Clough Genesis Lesson 75

Jacob leaves Laban – Genesis 31

This morning we’re continuing our study in the book of Genesis and we’ll be studying Genesis 31. We’ve seen in these chapters of Genesis the various roles that men and women have, roles which are defined by God, not by social customs and as a result there some tension between the emphasis of Scripture and the emphasis of where society puts its attention. In Genesis 29 we saw that with the woman; you remember in that situation the woman was in a bad way, Leah, and God the Holy Spirit worked in her life in a way which seemed not immediately to solve her problem because it didn’t extract her from the area of pressure. It left her in the pressure but then this way or this method that the Holy Spirit had actually worked to her good. Then in Genesis 30 we saw the man and we saw how his role worked.

This is an example in point of why it pays you dividends to look at Scripture first, before we run off and try to solve problems because today, if you go into the Christian bookstore, you look at the bibliography of Christianity materials, whenever they address the problem of a man, I’ve noticed almost in every case, every book, every piece of material, the man is always approached as though his central problem is his family and his marriage, and this is almost taken axiomatically. And the result is the Christian materials work with this, and point out valid points. There are valid truths to that; a lot of what a man does is wrapped up with his home and his marriage, obviously. But that’s exactly the way our contemporary society; that’s exactly the way the non-Christian says. His solutions to the problems differ from the Bible believing solution, but nevertheless, both Christian and non-Christian seem to agree that that’s where the center of the man’s problem is.

And if you look at Genesis you find wrong; that is not the center of where the man’s problem is. The man’s problem is centered in his calling and in his relationship to God in that calling. And therefore the Bible-believing Christian, while he recognizes vast areas of legitimate concern in the area of family, home and marriage, and obviously we’re never to neglect those, but yet having said all that, we must come back against the social consensus and say I’m sorry, when we read the Scriptures we do not start our problem solving there. We start our problem solving in another place and the place we start our problem solving with the man is in his individual calling before God. It can be seen in a number of ways; it can be seen if we go back to the Garden of Eden. We recognize where the call occurred and what it was all about. First there was Adam and God individually called Adam to do something. He told him to take care of the Garden and He gave him a set of explicit instructions; stay away from this tree, you can eat that tree, etc. etc. etc. Those were all given, not to the woman, they were given to the man, and only later, after Eve, or Isha as she was known first, only after Eve came on the scene did the issue of the marriage and the family come up. In fact, Eve’s very role in life was, according to the King James, “a helper-meet,” or “fitted for Adam.”

Now the question is, what kind of a helper would be fitted for Adam? How would you answer that question? Would this kind of a helper be fitted for Adam or would that kind of a helper be fitted for Adam? How are you going to handle that? The only way you can handle that question is to figure out what Adam is supposed to be doing; then after having figured out what Adam is supposed to be doing, that is, his individual call before God, then we can define the helper he needs for that calling. So I insist right implicit in the very text of the creation narrative these roles are not defined the way present society looks at it, including evangelical Christian society.

There are these calls, then, and the man’s relationship to God, and as I said, if you study the Scriptures carefully, looking for the explicit reference to call, there are only basically four calls in the Bible. We sometimes get kind of sloppy on this but I think since we’re studying what a man does it would be good to review these four calls because they concern each man.

The first call is the call to dominion. It is the call to subdue; it is the call to be the patriarch, the call to rule the environment under God’s law. Genesis 1 gives this mandate. But people say ah, the fall does away with this because the mandate is not repeated in Genesis 9. The mandate is not repeated in Genesis 9 because in a very real way Jesus Christ replaces Adam, but the call doesn’t disappear; it’s transferred from the first Adam to the Second Adam and takes place under the redeeming work of the Second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. But having said all that, the mandate still exists; it’s still given to mankind corporately and the proof of it is Psalm 8 repeats it, and Psalm 8 occurs after the fall. So the call to dominion remains in effect after the fall, even though that call to dominion is a call which is impossible for man apart from redemption in Christ.

What is the call to dominion? Someone asked me the other day and said I’m not clear what you mean when you keep saying subdue the earth and call to dominion. The call to dominion, where does it show up in the Garden narrative? Back at the very first story of the Bible what does subduing the earth look like? Frankly, what it looks like is he’s hoeing and cultivating plants. That’s an example of subduing the earth. What it means is making the environment useful for human productivity; it means utilizing natural resources. Today, collectively it means that God has not left the human race without energy sources. The problem is that we have strangled free enterprise, we have destroyed the oil research industry and now we’re blaming it on the oil companies and so on, and all the self-appointed experts do this, when in fact oil companies spend millions and millions and millions of dollars drilling dry holes. Where does that money come from? It’s got to come from some place and it can only come from the accumulated capital that these oil companies have and they can’t accumulate capital as long as somebody is dictating price to them. The free market must operate; it’s the same for the farmer, it’s the same for everyone else.

So the call to dominion has wide-ranging implications. We won’t go into all those wide-ranging implications except to say that this call is a call that is addressed to the entire human race, regenerate and unregenerate alike. It is associated with the first divine institution which is human responsibility; responsibility to do what? To rule and to subdue the environment, beginning with ourselves, our emotions, our homes, our families, our societies and the earth itself. That’s the large scale; that is your basic biblical picture of mankind, not little whimpering hand-wringing afraidy type people. Dominion is the majestic call that God gives His highest creature, man.

Then the second call, Acts 17:30 is an example of this, it’s a call to salvation. And that is a call that is addressed to all the human race; not just the elect, it is addressed to all the human race, the call to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the second call that you find in the Scriptures.

There’s a third call in the Scripture, and that’s a call only to believers and it’s a call to sanctification and discipleship. That occurs throughout the epistles of the New Testament, 1 Thessalonians 4:3 and other passages. So the third call is the call to believers to be sanctified, to grow, to become disciples of Jesus Christ. Again, therefore, looking at these three calls so far one does not have to pray about these things, one does not have to sit and contemplate infinity for three hours to figure out what’s being said, these are very clear calls addressed, in particular as far as we’re concerned this morning, to the Christian man.

Then there’s a fourth call which is a call to use one’s spiritual gift and it usually shows up in the Scripture as a call particularly surrounding the pastor-teacher and also the missionary. And that’s the call that God has for what we sometimes refer to as “fulltime service” which is a misnomer kind of thing but for the lack of any better terminology we’ll use it. Those four calls are clearly discernable in the text of Scripture.

What about the Christian man who does not have a call to fulltime ministry or does not have a call to being a missionary some place, then how does that Christian man discern God’s will for his life? He knows these three calls so although the fourth call may not apply to him in a direct way, the first three definitely do apply to him and there’s no doubt in his mind that those three apply and he has respond; if he’s going to stay in fellowship he has to respond to all those three. Looking at the first one, the call to dominion, that’s the central thing that has to be solved when a man decides what line of work he’s going into and this he decides on the principles of divine guidance. So here’s the man and he has various principles that he uses. We use the tic tac toe chart to visualize divine guidance; that is, he hems himself in with as man principles from the Scripture as he can: principle 1 2, 3, 5, add the number, 5, 6, 7, 8, as many principles as he can bring into the situation it constricts his zone and it tells him more and more closely the best place for him. But finally stated there will always be some little zone in here where there’s freedom to move and God simply stops saying what to do at that point. And at that point he’s faced with various methods or various approaches.

We’ve outlined three approaches a man can use in divine guidance; anybody can use but in this context this morning we’re talking about Jacob and how man works. The approaches to divine guidance, we’ve said one way of looking at it is to assemble all the Scriptural date we know and we call that the norms approach. That works through and most directly with the text of Scripture. It’s the easiest, it’s the clearest way. But having said that, oftentimes, frankly, it doesn’t give you a direct answer on what to do.

Then you go, if that’s the case and you’ve narrowed it down to some area, then you come to the continuity approach. This is given in 1 Corinthians 7:17-24 and the continuity approach it depends on what God is doing in my life; what has He been doing in the past. God does not lead in a zigzag path, God leads in a smooth path. There may be bends in the road but there are not sharp turns in the road; God doesn’t lead that way. Example: the apostle Paul, yes he had a great Damascus road experience, a conversion, but if you look at other elements in Paul’s life there wasn’t a sharp change. Example: Paul was a theology student before he became a Christian; he was a theology student after he became a Christian. He was a rabbi before he became a Christian; he was a rabbi after he became a Christian. He was high up in the Jewish hierarchy before he became a Christian; he was high up in the Christian hierarchy after he became a Christian. Paul was a leader, Paul was a student, Paul was a theologian, both before and after conversion. In other words, there was continuity in Paul’s and God’s mighty work in his life. So the principle of continuity is a good one; it simply says be very cautious before you make radical changes, try the conservative approach.

And then we have a third approach, we call the help and the hinder approach, and that is asking, this is the most subjective of all the three, asking whether it’s course A or course B that will most help my relationship God or whether course A or course B would most hinder my relationship with God. So those are three principles of divine guidance; the help/hinder approach given in 1 Corinthians 7:32-35.

Where do you go for information using these three approaches? Those are approaches, what about source material? Obviously one great source material is the Scripture. And by the Scripture we mean just immersion in the Scripture day after day after day after day; it doesn’t mean going to a one-shot teaching session, or it doesn’t mean going to church once a month; it means gradually, many hours, there’s a growth where the mentality of the Scripture takes over your mind and this doesn’t happen until after hundreds and hundreds of hours are spent personally reading the text, praying about the text, asking questions of the text, trying to apply the text, listening to the text talk by various features. And it’s that goal of Scripture, then, that’s one source.

Another source is general revelation. That is the structure of you, the structure of the external world outside of you, that was made by God, our soul was made by God and the external world was made by God and so if we study general revelation we’re going to learn some things about what we ought to do and what we ought not to do, if we interpret general revelation under the canon of Scripture. So general revelation studied underneath the guidance of the Scripture also is a source of knowledge. An example of a man would be in his field of specialty whether it’s animal raising as in Jacob’s case, he studied breeding techniques, he studies pasturage, he studies methods of marketing the wool and his sheep, he studies methods of marketing the skins of his animals, he studies methods of preserving the meat after the kill, whatever it is, it’s in his specialty and that’s general revelation. He can do certain things, he can’t do other things; why? Because God made the creature to function in a certain way, so the more he studies general revelation in the sphere of his specialty the more he comes to know God’s handiwork in the sphere of his specialty; the more he comes to know God’s handiwork in the sphere of his specialty the more he has a basic wisdom in his field. That’s a second source of information.

A third source: experienced counsel, particularly other men who are in that specialty, who have been there longer than I have, I will go to them and find out what they have discovered. Pick out a few outstanding individuals in a company, a military group or something else, and kind of tag along and learn, just watch them; you don’t have to spend a lot of time talking to them but watch how they operate, learn from them; yeah, they’re not perfect, of course, but there’s wisdom principles those men are using and you can learn from them. So you just be all ears and all eyes and watch the big boys function in your sphere and learn from them. That’s a third source, experienced counsel. Also talk with them, ask them why this and why not that.

And then finally a fourth source of guidance is conscience, if we interpret it to be negative only. Conscience will not necessarily function positively, in other words, if our conscience doesn’t give us a red light we can go ahead and believe but it doesn’t mean you’re sinless. Romans 14:23; 1 Corinthians 4 and 1 John 1 all teach the conscience is a source of guidance but negative only. 1 John 1:8-10 shows that even we can be sinning when our conscience doesn’t give a signal that we are sinning. 1 Corinthians 4:3-5 also shows that we can be sinning while our conscience does not indicate such. So we can sort of be in fellowship because God’s not making an issue of it at that point, and nevertheless keep on going. So those are the four sources of information: Scripture, general revelation in my field, experienced counsel and conscience.

Now some practical ways that a man can apply some of these principles of guidance, young men particularly. One of the areas of guidance is a new book put out called Christian Career Planning Workbook; it’s done by a professional guidance counselor in the field; he is a Christian who is bringing Biblical principles to bear on the career the principles of career guidance.

Another way to do things is read and study about the different fields; go out and watch men work in those fields, get some exposure to the field, a summer job in the area, anything you can do to make acquaintance with that field, get to know it and then keep on applying the principles of divine guidance.

Another way particularly young men can do this, since young men have an obligation to their country, Numbers 1, they can go in the military for 3 or 4 years, not become necessarily a professional, not become a person who’s going to be a General or a Colonel later on in life but a person who at least for three or four years of his life has pretty much his life scoped out; he doesn’t have to sweat major decisions which frees him to work within the system and learn. And there’s lots of spare time, there’s great opportunities for young men in the military; time to learn authority, leadership, discipline, survival, all sorts of things can be learned as well as executing his responsibility according to Numbers 1.

Now Jacob, let’s list some things we’ve learned about Jacob as the male model of a persevering worker. Jacob gives us, in addition to Noah, in addition to Cain, in addition to Adam, a male model. What things can we learn about Jacob? One of the first things we learn about Jacob is that 20 years of his life, it took that long, 20 years, for him to develop his basic family unit, to establish himself, to raise his children, and basically get started in life. On a contemporary life scale, Jacob would have been 45 or 50 before he basically got his stuff together. That’s not to discourage, it’s simply to say that that is a realistic measure of a man’s career, when he gets his family and so on together.

Turn to Genesis 1 and you’ll see how that works out that way. You talk to men who have children, it’s an interesting observation, you talk to men who have children, for some reason, very late in life, and the one’s I’ve been able to talk to say you know, it’s very different having children as an older man than having children as a younger man because now I’m older, I’ve basically got my calling going and it’s controlled and I’m pretty well calling the shots and I’ve got a lot more time to spend with my children than I had when I was 25 and 30, and there’s the difference. But here in Genesis 1:28, notice the sequence. “Be fruitful,” “multiply,” “fill the earth,” and then “subdue it.” There’s no accident to the sequence of actions described there and you see those same things in Jacob’s life. First he was fruitful, then he multiplied, then he formed his eleven sons, he had his basic family unit; he filled the earth, he came into the land God called him to and then he basically subdued it; he gathered his capital, he built up his business, so it was in that same sequence. So it took him a process of time and that’s why we say it was a 20 year period in which he did all of this.

Let’s turn to Genesis 30 and notice something else about Jacob and his life. Genesis 30:27, the second principle, Jacob as the model of a productive male, persevering male, was that he was a blessing to his environment. Notice in verse 27 his boss’ evaluation of him. “And Laban said unto him, I pray thee, if I have found favor in thine eyes, stay, though I have learned by divination that the Jehovah has blessed me for your sake.” In other words, he was a blessing to his environment because he did his job as unto the Lord. And verse 27 has been repeated in numerous men’s lives. They have the reputation for being good workers.

I remember when I first came to Lubbock Bible Church there was a man that came to this church who was the director of operations at Reese and because he didn’t play the little political game that goes on he got passed over for promotion. Nevertheless, every time there was an inspection at Reese all the officers said who is the one that was always asked to spend day and night and day and night getting the base ready for inspection? It was this one Christian officer. And why? Because as one of the Colonels once said, he said, he’s the only guy around here that does the job that I can trust with. There’s the evaluation; tragically it wasn’t always reflected in his promotion, but the point was, at leas in his conscience he knew that he was right, and in his conscience he knew that this was being recognized by his superiors, or else he wouldn’t be relied on.

It’s the same thing in verse 27. Even though Laban doesn’t really like Jacob personally, he respects him as a good worker. So that’s the second quality of Jacob as a persevering male.

Another thing; in Genesis 30:31 we have a third principle and that is when he goes to develop the assets in his life, he does not depend upon gifts from unbelievers. You notice his rejection of this; he trusts God, he does not get himself in a position where he’s overtly dependent upon unbeliever’s particular favors. Now this doesn’t go so far as to say he couldn’t borrow money or something here and there; the point that’s made is that he doesn’t want to get himself in a position where later in life a non-believer can say to him, I put you there bud, not your God, I did it. And he’s very sensitive to this, and so that’s why in verse 31 when Laban says “What shall I give thee?” Jacob says you’ll give me nothing… you’ll give me nothing.

If you turn to Genesis 14:21-24 you’ll see that his grandfather had the same policy. “The king of Sodom said to Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods for yourself. [22] And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I lift up my hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, [23] That I will not take from a thread even to a shoe latchet, and that I will not take anything that is thine, lest you should say, I have made Abram rich.” There’s the key. The believer wants his testimony clear that… and it’s not pride, this is where it’s hard to apply this principle in a (quote) “nonreligious” environment, and it takes skill just to work this thing out. I’m not sure always how to even apply it myself. But the principle is solidly there in Abraham’s life, in Isaac’s life, and Jacob’s life, that those men are sensitive to make it clear that they are men who trust God with their business, with their prosperity, with their promotion, etc. etc. etc., all the blessings of their particular field.

Let’s go back to Genesis 31, the passage we have before us; we’ll look at this passage in more detail in just a moment but since we’re enumerating principles… first let’s look at Genesis 30. Besides being one who is a good worker and one who trusts God, in Genesis 30:31 -43, remember the big long section where Jacob was using advanced methods of breeding. So a fourth principle is that the male who is a believer who has a serious in-depth relationship with the Lord is wise, i.e. he is skillful in his field. Jacob was a skilled animal breeder. And that whole section, from verse 31-43 describes his ability to set up a breeding situation to develop a new flock. So that’s another characteristic and this is important because in many, many Christian circles today, particularly our own fundamentalist circles we have this attitude that all that is required of a man is that he be some sort of a spiritual giant, working around with all the little pietistic things, memorizing Bible verses and going to this church meeting and that church meeting and having a quiet time and so on. And all that’s fine, but to neglect this is to simply render it as impotent. A man who isn’t skilled in this simply isn’t producing, period. And so we find there’s a desire to become skillful in one’s field.

The fifth principle that we’ve noticed of Jacob, and this is in chapter 31 that we’re going to look at in a moment, and that is that he was a man who habitually used the faith technique, over and over and over again. Notice in Genesis 31:5, he says, “I see your father’s countenance is not toward me as before, but the God of my father has been with me.” And you see verse 9, “God has taken away the cattle of your father….” Verse 11, “And the angel of God spoke…. Verse 16, “For all the riches which God has taken from our father,” that’s his wife talking there. Then down in verse 42, “Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely you would have sent me away now empty. But God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and God has rebuked thee yesterday.” There’s a man who was occupied with God and with God’s Word. So there is the fifth characteristic of a godly productive man. He is habitually using the faith technique in the core of his business, in the very core and heart of his business. Most of these references in chapter 31 have to do with his ranching operation, the central part of his life.

Finally, the sixth characteristic we can see in Jacob’s life from chapter 30 is that his relationship to God, particularly when he reflects upon it in chapter 31:9, 10, 11, 12, 13, when he tells his dream, that is a tip and gives us a sixth characteristic, and that is he was very intimate with God in the area of his specialty. God was brought into the breeding business. And not only was God brought into the breeding business to kind of pietisticly pat him on the back and say he was a good boy, it was far more detailed than that. God knew about genes; God knew more about the technicalities of his field of specialty than he did. After all, what is our field of specialty but working with God’s handiwork, God made it, therefore God knows more about it than we do. We’re only thinking God’s thoughts after him. And so therefore a man’s central relationship with God includes this area of knowing God in the very hardest, most unknown areas of his field. God was there before he was.

Genesis 31 continues the story of Jacob and his environment and if we decide a theme of this particular chapter we’d say that Genesis 31 teaches us how God wants a man to severe business relationship correctly, or family relationship; maybe we ought to just generalize it and say that chapter 31 shows wise ways of severing relationships because included in all the details of Genesis 31, when we boil it all down, condense it and summarize it, we have a split. Jacob and Laban are going to part company; the business partnership is going to end. Jacob isn’t too swift in how he executes the maneuvers and God has to add to the little situation and correct him but having said that, still chapter 31 is about a split and how this ought to be done.

Let’s divide it into sections. Genesis 31:1-3 is the first part; Jacob is a careful observer of his working environment. “And he heard the words of Laban’s sons, saying, Jacob hath taken away all that was our father’s; and of that which was our father’s hath he gotten all this glory [wealth]. [2] And Jacob beheld the countenance of Laban, and, behold, it was not toward him as before. [3] And the LORD said unto Jacob, Return unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred; and I will be with thee.” So in the first three verses we notice that Jacob is a very astute observer. Notice in verse 1 he is an astute observer of his coworkers; verse 2 he is an astute observer of his boss. He does not walk around with his eyes shut; he knows them as men and he knows pretty much their mentality, he knows where they’re coming from. He is not simply, he is not a fool, he is a shrewd observer of his coworkers.

Notice verse 1, this tells you a little tip, in the original language there’s a little tip here about how much wealth Jacob had accumulated. In the modern translations they just simply go ahead in verse 1 he has gotten all this wealth; in the King James translation “he has gotten all this glory.” The word “glory” in the original language means something that’s heavy, and then it was applied, the glory being something heavy, it was applied to reputation, or personality or charisma that somebody would carry around. It came to mean wealth, not because it was a measure of one’s wealth; it came to mean wealth because wealthy people, you know, we call them social heavyweights; they carry weight in the community. That’s the way this word means in verse 1, it means he carried weight in the community. So it’s more than just material wealth in verse 1; it’s material wealth but it’s the effect of material wealth in his social relationships. He is a heavyweight in the community of Aramea, and the other guys don’t like it because he’s a rising start and their dad is a falling one, and they see the relative shift in social pressure; they see the relative shift in the way politics are going.

And then they hold to an interesting theory in verse 1, “he has taken away all that was our father’s.” Now there’s an interesting belief that is current, it’s very widely current, in fact, widely current so much that most Christians even think of this, but actually it’s the theory of communism; it’s a belief that the socialists have; it’s belief all the bleeding hearts have, and that belief is what we call the theory of finite wealth; that is, there is only a certain amount of wealth in the world and therefore if there is only a certain amount of wealth in the world, say W, and we have a rich person and he has 30% of that wealth, he has stolen that or he prevents that wealth from the other people who don’t have the wealth. Now that’s not true. Yeah, obviously we’re finite as creatures, but we haven’t come close to exhausting the wealth in the world.

The problem is that lazy people… there’s two people who hold to this view, one legitimately, one illegitimately: illegitimately are lazy people who simply want an excuse for why they don’t have wealth, or why they don’t have power, or why they don’t do this and they’re always looking for an excuse for it salves their guilty conscience. Basically they’re lazy people and their conscience convicts them they’re lazy people; so they’ve got to blame it on somebody, so they blame it on the wealthy people, “the haves” and I’m in the “have nots,” that sort of application. And this is communism, is what it leads eventually to, let the government take away the wealth out of this wealthy group and give it to the poor, redistribute wealth. This is the gimmick behind inheritance taxes; it’s the gimmick behind graduated income tax and so on; it’s all coming out of the theory of finite wealth. Now the other people, say some of the people in South American and other places, may have somewhat a legitimate thing because the wealthy people are not only wealthy but then they add something; they’re wealthy and then they turn around and prevent anyone else from becoming wealthy. If that’s the case the problem isn’t the wealth, it’s the monopolistic structure the wealthy have created and that ought to be broken. But the wealth itself is not evil; it’s when somebody tries to prevent someone else from becoming wealthy, that’s where the evil begins and that’s the where the Christian’s different from the Marxist, say, in Latin America.

Genesis 31:1-3, Jacob is an astute observer. He sees his environment, obviously he talks to God about it because in verse 3 what happened? After observing verse 1, after observing verse 2, in other words after exercising his male responsibility, then God says okay Jacob, you notice this, now’s the time to split. God doesn’t tell him to leave, verse 3, until after he uses his head, common sense, verses 1 and 2. In other words, there’s no divorce between common sense and the leading of the Lord.

Let’s look at the second section of this chapter; looking at the second section we can go all the way from Genesis 31:4-16. In this section Jacob acts wisely and foolishly, but at least he acts, and that’s the way most of us are. And at least we can commend Jacob in verses 4-16, he does respond to God’s command to split. We can only criticize, Monday morning quarterbacking, and say hey Jacob, you could have done it a little bit differently. Let’s look what he does.

Genesis 31:4, “And Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field unto his flock,” notice what he does, he gets them out into the field, he does not conduct this briefing in his tent. He does it out in the field. [5] “And said unto them, I see your father’s countenance, that it is not toward me as before; but the God of my father hath been with me. [6] And ye know that with all my power I have served your father.
[7] And your father hath deceived me, and changed my wages ten times; but God suffered him not to hurt me. [8] If he said thus, The speckled shall be thy wages; then all the cattle bare speckled: and if he said thus, The ringstraked shall be thy hire; then bare all the cattle ringstraked. [9] Thus God hath taken away the cattle of your father, and given them to me. [10] And it came to pass at the time that the cattle conceived, that I lifted up mine eyes, and saw in a dream, and, behold, the rams which leaped upon the cattle were ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.

He narrates his dream, the angel of God speaks to him, verse 11, with a heterozygous male breeding stock, verse 13 he identifies himself with the God of Bethel, Rachel and Leah answered, verses 14-16 in response to this secret briefing, his wives agree. “ [11] And the angel of God spoke unto me in a dream, saying, Jacob: And I said, Here am I. [12] And he said, Lift up now thine eyes, and see, all the rams which leap upon the cattle are ringstraked, speckled, and spotted: for I have seen all that Laban doeth unto thee. [13] I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointed the pillar, and where thou vowed a vow unto me: now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred.”] Verse 14, “And Rachel and Leah answered and said unto him, Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our father’s house?” The implication is there isn’t. [15] “Are we not counted of him strangers?” the implication, yeah, that’s exactly the way he treats us, “for he hath sold us, and hath quite devoured also our money. [16] For all the riches which God hath taken from our father, that is ours, and our children's: now then, whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do it.”

Now let’s look first at what Jacob’s doing and commend it and then we’ll show you why he has a problem. In these verses, verses 4-16, he is conducting the first maneuver to split; he does so very wisely in this regard. He must secure the moral allegiance of his followers, in this case his wives. And to secure the moral allegiance of his followers in this maneuver he appeals to his conscience and presents facts, and that’s what he’s doing; he’s not gossiping about their father, he’s simply stating verse 5, 6, 7, here’s what happened girls, he changed my wages ten times, verse 8 the details of how he did it, and verse 9 is a divine viewpoint analysis of what was going on, which is a correct analysis of what was going on.

So verses 4-16 represent wisdom in that it’s an attempt by a leader to secure his followers and he secures his follower’s loyalty by letting them in on the moral case; giving them the facts so they can make up their mind. Why is this so important? Because in verse 14 you have two girls that are going to split, not just with Jacob’s boss, but with their own dad. And a father/daughter relationship is one of the strongest relationships in society. Daughters feel very close to their fathers. And so Jacob here is trying to secure their allegiance, transferring their loyalties to him, lest there be still the father daughter relationship that might enter in here and cause a little problem. So this is why he’s wise to severe this relationship with as much information as he can work with.

But here’s his problem; Jacob has a –R learned behavior pattern that goes back to his home life. This –R learned behavior pattern intrudes on an otherwise wise tactic and starts to disintegrate his operation, till God straightens it out, and it is that he wants to avoid confrontation, even if they be godly confrontations. Now all of us have this streak to us but Jacob particularly had it; he just didn’t want the conflict with the old man and so he tried to make the split quiet; get the daughters out in the field, brief them what’s going to happen and slip away quietly so no hassle, I want to avoid this kind of thing. Now you say doesn’t the Bible tell us in Romans 12:18, in so far as possible to live peaceably with all men. Doesn’t the Bible tell us in Proverbs 10:12 that love covers a multitude of sins? Yes. But as we will find out in this passage of Scripture, Jacob couldn’t do this. The sin that had worked in the relationship between him and Laban was so great, and the attitudes had gotten so rebellious and angry and bitter that the split couldn’t take place unless it was aired. And so here’s an attempt to split, do it quietly, but God won’t let him do it quietly; He’s going to let Laban go chase after him and they’re going to have a confrontation, the very confrontation Jacob dreads.

But you see, Jacob was raised in an interesting home environment, not to excuse him because of this but merely to understand the man. How was he raised? Here is where one generation’s sins was passed on to their children; let’s think about it. What was Jacob’s home life like as a little boy? Always in competition with brother Esau. And who did his father like: Esau. Now it doesn’t require a genius to think through what the home life must have been like. Every time Jacob got in trouble, and his father did not like him, he had less of an in with his dad than his brother. So naturally in that situation where did Jacob go? We know where Jacob went, he went to his mother. It’s very obvious from the narrative of their home life. So they developed this pattern where Jacob couldn’t deal with other men; he’d always run to mamma and so this grew and grew and grew in his life and Jacob became a very, very uncomfortable man in dealing with other men in unpleasant things; he could deal with a woman in an unpleasant matter but he couldn’t deal with another man in an unpleasant matter and this worked in his life.

So this goes on in verses 4-16, he’s trying to pull the same thing. He’s obeying God, verse 3, there’s God’s will, and he’s obeying God partly wisely in that he’s securing the moral allegiance of his followers, but there’s a flaw in all of his solution. What he apparently ought to have done is to have an open forthright conference with Laban before they left, for reasons we’ll see as the text goes on.

Before we get to verse 17, just a side note, do notice that in verse 11-13 you’ve got proof that the angel of the Jehovah is Jehovah. Notice in verse 11, “And the angel of God” which is equivalent to the angel of Jehovah, which is Christ preincarnate, who does He says He is in verse 13? “I am the God of Bethel,” so there’s one of your proof texts in the Old Testament that the angel of God that’s different from God at the same time is God. Why do I point this out? Because there’s one of the first revelations of the structure of the Trinity functioning in history. You’ve got God in singularity, that is verse 13, “I am the God of Bethel,” and yet you’ve got Him in plurality, verse 11, “the angel of the Lord” is distinguished from the Lord, or the angel of Elohim is distinguished from Elohim himself. So here’s a major passage on the inner structure of the Godhead.

So we come to this briefing, the girls in verses 14-16 admit their husband is right and their dad is wrong.

Now Genesis 31:17-24, the chase, Jacob goes on a long chase; the chase extends many hundreds of miles, comes all the way down and finally, way to the north, he comes down here past the Yarmuk River and just north of what is called the Jabbok River, just across Transjordan, somewhere in this area which in the Bible is called Gilead, is where Laban meets up with him. The whole chase lasts ten days; three days Jacob is out without Laban detecting him, seven days Laban finally catches him. Let’s look what happens.

Genesis 31:17, he sets his wife on camels; he takes all his goods, verse 18, with him. And then there’s this little note, verse 19, “Rachel stole her father’s t^eraphyim or the images, or the idols of the house; more about that in a moment. Finally in verse 23 Laban is catching up to him. [17, “Then Jacob rose up, and set his sons and his wives upon camels; [18] And he carried away all his cattle, and all his goods which he had gotten, the cattle of his getting, which he had gotten in Padan-aram, for to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan. [19] And Laban went to shear his sheep: and Rachel had stolen the images that were her father’s. [20]: And Jacob stole away unawares to Laban the Syrian, in that he told him not that he fled. [21] So he fled with all that he had; and he rose up, and passed over the river, and set his face toward the mount Gilead. [22] And it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob was fled. [23] And he took his brethren with him, and pursued after him seven days' journey; and they overtook him in the mount Gilead.”]

Then in verse 24 what happens: “And God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night, and said unto him, Take heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad.” The interesting thing in the Hebrew in the original is that God is telling him, Laban, you shut your mouth and I don’t want to hear anything threatening to Jacob, period. Now what’s verse 24 telling us? God would have protected Jacob up in Aramea; God will always protect Jacob because of the Abrahamic Covenant. Jacob didn’t have to be afraid of Laban. You see, the had the ability, like most of us, of trusting God in some areas but simply not able to trust God in other areas, and the area for Jacob that was the hardest to trust God was this area of his family learned behavior patterns. He just didn’t like to… he wanted to avoid… he learned this in the home as a boy because of his relationships with his own father and he carried it into his adulthood and it just was a problem for him. So he couldn’t trust God. In fact, later on he said I’m afraid, I was afraid of Laban. And verse 24 says he didn’t have to be afraid, God would have protected him.

But verses 25-42, the next section, is the confrontation, and in the middle of this confrontation he is sanctified; in the middle of this confrontation that he so dreads, that he doesn’t like, that he feels so uncomfortable in, lo and behold before it’s all over he’s not only got his confidence restored, he’s not only got his fear removed but he is able to confront Laban back, and this is the first tight thing that we see in Jacob’s life. We’re going to see it happen two more times before he gets back into the land. So God apparently, at this point in the man’s life, is making an issue of this particular learned behavior pattern. Jacob, that pattern has got to go, and I’m going to lean on you until we get rid of that thing so let’s watch what happens.

Laban comes up, verse 25, he overtakes him, [“Then Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the mount: and Laban with his brethren pitched in the mount of Gilead.”] And he says to Jacob, verse 26, “What hast thou done, that thou hast stolen away unawares to me, and carried away my daughters, as captives taken with the sword?” You fled away secretly, [“Wherefore didst thou flee away secretly, and steal away from me; and didst not tell me, that I might have sent thee away with mirth, and with songs, with tabret, and with harp?” Verse 28, You did not allow me to kiss my sons and my daughters, you have now done foolishly. [“And hast not suffered me to kiss my sons and my daughters? thou hast now done foolishly in so doing.”]

Verse 29, “It is in the power of my hand to do you hurt: but the God of your father spoke unto me yesterday, saying, Take thou heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad, [30] And now, though thou would needs be gone, because thou sore longed after thy father’s house,” why did you have to steal my goods [yet wherefore hast thou stolen my gods?] And Jacob says in verse 31, “Because I was afraid.” [“And Jacob answered and said to Laban, Because I was afraid: for I said, Peradventure thou would take by force thy daughters from me.” And every man, there are some areas where we’re going to be afraid and it’s not unmanly to admit that; it’s just part of being a fallen creature. And Jacob was one; he was a magnificent man, God calls Jacob a prince, and yet this prince has an area of fear, and as a man he has this area where he doesn’t like to function, and so God is trying to help him out in this area. And he says to Laban, go ahead and search the area if you want and see if you can find it. [32] “With whomsoever thou find thy gods, let him not live: before our brethren discern thou what is thine with me, and take it to thee. For Jacob knew not that Rachel had stolen them. 33] And Laban went into Jacob’s tent, and into Leah’s tent, and into the two maidservants’ tents; but he found them not. Then went he out of Leah’s tent, and entered into Rachel’s tent.]

And in Genesis 31:34 is a little humorous note, “Now Rachel had taken the images, and put them in the camel’s furniture, [and sat upon them. And Laban searched all the tent, but found them not.]” I didn’t know a camel had furniture but what it is, she’s sitting on the saddle. The new translations make it appear like she’s dismounting and makes it appear like she’s in the tent but that’s not really the case, what it is, she’s still mounted on the camel that she was back in verse 17, and she’s sitting there on the camel and she’s got these idols underneath the saddle area on the camel, and so in verse 35, she’s not the first or the last woman to use her menstruation as an excuse, “And she said to her father, Let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise up before thee; for the custom of women is upon me. And he searched, but found not the images.” Very clever.

Now in this overall scheme what’s going on here? Laban is accusing him of wrongness but Laban also has a right, and that’s the point of this whole chapter. If you look carefully, Laban, in a very perverse way, has a legitimate concern in verse 26 and verse 28. I never saw this about Laban until I started doing detailed work on this and I began to see, you know, Laban, after all, he was the father of these two girls and although he didn’t treat them right, and although he was very stupid, in fact, as the father of these two girls, God respected the father/daughter relationship and He wasn’t going to permit the split to occur until the father and the daughters broke company, the last time they saw each other it was amicable, and it was verbal and it was above board.

Now if this hadn’t taken place, if God had let Jacob slip away and never say anything, think of what years later it might have caused in his home, as maybe Leah and Rachel get depressed over something and then they begin to long and say you know, I think our husband sold us a bill of goods, I’d like to go back to daddy. You see, the split did not occur wisely; the rupture between the girls and their dad didn’t occur forthrightly, clearly, and get all the issues aired. It was done in a sneaky sort of way and so God says okay Jacob, you’re doing wisely, except for this one area and I’m going to amend the situation so I’m going to let Laban catch up with you so he can say goodbye properly to his daughters. The reason I say this theme is imbedded in the Scripture is because of the style in which chapter 31 is written. You notice in verse 26 and verse 28 there’s this theme; you’ve taken away my daughters captive and you have not permitted me to kiss my sons and my daughters. Now turn over and look at the last verse; verse 55 of the chapter, how it ends. In the style of the author of chapter 31, he does this all the time, when you see a sentence repeated it’s not because the guy doesn’t have a vocabulary, it’s his style of writing. It’s his way of getting a point across. So verse 55, “And early in the morning Laban rose up, and kissed his sons and his daughters, and blessed them: and then he departed, and returned to his place.”

In other words, the final goodbye between daddy and daughter had to take place, even though daddy was a clod, even though the daughters, one of them was still apparently half hung up with idolatry, God still respected the third divine institution and if the rupture was to occur God wanted that rupture to occur in a sound and wise manner, not only for the girl’s sake, not only for Laban and the daughter’s sake but for Jacob’s sake. God wanted to protect that home in the future and He couldn’t protect that home if the very start of the home was wrong. So while it was uncomfortable for Jacob it had the benefit of dealing with a fear that he had that he couldn’t do it, and it had the benefit of clarifying his own wise attitude to their dad.

Now let’s notice something; Genesis 31:36, for the first time in his life Jacob is able to stand up and confront a man. Why do I say for the first time in his life? How do I know that? For the simple reason that when he goes to talk to his wives and he says your dad did this, your dad did this, and then he blows up in verse 36, it is evident he never got this off his heart. Apparently he kept this smoldering inside, he never aired it, either to his wives or to his boss, his father-in-law; this is the first time it all comes out, what’s really on his mind. Now watch what he does.

Genesis 31:36, Jacob became angry, he’s watched his camp searched by his father-in-law, and now he unloads, and from verse 36 to verse 42 you can say he’s angry and anger is not of God and so on, I think this was exactly what God wanted to produce in his life; the first time he ever did anything like this, he was angry, and he “chode” with Laban, he chewed him out. And Jacob said, “What is my trespass? What is my sin, that thou hast so hotly pursued after me? [37] Why have you searched all my stuff, what hast thou found of all thy household stuff? Set it here before my brethren and thy brethren, that they may judge betwixt us both. [38] This twenty years have I been with you,” and this conversation, verse 36, completely shifts back to what? His business relationship. See, that was what was on Jacob’s mind; it was not dealt with, and that’s what God wanted to deal with. So he says for twenty years I have been with you, “thy ewes and thy she goats have not cast their young, and the rams of thy flock have I not eaten. [39] That which was torn of beasts I brought not unto thee;” in other words, he absorbed the lost; the shepherd in those days was required, when the head count of the flock was down, he had to produce the carcasses to make up of that lack in the headcount or he had to pay for it, and what he’s saying in verse 39 is every time I lost a head Laban, I picked up the tabernacle, “I bare the loss of it; of my hand did you require it, whether stolen by day, or stolen by night. [40] Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from mine eyes. [41] Thus have I been twenty years in thy house; I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy cattle: and thou hast changed my wages ten times. [42] Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me,” I’d be empty today. In other words, he just lets go with a genuine accusation, a genuine righteous accusation.

Now Genesis 31:43 to the end of the chapter, how it all ends up. In this section we have two men, one of whom, Laban, basically is unrepentant, he doesn’t change and the center of the story isn’t Laban after all, it’s going to be Jacob, but what they do is very wise; they leave publicly defining their difference, and this is the so-called Mizpah oath which Christians often use wrongly and it’s not, this is an oath of malediction, it’s an oath saying we don’t trust each other and we’re going to have a monument here, a contract, a legal terminology established to protect ourselves one from the other. In other words, they bring their disagreement into legal form. And this is why, far better to have it legally defined than sit there and both of them getting a case of ulcers over it, or their daughters getting bitterness that’s going to tear up their home, all these psychological spiritual fallouts are prevented by this maneuver.

Now verse 43 further shows you that the daughters seem to be the issue. “And Laban answered and said unto Jacob, These daughters are my daughters, and these children are my children, and these cattle are my cattle, [and all that thou seest is mine,”] now that’s not right, he’s wrong here, but just notice where the emphasis in his mind is, “and what can I do this day unto these my daughters, or unto their children which they have born? [44] Now therefore come thou, let us make a covenant,” or a business agreement, “I and you; and let it be for a witness between me and thee. [45] And Jacob took a stone, and set it up for a pillar. [46] And Jacob said unto his brethren, Gather stones; and they took stones, and made an heap: and they did eat there upon the heap.” Verse 47, incidentally, is one of the earliest textual evidences that Hebrew and Aramaic were different as far back as Jacob and Abraham’s day. [47, “And Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha: but Jacob called it Galeed.”]

Verse 48, “And Laban said, This heap is a witness between me and thee this day. Therefore was the name of it called Galeed; [49] And Mizpah; for he said, The LORD watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.” In other words, we don’t trust one another and we’re going to define our relationship in a covenant and we’re going to hold it before God. So what is happening is that two men, who still basically haven’t resolved their differences, at least resolved what they can resolve wisely. They define it in terms of God and they leave it before His presence.

Genesis 31:50, again the daughters come up, “If you shalt afflict my daughters, or if you will take other wives beside my daughters, when no man is with us; see, God is witness between me and you. [51] And Laban said to Jacob, Behold this heap, and behold this pillar, which I have cast between me and you;” and so on, [52, “This heap be witness, and this pillar be witness, that I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar unto me, for harm,”] and they offer the oath and the oath meal, verse 53-54, [53, “The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge betwixt us. And Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac. [54] Then Jacob offered sacrifice upon the mount, and called his brethren to eat bread: and they did eat bread, and tarried all night in the mount.”]

And then finally the split, as it should have occurred earlier; now Laban kisses his daughters goodbye, now the relationship is severed, but it’s severed wisely; it’s severed in such a way it’s not going to years later cause problems. It’s been cleared up; the air has been purified in this whole thing. [55, “And early in the morning Laban rose up, and kissed his sons and his daughters, and blessed them: and Laban departed, and returned unto his place.”]

So we have again a chapter in the life of the patriarchs, once again showing that these men were made of the same stuff you’re made of. These weren’t special people, they had the same kind of problems we all have. God used them, though, and God can use us. The principle is articulated well in Psalm 139 when David said that wherever I go, God is with me, the same principle we’ve seen here in Genesis 31. So let’s close the service by singing hymn number…..