Never bet on another man's trick

 Read Genesis 30

Have you ever seen a really good card trick?

Never bet on another man’s trick.  The secret to a good card trick is to make it look like you messed it up until the very end.  Then the hook has been set and you just reel in your catch.

Remember this part:  Never bet on another man’s trick.

Jacob is ready to go west to the land promised to Abraham’s descendants, and now to his own descendants. He talks this over with Laban. Laban knew that he had been blessed to have Jacob in his service.  He knew that the Lord blessed Jacob.

So here’s the plan. Jacob would take all of the imperfect animals—spotted, speckled, or dark in color as his.  The pure ones will be Laban’s.  How could Laban argue with that?  The deal was struck.

Jacob even through in some quality control.  You can check my herds any time to see if I have any animals that are yours.  This implied that Jacob could do the same.

Herds were separated by outward appearance and separated by space.  Laban was in charge of the sorting. That should have settled the matter, but Jacob had other plans beyond what he shared with Laban.

Listen to what Jacob did, beginning in verse 37.

Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond, and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted.

I don’t know all of the particulars, but apparently, Jacob did.  The flesh of these trees—what was beneath the bark had something that impacted genetics and produced streaked or speckled animals.  Jacob was increasing his flocks and Laban was none the wiser.

Jacob was careful to target the healthiest of animals when the female was in heat.  He not only grew his flocks in number but in the quality of the stock.  Jacob was still deceptive but he was also shrewd.

Do you remember how we began?  Never bet on another man’s trick.

At this point, Laban and his sons suspected that everything was not above board.  We end this chapter with Jacob having great wealth and the need to depart Laban’s company very, very soon.

In the first part of this chapter, Jacob was growing his human flock with the help of 4 women. There is some soap opera material there for sure, but in this section, we see Jacob obtaining great wealth.

God had blessed Abraham with great wealth.

God had blessed Isaac with great wealth.

And now God had blessed Jacob with great wealth and a very large family. 

None of these men that God had chosen to be a part of this Father of Many Nations business had obtained their wealth by what we would call respectable means.  Abraham and Isaac were less than honest about their wives and Jacob was just outright deceptive.

Jacob deceived his father. Laban deceived Jacob with Leah.  Jacob got back at Laban with this livestock scheme.  Do you ever wonder what a family reunion would look like among this bunch?

The whole time, God was growing the line of Abraham. God didn’t just pick the best stock and say, good luck. He took Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with all of their flaws and deficiencies and prospered them to create a people he had already chosen when he called Abraham.

You might be thinking, that’s just some screwball stuff right there and the first half of the chapter is just as off the wall. 

Remember, this line of people gets us to a Chosen People who will enter a Promised Land with the Law given through Moses.

This line of people also leads to the Savior of the world.

God will use you with all of your imperfections.  Don’t believe me?  I will wrap up with something very familiar. You have seen it on the internet and on the back of tee shirts.  Consider it this morning.

Noah was a drunk

Abraham was too old

Jacob was a liar

Leah was not good looking

Joseph was abused

Moses had a stuttering problem and was a murderer

Gideon was afraid

Samson was a womanizer

Rahab was a prostitute

David had an affair and was a murderer

Elijah was suicidal

Isaiah preached naked

Jonah ran from God

Naomi was a widow

Job went bankrupt

Peter denied Christ

The Disciples fell asleep while praying

Martha worried about everything

The Samaritan woman was divorced many times

Zacchaeus was too small

Jesus called the disciples dull--slow

Judas would betray him

Paul was too religious

Timothy had an ulcer

Lazarus was dead

Don’t think that God won’t use you to complete his plan.  Be ready to respond to the leading that God’s Spirit places on your heart.

If God was looking for reasons to disqualify you from doing his work, he could find them without much effort, but that is not his thing.

He chose you—with all of your flaws and defects—to do his will, to live out his plan.  He chose you in spite of everything that you might think reasons that he wouldn’t.

He chose you.

Amen.