Guide me, O thou great Jehovah. That's who was guiding Jacob
and who guides all the sons of Jacob. Go back to Genesis 28
now. This begins the life of Jacob. Many chapters devoted to Jacob
or his life, his story. Jacob, who later the Lord named
Israel. This tells of his birth, his
upbringing, his leaving home, his wandering, his salvation,
his marriage, children, grandchildren, trials, troubles, and his death. His death. Jacob. And our stories
are written, every one of God's people. Their story is written,
and this is it. It's the same. Sons of Jacob. Jacob was God's chosen. Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. He said, I'm the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. I am the Lord, he said, I change
not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob. Oh happy, blessed is he or she
that hath the God of Jacob for their help. Jacob, his name means
cheat. Jacob, his name means supplanter,
deceiver. He deceived his brother, he deceived
his father, and the worst of all, he was deceiving himself. A deceiver. God only saves Jacobs,
those who know what they are. The Lord is going to show Jacob,
you're a Jacob. Jacob didn't know the Lord. Jacob didn't know the Lord, like
some in here don't know the Lord. He knew about Him. He heard from
his parents about Him. He could tell you some things
about the Lord, but he didn't know the Lord. He's going to. He's not seeking the Lord. He's
seeking a wife. He's not seeking the Lord. He's
seeking a wife. Bless God. God's seeking Him. The Lord's seeking Him. This
is my story. I'm a Jacob. Jacob hasn't yet
called on the Lord. He hasn't called on the Lord. Because the Lord hasn't called
on him. But he's going to. The Lord is going to call on
him. And that's the first thing Jacob's going to do. Call on
the Lord. Oh, my. No man, woman, child
will seek, come, call, repent, believe until the Lord speaks
to them like He did Jacob. Until the Lord comes to them,
I pray it may be so of someone in here today. This was the day
of Jacob's salvation. Wouldn't that be wonderful if
it was someone's salvation this morning? Mine. I need to hear it again. The
Lord seeks Jacob. He finds Jacob. He calls Jacob. He reveals himself to Jacob. He shows Jacob the way to God,
the way to heaven. He blesses Jacob. He gives promise
after promise to Jacob, puts the fear of God in Jacob, and
from that day forward, leads, guides, directs, provides, keeps,
sends things he needs, and takes him all the way home into his
bosom. That's salvation. Salvation is
of the Lord. Jacob had a love. He saw it. Now, Jacob, verse 10, says, Jacob
went out from Beersheba. toward Haram. Jacob, as I said,
he's a cheat. He's a supplanter. He's a deceiver. He's deceived his father now
and his brother before that, and himself, worst of all. He's running from his brother. Over in chapter 35, don't turn,
but he's recounting what happened to him. He said, in the day of
my distress, When I was running, God came to me. You know, me,
I was running. I didn't know what I was running
from. Weren't we, Kevin? John? Running. I don't know what
we were running from. Running to? Mischief, mostly.
Jacob's running. He's running from his fear. Everybody
fears something. You know that? Everybody fears
someone or something. Everybody's looking for peace,
for happiness, for contentment, for joy, for security. Everybody's
looking for security in something or someone in this world. Everybody
wants to settle down, have a peaceful life and security and safety. You're not going to find it in
anybody or anything in this world. You're not going to find it anywhere.
But in God, He is our peace. Christ said, I am your peace. He said, in this world, you are
going to have tribulation. Nothing but trouble in this world. With the people of this world,
trouble at home, trouble without, trouble within. The only peace
you're going to find is in me. I am your peace, He said. You're
not going to have any peace or contentment until you know the
Lord. And the fear of the Lord is a
beginning of wisdom. That's how we know the Lord revealed
himself to Jacob. For the first time in his life,
he fears the Lord after this is over. Fear. There's no fear
of God before the world's eyes. You see that. The way they use
his name. The way they care less about
his son. But God. He finds some of these Jacobs,
finds them in false religion even, and puts his fear in them. Jacob
went out, it says. Every word is significant. Jacob
went out of his father's house. He went out. All the sons of
Jacob will be brought out, come out from among them, out of their
father's house. Didn't Abraham? Didn't God call
him out? out of his Father's house. The
Lord is going to deal with you individually. You're not going
to be saved by your parents or by your husband or wife or whoever.
The Lord is going to deal with you, with each one of us individually. He brings us out of our Father's
house, out of the world, outside the camp. Let us go, therefore,
unto Him outside the camp, out of religion. You're not going
to find Jesus Christ in modern religion. He's just not there.
The God of the Bible is not being preached in modern religion.
It's another God, a God that cannot say, a God that wants
to and can't. That's no God at all. A Jesus
that stands outside your heart door, hoping you'll let Him in. That's another Jesus, and everybody's
preaching that as a false prophet, and all that believe that don't
know the Lord. Because the Lord, like this Lord,
the Lord, comes to Jacob. And buddy, the Lord didn't ask
Jacob anything. He told him, that's the Lord
you're going to deal with. That's the Lord who's going to
come find you or else you're not going to look for Him. You're
not going to hear from Him. He's going to come to you and
say, not let me be God or let me be your Lord, but I am your
God. Everybody in this room doesn't
know that. They need to, we need to. Jacob lit on a certain place,
verse 11, tarried there all night. It's dark, sun's down, he's in
darkness. He takes the stone, of the stones,
he takes one stone actually, and puts it for his pillow and
lays down in that place to sleep. Jacob's in the dark, Oh my. There's darkness in the
world. The people that sat in darkness,
some see a great light. Upon them the light shines. At
nighttime, dark, ignorance, sin, religion. There's no more darkness
anywhere than in religion. Because if the light that is
in people be darkness, how great is the darkness. It seems harder
to save a religious person than it does an out-and-out hard Republican. It just seems that way, doesn't
it? Because it's a double darkness, the Lord says. They have a refuge
that they're not willing to give up. They have a God that they
believe in, and he's got to be killed first. Religion. But the Lord saves Saul like
he does thieves. The Lord saves some Nicodemuses
like he does a harlot. Same way. He's lying down. Jacob's lying in the dirt. I told you my story before, you
know, with that young man that lay down on that bench way on
down Key West. Jacob's as low as he can get.
He's in the dirt. He's in the dirt. That's a good
place to be. And he's got something under
his head. He doesn't know it. I started to name this message,
the title of this message, it's scriptural, From a Pillar to
a Pillar, or God Was Here and I Didn't Know It. Oh my, he's alone, he's afraid,
he's uncomfortable, he's lying on the ground, he's in the dust. The Lord's going to bring us
down. Every one of his Jacobs, he's going to bring us down.
Why? Because we need to. We need to be brought down. He's a sinner. Jacob's a cheat,
a supplanter, a conniver, a schemer, and a sorry son, and a sorry
brother, isn't he? I said we're never going to call
him sorry sons of Jacob, but I just did. For the sake of this
message, he is, isn't he? He's no different than Because of his sin, he brought
all this on himself. Lied to his dad. Lied to his
brother. He cheated. He brought all this
on himself. Now he's running, scaring his
brothers after him. Rightfully so, humanly speaking. And I'm trying to be honest.
I brought all my troubles on myself as a young rebel. marvelous miracle of God's grace
that I'm standing here before you today, believing Him. Everyone the Lord saves, He's
going to bring them low. He was asleep. He was asleep. Men are asleep, aren't they?
And if we're not awakened, if the Lord doesn't wake us up,
we'll sleep the sleep of death. People sleep through these messages
all the time. They're asleep. It's not a savior
of life. It's a savior of death. I want
to hear that. Oh, may the Lord awaken us. Us and our children,
our sons, our daughters, our spouses, our parents. He dreamed. Verse 12, He dreamed, and behold,
now this is no fable or fantasy. This is the truth. What He saw
here, He saw the Lord Jesus Christ. I started to have you go to Job
33. Read that for yourself. Elihu's message on how God deals
with sons. Job 33. The Lord showed Jacob
a ladder. Verse 12. A ladder set up on
earth. The top of it reached to heaven. It's a hind. When I came here 25 years ago,
Brother William Hodges was a painter and he had many ladders and I
needed to borrow one. He said, go over to the house
and Gladys will tell you where it is. He was on a job and I
went over there and I said, Gladys, I need a ladder. She said, you
want a hind? I said, what? She said, I want
a high one. A high one. Oh, a high one. Yes, I want a high one. I want
a tall one. She said, it's over here, back
behind the shed or whatever. A high one. This is a high one. I've got your attention now. This was no fantasy. It's no
fairy tale. Peter said, it's not cunningly
devised fable. The Lord showed Jacob what he
shows every one of his people, a ladder, something that reaches
from earth to heaven, high and lifted up. What's that? The way to heaven is not of what?
Jesus Christ is the way. He said, I am the way. Christ, God, was manifest in
the flesh. God came to earth. God set his
feet on earth when he was still in heaven. Now, how can that
be? How can God be man and man be
a God? Jesus Christ. He's the ladder. He's the way, the truth, and
the life. He's the one. That's His divinity. That's His humanity. On earth,
His feet on earth, His head in heaven. He's standing on earth. God stood on this earth in the
latter day. Job said that. He said, I know
this. I know my Redeemer liveth, and He shall stand at the latter
day upon this earth, and I will see Him. Yes, He did. We beheld
His glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth. The Lord Jesus Christ stood upon this earth, but He
was still in heaven. Now explain that. I can't. And I don't need to.
But that's Him. That tells us who He is. God
and man. God and man. The only mediator
between God and man. The only way to God. The only
one through whom, it says in verse 12, the angels of God were
ascending and descending on this ladder. The angels of God. were ascending and descending
upon this ladder. Everything, every blessing, every
word, every dealing with man, Jacob, came down from above. How? Through this ladder. God is only known in Jesus Christ. No man knoweth the Father but
the Son, and he to whom he will reveal it, and vice versa. We
don't know God except when Christ came, he had the clarity. The
only mediator between God and man. These blessings came down
from God through this ladder. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me, Christ said. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. It's at the point now where it's
not correct, politically correct, and it's even dangerous to say
that the Muslim religion or Hindu or whatever, Buddhist religion
is false religion. But it is. But I'm telling you,
I didn't say that. John Calvin didn't say that.
Jesus Christ said that. He said, No man cometh unto the
Father but by me. And what he means, and what he's
saying there is, it's not you and me. It's me. My work. My righteousness. My work. It's not our work. It's my work. It's not even your
faith. Faith just finding out. It's my faith, Christ said. It's
my keeping the law. Not you climbing this ladder.
Uh-uh. Not you climbing Mount Sinai. Uh-uh. Christ did that. He went up on that mountain alone.
Do you know what? We believe, Sam, that this is
the very place where Christ was crucified. You know that? This very spot. Don't we? We believe that's where, exactly
where, this is the place where David bought the threshing floor
from Aronah. This is the place where Christ
hung on that cross. Right here. This is what Jacob
sees. Who? He sees Christ. High and lifted up. Oh my. The only mediator between God
and man. All the blessings of God come down through Christ.
All the prayers. The only one God hears is Jesus
crying. The only one we pray to is Jesus
Christ. God doesn't hear anyone who prays
to Mary. There is one mediator between
God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. But let me tell you this,
God hears everyone who prays to Jesus Christ. Everyone who
believes Him. Everyone who calls for mercy,
no matter how bad. He hears them. Ready to hear. Ready to pardon. Through Jesus
Christ. That's why he sent him. That's
why he sent him. Down to this earth. Oh my, there's
so much here to be sent. The Lord Jesus Christ. This is
the Lord. And the one, verse 13, Behold,
the Lord stood above the ladder. Jacob saw the Lord. Jacob saw
the Lord. But wait a minute, no man hath
seen God at any time. Paul, the only begotten Son. He that hath seen me, Christ
said, hath seen the Father. I and the Father are one. Didn't he tell his disciples,
don't you believe that God's in me and I in him? The words
I speak, if you don't believe this, believe the works. No man
can do this except God be with him. God, we see God in the face
of Christ. He stood above it. Same Lord
that appeared to Moses, isn't it? Same Lord stood above it
and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy father, and the
God of Isaac. Again, the Lord Jesus Christ
is King of kings and Lord of lords, and this is one of his
This is one that he chose before the foundation of the world to
make himself known to this man, to save him from his sin, to
come to this earth and be a propitiation for his sins on Calvary's tree.
The one he's going to send the Holy Spirit to, to lead him and
guide him, direct him all his day. He's not going to ask him
one thing. He's not going to ask him to
cooperate. He's going to tell him. And this is the good news. This is the good news. This is
not fatalism. It's our hope. It's our peace,
our comfort. We have an unsaved child like
Isaac and Rebekah had Jacob. You know what their hope was?
That God would call him like He did them. Isaac said, Oh,
I hope He calls my son. I hope Jacob finds the Lord.
Isaac, you didn't find Him. He found you. Ask Abraham, his grandfather.
He'll tell you. The Lord came to me, called me
out of darkness into his marvelous light, came to me and wrestled
with me. I'm sure he wrestles with my
grandson. Our only hope is not fatalism,
it's Bible. Salvation of the Lord. See, how
does he do that? Not by us, but by declaring Christ,
by men seeing the letter, by just holding up the letter.
Holding up a serpent on a pole. How can anybody be healed of
a disease by holding a serpent or grass on a pole? Look! If you look, you'll find out.
It's a miracle. Salvation is of the Lord. It's
not of man, not of might, not of power, but by my Spirit, saith
the Lord. Preach to these bones, Ezekiel.
Preach! Can they live? Lord thou knowest,
they sure are dead though, they sure are dry, been there a long
time, sitting there a long time, haven't heard a thing. Preach!
Don't beg them, don't ask them, don't plead with them, don't
bribe them. Preach! Preach what? Behold your God,
all flesh is dressed. Behold my servants, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And do you save all the ends
of the earth? Where? Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. Look to the Lamb. Behold the
Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Will that
save people? No, that won't. He will. And
that's what he says. Preach. Who? Me. If I be lifted
up, I'm going to holler this if people don't think it's right.
He said, lift up your voice. He needs to be lifted up, and
when you declare Him... If you were standing here right
now, you'd want to shout. I wish you'd want to right there.
Some of you, I believe, would do. I'd do it for you. I'm shouting
vicariously. If I be lifted up, I'll draw
men to me." No, you don't plead with people to do this and do
that and get programs and entertainment and bring a choir in. They can
go to the harvester and see that. They can go to the harvester
and build a gymnasium. We've got to make friends of
them, don't we? We've got to give them something to do, give them interest. We've
got to bring the kids in and make them think we love them,
make them think we like them. No! Preach Christ! And you stand back and you watch.
And you watch. There won't be big crowds, big
flowing crowds of sheep. There'll be one here, one from
the north, come a long way, one from the south, come a long way,
one from the east, one from the west. They'll all come the same
way. How? Seeing Christ high and lifted
up. See their need of Christ. And
they'll all say like Jacob, The Lord was here, and I didn't
know it. I didn't know it. I sat where
you sit, young people, a long time, and I didn't see any beauty
in it. I'm waiting on a call, and I'm
waiting, well, what happened? Maybe, if you said the only elect
is saved, the only elect is saved. Okay, okay. I'll tell you what you'll find
out. You'll find out, and then you'll start calling. The Lord
said, the Lord stood above it, and he said, here's what all
he said, that he is and he will. He's saying, I have, I will,
because I am. Same thing, no difference. He
says, the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it. Not offer
it, give it. Salvation is a gift by grace,
not of works, lest any man should boast. Even faith is not of yourself. It's a gift of God. I give it.
Thy seed shall be as it shall be, as the dust of the earth.
Thou shalt spread abroad to the west, east, north, south in thee,
and thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. This
is a done deal. Behold, I am with thee, if God
be for us. False preachers all over the
place tell that to everybody. I see that on the back of 18
wheelers. Don't you, Stephen? You ever
seen that? God be for us. They're lying to people. God's
against a lot of people. God's not for everybody. If God's
against you, who's He talking to? Jacob. I'm with you. I'm against Esau. But if God be for us, who can
be against us? If God be against us, it doesn't
matter who's for us. It doesn't matter if the whole
world agrees. They're wrong. We're lost. I'm with thee, and
I will keep thee. O son of Jacob, is not this your
hope, your help, your salvation that he's going to keep you?
He that keepeth Israel. Jacob's asleep. He that keepeth
Israel shall not slumber or sleep. Behold, Israel's keeper, I will
keep thee in all places, whither thou goest, for he is omnipresent,
and will bring thee again to this land. For I will not leave
thee until I have done that which I said." I will finish what I began. I'm
the author and the finisher of faith. If I loved you, I'll always
love you. If I chose you, I'm going to
bring you. I'm going to bless you. I'm going
to save you. I'm going to keep you. You're going to be running.
We're going to study Jacob's life. Twenty-eight minutes is
all I've been through. We're going to study Jacob's
life, and he's going to get into a lot of trouble. Some of his
own making, some not. Tribulation? Nothing but tribulation
until he comes to sit with Joseph. Can't wait to get to that. And
he says, few in evil have been the days of my life. Oh, man
that is born a woman is a few days and full of trouble. But
Jacob, look, you're sitting with Joseph and it's all over. So
it's all good right now. It was all good, wasn't it? Why?
Because God is good. Because God is your God. Because
Christ is your God. That's why. Behold, I am, I will,
I have, I shall, and you shall. And Jacob, verse 16, awaked out
of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and
I knew it not. I sat and sat and sat under the
Word, and the Lord was in that place, and I didn't know it.
But thank God there was a day, same gospel, He awakened me out
of my sleep. And He said, verse 17, He was
afraid. Who's he afraid of now? God. God. Fear the Lord. And he said, how dreadful is
this place? I remember thinking, sitting
here in the gospel, it's not funny, but hearing the gospel,
thinking, and dreading to go there. It was dreadful in that
sense. Oh, man. Oh, well, I'll make
my parents happy. The dread here he's saying now,
terrible. The Lord's terrible. Dreadful
is the Lord. What he means is, oh, dread the
thought that I didn't know Him. Dread the thought that I'd be
without Him. This place is terrible in the
sense that God is sovereign and holy and righteous and I'm not. God who knows my thoughts. God
whom I've sinned against. God whom I've gone all my life
without giving a thought to. Christ whom I have not confessed. But when the Lord dealt with
me, and most in here, as soon as you really saw Christ and
you heard Him say, if you don't confess me, I'm not going to
let you in. Dreadful. Get me in that baptism. You've got to confess Him. You will. You'll marry Him. You'll
tell others. This is none other but the house
of God, the gate of heaven, the way to heaven. What's that? Christ. Christ. House of God. Temple
of God. Wherever two or three of you
are there, that's where he is. His house, his dwelling place.
And look at this, and I close. And Jacob rose up early in the
morning. He didn't do that before when
he was living at home. No. His parents had to wake him
up. Do you know how old Jacob is
here? He's about 50 or 60 years old. God's got to awaken an old son. But he never, his parents had
to wake him before. Isaac worshiped the Lord. Abraham,
come on son, we're going to worship the Lord. They don't have to
wake him now. He's up early. They that seek
the Lord early shall find him. Nobody has to tell him now. Why?
He knows the Lord. He fears the Lord. He wants to
worship the Lord. He has a need for the Lord. He
needs to hear from the Lord. He needs to worship. And he took
a stone that he had put for his pillows and set it up for a pillar. That pillar became his pillar.
What a beautiful, the Lord's Word is beautiful, isn't it?
A pillar became his pillar. His comfort became his keeper.
The one upon whom he rested is the one upon whom he stood. Christ
is both His comfort and His Lord, Sovereign. He's standing on a
rock and leaning on a rock. Stone that the builders rejected,
the chief cornerstone, that rock. Oh, their rock's not like our
rock. All this time, His head was laying on that pillar and
He didn't know it. Did you hear that? All this time
that he didn't know God, didn't know Christ, he's laying on,
he's in the hand of, under the safety of, the keeping of, In
the mind, in the heart, in the love, in the desire, precious,
this rebel, this sinner, this no-good cheat. And in the end,
he's going to say, I'm not worthy of the least of thy mercy. All
this time he's in the hands of this Lord he didn't know, didn't
care about. His head's laying on the rock. When he awakens, when the Lord
awakens him, he finds out, I've been laying on this stone. I've
been laying on the Lord. He's been keeping me all this
time. What am I going to do? Set Him up as a pillar, the pillar
and ground of the truth. Let everybody know it. Hey, I
didn't know it. I do now. Pour the oil on it. Christ, Spirit
without measure. Oh, He's worshiping now. He fears
the Lord. He's worshiping the Lord. And
he called that place Bethel, house of God. He's going to keep
coming back to Bethel, back to Bethel, back to Bethel. He's
going to run here, and the Lord's going to bring him back to Bethel.
To do what? The same thing. He's going to
keep hearing Robin and the same Lord say the same thing to him.
Why? Because Jacob have I loved. He's
mine. He's precious to me. And we'll
keep him. We'll keep him coming back to
Bethel. He's going to try to run, and
I'm going to run after him. Blessed, happy is he that God
had Jacob for his head. Some people hate this. Jacob
loves it. Jacob loves it. Well, and he
vowed a vow. Now, he's a young believer. Bear with him, okay? He's a young
believer. We still don't pray, ask for
things, or write. We still ask things amiss. We
still don't know. But this is what he's saying.
And he's talking to the Lord. He's praying. No story of him
praying until now. He bowed about. If God will be
with me and will keep me in this way that I go. Give me bread
to eat. What's Jacob want? Food. Number one, he wants God with
him. And then what else? Food and raiment. Something's
happened to this old boy. Salvation's come to his house.
You give me bread to eat, raiment to put on? Oh, what's that? You know, it's Christ. Did I
come again to my Father's house in peace? Give me peace? Then shall the Lord be my God.
What he's saying is, If I'm not lost, if I don't wander and fall
away and be lost forever, if God brings me back, He's got
all right, because I'm prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God. That's
what Jacob stood. David, in Psalm 119, in the very last verse,
he said, I've gone astray like a lost
sheep. Seek your servant." Here's a
Jacob right here. If I get to glory, it's because the Lord's my God.
If I get to heaven, it's because Jesus Christ loved me, gave himself
for me, and sent his Holy Spirit to lead, guide, protect, direct,
and bring me back, back to Bethel." And he set this stone for a pillar. That's what I've tried to do
today. Lay this stone in mourning for a pillar. The house of God. And all that thou shalt give
me, I will surely give the tenth. And God saved somebody. And Christ
reveals himself to a person. He's worth more than anything
and everything else. This gospel's worth is their
life. And so what they say is, like
Jacob, I'm going to give whatever it takes to erect this pillar,
pillar of truth. I'm going to give whatever it
takes, whatever I have to do. to ensure that this Bethel is
there, because I'm going to need it. And Jacob's boy is going
to need it, John. Jacob's boy. They're all a bunch
of sons of Jacob. They're just like him. Simeon
and Levi and all those fellows. Dan! Dan! What a rotten fellow
he was. They're all going to need Bethel.
They're all going to need to come to Bethel. So Jacob said,
I'm going to support it. I'm going to give everything
I have, if need be, that this place stands. Alright, let's
sing in closing. I forgot the number. 226. 226.