Genesis 28 NKJV Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him, and charged him, and said to him: “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Padan Aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father; and take yourself a wife from there of the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother.

“May God Almighty bless you, And make you fruitful and multiply you, That you may be an assembly of peoples;

And give you the blessing of Abraham, To you and your descendants with you, That you may inherit the land In which you are a stranger, Which God gave to Abraham.”

So Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Padan Aram, to Laban the son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.

Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Padan Aram to take himself a wife from there, and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan,” and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Padan Aram. Also Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan did not please his father Isaac. So Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife in addition to the wives he had.

Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

And behold, the Lord stood above it and said: “I am the Lord God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Behold, I am with you and 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 spoken to 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! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!”

Then Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it. And he called the name of that place Bethel; but the name of that city had been Luz previously. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me, and keep me in this way that I am going, and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on, so that I come back to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God. And this stone which I have set as a pillar shall be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.”

•     Well praise God, that is the entirety of Genesis 28 that we just read, and we are going to stay her for a few weeks.

•     But don’t worry, we won’t read the whole thing each week, because the Lord wants us to focus on Jacob’s vision… what is commonly known as Jacob’s ladder.

•     Would y’all join me in praying before we get started?

•     But before we do that let’s just get a little context of what we read, and talk about a few of the areas that I am not going to preach about but I don’t want to ignore.

•     So, if you have been with us as we have been going through Genesis you know that Jacob just received the birthright blessing from his father, and is now about to run away from his brother, Esau, who has threatened to murder him.

•     Right before he leaves his father Isaac calls him over and commands him not to marry a Canaanite woman, because God’s people marry God’s people! Esau had messed that up and married two heathen women, and Jacob was commanded not to do that and instead to go to his uncle Laban’s house to find a wife from that family.

•     And as Jacob is leaving Isaac again blesses Jacob… this time with no deceit at all, fully knowing this is his son Jacob.

•     Now part of this blessing I may bring back for missions Sunday (which is happening on October 26th)… look at the wording here in this blessing:

Genesis 28:3 NKJV “May God Almighty bless you, And make you fruitful and multiply you, That you may be an assembly of peoples;

•     That you may be an assembly of peoples… That word for peoples means “many nations”… it does not mean “many people”… there is a different word for that which is just translated as “people” or “nation” but the word here means “multiple people groups” or “many different nations”.

•     From the begining, before Israel itself was formed as a nation, God intended His people to be an assymbly, a company, a gathering of many different nations… every tribe and every tounge… but that is not what the Lord would have me preach on this morning, I just wanted to point that out.

•     So Isaac blesses Jacob and Jacob runs off to Laban’s home. In the meantime we read that Esau saw all of this take place, and thought that he could make things right by marrying yet another wife…

Genesis 28:8–9 NKJV Also Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan did not please his father Isaac. So Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife in addition to the wives he had.

•     Now I could preach about how trying to please your dad instead of trying to please God is a poor way to live… or how this was about 2 wives too late for Esua… but again, that is not what God would have me preach on for these next four weeks.

•     Instead… I want to focus on Jacob’s vission… his dream… the Ladder that He saw.

Genesis 28:12 NKJV Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

•     God showed Jacob a vision of heaven’s angels interacting with earth… a vision with a ladder who’s head is in heaven and who’s feet are on earth… God showed Jacob, and ultimately all of us… that heaven and earth do in fact interact with each other… they do in fact meet… so for the next four weeks we are going to be in this series called:

•     What happens, what can we expect, what does God do, how should we respond when heaven meets earth? That is what we are going to talk about for the next few weeks… and this morning I want to start out by just looking at Jacob’s current situation with point one this morning… When Heaven Meets Earth God Comforts Us.

Point One – God Comforts Us

Genesis 28:10–11 NKJV Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep.

•     Jacob is literally running for his life here… Now this is not the first time we have seen someone leaving to go towards Laban’s home.

•     If you remember the series “How to Be a Good and Faithful Servant” from Genesis 24 you will remember that Isaac’s servant once made this very same journey as he went to get Rebekah as a wife for Isaac.

•     But that journey was very different. The servant had an entourage of helpers and camels. He brought with him gold and food and supplies and comforts… that good and faithful servant was traveling like royalty.

•     But things are VERY different here in chapter 28. Here it is not the servant going to look for a wife… but the bachelor himself… and there are no camels, or helpers… there is no gold or goods… there are no comforts you would expect to pack for a multi-day journey… Jacob did not even have a tent… all he had was his staff in his hand and the clothes on his back.

•     Now, fearing for his life, crushed by the consequences of his sin… alone in the wilderness… with a stone as his pillow… Jacob goes to sleep.

•     Some commentators say that Jacob should have slept in a cave, or kept walking through the night… Esau easily would have caught up to him, especially if he was riding a camel or horse… but Jacob sleeps in the middle of the dessert, not shelter, no hiding place… almost as if he had given up and given himself over to death…

•     And it was in this very dark and very low place that God shows Jacob a vision of heaven meeting earth.

Genesis 28:12 NKJV Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

•     What does this dream mean to a man who just lost his family and is running for his life?

•     What does this ladder mean to a man who has lost all his goods and comforts?

•     Why this vision at a time like this.

•     I think God was comforting Jacob… and the way that I think God was comforting Jacob was by showing Jacob “Hey, your not alone… you feel worthless, you feel empty… you are in a dessert surrounded by nothing, sleeping on a rock… but you are not alone… don’t you see the angels of heaven… they have been working the whole time… don’t you see them going to and from heaven, up and down the ladder? They have no break, they have no rest… they work day and night to accomplish my plans and my proposes… You have never been alone… when you thought you needed to buy your brothers birthright… if you had only known I was working in that moment… when you were scheming with your mother… if you had only known the angles of heaven were working for my good in that moment… maybe if you would have known that you wouldn’t have felt the need to sin. This whole time you thought the plans of God where only on the backs of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob… but no! My angels have been working this whole time.”

•     What a comfort it is to know that you are not alone…

•     I mean, Jacob was given this wonderful blessing… that God would give him all these things, and multiply him, and bless the nations through him. He would live off the fat of the land and the dew of heaven!

•     I think that maybe that blessing maybe made the depression Jacob felt sleeping on that rock worse…

•     “I am supposed to be living off the fat of the land and here I am sleeping with a rock for a pillow” I mean this was like 4,000 years before God would bless the world with Mike Lindell and MyPillow… Jacob had it rough!

•     And now there is this pressure in his blessing, isn’t there… did you know sometimes blessings come with pressure?

•     He is expected to marry and have children! Now I actually said something wrong last week, I did the math wrong… last week I said that Jacob was not a boy during these events that he was a 40 year old man… actually, that wasn’t quite right… if you do the math backward from Joseph’s birth… Joseph being Jacob’s son… then you actually find out that Jacob was about 77 years old when this happened… Jacob was a 77 year old bachelor sleeping on a rock in the dessert expected to have a MULTITUDE of children!

•     He has absolutely NOTHING that blessing talks about, and now he has the responsibility of finding a Godly wife (because God’s people marry God’s people)… and building a family.

•     So here is the takeaway… have you ever felt “I can’t do it on my own” or “My calling is too much” or “I just don’t see things working out the way God told me they would”.

•     Have you ever felt so stressed out because it seems like you are the only one who cares, because you are the only one trying, because you are the only one fighting.

•     Fighting for your family… fighting for your children… fighting for God… doing the work of the ministry…

•     Man when you feel overwhelmed… when you feel alone… I know that even the Women’s rally talked about this on Friday, God is trying to get this message across to somebody…

•     When you feel alone, overwhelmed, helpless, vulnerable… like ol’ Jacob sleeping alone on a rock in the middle of the dessert… remember this vision… see it in your mind… envision it in your home, your workplace, your school… wherever…

•     Just imagine a ladder stretching up from your living room, or office, or class… stretching up and reaching into heaven… and on it are angels… angels going up and down, too and fro… doing the work of heaven… on the same mission that you are on… protecting you, guiding you… working with you, alongside you… doing the will of God… YOU ARE NOT ALONE IN THIS SAINTS.

•     Now I know that this was just a dream… there probably is not a real physical ladder angels are on… we will talk about who the Ladder is in a later sermon in this series… but just because the ladder is not there does not mean the angels are not there… God comforts us by reminding us that Heaven is not some far off place that you only get to interact with once you die… no, heaven meets earth when we do the will of God and God does not ask us to do it alone, He sends his angels to help us.

Psalm 103:20 NKJV Bless the Lord, you His angels, Who excel in strength, who do His word, Heeding the voice of His word.

•     So we know that there are angles, exceedingly strong angles, who do the work of God. IT’S NOT JUST ON YOU.

Psalm 91:11 NKJV For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways.

•     So not only are there exceedingly strong angles doing the work of God, but some of those angels are assigned to you! There are angles who have YOU as there job.

Hebrews 1:14 NKJV Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?

•     Look at the wording of this one… not only are there ministers who are assigned to you! There are angles who minister FOR you… on your behalf… working for you, and your good, and all God has called you too.

•     If we could only see in the spiritual all the angles working for us and around us… if we could see the angles coming up and down from heaven… we would realize that heaven meets earth anywhere a Christian is doing the will of God… anywhere the enemy is scheming and attacking… We would take comfort in the fact that we are not alone… When heaven meets earth like this… when we SEE heaven meeting earth like, as Jacob saw, we take comfort in knowing that there is a mighty army of angles, and we get to be a part of that work… we are not alone.

•     That brings me to point two this morning… when heaven meets earth, God reminds us.

Point Two – God Reminds Us

Genesis 28:12–14 NKJV Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said: “I am the Lord God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

•     God shows Jacob, in one of Jacob’s lowest moments of life, God shows Jacob a vision of this ladder, and at the top of the ladder was YHWY, the Great I am… and what does God speak to Jacob in this moment?

•     Well God speaks the same blessing that Jacob has already heard multiple times.

•     The same blessing we have read in Genesis multiple times.

•     In fact I think this is the 5th or 6th time a rendition of this blessing has been mentioned in Genesis!

•     So as I was writing this sermon and I felt the Lord wanting me to write about God Reminding us of His promises… honestly I felt like “I have preached on this so many times before” and God responded to me “Yes, but I wrote it for you so many times for a reason”.

•     You see church I don’t think God wastes ink… if it is in the Bible, it is there for a reason… and if it is in the Bible multiple times, it is there multiple times for a reason.

•     So as I was pondering this blessing afresh… “I will bless you, I will give you this land, your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth, in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed”… as I was thinking about this I realized something…

•     I have often preached about our need to remember what God has promised… what He has spoken over our life.

•     I have quoted Psalm 103… my favorite Psalm… Bless the Lord oh my soul and forget not His benefits”.

•     But what God was showing me was this: Sometimes it is not us who remembers, but it is God who reminds…

•     Sometimes it is not that we need to journal, or that we need to remines, or remind our soul what God has done… sometimes the burden of even REMEMBERING is not on us… because sometimes the way God comforts us… as heaven meets earth… as the angles do there work… as we lay on our rock pillow… sometimes the way that God comforts us is that He Himself reminds us.

•     Look at what Jesus said in John 14…

John 14:26–27 NKJV But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

•     Jesus here is foreshadowing that He is going to leave the disciples… and when He goes up to heaven, the disciples will still be on earth.

•     And persecution will come… and hardships will come… and families will be torn apart… loved ones will be killed…

•     In those early years of Christianity I wonder how many Christians felt like Jacob sleeping on a rock running for his life…

•     I mean, God sent Jesus to us… and it was so awesome… and there were all these sermons, and blessings and prophecies… WE EVEN SAW HIM WHEN HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD! And there was hope and power and excitement…

•     But now he is gone and we are being killed… Christians are being burnt alive, or fed to lions… this doesn’t seem that great…

•     But Jesus comforts them and says “When things get this way and I am gone, don’t worry, I am sending the helper, the Holy Spirit… (who is God, by the way)… and the Holy Spirit will REMIND YOU what I have spoken to you.

•     I have always looked at this verse as like a “When you don’t know what to say the Holy Spirit will remind you of Scripture to speak”… like this is an evangelism tool, or an apologetics tool… but what if Jesus was saying more than that… what if Jesus was saying “When you feel lonely, when I feel far away… when times are hard… the Holy Spirit will remind you of what I have blessed you with… what I have called you to… what I have spoken to you”.

•     Church I think some of you have forgotten what Jesus has spoken to you… Like Jacob who in that moment had forgotten the blessing or at least stopped trusting in that blessing and promise… none the less, when heaven met earth… There was God reminding Jacob “The blessing you were given was true… it may not feel like it now… it may not feel like it for the next seven years… but that blessing is true… and I have an army of angles working to make sure it comes to pass”.

•     I am going to close here in a minute if someone wants to come up and play… before I close I just want to pray this prayer over you. This prayer is for every born again believer in this room, but I think it is especially for one or two of you who need to be reminded by God what He has already spoken to you.

Conclusion

Genesis 28:10–12 NKJV Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

•     We are going to spend some time on these verses… this is just an intro… and we are going to talk about how these verses become vital when talking about who Christ is…

•     But for now, I just want anyone in here who is feeling overwhelmed, or abandoned… or feeling ashamed of there sin and feeling quite worthless, as I am sure weighed down Jacob in this moment…

•     Saints, if you are truly born again… be comforted by God this morning… be comforted by the fact that you are not alone… Heaven has sent it’s angles down to work with you and minister for you.

•     And would you listen as God once again reminds you of His blessings and calling on your life.

Join us this Sunday at either 8:30AM or 10:30AM for worship followed by this message from the Word of God.

Christian Life Church of Cedar Rapids
2808 Schaeffer DR SW,
Cedar Rapids, IA 52404
www.CedarRapidsChurch.com