Please turn with me to the 31st chapter of the book of Genesis. Our text this morning is going to be Genesis 31, beginning in verse 22 and going through the end of the chapter. Genesis 31, beginning in verse 22. Laban was told on the third day that Jacob had fled. And he took his brethren with him, and pursued him for seven days' journey, and he overtook him in the mountains of Gilead. But God had come to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night, and said to him, Be careful that you speak to Jacob neither good nor bad. So Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the mountains, and Laban was with his brethren pitched in the mountains of Gilead. And Laban said to Jacob, What have you done, that you have stolen away unknown to me, and carried away my daughters like captives taken with a sword? Why did you flee away secretly and steal away from me, and not tell me? For I might have sent you away with joy and songs, with timbrel and harp, and you did not allow me to kiss my sons and my daughters. Now you have done foolishly in so doing. is in my power to do you harm. But the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, Be careful that you speak to Jacob neither good nor bad. Now you have surely gone, because you greatly long for your father's house. But why did you steal my gods? And Jacob answered and said to Laban, Because I was afraid. For I said, Perhaps you would take your daughters from me by force. With whomever you find your gods, do not let him live in the presence of our brethren. Identify what I have of yours and take it with you. For Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them." And Laban went into Jacob's tent, and to Leah's tent, and into the two maids' tents, but he did not find them. Then he went out of Leah's tent, and entered Rachel's tent. Now Rachel had taken the household idols, put them in the camel's saddle, and sat on them. And Laban searched all about the tent, but did not find them. And she said to her father, Let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise before you, for the manner of women is with me. And he searched, but did not find the household idols. Then Jacob was angry and rebuked Laban. And Jacob answered and said to Laban, What is my trespass? What is my sin, that you have so hotly pursued me? Although you have searched all my things, what part of your household things have you found? Said it here before my brethren and your brethren, that they may judge between us both. These twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried their young, and I have not eaten the rams of your flock. That which was torn by beasts I did not bring to you, I bore the loss of it. You required it from my hand, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. There I was in the day, the drought consumed me, and the frost by night, and my sleep departed from my eyes. Thus I have been in your house twenty years. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night.' 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. But what can I do this day to these my daughters, or to their children, whom they have borne? Now therefore come, let us make a covenant, you and I, and let it be a witness between you and me." So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar. Then Jacob said to his brethren, Gather stones. And they took stones and made a heap, and they ate there on the heap. Laban called it Jegir-sahadoth. But Jacob called it Galid. And Laban said, This heap is a witness between you and me this day. Therefore its name was called Galid. Also Mishpah, because he said, May the Lord watch between you and me when we are absent one from another. If you afflict my daughters, or if you take other wives besides my daughters, although no man is with us, see, God is witness between you and me. Then Laban said to Jacob, Here is this heap, and here is this pillar, which I have placed between you and me. This heap is a witness, and this pillar is a witness, that I will not pass beyond this heap to you, and you will not pass beyond this heap and this pillar to me for harm. The God of Abraham, the God of Nahor, and the gods of their father are judged between us. And Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac. And then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain and called his brethren to eat bread. And they ate bread and stayed all night on the mountain. And early in the morning Laban arose and kissed his sons and daughters and blessed them. And Laban departed and returned to his place." Let's pray. Our Father, we come now to the chief capstone of worship, which is the preaching of Your Word. Father, help Your people that they may worship You by the way they listen to Your Word, that they may discern your truth, that they may have faith to believe it, and may have a resolve in their heart. By your grace, they will go home and apply it to the way that they live. Father, you are speaking to us in your word, and we pray that you'll give us ears to hear and hearts to obey. Glorify yourself, and for any among us who do not know you, would you irresistibly call them to Jesus Christ this morning by your sovereign grace? And we ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Last week I framed the narrative of Jacob fleeing from Laban under four headings, and we covered the first two of those headings. The first one was that he was employed by Laban. He had gone to work for Laban for seven years that he might acquire Rachel as his wife. And then Laban deceived him, as you know, and gave him Leah instead of Rachel. And then said, serve me another seven years for my other daughter. And so he did that. And the time came, after 14 years were up, that he said, I want to go back to the land of my father. God had promised he would give to Jacob and to his descendants the land of Canaan. And he says, I want to return. But Laban didn't want to lose his source of revenue. For 14 years he had prospered because of Jacob's hard work. And so he said to him, name your wages. And he says, well, give me this part of the flock and I will take that as my wages in the time to come. And he enthusiastically agreed and then promptly changed the terms of their agreement. In ten different times in the six years, he changed the wages of Jacob without his consent. But nevertheless, God Himself saw what was going on. He saw the unjust way that Laban was treating Jacob. And He caused Jacob to prosper, and then withered up and shriveled down Laban's flocks and his wealth, which did not sit well with Laban or his sons. And their animosity began to burn against Jacob. And so Jacob realized he needed to flee from Laban. And that brought us to our second heading, which is fleeing from Laban. So Jacob discerned that his father-in-law and his brothers-in-law were not happy with him, and it was time to leave. And then God Himself gave His own commandment, return to the land of your forefathers, and I will be with you as you go. And so it's in this context that we began to note how Jacob is changing. I am convinced that Jacob was not converted until chapter 32 when God wrestled with him all night in prayer. I can't be absolutely certain of that, but everything I see encourages me that that's the truth. And when you think about that, it's amazing because God first revealed Himself to Jacob 20 years earlier, before He was converted, and began the process of drawing him to Himself. And it's in this context that we begin to see changes that are taking place in Jacob. He's being changed by God Himself as the truth of the Gospel begins to seep into his heart. One of the things that we note, first of all, consider that here was Jacob, the tent-dwelling, slothful mama's boy. who now is an outdoorsman who's labored diligently for 20 years and has become a hard worker enduring the elements. He's changed in that way. He's a man who had been cold and indifferent towards his wife, Leah, and had been neglectful of her, but now we find him graciously appealing not only to Rachel, but to Leah, to say, here's what the Lord has told me, here's the things God has done, I'm about to go back to the land of my forefathers, please would you go with me? And he wins their hearts. But most astonishing of all, He does not take glory for himself for his increase. He acknowledges, yes, I have worked hard, but he knows it is God himself who has multiplied him and given him the wealth that he has, and he ascribes glory to God. It's all very UnJacob-like, isn't it? He's changing. He's being made into something different because when God saves a man or a woman, He changes you. He gives you a new heart. He begins to change you and make you into something other than what you used to be. To make you less like yourself and more like Jesus. God has Jacob on a journey, a pilgrimage. The faith of his father, Isaac, and the faith of his grandfather, Abraham, is about to become his faith. Indeed, as we're going to see at the end of this chapter, he is about to confess that this God is his God as well. So we see these wonderful changes taking place. Jacob had fled from Laban by stealth. And I don't think we should be too critical of him for that. When a man has proven himself over and over again to not be a man of integrity, only a fool continues to trust him. And Laban had proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that he was not to be trusted, that he intended harm and not help for Jacob. So he leaves by stealth, but before they do, Rachel sneaks in and steals Laban's household idols. Unbeknownst to Jacob, unbeknownst to the rest of the family, I doubt she was doing so in order to worship these household idols, but rather they probably had some kind of monetary value, or it could have been that after Laban's death she could produce it and say, I have a share and a claim in the inheritance because look at these household idols. Whatever the case, he's left. And when we pick up the reading this morning, I want to just pick up right where we left off with Roman numeral 3 and Roman numeral 4, which are these. We see Jacob in the third place being pursued by Laban, and fourth, covenanting with Laban. So, first of all, pursued by Laban. The text tells us that Jacob fled from Haran and settled in the mountains of Gilead on his way home. He's almost within the destination that he's looking for. and he's in the mountains of Gilead. The mountains of Gilead are a mountain range that begins 60 miles south of the Sea of Galilee and they extend southward until they stop at the northern end of the Dead Sea. They're east of the Jordan River and they're full of woods. There are some places 3,300 feet above sea level and they're completely wooded. As a matter of fact, you may remember that about a thousand years after Jacob had lived, David's son Absalom tried to escape in this very place, and his hair got caught in the thickets that were above him, and he was dangling between heaven and earth when a man ran a spear through him numerous times. Well, that's where they are. Jacob has a three-day head start on Laban. Laban pursues him and seven days later overtakes him in the same mountains where he is. Now, it's obvious from the text, and we're going to see this even more clearly here in a little bit, that what Laban was trying to do is not simply recover his daughters and his grandchildren. He was coming to do bodily harm to Jacob, even to his own daughters, and even to his own grandchildren, as we'll see in a moment. He intended to kill them. What had started off as envy has now turned into full-fledged murder. That's why God intervenes and tells him, be careful about what you say. Be careful about how you treat my servant, Jacob. How many times have we seen it in our study of Genesis thus far? Ever since God made the promise in Genesis chapter 3 verse 15, I'm going to send the seed of the woman who will crush the head of the serpent. We've seen the propagation of the messianic seed, but it's almost as if the devil works overtime to destroy it before it can ever come to pass. He tries to destroy it from without by persecution. You have men like Cain killing Abel. You have Ishmael persecuting Isaac. You have situations like this where Laban is about to kill Jacob, the carrier of the Messianic seed. All these men are of the same stripe and made of the same cloth, and they're trying to destroy the seed before it can ever be propagated. But if that doesn't work, Satan tries to do something different. If I can't stop it from without, I'll stop it from within. And so he sends the temptations inwardly. So in the days of Noah, he uses lust. The adopted sons of God look upon the pagan daughters of men and begin to desire their beauty. And so they begin to marry as many as they want so they can satiate their own lusts, and they turn their hearts away to other gods, and the whole earth is corrupted. But God spares Noah. But even in Noah's family, there was a Judas. His name just happened to be Ham. But Ham was not loyal to the God of his father. Things happened there. Look even at Abraham, as faithful as he was, two different times he's ready to let his wife marry another man, which would have stopped things cold. And then there's that whole Hagar incident, which almost derailed the entire thing. And we find it over and over and over again, either oppression from without or division from within. Either way, Satan wants to try to stop the kingdom of God. Well, brethren, how does it work today? How does Satan work within the local church? Oppression from without, division from within. His tactics have not changed. Let's not be unaware of the tactics that the devil uses. And then there's other things too, providential hindrances. It's wonderful that Isaac has been preserved and Jacob has been preserved, but if they don't ever marry, then they're not going to continue to propagate the seed. And so finding a godly wife is a challenge, and yet God mercifully provides for that. And then once they're married, the providential hindrances of barrenness and infertility seem to plague the patriarchal couples so often. It's as if God himself is deliberately putting obstacles in the path To show how mighty He is. To glorify Himself in the midst of it all and say, despite all these obstacles, what I have decreed will come to pass. To show to us that what I promise, I will perform. To magnify Himself and to bring Himself glory. And that's exactly what he's doing here. Once again, the Messianic seed is under threat. Here's little Judah, here along with Jacob, who's about to be destroyed by their father-in-law and grandfather. And yet God intervenes. And notice how He intervenes. He comes to Laban in the middle of the night. We know from the rest of the texts it was the night before he caught up to Jacob. And he says, be careful that you speak to Jacob neither good nor bad. He didn't just say, don't harm him. He says, watch your language. My eyes are in every place and I've got my eye on you. And my ears are in every place and I'm listening carefully to what you say to Jacob. He's saying, you do him harm, I'm going to do you harm. In other words, it reminds us, doesn't it, of Abraham when he was down in Egypt, and God speaks to Pharaoh and says, you be careful what you do to Abraham. And the woman you have in your harem, that's his wife. And then later, He does the same thing to Abimelech, the king of the Philistines, and says, you're dead meat. You're a dead man if you do anything to harm Abraham or his family. Well, even so, God is intervening to protect His promise, to protect the Messianic seed. You don't touch My servant. And so in verse 25, Laban finally overtakes Jacob. And it's amazing when he finally comes to him, verse 26, and confronts Jacob, his complaint is over the top. The man protests too much. It's full of hyperbole. Look at verse 26, Laban said to Jacob, What have you done that you've stolen away unknown to me and have carried away my daughters like captives taken with a sword? You kidnapped my two daughters. Well, interestingly enough, Jacob had gone to the two daughters and said to them, here's what's happening. And they said, our father has treated us like a stranger and he's treated us like a slave. We'll be glad to come with you. Laban had lost his daughter's hearts a long time ago through his sinfulness and his love of money. But now he's saying, oh, you've kidnapped my daughters and taken them away from me. Then he says in verse 27, Why did you fly away secretly?" And the hypocrisy of verse 27 is just overwhelming. "...and steal away from me, because I might have sent you away with joy and songs, with temporal and harp. I would have thrown you a going-away party." At every turn, the man has tried to impede Jacob from going back to his homeland. Seven years he works for his daughter and he deceives him by giving the wrong daughter so he can keep him for another seven years. And then after those 14 years are up, he says, now I want to go back to my homeland. Oh, stay here and I'll pay you wages. And he changes the wages ten different times. What kind of man doesn't want his own son-in-law to have a nest egg so he can provide for his daughters and grandchildren? But Laban didn't care about that. All he cared was getting wealthy himself. That's what he cared about. And so suddenly to protest, oh, we would have sent you away with timbrels and dancing and song. What a hypocrite. You want to go, Laban, do you know where liars go? Because that's not the attitude or heart he's shown towards Jacob. Verse 28, He didn't allow me to kiss my sons and my daughters like he cared. This man is a lousy father. I'm sure he was a lousy grandfather. You'll see in just a moment just how lousy he was. He wanted to kill and destroy them all, and yet here he is saying, oh, I could have kissed them and said goodbye. Notice then, verse 29, it is in my power to do you harm. Now, there's something you need to know here. The word you, the personal pronoun you, is used all throughout this chapter. Usually it's Laban saying to Jacob, you singular this. Or Jacob saying to Laban, you singular that. Only two times in our entire chapter is it you plural. You all. And both of those times are found here in verse 29. So hear again what he's saying. It is in my power to do you all harm. Do you hear what he's saying? To do harm to you, Jacob, and to my two daughters, Rachel and Leah, and to Bilhah and Zilpah, your maidservants, and to my twelve grandchildren, because I have eleven grandsons and one granddaughter. It's in my power. I have the men armed to the teeth with me to do all of you harm." What kind of father and what kind of grandfather makes a threat like that? Do you see how wicked Laban's heart is? But the God of your all-father, your plural, the God of your father, he spoke to me and stopped me." And he tells him, he says, "'The God of your father spoke to me last night.'" You know, hard to deny his existence when he speaks to you in an audible voice, saying, "'Be careful what you speak to Jacob, either good or neither good nor bad.'" And then in verse 30, he tries to smooth it over a little bit. "'And now you've surely gone because you greatly long for your father's house.'" You miss your dad. That's why you left. But then notice what he says. He then reveals what's really bothering him. Why did you steal my gods? It's just like what we read in Acts this morning, isn't it? You took something that's valuable from me. It's not that he cared so much about his gods. These were something that had some kind of monetary value and you've taken them away from me. But I want you to know something else that's even more important, something that's more staggering is this. You have gods that you serve that can't even protect themselves? And can't keep themselves from being stolen? And you think somehow they're going to protect you? Listen to Matthew Henry's insightful comments, quote, foolish man, to call those his gods that could be stolen. Could he expect protection from those who could neither resist nor discover their invaders? Happy are those who have the Lord for their God, for they have a God that they cannot be robbed of." I thought that was fantastic. We have a God that you cannot rob me. You can steal my stuff from my house. You can't take my God from me. And he says this, enemies may steal our goods, but not our God. End of quote. How stupid sin makes us, how foolish it makes us to think that we can put our trust in a God that cannot save itself, that cannot spare itself, and yet that's exactly what Laban did. He's putting his faith in gods that can be stolen. It's kind of like when the Philistines had set up Dagon, their great god. And then they bring the Ark of the Covenant into it, and Dagon falls on his face, and they kind of embarrassingly have to prop him back up. And the next day, his head and his hands are broken, and on the other side of the place, oh, poor Dagon. If your god needs you to prop him up, he ain't much of a god. But if it's a god you've made with your hands, it's a god you can control. It's a god that can cater to your fancy, and your whims, and your lusts. And that's why idolatry is so attractive to our flesh. But God is in heaven. He does whatever pleases Him. You can't control Him. He's uncreated. He doesn't depend upon you for His existence. Therefore, you depend upon Him for your existence, and you can't control Him, and you can't manipulate Him. He's not a tame lion. He doesn't take orders. We have to submit to Him. And that's why men hate Him. Because they don't want a God they can't control. In verses 31 to 32, Jacob responds to all this. Why did I leave by stealth? Because I was afraid. Know what a control freak you are, right? Perhaps you would take your daughters from me by force. You see, the Bible tells us that when men get married, sons leave their families, daughters are given by their fathers, and there becomes a new head of home. And that head of home is no longer daddy. The new head of home is your husband. But all too often, men give their daughters and they have bungee cords attached to them. And whenever that happens, it causes havoc and chaos. And that's exactly what's happening here. Oh, you gave me your daughters, sort of, but at a price. And I thought you would not even let them come with me if I said anything about it. You're such a deceiver, you see. Well, here is Jacob not knowing that his most loved person in the world that he loves more than anyone, Rachel, has stolen the household gods. He assumes that he's been falsely accused. He says this, "...with whomever you find your gods, do not let them live. In the presence of our brethren, identify what I have of yours and take it with you." Because Jacob didn't know that Rachel had stolen them. Again, it's interesting to see the changes in Jacob. Here's this man who is a manipulator and a deceiver, and yet here he is professing his integrity. Search all my belongings if you want to. And if you find anything of yours with any one of my people, kill them right here. But do it in front of these witnesses. In other words, I'm not going to do this in some private conversation with you, Laban. I'm going to let others see what's going on. There will be other witnesses to account for what's going to happen. And so what we find next is Laban turning all of Jacob's possessions upside down. They had five tents set up, one for Jacob. He goes in there, no household gods to be found there. Then goes into Leah's. Tent not there, Zilpah and Bilhah, they get their stuff rifled through as well. And finally enters Rachel's tent, and she has the idols hidden in a camel's bag, the saddle bag, she's sitting on top of it. And he starts searching around the tent, and she says to him, forgive me for not rising in your presence to honor you as my father. I'm on my cycle and I can't get up. Now whether or not that was true, Still, she's trying to deceive him. And the deception works because he doesn't find what he's looking for. Well, then in verse 36, he comes out and has nothing to show for all his accusations. And it says, "...then Jacob was angry and rebuked Laban." This is the beauty of a storm that's breaking here. This is an argument 20 years in the making. This is 20 years of bottle-up frustration with his father-in-law that's about to come out, and it's going to be harsh, and frankly, well-deserved on Laban's part. Notice what he says. First of all, he says, what is my trespass? You've accused me in front of everybody of stealing from you. Now produce it in front of my brethren. Show me and show them what I've stolen from you. And he can't show anything. He can't produce anything. And then he says, you've searched all my things. You've turned all my stuff upside down. All my suitcases are empty. All my saddlebags are empty. You've done all this stuff. You've gone rifling through my tents. And there's nothing here. And then, as most arguments do, it turns into a history lesson. For 20 years, I've put up with you. Husbands and wives, take a note from this. Don't do that. 20 years, you always do this and you never do that. Don't ever say the words always and never. Don't do that. That's bad. That's going to make things worse. But 20 years I've put up with you, and this is what's happened. I have been your faithful and most loyal employee of anybody you've had. And in saying this, he's being true. I have skillfully bred your flocks so that they did not miscarry. I have not taken anything of your rams to eat it." It says, while beasts came and took away portions of the flock, I did not require it at your hand. I bore the loss myself, and yet you required it of me nonetheless. In other words, everything was my fault that ever went wrong. There I was in the day, the drought consumed me, and the frost by night in my sleep departed from my eyes. I was burning up in the day, freezing at night, very often, because I was looking after your interests. I had to spend a sleepless night. Thus I've been in your house for twenty years." This is what it's like to live with you. For twenty years I've been like this. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters. and six years for your flock, and you've changed my wages ten times." As I told you last week, the Bible tells us that the worker is worthy of his wages. That if you have an agreement that you give of your time and of your services to your employer, then your employer is now indebted to you to give you wages in exchange for services rendered. That's fairness in the eyes of God. Remember in James, how James rebukes the rich people who were in the church who had hired mowers to mow their fields and then had withheld their pay once they had rendered the service. And it says, "...their cry has come up to the Lord of Harvest, God hates this kind of thing. The Lord of Sabaoth loves a fair measure and a fair weight. It is his delight, and you have withheld more than what's fair." And that's what he's saying here. And then he says, verse 42, again, look at Jacob looking to God. Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. I will have nothing to show for twenty years of labor for you. But God saw what was going on, and God looked after me, and His providence protected me despite your intentions." And he says, that's why God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and that's why He rebuked you last night. He's spot on. That's exactly right. So we see Jacob fleeing from Laban. The next thing we find out is he's covenanting with Laban. Look at verse 43. It's very obvious Laban does not get it. It's not registering. 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. You mean the two daughters that I worked 14 years to obtain, those are yours? And my 12 children that are my sons and daughter, those are yours. And the flocks you agreed to give me in exchange for services rendered, those are yours. Solomon's absolutely right when he says, if you grind a fool with a mortar and a pestle, you still won't get his foolishness out of him. And so it is with Laban. He's not getting it. He's still being possessive and thinking this all belongs to him. But what can he say? He has nothing he can say against him. He's been burned by the words of Jacob. And so he says in verse 44, Now you say, why would Jacob make a covenant with a man like this? Well, he didn't have to compromise any of God's ways in order to make peace with Laban. But he undoubtedly saw this as God's providential opportunity to secure that he would never have problems from Laban again if he would enter into this peace agreement with him. And so they put together this heap of stones. They gather stones and they make them a heap, and Laban calls it by an Aramaic name, and Jacob calls it by a Hebrew name. But either way, it means a heap of witness. So it's literally a heap of witness between you and me this day, and therefore its name was Galid. And also Mispah, which means watchfulness. Notice what Laban says, Again, there's a certain amount of hypocrisy here. Laban has neglected his daughters. He doesn't care about his daughters, but suddenly he's going to act like he's Mr. Macho and, you know, may God afflict you if you afflict my daughters. But nonetheless, here's the point. We're going to make a covenant, and this heap between us, Galid, is going to be a witness of the covenant. It's going to be a sign of our covenant. And the idea was this. If Jacob had a change of heart and decided, I'm just going to go kill my father-in-law, because I'm just so angry with him, and he starts making the journey back to Iran, he would have to pass by the heap of witness. And what would that heap of witness say to him? It's a sign of the covenant to remind him, I made a covenant, I would not harm him. I'm not going to pass by this to do him harm. And same thing for Laban. Boy, that son-in-law of mine, I'm just going to get him. He comes down and sees the heap of witnesses and says, no, I made a covenant. God gives us signs for His covenant, doesn't He? What's in front of you? the table of the Lord. What is it a reminder of? It's a reminder that Jesus Christ is in covenant with His people. Every time the rain falls and then the sky begins to clear, what do you see? A rainbow in the sky. A reminder, God will never destroy the earth with a flood ever again. He'll destroy it with fire, but never with a flood, because He's made a covenant He will not do it. So again, here's the sign of the covenant, this witness that says, I won't come to you and you won't come to me to do me harm. And then notice verse 53. It doesn't come out in our English translations, but when I was reading it to you earlier, I read it differently as the Hebrew itself expresses it. Because notice what Laban says in verse 53. The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor. Nahor was Abraham's brother, Laban's grandfather. Both of them shared the same God. The God of Abraham, the God of Nahor, and then it says literally, and the gods of their father, the gods plural of their father, Haran. In other words, he's not just invoking the name of Yahweh, he's invoking the name of the false gods that were worshipped by Abraham's father, Haran. Joshua chapter 24, verse 2, Joshua reminds the people, your fathers were idolaters. before God called them from Ur, the Chaldeans. As a matter of fact, Ur was known as a center of worship for the moon god, whose name, of all things, was Sin. They worshipped Sin, which has its own poetic irony to it. But nonetheless, this was who Abraham and his father before him worshipped until God revealed Himself to them. What you need to see here is that Laban is invoking not just God, But these false gods as well. He believes in the existence of the true God because he's spoken audibly to him the night before. But nonetheless, he thinks he's just one among many gods rather than being the one only true and living God. And so he invokes the name of all the gods and say, all these gods be witness between you and me. Which makes Jacob's response all the more significant. because he won't buy into that. He swears a covenant, but notice what he says. In Jacob, verse 53, he swore by the fear of his father Isaac. I won't swear by the other false gods. I will swear by the God of my father. That's who I'll swear by in him alone. See it again, Jacob is changing. Well, what do they do next? Jacob offers their sacrifice on the mountain. They come together, they eat bread, and they ate and stayed on the mountain all night. It's nice when your enemy can sleep right next to you in the next tent over and you know he's not going to hurt you. So they have a covenant meal. And finally, in the morning, Laban kisses his daughters, his grandchildren, blesses them, and he leaves. You realize Laban will never see his daughters nor his 12 grandchildren ever again. That when men love money, They love themselves this way, they turn their hearts to their children away from them. And here was the curse that God placed upon him that he would never see his family ever again because of what had happened. I trust the Spirit of God knows how to make applications to us beyond things that I can think of, but I have three applications I want to make from our text this morning. The first is this, do not fret because of evildoers. Instead, trust in the Lord and do good. It's a direct quote from Psalm 37. It's a psalm filled with exhortations to not be anxious about those who devise wicked schemes against you. The people that just want your destruction, want your reputation, drug through the mud, want you torn down, want to see you on the bread line, whatever it is. God says, don't be afraid of them. Don't worry about them. As a matter of fact, He gives the exhortation, cease from anger and forsake wrath. Do not fret. It only causes harm. I don't know about you, but when I read words like that, it fills me with all manner of fretfulness, even though I know it does no good. What God is saying is, you're not the sovereign of the universe, and all your worrying, all your fretting isn't going to do a lick of good. All it's going to do is give you an ulcer. It's not going to change your circumstance. It's not going to change anything about you, but we still persist, don't we, in being anxious. But what he's saying is, if you're tempted to take your sword and take vengeance upon yourself, put the sword away. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. Let the Lord take care of it. Trust Him to take care of it. Here's Jacob who's being pursued by his enemies, and yet what did God do? God Himself availed to stand up for him and be his shield and say, don't you touch my servant. God has a way of doing that, doesn't He? You can turn to Psalm 37 if you wish. I want to read to you verses 9 to 15. Right after He says, "...cease from anger and forsake wrath." In verse 9 He says, "...evildoers shall be cut off. But those who wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall be no more. Indeed, you will look carefully for his place, but it shall be no more." But the meek shall inherit the earth. You've heard that before, haven't you? Because Jesus would take these very words into his mouth and should delight themselves in the abundance of peace. Listen to what it goes on to say, the wicked plots against the just and gnashes at him with his teeth. The Lord in heaven is anxious. No, that's not what it says, does it? The Lord laughs at him. The Lord laughs at him, for he sees that his day is coming. The wicked have drawn the sword, and they have bent their bow to cast down the poor and needy, to slay those who are of upright conduct. Their sword shall enter their own heart, and their bows shall be broken. God himself will frustrate their plans." Notice what it goes on to say, verse 23, "'The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, For the Lord upholds him with his hand." Do we not see it in Jacob's life that God upheld and protected his servant? You and I, you know, the reality is not every difficulty, not every conflict is going to be resolved in this present age. I sure wish they would be, but they're not. But they will be resolved, either in this present age or in the age to come, but God himself will make it right. Our job is to trust Him and to stop trying to take it back onto ourselves, to give it to Him and say, Lord, I commit it to You. You take care of it. And that's how we cease from being anxious. It's a lot easier to say than it is to do, isn't it? But to be able to say, God is in control. He knows what He's doing. I don't know what He's doing, but He knows what He's doing. And I commit this to Him. Secondly, In both parenting and in evangelism, remember the wise old maxim, you seldom reap in the same season that you sow. You seldom reap in the same season that you sow. If I'm right in my assessment of Jacob, that he was not actually converted until Genesis chapter 32, do you realize that God was drawing him for 20 years to himself? He's first revealed himself and is beginning to draw him to himself and beginning to make changes inside of him, but he won't pass through the narrow gate of conversion for 20 years. I find it interesting that when you look at the parable of the four soils that Jesus gave, which is four different kinds of hearts that have the gospel preached to them, there's only one that believes into eternal life, that bears fruit, and that's the fourth soil. Have you ever noticed, though, that the only soil that produces fruit is the one that's the slowest to grow? That is, before the stalk begins to grow upward, the roots begin to go downward. And so long as the roots are going downward, as far as the naked eye is concerned, it looks like nothing's happening. In fact, the one that springs up the quickest is the one that most quickly falls away. Because the seed that falls upon the rocky soul, that is a man that's truly in his heart unbelieving and impenitent, he has a rock-hard heart, but outwardly he professes the gospel. Instantly he says, Oh, this is the greatest thing since sliced bread! And you see changes in him take place, even changes in his personality for a few months. But then as soon as there's opposition because of the Word, and suddenly his friends don't want to have anything to do with him because he's a religious fag or whatever else, immediately, just as quickly as it sprang up, so quickly is it gone. I've seen it happen before. I've watched it happen before. Because his profession was all outward. The Gospel never penetrated his heart. There was no reality inside. But sometimes the seed is growing down, And you're looking at the surface of the soil going, is this making any difference whatsoever? That's how it feels in evangelism. And fathers, does it not feel that way? And mothers, does it not feel that way with your children? You look at them and you go, I pray for them, and I pray with them, and I read the scriptures to them, and we do family worship, and we try to instruct them in the way, and they're just not getting it. And I spank them, and I spank them, and I spank them, and I spank them, and they're just not getting through. This just doesn't work. And sometimes you get despairing and go, is anything going on? But there may be a lot more going on than you think. I remember when I was little and one of my boys was a little tyke, and I had taken us through family worship, read the scriptures, and I had the Trinity Psalter and the Trinity Hymnal in my lap, and I said, what do you want to sing? And my son looked at me and he was dead serious. He said, can we do the Hokey Pokey? I'm like, He doesn't get it. No, we can't do the hokey pokey. And you think, well, that's silly, but you know, you're trying to be serious about God and you don't get it. Just this week, that same son wrote to me, telling me, Dad, today I got to share the gospel with somebody. People saw my life and saw my conduct and said, you're religious, aren't you? I said, yeah, I'm religious. I'm a Christian. got to share a little bit of his faith. And that's not commending me as a father, that's commending God's grace. Because we can plant and water, it's only God that gives the increase. But my point is, brothers and sisters, we seldom reap in the same season that we sow. Sometimes you may sow and sow and sow and think, oh my goodness, it's never gonna get through. But as one old saint said, sometimes the seed that we've planted may not bear fruit until we're buried next to it. It may be that the harvest doesn't come until after we're dead and gone. Even when your children are growing and you're saying, maybe they don't know the Lord, I can't tell what's going on, but you've planted, you've labored, you've prayed. You never know what is going on inside the heart. That God is working there, so keep pressing on. Because here's the thing. Yeah, it's scary to think, what if some of my children aren't elect? That's entirely possible, isn't it? At the same time, how do you know they're not? Because so long as they're breathing, you still have hope. So keep praying, keep persevering, keep breaking up the fallow ground, keep planting the good seed, even for those people that are lost, trusting that God may do something miraculous. You know, I don't know why I'm always surprised when God shows himself gracious, but I am. Oh, wow, that person was converted? I didn't think they would ever get saved. Well, Paul said, you know what? If God can save a guy like me, he can save anybody. Right? And I'm an example for the rest of the world that if God can get a hold of that guy, the Osama bin Laden of the first century, and make him the world's greatest church planter, I can get anybody. If your child is elect, let me tell you something, God's going to get his man. Look at Jacob, how stubborn he was. If you ever thought there was a least likely candidate for being in the kingdom of God, Jacob was it. And yet, did God win his man? He did. He certainly did. The third and final application that I would make to you this morning is this. It is no small thing if the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is also your God. It is no small thing. David B. Tozer's classic, The Knowledge of the Holy, has its defects, but still remains a pivotal book for me. One of those paradigm-shifting books where I realized God was so much bigger than I ever thought He was when I read it. And it's worth the price of the book just for the prayers that are at the beginning of each chapter. And one of the prayers that comes to my mind with great frequency over the years is the opening chapter. The first chapter starts off this way. He says, quote, He said, I'm speaking to a specific God. Not just the gods of the heathens, not just any old god, but a very specific god. The god of the Old Testament prophets, the god of the New Testament apostles, the god and father of Jesus Christ. That's the god I'm speaking of. To say that God is your God is no small thing. Because think of it, here's Laban saying, oh yeah, I acknowledge, I'll give lip service and tip my hat to the fact that the God of Abraham really is God, but there's other gods too, and let's swear in the name of your God and all the other gods too, and kind of go that way. You see, here's the problem. Whenever you make a God, you can control that God. You can manipulate that God. And usually that God feeds your own lusts, your own passions, your own pride. Something that the God of the Bible will never do. But manipulate those gods, make them whatever you want them to be. You know, fixate upon your love of money, and this God will approve of my love of money, or my putting someone else ahead of God Himself. And here's the thing. If it wasn't for God's grace, you and I would be just like Laban. Why is the God of our fathers our God? Our Faithful Men group just recently read a little book called Sketches from Church History by S.M. Huton. If you've never read it, I would encourage you to do so. It's just rich devotional material surveying 20 years of what, or 20 centuries, excuse me, of what God has been doing in his church since he ascended. But it's amazing as you think about it, and you read about our heroes of the faith, let me name just a few of them. Men like Polycarp. Augustine, Wycliffe, Luther, Tyndale, Calvin, Knox, Owen, Edwards, Whitfield, Pierce, Carey, Spurgeon, Ryle, Lloyd-Jones, and that's just a sampling. What a joy it is to stop and think, the God of my fathers is my God. I know this God, not as well as they knew Him, but I know this God. I call that same God Father. Their Savior and Lord is my Savior and Lord. I'm dressed in the same righteousness Spurgeon was dressed in." If you're in Christ, you're dressed in the same righteousness Spurgeon was dressed in. And the same Holy Spirit lives in you that lived in them. Because they weren't saved by their righteousness either. They were saved by the righteousness of Christ and by His shed blood, and the same Holy Spirit came to live in them." And why is it that you can, with confidence this morning, say that God is your God? Because of anything in you? No, because God the Father chose you in Christ according to the good pleasure of His will before the foundation of the world and wrote your name in the Lamb's Book of Life. and committed you to His Son, and sent His Son in the fullness of time to live in your place, and to die in your place, and to rise again in your place, and to ascend in your place. And then in your life history, that Father called you irresistibly to Jesus Christ through the work of His Word and His Holy Spirit, and gave you a new heart. And you became His person, one of His people, and He became your God." As a matter of fact, it's the very first blessing in the covenant. They shall be my people, and I shall be their God." The Lord's table is a reminder, I'm one of His people. And this God is my God. And why? Because of His sovereign grace. And no other reason, no other reason but that. To be able to say, nope, Laban's gods are not my God. Allah is not my God. Buddha is not my God. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, that is my God. That is grace. Aren't you glad that God is your Lord? That the Lord is your God and no one else. A God no one can steal from you. You can steal Laban's gods anytime you want. You can't steal the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob from you. That's impossible. Can't be taken away. And He'll never leave you, nor forsake you. And if you are truly thankful, How will you show it? You'll show it by a lifetime of living for His glory, seeking to obey His commandments, living for His pleasure, not for your own, pursuing holiness and putting to death sin, and seeking to make Him known to a lost and dying world as you go. May God grant us grace to show Him how thankful we are by the way that we live. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you are our God and that you have revealed yourself to us in Holy Scripture. We pray, O Lord, as we partake of the Lord's table here in a moment, that the Spirit of God would enable us to just grasp by faith that we are partakers of Christ's body and blood because of what he's done for us. Thank you, Lord, for revealing yourself to us, not only in your creation, but in your Son and in your Holy Word. Thank you for being our God. In Jesus' name, amen.