Sermons from Lone Rock Bible Church
Stevensville, MT
Index of LRBC Sermons: www.sermonlinks.com/Sermons/LoneRock/Sermons
June 26, 2005

A Frazzled Home, A Mighty God
Genesis 29:31 – 30:43

Not too many of us would have wanted Jacob’s life in Haran. Yet while his home was beset with strife and uncertainty, he learned his God was in control after all! Let’s discuss God’s sovereign hand in Jacob’s life with regard to:

1.      His children (29:31 – 30:24)
2.      His kids (30:25-43)

Not all that long ago on the world stage everybody believed that the sun actually revolved around the earth. Then along came Capernicus about the 15^th century. He questioned the theory and demonstrated that the earth actually revolves around the sun. Capernicus’ discovery changed everything when he figured out what is the center and what is not. His discovery laid the foundation for Galileo’s work with astronomy and Kepler’s progress with the telescope.  Johannas Kepler and his planetary laws all sprang from the work of Capernicus as did our own Isaac Newton and his laws of gravity. Everything changed when they figured out what was at the center, when they figured out who gets or what gets revolved around.

When we are born we really believe, naturally, automatically, universally, that the world revolves around us. We are born expressing it. We tend to go through our childhood, young adult life, adult life and on through the whole spectrum with the notion, “It really is all about me and if I can somehow tie God in, all the better for me.” We are human-centered and self-centered automatically. Finally, we figure out what is perhaps the most profound key to all of existence – that this is a God-centered existence.   When that registers in our hearts and minds, it is too revolutionary.

That is where Jacob is going. Up to now he is like the rest of us. How is it going to turn out for me? God is going to take Jacob on a pilgrimage and convince him that it is not all about him. God says it really is all about Me.

We are going to find Jacob buried under his circumstances. He is going to find himself in the middle of a household none of us would want. He is blind to the big picture. I am going to share with you the big picture. We have the end of the book. Let me reference the 21^st chapter of Revelation, a verse that represents more of the big picture. What is God doing, what is his long-term goal here?

This is what lasts. This is where it is all going. I find it intriguing that in Revelation 21 the apostle John says, talking about the angel carrying him away:

Revelation 21
¹⁰ And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.
¹¹ having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper.
¹² It had a great and high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names were written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel.

In Genesis 29, the twelve tribes are coming into being in the persons of these sons of Jacob. Jacob in Genesis 29 and 30 and for a while beyond had no clue where God was going. He has come out of a home where his parents, Isaac and Rebekah, remember we discussed that it is more important to trust God than it even is to trust ourselves. Then he moves into this new home and finds out that he really needs to trust God more than other people, particularly his rascal of a father-in-law.

Now, he is going to begin to learn that he has to trust God more than he trusts his circumstances. As we shall see, his circumstances are miserable. God is the God of the journey as well as the God of the destination. In other words, he is the God of our circumstances as well as the God of heaven.

Romans 11:36
For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things^. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

God is the center. Around Him everything moves and for Him everything moves and through Him and by Him everything moves. It is a God-centered universe. The sooner Jacob comes to terms with that and trusts the God who loves him, the sooner you and I come to terms with that and trust the God who loves us, the sooner we will know His peace and His joy and His power, His victory, His very life.

God is the God of the details and the destination. He is then to be trusted, obeyed, enjoyed and honored.  Life gets thorny and frazzled. Jacob ends up with four women, two of them his legal wives. He has adultery going on, jealousy, envy, mistrust, strife, no end in sight, an employer, who is also a father-in-law, whom he couldn’t trust as far as he could throw him. And he doesn’t know where it is going. Do you want his place? Do you want his lot in life?   I don’t.

Jacob has to learn to trust God. He is going to learn that God will work through, not in spite of, but through these things to accomplish God’s own purposes. Remember there are twelve tribes named in heaven now emerging from this frazzled setting here. Is God pacing the halls of heaven saying, “Another kid? I have to come with another gate? Another name? What am I ever going to do?” No, God is in sovereign control, which means God does what He wants and God gets what He wants the way He wants. He is our God. What are we left with when we face a sovereign God of this nature? We are left simply to trust Him. We cannot manipulate Him. We cannot change Him. We cannot escape Him. We cannot ignore Him. We are left simply to trust Him.

In Acts 2, the Day of Pentecost, all kinds of amazing things are happening according to biblical prophecy. The apostle Peter is supposed to explain it to the folks. So he says:

Acts 2
²²"Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know--
 ²³this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.

God is in control, but you did wrong. What are we left with? He preaches a sermon and reads Scripture to these folks and they say, “What are we left with? What are we supposed to do?” You and I have the same question: What are we supposed to do? We cannot grasp it intellectually but we can trust Him because He has proven himself faithful as the God of promise. He made a promise to Jacob. He is going to keep it through Jacob’s miserable circumstances. The God of promise is in complete control. Trust Him more than circumstances.  

The way this story is lined out has to do with fertility. It comes to us in two sections – fertility of his wives and their handmaids in producing children. Here they come, son after son after son. And then there is a transition in the Bible and we are not talking about children now. We are talking about livestock. The point  God is going to impress upon Jacob, and hopefully us, is “I have this in hand. Trust me.”

His children (29:31 – 30:24)

This is the backdrop to the twelve tribes. This is where the twelve tribes in Revelation 21 start. This is not a virtuous situation. Is Jacob exhibiting himself as a man of prayer and sensitivity? No, he is not. Are his wives godly women? One of them may be, the other, no. And who are these handmaids? What are they doing in the mix?

We need to understand a couple of things. The arrangements of these verses (chapter 29) as the children are being born are not necessarily chronological. They are grouped deliberately, by the writer, according to the mother. This is happening over a span of about 7 or 8 years. We have multiple mothers; all kinds of kids, and Jacob probably wondering whether he is afoot or horseback and trying to dig his way out.

Genesis 19
31 Now the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, and He opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.

Here is the problem. Leah is the one who was weak in the eyes – an eastern idiom meaning that she was not as good-looking as her sister. Jacob was drawn to the good-looking sister. I suspect Jacob should have paid more attention to character than he did to appearance. He was head over heels for Rachel and did not seem to care much for Leah.

Leah begins to have children. It’s interesting the names she gives them. Her first child she names Reuben.

32 Leah conceived and bore a son and named him Reuben, for she said, “Because the LORD has seen my affliction; surely now my husband will love me.

Literally she is saying Yahweh, the God of Israel, has seen my affliction. She attributes the blessing of this son to the God of Israel. Not just to God generally, but to the covenant God, the God of the promise. His name is used – Yahweh – and she uses his name deliberately.

³³ Then she conceived again and bore a son and said, “Because the LORD has heard that I am unloved, He has therefore given me this son also”. So she named him Simeon.

Her second son, Simeon, has to do with hearing or to hear. Yahweh has heard my affliction. The suggestion here strongly is that Leah is a woman of spiritual acumen. She knows the Lord. She is a woman of prayer, of sensitivity, of character.

³⁴ She conceived again and bore a son and said, “Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons” Therefore he was named Levi.

Levi – meaning cleave. She says maybe now my husband will cleave to me in accordance with the biblical model of Genesis 2 – cleaving to one wife.

³⁵And she conceived again and bore a son and said, “This time I will praise the LORD.” Therefore she named him Judah. Then she stopped bearing.

Judah -- probably the most deliberate use of the name of God of all – “Yahweh is to be praised for this.” We get a picture here of Leah, I dare say, as the best choice for Jacob’s wife. He missed it because he was caught up in appearances. I just want to highlight Leah for a second, suggesting that if we could second guess the situation, which is always a little bit dangerous, if we were to say, “Jacob, go back and start over. Do it right.”  Jacob probably should have just kept Leah as his wife even though he received her under less than honorable circumstances on the part of her father. Why do I say that? First, Leah is naming her sons out of respect for the promise-making and promise-keeping God. That is huge. She is God-oriented in her thinking. Second, she is also the underdog here. She is the one, who is unloved. She is more virtuous than her sister, as we shall see.

Third, Leah bore a couple key sons -- Levi, the son from whom would be the priestly tribe, the tribe that would represent the rest of them to God. The fourth son was Judah through whom would be the line of Messiah, the anointed deliverer.

There is a verse toward the end of the book of Genesis, when Jacob, many years from this, will be in Egypt with his son, Joseph.  Jacob will be on his deathbed and will mention his burial request. He wants to be buried at Hebron, a city in south central Israel today. It contains a structure that is unique in all of the world – the grave of Abraham, the father of three major world religions -- Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Inside this massive structure is a mosque, a chapel, and a synagogue. There are six graves there in this structure in Hebron. They are listed in Genesis 49:31.

Genesis 49:31
 "There they buried Abraham and his wife Sarah, there they buried Isaac and his wife Rebekah, and there I buried Leah—

If you visit Hebron today, you will see these six graves – Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah.  I think that was God’s best design.

Rachel takes a look at what is going on, seeing that her sister is producing children. She is barren, cannot produce. There is some irony in that. So she says to Jacob.

¹Now 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."
²Then 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?"

Jacob is a little irritated with her. Maybe he is beginning to see through the veneer of her appearance and beginning to see something of her character. She is jealous now and she is exhibiting spite and so his anger burns against her. “God is dealing with you. I can’t  help this situation,” so she pulls precisely the same stunt that Sarah had pulled, Isaac’s grandmother.  “I can’t have children, but my handmaid can. Legally, if she bears your son that is my child.” Jacob didn’t seem to need a lot of convincing.

⁴So she gave him her maid Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob went in to her.
⁵Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son
⁶Then Rachel said, "God has vindicated me, and has indeed heard my voice and has given me a son." Therefore she named him Dan.

She names him Dan, having to do with judgment. “I have been vindicated” says Rachel.

⁷Rachel's maid Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son.
⁸So Rachel said, "With mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister, and I have indeed prevailed." And she named him Naphtali.

What a mess! At this point, the tally is six sons. Leah takes a look at that and says, “I haven’t had a child for a while. It seems to be working for my sister. I probably ought to expand my lead a bit. Leah, unwisely, gave her maid, Zilpah, to Jacob. Zilpah bears two sons. Leah names them Gad, simply meaning “good fortune,” and Asher, meaning “I am happy.”

We have an episode beginning in verse 14 that is highly ironic. In the days of wheat harvest, Reuben, four or five years old, is out walking around and comes across a mandrake plant. A mandrake plant is a flowering plant that develops fruit that looks like a small apple. It is used for fertility enhancement. Reuben brought the plants to his mother Leah. Rachel asked for them.

¹⁴Now 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."

Leah already had four sons. We don’t know how many daughters; we know that she had more than one. Leah is prolific and Rachel is not.

¹⁵But 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."
 ¹⁶When 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.

Interestingly and deliberately ironically, Rachel gets the fertility fruit and Leah gets pregnant. 

¹⁷God gave heed to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.
¹⁸Then Leah said, "God has given me my wages because I gave my maid to my husband." So she named him Issachar.

Issachar – “God has brought me a reward.”

¹⁹Leah conceived again and bore a sixth son to Jacob.
²⁰Then 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.
²¹Afterward she bore a daughter and named her Dinah.

Later on in Genesis we learn that there are other daughters, but Dinah is the one who grabs attention because she is the one whose dalliance with the prince of Shechem will lead to the destruction of that city. Her name means “judgment,” and she is aptly named as well.

²²Then God remembered Rachel, and God gave heed to her and opened her womb.
²³So she conceived and bore a son and said, "God has taken away my reproach."
²⁴She named him Joseph, saying, "May the LORD give me another son."

The name Joseph actually has two meanings. It is a word that does double duty. The word “Joseph” means “one who removes,” in other words, God has removed my reproach. In that culture sterility was particularly embarrassing. It also means “He shall add.” Her notion here is she hopes she has another one.  She will later, but for now the childbearing has come to an end.

What a mess!  There are twelve children, at least, by four mothers, under the same roof, in about seven years. Combined with that, envy. These women are living together, looking at each other daily, looking at each other’s children. The children are interacting. The mothers are defending their children. It is quite a menagerie. There is bitterness and there is rivalry and everything is owned by Laban, who is a crook. Jacob owns nothing, no livestock. He has these people but he doesn’t have a way of creating his own household. He is not an independent entity as the man of the house yet. He had sold himself to slavery to Laban. He is owned. There is no end here. Hope is flagging. Whether it is then, roughly 4,000 years ago, or now, how do you fix it? Whatever do you do?

God is in it. He is in the messiest messes, right in the middle. His sovereignty is huge. His ability is exhaustive. His comprehension is limitless; His resources are as well. He is big enough not only to understand it, but to understand all the implications and big enough to take responsibility. God is sovereign. He is huge.What is he saying to Jacob and to all of these? Trust Me.

His kids (30:25-43)

Let's transition. We have talked about his children. Let's talk about his kids -- livestock, that is. Chapter 30, verse 25. But we cannot begin there. In that verse he goes to Laban and says, Laban, something has to give here. You have to let me go. I have to have my own stuff. That isn't necessarily what happened next. We are told in Genesis 31 that Jacob had more than one visit from God. He was at Bethel when he came out of his home running away from his brother Esau and God met him at Bethel. That is where we have the ladder and the angels and the vision of God. God made a promise to him. God promised him that he would be with him and that he would fulfill his promise and there Jacob came to know the Lord. He needs Him again and God comes to him.

Look at the 31st chapter of Genesis as he is relating to his wives something that God has spoken to him about. In chapter 31 he is telling his wives we are going to leave.

¹⁰"And it came about at the time when the flock were mating that I lifted up my eyes and saw in a dream, and behold, the male goats which were mating were striped, speckled, and mottled.
¹¹ The angel of God said to me in the dream

He was having another dream and is relating it to them after the fact. He is explaining to them his procedure that is going to begin in verse 25. This is what is behind it. His attention now is not going to be Laban or his wives or his kids or his children. It is going to be God. He is going back to God for the direction he needs and God is not going to disappoint him. “The angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob,” and I said, ‘Here I am.’”

12 He said,’Lift up now your eyes and see that all the male goats which are mating are striped, speckled, and mottled, for I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you.
13 I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar, where you made a vow to Me; now arise, leave this land, and return to the land of your birth.’

"I am the God of Bethel. I told you then, years ago, I would not leave you and I have not. I told you then I would bless you and I will. I told you then, I will bring you out and bring you home and I shall. I am the God of Bethel.”

Against that revelation from God which was deliberate and specific, Jacob comes to Laban with a proposition.

Genesis 30
²⁵Now 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.
²⁶"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."
²⁷But Laban said to him, "If now it pleases you, stay with me; I have divined that the LORD has blessed me on your account."

Divined is a word, that has to do with superstition -- even having to do with occult practice. I don't think it is rocket science. Obviously, God has been with him. But Laban is trying to put a spiritual take on it, saying, "God has been with me since you have been here. I’m not sure I want you to leave. You are kind of like my good luck charm, I want you to stay."

²⁸He continued, "Name me your wages, and I will give it."

Notice "wages." I want to retain you as my hired hand. I want to own you. I want to own your stock. I want control over your family. You are my good luck charm.”

²⁹But he said to him, "You yourself know how I have served you and how your cattle have fared with me.
³⁰"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?"

I think I can be on my own now. I need to be. Remember, God has told him it is time to return. How will that fly with Laban? Obviously not well. And so Laban makes a deal.

³¹So 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:
 ³²let 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.

Let me just give you the overview. In these flocks and herds, solid colored goats are the norm. Dominant genetics favor solid colored goats and white sheep. Speckled, spotted and striped are recessive and rare. He is saying Laban, let's take all the speckled and pretty ones and you keep them. You leave in my care just the solid colored goats and the white sheep. Should these solid colored goats and white sheep produce anything off color -- speckled, spotted, or striped -- I will keep them. You can retain what is yours. Laban is thinking, "Ok, after all, dominate trait among these animals is solid colored goats and white sheep. There may be every now and then they throw a speckled or striped or spotted one but not likely.

 ³³"So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come concerning my wages. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, will be considered stolen."
³⁴Laban said, "Good, let it be according to your word."

Have you noticed how lame Laban's religion is? "I have divined that I have been blessed." It's all about Laban. It is a self-centered religion. Can your God do me good?

God had already told him, "Jacob, put your money on the speckled, spotted and striped.

³⁵So 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.
³⁶And he put a distance of three days' journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob fed the rest of Laban's flocks.

He completely separates them and Jacob then does an interesting thing. Nobody is sure how this came about. There was a superstitious practice then and perhaps in some parts of the world still, that if a female, when in conception stage, is alarmed or startled, that her offspring will be affected. There is no physiological proof for this. It's just what they thought. So Jacob is going to help God by taking these poles and planting them where the animals will tend to mate so that what she is seeing is speckled, striped, and spotted. That's the way the animals turned out. We have all kinds now of speckled and spotted and striped goats and black sheep. According to their deal,  Jacob gets to keep those. 

Jacob has been around animal husbandry now for quite a while. He is not the same Jacob that he was back at home with his parents. He is now pretty good at what he does in handling goats and sheep. He realizes there are two breeding seasons for these animals. The stronger animals breed in the spring, producing stronger offspring. The weaker tend to breed and reproduce and bear in the fall and winter. He only does the striped pole thing in the spring.  He does it for 6 years and after 6 years he has tons of livestock. He gives Laban the weaker. He keeps the stronger and God's plan has worked. Jacob now is wealthy enough to leave and that is precisely what he is going to do.

⁴³So the man became exceedingly prosperous, and had large flocks and female and male servants and camels and donkeys.

He was prosperous because God was keeping His promise that He had made many years before when things seemed to be a mess and could get really messy. We need to step back despite our confusion, anger, our grief and our pain and trust a God who is big enough to absorb it all, to fix it all, and to bring us through it. That is what Jacob was beginning to learn. God is going to move him out.