Discovering God’s Character – Part 17C



The Prophecies Concerning Edom

We will continue our numbering sequence from the earlier post to
approximately indicate the next point on the timeline. At this point,
we are now coming into the prophecies about Edom.

18. Isaiah prophesies judgment of the nations descending upon Edom
during a world wide judgment described like the Second Coming of
Christ. (Isaiah 34:1-17)  God’s wrath against the nations is described.
In verse 4 – all of the host of heaven will wear away and the sky will
be rolled back like a scroll… There will be a great slaughter in Edom,
upon the people whom God has devoted to destruction.

19. Isaiah prophesies judgment upon Edom. The Lord has trodden the wine
press of His wrath in Edom, clearly a sign of the judgment that comes
with the Second Coming of Christ.  (Isaiah 63:1-6)

20. Jeremiah prophesies judgment upon Egypt and Judah, Edom, and the
sons of Ammon and Moab and all those inhabiting the desert … all the
nations… during a world wide judgment. (Jeremiah 9:25-26)

21. Jeremiah sends word to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and
Sidon regarding the coming of Nebuchadnezzar to submit to
Nebuchadnezzar or they will driven out of their lands and perish. 
(Jeremiah 27:1-22)

22. Jeremiah prophesies judgment upon Edom and includes Dedan (the
southwest shore and the area inland of the Saudi Arabian peninsula)
with them. (Jeremiah 49:7-22)  Edom is linked with Dedan. Edom was good
at concealing himself yet God will uncover his hiding places. This is
where we get visions of Petra, the city built in the rock. God compared
Edom’s overthrown to Sodom and Gomorrah.

23. Jeremiah has a group of prophecies including Edom all together that
are not associated specifically with Egyptian or Babylonian conquests.
The nations that are named are: Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus, and Elam
(Persian region, i.e. Iran). Babylon is referred to also in both a
historical and prophetic sense. (Jeremiah 49-51)  God places the
judgment of Edom in the midst of other nations (there are other places
like this). Curiously, they are all Muslim today.

24. Jeremiah prophesies against Edom in Lamentations. (Lamentations 4:21-22)
Jeremiah says “Go ahead and laugh at Israel’s judgment, Edom. Your day for punishment is coming.”

25 Ezekiel prophesies against Edom along with Moab, Philistia, and
Ammon. The Lord will lay Edom waste from Teman even to Dedan (also
including Dedan (sw shore and inland of the Saudi Arabian peninsula).
(Ezekiel 25) This will be the Lord’s doing through Israel as they will
act according to His anger and His wrath.

26 Ezekiel prophesies against Edom (Mount Seir). Pay particular note to vs. 5-6. (Ezekiel 35)   God gives them over to bloodshed since they have not
hated bloodshed so bloodshed will pursue them. God will deal with them
according to their anger and envy because of their hatred of Israel.
They were reviling Israel and had spoken arrogantly against the God of
Israel. Because they rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of
Israel because it was desolate from the captivity to Babylon, God will
Himself perform desolation upon Edom.

Please take the time to read each one of these passages and consider
Edom’s sin and those who sin with her. There’s a lot to look at here so take some time to consider what is going on and what it means for us today. May your time in study be blessed.  Mr.Vee

Discovering God’s Character – Part 17B



Esau and Edom: History

After looking at Genesis 36 and its fairly intensive, long term focus
on the children of Esau (Edom), it seems rather curious why the Bible
which is centered the nation of Israel in the Old Testament would even
record the family lineage of Esau. In fact, I Chronicles 1 records it
as well. In addition, we have some suggestion that there is some
information of Edom interacting with Israel beyond the point we are in
Genesis.  As we have seen in earlier accounts in Genesis, when a family
line or a person would not be important to the main thrust of what the
Bible’s all about, it was simply not listed again.  So the implications
are that there were some things that God wanted us to know about Esau
and Edom that would be important later on.  While we find that Edom
plays an important role in the history of Israel, it also seems to have
a part to play in prophecy as well.  However, before we do that, let’s
first quickly review what we’ve already covered in our Discovering
God’s Character series.

We’ll start in the beginning… God told Rebekah, his mother about it first.

1. Before the birth of Jacob and Esau… there was a struggle between the two children. (Genesis 25:21-24)  This ought to tell us something important right away.
2. Esau despises and sells his birthright to Jacob. (Genesis 25:29-34)
3. Esau’s bad reaction to not receiving his father, Isaac’s first blessing.  (Genesis 27:41)
4. Esau’s good reception of Jacob when he returned from Paddan-Aram 20 years later. (Genesis 33:4)
5. Esau and Jacob bury their father Isaac. (Genesis 35:29)
6. Esau moves to the hill country of Seir (Genesis 36:8)

Now moving forward in time… looking at Edom’s interaction with Israel until the Babylonian Captivity of Judah

7. Esau took over the land of Seir from the Horites. (Deuteronomy 2:12)
8. Edom becomes worried when Pharaoh’s army is defeated during Israel’s exodus from Egypt. (Exodus 15:14-18)
9. When the Children of Israel left Egypt and came near Edom, God told
Moses to have Israel respect Edom’s (Esau’s descendants) right to their
land because God gave it to them. (Deuteronomy 2:1-6)
10. God tells Israel to respect the people of the land of Edom. (Deuteronomy 23:7)
11. By the time Saul became king, Edom was an enemy of Israel. (I Samuel 14:47-48)
12. King David put garrisons in Edom and all the Edomites became servants to him. (II Samuel 8:14)
13. Edom is an ally with Israel and Judah in the war against Moab. (II Kings 3:9,12)
14. Edom joins the Moabites and the Ammonites and turns on Israel in Jehoshaphat’s reign.  (II Chronicles 20:1-29)
15. Edom revolts and breaks away from Israel in the reign of Jehoram, Jehoshaphat’s son. (II Chronicles 21:8-10)
16. Amaziah defeats the Edomites.  (II Chronicles 25:5-14)
17. Edom attacks Judah in the time of King Ahaz. (II Chronicles 28:16-17)

Moving ahead to the Babylonian Captivity, the Edomites had a historical
role in severely persecuting Judea when they were taken away to
Babylon. Then many of them moved into the lands they vacated and did
not respect Israel’s right to the land. At the same time, it appears,
from historical sources that the people from Dedan, down the coast of
the Saudi Arabian peninsula, moved northward into the Edomite’s
territory.

We will cover the prophecies concerning Edom in the next post… yet all this history puts perspective on those prophecies.

So, let’s stop and look at God’s character for a moment. I thought it
was very interesting to see how God wanted Israel to respect Edom’s
right to their land because He, Himself, had given them a place to live
and have their own nation. God makes a point to make sure Israel knows
this and they do. Yet in the end as we will see next time, Edom speaks against Israel and even
God Himself and then abuses and kills His people during the Babylonian
Captivity and do the very thing that God told Israel not to do to them.
They move into Israel’s territory and claim it for themselves. It is
from this we will see that God’s blessing is removed from Edom and it
(along with some others as we will see) will see incredible destruction
and much of that is during the last days.

Its been more than a couple of millennia since these things happened
and God is still patient with those descendants who have lived down
through history with their hatred toward Israel and still have disdain
for the God of Israel.

There is also another point to mention about God’s character. God gives
everyone blessings even when we aren’t the “favored son”. These are
God’s measure of goodness toward each of us. We have learned that God
is not pleased when people take away the blessings that He has given to
another. We also learn that Edom did not respect God for who He really
was and this will result in the judgment that Edom and her allies will
experience.

More could be said but we’ll wait until we actually explore the
prophecies concerning Edom and their impact on our world today. We’ll
take a look at these in the next post. Mr.Vee

Discovering God’s Character – Part 17A



Esau and His Family

In Genesis 36, we get a view of what was happening with Esau during the
time that Jacob was over at Laban’s for 20 years and afterwards. It is
interesting that God put this account in here. One might wonder why
bother but there’s always reasons for these things even though we might
not know about them until the proper time. Now we might be tempted to
skip this chapter but there is some amazing detail in here and the same
list is found in I Chronicles 1:35-54 with some of the names having
slightly different spellings.

So we pick up with Esau having taken three wives from the daughters of
Canaan. He has children in born to him in Canaan and end up moving to
the hill country of Seir. He had to move away because he, like Jacob,
had prospered greatly and now they could not live in the same area and
feed their livestock. He founded the nation of Edom. Now his family
tree would look something like this. By the way, all these sons were
chiefs.

1. Adah, the daughter of Elon the Hittite (also known as Basemath,
daughter of Elon the Hittite in Genesis 26;34) bore Eliphaz, who in
turn has Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam,  and Kenaz. Now Timna, Eliphaz’s
concubine has Amalek

2. Oholibamah (also known as Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite in
Gen 26:34), the daughter of Anah and the granddaughter of Zibeon the
Hivite bore Jeush, Jalam, and Korah

3. Basemath (also known as Mahalath in Genesis 28:9), Ishmael’s
daughter, the sister of Nebaioth, bore Reuel, who in turn has, Nahath,
Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzay

Now combine this with the descendants of Seir, the Horite. He had four sons.
     a.    Lotan, whose children were Hori (son), Hemam (son) and Timna (daughter)
     b.    Shobal, whose sons were Alvan, Manahath, Ebal, Shepo, and Onam
     c.    Zibeon, whose sons were Aiah and Anah… the one who found the hot springs in the wilderness…
     d.    Anah, whose children were Dishon (son) and Oholibamah (daughter)
     e.    Dishon, whose sons were Hemdan, Eshban, Ithran, and Cheran
     f.    Ezer, whose sons were Bilhan, Zaavan, Akan
     g.    Dishan whose sons were Uz… possibly his land was where Job lived and Aran

We are also introduced to the kings of the land of Edom before any king
reigned over Israel.  Listed in order of succession, they are…
     a.    Bela, son of Beor of Dinhabah
     b.    Jobab, son of Zerah of Bozrah
     c.    Husham, a Temanite
     d.    Hadad, son of Bedad of Avith (who defeated Midian in the field of Moab)
     e.    Samlah of Masrekah
     f.    Shaul of Rehoboth on the Euphrates River
     g.    Baal-hanan, son of Achbor
     h.    Hadar of Pau, whose wife’s name was Mehetabel, daughter of Matred, daughter of Mezahab.

And before the chapter is over, we are given a list of chiefs that
descended from Esau according to their names, families and localities.
     a.    Chief Timna
     b.    Chief Alvah
     c.    Chief Jetheth
     d.    Chief Oholibamah
     e.    Chief Teman
     f.    Chief Mibzar
     g.    Chief Magdiel
     h.    Chief Iram

So why put all this in the middle of Jacob’s history? God has His ways
about these things and it is wise not to consider “diversions” like
these unimportant.  We’ll see some of these names again when we discuss
that next time and perhaps some surprises about Edom as well.  Mr.Vee

Discovering God’s Character – Part 16



Jacob’s Sons –  A Whole Lot of Bad News

Have you ever had whole string of bad news hit you, one thing after
another, like it just won’t quit, just like a “black cloud is hanging
over you”? Surely nobody in the Bible every experienced this, have
they? Indeed they have and we see Jacob going through a time like this
in Genesis 34 and 35.

Consider this… Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, is forcibly raped by a young
man, Shechem, who really loves her but can’t control himself. He
quickly makes arrangements to “do the right thing” and earnestly wants
to marry her because he loves her. So he asks his father, Hamor, to
help with the negotiations. Now when Dinah’s brothers heard of this,
they were grieved and angry. Shechem is willing to pay any price for
Dinah’s hand in marriage. Jacob's sons, in deceit, take it upon themselves
to strike a deal with them. The whole city must become circumcised in
order to allow Dinah to marry Shechem. Now Shechem agrees to this right
away. We’d be harder on Shechem here but the scriptures say that “he
was more respected than all the household of his father” so there must
be something about Shechem that earned their respect. While we don’t
want to excuse him for his deed, still there is some honest effort here
to make things right. Actually, this makes the situation worse. The
males of the city agree to be circumcised after being persuaded by
Hamor and Shechem to do so. Now Simeon and Levi show up on the third
day when they were all in pain and kills every male in the city
including Shechem and Hamor. Then Jacob’s sons loot the city of all its
wealth and took all the wives and children, livestock and goods in
their homes. So we’ve got rape, proposal for marriage, killing,
looting, and now fear of reprisal from the surrounding inhabitants, all
in a few days, hitting Jacob. So Jacob takes Simeon and Levi to task
and they brush him off justifying themselves saying Shechem treated
their sister like a harlot. While the situation was a very bad one, the
scriptures go to some length to point out Shechem’s attempt to do what
was right after he did wrong. Jacob knew exactly what was going on and
he never forgot the matter.  Just before Jacob dies, he prophesies
about the future of his sons and we learn of Jacob’s opinion of Simeon
and Levi’s attitude.

Simeon and Levi are brothers; their swords are implements of violence.
Let my soul not enter into their council; let not my glory be united
with their assembly; because in their anger they slew men, and in their
self-will they lamed oxen. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce; and
their wrath, for it is cruel. I will disperse them in Jacob, and
scatter them in Israel. Genesis 49:5-7 (NASB)

Before we go any farther, we should note that what happened here was
the fruit of unforgiveness on the part of his sons and it affected them
for the rest of their lives.

Moving on, we see God calling Jacob to move to Bethel where Jacob had
met Him before. Jacob has his entire household and all those who were
with him clear out all the idols and foreign gods and clothing
associated with all that to purify themselves. They do so and Jacob
buries all these things near Shechem before they start on the journey.
We see him address everyone about the matter and tell them that he will
build an altar in Bethel to God who has answered him in the day of his
distress and has been with him wherever he has gone. Jacob is really
stressed here. The things of life were getting to him in a big way and
the Lord says “come see me in Bethel.” So they all moved to Bethel and
all the people of the land were terrified of the sons of Jacob and left
them alone. Now the people of the land probably thought of Jacob’s sons
were outlaws and were glad to see them go. When Jacob gets to Bethel,
he build the altar and calls it El-bethel.

Then Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse dies and was buried. So we need to add a
death to Jacob’s woes. This is the first time her name was given. She
was first referred to in Genesis 24:59. Perhaps she came to help with
Dinah after all that had happened and I suspect that she had other news
about Isaac as we’ll see shortly. So now we’ve got a death of a beloved
servant who had taken care of Jacob’s mother.

God appears to Jacob again and blessed him and reaffirms His promise to
him. In times like these, it is reassuring that the Lord still loves us
and tells us to hang in there and so it was for Jacob. Jacob puts up a
pillar, offers a drink offering on it and poured oil on it. Yes, God
met him again at Bethel.

Now we see that Jacob leaves Bethel even though the Lord had told him
to live there. While he’s some distance from Bethlehem (Ephrath),
Rachel enters into severe labor and has a son (Benjamin) but dies in
childbirth. Jacob buries his beloved wife and sets a pillar over her
grave, a gravestone you might say. In the midst of this additional
grief and on their way, at the tower of Eder, Reuben has relations with
Bilhah, Jacob’s concubine and Jacob hears about it and this too he
never forgets and prophesies concerning Reuben on his deathbed.

Reuben, you are my firstborn; my might and the beginning of my
strength, preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power. Uncontrolled
as water, you shall not have preeminence, because you went up to your father's bed; then you defiled it--he went up to my couch. Genesis 49:3-4 (NASB)

And while we recount the names of the sons of Israel, now being twelve,
we find the most likely reason why Jacob left Bethel. His father,
Isaac, was close to death. Jacob came to see his father before he died
and Esau and Jacob buried him at his death at the good old age of one hundred and eighty
years.

Somehow its not hard to visualize Jacob having a hard time with all
this and being depressed with all the things that had happened. Three
people who were important in his life die especially his beloved wife,
Rachel and his father. Also, he would most likely be feeling the shame
of seeing three of his sons commit despicable acts before God. And we
shouldn’t forget that his daughter was violated as well. Jacob’s life
looks like its falling apart. It is certain that these two chapters
could be called “Jacob’s sorrows” and we see God in there encouraging
him in the midst of it all. Yet Jacob had to pass through these times
to see it to the end.

We know that Jacob is going to survive all these troubles and will see
more before its all over concerning his son, Joseph.  Now its important
to note that just because God’s blessing is on you doesn’t mean you’ll
live a charmed, trouble-free life. We can clearly see that Jacob did
not do anything to bring this upon himself and we could understand if
Jacob would have wondered if God was still there. Yet in the midst of
his trials, God was there and told him to go back to where he had met
Him the first time… in Bethel.

Often when trouble comes in our lives especially when it comes in
batches, things looks bleak for us and we feel abandoned yet this is
not so. The Lord is nearby and will comfort you through it all even
though it may be that the trouble will not be removed from you and you
will have to experience it anyway.  It is in this way that we learn of
God’s wisdom and his trustworthiness. We learn his wisdom often many
years down the road when we’ve had a chance to look back on the things
we’ve gone through and we learn that even though the toughest things of
life have hit us, we can depend on Him to not leave us or forsake us.
Even one of the Bible’s most famous men had to learn this and so it is
with us. God is the same faithful One who carries us through all the
shame and grief and misfortune the world can dish out.  With His help,
we overcome. Mr.Vee

Discovering God’s Character – Part 15



Jacob Meets His Fears and Esau

In Genesis 32, we find Jacob now went on his way from his encounter
with Laban. Now the angels of God met him. When he saw them, he called
it “God’s camp.”

Now Jacob, in anticipation of meeting his brother Esau, sends
messengers to his brother in Edom, filling him in that he had stayed
with Laban until now and is coming with a lot of livestock, and
servants and hopes that he will find favor with Esau. His messengers
return and say that Esau is coming to meet him with 400 men.

Now that really upset Jacob and he was quite afraid and began to take
evasive action so that at least some of his party would survive an
attack. And Jacob prays for dear life, for himself and his family and
reminds God of His promise. He stays the night where he was and selects
a present for Esau of quite a sizable amount of livestock of various
types. He split them up into droves and put space between them. Each
drove would say that they had a present for Esau that was sent from
Jacob.

Even though he spends the night there, he doesn’t sleep so well and
takes his two wives and two maids and eleven children and sent them
across the Jabbok and he sent everything that he had with them.

Now Jacob was alone and during the night a man came and wrestled with
him until daybreak. Jacob apparently wrestled successfully until this
“man” saw that he had not prevailed against him and touched the socket
of his thigh and Jacob’s thigh was dislocated. The “man” said to let
him go because dawn is breaking but Jacob would not unless the “man”
would bless him.  We find that this “man” renames Jacob and his new
name is “Israel” because he had striven with God and men and had
prevailed. Jacob wants to know his name. The “man” asks him “why do you
ask?” and then blesses him. Yet Jacob knew who it was because he named
the place, Peniel, because I have seen God face to face, yet my life
has been preserved.

Now the sun rose by the time he had crossed over Penuel and he was
limping.  Jacob was tired and in pain.  What a way to meet Esau!

It was at this point, in Chapter 33, that Jacob looks up and here comes
Esau and his 400 men. He divided the children among Leah and Rachel and
the two maids with maids up front, Leah and her children next, and
Rachel and Joseph last and then he went ahead of them and bowed down to
the ground seven times until he came near his brother.

Esau runs to meet him and embraced him and kissed him on the neck and
they wept. Esau sees the women and children and asks who they are and
Jacob tells him that they are his. The maids and their children came and bowed down and Leah and her
children came as well and did the same and so did Rachel and Joseph.

So the dialog goes something like this… “Jacob, what’s with all this
stuff you’ve sent ahead of you all?” “Esau, I was hoping that you’d be
pleased with it and you would welcome me.”  “Jacob, I have plenty, you
can keep all that.”  “No, Esau. Please accept my present to you. I am
so happy to have seen you and you look so good to me its like seeing
God Himself. God has blessed me so much I want to share it with you.” 
Jacob urges Esau to accept it so Esau does so.

Esau says “Let’s get on with the journey and I will go before you.”
Jacob says something like, “Well, I’ve got to take it a bit slower than
usual since its hard on the children and the flocks are nursing so it
probably wouldn’t be a good idea to go too fast or else some of the
flocks might die. Esau, you can go on ahead. I’ll do fine and move
along at a pace that is slow enough to keep everything well and I’ll
join you when I get down to your place. Sound ok, to you?”  Esau says
something like, “The least I could do is leave some of my people with
you to help out.”  And Jacob responds, “Thanks. I appreciate that.
However, I’ve got enough servants already and we’re doing fine but
thanks for offering. Would that be ok with you?”  So that sounds
reasonable to Esau and he and his men head back to Seir that day. 
Everything that Jacob had feared in his meeting with Esau was gone. The
way was clear to settle in Canaan.

So Jacob journeyed to Succoth and built a house there and made
accommodations for his livestock. BTW, Succoth means “booths”. Yet it
appears that he didn’t stay there very long and came to Shechem, in the
land of Canaan and he bought a piece of land there with 100 pieces of
money from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father. Then he erected an
altar there called God, the God of Israel (El-Elohe-Israel).

Have you been so afraid of something and what you’ve feared doesn’t
happen? Such was the case with Jacob and Esau.  Now it is true that
Jacob sent gifts before him to Esau, yet it was this sense of humility
that had been driven by fear and the Lord working on Esau over this
time that brought the brothers back together to meet in peace.

When a man's ways are pleasing to the LORD, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.  Proverbs 16:7 (NASB)

Peace is not a normal thing in this fallen world.  When you see real
peace, it is from the Lord.  Why? The Lord is the “Prince of Peace”.

Now how about the wrestling match with God?  Why do you think Jacob
prevailed? That would seem strange to have God not win a wrestling
match. Yet perhaps not.  If Jacob earnestly wrestled with God over his
fears yet Jacob held on for dear life and wouldn’t let him go and
wouldn’t give up, do you think that the Lord saw this and the faith of
Jacob in this?  In spite of Jacob’s fear, it was like a dad and his son
wrestling and the boy doesn’t have a chance against his father but his
father lets his son “win” because he wants to encourage his son.  And
now, the real blessing, the one that meant more than the one Jacob
received from his father was bestowed on him and this and the
resolution of the grudge between Jacob and Esau brought a new freedom
in Jacob’s life that was free from the fears of his past.  We have to
understand the importance of these two events in Jacob’s life to
understand what God wants to do in our lives.

You see, the Lord wants you to be set free from the fear that has held
you captive all your life.  When we constantly see these fears in the
“rearview mirror” of our lives, we react and not always positively. 
You need to wrestle with God on these issues and hold on until he
blesses you and you find yourself on the “other side” and free. You
need to face your fears with humility and confidence that the Lord is
with you wherever you go.

To do this requires that we have a God that is faithful and wants us to
overcome these things. We do and He does because He made a way to do it…


But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. Romans 8:37 (NASB)

Once we conquer our fears and move forward in life by faith in Him, we
find ourselves a new start in life just a Jacob did with all those things
behind him.  Mr.Vee

Creation & Fine Wine: Part 3 – Some Final Things

I was going to end this subject with Part 2 but with the urging from
Bee who said I should do a little bit more on the “other things” found
in John 2, I’ve decided that I would do that.

We were able to note that Jesus was only in His third day of public
ministry, the first day was with John the Baptist where Jesus was
baptized. The second day was gathering some of his disciples. The five
that came with him were Andrew, Simon Peter, Philip, and Nathaniel. So
Jesus went with them to Cana of Galilee on the third day (His first day in public ministry) and Jesus’
mother was there and both Jesus’ and His disciples were invited to the
wedding that was to take place.  When the wine ran out, Jesus’ mother
said to Him that they have no wine. And Jesus answers her, “Woman, what
does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come.”

Have you ever wondered why Jesus’ answered that way? It seems odd that
He would just out of the blue say something like that without a
reason.  I have heard several different explanations over the years but
none of them sounded quite right. It wasn’t until reading  later in the
account we find that the headwaiter asks the bridegroom about why he
chose to serve the best wine last, and then the answer began to dawn on
me.  It wasn’t Jesus’ time to order the wine for a wedding. You see it
is clear that in that culture it was the bridegroom who made the
selections and arrangements for the wine.  When His mother asks Him
about this, He is rightfully responding… “Its not my wedding. The time
for that has not come.”  Given this, it appears that Jesus is referring
to the marriage supper of the Lamb that is referred to in Ephesians
5:22-33 where the church is referred to as the bride of Christ and in
Revelation 19:7-10 where the marriage actually occurs. So we have an
actual reference to this future event right at the beginning of Jesus’
ministry.

The matter of the stone waterpots, their number being six which was
made reference to in the last post, were interesting. These were set
there for the Jewish custom of purification. Being that the whole affair of the wine was important enough to have us
understand its significance with creation based on the nature of the
wine and it was at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, perhaps the pots
were for the purification of a people for His namesake and this may be the entire reason for the creation as it is. Consider that the Bride of Christ mentioned above will be washed by the
water of His word (Ephesians 5:26). She will be cleansed from sin by His shed blood on the Cross symbolized by the wine as the blood of the covenant which is poured
out for many for the forgiveness of sins. It would show us that they
would be purified from their sin. This would be signified by His being
raised in miraculous power on the third day after His death and with
the miracle of the changing of the water into wine happening on the third day of His ministry. Since
the capacity of all the waterpots was more than enough for all the
participants in most any wedding, the 120 to 180 gallons of wine would
indicate that the wine (blood) would be more than enough for all at the
wedding and then some and that the salvation through Christ would be
just as overly abundant.

Even the serving of the wine, the lesser quality wine being served
before the best wine that came from Jesus’ miracle has significance.
This life has no comparison to the life that follows this one and
certainly when Christ reigns and the new heavens and new earth are here
and the old things are passed away (physically) there will no
comparison to the wonderful quality of the life that is to come. 

There is so much here it makes me want to stop and just ponder at the
power of His word and the value of every word that He has given us
concerning His love for us. I am simply in awe and there’s little more to say.  Mr.Vee

Creation & Fine Wine: Part 2 - From Gopher Holes to Truth

The last time we imagined a ridiculous scene of several groups of
people being preoccupied with whacking pesky gophers with mallets in
the attempt to get rid of them and never succeeding. We took the
example of the “evolutionist/creationist” debate and showed that both
positions were locked into “whacking their opponents” into silence and
submission yet every attempt to do so has been unsuccessful and that
each position comes to the table with an act of faith. Even those who
would like to reconcile both positions, along with the cynics, exercise
their own faith in their positions as well. The point of this example
is that argument for argument sake is counterproductive and robs us of
the time and perspective to truly look for the truth that is out there.
I would never criticize a genuine search for the truth nor one helping
someone to find it.

With this scene in the backdrop, I mentioned that God has already
answered this entire issue with an absolutely simple bit of wisdom that
would have everyone sitting back and scratching their heads and
praising the Lord God for His awesome ability to confound the wise.

Let’s go to John chapter 2… we find Jesus is only in the “3rd day” in
His public ministry… so its “in the beginning” of it so to speak… and
pay attention as these are more than “puns”… let’s read…

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother
of Jesus was there; and both Jesus and His disciples were invited to
the wedding. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him,
"They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does that have
to do with us? My hour has not yet come." His mother said to the
servants, "Whatever He says to you, do it." Now there were six stone
waterpots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing
twenty or thirty gallons each. Jesus said to them, "Fill the waterpots
with water." So they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them,
"Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter." So they took it to
him. When the headwaiter tasted the water which had become wine, and
did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the
water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom, and said to him,
"Every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk
freely, then he serves the poorer wine; but you have kept the good wine
until now." This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee,
and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.  John
2:1-11 (NASB)

So you might ask...Mr. Vee, what in the world would a wedding and wine have to do with
the evolutionism/creationism debate? Absolutely everything.

This was Jesus’ “first sign” that manifested His glory. It was “in the
beginning” of Jesus’ ministry that He did this. It is interesting that
it mentioned it was on the “third day” that this happened.  However, I'm getting ahead of myself. What was
this sign?  Let’s look closely here.

The wedding feast ran out of wine and if there wasn’t going to be any
more, it would be a disaster. There are several important people in
this scene: Jesus, His mother, the servants, the headwaiter and the
bridegroom. His mother commands the servants to do whatever Jesus says
about the matter of fixing the problem. We’ll skip His dialog with His
mother for right now and move right to the servants and Jesus.  He
simply tells them to go get water and fill the waterpots used for
purification which would total somewhere between 120 to 180 gallons of
water, a considerable amount and very heavy especially when full. Jesus
does nothing more than tell the servants to draw some out and take it
to the headwaiter, who obviously ought to know something about wine
since headwaiters are supposed to know this. One could only imagine
what went through the servants’ minds as they had just lugged all this
water to the six stone waterpots perhaps even splashing some it around
while handling it thereby knowing it was water they were carrying. Yet
they do what He said and the headwaiter’s response is extremely
important.  He said something like this… to the bridegroom. “What? The
usual practice is to bring out the good wine first and as people drink
it and get drunk they won’t notice when you bring out the poorer wine
later. Why did you wait to bring out the best wine last?”

I have a question for you. By normal means, how long does it take to
make wine? I don’t mean just the fermentation process. I am talking
about gathering the grapes (if they are in season) since they didn’t
have enough for that sort of quantity of wine on hand, squeezing out the juice,
collecting it and mixing it and allowing it to then ferment. Some of
the best wines out there literally take years to mature and they are very
rare. In the very first miracle Jesus ever did, “in the beginning” so
to speak, Jesus made extremely fine wine in perhaps the time it took to
take the ladle to the headwaiter or even less.  We would call this a
miracle. While it is, let’s look at it more closely.

From this account, we now know that making wine can take two different
processes. The rain can hit the soil where grape vines are grown and
over time produces grapes which will produce juice that will enter the
whole process to become wine. This is the long process, the normal one
we understand. Alternatively, Jesus, who in the beginning created the
whole process of winemaking in the first place, knew the exact
formulation and knew the exact chemical composition of the liquid to
perfectly age it in seconds to create the finest of wine.

If Jesus could do this, then it stands to reason that it is possible to create anything in a moment of time if God is doing it…
even to the point of aging the creation and placing it at a certain
intended maturity in order that everything would proceed in an orderly
fashion. In fact, just as Jesus knew the exact formulation of wine and
how to precisely age it to make it of such wonderful quality that an
experienced wine taster would be amazed, is it so impossible to think
that God could have make a universe that would be fully “aged” as if it
had been around a million or even a billion years?

Let me take it one step further. If our scientists are telling us that
it most assuredly had to have taken millions and billions of years to
have created the universe including this world in particular, isn’t it
obvious that they are unwittingly praising God for His ability to make
such a complex creation like this in only a few days?  Do not criticize
them. They are telling you the truth … of how long it would take if God
had wanted to slowly age the world as if we would make wine the usual
way.  Where the scientists go wrong is that they will not acknowledge
that the creation of the universe and this world could have been any
other way than what they conceive… a slow natural process.  Never mind
all the contradictions inherent in a slow development… and there are
many.  The lie they tell themselves is that “if there is a God at all,
it could not have been done by God in any other way but slowly." Essentially, they are saying that there
are no such things as miracles nor a God to do them.

If that isn’t enough, we have another indicator that applies here. I
have noted over the years that God doesn’t waste words. If the world
had been created in a slow process as we might simply assume, He would
not have wasted the words to tell us this.

For instance, we know that when a man and woman marry and have
children, we do not have to guess how the children came about.  There
is a God ordained way that children arrive here on Earth. That is the
normal way of things. God did not have to describe this in graphic
details in the Bible. Yet when Jesus was born of a virgin, quite out of
the ordinary, God tells us clearly about this. He makes it plain since
it is not the normal way of things.  In the same way, He takes the time
to explain to us briefly the manner of His creating all things in six
normal days which would not seem to be the normal way of things.

The bottom line is this.  Jesus’ very first miracle was making wine
which is typically a time intensive process, in only moments of time.
In this, He was showing us who He was.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being
through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come
into being.  John 1:1-3


If Jesus, the Son of God, could make fine wine that fast, would it be
so hard to believe that God could create all that we know in the world
in six days? Why should we think it so short a time? How about
wondering why God took as long as six days to do it? Personally, I
think He was enjoying His work being artistic and wanted to take His
time and enjoy the experience and make it “just right”. Why? It was His
time. It was His creation and He was in no hurry at all.

Before we close, for those of you who might be a bit perceptive, were
the six waterpots symbolic for the six days of creation or something
else related to purification and was the third day significant in
making “new wine”, and what about the “wedding”?  You did notice that
the headwaiter questioned the “bridegroom” about the wine. Is this why
when His mother asked him about the wine that He answers His mother the
way He does? I think so. This passage is simply amazing in its richness
in revealing some of the most critical points in the entire plan of God
in one setting. I love it when God does things like this…  So there you have it. God's answer in a place we wouldn't have expected it. Now we are free to figure out the rest...    Mr.Vee

Hi! We will be taking a short break from the study “Discovering God’s
Character” as I’ve been watching FKIProfessor’s site closely and have
taken some interest in the subject matter currently being discussed.
However, I will not be taking the same approach since what I will be
presenting will in itself be different yet was prompted by the material
on his site. It will be presented in two parts. The first part is to
help us  understand the predicament we are in and in the second part to
find God’s utterly brilliant solution for it. And indeed we can find
something to learn about God’s character as well!


Creation & Fine Wine:  Part 1- Eternal Gopher Holes

Picture this scene… you have a pesky gopher in your backyard. You’ve
twisted your ankle several times in all the new tunnels he’s dug
underneath your yard and if that isn’t enough, your grass and plants
are suffering. Now you’ve tried all the gimmicks at the home and garden
center to run them off and still your unwelcome residents do not leave.
In fact, the pesky critter seems to know you can’t get rid of him and
loves to come peek out at you and if he could give you a “raspberry”,
you know he would. You become sufficiently provoked that you get
yourself a mallet and go out to teach this obnoxious thing a lesson. So
you wait for it to pop its head out and down comes the mallet to an
empty hole. He is much too quick yet you won’t give up that easily. He
pops out his head again and whack! You miss again. Over and over again,
you find yourself outmatched by the gopher.

Regardless of whether you know how to get rid of gophers, it is not
hard to understand the thrust behind the story and know that it doesn’t
always have to revolve around “gophers”. Many times, we run into people
or even ideologies that are the same way.

When relating this to all sorts of debates, whether scientific or
religious, or whatever, the matter comes down to our silly story about “gophers”. Take the
theory of evolution, for instance. Those who claim a “scientific
stance” earnestly hope that by saying this or that they will get the
upper hand and silence those pesky “creationists”.  They try and try
and they don’t go away. They attempt to discredit them and mock them
and do all sorts of things and nothing works.

Now let’s look at it from the other end of it.  The “creationists” see
those pesky “evolutionists” making all these reasons why the world
could not be created by God and tell us of all these “discoveries” that
prove the theory of evolution is conclusively true. They take up the argument from God’s point of view yet just like the
folks above, the “creationists” get out their mallets and go for the
gopher holes of the evolutionists and they, too, miss every time. We know this because they never seem to go away.

If that isn’t enough, we’ve got folks who are in the middle on this and
can’t see why both camps can’t bring the two stories together. They
usually lean one way or another and would like to really see them
coalesce into “one story” yet just as the “gopher whackers” above, that
isn’t going to happen and they get their mallets and go for the gopher
holes and they, too, miss every time.

By now, you should have a picture in your mind of three or four camps
on this debate now, literally a whole crowd of “gopher whackers" with
their trusty mallets taking their swings. Isn’t the scene ridiculous?
Not only is it ridiculous but such a debate could last millennia and perhaps an eternity... and they do and they would if it were left to that.

One good thing about such a scene in real life is that it creates
either job security for the participants or endless preoccupation on
the matter for those who just like debate. However, no one's effort will
ever be decisive because the other “camp” races down their “paradigm tunnel
deep in the ground” to pop up their next point and are always scurrying
about but never able to come to the knowledge of what is really true.  Sometimes we'd even wonder if the
truth were ever found, none of these participants would be happy since
all the job security and preoccupation would then be gone and they’d
have to find another matter to whack gophers over.

Such is life. If one would step back and look at it all, one would
realize that everything we hold dear is by faith. To take the earlier topic, it is by faith that the evolutionists take
their stand. They’ve never observed the actual event so they really
don’t know how it happened and never will. They can only take what they see now and
extrapolate backward and trust in their numbers and estimates. However,
the concept that they have of the creation of things is limited to what they want to believe about it. It has nothing to do with facts. Its all about faith. In addition, they cannot go beyond their own “gopher tunnels”
and cannot see things beyond.  They have faith in their system of
thinking even with its limitations.

Similarly, the creationists take their stand on faith as well and to
that they are probably the most honest about it. They take what the
Bible literally says and stick to what it says on faith. A most
commendable thing, yet it is still faith. Yet disturbingly, their
gopher tunnels have given them the same type of blind spots that the
evolutionists have. They cannot see things beyond what they believe about it. Its just the way things work.

Even those who would like to reconcile have a faith of their own that
the two stories will somehow reconcile. If it weren’t true that these
folks have their own “gopher tunnels”, one would think these might be
the most sensible.

Now let’s not leave out the cynics who toss it all out and don’t want
to have anything to do with it. That too is by faith. Their faith is in
their reasoning that everyone is screwed up and they throw it all out
as rubbish. Now that is a "gopher tunnel" in its own right.

Yet is this all bad?  In our quest to understand our world where we’ve
made the mantra that all hypotheses must be proven to become fact, we
have taken the stand that is totally untenable with reason. Instead, there are
just some things that cannot be proven with reason simply because we
won’t have all the information necessary to make the proof and even if
it could be, the very fact that we are often sequestered in our “gopher
tunnels”, this limits our perspective and we couldn’t see anything else
if we tried.

So let take a look at it from God’s perspective. He knows the truth…
all of it. He has no “gopher tunnels” to restrict His vision or alter
His perception. That’s why He knows absolute truth and is the
embodiment of it. Now we’ve seen from this ridiculous illustration what
man is like. He sees his own set of “relative truths” as the governing
aspect of his paradigm (gopher tunnel). The only hope we have is to get some objective input on this and whether we like it or not, the only one that can do this is God because He is not restricted by this at all.

I hope that in the next
installment you will see some light at the end of your tunnel on this
matter and it won’t be the next “pop up hole”. It will be the light of
truth that shows you that with God “all things are possible.” We will see God's input on the creation event in a most unusual place. And yes,
you will find out what the importance of fine wine is as well.  Mr.Vee

Discovering God’s Character – Part 14



Laban catches up to Jacob


In the last half of Genesis 31, Laban finds out that Jacob fled three
days earlier. So he gathers his kinsmen and pursued him for seven days
and overtook him in the hill country of Gilead. Laban must have had
some evil thoughts in mind since the Lord tells him in a dream to be
careful what you say to Jacob... say neither good nor bad.

Laban confronts Jacob asking him:

Then Laban said to Jacob, "What have you done by deceiving me and
carrying away my daughters like captives of the sword? Why did you flee
secretly and deceive me, and did not tell me so that I might have sent
you away with joy and with songs, with timbrel and with lyre; and did
not allow me to kiss my sons and my daughters? Now you have done
foolishly. It is in my power to do you harm, but the God of your father
spoke to me last night, saying, 'Be careful not to speak either good or
bad to Jacob.' Now you have indeed gone away because you longed greatly
for your father's house; but why did you steal my gods?"  Genesis 31:26-30 (NASB)


Since Jacob knew the scoundrel for what he was (and now we know, too, from Part 13), he wasn’t terribly convinced with such words.  At
least Laban admits that because the Lord spoke to him that he now knows
that he was going back to his father’s house. It looks as though that
Rachel’s grabbing her father’s household idols is a good part of this
stir.

So now its Jacob’s turn… he tells Laban that he thought he would take
his daughters from him by force. Not knowing that Rachel grabbed
Laban's idols, he makes a rash vow but in the end it turns out ok. He
tells Laban to search and take whatever is his. Laban searches high and
low in all the tents even Rachel’s. Now she’s sitting on the idols that
are in a camel’s saddle and her father doesn’t ask her to get up since
she feigns that the “manner of women was upon her”. So Laban doesn’t
find anything.

Now Jacob lets loose on Laban…

Then Jacob became angry and contended with Laban; and Jacob said to
Laban, "What is my transgression? What is my sin that you have hotly
pursued me? Though you have felt through all my goods, what have you
found of all your household goods? Set it here before my kinsmen and
your kinsmen, that they may decide between us two. These twenty years I
have been with you; your ewes and your female goats have not
miscarried, nor have I eaten the rams of your flocks. That which was
torn of beasts I did not bring to you; I bore the loss of it myself.
You required it of my hand whether stolen by day or stolen by night.
Thus I was: by day the heat consumed me and the frost by night, and my
sleep fled from my eyes. These twenty years I have been in your house;
I served you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for
your flock, and you changed my wages ten times. If the God of my
father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had not been for me,
surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed God has seen my
affliction and the toil of my hands, so He rendered judgment last
night." Genesis 31:36-42 (NASB)

Do you know what Laban says?  “The daughters are mine. The children are
mine, the flocks are mine, all that you see is mine.” He then says
"what could he do to his daughters or the children?".  That’s an
interesting take on the matter. Jacob works for twenty years and by
agreement, it was Jacob’s wages, its still all Laban’s as far as he’s
concerned. Its clear that he lets them go on account of his daughters
and children but we can see Laban’s heart is wrapped around possessions.

So instead of doing any harm to them, he proposes a covenant between
them and it will be the first sensible thing Laban comes up with and we
see a different side if we look hard enough.

Jacob sets up a pillar and stones were gathered to make a heap. They
ate by the heap and dedicated the pillar and heap as a witness between
them. Neither would come past that heap and pillar to harm the other.
But perhaps more importantly, that God will be witness if Jacob
mistreats his daughters or if he takes other wives besides his
daughters. Now this is Laban once you get past the greediness and
scheming.

Notice that Laban invokes the name of the God of Abraham and the God of
Nahor, the God of their father will be the judge between us and Jacob
swore by the fear of his father Isaac.  This is really interesting.
This passage tells us that Terah had trusted in the Lord and his sons
Nahor and Abram (Abraham) were the same and this gives us some more
perspective on the family life of Abraham.

Jacob offers a sacrifice on the mountain and called his kinsmen to the
meal. They ate the meal and spent the night on the mountain. Early the
next morning, Laban arose and kissed his sons and his daughters and
blessed them. Then Laban departed and returned to his place.

As we see this scene come together, it would not escape our attention
that the Lord puts in a carefully timed word in for Jacob in Laban’s
dream. How often are we not aware when the Lord does this on our
behalf? How often has disaster been averted by His quiet interaction in
the events in our lives yet we may not even know about it? Oftentimes
we complain about our troubles. Yet what would it be like if He didn’t
save us from the these unknown things (and the known ones, too!) that
could have harmed us? God is our protector whether we are aware of it
or not. Also note that the events he does allow in our lives are
filtered through His hand. God is truly like a father who allows us to
learn life’s lessons, yet not be destroyed by them.

It would be unfair not to note that God spoke to Laban in a dream. Now
as I mentioned before, he was an ornery character but God even works
with the ornery and deceivers who might even have some connection with
worshipping him. It is clear that Laban was upset about his household
idols, yet God is more interested in our hearts than items of wood and
stone that neither speak nor hear. He keeps Laban at bay for his own
plan’s sake, Jacob’s sake and Laban’s as well. Under the circumstances,
every thing turned out all right. God is wise and knows the way for us
to get out of the sticky situations we get ourselves into.

It’s a tough period in Jacob’s life and he’s got another serious
encounter left before he settles in Canaan. He has yet to meet Esau and
that’s for next time. Mr.Vee

Discovering God’s Character – Part 13



Jacob Meets Rachel – 20 years with Laban

Here in Genesis 29, we see Jacob has left Bethel and continued to
journey toward the land of the sons of the east searching for the house
of Laban.  He meets up with some shepherds from Haran with three flocks
of sheep at a well that has a large stone on its mouth. He asks them if
they know Laban, the son of Nahor and if he is well. They do and they
tell him he is doing fine. They also tell him that Rachel, his
daughter, was coming with her father’s sheep since she was a
shepherdess.

He kept talking to them, once encouraging them to water the sheep and
go but they were waiting for Rachel.  When he saw her, he went up and
took the large stone and rolled it off the well and watered Laban’s
flock. Now Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice and wept. He
told her that he was a relative, Rebekah’s son, so she ran and told her
father. Talk about a guy falling head over heels for a girl!

So Laban ran  to meet Jacob embraced and kissed him and brought him to
his house. Then Jacob told what had happened and most likely telling
Laban all the family stuff from Canaan. So Laban knows Jacob is for
real and Jacob stays with him a month. From Laban’s offer to pay him
for his work, its sounds like Jacob was a hard, productive worker.

It is at this time that it is agreed upon that Jacob will work for the
hand of Rachel, Laban’s younger and beautiful daughter, for seven
years. Laban had another daughter, Leah, whose eyes were weak. Anyway,
the text says the time went pretty fast for him because of his love for
Rachel.

It would have been a great love story except for old uncle Laban. After
seven years passes, Jacob says he is ready to settle up and marry
Rachel. So they have some festivities and while doing so, Laban
deceives Jacob and gives him the “bait and switch” trick, and gives him
Leah, with her maid Zilpah, instead.  Jacob doesn’t realize this until
morning and confronts Laban about it. Now whether we want to believe
Laban’s story about not marrying the younger daughter before the older
one, Laban connives another seven years of work out of Jacob for him to
get to marry Rachel. Now this won’t be the last time Laban cheats Jacob.

This set up a very bad situation for Leah, his daughter. Laban, not
only cheated Jacob, he also “soured the well” in Jacob’s house so to
speak. The whole affair did not set well with Jacob as we will find
once Leah begins to have children. It isn’t that Jacob wasn’t kind to
Leah, my guess is that him being forced into the situation was not
quite what he had in mind and I would think every time he saw Leah it
was a reminder how Laban had cheated him. In fact, we don’t see Leah
having children before he gets Rachel as his wife. So after the 14
years were finished, Jacob still loved Rachel and she became his wife
and Laban gives his daughter, Rachel, Bilhah as her maid.

Now it will be that Leah will have children and Rachel will not for
some time. The Lord saw that Leah was unloved and so gave her the
advantage to give sons to Jacob. Leah will bear, in order, Reuben,
Simeon, Levi, and Judah and then she stopped bearing. As we move into
Genesis 30, Rachel wasn’t yet bearing and she gets jealous and
frustrated and gets Jacob upset when she blames him for the problem. 
So Rachel gives her maid, Bilhah, as a wife to Jacob and she bears two
sons: Dan and Naphtali.  Leah gets into the act and gives her maid,
Zilpah, to Jacob as a wife and she has Gad and Asher. Leah then has two
more sons, Issachar and Zebulun and then a daughter, Dinah.  Then
Rachel has her first child, Joseph.  That makes a total of 11 sons and
1 daughter before Jacob will ask to leave Laban. 

The next section is rather interesting. Jacob asks Laban to leave and
Laban wants him to stay and says “name your wages”. Jacob has done well
for Laban and he knows it. However, Jacob doesn’t want a thing from
Laban and won’t pasture his flock any more except that he does one
thing. Laban must give Jacob all the speckled and spotted sheep and
goats and every black lamb that’s in his entire flock. Laban agrees to
this. Laban keeps all the white goats and sheep, and the black sheep.
So Laban puts 3 days journey between himself and Jacob. Now I’m not so
sure exactly what sort of thing was going on with all the mating of the
sheep and goats but in the end, Jacob became exceedingly prosperous
with large strong flocks, female and male servants, camels, and
donkeys. This gets Laban’s sons all worked up and were saying that
Jacob stole their father’s flocks and made his wealth from his father’s
property. Now Laban’s attitude wasn’t friendly anymore either.

So the Lord tells Jacob to return to Canaan. Jacob has a “family
meeting” with Rachel and Leah to discuss the matter. He recounts that
he has been faithful to Laban and served him with all his strength and
that their father has cheated him and changed his wages ten times but
the Lord was still with him and did not allow him to hurt Jacob.  In
fact, he tells them that the Lord prospered him in whatever way Laban
said he would pay him regardless of how he might have wanted to cheat
him anyway. Also, he tells them that the Lord has called him back home
to Canaan. Rachel and Leah both agree with Jacob and tell him to do
whatever the Lord has told him to do and that they saw it was the Lord
that caused their husband to prosper.  So they loaded up everything
they had and headed back to Canaan. Now Rachel decides to steal her
father’s household idols. Jacob deceived Laban by not telling him that
he was fleeing. So he fled with all he had and crossed the Euphrates
River and proceeded to the hill country of Gilead where Laban will soon
catch up to him. We’ll finish the encounter next time.

What would you have done if you had been cheated like Jacob?  Laban was
quite a scoundrel. Even his own daughters could see all this as I
noticed Leah and Rachel were in one accord about this. Maybe even all
three of them realized that it was probably better that they were all
together after all. It seems so when Jacob lets them know that they are
leaving Paddan-aram. It seems clear the Lord evens the score. Jacob
will have his say when Laban finally catches up to him.

I noticed that God was with Jacob through all the sweat and toil that
Jacob endured with such a devious fellow.  It would appear that we
could trust God to be with us when people aren’t treating us right. 
God is with us in the “long haul”, too. It was 20 years between when
Jacob arrived at Laban’s and when he leaves when he’s 60 years old. He
didn’t forget about Jacob. We see the hand of God in the race that Leah
and Rachel had to have children for Jacob. We’ve seen 11 of the 12 sons
born now and God’s timeline is moving forward in His plan inside the
everyday ups and downs that have happened in Jacob’s life and he isn’t
even aware of that yet.  Although God is largely silent in these
passages, it is safe say that His hand is not still in all this.
Sometimes, we’ve got to wait until things run their course in order to
know what the next thing the Lord has waiting for us.  Waiting for 20
years to come home is a long time and remember he's not heard back from his mother, Rebekah. The Lord uses times of  waiting to build patience in us and
develops trust in the One who knows and holds the future.  Mr.Vee