of Genesis. In Genesis chapter 30, verse 25, Last week we looked at the ending of chapter 29 and started into chapter 30 with the many children, the 12 sons that were born to Jacob by his four wives. And we saw there that knowing that God distributes his blessings to fulfill his good purposes instead of envying others, we need to be happy for others and content with what we have. And tonight we'll look at The agreement then that took place between Jacob and his father-in-law Laban here at the conclusion of chapter 30. So let's give our attention as we read God's holy word. And it came to pass when Rachel had born Joseph that Jacob said to Laban, send me away that I may go to my own place and to my country. Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you and let me go for you know my service which I have done for you. 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. So Jacob said to him, you know how I have served you and how your livestock has been with me, for what you had before I came was little and it has increased to a great amount. The Lord has blessed you since my coming, and now when shall I also provide for my own house? So he said, what shall I give you? And Jacob said, you shall not give me anything if you will do this thing for me. I will again feed and keep your flocks. Let me pass through all your flock today, removing from there all the speckled and spotted sheep and all the brown ones among the lambs and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and these shall be my wages. So my righteousness will answer for me in time to come when the subject of my wages comes before you, everyone that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and brown among the lambs will be considered stolen if it is with me. And Laban said, oh, that it were according to your word. So he removed that day the male goats that were speckled and spotted, all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had some white in it, and all the brown ones among the lambs, and gave them into the hand of his sons. Then he put three days journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob fed the rest of Laban's flocks. Now Jacob took for himself rods of green poplar and of the almond and chestnut trees, peeled white strips in them, and exposed the white which was in the rods. And the rods which he had peeled he set before the flocks in the gutters, in the watering troughs, where the flocks came to drink, so that they should conceive when they came to drink. So the flocks conceived before the rods, and the flocks brought forth streaked, speckled, and spotted. Then Jacob separated the lambs and made the flocks face toward the streaked and all the brown in the flock of Laban, but he put his own flocks by themselves and did not put them with Laban's flock. And it came to pass, whenever the stronger livestock conceived, that Jacob placed the rods before the eyes of the livestock in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods. But when the flocks were feeble, he did not put them in, so the feebler were Laban's and the stronger Jacob's. Thus the man became exceedingly prosperous and had large flocks, female and male servants, and camels and donkeys." And there we come to the ending of this portion of God's Word. It's a unique portion of God's Word, yet I think we'll see tonight it applies greatly to us. Well, every once in a while online, there will be a picture released on the news of children with the president in the Oval Office. And I think I've mentioned before, some of you will know that I think I might give my right arm if I could go be in the Oval Office. This is something that I would love to do. And whenever I see these pictures, for instance, It wasn't that long ago that we were told President Trump welcomed some of the reporter's kids into the Oval Office. Whenever I see these pictures, I always find myself wondering, why can't I be the kid in the room right now? I want to be in that office, and why do these guys get to be in this office? And yet, it's a pretty obvious point why that's the case. It's because they have a parent who works where the President works, and that's not where my parents work. And you see, that's what makes all the difference. It's not because they have paid extra money. It's not because they have done something to deserve a place in the Oval Office that I do not. It's simply because they have a relationship with someone who has the right to be there. And I don't have that relationship. And in a similar way, when it comes to being blessed by God, we're reminded in the Word that it's not because of anything we've done, but it's because of a relationship we have. And that's what it comes down to. We'll see tonight that the people of God are blessed because of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Because it's our relationship with Jesus that makes us the heirs of God's promised blessings. And it's by being the heirs of God's promised blessings that we are the most blessed people in all the world. And that's what I want you to see tonight as our main point, that it's because of God's faithfulness and your relationship to Jesus that His abundant blessings are always upon you. Because of those things, God's abundant blessings are always upon you. And so firstly, I want you to see tonight that God blesses you as a believer abundantly. Our passage this evening comes in the middle of the larger narrative dealing with Jacob. Of course, we've been discussing Jacob for quite some time now. And at the beginning of the narrative, you'll remember that God gave Jacob many promises. And now that we're in the middle of it, we start to see Jacob being given the fulfillment of these promises. So last week, we started to see the fulfillment of the promises of children. coming to fruition as he had many of these sons. Tonight, we read of the increase of Jacob's possessions, also a fulfillment to these promises. And so with that in mind, look with me now again at the beginning of the passage, verse 25. And it came to pass when Rachel had born Joseph that Jacob said to Laban, send me away that I may go to my own place and to my country. So after Joseph had been born, Moses tells us that eventually it came that Jacob now was at the end of his contract for Laban. Remember, he had worked now for 14 years to be able to marry Rachel and have her hand in marriage. And so having served his time, he now is making it known that he wants to no longer be a hired servant. He wants to go back with his family to his own home. He wants to be able to provide for his own family. He says that later in verse 30. And what we have to realize as we think of this is that Jacob at the time was penniless. Jacob was penniless. Now, yes, he had worked for Laban for all of these years, and yes, he had worked hard, but what had he gotten for those 14 years of hard labor? A wife. Ended up with two wives, actually more than that, but really all of that was for Rachel. All of that was for Rachel. There's no money, there's no animals, there's no other wages were given to him. So what that means then is that even though Jacob had been working up to this point, Jacob was a very poor man. Jacob was a servant. He was a hired servant and he wasn't able to provide for his own family, hence he has this desire now that he wants to go home and be able to do that. So that's where we see Jacob at the beginning of the passage, but then how do we see Jacob at the end of the passage? Verse 43. Thus the man became exceedingly prosperous and had large flocks, female and male servants, and camels and donkeys. So there's a major contrast for us to see here. At the beginning of the passage, we have Jacob the poor servant. At the end of the passage, we have Jacob the rich man. And what we see in the middle of the passage is how Jacob went from being the poor man to the rich man, how he came to have these things. And what we are to understand as it comes to these things, the flocks, the servants, and so forth, is that these were the blessings of God to him. You'll see if you look at verse 30 here, Jacob will refer to Laban's many flocks this way. He says, for what you had before I came was little, and it has increased to a great amount. The Lord has blessed you since my coming. And given the connection we see here between that verse and the final verse, that's also how we're to understand the prosperity that Jacob acquired. In fact, we'll see next week that this will be made known to him that these were the blessings of God given to Jacob. And what are we to see about these blessings? Well, we see here in verse 43 that they were numerous, they were abundant. Moses says, thus the man became exceedingly prosperous. So again, here we have the account of this poor servant man who then becomes a very rich man and in the course of events had come to be greatly blessed by God. And of course, all of this, there are many things to take from this, but all of this is a paradigm for us of how God blesses his people, that he does it abundantly upon his people. Now, he may not always bless you and I materially, or at least quite to the extent that he blessed Jacob, though he has blessed us materially, and you can think of many examples of that. Your home, the car you rode in to get here, the job that you have, and so forth. These are all blessings from God. But of course, in the Bible, what are the ultimate blessings we have from the Lord, but our spiritual blessings. And Paul says in Ephesians 1 verse 3, he says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Some of you may know the name Corrie Ten Boom. Corrie Ten Boom, she and her family were Christians who during World War II when the Nazis were going raiding and so forth, she and her family harbored Jews in their home. They hid Jews in their home and tried to keep them safe from the Nazis, but they were betrayed. And so Corrie and her sister were then taken to a concentration camp. And Corey, you can read about this, she tells the story, experienced a lot of suffering, as you might imagine, at the concentration camp. She had to sleep in flea infested quarters. She was treated horribly. She was separated from her family members. She had lost her freedom, of course. But perhaps the hardest thing about it all is that her sister, the one person she had with her, died in the concentration camp. But Corrie tells the story, she says, though it was a horrible experience, she learned something very significant when she was in the concentration camp. And that is, and as I quote her, you may never know that Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have. That's what she learned through her sufferings. Because if you have Jesus, then no matter what you've lost, you still have everything you need. Why? Paul tells us in Ephesians 1 verse 3, if you have Jesus, you have every single heavenly spiritual blessing that God could give you. Every single one. So the forgiveness of sins, the word of God, the promises of God, the presence of God, the power of God. Having the love of God as your father, the fellowship of the saints, private worship, public worship. We could go on and on and on of the many blessings that God has given to us. And that's what Corrie ten Boom has learned and that's what our text is designed to bring to our attention. And to make it even better, not only does God bless us abundantly in all of these ways, but he does it every single day, continues to forgive, continues to be with us, continues to give us his grace. So just as Jacob acquired great wealth, here we see that we as believers have been given abundant blessings. And as we come to our second point here, not only does God bless you abundantly, but God blesses you in desperate times, in desperate times. So again, going back to the passage we saw in verse 25 that God's blessing came to Jacob when he had practically nothing, when he had worked hard and long for a wife, but had received no wages. And yet, if we look again at the passage, we see the situation was actually even worse than that for Jacob. So look with me now at verse 26. The text goes on to say, here Jacob to Laban says, give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you and let me go for you know my service which I have done for you. So here, Jacob is now saying, give me my wives and give me my children. And you may read that and think, well, that's just a simple gesture. Jacob realizes that two of the wives were Laban's daughters, and so he's just being kind, saying, okay, now it's time for us to go. Give me your blessing and let's leave. But actually, we see that in the ancient Near East, many cultures believed that, no, the wives and the kids, they actually did belong to Laban. And it seems that that's exactly how Laban was thinking of the situation. So look on your outline at Genesis 31 verse 43. Listen to what we're told here. And 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. So it seems that Laban was operating by the principle that we can see in history was one that many people lived by at that time and in that part of the world. So what that means then is that if Jacob wanted to leave and no longer be Laban's hired servant, which he could do having served his time, he would do so without his entire family. He would do so without his entire family. They were not to go with him unless Laban gave his permission. And what we're told, though, is what was Laban's answer but a polite no. Verse 27, and Laban said to him, this is his response, 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. So at first glance, it seems like a generous offer, but again, it's a polite rejection. Laban, in other words, he's buttering up Jacob. Jacob, it's so great to have you here. We do so well when you're here. And that's true. But inside, Laban is just greedy for more. He likes all the blessings that he's been given as a result of having Jacob there, and he doesn't want to lose that. And so this is why instead of agreeing to let Jacob leave, which he should have done, Laban keeps saying, name your wages, name your wages. He does that here in verse 28. He does it again in verse 31. Because Laban the greedy man would not take no for an answer. So put yourself in Jacob's shoes here. He's really between a rock and a hard place, isn't he? He's got no money, no way of supporting his own family. If he left Laban's house, he'd most likely have to leave behind his wives and his children. And while he had the right to be set free, his master would not let him. What would you be feeling at this time? What would you be experiencing? Sadness? Yes. Despair? Perhaps. Frustration, I'm sure. To be sure, this was a desperate time. And so what was he going to do in this time? And yet what are we told? Even in this desperate time, God was blessing him. God was blessing him. And that's what we have to remember in our desperate situations today as well. When your child is given a terminal diagnosis, when you're not sure how you're gonna put food on the table, when you feel trapped in sin as if you can't make any progress, you have to remember the Lord is still blessing you throughout all of that. I have a friend of mine who a few years ago at the same time had a wife dealing with a life-threatening illness that the doctors couldn't figure out how to help and then was fired from his job. And so here he is, needs good insurance, has to take care of his wife. It's obviously a scary situation. And yet at the moment when he most needs his job, he's fired. Not because of anything he had done, but because he had reached 65 and his bank decided, we're done with you. And so a very difficult situation. And my heart went out for the guy as I learned about this. But it was always obvious as I talked to him, it's okay. The Lord is still providing for us, and he will, and the Lord is still taking care of us. And as I look back on that day, I think that's exactly the right response, isn't it? Because that's the God we see of the Bible. Even when everything seems to be lost, even on the darkest hour. Yet there is our God continuing to pour out our blessings, giving us comfort, giving us peace, strengthening our soul, being with us. All of the blessings are still ours. So not only does God bless us abundantly, but he does so in desperate times. And then thirdly, we see he also blesses you in spite of evil opposition. in spite of evil opposition. So a few minutes ago we looked at Laban's offer in verses 27 and 28. Now let's look at Jacob's response to that offer in verses 29 and 30. So Jacob said to him, you know how I have served you and how your livestock has been with me. For what you had before I came was little, and it has increased to a great amount. The Lord has blessed you since my coming, and now when shall I also provide for my own house? So here's Jacob, he's reiterating, look, Laban, I've served you faithfully, and I agree with you that yes, your flocks are doing well because of our presence here. And again, he's repeating his desire. When am I gonna be able to go provide for my own house? But again, as I said, Laban will not agree with this. And so we see in the first part of verse 31, and most likely not wanting to lose his family, what is Jacob's response? He gives it, doesn't he? And he agrees to leave it. It's maybe confusing at first glance, but this is what he's saying in verse 31. He, Jacob said, you shall not give me anything. If you will do this thing for me, I will again feed and keep your flocks. Kind of hear a sense of giving in in Jacob's mind. And so he says, verse 32, let me pass through all your flock today, removing from there all the speckled and spotted sheep and all the brown ones among the lambs and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and these shall be my wages. All right, so Jacob's giving in now. He realizes, Laman's not gonna give me my wives and kids. I don't wanna leave them behind, so I'm gonna stay here. Here are my wages. Today, let me go through all the animals you have, and I will pick out the speckled and the spotted sheep, and I will pick out the lambs that are brown, and those will be mine to have. That was actually a very generous offer on the part of Jacob because the odd colored animals would have been rare and they would have been small in number. It was not common to have many animals that would have these kinds of colorations. And Laban knew that. In fact, Laban was rejoicing at the offer because Laban thought he was getting away with murder. That's all you want? Sure, you can have it. And you hear that in his response in verse 34. Laban said, oh, that it were according to your word. You want the odd colored animals? Knock yourself out. I'm the one who's getting the better end of the deal here. Because again, Laban is the greedy man. This is why going back when Abraham's servant in chapter 24, or rather he ran to meet Abraham's servant when he saw all the fine jewelry that he had been given to Rebekah. This is why he tricked Jacob into marrying Leah. This is why he made Jacob work seven more years to marry Rachel. It gave him what he wanted. He deceived and he took advantage of other people. And what we're told here is Laban, being so happy about what Jacob offered, decided to trick him again. Verse 35. So he removed that day the male goats that were speckled and spotted, all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had some white in it, and all the brown ones among the lambs, and gave them into the hand of his sons. Now, you might read that and think, well, that's talking about Jacob doing what he said he was going to do. That's talking about Laban. Laban is the he of that verse. So even though he had just agreed with Jacob to give him all the odd colored animals from his flock, Laban then quickly went to the flock, picked out all the odd colored animals himself, and then sent him away with his sons and put a three days journey between them and Jacob. So that when Jacob would go get the animals, those colored animals wouldn't be there. So Jacob already was being generous in his offer, now Laban's making it so that when Jacob goes down to get the animals, they're not even gonna be there. Laban has removed them in his greed, taking advantage of him. And yet what we see here is that despite Laban's wicked opposition, the Lord still blessed him. The Lord still blessed him, and that's true for you too. That's true for you too. You may be opposed physically by other people, for instance, who don't want you to be blessed by God. They may not want you to be hired for a job. They may not want you to make progress in dealing with a certain sin in your life, and so they may actually oppose you in it. Of course, you have your own sinful heart. You have Satan always opposing you with temptations, with accusations, with lies. And we often give in to those attacks, don't we? But as we see with God blessing Jacob, not even evil opposition can keep the Lord from blessing his people. Not your coworkers, not your neighbors, not the government, not Islamic terrorists, not even Satan. One of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific Theater during World War II was the Battle of Okinawa. Because for Americans, it was a strategic location that would make future attacks on the homeland of Japan. And the Japanese knew that, which is why they gave it their all to protect that place. In fact, I'm told they lost 100,000 of their own men, the Japanese, that day trying to protect it. John can correct me if I'm wrong. I think I'm right in all of this as I looked it up. The Americans actually won. The Japanese gave it everything, 100,000 men, and yet the Americans still took it. And that, I think, is illustrative of what we see here. We have great evil opposition. We may not always see it, we may not always feel it or experience it, but it is great. We have the enemy giving it all that they have to keep us from being blessed, and yet the Lord will not let it stop it from happening. So God blesses you abundantly. He does so, thank God, in spite of evil opposition. Then fourthly on the outline, I want you to see, if that wasn't good enough already, God blesses you even in spite of your own sins. even in spite of your own sins. So as the text continues, Jacob realized he's been tricked again by Laban. I should have known better, Jacob, but this is what happened. And so instead of submitting himself to God's will here, Jacob decides, I'm gonna trick Laban. I'm gonna get Laban back now. So even though he doesn't have any odd colored animals in his flock, he decides to employ a method that he believes will give those colored animals to him. And that's what we see here in verses 37 and 38. So, now Jacob took for himself rods of green poplar, and of the almond and chestnut trees, peeled white strips in them, and exposed the white which was in the rods. And the rods which he had peeled, he set before the flocks in the gutters, in the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink, so that they should conceive when they came to drinks. It's a bit comical, right? Some of you look puzzled. What's going on here? But this was Jacob's method. I'm going to somehow get odd colored animals to conceive. So I'm going to get some tree branches and I'm going to strip down some of the bark so that they're striped. And when the animals are drinking at the watering troughs, which is when they would often mate, they will see these striped sticks in the watering trough. And by seeing that, then they will give birth to the kinds of animals that he wanted, the speckled and the spotted. Commentator Alan Ross explains this. He says, behind this plan was the common belief that a vivid sight during conception or pregnancy will leave its mark on the embryo. So that's... It's all just a bunch of baloney, in case you're wondering. But that's what's behind it here, OK? So that's Jacob's plan for tricking Laban. The sticks would give him the odd-colored animals. And so when Laban then would return to check to see what kind of animals Jacob had in his flock, he would be able to have these odd-colored animals. Such had been promised to him. And what's amazing here is that the plan worked. You look at verse 39, so the flocks conceived before the rods, and the flocks brought forth, streaked, speckled, and spotted. So here we go, Jacob's method is producing the odd colored animals that he wanted, even though it was practically an impossible task. And so we see in verse 40, when the odd-colored animals were born, Jacob then would separate them from the others, and that would be his flock. And by implication, he just kept doing this over and over and over. But if you look back at the passage, he didn't just do that to get the odd-colored animals, but then he started to conceive the stronger animals for himself as well. So verse 41. And it came to pass, whenever the stronger livestock conceived, that Jacob placed the rods before the eyes of the livestock in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods. But when the flocks were feeble, he did not put them in, so the feebler were Laban's and the stronger Jacob's." So here's Jacob now giving himself more and more of these odd-colored animals, and now giving himself the strong animals while leaving the weak animals for Laban. And in all of this, what we see is Jacob deceiving and taking advantage of his father-in-law. Because what had been the agreement? Jacob was to take the odd-colored animals from the flock on that day. Laban had made that impossible, but this was not the agreement. Jacob was not living by the terms of the contract. He had resorted here to his old besetting sin of doing whatever he wanted to get what he wanted. And yet again, verse 43, we see that God blessed him. Despite all of that, he even used the sin of Jacob to bring about the blessing. Now again, as I said, putting peeled sticks in the watering troughs, that's just a bunch of hocus pocus. There's nothing really going on there. It was superstition that would do nothing. He could put as many of these sticks in front of an animal. You could try that today. It's not gonna work. It's not gonna work. But it was the Lord who did this. And that's the amazing thing of all of us. It's the Lord who brought about these blessings for Jacob, even though Jacob was sinning against the Lord as he was doing this. And this is made clear for us later, actually, in Genesis 31, verses 10 to 12. 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. God had made the animals produce odd colored offspring, not the peeled sticks. God had blessed Jacob abundantly. And of course, that's not to justify our sin today, but it is to reassure us. Our sins cannot keep God's blessings away from us. Not even his abundant blessings, but rather he can use your sin to bring about those blessings in your life. As you know, the college football bowl games are gonna be starting here in just a few weeks. And we certainly don't expect this to happen, but what would happen if you're watching one of these games and one of the players started helping the other team? What would happen to that player? That player would be benched almost immediately. That player would be getting an earful. You don't do that. You don't help the other team. You're trying to beat the other team. And yet that's exactly what we do every single time we sin against the Lord. We're on the Lord's team, but when we sin, we're going on to Satan's team, and we're acting as if we're playing for him, helping him, doing what he wants. And yet amazingly, when we do that, the Lord does not kick us off the team, but he loves us still, he forgives us still, and he blesses us still. Psalm 103 verse 10 says, he does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. And that's what we see beautifully portrayed in this passage. Here's God treating his servant, not as he deserves. but treating him graciously and abundantly despite what he deserves. And that's what he does for you and me as well as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. So what we've seen here is that God blesses you abundantly. He does so in times of desperation. He does this when you're opposed by evildoers. He does this even when you're sinning against Him. And if God does that, what it means then is that there's not a single situation in your life where God is not blessing you as His child, that He is blessing you always. And as we see fifthly and finally here, that is because God blesses you out of faithfulness to His Word and because of Jesus Christ. So the question we have left to ask ourselves is why does God bless Jacob in all of these ways? And remember, God had given Jacob many promises. I mentioned this earlier. For instance, we read of them in Genesis 28, 13 to 15. The Lord had promised to Jacob that he would give him many children and that he would return Jacob with his children to the land of Canaan. For Jacob then, that meant that God would give him a family, and we've already seen that God has now given him a family, and that God would keep him alive so that he would be able to return to Canaan. And in Jacob's mind, if you remember when we looked at Genesis 28, that meant that God then would provide him with food and clothing along the way. So Genesis 28, 20, and 21, then Jacob made a vow saying, if God will be with me and keep me in this way that I am going and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on so that I come back to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God. This is what God promised to Jacob, to bring him back to the land, which entailed keeping him alive by providing him food and clothing. And that is exactly what we see God doing here in this passage. He's fulfilling that promise by giving him food and clothing so that he can make it back. This is the purpose of the flocks and the camels and the donkeys. This is the food. This is the clothing. This is how God is gonna keep him and his family alive so that they can get back to the promised land as God had said. And that's why God blesses us in all of these ways as well. God has made the exact same promise to us as well. to give us the heavenly land of Canaan. And with that promise then comes the promise of provision along the way, both materially and spiritually. And you see, nothing can keep us from receiving the fulfillment of those promises because God is faithful to his word all the time. That's also what we see here. In the good times, in the bad times, when others are out to get you, even when you're breaking God's law. And ultimately we see here that you get these promises because of your relationship with Christ. If you look back at verse 27, Laban said to Jacob, 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. We said this earlier, Laban really was blessed, greatly so in fact, because of Jacob's presence with him. And yes, while it deals with Laban and not Jacob, this is a wonderful picture of the gospel, where you have an unworthy man blessed for the sake of a worthy man. And in fact, it's a picture that points us to the ultimate cause for all of our blessings in Christ, because we are the unworthy man. We're the Laban in the passage, if you want to think of it that way right now. But we're blessed nonetheless because we have a relationship with one who is worthy. Again, as Paul says in Ephesians 1 verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. When it comes down to it, that is ultimately why we have any of these blessings and why we have these blessings in all of these situations. Recently, Ann and I went to the Tippecanoe County Right to Life Banquet, which was an instructional meeting, but also a fundraiser for the ministry. And so after hearing about what the group does, what they're involved in doing in the community, and why it's important, and why others should be a part of it, there was an encouragement to give, as you might expect at such an occasion. Because as they made the case, and convincingly so, they cannot do their ministry, they cannot help pregnant mothers and save unborn lives unless people are giving to the cause. And the same thing is true when it comes to God blessing you and me today. We would not, indeed we could not be blessed at all, let alone abundantly if Jesus Christ had not given Himself to the cross. Because there Christ was cursed by the Father so that we could then be given the blessing of the Father. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5.21, for He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Tonight as we come to the Lord's Supper, we'll be given a picture of this in the bread and in the cup, how Jesus suffered for your blessing so that you could be blessed in your desperate times in spite of the evil opposition and even in your rebellion. And as you think of that tonight, may it fill your heart with joy because thanks to Jesus, you are a blessed person. Let's pray. Lord, we know this is a passage where we read it and it's hard to see how this applies to us. We're caught up in the details of these animals being speckled and spotted and the differing agreements here going on between Jacob and Laban and yet we know, Lord, that this is the word you've given to us and we thank you that it is instructive for us and it's instructive in a very pertinent way as we come to the Lord's table tonight of the blessings that you've given to us. Lord, the reason we complain and grumble, the reason we sin, the reason we live for the world and not for you is because we do not appreciate your blessings as we should, or we think that we don't have your blessings, or we don't care for your blessings, but tonight we ask, oh God, that you would open our eyes afresh to see your blessings and to know of the wonderful privilege we have as your children. Lord, I pray that You would apply that to all of our hearts. Despite my inability tonight, despite all of our weakness, would You cause that to sink in? Use Your Word, use the supper we pray, we ask in Christ's name. Amen. Well, turn with me now to Psalm 45.