The scripture reading for today is the 30th
chapter of the book of Genesis, and I'd
like to read the entire chapter, which is
a rather lengthy chapter, but one that we
want to try to handle in the study
this morning.
Genesis chapter 30.
Now Jacob, you'll remember, has been married to
Rachel and to Leah, and some of his
children have now been born, four sons, by
Leah, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah.
And now the story continues in the first
verse of the 30th chapter.
Now when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob
no children, she became jealous of her and
she said to Jacob, give me children or
else I die.
Then Jacob's anger burned against Rachel and he
said, am I in the place of God
who has withheld from you the fruit of
the womb?
And she said, here is my maid Bilhah,
go into her, that she may bear on
my knees, that through her I too may
have children.
Now that expression to bear on the knees
is a figurative expression, that is she would
act as her proxy and the children would
be Rachel's children, though they were born of
Bilhah.
So she gave him her maid Bilhah as
a wife and Jacob went into her and
Bilhah conceived and bore a son.
Then Jacob said, God, then Rachel said, God
has vindicated me and has indeed heard my
voice and has given me a son.
Therefore she named him Dan.
If you have a Bible with the marginal
note, you will notice that the names given
to the children reflect the situation.
For example, Dan means judged and she's just
said, God has judged me.
That is judged in the sense of vindicated.
The seventh verse, and Rachel's maid Bilhah conceived
again and bore Jacob a second son.
So Rachel said with mighty wrestlings, I have
wrestled with my sister and I have indeed
prevailed.
And she named him Naphtali.
When Leah saw that she had stopped bearing,
she took her maid Zilpah and gave her
to Jacob as a wife.
And Leah's maid Zilpah bore Jacob a son.
Then Leah said, how fortunate.
So she named him Gad.
And Leah's maid Zilpah bore Jacob a second
son.
Then Leah said, happy am I for women
will call me happy.
So she named him Asher.
Now in the days of wheat harvest, Reuben
went and found mandrakes in the field and
brought them to his mother Leah.
Then Rachel said to Leah, please give me
some of your son's mandrakes.
But she said to her, is it a
small matter for you to take my husband?
And would you take my son's mandrakes also?
So Rachel said, therefore, he may lie with
you tonight in return for your son's mandrakes.
When Jacob came in from the field in
the evening, then Leah went out to meet
him and said, you must come in to
me for I have surely hired you with
my son's mandrakes.
So he lay with her that night and
God gave heed to Leah and she conceived
and bared Jacob a fifth son.
Then Leah said, God has given me my
wages because I gave my maid to my
husband.
So she named him Issachar.
And Leah conceived again and bore a sixth
son to Jacob.
Then Leah said, God has endowed me with
a good gift.
Now my husband will dwell with me because
I have borne him six sons.
So she named him Zebulun.
And afterwards she bore a daughter and named
her Dana.
Then God remembered Rachel and God gave heed
to her and opened her womb.
So she conceived and bore a son and
said, God has taken away my reproach.
And she named him Jacob, Joseph, saying, may
the Lord give me another son.
Now it came about when Rachel had borne
Joseph that Jacob said to Laban, send me
away that I may go to my own
place and to my own country.
Give me my wives and my children for
whom I have served you and let me
depart for you yourself know my service which
I have rendered you.
But Laban said to him, if now it
pleases you, stay with me.
I have defined that the Lord has blessed
me on your account.
And he continued, name me your wages and
I will give it.
But he, that is Jacob, but he said
to him, you yourself know how I have
served you and how your cattle have fared
with me.
For you had little before I came and
it has increased to a multitude and the
Lord has blessed you wherever I turned.
But now when shall I provide for my
own household also?
So he said, what shall I give you?
And Jacob said, you shall not give me
anything.
If you will do this one thing for
me, I will again pasture and keep your
flock.
Let me pass through your entire flock today,
removing from there every speckled and spotted sheep
and every black one among the lambs and
the spotted and speckled among the goats and
such shall be my wages.
So my honesty will answer from me later
when you come concerning my wages, everyone that
is not speckled and spotted among the goats
and black among the lambs, if found with
me, will I be considered, will be considered
stolen.
And Laban said, good, let it be according
to your word.
Now you, to understand this, of course, you
must understand that the goats were normally black
or brown, black, and the sheep were normally
white.
And so Jacob is speaking about the rarer
of the animals.
And when he says, let me pass through
your entire flock today, removing the speckled and
spotted sheep and the black from the lambs
and the spotted and speckled among the goats,
he doesn't mean I want them now, but
he means these are to be removed so
that the flock will be purely marked.
And then from that time on, those that
appear marked in this way will be Jacob's.
And that's the way Laban understood it as
well.
And so we read in verse 35, so
he removed on that day, the striped and
spotted male goats and all the speckled and
spotted female goats, every one with white in
it and all the black ones among the
sheep and gave them into the care of
his sons.
And he put a distance of three days
journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob fed
the rest of Laban's flocks.
So in other words, those that were already
of that type were removed three days journey
and the flock now is purely marked.
And so from now on, Jacob is going
to ideally wait on those that came with
these unusual markings, the rare markings.
But both of these men are rogues, both
Laban and Jacob.
Laban is more rogue than Jacob, but Jacob,
as far as personal dealings are concerned, is
almost the match of Laban.
Neither one is trusting the other.
So Laban removed those striped and speckled spotted
male goats, three days journey.
And now Jacob stoops to some artifices in
order to enlarge his flock.
Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and
almond and plain trees and peeled white stripes
in them.
That is, he exposed the bark, exposing the
white which was in the rods.
And he set the rods which he had
peeled in front of the flocks in the
gutters, even in the watering troughs where the
flocks came to drink, and they mated when
they came to drink.
So the flocks mated by the rods and
the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted.
Now, of course, this is superstition, but the
Bible does not mean for us to understand
that this is valid.
All it says is that Jacob believed it.
And this is what he was doing.
In the next chapter it is stated that
the blessing into Jacob's flock has really come
from the Lord.
And it was he who gave Jacob those
sheep and goats.
But this is the way Jacob felt about
it.
He thought he was carrying out something that
would be, provide some prenatal influences, and the
result would be a larger number of the
speckled and spotted.
Verse 40, now he tries another artifice.
And when he has a few of the
lambs and the goats that are speckled and
spotted, he uses them instead of the rods.
Jacob separated the lambs and made the flock's
face toward the striped and all the black
in the flock of Laban.
And he put his own herds apart and
did not put them with Laban's flock.
Moreover, it came about whenever the stronger of
the flock were mating, that Jacob would place
the rods in the side of the flock
in the gutter, so that they might mate
by the rods.
This would be at a certain time of
the year when the sheep mated.
They mated twice a year.
But one time they, the result was a
stronger brand of sheep and goats.
I think it was in the fall.
And so at that time of the year,
he would use his particular method in order
to gain prenatal influences, so that he would
have strong sheep and Laban would have the
weak.
Smart fellow.
So the world would say.
Verse 42, but when the flock was feeble,
he did not put them in.
So the feebler were Laban's and the stronger
Jacob's.
So the man became exceedingly prosperous and had
large flocks and female and male servants and
camels and donkeys.
Not a very nice picture, but nevertheless, it's
part of the word of God.
Jacob in the crucible of divine discipline.
The study this morning.
I have a commentary in my library on
the book of Genesis written by a well
-known Lutheran professor and minister.
It's a two-volume work and is of
considerable value.
This commentary is rather interesting in this sense
that at the conclusion of each of the
chapters, there are homiletical hints that are given
by the professor to preachers who might be
preaching on certain sections of the book of
Genesis.
This is one of the places in the
book of Genesis in which he says this
is a chapter that really could hardly be
preached upon.
It's always very encouraging when you begin to
think about a message and have the commentator
say you shouldn't preach on this particular chapter.
It's almost as if we are to think
that God has let slip something that might
prove to be hurtful to the church of
Jesus Christ if it is proclaimed.
But nevertheless, it is a reflection properly, I
guess, of the difficulty that one faces in
expounding a text like this in an audience
composed of some who are believers and some
who are strong believers, have read the Bible
for many years, but others who may be
visiting and may not have opened the pages
of the Bible for a lengthy period of
time.
Some of the chapters are very difficult.
Some of the chapters, I'm sure some people
might think, border on the pornographic.
And as a matter of fact, a later
chapter at least is probably even worse than
the one that we are to look at
today from that standpoint.
And one of course asks the question, why
are these chapters in the Word of God?
Why is it that we have the inner
life of Jacob and his wives and the
strife and the troubles and difficulties that they
had set forth in a public form such
as this?
And of course, most of us after reflecting
would surely come to the conviction that the
reason for this is that God would like
for us to see human nature realistically and
see the human nature of the saints realistically.
For we should remember that Jacob and Abraham
and Isaac were men in whom God had
worked and had brought to the knowledge of
himself.
He's the God who says, I'm the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God
of Jacob.
Israel is spoken of very lovingly as the
sons of Jacob.
That is, they are reflections of the one
who was one of the patriarchs and the
head of the national entity.
So when we think of this chapter, we
should think of our own nature.
And if we are Christians of our own
nature, even after we have come to a
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are
not yet sanctified.
The scriptures do say there is a sense
in which we can be spoken of as
sanctified.
That is, we can be spoken of positionally
in that way.
The apostle wrote the Corinthian church, which was
a church that was flawed by many sins.
And yet he said that they had been
sanctified.
And so there is a sense in which
every believer is truly a saint.
That is, we have been set apart for
a particular purpose by the Lord God.
If you have believed in Christ, you're a
saint.
Not a saint canonized by a particular church
of men, but canonized by the Holy Spirit
in that he has brought you to the
knowledge of the Lord Jesus and attached you
to him so that you belong to him.
Now Jacob is such a saint, but he's
a long way from being sanctified.
There are two memorable passages in which the
apostle Paul sets forth in direct form the
struggle that still exists in the heart of
every believer.
In Galatians chapter five, he speaks about the
flesh lusting against the spirit and the spirit
against the flesh, and that they are in
opposition to one another so that you may
not do the things that you please.
This is a picture of the inner life
of a believer.
And then in the seventh chapter of the
epistle to the Romans in one of the
most remarkable passages that Paul ever wrote, one
in which he displays an understanding of the
inner life of man, such as is not
found so far as I know in any
other piece of Christian literature.
The closest thing to it may be something
like Augustine's Confessions.
But there he speaks of the fact that
though we possess the new nature, even then
we are in conflict with the law of
sin in our members, and furthermore we cannot
expect to have victory or success apart from
the enabling power of the Holy Spirit.
Oh, wretched man that I am, the apostle
says, who will set me free from the
body of this death?
Well, what we are seeing in the life
of Jacob is the struggle, but we're seeing
it in a very concrete situation.
Jacob had to learn these very truths that
the apostle Paul speaks about.
In fact, his life, if you were to
look at it from one standpoint, you would
characterize it as one long, prolonged struggle under
the discipline of God.
And a great deal of its outworking was
in his own family life.
That family life was the fruit of a
polygamous relationship.
True, it was as a result of the
guile of Uncle Laban, but Jacob, even though
he had been tricked into marrying Leah, did
not have to continue that relationship, but nevertheless
he did.
He continued with Leah, and he also added
another wife, Rachel, the one whom he loved.
And Jacob sowed the bitter seed of polygamy
in his life.
This entire story is full of sad and
sordid incidents, and we need to remember that
as we read it, we are reading something
that gives us an insight into the nature
of man and also gives us an insight
into the long-suffering patience of God that
was at work all along in the life
of his servant Jacob.
The fruits of the misery and the intrigues
of these days emerge not so much here
as in the later chapters of the book,
and even in the history of the twelve
tribes which came from Jacob.
Because all through their history you can see
reminders of their beginnings.
This was for instructive purposes.
God put his hand upon those sons and
saw to it that they in themselves gave
us certain lessons that we need.
On the human plane, the relationship between Leah
and Rachel and Jacob demonstrates the craving of
human beings for love and for recognition, but
on the divine plane, it shows the grace
of God in operation.
And isn't it interesting that the grace of
God so often chooses very difficult and unpromising
material, to use the comments of someone who
has written on this question.
There's a story about a prison chaplain who
noticed one of the prisoners sewing a covering
on a bale of overalls.
He greeted the man cheerfully one morning by
saying, good morning friend.
Sewing?
No sir, said the prisoner with a rather
grim smile, reaping.
And so Jacob's life and the incidents of
it show that the scriptural truth, whatsoever a
man seweth, that shall he reap, is fulfilled
in the lives of all, all of us.
And remember, it's not what we thought that
we sewed.
It's not what we wanted to sew.
It's not what we hoped to sew.
But the scripture says, whatsoever a man seweth,
that, that shall he reap.
Now Jacob had built a home, but what
a home.
It was a home in which two women
who were sisters were vying for his affections
and that of course was fatal to peace.
They'd been very happy evidently living as sisters,
but when they became wives in the same
home, it was a different matter and each
had her own difficulty.
Poor Leah knew that Jacob never really loved
her as she wanted to be loved.
She was not the wife of his choice.
And while God had compensated her with a
family of sons and finally she reached six,
still this was not satisfaction and now she
had a new form of difficulty because Rachel
invited her.
So she was desolate in the home and
her sons are like so many landmarks in
her misery.
But Rachel was equally distraught and miserable.
Sure, she had Jacob's love, but she wasn't
sure of keeping it.
And in addition, she was mortified to see
the children of Leah growing up and evidently
going to be the heirs of her own
husband.
And so according to scripture, she fretted, she
prayed, and she chafed under the difficulties in
which she found herself.
And isn't it interesting too that they do
pray.
It's not that they're all bad or all
good.
It's that there's a mixture and a mixture
in Jacob and a mixture in Leah and
a mixture of that which is of God
and that which is of man and Rachel
as well.
You can see in the names of the
children a reflection of the recognition of the
Lord God.
But at the same time in the daily
life, there is a manifestation of the flesh.
Well, now let's just take a quick look
through the chapter and try to hit on
the high points of it.
And we look first at Rachel and Leah
or the fruit of polygamy in the first
13 verses.
It's a story of jealousy and the fruit
of jealousy and envy.
The chapter begins with, when Rachel saw that
she bore Jacob no children, she became jealous
of her sister and she said to Jacob,
give me children or else I die.
She became jealous.
What a wealth of sadness lies behind them.
And how often has envy and jealousy troubled
families and troubled churches.
One of the most poignant incidents in the
life of the Apostle Paul is his imprisonment
in Rome and the remarks that he makes
in the first chapter of his letter to
the Philippians.
He speaks about the fact that while he's
in prison, some are taking advantage of that.
They are preaching Christ out of envy and
contention.
You know, it's possible to be even zealous
for the Lord, but at the same time,
having mixed with that envy and jealousy of
other servants of the Lord.
And so the Apostle speaks of that.
And he says that even though they were
preaching Christ out of envy and contention, nevertheless,
he rejoiced in that Christ was being preached.
That's the attitude of the person who is
wronged.
But here is Rachel, envious of Leah.
Give me children or else I die.
Jealous, frustrated.
It's possible, it certainly would have seemed like
this, and she was not a sanctified person
that she would have been very proud in
the beginning of her marriage to think that
Jacob had served seven years for her.
And now seven more years have gone by,
and it's possible she was insufferable in her
pride over the fact that Jacob loved her.
She was a beautiful woman, but she had
no happiness.
And she made an unreasonable demand, of course,
give me children or else I die.
Now, of course, it was not Jacob's fault.
As a matter of fact, this was a
questioning of the wisdom of God.
She had forgotten who gives children.
In fact, what she said is positively sinful.
In the scriptures we read in Psalm 127,
low children are an heritage of the Lord,
and the fruit of the womb is his
reward.
But pride has awakened envy, and jealousy, and
nagging is the result.
Dr. Barnhouse, who's written a little book of
meditations on chapters in the book of Genesis,
comments that when a woman nags her husband,
she's out of the will of God, for
God is never a nagger.
I'm sure that many of us who have
been husbands would, however, want to say this,
that there were times when our wives nagged
us, when we really ought to have been
nagged, and when the nagging really did help.
But anyway, that's what he said, and he
said, Satan is called the nagger of the
brethren, because he's the one who accuses the
brethren.
Well, Jacob reminds Rachel of an important spiritual
truth.
He reminds her of the fact that children
are of the Lord.
He says, am I in the place of
God, who has withheld from you the fruit
of the womb?
In other words, am I the omnipotent God
who gives children?
Of course, the answer to that is obvious.
I was reading in Reader's Digest not long
ago, one of the recent issues on quotable
quotes, or under quotable quotes, there was the
comment, even if marriages are made in heaven,
man has to be responsible for the maintenance.
Well, that's a cute little statement, but it's
not true.
God's responsible for the children, God's responsible for
the marriage, and God is responsible for the
maintenance.
That is, he stands there to maintain a
marriage.
And a marriage is not maintained unless the
divine help is there.
So Jacob properly replies, he's not the omnipotent
God, and so Rachel, not learning from Sarah,
devises her own stratagem.
It's no credit to her, because it is
purely of the flesh.
She says, here is my maid Bilhah, go
into her, that she may bear on my
knees, that through her I too may have
children.
And her stratagem worked, but that doesn't mean
that it had the divine blessing upon it.
And when the second son is born, Naphtali,
she proudly says, with mighty wrestlings, or with
wrestlings of God, literally, I have wrestled with
my sister, and I have indeed prevailed.
To use one of our idioms, it's possible
that she had hit Leah over the head
with the birth of Naphtali.
Now you can see that faith and envy
combined in these two, there is the struggle
of the flesh and the spirit going on.
But strife begets strife, and also sin is
contagious.
And as a result of what has happened,
Leah decides, well, though she has stopped bearing
children, nevertheless, she has a maid too, and
so she'll follow the lead of Rachel.
And that's what happens, and she too has
additional children.
Gareth and Asher.
And Asher is the eighth of the sons
of Jacob.
So strife begets strife, and what a condemnation
of polygamy is found in this chapter.
Now the next incident is another of the
sordid matters of this chapter.
It has to do with the Mandrakes, and
again the conflict of the flesh and spirit
is obvious.
Reuben at this time, so far as we
can tell, was a little toddler of about
three or four or five years of age.
And so he has wandered out in the
time of the wheat harvest, which was in
May or June in Mesopotamia, and he has
seen some Mandrakes in the field, and he
has gathered these flowers for his mother.
The Mandrake was a herb, an herb of
the belladonna family, and it had white and
reddish blossoms, and then the fruit was yellow,
similar in size to a small apple.
In fact, they were called love apples, because
people in the ancient Near East thought the
Mandrake stimulated sensual desire and aided conception.
So they were something like an aphrodisiac in
their thought.
Now of course this was superstitious, but nevertheless
it was believed by them.
And so when Reuben came in, Rachel said
to Leah, please give me some of your
son's Mandrakes.
And the result is that they work out
a bargain whereby Rachel gets the Mandrakes and
Leah gets Jacob for a night.
The outcome is rather ironical, because Rachel wanted
the children, so she got the Mandrakes.
Leah wanted Jacob, and so the Mandrakes do
nothing for Rachel, but Leah gets another son
by parting with them.
You wonder about Jacob through all of this,
what was his reaction to the four women
who were pulling about him so?
And then why does not the Bible say
a great deal about his own fleshliness?
Perhaps it's so obvious that there is no
need to say anything, but you can see
again how powerful is the condemnation of polygamy.
And also what a signal illustration of retribution
we have here, and Jacob's failure to follow
the teaching of the Word of God.
Finally, Rachel does have children, but notice the
Scripture attributes it to God.
Verse 22, Then God remembered Rachel, and God
gave heed to her and opened her womb.
So she conceived and bore a son, and
said, God has taken away my reproach, and
Joseph was born.
In the final analysis, you see the trust
in the Lord is the important thing.
Now the final chapter of this particular chapter
is the story of Jacob and Laban.
Jacob started to say Jake.
Jacob's family is almost complete now.
He has eleven sons.
One last son shall be born later on,
but this Joseph is the eleventh of his
sons.
And now Joseph is thinking, Jacob is thinking
about an independent home.
He wants his own home.
He doesn't want to be staying with Laban.
And so he said to Laban, send me
away that I may go to my own
place and to my own country.
Give me my wives and my children for
whom I've served you, and let me depart,
for you know the service that I have
rendered to you.
Laban said, Jacob, if you're happy here, stay
with me.
I know the Lord has blessed me because
of you.
I've divined that.
You can see from this that Laban is
not a true believer.
He looks to the magic and other things
for his guidance.
And he went on to say, name your
wages and I will give it.
Now Jacob says, you know how I've served
you, and how your cattle have fared with
me.
I came here when you didn't have anything,
and now look what you have.
Well, Laban already knew that.
That's why he wanted Jacob to stay.
He saw he was a good shepherd.
But he said, now when shall I provide
for my own household also?
Now there's nothing wrong in wanting to provide
for one's household.
That's very proper.
And it is very proper for us as
men to want to prepare, to want to
provide for our own household.
In our day and time, however, our danger,
it seems generally, is not so much providing
as we're very tempted to prosper at the
expense of our family.
That is, at the expense of their spiritual
well-being.
And I dare say that in the Christian
world today, in the evangelical world, the greatest
danger is not in not providing, but in
making prospering our goal at the expense of
the place of the Lord God in our
lives.
It's well to remember, men and women, that
of all the treasures that we hug, and
we have so many which we hug in
this life, that we can carry no more
out of this world than out of that
dream that we had last night or the
night before.
Those things are things that are absolutely confined
to this life, this temporary life, and this
really unreal life.
There's a stanza that goes, in this strange
world of hoarding and growing gray, all you
can hold in your dead, cold hand is
what you have given away.
Well, Jacob, however, has a natural desire.
He wants to provide for his family.
And so finally, Laban, after asking him to
name his wages, Jacob says, I don't want
anything from you.
Don't give me anything.
If you'll just do this one thing, I
will pasture and keep your flock.
Now, that was a fine gesture on Jacob's
part, because what he was saying is that
I will walk in entire dependence on the
providence of God in giving me a particular
kind of sheep and goat, not the normal,
the rare, the speckled, the spotted, and the
striped, and we'll leave it up to the
Lord God.
Now, that was an act of faith, and
if he had stayed in that position, we
would have to say he was trusting in
the Lord God's providence.
And every goat and every sheep that he
possessed would have been the result of the
Lord's provision.
Now, Laban was one of those men who
believed that religion had a good, a great
value for other people, but not for himself.
There are a lot of people like that
in the world.
There are a lot of them that hang
out in churches.
They think it's very good for their wife
to be religious, but for them, well, that's
a different matter.
And then there are some wives like that,
too.
They think it's fine for their husbands to
be spiritual men, but as far as they're
concerned, no.
Laban didn't have any objection to the faith
of Jacob or the faith of the members
of the family.
He just didn't have any for himself.
Now, he devised a little strategy.
He was a little afraid of Jacob.
I wonder if it was because he was
suspicious of him, or just because he was
greedy.
He didn't want Jacob to have even any
opportunity to steal from him.
So he took all of those speckled and
spotted and striped animals out of the flock,
which was what Jacob had proposed, and he
took them a three-day's journey away so
there would be no possibility of Jacob stealing
them.
Now, Laban's mistrust, however, kindles mistrust in Jacob,
or at least is the occasion for the
manifestation of it.
And so what we have here are two
unprincipled men who are trying to outwit one
another.
Jacob is a rogue, but Laban is a
bigger rogue.
One of the commentators has said to try
to vindicate Jacob, although some try to vindicate
him, is like sprinkling rose water on a
sewer.
It lowers the standard of morality to attempt
to prove that there was not very much
harm after all in what Jacob did.
The Bible is beautiful in the fact that
it reveals to us exactly the kind of
men its heroes are.
And Jacob, let him be painted in colors
borrowed from Rembrandt's brush.
One of the commentators says, all the more
wonder that the grace of God could overcome
his duplicity and finally fashion him into the
kind of saint that he ultimately becomes, one
of the great lovable characters of the Bible
in his latter days.
Now, Jacob is a smart man.
Laban has Gentiled Jacob out of things that
belong to him, but Jacob is going to
Jew Laban out of some things as well.
So we have one Gentiling the other out
of things and the other Jewing the others,
the other.
Now he uses three artifices.
The first is the peeled rods in the
troughs.
He thought that prenatal influence might be given
by this and therefore those animals when they
saw those rods from which the bark had
been peeled and saw the white, then there
would be the birth of the speckled and
spotted animals.
Incidentally, that has been by some special studies
shown to be absolutely unscientific.
In the placenta and the umbilical cord, which
constitute the only connection between the mother and
the fetus, there are no nerves.
So there is no possibility of the working
of these prenatal influences in this way.
So no mechanism exists by which a mother
can mark her offspring in the way that
Jacob thought he was accomplishing the marking.
The Bible records this not in support of
the philosophy of Jacob, but simply to detail
what he thought.
That's what he thought.
That's what others thought.
In the next chapter it will point out
that Jacob's increase in flock is due to
the power of the Lord God.
He had determined to provide for Jacob those
animals.
Modern genetic studies on dominance and latency have
cleared this incident of any scientific significance.
So Jacob's success is attributed to selective breeding,
and particularly to divine intervention.
So the peeled rods were tried first, and
then when the animals were born, he would
turn the animals around and have them look
at these speckled and spotted and striped animals.
That was his second artifice.
And then finally, he would use this at
a particular time of the year.
So he would have the strong animals, and
Laban would have the weak ones.
Now I wonder what Jacob would have said
if we had gone up to Jacob after
he has seen his flock now begin to
grow, and he's keeping them over here, and
Laban's over here, and he's he's having great
success.
And if you sat down with Jacob and
said, look Jacob, what motivated you to do
this?
After all, is there any divine indication that
this was the will of God for you?
What do you think he would say?
Well, he might say first, it's necessary for
self-protection.
My uncle's bent on defrauding me and keeping
me down, and if I didn't do this,
he would succeed in it.
I wouldn't have anything.
You've got to meet a man on his
own ground, Jacob says.
He's a crook, and I have to play
the same game.
He's a rogue, I have to be a
little bit of a rogue too.
I can't see the harm of turning his
own weapons on himself.
It's just being smart.
And there are many Christians who carry on
their own life that way.
They think that they've got to deal with
the world, and therefore they must use the
world's methodology.
And if the world is roguish, they'll be
a little roguish too.
But what is the biblical principle?
Well, we meet fraud by faith.
We meet cunning by conscience.
We meet violence by divine virtue.
They exercise a divine virtue.
Just because Goliath wears a great big armor,
should David wear it?
David put on some armor and took three
steps before the armor moved.
Finally, he threw it off.
He said, there's no reason for me to
fight with the kind of armor that Goliath
fought with.
I'll use what God gave me in that
little slingshot.
It was that little slingshot, of course, that
won the victory for him.
For our weapons are not carnal weapons.
They are not weapons of the flesh.
They are weapons of the Spirit.
They are weapons of dependence on God.
And by dependence on God, we can see
the remarkable things that the Lord God accomplishes.
And He gets the glory and not men.
It always turns me inside when people want
to say to preachers and teachers how God
has blessed their ministry because they have been
eloquent, or because they have great knowledge of
the Word of God, or because they are
effective in this way or that.
That's not the reason why God blesses.
He will not give His glory to anybody
else.
He blesses because it is only through the
power of God that anything is accomplished, and
He blesses because there is an instrument through
which His mighty power may be exercised.
So I can imagine Jacob saying, I've got
to protect myself.
He had forgotten the Lord said, I will
keep you.
That was His promise in chapter 28.
I will keep you wherever you go.
I'll keep you.
Furthermore, I'll not stop until I've done everything
that I've said I would do.
Now Paul says that to us.
He says, being confident of this very thing
that He which hath begun a good work
in you will perform it until the day
of Jesus Christ.
We don't have anything to worry about.
He's going to accomplish His work in us.
And if we want to strive and scheme
and maneuver, we only make it difficult for
ourselves.
He might say business is business.
Other shepherds practice it.
Laban knows all about it.
When you're with the Chaldeans, you do as
the Chaldeans do.
Because Laban was a Chaldean.
But he's got to learn another principle.
Let all men break human law.
It stands abrogated on the statute book.
If no one keeps the law, there is
no law.
But in the case of the divine laws,
it's different.
If everybody breaks the divine law, then the
punishment still comes.
There are many laws on our books that
are not carried out.
They're worthless because no one follows them.
You can break them without any fear of
suffering punishment.
They're human laws.
But God's laws are not like that.
His laws are always applicable.
And consequently to say business is business, well
that's something else.
Or you might say this is the general
practice.
Well it's possible even that Jacob said, after
all I have to obtain bread.
A man's got to live, you know.
You've got to take care of your family,
haven't you?
That sounds good, doesn't it?
Except that a man doesn't have to live.
We don't have to live.
Who said we had to live?
Suppose the martyrs had said we have to
live.
We wouldn't have their testimony.
We wouldn't have the fruit of the martyr's
testimony.
Suppose the Lord Jesus Christ had said a
man's got to live, you know.
And suppose he came down, he had come
down from the cross.
The facts are men don't have to live.
And principles are more important than our lives.
Someone is said to have said to Pompey
when he was getting ready to take a
trip on the sea, which was rather tempestuous,
that he should not go.
He ought to live.
Remember he's got to live.
He said it's necessary for me to go.
It's not necessary for me to live.
And duty takes precedence over life in situations
like that.
Well Jacob unfortunately must suffer the consequences of
his chicanery.
Well our time is up.
I want simply to say this, that it
is clear from this incident that believers are
not sanctified persons yet.
And Jacob is not a sanctified person yet
speaking from the practical standpoint.
He's the scene of the struggle of the
flesh and the spirit.
Success comes through the spirit who works on
the principle of grace.
And Jacob's success, that success that he ultimately
has, is attributed by him and by Moses
to the Lord God.
You see the sad results of marriages not
consummated in harmony with the word of God.
Much of Jacob's grief from the trials and
tribulations that he experienced is traceable to the
simple failure to listen to the truth that
had been revealed to him.
We are slaves, servants who are here to
do the will of God.
May we remember that we are not our
own.
We have been bought with a price.
And therefore we belong to the Lord God
and his laws, his principles, his word is
our guide in the experiences of life.
If you're here this morning and you have
never believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, then
of course you're not even sanctified in the
positional sense.
You're not a saint.
To become a saint, one believes in Jesus
Christ.
It's very simple.
Recognize from the word of God that you
are a sinner, that you have sinned against
a holy God, that you have broken his
laws, that you are therefore guilty and under
condemnation, and that Jesus Christ has offered the
sacrifice by which you may have the forgiveness
of sins.
Renouncing trust in yourself, in your good works,
in your religion, in whatever it may be,
and fleeing to the cross of Christ and
casting yourself upon the blood that was shed
brings eternal life.
It's very simple.
One simply says, I thank you, Lord, that
Christ has died for sinners.
I'm a sinner.
I need salvation.
I receive as a free gift eternal life.
May God speak to your heart.
If you're here this morning without Christ, may
you turn to him.
Having come to him, you're enrolled in the
family of God as one of the saints,
and then you become subject to the divine
discipline.
And it's a great thing to have a
Father who loves us enough to discipline us.
No discipline is like the discipline of our
heavenly Father.
It's loving discipline, merciful discipline, but it's a
discipline that guarantees that the ultimate end will
be likeness to Jesus Christ and in eternity
communion with the triune God and other saints.
May God bring you to Christ.
Let's stand for the benediction.
We are grateful to thee, Lord, for these
pictures from the Old Testament, so true to
life as it really is.
Deliver us from the sin of Jacob in
this particular time of his life.
Deliver us from the failures that are set
forth so plainly in the word of God.
Enable us, Lord, to learn through the word
rather than through experience.
Help us to remember that whatsoever a man
soweth, that shall he reap.
We cannot escape the judgment of God.
Thy hand is upon every aspect of our
life.
We are never apart from thee.
Oh God, work in this congregation.
May the work of disciplining continue and may
the end result be glory and pleasure in
the triune God.
If there are some here, Lord, who have
never believed in Christ, oh Father, we pray
that thou would work in them so that
they recognize their need and the sufficiency of
the meeting of it in Jesus Christ's blood
that was shed.
May they flee to him right now.
May grace, mercy, and peace go with us
as we part.
For Jesus' sake, amen.