Our text tonight will be in Genesis, Genesis 28, verses 10 through 22. Now to set the context a little bit, we will start in actually chapter 27, verse 41. We'll read through our text then. So starting in Genesis 27, verse 41. So this is after Jacob has stolen Esau's blessing. Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. He said to himself, The days of mourning for my father are near. Then will I kill my brother Jacob. When Rebekah was told what her older son Esau had said, she sent for her younger son Jacob and said to him, Your brother Esau is consoling himself with the thought of killing you. Now then, my son, do what I say. Flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran. Stay with him for a while until your brother's fury subsides. When your brother is no longer angry with you and forgets what you did to him, I will send word for you to come back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day? Then Rebekah said to Isaac, I'm disgusted with living because of these Hittite women. If Jacob takes a wife from among the women of this land, from Hittite women like these, my life will not be worth living. So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him and commanded him, Do not marry a Canaanite woman. Go at once to Badam Aram, to the house of your mother's father, Bethuel. Take a wife for yourself there from among the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples. May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as an alien, the land God gave to Abraham. Then Isaac sent Jacob on his way. He went to Paddan Aram, to Laban, son of Bethuel, the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, who was the mother of Jacob and Esau. Now Esau learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and had sent him to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there, and that when he blessed him, he commanded him, Do not marry a Canaanite woman, and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and had gone to Paddan Aram. Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac. So he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Neboiath, and daughter of Ishmael, son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had. So then our text for tonight. Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord, and he said, I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it. He was afraid, and he said, How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven. Early the next morning, Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head, and he set it up as a pillar, and he poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking, and will give me clothes to eat and clothes to wear, so that I return safely to my father's house, then the Lord will be my God, and the stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me, I will give you a tenth. At the beginning of our text, in verse 10, we find Jacob on a frightful journey, we could say. He was on his way from Beersheba to Haran, as our text says. Now, it's not a short journey. It would be over a week, at least, of hard travel. It's quite a distance, maybe even more than that. But it's not so much the distance that makes the journey frightful. It's really the circumstances behind it. We could ask, who is this Jacob who's on this journey? And we look back at Genesis. He's the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham. He's part of this covenant line that God has called out. But he's the younger, right? Esau, his older brother, is older than him. But he is the one of promise. If you remember the beginning of this story, it was told to Rebekah that the older will serve the younger. So he is the child of promise in this covenant line. And yet, if you're familiar with the stories, you know that Jacob is striving to make this true by himself. He is going to make himself greater than his brother. Already in the womb, they were fighting. And Jacob is grabbing at his brother's heel as they come out. And you remember the story of how Esau came in from the field almost dead, exhausted. And Jacob took advantage to connive, to get him to sell his birthright for a bowl of stew. And most recently, right in the background of this text, is the story, maybe the most despicable story of Jacob, as he, with his mother's help, tricked his old, blind father into thinking that he was his brother Esau, and thereby stole Esau's blessing. So this Jacob, though a member of this covenant line, he is tricky. He is this deceiver. But what is Jacob doing now? Where has his deception got him? Well, he's running for his life, to put it frankly. He's running for his life from his brother Esau. He just received this great blessing, talking about the fatness of the earth, the being the masters of your brothers. But look at him now. He strived all he could to overcome his brother, and yet they seem to have led to nothing. Jacob is now a fugitive. As he says on his way back, he left with only the staff in his hand. He is this child of covenant being run out of the promised land. And it is his brother who is doing it as he tries to kill him. but he's also leaving to get a wife. As we saw in the portion that we read beforehand, this is really, you know, somewhat the fake reason used by his mother to get him out of there, to get him to safety, so that he had a reason to flee. But in God's plan, there's a little bit more there, and that we could look at later, that really God is separating him from these Canaanites, that God is using this to build him up to a people, much as he built up the nation of Israel later in their time in Egypt. And, you know, lest we not forget, this Jacob out here traveling in the wilderness, he's also the one who likes to stay in the tent, to stay with his mother. He's the homebody. So there's much discomfort in here, much to frighten Jacob. And Jacob could be wondering, and we're wondering too as we come to this text, will Jacob ever come back? Will Esau ever give up this grudge? All his efforts have backfired, and now he has to live in fear of his brother. Because immediately before here, before we get to our text, we have Isaac calling on God to fulfill, to give, to pass on the blessing of Abraham to Jacob. And so we question, what is God going to do? What will God do for this trickster, this deceiver? Dear people of God, what journey are you on? I doubt any of you are fleeing from siblings who are trying to kill you. But there is so much in this life that makes it a frightening journey. We only have to look at our frailty, our health, our jobs that could come and go. When we're younger, it's even the kids in our class that make this a terrible thing, make this a frightening journey. So often this world presses in on us, and even the best of our efforts end in nothing. But also, what about your sins? Those that you've committed this week, maybe today. Those that are in secret, those that are out in the open. How will God respond to you, to me, as a sinner? Well, as we turn back to our text, the first verse leaves us in suspense, you could say. It just tells us, Jacob left Beersheba and he set out for Haran. We don't know where he is on this journey. somewhere, maybe just the first day seems most likely, but we don't know where he is. And yet he has an unexpected meeting. When we look at verse 11, it begins, when he reached a certain place in our translations. We could maybe add a little bit more to that. The word here is a little odd for just coming to a place. It's usually meant of when you meet somebody, when you meet a person. So it may be better to translate something like, he encountered, he confronted a place. And in the version, or in verse 11, we also see this repetition of place. Now, it's left out somewhat in the NIV, so if I read from the New American Standard Version, you can hear this. And he encountered a certain place and spent the night there because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of the place and he put it under his head and he laid down in the place. Well, not only is this word repeated here, but the word place, translated place, often refers not to just any place, but to a sacred place. It is used quite extensively later of the place that God will designate, the place where he will put his name. But even by itself, it often has sacred connotations. So we're left wondering, what is this place? Where has Jacob come? And as we look at it, Jacob didn't stop here for any reasons of his own. Instead, the sun had set. It was divine providence, we could say. When he reached a certain place, he didn't stop because it looked nice. He stopped for the night because the sun had set. So Jacob is in this place and he's alone and we could even say we see his poverty, his forlorn appearance as he uses a stone for his bedding. Now what confronts him in this place? Well, he has an awesome dream as we begin in verse 12. And there's three things that characterize this dream. In the New American Standard, you can see this as there's three times that it says, Behold, in verses 12 through 13. And he had a dream. And behold, a ladder, which we'll talk about, was set up on the earth with its top reaching to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending it. And behold, the Lord stood beside him. So what is this that Jacob is seeing? Well, first you'll notice there's some sort of connection here between heaven and earth. That is what's symbolized. And not only that, there's this connection, but it's also a connection that is displaying God's control. Because God is sending out his messengers. They're going up. They're coming down. God is active in this place. God is actively sending his messengers to do his will. Now, what is this ladder or this staircase? Most agree that it's not a ladder. They argue that maybe it's more like a temple that had a big, long staircase leading up. And these were built in Mesopotamia especially and called ziggurats. But I think it's important to ask, where is Jacob in this dream? It's somewhat difficult in dreams, you know, how they work, to be precise about everything. But at the beginning of verse 13, the translation in the NIV says, There above it stood the Lord. This phrase, where it occurs elsewhere in Genesis, talks about someone standing beside somebody else. And in light of what Jacob says later about God being in this place, I think it's best to understand this and translate this as not the Lord standing above this ladder or this stairway, but the Lord standing beside Jacob. Jacob was at the top. Jacob was where it reached heaven. And as we think about what Jacob has done in his journey, it's important to note that Jacob started out in Beersheba, a place that's very low, and he has climbed up. Now, we don't have this revealed right away in verse 10, but we know from later in the text that he's at Bethel, the house of God. And Bethel is on the top of the mountains. It's on the top of the Judean hill country. So I propose that it's best to understand what Jacob sees here as this mountain being the mountain of God. That it reaches up to where God is on top. God in heaven, enthroned. And his messengers are going out from there to all of the earth. because really that is what these staircases, these ziggurats, they symbolized. They were mountains. And this fits in very well with the imagery we see elsewhere in the Bible, especially we think of passages like Isaiah 2 and Micah 4, where it talks about all of the nations streaming up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of God. So Jacob has come to this place as this fugitive, this sojourner, this outcast, and he discovers this is the mountain where God dwells. In his distress, God in this dream has pulled back the veil, we could say, allowed him to see the greater realities of what is going on around him. But then we get into what God speaks. And we could definitely do a whole sermon on verses 13 and this promise, because this is really the promise given to Abraham, reaffirmed to Isaac, and now reaffirmed to Jacob. But here it has two parts. It has the promise given to the patriarchs looking to the distant future, but also looking to what Jacob needs right now, what Jacob is dealing with. And as we look at it, we see that what it is, is really the gospel. This is the gospel preached beforehand to these patriarchs. We find in it, God identifying him as the God of the fathers. And he's saying the land, this very land that you are sleeping in, is going to be your possession. This land that he now sees is holy, because God is present there. And not only that, this man who's on the run, who's worried about his own life, his seed is going to be like the dust of the land. They will be a multitude, and they will extend even beyond. He's at the top of this mountain, and he can see to the west, to the east, to the north, and to the south, and thus will this promise extend. This man who has nothing now is promised so much. And not only that, all the families will be blessed in Jacob, in his seed. They will be a means of God's blessing. This trickster, who really has only brought destruction, we could say, on his own family, is going to be used by God for a blessing. How can this be true? This one running away from the promised land, fearing his life. And so God addresses his immediate needs also here. In verse 15, we see him saying, I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. God will bring him back. His questions of whether he will come back, God will accomplish. So we see here in God's confrontation with Jacob, really no rebuke, no condemnation for his past actions, no demands, but instead the sure promises of what God will do for him and his family and what he will really do for the whole world. Jacob has already seen how his labors have been broken, how they have failed. He only needs to believe and walk by faith that God will fulfill what He promises. He's been striving in Himself, trying to get these blessings. And now he can see God in His activity going out that this God will do it for him. And this very land, this land He's forlorn in, sleeping on a stone, This will be the land that will be the promised land. A land holy because of God's presence there. God is promising everything that he was so hard at striving for. And so much more than that. And we now know the fullness of this, these blessings as they are shown in Jesus Christ. For how are the nations blessed, but through our Lord and Savior. so that we who are enemies can call to him, Abba, Father. We don't need to strive in our own power. In fact, our strivings only produce disastrous results like Jacob. Instead, we need to cling to the promises, the promises that Jesus has done it all for us, that through his death on the cross and life of perfect obedience, we can have hope. We are the descendants of Jacob, not those by descent, by blood descent, but those who have embraced these same promises. Those, as the promises went out to the east and to the west, to the north and the south, were proclaimed to all, including us. And what is the land that we look forward to but the new heavens and the new earth? And we could say, God also deals with our immediate concerns. We can apply this to ourselves. For Jesus not only taught us to pray, thy kingdom come, but he also taught us, give us each day our daily bread. Jesus promises, surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. We don't need to worry about what to eat, what to wear. We are constantly in God's care. Nothing can separate us from his love. And we know that he will bring to completion all that he has promised to us. How amazing is God's grace to us. So how did Jacob respond to this vision? Did he wake up and go on his merry way? Go on his fleeing? No, he instead saw the realities that had been shown to him and had a faithful response. He states that God is in this place. This place, he now sees, is really a sacred spot. It wasn't anything that he could see. God had to reveal it to him. I didn't know it. It was only revealed. God had shown him this in his time of doubt, in his time of fear. And not only that, it's a fearful, it's an awesome place. To be in the presence of God is an awesome thing. So he calls this the house of God, the name that sticks with it, Bethel, and the gates of heaven. So we can imagine him looking around where these angels had gone and come, and marveling at all he had been shown. And we can't miss the contrast here. He labels this the gates of heaven. Earlier in Genesis, men tried to make a tower, and they call it Babel, which means the gates of God. Man had tried to reach God by this tower. Here is God coming down to man. This is the real gates of heaven. We cannot reach God by our efforts. Instead, God must come down to meet us. To meet us in our sin. And thus he did. God not only came down, he became one of us. Jesus Christ tabernacled among us. He was the true temple, the true house of God, the tie between heaven and earth. And Jacob then consecrates this place. He takes this stone that he slept on and he sets it up as a memorial, a reminder of what this place is. And he pours oil on it to show that it is holy. And he also calls this place Bethel. And our text notes that formerly this was called Luz. Jacob now names this to reflect its true reality. There was this Canaanite city there. And the Canaanites didn't change the name of their city. But Jacob can no longer call this place, Luz. This is now Bethel. He is showing what it truly is. It is the house of God. This was the place where God had chosen to dwell, to reveal himself. And now we need to ask the question, well, why Bethel? This was a question that greatly perplexed Jewish commentators especially. The house of God, that has to be Jerusalem. That has to be where the temple is. And so it's fascinating to see what they do. They argue that Jerusalem moved for just a day. Mount Moriah jumped and was up at Bethel. There's various ways that they try to talk about this. But I think it's important to see this. There's nothing special about the physical place Bethel itself. Nothing special about the physical place Jerusalem itself. In fact, we read later that Bethel was the site of the northern kingdom, Israel, their greatest apostasy as they set up golden calves there. This was not a holy place in itself. It was only holy because God dwelt there. It was looking forward to God's holy heaven, the true mountain of God. It only typified this. It was only holy because where God is, so it is holy. Jacob's response then continues on in a vow, which we can briefly say is his dedication of himself. There is debate on how to exactly structure this vow and whether Jacob still is conniving a little bit. If he says, if you do all this, then you can be my God and I'll set this pillar up. But I think that is a little too much to read into it. This is his response. That when something great is promised, he is vowing himself to that. And that if these promises come true, he will give a tenth. And it's interesting to note in his response here that now he sees where all comes from. Because when he promises to give a tenth, it is of all that you give me. It is what God is going to bless him with, not what he will get by his own striving. So as we look at this, I declare to you people of God that you have come this evening to Bethel, to the house of God. You have entered into this place, this place of God's presence, This place that we have gathered together to call on the Lord. And why is that? Because He has called us here. We have the promise that where two or three are gathered together, God is there. And this is really the reality that the author of Hebrews is talking about. As he says in chapter 12, 22 through 24, But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. You have not come here as a social outing, but to meet with God. And it's not because this place is holy. It's certainly not because this minister is holy. It's because God is present. God has called you to confront you with his grace. Every day the world tries to convince you that Luz, the city of man, is the true reality. It presses in on us all around as we deal with cars, houses, jobs, health, children, everything. It tells us that that is all there is. But yet, each week, God confronts us. He rolls back the veil as his word is expounded through his revelation. He shows you how much more there is. He is working. His angels are going out into this world, his messengers always to do his will. And so this place where we are, this earth in which we live, Though it's filled with tears now, though it's filled with cares, it will be the promised land. This will be the new heavens and the new earth, the true gate of God, the new Jerusalem where God dwells with his people. And so, though this world outside, and this world outside of it, that calls itself Luz, that seems to control all, it will pass away, but God's kingdom will endure. And may that comfort you, dear people of God, on your frightful journey. So, dear people of God, you've received a greater revelation even than Jacob. You came here sinful, guilty, and now you've been confronted by God's grace. The forgiveness of sins that only comes through Jesus Christ and the promised life that is in Him as we look for His return. And so, how will you respond? Amen. Let us pray. Dear Sovereign Lord, it is an amazing thing to be in Your presence that we sinners, though we are, can come before You. And it's only because You call us to and because You have redeemed us through Jesus Christ. And so, may our hearts, may our hearts be soft and may we rejoice in this grace that You have given and give up our striving in ourselves. May you comfort us in all that we see and do as we go out this week and are pressed by the concerns of the world. May we know the true reality and grasp that, grasp those promises and make them ours. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.