Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #2 of Genesis 30, and we are reading Genesis 30:1-4:

And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel: and he said, Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her. And she gave him Bilhah her handmaid to wife: and Jacob went in unto her.

I will stop reading there.  In our last study, we were, once again, looking at the historical situation and the fact that Leah was bearing many children (sons), one after the other, and Rachel was not having any babies.  She would not have a child for some time.  From what we can gather, she probably demanded of Jacob that he not go in unto Leah until she herself had a child.  That is probably what she said, but, of course, it is speculation because God has not given us that information.  But based on what we can read, it was along those lines, and then she demanded children of Jacob.  And notice that her demand was for “children,” not just a “child.”  “Give me children, or else I die.”  She was competing with her sister, as she was looking to her sister Leah who already had four sons, but she had no sons.  So, apparently, in her mind, just having a child was not sufficient – she had to have children.  She was wanting to “catch up,” from what we can gather, to her sister.  So Rachel’s envy of her sister was not a pretty thing at all.  Envy is never a pretty thing.  It is never attractive.  Typically, it is a very ugly thing.

And, yet, Rachel was typifying God’s elect.  She was the one Jacob loved.  And it was said of Leah that she was hated, and that is why the Lord opened her womb and gave her children.  But Rachel was the one that Jacob wanted to marry, and he worked for her because he had great love toward her, so she is picturing the people of God who are loved of God.   The people of the Lord Jesus Christ are the bride of Christ and are loved by Him.

Leah was not loved by her husband in that way, so she is a type and figure of those that are under the wrath of God.  They are married to God through the Law.  Christ is the Word, and the Word is the Law, so unsaved mankind is married to Christ.  They have a relationship with Him, and when it comes to the Gospel, they do not follow the true teaching of the Word of God, the Bible.  So they misunderstand and distort the Gospel, and they come up with (false) gospels that allow them to multiply quickly, as far as numbers go.  For example, there are great numbers of people that come into the churches and say they are Christians, because the churches make it very simple and easy for them: “Here is all you have to do.  Make a decision to accept Christ, walk down the aisle, be (water) baptized, and so forth.  Just do “this,” and the thing they have to do typically does not take very long.  It is like “instant pudding,” and you are a child of God.

We can see the similarity, as Leah was so fruitful in having children, one after the other, and Rachel was barren, because her children are pointing to those who are children of God.  And Leah’s children spiritually represent those that are “false children” of God or children of God in name only, while Rachel’s children represent those that are true children of God.  The true children of God are brought into the world through a process that typically requires waiting.  There has to be waiting on the Lord.  It is not “instant pudding,” normally, when God saves a person.  Of course, there are exceptions, like God saving John the Baptist in the womb, for His own purposes.  But, typically, God works out His salvation in the life of an individual in a much more developed and slower way.  Or, as we look at His overall salvation program, it is done in its proper times and seasons.  So over the course of the church age, God saved the firstfruits, but the numbers were not too many compared to the enormous number of people that entered into the congregations but were not truly born again, and they would identify with Leah’s children.  But the “few,” the elect, or the figurative “one third” are saved by God, and God’s salvation is not something that you can just snap your fingers and produce.  At least that is what the Bible tells us.  Let us to Psalm 123:1-4:

Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon JEHOVAH our God, until that he have mercy upon us. Have mercy upon us, O JEHOVAH, have mercy upon us: for we are exceedingly filled with contempt. Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud.

“Have mercy upon us,” was the cry of God’s people down through the ages, like the publican who beat upon his breast, and refused so much as to lift his eyes up to heaven and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”  It was the cry of King David: “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.”  It is the cry of the lowest beggar.  And it was the salvation plan of God that He would save whom He will save, and He would have mercy on whom He will have mercy.  Jesus said, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.  No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” 

It was God’s program to save those that He had intended to save, and He did it in His own time, as we saw in the case of the thief on the cross.  He was one of God’s elect.  He was an individual, and we are not told his age, but he was old enough to steal and live a life of crime, and a wasted life that led him to the cross.  Looking back from that point, what would that man exhibit where anyone could say, “To God be the glory”?  What would he have done in his life?  And the answer would probably be, “Nothing at all.”  However old he was (whether he was 25, 30 or 35), in all the years that came before, God had His eye on him.  Actually, God had His eye on him before the foundation of the world as he selected that thief and named him, and then Christ bore all the filthy deeds and sins that thief would commit.  He paid for those sins at the foundation of the world in eternity past, and He paid the penalty of death for him.  So the blood was reserved in the basin, as it were, and the Word of God was watching him all his days until the point when God arranged the circumstances and events, working all things together for that thief’s good.  Yes – all of his rotten life and all the miserable days he lived prior to that point served the purpose of bringing him there, right next to the Word of God, hanging on the cross alongside him.  And he heard the voice of Christ.  He heard the Word of God, and the blood was applied through the “hyssop” of the Word to his soul, and he received a new, born-again heart and soul.  He became a new creature, saved and delivered, and one of God’s elect, but it was not an easy process at all.  But then Christ guaranteed him, and said, “Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”  So he received eternal life, and a couple hours later (or however long it was), he died, and his soul went to be with the Lord. 

That is the magnificent salvation program of God.  It is the gracious, the kind, the merciful salvation program of God, as God saved undeserving, unmeriting sinners who could never do anything to get themselves saved, and certainly not by “accepting Christ,” doing that “work of faith.”  No man is justified by the works of the Law, and God commands in His Law, the Bible, to believe, so man (in the perversion of his fallen mind) thinks, “Well, I know I cannot do any good work to get myself saved, but I will believe.”  But, you see, that is like the “few sticks” that got the man in the wilderness in trouble on the Sabbath Day by picking up a few sticks.

And the gospels of the churches, the Arminian gospel, that is so prevalent in the Christian church world today has polluted God’s Sabbath and defiled it.  They have broken the “Sabbath rest” of resting in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the true Gospel that involves waiting on the Lord, but man cannot wait, and this is the problem with Rachel.  She is picturing one of God’s elect, but in her impatience, she is actually identifying more with the false gospels and those that are not God’s elect.  She is identifying more with those that think if they want to get saved today, they can get saved today.  And if you are really serious and you mean business with God, there is nothing stopping you – you can have salvation right now!  And, again, it is that “instant pudding” solution that society wants in every other area.  And, of course, the churches are seeking to please, and they are respecters of men, and if society wants “quick pudding salvation,” like a drive-through restaurant that will give you your dinner, and all you have to do is go through the drive-through line, then, “Yes,” they say, “then we will provide that service, too, in the religious area, and we will make sure you have your salvation as quick as possible.  It can be under a minute.”  It is just like the posted sign at some of the fast food restaurants: “We guarantee service through our drive-in within two minutes.”  And the churches are practically following suit.

That is why Jacob responded, in Genesis 30:2:

And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel: and he said, Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?

You see, in that response, Jacob (a type of Christ) is angry because it is a foolish statement on Rachel’s part.  And in his anger, he points out the truth that children are in God’s control.  He will give you a child if it is His will to give you a child.  He will not give you a child if it is not His will to give you a child.  Children are in the control of God, whether to give or to withhold, according to His good pleasure and His divine will.  “And nothing you can do or I can do,” Jacob is pointing out, “ will change that.  We cannot force God to give us a child.”

But, again, we have to think of the children in the spiritual sense, as being born of the Gospel.  No – that is not a far out thought, if we go to Galatians 4:22-26:

For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

There were two wives, Agar and Sarah, and a son born to each of them, representing two covenants: 1) one born of the Law, which is what mount Sinai represents; and 2) one born of promise and grace, as typified by Isaac.  So there are children born of women, which God says is an allegory.  So what we are saying here about the children born to Leah and Rachel is Biblical.  There is Biblical precedent, and it was just a few chapter earlier in the book of Genesis that we already read the historical information concerning Abraham and his wife Sarah, and Sarah giving Abraham her handmaid Hagar, and the children that came forth from Agar and Sarah were Ishmael and Isaac.  It was just a few chapters before our current chapter, so are we to stop interpreting the Bible in the way that God is showing us how to interpret the Bible in Galatians 4? 

Many churches and their theologians would say, “Oh, no, no, you cannot spiritualize.  You can only do that if the New Testament interprets it for us.”  How ridiculous!  How ridiculous!  Here is God, the Teacher.  Here is the Lord Jesus, the Teacher, speaking in parables, and without a parable He did not speak.  And, here, God is giving historical parables in the book of Genesis, and explaining them in the New Testament, but not just in the case of Hagar, Sarah, and their children, but He gives many examples, like the spiritual teaching in the Law that says not to muzzle the ox, and so forth.  He has given us many examples, and why would He do that?  It is to teach us how to understand the whole of the Bible, and the whole of the history we read in the Old Testament, and the whole of books like Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and so forth.  Must He provide the Biblical solution and the mystery of everything we read before we dare say, “OK, God did not reveal (explain) this one thing.  He revealed 49 out of 50 chapters in Genesis, but I guess for this one thing, I guess it is safe to look at the Bible in another way.”  No – absolutely not, because it is not only lazy, but it is not understanding how one is taught.  You know, when we go to class and we have a professor or teacher that is teaching us subject matter, they will normally teach through several examples.  They will give you a math problem, and they will provide the answer and how to break down the problem and show the solution:  “Here it is.  Did you get that?  OK, let us do it again.”  And maybe they will do it four, five or six times, more or less, and then they give the class a sheet of problems that they did not solve for them, because they expect you to follow the example that they just wrote on the board.  That is how teachers teach.  That is how the Lord Jesus Christ has taught us how the Bible is to be understood.  Without a parable He did not speak, and He was the One who was the Word made flesh.  Now try to figure that out.  It is not all that difficult is it?  That is, it is not difficult unless you have “blinders” on and you are in darkness, or unless you have been held back from understanding truth – which the corporate church and their theologians most certainly have been – and then you cannot see.  You are like the student who has seen the teacher write out all the examples of problems on the board and the solutions, and then he gives you a different problem without the answer and blank spaces where you have to come up with the answer, and then those in the churches would say, “Well, I am sorry.  I cannot do this test.  I cannot answer these things because it would be wrong to try to answer it.  I have to wait for you to solve the problem for me before I write down my answer.” 

No – I am sorry, but it does not work that way.  That is not how instruction is given in any area of knowledge, whether it is English, history, math ,or Bible study.  God is the greatest of teachers, and He has taught His people how we are to understand the Bible, and not to do so is either willful ignorance or actual ignorance on behalf of those professed Christians.  Well, we know it is actual ignorance, although some of them have intellectual understanding of these things, and they ought to be aware at least on that level, and that may be where the willful ignorance comes in.  But the actual ignorance is a result of the fact that they are dead in their soul and heart and, therefore, dead to spiritual things and spiritual understanding, as we compare spiritual with spiritual and the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit teaches, but it does not register with them.  It goes over their heads and through their ears, and they do not get it.  They do not understand, and they want a more natural understanding of things.  They need history that is “history,” and that empties the Bible of its depth of meaning and its glory and riches.  It is just terrible.

Anyway, salvation is of the Lord, and we read this statement in Ezekiel 13:22:

Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life:

You know, we saw an interesting thing in Psalm 123 when we read that little Psalm, where it said that the people of God look unto JEHOVAH and wait upon Him until He have mercy on us, and then it said in Psalm 123:3-4:

Have mercy upon us, O JEHOVAH, have mercy upon us: for we are exceedingly filled with contempt. Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud.

Why would that be?  Why is it that “with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life”?  They promise the wicked life.  You see, that is the contempt of the proud and the scorn of those that are at ease, and the mockery of the ungodly as they have entered into the congregations.  They have heard the Gospel (many are called), and they came and responded to the call and they “accepted Christ,” or they did the Reformed equivalent of that, wherein it is said, “Well, we are saved by election, but you have to believe.”  It is a “little twist,” but it is still the same free will, works gospel as the Arminian gospels.  And maybe it is even more diabolical because they act as if they are not Arminian.  But they entered into the congregations during the day of salvation, and all the while this was going on,  God’s people were unsure: “Am I saved?  I do not know. I hope so.  I am praying that the Lord would have mercy upon me, and I am waiting upon Him.”  Then the Reformed man would say, “What do you mean that you are waiting?  You have to believe!  And if you believe, your belief will be because God gave you the belief.”  And the Arminians just say, “Just believe on the Lord Jesus.  Just accept Him!”  You see, they are at ease.  They are (apparently) comforted.  They have their own riches of wisdom and knowledge, and they are confident that they are a child of God, and that they have been forgiven for all their sins.  You see, it is the scorning of the proud and the contempt of the proud toward God’s people.  These promises of liberty that are lies have made God’s people sad, and God says, “I have not made them sad, but you have made them sad with these lies.”