THROUGH THE BIBLE - Genesis..

Welcome to Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church. Thank you for using and sharing our resources. What you're about to hear is God's Word from one of our teaching elders. We trust that God's Word will inspire, instruct, and bless you. For further teachings or information on our ministry, please visit us on our website at cornerstonerbc.

com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. So it's Genesis 28 that we're reading. So if you have your Bibles open, we'll commence our reading as a church, and we're reading the whole chapter.

And as always, I'll give a brief overview of the chapter, and then we'll pray together as a church, and we'll hand over to our brother to teach us and preach to us what the Lord has prepared on His heart to give us this evening. Genesis chapter 28. Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and directed him, You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women. Arise, go to Paddan Aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and take as your wife from there one of the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. And God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples.

May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham. Thus Isaac sent Jacob away and he went to Paddan Aram to Laban, the son of Bethuel, the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob's and Esau's mother. Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there, and that as he blessed him, he directed him, you must not take a wife from the Canaanite woman. And that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and gone to Paddan Aram. So when Esau saw that the Canaanite woman did not please Isaac, his father, Esau went to Ishmael and took as his wife, besides the wives he had, Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Neboah.

Jacob left Beersheba and went towards Haran. And he came to a certain place and stayed there the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in the place to sleep. And he dreamed. And behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth and the top of it reached to heaven.

And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father and the God of Isaac. the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring your offspring shall be like 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 you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed and behold I am with you and I 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 promised you. Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, surely the Lord is in this place. And I did not know it.

And he was afraid and said, how awesome is this place? There is none other than the house of God. And this is the gate of heaven. So early in the morning, Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up. for a pillar and poured oil on top of it.

He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at the first. Then Jacob made a vow saying, if God will be with me and will keep me in this way or in the way that I go, and I will give, and give me bread to eat and clothing to wear so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone which I have set up for a pillar shall be God's house. And of all that you give me, I will give a tenth to you." This is the word of the Lord. This chapter is truly a remarkable chapter which is filled with the goodness and faithfulness of God.

In fact, It's difficult to, in the short period of time that we have together, to really know what to say or how to summarize the richness that we find in this chapter. Indeed, if you have a chance through the week, I would very much encourage that you sit down in a quiet place and re-read and meditate upon the words in this chapter, because this evening and the few minutes we have, it is not possible to grasp the richness. But it's passages like this, and countless other passages in the Bible, which affirm to us what we've been trying to say all along in our series, in our corporate reading in the book of Genesis. And that is, that we want to demonstrate that the whole of Scripture is indeed centered upon Jesus Christ. Jesus is the goal.

and the purpose of all of Scripture. And we'll see this, I hope, this evening in the few moments that we have together. And we need to remember this whenever New Testament Christians open the Old Testament. We must be looking at and meditating upon the Old Testament as New Testament believers who know that Christ has come and fulfilled all the promises that He promised to fulfill. Last week, we briefly examined chapter 27.

There we read of the awful deception of Jacob against his aging father, Isaac. He wanted the blessing, and he wanted it bad. But he was owed to his brother, Esau. And God had already foretold that the older shall serve the younger, but Jacob, well, Jacob lacked faith. And he took matters into his own sinful hands.

And we saw what that looked like last week. So now we read of the initial consequences of that sin. Esau, his brother, seeks to kill Jacob in retaliation. Jacob now departs from his father's home and what we have before us is a broken family. In the final verses of chapter 27, Rebekah got the ball rolling for Jacob's departure.

You see, she knows the disposition of her son. She knew that Esau was a man of action and therefore would retaliate against Jacob's deception with lethal force. So she convinces Isaac with concealed motives. To save her son's life, she appeals to her husband to send Jacob up to her father's house to find him bride. Her plea was that the Hittite daughters-in-law she already had were making her life miserable and she can't bear Jacob marry a Canaanite and then have three daughters-in-law who are making her life miserable.

So Isaac accepts and he blesses the departure of Jacob for this 800 kilometer journey up north to a place called Paddan Aram. The blessing we read in verses three and four is a blessing with covenant language. Isaac, Isaac now needs to eat humble pie. You see, he wanted Esau to be blessed, but now he surrenders and accepts that God will fulfill his promises through Jacob as before foretold. Actually, God already said that before the boys were even born.

Isaac now knows that he cannot oppose God and win. So verses 6 through 9 of our passage seem to be a little bit of a parentheses. The whole chapter is focusing on Jacob, but we have a few verses here from 6 to 9 that turn our attention back to Esau. It seems that Esau was hoping for blessing, some blessing still from his father. So knowing his father Isaac's displeasure for his Canaanite wives, we know what happens.

He goes ahead and he marries another woman, a woman from the Ishmaelites. And he does this to seek his father's approval, but his efforts are superficial. Sure, he doesn't marry another Canaanite woman, but he marries from a people that God has already rejected. And in any case, unless the heart is changed, true repentance is impossible. Doing things to please will never bring about true repentance.

This is the way of the world, isn't it? To live in rank immorality, but to go to church on Easter, maybe even on Christmas. Maybe give some money to the poor, even help out some charities now and then. Surely that'll please God, they think. Surely that'll put me in His good books.

No. It may numb your conscience, but it will not appease God. A heart transformed is needed and the right actions will naturally follow afterwards. Although we don't have a lot of information on Esau from this point on, we do know according to Hebrews chapter 12 that Esau is made as an example of unholiness. And although he sought repentance with tear, we're told, he was rejected.

Sounds similar to the type of remorse that was experienced by Judas the betrayer when he realized what he had done against Jesus Christ and came back and even returned the 30 pieces of silver. Too little, too late. But moving on back to our passage, Jacob begins his journey up north and about three days into his trek, he arrives to a certain place. It was night and he was tired so he finds himself a comfortable stone and uses that as a pillow if there's such a thing and he falls asleep. While sleeping God gives him a dream.

This is the first time God speaks to Jacob and in light of the circumstances as a reader we might think that a rebuke or a reprimand would be in order. This man pulled the wool over his father's eyes and is on the run precisely because he defrauded his own brother. And there's nothing in the text that would even suggest that Jacob was seeking after God. But God graciously seeks after his own. He doesn't rebuke Jacob.

He doesn't lecture him on his wrongdoings. Rather, he tells him, that he is near, and confirms that through Jacob he will fulfill what was promised to his grandfather, Abraham. Descendants, land, offspring, protection, and God's own presence in all of his journeys. Yes, his father Isaac, three days earlier, blessed him and tells him similar word. But Jacob's craftiness and cunning no doubt would have plagued his mind and must have, to some degree, left him unsure.

But now the one who made the covenant promise with Abraham stands before him in a dream and graciously says, I will do these things and I'll do them through you. What incredible assurance for Jacob. God will bless him and all the families of the world, that is, Jews and Gentiles, through the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and now Jacob. The blessing has material aspects, sure, but these aren't the main point. The real treasure of the blessing is the offspring to come.

You see, the focus began on a man, Abraham, then his family, then the nation from his loins, the Jews. Why? Why? Because scripture is following the historical events and tracking God's faithfulness in blessing and protecting a people. A people from whom the promised seed of the woman who will crush the head of the serpent will come.

Beloved, scripture is all about Christ. He is the emphasis, and this passage confirms and affirms this exact point. You see, the ladder, or as some commentators have suggested, the staircase that Jacob saw, was God showing his intention to open up heaven to earth. The unreachable The unapproachable God who dwells in his eternal abode would make himself known to his creatures. His creatures who were once far removed from him because of the presence of their own sin and rebellion.

Heaven would become accessible to God's people because God would make a way by this ladder to connect heaven to earth. You see, men have tried. Men have tried to build a ladder to reach God and dwell with Him. They've tried to build a staircase into heaven, and that didn't turn out well for them. You remember the Tower of Babel?

And human beings still try today to make their way to God on their own terms, by their own way. But they're always unsuccessful. Unless God makes a way. Apart from divine initiative, it is impossible to be with God. So God does take the initiative and he shows Jacob this ladder spanning heaven to earth.

The Lord stands up over it and sends his angels, the ministers of righteousness, to descend with what I believe is his blessings, his peace, and his comfort. and then the angels ascend back to God with prayers and petitions of his own people. God makes a way to himself. The ladder makes that way possible. So, what is this ladder?

Or shall I say, who is this ladder that has opened up heaven and given access to mere human beings just like us to the infinite God of the universe. For Jacob, that remained a mystery. But beloved, as New Testament Christians, the Bible gives us an explicit answer. And that answer is found in the Gospel according to John in the first chapter and in verse 51. And Jesus had just appointed, or He's appointing, Nathanael as one of the twelve.

He says these words to the amazed Jew. He says, truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the ladder of Jacob, no, on the son of man. Beloved, the ladder in Genesis 28 that connects heaven to earth, connecting the infinite with the finite, the creator, with the creature. The only bridge between God and his people would come some 1800 years later in the only mediator, the son of man, the son of God, Jesus Christ himself. God has made a way where there seemed to be no way.

The impossible made possible in Jesus Christ. Jacob, By the grace of God was given this assurance. God chooses not to be aloof or distant, but close and intimate. And when he tells Jacob, I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised. Jacob has only one thing he must do.

Beloved, he needs to believe. By his actions when he woke up, he proved to have believed God for his promises. And beloved, that is our response too. God has taken the initiative to make himself known and to bestow the infinite blessings of heaven upon his people who believe in his son. The question this evening is this, do you believe?

Amen.