If you have your Bibles, please turn with me to Genesis chapter 34, as we continue to study this first book of the Bible. We come to a chapter in our study of the book of Genesis this morning that is difficult to read. It's a dark chapter that reveals a great sin that happened in the family of Jacob, and yet we're reminded of the fact that God gives us these dark chapters in the Bible where sin is on full display to point us to Him and to His grace. Some people have the idea that when you read the Bible, you should just be reading the inspiring and encouraging stories. Well, the Bible isn't just a collection of inspiring and encouraging stories. Some passages in the Bible are actually there to discourage us. discourage us in our sin, discourage us in living life in autonomy from God by showing us the consequences of sin and living life according to our own thoughts and our own ideas. And this passage that we're about to read about the defiling of Dinah really does a potent work of showing us the ugliness and the nastiness of sin, when God's people live life on their own, when they live life without reference to the Lord. We often talk about Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, trust in the Lord with all your heart, don't lean on your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight. Well, what happens when God's people don't do that? What happens when we rely on ourselves? What happens when we rely on our own understanding, what darkness, what sin comes into our lives, and we'll be seeing that in Genesis chapter 34. But the purpose of God showing us that, blackness and darkness, is not just to leave us down discouraged, but to give us hope in Him alone, in His word of grace, and in His commitment to His covenant and bringing his redemptive designs to pass. So if you will turn to Genesis 34 and let's stand together as we share God's word. We'll be reading the whole chapter together. Remember, Jacob has been on the way back with his family to the promised land of Canaan. He has finally returned to the land. He has not gone all the way back to Bethel where God appeared to him when he had left the land, but he has gone back to Shechem and purchased a plot of land there. And he seems to be kind of in limbo at the end of his journey back to Bethel, and terrible, terrible things happen in Shechem, as we will see here in Genesis 34. So let's now brace ourselves and prepare ourselves to hear this dark chapter of God's word, which is inspired by him and for our good. Genesis 34, starting in verse one, reading to the end of the chapter. Now Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see the women of the land. And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he seized her and lay with her and humiliated her. And his soul was drawn to Dinah the daughter of Jacob. He loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her. So Shechem spoke to his father Hamor saying, get me this girl for my wife. Now Jacob heard that he had defiled his daughter Dinah, but his sons were with his livestock in the field. So Jacob held his peace until they came. And Hamor the father of Shechem went out to Jacob to speak with him. The sons of Jacob had come in from the field as soon as they heard of it. And the men were indignant and very angry because he had done an outrageous thing in Israel by lying with Jacob's daughter, for such a thing must not be done. But Hamor spoke with them saying, the soul of my son Shechem longs for your daughter. Please give her to him to be his wife. Make marriages with us, give your daughters to us and take our daughters for yourselves. You shall dwell with us and the land shall be open to you. Dwell and trade in it and get property in it. Shechem also said to her father and to her brothers, let me find favor in your eyes and ask whatever you say to me and I will give. Ask me for as great a bride price and gift as you will, and I will give whatever you say to me. Only give me the young woman to be my wife. The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully because he had defiled their sister Dinah. They said to them, we cannot do this thing to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised for that would be a disgrace to us. Only on this condition will we agree with you that you will become as we are by every male among you being circumcised. Then we will give our daughters to you and we will take your daughters to ourselves and we will dwell with you and become one people. But if you will not listen to us and be circumcised, then we will take our daughter and we will be gone. Their words pleased Hamor and Hamor's son Shechem. And the young man did not delay to do the thing because he delighted in Jacob's daughter. Now he was the most honored of all his father's house. So Hamor and his son Shechem came to the gate of their city and spoke to the men of their city saying, These men are at peace with us. Let them dwell in the land and trade in it. For behold, the land is large enough for them. Let us take their daughters as wives and let us give them our daughters. Only on this condition will the men agree to dwell with us and become one people when every male among us is circumcised as they are circumcised. Will not their livestock, their property, and all their beasts be ours? Only let us agree with them and they will dwell with us. And all who went out of the gate of the city listened to Hamor and his son Shechem, and every male was circumcised, all who went out of the gate of the city. On the third day, when they were sore, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took their swords and came against the city while it felt secure, and killed all the males. They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with a sword and took Dinah out of Shechem's house and went away. The sons of Jacob came upon the slain and plundered the city because they had defiled their sister. They took their flocks and their herds, their donkeys and whatever was in the city and in the field, all their wealth and all their little ones and their wives, all that was in the houses, they captured and plundered. Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, you have brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, the Perizzites. My numbers are few, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both I and my household. But they said, should he treat our sister like a prostitute? Thus far, the reading of God's word, the grass withers, the flower fades, but God's word endures forever and ever. Let's humble our hearts before God's word and ask for the help of the Holy Spirit. Father in heaven, we know that this is your word, and as hard as it is to read, we thank you that it tells us the truth about sin and about evil and about injustice. We pray that your Holy Spirit would help us to see the truth, even in the midst of this very dark and grim passage. We know that you inspired it for our good, and these words are trustworthy and true, and we pray that you would sanctify us by them. Let those who have ears to hear, hear. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Would you please be seated? In 1983, Alexander Solzhenitsyn received the Templeton Prize. And when he received that prize, he gave a famous speech in which he outlined all the terrible atrocities that happened during the Russian Revolution, especially 60 million people losing their lives. And as he reflected on all the evil that had taken place, he turned to the wisdom of the elders in Russia who had said to him the reason why all this had happened. And they famously said to Solzhenitsyn, we have forgotten God. That is why all this has happened. And we realize the truth of that in a city, in a state in a country, in a culture, in a society, when it forgets God, darkness is unleashed on that people. And we see that here in Genesis chapter 34. This chapter has been called by someone like Old Testament scholar Dale Ralph Davis, a godless chapter. It's godless not because God didn't inspire it, we know He did, it's part of Holy Scripture, but it's godless in the sense that you can see no reference to God in the chapter. And it really stands out because at the end of chapter 33 we saw a reference to God where Jacob had erected an altar to the Lord. And then at the beginning of chapter 35, there's a reference to God where God summons Jacob to return to Bethel. But in chapter 34, it's like lights out, and it's a morally and spiritually dark chapter. The people of God are not praying to God. The people of God are not seeking the face of the Lord. They're not invoking His word, referring to His covenant. It's as if God is completely absent. And what you see in this passage is what happens to God's people, even God's own covenant people, when God is forgotten, what darkness is unleashed, what evil occurs, when God's people do not overcome evil with good, but are rather overcome by evil. And this chapter shows us how ugly it is. It is a dark passage. And as we walk through it, I want you to notice there are really four phases of the darkness that we can see in Genesis chapter 34. The first wave of darkness is a compromise. The second wave of darkness is a rape. The third wave of darkness is silence. And the fourth wave of darkness is violence. Compromise, rape, silence, and violence. All of this passage in which God is not referenced. First of all, notice with me, compromise. Our passage really begins with a compromise on behalf of the patriarch Jacob. Jacob has compromised by settling in the land of Shechem. Remember, God had appeared to Jacob when he was leaving the promised land in Bethel, and that's where Jacob had seen the stairway and the angels of God ascending and descending upon it. That's where Jacob had made a vow to God. Well, he goes and stays with Uncle Laban for 20 years, and he gets his two wives and his children, and then God eventually summons him back. He's been summoned back to Bethel to fulfill his vow. And we've seen this journey over the past few chapters of Jacob going home. back to Bethel to fulfill the vow that he made to the Lord. But at the end of chapter 33, it says, if Jacob is dragging his feet, because there he stays in Succoth, a place of booths for a while, indicates that he stayed there a little bit longer than needed, and then he goes on to Shechem, and he purchases land there, and he settles down. Now Shechem was a place where Abraham had erected an altar to God and prayed to God. It was not a place that was insignificant or unimportant in the promised land, but God's call upon Jacob's life was to go back to Bethel. Derek Kidner says this. Shechem offered Jacob the attractions of a compromise. His summons was to Bethel, but Shechem was about a day short of it. It stood attractively at the crossroads of trade. He was called to be a stranger and pilgrim, but while buying his own plot of land there, he could argue that it was within the promised borders. It was disobedience nonetheless, and his pious act of rearing an altar and claiming his new name Israel could not disguise the fact. And so Jacob makes this decision to stop in Shechem, which is in the promised land, but he has not followed through with the terms of his vow. And so the whole passage is kind of set in this context of this compromise, if you will, that Jacob has made with the world. We also see another compromise that seems to be going on here in the family of Jacob. We look at Dinah, and the way it describes at the beginning of the chapter, Dinah's carryings on with the people of the land has a bit of a negative connotation. Notice there at the beginning of the chapter, it refers to Dinah and how she was going out to see the women of the land. That phrase, the women of the land, has been used before in Genesis when Jacob was leaving his family when Esau wanted to murder him. Rebekah had said to Isaac in Genesis chapter 27, I hope that Jacob doesn't marry any of the women of the land. as Esau had done. Remember Esau had taken white wives and he had intermarried with pagan women and had been a bane to the existence of Isaac and Rebekah. And Rebekah says, I don't want Jacob to marry any of the women of the land. And so we see here Dinah is fraternizing, if you will, with the Canaanites, she's living among the women of the land. And it seems to be a negative picture there, indicate a compromise dealing with the world. We know that the New Testament will later tell us in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 33, do not be deceived, bad company corrupts good morals. Now I need to say something that's very important just so that I'm not misunderstood. When I refer to Jacob's compromise and when I refer to Dinah's compromise, I'm not saying that that compromise justified the evil, vile, wicked thing that Shechem did. We'll get to that in a moment. But I am saying that the compromises that were taking place within Jacob's family put him in a situation where the people of God were exposed to harm and exposed to danger. And our decisions can put ourselves in compromising situations where evil is more likely to happen. There's an application here to fathers, most assuredly. Fathers should always be mindful about the decisions they make and how the decisions that you make, fathers, will impact your family. Decisions about work, what kind of job you will have, how many hours you're going to work, where you'll work, educational choices for your kids. All of these kinds of things can impact the family and place the members of our family in situations that have spiritual implications. We should always ask ourselves, fathers, when we make decisions that will impact our family, will my decision, whatever the decision may be, will it be placing my family in a compromised spiritual position? Whether it's my job or the things that I'm encouraging my children to pursue, their extracurricular activities, whatever it may be, am I putting my family in a place where they may be inclined to forget God? We also see there's an application to young women. As I said, I want to underline and emphasize and highlight it. Dinah is not responsible for what happened to her, the wicked thing that happened to her. She is not to blame. However, again, the passage does emphasize that she was a little bit unwise about the people she was interacting with. In the context of the book of Genesis, we might say, she was developing ungodly friends. She was surrounding herself with other women of the land who did not worship her God. The Canaanites were exceedingly wicked, and Israel was called to be set apart and different. There have been good girls, you should know, who have gone with bad friends to wrong places and they have suffered as a result. The things that have happened to them are not their fault. Yet, we have to be wise and discerning about where we place ourselves and the people we carry along with because we can put ourselves in a situation where we are compromised. Young women, seek out godly influences. Seek friends that are going to encourage you to do right and honor the Lord and fear Him and keep His commandments who are going to be good influences rather than to lead you in places where you should never be to begin with. There is a sense where we have to take responsibility for our compromises with this world, and when we forget God, When we forget about Him, we don't think about Him, we don't think about His Word and His ways. We make unwise decisions about where we live and how we live and how do we interact with the godless culture around us as Jacob and his family did. There is compromise. Then we see in this passage, the second dark wave that happens, there is rape. We read about this terrible thing that happened when Shechem, the son of Hamor, raped Dinah. Notice here, the language is telling, the language of sin. Look what it says there when it describes this terrible deed. It says in verse two, it says, he saw Dinah, He seized her. And he lay with her and he humiliated her. Notice the verb saw, seized, lay, humiliated. The language here parallels other accounts of sinful rebellion. We might think of Eve in the Garden of Eden in the time of innocency. She sees the forbidden fruit. She desires the fruit and then she seizes it and she takes it and it is hers. And then humility and shame comes into her life. We also see the sons of God in Genesis chapter 6, the sons of God saw, didn't they, the daughters of man, that they were attractive, and they seized and took as their wives any they chose. We see Shechem's sin here, don't we? He sees, and then he seizes because of his sinful desire. So the language of sin there is very, rises to the surface. We also see in Shechem's ungodliness here. We see his abuse of power. Notice we are told that Shechem was a prince of the land there in verse two. There was a power differential between Shechem and Dinah. She was living as a foreigner in the land, and he was a powerful son of Hamor. He was also a man, so he was physically stronger than her. Thankfully, the passage doesn't give us all the gory details of this horrific rape. Was it something more of a violent crime, or was it more of what we call a date rape? It almost sounds more like the second was the case, that it was some kind of a date rape type situation, if you will, as that would be the analogy of what we would say. But no matter what the circumstances were, it was sin, it was a grave injustice, it was a wicked and despicable thing to do. Now, we need to say this, even in our culture, because in our culture today, this isn't even always understood. It is always wrong in all circumstances for a man to force himself on a woman. God gave men strength for good and not for evil. God gave men strength to be defenders and protectors of those who are weaker, not to be predators. But when God is forgotten, when God is left out, all things, to quote Dostoevsky, become permissible. Men use their strength to get what they want. We live in a world that is haunted by the fall of our first parents, where there is sin and there is misery, and the good strength that God gave man to love his wife and serve his wife, the good strength that God gave man to be a father and to protect his children is distorted, and men use their strength to satisfy their craven, wicked, vile, fleshly lust. But we need to remember. The Lord is an avenger in all these things. We need to remember that we need to be discerning about the realities of the world in which we live and realize that because of the fall, there are unsafe places to be, places where there is no fear of God before their eyes, situations we can put ourselves in, where we're liable to be taken advantage of. Shechem did this wicked, vile thing and it's just another wave of the darkness of this passage. So we have compromise, we have rape, then thirdly, notice, we have silence. Silence. We're told there that even though Shechem did this wicked thing to Dinah, We are told that he had some kind of feelings for her. It almost nauseates me to say that he had feelings for her. Perhaps he just wanted to possess Dinah. Perhaps he just wanted to make her his own possession. But he does seek to woo her, we are told in verse three. And he also seeks to persuade his father in verse four, to get her to be his wife. Because of course, in those days, the fathers would arrange the marriage. And so you see that Shechem wants her, even after he's raped her, he still wants her. And then we're told how Hamor goes and he interacts with Jacob, or Jacob finds out everything that's happened. And we see Jacob's response in verse 5, a bone-chilling response, honestly. We were told in verse 5, now Jacob heard. that Shechem had defiled his daughter Dinah, but his sons were out with the livestock in the field. So Jacob did what? He held his peace until they came. And Hamor, the father of Shechem, went out to Jacob to speak with him. And so you get the sense here that Jacob remained silent in the face of the injustice that has occurred. And he even entertains a conversation with him or the father of the one who has raped his daughter. Now, we don't really know exactly the reason why Jacob was silent. You think he would be angry. You would think he would be upset. You would think he would be morally outraged about what has happened to his daughter. But the silence is, as we say, deafening at this point in the account. Notice also that when the sons of Jacob find out, they are extremely angry in verse seven, as they come in from the field, they're indignant, they are morally outraged. And notice the language at the end of verse seven, it says, they are upset because such an outrageous thing has been done in Israel by lying with Jacob's daughter, for such a thing must not be done. Of course, they have moral outrage, but there's no reference to God there. They're upset that something evil has been done. They're made in the image of God. They are God's covenant people. They have a moral compass. But there's no reference to the glory of God and how God has been dishonored or God's righteous judgment or anything like that. But they do know that this is not supposed to happen among the people of God. Interesting, this is the first time also the word Israel has been used not as a personal name for Jacob, but for the land of Canaan and for the people of God. In Israel, this shouldn't happen. This was so evil because it was in Israel that is not just against Jacob as a man, but against the people of God, an outrageous thing. But what I believe we are meant to see here is that there is a contrast between the silence of Jacob and the angry indignation of his sons. The silence stands out. Proverbs chapter 31 in verses eight and nine says this. Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all those who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and the needy." Instead of keeping silent in the face of injustice, Jacob was to speak. He was to say something. He was to intervene. He was to not negotiate a way with him or to smooth it all over. but rather he was supposed to lift up his voice and say something, say something about what had happened. We recognize that we have forgotten God as a nation or as a church, as a people of God, when we don't speak out against injustice in God's name. To sit silently by when evil things are happening and not say anything is also an act of injustice. We think about when Elijah was atop Mount Carmel, and he was contending with the prophets of Baal, and he says to the people of Israel, you know, are you gonna serve the Lord? Are you gonna serve Baal? And they said nothing. Their silence there was deafening too. When God's people won't say what needs to be said, when we are silent in the face of the evils of this world, we see the weak taking advantage of today. How do we see it? We certainly see it in the case of abortion. with the murder of the unborn in the womb. And we have so many people who don't want to stand up and speak up for that. We have pastors, they try to silence. We have the church that has tried to tone it down. We will not tone it down because there is an injustice happening to the life within the womb. A silent church on the matter of abortion is an apostate church, that Christ will remove its lampstand. We also think about another issue of our day, the issue of human trafficking. We think about those who are put into sex slavery and trafficking, and the church cannot remain silent about that. Now, it is not the mission of the church to end all the injustices in the world, but yet the church must say things, and Christians must speak up and say things about these, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, seek to correct injustice when we have the power to do so by the providence of God. Ours is to proclaim the gospel, yes, but you can't so spiritualize that that you don't see the ramifications of the gospel for the evil, vile things that are happening in the world. The silence of Jacob is not to be an example for the church to be silent, for God's people to be silent when there are evil things taking place. Where are people being taken advantage of, whether women or children? where we are to rise and to speak to those things. We are not to be sitting silently by, and we certainly not supposed to be making deals with those who were the perpetrators of the injustice, as Jacob was in the case of Hamor, trying to smooth it all over and just have the two families intermarry and everything would be fine. It's not fine. It wasn't fine for Dinah, and it's not fine for the people of God. But again, we're living in a chapter here where God is absent, not ultimately, but the way the narrative is being told is this is what happens when people forget God. We have compromise. We have rape. We have silence. And then what do we have? We have violence. Simeon and Levi are not going to stand for this. They are not going to allow this to take place in this way. And notice what happens here is there is a proposal by Hamor with them in verse eight, where the proposal we should understand exactly what it would have meant. Notice how in verse nine, Hamor proposes that essentially the people of God, Israel, Jacob and his family are to intermarry with these Canaanites, these Shechemites. It says in chapter 34 in verse 9, make marriages with us, give your daughters to us, and take your daughters for ourselves. In other words, we need to become one people. He even uses that language. We want to become one people so we can intermarry with one another. So we need to understand that this passage was not just a threat to justice in Dinah's case, but this is a threat to the covenant. God had told the people of Israel that they were not to intermarry with the Canaanites. We've seen the great pains that Abraham took to make sure that Isaac did not marry a Canaanite. We've seen the great pains that were taken by Jacob to make sure he did not marry a Canaanite. We've seen the picture of intermarriage and the problems of the believers intermarrying with unbelievers throughout our study of Genesis. This will be a major theme later on in Israel's history that we are not to intermarry with the pagans, but we are to be a separate people. And yet this proposal would have had exactly that in mind. Also, as Hamor finishes up the speech about the two peoples becoming one, notice also he mentions a bride price. You named the bride price in verse 12. And that was where the sons of Jacob saw their opportunity. They saw there in verse 12 an opportunity to respond deceitfully as you see they do in verse 13. The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his father Hamor what? Deceitfully because he had defiled their sister Dinah. They are morally outraged. They have a good reason to be angry, don't they? But now they are allowing the evil to overcome them. And now they are about to respond with having been on the receiving side of evil, their sister being raped. Now they are going to use evil to respond to evil. They are going to repay evil with evil. They answer deceitfully. You see that the sons of Jacob didn't fall too far from the tree, did they? Rather, as Jacob was a deceiver, they are a deceiver too. And essentially what they say is that all of you need to be circumcised in order to be part of our people and for us to enter Mary with you, all of you need to be circumcised. Now, all of this we know is a ruse. They're essentially having the Shechemites be circumcised, we know, because then they're gonna use that to their advantage to go and murder all the men. But notice what circumcision is. Circumcision we saw in Genesis 17 was the sign of what? It was the sign and the seal of the covenant promises of God. But Simeon and Levi have forgotten God in this moment, this time in their history. They're not thinking about what circumcision is, is the sign and seal of the covenant. They're not thinking about how Abraham believed the Lord and it was credited to him as righteousness and received that as a sign and seal of the righteousness of faith. They're not thinking about that. Circumcision is just a badge of their ethnicity, if they will, and it's something that they can use. This holy sign of the covenant is something they can use to their advantage to murder men in cold blood. And that's exactly what they do. The men have their surgery. And we know it's a lot harder on a man to be circumcised when he's a grown man rather than on the eighth day, as we saw in Genesis 17. And so the men are recovering. And when they're coming, recovering from their surgery, it's almost like as you read the narrative, you can hear Simeon and Levi pull out their sword. And they go on their killing spree and they kill Shechem, they kill Hamor, kill all the males. This is a total evil, violent killing spree. because they have been overwhelmed by repaying evil for evil. They have taken it into their own hands. We know that in the New Testament, God will tell us in Romans chapter 12, that we are not to be overcome by evil, but we are to overcome evil with good. We are not to repay evil for evil. We are to leave vengeance to the Lord. Vengeance belongs to the Lord and he will repay. It's interesting that in Romans chapter 12, it talks about leaving vengeance to the wrath of God. And then in Romans chapter 13, it talks about how God has appointed the state to be a minister of God's wrath and carry out that wrath on the wrongdoer with the sword. So it's not that God won't bring the sword down on those perpetrators of injustice, but he's appointed the state to bear the sword, not in vain, rather than for personal vigilante vindictiveness to take over, but rather they are to leave it to the wrath of God. They are to let it be in God's hands. We are not to take it into our own hands. Apparently this violent anger and bloodthirsty rage that was in the heart of Simeon Levi was a problem that Jacob never forgot. At the end of Jacob's life, he's blessing Simeon and Levi in Genesis 49 and verses five through seven. And listen to what he says. Now, this is the closing blessing that Jacob gives as he's about to die to his son, Simeon and Levi. Genesis 49, verse five through seven. Listen to what he says. Simeon and Levi are brothers. Weapons of violence are their swords Let my soul Come not into their counsel. Oh my glory be not joined to their company for their anger They killed men and in their willing willfulness They hamstrung oxen curse be their anger for it is fierce and their wrath for it is cruel I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel so in other words The vengeance of Simeon and Levi became something that marked them for the rest of their lives, and Jacob remembered it even as he was blessing them near death. Their vengeance, of course, is even more wrong because they're the people of God. An outrageous thing is not to be done in Israel, and if the rape of Shechem done by a pagan was outrageous, how much more outrageous, how much more despicable was this killing spree that was added on top of it? We see that repaying evil for evil, when we take eye for an eye and we draw it out to the very end of its application and try to apply it to everything, the whole world does become blind essentially. Violence escalates, fighting escalates, it's never enough, and the world becomes very, very dark. We know that there have always been temptations among the people of God to try to take the sword to advance the purposes of God's covenant people. Think about when Jesus was being arrested and betrayed. by Judas. And Peter, what did he do? He drew his sword, and he cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest. And what did Jesus say? Peter, put back your sword, for all who live by the sword die by the sword. There have been those, sadly, even throughout the history of the church who, like Simeon and Levi, who've tried to advance the kingdom of God with the sword, and this is folly, and it's contrary to what Christ calls us to be and to do. Yes, the government doesn't bear the sword in vain. Capital punishment is instituted by the Word of God, and it should be practiced. Yes, there are times where a nation is called to go to war against another nation. It's the last possible opportunity, but there is such thing as a just war, and Christians have spoken about that throughout history. But we are not, just as our own individuals are for the service and the sake of the kingdom of God, to wield the sword to advance God's purposes for His people in the church, for His covenant people. are also to be very careful that we don't give way to anger and unjust, the feelings of injustice that we have and become violent in our own society and stir up rage and unrest. You've probably noticed that we have in our country today a lot of people who are angry. Economically, times are hard. And there have been reports even by those who are vying for political office who would say there may be violence in our country. Some people have even spoken about the possibility of civil war. As Christians, we should be opposed to this with all of our might, and we should be as clear as possible in denouncing any use of physical violence to respond and correct the injustices of our world in the state of America. I've even spoken to some Christians who've joked about the possibility of this or that. It's not funny. Blessed are the peacemakers, the Lord Jesus said, for they shall be called the sons of God. We do not to have the spirit of Simeon and Levi strapping on a sword and responding to evil or injustice with overkill. That is not the right way either. Even if there is evil and injustice, We are to do it God's way, praying for the illumination of God's spirit, applying the truths of God's gospel, asking for the resources that God has given us in his word with weapons of righteousness in our right hand and our left, donning ourselves in the full armor of God and speaking the truth in love, wage war against the evil and injustices of our day. But thoughts of violence and social unrest and all of that are the furthest thing from what we should be doing as Christians in our culture today. It's the way of Simeon and Levi. But notice at the end of the passage, at the end of the passage, this dark passage almost The darkness doesn't lift in this chapter, I'll tell you that much. And we see the tension. On the one hand, Jacob still responding to Simeon and Levi about what evil they have done. At the end there in verse 30, what does Jacob say to Simeon and Levi? You have brought trouble on me. by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land. The Canaanites and the Perizzites, my numbers are few, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both I and my household." Did you see that? That's a lot of my and I. What about God's glory? You've given God a bad reputation in the land. What about God has promised that this land is going to be ours? Where's the faith? They might kill me. They might destroy me. No, God has promised to make of you a great nation. I don't think that's going to happen, Jacob. But I'm upset, Simeon and Levi, because you've made this worse for me. It's a lackluster response to what has happened. And it shows that even though Jacob was right to reprove Simeon and Levi, even in the way that he reproves them, it's lacking in what he should really be concerned with. And yet we see their question at the end. And it resonates with us, they say. Remember, these are the brothers of Dinah. They say, should we, he, Shechem, should he treat our sister like a prostitute? I wonder how things would have been different if Jacob was not silent in the beginning. When it appeared like Jacob was silent and Jacob was going to do nothing about the evil and injustice and just smooth it over with negotiations about intermarriage with Hamor, Simeon and Levi were like, dad's not going to do anything, we've got to do something. We can't allow this injustice to go on. And so sadly his, Jacob's passivity actually occasioned their activity, but their activity was over the top. Because they did more evil than the evil that they were trying to correct. And both responses were wrong, the passivity and the silence in the face of evil and injustice, but also the idea that says, strap on your sword, brother, and let's kill them all, and let's make them all pay for what they have done. Well, what's missing in this dark chapter in the book of Genesis, as we have said, is the short answer, there is no God in this passage. No reference to God, no prayers to God, no calling out upon God, no being guided by His Word. And whenever a culture says, we're going to live no God, whenever a church or the people of God says, we're going to live without reference to God, as if He's not there, as if His Word doesn't matter, the fool says in his heart, there is no God. And the fool says in his heart, no to God, because all of life, all of life has to be understood with reference to God and His Word. The book of Genesis begins this way. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And all of life must be lived in reference to the Creator God and His self-authenticating Word. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, and fools despise wisdom and instruction. We neglect God and we perish. Psalm chapter 9 says that the nation that forgets God will be turned into hell. If we forget God and we ignore him, this is the result in our lives. But where's the hope? Well, the hope is essentially what we'll see next time we're in the book of Genesis. Look at the beginning of chapter 35. Here's the hope. All this evil, all this evil that has happened in chapter 34, what summons us back to sanity? This, God said to Jacob, arise, go up to Bethel, That's where he should have been to begin with. That's the hope. The Word of God coming and crashing into our lives and showing us that we need to repent, we need to lay aside our idols, we need to turn away from the things that we think are what we should be living for and fall on our face before the Lord and worship and serve only Him. God will not allow His covenant to be done away with. That's the hope. These people, if it was up to Jacob and his family, they would totally destroy the covenant into a thousand pieces. But the covenant is backed by a sovereign God. who gives us his word, and his word will never fail. Jesus said, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. Isaiah said, the word of God will never return void, but it will accomplish all of his purpose and achieve that for which he sent it. The word of God, which comes to us in the gospel of Christ, who is the word made flesh, that is where the hope is. To call us out of the darkness of a God-forsaken, God-neglecting life and to live a life of repentance and faith in Christ. To know that that gospel comes to us in His word is the power of God and to salvation. To the Jew first and also to the Greek, to everyone who believes the gospel liberates us from sin and the damning effects of sin. and the defiling effects of sin and the dooming effects of sin in hell forever because Christ shed His blood because Christ rose again and because Christ is now ascended to heaven and seated at the right hand of God and He commands all people everywhere to repent. And when we do, when we trust in Christ and love Him and embrace Him and serve Him, we do care about the injustices of the world. but we are not overcome by them. Don't be overcome by evil. There are things maybe in the world today that anger you, that rightfully anger you, but don't be overcome by evil like Simeon and Levi were. Overcome evil with good. This is the way that Christ has commanded us to live, overcome evil with good. When Jesus was betrayed, when Jesus was arrested, when he was taken away to the cross, he could have called 10,000 angels to his side. When he was the ultimate victim of injustice, he could have had Peter take up his sword and the rest of the disciples go up and go on vigilante justice, cutting down the Romans and the Jews, but he didn't. He gave himself up for us all in sacrifice of atonement so that we could be forgiven and reconciled to God. And so that through the power of his resurrected life, we could not live a life of neglecting God. but of acknowledging Him in all our ways. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will straighten your paths. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. It is true in everything that it teaches, trustworthy and reliable. Sometimes, Lord, these things in your word are hard to speak about. They make us uncomfortable. They don't necessarily make us feel good, but you're showing us these things out of your great grace and love and concern because you want us to know where life leads when we ignore You and we ignore Your Word. So, Lord, may Your Word, as it summoned Jacob after all this evil and injustice had happened, as it summoned Jacob back to faithfulness, and his family, may You summon us to wholehearted commitment to You through Christ. And may Your Spirit do that work in our hearts that He alone can do to cause us to repent of idols and live all for Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.