THE LORD OF TRUTH

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

After Rachel gave birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, "Send me on my way so I can go back to my own homeland. Give me my wives and children, for whom I have served you, and I will be on my way. You know how much work I've done for you."

But Laban said to him, "If I have found favor in your eyes, please stay. I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you." He added, "Name your wages, and I will pay them."

Jacob said to him, "You know how I have worked for you and how your livestock has fared under my care. The little you had before I came has increased greatly, and the Lord has blessed you wherever I have been. But now, when may I do something for my own household?"

"What shall I give you?" he asked.

"Don't give me anything," Jacob replied. "But if you will do this one thing for me, I will go on tending your flocks and watching over them: Let me go through all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb and every spotted or speckled goat. They will be my wages. And my honesty will testify for me in the future, whenever you check on the wages you have paid me. Any goat in my possession that is not speckled or spotted, or any lamb that is not dark-colored, will be considered stolen."

"Agreed," said Laban. "Let it be as you have said."

That same day he removed all the male goats that were streaked or spotted, and all the speckled or spotted female goats (all that had white on them) and all the dark-colored lambs, and he placed them in the care of his sons. Then he put a three-day journey between himself and Jacob, while Jacob continued to tend the rest of Laban's flocks.

Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted. Jacob set apart the young of the flock by themselves, but made the rest face the streaked and dark-colored animals that belonged to Laban. Thus he made separate flocks for himself and did not put them with Laban's animals.

Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals so they would mate near the branches, but if the animals were weak, he would not place them there. So the weak animals went to Laban and the strong ones to Jacob. In this way the man grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, and maidservants and menservants, and camels and donkeys.

Jacob heard that Laban's sons were saying, "Jacob has taken everything our father owned and has gained all this wealth from what belonged to our father." And Jacob noticed that Laban's attitude toward him was not what it had been.

Then the Lord said to Jacob, "Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you."

So Jacob sent word to Rachel and Leah to come out to the fields where his flocks were. He said to them, "I see that your father's attitude toward me is not what it was before, but the God of my father has been with me. You know that I've worked for your father with all my strength, yet your father has cheated me by changing my wages ten times. However, God has not allowed him to harm me. If he said, 'The speckled ones will be your wages,' then all the flocks gave birth to speckled young; and if he said, 'The streaked ones will be your wages,' then all the flocks bore streaked young. So God has taken away your father's livestock and has given them to me. "In breeding season I once had a dream in which I looked up and saw that the male goats mating with the flock were streaked, speckled or spotted. The angel of God said to me in the dream, 'Jacob.' I answered, 'Here I am.' And he said, 'Look up and see that all the male goats mating with the flock are streaked, speckled or spotted, for I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you. I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now leave this land at once and go back to your native land.' "

Then Rachel and Leah replied, "Do we still have any share in the inheritance of our father's estate? Does he not regard us as foreigners? Not only has he sold us, but he has used up what was paid for us. Surely all the wealth that God took away from our father belongs to us and our children. So do whatever God has told you."

Then Jacob put his children and his wives on camels, and he drove all his livestock ahead of him, along with all the goods he had accumulated in Paddan Aram, to go to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan.

Genesis 30:25-43, 31:1-18

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Have you ever been the victim of a scheme?

Worse yet, have you ever been a schemer?

Typically, schemes work when someone seeks to gain our trust if they don’t have it already. They then come off as sincere in what they are proposing, making like the outcome will work in our favor when the real intention is for the deceiver to benefit themselves at our expense.

Through the years, these people have been labeled with lots of names with swindlers, cheats, con men or women, or double crossers being a few. But when it comes to this behavior, the Lord has only one name for the offender and that is sinner. And although a person might be able to trick another, they will never succeed in tricking God for He sees and perfectly understands very action and motive, and He knows how to deal with the transgressor.

To validate this point, let’s consider our scripture passage for today. We pick up after Jacob has completed all required labor to win the woman he loved the most, Rachel, and then proceeded to produce 12 children with Leah, Rachel, and their maid servants. After all this, we find him ready to return to his father and mother but as we see in the scriptures, Laban isn’t ready to let him go because he understands that wherever Jacob is, the abundant blessings of God will follow.

Indeed, for as long as Jacob had been with his uncle, Laban had enjoyed God’s bounty and it’s obvious that he doesn’t want to give it up. So he convinces Jacob to stay by making a promise that he never intended to keep and did so with the sole motive of padding his selfish, shameless accumulation of wealth at the expense of his servants. In the end translation, it really made no difference to Laban whether Jacob was a relative or not. He was all about himself and actually thought he had devised a great scheme but he forgot one thing for he was never going to outwit God.

In regard to the plot, we see where Laban convinces Jacob that he would give him "all the speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb and every spotted or speckled goat" for his wages but under the surface, he had other intentions. For we read where he gives all animals of this sort to his sons to take away and go on a three-day journey and so all that was left in the flock that Jacob worked were animals that bore the characteristics showing they belonged to Laban. And so it looked like Laban had outsmarted Jacob again, just as he deceived him with substituting Leah for Rachel, but the deception table was about to be turned on him because God was now firmly on Jacob’s side and ready to teach Laban was about the dangers of deception.

The scriptures tell us that as Jacob was tending to Laban’s flock, he placed peeled white strips made from "fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees" in "all the watering troughs". Then, something very strange happened. The unspotted, unspeckled animals in Laban’s flock started to produce spotted and/or speckled offspring which then became part of Jacob’s flock. Now while it might be possible to come up with some scientific, biological explanation for what happened, we don’t need to waste our time with it because what happened was all about God being God.

We read where Jacob also found a way to get the stronger females to mate for him so his flock would be stronger and as a result, God blessed him and provided an abundance, so much so that it drew complaints from Laban’s sons who must have watched good fortune fall on Jacob with amazement.

Of interest, Jacob would later tell Rachel and Leah that it was God who did not allow Laban to hurt him, that it was God who had produced the speckled and spotted from unions that would have made it impossible. Here as in all things, we are reminded that all things are possible with God.

You know, Christian believers have to go up against a scheme-ster every single day. His name is Satan and Jesus called him the father of lies (John 8:44). The way forward to gain victory over his evil plans is to remain anchored in the Lord, the One who will always "bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts" (1 Corinthians 4:5). Truly, if we draw near to Him, He in turn will draw near to us, helping us ward off anyone who would seek to swindle us.

Conversely, if we choose to fall for the devil’s deception and entertain his sinful desires, we can bet that God will derail our best laid plans and cause failure, just as He did with Laban. For our Lord, the one and only Lord, is the Lord of truth and He expects His children to be children grounded in His truth as they walk in His way and will.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.