Our text is in Genesis chapter
30. Genesis chapter 30. But let's
first turn to chapter 28. Chapter 28, and we're gonna begin,
well, we're just gonna look at verse 15. The Lord, speaking to Jacob here,
says, Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places
whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land. He's in Bethel here, and he's
going to Paddan Aram. The Lord says, For I will not
leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee
of. And so Jacob here is in Paddan
Aram right now. He's just concluding his servitude
to his uncle Laban. for the hand of his two daughters
for Leah and Rachel. He only wanted to marry Rachel
and she was the younger one and he served Laban for seven years
but Laban deceived him and slipped in Leah instead and so Jacob
had to serve another seven years for Rachel. He He received Rachel
within a week of marrying Leah, but he had to serve another seven
years. So it's been 14 years now, and he's ready to leave. He's ready to go home and to
provide for himself and his family. But what we'll see here is that
it's not time for, it's not the Lord's will that he should leave
right now. The Lord makes it known that
it's not time for him to go. Before Jacob goes, instead of
Jacob going away empty, because that's what Laban would have
done, he would have sent him away with nothing, the Lord had purposed
instead to bless Jacob. and to provide for Jacob sufficient
for what he needed, and to reconcile the wrong that Laban had done
to him in giving him nothing but deceit. So as we look at
Jacob's return home being delayed, we'll see that there's a lot
of gospel truths here to be gleaned in this passage. And these gospel
truths are revealed in God's promise to Jacob to provide for
him, to be with him all this time. until he comes home. So, for example, we read in Genesis
30 verse 25, It came to pass, when Rachel had borne Joseph,
that Jacob said unto Laban, Send me away, that I may go unto mine
own place, and to my country. Now, if you'll recall, it's been
a few weeks, but Joseph means adding. And the picture here,
the gospel picture in this is that there's a birth that's been
added to the believer, to Jacob. And it pictures the birthing,
the forming of the new man in the Lord Jesus Christ. And when
God forms the new man in his child, when he gives us life,
what do we have but a desire to go home? When you first heard
the word and it rejoiced your heart, were you not ready? Lord,
take me home. I'm ready to go home right now,
Lord. I'd much rather be with you than
in this world with all its pain and suffering and sin and misery. Lord, take me home. And so that's
the picture here, that life is formed in the believer. And from
that time, we desire to be home with our Lord in the kingdom
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now Jacob had secured
himself a family now. And so Jacob wanted, he said
to Laban, send me away that I may go into 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. Now, This is what Jacob
wanted. He wanted to go home. But the
Lord had another purpose and he would keep Joseph there in
the same way that the church is kept here in the earth. And
the Lord blesses his people and provides for his people. and
prepares his people for that journey home and taking us home
to be with him. And so everything that we see
in the remainder of this chapter, these are pictures of gospel
blessings, gospel blessings that our Lord does for his children
in Christ. So to keep Jacob there, Laban
is seeking himself. He is serving himself, this man. But he is used by God to accomplish
God's purpose in keeping Jacob there and in blessing Jacob. Verse 27 Laban said unto him,
I pray thee, if I have found favour in thine eyes, tarry. Wait. Don't rush off. Don't leave
just yet. For I have learned by experience
that the Lord hath blessed me for thy sake. Now this is an
unexpected and remarkable thing for Uncle Laban to say. This
is a deceitful man who has done nothing but use Jacob wrongly. He's mistreated him, and he's
taken advantage of him. He looked at Jacob as just a
simple, a simple nephew that he could take advantage of. And
he was benefited from it. But he says these words. And
it's a reminder to us, it's a picture for us, as we see throughout
the scriptures, that the wicked have their mind set to do something,
but the Lord uses even the wicked to accomplish his own will and
purpose in blessing his people. So for example, turn over to
John chapter 11. John 11, and we're gonna pick
up in verse 49. This is concerning Christ. John 11, 49. Now, the rulers of the Jews,
the scribes and the Pharisees, were complaining. They were threatened
because they could see that Christ was gathering more followers
to him. And they feared that this was
the Messiah, and according to the way the Jews understood the
Messiah to come, that there was going to be an earthly kingdom.
There was going to be an overthrow of Gentile nations and that they
were gonna rule the nations and they said this is this is not
good because Rome's gonna come in here and shut this down and
take away the nation from us and one of them verse 49 named
Caiaphas being the high priest that same year, said unto them,
ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us.
It's in our self-interest. That's what expedient means.
It's in our interest, our benefit, that one man should die for the
people and that the whole nation perish not. Who is this man? What is he saying?
He's speaking evil, something that's gonna benefit the enemies
of God, and yet John tells us this man was used of God to prophesy,
to speak truth, to declare God's gracious purpose for his people. Verse 51, this spake he not of
himself, But being high priest that year, he prophesied that
Jesus should die for that nation. And so here's John doing exactly
what we're doing here in Genesis. John understands that these few
words spoken by this enemy of God is actually declaring and
being used of God to accomplish the gracious will and purpose
of God to bless his people, to bless his people, and so though
the enemies of God meant it for our harm and our destruction,
God turned it. God meant it for good. And John, the apostle, even went
on to expound it, verse 52, and not for that nation only, but
that also he should gather together in one the children of God that
were scattered abroad and so when you see me here elaborating
the gospel in these verses it's exactly what we're taught by
the Lord by his apostles to do. They take very few words in what
men say, even enemies of God, and yet bring out the glorious
gospel. And what John went on to say
in elaborating that, he showed that Jesus Christ is not the
Savior only of the Jews, but of the whole world. And I say
that freely because he interprets what the whole world means. What
we say all the time, that God has a people scattered, Jew and
Gentile, scattered throughout the whole world. that he chose
and is gathering together, and that's exactly what John said,
the children of God that were scattered abroad. So when you
read world in the Gospel of John, that's what he means. He means
God's chosen elect, redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ, whether
Jew or Gentile, out of every nation. tongue and people. And so here we are doing the
same thing. We're just gleaning the gospel from these words in
Genesis chapter 30. So now, verse 28, Genesis 30,
28. Laban says, appoint me thy wages
and I will give it. See, this man knows nothing.
God's freely blessing him for Jacob's sake and he wants to
pay for it. He wants to earn his blessings.
He wants to pay for them. And so in this, again, we see
this man's no better than a Simon Magus in Acts. Acts chapter 8, we're told of
Simon, this man Simon, seeing what the apostles were doing.
It says that when he saw that through the laying on of the
apostles' hands, the Holy Ghost was given. He offered them money,
saying, give me also this power that on whomsoever I lay hands,
he may receive the Holy Ghost." Simon was looking to cash in
on being able to give that gift of the Holy Ghost. And the Lord
silenced him and shut him down. And so this man Laban, Uncle
Laban here, he wants He sees God freely blesses him for Jacob's
sake, and yet he wants to pay for it. And that's the wicked
of this world. That's how the wicked see and
understand the things of God. I'm going to pay for that. I'm
going to earn that blessing. So there's no grace. However,
God has purposed to use this man to bless Jacob, to bless
his child, that he go not away empty. So to begin here, we see
that when Jacob made known his hire, first it was an unknown
number to man. God knew how he was going to
bless Jacob, but man didn't know how great the blessing was, how
many chosen elect the Lord had to bless Jacob with. And Jacob
being a picture of Christ here, a type of Christ, that God had
chosen a number that he knows. a number that he knows. Genesis,
so what does it say in Revelation 7, 9? The apostle John said,
after this, I beheld and lo, a great multitude, which no man
could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and
tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed
with white robes, and palms in their hands. All right, so let's
see how this unfolds, this choosing out, this giving of the flock
to Jacob to bless him with. It says in verse 32, Jacob says,
I will pass through all thy flock today. This is my wages, he's
saying. I will pass through 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. And what he's saying is, he's
not saying these are going to be mine here. That's not what
he's saying. We're going to take this thing down to zero. And
so all those that meet this description, I'm going to take these out of
the flock that I'm overseeing now. These are going to be removed
and they're going to be put into your hand, Laban, so that they're
yours. These, I'm not counting these
as mine here is what he's saying. Anything that looks like what
I'm about to tell you is going to be taken out to begin. So shall my righteousness answer
for me in time to come, when it shall come from my higher
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. So he's saying, I'm going to
take it down to zero. I'm going to give all these into
your hand. You're going to take them away.
And I'm going to start with a bunch of white sheep, pure white sheep. And Laban said, behold, I would
it might be according to thy word. So Jacob begins with the
white sheep. And just if you're curious, biologically,
the white gene for sheep, for example, is dominant. And that
gene, for just a solid color, is the dominant gene in the animals. And the ring-striped and spotted
and stripes and all that is a recessive. That brown is a recessive gene. If we're just looking at this,
you would say, alright, Jacob's beginning, say with 100 white
sheep, well, after a season of sheep bearing, 75, let's say
each one bears a sheep, 75 should be white and only 25 should be
white. brown or ring straight or spotted.
So for every three, there should be only one that meets this. So Laban thought, all right,
well, for 25% pay, sure, that seems like a good deal to me. And so that's how it would be. But the Lord blesses him. The
Lord does way more than that, as we'll see. Verse 35, and he
removed that day. This makes it clear what I was
saying. He removed that day the he goats
that were ring straked and spotted, and all the she goats that were
speckled and spotted, and everyone that had some white in it, and
all the brown among the sheep. Because he said, I'll take the
solid brown. And that's, again, a recessive
gene there. And gave them into the hand of his sons, meaning
Laban's sons. So he was wiping it clean and
bringing it down to just white sheep there. And he, Laban, set
three days journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob fed the
rest of Laban's flocks, meaning he now had the care of just solid
white sheep and goats. That was it. Now, that three
days journey set between Laban and Jacob, that's gospel language,
brethren. There's a three days journey
put between the Lord's flock and the flock of this world.
What our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ did to redeem his people,
to purchase his people, to receive his inheritance, he put a three
days journey between him, his people, and the rest of the world.
He went to the cross, he laid down his life as the substitutionary
sacrifice of his people to put away their sins, and he was,
when he died on the cross, sacrificing, offering himself up to the Father,
he died and was buried three days and rose again. And there is now a three-day
journey between the Lord's people and the people of this world
that cannot be crossed, and it'll never be mixed. That's gospel
language there, brethren. And so when Christ did that,
nothing was ever the same for us again. All things were new
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, Jacob does three things
now with this flock that he has, this flock that's now with him,
three things that reveal and manifest the flock that God has
given to Jacob. A picture of the flock, the Lord's
sheep that God the Father has given to his darling son. Three things that Jacob does
here. regards his selection of the sheep. He took them out of
one body of cattle. From that body of sheep and goats
there, committed to his care, he drew out them that were his. And we saw how he did that just
previously. We'll come back to this. I'll
drill into these a little more. I just want to give you an overview.
He had a chosen people, an elect people, a chosen flock, I should
say, for Jacob, an elect flock that were to be given to him
of the father. Jacob fed this body of sheep
a very particular diet, a special diet that was to be given to
the sheep given to him by the Lord. Verse 37 shows us that. And Jacob took him rods of green
poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut tree, and peeled white
stripes 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, in 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-streaked, speckled, and
spotted. And then the third thing that
Jacob did, when the sheep were born, he separated his sheep
out from the rest of Laban's flock that was there, that was
used to bring forth that flock unto him. He separated them so
that they didn't continue with them, and those that were laban
sheep, he didn't give them the drink. He let them drink regular
water. But he didn't give them that
water filled with the striped rods of the tree there. Look
at verse 40. 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 unto 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. But when the cattle
were feeble, he put them not in. So the feebler were Laban's,
and the stronger Jacob's. And so by this manner, Jacob
divided his flock from Laban's flock. These things were used
to separate out and to manifest those that were his. So with
that basic overview, what may we glean concerning the salvation
of our Lord for his people? What do we see and understand
there? Well, first, we see that our Lord's flock, His chosen
people, are an elect people, chosen of the Father before the
foundation of the world and given to the Son. From all appearance, from what
we can see, we're just a single mass of clay. We're all born
of the seed of Adam. We're all corrupt. We're all
bare. We don't have any of the markings
of the true and living God. And from our perspective, it
seems impossible. When Laban looked at this, he
thought, it's not possible that Jacob's going to get anything.
I don't know what he understood or didn't understand. He wasn't
a very good herdsman, because Back when Jacob got there, he
had so few sheep that Rachel was able to care for them. His
youngest daughter was able to take care of the few sheep. Now
we had a bunch of sheep. But I don't know what he understood.
But he thought, and the picture is for us, as far as we can tell,
it's impossible. It's impossible for man to, for
anyone to be saved, for anyone to understand and know the things
of God. We're spiritually dead sinners
in Adam with no ability to save ourselves or provide a righteousness
for ourselves. We can't make ourselves ring
strait and spotted and blemished, right? That's a work of the spirit
of God to make us to know the stain and the blemish and the
wrinkle of our sin. All men are sinners, but all
men don't know they're sinners. It's God who reveals in his people
that you are ring straight. You are spotted. You are blemished. You are of that body of sin,
but I've taken you out of that. I've provided for you. I've saved
you and done for you what you cannot do for yourself. So as far as man's ability goes,
salvation is impossible. But with God, all things are
possible. possible. That's what he's making
known to us. And so our Lord teaches us through
his word and his spirit that there is a people. Now from our
perspective, out of this fallen mass of the body of Adam, there's
a people that the Lord has in that body, chosen by the Father
before the foundation of the world, before that body was even
formed. But God has a people, and Christ is drawing them out
and revealing them that are His. As many as received Him, John
said, To them gave he power to become the sons of God, even
to them that believe on his name, which were born, not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God." So even out of this batch of white sheep, these parents
who did not believe, the Lord is able to draw out his children
out of those who seem like it was impossible that any should
come forth of them. And so the Lord's showing us
it's not by flesh. It's not by a carnal lineage. It's not because you're a fleshly
son or daughter of Abraham. It's by grace. And he reveals
that his children are children of faith, children of promise,
just like Abraham and his offspring and his seed were children of
the promise of God. And so God chooses whom he will,
and he manifests them through a new birth, through the giving
of his spirit and the revelation and power of God to reveal in
us who God is, who we are, our need of him, and the sufficiency
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so that's what he's declaring
to us. Christ is sufficient and able to save to the uttermost.
Believe him. Trust him. Our Lord said to Nicodemus,
he must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth,
and thou hearest the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh
and whither it goeth. So is everyone that's born of
the Spirit. We, like Laban, are fooled, but God isn't. And God
will have his people to know him and to draw us out, to be
blessed of him and be made partakers of his flock, of his family.
Second, we look at what our Lord has accomplished to satisfy our
thirst and hunger for righteousness. We must be righteous to stand
before holy God. Well, he's the one that provides
that food, that nourishment, which is the body of Christ,
the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So Jacob, he took
the rods of a tree, and he stripped them of their bark with strakes
or stripes. And being laid bare, they leached
their sap into the waters. I don't know, naturally speaking,
if there's some kind of nutrient or whatever that helped this
recessive gene. I mean, we can try and explain
it away, but it's of the Lord. It's of the Lord. And we won't
see it today, but it says in the next chapter, this is of
the Lord. The Lord blessed this. The Lord
brought them forth. But we see in these branches
of the tree a reminder that it was upon a tree that our Lord
was hung wherein he purchased his people, when he sacrificed
himself to the Father to make an atonement for our sins. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. He was whipped
and beaten and bruised and broken for us, brethren, to put away
our sin forever. And so By His death on the cross
as our substitute, Christ delivered His body from that body of sin
and death and made us an everlasting habitation in His body. We are everlasting partakers
of the body and blood of all the blessings of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's our habitation, our eternal
habitation, brethren. We are members of his body. By
him, all that believe are justified from all things from which he
could not be justified by the law of Moses. By that body, We
cannot be justified, but by Christ we are. We are saved. And so
this is the message now that our Lord gives to his church
in keeping us here, not drawing us out immediately. It pleases
him to preach the word through his church, by his ministers,
to declare this, to feed the sheep, to raise up Christ. to declare Him, to take this
word and to strip off the bark that keeps us from seeing and
understanding this word, and to know, to see the whiteness,
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ and the sufficiency
of Him, of His death and of His life, that we may know Him. And
so that's what we're called to do, and to lay these in the trough. And the Lord brings you His sheep
up to the trough to drink of these waters. nourishes His people
and blesses His people and feeds His people and strengthens His
people to reveal you that are ring-streaked and spotted and
blemished and wrinkled and ruined by the fall to reveal Christ
in you that you're His, you're His flock, you're His sheep.
Third, our Lord makes his salvation evident in his people. Or when
he does this, he separates them from the world. He separates
his people from the world. Just as Jacob made sure to turn
his cattle away from Laban's cattle, and he also turned Laban's
cattle away from that picture, that beautiful picture of the
trees and the stripes on the trees so our Lord blinds the
wicked so that they don't hear it and they don't come to the
trough anymore to drink of these waters. They don't need them. They don't need those things
anymore and they can do without it. Well, the Lord shuts them
up to it. And he blesses his people, giving
them more and more drink, and he keeps the wicked in darkness,
and in blindness, and kept from those things. They receive what
they wanted. And so our Lord separates his
people through faith, and hope, and love, by his grace, by the
giving of his spirit, so that we're led by faith, and by his
spirit in the Lord Jesus Christ, and walk in him. Now, because
of this work of the Lord, we're told in verse 43, And the man
Jacob, a picture of our Lord, increased exceedingly, and had
much cattle, maidservants, and menservants, and camels, and
asses. Jacob was able, he was so blessed
that he was able to take He had more goats and sheep than he
needed. And he would turn them over to
the traders and barterers and got camels and asses, who were
what? Beasts of burden to carry the
tents and all the belongings of the kids and his wives. And
he went out with all his goods. And he returned home to that
blessed land, home there. And so we see how the Lord blessed
him. And that's what our Lord has
done. in our Savior's body, right? He's blessed us and given us
gifts and varying gifts and offices and whatnot to serve and minister
the church, the people of God, as he's calling them out and
revealing them from the rest of the world. Now, I just want
to look at just a couple of verses just to wrap this up very quickly.
Verse 1 in Genesis 31. Excuse me. And he heard the words of Laban's
sons, saying, Jacob hath taken away all that was our father's.
And of that which was our father's hath he gotten all this glory.
Amen. What a picture of Christ, who
disarmed the strong man, and went into his house, and took
out the precious things. The precious things, his people.
And Jacob beheld the countenance of Laban, and behold, it was
not toward him as before. So the Lord was now making Jacob
to know, this world hates you. Just as the Lord makes us to
know, this world is not your friend, and you're not its friend.
This world hates you. This world is blessed because
of you, but they don't know it. And they don't look at it that
way. And they're tired of you. And so the Lord does that. And
what does that do for us? It warms our heart. Again, it separates us from the
world so that we know this isn't my home. This is not my lasting
habitation. I have an inheritance. I have
a habitation in the Lord, in the Lord Jesus Christ, so that
he puts it on our hearts. Verse three, the Lord said unto
Jacob, return unto the land of thy fathers and to thy kindred,
and I will be with thee. And that's what our Lord does,
right? He doesn't take us away immediately. He leaves us here
to labor in this world, blesses us, and reveals all his blessings
and mercies for us in the Lord Jesus Christ, but when it's time,
He keeps warming our heart, preparing us through difficulties and trials
and sufferings and sins and diseases, rather, sicknesses, so that we
grow weary of this flesh and grow tired of it. And sin, we
grow tired of it and long for that eternal home in the Lord
Jesus Christ. I pray the Lord bless you with
these blessings on your journey home. Amen.