THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN

Fulfill her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years. And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also. ~ Genesis 29:27-28

Words cannot describe the anguish Rachel felt as Jacob fulfilled Leah’s week. How her mind must have been flooded with questions:

“Why is this happening to me, what have I done wrong? What if Leah gets pregnant . . . Oh my God! What if she is already pregnant . . . we’ll celebrate our one year anniversary with my nephew, which is my husband’s son. That’s just great. Does that make him my step-son? No way would God let that happen, just to think about the possibility gets me depressed. This can’t be right. God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Eve and Maria.”

How Rachel and Leah both suffered because of Jacob’s and Laban’s sinful deception. All of a sudden, they were pitted against one another—maybe this is where the demon of comparison originated.

For Rachel in particular, when her wedding day came seven days after Leah’s, it came with a whimper instead of the anticipated shout. Her brand new “dream camel” now had miles on the motor and less tread on the tires. It would be like buying a log house with five bedrooms for your children that were on the way, only to end up with a used trailer with one bedroom set aside for your husband’s other wife. Or for you to the spend the night in, when it was her turn to be with him, again.

What a mess.

And who says sin doesn’t affect your born again spirit? It affected Jacob’s. Not only his, but his wives also . . . and his sons. This is not to say that God in his infinite wisdom and mercy didn’t redeem the situation, but that doesn’t justify the sin. Neither did the fact that Jacob was a covenant man keep him from the consequences of his actions. Indeed he paid double.

Don't think that is only true in the Old Covenant. It is written in the New Covenant that God is the “God of Jacob” and that he changes not. Neither is He mocked, and what a man soweth, that shall he also reap--and those around him, especially family.

Just ask Jacob or Rachel. Or the millions of husbands and wives who have been divorced in a "Christian" marriage because of another man or woman. Or ask their children. They'll know.