Thanks, orchestra. Let's open our Bibles together, please, to the 29th chapter of the book of Genesis. Genesis chapter 29. This morning, just out of curiosity, I typed into my web engine the search for dreams on the Internet. Within a few seconds, the Internet responded back that there were over 240,000 references to dreams. I didn't have time to look at all of them this morning.
But I went down the list on the first page that was brought to me, and it was interesting to see the kinds of things that that particular word brought to the surface of the Internet. Most of them dealt with new age kinds of ideas regarding dreams and the interpretation of dreams. There's a lot of interest in dreams these days.
You can walk by the magazine stand in the grocery store, and you will often see some statement about dreams, the meaning of dreams, how people interpret their dreams, how dreams have been fulfilled. Whatever the dreams may be originated in, within the hearts of those who have them, the dream that we look at in the life of Jacob was an entirely different sort of dream. It was a dream that God gave him as a revelation of himself in the 28th chapter.
Few dreams are life-changing, but Jacob's dream certainly was. There was an eye-opener of a dream, for it showed to Jacob the activity of God in his life. He saw the ladder that reached from heaven to earth, and the angels of God ascending and descending on that ladder or on that stairways. What he realized in that dream was this, that the angels of God were ministering to him.
George Henderson, a British commentator, quotes an unnamed person in his book that helps me grasp what Jacob realized as he had the dream. It was the relieving of the heavenly guard that Jacob witnessed. The angels of God had attended him on his way to Bethel. They were around him when he stopped, when he chose his resting place, and when he laid down his head upon the stone. They were now ascending in order that those descending might take their place.
I like what that commentator has suggested to my mind, that the angels of God were there to care for Jacob. As of God, so to speak, Jacob grasped that. God spoke to Jacob, affirming to him the promises that God had already given to his grandfather and father before him. Look again in chapter 28, verse 13, where God says, I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac, the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants.
Your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread out to the west, to the east, to the north, and to the south. And in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed. The continuation of that concept in that idea from Genesis chapter 12. And behold, I am with you, and will keep you wherever you go. You see, those angels visualize what God is saying right there. I am with you, Jacob. You are running for your life from your brother Esau.
You are sleeping here in this hidden place with your head on a stone for pillow, but I am with you. And I will keep you. I will guard you, that is. And I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you. Like Abraham, his grandfather, Jacob also believed God, and that night his faith was reckoned as righteousness. This is the night of Jacob's conversion. This is not a teenage conversion, by the way.
As I explained to you before, Jacob is in his late 70's at this point. He is a man who is middle-aged in the lifespan of that day. He is no spring chicken, and yet, in his late 70's on this night, his life had truly just begun. Because this is the night when he trusts the promise of God for himself. God had been at work in Jacob's life even before he was born, as we saw. But now Jacob is personally trusting in the promise of God for himself.
The following Jacob's experience through the next chapter in chapter 29 provides for us insights about God's work in our lives, too. So I want you to track with me as we think through the experience of Jacob and see how what Jacob experienced parallels what God is doing in us. The first insight that I have regarding Jacob is that conversion begins a journey. Notice how the next chapter begins. After the dream, after Jacob had responded to God, it says in verse 1, then Jacob went on his journey.
Literally it says, then Jacob picked up his feet. There is something in the picture of joy and new confidence. One can almost see Jacob skipping and dancing on his way. It was a marvellous journey, believe me. He didn't dance all the way. It was about another 300 miles to where he was headed. But the point is that something was changed in Jacob, and it began a new journey in his life. His spiritual journey begins at this point.
And the thing that I want to emphasize this morning is this, that conversion occurs whenever it does in one's life. And when it occurs, it initiates a lifelong journey with God. When we are converted, we have not arrived. Now please understand that our salvation is settled, it's secure, it belongs to us by the grace of God, and we are kept by the grace of God. But understand also that there is a journey that follows that moment of faith. Salvation is followed by sanctification.
That is, salvation is followed by God conforming us to the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. We Christians have been forgiven, thank God, but we have not yet arrived at the place of perfection. God still has work to do in every one of us who has begun this journey. And the apostle Paul confessed decades after he was converted, decades after he was converted, after he had written some of the New Testament.
The apostle Paul said, not that I have already attained, or am already perfected, but he says, I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has laid hold of me. So you see, Paul realized that he too was on a journey, he hadn't arrived, he was still pressing on. And today that's the attitude and the heart that I want us to have. But if we have trusted Jesus Christ as our Savior, we see that we still have a journey before us.
We cannot be content with where we are and just sit back and wait for heaven. God has an exciting journey of faith that he wants us to track. Paul in that same epistle, Philippians says, So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation fear and trembling, which is the idea of humility.
Work out your salvation, he says, and then he goes on to say, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. The apostle is saying here, God is at work in you. He has placed within you the gift of salvation, Philippians, but now work that out in your life. Apply it to your life and to your walk so that you may be the children of God, blameless and without reproach in the midst of a very messed up world, a crooked and perverse generation, he calls it.
That's what God calls us to do in our journey of faith to work out what he's already put in us, becoming a believer in the God of Abraham is the start of an adventure. But it plays out for the rest of your life into eternity. It is a journey of faith in which God is at work in you. That's the first insight that I get here.
That encourages me, it excites me to know that when I became a Christian at nine years of age, God just began a work and he's been working ever since then, pushing me on toward his ultimate calling in my life, which is to be like Christ. And that's what he's doing in your life too. Sometimes God has to work overtime in my life. Does he do that for you?
That God is faithfully at work and we are to cooperate with him in that work to consciously realize that we need to work out what God's worked in. Well, there's a second insight I want to get to as we continue on in the thought of the narrative and that is that the journey is directed by divine providence. Thank God he is not finished with us. He is still at work in our lives. We begin a journey and that journey is directed by divine providence. Now we need to understand what providence is.
So let me just give you a quick definition for it. The definition of providence is that it is God's supernatural supervision of all things. It is the supernatural supervision of all things by which God directs all things and yet does so without violating the human will. God is the actor and we are the reactors with respect to the fulfilling of his purposes.
God is supervising and directing and superintending our lives in such a way and all of their affairs so that we are moving toward the ultimate goal that God has for us. And he is doing that in such a way that he doesn't violate our freedom to make bad choices and we do and I do. And when we make the bad choices, God even uses those as only he can by his providence to keep us moving toward his ultimate purpose. The journey is directed by divine providence. God was directing the life of Jacob.
Now it's not stated as explicitly in chapter 29 regarding Jacob as it was in chapter 24 when Abraham sent his servant Eleazar to get a bride for his son Isaac. Let's turn back there for a moment in review in chapter 24 how explicit the language is showing God's direction.
For example in verse 7 of Genesis 24 it says, the Lord, this is Abraham speaking now to Eleazar before he goes on the journey, he says, the Lord the God of heaven who took me from my father's house and from the land of my birth and who spoke to me and who swore to me saying to your descendants I will give this land, he will send his angel before you and you will take a wife for my son from there, that is from Heron, from the relatives of Abraham.
Then skip on down in the chapter to verse 27 where Eleazar now is testifying after he has found the beautiful bride for Isaac. He says in verse 27, blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham who has not forsaken his loving kindness and his truth toward my master. And as for me the Lord has guided me in the way to the house of my master's brother. And so he had found Rebecca and he says God directed me in my journey. He has gone before me, he has shown me the way.
Verse 49, once more states it. So now Eleazar says if you are going to deal kindly and truly with my master tell me and if not let me know that I may turn to the right to the left. Excuse me, I skipped down one verse. Verse 48 is what I wanted. But I bowed low and worshiped the Lord and blessed the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has guided me in the right way to take the daughter of my master's kinsman for his son.
So you see chapter 24 is filled with language that directly shows God's providence, God going before his servant. The language is not explicit in chapter 29, but it certainly is implicit. Let's go back there now and pick it up in the last part of verse 1. And Jacob came to the land of the sons of the east and he looked and saw a well in the field. How many wells have we seen now in our study of Abraham and his descendants?
Just interesting how often the narrative revolves around these oases, these wells. He saw a well in the field and behold three flocks of sheep were lying there beside it. For from that well they watered the flocks. Now the stone on the mouth of the well was large. When all the flocks were gathered there, they would then roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep and put the stone back in its place on the mouth of the well.
So apparently this stone was so large, protecting the mouth of this well, that it took several shepherds to move it normally. And Jacob said to them, my brothers, where are you from? And they said, we are from Heron. And he said to them, do you know Laban, the son of Nahor? And they said, we know him. And he said to them, is it well with him? And they said, it is well. And behold, Rachel his daughter is coming with the sheep. Well, what do you know?
It doesn't tell us here that God arranged this by his providence, but it's clear. This is not merely circumstance. God brought Rachel with these sheep at this time to that well. And he said, behold, it is still a high day and it's not time for the livestock to be gathered. Water the sheep and go and pasture them. You see, what he wanted to do was get them out of there. He's saying to them, this isn't time to water the sheep. You fellow just run along, will you?
Because he sees Rachel coming with the flock. And they said, we cannot until all the flocks are gathered and they roll the stone from the mouth of the well, then we water the sheep. While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep, where she was a shepherdess. And it came about when Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother, that Jacob went up and rolled the stone from the mouth of the well.
Suddenly this guy has a lot of strength. He has just walked 400 miles, folks. But when he sees Rachel, God gives him strength to move this stone by himself. Get that thing out of the way. These sheep are thirsty. You can just kind of see them. They're kind of, you know, flexing his muscles. Maybe that's a little exaggeration, I don't know. Jacob kissed Rachel and lifted up his voice and wept. When was the last time that was your response to a kiss? He kissed her and lifted up his voice and wept.
Well, you see, you need to understand this was not a romantic kiss. Can I say it that way? This was a kiss of custom. It was a greeting. It would become romantic very soon. But in Jacob's heart at least, but this was simply a kiss of greeting and then he wept. And I've asked myself the question, why did he weep? Why did he weep? And the best answer seems to me is this, that Jacob at this point realizes that indeed God has been with him.
And in this journey that he has undertaken, he sees the demonstration, God is here. He has directed me just like he promised that night, days ago, in that dream. And he wept out of joy, not of gratitude to God because of God's providence in his life. And Jacob told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and that he was Rebecca's son and she ran and told her father.
And so it came about when Laban heard the news of Jacob, his sister's son, that he ran to meet him and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. Then he related to Laban all these things. I think that includes what happened back at the well. He is telling Laban these things. And Laban said to him, surely you are my bone and my flesh, which may have been a statement of adoption of sorts.
He is embracing this young man at least as a relative and bringing him into the clan there in Heron. And he stayed with him a month. Well, what a month that must have been as Jacob begins to know what a wonderful daughter Laban has. And he sees someone very, very special in Rachel. And Laban said to Jacob, because you are my relative, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall be your wages? Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah.
Okay, so there are two daughters, not one. And the name of the younger was Rachel. And Leah's eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful with form and face. Now Jacob loved Rachel, so he said. Here's how he's going to serve. This is the price that he wants. I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter, Rachel. And Laban said, it's better that I give her to you than I should give her to another man. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, is it? But nonetheless, he accepted the proposal.
So he said, stay with me. So Jacob served seven years for Rachel. And they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her. Isn't that a wonderful romance? Seven years of hard labor. Seven years of life. And this one sentence is gone. That's seven years. So he's about 85 now. 85 years old. And then Jacob said to Laban, give me my wife, for my time is completed that I may go into her.
Laban gathered all the men of the place and made a feast and it came about in the evening that he took his daughter Leah and brought her to him. And Jacob went into her. Laban also gave his maid, Zilpah, to his daughter Leah as a maid. And so it came about in the morning that, behold, it was Leah. It must have been a very dark night. Because there's a switch that is made here that Jacob is not aware of. Leah has been given to him. What happens? He said to Laban, what is this you've done to me?
Was it not for Rachel that I served with you? Why then have you deceived me? Now can you remember what it is that is the chief characteristic of Jacob's life to this point? Right. Trickery. Deceit. Now he turns to this guy who's gotten the better of him and he says, why have you deceived me? And Laban said, it is not the practice in our place to marry off the younger before the firstborn. Now he tells him. Now he tells him what the custom is. It's against our custom to give away the youngest.
We have to give to you the older. That's why I did this. It's a custom. And yet there is in this language something more. You notice what he says, the younger before the firstborn? Who was the younger between Jacob and Esau? Jacob was the younger and yet he got the birthright of the firstborn, didn't he, by his cleverness. And so you see, even in the language that Laban used, undoubtedly without being aware of this whole story from Jacob's past, Jacob had to be smitten in his heart.
He realizes now that he has been deceived. And he hears this language, the younger before the firstborn, and it brings back this whole thing from his earlier life. You see, God is bringing, I think, conviction upon Jacob. God does that in the journey. He does that for reasons we're going to talk about. Keep the week of this one, and we will give you the other also for the service which you shall serve with me for another seven years.
And so he says basically, look, you've married my older daughter, Jacob. Let's party for a week. We'll celebrate that wedding, and then you can serve another seven years for Rachel. Such a deal, right? And so that was what the arrangement was, another seven years for Rachel. Now, she came to live with him immediately, but he served another seven years.
Jacob did so, and completed her week, and he gave him his daughter Rachel as his wife, and Laban also gave his maid, Bilhah, to his daughter Rachel as her maid. And so Jacob went into Rachel also, and indeed he loved Rachel more than Leah. He loved Rachel more than Leah. So you see, we have polygamy here in the Old Testament. This is outside of God's design for marriage. It was according to the custom of the day, the cultural custom of the day.
That isn't the issue here, but it's outside God's design, yet God allows this cultural accommodation. At the same time that he does that, however, he does not hide the consequences of not following his design. Because immediately there is division in this home because of the two wives. That's going to get much worse. It's going to get much worse. But you see here that Jacob preferred Rachel, so there's conflict in this home.
But what I want to point out to you is this, that the journey begins with conversion, but it goes on for a lifetime, and it's directed by divine providence. God is at work here in the life of Jacob. And God blesses Jacob in his time with Laban as we shall go on to see. There's a third insight that I want to gain before we close this morning. It's this, that divine providence faithfully works its purpose, which is life change.
The journey is directed by divine providence, and divine providence faithfully works its purpose, which is life change. That is what God is after in his followers. He is after a transformation of life, conforming us to the perfect likeness of his Son. Jacob had been a sinner. His character had been marked by deceit. He was stained that way from his birth. But now he meets Laban, who is more than a match for him. And through it, God begins to change the heart of Jacob.
There's tremendous similarity here between what happened with Jacob and Rebecca, and what they had done rather, Jacob and Rebecca had done to Isaac. There's irony there. Jacob had exchanged the younger for the older. Here Laban exchanged the older for the younger. Jacob is getting a taste of his own medicine. God is doing that so as to change the heart of this man. He wants him to have a dose of this medicine and to show him the effect of his past behavior.
So that he might motivate Jacob to change. That is the reason that God allows some of the things to come into our lives that he does by his divine providence. It is to motivate us to life change. We pay a price. We take the medicine. And in doing that, God changes us on the inside. Providence continues its work in Jacob's life in the birth of children. It says here, Jacob loved Rachel. And obviously his desire was to fulfill God's promise of many children through her.
But as was the case with Abraham and Sarah and with Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel suffer from infertility. God's plan was different than Jacob's plan. He thought he could bring about the promise of God by his own scheming. God wanted to show him that he could not do that and that his promise could only be fulfilled in God's own way and in God's own time. Jacob had to learn, as did Abraham, that he will have to depend upon God to experience the promised blessings of God in his life.
And so we see that she was without children, but Leah conceived and bore a son, and two sons, and three sons, and four sons. And the score is four to zip. And you don't think they looked at it that way? Read the text. And Rachel saw what was happening. And so according again to the custom of the day, she arranged for her handmaiden to lie with Jacob. And Bilhah conceived and bore a son. Rachel claimed the son as her own and named the son.
And then there was another son born to the maiden on behalf of Rachel, sort of a surrogate mother kind of an arrangement. But Leah had stopped bearing at this point. And she saw what was happening. And so she took her maid to Jacob and said, you must lie with him. And she bore two sons to Jacob. And then there was another arrangement made that we don't have time to go into, which Leah herself conceived again and bore a son to Jacob. And then another son to Jacob.
And so you see now there's all these kids running around the house with three mothers. And the wife that's loved the most has no children. But it says in verse 22, then, God remembered Rachel. It wasn't that God forgot Rachel. The language means that this now was the time that God wanted to show Jacob. It was through him the promise would be. And God gave heed to her and opened her womb. And she bore Joseph. She bore Joseph to Jacob. Well the story continues and we will continue with the story.
But we need to close it out this morning. Do you see how divine providence is bringing this schemer to the end of himself? God is at work by divine providence to bring Jacob to the point of life change, a change of his heart, making him more of a holy man. And that's what God is doing in your life and mine. So I want to close this morning simply by recapping with some application of all this to ourselves. The very first and obvious question is this, my friend.
Have you begun the journey with God? Have you come to that place in your own spiritual walk where you've actually believed the promise of God in Christ Jesus, that Christ died for our sins and rose again from the dead, where you believe that death and resurrection was for you, and you have received Christ into your life as an act of faith. You see that begins the journey. This man was born into a believing home, but in his late seventies he yet had not personally related to God Almighty.
Just this morning heard a story about a man who was a member of the first church that I pastored. His wife had just gotten married then, and I became their pastor and then they moved on and did some other things in life. And now 25 years later they are back at that same church. And just within the last few weeks this man got saved. He was a member of that church when I was the pastor there in the early 1970s. I was very young then, very young. He was a member of that church in good standing.
As far as I know, served in the church, as I recall, he was even a Sunday school teacher. But only in the last few weeks has he come to the place where he's realized that all of these years he had never really trusted Christ as his Savior. Boy, that's a great danger in an evangelical church like ours. Because we hear the language and we repeat the language and we sort of conform and fit in with the culture.
And it's possible to do all of that and never to have begun the journey with God ourselves. And so this morning if you are still like Jacob on the other side, I want to plead with you today to take that step of faith onto the promise of God for yourself and begin the journey. I hope you'll do that this morning. Now if you have begun that journey and you are experiencing it, I wonder where you are in the journey. Where are you?
Is the journey taking you right now through pleasant valleys or beautiful vistas? You're experiencing great joys and victories then? Thank God, that's his providence taking you through that pathway. Is your journey on the other hand taking you through deep valleys and dark places and confined narrow walks? Then thank God. If you've begun the journey, God is still directing your life and his providence is leading you.
And so today wherever you are in the journey, just give yourself a fresh to God. Give thanks to him that he has promised never to leave or to forsake you too. I will never leave you, Jesus said. I will never forsake you. And in your journey of faith today, he's right there with you. Whatever the outward circumstances, he's right there. And he knows where you're headed together. Give him thanks for that and renew your commitment to him this morning. Let's pray.
Father, in the name of Jesus I come praying that you will use Jacob's experience in this part of Genesis to write in the hearts of every one of us who believe in Christ, that you are divinely directing our steps. And though some of us today are here with smiles and joy in our hearts, others of us here are here with doubt or with pain in our lives, and we're wondering. O right of fresh, I pray in our hearts, your promises. For Lord, we give ourselves a fresh to you.
We commit ourselves to those promises and determine to learn in our journey to live by faith and to allow you to change us through our circumstances that you bring into our lives. Lord, do change us. Do conform us to be like Jesus. Father, I pray especially for those who may be here who have never begun the journey. Help them today to begin that journey right now.
And with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, if you're here and you've not begun the journey of faith, you've never trusted the Savior. But today you are willing to say, Lord God, today I step out in faith. I believe that Christ died for my sins, that He rose again from the dead. And I invite Him to come into my life and be the Lord of my life. God, I want to begin this exciting adventure of faith today. Would you indicate your desire just by lifting your hand?
I'm not going to embarrass you or come back to you or point you out, but I would love to pray for you. By the uplifted hand you're simply saying, God, today I begin the journey. Is there one? Father, I pray that as we go from here, you will burden us for those who don't know anything about this journey.
And as we walk along under the protection and the provision of your divine providence, experiencing your work in our lives, bringing about life change, also give us a burden for those who are lost, who are wondering in life and headed to hell. And give us a passion to reach out to them, to love them, to bring them along to that place where they can understand how to take this step of faith and begin the journey with you too.
Oh, God, will you burden us and give us a passion about that and as a congregation? In Christ's name I pray. Amen. Amen.