Please turn with me in the written word of God to the 27th chapter of Genesis. We're going to pick up the reading in verse 41 and then we're going to read all of chapter 28 as well. As we do here lately, I've been telling you to note certain things as we read. The two things I want you to notice as we read the text this morning is first of all, notice the pronouns again. Notice the word you and how often it's used. You singular, but then the word I. Who is doing the action in the text and who is the passive recipient of that action? The other thing I would have you notice is in chapter 28 is verse 12. Notice verse 12. In fact, I've changed the sermon title from what it says in your bulletin. I've changed it to a stairway between heaven Because that's going to be the central focus of the text as we go through. So we're in Genesis 27, beginning the reading in verse 41. So Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father blessed him. And Esau said in his heart, the days of mourning for my father are at hand. Then I will kill my brother Jacob. And the words of Esau, her older son, were told to Rebekah. So she sent and called Jacob, her younger son, and said to him, Surely your brother Esau comforts himself concerning you by intending to kill you. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice, arise, flee to my brother Laban in Haran, and stay with him a few days until your brother's fury turns away, until your brother's anger turns away from you, and he forgets what you've done to him. Then I will send and bring you from there. Why should I be bereaved also of you both in one day? And Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of Heth, like these who are the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me? 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 Paddan 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 Paddan 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 Badan 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 Badan 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 will 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.' And 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. And 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. And 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 the 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." Let's pray. Father, for Jesus' sake, would you pour out the Holy Spirit upon us, that we might see great and wonderful things. Christ himself is in this text, and Lord, I pray that you'll give us eyes to see him, and that we may exalt him and be drawn irresistibly to him. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. The verses I've just read in your hearing take place in the wake of the successful conspiracy concocted by Rebecca and Jacob to deceive Isaac. Today we talk about identity theft. This was like the ultimate identity theft as literally Jacob tried to be Esau as it were. They found a way to duplicate Esau's hairiness. They borrowed some of Esau's clothes to duplicate his scent. Rebekah made savory food just like Esau made and that Isaac loved to deceive his taste buds. The only thing they couldn't steal was Esau's voice and that almost made the whole gig be up. But the sense of touch and taste and smell convinced Isaac this was indeed Esau. And he gave the blessing of the firstborn to his secondborn son, Jacob. And despite the carnal way in which this took place, what we saw is God himself was orchestrating these events, not that he's the author or approver of sin, but yet even in our sinfulness, God's ways and his decrees will be carried out. It's because he had prophesied many years earlier and said to Rebekah, the older shall serve the younger. Esau, or Isaac himself, was trying to go against God's ways. He was trying to say, I will give the blessing to Esau, even though I know that God has said Jacob is to receive the greater blessing. But God's ways can't be thwarted, no matter what man does. And we find Isaac bowing down and acknowledging defeat, the Lord's way has been done, as Jacob received the blessing. But even though God's providence certainly won out, We need to always remember that the ends never justify the means. Rebecca had sinned against God. She had sinned against her husband. She had sinned against her sons by propagating a lie. And there's consequences for things like this. Consequences that we're going to see in our text this morning. As she sends her son away, her favorite son, she had no way of knowing this was the last time she would ever see him in this present age. Jacob was going to be gone for 20 years, and by the time he came back to his homeland, his mother would be dead. There's consequences for sin, even for God's people, and we see those consequences here. And yet, nevertheless, what strikes me in our text What stands out, because we're going to see Rebekah still involved in a little bit of deception, the way that she deals with Isaac is less than perfectly one of integrity. But nonetheless, what we see here is that where sin abounds, God's grace abounds far more. There's really nothing in our text to commend Jacob or Rebekah or Isaac to us. And yet, what do we find God doing? We find Him being gracious. We find him pouring out blessings upon someone very undeserving. That sounds a lot like grace, doesn't it? But when we get to verse 12, something really stands out about grace right there, more than any other thing, because here Jacob has a vision. It's the first time that we are ever told that Jacob encountered the God of his fathers. And as he encounters Him, he sees something. He sees a stairway, a ladder, the feet of which touch the earth, and the top of which touches heaven. And there's angels ascending and descending upon it. It's a bridge, a gateway, a mediation, as it were, between heaven and earth. The question is, what's it mean? What does it symbolize? Who does it symbolize? What is it all about? Well, the good news is, hundreds of years after Jacob was dead and gone and buried, there was an obscure rabbi from a town called Nazareth who was talking to a Jewish man by the name of Nathanael. and he would tell us and identify exactly what the stairway is. But more about that at the end. Right now, for the moment, as we work our way through the text, I want to preach it under four headings. First of all, we see a murderous disposition. Secondly, we see a providential departure. Third, a presumptuous act. and fourth, a mysterious stairway. So let's look through those things together. First of all, a murderous disposition. Jacob's deception of his father Isaac caused Esau to hate his guts. Now, as we saw last week, when Esau realized what had been done, his response was less than stellar. He did not show godly sorrow. Instead, what did he do? He played the victim card. He's stolen my birthright. He stole the birthright you freely gave him, that one, for a bowl of soup. But he doesn't acknowledge that. Instead, he wants to play the victim card. Oh, he's stolen this from me. And because the birthright was now Jacob's, it was actually the firstborn blessing belonged to Jacob as well. But he's stolen this. There was no leading him to repentance. There was only worldly sorrow. Sorry for the consequences, but not sorry for my sin. Never taking up ownership or responsibility for his sin against the Lord and against his family. And we find it even more so emphasized by the fact that now he wants to kill his brother. Alright, dad's going to die pretty soon, and when dad dies, I'll get mine. I'll comfort myself by killing my brother. And what we need to recognize when we look at verse 41, Is it once again, how many times have we seen this all throughout Genesis, once again the promise of the coming Messiah, the promise of the seed of the woman is once again in jeopardy? Everywhere you turn, it's being threatened. We have it when Cain killed Esau. We have it when Ishmael persecuted Isaac. Here, if he carries out his murderous intent, basically the seed promise, the promise there's going to be a coming seed of the woman, is going to come to a bloody end. But once again, what does God do? He intervenes. so that he protects the seed and guards the seed promise. But verse 41 says that Esau said these things in his heart. It doesn't say he said them out loud, he said them here, inside of his heart. But as Jesus said, when the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, he can't keep it contained, and so apparently he tells some of the other servants who he thinks will be complicit with him, I'm going to kill my brother. And in God's providence, these servants wind up coming to Rebecca and saying, you do know your brother or your son intends to kill your other son. So she learns of the conspiracy. And what does she do? She immediately summons Jacob to tell him what's going on. Look at verse 42. The words of Esau, her older son, were told to Rebekah, so she sent and called Jacob, her younger son, and said to him, Surely your brother Esau comforts himself concerning you by intending to kill you. That's called bloodlust. You heard the term bloodlust? He comforts himself, he finds pleasure in his heart by imagining and fantasizing about how many different ways he can kill you. That's what is going on in Esau's heart. He is full of bloodlust. Now here's what I'm going to tell you to do. Obey my voice. Arise and flee to my brother Laban in Haran. We've met Laban once before when Abraham's servant went to fetch a wife, namely Rebekah, and bring her back to Isaac. We met Laban then. So go to my brother. Go to your uncle Laban in Haran. Now you understand it's 500 miles away. It's 500 miles north. So go, flee, find refuge with my brother so that your brother won't kill you. And notice verse 44, she had no way of knowing that it was going to be a 20-year journey before he ever came back. She thinks it would be just a few days. Stay with him a few days. Stay with him just a little while, until your brother's fury turns away, until your brother's anger turns away from you. In other words, you know what a volcanic temper he has. Wait till the magma calms down, cools down, and then you can come back. I think what she says next is kind of naive. And he forgets what you've done to him. That's pretty naive, isn't it? So, no hard feelings about me stealing your birthright, right? None whatsoever, right? No, that's pretty naive. I don't think he's going to forget anytime soon. And then she says, and then I will send for you. Sad, really, to look at it and realize this is the last time she's ever going to see her son. Her favoritism has come back to haunt her. She doesn't know she'll never have the chance to send back for him and bring him back. Now certainly, we can look at this and see that God was protecting the seed promise. He's protecting Jacob from Esau's murderous intentions. There is God's providence at work here, but there's also God's chastening of his adopted daughter, Rebecca. For her sin, she's having to pay some temporal consequences here. God does chase in his people, and he's chasing her for her sin. She had honored her son above the Lord in coming up with the deception, and now it's coming back to roost. So we see God's chasing hand even in these temporal things. Verse 45, she says, should I be bereaved of both of you in one day? Because if her one son kills her other son, the son Jacob will be gone because he'll be dead. But then Esau would have to face a court of law or have to run and be a fugitive and a vagabond, certainly wouldn't be welcome back at the dinner table again after killing the other son. But whatever the case, she would lose both sons. And so he's saying, go away from me. So what we've seen is a murderous disposition. The second thing we see is a providential departure. Rebecca's already spoken to Jacob, but now she goes to Isaac. And when I find what she says in verse 46, it's a little disconcerting. Because she doesn't come and disclose the whole truth to her husband. Let's put it this way. If one of my sons was planning to kill another one of my sons, and Angela learned about it, I would very much want her to come immediately to me to let me know what's going on. But we don't find Rebecca telling Isaac what she knows about Esau's intentions. She closes that, she hides that, she doesn't even tell him that she's wanting Jacob to go to her brother. Instead, she just brings up the subject of Esau's sons, or Esau's wives. Now, it's not that she's lying in what she says, it's just that she's not being completely forthright about the truth. And this comes across then as kind of a manipulation. Notice what she says. I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of Heth, like those who are the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?" Now, she wasn't exaggerating. They were a grief of mine to her. They were Canaanites, and they did not worship God, and they were causing all kinds of trouble for Isaac and Rebekah. But notice she doesn't even mention, send him over to my brother. She obviously assumes that that's where Isaac's mind is going to go, that he'd obtained a godly wife from the same place, and he's going to send Jacob now to do the same. Well, again, what do we see in this? We see that God is protecting the seed, but He's also propagating the seed. Because if Jacob doesn't marry and begin having children, then the seed promised dies with him. So even in her machinations, which are less than honorable, still the Lord is at work. Well, verse 1 of chapter 28, Isaac sees the wisdom of what she's saying, that yes, he does need to obtain a godly wife. So he called Jacob, and he blesses him, and he gives him a commandment. And he tells him what not to do, then he tells him three things he must do. The first thing is, don't take a wife of the Canaanites. Now that sounds very familiar, because that's exactly what Abraham charged his servant with, right? When he sent him to find a bride for Isaac. And then there's three positive bits of commandment and instruction. Go to Paddan-i-Ram. Paddan-i-Ram was the region in which the city of Iran was. And so go to Paddan-i-Ram, 500 miles north. Go to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father. No, go to your granddad. Your granddad, Bethuel, your maternal grandfather. Then take yourself a wife of the daughters of Laban. So very specific as to who he wanted him to marry. Your mother's brother. And then he gives a blessing. And in verses 3 and 4, what you see very clearly, very obviously, is that the blessing he's conveying to Jacob is the blessing of the covenant given to Abraham. He's clearly recognizing here that God chose Jacob to be the recipient of the Abrahamic covenant and not Esau. So notice what he says, May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you. Well, that's the seed promise, isn't it? Make your descendants as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. He's conveying those very things. And then he says something very interesting, that you may be an assembly of peoples. What's interesting about that, and I'm indebted to Derek Kidner for this observation, this is the first time this root word shows up in the Hebrew language in our Bibles. and it would be expanded throughout the rest of the Old Testament. And then when they translated the Old Testament into Greek, which is known as the Septuagint, this word would be translated by a specific word, and that word would be used in our New Testaments. And that word is the word ekklesia, church. Church. May God make of you a church. That's what he's saying. In other words, Israel of the Old Testament is the church under the Old Covenant. The New Testament church is the church under the New Covenant. One peoples of God. One people of God, not two peoples, not three peoples. One people of God, spanning the Testaments with one God, one Savior, one Lord, same Holy Spirit living inside of us. We have here the foreshadowing of Jesus' words, church, my assembly of people." May God make of you a church. And if you're here and you're in Christ, you realize that your spiritual father is Abraham, because you walk in the faith of your father Abraham, even though you're a Gentile. And so that makes Jacob your spiritual father as well. And so he's saying, may God make of you a church. So you and I are living proof of the blessing that God made. He made an assembly of peoples serving the living God out of his descendants. Then he says, and give you the blessing of Abraham to you and your descendants with you. So who's the heir of the Abrahamic covenant? Not Esau. but Jacob, and here is Isaac completely acknowledging that, that you may inherit the land in which you are a stranger." There's the land promise, which God gave to Abraham. Now, the thing I want you to see here is, remember, in the last chapter, Isaac had tried to thwart God's promise. Oh, I'm going to put the firstborn blessing upon Esau because he's my favorite. But God had thwarted that, and what do we have now but him and Isaac acknowledging that God had his way. Let his will be done. I acknowledge it fully that you are the heir of the Abrahamic covenant and not Esau. Andrew Fuller says it this way, Isaac had been thinking matters over ever since and the more he thought of them, the more satisfied he was that it was the will of God and that all his private partialities should give place to it. And I believe that's exactly what we see. Well then in verse 5, so Isaac sent Jacob away and he went to Paddan Aram to Laban the son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob, and Esau. God has preserved the seed and now He's about to propagate the seed as He's about to provide wife, actually more than one wife, for Jacob. So we see a murderous disposition. Secondly, a providential departure. Third, a presumptuous act. We're not going to take much time to go over verses 6 and 9. Just suffice it to say, Esau is being presumptuous again. What does he see? He hears what Isaac does and how he blesses Jacob and sends him away and tells him, don't you marry any Canaanite women, like your brother did. And he knows that Isaac is not pleased with the two Canaanite women that Esau has married. So what does he do? Okay, I'll run and find another wife and that'll fix it. And he doesn't consult with God and he doesn't consult with his father. He runs off and he finds Ishmael and says, let me marry one of her daughters because this is my dad's half-brother and it'll be closer in the family and maybe this will make dad happy. And he marries her, but think about this for just a minute. Think about the logic of it. Ishmael had to be ejected from Abraham's tent. Why? Because he persecuted Isaac, Esau's father. So I'm going to marry the daughter of the guy who persecuted you, and that'll make dad happy. And the point being here, it's all presumptuous. It's just telling us more about the character of the man. Without counsel, plans go awry. He doesn't seek counsel. He doesn't seek counsel of God. Again, someone points out, it's Matthew Henry that says this, Esau didn't marry this woman to please God. He married this woman in an attempt to please his father. So again, we see a presumptuous act. So I told you, we're not going to spend much time there. Esau is being Esau. So we have a murderous disposition, a providential departure, a presumptuous act. But finally, and this is the place I've been wanting to get all morning, we have a mysterious stairway. This stairway is extraordinary. What we're going to see here is just absolutely great. Verse 10. Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. So he's going on his 500-mile journey. He's come about 50 miles because he comes to a place that's called Luz. By the end of the chapter, Luz will be called Bethel. And it seems very obvious that he didn't go into the city. We're not told why, but he's sleeping on the outskirts of the city, under the stars, because he takes a rock to use as his pillow. He must not have been very comfortable, but he had something to elevate his head anyway. So he comes to a certain place and he stayed there all night because the sun had set. So he took one of the stones of the place, put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. And it's while he's sleeping, that God shows Himself to him for the very first time. We've read many times of God appearing to Abraham, and then how He began to appear to Isaac. So far as we know, this is the very first time that Jacob has encountered God. Is there anything in the narrative leading up to this point that would suggest to us that Jacob, at this point, was a God-fearing man? Nothing. I believe he was an unregenerate man. As a matter of fact, I'm just going to go ahead and tell you, I don't think he was regenerate after this encounter. Now, I may be wrong, because the Bible doesn't tell us explicitly when he came unto the Lord, but for my money, when I look at the Scriptures, I think 20 years later, when he wrestled with God all night in prayer, I think that morning was when he was truly regenerate. I believe this is just the beginning of God dealing with him. The reason I say that is, look at how he treats his wives. in the coming chapters. It's terrible. And the way he habitually lies to his father-in-law, and the two of them going back and forth lying to each other every which way, is that how regenerate men act? Occasionally, but habitually, no. And I think there's evidence that he really wasn't a believer at this time. He was God's elect, but he wasn't yet regenerate. But this is God first putting into him the fear of God. Because very often, God takes time to draw us to Himself, doesn't He? I doubt that any of us heard the Gospel, and the first time we heard it, we went, OK, that's for me. Wasn't it true that God dealt with most of us over a long period of time, beginning to illuminate our minds, beginning to help us understand the Gospel, begin showing us the sin? In other words, for most of us, not all, but for most of us, there was probably a process. of God drawing us to himself that took time. And I believe that process begins here for Jacob. But it's as he's sleeping, in the middle of the night, that he has this dream. And God gives him something visual, and He gives him something verbal. He speaks to him, but He also gives him a visual picture, and both are saying the same thing. It's not two separate messages. It's the same message being spoken and seen. So to his eyes, as it were, and to his ears, as it were, he's hearing the same message. Here's the vision. The first thing is, he dreamed, verse 12, And behold, a ladder, or it could be a stairway. Anyway, something that has steps or rungs. 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. Now, do you hear what is going on here? The foot, the bottom rung of the ladder, is sitting on the earth. It's touching the ground. But then when you go all the way to the top, the top rung is touching heaven. This ladder is connecting heaven and earth on both ends, giving us access to heaven, and giving heaven access to us. And the angels ascend from the earth to heaven, and from heaven to earth, up and down this ladder. As marvelous as that was, there's something else even more amazing in his vision, and that is that at the top of the ladder, who does he see? God Himself. Now, I'm told by people who know these kind of things, I don't know them, but the Hebrew language can be translated here. Either He was at the top of the ladder, or He appeared beside the ladder, beside Jacob. Not clear which one it is. Either translation works. But the idea is He sees God Himself. These are called theophanies, Old Testament appearances of God. And we see them recurring all throughout Genesis, all throughout the Old Testament. But here's the thing, when you get to John chapter 1, John tells us something very pointedly. He says, no one has seen the Father at any time. So the first person in the Godhead no man has ever seen with his eyes. So that begs the question, who is this that appears to Jacob? And I've told you point-blank what I believe. I believe all theophanies in the Old Testament are Christophanies. It is pre-incarnate appearances of Jesus Christ Himself. In other words, who He is seeing, I believe, is the second person of the Godhead. So Jesus Himself is standing beside this ladder or above this ladder, which should hint something as to who is being represented by the ladder itself. But He speaks then. He opens His mouth. And he identifies himself, verse 13. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac. I am the God of your fathers. I want you to know who I am. And then he says this, the land on which you lie, I will give to you and your descendants. Now we've heard that over and over again. What is that? That is the Abrahamic blessing. He is reiterating to Jacob the very things he had said to Abraham, then the things he had said to Isaac, and now he's reiterating to Jacob himself. He says, also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth, we've heard that before as well, and you shall spread abroad to the west and the east and the north and the south and in you, And in your seed, all the families of the earth shall be blessed." Man, we keep hearing that. In one singular seed, one specific descendant of yours. all nations will be blessed." See, from the beginning, it was God's intention to include the Gentiles in His plan. It wasn't just to bless Israel. Jesus is the glory of His people Israel, but He's also the light of the Gentiles, God's salvation to the ends of the earth. And He's saying, in your seed, in your descendant, All nations will be blessed, all families of all nations, there will be representatives of all those places standing before me in heaven, singing my praises, saying, you have redeemed us to God by your blood from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation." Now, marvelous thing here, the very one telling him this is the seed. It's Jesus himself standing before him saying, in your seed, me, all nations will be blessed. And then notice verse 15, "...behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go." I'll be a shield about you. Wherever you wander, I'm going to be there with you. And we'll bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you. Now, have you ever heard that before? I will never leave you nor forsake you. Does that sound familiar? Here is Christ saying, I'm never going to leave you. I'm never going to forsake you. And then he says, until I have done all that I've spoken to you, when God makes a promise, God will perform what he's promised to do. And I'm going to stay with you, and I'm going to bless you in every way that I've said I would. Verse 16 is Jacob's response to this. It seems he wakes up in the middle of the night after the vision is over, after the dream is over. He awoke from his sleep and said, surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it. And notice what happens next. Look at verse 17. How does the Bible describe Jacob's state? And he was afraid. Remember in Genesis 15, when God made his covenant with Abraham, and he drew near and Abraham fell asleep, and God was coming near to make his covenant? Remember what the Bible describes happened to Abraham? Abraham is described as a friend of God, and yet when God drew near, the Bible says he was full of darkness. and deep horror. The infinite has reached down to touch the finite. The holy has come into the presence of a sinner. And even as godly a man as Abraham was, he trembled and was full of terror and of horror. Like Isaiah, he says, I am undone. Woe is me. And here's Jacob, trembling and terrified. I've been in the presence of God. Now, I don't believe this was when he was regenerate, but God is showing him something about himself. He's exposing him to his holiness. And brothers and sisters, when we share the gospel, we've got to show people God's holiness. Don't start sharing the gospel talking about Jesus. Start talking about God the Father, and His holy law, and His holiness, so that people tremble in the presence of God, and recognize their coming punishment, recognize their sin, and then you tell them about who Jesus is. Because Jesus is the remedy for those things. You know, we say Jesus is the answer. He is the answer. The problem is the world does not know what the question is. And you have to teach them what the question is. Why do you need a Savior? And when they understand, and when it grips their heart that they understand they need a Savior, when they realize what sinners they are and what condemnation we deserve, Jesus is the most beautiful thing they've ever heard of or seen. And so God breaks him. What does the old hymn say? "'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved." What is God doing but graciously dealing with his servant Jacob? to show him his need of a Savior. He's full of fear. And he says this, how awesome is this place, this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And he rises up early in the morning, takes the stone he had put on his head, and he sets it up as a pillar, and he anoints it. And he renames the city, which had been called Luz, and calls it Bethel, which means house of God. And he makes a vow, if God will be with me and keep me in this way that I'm going and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on, which will be true to the promises he's made. So I come back to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God. And the stone which I set as a pillar shall be God's house. And of all that you give me, I will surely give a tenth to you. I recognize everything I have is your provision, and I will respond by returning the first 10% to you. There's two applications I want to make from our text this morning. First, where sin abounds, grace abounds far more. These chapters seem to go to great length to show us just how bad Jacob and his family are, to show us that they're sinners. Tell me, is there anything in these verses that commends Jacob to your admiration? Furthermore, is there anything that commends him to God? Nothing. I mean, let's consider what Jacob is. He is a tent-dwelling mama's boy, a sissy. He's a man who's a schemer, a cheater, and a liar. That's about all we've seen of him thus far. As a matter of fact, one commentator made a point. It's interesting that his name is Jacob, supplanter. He grabbed the heel of his brother. That's the very first act he did when he was born. What did God say about the serpent in Genesis 3.15? He will bruise his heel. As if to imply, at this point, Jacob was the devil's seed. He was a son of the devil, as we all were until God saved us. There's nothing that commends Him to us. And yet, who is the great hero of our text? God Himself. We find spiritual blessings being lavished upon Jacob, a very unworthy object, a very unworthy recipient of grace. But that gets to the definition of grace anyway, doesn't it? Grace isn't poured upon the worthy. Grace is poured out upon the unworthy. Mercy is voluntary on the part of the one showing mercy. It's not something we're obliged to show. It's something that God chooses to show to people. And he's pouring it out. And notice again the pronouns. When Isaac blesses his son and says, may God Almighty, who's doing all the action and the blessing? May He do these things for you, may He do this, may He do that, may He do that. Jacob's just the recipient. He's passive, completely passive, just receiving it all. And then when God appears to him, do you realize He says the word you to him 14 times? And then he says the word, I, six times. I'm going to do this for you. I'm going to do that for you. I'm going to do this, this, this, this, me, me, me, me, me, me. I'm the one that's going to do it. Who's doing the action? It's all God. And Jacob is the passive and unworthy and unexpected recipient. The whole point being this, what about you and me? How has God treated us? We are the unworthy recipients of his mercy and of his grace. We didn't earn it. God freely bestowed it upon us. Andrew Fuller says it this way, in the former chapter we saw much of man, and that's true, the whole quadrangle scheme of trying to deceive Isaac, right? We saw much of man, but in this we have seen much of God. In the works of one, sin abounded in those of the other. Grace hath much more abounded." And that leads me to my second and final application, which I confess I've saved the very best for last. And this is it. Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and men. Jacob dreamed of the ladder. One foot touched the ground. The other foot touched heaven. And it connected God to men. What does that latter symbolize? Turn with me to John chapter 1. Let's let Jesus tell us Himself. The only perfect and infallible commentary on the Bible is the Bible. And so let's let Scripture interpret Scripture for us. John 1. It's early days of Jesus' earthly ministry. It's the first year of His ministry. Verse 50. Well, let's just start in verse 48. No, start in verse 47, sorry. Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him. Now, he's never met Nathanael before. And he said to him, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit. In other words, he knows his name, he knows who he is, he knows his character, and yet they'd never met each other. Nathanael said to him, How do you know me? Jesus answered and said to him, before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. You weren't in seeing distance, but you saw me." Now, what does that hint at? What's it say? It speaks to Christ's omniscience, right? And to his omnipresence. Even though you weren't there, you saw me. And so how does Nathanael respond? He gets the import of what Jesus is saying. Verse 49, Nathanael answered and said, Rabbi, you're the son of God. You're the king of Israel. Notice his response. Jesus answered and said to him, because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You'll see greater things than these. This is nothing. Just wait. But notice what he says in verse 51. It's great. He said to him, most assuredly, I say to you hereafter, you shall see heaven open. and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." Now, first of all, do you notice the interplay of words, of titles? Nathanael confesses that Jesus is whom? He's the Son of God. Who does Jesus identify himself as? The Son of Man. You will see the angels of God ascending and descending upon me. They had descended upon Jacob's ladder back in our text. Now they're ascending upon Jesus himself. Here's the point. Jesus Christ is the ladder. Jesus Christ is the stairway. I'm going to read you an extended quote from Matthew Henry. Matthew Henry is always worth quoting. That's why I quote him a lot. But this quote is the very best quote I've ever read thus far of Matthew Henry. Because he doesn't just hit a base hit or even a double hitter. He hits the triple grand slam right out of the park with what he says here. Let me hear what Matthew Henry has to say. Quote, Christ is this ladder. The foot on earth is his human nature. The top in heaven is his divine nature. All the communion between heaven and earth since the fall is by this ladder. Christ is the way. All God's favors come to us and all our services go to him by Christ. If God dwells in us and we in him, it is by Christ. We have no way of getting to heaven but by this ladder. If we climb up any other way, we are thieves and robbers. Christ has reconciled things on earth and things in heaven and made them all meet in himself. End of quote. This is the point. The seed in whom all the nations will be blessed is symbolized by this ladder, Christ himself standing beside it and telling Jacob of great things to come. Jesus is that ladder. Jesus is the mediator. Now, let me make it very clear to you this morning, whoever you are. Jesus Christ is not the quickest way to God, as opposed to a few other slower ways to God. Jesus is not one way to God among many other possible ways to God. As a matter of fact, Jesus Christ is not even the best way to God. Jesus Christ is the only way to God and there is nobody else but Him. He is the mediator between God and man. Remember what Job cried out? Oh, that there was someone who could mediate between God and me, one who could lay his hand upon us both, one who could touch God, one who could touch man, and reconcile us. Jesus Christ is the answer to Job's prayer, because He is the Son of God. Come down to tell us about who God is. He's also the Son of Man to represent us before the Father. He is the only person in all of creation, in all of the universe, who can bring God and man together. And if you're not reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, you will not be reconciled at all. If you are here this morning and you're under the wrath of God, you're not forgiven for your sins, you will never receive forgiveness if it isn't through Jesus Christ. There is no other way you can come. There's no other way you can go. This is it. Your religion won't save you. Your patriotism won't save you. Your morality won't save you. The only person who can save you is Jesus Christ. But the good news is there is reconciliation in Jesus Christ. He is able to save you. He's able to reconcile you to God, just as willing as He is able. He's not just able to do so. He doesn't just promise to do so if you come to Him. He commands you to. He commands you to be reconciled to God. He commands you to repent. He commands you to believe. He doesn't just command. He pleads with you to. He pleads with you to be reconciled. He extends His hands and says, all day long, I've stretched out my hands to a stubborn and disobedient people. He pleads with us, come to me, be reconciled to me. Are you weary and heavy laden? Come to me and I'll give you rest. This is what He says. He can reconcile us to God. You know, think about it. God saves us. He saves us from our sins, yes. But have you ever thought about this? God saves us from God? He does. He saves us from God and He saves us for God. Because it's the wrath of God that we're facing. And He saves us from His own wrath by sending His Son and pouring out His punishment upon Him in our place. But then He also saves us from ourselves. He delivers me from me, because I'm my own worst enemy and you're your own worst enemy. And He delivers us from those things. And if you're here, you think about it, here's a gracious God who so graciously offers such things as this. Only a fool would turn that down, but fools turn it down every day. And why? Because they love their sin. I just love my sin too much to give it up to come to Jesus. I've actually had people say that to me, almost verbatim. I'd rather go on in my sin than be a Christian. I'd rather go to hell than be saved. What a fool. Only a fool would say that. because your sin is sinking you to the lowest hell. And the longer you hear the gospel and resist God and do not repent, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath. You're storing it up. It's collecting interest in the bank. It's getting worse. Better for you never to hear the gospel again than you should go on in your impenitence having heard the gospel. And maybe you say, OK, it's not my sin I want to give up, but it's my morality. Because it's humbling to admit my morality is not enough, and I'll be embarrassed to say I should trust in Jesus alone and not trust my works. I just don't want to give up my own righteousness. Because it's just humiliating. You know something? To be empty of yourself and to be full of Jesus is the very safest place in the world you could ever be. The Scriptures tell us God resists the proud. but gives grace to the humble. Remember the publican and the tax collector, the Pharisee and the tax collector, they came to the temple and the Pharisee learned it, knowledgeable in his theology, I thank you God, I'm not like everybody else. It's just so good to be me. It's hard to be perfect. It's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way, like me. I give of my food to everybody. I fast twice a week. I give tithes to the poor, etc., etc., etc. I'm not even like this IRS guy over here, this stinking tax collector. Thank you, God. He thought he was righteous. He trusted himself that he was righteous. But the tax collector, who was a thief and an extortioner, he knew he had no righteousness to plead. You ever notice his disposition? He understands he's not even worthy to look up at heaven. His eyes are cast down, and he beats his breast, and all he can say is, God have mercy on me, a sinner. Jesus says this one went away justified. The one he knew he had no righteousness to offer, but could just plead, God have mercy. He was the one that found mercy. The other man did not. How foolish to let your pride keep you from coming to Christ. Because it's not Jesus plus your works, it's Jesus alone. And putting your faith in Jesus freely He offers and freely you receive. Will you not look to Christ with the eyes of faith, and close with Him, that He might dress you in His righteousness, and take away your sin, and reconcile you to God?" If you're saying, well, you don't know how bad I am. You don't know how wretched my past is, and all the hideous things I did. If you knew, you wouldn't even talk to me. Well, frankly, if you knew what I've done, you wouldn't talk to me either. Because we're all great sinners that are ashamed of things we've done in our past. But Jesus didn't come to save people who've got their lives together. He came to save people who've made a train wreck of their lives. He came to save people who are great sinners who've rebelled against a holy God. That's exactly whom He sent His Son to save. And if you're one of those people, you're a great candidate. Because He came to give grace to the undeserving. What was there in Jacob to commend Him to God? Nothing. And yet God gave his blessings upon him. Even so, in Christ, you can receive those blessings, receive that eternal life which we do not deserve, but which God freely gives in his Son, Jesus Christ. Fly to Christ that you might be saved. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for such a Savior as you have given us. And we pray, O Lord, for anyone who is here that is not clothed in Christ's righteousness, that you would grant them grace to flee to Christ, to repent of their sin, to repent of their own righteousness, and to trust in Christ alone for the salvation that only he can give. Thank you for being such a gracious Savior. And Lord, for us who are in Christ, help us to remember these things constantly, to remember that the basis of our acceptance is not our performance, but rather the finished work of Christ. Grant us grace in these things, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.