JACOB—a man WHO LEARNED THE HARD WAY how TO TRUST in GOD

[Part 1]

Presented by

Tyler Mullins

[NOTE TO THE READER: This is the first of a two-part series that was presented on a single Sunday by Tyler (part one) and Blake (part two).]

If I were to ask you today to tell me who the following people are from within the pages of the Bible, could you do it?

Ahio

Beninu

Doeg

Eglah

Gershom

Jael

Michal

Peninnah

Omar

Raddai

Sopater

Teresh

My guess is that while a few of you might recognize one or two of these names, most of you would have no clue as to who these people are—or why they are mentioned in the Bible. The truth of the matter is that there are numerous individuals revealed within the pages of God’s Word with whom we are only vaguely familiar.

On the other hand, there are many people mentioned in the Bible whose names we readily recognize, whose life stories we know quite well, and with whom we are very familiar. Some of those who fall into that category might be people like Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Deborah, David, Esther, Jeremiah, Paul, Judas, Thomas, Peter, and, of course, Jesus.

But one individual who rightfully should be included in every list of well-known Bible characters is the man who was father to the twelve young men who eventually gave rise to “the twelve tribes of Israel.” His name, of course, was Jacob. Or, at least that was his name before He got into a fight with God.

What?! Wait a minute. Did I say that Jacob “got into a fight with God”? Yes, that’s exactly what I said. You see, Jacob—who was a son of Isaac and Rebekah, as well as Esau’s twin brother—was destined for greatness. Jacob, however, just like his grandfather Abraham, occasionally had trouble trusting God and believing that He was going to do what He said He was going to do. But whereas God taught Abraham an unforgettable lesson by commanding him to offer his son Isaac on an altar in the mountains of Moriah, God was going to get even more personally involved in teaching Jacob a lesson that he desperately needed to learn. Here is what happened.

Genesis 27 provides us with the beginning of the story. Isaac and Rebekah did not want Jacob to make the same mistake that his brother Esau had made. Esau, as it turns out, had married two Canaanite women who were idol worshipers—much to the displeasure of his mother, Rebekah, who said to her husband Isaac, “I am weary of my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women such as these, one of the women of the land, what good will my life be to me?” In modern-day terms, we might describe Rebekah as saying to Isaac, “If Jacob marries the same kind of women that Esau did, it will absolutely kill me!”

Isaac got the point. We know this to be true because in Genesis 28:1-2 we read that “Isaac called Jacob, blessed him, and said to him, ‘You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Padan Aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father; and take yourself a wife from there of the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother.” So, Jacob set off to find a wife, just as his parents had instructed him to do.

However, as Jacob traveled on his journey he grew weary, and decided to stop to get some rest. While he was sleeping, he had a rather unusual dream. Genesis 28:10-17 explains how Jacob saw a ladder that stretched all the way from the Earth to heaven. On the ladder were angels, who were traveling up and down it. But at the top of the ladder was the most unusual sight of all. Genesis 28:13 says, “Behold, the Lord stood above the ladder.” God then spoke to Jacob, saying,

“I am the Lord God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. Also, your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you” (vss. 13-15).

When Jacob awoke, he realized the importance of his dream, and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it” (vs. 16). Before Jacob left, he made a stone altar, and named the place “Bethel,” meaning “House of God.”

In Genesis chapters 29 through 31 we read about how Jacob eventually arrived in Padan Aram, where he met a girl by the name of Rachel, whose father was Laban. Jacob fell in love with Rachel and wanted to marry her, but Laban told him that he would have to work seven years for the privilege of doing so. Jacob did as Laban asked—gladly! In fact, Genesis 29:20 says that “Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed only a few days to him because of the love he had for her.”

But, when the time came for the couple’s wedding, Laban tricked Jacob into marrying Rachel’s sister Leah without realizing what he was doing. And as if that was not bad enough, Laban then told Jacob that he would have to work seven more years in order to be able to marry his beloved Rachel!

Have you ever heard the old saying, “What goes around, comes around”? We often use that statement to mean that, one way or another, a person usually “gets what’s coming to him.” Do you remember what Jacob had done to his father Isaac and his brother Esau before leaving to go find a wife? With his mother’s help, Jacob had tricked his father into thinking he was Esau so that Isaac would give him Esau’s birthright—which meant that Jacob would get a double portion of Isaac’s estate. By doing this, Jacob not only lied to his father, but also robbed his brother of that which was rightfully his. The name “Jacob” means “he who supplants.” The dictionary defines “supplant” as “to supersede another by force, trickery, or treachery.” Jacob had indeed used trickery and treachery to deceive his father and steal his brother’s birthright.

But “what goes around, comes around,” and Jacob ended up getting a dose of his own medicine! At his wedding—after having worked seven years for Rachel—Jacob “thought” he was marrying the woman he loved. But Laban “supplanted” his first daughter Rachel with his second, Leah—and tricked Jacob in the process. Whereas in the case of Isaac and Esau, Jacob had been the trickster, he now found himself as the one who had been tricked.

It is worth noting here that when the twin brothers Esau and Jacob were born, Esau was born first. But according to Genesis 25:26, Jacob’s “hand took hold of Esau’s heel” as they came out of their mother’s womb. And, according to other accounts in Genesis, Jacob continued to “take hold of” the possessions of others—including his brother’s birthright (Genesis 25:29-34), his father’s blessing (Genesis 27:1-29), and even his father-in-law Laban’s flocks and herds (Genesis 30:25-43; 31:1). Yet throughout all of these events, Jacob still was going to have to learn one last, very important lesson—a lesson that God Himself was going to teach Jacob. Here is what happened.

After twenty years of living in Haran with his wives and their kinfolk, Jacob decided that it was time for him to go back home to the land of Canaan. So, he gathered together his family, flocks, herds, and servants, and began the long trek back to the place of his birth. However, the closer Jacob came to arriving in his homeland, the more worried he became. His source of concern was his twin brother, Esau, whom he had cheated out of his birthright. Even though Jacob had not seen Esau for two decades, he could not help but wonder if Esau might still be angry at him—or even want to kill him!—for what he had done those many years ago.

So, as Genesis 32:3-5 explains, Jacob sent some of his servants to Esau as friendly messengers—along with some very generous gifts—to try to make things right between the two of them. When the messengers returned, they told Jacob that Esau was on his way to meet his brother—with 400 men! And what did Jacob do? Instead of remembering what God had said to him in the dream at Bethel—“I am with you, and will keep you wherever you go”—Jacob’s trust in God wavered. As a result, Jacob decided to take matters into his own hands, just as his grandmother Sarah had done when she insisted that Hagar and Abraham have a baby, rather than trusting God to send her a baby when He was ready for her to have one.

Genesis 32:7-8 tells us that “Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed, so he divided the people that were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two companies. And he said, ‘If Esau comes to the one company and attacks it, then the other company which is left will escape.’” Jacob then crossed over the Jabbok River with the two separate groups, and sent them on their way without him. Jacob apparently decided to remain behind—so he would have time to think about what he might need to do next.

[continued in Blake’s lesson of the same title—Part 2]