Well, if you have your copy of scripture, go ahead and turn to Genesis 29 as we resume our sermon series in this first great book of the Bible this morning. And we're looking together at Genesis 29, verses one through 30. And as we've already read the first 15 verses, we'll pick up at verse 16 now and read to the end of the chapter. And I know if you have a copy of scripture, you're gonna find it helpful to be reading along with me as we look at God's word together. And let me briefly pray for us before we come to the preaching of it. Father in heaven, again, we come not out of rote obligation, not out of mechanistic desire to see you. Carry us along, but out of a sincere heart, crying desire to be changed and transformed and to see your glory. And we pray this morning above all things that you would show us your glory. that you would remove from us every obstacle, everything that blinds us from seeing your glory in the face of Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus, we need your mediation. We need you as our great high priest and our prophet and our king. We need you as the one who stands in the midst of the lampstands and who intercedes for your people and who speaks a clear word to the soul of your people. We pray that you would draw near to us. that we would leave this place and be able to say that we have met with you, that we have seen you, we have heard you, and that we would be drawn closer to you. We pray these things in your name, amen. In Genesis 29, beginning in verse 16, and now as Jacob has made his way into the home of Laban, his mother's brother, and pursuing a wife for himself, and has now had that initial interaction with Laban. We read, now Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah's eyes were weak or soft, but Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance. Jacob loved Rachel, and he said, I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter, Rachel. Laban said, it is better that I give her to you than that I should than that I should give her to you than to any other man, stay with me. So Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love that he had for her. Then Jacob said to Laban, give me my wife that I may go into her for my time is completed. So Laban gathered together all the people of the place and made a feast. But in the evening, he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob and he went into her. Laban gave his female servant Zilpah to his daughter Leah to be her servant. And in the morning, behold, it was Leah. And Jacob said to Laban, what is this you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me? Laban said, it is not so done in our country to give the younger before the firstborn. Complete the week of this one, and we'll give you the other also in return for serving me for another seven years. Jacob did so and completed her week. Then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. Laban gave his female servant Bilhah to his daughter Rachel to be her servant. So Jacob went into Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah, and served Laban for another seven years. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of God endures forever." Well, I remember when I was a young boy, I had a sort of romantic streak in my heart, and I liked to hear stories about how husbands and wives came to meet. I always was enamored by those stories, whether people were high school sweethearts or whether in some act of God's providence they met each other later in life. I always saw something beautiful about the differences of those stories, and I longed for my parents to tell us how they met, and to find out details about how God had divinely arranged their marriage, and now I see that in my sons, as I'm sure it's in many of you. There's something beautiful and mysterious about the way that God brings together a husband and a wife in marriage. And there is something beautiful about the stories in which those marriages happen. And yet, there is one marriage in the Bible that I am tempted to think those involved wish it were not. recounted, and it's here in this chapter. I've often thought that Jacob has got to tell the account of this section of Scripture to his children, and they to their children, and they to their children, and then God records it in Scripture. And why? It's not one of those romantic marriage stories. It's not one of the great ones in the history books. In fact, there is polygamy, there is incest, there is deception, there is working for a wife, there is all kinds of mess in this chapter. And here is Jacob. Jacob has just had this incredible encounter with God, one of the greatest encounters with God that any man or woman has ever had. And he has listened to his mother who has sent him to the land of her brother Laban to find a wife. He has gone with the blessing, the reluctant blessing of his father Isaac. He is fleeing from Esau and the wrath of Esau. And his mother and his father have told him to go and get a wife from their people, from the land out of which they had come, and then to return. In fact, his mother told him not to spend too long there, but to come back, knowing that his brother's wrath would be abated in a matter of time. over the deception that Jacob had practiced in deceiving Esau and stealing the birthright from him. Now, Jacob has had this incredible encounter with God and notice that at the end of the previous chapter, he has made a vow to God. He has said in verse 20, if God be with me and will keep me in the way that I go and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear so that I come again to my father's house in peace, Then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone which I have set up as a pillar shall be God's house." Now, Jacob is covenanting with God. He is saying, I am trusting you to provide for me. He is saying, I believe that you are the covenant Lord who has made the covenant promises to my grandfather and passed them down to my father and have now given them to me. God has confirmed his covenantal oath to Jacob that the nations were going to be blessed in his offspring, that a redeemer would come from him. No one has had these promises. And so Jacob heads off. to the east, and notice in verse one, Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the people of the east. Now, I don't think that's an insignificant detail. In the book of Genesis, the east is often representative of the fallen world, a life of sinfulness and depravity, the curse, the misery of life. Remember when Adam and Eve were exiled out of the garden, it says that they were exiled east of Eden. And the angels were put at the gate in the east so that they couldn't come back into the garden. And then when Cain killed Abel, he went further to the east to the land of Nod. And then you see the men of Babel moving to the east and you see everywhere depravity is moving out away from the garden and away from the presence of God. And now at this moment, Jacob is heading east and he's heading toward the people of the east. And he is going to experience there among the people of the East something in God's providence that he was not ready for and yet something that he so desperately needed. You see, God in his providence is going to deal with Jacob over the next 14 to 20 years in order to mature Jacob and turn him into the man that he wants him to be. The point of this passage is not first and foremost how Jacob gets a wife. It is how God is dealing with him providentially and how God is molding and shaping and conforming him into the man that he wants him to be. Now notice that as we look at this, there are really two things that we'll see. First, we'll see God's providence in the spiritual sanctification of Jacob. And then secondly, we'll see God's providence in fulfilling his covenant promises, a great theme that is running throughout this book. We'll notice as Jacob does go to find a wife from the people of the land out of which his grandfather and his father and his mother had come, that he does something strikingly similar to what his grandfather had done for his son by sending his servant to find a wife for Isaac. I think we are meant to read this as we're working our way through Genesis. We are meant to come to this and say there is something that seems so reminiscent of what we read in chapter 24, where there is great similarities. Here, the head of the covenant is gonna have a wife for himself. He's gonna meet her at a well. God is gonna divinely orchestrate everything. Everything's gonna sort of fall into place, as it were, and yet there are great dissimilarities. There are great dissimilarities. And in order to understand what God is doing with Jacob in sanctifying him and maturing him and turning him into the man that he wants him to be, you have to understand first and foremost how Jacob has lost sight of God and what God has just already revealed to him. It's very interesting. This is the last time Jacob's gonna take God's name up on his lips. is in the vision that he has when he encounters the Lord at Bethel. And for 20 years, We're not gonna read Jacob refer to the Lord one time. And the contrast between Abraham's servant going to the well and finding a bride for Isaac with Jacob is that Abraham's servant was everywhere praying along the way. You'll remember that. Abraham's servant, Eleazar, is praying every step of the way. Oh my Lord, if you will direct my steps, if you will fulfill your promises to my master, if you will bring my master a wife for his son so that you will fulfill your promises, and every single step of the way he is praying down the divine blessing, and here Jacob is not doing any of that. Jacob is, as it were, going in his own strength. The hardship that he endures, no doubt, is because, in part, of his prayerlessness. You know, we sometimes mistakenly think when God does a great work in our souls that we are further along in our sanctification than we actually are. I know I thought that as a young Christian. We may have a great experience. God may bring us out of darkness and into the kingdom of the Son of His love in a very radical way. We tend to think we're further along than we actually are, and then the hardships come, and the years come, and the trials come, and the difficulties come, and the failures come, and the sin manifests itself, and we realize that I'm not what I want to be. I'm not what I was, as Newton says. I'm not what I want to be, but by the grace of God, I am what I am, and God is ever maturing and progressing and building his people up and sanctifying them. And he often does this, especially through the hardships, as Jacob's going to learn in this section. We'll notice that as he sets off to find a wife for himself, and he comes to this well in verse 2, and he finds three flocks of sheep there, and he finds shepherds there, and he interacts with them, and he's amiable to them, and they're amiable to him, and things are going well. And this seems as though God is directing his steps and there's a sense in which Jacob has a confidence that God is going to do what God has promised that he will do, that he's not trusting in prayerfulness, he is trusting. And Jacob asks them a series of questions, where are you from? They say Haran, which is where he's heading. He says, do you know Laban? They say, we know him. Everything seems to be falling into place. And then Jacob does what any man who's eager to get married does. He tries to get rid of this competition. And he tells them, well, why aren't you watering your sheep? Why aren't you doing the business? And they said, well, we're going to wait till all the sheep come because we don't want to roll this heavy stone away. And you get the sense that Jacob is trying to remove them from the picture because he is hoping that one of Laban's daughters, who he's heard about through his mother, would come to that well and that God would do for him what he had done for Isaac in bringing Isaac Rebekah. And as he is speaking, verse nine, Rachel comes with her father's sheep. She was a shepherdess. When Jacob saw her, he told her all the things. He rolled away the stone from the well's mouth. By the way, he's a different man at this point. This was the mama's boy chef, Jacob. Suddenly he has superhuman strength to roll away a stone that these shepherds couldn't roll away. He is trying to show off for Rachel, no doubt. He waters the flock. of Laban, his mother's brother. He kisses Rachel, he weeps aloud, and Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's kinsman and that he was Rebekah's son, and she ran and told her father. And so far, so good. Everything seems to be working out perfectly. Here is the woman of Jacob's dreams. God seems to have provided this in a more expedient way than he provided Rebekah for Isaac. And I'm thinking Jacob is pondering, I'll head back home in a week with my bride. And Rachel takes Jacob to her father's home and notice that, Jacob, verse 13, told Laban all these things, and Laban said to him, surely you are my bone and my flesh. Now, those words are truer than Jacob will realize. He really is the nephew of his uncle. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. As Jacob was a deceiver and a swindler, as his name intimates, as his actions intimate, so his uncle is an even greater swindler and deceiver. Remember, this is not the first time that we've met Laban. Remember, Laban is back in earlier chapters in a very similar situation, and he is gazing on the jewelry. He has eyes for the money. He's a good businessman. If we learn anything from Laban, we learn if you want to do a business deal, and you want to get it done quickly, and you want to get more out of it than you ought to, you get Laban involved. Laban knows how to make things happen. And Jacob has told Laban about his mother and about the journey and about Rachel and about the shepherds, but we have no intimation. This is very interesting. We have no intimation in the interactions between Jacob and Laban that he ever told him about what God had said about the covenant promises, about his experience at Bethel, about his need to get a wife quickly and go home quickly. We have no reason to believe that he's told him about swindling the birthright away from the firstborn from Esau. We have no reason to believe that he's told him about his mother's favoritism and his father's favoritism. We have no reason to believe that the really important things are actually conveyed in this interaction with his uncle. And that's interesting because it shows in Jacob. That Jacob is a man of self-preservation, and Jacob is a man of timidity, and Jacob is a man of fearfulness. That what Jacob does, and we're gonna see this all through this chapter, Jacob does to avoid conflict, and by seeking to do that, he puts himself right in the middle of conflict. and rather than resting himself on the promises of God, and rather than trusting in the God of promise, and rather than exclaiming and proclaiming to Laban that he was no mere wanderer, but that he was the very head of the covenant and that the Redeemer would come from him. and that Laban should be doing everything he can to help him fulfill the promises of God, he is timid and fearful, and in a sense, unbelieving at this point. Robert Canlish, a great Scottish theologian of the last century, of the 19th century, said on his first introduction to Laban's household, Jacob is not coming as a wanderer at Laban's mercy to take service with him on any other terms, but as a heaven destined and heaven declared inheritor of the covenant birthright and covenant blessings. Isn't that awesome? He should have come and said, I am the heir of the everlasting promises of God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and he is my God. And He has promised to bless the nations through the seed that He will bring in fulfillment of His promise to our parents, to Adam and Eve, that He would bring the seed of the woman to crush the head of the serpent. And instead of doing that, Instead of doing that, he cowers and he tries to sort of fly under the radar with Laban, which puts him in great trouble. Now, we know the rest of the story. Laban sees in Jacob something he can profit from. Laban is always looking for the prophet. Instead of seeing a man of God that God has blessed, instead of saying, how can I assist you in carrying out the mission on which God has sent you, the mission for which you have come in fulfilling the promises of God, instead of partnering with Jacob as it were, Laban sees in Jacob an advantage to his business. He sees his strength. His gaze is diverted away from God and from any of God's promises to how he can benefit in the here and now. And there is a word here for us, both with Laban and with Jacob. I think there's a word here for us, and you see it all through the scriptures, that whenever we take our eyes off the Lord and his promises, and we put them on whatever earthly endeavors or ambitions that we have, we are destined for hardship and trouble, and we are destined for difficulties of our own making. You see, Laban's gonna experience that later in life. Jacob's going to experience it now for the next 14 years of his life because both of them have taken their eyes off the God of promise. This is gonna end up in one of the worst marital arrangements ever. polygamous, incestuous. John Calvin actually says it would have been better for Jacob to have divorced Leah and married Rachel than to have entered into what he does at the advice of Laban. That's how serious this is. One of the worst situations that you could ever find yourself in because both men, and especially Laban, do not have their eyes on the Lord, but on how they can prosper. Now, notice that Laban is the one that pitches this to Jacob. Notice verse 15, because you are my kinsmen, should you therefore serve me for nothing? He's bartering with Jacob. He's actually bringing Jacob into an arrangement that Jacob should never have entered into. And he's putting his daughters out there and he's saying, instead of just giving you my daughter as I ought to do, I'll let you work for her. It's horrendous the way Jacob treats his own daughters, let alone how he treats Jacob. And yet Jacob submits himself and he subjects himself. Notice, then Laban said to Jacob, tell me what shall your wages be? He had two daughters and Jacob pitches back to him. He allows himself to fall into this. Notice verse 18, because he loved Rachel, he said, I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter, Rachel. That was wrong. He should have said, I've got to go back to my father's house. I've got to go back to the land of promise. I'm going back with a wife and I'm asking you to give me Rachel as a wife so that we can go back and worship the God who has promised us to bless the nations through us. And instead of doing that, he allows himself to enter into the shrewd deal. You know, it's very interesting, the deceiver is being deceived all through this chapter. That's the big point. The one who had spent the better part of his young life deceiving and swindling is now himself getting a taste of his own medicine at the hand of his uncle. You know, God often deals with us commensurate with our sin, not to punish us, but to discipline us and to turn us into the people he wants us to be. The Lord loves Jacob, and because he loves him, he's committed to undoing the knots of depravity in Jacob's life, even after he's converted. You know, when I look at this chapter, I often think about the language of Hebrews chapter 12. My son, quoting the Proverbs, Proverbs 3, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you're rebuked by him. For whom the Lord loves, he chastens and disciplines every son whom he receives. Now, if we are disciplined by the Lord, he deals with us as a father, and the sons that he delights in, loving fathers discipline their children. And if we don't receive discipline in his hand, then we're illegitimate and not sons. It's because God loves Jacob that he will put Jacob into this situation providentially for 14 long years. Humanly, it's Jacob's fault. Providentially, it's God's sovereignty over arching the situation. Now, that's good news for us. Because the writer of Hebrews has to say to us, my son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him because our propensity is to despise his discipline or to grow discontent and discouraged under it. That's the great danger, those two temptations, to despise what the Lord is doing in correcting us to heal us, or in becoming discouraged under that discipline. You know, I actually think this is the least spoken about subject in Christendom, and yet one of the most important aspects of how God deals with us in Christian life. The Lord disciplines those that he loves. Isn't that beautiful? It's not a mark of his hatred. It's a mark of his love. What Jacob goes through in this chapter is God purifying and refining this man to make him more and more what he is supposed to be. Well, there is the error of Laban and Jacob in bartering this deal, and then there is the further issue of the deceiving in Leah and Rachel. Isn't it interesting, just as the younger had supplanted the older and stolen his birthright and deceived his father and lied to his father, so here Laban does a reverse deception on him and puts the older there as his wife, unbeknownst to him, and says, in our custom, the older is first and then the younger. You see how juxtaposed these things are to what Jacob had done before. There are questions. How did Jacob not know? I don't know. I don't have answers. I imagine that Laban devised a plot. He had her brought to him at night. He wanted him to be deceived. He did to Jacob what Jacob did to his father. He pulled the wool over his eyes. Jacob woke up. He was angered. He was frustrated, he was confused, he was horrified, can't imagine what was going on in his mind and his heart. And then Jacob says to Laban, give me my wife, give me Rachel. Did I not serve you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me? And then Laban enters into this arrangement with him again, that he would serve him for another seven years, and Jacob does it, and he does it gladly because he loves Rachel. You know, there's such a mixture in Jacob His love for Rachel is not altogether wrong. There's something beautiful about his love for her, and yet she becomes an idol to him at some point. That he's willing to do all that he's done shows that he's made a good thing an ultimate thing. That's what idolatry always is, when we take good things and we make them ultimate things. We'll see later that Rachel herself is an idolater, that she steals the household idols. There is so much wrong in this family. I used to say to people, when you read Genesis, this is a lot less like Focus on the Family and a lot more like Showtime, a whole lot more. I mean, this is, polygamy was always sinful. Incest was even more so. And Jacob is doing all of that out of a desire for Rachel. It's interesting that Even though Jacob has so many mixed motives, he stands here still as a picture of Christ. He's the head of the covenant. It's the way the Bible often works. Great sinners that God has redeemed and set apart for himself serve to prefigure the one who was sinless. How could a deceiver like Jacob get covenant blessings? Not because of anything he did. Paul says that, before the twins were born or had done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election, might stand. Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated, not because of anything he did good, and in spite of what he did. And yet Jacob stands here as a type of Christ. I want to read this to you. Jonathan Edwards, reflecting on Jacob's love for Rachel, says, Jacob was a type of Christ and is obtaining his wife by a servitude. I want you to think about this. Jacob was a type of Christ in obtaining his wife by servitude, and in his servitude seeming light to him. It actually says in scripture that it was like nothing, like no time had passed. He loved Rachel so much that all the labor, all the long years awaiting were as nothing, and Edward says in Jacob's servitude seeming light to him, there was a type of Christ, and his going so cheerfully through it for the love wherewith he loved her that Jacob might enjoy his beloved Rachel was the joy set before Jacob, for which he despised the difficulty and his servitude, so that Christ might redeem the church and present it to himself a glorious and blessed church, to dwell with him in glory forever, was the joy that was set before Christ, for which he endured the cross and despised the shame." Isn't that beautiful? And whether you think that's intended or not, that's the storyline of the Bible. No matter what you think about Jacob being a type of Christ, the point is that Jesus has loved his bride and has put himself in a place of servitude and the awful experience of the cross to redeem a bride for himself. I've often thought it interesting that we read this morning about Jesus' first miracle being at Cana of Galilee. Here's the bridegroom, and John makes a big deal about Jesus being the bridegroom. And almost in the next cameo, in chapter 4, you find Jesus sitting at Jacob's well. And here comes a sinful woman who's been trying to satisfy herself with men and with pleasure. And Jesus, as the heavenly bridegroom, courts her to himself as the Savior. And then she goes and tells others about him, and his church grows, and Jesus is pursuing his bride. There's this beautiful, beautiful picture in redemptive history. And I think, at least in part, God has woven this story into the fabric of redemptive history so that we would understand this is part of a much bigger story of what God's doing providentially. Now, it's interesting that Jacob is in Jesus' genealogy. with many, many other notorious sinners, because it's all part of a bigger redemptive historical story. William Still, who was reflecting on this passage of scripture, said, it's not that God paid no respect to the sin of the patriarchs. that he just passed it over, but that he had promised them he was going to send a Redeemer. And that one would come into the world, and he would do everything necessary to take the sin of all of his people on himself. All the twistedness and perversion. By the way, we're so much like Jacob in so many ways. All the little deceits and twistings, the taking our eyes off of the Lord, putting them on our own sort of plans and scheming. We do this every day of our life to some degree. And our failure to pray as we ought, like Jacob failed to do, and our penchant for taking matters into our own hands all the time. Every one of us. And Jesus takes all that sin on himself. This is the gospel, by the way. This is why we have a Bible. He takes all that sin on himself. All the twistedness, all the corruption, all the impurity. He takes the impurity of what Jacob does in this impure marriage. on himself. It's sin. These marriages are sinful. And he takes it on himself and still says it's not that God doesn't have respect to the sins of the patriarchs, that he just overlooks them, but that he had chosen them in order to bring his son into the world to redeem them and to redeem us. So that everything he does with respect to them, he's doing prospectively in light of what his son would do at the cross. You see, God's providential dealing was not just trying to and actually was untangling what was going on in Jacob's life and sanctifying him, but God was showing that there was a bigger plan that he was working out providentially by providing a wife for Jacob from whom the Redeemer would come. Now, there's so much more here, but I want to ask you this morning, when you think about your own life and you think about situations in which the Lord has placed you, do you tend to grow discontent and discouraged and embittered? when they're hard or trying or not turning out like you want them to? Or are you recognizing something of the loving disciplinary hand of a father who loves you so much that he will not let you continue on to be who you otherwise would be without that discipline? That's one of the most beautiful things in the Christian life. And sadly, most Christians in our day never hear it. And it's so vital that we get that, that when there are situations in our life that are frustrating and hard and painful and feel unjust, if you belong to Jesus Christ, the loving hand of your Father is guiding you and protecting you and leading you through that situation for your good and His glory. That's a guarantee. The writer of Hebrews says, therefore strengthen the hands that hang down. Make straight paths for your feet that what may be lame is not dislocated but rather healed. That we might be partakers of his righteousness. And then secondly, I want to ask you when you think about your sins and your many failures, do you recognize the fact that God has provided a Redeemer who has taken every one of those sins on Himself, who was punished in your place under the wrath of God, who took every ounce of the wrath of God for your sin, so that no matter how much you have done wrong or have messed up, if you are in Christ, you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. Because at the end of the day, being a Christian is recognizing that. That's what it means to be a Christian. It's not your efforts, it's not your service, it's not your desire to do better next time, it's not I will be better and I will make myself better. That may all be well and good, But at the end of the day, before God, the only thing that matters is if we recognize that God accepts me, and God is at work in my life because of what He did to His Son at the cross, and what the Son did for me at the cross. And you know what? That just keeps working. It works in our lives. It works in the lives of our children. It works in the lives of those around us. And it will work on the last day in the resurrection. The gospel just keeps working. It just keeps working to undo. all that Adam did by bringing sin and misery into this world, and all that we do in all of our failings and deceivings and twistings and complainings. I hope that you'll be encouraged, no matter where you are in life right now, no matter what situation you find yourself in, that you'll fix your eyes on Jesus, the greater Jacob, who has loved us with an everlasting love, who has done everything to bring us to himself. who has done everything to ensure that no matter what we have done, he is going to bring us to glory because he's laid down his life for us to heal us and redeem us. Let him who has ears to hear, let him hear this morning what the Spirit says to the church. Let me pray for us. Father in heaven, we are so feeble and so frail. We acknowledge that we are far too often like Jacob and like Laban. We acknowledge, Lord, that with our tongues we have practiced deceit. As the Apostle Paul has said, that there is none righteous, no not one. We acknowledge, our God, that we don't deserve any of your blessings or your kindness, and yet we are grateful that you have redeemed us, that you have justified us, that you have forgiven us by the blood of Jesus, that you are sanctifying us. We thank you and praise you, our God, that you discipline us for our good. We pray that you would help us to endure, to bear up under your discipline, and to know that it comes from your great love with which you have loved us. We pray that you would work your purposes out in our life and that you would restore and heal us in all the ways that we need that. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.