I really am amazed how the Lord
puts our music to the message. We're going to be looking at
a passage of Scripture in Genesis tonight on Bethel, the church,
and her foundation. Tom didn't have any idea we were
going to do that. For Scripture reading, turn with me in your
Bibles to Psalm 45. Psalm 45. My heart is indicting a good
matter. I speak of the things which I
have made, touching the King. My tongue is the pen of a ready
writer. Thou art fairer than the children
of men. Grace is poured into thy lips. Therefore God hath blessed thee
forever. gird thy sword upon thy thigh,
O Most Mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty, and in thy majesty
ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness. And thy right hand shall teach
thee terrible things. Thine arrows are sharp in the
heart of the king's enemies, whereby the people fall under
thee. The Lord said he would make his
enemies his footstools, and we who were at enmity with God had
the arrow of his grace pierce our hearts until we fell in submission
and in worship. Thy throne, O God, is forever
and ever. The scepter of thy kingdom is
a right scepter or a righteous scepter. Thou lovest righteousness
and hatest wickedness, Therefore God thy God hath anointed thee
with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." That's the full
anointing of the Holy Spirit upon the Lord Jesus as Christ,
the Anointed One. And thy garments smell of myrrh
and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces whereby they have
made thee glad. King's daughters were among thy
honorable women Upon thy right hand did stand the queen in the
gold of Ophir. Hearken, O daughter, and consider,
and incline thine ear, and forget also thine own people and thy
father's house. So shall the king greatly desire
thy beauty, for he is thy lord, and worship thou him. that he would desire our beauty? Yeah, that's what he said. You're
beautiful with my comeliness. No husband has ever been more
ravished by his wife than the Lord Jesus Christ is by his church. And the daughter of Tyre shall
be there with a gift. Even the rich among the people
shall entreat thy favor. The king's daughter is all glorious
within. Her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the
king in raiment of needlework. The virgins, her companions that
follow her, shall be brought unto thee. With gladness and
rejoicing shall they be brought, and they shall enter into the
king's palace, coming into his presence with
joy. Instead of thy fathers shall
be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.
I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations. Therefore
shall the people praise thee forever and ever." Susan Emrick
and Todd Nybert's mother, Sharon, who's been here on many occasions,
you all had to have emergency surgery Sunday night and it was
very serious. She's still, I think, in ICU,
but she's off of the ventilator finally and making some slow
progress. So we want to pray for Sharon
and Charlie and Susan and Todd and family as they wait on the
Lord. A week from tonight, Thanksgiving
week, we won't have our regular Wednesday night service. Our merciful and glorious Heavenly
Father, we are amazed that you would speak in such terms about
us, about your church. We're so thankful to know that
the beauty that your people have is that which you have given
to her in the person of your dear son. So Lord we pray that
you would once again send your Holy Spirit to bless your word
to our hearts and that you would exalt the Lord Jesus Christ in
our midst and that in comprehending more of his love for us you would
put into our hearts a love for thee. We do pray for Sharon,
and we thank you for the progress that you've given to her. And
we pray that you would continue to bless her and the family and
the physicians and all those that minister to her. And Lord,
that you would give grace and mercy and strength. And Father,
we ask that all the places where your gospel is preached would
be attended by your blessings and by your power. We ask it
in Christ's name. Amen. I want you and me to experience
the blessings that God gave to Jacob in a place called Bethel. If you'll turn with me in your
Bibles to Genesis chapter 28. Genesis chapter 28. Jacob had deceived Isaac and
his brother Esau and he lived up to his name as the supplanter
and had stolen the birthright. and the blessing of his father. Esau is enraged. He's got murderous thoughts toward
his twin brother. And Jacob, in order to save his
own life, is forced to flee his family, his homeland, the only
place he's ever known. I was thinking, Rachel, about
about you right now just now for the first time in your life
leaving home and I would reflected back on what it was like for
me at 17 years old to leave home for the first time and to be
thrown into a an environment that was so strange and that's
where that's where Jacob is and and in his lonely dark hour the
Lord in his providence brings him to a place that he ends up
calling Bethel or translated the house of God and he calls
it Bethel because the Lord is pleased to bless him in this
place It is no doubt a picture of where
we are right now. This is Bethel. When Paul wrote
to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 3, he said, I'm writing unto
you in order that you might know how you ought to behave yourself
in the house of God, in Bethel, which is the church of the living
God, the pillar and the ground of the truth. So this is the
house of God. This is Bethel. This is where
the Lord is pleased to bless His children in the same way
that He blessed Jacob so many, many years ago. There's a lot
of wonderful blessings in these few verses, and my hope and prayer
is that we'll come to this place expecting the Lord to bless us
in the same way that He blessed Jacob. We are the sons of Jacob. And we are fleeing from so many
troubles, and we are in need of the Lord's blessing. We'll
begin reading in verse 11, And he lighted upon a certain place,
and tarried there all night, because the sun was set. And
he took the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows,
and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold,
a ladder sat upon the earth, and the top of it reached to
heaven, and behold, the angels of God ascended and descended
upon it. And behold, the Lord stood above
it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy father the God
of Isaac, the land whereon thou liest, To thee will I give it,
and to thy seed. And thy seed shall be as the
dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and
to the east, and to the north, and to the south. And in thee
and thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And
behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither
thou goest. and will bring thee again into
this land, for I will not leave thee until I have done that which
I have spoken to thee of.' And Jacob awaked out of his sleep,
and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew
it not. And he was afraid, and said,
How dreadful is this place! This is none other but the house
of God, and this is the gate of heaven." And Jacob rose early
in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his
pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of
it. And he called the name of that
place Bethel. But the name of the city was
called Luz." Now Luz translated means to go aside or to go out
of the way. What a contrast there is between
the house of God and those who forsake the truth and go out
of the way. We're not the only ones who are
meeting in a building, opening the Word of God, and reading
from it the truth of the gospel. There are plenty of other people
who believe themselves to be meeting in the house of God who,
in fact, are meeting in Luz. And the Lord changed the name,
didn't he? We've met in Luz before. We've
gone out of the way. And the name of this place was
called Luz at first, but now it's called Bethel. What's the
difference? What's the difference? And Jacob
vowed a vow saying, if God be with me and will keep me in this
way that I go, and give me bread to eat and raiment to put on,
so that I come again to my Father's house in peace. Then shall the
Lord be my God. And this stone, which I have
set for a pillar, shall be God's house. And of all that thou shalt
give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee." Now I see in
every one of these verses an application of the gospel and
the way in which God blesses his children when they come to
Bethel. And the first one I want you
to see is in the first verse that we read in verse 11, and
he lighted upon a certain place. Jacob was headed to another place. He just happened to wander through
this place called Luz where the Lord is going to reveal Himself
to him. Isn't that the way it is? We make our plans, we decide this is what we are going
to do and the Lord orders our steps. Ruth, we hap upon Boaz's field." Like that rebellious runaway
slave Onesimus who thought he was going to get away from the
gospel, ran right into the arms of the Apostle Paul in Rome. You know, the Lord just, He directs
us, doesn't He? He just happened upon, he lighted
upon a certain place. That Ethiopian eunuch, he was
headed back to Ethiopia. But the Lord had different plans
for him on the road to Gaza, didn't he? And when the gospel
was brought to him there, What a glorious Bethel experience
that was for him. That Philippian jailer, he went
to bed that night with no pains of conscience, having already
beaten the innocent men that were in prison, and the Lord
brought him to Bethel that night, didn't He? He brought him to
the house of God. And it's the same way for you.
And it's the same way for me. We didn't plan this. It wasn't in our agenda to seek
the Lord. No man seeketh after God. God
in His sovereign providence And we only see a tip of the iceberg.
We can only identify a few of the most obvious events that
brought us to this place. But how many things that God
has done in order to bring us to Bethel? We have lighted upon
a certain place. Here's what David said in the
Psalms, of a good man are ordered of the Lord." Now that's not
a man who's good in his own goodness. That's a believer. That's a child
of God. The steps of a believer are ordered
by the Lord. And I'm so thankful they are.
We wouldn't have come to this place. We wouldn't have come
here. So we arrive at Bethel the same
way Jacob did in the providence of God, in the good providence
of God. And we know that he has worked
all things together for good. The second thing I see in this
verse, verse 11, "...and tarried there all night, because the
sun was set." The blessings of Bethel always come in the night. Jacob was fearful. Jacob was fleeing. Jacob was
all alone in a strange place. had nobody around him, his life
was subject to how many dangers in the wilderness, and here in
the darkness of his own fears, the Lord was pleased to
make himself known. Isn't that the way we come? We
come so often times the way that we just come in the night. We come before the Lord not really
knowing what to do and not familiar with our surroundings and fearing
our circumstances just like Jacob. Because the sun was set. You
see that? The light of truth was growing
very dim, just like it does in the setting of the sun in the
late of the day when we're not able to see anymore. And the
Lord brings us to Bethel and turns the light of His grace
on in our hearts. Look at this next part. And He
took of the stones of the place and put them for His pillows. The blessings of Bethel, oh the
third thing I wanted you to see in this is that the blessings
of Bethel come when we are tired. Now I've noticed in my life that I don't have the
stamina that I used to have. I tire a lot quicker than I used
to. You know, you just, you work
and you can only do so much and then you just give out, don't
you? And that's how we come, that's how the blessings come
spiritually. The Lord said, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, come unto me and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me, for my yoke is easy, my burden is light. That's how we
come. We labor, we try to fix stuff,
we labor under the law, we try to present ourselves acceptable
before God, and then at some point we just have to cease from
our labors and admit the fact that we don't have any more stamina,
we don't have any more strength, and we're tired, and we just
lie down. And that's when God's pleased
to speak. When He gives rest to those who
are running to and fro, looking for answers and coming up empty
in the world. And He'll bring you to that place,
won't He? He'll bring you to the place where you're just tired.
And you need a place of rest. And you need one who has fulfilled
all the demands of God's law. One in whom you can rest and
be sure that in Him you are acceptable before God. What a blessing. That's what
the Lord gives at Bethel. He causes us, as Hebrews chapter
4 says, to cease from our labors. That's where Jacob was. I can
imagine how wore out this young man was. And now it's getting
dark. And in the darkness of his own
fears and in the lack of strength of his own body, he goes to sleep. He rests. Notice what he makes
for a pillow. Now, I've noticed the infomercials
lately. There's companies selling pillows.
I guess that's a big Christmas item. I've got a pillow at home
that's my favorite pillow, and it's really, really soft. I mean,
when I want a pillow, the last thing I would imagine to use
as a pillow would be a rock. I mean, I've slept on life jackets
before and boats, and I've rolled up blankets and jackets and whatever
you can find that will give your head a soft place, but a rock? Why would you make a pillow out
of a rock? Well, you know the picture here,
don't you? This rock is the same rock that followed the children
of Israel through the wilderness. This is the rock upon which we
build our lives. This is the rock of ages. This is the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the rock from which flows the water of life. And the only
place that's safe to use as a pillow is rock. This is a gospel story. We have
a rock that is sure. A tried stone, a precious stone. The stone that the builders have
rejected, God has made to be the cornerstone. And that's the only safe place. That's the softest pillow there
is. There is no softer pillow than this rock that Jacob pulls
up and uses for a pillow. Notice what happens in his dream
in verse 12. And he dreamed, and behold, a
ladder set upon the earth. And the top of it reached to
heaven, and behold, the angels of God ascending and descending
on the ladder. The vision of Bethel is a ladder. It's a ladder. The Lord interprets
this dream to Nathanael in John chapter 1. When Philip went and
got Nathanael and found him underneath the fig tree and said, we have
found the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, and Nathanael said what? He said,
what good can come out of Nazareth? And Philip said, come and see.
Come and see. That's what we need to say to
folks, don't we? Just come and see. Come to Bethel. There's a ladder there. And when
Nathanael came to the Lord, the Lord looked at Nathanael and
said, He said, An Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile. And
Nathanael said, How do you know me? And he said, Well, before
Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree. And Nathanael
burst out and says, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art
the King of Israel. And the Lord said, you're astonished
because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? Verily,
verily, I say unto you, you're going to see the angels of God
ascending and descending upon the Son of God. This ladder is the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's the ladder. And notice in
our text that He touches the earth and He reaches all the
way up into heaven. And at the top of the ladder,
there's a door that opens into heaven. And in that door is the
Lord God Almighty. And here He is with angels. Now who are these angels? Well,
the angels ministered to the Lord Jesus Christ, no question
about it. Angels minister to us in a way I don't fully understand.
But I also know that gospel preachers are referred to as angels or
messengers of God. And what are they doing? They're
ascending and descending. Now, what is a ladder used for?
Bert can tell you what a ladder's used for. He can tell you how
not to use one, too. He fell off one recently. But
a ladder's got to have a firm footing, doesn't it, brother?
It's got to have a firm footing on the earth. And it's got to
be holding up the other end on something. And you use a ladder
to go up, and you use a ladder to come down. You don't want
to come down without the ladder. So you ascend and you descend
upon this ladder. And that's exactly what God Almighty
has done in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was born
of a woman, born under the law, made in the likeness of sinful
flesh. He came and He put His feet firmly
upon this earth where you and I live. He became a man. God in the flesh. And yet He's still fully God,
isn't He? And so God ascended and we ascend
into glory upon this ladder. The vision of Bethel is the ladder. It is the ladder. And Christ
is that ladder. We preach Christ. And in preaching
Christ we tell men how it is that God has come down or descended
to us. How He has condescended in order
to be us, in order to take on our flesh, in order to bear the
burden of our sin, and in order to suffer the wrath of God's
judgment. He did that in the body of a
man. And yet we never, never deny
His full sovereign deity and His omnipotence, His omniscience. He's the Lord. He's God. He's the one who opens the windows
of heaven and what He opens no man can shut. And the only access
that we have into the presence of God is on this ladder. There's
but one ladder. That's what he told Nathanael.
He said, you just wait. You're going to see the angels.
Matter of fact, you're going to be one of those angels. And
you're going to tell men how it is that they can ascend into
glory by the fact that Christ has descended into the earth. So the vision of Bethel, the
message of Bethel, is the latter. We declare unto men what God
has accomplished in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ so that
we know how it is that we can have fellowship with God, how
we can have our sins forgiven, how we can have access into his
presence, how we can have union with him, how we can have acceptance
before God. He dreamed, verse 12, and behold,
a ladder set upon the earth, and the top of it reached to
heaven. And behold, the angels of God ascending and descending
on it. And behold, the Lord stood above
it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy father, and the
God of Isaac, and the land whereon thy liest. To thee will I give
it, and to thy seed. and thy seed shall be as the
dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad in the west, and
to the east, and to the north, and to the south, and in thee
and thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." The
God of Bethel is a covenant-keeping God of grace. He said to Jacob,
I am the God of your father Abraham. I am the God of your father,
Isaac. I am here to confirm to you the
exact same promises that I made to them. I haven't changed. I
established a covenant of grace before the world ever began. I chose a people and put them
in the Lamb's Book of Life before time ever started. And I don't
change. And that's the hope of your salvation.
And David concluded his life by saying, though my house be
not so with God yet, He has made with me an everlasting covenant. Now let me remind you, the word
everlasting in the Bible doesn't refer to something that has a
beginning and lasts forever. It refers to God's God's time is everlasting, from
everlasting to everlasting. Never had a beginning, never
has an end. David said, He's made with me an everlasting covenant.
This covenant is ordered in all things and it's sure. He said, this is all my salvation,
all my desire, though we make it not to grow. You know, those
are David's words and that would be our words as well, but that's
also the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ
can stand before the Father and say, although my house be not
so with God. If you look at them, they're
a mess. They're a mess. Yet you've made with me an everlasting
covenant and it's ordered. You ordered it and I made it
sure. I ratified the covenant. I supplied
all the necessary requirements of the covenant. And this is all their salvation. All their salvation. The God
of Bethel is the covenant-keeping God of grace. I am the God. The ladder, at the end of the
ladder, the Lord is there and He says, I am the God of your
father Abraham. I'm the God of your father Isaac.
I'm the same one that made that covenant promise to them, and
I'm here repeating that same covenant promise to you. It hasn't
changed. It hasn't changed. It's the same
gospel. It's the same message. Religion
is always trying to figure out a way to appeal to the masses
and always trying to figure out a way to relate to their culture. But what do we do? We just preach
the same gospel. We declare the same truth. We're
not interested in dressing it up or making it relevant. We're
interested in declaring it in its full glory. Look at verse 15, And behold, I am with thee, and
will keep thee in all the places with that thou goest. And I will
bring thee again into this land, for I will not leave thee until
I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. The blessing of Bethel is God
Himself. That's the blessing. The blessing
that we seek is for the Lord Himself to shine His face upon
us, for Him to confirm to us and convince us more fully of
His love for us. That's our hope. He told Abraham,
He said, I am your exceeding great reward. What else is there? Oh, to know Him? To know Him? To have Himself made known to
us? Isaiah said, I saw the Lord.
He was high and lifted up. His train filled the temple,
the seraphim hovered over the throne and cried, Holy, holy,
holy is the Lord God of hosts. That's everything. If the Lord's
pleased to make himself known to us, we've got it. We've got all the blessings of
God. That's why Paul wrote in Colossians,
to set your affections on things above, where Christ is seated
at the right hand of God. Look to Christ. How often times
we see in the scriptures, looking unto Jesus, who is the author
and the finisher of our faith. Look to Christ. Come to Christ.
Believe upon Christ. Rest in Christ. To know Him. The Lord put it like this Himself.
He said, this is life eternal. This is life. And this is life
eternal, that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus
Christ whom thou hast sent. To know Him as your advocate
before the Father? To know Him as your sin-bearer? To know Him as your righteousness
before God? To know Him as the One who bore
all your sins on Calvary's cross and satisfied the demands of
God's divine justice? To know Him as a friend that
sticketh closer than a brother? To know Him as your Savior? to know Him in His righteousness
and in His resurrection. These are the things that we
know. We know. Paul said, I know whom I have
believed. I'm persuaded, absolutely persuaded
that He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him
against that day. The blessing of Bethel is the
Lord Himself. The confession of Bethel is seen
in verse 16. And Jacob awoke out of his sleep.
Well, there's the first confession. There's the first confession.
I was in a stupor. I was spiritually dead. I was asleep. When you're asleep, you're out
of touch with reality. You're living in a dream world. Your sphere of reality is nothing
more than a figment of your imagination and that's what it is before
we come to Bethel. Before the Lord is pleased to
put our head on a rock and open our hearts and show us the ladder
and cause the angels of God to ascend and descend upon Him and
speak to us and reveal to us His covenant mercies, we're just
asleep. We're just asleep until that
happens. And he said, surely the Lord
is in this place. This is the confession of those
who are at Bethel. This is the house of God. I believe that where two or three
are gathered together in my name, there He is in the midst of them.
I believe that He inhabits the praise of His people. I believe
that He walks among the candlesticks. I believe that. I believe that
He's pleased to make Himself known in this place in a way
that He's not pleased to make Himself known anywhere else.
That's why I'm here. That's why you're here. That's
why we come. Lord, would you wake me up? Would you wake me up? You know, again, we've gotten
to the age where we just sleep really light. The least little
noise, I'm awake. And once I'm awake, it's hard
to go back to sleep. But children aren't that way,
are they? Young people aren't that way. I mean, you've got
to beat them to get them out of bed. And isn't that the way
we are? Oh, that we could be more mature.
Lord, would you not enable me? I'm so easily... I can go to sleep so quickly,
and I'm so hard to wake up. Lord, would you cause me to be
awake? Cause me to know that this is
the house of God. This is the place. The Lord is
here, and I knew it not. I just didn't know it. I didn't
know it until he was pleased to make himself known to me. And you know, even as
believers, how often times we come to this place and we don't
really expect things. We don't anticipate the Lord
to make himself known like he's promised to do. And we can say,
I was asleep. The Lord is here, and I knew
it not, but I'm so glad that I do now. And if we know it not,
and we're asleep when we come in, oh, that we would leave awake
and confessing that He met with us. Look at verse 17, and he
was afraid. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. That is wisdom. To stand in awe
of God. To worship Him. To know that
He is in the heavens and that we are upon the earth. That we
are completely dependent upon Him. And to stand in awe of His
grace and His mercy and His love. To be able to say with John,
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon me. That's worship. That's worship. This matter of
being in awe of God and having reverential fear of God is not
just fear of His power. It's an awe of His love and His
mercy and His grace that He would be so merciful to do that for
me. I was afraid. I was afraid. And look what he
says, And I said, How dreadful is this place! This is none other
but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. Do you believe that? This is the place. He said, And
if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me. And as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of
Man be lifted up. And as He's lifted up, as He's
preached, as He's exalted, the window of heaven is opened. And
we're able to peer into the very presence of God. And what do
we see? What do we see? If we've heard
the gospel, what do we see? We see the Lord Jesus Christ
seated at the right hand of the majesty on high and we see ourselves
in Him. That's our hope. That's my only
hope. That all the blessings of God
are in the heavenlies in Christ right now. That that's where
I'm at. There's my salvation. Look at verse 18. And Jacob rose
up early in the morning and took the stone that he had put for
his pillows and set it up for a pillar. Now the church, Paul
said in 1 Timothy chapter 4, is the pillar and the ground
of the truth. And here now this pillow has
become a pillar to uphold, to stand as a testimony of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and it's drenched with oil. We just read in Psalm
how the Lord Jesus Christ was anointed with the oil of gladness
above His fellows. He has the full anointing of
the Spirit of God. He's the Christ. He came in the
power of the Spirit of God in order to accomplish the salvation
of His people. And now Jacob is setting up this
rock as a pillar and pouring oil upon it in a testimony of
worship. Of worship. This is what we do
in Bethel, isn't it? It's what we do in Bethel. We
set up the pillar. We pray for the Lord to pour
out the oil of His Spirit. And we're able to say with the
Apostle Paul, we are the true circumcision, which worship God
in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence,
no confidence in the flesh. This is worship. Look at verse 19, and he called
the name of the place Bethel. the house of God. But the name
of the city was called Luz at the first." What did Luz mean? To turn aside. To turn aside. To pervert the truth. Now it's
Bethel. Now we know something of the
truth of God. And look at verse 20, And Jacob
vowed a vow, saying, If God be with me, and will keep me in
this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment
to put on, so that I come again to my Father's house in peace,
then shall the Lord be my God." Now, David, Jacob's not making
a deal with God here. Don't read it with that condition.
He's saying, if the Lord will feed me with the bread of life,
if He'll cover my nakedness with the righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ. If He'll be pleased to keep me
and to provide for me until I get back to my Father's house, then
He will have proven Himself to be the Lord my God. Because if He doesn't feed me,
I'll starve. If He doesn't dress me, I'll
be naked. And if He doesn't keep me and
present me back to my Father's house, I won't make it back.
I won't make it back. And this stone, which I have
set for a pillar, shall be God's house. And of all that thou shalt
give me, I will surely give a tenth unto thee." The gratitude of
those who live in Bethel is to express their love, their dependence,
their appreciation, their gratitude to God by being givers. That's just what they do. They
acknowledge that everything they have came from the Lord, everything
they have belongs to the Lord, and they give cheerfully, gladly,
rejoicing in knowing that it's all His. It's their way of worshiping
Him. It's one of the expressions of
worship that God has given them, and they delight in being able
to do it. The blessings of Bethel. I pray
that Jacob's experience at Bethel will be your experience and my
experience here in this Bethel. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we ask that You would cause Your Word now and these glorious gospel
truths to be effectual in our hearts. We ask it in Christ's
name, Amen. you