Leah

Book of Genesis, please, first book in your Bible. Book of Genesis, please, and chapter, just for the sake of time, chapter 29. And verse number 15.

And Laban said unto Jacob, Because thou art my brother shouldest thou therefore serve me for not tell me what shall I wages be. And Laban had two daughters. The name of the elder was Leah.

The name of the younger was Rachel. Leah was tender-eyed, but Rachel was beautiful, well-favored. And Jacob loved Rachel, and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter.

And Laban said, It is better that I should give her to thee than I should give her to another man. Abide with me. Now that was not really what his intention was, nor was it in his heart.

He had plans. And Jacob served yet seven years for Rachel, and they seemed unto him a few days for the love he had to her. And Jacob rather said unto Laban, Give me my wife for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in to her.

And Laban gathered together, all the men of the place, and made a feast. It came to pass in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter, and brought her unto him. And he went in unto her.

And Laban gave unto his daughter Leah Zilpah his maid, for a handmaid came to pass it in the morning. Behold, it was Leah. He said unto Laban, What is this that thou hast done unto me? Did I not serve with thee for Rachel? Wherefore, then hast thou beguiled me? And Laban said, It must not be so done in our country to give the younger before the firstborn.

Now over to verse number 28. 28, verse 28. And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week.

And he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also. And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Billa his handmaid to be her maid. And he went in also unto Rachel.

And he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him seven other years. And when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb. But Rachel was barren.

Leah conceived, and bareth son. And she called his name Reuben. And she said, Surely the Lord hath looked upon my affliction.

Now therefore my husband will love me. She conceived again, and bareth son, and said, Because the Lord hath heard that I was hated, he hath therefore given me this son also. And she called his name Simeon.

She conceived again, verse 34, bareth son, and said, Now this time will my husband be joined unto me, because I have borne him three sons. Therefore was his name called Levi. She conceived again, and bareth son, and she said, Now I will praise the Lord.

Therefore she called his name Judah, and left bearing. Now not just because it is my subject this afternoon, and I must admit that we're going to shift gears here at ministry. I'm not really on church truth as much as I'm on personal character, as you're soon going to find out.

I've heard ministry at different times, very good ministry and interesting ministry, and I've tried to give it the same myself when it comes to Rachel. But I want to think of the years that I've been saved, unless I'd fallen asleep in a tough afternoon ministry meeting. If there was ever ministry given on Leah, I missed it.

That's what we're going to talk about today, is Leah. We have a Leah in our family, granddaughter. I was going to say unfortunately, but she is sandwiched between two boys and two girls.

Her two older brothers tell her everything she should do, and her two younger brothers won't listen to a word she says. And so that has really effect, not a damaging effect, but it has effect upon her personality. But that's Leah.

Leah's would be termed in our world today, never by God, but it's kind of the smaller people. One of the less people in the Bible. You know, when it comes to the assembly testimony, when it comes to Christians, sometimes there are the Leah's, and I'm speaking in both genders this afternoon amongst us.

Leah's are the people that sometimes we go and we speak to when there's nobody else to talk to. Leah's are the people that sometimes we turn from when we're in conversation with them, when somebody maybe of more importance comes along. That's really Leah.

I was just thinking this afternoon that my grandfather, Herman McCandless, if you asked him how many children he had, he would say this, five boys and Gene. My father would have to be one of those five boys. Five boys and Gene.

Gene had big status in the family. I should finish the story. Until grandpa decided that the way you and I are gathered here today was just a little too strict and too plain, and with a fair-sized chip on his shoulder, off he went to the chapels.

And for you that are from the north of Ireland, that's not the Catholic Church, okay? Let's just say that's another place. Gene didn't have a driver's license or a car. So on Sunday morning, company says, and Gene, for you? She says, I'm going to where we've always gone.

He says, how are you going to get there? She says, there are buses that run, and she rode the bus. I want to tell you, I preached both our funerals. My dear grandfather that should have known better, from his so-called friends that he went to be with, because there was no love where he was, there might have been 20 there from them.

And from where you and I gather, there's likely 110, because they had such respect for his boys, and his daughter Gene. Gene's funeral was bigger than grandfather's was, because the very overseers that stood at the back of the doors, we've been hearing about shepherds today with their care. They just stood there in amazement.

That Sunday morning when Gene McCandless walked through that door, gathered where she always was. Now Gene was a, in some measure, a Leah. She's the only person I know in the world that left dear Mr. Paisley devastated one day.

It was at a London conference. It's amazing when things come into your mind when you're up here. He walked up to her, and in conversation he picked up that she didn't know who he was.

And finally he said to her, he said, you know who I am? No, she said, I don't. Now she didn't go to many conferences, I have to admit that. That wasn't her strong point.

She didn't go to many, he says, excuse me? No, he said, I don't know who you are. Well, I'm Harold Paisley. Well, she said, I have heard a lot about you.

She said, pleased to meet you. I was gonna say it, not spoil the rest of the conference for him, but I don't know that, okay. But the Leas, I want to think about Leah today in the book of Genesis.

For those of you that like to take notes, it's very simple. I'm gonna look at, first of all, the background of Leah. I want to notice the blessing, the blessing that is associated with Leah.

I want you to notice the bearing of Leah. As we come to the latter part of chapter 29, there's some very important things happen to the sons that she gives birth to. I want to think about the belittling of Leah.

When it came to that moment, a very tense moment, when he saw us creeping up, and they're going to meet, who does he put out in front? Who's gonna be knocked off? He puts Leah out there, the belittling of Leah. Now, I'm gonna speak at the end about the burial of Leah. The road for Leah was not an easy road.

It was rough. If you'd have walked into Laban's home, and if they had pictures in that day, every room you went in, there would be a picture of Rachel. But Leah, nothing for Leah.

If you walked into that home, you wouldn't be long until, let me just use some imagination here, Leah would say, or rather, Jacob would say, Laban would say, pull up a chair. What'd I tell you about the biggest shepherdess in Padnerim? And so you'd sit down, and he says, I got a girl, can she ever keep sheep? You don't think she could? Turn the chapter in your Bible, where's Jacob find her? At the well. What's she doing? Keeping sheep.

What other woman do you know in the Bible that did that? She was a real asset to Laban. And it isn't till later on that this beautiful girl discovers that Laban is using us. So much for her beauty.

But nevertheless, she was Laban's girl. Leah? Who is Leah? Leah was really nobody of that family. No, brethren, it is hard.

And, you know, we didn't raise a large family, but it is hard at times to not be partial. You know, the one comes home with a report card that, I shouldn't be saying this, because none of ours did. Okay, they scraped the past off the wall.

They come home with these big report cards. But I've heard of some. In fact, I heard of one young fellow, his was so bad, he threw it in the ditch on the way home.

But anyhow, you know, they were pasted up. But Leah was just in there somewhere, and nobody really had too much to say about her. Not too much in her family.

Now there comes a time in her life when there's a real test, and Rachel was really a wholesome name. But listen, how would you feel? How would you feel being pushed out of the door, into the arms of my man that not only didn't love you, but didn't want you? Could she not have woke up and said, hey, this is not my fault. I really don't want these circumstances.

I didn't ask for them. How would you feel? I speak to someone today, and you just feel like you don't fit. You know, maybe you've got an older sister and an older brother, and they talk so much about them.

Well, this is so-and-so's brother. This is so-and-so's sister. They always relate you with them.

You're the small person in the conversation. They're way above your head. When it comes to the assembly, when it comes to doing things in the assembly, you're likely the last and the least that is looked to.

That was Leah. Those circumstances aren't easy, and they came upon Leah. But you know, there was somebody that remembered Leah, and it was her God.

And I want to encourage every heart here today. Maybe I speak to an older one, and you say, that's the way I felt for years. Now I know that there's temperament.

I know there's personality. I know there's makeup that contribute to that. And I might even go so far as there are people that maybe appreciate kind of that role in life.

They will never be leaders, okay? They'll never be the ones out in front, but they are so important. If somebody could have only got through to Leah and said to her, listen, two of the greatest offices in the nation will be filled by sons that come from you, Levi and Judah. I wonder if she knows that even today.

Not by Rachel, but by Leah. God looked upon her, and he blessed her. And you know, the Leahs that we have amongst us today, God has used them.

You would hardly know who they are, but they are the people that when nobody else is, they're praying for the meetings. They're the sisters that get together and pray for the preservation of the assembly when the brethren think it's beyond hope. I know sisters that have done that.

Nobody else know they were doing that. I'll tell you something, God preserved that assembly, that testimony. And today, as I stand here, this assembly in our province is twice the size that it once was.

Two, I was almost going to say insignificant, for better or use that language. Two sisters that really nobody else would have given a second look or a consideration hardly. Okay, just out of respect, out of duty.

But God used them. God can use you. Don't let creep into your thinking because you are not somebody else.

Or you are not, as we've been hearing this afternoon from Mr. Smith, you're not gifted and don't have that ability or that talent or whatever it takes to be that person. The most disastrous thing in life for anybody, I don't have to tell you that, is to try to be a Rachel if you're a Leah. She had a role to fill that Rachel couldn't fill.

I'm going to show you by the time we get done here, no Rachel need to look down on a Leah. That was the background. That's what she had to work with.

Background is very important. And parents, don't put something into the background of your children. That's going to send them limping through life with an attitude of personality that they didn't have to have.

And you just put them down to that. Now very quickly, I must go from that to the blessing of Leah. God blesses Leah.

You know, he hears her cry. It's interesting, but the last mention of Leah is in the book of Ruth. And when you come to the end of the book, chapter four, third last verse or so on it, we'll say this concerning Rachel and Leah.

Which two, which two did build the house of God? Don't Leah realized? God can use me, but more than that, I can work with my sister. Which two did build the house of Israel? Now naturally speaking, we think of Benjamin, we think of Joseph. And we look and we say, what men they were.

Tremendous what Rachel gave us. But Rachel never gave us what Leah gave us. The blessing of Leah.

There's only one heart really that could satisfy the heart of a Leah. And that was the heart of her God. And he would look upon her, and I'll show you as this chapter proceeds, just how he dealt with her when it comes to the bearing of her children.

First of all, I want you to notice that verse number 32 here. It says that and she bear a son. She called his name Reuben and said, surely the Lord hath looked upon my affliction.

Reuben means see a son. You know, sometimes we're hard on Reuben. I would be too.

I know the blessing. I know what Jacob said. Thou shalt not excel for thou wantest up to thy father's couch and defiled it and so on.

But you know, as I look at that harder, what I think that maybe it was in the back of father's thinking was Reuben, you were born to the wrong mother. Maybe that was Reuben's problems. I know this goes on record as being recorded, so I'll be very careful what I say.

But I can take you to a family where there was adopted children in that family and then their own. And you know, there would be a son there that lives under a cloud in his 50s, late 40s with children of his own. But as far as he was concerned, his father's thinking was you were born from the wrong mother.

That ought not to be. Maybe that was Reuben's difficulty. I mean, think of what Reuben could have been.

Think of the potential in a Reuben. So don't be too hard on Reuben. Maybe there's something in his background like there was in his mother's background that when they would go out to do the work of the farm and look after those sheep, Laban's idea, oh, what can I expect? That's just Reuben.

I know he's my firstborn, but so what? That was Reuben. Next, she bears, and his name is Simeon. She says, because the Lord heard that I was hated, he hath given me a son and called his name Simeon.

That means hearing. Now I know that Simeon had things that were against him as well. No doubt, no doubt about that.

But you know, sad to say when it comes to the birth of Levi, the Lord isn't brought into it. Had she given up? Here she acknowledges at first to these two boys, the Lord in it, then she comes to a point where she's given up. She doesn't mention the Lord when it comes to the Levi.

And yet when you think of Levi and what Levi would mean to us and what Levi brings to us, she would have had every reason to bring the Lord into it and to rejoice in the same. The bearing of Levi, the bearing of Leah, the background of Leah. Well, I think of the belittling of Leah.

I already mentioned that. And Jacob is going to say, to me he saw, maybe that's one of the times when he's glad he had a Leah. Very dangerous scene.

He just mentally orchestrates the whole scene. And he just simply takes Leah and her children. She'll put them, he'll put them out in front.

In other words, they'll take the brunt of his wrath. They'll take what's coming first. Isn't it remarkable, brethren and sisters, how God overruled that scene and how it ends.

It did not end as Jacob thought it was going to end. It ended as God intended and planned it to end. You know, sometimes we can take circumstances and things into our own hands and we're going to handle them and we're going to figure them out.

We're going to plot. We're going to plan this. How often we do that.

Then we look back and we say, that's not the way it worked out at all. Do you know why that is? Because there was a far greater hand and a far better mind than ours in it. Aren't we thankful for that? Leah must have been so grateful for that.

The belittling of Leah. Brethren and sisters, in our conversation, in our homes at any time, don't belittle God's children. There's no believer that names the name of Christ that I should ever belittle.

God has saved them. He has placed them in the assembly. I know there are some and they're a real care package, but they're there to develop something in me and you that is so needful.

Whatever you do, don't belittle them. Think of how she, just put yourself in her shoes, how she must have felt coming from where she had come from. Now with all these children, she thought, surely, surely my husband will love me now.

You know what she understood? The only love that she couldn't lose was the love she had. And it was the love of God. I want to come next to the burial of Leah.

The burial of Leah. It's interesting, just before that, just to show you a little of the character, it's interesting that when Jacob comes up to, is told by God to rise and go into Bethel, he is also told in that chapter that he was to put away the strange gods that are among you. Oh, there are some strange gods, a little idolatry in the family.

Who brought the idolatry into the family? Leah? No, go back a little earlier. Who's sitting in her tent and says to old Abednash, I just can't move just now. Basically, she's sitting on his terrapins and on his gods, on his idols.

Just don't bother me now. And when Jacob has to rid himself of that, that wasn't something that Leah brought in, that was Rachel. Well, if Rachel was so beautiful, if she was all that she was to be, why did she need that? You know what that tells me? That tells me there was an immoral beauty in Leah that had been overlooked.

You know what God is saying? That when you come to my house, there's no Rachel or Leah. There's Rachel and Leah that will build the house of Israel. I admire, I admire sisters today that are satisfied enough to look as God has intended them to look.

And you don't have to look as the world looks. And you don't have to compete with them in that office. And they may look at you as so drab and so plain.

And at school, some of you younger people going to school and that. Listen, I I get emails from young sisters, not that I'm out with a, I feel myself to be a professional with young people, but I know some of them go through. Don't feel that way.

The end of it, when it comes to the house of God, that had to be put away. Now it's interesting. When Laban catches up to that little company, that's moving away, running away, really on him.

Well, you see something come out in Rachel. She turns on him. She says to Jacob, she says, our fathers, he sold us.

He used us for not paid us nothing. Now there was a word. She realized what really had happened in that home.

God overrules it very quickly. I must come to the, to the burial of Leah. You know, when there was no possession of the land, Abraham, you'll remember buys the first piece of land to bury his much beloved Sarah.

Now, you know, burial grounds. I'm not sure if there's those, maybe they are here. I gotta be careful here because you got a graveyard right across the way here.

And, but I've been down in where I am and people get worried about where they could be buried. And some of the halls now up in the Northern part of the province, Mr. Smith knows that. And the French, they have to have a burial ground because the Catholics don't want to bury the Protestant.

Who cares? I don't care where are they. I just told one brother, don't worry. I says, they'll put you somewhere.

They don't leave you on the surface forever. Come on. But in scriptural, in scriptures, you know, as well as I do, the place of burying was very significant.

Who is buried in the city of the Kings and who wasn't? Who is buried with the, with the men of David and who wasn't? And all begins with a man by the name of Abraham. Very interesting. And Abraham and Sarah, his wife are buried there.

Isaac and Rebecca are buried in the same, in the same site. And when you come to Genesis 49 and right near verse 30, what's he, what does he say? There they buried Abraham and Sarah, his wife. There they buried Isaac and Rebecca, his wife.

And there I buried Leah. Now, when it comes to his dying, when it comes to Jacob's dying, who's he buried beside? Rachel? No. Leah.

That tells us something. Remembers back in 35, she gives birth. She has hard labor.

It says she died and she was buried. There's no doubt about that, but Jacob had a choice. And when it comes to the end of it, he says, you can just put me right alongside Leah.

Now I'm going to go to the limb here. You can shoot me down after if you like that's happened, believe it or not before. But I do wonder brethren, if Leah wasn't the one that God had for Jacob instead of Rachel.

It's a pretty hard road for some who have taken the choice of a partner in life. And we've been reminded of that already at this conference. And they knew deep well and deep down, this is not the one the Lord has for me.

Now I know he could go back and say, listen, Laban tried to pull one on me and he could have argued his way out of that. But nevertheless, as we use that expression, when it comes to the end of the day, that is where he is buried. Remember the old prophet that dies away from God back there in the Kings.

Where does he want to be buried? He wants to be buried with the man of God. There was a spiritual quality that Jacob likely realized was in Leah that he was trying to ignore all the time. There was a value that she had that he's always trying to overlook.

She was the one likely that knew God in a way that her sister didn't know God. And if you needed something from the scriptures or what the Lord had said, he likely would have gone to Leah. My ministry this afternoon is not so much picking up for the underdog.

My ministry this afternoon is to pick up for all of us, to realize that everyone is needed. There isn't a child of God here today that is insignificant. There isn't one here today that isn't needed.

There isn't one here today that God doesn't have purposes for you that he is for nobody else. And you may, like Leah, never know it in this life. I know there was times when she was bitter.

I notice there's times when she lashes out. I just want to say she was human like anybody else. How hard on her are you going to be? May God help us, brethren, sisters, and preachers too, to realize we have the Leas.

Let's look after them. Let's thank God for them. Let's appreciate them.

And can I say as I look at the background of Leah and I look at the beginning of Leah, let her tribe increase.