I'm just going to read a few
verses here, but we'll deal with most of this chapter. Well, we'll
deal with this chapter. This is where Jacob's daughter
gets herself in over her head, a lot of trouble. And Dinah, the daughter of Leah,
was she barren to Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the
land. And when Shechem, the son of
Hamor, the Hivite, prince of the country, a person in power,
saw her, he took her and lay with her and defiled her, humbled
her. And his soul clave unto Dinah,
the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, at least he
said he did, I spake kindly unto the damsel, and Shechem spake
unto his father Hamor, saying, Get me this damsel to wife. And Jacob heard that he had defiled
Dinah his daughter. Now his sons were with his cattle
in the field, and Jacob held his peace until they were come.
And then the story goes on where Hamor, or Shechem, comes to his
father and says, I want her, get her, get her for me to wife. I want to marry this woman."
And then Hamel, the king, he goes to Jacob and he talks to
him about giving Dinah to his son and they try to make a pact
and then the sons of Jacob are very angry over this situation.
And they deceive Hamor and Shechem and then they end up killing.
They go in and kill all the males of that town. And all that happens
over this situation. I titled this lesson, The Indiscretion
of a Young Girl. The Indiscretion of a Young Girl. And I want to see if we can learn
some things from this. Dinah, the daughter of Leah, went out to see the daughters
of the land. She observed the daughters of
the land, and we can say the daughters of this world. She
was raised up in a good family, a godly family, but she still
had the same nature that the people they were living among,
she had their nature. And when she saw them, she was
enamored with them. She was taken up with them. She
liked what she saw, and it had her attention, as it does all
young people. I can look back on my youth,
my younger days, because she's here. 15 years old, she's about
15 years old. And I could look back, and there
was so many things that my parents kept me out of trouble. There
was parties I wanted to go to, especially when I got into my
teenage years, I wanted to go to parties, and they didn't let
me. And I was mad, it made me mad. I would get upset, but I
had more fear of my dad than to sneak off, I wasn't about
to sneak off. I feared my dad. But those things kept me out
of a lot of trouble. A lot of trouble that I wanted
to get into. A lot of trouble that I liked. It was the trouble
I liked that I wanted to get into. And that kept me out of
a lot of trouble. And here I can see a young lady. She is seeing the festivities
and the way the women of the world, the ladies of the land,
The way they were carrying on, it really had her attention.
It was attractive to her. And so she just went out one
day and went out to see them, went out to be with them, went
out to join them. Curiosity, as I said last week,
curiosity killed the cat. And the curiosity had gotten
the best of her. And she goes out. And here I
see youthful ignorance. That's the first thing that jumped
out at me, youthful ignorance. Youth has very little experience
of what they're about to get into. Youth doesn't see the evil
that the older ones see, that you and I, after we lived a while,
we see it, don't we? My parents saw it. They could
see it. I couldn't see it. All I could
see was fun, but they could see trouble, trouble. Youth has little
experience and youthful curiosity often leads to trouble. And sometimes
that trouble can last a lifetime like it did with Diana. It lasted
a lifetime. Sometimes it can last a lifetime.
You know, I've said this before. And it's so, you know, we can
be forgiven of all sins. When the Lord forgives us, He
can forgive us, and He does forgive us of all our sins. There's no
sin that He cannot wipe away. But there are some things that
we can do that can just scar us for a lifetime, that can just
stay with you for life, even though forgiven. And then here
I see this, I see this, the lust of the flesh is too powerful
for us to handle. It's too powerful for us to handle. That's why the Lord said, pray,
lead us not into temptation, because we like temptation. Someone
says it's the stuff life is made of for this world. And lust is
too powerful for us to handle, especially in youth when it's
at its strongest. That is strongest. It's too much. It's too much. You think you
can get into a situation and next thing you know, you're in
over your head. You're in over your head. And the attraction of the world,
you know, it's, I was telling Vicki this one last night, it's
like the bug light. It's bright, yet deadly. She has one she hung
up in the shed down here. And when I'm outside, I hear
something go, bzzz. I thought, well, it's not a good
day for that one. I can just hear it. I can hear it all the
time, standing out there in the yard, just zapping those bugs. She was attracted to the light.
She was attracted to the world. She was attracted to what looked
fun and exciting. And next thing you know, She's in trouble. She's in trouble. She's got herself in trouble.
She got herself in over her head. As one writer said, I like this.
I wrote this down. He said, Dinah was like the fluttering
moth about the flame. She finally got too close to
it, and it burned her. Another one said this, that Dinah
was like the fish nibbling on the bait. And once you do that
too long, next thing you know, it's got you. Hook, line, and
sinker, you're gone. It's got you. And this is what
happened to her. I think she just was enamored,
infatuated with what she had saw among the daughters of the
land. And she went out there. And the ideal here is that there
was a festivity going on. And she went and joined in that
festivity is what happened. And she was infatuated by it and she got in trouble. She got into a situation she
couldn't get out of because it says Shechem took her. Now I've
read a lot on this and I listened to a couple of messages preached
on this. Some believe that she was raped because the word there
took means that she was forced. He forced himself on her. And
she got in over her head and she couldn't stop the situation.
And that's how I see it. And some think it was consensual. It may have been. It may have
been. I think she got in over her head.
I think she was just like the moth that fluttered around the
flame and then the flame got her. And that's a real lesson
for us. As Paul said, shun every appearance
of evil. I wish I could have the ear of
every young person on this earth right now. Shun every appearance
of evil. You're not as strong as you think
you are. And I know what men are after
for the most part. I know. I know I've been around
a lot of them. I am one. And I know men. If I know anything, I know men.
And I know she got herself in over her head. James said this,
that the friendship of the world is the enemy of God. And she went out there, and she
made friends with them, and that became her companions, and then
she got in trouble. She had what they had, a sinful
fallen nature. That's why she was drawn to them.
And then we see here this prince, And this is sad because this
is a person of power. This is a person who has some
notability and some power. But it's evident he thinks because
of his position, he can take whatever he wants. Of course, he ends up losing
his life over this. He ends up losing his life. We learn that
being in power as a prince gives us no power over our lust. No matter what power we may have
in this life, we may have a lot of power among men, but we have
no power by nature over our lust. When he saw her, it says here,
it says that after he had forced himself on her, that he loved
her. There's a real difference between
love and lust. A real difference. I saw something on a program
one time. I thought it was very interesting.
It says that lust and love spark the same hormonal response in
men and women. It releases that, what we call
dopamine. It's that feel-good drug, but
this part has been proven. They said about after 18 months,
if it's lust, the interest starts to leave and it starts to go
somewhere else. If it's love, they hang around
through thick and thin. They stay together. This man, I don't believe, loved
her in the sense of really loving her because if he loved her,
he would not have forced himself on her. No one that loves you
is going to force themselves on you. You know that's not love. Love is kind. Love is gentle. You know, if you wrote a real
definition, look over in 1 Corinthians 13. Let's read it again. Let's
get a real definition here of love. I know the word's been
abused. I think a lot of guys have used
it in a manner to get what they want. Saying, oh, if you love
me. Yeah, right. Here's a definition of love.
Now, if you want to look at what love is, if somebody loves you,
if you love somebody, this is present. This right here is present. Here is a real definition of
love. Look in verse 4. Love suffers
long and is kind. Love envies not. It doesn't envy
you, it rejoices with you. Love vaunteth, and over here
in the margin is not rash. It vaunteth not itself, it's
not rash, it's not puffed up, it does not behave itself unseemly. Seeks not its own, her own, is
not easily provoked, thinks no evil. Rejoices not in iniquity,
doesn't rejoice in sin, but rejoices in truth, bears all things, believes
all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love always
thinks the best of you. You think the best of the person
you love. If you don't think well of somebody,
you don't love them. You can mark it down. You don't
love. There's no love there. Love never fails. where there's
prophesying and it'll all fail, but love never fails. That's
love now, that's love. Everything else outside that
is lust. That's lust. Now when a couple really fall
in love with each other, they love each other. They're kind
to each other. They enjoy each other's presence. That's love. That's love. What he has was lust. And James
said, when lust is conceived, it brings forth sin, and sin,
when it is finished, brings forth death. When Shechem saw Dinah, he lusted
after her. He lusted. If he had loved her,
he would have forced her. As I said, this young lady was
probably about 15 years old. and in over her head. She got
herself in a situation that she couldn't get out of. And I tell
you this, once you wake that monster up, it's not going to
go back to sleep. I'm just being very direct. Once
you wake that monster up, it ain't going back to sleep. And I also know something here,
I think, about this situation. She was going against her conscience.
I guarantee you her conscience was screaming at her. Because
the law is written on the heart. It's written on the heart. And
her conscience was screaming at her. And she was violating
God's command of sexual purity that was to be held for marriage.
And she knew she had gotten in trouble. But here's another lesson too. He tries to, there's some more
lessons here. He seeks to marry her. He wants
to marry her. And I like what someone said.
Someone said this, honorable deeds do not cover up sin. They don't cover up sin. Let
me pick up here another lesson. Sexual relationship outside the
marriage is considered, and if you notice what it says here,
defilement. This is interesting, this is
interesting. It's considered defilement. It's the only sin,
the scripture says, that's against the body. Turn over to 1 Corinthians
6. Let me read a few, let me see
where I want to start reading. Let me start reading in verse
9. "...Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom
of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators," and that's the
first one it mentions, "...nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor
effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor
covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall
inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, I'm glad he put that in there,
especially for some of you. But you are washed, you are sanctified,
you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus by the Spirit
of our God. The blood of Christ could put away all sin. Let's
be careful not to start cataloging sin, well, I haven't done this.
Well, you might not have done it outwardly, but you've done
it inwardly. Everything. All things are lawful
for me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful
for me, but I'll not be brought under the power of any. Meats
for the belly, and the belly for meats, but God shall destroy
both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication. God did not give us this body
for that reason. but for the Lord, and the Lord
for the body. And God hath both raised up the
Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power. Know ye
not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then
take the members of Christ, and make them the members of a harlot?
God forbid. What, know ye not that he which
is joined to a harlot is one body? For two, saith he, shall
be one flesh. And he that is joined unto the
Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. You see, the
Corinthians like the Thessalonians were just given to this. Just
like we are now in this day that we live in. It's like, what are
you talking about? There's nothing wrong with it.
What God says, there is. But flee fornication. Listen,
every sin that a man does is without the body. But he that
commits fornication sins against his own body. This is where AIDS. AIDS has come in a lot through
this kind of activity. What? Know you not that your
body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which
you have of God, and you are not your own, you are bought
with a price. He says it's the one sin that's against the body.
But, now listen. In marriage, in marriage is pure. What is considered to be defilement
outside of marriage is pure, holy, and right inside the marriage. It's good. It's good for a healthy
relationship. It's given for a man and a woman
to have a healthy intimate relationship. Don't lose that. Don't lose that. Because it's healthy, and it's
of God, and it's given of God. Now, leaving that, I want to
say just a few words about two wrongs don't make a right. You
see, Jacob's sons find out about this, and they are angry. They're angry. And they are about
to make the situation even worse. God said, vengeance is mine,
I'll repay. This is in God's hand. Now Jacob
doesn't handle it very good either. Jacob keeps silent about it,
and Jacob is willing to make a pact with the people that God
said, don't you go among them, don't you marry them, don't intermingle
with them. And he's ready to make a pact
with them in order to save his neck. Look over in, let me see
what verse it is here. Verse 30. You see, Simeon and
Levi, they killed all the males of the city. He said, Jacob says,
and Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, you have troubled me to
make me stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites,
the Perizzites, and I being few in number, they shall gather
themselves together against me and slay me, and I'll be destroyed,
I my house. Jacob, your daughter was just,
what just happened to your daughter? You fathers in here, you'd be
plump furious. I know you would. Jacob here
is thinking about saving his neck. He said, now I'm just gonna
stink among everybody. And he said, he doesn't handle
it very well either. I don't think he does. But the sons of Jacob, They said,
okay, we'll make a pact with you. We'll give you our daughter.
We'll give you Diana. Not our daughter, but our sister.
And they said, but here's what you've got to do. Here's what you've got to do. You've got to be circumcised,
because that's circumcision. Now listen, they used their religion. They used what God gave to Abraham
as a seal of the covenant, which was circumcision. It was a seal
of the covenant that God made with Abraham, and they took that
and they used it for an evil purpose. They used it to get
those men to do so, and on the third day, it says when they
were sore, they went in and killed all the males. They took what
we would call sacred, and it was truth, and it was given of
God, and it was a seal of the covenant, and they took that
and deceived these men and killed them. Two wrongs don't
make a right. Going in there and slaying everybody
will not undo what just happened. And the second thing is we never
read of them consulting God in this matter. We don't read of
Jacob. We don't read of his sons going
before the Lord and praying, how do we handle this? How do
we handle this? They didn't care what God thought
about it. This is how I'm going to handle
it. And God let him do it. Here's the third thing. Jacob
was not supposed to be there. God did not tell Jacob to go
to Sukkoth and buy land and build a house and build barns for his
cattle and settle down. Jacob was comfortable. Jacob
had gotten comfortable there. And he was trading and things
were going good for him, and he had settled down right there.
And God said, go to your father's house, go back to Bethel. And he didn't do it. He took
a detour because of Esau. He still feared Esau, and I have
no doubt in his mind, in his heart, he was going to stay there
until Esau died. Because he didn't trust Esau.
This is where it shows his lack of faith in God. to take care
of him. God said, I'll be with you. That
was one of the promises, I'll be with you. But he went over there and look
what a mess, look what a mess that turned into. And Jacob says, you know, man,
we're in trouble here now, everybody's against us. God's gonna drive
him out. Because in the next chapter,
God says, well, let me just briefly look at it. In verse 1 of chapter
35, God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, dwell there,
and make there an altar unto God. Now, God tells him to go
where I told you to go to the first time, and there build an
altar. that appeared unto, build an altar unto God that appeared
unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother."
Not when you were looking for a wife, you were on the run.
You were on the run. That's why you took off. And he said, now you go back
to Bethel. You know, I told you this years earlier. Because he
dwelt several years in that land. And he said, now you go back
to Bethel. God turned every one of them against him. And this
whole situation turned into a mess for Jacob for turning his side. And it turned into a mess for
his daughter. But here's another lesson. I
just, I just, this is, I looked at this chapter, I thought, well,
what am I gonna bring out of this chapter? And then I started writing
some lessons that we could learn. And then we'll end up with some
spiritual lessons here. I better get going. First of all, here's
the third lesson. Satan is subtle. You remember back in the garden,
God said, the seed of the woman will bruise the serpent's head.
And then he, God took this, he called Noah and And then there
was Abraham and Isaac and now Jacob. There's a bloodline going
here. There's a line here through which
the Messiah is going to come. And God told them, don't marry
the daughters of the Lamb because they'll lead your sons astray
and you'll be worshipping other gods. You'll fall into idolatry.
The Hittites and Perizzites and all the other sites didn't know
God at all. God revealed Himself to Jacob. But here Satan, behind
the scenes, is trying to... I'm just watching him weasel. And he said, and Hamer goes there,
she comes and says, I want to marry her. And Hamer goes, let's
go talk to Jacob. And then they go talk to Jacob,
and Jacob goes, well, you know, this is probably the best way
to settle this thing. Let's do this. And then all the
while Satan is behind this to destroy this bloodline through
which the Messiah is to come. to get them to marry the daughters
of the world. You know, it says in Genesis
6, when the sons of God saw the daughters of men, they took wives,
and that's when all the trouble really got started. Nimrod and
all that mess. He's subtle, trying to establish
mixed marriages to destroy this promise that happened back in
the garden. Now here's a few spiritual lessons,
and I close. The church cannot mix with the world. Don't think
you can. I assure you, like I said this
before, and I say it all the time, don't I? But the world,
you and I have what the world has. The world does not have
what we have. The world is not sealed with
the Holy Spirit. The world is not born of God.
But you and I still have a sinful nature. We've got the same nature
that the world has. We were born with it. And if
you put two together, I can tell you which one's going to be in
trouble. It's not going to be the world because they're dead.
They're dead in trespasses and sins. It's going to be that believer. He or she's going to be the one
that's going to be brought down. That's why he says over in 1
John, he that loves the world is an enemy of God. The church cannot mix with the
world. We are not trying to appeal to
the world. Isn't that what you see among
just religion out there trying to appeal to the, you know, we
have a contemporary service, have two services. We're gonna
have two services today. We're gonna have the old type
style service and then in the afternoon we'll have a contemporary
service. That way the young people can come and we can play the
band and have it sound like rock and roll instead of trying to
make it sound like it's praises to God. You want to have two
services? No, you're not going to have
any service that's of God. God's not in it. You can't mix
with the world. You're not going to appeal to
the world. We're not going to try to appeal
to a bunch of ungodly people. And then shun every appearance
of evil. Shun the bug light. If not, you're going to be the
one going, bzzz. And you gotcha. And sin, listen,
now here, this is important. Sin, it says, I quote this out
of James, leads to death. It may be the death, it will
be the death of your reputation. It'll lead to the death of your
witness. Nobody's going to listen to you.
Jacob, last of all, Jacob should have never stopped there. He
should have done exactly what God said. He should have trusted
the Lord. He should not have stopped there. Well, I hope we
learned some things out of that today. That's just some lessons
out of Genesis chapter 5, the indiscretion of a young lady.