Jacob: As a Man he Struggled with God

If you've got a Bible, turn to Genesis chapter 30.

If you were, Genesis chapter 30. My name is Tom. I'm 1 of the pastors here. And, if you are new here this morning, it's lovely to welcome. You've been working our way through this series in the book of Genesis, and we are focusing our attention mainly on 1 of the main characters of the book of Genesis, Jacob, And we are we're looking we're actually looking at a big chunk today.

Genesis 30 verse 25 all the way through to the end of 31. So that's about 80 verses. And so what we're gonna do today rather than read through every verse, we're just gonna look at some of the major chunks within that section and, draw out the lesson. So a few weeks ago, we did something like this where we had a a bit of a reading and a bit of a talk mixed together, and it will be that kind of, that kind of thing again. So let's, pray and, turn to the lord and ask for the lord's help as we look at his word.

Heavenly father, we thank you that as we were reminded earlier in our catechism that the lord Jesus Christ is in your presence even now advocating for us and praying for us and interceding on our behalf and knowing us and loving us and longing that this morning would be a time of spiritual prophet to us. And we thank you that he also sends us his spirit. And so we pray heavenly father and great lord Jesus Christ that your holy spirit would indeed be amongst us this morning and that you would bring these words to life and that you would speak to every single 1 of us here and help us to discern spiritual truths with spiritual eyes. And have hearts that are ready to respond, and we pray in Jesus' name. Oh, man.

You may have seen on Monday. It was the twentieth anniversary of the 7 7 London bombings. So seventh of July 2005, if you were, alive at that point and, in London or in the UK, I'm probably sure that that bit of news didn't escape you. And, in the news this week and on the telly and on the radio, they were interviewing various people, about that event, and they were asking questions such as do you remember where you were and what you were doing when you found out that London had been bombed and they were particularly interested in people who were in the capital at the time the bombings had happened. And so they were interviewing 1 lady, and she was talking about how every day, you know, she would get the 3 1 8 bus But on that day, for some reason, she got the 1 2 1 instead of the 3 1 8 and the 3 1 8 was bombed and not the 1 2 1.

And they were just reminiscing about that moment, which 20 years ago has just lodged in their minds, and it's gonna be something that they're unable to forget. And perhaps some of you here can even remember exactly where you were, you know, 20 years ago on the seventh of July when you heard that piece of news. Well, I reckon if you had said to Jacob or if you had the opportunity to interview him, where were you 20 years ago? Can you remember exactly where you were 20 years ago? He would have been able to remember with absolute clarity where he was 20 years ago.

20 years ago, he was arriving in Haran He was 550 miles away from home. He was fleeing the persecution of a murderous brother and also partly fleeing because of his own sin. And 20 years ago, this man would have had absolutely nothing to his name, not 2 pennies to rub together. Nothing at all except this incredible promise that god had made to him 20 years ago. In Genesis chapter 28 verse 15, you remember he had that vision of angels ascending and descending on a ladder, which came from heaven to earth, and he felt as if the lord god himself had come and stood in that place.

And he said how awesome is this place? That is not the sort of thing you would forget even after 20 years that the lord had met him when he had nothing. And 1 of the things god said to him there in verse 15 was this. I am with you. I will watch over you.

I will bring you back to this land, and I will never leave you. And surely, In all the ups and downs of the last 20 years, that promise was never far from Jacob's mind. In the low points, when he was being deceived and tricked out of the wife that he loved, when he was being tricked by his nasty uncle, laban, and in the high moments, when god gave him 11 sons and a daughter, and in the very ordinary moments of the day by day working in the fields for his uncle. In every moment, high, low, and ordinary, that promise would have been somewhere in his mind that Haran was not his forever home. That 1 day he would be going back to his forever home.

People talk a bit like that today, don't they? If they go and visit a flat or they move into a new home and they start renting it, they might say, yeah, this will be nice for a few years, but it's not our forever home. You know, it's not our it's not gonna be our forever home. But when they move into their forever home, Yeah. This is gonna be our forever home.

Jacob would have been like that in Haron. It was a time that he would live for a while, but in his mind, he knew that it was not his forever home. He would 1 day be going back. And as we come to this major section in his life, it's clear that the time to go home has now come. He is starting to feel the pull of his forever home.

So chapter 30 verse 25, After Rachel gave birth to Joseph, Jacob said to laban, send me on my way so I can go back to my own homeland. This big passage before us, which is all really 1 section, is about going home, or rather it's about the god who brings his people home. The god who brings his people home. And so it's a lovely story, really. Jacob is going home.

His family is complete. He's going back to his forever home, which God promised him. It's a lovely narrative arc. Except for 1 problem, and that's laban. Because laban, his uncle, is not quite ready for him to go.

And so let's have a look. At how this relationship with Jacob and Laben develops. And the first point is this. More deals, more lies, more grace. More deals, more lies, more grace.

Have a look at how laban responds in verse 27 of chapter 30. Laban said to him, if I have found favor in your eyes, please stay. It's very polite for labor. I have learned by divination that the lord has blessed me because of you. Now at least half of that sentence is definitely true.

So since Jacob arrived in Haran, laban has been living his best life. Because what he's discovered is that as the lord blesses Jacob, he has profited from that blessing. And in fact, that is actually quite a big theme. In the book of Genesis. God makes these promises to bless these individuals, and through them, that blessing is kind of mediated to the nations.

That really was at the heart of what guilt said to Abraham. I will bless you and through you a blessing will come. And we've seen something of that with Laben and Jacob, but as god has been looking after Jacob and prospering him, laben has benefited somewhat from that. And that's what he's hinting at in verse 27, but how how did it work? How does he how does he phrase it?

Well, look again. I have learned by divination that the lord has blessed me because of you. He says he's learned that by divination. Now it's quite hard to know what he actually means by that, but certainly in the Old Testament part of the Bible, divination had to do with kind of pagan spiritual non christian practices in order to discern the guidance of a god or god's And there was all kinds of weird rituals people would engage in in order to try to find god's god's purpose and will for them. And so Jacob is saying, laban is saying rather, I have learned by divination.

That the lord is best me because of you. Now to the original readers, they would have been shocked to think that the lord god was communicating with anyone this way. They would have read that and thought, that's not how god speaks. And actually, it's actually not what the text says. If you look carefully, we're not told that god has used this pagan practice to communicate.

We're only told that laban's divination led him to conclude that he had been blessed because the lord was with Jacob. And so whatever was actually involved in this divination, sort of laban has concluded, this lord that you talk about has blessed you, I've been blessed because of it, and I don't want you to go. And so what he does then is he tries to make a deal. He tries to make a deal in order to get Jacob to stay. Verse 31, what shall I give you?

He asked? What shall I give you? He's saying, now come on, Jacob. Let's not be too hasty about this because you and I have got a good thing going on here. And, this is quite a sweet arrangement, really.

It's quite mutually beneficial. I know we've had our rocky patches together, but you're rich and I'm rich and together we're rich and why would we throw away a good thing? So maybe together, we can look at this from a different perspective and see if we might be able to get you to hang around a bit. And so he actually says to him name your wages. Name your wages.

That's what every employee wants to hear from their boss, isn't it? Name your wages. What's it gonna keep? What's it gonna take to get you to stay? You name your wages?

Anything you want? Jacob responds verse 31. Don't give me anything. Jacob replied. But if you will do this 1 thing for me, I will go on tending your flocks and watching over them.

So he's not ruling out any extension of his stay. Let me go through all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark colored lamb, and every spotted or speckled goat. They will be my wages. So your boss says to you, name your wages, you say I want the odd looking cheap and goes. Okay.

Now, I'm told because I know nothing about this subject at all, but in my reading, I discovered that the spotted and the speckled members of the flock were in the minority. Those were the minority. So it was much, much more common to have monochrome block colored. Sheep and goats. Okay?

The mottled ones, the spotted ones, the speckled ones, they were in the minority. Okay? And that's quite important because Jacob here is not asking for like 90 percent of the animals. He's not saying I want the lion's share. I want the biggest steak.

He's not even asking for a 50, 50 cut. He's asking for probably something like 10 percent or maybe less. Now why is he doing that? Well, either, and we have touched on this before in our series, either he's just still a hopeless negotiator and, has just, like, got bad or rocked name your wages, and you ask for a 0.1 percent increase where you could have had a lot more. It could be that.

Maybe he's got some kind of desire to be generous to labor, I don't know why he says that, but that's what he asks for. Name your wages. I'll just take the rare ones, the spotted and the speckled 1, and that they can be mine. And Leben says, yeah, that's absolutely fine. You know, that's fine with me.

You can have him. But then look what he does next. He's such a snake. Are you ready? Verse 34 agreed, said laban.

I think we can manage that. Pay rise. I think we can stretch our budget to accommodate that. Let it be as you have said. That same day, he removed all the male goats that were streaked or spotted, and all the speckled or spotted female goats, all that had whites on them.

And all the dark colored lambs. And he placed them in the care of his own sons, and then he put a 3 day journey between himself and Jacob, while Jacob continued to tend the rest of laban's flocks. So you see what he does there. He says, that's absolutely fine. I agree to that.

You can have those animals, and then he leaves that conversation, removes all of the speckled spotted ones from the flock, gives them to his sons and then puts a 3 day journey between himself and Jacob. Okay? And so you see what he's done there. Not only has he taken away Jacob's present wages. He's taken away any possibility of future wages.

Because now there's none of those animals to left, to mate, and to have more. And so he's taken that is if you want the bloke to stay around, that is not a very sensible thing to have done, is it really? Then he gives them all to his sons He runs away, 3 days away, and Jacob goes to the flock and lo and behold, there's none of the thing he asked for left. K? So what is going on here?

It's a sort of weird arrangement, isn't it? Well, I think at least 1 thing for us to notice is that, again, in the way that the lord is arranging Jacob's life, there is some dramatic irony here for us to revel in for a moment. Because you remember that this Jacob, this is the same Jacob who all those years ago did the dirty on his own brother in order to steal a birthright, and then lied repeatedly to the face of his father in order to steal a blessing. And in the last 20 years, he has now been tricked out of a woman that he loved and now tricked out of the wages that he asked for. And so it's as if god is saying to him again.

Okay, Jacob. We're we're going home now. I'm gonna take you back to Canon, the promised land. But let me just show you 1 more time why this kind of behavior has really gotta go. It's just not nice, is it?

And so this is another example of the lord teaching Jacob the principal. That what you reap is that which you sow. If you reap with deception and trickery, chances are you will sow deception and trickery. Again, it's happened to him. He's been tricked out of a woman.

And now he's been tricked out of a wages, just as he tricked out of a birthright, and he tricked out of a blessing. And so the lord is working this reap that which you sow principle in his life as part of his growth. And so we're meant to notice something of that. But look what god does for him. Is this amazing?

This is weird, but it is amazing. So verse 37, Jacob, however, took fresh cut branches from Poplar, almond, and plain trees. And made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. Then he placed the peeled branches in the watering troughs, so that they would they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, they mated in front of the branches, and they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted.

Now if you're new to Cornerstone, we very rarely talk about animal mating sort of, rituals here, but neither do we tend to ignore them, if they come up in the Bible. And so this is this is admittedly quite a bizarre thing that's going on here. Okay? So let me try to sort of break down for you. I did actually think of trying to get a watering trough here and a load of branches and sort of putting them in.

But here's what here's what seems to be going on. So step 1, Jacob gets a load of these branches, and he peels strips of bark off the branches. So they look like zebra zebra branches now. They've got these strips in them. Step 2, when the strong animals come for a drink, so you find out later on when the weak ones come for a drink, he doesn't do it.

But when the strong animals come for a drink, he takes the zebra branches, and he puts them in the watering trough. Step 3, animals have a drink, have a mate in front of the stripy sticks, low and behold a few months later, out pops a speckled or streaked member of the flock. When the weak animals come for a drink, sticks come out of the watering trough, animals mate, they don't have streets or speckled ones. So over time, Jacob threw the stripy stick thing, manages miraculously to get a load of sort of strong, well developed, speckled, mottled flocks. Bit odd, isn't it?

Okay? And when you read about this, I mean, you know, you can have like a a a sort of commentary on this chapter, and there's that many pages devoted to everything else, and there's about that many pages devoted to this thing. People trying to work out what is going on. Now, there are some people who argue that there is some genetic evidence that when animals are mating in front of something visually unusual, It can have an impression on them so deep that it can actually affect their genetics. Some people say, well, that just doesn't happen in the world.

And so what's more likely is that the peeling of the bark releases a chemical from the branch. Chemical goes in water. Water is consumed. Genetics are infected by this stripy branch thing. Some people are quite hard on Jacob here.

And say, no, what he's doing is what Leben did with the divination thing. He's engaging in some kind of divination, some sort of paganism in order to get this thing done. I think the most common and most sensible interpretation of this is that the stripy branch thing, of course, really can't be affecting the genetics of the sheep, but rather what is happening is that the lord god who is in heaven is through an admittedly unusual means, providing for his man who has been cheated out of his flocks. Think that's what's really going on. It's really a picture of how god is working against the odds to miraculously provide for this man and to fulfill his promise.

Whatever is going on in the details, god is the hero of the story, who is providing for Jacob. Yeah. And that's actually how Jacob himself understands it, which I think is why it's the best interpretation. So if you flick over to chapter 31 verse 9, when Jacob is talking to his wives and will come to this scene in a minute, he's to describing how laban has treated him. And then he says, god has taken away your father's livestock and has given them to me.

In other words, he doesn't think the stick thing is what did it. He thinks that god did it through the stick thing. Yeah? He has taken away your father's livestock, and god has given them to me. And so to conclude this first point, Here we see more lies, more deals, but also more grace.

Just look how chapter 30 ends. Verse 43. In this way, the man Jacob grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks and female and male servants and camels and donkeys. It's an incredible turnout for him, isn't it? Again, if you were to ask him, Jacob, where where were you 20 years ago?

What did you have to your name? 20 years ago? He had he had nothing. He was a refugee. He was an exile with nothing to call his own.

Wandering the planes of some random place off looking for something. And now we're told verse 43 exceedingly prosperous, large flocks, big families, servants, camels, donkeys, and we as readers are supposed to be asking, what is the explanation for this? How did he go from nothing to everything? Was it his own ingenuity? Was it his own skill?

Was it his own ability to negotiate? We know it was none of that. The only explanation is that the lord god who had been with him had also provided for him, even in the face of his own deception and his own sin. That's the explanation. God was with him.

God provided for him. And, you know, just to pause there before we move on. That really is a remarkable act of god's grace, isn't it? Given how Jacob has been living in these 20 years. We spent some time looking at this last week.

Where is Jacob now? Where was he last week? Well, we discovered that he's now taken 4 wives for himself, that he's shown a lack of spiritual leadership in his home, that because he desired an easy life, he's let his family go to chaos, but there is no record of him inquiring of god or petitioning god or pleading with god for really anything to do with his family. And yet, how has god responded to him? By showering him with blessing.

Now to be clear, what we must take from that is not it doesn't matter how I live. God will bless me anyway. God doesn't really care how I behave. That's not the moral of the story. But the point rather is to spotlight the unbelievable generosity and kindness of God that even in the face of this man's lack of spirituality and sin, god would so shower him with kindness in order to be faithful to the promise that he had made to him 20 years ago.

And don't we today as Christians know something similar from our own experience? You just spend a bit of time thinking about the last week since we were here last Sunday or even the last 24 hours. And think about how much dumb stuff we have done. How many sinful thoughts that we have entertained and allowed to brew and come out in all kinds of ways? How many things that we've said that really if we could get in that time machine and go back, we wish we wish we hadn't done it.

How many things we've looked at, which have scarred us, and we wish we hadn't have seen. All this stuff that we have done, which we know we ought not to, and yet what happens when you get to church this morning? What happens? Christ Christ welcomes you. Isn't that quite an extraordinary thing?

That's why I love our welcome team. Because when you come to church on Sunday morning, the first person you see is Scarlet, and she's welcoming you to church. That's Jesus. That's Jesus. That's Jesus in her.

A welcomeer is a gift of Jesus on Sunday morning. It's him reaching out his hand and saying, welcome to church. Welcome to church. It's lovely to have you back. You're in the right place.

You've come and I'm gonna speak, and I'm you're gonna sing, and I'm gonna bless despite all that we've done. Who does he put on the door? He doesn't put a judge on the door. He doesn't put a slipper on the door. He puts an open hand on the door to say, welcome.

And then he gives you refreshments later because he wants to say Jesus through Andrew and the refreshment team is giving you a cup of water or a cup of coffee. Little acts of kindness from Jesus to us despite all that we may have done, you come on the lord's day to this place, and he showers you with the blessings of heaven. That is what Jacob has experienced in his 20 years. Verse 43, beginning with nothing, hardly having a righteous couple of decades. And yet, what do we conclude from verse 43 in this way the man grew exceedingly prosperous.

God blessed him despite him. And that is our experience too, isn't it? That god continues to bless us despite us because he loves us, and he's made a promise to us. And so, firstly, more deals, more lies, more grace. Secondly, more plotting, more violence, more rescue, more plotting, more violence more rescue.

And as we turn now into chapter 31, which is a big old chapter, we have now come to the end of this 20 year season. So 7 years working for Rachel, who became Leah, gets Leah and Rachel another 7 years for Rachel, 6 years on top working. This 20 year saga is now coming to the end, but as we're going to see, Haran is a little bit like the hotel, California. Alright? You can check out anytime you like, says laban, but you can never leave.

Alright? See how it goes. Verse 1 and 2. Jacob heard that laban's sons were saying Jacob has taken everything our father owned and has gained all this wealth from what belonged to our father. So as Jacob's as Labour's sons look at Jacob's flocks, their conclusion is not miraculous vision, but naughty theft.

That Jacob has been doing something to get what belongs to our dad, and we don't like it. And Jacob noticed that laban's attitude towards him was not what it had been. In other words, the narrator is wanting us to know that the tide is beginning to turn here. Now you could hardly have called Jacob and Laben's relationship pleasant up until now, but something more sinister has started to creep in. Laben's sons are not happy.

And just in conversation with Laben, Jacob has started to notice that something in him has changed. And he's getting the feeling that he's not really wanted anymore than if you've ever had that, it's a horrible feeling, isn't it? Maybe at school or something. You walk into a room, and maybe a conversation goes quiet. And you get the sense that you're not really wanted anymore in this room.

You're not really welcome here. Something of that is happening. Jacob is realizing that Leben's attitude towards him is not what it was. Something has changed. And so verse 3, notice the lord comes in and says, go back.

So now the lord is actually confirming what he's been feeling. Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives. And I will be with you. It's time for Jacob to go home. But, of course, this is not going to be as easy as it was 20 years ago.

You see, when you're a single man and a bachelor, You can go whenever you want, wherever you want. You can live a life of spontaneity. You know, you wanna go to the cinema 1 night. You just don't have to ask anyone. You just get up, go book a ticket, lock this all.

You fancy a takeaway, don't have to consult anyone. Just ring up the order 1. Know, you fancy going to Thailand for a couple of weeks as long as you got the money, you know, just get up and go. The bachelor life is a life of spontaneity, and let's go and let's do. He can't do that now.

It's gonna take him a long time to up sticks. Now, He's got 12 kids. He's got 4 wives. He's got hundreds of camels. You know, it's, you know, the process of him moving house is now gonna take a lot longer.

It's not so easy for him to just up sticks and move. This man's got responsibility now. Okay? So it's not gonna be easy for him. And so then in verse 4 to 13, quite a long section.

He gathers Rachel and Leah, his 2 wives, and he basically goes over everything with them. So he tells them about laban and his naughty tricks. He tells them about this dream that he had to do with the flocks. He tells them that despite everything, god has been providing for him. And remarkably, after that little speech, Leah and Rachel agree that it's time to go.

And if we'd been reading from last week, we'd be amazed that Leah and Rachel are agreeing on something. You know, last week, they couldn't agree about the color of the sky. But this week, they do agree. They said, you know what? You're right.

You're right. Laben has been cheating us, and he has been doing the nasty on us. And this hasn't been fair. And so both wives come together and say, we agree with you. It's time it's time to go.

Yeah? And so this is good. The family are, you know, united. Again, coming back together. All they need now is an opportunity, and it comes in verse 19.

Here's their opportunity. When Leben had gone to shear his sheep. So Leben is out of town for a while. He's gone away to do something, and so this is their window of opportunity. If he wants to take this massive family and this whole caravan of goods away.

Now is the time to go because laban is out of town. But then look at this curious thing, verse 19. Rachel stole her father's household gods. And that is another head scratcher of a verse because we we're not told why she actually did that. Now it could be that it was for spiritual reasons.

And show what she was doing or what she was thinking is, well, Jacob's god seems to have really blessed us, and I think we should go for him. But I don't wanna totally give up on my dad's old gods. And so maybe the safest strategy is to take a little dash of that and a little pinch of this, put it in the same bowl, mix it up. And as we blend the god of Jacob with my dad's god, that's gonna give us the most likely successful outcome. So the sort of big word for that is like syncretism, where you basically try to say, I'm gonna follow Jesus Christ as God, but I'm not quite ready to surrender all of my old gods.

And so when Jesus says to me, you cannot serve both god and money, I think he's not seeing everything clearly there. I think he I think that might be possible. I could have a bit of serving god and a bit of serving money. And syncretism is when we bring together Christianity but we're not quite ready to give up the old stuff that we used to love. And so rather than ditch either, we try to blend both together.

So it could be something of that. She wants her father's god. She wants Jacob's god. I'm not sure whether it is that because later as we're gonna see, she actually then takes these household goals and sits on them, which is not a very reverent thing to do. You know, if you really thought that these were gods, the idea that you'd put them in a cattle, camel saddle under your bottom, is not how they would have really treated them.

So I don't I don't know how how much there is there. So it may just be that she wants to take a bit of revenge on her old man. She's thinking, he snaked us out of everything that belongs to us. We're out of here. Let me go and choose the most valuable thing in the house.

It's not a jewelry, and it's not an iPad. It's his household gods. Those are worth most. I'll take those just as a final, you know, kind of take that, dad. Yeah.

Could be financial. You know, they were probably the most valuable thing as I say, and she's already got loads of money, but she wants a little extra insurance policy just in case. So there's all kinds. We're not we're just not told. We're just not told.

It's just sort of surprisingly few details about that, but Rachel on her way out makes a dash and grab for her father's household gods. And it's interesting even if we don't know the exact reason to just look at the story arc again, isn't it? Of how this has all come together. So when Jacob left Canon, He left under a cloud of theft and deception. He left because of stealing and lying.

Now 20 years later, it's time for him to come home. And the themes of his return are going to be theft and deception. He stole. She steals. He deceived.

She deceives. So the that's what I think we're supposed to See, in all these 20 years, there are some habits that die hard. Moreover, verse 20, Jacob deceived laban, the Armenian. By not telling him he was running away. Now it's interesting to compare that with some other translation.

So the new living translation would phrase that Jacob outwitted, lab in the Armenian. For they set out secretly and never told laban they were leaving. So sometimes in our modern English translations of the Bible, that word comes as deception. Sometimes it's more of an outwitting word. Which do you think fits best?

Is it is it a deception, would you say? Is he deceived him? Or is he just outwitted him, making the most of his opportunity? Either way, to be fair on Jacob here, I can understand why he didn't. Choose to tell laban because I doubt laban would have sent him off with fanfare harps, party poppers, wasn't this wonderful.

God bless you and all who sail in you, tight, great. Although, that's what he says he would have done a bit later on. I can see why Jacob thought let's just not tell him. So whether it's a deception or an outwitting, we should have left to think about that. Verse 22 to 23.

On the third day, laban was told that Jacob had fled taking his relatives with him, he pursued Jacob for 7 days and caught up with him in the hill country of Gilead. And so when Labour realizes what has happened, he summons his boys together And he says, right. We're going on the run. We're going after them. Okay?

We're gonna pursue Jacob. We're gonna hunt him down. And it's quite clear that his intention is not to give them all a farewell hug and to make sure they have a proper send off. Rather the whole flavor of this chapter is that Leben pursues him in order to do him harm, and maybe even worse. Maybe he had murderous intentions here for his son-in-law.

He hates what's happened. Verse 29. Look what Levin says to him. I have the power to harm you. I have the power to harm you.

And imagine being Jacob at this point, you're there with your family. And you, you know, you've got your tent set up and your children running around and having fun in the yard or whatever they're doing. And suddenly on the horizon, you see this group of men who've caught up with you, and you know who they are. There's only 1 group of people that could be. And they're coming towards your family and they know what you've done and they're coming after you.

Must have been incredibly frightening for him. And yet look what god has done. Jacob doesn't know about this yet, but the lord has been working to protect him. Verse 23 to verse 24. Have a look at this.

Taking his relatives with him, he pursued Jacob for 7 days and caught up with him in the hill country of Gilead. Then god came to labor in the Army and in a dream at night and said to him, be careful. Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad. So do you see what the lord has done? You take it together there.

Chapter 30 He's been snakes out of his wages, but god has provided for him. Chapter 31, he's in threat under threat, and god has stepped in to protect him. God has provided for him chapter 30. God has protected him. Chapter 31.

In other words, this man and his family are getting home. They're getting home because the sovereign god of heaven is working against the odds to provide and protect for his covenant family. Yeah? And then look how the story goes. Verse 26 to 27.

Then Leben said to Jacob, what have you done? You've deceived me and you've carried off my daughters like captives in war. Why did you run off secretly and deceive me? Why didn't you tell me? So that I could send you away with joy and singing and to the music of tambourines and harps and bunting and, you know, tables and cakes and party poppers and you know, I could have sent you away like this.

It's total bilge, isn't it? Total bilge. I don't think he had any intention of sending Jacob away like that. I think he would have done exactly the opposite. But look what he's really annoyed about here, verse 30.

This is what he's he's really peeved about. Now you've gone off because you longed to return to your father's household, but why did you steal my gods? Why did you steal my gods? You notice what he says there. My gods.

This is not the god of Abraham, and not the god of isaac and not the god of Jacob. That's not who he's talking about. He's talking about my god, my little family god. And so in chapter 31, we've got this big contrast between the lord god of heaven who created the heavens and the earth the covenant god who makes promises to his people, the god of the flood, who even controls the springs of the deep and the waters of heaven and can flood the earth, the god of Bethel, who can show up on a ladder, and promises people things. We've got the god who is called in this chapter, the fear of Isaac.

The god of reverence, the awesome god of heaven. And then we have laban's god, which can fit inside a pocket, can ride around on a camel, which can be stolen, which can play hide and seek with its owner, which is unable to defend itself and which we're about to see can even be sat on. It's worth us sometimes, isn't it, friends, standing back and thinking, what are the objects of worship in my life? What are the things that consume most of my time and most of my attention and my affections? Are they literally things that I can sit on?

Can my gods be sat on? Can they be held in my hand and hidden in a pocket? Labans God can. They can be put in pockets and they can be sat on. The god of heaven cannot be placed in a human pocket, and he cannot be sat on.

He is the fear of Isaac, the god of heaven, the god of creation, the god of covenant. It is worth just a that's just a good simple diagnostic, isn't it? Is the thing that consumes most of my time something I can sit on? If so, I should probably ditch it. And so let's have a look.

Verse 34. He conducts a search for these gods, and then he gets to Rachel. Now Rachel had taken the household gods and put them inside her camel saddle and was sitting on them. We're supposed to laugh. Even if we don't laugh out loud, we're supposed to laugh in our hearts at the stupidity of that.

Her father's god in a camel saddle being sat on. Laban searched through everything in the tent but found nothing. Rachel said to her father, don't be angry my lord that I cannot stand in your presence. I'm having my period. Which is not just a it's partly an excuse to get around to the moment, but it is also another way of saying, here's a household god that can be just sat on and defiled.

It's just The god of heaven cannot be defiled. He's pure and holy, and nothing can defile his character. And so he searched, but he could not find the household gods. What a pathetic scene this is? Here's laban Lave him the prosperous, unable.

His god is playing hide and seek with him, and he can't find his god because he's being sat on. And then look at Jacob's response. This is now it's almost as if Jacob, it that there are now 20 years of frustration. That are about to come out of Jacob. And he's seen laban searching through his tents, and he's seen laban going up to his wives and demanding they get up so he can find his gods.

And finally, a man's had enough. It's like he's now I'm gonna speak now. I'm gonna advocate on behalf of my family, and I'm sick of how you've been treating us. And so, verse 36, Jacob was angry, and he took Laben to task. And then if you've ever been taken to task by anyone, or you've taken someone to task, it basically means you get them in front of you and you lay out all the different ways and they've been acting wrong and you step in to rebuke them.

For 6 verses, he does that. Just time after time, You've cheated me 10 times. You haven't been right to me. You've done us harm. This is wrong.

What are you doing? It takes him to task. Until he comes to the heart of the matter in verse 42. If the god of my father, the god of Abraham and the fear of Isaac, the 1 my father feared, laban, and the 1 that you ought to fear. You don't fear him, laban, but you ought to.

My father feared him, and you should you should be afraid. You should be afraid. The fear of Isaac had not been with me. You would surely have sent me away empty handed, but god has seen my hardship and the toil of my hands. And last night, he rebuked you.

And so I wonder in Jacob's story, whether this is now both a physical and a spiritual homecoming for him. Just the way he talks about god here, It bears a lot of resemblance to what he said back in 28 16 after his dream. Surely, the lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it. He was afraid and said, how awesome is this place. Now in the last 20 years, Jacob has had seasons where he's forgotten all about that, and he hasn't talked with god, and he hasn't treated him with reverence, but it's as almost as if back at the end of this spiritual exile, he's coming home.

The awesome god of bethel is now the fear of Isaac as he leaves. And so the physical homecoming seems to be something of a spiritual homecoming for him. And then the chapter finishes with this covenants. Laben says verse 43. Labour answered Jacob.

The, and this is just amazing because Labour is not ready to concede anything here. Notice he still thinks everything belongs to him. Everything still belongs to him. Verse 43. The women are my daughters.

The children are my children, the flocks are you flocks. All you see is mine. And yet, what can I do about these daughters of mine or about the children they have born come now? Let's make a covenant you and I, and that it serve as a witness between us. And then the chapter finishes with this covenant, which is not a friendly covenant at all.

This is not the covenant of friends. This is the covenant of suspicious rivals. And so when you read it and you can do it in your own time later, the covenant is basically. Well, we're going our separate ways. I don't trust you, but I'm not gonna be able to keep an eye on you, and I don't trust you, and I'm gonna not gonna be able to keep an eye on you.

And so god better keep his eyes on both of us. We're gonna go our separate ways, and god will keep his eyes on both of us. And that's that's it. Verse 55. Early the next morning, laban kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them.

And then he returned home, and that's it for laban in the Bible. He walks. Off the pages of scripture, and we don't hear from him again. And so as you can see, coming to an end, there's, there's there's a lot there's a lot here for us to sort of brew on and think about this. There's helpful things here about idolatry.

And there's helpful things here about family relationships, and there is more of this kind of reap what you saw theme coming in. But in the end, if we now step back and look at these 20 years as a whole, The standout truth has got to be the faithfulness of god to his word and to his people. In the past 20 years, there has been backsliding, there has been deception, There have been mistakes, there has been chaos. And yet at the end of chapter 31, we find Jacob coming home as a man provided for and as a man protected. Just as the lord had promised him.

And that I think is a good application for god's people in whatever age they find themselves. Let me finish with this verse. This is Philippians 1 verse 4. Steve, if you'd be able to put it up. Notice the work of god in bringing us home.

Paul says I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. Being confident of this. That he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. That is 1 of my favorite verses in the Bible. Paul is saying to these Christians and by extension to all Christians.

If god has begun a good work in you, he will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus. If you have begun your spiritual journey, no matter how long your time in exile, he will bring you home. He will. If he started a work in you and made a promise to you, he will see it that you come to that great day. Of Christ Jesus.

In other words, god does not do half jobs. He is a starter finisher. He does not leave things undone in the house. Every project he embarks on He completes. And if he has made you alive in Christ, he will bring you home.

And brothers and sisters who follow Christ here, is that not the foundation of our assurance? It's not in ourselves, and it's not in our performance, but it's in the promise of god. That is what you see with Jacob. You see, if you're god, I know this is a dangerous thing to do, but if you imagine yourself as god for a minute, and you've got this promised land, which you want to give to someone. And you're looking over all of humanity thinking who qualifies for this new creation land?

Jacob is not gonna be high on your list. He's not gonna be high on your list. You're not gonna choose him if it depends on human works or efforts. But you know, Jacob's place in the family of god and Jacob's home in the promised land never depended upon his own performance. But on god's commitment to his word.

And that is our confidence too. On our way home to the new creation land, we may not be provided with great wealth. But we will be provided with the bread that we need. And we may not be sheltered from every difficulty. I mean, didn't Safron just remind us of that in our prayers.

We will not be sheltered from every difficulty. But we will be protected from ultimate harm. And god will ensure that every 1 of his people makes it home. You know thousands of millions of Christians around the world today are gonna gather together like this. And they're going to say 2 things which remind them of god's provision and god's protection.

They're going to say, our father in heaven. Give us this day. Our daily bread. That's a prayer for provision. Provide for us in our time of exile.

Give us this day our daily bread and then they're going to pray and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from laban. Deliver us from laban. Deliver us from evil. And bring us home. That's a promise of provision and protection until we make it home.

Isn't that good news? Let's bow our heads and give thanks. Father, we're amazed at the way in which you dealt with Jacob, this man who sometimes shows flashes of awesome faith, and yet for so much of his life seems to live in the shadows of faith. And yet for 20 years, you looked after him. And you didn't shelter him from every difficulty, but you did bring him safely home.

And you provided for him when others were seeking to cheat him. And father, we are sure that on so many of our days, we have been protected from evils in this world because you have stepped in to protect. How how many things have we been protected from that we don't even know about yet? Because you stepped in to deliver us from evil. Perhaps you even came in a dream to warn people not to do your church harm and delivered them and have provided for us.

We thank you that every good work you begin, even in our own hearts as individuals, you will bring to completion at the day of Christ Jesus and that assurance which was Jacobs can be ours by faith in Christ. And we praise you in his name. Oh, man.