God Provides for and Protects

Looking at chapter 30, beginning of verse 25. And last week we looked at how we should ask God proper questions in the midst of suffering and despair and difficult times. This morning, we're not going to ask the question, does God love us? But we're going to ask the question, does, is God trustworthy in these times? Can we trust God with every part of our life in the midst of life's difficulties? Last week we asked, does God love us in the midst of our difficulties? Now we're gonna be looking at how trustworthy God is in every area of life. When we are under pressure and distress, how do we respond? Do we get depressed? Do we get quiet? Do we get angry? Most importantly, what kind of thoughts do we have about God in the midst of our difficulties? We're going to see that God is trustworthy in every area of life. The message this morning is simply this. God cares for and protects his children all the time. God is always caring for and protecting his children. Now, this is what the message is about, because it's about what God does. Of course, what is important for us to hear also is how we are to respond. And that is simply we must trust and obey our Savior. Our text this morning is Genesis 30. We're going to start in 25. And we'll get through 31, and as you see, there's a good chunk of verses here. One of the things I appreciate about this text, as I was comparing it to our previous texts, is really we're getting back to Moses giving us very direct declarations about God again. Many of the stories, Moses wasn't telling it exactly where God was. Here we can see God and exactly what he's doing in chapter 30. We see Jacob making an unusual agreement in chapter 31. We see why it's because God told him to make that agreement. We have a direct, clear declaration of exactly what God is doing, whereas sometimes we were wondering, what is Jacob doing at all? Because he never talks about God. Here we start to see God on the lips of Jacob more clearly and more precisely. We're going to break it up into five scenes, as usual, as our normal way of looking at the text. Chapter 30, verses 25 through 34, that's going to be the agreement. We're going to look at the agreement that Jacob and Laban make for what kind of salary or wages Jacob will get. Finishing out chapter 30, verses 35 through 44, here we're going to see the contest. We're going to see the dueling ankle grabbers, the dueling deceivers, the contest, 35 through 43. Chapter 31 through verse 21, to begin with, that's the Exodus. That's where Jacob takes his family and they flee. They leave. In 31, 22 through 35, that's the chase. Laban hunts down his is fleeing son-in-law and all of his flocks. And then we see a peace agreement in verse 36 through 55. Let's first look at the agreement 25 through 34. As soon as Rachel had born Joseph, remember, Rachel was the loved wife. She's the one that's loved. Leah was not attractive. Now, Rachel, she finally has her own son, not through a surrogate mother, not through a slave wife, her own son that she bore. And he's the favorite son, Joseph. As soon as Rachel had born Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, send me away that I may go to my own home and country. Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, that I may go for, you know, the service that I've given you. But Laban said to him, If I have found favor in your sight, I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you. Name your wages, and I will give it." Jacob said to him, "'You yourself know how I have served you, and how your livestock has fared with me. For you had little before I came, and it has increased abundantly. And the Lord has blessed you wherever I turn. But now when shall I provide for my own household also? He said, What shall I give you? Jacob said, You shall not give me anything. If you will do this for me, I will again pasture your flock and keep it. Let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb and the spotted and the speckled among the goats, and they shall be my wages. So my honesty will answer for me later when you come to look into my wages with you. For everyone that is not speckled and spotted among us, among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, shall be counted stolen." So here we see, let me finish the first 34, sorry, Laban said, good, let it be as he said. Now here Jacob, he wants to get out. He served 14 years. He's gotten two wives out of that 14 years of service, which is a problem in the sense that his own father-in-law was leading him into polygamy, going against God's covenant marriage. But here he has his two wives. He now has 11 sons. He's served faithfully. And he says, Laban, it's time to let me go. How can I leave with something? Because I've served you for so long. You've been so deceptive. I haven't had anything for my labor. You've been greatly blessed by God. So he wants to leave for a number of reasons. One, his father-in-law is just not a good guy. His father-in-law is not trustworthy. He's deceptive. His father-in-law has not been fair to him. And if you think about this, his father-in-law hasn't been fair to his own daughters and his own grandchildren. Based upon Jacob's account, the father-in-law hasn't given him and his family anything. And so we see Laban is extremely selfish and greedy. The second reason he's ready to go is because Rachel's now bore him a son. The wife that he loved, the wife that he has to have, she's now bore him a son. And it's important because Rachel, if Jacob had decided to leave before she gave him a son, she could have said, I want to stay with my father. It's the child that actually gives a binding, definite relationship where there is no option to leave. And so now he knows Rachel is securely his because they have a child together. More importantly, he needs to get back to the promised land. He needs to get back to his family, to the land of Canaan, to the land God gave him. He needs to get back to the divinely appointed land because that is where God has destined him. He needs to stop being a sojourning foreigner in Haran. Finally, Jacob needs to take care of his own family. Laban, in his greed, is not allowing him to do this. He's not allowing him to earn a fair wage. So here we see he must leave. Now, important for understanding chapter 30, we need to go and look at chapter 31 very quickly. Let's look over to verses 11 through 13. Here we'll get to this text, but it's important for this to be the backdrop of the deal that's made. We see here Jacob is trying to convince his wives to come with him instead of stay with their father. And he tells the wives, then the angel of the Lord said to me in a dream, Jacob. And I said, here I am. Faithful response. And he said, lift up your eyes and see all the goats that mate with the flocks are striped, spotted and modeled. For I have seen all that Abel is doing to you. I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me. Now arise, go out from this land and return to the land of your kindred." We see a couple of important things here, and we'll revisit this. God is here reminding him of the latter scene. Whenever he anointed a pillar, God is saying, I am the God who said, I'll be with you. I am the God who revealed himself to you. I'm the God who made great promises, and now I'm going to fill them. But he does it in an unusual way. He says, take the spotted and the striped sheep. These are the unusual sheep of the flock. You would typically have the black goats or the white sheep. You wouldn't have the striped goats and the spotted sheep and the striped sheep. He's actually making an agreement with Laban to take the most unusual, the minority of the flock. He's putting all odds against himself. Plus, he's submitting himself to Laban, who's a trickster. Out of faith in God and God and his promise, he said, I'm going to put all odds against me to have a fair wage. I'm going to take the most unusual sheep and I'm going to submit myself to Laban. Now, if you look at this, verse 26 is important to think about his context. He says, Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you that I may go for now, for you know the service that I have served you with. That last word there, given, should also be service. Three times he's actually describing his time with Laban as slavery, as servanthood, not as a son. He wants to leave and Laban says, you make the offer. Now, last time Laban said you make the offer, it worked out pretty well for Laban. He was able to get rid of both daughters so that he doesn't have the burden anymore. So Laban knows, OK, I'm going to make I'm going to let him make the deal because it worked out pretty well for me. I'm sharper than Jacob. So Jacob makes the most unusual deal. He says, I'm going to take the weird sheep. I'm going to take the different sheep. And Laban's like, you can have the spotted and striped sheep. That's that's fine. That's the minority of the sheep. See, what Jacob's doing here is he's trusting God. He is putting his faith in a trustworthy God who's already revealed himself and now has given him clear, precise declaration. See, Laban's character is flat. He's predictable. He's a greedy opportunist. He's always going to do the same thing. He's always going to do what's in his best interest. He's not going to care for other people. He's not going to break from this pattern. He's a greedy opportunist. Now, Laban, in the midst of this conversation, he says, I have learned that you have greatly blessed me through divination. Okay, this is not promoting divination. This is a pagan who's following his own practices. Not really sure what the divination would have been. He could be lying. This isn't outside of Laban's character. Laban could obviously watch and see that he used to have little. Now he has great, all because of Jacob. If he had done divination, he would have gone into the spiritual world. and ask the demons, how is this happening? And they would have revealed to him, well, it's God. This would be rather unusual. The divination could also just be his own perception. Regardless, it's clear to Laban, I need Jacob because he makes me wealthy. He's a greedy opportunist. He offers him his wages and after Jacob does this, He makes his unusual offer based upon God's revelation in chapter 31, 11 through 13. Jacob then demonstrates great patience because, as we're going to see, Laban takes all of the spotted and striped sheep and he removes them from the flocks Jacob's doing. He's going to be watching over. So Jacob can't even breed the sheep to properly produce more striped and spotted. All he has are the white and the black. As we look at this, We're going to see that God gives him a great flock, and we can think here of Paul in 1 Corinthians 3, 7. It doesn't matter who waters, it doesn't matter who sows, it's God who gives the plenty. As we look at this and as we look at the contest, we need to remember that It doesn't matter really what Jacob does. It doesn't matter what Laban does. When God says he's going to do something, he's going to do it. He's going to give Jacob a great flock, the most unusual great flock, because it's going to be all spotted and striped goats and sheep. Let's look at the context. Verses 35 through 43. But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it, and every lamb that was black, and put them in charge of his sons. And he set a distance, three days' journey, between himself and Jacob, and Jacob passed the rest of Laban's flock. Then Jacob took fresh sticks of poplar, and almond, and plain trees, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the sticks. He set the sticks that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink, the flocks bred in front of the sticks and so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted. And Jacob separated the lambs and set the faces of the flocks toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban. He put his own droves apart and did not put them with Laban's flock. Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob would lay the sticks in the trough before the eyes of the flock that they might breed among the sticks. But for the feebler of the flock, he would not lay them there, so the feebler would be Laban's and the strong Jacob's. Thus, the man increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys." Now, we see Laban, typical scoundrel, He already has the odds in his favor. He already has the majority, the most common kind of sheep he gets to keep. But he goes and he takes these speckled and the striped and the sheep and the goats and he moves them aside. And what's interesting, in the midst of trying to cheat Jacob, he actually puts himself in a danger because his sons now can't watch Jacob. His sons now are so far away that they can't watch Jacob and see how he's going to start breeding the sheep in order to get the flock that, well, God has promised him. Now, let's look at his plan, verses 37 through 39. He takes six and he makes stripes in them. Now, one thing we already see is there's a play on words here because Laban, the name Laban means white. And as you see here, the revealing of the white is a bit of a play on the words where Laban is his contestant and he's going to beat him with the white sticks. Now, I have no idea how this worked. I'm not sure this really was what worked. We have a shepherd who's attending the church regularly and we'll have to ask Peter later if he can maybe do an FFA or a 4-H project to see if this somehow works. That would be fascinating. But what we can hands down say is that God is the one who changed the flock. God is the one who gave the greatest, most strong sheep, the better sheep. He's the one who gave them the breeding that would bring about a larger majority of striped and speckled sheep. Now if we look at Jacob and the peeling of the poplar, while it may not be clear how this really worked, we have to ask the question, was this Jacob trying to secure a promise his own way again. That's an option. You know, I do think Jacob has begun to trust God. He obviously is trusting God greatly in the midst of saying, all right, I'll take the unusual sheep, knowing the odds are against me. He does have a great faith and trust in God that is going to care for his family, care for his wages, care for his justice. But maybe here we see Jacob trying to be manipulative a little bit. Trying to secure it in his own street. He can't sit back and wait, maybe. Or maybe this is a trick of the trade that I or the commentaries are really familiar with. Maybe we need more shepherds writing commentaries. Regardless, again, what we do know is that God is the one who is providing the plenty. It's interesting that the very last verse here that concludes this section It reminds you, thus the man, Jacob, he increased greatly. Now, let's think about the application from these two sections thus far. We see Jacob trusted God. We see that God made great promises, very difficult promises, promises that were counterintuitive, promises that were not logical to follow. Because if Jacob were to choose the sheep he wanted, it would be the white sheep and the black goats. But no, instead, God says, take the unusual ones. Now, here's a spiritual rule that I think we can we can glean from this passage. One of the most tempting times to sin is when we face injustice and hardship. One of the most tempting times that we will have to face to send one of the times sin really revs up the temptation to sin really heightens. Is when we are facing injustice and hardship. This is really we need to rely upon God for strength and endurance the most, but this is when we try to we can so easily rationalize our own sin. Take, for instance, what happened when the stock market crashed and you lost everything. Were you tempted to file bankruptcy when you lose everything, not because of a decision you made, but because the world all of a sudden has changed drastically? Were you tempted to file bankruptcy or would you be tempted to file bankruptcy? Is this a way to trust God or to keep your word? When the world goes against you, when everything is against you, when injustice is staring you right in the face, I believe this is when we are most tempted to deny God or simply find a way out using our own power, mainly breaking your word, breaking your promise to the bank. When we are facing injustice, our gospel devotion is tested, tried, and Lord willing, made stronger. A couple more questions. Do we respond to injustice with the belief that it excuses us to respond with sin? When someone says hurtful words to you, is that an opportunity for you to then unleash all the things you've been wanting to say for so long? When someone sins against you, is that when you're most tempted or is that when you then sin against them? When things are off at work? When things aren't going well with your vocation, is that when you start laxing your moral standards? When things are difficult, are we more tempted to sin? When we do not get what we want, do we start doing the things we know we shouldn't do in order to have a certain amount of control in our life? A second question for analysis. Do we respond to injustice believing God can use evil for good? Some of the great messages of Genesis do we respond to injustice, believing God can use evil for good, that if we wait on the Lord and endurance, he will demonstrate his goodness. Do we trust God in most impossible circumstances when we don't see a way out, we don't see any way that our circumstances can actually be used for good, do we still trust the God who is absolutely good? The third question, this really heightens the bar. Do we respond to injustice with grace? Are we ready to forgive, praying for the person who offends against us? This is the mark of a Christian. Do we respond to people sinning against us with grace? Do we respond to evil with goodness? This is what Paul demands in Romans 12, 21. After all the gospel declaration, he declares overcome evil with good. Respond with the person who hates you with love. Respond to the person who is doing you harm with favor. This is absolutely counterintuitive. I realize that because we have a sin nature. Our sin nature says, no, when someone wrongs you, go after them. Cheek for a cheek, eye for an eye. Go after them. Make them feel your pain and then some. You see, it's counterintuitive because our sin nature makes us inclined to sin. Our sin nature makes us inclined to repay evil with evil. While it may be counter to our present nature, it's not counter to how we were designed. God, who is good, designed us good. The good creator created us with a good heart. The good creator created us to be forgiving. The good creator created us to be quick to mercy because that's who he is. God is good to us. He is rich with mercy. He is quick to forgive. If that is our God, if that is our God who has saved us, we should strive to be as quick. How do we do that? I believe it's by recognizing your great sin in light of the gospel. If you want to be richer in mercy to others, we must experience and taste the rich mercy that we have received from God. We're not going to be better people by moralistic laws, by just saying, I've got to start being I've got to start being more loving. No, we want to be more loving. We need to be more moved by the love of God. If we want to care for people and be more quick to forgive, we must meditate upon the cross where our great sin is overcome with God's great love. We must look and see how God has overcome our evil with love. Be so moved by that and so changed by that, then we are his agents of mercy. We are his ambassadors of grace. We as Christians should long to be quick with mercy. and grace in the midst of injustice. One last thing I want to say about this chapter is really focusing on verse 43, which is a favorite verse of the Prosperity Gospel. This is one of the top ten verses of a Prosperity Gospel. Thus the man increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys. The Prosperity Gospel says this, that when you give to God, he'll give more. When you trust God, he's going to make you rich. If you really believe God, he's going to give you everything your heart's ever desired. And that is a false gospel. That is not in all the truth of God's word or God's actions. You see, what they're taking here is a description and making it normative as if God is always going to bless all of us all the time in the same way. The prosperity gospel says that we can control God. The prosperity gospel says, if you give to God, then he necessarily has to give back to you. It's really just paganism wrapped in the garb of Western wealth. Because what it's trying to do is say we can control God with our actions so that he gives us things. The old pagan religions, they were trying to control fertility. That was the essence of life. That's why we've been looking at the seed and the offspring throughout Genesis, because the ancient world, they needed offspring to live. They needed offspring to have a good life. So pagan religion, they were seeking to control the gods with fertility. But our new American religion, our new Western prosperity religion, seeks to control God with finances. If I do this for God, he will do this for me. There is nowhere in Scripture that says you will be rich. Actually, if we look at some of the greatest figures in Scripture, we can see that they were poor. Of course, David and Solomon, yes, they were rich. They were greatly blessed by God. But again, that's not normative. Think of Job. He was a man of wealth and God himself willed to take it away. Let's look at John the Baptist, a man that Jesus said before him he was the greatest human being ever alive. If anyone were going to be blessed with riches because that's what God does for good people, it's John the Baptist. The man wore a camel skin and ate grasshoppers. Not a rich man. And the greatest example is Jesus himself. Jesus was not rich. At the end of this world, at the end of this life, if the purpose of being obedient is rich, Jesus would have been rich because he's the only obedient person to ever live. But Jesus did not even have a place to lay his head. He had no home. In the New Testament, riches are not promised. Suffering is. Suffering, difficult, difficult times, trials and temptations. These are guaranteed for every believer, not riches. There are actually numerous warnings against being rich. There are more warnings about money. What is so beautiful about the suffering is that we have a sure God in the midst of the suffering, like the passage that Asher read this morning, Romans 8. It's one of the sweetest passages because it tells you there will be times of tribulation. There will be times of trouble, but God is with us. That's the promise that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, that's the promise we have in the midst of the short trials that test our faith, make us more pure for God. God is with us. Now, we can think about this in another way. We can have a spiritual prosperity gospel. We as a church can think if we just line everything up right, God will bless us spiritually. If we have the right kind of leadership, if we have the right kind of constitution, if we have the right music, do the right preaching, to pray all the time, God will bless us. That's trying to control God. There's a great group of Puritans that thought, though, if we can just make a pure church, then God will greatly bless it. You can't control God's blessing. That's the whole point. God blesses greatly because God chooses to bless greatly. There's nothing we do. There's no spigot of grace that we can turn in any way. What we can do is trust God, be faithful to God, be obedient to God and wait for him to bless. There's numerous biographies. Hudson Taylor be one that comes to mind of missionaries who are faithful to God, even to the point of losing multiple wives to disease and death. On the mission field, endure with patience for years and never saw a single convert. It's not our endurance that makes God bless us with spiritual gifts. It's God's choice. We need to be careful in thinking that God will immediately bless us if everything is put in proper place. No, it's humbly enduring and being patient upon God's truth. Let's look at our third scene, chapter thirty one verses one through twenty one. This is the exodus. Now, Jacob heard that the sons of Laban were saying, take Jacob has taken all that was our father's and from what was our father's, he had gained all this wealth and Jacob saw that Laban did not regard him with favor as before. Then the Lord said to Jacob, return to the land of your father's into your kindred and I will be with you. So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah into the field where the flock was and said to them, I see that your father does not regard me with favor as he did before, but the God of my father has been with me. You know that I have served your father with all my strength, yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times. But God did not permit him to harm me. If he said, spotted shall be your wages, then all the flock bore spotted. And if he said, the stripes shall be your wages, then all the flock bore striped. Thus God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me. In the breeding season of the flock, I lifted up my eyes and saw in a dream that the goats that mated with the flock were striped, spotted, and mottled. Then the angel of the Lord said to me in a dream, Jacob. And I said, here I am. And he said, lift up your eyes and see. All the goats that mate with a flock or stripe spotted and mottled, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me. Now arise, go out from this land and return to the land of your kindred." Then Rachel and Leah answered and said to him, "'Is there any portion or inheritance left to us in our father's house? Are we not regarded by him as foreigners?' For he has sold us, and he has indeed devoured our money. All the wealth that God has taken away from our Father belongs to us and to our children. Now then, whatever God has said to you, do." So Jacob arose and set his sons and his wives on camels and drove away all his livestock, all his property that he had gained. the livestock in the possession that he had acquired in Padamarum to go to the land of Canaan to his father Isaac. Laban had gone to Shurah Sheep and Rachel stole her father's household gods. And Jacob tricked Laban, the airman, by not telling him that he intended to flee. He fled with all that he had and arose and crossed the Euphrates and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead. Here we have the Exodus and we see the clear motive stated again in verse 31. Jacob has now lost favor with Laban and his sons. They're no longer blessed by Jacob. Again, Laban's a flat character. As long as he's getting what he wants, he's happy. But now he's lost his flux. He's now lost the great benefit of Jacob because God has given Jacob everything. The sons begin to murmur. And then the most important reason God says, I will be with you. This gives Jacob great courage. Now, the declaration to go in verse three, the Lord said to Jacob, return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you. Remember, he's where Abraham started. He's gone back and traced the steps of Abraham to Huron. Now he's there in his father's, his grandfather's homeland. Not the divinely appointed land. He's in Iran. And now God says, leave, go to the divinely appointed land. This is very much like Abraham. This is very much like what God had called Abraham to do. Instead of saying, go, he says, return. And what's really interesting is instead of saying, leave your family, he's saying, go to your kindred. So here we see a type that we see the foreshadowing. We see a reflection, really, of Jacob being like Abraham. A man of faith. Now, there are two interpretations of what's been happening. Laban and the Sons, they're saying, you know, that trickster Jacob, he's stolen everything. That's the Laban interpretation of the events. Every event has to have an interpretation. Jacob's interpretation is God has plundered Laban. Two very different interpretations, two very important ways of looking at it. Now, we see that the promise of verse 11 is what motivated Jacob. Again, reminding him of the ladder, reminding him of what the covenant he made to God. As we look here, we're going to see that contrast emphasized. Let's look at verses 5 through 9. Verse 5, I see that your father does not regard me with favor as he did before, but the God of my father has been with me. Laban and God have been contrasted. Laban is not caring for me, but God is with me. Look at verse 6 through 7. And you know that I have served your father with all my strength. Yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times, but God did not permit him to harm me. If he said the flock, the spot shall be your wages and the flock was spotted. If he said the stripes will be your wages and the flock was striped. Laban kept trying to be deceptive. Laban kept trying to be a trickster. All these years of trying to of Jacob serving faithfully, he kept changing his wages. But God did not permit him to harm him. Finally, verses eight and nine or verse nine, thus God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me. This is the divine interpretation. This is the interpretation that God himself has given Jacob. It's God who has done this. Now, he goes to his wives, which is important because they've really been Laban's daughters up to this point. While they've been married for, well, seven, eight, nine, going on on 10 years or 13 years, the wives have not been described as Jacob's wives. They've always been Laban's daughters. Here, for the first time, they're Jacob's wives. He needs to convince them to go with him because, well, they've got his children. He wants his wives and his children to leave with him. And it's interesting, Rachel and Leah, they know what's going on. They've seen this. They don't put up a fight at all. They look and they say, why would we stay? Our own father hasn't cared for us. He sold us in marriage. He hasn't provided for us. He's given us no inheritance. If something happened to Jacob, that dowry that Laban was supposed to give was supposed to be to protect the wives and the children so they could live. But then none was given. Rather, he had sold them away for service. So they quickly say all the wealth God has taken away from our father belongs to us and to our children. They see that God is active here. Now, a couple of little comments. Verse 19, Rachel's a god-napper. Rachel steals the household gods. She just heard about how the one true Yahweh, the one true God, has done all this, and then she goes back and steals the gods. It could be she wants to hurt Laban more by stealing the household gods. I assume that she actually still wants the security of them. To be able to see your God gives you some security. She was a pagan. She probably still is a pagan in the sense that she's not believing in the one true God. We also see maybe a little bit of fear in Jacob. He tricks Laban. The text is very intentional in saying this. There's deception still. Jacob isn't going to completely trust God to give him an exodus like he gave Moses. In later times, he's going to trick him. In the springtime is whenever you share the sheep. And sometimes the men of the household will be away miles, days journeys. And that's why it's the case is that Jacob or Laban didn't know he left for so long. Now, as you look at this, it's really interesting. This is a mini Exodus. I call it the Exodus, but this is very much like the Exodus that Moses and Israel experienced from Egypt. Now, remember, Moses wrote this probably after the Exodus, so the Exodus is on his mind, but the language and the details are very similar. The most important is the fact that God gives Jacob his covenant name and he says, I will be with you. That's the most important thing about the Exodus. That's what made the Exodus work. I will be with you. For more so, Jacob's a slave. Jacob is oppressed, and when the exodus happened, the oppressed slave becomes the rich man. Instead of God plundering the Egyptians and giving all the wealth to Israel, the nation, it's God plundering Laban and giving the sons of Israel all of the wealth. It was the tribes of Israel in the Moses exodus, but here we actually see the tribes themselves, the very children of Jacob. So here, I think we see a little mini exodus taking place, something that's going to foreshadow the great exodus. As we look at this, we see that God is with his people and guides them when he says, I will be with you. He's saying you will be protected, you will be cared for, you will leave rich, you will leave wealthy, you will be cared for and provided. If you look at this, the exodus. God's deliverance of Israel from slavery is really a foreshadowing of what's going to take place in Christ. As we think about the Exodus, as we think about God delivering his people, God is saying, I care for you. I'm going to remove your slavery. And the deliverance language is really carried throughout all of scripture. It's the most significant event in all of Israel's history. The deliverance from slavery. But as we look, we see that all that is really nothing. The physical freedom of slavery is nothing compared to the spiritual deliverance we receive in Jesus Christ. The great deliverer. In his death and resurrection, he offers a better deliverance. It's not from physical slavery, it's from the spiritual slavery. God became down and was with us in a very unique way. He pitched his tent. God himself took on flesh. He lived a life of complete obedience. He then dies on the cross for all of our sins and rises again as the great deliverer. He delivers us from our spiritual slavery. He delivers us from the power of sin that was going to destroy us. He delivers us from the power of sin that will continue to corrupt us. He delivers us from the power of sin to have an abs that would have had an absolute control over us. One of the most important things here is we look at Laban and try to make the parallel. Jesus Christ delivers us from the accuser. Satan is the greatest decepter of all time. He is the one who accuses us of our sins. If we are Christians, we can still be accused by Satan. And what we must know is that the resurrected Savior is our great assurance and surety that those accusations are false. Here we see there was a slave master and Jacob had to flee him and he fled in the power of Christ. For the parallel for us is that If we had a slave master and we confess Jesus Christ as our savior, we know we are no longer under the authority of that slave master, our sin and the deceptions and accusations of Satan. But do we linger there? Do we linger under the temptation of sin because it's fun to flirt with? Do we linger under the power of sin because we feel like we can't overcome it? Do we linger under sin and the accusations because we don't see the cross in all this might and power? You see, you need to have courage. To flee sin, you've got to have courage to deny the accuser. And the courage doesn't come from the gravel of your gut. The courage comes from knowing God and his word and his resurrection. Christian courage isn't from in here. Christian courage comes from above. Christian courage is placed in our hearts only by the spirit who descends upon us. When we're being tempted, when we're being abused, we're tempted to sin, we're tempted to believe the accusations. Are we battling that with the power of the cross? Is the resurrection of Jesus Christ more trustworthy than the accusations that fly towards us? Our next scene, the chase. Laban comes after Jacob. I'll begin in verse 22. When it was told Laban on a third day that Jacob had fled. Again, it took so long because he is he's out shearing sheep. He took his kinsman with him and pursued him for seven days. and follow close after him into the hill country of Gilead. But God came to Laban, the Aramean, in a dream by night, and said to him, Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad. And Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban with his kinsmen pitched his tent in the hill country of Gilead. And Laban said to Jacob, What have you done? that you have tricked me and driven away my daughters like captives of the sword. Why did you flee secretly and trick me and did not tell me so that I might have sent you away with myrrh and songs and tambourines and lyre? And why did you not permit me to kiss my sons and my daughters farewell? Now you have done foolishly. It is in my power to do you harm. But the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad. And now you have gone away, because you long greatly for your father's house. But why did you steal my gods?" Jacob answered and said to Laban, "'Because I was afraid, for I thought you would take your daughters from me by force. Anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live.'" In the presence of our kinsmen point out what I have what I have that is yours and take it." Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them. So Laban went into Jacob's tent and into Leah's tent and into the tent of the two female servants, but he did not find them. And he went out to Leah's tent and entered Rachel's. Now Rachel had taken the household gods and put them in the camel saddle and sat on them. Laban felt all about the tent but did not find them. And he said to her, and she said to her father, Let me not let me let not my Lord be angry that I cannot rise before you for the way of a woman is upon me. So we searched, but did not find the household gods. Laban takes off her son-in-law. Now, it's interesting. Well, first, God protects his people. God comes down and all this awesomeness, and he says, do not say anything good or bad. What's interesting is the fear of God obviously changed Laban. But he still has to go say something. If God says not to say anything good or bad, I'm not going to say anything because, well, you only have two options, so keep your mouth shut. But he goes on and he talks to him. And the main emphasis here is he wants to know what happened to his gods. I get it. You want to go home. Laban has to know he was afraid of them, but he wants to know, why did you take my gods? And then Jacob, not knowing that Rachel stole them, his beloved, beautiful wife. He says, anyone who's found the gods, they'll be, they'll be killed. I have not taken anything. That's how I'm going to declare how innocent I am. So Laban goes in all the tents, Rachel's laughs, and she puts them in a saddlebag and she's sitting on them because she says it's the way of the woman. It was her, her period. Here we see a fear of God is somewhat in Laban. But really, the most important part of this text is it's a mockery of paganism. It's a mockery of the idols. You have the great God who declares with fear, do not say anything. And the idols are sitting under a woman in the midst as a substitute for sunan hygiene. God speaks universally and the pagan gods are like filthy rags. It's a great contrast. The great God of all the universe, the great God who is the Savior, the great God who is the Deliverer, He is powerful. These idols are nothing. These idols are sinful. These idols are, well, they're humiliating. It's a great revelation and a great teaching on how God protects His people and how the great God is greater than any of the idols of the pagan religions. Let's quickly go back to the text, our fifth scene of the peace, verse thirty-six through fifty-five. This is our last but long section. Then Jacob became angry and berated Laban. Jacob said to Laban, What is my offense? What is my offense? What is my sin that you have hotly pursued me? For you have felt through all my goods that you have found of all your household goods. See it here before my kinsmen and your kinsmen that they may decide between us two. These twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried and I have not eaten the rams of your flock. What was torn by wild beef I did not bring to you. I bore the loss of it myself. From my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. There I was by day. By day the heat consumed me, and cold by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes. These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, the fear of Isaac had not been on me at my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed, God saw my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night." Then Laban answered and said to Jacob, "'The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine. But what can I do this day for these my daughters or for their children whom they have borne? Come now, let us make a covenant, you and I.'" And let it be a witness between you and me." So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar. And Jacob said to his kinsmen, gather stones. And they took stones and made a heap. And they ate there by the heap. Laban called it Yer-sahu-dutha. But Jacob called it Galid. Laban said that he was a witness between you and me today. Therefore, he named it Gilead and Misbah, for he said, The Lord watch between you and me when we are out of another site. If you oppress my daughters or if you take wives aside my daughters, although no one is with us, see God as witness between you and me. Then Laban said to Jacob, See this heap and the pillar which I have set before you and me. This heap is a witness and the pillar is a witness that I will not pass over this heap to you and you will not pass over this heap and this pillar to me to do harm." The God of Abraham, the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judged between us. So Jacob swore by the fear of his father, Isaac, and Jacob offered a sacrifice in the hill country and called his kinsmen to eat bread. They ate bread and spent the night in the hill country. Early in the morning, Laban arose and kissed his grandchildren, his daughters, and blessed them. Then Laban departed and returned home." Here we see Jacob finally unleashes. He lets it go. He lets Laban know all the misfortune he's suffered because Laban has now chased him down. Jacob, he tells him all the hardships he's suffered. He reminds him of how difficult he's been. This is why I fled you. And this, it's interesting. Well, he starts to see Jacob as an equal. Constantly we see, but God, this would have happened, but God. And then Laban finally says, let's make a covenant. Laban initiates the covenant. Laban wants a covenant between him and Jacob because there's some fear there. He at least sees him as an equal. But I think he is starting to become afraid because the God of Jacob is so awesome. Now, he also gives an empty claim. Laban said that these are all my daughters and my flocks. I could take them if I wanted. There's no reality in that that we know of. There's no rule or law that would have said he could have kept them and taken them. There's no precedent. Laban initiates the covenant. It's really a declaration of I've lost. Let's just make a peace. If you can't beat them, join them. Another interesting point here is in verse 53. Laban makes a covenant in the name of the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor. Jacob swore by the fear of his father, Isaac. Really, that word fear, the fear of Isaac, that really should be translated the awesomeness of Isaac. Referring to God. Awesome is a word that really should only be described of God. God alone is awesome. God alone is worthy of our fear and awe. He declares a covenant only by God himself. As we look at the text, we see God protects his people. God gives them success as we consider all of this, we continue to see Laban meant this to happen, but God did this. Laban meant to harm and to bring injustice. God brought blessing and protection and care. We come back to our first question that we began with, is God trustworthy? Is God trustworthy with every area of our life, with our vocation, with our prosperity, with our marriages, with our childbearing, with our child raising, with our suffering? Is God trustworthy with every area of our life? Last week, we saw the love of God in caring for Leah. She did not receive the love of a husband she deserved, so God gave her love she didn't deserve. Here, Jacob, he doesn't get the wages he deserves, so God blesses him abundantly. So what's amazing about this is God is sovereign over every part of life. Just because God is allowing injustice to take place temporarily, it does not mean he does not love us. It doesn't mean that he is not good. It doesn't mean that he is not sovereign. What it means is we need to wait upon God. We need to trust him. When we are in a dilemma, we must stop. and seek God rather than be a Jacob and try to figure a way out of it, or a Laban and try to manipulate and come out on top. The question we have to ask now is, is God trustworthy? Can I trust him with my finances and avoid the greed of Laban? Can I trust him to protect my family? Stop worrying about their well-being? Can I trust him to provide, even though the world and its financial system looks very bleak? All these questions are an obvious yes, once we get to the main question. Can I trust God with my guilt? That's the most important question we actually can ask right now. Can I trust God with my guilt? You see, when we realize that we are sinners in light of standing in front of a holy God, we realize guilt overcomes us. We realize we are culpable and should be punished. Our sin should be punished. Can I trust God with that guilt? See, God knows that we're guilty more than we do. And God said, I'm going to take on flesh. The father said, I'm going to send the son. He's going to be obedient. He's going to die for the guilt that we should die for. Jesus Christ died for. And then he rose again to give us the most sure and steadfast foundation for our souls. He rose again and ascended to the right hand of the Father, and he sent his Holy Spirit. See, unless we believe in the Savior, there's no reason to trust God. But once we trust God with our guilt, the most important thing we can trust him with, the greatest evidence of God's love and his providence and his goodness and his power. But then we start to say, yes, how can I not trust God with my finances? How can I not trust God with my family? How can I not trust God with my vocation? How can I not trust God with this small suffering in light of the suffering that he partook in in order to save me from my sin? Most important question we all have to ask this morning, did Jesus die for my guilt and rise again? If you're not a believer, that's the most important question, because your guilt is your biggest problem. If you're not a believer here this morning, your guilt before God is your biggest problem. And only God can solve that guilt. If you're a Christian, that's the most important question, because once you answer that question, the affirmative. All of life's troubles, if God has not spared his own son, how is he not going to keep good gifts from his children? That's what we must remind ourselves of. As Christians, we must always go back to the gospel because it's our salvation. It's our life. It's our great. It's God's great testimony for us that he is loving and that he's trustworthy. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. We praise you for your word that shows us in this text how you cared for Jacob constantly. We thank you, Lord, for the but God's in text. In the midst of us being rebellious, there was God who saves us. While we were rebelling against you, you came and stopped it. You stopped the process that would have led to our punishment and the wrath against our sin. You came. You died on the cross. We thank you, Lord, for this word of testimony that we can trust you with our families. We can trust you with our wages. We can trust you with our finances. We can trust you with our entire lives. But I pray that we will move on beyond just trusting you and that we would love you with our entire lives. Help us, Lord, to be so moved by the gospel that we love you with our hearts, our souls, and our minds, with our finances, our families, our vocations. Help us, Lord, in the midst of our difficulties. Look at the gospel and see how trustworthy you are. In your name I pray. Amen.