex they can get out of them.
8. An Esau is present when you work so hard and have nothing to show for it. An Esau is someone who works hard but gets very little result. The Bible says that Esau hunted all day and he brought nothing home. There are some men that their wives are fighting with them because they work all day but bring nothing home.
9. An Esau is when somebody is always trying to pull or hold you down or force you back. The Bible says that Jacob’s hand was on Esau’s heel.
10. An Esau is in your life when you have a great gift but you never fulfil your destiny. The Bible says that Esau was a cunning hunter. He had a great gift but he never fulfilled his destiny. An Esau is typical of people with limited success.

An Esau is present in your life when you are weary and tired; you are satisfied with little things and aim at very little in life; you are covetous and jealous of other people’s successes; you are short-sighted and have lost your sense of esteem and value. An Esau is someone who does not tell the truth and is always exaggerating his true position.

By the time Jacob returned from exile Esau had grown. Esau had become a country, a nation of his own. Jacob in his wildest imagination had not expected Esau to have become a country and a nation. What he thought was that all he had to deal with was just a single man and maybe his immediate family. But he met Esau with a band of 400 hundred men. Esau therefore represents that element of your life, character or attitude that you have left behind which has grown because you did not destroy it. It has been growing just as you have also been growing. Some people have left their Esaus behind and their Esaus have become a plague in their lives. There are some problems that you have left behind that are growing and are now destroying your home and family. There was this story of a man whose 18 year old daughter became pregnant. The man, a rich trader had become born again and started praying to God about why such a thing had happened. On investigation, it was discovered that several years before he himself had gotten an 18 year old girl pregnant and had done nothing about it. The seed that he had sown had come back to hunt him.       

Esau can become many things. What did Esau become?

1. 1 Samuel 14:47 tells us that Saul and Israel fought constantly with Edom (the country that Esau became) simply because Jacob had refused to destroy the Esau in his life. If you don’t deal with the small problems in your life, they will become a consistent struggle for the rest of your life.
2. 2 Chronicles 20:10 tells us that Esau became Mount Seir which joined forces with Ammon and Moab to fight against Israel and against Jehoshaphat. Esau can be that thing that is close to you that joins forces with your enemies to fight against you.
3. Isaiah 34: 5-6 tells us that Esau is something that opens a gap in your life for a curse to come in. A lot of people are suffering from one curse or the other because they opened a gap for the curse to come in by doing something that an Esau prompted them to do.    
4. Numbers 20: 14-21 tells us how the king of Edom stood in the way of Israel and refused them passage on their way from Egypt through the wilderness and into the Promised Land. The Esau standing in your way of progress could be your spouse. Esau might be an uncle or a cousin who suddenly decides that you are not going to make progress in your marriage or home. An Esau could be a boss in your place of work that has decided that you are not going to be promoted unless you lick his boot.    

What does Esau represent?

1. An Esau starts off being that which is closest to you but ends up being your worst enemy. Esau and Jacob were twins. They were close to one another. Their lives were tied together but they ended up being worst enemies. An Esau could be your closest friend or relative. An Esau could be your closest skill or talent but a skill or talent that could end up destroying you.
2. An Esau could be something that lives with you. It could be something that you tolerate and hang out with though you know that that thing is standing in your way. Jacob knew that Esau was standing between him and his destiny but they were forced to live together. A lot of people for a long time tolerate secret sins and those things can rise up and destroy them.
3. An Esau could be that great difficulty or temptation that seeks to destroy you. After you have got your birthright and you are on the way to getting it right, then suddenly a difficulty or temptation comes to distract you.
4. An Esau is that which suddenly places you in suffering, wilderness and pain. The Bible says that Jacob had to suddenly run away from Esau into the wilderness. An Esau is that which drives you away from your comfort zone. An Esau is something from your past that you have forgotten that is now causing you pain in your present.
5. An Esau is that which waits for you at the point of your promotion. By the time Jacob was returning to claim his birthright and his promotion, Esau had grown into a big mighty nation and was standing in the way of Jacob.

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Why Esau lost his Blessing

A Birthright is good but the promises of God are better. How you are born does not determine how you end up but what God says concerning you is better. We know the story of Abraham, an idol worshipper whom God promises to bless and bless others through him (Genesis 12: 1-3). What the Lord spoke about Abraham came to pass. In Judges 6, we read the story of Gideon who was hiding away in the wine press because he believed that his family was the least in the land of Israel but whom God goes ahead to call a mighty man of valour. The most important thing about you today is what God says about you. You must therefore ensure that God has only good things to say about you. Not only did Esau lose his birthright but he also lost his blessing. In Israel, the blessing usually comes with the birthright. The first born is accorded a special place in the family and in the scheme of things. Esau therefore had a very special place in Isaac’s heart. My prayer is that you would not lose your blessing. Don’t drive your blessing away.

What can you do to lose your blessings?
Reuben (the first son of Jacob) instead of getting the blessing of the first born got a curse. Reuben slept with his father’s wife and committed adultery. Jacob knew about this at the time it happened but waited until the last minute before pronouncing a curse on Reuben (Genesis 49: 3-4). If you are doing something wrong, because God has not acted or done anything does not mean He does not know what you are doing. Judas lost his blessing because of greed. Judas worked against God by his betrayal and lost his blessing. If you are not yet born again or you are backslidden then you are working against God and you may lose your blessing. You may lose your blessing if you do the things that Esau did.

What were the things that Esau did that made him lose his blessing?

1. Esau was unprepared for his blessing. You have to be at the right place and at the right time. It is often said that success comes when opportunities meet preparations.
2. Esau had no regard for the future. He had no respect for his destiny. He was only concerned about the present. That was why he sold his birthright for a morsel of porridge.
3. Esau was careless about his blessing. The devil may come against you and try to steal your blessing once he hears about it. You must not be careless about your blessing. That was what happened to Joseph. He had been told about his blessings in a dream and he boasted about it to his brothers and the devil tried to steal that blessing from him.
4. Esau lost his blessing because his leader (his father) had lost his vision. If you have a leader in your life who has lost his vision then you may lose your blessing. Isaac blessed the wrong person because he had lost his vision. Be careful who you follow. You may lose your blessing if your leader does not know where he is going.
5. Esau was not spiritually alert. Esau was not aware of the competition that was going on for his blessing. If you are not spiritually alert, you may lose your blessing.

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Dealing with your Esau

There is the story of the mad man of Gadara who had over a thousand demons living inside of him. The demons made him to be living in the tombs. They made him to cut himself. They made him to do things which ordinarily he would not have done if he was in his right mind. (Mark 5: 1-20). The presence of demonic spirits in a person’s life represents an Esau. Like we said before, an Esau represents those things that make you do things that are not of God. An Esau is also something in your past that must be destroyed for you to be able to move forward. Some people have failed in the past and that failure is still haunting them. An Esau could be a rape that you have experienced before which refuses to let go of your person. It could be an abortion that you had. It could be a family curse that has not been destroyed. It could be a bad character that has not been taken care of. You have to deal with every bad experience that you have gone through in your life. Every incest, sexual harassment, violations must be destroyed. An Esau is that element of your character that never allows you to succeed.

An Esau is a person who makes a permanent decision based on a temporary situation. A lot of people in a moment of lust and sexual desires have committed sexual behaviours that are unforgivable and even resulted in AIDS. Your breakthrough is a birthright that you may lose in a moment of ignorance. Your divine health is a birthright that could be quickly sold in a moment of sin. 1 Corinthians 11:29-30 tells us that because a lot of us are unworthy, because we are in sin, we become ill and fall asleep. There is usually one moment of regret for a lot of people. For some people it is the first large amount of money that they make and spend foolishly. For a lot of women, it is the first man that they sleep with. A small morsel of bread becomes a big problem. The Bible says that Esau pleaded and begged but he had lost his birthright for ever. Esaus are very dangerous because they represent different things at different times.

In Genesis 32: 1-11, Jacob prayed for deliverance from Esau. His entire life had been premeditated on his relationship with Esau. Right from when he had been in the womb, he had been struggling with this Esau and now that he was going to claim his promises, Esau was again standing right in his way. Everything that had happened in his life had been based on his relationship with Esau. Now at the point of his destiny, Esau was again standing in the way. Jacob right up to this point had forgotten all about Esau. Now we see him asking the Lord for deliverance from this Esau. The first thing that Jacob did as he was about to enter the Promised Land was that he sent messengers ahead of him. That tells us immediately that Jacob had been thinking all along his journey how he was going to deal with this Esau in his life. Esau represents that thing that determines the most critical decision of your life. Everything in Jacob’s life, how he acted and the decisions he made were determined by how Esau behaved.

So what are these things that determine or affect the most critical decisions of our lives?

1. A particular type of background or beginning. Some people no matter what they become or where they go are affected by the type of family upbringing or background that they had while growing up. Some people I have spoken to said that the absence of a father figure or a mother in their lives while they were children affects how they relate to people and their adult lives generally.
2. A previous betrayal. Some people have been betrayed previously in the past and so for the rest of their lives they find it difficult to trust other people. They become suspicious and anxious of people presently in their lives because of the actions of people in their past lives. I once spoke to a lady who said that she was afraid of taking on another boyfriend because of the betrayal of her past boyfriends. The betrayal of those past boyfriends had become a pivotal aspect of her life on which she now based her present decisions.
3. A Character trait like anger or bitterness. Some people are angry with their parents. Some are angry with their background. They therefore don’t visit their homes, families or parents. This also determines the type of friends they keep and the type of places they go to.
4. An Early Sexual Experience. A lot of people have had their lives and future determined by their first sexual experience gone awry. Some of such early sexual experience has resulted in unwanted pregnancies and abortions that now becomes a focal point in the lives of such people.
5. An Accidental Deformity. 2 Samuel 4:4 and 2 Samuel 9 tells us of the story of Mephibosheth. The early accident in his life ended up affecting his future and his destiny. Some people are crippled financially. Others are crippled spiritually. Some are crippled physically. This sort of deformity prevents you from being yourself and from functioning properly.

All these things above make us take wrong decisions consistently. They determine who you are, what you do, where you go and ultimately become a wrong focal point upon which you base almost every earthly decision that you take.

How do you destroy your Esau?

1. Cry unto God and ask for deliverance
2. Remind God of the promises concerning your life
3. Be prepared to make a sacrifice and be generous. Let go of the things that may be holding you down
4. Have a spirit of humility and humble yourself.
5. Spend time alone with God until He changes your life and turns every curse into a blessing
6. Admit who you really are and face up to your shortcomings and mistakes
7. Change your character, change your attitude, discover your purpose
8. Ask God to give you a new beginning.  

Finally, unless you have given your life to Jesus, there might be no change.                           

(6)
Conclusion

The name Edom is represented in the Bible and also known as Idumea. This you will find in Mark 3:8. Idumea is the name of a place where a certain group of people called the Herods came from. These were people who were planted by the Romans to be kings over Israel when the Romans took over. It was a Herod who was king in Judea at the time Jesus was born and decided that all new born must be killed (Matthew 2; 12-18). It was also another Herod who was king in Jerusalem at the time that Jesus was crucified. Herods are not Jews and are not from Israel. They are actually descended from Esau (Idumae) and have always supplanted the Israelites. The Israelites have been through captivity several times. They have been through captivity in the hands of the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans and the British. But perhaps the worst kind of captivity they have been through was in the hands of a man called Adolph Hitler who had an intense hatred for the Jews. According to Hitler, all the problems of the world were due to the Jews and he decided therefore to annihilate all the Jews that he could find. Hitler represents a kind of Herod; an Idumae set out to destroy the Israelites. The Esau in your life can become a Herod making sure that even your descendants after you do not make progress and are destroyed.

Luke 3: 18-21 and Matthew 14: 11-12 tells us that it was a Herod that imprisoned John the Baptist and had him beheaded. This means that a Herod imprisons and destroys the truth and the conscience around you. At that point in time, John the Baptist was the truth and the conscience of Israel. One of the problems in Nigeria today is the spirit of Herod. There is no more conscience and truth in our national consciousness. There is no thought given whatsoever to what is right and what is wrong. It has suddenly become old fashioned to live an honest life and to tell the truth and do the right thing. Our nation has become a nation of sycophants, liars and bootlickers who go in and out of government and seem to be in charge. Acts 12: 1-11 tells us that it was another Herod that imprisoned Peter and killed James. Esaus not dealt with become Herods that will kill your discipleship and imprison your apostolic call. It will attack that which you are supposed to become and deal with your spirituality because you have not dealt with it previously. A lot of people are not able to serve God and evangelise because of this spirit of Esau. From time to time, the spirit of Esau comes against that which God has called you to do. Acts 4: 26-27 tells us that it was Herod that opposed Jesus and against the gospel of our Lord. Acts 26: 24-30 tells us that Herod himself finally rejected the gospel. Esau became the Herod that attempted to take away the gospel from the Israelites. It is the spirit of Esau (Herod) at work when people refuse to give their lives to Jesus.

The Good Thing about Esaus
The good thing about an Esau is that it always has a Jacob accompanying it. But if Esau is not dealt with or destroyed it will destroy its Jacob. What is a Jacob? Jacob is that aspect of your life that will always return back to fulfil its destiny and that is favoured by God and will always receive God’s blessings. Jacob knew that it was God that had mercy on him because he had least expected to succeed. He knew that his prosperity had not come by strength but came by the grace of God. My prayer is that your Jacob will overcome your Esau in the name of Jesus.