Outfoxing the Fox

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Genesis chapter 30.
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If you don't have a Bible, there's probably one around you somewhere.
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And today would be a good day to read along, even if you maybe don't normally, because we're going to be going through a long narrative of story, and I want to point out some things in the narrative that are very important.
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So we're going to begin in chapter 30, verse 25.
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We're going to read through chapter 31, verse 16, and I want to invite you to stand as we read God's work.
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As soon as Rachel had born Jacob.
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I'm sorry, Joseph.
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Jacob said to Laban, send me away that I may go to my own home and country.
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Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, that I may go for, you know, the service that I have given you.
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But Laban said to him, if I have found favor in your sight, I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you.
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Name your wages and I will give it.
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Jacob said to him, you yourself know how I have served you and how your livestock has fared with me.
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For you had little before I came and it has increased abundantly and the Lord has blessed you wherever I turn.
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But now when shall I provide for my own household also? He said, what shall I give you? Jacob said, you shall not give me anything.
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If you will do this for me, I will again, pasture your flock and keep it.
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Let me pass through all the flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb and the spotted and speckled among the goats and they shall be my wages.
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So my honesty will answer for me later.
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When you look, when you come to look into my wages with you, everyone that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and the black among the lambs, if found with me, shall be counted stolen.
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Laban said, good, let it be as you have said.
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But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, everyone that had white on it and every lamb that was black and put them in charge of his sons.
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And he set a distance of three days journey between himself and Jacob and Jacob pastored the rest of Laban's flock.
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Then Jacob took fresh sticks of poplar and almond and plain trees and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the sticks.
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He set the sticks he had peeled in front of the flocks and the troughs, that is the watering places where the flocks came to drink.
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And since they bred when they came to drink, the flocks bred in front of the sticks.
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And so the flocks brought forth stripes, speckled and spotted.
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And Jacob separated the lambs and set the flocks, excuse me, the faces of the flocks towards the striped and all the black and the flock of Laban.
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He put his own droves apart and did not put them with Laban's flock.
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Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob would lay the sticks in the troughs before the eyes of the flock and they might breed among the sticks.
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But the feebler of the flock, he would not lay them there.
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So the feebler would be Laban's and the stronger Jacob's.
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Thus the man increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants and camels and donkeys.
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Chapter 31, now Jacob heard that the sons of Laban were saying, Jacob has taken all of our fathers.
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And from what our fathers, what was our fathers, he has gained all his wealth.
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And Jacob saw that Laban did not regard him with favor as before.
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Then the Lord said to Jacob, return to the land of your fathers and do unto your kindred and I will be with you.
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So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah into the field where his flock was and said to them, I see that your father does not regard me with favor as he did before.
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But the God of my father has been with me.
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You know that I have served your father with all my strength, yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages 10 times.
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But God did not permit him to harm me.
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If he said the spotted shall be your wages, then the flock bore spotted.
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If he said the stripes shall be your wages, then the flock bore striped.
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Thus God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me.
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In the breeding season of the flock, I lifted up my eyes and saw in a dream that the goats that mated with the flock were striped, spotted and modeled.
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Then the angel of God said to me in a dream, Jacob, and I said, here I am.
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And he said, lift up your eyes and see all the goats that mate with the flocks are striped, spotted and modeled, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you.
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I'm the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me.
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Now arise, go out from this land and return to the land of your kindred.
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Then Rachel and Leah answered and said to him, is there any portion of the inheritance left for us in our father's house? Are we not regarded by him as foreigners, as he has sold us and he has indeed devoured our money? All the wealth that God has taken away from our fathers belongs to us and to our children.
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Now, then, whatever God has said to you do.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I pray even now that as I seek to give an understanding of it, that you would keep me from error.
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And I pray, God, that you would open the hearts of your people to hear and understand the truth.
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And Lord, God, that you would be glorified in the preaching of your word.
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Lord, save souls today, if it be according to your will.
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If there are those who do not know you, open their hearts to believe.
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Lord, God, use this time to point us all toward the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And it's in his name we pray.
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Amen.
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We find ourselves in the midst of our study of the book of Genesis, continuing on as we have been verse by verse, chapter by chapter.
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And we have recently been tracing the life of Jacob.
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This, of course, is the third in the line of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
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And Jacob had fled his father's house because of his brother's murderous rage back in 27, chapter 27.
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He had gone to his uncle's house.
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He had fallen in love with Rachel, his uncle's daughter.
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He'd asked for her hand in marriage.
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Her uncle said, if you work seven years, you may have her.
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Actually, Jacob offered the seven years.
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He worked seven years and lo and behold, he woke up next to Leah and not Rachel.
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The father had pulled the old switcheroo.
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Sorry, but he switched them out somehow.
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So he had to work another seven years to receive Rachel to be his wife.
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So we come to this passage and we find ourselves 14 years.
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That Jacob has served his father in law.
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At least.
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And in our previous message, we saw how God had expanded Jacob's fortune.
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I'm sorry, his family.
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He had expanded his family.
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He had given him many sons and at least one daughter.
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And that's what we talked about last week.
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You'll remember we went back and forth.
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We talked about the moms.
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Leah had children.
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Then the handmaids had children.
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Then Leah had children again.
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Then finally, Rachel has a child named Joseph.
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And, you know, if you know the book of Genesis and you've read it before, you know that Joseph will become very important very soon.
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The story will turn and focus on him.
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So Jacob's family has grown.
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But now we come to the passage where we're going to see his fortune grow.
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See, God is going to bless him.
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Not only with children, but with.
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Financial and in that case, it would be agricultural or agrarian prosperity.
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He's going to become a very wealthy man by the blessing of God.
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But like the birth of his children, this is not going to come easy.
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If we thought Rachel and Leah were difficult and they are.
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Laban is the king.
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Laban is Laban is a fox.
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That's why I titled today's lesson.
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If you go back to the title, please, Matt, the first screen.
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The title of today's lesson is Outfoxing the Fox.
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Because Laban is a man who is as sly as a fox.
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But today, Jacob is able through God's blessing to get the upper hand.
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So we're going to read through the text.
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We're going to talk about each part of this narrative.
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We're going to see what's happening.
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And then I hope that I'll be able to draw for you a conclusion that is.
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That is applicable to us.
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We see in the very first verse, chapter 25, chapter 30, verse 25.
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It says, as soon as Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, send me away that I may go to my home and country.
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Jacob is going to Laban and saying, look, I'm ready to go home.
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In fact, that was almost the title of the sermon, ready to go home.
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And he was Jacob had no intention of staying here forever.
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He had no intention of being Laban's indentured servant for the rest of his life.
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Jacob came there for one reason, and that was to get a wife.
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He has worked the time to get the wife.
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He's ready to go home.
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Now he knows when he goes home, there's not a welcoming party for him.
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He's going to have to reconcile with Esau.
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He knows that going home is going to be difficult.
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In fact, we're going to see that in the chapters ahead.
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When he goes home, he's afraid and I would be too.
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Because when he left, Esau was in a murderous rage.
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But he still wants to go home.
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So if you think about it for a moment, the murderous brother is better than he, than the than the tricky father in law.
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I'm ready to get out of your house.
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I'm ready to go home.
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But notice it also connects this to the birth of Joseph.
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Now, it doesn't tell us why.
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It simply says as soon as Rachel bore Joseph, that's when Jacob was ready to go.
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Now, I have some thoughts on this.
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It doesn't say this in the text.
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So we have to kind of use a little bit, as I say, sanctified imagination.
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What is it about the birth of Joseph that brought about this desire to leave? Could it be that he's finally paid off his debt? Maybe this is the end of the 14 years.
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Maybe that is the reason.
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Or maybe now he knows that Rachel is linked to him in a familial way.
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That's more than just marriage.
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But now by birth, he has a child through her and there's not going to be a battle for her.
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She's definitely going to come with him.
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Maybe he was afraid if he left prior to her giving birth, maybe he was afraid she might not go.
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Or maybe the father, as tricky as he's been, might try to keep her back.
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But now he has a son through her.
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Both of his wives have born him children and he is ready to go home.
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But notice he still has to get permission from Laban.
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Laban is still the family patriarch.
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Laban is still, as it were, his employer.
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Now we're going to see later, he will eventually decide to leave without Laban's approval.
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But at this point, he's trying to do things right.
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He's trying to give, as it were, his two weeks notice.
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He's going to his boss and he's saying, boss, I want to be relieved so I can go home.
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Give me, verse 26, give me my wives and children for whom I have served you that I may go.
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For you know the service that I've given to you.
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Basically, what he's saying is I've earned this freedom.
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I have served you well.
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In fact, what we're going to see in a moment is when he came there, Laban was not very rich.
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In fact, it says that his his flocks and everything increased under Jacob.
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That when he came, he had not much of anything.
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But Jacob has turned him into a rich man.
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Let's look at verse 27.
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It says, but Laban said to him, if I have found favor in your sight, I've learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you.
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Now, I need to make a point here.
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If you're reading the King James Bible, God bless you.
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You have there the word experience, not the word divination.
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It says I have if I have found favor in your sight, I've learned by experience, the King James says.
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And that would make sense in the sense of I have looked around ever since you got here.
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My experience tells me that you are a man who brings with him the blessings of God.
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So I've learned by experience.
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That's the case.
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So why is it that the ESV and many other translations use the word divination? Well, it is because the Hebrew word Nakash here is related to the idea of interpreting signs and omens.
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It's not just the experience of a natural experience, like I know that when I go out in the cold, I need to wear a jacket.
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I know that by experience.
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But rather, this is the idea of someone who is who is seeking to to find through the spiritual realm some source of knowledge, some source of of, as it were, almost a demonic knowledge.
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And what we're going to see in the weeks ahead is Laban is a man who is an idolater.
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Rachel is going to steal his household gods.
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So we know that he is an idolater.
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And by the way, just just to point this out in Leviticus 1926, the same word is used and it's translated omens and fortune telling in the ESV.
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But in the King James, it's translated enchantment.
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So even in the King James and other places, the word Nakash is translated to indicate more than just a natural experience.
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He has had some type of spiritual experience, whether he went to a fortune teller or whether he had some type of spiritual experience.
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He has learned through divination that Jacob is being blessed by God.
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Now.
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Verse 28, name your wages and I will give it to you.
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What is he saying? I don't want you to leave.
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I'm blessed because of you.
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I want you to tell me what you think you're worth and I will pay it.
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All right, ladies and gentlemen, if you've ever owned a company.
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If you've ever been a boss or a manager, you know that there are people that work for you that are absolutely indispensable.
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And when those people tell you that they're thinking of going somewhere else, your first thought is, what's it going to take to keep you here? What is it that they're offering you that we haven't that maybe we could offer you? And so if you think about it, that's what he's saying.
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Name your wages and I will give it.
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What is it that they've got that we don't have? Well, they had the promised land, so there's no wage in the world that's going to make it worth it.
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Verse 29, Jacob said to him, you yourself know that I have served you and how your livestock has fared with me.
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For you had little before I came.
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That's what I said earlier.
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You had little before I came and it has increased abundantly.
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And the Lord has blessed you wherever I turn.
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But now, when shall I provide for my own household? You see the problem? Jacob is saying this.
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He's saying you could give me a wage.
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But if you give me a wage, I'm still under your authority.
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When do I get to be my own man? When do I get to be the one who has his place and his family and his authority? I understand this and I know this may be an offshoot of application, but there is a sense in which a man eventually needs to become his own man.
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There is a sense in which men, even though they may live at home past 18, and there's no magic thing that says 18, you got to go.
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But there is a point in which a man needs to leave his father and mother, cleave unto his wife and the two become one flesh.
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And that's a new family, a new authority structure is made.
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And that family takes precedent over anything else.
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His wife, his children are his family.
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He still has a relationship with his parents, still has a relationship, brothers and sisters.
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But his wife and his children are his family.
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They are his priority.
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So Jacob says, when will I get to? When will I get to have what is mine? When will I get to have my family? Verse 32.
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Oh, excuse me.
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Verse 31.
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He said, what shall I give you? Jacob said, you shall not give me anything.
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If you will do this for me, I will again, pasture your flock and keep it.
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So basically, just listen, kind of understand the interpretation here.
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He's saying, I'm not going to take a wage in the sense of you're not going to pay me 40 hours a week, $20 an hour.
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That's not how we're going to do this.
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Here's what we will do, though.
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Verse 32.
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Let me pass through your whole flock and I'm going to remove every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb and the spotted and speckled among the goats and they shall be my wages.
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Now, you might say, what in the world is going on here? Well, understand this speckled and spotted sheep were the vast minority.
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So Jacob is asking for the least.
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Most of the sheep were white.
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Most of the goats were brown.
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The sheep that were speckled and spotted were the minority.
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In fact, a normal shepherd, according to Bruce Walkie, a normal shepherd at this time would have received 20% of the flock as his payment.
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The speckled and spotted would have been far less than 20% because they were in such a minority among the flock.
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So this is why when he says this, you'll notice in verse 34, Laban says, good, you don't even want the standard 20%.
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You just want the speckled and the spotted and the black fine.
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But notice what he says, I'm going to go back up.
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Verse 33.
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This is why Jacob does it this way.
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He says, verse 33 says, so my honesty will answer for me when you come to look into my wages with you, everyone that's not spotted or speckled among the goats and the black among the lambs.
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If you found them with me, you can count them as stolen.
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See what he's saying? He's saying we're going to do this where you will know if I've taken anything.
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Because if you come to my flock and you see a bunch of white sheep running around, you'll know those are yours.
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If you come to your flock and you see a bunch of speckled sheep, you'll know those are mine.
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And so we will now have a physical marking on these animals that will distinguish theirs from yours, mine from yours.
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So I'm going to have the speckled and the spotted.
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And this way you'll know I am not a cheat.
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I'm not going to cheat you.
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So again, verse 34, Laban says, good, let it be as you have said.
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I like this.
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I get the majority, you get the minority.
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I am all good.
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But understand this, Laban is a fox.
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And Laban ain't going to let this be easy on his son in law.
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And I got to tell you, verses 35 and 36 is some underhanded business.
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Notice what happens in 35 and 36.
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Immediately he cheats.
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Look at what it says.
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It says, but that day, that being the day they made the agreement, Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it and every lamb that was black and put them in charge of his sons.
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And he set them a distance of three days journey between himself and Jacob.
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And Jacob pastured the rest of Laban's flock.
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So so here's what happens.
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Laban says to Jacob, sure, you can have all the speckled and spotted.
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And he immediately goes to his sons.
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And he says, hey, guys, come here.
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I need you to take all the speckled and spotted and the black ones.
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And I need you to take them three days journey away.
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Now, understand that was supposed to be what Jacob did.
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Go back up to verse 32.
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Jacob said, let me pass through all your flock today and they shall be my wages.
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So this is Laban stealing from Jacob.
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He's immediately and he's making life harder on him.
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Because isn't it true that sort of offspring sort of produces with the characteristics of the parents? He's taking away all the spotted and stripes so that those characteristics are essentially robbed.
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So not only is he stealing what's his, but he's making it harder for him to produce anything for himself.
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And he says, take them three days away.
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He won't even know they're gone.
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And you've got to imagine.
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And I'm only, again, a little imagination here.
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You got to imagine Jacob.
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He's just finished making the agreement with his father-in-law.
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He's like, OK, I got the speckled and spotted.
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He goes home.
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He tells Leah and Rachel, OK, dad, and I've got a deal.
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Here's how it's going to work out.
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And I'm going to go out there and I'm going to go pick out all of our flock and we'll make us a little fence.
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And we'll have our little our little fence to get started.
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He walks over to the flock.
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They gone.
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It is like a sheet of white, no speckled, no spotted.
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The fox has made his move.
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Jacob knows it.
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There had to have been a moment of frustration in Jacob's heart when he walked out there to see that not one of his were still there.
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But he doesn't argue.
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He doesn't fuss.
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He doesn't question.
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But then in verses 37 to 43, he begins his work of building his fortune.
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And I got to talk about this for a minute.
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Let me get a sip.
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Hold on.
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This is one of the strangest portions of this whole book.
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And this is a book that has like towers to heaven and, you know, the earth being made in seven days.
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So this is still I stand by my statement.
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This part is kind of weird.
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And I have been preparing to preach this now for weeks.
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And I prepare ahead of time and read ahead and sort of make notes as I go.
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And I've honestly been a little anxious to get to this portion.
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Because it's just weird, y'all.
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I mean, it really is.
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Because here's what it says in layman's terms.
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Jacob takes sticks, almond, plane and poplar trees.
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He carves the sticks, taking the branch or the bark off, exposing the white underneath.
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If you've ever had a if you were ever a boy with a pocket knife and you've done this, you sit down with a stick and you begin scraping the bark off, you know, creating for yourself some kind of a tool, right? Well, he takes his his knife, probably a piece of flint, and he begins to carve into these branches white streaks.
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Then he takes and puts them in the water trough.
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The flocks come up.
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Drink from the water with the sticks in there.
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And it says they look at the white streaks.
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And they begin to give birth.
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Because, by the way, it says that that's where they made it.
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They made it when they were they were at the trough.
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And it says they begin to give birth to spotted and speckled and striped animals.
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Now, we have some very interesting interpretations of this.
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If you spend if you go out and sort of do the commentary marathon that you do sometimes or you just start reading the commentaries, you'll find a lot of very interesting ways that people have interpreted this.
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But just so we know, first of all, before we even interpret it, what is happening? He's putting sticks in the water.
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They're mating and they're giving birth to striped and spotted animals.
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That's what is happening.
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The text is not unclear.
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We can't say it, make it say something it doesn't.
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That's basically what it says.
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But what is happening? Because we who live on this side of the, if you might say, modern technology and understanding things like, you know, how birth works and how procreation happens.
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We understand that looking at a spotted or speckled picture is not going to cause you to give birth to a spotted or speckled baby.
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I mean, you know, you understand that.
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That just, you know, we understand.
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Even though there are some really wild superstitions about birth.
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I'm gonna talk about that in a minute.
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We maintain some pretty wild superstitions.
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But this is what is happening.
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And so I'll give you a few thoughts.
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The Believer's Bible Commentary, this is what we use for our academy class.
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It has an interesting interpretation.
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It says that the peeled rods were a trick.
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He was using that to hide his real secrets.
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Bible doesn't say that.
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So I think that's a little bit of an overreach there.
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Johnny Mac, that'd be John MacArthur.
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I talk like I know him.
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John MacArthur, he says this.
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He says, when the bark was peeled, there was a stimulant that was released into the water that stimulated the animal's sexual activity.
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And this is actually something that Answers in Genesis has an entire four-page essay on about how these particular sticks could have produced some form of aphrodisiac within the water that made the animals more ready and willing to mate.
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But that still don't answer the question of why they were striped and spotted.
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So I think that's, again, somewhat of a reach.
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Some believe, and this was actually the interpretation of Calvin and Jim Boyce, who was pastor of First Presbyterian in Philadelphia.
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And his commentary and Calvin's commentary says this was God had commanded him to do this.
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And basically, it was the same way as when we know later in Numbers where the people looked at the snake and it was a look of faith.
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And when they looked in faith, they were healed.
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That this was the same way that God had told him to put them in there.
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And when they looked, it was God telling him to do this.
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And that was it.
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But here's the thing.
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The text doesn't tell us that.
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All of these interpretations are based on something the text don't say.
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And if you come to my hermeneutics class, one of the things you'll learn day one is you start with what the text says and the text can't mean what it doesn't say.
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So we have to be careful when we start adding in all these ideas.
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I like D.A.
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Carson.
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D.A.
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Carson is one of my favorite theologians, and this is what he says.
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We don't know.
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Actually, he says it a little bit more gracious than that.
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He says how these influence the outcome of the breeding is not readily apparent.
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Amen.
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But I will say this.
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Jacob did live in a time and in an area where there was a great deal of superstition.
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We learned that last week.
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Why did Rachel want the mandrakes? Because they believe that they produced some type of aphrodisiac or sexual stimulant.
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She wanted those because she wanted to get pregnant.
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So could it be that this is simply a superstition? Maybe people say, well, that's an example of how the Bible is so untrue.
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Look at how they believe all these superstitions.
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You don't think people believe superstitions today? My wife and I sat up last night, we were talking about birth superstitions.
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You ever hear any of these? Don't step over a rope because the baby will get a umbilical cord tied around its neck.
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Don't get your hair cut because the baby will be born with bad eyes.
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Absolutely.
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I looked it up.
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I was I was having fun because we crazy superstitions still exist.
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Guys, there are people who believe in astrology.
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You understand that there are people who believe that when you were born on the day that you were born, that that somehow influences your life and destiny.
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Lady comes up to me.
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Oh, I know why you act like that.
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You're an Aries.
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I say, no, I'm a dinosaur.
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Well, that's not real.
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None of it's real.
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You're making it up.
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I'm a velociraptor.
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That's what I am.
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They don't make it up.
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It's all made up.
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It's superstition.
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So I like what Waltke says.
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He says Rachel had her mandrakes.
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Jacob had his magic wands.
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Could be.
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But understand this.
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When we get to chapter 31, Jacob will make a very important statement when he's talking to Lee and Rachel in the field, he's going to say to them, God is the one who increased my flocks.
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So no matter what any of this superstition was, he recognizes by the end of this ordeal.
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And by the way, this is another six years that this goes on.
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He says to them, it was God who gave me these flocks.
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So he does, even if there's superstition involved in the beginning, he comes to understand who is really in charge of giving birth, who's really in charge of producing the spotted and the speckled and the mottled flock.
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So A.W.
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Pink says this.
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By the way, if you don't know who A.W.
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Pink is, remedy that.
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A.W.
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Pink is one of the most important authors of the last 150 years of the church, and he's worth reading.
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And this is what he says.
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Much has been written concerning the device of Jacob to get the better of Laban at the same time secure for himself that which has was really earned and varied have been the opinions that have been expressed.
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One thing seems clear.
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Unless God had prospered him, Jacob's plan would have failed.
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For something more than sticks from which a part of the bark had been removed was needed to make the cattle to bear streaked and spotted and mottled.
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Takes more than sticks to do that.
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But God did it.
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So now we find ourselves at chapter 31, verse 1.
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It says, Now Jacob heard the sons of Laban were saying, Jacob has taken all that which was our father's.
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And from what was our father's, he has gained all his wealth.
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Isn't that interesting? Because Jacob had built up Laban's flocks to the point that he was a rich man, to the point that Laban did not want him to leave.
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Now, over the course of six years, he has converted his flocks.
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It's sort of like when you go to another country and you kind of convert your money from American money to wherever you're going.
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Well, he's converted the flocks from Laban's to his own.
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And now he's got the speckled, the spotted and the mottled flocks that are his.
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And the brothers are angry.
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You understand why? We were rich.
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And now you're rich.
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We had it all.
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And now you have it all.
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And notice the connection.
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Please notice the connection.
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Jacob angered his brother and it got him to run here.
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Now he's angered his brother-in-law and he's going to head for that.
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He's going to head the other way.
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He's just always making his siblings upset.
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But also his father-in-law has lost favor.
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Notice it says in verse two.
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And Jacob saw Laban did not regard him with favor as before.
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Makes sense.
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He thought he was going to get less than 20 percent.
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He has gotten an abundance.
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He has caused Jacob's flock to increase and Laban's flock to decrease.
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And what we're going to see in a moment is sometime in this six years.
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Sometime in this six years, Laban changed the rules on him.
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In fact, it says it changed the rules 10 times.
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He said sometimes he made him say, oh, you can only have the streaked.
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And it said they began to have all the streaked began to give birth.
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And then it was just the spotted.
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And then all the spotted began to give birth.
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Laban couldn't make it work for him.
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So Jacob knows he's lost favor with Laban.
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He knows he's lost favor with his brothers in law.
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But something more important happens in verse three.
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And please, if you mark your Bible or if you make any notes or if you're writing anything down, verse three is the center point of today's lesson.
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Because verse three, it says, then the Lord said to Jacob.
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Now, if you read back through the narrative and maybe you can correct me on this, but I think this is this is the first time in the narrative we see God speaking to him since he saw that ladder up to heaven.
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So he has made his journey.
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He has made his family.
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He has built his wealth knowing God was there.
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But now God speaks to him.
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Verse three.
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God says to him, return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred.
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And here comes that wonderful blessing.
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And I will be with you.
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See, he doesn't need Laban's approval.
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He's got God's approval.
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He doesn't need Laban's permission.
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He's got God's permission.
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Let me tell you something.
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We do a lot in our life to try to make men happy.
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And sometimes we don't worry about making God happy.
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Most important person in your life that you can make happy is God.
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And that goes before anybody else, even your spouse.
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I'm going to tell you something.
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If you seek to make God pleased, if you seek to please the Lord and you move toward the Lord and the things that he calls you to, you will be a better spouse than your spouse could ever ask for.
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So the Lord says it's time to go home.
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Now we get to verse four.
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We're going to read through this and just make a few notes of his conversation because he he goes out to the field now.
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He's heard from God.
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He knows what God wants.
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God wants me to go home.
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OK, I got to explain this to Rachel and Leah.
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We've got to have a conversation because I'm not leaving with what I came with.
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Nobody came with a staff.
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He didn't have two nickels to rub together.
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But he's going to leave with a fortune and a family.
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So verse four says, so Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah into the field, where his flocks were and said to them, I see that your father does not regard me with favor as he did before, but the God of my father has been with me.
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You know that I have served your father with all my strength.
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Yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times.
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But God did not permit him to harm me.
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If he said the spotted shall be your wages, then all the flock were spotted.
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And if he said the stripe shall be your wages, then all the flock were striped.
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He couldn't lose.
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Because God was with him.
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Thus, God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me.
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That's why the brothers were upset.
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Verse 10, he gives us a little more insight into his conversation with the Lord.
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Because if we go back up to verse three, it wasn't much.
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But verse 10, he shares more about the vision that he had.
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Says in the breeding season, the flock lifted up my eyes and saw in a dream that the goats that mated and were mated with the flock were striped, spotted and modeled.
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Then the angel of the Lord said to me in the dream, Jacob.
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And I said, here I am.
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And he said, lift up your eyes and see all the goats that mate with the flock or stripes spotted and modeled for I have seen all that label is done to you.
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And I am the God of Bethel where you anointed a pillar made a vow to me now arise.
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Go out from this land and return to the land of your kindred.
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Notice that that he's he's harkening back to the last time that they spoke.
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He's harkening back to that moment.
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I am the God that you met, and you saw the stairwell.
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I am the God that you met, and you took that rock that you laid your head on, and you set it up, and you poured oil on it, and you anointed, and you made a vow to me.
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I am that God.
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I am the God of Abraham.
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I am the God of Isaac.
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And I am the God of Jacob, you.
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Now arise, go out from this land, and return to your kindred.
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Very reminiscent of what God had said to Abraham.
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Arise, and go to the land that I will show you.
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So Rachel and Leah agree.
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For the first time, verse 14, then Rachel and Leah answered and said to him, Is there any portion of our inheritance left to us in our father's house? Now, I want to say this about, especially Rachel, she's got a little bit of her dad in her.
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And we're going to see this in the weeks to come, because not only is she going to steal from her dad, she's going to very craftily hide what she stole from her dad in a very, which is going to be difficult to explain.
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But it's all, she's as foxy as the fox, right? And that sounded weird.
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But they're all a bunch of crafty people.
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But notice what they're saying.
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Is there anything, there's nothing left for us here.
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You've taken everything.
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You are now rich.
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Our father has now been taking all that you have.
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But then they say this in verse 15.
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Are we not regarded by him as foreigners? For he sold us and he has devoured our money.
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Notice how they're looking at the situation between them and Jacob.
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They don't see themselves as the honored daughters of a patriarch who gave their daughters in marriage, but rather they see themselves as a commodity that has been used to barter and steal and cheat.
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So they have no issue saying we're ready to go too.
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We have been treated like slaves, not like daughters.
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And notice verse 16.
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All the wealth that God has taken away from our father belongs to us and to our children.
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See, God took what our father had, which should have been ours by inheritance, and gave it to us through this way to ensure that we received it.
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That our father would not squander it or use it in another way.
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It became ours.
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And then I love the last line of today, verse 16.
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Now then, whatever God has said to you, do.
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Let me say this, gentlemen.
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I don't think that this is so much a word of faith as it is a word of frustration with their father.
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Basically to say dad has cheated us, dad has sold us, dad has done all these things, whatever God says, do.
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Let's do it.
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That's not an act of faith, that's an act of frustration.
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However, it's still a good word.
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So may I say this, I already said something to the men, I'll say this to the ladies.
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Ladies, if you really want to encourage your man, encourage him to do what God tells him to do.
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Encourage your man to listen to God's word and do what he says.
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One of the greatest sermons in the Bible was preached by Mary, Jesus' mother.
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It wasn't really a sermon.
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But when the men came to her and the wine had run out, what did Mary say to the men? Whatever Jesus tells you to do, do it.
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That's a great sermon.
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And that's basically what Rachel and Lee are saying here.
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Whatever God has said, this is what we should do.
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Sometimes we ask the question, why does the Bible include this story? Why does the Bible include this story about the speckled and the spotted lambs? Why does the Bible include this story about this deal between Laban and Jacob? But we know this, nothing is here by accident.
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The Bible is not a hodgepodge of stories thrown together, but it is God's inspired and infallible word and it has a message for us even today.
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But I think honestly that this message would have been most profitable to the people of Israel who were the first audience to receive it.
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Because do you remember who the first audience of Genesis would have been? It would have been the people of Israel in the wilderness having run out of Egypt and are now headed towards the promised land.
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And Moses writes this narrative to them to remind the people of Israel that in the same way God was with their ancestor Jacob, God will be with them.
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And beloved, that lesson can be applied to us as well.
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Sometimes it can be powerful to consider how God has been with us as a church over the years.
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I'm honest, I sat and I thought about this.
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I prayed on this and I actually just sort of meditated a bit on this.
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We have seen some very difficult times in this church.
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Amen.
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We have seen times where there was heartache.
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We have seen times where there was betrayal.
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We have seen times where people have mistreated others.
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We have seen times where there was absolute depravity on display and God keeps moving us forward and he hasn't departed.
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See, I don't believe in the prosperity gospel.
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The prosperity gospel is heresy, but I do believe this.
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If we pursue Christ, we will be blessed in that pursuit.
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There will be labans along the way, but God has promised to go before us and to fight for us.
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Therefore, we can press on toward the goal, knowing that the Lord is with us.
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Beloved, are you struggling in your faith today? Are you finding it hard to press on? I imagine Jacob found it hard to press on.
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14 years he served for his wives.
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An additional six years he served for his fortune and he was serving at the behest of a man who cared nothing for him but only for his own fortune.
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But God was with Jacob.
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Do you know that God is with you? The title of this message was out Fox in the Fox, but that isn't the theme.
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The theme is trusting in God's word.
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Because even when we face the foxes of this world, we have a God who is with us.
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And maybe you find yourself today saying, well, I don't know if God is with me.
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Everybody in here saying, oh, God is with us, God is with us, but I don't know if God is with me.
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Maybe that's because you haven't placed your faith and trust in his son.
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Maybe you do find yourself outside of the kingdom today.
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Maybe you do find yourself in need of a savior.
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The Bible says we are sinners.
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We've broken the law of God.
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We deserve his wrath, but God sent his son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but will have everlasting life.
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Do you believe in his son today? The Bible says if you believe in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit will come and abide with you forever.
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And God will be with you wherever you go.
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If you've never trust in the Lord, I encourage you today.
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Turn to Christ, repent of your sin, and know the forgiveness that comes in him.
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Let us pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for your truth.
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I thank you that you are with us.
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I pray for our church.
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I pray that Lord, when the laban's come.
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That we will know that you are with us and that we will press on in this most holy faith.
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Father, thank you for this church.
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May you bless us now as we have our time of communion.
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In Jesus name.
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Amen.