Thank you, Bob. Well, good evening to all of you. I'm thankful you're here. I know it's getting quite cold outside now, and the snow's supposed to be coming in the next couple of hours or so forth. But your presence tonight is certainly honoring to the Lord and a great encouragement to the rest of the flock. I invite you tonight to turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 31. Genesis 31 and verse one, I'll bring you briefly up to speed. You'll remember we're still in the section dealing with Jacob here in Genesis. Jacob has been serving his father-in-law Laban now for many, many years. Last week we looked at the ending of chapter 30 and we saw that Jacob started off as a poor man, but the Lord had given him great prosperity. during his time there and we learn that because of God's faithfulness in our relationship with Christ, God has given us abundant blessings in him. And tonight we continue a bit with that theme as we look at Jacob now finally escaping from Laban and from living there for many years. So we'll look at chapter 31, the first 21 verses. Let's hear now the word of our God. Now Jacob heard the words of Laban's son, saying, Jacob has taken away all that was our father's, and from what was our father's he has acquired all this wealth. And Jacob saw the countenance of Laban, and indeed it was not favorable toward him as before. Then the Lord said to Jacob, Return to the land of your fathers and to your family, and I will be with you. So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field, to his flock, and said to them, I see your father's countenance, that it is not favorable toward me as before, but the God of my father has been with me. And you know that with all my might I have served your father, yet your father has deceived me and changed my wages ten times, but God did not allow him to hurt me. If he said, thus, the speckled shall be your wages, then all the flocks bore speckled. And if he said, thus, the streaked shall be your wages, then all the flocks bore streaked. So God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me. And it happened at the time when the flocks conceived that I lifted my eyes and saw in a dream, and behold, the rams which leaped upon the flocks were streaked, speckled, and gray spotted. Then the angel of God spoke to me in a dream, saying, Jacob, and I said, here I am. And he said, lift your eyes now and see all the rams which leap on the flocks are streaked, speckled, and gray spotted, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed the pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now arise, get out of this land and return to the land of your family." Then Rachel and Leah answered and said to him, "'Is there still any portion or inheritance for us in our father's house? Are we not considered strangers by him? For he has sold us and also completely consumed our money. "'For all these riches which God has taken from our father "'are really ours and our children's. "'Now then, whatever God has said to you, do it.' "'And Jacob rose and set his sons and his wives on camels, "'and he carried away all his livestock "'and all his possessions which he had gained, "'his acquired livestock which he had gained in Paddan Aram "'to go to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan. "'Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep, "'and Rachel had stolen the household idols "'that were her father's. And Jacob stole away, unknown to Laban the Syrian, in that he did not tell him that he intended to flee. So he fled with all that he had. He arose and crossed the river and headed toward the mountains of Gilead." And there we end at verse 21. Well, boys and girls, I'm sure it's no surprise to you that there's a certain holiday coming up in just a little over a week. And some of you, I'm sure, might even be able to tell me how many days it is until Christmas. This is something you're looking forward to. I'm sure this is something that Many of the rest of us in the room are looking forward to as well, as it's a special time with family, it's a special time with lots of good food, and of course, as might be on your minds, the younger ones, it's a time of giving gifts and of receiving gifts. And if you're like other kids, that's probably, at least right now, what you're most excited about. You're ready for the presents. You're ready to open the presents and start playing with the things that you're given, the toys, the dolls, read the books, maybe put on the clothes, whatever. It might be, and your parents have probably told you, but there's a lot more to it than just the presents, and that's true, but we understand your excitement to want to play with the new things you'll be given. That's why they're given to you, aren't they? That you'll enjoy them, that you'll unwrap them, and that you'll play with them to your heart's delight. And what we see this evening in Genesis 31 is that if you're a Christian, you've been given gifts. In fact, you've been given gifts that are far greater than any gift you could be given on a Christmas morning. And I wonder, do you know that? Boys and girls, do you know that? But do the rest of us know that as well? And if you're a believer in Christ, you have spiritual gifts. You have salvation gifts, or to use the words of the Bible that we'll often be using tonight, you have spiritual riches in Jesus Christ. You have spiritual riches. These are your Christmas presents, if you wanna think of it that way, that God has given to you at your conversion. And what we'll learn tonight is just as we see with the kids on Christmas morning, is that he's given them to you to enjoy. to unwrap, as it were, and to enjoy them to your heart's delight, not to neglect them. And so very simply, that's the main point I want you to see from this passage. Here, God is calling you to enjoy, enjoy your spiritual riches that you've been given by God in Jesus Christ. And so let's dive into the passage now. The first point, and I failed to remind you, but there is an outline in the bulletin if you'd like to use that. It's double-sided, if that's helpful to you. But the first point I want you to see here is that as a believer, you were once held captive by the enemy. So I want to begin this evening by reviewing a little of what we said last week, because it's quite crucial in understanding our passage this week. One of my seminary professors always liked to say, context is king. Context is king. And that's always the case when you come to the Bible. We can't understand this apart from the larger context. And if you remember from last week, Jacob was in a desperate situation at this point in the story. He's worked now 14 years for Laban in order to marry his daughter, Rachel. He asked last time to be released from hired servitude. He said to Laban, look, I've done my time. I'm tired. I'd like to go back, live in my homeland. I'd like to take my family there. I'd like to be able to provide for my family there. And yet, if you remember, we saw that even though Jacob had this desire, Jacob wasn't really able to do that at all. First of all, we saw that Jacob believed that Laban would try to keep his wives and his children for himself. This is why from chapter 30, verse 26, if you look back at it, Jacob, when he says this to Laban, he really says it as a kind of demand, give me. my wives and my children for whom I have served you, and let me go." And Jacob had good reason to say this with some bit of force, because it was very common at the time for the fathers to think that these wives and the children belonged to him. What we'll see next week in chapter 31, verse 43, Laban answered and said to Jacob, these daughters are my daughters, and these children are my children, and this flock is my flock, all that you see is mine. Laban was operating by this same principle, which was common at the time. So again, here you have Jacob, he wants to leave, and yet he knows Laban's not gonna let him leave with his family. He may let Jacob leave, But Laban will want the wives and the kids to stay behind. So what's Jacob to do? Is Jacob to leave and leave his family behind, or is Jacob to stay? That's an obvious answer. But there's more that made this a desperate situation, because if you remember, as well, when Jacob asked to be released, Laban essentially said no. We saw that back in chapter 30, verse 27. And Laban said to him, please stay if I have found favor in your eyes, for I have learned by experience that the Lord has blessed me for your sake. Then he said, name me your wages and I will give it. And he goes on to say that at least one more time in chapter 30. This was not a generous offer, though it seemed like it, but this was a polite rejection. Laban here was flattering Jacob, reminding Jacob, look, we're so glad to have you here. But Laban, as we've seen, is a greedy man. And so Laban doesn't want Jacob to leave. Laban wants Jacob to stay for his own sake. So again, what was Jacob to do? Jacob was stuck. And Jacob knew that he was stuck, that there was no obvious way out of this situation. That's why, as we saw last week, he eventually gave in and said, OK, I'll stay and I'll work for you even longer. But you put all of that together, what's the context tell us? Jacob's being held a captive in a way here. He's being held against his will because of the greed and the deceit of his father-in-law. And one of the clues to understanding how the book of Genesis applies to us today is to ask ourselves, when Moses wrote the book of Genesis to the Israelites when they had just come out of Egypt, what would this have taught them? Because that's largely then what it teaches us. And if you think about it, The Israelites, as they just had come out of Egypt, would have been able to identify perfectly with Jacob in this situation. They had just been held captain by Pharaoh for many, many years. This was their situation. They knew what it was like. They could easily put themselves in Jacob's shoes. And even though we may not be at least immediately able to identify with him, the reason we're given this passage is because this is who we were before Christ saved us. Jesus says in John 8, 34, most assuredly I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. Paul says later in 2 Timothy 2.26 that before someone is granted repentance by God, he's in the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will. Those are both descriptions of human beings outside of Christ. That's the natural condition of a person in this world. Slave to sin, a slave to Satan, a captive. to the enemy. Some of you may remember, we don't hear about it too much these days, but five or so years ago, there were many girls in Africa who were all kidnapped. You might remember this, and it was on the news. A lot of it happened in Nigeria, but I think some of it happened outside of Nigeria, young schoolgirls, and it was a tragic situation. Here are these young girls, and yet out of nowhere, they're snatched away from their families. where they have to go live with these evil men. And no longer can they play dolls with their friends. No longer can they sit at the table with their parents. No longer could they do any of those things, but they had to do what their cruel masters now wanted them to do. And if you're not a believer tonight, that's where you are, spiritually speaking, whether you feel like it or not. You're being held captive. You're in the prison of the evil one who is out to destroy you. And if you are a believer tonight, that's where you were. That's where you were before God came and shone the light of His glory in the face of Christ. You were a captive. Paul says quite helpfully in Ephesians 2, you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. Jacob's captivity, yes, it's different, it's not exactly the same, but it's designed to bring to mind, both to the Israelites in the past and to us today, that this is who we were before God came to us. And so that brings us to our second point, which is, as a believer, though you were once held captive, you have since escaped. And so let's go back and let's look at the passage, verses 1 and 2. Now Jacob heard the words of Laban's son saying, Jacob has taken away all that was our father's and from what was our father's he has acquired all this wealth. And Jacob saw the countenance of Laban and indeed it was not favorable toward him as before. If you remember from last week when Laban finally said, okay Jacob, you can have all the odd colored animals. Before Jacob ever got there, Laban went down and separated all the odd colored animals to take advantage of Jacob and make sure that he didn't get any of them. And so Jacob came up with this scheme. Remember he had the peeled sticks and the water troughs and we talked about how that was It was crazy, but how the Lord had worked through that, and yet Jacob, if you look back at verse 43, came out abundantly rich. He had many animals and servants at the end of this time. The Lord had done this, and so as you get into chapter 31, Laban and his sons, they now realize what Jacob has done. They realize that Jacob has duped them as well and actually stolen from them. And so we see here that they're not happy with Jacob at all. So here's Jacob. He's quite wealthy now, though he's still in captivity. But I think he's starting to realize things were not looking all that good for him anymore. And we're not told what were Laban and his sons planning to do to Jacob, that's not mentioned here, but what we do know is that God used their hatred to now call Jacob to go back to his homeland of Canaan. Similar theme to what we saw this morning, because if you remember, what brought Jacob to Paddan Aram in the first place 20 some years ago? He was there to find a wife, or no, he was there to find a wife for a very short period of time. But now, this was the time for him to go back. It's been a long time, but if you look here at verse three, God comes to Jacob, and what does he say? Return to the land of your fathers and to your family and I will be with you. Jacob doesn't seem to take much time to agree with God here. The next thing we see is he's making his case to his wives as to why they should leave Laban. We see in verse four he calls Rachel and Leah to come out to him in the field. They arrive in the field and Jacob gives them two reasons. He says, first of all, we should leave Laban, your father, because he's wrongly treated us. Verse 5, he mentions Laban's angry countenance. Verse 7, he told them how their father had deceived him, changing his wages 10 times. That's quite unfair. Jacob then doesn't even mention all the other times that Laban took advantage of him. And then second, he said, we should run away because God has called us to do so. And we see in verse 13, the Lord came to him in a dream. I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed the pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now arise, get out of this land and return to the land of your family. And Rachel and Leah agree. They found Jacob to be convincing and they go. Verse 14, then Rachel and Leah answered, is there still any portion or inheritance for us in our father's house? Are we not considered strangers by him? For he has sold us and also completely consumed our money. It's interesting. In other words, what Rachel and Leah are saying is we agree with you entirely because this is the man we've been dealing with for so many years of our lives. We know he's greedy. We know he's deceitful. He's treated us like strangers. He's sold us to you and instead of saving up to give us an inheritance, he's wasted it all on himself. So the girls, they're tired of this. They know who their father is. They're done with all of his schemes. So Jacob, you wanna go? You wanna leave him in the dust? Let's go. It's no issue for them because they too have experienced all the same things that Jacob had experienced from their father. And so we're told then that in the time when Laban was away shearing his sheep, that they stole away. from them, with all of his wives, with all of his children. Jacob escaped. And again, if you're Moses' original readers, you would have been able to say, this just happened to me. I know what this is like. This has been my experience, that God came to me in my oppression when I was in Egypt, and God has set me free from that. And this is what the Lord has done for us as well. When you were in captivity, you were mistreated by the enemy. You were taken advantage of by the enemy. We saw earlier, you were the slave of sin and Satan held captive to do their will, their will that would lead to your destruction. And yet God came to you, didn't he? And called you to get out of there. He came with that external call of the gospel, repent and believe in Christ and you will be saved. And to make sure you actually listened and got out of there, the Lord came to you with his internal effectual call of the gospel and gave you the gifts of faith and repentance so that you would leave, so that you would steal away, as it were, fleeing to the Lord Jesus Christ. I mentioned the girls who were kidnapped in Africa. five or so years ago. Well, you may also remember about three years ago, we started hearing that they were being rescued. Now I think some of them are actually still in captivity, but many of them, if not hundreds of them, have been rescued. And I think it's been hard for them to adjust, but you can imagine being one of those girls, being in captivity, and yet finally someone comes to take you back to mom. How life-changing that must be. And that is the experience that the Lord has given to you. Paul says in Colossians 1, 13 and 14, And he has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the son of his love, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. So we very much have the same experience as Jacob here. We were captives, we've been set free. And what I want you to see thirdly, to make it even better, is that having escaped, you are now spiritually rich. You are now spiritually rich. So look with me now at verse 18. And he carried away all his livestock and all his possessions, which he had gained, his acquired livestock, which he had gained in Paddan Aram, to go to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan. In other words, Jacob did not just leave with his wives, he did not just leave with his children, but as you might expect, Jacob left with this great amount of wealth that God had just given to him. With the strong, odd-colored animals, and with the servants and so forth that are mentioned here, in the passage. And if you look back at verse 16, Rachel and Leah said this was part of the reason why they were willing to go with him. In fact, they said, the wealth that you have taken from Laban, that actually was our wealth. That was the wealth that should have been given to us. So in a sense, justice has been served here. We have no issue taking this. But what we're told here is that as Jacob escaped, he did so while plundering his father-in-law. That's what we're to understand here. This is why, as we saw back in verse one, Laban and his sons resented Jacob because Jacob's wealth had come at their expense. And does this not also remind you of something that happened with the Israelites when they came out of Egypt? What did God tell them to do when they left? Exodus chapter three, verse 21. And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, and it shall be when you go that you shall not go empty-handed, but every woman shall ask of her neighbor, namely of her who dwells near her house, articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing, and you shall put them on your sons and on your daughters, so you shall plunder the Egyptians. And if you read through the book of Exodus, that's what you see happen. When the Israelites escaped, they went out with the gold and the silver and the clothing of the Egyptians. They had plundered Pharaoh and his people. In fact, the word used for plunder in Exodus chapter three is the same one used in verse 16 of our passage. So if the connection wasn't clear for the Israelites who were first given the book of Genesis, this certainly would have made it quite clear Jacob was plundering Laban, and that was intended to be an encouragement for the Israelites. As they were going into the wilderness where they would face many trials, many unknowns, many difficulties and temptations, they had, like Jacob, great riches in their possession. you too have great riches in your possession as a believer today. I read one time about two brothers in Hungary, the country Hungary, who were so poor they lived in a cave together outside of Budapest. And they practically had nothing, and so the way they tried to make some pennies to live by, so not much at all, boys and girls, is they would find scraps of food and try to sell it to other people. But apparently, they didn't have a relationship with this woman, but they had a very wealthy grandmother who lived in Germany. And when she died, the German government said, even though you didn't have a relationship with these grandsons of yours in Hungary, part of your massive fortune must go to them. And so here are these two brothers living in a cave, making pennies by selling scraps, and yet overnight, they're given exceeding riches, exceeding riches. And in a similar way, that is what has happened to you when you were converted to Christ. You went from penniless, you had nothing, spiritually speaking, not a single cent. to being the richest person in the world, spiritually speaking. This has been your experience today. We saw last week, we talked about many of these blessings that you've been given in Christ. What do you have? What are your riches? You have a loving relationship with God, which you did not used to have. You are a child of God, which you did not used to be. You now have access to God. which you didn't have. You now have the hope of one day living with God, which was not yours. You're now able to experience the power of God, which you weren't able. Of course, you have the complete washing away of your sins, which was not true. We could go on. All of these things you did not have in any way, shape, or form before Christ saved you. And yet now, all of these things you have, to the full degree forever. Paul, I love this phrase, he refers to the blessings of Christ in Ephesians 3.8 as being the unsearchable riches of Christ. So you can think of a big treasure box, and the treasure box is full of so much treasure as you dig and dig and dig, you never get to the bottom of it, but there's always more treasure for you to behold. That's the picture Paul gives us. That's your state as a believer. You have unsearchable, unfathomable riches, boundless riches, just like Jacob here as he left from Laban's house. And so then as we see fourthly and finally, you need to enjoy these riches. Enjoy them very much. So that's the question we now need to consider. Who enabled you to escape and who gave you these riches? Who did that? Of course the answer is God. But I want you to see here how that point is brought out for us in many ways in the passage. So if you look at verse three, God said to Jacob, Return to the land of your fathers and to your family, and I will be with you. And I want you to notice here, it's not just a command, though it is a command, but it's also a promise. And it's a promise of divine protection. So having protected Jacob from, or having commanded Jacob, rather, to flee from his master, God now is saying, I'm going to be with you to deliver you. And so it's the Lord who brought about Jacob's escape. And then if you look also at the passage, we see it's the Lord who gave him the riches. In verse five, even though Laban's countenance was not favorable toward him, Jacob knew that God had been with him. As we see in verse seven, even though Laban had changed his wages 10 times, God did not allow him to hurt Jacob. Verse eight, when Laban said the speckled shall be your wages, the flocks bore speckle by the sovereign work of God. And when he said that the streaked shall be your wages, the flocks bore streaked. Why? Because God did it. Look at verse nine. So God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me. Jacob understood this was all the Lord's doing and if that was, It wasn't clear enough already. Jacob then recounted to his wives the dream that he was given from God, a dream that proved all of these animals, his wealth, had come from the Lord. We see that in verses 10 to 12. So Jacob didn't escape because of his own ingenuity. Jacob didn't become rich because of anything he had done. It was ultimately God who had done it for him. Of course, the same would be true later with Israel and Egypt, as well as for you and me today. Because the point is, none of us can escape from captivity on our own. Certainly no one can attain spiritual riches by our own merit, but these are all gifts. That's what our passage teaches us. They're gifts that are given to people, not attained. by people. And if you look, the way they're given is through the work of a mediator. We don't see that point being explicitly made for us here in our passage, but for the Israelites, they knew this was the case. How did they get out of Egypt? How did they come to plunder the Egyptians? Because God had sent them a man, a mediator, to do that. Moses, of course, the servant of the Lord. And for you and me, we've escaped and we've been made rich because of the greater Moses, the Lord Jesus. One of my favorite verses in the Bible is 2 Corinthians 8 verse 9. It talks about Christ who was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, so that for our sake we might become rich in him. Because Christ became poor, that we've been made rich. And so instead of ignoring the gifts, we, like the kids on Christmas morning, need to rip them open and start enjoying them. And that's what Jacob was supposed to do, wasn't he? With the sheep and with the goats. We talked about that last time. They were given so that he would use them for food, so that he would use them for clothing and to provide for his family. Now, is this not also what the Israelites to do with all of the gold and the silver and the goods that they were given from the Egyptians? They were to use it with thankfulness as they served God. And so too, God has given you these riches to be used. That you'd take advantage of the access you have to God the Father. That you would rest and rejoice in the forgiveness of your sins. That you'd read your Bible and believe His promises. That you'd fight for obedience by His power. That you'd spend time with your fellow believers. That you would be blessed by Him. I mentioned earlier, boys and girls, how you'll be given Christmas presents next week and how you're excited to enjoy them. But what I didn't mention is that you won't have to pay anything for them, but someone else will, someone else has. Of course, that's your parents. And so if you didn't already plan to enjoy the gifts, you should especially enjoy them because your parents have paid for them. And depending on the gift, they may have paid quite a lot of money for them. It's the same with your spiritual gifts. They're free for you, but they weren't free for Christ. Christ became poor that we might become rich. Someone who loves us very much paid the price for us. So as you think of your spiritual riches tonight, I want you to remember the cost that Christ has paid so that you could have them, and so that you'll make them a constant part of your life. How can you this week, enjoy those privileges more. How can you live out those gifts more and more? How can you cherish them above everything else? How can you enjoy them as the expensive gifts they are? Because that's why they've been given to you. Take them, and with thankfulness, use them. Let's pray. Lord, tonight, as always, we do pray that you would use your word, and despite me, but that, Lord, your word would be effective in our hearts. Lord, I'm a jar of clay, and yet your word is living and active and powerful.