Let's open our Bibles this evening to the book of Genesis chapter 29. Genesis 29. Begin reading with verse 1. Then Jacob went on his journey, and came into the land of the people of the east. And he looked, and behold a well in the field, and lo, there were three flocks of sheep lying by it. For out of that well they watered the flocks, and a great stone was upon the well's mouth. And thither were all the flocks gathered, and they rolled the stone from the well's mouth, and watered the sheep, and put the stone again upon the well's mouth in its place. And Jacob said unto them, My brethren, whence be ye? And they said, Of Haran are we. And he said unto them, Know ye Laban the son of Nahor? And they said, We know him. And he said unto them, Is he well? And they said, He is well. And behold, Rachel his daughter cometh with the sheep. And he said, lo, it is high day. Neither is it time that the cattle should be gathered together. Water ye the sheep and go and feed them. And they said, we cannot until all the flocks be gathered together until they roll the stone from the well's mouth. Then we water the sheep. And while he yet spake with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep, where she kept them. It came to pass, when Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother, that Jacob went near and rolled the stone from the well's mouth and watered the flock of Laban, his mother's brother. And Jacob kissed Rachel and lifted up his voice and wept. Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's brother and that he was Rebecca's son. And she ran and told her father. There are many things that we do not know about Rachel. in reading her life and reading these chapters, reading them over and over, there are many things that we do not know and probably never will know in this life. But there are some things we do know about this lady. My wife and I liked her life, her story. We liked everything about Rachel so much. We liked her character so much that we named our daughter after this Rachel right here that we just read about. In fact, we named all of our children after Bible characters that we admired and that we hoped and prayed they would grow up to be like. Now, in looking at this, and last week I went back and forth, there are some negative things about Rachel. And I had some of them down, and it's like, you know, I don't want to focus on her negative things. There were some things that she did that were absolutely wrong. But I want to look tonight at her more positive side. And I want to look at some things about her. And then draw some lessons for each of us today. First of all, in chapter 29 and verse 17, we find out that Rachel was beautiful and well favored. That means there were no flaws There were no deformities. There were no ugly scars. There were no misplaced ears or anything. She was well favored, and she was very beautiful. Now, I understand beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But there are certain things in every society that people have always considered beautiful. Now, a couple thousand years ago, and I'm going back before Christ, before the time of Christ, a lady who wasn't fat was considered ugly. In order to be beautiful, a lady had to be fat. That means she was well-fed and well-cared for in that respect. Nowadays, we've shifted. The lady's got a waist bigger than 16 centimeters. She's considered ugly. But all through history, there have been certain things in every age that was considered beautiful. Whatever it was about Rachel, in that day and that time, she was considered beautiful and well-favored. Beauty isn't everything, and I will come back to that on my final point. Certainly, outward beauty is nice, and outward beauty can be pleasant to the eyes, but beauty alone doesn't mean that's a nice person. I'm sure some of you have probably met people that at first glance, especially in college, before I was married, it's like, wow, we guys always waited for August because every August is when we got the new students. And it's like, oh, I want to ask her out. Wow, she's beautiful. I want to ask her out. You know, we, even in Bible college, when the new crew of students came in, we were always looking, and among the guys, it's like, who can get her on a date first? You know, that was our game is, ooh, I'm gonna ask her before you do. But we did it mostly based on outward beauty. But there were some girls that at first glance were 9.9 out of 10 until you got to know them. And they were some of the most obnoxious people you could ever hope to meet. God blessed. I got beauty, intelligence, charm, personality, all of those wonderful traits. But beauty does not tell you what kind of person that is inside. Many people marry because of outward beauty. And when the beauty fades, or, what was it, who was it? Boy, that's stretching my brain, I can't go back that far. But the first time you wake up and see her without makeup, with curlers in her hair, and all of that, it's like, oh, what have I done? Beauty isn't everything. And if that's all you've got to go on, If something happens and that beauty fades, you've got nothing left. Nothing. The Bible emphasizes a different type of beauty. The Bible pushes beauty many times, but in the New Testament, Paul wrote in 1 Timothy chapter 2 in verse 9, Paul said in like manner also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, and I've covered that before and I'll probably cover it again sometime, but she is to adorn herself with modest apparel. with shamefacedness and sobriety. Not, is everybody listening? Not with broidered hair or gold or pearls or costly array, that is expensive clothes, but which become with women professing godliness She is to adorn herself with good works. Y'all won't believe this, but once upon a time, I had three or four hairs more than I've got now. Maybe a few more than that. and I would spend more time making sure every single hair was in place, and my wife would already have her hair straightened, curled, straightened, curled, braided, whatever, and I'm still trying to get every hair in place. My wife said something one day, and she said, I don't spend as much time on my hair as you do. And I said, if one of my hairs is out of place, that's half of my head. If one of your hairs is out of place, that's one out of a couple thousand. See, bald is beautiful. I like it. But we spend so much time making sure we look our best, outwardly. Who are we trying to impress? Now, when we were single, we were trying to get the attention of the opposite sex. Boys would, you know, fancy up to get the attention of girls. Girls would fancy up to get the attention of boys. But we still, I finally got to the place And now if I come in and it's like, you don't match, I really don't care. I really don't. You know, I don't care if I match. I don't care if my shirt and tie and my shirt and suit or my pants and shirt don't match. You know what? I've decided that's not what is really important. But Paul said, don't focus on your hair, on your jewelry, gold and peril, and expensive clothes. One of the best suits I ever bought. I bought at a thrift store up between Wauseon, Ohio and Detroit, Michigan. It was a thrift store. I was preaching revival. The preacher was preaching at a Bible conference. On the way over to the conference, he said, let's stop. I paid like $15 for a suit, and it was the best suit I ever bought. I can't wear a good will. I can't wear, you know, secondhand clothes. Ah, you just told me where your focus is. That should not be our main focus. And I really do need to move on. Peter put it this way. Who's adorning, dressing everything, let it not be that outward adorning, of plaiting the hair, wearing gold, putting on of apparel. Same thing Paul mentioned, same idea, slightly different words, but the exact three things Paul mentioned, Peter mentioned also. But let it be the hidden man of the heart. How is your heart? Oh, did you notice I got on a really light blue suit? 75, 80% of my suits are black or dark blue. But I do have one light blue. What do you think? Do you like my suit? Do you think it looks nice? Okay. Now, what I should be concerned is how is my heart with God? You know, if you don't like the way I look, that's your fault. And I'm not picking on you. If you don't like the way I match, as long as you're modest, that's the stipulation. You must be modest. If you're modest, who cares if you're My wife has to make me change occasionally. I still think blue and pink and purple go together. I still think they match. My wife, not so much. I think stripes and plaids go together. You ladies are dying. I can see your faces. You know what? I want people to know me more for the hidden man of the heart than for the clothes that I wear. In college, there was a preacher. He would come to the college occasionally, preach at revivals, conferences, different things. And he was famous for a solid white suit. White suit, white shirt, white tie, white pants, white shoes, white socks, everything. When he got up to preach, you know what everybody remembered him for? His white suit. They couldn't tell you a thing he said because they were so focused on his clothes that they completely missed everything he said. Which is more important? Now, I remember Brother Eugene Clark. Somebody asked him if he believed women should wear makeup. And Brother Clark, if you never knew Brother Clark, you missed a real blessing. His answer was always the same. Do you believe women should wear makeup? Well, if the old barn needs painting, paint it. That was his answer every time. But what is our focus? What do we emphasize? What do people notice when they look at us? Ooh, oh, that white suit, oh! Or somebody asked me a while back, do you notice what so-and-so had on? That's like, I have no idea. I don't look at people to see how they're dressed, as long as it's modest. But I look, what kind of character do they have? What is their character? Do they adorn themselves with a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price? Number two, she was a hard worker. You see, we know that because she was tending the sheep. And we know from many examples in the Bible, and even in life, that tending sheep is hard work. See, if you're tending sheep, you have to be able to fight off any wild animals. You know, if you're out there and you're tending sheep, and a lion comes up, You don't. Oh! Oh! Help! Somebody help! Help! No, you're the shepherd. You are tending the sheep. You must be prepared to defend the sheep against, David had to fight a lion and a bear one time. And even though she was a lady tending sheep, she had to be able and ready to fight whatever came in order to protect those sheep. Then you got the problem of sheep wandering off. You can't just say, OK, all right, you all eat. I'm going to go lay down. Because when you wake up, what happened to the flock? Oh, they scattered 100 different directions. And so you constantly had to be on alert, watching for sheep that wandered, taking the rod and the staff and going after them and bringing them back to the fold. And then there was the weather. You didn't say, oh, it's raining, I'm going home. No, you're tending the sheep. You stay there as long as the sheep are there. You stay there, rain, snow, sleet, or shine. You stay there because your job is to tend the sheep. So we know that she was a hard worker, a lady that was willing to do all of that would not be a lazy woman. You know, every Mother's Day for years, I would read the 31st chapter of Proverbs. But if you've ever really studied, I preached it, but it's been many, many years since I preached it here. But if you read the 31st chapter of Proverbs, The virtuous woman whose price was far above rubies was anything but a lazy woman. She worked. I mean, you read that chapter. She worked. Number three, Rachel waited for her husband. a seven-year engagement. Now I don't normally recommend that for a number of reasons. Once you're engaged, the longer it goes on and on and on, the more possibility of something happening that you both will regret for the rest of your life. So I don't normally recommend a seven-year engagement. But that's what they had. Jacob agreed to work seven years in order to marry Rachel. And for those seven years, they were engaged. They never knew each other in an intimate relationship. I have known a people, well, we're engaged. That's almost like being married. So since that's almost like being married, we can enjoy all the benefits of marriage because we are engaged. They were engaged for seven long years. But during that time, they kept themselves pure. After waiting seven years, the wedding day comes. The day she's waited for for seven years. The day she has planned for for seven long years. And now the day of the wedding, at the last minute, her dad takes her. You know, here she is, and I'm using my imagination. She's at the altar, waiting for Jacob to do the I do's. And here comes her dad, takes her over here. takes Leah, her sister, and puts her up there instead. Now, with the veil that they wore, you know, it wasn't like the little doilies that people wear today. This was a complete veil that covered their head. Jacob did not realize that Leah had swapped places with Rachel. I've heard people say, well, how could he not know the difference? She had a complete veil over her. He didn't see her until the next morning. And it was like, whoa, you're not Rachel. You're Leah. Rachel was cheated. They had a covenant made between her and Jacob and her dad. They had a gentleman's agreement. They had an ironclad pact that after seven years he would marry Rachel. Imagine how she must have felt on her wedding night to be suddenly pulled aside and Leah put in her place. She was cheated. Not just by anybody. She was cheated by her own dad and her own sister. Betrayed her. Cheated her. You know, to be betrayed by anyone hurts. But to be betrayed by your own family, I think hurts even worse. And so Jacob makes another covenant with Rachel's dad. He said, you give me Rachel now, and I will work seven more years. But I want Rachel now, this time. I'm not waiting seven more years to get her. I want her now. And so he fulfilled his required time with Leah. And then when he had fulfilled his time with Leah, He married Rachel and continued to work for seven more years to pay off having Rachel. Imagine how she felt. She can't trust her sister. She can't even trust her own dad. What a sad state of affairs. We find out that number four, she was barren. It's said that, if you read on down in the chapter, that God closed Rachel's womb, but he opened Leah's womb. And Leah had three sons, one, two, three, and Rachel could not conceive. Rachel gave Jacob her handmaid, and said, have children by her, and I will claim them as my own. And so Jacob gave her, her maid, her servant, gave birth. Leah saw what Rachel had done and said, okay, if you can do that, two can play at that game, here's my handmaid, go into her, and I then will claim them as well. And so there was this constant war. Who gets Jacob tonight? Who gets to spend time with Jacob this week? Who gets to, you know, try to have a child this week? We saw earlier that being barren was considered a curse on any woman that was barren. In chapter 30, in verse 1, When Rachel saw that she bared Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister. She was jealous. Then in chapter 30, verse 14, Reuben, who was Leah's firstborn son, went in the days of wheat harvest and found mandrates in the field and brought them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrates. They swapped mandrates. It's my night to have Jacob. Give me your mandates. I'll let you have Jacob tonight, but give me the mandrates. Now, there isn't a whole lot that we know for certain, but mandrates were some kind of a fertility pill or drug. It was supposed to help a lady become more fertile and thereby produce children. At least that's what they thought it was. Whether it worked, well, it did work, but whether it was because of the mandrates or what, but that was the thinking. This is something, this is a medicine that I can take that will make me more fertile, and then maybe God will open my womb and I can bear children. And she did. She conceived and bared Joseph, who went on to become the vice king of all of Egypt. Later on, she conceived again and gave birth to Benjamin. And she died in childbirth. Benjamin is the one, if you recall, when the brothers went down into Egypt, Joseph said, do you have another brother? And they said, yes, the youngest is at home. That would have been Benjamin. He was the only child Jacob knew that he had left of his beloved Rachel. Number five, she was willing to follow her husband. Eventually, God used a whole long list of things to tell Jacob it's time to go back home. It wasn't an easy decision. There were many, many things involved in God telling Jacob it's time to go home. So Jacob called his two wives and his two concubines, and said, God has clearly demonstrated to me that it's time to go home, back to the land of Canaan. Rachel and Leah both readily and cheerfully agreed to follow their husband where God led him. It would be a foreign country. Now, I am, well, y'all know how old I am. I would not jump up and down for joy If God suddenly, tomorrow, made it absolutely, positively, no doubt, no question, absolutely, I want you to go to Honduras. No question, God is leading to go to Honduras. How many of us would be willing to pack up and go to a foreign country, where we don't know anybody. Well, I know the three preachers that we support there that I met when I was down there, but that's been 20, 24 years ago. She was willing to go to a foreign country among foreign people. They spoke a different language. They ate different foods. They had different characteristics, different customs. And yet she was willing to travel hundreds of miles across partial desert land, leaving her family and all of her friends behind to go to a country because her husband said, I believe God has called me. Now, part of that is while God was working on Jacob, he was also working on Rachel and Leah. So when Jacob said, God has told me to go back home, God had already been working on them so that they were ready and willing to go back home. Some of you have been here when we've had missionaries. One of the questions I asked frequently, not every time, but frequently, You know, we always question the man, he's gonna be the missionary. But one of the things I've done many times is I'll look over at the wife and I will say something like, how do you feel about going to a foreign country? You know, a wife can make or break a ministry. A wife can make or break a missionary. I remember two ladies particularly, one we support, one we don't yet, but I hope to have him in. He's coming back to the States. I'm trying to get him here if possible. It's the women, the two women that I remember. It's, I can't wait to go. God has given me a burden to go with my husband and to work among those people. And God has given me peace and a heart that I can't wait to go. But I have known wives. Honey, I think God is calling me to leave Florence and go to, I don't know, some foreign country like Texas or someplace, you know. I know wives who have said, if you go, you'll go alone. Or, I'll go, but I'm gonna make you miserable every day we're there. Does anybody besides me see a problem with that? Rachel demonstrated, and I said God had been working on her. I think of Sister Pardon. Some of you may remember when they were here. He went to Turkey. That didn't work out. He couldn't get his visa. He went to another country, couldn't get his visa. He went to like three or four countries. Now he's working in Albania, I think it is, someplace, and his wife is as thrilled as she can be because she's in God's will. I know men who have said, personally, I heard them with my own ears, I believe God has called me to Texas, to California, to Florida, to Michigan, but my wife won't go, so I guess I'm stuck here. I had a preacher way down south. I mean, we're talking down on the Gulf area. Pastor called me one day, and he said, do you know of any churches I gotta get away from here. It's like, well, I don't right off hand. And then I found out, didn't matter because his wife wasn't gonna go anyway. Something's either wrong with his calling or something's wrong with her submission, one or the other. She was willing to travel to leave everything. to be with her husband. Last of all, some lessons for us. I've already covered some of this. Beauty only goes so far. My wife is going to probably throw up, so everybody move away from her because she's probably going to throw up when I tell this story. Years ago, we were at a Bible conference. This was many, many years ago. And a preacher was on the schedule to preach, and he got up to preach. And if this is not a direct quote, it's very, very close. He said, and I quote, the only reason a man would hire a woman to work is so that he can look at her body and admire her beauty. Remember that? You don't remember? Oh man, you were madder than a wet hen. He actually said that the only reason a man would ever hire a woman is to admire her body and her beauty. I can't believe my wife doesn't remember that because she wanted to jump the pews and claw his eyeballs out. I'm sure there may be a few men like that, but I personally don't know any. Maybe he was speaking for himself. You know, when a man makes a stupid statement like that, Many times he's speaking for himself. Unfortunately, much of society today does put way too much emphasis on external beauty. Think about it. We have Miss Kentucky. We have Miss USA. We have Miss America. We have Miss Universe. And they should put underneath, ugly women need not apply. Because they only want beautiful women. That carries over into sometimes little children. Now, we gotta fancy you up, we gotta put makeup, we gotta get you the right dress. And I'm talking five, six year old girls. We gotta get you ready so you can win Miss Kindergarten. What are we emphasizing? We're saying looks is all that matters. If you look good, You don't worry about anything else. And if you want to show off as much of your body as you can while doing it, so much the better. Because it's all appealing to the lust of the eyes. Much of society is deified, mainly women's bodies. And I'll let that soak in for a minute. Even at a young age, and I started to name a name that everybody would know, even at a young age, parents dress up and parade their little daughters in one beauty contest after another because beauty is what it's all about. No, it isn't. Unfortunately, many Christians have fallen into that trap. Number two of lessons, work has always been part of God's plan. Remember when Adam sinned and God pronounced the curse upon Adam? and what part of the curse was in the sweat of thy brow, shalt thou eat bread until thou return unto the dust from which thou camest. Even before sin, a perfect Adam, a perfect Eve, in a perfect environment, God still put Adam in charge of tending to the field and to the trees there. Solomon had a lot to say about lazy people who won't work. Paul said if a person won't work, let them starve to death. You know, my child won't eat this. They get hungry enough, they will. My parents learned that. I don't like liver. Well, you're gonna get liver until you learn to like it. I've seen parents Oh, I fixed mashed potatoes and green beans and corn and roast and ham, and my child didn't like it, so I got up and fixed him a separate meal. Don't blame the child. You're the one that's doing it, not him. I learned at a really young age. To this day, I still don't like liver, but if I get hungry enough, I'll eat it. and your child may not like spinach, but if they get hungry enough, all of a sudden spinach looks really good. Well, for me it would look really good, because I'm not allowed to eat it, but work is vital in God's society. Last of all, it's okay to use medicine in trying to conceive. I know that's a subject for a lot of debate. I'm not talking about in vitro fertilization. Somebody asked me what I thought. I said, I think it's sin because they'll fertilize 10 or 12 fetuses. They will fertilize them, implant four or five, and then kill the rest. No, no, I'm sorry. That's murder. That's killing a live baby. I'm not talking about in vitro fertilization. I'm not talking about surrogate parents. You know, it's like, well, I can't have children anyway. But you know, one of you ladies saying, I can't have children, so I'm gonna get someone else to carry my husband's child, and then when the baby's born, I will adopt it. I'm sorry, that's not the biblical pattern. The biblical pattern is husband, wife, one person. Husband and wife come together. Husband and wife create a life. Husband and wife carry that child. Husband and wife birth that child. Well, not the husband, but you get the idea. It's a husband and wife. Not, I'm gonna get some strange woman out here to carry my child for me. No, no, I'm sorry, that's not the biblical pattern. But I think God has given us some great tools. Mandrates were the medicine to increase fertility. The Bible doesn't condemn Rachel for using mandrates to help with conception. But anything outside of husband and wife, that's not God's plan, that's not God's purpose. And yes, you may get a child out of it, but I could give you people who did it, and later turned out to be the biggest mistake of their life. What happens if the lady that carried the child for nine months suddenly decides she doesn't want to give it up? That's happened? See, because you didn't follow God's plan, now you've got all these other problems. Who does the baby call mom? See, when you get outside of God's pattern, you always end up with more than you bargained for. Father, we come.