Tatham, Ernest: Jacob 02 ~ The Gate Of Heaven

I want to read two texts in addition to the passage that we have already read in this Sunday morning service. I'm not going to ask you to turn to it, but there's a little verse in the book of Hosea, one of those minor, obscure Old Testament prophets. And in Hosea chapter twelve, we have these words speaking of Jacob. It says, He, that is God, found him. Notice those words, God found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us, even the Lord God of hosts, the Lord is his memorial. He, God, found Jacob in Bethel. Now then, back to Genesis chapter twenty eight. the twenty eighth chapter of the book of Genesis, and verse sixteen and seventeen. 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. When Jacob said, aroused and alarmed, how dreadful is this place? He really didn't mean how horrible is this place, how terrifying is, is this place. Rather, he meant how awe-inspiring is this place? How impressive is this place? How meaningful is this place? How significant is this place? I know that because on that night, lying out on the desert sands with the stars as his roof, David, or rather Jacob, had a life-changing experience. He was never the same again. Oh, I'm not, I'm not forgetting the fact that he backslid. I'm not overlooking the fact that he was still guilty of some meanness after this. I must confess unto you that he was, and those of you who've read the story and read it in a sitting, you've been rather shocked and disturbed at the conduct of this man. Nevertheless, nevertheless, in later years, even on his deathbed, Jacob looked back to that experience, and he said many, many years later, at the end of his life, he reminisced, and he looked back on that memorable night, and he said to Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me at Luz. That was the other name for Bethel. God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me. On another occasion, he looked back upon that experience, and he said this. He said, God answered me at Bethel in the day of my distress. That night, the living God became a reality for that man. Oh, I know. I know that Jacob, in his father's house down there at Beersheba, had often, often talked about God. He had heard his dad, old Isaac, talk about God. He had heard his mother Rebecca speak about God. He had heard his old godly grandfather Abraham. He had seen him bowing his knees and praying to the only living and true God. God was part of his vocabulary, but, but it wasn't until that night that God became a reality in his experience, became real to him. A successful businessman said to me a couple of weeks ago up in the north, he said, I was brought up in a certain denominational church. I was a member of that church for thirty years. He said, I believed all the facts of Christianity. He said, I believed everything that I heard. But he said, it wasn't until that night or that day in that Bible class you said something. And he said, I saw for the first time that unless this was per- personal, unless Christ was a reality to me in my life, I wasn't a Christian at all. There are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands this morning who are sitting in pews and who pay lip service to the externals of Christianity. Recite the Apostles' Creed, say the Lord's Prayer, engage in ritual and liturgy. But to whom Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is not a reality, a personal savior, a personal redeemer. And until that time comes, one is not a Christian in the Bible sense of the word. He may be religious, and everything to which he or she subscribes may be true, but let me repeat again, unless you and I have come to Bethel, and unless the living Christ who hung on the spikes of Calvary and rose again the third day to give effect to his atoning work on the cross, unless we've come to the place in our life and experience where we can look up and say, Jesus, thou art my savior, God, thou art my father. One is not a Christian, a child of God in the Bible sense of the word. Now, I'm not suggesting for a moment, friends, that one has to have a blueprint or a transcript of the experience that Jacob had. I'm not suggesting you can't be converted unless you're lying out on the desert and your head is pillared on rocks, and you're looking up at the stars, or you dream about a ladder. But I'm saying that there does come, and there must come, a time in one's life when one meets the living Christ in terms of a personal experience. It says in Hosea, God found him at Bethel. He must have been looking for him then, and that's something some of us can't quite understand. Now, the story that we've read this morning in the twenty eighth chapter of the book of Genesis concerns three things: the vision and the voice and the vow. That's a simple outline. The vision is indicated in verses eleven and twelve. 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. Someone has said it was the changing of the guard. The angels of God in communication with earth. Behold, the Lord stood above it, verse thirteen, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac. The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed. So much for the vision. And then there was the voice. The voice occupies verse thirteen through fifteen. and finally the thou, which begins at verse 16 and goes through to the end of the chapter. Now, let's just look at the background. Those of you who were with us last Sunday morning will remember that Jacob was a twin, a twin son of Isaac the father and Rebekah the mother. We noticed that Rebekah the mother was the subject of a very significant prenatal announcement. Before the children were born, God said to Rebekah, you're going to become the mother of twin boys, and the elder shall serve the younger. In point of time and order, Esau was the first born. Jacob was the second. Now the prophecy said that the elder, who was Esau, would serve Jacob the younger. In other words, that Jacob would have the precedent. Jacob would have the birthright, and he would have the prior blessing, and he, and not Esau, would be in line, in the line of the Messiah, the one who was to come to bring worldwide blessing. We notice that Jacob was quite a contrasting character from his brother Esau. These two boys were different physically. They were different mentally, and they were certainly different in their, in their appraisal and evaluation of spiritual things. Esau had the birthright. He was the older of the two. Jacob connived and schemed to get that birthright. Esau sold his birthright for a passing pot of stew, one big blowout, one big indulgence, and he bartered away his hope for the future, and it says Esau despised his birthright. Jacob means supplanter. Jacob, the name means deceiver. Jacob means heel catcher. Jacob means a, uh, a shrewd trickster. Not a very complimentary name, but believe you me, he lived up to that name in after days. He succeeded in outwitting his brother in connection with the birthright, and he received what Esau, his brother, despised. Personally, I believe that Jacob, in spite of the methods he used, I believe that Jacob valued spiritual things, at least in measure, which his brother Esau certainly did not. And then in the twenty seventh chapter, on which we tw- dwelt briefly last Sunday morning, we have an episode that is just filled with, um, with evil. There are four actors in chapter twenty seven, and every one of them was guilty of wickedness, evil. For example, there was Isaac the father. Isaac, in spite of the fact that the divine purpose was to give the priority blessing to Jacob, Isaac doted on Esau. He loved Esau because Esau was a successful hunter, and Esau came in from the end of his expeditions with a savory venison, and he prepared it for his dad, and his dad had a weakness for that delicious venison which Esau's bull brought down. And, uh, Isaac, the father, set his preference upon his favorite boy, Esau, and he determined to bless Esau in spite of what God had said. He said, I'm going to give Esau the firstborn blessing and the first right, despite everything. Isaac, you're, you're seeking thus to detour the purpose of God. Secondly, there was Esau. What was wrong with him? Well, it says in the last part of chapter twenty five that Esau despised his birthright. He despised it, and the New Testament in Hebrews chapter eleven puts a label, a stigma upon Esau, and it says he was a fornicator and a profane person who, for one morsel of meat, sold his birthright. Third, there was Rebekah, the mother. Rebekah, although she knew of the divine purpose, and seeing that her husband was determined to give the priority blessing to Esau, she engineered a clever piece of deception, a dirty piece of deceit, in order to ensure the blessing to her favorite boy, Jacob. What was Rebecca trying to do? I think, friends, she was trying to help the Lord out of a jam. Don't you? She couldn't trust God to take care of his own purposes. And so she, she connived and schemed and called in her favorite boy Jacob. She dressed him up, and she prepared some goat meat that I suppose, uh, was as close as she could get to venison, and she paraded her favorite boy, Jacob, in before her husband, who was half blind or almost blind, so he couldn't see. And she engineered the whole miserable plot. She couldn't trust God to take care of his own purposes. That was Rebecca, and then finally Jacob. Jacob was a liar. Jacob was a hypocrite. Jacob was a deceiver. Jacob was a thief. When Jacob stood before his father with a plate of goat meat, his father said to him, uh, his father said to him, uh, what is thy name? Very blandly and coolly, he said, my name's Esau. He's a liar. His name was Jacob. And then he paraded as his brother, and he allowed the old man to feel him. Esau was hairy. The mother had fixed Jacob up so that, uh, Jacob's, uh, uh, body, uh, felt like Esau. Remember how Jacob remonstrated to his mother when she, uh, when she brought him in on the act? Remember what Jacob said? He said, my brother Esau, mother, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I'm a smooth man. I wrote in the margin of my Bible, he was smooth in more ways than one. He was smooth, all right, but his mother said, I'll fix you up. Your father will never catch on. It was a liar, he was a deceiver, he was a hypocrite, then he stole the blessing that his father intended for his brother. You know, as I look in on this character, Jacob, I just say, Lord, I don't understand how you could have anything to do with a man like that. What a mess! The father was wrong, Esau was wrong, Rebekah was wrong, and Jacob was wrong. It was a, it was a complex mess of deceit and trickery. Who could bring any good out of a situation like that? God could. And sometimes our God, in his wonderful wisdom and providence, reaches down into such a mess, my friends, that it defies the expert, and it brings blessing out of the whole thing. And where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. After the treachery had been exposed, and Esau came bounding in from the hunt and presented himself to his father. His father said to him, who are you, my son? He said, I'm Esau. You remember, father, you told me to go out and get a venison? I've had a great luck today. I've got it all ready for you. The old man trembled. It says he trembled with an exceeding great trembling. He said, who, who are you? He said, I'm Esau, father. He said, Esau's just been in here. I gave him the blessing. Then he added these significant words, yea, and he shall be blessed. There's a verse in Hebrews chapter eleven, Christian, that says this, and this has been a puzzler. It says in Hebrews eleven, written hundreds of years later, by faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. And we say, hold on a minute, Paul. You haven't read the story. You wouldn't write like that. Wait a minute. By faith, Isaac blessed both the sons of E- both, both Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. We say, but wait a minute, how could he do it by faith when he thought he was blessing Esau when he was actually blessing Jacob? What do you mean he did it by faith? The only way to explain that statement is this, that when Esau came in and presented himself, and the old man realized that unwittingly he had given the firstborn blessing to Jacob. He said to Esau, Yea, and he shall be blessed. You know, my friends, in that moment, I believe that, that Isaac said, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. In spite of all my maneuvering, God's going to have his way. Yea, and he shall be blessed. That's where the faith came in. That's all. Now then, after that thing was over, Esau, it says Esau hated his brother. And Esau, the temper rose in his cheeks, in his torso. His eyes glinted fire. He clenched his fists. He gritted his teeth. And he said, there's going to be a funeral around here some of these days. I'm paraphrasing it, but this is it. He said, my father Isaac's going to die one of these days, and then I'm going to square the account with you, my friend Jacob. You're my brother, but you've cheated me twice. You cheated me out of the birthright, now you're cheating me out of the blessing. I've got a score to settle with you, and boy, am I ever going to settle it. He hated his brother, and he vowed his brother's murder. And mother overheard it. Rebecca overheard it, and she called Jacob, her son, to her, and she said, Jacob, there's trouble in the works for you. There's a storm rising. Your brother's after you. Now then, look, Jacob, I suggest that you, I have a brother living on a farm four hundred and thirty miles north of here in Syria. His name is Laban, and I suggest that you go up there for a few days until he's cooled off, until his fury is gone, and then you can come back home, and happy days will be here again. A few days, did you say, Rebecca? Let me tell you in passing, my friends, that Rebecca never saw her beloved son again. She never saw Jacob. Jacob came back many, many, many years later, but Rebecca was gone. She said, she said, Jacob, you've got to get going while the going's good, and you flee up to my brother there, and everything will be okay. She figured that a change of location was going to solve all her problems. Florida's full of people like that. If I can only move from Chicago to Florida and make a new start, I'll, I'll leave all my troubles behind. Dear friends, I'm here to tell you this morning, you only transport your troubles from Chicago to Florida, that's all, because you're there. You can't get rid of your sins like that. A change of location, a change of location will never solve the problem in itself. We take ourselves with us. Remember the story? It's only pictures. Do you remember the story of the farmer and his family who were bothered by a ghost. Strange things were happening in the farmhouse. Furniture would be changed around in the night. Pictures would be removed and replaced during the night. There were strange, strange things going on in the farmhouse for months and months, and the family became increasingly, increasingly upset and disturbed and apprehensive. Couldn't figure it out. Strange noise, strange knocking. Until at last the old farmer says, we're going to get out of here. This is a haunted house, we're going to move. And so he and the boys loaded all the furniture on a big hay rack. Save moving costs. They got another house. Number of miles away, make a new start. So they loaded the big wide hay rack, hitched up the team, the family climbed up amidst the furniture and on the seat, and they moved. As they were going down the road, another farmer met them and stopped, and they talked together. The stranger said to the driver of the loaded furniture hay rack, he said, I see, Farmer Jones, you're moving. A little voice came out of the midst of the furniture. Yes, we're moving. He took the ghost with him. You know, my friends, a change of environment might do us good physically and mentally and economically, but it'll never solve the problem of sin, the problem of the heart. Four hundred and thirty miles from Beersheba, way up to Padan Aram in, in Syria, didn't cure the evil that was in Jacob's heart. But Jacob accepted the suggestion of his mother, and he gathered up a few odds and ends and tied them in a handkerchief and tied the handkerchief on the end with stick, and he started out. Years later, he said, with my staff I crossed this Jordan. When he left home, friends, that day, he was a fugitive, he was a runaway, and he set out to travel over four hundred and thirty inhospitable miles. That wouldn't have bothered Esau, but it bothered Jacob. Jacob was a plain man dwelling in tents. He was a mama's boy. Esau was a man of the field. He- Esau was a he man, out of doors man, but not Jacob. And Jacob was forced to flee, forced to flee over that wild and desolate desert, day after day, day after day, into the unknown. And the only traveling companion that he had was an accusing conscience. And I think as Jacob fled, he was looking over his shoulder. He was looking over his shoulder to see if Esau was on his trail. He was taking his past with him, taking his sins with him. Poor Jacob. Let me say this, that sin always put men at a distance from God. Sin put Adam at a distance from God, didn't it? The Lord God came down and communed with Adam before sin came in, and there was very, very delightful concord between the two. But oh, when sin came in and the Lord God came down and said, Adam, where art thou? He said, I'm, I'm hiding, Lord. I heard thy voice and I was afraid. What put him at a distance? Sin. What was it that caused Jacob to flee? It was sin. What caused David to flee from the Lord? It was sin. What caused the prodigal to get out? It was sin. It broke his link, and man today is lost and at a distance from God. You know, there's a verse in Isaiah chapter fifty nine that reads like this: The Lord's hand, behold, the Lord's hand is not heavy that it cannot save, nor is his arm shortened, that nor is his ear heavy that it cannot hear. No, I misquoted it. The Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor is his ear heavy that it cannot hear. In other words, he isn't paralyzed, nor is he deaf. Well, then why doesn't he hear my prayer? Then the next verse says, your sins have separated between you and your God. Sin makes man, puts man at a distance from God, and there is none that seeketh after God. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own. Jacob was a runaway. As he slept that night, put his head down on that stone for a pillow under the open canopy of heaven. I think, friends, the hideous, miserable past crowded in upon his consciousness. He was a sinner. He was a runaway. He was lost. He was lonely. He was cold. In the aftermath of that experience in chapter thirty five, he says, the Lord met me in the day of my distress. Did you get that word? In the day of my distress. He was troubled. He was lost. He was guilty, and he knew it. He had no friends. He couldn't go home. He didn't know where he was going. He was lost. And it was that night, that night that something happened. He saw a vision, he heard a voice, and it responded from that vision, and he said, henceforth the Lord shall be my God. In his dream, he saw a ladder set up so that the bottom of it was on the earth and the top of it reached heaven. A ladder, there was a communication between the lowest and the highest. I believe that ladder is a picture of Christ, who said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. First Timothy chapter two verse five says, there is one God and one mediator, one middleman between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Oh friends, when I couldn't find my way and I was lost and lonely and conscience stricken, God came out in Christ. It wasn't that I sought God, but it was he sought me, and he said, the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost. And he came down from the heights to the depths. He came down from the light to the darkness. He came down from the singing to the sobbing. He came down from the blessing to the cursing, and he came down to the cross of Calvary. And there, friend, he bore my sins in his own body on the tree, and now has risen from the dead. He sent down his Holy Spirit, and he found me. I say, Lord, I wouldn't be bothered with a crook like that. That man's no good. The Lord says that I can work with people that are no good and who know it, who are lost and know it, who are sinful and know it. That night he saw the vision. He saw a connection between heaven and earth, and then he heard the voice, and the voice said, in effect, Jacob, I know all about you. I know you. I know your guilt. Jacob, I want to be your God. I'm going to bless you, Jacob. I'm going to give you a seed like the dust of the earth and like the stars of the heavens. Jacob was to become the ancestor of an earthly seed. That's the natural progeny. He was to become the ancestor, the progenitor of a heaven. That's the stars, the dust and the stars. A earthly seed, that's the natural. A heavenly seed, that's the spiritual. And God said to him, in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. In other words, I'm going to bring from your seed, not Esau's, the mighty deliverer. My son is going to be born of your progeny, of your seed, of the tribe of Judah, and he's going to die for men, and he's going to bring about the means of blessing to all nations, whether they're Jews or Gentiles or whatever they are. And my friends, you're, you and I are here this morning because the seed has come, Jesus Christ our Lord, who loved us and gave himself for us, and there's salvation only in him. You see, the Lord spoke personally to Jacob, and Jacob responded. He woke out of his sleep, and he said, surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. When I lay down here last night, I didn't know the Lord was here. You don't have to be in church to be saved. You can be saved at home. You can be saved in a hospital bed. You can be saved in an automobile. You can be saved right here this morning, friends, by saying, blessed living Christ, thou Son of God, I'm going to trust you as my Savior and my Lord. You want to j- how did he respond? He said, this is the house of God. This is the gate of heaven. He could look back in after years to that place where the Lord met him and saved him. Has there been a place in your life? When you saw, when you heard, when the Lord spoke to you personally, and you said, yes, Lord Jesus, I'll take you as my Savior. I'll confess you as my Lord. You know what Jacob did? Listen. Jacob said in seven words in verse twenty one, then shall the Lord be my God. Before that, it had been my dad's God, my father's God, my mother's God, my grandfather Abraham's God. From now on, he says, the Lord is going to be my God. My God. He's going to be my God. This is what makes it so relevant, so real, so personal. He's my savior. He's my Lord. I don't know him as well as I should, but I do know him as the one who came from heaven and died my death and paid my debt, and I've trusted him as my savior and my Lord.