RAISING KIDS IN CANAAN

Genesis 34:1-20

Genesis, as much as anything else, teaches us that life is “All about God”

It is not about us – it is about God

• More problems could be avoided
• More heartache could be averted
• More trouble could be evaded

If we would simply accept this as truth.

Te troubles we get into, we get into because we decide we matter above everything else.

• We get selfish
• We get proud
• We get stubborn and
• We get fighting mad

Because we think it is about us – not God.

Genesis chapter 34 is a real life illustration of what happens when we forget that, “It is all about God.”

It is not a pretty chapter.

In fact, there are few chapters of the Bible more sordid than is this one.

One writer says that this is the only chapter in all of the Bible where God is absent.

He points out that while God’s name is nowhere to be found in the book of Esther, God’s hand is. Yet in this chapter, God is left completely out of the picture.

“When God is Absent,” Rev. Bruce Goettsche, October 4,1999

I am not sure that is completely true because God used the evil deed that took place in the chapter to protect the purity of Israel as a race.

But one thing is for dead sure.

The actions of the characters of this chapter stinks!

I am going to give this message the title

Raising Kids in Canaan

The passage could surely be used to deal with the subject of parenting.

But I do not want to do that tonight.

I us want instead to see ourselves as the kids being raised

And this world we are in is Canaan.

Canaan was a wicked, wicked place.

In only 400 years from this setting, God will say that the cup of Canaan’s iniquity is full and He will send Israel to destroy them.

It would not be too dissimilar to the world in which we live.

• Evil is spoken well of
• Godliness is held in contempt.

We have gotten so used to violence and wickedness that we almost admire it over holiness and spirituality.

We are like the priests of Ezekiel 22:26 who “…have put no difference between the holy and the profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean…”

I. THE MARKS OF WICKEDNESS IN GENESIS 34

The passage in Genesis is marked by five wicked qualities

A. Promiscuity

Vs 1-3

Those I read after to prepare his claim that Dinah would have been between 14-16 years old.

In those days that would have been a legal age to marry.

And Dinah is where no 16 year old girl ought to be!

She is out visiting with the “daughter of the land.”

More kids are ruined that way than just about any way there is!

I can see Jacob and Leah (Dinah’s mom) justifying allowing their girl to run with this pagan crowd

• She has no friends in the church
• She is he only girl in the house – has only brothers
• She needs to be around some girls her own age
• Besides, she is 16. We can’t run her life forever!

And Dinah goes run with the daughters of the land.

The text makes it clear that the deed done between Shechem and Dinah was not consensual.

The language of the passage indicates that Shechem forced her to lay with him.

But Dinah is not completely blameless.

• She was in a place she ought not to be. and
• She was with a people she ought not to have been with

We have some Christians today who are in about the same shape spiritually.

• They run with the wrong people
• They go to the wrong places

• They are saved
• They are the children of God

But because they refuse to see the value of spiritual separation from the world,

They find themselves getting into the same trouble as the world!

B. Powerless Parenting

Vs 5, 30

Jacob had little control over Dinah or her brothers.

Jacob had lived a good number of years being deceitful and a trickster.

He did get it right, and I think he had it right in this chapter.

But he had raised his kids, for he most part, during those years of backsliding. 

When he got right with God, his kids did not necessarily get right with him.

In fact, it appears to me that out all of Jacob’s kids, only two turned out to be spiritual men, Joseph and Benjamin.

Both of them were the youngest of the kids he had.

They were the ones who would have grown up seeing their did live for God, not the world!

Even Hamor, the Father of Shechem, was a powerless parent.

Shechem 

• Defiled Dinah and then
• Demanded his father get her for his wife (vs 4)

We need some parents today who will be faithful to God when the kids are young and who will stand for right even when they are older.

But I think this also applies to adult Christians today.

We are the children of God.

But we are way too demanding of God

• We go out and do what we want
• We make a mess out of our lives and the lives of others and then 
• We go to God and demand of Him fix our problems!

C. Passionate, Predetermined Violence

Vs 13, 25-29

I agree that Shechem needed correction.

But I don’t agree that Jacob was letting him off easy.

I believe by this point Jacob had learned that the way to get things done was to lean upon the Lord.

Jacob was not being passive and careless about the problem.

He was simply letting the Lord deal with it.

His boys on the other hand took matters into their own hands.

The result was a gruesome slaughter.

It was murder!

I know there are things that need to be dealt with today.

• I know there are injustices
• I know that there are times when even Christians need to be rebuked

But I am afraid what we see way too often is that people handle it like these boys did – instead of waiting on God!

D. Perversion of the Spiritual

Vs 13-17

Levi and Simeon, who by the way were Dinah’s full brothers, lied to Shechem and Hamor.

But worse, they used their faith to justify their lie.

They perverted a truth that God had given them in order to abuse Shechem.

And we have that all around us today.

New churches crop up almost daily with some damnable doctrine.

They take just enough truth to make it appear believable and then blend in their heresies until what they have is a poison that will destroy those who buy into it.

E. Panic over the Worldly

Vs 30

About the only criticism I can make of Jacob in the passage is the fear that gripped him when he learned what his kids had done.

His concern that the Canaanites would kill him were unfounded.

And boy do we ever have a lot of Christians panicking over the things happening in the world today.

• We panic about world peace
• We panic about whose in office
• We panic over the wickedness around us
• We panic that no one will get saved anymore

So it looks to me like this chapter pretty well describes our present situation.

We are God’s kids being raised in Canaan!

But our story does not have to read like theirs does.

There is

II. AN ANTEDOTE FOR GENESIS 34

I want to remind you that, while Canaan was a wicked place, it was also the place where God wanted Jacob to be.

And there is no place safer than in the middle of the will of God!

God knows exactly where we are and He intends to use us right where we are until He moves us on to heaven.

So how do we avoid falling into the same trouble Jacob’s kids did in Canaan?

A. Surrender yourself to Godly leadership

Titus 3:1

Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, (KJV)

Heb 13:17

Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you. (KJV)

God gives us leadership in our lives, especially spiritual leadership for our own good!

• When we walk away from that leadership
• When we decide to do it our own way and then pick up the pieces later
• When we rebel or ignore the counsel of the godly

We set ourselves up for nothing but trouble and heartache when we, like Jacob’s kids, choose our own way.

B. Sell yourself out to personal separation

2 Cor 6:17-18

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,

And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. (KJV)

This whole chapter would have read differently had Dinah never gone out to see the “daughters of the land” in the first place.

You know, we are not missing out on anything when we miss out on the world!

• When we miss out on their sin
• When we miss out on their sorrow
• When we miss out on their wickedness

We don’t miss out on anything!

Christian, you just don’t belong where the world belongs!

• You don’t belong going to the same places
• You don’t belong enjoying the same things
• You don’t belong saying the same things

You would be so much better off if you would see that and separate from those things!

C. Establish yourself in the genuine faith

Jude 1:20-21

But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,

Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. (KJV)

Make sure you are 

• 100% absolutely sure 
• Rock solid, 
• You know from the Bible that you are saved

Make yourself be faithful to the house of the Lord where you can be trained and reminded of the spiritual truths.

Do let yourself get sucked in to the newest craze in Christianity!

• You don’t need a church that entertains you with music that sounds just like the world’s does
• You don’t need a church that rocks and bops and makes you feel good all the time.

• You need a church where the Bible is opened and you are taught what it says and
• You need a church where you are urged to do as it says!

Finally

D. Settle yourself to trust the Lord

Ps 20:7

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. (KJV)

Prov 29:25

The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe. (KJV)

You know what?

God has a pretty good handle on what is going on in the world today.

You don’t have to fear the headlines in the paper.

Neither do you need to take matters into your own hands.

Just get up everyday and get on your knees with God.

• He will right all the wrongs
• He will correct all the inequities
• He will keep His own protected.