God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. When we get into the sermon, I'm going to point out a verbal parallel between this passage and our main passage today. And just so you can see it, look at, so John 1, verse 51, Jesus says something rather enigmatic here. And by the way, he's then going to, in the very next chapter, cleanse the temple. This is one of those things that in the Old Covenant there was a place, there was a big stone building in Jerusalem in the New Covenant. Jesus is the Temple. Jesus is going to, is going to quote word for word our passage today with one massive change. Okay? So as we read verse 51, I want you to see if you can pick out So let's begin at John 1 verse 43. The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, follow me. Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote. Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph, anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip said to him, Come and see. Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit. Nathanael said to him, Jesus answered him, before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Nathanael answered him, Rabbi, you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel. Jesus answered him, because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things of me. And He said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, and notice that you as in the plural, you will see them going. And the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. I'll just tell you that I read this passage for much of my life having no idea what was going on. But I hope that our key passage today, now turned to Genesis 28, will give us some insight into this rich passage. Genesis 28, we'll begin reading at verse 10. We're jumping here into these whole series of stories of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. The whole second half of Genesis is filled with these stories, really from Genesis 12 all the way through Genesis 4. And we want to see here one of these particular passages. And again, I'll remind you now, we've come into the Old Testament. I want you to see that it says in verse 12, and he dreamed. So the Bible is being very transparent with us that this experience that Jacob had is based on a dream. Now I'm persuaded personally in the Reformed tradition that it is not God's will for us to view ourselves as being guided by our dreams in the new covenant. James was one of those many ways in former times, but in these last days he's spoken to us in his son. And his son has confirmed and verified the Word of God. And so I don't think this is a normal experience for Christians under the New Covenant, but nonetheless it is very instructive for us because God was speaking in this case to Jacob. So hear the word of the Lord, Genesis 28, beginning at verse 10. Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. And he came to a certain place and stayed there that night because the sun had set, taking one of the stones from the place and put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed. And behold, there was a ladder. This could also be translated a flight of steps set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. Behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. Behold, the Lord stood above them. I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. And in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth 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 promised you." Then Jacob woke up from his sleep and said, The Lord is in this place. And I did not know. He was praying and said, how awesome is this place. This is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven. So, early in the morning, Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar. He called the name of that place Bethel, or Beth-el. And that means, Beth means house, el is the short form of the name of God. So the house of God, just like it's used up in verse 17. But the name of the city was Luz at first. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, if God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my Father's house in peace. Then the Lord shall be my rock, and this stone which I have set up for a pillar shall be God's house. And of all that you give me, I will give a full tenth to you. This is the Word of God. Well friends, last time we were together, we thought about the creation of the heavens. I'm going to continue to try to straddle the practices here. On one hand, I want to insist and remind you that whenever you think of heaven, you need to think of three things. Because there are three heavens very clearly in the Bible. What are they? The sky, the birds fly in the heavens, space, the sun, moon, and stars are in the heavens, and the secret place of God. I commented in the last sermon that I acknowledge one of the difficulties that Christians face as we try to bring Our understanding of God's word to the world is that this heaven is not part of the universe. At least, it's not part of the visible universe. I remember thinking with my dad, Dad, if we put nothing but gas in the space shuttle, and the space shuttle flew as far out into space as it possibly could. I didn't know it couldn't actually do that. But if it could, Could it fly to heaven? And my dad said, I don't think so, Brad. I think that heaven is another world. So we need to think of the heavens of the heavens, that's the way the Bible talks about the third heaven, or the secret place of God, in relationship to the sky, space. Now, in that context, we come to this passage today where we have a ladder, where we have a flight of steps set up on the earth, the top of it reached to heaven. My subtitle today, Jacob's Pillar, Jesus' Promise. Today we learn in a story from the patriarch Jacob, By the way, I would remind you, this is key, what does Jacob's name mean? Yaakov means deceiver. Can you imagine naming Deacon like? Baby liar. I mean, that would not be a blessing to your kid. But Jacob was a deceiver, and he deceived time and again in his youth. Friends, I'm persuaded as I study this passage, that this is the time that Jacob became a true believer in the one true God, the Lord. This is the time when God came and changed his heart. And notice that it has everything to do with heaven. En route to visit his Uncle Laban, Jacob apparently became a believer in quote, I'm quoting from verse 13, the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac. In the course of this dramatic evening, He embraced the true God as my God and vowed to give to Him. Not unlike the vows that that you take to become a communicant member of this line. I'm reminding you that part of the essence of following God is to vow, and to keep those vows, and that those vows involve giving to the Lord. We see that in our passage today. My prayer today is that the glory of the gate of heaven is the only time this phrase is used in the scriptures. The gate of heaven was opened to Jacob. And we need to discover that the angels in here, I want to push Not sure it's a wrong translation, but I think there's a better way of thinking about this. This is not some magical experience. This is not some, you know, postcard or gift card with angels, cute little angels with wings. I don't like the translation here of the angels of God, although I understand why they did it. I believe the better translation here is the messengers of God. That what Jacob is learning in this is that God is actually functionally in charge of his world. Of the observable world that we can see. In other words, there are people running messages up to heaven. to God from the prayers of people on earth, and are people who are running the decrees of God down to earth for their implementation in human history. This is what we call the doctrine of providence. Now, let me read, I have it there in the introduction, the phrase The angels, or my preferred translation, the messengers of God ascending and descending. Do you see that phrase here in Genesis 28? Look at what it says. Verse 12. A ladder was set up, or a staircase, or a flight of steps on the earth. The top of it reached to heaven. And behold, here is the verbal parallel, the angels of God, or the messengers of God, were ascending and descending on dot, dot, dot. In Genesis 28, what are they ascending on and descending on? The steps, right? The ladder. I thought this morning about bringing a step ladder, having it here, and talking about the ladder. This idea that, you know, You look at your roof, you can't get up onto the roof unless there's a ladder with steps, and there's a gradation by which you rise from one place, your yard, to another place, your roof. Jesus changes the last-formers. Behold, the angels, or messengers of God, ascending and descending on... a son of man. I'm persuaded, absolutely persuaded, that Nathanael was studying Genesis 28 under the fig tree. This is the only place where this phrase, the gate of heaven, is used. And Nathanael is praying, Lord don't let me be a Jacob, a deceiver. And Jesus says, Nathanael, You are an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. We're going to get to that. Let's look at this briefly now in a systematic way. Point number one, how heaven was opened for Jacob. I want you to see that Jacob was fleeing from his brother. He had already done some pretty deceitful things to his brother, not once, but twice. He had responded with birthright, and now he was getting out of dodge. He was on his way toward Haran, which is where his father had found a wife. So Jacob is on his way. He comes, it says in verse 11, to a certain place. He's laid down at night, and he dreamed. Verse 12, he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder. This is sometimes called Jacob's ladder. There's lots of misuses of this. There's one old tune that I heard, we are climbing Jacob's ladder. Well, someday, maybe, but that's not the point of this text. The point is not that Jacob climbed the ladder, friends. Jacob could not appear in heaven by his own efforts. The point of this passage is that the Lord is busy governing his world. Then you'll see there, there was a ladder. In ESV, there's a footnote there, or a flight of steps. I think either one of these is a fine translation. Set upon the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven, literally, to the heavens. So here is this thing that spans between the ordinary, normal world that Jacob lives in, where Jacob has had a really serious rupture in his relationship with his brother, and he's on a massive, long journey, like many of us have been on the last few weeks. and it reaches all the way to heaven, to this sacred place, to this dwelling place of God. But in some way that I don't fully understand, God is revealing something about the nature of the heavens to Jacob. The angels or the messengers of God were ascending and descending on it. Now, there's one other thing. Again, if you're not familiar with this, I have two words in verse 13 in bright orange in my Bible. You need to understand that there's actually a very fascinating debate that goes on about translating these two words. So here's Yahweh, now Jacob in his dream is seeing Yahweh, and one of two things is being remarked here. Either he's standing at the top of the ladder in heaven, that is he's standing above it, that is the ladder. So just imagine these steps here, you're down on the earth and I'm up here in heaven. Either he's standing above it, I would be the Hebrew translation here, that is above the ladder, or he's standing beside him. This is a perfectly good translation here. You'll see in the ESV, at least in mine, that there is a translation option here. Which one is what he's saying? I actually lean toward the second one, that God is standing beside Jacob. Because of what he says, down in verse 16. Jacob awoke from his sleep and he didn't say, wow, I had a crazy dream. He said, surely the Lord is in this place. And he's going to actually change the name of the area where he was to Bethel, the house of God. Now, if God is in heaven, well, that's nothing particularly new. But if God is on the earth, Beside Jacob, that's a big deal. So I really think this is where the covenant of grace that had been passed down over years and years from Abraham to Isaac is now coming home. Jacob, speaking New Testament terms, is one of the elect. He has been chosen before the foundation of the world. And now the faith, once for all delivered, is breaking in to the life, to the consciousness, to the conscience of Jacob. In other words, friends, it's easy to fall into this thing that it's just automatic. Oh yeah, God is God, Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph, and everybody else. just because of their traditions. Friends, that is not the faith that we have been entrusted with. It is not a formula. It is not a last name. It is not a set of traditions. It's not going to a certain place. It's not offering certain sacrifices, even if those sacrifices are the Psalms. The God of Abraham and Isaac is the one true God. And do you recognize what is happening in this passage? The God of Heaven is drawing near to one of His people and He is standing beside Him and talking to Him. Friends, this is huge. and God will be beside the Israelites and the wilderness. And by the way, the setup for the temple built by, prepared by David, built by Solomon, where God would be in the land where the people dwelt, beside them. And the Herodian temple, you can still see remains of that temple in Jerusalem today, where God promised, I will be beside my people and the Son of Man, where God promises, I will be beside you. He was back during his public ministry. Then he went back up the steps and now we descend to be with you forever, friends. which waits for you where? I'm pretty sure it's not in any of our bank accounts. Where does that inheritance wait? At the top of the steps, in Heaven. And it's got your name written on it, if you are united to Christ. Notice that God promises here, we won't go into this much today, but God gives specific promises. Verse 13, and I'm going to read it with my with, I think, a better translation here. And behold, the Lord stood beside him and said, I'm the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac, the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring will be like the dust of the earth. And do you hear the echoes of the Abrahamic coming in here? And you shall spread abroad to the west. and to the east, that is, to the Jordan River, and to the north, that is, to the foothills of Lebanon, and to the south, that is, to the Negev, and to you and your offspring, from all the families of the earth that he blessed. Behold, I am with you, Jacob, and I will keep you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land, every one of the promises of which fulfilled in Jacob's life. I want you to see here that God is teaching us to have this idea of heaven and earth connected. It's not connected by us. It's not connected easily. But the good news of Genesis 28 is that there is a flight of steps, and that God is sending His messengers out into the world. be trained to proclaim the Word of God and be commissioned to go out into all the world so that every family of the earth might be blessed by the name of YHWH, the name of the LORD." Notice that this passage is teaching us that Heaven is accessible. As I mentioned, this story is grounding the very existence of the Tabernacle. What is it? It's the Gate of Heaven. The Solomonic Temple is the Gate of Heaven. The Haronian Temple is the Gate of Heaven. At least, until, in these last days, He's spoken to us in the Son. All those others are taken away. is the gate. I am the gate to the sheep. And by me, the sheep go in and out to find pasture. All right, let's then flip in our Bibles to John chapter 1. And here we have the good news, maybe in language that's a little more accessible to us, the language of the New Covenant. We've read this passage already, but this describes how heaven was opened for Nathanael. Again, friends, if you don't have the background of the Old Covenant, then sometimes these sections of the New Covenant and the record of the New Covenant can just blow right past you, and you can completely miss what's going on. I want you to notice that when Nathanael first heard the news, he was extremely skeptical. He said, verse 46, so John 1, verse 46, Nathanael said to him, can anything good come out of Nazareth? Nathanael was flipping through the Rolodex in his head because he was one who had read the Tanakh, the Old Testament. He was flipping his head. There's no connection that he can figure out between the Messiah and this place, this little tiny village of probably about 400 people called Nazareth. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip's like, Nathaniel, don't argue with me. Just come. Just come to church with me and meet Jesus for yourself. The winner, so I'm pretty sure, he is God incarnate. So, Nathaniel's kind of being half-dragged. Some of you are much better than me at this, but you don't quite drag a person, but you half-drag a person to church. No, really. You don't have to believe any of it. Church is just a really interesting sociological experiment. Just come and watch. Well, people who actually believe this crazy stuff interact with their creator. Come on, you can do it. You can sit in the back if you want to. You can sit in every room if you want. We've got rooms set up for people who are too shy to sit in the same room with all y'all. Just come and see. Come and see. So Nathaniel's coming. I imagine Nathaniel, he's coming with some kind of posture like this. He's like, okay. What is wrong with you, Philip? What is going on here? And while he's still a little ways off, Jesus says, there's an Israelite, indeed, in whom there is no deceit. Right? Nathaniel, you are not a Jacob. You are an Israelite. And read that passage, but shortly after this encounter, In Genesis 28, Jacob's name is changed. And so already, Jesus is going right to the heart of what Nathanael has been praying about. Lord, make me one that doesn't tell lies. That doesn't lead people astray. I want to be like Israel, who wrestles with God. There's a true Israelite. There's an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. And look at Nathaniel's response. Paul said he's not a skeptic anymore. He says, how do you know? Friends, how does God know? How does God know what is going on in the secret inner places of your heart? The doubts, the hopes and prayers, fears, the shame, and the guilt. There's a lot going on under the scenes in our congregation. Some of you have eyes that see that. Some of you are on the fringes. And you need to get closer to the core. Because this is the wrestle that goes on week after week after week. It's why some people don't come to worship Him. It's why some new people come and worship Him. It's exciting to enter into this place where people are countering God. Where people are wrestling with God. I want to remind you The Reformation was never intellectual Calvinism. It was always experiential Calvinism. We need to experience faith. We need to live in this faith. You don't just go and check off the box. Oh yeah, I went to church for an hour. It better not be more than an hour. But I went to church and now I go live just like the rest of the world. We are in union with Christ. And it was Christ who was speaking to Nathanael. Okay, so now look what happens next. Nathanael's coming as a skeptic. Behold an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. Nathanael says, how do you know me? And then Jesus says, this is the most mysterious part of this text. Before Philip called you, when you were under that fig tree, I saw you. What is Jesus saying? He's saying the thing of when you are having your quiet time, probably, unmarkedly, from Genesis 28, and thinking about the gate of heaven, thinking about God being beside you, thinking about where does God dwell? Daniel, I am about to blow your mind. I was there, in the orchard, whatever, I don't know if the trees are an orchard, but you know, the trees that you were there, I saw you. And look at the next words that Nathaniel says. Rabbi, you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel. Do you see this complete Resetting of Nathaniel's worldview? Do you see that one worldview folds down? What good could possibly come out of Nazareth? Instead, now he understands. Friends, I'm persuaded, along with Jonathan Edwards, that it was Christ who was Messiah. And here is Christ. How is there anything? You're the Son of God, you're the King of Israel. And then Jesus now, he's like, oh, you think that's good. Follow me. Because I said to you, I saw you in the fig tree. Do you believe you will see greater things? Truly, truly, I say to you, and now He's not just talking to Nathanael, now He's talking to all the disciples who have ears to hear. You will see heaven open! You will see the angels, or the messengers of God, ascending and descending on the Son of Man. Who is this Son of Man? He is the one whom Nathanael chapter 7 is entrusting. Entrusting a kingdom. that all peoples, nations, and languages might serve Him. This Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, which will never be destroyed. Friends, this is the Kingdom of Christ, the New Covenant. This is why He teaches us to pray, Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Your Name, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, down here on Earth, like it is in Heaven. How is that going to happen? as the messengers of God carry the prayers of the saints to the heavens. And as Christ comes walking down that staircase to the place where you are, to the place where you are struggling, to the place where you are having your heart challenged and ripped apart by the trials and the testings of this world. Do you live with that North Star of Heaven before you? The only thing that binds this crazy church together, I can say that, I've been here long enough, the only thing that binds this crazy church together is that we are all headed to the same place And I don't mean Mary and Dan. Some of us were there, not all of us. And I don't mean Jerusalem. I mean that out there blazing in front of us all is the North Star called the heavens of the heavens. The third heaven. The only place where there is a real God. All heavenly gods and angels are Isaacs, but our God made the heavens. Heaven is not eternal. We're going to come to that. Remember, God brought heaven and He willed it back. He didn't move into heaven, He built heaven. And heaven is not eternal. Our God made heaven. Now He's come down. I don't want you to notice, this is not some late invention of the Bible. This idea that there is a person in heaven, the Father, and there is a person beside us, the Son, and there is the Spirit of the Lord who indwells His people. Does this sound familiar? This is not the New Testament invention. This is the Old Testament teaching. to clarify, systematized in the New Testament. All right, so heaven is open for Jacob, heaven is open for Nathanael, now point number three, how heaven is open for you. And I think in your notes there, I think there was a verse that got cut out. The second reference there should be Hebrews 9, verses 24 through 28. And if you went and flipped there, This is really just bringing this home personally for us. Hebrews 9 verses 24-28 would commend those other passages to you as well. In the Old Covenant, the way God revealed Himself was very different. He revealed Himself through dreams. He revealed Himself through appearances. He revealed Himself through prophets. He revealed Himself through the mouth of a donkey. It's incredible all the different ways that God communicated to our fathers and prophets. And by the way, Jacob is regarded as a prophet because he heard the Word of God. But now in the New Covenant, it's through the Son of God, it's through Jesus himself. There's a clarifying, there's a crystallizing here, Jesus and the apostles Whom He trained are the foundation of the New Covenant. The Church is built on the apostles and the prophets. Look now with me at Hebrews 9 verse 24. For Christ has entered, not into the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself. now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own. For then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all. At the end of the ages, to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And just as it is appointed for a man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him. I want you to know, I won't take time to read this, but I've given you the references in the notes. Jacob brings his whole family back to Bethel. And he builds a proper altar this time, and he offers sacrifices, with his family watching. Alone with whom is Joseph. They're coming back after they've been out far away, and now they're coming back to the We're going to see his father Jacob, or his father Isaac one last time. Before they too go to lay all flesh. Friends, I want you to see that this is the beginning of a lifestyle, of a Godward life. People today seem fascinated with talking about orientation. sexual attraction, and are we ready to talk about being oriented to God in everything? Yes, I have a very definite orientation. God is God, and I am not. When God says, I believe His promises, I stand upon His commandments, I obey. Yes, I have an orientation. It is to God Himself. And we, as a church, have an orientation to go toward God together. Notice it speaks here of Christ, our poor one. Notice that it promises He will appear a second time. He will sit on a throne and render righteous judgments. Note that what's laid forth here is not merely a grudging stoppage until He comes, but an eager, waiting, for his second coming. Notice finally that the writer of the Hebrews is pointing out that Jesus is not going into the temple to be with the animals. He's not part of this old covenant. There's been a development with the coming Last verse. We won't look at it, but study Malachi 3, verse 1, where Jesus is called a messenger of the covenant. Jesus came down the ladder. In fact, in some amazing way, Jesus is the ladder that unites heaven and earth. Let's pray. Oh Lord, how we thank you for your word. I would thank you for the pillar that was set up here by Jacob, and I would thank you for the promise that Jesus himself gave to Nathanael. Greater things indeed you will see, for you all will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending from the Son of Man. O Christ, how I thank you that you are the one who fully and finally unites heaven and earth, that God will dwell in the midst of his people, that the promises are sure and steadfast. Lord, we eagerly await the coming of Christ, and all of your plans will finally be fulfilled in new heavens and new earth, where righteousness abides. I pray these things in Jesus' name.