A Weekly Meditation of Pastor Chang (August 23, 2009)

<The Characteristics of Spiritual Leaders> (36)

(The Spiritual Life of Jacob) (Part 4)

After the life changing experience with God, Jacob’s life was totally different. His name was called, “Israel” -- a name became a tribal name thereafter.

The second half of Jacob’s life basically was not bad. He always experienced the love and grace of God. However, three events occurred that made his life not so pleased. Someone might ask, “Why did God not take good care of him?” My response is: it was not God who did not take good care of him, but because of human sins that cause him trouble. Let us see what had happened.

First event: The only Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, who was not a very self-disciplined girl. She liked to walk and see around alone. If she was a boy, probably it would better than to be a girl. When Jacob and the entire family moved to the east of the city of Shechem, they planed to live there. They bought a piece of land and erected an altar to worship God. But one bad event happened – Dinah went into the city by herself in order to make friends with the city girls. But she was caught and raped by Shechem, the prince of the city. Shechem loved her and asked his father, Hamor, that he wanted to marry Dinah and to get the permission from the Jacob’s family.

It was shameful to the Jacob’s family. They tricked Hamor and demanded that unless the men of the entire city got circumcised, otherwise, it would never happen. Then Hamor and the entire city agreed. During the third day after circumcision, all men were still in pain, Jacob’s two sons, Simeon and Levi took their swords and killed all the males. Then, the rest of the sons of Jacob came to slain and plunder the city. One can tell that it was an age of vengeance – evil for evil. Jacob’s sons were as evil as their neighbors.

The second event: Jacob’s beloved wife, Rachel, again was about to deliver a baby. But she was in hard labor. After giving the birth of Benjamin, she died. It was painful to Jacob, and because of that, he gave more love to the last two sons Joseph and Benjamin who were the sons of Rachel. But unfortunately that caused the trouble among the brothers which was even worse than the relationship between Jacob and his brother Esau.

The third event: When Joseph was 17, he was asked by his father, Jacob to visit his brothers’ shepherding work. His brothers took this opportunity sold him to Egypt as a slave. And then, returned home to lie to their father that Joseph was devoured by a wild animal. From the story, it shows that the family had a terrible spiritual disease – lies, which kept passing down from generation to generation and even got worse one after another.

If someone asks, “Is it like a kind of retribution of sin?” And it seems the same as the Buddhism which always talks about the law of causality. I agree.

Of course, the Bible also mentions the law of causality, because it is the result of sins. But the Bible teaches more about another two characteristics of sins: the generation curse and the spread out.

However, the Bible teaches us at least two basic different concepts which are totally different from the teachings of Buddhism. One, the trouble that causes the human to be trapped in sin is not because of “desires” (which are created by God, for example, we have natural desires for eating and sex, the problem is not because of the desires but because of sin that causes trouble. Therefore, we need to get ride of sin not desire as the Buddhists do.)

Furthermore, the law of causality is true. And no human being is able to get ride of this law. But very fortunately, the Creator, our God, who loves us and provides another higher law for human beings to overcome the law of causality. God sent His only Son, Jesus Christ to die on the Cross and bare all our sins and iniquities. And by this grace alone that we may be redeemed. This kind of Grace is so amazing and expensive that no one can afford. And God just gives us free. Anyone who believes and trusts in Him will be granted this grace. And we call it, the Gospel – the Good News. That is why anyone who has received this grace needs to share the Gospel with others.