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10 Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. 11 So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. 12 Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 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 on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. 14 Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. 15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you." ~ Genesis 28:10-15
Today, we continue our study of Genesis 28 which is an intense study of a man whose name means deceiver. His story gives us all hope because in a very real way his story is our story. In today's passage we find Jacob on his own for the first time in his life. It had come time for him to find himself apart from his family. His situation required a change in his understanding of God, a change in his relationship with God. For all of his life, YHWH had been the family God but not Jacob's God. This was about to change as God chose to initiate a relationship with the deceiver pretender.
In v.10 of today's passage we read, "Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran."
Jacob obeyed his parents and he left Beersheba which means "well of the promise." Jacob went out on a promise toward "Haran" which means "to ignite." After Jacob left the presence of his family, he stumbled into the presence of God. Jacob left Beersheba headed to Haran looking for a wife, he was not looking for God but God was looking for him! That was my story and I bet it was yours as well.
The God of the Bible is a God who goes after sinners, not waiting for us to come to Him. While traveling to Haran, God ignited Jacob's world, not because of Jacob's virtues, although Jacob appeared to be virtuous, he had none. For the first time in his life, Jacob was on his own. He was a pretending and scheming, thief of a man. On that night that Jacob went to sleep he for the first time was truly blessed because he learned that night that God has never been defined by fallen man. Think of how small such a God would be, to be at the mercy of man's performance. In time, Jacob would be God’s man only by God's grace.
In v.11-12 of today's passage we read, "11 So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. 12 Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it."
While Jacob was sleeping, a great ladder appeared between heaven and earth. Angels were going up and down the ladder. Before this night Jacob had been dreaming that if only he could climb the ladder of success, he would make certain wonderful things happen in his life. So he climbed and he climbed but his dreams always remained beyond his reach.
In John 1:51 we read, "And He said to him, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.'"
The Lord Jesus was speaking with a man named Nathanael. The moment the Lord Jesus met Nathanael, He alluded to Jacob and the story of the ladder. It was probable that Nathanael was reading the story of Jacob’s ladder when the Lord Jesus saw him under the fig tree. When the Lord Jesus described Nathanael as an "Israelite in whom there is no deceit," he was distinguishing Jacob and Nathanael. It was then that the Lord Jesus revealed that He was the ladder that Jacob saw in his dream. It is the Lord Jesus who is the divine connection between heaven and earth and Jacob's dream was a shadow of the Christ who came.
In v.13 of today's passage we read, "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 on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants.'"
In this dream, Jacob was below God and he wasn't even on the ladder. Jacob was not climbing the ladder. The angels were the ones going back and forth on the ladder. And, in this dream from God Jacob experienced something he had never experienced before, he received from God. It is hard for deceptive pretenders who strive for all they get to just receive. It is only by humbling ourselves before the Lord that we receive His grace. We can spend our fleeting years trying to achieve a life and exhaust ourselves to death. Or we can receive the life of blessing that the Lord desires to give us. If we make achieving our goal, our constant companion will be complaint because we will never achieve enough. But if we make receiving our goal, our constant companion will be gratitude. God has already made the choice to bless us. Now it is our time to receive from Him His definition for our lives.
In v.14-15 of today's passage we read, "14 Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. 15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you."
When God first showed up in the life of this deceiver, this pretender, He didn't reprimand him. It was then that God made to Jacob three promises: a promise of His promised land, a promise of His presence, and a promise of His protection. This would be the first time that God defined Jacob and Jacob had a decision because all of his life he had been defined by his wayward ideas about life.
Like Jacob, we all have a twin who has defined us more than we ever knew. From the day we were born we were measuring ourselves against some Esau, some standard of what we thought we should be. Esau wasn't just Jacob's older brother, he was the person Jacob thought he had to become before he would reach a meaningful life. For Jacob, this meant he was constantly evaluating his life by Esau's standards. And, even though we do not literally have a twin, we struggle with the same psychological issues as Jacob. No matter what we do, it will never be good enough because we believe our Esau would have done it better. So we knock ourselves out trying to become some other person's definition for our lives. From this posture, no wonder Jacob was as deceptive and pretentious as he was. And, we are no different than he. Our problem is that we do not really know what the blessing truly is.
As a result of Jacob's deception, he had to run away from home because his brother was so angry that he wanted to kill him. But, of course, Jacob had been hustling and pretending his whole life. And now as he ran away from the inheritance he hustled from his brother, he was led to the place of this dream. This was different from any other dream that Jacob had ever had because this dream revealed God to Jacob. And, in his first real encounter with God, God came down to Jacob's level, and He said to Jacob, "I am with you."
At that moment God enrolled Jacob into His course on grace. Grace is always uncaused by the recipient. Its cause lies totally in the Giver. Grace is always sovereign. Not having debts to pay or fulfilled conditions to wait for, it can act toward whom and how it pleases. Grace can, and often does, place the worst in its highest of favor. Grace cannot act where there is ability. Grace does not help, it is absolute. Grace measures up on the behalf of its humbled recipient. Grace does all that is required. There being no cause in the creature why grace should be shown, the creature must be brought down from trying to give cause to God for His grace. Grace, once bestowed upon us, is not withdrawn. The posture of the man being bolstered by God's grace is that of faith, to believe and to consent to be loved even though he knows for sure that he is unworthy of it.
