Leah [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. The greatest joy that you'll ever experience is to try all your idols and then find out that they're useless and futile and they come crashing down to the ground and you don't have anything left but God. And when you turn to Him and you praise His name, you'll find that there's a joy and there's a peace that comes in your life that was unimaginable before.

That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series titled, God Used Who?

And You May Just Be Surprised, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. And so, because the bride was heavily veiled and you wouldn't be able to see her face during the ceremony, they thought that he might actually try to sneak Leah in. And so Rachel and Jacob had spoken ahead of time and had a secret code word that Rachel was going to say to let Jacob know that it really was Rachel. But so the Midrash teaches that at the end, Rachel became compassionate for Leah and didn't want to subject her to disgrace. And so she gave Leah the passcode and Leah uttered it to Jacob and that's why Jacob was convinced. Isn't that interesting? I don't know exactly why the Midrash would bring a teaching like that except to say that it's a little easier to think of all of these people in the Bible and the people that are beloved in the history of Israel as less dysfunctional than they really are.

But the real story is not nearly so neat as that it's horrible what happened. A father who actually takes his daughter who we assume was in some sort of conspiracy with him although maybe Leah felt like she didn't have much choice in the matter. I told my wife I said I think Leah was just as much a part of this trick as Laban. My wife said no she wasn't. She was made to do it. So believe whichever way you want. But Leah is there and she's got the thick veil on and they have a big party and so scholars think part of this is Jacob has too much wine and with a thick veil and darkness he goes and he sleeps with the wrong woman.

And of course in that culture once you had slept with a woman she most certainly was your wife and there would be no undoing that. And so the great trickster is tricked. The great deceiver is deceived. And the irony is that Jacob thinks he can't be blessed unless he pretends to be Esau and Laban and maybe Leah think Leah can't be blessed unless she pretends to be Rachel. Nobody in this family seems to be able to be him or herself.

Nobody free enough to be who they are for fear if found out who they really are they would be rejected. Lying and working the angles is how Jacob has always lived and now it's worked against him. Oh how we reap what we sow.

What irony. Now Jacob is given Rachel after he has a seven day wedding party with Leah then he gets married to Rachel. They have a party and he works another seven years and so Jacob has two wives and such a thing might have been tolerated but it was never lifted up in scripture as any ideal in fact where we see it whether it be in Jacob's family or in the great number of wives that Solomon would have it always works against them. So he has two wives. He has his fantasy Rachel and he has his reality Leah. He has that which he loves and that which he doesn't love. And Craig Barnes has a beautiful insight about this and says that in many ways that's the way that we all are in our relationships especially in marriage is that you marry someone you don't know everything about that person and then you wake up one day and you realize that though she might be or he might be 90 percent of what you love you realize there's also 10 percent that you don't.

Some things you don't like and the danger is when you realize that the one you've married is both Rachel and Leah the danger is Barnes says and he's right that you can become so consumed and bothered by the 10 percent that you don't like that you spend very little time enjoying the 90 percent that you do like so that you find out sometimes after many years that because you were so preoccupied with the 10 percent of Leah that you didn't like that you never really enjoyed Rachel. Nobody's perfect. And the beauty of what God does in our lives that's so unlike human love is that God not being disillusioned because he knows everything about you loves your whole being.

It doesn't mean that he approves of everything and it doesn't mean that we approve of everything in one another. I don't really think there's anything wrong with wanting and hoping that the one that you love will grow and change in that sense. The problem is not so much that we would like those that we love to be able to change and grow. The problem is the way in which we try to control them to make it happen.

The shame that we use or the withdrawal. So here's Leah in a marriage that was tricked and she is not loved but she finds out that she is able to conceive children and Rachel's not. And so it all begins. She starts having children and the first child is named Reuben which comes from the Hebrew words Raah which is to see and Ben which means a son. So Reuben means look a son. And she says the Lord has looked upon my affliction or my misery and given me this son. Look is like she's saying to Jacob a son. I've given you a son and maybe now my husband will love me but he doesn't. So she labors again and she has Simeon this son whose name comes from the word Shema that means to hear. And she says God has heard me and now maybe my husband will hear me. Maybe he'll love me now. I've given him a second son because I'm hated. She says the Lord gave this son to me.

You see what she's saying. She's saying because of my misery because I'm not loved and she's saying maybe my husband will now love me. All of the focus and it's reflected in the names of her son is upon her own misery and upon her own situation and her longing to receive the love of her husband.

But he still doesn't. And then she thinks maybe if I have a third son after all some of the great patriarchs Noah and others had three sons. My husband maybe then will attach to me. And so Levi was born. His name means attached.

Maybe he'll attach to me. Anne has taught on this to the ladies before I think so beautifully thinking about this progression. It's like labor and then labor and then labor. This is Leah laboring for love. This is this is this is reflected in the names of these children. Reuben look at me. Simeon hear me. Levi be attached to me. Will you notice me? Will you listen to me?

Will you connect with me? And every child that she brought into the world she was thinking about her own misery as she was thinking about her longing for the love of a husband who didn't know how to love her wouldn't love her couldn't love her labor after labor after labor. And then she has a fourth child. The problem that Leah had of thinking if I change he'll love me if I produce another son he'll love me if I labor one more time he'll love me.

It is glaring isn't it? Because what is love? Love is something that is by definition a free gift that comes out of the one who loves and if you have found someone's attention because of something dazzling about you then you have found attention but you have not found love.

There's a big difference between the two. To be loved because you've become the image of someone else's fantasy is not to receive love. That's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. God's love you've heard about it with your ears you've believed it in your mind now experience it in your heart with Alan Wright's beloved book Lover of My Soul. The Bible is a love story from beginning to end. You are the spiritual bride of Christ the perfect bridegroom. The Bible tells about a God who has gone to unimaginable lengths to woo you to win you and to walk with you hand in hand for any man who has fallen in love with a woman you've tasted the sweetness of what God's love for you is like. For any woman who has searched for true love which you long for can only be found fully in God. Gary Chapman renowned author of the five love languages says the incredible reality that God pursues us in love comes to life in Lover of My Soul. Ancient biblical accounts explode in the heart.

Accept Christ's proposal enjoy his embrace revel in his love after all it's a match made in heaven. It's Lover of My Soul by Alan Wright. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. And we are in our culture so satisfied so superficially momentarily satisfied by mere attention. You ever notice that that the the great thirst it seems in our culture now is not so much for wealth as it is for fame. People will do for just a moment of having the attention of the world. In a moment of fame maybe thousands or even millions of people have their attention upon you and you've satisfied a craving but you've done nothing for your deep need for love superficiality of a culture that craves attention. You can have all the attention of the world and be utterly and completely empty. Arthur Miller writing about his wife Marilyn Monroe said on one particular night I was standing looking over her I couldn't help but think I wish there was some miracle that could happen to her what if she were to wake up and I were to say God loves you darling and she could believe it how I wish I still had my religion and she had hers. He said I had no saving mystery to offer her she was so hungry she was so needy she was so thirsty but she didn't have the answer. You know Marilyn Monroe in her diary two weeks before she took her life she wrote I've given my life in search of limitless love and I've never found it at the attention of the whole world and had no love and that was Leah clamoring for the attention of her husband but something happened we don't know what but something changed inside of her before the fourth child was born and we're not told what the reason is for the shift but the fourth child was named Judah which means praise the Lord and something in her shifted away from look at my misery look how hated I am maybe my husband will love me maybe there's an answer for me here on earth and instead something changed inside of her and the fourth son maybe she just had relinquished all of her feeble attempts to try to get the satisfaction of knowing that her husband's attention was upon her and instead her whole heart began to turn in some way towards God maybe it was just like what happens with us so often when we find ourselves exhausted having tried and tried and tried and it still didn't work and then in our emptiness and our weakness we find that God's strength is perfected and sometimes you'll find out in your life the greatest joy that you'll ever experience is to try all your idols and then find out that they're useless and futile and they come crashing down to the ground and you don't have anything left but God and when you turn to him and you praise his name you'll find that there's a joy and there's a peace that comes in your life that was unimaginable before maybe Leah had just heard the Lord saying Leah I am the one who's showing you how much I love you and that's enough in the end Bruce Larson was the one who said that we hear voices from either the cellar or the balcony like there is a basement to our soul and there always is a voice there and it's calling out of its darkness you're not good enough you don't amount to much you are not going to make it and there's a voice from the balcony it's God's voice it's a higher voice and it's telling you who you are maybe Leah quit listening to the voice of the cellar and started listening to the voice from the balcony maybe she had discovered the love of God in the end it's really a story about how one is blessed that's really what this whole narrative is about what is the pathway to blessedness in this life Jacob thought you had to position yourself you might deceive trick someone into it but you got to be in the right place and you got to make yourself into the right thing and that's how you'll get blessed and ironically he ends up marrying someone who was acting as though I have to pretend to be Rachel to be blessed and all throughout the narrative what we're realizing is that Jacob didn't understand there was a prophecy before he was born that was announcing a destiny over his life what Leah didn't understand is that she already was in the apple of God's eye and that her identity would not in the end be defined by Jacob's dysfunction my kids saw it we we live out now in Davie County and we've got a field and a lake and then some little trees in the Yadkin rivers there and so we got it's beautiful some wildlife we'll see out there deer and all this you know but one day they saw perched in the tree behind our house a bald eagle I'd only seen a bald eagle one time in the wild out west one time on a trip and I just like oh I said the other day I stepped out my back deck and I looked and at first I thought what a beautiful big hawk that began to soar over the yard and I looked and it had a glorious white head and I looked out and his wings were just enormous and he just soared down over the lake and it back up over the trees and I could see back through the trees and just begin to soar down over the Yadkin river this bald eagle and having just seen that and I'm reading Craig Barnes book and he was talking about how he had become fascinated with bald eagles and he learned years ago that baby bald eagles were about to be hatched at the local zoo so he went down he actually saw the bald eagles be hatched and he said what a disappointment he said he came out of the shell just a little wet ball of fuzz you know just come out like this it didn't look anything like an eagle they come out of the shell they're just nothing he said wouldn't it be terrible to take that eagle drop it off the rooftop and say fly you know it would just drop like a stone because it couldn't fly it was just a little ball of fuzz wings don't even look like wings yet and yet it's a bald eagle that little bird is a majestic bald eagle it's just gotta wait until it's time to spread its wings and soar the more I walk with him the more I realize that so much of Christian growth is wait upon the Lord so that you'll mount up with wings like an eagle because you have a destiny God already has a destiny for your life and if we could see it if we could just have it prophesied to us if we could just discover it in the word if we could experience the nature of God's vision over who we are in Jesus Christ we live a totally different life well there is a beautiful ending to this in the first place in the midst of all this dysfunctional family and all this laboring for love Leah has a son named Levi and it is from Levi that all the priests come and she has a son named Judah and it's from Judah that David is born and it's from David that Jesus is born Leah is the great great great great great great great great great great grandmother of Jesus and maybe Jacob gets something at the end because Rachel his fantasy she died as she gave birth to her second son Benjamin and was buried on the way towards Bethlehem where her tomb is to this day but Jacob when he was nearing his end and Genesis 49 commanded them and said I am to be gathered to my people bury me with my fathers and he describes the land in the land of Canaan which Abraham bought there he said they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife there they buried Isaac and Rebecca his wife and there I buried Leah and then Jacob maybe he saw it he said bury me with Leah you don't ever have to labor for love it won't work instead you receive love God is love and you can receive his love and it'll be enough and that's the gospel. Ellen Wright that's a good word for it all to sink into us today it's from the teaching on Leah in the greater series God used who stay with us Allen is back in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and a final word God's love you've heard about it with your ears you've believed it in your mind now experience it in your heart with Allen Wright's beloved book lover of my soul the Bible is a love story from beginning to end you are the spiritual bride of Christ the perfect bridegroom the Bible tells about a God who has gone to unimaginable lengths to woo you to win you and to walk with you hand in hand for any man who has fallen in love with a woman you've tasted the sweetness of what God's love for you is like for any woman who has searched for true love which you long for can only be found fully in God Gary Chapman renowned author of the five love languages says the incredible reality that God pursues us and love comes to life and lover of my soul ancient biblical accounts explode in the heart accept Christ's proposal enjoy his embrace revel in his love after all it's a match made in heaven it's lover of my soul by Alan Wright the gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries this broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support when you give today we will send you today's special offer we are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries call us at 877-544-4860 that's 877-544-4860 or come to our website pastor Alan dot org Alan does it ever surprise you that maybe what could be seen as a very simple concept is very difficult for us to really accept that we are loved well it's the deepest most important revelation that you could ever have is that you're loved by God if somebody in this world rejects you you're loved by God and Leah is such a beautiful story because she wasn't loved by her her husband it's hard to even fathom what that kind of rejection is like until you've been there and some of our listeners right now they know what it's like to have had someone who might have been the most important person in the world to you and they just didn't have love to give you or they didn't show love or they transferred their love to someone else and they were deceived or they were they were like Jacob who just had immaturities in his life and whatever it might be but by the time that she comes to her fourth child Judah she gives him this name which is just means praise the Lord and I think that's the shift that has to happen she goes from Reuben which means see a son look Jacob I've given you a son do you love me now to Judah she finally maybe she sees it praise the Lord let my attention be upon the Lord and I just want to say that to our listeners maybe you're in that spot right now where there's somebody you need them you want them to love you but they're not and you can't make that happen but you can still praise the Lord he loves you today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.