I have my, I was going to say my lovely assistant. He's not that lovely, but he's my assistant. We're going to go to Genesis 29. You know, it is a blessing because he did ask me, is there anything I can do in the church? And, you know, Brother Beard was my assistant. He'd be here early and he would He would want those papers right away, and He would even pass them out on your seats. He knew where every one of you sat. So, Ferdie has to learn that yet, but that's a blessing, actually. So, Genesis 29 went through verses 1-14, actually went through verses 1-19. And we were talking last week about several things and we'll continue to talk about several things. There's a lot of practical application in this part of the Bible. Some sections are like that. They're very practical. They talk about how people live and the things they encounter as they live and the people that you work with and live with and family and that's what we'll be still dealing with today. I'll just review just a little bit. It's said there in verse 15, because thou art my brother shouldest thou serve me for naught. Laban had started to negotiate right away. Laban was that kind of guy. Laban is actually a type of the Antichrist in the Bible. Laban, although he's family, We also talked about last week, family is not always a good thing. Family is not always a blessing. Abraham was told, get away from your family, get out of this land, and he didn't obey. He took his father, who went to Lot, he took Lot with him, and he finally had to cut ties with all of them, but several things happened along the way that didn't have to happen. And so Laban is a type of the Antichrist where he persecutes Jacob. Jacob is Israel, not Abraham, not Isaac, but Jacob is the one that God renamed to be Israel. course he's of the line and so it all starts with Abraham. So Laban persecuting and mistreating Israel the whole time he was there and he's a type of Pharaoh. Pharaoh did the same thing to the children of Israel. They went into bondage and they said, let my people go and we'll see today if we get to it, I hope we do, where Jacob said, let me go, let me go, let me serve the Lord, let me get out from here and he didn't want him to do it. He pursued after him even after he left. But he started negotiating with him right off the bat. And he said, you should have served me for naught. You know, hey, you're here. And he automatically assumed, you're going to serve me, right? You're here to serve me. And Jacob did a wrong thing by negotiating, I think maybe a wrong thing. That's just my opinion. You can have yours. By saying, well, I'll serve you for your daughter. And he waited seven years for that to happen. And he served seven years. I think that just gave Laban more ammunition to say, well, OK, great. That's fine. I'll give you my daughter. Better if she goes to you than to somebody else. And that's how he talked about it. And so here we are. We're getting into the point where he began to serve. And he said, what shall thy wages be? and of course he asked for her and they entered into a partnership. We talked about partnerships last week. I just want to state one more time, if you're in a partnership today and it's going well and everything is fine and even if it's with family, then I'm not telling you you have to get out of that. I'm not telling you that you can't continue in that and that can't be okay. But what I am telling you is that the majority of the time, you don't want to do it. If you're looking at a future situation and you're saying, boy, I could get into business here, this person asked me to come into business with them, you may want to think twice. Here's what I've done. Over the years, I've desired to have a few partnerships. And I have entered into those partnerships. And every single one of those partnerships, I am no longer with. Right? And so that maybe tells you something about me. But I think it also tells you, I don't think I'm that unusual. I think it works that way for most people. They want to get out. All right? And so Jacob, while you're in those situations, you're going to have to be, if you find yourself in one of those situations, you don't necessarily have to get out. But if you do have to get out or if you're in one, you might want to do what Jacob did. And Jacob, I think, behaved himself pretty wisely. He had to basically give up any desires he had just to keep family going, to keep the relationships and to be true to himself and not fall into the traps that we talked about last week. So Jacob had to take the loss and ultimately he had to flee from Laban. And we'll look at that in a little bit here. But this is often the unfortunate truth when entering into partnerships. Let me read to you some advice from that same manual that I brought last week, but I just copied a page out of it. Getting out of a wrong business partnership. And they gave six things as advice to do that. And I'll just read those to you. Number one, review the terms of your commitment to your business partner. And just make sure that everything in there, that if you're going to go by these terms, of course, that you can find your way out, your loophole, right? Number two, be prepared for the possibility of suffering financial loss. We've talked about this before. Whenever you're going to borrow money to anybody, if you're going to be a lender, if you're going to give to anybody, and you say, well, this is just a loan. This is just on loan. Here, I'm helping you through a tough time. Just understand that before you ever loan the money, that you may never get it back. and give it with that intention. You may want it back. It may be right for them to pay you back. And it's not always wrong to ask for a payback. Sometimes if you want to lend the money, especially if it's the family, it's responsible of you to make them pay you back. It's not like, well, you're my mother. You should give me the money. You're my father. You should give me the money. You're my brother. Give me the money. No. Just because you're related doesn't mean that I can take anything I want from you. So if you're going to give the money, if you want to give the money, if you want to help somebody, just be prepared that you may not get it back. But it's not wrong to ask for the money back. Just a little piece of advice. But be prepared, if you're in a partnership, for the possibility of suffering financial loss. In order for you to break ties with that situation, you may have to take the loss. That's what Jacob did. Number three, work out an appeal based on a just settlement. So you may just go to that person and try to undo the agreement and make a settlement. Of course, that might end up in loss. Number four, examine your motives for the partnership and for wanting to get out of it. Their position in this men's manual that I studied was very strong against it. They would just flat out say it's wrong, it's unbiblical. Examine your motives for the partnership and for wanting to get out of it. Ask for God's forgiveness. and pray to God to prepare the heart of your partner. That's good advice. Number five, go to your partner and humbly appeal for an equitable release. A, offer to buy him out, and if you do, be willing to pay more than the business is worth, because chances are that's what it's gonna take in order for them to say, well, if you're gonna get me out of here, then I want more, be prepared for that. B, offer to sell to them, and in doing that, be willing to take less than what you deserve. If you want out, hey listen, if you want out, then what's more important to you, getting out or the money? The money is what got you in there in the first place, the desire for money. And we looked at the verses last week about not working to be rich, labor not to be rich, cease from thine own wisdom, right? So if you're getting out of something, I got out of a partnership, the last one I did, I had tens of thousands of dollars invested. Now don't look at me like you're an idiot. I won't go any further than that, but I'll just tell you this. In order to get out of it, I said, I'm out. It's all yours. I'm walking away. I don't care how much money. I'd rather just stop the bleeding. I'd rather just stop this situation. And I got out. The last thing they say is ask if the partnership could be sold and then cooperate with that person to get it sold. Last thing, number six, if release is not given, wait for God to make it possible. I thought those were good things to read to you. I don't know how many of you are in your own businesses here. I don't know how many of you are thinking about going into partnership in business. My advice is don't do it. Just don't even think about it. Take it off the table. I had a friend of mine, I'll talk about this just a little bit longer. I had a friend of mine call me up and he said, you know, I'm getting ready to start this business and I knew about it. And I said, yeah, that sounds like a great business and it was. And some guy actually was giving him his business. an existing good business. And he said, but I don't have enough money to do what I need to do. So I thinking about calling my brother and asking him if he'd want to chip in some money and then we can be partners. And I said, listen, can I give you some advice? And I told him what I've been telling you here last Sunday and today. And my advice is always look, don't take on a partner, take on an employee. Give them a wage as if they're a partner. Give them as much money as you would give the partner, but don't make them a partner. Don't bring them in like that. Work with them like a partner, but don't ever make an agreement that, hey, we're going to be partners and we're going to lock arms and we're going to put our money together and we're going to make decisions together. and it doesn't work out many times. So Jacob learned the hard way even when it came to family. He took the brunt of the problem, but look at chapter 30 and look at verse 31. Genesis 30 and verse 31. This is what Jacob decided he would do. The last conversation he was having with Laban of a negotiation, he had the upper hand now. And he was able to call the shots. But what he did, he didn't take advantage of the situation. He said in verse 31, and Laban said, What shall I give thee? And Jacob said, Thou shalt not give me anything. He learned. See that? I don't want your daughter. I don't want your money. I don't want anything. He said this though, thou shalt not give me anything. If thou will do this thing for me, let me go is what he means. He's negotiating his way out now. If thou will do that for me, I will again feed and keep thy flock. Verse 32, and I will pass through all thy flock today, removing from fence all the speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and of such shall be my hire. So what I'll do, Laban, is I'll fin you out of all the garbage. I'll take all the bad sheep, all the bad goats, and I'll take all the bad cattle, and that'll be my wage. And Laban's thinking, oh, I got him again. This guy's an idiot. You know, he doesn't ever negotiate well, but that's not what happened. He got out and he got out. He got out. See what I'm saying? He suffered a loss to get out of that situation. He was willing to do that, but at least he got that. If we look at verse 43, look at verse 43 of the same chapter. This is what God did because of Jacob's way out. He said in verse 43, And then when you get into verse chapter 31, you're going to find out that now the sons of Laban and Laban himself got jealous of what God did for him. But it was too late. He already made the agreement. And Jacob is the one who said, I'll suffer the loss because I think because he was under conviction that I need to be out of here. I need to be what God made me a promise a few chapters ago, and I need to be doing what God said. instead of being tied up with this family member, but God blessed him in spite of it. Look at chapter 31, by the way, and look at verse 8. Well, I think that's just more of the same. We won't have to look at that. He just continues to take on that, that those speckled cattle and all that. So we'll move on from there. But what now let's look to the point we left off. It says, and Jacob loved Rachel back to verse chapter 29 and verse 17. I'll go to 17. Chapter 29, verse 17, it says, "...Leah was tender-eyed, but Rachel was beautiful and well-favored. And Jacob loved Rachel and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy daughter. And Laban said, It is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man. Abide with me." the wording there in verse 17, Leah was tender-eyed. Now if you go to look that up anywhere online, in any commentary, in any Bible, and try to see what it means, you're going to get, I don't know, five or six different answers. I have four of them written on your paper, I think four of them. There are some possibilities. One possibility is she was not pretty. So, if you look at the wording of verse 17, it says Leah was tender-eyed, but Rachel was beautiful. and well-favored. So it's like a contrasting statement. Tender-eyed might mean that she was not pretty. It also could mean, and some people speculate, that she had something wrong with her eyes. Tender-eyed. Now, I don't know what that means. I don't know if you do. But if you had something wrong with your eyes, I don't know if you've ever heard anybody call it tender-eyed. But somebody said her eyes were her best feature. That was the only thing about her that was pretty, was her eyes. and that's possible. The other possibility was that she was tender-hearted and that's the one I think that I believe. I can't prove this but I think that Rachel was beautiful, Rachel was well-favored. He looked at her the day he saw her and desired her. You go on in the next chapter though, let's see, let me see, is it 31 or 30? I think it's 30. Look at the very beginning of 30. And when Rachel saw that she bared Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister and said unto Jacob, Give me children or else I die. Now I'm putting that for emphasis, right? Else I die. Well, that gives you a little insight into Rachel. She's beautiful and so because she's beautiful, she gets what she wants. And she manipulates. And she's manipulating Jacob right there. I'm going to die. You're not going to die. I'm going to die if you don't give me what I want. Well, okay, so maybe the idea was they were different. Maybe Leah was tender-eyed, maybe tender meaning that when she looked at a little animal she picked it up and cuddled it and cared about things. I'm speculating. And maybe Rachel was like, who cares? I'm beautiful, look at me. I'm just giving you something to think about. I'm just throwing it out there because when you get into commentaries and you want to look into that, you're not going to find the answer. You're just going to look back at this lesson and say, well, it's one of these three things. I think it was three things. So whatever the case, whatever the case about that, God blessed Leah with six children. You know the twelve tribes came out of Jacob, but it came out of four women. Now, I wish I could spend time on that, but listen, I told you last week the Bible is full of dysfunctional families. The Bible is full of things. You want to look at a role model for a family in the Bible, you're going to be hard-pressed to find it. What you're going to be better off doing is just reading what God said about having a family and how to have a family, rather than trying to look at role models in the Bible, because they're really not there. What you're going to find out, though, about the Bible is that the Bible tells you the truth about man. So we don't, the Bible is, I think Brother Ruckman is the one I read who said, you know, you're going to go to the Bible and you're going to read it like some kind of holy book. Like give me the thought for the day out of the Bible and give me some spiritual nugget and blessing that will get me, you know, I have a better Monday or a better Tuesday or a better whatever day. And it's not going to be there necessarily. Now there's a lot of that in Psalms, there's a lot of that in Proverbs and there's places you can dig those things out. But the majority of the Bible is exposing men for what they are. and who they are, and how they behave, and what they do, and the reality of life, and marriages and divorces, and all kinds of bad relationships here, bad partnerships, and messed up situations, and fights, and that's how mankind is. The Bible talks about how to deal with those things. So, whatever the case, God blessed. He had a messed up family, four wives, and children out of all those different wives, but here's the thing, You think God could use Jacob after he deceived his father and stole the blessing from his brother Esau? Yes. He did. Think about that with me. Well, wait a minute. God promised you the blessing and you took it a different way. So therefore God's never going to use you again, Jacob. That's not true. God shows up to him and he sees God standing at the top of the ladder. He sees angels coming up and down. He says, this is a fearful place. I'm standing in the house of God. And he's going to have another encounter just like that pretty soon after this. And so, can God still use you after you mess up? Yes, he can. The problem is we beat ourselves up too much and we say, well, God could never use me again. And God takes him and these wives are thrown at him, basically. This is a messed up deal. We'll get into it a little bit in a few minutes. I'm looking at the clock already. But God goes ahead and has the 12 tribes. One of the tribes that came out of Leah, it's on your paper, two of them were Levi, that's the priestly line, and the other one was Judah. And he didn't even want Leah. He woke up and behold, it was Leah. We'll talk about that in a second. But he didn't want her, and so God says, well, I looked down at Leah and I saw that she was hated. And so because you hated her, I'm going to bring my son through her, through Judah. I'm telling you, it's something to think about. When you read the Bible, you might just want to sit there and ponder and say, Lord, what is this saying to me? What does this mean to me? How is this possible? Well, I'll tell you how it's possible. God has to use a guy like me to get up and teach a Sunday school class who's full of sin. And the same thing with him. And the same thing with you. And he's going to go out and we prayed for him to go out to stand in front of the store and pass out more tracts. Do you know what that guy is? He's a sinner. You know what you are? You're a messed up sinner. And you know who wrote the King James Bible for us that we sang about this morning that we can read to know that we're on our way to heaven and we know that we have eternal life and there's a heaven, there's a hell, and we're not going to that hell? You know who wrote that? A group of sinners who sat down and translated. There's nothing special about those translators. They're all wicked, sinner men on their way to hell if they didn't get saved. You know who Paul was? He said, I'm the chief of sinners. And he wrote 13 books of your Bible. So I'm just telling you, that's how that works. And when you read those kind of things, you might just want to sit back and say, yeah, that's me too, but look what God did anyway. All right, so then verse 20, it said, And Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed unto him but a few days for the love he had to her. So just a quick note on that, when you love something, time will go by fast. It did for him. He said it seemed like just a few days. Seven years, that's a long time. But it's not. When you're wanting something and you're loving something like that, you still look forward to it. When you dread something, time seems to stand still. People say things like, I thought that would never end. Did you ever watch a movie with somebody that they really thought you should watch with them? And you're like, oh man, when is this going to be over? Did you ever come to church and hear a pastor preach and think, when is this going to be over? Did you ever go to somebody's house and say, boy, I wish I was not here? And that's when we dread something, everything seems to take forever. But when you're having a good time, you're like, oh, it's already midnight? I didn't realize. But on that note, go over to, just let me give you something. Go to Proverbs 25. Proverbs 25. My brother and I used to joke about this. There was another preacher that would say this, if I was company I would go home. That was his little saying. When you look at the clock. But the Bible says something about that. Proverbs 25 and verse 17. I told you this would be practical. Proverbs 25, 17. You may use this the next time you are at someone's house. It says, Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbor's house, lest he be weary of thee, and so hate thee. You ever read that before? That's good advice, right? Hey, we're having such a good time. Well, I wish you would leave. You know, maybe just make it a practice that you withdraw at a certain time and say, you know, that's good enough and better leaving them wanting more than to wish they were gone, right? That's what the Bible is telling you right there. So when things are going good, they may not be going good for the other guy, you know, just might be going good for you. Things change. In Jacob's case, it seemed like a few days. Seven years just seemed like a few days. I don't know what Rachel was thinking. She might have thought it was forever. But anyway, that's the concept. So kids will say in the car, are we there yet? Right? That's a proverbial thing. Are we there yet? Because they're dreading the ride. They just want to be there. So if life is dragging on for you, now this is real good advice. If life is dragging on for you, and you're bored with life, or you're depressed with life, or you're giving up on life, or you're thinking that life is just what's life worth, I'd rather be dead, then why don't you shift your focus? That's really what it has to come down to. You're looking at the wrong things. And what you might want to do is kind of look towards the Lord and say, well, Lord, what do you have for me? I guarantee you what, the Lord didn't put you on this earth for nothing. Listen, this is what I believe. I used to go to the prison and I used to talk, and it's a medium security prison up in Michigan where these young men were fatherless, they were homeless, they didn't have mothers, they didn't have fathers, they were on the street early. And you can imagine what their mindset was like, right? Their mindset was like, why am I even alive? My mom doesn't love me, she kicked me out of the house, my dad abandoned us, I don't even know who he is. Or my mom's living with another person and she's a junkie. I go down the street and all the cops give me a hard time and now I'm in this place. Here I come in with a suit and tie and a Bible. That's the last person they want to talk to. Your life is all together, you're perfect, you just raised right, you had a good home, you're white. I'm talking to thugs. And so they're like, oh, yeah, you're privileged and all this. Well, I would tell those guys, I'd say, look, and you could see once in a while a tear coming down their face. I'd say, listen, God never made anybody. He didn't just make anybody by chance or accident. You were born because God let you be born. And if God lets you be born, then He has a reason for it. He has something for it. He's got your name ready to go on a place in heaven if you'll take it. And He's got all the things in this life that He can do for you if you'll allow it. So one of the things that we might want to do is shift our focus towards God and say, well, God, what did you make me for? Why am I here? What can I do for you? And you know what happens? You might find yourself getting busy and you might watch time just fly by. I'm sure if you ask, I'm going to pick on you a little bit. I'm sure if you ask Brother Greg, you know, there's not enough time to get enough tracks out. It's just busy, busy, busy, and I just got to go another place. And boy, there's just not enough places, not enough time to get there. And you might be sitting at home like this. Boy, this life is just terrible. I got nothing to do. And it's our own faults when that happens. So busy people never find enough time in the day. Ever heard of the 80-20 rule? Raise your hand if you've heard of the 80-20 rule. You should have. Less than half of you? Well, if you're in business, you know about the 80-20 rule. And if you're a pastor of a church, you know about the 80-20 rule. What that means is that 80% of the people do nothing. 20% of the people do all what the 80% should be doing. And you know what the 20% do? The 20% get more work. So when you're a pastor of a church or when you're an owner of a business and you're looking for somebody to get something done, you don't go to the 80% and say, well, you're not doing anything. Would you like a job? Because you know what they're going to say? Not really. No, I'm fine just doing nothing. So you go to the 20% and they do more. And so that's the 80-20 rule, but you might want to find yourself in the 20 percentile at some point in your life and get busy and just watch the time fly by. So when compared to eternity, the Bible says in James 4.14 that this life is just a vapor anyway. no matter how drudgery it may seem when you get to heaven you're gonna look back and I had one preacher do it this way he brought in this huge rope imagine a 50-foot rope going all the way down the aisle back to the back wall there and he just kept rolling out this rope rolling out this rope and rolling out this rope and at the very end when he got to the very end of the rope he had painted just like a half inch of it red and he showed the little tip but he goes you know what this little red tip on this long rope stands for and everybody's like what? He said, that's your life. It just shows up a little bit of time, but look, that's eternity. And when we get to heaven, we're going to look back, and I fear this, we'll look back with such regret and say, why didn't I do that? Why didn't I lay up more treasures up here? Why didn't I? What was wrong with me? What was I doing anyway? What was I working to make more money that the Bible said don't bother with? Was I working to achieve this status and the Bible says don't worry about that? Look not even at those things? Love not those things? So that was a good illustration, I thought. Paul said, I think this is on your sheet, right? 2 Corinthians 4, 16. For which cause we faint not, but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, that's your life, by the way. Your life is just an affliction. I hate to think of it that way, but it is. It's like, you know, we prayed for Mindy this morning and this is not a small thing, but she's got stage four liver cancer. I mean, she's not even I don't even know if she's 45 years old. And that's that's an affliction. Say, why would it happen to someone so young? Well, it happens to people younger than that. There are people that if you can go in the hospitals and you can see children, little children that from the day they were born ended up in wheelchairs and their life is nothing but an affliction. And then you go through emotional pain, you go through stress, you go through all kinds of things and I'm not discounting those or one or the other. But Paul figured it out. He said, it's a light affliction and it's just for a moment compared to eternity and our life is nothing more than a vapor that appears for a little time. and then vanish of the way. And the Lord is constantly trying to remind us of that to say, hey, look, don't waste the time that I gave you. I am I'm responsible for your heart beating right now. I'm responsible for your lungs taking in any more oxygen right now. I'm responsible for your brain, whatever it's doing right now. I'm responsible for that, because at any moment I could stop it and it'll be done. But he lets us live for a reason. So He said, "...our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." It's a mindset. I hate to call it that because that's a worldly term, but it's a mindset. Our minds have to be focused on the right things in order for us to find purpose. So on a similar note, and I'll just go over this quickly, don't be in a hurry to get married. It's best to wait for the right time and Jacob, not that he's some kind of example of this, but he waited seven years. It's good to wait because I'll tell you what, you talk about some things last forever. When you get married, you're stuck, right? You're in the marriage. And when you're in the marriage, you're better off figuring it out beforehand in the small courting time that you had. Don't be so in a rush like, oh, I love them so much, or oh, I just can't wait to be married. I just want to be married, and some girls are really bad about that. It's so romantic. He's going to be my husband. We're going to be married. Oh, yeah? Well, wait till you're stuck with him. And wait, will you get 10 years, 15, 20 years down the road and say, what was I thinking? Why did I ever do that? Maybe a month later you're thinking that already. Right? So, I'm saying, if you're not married, just wait. Just wait. It's okay. Don't be in a hurry. You're not an old maid. You're not an old man. God can do whatever He wants to do. He can bring a person your way. He absolutely can. I'm just saying, don't be in a hurry. Jacob wasn't in a hurry. So in that way, he could be a good role model. Versus 21 through 26, actually. I got to find it. It says, And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. And Laban gathered together all the men of the place, and made a feast. And it came to pass in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter, and brought her to him. Now can you imagine this? I mean, listen, you know the story I think already, but this guy is willing to pawn off his daughter like that. I mean, again, are you thinking about what you're reading? Who is Laban? A guy that's willing to just give the wrong wife to Jacob in the night time when he can't discern and do that to his daughter? Does she have any kind of a life? Does she have a choice? Does she love him? I'm gonna, oh, dad, you're gonna give me to him? Oh, thanks a lot. I don't even love Jacob. He's in love with my sister. But she goes along with it. I'm telling you, these people are. OK. I'm not I'm not. Listen, every person you read in the Bible is not holy. All right. And they're not they're not right all the time. But anyway, you can I've just given you something to ponder when you read these things. Where did I leave off? What verse? Twenty four. And Laban gave unto his daughter Leah Zilpah his is made for an handmaid. And it came to pass in the morning. Behold, it was Leah. And he said unto Laban, what is this that thou hast done unto me? Did not I serve thee for Rachel? Wherefore then hast thou beguiled me? And Laban said, it must not be so done in our country to give the younger before the firstborn. Oh, well, thanks for telling me that now. So here we go. Now listen, before we get into that dynamic, Jacob deceived his father to get the blessing, right? And he deceived his older brother. Now listen, could God forgive Jacob for that? Absolutely. Did God forgive Jacob for that? Absolutely. Did God promise anyway that Jacob was going to get the birthright? Absolutely. Did God meet him on that ladder and show him the gate of heaven? Absolutely he did. Did God change his name to Israel and give him the 12 tribes of Israel? Absolutely he did. But forgiveness is one thing, but consequences are another. And so here's a consequence, the Lord allowed the elder sister to get Jacob, just like he deceived his elder brother, now he gets the elder sister. So Jacob was deceived by Laban concerning the firstborn child. It must have brought back memories for him. You ever have those moments? Oh, this looks familiar. Now sometimes, and I don't think God's vindictive. We sing 830, what sins are you talking about? and I believe God forgives. That blows my mind, by the way, that God can forgive and that God says in the Bible, it's not just a song, He does forget. But the consequences of putting a seed in the ground and the rain falling on the ground and the seed growing into a plant is already done. Reaping and sowing is what I'm saying. It's already in process. So that part is just going to continue on. And so whatever happens here, it's not God laughing up in heaven saying, well, how do you like that, Jacob? It's just what happens. All right. And it's what Laban did. It's not what God did anyway, but it's quite a coincidence. So how is it that Jacob didn't know it was Leah? Have you ever thought about that? How did he know that? Well, look at Song of Solomon chapter 5. This is just one verse and it may not be the right answer, but it's the best I can come up with. You know back then in the land of Israel, of course this was in Israel, this is Syria, you've got customs. like Laban's custom. It must not be so done that you get the younger daughter first. Well that's a unique custom. You mean you always marry sisters in this world? You know in your land you always just marry sisters and take the older one first and then I get the younger one and then the younger one and then the younger one? I mean that's weird stuff but I'm just saying there's customs in that day and in marriage you see here in Song of Solomon chapter 5 and verse 7 says the watchman, you know Song of Solomon, it's all about a marriage, it's all about a bride, it's all about you and I being raptured out of here too. And our relationship to Jesus Christ, it's a beautiful book, you should read it. Song of Solomon 5.7, the watchman that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me, the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me. Now that's the last phrase I want you to see, they took away my veil from me. This woman here is covered in a veil. To this day in the United States of America, women wear veils when they get married. In this case, I don't know if they got drunk. I'm not going to assume that they didn't drink at this wedding. That Jacob didn't get drunk and that Laban didn't get drunk and even the rest of them. I don't know. But for whatever reason, he didn't know who she was. And she may have been wearing a veil according to a custom. And it was at the time when that party was over, the wedding is over and it's late at night and he goes in and just, you can read the Bible and you can see how these things happened. But he woke up the next morning and you know how it is, you're a sister, you may have the same voice. You may have a lot of similar characteristics and he woke up the next day and it's not Rachel. It's Leah. We'll get past that but I'm just giving you my thoughts on it. And so regardless one might ask how family could do such a thing to family. Laban, you're my uncle. You're my mother's brother. How could you deceive me like this? How could you do this to me? Well we said it last week, blood is not always thicker than water. Be careful of your partnership. Now this is his partner. This is the one he's serving. This is the one he made an agreement with. We made an agreement. And he deceives him anyway. I'm just telling you, partnerships are not always good. In this case, Laban puts loyalty to his country before his flesh and bone. If you look back at verse 14, he calls him that. And Laban said unto him, Surely thou art my bone and my flesh. Hey, you're my kin. I would never do kin wrong. I would never do wrong to family. We're in this together. You're my son. He calls him a son here. You're not just my nephew, you're my son. You're my blood, you're my bone, you're my flesh. And so, all the confidence in the world that I can just go into partnership with this guy, but not so. How could you do that to family? Well, he puts, and we mentioned it last week and I've mentioned it often, he puts his country before his family. He puts his country before the best interests of his own daughter. He puts his country, his culture, can I just say it that way, his culture? And I have done an examination in my life, and I can do it regularly, and I say, John, are you doing that because you're an American, or are you doing that because that's the Bible way? Are you doing that because that's the way your family taught you to do it, or are you doing it because that's the right thing to do? You know, and we can just say, well, we don't do it like that in our country. That's what Laban said. We don't do it like that. Oh, well, then your country's messed up. Why would you go according to what your country says instead of the best interests of Leah or Rachel that was waiting to marry him? And you swap them out and you say, well, you know, my culture says this. You know, we ought to examine ourselves once in a while. Brother Beard was great at that. He would always challenge me. He would say, now, do you think that because you were taught that? Do you think that because that's what you read in the commentary? Do you think that because that's what your dad taught you or what your pastor always said? He would always challenge that idea and he and I would always talk to each other like that and say, well, I think we'll have to look at that one one more time. I think we'll have to look at that one one more time. And we would always go back and look. Look at Proverbs 27, verse 10. Let me just tell you something that's a great thing. I like this verse in the Bible. Proverbs 27, verse 10. This kind of puzzled me for a while, but it doesn't anymore. Proverbs 27, 10, it says, Thine own friend and thy father's friend forsake not. Neither go into thy brother's house in the day of thy calamity, for better is a neighbor that is near than a brother far off. So what's the Lord telling you there? He's telling you don't run back to family when you have problems. You should be making friends. and even your father's friend. What does that mean? Someone that has proven to be a friend throughout the generations. Someone that has always stuck there and been there for you and you were able to always talk to them, you were able always to go to them, they always understood, they always forgave you, they always took you in, they always cared about your issues. It says don't forsake that person. Don't leave that person and run back to family because that's what the Lord says. You go to your brother's house thinking, well, blood is thicker than water. And the Lord says, no, no. Look at this. Go to go to the book of. Oh, let's see here. You're in Proverbs. Let me check one more reference here. I'm sorry to be against your families this week and last week. I'm not trying to do that. It's good to have a strong family. I'm just warning you sometimes it's not always what you think it is and people change over time and desires change and people's motives change and people go off into the world and you think, well, they're the same person they always were and they're not. Let me just look at a reference here before I give it to you. No, I'm not going to give you that one. Go to Mark. Go to Mark chapter 6. Sometimes people put family before God and they end up in hell. Well, we're Catholics. My family's Catholic. We've always been Catholic. Well, you're going to go to hell out of being a Catholic. You mean you won't even open up the Bible and read the Bible? And they teach you against that in the Catholic Church, by the way. Well, we're Muslim. Oh, by the way, if you're from Detroit or know about Detroit, there's a place up there called Hamtramck. Hamtramck is a Polish community and it's just right outside of Detroit. I have friends that live there and I've been there plenty of times. It was just in the news that they're approving animal sacrifices now. At your home you can do animal sacrifices because it's such a heavy Muslim population. But anyway, that's Detroit. That's Michigan. Anyway, what I say, Mark, Chapter six, verse three and four, it says they were saying to Jesus, this is is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joseph and of Judah and Simon and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, among his own kin and in his own house. Sometimes the worst enemy you have is not your best friend. It's not the neighbor that's close. It's the brother that you rely on. It's the mother. It's the father. It's the kin. It's the family. Jesus had the same problem. You think, well, surely Jesus won over his family. They loved him. Read it again. No, they didn't. They were offended at him. They didn't want to be around him. He's like, he's not my brother. And he said he's not without honor except with his own family. And so sometimes you want to make decisions and your friend will be there to help you make that decision and he'll encourage you to make that decision, but the family won't. The family be the one to drag you down. And they think, well, we're just doing you a favor. No, you're not doing me any favors. Listen, I told you before, if you're a Christian, you better be an independent thinker. God gave you a Bible. And he says, you're going to stand before me someday. Don't talk to that person. Don't talk to that. Talk to me. You're going to stand before me, read that Bible, I'll show you, and you become an independent thinker. And you break free of everybody's opinions and everybody's desires for you and their expectations for you and what you should be doing, what your religion ought to be. When you get saved, that all ought to change. And then go to Matthew chapter 12. Matthew chapter 12. And look what Jesus said instead. Matthew 12 and verse 48. You know this too. Matthew 12 and 48. He said, But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? They said, Hey, your mother's standing outside. She's waiting to talk to you. He said, Who is my mother? What? Well, Mary's your mother. He says, Who is my mother? Who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples. I'm doing that right now to you. and his hand toward his disciples and said, Behold, my mother and my brethren." You know, I can look around this room and I can see some close friends and I'm not trying to... I just see some close friends and I can tell you one thing that that's what God will do for you. He'll put people into your life that you can talk to and confide in and that you can get advice from and they're not your family always. And so he said, Behold, my brother and my brother, and for whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother. And so you know what the custom is around here at a Baptist church typically, not at other religions? Hey, Brother Gordon. Hey, Brother Anthony. Hey, Sister Linda. What do you say brother and sister for? Are you some kind of cult? No, that's what Jesus said. He said, that's who my brother and my sister is. Just because you're my sister in my in the flesh and bone, Laban, you're my uncle, you you're and I don't want to deal with you anymore. He figured that out and he finally got out later. Let's let's move on. That's what but that's what Jesus is saying here. Back to Genesis 29, verse 30. And he went on and we'll stop at this verse, he went on to Rachel and he loved Rachel more than Leah. That's not fair, right? But that's true. I'm telling you, the Bible tells you what's true. It doesn't mean that it's the right thing. But he says he loved Rachel more than Leah and served him yet seven other years. And when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, as we said earlier, but Rachel was barren. So it's weird. Here God says, yeah, that's not the woman you were supposed to marry, that's not the one you, I watched the whole agreement, that's not the one you wanted, and you even don't like her so much that the Bible says you hate her, but there she is, and so what, because of her, I'm gonna bless her. I think he did it for Leah's sake. He didn't do it to get after Jacob or anything like that, but he did it to give Leah some comfort. At least you're going to have some children. Now, she didn't do right later. Now, we don't have time to get into it. Well, next week. Well, not next week either. I won't be here next week. But anyway, Leah's got some problems. Rachel's got some problems. And we'll look at those next time. But Jacob loved Rachel. Uh, but hated Leah, the Bible says that one of the definitions of hate in the Bible is to have extreme preference for one thing over the other. Okay. It's not necessarily hatred as we think of it. I hate you. I want you to die. Uh, look at Luke chapter 14. It's, I think it's on your paper, right? Luke 14, 26. This is what Jesus said. Luke 14, 26. He said, if a man come to me, is it on your paper? If a man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Well, that's quite a statement in the Bible. It's kind of like what Susan brought out about the faults. It doesn't say sins there, it says faults. If you were here, you heard her say that. And this is saying, if I don't hate my father, my mother, my brother, my sisters, my children, that I can't be the disciple of the Lord? Well, I'm just trying to tell you, we did a study on this one time in Bible Institute, you gotta read the Bible and you gotta learn what that means. And so, an initial reading of this verse seems to present a clear contradiction of the fifth commandment. That's also on your paper, Exodus 20, 12, honor thy father and thy mother. Honor them, Jesus said, I have to hate them. So what does that mean? Well, the Bible is a messed up book, I guess. It's full of contradictions, errors, it doesn't even agree with itself. So what do you do with that? Well, also along with Paul, Paul said, children, Ephesians 6, one, children, obey your parents. Well, no, the Bible, Jesus said, I'm supposed to hate my parents. Well, so what about it? So when we find incompatible statements in the Bible, we recognize, and this is what we taught and how to study the Bible. When you find contradictions in the Bible, or supposed contradictions in the Bible, you find differences, you don't find contradictions. You find differences. And you say, the Bible's perfect, I'm not. The Lord speaks perfectly, I'm not perfect. The Lord has all understanding, I don't have all understanding. So when I read conflicting statements in the Bible, I see a difference, and I better figure out the difference because I want to know God. I don't want to discount the Bible and say, well, I knew it was always wrong, and throw it away. And I'm glad that I'm out from under that. No, we find that we dig in deeper, right? And so we should seek to find the definition of the word hate as it is used in Luke 14. Let me get back to Luke 14 and go to Luke 14 and we're about done. Luke 14 and look at verse 33. Luke 14 is the chapter where this is mentioned. If you don't hate everyone else, you can't be my disciple. And here's what you find. When you read the Bible and you find something like a single verse, be careful of single verses. There are a lot of good single verses like, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, but you lose the context even there. Okay, I'm calling on the name of the Lord. You see, the context is, no, you have to believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You have to repent of your sins. Get the context first. Read above the passage, read below the passage. Read the whole chapter, read the book, if you have to. And in some cases, to know the Bible, you have to read the Bible. And if you didn't read the whole Bible, you won't even know what that meant. Right? Because you won't be able to put things with things. And that's what a cross-reference Bible will do for you. It will already show you that lines up with that, and that lines up with that. and that will help you. We should seek the definition. Look at verse 33 of Luke chapter 14. We read the chapter, we won't take the time for it, but it comes down to a reiteration of the same statement in verse 33. It says, So likewise, whosoever he be of you, that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. So what does it mean then to hate your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your own children? It means that you're willing to forsake them to serve the Lord. It doesn't mean that I have to develop a hatred for you. I have to despise you every time I look at you. It doesn't mean that kind of hatred. It means that you are willing to choose one over the other. I am willing to break out of my Catholic background to become a Christian and confess Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I'm willing to break free of the Muslim faith and decide to choose Jesus Christ as my Savior. And in the world of the eyes, you despise and hate your brethren. In the world of your own family, they may say, well, then you hate me. You despise me. You don't want anything. Get out of the house. Right? That's what might happen to some people. But that's how the Lord is telling you. So Jacob loved Rachel, but he hated Leah. What I'm telling you is he preferred Rachel. He still had children. She had six of the 12 tribes. She still had children, but he preferred Rachel. Okay? And that's a Bible definition. And let me just wrap it up with this. You've heard of a man named William Tyndale. He wrote a Bible, an English Bible. And he was killed for it. And maybe you haven't heard of John Rogers, but he was instrumental in the Matthews Bible. One of the Bibles that led up to the King James Bible. Two of the Bibles, I should say, that led up to the King James Bible. And you have maybe heard of, maybe not, but John Marbeck. He, like Strong, created an English Concordance. That's not as familiar to you, but Strong's Concordance is. And these men all died at the stake from the Catholic Church because they believe what I just taught you just now. What I taught you right now is that if you read the English Bible and you just allow it to define itself you will learn what it means and you won't find it a confusing book and you won't find it full of contradictions or errors. And these men figured that out, and they began to translate the Bible, and they began to write concordances, and they began to write commentaries. And the Catholic Church got on them for that and said, you need us to define the Bible. You need us to tell you what the Bible says. We have 2,000 years of history to tell you what that Bible says. Don't start telling people that the Bible defines itself and that they can know it on their own. and you know that's the real reason why they killed people they did not want people to discover what you just learned in a few minutes here in a Sunday school lesson that we take for granted or we say well then you know that Bible who can know it well people died gave up their lives because they figured out that the Bible is understandable and that the words of the Lord are plain to him that understandeth and that the Spirit of God is the teacher of the Bible and it will guide you into all truth All right, we don't have time. Let's stop right there. We'll finish another day. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for.