The Book of GENESIS
James J. Barker


Lesson 30
JACOB AT BETHEL

Text: GENESIS 28:1-22


INTRODUCTION:


  1. In Genesis 28, we see the grace of God bestowed upon Jacob.
  2. Alexander Whyte said, "There was no Old Testament saint...who, first and last, saw more of the favour and forgiveness of God than Jacob" (Bible Characters from the Old and New Testaments).
  3. Up to this point, Jacob has not appeared in a very favorable light. He is seen basically as a conniver and a deceiver.
  4. It is only indirectly that one could even tell that Jacob had a genuine relationship with the God of Abraham.
  5. But even though Jacob often used carnal methods to attain a spiritual blessing, Jacob did desire the things of God. God knew his heart, and God revealed Himself to Jacob in an unusual dream (28:11-17).

  1. JACOB’S DEPARTURE
  2. JACOB’S DREAM
  3. JACOB’S DECISION

 

I. JACOB’S DEPARTURE

  1. After having deceived his father Isaac, and defrauding his brother Esau, Jacob was sent away with Isaac's blessing. He obeyed his parents and left for the land of Haran (27:41-46).
  2. Chapter 28 begins with Isaac telling Jacob not to marry a Canaanite woman (28:1, 2). Good parents do not want their children to marry pagans.
  3. Genesis 26:35 says Esau’s marriage to pagan women “were grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.”
  4. “Arise, go to Padanaram…” (28:2). Padan-aram is literally, “the plain of Aram.” This was the area in Mesopotamia where Laban, Rebekah’s brother lived.
  5. Isaac’s blessing bestowed upon Jacob is the last passage recorded in the Bible regarding the life of Isaac (28:3, 4). After giving Jacob “the blessing of Abraham” (28:4), Jacob is not mentioned again until his death at the end of Genesis chapter 35. Though Isaac lived over forty years after this event, nothing more is recorded of him.
  6. Though this could merely mean Isaac was a very quiet man, with nothing in his life worthy of special note, more than likely the utter silence concerning these forty years was intended by God “to remind us of the comparative failure of Isaac after his deliberate attempt to divert the blessing from his son Jacob” (W.H. Griffith Thomas, Genesis).
  7. Oftentimes God has to set aside His workers because of their unfaithfulness, and it is quite possible that is what happened to Isaac.
  8. It is very likely that his sin led to these forty years of quiet without any incident worthy of being recorded in the Word of God.
  9. From this point on, Jacob becomes the leading figure in the book of Genesis. Jacob dominates until we get to chapter 37, where his son Joseph becomes the dominant figure.
  10. But Jacob’s spiritual character does not really come into view until he has his dream recorded here in Genesis 28.
  11. Albert Barnes summarized the three patriarchs this way: “Abraham’s is a life of authority and decision; Isaac’s, of submission and acquiescence; and Jacob’s, of trial and struggle.”
  12. “The blessing of Abraham” (28:4) includes a numerous offspring, the land of promise, and everything else that was included in the promises God gave to Abraham and to Isaac (cf. 28:3, 4).
  13. We can summarize Isaac’s farewell speech to his son Jacob by saying that Isaac wanted Jacob to marry a believer, and he wanted him to walk in the ways of the Lord.
  14. This is what all good Christian fathers desire for their children.
  15. So Jacob departed. “Isaac sent away Jacob: and he went to Padanaram…” (28:5).
  16. Rebekah's thought in sending out Jacob was very different from what God had planned. At the time, Jacob had no idea what lie ahead. He thought he would stay with his uncle Laban for just a short time until his brother Esau's anger cooled (cf. 27:44).
  17. After Rebekah sent Jacob away, she never saw him again. She died before he was able to return.
  18. God had wider purposes to fulfil, and what seemed like an ordinary journey, and a short visit, turned out to be twenty years of testing for Jacob.
  19. Jacob was a conniver but he was no match for his crafty uncle Laban, who repeatedly deceived him, and changed his wages ten times (31:7).
  20. When Jacob said farewell to his mother and father, he expected to return soon. But he did not return for over twenty years.
  21. Jacob went away ostensibly to avoid his brother's wrath and to seek for himself a wife, but he found much more than this. Jacob came in contact with God, and learned lessons that lasted him all his days (28:16, 17).
  22. Between Jacob’s departure from home, and his arrival at Bethel, there is a break in the narrative (28:6-9). Esau still had not given up hope of regaining the blessing.
  23. He understood that his father and mother disapproved of his marriage to Hittite women, and that they had sent Jacob to seek a wife from Rebekah’s brother Laban.
  24. At this point, Esau attempted to win back his father’s blessing. He thought he could please his parents by marrying a daughter of Ishmael, his own cousin (28:9).
  25. Esau has no idea of spiritual realities. Apparently it did not matter to him in the least that God had passed over Ishmael for his father Isaac.
  26. This again shows the real character of Esau, and the utter absence of any spiritual reality actuating his life. He was a “profane (unholy) person” (Hebrews 12:16).
  27. W.H. Griffith Thomas said, “Esau is one of those who…tries to do what God's people do in the vain hope that somehow or other it will be pleasing to God. He will not do precisely what God requires, but something like it. He will not entirely give up the world and put God first in his life, but he will try to meet some of God's wishes by a little alteration in his conduct. Instead of renouncing sin he will cover it with the glory of small virtues; but it is one thing to conform to the outward practices of God's people, it is quite another to be thoroughly and truly godly at heart. Men of the Esau type may attend the house of God and join in its service, but at heart they are essentially without God and regardless of His claims on their lives” (Genesis).
  28. Yes, sadly there are many men and women like Esau in our churches today. John Phillips said, Esau “added a little religious gloss to the outside of his otherwise carnal and worldly life” (Exploring Genesis).

 

II. JACOB’S DREAM

  1. On the way to Haran, Jacob stopped along the way to sleep in “a certain place.” Jacob took stones and put them for his pillows (28:10, 11).
  2. The songwriter said,
    “Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down,
    Darkness be over me, my rest a stone.
    Yet in my dreams I’d be nearer, my God to Thee.
    Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee!”
    (Sarah Fuller Flower Adams).
  3. And while Jacob slept out under the stars, verse 12 says he dreamed, and in his dream Jacob saw a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, and “the angels of God ascending and descending on it” (28:12).
  4. The ladder was intended to remind Jacob of the great gulf between his soul and God.
  5. At this time in his life, Jacob was far from God, and being far from God meant being far from heaven. So God provided a ladder that reached up to heaven (28:12).
  6. This ladder represents communion, communication, and fellowship.
  7. This is not some shaky, wobbly, unreliable ladder, because Genesis 28:13 says, “the LORD stood above it." That is reassuring, knowing that the LORD is on top, holding on to the ladder.
  8. Later on, in John 1:51 we see something even more marvelous – the Lord Jesus Christ is the ladder! He is not just holding the ladder; He is the ladder.
  9. There is no other way to heaven but by the Lord Jesus Christ.
  10. Our Lord said to Nathanael, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”
  11. Our Lord said in John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."
  12. People talk about getting to heaven through Islam or Mormonism or Mary or through Buddhism or Hinduism, etc. but Acts 4:12 says, "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."
  13. A few months ago, the pope said God welcomes into heaven atheists, homosexuals, Muslims, and all unbelievers if they “obey their conscience.”
  14. We are not saved by obeying our conscience. We are saved by the blood of Christ.
  15. F.B. Meyer said, "The weakest and most sinful may climb through Jesus from the verge of the pit of hell to the foot of the eternal throne" (Israel, Prince with God).
  16. Years ago, the great evangelist D.L. Moody invited a young preacher named Henry Moorhouse to preach for him at his church in Chicago.
  17. For seven nights Henry Moorhouse preached from the text, John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
  18. Every night the preacher rose to a higher and higher plain of thought, beginning at Genesis and going through the Bible all the way to Revelation, showing over and over how much God loved the world.
  19. He pointed out how God loved the world so much that He sent patriarchs and prophets, and other holy men to plead with the people, and then He sent His only Son, and when they had killed Him, He sent the Holy Ghost.
  20. In closing the seventh sermon from that same text, he said: "My friends, for a whole week I have been trying to tell you how much God loves you, but I cannot do it with this poor stammering tongue. If I could borrow Jacob's ladder and climb up into heaven and ask Gabriel, who stands in the presence of the Almighty, to tell me how much love the Father has for the world, all he could say would be, 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."'
  21. Beloved, God has graciously set up this ladder so that you and I can spend eternity with Him in heaven.
  22. The LORD revealed Himself to Jacob as, “the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac” (28:13), and the LORD renewed the Abrahamic promise of the land, of the seed, and of the blessing in that seed to the entire earth – “and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (28:14).
  23. Furthermore, the LORD promised Jacob personally to be with him, and to protect him and bring him back in safety (28:15).
  1. The LORD assured Jacob of Divine Presence: "I am with thee";
  2. and Divine protection: "and will keep thee";
  3. and Divine preservation: "and will bring thee again into this land";
  4. and His Divine promise: "I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of."
  1. The dream aroused Jacob of his sleep, and he was astonished at finding God that night (28:16).
  2. Before this dream, Jacob did not seem to have had personal knowledge of God. He knew about God, but he did not know God.
  3. Jacob knew all about God from things his parents had taught him, but Jacob himself did not know the LORD.
  4. But now Jacob understood and realized the God of Abraham and Isaac was also his personal God. Jacob was afraid and filled with solemn awe, when he found himself in “the house of God” and at “the gate of heaven” (28:17).
  5. Theodore Epp described Jacob’s conversion this way: “Jacob suddenly realized that God knew all about him. God knew about his meanness, crookedness and scheming. But God also knew that deep within his heart he was longing for spiritual realities; therefore, He undertook to mold Jacob's life to the praise of His glory. God knew every detail about Jacob's life, and He knows every detail about your life.”

 

III. JACOB’S DECISION

  1. Jacob decided to erect a pillar, as a monument of this sacred dream (28:18).
  2. The pouring of oil upon it was an act of consecration to God (28:18).
  3. Jacob called the name of the place “Bethel” – house of God (28:19). Many years before, Jacob’s grandfather Abraham had built an altar there but Jacob is the one who named it Bethel (cf. Genesis 12:8).
  4. Another important decision was Jacob’s promise to give one tenth of his income to God (28:20-22).
  5. This is the first vow recorded in Scripture. It is not the first reference to tithing, because Genesis 14:20 says Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek. But this is the first recorded vow.
  6. Jacob acknowledged his need of God, and promised, “of all that Thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto Thee" (28:22).
  7. Up to now, Jacob’s knowledge of God was only superficial. Many Bible teachers say that this is when Jacob got saved, and I think they are right. Hosea 12:4 says Jacob found the LORD in Bethel.
  8. Jacob set up a memorial because he did not want to lose any part of the impression of such a memorable occasion.
  9. And since this is the beginning of a life of grace for Jacob, it is not surprising that he wanted to give God’s his tithe.
  10. Second Corinthians 8:8 says we prove the sincerity of our love by giving. Jacob wanted God to know he meant business. Do you?
  11. W.H. Griffith Thomas said, “If only some of those who are inclined to criticize Jacob would do what he promised and give the tenth of their income to God, what a different state of affairs would obtain in connection with God's work at home and abroad!” (Genesis). Amen!
  12. F.B. Meyer said, “The Church would have no lack if every one of its members acted upon this principle. Meyer questioned how Christians could sing, “Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my life, my soul, my all” (Isaac Watts), when they really did not mean it.

 

CONCLUSION:


  1. When Jacob awaked out of his sleep, he was afraid and he said, “Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not” (28:16, 17).
  2. Jacob thought God was back in his father Isaac’s tent, but now Jacob understood that the God of his father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham was His God.
  3. Is He your God?
  4. When Jacob said, “How dreadful is this place!” he was experiencing the fear of God.
  5. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom (Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 9:10).


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