The Scourge Of Racism
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It is only fitting that after examining his wives, Rachel, his second who he loved and Leah, his first who bore him six sons and he honored with burial next to him, that Jacob also be looked at for what God would have His aspiring strong men in the image of Christ learn from him.1 Indeed, as the last of the three revered Jewish patriarchs God had Personally interacted with to bring this ethnic people into existence, Jacob in heart and character is very important in His plans and actions during those days. The world today in post-Christianity rebellion against God may be rejecting the role of men as patriarchs in His order of mankind, but He continues to honor it for good cause.
Let me start as the Lord leads by declaring unequivocally that Jacob as all other men from Adam was born a sinner to parents that each was one too! Yet, this did stop God from assigning him a place in the godly line of men from Enosh, grandson of Adam down through his grandfather, Abraham, and father, Isaac, both of whom “called on the name of the Lord,” enjoyed relationship with Him as well as received His covenant of promise (Genesis 4:25-26, 12:1-9, 26:1-6, 12-25, NKJV). No mortal human existence from Adam much less a godly line could have continued unless his seed had made it possible as understood in the term, “begot,” (Genesis 5, 10, 11:10-26, 21:1-7, NKJV).
The godly line eventually comes down to Jesus of Nazareth biologically and most awesome, spiritually, since He is described as “the son of God” and “the only begotten of the Father,” (Luke 3:23-38; John 1:14-18, NKJV). God the Father begets His Son in the sense of providing the command for His incarnation and supernatural power through the Holy Spirit upon the seed of the virgin to make it happen as I write about in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics (Luke 1:30-35)!2 The Son in turn becomes a spiritual father to all who look to Him for salvation and new birth through faith and the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 9:6-7, 53:10-12; John 1:10-13, 3:1-8, 6:63, 20:19-23).3
God’s sovereign election of Jacob to walk in the destiny and promises of Abraham and Isaac before conception in their mother’s womb, rendered the struggle with his fraternal twin, Esau, unnecessary for nothing can thwart His will (Genesis 25:19-23; Malachi 1:1-3a; Romans 9:6-13)! Nevertheless, true to the name his parents gave him which means supplanter, Jacob came out of the womb clutching his brother’s heel as if to replace him in the birth order (Genesis 25:24-26). They were not only different in appearance, but interests and dispositions also. Esau grew up to become “a skillful hunter, a man of the field; Jacob a mild man dwelling in tents,” (Genesis 25:27, NKJV).
The interests and dispositions of Esau and Jacob would play vital roles in the outcomes of their respective lives and those of their descendants. Esau would prove to be wild, independent, impulsive and dull of thinking; Jacob, though quiet and loyal to his family as a herdsman and tent dweller like his forefathers, was calculating, laid back and patient. While He can and does work with both types of men if they are willing, it is important for men that aspire to become strong men of God in the image of Christ to note Jacob in the natural was more like Him than Esau.4 Now, “Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob,” (Genesis 25:28, NKJV).
The parental favoritism of their respective sons facilitated the great deceit that was to take place in the aftermath of Jacob’s to obtain Esau’s “birthright,” (Genesis 25:29-34, NKJV). His mother and Jacob successfully conspired to deceive Isaac into bestowing Esau’s birthright blessing of the firstborn on him instead (Genesis 27:1-38). Fear of Esau’s threat of murder and once again his mother’s cunning led to Jacob leaving for what she purposed as a short stay in “Padan Aram” among her people ostensibly to seek a wife (Genesis 27:41-28:5, NKJV). She never saw him again. Meanwhile, on the first night of his nearly 500 mile journey north, Jacob had the first of what would be many encounters with God. To this point, he plainly had only known of God, but did not know Him!5
Jacob’s first encounter with God came by way of a dream. In it, he saw “a ladder” erected from earth and reaching into Heaven where “the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.”6 He also saw “the LORD” standing “above” the ladder who then, began to introduce Himself as ‘“the LORD God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac.’” From there, God restates to Jacob the covenant promises He made to Abraham and to Isaac (Genesis 28:10-14, NKJV). After this, He promises Jacob His presence and protection and assures He will bring him back to the land he was leaving (Genesis 28:15). Jacob wakes up in awe of God’s presence. In the morning, he names the place “Bethel.” Then, Jacob makes his own solemn promise to God (Genesis 28:16-22, NKJV).
1 Read the May 21, 2023 post, Lessons From Rachel For Aspiring Great Women, under the category, The Cause and that of May 28, 2023, Leah Unloved, Favored By God, under the category, Glory To God!
2 The Hard or Soft Cover or E-Book Edition of the book as well as companion Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study and Great Woman Of God Women’s Group Study are available in the Strong Man Store, among internet booksellers and brick and mortar bookstores.
3 Christ is God the Word which as living spiritual Seed is planted into the hearts of those who receive Him through the Gospel and energizing power of the Holy Spirit who causes new birth and development (John 1:1-5; 1 Peter 1:22-2:3; 1 John 3:9)!
4 Yes, as the Lord leads, I am saying the lopsided wild, outdoorsman persona some of my brothers in the Christian men’s movement want to present as manhood God seeks to build in us is not biblical. The Lord was not a wild man. One has only to objectively examine His Persona and measured aggressive actions in passion for God and His purposes along with His own description of Himself in the Gospels to see this (Matthew 11:28-30, 12:15-21, 21:12-17). The Lord spent much time outdoors with His disciples (some of the key men were fishermen by trade) because they traveled throughout Israel preaching and teaching.
5 Sound familiar? Jacob’s head knowledge of God up to this point had come by listening to and watching his father, Isaac, and is typical of many professed Christians as re- ligious impostors. Time and again in witnessing to folks and asking whether they know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord I have heard the retort, “My mother (or grandmoth- er and most rarely, father)….” You cannot know God through someone else; you must know Him for yourself!
6 The Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament validates Jacob’s dream and connects Himself to it as the unique Ladder into Heaven (John 1:47-51; 14:6).
True to the epilogue of a literary work, the Lord leads me to provide some hopefully clarifying and helpful additional information on some issues not more fully presented or addressed at all in the three-part post, Jacob, God Named Israel, under the category, The Cause, just concluded June 18, 2023. In doing so, I am being especially sensitive to help those who have only recently become Christians and aspiring strong men of God in the image of Christ to develop a basic understanding of our God; His ‘“thoughts’” and ‘“ways’” which ‘“are not’” and infinitely ‘“higher’” than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9, NKJV).1 He is after all, God Almighty who made us and not the other way around (Isaiah 40:12-26)!
First, God is sovereign. This means He is the highest authority in all of existence (Psalm 9:1-2; Isaiah 44:6). Whatever He chooses to do in Heaven and His creation is His business for which He has no obligation to give an account to anyone. In accord with the foregoing, God’s election of Jacob over his fraternal twin, Esau, to be the heir of the covenant of promises made to their forefather, Abraham, and father, Isaac, was His sovereign business He does not have to explain nor does anyone have the right to question (Romans 9:6-21)! That said, neither Ishmael nor Esau rejected as heirs of the covenant of promises went unblessed (Genesis 17:18-22, 27:38-40; Deuteronomy 2:1-5).
Also, concerning Esau, Jacob and their divergent interests and dispositions, I was led by the Lord to point out Esau’s wild outdoorsman persona passed off as prototype manhood by some in the Christian men’s movement is not biblical.2 Truly, no portrait of manhood coming from the will of sinful men (and there are many) finds favor as a preference with God our Creator. The portrait of manhood God designed and exalts begins and ends in His Son, Jesus Christ! For this cause, more important than any manhood persona devised by men or what we do as responsibilities in all other roles of biblical manhood is who we are as “sons of God” in Christ’s “image” (Romans 8:12-30, NKJV)!
Second, Jacob came by his use of deceit in his affairs honestly from both Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 12:10-20, 26:6-11).3 How could God be so favorable to such men? How can God be so gracious to all sinners including us saved through the blood of Christ, the promised Seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? Besides being back to His sovereignty and the fact He can choose to work with any sinful man He wills, you have conveniently forgotten the patriarchs were saved by faith as we are (Romans 3:20-4:25; Galatians 3:15-18). So, if God had not interacted with sinful men, none of us would be here because as Scripture shows, He would have destroyed all by now (Genesis 6:5-8)!
Third, Jacob’s attitude toward Leah in what amounted to a forced marriage was not right, but understandable in the sinful flesh. He did not love Leah, but mechanically fulfilled his marital expectations including sleeping with her. God did not make Jacob love her as He does not force us to love Him! Instead, He intervened for and blessed Leah with fertility while making Rachel infertile during the first fourteen years of the polygamous marriage. Too, He worked in the mess Jacob had made from failing to seek Him to serve His purposes and grow him as He does with us. Meanwhile, the Lord also took Rachel from him without apology as she died giving birth to only their second child.
Fourth, incestuous polygamy was dealt with in this year’s Mother’s Day post.4 As noted then, marrying two sisters became sin and all of the sexual sins that come up during our examination of Jacob were later addressed with his descendants and the world through the one and only written Law God gave them. Marriage to sisters was forbidden in Leviticus 18:18. Raping an unmarried virgin and sex with the wife of one’s father both arise in the final Jacob, God Named Israel post (Genesis 34:1-2, 35:21-22a). God’s commands about these two issues are found written one after the other in Deuteronomy 22:28-30.5 His perpetual moral standards in these and all the commands of the written Law are integrated into the New Testament as well (Romans 1:18-32; 1 Corinthians 5, 6:9-20).
Finally, among the ways I was taught and built up by the Lord writing as a focus on Jacob of the three Jewish patriarchs, is having a greater appreciation for the end of the journey. Abraham, followed by Isaac and Jacob appeared on God’s generational stage performing their parts ultimately in the drama of His plan from eternity to redeem fallen mankind through their greatest Descendant, the Lord Jesus Christ, then died. How the sons and family of each patriarch gathered to and buried them touched me deeply. Giving me a right now, application, the Lord took pioneer Christian broadcaster, Pat Robertson, 93, home during these posts. He was clearly a patriarch to his family, those at CBN, other ministries he founded and many Christians during his time on God’s stage.6
1 While acknowledged, nowhere in the Bible will one find God being okay with weak and feeble devotion to Him! To the end of helping professed Christian men passionately press to “be strong in the Lord” as He wills, I wrote the book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics (Ephesians 6:10, NKJV). Its Hard and Soft Cover or E-Book Edi- tions as well as companion Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study are available in the Strong Man Store, among internet booksellers and brick and mortar bookstores.
2 Read the June 4, 2023 part one post, Jacob, God Named Israel, under the category, The Cause.
3 Despite all of the good God did through the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they left a legacy of using deceit in situations especially of fear with their descendants (technically, Abraham did not tell the whole truth which is still deceit--see Genesis 20). Beyond what was noted in the June 18, 2023 post about the use of deceit by the “sons of Jacob” after the rape of their sister and making him with all the rest of the family believe Joseph had been killed and eaten by an animal (Genesis 34:13-29, 37: 23-35, NKJV), it has played a role in their biblical history and attempted even to the face of God in Christ (Exodus 2:23-25; John 8:31-33).
4 See footnote 5 in the May 14, 2023 post, Motherhood: A Female’s Greatest Gift, under the category, Biblical Worldview.
5 No one guilty of sin before the written Law got away with anything! Reuben, Simeon and Levi are examples of those who received enduring divine judgment from the lips of their father, Jacob, for their sins (Genesis 49:3-7). And note the fear of retribution in all of his guilty sons concerning their brother, Joseph (Genesis 42:18-24, 50:15-21).
6 CBN stands for Christian Broadcasting Network.
To all of the fathers reading this post, Happy Father’s Day! As I remember with appreciation my own departed father and the Lord leads, what an appropriate occasion to conclude looking at the Jewish patriarch, Jacob, God named Israel for what He would have aspiring strong men in His image learn from him. So far, we have seen that he like us as sinners without personal knowledge of God and new believers had to come into it through the crucible of painful life experiences; he learning as we do for example, to pray about everything. Once he got rolling, Jacob became a devoted man of prayer God visited, taught and guided to maturity as the patriarch of a family and future nation.
After his high moment of worship at Shechem that ended Genesis 33 and last week’s part two post,10 Jacob was blindsided with the rape of his daughter, Dinah, by a prince of that region (Genesis 34:1-5). Although there was not yet any written Law from God in the world, men in conscience considered certain things wrong beyond what He had declared to Noah and his sons about murder after the flood (Genesis 9:1-7); raping a man’s daughter was clearly one of them as the grief and rage of Jacob’s sons reveals he too shared, but held in (Genesis 34:6-7). Against Jacob’s better judgment his sons led by Simeon and Levi “deceitfully” exacted vengeance (Genesis 34:8-31, NKJV).
The Lord did not condone Simeon and Levi’s actions He later foretold through their father He would severely punish and later still through Levi’s descendant, Moses, declared why (Genesis 49:5-7; Deuteronomy 32:34-35)! Moving from the treachery of his sons, God called Jacob ‘“up to Bethel’” where He had at first met with him to do so again.11 Asserting the headship of “his household,” Jacob gave direction to ‘“Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments’” as preparation for all to go with him to meet with God at Bethel (Genesis 35:1-4, NKJV). This was certainly when Jacob also discovered Rachel’s theft of her father’s lifeless idols.
As they traveled, God also once more intervened to allay a fear Jacob had this time about the people of Canaan assembling to destroy him and his family because of his son’s vengeance for their sister. God put the “terror” of Him on them (Genesis 35:5, NKJV). When Jacob and his household arrived at Bethel, the place he first encountered God, “he built an altar there” and renamed it, “El Bethel” widely translated God of the house of God.12 Then God came down to Jacob and spoke with him. He reviewed his name change and commanded him to ‘“Be fruitful and multiply;’” foretelling ‘“a nation and company of nations…and kings shall come from your body,’” (Genesis 35:6-11, NKJV).
Following that, the Lord confers the promise of the land as part of His covenant with Abraham and Isaac upon Jacob and his ‘“descendants.’” “Then God went up from him” and Jacob worshipped by setting up a “pillar of stone” to mark the place he met with God as he had done the first time (Genesis 35:12-15, NKJV). Apparently already pregnant, Rachel, the love of Jacob’s life died giving birth to their last child together he named Benjamin as they traveled from Bethel en route to Isaac in Hebron. He buried and erected a pillar as a memorial to her near Bethlehem. As they moved on, his firstborn with Leah, Reuben, betrayed him by sleeping with his wife, Bilhah (Genesis 35:16-22a).
Nevertheless, Jacob now, had twelve sons who would become the fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel destined to be a nation as God had foretold and willed (Genesis 35:22b-29, 46:2-3)! Foremost among his sons were not the oldest, but the two youngest Rachel had borne to him. “Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because,” he rationalized, “he was the son of his old age;” even making “him a tunic of many colors.”13 In his favoritism, Jacob committed the error of his parents with the same outcome of family division, sibling rivalry and hatred. On top of this, Joseph came across arrogant with his dreams. This all led to heartbreak for Jacob God did not deliver him from until twenty-two years later after he had turned 130 years old (Genesis 37, 44-47:10, NKJV).14
Reunited with Joseph in fulfillment of the prophetic dreams God had given him and for the good purposes He allowed his enslavement, Jacob lives another 17 years with all his family in Egypt (Genesis 45:7-8, 47:11-12, 27-28). As his death approached, Jacob made Joseph swear an oath to bury him with his fathers Abraham and Isaac at the designated ‘“burial place’” in the land of Canaan God had promised to their descendants; displaying his faith it would be so (Genesis 47:29-31, NKJV). Following this, Jacob blessed Joseph’s two sons and adopts them as his own then, blesses the twelve sons from his body (Genesis 48:1-49:28).15 Giving a final command about his burial as the patriarch of his family to his sons, Jacob died. His sons did as he willed (Genesis 49:29-50:14).16
10 See the end of the June 11, 2023 post, Jacob, God Named Israel, Pt. 2, under the category, The Cause.
11 Here is another place of reminder to all aspiring strong men of God in the image of Christ and professed Christians when you need to reconnect to God and spiritually recharge--go back in your mind if nothing else to the place you first met God as Andre Crouch & The Disciples sing so well in their song, Take Me Back. This is also this Ministry’s intended help in our latest Strong Man Of God Online Rally you can view on YouTube, Return To The Lord.
12 Let every aspiring strong man of God take due note that Jacob is not sending his household, he is leading them to and in worship. This is a very important responsi- bility of family leadership you have from God I write about in The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics and present in a Strong Man Of God Resources short YouTube video, Men Leading Family Worship At Home, promoting the Strong Man Store free document download.
13 Beyond question Jacob’s love for Joseph, his firstborn with Rachel, was also a continuing expression of the deep love he retained in his heart for her.
14 Why God in his sovereignty chose to let Jacob grieve Joseph’s presumed death all those years is not declared in Scripture. However, a context clue suggests one possible reason is rooted in Jacob’s great love for Rachel and Joseph. Loving anyone or thing more than God is a no-no stated later in His Law to Israel and by Christ to any would be follower and certainly every aspiring strong man of God in His image (Deuteronomy 5:6-10, 6:4-5; Mark 12:28-30; Luke 14:25-26)! With Rachel and Joseph gone, Jacob would learn to love God above all. Also, Jacob learned another painful lesson about favoritism and deceit which his sons had been acting out of as he once did.
15 God has made a father’s blessing like none other not even a mother can reverse. His bestowal of good brings inspirational joy; his condemnation a lifetime of troubling!
16 The commanding authority of patriarch, Jacob, speaking to his surrounding sons he had fathered is movingly beautiful in its simplicity and pictures the respect God ex- pects all fathers to receive taught throughout His Word. Indeed, for God the Father has modeled human patriarchy on His own standing as the Patriarch of His hea- venly Family (John 3:31-35, 8:28-29, 48-49). Rebellion against God’s perfect order of mankind and patriarchy is in part causing our society to unravel. You, O aspiring strong man of God in Christ’s image, by His will as a father are a patriarch and to stand for patriarchy to your last breath!
God’s promises to Jacob were unconditional, but his to Him made on the condition God would keep His.7 Such is the baby, but heartfelt faith of 77 year-old Jacob beginning his life journey with God as he traveled to the land and people of his mother he had undoubtedly learned most about from her. Though the Lord initiated the relationship with and conveyed the covenant promises of his fathers to Jacob, just as with baby Christian men aspiring to become strong in Christ’s image, God would begin working with him to dislodge his grip on sin and self-reliance in using deceit to gain his way in conjunction with molding his character through the crucible of painful life experiences.
Reaching near to his destination after about ten days or so, Jacob confirms his uncle, Laban, is still alive with men from the same area of Haran. The men point out Laban’s daughter, “Rachel,” was coming toward them at the well they stood next to (Genesis 29:1-6, NKJV). Beyond the joy a close relative approached, it must have been love at first sight for Jacob since he immediately tried to move the men along so he could talk to her alone, but they declined. Then, as any love struck male, he set about helping Rachel until he could contain himself no more and tearfully kissed and loudly told her who he was; she ran and told Laban who came to welcome his nephew (Genesis 29:7-14).
At the end of a month in which Jacob served in the family business voluntarily, his uncle asked him “what should your wages be,” (Genesis 29:15-17 NKJV). Without seeking God in prayer and moved by love for Rachel, Jacob blurted out, “I will serve you seven years for Rachel your younger daughter,” (Genesis 29:18-19, NKJV). Let every aspiring strong man of God in the image of Christ recognize Jacob’s error and first hard lesson about relationship with God: take everything to Him in prayer (Luke 6:12-16; Philippians 4:6; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; Hebrews 5:5-7)! As it turns out, Jacob the deceiver was deceived by his uncle with painful and enduring consequences (Genesis 29:20-30).
Among the natural consequences of his failure to consult God about Laban’s offer was the reality he had two wives to be a husband to. Out of marital obligation he slept with the first one, Leah, who desperately wanted from him the kind of loving devotion he was giving her sister, Rachel. Also, while Leah bore him children, the love of his life he surely prayed for God to bless bore him none. Her unfruitfulness frustrated and created conflict between them (Genesis 29:31-30:2). The sinful competition between Jacob’s first two wives and their remedy for unfruitfulness (it was only a lull for Leah) added two more wives to him; no doubt causing him to pray regularly (Genesis 30:3-21)!
Jacob’s regular consultation with God becomes very evident at the end of the fourteen years he had spent working off the bride-price of his wives and finally, Rachel having her first child, Joseph. He was ready to leave and told Laban so (Genesis 30:22-26). His uncle, however, after acknowledging “the LORD has blessed me for your sake,” talked Jacob into staying or so it seemed. For his wages, the ability to “provide for” his “own house” and ultimately ‘“Return to the land of’” his ‘“fathers and…family’” as God commanded, Jacob presented a plan he later tells his wives came from Him (Genesis 30:27-31:16, NKJV). Jacob was now, fully trusting in, relying on and obeying God!8
Twenty years after his departure from Canaan, at God’s directive Jacob with all his family, servants and possessions pulled up stakes to return. He does so without telling Laban (who was warned by God “in a dream” about how he should “speak to” him) for fear of losing his family he tells him at his query after catching up to them (Genesis 31:17-31, NKJV). God at times directs His aspiring strong men to do things that in the natural produce fear. But just as He promised Jacob to be with and protect him in his journey, so, we are to trust God will do as promised us! Jacob in anger at Laban’s pursuit and (unknown to him) true accusation of theft of his idols by Rachel, rebukes him and testifies to God’s involvement in his life leading also to peace (Genesis 31:32-55).
Even after the good end with Laban and seeing angels along their travel route, great fear would again rise up in Jacob with severe distress at the prospect of seeing his twin brother, Esau, who despite the elapsed time, might still bear a murderous grudge. So, he took natural action (Genesis 32:1-8). Then, as he had learned, Jacob prayed with experiential knowledge of, humility before and faith in God seeking His deliverance from Esau while also afterward hoping to persuade him from doing harm with a gift (Genesis 32:9-21). As he waited for Esau, Christ pre-incarnate wrestled with him and changed his name to “Israel,” (Genesis 32:22-32, NKJV). Esau came and brothers tearfully reunited.9 As his God had promised, Israel was back in the land (Genesis 33).
7 See the end of the June 4, 2023 post, Jacob, God Named Israel, Pt. 1, under the category, The Cause.
8 Jacob’s remarkable spiritual maturation shows the consistent end of God’s training program for His sons throughout the Bible since aspiring strong men of God in the image of and as Christ have the four distinctive characteristics of accepting the roles God assigns, obedience, reliance on and trusting Him for vindication (note God says to Jacob in Genesis 31:12, ‘“I have seen all that Laban is doing to you,’” NKJV). Also, let every man reading this see how Jacob assertively embraced his God assigned responsibility to provide for his “own house” and through his own enterprise; not being content to live off of his father-in-law (Genesis 30:30-31, NKJV). This is not to say every man is to have his own business, but to be willing to labor by whatever honest means to provide for his own without mooching off of others in- cluding the government (2 Thessalonians 3:6-15).
9 Scripture does not tell us whether Jacob ever went to Seir to visit with Esau. It does inform us that the brothers came together again to bury their father, Isaac (Gene- sis 35:27-29). The genealogy of Esau as Abraham and Isaac’s descendant, the reason he and Jacob did not reside together in Canaan and his ruling descendants of the land they dwelt in called after him, Edom, are also given (Genesis 36:1-19, 40-43). While Esau may have personally reconciled with his brother as a good thing, his descendants did not follow suit and are under the prophecies and curse of God that He began to speak when he was still in the womb with his brother (Genesis 25:22-23, 27:36-40; Exodus 17:8-16; Numbers 20:14-21, 24:15-20; Isaiah 34:5-17; Ezekiel 25:12-14, 35; Obadiah; Malachi 1:3b-5). Esau’s lasting legacy as a wild man is that of a sober warning not to imitate his godless way and experience its end (Hebrews 12:12-17)!
Memorial Day causes us to look to the graveyard or if you will, the fields of the dead to remember with esteem those of the military who gave their lives serving our nation. So, I do with all others again this year. The ‘“cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre’” in Israel is the burial place of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their respective wives Jews look to remembering the progenitors of their ethnic heritage (Genesis 49:29-33, NKJV). Jacob, God named Israel, fathered twelve sons by four wives, six of them borne by Leah who is buried with him. How this came about and on this Pentecost, the body of Leah’s greatest Descendant not in a tomb concerns this post.
Leah, daughter of Laban and sister of Rachel examined in last week’s post,1 was honored with burial in the patriarchal cave by her husband, Jacob. She had been his first wife through the deceit of her father when he switched her out for Rachel on what was supposed to be her younger sister’s wedding night (Genesis 29:15-30). For whatever all of the reasons including perhaps, the physical issue with her eyes noted in the referenced passage, Leah as the older of the two sisters had not yet married when Jacob arrived on scene. As with most women of her time, marriage and family were the twin aims of her life and surely the reason in part she cooperated with her father’s treachery.2
In the polygamous marriage to Jacob as his first wife, but second to Rachel because he loved her more, Leah found herself “unloved;” literally hated by her husband. Fortunately for Leah and all women in marriages where their husbands do not love them, God was watching and on the case for her. “He opened her womb” out of mercy, but kept Rachel’s shut (Genesis 29:31, NKJV). While His observation of women in marriages where they are unloved by their husbands is a universal reality that should spur them to prayer for help, God’s specific actions for Leah are not. He acts in accord with His sovereign will, wisdom, unique purposes for all who call upon Him and His glory!3
Leah rightly concluded that the Lord had seen her “affliction” of being unloved by Jacob when she bore him a son she named, Reuben, for that reason (Genesis 29:32, NKJV). However, her hopes Jacob would love her because of this son and the next two that followed were dashed (Genesis 29:33-34). From the seed of her third son, Levi, would come her descendants Aaron, father of Israel’s priesthood and God’s great lawgiver, Moses (Exodus 6:16-27). On her fourth son, Leah seemed to get that God should be praised for her fruitful motherhood and declared: ‘“Now I will praise the Lord.’” So, she named him, Judah, which means praise (Genesis 29:35, NKJV).
From the seed of Judah came Israel’s second king, David, and an eternal, royal dynasty terminating in “Shiloh” God foretold first through Jacob and promised several centuries later by the prophet, Nathan, to the king (Genesis 49:8-12; 2 Samuel 7:1-17, NKJV). This Shiloh, is none other than He Jacob had wrestled with and who came to earth to begin to fulfill all that was written of Him forty-two generations after Abraham (Genesis 32:22-32; Matthew 1:1-17). Of the things written of Him were His birth to a virgin also a descendant of Leah through David and the first priority of His work as Israel’s final King embodied in His name, “JESUS,” (Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 3:23-31, NKJV).
Indeed, Jesus Christ, King of the Jews, completed His work to save His people from their sins as foretold (Psalm 22:1-21a; Matthew 27:32-50; John 19:17-30). On the same day before sunset, He was buried in a rich man’s tomb and on the third day after God resurrected Him (Psalm 22:21b; John 19:38-20:18).4 Following that on the fortieth day, “He was taken up” and glorified; seated at God’s right hand to await His return to rule not only Israel, but the whole earth! On the fiftieth day, “Pentecost,” He sent the Holy Spirit to indwell those who believe and enable His apostles to preach the Gospel about as well as “be witnesses to” Him “to the end of the earth,” (Psalm 22:22-31; Isaiah 53; Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:14-20; Luke 24:36-53; John 20:19-29; Acts 1:4-2:40, 3:11-26, NKJV).
Leah continued to compete with Rachel for Jacob’s love through childbearing; making the same mistake as her sister in giving him her maid for a wife, but to no avail (Genesis 30:1-21). He did honor her above all at her death. Also, not only did Leah prevail in the fruitful bearing of six to Rachel’s two sons, but unknown to her God’s favor ran much deeper. She bore one from who would come Israel and history’s greatest King; even He who is “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David,” (Revelation 5:5, NKJV)! From what God did through unloved Leah, both His aspiring strong men and great women in the image of Christ are reminded He has worked and wills to work in us far beyond what we could have ever imagined to His glory (1 Corinthians 1:26-31)!5 Let Him have you!
1 Read the May 21, 2023 post, Lessons From Rachel For Aspiring Great Women, under the category, The Cause.
2 Another reason was the universal reverence given to fathers and modeled by God as the heads over their daughters until marriage only rebelled against in this latter days generation (Genesis 2:18, 21-22, 24:47-51; Numbers 12:14-16) though, Leah out of greater reverence for God and as a matter of character could have objected to being a party to deceit.
3 Christian women please note how the Holy Spirit led me to write broadly of women in marriages with husbands that do not love them. In His perfect will and your obedience to marry “only in the Lord,” such a situation should not exist for you. However, if for whatever reasons you are in a situation like this, you all the more know seeking God in prayer is the first right step followed by doing what His Word teaches in longsuffering while you wait on Him to act as He wills. And yes, the same goes for any Christian man in similar circumstances as it is written (1 Corinthians 7:10-16, 39; 1 Peter 3:1-2, NKJV).
4 Because Christ is risen from the dead, we Christians do not look to tombs or graveyards to remember and honor Him as One still slain in battle. But we exalt and magnify Christ within our hearts as our living Savior, Warrior-King and Lord; fellowshipping with and serving Him who is “alive forevermore” as He promised (John 14:18-24; Revela- tion 1:17-18, NKJV). If as a professed Christian you are not inwardly enjoying the resurrection life of Christ, disobedience in sin may be the reason. Watch our latest Strong Man Of God Online Rally on YouTube, Return To The Lord, to hear His summons!
5 Learn more about this by reading my book, The Strong Man Of God; Back To Basics! Get your Hard or Soft Cover or E-Book Edition of the book as well as companion Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study and Great Woman Of God Women’s Group Study in the Strong Man Store, among internet booksellers and brick and mortar book- stores.
Sometime between the fourth and ninth months of her pregnancy, Mary, the virgin mother of Jesus Christ and her betrothed husband, Joseph, received word of an imperial edict that would require them to leave Nazareth. As Gospel writer, Luke, reports, “a decree went out from Caesar Augustus” Roman Emperor at the time, “that all the world (controlled by the Roman Empire) should be registered,” (Luke 2:1-2, NKJV). Consequently, the couple made their way to a Judean town named Bethlehem. They had to make this seventy to ninety mile trek because as members of the tribe of Judah and descendants of king David, both needed to register there (Luke 2:3-5).
Mary had just traveled to an unnamed “city of Judah” in the first trimester of her pregnancy to visit “Elizabeth,” her “relative” who like her, was the recipient of God’s grace and supernatural power. Elizabeth was enabled to conceive a son by natural means “in her old age.” Their joyous initial interaction is one for the ages (Luke 1:36-56, NKJV)! Now, fully showing in her pregnancy, Mary’s trip to Bethlehem in obedience to the decree of Caesar Augustus with thousands of others from all over Israel would not be as easy. Indeed, it was not intended to be since the inconvenience of the trip was not of God’s perfect, but His permissive will, foreknowledge and prophetic purpose.
Caesar’s census decree at that precise moment in history was of Satan as he continued persecuting and seeking for ways to destroy the unborn Son of God to keep Him from coming into the world!1 A census in and of itself is not evil for the Lord commanded Moses to number Israel as one means to collect an offering to Him designated “for the service of the tabernacle of meeting,” (Exodus 30:11-16, 38:25-26, NKJV). God also commanded Moses to take a census of the males twenty years old and over “who are able to go to war,” (Numbers 1:1-4, NKJV) and did so again after He had punished Israel with a plague that killed thousands (Numbers 25-26:4).
However, it is also written, “Now, Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel,” (1 Chronicles 21:1, NKJV). The king’s motive was the sin of pride for which God punished the nation (1 Chronicles 21:2-17).2 Having the title “Augustus” (meaning “exalted” as one divine), Satan easily moved Caesar in pride not only to know the number of Roman citizens throughout his empire, but non-citizens under subjection to press into his service and tax to finance his ambitions. The Jews chafed under Roman taxation this new census would facilitate and no doubt the burden of traveling to their ancestral regions to register Joseph and Mary now, found themselves doing as well.
Not able to cause the possible destruction of her unborn Son through miscarriage or otherwise during the perilous, untimely journey to Bethlehem, Satan waited in the shadows for an opportunity in the town when the time for Mary’s delivery came (Luke 2:6). The town overflowing with descendants of Judah and David made it very hard to secure a suitable place as the devil anticipated. In the place scholars debate was either a cave, stable or home where animals were sheltered because there was no other room for them, Mary lay in the agony of labor;3 vicariously embodying one of the major purposes of her people, Israel: to be God’s means of bringing His Son into the World (Romans 9:1-5)!
A “great” summary prophetic “sign” the apostle John was later shown affirms the foregoing truth (Revelation 12:1-2, NKJV). “Another sign” in the same prophetic review of messianic history depicts Satan as “a great, fiery red dragon” that “stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born,” (Revelation 12:3-4, NKJV). He was not permitted by God to do so as Mary “brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger,” (Luke 2:7; Revelation 12:5a, NKJV). Frustrated yet again, the devil could only look on powerlessly as God sent angels to announce to lowly Jewish shepherds what the nation had been waiting generations for--the birth of “a Savior, who is Christ the Lord,” (Luke 2:8-20, NKJV)!
1 Read the December 4, 2022 post, Christ Persecuted Before Birth, under the category, Instruction.
2 As the Lord leads me to address in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, pride is the number one sin of men--saved and unsaved! Our enemy, Satan, knows just the right recipe of temptations to bring it out of us. Get my book and learn what God has provided for our victory more often than not as aspiring strong men of God in in the image of Jesus Christ! It is available at your favorite internet bookseller or brick and mortar bookstore and the Strong Man Store.
3 I invite every aspiring great woman of God in the image of Christ to get the Strong Man Of God Audio Resource, Christmas From Eve To Mary to hear three messages the Lord led me to preach celebrating human femininity as designed by Him! Learn more about this resource, listen to a sample and make your purchase exclusively in the Strong Man Store.
“Surely, the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets,” (Amos 3:7, NJKV). Those in Christendom today that dismiss the Old Testament as irrelevant truly lack the knowledge and wisdom God wills to impart to His people and worse, may not know Him at all! For the Old Testament of the Bible like the chunkiest of soups, is chocked full of truth, instruction and spiritual activity not the least of which is His use of prophets and their messages from Him. From Enoch to John the Baptist of those named to the many unnamed, God’s prophets play a key role in declaring His Word in the Old Testament (Genesis 5:18-24; Mark 1:1-8; Jude 12-15).
In my recent four-part blog, God Of Restoration And Judgment under the category, The Cause with three others, God’s use of His prophets to communicate with Israel during the time of its kings was shown to be extensive. Not only that, but the potency of His Word through His prophets was seen to impact that historical period right on down millennia later to us living in the latter days they often spoke of. As I was led by the Lord to warn you about in that blog, Israel’s nation destroying judgments came only after they refused to heed His Word through the prophets (revisit 2 Kings 17:5-23 and 2 Chronicles 36:15-21) and finally, of course His Son, Jesus Christ (Luke 20:9-19).
The prophets were a manifest token of God’s love, grace and mercy to Israel as He deployed them at strategic moments in the life of the kings and people they served. God expected His people to be faithful to, reverence and serve Him only. This is declared by Him on Mt. Sinai in the opening commandments of ten and written down later on tablets of stone as part of the covenant between God and Israel which they violated right away (Exodus 19:3-20:21, 32:1-24). The prophets kept calling the people back to faithfulness to the covenant as the basis of their relationship with God, His grace and blessings. Their refusal to be faithful brought upon them His promised consequences.
Many times the consequences God announced through His prophets were dramatic. One of those times occurred by the word and actions of an unnamed prophet from Judah who had been sent to announce judgment on king Jeroboam after he set up his rival idolatrous religious system for the ten northern tribes. Not only did God announce through him the destruction of the altar in that system, but the specifically named king of Judah, Josiah, that would burn the bones of the system’s priests on it three hundred years later! When the king sought to arrest the prophet, God caused his hand to wither and restored it after the prophet’s intercession (1 Kings12:25-13:10; 2 Kings 23:15-18).
It is to the spiritual peril of any professed Christian to ignore or dismiss the prophecies of Old Testament prophets. The secrets of the Lord they spoke of have not yet all been fulfilled! Indeed, we who love God and His entire Word contained in the Bible, have in these latter days been granted the awesome privilege to watch His secrets in prophecies long ago uttered by the prophets explode in fulfillment like fireworks shot into the night sky--Israel back in its land as a nation among them! This in itself is prophecy fulfilled since Daniel was told his prophecies would be sealed until unsealed (opened, unveiled) at the time of the end to those that are “wise,” (Daniel 12:8-10, NKJV).
Who are the wise generally but faithful Christians that have been redeemed from sin and restored in God through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ! To know Him is to know something of God’s whole Word in certainty, truth, instruction and prophetic importance (Matthew 24:32-35; John 1:1-3, 14, 5:39, 14:1-6, 15-31; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Revelation 19:7-10). God wants us to take Old and New Testament prophecy to heart because in all generations we have needed prophetic understanding and discernment, but now, all the more in these latter days marching to the end and our Lord’s return. For this reason too, among His spiritual gifts to the Church are still prophets wisely interpreting and delivering His prophetic Word (Matthew 23:34; Ephesians 4:7-11)!
As I celebrate my fortieth year as a Christian, I am grateful to God to have been gifted and called to serve Him and the Body of Christ as a watchman/prophet and teacher in His love (Ezekiel 33:1-9; Amos 3:8; Romans 12:3-8; 1 Corinthians 12:27-13:3). While many others in rejection of and disobedience to God’s Word add to their sin the dismissal of ministries like mine, I pray that the faithful will continue to give heed. For truly, those that heeded the instruction and warning the Lord gave me about not voting by race, but righteousness, do not now live with regret from having voted for President Obama.1 That was another practice test from God in making proper judgments in these fast approaching days of the Antichrist--His final exam (Deuteronomy 13:1-4; Revelation 13, 14:6-13). In that day, my faithful God will fully vindicate my service (Hebrews 6:10; Revelation 18:1-20)!
1 Read the October 2008 Journal, Judge Righteous Judgment at https://fromslaverytovictory.org/Journal-Oct-2008.
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