Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #12 of Genesis 31, and we are still reading Genesis 31:20-24:

And Jacob stole away unawares to Laban the Syrian, in that he told him not that he fled. So he fled with all that he had; and he rose up, and passed over the river, and set his face toward the mount Gilead. And it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob was fled. And he took his brethren with him, and pursued after him seven days' journey; and they overtook him in the mount Gilead. And God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night, and said unto him, Take heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad.

I will stop reading there.  In our last couple of studies, we have been looking at verse 20, and we saw that in the Hebrew it actually says, “And Jacob stole the heart of Laban the Syrian, in that he told him not that he fled.” 

We have been trying to understand that by looking at the word “stole,” and we went to various Scriptures.  As far as a spiritual meaning goes, a defining verse is found in Jeremiah 23:30:

Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith JEHOVAH, that steal my words every one from his neighbour.

So that is important language.  God is against the prophets that steal His words from their neighbors.  How do they do that?  And I think the answer is found in the New Testament, if we go to Matthew 13:3-4:

And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow; And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:

The explanation of the parable will tell us that the sower that is sowing the Word is the Lord Jesus, and He is sowing the Word upon the hearts of men.  The Word of God falls upon their hearts.  And yet, there comes the fowls to devour the seed that was sown.  They “steal” the seed.  That is basically what this is telling us.  It says in Matthew 13:18-19:

Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.

So the wicked one is Satan.  And how does Satan operate?  How does Satan snatch away the words of JEHOVAH from a neighbor’s heart?  That is what Jeremiah 23:30 says: “…that steal my words every one from his neighbour.”  How does Satan accomplish that in the lives of people?  And the answer is that it is done through his emissaries, as we read in 2Corinthians 11:13-15:

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

These are the false prophets that God is against that steal His Word from their neighbors.  Satan stirs them up.  He controls them because they are really serving their father the Devil, and not the Lord Jesus Christ.  They are hostile toward the truth, and Christ is the Truth.  They hate the truth, and Christ is the Truth.  They love the lie instead, and Satan is the father of lies, and he uses these people as his emissaries or ministers to accomplish his purpose.  And his purpose was always to keep God’s elect from becoming saved and to keep God from winning the battle for the salvation of souls.  Since faith (salvation) comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, Satan had to take away the Word.  If the Word happened to fall on the heart of an individual, then the “fowls” were sent forth to snatch it away.  How that worked out in the world would be that when people heard the true message of the Gospel, like the church age being over…which was a true doctrine and a vital doctrine, because God had also commanded to depart out of the churches.  But Satan had his ministers in place, like pastors, elders and deacons and others within the congregations.  And when a family heard this message from Mr. Camping and Family Radio, they would come to their pastor and say, “Pastor, I heard this message (about the church age being over), and I am very troubled about this.  What do you say?”   And he would respond, “Do not listen to him.  That doctrine is of Satan because Christ built His church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”  They misapplied this and other Scriptures, and they sowed error and doubt because it was the truth that the church age was over.  And it was the truth that God was commanding His people to come out.  And yet, these pastors snatched away that “seed,” and the family ended up listening to their pastor, or they consulted other pastors that agreed with the first pastor.  Then they started thinking, “Well, it is just one voice in the wilderness, and my pastor and all the other pastors are saying bad things about Mr. Camping and what he is teaching.”  So the Word was effectively snatched away from their hearts, and they remained in a place where there was no Holy Spirit and no Latter Rain falling and, therefore, no salvation was taking place.  It was a death sentence for the whole family, the mother, the father, and their children.  They hearkened to the “false prophet,” and they believe a lie over the truth. 

Yes, ultimately, that all has to do with God’s elective salvation program and who He had predestinated to receive it and to hear the voice of Christ and the truth of the Word of God.  We know that, but that does not excuse the actions of these people that had “stolen” the Word of God from their neighbors.  And the true Word of God is the most valuable thing anyone can have, so it is not a light matter.  Some people might think, “Well, they did not break into my physical house and steal my physical belongings, so it is not really theft.”  But that is wrong.  The theft of physical belongings is the lesser evil, as far as the Law of God goes regarding the command, “Thou shalt not steal.”  The greater evil is to steal God’s Word, because God’s Word is far more valuable, and they had the ability to deliver an entrance into the glorious kingdom of God where this person and his family could, perhaps, have lived for evermore.  But these words were “stolen” rather than temporal belongings, like a radio or a watch or even a bar of gold.  By comparison, worldly things are nothing compared to the worth of what was stolen by the false prophets from the hearts of men, especially at the time of the end when God proclaimed, “Judgment Day, May 21, 2011!” 

And Satan went to work where the churches had a heavy presence, and he put forth his ministers, and with one voice they proclaimed, “No man knows the day or hour.  Disregard this message.  Oh, whenever there are troubles in the world, they always try to escape with this idea that the world will end.”  And there is no mention of the Scriptures that had been presented through in-depth Bible studies as God opened up His Word at the time of the end to reveal vast amounts of information.  But it was totally dismissed with an ignorant wave of the hand!  “Oh, do not listen – no man knows the day or the hour.”  They were superficial and careless, ignorant in the sense of lacking understanding in their Bible studies across the church world, which effectively snatched away the Word of God from the hearts of a great many.  The news stations turned to these theologians, priests, and local ministers, asking, “What do you say about this?”  If only they themselves had ears to hear, but if they had ears to hear, they would no longer be ministers or priests, nor would they have had any association with the churches.  They would have come out, but the fact that they remained (in the churches) indicated that they lacked ears to hear and hearts to obey the commandment of God.  And yet, the people of the world and the secular news stations did not know this, so they thought the churches were the authority: “What do you have to say about this?  These people are pretty serious!  It is everywhere!  Everywhere you turn, you are haring about the Day of Judgment!”  And the priest or pastor would say, “Let me say this to your listeners.  Do not worry!  It is not possible according to the Bible.”  Then would come the quote: “No man knows the day or the hour.” 

Can you imagine someone that says they are a servant and minister of God and that they are able to teach the Word of God telling people not to worry about the wrath of God and Judgment Day?  And, again, they did not even bother to look into the matter, but they just went to a single verse.  But the fact is that when we turn to the Bible and we find Scripture that appears to have a clear and obvious “surface meaning,” 99.9% of the time the seemingly obvious “surface meaning” that is understood literally as written is always wrong.  For example, when they read, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,”  the churches take the surface meaning and they say, “You see, you have to believe.”  But, no, man is dead in sin and he cannot believe.  And there are numerous other Scriptures like, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son,” and all kinds of churches and the ministers of Satan within those churches take Bible verses like John 3:16, and they say, “Christ loves the whole world – He loves everybody.”  But it is full of error and wrong Gospel teaching.  They do not understand the Bible, and they constantly err in their way of following only what lies on the surface.  That is the trap that God has set, repeatedly, and the natural-minded people fall right into it, repeatedly.

But for God’s people, we come to know the Bible by the grace of God as the Lord directs us through His Spirit, and we realize that we cannot take the surface meaning, but we must search it out in the Scriptures, making sure to carefully compare the verse to all other related verses before daring to come to any kind of conclusion.

But, again, these people do not understand the proper Bible hermeneutic as laid down in 1Corinthians 2, where we are to “compare spiritual with spiritual, and the Holy Ghost teacheth.” 

So this is the way in which these false prophets “steal” the words of God from their neighbor.  It is the deeper and supreme meaning of that commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.”  And many of these same people would point the finger at a thief that would steal their wallet, and they would condemn them and take them to Law to be persecuted.  And, yes, that is right because the thief has stolen.  And yet, these leaders within the churches and congregations are constantly “stealing” the words of God and the truth from the Word of God from the hearts of men, and they think they are innocent in this matter.  But God does not see them as innocent.  He sees them as very guilty.  We see in Luke 8:5:

A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it.

And then in the explanation of this parable, it says in Luke 8:11-12:

Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.

That is how terrible it is.  That is how awful it is to steal the words of the Lord from one’s neighbor.  It has to do with salvation, and in stealing the Word away, there can be no salvation because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

This is the reason why Old Testament Israel and the New Testament church became so unfaithful that God summed it up this way in Jeremiah 7:8-11:

Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith JEHOVAH.

It was not just one thief that was in the churches at this point of the end of the church age, but it was the whole corporate structure of all the churches in all the world.  They were all a “den of robbers” and they were all stealing God’s words. 

The Lord Jesus spoke of this also in Matthew 21:12-13:

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

It is a very sad analysis.  It is a very sad statement concerning the churches and congregations of the world.  Not only are many of them in the business to make money and to operate as a corporation and sustain their business by taking the funds of the people.  That is part of what is in view.  But even worse, the “stealing” of the Word of God from their neighbors has turned the house of God into a “den of thieves,” as sad as any organized group of criminals like the mafia.  They are stealing God’s words from the people.

There is another reference in Matthew if we go to Matthew 6:19-21:

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Here, God is speaking of two types of treasures, an earthly treasure, and a heavenly treasure.  Therefore, one is something that is of the world, and one is something that is of the kingdom of God and spiritual.  Of the one, He says that “thieves break through and steal,” but of the other, “thieves do not break through nor steal.”  And this would have some application to God’s elect that hear the Word of God, and then along comes an emissary of Satan (the fowl of the air) and tries to snatch it away, but it is not possible.  It is not possible, and the Lord has often intervened to drive away the fowls, as we read of Abraham shooing the fowls away from the sacrifice he had laid out.  And that is an illustration of God protecting His people and protecting the Word sown upon their hearts because they truly have become saved, and Satan and his associates cannot do anything about it.  They cannot take away that Word, which is an eternal Word, and that would be treasure that is heaven.

We also read in Luke 12 a parallel verse to Matthew 6.  It says in Luke 12:34:

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

So that is twice that God makes that statement: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

And this is where we can tie it back to Laban, where the Bible says that Joseph stole the heart of Laban.  Now, obviously, he did not take his heart, soul, or mind.  He did not do that, and that is why the theologians think this is like a Hebrew idiom of sorts and that it means that Laban was “crestfallen.”  He was so disappointed that Jacob had deceived him.  And I am sure that Laban would have been saddened and angered that Jacob had fled, but that has nothing to do with the spiritual meaning.  Spiritually, Jacob stole the heart of Laban, and Laban is a type of Satan.  We also know from the Bible that Satan became the king of this world through right of conquest back in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve obeyed the lie and disobeyed God’s command.  Then Satan began to rule as king of the earth, and Satan’s kingdom consisted of the nations, all the unsaved people that make up his house or his kingdom.  And we can say that Satan would view it as his treasure.  He has rule and authority over the unsaved.  That is how God looks at it. 

Let us go to Matthew 12:29:

Or else how can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.

So the sinners that God saved out of darkness and out of the kingdom and house of Satan are translated from darkness to light.  They are translated out of the world and into the eternal kingdom of God where they become citizens seated in heavenly places in the Lord Jesus Christ.  And to Satan, this is as “theft.”  He has been bound.  It is his house.  It is as if a robber or thief had entered into his house and bound him so that he could not prevent the plundering and spoiling of his goods.  And what do thieves take?  They take treasures.  So the treasures or riches of Satan, which God views as “vessels unto honour,” are taken out of Satan’s house.  And where your treasure is, there is your heart also.  Therefore, Jacob, a type of Christ, has stolen the heart of Laban.