Mitigation Strategy

 Read Genesis 32

Jacob was nearing the place where Esau lived.  It was time for action.  Jacob put together some very substantial gifts—flocks and herds.  They were enough to appease almost anyone’s anger, hopefully, that included that of his brother, Esau.

The servants who delivered these gifts were given specific instructions as how to present them. Think of your most humble words and then be 10 times humbler.  Jacob would accept Esau’s seniority.

Maybe between the gifts and humble speech, Esau’s anger would be appeased. The gifts were delivered as prescribed.

A servant informed Jacob that Esau was coming to meet him.  That part was encouraging, except he was accompanied by 400 men.  That part was probably a little disturbing.  Who needs to travel with 400 men. 

Maybe, Esau just said road trip and everybody jumped on board.  Not likely.

God had told Jacob to come to this land.  He said he would be with him.

Go and I will be with you.

Jacob had received God’s promise of prospering and having many descendants.

Jacob could not envision how that would play out if Esau wiped out him and his family, and that’s what it looked like was about to happen. So, Jacob devised a mitigation strategy. 

He divided his entire estate—which was mobile at this time—into 2 camps.  Wives, servants, children, flocks, and everything else were divided.  If Esau attacked one camp, maybe the other would escape.

That sounds reasonable on the surface, but you don’t escape with herds and flocks.  A group of 400 men would overtake them in no time, but that was Jacob’s plan nonetheless. It was his mitigation strategy. It was how he would reduce the effects of an attack by Esau.

So, Jacob and everything that belonged to Jacob began moving toward Esau.  Jacob was not expecting a joyous reunion.  He has planned for exactly the opposite.  He was moving forward but all the time thinking about how to escape.

So as people and flocks are crossing a river and moving in their assigned corridors, Jacob finds himself alone—or almost alone.

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

So we see the tension building.  Esau and 400 men were moving toward Jacob.  Jacob had implemented his 2-camp mitigation strategy.  Both groups were moving towards each other and we get this interlude of a wrestling match between Jacob and a man or an angel or God himself.

I’m a little skeptical about this being God himself.  My money would have been on God for a takedown and a pin in about half a second.  God could have spoken a victory into existence.

So, was it an angel?  Was it a man?  Jacob—the deceiver—might have had some slick wrestling moves and taken down an angel.  Maybe?

Why is this story here?

First, Jacob gets a new name from someone who remains unnamed.  That new name was Israel. It means God strives.  It can just mean struggle, but God strives seems most appropriate.

God would strive to accomplish much through the people named Israel.  God used those who would come from Israel to make himself and his way known in the world.

But why the wrestling match?  Was it really with God?  Why is this story at this point in the story?

God told Jacob—who we can now call Israel—to go and that God would be with him.  God promised to prosper this son of Isaac.  God told him that his descendants would be too numerous to count.  God promised all these things to Jacob.

For these things to come true, it would seem that Jacob would have to survive his reunion with his brother, Esau. But Jacob implemented a mitigation strategy.

What is mitigation?  What is it to mitigate?  COVID and 2020 obliterated the meaning of this word, but to mitigate is to reduce the effects of something.

Whatever it is that is of concern may still happen, but you take measures to reduce its effects.  The hurricane is still coming, but you sandbag your house and board up your windows.  You reduce the effects of the storm’s damage.

The storm still came through, but you reduced its impact upon you or your property.

Do you remember flatten the curve? That was a mitigation strategy.  It was never designed to stop the COVID virus only to reduce the rate of its spread in the early stages. 

How would that mitigate anything?  In theory, the hospitals would not be overwhelmed all at once so early in the course of the epidemic.  The virus would continue to spread but hopefully, the curve would not be as steep as if there had been no mitigation strategy.

Such a mitigation strategy would allow the nation to mobilize more assets for treating the illness.

We will never know if it helped or not.  Because of the money attached to COVID, everything became COVID.  But understand that flatten the curve was a mitigation strategy.

Jacob thought that his brother might be coming to exact vengeance, but perhaps half of the people might escape. That was a mitigation strategy.

The gifts and humble language were meant to appease his brother.  Dividing into 2 camps was mitigation in case that didn’t work.

You have to go beyond this chapter to see how the encounter between Jacob and his brother went.  I’ll give you a hint if you have not read ahead.  There is no vengeance exacted by one brother upon the other.

The mitigation strategy was for nothing.

The gifts and humbling language were to appease the brother that wanted to kill him 20 years ago. Dividing everything that belonged to Jacob into 2 camps was mitigation in case appeasement didn’t work.

But God had told Jacob to come to this place and that God would be with him.  Some of us think that we should throw in a couple oh yea of little faith editorials to go with this story.

C’mon Jacob, c’mon Israel, God said he would be with you.  Why this mitigation strategy? Is God is not enough?

We could point some condemning fingers here. Jacob, dude, how could you not trust that God would provide for you?

Israel, man how could you not see that God is striving to work through you?

We could jump all over Jacob, at least until we had to look in the mirror.  How many times have we second-guessed God?  How many times have we wondered if we understood him correctly?

I think I will just pretend that what God told me to do was garbled in transmission. It’s not true but it’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

How many times have we implemented a mitigation strategy in case the worst happened and we had to go through this thing—whatever it is—without God?

God strives to accomplish his will through us.  Sometimes we resist.  Sometimes we doubt.  Sometimes we prepare for the worst.

There is nothing wrong with an emergency fund.  That’s good planning.

There is nothing wrong with a contingency plan.  That’s the application of sound thinking.

There’s nothing wrong with gaming a scenario or situation.  What if?  What if this? What if that?

But when we start to mitigate what we will do as if God will not deliver on his promises, that’s a problem. When we think we are in this thing called life without God, that’s a problem.  That’s when we expend energy without producing a return on our investment.

If God has told us that he will deliver us from something but our plans are based on the fact that he probably won’t do what he said he would do, that’s a problem.

Now if you don’t make your car payment for 6 months but you have asked God to make it for you, don’t be surprised when the tow truck finally arrives at your house to take your car away.

If you shouldn’t have had those last 2 drinks at the bar but you asked God to get you home safely after you started the car, don’t be surprised when you are standing before the judge being arraigned for DUI.

When you didn’t study all semester but you ask God to help you ace the finals, don’t be surprised when your grade reflects your effort.

But when God promises you life, life abundant, and life eternal but you think you had better get all you can for yourself as often as you can because you are not so sure about this eternity thing, that’s a problem.

When God tells you not to be anxious for anything but to receive his peace instead, but you have 2 or 3 or 300 things that you just won’t turn over to God, don’t expect his peace.

When God promises you that you are in good company because you are persecuted because of him, but you decide to please the world and take the path of least resistance, that’s a problem.

You may or may not have read the next couple of chapters but Jacob—Israel—did not need a mitigation strategy.  God said he would be with him and he was.

Jacob would have been blessed to have memorized Proverbs 3:5-6 before he embarked upon this journey home. Had he visited the Burns Flat Cumberland Presbyterian Church en route—a slight detour in time and geography—he would have known Proverbs 3:5-6 even though it wouldn’t be written for another 700 years.

How many times has our own understanding prompted us to create a mitigation strategy because we are not trusting God? When will our Christian maturity emerge in the form of trust and faith and tangible belief in what God has told us?

We see that God did not kick Jacob to the curb because his faith was weak.  God continued to bless Jacob and fulfilled his promises to him, but consider the peace that Jacob forfeited because of his doubt.

Consider the opportunities for pure joy that were missed because of doubt. Jesus told us to be known as his disciples by our love, not by our doubt, but we choose doubt over faith and trust so many times.

Consider the human legacy that we pass on to our children and their children when we doubt. Our legacy should be composed of faith, hope, and love not doubt.

We should continue to do prudent things.  God gives us the thumbs up on wisdom. Some of those prudent things include different courses of action and contingency plans but these should be in accord with what God has promised us, not because we are not sure if he will fulfill his promises.

God is faithful even when we are not.

This week’s lesson comes from Jacob’s mitigation strategy.  He didn’t need it.  If it was just Jacob and Esau, such a strategy might have been prudent, but God was with Jacob.

That’s a game-changer.

That’s our lesson.  Don’t mitigate when God has told you that he is with you. 

God is with us.  Trust in his promises. Live by faith not sight. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart.

Amen.

 

 

Go and I will be with you

 Read Genesis 31

Jacob took advantage of his older brother and got his birthright for a bowl of stew.  We don’t see that sort of deal until Europeans arrive in the New World and purchased Manhattan Island for $24. That’s the story.  Revisionists now estimate the purchase worth closer to $1000.  In any case, it was the deal of the century.

Back to Jacob.  He traded a bowl of stew for his brother’s birthright.

Jacob deceived his father, Isaac, and received the blessing reserved for the older son.

Jacob was deceived by Laban and ended up married to Leah instead of Rachel. 

Jacob convinced Laban to give him as wages all of the spotted and speckled animals and then devised a scheme so most of the herds were spotted and speckled.  Laban might have vacillated between spotted and striped, but whichever it was is what the flocks bore as offspring.

Jacob’s flocks and herds grew, but eventually, Laban and his sons realized that something was amiss.  Their flocks were shrinking.  Jacob’s were growing.

Jacob got that feeling that it was time to leave town.  You might call it the 20-year itch.

Remember, that Jacob had left his father and mother to flee to relatives in the east because his brother Esau wanted to kill him.

Now Laban would like to put Jacob in a headlock and get even, whatever form that would take. Surely, he wouldn’t kill him…

It was time for Jacob to get out of Dodge.

We see no discussion or meditation upon the thought that the last time he saw his brother, Esau wanted to kill him.

Was it that the risk of remaining with Laban was greater than that of returning to his brother?  We see that Jacob had many reasons to leave, but he did not leave until one more thing took place.

What was that defining event?

God told Jacob to return to the land of his fathers.  But what about Esau?  Would it just be a long trip to walk into a murderous trap?

Listen to what God told Jacob.

Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.”

God told Jacob that he would be with him.  Go and I will be with you.

Go and I will be with you.

Had Tom drafted this chapter, he might have said this instead.

Another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Ollie.

Jacob was between a rock and a hard place.  Laban was angry with Jacob and did not treat him well but Esau might kill Jacob on sight.

          Another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Ollie Jacob.

But God was delivering the instructions.

Go and I will be with you.

While all the human reasons told Jacob that he needed to part Laban’s company; it was the direction of God that led to action.

He told his wives to get packed.  They were leaving right away.  They didn’t object much.  In fact, they seemed to resent the way their father had treated them.  They were property.  They were treated as foreigners in their father’s household.  They were ready to go as well without any convincing required on the part of Jacob.

They were ready to go to a place that none but Jacob had ever seen.

Among the things that the girls gathered for the journey were Laban’s household idols.  Rachel took her father’s idols.  There is all manner of discussion as to why she took them and as to their significance.  Many are convincing but none are conclusive.

What is conclusive is that these people from which Abraham’s children would get wives were not quite attuned to the thought of no other gods and no graven images.  Those commandments were centuries down the road, but Laban knew God’s voice when he commanded him not to say anything to Jacob good or bad.

The word for household idols is teraphim (ter-aw-feme') – תְּרָפִים.  This one word seems to mean household idol.  I was expecting one word for the modifier—household, and another for the noun—idol.

But it was all rolled into one Hebrew word—teraphim. 

Why should anyone care?  Think about it.  There is one word for household idol.  One word.

Let me take this to Oklahoma.  Hey!  Who wants a Coke?

Of course, someone will say yes, so the reply is what kind?

Dr. Pepper.

Now the connoisseur of soft drinks knows that those are two separate drinks, but the evolution of our language lumps them all under the category of a Coke. It’s part of our language now.

Household idols was one word in the Hebrew language.  It’s almost a proper name.  It’s one thing.

Again, why does anyone care?

The term--the word--household idols was just a thing.  Everyone who was anyone had household idols.  What a crazy time. The one true God spoke to Laban and Laban knew who was talking to him, but Laban had household idols.

He knew the one true God and he had household idols.

In the mid-1990s, Florida was in a drought.  It rained all of the time in Florida except this one year.  When it doesn’t rain in Florida, it’s different than when it doesn’t rain in Oklahoma.  Years' worth of vegetation form a thatch.

That is, there is layered fuel for the fire all around.  There may not be a tree in sight, but there is fuel.  The fire would burn and continue to burn through these layers sometimes unseen until it hit trees or other above-ground fuel.

There were several months when we listened to reports of fires moving to different areas.  Then one day I was at my desk in my office and one of the ladies in the office came in to tell me that the fire was moving towards where I lived.

I jumped in my truck and headed home.  There were some detours enroute due to the fire.  I finally got home and after watching the fire seem to retreat and head out towards the sea, the sun went down and the wind changed and the fire was again headed towards us, this time with a bit more passion.

So, I left my vantage point and returned to the house to evacuate.  When I returned, I found a big stack of photo albums waiting for me.  These were supposed to go in my truck.

We had to take our household gods with us.

You might think that I would have first loaded my golf clubs, but those household gods were always in the truck ready to go.

We and the house we lived in survived the fire.  It came within a hundred yards or so of where we lived before it found better fuel and turned, so I got to unload all of our household gods.

The photo albums were important. They weren’t really gods.  They were stored in a closet most of the time. They did not really occupy first place in our lives, but sometimes simple things do seem to come before God.

So by way of a personal challenge, I ask us all to think now if we have any household gods.  Do we have things that come before God or are equal to God?

What about our jobs?  What about our kid’s sports? What about our favorite actors or musicians? Do we idolize them?

Have we put something before God? It might not be so easy to recognize.  It may be a household god.  It’s always there.  It’s always present.  Sometimes it preoccupies our minds, and then our hearts, and the entire process often goes unnoticed.

Here is a household god that we see more and more today.  We see it more because of social media, but it is the household god of being right.

Have you seen people online who can’t just accept that other people might have different opinions than they do?  They must argue every point with everybody.  They must be right.

Learning in the course of discourse has been discarded for having to be right.  I think having to be right is a long-time household god that has come to prominence in the last couple decades of this age because of the technology available in this age.

If we truly look at ourselves, I think that most Christians will find that we have one or two or many things that come close to being household gods.  Some may clearly have surpassed the one true God as far as being important in our lives.

Why do I focus so much on the term household god?  They are subtle.  They seem to go unnoticed most of the time.  We have to deliberately look at them and decide where they stand in our lives.

Sometimes we think that we are under attack by the Evil One and he is leading a mighty army against believers when the biggest battles that we fight are those subtle ones that disguise themselves are just household things—regular things—ordinary things.

Sometimes a regular thing is just a regular thing.  Sometimes it might be a household idol.  Think about it.  Examine your lives.  Only you know what is most important, but you have to issue the BOLO in your household.

Be on the lookout for household idols—for things that compete with God’s place in your life.

Here’s the catch.  If something in your life is more important than God, it becomes so easy to rationalize that it’s also necessary. 

Satan may attack you head-on.  Call upon the name of Jesus to defeat him.

Household idols—household gods—use guerilla tactics.  They don’t launch a frontal attack.  They may already be within your lines.  They subtly attrite your weaknesses.

Be on the lookout for household idols.  They burn like an underground fire.

Let’s leave Tom’s metaphors and get back to Jacob.  There’s a bunch going on between Jacob and his wives and between Jacob and Laban, but this is what I hope you take into your week.

God told Jacob to go and that he would be with him and Jacob went.  He just picked up his estate and left town. He went. He went at once.

What if we were told to do that?

Have we been told to do that? Let’s consider the end of Matthew’s gospel.

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Jesus told us to go and that he would be with us.

Go and I will be with you.

He told Jacob to go and that he would be with him. We are not moving back to where we fled 20 years ago.  We are moving into the world and bringing good news and God is going with us.  God is with us.

So, consider the story of Jacob returning to the land of his fathers and everything that goes with that story.  Now consider our story which is still in the making.  We both have the same directions and support from God.

Go and I will be with you.

OBTW—don’t pack your household gods for the trip. Just pack God’s directions.

Go and I will be with you.

Amen.

Trusting God in Deceptive Times

 Read Genesis 31

Jacob’s nom de guerre was deceiver and it seemed that he lived up to that nickname. He deceived his father.  He deceived Laban after Laban deceived him, and so we must consider this whole striped and speckled animal business.

Was Jacob really so smart as to deceive Laban into surrendering most of his flocks?  Jacob said he would take the odd balls—the darker, spotted, or striped animals from the herd as his wages.  Then without explanation as far as Laban knew, more and more newly born animals fit this description.  Laban had to be thinking, the fix was in, but how?

We might be thinking that Jacob was just a shrewd dude, and there would be something to that.  He did put the branches in the water and more and more animals were born spotted or speckled or somehow less than perfect in appearance.

But now we see in something of a literary flashback, that God had told Jacob that this would happen.  Did he tell Jacob to speed the process along by putting the branches in the water?  We don’t know, but it gives us a little better perspective of Jacob.

I will stay with the assessment that he was shrewd but I will not go so far as to say he was conniving.  Why?  Listen to what the Lord said to Jacob.

So Jacob sent word to Rachel and Leah to come out to the fields where his flocks were.  He said to them, “I see that your father’s attitude toward me is not what it was before, but the God of my father has been with me. You know that I’ve worked for your father with all my strength, yet your father has cheated me by changing my wages ten times. However, God has not allowed him to harm me. If he said, ‘The speckled ones will be your wages,’ then all the flocks gave birth to speckled young; and if he said, ‘The streaked ones will be your wages,’ then all the flocks bore streaked young. So God has taken away your father’s livestock and has given them to me.

“In breeding season I once had a dream in which I looked up and saw that the male goats mating with the flock were streaked, speckled or spotted. The angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob.’ I answered, ‘Here I am.’ And he said, ‘Look up and see that all the male goats mating with the flock are streaked, speckled or spotted, for I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you. I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now leave this land at once and go back to your native land.’”

It seems that Jacob was not swindling Laban out of anything.  God saw fit to reward Jacob—one of his chosen in the line of the Father of Many Nations—and punish Laban.  Both were a bit on the deceptive side, but Jacob had been given a mission by God. Jacob was faithful to God.

Jacob would put this Father of Many Nations thing into high gear and God would continue to bless him.  The whole putting branches in the water may have just been the part that God gave Jacob to do. It may have been a test of faith and the branches didn’t really impact the genetics.

The sequence of events suggests that this was Jacob’s idea, but it is a common literary tool to present one scene and then offer the explanation sometime later.  I think that’s what we see here.  God was blessing Jacob.  God was redeeming the years of service to Laban with blessings from above.  Those blessings just happened to be born with speckles or streaks.

I’m thinking that I will go ahead and claim 2 Ukrainians and 4 illegal immigrants as dependents on my taxes and hope that God sends me a message that this is how it’s supposed to be.  It might not work that way.

This screwball deceiver of a man was chosen by God to accelerate this Father of Many Nations business.  He, with the help of 4 different women, did just that, and God blessed this knucklehead.

Sometimes, I look around and think things couldn’t be more screwed up than they are in our time, but…

What if all the self-destructive things that our government is doing, gets us closer to that glorious day that is coming?

What if, all this trans gender, pick a gender, and gender blender stuff just gets us closer to the coming of the Lord?

What if the fact that kids just can’t make change any more without a computerized register moves us closer to the end of this age and the beginning of the age to come?

What if all of the nuclear chest pounding just moves us a little closer to the battle to come at Armageddon?  That part sort of stinks.  The whole world going to war in one place and I’m left to guard the north end of Burns Flat.  But what if all of the insanity in the world just gets us to not only the end of the age but to the reward, the inheritance, the abundant and eternal life stored up for us?

Maybe, it’s time to understand that the ways of the world are the ways of the world but God will use them for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. Maybe, I need to understand that God will use the most hard-headed of hard heads to do his work. That one hits close to home

If I ever meet Jacob in heaven, I’m not going to transact any business with him.  I’m not making any deals with him.  I’m not buying his stew or letting him manage my livestock.  I’m not going to try my card tricks on him either.

I’m not having any dealings with that guy, but God used him with all of his short comings and with his deceptive nature to advance this Father of Many Nations business.

I think that I had better learn to trust in the Lord with everything I have more now than ever before.  I need to practice walking by faith not sight more in this time of deceit than ever before.

George Orwell once wrote that history ended in 1936.  He said it because in the Spanish Civil War battles were reported that never occurred.  Casualties were recorded in battles that didn’t happen.   

We saw the same thing in Vietnam with enemy body counts.  We see that fake news is just the norm in so much of our century. 

The Spanish Civil War put this fake news business into high gear and that was almost a century ago.

We live in a world of deceit, but God will not let the deceptiveness of the world cheat us out of what he has promised.  God rewards those who trust him and seek him and obey him.

So, where does that leave us?

Know the story of Jacob and Laban, Jacob and his wives, and Jacob and his God, but live trusting that God will use us with all of our flaws in a deceptive world that is doing everything it can to deny that God even exists.

God loves you as you are.  He doesn’t want to leave you there.  He wants you to grow in his grace, but he loves every broken part of you and will use you fulfill his plan and bring glory to his name.

Know these Old Testament stories.  They are important to your growth.  But know and live in the certainty that God loves you as you are.  He wants you to grow in his grace but he loves every broken piece of you.

He even uses hardheads to advance his gospel. I know that one for sure.

God loves you just as you are and will use you to bring glory to his name.  Trust him all the more in an age where it’s hard to trust anyone or anything.

Amen.

 

Just One More

 Read Genesis 30

By the time we get to the middle of this chapter, Jacob will have 11 sons by two wives and two concubines. Son number 12 will come along shortly. We will get there in a few weeks. His mother, Rachel, died giving birth to him, or at least from complications in childbirth.  This child was, of course, Benjamin.

So we have Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin.

You might think, OK, so those are the heads of the 12 tribes.  You would be 83% correct.  Only 10 of the 12 would result in the tribes that would go into and come out of Egypt and be counted as the 12 Tribes of Israel.  

Reuben lost his inheritance when his dad found out that he had slept with Bilhah, one of Jacob’s concubines.

Joseph’s two sons would become tribes.  Looking ahead, we know that Joseph would save not only his own family but much of the known world. His sons were Manasseh and Ephraim, and the younger would be considered senior to the older.  That had to be strangely familiar to Jacob, but we are not there yet.

I noted last week that the family tree was about to branch.  There would be one father but 4 separate mothers.  Two of them were sisters and they were surely in competition with each other, so much so that when they were not on their game, they went to the bullpen to have another child—mostly men—to their credit.

Those kids counted as their own RBIs. It’s baseball season—what can I say?

Here’s the scorecard. 

·       Leah (obviously the MVP) had 6 boys.

·       Rachel had 2 boys.

·       Leah’s servant had 2 boys.

·       Rachel’s servant had 2 boys.

But Leah and Rachel were surely in daily competition with each other. I’m not going to recount the whole list but here is an interesting extract from the chapter.

During wheat harvest, Reuben went out into the fields and found some mandrake plants, which he brought to his mother Leah. Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.”

But she said to her, “Wasn’t it enough that you took away my husband? Will you take my son’s mandrakes too?”

“Very well,” Rachel said, “he can sleep with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes.”

So when Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him. “You must sleep with me,” she said. “I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” So he slept with her that night.

God listened to Leah, and she became pregnant and bore Jacob a fifth son.

Do you think that Jacob had any clue what was in store for him when he agreed to work 7 more years so he could have both Leah and Rachel as wives?  Do you think that he had any idea at all what he had gotten himself into?

Imagine coming home from a day in the fields and wife number 1 meets you and tells you that you are hers for the night.  “I hired you for the night.  Paid off wife number 2 with some mandrake plants.”

You are bought and paid for and you had better deliver.

You had better be packing good seed!

What are Mandrake plants?  Supposedly, they promote fertility. They are Mandragora Officinarum if you want to do the research yourself.  They are $20 with free shipping if you have Amazon Prime.

This whole chapter is about breeding—human in the first half and livestock in the second.

That reminds me that a local farmer, I won’t mention the name as some of you might know him, asked me to pray that his bull would get to work.  It had become sluggish and not interested in performing the service for which it was purchased.

I told him that I could pray for his bull, but that the vet could give him something.  It’s not that prayer wouldn’t be appropriate, but Paul told Timothy that he didn’t have to give the problems that already had solutions provided to the Lord. If you have some GI problems, take a little wine for your stomach.

The farmer said that he didn’t have time to go to the vet, so I went for him.  The vet said that one of these tablets should do the trick but he gave me a 30-day supply anyway.

After the first pill, the bull took care of half the herd one day and the other half the next.  On the third day, the bull jumped the fence and serviced the neighbor’s cows.

The farmer was obviously pleased.  He asked me, what’s in those pills?

I said, I don’t know but they taste like peppermint.

I hope that by now, you know that this story may not be entirely accurate.  It’s 2023 so I am required by law to give you a fact check.  You can get a larger dosage of this supplement and it tastes like raspberry, not peppermint.

I might have to get a farm tax number to get a refill.

That should set the record straight. Yes, it was all tongue-in-cheek.

What a crazy story, not Tom’s bull medicine story but the story of 2 sisters competing to have children by their shared husband.  They even went so far as to contract out some of the work. One sister paid for a night with her husband with a fertility supplement given to her competing sister-wife.

But God told Abram, who he renamed Abraham, that he would be the Father of Many Nations.  Up until this point, there hadn’t been a whole lot of activity on that front, but now the stage was set for the family line of Abraham to grow much faster than it would have with a single wife having children in successive years.

What a crazy time to live.  Monogamy wasn’t really on the top of God’s list at this time.  Wives praying in competition with other child-bearing candidates just seems crazy.

C’mon God, just give me one more son.  Just give me one more.

Did you ever watch the movie, Hacksaw Ridge?  It’s about the U. S. Army fighting in Okinawa.  Yes, the Marine Corps had plenty of battles on this island.  I’ve spent my time on that island.

The movie was about a young man who wanted to serve his country but didn’t want to kill anyone.  He put himself at risk time and again as an army medic to save other soldiers.

The movie is about one battle with lots of American casualties that needed to be evacuated over impossible terrain, but his one medic kept going back.  He just wanted to save one more, just one more.

Just one more.

Leah wanted just one more son. Rachel wanted just one more son.  Leah wanted just one more son Rachel wanted just one more son. Leah wanted just one more son.

They counted the sons of their servants as fruit to their credit, but they wanted one more, just one more.

I was thinking about retiring this month and just writing soap operas using the stories in Genesis as the basis for 10 or 12 years’ worth of work.

I have probably told you that Sharman likes Barry Manilow.  That means that I have to like him too, or at least pretend that I do.  It also meant that I had to take her to Barry Manilow concerts when we could.

I was counting my blessings that we lived in Oklahoma and would probably not have to contend with any Barry Manilow concerts, but then, he announced his last concert.  It would be in Las Vegas.  It was probably 15 years ago, perhaps longer.

What could I do?  I had to take her.  Then I would be out of danger or so I thought.

A couple years later, Barry Manilow was doing his very last concert in Oklahoma City.  I had been to his very last concert, but there he was again, this time just an hour and a half away.

Every time that I thought I was out of the woods, here came Barry with another very last concert.  It was like he was saying, just one more.

Just one more.

It’s sort of like one of those stores that has a going-out-of-business sale for 8 or 9 years.

God used these 4 women to fulfill his will, his plan.  The family tree that started with the Father of Many Nations was branching and branching fast.  This many nations business had been supercharged because these 2 sisters were in competition with each other and weren’t afraid to use all of their tricks and even contract out some of the work.

God used their nature to fulfill his will.

What about us?  Sometimes our human nature gets us in trouble.  Sometimes we find talents and abilities built into our nature.  Sometimes we wrestle with our nature.  Sometimes we embrace it.

We want to be more like God.  We want his nature to consume our sinful nature.  We want to be more Christlike, but we are who we are.

Don’t you think that God knows that?

Does that mean that we should sin and sin profusely?  No, but when we do, and God redeems us once again from our own nature, we should have something called a testimony.

We should be able to share not only our glorious days when we were in perfect step with the Lord, but also those days when we were on the wrong path, knew it, and went down that road anyway, but God brought us home.

The shepherd left the 99 in the wilderness and went after you, me, us…

And we should testify to that.  We should have testimonies that affirm other believers in their race of faith, that strengthen them in times of weakness, and that help us to fulfill God’s will in these perilous times.

We matter to God and he comes after us time and time again.

God also trusts us with important work.  Ladies, I am not talking about a baby-making race. That race has been run.

God trusts us to take the message of salvation to the world.  As we go into the world with this good news, we should be like Jacob’s 2 wives.  We should be like the army medic on Okinawa.  And as much as it pains me to say it, we should be like Barry Manilow. We should want one more.

In context with our situation, we should want to save one more.  Yes, God does the saving, but our part is to reach the lost with good news—with news of life in Christ Jesus.

We should never be satisfied with the work we have been commissioned to do.  We should always be thinking and living these words:  Just one more.

Lord, help me to reach just one more.

Yes, there was some interesting stuff in this chapter, but God used the competitive and sometimes selfish nature of these two sisters to accomplish this part of his plan.

Let us allow him to use us in all of our brokenness to affirm other believers that God is at work in us in this time and helps us to reach the lost with words of life.

We want to affirm one more believer.  We want to reach one more person who is lost.

Lord, help me to reach just one more.

Amen.

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.