The Importance Of Roots - Genesis 31:19-55 Series

Does God speak to people who are not believers? Of course He does. He’s drawing people. Which makes me think right around your neighborhood, right around your workplace, right around your school, wherever you are, there are people that God is speaking to. You don’t know which ones he’s speaking to. I mean there are some people God speaks to them and it kind of falls on the hard soil and nobody pays attention to that. Well there's other people who receive it. They receive the message. Can you imagine some of those people you might have written off and say “Well they’ll never hear the message of the gospel. They’ll never pay attention.” Yet we know that God speaks to non-believers and when He does their receptivity is important.

Where are they going to go to learn more about it? Well hopefully they’re going to go to you because you’re advertising your faith. Right? That’s what Jesus says. Don’t put your faith under a bushel and hide your light, but put it out on a pedestal so people can see the light and they can be drawn. So we advertise your faith. That doesn’t mean you’re obnoxious with your faith. But you’re just letting people know, “Yep, I went to church yesterday. We had a great sermon.” Or “in our church we had this Mother’s Day poster and it was kind of cool.” And people are going, “Oh you go to church?” “Yeah, I go to church.” It doesn’t have to be that brash. But when they start hearing from the Lord, they’re going to say to themselves, “Wow, I’m going to go talk to that person because he already has some experience with God.” So we advertise our faith. God speaks to non-believers. The people right around you. Just know that. He doesn’t just speak to people when they come to church. He speaks to people in their lives. When God speaks to people then they want more and they come to get to know God in a very personal way.

Verse 25 – And Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban with his kinsmen pitched tents in the hill country of Gilead. And Laban said to Jacob (here we come to the confrontation), “What have you done, that you have tricked me.” He’s going to be talking about this tricky thing that he’d done. Of course Laban himself is a rather tricky guy. He’s a trickster. And the thing that a trickster hates the most is being tricked. So he’s going to talk about that.

“What have you done, that you have tricked me and driven away my daughters like captives of the sword? Why did you flee secretly and trick me, and did not tell me, so that I might have sent you away with mirth and songs, with tambourine and lyre? And why did you not permit me to kiss my sons and my daughters farewell? Now you have done foolishly.” It is always sad when a non-believer has to confront a believer about morality. That’s what’s taking place. You have done foolishly. And yes, Jacob has done foolishly. That’s correct.

Well Laban continues on the next page. It says – “It is in my power to do you harm.” That’s what he says. “But the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.’ And now you have gone away because you longed greatly for your father's house.” In other words, I understand why you left. You wanted to go, long for being home and with your father. I get that. That’s the empathy, he’s saying. That makes sense. But then he says this: “But why did you steal my gods?”