Open your Bibles please to Genesis 29 verse one here in a moment. Genesis 29 beginning in verse one. This is an unusually long passage that we're gonna be reading this morning. We're gonna be reading all of 29 and half of chapter 30. And so without much further ado, we are going to jump into it. And yet we are going to stop and pray and ask the author's guidance. and understanding what he has written. Let's do that now. Holy Spirit, breath of God, breathe on us now and impart understanding and illumination so that we would rightly hear, understand, apply, internalize that which you have inspired. Amen. I would remind you that here at the Shore Harvest Presbyterian Church, we believe the Bible to be the only infallible rule for faith and for practice. And that means, among many other things, that if we want to understand why life happens the way it does, we have to understand this book. So hear now the word of Almighty God. And as I often do on these longer passages, I will stop along the way to make expository and explanatory comments, and then we'll consider the overall text in the sermon afterwards. Genesis 29.1, then Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the people of the east. And I will point out that throughout Genesis, East has been the direction away from God. Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden to the East. The Tower of Babel was built in Shinar in the East. And when Abraham drove away the sons of his concubine to be away from Isaac, he drove them to the East. It is interesting that this branch of Terah's clan is now described as the people of the East. Apparently their spiritual health is failing. They are being reabsorbed into the pagan culture. And yet God has maintained enough faith there that Jacob will find a wife or four. As he looked, that is Jacob, he saw a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep lying beside it. For out of that well the flocks were watered. The stone on the well's mouth was large. And when all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone from the mouth of the well, and water the sheep, and put the stone back in its place over the mouth of the well. This scene recalls a similar series of events 60 years earlier when Abraham's servant went to find a wife for Isaac and arrived in all likelihood at this very same well. We are meant to see these as parallel accounts, and we will talk more about that in a moment. The triple mention of the stone should also recall for us the previous episode at the end of the last chapter, where Jacob slept on a stone and then erected that stone as a testimony to God's covenant renewal. Verse four, Jacob said to them, my brothers, where do you come from? They said, we are from Haran. He said to them, do you know Laban, the son of Nahor? They said, we know him. He said to them, is it well with him? They said, it is well. And see out there in the distance, Rachel, his daughter is coming with the sheep. Now you'll recall that when Abraham's servant arrived at this well, he was immediately smitten with Rebecca and believed her to be the one for Isaac. And so with all the parallelism, we have to wonder, is Jacob smitten with the approaching Rachel? Well, the answer is yes, as we see he tries to shoo away the other shepherds. He said, behold, it is still high day. It is not time for the livestock to be gathered together. Water the sheep and go, pasture them. But they said, like an annoying little brother who can't take a hint, we cannot until all the flocks are gathered together and the stone is rolled from the mouth of the well. Then we water the sheep. While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep, for she was a shepherdess. Now as soon as Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother, Jacob came near and rolled the stone from the well's mouth and watered the flock of Laban, his mother's brother. At Bethel, Jacob moved a stone as a testament to God's work in his life. We are meant to see this the same way. This is a testimony to God at work, and that's how the stone was moved, not through some extraordinary strength of Jacob, but through the hand of God. We also note that when Abraham's servant came to this well, Rebecca watered his animals. On this occasion, the traveler waters the animals of the local, Rachel. So there is a little reversal here. And I think we are meant to see this as a down payment on a theme that will be coming into the text over the next couple of weeks. And that is simply this, that Jacob is the omen of good tidings to Laban's household. Jacob is the bringer of well-being, at least materially speaking. And we begin to see that with him watering Laban's flock. Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept aloud. This is a familial greeting, not a romantic kiss. And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's kinsman and that he was Rebekah's son. And she ran and told her father. As soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister's son, he ran to meet him and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. Now, just in case you have come only recently to our Genesis sermon series, Laban's enthusiasm might make you think he's some kind of wonderful uncle who is doting on his favorite nephew. He is not. Rather, the last time someone from Abraham's household came for a visit, Laban made out like a bandit. And as we are going to see, Laban is all about the money. He is therefore excited in hopes of gaining wealth from this young man. Now this young man seems to come with no wealth, and yet Laban will gain much at his hand. Jacob told Laban all these things, that is all the things that happened at the well, and Laban said to him, surely you are my bone and my flesh, and he stayed with him a month. We would say flesh and blood, not bone and flesh, but it's exactly the same meaning. Then Laban said to Jacob, Because you are my kinsmen, should you therefore serve me for nothing, tell me, what shall your wages be? It's weird that you would speak of a kinsman in service in this way. As many of you know, the last time my nephew visited from afar, I put him to work, made him crawl under my house to help with a few things. And of course, I gave him a tennis racket as payment, not a wife. I think he got the short end of the stick. It's weird to think of a family member as a servant here. Something's wrong in this dynamic. Verse 16, now Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah and the name of the younger was Rachel. Already the vocabulary is strange. There are three other places in the Bible where two sisters are compared. In Exodus and Job and I believe in Ruth. And every time the words used are first and second. This is the only occasion where older and younger are used. Our author seems to be implying something about the desirability and attractiveness of these two sisters. The other thing we ought to be as astute readers, older and younger also helps us hearken back to the sibling rivalry out of which Jacob has emerged, where the older would serve the younger, We should be hearing that here, for sibling rivalry will continue to be an important theme. Verse 17, Leah's eyes were weak. There has been a lot of ink spilled over this meaning right here, for the word there in Hebrew can mean weak, as my translation has it, but it can also have been translated delicate or gentle. much more complimentary words. So commentators have wondered, is the writer actually talking about some negative feature about Leah? Or is he extolling her good feature in comparison to Rachel's good feature? I don't think we need to worry about it. Here's the key issue, as we'll see. We have to note that the distinctive feature, whether good or bad, are Leah's eyes. Spoiler alert. Would the ancient wedding veil have covered her eyes? Something to think about. Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance. Jacob loved Rachel, and he said to Laban, I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter, Rachel. Laban said, it is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man. Stay with me. So Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her. Then Jacob said to Laban, give me my wife that I may go into her for my time is completed. Jacob's word choice is perhaps not as euphemistic as we might like in church, but it is descriptive. And it is also important as the rest of this story unfolds, as I hope we will see. So Laban gathered together all the people of the place and made a feast. But in the evening, he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and he went in to her. Laban gave his female servant Zilpah to his daughter Leah to be her servant. And in the morning, behold, it was Leah. And Jacob said to Laban, what is this that you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me? Laban said, It is not so done in our country to give the younger before the firstborn. Complete the week of this one and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another seven years. This one and the other. Not very personal. Neither is selling off your daughters, so there's some issues here. Jacob did so and completed her week. Then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. Laban gave his female servant Bilhah to his daughter Rachel to be her servant. So Jacob went in to Rachel also and he loved Rachel more than Leah and served Laban for another seven years. Okay, so we've got to stop here and spend a little time dealing with this situation. I don't even know where to start. This is a big yikes, right? This is an unbelievable story. And there's that practical, some practical questions. Maybe that's a good place to start. Like who could possibly sleep with the wrong person? How can that even happen? How is that even possible? It almost makes the story unbelievable. And yet, let's start by noting a simple fact. Siblings can be very much alike. At our daughter-in-law's wedding a couple of years back, I got to meet all of her sisters. They're all tall. They're all pretty. They're all redheaded. Had Jill not been wearing the big white dress, I'm not sure I'd have known which one was marrying my son. They look enough alike. Now, you mix a little wine in there. put on the veil and all the coverings that would have been part of an ancient Near East wedding, make it a party, let it go late into the night, into a tent where there would be no city light seeping into the windows. And all of a sudden, it's a little more understandable how it happened. And I will tell you also, the voice of siblings, my own wife and mother cannot tell me and my brother apart in our voices. If we're in the other room and we call out, they don't know which one of us is speaking. Our voices are that similar. So it is completely possible that throughout that night, Leah sounded like Rachel. And yet we have to recognize that this didn't happen by accident either. It is conceivable that Jacob was fooled, but it was not an accidental thing. Laban and Leah had to work together. They had to conspire to fool Jacob. They could not have done so otherwise. And how treacherous is that? How could this father not have foreseen? He is a father, he is a husband, he is a man himself. How could he not foresee the bitterness that this was going to engender toward his daughter, Leah? And the answer is, he sees it and doesn't care. He wants her married off. He wants the bridal price that comes from giving away a daughter. And in a shrewd, practical, monetary, businesslike manner, he judges that even if Jacob walks away and doesn't marry Rachel, while she's young, she's pretty, I can still marry her off. I got to get Leah out of the house. This is abominable by every standard, even in the ancient world. where women were not always treated as the image of God bearers that they are. Even then, this is still despicable. And yet Leah's gotta be in on it. All night, every time Jacob whispered Rachel, she said yes. Leah's part of this. And where's Rachel? Why is she not saying something? Why is she not saying, honey, that's the wrong girl? What's happening here? Maybe she didn't do so in a super willing way. Maybe she was cajoled. A father and an older sister can be a pretty powerful influence in a young woman's life. Maybe she was coerced into her silence. But somehow Rachel is wrapped up in all of this. Is it conceivable? Can you imagine a worse way to start a marriage? Verse 31, when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. We should probably not understand this to be implying that both were barren for a time and then Leah bore children. Rather, what we should probably realize here is that God has providentially interceded for Leah in a unusually quick way. Here's a fact that they don't teach you in seminary, but I was able to find. Pregnancy rates for a single marital encounter, and that may be all that Leah had that week, they run about three to 5%. And yet she conceives on her brief honeymoon when Rachel does not. What we're meant to see here is that while Rachel received all the sexual favors of Jacob, and Leah probably had just that one night, nevertheless, God intervened. That though the balance of probability was against her, by the providence of God, she is pregnant. And Leah conceived and bore a son. And she called his name Reuben, for she said, because the Lord has looked upon my affliction, for now my husband will love me. Throughout much of the next section, there's going to be a lot of naming of children, and there are a few things that we ought to note here. One, we're gonna note that almost all of the names are Hebraic word plays, and they play, sadly, most of them are a play on the strife between the two sisters, on the sibling rivalry between Leah and Rachel. That really is what the root of many of these names are. It's also very interesting that not one of the 12 names given in this section, 11 boys and a girl, not one of them has any theophoric element. There is no Yah, short for Yahweh. There is no El, short for God. While these would become incredibly common in the history of Israel, They are not present here. It's interesting that while the nation as a whole would come to be known as Israel, wrestles with God, the individual tribes would not bear the name of God in their names. Instead, their names would be rooted in family dysfunction. 33. She conceived again, Leah, and bore a son, and said, Because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also. And so she called his name Simeon. Again she conceived and bore a son, and said, Now this time my husband will be attached to me, because I have borne him three sons. Therefore his name was called Levi. This notice here, Levi is not named by his mother. We don't know who named him. All the others specifically say the mother named the child. Here, he was called this by some unstated person. And she conceived again and bore a son and said, this time I will praise the Lord. Therefore she called his name Judah. Then she ceased bearing. As we are about to see, Rachel will have taken over the control of Jacob's sex life. Rachel, and it's gonna be revealed here in a few verses, Rachel is in charge of who Jacob sleeps with when, and so probably this fact that Leah ceases bearing may not be any biological change in Leah, but rather it's a change in her ability to sleep with her husband. Rachel has cut her off from Jacob, and that's why she ceases bearing. It's not 100% certain. When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, give me children or I shall die. Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel. And he said, am I in the place of God who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb? So Rachel's exasperation, Jacob's anger are both rooted in the extreme steps that Rachel has taken. Again, as we're gonna see here in a few moments, Rachel's cut off all sexual relations with Leah. And so Rachel has Jacob exclusively to herself thinking, that's the key. If he sleeps with me every time, apparently luck is against me. When he's fertile, it just always happens to be when he's with Leah. I'm gonna have complete control over his sex life and therefore I will bear children. And that's why she's exasperated and yelling at her husband. How is it you can get her pregnant but you don't get me pregnant? We begin to see what's going on behind the scenes and how it's spilling out. in their marriage. Verse three, then she said, here is my servant Bilhah, go into her so that she may give birth on my behalf that even I may have children through her. The Hebrew idiom is literally that she may give birth on my knees. In other words, the baby's gonna go straight from Bilhah's womb to Rachel's lap and so be counted as Rachel's child. This is ancient surrogacy, as we saw with Sarah and Hagar, and it was actually surprisingly common in the ancient world. That doesn't make it okay. Never mistake frequency with righteousness. For what do we have here? We have a slave, a servant, By definition, they don't have a say in what they do. She doesn't get a choice in this sexual relationship. What do we call it when a man sleeps with a woman and the woman has no choice or say in the matter? This was wrong. So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob went in to her. And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, God has judged me and has also heard my voice and given me a son. Therefore she called his name Dan. She says God has judged, but she leaves off the L of Daniel, Daniel, D-A-N-I-L. and just names him Dan. She puts the word judge there, leaves off God. Rachel's servant Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. Then Rachel said, with mighty wrestlings, I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed. So she called his name Naphtali. When Leah saw that she had ceased bearing children, she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. And again, upon a first or a casual reading, we might look at this and go, well, see, Scott, that's a biological issue. You know, but what seems to be going on, again, we haven't gotten there yet, but what seems to be going on is basically Jacob has kind of gone along with the whole, fine, Rachel wants me exclusively to herself, fine, I don't care. But then all of a sudden Leah goes, well, wait a second, he's willing to sleep with Bilhah. Apparently all he wants, all he needs is a younger, sexier model and that'll get him going. This really seems to be her appealing to his sensual, illicit, carnal desires. That he's willing to defy Rachel for the younger servant girl. Then Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son, and Leah said, good fortune has come, so she called his name Gad. Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son, and Leah said, happy am I, for women have called me happy, so she called his name Asher. Interestingly enough, both Gad and Asher are words that are far more associated with ancient pagan gods than they are with Yahweh, the God of Israel. In fact, Asher is the masculine of Asherah, the goddess of Mesopotamia. So there's something going on there. In the days of the wheat harvest, Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, please give me some of your son's mandrakes. And I don't fault your English translation. It would be almost impossible to make clear in English what's happening here. But remember when I said Jacob's statement that he wanted to go into his wife was important? if it was somewhat blunt? Well, that's all that's going on in here. That same Hebrew word permeates verses 14 and 15. In other words, 14 and 15 are, in Hebrew, they are loaded with sexual innuendo. We are meant to see these mandrakes as being plants of some sexual significance. More on that in a moment. But she said to her, is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son's mandrakes also? Rachel said, then he may lie with you tonight in exchange for your son's mandrakes. And so now we see, now it's revealed that Rachel has been controlling Jacob's sex life. Rachel is granting Leah permission to sleep with Jacob. And Leah's comment here about Rachel taking away her husband is not about the marriage all the years earlier. Leah was in on that scam. She always knew that she was going to be one among at least two wives. No, her comment is about you have taken away him in the present tense. I don't get to sleep with my husband anymore because you're controlling these things. Rachel has control of Jacob's sex life. And what's up with the Mandrakes? Well, this was a plant of that area. The fruit of this plant has an exotic and powerful aroma. In fact, it's mentioned in the Song of Solomon. There's a lovemaking scene in Song of Solomon that makes reference to the aroma of the mandrake plant as part of setting the mood for their lovemaking. The mandrake was legendary as an aphrodisiac, so much so that the Greeks nicknamed the fruit love apples. because this was associated with sexual activity. And it was believed by some ancients to increase a woman's fertility. So there might be some element of superstition creeping into this also. Whatever her thinking, whether Rachel is acting superstitiously or she's just thinking, I'm going to set a mood that Jacob can't resist, whatever her thinking, her plan benefits her sister yet again. When Jacob came in from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, You must come in to me, for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes. Let me know what to say about that. So he lay with her that night, and God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. Again, I'll remind you, just a single act of marital interaction got about a 3, 4, 5% chance of producing pregnancy. We're supposed to be getting the picture that every time Leah sleeps with Jacob, she gets pregnant. We're supposed to be understanding that she is defying all the odds because God is working in this situation. Verse 18, Leah said, God has given me my wages because I gave my servant to my husband. So she called his name Issachar. And Leah conceived again and she bore Jacob a sixth son. Then Leah said, God has endowed me with a good endowment. Now my husband will honor me because I have borne him six sons. So she called his name Zebulun. Afterwards, she bore a daughter and called her name Dinah. Genesis 46.15 actually notes that Jacob had a total of 33 children. So in addition to the 12 known named sons and the one named daughter, Dinah, there are some other children, a significant number of other children, 20 of them that are not named. Probably most of them were daughters, but among them, why is Dinah named? Well, if you've been used to getting used to how the Hebrew narrative works, this kind of mention points to something coming in the future. If we can't connect her to something in the past, then we have to be heads up, something's coming in her future, and we will get there in a few weeks. Then God remembered Rachel and God listened to her and opened her womb. That God remembers, we've seen this before, this is exactly the verbiage used when God saved Noah from the flood. And God remembered Noah. And God remembered Rachel. Our God does not forget, he is all-knowing. The point of this is that he is now acting on his knowledge, that we mere mortals can now see that he has remembered her condition because he acts in our world. She conceived and bore a son and said, God has taken away my reproach. And she called his name Joseph saying, may the Lord add to me another son. So here ends the reading of God's word, to him who has ears to hear, let them hear. Dr. Bowling was the professor of education at Grace College while Becky and I were studying for our teaching degrees. And he told the story of when he was an elementary school teacher, he had a second grade class and there was one young boy in that class who would constantly spit on the other students. And the then Mr. Bowling, the young teacher, was getting exasperated and couldn't figure out how to deal with it. And one day in his frustration, he grabbed a Dixie cup. He gave it to the young boy and said, that's it. You are going to sit inside during recess until you fill that cup with spit. And four parched days later, the cup was filled. The boy went back out to lunchtime recess and never spat on another child. You can call it what you want, sowing what you reap, getting what you deserve, what goes around comes around, turnabout is fair play. If you want to get formal, lex talionis, the law of reciprocity. But there is this principle in the scriptures that you reap what you sow. There is this principle in life that you reap what you sow. Now, I said you could call it what you want. But there are some limits on that. There are some things we ought not to be calling it. Let's not call it karma. For karma is not the same thing as the law of reciprocity. Karma is a false teaching, a false belief that over time, by redoing your life over and over a myriad of times, you eventually, the divine within you will win out and you will become one with the great universe. Dear Christian, do not speak of karma. It is not the same thing that we're talking about here. But there is another thing we ought not call it, and it is subtler and more dangerous. We should be careful when we say the punishment fits the crime. With that phrase, we may be getting ourselves into some trouble. Does the punishment fit the crime? Well, clearly in scripture there is a punishment fits the crime motif. Hell is the perfect and ultimate example of that. For if in this life you reject God's grace in Jesus Christ, then for all of eternity you will experience God without any grace. Hell is a punishment that fits the crime. Death is a punishment that fits the crime. God gave us life. God made us alive. God created us. And he said, in response to me having created you, do what I say. And when we don't do what he says, well, then we were given life by him. He has every right to take that life back from us in disobedience. Death is an example of the punishment fitting the crime. But here in this passage, I was a little disappointed at how many commentators, how many Bible scholars, how many respected preachers said this was an example of punishment fitting the crime. Some of you are thinking to yourself, well, wait a second, pastor, doesn't this clearly an example of that? I mean, after all, Jacob schemes and lies and defrauds family for personal gain, and now he is the victim of scheming and lying and defrauding at the hands of family who are seeking personal gain. Isn't this a perfect example of punishment fitting the crime? And I can understand why you would think that. And I'll even pile on and add this. Jacob's rivalry with his older sibling caused all kinds of strife in his parents' household, and now his own household is in constant turmoil because of sibling rivalry between his wives. So now you're thinking, what a second, Pastor, you disagreed with me. You just said this was a textbook example of the punishment fitting the crime. And again, I understand why you say that, but respectfully, I disagree. We have to define punishment. What does it mean to punish? From dictionary.com, to subject to pain, loss, confinement, death, et cetera, as a penalty for some offense, transgression, or fault. To inflict a penalty for an offense. From Merriam-Webster, to impose a penalty on for a fault, offense, or violation. To inflict a penalty for the commission of an offense in retribution or retaliation. from Collins' online dictionary. To punish someone means to make them suffer in some way because they have done something wrong. So Jacob is defrauded and lied to and deceived in Heron. Is that his punishment? Let's step back and consider a wider biblical motif. Moses was denied entrance into the promised land. Was he being punished? David's child that he conceived with Bathsheba died. Was David being punished? To inflict a penalty for the commission of an offense in retribution or retaliation. God does not retaliate. Retaliation is about the victim. About them lashing out. so as to make themselves feel better. God's feelings do not get hurt. He does not lash out to feel better. God does not retaliate. Let's just set that aside. Retribution, however, is rooted in justice and is about the offense and the offender. And to be sure, God is just. God does retribute. God does make evildoers pay. Remember, obedience, as we already said, was the God-defined response to having been given life. And so disobedience brought about death. It was a fitting punishment if ever there was one. God is just and he does retribute, holding every man, woman, and child accountable for their sin. A price is owed. So I ask again, was Moses punished, dying as he did on Jordan's shore? Was David punished when the child died? Was Miriam punished when her skin turned snow white in our Old Testament reading? Or perhaps are you being punished right now by me dragging this out forever? Here's the point. Dear Christian, finish this sentence. On the cross, Jesus What do you put in there? Jesus paid for my sins. Paid. Hmm. Maybe you went simpler and simply said this. On the cross, Jesus died. But why did he die? For the wages of sin is death, and he committed no sin, so why did he die? Well, he died for my sins, to pay for my sins. You know, maybe on the cross Jesus took away my sins. Maybe you answered it that way. But is this a shell game? Does Jesus hide them from the Heavenly Father? No, he took them away by erasing them from your debt ledger because he paid for them. You see, it doesn't matter how you answer that question, your answer is rooted in the concept of Jesus paying for your sins. Now if punishment is payment for something done wrong, and Jesus paid for your sins and for mine, then we don't pay a dime for them. You are not punished for your sins. For if you attempt to make any retribution, any payment, any payback to God for what you owe, then you are undoing the work of Christ on the cross. The hymn got it right. Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Moses was not punished when he died on the shore of Jordan. David was not punished when his child died. Miriam was not punished when she was made snow white after mocking a black woman. And Jacob is not being punished. So what's going on? Our payment for sin, the punishment we owe, was paid by Jesus at the cross. And that works retroactively as well. Does not the book of Romans make the argument that Jesus paid for all of the sins that have been left unpunished beforehand? Does not the author of Hebrews make the argument that by faith the ancients saw the same gospel we see? Jacob and David and Moses and Miriam and all the others were saved. because Jesus paid for their sins. In God's economy, does the punishment fit the crime? Absolutely. But God is just. And if Jesus paid the price, he will not bill us twice. We do not pay for our sins. Not one. One of the great joys of being a pastor is getting paid to study these things. For I will tell you frankly, I have struggled with the death of David's child, with the death of Moses transjordan. Wondering what is going on there? If Moses is forgiven, why does he die there? If David is forgiven, why does the baby die? If Jacob is forgiven, why is he going through all of this? And if you and I are forgiven, why do we go through so much in our lives? But we have to affirm Romans 8.1. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Now, to be sure, what is done to Jacob is strikingly similar to what he did to others. Jacob conspires with his mother to deceive his father and defraud his brother. Laban conspires with his daughter to deceive Jacob and defraud Rachel. Jacob has most certainly become the victim of the very offense he once committed. And he has now walked a mile in Isaac's shoes as well. Recall how Isaac was bothered by the voice he heard. The food, Isaac said. The food tastes like the game Esau hunts. The smell of the clothes is the smell of the outdoors, like my son Esau. The hair on the hands and the neck feel like Esau. But that voice, that voice sounds like Jacob. There was evidence there. Had Isaac slowed down and paid attention? There was evidence there that he was being fooled. So too now for Jacob. Those eyes, the voice singing and laughing at the party, well, that could be Rachel's voice. And that could be Rachel's fine figure hidden under all that wedding dress, I suppose. And with the veil, I cannot see Rachel's delicate nose, nor her pouty lips. but the eyes. Something's not right. Some of you are aware that a few years ago, I went to buy a pickup truck for our son, Andrew. And I found what seemed like a phenomenal deal. Now you all know the adage, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And to the seller's credit, He even said to me, there are some issues with the frame. But it was pouring rain, and the ground was muddy, and I didn't feel like crawling under to look at the frame. Truck drove great, sounded good, started up no problem, and it was a great deal. So we bought it. I bought it and brought it home. And the next day, Drew goes, oh, dad. To say there were issues with the frame implies there was a frame. It was gone in places, utterly gone. The truck had clearly sat in salt water for a lengthy period of time and rusted away almost all of the undercarriage. In my haste, despite warning signs, despite the deal being too good to be true, despite the seller telling me there are some issues with the frame, I did what I wanted to do, and it haunts me and taunts me. I feel like a fool. That's what Isaac went through the rest of his life feeling like. I knew it was Jacob. I heard his voice. And in my haste, I did it anyway. And now Jacob is going to live that way the rest of his life. I knew there was something about those eyes. but I just wanted to sleep with Rachel pretty badly. And he's gonna feel the fool for the rest of his life. Conned out of what was rightfully his, he was lied to. Oh yeah, by the way, remember the situation with Isaac? Jacob says, Esau, is that really you? Sorry, Isaac says, Esau, is that really you? And Jacob says, yes, it is I, father. And Isaac says, well, how could it possibly be that you got back from your hunt so quickly? And Jacob says, Yahweh, your God, gave me success in the field. He invoked the name of God to perpetrate his lie. He calls out the name, Rachel. And all night long, Leah says, God, yes. Yes. Yes. He has walked now in Isaac's shoes in a way he never imagined. conned by his uncle, lied to by his wife. All of Jacob's schemes that he was part of against his father and brother are now coming back to him. And if this is not punishment, then what is it? I asked you to finish one sentence earlier. Let me ask you to finish another sentence. The believer in Jesus is saved from blank. there may be a dozen or more correct answers in that blank. The believer in Jesus is saved from hell. Yes, we are, praise God. The believer in Jesus is saved from the wrath of God, which of course is manifest in hell, so those kind of intertwine with each other, but the answer is yes, we are saved from the wrath of God. The believer in Jesus, if I gave you enough time, if I asked you to fill in the blank with different answers, eventually most of you would say, the believer in Jesus is saved from her sins, his sins. What does it mean to be saved from sin? I suppose that would be a sermon series all unto itself, but very quickly, very briefly, to be saved from sin is to be on a path that leads you back to being what you were created to be. to take you from the sinner you were and make you into the god-like creature you were supposed to be. It's a gradual, painfully gradual process. But it's called sanctification. The word literally means being made holy. We're being holy-ified. We're being sanctified. No longer controlled by our sinful desires, but rather controlled by our desire to be like God. And how does that happen? I heard it said once that sin is like stubble on a man's face. And the word of God is the mirror into which he looks to see the sin. And he is shaved by grace. Come on, that's funny. Seriously? What's wrong with you people, Presbyterians? We look into the mirror of God's word. We look into the mirror of our lives. We see our lives interpreted by God's word. And we begin to understand our sin. If you have adult children, you've probably experienced this. Not my mom, her children are perfect. But if you have other adult children, you have probably seen that, where you're sitting there going, what are they doing? What are they thinking? And try as I might, I look at certain behaviors of my adult children and go, I can't possibly figure out how to blame those on Becky. Those had to have come from me. I taught them how to sin like that. Oh, they sin because they are sinners. But that particular way of sinning, they got that from me. And what happens in life as we begin to see sin in others, we have to be asking ourselves, do I do that? Is that me? And for a lot of years, Jacob is looking at all that's going on around him and going, why is this happening to me? And one night, the light goes on. And it dawns on Jacob, this is me. This is me played out right in front of me. God is revealing me to me. This is the sinner I am. I scheme like these people scheme. I lie like these people lie. I deceive like these people deceive. This is me. And Jacob's gonna return to Canaan, a changed man. Not a perfect man, but a changed man. He is gonna reunite with his brother Esau and try to pay him back, not steal more from him. He's gonna return to the home of his father Isaac and bury him with honor, not shame him further. From this time forward, Jacob will be a changed man. You see, it's not punishment, it's discipline. Punishment looks backwards to what's been done in the past. Discipline looks forward to changing who you will be. I trust when you spanked your child, it was not because you were angry at what they did, but out of a desire and a love for them that they would not do it again. The Lord loves discipline. He disciplines the ones he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. This is all coming out of Hebrews 12, six through 11 for the note takers. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respect to them. Shall we not much more be subject to the father of spirits and live? For they, our earthly fathers, disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good that we may share his holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. David, Moses, Jacob, Miriam, all the other saints. The stories we have of their sin and of the brokenness and of the consequences of their crime, these were not punishments, but discipline. This was correction, sanctification. Do you not think that for the remainder of the time in the wilderness, Moses was not a changed man? We know he had to have been. For in our fallen flesh, if we were told the promised land is not for us, what would we have done? Fine, get there on your own. And Moses doesn't do that. He wasn't punished, he was sanctified. He was disciplined. Jacob is not being punished. You are not being punished. All the penalty you owe for your sin was paid by Jesus on the cross. If you're going through a tough time, don't sit there and ask yourself, what sin am I paying for? Ask yourself, what sin, Lord, are you trying to correct? What sin are you saving me from right now? What is it that I'm doing that displeases you and help me stop doing it? We are not punished for our sins. But we have a Heavenly Father who treats us as legitimate children. Yes, He loved us enough to accept us the way we are, but He loves us so much that He does not want to see us stay that way. Why is this happening in your life? Because your Heavenly Father loves you. and he's correcting you, he's refining you, he's disciplining you, he's shaping you into the image of Jesus Christ. Jacob's time in Herod was a time where his own sin was revealed to him so that he would be a changed man. That may be what's going on for you right now. Let's pray. Lord, give us the humility to accept that we are still very broken, very sinful people in need of change. Give us the clarity of thought to understand that we are not paying for those sins. Christ did that for us. But help us to understand that in the hardships of our lives, in our Sojourn in Heron, when we are mistreated by the Labans in our lives, when we are deceived by the Leahs in our lives, it is so that we will see ourselves and fall on our knees and beg you to change us. And we will take what spiritual life you've given us and work hard to change ourselves as well. We pray this in Christ's name, for his sake, so that we will be like him.