And the revelation that God gave
him of His grace, the Lord showed him a ladder that reached from
earth to heaven, connected earth to heaven, connected heaven to
earth. And that's our Lord Jesus. And blessed are your eyes if
you see that He is God's ladder. He is the One who's been appointed
to be that go-between. And we rejoice in Him. And Jacob, after seeing this
ladder and being a partaker of the grace of God, well, he called
the name of this place Bethel, meaning the house of God, the
gate of heaven. What is the house of God? Well,
this is not the house of God. We're the house of God. The people. It's people. It wasn't until
the 3rd century, something like that, that there were actually
churches that were built for the saints of God to worship
in up until that time. Like our Lord Jesus, He led people
in worship in houses, caves, by the seashore, in the open
air, on a boat, You see, here's where the house of God is. It's
wherever the people of God are. The people of God meeting through
the Lord Jesus, believing God. and honoring God wherever they
meet together. That's the house of God. It may
just be one. One person. It may be one person
watching tonight. You're by yourself. You know
the Lord's with you, but you're by yourself and you're honoring
God. You're worshiping God with us.
You're looking into the Scriptures. It's the house of God. You're
the house of God. And it's a wonder of God's grace
that He meets with us. That He sends His Spirit to bless
us and speak to us through the Word of the Lord. So wherever
the Lord is pleased to reveal Himself to people, that's Bethel. That's Bethel. The house of God. in the days of her great apostasy. God brought forth this indictment
against Israel, and He did so in the book of Hosea chapter
8 and verse 14. We won't take the time to look
at it, but God said, Israel hath forgotten its Maker, and buildeth
temples. They had a temple. But they built
temples. And there were temples of idols
where they worshipped false gods. There was but one temple and
God said, that's where I'm going to meet with you. And that's
where you can meet with me. And of course this goes all the
way back to the tabernacle. God said to Moses, He said to
the children of Israel, they're at the brazen altar where the
blood was shed, where the animal died and was hoisted up on the
brazen altar and burned unto God, a sacrifice unto God. God
said, that's where I'll meet with you. And that's where you'll
meet with Me. One place. And then Israel decided
they wanted many places. where they could meet with God.
The gods that they had incorporated into their religion. But God
still said, just one place that I'll meet with you. And they
insisted on having many, and it was an abomination to God. No wonder the Lord said later
on to Israel, right at the end of His ministry, He said, your
temple is left unto you desolate. It's your temple. Earlier he
said, you made my father's house a house of merchandise. It's
supposed to be a house of prayer. It should be a house of worship.
But he said, now it's your temple. It's your house. That's where
you honor yourself. And I dare say with most of the
religious edifices in this nation and across this world, church
buildings that men pretend are houses of worship are nothing
more than people coming together and believing and embracing a
false gospel. and they express themselves through
this false religion. They're not the house of God.
The house of God is not brick and mortar and wood and nails
and so forth. The house of God is a living,
a living group of people, or maybe just one or two people,
worshiping God through the Lord Jesus Christ. So Jacob has a
wonderful, wonderful time in Bethel. He never got over it. As we continue to study the life
of Jacob, we'll find out that he'll come back to Bethel. He
always remembered this. He never got over it. This is
where God converted him. This is where the Lord saved
him by His grace. Well, so Jacob clicks up his
heels and he goes further. He continues his journey. He
arrives at his destination. He meets Rachel. He meets her
father. He falls in love with Rachel.
And as the passage that I just read to you, he said to Laban,
Rachel's father, I'll serve you seven years. I'll serve you seven
years for the hand of Rachel. in marriage, and it seemed to
him but a few days. He was so thankful to do it.
And of course, and I've already mentioned this, our Lord Jesus
came into this world on a mission of mercy to save His people. And He did so without reluctance,
without dread. The Scripture says there was
no hesitation. He set His face as it were aflint
to go to Jerusalem. And His disciples, they discouraged
Him. Lord, You don't want to go to
Jerusalem. They're going to kill You there. But they couldn't
persuade Him otherwise. The Word of God had to be fulfilled.
The purpose of God had to come to pass. His own death and therefore
the redemption of His people. who were held hostage by God's
law and held captive by Satan. And he was glad to do it. Our Lord is not a reluctant Savior. He's able to save and He's willing
to save. And He does save. And He's not
like some preachers, unfortunately, have set Him forth as though
He holds salvation out in front of us, and then when we reach
for it, then He moves it a little further. That's not the way it
is. The Lord says, you shall seek Me, and you will find Me
when you search for Me with all of your heart. And when God puts
within our Our innermost being, a desire to know Him through
Christ Jesus. We believe Him. We rest in Him. We turn from our idols. We turn
from all of our religious works that we thought put us in good
standing with God. And we come to the Lord naked,
needing the clothing of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus. We come to
the Lord filthy in our sin. Lord, wash me. Lord, clothe me. I look to Christ Jesus only for
my salvation. And He saves us. He saves us. The Scripture says he's rich
in mercy to all that call upon him. Oh, if we would mean business
with God. That's what I pray for people
who'll be in earnest about God's salvation. Well, so Jacob serves Laban for
seven years, and then Laban tricks the trickster. He deceives the
deceiver. And he brings to him Leah instead
of Rachel. And we said last week, and I
won't go into it in great detail again, but she wore a veil over
herself to preserve her modesty. The bride would not speak on
the wedding night when the vows of marriage having been exchanged. Now it's consummated in the marriage
bed. And the next morning, Jacob wakes
up and he looks at who he thought would be Rachel. And he had a
bit of a shock. It wasn't Rachel at all. It was
Leah. And we just read this, and of
course he goes to Laban and he tells him, this isn't fair. What
have you done to me? And Laban says, well, it just
isn't right for the younger to get married before the elder.
And Jacob says, well, I'll serve seven years more for the privilege
of marrying Rachel, which he does. And Jacob now has two wives, but
that's not all. Laban had a maid, Zilpah, and
she was given to Leah to help her. And Laban had another maid,
Bilhah, to be her handmaid, gave it to Rachel. And Jacob will
have children by all four women. He'll have 12 sons and one daughter. Now here in the remainder of
chapter 29, and then into chapter 30, About half of it, we have the
births of 11 of Jacob's sons. Benjamin, who was the last one
born, born to Rachel, he will not be born until Genesis chapter
35, and we'll cover that when we get there. But by putting
together these sons and the meanings of their names, which their names
were not given to them by accident, but God purposed in the hearts
of these women and with Jacob to give these sons specific names
that all tell a story. They tell a story, a good picture
of the gospel of God's saving grace, as well as the history
of a saved sinner. Now we know, we've been blessed
to know this for a number of years, especially those that
have been coming here any length of time at all. We know that
this entire book sets forth our glorious Savior and His work
of salvation, of redemption, of reconciliation, of righteousness
for His people. And in this book, in the book
of God, especially in the Old Testament and all these pictures,
the glory of God is manifested and revealed in these pictures
of our Lord Jesus. After all, God has ordained that
His Son be exalted above all. God's purpose is that every knee
will bow to Christ and every tongue will confess that He's
the Lord to the glory of God the Father. And He's predestinated
a chosen people to be conformed to the image of Christ Jesus.
That's what the book is all about. God's going to give all glory
to His Son, and His Son's going to have a people from every nation,
kindred, tribe, and tongue conform to His image. Perfect and holy
and righteous in Christ the Lord. A family of God. The family of
God. It's what God has purposed from
the beginning. To bring glory to Himself. Well, let me give you these first
four sons. Here are the sons of Leah. Number
one, Reuben. Look at verse 31 again. And when
the Lord saw that Leah, chapter 29, verse 31, when the Lord saw
that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but he kept Rachel
barren. This was the sovereign purpose
of God. and Leah conceived by Jacob,
of course, and bear a son, and she called his name Reuben. For,
she said, surely the Lord hath looked upon my affliction, now
therefore my husband will love me. And if you have as I do,
a center column, and you have a little letter or a number,
or perhaps just beside the number 32, verse 32, it says, Reuben,
that is, see a son. That's literally what Reuben
means. See a son. A son. Now since we know that these
all 12 sons set forth the saving grace of God to sinners through
the Lord Jesus Christ, and the history of a saved sinner, the
very first one, Reuben, this is very significant because his
name means see a son. Or behold a son. And that takes us right to our
faith look to the Lord Jesus. John the Baptist said, Behold,
look, see the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.
Look to Him. See Him. His salvation is seeing
the Son of God. Not seeing Him with these eyes,
because there were many people who saw Him literally, who saw
Him physically, many people who brushed up against Him or even
touched Him, or He touched them, and they were no better eternally. This is to see the Son with eyes,
God-given eyes of faith, to see Him as the Son of God. To see
Him as the Savior. To see Him as the only One who
can make things right between you and our holy God. To see
Him as the One you need. Before that, you thought you
were ok. You were religious. You tried
to live by the Ten Commandments. You tried to do this. Maybe you
were baptized. Joined the church. Took the Lord's
Supper. All of these things and you thought
you were alright. And then the Spirit of God convicted
you of the fact you were still lost. And God opened your eyes. The eyes of your understanding. The eyes of your mind. The eyes
of your heart. And you looked. unto the Lord
Jesus, and you lived. I'm sure that you have heard
the story of the conversion of Mr. Spurgeon, who entered into
a... due to a snub storm, he ducked
into Primitive Methodist Chapel, and he heard a man who was not
a gifted speaker at all. The pastor couldn't be there.
And the man read from the book of Isaiah 45, and he said, look
unto me. The Lord said, look unto me and
be ye saved. All ye ends of the earth, for
I am God. And there is none else. And as
the story goes, and as Mr. Spurgeon says in his autobiography,
that the old man looked at him and said, young man, you look
miserable. Look to the Lord Jesus! Look
unto Him and be saved! And Spurgeon said, the eyes of
my soul were opened, and I looked unto Christ Jesus, and he said,
I've been looking ever since. Looking only to Him. When the Israelites were bitten
by the fiery serpents, The message to them was very simple. Look
and live. God told Moses, you put a serpent
of brass up on a pole. And the person's been bitten.
You want to be healed? You want to be cured? Look. Don't try out the recipes that
your grandma tells you, well I think if you put this ointment
on there you'll be okay. No, look and live. Anson and
I were riding behind an ambulance the other day and they weren't
going on call anywhere and just driving along. We were behind
them on both back doors. You know what's on both back
doors? There's a pole with a serpent wrapped around it. Yeah. And I told Nancy, I said, you
know, to anybody who knows the Old Testament, there's a Gospel
sermon right there. There's a Gospel lesson. And
we can rejoice. We can rejoice knowing that that
serpent lifted up in the wilderness was a picture of our Lord Jesus.
And he used that as an illustration himself. As Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man, speaking
of Himself, be lifted up. Lifted up where? Lifted up to
die. Lifted up on a cross. That whosoever
believeth, whosoever looketh, Whosoever sees Him as the remedy
for that poison that's within them, whoever believes Him, they're
not going to perish. That poison's not going to kill
them. But they'll have eternal life. I'm telling you, there
is within us an awful poison. I know everybody's worried about
COVID. I wish some people would worry
about sin. How can we get rid of sin? Nancy talked with her sister
today. She said from all of her research, she said, if this is
so contagious, she said everybody's going to get it at some point. It's just that some people won't
be affected by it. They won't even know that they've
got it. But she said that's how contagious it is. Well, that
may be true, may not be. I don't know. I'm not a doctor. But I do know this. We're all
infected with sin. There's no question about that.
I don't know about the other. And it isn't that your neighbor's
the problem. It isn't that the person, the
whoremongers and the drunkards and the drug addicts are the
problem. You're the problem. I'm the problem. Here's the problem. It's in here. And there's only
one cure. And he was lifted up to die on
the cross. To satisfy God's justice. To honor God's law that said
the soul that's sinned shall die. And Christ died. He laid down His life to save
His people from their sins, to satisfy God. God got death from
His Son. He got the payment price required. There's the cure. He's the cure. Now, see the Son. See the Son. Look to the Son
of God. Reuben is the firstborn. And then there's Simeon. Look
at verse 33. And she conceived again, and
bare a son, and said, Because the Lord hath heard that I was
hated, he hath therefore given me this son also. And she called
his name Simeon. And you look beside her, verse
33, Simeon, that is hearing. Hearing. And this points to hearing
the gospel of the grace of God. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
by the word of God, the word of the gospel. Solomon said,
the hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made them
both. Now both physical seeing and
physical hearing are wonderful gifts. And we should all appreciate
him. I hope that we do because a lot
of people don't have sight, don't have natural sight, can't hear. As some of the saints of God
get older, they have to use these hearing devices and tap into
the microphone so they can hear. Get your hearing aid. And you
can't hear, and sometimes you just go totally deaf. Appreciate
the gift of hearing and appreciate the gift of seeing. But even
more so, be grateful to God. if you can see the Son of God,
if you can see the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus
Christ, and if you can hear His voice in the Gospel. My sheep
hear my voice. And I know them. I know them. And they follow me. We hear Him. We hear Him. He who gives us
eyes to see Him by faith gives us ears to hear Him, to hear
His voice. When God speaks in life, giving
authority and power, that's when we'll hear. And I've said before, and I'm
sure Brother Henry's said this lots of times, if the only voice
you hear is the voice coming out right now, if this is the
only voice you hear, you're not going to be any better off. But if through the preaching
of the gospel of God's grace to sinners in Christ, if through
this preaching, you really hear the gospel of how God can be
just and justify somebody like you, And you hear it down in
your heart, and you say, oh, you know, I never heard it like
that before. Yeah, you've heard it like that before, but you
really didn't hear it. He only heard it with these ears,
but God gives us ears to hear who He is, and who Christ is,
and why He had to die. And that salvation is all together
by grace. And then that Word of the Gospel,
it comes home to the heart. And we hear. For the first time
we hear. We hear. And we rejoice. A dear lady who's now with the
Lord heard me preach for a number of years. She'd come out and
greet me in the vestbule and say, pray for me. Pray for me. And then one Sunday after a few
years, she came out and hugged me with tears in her eyes, kissed
me on the cheek, I never will forget it. She said, now I see
what you're saying, and I've heard Him. He spoke to me through
the message this morning. He's my God. He's my Savior. He's the one I need. I have heard
His voice. You see, the gospel is His voice.
It's the voice of God. May we hear Him speak in life-giving,
soul-saving, heart-changing power. A lot of people mourn the passing
of Lazarus in John chapter 11. Especially his dear sisters,
Mary and Martha. And they wept. And our Lord wept. And then he spoke. He said, Lazarus,
come forth. Everybody else was saying, oh,
Lazarus. Lazarus, we miss you, we miss
you. And the Son of God said, Lazarus, come forth. Anybody else in the whole congregation
that was there, the whole audience that was there, if anybody else
had said that, nothing would have happened. And they'd just
hug him and say, bless your heart, you miss him, don't you? So do
I. But when the Son of God says,
Lazarus, come forth, watch out. Somebody's going to come back
to life. And Lazarus, He heard the voice
of the Son of God. And I'll tell you, He came back
to life just like that. And the Lord Jesus said, Loosen
Him and let Him go. Let Him go! And that's what He must do for
each of us. And He has done that for many
of us and for many of you who are watching. He called you by
name. Come forth! Here's the point. You heard Him speak deep down
in your heart. Not an audible voice. But it
was real. It was real to you. Real to you. Reuben and Simeon. And then the
third one is Levi. Verse 34, and she conceived again
and bear a son and said, now this time will my husband be
joined unto me because I have born him three sons. Therefore
was his name called Levi. And in the margin, beside of
verse 34, it says Levi, that is, joined. That's what His name
means. Joined or united. And this speaks to us of the
union of the Son of God with each of His people. Now, certainly
this union with Him is manifested in our conversion. And we're
made to know that we're in Him and He's in us. but this union,
this joining together with Christ Jesus, this is an eternal union. That's what we need to understand.
It's forever. We've always been united to Him
and we will always be united to Him. That's why this idea
you can lose the salvation that God gave you is absolutely ridiculous. That's a God dishonoring heresy. We were joined to Jesus Christ
from old eternity and that union will never end. What God hath
joined together, let not man put asunder. We were joined to Him in covenant
grace forever. Our union with the Lord Jesus
preceded the creation of the heaven and the earth. God joined
us to His Son in eternity past. This union is illustrated by
our Lord's own words. I am the vine. You're the branches. You're in Me. We're one with
Him. In His high priestly prayer in
John chapter 17, He said, I in them and thou in Me. And this union with our Lord
Jesus is wonderfully set forth in Ephesians, especially chapter
1. Because every blessing of the grace of God, of His salvation
was given us as a result of our union with the Son of God. We
were blessed in Him. In Him. We were chosen in Him. So our being joined to Him is
from eternity. We were safe in Him. He is our
eternal legal surety. The fathers always looked to
Him for satisfaction. In the marriages of the Scripture,
when a bride married the bridegroom, any assets that she brought to
the marriage union immediately became the assets of the husband. Well, in our marriage union with
Christ Jesus, we had no assets to bring. They're all on Him. He has all
the assets. But also, in a marriage union,
if a bride had liabilities, bills, you know something about bills,
If she had bills, she had liabilities, she had indebtedness, when they
were married, they all became the bridegrooms. Liabilities. We brought many liabilities into
this marriage union with Christ Jesus. And in old, old eternity,
when we were joined to Him, bless God, all of our liabilities became
His. and He was fully responsible
to pay our indebtedness. God never has looked to us. Isn't
that amazing? He never has looked to us for
satisfaction. He's always looked to His Son
and held Him accountable. Held Him accountable. He's our
legal surety. And really, when in old eternity
Christ became our surety, our salvation was finished. It was
finished as far as God was concerned. Look with me. You've read this
hundreds of times. Romans chapter 8. And it will
bear reading hundreds more times too. Romans chapter 8. Watch
this. It speaks in the past tense.
As if it's over. It is over in the mind and purpose
of God. Romans chapter 8. In verse 28, it ends with the
word purpose. God's eternal purpose. Verse
29, for whom He did foreknow, foreordain for love. He also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn
among many brethren. God's going to have a whole family.
Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called." He named
us. And whom He called, them He also
justified. So, when were we justified? Way
back yonder. I use the phrase eternity past. and whom He justified, them He
also glorified." Well, when is that? That's in eternity future.
But He writes as though these things have already been accomplished. Because in the purpose of God,
they are. They are. When we were joined to Christ,
when we were given to Him, Our everlasting salvation and everlasting
safety was a matter of absolute certainty. And when He came into this world,
we were still joined to Him. Scripture says He's the head,
we're the body. when he suffered, bled, and died
under the wrath of God?" Guess what? We suffered, bled, and
died under the wrath of God. Well, how can that be? We were
in Him. We were in Him. It's just like Noah and his family,
they were in the ark. And the flood waters came all
around that ark and fell down from heaven. The rain came down. And it fell on the ark and therefore
fell on those who were in the ark. They endured that wrath. They endured that judgment. But
it fell on their ark. And I tell you, we were in the
ark of our salvation when the wrath of God fell on Him. We
were in Him. There's no more wrath of God
for us. There's no more condemnation. There can't be. He's already
poured it all out upon our blessed Savior. And when He was buried,
we were buried with Him. When He was raised up, we were
raised up with Him. When He ascended into heaven,
we ascended with Him. In fact, it says in Ephesians
2.6, we're seated in the heavenlies in Him. Well, I thought we're
seated here in 13th Street Baptist Church right now. Yeah, physically
we are, but in our glorious head, the body is right there with
Him. That's our union. We're joined
to Him. See, that's the meaning, we're
joined to Him. There's a great old hymn writer
called, his name was John Kent, and he wrote this song in 1859.
twixt Jesus and the chosen race, subsists a bond of sovereign
grace, that hell with its infernal train shall ne'er dissolve, nor
rend in vain. This sacred bond shall never
break, though earth should to earth's centers shake. Rest,
doubting saint, assured of this, for God has pledged His holiness. Let me give you another verse
or two. He swore but once the deed was done. T'was settled
by the great three in one. Christ was appointed to redeem
all that the Father loved in Him. Hail, sacred union firm
and strong! How great the grace! How sweet
the song! That worms of earth should ever
be joined with the incarnate deity. One in the tomb, one when
He rose, one when He triumphed over His foes. One when in heaven
He took His seat, while seraphs sang all hell's defeat. This
sacred time forbids their fears, for all He is or has is theirs. With Him, their head, they stand
or fall, their life, their surety. He is their all. We're joined
in Him. And the last one we'll talk about
tonight, just briefly, is Judah. Verse 35. Go back to our text. Back to Genesis 29. In verse 35, she conceived again
and bare a son. And she said, now will I
praise the Lord. Therefore, she called His name
Judah and left bearing. And beside of verse 35, it says,
Judah, that is praise. Praise. Oh, joyous gratitude and adoration
is due unto our Lord. for the grace and the salvation
that we enjoy in Christ Jesus. Judah. This is the tribe through
which our Lord entered into this world. And I told you a few weeks
ago in our studies of the tabernacle, that their banner, their ensign
was a lion. And therefore, our Lord is called
the Lion of the tribe of Judah. It's somewhat surprising to me
and to a good many of the children of God that Judah would be born through the
union of Jacob and Leah and not Jacob and Rachel. The ways of God are deep and
hidden, aren't they? God doesn't always do things
the way we expect He's going to do things. He does things
in such a manner that He always receives the glory. Here we have
Jacob, a man who has children by four women. Leah as well as
by her handmaid, Zilpah. And Rachel as well as by her
handmaid, Bilhah. And here we have Judah born to
Leah. Reuben, see a son. Simeon, hearing. Levi, joined. Judah, praise. Thanks be unto
God for His unspeakable gift. Well, next time we'll get into
chapter 30 and we'll cover a few more of his sons. See what the
Lord has for us in their names. And you can go ahead and read
ahead and you can see their meanings. We just kind of connect the dots
here and we see a beautiful Gospel story. Lord, bless the Word that's
gone forth this evening and I pray that we will hear Not merely
the voice of the preacher, but through the preaching of the
Word of God, we'll hear the voice of our God, the God of grace,
the God of mercy, the Spirit who gives life, the Spirit who
grants to us the seeing eye of faith and the hearing ear of
faith. And Lord, we all say, speak to
each of us, Father, by Your Spirit. And reveal to us the wonders
of Your grace in Your darling, precious Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. In His name I ask these things. Amen.