Jacob's Wives
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Jacob arrives in Haran. After staying with his uncle a month, his uncle offers him wages for helping. Jacob desires Rachel in exchange for seven years of service.
In the morning (v.25) behold, it was Leah!
Jacob comes to Laban, “You scoundrel! What have you done!
Though we do not excuse Laban for his dishonesty, we can learn from the custom from which he quoted for an excuse.
v.26- In our country, the younger should be married after the firstborn.
Notice the irony, Jacob had stolen the right of the firstborn, the right of inheritance. Now becasue of a similar custom, he has been tricked into the wrong wife.
Desiring the second; first
Desiring the second; first
Even though the custom was that the older marries first, Jacob had desired to reverse this custom.
He had been in the country for 7 years now, I’m sure this may have come up or he might have heard of it. Yet Jacob thinks, he is the exception, that this rule might not apply to him.
There are many great things in this world, but we must go through the proper order before we obtain them.
Spurgeon says, “We desire the beautiful Rachel of joy, and peace. But you must first be wedded to the tender eyed Leah of repentance and forgiveness.”
We may be willing to work the 7 years to obtain the happiness that comes with the beautiful Rachel. But before we can have the happiness we must learn to love the holiness of Leah.
I’m using this as an allegory to see the order in which God has created all things to function within.
God, being a God of order, functions within this as well. Not because He is bound as we are to these natural laws, no He is the creator of them. But because He functions within them.
God Desires To Be With Mankind
God Desires To Be With Mankind
Dwelling with mankind, is the Rachel so to speak. But God goes through the process, the order of loving the Leah first.
God after he created the world and everything in it. You will remember that he had created Eden, the garden of God.
God set Adam in this garden
From Genesis 3:8 we see that this was a place where God walked with Adam. Where God was with mankind.
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
But the fall changed all of this, mankind was ejected from the garden.
Mankind was sinful, sinful man couldn’t be with a holy God. For the holiness of God stands in stark contrast, in opposition to sinfulness.
God loving mankind, gives orders for a tabernacle.
The Tabernacle
The Tabernacle
The tabernacle was sacred space. It was space consecrated that you could only enter if you were purified.
Just as Eden was sacred space on the earth, the tabernacle was sacred space within Israel.
Leviticus 26:11-12
I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you.
And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.
God gives the people a meeting house, a place for Him to meet with them.
Exodus 40:34-38
Exodus 40:34-38
The glory of the Lord would reside with his people. Within the tabernacle.
When the cloud was taken up, the people would leave. They would follow the cloud or the pillar of fire.
They followed the glory of God.
The Temple was a permanent fixture, but the same idea
2 Chronicles 7:1-2
As soon as Solomon finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.
And the priests could not enter the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord’s house.
But this still wasn’t the end of God’s plan, just the first step.
The Word Dwelt Among Us
The Word Dwelt Among Us
John 1:14
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Jesus dwelt among us. God incarnate, in the flesh. He dwelt among us.
The word dwelt, is a word meaning to pitch a tent. To tabernacle.
God desiring to be with His people, tabernacled among us.
Once again though, this was the final step. Just the order of all things.
For Jesus would die on a cross, thus providing; becoming the substitutionary sacrifice for our sins.
By doing this, He could now justify those who put their faith in Him. He could now make us righteous.
This is paving the way for the next step in tabernacling with us.
God building a new temple!
The New Temple
The New Temple
Ephesians 2:19-22
Ephesians 2:19-22
We are the new temple.
The holy Spirit dwells within us now.
Tabernacles in us!
We are all priests unto God, who are to offer acceptable sacrifices to God.
When we as the church are gathered together, this is a special time.
A uniting of the household of God.
We are coming into His presence to worship Him!
This however is only a glimpse of the end of God’s plan, His desire to tabernacle with man.
Revelation 21:3
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
In the end, when all is made new.
God’s dwelling place then will be with man.
We see the plan of God unfolding throughout scripture.
His love being seen all across it.
Jacob, needed to put first things first.
There must be an order.
God, puts first things first
God has an order.
Speaking of God ordering things and the church as the temple
Do we see that God has called us to be a beacon of hope. A light in the darkness to the community.
That this culture is in desperate need of renewal!
Pagan ways are infiltrating our culture!
This same thing happened in the book of Judges. God had called Gideon, to raise an army and to defeat the Midianites, to take back their land for God. But, before Gideon could go get his army, there was something else he had to do...
Judges 6:25-26
Judges 6:25-26
We might want the wanting the Rachel of building a culture that has goodness, kindness, and love.
But what is the order in which things must be done. What order must they take place?
Smashing Idols
Smashing Idols
Before you can go to war in honor of God, you must destroy the idols in your midst.
You must break down the alter, and make an alter to God
Tear down the asherah and use it’s wood to offer a sacrifice on the new alter to Yahweh.
We see an order again, before you go out to battle in the Lord’s name, remove the idols.
To fix this culture, we need to turn them to God.
He is the source of goodness, kindness, and love. We and the culture must see that it is only through Him that this will be changed.
We must first wed the Leah of calling people to repentance, and we must first have reformation within the church.
Making sure that our lives are honorable and in line with scripture first.
We want to see a change within culture, it will begin within the church. If we aren’t worshipping God correctly here, we cannot expect it to happen in the world.
In Our Lives
In Our Lives
We must understand that as we are pursuing heaven, heaven stands not at the first thing, but the second. Heaven is the Rachel.
Why do we believe we shall obtain heaven, if we fail to live for Jesus here.
Spurgeon said, “the cross must be carried before a crown can be worn.”
We must be so saturated with the word of God, so filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so overcome by the peace of Jesus; that you Glorify Him in every aspect of life.
While you sweep the floor, while fill out excel sheets, while you stock a warehouse, while you home school your children.
In EVERYTHING WE DO
Do it to the glory of God.
The idols in this life are the things that take our focus off of God.
The things that we demand we worship them, rather than the almighty creator.
We must realize that Christ is to rule in every aspect of our lives.
Everyone wants the Rachel. The beauty, the glory.
Jacob came to the harsh realization that we must also come to... Loving Leah comes first.
May the Lord bless you and keep you. May He cause you to see the tasks that He has placed before you, and give you the strength to accomplish what He commands.