Well, hello, here we are again with another program. We're looking into Genesis chapter 30. If you can have your Bible ready, it'd be a good thing. Well, in our last broadcast, we saw that Leah was having some children, and we get into chapter 30, and we find that Rachel is all upset about that. We read, And when Rachel saw that she bared Jacob no children, and Rachel envied her sister, and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, Am I in God's stead? Who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her, and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her. And she gave him Bilhah her handmaid to wife, And Jacob went in unto her, and Bilhah conceived, and bared Jacob a son. And Rachel said, God hath judged me, and hath also heard my voice, and hath given me a son. Therefore called she his name Dan. And Bilhah, Rachel's maid, conceived again, and bare Jacob a second son. And Rachel said, With great wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and I have prevailed, and she called his name Naphtali. And when Leah saw that she had left bearing, she took Zilpha her maid, and gave her Jacob to wife. And Zilpha, Leah's maid, bared Jacob a son. And Leah said, A troop cometh, and she called his name Gad. And Zilpha, Leah's maid, bared Jacob a second son. And Leah said, Happy am I, for the daughters will call me blessed, and she called his name Asher. And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes. And she said unto her, Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband, and wouldst thou take away my son's mandrakes also? And Rachel said therefore, He shall lie with thee to-night for thy son's mandrakes. And Jacob came out of the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, Thou must come in unto me, for surely I have hired thee with my son's mandrakes. And he lay with her that night, and God hearkened unto Leah, and she conceived and bare Jacob the fifth son. And Leah said, God hath given me my hire, because I have given my maiden to my husband, and she called his name Ishigar. And Leah conceived again, and bare Jacob the sixth son, and Leah said, God hath endued me with a good dowry, now will my husband dwell with me, because I have borne him six sons, and she called his name Zebulun. Well, after that we read, And after she bare a daughter, and called her name Dinah. And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb. And she conceived, and bare a son, and said, God hath taken away my reproach. And she called his name Joseph, and the Lord shall add to me another son. And it came to pass, when Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said unto Laban, Send me away, that I may go unto my own place, and to my own country." What a sordid story we have here in chapter 30, and we're only halfway through the chapter. Oh my goodness, I'm looking at some commentaries of men who spent exhaustive studies on the book of Genesis, and most all of them, very well-known writers, just bypass this chapter. And I can certainly understand why they do, and it was my thought to do the same thing, actually. And then I thought, no, God put it in here. Let's see if we can learn what He wants to teach us, because the Bible does say that these things happen unto them, and they are written for our admonition. Now, once again, we want to say, as we said in previous broadcasts, that just because God gives us the history of what was going on back there does not mean that he put his stamp of approval on it. He told us the nonsense that went on, in the Garden of Eden. He told us that Noah got drunk. He told us that Abraham lied about his wife. He tells us all these things in the Word of God. That doesn't mean that he put his stamp of approval on Abraham lying or Noah getting drunk or them having two or three or five wives and concubines and all the rest of it. God did not put a stamp of approval on any of that nonsense. All he's doing is giving us the facts and telling us what is going on here. And then we see through all of this nonsense, and I don't know from God's perspective as he looks on this earth if there's anything but nonsense, but as we look through all of it, we see the grace of God that he would have anything to do with any of us at all. Well, in our last chapter, in chapter number 29, we looked at what is called Jacob's journey. It says, Then Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the people of the east. Well, as we said in our last broadcast, he started this journey with the first step. It was 500 miles. and he started it with the first step. Now, if you're going to do something for God, you have to take that first step. We said in our last broadcast also that God waits for our actions and then he reacts accordingly. God is going to bless if we go ahead and do what he tells us to do. Well, we saw in our last broadcast that Jacob went down there he went 500 miles and he trusted God he obeyed God and when he got there everything began to work out it says in verse chapter number two of chapter 29 that it says that look he looked and behold and everything was there there he was he met with some people who knew Laban Layman's daughter Rachel comes out right away with her sheep everything falls together But you got to take that first step and your second step and the third step you got to trust and obey God waits for our action and then he reacts accordingly I give you just another verse Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, that's our action, His reaction, all these things shall be added unto you. So we need to learn that. If we don't learn anything else, God has a program for you. You're in this world for a purpose. If you don't take the first step, you're not going to take any steps. Well, in Jacob's journey, it's been 20 years by the time we get to the end of chapter 30, or at least to the verse we read here, where he said to Laban, I'm going back home. It's been 20 years that he's been with Uncle Laban, and he's been in the school of hard knocks all that time. Laban is a deceiver, and so the deceiver is being deceived. We saw that Jacob was a deceiver. and so he spends 20 years being deceived. We reap what we sow. We said that God is no respecter of persons on that. Paul stood by while they stoned Stephen, and later on Paul was stoned and left on the side of the road. God says it matters not who you are. You reap what you sow. Jacob, for instance, You remember they killed some goats and they tricked the father into believing that it was venison. Well, Jacob's sons here later on in this story will find they killed the goat and they dipped Joseph's coat in it and came and deceived their father and said he was dead. It doesn't matter who we are. We reap what we sow. Well in our previous broadcast we talked about the tale of two boys and those two boys were brothers that is Esau and Jacob. Now we're going to talk about the tale of two girls and those two girls are Leah and Rachel and they also are sisters. They're mentioned first In chapter 29 and verse number 16 where it says, and Laban had two daughters, the name of the elder was Leah and the name of the younger was Rachel. And as the story goes on here, Jacob ends up married to both of them. Now you remember, one of them was beautiful and one of them was not, and he was deceived into taking Leah, thinking he was getting Rachel. And as it turns out, he ends up with both of them. Well, we have a serious problem here. We see that Jacob loves Rachel and he hates Leah, how do we know he hates Leah? Well, it says in verse number 31 of chapter number 29, it says, when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. And then we read again in verse 33, because the Lord has heard that I was hated. Yeah, he hated Leah, he loved Rachel. Now that's going to make for a great family situation, isn't it? Again, let me emphasize the fact that God did not sanction anybody having two wives or concubines and all this nonsense. All that did was make a whole lot of trouble for everybody involved in the family. That's all that did. Well, we saw as we read down through this that four of the sons were born here. We saw that Reuben was born in verse number 32. and then Simeon in verse number 33 and then Levi in 34 and Judah in 35 and there we read that Leah left off bearing. Well as we come into chapter 30 we find first of all it says when Rachel saw that she bared Jacob no children Rachel envied her sister. Now we're starting off with the word envy here. Verse number one, she envied her sister. That word envy has been translated jealous 10 times, and jealousy five times, and envy nine different times. What is envy? It's a feeling of discontentment. It's a desire to have what someone else has. Envy, what a wicked sin that is. Well, we see that she envied her sister. Verse number one, it says, Rachel saw, and then it says, Rachel envied. And she said, in verse number one, give me children or else I die. Well, that's a pretty interesting word there. That word has been translated slay 100 times. What, is she going to kill herself or is she going to kill her husband? I don't know, but she's in a total, complete, emotional state at this moment. And so what does she do in her emotional state? She blames Jacob for this situation. He says Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, Am I in God's stead who has withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? It's not my fault. You know, one thing we really do here is we blame. We've got to blame. Somebody blame somebody. Somebody's fault is not mine. It's interesting that you can listen to a weather report on the news, and they'll say, well, Mother Nature has really given us some bad weather. You can blame Mother Nature. There is no Mother Nature. You're going to blame somebody? Blame God. That storm came from Him. Well, she's blaming Jacob. And you know, the thing is about this, that Jacob loved her. The Bible says over again, he loved her. Well, she's she's turning on him. You know, we do that with God too. You can blame God for the storm That's where they come from God's in charge of the weather, but he loves us. He knows what's good for us He knows what we need. Well, we see in verse number two that God hath withheld God has withheld not not Jacob. It's not his fault So in verse number one, we have envy and in verse number two, we have anger it says and Jacob's anger was kindled against her Well, here we have a great family relationship here now, don't we? Everything is falling apart. Anger is never the solution. Anger is not the solution. But everybody in this story is living in emotional land here. You know, we have, the Bible says God created us. He gave us a He said, let us create man in our image. God is a trinity. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. He created us in his image. We are a body. We are a soul. We are a spirit. And so the soul is the emotional. It's made up of the mind, the will, and the emotions. And the spirit is that part that communicates with God. But nobody's communicating with God in this story. Everything's all emotional. Nobody says, let's pray what we have here. is that Rachel is getting envious and Jacob's getting angry. That's all emotion. Why didn't she just say, well, let's pray about it? No, she didn't say let's pray about it. What did she say? Hey, take my handmaid here and have a baby by her. That is just absolute nonsense that's going on here. And once again, God did not approve of any of it. He put a stamp of approval on this. This is nonsense. What he would have put a stamp of approval on it if they stopped and took some time and prayed about the situation and said, let's find the mind of God. Let's see what's going on. Well, you hear that music? I'm all out of time again. So we're going to have to carry this on from our next broadcast. Tune in. We'll try to make it plain and we will try to make it simple.