As we read about Jacob, isn't it amazing the details
of his life that God gives us? And as I was looking this over
again today, as I was studying this again today, I thought about
the details of great kings and princes who have lived down through
the years leaders of mighty nations that very little, if anything, is
recorded about them in the Word of God. Their names are buried pretty
much in oblivion. Yet, the very minutest of concerns
about the people of God are brought forth, like this man Jacob, in
order to remind us of the goodness of God to His people, and how
very important we are to the Lord. There's a verse of Scripture,
and I'm sure you've read it, it's in Proverbs chapter 10 and
verse 7, And it talks about that the memory of the just is precious. Everything about the people of
God is precious to the Lord. But the name of the wicked, the
Scripture says, shall rot. And I thought about Esau. The name of Esau It rots. It's no good. There's nothing good about him
that is recorded in the Word of God. He was a wicked man. He had no interest in leading
his family in worship. He had no interest in the sacrifice
that the head of the family would offer to God, in leading them
to honor the Lord. He had no interest in those things.
And the name of Esau rots. But the name of Jacob, Jacob
this deceiver, Jacob this sinner. He was as much a sinner as Esau
was, as much as his brother was. But the details of the life of
Jacob are meticulously and even minutely set forth in the Word
of God because God loved him. God loved him. And I say this
to all of you who are the people of God. Our steps in this life
are ordered by God. Every step, every trouble, every
trial, every triumph, every seeming defeat, all of these things are
ordered by God, and we know they're all working together for our
good. And that's not said concerning
the wicked. Nothing is working out for the
good of those who perish in their sins. Nothing. But everything is working together
for good for you who love God, for you who are called according
to His purpose. And I think about Jacob. Truly, he's up and down. I mean,
this is a guy, his path winds around. And there are not a lot
of good things we could say about Jacob. But here's a really good thing
we can say about Him. God cared for Him. God loved
Him. You can say what you will, but
God chose Him. Our Savior came and redeemed Him. And He was
quickened by the grace of the Spirit of God. We've just studied
back in chapter 28 His experience at Bethel. Bethel. The house of God. The gate of
heaven. Bethel. And at Bethel, he learned
five very vital things. First of all, he learned his
utter helplessness. All alone. No assistance. His brother was his enemy. the God of his grandfather Abraham,
the God of his father Isaac, was unknown to him. Now, he was
known unto God. And don't misunderstand me. Oh
yes, the Lord has always known him. He's always loved him. But Jacob didn't know God. He
had heard of God. He had heard of substitution.
But as of yet, God hadn't been pleased to drive the Word of
God home to his heart. He learned his utter helplessness. He didn't know God. And our Lord
Jesus said, this is life eternal that they might know Thee, the
only true God in Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. You see,
to know God is to be saved. To know God is to be justified. To know God is to have your sins
forgiven. And to know God is to be righteous. And the God of grace and glory
was unknown to Jacob. And being without God, he was
utterly helpless. There is no one so alone and
so helpless as that person who does not have a saving knowledge
of the God of grace. They are so alone. And I'm sure when he had that
dream, when he saw the ladder that reached from earth to heaven,
before God impressed upon his heart the true meaning of that
ladder, it was Christ Himself, the Son of God. That ladder just
reminded him of the vast distance between him on earth and God
in heaven. He learned his utter helplessness.
Secondly, he learned that salvation is of the Lord only. The sovereign
grace of God came effectually to him and revealed to Jacob
this ladder from earth to heaven. And the God-man is the ladder
from earth to heaven. He reaches all the way to the
heavenly paradise. He connects sinners on earth
with God in heaven. He's the connection. Without
Him, there is no connection. He's the mediator. He's the go-between. He's the one who connects us
to God. And this is the kind of Savior
we must have. It's the kind of Savior Jacob
needed. This God-man, he knew the demands
of God. and met them, and He knew the
needs of men, and met those, this God-man. In, through, and
by Him, grace comes to the guilty. And He is constantly sending
His angels, and Jacob saw this, angels of God descending and
ascending to God, as though receiving orders from the Lord, from the
Father, pertaining to His children. These angels that always, always
surround the saints of God. You have an invisible army around
you. Don't ever forget that. An invisible
army. When Elisha's servant He looked
out of the tent in the morning and he saw the enemy of God and
the enemies of Israel surrounding them. He went back to Elisha
and he said, Alas, alas, my Lord, my Master, alas. The prophet
of God looked down and he says, there are lots of them, aren't
there? He said, yeah. He said, Lord, open his eyes. And he saw the chariots of God.
He saw the angels of God protecting them. May God open our eyes. Oh, we're not going to see them
literally. That'd scare us to death, wouldn't it? But they
are there, just like they're right here tonight. They're with
us, these messengers. How do they come to us? By way
of our Lord Jesus who sends them. He sends them. And we're thankful. And then he learned something
else and this is vital for him and vital for us as well. Everlasting
safety is only found in the Lord who abides with us. The Lord
made all of these promises to Jacob. I'll be with you. I'll keep you. I'll bring you
to your final destination, to that glorious safe haven that
you want to arrive at. I'll bring you to the paradise
of God. Everlasting safety. We're not
going to perish. How can we perish? We have no
sins. Our sins have been put away.
You say, or a rotten sinner. Well, there's no question about
that. Nobody here is going to argue with you about that because
we all feel like we're the chief of sinners. But what we also understand is
we're made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. And therefore,
the Lord is going to take us safely to the heavenly paradise. And then here's the fourth thing
he learned. The result of being an object
of God's saving grace is you worship God. All of a sudden,
Jacob becomes a worshiper. He says in verse 17 of chapter
28, the script says he was afraid. He said, how dreadful, how awesome,
how holy is this place. This is the house of God. I've
met God here. This is the gate of heaven. Worship. Worship. And then he learned
that the secret to an unburdened life is the fifth thing, is that
realization that God maintains His grace in you and the burden
of sin has been completely removed from you. And God's, all of His
promises to you will never fail. Never fail. Which is why it says
in chapter 29 verse 1, Jacob went on his journey, and
I pointed this out to you last week. In the center column, I
have a little number 1 there that it says he lift up his feet.
He lift up his feet. The Amplified says, then Jacob
walked briskly and cheerfully on his way. Well, what's the difference?
It's the same man. He is the same man, and yet he's different. He's a converted man by the grace
of God. And of course, we know the Lord.
Here's what the Lord did for Jacob and Bethel. He enrolled
him in the school of grace. and we have been enrolled in
the school of grace, and we don't graduate till we die. We're always
in the school of grace. We're always learning. We're
always growing. Susanna sang Sunday before last
that great hymn, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus. I got to thinking
about that. One of the verses says, His word
shall not fail you, He promised. Believe Him and all will be well. I wish I had the permission of
the author to just change one word. Not believe Him and all will
be well. But believe Him for all will
be well. Even if we believe not, all will
be well. Isn't that right? All will be
well. Even if we don't believe. That verse of Scripture in 2
Timothy chapter 2. Though we believe not, He abideth faithful. And He keeps His promises. He
sure does. And that's our comfort. My comfort
is not that I have a great faith. I'm thankful for any degree of
faith at all. Our faith is like the tide that
goes out and comes in. That's the way our faith is.
It ebbs and flows. It appears and disappears. but not the Lord. He's not like
that. His promises don't fail. His
Word shall not fail you, He promised. Believe Him, for all will be
well. It doesn't matter what's going
on in your life. All will be well. You're a child of God.
All will be well. Well, I've got cancer. I've got
heart disease. Believe Him, for all will be
well. Well, this may take my breath away. It may take my life. All will be well, won't it? Well,
sure you go to be with the Lord. So, Jacob continues his journey,
but he's rejoicing now. I wished I could always be in
the spirit of rejoicing. In the goodness and promises
and providence of God. He's rejoicing. In fact, let
me take the time to show you this. Turn over to Deuteronomy
32. We know He shared with His children and His grandchildren
this glorious revelation of the Lord Jesus at Bethel because
in the Song of Moses, hundreds of years later, they're talking
about what happened to Jacob. Deuteronomy 32. Verse 9. They're right at the
edge of the promised land. Of course, Moses is not going
to be able to take them in. But they're right there on the verge.
32 verse 9. You there? Okay, here
we go. For the Lord's portion is His
people. Jacob is the lot of God's inheritance. The Lord's our inheritance, and
the Lord says, Jacob is my inheritance. Well, what'd God do for Jacob?
Look at verse 10. He found him. He found him. His head on a rock. Out there in the wilderness,
in a desert land, in the waste, howling wilderness. He found
him. and He led him about. He instructed
him. He kept him as the apple of His
eye, just like He keeps you. As an eagle stirreth up her nest,
fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them,
beareth them on her wings, so the Lord did lead him. So the
Lord leads you. There's no strange God with him. He's not an idolater. He's a
worshiper of Jehovah. Verse 13, He made him ride on
the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase
of the fields. He made him to suck honey out
of the rock, and oil out of the plenty rock, butter of kind,
and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed
of Bashan, and goats with the fat of kidneys of wheat, and
thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape. Who did all of
this for Jacob? The Lord did. And there Jacob
was at Bethel and he didn't have two dimes to rub together. And when he woke up that morning,
he still didn't have two dimes to rub together. But he knew God. He knew the Lord. And the Lord
made all these promises to him. And he just clicks up his heels
and here he goes. Jacob, you don't have any money. I know. I got the Lord with me. And so, as we go back here to
Genesis chapter 29, he makes the journey and apparently nothing
of any great importance happened over the next four to five hundred
miles, that he's just rejoicing in the Lord. And he gets to, number one, he
gets to a well. He gets to a well. It was one
well, one well, where all the flocks were watered. A large
rock was in front of the well. And the shepherds would get together
and roll the rock away from the mouth of the well so the sheep
could drink and then they'd roll it back so that the water would
be hidden. Hidden from everything and everybody
else. The water was for the sheep. The water of the Word of God
is for the Lord's sheep. It's hidden from the enemies. The Lord even says He hides the
truth from people. It's hidden from them. They can't
see. There's water behind that rock.
No. Can't be. Oh yeah. The water of the Word, the water
of our Lord Jesus, hidden from the eyes of men. The Savior in
John 7 said, the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus
stood and cried saying, if any man thirsts, let him come unto
Me and drink. And out of his belly shall flow
rivers of living water. He is the water of life. But that rock was as an obstacle. What keeps people from the water
of life? Well, one thing, they're in darkness. It's spiritual ignorance. And so it's the responsibility
of the shepherds to roll the rock away. To remove as many
obstacles as they can. And one of them is ignorance.
Philip in the Ethiopian eunuch He's reading the Word of God,
Isaiah 53, right? Isaiah 53. Boy, he's reading
about the well of water. Can't make heads or tails out
of it. And Philip, sent there by the Holy Spirit, says, you
understand what you're reading? He said, how can I? Unless somebody
rolled a rock away. That's what I want to be, a rock
roller. Not a rockin' roller, but a rock
roller. Roll the rock of ignorance away
and tell people the truth. How shall they heal without a
preacher? Somebody's got to be honest with them. Somebody's
got to tell them about God, about their sinfulness, about Christ
Jesus. That's what the true under-shepherd
does. He rolls the rock away. And then here are the sheep.
You know how many flocks of sheep there were? Three. Father, Son,
and Spirit. There's the Trinity. The flocks belong to the Lord. We're His sheep. The sheep of
His pasture. Our Lord Jesus said, My sheep
hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give
unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall
any man pluck them out of My hand. And then Jacob, he sees Rachel
coming. And when he sees Rachel coming,
Look at verse 10 again. And it came to pass when Jacob
saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and the
sheep of Laban, his mother's brother, that Jacob went near
and he rolled the stone from the whale's mouth. Usually it
took three shepherds to do that. Now Jacob's going to do it all
by himself because that adrenaline is flowing. He sees Rachel. And I mean to tell you, he falls
head over heels in love with her. It's kind of love at first
sight, you might say. He sees Rachel. This is a result
of divine guidance. God said He would direct his
steps. He would lead him, and He leads
him to the exact location where Rachel is. God directs the steps
of His people. Our lives are not a mere existence. God leads His dear children along. That's what we just sang. Do
you believe that? He leads His dear children along. He directs in all things. Job
said, the Lord knoweth the way that I take. That gave him comfort. The Lord knows the way that I
take. He not only knows all about the way that I take, but He knows
the way that I take because He put me in the way. That's the
reason He knows. Here's divine guidance. And here's
love. Love at first sight. He so fell head over heels with
Rachel that he wants to marry her. So Jacob and Laban make
a deal. Here's the dowry that Jacob would
give to Laban to win his daughter's hand in marriage. The dowry could
be money, it could be property, it could be service. And you
see, our Lord Jesus, when He would save us, when He would
have us, He had to pay to the Father a dowry. What was the
dowry? His blood. That's what it cost
Him. These people that our Lord Jesus
loved from all eternity. The dowry that the Father required
from Him was not silver and gold. Not money. Service! Death. Death. And so, Jacob, he knows that Laban has
two daughters, Leah and Rachel. He works for seven years to obtain
the hand of Rachel in marriage. And I've just got to point out
to you again, verse number 20. And Jacob served seven years
for Rachel, and they seemed unto him but a few days for the love
he had for her. It was indeed a labor of love. And our Lord Jesus loved the
church so much that he gave himself for her. a labor of love, and
He endured the cross, and He despised the shame, even though
He travailed in His soul. It wasn't the nails, somebody
said, that held Him to the cross. It was His love for His own people
that held Him. But Jacob got tricked. Kind of what goes around comes
around. Jacob, this was what he's guilty
of. Doesn't taste too good when you
get it right back yourself. Laban tricks him. He tricks him. But you know, and of course, Jacob, he now has two wives. He will marry Rachel. He married
Leah and he will marry Rachel. And it was really evil. But he had to marry Leah. Because
Leah, not Rachel. Leah will be the mother of Judah. You'd think it'd be Rachel, wouldn't
you? And it wasn't. No. Leah. She has Reuben, Simeon,
Levi. She gives birth to Levi. That's
the priesthood. And Judah. What about Rachel? She only gave
birth to two sons of Jacob. Joseph and Benjamin, and she died in
childbirth, giving birth to Benjamin. But you see, God uses unusual
circumstances to bring to fulfillment His own purpose. And here's Laban. He got a trick up his sleeve. put your heavy veils on, Leah. She did. And usually, according
to my studies on this passage of Scripture, the barhat groom
would be in the bedroom, and then the father would bring his
daughter in, heavily veiled, and then the father would leave,
and then they would consummate the marriage. with the bride, out of modesty, never
speaking a word. And the union is sealed. And then, of course, Jacob wakes
up in the morning and he looks at her and he says, whoa! You're not Rachel! You're Leah! And boy, then he goes out to
Laban and he gives him an earful. Well, Laban says, well you know
in this part of the country, it's just not right for the younger
one to get married before the older one. So I gave her the
older one. You want the younger one? Seven
more years it'll cost you. Seven more years, you'll have
it. So now he's got two wives and
he's got two maids. to assist one for each life. And we'll get into that next
week. Isn't the providence of God marvelous? It is so wonderful
the depths of the wisdom of God in maneuvering and maintaining
and directing all things to bring to pass His purpose. That's our God. and He's directing
your path to. And the names of the enemies
of God, they'll rot, but your name is precious to the Lord.
And even the minute things in your life, all those details,
the Lord's already appointed them all. to go home, go sleep
and rest. He's going to take care of you.
He's already taking care of you. And we rejoice in that. Well,
let's close in prayer. We thank You, Father, for the
description that You give of Your people, so honest, like
with Jacob, a deceiver. He's one of your sheep. You brought
Him to yourself. You revealed the grace of God
to Him. You went on His way rejoicing. Oh, He will come upon many disappointments
in life and there will be floods and rivers to cross Fires to
endure, the fiery trials of life, but Lord, those were appointed
for Jacob by You. And You brought him through and
You took him home to glory. He's been with You now for hundreds
and hundreds and hundreds of years. And Lord, remind us that as it
was with him, so it is with us. Our lives have meaning. They
have purpose. And You're directing us every
step of the way. And in the end, it will be seen
that all things did work together for good to them that love God,
to them who are the called according to Your purpose. We bless You
and we thank You and help us to always bear in mind Your good
and wonderful, sweet providence. For Jesus' sake I ask these things. Amen.