THROUGH THE BIBLE - Genesis..

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If you have your Bibles, would you please open them up to Genesis chapter 30. Genesis chapter 30. We reached the part of our service in which we are going to be corporately reading the scripture together and giving a very brief overview of the chapter before our brother brings the word to us. I'm going to be reading chapter 30. I'm going to be reading from the English Standard Version of the Bible.

This is the words of God. When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob, no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, Give me children or I shall die. Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel. And he said, Am I in the place of God who has withheld you from has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?

Then she said, Here is my servant, Bila. Go into her, so that she might give birth on my behalf, that even I might have children through her. So she gave him her servant, Bila, as a wife, and Jacob went into her. And Bila conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, God has judged me and has also heard my voice and given me a son.

Therefore, she called his name Dan. Rachel's servant Bilal conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. Then Rachel said, with mighty resilience, I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed. So she called his name Naphtali. When Leah saw that she had six bearing children, she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife.

Then Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son. And Leah said, Good fortune has come. So she called his name Gad. Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. And Leah said, Happy am I, for women have called me happy.

So she called his name Asher. In the days of wheat harvest, Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, please give me some of your son's mandrakes. She said to her, is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son's mandrakes also?

Rachel said, then he may lie with you tonight in exchange for your son's mandrakes. When Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, you must come into me for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes. So he lay with her that night and God listened to Leah and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. Leah said, God has given me my wages because I gave my servant to my husband. So she called his name Issachar.

And Leah conceived again, and she bore Jacob a sixth son. Then Leah said, God has endowed me with a good endowment. Now my husband will honor me because I have born him six sons. So she called his name Zebulun. Afterwards, she bore a daughter and called her name Dinah or Dina.

Then God remembered Rachel and God listened to her and opened her womb. She conceived and bore a son and said, God has taken away my reproach. And she called his name Joseph, saying, May the Lord add to me another son. As soon as Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, Send me away, that I may go to my own home and country. Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served you, that I may go, for you know the service that I have given you.

But Laban said to him, If I have found favor in your sight, I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you. Name your wages, and I will give it. Jacob said to him, You yourself know how I have served you and how your livestock has fared with me. For you had little before I came, and it has increased abundantly, and the Lord has blessed you wherever I turned. But now, when shall I provide for my own household also?

He said, What shall I give you? Jacob said, You shall not give me anything. If you will do this for me, I will again pasture your flock and keep it. Let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep, and every black lamb, and the spotted and the speckled among the goats, and they shall be my wages. So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come to look into my wages with you.

Everyone that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, shall be counted stolen." Laban said, Good, let it be as you have said. But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it, and every lamb that was black, and put them in the charge of his sons. And he set a distance of three days' journey between himself and Jacob. And Jacob pastured the rest of Laban's flock.

Then Jacob Took fresh sticks. a poplar, an almond, and plain trees, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the sticks. He set the sticks that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the throes, that is, the watering places, where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink, the flocks bred in front of the sticks, and so the flocks brought forth, stripped, speckled, and spotted. And Jacob separated the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks towards the stripped and old, the black in the flock of Laban.

He put his own droves apart, and did not put them with Laban's flock. Pay attention. Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob would lay sticks in the throats before the eyes of the flock that they might breed among the sticks. But for the fibular of the flock, he would not lay them there. So the fibular would be Laven's and the stronger Jacob's.

Thus the men increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys. Amen. This is the word of God. Brothers and sisters, here we have a continuation of the story of Jacob. And something that is very important for us to understand is that this transition of the promise that was given to Isaac or Abraham then given to Isaac and now that is given to Jacob.

With Jacob there's something that happens that is very particular because the giving of the promise through the offspring from Abraham to Isaac was always to one person. But here in this chapter we have Jacob and his offspring now being a multitude of people. He's not only one, but now we have many sons and even one daughter that is born to Jacob. Here we have the fulfillment of what the Lord had given or said to Jacob in chapter 28. And I want you to put your eyes there because we will not understand chapter 30 if we don't have that promise that was given to Jacob in chapter 28 by the Lord himself.

In chapter 28, if you put your eyes there, please, in verse 13 and 14 and 15, the Lord is going to give the confirmation of the promise that belonged to Abraham and to Isaac. Now he's given it to Jacob, the one that continues in that offspring. And he said in verse 13, and behold, the Lord is stood above it and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father and the God of Isaac. the land of which you lie, I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south.

And in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed." Now 15. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land, For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." Jacob had gone from Beersheba or from Canaan to this land of Paddan-Haram to find a wife. He thought that that trip was going to be a short trip, that his wife was going to be there only for a few days.

But he ended up being there for many years, working for Leah and then working for Rachel. This is why in verse 25 of the chapter that we're reading, he says that after Rachel had born Joseph, that is the last son that Rachel born, at least in this passage of the scripture, that Jacob said to Laban, send me away that I may go to my own home and country. He had received beloved brothers and sisters. Jacob had received already the promise from God that I'm going to multiply you and I'm going to bless you. But a very important part of this promise was the land that was also promised to Abraham and to Isaac.

Jacob was not in that land because he went to find a wife for himself. So now that I've done all of these things, I want to go back to the land where I know that the promise is going to be completed and fulfilled. So what we are going to witness not only in chapter 30 brothers and sisters, but throughout the life of Jacob is how the Lord through his providence brings to completion this promise that was given from Genesis 3 15 to Abraham to Isaac and now and Jacob. But if there is a way in which we can summarize this glorious chapter, because it is indeed glorious, the chapter that we have here in chapter 30 is that brothers and sisters, that would God enters into a covenantal relationship of redemption, that this redemption or this salvation is fully accomplished, is fully performed, is fully given by the divine grace of God. and not through the efforts, and not through the strength, or not through the imaginations of men.

This redemption, this salvation, is always accomplished by the divine grace of God, apart from the cunning strategies, apart from the rebellion, sometimes despite of the rebellion, sometimes despite of the cunning imaginations and strategies of men. Now, because the accomplishment of this salvation and the accomplishment of this redemption is entirely divine and of God, and it is by grace, and is completely apart from men, what is always needed, it is a divine intervention in a way of a miracle. Always we need the intervention, the miraculous intervention of God, because this cannot be accomplished by the strategies and by the efforts of men. So the promise given to Jacob is that I'm going to multiply you, I'm going to make you a great nation, and you're going to come back to this land. And all of that required what we have here in chapter 30.

This chapter is divided in two sections. The first section, we see how Jacob starts to multiply, how his offspring starts to increase. And then once we have been given the account of how his offspring started to spread and to multiply, we have the second account in which we know that Jacob was very blessed. This chapter is divided into those two sections, those two categories, those two parts. One in which we see how the offspring appears, so it is multiplied, and then the second half, how the blessing of the Lord comes.

Put your eyes now in verse 27, brothers and sisters, because here the author of Genesis is going to use a very important word to tell us about this story of Jacob. But Laban said to him, in verse 27, If I have found favor in your sight, I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you. The blessings of Laban were because of the presence of the promised recipient, who is Jacob. And then he says, name your wages and I will give it. Jacob said to him, you yourself know how I have served you and how your livestock has fared with me.

For you had little before I came and it has increased abundantly. And the Lord has blessed you wherever I turn. The covenantal blessing that was received by Laban was because of Jacob. Now, brothers and sisters, what I said The accomplishment, and this is probably the only thing that I want you to have in your mind, the accomplishment of this redemption, the accomplishment of this promise, the accomplishment of this salvation. It's always by the divine grace of God, despite of the sin, despite of the rebellion, despite of the cunning and crafty machinations or imaginations of the head of people.

This is what we see here. We see here how God accomplishes through Jacob that the multiplying of his offspring and the giving of the blessing, even in the middle or in the midst of sin. Think about the narration that we have just heard. Rachel was the loved one. Jacob loved Rachel and he hated Leah.

So Jacob was expecting that the offspring or that the multiplying would go through the woman that he loves. But the Lord gives the force for a son through Leah, through the hated one. And then the previous chapter is going to finish and saying that after Leah had conceived four sons, then she stopped conceiving. Now we move into chapter 30 and we see here how Rachel envied Leah, because of the son that she had, full with sin. And the answer of Jacob to that is of anger.

Sin was in all the place. Anger. He says, am I God? Do I have the power of God to give you or not to give you children? All of this was happening in the midst of this abundance of sin.

But brothers, Rachel was also barren. It is after she comes to Jacob and she says, I don't have the ability to conceive. So take one of my servants, violating marriage and the union of marriage. Take one of my servants and you will conceive or she will conceive in my behalf. This is how the offspring starts to multiply.

Not only that, but then we have this very interesting story in which it says that in the days of the wheat harvest, Reuven, one of his sons of Leah, he brought mandrakes. And commentators said that mandrakes had a power to increase the possibility of conceiving, of having children. So it seems that Ruben was bringing this food to his mother and then there is a conflict, there is a debate, there is a situation there between Leah and Rachel. Brothers, God accomplished the purpose of his redemption, even in the midst of this abundance of sin. Then when we see the work of what was happening between Laban and between Jacob, we can also see the abundance of sin.

How? Jacob comes to Laban and says, what are going to be my wages? And then Laban says to him, just take the spotted and the ones that are striped. And then Laban is going to take and remove all of them, expecting that he was not going to have anything at the end of the day. yet beloved God accomplished the purpose of his salvation through divine grace and through divine mercy in the middle of all of this abundance of sin of envy and problems and going all of this God had already promised to Abraham he had already problem promised to Isaac and he had already promised not to Jacob that he was going to bless a nation in Jacob and that salvation was going to be brought through him.

This is the way that the Lord works. It does not depend on the efforts of men. It does not depend on the strength or the wisdom of men, but rather it depends on the miraculous power of God in accomplishing that what he promised even through human means. But I don't want to finish this chapter not pointing you to something very important, because even though Leah and Rachel had sinned a lot before God because of their lack of faith, they have done something very important. And I want you to point your eyes to verse 17.

Look what happened in verse 17 in chapter 30. He says, this is for Leah. Leah was barren and then she had four sons and then she gave her servant to Jacob to conceive more sons. And then she had this conflict and this issue with Rachel. But then in verse 17 it says, and God listened to Leah and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.

God listened to Leah. In order for God to listen to Leah, Leah had to pray for what she was wanting to have. She was listened by God and then she was given a son. The same thing happened in verse 22 when it says that God remembered Rachel and God listened to her. Yes, God accomplishes by divine grace and by His miraculous power and by His sovereignty that which He has promised that He is going to accomplish.

A multitude of nations are going to be blessed in this promise. Yes, He is going to promise and He's going to accomplish that what He has said. But in the midst of that divine grace, there's always power given to his people to come before the God of the promise and to pray before the God of the promise that that promise may be fulfilled and accomplished. The answer to the prayer of Leah and the answer to the prayer of Rachel gives us the tribal fathers, the 12 fathers that will be the nation of Israel. And God accomplishes His salvation always in a very different way of what we think He's going to do.

One would have expected that the loved one, Rachel, would have been the person through whom the Messiah was going to be given. But rather, the Lord decided that Judah the messianic tribal father will come through Leah, the hated one. It is because the accomplishment of salvation and the accomplishment of salvation and the accomplishment of the plans and the ways of God are never done, was never obtained, was never accomplished through the strength and through the wisdom of men, but rather through the divine power and mercy of God that makes his people be what they are supposed to be and become what they are supposed to become so that his name might be glorified and then the purpose of the promise might be accomplished. May God help us. Amen.