GENESIS 34 STOPPING SHORT The name of God ends chapter thirty-three and begins chapter thirty-five, but is completely absent in chapter thirty-four. This sordid account of lust, greed, anger, compromise, vengeance and murder, demonstrates the consequences that fall on one who is supposed to represent God, being attracted to the world and settling down too close to those who do not know the Lord.
Self-centered, self-seeking impulsive actions, lead to evil and sad results. Even though Dinah’s simple walk into the worldly town of Shechem, led to a disastrous family crisis, Jacob did not take the action a father should, nor did he show any leadership in dealing with the whole event. Carelessness in family life can end up with everyone involved paying a high price. Victims like Dinah are soon forgotten or overlooked, but when everyone else forgets, God doesn’t. When no one notices the victim being abandoned, God sees them. When other people don’t seem to care but just want to get past a sad and evil event and put it out of their minds, God cares and remembers. “Payday comes someday.”
We are to separate ourselves from the sinful actions of the world around us and be separated to the Lord. If we do not do what we know God wants, the lack of commitment to the Lord can lead us to awful influences and actions on the part of those who come behind us. Indifference and arrogance lead to deceit, pain and other devastating consequences caused by sin. Sins of omission can soon result in sins of commission.
Sadly, often the characteristic of deceit seen in a father, will be repeated in his children who watch and learn from him. If a father questions everything that doesn’t agree with his preconceived notions, his children will likely think this is the way to act and make decisions. Don’t trust anyone! Make up your own mind and forget what trusted older people have to say! They still live in the dark ages! If a parent is usually critical and sarcastic, their offspring will often be that way. If faith in God is strong and a person lives by faith and learns from the word of God, it is a reasonable hope to think their children also will put their faith in Christ and live by faith in “the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
None of us are exempt from the snares and traps laid by our enemies: the world, the flesh and the devil. Even on the high ground of faith, the devil will seek ways to bring down any person who has a testimony of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Jacob yielded to the temptation to stop in Succoth and then Shechem, instead of pressing on to Bethel. After a good outcome with both Laban and Esau, it seemed like he thought “all is well from now on.” He built a house and bought land perhaps thinking the he is now “a prince of God” and was safe from all problems.
If we think we have obtained some objective in the energy of the flesh and are beyond and out of reach of our enemies, we are in grave danger. That danger is not only against us, but more seriously, to those for whom we are responsible both physically and spiritually. To care properly for them, we must remain watchful and alert in the good times, because it is then we are most vulnerable to deception and compromise followed by open attack.
Jacob settled down in the wrong place prematurely and his only daughter paid the high cost. When he did not act appropriately, the cost became higher for everyone who was involved in the tragedy. Being able to rest in what we consider “heavenly places,” does not mean “we have arrived.” The high ground is not a defense from a fall. “Standing on the promises,” does not mean that we will not be harassed and attacked by the powers of darkness.
If an assembly of God’s people ever get to the place where they think they are superior to other assemblies because they are larger in number, richer in wealth and gift, and attractive to the unbelievers around because “they are just like us,” that assembly is in serious danger. Forms, practices and man-made traditions are no safe-guard against internal or external challenges and opposition.
THE RESULTS OF FAITHLESSNESS Jacob’s stay at Succoth and Shechem seemed to have covered a period of years during which the vow he made at Bethel was either forgotten, ignored, put on a shelf or faded away until he hardly remembered it. Perhaps he considered it to be faced at a more convenient time if the future. He had comfortably settled into an ordinary life just like everyone else in the world where he lived. They didn’t know God and he had met God personally but it is an unfortunate reality that believers can forget the promises of God. Those around him had none of those promises. He had been promised that his seed would inherit the whole land when God gave it to them in His time.
He settled down in his position of comfort as near to the sinful world as he could get without actually being one of them. But not many could tell the difference between him and the idolaters. In fact, the society of sinners, wanted him to be one of them so they could mingle, mix and blend. Then they could get what he had. He even set up his own altar of religious forms to give him a sense of respect and smug complacency with God and men. He was still Jacob the deceiver, not Israel the prince of God.
The Danger of Faithlessness, 33:18-20. Christians will often decide where they will live, what they will do for work and where they will retire, based on what pleases us most. We don’t like inconveniences or any responsibilities unless we choose them ourselves. We want opportunities but not obligations. We want an assembly where I can be comfortable but not be counted on too much. I want to have something to say, but only want to do what I want to do, not what I have been assigned by others.
When making decisions both for ourselves and our family, we need to ask, “What will this do for our spiritual life? Will it challenge us, teach us, help us grow in faith and grace, or will it be merely convenient as we pursue our own ambitions in life?” Learn from Jacob! He chose to live in Shechem with all the risks of being close to the ungodly world. There will be consequences, and likely suffering of one kind or another.
The Disaster of Faithlessness, v.1-2. It is natural for teenagers to want to connect with others of their age. To “visit” others and make friends of other young girls was normal, natural and interesting to Dinah. Allowing our young people to mix with others who live a worldly lifestyle, may keep people from saying we are “too strict,” but we must consider what might happen to them. People generally say, “Let them do their own thing. Then they can make up their own minds about what they want to believe or do with their life.” We as parents need to teach them that there is more than this life to live, and more than physical death to die. Most young people today deny the existence of God, or they may say, “If there is a God, what does that have to do with me and what I want out of life?”
The weakness and tolerance of parents regarding sin, moral purity, right and wrong actions, truth, salvation and faith in Christ, are acts of unfaithfulness to God and our children. That leads to disaster from which there is no recovery.
Faithlessness leads to the Unexpected, v.3-12. When we hear of terrible news regarding our children, do we keep quiet, or try to act with wisdom and grace, guided by God? Jacob just kept quiet for a while. To do nothing indicates we have a bad conscience and realize our failures are behind the distress of our family. Indecision is not an acceptable answer. An urgent appeal to God is always in order and is always heard. To not do that, and then not act on biblical guidance to deal with the matter, opens the way for those who do not know God, to take matters into their own hands.
The people of the world around us know that in many ways, it is to their advantage to mix with the people of God in business, social life and in some cases, religious life. There are people who “attend church” so they can interface with those who are honest in business and have moral standards by which they live.
Faithlessness leads to Unworthy Pretexts, v.13-17. People who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as their own Savior, often cannot understand the motive and reason behind our separation as believers from the world. They want to unite in any way they can for the “advantage of everyone involved.” Covenants with God, and covenants with a spiritual and biblical purpose, do not make sense to them and they “could care less!”
Then there was the “religious pretext” of Dinah’s brothers that was a faithless pretext so that the two men, and perhaps their retainers, could wreak vengeance on those who defiled their sister. In all of this, Jacob remained silent, weak and unfaithful.
Faithlessness leads to False Trust, v.18-24. Those who do not know God, only live for the moment and for their own objectives. Proposals between believers and unbelievers for their mutual advantages materially, are fraught with danger. A believer can lose their reputation in a moment and never be considered trustworthy. Those who look on are inclined to say, “That’s Christians for you! I want nothing to do with the likes of those people!”
Faithlessness leads to Treachery, v.25-29. There are people who look at Christians as “religious fanatics” who are intolerant, bigoted people who create problems for everyone and will not conform to the world the way everyone else does. To take matters into our own hands can create problems for a lot of people. There are ways to settle serious matters when we deal with them openly, biblically and honestly with care and caution.
When we don’t do things right, the effects are on the innocent ones who fell into a trap, the guilty ones involved who are willing to make things right, and all those who are around them. The vengeful ones will live the rest of their lives under a cloud of distrust and guilt. These terrible incidents are included in the scriptures because the Holy Spirit knows we can learn from the failures of others.
Faithlessness leads to False Peace, v.30. When Jacob finally spoke after the actions and murders were taken by his vengeful sons, his weakness was exposed for what it really was. As far as he was concerned, he was the one who was wronged: not Dinah, not the dead men of Shechem and the captive people of Shechem – just Jacob. Faithlessness brings trouble and blames circumstances and others for our own failures and sin. Right to the end of his life, Jacob never forgot the character of Simeon and Levi and what they had done.
Worldliness is spiritual peril. People of the world system consider those who do not accept what unbelievers take for granted, as judgmental, intolerant and bigoted. The mixing up of believers with unbelievers, has been a tactic of the enemies of God’s children all down through the church age. Worldliness is one way pressure is put on Christians to make them yield to the majority of world opinion. It may be hard to detect, define or describe, but its effects are disastrous. Worldliness prevents spiritual growth because it hinders the impact of our testimony and reduces our testimony to mere words. An altar without true worship has no value. A life with no difference from everyone else has no significance to believers or unbelievers. Worldliness can be prevented by separation from all that is not of God. The dangers of the ungodly world remain, the enemy is the same and the outcome of yielding to worldliness is easily predicted. When we “come out from among them and be ye separate, says the Lord,” then God can be a Father to us, and will defend, protect and safeguard His own family.