Let us now heed the voice of our Lord as He speaks to us from Genesis 29 verse 31 on through chapter 30 verse 24. When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, He opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. And Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben. For she said, Because the Lord has looked upon my affliction, For now my husband will love me." She conceived again and bore a son and said, Because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also. And she called his name Simeon. Again she conceived and bore a son and said, Now this time my husband will be attached to me because I have borne him three sons. Therefore his name was called Levi. And she conceived again, and bore a son, and said, This time I will praise the Lord. Therefore she called his name Judah. Then she ceased bearing. When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, Give me children, or I shall die. Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb? Then she said, Here is my servant Bilhah. Go into her so that she may give birth on my behalf, that even I may have children through her. So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob went into her, and Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, God has judged me and has also heard my voice and given me a son. Therefore she called his name Dan. Rachel's servant Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. Then Rachel said, With mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed. So she called his name Naphtali. When Leah saw that she had ceased bearing children, she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. Then Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son. And Leah said, Good fortune has come. So she called his name Gad. Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob's second son. And Leah said, Happy am I, for women have called me happy. So she named his name Asher. In the days of wheat harvest, Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Please give me some of your son's mandrakes. She said to her, Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son's mandrakes also? Rachel said, Then he may lie with you tonight in exchange for your son's mandrakes. When Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, You must come in to me, for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes. So he lay with her that night. And God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. Leah said, God has given me my wages because I gave my servant to my husband. So she called his name Issachar. And Leah conceived again, and she bore Jacob a sixth son. Then Leah said, God has endowed me with a good endowment. Now my husband will honor me because I have borne him six sons. So she called his name Zebulun. Afterwards she bore a daughter and called her name Dinah. Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb. She conceived and bore a son, and said, God has taken away my reproach. And she called the name of his son Joseph, saying, May the Lord add to me another son. The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God endures forever, and so let us ask His blessing upon this reading in the word of prayer. Lord, we come tonight to this story. of how you brought about a growing nation, the people of Israel. You formed for yourself a son out of this very sinful situation. And Lord, as we have been forced to reckon with so many times in Genesis, we are forced to reckon with it here that you, God, can make amazing things come out of such a mess. So we pray, Lord, that you would help us tonight to see how that was done in the life of Jacob and the women in his household. And we pray, Lord, that you would help us to see how you might do that with us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. It was love at first sight. Shortly after meeting her at the well, Jacob was head over heels in love with Laban's daughter, Rachel. She was beautiful, we were told, in form and appearance, and Jacob preferred the thought of marriage with her to money. If he had to work, then she could be his wages. In fact, Jacob loved Rachel so much that he was willing to do back-breaking labor for seven years in order to secure her hand in marriage. We saw that earlier in Genesis chapter 29. But we've also seen how her father Laban tricked Jacob with the help of his eldest daughter Leah when he deceptively sent Leah to Jacob's tent on the wedding night rather than the sister whom he had bargained for. Without knowing what was happening, Jacob was married off to a girl that he had not desired, perhaps never would desire. Nevertheless, Jacob was so smitten with her younger sister that he was willing to work seven more years for their father Laban if only he could have, still yet, his one true love to be his bride. And thus, as our sermon text closed last Sunday night, Jacob was married not to just one, but to two women, sisters of the same father. Now you might think that you've experienced a messed up home life in the past, and maybe you have. But I would be surprised if it was more messed up than the situation in Jacob's household. Because in a week's time, he went from being the husband of one woman that he didn't love to the husband of her and her sister. And on top of this, both of his brides had been supplied with a female servant by their father as part of a dowry. Really, Jacob went from zero to four women in a matter of days. And as we're about to see here in the text, any notion of a peaceful honeymoon period was quickly shattered as the four women get wrapped up in something of an arms race wherein they tried to see who could have the most children the fastest. And the result is that our text tells the tale of 12 children born to Jacob and the women of his household over several years. This might seem at first like a passage that's a little more than a list of names. This child was born, here's her name. This child was born, here's their name. But really, if you pay attention to what's happening here, this is a story of polygamy, and concubinage, and anger, and jealousy, and vengeance, and even superstition. There's a lot here. But it's also the story of how God raised up a people for himself. The 12 tribes of Israel, which would one day, not too long from now, when we come to the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, these 12 tribes, they would originate, and they would grow up, and they would be numbered in the millions. And no longer would the covenant blessing be focused on one person. That's what we've seen so far. First, it was Abraham. And then it was Isaac, not his brother. Then it's Jacob, not his brother. As we get to this point in the story that the covenant blessing is not going to be something to fight over anymore. Jacob's sons would not have to scheme to get the upper hand that Jacob had done to his brother Esau. Instead, what God's going to do, He's not going to treat them all exactly the same, partly due to the way that they act, and we'll see more of that in Genesis. But He's going to use every one of Jacob's many sons to build the nation which had been promised to Abraham back in Genesis 12. They're all part of His plan. And this is important because, truthfully, God is still building this same people. He's still building it using sinful people. He's still doing it using sinful families. And He's doing this as work which will not be completed, finally, until we get to heaven. as we discover in the New Testament. We will refer back before we get done here this evening to that passage we read in Revelation chapter 7. So God built something beautiful out of this ugly scene. And as we come to the text now, here's one thing to remember. This text, again, describes something like an arms race as Jacob's women sought to have as many children as they could. So in order to wrap our minds around the progression of the text, we need to see that this competition really progresses through five rounds. Five rounds which we will identify as we move through the passage. Chronologically, some of these rounds may have overlapped with one another and probably did to some extent. But we're not given enough information to know where. And so, for ease of understanding, we're just going to treat them sequentially, as if they happened exactly in order, with no overlap, even though there probably was overlap. Round one. This is chapter 29, verses 31 through 35. And round one is about how God opens Leah's womb, but not Rachel. The competition begins with the pretty sad situation described in verse 31. When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. Just as Jacob's parents had had favorite children, so also Jacob had a favorite wife. And it was not Leah. The text tells us that in fact Jacob hated Leah. And we don't necessarily have to understand this to mean that he actively despised her. That's possible. And it may well be that he harbored negative feelings towards her after she was willing to go along with her father's trickery. But the real point here, and what we should at least conclude, is that he did not have the same love for Leah that he had for her sister. Whatever he felt towards Leah was hatred in comparison to the love that he had for Rachel. And that's a very sad set of circumstances. Leah had gone on with her father's plans, yes. She had participated in tricking Jacob, but Laban was the one who had actually orchestrated the whole thing. Leah had not intended to harm Jacob. She just wanted to be loved. She wanted to have children. She wanted to build a life. It was within the custom of their society, but No matter how good her intentions were, marriage had not changed Jacob's feelings towards her. When Jacob looked at Leah, what he saw was her inferiority to Rachel. Nevertheless, when God looked at Leah, he saw something different. God here, in verse 31, shows love towards the woman that Jacob left unloved. God had compassion on her. God opens her womb while Rachel remains barren. And that's the dynamic. If you want to understand why all of this is happening, here is the dynamic which drives the conflict in this whole passage that we have read. Leah can have children, but what she really wants is Jacob's love. Rachel has Jacob's love, but what she really wants is children. And thus the grass is greener for both women, and the two women go at each other because of their mutual envy. And this dynamic and the resulting conflict even rears its head in the way that the women name their children as we're about to see. First we come to Reuben in verse 32. Leah draws first blood by having Jacob's first son. It's a little boy named Reuben. And I'm not doing anything fancy here. If you have an ESV, maybe you have another translation that supplies footnotes. Those are going to help you here because these names all sound like something the women said when the child was born. Reuben's name means something like, see, a son. I don't know how creative that is, but that's what she names him. And when her firstborn arrives, she actively chalks it up to the care of the Lord. She believes that Yahweh has looked upon her affliction and has given her a gift, the gift of a child. She receives it gladly. She's glad to be a mother. But her real hope This is going to be more evident. Her real hope is that the birth of this child will lead not just to Yahweh looking at her, but to Jacob looking at her as well. Leah thinks that by bearing Jacob's children, which were so highly prized in the ancient world, rightly so, she thinks that by bearing these children, she will become precious in Jacob's society. Jacob will finally love her. But this is an expectation which is going to repeatedly leave Leah disappointed. Because after having Reuben, nothing changes. And so she has another son, verse 33, Simeon. The second son's name is Simeon, and that sounds like the Hebrew word for heard. Why? Because the God who had looked on Leah in her affliction has now heard that she was hated. Her husband is ignoring her. He does not appreciate her. He does not fill butterflies in his stomach for her when she comes in a room. But even if Jacob has largely ignored her, the Lord would not. And so he gives her a second son, which has got to stir Jacob's appreciation for her, right? Evidently not, because we come to the third son in verse 34. Leah is still seeking her husband's affection when she bears this third child whose name is Levi. And her explanation for that name can be found in this line, which is here in the text, which is really an embodiment of her wishful thinking. She says, and now this time my husband will be attached to me because I have born him three sons. Levi sounds like the Hebrew word for attached. And that's exactly how she hopes this little boy will cause Jacob to be towards her. Surely a woman so fruitful and abundant and blessed by God will be prized like a precious jewel by her husband. His attachment to her, he won't be able to resist that anymore. But his response, or lack thereof, seems to leave her hopes fading, and we see that when she names her fourth son. Verse 35, she names her fourth son without a reference to Jacob. His name is Judah, which sounds like one of the Hebrew words for praise. And Leah intends to praise the Lord and give thanks for the gift of a fourth child, because if Jacob will not give her what she longs for, then she will have to look to the Lord alone. She's going to have to look to the Lord alone. She says, this time, I will praise the Lord." Her husband had left her disappointed. Then she ceased bearing. In round one of the motherly arms race, Leah clearly comes out ahead. One after another, she bears four children for her husband. But tragically, her real desire, love from Jacob, remains unfulfilled. And it's worth reflecting and asking ourselves, how often do we resemble Leah? We fail to appreciate the rich blessings that the Lord has given us because our heart is too frequently consumed by whatever blessing He's not given us. We're discontented. We're dissatisfied. Not because everything is in shambles, though sometimes it may be, but we're discontented and dissatisfied because we have made an idol out of that one thing that we can't attain. We ignore everything else in pursuit of our precious. Gotta have her. That's not to say that what Leah desired was wrong. Jacob should have loved her. He owed her that. She was his wife. And likewise, many of the things that we desire, they're good and they're proper too. We should learn from Leah that the problem comes in when we refuse to be satisfied with what the Lord has seen fit to provide. And when we refuse to be satisfied with what the Lord has seen fit to provide, that becomes destructive. That becomes consuming. It grips our heart. It darkens our horizon. Life seems much worse than it probably is. Let us not walk the path of Leah and, as we're going to see, Rachel. We have to make a choice to hope in God and give thanks for what He does give, lest we fall into despair, as is Leah's case, or anger, as will be Rachel's case. And so we come actually to round two in chapter 30, verses 1 through 8, where Rachel offers a surrogate to Jacob in anger. That's the emotion she's going to feel because she's not gotten the one thing she wants. Leah was unloved, but fertile. And on the flip side, Rachel was loved, but infertile. And consequently, in verse 1 of chapter 30, we're told that when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, give me children or I shall die. Leah was depressed. Rachel's mad. She envied the children. Really, she envied her sister for the children that had been born to her husband. And so she takes it out on her husband. In the Old Testament, having children was seen as a sign of blessing. And so not having children was often interpreted as being under something of a curse. It was a frightful thing. Women were obsessed over procreating and it was viewed as a very tragic affair when a woman was barren. And Rachel is a clear-cut picture of that paradigm. The barren woman who feels as if she's under a curse and thus falls apart. She falls to pieces. She gives Jacob an ultimatum. Give me children or I shall die. Her heart was so set on what she didn't have. that she was prepared to die if she couldn't have it. She's mad. But understandably, I think, Rachel's anger is met by Jacob's anger. How dare Rachel put an ultimatum on him when he had no power to do anything about it? It's not as if he didn't love her. And so he responds, he says, am I in the place of God? He's the one who has withheld you from the fruit of the womb? We have an interesting contrast here. Because if you'll recall, Jacob's mother went through a long extended period of barrenness as well. And when she was barren, Jacob's father Isaac, what did he do? He prayed to the Lord for Rachel. He prayed to the Lord. for Rachel. Jacob doesn't pray. Maybe he did. We're not told he does, though. We were told that Isaac did. He doesn't pray, but he does appeal to God. He does appeal to God. He appeals to Him, not to ask His help, but to deflect blame. He opens and closes the womb, Rachel, not me. Blame Him. Don't be mad at me. And Rachel evidently accepts this answer. So she devises a workaround. She's not going to die. If she can't have a baby on her own, at least not right now, she will offer her female servant as a surrogate mother in her stead. Bilhah will serve as Jacob's concubine wife. Sharing the marriage bed without the full rights of a normal one. To be precise, she says that she wants Bilhah to bear a child on her behalf. Or there's actually a sort of a Hebrew saying here. She wants Bilhah to bear this child on her knees. Which is the more literal approach to the Hebrew. What she's saying there is after birth, the baby is to be placed not on Bilhah's lap, but on Rachel's lap. As if she were the mother. something like an adoption which is going on. It's going to be counted as Rachel's child. Bilhah would give birth and then the baby would be given to Rachel to raise as her own. That's Rachel's plan. And since he's already got two wives, Jacob does not object to this plan. He goes to Bilhah and she conceives and actually has two sons for Jacob. The first is Dan. This is verses 5 and 6 of chapter 30. The first son born of Bilhah is named Dan and his name resembles the Hebrew word judged because Rachel declares that God has judged me and has also heard my voice and given me a son. Now that sounds negative, but it's probably Rachel here is saying that God has judged in her favor. He's judged in her favor. She views Bilhah's baby as an indication that the Lord is responding to her desires for children. She thinks that God has given her a son through her servants. And so Rachel counts Bilhah's son Dan as her own. And then comes Naphtali in verses 7 and 8. Bilhah conceives and bears this second son. This one's named Naphtali. His name sounds like the word for wrestling. She believes that she's won the latest round of her wrestling match against Leah. the introduction of another son via Bilhash, here's what she says, with mighty wrestling I have wrestled with my sister and it prevailed. Notice that the servants are little more than pawns in the fight between the two sisters. In the girl's mind, and perhaps even in the legal mind of the day, Bill's children are Rachel's children on the scoreboard. They're wins for Rachel. And Zilpah's children are Leah's children on the scoreboard. They're wins for Leah. The feelings, the emotions, the desires of the servants, they don't enter in. This is about the two sisters. And these servants, sadly, are being used as pawns, as tools, as surrogates, and nothing more. And that's not going to stop as we come to round 3, chapter 30, verses 9-13. Rachel had offered Jacob a surrogate in anger, but now, round 3, Leah offers Jacob a surrogate in desperation. Leah sees what Rachel's done, and she figures what's good for the goose is good for the game. If Rachel is going to give Bilhud to Jacob, well then Leah's going to give Zilpah. Not to be outdone. And she deemed this as necessary because for some reason, we were told earlier at the end of chapter 29 that Leah ceased bearing for some time after the birth of Judah. It's hard to know for certain whether this was something physically wrong with her or whether Jacob simply was not spending time with her. Both are possibilities. But either way, she needed backup. Now, thinking on reflection, a bit of an odd strategy to introduce a fourth woman into the picture when you're seeking the love of a man. But that's what she does because she's desperate. And so the strategy quickly leads to two more children because the two from Bilhah are matched by two from Zilpah. First you have Gav. His name sounds like the word for good fortune. And Leah views the arrival of Jacob's Seventh, as a sign of good fortune for her. And Gad is paired with Asher, whose name means happy. Leah's happy. And Zilpah has given birth to a second boy that she can raise as her own. So she says, happy am I, for women have called me happy. And so round three, short and sweet. Out of it, out of this relationship, this physical relationship at least, between Jacob and Zilpah, we have Gad and Asher, who go on the scoreboard not for Zilpah, but for Leah. Then we really come to the biggest round of them all, which is round four. This is chapter 30, verses 14 through 21. This round, we might sum it up by saying that here, Rachel's going to make a deal to try to get ahead, but Leah's the one that bears again. Leah bears again. When we come to round four, the story is seemingly interrupted by a fight. A fight between Rachel and Leah. This gives us maybe a window into the contention that was going on in this household at this time. because here in these verses we have the description of an argument which they had over fruit. It's amazing what we can arguing fight over, this one was over fruit. At least that was the presenting reason for the argument. It obviously went much deeper than that because during the wheat harvest, Jacob's firstborn Reuben, he's grown some now, he's a boy and he's out in the field ostensibly participating in the harvest when he comes across some mandarins. Now, I don't believe I've eaten a lot of mandrakes myself, and so I'll give you a little bit description of them. Mandrakes are related to potatoes, I'm told. And they grow close to the ground like potatoes do, though not under the ground in that same way. The plant has wrinkly green leaves, and when they blossom, there's a small yellow fruit about the size of a cherry tomato that grows at the center. And that small fruit, that's the mandarin. or at least that's the part of the mandrake that you eat. They were rare in Mesopotamia, where Jacob was located at this time. They had a strong scent. It's mentioned in Song of Songs in a somewhat romantic setting. And one of the common superstitions of the day, it seems, was that mandrakes aided fertility, which probably helps to explain the big blow up over them. And so it goes a little deeper than who's going to get to eat this fruit after all. Anyways, Reuben found a bunch when he was in the field harvesting wheat, and he brought them in to share with his mother, Leah. But when Rachel sees them, she's suddenly in the sharing mood, and so she politely asks Leah, would you please give me some of your son's mandrakes? Surely Reuben won't mind. However, when Leah hears this request, she flies off the handle. It doesn't take much to set us off if the frustration has been building for some time, does it? Frustration grows and grows like a pile of kindling and then all it takes is one well-placed spark and everything is set ablaze and that's really what's happening here. Lee has been frustrated. And this request for mandrakes, it's the spark which sets her anger on fire. When Rachel asked for mandrakes, Leah says, is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? You know, when you hear that after a simple request, you know you've kind of stepped in it. And she has, she says, you've taken my husband, so you want the mandrakes too. You want to take the food off of our table. From Leah's perspective, she was first, regardless of how she became first. And Jacob was supposed to love her, but Rachel had ruined all of that. She'd taken all of that away. And to top it all off, she wanted to eat the mandrakes that her son had found. Rachel just cannot keep her hands off of Leah's stuff. That's how Leah feels anyways. But rather than fighting fire with fire, and there's, not that we're told anyways, no hair pulling, no scratching, none of that. Rachel tries to buy Leah off. If Rachel can have what she wants, if she can have some of those mandrakes, well Leah can have what she wants. Evidently Jacob hadn't been spending too much time with Leah. He'd been spending time with the one that he loved. And so Rachel proposes a trade. Reuben's mandrakes for a night with Jacob. Now that's a wicked way to approach things. But Leah does not hesitate to accept this bargain. She doesn't even wait for Jacob to get home. She goes out to meet him on his way from the field. And here's what she says. You must come into me for I have hired you with my son's man's race. You see just how transactional and mercenary this arms race has become by around four. It's wicked. Jacob's wives have devolved to the point that they are willing to treat his time like a commodity which can be bought and sold. And I think this is a good reminder that sin hardens us. Sinning deadens our sensitivity to sinning more. It calluses our conscience. And really it, I think in a way, makes us less human when we continually give ourself to sin, because we were made to obey, not to rebel. And at this point, as one commentator put it, Rachel and Leah had gotten to the point, they were so deep in their sin and their pride and their selfishness, their idolatry, they'd gotten to the point that they were treating Jacob like a breeding stud. And that goes to show us that the longer that we harbor sin in our heart, The less human we act, at least as those made in God's image, and the less humanely we treat others, we begin to resemble animals with their base instincts rather than creatures made in the image of the Lord. Continue feeding your sin. Continue nursing your resentment and your envy and your greed and your fill in the blank. This is what you become. Someone who's willing to do things that, from an outsider's perspective, are unimaginable. But again, Jacob evidently does not mind too much. He spends the night with Leah. And God listens to the desires of Leah's heart. He allows her to conceive again. There's no sign that the mandrakes had anything to do with her success. We're told that God hears her. That's why she conceives. God's blessing is what matters. And therefore, at this point, she bears three children in succession. First, we have Issachar in verses 17 and 18. His name sounds like wages. Now, God may not have seen it this way, but here's how Leah saw it. Leah saw it like this. This boy was her wages for being generous enough to give her servant Zilpah to Jacob. This was her reward. God probably didn't see it that way. I don't think so. But that's how she saw it. So she names the boy Issachar. Then comes Zebulun, verses 19 and 20. His name sounds like the word for honor. And here's what she has to say about him. God has endowed me with a good endowment. Now my husband will honor me because I have born him six sons. God's endowed her with a good endowment. She believes that Jacob will surely honor her now, and so she names the boy Zebulun from the word honor. And then something strange happens in verse 21. Something, well, maybe not strange, interesting. Maybe it's strange that it's not happened until now. Because what happens next is that finally a girl enters the picture. Leah's seventh child is a girl named Dinah. Nothing is said about her name. And nothing is said about Leah's feelings at her birth. And so you sort of get the sense that at this point, she's peripheral to the story that's being told. But she's included here still for probably two reasons. For one thing, she's going to play a major role in a story which we're going to hear in chapter 34. And so we need to know about her now and her relation to her siblings. And for another thing, she is going to bring Jacob's total descendants to 12. in Mesopotamia. He's not yet going to have 12 sons, but he will depart from this land with 12 children as the diner kind of stands in for Benjamin, who will be born after the return to Canaan. But for now, a diner wraps up round four. And at the end of this round, let's take the score. Leah has seven children of her own, two adopted through Zilpah, nine. And Rachel has two, not her own, adopted through Bilhah. But that's going to change as we come to round five, which is verses 22 through 24 of chapter 30, where God remembers Rachel and finally grants her a son. In His mercy, God finally gives to Rachel the thing that she had perpetually dreamt of. The text tells us in verse 22 that God remembers Rachel and He listens to her and He opens her womb. Once again, please note Regardless of the superstitions of the day, it's not the mandrakes that make the difference. It's the Lord and time. Now he remembers her and now he opens her womb. The note that God remembered Rachel does not mean that he had forgotten her. This is one of those things that we talk about anthropomorphism or an anthropopathism, meaning that God is described in the Bible in human ways. We forget things and remember things. God does not forget and remember, but when we're told that God remembers it, it does tell us something true, it reveals something true to us about God. And what does that reveal to us here? When we're told in the Old Testament that God remembers someone, it's often describing that moment at which God delivers his servant from a long and grievous trial, out of his sense of steadfast love. Here's a well-known example. Think back, if you can, it's been a long time now, on the way that God remembered Noah. That's the beginning of chapter 8, and that's really the turning point in the flood story. God remembers Noah and the flood begins to roll back. That's the point at which God looks on his servant, remembers his covenant, his covenant promises and applies his love and therefore delivers them from their trial. So God had remembered Rachel now and the day had arrived on God's calendar for her to conceive and bear a son. And that son comes in the form of Joseph. And when Joseph is born, Rachel exclaims, God has taken Weigh my reproach. Again, remember, there's this belief in the Old Testament, and sometimes it's true. It's one of those things where it's hard because sometimes it's true, sometimes it's not. Because think of the book of Deuteronomy. Sometimes barrenness was a curse within that covenantal context, but not always. Not always. It's dangerous to read into that. But Rachel believes that the reproach, the curse has been rolled away. So she feels that the Lord has opened a new door for her, and so she expresses her wish for another son, saying, may the Lord add to me another. So appropriately then, the boy is named Joseph, which means may he add, and which sounds like taken away. This name does double duty here. And with Joseph, with Rachel's child, now that the Lord has remembered her, the family is complete for now. And as we'll see next week, Lord willing, it is from this point forward that Jacob is going to set his sights on a return to Canaan. God has given him the wife. He's given him the children. All the building blocks are in place for God to do all that stuff in regards to inheriting the land and making him a nation within that land. And so he's ready to go home. He's ready to go home. Now that the Lord has remembered Rachel. Good news. that the Lord remembers his servants, that the Lord does not forget us. Even when he allows us to go through many years of heartbreaking grief, the Lord does remember us and he will deliver us, whether in this lifetime or in eternity. He will not let our pain go on forever. And Rachel's story is a reminder that that is so. Now, at the end of this story, what should we be struck by? Well, there's a number of things we should be struck by, but here's what I want to focus on tonight as we close. While the members of Jacob's household had not acted nobly at all times, far from it, God was, during this period, exceedingly kind to them. You can pick a number of points in this story where you think, well, God should have brought the hammer down. He doesn't do it though. He doesn't do it though. In accordance with his covenant promises, he determined to bless a very messed up household. Jacob sinned by taking so many wives and then treating them in an unloving way. The women sinned in their anger and in their envy and in their backbiting, their idolatry even. And if anything like this, even anything coming close to this happened among God's people today, we would be appalled. we would be appalled. But God graciously uses this outwardly appalling period in the life of the patriarch Jacob to build a nation for himself. These sons will become the bedrock of Israel. Right here you have the building blocks for the rest of the Old Testament. And the Lord is going to use these sons to set them apart for his own purposes, and he's going to grant to them, collectively, the covenant inheritance. He's going to grant the covenant to the people as a whole, rather than to a single individual. That's going to be a change. As God is finally ready to widen the circle of his covenant arrangement. And in reality, it is this family to which we are added when we come to faith in Jesus Christ today. What's happening here is, from a certain perspective, simply a continuation of what happens here in the text. Jesus descended from this family, and he is redeeming a people still, the church, which stands today as the fulfillment of Old Testament Israel, the fulfillment of his work among the twelve tribes coming from these twelve sons. Now is the time to think again of our New Testament reading from Revelation chapter 7. In Revelation chapter 7, what did we see? Well, we read first of how John heard a voice. He heard a voice announcing the number of those who would be sealed from among the tribes of Israel before the judgment came. And the list there substantially overlaps with the list of the sons in this chapter. There's a couple of tweaks, and those tweaks will be better understood as we progress through Genesis and see the introduction of Manasseh and Ephraim and things of that nature. But what I want you to know for now is that John hears the announcement that 144,000 are sealed from the judgment, 12 times 12 times 1,000 or 12,000 from each trough. That's what he hears. But then he looks up. Let's read. And we'll read the whole list. 12,000 from all the tribes. That's what he hears. And then, verse 9. After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude. Behold a great multitude that no one can number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. He hears 12,000 from each tribe, and then that's what he sees. This is debated, but I think this is pretty clear. You see, the point is not that these are two hermetically sealed groups which remain sealed in eternity. The point, actually, is that they are one and the same. They are one and the same. John hears of the redemption of Israel. All these people from these 12 tribes, 144,000. I think that's very clearly a symbolic number. 12 tribes, 12 times 12 times 1,000. You have this picture of the perfected people of God. He hears of the redemption of Israel, and what he sees is the church in its completion. He hears of the redemption of Israel, and he sees the church in its completion. And so here's the upshot. If you are sinful and imperfect, and you are, you can, if you believe this, take heart because by faith in Jesus Christ, what Revelation chapter 7 is showing you is that you too, no matter your tribe, your tongue, or your nation, you too can be joined to spiritual Israel, the church which has descended in the fullness of time in the plan of God from the 12 tribes. The Gentiles have been brought in. They've been grafted in. And they join in the worship around the throne. They're the ones who have passed through the tribulation of this world into the heavenly rest and paradise above. And so you can be joined to this people because Jacob was not perfect. His wives were not perfect. We're going to learn this. His sons definitely weren't perfect. But a perfect God chose to extend His mercy to their family and to other imperfect people who looked to Jesus. The consummate Israelite. And therefore, if you have sin in your life, And as we've made some notes along the way, I think you'll if you really reflect on yourself, you'll realize you have some of those sins like Jacob and like Leah and like Rachel. You have that in your life. If you've not kept God's law perfectly, even mistreating those that you love the most or ought to love the most. And the good news of this text is that you can look to Jesus Christ, the descendant of Jacob through Judah, who continues to multiply the number of God's people. You too. You, too, can be a redeemed sinner from a messed up family. And frankly, the Lord can redeem your family, too, so don't give up. Continue to pray, because if you were going to give up on a family, you might give up on this one. The Lord didn't. The Lord used it. And so listen to the words of the Apostle Paul from Ephesians, chapter two, verses 19 through 21. This is the good news for Jew and Gentile alike. And he says it specifically to Gentile Christians, among which we are numbered. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. If you're in Christ, you are a part of this household which was formed so long ago, and God dwells in your midst. You're numbered among the 12,000 times 12,000. The Lord seals you, you are his, and you will stand among the great multitude who stand around the throne, saying, salvation is from the Lord. Glory be to God and to the Lamb. So seek his grace, seek his face, and give him thanks for the work that he is doing among us. Though we be very sinful, like our forefathers in the faith.