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Jacob’s Dream at Bethel

10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. 11 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. 12 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. 13 There above it[c] 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. 14 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.[d] 15 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.”

16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17 He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

18 Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. 19 He called that place Bethel,[e] though the city used to be called Luz.

20 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 food to eat and clothes to wear 21 so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord[f] will be my God 22 and[g] this 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.”

(Genesis 28: 10-22)

Thomas Carlyle, the famous historian once spent two years writing a book on the French Revolution, when he got it all done, he gave it to English Philosopher and political economist, John Stuart Mill, who was also a famous figure, to read it and give him his impression of it. And then the unthinkable happened. John Stuart Mills servant used the only copy of the manuscript that existed as paper to start a fire and it was all burned up. Everything he had done was gone and he didn’t have a second copy. Two years of his life he felt was lost. Thousands of long, lonely hours were spent in writing that manuscript. He could not imagine writing that book again, Needless to say. At that point. He was very discouraged.

Have you ever been discouraged? When was the last time you were discouraged? I believe we all get discouraged. No one is immune. People get discouraged looking for a job and can’t find one, and then sometimes they get discouraged when they get one and things don’t work out. People get discouraged trying to get ahead financially. And just when they get a little money saved in the bank. The car breaks down or the like. People get discouraged with other people who do not keep their promises. People get discouraged with themselves when they fail to keep their own resolutions, such as a resolution to stop drinking or to lose weight.

Today I want to tell you the story of a man in the Bible who no doubt was discouraged, and that’s probably putting it mildly. The person I have in mind is named Jacob. You will know we have already covered part of his story last few episode when Jacob had deceived his father and his brother Isaac in gaining the birth right of his brother and tricking his father into to giving him his brothers blessing. As a matter of fact, he stole that birth right from his brother and his brother threatened to kill him. So, his mother said you better get out of town before your brother kills you. Just get out of town for a while and maybe his anger will subside, and then you can come back. So, Jacob fled, but he was facing an uncertain future. That was certainly discouraging. He was far from home and not sure that he would ever come back. As a matter of fact, he did not come back for many years 20+ years in fact. But at this point he didn’t know if he would ever make it back home. He had no assurance of finding a wife, a job, a home, or even having his basic needs met. He was seemingly all alone in a hostile world with no guarantee that he would not be hunted down and killed by his brother Esau, or even be harmed bandits or wild animals. He was on the road all alone, and no doubt very discouraged. One author looking at this story said he was tired, anxious, frustrated and afraid. living in solitude, poor, helpless and forsaken by men, feeling all alone and fearing for his life. The one thing he needed at that point was a little bit of encouragement and what happens is no less than the Lord himself encourages Jacob. Let’s see how God encouraged Jacob, and pick up the story in verse 10.

Let me pause there and just give you a bit of a setting of what’s happening here. Verse 10 says that left Beersheba, and he was going toward Harran. From Bersheba, to Harran the distance of about 100 miles. Versus 11 says so he came to a certain place. Later that place is identified as Bethel. He just calls it here, a certain place, but in verse 19 it will tells us that that place was named Bethel. Bethel was 70 miles from Beersheba. so, to put this in perspective, he’s barely gotten started on the journey so he is one day into a journey that will take him at least three days and nights. It’s nightfall and he decides to stop and sleep for the night. He travelled by day and slept by night, and he took one of the stones that was there and put it at his head and he laid down in that place to sleep, little odd that it should say most say he used it for a pillow. That doesn’t sound very comfortable, at any rate, it takes pains to point out that he was settling down for the night at that particular spot, and it calls attention to the stone. That’s not significant here, but it becomes significant later. He falls asleep and then he has a dream.

This is one of the most famous passages in all of the Book of Genesis. Everybody that’s ever gone to Sunday school has heard of Jacob’s Ladder. He dreamed and had a vision of a ladder that went from the Earth and it stretched to heaven. And there were angels, plural, angels of God ascending and descending on it. Just picture in your mind a very tall ladder with angels coming up and down on that ladder. Jesus refers to this in John chapter one. So, this story actually appears twice in the Bible. What in the world is the significance of that dream? I’ve often wondered that for years. What in the world is Jacob’s Ladder all about? The significance is that there are angels, running up and down this ladder between heaven and earth. It is simply a pictorial way of illustrating the fact that there is communication between heaven and earth, communion, fellowship. An early confirmation that there can be some kind of relationship and communication between those on the Earth and those in heaven.

That’s the setting I think for if God wanted to illustrate for us. Remember this is before God wrote us a book. Today the scriptures are God main way of communicating to us. Someone once said the Bible is a love letters that God wrote to his children. The scriptures are God’s word to us. There is still today a communication from heaven and it’s recorded in the book we call the Bible. Now there’s more to this dream, so let’s pick it up at verse 13.

13 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. 14 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. 15 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.” (Genesis 28: 13-15)

This is the message after this message, and it is in three parts. Verse thirteen says behold the Lord stood above it and said I am the Lord your God. The I am the Lord God of Abraham, your father, and I give you the land which you on which you lie.I will give to you and your descendants. The first thing he does is he gives Jacob a promise. I promise. I’m going to give you the land. God says I’m going to give you a promise and the promise is that I’m going to give you. Land that you’re on right now. Have we heard that before? You’ve been with me as we’ve been going to the Book of Genesis. You know, that’s one of the major ideas in the whole book of Genesis. In fact, one of the amazing ideas of the whole testament. God says I’m going to give the Jewish people the land of Palestine. I’m going to give him the land of Canaan. He first gave that promise that covenant to Abraham. He then gave it to Isaac and now he gives it to Jacob. As a matter of fact, this verse says I am the God of Abraham, your father and the God of Isaac. And the significance of that is I promised your father your grandfather Abraham the land. I also promised it to your father and I'm now promising it to you.

There’s more to the promise, look at verse 14. “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”. This is something that has been said before in what we call the Abrahamic covenant, namely, I’m going to give you the land and I’m going to multiply your descendants, I’m going to multiply your descendants, so they become like the sand on the seashore, the stars in the heaven, and in this passage, the dust that’s on the earth. In other words, I’m going to multiply your descendants to such a great extent, you’re not going to be able to count them. Remember what he told Abraham and he told Isaac out of you are going to come many nations. Remember that.

This is just another way of reinforcing the Abrahamic covenant that I’m going to make you a great. Patriarch and out of you are going to become many, many, many, many people, innumerable descendants, and of course we will find out that Jacob will have twelve sons and they became the 12 tribes of Israel and out of that is comes the whole Jewish race. This is the promise that God made to Abraham, Isaac. And now Jacob. And it’s clearly been fulfilled in history.

The first promise is going to give you the land. The second promises I’m going to give you a multitude of descendants. There is a third promise, he says. In the first part of verse 15. He says I’m going to give you the land, I’m going to multiply your descendants and thirdly, all the families of the Earth are going to be blessed through your descendants. That begs the question how will God’s promise to the Jewish people Bless the whole world? That’s what he’s claiming here. The answer is this is a veiled reference to the coming Messiah. Well unpack this more next time.