Let's go to Genesis chapter 28.
Genesis 28. As I was wrapping this up, I
realized, you know, this could actually be many messages out of this
chapter. I'm going to try and put it into one, but I think
we'll come back at some point, Lord willing, and look at some
of these things more deeply. Chapter 28 says, well, Let me just say here that this
chapter teaches us that our needs, all our needs are met in Christ. And what the Lord shows us is
that all his communications with his people, every gift, every
blessing, every provision that we need is given to us in the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's in, by, and through Jesus
Christ. The scriptures back this up.
Paul wrote to Timothy saying in 2 Timothy 1.9 that God hath
saved us and called us within holy calling not according to
our works but according to his own purpose and grace which was
given us in Christ Jesus. It's given to us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. Again, we know this one, I quote
it a lot, Ephesians 1, 3, where we hear that God hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. Everything we have is given to
us in Christ. Every good and perfect gift cometh
down from the Father of lights, from heaven above, and it's communicated
to us in Christ, in Christ. So this chapter, it opens with
Isaac sending his son Jacob away to find a wife from the household
of Laban, or of Bethuel, the father of Rebekah and Laban. And Rebekah is the mother of
Jacob and Esau. And he's sending him to Laban's
house to find a wife. And he did this because Rebecca
persuaded him that she couldn't bear the thought of her son marrying
another Canaanite woman like Esau had done. But she did this,
she really did this, because providentially, God had brought
her word, made her to know, probably through another servant who heard
Esau say what he was going to do to Jacob when Isaac died. He was going to put Jacob to
death. He was going to please himself by putting his brother
to death because Jacob had not only taken his birthright, but
now the blessing of his father was stolen by Jacob. And Isaac
says in verse two, arise, go to Paddan Aram, to the house
of Bethuel, thy mother's father, and take thee away from there,
of the daughters of Laban, thy mother's brother. And God Almighty
bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou
mayest be a multitude of people. And give thee the blessing of
Abraham to thee, and to thy seed with thee, that thou mayest inherit
the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham. In this Providence, sometimes
we look at the circumstances, the providential circumstances
that we go through, our pain, our suffering, our diseases,
our loss, our trials, and we look at these things and feel
like Providence is frowning upon me. There's dark clouds of Providence
that are raining down hell, and heavy rain, and it's just troubling
me, and there's thundering and lightning, and we feel like the
providence of God is frowning upon us. But in this, in this
providence of God, God purposed to reveal His salvation to His
chosen child, Jacob. God was going to manifest himself
in a very special, gracious way as Jacob was going through the
wilderness fleeing from his brother who wanted to murder him because
of the trouble that Jacob had brought upon himself in all of
this. And so the Lord reveals his gospel
salvation to Jacob here in this chapter, recorded in this chapter,
and he receives the blessing of God in Christ to know him,
to know his God, to know his Savior, to call upon him as his
God and Savior. And so this is a special blessed
time for Jacob, though he doesn't know it yet. You see, Jacob,
In this chapter here, we see a sinner. We see a lost sinner
brought by God under covenant blessings. He's still in darkness. He's still working up all kinds
of works in the flesh by the way he operates. It's just what
comes easy to him and natural to him. But the Lord God had
chosen Jacob. Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. And Jacob is a squirrely man.
Jacob is a tricky fella, a deceitful fella. He does things in a manner
that is very fleshly and very carnal. But God had brought him
under the covenant blessings, right? He had given him that
blessing of Abraham. And yet Jacob really didn't understand
these things. He really didn't have much of
a knowledge about what this really meant. We know he understood
something because he pursued it. He wanted the blessing. He
wanted those things. But how well he understood them
seems to be at a very superficial or very carnal, fleshly way that
he saw it. It was more about maybe physical
blessings or things like that. He really didn't have a deep
understanding and knowledge. And so he's still in darkness. And he still has much to taste
and experience in the grace of God. And so the Lord is the one
who stirred up this providence in bringing forth this enmity
out of the heart of Esau. Jacob no sooner receives the
blessing than persecution rises up to pursue him and to afflict
Jacob. And so this caused Jacob to go
out from his father's house. And he's alone now. He's in a
desert place. He's still in Canaan, but he's
in a desert place. And he comes to a spot where
he lays his head down to sleep. And again, he had this certain
level of understanding. But one thing that we see here
is that though he practiced the religion of Abraham and Isaac.
He knew what his father Isaac, he had a certain understanding
of what his father Isaac believed. He knew Abraham, he had a certain
understanding of what Abraham believed and practiced. And yet
we see here a man full of carnal ways and carnal practices and
how he goes about his business. And so you could say that, you
know, looking at it, just looking at the chapter, you could say,
well, this man got all these blessings in a very fleshly manner
by the hand of flesh. He secured a lot of these things
and doing what we would say is some very fleshly works and how
he got them. And it's a picture to us of what
we see in the Pharisees when our Lord came. These were men
who were knowledgeable practitioners of religion. They knew the scriptures. They practiced the law. They
did a lot of things right, but they didn't know Christ. And
here's Jacob doing works of the flesh. And what did the works
of the flesh look like? If you go over to Galatians 5, Galatians 5 19 through 22, now the works of the flesh, right,
this is different than the fruit of the spirit, but the works,
what we bring forth of the flesh, are manifest. They're made known,
which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath,
strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness,
revelings in such light right we see that we see that in Esau
he hated his brother he was angry with his brother and in wrath
he wanted to murder his brother and we see those same works in
Jacob here who envied his brother and who caused strife in his
family by getting the things he got in fleshly ways. And what the Lord is teaching
his people is that, yes, we do know a lot of things, and we've
all practiced and had our time in religion. We look back and
reflect on it. And the Lord was very gracious
not to leave us in that darkness, but to keep bringing us through.
And our Lord said to the Pharisees, search the scriptures, for in
them you think you have eternal life, and they are they that
testify of me. And so he's showing us, he's
delivering us from just dead letter religion and thinking
this practice of religion is our salvation. And he brings
us to see this is all speaking of Christ. It's all leading us
to Christ. He's the Savior. He is salvation. Not the practice of Christianity. That's not salvation. Christ
himself is the salvation of his people. And that's what he's
making us to know. And so Jacob, this fleshly man,
supplanted his brother Esau. in order to obtain the birthright
and to get the blessing of Abraham, and he did it by fleshly means.
He tricked Esau to get the birthright. He deceived his father Isaac
to get Esau's blessing, and he supplanted him by scheming. That's
what Jacob means, supplanter. Whether you're supplanting somebody
by force, that's not Jacob, or by scheming, that's Jacob. Esau
was a mighty man. He could have taken Jacob. If
they went toe to toe, he would have beat him up. But through
deceit and trickery, Jacob overcame his brother as a supplanter.
And so that's what we're seeing there. And because of his works
of the flesh, he's now getting out of there. He's fleeing his
brother because he's caused trouble. But this is all according to
the providence of God. God is overruling all these works
for good. to work salvation in the heart
of him whom he loved, in Jacob. Jacob, the worst man according
to the flesh. And so God is revealing his purpose
to save this sinner, Jacob, and he's gonna show him the only
hope for sinners is Jesus Christ. This is good news for needy sinners.
This is good news for you and I who are sinful people who have
nothing to boast in, no righteousness of our own, but see our works
are wicked and full of flesh. We need the grace of God. We
need His salvation. So we're told in verse 10, Genesis
28 10 and Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran
and so Beersheba is that that well that means the well of the
oath I think the sevenfold oath meaning it's a perfect oath and
he went out from there toward Haran which is the place where
Abraham came out from under the rule of Nimrod and went to that
land of Haran and temporarily. And he lighted upon a certain
place. He's in between there. He's still
in Canaan. He came upon a certain place.
It's a certain place because this is where God purposed to
reveal and manifest. the glory of his salvation in
Jacob's understanding in his heart and to deliver him from
death and darkness. And he tarried there or stayed
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. So here has been set up for us
now a picture for every one of us. This is a picture of every
one of us in sin, in Adam, right here, what we just read. This
is our condition that's been described here. Like Jacob We
fell in Adam. We come forth of that man's corrupt
seed. Through him sin and death entered
into the world, and we were in him. And we come forth corrupt,
depraved, vile sinners in darkness, not knowing the true and living
God. You could say it this way. We left our father's home. We
left the fellowship of God. We went out into the wilderness. Just like Jacob here, he left
that comfort and safety of his father's home and now ventured
out into darkness because of sin and death here. And the stones
of this place, what are the stones of this place? It's the law of
Moses. That's what he laid his head
down upon. He laid his head down upon the law of Moses. And the law, we're told, is not
made for a righteous man. The law is made for the lawless,
for the disobedient, for the ungodly, and for sinners, for
unholy and profane, and so on. That's what the law is made for,
to show you and me that we're sinners before holy God. Not made for a righteous man.
And so our sleep on these stones here, this law of Moses, which
he gathered up and laid his head down and went to sleep, the sleep
on these stones is the sleep of death and trespasses and sins. That's the picture that is being
shown here. This man is dead. This man has
no righteousness of his own. This man can work no righteousness
to save himself. He's in darkness. The light of
the sun has gone down. And he's in darkness. And he's
under the curse of the law by nature. That's the picture here
in these verses. Jacob doesn't find out God by
his goodness. But God's about to reveal to
him Christ. And we could see from this that
it wasn't because Jacob's a good guy. It wasn't because Jacob
earned it or turned God to be favorable to him. God was gracious
to Jacob because God is gracious. He chose to be gracious to Jacob. He loved Jacob, chose him in
Christ before the foundation of the world. What we're learning, what our
Lord is showing us through all the scripture which testifies
of who? The Lord Jesus Christ. We're
seeing here that the salvation of God rests entirely in the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's what he's bringing you
to see. It's all in Christ. Verse 12, and he dreamed and
behold a ladder. Jacob's asleep, contributing
nothing to this, and he sees a ladder. Behold, a ladder is
brought to his attention. And behold, a ladder set up on
the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold,
the angels of God ascending and descending on it. So the scripture
here is telling us a wonderful thing. The scripture is calling
your attention and saying, behold, Look at this. Look and wonder
what God has done here. A ladder set up on the earth
and the top of it reached to heaven. And then again, we'll
see, behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on that
ladder. And so what is this ladder? This
ladder is Jesus Christ. We don't even have to debate
that or argue over whether that's true, because Jesus Christ himself
tells us that he is the ladder. At the end of John chapter 1,
verse 51, the last verse, when Christ is talking to Nathanael,
he said, verily, verily, I say unto you, hereafter ye shall
see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending
upon the Son of Man, upon that ladder, just like Jacob saw.
Christ is telling you he is the ladder. Christ the Lord, Christ
is our Lord and our Savior. And so he's described as a ladder
in this way. He's a ladder set upon the earth. And that speaks to the human
nature of our Lord, who took upon him the likeness of this
sinful flesh, yet was without sin. This ladder touches the
earth. Christ came down in the flesh
and touched this earth, to be made like unto his brethren for
our deliverance. Then it says the top of it reached
to heaven. That speaks of His divine nature.
He is the Son of God come in the flesh. That's the first wonder. Behold look at this. God has
come down in the flesh. Isn't that what Paul said to
Timothy? Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh,
justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the
Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. That's a picture of the angels
ascending and descending upon Christ the latter. And behold
it goes on, behold the angels of God ascending and descending
on it. Here's a second wonder. What this is saying is Christ
has opened the door to heaven. Christ has made the way of salvation
whereby we may know the Father. whereby we may have fellowship
with God, be reconciled to Holy God, and know the true and living
God, and receive that grace and knowledge and understanding of
who the true and living God is, and to worship Him, not in the
flesh, but in spirit and in truth, have fellowship with Him. He
speaks, and we speak to Him in Christ. In other words, He reveals
Himself to us through Christ, And he takes our prayers and
our works, the fruits that we bear, not for salvation, but
in joy and gladness, and they're washed in the blood of Christ,
and he receives them in Christ. Everything we have, all the knowledge
and fellowship we have with God is in Christ, the latter. And
it's all done in him. And so this is a wonder, brethren,
that the door of heaven is open. Christ doesn't close heaven to
us, He opens it. Christ doesn't close the fountain
of God's forgiveness to us, He opens it. He is the one who brings
it forth to us. He is the one who bids us come.
John said, After this I looked, and behold, a door was opened
in heaven. That's Christ, Christ who was
redeemed. He opened that door in heaven.
There is now communication from God. There is now light from
heaven that we may know Him and glory in Him. Come unto me, Christ
says, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. It's open. He's not shutting
people out. It's open. You that are needy
sinners, vile, wretched sinners, look to Christ. He's opened the
door in heaven. He is the ladder that extends
from earth to heaven and heaven to earth. He is the one by whom
we know the true and living God. The prophet Zechariah tells us
of what it would be like when Christ came in the flesh. He
said, In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house
of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for
uncleanness, and to this Savior Prophet Isaiah bids the sinner
come. He says, ho, everyone that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters. And he that hath no money, come
ye, buy and eat. Come and let him, sorry, come
buy wine and milk without money and without price. He's bidding
the sinner to come to him. To come to Christ, the fountain
opened for sin, to cleanse us of our sin. Jesus himself said,
if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. Let him come unto me and drink. And then in Revelation 22, 17,
it says, and the spirit and the bride say, come. And let him
that heareth say, come. And let him that is athirst come,
and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Freely. It's open. Christ has opened
the way. He's the salvation of God. Does
that sound close to you? Does that sound like He's shutting
you out? Pushing you down, making you
go through hoops and all kinds of tricks and to do this. You
can't say that I'm your Lord until you do this. You can't
say that I'm your Savior until you know that. No, He doesn't
put these things in front of you, between you. Man does that,
right? Closes the table. You can't come
here. You don't want nobody coming here, right? He opens. He opens the door. He brings
His people in to partake of Him. I like how one man said it. He said, if you do not exclude
yourself by unbelief, God has not excluded you. In other words,
if you hear that Christ is the Savior, if you know that He is
the salvation of God, that He is the righteousness of God,
that you're a sinner before the true and living God, that you
need him and have no other righteousness but him, and you believe you
want to venture on him and cast all your care, but you're afraid,
what if he didn't do this for me? Well, let me say that if
you believe him and cry out to him, he says, all who cry out
to me for mercy, you'll receive mercy. I will turn no one away.
who comes to me seeking for grace and forgiveness, for mercy and
salvation. I didn't come to shut people
out. I came to open the way to heaven. I came to give salvation
to all sinners who need me. That faith that you have, that
little smoke, that little ember of Lord, me, even me, you will
receive me, that's not the fruit of the flesh. The flesh doesn't
have fruit. It has works. But the fruit of
the Spirit is to give you faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the evidence of faith. That's the evidence. Faith is
the gift of God. And if you believe, don't let
any man stop you or prevent you from coming. Believe Him. Call
upon Him. Ask. Knock. It'll be opened unto
you. You'll receive. You that believe
him and cry out to him for mercy, because that's what he works
in his people, because that's what he sent Christ to do, to
open the door to heaven. Now needy sinners come to Christ
and they find that all the blessings of God are freely given in Christ
alone. This is how God communicates
to His people. It's in Christ. It's in the Lord
Jesus Christ. All the blessings of God are
revealed and given to us through Christ. We're told in John 1
18, No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son,
which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. You that worship God in spirit
and in truth, That's for Christ's sake. You know and worship God
in spirit and truth because Christ has obtained that righteousness
for you. He's obtained our justification. He's sanctified us. He gives
us his spirit. He teaches us the true and living
God. And that's how we worship and know God is in Christ because
he reveals him to us. And so we see this being revealed
upon this ladder in Christ. Look at verse 13 now, 13 through 15. And behold, the Lord
stood above it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy
father. and 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 in thy seed, shall all families of the earth be blessed. Now
watch what he says here in verse 15. And behold, I am with thee. God chose you that are His. He brought you into covenant
fellowship with Him. He brought you under His covenant
of grace and established that covenant of grace all by the
work of Jesus Christ, by His redemption work. And God says,
I will keep thee. We're redeemed by the blood of
Christ and His blood prevails over all our enemies. so that
we're his purchased possession and nothing takes us from him.
In all places, he says, whither thou goest, I'll be with thee,
and will bring thee again into this land. He's out in the wilderness,
and God's saying, I'll bring you into this land, this land
of promise here. What is Canaan? It's a type of
heaven. It's a type of our heavenly inheritance
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what Christ has done
for us. He's promised that I will return. I've purchased you and
I'm gonna come and pick you up. I'm gonna bring you to myself
and bring you back to this promised inheritance that I've spoken
to you. I'm gonna do that. And that's
what he's saying here to Jacob. And then he says, for I will
not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee."
What he's saying there is just as God promises us through the
gospel given to us in Christ that he saves to the uttermost
in and by the Lord Jesus Christ, that's what he's saying here.
I will not leave you till I've till I've effectually delivered
you from death and brought you to myself. I'll do all these
works. And that's what we're taught
in the gospel. He which hath begun a good work in you will
perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1.1.6. And
again, 1 Thessalonians 5.24. Faithful is he that calleth you
who also will do it. And then again, Matthew 121,
thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his people
from their sins. He'll not come short of the salvation
of God because he's promised it and fulfilled it in Christ
Jesus. Now, after this declaration of
God's gospel to Jacob, Jacob wakes up. from his sleep and
death, right? He wakes up. He's now heard. The porter has opened the door,
and Christ has entered in, and he speaks, and Jacob's heard
his voice, and now he's raised from the dead, from that spiritual
death. He confesses faith in the promise
of God, which is Christ. which is Christ, that's what
he professes. And so God revealed himself to
Jacob, how? By this ladder. That's how the
Lord reveals himself to us, by Jesus Christ, through the preaching
of the gospel. And he reveals all those truths
which he spoke there to Jacob, that's what he's revealed to
your hearts, you that believe Christ. Now, Verse 18-19 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, and poured
oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that
place Bethel. But the name of that city was
called Luz at the first. And so what do we see here? Jacob,
who's now raised from the dead, who's heard the voice of the
Son of God speak to him. He sees the true and living God
in Christ. Well, he's built his hope upon
the rock, which is Christ. He's now leaning all his hope
on Christ, who's been revealed to him. Because why? Christ has
satisfied the law for us. When our head laid on that law,
we were dead in trespasses and sins. Christ came and satisfied
the law, delivering us from the hand of justice and brought us
to himself and covered us in his righteousness. And now he
is that solid rock upon which we stand. Not standing on wishy-washy
sand getting washed out. We're standing on the rock. on
the rock, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, in addition to that,
we're given a new name. A new name, like this place was
called Luz, which I think means almond tree. It's now Bethel,
the house of God. Brethren, you that believe Christ
are given a new name, signifying, what it's saying is we're new
creatures. We are born again, new creatures, made anew by Christ,
and old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what all these
pictures and the way they word it, New creatures, new name,
born again, it's all showing us that we're made alive by Christ. Everything that was needed is
by Him. And so we stand in Christ who
satisfied the law for us. Now verse 20 and 21, and Jacob
vowed a vow saying, if God will 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, that's probably not the
best translation of that word, if then, it probably should be,
if God will be with me, it should be, since God will be with me.
In other words, Jacob's not bargaining with God. Jacob is reasoning. He's saying, wait a minute, if
God's shown me these things, then these things will be so.
If God's done this, then he's gonna do all this work. It's like what Manoah's wife,
Manoah was the dad of Samson and his wife, Samson's mom, and
Manoah saw God and was afraid that God was gonna kill him.
And what did the wife say? Wait a minute, if God wanted
to kill us, why did he show us all these things? And so that's
what he's saying. Jacob's saying, wait a minute,
God just showed me this glorious gospel truth, he's shown me the
latter, which is Christ. And if he's shown you Christ,
then he's done it for your good. If you hear his voice and you
see that Christ is all, God's giving you that for your good,
for your healing, for your food, for your nourishment, for For
everything we need, he's showing us that Christ is the way, the
truth, and the life. That's how we come to the Father
is in Christ. God gave him bread to eat. That's
the bread of heaven. He said, if you give me that
bread of heaven, if you give me Christ, the living bread,
I'll eat and be fed and be nourished in him and be strengthened in
him. God gave him raiment to put on. That's the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was clothed with that righteousness
which only comes by Jesus Christ. So that when we stand before
God, our nakedness isn't hanging out all over the place. Our garments
are solid, fit, they're perfect. Perfect, spotless, white righteousness
in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's all obtained by Him. And
then God brought him back to his father's house in perfect
peace. We'll see that as we go through
the chapters. What is that? That's Christ bringing
us back to the Father, reconciling us in perfect peace through what
He has done. And so when we're raised from
the dead, we shall stand before the throne of God spotless. Spotless. It says in Revelation
14, 5, they are without fault before the throne of God. Without
fault before the throne of God. And finally, verse 22. This stone,
he says, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house. And all that thou shalt give
me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee. What he's saying there,
and what our Lord teaches us, is that Christ is our temple. He's our temple in whom we worship
the true and living God. Christ is the temple. He's how
we know God and how we worship Him. with his spirit dwelling
in us, and him being our Lord, our Savior, and our all, we give
to the Lord the fruits of our labors. In other words, he bears
fruit in us. There was a time when we tried
to bring forth fruit in the works of the flesh, and Paul says in
Romans 7, 5, he said those were dead works. Those were fruit
unto death. but now in Christ by our husband
we bring forth fruits unto God. And it's the righteousness of
Christ working in us where his workmanship created in Christ
Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we
should walk in them. And so from this passage, brethren,
We see Jacob, a sinner, just like we were born sinners, dead
in trespasses and sins, but he's saved entirely by the grace of
God. When you go back and read this
again, Just look, it's all the grace of God unto the praise,
honor, and glory of his name who saved us in, by, and through
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the latter. And blessed
are your eyes and your ears which see Christ and believe him. Amen.