This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to Daily Drive Time Devotions. This is Genesis 34 today.
It's week 7, day 4.

And as we look at Genesis 34, I just have to be honest with you from the
beginning, this is one of my least favorite chapters in the entire Bible because
of what happens. Because of how people treat each other, because of the abuse,
the violence in this chapter. Listen to what happens in Genesis 34.

Let me share with you the story and then share with you what you and I can learn
out of this story. Genesis 34 verses 1 to 7 first. "Now Dinah, the daughter
Leah, had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the women of the land.

When Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite, the ruler of the area, saw her, he took
her and violated her. His heart was drawn to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, and
he loved the girl and spoke tenderly to her. And Shechem said to his father
Hamor, 'Get me this girl as my wife.

' When Jacob heard that his daughter Dinah had been defiled, his sons were in
the fields with his livestock, so he kept quiet about it until they came home.
Then Shechem's father Hamor went out to talk with Jacob. Now Jacob's sons had
come in from the fields as soon as they heard what happened.

They were filled with grief and fury because Shechem had done a disgraceful
thing in Israel by lying with Jacob's daughter, a thing that should not be done.
" So in these first seven verses, Dinah is raped, Jacob does nothing at first,
and then finally when people find out, when his family finds out, there is
anger. And out of that anger, let me read for you what happens in verses 25 to
31.

The brothers decide on a plan. Before I read these verses, the plan was that
they would lie to this entire family, this entire clan, and say, "Oh, well,
we'll let Dinah be married to you, but you have to become people of Israel. And
in order to become people of Israel, you must all be circumcised.

" They all agree to do this. And then, well, verse 25, here's what happens.
"Three days later, after the circumcision, while all of them were still in pain,
two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took their swords and
attacked the unsuspecting city, killing every male.

They put Hamor and his son Shechem to the sword and took Dinah from Shechem's
house and left. The sons of Jacob came upon the dead bodies and looted the city
where their sister had been defiled. They seized their flocks and herds and
donkeys and everything else of theirs in the city and out in the fields.

They had carried off all their wealth and all their women and children, taking
as plunder everything in the houses. Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, "You
have brought trouble on me by making a stench to the Canaanites and the
Perizzites, the people living in this land. We are few in number, and if they
join forces against me and attack me, I and my household will be destroyed.

" But they replied, the brothers replied, "Should he have treated our sister
like a prostitute? " That's the chapter. I hate this chapter.

It's like the story of Lot at Sodom and Gomorrah we looked at a few weeks ago.
It's like the story of Judah and Tamar we're going to look at together this next
week. These are chapters that in their entirety, the whole chapter just shows
the dark, the sinful side of man.

God does not sugarcoat the story of faith. In the midst of this story of those
who are living the lives of faith, struggling their way to faith, they are
dealing not only with their own fear, they're dealing with an evil world around
them and even the evil choices that they make. Look at the choices in this
chapter that allowed all of this to happen.

Four choices. Choice number one, the family does a foolish thing and lets Dinah
go out into this unknown land unprotected. Now it is not Dinah's fault that this
happened.

It is not even the family's fault that this happened. It was the choice of
Shechem that this happened, that he raped Dinah. But it was foolish for them to
do this.

That's a foolish thing that happens in this chapter. And then the second thing
that happens, the second choice you see is that Shechem does an evil thing and
rapes Dinah. He later says that he loves her.

Obviously, he does not love her. He just wants her. She is a thing to possess,
not a person to respect, a person to love.

If he loved her, he would not have violated her. But he says he loves her. He
believes that wanting something is loving something.

He doesn't understand the difference between loving a person and loving a thing,
a possession. And so he does an evil thing and he rapes Dinah. And then Jacob,
the third choice you see in this chapter is Jacob, the father, the patriarch,
the spiritual leader, supposedly.

Jacob does nothing because he's afraid. He waits till the sons come in and then
they begin to talk about it. Instead of going out and telling the sons an evil
thing has happened, praying to God, "God, what should we do about this?

" He becomes afraid. He's afraid because he's in a new land. He's afraid because
he might be attacked.

God has said, "I will protect you. " God has said, "I will be with you. " But
Jacob is living out of his fear.

And so he does nothing. Now what did that say to Dinah? That he did nothing
because he was afraid.

Instead of protecting her, he did nothing. Some of you, this goes deep to your
heart because you have parents who did nothing because they were afraid. What
does that say to a child when that happens?

The family does a foolish thing. Shechem does an evil thing. Jacob does nothing.

Then number four, Simeon and Levi, they do an evil thing because they are angry.
We just read what happened. They came up with this plan whereby they killed
every male in this city.

And when other places were an evil thing, it happened in the city. You see this
in Genesis, but you also see it especially as you go into Exodus and into
Joshua. You see that when a city becomes evil, God asks that the whole city be
destroyed and that the Israelites don't take plunder, don't take the women,
don't take the cattle.

But that's not what happened here. They do an evil thing because they're angry.
And they benefit from doing this evil thing.

All of a sudden they have more flocks. All of a sudden they have more goods
because they've done this evil thing. They didn't go to God and ask about it.

This isn't over. In Genesis 49 verses 5 to 7, these two, Simeon and Levi,
they're going to be cursed for this angry act that happens in these verses. Now
should they have protected their sister?

Absolutely yes. Was this the right way to do it? Absolutely not.

God may have asked for this city to be destroyed, but they didn't even ask. And
if he'd asked for it to be destroyed, he would not have allowed them to take
plunder like they did. The family does a foolish thing.

Shechem does an evil thing. Jacob does nothing. Simeon and Levi respond and do
an evil thing.

The point of this chapter is no one leads and trusts God. It's just all about
their thing, their mind. No one says, "God, what do you want us to do?

What should be done? " You may be in a mess in your life right now. As I read
this chapter, you think there's too much of what's being read here that I've
experienced.

Maybe not the exact experience, but the kind of feelings, the kind of violation,
the kind of anger, the kind of retribution. Who's going to lead and trust God in
your family? Who's going to lead and trust God in your business?

Who's going to lead and trust God in your community? God says that he will
protect those who lead and trust him, not protect us from all harm. There may be
things that come upon us that we wish would not, but it'll certainly protect us
from all the harm that would come from not following his will, all the harm that
would come from not living out what it means to be a part of the kingdom of God.

Who's going to lead and trust God? Who's going to have the courage in your
family, in your business, in your community, to lead and trust God? God, give us
courage.

Give us courage to trust you when life falls apart, to trust you when an evil
thing happens, and to ask you what to do and then to follow you in courage. God,
you know that sometimes we're tempted to do nothing out of our fear or we are
tempted to do the wrong thing out of our anger. And that's what we see in this
chapter in Jacob and in Simeon and Levi.

Lord, instead of doing nothing or the wrong thing, help us to do the thing that
you would want, to lead and trust God. I pray particularly for those that are
facing situations in their family, in their business, in their community right
now where somebody needs to stand up and lead. Somebody needs to stand up and
trust God.

I pray that you would give courage, Jesus. And I ask this in your name. Amen.

Make sure you join us tomorrow. We go on from chapter 34. Jacob is going to hear
God's blessing and he's going to give God's blessing.