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almost there. Well, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to Coffee and devotions is where every day you and I we get together we have a little bit of coffee. We get into God's word and we grow in our love and Lord together in this year, Lord willing 2023 We'll make it from the book of Genesis to Leviticus, rich Genesis chapter 29. Right in the middle of the chapter this morning. I'm so glad to be with you. While we have some coffee. We'll pray and we'll get the Lord's word.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you. You woke us up this morning. You gave us a new day. Another opportunity to worship you and praise you to sit at your feet to marvel at your goodness. Lord, we pray that as we read your Word this morning that you would work in our hearts teach us Father. Father, we pray that your spirit would let us see what is written in these words. And that we would understand why they are important and that you would apply them to our lives in Jesus's name, Amen. Alright, so we're at Genesis chapter 29. Genesis chapter 29. And we'll begin at verse 15. And we'll work our way down to verse 30. So Genesis chapter 29. beginning at verse 15, we pick up the story of Jacob trying to find a wife and pedan arome. Then Laban said to Jacob because you are my relative, you should there's four four serve me for nothing. Tell me what's your your wages beam. Now Laban had two daughters. The name of the elder was Leah and the name of the younger was Rachel Lee. His eyes were delicate, but Rachel was beautiful of form and appearance. Now Jacob loved Rachel. So he said I will serve you seven years for Rachel your younger daughter. And Laban said, it is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man. Stay with me. So Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed only a few days to him because of the love he had. For her. Then Jacob said to Laban give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled that I may go into her and leave and gathered together all the men of that place and made a feast. Now it came to pass in the evening that he took Leah his daughter and brought her to Jacob and he went into her. And Laban gave his maiden Zilpha to his daughter Leah as a maid. So it came to pass in the morning that behold it was Leah. And he said to Laban What is this you have done to me? Was it not Rachel that I served you? Why didn't have you deceived me. So in Laban, said, It must not be done so in our country to give the younger before the firstborn, fulfill her week, and we will give you this one also for the service which you will serve me with me. Still another seven years. So Jacob did so unfulfilled her week. So he gave him his daughter Rachel as a wife as also. And Laban gave his maid Bilhah to his daughter, Rachel as a maid. So Jacob went out into sorry, so Jacob went into Rachel and he he also loved Rachel more than Leah. And he served the Laban still another seven years. Well, is this like Bible soap opera time? We need to ask ourselves a What's this about? Be what's the best verses summarize this and see what are we called to do in response to these words? What's this about? Well, the schemer gets schemed. He's been there a month and he wants to get married. And he wants to he's going to work for him and Laban says, what's going to be your wages? And he says, I'll work for you. And I want I want to marry Rebecca. All right. So they they make an agreement. They make a pact. Seven years. He's going to work and he'll let him marry his daughter. And so seems like Jacobs infatuated with Rachel. It says here in verse 20. So Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed only a few days to him because of the love he had for her. He has this like deep love for Rachel. And he works for seven years or like a day doesn't matter. Right. He works seven years for Rachel. It seems he just wants to marry her and then on the wedding night, something happens Laban gathers all his people together. The whole extended family is there there's a huge feast. And then there's there's something odd here that we we might not understand. Remember, when Rebecca saw Isaac for the first time, what did she do? She took a veil, and she covered her face. It's traditional in this part of the area Mesopotamia that what would happen is you would have a veil over your face. And so Jacob is young, and I'm not going to say what comes with Yong Yong and let you finish the phrase. But Jacob is the one who is duped here. Not sure if Laban given him too much wine or whatnot. But he goes that night and he marries who he thinks is Rebecca the love of his life and he wakes up in the morning and he's done the deed to consummate the marriage and it is not the woman that he thought he was marrying. It's Lea the older so he goes to labor and he's mad, right? He's been schemed. He says, What have you done to me? Right? I worked for Rachel not for Leah. He didn't know who he was marrying. And now he's married a woman. He didn't love as much didn't love and so he's going to come into play through this entire relationship. And what we're going to find is that Laban says, wow, it's just custom. You have to marry the older and then I'll give you the younger sisters. Right now. Not the best. Not polygamy is not right at all and marrying Sisters is probably not the best idea even if I'm there are stories are stories of people who will be married to a woman, and then she dies. And then as he's a widow, or widower who married the sister. I'm not sure how that would work. And we're going to find out that this causes a lot of problems for Jacob. And so he gives Leah her honeymoon week cares for her those seven days and then afterwards there's another wedding and he gets Rachel but he's under contract. Now again, for another seven years. And so now Jacob has gone from being a bachelor to being a polygamous and also having two different servants, ladies and keeping that he has to care for as well. So he's got four women. Now he's in charge of quite the change of responsibility for Jacob. He's gonna find himself in a desperate need for provision and for building up his own estate. But he's been schemed i This is a mess. Up story. Deceit, polygamy, there's, again. Sometimes people will come to the Bible. And they've been told a whole bunch about the Bible. But they haven't actually picked up the words themselves and read and so they come to stories like this and they're like, Man, this is messed up. Really, this is a type of story and the type of God and this is exactly why I wanted to go through these with you. Because this isn't surprising. sinful people do sinful stuff. That doesn't excuse their behavior. But what is God doing God is working through in his providence, even sinful people like Laban and Jacob to pray about his covenant promises. The Lord has promised Jacob he was going to make him into a nation that his descendants would be more than the dust of the earth. And he's going to even do it through hard Providence
he's going to be schemed and even in that God is going to bless him
with multiplying his descendants is this the way that we would want things to go? Absolutely not. Because the Lord omniscient, knowing all things and knowing how to work and even the sovereign through all this, absolutely. Because the Lord is keeping his promises. The Lord is doing these things as he has promised He is bringing about his covenant. He's making sure that he's going to build a people for Himself, a holy nation, a royal priesthood, and he's going to bring one day, one of the seeds from this line that's going to crush the head of the serpent. So this is the continuation of that story of God's covenant faithfulness, his promises going through and now we found that Jacob has not just found Laban we were not guaranteed yesterday that Laban would want Jacob to marry his daughter. He needed to spend a month with him. And now after a month, he says, Alright, I will but you got to work for it. And he shows that he's committed to it and he does work for it. The Lord is faithful. He does find a wife but now he's got two wives as a problem say the least. We'll find out that it causes all sorts of problems. But the Lord is bringing about his promises. It's his ins. And he uses even the Fallen means of this world to bring about his glory. Well, what's the best verses summarizes? Well, in my Bible, I have verse 20, double underlined. Right. So Jacob serves seven years for Rachel and they seem to only a few days to him because of the love he had for her. And then I also have in my Bible, verse 28, underlined words so he gave him his daughter, Rachel, as a wife also. Pardon he when that happens, and then lastly, I have the middle part of verse 30, underline
and he also loved Rachel more than Leah. That's going to come up more in a little bit. Well, what
are we called to do? How does this apply to your life? Well, do you trust God? The Lord is doing all sorts of things in your life that
in my life, I don't understand things I don't like. Or third people close to me who have died. friends who have turned their backs, deals that have fallen through and there's all sorts of things that happen in our lives that are painful. Hard we get schemed. And then we might ask ourselves, God, I am I really worthy of these types of like of your covenant of your blessing? It could you actually work through a sinful person like me? Well, yeah, he does. And he is on his throne and he is provident, he is sovereign. He is controlling all these things, for his own end for His glory. And if we're in crisis for good even those hard things that happened to us, even those things that are sinful, we're we're the victims of the Lord is a God of justice than just as mine I will repay says the Lord. So we need not take on that wrath on ourselves. But yet, we're going to keep finding out in the story time and time and time again. Yehovah is sovereign. And no people might mean things evil for us. The Lord means it for good. Trust in Him. Humble yourself under his hand and I pray that he might strengthen you. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for Jesus Christ. We say that almost after every time we read these words, no matter what part of the scriptures we're in, but it's true. We thank you for your covenant. Promises and your covenant faithfulness. That you have worked through people to bring about your glory. Father, we pray that we would follow after you. We pray that we would hope and you would pray that we would have hope and have faith that would be unmovable that we might abound in our love in Jesus Christ. In his name we pray, Amen. Almighty that great shepherd of the sheep care for you. May he be with you both in the valley of the shadow of death. When you're suffering pains and heart aches in your life and they you rejoice always. I'll see you tomorrow. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai