So, Genesis chapter 31 and verse
36. And Jacob was wroth and chode
with Laban. And Jacob answered and said to
Laban, what is my trespass? What is my sin that thou hast
so hotly pursued after me? Whereas thou hast searched all
my stuff, What hast thou found of all thy household stuff? Set
it here before my brethren and thy brethren, that they may judge
betwixt us both. This twenty years have I been
with thee. Thy ewes and thy she-goats have
not cast their young, and the rams of thy flock have I not
eaten. That which was torn of beasts
I brought not unto thee, I bear the loss of it, Of my hand didst
thou require it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. Thus I was, in the day the drought
consumed me, and the frost by night, and my sleep departed
from mine eyes. Thus have I been twenty years
in thy house. I served thee fourteen years
for thy two daughters, and six years for thy cattle, and thou
hast changed my wages ten times. Except the God of my father,
the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely
thou had sent me away now empty. God hath seen mine affliction,
and the labour of my hands, and rebuked thee yesternight. And
Laban answered and said unto Jacob, These daughters are my
daughters, and these children are my children, and these cattle
are my cattle. and all that thou seest is mine.
And what can I do this day unto these my daughters, or unto their
children, which they have born? Now therefore, come thou, let
us make a covenant, I and thou, and let it be for a witness between
me and thee. And Jacob took a stone and set
it up for a pillar. And Jacob said unto his brethren,
gather stones. And they took stones and made
an heap and they did eat there upon the heap. And Laban called
it Jergash sahaduthah, but Jacob called it Galid. And Laban said,
This heap is a witness between me and thee this day. Therefore
was the name of it called Galid. And Mispah, for he said, The
Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent from one another. If thou shalt afflict my daughters,
or if thou shalt take other wives beside my daughters, no man is
with us. See, God is witness betwixt me
and thee. And Laban said to Jacob, Behold
this heap, and behold this pillar, which I have cast betwixt me
and thee. This heap be witness, and this
pillar be witness, that I will not pass over this heap to thee,
and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar
unto me for harm. The God of Abraham, and the God
of Nahor, the God of their father, judge betwixt us, and Jacob swear
by the fear of his father Isaac. Then Jacob offered sacrifice
upon the mount, and called his brethren to eat bread, and they
did eat bread, and tarried all night in the mount. And early
in the morning Laban rose up, and kissed his sons and his daughters,
and blessed them. And Laban departed, and returned
unto his place. Amen. May the Lord bless this
reading. Jacob, as we have seen, had gathered
his family, his belongings, his flocks, his servants, and he
had begun the long journey back to Canaan, the land of promise,
the land of his birth and his home. He was journeying from
Syria in the north down to the promised land. Laban, however,
his father-in-law, was not prepared to let him go so easily. And
with a band of men, he chased Jacob and would certainly have
done him harm had not the Lord intervened and warned Laban in
a dream that Jacob was under his protection. I wonder how
often the Lord protects us from an unseen danger or a calamity
that we don't even know about. The Lord looks on his people. This is something that's worth
remembering. The Lord looks on his people
and he says, if it isn't for their good, it's not going to
happen. Isn't that a wonderful thought?
If it isn't for their good, it doesn't happen. When Laban was
unable to provide any evidence of Jacob's wrongdoing and confessed
that he knew that the Lord was with Jacob, it seems from the
narrative to embolden Jacob And it seems as if Jacob gives voice
to all the pent-up wrong that had been done to him by Laban
over 20 years. He justifies himself, as it were,
from the ill-treatment that Laban had made of him. And after this
public air of grievances, the men make an agreement to do each
other no harm, to let bygones be bygones, as it were. And the
agreement of the covenant is marked by a raised heap of stones,
a pillar and a heap of stones, and a shared meal, which is often
a picture of fellowship and agreement, a shared meal. And after that,
Laban and the band of men leave Jacob and his family and return
to their homes. We know nothing more from scripture
about this man Laban, about his life or his death, he just disappears
now out of history. And Jacob, we do know about,
we know that he's probably 97 years of age now, and it is his
story that we are continuing to follow in these Bible chapters. It is his history, and it is
the history of God's promises of his dealings with his people
and of the coming saviour that takes our full attention now
and Laban has no more part in that. Have you ever wondered
how many people have lived and died and spent their lives and
gone into eternity? And maybe a few, like Laban,
we learn about in history, we encounter them because they cross
the path of God's people, but most people like that are forgotten. Do you ever think that that in
itself is a reason for you and me to give thanks that the Lord
has been kind and good to us to teach us about the Lord Jesus
Christ. So many people lived and died
and knew nothing about the things of God or the things of Christ. But the Lord has taught you and
me these precious truths. He has brought us to hear the
message of the gospel. and to show us the way of salvation. We are privileged amongst the
millions that have lived and died upon the face of this earth. We are privileged to have heard
these truths spoken, explained and preached to us. Let us not
despise God's mercy in having done that for us. In many ways,
the life of Jacob is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
a picture in the sense that Jacob is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jacob explained the way he had
looked after Laban's sheep all these years. And he cared for
those sheep, even with his own life and his own well-being,
because they had been placed into his charge. He protected
them, He suffered for them, and He gave an account of everyone
that was committed to Him. And that's a lovely picture of
another covenant. Not the covenant made between
Jacob and Laban, but one made between God the Father and God
the Son, by which God's chosen people, by which God's sheep,
the sheep of his flock were placed under the care and responsibility
of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that our Saviour protects
and feeds and leads and even suffered and died for our protection
and for our well-being. Jacob was a mere man looking
after a flock of animals. but the Lord Jesus Christ is
the Son of God, caring for the souls, the eternal well-being
of men and women and boys and girls. As we read these scripture
passages, let us always be on the lookout for examples of the
Lord's goodness and mercy, in type and in picture, as we follow
the history of grace and the faithful promises of our God. Amen.