You remember that there was some
dysfunction in the family of Isaac, the mother against the
father, brother against brother. Then we kind of have the aftermath
of that here, and so in verse 10 we pick up the reading. And
Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain
place, tarried there all night, because the sun was set. And
he took up the stones of that place and put them for his pillows
and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold,
a ladder 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, the Lord stood above
it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy father, the God
of Isaac, the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it
and to thy seed. Thy seed shall be as the dust
of the earth, thou shalt spread abroad to the west, to the east,
to the north, and to the south. And in thee and all thy seed
shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am
with thee, 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 of to thee. And
Jacob awakened out of his sleep, and he said, what's this? Surely
the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. And he was afraid,
and he said, how dreadful is this place. This is none other
but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. Jacob
rose up early in the morning, took the stone that he had put
for his pillar, and set it up for a pillar and poured oil upon
the top of it. And he named the name of that
place Bethel, that is, house of God. But the name of that
city was called Luz or Luz at the first. Jacob vowed a vow
saying, if God will be with me, 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. And this stone which I have set
for a pillar shall be God's house, and of all that thou shalt give
me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee. Now, I'm preaching
on that subject, the Lord is in this place and I knew it not,
or the conversion of Jacob. Now, the main character in this
particular passage of the scripture is, of course, the man Jacob. And we have a larger picture
here than before of this man and of his experience and his
relationship unto God. You recognize that this is the
twin brother of Esau, the children of Isaac and of Rebekah. And you also must remember something
else. that before they were ever born,
there was, as it were, a struggling in the womb. And the Lord God
said unto their mother when she inquired, the elder shall serve
the younger. That account is back in chapter
25 of the book of Genesis. And this in regard to the unusual
activity of the twins while they were yet in the womb of their
mother. Now these are the same two brothers,
Jacob and Esau, of whom it is said, Jacob I loved, but Esau
have I hated. Malachi 1.3. You'll find it again
in Romans 9 and verse 13. And I will submit unto you that
the purpose of God is played out here in this midnight experience
of the man called Jacob, as he has a life-changing encounter
with God as he slept and as he dreamed, laying upon a rock for
a pillow. Now to begin with, let's set
the context a little bit more and the occasion of Jacob having
such an experience. In chapter 27 is the account
there of how Rebekah and Jacob, this one and his mother, connived
in such a way as to have Jacob receive the blessing from their
father Isaac, which was intended to be stowed Upon the elder brother
Esau the elder or because he was the firstborn now Isaac at
this time was an old man and was an infirm man and his eyesight
was all But gone and yet he had promised the blessing unto his
son Esau and he would have Esau to go to the field and fetch
him one of his favorite meals and and make it for him as a
prelude unto the blessing that he would bestow upon him. Now
here it is that providence takes a hand in this matter, and the
overall purpose of God. Had Isaac's mouth not watered
for his favorite venison, Perhaps it had gone in another way altogether. Had Isaac blessed Esau then and
there, it had been a different story altogether than how it
turned out. The mother cooked her husband's
favorite meal. The way to a man's heart is through
his stomach, you remember that. And so she cooked the old man
his favorite meal, set it before him. She dressed Jacob up in
some of the garments of Esau that had on them the smell of
the field, because Esau was a man of that, and now this tradition
of blessing the firstborn prior unto the death of the father.
It was both a bequeathing as Abraham did unto Isaac before
he died in Genesis 25 and verse 5 as the prophet And made a prophecy
and Jacob later did this very same thing you will see and in
Genesis chapter 48 so we see the nature of the blessing which
which Isaac Bestowed upon Jacob while thinking all the time that
it was Esau that was there before him Isaac bestowed upon Jacob
the blessing that had been originally intended for the elder. And if you flip back with me
a moment, chapter 27, and verses 26 through verse 29, we have
an interesting thing here. chapter 27 of Genesis, when I
separate the pages, and verses 26 through verse 29 of that chapter. And his father Isaac said unto
him, Come near now and kiss me, my son. And he came near and
he kissed him. And he smelled the smell of his
raiment, and he blessed him, and he said, See, the smell of
my son is as the smell of the field which the Lord hath blessed. Therefore, God give thee of the
dew of heaven, the fatness of the earth, and the plenty of
corn and wine. Let people serve thee, nations
bow down to thee, be Lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's
sons bow down to thee. Cursed be everyone that curseth
thee, and blessed be he that blesses you." So Jacob then went
out from the presence of his father, and now Jacob and not
Esau had both the birthright and the blessing of the father. Where unto when Isaac, when Esau
found out, he vowed to kill his brother by the name of Jacob. So therefore that Rebekah sent
Jacob to his brother, to her brother's house Laban over in
Haran. You have that in chapter 27 and
verse 42 through 46. But coming now to chapter 28
from which we read, Before Jacob leave, Isaac blesses him in his
old doddering age and his bad sight and his based upon the
smell. And in Genesis chapter 28 and
verses 2 through 5, and exhorting him to take a wife of the daughters
of Laban, that he might continue the line. And that brings us
to our text then, beginning in verse 10 of our chapter. Jacob went out from Beersheba,
which was where Isaac and Rebekah lived, as we learn chapter 26,
verse 23 through 25. And he went toward Haran, or
his uncle's territory, which is in Syria. A journey, said
Gil, of some 400 miles, if we can believe that. And some have
said, Gil and Henry, that he had covered a period or distance
of about 40 miles when he had this experience that we have
read about. So if you'll notice in verse
11, Sundown came, that is, night came, darkness set in and overtook
him in a certain place. Now, always catch those things.
Jacob became a sundowner, as we might say. Sundown caught
him here, and that's the place that he spent the night and made
himself a bed. Notice again, he delighted upon
a certain place. Some say that the Hebrew will
stand it, the place. He lighted upon the place. And
some express it, he hit upon the place. This becomes all the
more significant when we correlate it with Jacob's words in verse
11. This place, this place where
he spent the night, he lighted upon a certain place. And then
again down in verse 16, where we read, the Lord is in this
place. And what seemed as casual unto
Jacob and perhaps unto us, Ever even accidental what we would
think would be a chance or what at luck or whatever We might
call it the choosing of a place where he spent the night Turned
out to be one of the most important events in the life of this man. It happened that Jacob delighted
upon that particular place and yet as Matthew Henry wrote and
proved by the events of the night quote Providence brought him
to a convenient place, a place in which God would deal with
Jacob as he never had before." End of quote. And that's certainly
true. We note again in verse 11, he made his bed using a pillow
of stone and the ground for his bed or for his mattress. Now, there are two things here
that we are told. Verse 11, he laid down and he
went to sleep. And would you take it as an exaggeration
if I should say that the Lord, like Adam, caused a deep sleep
to fall upon him? And the second thing that we
noted is that while he slept, he had a dream. And that's in
verse 12. He had a dream. One way that
God spoke, if you remember, to the patriarchs and the father
in the olden time was by dreams. making his will known unto them. Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 1. You can compare, for example,
the dreams of Abraham in Genesis chapter 15 and verse 12. Joseph also dreamed in chapter
37, 5 through 11. Now, the essence of Jacob's dream
is given. Here is a ladder, and the top
of that ladder reaches from the earth Even into heaven and angels
are ascending and descending Upon that ladder in his dream
you have that in verse 12 and in verse 13 through 15 God was
at the top of the ladder and in the dream he spoke unto Jacob
making revelation unto him and renewing the covenant with Jacob
in almost exact same form as it was originally made with Abraham. Notice he promised him a land
and he promised him a great seed and establishing a covenant with
him even as it was said under Abraham. Now we consider the
dream more later on in our study. But first let's consider Jacob's
reaction to the expression or the experience that he had here
in this particular place. As we look at verse 16 we say,
Jacob awaked out of his sleep and said, surely the Lord is
in this place and I knew it not. Now if you notice throughout
the text, the emphasis, and I hate to say it again, is upon this
place, this particular place where this occurred or happened. Now looking at verse 16 and the
two expressions, number one, surely the Lord is in this place,
and number two, and I knew it not. Was not aware now consider
the first if you might surely the Lord is in this place not
was but if the Lord is here it moved Jacob to say in verse 17
how dreadful is this place as he with an exclamation mark as
we have it and The reason it is called dreadful. Why is it
dreadful? It was a fearful place under
Jacob because of what he experienced there. Because of what Jacob
declared, surely the Lord is in this place. And I knew it
not. In this place in a special and
a unique and a peculiar way. In the very place. where Jacob
had lain down to take his night of sleep and of rest. Now of course we know that God
is omnipresent, that the Lord is everywhere, that there's not
a place in all creation where God is not. And when we read
that Cain went out from the presence of the Lord in Genesis chapter
4, the sense is not that he completely and absolutely went where God
was not or had no knowledge or cognizance of Him. That great
passage in Psalm 139 declares that God has the immensity of
His presence in every place wherever it might be, so that we cannot
imagine a place where God is not. We cannot flee to a place
where God is not. where his presence is not, where
his knowledge is not, his wisdom, and such like. And as Gil said,
Jacob meant that God the Lord was in that place in a special
sense, and quote, by a signal token of his presence, unquote,
the word of Gil. And what was that signal token? of the presence of God. It was
that ladder resting upon earth and reaching its top even into
heaven. Angels going up and down that
ladder. and the Lord's manifesting presence
and speaking unto him in that place, and therefore speaking
his mind and revealing unto Jacob the things that would come to
pass. This moved Jacob to say, this
place is the house of God. This is Bethel. This is where
God dwelled. This is the gate of heaven. This
is the way into heaven. Later, he turned his pillow into
a memorial before he left that place and set it up for generations
that would follow. And I think he anointed the rock
with oil that it might be consecrated in some way to the Lord. And
the name Bethel, the name Bethel means the house of God. How many churches there are that
are named Bethel. Bethel, the house of God. Then
notice, if you might, the second part of his statement. I knew
it not. God was here. God visited this
place. God lighted this place with his
manifested presence, and I knew it not. The words are past tense. I knew it not. At the time, or
when I lighted here, And when I chose here, when I stopped
here, the Lord was here. I knew it not. And the place
that he had pitched to spend the night. So I think that I'm
in agreement with A.W. Pink on this, that in the pitching
up on a place to spend the night, well, with probably no thought
of God in his mind." Unquote. Jacob had no particular thought
of meeting God or finding God or having this experience at
all. Just a common place to spend
the night and to pass the darkness. For he is a fugitive. from his
brother he's under an oath from his brother i'll kill you i'll
kill you when we meet again i'm going to seek a wife he's not
out seeking god he's not seeking the lord god or his present but
he's running from his brother and he's seeking out a wife He
had no idea that God would come to him in such a place or in
such a manner. He had no idea that it would
be Bethel, the house of God. After all, it would seem like
a very unlikely place for such a manifestation of God's presence
and such a revealing of his mind. Nothing about it suggested that
Jacob ought to expect that It was a common, ordinary place,
maybe even desolate and deserted for all we know. But as Matthew
Henry wrote on this passage, we sometimes meet with God where
we give little thought to meeting with him. He is where we did
not think he had been. Unquote take for example Moses
remember the experience of Moses in the backside of the desert
and the burning bush out in the midst of the backside of the
desert Exodus chapter 3 there he met with God there God commissioned
him and Moses like Jacob fled from the death threat of Pharaoh
and of his brethren in the land of Egypt. Consider that of Saul
of Tarsha, on his way on the Damascus Road, his thoughts upon
persecuting the saints and stamping out the church and the gospel. Then in Acts chapter 9, the Lord
arrested him on his murderous way. A bright light from heaven
shone about him, and the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ called
out from heaven unto him. Hardly did the little self-righteous
Pharisee think that the Lord was in this place, but how it
changed his life forever and forever. Then I think of the
two on Emmaus Road, walking along so downtrodden because their
hopes had seemingly been disappointed. The Lord Jesus Christ walks along
beside them in the way. But they did not know him, for
their eyes were holden and not yet open, nor their understanding
open to the word of the Lord. But Christ was there by their
side, and they knew it not. They took him to be a common,
ordinary Jew. Then what of Mary? John 20, 14
and 15. when the resurrected Lord appeared
unto her in the garden. She took him not to be the Lord
of glory, but she took him to be the gardener. She took him
to be the man who took care and trimmed the garden. Again, the
Lord was in that place, and at the time, she knew it not. Think
of Job 9, verse 11. Lo, he goes by me, and I see
him not. He passes on also, but I perceive
him not. The Lord comes sometime when
we do not recognize it as being the Lord. Job 33 and 14, God
speaks once, yea, twice, yet man perceives it not, knowing
not that it is the voice of God. In 1 Kings 15, the Lord was in
the cave with Elijah, and he knew it not. He had no idea. Not in a mighty wind, not in
the earthquake, not in the fire, but in the still, small voice
was he there in the presence of the prophet. And as he slept
under a juniper tree, an angel awoke him, and he saw the cakes,
behold, and ate them, for God had provided. The Lord was in
that place, and he knew it not. How right was Matthew Henry? Sometime we meet with God where
we little thought of meeting with him and certainly it has
come to pass. Now next to be considered is
the work which God accomplished in his visits with this one Jacob
and others. Let's go back to Jacob in chapter
28 of Genesis and the question, what spiritual work was done
in Jacob on this occasion. What did God do in the life,
the mind, the heart, the soul of Jacob? that it was a spiritual
work. Who can dare deny it to be so?
It caused a transformation in Jacob, which was immediately
and lastingly evident in the life of this man. He knew it
to be of God. He knew it was the Lord that
was in this place. Consider, he set up a memorial. He called the place Bethel, the
house of God, and bowed unto the Lord. and promised to become
a tither as the Lord blessed him in the days that were to
come. Personally, I'm tempted to join with some of the expositors
that I've read and declare this to be the occasion of Jacob's
conversion. When Jacob was actually converted
unto the Lord God and his life was never the same again. For even then was he renewed,
the covenant was renewed with him. He was called at this particular
time into the full knowledge of God. By nature, we're all
dead in trespass and in sin. And yet on this occasion, how
Jacob was enlightened, how God revealed himself, revealed his
purpose unto them. My point is that it seems to
be here, for the first time in his life, that Jacob really discerned
spiritual matters. He'd been rather corneal up to
this time. When you look at the brothers
you find a that he saw it for a time was what we might call
a better man, more faithful Jacob, a little mama's boy, and so forth. But at this place in his life,
there came a change everlastingly in his life. R.S. Candliss wrote
a commentary on the book of Genesis, and from that I've taken this
quote. The night of Jacob's sojourn at Bethel was the era of his
new birth or of his spiritual awakening to an apprehension
of the unseen world and of his own position with regard unto
it." Here it becomes personal with Jacob. Here God meets with
him in such a way that he cannot deny. He speaks further, that
is Canlis does, of the impulse of the new creature that is put
into Jacob on this experience. The regenerating or reviving
influence of the Spirit of God came, it seemed, to work in Jacob
on this occasion. One thing seems certain, and
that is that Jacob received a revelation not heretofore having been given
or apprehended by him. And what is beyond question that
on this occasion in this place where Joseph and where Jacob
had no thought of such a visitation from God and yet it became his
formal introduction as being a covenant figure or head in
behalf of those to follow after and if we might verse 13 and
and 14 again, chapter 28, let us read. And behold, the Lord
stood above it and said, I'm the Lord God of Abraham, thy
father, the God of Isaac, the land wherein thy lies to thee
will I give it and to thy seed. Thy seed shall be as the dust
of the earth. Thou shalt spread abroad upon
the earth. To the west the east the north
and unto the south and in thee and in thy seed Shall all the
families of the earth be blessed Here again, basically what was
said unto Abraham in the giving of the covenant now We know in
these words to Jacob we see as he'll pointed out the same promise
that was made to Abraham chapter 13 13 through 15. It was renewed again unto Isaac
in Genesis chapter 26 at Beersheba and is now bestowed upon the
patriarch Jacob at Bethel. For Abraham is dead. Isaac is
old and is weak and is blind. And the covenant is passing now
upon Jacob, as it were, the head of that covenant. In Ruth chapter
4 verse 11, I think you see it again. And at Bethel, the covenant
God renews with Jacob the Abrahamic covenant in what Candace described
as, in all its breadth and all of its fullness. covenant is
fully fully reintroduced or established in Jacob so that the Abrahamic
covenant in its outworking and in its realization is now being
as it were transferred to the shoulders of Jacob. We'll proceed along in the line
of Jacob and his offspring. And this accords with both the
prophecy of Rebecca and the pronouncement of Isaiah and Jacob sleeping
and dreaming as so to deal with that place. God is here and I
knew it not. Now, in closing, Let's make some
practical application. Such as this, the first thing
we noted, it was not in the biggest city, in the front of the biggest
congregation. It was not in the city or in
the capital that God made a glorious appearing unto his servant Jacob. But it was yonder in a solitary
place and in the darkness of the night. This one Jacob was
alone. and not in the company of others. And even as he slept, he did
it while asleep and in a dream. God does not only meet with his
people that he might bless them when they are met for worship
with a congregation in the house of God or in a temple or at an
altar or in places where they expect God to be in their midst
and to bless them and to lead them and to guide them. But God
often meets with them at time and in places when and where
they least expect it, or it is the least likely. He may be with
us in a sickbed, and we know it not. He may be with us in
a trial, and we know it not. He may be with us in the valley
of despair, trials and troubles and heartache come. and we are
not aware of it. Most would look for God in some
magnificent temple, in a magnificent place dedicated unto him, perhaps
in our stained glass window and our multi-million dollar organ.
But Luke chapter 3 and verse 2 reminds us of something. Annas and Chias being the high
priests in the city, in the temple, but the word of God came to John
out yonder in the wilderness, in their high offices, officiating
in their official garments, and yet the word of God went out
to John who was in the wilderness. The mystery of the ladder is
open for us in the gospel of John chapter 1 and verse 51 as
Christ is the only one who comes down, descended and ascended
to God. Christ is the fulfillment of
that great ladder and by which heaven is open and by which we
reach heaven or the door to heaven. is our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. By that ladder and Him only are
we able to ascend up into the very presence of God. Now, one
final application. Let this text teach us to ever
be mindful to ever seek to be aware that God may meet us when
and where we do not expect it. He may be in the whirlwind or
in the storm, but God may meet us when we least expect it. And that is calling us, appearing
to us in regeneration, confirms us in covenant status. As we said this morning, when
God quickens us and reveals himself and reveals Christ in the way
of truth and the gospel, then Is it a sealing of that covenant
in our heart? Even though we knew it not before,
even though we expected it not, it puts us in the service of
God, marks us as the children of God by the special work of
God, our Heavenly Father, by and through the Lord Jesus Christ. God was here And I did not know
it. But what a difference it made
in the life of Jacob from that day forward. And thank God for
it. And thank God for the time that
he came to us. Strange way it may have been,
driving, sleeping, working, whatever. And yet God opened our mind and
our understanding and our heart and caused us to yearn after
him and to seek after him by the grace of God that he had
given unto us. Thank God for that.