Jacob part 5 God’s sanding of rough places
God meets you in the gaps of uncertain times: Yeah tho I walk through the valley of deep darkness, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.
We left off on the story of Jacob last time with his leaving his family to go to Paddan-aram to find a wife.
Genesis 28 So Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and commanded him and said to him, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. 2 Arise, go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father; and from there take to yourself a wife from the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother. 3 May [a]God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become an assembly of peoples. 4 May He also give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your seed with you, that you may possess the land of your sojournings, which God gave to Abraham.” 5 Then Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.
I was reading this story again in preparation for the message today, and it struck me that Jacob had to have been very anxious as he was leaving home. This was a time of high anxiety and uneasiness. His future was uncertain. His destination was uncertain.
https://psychcentral.com/stress/top-10-life-stressors-that-can-trigger-anxiety?scrlybrkr=c8e9f67a
The top life stressors are common causes of extreme stress and upheaval.
1. Death of a spouse
2. Separation
3. Divorce
4. Incarceration
5. Death of close family member
6. Personal illness or injury
7. Marriage
8. Fired or laid off
9. Moving
10. Retirement
Jacob had at least two of those; moving and marriage. And sometimes we are anxious about little things.
An average person's anxiety is focused on:
40% --
things that will never happen
30% -- things about the past that can't be changed
12% -- things about criticism by others, mostly untrue
10% -- about health, which gets worse with stress
8% -- about real problems that will be faced
Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all others thoughts are drained.
Arthur Somers Roche.
The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.
George Muller.
Philippians 4:6-7: Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Psalm 55:22: Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.
Matthew 6:34: “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.
1 Peter 5:7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.
Prayer
Let me just recap our story this far. Esau and Jacob are the twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah. Isaac is the son of Abraham the man that God called to leave his home country, and go to a land that He would show him. He promised him that He would give him that land as an inheritance, that He would make him a great and large nation, that He would bless the people who blessed Abraham and his people, and He would course those who curse them. And He also promised that through Abraham, and those who would proceed from him, all the families of the earth would be blessed.
We come to realize that this eventually happens because Christ is born into the Abrahamic line; the Jewish people, the nation of Israel. Esau and Jacob are born into that promise. But only one of them would be the line through which the promises carried forward, and Isaac and Rebekah were told from the beginning that that line would be Jacob.
But the road is often rocky leading to the fulfillment of God’s promises. Esau was born first, so there is contention over the rights of the first born. Eventually Jacob, conspiring with his mother trick Isaac into blessing Jacob as the first born over his brother Esau. And Esau is angry. Angry enough that he plans on killing his brother after their father dies. So, Rebekah comes up with another plan. The plan has two parts. And that’s where we pick up with the story.
I. God’s sanding of rough places phase 1 Leaving Home behind
A. Fleeing hostility
27: 41 So Esau bore a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him; and Esau said in his heart, “The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” 42 Then the words of her elder son Esau were told to Rebekah. So she sent and called her younger son Jacob and said to him, “Behold, your brother Esau is consoling himself concerning you by planning to kill you. 43 So now, my son, listen to my voice, and arise, [n]flee to Haran, to my brother Laban! 44 Stay with him a few days, until your brother’s wrath [o]subsides, 45 until your brother’s anger [p]against you subsides and he forgets what you did to him. Then I will send and get you from there. Why should I be bereaved of you both in one day?”
Her plan is to get Jacob away from danger. Send him some place far away so Esau cannot hurt him, and does not have to see him. That’s part one. This is part two.
46 Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am tired of [q]living because of the daughters of Heth; if Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of Heth, like these, from the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?”
Part two is to provide a reason for his leaving; he needs to get a wife. And he should get a wife from her family, back in the old country, because the local girls are not good wife material.
Why are they not good wife material? It must have been something because Abraham had also gotten Rebekah as a wife for Isaac from back home. He didn’t want Isaac marrying locally either. You might view this as racist, but it has little to do with race, and more to do with faith and values. As the apostle Paul in the New Testament advises Christians to “not be unequally yoked with an unbeliever” so to, the family of the promised blessing from God should not tie themselves in marriage to a people who were pagan and polytheistic. Esau had already taken wives (plural) from the local girls. Later in…
Genesis 36:2 Esau took his wives from the daughters of Canaan: Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Oholibamah the daughter of Anah and the granddaughter of Zibeon the Hivite;
And after this time he also takes a third wife
3 also Basemath, Ishmael’s daughter, the sister of Nebaioth.
It was likely more than just their faith that bothered Rebekah. As one commentator put it
Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth; whom Esau had married, Genesis 26:34; who were continually vexing and teasing her by their impiety and idolatry, their irreligion and profaneness, their disobedience and contradiction, their froward temper and behaviour:
They were not “of the faith,” and they were not “nice girls.”
And so Jacob is sent on this journey. And this is the point at which I was thinking about how much anxiety must have been welling up in his heart. Not only did he have the drama at home with his brother, father, and mother, but now he is going off into the unknown. Think about the details of this journey.
B. Plagued by conscience.
He had to have second thoughts about the deception that led to threats from his brother. He had to have thoughts about whether God would really bless him when he obtained the blessing through devious means.
C. Find an uncertain wife
How long was the journey? The journey is about 450 miles, on foot. If he covered 20 to 30 miles a day, it would take him between 15 to 23 days to travel it. So, he has a huge physical task ahead of him. And there is no indication in the text here, or in future passages that he had any help. No servants accompanied him. He probably had at least one service animal like a camel or donkey. He probably had ample supplies for the journey. But it was just him. To heighten the anxiety, he had never traveled this way before. His mother had come from the old country 70 years earlier. But even his father Isaac hadn’t traveled back that way. A servant was sent to get his wife.
And he had to have questions about this expedition. Okay, let’s say I get there okay.
Who is still alive? His mother probably laid out a diagram of the family tree. Her father was Bethuel.
“the daughter of Bethuel son of Milkah, who was the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor.” This would have made Rebekah a great-niece to Abraham and second cousin to Isaac.
And we read that she had a brother named Laban there. But what do they know about them now? It’s been a very long time since they’ve seen any of them. And there is no way to communicate back and forth unless they could somehow send messages through traveling tradesmen coming through the area. Maybe they had servants who traveled back and forth. We don’t know.
Another question that I’m sure he had was, “What kind of wife am I going to get?” How many women will there be to pick from? How many will be allowed or willing to return with him? This is the ultimate blind date with lifelong consequences.
And I’m sure he also wondered…
D. Big question: When will I be able to return?
Esau wants me dead. His mother told him that when his brother’s anger is abated, when Esau calms down, I’ll send for you. But it’s important for us to realize that he ends up being there for 20 years, and his mother never sends for him. By the way, we have no Biblical record of Rebekah’s death or of his seeing his mother again. So, it is possible that she died before he ever returned.
Sometimes our rough places are sanded when we leave home. But there would have been many reasons for anxiety and uncertainty on his part. I don’t know if you’ve ever had those times of uncertainty like that. When your life seems to be precariously balanced on a knife’s edge. When you don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Our prayer list would indicate that many of you go through these feelings almost daily. But God often uses rough times to sand rough places.
Psalm 56:
56 Be gracious to me, O God, for
man has [d]trampled upon me; All day long, an attacker oppresses me. 2 My
foes have [e]trampled upon me all day long, For many attack me proudly. 3 [f]When I am afraid, [g]I will trust in You. 4 In God, whose
word I praise, In God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can mere [h]man do to me? 5 All day long they [i]distort my words; All their [j]thoughts are against me for evil. 6 They [k]attack, they lurk, They watch my heels, As they
have hoped to take my [l]life.
7 On account of their wickedness, will
they have an escape? In anger, bring down the peoples, O God!
8 You have taken account of my wanderings; Put my tears in
Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?
9 Then my enemies will turn
back in the day when I call; This I know, [m]that God is for me. 10 In God, whose word
I praise, In Yahweh, whose word I praise, 11 In
God I [n]trust, I shall not be afraid.
What can man do to me? 12 Your vows
are binding upon me, O God; I will [o]fulfill thank offerings to You. 13 [p]For You have delivered my soul from death, Indeed my
feet from stumbling, So that I may walk before God In the light of
the [q]living.
Well, we can see what Jacob needs at this point in the story. He needs God’s reassurance. And he gets it. Jacob strikes out on his journey for Paddan-aram, and 70 miles into his journey, the sun is setting, so he makes camp in a place called Luz. The next day he would rename it Bethel, which means “house of God.”
II. God reveals Himself. Sanding off the rough places by revealing a bigger vision.
Jacob’s vision of his life had been small.
A. God’s revelation
10 Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran. 11 And he reached [c]a certain place and spent the night there because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and put it [d]under his head and lay down in that place. 12 Then he had a dream, and behold, a [e]ladder stood on the earth with its top touching heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
Staircase
God is at the top of the staircase. Notice that it says that the angels, His messengers, were ascending and descending. It’s as though they were already on this staircase, going back and forth, doing the bidding of the Lord, and it is in Jacob’s dream that he gets this quick snapshot of what was an ongoing and invisible process even before he sees it. It conveys how near God is to us. How close at hand His help is. The angels of God are God’s agents to do His will. And they are right here to work at His command. But not only does it convey God’s nearness to help, but His nearness even in our sin. God sees all. He knows Jacob and why he is in this place. And it is not only the secondary mission of finding a bride, but the primary mission of escaping from the vengeance of Esau over Jacob’s sin.
B. God’s blessing
13 And behold, Yahweh stood [f]above it and said, “I am Yahweh, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your seed. 14 And your seed will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will [g]spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. 15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go. And I will bring you back to this land; for I will not forsake you until I have done what I have [h]promised you.”
Regardless of your past, God’s purpose and promises persist. You will inherit the land, even though you are leaving it for a time, just as I promised your father Isaac, and your grandfather Abraham. You will have a family that becomes a nation, though now you aren’t even married. I will watch over you, and you will return to this land.
C. The benefit of hindsight
In times of anxiety and uncertainty it is important to look back at how God has brought you this far.
16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely Yahweh is in this place, and I did not know it.” 17 And he was afraid and said, “How fearsome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
18 So Jacob rose early in the morning and took the stone that he had put [i]under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on its top. 19 And he called the name of that place [j]Bethel; however, [k]previously the name of the city had been Luz. 20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey on which I am going, and will give me [l]food to eat and garments to wear, 21 and I return to my father’s house in peace, then Yahweh will be my God. 22 Now this stone, which I have set up as a pillar, will be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.”
His response is less than stellar. What a fall from ‘Abram believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteousness’ ! He is startled that he found God here. He has probably only conceived of God as being limited to his family’s local. He is surprised to discover that his father’s God is in this place as well. We cannot ascribe to him full faith here. He is growing, but not grown. He still has a small vision.
We sometimes have rough places smoothed away by seeing God’s bigger vision.
About 350 years ago a shipload of travelers landed on the northeast coast of America. The first year they established a town site. The next year they elected a town government. The third year the town government planned to build a road five miles westward into the wilderness.
In the fourth year the people tried to impeach their town government because they thought it was a waste of public funds to build a road five miles westward into a wilderness. Who needed to go there anyway?
Here were people who had the vision to see three thousand miles across an ocean and overcome great hardships to get there. But in just a few years they were not able to see even five miles out of town. They had lost their pioneering vision. With a clear vision of what we can become in Christ, no ocean of difficulty is too great. Without it, we rarely move beyond our current boundaries.
Lynn Anderson.