Everyone who loves the Word of
God, everyone who hates sinfulness, we're very disgusted with what I call the sinfulness or
carnality of Jacob. He did some things that just
not becoming. to children of God. There's no
excuse for his deception. There's no excuse for his plurality
of wives. So many of his choices. Though
he was a child of God, I rejoice in that. But lots of his choices
led to discord, Envy. Jealousy. Jealousy between the
women. And it keeps us mindful of the
fact that God, in his wisdom, teaches us one husband for one
wife. Because that pictures that union
of our Lord Jesus to His one bride, the church. He doesn't
have many brides. He has one bride. And the bride
doesn't have many grooms. We have one bridegroom and that's
the Lord Jesus. I officiated at that wedding,
and it was a wonderful, beautiful wedding we had up in Michigan
here nearly two weeks ago. And I spoke to the groom, and
I said, you know, you stand here is a picture of our Lord Jesus.
He's the bridegroom. And he loved the bride. And he gave himself for the bride. And I said, you're a picture.
I told Matt, I said, you're a picture of our Savior. You stand here
symbolic of Him. One husband who loved this woman
and gave Himself to her even as our Lord Jesus gave Himself
for His bride. And then I addressed the bride. And I said, you stand here as
a picture of all the people of God. of all of the bride of our
Lord Jesus, chosen from all eternity. And I said, you're being wedded
to your husband now, and you're joined together in union. And
you see, this is a picture of our Lord Jesus, and Jacob's actions
just kind of mess that typology up real good. And yet, all that
happened, even the evil in the actions of Jacob, would work
together for the good of Jacob and for the good of his family
and for the good of the family of God. Because as we read of
Jacob in the Scriptures, we realize he was just a sinful man. There
wasn't anything special about him. And the Scriptures, in the
honesty as the Spirit of God sits it forth, the Spirit of
God constantly reminds us in all of these men and women in
the Word of God, they're just sinners like us. Sinners saved
by grace. And we don't want to fall into
sin. We don't want to do foolish things
that have a detrimental effect upon others. We certainly don't
want to do anything that would bring reproach against the name
of our God. But we do rejoice to know this,
all of our sins are forgiven through the bloody death of the
Lord Jesus. And even our missteps, even our
sins, even the evil that we do. While they are wrong and we don't
want to do them, we long to be free of this thing called sin,
yet God will still work out His purpose in all things, notwithstanding
the things that we do. And we rejoice in that. You see,
only God can bring good out of an evil deed. Only God can do
that. Only God can work His purpose
even in the evil things that men and women do. And as I said
this past Lord's Day evening, nowhere is that more evident
than in the death of our Lord Jesus. People raised up their
hands against Him and they demanded His death. They said, we will
not have this man to rule over us. We'll worship Caesar. We'll bow to Caesar before we'll
bow to Jesus of Nazareth. and they hated Him to such an
extent, they wanted to put Him out of business. We want His
life. They tried to stone Him, but
they couldn't stone Him because the providence of God and the
purpose of God would not allow that to happen because it was
appointed He would die by crucifixion. He would be hanged on a tree. And the evil that they did, all
the vileness, the blasphemy of their words against Him, and
their hatred, and their judgment of the Son of God, all of these
things were hideous sins. And yet, it all fulfilled the
will of God. Because the Savior had to die. It was for this reason that he
came into the world. When Simon Peter took his sword
and he cut off the ear of the high priest, the high priest's servant, the
ear of Malchus was his name. Our Lord Jesus picked up the
ear and reattached it to that man's head and He said, put your
sword up. First of all, he didn't need
any defense. He didn't need anybody to defend
him. The disciples had already told him, don't go to Jerusalem.
And now Simon Peter, he pulls out his sword. He's going to
take things in his own hands. He'll put a stop to this. And
the Savior said, no, for how else shall the Scriptures be
fulfilled? And the evil of men worked to
fulfill the purpose of God. And that's what happened with
the actions of Jacob. the evil of his heart. You say,
well, yeah, but, you know, Laban, he tricked him and gave him Leah
as a bride, and then Laban gave him not only Leah, but Leah's
handmaid, and then he got Rachel for a second wife, and then Bilhah
as her handmaid. Well, Jacob could have stood
firm and said, no, wait a minute, it's not right. This is not right. But he just went along with it.
And yet it all worked out for the purpose of God. You know, I said this pictures
the union of our Lord Jesus and His chosen bride, and the chosen
bride consists of all those that God gave Him in covenant grace
before the world began. When God gave Adam a wife, taking
her from Adam's rib, the man said, this is now bone of my
bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because
she was taken out of man. Now I know in this crazy age
in which we're living, it isn't politically correct to refer
to a woman as a woman. She's a person. And we want to
remain gender neutral in these things. Well, that's the idiocy
of this world. That's how foolish this world
is. Adam said this is woman, capital W. And you ladies, we're
thankful for you. Remember this, God gave you to
your husband to be a help meat. And the man still has the authority
in the home. He's still the head of the household.
That's the way God made him because the man, the bridegroom is a
picture of the Savior. He's the Lord. Now we're not
to lord it over your wife. I'm not to lord it over mine
or you lord it over your wife either. But there's got to be
a head. If you've got two heads in a
family, that's a monster. That's what you get. He's got
a two-headed monster. And that's what's wrong with
so many families today. Wouldn't it be wonderful, and
it'll never happen, but wouldn't it be wonderful if everybody
went by the Scriptures? If everybody went by the Word
of God? Well, God's people do, for the most part. For the most
part. In this institution of marriage,
There is set forth a wonderful and marvelous and so encouraging
truth of the union of our Lord Jesus with His bride. You remember
that Adam, when he's speaking of this union in Genesis toward
the end of the second chapter, he said, these two shall be one. We're joined together. Nancy
and I are one. We're one. the same way with
all the rest of the couples that are here tonight and the couples
that are watching as well. Let me just give you this. Side note. Go back to Genesis
3. Let me show you this and then
I'll get back on track of the message for this evening. After the fall of Adam, and Adam
represented the human race, you know, when Eve, Eve was the first
one who defied the Word of God, right? She's the first one who
ate. But nothing happened. Nothing
happened because she wasn't the representative of anybody. She
represented nobody. The representative, here's a
good term to remember, the federal head of our race was a man. Adam. And God dealt with that
representative man. He dealt with all of us in that
representative man. When He walked with God, we all
walked with God. When He fell into sin, we all
fell through our representative. Well, we know that God, He promised
that the seed of the woman was coming, and Adam believed that. Now, we've often spoken of verse
21 of Genesis 3, and rightfully we should. Unto Adam also and
to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and He clothed
them. There's the clothing of the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus. But look at that verse just before
that. And Adam, who back in chapter
2 called this woman that God gave him, this helpmate that
God gave him, he called her woman in chapter 2. Now Adam calls
his wife's name Eve for this reason. She's the mother of all
living. Did she have any children yet? What was the sentence that God
pronounced upon Adam when he ate death? But you see, Adam
believed the seed of the woman was coming. And as a result,
there'd be life. Life. This is even before God
illustrated the Gospel. He believed God. Eve is the mother
of all living. He believed the seed of the woman. And look back at chapter two
in verse 24. Therefore shall a man leave his
father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they
shall be one flesh. One flesh. Typically, we think
of the bride leaving her father and mother. Right? That's where
the emphasis is today. In fact, in most weddings, the
emphasis is on the bride. That's the way it is. What did
the bride wear? What kind of belt did she have?
What was her gown like? We want to know all of those
things. And that's the way it typically is in weddings today. That's alright. But in years
gone by, It wasn't the bride who had the emphasis. It was
the groom. And our Lord Jesus, He bears
all the glory in this union. In this union. And I'll tell you this. You know,
in many societies, Marriage between a man and a woman is what they
call an arranged marriage. That's true in a lot of cultures,
even today. Certainly in the Indian culture,
quite a few are arranged marriages. It's the father and the mother
who pick out the bride for the groom. They have a son. Well,
we've arranged a marriage for you. Let me tell you something. Our union with the Lord Jesus
Christ is an arranged marriage. And here's the one who arranged
it. Our Father. Our Father. And the Lord Jesus,
He left His Father and He came down here to dwell amongst His
bride. And then to live for us and to
die for us in order to save us. And we rejoice in that. So, go
back to Genesis 30 then. So, as to Jacob, he was certainly
a sinful man. No question about it. A deceiver,
a real scoundrel. His name means a planter. It's
like a continual demonstration of his depravity. But isn't yours? the same? So I live an upright life. That's what people see. You see, Scripture says man looks
on the outward appearance, God looks on the heart. We have what
Scripture calls heart issues. We have a heart trouble. The
hidden things, people that... You know, there are some people
in religion, they consider themselves to be fruit inspectors, and they
can determine who's saved and who's not saved, because they
say, well, look at how he lives, or she lives, or look at what
they do, or look at what they don't do. Well, people may live
hourly a very upright life, and yet be the vilest of vile deep
within, full of envy and jealousy and hatred and rebellion, But
you can't see those things. But God does. God does. All of these things proceed from
the heart. Jacob was indeed a sinful man,
but he found mercy. And as I was kind of putting
the finishing touches on this message today, It was very encouraging to me
that if this man, if this man was an object of God's mercy,
why not this man? And why not you? You see, this is God's specialty,
the salvation of sinners. We do not claim any goodness. There's none good, no not one. There's none that doeth good,
no not one. To do good really is to be perfect. And there's only one perfect
one. There's only one good one and that's our Lord. The Scripture says there is forgiveness
with Him. That He may be feared. That He
may be worshipped. Well, Jacob, he has these four
women around him, each one kind of fighting for him, so to speak. And the polygamous family begins
to grow. And yet, though this entire family
was a horrific mess, in many ways, yet God would manifest
His grace to Jacob and to Jacob's spiritual seed. Leah immediately begins bearing
sons for Jacob. In the births of these sons,
we see the gospel and the history of a converted sinner. And I'll
just give you these briefly and then get into the last four because
I've already covered eight of them. Reuben means see a son. Behold the Lamb of God. We see
Him. We look to Him. We look to Him
for all of our salvation. We look to His blood for the
forgiveness of our sins. We look to His salvation to cover
us, to robe us. This is a royal garment that
He gives to His children. Simeon means see, a son. And then the second one is Simeon,
whose name means a hearing. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
He that heareth My Word, and believeth on Him that sent Me
hath ever lasting life. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
by the Word of God. This is kind of tracing the history
of the child of God. We're birthed by the Spirit of
God. We're born into the Kingdom of
God, and the first thing we do is behold the Lamb of God. He
gives us sight prior to the new birth, prior to regeneration. We can't see. We don't see the
beauties of our Lord Jesus. We don't see the need of Him. But upon regeneration, we see
the Son of God and we hear His voice. Simeon means hearing. And then Levi is the third. We're joined to Him. We're united
to Him by faith. faith which is the result of
free grace, we're one with Him. And of course, that's one of
the typologies noted in a marriage, in the union of a man and a woman. We're one. The couple, they're
one. And what God hath joined together,
not man put asunder. And God has joined us to the
Lord Jesus. And nobody can break up that
union. Not all the powers of hell, not
all the powers of Satan can destroy that union that we have with
our Savior. And then Judah, his name means
praise. We praise the Lord for His grace
given to us in Christ Jesus before the world began. And of course, our Lord Jesus,
He came through the tribe of Judah. Well, then Leah left off
bearing sons, and Rachel's maid, Bilhah, begins to bear children. She bears, first of all, Dan,
judgment. We take God's side in judgment
against ourselves. You know, that takes the grace
of God. To say, I agree with God in His
judgment of me. I'm a sinful person. And I don't
deserve the least of God's mercies. Jacob's going to say that. Judgment. And then map the lie to prevail
in wrestling. Our Lord wrestled and overcame
all of our enemies. We wrestle with the Lord. We're going to see Jacob wrestling
with the Lord before long. In our studies, we wrestle in
prayer. We commit ourselves to pray about
something specific. And then Leah took her handmaid
and gave her to Jacob. Zilpah. And she bears Gad. company and victorious troop. Our Lord Jesus is the head of
our troop. And we're more than conquerors
through Him. And then Asher, blessed, happy,
joyful. We're joyful in Christ Jesus.
Now let's look at the last four sons quickly. Leah again bears
Jacob, two more sons. And I've read it in verses 14
and 15. And let me just tell you this,
these mandrakes, you see, what are these mandrakes? Well, they
were thought to be a food that was an aphrodisiac. That is,
it promoted fruitfulness in the womb of a woman. And so Rachel,
she being barren, she thinks, if I had some of this fruit,
if I had some of the fruit of the mandrake tree, then I'll
be fertile, and I can bear fruit, I can have sons. And so Leah
says to her, well, you took my husband away. the mandrakes of my son too?"
And Rachel said, you give me the fruit of the mandrakes, you
can have Jacob for a little while. They're as evil as he is. They're
all a bunch of scoundrels. They're all a bunch of sinners.
And we see this brought forth in lots of illustrations. That's what they did. They agreed
on that. And Jacob comes in from the field. He's worked hard. And Leah meets
him and says, you're going home with me tonight. I got supper
ready and I got the bed ready too. And he does. He does. And sure enough, she
gets pregnant with Issachar. And his name means one who is
a hired servant. You know, when our Lord Jesus
saves us by His grace, we become His willing servants. Lord, what would you have me
to do? We talked about the service of the Lord this past Sunday
morning. It's to worship our God through the sacrifice of
Christ Jesus. We're His servants. David said
in Psalm 100, serve the Lord with gladness. I'm glad to serve Him, aren't
you? I'm glad to worship Him. I'm glad to come together tonight. It makes me joyful that we can
gather together. We sing of the blood of our Lord
Jesus that washes us from our sins and we rejoice to hear His
Gospel one more time. We're serving the Lord with gladness. We're worshiping Him. Well, oh
no, I have to go to church again. When we lived in Michigan, Nancy
told somebody, well, I go to Sunday school, Sunday morning,
Sunday night, and Wednesday night. You have to go four times a week? Does he preach the same message
every time? She said, no, not at all. Well,
why do you go? I want to go. I want to go. I'm hungry for the Word of God.
I want to worship. That's why we come together tonight,
isn't it? We want to worship. Nobody twisted
our arms. Nobody held a gun to your head
and said, you've got to go to church tonight. No. You're glad to worship the Lord. You're glad to gather together
with the saints of God. And sing, Are You Washed in the
Blood of the Lamb? And hear the Word of God read,
and listen to the Gospel of redeeming grace, of sovereign grace. We're
glad to do this, Lord. Thank You for this opportunity. It's something we look forward
to. We're His servants. And then she bore another son,
Zebulun, which means dwelling or habitation. Isn't it amazing
that the Lord would dwell within His people? I in them, Christ said in His
high priestly prayer to the Father. I in them and Thou in Me. And we read, Paul says, Christ
in you. The hope of glory. Well then, here's an interesting
thing. In verse 21, after which she
bared a daughter and called her name Dinah. There was no fireworks then. And it could very well be, and
commentators, some say he had other daughters, Jacob had other
daughters by these women. Don't know. Scripture doesn't
say. Why is this one mentioned? Because
something's going to happen in her life later that will shed
light on the reason that God had her catalogued here toward the end of Jacob's sons. Well then, verse 22, God remembered
Rachel. He never really forgot her. Can the Lord forget His own people? No. But sometimes we can get
so down in the dumps, our spirits can become so low that we kind
of think, has the Lord forgotten me? And it's like one old preacher
said to another one when somebody was saying to him, I don't know
if the Lord cares or not. Has He forgotten me? And the
wise old preacher said, the Lord still knows your address. And
I'll tell you, He still knows your address too. He knows where
you live. He knows who you are. And He
hadn't forgotten. While your mother or your father
might forget you, but the Lord said, I hadn't forgot you, your
names are graven on My hands. I bear the marks of your redemption,
of your salvation. I haven't forgotten you. You're
right where I would have you to be." And the Lord hearkened
to Rachel and opened her womb. And she conceived and bare a
son and she said, God has taken away my reproach. She called his name Joseph. and said, the Lord shall add
to me another son. Another son. She said, my family's going to
grow. Boy, and through Joseph it would. It would. And it reminds me of
that passage in Acts 2, the Lord added to the church dailies such
as should be saved. And it reminds me that we grow
in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
then turn to Genesis 35. And look at verse 16. Genesis 35 and verse 16. And they, that is Jacob and his
family, they journeyed from Bethel. And there was but a little way
to come to Ephrath." That's Bethlehem. That's the house of bread. And Rachel, she travailed. And she had hard labor. And it came to pass when she
was in hard labor that the midwife said unto her, fear not, thou
shalt have this son also. And it came to pass, as her soul
was in departing, for those who think that we die
as an animal dies and that's it, they need to look at this
verse of Scripture. As her soul was departing, for
she died, that she called His name Benoni. But Jacob, his father, said,
no. No, we're not going to call him
Ben-O-Nine. Not at all. He's not the son of my Sarah. But his father called him Benjamin.
He's the son of my right hand. Exaltation. Exaltation. And you see, here's the history
of a child of God. It starts off with Reuben. See a son. Behold the Lamb of
God. This is where our life as a child
of God begins. As a result of regeneration,
there's faith in our Lord Jesus. And then we go through our lives. And in the end, We're exalted. We're exalted. Benjamin means
exaltation. The son of my right hand. And
my friends, you and I, who have been born again of the Spirit
of God, who have been made to see that the Lord Jesus is all. He's all I need. He's all you
need. Christ and His blood redemption. Christ and His righteousness.
Christ and His saving grace. He's all we need and the Spirit
of God gives us life to believe Him, to look to Him. And in the
end, we'll be exalted to His right hand. and we shall see
Him face to face in glory." There's the history of every child of
God in the names of the sons of Jacob. And so God, you see, brings good
out of evil. And through these names of these
men, The meanings of these names. God teaches us a Gospel lesson. And we rejoice that He does.
I'm thankful He's made us teachable. Teachable. And we rejoice in
His grace. Let's pray. Thank You, Father,
for the gift of life. The gift of spiritual life. very power of the Spirit of God,
who took the Gospel of truth, the Word of truth, by which He
has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of our
Lord Jesus Christ. And we thank you that through
this gift of life that we look to Christ Jesus. We began our
life as a believer with a look. It continues with a look. And
one day, it will be consummated when we look into the face of
our Lord Jesus and rejoice in Him. And in that day, all of
your Benjamins will be gathered at His right
hand. The exalted children of God.
Thank You, Father, for teaching us, for showing to us what we
are in ourselves, just poor Jacobs, and for showing to us what we
are in Christ Jesus. We are the sons of God, someday
to dwell with our Lord forever and ever. And Lord, we know You've
not forgotten us. You remember us. Sadly, we too often forget You
and Your name is not in our minds nor on our lips, sometimes for
hours at a time, and yet You continually love us. You bring
us back to our senses and we give thanksgiving for keeping
in our minds and in our hearts that Christ is our all. He is our Savior. He is our Lord. He is our Mediator. And He is
our great Redeemer. Dismiss us with the loving kindness
and tender mercies of our great God. We ask these things in the
name of Christ Jesus. Amen.