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[0:00] Okay, so we have, we've got Jacob up in Haran with whom? Laban, thank you. And who's Laban in relation to Jacob?

[0:23] ! Laban, thank you. And who's Laban in relation to Jacob? Laban is Jacob's uncle. And he is there looking, that is, Jacob is there because he left Canaan, because he's not supposed to marry a Canaanite.

[0:41] So he's up to Uncle Laban to get married. And so what was the deal? He's been there a month, and Laban opens a negotiation for wages, right? So what did Jacob say?

[1:07] Okay. Yeah. Okay, he's partial to Rachel.

[1:27] Rachel. And so he says, I'll work for you for seven years for Rachel as my wife.

[1:40] What did Laban say to that? This is all review. Sure, good deal, we'll do that.

[1:51] So he worked seven years, but it only seemed like a few days because he had his mind on Rachel.

[2:04] So they have a big party. They have a big party for the wedding. He goes in, consummates his marriage, wakes up in the morning.

[2:18] Ron, it's funny you put it that way, Ron. I know you've never thought that.

[2:30] But no, in all joking aside, I have heard a man say, I married the wrong woman.

[2:47] I married out of God's will. Now I'm going to leave her and go off with my secretary. Now, is that true?

[3:05] No. No, partially. Maybe he messed up when he got married. Maybe he wasn't thinking. But just because I messed up doesn't absolve me of the responsibility of my marriage because it's a consummation before God.

[3:28] And it's a witness to the world of what? The relationship of Christ to the church.

[3:39] Now, if I'm not being a very good husband, I'm not witnessing well about what Christ is to the church. It's a responsibility.

[3:52] And so, anyway. So he finds out, okay, it's Leah. He confronts his uncle. What happens? Okay. Okay, I'll tell you what, Jacob.

[4:12] Jacob. I know that I said that I'd give you Rachel for marriage. However, in our culture, that's just not done.

[4:25] So, therefore, here's what we'll do. You fulfill her week of marriage, and I'll give you Leah for another seven years. Or Rachel, rather, for another seven years.

[4:40] And what does Jacob say? Okay. Okay. So. Well, we know, we do know that he had no bride price.

[5:01] So, his indenturement was about the only thing he had. He didn't have a strong negotiating position. Remember, when Laban was there in the negotiations with his father and his sister, he got big payout just for being part of the family.

[5:32] And Abraham's servant gave the whole family a bunch of gifts. That's a strong negotiating position, I guess.

[5:44] But, anyway. Back here. So. We're ready to start, let's say, at verse 30.

[5:59] So, go to Genesis chapter 29. Pardon me. Verse 30. Now.

[6:16] Now. How is this family dynamic getting started? This is polygamy in action, isn't it?

[6:39] And it almost has to be that way. Yeah. Well, polygamy was common for wealthy people.

[6:54] But. What's the family dynamic there? What's it say about Jacob? That's right.

[7:06] Right. Right off the bat. There's going to be an imbalance, isn't there? This is going to tell.

[7:19] You who've read ahead already know this is going to play out regularly. Okay. Okay. So. Beginning with verses 31 through 35.

[7:33] We'll get there. Now. Rachel and Leah. What's their relationship one to another? They're sisters.

[7:46] And they are co-wives. I don't know what to call them. But they're co-wives. Now. Later on.

[7:58] When. When God gives the law to Israel. He's going to say something about this exact relationship. You remember what it is?

[8:12] Doesn't have to be a quote. I'll give you a hint. It's in Leviticus. Chapter 18. He tells Israel.

[8:26] You're not going to do this. You will not marry a woman. Your wife's sister. While she's still alive. That's the.

[8:41] That's what God told them. Because it. It produces a rivalry. 1818. If you're looking for it. Now.

[8:53] That's at a time. When God. Allowed. Because of the hardness. Of their hearts. God allowed. Multiple marriage. And he allowed.

[9:05] Divorce. But. What did Jesus say. To the Pharisees. In the beginning. What? It was not so. In the beginning.

[9:17] Now. He's referring to Genesis. Which. By the way. Many of us have quoted. And. Those who do something. Along traditional lines.

[9:29] Still quote. For this cause. Shall a man. Help me out here. Leave his.

[9:41] Father and mother. And. Be joined. Be joined. Or cleave. To his wife. And the twain. Shall be.

[9:52] One. Flesh. And Jesus. Told them. That's the way it always has been. That's the way it's supposed to be. And by the way. The apostle Paul.

[10:03] Is going to reiterate that. Why would John. Allow him. To all find that. Well. The.

[10:16] The. The. It does. It does. It seems. Seems pretty strange. If you're going to have. Six hundred and thirty laws.

[10:27] You might as well put in. One about that. Would seem to me. But. I think that goes. Personally. I think that kind of goes along. With the hardness of our hearts.

[10:39] And what God allowed. Under the mosaic law. But even under the mosaic law. Remember. What the apostle Paul. Will say to us. In the church.

[10:49] In the day of grace. Paul's going to say. The law wasn't really given. That would produce life. Would produce righteousness.

[11:00] Because if righteousness. Could come by the law. Then Christ died for nothing. The. The law was given. To show me. That even with those.

[11:13] I'm not good enough. I'm not going to make it. So. That's why I need a savior. Because the best day. I ever lived.

[11:24] With the best intentions. I've ever had. Are not good enough. For God. His righteousness. Is the only righteousness.

[11:34] That's good enough. And therefore. We stand. As. You're going to get to. In Philippians. I know. I don't mean. To be jumping the gun.

[11:45] But. I'm glad to do it. When I have the opportunity. I. We're going to be hearing. From the pulpit. That I stand.

[11:56] Before Christ. Before God. In a righteousness. That I couldn't attain. Not of my own.

[12:07] But what? The righteousness. That comes. By faith. In. Christ. Christ. So I stand. In his righteousness. Not in my own.

[12:20] That's pretty important. By the way. That's pretty important. And. It's pretty amazing grace. Isn't it? Imputed righteousness.

[12:32] Yes Nathan. Well this whole. Subject there. I've debated. In the years. Christians. Are there plans? Are there plans? Are there plans?

[12:43] Are there plans? Are there plans? Are there plans? Are there plans? Are there plans? Are there plans? Are there plans? Are there plans? allowable, I guess. It is challenging from the Old Testament.

[12:55] I think it's so clear that Paul's writing is a big recommendation. But why he allowed it, that's a big question.

[13:10] I think people have come up with some maybe reasonable answers. Especially in that day, if you weren't married as a woman, you were highly at risk.

[13:22] Yeah. And so, in fact, in caring to husband, it's less risky than he's being.

[13:35] Maybe being destitute. We're going to see that.

[13:52] We're going to see how they view that. And we'll, we may re-address this business of polygamy, but it's also important for me to remember that number one, I need to, I know we say rightly divide, but I need to understand that the provision of God as he unfolded his revelation was not the same then as it is now.

[14:24] It's a progressive unfolding. God in his wisdom, Paul calls it his wisdom, which is not the wisdom of the world. For in Corinthians, we read, the foolishness, as it were, of God is wiser than the wisdom of men.

[14:44] So I need to be careful that I don't try to somehow justify this by saying, well, God was thinking this way. I'm not sure I have that much mind.

[14:59] All I know is that he did. That, that part I know for sure. He did allow it. But in the beginning, it was not that way.

[15:13] That's also true. And so as we approach this, I'll try to remember not to jump too much.

[15:27] Nevertheless, the whole family dynamic gets off to an imbalanced start. Because Leah's despised and Rachel's honored.

[15:41] In Jacob's eyes. Okay, let's go on with those verses in 31 through 35 if you've read them. And here we get to Roger's bearing children.

[15:56] So, tell me what happens. Oh, before we go. it was not, it was not adulterous then.

[16:25] Now, I think so. but that's my view. Please understand, the scripture doesn't say that. What does, what Paul's address, and we might reiterate this, it was supposed to come a little later, but when, when Paul talks to the church, when he talks to husbands and wives, he begins with husbands, and he says, and he begins in the, I think it's in Ephesians, where he says, he, he re-quotes what Jesus said, and, and the, and from Genesis, Jesus, or, Paul quotes, for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the twain, that, that's a word that means two, and the two will be one, and then later on, in first Corinthians, he's going to say that the wife has not the right over her own body, but the husband, and the husband has not the rights over his own body, but,

[17:53] I know you know these verses if you looked them up, it's in first Corinthians, but the, the wife, by the way, if I'm not yet married, I am keeping that body for the one who will, I will marry, I'm, it's not really my body to play around with, that business of my choice, my body, is not true, scripturally, it's not mine, you are the, your body, is the Lord's, you were bought with a price, so I need to remember all of that as I'm getting into this polygamy thing, but Paul says to the church, one and one, one man, one woman, all the time, equals one, yeah, now, and, in addition to that, when he tells the church, when you are looking for elders, your King James will say bishops, when you are looking for bishops and deacons, they must be the husband of only one wife, now,

[19:25] I don't think that means that if his wife has died, or even if before he came to Christ, he left his wife, or something happened with that, but, what he's saying is, while they're walking with the Lord, while they're in church, if you're going to look for a deacon or a bishop, they have to be married to one person, not three.

[19:57] Yeah. In fact, we were going to get there to literally there's one woman's hand. Yeah. I don't know.

[20:12] The question really is now what?

[20:32] Now what do you do? They have two wives, two wives, two wives, what is the instruction that you give them? Are they in the midst of committing adultery perpetually?

[20:42] Paul also instructed the church in that kind of a situation.

[21:06] Now, we're not in that situation, but in that kind of a situation, Paul's instruction to the church becomes a bit, he, you almost have to say, okay, I weigh polygamy against the one, one wife, and I weigh the admonishment that the only reason there should be a divorce even in an unequal yoke is for adultery, and then I also have to weigh where Paul said, look, however you came into the faith, remain there.

[21:55] So he said, were you, now, he was specifically talking about were you a master? Stay there. Were you a slave? Stay there. However, if you can become free, become free.

[22:06] But, were you married? Stay married. So, in that kind of a situation, where, I'm glad I'm not in Africa and having to make those decisions, because those are harder decisions.

[22:22] And it's in a, it's in a situation where they, those women may be in the same kind of a dilemma as to, as to rights and properties.

[22:39] So, and, and most of those countries are not necessarily known for their balanced judicial systems.

[22:51] So, the person who can grease the palms the best usually gets the best result frequently.

[23:11] So, for the church, polygamy's out. Now, is it necessarily adulterous like in that African situation?

[23:24] I'd say probably not, but, I have to be very careful with that. Yes? Yeah.

[23:54] Yeah. although he does say the two, the two shall become one. And that is clear language. He doesn't say the three shall become one or one and a half or however that works.

[24:12] So, by the way, it's pretty hard to, for my wife to have the authority over my body if I have two.

[24:28] Which wife gets the authority when? You know, that's pretty hard to follow that mandate if I have more than one.

[24:42] So, I hope that no answer helped. yeah.

[24:55] My problem becomes, I figure it must be the will of the Lord because it really seems right to me.

[25:25] You know, I have had dear friends who have said the Holy Spirit is telling me this. I'm saying, I'm not too sure you're right.

[25:38] But that's where a desire to walk with the Lord, being immersed, knowing which scripture applies to me as marching orders and which ones do not.

[26:02] Back to the issue about people who claim to be Christians. And yet, talk about polygamy being an acceptable relationship.

[26:17] They're not making a discernment between Old Testament time, Israel, or even pre-Israel in this case, and today.

[26:31] Now, by the way, we won't get into all of them. There are some verses that deal with issues of polygamy.

[26:43] And all of them are in Old Testament time. You know, Gideon had 70 children because he had many wives and a concubine. But we know where a thousand wives got Solomon, don't we?

[27:08] Okay. 31 through 35. How do we get kicking off here? We're married.

[27:22] We like Rachel. We have Rachel and Leah. Now, what's happening in these verses? Okay.

[27:36] Now, but Leah begins to bear children, but Rachel's barren.

[27:48] Okay. That's going to become important, so I need to remember that as I'm reading in here. Because this family dynamic, I need to not follow, but I need to learn from.

[28:06] And so, Leah begins to bear children. How many, by the way, are mentioned in those verses? There are four mentioned.

[28:21] Now, notice what Leah says about the first three. She has some hopes, doesn't she?

[28:33] She has a desire. There. So, let's go through that a little bit. Exactly.

[28:53] What's she say about Reuben? Reuben. My husband will now love me.

[29:09] I have it. I gave him his firstborn. My husband will now love me. It's really kind of sad, isn't it?

[29:23] Okay. What's she say about the second one? Okay.

[29:33] What's she say about the second one? Okay. And she calls him Simeon.

[29:51] And she conceives again. And this time, what? This time he'll be joined to me.

[30:06] Three sons. We're not getting off to a good start. And now, this isn't going to be, I'm not going to learn polygamous relationship from this.

[30:27] But I need to learn something about how I treat Sherry, don't I? It's not so much dependent upon what she gives me. That's not my responsibility to love her for that reason.

[30:42] I'm told to love her. In fact, I'm told to love her in a very frightening way.

[30:56] How does he describe it? How did God describe it through the Apostle Paul? As Christ loved the church.

[31:15] Now, and, by the way, men, this is to us. In that passage, he doesn't stop as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it.

[31:31] He also says, and he presents that church to himself. How? Without spot nor wrinkle.

[31:53] That's pretty tall order for me. I see spots and wrinkles too easily. At least in you. You know. Maybe not in myself.

[32:06] But that's not how I'm supposed to look at Sherry, is it? So, here, Leah says, Now.

[32:20] Now he'll be joined to me. And then the last one. I praise the Lord.

[32:34] Okay. So, now we have four sons. These are the four patriarchs. What are their names? Reuben.

[32:46] Simeon. Levi. And Judah. Now. Reuben and Simeon are going to come into play again here.

[32:59] But. You know something about Levi. It's not foretold here. But you know something about Levi, don't you?

[33:09] Yeah. There are a couple of things you know about Levi. What are they? At least two. What's going to happen to his progeny? They're going to be the priests.

[33:25] Right. And Judah. What do you know about them? From Judah will come. The kings.

[33:38] And ultimately. The king. Alright. Now. By the way.

[33:48] That's why the Lord Jesus is called. The lion. Of the tribe. Of Judah. Judah. He may have been a lamb the first time.

[34:03] But he won't be a lamb. At his second coming. Now. What other thing do we remember about Levi?

[34:19] Levi. He's not going to get. His tribe will not get. An inheritance of land. Right.

[34:33] That. If you get in your time machine. Will run forward. Way forward. As they are coming into Canaan.

[34:44] And as they are coming into Canaan. The lands are apportioned. Levi doesn't get an inheritance of land.

[34:55] They are priests. Who got. So. What do you do? Now you have eleven sons. But one of them is.

[35:06] Gone. One of them didn't come out. Well none of these came out. Of Egypt. But. One of them. Is going to split. Joseph's tribe.

[35:18] Will split. And they'll be called. Sometimes a half tribe. Of Manasseh. And a half tribe. Of. I forgot. Forgot the other name.

[35:30] But. Ephraim. So. They will split. And that's what will make up the twelve. They'll still be a tribe of Levi.

[35:43] But the half tribes will be really. Joseph's descendants. Okay. So. Levi will become. The tribe of priests. And they have no inheritance.

[35:54] In the land. Which will become by the way. Important. In the years of Jubilee. When the law comes in. And he. Tells them. What's going to happen.

[36:05] During those years. Okay. Now. Those are the first four. Of the patriarchs. Now we're ready.

[36:15] To get into 30. Are we not? Chapter 30. Yes. Chapter 30.

[36:26] Verses 1 through 8. At least. We can get through. So. By the way.

[36:43] Here's another lesson. For me. In relationships. And. Attitudes. What's Rachel's.

[36:54] Rachel's. Response. To her barrenness. She envied her sister. She's having children.

[37:05] And I'm not. Now. You've never heard this. It's. Not. It's not.

[37:17] Fair. By the way. When it comes to my salvation. And God's grace. I'm really glad it's not fair. Fair. If God was fair.

[37:32] In his dealings with me. I'm in big trouble. But Jesus. Took that on himself.

[37:44] And gave me his righteousness. That's amazing grace. So. She envied her sister. Sister. She says something to her husband.

[38:03] It almost sounds like Esau. But. She says something to her husband. What's she say to him? Give me a child.

[38:17] Or I'm going to die. Now. Now. Jacob got a little frustrated. Didn't he? Says his anger was kindled.

[38:29] What'd he say? Am I in. Am I in God's place? I can't do that.

[38:42] Okay. And her. Answer then is. And here again. This is a. A cultural thing that. I don't get my head around.

[38:55] What'd she say? Here's my maid. I'll give her to you. As a secondary wife.

[39:07] And she will bear children. In my place. She. That's what she says. On my knees. That's what. That's what she's saying. I'll give you.

[39:18] Bilhah. To be. A surrogate mother. She'll bear the child. I'll claim the child. Okay.

[39:29] So what's he do? What's Jacob do? Okay. He said. All right.

[39:41] And the result. The result was another son. And what does Rachel say?

[39:56] I got this son because God judged me and I was right. I was right. See what. What she says there in verse.

[40:11] Verse six. God hath what? Vindicated or God has judged me.

[40:25] And given me a son. Okay. I'm vindicated. David. And she names him. Dan. Now.

[40:38] Bilhah conceives again. And. Now what does Rachel say? Yeah.

[40:56] Yeah. I've wrestled. I've prevailed. Now. Sounds like a contest.

[41:09] Doesn't it? I have been in. I've been in a wrestling match with my sister. But.

[41:19] But I'm catching up. It's four to two now. It's four to two. Maybe the game's not over. Okay.

[41:33] And I'm going to stop there. So that. We now number how many. How many patriarchs?

[41:44]  Six. We now number six. Two. Two.