So pay careful attention now to God's word in Genesis chapter 31 beginning in verse 1. Now Jacob heard that the sons of Laban were saying, Jacob has taken all that was our father's, and from what was our father's he has gained all this wealth. And Jacob saw that Laban did not regard him with favor as before. Then the Lord said to Jacob, Return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you." So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah into the field where his flock was, and said to them, I see that your father does not regard me with favor as he did before, but the God of my father has been with me. You know that I have served your father with all my strength, yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times. God did not permit him to harm me. If he said, The spotted shall be your wages, then all the flock bore spotted. And if he said, The striped shall be your wages, then all the flock bore striped. Thus God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me. In the breeding season of the flock I lifted up my eyes and saw in a dream that the goats that mated with the flock were striped, spotted, and modeled. Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, Jacob, And I said, Here I am. And he said, Lift up your eyes and see. All the goats that mate with the flock are striped, spotted, and modeled. For I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me. Now arise, go out from this land, and return to the land of your kindred. Then Rachel and Leah answered and said to him, Is there any portion or inheritance left to us in our Father's house? Are we not regarded by Him as foreigners? For He has sold us, and He has indeed devoured our money. All the wealth that God has taken away from our Father belongs to us and to our children. Now then, whatever God has said to you, do. So Jacob arose and set his sons and his wives on camels. He drove away all his livestock, all his property that he had gained, the livestock and his possessions that he had acquired in Paddan Aram, to go to the land of Canaan to his father Isaac. Laban had gone to shear his sheep, and Rachel stole her father's household gods. And Jacob tricked Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he intended to flee. He fled with all that he had, and arose and crossed the Euphrates, and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead. When it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob had fled, he took his kinsmen with him, and pursued him for seven days, and followed close after him into the hill country of Gilead. But God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream by night, and said to him, Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad. And Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban with his kinsmen pitched tents in the hill country of Gilead. And Laban said to Jacob, What have you done, that you have tricked me and driven away my daughters like captives of the sword? Why did you flee secretly and trick me, and did not tell me, so that I might have sent you away with mirth and songs, with tambourine and lyre? And why did you not permit me to kiss my sons and my daughters farewell? Now you have done foolishly. It is in my power to do you harm. But the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad. And now you have gone away because you longed greatly for your father's house. But why did you steal my gods? Jacob answered and said to Laban, because I was afraid, for I thought that you would take your daughters from me by force. Anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live. In the presence of our kinsmen, point out what I have that is yours, and take it." Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them. So Laban went into Jacob's tent, and into Leah's tent, and into the tent of the two female servants, but he did not find them. And he went out of Leah's tent and entered Rachel's. Now Rachel had taken the household gods and put them in the camel's saddle and sat on them. Laban felt all about the tent, but he did not find them. And she said to her father, Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the way of women is upon me. So he searched, but did not find the household gods. Then Jacob became angry and berated Laban. Jacob said to Laban, What is my offense? What is my sin that you have hotly pursued me? For you have felt through all my goods. What have you found of all your household goods? Set it here before my kinsmen and your kinsmen that they may decide between us two. These 20 years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried. And I have not eaten the rams of your flocks. What was torn by wild beasts, I did not bring to you. I bore the loss of it myself. From my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. There I was. By day the heat consumed me and the cold by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes. These twenty years I have been in your house, served you fourteen years for your two daughters, six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. The God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac had not been on my side. Surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God saw my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night. Then Laban answered and said to Jacob, The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine. But what can I do this day for these my daughters, or for their children whom they have borne? Come now, let us make a covenant, you and I, and let it be a witness between you and me." So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar. And Jacob said to his kinsmen, Gather stones. And they took stones and made a heap, and they ate there by the heap. Laban called it Yegar Sahaduthah. But Jacob called it Galid. Laban said, this heap is a witness between you and me today. Therefore he named it Galid and Mizba. For he said, the Lord watched between you and me when we are out of one another's sight. If you oppress my daughters, or if you take wives besides my daughters, although no one is with us, see, God is a witness between you and me. Then Laban said to Jacob, See, this heap and the pillar which I have set between you and me, this heap is a witness, and the pillar is a witness, that I will not pass over this heap to you, and you will not pass over this heap and this pillar to me to do harm. The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judged between us. So Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac. And Jacob offered a sacrifice in the hill country, and called his kinsmen to eat bread. They ate bread and spent the night in the hill country. Early in the morning Laban arose, and kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them. Then Laban departed and returned home. This concludes our reading in God's Word. Let's ask His blessing. Lord, we pray tonight, having read this lengthy passage, that you would help us to grasp its significance, to heed its truth, and to give praise to you in response. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Sometimes we vastly underestimate, don't we, how long a project is going to take us. Whether you're talking about assembling furniture, or fixing a car, or just cleaning the house, we've all known, haven't we, the frustration of something taking far longer than we figured that it should. I can speak from experience. This has happened to me repeatedly in the last couple of months as we've tried to put together furniture and things of that nature after the movie. It can be frustrating when you think something's going to be quick and it takes a long time. But if we get frustrated when 30-minute projects turn into three-hour projects, then it's difficult to fathom how frustrated Jacob must have felt, trapped in the household of his father-in-law, Laban. When his mother Rebecca made plans for him to travel to Paddan Aram and to take a wife, she figured, if you look back at her words, that it would be a short while, just a few days, long enough to locate a bride, allow his brother Esau's anger to cool, and make the trip back home. But when Genesis 31 opens, It has been 20 years since Jacob has left Canaan. That's a point which he's going to emphasize in his speeches later in this chapter. Because a short excursion into Mesopotamia has evolved into a significant portion of Jacob's life. He served 14 years for the two women and 6 years for the flock. But in all that time, God has not forgotten Jacob. He's been with Him all along. As we observed last week, God has provided for His own. That's what He does. In the life of the patriarch, that provision came in the form of 12 children and a growing collection of speckled, spotted, and striped goats and sheep. At every point, Jacob has been cheated by Laban who has tried to take away from him and God has used those circumstances to fill his coffers further. The relationship between the two men was tense but it was bearable because God was blessing him. Nevertheless, Jacob was not to bear up under the weight of this relationship forever. Abbas was the plan all along. He was to go back home to his family and to bring his flocks with him where he would come into possession of his real inheritance. But for that to take place, God would have to make a way and protect Jacob, which is exactly what we find taking place in this account. Now this is a longer chapter, maybe you noticed. So we're not going to have an opportunity to address every single detail within the text. But we do want to take in the overarching shape of God's protection of Jacob as he begins the long trek back to Canaan in secret. And to see it clearly, we need to note the presence of three main chunks in the chapter. Amid all the fascinating details, there are really three events which move the story along towards its conclusion. First, Jacob plans a road trip, verses 1-16. Second, Jacob faces a roadblock, verses 17-42. And third, the Lord clears the way in verses 43-55. So Jacob plans a road trip, he faces a roadblock, and then the Lord clears the way for him. First of all, Jacob plans a road trip in verses 1-16. Now, verses 1-3 in this section show us that after God abundantly blessed Jacob's selective breeding scheme, he had all of these striped, speckled, and spotted animals, Laban's own sons, they took notice and they began to grow up. They felt as if the prosperity of Jacob represented their own impoverishment. Whatever he had was taken away from them. Animals which should have belonged to their father, which would have become their inheritance, they were now being claimed by their brother-in-law. And it wasn't just Laban's sons who were beginning to chafe at how things had turned out. In their dealings together, Jacob was realizing that his father-in-law did not regard him with the same favor as he had before. If Laban's prior actions reflected favor towards Jacob, which is interesting, then his new attitude must have been really cold, because he's not treated him very nicely to begin with. But before the men can come to bitter blows, the Lord here in the text intervenes. As he had done in the past at various points in the lives of the patriarchs, the Lord comes forth, he speaks to his servant, and he gives him marching orders. With two full decades in Paddan Aram, in the rearview mirror, it was time for Jacob to return to the land of Abraham and Isaac. That's exactly what he had wanted since Joseph was born to Rachel. But the prospect of actually packing up, the prospect of actually moving may have been intimidating. It probably was. Think about the challenges which Jacob faced. He had left Canaan empty-handed. But he would return with a quite large family which presented all sorts of logistical hurdles and increased responsibilities. Add to this the fact that his father-in-law was constantly pressuring him to remain. And then finally there was still the unresolved matter of his dispute with Esau. And so knowing all of these potential hazards that accompanied a return journey, the Lord speaks to comfort and encourage Jacob, saying to him, by way of promise, I will be with you. You can do this. I'll be with you. In all of his years away, Jacob had never been alone. And the Lord was not going to leave him now. Is it not a privilege to serve a God who says to his servants, I will be with you? And he can say it in a way that only an omnipresent, everywhere present God can say to each and every one of his servants, I will be with you wherever you're at. I'm there. I'm present. Jesus utters these same words to his disciples prior to his ascent to heaven, like in Matthew chapter 28, 20, where he says to them, I'm with you always. the end of the age. That's good news and the knowledge of God's presence was supposed to increase Jacob's faith and his confidence and likewise it should increase our faith and confidence as well as we seek to live for Jesus here before his face. And Jacob would need this faith and confidence because freeing himself from his father-in-law's grip was not going to be an easy task. That's why the next section of the story in verses 4-16 relates to us a conversation which Jacob had with Rachel and Leah in secret. The two women we know, they've warred against each other in the past. They've not always had a good relationship. But planning a road trip back to Canaan would require everyone getting on the same page. So Jacob takes the two women out into a field among the flocks so that they can speak privately. And then he begins to paint a picture of their current living situation as he sees it. He begins to tell them something that they may have already noticed on their own. Laban is not being quite so friendly with Jacob as he has been in the past, which is really saying something. But God has been with Jacob, has served Laban with all of his might, even as Laban has changed Jacob's wages repeatedly, even as he has cheated him, even as he has worked him like a slave. Jacob, whose faith is growing, sees that even through all of the mistreatment, it was the Lord who had been protecting him from harm. And thus, in this pivotal moment in verses 8-12, the patriarch attributes all of his breeding success to the Lord. He recognizes that it was not ultimately his little stick trick that caused things to turn out as they have turned out. If Laban tried to give Jacob only the spotted animals, then all the animals were spotted. If Laban tried to give him only the striped animals, they were all striped. No matter how Laban schemed it out, it was God who was busy taking away his livestock and giving them to Jacob. God had even, we're told, come to Jacob in a dream where he saw striped, spotted, and mottled animals mating. And the angel of God, the pre-incarnate Christ, explained to Jacob that these animals were being divinely provided to him because he had seen what Laban was doing. And the Lord would not allow his covenant servant to be left with nothing. But that's not all he heard in his dream. He also heard the words recorded in verse 13. I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me. Now arise, go out from this land, and return to the land of your kindred. The one who had revealed himself to Jacob at the top of that ladder in that dream at Bethel, promising safe return to Canaan. The one who had now revealed himself as Jacob's protector and giver of gifts. He was now calling Jacob home. It's time to go. The question which remained, and this is what he's getting at here, was, are Rachel and Leah coming with me? Are they going to choose me or are they going to choose their father? They're going to have to choose. Unfortunately, Jacob's road trip pitch to leave their home place and travel back to Canaan, it's persuasive. The women are going to go with their husband and it mustn't have taken too much convincing because Laban's girls realize that they're victims in this whole thing too. Here's what they say, is there any portion or inheritance left to us in our father's house? Are we not regarded by him as foreigners? For he has sold us, and he has indeed devoured our money. All the wealth that God has taken away from our father belongs to us and to our children. Now then, whatever God has said you do. Laban had offered, when Jacob first told him that he wanted to go home, he had offered no further dowry, no inheritance with which to send his daughters off when Jacob was ready to depart. And then, He tried to cheat Jacob out of what little he had agreed to pay him by removing the striped and speckled and spotted fruit from the flock. Laban had treated his daughters more like foreigners than family. Thus I see the divine redistribution of wealth which was going on. They viewed that as a gift and a sign from God. Think about Ruth many years later. What they do here is similar to what Ruth would do. They're going to side with the Lord and they're going to go with his servant, even if it carries them to foreign land that they've never been to before. You see, at this point in the Jacob story, the big Jacob story, he and his wives remain sinners with failures and sins to work through. But their conversation here in chapter 31 does speak to a faith in God as one who promises to provide for and protect his own. Rachel and Leah, they are ready to say goodbye to their family in the expectation that Yahweh, who had been with their husband through thick and thin, would care for them as well. Congregation, if our trying God has worked faith in you, calling you to Himself, then you have been granted, like Rachel and Leah here, the privilege of serving one who can pay back whatever this world takes from us. The Lord owns everything, and so He is more than capable of giving whatever is lost to you. This moment, Jacob, Rachel, and Leah believe that. However, there was still trouble on the horizon for Jacob, because he faces a roadblock in verses 17 through 42. With Leah and Rachel in agreement that leaving is the right thing to do, Jacob quickly commences to getting a caravan together. They're all going to head back. One big happy family with all their belongings and all their sheep. He puts his wives, his children on camels so that they could make haste if need be. He gathers all of his livestock. He's going to drive them towards greener pastures. And he loads up all the property that he's acquired over 20 years. And they set out. The road trip has commenced. That raises the question, Laban has been such a micromanager up to this point, how had they been able to get out without any trouble? Well, Jacob, as we see here in the text, he had acted very shrewdly. He had timed their flight from Paddan Aram to coincide with the yearly shearing of the sheep. which would have required Laban and all of his sons to get together for what was really a festive and attention-demanding occasion. This was something big you circled on the calendar. So they were distracted. They weren't thinking about Jacob and his wives at this point. And so Jacob and his family sets off at that point. However, when they leave, we're told that Rachel pockets some of her father's things, specifically his household gods. And doing that ensures, as we're going to see, that the rage which he was already going to feel, that was inevitable, but it ensures that his rage was going to burn hot. He was going to be extremely upset, to put it mildly. And for this reason, because they left during the sheep shearing without notice, verse 20 concludes that Jacob tricked Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he intended to flee. In the battle of the tricksters, the younger man has beaten the master. He has gotten in the last blow in tricking Laban. And so the caravan they make, hey, while the sun's still shining, and they cross the Euphrates, which takes them out of Mesopotamia. They're headed to the land of Gilead, which is just beyond the Jordan from the perspective of Canaan. They're really doing this. They've made their break for it. And when Laban finally realizes that his son-in-law had secretly slipped out of reach, he gathers up a posse of his kinfolk to track them down. If they wanted to take a road trip without his knowledge, he was happy to be the roadblock. And so they pursue this caravan all the way to Gilead, where they catch up with Jacob and his family. It's not hard to understand how they could have done this. A posse composed of grown men could move a lot quicker than a caravan full of small children and animals. So Jacob and his folks would have been moving pretty slowly, whereas Laban could have reacted quickly. But before Laban could actually reach Jacob, he too heard from the Lord in a dream. God came to him in a dream as Jacob's protector, and here's what he said. Be careful not to say anything to Jacob either good or bad. Now Laban's going to have quite a bit to say actually, unfortunately. But I think it's still fair to say that this vision has a restraining effect on him. And we'll see how that happens later on. He believes that he's in a position to hurt Jacob, but he doesn't because the Lord has warned him. And when Laban finds his son-in-law he confronts him and he paints him in the worst possible light. We have here in this portion of the chapter some of the longest speeches in the entirety of the book of Genesis. In verses 26 and 27 Laban portrays Jacob as a kidnapper who has tricked him and convinced his daughters to leave with threats of violence. Surely that's the only way they would have agreed to done it. He's driven them away at the edge of the sword. If Jacob was an honest man and he wanted to leave, all he had to do was say so. That's all you had to do. You just had to tell him. Laban says, I would have thrown you a party. Big, growing-away party. It's like those ice cream sundaes tonight. It would have been a great time. He would have kissed his children, given them a proper send-off, and they would have all smiled as they partied. But Laban says, well, you had to go act like a fool. and take them out in secret. Obviously, Laban is angry and so he insinuates violence against his son-in-law. He says, it's in my power to do you harm. As we've just mentioned a moment ago, he admits that Jacob's God has warned him not to exercise that power. And it's the mention of Jacob's God that reminds Laban of his second complaint against his son-in-law. Not only had Jacob tricked him and ran away to his father's house, he had also stolen, for some reason, Laban's household gods. Now this is the first time Jacob has heard of any theft. He has an answer for the accusation of trickery. He had done it out of fear. thinking that Laban would not allow Leah and Rachel to leave if he knew that was their intention. And who could blame Jacob for thinking that? His hypothetical, that they would be trapped, was probably a lot closer to reality than Laban's hypothetical of throwing a big celebratory party. That was not likely. And so Jacob seeks to justify his actions in tricking his father-in-law. But as for the charge of stealing household gods, Jacob has no answer to that because he didn't take them. He says to Laban, in fact, anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live in the presence of your kinsmen. Point out what I've taken and take it. Now we don't know a whole lot about these household gods. And there are competing hypotheses as to why Rachel would have taken them. It may have been that Rachel at this point was retaining some of her old superstitions. She might have thought that these things were good luck, that it would help them on their journey. She might have thought, we've been told in the past that Laban had divined things, so she might have thought that he could use these household gods to divine their location. Or it may simply have been that these little idols, which were made out of precious metal, were some of the costliest items in Laban's household. If he wasn't going to give her an inheritance, well, she would take one. Regardless of her motivation, when Jacob promises death for whoever is found with the idols, he does this not knowing that his beloved Rachel was the one who had took them. All those years, Jacob had worked for the right to marry her, and he's just unknowingly pronounced the death penalty over her. Rachel has played a trick of her own. Laban has been given permission by Jacob to search his tent. And so he does that. He searches Jacob's tent. He searches Leah's tent. He searches Bilhah's tent. He searches Zilpah's tent. He scours them all. He finds nothing. But when he leaves Leah's tent, he enters the tent of his youngest daughter, Rachel. And at this point in the story, if you don't already know, it seems as if he's going to find these household gods. She's going to die. But Rachel, Well, maybe you might say she's learned some tricks of the trade from her husband, who has tricked his fair share of folks. And so she has concealed these household gods in the saddle which was on her camel. So when Laban goes in and feels around her tent, he finds nothing. And she has a readied excuse that were sure to keep him from the saddle. She says, let not my Lord be angry that I cannot rise before you for the way of women is upon me. In other words, Rachel is menstruating and she can't get up. Plus there were matters of ritual cleanness, which would have kept him away from her. And so while this may strike us as somewhat crass, Not the only thing in the Bible that might strike us as somewhat crass. It works. The ruse works. And I think we can say, actually, that the Lord uses these events to protect Jacob and his family against all the odds. There's nothing in the text, to be clear, which condones Rachel's theft of the household of gods. However, neither does the text condone Laban's greedy search for false idols. He is thwarted and his gods are mocked and shown to be nothing while Jacob's god stays Laban's hand. And as such, this passage, as we see this somewhat humorously playing out, it ought to elevate our thoughts of God's glory and his supremacy. Because the alternative gods of this world, whatever form they may take, one of the points that this passage is making, I do believe, is that those false gods are of no more worth than minstrel rags. Frankly, Laban served all sorts of these gods. Is there any doubt that he idolized his riches? His greed and his covetousness, those are the motivations which have caused him to run roughshod over his whole family. These liberal idols which have been stolen are just the physical manifestations of a mindset set on stuff rather than the one true God. Laban had spent, if we think back to that passage we read earlier from the Gospel of Luke, we might put it this way. Laban had spent his life building his barns, so to speak. He was desirous of having ample goods laid up for many years. He wanted to be able to relax, eat, drink, and be merry. But he had thought little. even though he had been with Jacob, the servant of the Lord. He had thought little for the soul which would be required of him one day, and so he had spent all of his energy laying up treasure for himself, but he was not rich towards God. And the result, as we see here in Genesis 31, is that he is humiliated, and just as Jesus in a parable says, God says to such a person, fool! So Laban here is left looking like a fool, tricked by his own daughter, who had quite plainly desecrated his gods. And so here in Genesis 31, we find a warning to forsake all idols, everything which competes for our supreme allegiance, lest we be left looking like a fool, like Laban. He was a fool. He looked like a fool. His gods were disgraced. And the same thing will happen to any of us whose loyalty lies with someone other than somewhere other than with the God of the Bible. We must commit ourselves to him when anything else becomes supreme in our lives. We become fools who are building barns that will not keep. To store treasures that will not last. Forsaking a salvation which cannot be taken away. That's where Laban's at, and that's where we may be at if we do not cling to Christ. But Laban's soul has not been required of him yet. So feeling vindicated against the accusation of theft, Jacob finally, this is 20 years in the making, he finally lets loose on his father-in-law. He's angry, he berates him, he gives him a piece of his mind. He says, what is my offense? What is my sin that you have hotly pursued me? For you have felt through all my goods. What have you found? Nothing. Laban had made big accusations. He had been given a chance to prosecute those accusations. There is nothing to show for it. This was just another example, Jacob is saying, of 20 years of mistreatment. Jacob had broken his back for Laban, giving his best effort as a shepherd and as a herdsman. He was even willing, he says, to bear the losses of animals under his watch, which was unusual. The law of Moses would not require restitution for animals that were maimed or killed by other animals. But Jacob did just that for Laban. Hot days, cold nights, sleepless tossing, Jacob had faced it all without complaint. But now he has a complaint. And he sums that complaint up in verses 41 and 42. He had served 20 years. 14 for the girls, 6 for the flocks, and Laban had tried to change his wages time and time again. He had tried to shoot him. He would have been done for. if it had not been for God who was protecting him. He says in verse 42, if the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac had not been on my side, surely you would have sent me away empty handed. He doesn't believe the party line. God saw my affliction and the labors of my hands and rebuked you last night. Many years earlier, a servant had come and dealt with Laban. We read about that. It was the servant of Abraham seeking a wife for Isaac, and he had done that with success. When Jacob came, Laban saw an opportunity and he decided that he was not going to let Jacob leave as easily as Abraham's servant. But now the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, whom Jacob calls the Fear of Isaac, has been on Jacob's side, and he has kept him from fainting under oppression. And so he clings to the fear of Isaac. Why the fear of Isaac? That's a funny way of referring to God, isn't it? Well, there's a couple of ways of coming at this. I think Isaac had feared the Lord with reverential fear, but also Yahweh had caused those who were against Isaac and against his household to tremble. And that had happened to Laban, who encountered the fear of Isaac in a dream. Folks, don't you see how God protects His people? The Lord was protecting Jacob. Evil people, wicked men, they plot in secret. They think that nobody's watching when they lie and they defraud and they take advantage of others. But God sees. And when mistreatment comes to his own, he protects and he avenges, whether he avenges now or on the day of judgment. The fear of Isaac has not missed mistreatment which has been applied to you. And therefore, we ought like Jacob to entrust ourselves, we ought to entrust ourselves to the God of Jacob. He is a refuge and a shield to those who turn to him. That is one of the primary lessons of this chapter. In the fullness of time, Jesus Christ, that descendant of Jacob, suffer on the cross and die. He rose from the dead. He ascended to heaven. He will come again to destroy his enemies and wreak that vengeance upon those who have done wrong. And if we are united to him by faith, then we know that the God who was on Jacob's side is on our side as well. If we're in Jesus Christ, the Lord treats us not as enemies, but as friends. And those who take refuge in God through Christ will not be struck down when he returns, but they will be preserved just as Jacob was preserved during his time with Laban. And so Laban tried to throw up a roadblock. The Lord's going to clear the way, as we see in verses 43 through 55, moving quickly here towards the close. As this chapter begins to wind down, Laban never cedes the argument to his son-in-law. He still feels that the daughters are his daughters, their children are his children, Jacob's flocks, all of his possessions, that all ought to belong to him. In his mind, Jacob is nothing but a scoundrel and a thief, an ingrate. But what can be done about it? All he can try to do is to make peace for the sake of his daughters. So God clears here a way for Jacob. But he does not do it by changing Laban's heart. He does it by causing Laban to give up and get out of the way. To save face here, Laban initiates covenant proceedings with his son-in-law. They're going to set up stones to mark the occasion, and they're going to come to a mutual understanding so as not to come to blows. But if you read the text, some of the details are somewhat confusing, but the understanding is not all that mutual, after all. They don't agree on the names of the monuments, nor do they view them in precisely the same way, but they do But they do agree enough to walk away. Jacob sets up a stone, we're told, as he had done in Bethel, as a pillar. Laban's folks, they pile up a bunch of rocks in a heap. Laban calls the place Yehgarsahaduth, which means heap of witness in Aramaic. Jacob calls the place Gilead, which means heap of witness in Hebrew. According to Laban, the heap is a witness and a watch post, hence the alternate name Mispah, so that the God who had warned him in a dream would watch Jacob and ensure that he not oppress Rachel or Leah or take other wives, which is an ironic request from a man who had caused Jacob to take two wives against his will. But while Laban uses the setting of these monuments to get on his high horse and pretend that he's a good father, The second meaning assigned to the covenant is surely agreeable to everybody. This pillar and this heap is a boundary line. Laban's not going to cross it to do ill to Jacob, and Jacob's not going to cross it to do ill to Laban. This is a peace treaty. And this covenant agreement is formed in the sight of God. Laban's a polytheist. He's a pagan. But he comes on to common ground and he ropes Jacob's God into the swearing. He says, the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us. And Jacob agrees. We read in verses 53 to 54, so Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac. And Jacob offered a sacrifice in the hill country and called his kinsmen to eat bread. They ate bread and spent the night in the hill country. Like so many covenant arrangements in the Bible, the deal is sealed with a meal, which signified their agreement and their fellowship within the bounds of the covenant. And then in verse 55, Laban gets up in the morning, he kisses his family goodbye, and he goes home. As far as the Bible informs us, Jacob never sees Laban again. Good riddance. Right? He's gone for good. God has moved the roadblock. He's cleared the way back to Canaan. And Jacob has been set free. The Lord has liberated his servant from virtual bondage to his father-in-law. And now he can press on in service to the Lord. Congregation, this is a story of God's protection. He protects his servant Jacob. He frees him from the trap that had been set for him by Laban. And the good news tonight is that God still protects those who call upon His name. As many as who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ are liberated from bondage to sin and Satan, so that they might enter that heavenly promised land above. For those who seek Him, Christ has prepared a place. He has opened the door, and He will welcome us into eternal life in that Canaan above when the time is right. So let us together repent of our sins and abound in faith, choosing to be rich towards God rather than laying up treasures ourselves below, because the Lord will protect us from those who would threaten us, body or soul. Let us pray.