Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 17, 2021 | Chronological Bible Study with Patty Diliberto - Session 5: The Patriarchs, Part 3

Transcript

February 17, 2021 | Chronological Bible Study with Patty Diliberto - Session 5: The Patriarchs, Part 3 · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hey, welcome to Chronological This Morning.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to continue to look at the patriarchs.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: We'll be looking at Isaac and Jacob, and we will be seeing a lot of sibling rivalry and dysfunctional families.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: So let's pray and get started.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Father God, we thank you for what we see in your word today.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: I just ask that you would bless us abundantly with new insights and knowledge, and mind it just lay on our hearts in a sweet, sweet way today, I pray, and ask these things in Jesus' name.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: So first we're going to look at Abraham and his test with Isaac.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: It's a story you're familiar with, but I hope that you'll see some really cool things.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he said.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: Those verses tell us that God was gracious.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: God was gracious to Sarah, and that he always keeps his promises, and that he is always on time.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: His timing is always perfect.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: It may not seem like it to us at times, but it is.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: I love what Tim Keller says about Abraham in his book Counterfeit Gods, and I want to share this lengthy quote by him.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: The years of agonized waiting had taken their toll as any couple struggling with infertility can attest.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: The nearly endless days of refined Abraham's faith, which was crucially important.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: However, the years of infertility had also had another effect.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: No man had ever longed for a son more than Abraham.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: He had waited and sacrificed, and finally his wife had a baby.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: And it was a boy.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: But the question now was, had he been waiting for and sacrificing for God or for the boy?
2:22
SPEAKER_00: Was God just a means to an end?
2:25
SPEAKER_00: To whom was Abraham ultimately giving his heart?
2:30
SPEAKER_00: Then we read, sometime later, God tested Abraham.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: Who tested Abraham?
2:38
SPEAKER_00: This is a test from the Lord God.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: At the beginning of this trek, up to Mount Moriah, Abraham doesn't know that this is a test that he's going to go through.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: The word test is defined as a trial.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: I think I'm off here.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: Let me go back.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: The word, there we go.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: The word test is defined as a trial investigation, check, analysis, and assessment.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: The procedure to detect the presence of something.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: When God tests us, he is using that test to see and to check to see if there's any presence of something that shouldn't be there.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: That is what he's doing with Abraham in this case.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: God knows what is in our hearts, he knows what's there, but he wants us to identify it.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: Is there an idol in our life?
3:34
SPEAKER_00: Is there something that has taken God's place in our life?
3:39
SPEAKER_00: God brings this test and these tests to our lives as well to help us determine if something is amiss.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: Tim Keller says, the writer of Genesis knows that the strain of this passage will be too intense for readers if they don't understand in advance that this is only a test.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: God is asking Abraham to take a huge step of faith.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: Will you trust me even when you don't understand what I am going to do?
4:10
SPEAKER_00: Even when it doesn't make sense?
4:13
SPEAKER_00: God does not intend for Abraham to kill Isaac, but Abraham doesn't know this.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 22, too.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: Then God said, Take your son, your only son, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain, I will show you.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: Most people have portrayed Isaac as a young boy, but he wasn't.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: He was probably a full-grown young man.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 22, 6 through 8.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: As the two of them went together, Isaac spoke up and said to him, to his father, Abraham, Father, Yes, my son, Abraham replied, The fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?
5:05
SPEAKER_00: Abraham answered, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: When it came to Isaac, Abraham believed two very definite things and very significant things about Isaac.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: He absolutely knew that Isaac's birth was a supernatural birth.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: So he trusted God for that supernatural birth, but he also trusted God for a supernatural resurrection.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: If God required that he actually sacrifice his son, Abraham believed that God could raise him from the dead and would do that.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: In counterfeit gods, Timothy Keller says this was the ultimate test.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: Isaac was now everything to Abraham.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: As God's call makes clear, he does not refer to the boy as Isaac, but as your son, your only son whom you love.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: Abraham's affection had become adoration.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: Previously, Abraham's meaning in life had been dependent on God's word.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Now it was becoming dependent on Isaac's love and well-being.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: The center of Abraham's life was shifting.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: God was not saying you cannot love your son, but that you must not turn a loved one into a counterfeit God.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: If anyone puts a child in place of the true God, it creates an idolatrous love that will smother the child and strangle the relationship.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: What Abraham was able to see was that this test was about loving God supremely.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: In the end, the Lord said to him, Now I know you fear God.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: This doesn't mean that God was trying to find out if Abraham loved him.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: The all-seeing God knows the state of every heart.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: Rather, God was putting Abraham through the furnace so that his love for God could finally come forth as pure gold.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: If God had not intervened, Abraham would have certainly come to love his son more than anything in the world if he did not already do so.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: That would have been idolatry, and all idolatry is destructive.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: Many years later, in those same mountains, another firstborn son was stretched out on the wood to die.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: But there on Mount Calvary, when the beloved son of God cried, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
7:47
SPEAKER_00: There was no voice from heaven announcing deliverance.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: Instead, God the Father paid the price in silence.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: Why?
7:57
SPEAKER_00: The true substitute for Abraham's son was God's only son, Jesus, who died to bear our punishment.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: God saw Abraham's sacrifice and said, Now I know that you love me, because you did not withhold your only son from me.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: But how much more can we look at his sacrifice on the cross and say to God, Now we know that you love us.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: For you did not withhold your son, your only son, whom you love from us.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: When the magnitude of what he did dawns on us, it makes it possible finally to rest our hearts in him rather than in anything else.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: Jesus alone makes sense of this story.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: The only way that God can be both just and demanding payment of our debt of sin and justifier, providing salvation and grace is because years later, another father went up another mount called Calvary, which is actually the same mountain, Mount Moriah, with his firstborn and offered him there for us all.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: You will never be as great, as secure in God, as courageous as Abraham became simply by trying hard, but only by believing the Savior to whom all this event points to.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: Only if Jesus lived and died for us can you have a God of infinite love and holiness all at once.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: Then you can be absolutely sure He loves you.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: What a great, great quote.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: I love it for so many reasons.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: This testing of Abraham's was to be an example to us, a type of Christ to us.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: This one sentence is basically a summary of the entire Bible.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: God Himself will provide the lamb for the offering.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: God Himself is going to provide that Lamb.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: Even good things like children or a spouse can captivate our hearts.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: I've seen that in my own life.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: And if we are not careful, they can take deep root and be on the throne of our hearts.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: And it's hard and it's it's very difficult to remove them from your heart once they're implanted there.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: This example of Abraham and Isaac should should make us evaluate ourselves and test ourselves to see if there is any idols in in our lives.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: We should ask ourselves, do I love God supremely?
10:59
SPEAKER_00: Is there anyone or anything else in my life on the throne of my heart?
11:06
SPEAKER_00: Have I allowed counterfeit gods to take the Lord's place in my life?
11:12
SPEAKER_00: If you ask these probing questions and in all sincerity, wanting an answer from God, and if He reveals something to you, then deal with it.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: Bind that thing, put it on the altar, and sacrifice it to God as an offering of surrender to him.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: That's how we take care of those idols in our lives.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad that God put Abraham to the test because it purified his heart and it serves as a wonderful example to us.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: Abraham calls the place of the testing Jehovah Jirah, and this is one of God's great compound names.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: Jehovah Jirah means the Lord will provide.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: And boy does he.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: Now let's look at as at Isaac and Rebecca.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: When Abraham is very old, he sends Eliezer, his servant, off to Haran to choose a wife for Isaac.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: We see how God lines up all of the pieces and all of the players beautifully, as if this was a Broadway musical.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: It could be a great Broadway musical.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: We see the scene unfold as innocent, unsuspecting Rebecca saunters into the scene with her big clay water jar on her shoulder.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: She not only gives water to Eliezer and all of his servants, but his entire, his entire herd of camels and all of his entourage.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: And of course, she was a relative of Abraham, and of course, she was beautiful.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: You know the story.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Eliezer goes to her family, and Rebecca decides to take off with him the next morning, and she will travel 500 miles on camelback to become the answer to Isaac's prayers.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 24.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: Now Isaac went out to the field one evening evening to meditate, and as he looked up, he saw camels approaching.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: Rebecca also looked up at the very same time and saw Isaac.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: She got down from her camel and asked the servant, Who is that man in the field coming to meet us?
13:30
SPEAKER_00: He is my master, the servant answered.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: So she took her veil and covered herself.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: Then the servant told Isaac all he had done.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: So she became his wife, and he loved her, and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: What a love story.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: Now we move to chapter 26, and we see that Isaac encounters an Abimelech.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: Abimelech, the name, the term Abimelech, is very similar to the term Pharaoh.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: He was a ruler.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: This wasn't a specific person, but a title.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: And this Abimelech is most likely not the Abimelech that Abraham, his father, had earlier met.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: But we see a vivid example of like father, like son, with this Abimelech, too.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: This event takes place 20 during the 20-year waiting period before Rebekah conceives and gives birth.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: And we'll we'll see that in just a minute.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: Now there was a famine in the land, besides the previous famine in Abraham's time, and Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines in Gerar.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, Do not go down to Egypt.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: Don't do it.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: Don't go down there.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: Live in the land here where I tell you to live.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and bless you.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: Because Abraham obeyed me and did everything I required of him, keeping my commands, my decrees and instructions.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: So Isaac stayed in Gerar.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, She is my sister, because he was afraid to say, She is my wife.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: He thought the men of this place might kill me on account of Rebekah because she is so beautiful.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked down from a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: So Abimelech summoned Isaac and said, She is really your wife.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: Why did you say she is my sister?
16:06
SPEAKER_00: Isaac answered him, Because I thought I might lose my life on account of her.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: Then Abimelech said, What is this you have done to us?
16:16
SPEAKER_00: One of the men might have well slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: Did you notice in verse 8 when it said Isaac had been there a long time?
16:28
SPEAKER_00: This event takes place in that 20-year time period before Esau and Jacob are born.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: How sad that a man of God has to be reprimanded by a pagan king.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: But we saw the same exact thing with Abraham and the Abimelech, didn't we?
16:49
SPEAKER_00: And now we see the first of these siblings that we're going to look at today.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: And that is Isaac and Rebekah's twin boys, Esau and Jacob.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel, the Aramean of Pedanaram, and sister of Laban the Arame.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was barren.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, Why is this happening to me?
17:23
SPEAKER_00: So she went to inquire of the Lord.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: The Lord said to her, Two nations are in your womb.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: The two peoples from within you will be separated.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: One people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve will serve the younger.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment, so they named him Esau.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: After this his brother came out with his hand grasping Esau's hill, so he was named Jacob.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was a quiet man staying among the tents.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: Notice that Isaac was 40 when he marries Rebekah, and now he is 60.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: So it's been 20 years that she was without a child.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: And that whole 20-year time period, Isaac had to be asking the Lord, who is going to carry on the promise?
18:37
SPEAKER_00: Rebecca inquires of God and finds out that she's pregnant.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: And now the question is still, who's going to carry on the promise?
18:48
SPEAKER_00: Is one or both of these boys or these children going to carry it on?
18:54
SPEAKER_00: And God answers Rebecca with his choice.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be Jacob, the younger son.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: He would be the one through whom the promise would continue.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: We don't know why, and scripture really doesn't tell us why God chose Jacob over Esau.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: Constable in Soniclight.com says, What we do know is that his choice did not rest on the superior merit of Jacob, but on the sovereign prerogative of Yahweh.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: At the end of chapter 25, we see Jacob cooking up some irresistible lentil stew, as Esau comes back to the camp starving to death, or so he thinks, and in a foolish moment that he will regret for years to come, he sells the birthright to Jacob.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: One theologian has said, the cunning hunter Esau fell into a better hunter's trap, becoming prey to his own appetite.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: Esau was a man's man with a huge appetite for material things.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: He loved the outdoors and he loved instant gratification.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: Jacob was the sensible, sensitive one who stayed in the tents, and he valued the spiritual more than his brother did.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: Both of them were schemers and they came by it naturally.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: What we probably see here is a generational stronghold of sin, fear, control, all those things.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: We tend to think, we still up to this day, I'm sure they tended to think as well, that it's just about us, that it won't affect others.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: The sin that I commit, the things that are our strongholds in my life are just about me.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: But that's not what we see here in Scripture.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: There's usually a ripple effect.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: If we don't deal with a particular sin in our life, our children will probably deal with it to an even greater degree in theirs.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: If these generational sins are not dealt with, they get progressively worse.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: And this is what we see.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: We see this progression of sin in this family line.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: Abraham told a half-truth to deceive Pharaoh and Abimelech twice.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: Isaac lied and told Abimelech that Rebekah was his sister.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: She was not even a half-sister.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: She was the daughter of his cousin.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: Jacob lied and deceived his father to see still the blessing with the help of his mother, which we'll see in a minute.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: So the lying is get pr getting progressively worse.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: Jacob's sons, who he will have in the future, lied to their father about what happened to Joseph by showing him his robe with blood on it and not actually saying that they had sold him, but just leaving.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Jacob to think that he had been torn to pieces by an animal.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: So not only are they lying to their father, but we see jealousy and fear and all the sin that these brothers harbor against their brother.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: And they take such drastic measures against their own brother Joseph.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: We see that progression of sin in this family line and how the choices directly affect descendants for generations.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: And yet, with Joseph, when we get to him, we see one of the most righteous people recorded in Scripture.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: And he had one of the hardest lives.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: The sin we don't deal with will eventually deal with us and are with our descendants.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: Isaac is now old and his health is declining, and he needs to give that patriarchal blessing whom he assumes is going to Esau.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: And again we see deception and scheming.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: And even though Jacob's got some red flags going off, he goes ahead and goes along with her in this scheme.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: And they are successful.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: They acquire the blessing for Jacob.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: Isaac says, Many nations, may nations serve you, and peoples bow down to you.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: Be Lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow to you.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: May those who curse you be cursed, and those who bless you be blessed.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: A paternal blessing was more like a divine oracle, and it was irrevocable.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: The blessing that Isaac gives Jacob here was especially divinely inspired and had always been meant for Jacob and not for Esau.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: We see Esau become bitter and angry and resentful with this deception, and why wouldn't he?
24:19
SPEAKER_00: Anybody would.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: So to protect Jacob, Rebekah convinces Isaac to send to send Jacob away.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: And permission is given for Jacob to go to Laban, Rebekah's brother.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: But Rebekah's deceit and taking things into her own hands did her no favors.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: When she sends Jacob off to her brothers, it is the last time she will see this beloved son.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: And she stuck with the wives that Esau had that she so despised.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: What are we seeing?
25:06
SPEAKER_00: What are some of the dynamics that we are seeing with this dysfunctional family?
25:12
SPEAKER_00: We see favoritism, envy, jealousy, deception, lying, scheming, poor communication, selfishness, manipulation, just to name a few.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: These people are badly messed up.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: And you thought your family was bad.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: Nope.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: Even though they're the you see, we see this sin and this dysfunction in this family, God graciously continues to use them for his purposes.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: Isaac and Rebecca have two children.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: The father favors one, the mother favors the other, and they pit them against each other.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: Even though Jacob is a deceiver, we are going to see a spiritual principle come into play here.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: And that principle is you reap what you sow.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: Jacob goes off to Rebekah's family, and on the way, God graciously re-establishes the promise of the Abrahamic covenant with Isaac with Jacob.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham, and the God of Isaac.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: Wow, what a promise, and to such an unlikely candidate.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: But I love that about God.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: And now we move to Genesis 29, where we will see the dysfunction of another family unit and sibling rivalry of Leah and Rachel.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: Jacob travels to Padan, Aram, where he meets a beautiful shepherdess named Rachel, who happens to be his mother's brother, Laban's daughter, and he stays with them and works for Laban in exchange for Rachel.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: Now Laban had two daughters.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: The name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, I'll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter, Rachel.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: Laban said, It's better that I give her to you than some other man.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: Stay here with me.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: The term Leah had weak eyes could mean that many things.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: It could mean that that one of her eyes turned in, or they just lacked luster, or that she just was not attractive.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: In contrast, Rachel was beautiful in face and form, but Leah had weak eyes.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: Here we are most likely seeing an older sister who has lived in the shadow of a gorgeous younger sister all her life.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: And that understanding sets the stage for more disappointment for Leah, because once again she's going to be second, even though she's first.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: Then Jacob said to Laban, Give me my wife, my time is completed, and I want to lie with her.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: That is a very bold statement, by the way, in Scripture.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob, and Jacob lay with her.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: And Laban gave his servant girl Zilpha to his daughter as her maidservant.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: When morning came, there was Leah.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: So Jacob said to Laban, What is this you have done to me?
29:10
SPEAKER_00: I served you for Rachel, didn't I?
29:12
SPEAKER_00: Why have you deceived me?
29:15
SPEAKER_00: Laban replied, It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: Finish this daughter's bare bridal week, then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: And Jacob did so.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: Laban gave his servant girl Bilha to his daughter Rachel as a maidservant.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: Jacob lay with Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: And he worked for Laban another seven years.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: Imagine you were Leah, having grown up in this household where Rachel was favored over you, not because of character, but because of her beauty.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: Everyone you know comments on Rachel's beautiful face, her eyes, her figure.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine Leah's humiliation when her own father uses her to deceive Jacob to get her married, thinking how fortuitous it was since he assumed nobody would want to marry Leah in the first place?
30:32
SPEAKER_00: And then to deceive Jacob in that way.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: How humiliating to have to go into that dark tent, heavily veiled, to be part of her father's deception against Jacob, feeling so used by both men.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: Then to wake up the next morning and see Jacob's face of horror as the realization hits him that he has just slept and made love to Leah and not Rachel.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: How would you not take that personally?
31:06
SPEAKER_00: How sad, how hard.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Constable says, again, um, as Jacob had deceived Isaac by taking advantage of his inability to see due to poor eyesight.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: So Laban deceived Jacob by taking advantage of his inability to see in the dark tent.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: Earlier, Jacob had deceptively pretended to be the older brother, and now Laban tricked him by replacing the younger with the older sister.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: Laban was just as deceptive as Jacob.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: But think about Rachel here.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: She thinks she's getting Jacob, whom she loves, and Rachel was probably used to getting whatever Rachel wanted.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: Her father tells her, No, it's not our custom, and you have to wait your turn.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: The reality of the situation dawns on her that she is going to have to share her husband with her sister and this sister that she possibly despises.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: She might have thought that she would be getting away from this situation when she married Jacob, but now she's going to be with this sister, sharing the husband for the rest of her life.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: What is some of the dysfunction we see in this family unit?
32:33
SPEAKER_00: We see emphasis on the wrong things, beauty over anything else.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: We see deception and scheming and favoritism and rivalry.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: The good news is that we are going to see the compassionate heart of God as we move on.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: She named him Reuben, for she said, It is because the Lord has seen my misery.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: Surely my husband will love me now.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son, she said, Because the Lord had heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: So she named him Simeon.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: Again she conceived, and when she gave birth to a son, she said, Now at last my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him these three sons.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: So he was named Levi.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: She conceived again and gave, and when she gave birth to a son, she said, This time I will praise the Lord.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: So she named him Judah.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: Then she stopped having children.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: We need to see something very interesting in these names that Leah gives her sons.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: Reuben's name means he sees.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: The Lord has seen my misery.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: Simeon's name means hears.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: The Lord heard that I am not loved.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: Levi's name means attached.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: My husband will be attached to me.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: Why is Levi important?
34:10
SPEAKER_00: Because the priestly line comes from Levi.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: The priestly line comes from Leah.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: Judah's name means praise.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: This time I will praise the Lord.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: What an interesting progression.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: I think it is, it shows us something significant.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: This time I will praise the Lord.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: When Leah speaks is speaking about the Lord, you see the Lord in all caps.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: When we see this in the Old Testament, the word here being used is Yahweh, Lord God Almighty.
34:45
SPEAKER_00: It was the word that was so holy to the people in the Old Testament that they wouldn't even pronounce the name.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: They would just say the name.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: Each time Yahweh or the Lord sees or hears her distress.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: But when she gets to Judah, she says, I will praise the Lord.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: She has made a choice for praise.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: She is no longer going to be a victim.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: That's what we are seeing here with her.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: In Counterfeit Gods by Tim Keller, this is a different declaration from the one she had made after the other births.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: There was no mention of husband or child.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: It appears that finally she had taken her deep heart's deepest hope off of her husband and her children and put them on the Lord.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: Jacob and Laban had stolen Leah's life, but when she gave her heart finally to the Lord, she got her life back.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: When God came to earth in Jesus Christ, he was truly the son of Leah.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: He became the man nobody wanted.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: He was born in a manger.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: He had no beauty that we should desire him.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: He came to his own, and his own received him not.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: And at the end everybody abandoned him.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: Jesus cried out even to his father, Why have you forsaken me?
36:13
SPEAKER_00: Why did he become Leah's son?
36:16
SPEAKER_00: Why did he become the man nobody wanted?
36:19
SPEAKER_00: For you and for me.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: He took upon himself our sins and died in our place.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: If we are deeply moved by the sight of his love for us, it detaches our hearts from other would-be saviors.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: We stop trying to redeem ourselves through our pursuits or relationships because we are already redeemed.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: We stop trying to make others into saviors because we have a savior.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: Once you begin to comprehend the incomprehensible, the deep and radical love God has for us, releases our hearts from all other loves.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: Leah embraced that and it released her heart.
37:09
SPEAKER_00: Then look at Genesis 32, 22, 30, 22.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: Then God remembered Rachel.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: He listened to her and opened her womb.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: Finally, a son is born to Rachel.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: Joseph is born in the 14th year of Jacob's service to Laban.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: And now we need to see the transformation of Jacob to Israel.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: We see Jacob returning to an uncertain reception with Esau.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: So he goes to God in prayer, which is the appropriate thing to do.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: And this prayer shows us a different Jacob.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: Leah is not the only one who has been changing.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: It seems that Jacob has finally come to God, God's way.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: And this is what we hear from him.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: Then Jacob prayed, O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O Lord, who said to me, Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two groups.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me and also the mothers with their children.
38:39
SPEAKER_00: But you have said, I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip, so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: Then the man said, Let me go, for it is daybreak.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: But Jacob replied, I will not let you go unless you bless me.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: The man asked him, What is your name?
39:14
SPEAKER_00: Jacob answered.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: Then the man Jacob he answered, Then the man said, Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: Because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: Jacob has figuratively been wrestling against both man and God since he came out of the womb grasping Esau's heel.
39:39
SPEAKER_00: He's a fighter.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: And now we see a factual wrestling match between Jacob and God, the pre-incarnate theophany of Christ, the pre-incarnate Christ.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: This passage says that the man God could not overpower him, but we know that God won this match.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: God wrestles with Jacob to bring an end to himself, to bring him to that end.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: This wrestling match was not about physical strength, it was about spiritual identity.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: Jacob was finally becoming the man God wanted and needed him to be.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: It had become personal to Jacob.
40:35
SPEAKER_00: And when that realization hits, God changes his name to Israel.
40:41
SPEAKER_00: The name Israel means he struggles with God.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: We wrestle with God today in similar ways that Jacob did.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: We wrestle when we try to take things into our own hands.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: We wrestle when we make promises to God based upon our own ability or rather than surrendering to Him.
41:05
SPEAKER_00: We wrestle when we run away from our problems instead of taking our problems to God.
41:11
SPEAKER_00: We wrestle with God.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: And I love that we are seeing that here.
41:17
SPEAKER_00: I love that we see this because God allows the wrestling matches.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: He allows them.
41:24
SPEAKER_00: God allows us to question and to wrestle with difficult issues and even difficult pictures that we have of him in scripture.
41:35
SPEAKER_00: God is bigger than our questions.
41:37
SPEAKER_00: He's bigger than our doubt.
41:42
SPEAKER_00: And he's bigger than our conclusions about him.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: You see, we we approach all of this from a human perspective, but he has the divine perspective looking down.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: God understands.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: And with loving kindness, which is one of his attributes, that attribute demands that he is patient with us as we ask difficult things and wrestle in difficult ways with God.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: He has loving kindness because he is God.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want to defeat us in those wrestling matches, but he wants us to come out on the other side and learn some very important things about him and about ourselves.
42:31
SPEAKER_00: Our identity in Christ is what he wants us to claim as a result of our wrestling matches with him.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: He wants to change our identity the way he changed Jacob's.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: God is so big.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: He is so big and so great that he is able to discipline us with the consequences of our mistakes while at the same time accomplishing his will, and sometimes despite serious sin on our part, one of the great mysteries of the Bible is how God uses flawed people.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: Yes, they live with the negative consequences of their choices and actions, but somehow in the wisdom of God, their behavior doesn't prevent God from accomplishing his redemptive process.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: Aren't you glad?
43:57
SPEAKER_00: Aren't you glad that we have that kind of God?
44:00
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad that Scripture doesn't just gloss over the sins of his people.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't gloss over them.
44:10
SPEAKER_00: And it's an encouragement to us that should fill us with hope that God still uses flawed people because flawed people are the only kind he has to use.
44:24
SPEAKER_00: Pray with me.
44:25
SPEAKER_00: Father God, thank you.
44:27
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that that is what we see today, that you used some really dysfunctional, flawed people in your word, and that you continue to use dysfunctional, flawed people all the while working out your purposes for us.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: What an amazing thing.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: You are an amazing, amazing God, and we choose to give you praise today.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: Might you receive the honor and the praise and the glory that is yours alone, Lord God.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: We pray these things in Jesus' name.
45:04
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next time.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: God bless you all.