Genesis chapter 28 and verse
5. Isaac sent away Jacob, and he went to Paddanaram unto Laban
the son of Bethuel, the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob's
and Esau's mother. When Esau saw that Isaac had
blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddanaram to take him a wife
from Thames, And that he blessed him, and gave him a charge, saying,
Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. And
that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone
to Pedanaram. And he saw, seeing that the daughters
of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father. Then when he saw unto
Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had, Mahalath, the daughter
of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebothoth, to be his
wife. And Jacob went out from Sheba,
and went to Herod. And he lied upon a certain place,
and tarried there all night, because the sun was set. And
he took the stones of that place, and put them for his pillars.
and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed a dream,
and behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and the top reached
into 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, your father, and
the God of Isaac. The land whereon thou liest,
to thee will I give it, and to your seed. And your seed shall
be as the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to
the west and to the east, to the north and the south. And
in you and in your seed shall all the families of the earth
be blessed. And behold, I am with you, and
will keep you in all places where you go, and will bring you again
to this land. For I will not leave you until
I have done that which I have spoken to you of. And Jacob awaked
out of his sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in this place. And
I knew it not. And he was afraid and said, How
dreadful is this place. This is none other but the house
of God. This is the gate of heaven. And
Jacob rose up early in the morning and took the stone that he had
put for his pillows and set it up for a pillar and poured oil
upon the top of it. And he called the name of that
place Bethel. But the name of that city was
Luz at the first. And Jacob vowed a vow, saying,
If, or since, God will be with me, and will keep me in the 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 all that He will give me,
thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee. Now,
I want to look first at just a little bit here at Esau, because
he realized, I think, at least to an extent, what he had done.
And he saw that when his dad sent Jacob away, charged
him not to take a wife of the land of Canaan. And Esau realized
that he had already had two wives of the land of Canaan. And he
grieved his father and his mother, and Jacob obeyed his father and
mother, was going away into this strange land to take for himself
a wife. And you'll notice here what he
did. He took to himself a daughter of Esau. He tried
to figure out some way to win his father's favor and maybe
perhaps a blessing. But he had already despised his
birthright. He had already sold it. We read
that in the foregoing chapter. And he lived in fornication.
He had married these two strange women in the land of Canaan.
Now in his ignorance, in his spiritual blindness, he marries
again. That's what lost people do, ain't
it? When and if they sell their birthright, they despise the
Lord Jesus Christ, despise His grace. There's no hope for them
then. And then what do they do? Well,
they just sin more and more. They live then in their spiritual
darkness and their spiritual ignorance. There was only one
hope for Esau, and that was this birthright. Once having sold
his birthright, there was no hope for him now. He had sealed
his own eternal doom. Now, that's so important to remember
that. Look and hold the 28th chapter of Genesis, and look
over in Hebrews chapter 12 with me for just a minute, because
we're told of this man Esau over in the 12th chapter of the book
of Hebrews. It gives us just a little bit
more insight to him. And it's a mystery in a lot of
ways. But look here in Hebrews chapter
12. We know that God had purposed to bless Jacob. Isaac didn't
even know that. Isaac thought it was God's will
for him to bless Esau. He had no idea that Esau had
already sold the birthright and despised it. But it was God's
purpose all along to bless Jacob. Now, we remember that, don't
we? Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. Before the children
were ever born, God had purpose. He had passed by Esau and chosen
to give the blessings to Jacob. But I want you to look here at
how the Hebrew writer says this in Hebrews chapter 12 and verse
15. He says, look and do it gently.
This is the warning. an encouragement that he gave
to these Hebrew Christians, look indeligently lest any man fall
short of the grace of God. Now, that's what that fail of
the grace of God means, fall short of the saving grace of
God. I don't want to do that, brothers
and sisters. If a man falls short of God's
saving grace in Christ, he'll perish. He'll die lost. He's
not saying you fall away from the grace of God. That you're
in Christ and you fall out of Christ. But he said, take heed
that you don't fall short of it. Lest any root of bitterness
springing up trouble, and thereby many be defiled. Now he speaks
to us of Esau. Lest there be any fornicator
or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his
birthright. Now look at this. For ye know
how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing,
he was rejected." Now look how he says that. We know from Scripture
that it was God's purpose to bless Jacob all along. But here this writer says that
Esau would have inherited the blessing. Now how in the world
do we bring those two together? How in the world, we can't reconcile
them because they're not an invented, but how in the world do we bring
these things together in our minds? That it was God's purpose
to bless Jacob all along, and bless he would. But the birthright
belonged to Esau, and if he had not sold that birthright, he
would have inherited the blessing. Well, all we can do is believe
these things are so. We can't figure these out in
our puny minds. God's decrees and God's purposes
and man's responsibility, they're just both so that sometimes they
seem to conflict one with another, don't they? Jacob have I loved
and I'm going to bless him. Esau, if you sell your birthright,
you won't be blessed. And somebody, some free will
is going to stand up when you start talking about these things
and say, you guys are so inconsistent. You're so inconsistent. No. The Scriptures are consistent.
The Scriptures are consistent. And that's what we believe in.
We just believe the Scriptures. A man despises Christ. A man
despises the new birth. What does he do? He makes his
own damnation sure. And he's got nobody to blame
but himself. He cannot blame God. He can't
go back and say, well, you didn't purpose to bless me. Election does no man any harm.
It done he saw no harm. He did himself harm. He saw the
birthright, and when it come time to inherit the blessing,
then he was rejected and found no place of repentance, though
he sought it carefully with tears. But I tell you this, brothers
and sisters, let men do what they will. They won't change
God's eternal purpose. They may prove it, and they will
prove it, but you won't change it. Esau was damned, he was doomed,
and he made it certain himself. But Jacob was blessed because
God purposed to bless him. These things are both so. They're
both so. Now back over to Genesis chapter
28 again. Genesis chapter 28. I want you
to notice this. Notice the difference in the
way that the Lord dealt with Esau as opposed to the way that
he dealt with Jacob. What did the Lord do to Esau?
He more or less left him to himself. And we remember what Glenn said
this morning in our Sunday school class. All the Lord has to do
to harden our hearts, just leave us to ourselves. Don't give us
grace to soften our hearts. That will harden our hearts,
won't it? And here's what happened to Esau. The Lord basically left
him to his own darkness. He despised his birthright. He
sold it for one morsel of meat. And God just left him alone.
And he went on in his sin. I've got to win my father's favor,
he said. So what are you going to do?
I'm going to marry another woman. That was his third wife. God
had left him alone to himself. But what did he do to Jacob?
Well, Jacob was on his way to the far country, to the old country.
And he went to sleep. He built him up a little pillar
here out of stones. And he went to sleep. And the
Lord comes to him while he's laying there asleep. And He appears
to him in this dream and graciously makes these promises to him.
He shows him this ladder set upon the earth. And the top of
it reached all the way into heaven. And Jacob awakes out of his sleep
and realizes what had happened. And he makes these tremendous
statements here that we'll look at just in a minute. But I just
want to concentrate just for a few minutes and make some short
statements concerning this ladder. Here in verse 12, He dreamed,
and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth And the top of
it reached unto heaven. Now this was like a staircase,
and if you can get this in your imagination, it's like a staircase
set upon the earth. And it went all the way into
heaven. And the first thing I thought as I was studying about this
is this, that this ladder joined heaven and earth together. Now
heaven and earth, brothers and sisters, are a long way apart.
Heaven is high above the earth. But Jacob realized that they
were joined together by this ladder. The bottom of this ladder
was set upon the earth. So it was connected to the earth.
It was established there in the earth. And he said the top of
it reached all the way into heaven. So it connected heaven and it
connected earth together. That's the first thing. And the
second thing Jacob realized about this ladder was this, that there
was a way from earth to heaven, as well as from heaven to earth.
And that was this ladder. Now what is a ladder for? What
do you use a ladder for? You're down here on this low
level and you want up on a higher level. So you set up this ladder
and you climb up it. It's from getting to a low area
to a high area. And Jacob saw this ladder and
he said, my goodness, here's a way from earth to heaven. Aren't you glad, brothers and
sisters, there's a way from earth to heaven? And he thought to himself, no
doubt, a man can get on this ladder and climb it to the top
and step off into heaven. What a precious thing this ladder
was. And the third thing he saw about this ladder was this, and
the thing about this ladder, here lay Jacob. I mean, in his solitude. Nobody
was with him. He was probably lonely. He was
poor. He said, with my staff, I passed
over this Jordan. That's all he had. I don't know
why. Maybe they didn't have any money.
Maybe they had some kind of currency that you just couldn't pack around
with you like we do today. He couldn't take a herd of cattle
with him to trade on. He was a poor man. He was a lonely
man. Here he lay in his loneliness,
in his poverty, with his staff. And he saw that this ladder reached
right down where he was. It wasn't a far off that he had
to go to it, but it reached right down where he was. And the fourth
thing about this ladder was this, that he saw the angels of God
was coming down from heaven on this ladder, and they were going
back up to heaven on this ladder. They were coming down and going
up, coming down and going up. They were ascending and descending
on this ladder. Whatever was taking place, it
was unbroken. If it was messages, if it was
fellowship between heaven and earth, it was unbroken. It was
something that had continued while he saw this vision. And
the fifth thing is here in verse 16, he saw was this. That wherever this ladder was,
where it was set up, was indicative of the Lord's presence. Look
what he said in verse 16. And Jacob awaked out of his sleep
and said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it
not." The Lord was there where this ladder was set up. Well,
you say, we know He was up in heaven, but yet Jacob said He's
down here where this ladder is set up. The Lord is here. His presence is here. And there's two things else about
this ladder. He said here, in verse 17, two
things about it. He said, where this ladder is
set up, it's none other than the house of God. This ladder
was set up, and he said where it's set up upon this earth,
it is the house of God. It's the family of God. It's
the household of the living God, the children of God. That's the
first thing he thought about it. That's the bottom of the
ladder. But the top of the ladder, he
said here, this is not only the house of God, but this is the
gate of heaven. Now, that's an amazing thing.
You say, Bruce, he doesn't say it extended to heaven. Well,
there would be a difference in a ladder extending to heaven,
as opposed then to it being the gate of heaven. If it just extended
to heaven, you may get to heaven and no way to get into heaven.
So this ladder was not only extended up to heaven for a man to get
to heaven, but he said, this is the gate. We know what a gate
is, don't we? It's an entryway. This ladder
is an entryway unto heaven. And you in here in verse 13,
you'll have to use your imagination here. But what Jacob saw here
in verse 13, the first portion of verse 13, If you could use your imagination,
when Jacob stood looking up at the top of that ladder, he saw
the Lord. And can you imagine seeing the
Lord with one hand on one side of the ladder and another one
on the other, as if to study it? And He's looking right down
at you. You're looking up at Him, and
He's looking down at you. The Lord of glory. And here is
what He said. He's blessing him. Look what
he said in the last portion of verse 13. I am the Lord God of
Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac. The land whereon
thou layest, to thee will I give it unto thy seed. And thy seed
shall be as the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to
the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south.
And in thee and in your seed shall all the families of the
earth be blessed. And behold, I am with you, and
will keep you in all places where you go. And I will bring you
again to this land. I will not leave you until I
have done that which I have spoken to the young." Jacob was looking
up at the Lord, and the Lord was looking down at him, pronouncing
all these wonderful blessings. These are covenant blessings.
These had already been pronounced before to Isaac and to Abraham,
the very same thing. The Lord told Abraham, listen
to it and let me read it to you. This is found in Genesis 13 and
Genesis 12. Listen to this. Here's what the
Lord said to Abraham. Lift up your eyes and look from
the place where you are, northward, southward, eastward, and westward,
for all the land which you see will I give it to you, and to
your seed will I make as the dust of the earth, and in Thy
seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Now that's
the same thing he just said to Jacob. The very same promise
that he made him. And then in the 26th chapter,
the Lord says the same thing to Isaac. He says, Sojourn in
this land, I will be with you and bless you, and to you and
to your seed will I give all these countries. I will perform
the oath which I swore unto Abraham your father, and I will make
your seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and in your
seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." Now why
does the Lord keep reiterating these covenant blessings? He
does it to Abraham, He does it to Isaac, He does it to Jacob,
and Brother Larry just read it in Jeremiah that He does it to
us. I will, I will, I will. What is that? That's covenant
blessings. That's what we call covenant
blessing. And I love that verse that said there in the portion
that Larry read, I will and you shall. You shall. And here's why these covenant
blessings are so wonderful and why they're so sure. They're
not based upon man's prickled will. Man's weak will or his
nature. The Lord doesn't say, you do
this and then I'll do this. That's law. That's the covenant
of works. But the covenant of grace speaks
like this, I will and you shall. I will, I will. Did you notice
that? He kept saying that in our text
too, didn't he? It's dependent upon the sovereign
will and the grace and the wisdom and the faithfulness of God. That's what it's dependent upon.
We don't have the promises. of the New Covenant depended
upon us. But we're dependent upon the promise of the New Covenant.
And Jacob saw this right here and now. The Lord made him these
promises. He said, I'm going to give you
this land. Your seed is going to be like
the stars of heaven or the sands by the seashore. And in your
seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. And just
in case you're trusting in yourself, Jacob, and you think, boy, I'll
never make it. I don't even have a wife. How
am I going to have any kids? I'm here by myself. I'm destitute.
I'm going off into the land to meet a bunch of people I don't
even know. And I'll probably never see this land again. Well,
the Lord adds this. He said, I'll tell you how sure
my covenant blessings are, Jacob. I've made you these promises,
and I will be with thee and keep thee in all places where you
go, I will bring you again. I will not leave you until I
have done all that I have spoken to you of. It's not dependent
upon you, Jacob. That's the wonderful thing about
the covenant of grace, isn't it? Wonderful thing. They're
not conditional promises. If we have to say they're conditional
promises, we'll say this, the condition is fulfilled outside
of us. It's not dependent upon us. And that's what he's seen. I
will, I will, I will. Covenant promises. How did this
vision affect Jacob? Oh, it had a profound effect
upon him. There in verse 16, he'd come to the realization
of this, that the Lord was in this place. I don't know if he
ever knew the presence of the Lord before, but he knew it right
now. The Lord was made real to him. He knew the Lord was with
his granddad. He knew the Lord was with his
Father. But now suddenly, after he saw this vision, he comes
to the realization, the Lord is with me. Oh, brothers and
sisters, that's wonderful. That's wonderful. You know you
can be a Christian. You can be a true child of God.
And you can't hardly believe that. You go groping around and
it's so sad because you just can't believe. You can't know.
You can't understand. He's with me. And when it dawns
upon you, I am with you. I am with you. My presence is
with you. Oh, what a realization that is. What a realization that
is. And in verse 17, how did this
affect him? Well, he was filled with reverence. He was filled with awe. He was
afraid and said, how dreadful is this place. Oh, he was filled
with awe and reverence. And I tell you what, he never
got over this. To his dying day, he never got over this. If you'll
read some time when Jacob was on his deathbed, all the way
over in chapter 48, he had already gone down into Egypt, and Joseph
was coming, and he was going to bless Joseph. He made mention
of this very place at this very time. He said, Joseph, God Almighty,
appeared to me in Bethel, in Luz, in the land of Canaan, and
He blessed me." Never got over that. And I tell you this much,
you and I will never get over it either, will we? We talk about
experiences and some people say, well, you can't trust experiences.
I know you can't trust experiences. But I tell you this, you'll never
get over it. You'll never get over it, will you? In verse 18,
here's how it affected him. This was a special time, a special
place, a special event. He took oil and He consecrated
this place. He set up the stone there and
He poured oil upon this place. It was a special, special revelation
to Him. Special time. A consecrated thing. Like Paul kept talking about
when he met the Lord on the Damascus road. That was a holy revelation. Well, when the Lord revealed
it, it was, Who art thou, Lord? I am Jesus, whom you persecute. Jacob recognized three things here in verse 22 about this ladder. And that's what we're talking
about, just looking at this ladder. In verse 22, here are some things
he recognized. And this stone, which I have
set for a pillar, shall be God's house." Now, I don't quite understand
all of that, but he seems to be saying God's got a church
in this world. He's got a family in this world,
a household in this world. And He has today. He's got His
body, His church in this world today. A special, special people. When you and I was converted
of the Lord, What was the first thing we did? Maybe we did this
before we were converted. But I'll tell you one thing,
the first thing we did when the Lord saved us, you know what
we did? We looked for the house of God. Did we not? And why did we do that? It was
a special place to us. It's where the ladders set up
on this earth. The Lord's house. To meet with
other people. To worship Him. And notice the
next thing He did was this. And all that thou wilt give me,
I will surely give the tenth unto thee." And why was that? To support this church. To support
this place where the Lord's people gather together for worship.
This is the second time we find tithes talked about. Remember
Abraham paid tithes to Michael? Melchizedek. And now, Jacob,
I don't know why unless he had heard about Abraham Pentecost. But he said, you're going to
have a church in this world. This is it. And I'm going to
give a tenth just to support it. Just to support it. Now, I don't know about tithing
today. I know here's the way it goes in the New Testament
today. As God has prospered you, you give. You give as God has
prospered you. So there's the ladder that he
saw, and some of the things about it. Now right quickly, for just
a minute, and I'll let you go. Turn over to John chapter 1. Turn over to John chapter 1. You remember these brethren, Philip and Nathanael? Andrew, Peter, James, and John. The Lord was calling them. And
He had called Philip. John 1, verse 45. Philip findeth
Nathanael, and said unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses,
and the law, and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth,
the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said unto him,
Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip said,
Come and see. And Jesus saw Nathanael coming
to him and said, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no god. Now where in the world did he
get a name like that? An Israelite. Well, we know, don't we? You
remember Jacob. That's all the vision. Remember
when he wrestled with the Lord all night and he said, Your name's
not going to be Jacob anymore. I'm going to call you Israel.
Your name is Israel." And all His seed, all of His children
were Israelites. That's where He got that name.
And the Lord Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and He made this
statement. But boy, the way He made it was
very telling. He just didn't say an Israelite,
but He said an Israelite indeed. Why did He say that? Well, Paul
said not all are of Israel, or true Israelites. Because you're
a Jew doesn't mean you're a true Jew. Because you're circumcised
doesn't mean you're truly circumcised. Here was an Israelite indeed,
not just in word, not just in nationality, but buddy, he was
one in his heart. He was one like Jacob. I think
he saw a vision. I think that's what he was doing,
seeking the Lord under this fig tree. And the Lord saw him coming
and said, Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile." I love what
Matthew Henry said about this. If you've got his works and you
want to see what he said about this, you look this passage up.
But I jotted down just a couple of statements that he made about
this. He said, Nathanael was a man without trick or design. A man that one could trust. No guile towards God. sincere
in his repentance and confession for sin, and sincere in his relations
to God. This was what Christ saw in Nathanael's
heart and in his spirit. Christ doesn't say a man without
guilt, but a man without God. Though in many things he is foolish
and forgetful, and yet in nothing He is false. Boy, ain't that
wonderful? Ain't that wonderful? Though
many things He may be foolish in, many things He may be forgetful,
but in nothing is He false. In Israelite indeed, in your
very spirit, there's no God. Oh, God make me like that. God
make me an Israelite indeed, in whom is no God. And you know
why there's no God in Him? Look back over the whole of this
right quick. And look back over at Psalms chapter 32 right quick.
Psalms chapter 32. This is where probably our Lord
was thinking of when He saw this. But look at this. Psalms chapter
32. Look in verse 1. Blessed is he whose transgressions
is forgiven, whose sins are covered. Now see, he wasn't a man who
had no sin, but he was a man who was forgiven his sin. He
was a man who did not have a sin formation. But I tell you this,
he was a man to whom sin was not imputed. Look at verse 2.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and
look at this, in whose spirit there is no guile, no trickery,
no falsehood towards God or man." That's the kind of man the Lord
Jesus said Nathanael was. A son of Jacob without any guile. You hold that right there. Hold
Psalm 32 and look back in our text now, right quickly. Look
in verse 48. Now remember, he's an Israelite.
And you remember when Jacob got that man when he wrestled with
the Lord. And this is the first time this is used in the New
Testament in Israel. Nathanael said unto him, How
do you know me? How do you know me? I've never
met you before in my life. I've never heard of you. And Jesus answered and said unto
him, Before Philip called thee, when you were under the fig tree,
I saw you. I saw you before. It wasn't like
the Lord Jesus watched Philip go find his brother and went
there and saw him where he was. He said before he ever went to
call you, I knew right where you were. And I saw you. I saw you. Now look back over
in Psalms chapter 32, this very same psalm. Look what he says in verse Well,
let's start reading there in verse 4. Day and night thy hand
was heavy upon me, my moisture turned to the draught of summer.
I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and my iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions
unto the Lord, and thou forgive us the iniquity of my sin. For this shall everyone that
is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found. Surely
in the floods of great water they shall not come near to you.
Thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble.
Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. I will
instruct thee, this is what the Lord says to David, and teach
thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine
eyes. You know what I like to think?
That I like to think that here was this Israelite indeed under
this fig tree. And that's where the Jews used
to congregate. Sometimes they would go there
in private and they would meditate, they would read the Scriptures
and have prayer and seek the Lord under the shade of these
fig trees. And I like to think that here
this man was sitting under that fig tree and his conscience had
been so guilty And he began to confess and pour out his soul
to the Lord. And the Lord had spoken to him,
Peace, and made this promise to you, My eyes will guide you. I'll see you wherever you go,
the same way He said to Jacob. I know right where you are, Nathaniel.
My eyes will guide you. I'll be gracious to you. I like
to think that because he comes here now to the Lord Jesus, and
the Lord Jesus said, I saw you under the fig tree. I saw you
while you were meditating in private and confessing your sins
and seeking the Lord. I saw you." That's all he had
to say to Nathanael. And you know what Nathanael said?
Rabbi, you're the Son of God. You're the Son of God. I think
probably he'd been wrestling with the Lord. Wanting to know
Him. Wanting to know Him better. Why
else would he know that this was the Son of God? Because he'd
already been wrestling with Him and meditating upon Him under
that fig tree. And the Lord Jesus said, I saw
you. I saw you. You're the Son of God. Nobody
else could know what I was meditating on. Nobody else could know who
I was seeking but you. You're the Son of God. You're
the King of Israel. Now what do we have here? The Lord Jesus Himself says in
verse 51, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter you shall
see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending
upon the Son of Man. There's the ladder in. The Lord
Jesus said, I'm the Son of Man. And that He was. He was set upon
this earth. He was born to the Virgin. He
can no more deny His humanity than we can. But Nathanael said,
you're the Son of God. You're the Son of Man, you're
upon this earth, and you're the Son of God in heaven. And everything
that can be said about that ladder that I just told you can be said
about the Son of God. The Son of Man. He has joined
heaven and earth together, brothers and sisters. And heaven and earth
can never be separated again. Heaven can't demise, can it?
Because the Son of God, who is from heaven, is joined to this
earth by a womb of a virgin. And not only has heaven and earth
become one and joined together, they can never be separated.
Through Jesus Christ, there's this ladder. And I'm telling
you what, if you're in Him, You can go all the way to heaven.
He can take you all the way to heaven. And when He gets there,
you'll find out that He's the door to that place. He won't
get you there and slam the door in your face. He is the door. He is the gate. And in Him, there
is continued fellowship. The same thing was said about
Him that was said about Jacob's ladder. and the angels of God
ascending and descending, ascending and descending, ascending and
descending upon the Son of Man. There is continued fellowship
between heaven and earth, between God and every Israelite indeed,
continued fellowship. You know God has so thoroughly
reconciled us to Himself in Christ. He will never have this fellowship
broken again. One of the amazing things about
Psalms chapter 51, with all the guilt David felt and all the
brokenness over that, fellowship was not broken. Joy was lost,
but the fellowship was not broken. David went right into the presence
of the Lord and confessed his sins. And brothers and sisters,
you and I feel so wretched We feel so far away and useless
sometimes. We feel guilt upon our own conscience.
But do you know something? You have not received the spirit
of bondage again to fear. And you never shall receive that
spirit again to fear. But the spirit of adoption, whereby
we cry, Father, Father. And if the Lord's chastening
hand may be upon you, it may be grievous to your heart. But
you still address Him as Father. And you still come into His presence
with unbroken fellowship. Because your fellowship is in
Jesus Christ. And therefore it's continued.
By Him we have access. And we may fall, and we may sin,
we may act shameful and foolish, but our fellowship And our communion
with the Father is not based upon us. But it's through this
ladder. It's the ladder that connects
us to Him. And fellowship is continued through
Him. As long as the Son of God Himself
is accepted and loved of the Father, then all His sons of
Jacob will be too. What a wonderful thought. Jacob's
ladder is Christ our Lord.