Let's turn in our Bibles, please, to the book of Genesis, chapter 34. We have just completed our study of Jacob's reconciliation with Esau when he came back into the land of Canaan after being absent from it for twenty years. And now that he is back in the land, having reconciled with Esau, We saw that he had moved to the outskirts of the city of Shechem. And there, outside that city, he built an altar, bought a piece of land and settled down there for an extended period of time. Now, we pick up the narrative at Genesis chapter 34, beginning with verse one and read all the way through to verse 31. Genesis chapter 34, beginning at verse one. And Dinah the daughter of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land. And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her and lay with her and defiled her. And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel and spake kindly unto the damsel. And Shechem spake unto his father Hamor, saying, Get me this damsel to wife. And Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter. Now his sons were with his cattle in the field, and Jacob held his peace until they were come. And Hamor, the father of Shechem, went out unto Jacob to commune with him. And the sons of Jacob came out of the field when they heard it, and the men were grieved. And they were very wroth, because he had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacob's daughter, which thing ought not to be done. And Hamor communed with them, saying, The soul of my son Shechem longeth for your daughter. I pray you, give her him to wife, and make ye marriages with us, and give your daughters unto us, and take our daughters unto you. And ye shall dwell with us, and the land shall be before you. Dwell and trade ye therein, and get you possessions therein.' And Shechem said unto her father and unto her brethren, Let me find grace in your eyes. What ye shall say unto me, I will give. Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto me. But give me the damsel to wife, And the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor and his father deceitfully and said, because he had defiled Dinah their sister. And they said unto them, we cannot do this thing to give our sister to one that is uncircumcised, for that were a reproach unto us. But in this will we consent unto you. If ye will be as we be, that every male of you be circumcised, then will we give our daughters unto you, and we will take your daughters to us, and we will dwell with you, and we will become one people. But if ye will not hearken unto us to be circumcised, then we will take our daughter, and we will be gone. And their words pleased Hamor, and Shechem Hamor's son. And the young man deferred not to do the thing. Because he had delight in Jacob's daughter, and he was more honorable than all the house of his father. And Hamor and Shechem, his son, came under the gate of their city and communed with the men of their city, saying, These men are peaceable with us. Therefore, let them dwell in the land and trade therein for the land. Behold, it is large enough for them. Let us take their daughters to us for wise, and let us give them our daughters. Only herein will the men consent unto us for to dwell with us, to be one people, if every male among us be circumcised as they are circumcised. Shall not their cattle and their substance and every beast of theirs be ours? Only let us consent unto them, and they will dwell with us. And unto Hamor and unto Shechem his son hearkened all that went out of the gate of his city. And every male was circumcised and all that went out of the gate of his city. And it came to pass on the third day when they were sore that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brethren, took each man his sword and came upon the city boldly and slew all the males. And they slew Hamor and Shechem, his son, with the edge of the sword and took Dinah out of Shechem's house and went out. The sons of Jacob came upon the slain and spoiled the city because they had defiled their sister. They took their sheep, and their oxen, and their asses, and that which was in the city, and that which was in the field, and all their wealth, and all their little ones, and their wives took they captive and spoiled even all that was in the house. And Jacob said to Simeon and to Levi, ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites, And I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me and slay me. And I shall be destroyed, I and my house. And they said, should he deal with our sister as with a harlot?" The story before us tonight is a sad record of Jacob's utter failure to properly raise and to manage his children. so that they might make wise choices and so that they might have godly character. Here we shall see, in this chapter, and sad to say, we will see far more in the coming chapters, how the behavior of Jacob's children caused him endless grief all of his life. Isaac and Jacob, to a lesser extent Abraham, all of them were failures as fathers. Because you see, it is one thing to beget children. It is a far different matter to raise them so that they are a joy to us and not a grief. Had these men done their job as they should have, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, sibling rivalry, hatred, murder, lying, rape, incest and a whole host of other such problems could have been avoided. You see, a little negligence in our parental duties in our children's youth sets us up for a lifetime of misery and grief regarding their behavior. And if you have any concern for your own happiness and the happiness of your children, then you need to take your responsibility to shape the character of your children very seriously while they are young. Because once they are grown, it is too late. Here in this story, we see how childhood sins left uncorrected lead to horrific adult sins which produce disastrous consequences. Shechem was a very sad place for Jacob. For there, his children's sins and folly were manifested in an incredibly distressing fashion. There is not anything happy about the story that I have just read to you. It stands as a negative object lesson for us. A warning of what will happen to us if we neglect our parental duties as Jacob did. And what our children are capable of if we do not restrain their sins and shape their character. Jacob's chief failure in this story is that of abdicating his leadership. He failed to properly lead his daughter in such a way as to protect her. And he failed to properly lead his sons in such a way as to restrain them. And he failed to properly deal with the Shechemites when they came to him with their proposal of intermarriage. Jacob simply did nothing as his daughter went out of control, as his sons went out of control, and as the situation went out of control. Jacob's silence, Jacob's willingness to let his sons take the lead, Jacob's whining complaint at the end of this chapter all point to a man who has failed to take decisive leadership in his family, to protect his family, to restrain his family, or to guide his family. Jacob stood there with his hands in his pockets while his family spun out of control. And so when men abdicate the proper leadership of their homes, it is not that there will be no leadership. It is just that the less qualified will seize control and will run things in such a way as to produce disastrous results. And so what we want to do together this evening is to consider what we might learn from this negative example of Jacob's abdication of leadership that is set before us this evening. In the first place, then, let us consider together Jacob's failure to protect his daughter, Jacob's failure to protect his daughter. Now, approximately 10 to 12 years have now passed since Jacob had his reconciliation with Esau. And the children of Jacob have all grown to become young adults. Dinah is now in her mid to late teens, and Jacob's older sons are now in their 20s. So apparently, Jacob had now lived for some years outside of Shechem and had achieved some degree of familiarity with the people there. with their morals, with their customs, with their religion, and with their worship. It was not like he was ignorant of the true character of the Shechemites because he had just moved there and hadn't had a chance to get acquainted yet. He had been there for many, many years. And yet, in spite of his knowledge of the character of the Shechemites, he allowed his vulnerable young daughter to go out and socialize with the daughters of the land. No doubt in this process of socialization, picking up their ways, adopting their character, entering into their conversation. After all, a girl needs to have friends, right? Wrong. If those friends happen to be Canaanites. Here is a young woman. without protection, without supervision, in the company of wicked people who is just ripe for getting into trouble. And you think to yourself, and her father is permitting this? Where is his head? Now, maybe the reason why he allowed this to happen is because he gave in to Dinah's whining and complaints. Oh, come on, Dad. I need some friends. All I have out here is these dumb brothers of mine. After all, I'm just going over to a slumber party at Jezebel's house. Dad, don't be such a stick in the mud. After all, Dad, I don't want to be the only one that's not there. What will everybody think of me if I don't go?" And so it is that the pride and vanity of young people betray them into many snares. and foolish fathers allow them to go there by giving in to their children's cajoling. Or, maybe, her mother Leah let her go, wanting to see her own fantasies lived out through the social excitement of her daughter's life. And Jacob yielded to his wife's pressure to allow her to get into this situation. I can hear her. Oh, Jacob, let the girl go. She'll be fine. What's wrong with a little fun? After all, she's only young once and she'll just be with her girlfriends. What trouble could she get into? Or, maybe, Jacob was so uninvolved in her life, so disengaged as a father that he had no idea where she was. She came and went as she pleased. And the father was so wrapped up in his own world that he never checked into his daughter's world or what was going on in it or where she was or who she was with. Whatever the scenario, giving in to his daughter, giving in to his wife, or just simply not being involved. Whatever the scenario, Dinah was where she shouldn't have been. She was with who she shouldn't have been with. and was unprotected and exposed to the seduction and or rape of Shechem, whichever it actually was. Now, the point is simply this. Our young daughters need a great deal of protection and supervision. They are old enough to get into a lot of trouble. But they are not old enough to know how to stay out of it. and are often very naive and very foolish about where they want to go, who they want to be with, and the dangers that they are exposing themselves to. And it is especially up to fathers who understand those dangers to protect their daughters from unsavory situations, from unscrupulous young men, and foolish and worldly female companions. Because guess what? Wherever you have foolish and worldly females, unscrupulous young men are not far off. So, it is no surprise that while visiting with the girls, guess what? There just happened to be a guy of low character floating around. Shechem must have been invited to the party. Maybe the girls even set up the meeting for these two to get acquainted. Oh, he's so cute. You need to meet him. She's so nice. You would really like her. And so they played matchmaker and got them together. Well, without further speculation, one thing is clear. Jacob abdicated his responsibility to train his daughter to avoid such company. And he abdicated his responsibility to protect her from dangerous situations. And she became compromised and violated. Now, incredibly, Jacob, when he heard about this, was silent. He made no decision. He took no action. He spoke no words. He did nothing in regard to the matter. Verse 5, And Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his father. Now his sons were with his cattle in the field and Jacob held his peace. Until they were come. Jacob waited to see what his sons would say. And he deferred to them as to how this situation was going to be handled. He not only abdicated his duty to train and protect his daughter, he abdicated his duty to lead his family in a proper response to this matter. Instead, standing back while his family took action on their own. All his sons were very angry at what had occurred and rightly so. Fornication was a serious offense and they were righteously angry over it. But notice Jacob did nothing to direct them as to how to properly express that anger and what action to take regarding it. Well, this then is our first point. Jacob's failure to protect his daughter. Now notice the second major point. And that is the proposal of Shechem's father. The proposal of Shechem's father Now this begins in verse 6. Now Shechem, even though he had either seduced or forced Dinah, it's not clear, was not someone who only wanted to use her and leave her. He wanted to marry her. He loved her and he reassured her that he intended to redeem her honor by marrying her and spoke reassuringly to her. And since parents arranged marriages in those days, he immediately went to his father and asked him to get Jacob's consent to give Dinah in marriage to him." This request of Shechem to his father Hamor resulted in two meetings. The first meeting was the meeting with Jacob and his sons. The meeting with Jacob and his sons, this is in verses 6-19. Notice, if you will, the offer made. Here, incredibly, Hamor, Shechem's father, comes to Jacob and makes no apology whatsoever for the conduct of his son. He acts as though nothing has occurred. And he simply offers a proposal of marriage, verse 8, and Hamor communed with him saying, the soul of my son Shechem longs for your daughter. I pray you give him her to wife. He then offers them reciprocal privileges. Verse 9, And make ye marriages with us, and give your daughters to us, and take our daughters unto you. And then he offers them economic incentives. Verse 10, That ye shall dwell with us, and the land shall be before you. Dwell and trade ye therein, and get you possessions therein. And so, Hamor sails out there and with no apology or recognition of any wrongdoing on the part of his son, tries to strike a business bargain with reference to the marriage covenant. Then Shechem chimes in and offers to pay them any amount of money they want for Dinah. He says to them, ask me never so much dowry and gift that I will give according as you shall say unto me, but give me the damsel to wife. He offers to pay them any amount of money they want for Dinah as though she is a commodity to be bartered for like a harlot. He is shameless regarding his sin as well. He offers no apology for his action, nor expresses any guilt regarding it." Well, notice, not only the offer made, but the answer given. By this time, the righteous anger of Jacob's sons has turned into a sinful rage and desire, not just for justice, but now for revenge. The businesslike fashion in which the matter was dealt with by Hamor and Shechem, with no shame or no guilt or no apology, infuriated them further. And so they seize control of the situation. And Jacob once again abdicates, letting his sons handle the entire response. Jacob at this point provides his sons with no biblical counsel, no moral leadership, no wisdom. And as I said before, when the wise and mature fail to lead, it is not that there will be no leadership. It is simply that the less wise and the less mature will step in and provide it with correspondingly disastrous results. Therefore, the sons of Jacob divide their own plan in the heat of anger and youthful inexperience and ungodly motives. They devise a plan of deceit, a plan of blasphemy, a plan of murder, and a plan of theft. Now, isn't that a quality response to righteous anger? Instead of dealing in justice with Shechem for his sin, with Dinah for her sin, and with Jacob for his sin, regarding their respective failures and their proportion of blame, they determined to wipe out the entire city, which had little or nothing to do with the entire matter. In addressing the injustice that was present in this situation, they determined to commit an even greater injustice in order to deal with it. And you see, this is often the problem with human justice. It is all out of proportion to the crime. Either far too great or far too little is being exercised or it is being exercised upon the entirely wrong parties. Much godly wisdom is needed if godly justice is to be accomplished. And passion and emotion must be put away lest they drive us to excesses either of punishment or excesses of leniency. But the greatest evil of these men is to use religion and the reputation of God and the sign of His covenant as a cloak and foil for their crime. They insist on circumcision under the guise of religious concern, when in fact circumcision should have never been offered to those who were not instructed in and converted to the worship of the God of Abraham. To use biblical teachings and actions as a vehicle to commit unbiblical acts is incredibly wicked. Let me repeat that. To use biblical teachings and biblical actions as a vehicle to commit unbiblical acts is incredibly wicked. For example, to abuse biblical principles of authority in order to tyrannize people is incredibly wicked. To abuse biblical principles of liberty to engage in rebellion and sinful behavior is incredibly wicked. To abuse biblical principles of giving in order to enrich oneself at the expense of the people of God is incredibly wicked. These are all examples of using biblical religious principles as a cloak and as an assistant to the commission of sin. And when this is done, it makes sin doubly evil because it brings disrepute upon the biblical principles that are thus abused and misemployed. And it brings disrepute upon God who set those principles forth. in addition to the guilt of the sin itself. Bad enough to sin. But the sin under the cloak of religious justification is incredibly evil. It makes the cause of God to be especially despised in the eyes of the world as they think the principles are corrupt and the God who gave them is corrupt because the people who are employing them are employing them to corrupt ends. So if you're determined to sin, don't do it under the guise of some biblical justification and involve God in your sin as being a participant in it and a justifier of it and a cooperator in it. That's what these men were doing. Well, in considering together the proposal of Shechem's father, we have seen the meeting with Jacob and his sons. Notice, secondly, the meeting with the men of Shechem. The meeting with the men of Shechem. This is in verses 20 through 24. Shechem is pleased with the bargain. It didn't cost him much. A little piece of flesh, a little pain. And so he immediately commits the act of circumcision in front of Jacob's sons. And then he and his father return back to the city. There, Hamor and Shechem persuade all the men in the city to participate in the act of circumcision, promising them that through intermarriage with these people and through trade with these people, the men of Shechem would eventually absorb and possess all that Jacob owned. His people and his possessions would be transferred to the city and to its citizens. And the city and its citizens would prosper as a result. They said, verse 23, "...shall not their cattle and their substance and every beast of theirs be ours? Only let us consent to them, and they will do all with us." And so, they tell them that the people would be richer. The king would have more subjects to rule and property to tax and the city would be stronger. And so, out of self-interest, out of greed, out of opportunism, these men of Shechem take to themselves the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant while remaining in complete ignorance and defiance of the God of the Abrahamic Covenant. They had the external form of religion, but were completely without its substance just like so many people are today who are baptized church members but who do not have the reality of the religion in their hearts. As it says in 2 Timothy 3 and verse 5, they have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof. That is, the transforming power is never manifested in their lives. They never leave their sins because all they have is the external form and ceremony, but the matter is not in their hearts just as it was with the Shechemites. And so the Shechemites took on themselves the form of religion for the purpose of economic and political advantage. I remember Jay Wah telling me, the man who used to be part of our church from Korea, that Korea is like 90% Christian. And I asked him, are those folks all real Christians? He said, no. He said, the president of the country became a Christian many decades ago. And so everybody thought that if they became a Christian, it would give them political advantage in his eyes and they would be able to advance to the government. And so they took upon themselves the form of religion, but had not the substance of it. And so it is in our day and age, people think, well, I can join a church. I can get baptized. It will give me social contacts. It will give me economic contacts for my business. It will provide me with a veneer of respectability in the eyes of the community. Perhaps I can find political advantage through association with conservatives. And so they take upon themselves the form of religion, but have not the substance in their heart. People take on the form of religion for all sorts of reasons, to please parents, in order to cultivate their own self-righteousness, There are many reasons why there are many people in the church of Jesus Christ who have the outward appearance of conformity to God's covenant, but have nothing of the matter of it in their hearts. Well, that brings us then to our third and final point. Having seen Jacob's failure to protect his daughter, having seen the proposal of Shechem's father Now thirdly, notice Jacob's failure to restrain the wickedness of his sons. Jacob's failure to restrain the wickedness of his sons. Now this is in verses 25-31. Now these men submitted to this external form of religion in hope of economic gain. And on the third day, when the debilitating effects of their surgery were at their greatest, Jacob's sons execute the breaking of their word. Do you remember what they promised? Verses 15 and 16. They said, in this we will consent to you if you'll be as we. and every male of you be circumcised, then we will give our daughters to you, we will take your daughters to us, we will dwell with you, and we will become one people." That's what they promised. They broke that promise. Having broken that promise, they then committed murder and theft and kidnapping. They lied. They killed. They stole. They abducted. Isn't that the kind of career you want for your children? You can have it for them. Simply abdicate your responsibility to be a father in your home. And that's what you'll get. Now, they got their sister back. Verse 26, and they slew Hamor and Shechem his son with the edge of the sword and took Dinah out of Shechem's house and went out. But they got their sister back only through grievous injustice. They could have just taken her. Remember what they said back in verse 17? That if you will not hearken to us to be circumcised, then we will take our daughter and we will be gone. And so they could have just went to Shechem's house, got their sister, packed their bags and left without murdering one individual. without breaking one promise, without engaging in one act of theft, or without engaging in any kidnapping. But instead, they kill an entire town in order to deal with one man's sin. In verse 7, you will recall They declared of Shechem's seduction of their sister that he had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacob's daughter. But the truth was they had wrought far more folly in Israel by their covenant breaking and their murder and their theft and their kidnapping than Shechem ever thought about committing by lying with Dinah. And it is always interesting to see how those who are so indignant and offended with the smaller sins of others are so ready to justify the much greater sins that they themselves commit. They said, he dealt with our sister as a harlot. He thought he could buy her body. Well, they dealt with all the men of Shechem as murderers. What about that? Is that not folly in Israel? Far greater than dealing with one of the girls as a harlot? As bad as that is? Listen, any time we use someone's lesser sins to justify and excuse our greater sins, we are filled with wicked pride and self-righteousness and moral blindness. We try to turn people's eyes off our greater sins by getting them to focus on other people's lesser sins. And so when Jacob comes along to them and says to them, look what you've done. They said, look what he did to our sister. As though that was a justification for this incredible crime that they committed. Well, In verse 30, Jacob attempts to reprove his sons. But what is his complaint? Notice. And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, you have troubled me to make me stink among the inhabitants of the land. among the Canaanites and the Perizzites, and I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me and slay me, and I shall be destroyed, I and my house." Did you notice the I, I, I, I, I, me, me, me in the passage? You see, Jacob complains of the impact of their actions on himself. You made me look bad in front of other people. You put me in danger. But notice not a word of their sin against God and against the people of Shechem. His concern is only with himself and his self-centeredness and his lack of any reference to God or his word. Earns him only the contempt of his children. His abdication of godly leadership over his daughter and his sons has reduced him to a self-centered whiner. I don't like the way things turned out. I don't like what you guys did. It made me look bad. Listen, when you won't lead your wives and you won't lead your sons and you won't lead your daughters in the things of God, When you won't exercise godly leadership and biblical manhood, don't complain about your family's behavior and outcomes. Because if you do, you will only be dismissed as irrelevant. Just as Jacob's sons dismissed his complaint as irrelevant in verse 31 when they said, should he deal with our sister as a harlot? They were completely unconcerned with what he had to say about the situation because he had forfeited any respect in their eyes a long time ago by his abdication of godly leadership of his children. And the sad fact is from here on out in the book of Genesis, Jacob's children are completely out of control. and they continue to do awful things chapter after chapter after chapter. And the point is this, don't abdicate godly leadership when raising your children if you want to have any moral authority in their eyes and any moral behavior on their part at any point in time in the future. And so the lesson of this story is that we need to rise up and rule as godly men, giving a godly example, providing godly instruction, imparting godly wisdom, extending godly protection and exercising godly restraint upon those who are under our authority. And had Jacob done that, none of this would have occurred. And because he failed to do it, this is what he got. And when we rise up and rule as godly men, providing an example, instruction, wisdom, protection, restraint, we will have far better outcomes than Jacob did. It is a sad story of a man with his hands in his pockets, instead of a man who is leading his family in righteousness. May the Lord help our young men to grow up to be men of God who rise and rule as godly servants over their families so that they can raise a generation better than Jacob raised. And those of you who are currently fathers, pay attention. God is speaking. It's time to start assuming spiritual leadership in your family. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank You that You have been a faithful Father. Help us to be faithful fathers as well. And God, I pray that You would help us not to abdicate to our kids, to our wives, to our sons and daughters, but help us, Father, to be men of God who stand up for what's right, who exercise wisdom and sound leadership. Father, help us to provide a godly example. Help us to provide godly instruction. Help us to impart godly wisdom to our families. Help us to extend godly protection. Help us to extend godly restraint upon the sinful impulses of our children. Father, have mercy on our families. You have said in Malachi 3 that you desire a godly seed. Help us to be men who produce such a seed by exercising our biblical responsibilities. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.