Genesis 31:42 | Counting Sheep

If you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it and turn it to the book of Genesis. Genesis is the first book in the Bible. If you don't have a Bible, you could go ahead and use the pew Bible that's in front of you. Or you could reach over to another pew that's in front of you. If you don't have a Bible and you're using that pew Bible in front of you, we would love for you to just be able to keep that Bible. Consider that our gift to you. We would love for you to be able to have a copy of God's Word that you could read for yourself. We'll be looking at chapters 30 and 31. Those will be the big numbers there in the book of Genesis.

I will not be reading this entire section right now. Instead, I will be reading part of Genesis chapter 31, just chapter 31. I'll be reading from verses 17 to 21. Genesis chapter 31, verses 17 to 21 says this:

So Jacob got up and put his children and wives on the camels. He took all the livestock and possessions he had acquired in Paddan-aram, and he drove his herds to go to the land of Canaan, to his father Isaac. When Laban had gone to shear his sheep, Rachel stole her father’s household idols. And Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean, not telling him that he was fleeing. He fled with all his possessions, crossed the Euphrates, and headed for the hill country of Gilead. — Genesis 31:17-21 (CSB)

Let's pray. Lord, we pray, even as we read this story about desperate times in Jacob's life, we pray, Lord, that you would help us to be sober-minded in our own. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. All of us will face difficulties in life: pressures, anxiety, maybe even panic. Where do you turn when desperation hits? Jacob had been living his life away from his home country with his uncle Laban for a long time, living a relatively comfortable life. And yet, when he turns to finally obey the Lord's commands to return home, he finds himself faced with many different kinds of challenges. In light of those challenges, in light of that pressure, he turns not towards the Lord, but towards superstition, his own selfish strategies, even idols themselves.

Reading this story, we're able on one hand to see God's providential hand in orchestrating even mess to accomplish his own purposes. We also see the false gospel that superstitions and our own selfishness can provide. And so as we look at this story, kind of in two parts, as we look at chapter 30 and chapter 31, we're going to see two things. First, we're going to see the deficiency of superstitious self-reliance: using superstitions to rely on yourself. And second, we're going to see the deficiency of superstitious lies, as we see them covering up idolatry.

The Deficiency of Superstitious Self-Reliance

At this point, we will start with point number one: superstitious self-reliance. Let's turn back to chapter 30 and read verse 25.

After Rachel gave birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me on my way so that I can return to my homeland. Give me my wives and my children that I have worked for, and let me go. You know how hard I have worked for you.” But Laban said to him, “If I have found favor with you, stay. I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you.” Then Laban said, “Name your wages, and I will pay them.” — Genesis 30:25-28 (CSB)

Last week, we saw this chaotic mess where you have Rachel and Leah as sister-wives competing with one another by having children. And after Jacob's favorite wife, Rachel, gives birth to what will be his favorite son, Joseph, suddenly Jacob is reminded of home. He's realized what he needs to do in order to establish himself, his own family, his own legacy. So he decides, it's time to return back to his homeland. And so he approaches his uncle Laban again.

Now, the last time he negotiated with Laban, Laban scammed him by making him work seven years, swapping out the wife that he was supposed to marry, and then making him work another seven years in order to marry Rachel. Jacob has stayed and worked for a long time afterwards for six years, following those 14 years that he spent working for Laban's family. And Laban recognizes this hard work—not just the hard work, but the great results. He acknowledges that through divination, the Lord has blessed him because of Jacob. That's a weird thing to say. Divination would be like the equivalent of using tarot cards or horoscopes today. It's a weird thing for Laban to say to Jacob, but he says it to underline the fact that Laban is a pagan. You could call him Laban the pagan.

His flocks have multiplied; he's doing well financially. And he uses the ancient Near Eastern equivalent of the horoscopes to figure out that Yahweh, the God of Abraham, has been blessing Laban because of Jacob. And while that isn't the primary point of the passage, I do think that it's worth noting that that's a common experience for those of us who are Christians, that people would see the success that we bear. Not because we believe in a prosperity gospel, where God guarantees success if you trust in the Lord, but because God tends to bless earnest efforts to be faithful in our work.

If you think about what the Gospel does in our lives, the metric of a Christian's job or their work isn't based on passing the bare minimum for the maximum pay so that we could get to other priorities in life. We understand that the work that we do as Christians is an extension of all that the Lord is doing in our lives. We don't work primarily to please our boss. We don't work primarily to please our husbands or our parents. We work because we understand that God wants us to do it. And when you do that, you tend to work harder. And when you work harder, the Lord tends to bless it. And the Lord does indeed love to bless his people. Any favor that we receive in life is an extension of our providential God giving generously to his children.

And so Jacob then uses that as a leveraging tactic to negotiate with his uncle. You can see that in verse 29.

So Jacob said to him, “You know how I have served you and how your herds have fared with me. For you had very little before I came, but now your wealth has increased. The Lord has blessed you because of me. And now, when will I also do something for my own family?” Laban asked, “What should I give you?” And Jacob said, “You don’t need to give me anything. If you do this one thing for me, I will continue to shepherd and keep your flock. Let me go through all your sheep today and remove every sheep that is speckled or spotted, every dark-colored sheep among the lambs, and the spotted and speckled among the female goats. Such will be my wages. In the future when you come to check on my wages, my honesty will testify for me. If I have any female goats that are not speckled or spotted, or any lambs that are not black, they will be considered stolen.” “Good,” said Laban. “Let it be as you have said.” That day Laban removed the streaked and spotted male goats and all the speckled and spotted female goats—every one that had any white on it—and every dark-colored one among the lambs, and he placed his sons in charge of them. He put a three-day journey between himself and Jacob. Jacob, meanwhile, was shepherding the rest of Laban’s flock. — Genesis 30:29-36 (CSB)

Jacob reiterates the blessing of what the Lord had done. In chapter 29, you may remember Rachel coming down with Laban's sheep to water them and let them graze in the field. And in chapter 29, Laban had a flock, right? One set of sheep that Rachel's in charge of. Now in chapter 30, verse 29, Laban's got herds, right? His sheep have literally multiplied. And Jacob says, "Don't give me much, just let me take the blemish sheep, the ones that aren't pure, the ones that aren't as valuable, and I'll get on my way." And while Jacob insists on his own honesty, his own reliability, Laban then responds dishonestly.

Laban the pagan agrees to this deal, and then he immediately takes all the speckled sheep, all the spotted ones, all the ones that would go to Jacob, and he gives them to his sons and sends them further away. Because Laban's greed has no bottom to it, it has no end. Every single time he's showed up in this story, he grabs for more. Whether it's Abraham's servant coming and giving him tons of gold for Rebekah and he tries to convince that servant to stick around, whether it's Laban telling Jacob that he can marry Rachel while giving him Leah, whether it's now offering just a small portion of his blemish flock—Laban wants more. He's received more from Jacob than he could possibly dream of, and yet he's able to dream of more. He uses this loophole to try to keep everything and give Jacob nothing.

So not only does Laban fleece Jacob of decades of his own life, he also tries to fleece him of whatever payment they agreed to make. He separates the flock with three days' distance; no chance that these speckled sheep can breed with anyone else to give birth to more speckled or spotted sheep. He is completely cutting off the supply. So Jacob is left with nothing. This is what we would call evil, right? To coerce labor without pay, or worse, to promise pay and then withhold it from people, is evil. And Jacob became a slave to Laban. That's what you see with the pattern of him working for Laban for seven years. He's becoming an indentured servant or a slave to Laban. And Laban demands more. And now afterwards, he leaves him with nothing.

Friends, that's exactly how idols work. As the saying goes, "Sin will take you farther than you want to go, will keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay." Laban consistently shows that his greed is not worth relying on. And yet you and I fall for those false promises from our idols all the time. When I was five, my parents had a rule where we couldn't play our Game Boy Colors except on the weekends. And my sister would wake me up every single moment during a weekday and tell me, "Hey, you should go to Mom, wake her up and ask whether you could play video games. There's a chance she may say yes." And I was like, what a brilliant plan, you know. I went, I would wake her up, and then I would get disciplined, right? I would cry. And then the next morning, you know what my sister would do? She would wake me up, tell me, "You should go wake Mom up." And I did it every day for like two years.

We fall for sin's promises of better, of ease, of fulfilling our selfish desires, the promise of 30 minutes playing Pokémon Gold. And yet their words and their work do not align. Don't think about whether or not the promise of sin exists. Ask whether or not it's actually true. You will hear lots of things from your idols. You'll hear plenty of promises with words, deals that will be literally too good to be true. The question isn't whether or not sin's promises are better than God's promises. The question is whether or not what sin promises you is even going to happen. It's part of the reason why we have to be serious and sober-minded about our sin, why we want to be serious about membership and discipline at this church. Because sin lies to you. It's seductive.

And we need contrasting voices. When sin whispers in our ear, tells us that that deal can actually pull through for you, or that promise may work out for you, at least for a little bit of time, where you can follow sin a little bit of the way and then turn back whenever you'd like, you need contrasting voices of sanity to be able to speak into that seduction, to address it face-on, to be able to dissect its promises and to show that Satan is a liar. The very first sin happened because Satan lied: "You will become like God." And Eve does the exact opposite.

Jacob recognizes the deception that Laban conducts. You can imagine how upset Jacob would be in realizing that all that he had worked for for 20 years was a waste. And instead of responding with righteousness, he responds by his own superstitious vengeance. You can see that in verse 37.

Jacob then took branches of fresh poplar, almond, and plane wood, and peeled the bark, exposing white stripes on the branches. He set the peeled branches in the troughs in front of the sheep—in the water channels where the sheep came to drink. And the sheep bred when they came to drink. The flocks bred in front of the branches and bore streaked, speckled, and spotted young. Jacob separated the lambs and made the flocks face the streaked sheep and the completely dark sheep in Laban’s flocks. Then he set his own stock apart and didn’t put them with Laban’s sheep. Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob placed the branches in the troughs, in full view of the flocks, and they would breed in front of the branches. As for the weaklings of the flocks, he did not put out the branches. So it turned out that the weak sheep belonged to Laban and the stronger ones to Jacob. And the man became very rich. He had many flocks, female and male slaves, and camels and donkeys. — Genesis 30:37-43 (CSB)

Jacob's response to Laban's scam is for him to bust out tree branches: poplar, almond, plane wood. Jacob resorts to this kind of bizarre idea of taking these superstitious, mystic, magical branches. And notice how much detail goes into this elaborate process. These branches are all striped or spotted. Jacob thinks that if he takes these branches, peels them, puts them into the water so that they're soaked with this branch water, the sheep would drink it, and then they would have babies with each other, and these sheep would bear spotted sheep. That's his strategy. That's his plan. And let me just ask you, is that how it works? No. I mean, most of us remember the little weird two-by-two square thing that we saw in seventh-grade science. That's not how it works, right? You can't just put branches in water and then get streaked or spotted sheep. And I don't think people in that day would have much confidence in this behavior either.

What Jacob is doing here is engaging in a superstitious scheme to manifest his own will into existence. He thinks that he could somehow manufacture this result in getting a bunch of streaked and spotted sheep out for him, because he thinks that his actions, his efforts, his work can result in his own blessing. We do this all the time where you can mix up God's results with our own behavior. Did you know that in third-world countries, there was this interesting phenomenon that happened in the last 50 years where you would have these planes that would fly by different indigenous populations that are largely difficult to get to because of travel or because planes aren't able to land? And so there were these tribes that would then clear out runways so that planes can land and then different people would come and bring medical supplies for missionaries or other efforts. And some of these tribes caught on to the fact that these planes would come and give material that was extremely valuable and rare for them in life. And you know what they did? They started making fake planes out of their own wood. Like beautiful, life-size models that they made with their own wood, that they chopped themselves to make and kind of lay out in the fields, thinking that is what will draw the people to come and give them this valuable material. And you know how effective that was? Not effective. Because they thought that their actions could result in certain results. This is the same thing that's happening here. Same thing with Rachel's obsession with mandrakes, thinking that the mandrakes are the key to getting her pregnant.

Jacob is banking on these branches to get him to obtain sheep for himself. Not only that, he so believes in this strategy, he is using his superstitious strategy along with selective breeding: "I will only put out the branches with the strong sheep. I will withhold them from the weak sheep" in order to ensure that he gets all of the best according to his own rules. And all of that effort does nothing, because tree branches do not affect your DNA. There is a reason though why these sheep come out streaked and spotted, which is that God did it. God did it. That's the ironic thing about this entire story with all this detail and all this effort that Jacob is putting in is that Laban the pagan recognizes that Yahweh is the reason why Jacob was blessed. And yet when Jacob feels threatened that he's going to lose everything, he thinks, "I got to do something about this." When his back is up against the wall, he chooses to turn back to his own superstitious self-reliance.

And the same thing can happen to us. When the world backs you into a corner, when there are times where you're supposed to have greater reliance on the Lord, we panic. We could try to will our own futures into existence, to map out a game plan for every single permutation and what the future may bring. Stressing out about whether or not the S&P 500 is going to rise or fall. Making impulse decisions that we think are going to net us a profit or make us just a little bit more secure. But all of us know from experience, amassing more power or more security doesn't actually make you feel more secure at all. And I know that because most of us were less worried when we were five years old. More power just leads to more problems. What ultimately determines whether or not we'll be okay isn't whether or not we've enforced our will, but whether we've submitted ourselves to God's good will and his purpose, whether or not we're focused on remaining faithful to him.

The tragedy of all of Jacob's efforts is that if God wanted to demonstrate his faithfulness to us, it wouldn't be because of some superstitious strategy that we employed. Right? That's true for us as a church. If this church grows, if this church is blessed, if this church grows in godliness, it won't be because we blitzed this neighborhood with carnivals and zip lines. It won't be because we made efforts to draw a crowd or because of our advertisement strategy. What's going to let this church grow in health is whether or not the Lord provides for us, whether or not God cares according to his own providential provision. I mean, imagine if Jacob found out that Laban scammed him. Instead of acting the way he does detailed in this story, he trusted in the Lord's provision. Imagine if Jacob just continued to do what he was already doing. And then all the strongest sheep of all of these purebred flocks still gave birth to the best spotted and speckled sheep that anyone could possibly imagine. Wouldn't that have brought God more glory? Wouldn't that have revealed the abundant blessings of God? And yet instead Jacob tried once again to force his own blessing through his own will. And as a result, Jacob never gets to see the way that God was going to care for him anyway. And it leads to genuine strife between him and his uncle. That's superstitious self-reliance.

Superstitious Lies and Idolatry

Second point: superstitious lies. Look at chapter 31, verse 1.

Now Jacob heard what Laban’s sons were saying: “Jacob has taken all that was our father’s and has built this wealth from what belonged to our father.” And Jacob saw from Laban’s face that his attitude toward him was not the same as before. The Lord said to him, “Go back to the land of your ancestors and to your family, and I will be with you.” — Genesis 31:1-3 (CSB)

Laban and his sons act different around Jacob. I mean, you could imagine why things would be different. Because whenever you add money into the relationship, you are no longer family. You are business partners. Or worse, in this case, you are competitors. And Jacob in their minds has taken advantage of them because of his actions. And so God tells him, "It is time to go." Observe the comfort that God gives him there. He tells him to go, that God will be with him, just like he promised in Bethel, God will be with him wherever he goes.

So then Jacob gathers his wives, tells them about this news that he's about to leave. But he changes this message. Remember what the Lord said in verse 3? Let's read from verse 4.

Jacob had Rachel and Leah called to the field where his flocks were. He said to them, “I can see from your father’s face that his attitude toward me is not the same as before, but the God of my father has been with me. You know that with all my strength I have served your father and that he has cheated me and changed my wages ten times. But God has not let him harm me. If he said, ‘The spotted sheep will be your wages,’ then all the sheep were born spotted. If he said, ‘The streaked sheep will be your wages,’ then all the sheep were born streaked. God has taken away your father’s herds and given them to me. “When the flocks were breeding, I saw in a dream that the streaked, spotted, and speckled males were mating with the females. In that dream the angel of God said to me, ‘Jacob!’ and I said, ‘Here I am.’ And he said, ‘Look up and see: all the males that are mating with the flocks are streaked, spotted, and speckled, for I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you. I am the God of Bethel, where you poured oil on the stone marker and made a solemn vow to me. Get up, leave this land, and return to your native land.’” Then Rachel and Leah answered him, “Do we have any portion or inheritance in our father’s family? Are we not regarded by him as outsiders? For he has sold us and has certainly spent our purchase price. In fact, all the wealth that God has taken away from our father belongs to us and to our children. So do whatever God has said to you.” — Genesis 31:4-16 (CSB)

This is some real beef. Jacob tells his wives something different than what God told him. In fact, there's three things that Jacob is doing here to twist God's message. You remember how simple God's message is in verse 3? It says, "Get your stuff and go and I'll be with you." Jacob doesn't say that.

For one, he makes much of Laban's wrongdoing. Notice that he claims that Laban has changed his wages 10 times. Now, I don't know if that's indicative of times that we don't see in the story that were legitimately happening to him. What I do know is that the reason why Jacob is listing 10 times is because he is keeping record of every single wrong. You ever do that? You fight with someone, and suddenly all the laundry lists of the previous decades come out all at once? That's what Jacob is doing. He's trying to make Laban look evil. At the very least, he is emphasizing. Most likely, he is exaggerating the deception of his uncle. I mean, it is easy to take those who legitimately harm you, that actually did wrong to you. And for you to take that wrongdoing and then take it further than reality, to vilify, to take their portrait and start drawing devil's horns around their ears so that you can talk evil about them. But their sinful actions do not justify our slander.

The second thing, in addition to making much of Laban's wrongdoing, is that Jacob minimizes his own wrongdoing. He gives credit to God for the spotted and speckled sheep. But you notice what he left out? All the stuff that he did in chapter 30, right? All the work that he did with his branches and trying to make something for himself. He curiously leaves out all his own efforts to earn himself these flocks. He makes it sound like he was just sitting back and God just happened to justify him and show by evidence that he's in the right. And by doing so, he just so happens to skip over all the desperation and faithlessness that he was demonstrating in the previous chapter. It's easy to fixate on other people's mistakes while glossing over your own. But this omission of accountability is still selfish.

And third, in addition to making much of Laban's sin, in addition to minimizing his own, he modifies what God said. Jacob tells his wives that God has seen all of the injustices of Laban and to return back to his land. Except that's not what God has commanded, right? Jacob does quote what God commanded, to go back, but he adds his own little editorial flourish. This is Jacob on the football field versus Laban, adding Bible verses to his cheeks as he goes out to compete. He's saying, "God is on my side." But more than that, he attributes his feelings to God's words. "God said to me" is really dangerous territory. I would encourage you never to say, "God said to me" if you can't chapter and verse that thing. Because as Jeremiah 17 tells us, "the heart is deceitful beyond all understanding." And Jacob seems to take God's words here. And because of his visceral, passionate conviction in the moment, he's willing to exaggerate them to fit his own perception of the situation, to spiritualize his own perception of events.

And Rachel and Leah take this message hook, line, and sinker. They accept, they vilify their dad, they recognize that God's behind Jacob, and they say, "We will do anything you tell us. Let's go." They take Jacob's distorted message wholeheartedly. Most likely because this message is exactly what Rachel and Leah wanted to hear, right? You can see their own venom, their own bitterness coming out because of the way that their dad didn't love their husband. Also, the way that their dad treated them. And it feels good to accept that kind of message, right? To assume that the other side is absolutely evil and your side is absolutely good. And yet we shouldn't be asking just whether or not it feels right, but whether or not it's actually true. Real Christian maturity is often measured. It's often careful to make much of your own failures, right? While recognizing in a measured, balanced way the genuine wrongdoing of other people. It's not dishonest, but it's humble. Don't drag the Almighty into your mudslinging.

The Confrontation and Hidden Idols

This conflict comes to a head in the next section. Read with me from verse 17.

So Jacob got up and put his children and wives on the camels. He took all the livestock and possessions he had acquired in Paddan-aram, and he drove his herds to go to the land of Canaan, to his father Isaac. When Laban had gone to shear his sheep, Rachel stole her father’s household idols. And Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean, not telling him that he was fleeing. He fled with all his possessions, crossed the Euphrates, and headed for the hill country of Gilead. On the third day Laban was told that Jacob had fled. So he took his relatives with him, pursued Jacob for seven days, and overtook him in the hill country of Gilead. But God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream at night. “Watch yourself!” God warned him. “Don’t say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.” When Laban overtook Jacob, Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban and his relatives also pitched their tents in the hill country of Gilead. Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done? You have deceived me and taken my daughters away like prisoners of war! Why did you secretly flee from me, deceive me, and not tell me? I would have sent you away with joy and singing, with tambourines and lyres, but you didn’t even let me kiss my grandchildren and my daughters. You have acted foolishly. I could do you great harm, but last night the God of your father said to me, ‘Watch yourself! Don’t say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.’ Now you have gone off because you long for your father’s family—but why have you stolen my gods?” Jacob answered, “I was afraid, for I thought you would take your daughters from me by force. If you find your gods with anyone here, he will not live! Before our relatives, point out anything that is yours and take it.” Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the idols. — Genesis 31:17-32 (CSB)

Jacob's escape plan moves quickly. He grabs all his family, his possessions, he flees. Laban finds out and he chases Jacob. Now normally, this is the kind of visceral chase that would take up more time in the story. You could picture the movie action scene as Jacob and his family are all fleeing towards Gilead. And then you see Laban and all of his forces following and chasing and gaining on them. But Moses doesn't focus in on that. He basically fast-forwards to the point where they're both there. Both are pitching tents in the same area, which means that this conflict is about to go down. Instead, God warns Laban, "Don't say anything to Jacob, good or bad." In other words, shut your mouth.

And Laban goes out, he sees Jacob, and the words just spill out of him. "What have you done? Why did you deceive me? I treated you well. You won't even let me say goodbye. I could harm you, but your father's God told me not to." Which, by the way, "Why did you steal my gods?" And Jacob's answer is because I was afraid. Why focus on this conversation? Why zoom in on this dialogue? Because Jacob's answer reveals the state of Jacob's heart. You know that it says that they were afraid. You know where in the Bible it also says that people are afraid leading to hiding and fleeing? The Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve, right? When God asks, "Where are you?" Adam responds by saying, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid." Jacob looks at Laban and says, "I was afraid." And of course, Jacob was afraid. He was hiding in his own methods, his own sin. The same shadiness that he was trying to enact with these branches and giving birth to these sheep. He also does with his leaving. And Laban asks, "What have you done?" Which is the exact same thing that God asks Eve in Genesis 3. It's really interesting to me that Laban asks, "What have you done?" Not to the woman, but to the man. Because in Genesis 31, Laban is asking the husband. And Jacob is just a piece of a bigger picture. Laban asks Jacob, "Why have you taken my idols?" And Jacob has no idea what he's talking about. He has no idea. In fact, he says, "If anyone is found with these idols, they should die." Because he wasn't the one who enacted that stealing. He wasn't the thief. It was Rachel who steals her father's household idols. Turns out that Laban should have been interrogating the woman, just like God did: "What have you done?" Jacob, however, is confident in his innocence. He tells Laban, "You could search whatever you'd like."

And this is what Laban does in verse 33.

So Laban went into Jacob’s tent, Leah’s tent, and the tents of the two concubines, but he found nothing. When he left Leah’s tent, he went into Rachel’s tent. Now Rachel had taken Laban’s household idols, put them in the saddlebag of the camel, and sat on them. Laban searched the whole tent but found nothing. She said to her father, “Don’t be angry, my lord, that I cannot stand up in your presence; I am having my period.” So Laban searched, but could not find the household idols. — Genesis 31:33-35 (CSB)

I want you to pay attention to the placement of these idols. Because this story is as gross as it sounded. It is that nasty. Rachel is hiding the idols by sitting on them. And she tells her dad that she's having her period. So imagine Rachel having her period, sitting on her idols. What that would result with those idols. That's pretty gross. And that's exactly the picture that we are supposed to have towards all idols: defiled, disgusting, depraved. The impurity that comes from her period. Leviticus would talk about how if someone was going through their menstrual cycle, they were actually supposed to remove themselves so that they don't defile anyone else. In this case, Rachel is making direct contact with these household idols of her uncles. And yet she hides them and takes them with her because Jacob is not the only one who's superstitious. Rachel is committing idolatry as well. In fact, she's so buried in her own idolatry, she is willing to defile herself by hiding idols with her own defilement. You see the picture of what's happening? Rachel's defiling the idols, the idols are defiling her, and by extension, these idols will defile her entire family line for generations.

I don't know if you're hiding any idols in your life today. But let me tell you, if you are hiding sin in your life, you are doing the exact same thing Rachel is doing. These idols take grip of Israel's heart for centuries. And we're no exception. Because just because nobody knows about your sin doesn't mean that your sin isn't defiling you. Just because the IRS doesn't call doesn't make you not morally bankrupt. Just because you have a clear browser history doesn't mean that the book of judgment hasn't logged every single sin. Just because we aren't caught doesn't mean that we aren't corrupt. Rachel sits on these idols to try to hide her sin.

Covenant and Conclusion

Jacob, however, is filled with self-justified anger. You can see him pop off in verse 36.

Then Jacob became incensed and brought charges against Laban. “What is my crime?” he said to Laban. “What is my sin, that you have pursued me? You’ve searched all my possessions! Have you found anything of yours? Put it here before my relatives and yours, and let them decide between the two of us. I’ve been with you these twenty years. Your ewes and female goats have not miscarried, and I have not eaten the rams from your flock. I did not bring you any of the flock torn by wild beasts; I myself bore the loss. You demanded payment from me for what was stolen by day or by night. There I was—the heat consumed me by day and the frost by night, and sleep fled from my eyes. For twenty years in your household I served you—fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flocks—and you have changed my wages ten times! If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, certainly now you would have sent me off empty-handed. But God has seen my affliction and my hard work, and he issued his verdict last night.” — Genesis 31:36-42 (CSB)

Jacob tells Laban off. You could just see the weight coming off of his chest as he's just Ramboing Laban with his words. He claims that the Lord has issued this verdict. Look at Laban's response in the very beginning of verse 43.

Then Laban answered Jacob, “The daughters are my daughters; the children, my children; and the flocks, my flocks! Everything you see is mine! But what can I do today for these daughters of mine or for the children they have borne? Come now, let’s make a covenant, you and I. Let it be a witness between the two of us.” So Jacob picked out a stone and set it up as a marker. Then Jacob said to his relatives, “Gather stones.” And they took stones and made a mound, then ate there by the mound. Laban named the mound Jegar-sahadutha, but Jacob named it Galeed. Then Laban said, “This mound is a witness between you and me today.” Therefore the place was called Galeed and also Mizpah, for he said, “May the Lord watch between you and me when we are out of each other’s sight. If you mistreat my daughters or take other wives, though no one is with us, understand that God will be a witness between you and me.” Laban also said to Jacob, “Look at this mound and the marker I have set up between you and me. This mound is a witness and the marker is a witness that I will not pass beyond this mound to you, and you will not pass beyond this mound and this marker to do me harm. The God of Abraham, and the gods of Nahor—the gods of their father—will judge between us.” And Jacob swore by the Fear of his father Isaac. Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain and invited his relatives to eat a meal. So they ate a meal and spent the night on the mountain. Laban got up early in the morning, kissed his grandchildren and daughters, and blessed them. Then Laban left to return home. — Genesis 31:43-55 (CSB)

This conflict is ended by covenant. They make this covenant, a marker dividing the land between the Promised Land and the land that belonged to Aram. After all, did you notice all the times in the story that Laban is referred to as Laban the Aramean? Right? Trying to emphasize he's not part of the Promised Land. He belongs to the land of Aram. That's his land. And it's because this past dispute is informing Israel of their borders as they prepare to enter into the Promised Land. In fact, this covenant is indicative of more than just an agreement between two petty men that are having disagreements about their flocks. Jacob is literally named Israel later, right? Jacob's enslaved to a pagan ruler where he works for him. He looks at this pagan leader and he says, "Let me go." The man agrees but then tries to take advantage of Israel, to which God then protects and provides for Israel so that they may escape. But the family of Israel has hidden pagan idols and carried them with them as they travel back into the land. You start to see the picture that Moses is trying to paint here in chapters 30 and 31? It's not just about Israel, the man. It's about Israel the nation.

And even the covenant agreement that Jacob and Laban are making with each other here has a warning of mixed motivations. Jacob is swearing by Yahweh. Laban swears by his own gods. Was he trying to make clear? Laban's gods are not your gods. They are not for you. They have never been for you. That's why Laban is willing to swear by the gods of Nahor. In verse 53, it says that "the God of Abraham and the Gods of Nahor will judge between them." This is not like covenants before. This covenant is a mixture of a pantheon of different gods here. A superstitious covenant for superstitious people. A bag of mixed motivations. And thankfully here in verse 53 at the very end, Jacob finally manages to make a good decision. He swears by the fear of Isaac. He leaves out these other gods. He rejects Nahor's gods.

You see the point of this whole story? Don't worship idols. That's the idea. You are not to worship idols, whether it's superstitious methodology, superstitious invocations, or literal superstitious idols. Do not trust in anything that isn't God alone. Because the nature of purity, of loyalty is that you cannot mix in a little infidelity. You cannot justify adultery by saying that you were faithful like 99.9% of the time. You cannot say that your food is pure, you mix in a little bit of garbage in it. And you cannot mix the sacred with the superstitious. The nature of the word sacred means that it's separate. It's clean, set apart. Even the smallest hidden sins will stain your soul with impurity. To God, there is one standard: complete devotion, complete purity, complete loyalty.

And yet this stain of sin infects us all. Romans 3 tells us that "we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God." We are all stained with our own selfishness, our lies, our self-reliance. All of us sitting in this room are defiled. And what we need is not the opportunity to sit on our idols and pretend that everything's okay. What we need is true cleansing, true forgiveness. A true covenant. The only thing that could end the endless conflict that we have between God and us is if God makes a covenant with us.

And the good news of the Gospel is that Jesus provides exactly that. That in the midst of our sin, Jesus came to the earth to renew us and to make us new. Jesus was completely pure. He never sinned. He never committed unrighteousness. He was always completely honest and true. Even when he has his own disciples betray him, he doesn't devolve to their level. He doesn't devolve into petty disputes. He trusts in God alone. And the miracle of Christ was unlike anything in the world. Because in the world, if you are pure and you touch something defiled like Rachel did, you become defiled. But Jesus, when he touched something that was defiled, he didn't become defiled. The defiled became clean.

I love the picture of the unclean woman who continued to have this defiling period for 12 years, where she was unable to touch or be around anything. And when she moves to touch Christ, when she touches Jesus, she becomes clean. She becomes pure. Because the good news of the Gospel doesn't start with our loyalty, but God's love. Jacob says that if anyone is found with Laban's idols, they will not live. And Christ who deserved to live, takes on the punishment of our infidelity on himself, on the cross. Silent before his accusers. He bears the penalty of sin in our place. He rose from the dead to end sin forever. And by paying that penalty for sin, by with his own blood, he redeems us and makes a new covenant with us where he can take all the possessions of God, every inheritance and blessing that comes from heaven. And rather than just claiming it as his own, he can offer it to us as adopted sons and daughters of the Almighty God.

You can be here today and you can have all the memories of the past, of past gripes, past regrets. I want to encourage you not to get distracted by that, the way that Jacob or Laban did. The point isn't what you did. The question is, what will you do today? Will you trust in Christ? Will you place your everlasting hope in him? In his blood applied for you. Because anything that you touch will be utterly defiled. Anything that you do will never be pure enough, will never be good enough. You will resort to every petty method that will not provide for you. And yet someone else poured out their blood for you. When you touch his blood, you could be completely cleansed and stand righteous before a holy, good God. As Corrie Ten Boom said, "You could look within and be depressed. You could look without and be distressed, or you could look at Christ and be at rest." True forgiveness, true vindication, true rest only comes from the God of Abraham, the Fear of Isaac who puts our superstitions to rest because he gives us something real with his supernatural grace. Let's pray. Lord, we do pray that you would help us to loosen our grip from all that the world seeks to give, to deceive us. Help us to kill idols in our hearts. Help us to kill false promises or fake or useless strategies. Help us to trust in Christ alone. And we do thank you, Lord, that even while we were wretched, you saw us in our sin and you've redeemed us with your redeeming blood. We pray that you will help us to trust in that now, in Jesus' name. Amen.