Talking about Jacob's Ladder From Genesis 28

On this Episode Gary and Trevor review and give their thoughts about Genesis 28 where it talks about Jacob's vision/dream.


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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:11

You were reading Genesis 28 on Saturday, and I had some thoughts. Yeah, you read Genesis 28 on Saturday, and I had some thoughts on what you read, and I wanted to, you know, go back and forth with you about it and see what you had to say. Are you ready, good sir? Never. Never? Alright. Okay, so. Alright, let me there's a certain scripture on here. Maybe I should have marked it ahead of time, but uh.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

This is uh the chapter where he talks about Jacob's ladder. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Yes, and Jacob's ladder was really important, and I'd forgotten to make this connection with 27 because Cody was so angry or like frustrated last week because, you know, by all accounts, it was like God had recognized the covenant through Jacob, even though Jacob lied, you know, and so it's like he he thought it was not right of God to you know to validate this, you know, this um unconditional covenant that was given to Abraham. He didn't think it was right that he should have validated it to Jacob just because he tricked him and lied to him. You know what I mean? Yeah. So there's that. But then Jacob's ladder happens. And that got me to thinking. I was like, well, maybe he didn't recognize Isaac's blessing. You know. Or if he did, he's validating it himself through the ladder dream. But let's see here. Hang on a minute. Let's start with uh where it starts talking about the ladder. I had it just a second ago, Dad. Blame it.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Uh I think it's 12.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Is it 12? Here we go. Yeah, you're right. Uh Genesis 28, verse 12. 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. And behold, the Lord stood above it 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. And thy seed shall be as the dust on the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east, and to the north, and to the south, and in thee, and in thy seed, and all the families of the earth shall be blessed. That sounds like he's revalidating Abraham's covenant himself. That doesn't sound like Isaac passed it on. It sounds like God passed it on, not Isaac.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

So God gave Jacob the blessing instead of Isaac.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Well, yeah, at a different point in time, not as a reaction to Isaac's uh Jacob's duplicity, but as a completely unseparated thing whenever he flees, as a result of that stunt he pulled. And if you think about it, that makes sense because Jacob doesn't get any of Isaac's land that I know of. Like Jacob had to be with Laban for forever and a day. You know? So let's actually let's go back to 27 and let's read Isaac's blessing and then compare it to 28 of the covenant. Alright. Let's see. And Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau, thy firstborn. I have done according as thou badest me. Arise, I pray thee, and sit and eat on of my venison, that thy soul may bless me. And Isaac said unto his son, How is it that thou shalt thou hast found it so quickly, my son? And he said, Because the Lord thy God brought it to me. And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come near, I pray thee, that I may feel thee, my son, whether thou beast my very son Esau or not. And Jacob went near unto unto Isaac, his father, and he felt him, and said, The voice is Jacob's, the voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. And he discerned him not, because his hands were hairy as his brother Esau's hands, so he blessed him. And he said, Art thou my very son Esau, and he said, I am, and he said, Bring it near to me, and I will eat my son's venison, that my soul may bless thee. And he brought it near to him, and he did eat, and he brought him wine, and he drank. And his father Isaac said unto him, Come near now and kiss me, my son. And he came, and he came near and kissed him, and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, Okay, see the smell of my son is as the smell of the field which the Lord hath blessed. Therefore, God give thee of the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth, and the plenty of corn and wine. Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee, be Lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's son bow down to thee. Cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee. And it came to pass as soon as Isaac had made an end of the bless of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out of the presence of Isaac, his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting. It's two different. It's two different statements. You catch that?

SPEAKER_00 5:53

No, I didn't actually until you pointed it out.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Isn't that fascinating? So there's elements of it that are the same, but they're not the same. The actual covenant isn't coming from Isaac. It's coming from God directly.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

It's coming from God.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

That's fascinating. Okay, so let's go back to 28. And let's go back to 12. And behold, the Lord stood above it 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. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And behold, I am with thee, I will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land. For I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. And Jacob awaked out of his sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. It's two different covenants. Or one's a blessing, and the other is the covenant. I think that speaks to the fact that men cannot pass on a covenant from God. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Well, it makes sense because it would be a covenant from God instead of a man.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Right. So even if a man were to, let's say, because there are elements of it that are the same, or at least that's all kind of grouped together, perhaps, or it's been grouped together over time, maybe. But let's say that even if a man were to say that over somebody, God has to come in and validate it at some point.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Right, confirmation. Like a confirmation himself, yeah. I hear that a lot from a lot of like prophetic people and and and stuff like that. That they're like, like if someone prays for them, they'll say, Thank you, but I need to go to my secret place or wherever and confirm that with God before I comment on it.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Right. Well, that makes sense, so it's consistent. Yeah. So I want I I wanted to make that statement because I thought that was really interesting. Um this is another thing, though, that is distinct because remember, Esau took Hittite wives. Right?

SPEAKER_00 8:27

And so when Isaac That was against the covenant, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Apparently. Well, at the very least, we know that Isaac and Rebekah didn't like it. Like they were unhappy about it, right? And so and Isaac, so at the top of 28 it says, and Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and charged him and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. Esau had already done that. And so basically, that seems to be like something they're supposed to do. And Esau doesn't do it, but Jacob does it. Like Jacob goes to Bethuel, my mother's father. Yeah, and he won't, he's supposed to take a wife from Laban, which is the same place where Isaac got Rebekah, Laban, right? And so Jacob is actually obeying that aspect of what his father, like the hired hand, had done. And uh, yeah, and then God affirms the covenant himself. So I thought that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Yeah, that's why it's important to read more than just like one chapter at a time, because things get out of context if you just uh cherry pick things. Yeah, a lot of a lot of Christians these days will just cherry-pick verses and throw them at people, and it's confusing.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Well, it also speaks to a little it elaborates a little bit more about what Cody was talking about, because Cody was so upset that this covenant was affirmed through a lie, and we tried to address that in a certain way, and I don't think our answer was necessarily invalid, but this adds a little more clarity. God still had to affirm it with Jacob. Now, what if Jacob had said, you know what? Esau took some Hittite wives. What if I take some Hittite wives? That doesn't make any difference. I don't like them daughters of Laban, you know. Would God have still validated the covenant if he hadn't listened?

SPEAKER_00 10:36

I don't know. I don't I don't pretend to know the thoughts of God.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Well, yeah, point is there still had to be an act of faith there.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

You know, there still had to be some trusting of the birthright, some trusting of the covenant. There had to be some trust in God, even if he was a degenerate, like there had to be some measure of trust there before God validated it. Maybe you have to believe first, I guess would be the point. Anyway, so I wanted to point that out. That popped into my head the other day, so was there anything about 28? Anything else about 28 that bothered you before we move on? Um questions.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

One of the questions I had uh and Jacob awakened out of his sleep and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. That's confusing. Like like he didn't know that the Lord was there, and Yeah, I didn't know God was gonna be there.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

So I mean I think that's all that there is to it.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

You got any other And then uh at the end of it, um he set up a stone pillar. So would that would that be an idol to God, or is it uh just to remember the spot where God came to him in a dream?

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Yeah, I think it would be just like a spot to remember, like a place to kind of commemorate where it happened. I don't think it's necessarily an idol. Like an idol's a fake god, like the god somehow resides within the object, you know.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Yeah, because uh sometimes I have a I have a hard time with that disting distinguishment between what is an idol and what is not.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Okay, so the way I understand it is you have like this pillar would be a memorial type of thing. You've got altars where sacrifices are held, but you the idea is that the smoke rises up into heaven and God considers that smoke a pleasing aroma. And then you've got idols where they'll build little human-shaped trinkets that basically supposedly for some unknown reason house a god. And so that would be like the three distinctions. That's the way I understand it.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Okay. So it makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Yeah. Alright. Is there anything else? I think that's all. I think that's all I have. That's all you got, huh? Alright, well, we've got probably about another minute before we need to move on. So you got any final thoughts about Genesis 28? Wait, what's your let me ask you this? What's your thoughts about Jacob's ladder, like the dream itself? Did you have any impressions about, you know, the ladder and the angels going up and down and all of that?

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Wasn't there a song about Jacob's Ladder?

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Yes. I think Led Zeppelin. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Before my time.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Before our time.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

And I'm a nerd. I don't I don't know that stuff. So, uh let's see. There's also a movie Jacob's Ladder, which was kind of freaky. I remember that.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

What was it about?

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Oh, uh Vietnam vet. It's like in purgatory. He's like in a hellish loop type of thing, reliving the war, and it's real, you know, them jumping around and everything like that. One of those uh like avant-garde artsy type movies that's supposed to be pretentious and get lots of rewards, you know, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Oh, I see. Here's a good qu here's a question. I don't know if it's a good question, but do you still believe that people get dreams from God? Yeah. Like prophetic dreams?

SPEAKER_01 15:00

I mean, I think so. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

There's several denominations that don't think that it's real, that that's just from demons.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Well, yeah, it kind of goes back to the secessionist versus like, I don't know, I'm guess more charismatic distinctions. There's people that believe that the miracles stopped at the age of the Bible, or like after the b the Bible was written, and then there's people that think miracles still go on.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Yeah, that's one thing uh I've been trying to do miracles still happen today like they happened then, and it's like, well, yeah, Jesus said that these things that I do, you will be able to do also, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Yeah. Now I I will add a distinction. Like, I do think miracles still happen today, but I don't think that they happen exactly the same way, because part of the point of a miracle is to, and this is an argument in the secessionist favor. Like the purpose of a miracle is to establish the authority of the speaker, so you know that the person is talking is from God. The person speaking is receiving these words from God, not himself. Like the point of Moses being, you know, like the whole point behind Mount Sinai being a giant swirling fiery storm and all this, the whole point of everything like that, the whole point of Moses glowing is so you know God is speaking through him. Right? So the miracles are the miracles address the authority of the speaker. And that's another interesting thing is um, sorry, I'll I'll let you uh pick up your thoughts soon as I finish this. The other interesting thing is the miracles are not there to prove the existence of God because this is a world where atheism is the minority. So the miracles are never perceived as proof of God, they're perceived as authority for the speaker. That's a very important distinction to understand. And so, since, you know, if we believe that the Bible is complete as written, then it follows that there wouldn't be the same kind of miracles that there were back then, because God is not necessarily speaking through people in the same way that he was speaking through, say, someone like Elijah.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

So, what would you say to someone that is into all the spiritual things, like all of it, like like all the giftings and everything, and they have said they say, um, you know, I've seen arms and legs grow back and and cancer just be healed and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

It could be. Could be. But I mean if if it's not happening in an obvious way where everybody can see it, you can't really say that the person has any sort of authority, which is where I'd part ways with the charismatic guys, because you know, they like you really need to understand this concept by reading Montague Summers and some of these old Catholic writings. Because the whole point of the miracles, like, even the church back then kind of understood it. The whole point of the miracles was uh, and the whole reason they had all these supernatural stories and stuff was they were trying to say that the church is authoritative because the church can perform miracles, right? So that was, yeah, that's the whole reason behind Montague Summers, Vampire's books, and everything else. Um, but with the charismatic movement, they they kind of say that there's like this divine anointing that gives them like a specialized authority. So it's kind of the same thing that the Catholic Church used to do. But my argument would be if you're really doing that, uh, God is going to have it happen in such a way that there's a lot of proof, and it's gonna be really obvious because again, the point of a miracle is to establish the authority of the speaker, it's not. Or maybe, you know, if it's if it's private, I'm not saying it it couldn't happen, but if it does happen, it's not an authoritative claim and it's more for the individual. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Oh, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

So it's not that I don't believe it, I'm just like the whole divine anointing claim that they have, I do disagree with. So because the anointing seems to imply that their words would be authoritative, and I'm like, well, if the words are authoritative, then the miracle's gonna be public.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Yeah. So anyway. That goes back to my thought. How cool would it be to that people today would still have that glowing like Moses did. By the way, we knew, hey, this guy is legit talking from God.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

That'd be neat. Might go up to him and be like, I've got questions, pal. You got a minute?

SPEAKER_00 20:10

So You got you got an extra ten commandments ready to go? Oh, there we go, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Alright, well, I think we're done with this episode, unless you've got any other thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

No, I don't.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Alright.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

I'm worn out for the day. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

No, you're good, man. That was a good conversation. We we got her done. So, all right, guys. We're gonna wrap it up for the evening. For those of you that were here, thank you so much for watching, and we will see you next time. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Faith Fiction and Folklore. If you did, we would love it if you would subscribe to us on YouTube or follow us on Rumble. We can also be found on X, Instagram, and Facebook. And we are available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and iHeartRadio. Thank you again very much for listening, and we'll see you next time.