Genesis 29:31-30:24

There it is.

Okay.

I always get on to everybody about not doing the mics right and I mess it up to you.

All right, if you open your Bible with me in the book of Genesis chapter number 29.

Genesis chapter 29, verse 31 is where we'll be starting.

And we'll go down to chapter 30, verse number 24.

I'm sorry about the mini verses, but that's the story.

So we'll be reading a lot of that.

And I want you to notice the title of

the message today.

God's that the days of God's rogue's life.

And that should ring a bell, especially for some of you, older folk,

which is most of us, to be honest.

You might recognize that, and you'll see why in a 2nd.

And with that, I'll give a disclaimer.

We're in the Old Testament, and then the author of the

Old Testament books inspired by the Holy Spirit

tells things like they are.

And so this is a PG-13 passage

that I've tried to make PG.

So if you get offended by the content

of the text, I can't help you, but Philip can.

So...

All right, Geneson.

Hey, would that work?

Genesis 29, 31.

God's word says now the Lord saw that Leia

was unloved, and he opened her wound, but Rachel was barren.

Leia conceived and bore a son and named

him Reuben, for she said, because the Lord has seen my affliction,

Surely now my husband will love me.

Then she conceived again, and bore a son, and said, because the

Lord has heard that I am unloved, he has

therefore given me this son also.

So she named him Simeon.

She conceived again, and bore a son, and said,

Now this time, my husband will become attached to me, because

I have borne him three sons, therefore, he

was named Levi.

And she conceived again, and bore a son, and said, this time I will praise the Lord.

Therefore, she named him Judah.

Then she stopped bearing.

Now, when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no

children, she became jealous of her sister, and

she said to Jacob, give me children, or else I die.

Then Jacob's anger burned against Rachel, and he said,

am I in the place of God, who has withheld you, the fruit of the womb?

She said, here is my maid, Bilhah.

Go in to her, that she may bear on my knees,

that through her, I too may have children.

So she gave him her maid, Bilhah, as a wife.

And Jacob went in to her.

Bilhah conceived, and bore Jacob a son.

Then Rachel said, God has vindicated me, and has

indeed heard my voice, and has given me a son, therefore

she named him Dan.

Rachel's maid Billhawk conceived again, and bore Jacob a 2nd son.

So Rachel said, with mighty wrestlings, I have wrestled

with my sister, and I have indeed prevailed, and

she named him Naphtali.

When Leia saw that she had stopped bearing, she took her maid,

Zilpa, and gave her to Jacob as a wife.

Layus made Zilpab war Jacob a son.

Then Leia said, how fortunate.

So she named him Gad.

Layas made Zilpop wore Jacob a 2nd son.

Then Leia said, happy am I, for women will call me happy.

So she named him Asher.

Now, in the days of wheat harvest.

Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field, and

brought them to his mother Leia.

Then Rachel said to Leia, please, give me some of your son's mandrakes.

But she said to her, Is it a small matter for you to take my husband?

And would you take my son's mandrix also?

So Rachel said, therefore, he may lie with you tonight in return

for your son's mandrix.

When Jacob came in from the field in the evening, then

Leia went out to meet him and said, You must come in to

me, for I have surely hired you with my son's mandrakes,

so he lay with her that night.

God gave heed to Leia, and she conceived and

bore Jacob a 5th son.

Then Leia said, God has given me my wages because I gave my maid to my husband.

So she named him Issachar.

Leia conceived again and bore a 6th son to Jacob.

Then Leia said, God has endowed me with a good gift.

Now my husband will dwell with me because I have borne him 6 sons.

So she named him Zebulun.

Afterward, she bore a daughter and named her Dinah.

Then, God remembered Rachel, and

God gave heed to her, and opened her womb.

So she conceived, and bore a son,

and said, God has taken away my reproach.

She named him Joseph, saying, May the Lord give

me another son.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we love you and thank you for your mercy on us this morning,

allowing us to be here, to worship you, Lord.

I pray that you bless your message, inspire the messenger, your

word to our minds, our hearts, and to our lives, in Christ's name.

Amen.

So as we go through this story, as we've been going

through of Abraham's grandson, Jacob,

the deceiver, the supplanter, the the the

heel grabber, the the biggest thing,

the the number one thing that that we should have seen, I

should have brought out in all the previous messages, and it will bring out over

and over again, because this is the story that that this

is the point that the word is trying to get across,

is that that God's sovereignty and his his providence

his hand is working in each of our lives,

in every circumstance, that all of

the events that we have gone through in Jacob's

life so far, except for Jacob's vision

of the latter that went up to heaven, and the

angels were going up and down on it, have been every day,

normal human things and events,

human happenings.

We all have gone through the same life events.

His birth, and then squabbles over inheritance.

Has anyone had to deal with that before?

Family issues, marriage problems.

We haven't had to deal with the marriage problems of having four wives,

but we've all dealt

with that if we've been married, running from your twin

brother because he wants to kill you.

That one, maybe not so much.

But we've had trouble with our siblings, I'm sure,

if we've had siblings.

That's very common for all of us to go through.

But all through the events of Jacob's life.

We have seen God's hand working,

weaving that tapestry that he is creating.

And sometimes he worked directly in Jacob's life.

He spoke to Rebecca and gave her a dream.

He gave him a vision, and sometimes, indirectly,

as in the previous passage where his name

wasn't even mentioned when dealing with Rachel.

But all of every aspect of their lives.

God's hand has been working to

his end, and for his purpose, and

no matter what the situation was, God's

will was always done.

Now, we get the benefit of seeing the

whole story, we can read all of

the chapters that have to do with Jacob's life, and we can

read all that happens afterwards, up until Christ,

the lion of Judah comes on the scene,

and we can see the big picture

ourselves.

But, but, Jacob, and Rachel, and Rebecca,

and Leia, and Zilpah, and Bilhah, and

Isaac, and Laban, and all of them didn't

have that benefit.

They didn't get to see the whole picture.

They lived through the circumstances

one day at a time, just like we have to live

through our lives.

So when we left last time, Jacob had worked seven

years in order to marry the love

of his life, the one who was just so beautiful to

him, Rachel, but found after

the wedding, and the marriage feast, as

the narrator put it in Genesis 29:25.

So it came about in the morning,

Behold, it was Leia.

He had married the wrong sister, because of the trickery,

and the lying, and the deceitfulness of Laban.

Now, when we read that, especially

how the word puts it, behold, it was Leia, surprise.

I always kind chuckle at it.

But if you think about it, to Jacob and to Leia,

it was no laughing matter.

Leo was used by her father.

Her whole life was used by her father as

a trick to get Jacob, to trick

him into working another seven years, and building

Labon's family empire.

And Jacob, obviously, didn't want to marry Leia,

but they were married now, and he had to work another seven years to marry Rachel.

This is an unimaginable situation to me.

How difficult would it be to be thrown into

an unwanted marriage as the husband, and

as Leia, as well?

Can you imagine your husband, not

wanting to marry you in the first place, not growing to not want

to marry you, but from the very beginning of your marriage, especially

by trickery.

So Jacob has to work another seven years for

Labon, to marry the love that the

one he wanted to marry in the first place, Rachel.

And when he does, his feelings,

obviously, weren't the same for Rachel,

as they were for Leia, or vice versa.

He didn't want Leia as a wife.

He loved Rachel.

Now, as the name of the sermon

implies that there's a genre of television

that is based on romantic drama

and daily cliffhangers that

get you to watch the next day.

And this is the soap opera.

And the soap opera thrived off of this

type of drama, the same drama that we see in our

text today, Jacob and

his wives found themselves in the

midst of a soap opera style drama.

But this passage tells that story in

a very real and a matter of fact way.

Our story moves its focus from what happened to

Jacob to what's happening between the

two sister bride of Jacob.

And in the beginning, the very start of Jacob's family.

And again, this family would eventually become the

12 tribes of Israel, and it would lead

to God, the coming of God,

the Son, into our world.

So let's look at the pain and the suffering

of the trials and the drama that these two sisters

had to go through as they started their new

families with Jacob.

And we'll see exactly how God works through those

trials, to weave that tapestry of

his plan, and how he redeems the

trials and the suffering that Leia and Rachel had to experience.

In the first part, in the last section of chapter

29, we see that God sees Leia's

longing, verse 31.

Now, the Lord saw that Leia was unloved.

And he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.

Le conceived and bore a son and named him Reuben,

for she said, because the Lord has seen my affliction.

Surely now, my husband will love me.

Then she conceived again, and bore a son, and said, because the Lord has

heard that I am unloved, he has therefore given

me this son also.

So she named him Simeon.

She conceived again, and bore a son, and said, Now this time, my

husband will become attached to me, because I have borne

him three sons, therefore he was named Levi.

And she conceived again and bore a son, and said, this time,

I will praise the Lord.

Therefore, she named him Judah, then she stopped

bearing.

Leia was the firstborn sister.

But she was always considered second in Jacob's eyes to Rachel.

And I have mixed feelings about this situation.

I don't know how I'd react if I had

been put in Jacob's shoes.

If I was given the wrong sister, if I had expectations

of marrying one person, and on the

wedding night, I found out that I married a different person.

And this is so far out of our cultural

understanding of our mindset as

modern Western people

that I don't even know how much.

We can imagine ourselves to be in this

situation, as we try to put ourselves in Jacob and Rachel and Leia's shoes.

I don't know if I could picture it.

So I don't know if I blame Jacob for being disappointed,

or for loving Rachel, more than Leia,

but for the situation to be as bad

as it seemed, especially for Leia,

he definitely wasn't in the right and

how he handled it, either.

So it's kind of one of those life situations where

there's the big gray area.

But God saw her.

He saw the plight that she was in the pain that

she was feeling, and he caused her to become pregnant.

He opened her womb, but he closed Rachel's womb.

That the Bible is aware of the physical mechanics

of conception of pregnancy and of birth.

But it also knows, ultimately, the

one who opens and closes the womb is God.

And so God blesses Leia with four sons at

this time, and she names them all as

a prayer to God.

And we need to read these

names and her description of why she named these

four sons the way that she did as a cry out to God.

The pain.

Just read the names, and read the descriptions, and

imagine how you would feel if you were writing these prayers.

The 1st son is named Reuben.

And his name is a play on the word that means to

look, or to see.

And she says that she names him this because she says,

Yahweh has seen her affliction.

Then her second son is Stimian.

His name sounds like the word for to hear,

or to listen.

So Yahweh has heard that she was unloved.

And then Levi, his name sounds like

the word for it to be joined, or to be put

together, because it says that she hopes that

now that she's had three sons, that her

husband would become attached, or joined with her.

But apparently not, because she just comes to the fourth

son, a Judah, and his word,

his name sounds like the word for to be celebrated.

And so she names him because at this

She says, I will just praise the Lord.

None of this worked.

I'm just going to praise the Lord.

So, at this time, they didn't have baby books or

baby name books, what to name your boy

in 2026, all

of the names that she gave to her boys,

were cries from her heart to God, called

out to him from her broken heart.

And God was bringing her answers to

her longing heart by giving her sons,

but also, she was looking at

those the birth of these boys as the solution to her problem.

Maybe if I have another boy.

He'll love me.

Maybe if I have another one, he'll listen to me.

He'll see me.

But God was using this to show her that the

final solution, the solution to her problems and

her pain and her suffering, wasn't just having boys.

Jacob would never really come to love her in

the way that she wanted.

We can see that as we go through the story, that

Jacob, in his old age, would

love Rachel and her sons more than Leia,

and her sons.

But God was watching out for her.

She felt unloved, but she really wasn't,

because God loved her.

God heard her, and answered her prayers.

Her sons would become as unloved as

she was, would become the heads of

12 tribes of Israel.

And specifically, the two names that should stick out to you

the most, or not necessarily Reuben and Issachar, or Simeon here.

It's Levi, and Judah, that

her sons would be the start of the priestly

line of Israel, and the

royal line of Israel, that David and

Solomon would come from, and eventually Jesus

Christ himself would come from.

She didn't see all that.

She didn't know that this was how God was loving her, but

God was loving her.

God was listening to her, and God was seeing her.

And Jesus, himself, exemplifies

the same pattern of hearing the needy,

of hearing and looking out for the

unloved and the downtrodden as we see as we

read the gospels.

Those who were under the feet of the wicked of the

world, those who were missing the point, as

Lazarus was about to be resurrected, he

wept for the same God,

who heard the prayers of this unloved

bride, hears the prayers of

persecuted and suffering saints.

Keep heart.

If you were given of

the ability to see far enough in the future, you,

too, would see how God is using your trials,

your suffering, and your pain to work out his

will, and to paint the picture of his world in

a way that brings him glory.

And although we can't see it now, ultimately are

good in him.

We cannot see that, as Hebrew says, with our eyes,

yet, we have to see that by faith, at

the moment, but eventually, faith will become sight.

And we'll be able to see that in perfect HD quality.

So Leia, unloved Leia.

God heard her.

God listened to her.

Now, the next part of our story, where

Rachel and Leia, take things into their own hands.

Chapter 30, verses one through 21,

We'll read verses 1 through 13.

Now, when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children.

She became jealous of her sister.

And she said to Jacob, Give me children, or else I die.

And Jacob's anger burned against Rachel.

And he said, am I in the place of God, who has withheld

from you the fruit of the womb?

She said, Here.

Here's my maid, Bilhah, go in to her, that she may

bear on my knees, that through her, I, too, may have children.

So she gave him her maid, Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob went in to her.

Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son.

Then Rachel said, God has vindicated me, and has indeed

heard my voice, and has given me a son.

Therefore, she named him Dan.

Rachel's maid, Bill Hawk, conceived again, and bore Jacob a 2nd son.

So Rachel said, with mighty wrestlings, I have wrestled

with my sister, and I have indeed prevailed, and

she named him Naphpali.

When Leia saw that she had stopped bearing, she took her

maid Zilpah, and gave her to Jacob as a wife.

Leia's maid, Zilpah, bore Jacob a son.

Then Leia said, how fortunate.

So she named him Gad.

Leia's made Zilpah bore Jacob a 2nd son.

Then Leia said, happy am I, for women will call me happy.

So she named him Asher.

So now, Leia was distraught in

the previous passage, and God heard her, but now, Leia

is looking at her sister with the eyes of jealousy.

She's got Jacob's love, but her sister is

having all the babies, and she is barren.

Leia had four sons, and Rachel hasn't

been able to conceive the first child.

So she complains to Jacob at her wits

end, Give me children, or

else I die.

Now, I can imagine Jacob looking over at

the four children, sons that he just had with

Leia, and say, Look, it ain't me.

It ain't my fault, but he

doesn't do a very good job of talking gently

with his distraught and irrational wife.

He says, Look, who do you think I am?

Why are you blaming me?

Is God is the one who gives children

and stops from having children?

And here, in this passage, we have another one of

those, especially Old Testament, but biblical repetitions of stories.

And if you remember, there was

someone else in this family that was having problems

conceiving children, and God had

promised them, Abraham and Sarah, that

they would have a son in their old age.

But Sarah didn't believe God.

She laughed when she heard what he said.

So she took matters into her own hands,

and gave her servant, Hagar, to

Abram, in order that they would have

a child.

And so this, again, is a different culture, a different

time, a very ancient culture, and this was a standard practice,

whenever the

children weren't coming, and there

was their need for an heir to pass the inheritance

of all of your possessions to, the

wife would give a servant to the husband,

to Mary, and have a child.

But that child wouldn't be the child of that

woman in the eyes of the world, that bond servant.

She would be like the adopted child of the masters.

And that child would get the inheritance and would be

raised as one of their own children.

So the Bible tells us the same thing happens here.

Rachel is barren, she wants children, so she gives

Jacob, her servant, Dihah,

as a wife, and Bilhah has a son that

would be raised as Jacob, and Rachel's son.

So, now, I can imagine my

response to this happening in our times, but

Rachel's response is completely different from what

my response would be, and Genesis 30 verse 6, she says,

then Rachel said, God has vindicated me.

And has indeed heard my voice and has given me a son.

Therefore, she named him Dan.

So I can't imagine that I would have looked at this as

a victory, or a triumph, that

my servant had a child with my husband,

but it's a different time, and a different culture.

The Bible is simply telling us what happened.

This is not the Bible's plan for how to deal

with infertility, right?

This is not a prescription for how we are to deal

with barrenness.

It is just stating the facts of what happened in the story.

And the fact that it's repeating the facts

that happened in two separate stories, Abram

and with Jacob and Rachel,

is telling us something.

But Rachel is excited at the news

that her servant, Bilhah, is having a son.

And so she names her son through Bilhad,

Dan, which sounds like he judged.

You can hear the emotions and the spirits

of these two different women.

Laius names were just cries

and calling out for help and pain.

But Rachel's, the names that she names

her children through her servant,

are, I'm getting back at you, Leah.

So listen, the name Dan sounds like

the word for he judged.

She feels that God has been the judge between

them two, and found that Rachel must

be okay, because he gave her a son too.

Does that make sense?

Just imagine that your names were back and

forth between your family and her whole life, you'd have to remember

all the squabbles, dysfunction and mess, for sure.

So this is mighty presumptuous on her part, right?

That God has judged my situation, and I'm doing okay.

And we've all been there before.

But then Bilha has another son, and she names

the second son, Naphtali,

and his name means to wrestle.

Rachel thought that she was in a match with her sister,

and a fight with her sister, and that she had won.

So she names her second son, Naftali.

Now, I enjoy all kinds of different music and

one of them is a genre called

funk, right?

I love that driving baseline and a tempo.

There's a band called Wolfpeck.

They post stuff on YouTube, and they have this 15 minute long

video, and the name of the video is,

it gets funkier, but every time it gets

funkier, it gets funkier.

So every 30 seconds to a minute, that the

song just starts getting faster and funkier,

as it goes on.

It escalates throughout the 15 minutes, right?

And that's what these sisters are doing, with

each batch of children that they're having, the

stuff is escalating, and the fights are escalating.

See, Leia had four sons, and then she stopped bearing.

And now Rachel was having children through her servant.

She does the next logical thing to do.

She wants to take it up a notch.

She wants it to get funkier.

So she gives her servant to Jacob to

have children through, right?

So, Leia had four, and Rachel gives

her servant to Jacob.

And now Leia's like, well, if she's doing it, I'm going

to give my servant to him too.

This is an all out spat between the two sisters

and Jacobs in the middle of it all.

So, so, so Leia gives Zilpah, her servant,

to Jacob, to have sons with, and the

1st son she has is named Gad, which

means fortune.

And then she has another son, and Leia

names him, Asher, or Happy.

And now this is a strange story to our ears.

But it's about to get even stranger.

in what Ralph Davies, a commentator called Mandrake

Madness.

The next part of our passage, verse 14, says, Now,

in the days of wheat harvest, Reuben went and

found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his mother Leia.

Then Rachel said to Leia, Please give me some of your son's mandrikes,

but she said to her, Is it a small matter for you to take my husband?

And would you take my son's mandrakes also?

So Rachel said, therefore, he may lay with you tonight

in return for your son's mandrix.

When Jacob came in from the field in the evening, then

Leia went out to meet him and said, You must come in to me,

for I have surely hired you with my son's mandrix.

So he lay with her that night.

God gave heed to Leia, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.

Then Leia said, God has given me my wages, because

I gave my maid to my husband.

So she named him Issachar.

Le conceived again, and bore a sick son to Jacob.

Then Leia said, God has endowed me with a good gift.

Now my husband will dwell with me, because I have

borne him six sons.

So she named him Zebulun.

Afterward, she bore a daughter, and named her Dinah.

So, this is a very telling it like it

is, earthy story that we're going through here.

Leia's oldest, Reuben, find some mandrakes

in the field, while they're at the wheat harvest.

And he brings them to Leia.

So now the kids are involved in the spat as well.

So mandrakes, if you didn't know, are

a plant that flowers are very beautiful blue

flower in the winter.

But towards the end of the summer, they give fruit.

And at the time, they were thought to be a natural

remedy that did two things.

One was an aphrodisiac, and

the second thing was a natural remedy

for infertility.

So Rachel hasn't been able to have her own children yet.

So she really wants these mandrakes to be

able to have her own.

So we may laugh at the idea

of these ancient, you know, these crazy people, all these natural remedies

and myths and stuff that they believe.

Well, let me tell you, we have our own myths about food

and natural remedies ourselves.

I mean, have you ever been accosted by a church lady

that sells essential oils?

If you sell essential oils, I'm sorry, but it's

the same thing in my mind.

Okay?

So, here we are, and we see

the crux of the issue in Leia's

mind, when this battle over Jacob,

is she believes that Rachel has

taken her husband.

He was Leia's first, no matter that it was

done against Jacob's will and by deception.

So Rachel negotiates a trade to lay it.

Look, if you give me those

mandrakes, I'll let you

guys get together tonight.

So she traded a night with her husband for

these mandrix, because she was so desperate,

that even though she said that it was good,

and it was great, it was a gift, that she had

kids through her servant, she really wanted them

herself.

But the problem is, it backfired.

It does go to Jacob that night, but she conceives

and has more sons.

She has two more sons and a daughter in Dinah.

She has Issachar, which means to hire.

She sees that this fifth son is

a wages for her giving her servant

to Jacob to have another son.

Then she has Zebulun, the sixth, which means residence.

And this may be the saddest of all.

She's still longing for her husband to love her.

She thinks now that she's had six sons for him, that

he'll take up residence.

They'll be joined together, that he'll endure and

dwell with her, that he'll finally accept her as his wife.

Now, in Dinah, a daughter.

whose name means to plead, or to fight.

All of this back and forth, all of this drama,

that is taking things into their own hands.

All this stuff that went back and forth between Leia and Rachel,

and mandrix, and crying, and servants, having babies in my place.

But all the time that they were doing all of these things in

their own power, in their own ways.

God was still listening.

Rachel complained about her life for

the lack of having children.

And she was desperate when she gave her maid to Jacob

to have children with.

She was desperate when she sold a knight with Jacob for

this natural remedy for infertility.

Leia gave her servant to Jacob to despite Rachel.

Can you imagine the position that she was in, and the pain in

that family that they were in?

She bought a knight with her own husband.

All of these things, these machinations, and plans,

and stuff, if they were doing in the background, to fulfill their

desires by their own wills, their own ways, uh,

were also, at the same time, praying,

and asking God to intervene,

so that Rachel could have children.

And so Leia would be loved by her husband.

It was a mixture of unbelief.

We know Leia was looking to Yahweh because of

the names of her children, and

all of us, as we pray, and

as we live our lives, mix, trust,

and unbelief, mix,

doing things correctly, understanding things correctly,

believing correctly, and a

mixed bags of cultural influences that we

have, and we think that influence our mind, and what we believe

and what we see, and what we understand,

all of us are a mixture of

things in the same way.

as Leia and Rachel.

We take things into our own hands.

How many times, have we seen God answer

in spite of this?

in our own lives.

How many times, have we been just an absolute complete

disaster of a person and a sinner,

but God still listens to us and

answers our prayers in ways that we can't even understand

or imagine?

Aren't you glad that our perfection, and that

our perfect obedience is not to require,

to God being able to hear us, to

that we're able to go before the

throne of God based on Christ's perfection, and

Christ's righteousness in our place?

What a blessing that is.

And Rachel really finds out that this is true in

the very last part of our passage.

Rachel finds God's timing, verses 22

through 24, then God remembered Rachel, and

God gave heed to her and opened her womb.

So she conceived and bore a son, and said, God has

taken away my reproach.

She named him Joseph, saying, May the Lord

give me another son.

Behind the scenes of all of this.

There's something much bigger and greater than the drama that was happening.

I read this illustration, as I was studying, that

the actor, Marlon Brando, was filming

his very first film that he acted with in 1950

called The Men.

And in that film, he played a World War II veteran

that had lost a use of his legs in the war and

became a paraplegic, so as he prepared and

studied for the role, he lived several

weeks himself in a wheelchair, and he hung

around other World War II veterans that

became paraplegic, so he could properly act in the role.

So one day, him and a couple of his new friends

in their wheelchairs.

him in his wheelchair, went to a bar.

And there was a lady that worked with

the Salvation Army that came to the bar to get waste paper for

whatever reason, and she saw all

the people in wheelchairs there, and she

raised her hands and prayed, oh, Lord, grant

that these men may be able to walk again.

So when Brando heard her praying this prayer, he

got up and walked around and she

nearly fainted, seeing her prayer actually worked.

She didn't know what was happening behind the scenes, but

she also didn't completely trust that her prayer was real, right?

Because she got surprised.

There's always a bunch happening behind the

scenes that we are not aware of.

And we're always, always a

part of God's bigger plan.

God promised Abraham that his seed would

be multiplied throughout the earth, that they would be greater than

the number of the grains of sand and the sea and

the stars in the heavens.

And then Abraham had Isaac, one son.

Well, maybe that one son would have a bunch of sons.

And it would be the fulfillment to God's promise.

No?

Isaac had Esau and Jacob.

And the lion went through one son, Jacob,

as we have seen.

These aren't big families, especially at the time.

that you would think, in our mind,

that it would take for this promise to be fulfilled.

But now, Jacob has 11

sons and one more to come later.

But was this the way?

If you were God, that you would plan

to have this all go down, or wives,

two of them, servants of two sisters, one of the

sisters, unwanted, and unloved.

Not at all, all behind the scenes.

God was working to where he is now.

All the ups and downs, all the backwards

and forwards, and the strife and the fighting, and then the

end of this chapter, after all that, God

remembers Rachel.

One of the best phrases in scripture.

One of the most beautiful phrases is God remembered.

10 sons and a daughter, have been born, and

none of them were hers directly.

But finally, she conceived, and God

gave her a sign.

All of the heartache that she had been through, all

the contrivances, and the planning, and the scheming,

that she suffered over, and

it happened in God's time anyway, right?

There's a lesson in that somewhere for us.

And so here, Joseph has a name that means something, too.

Joseph's name means to let him add more.

And Joseph would become a great man and

be a significant part of the Bible story in

himself.

But it looks that through this name that Leia

is learning herself, when she

named Joseph, let him add more, it

is a prayer that said, Hey, God, can I have another one, please?

Right?

Can I have another son?

And she eventually would in Benjamin.

No more contrivances are said to take place after this.

about them conceiving children.

It looks like that Rachel had finally learned

the lesson here, to wait on God and wait

on his timing.

And that is wisdom.

As God remembered her.

Remember, that he remembers you as,

well, we've seen everything here.

All the soap opera ups and downs that the fighting

between husbands and wives, the bedroom, rivalry,

the covenant family, and all of its dysfunctional

glory, especially as we started in the beginning of Jacob's life.

There's a whole lot of dysfunction.

But in spite of all the bickering and the striving, the

grief and anguish, attention, Yahweh,

has never once been unfaithful to keep his promises.

Through all of it, and in all of the story, and the rest of Jacob's

life, and into his children's life, and into the life of

the children of Israel, and into the church, and into

the future,

God is maintaining his plan, and

his purposes, and our job is

to look at these passages, and the absolute craziness

that's going on, and look through that, and see

that God always keeps his

promises, that God has a plan,

and is working it out, and that this soap

opera of Jacob's lives,

it actually shouts the faithfulness of God to

keep his promise in spite of dysfunction

and mess, and sin, and physical

problems, and any problem.

God will always keep his promises.

We cannot mess it up.

No matter how hard we, or someone else tries, to mess it up.

God will always keep his promises,

God remembers us, and that things work

out in his timing for his glory and for our good.

Let's pray.

Pray Father, we love you and thank you.

Now, we can rest in the fact that you will always keep

your promises, that you've showed us over and over in

just the life of this first couple of families of your people,

that you are faithful

to your word every single day and every single time.

May we rest and keep our hearts in that, Lord,

not take that for granted.

Bless us for your glory in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.