Let's go back to the book of
Genesis this evening, and we're going to go back to Genesis chapter
28, and I want to talk to you about Jacob's ladder. And I'll go ahead and read these
verses to you to kind of refresh your memory. We did go over these
verses a little bit last week, but I want to do so in more depth
this evening. And so I'll pick up the reading
at verse 10 of Genesis 28. And it says, And Jacob went out
from Beersheba and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a
certain place and he tarried there all night because the sun
was set. He took the stones of that place
and he put them for his pillows and lay down in that place to
sleep. And he dreamed. And actually,
these next three words are the title of the message. Behold
a ladder. 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. And behold, there are
several beholds there, I'm sure you're noticing that now if you
haven't before. And behold, the Lord stood above
it. This is the great I Am. And he says, I Am the Lord God
of Abraham thy father and the God of Isaac. And he says to
Jacob, the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it
into thy seed. 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, that is in the Lord Jesus, shall all the families of the
earth be blessed. And here's another, behold. 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." In this book,
the Word of God, the Lord has given us a full and very complete revelation of His
mind and His will and things pertaining to salvation. Now
the Word of God doesn't tell us every single thing about God,
but it does tell us what we need to know. It doesn't tell us everything
about ourselves, but it does tell us what we need to know.
And it doesn't tell us about the Lord Jesus, everything about
the Lord Jesus and everything that happened to Him during His
earthly ministry. But it does tell us those things
that we need to know. God has given us an abundance
of truth that leaves us really without excuse. And we're thankful
that He has given to us His Word because this book is, of course,
the inspired Word of God. And there are no fears of something
being wrong or that there's an error somewhere. This is without
error. The Word of God as originally
given is without error. And we do believe that the King
James Version is the very best translation of the Scriptures. I was blessed many years ago
to receive as a gift a book that tells a brief biography of everyone
who translated the King James Bible. And these were men who
were very knowledgeable in Hebrew and Greek, and men who loved
the Scriptures, men who loved the Word of God. And God has
preserved His Word. There's no question about the
fact that the very preservation of this God's Word is miraculous. Because men have tried to destroy
it. They've tried to do away with
it. They've tried to burn it. But it keeps on going. In fact,
the Lord Jesus said, heaven and earth shall pass away, but My
Word will last forever. But in the days of these, the
patriarchs, and even the prophets, and even in the days of the New
Testament, much of the New Testament, certainly during the days of
our Lord's earthly sojourn, they didn't have the Scriptures like
we have. They couldn't go to the book
of Romans. Back in the office tonight, one
of the brethren read to us from the book of Romans. They didn't
have the privilege of being able to do that. And we do, but they
didn't. And therefore, the Lord spoke
to men in various ways. And we read that indeed in the
book of Hebrews, the very first chapter and the first verse and
the second verse. God spoke at different times
and in various manners. He spoke through angels. He often
did. He even spoke through an animal. and he spoke many times through
dreams. But now he's spoken unto us by
his Son. It's what we read in Hebrews
chapter 1. And in this portion of Scripture, the Lord speaks
to Jacob in a dream. Science tells us that dreams
reveal oftentimes our subconscious thoughts. Well, if that's right,
if that's right, Jacob must have been thinking about the vast
distance between him and God. He must have been very troubled
about his own guilt. And then that in relation to
the very holiness of God. He realized there's a great gulf
fixed between himself and a holy God. And he must have been considering
the need of a bridge in order to span that distance. This is a remarkable revelation
that God gave to Jacob. And such a remarkable revelation
leads us to this conclusion There's going to be a good end in this
for Jacob. Something good's going to happen
for him and to him. Now, I'm sure there are two or
three reasons why the Lord gave this vision to Jacob. One, to
do away with his fears. This is a man with lots on his
mind. His brother is set out to kill
him. His mother overheard or got word that Esau said, when
the days of mourning for our father are over, because they
thought that Isaac would be very soon dead, and Esau said, when
the days of mourning for our father are over, I'm going to
kill my brother. And that's been told to Jacob,
and now he knows that Esau, he's hot on his trail. and he is out
for blood. And so he is encouraged by his
father and his mother to leave. And then also to go into the
land where he could find a bride for himself, not from the communities
or nations nearby, the Canaanites and so forth, but to go and find
a bride among the people of Abraham. He's got lots on his mind. And
the Lord comes to him and lets him know that He's protecting
him. This is about the guardianship
of our Lord. And He says to him in verse 15,
I am with you. I am with you. He said, I will keep you. And
how reassuring this must have been to Jacob to alleviate his
fears. Just this very day, I sent a
text to a child of God and reminded them, the Lord is the guardian
at your door. He guards your house. And I say
to all of you who are the Lord's people, He is your guardian. He stands guard outside your
house. He not only stands guard outside
your house, He stands guard inside your house as well. He said,
I don't slumber. I don't doze off. I don't sleep. I'm always awake. You're always
on my mind and you're always under my watchful eye. And so
the people of God need not fear. This was given to Jacob, but
at least one of the reasons was to dispel his fears. I'm with you. And it doesn't
matter where you are, what the circumstances are in your life,
The Lord says to all of his Jacobs, we're the sons of Jacob, aren't
we? And we'll get to that in just
two, three weeks. We're the sons of Jacob. And
the Lord says to all of us sons of Jacob, notwithstanding the
fact that we are cheaters and we're as ungodly as Jacob was. See, there was no difference
between Jacob and Esau except the difference grace made. Jacob
was ungodly by nature just like Esau. But the Lord says to Jacob,
I am with you, I'll keep you. I'll keep you. We have a shepherd. He's the Lord Jesus. He's the
good shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep. He keeps
his sheep. He's not going to let the wolf
in to devour you. He paid an awesome, awesome debt
that you owed. He paid it in full. What a price
of redemption. He bought you because He loved
you. He's got all of this invested
in you and He stands guard. He watches over you. So one of
the reasons this vision or this dream is given to Jacob is to
dispel his fears. We're even told in the book of
Romans chapter 9 that the elder, he shall serve the younger. God
will even, He will even make your enemies to serve His purpose
regarding you. Isn't that something? But here's something else, even
more important really. This is going to be the occasion
of his conversion. So this is not only about taking
care of his fears, but this is the time of his conversion. He's
already received the promise of the birthright, and the blessing
has been given to him, but he has been chosen of God. He is
a vessel of mercy The Lord said, Jacob have I loved. Jacob have I loved. Esau have
I hated. You say, well, what was there
about Jacob that would bring forth the love of God? Why did God love Jacob? Well,
let me ask you a question. You who are the people of God,
why did God love you? Just think about that for a minute.
Don't answer out loud, but answer in your own heart. Why did or
why does God love you? And if your answer is in any
way related to, tied to, or even hints that He loves you because
of something you have done, are doing, or will do, you lack an
understanding of the gospel. There's only one reason why God
loves anybody. Only one. There's only one correct
answer. And that is because He would. That's the only answer. God loves
you because He willed to love you. You say, well, there's nothing
lovable in me. Well, I know there's nothing
lovable in you. Nothing lovable in me. Because
we're full of sin. There's a stench about us. And
yet God for His own purpose to magnify and glorify Himself,
He loved us always. He's always loved Jacob. And
now He's going to reveal His grace to Jacob. and reveal to
him the means by which God will receive him through this ladder,
which is a picture of our Lord Jesus. And then here's a third thing
to remember. The Lord has Jacob exactly where
He wants him. And you know what his situation
is? He is all alone and he's got nothing. He's got nothing. He doesn't
even have a little pad to unroll so that he can lay down and go
to sleep. He doesn't even have anything
to even make a pillow out of. He's got a rock for a pillow.
and the ground for a bed. But if you knew that God Almighty
was going to deal with you in grace, would you not gladly put
your head on a rock and lay down on the ground? Jacob, he's all alone. He's got nobody. He's not going
to see his daddy for at least, well, it's going to be better
between 20 and 25 years at least. And his mother, he was so close
to his mother, when he kissed his mother goodbye, he would
never see her again and she'll never see him again. He's never
going to see Mama again. And he was Mama's boy. Right? He was Mama's boy. Never going
to see his mom again. And his brother! Here are twins! Twins in birth! His brother is
his enemy. Oh, how all alone he is. But that's a good position to
be in when God gets you off Just to himself. Get you away from
everybody else. Remember that woman in John 8
called him adultery. They threw her before the Lord
Jesus. Here's what the law says. Stone
her. What do you say? Our Lord Jesus
didn't say anything. He knelt down and wrote something
on the ground. Some might say, maybe he wrote
the names of those men who brought her. I don't know what he wrote.
Scripture doesn't say. Best for us to be silent where
the Scriptures are silent. Then he got up and he said, you
that are without sin, you go ahead and start throwing rocks
first. And they began to leave one by one, the oldest first. until finally there wasn't anybody
left. The Savior said to the woman,
Woman, where are those thine accusers? No man, Lord. There's nobody here but you and
me. Nobody here but you and me. Neither do I condemn thee, He
said. Go and sin no more. That's a
good place to be when it's just you and God. Just you and God. A woman in Samaria by Jacob's
well. Very much alone. She didn't even
want to be seen by the rest of the city. She had been married
five times and then she's living outside the bonds of marriage
with another man. There she is by herself. Oh,
that's a good place to be. Ethiopian eunuch. He's by himself. God sent him
a preacher. All alone with the Lord. Jacob. He's all alone. And he's empty
handed. As far as I know, he had nothing
except the clothes on his back, the sandals on his feet, he had
a little bit of oil, and maybe he had a little bit of meal to
fix a little cake of bread or something. He's got nothing. Unlike his father, who's got
everything. Abraham gave to Isaac everything. And here's Jacob. He's got the
birthright, he's got the blessing, but he ain't got anything else. You remember when Eleazar went
in search of a bride for Isaac, he had ten camels loaded down
with stuff. Ten camels. And here's Jacob. Poor Jacob. He doesn't have one
camel. He doesn't even have a little
donkey. He's just walking. He's got nothing. He's empty
handed. like Naomi in the book of Ruth. Naomi and Elimelech left Bethlehem,
and you know the story. We won't get into that. But,
of course, Elimelech died. Her two sons died. Her two daughters-in-law
were widows then, and one of them went back to the Moabites,
and Ruth said, I'm going to stick with you. Naomi came back with
Ruth. She came back to Bethlehem. Everybody
saw her coming in. All the city was moved by seeing
her. She was poor and penniless. Dressed in rags. She looked like
a pauper. They said, is this Naomi? She said, don't call me Naomi.
You call me Mara. For the Almighty hath dealt very
bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord's bringing me home again
empty." That's Jacob. He's empty. Oh, that God would empty us and
show us we're just beggars before Him. What do you have to present to
Him? Nothing. Nothing. Spiritually, we just say we don't
have one thin dime. We're broke. We're beggars, as
somebody said. We're beggars on the dunghill.
There's nothing to commend us to God. Nothing to recommend
us to God. There's no loveliness about us.
There's no value to us. We're just full of sin from the
top of our heads to the bottom of our feet. Isaiah 1 says there's
no goodness or soundness in us, just wounds and bruises and putrefying
sores that haven't been bound up. No ointment put on. This is a good way to be alone
and empty. That's Jacob. He's away from the love of his
father. He's away from the warm embrace
of his mother. He's away from all the comforts
of a home. But he's all alone with God. And even though he doesn't have
anything, he's going to be made to realize
he has the riches of God's grace. Don't ever talk about or moan
about what you don't have. You have all things in Christ
Jesus. You were blessed with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Him. Don't talk about what
you don't have. You have the Lord Jesus. He's
your shepherd. He's your friend. He's your Savior. He was your substitute. He was
the satisfaction of God's justice. You have Him. And so this man who is all alone
and empty, who has nothing, he dreams a dream and he sees a
ladder. There's no question in my mind
to say this is Christ the Lord. He is the latter. He spans the distance between
heaven and earth and earth and heaven. That's one of the reasons
I had to sing that song. I was telling Marty, I usually
call her, or Susanna calls her and tells her what the song's
going to be for the night, and I apologize to her. I said, I
forgot to call you. And we talked about she knows
this song that we sang at Calvary. She knows it backwards and forwards
and everything in between. But one of the reasons I wanted
us to sing that song is because of that verse that says, oh,
oh, Love that drew salvation to plan. Oh, the grace that brought
it down to man. Oh, the mighty gulf that God
did span at Calvary. There's the ladder. There's the
spanning of that distance. How can anybody from earth go
to glory? There's a ladder. Well, will
there be one come from heaven down here? Yes! He is the ladder. Christ Jesus the Lord. Well,
since heaven and earth have been separated by sin, this ladder
has re-established contact. It's re-established. He has re-established
contact. What kind of a ladder is He?
Number one, He's a living ladder. Every ladder we've got is a dead
ladder. It's just a dead thing. But He's
a living ladder. He came, He died to justify us,
but He didn't stay dead. He didn't stay on the cross.
He didn't stay in the tomb. He came forth. very much alive
forevermore. He told His disciples, He said,
because I live, you shall live also. He told John there in Revelation
chapter 1, I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold, I am
alive forevermore. He's the living ladder. I'll tell you something else,
He's a long ladder. He is a long ladder. The longest
it ever was. For He reaches all the way from
heaven to earth. And all the way from earth to
heaven. The heaven speaks of His deity.
The earth speaks of His humanity. And the uniting of these two
natures, the nature of God and the nature of man, in one person,
in one person, is the mystery of all mysteries. You see, the glory of the Godhead
did not destroy His humanity, And his humanity did not destroy
the glory of God. This is mysterious. He's a long
ladder. But here's what this long ladder
does. It spans the distance between
earth and heaven. Joe and I were talking the other
day universalism and those who believe the truth of particular
redemption. You see, those who believe in
a universal redemption, they have a ladder, but it doesn't
go all the way. It doesn't go all the way. They've
got a bridge, but it doesn't span the gulf. It almost goes
across, it almost reaches to heaven, but you've got to add
your faith to it. You've got to add them last couple
of rungs to the ladder. Well, that's no good. That's
no good. To have a ladder that's too short? It won't get you there. It can
be as wide as you imagine it to be, but a ladder that is too
short won't span the distance. It's useless. That's universal
redemption. It's useless. Our Lord Jesus
is indeed the narrow way. He's the narrow ladder, but it
spans the distance. Here it says, it says here, It
sat on earth and the top reached all the way to heaven. That's
the salvation I want. That's the redemption that our
Lord has accomplished. It goes all the way. He's a long
ladder. He's a narrow ladder, but it's
a long ladder. And I'll tell you something else,
it's a set ladder. You notice that it says here
in verse 12, And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set up. Which means established. This
is a ladder established by God. Not made by man. This is established
by God. It is therefore immovable and
indestructible. Nobody can destroy this ladder
because Christ was set up by God from old eternity. And it's an everlasting ladder
too. Every other ladder wears out. I know we used to have one of
those long, Nancy's mother and dad, they had a long wooden ladder. Because they had a two-story
colonial house. Had to get up there. I'd get
up there and clean out the gutters. This ladder would just barely
clear the edge of the gutters. And I hated to go up there and
clean out the gutters, but I had to do it. Kind of hard to get
off that last rung and get up there. But once you get up there,
I'd holler down to Nancy, isn't there anything else I can do
while I'm up here? Just trying to put off making
a commitment to get on that first rung going back down. Because
that had to be total commitment. And then, one day, I put that
ladder up there and I hit the first rung and it broke. And I said, this ladder is no
good anymore. It's wore out. It rotted. But
our ladder, Christ Jesus, no corruption in Him. No. And no matter that millions,
millions have used this ladder all the way to glory, it's never
going to wear out. It's an everlasting ladder. He's
the unchangeable Lord Jesus. The life He gives is everlasting
life. The righteousness He gives is
everlasting righteousness. The redemption He obtained is
an eternal redemption. And the salvation He gives is
an everlasting salvation. And I'll tell you something else
about this ladder. It costs you nothing. It's free. It's a free
ladder. What about that? No cost. No cost. Not to us. But it sure cost Him. and it cost him his life's blood,
which he gladly paid. But it is a ladder that is strong. It's a strong ladder. He's able
to say to the uttermost all that come unto God by him. And I'll
give you one more point on this. He's the only ladder. He's the
only one. Nobody can span the distance
between earth and heaven except our Lord Jesus Christ. The only
mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And I'll
tell you this in the second thing. What kind of ladder is He? I
gave you that. Here's the second thing. By this ladder, blessings
come down to us on earth. And by this ladder, our prayers
go up to God in heaven. Same ladder. Same ladder. Paul said, but my God shall supply
all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. All forgiveness comes by way
of this ladder. All forgiveness. Doesn't come
anywhere else. Comes from the ladder. And then,
I thought about this. Here's the
third thing. What are the various rungs of the ladder? Various
rungs of the ladder? What do they stand for? Well,
I got to thinking about that a little bit. Well, there's the
rung of the eternal suretorship of Christ. That's one of the
rungs. And He purposed to come down
here to this earth. The first rung was His eternal
suretyship. God gave Him a people and our
Lord Jesus stood good for all of them. That's the first rung
of the ladder coming down. And then the next rung is all
of His Old Testament appearances and all the prophecies and the
pictures of Him in the Old Testament. than His personal appearances
to various individuals in the Old Testament. And then another
wrong was His incarnation. That's when heaven came to earth.
And His life of obedience to every law of man and of God How far down the ladder did He
go? All the way to death. As far as He'd go. All the way
to death. But what are the various rungs
going back up for Him? Resurrection. Ascension. His coronation. His current session as mediator
and governor of the world? And the judgment of all men,
His eternal majesty? He is the latter. God comes to us through Him.
We go to God through Him. Just one ladder. I don't know
how anybody could make any mistake about this. There isn't another
way. Our Lord Jesus is the only one.
The only one. And then I'll give you this.
I kind of thought about this too. Well, a ladder has all those
rungs. But a ladder's got two sides.
And all those rungs are connected to each side. What do you think
those are, Jim? Well, I think one of them is
the eternal purpose of God. That's steadfast. That's steadfast. You're talking about something
solid. And the other side is the invincible
grace of God. You have the purpose of God and
the grace of God. Can't be defeated. Can't be frustrated. And the Lord revealed Himself
to Jacob. And He says, I'll keep you. I'll keep you. And I'll tell
you, he woke from his dream. He said, this is Bethel. This
is Bethel. This is the house of God. This
is where the Lord made Himself known to me. And He rejoiced
in that ladder. He rejoiced in Christ Jesus from
then until He died, and now in glory all these hundreds and
hundreds of years. The same one we rejoice in. I'll tell you one other thing
about this ladder. Everybody who's ever gone to
glory went by way of the same ladder. From Abel, way back yonder. His first one. And he found that
ladder. Oh, it held him up. Took him
all the way to glory. And all down through the centuries, all these children of God have
been using this ladder. The ladder has been revealed
to them. and He's been revealed to us again tonight. Same ladder. Upheld by the purpose of God
and the grace of God. You've got to rejoice in that.
Surely you do. Rejoice in the Lord. Well, let's
pray. We thank You, Father, for the
revelation of Yourself of Your grace, the revelation of Your
dear Son in this portion of Scripture. Lord, if You haven't already,
get us off to ourselves to where there's nobody but You and us.
Just You and me. Show us our neediness. We're
of all people most alone if God's not with us. and show us our emptiness, our
spiritual poverty. And then in the Lord Jesus, you've
given us all things. All spiritual blessings are ours
in Him. And you've sent Him. You've set
up this ladder from old eternity. Millions and millions of your
children have been taken to glory by this ladder. and all of our petitions, all
of our prayers, they go up to you by way of this ladder. You
send angels to us to minister to us, and then they go back
by way of this ladder into your presence to receive further instructions
as to how they can minister to us the heirs of salvation. Lord,
Your grace and Your gospel is so magnificent. We're just filled
with thanksgiving and with worship. And we bow before You and we
say, bless You, dear Father. We honor You. We adore You. We believe You. We thank You
for Your Son, the Lord Jesus, our Savior. Continue to cause
us to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of the Son of God
who loved us and gave himself for us. For Christ's sake I pray,
amen.