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[0:00] Genesis 28, Genesis 28, we're ready for verse 10.

[0:19] We talked about it a little bit, but we need to get a run at it.

[0:36] So, let's ask God's blessing on his word this morning. Father, thanks so much for gathering us together and for the way you have cared for us and the way you have protected us and the way you have given us grace when we have to go through the dark places.

[1:02] Father, we ask now that as we look into your word that you would guide us and help us to glean principles.

[1:14] We know that these aren't marching orders for the church, but there are principles that we can look at and glean and learn from and get a historical background, especially for the hope that you give us in Christ Jesus.

[1:35] So, for that we thank you. I ask, Lord, that you protect Nathan and his family and Rob and Shirley as they travel back from Illinois.

[1:48] It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. So, Jacob's leaving for Beersheba. Now, we've heard that name before, haven't we?

[2:03] Okay. What does beer mean? No pun intended. You were aching for that.

[2:16] No, the name, you're going to see a lot of beers, pardon me, in the Old Testament. What does it mean?

[2:28] Well. It means the well. So, we remember that. I don't know if it has any tie-in. I have no idea. But, B-E-E-R.

[2:47] Well, as in water. Water well. I thought you said well. Okay. So, this is the well.

[2:58] Well. And, it's a well that, with which Abraham was familiar. So, on we go.

[3:09] So, Jacob went from Beersheba. This is verse 10. And, he headed toward Haran. Now, something happens on this night.

[3:21] So, what does he do? He's traveling along. And, he pulls over to the hotel. Right? He sleeps on the ground.

[3:33] Now, our scripture translates the stone as a pillow. And, when I was a child, I often wondered. No wonder he had a dream.

[3:45] You know, who puts a stone for a pillow? You move the stones. It, literally, and it's the word for bolsterer. A stone at his head.

[3:57] So, it doesn't necessarily mean that he slept with his head upon the stone. That's neither here nor there.

[4:08] But, so, he lies down and goes to sleep. And, God sends him a dream. What's he dream?

[4:25] Okay. There's a ladder or a stairway. What's going on on this ladder or stairway?

[4:37] Is this a jack and the beanstalk where he's going to ascend? No. Okay. The angels of God were ascending and descending from and to heaven.

[4:52] This is heaven's gate in his dream. And, who's standing at the head of the stairs?

[5:06] The Lord. The Lord's standing at the head of the stairs. So, God speaks to him. What does he say? This is, I realize this is a rehearsal of last week.

[5:22] But, I am the God. And, Isaac.

[5:34] And, I'm going to be, the implication is, I'm going to be yours. So, I'm the God of Abraham and Isaac. I'm the same God. I am he, if you will.

[5:47] Okay. Now, he announces who he is. And, he announces then a promise. What is it?

[5:58] I'm going to give you some other land. The one you're on. I'm going to give this to you.

[6:09] This is a rehearsal or a restatement or a giving to the grandson, the promise that was given to Abraham. Is it not?

[6:21] In fact, it reads very similar, doesn't it? Okay. Now, by the way, he ends, that phrasing in there, in verse 15, is important to me as a verse that I should learn from about the character of God.

[6:53] Because, sometimes I'm going to be tempted, well, not me, but you, are going to be tempted to think that this isn't true.

[7:06] What does God say to him? I'm going to protect, well, until what? I'm going to complete my promise.

[7:25] Nothing's going to happen until I'm, my promise is completed. Terry. Well, Isaac does move for a, if you remember, Isaac did move for a, I lost my word, a famine.

[7:55] And he went to Abimelech, to the Philistine area. Well, they went back. It does say they went back.

[8:07] So, they're back in the land that God had promised. It doesn't necessarily, he's not still with Abimelech because he left Abimelech. This is after.

[8:22] Because now, Jacob is leaving, according to Rebekah, get out of here because your brother's going to kill you.

[8:35] And why was Esau going to kill him? He took my birthright and he took my blessing. So, I'm going to wait until dad dies and then I'm going to kill him.

[8:47] What I'm trying to figure out is why did God feel it necessary to rethink the Abrahamic covenant if Jacob already had the birthright and he was already on the land and he already is on the land.

[9:00] Because they're going to be, back when God gave that, what is it, chapter 12 or 15, when God made that covenant with Abraham and God went through alone.

[9:22] Part of the terror that was on Abraham was God speaking to him and he said, know this certainly, that your progeny is going to wind up serving in another land for 400 years.

[9:43] Well, 420. After which, I'm going to bring them out with a mighty hand and I am going to bring them out of the land and bring them back here.

[9:55] So, they are going to, eventually, we get in the time machine, and in the days of Jacob, the family is going to go to Egypt.

[10:12] And you are going to remember how that happened, right? And God is going to orchestrate this. Now, I may not comprehend why God said that.

[10:28] He didn't tell me that. In the scripture, it doesn't say, and this is the logical reasoning that I used. We probably, someone knows, I don't.

[10:48] I did not look that up. I know it was reiterated to Abraham at least three times, and it's reiterated here, and to Isaac.

[11:05] Now, it's going to be reiterated to the whole people in Egypt back in that time machine.

[11:17] When Moses is ready to lead them out, it's going to be reiterated, not in these exact words about giving you, but very similarly, we can see that.

[11:29] But as far as why God saw it necessary, I don't know. I, other than God said, this is the way I chose to do it.

[11:42] And he reiterates the promise, perhaps, if I'm going to speculate, which is always dangerous, by the way.

[11:55] Speculation, at least your speculation is always dangerous. Mine's always accurate, right? So, if I'm going to speculate, it's to encourage or put into Isaac's head, I'm the same God that gave you this promise.

[12:14] I will say this much that isn't speculation, because God is, through the Apostle Paul, going to use this promise to tell me that he's going to do the same thing for you that I did for Abraham.

[12:31] And I will not stop until it is done. Yes? Yes? That's...

[12:59] He's the first man who is called a... And Abraham's going to be the father of that nation.

[13:13] Yes. Yes. Yeah. But Abraham did have a start before him. Yeah. What I'm trying to say here, is that had to occur before Israel was sent to Egypt in Turkey.

[13:33] Right. So, Abraham only lived 175 years, they were in Turkey for 420 years. Jacob only lived 145 years, So that was well within that period of time.

[13:47] Now I understand that they had a famine. They had already sent Joseph down to Egypt so he could be in servitude as well.

[13:58] They went down to get grain and get food. But this was all within the 400-year period of time. But then they apparently came back, and that's when God told Jacob that this was going to be your land.

[14:14] Well, within that 400-year period of time. I don't think it's within the 400 years. They served 400 years after Joseph went.

[14:29] They were there for four generations. And God said, I'll bring you out in the fourth generation. So this precedes Joseph going into Egypt by a good bit.

[14:46] Yes. They're 300, 400 years away yet. Yes. Yes. Well, we could say it.

[15:10] But more importantly, God said that in terms of faith. Now, he uses it allegorically. It doesn't mean that I'm a blood relative of Abraham.

[15:23] It means that he is in allegorically or actually as a picture, if you will, of this.

[15:35] Abraham is the father of us all because we are all saved not by works but by grace through faith.

[15:46] And Abraham believed God and it was counted or reckoned unto him as righteousness.

[15:59] Now, righteousness is used in the Scripture a number of ways, as are many words the same way we use English words a number of ways.

[16:11] I may be well this morning, meaning I'm not sick. I should do well this morning, meaning I should do the right thing.

[16:31] Now, they're not contradictory. We just use them different ways. So it is with righteousness. They don't contradict one another.

[16:44] I should live, as a Christian, I should live righteously. That means I should do what God said to do.

[16:56] Now, my salvation and my position with God is in no wise affected by that.

[17:09] My relationship is whether I'm near to God or far from God, whether I'm living spiritually or whether I'm living carnally.

[17:20] But my position is not because I am not made righteous because of my actions. I'm made righteous because of Christ's action.

[17:31] It's His righteousness that is imputed to us. Because my sin was imputed to Christ.

[17:48] There's a transaction. Now, it's not a logical transaction. In man's term. But, you know, what's foolishness to man's thinking is the wisdom of God, said Paul in 1 Corinthians.

[18:12] He said God uses, is going to use the foolishness of man. The gospel of salvation by grace through faith is reckoned as stupid by the world.

[18:28] Stupids carries more information, but in our connotation. It's reckoned foolishness. Makes no sense.

[18:39] And it's reckoned as a stumbling block to Jews. To Judaism. And the reason is because it's a righteousness based upon faith and not by works.

[18:56] And it makes no sense that the guilty go free because the innocent paid for their sin.

[19:06] Now, that doesn't compute in my mind, nor, by the way, nor should it in terms of the order of society.

[19:19] In temporal life, it should not operate that way. But, God in his wisdom, and it's going to be shown, I don't understand it, but he says he's going to show his manifold wisdom in the church.

[19:43] Salvation by grace through faith. Now, I went a long way around for it, but in terms of the promise, the promise is given for us later.

[19:59] It's written for our edification and for our encouragement that in the scripture we might have hope. So, we read these things so that we recognize the character and the nature of God that when he hasn't changed from here to here.

[20:22] The plan has unfolded, but we know that in reading Paul's letters, it was only hidden.

[20:34] It wasn't just thought up last year. It wasn't thought up a thousand years ago. Two thousand. No.

[20:46] It was in the mind of God in eternity, he says. Well, I don't get it. But big deal. You know, and I don't want to just end it with this because it sounds like a cheap shot, but I'm going to do it anyway because it speaks to me.

[21:09] He said to Israel, look, the hidden things belong to God, and the things that are given to you are for you and your children forever.

[21:22] So, if I haven't said it to you, Roger, don't worry about it too much. That's not the most important. If I have said it, you better worry about that.

[21:33] It's kind of like what this is attributed to Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens.

[21:44] When asked why he was a skeptic, the interviewer supposedly asked Mark Twain, is it the things in the Bible you don't understand that bother you?

[21:56] And Twain is supposed to have answered, it's not the things in the Bible I don't understand that bother me, it's the things I do understand that bother me. That said quite a bit for a skeptic, if that be true.

[22:13] So, anyway, back to this. The Apostle Paul says, because he promised to Abraham, because he promised to Isaac, and because he's made this promise to Jacob, and he says, I'm not going to fail this promise, I am going to do it.

[22:34] And it's all one-sided. He went through that covenant by himself. And so, the Apostle Paul is going to equate that, and he's going to say, look, the law that came 430 years after that promise, in no wise, in no wise did it kick out the promise.

[22:59] The promise stands. And we can have hope because of that. Brett. Brett. Right.

[23:48] And that's where I, in my small mind, haven't brought it all together. because it sounds in that verse, by itself, it sounds like we're heirs of the promise of the land.

[24:07] That's what it sounds like. Now, whether that means that the redeemed church is going to share in the kingdom with the redeemed Israel, I don't know.

[24:22] I don't know. It sounds that way. Right.

[24:38] Yeah, however, Israel is going to be in heaven because Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are in heaven, said Jesus.

[24:51] The kingdom, the kingdom when we, and here's a word that we use three or four different ways because Paul uses kingdom when speaking to the church.

[25:08] The kingdom that we normally talk, or that I normally talk about, would be the messianic kingdom, the kingdom that is promised to David's descendants forever.

[25:20] and he will not fail a descendant to live upon, to sit upon the throne. Yes. That does.

[25:57] The context, I keep reminding myself, however, the context they're given is righteousness by grace through faith. The righteousness that comes by faith.

[26:10] And that is the context of that verse. And I don't want to go too far afield here, but I will recommend this.

[26:24] In reading about the temporary setting aside of Israel in 9, 10, and 11, sometimes I get lost in that. And I forget the verse that says specifically that Israel did not acquire righteousness.

[26:38] Because they sought it as though it were by works and not by faith. So he's not necessarily specifically saying that Israel is set aside as a nation, although they were.

[26:55] They were dispersed. But it is, I sometimes forget that verse as context, that they sought righteousness.

[27:08] And this is the stumbling block. They sought righteousness based upon adherence to the law rather than by faith. And by the way, the first, I'm going to leave it at this point if you'll allow it for this morning.

[27:32] I'm going to leave it at this point. The law, the law of Moses, and we say the law of Moses because God gave it through Moses.

[27:45] The same way as we talk about the gospel of Paul because God gave it through Paul. So the law given at Mount Sinai began with what the Pharisees, the Pharisees heard that Jesus had stopped the mouth of the Sadducees because the Sadducees came and said, oh, about what's this business about resurrection?

[28:12] And Jesus said, that's where Jesus quoted, God says that I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

[28:27] He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. So that's what Jesus said. And the Pharisees didn't, okay, we better be quiet now.

[28:40] Because I don't know how to come back to that. They weren't looking for information, by the way. They were looking for arguments against. So when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had stopped the mouth of the Sadducees, the Pharisees came to him and said, what's the biggest law?

[29:00] What's the greatest commandment? And what did he say? You love the Lord your God. And this is from Deuteronomy.

[29:12] And it is the primary. In fact, Jesus is going to say, on this, hang all the law and the prophets. You love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength, or your life, is literally what he says.

[29:30] And the second is like to it, love your neighbor as yourself. On this, hang all the law and the prophets. So that's what he said to the Pharisees.

[29:44] In fact, Paul's going to reiterate part of that. That comes from Deuteronomy. That's the beginning of the law that God gave at Sinai, loving God.

[29:56] And so in terms of the giving of the Sinaitic law, that was a specific covenant with Israel about, I will make of you a nation of priests.

[30:14] And it was the covenant for the kingdom. And that's where the covenant was, live long in the land, prosperous land, if you do these things.

[30:31] If you don't, I'm going to disperse you. Now, I'm not going to end you, but I'm going to disperse you. And so, in fact, then in the later prophets, he will come back and he'll say, it's not because you're such a nice guy, nation of Israel.

[30:54] It's because I made a promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And that's why I'm going to do this. Because I said I would. And I find great comfort in that in my walk with the Lord.

[31:07] Because he said, if you trust Christ, you're redeemed. You're saved. And so, I find great comfort.

[31:19] And it's important that I see the character of God. Yes, Roger? Because of the unbelief. Because they didn't, they sought it by works and not by faith.

[31:39] Miracles don't convince anybody very long, do they? They come through the Red Sea.

[31:50] And, of course, I would never have been in this group. They came through the Red Sea. They saw Egypt drowned. The armies of Egypt drowned in the Red Sea.

[32:01] And in three days, we were grumbling again. You know, it's never like that in my life, of course, where I know what you've done for me in the past, Lord, but what about now?

[32:17] What have you done for me lately? And the Lord says, look at the cross. Look at the cross. Okay, I'm going to move on.

[32:30] I know I didn't answer any questions. But it is important to know that God said it, and he will do it, and he has delivered the promises, and he promises, and it says in the Scripture, God cannot lie.

[32:50] Now, when we use the term lie, we usually mean a purposeful falsehood, a trickery. But that's, the actual word there means anything false.

[33:05] It means not only can God not trick you or lie to you, as we use the word lie, but it also means that God can't make a mistake. He can't say something inadvertently wrong.

[33:19] In fact, he will say, God will say, have I not said it, and will it not come to pass? He is the God who inhabits eternity.

[33:32] He is the only one who inhabits eternity. That, by the way, is why everyone who has ever come face to face with God and knew it to be God has always feared, even the disciples in the boat.

[33:55] Jesus, I said I was going to quit, didn't I? Jesus is asleep in the back of the boat. The storm comes up. They say, don't you care we're going to die?

[34:10] And he says, oh, you of little faith. Now, he's not saying there, you don't have any faith that I can do this. What he is actually saying is, you don't have faith to know that I care?

[34:23] That's where their faith was wavering. Don't you care? And so he stands up.

[34:37] They were afraid. It says, they were afraid of the storm. So they wake him up. He calms the storm.

[34:47] And then it says, they were very afraid. Because they recognized, what manner of man is this? We're standing in the presence.

[35:00] And we're, this is what Jacob's about to say. When he looks at this. So, let's get back into Genesis.

[35:14] We're ready for verse 16. What was Jacob's reaction to the dream?

[35:32] He was afraid. Of what? Right.

[35:47] He was afraid because he was standing in the presence of the Holy One. He said, God's here.

[35:59] I didn't know it when I made my camp. But God's here. And it says he feared. He greatly feared. Because.

[36:09] Because. Sometimes. Well, all the time. I need to be careful. That I don't diminish God into. Man like.

[36:21] Or even a big man. He is not like us. And he. He created and sustains.

[36:34] The universe. It's awesome. In the true sense of the word. And. Sometimes.

[36:46] There is a temptation to lose. The awe. Of God. To. Be distracted from just.

[36:58] How. Awesome. This person is. If I. If I diminish. The awesomeness of God.

[37:08] In my mind. I diminish. The. Wonder. Of grace. And. I should not do that.

[37:21] It should. Always. Move me. What God has done. For me. So. Back to. Back to this. He feared. Okay. By the way. There's a proverb.

[37:32] That talks about that. Somebody quote it. You don't have to quote. The. Reference. What about the fear. Of the Lord. It's the beginning.

[37:45] Of wisdom. And. Elsewhere. The fear. Of the Lord. Is the beginning. Of wisdom. And knowledge. Of the holy. Is understanding.

[38:00] So. The. The awe. Of God. Is the beginning. Of wisdom. Or the. In Proverbs.

[38:11] Chapter. Nine. Okay. Romans. Three. For a moment. God. And.

[38:21] By the way. The. The reference. Here. Shows. Remember. In Romans. One. He's declared. The pagan. To be.

[38:31] Under sin. In. Romans. Two. He's declared. The Jew. Who follows. The law. And. Seeks. For righteousness. Under the law.

[38:42] He's under sin. And in Romans. Three. Saying. So. Therefore. All men. Are under sin. So. He quotes. From. Psalm. 14.

[38:53] And. Psalm. 51. In. Romans. Three. Ten. There's none. There's none. Righteous. Not one. There's no one. That understands. And none.

[39:03] That seeketh God. They are all gone out of the way. All to be. Gather. Have become. Unprofitable. There is none. That doeth good. Not one. Their throat.

[39:13] Is an open. Sepulcher. Their tongues. They have. They have used. For deceit. The poison of asp. Is in their lips. Whose. Mouth.

[39:23] Is full of cursing. And bitterness. Their feet are swift. To shed blood. Destruction and misery. Are in their ways. In the way of peace. They have not known. Then he finishes.

[39:34] With verse 18. There. The. There is no. Fear. Of God. Before their eyes. They don't. Recognize God.

[39:44] As God. They. Yeah. They will. As. As has been said.

[39:55] All roads. Do lead to God. But only one. Leads to life. Everlasting. All the rest.

[40:07] Lead to the judgment seat. And that. Is a fearsome thing. When you read about that. White throne judgment. Anyway. Now.

[40:19] So. So. He's. He's. Afraid. What's he going to do? Okay.

[40:33] He builds an altar. Because. It's a Lord. By the way. This. He does something. Here's the first time. We've seen it. This will be.

[40:52] Yeah. He anoints the altar. This is a. This is a. I'm not saying it's significant. I'm just saying this first time. In the scripture. That we have seen.

[41:03] The anointing of the altar. Of an altar. So. He pours oil. Upon it. And. What's he call it?

[41:19] Bethel. The house of God. Although. Before that. The name of it was. Loz. Or.

[41:32] Loz. As our. Knee. As our niece. Is called. Okay. And. I'm going to stop. We'll.

[41:50] We'll take up. If. If you will. We'll take up. With verse 16. Actually. About verse 18. Next week. God willing.

[42:01]  Thanks very much. Have a wonderful week. A day.