Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20081026.htm
THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION Genesis: Explaining The Foundations Of History Part VII: Explaining God's Plan To Bless Men Regardless Of Apostasy S. God's Reward For Faith Regardless Of One's Lot In This Life (Genesis 29:31-30:25)
Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

Many people have been dealt a hard lot in life that they seem helpless to change, and they wonder if they can ever be fulfilled:

(1) Last Monday, talk show host, Brad Davis on Torrington's radio station read an e-mail message from an African-American who was responding to the racial slurs he had heard from white voters in the presidential campaign! Discouraged that racism still thrived here 140 years after slavery, he called for those of his race to leave America!

Conversely, a caller on Wednesday told Mr. Davis how a Christian African-American woman she knows feels she can not vote for the African-American presidential candidate because of his view on abortion. However, she is being pressured by associates to change her mind just to get an African-American to be the nation's next president!

In reply, Mr. Davis noted how powerless he felt to get voters to see that, for the good of the country, they should vote on the issues, the content of the candidate's character and his qualifications for the job!

(2) However, getting voters to understand these facts is a daunting task: very reputable journalist, Orson Scott Card, wrote an op-ed article, "Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?" on October 5, 2008 in The Rhinoceros Times of Greensboro, North Carolina to claim that most daily American papers lead readers to think one set of ideas in politics is reality when the opposite is so!

(3) Responding to our State Supreme Court's recent ruling to redefine marriage to include same gender couples, Governor Jodi Rell testified on Mr. Davis' show on Wednesday she believed marriage is the union of a man and a woman. However, she said she would not push the issue to a vote by the people as the legislature would block it!

Thus, the people of Connecticut are left to think they have no choice but to accept the court's 4-3 split decision levied upon them regarding the redefinition of morality in the institution of marriage!

(4) Millions of investors have seen their portfolios shrink due to the sins of business and government leaders, and they have added to the crisis by making a worldwide run on their stock investments!

(5) Locally, I count five cases this last week where people in our body, or others they know, have faced hard, "unfair" crises!

Thus, we ask, "If we have been dealt a hard lot in life and we seem powerless to change it, how can we ever be happy?!"

(We turn to the sermon "Need" section . . . )

Need: "If life has dealt us unfair hardship, can we ever be blessed?!"

1. By way of Laban's deceit, he married off both of his daughters, the plain Leah and the beautiful Rachel, to Jacob, Genesis 29:15-30.
2. These sisters were thus dealt a hard lot in life, Genesis 29:31-30:25:
1. When God saw Leah was an unloved wife, He gave her fertility and kept Rachel from bearing so that Jacob might love Leah, Gen. 29:31.
2. Accordingly, Leah quickly produced four sons, naming them in reflection of her experiences in her difficult marriage, Gen. 29:32-35:
1. Leah named her first son Reuben, "look, a son" hoping his arrival would win Jacob's love, Ryrie St. Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to 29:32.
2. Her second son was named Simeon, "hearing" teaching God had heard she was unloved, and recompensed her, Ibid., ftn. to 29:33.
3. The third son was called Levi, "attachment" in hope that Jacob might at least become attached to Leah, Ibid., Genesis 29:34.
4. The fourth son, Judah, i.e., "praise," was named in simple faith in God in praise for His giving her fertility, Ibid., ftn. to Gen. 29:35.
3. Rachel then envied Leah's fertility, and murmured to Jacob for failing to give her any sons, and Jacob angrily retorted that it was God rather than himself Who had caused Rachel to remain barren, Gen. 30:1-2.
4. Instead of calling upon God for fertility as had the patriarch Isaac in Genesis 25:21, Rachel gave Jacob her maid Bilhah to produce a son like Sarah and Abraham had faithlessly reacted to her barrenness by giving Abraham Sarah's maid, Hagar, Genesis 30:3-4a wi th 16:1-2.
5. Bilhah gave birth to Dan, i.e., "justice", a name Rachel gave him in claiming God had intervened to treat her justly opposite the seeming unfair productivity of her rival, sister, Leah, Ibid., ftn. to Genesis 30:6.
6. Bilhah produced a second son, and Rachel named him Naphtali, i.e., "wrestling" to celebrate how she had wrestled in competition with her sister Leah and prevailed to produce a second son, Genesis 30:7-8.
7. Leah who had previously ceased bearing (Gen. 29:35d) then felt threatened by Rachel's production of sons by her maid, so Leah faithlessly gave Jacob her own maid, Zilpah who in turn gave birth to Gad, meaning "fortune" to celebrate her hope that a troop of sons would rise from her maid, Ibid., ftn. to Genesis 30:11; 30:9-11.
8. Zilpah bore another son whom Leah named Asher, meaning "happy" to indicate that at least other women would call her happy even if her husband still did not love her, Ibid., ftn. to Gen. 30:13; Gen. 30:12-13.
9. This competition between the two sisters in Jacob's complex marriage came to a climax: one day Rachel bartered for a supposed aphrodisiac, the mandrakes Leah's son Reuben had found, offering Leah to be with Jacob temporarily if Rachel could have Reuben's mandrakes so that she might conceive, Genesis 30:14-15; Ibid., ftn. to Genesis 30:14-18.
10. Though Leah had ceased bearing after Judah's birth (Gen. 29:35d), her time with Jacob produced Issachar, i.e., "reward" showing that Leah had been rewarded with a son by faith in God, Ibid., ftn. to 30:14-18.
11. Leah had yet another son, Zebulun, i.e., "dwelling" to testify though Jacob might not love her, he might at least dwell with her for her having given him six sons, Ibid., Genesis 30:20; Genesis 30:19-20.
12. Leah then delivered a daughter, Dinah, before God gave Rachel fertility to bear Jacob her firstborn son, Joseph, Genesis 30:21, 22-24.
13. Joseph means either "may the Lord add" or "He has taken away", an expression of faith that God had BOTH removed Rachel's barrenness AND that He would give her another son, Ibid., ftn. to Gen. 30:22-24.
3. In all of this their trouble, God graciously REWARDED FAITH in HIM WHETHER it was Leah OR Rachel who EXPRESSED it:
1. Leah's son, Judah was given Israel's royal line in David, and later the royalty and priesthood in Christ, the son of David, in reward for Leah's faith and praise in God at Judah's birth, Ibid.; Genesis 29:35; 49:10; 2 Samuel 7:1-17; Luke 1:30-33; Psalm 110:1-3, 4.
2. Rachel finally trusted God at Joseph's birth to give her another son, and she later died bearing him; however, in that son Benjamin's tribal lot would be located Jerusalem and the temple, Gen. 30:24; 35:16-19; Joshua 18:11-16; The MacMillan Bible Atlas, 1968, map 71, p. 52.

Application: If we are troubled by what life has handed us, (1) may we trust in Christ as Savior to become a child of God and be put in His great care, John 1:12-13; Romans 8:32. (2) Then, may we (a) realize GOD has LET us face what we face just as He did in Leah and Rachel's lives (Gen. 29:31), and (b) RESIST faithlessly trying to manipulate our situations ourselves to become fulfilled. (c) Rather, may we TRUST God and HEED His Word in our lives! (3) We will see Him BLESS us in the LONG-TERM!

Lesson: Though Leah and Rachel were both put into a hard marriage, to the EXTENT EITHER ONE TRUSTED GOD in her circumstance did God BLESS her effort and her descendant involved in the LONG-TERM!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the sermon lesson . . . )

Probably the single people group that has been handed the most unfair lot in life, one in which they are humanly powerless to improve, are the Christians who were left in Iran after the Islamic Revolution. When the Shah of Iran was replaced by pure religious Islamic rule, many Christians fled, leaving just a remnant of Christians behind.

Add to that the rise of Iran's highly Islamic President Mamoud Ahmadinejab, life could not seem more unfair and harsh to these folk.

However, 30 years later, the Revolution seeming to falter under the poverty and discontent of the populace, many Iranians are disillusioned. They wonder why their nation, the world's first modern state that is governed solely by Islamic law, is letting them down, "'So, they are ripe to hear a new way'" according to Todd Nettleton with Voice of the Martyrs (CBN News International, 9/5/08 as cited in Dave Hunt's The Berean Call, October 2008, p. 6).

Some of the Christians who remained in Iran have begun witnessing to disillusioned countrymen, and "the evangelical house church movement is now growing rapidly . . . but . . . the people are arrested, harassed, persecuted, in some cases beaten severely. It is not an easy pathway,'" according to Nettleton, Ibid.

"President Mamoud Ahmadinejab is so concerned that he has made it his aim to stop the house church movement, declaring: 'I will stop Christianity in this country.' He's launched an unmerciful crackdown against Iranian house churches. Nettleton says while Ahmadinejad is trying desperately to halt church growth, his crackdown is actually having an opposite effect . . .

'We see outreach of people traveling to other cities . . . other parts of the country, and they are planting these little house churches in those cities and . . . parts of the country as well'" says Nettleton, Ibid.

Thus, what Christ did under Rome's Nero, under Russia's Lenin and Stalin and under China's Chairman Mao, He is now doing under Iran's Mamoud Ahmadinejab who rules Iran solely by Islamic law -- He is building His Christian Church, and the gates of hell are not prevailing against it! (Matthew 16:18)

If we feel trapped by the difficulties life dishes out, may we recall that God has ALLOWED it to occur, and that HE wants us to REACT in FAITH and simply DO HIS WILL! He will reward us by blessing us in the LONG-TERM!