So we will read from Genesis
chapter 30 and verse 25. And it came to pass, when Rachel
had born Joseph, that Jacob said unto Laban, send me away, that
I may go unto mine own place and to my country. Give me my
wives and my children, for whom I have served thee, and let me
go. for thou knowest my service which
I have done thee. And Laban said unto him, I pray
thee, if I have found favour in thine eyes, tarry, for I have
learned by experience that the Lord hath blessed me for thy
sake. And he said, appoint me thy wages,
and I will give it. And he said unto him, thou knowest
how I have served thee, and how thy cattle was with me. For it
was little which thou hadst before I came, and it is now increased
unto a multitude. And the Lord hath blessed thee
since my coming, and now when shall I provide for mine own
house also? And he said, What shall I give
thee? And Jacob said, Thou shalt not
give me anything. If thou wilt do this thing for
me, I will again feed and keep thy flock. I will pass through
all thy flock today, removing from thence all the speckled
and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep,
and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and of such
shall be my hire. So shall my righteousness answer
for me in time to come, When it shall come for my hire before
thy face, every one that is not speckled and spotted among the
goats and brown among the sheep, that shall be counted stolen
with me. And Laban said, Behold, I would
it might be according to thy word. And he removed that day
the he goats that were ring-straped and spotted, and all the she
goats that were speckled and spotted, and every one that had
some white in it, and all the brown among the sheep, and gave
them into the hand of his sons. And he set three days' journey
betwixt himself and Jacob, and Jacob fed the rest of Laban's
flocks. And Jacob took him rods of green
poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut tree, and pilled white
strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the
rods. And he set the rods which he
had pilled before the flocks in the gutters and the watering
troughs, when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive
when they came to drink. And the flocks conceived before
the rods and brought forth cattle ring straight, speckled and spotted.
And Jacob did separate the lambs and set the faces of the flocks
toward the ring straight, and all the brown in the flock of
Laban. And he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not
into Laban's cattle. And it came to pass, whensoever
the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before
the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive
among the rods. And when the cattle were feeble,
he put them not in, so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger
Jacob's. And the man increased exceedingly.
and had much cattle, and maidservants, and manservants, and camels,
and asses. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. As we read the histories of these
heirs of God's promises, we do well to remember that God's faithfulness
to keep his promises never fails. God never forgets. If God promises
his people good, they shall have good. If God promises grace and
mercy to believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, then all who believe
shall have his grace and mercy. So that Paul writes to us in
2 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 20, all the promises of God in
him are ye and in him, Amen, unto the glory of God by us. We can always depend upon the
promises of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. God had promised Jacob
that he would look after him, that he would make him a mighty
nation, that he would feed and clothe him, and that he would
bring him back safely into his own country. It had been 14 years
since Jacob came to Laban's house. And in all that time, he had
effectively worked for free, except that now Jacob had two
wives, two concubines, kind of half-wives, 11 sons, and it seems
a daughter also. And now, Jacob wanted to go home. He wanted to go back to his own
country. But Laban was a wily old man
and he did not want Jacob to leave because he knew that while
Jacob was with him, he had prospered. Jacob had worked for free and
he had made Laban rich. Laban had his daughters close
at hand, he had his grandchildren nearby, so he didn't want to
see Jacob going away. So after these 14 years, when
Jacob asked to go to have his leave in order to go back to
his home, Laban again offered Jacob wages to stay and to continue
to work for him. And he said to Jacob, Go ahead
and name your price. But Jacob, we're told, didn't
ask for a salary. Instead, he made a very interesting
proposal. He suggested that all the striped
and spotted cattle and sheep and goats be removed from Laban's
herds and given to Laban and his family to look after, so
that only the white animals were left with Jacob. Jacob would look after the white
animals. They would still belong to Laban. Jacob would look after them.
But if any of those white animals gave birth to brown, animals
or striped animals or spotted animals, then the striped and
the spotted and the brown would be Jacob's property, while any
that were white and indeed the parents of all the offspring
would still remain as Laban's property. Laban thought that
was a very good deal because he couldn't see how he would
lose. He assumed that white animals
would have white offspring. And even if there were a few
that were speckled, it would hardly be very much. So Laban
readily agrees and he thinks that he is going to win out of
this deal. It seems as though God placed
this idea into Jacob's mind because God was going to use this method
in order to prosper his servant, to prosper Jacob, so that Jacob
would be in a position to provide for all his family's needs. And Jacob, we're told, took some
strange and unusual methods to increase and improve his flock
and there were a number of things that he did. He stripped back
the bark of trees so that there were striped walls of vegetation
before the animals when they were feeding. moved the animals
around, taking some out at different times and placing others that
were stronger in different places so that there was a general improvement
in the flock. But all of these things really
tell us that God increased Jacob's wealth. Laban thought that he
had outsmarted Jacob, but Jacob had God's help. And again, it's
Paul that tells us, if God be for us, who can be against us? And I've really just got one
lesson that I want us to take from this story today, and that
is the importance of trust. Sometimes you might hear people
saying that in order to be a Christian, in order to be a follower of
the Lord Jesus Christ, All you need to do is believe in Jesus. Well, that's okay as far as it
goes, but what does that mean? What does it mean to believe
in Jesus? Does it mean that you believe
that Jesus was a real person? Or that you believe that he was
a historical character? Well no, that's not what it is
to believe in Jesus because lots of people knew that Jesus was
a real person but they were not followers of the Lord Jesus and
they were not Christian believers. Does it mean that you believe
that Jesus died and rose again? Well, no. That's better. But again, lots
of people believe that Jesus died and rose again, who are
not saved, who are not true followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Does
it mean that you believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Well,
no. Again, that's better. But we're
told in the Bible that the devils and the demons knew that Jesus
was the Son of God and they're not Christians. To believe in Jesus savingly
is to trust him and trusting what He said He would do, and
what He did when He died on the cross. That's what it is to trust
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what it is to believe
in Him. Trusting that when He died on
the cross, He died to save His people from their sins, by taking
their sins, by owning their sins as His, and by being punished
for those sins in their place. Trusting that when he rose again,
that was God his Father saying that he was satisfied with the
Lord Jesus Christ's sacrifice and accepted the Lord Jesus Christ's
life's blood as the price of freedom for all for whom he died. It's trusting that we need nothing
else to please God except the Lord Jesus, who did everything
needful for our salvation. But trusting is a living thing. Trusting doesn't simply end in
believing those things. It's not a one-time event, but
an everyday relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. It's ongoing
dependence and faith that he will fulfil all that he has promised
for our good and for our blessings. Sometimes life can be hard and
things go wrong. and we don't get what we want
or we don't get what we think we deserve. And we're a little
bit like Jacob after these 14 years. But like Jacob, we keep
trusting the Lord. And from the most unlikely sources,
the Lord will surprise us, the Lord will provide for us, and
the Lord will bless us with the help and with the hope and with
the comfort that we need. Being able to trust the Lord
Jesus Christ like that is a God-given blessing, and it's a privilege. If you don't trust Him like that,
you can ask Him for help to trust Him more. And the Lord can help
with all our troubles. And the Lord can help with our
biggest trouble, which is our sin. No one who comes trusting
in the Lord Jesus Christ will ever go away disappointed. Jacob trusted in the Lord. May we learn to trust in him
also. Amen.