Presentation 45

Presentation 45

This passage reads more like a screenplay for an episode of Dallas or a similar TV soap drama with all its intrigue, jealousy, ambition, lust and competitive hatred. The title, ‘A Marriage Counsellor's Nightmare’, would not be out of place in describing this portion of scripture. That said the stresses, which we find operating here, are not far removed from those stresses found operating in many families today.

We will quickly see the contemporary relevance of these verses.

Introduction

Presentation 45

In every situation of family stress there is often an initial cause from which everything else flows. In this case it is polygamy. Jacob wilfully decided to set up home with two wives. He'd been deceived in his first marriage. It wasn't a true love match. Therefore, he felt quite justified in bringing another wife into his home. God is not consulted. Did Jacob suspect that God would not approve of his plan? Was Jacob aware of God's clearly published direction for marriage found in Gen. 2.23-24?

Did Jacob like so many contemporaries think, that in the business of human relationships, they know better than God?

The Initial Cause of Stress

Presentation 45

Understanding the significance of man and woman becoming one flesh is fundamental to our understanding of marriage. Under a 'general anaesthetic' God had removed Adam's rib and from it had created Eve. Follow carefully what we are told. From the undifferentiated humanity of Adam both male and female emerged.

When Adam awoke, what he saw was a part of himself a compliment to himself. When we grasp this, we see that Adam's marriage is more than a ‘union' it is in one sense a 'reunion'. These two persons were originally one, then they were separated from each other and in the marriage encounter became one again.

There is therefore a beautiful complementariness in marriage.

The Initial Cause of Stress

Presentation 45

It was this rich complementariness which Jacob destroyed, when he took a second wife. We can admire the graceful ice dancers like Torvil and Dean. On ice they compliment one another and produce a result, which is far greater than the sum of their individual performances.

Can you imagine how the balance of their performance would be disturbed if two Torvils and one Dean appeared on the ice? Catastrophe would Result! This is no less true of Jacob's marriage.

The ‘one flesh’ partnership did not commend itself to Jacob v11.

The Initial Cause of Stress

Presentation 45

The poet Shelly startled public opinion many years ago, when he wrote:“I never was attracted to that sect, Whose doctrine is that each one should select out of the crowd a mistress or a friend, And all the rest though fair and wise, commend to cold oblivion”.These words no longer shock western society. Today we are told to expect two people to grow apart! One contemporary writer urges; 'to let go of a marriage, which is no longer good for you can be the most successful thing you have done.' We're told not to be concerned with commitment but with personal fulfilment. But personal fulfilment is another way of describing selfishness. When biblical standards are abandoned human relationships, which should be wholesome and therapeutic, experience stress.

The Initial Cause of Stress

Presentation 45

Leah is not without some responsibility for this disintegrating domestic scene. She had conspired with her father to deceive Jacob on his wedding night by taking her sister’s place. She too was to learn that deception is costly. Leah was the wife Jacob didn't want and she knew it. Even her ability to give him children did not earn his favour for, ‘Jacob loved Rachael more than Leah’ v30. Marriage was not all that Leah had dreamed.

Many wives are neglected and despised by their husbands. Some through no fault of their own. Some like Leah bear an awful burden of guilt and self reproach. In order to catch their man they may have slept with their husbands before marrying them. Others act deceitfully pretending to be something they are not. They soon discover the marriage dream is shattered.

The Initial Cause of Stress

Presentation 45

What contributed to the stress in Jacob’s family? First, Jacob's favouritism. He loved Rachel more than Leah despite the havoc that favouritism had produced in his own early childhood! Remember he had been robbed of affection and love to which he had a legitimate claim. Jealousy was aroused in Leah's heart, when she saw the love that was legitimately hers, was given to another. Husbands can be incredibly insensitive! They wonder, why their wives are silent at mealtimes or bang the door on the way out of the room. Jealousy is a legitimate emotion in the marriage bond. It is aroused not only when a rightful 'love commitment' is diverted by a partner to another person, but to a partner’s job, or recreational pursuit, to anything that denies the love to which they have a legitimate claim.

The Exacerbation of Stress

Presentation 45

Secondly, look at the competitive environment of the home. Rachel and Leah sought to outdo one another in the production of children cf. 29:32,34, 30:7. They struggled for superiority over one another. When Rachael chose the name ‘Naphtali’ 30:8 which means 'my struggle', she publicly proclaimed her rivalry with Leah. The seriousness of this rivalry is seen in the willingness of both wives to enter their maid-servants into the baby bearing competition. Like a poker game with each player constantly raising their stake,

‘I bid one wife'.'I bid one wife and four children'.I’ll match your wife and children and raise you a concubine and the concubine's two children.' …

This competitive spirit is a powerfully destructive thing in any home, where one member presses for mastery over the other.

The Exacerbation of Stress

Presentation 45

Invariably the winner sits alone, aloof on a little pedestal of self importance. And because all they have achieved has been done with one eye on the others, there has been no enjoyment in the actual process of achieving. As a result they find themselves alienated in an environment of stress.

The stress in this home is intensified because both sisters see love as something which can be bought and earned. In this case by the production of children cf 29v32. But this is to misunderstand the nature of love.

Whenever someone tries to win love in this way, they make their own and everyone else's life miserable. C. S. Lewis illustrates this in his book, 'The Four Loves' . One character, Mrs Fidget, is oblivious to the harm she is doing to allof the family members, who experience respite only after her death.

The Exacerbation of Stress

Presentation 45

How many, family situations are like Jacob's, where family members neither live in harmony nor live apart? They end up living to make each other miserable, a habit which sometimes becomes too strong to break. The lust to hurt overcomes the yearning to love. Cruelty is slowly refined as individuals discover and play upon the weaknesses of one another.

The tragedy of Jacob's family is that Jacob does absolutely nothing to deal with the situation. Like the heads of many families he abdicates responsibility. Was he the kind of person, who does not like to get involved? Was he not a big enough man to admit his mistake?

Did he bury his head in the sand and think that 'everything will work out O.K. in the end'? That's a foolish policy to adopt towards disrupted relationships!

Reaction in a Stress Environment

Presentation 45

Leah was the first to respond positively in this stressful environment. Her misery drove her Godward. It is hard not to pity Leah. Indeed, we are told that this is precisely what God did in giving her a child first v31. Leah sees God’s hand in her situation and names the child ‘Reuben’. Her second son she calls ‘Simeon’ because the Lord ‘heard of her plight’. How did he hear? Leah had poured out her heart in prayer. God hears the broken and contrite heart.

As Leah names her sons, she recognises that God has blessed her in her misery. The word she uses to describe God is not the remote ‘Elohim’ but the covenant name of ‘Jehovah' suggesting that she was being drawn to God in her misery. When Judah is born she had stopped seeing childbirth as a means of securing her husband’s affection and simply praises God for his gift. The name ‘Judah’ means 'praise.'

Reaction in a Stress Environment

Presentation 45

Leah was learning a valuable spiritual lesson. God will not always change our domestic circumstances but he will give us grace to live in a less than perfect situation.

Note that while the children of both sisters and their maid-servants were to be heads of the tribes of Israel, Leah's sons were the fathers of the greatest tribes. Levi was the father of the priests, while Judah was the father of the tribe through whom the Messiah would come.

Jesus was not born through Rachel's bloodline, but through the bloodline of the rejected Leah.

Reaction in a Stress Environment

Presentation 45

Rachel's initial reaction to domestic stress is quite different. She engages in a series of desperate acts. In 30.1 she makes unreasonable demands of her husband, 'Give me children or I die'. She feels threatened by her sister’s fruitfulness and fears that it will win Jacob's heart. But as Jacob pointed out, ‘God is the author of life appeal to him!’ Rachel knew she was more attractive than her sister and she had gone out of her way to let Leah know that she was number one in her husband’s affections.

But Rachel found it galling that her ‘ugly’ sister could conceive while she could not. She felt a failure. Her beauty and her husband’s love meant little without children! Beautiful women and people who seem to have everything often have their own hidden problems. We need to be sensitive to their frustrations.

Reaction in a Stress Environment

Presentation 45

Rachel's next act of desperation was her decision to have children through her maid-servant. Jacob's grandparents had done the same thing years before and what a disaster that had been. Had no one told Rachael? We often go to desperate lengths by taking matters out of God's hands but in the process complicate our lives unbearably. When Rachael's maid, Bilhah, gave birth to a son this was hailed as God's vindication v6.

But it was nothing of the sort! Rachel had acted wilfully and then dragged God's name into the scenario in an attempt to vindicate her behaviour. God gets the blame for much of our own wilfulness!

Reaction in a Stress Environment

Presentation 45

Rachel's third act of desperation is found in v14... The mandrake was regarded as an aphrodisiac and fertility inducer and Rachel's was prepared to barter Jacob's services in exchange for it. Rachel’s scheme backfired. Leah conceived and gave birth to another son.

God used Rachel's childlessness to humble Rachael and eventually the penny dropped! No longer does she rely on her beauty, position, ingenuity or folk remedies.

Instead, she turns to God! ‘Then God remembered Rachel. He listened to her and opened her womb’ v22. With the birth of ‘Joseph’ God is acknowledged as the author and giver of life.

Reaction in a Stress Environment

Presentation 45

God wants us all to recognise that he is our Sovereign and that we have been created to give him pleasure. Eric Liddell was a Christian whom God had called to full time service. He was also a runner and his sister was concerned that his running might distract him from Gods call. Before winning an Olympic Gold medal and then travelling as a missionary to China, he explained what he saw as his competitive edge, “I believe that God made me for a purpose. But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure.”

He ran for God’s glory. When this motivates our lives then the wrong kind of competitiveness is edited out. We are not placed under stress to deliver but liberated to please.

Reaction in a Stress Environment

Presentation 45

What effect did the stress and family tension have upon the children and upon the development of their character and personality? As we read on we discover one son turned out to be a talebearer, who got the others into hot water. Two sons developed a cruel sadism and had no qualms about putting a whole city to the sword. One defiled his father's marriage bed… There is no family loyalty they even sold a brother into slavery and allowed their father to think him dead.

How much of this behaviour was shaped by the strained and insecure relationships that they grew up with? Surely a great deal.

Reaction in a Stress Environment

Presentation 45

But the great lesson we must not lose sight of is that despite this unwholesome beginning God worked out his purposes in this family. These sons became the heads of the 12 tribes of Israel. No matter how unsavoury our background or how traumatic our childhood may have been, we have a God who is bigger than all these things. God can use us despite them. We need not be a victim crushed by our family circumstances.

You may carry emotional scars, which can be traced back to the trauma of your early childhood and thestress in your family home but God can heal those emotions. He can cause your crushed personality to blossom.

Reaction in a Stress Environment

Presentation 45

The home is intended by God to be a haven, a place of safety, a place of acceptance, where family members love one another warts and all. It is the secure environment in which we are to grow and where children prepare themselves for adulthood and independence. The responsibility of parents is to recognise and do all on their power to deal with that which produces stress.

If you answer that it is too late, stress is already present, circumstances have been introduced, which are not easily changed, then recognise that God is able to give grace not only to survive, but to use those circumstances to equip you for his service.

Conclusion

Presentation 45