Genesis 31:22-42
Part 2 - "Jacob's Justification"

  1. Jacob Submits to Laban's Investigation (31-35)
    1. Jacob Declares Laban's Guilt and His Innocence (31-32)
      1. Jacob replies to the first part of Laban's complaint - I was afraid (31)
        1. He admits it!
        2. He was fearful that Laban would try to take Rachel and Leah from him by force.
        3. Is his concern justified? Of course! Laban is a scoundrel, a liar, and a thief.
        4. Ought he to fear? Of course not! The LORD is on his side and will protect him.
      2. So Jacob confesses, without realizing it, the weakness of his faith
        1. Hadn't God appeared to him at Bethel?
          1. Hadn't God told him "I will be with you?"
          2. Hadn't God said, "I will bring you back to this place?"
          3. Is God a liar?
          4. Then let Jacob entrust himself fully to the promises of God!
          5. Cease this foolish fright, O Jacob! The LORD is on your side.
        2. Hadn't God appeared to him again in Haran telling him to return to the Promised Land?
          1. Isn't he following that command?
          2. Then God will protect him on the way.
          3. Why should Jacob fear?
        3. Why should it surprise him that God appeared to Laban and protected him?
          1. Yet we saw last week how sweetly Jacob's doubt is rebuked.
          2. Laban, the servant of the devil, preaches the gospel to Jacob.
          3. I cannot harm you Jacob, he proclaims. Your God appeared to me and told me not to.
          4. Your God is more powerful than Laban. He can do all things.
      3. Children of God, let us not doubt as Jacob doubted
        1. God appeared wonderfully and convincingly to Jacob at Bethel and swore promises to him.
        2. But God could have appeared much more wonderfully and convincingly to Jacob. He could have made a more spectacular display, right?
        3. But he cannot appear more wonderfully and convincingly to YOU.
        4. To YOU he has appeared in his Son who has been given dominion over all things.
          1. What can mere man do to you?
          2. No one can harm the one who seeks to follow Christ.
          3. For even if you follow him through suffering into death itself, will he not raise you up to everlasting life, just as he was raised up to glory?
          4. Follow after Jesus then, without fear, though the whole world should bellow and threaten.
          5. "And though this world with devils filled/ Should threaten to undo us./ We will not fear for God hath willed/ His truth to triumph through us./ The prince of darkness grim/ We tremble not for him./ His rage we can endure/ For lo! his doom is sure./ One little word shall fell him."
          6. Christ has already conquered Satan and with him all earthly powers and everything that threatens. In the last day he shall cry, "Depart!" and Satan shall depart into hell. Fear not!
      4. Jacob responds to the final accusation - I didn't steal your idols
        1. "But anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live."
        2. Thus unwittingly, he pronounces a death sentence against Rachel
          1. Rachel his bride
          2. Rachel the one who has brought sin into his camp
          3. Rachel who clings to the old world even as she is being brought into the new
          4. Rachel who trusts in the old gods even when God himself is with her through her husband.
        3. Without knowing it, Jacob also speaks prophetically - Rachel will soon die in the promised land, bearing him Benjamin, his 12th son.
      5. So he agrees to submit to Laban's investigation
      6. He sets his own righteousness before his uncle, saying, I can withstand your closest scrutiny.
        1. It is as though he has told the devil, come and accuse me if you dare! I'm clean.
          1. He proclaims his own righteousness
          2. Come! o accuser, and point out my guilt
          3. Come and show me where my unrighteousness lies!
        2. Oh the irony of this situation! Oh Jacob, you fool!
          1. He actually thinks himself righteous!
          2. He actually thinks he can withstand investigation.
          3. How confident he is in his ignorance: there is no sin in this household.
        3. The story rubs it in: "Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the gods."
      7. Are you not the same, oh believer?
        1. A little grace from God, a little prospering of your way, and you begin to boast.
        2. You forget your former sins and declare how righteous you are.
        3. You do not consider how there may be hidden sin within your own household, within yourself even, which cannot withstand investigation.
        4. You fool! The LORD, he is your righteousness! The Lord alone. Put your trust in nothing else.
      8. Jacob thinks his household is completely righteous so he invites a trial.
        1. He agrees to submit to Laban's judgment because he thinks he can withstand it. There is no unrighteousness in his house!
        2. And we who are in the know wince and bite our nails.
    2. Laban Investigates (33-34)
      1. Laban went into Jacob's tent
      2. and into Leah's tent
      3. and into the tent of the two maids
      4. but he did not find them…
      5. The tension mounts
        1. WE know where those idols are
        2. WE know whose tent is the place of sin in the camp
      6. So Laban went out of Leah's tent…
      7. and into Rachel's
      8. And Rachel had hidden the gods in a saddle bag and sat on them
        1. So Laban searches everywhere else in the tent
        2. and he doesn't find the gods
        3. because they are in Rachel's saddle bag and she's sitting on them.
        4. He's zeroing in on the culprit and the evidence of sin
        5. We bite our nails some more
        6. and then it comes…
    3. The Moment of Truth (35)
      1. He comes to Rachel, sitting in the middle of the tent, in the middle of the camp. Sitting on her sin which is Jacob's sin, though he is ignorant of it.
      2. Etiquette requires her at this point to rise before her father out of respect.
        1. She declines
        2. She says, "Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the way of women is upon me.
        3. It's that time of the month, she says. And thus excuses herself from standing.
        4. We do not know whether she is being truthful or not. Laban does not dare investigate.
        5. Because if she's telling the truth, then what she's sitting on is a pile of rags that are absorbing filthy, thick, disgusting, putrid, stench-emitting blood.
      3. Do you get the picture here?
        1. It is a worse image even than if she were using these gods as her toilet.
        2. She is sitting on the idols, bleeding (or claiming to bleed) all over them.
        3. And not just any blood, but impure blood. Foul-smelling blood. Dirty, messy, sickening blood.
          1. The Israelites originally hearing this story would surely remember how God had declared this type of blood to be unclean and how anyone who touches it becomes unclean.
          2. And so God is instructing Israel on their identity in Jacob: Here you are, oh Israel, declaring your own righteousness when in your midst are idols covered with unclean blood!
          3. Seek a better identity, Israel! Seek a cleaner blood such as can wash away all unrighteousness.
        4. These idols that were supposed to protect her; she protects them and herself by menstruating all over them.
        5. These idols. These supposedly sacred objects are putrid, unclean, and revolting.
      4. THIS is what God thinks of her idols
        1. They are unclean, repulsive objects
        2. They are less than nothing in his sight.
        3. They are unclean and to be rejected utterly. Nothing can make them clean again. They are covered in uncleanness.
        4. They are the objects of his wrath and revulsion.
      5. THIS is what God thinks of loving this world
        1. remember what the idols stand for
        2. Rachel is being invited into the promised land, into the presence of God
        3. For this she ought willingly to give up her family and her possessions. She ought to forsake all that she has if only she may gain this pearl of great price.
        4. Yet even as she embarks on the journey, she clings to the world she leaves behind. Her treasure is not fully laid up in the world that is ahead.
        5. And here God tells us what he thinks of all that - it is pure filth, an unclean stench in his sight.
        6. Forsake the world! this passage cries out to you across the centuries.
        7. Lay up your treasure in heaven, for where your treasure is there your heart will be also.
        8. Forget what is behind and press on toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
        9. Since you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above where Christ is, seated at God's right hand.
        10. How many different ways must God say this to us before our sluggish faith is aroused and we fling from us all that we have loved in this world and seek only the world that is to come?
      6. THIS is what God thinks of trusting in something other than him
        1. Why did Rachel bring them?
        2. Because she thought they could protect her.
        3. Instead, as we have observed, she protects them, rendering them unclean, an object of horror.
      7. THIS is what God thinks of trusting in yourself
        1. The idols are a symbol for boasting
        2. Vain boasting that you can provide for yourself without God's provision
        3. This is why Laban wants them back. He trusts them more than the God of Jacob.
          1. The God of Jacob has prospered Jacob. He has seen that.
          2. The God of Jacob has appeared to him as Jacob's protector. He knows that.
          3. So does he throw in his lot with the God of Jacob?
          4. No! He wants his unclean filthy idols back.
      8. Oh children of God, do you not often trust in that which is not God?
        1. This is what God thinks of that!
        2. You trust in your wealth or your cleverness or your reputation.
        3. You trust in your righteousness in comparison with others instead of in comparison with God's holiness.
        4. THIS is what God thinks of trusting in the things of this world.
        5. THIS is what God thinks of trusting in your own righteousness. All your righteousness is like menstrual rags, Isaiah tells us.
        6. Let all such trust be revealed here for what it is - a filthy, stinking, bleeding mess.
        7. Throw it away! Cast it from you like the putrid, offensive mess it is.
        8. Trust in God alone! He alone is holy!
        9. Cling to Christ alone! He alone is pure!
  2. Jacob's Complaint and Testimony (36-42)
    1. Jacob Complains Against Laban (36-41)
      1. Thinking he has been vindicated as righteous, Jacob really lays into Laban.
      2. What is my offense? What is my sin? Show it to me. Spread it out in front of all. (36,37)
        1. Jacob is ignorant of the answers to these questions
        2. And so is Laban.
        3. But we know. And so we shift uncomfortably in our seats.
        4. Jacob has survived Laban's inspection
        5. But what about the last day when God will judge the secrets or men's hearts?
        6. In that day what is spoken in the dark will be proclaimed in the light and what is whispered in the ear will be shouted from the housetops.
        7. Jacob had better have a better plea than this when that day comes.
          1. His plea had better not be What is my offense? What is my sin?
          2. For if Laban cannot tell him, God certainly can.
          3. But his plea must then be What is Christ's offense? What is Christ's sin?
          4. And that is your only plea as well.
      3. Ignorant of his sin, Jacob self-righteously attacks Laban
      4. Look at how good I have been and how bad you are, he cries!
        1. Your goats and sheep haven't miscarried for twenty years (as though that is Jacob's righteousness rather than the grace of God)
        2. I haven't eaten your rams
        3. That which was torn by wild beasts or stolen, I bore the loss myself
        4. I slaved away for you - 14 years for your daughters, 6 for the flock, and you have cheated and deceived me again and again.
      5. Does Jacob forget that he himself was a cheater and a deceiver
        1. How he cheated Esau out of the blessing
        2. How he deceived his father into giving it to him rather than Esau
        3. Yet this cheating deceiver now self-righteously accuses another and claims that he himself is blameless.
      6. It's a mixed moment.
      7. We are glad Jacob is protected, but uneasy about his argument. He is an unrighteous accuser and he doesn't even know it.
      8. Why does he not rather realize that he himself is sinful and his righteousness is with God?
      9. Why don't we?
        1. How often we deal self-righteously with each other, as though we ourselves are blameless
        2. How often we judge one another according to our own standard of measure
          1. And who is our favorite standard of measure? Ourselves!
          2. I would never do such a thing, we proclaim.
          3. I would never allow that to happen in my family
          4. If I were in that situation, I would respond differently. Better.
          5. Fools! Like Jacob we are fools!
          6. Why does Jacob not say, Laban we are sinners you and I. But God has been gracious to me. Come with me to seek him that he may be gracious to you as well.
          7. Let us recognize Jacob's folly and walk in the opposite direction.
          8. Having our righteousness fully in Christ, let us never judge one another except according to the grace of God which has been shown to us in him.
        3. How often we boast to the world of what we have and what we have done when it is only by the grace of God that we are not destroyed. Only by the grace of God that anything we have done has been in any way blessed.
    2. Jacob's Testimony of God's Vindication (42)
      1. Jacob then proclaims the moral of this story
        1. God is on my side, and he is more powerful than you, Laban
        2. The God of Abraham, the Fear of Isaac
          1. Let Laban fear to thwart his will
          2. Or let Laban try to thwart his will. Still he cannot.
        3. YOU would have sent me away empty-handed, Laban.
        4. But God had other plans and he is more powerful.
        5. So, finally, Jacob rejects any alliance with Laban.
        6. In a sense, his trust is now in God.
        7. But still he misses part of the point, a crucial part
          1. He does not say, my righteousness is with God; therefore God has rebuked you.
          2. He says, my righteousness is with ME; therefore God has rebuked you.
      2. That's the implied moral in his words to Laban
        1. God "rebuked you last night (42 at the very end).
          1. What happened last night?
          2. Laban accused Jacob of sin and was proved to be wrong.
          3. Thus God rebuked Laban for accusing Jacob of sin
        2. God has vindicated me because I am righteous, Jacob says.
        3. My righteousness has answered for me in that you discovered that there was no sin in my camp. Your stolen gods are not hear.
      3. Jacob doesn't know about the hidden idols, so he misses the point.
      4. Jacob forgets his own past sins, so he misses the point
      5. Feeling that his own righteousness has been vindicated, he points his finger at Laban
        1. Therefore you are inexcusable, oh man, whoever you are, who judge. For you practice the same things.
        2. So Jacob testifies of his righteousness against Laban and only reveals his own inexcusableness.
        3. God has not vindicated him because he is pure.
        4. God has justified him in spite of his sin.
      6. But we don't miss the point.
    3. The True Testimony of God's Justification
      1. God does not protect Jacob because of his righteousness but in spite of his sin.
      2. And so it is with us as well.
      3. We were filthy before God and like Jacob we were too ignorant to realize it
        1. We thought we were righteous or at least righteous enough in comparison with the Laban's of the world.
        2. Little did we know that lurking within us was a depravity so total that we opposed and despised God with every fiber of our being.
        3. There, in the middle of the camp of our heart, was an object of horror and disgust.
        4. We were as sickening in God's sight as menstrual rags.
        5. Who can make such a thing clean? Only Jesus Christ and him crucified.
      4. He became an object of horror, covered in blood that you might become an object of beauty, clothed in his righteousness.
      5. And now there is a different kind of blood at work in your hearts
        1. A cleansing, purifying, powerful blood.
        2. In this blood all your sins are washed away.
        3. In this red blood, your garments do not become stained but are made as white as snow.
        4. Here is no unclean blood, but the cleanest of the clean. His blood can make the foulest clean. His blood avails for you.
      6. Here is grace, pure grace from heaven
        1. Here is no justification because YOU are righteous (for you are not)
        2. Here is justification because CHRIST is righteous (Look! He has been raised again and has even ascended into the Most Holy Place, into heaven itself where he sits at God's right hand.)
        3. Throw away your idols, all your love for this world, all your trust in what you can do for yourself!
        4. And come to God by faith in Christ alone.
        5. He is pure. He is righteous. He is beautiful and perfect and complete.
        6. And in him, so are you.

[Genesis Sermons] [Sermons and Studies] [Main Menu]