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Bro. Bill Nichols
Okay, we're ready to roll.
This is one of those weeks that normally I start
preparing as soon as I get home from church on
Sunday, I start going through what I'm going to do next time.
And I did, I did that, I brought that up and I loaded it down into my Bible and
I read it.
And this is such an old story, we all know it so well.
And I read it, and I read it, and nothing ever kind of
came into my mind, even in my searches, until probably
Thursday.
So Thursday I was wondering what I was going to do today.
Now I think we'll probably be lucky if we get through.
But there's some things that are not totally formed that I would like to address, but then
some are.
Genesis 29, then Jacob went on his journey and he came to the land of the
people of the east.
Now, what I want to do is remind us that, if you remember, it was on the
first day of his journey that Jacob has
his dream.
And in that dream, the blessings which were first promised to Abraham
are passed on to Jacob.
And it was here that we were informed that
Jacob recognized the presence of God.
Well that was the first thing that kind of popped into my mind.
Jacob knew about God.
I mean, who could there be better, a better place to be put?
Brother David's talked about this before.
Don't you think God puts His children in families where they can be taught by His
people?
Who better, who better for a person to be born than his grandfather to be
Abraham, and him to have 25 years of Abraham's life to talk about God?
And then Isaac?
Your teachers are Abraham and Isaac.
He knew about God.
He knew there was a God, but it was here
that Jacob recognized that the God that Abraham talked about and that the God
that Isaac talked about was also his God.
I think this is the first time that he recognized that.
I think this is the time when we would talk in our vernacular about this is the time, as Brother Otis would
say, when the Lord informed him that Jacob belonged to Him, or that we would say in the
Southern Baptist Church, we received God.
This was it.
Until now, he would have recognized that he was doing the will of
his mother and his father.
He was doing, he was on this journey, he was on the journey, why?
Because his mother and because his father told him to go there and to get a wife.
He was doing that at their behest.
Now he recognizes that he's doing the will of God.
And with that awareness, he goes on and he builds an altar and he worships God and he promises
God a tithe, not in order to establish or bargain
with God to get some good fortune, but as recognition of the good fortune that he already has.
So this is where we are.
And he looked and behold a whale in the field and lo, there were three flocks of
sheep lying by it, for out of that whale they watered the flocks and
a great stone was upon the whale's mouth.
Now, I found a little passage in Arthur Pink that I'm going to read to you
and then I'm going to violate his
structure just a little bit.
Without doubt, there is a spiritual meaning to each detail here.
It cannot be without some good reason that the Spirit of God has told us that this was in
the field, that there were three flocks of sheep lying by it, and that there
was a great stone upon the whale's mouth.
But we confess that we discern not their significance.
And where spiritual vision be dim, it is idle or worse to
speculate.
Now that's what Arthur Pink said and I thoroughly, totally agree with that.
And I'm going to tell you right up front that this is totally, totally speculation and it's not well thought out.
But as I was thinking about this, I got to thinking in terms of the
availability of water.
Water was a scarce commodity there.
Well, we know physically the reason that they had the rock on the whale is to keep control of who used it, how many
people could get to it, and that it not evaporate or dust blow into it when it was there.
Those are the physical reasons.
But why would the Lord have bothered to talk about that?
Here's what I think, and Brother David, I'm going to put you on the spot.
There is available to us spiritual water.
The Lord says, I am the, how did he say it?
If you drink this water, you'll never drink again.
We're talking about a time, we're talking about a time when the water was
not readily available to everyone.
It wasn't that every time you needed water, it was there for
you.
The Lord sometimes provided water, sometimes he
provided spiritual water, sometimes he didn't.
There's like three different dispensations.
There was before the law, who had access
to God's everlasting water before the
law?
Who had access to the Lord's spiritual water before
the law?
Adam and Eve?
Abraham?
Enoch?
Isaac?
Job?
A lot of people, but then a lot of people didn't.
It was limited.
Then we go to the law.
Who had access to the living water under the law?
Well, they thought they got the access there by doing good things.
They thought they got the access to that water by being, what did the rich young ruler say?
All of these things that I'm supposed to do, I've done.
I've done them since my youth.
What more is there for me to do?
And then we come to the woman at the well.
And what did Jesus tell her?
Drink this water and it was available to her.
Now, is that water available to everyone that lives?
I mean, Brother David's been doing this for weeks.
There are groups of people that it's available to all the time, but there's some
that it's not available to at all.
It is limited.
There is a rock over it to keep.
Oh, that's interesting too.
Jesus is a rock.
The rock that followed them through the desert provided their water.
Now
see, that is going a little bit further than I had processed through.
But I think there is something here.
I think there is something here about the limitedness
or the lack of availability of water to everyone.
But if we're His, we're different than Rachel was
before Jacob came and rolled the rock away.
When Rachel came to water her sheep, she
couldn't until he rolled the rock away.
I don't know.
That is something that's kind of churning through my mind and I wanted some input
from other people.
This is kind of like a coffee group, Brother David.
I did preface this by saying these are all speculations.
Don't make scripture out of any of them.
All he said was, we confess we discern not their significance.
The fact that there was a field, three flocks of
sheep, and the great stone on the mouth.
I don't have any idea about this.
And he says where spiritual vision be dim, it is idle or worse to
So I kind of agree with that, but this is kind of like a coffee club so I'm going to
speculate
on it.
And to that extent, I totally am aware of the issue of
making scripture out of one or two sentences.
That we can't do.
We can't make a whole structure.
That's what cults do.
Cults find something that they like and latch onto it and then they build everything around it.
There is a quote in the scriptures, you can be Jesus' or you are
Jesus' one or the other.
And the Mormon church takes that and makes the tenet of their church.
Becoming your own Jesus.
Well, we don't want to do that.
Well, let me move the rock and show you the living water.
I think that's all good.
And like I say, that carried it a little bit further.
It had not occurred to me.
How can you not see something so obvious?
It had not occurred to me that Jesus was the rock.
It reminds me of children.
They can see something, you know, that we just.
Can't.
Everything.
It's
obvious
that you can take
your Sunday
school class
and ask, I mean I've seen others ask, show me a word where a pitt's post is like Jesus.
And his point was God put examples of him
everywhere in nature.
You know, you can always find examples of Jesus that certainly are a rock of all
things and running water, living water, flowing out of a fountain.
How can you not discuss that?
So he missed that a.
Little bit there.
He was in too big a hurry.
And the only one of those things, and the only one of those things that popped into my mind
was limited access to it.
Oh,
that's good too.
Well, there's a whole lot that could be done in verse one.
And there's no goats there.
Okay, that's about all I've got here at that verse.
And so for me, we need to go on.
The remainder of this long journey is about 500 miles.
Now he made 50 miles on his first day.
So if he made 50 miles every day, it would take him 10 days.
All right.
Pretty long trip on foot.
Seemed to have passed with no further incident.
For the next thing we read of is Jacob had actually come into the land
which he had sought.
And now that he's in the land, what does he do?
Now here's where author Pink was going.
I think it's one of the reasons he left so quickly.
So what does he do?
Now remember, if we're right in speculating that the last thing he did at the end of day one
was to recognize that God was his God, if that's what happened there, and that he
built an altar, he worshiped God, he pledged some good
doings, now he is finally at his journey.
He does like so many of other new believers do.
He attempts to go it alone.
And we shall soon see how well that went.
Here's what Pink says.
But while we have called attention to God's faithfulness in guiding Jacob to the well where he met Rachel,
we must not ignore Jacob's personal failure.
A notable failure of a mission.
As he had come so near to the end of his journey and had almost arrived at his destination, we would have thought
that as he reached this well that now was the time for him to very definitely commit himself into
the hands of God, especially in view of the fact that he was engaged in the important and momentous
undertaking of seeking a wife.
Years earlier, when the servant of Jacob was on a similar mission seeking a wife for Isaac,
when he arrived at the well, we're told that he said, O Lord God
of my master Abraham, I pray thee send me good speed this day.
But here, in connection with Jacob, we read of no prayer
for divine guidance.
It could be.
It's in the same country.
It probably is the same well.
I hadn't thought about that.
It could be the same well.
The well with Eliezer, when Eliezer went to the well and
Rebecca watered all of his camels, that well, it
probably, I would think it's the same well, but I don't know.
I have not made any attempt to look.
But here, in conjunction with Jacob, we read of no prayer for divine guidance and blessing.
Instead, we find him interrogating the harangue shepherds.
So here we go.
Verse two, three,.
And thither were all the flocks gathered, and they rolled the stone.
This is how they watered.
And they rolled the stone from the well's mouth and watered the sheep and put the stone back in place again
at the well's mouth in his place.
And Jacob said unto them, My brother, whence be ye?
And they said, Of her end are we.
Now, pause to consider the providence of
God.
Jacob did not stumble around looking for a future wife.
He found her like right away.
He was still asking about the well when she showed up, but he did stumble a
bit in attempting to secure her.
And you kind of think, might things have gone better if between the time he got to the well and started asking
the shepherds if he'd asked for divine guidance.
Well, that was Pink's point.
And he said unto them, Know ye Laban the son of Nahor?
And they said, We know him.
And he said unto them, Is he well?
And they said, He is well.
And behold, Rachel, his daughter, cometh with the sheep.
Striking proof that God was with him indeed.
For he guided him to the well, where he met none other than the daughter of the very man with
which he was going to make his home for the next 14 plus years.
It was not by chance that Jacob fled upon that well in the field, nor it was by accident
that Rachel came to the well just when she did.
And he said, Lo, it is yet high day, neither is it time that the cattle should be
gathered together.
It's not time to water the cattle, it's time to water the sheep, Mrs. Mitchell.
Water ye the sheep and go feed them.
Jacob knew what he was going, what he was there for.
He was there to secure a wife.
He is looking for the daughter of Laban.
And he wants to kind of clear the shepherds out so
he can speak with Rachel alone.
And they said, We cannot until all the flocks be gathered together,
until they roll the stone from the well's mouth when we water the sheep.
And while he yet spake with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep, for she kept them.
Now, whether he was trying to get rid of the shepherds or not doesn't really matter.
If that's what his motive was, he was not successful.
She's there, the shepherds are there, everybody's there.
And it came to pass when Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother, his mother's brother,
and the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother, that Jacob went near and rolled the stone
from the well's mouth and watered the flock of Laban, his mother's brother.
Well, there can make no shortage of identification of just who this Laban was.
This is the very Laban that they sent him to get a wife from his family.
What it said was, We can't water the sheep until they roll the stone away.
So apparently it took more than one person.
It also says Jacob rolled it away.
Uh, that implies that Jacob did it by himself.
So I, I, I think there may be something there too.
Uh, maybe only, maybe only those authorized to,
and he's got, and he's got, and he's got 450 left to go.
And this was a weekly, this was the weak one.
This was not, this was not Esau who you would have thought would roll the stone away.
This was Jacob.
Well, I think he could, but you'd have to, you'd have to, you wouldn't start with 50.
Well, every, every, every place they went, they either, or ride on a, or ride on a camel or a donkey or
something.
Yeah.
And Jacob kissed Rachel and lifted his voice and wept.
That's interesting.
Uh, I don't think that was a, a, an erotic type kiss.
I think that was a kiss of recognition, but I may be wrong because it does say, it does say that he
was smitten with her.
In other words, uh, I think just a simple kiss of recognition.
What she did is she ran to tell her father.
And, uh, what he did is he wept and Dr. MacArthur
said it, he thinks it's because he was remembering all of the, uh, pleasantries about his mother,
all of the aspects of his mother that he saw in this woman who was to be his
wife.
And he knew that she was to be his wife.
And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's brother and that he was
Rebecca's son.
And she ran and told her father.
And it came to pass that when Laban heard the tidings of Jacob, his sister's son,
that he ran to meet him and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house.
And he told Laban all these things.
So he, he, uh, repeated his plan to, uh, uh, or he explained his,
his story to Laban.
Again, author pink, the plan of Jacob's mother seems to be working very well.
Everything appeared to be running smoothly.
Esau had been left behind at a safe distance.
The long journey from Beersheba to Paradanimram had been covered
without harm and with little or no difficulty had been experienced in locating his mother's brother.
Rachel had shown no resentment at Jacob's affectionate greeting.
And now Laban himself had accorded a, uh, the fugitive a warm welcome.
And for a whole month, nothing seems to have broken their serenity.
Then he goes on to say this, but what about God?
What is his moral government?
What is, what about his law of retribution?
Was Jacob to suffer nothing for his wrongdoing?
Was, was the deception that he had practiced on Isaac to escape unnoticed?
Would it, in his case, fail to appear that the way of the transgressor is hard?
Ah, be not deceived.
God is not mocked.
Sometimes the action of God's government may appear to move slowly, but sooner or later, they are
sure.
Oftentimes this is overlooked.
Men take too short of a view because the sentence against evil work is not executed
speedily.
Therefore, the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.
That's a quote from, uh, Ecclesiastes 8, 11.
It is sequel that, it is in sequel that God is vindicated.
History in fragments denies God, but history as a whole is seen to be his story.
Look at the cruel taskmasters of Egypt and at the helpless Hebrews.
They cried to heaven and for years it seemed as though heaven was death.
But the sequence showed that God had seen and heard and in the sequel his righteous
government was vindicated.
So, we look too rapidly
for God's execution of his judgment to fall on the
wicked.
And when it doesn't happen, we say, well, God has forgotten.
He doesn't forget.
When the story is viewed in whole, judgment is always
executed on the wicked.
Now, here's Jacob.
As Jacob's viewing this developing situation, everything is working as planned.
But Laban apparently remembered the last trip by representative of one
of Abraham's clan to obtain a bride.
And he saw an opportunity.
So, here he goes.
And Laban said to him, surely
there are my bone and my flesh.
And he abode with him for a space of one month.
Jacob stayed with the family of Laban for a month.
Tradition in that ancient area allowed a stranger to be cared for for three days.
And after three days, the stranger had to state his mission and give his name.
He had to tell who he was and tell why he was there.
And on the fourth day, after the fourth day, he could remain
if he worked in some agreed to manner.
So, they could work out a deal for him to stay longer if he wanted to stay longer and if he could be agreed to both.
Laban allowed Jacob more than three days.
He allowed him a month.
He allowed him to settle in, get to know the family, and then he set his plan in
motion.
So, Laban after the month says to Jacob, and Laban said unto Jacob,
because thou art my brother, shouldest thou therefore serve me for naught,
tell me, what shall thy wages be?
That was Laban's query, Laban's lure.
Reminded me of fly fishing.
You know, you go fly fishing, you go out to the pretty little fly, and you put it on a line, and you throw it out there, and you let
it drift by, and it just looks so beautiful.
And the fish just can't resist grabbing it.
And Laban had two daughters.
The name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.
Leah was tender -eyed, but Rachel was beautiful and well -favored.
The commentators say that she, Reuben,
don't know where that came from, Leah was probably
blue -eyed, and Rachel was of the more dominant, dark -eyed,
Semitic type of person.
But so, in any case, Rachel was considered beautiful and well -favored, and Leah had a
fault of some sort, and it's referred to as being tender -eyed.
And then the question, who's trapping whom?
Laban has two daughters.
You've got to keep that in mind.
Jacob wants one of them.
Jacob wants to make sure that Laban accepts his offer, so he makes
a very generous offer.
And Jacob loved Rachel and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel, thy
youngest daughter.
So what happens?
Jacob offers to work seven years for the hand of Rachel.
That was the deal.
And Laban says, well, it's better that I give her to you than to some stranger.
He says, it is better that I give her to thee than I should give her to another man.
Abide with me.
So, I'll give her to you.
That's better than giving her to a stranger.
And Laban agrees to the arrangement.
But either from the beginning, and I think it's from the beginning, but either from the beginning or at least at some
time during the seven years, Laban decides he can improve on the deal.
Jacob, on the other hand, is smitten.
He sees nothing but Rachel.
His eye is on the prize, and the seven years seems like no time at all to him.
In fact, it says, and Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed
unto him but a few days for the love he had for her.
So he completes his part of the task, no problems, and he informs Laban that
he's ready now to take his wife.
And Jacob says unto Laban, give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled
that I may go in unto her.
Everything is in order.
The seven years is complete.
The task has been done.
The agreement has been made.
And Laban gathered together all the men of the place and made a feast.
And it came to pass in the evening that he took Leah,
whoops, the wrong daughter, that he took Leah, his daughter, and he
brought her to him, and he went in unto her.
And Laban gave unto his daughter Leah, Zilpah, his maid, for a
handmaid.
And it came to pass that in the morning, behold, it was Leah.
And he said to Laban, what is this that thou hast done to me?
Did I not serve with thee for Rachel?
Wherefore then hast thou beguiled me?
So Jacob just experienced treachery from the other side.
I'm not going to comment on that.
We'll lose our status.
No, I don't know.
I might can comment.
Brother Dave can't.
And Laban says, well, we don't do it that way in this country.
It must not be so done in our country to give the younger before the daughter.
Fulfill her week, give her this week, and we will give thee
this also for the service which thou shalt serve me yet another
seven years.
So I've passed off the weak -eyed one, and I've
gotten rid of her.
You work seven more years, and I'll give you the good one, the one you want.
So after tricking Jacob into serving for Leah, Laban offers Rachel on the
promise of seven more years.
He'd probably been better off if he'd kept her away from him for seven years, but he didn't.
Just one week.
And after a week, he got Rachel as well.
And so Jacob agrees to it.
He said, and Jacob did so, and he fulfilled her week.
That's Leah's week.
And he gave him Rachel, his daughter, to wife also.
And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah, his handmaid, to be her
maid.
Now, we got four women in the same tent, and trouble is about
to happen.
And he went also in unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah.
And he served with him yet seven other years.
So he fulfills his bargain.
And the Lord saw that Leah was hated, and he opened her
womb, but Rachel was barren.
And Leah conceived and bare a
son, and she called his name Reuben.
For she said, surely the Lord hath looked upon my affliction, and now therefore my
husband will love me.
So the one great thing that all Jewish men, all men of this time, wanted was a
male heir, and right out of the box, she gets Reuben.
And she conceived again, and she bare a son.
And she said, because the Lord hath heard that I was hated, he hath therefore
given me this son also.
And she called his name Simeon.
And she conceived again.
You kind of think that, but
I'm not sure.
And we're going to have two more people get involved in this situation also.
And only one of the three is going to be loved.
Only Rachel is going to be loved.
In spite of all these children that Leah is producing for him,
that doesn't gain his love.
There might be something there too, but I don't know.
And she conceived again, and bare a son.
And she said, now this time my husband be joined unto me, because I
have borne him three sons.
And therefore she called his name Levi.
So now she has given him three sons.
That was like a, blessed is a mother of three sons.
My sister says, there's a special curse that goes with a mother of three sons.
A blessing and a curse,
special mercy should be given to a mother of three sons.
Well, now she's got three.
And she says, now this time will my husband be joined unto me, because I have
borne him three sons.
And therefore his name was Levi.
And that's not it.
And she bare a son.
And she said, now I will praise the Lord.
Therefore she called his name Judah, and left off bearing.
That's the end of chapter 29, but I will tell you, she didn't leave off bearing
forever, just for the time.
So now she's got three sons.
She has praised God for them.
You're right.
She's got four sons.
She's praised God for them.
And finally on the fourth one, she says, it's not a matter of me and my husband anymore.
Now it's a matter of me and my God.
And now he is satisfied, I think.
Well, we're certainly not going to go into the rest of chapter 30 today.
Are there any questions or any comments that you guys would like to make?
I didn't find anything.
Nothing was revealed to me in these last four or five
verses, except the names and the attempt of
Leah to gain favor with her husband through these
children, and her recognition that her favor needed to be with God.
It is.
Judah.
Well, it's certainly not.
It was certainly not proof of man's love.
Jacob never loved her.
I don't think Jacob loved her after the fourth one either.
Well, I'll save that.
I have read them.
There is going to be a passage later where
Leah bribes Jacob into having another sexual relation
with her.
And she gets another child out of that, and then he gets several more.
But she had to acquire a reason for him
to come into her.
But yeah, if you trace down through the descendants
to Jesus, we find some characters there.
We find Leah and we find
the harlot at Jericho.
What was her name?
Rahab.
Rahab is Jesus's in his line.
Ruth, the Moabitess, is in Jesus's line.
The daughter -in -law of
Jacob that he had sexual relations with
when he, I think this is right, when he thought that she was a prostitute.
Perez, I think, was the offspring, or was maybe the 13th down from that.
But there's a lot of what
we would not pick as the kind of person we want our Savior to be
derived from.
But you know what?
He wasn't derived from any of those.
He was from God, and we have to keep that in mind.
Anything else?
She was thinking the same thing that Sarah was.
Why can't I have a child?
And so she comes to the same decision that Sarah did.
We'll help him out.
Yeah, but there was no question that Jacob was in
love with Rachel, and he was in love with her from the very beginning.
He was in love with her from the time he saw her.
That's why he was willing to, seven years is a long time.
What this was was basically a dowry.
The last time he brought a couple of camel loads of stuff and gave to either
Laban or his father.
Some people say the same Laban, some say the father, but
whichever.
Not so much.
Seven years is a long time to be in servitude for a wife,
even in these days when they live longer.
When I say he had her, he had her the last seven.
He had her all of the last seven except for the seven days,
and that's when the hatred started building.
He has two wives, one he's having children with
and one he's not, and that in their world was a mark of
inferiority.
If you could not have a wife, there was something wrong with you.
Something was out of whack about the relationship, and in fact she scolds him,
and he says, who do you think I am?
You think I'm God?
I can't make you have a child.
What he could do, he was doing.
Anyhow, it's interesting.
Most gracious heavenly father, thank you for this day, and thank you for all our many blessings.
Bless us and keep us.
Lead us to the messages that you have in store for us.
Go through the services today.
Give brother David the message that each of us needs to hear, and make sure that we
hear it.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.