Genesis 29 Marriage is Worth the Work

The Good Design of Marriage and the Problem of Cultural Adolescence

And back to you, Pastor John, would you open us in a word of prayer?

Absolutely, Lord, we come to you knowing that what we're going to be opening in the Word is your truth, it's your history, it's your story as we continue in Genesis, and we're going to be learning more through the story of Jacob about the power of marriage, the gift of marriage, and that it is something that we should honor and work toward.

So, Pastor Jeff, as he brings it to us, give him your words, in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

Okay, we're going to open with a fun little game. Guess the age of the founding father. So, on July 4th, 1776, how old was James Monroe?

76.

No.

He must have been in his 30s, that's what I thought.

Think in the 30s?

Lower. No, he was younger.

Lower?

Lower than 30.

Younger than 30.

He was over 20.

46.

Earlier, younger than early 20s. 18 years old, he was the youngest. The second youngest. How old was Aaron Burr? Aaron Burr.

Aaron Burr's a grandfather.

Didn't he get in a gunfight with someone?

Yes, he did, yeah.

Hamilton.

With Hamilton. How old was Aaron Burr? Wait, didn't he kill Hamilton?

I don't know. No, no, he didn't.

So, James, this is just for fun, to open up. James Monroe was 18. Aaron Burr was 20. Alexander Hamilton was 21 years old. James Madison, 25. And Thomas Jefferson was 33 years old. Very young guys, most people don't realize that.

One of the reasons I bring that up is that back in the day, young men grew up to be men much younger than they do today. We live in a culture that prolongs adolescence as far as you could possibly imagine.

No, no, don't do that, Ray.

Come on.

Pat him on the shoulder.

I wasn't there.

Our culture prolongs adolescence, and it pacifies men, young men, with pornography. And this causes people to stay in a permanently adolescent state as long as possible. Not permanently, but it does prolong adolescence.

What is the motivation of a young man to grow up and become a man? What is the strongest driving motivation for a young man to reach maturity? Very good! He wants to get married. He would like to start a family.

He'd like to have sex. He has hormones. He's desiring a wife. Is it good, bad, or ugly to desire a wife?

Good.

It is good.

It is God's good design. Now, the world, of course, Satan, being the prince of the power of the air, has introduced all kinds of things to try to prevent marriage. Satan hates marriage. The biggest problems that we have in the inner cities is related not to guns, because those are just blocks of metal designed and engineered to do a function.

It is the breakdown of family. And one of the things the government has done is step in and incentivize the breakdown of family. So replacing the man in the home, breaking up marriages, the welfare system becomes the head of the home.

And the woman then would often depend on the welfare system rather than on the man as a provider. And the man then just goes and sows his wild oats rather than marrying a woman, being a provider, protector for the family.

So what we see in our culture is a breakdown in marriage. And it's gotten to the point of being so absurd that now marriage itself has been redefined as whatever two people desire it to be. They could even, of course, in our day and age, since 2015 with Obergefell, be two people of the same sex, which is not marriage, it is a mirage.

There is no such thing as gay marriage. There is only gay mirage. Because marriage is a corresponding union in which two corresponding parts become one. Two flesh become one flesh. And that's impossible if you're dealing with mirror images of oneself.

There can only be what the Bible calls an edzer konegdo, a helpmeet that corresponds to him. So when Eve was taken from Adam's rib and fashioned into the woman, she was called a helpmeet, an edzer konegdo.

I've mentioned this before, which means a corresponding help, one who corresponds to him and helps him build that home that they have together. And then, of course, children come from this Isn't God's design better than what the world comes up with?

Whatever the world introduces to oppose God's design results in suffering and death and destruction. The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy. But Christ, the giver of life, has come that you may have life.

And marriage is God's design for the creation of life. It's beautiful. And so what we have today in Genesis 29, if you'll turn with me there, is God's design for marriage pictured here in Jacob's pursuit of a bride.

And there's, I think, nobody in the room here probably that's single, that's desiring to be married. Could be the case, I don't know. But if that is the case, you desire a good thing and should be encouraged.

But there might be somebody listening online who's a young man who needs to be told that like the early founding fathers of the country who were ready to found a nation at age 18, 20, 21, 25, and 33, young men should grow up, pursue a wife, find a wife, marry, have children, fill the earth.

God's creation mandate. How long would it take for evangelicals to take complete control of this country if we simply followed God's design for marriage and procreation?

One generation.

One generation. If we encourage young couples to get married, well, first of all, people to get married, young people to get married, to have kids and procreate, raise their children in the church, keep them in the faith, protect them from the government indoctrination camps as much as possible.

That's not everybody's option. Not everybody can homeschool. But that's the ideal. What's that?

Not these days.

It is.

It really is. And those are real situations that people deal with. But given where the government schools have gone in the recent decades, it's gotten to the point where you gotta protect your kids. And especially from the universities.

The universities are the indoctrination camps of our country. They're the ones introducing cultural Marxism. And sadly, I saw it too many times. Even kids escaping from Kensington and the situation they were in in the rough inner city, the ones that made it to college, we lost a good handful of them to the leftist progressive agenda because that's what they learned at university.

And going into it, we thought that they were bulletproof. Like, we drilled them about these things. They seemed to get it. But you put a fish in that kind of water and it's not long before it starts to swim with the current, right?

So, yeah. But all this to say, marriage. God has designed young people to get married, to have babies, to raise them in the wisdom and admonition of the Lord. And this is how God's kingdom will advance in our country.

So marriage, main idea, is God's beautiful design for most people. Now, here's a caveat. Paul, who writes so much about marriage, was himself single. Did that make him a lesser Christian? No, there is a gift of singleness.

But most people are called to be married. If they don't burn with passion, as Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 7, they may have a gift of singleness. But most people are pursuing and should pursue marriage.

Marriage is worth the work. How many married people in this room can testify that marriage takes hard work? It takes hard work and it is so worth it because it's God's design. Here in this passage, we're gonna see how hard Jacob was willing to work to get Rachel.

Turns out he got Leah instead, but he was willing to work for her. Whether that work be invested in our own marriage or in support of other marriages, do you think that we as a congregation have a role in supporting young couples and encouraging them to get married?

I think we have a lot more influence than we realize. I think churches that emphasize the goodness of marriage and encourage marriage actually see a huge change amongst their young people. Young men growing up and rejecting pornography and all of the things that keep them adolescent and becoming men.

Churches need to emphasize that. Here in this pulpit, in that pulpit, in the community groups that we're all a part of as much as possible, prayer groups emphasizing the goodness of marriage. We need to do that again and again.

Jacob's Journey to Haran and the Providence of Meeting Rachel

Okay, John, would you be my first reader? And you've got a big one, actually. Genesis 29, one through eight.

Then Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the people of the east. As he looked, he saw a well of sheep lying beside it. For out of that well the flocks were watered. The stone on the well's mouth was large.

And when all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep and put the stone back in its place over the mouth of the well. Jacob said to them, my brothers, where do you come from?

They said, we are from Heron. He said to them, do you know Laban, the son of Nahor? They said, we know him. He said to them, is it well with him? They said, it is well. And see, Rachel, his daughter, is coming with the sheep.

He said, behold, it is still high day. It is not time for the livestock to be gathered together. Water the sheep and go pasture them. But they said, we cannot until all the flocks are gathered together and the stone is rolled from the mouth of the well.

Then we water the sheep.

Providence. We talk often about providence in God's plan. We spoke about how it is ubiquitous. It's over everything. Sproul says there's not one maverick molecule in all the universe, meaning God's plan has predestined whatsoever comes to pass, including even the sinful things in the world.

It's not that God is the author of sin. The sinner is responsible for their sin, but God's plan includes sinful choices of men. Genesis 50, Isaiah 10, Acts 4, 27 and 28 prove that completely. But one of the areas of providence that we need to focus on today is God's providence in putting spouses together.

His design for a husband and a wife to meet one another and to be married. It is one of the most beautiful things. Tim, you've emphasized this with the youth a lot. What do you tell them about the two most important decisions in their life?

Number one, you gotta decide to follow Jesus. That's the biggest decision. And number two, what everyone should understand.

At a young age is,.

One, or number two, if you're gonna get married, and then two. A, who are you gonna marry?

Yes.

So who you're going to marry, that choice of who will be your spouse will affect your life more than almost anything else in the world. The only thing that we can think of that's more important is God himself.

And then who you become one flesh with. Those two decisions. And we tell the teens that, Proverbs 18 .22 says, he who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. Now conversely, if you marry a quarrelsome wife, it's better to live on the corner of the roof than in the house with the quarrelsome wife, right?

And conversely, women would testify that if you marry an abusive husband or a domineering jerk, your life will be miserable, right? So who you choose for a spouse. Now back into the text. Look at the providence of what's happening here.

Three flocks all sitting around a well. They're not ready to roll away the stone because they got to get all the flocks in. Here comes Jacob running from his brother Esau who wants to kill him. And his mom says, you need to get out of town because your brother comforts himself with the thought of killing you.

So he's just a man on the run. Heads east. He's heard of Haran. You know, he heard about how Abraham stopped there on his journey from Ur of the Chaldees and then came down into the promised land. And now here's Jacob on the run, way up north in Haran.

He doesn't know people here. He doesn't know the geography. He happens upon one certain well in the land. And he asked the question and sure enough, do you know Laban? Of course we know Laban. And there's his daughter coming right now.

She's a shepherdess bringing the flock so we can roll away the stone and water the sheep. Amazing story. Providence. My first time seeing my wife was when I was a student at Dallas Theological Seminary.

My friends had already said, you've got to meet this girl, Jen. I'd never seen her or met her, but she's friends with my best friend's girlfriend. So we go to the Dallas Seminary auditorium and Dallas is very staid, very holy and official, right?

And people sing like this and they say, oh, there's Jen. And I'm looking, oh, there's Jen. And the first thing I know about her, looking at her from behind, is that here's one girl with her hands like this while praising.

And I think, that's different. And I was attracted to her before even seeing her face because I saw her hands raised to God. And I thought I would like to meet her. And then after that service I did, we connected.

But it was the providence that she just happened to be here at Dallas Seminary worshiping God. And I just happened to have moved from Tampa to go to that campus just before she went off to be a missionary as she was planning.

She had already been in inner city Philadelphia for two summers before I ever met her. And it was God's providence that brought us together. I'm sure if we went around the table, each one could tell a story of how you met the one you love.

It's God's, why are you laughing, Bob? We don't have time for all of them right now, but, because the story is long here. But he who finds a wife finds a good thing. It is the gift of God, the providence of God.

We should be praying for that providence to come about. And it's true, again, I'll reemphasize, 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says, I wish that all were as I myself am. He's referring to singleness. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.

The reason for that was the present distress. He describes the persecution of Christians, the need of the hour, that missionaries like himself not getting married, the frontline people was the need of the hour.

But the plan and the pattern of God, as you see in Genesis 29 and throughout history, is that most people will not have that particular gift. Not everybody has the gift of singleness. And Paul describes that gift as not burning with passion.

So, for some reason, God has given that as a gift to some people. But it turns out that most people should marry. That is God's design. Not all, it's not bad to be single. And for some other reasons, it's just God's providence that you not run into that Rachel who just happens to come walking up the road.

We need to trust God with his providence is the big idea here, right? Whatever circumstance God has given you, you trust God's providence in it and you wait on the Lord. When it was his timing, look, is anything gonna stop it?

Jacob's Joyful Strength and Laban's Welcome

Now, Sandy, you get to read one of my favorite passages because I think it's funny, verses nine to 12. The overwhelming thankfulness and gratitude, it's just funny how Jacob expresses it. Would you read for us nine to 12?

While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came for she was a shepherdess. Then Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother. Jacob went up and rolled a stone from the mouth of a well and watered the flock of Laban, his mother's brother.

Then Jacob kissed, and lifted his.

Is that in there?

Yeah, my Bible's a little newer.

It does say that, he kissed Rachel.

And lifted his voice and wept.

And wept!

What a guy. Jacob told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and that he was Rebecca's son. And she ran and told her father.

I heard the teenagers talking about Riz.

Riz?

And I said, what is Riz? I don't know this term. What is Riz? And evidently it comes from charisma. It means how a guy is able to talk to a girl to attract her. He's got Riz or he doesn't have any Riz.

Now, when I first read this, I thought, Jacob, Jacob. First of all, you're coming on too strong. The first greeting is a kiss. And then the next thing is you just start weeping. Where's his Riz? This is not a good look.

His mom, where were the men in his life saying, dude, this is how you carry yourself as a guy when you relate to a girl. And I think guys should come along, aside each other and kind of coach a little bit.

You need a little coaching here. But one beautiful thing is he's the one who rolls the stone away, right? He sees her coming. You can tell his heart is just beating. He's ready to serve. He's ready to step up.

He's ready to work, to do whatever is necessary to win the girl. But then what I think is happening with the weeping out loud is Colossians 2 .7. We are to be abounding in thanksgiving. That's how the ESV has it.

But I like the NAS in this case from 1995. That's actually probably my all-time favorite translation. It's just a little clunky. It doesn't read quite as well as the ESV. But the New American Standard version of 1995, which is the updated version is John MacArthur's Legacy Standard Bible, which is also awesome.

So another great translation. If you're looking for a new angle, if you wanna get a new Bible, the Legacy, or you can go with an old NAS. But in any case, the New American Standard said, overflowing with gratitude.

That phrase from Colossians 2 .7. Colossians 2 .7 in the NASV.

Oh, no wait, you were talking about he over.

Yeah.

So in verse 11, when it says, then Jacob kissed Rachel. Now, by the way, I don't think that's a kiss on the mouth. That's not like a romantic kiss because in a couple of verses later, he's gonna kiss somebody else.

I think he kissed, somebody embraced and kissed him. So verse 13, when Laban heard the news, he ran to meet him and embraced him. That's a Middle Eastern kind of greeting, a kiss on the cheek. But the point I'm seizing on here is the weeping out loud.

What's up with that? And I think when he had just journeyed, remember his mom told him, I don't want you to marry one of these wicked Canaanite girls. Go find a godly girl from our family.

Why?

And so he goes all the way up to Haran, doesn't know anybody. The first well he comes upon, they say, look, here comes Rachel. And his heart just breaks with gratitude. Like God, you gave, he just knew it.

That's the idea. Here she is, the one I came journeying for. The one I've longed for all my life. He knew it. God confirmed to his heart and he broke. The well that was in front of him for watering the sheep is almost a metaphor for the well inside of him.

His eyes just started to water. Just wet weeping aloud. The idea here is that it's not just like getting a little misty. It's like he can't even control the gratitude. He's just overflowing with joy. It's probably a little ugly picture, but also beautiful.

Jeff. Yeah.

That part of the world doesn't, and you've seen it a lot.

Yeah, yeah.

Correct, yes. Yeah, it's not a mouth-to-mouth. It's a greeting, a respectful greeting.

Rick.

My Bible suggests that it was a great feat of strength.

Yes.

On his part to move the stone and maybe a rush of adrenaline or something like that, I don't know.

I agree. Yeah, I think that's the idea. He's going for it with all this work. And in a minute, we'll focus on that because he works for seven years to win. He's willing to do that. All right, Barbara, would you take verses 13 and 14?

About Jacob, he hurried to meet him and told him all these things. Then Laban said to him, you are my own flesh and blood.

And he stayed with him a month.

Oh.

Beautiful.

And Jacob had.

Yes.

What I want to emphasize here is that Laban reacts like one who's been praying for just this kind of moment. He says, as soon as he heard the news, he ran to meet him. Like the father running to the prodigal son.

It's something he's been waiting for. He ran to meet him. He's been praying for his daughter to have a godly husband. And this is the point I want to make to us. Once you have your spouse, if you're married, you now take on the mantle of the Laban in this story to pray for godly spouses for your kids, your grandkids, and for the young people of this church.

We ought to become the prayer support that can do everything we can. I don't know about being a matchmaker. I have tried to be the Cupid before. I've tried to say, eh, these two would be good together and arranging a date.

And every time I've tried that, it has not worked out well. So I relegate myself to the praying pastor who behind the scenes is praying for this person to find that spouse. Because I know God will show them in time.

I'm not much into matchmaking, but I don't think it's a bad thing. Maybe you think, oh, these two people, maybe you introduce somebody and just see where it goes. That kind of thing. But whether or not you actively do anything, Laban here reveals his heart.

He ran to meet him. He embraced him and kissed him and brought him into his house. He welcomed him. He's wanting to see his daughter marry this man. It's still in the fledgling stage, but he's pro-marriage.

He's wanting to see the young one find her soulmate.

Amen?

But the other part of it is

Yes.

See, that's another

And that's the idea. There's a godly line there.

Yeah.

The rumors that he would have about Abraham and leaving her of the Chaldees with his father and the family line there is a godly one. So there's some following of God. And maybe they even know some of the exploits of Abraham.

Remember, he fought off the five kings when they ransacked and then he gave his side to Melchizedek. So yeah, there's probably a reputation of him serving Yahweh. Okay, verses 15 to 20. Stanford, if you will.

Okay, I'll just make a comment here.

Yes, please.

Yeah.

19 and 20, please, yep.

Laban said, it's better that you stay here with me.

They seemed to him but a few days because of the love that he had for her. Nothing motivates a young man toward hard work like the perceived reward of marrying a good and beautiful wife. Now in the story, I feel kind of bad for Leah because her eyes were weak.

What do you suppose that means? She had bad eyesight?

No, she's just not.

No, just not the best looking. Her eyes weren't as beautiful as at least her sister's, Rachel. Rachel to the physical appearance and in the perception of Jacob, Rachel was the pretty one and his heart was all for Rachel.

Poor Leah.

The physical.

It was the physical attraction, yeah. Because she was, Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance so body and face kind of thing but Leah's eyes were weak, just wasn't as pretty. In any case though, because he had such an attraction to Rachel.

Now is that, is anything bad about that?

Yeah.

What's bad about it?

I think.

He will, oh wait till you see how deceitful he gets.

Yeah, you know that would be terrible to hold one child just because she's ugly and want her to be married first.

But if she's the firstborn or not.

Right.

That was a horrible thing.

Yeah, yeah you're right.

Was it wrong, was it wrong that Jacob was attracted to Rachel?

No. Oh no.

No, no.

Right.

There's nothing wrong with being attracted. In fact that's part of God's design to bring people together. Right, nothing wrong with that.

But God's design was different.

What's that?

Because Christ came through Leah, not Rachel.

Correct.

All right and we'll see the providence of that in a moment here. So he is so motivated to work that seven years feels like nothing. He's driven toward what he wants. He's going for what he's going for and praise God for that.

This is a good and godly desire. Something that we should encourage in the young men in this church. Get to work. Stop playing video games. Go get a job. Work, earn money, become independent, have your own place and you can support a wife.

This is your goal. I often have and I've mentioned this before Tim right that some young teenagers have said why would God give me all these sexual urges before I'm allowed to satisfy them? I'm too young to get married.

So it's not fair. Like there's, I have no way of satisfying sexual urges except for sin and my point back to them is God gave, God's design is good. This is meant to drive you to become capable of being a husband.

This is part of God's design to make you work. So work as hard as you can. God will give you the strength to endure temptation. He can do that. But if you desire this, it's a good desire from God. Let it make you grow up so that you can not only have sex but be a husband, be a provider, be a protector.

Be a godly man.

Do everything that God has called you to be as a man. So it's actually God's good design to motivate you and that's what I see in the text here. That Jacob is working like a man on a mission. He is motivated.

He's working, working, working. And then the trickery that you mentioned comes in. Judy, would you mind reading for us? Why then have you deceived me? The deceiver gets deceived. Remember he's heel grabber.

He's the one that tricked his brother Esau and actually tricked his father Isaac to take the blessing from Esau and also tricked his brother to sell him the birthright for a pot of stew. He's the deceiver.

Laban's Deceit, Jacob's Weakness, and the Problem of Polygamy

Jeff.

Yes.

You're telling me that he never looked into her eyes?

Well, here's the thing. After that wedding, the veil, this was evidently happening at night. So imagine that there's overcast over the moon and maybe you don't have candles going or anything. It was dark enough that when they went from the wedding ceremony into the bridal chamber, he couldn't see enough.

I didn't think he'd talk to her either. I am telling you that because the text actually says that. It's very clear. Verse 25. In the morning, behold, it was Leah. So he did not know. He thought that he had Rachel and he wakes up next to Leah and wow.

He was probably drunk.

He might have been drunk too. I'm going with the darkness reasoning, but. Okay, three off.

Yeah.

I don't know, weddings, they seem to drink back then.

Oh yeah, no, I think they were drinking.

Yeah.

Okay, we'll go with the combination. It was darkness and drunkenness, but in the morning, he found out he's married to Leah. Wow, the deceiver gets deceived. Verses 26 to 30, Rick.

Laban says, it is not so done in our country to give the younger before the first born. Complete the week of this one and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another seven years. Jacob did so and completed her week.

Then Laban gave him his daughter, Rachel, to be his wife. Laban gave his female servant, Bilhah, to his daughter, Rachel, to be her servant. So Jacob went in and he loved Rachel more than Leah and served Laban for another seven years.

Yes, okay.

But can I just ask?

Yes.

Push that on.

Oh, right.

But he did go along with it.

Yes, he did.

And in that story, he's telling some lies. So he actually outright lies multiple times to Isaac. Oh, it came from the mother. It was her idea. Yes, yep, yep. So the question was, why then have you deceived me?

And verse 26, Laban said, it is not so done in our country to give the younger daughter before the first. And Jacob's thinking, you could have told me that. We could, you already agreed to Rachel. What are you telling me this now?

The guy is clearly a deceiver, but that's how he rationalized it in his mind that Jacob was going after the younger daughter, and that's just not culturally appropriate. So he's gonna do what he wants to do.

And then he proposes a solution. Now, acquiescing to ungodly reasoning is the root of much bitterness. Great example. Jacob himself acquiesced to the reasoning of his own mom. Put on this hairy coat and pretend that you're your brother.

And he just went along with his own mom. Maybe he's just being a good, obedient son. No, that was deceitful sin, and he just went along with a bad plan. The question here is, is polygamy okay? Just because God does not ostensibly punish it, here, or with Abraham and Bilhah, we already covered this weeks ago, but let me just remind you.

Or with David or Solomon. God is allowing it in the sense of not punishing it, but was it ever prescribed by God?

No.

And is it actually outlawed? Yes, later in the law, God will say you cannot take a wife and her sister. It is absolutely outlawed in the law of Moses, but the law of Moses had not yet been given. Where is the precedent for polygamy first seen in the Old Testament?

Who's the first polygamist?

Lamech.

Lamech, yes. Look back to Genesis chapter five, verses 28 to 31.

Lamech.

Wait, I think I got, what does Lamech say? Oh, I'm sorry, it's chapter four, verse 19. 419. The other section was Lamech's genealogy.

Lamech took two wives.

Now, is Lamech our example? Is he a positive example?

No.

He is the guy who says to his wives, verse 23, Adon and Zillah, hear my voice, you wives of Lamech. Listen to what I said. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is 77-fold.