Worship Remind Me Who I Am youtube/watch?v=bt413uKy0GY 10000 Reasons youtube/watch?v=bt413uKy0GY Did you hear the Mountains Tremble? youtube/watch?v=-61HO6JXYPg Dreaming of the Divine Genesis 27:41–28:22 - Loneliness is a common side effect of suffering. When we’re enduring hardship, we can feel completely isolated from others. It can even become difficult to discern God’s presence in our lives. Discouraged, isolated, and perhaps despairing, we are tempted to think God has abandoned us. But He is always there, even when distress and loneliness overwhelm us. After he succeeded in defrauding his father to gain Esau’s blessing, Jacob may have expected his life to improve. But his stolen success came at a cost. Infuriated, Esau was determined to kill Jacob as soon as their father died. So, with the excuse of seeking a wife among his mother’s relatives, Jacob fled for his life. Alone and fearful, Jacob must have felt that God had abandoned him. But God reached through Jacob’s despair, vividly appearing to him and extending the promise to Jacob that He had made to Abraham. God would remain with Jacob, provide for him, and protect him as He worked out His covenant promises. Jacob could continue his journey confident that God would secure his future. Forced to Flee (Genesis 27: 41–29:9) A. Rebekah’s Plot - “I loathe my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women like these, one of the women of the land, what good is my life to me?” Genesis 27:46 Bereft of his inheritance and blessing—the two prerogatives of the eldest son—Esau was enraged. His only—misguided—solace was knowing that his father was nearing the end of his life. Once Isaac died, Esau could avenge himself by killing Jacob. Learning of Esau’s intention, Rebekah moved to protect her favorite son by persuading Isaac to send Jacob to her family in Haran to find a wife. But instead of simply telling Isaac about Esau’s plan, she brought up the issue of Esau’s marriages to two Hittite women. In the ancient world, people commonly married within their own families or clans to preserve the family inheritance. By marrying Hittite women, Esau showed disregard for his parents and his heritage. Rebekah could have voiced her disgust over Esau’s marriages at any time—they most likely occurred some years before the events of Gen 27—but she chose to raise the issue now, voicing her fear that Jacob would also marry a Canaanite woman. In doing so, she shifted any blame for Jacob’s move away from herself, suggesting that Esau’s wives were the reason for his move, not her own recent deception. Once again, she manipulated Isaac into doing her will. B. Isaac’s Blessing - As Jacob fled for his life, his prospects looked grim. Jacob had become a man without a country, family, or function. He had left everything behind in Beer-sheba. As he moved toward an uncertain future in Haran, he must have wondered, would the God of his ancestors follow him to this unfamiliar land? In the opening verses of Gen 28, Isaac bid his younger son farewell with instructions to find himself a wife from Rebekah’s family. Before Jacob embarked on his journey, Isaac blessed him for a second time. The patriarch’s words echo God’s original blessing of creation as he asked God to bless Jacob by making him fruitful and multiplying him into a company of people. He then designated Jacob heir of God’s promise to give Abraham and his descendants a land, to make them into a great nation, and to bless them and the world through them. Nearly every phrase repeats words of blessing given to both Abraham and Isaac. In the events that follow, God would confirm Jacob’s role as heir to the promise, though Jacob would receive His words with less than wholehearted acceptance. 2. God’s Abiding Presence (Genesis 28:10–22) A. God’s Presence - After a long day of travel, Jacob stopped to spend the night in a place unknown to him. The sun set and, all alone, Jacob took a stone for a pillow, fell asleep, and dreamed vividly. We’re invited to view the dream from Jacob’s perspective. Many English translations describe Yahweh as remaining at the top of the ladder or stairway, not beside Jacob. The Hebrew words can be understood either way, but Jacob’s later statement “Surely Yahweh is indeed in this place” suggests that Yahweh was standing on earth and not looking down from heaven. Yahweh’s astounding presence and words of promise prove to Jacob that “earth is not left to its own resources and heaven is not a remote self-contained realm for the gods. Heaven has to do with earth. And earth finally may count on the resources of heaven.” This is exactly what the exiled Jacob needed to hear. B. God’s Promise - Yahweh’s words to Jacob take us to the central message of the passage. The God of Abraham and Isaac reaffirmed His covenant with the patriarchs’ descendant and made five promises to Jacob. First, He included him in the covenant made with Abraham, promising him the land of Canaan, descendants as numerous as the dust of the earth, and a nation that would bless the whole world. Next, He repeated to Jacob a promise He first made to Isaac: “I am with you.” Then He made three new promises, which are of particular significance to a man on the run: He would protect Jacob wherever he went, He would bring him back to the land of promise, and He would not abandon him or His promises. These three promises should have offered Jacob the comfort and confidence he needed as he moved into his new life. But even they would not be enough for this reluctant patriarch. C. Jacob’s Response - Jacob knew enough to be afraid, but he was not yet ready to accept this God as his God, as his actions reveal. Jacob took the rock he had been using as a pillow and set it up as a pillar to commemorate the event and mark the significance of the place. But he did not build an altar and worship the God in whose house he had just spent the night. By contrast, Abram built an altar and worshiped Yahweh as soon as he arrived in the land of promise, and Isaac built an altar when Yahweh extended to him the covenant He had with Abraham. Jacob won’t build an altar until years later, when he returns to Bethel and acknowledges that God has kept His promises. Jacob’s words also show that he hadn’t yet embraced Yahweh as his God. In response to Yahweh’s promise, Jacob offered a conditional bargain and vowed to make Yahweh his God if—and only if—He fulfilled Jacob’s expectations. Jacob first required that Yahweh do what He had just said He would do: be with Jacob, protect him, and bring him back to the land. But these more abstract promises weren’t enough for Jacob, who then specified that Yahweh must also provide his food and clothing. 3. God’s Enduring Faithfulness A. Jacob’s Need to Control - When Jacob left Beer-sheba, he left everything behind—except his need to control his circumstances. And although he encountered Yahweh at Bethel, he didn’t yet know Him or trust Him. It will take years in exile to pry Jacob’s fingers off the controls of his life. The manipulator will meet his match in his future father-in-law, Laban, and come to realize that God takes care of him far better than he can take care of himself. In Laban’s house, Jacob will grow wealthy in both people and possessions because God is caring for him and prospering him—in spite of his circumstances and situation. B. Caught Between Heaven and Earth - The extraordinary image of the ladder to heaven from Gen 28:10–17 has had a lasting effect on religious thought, art, and literature. A ladder with angels ascending and descending on it was so striking that interpreters were certain that some symbolic message lay behind it. The ancient symbolism of the ziggurat (a stepped pyramid symbolizing the place where heaven and earth meet) was long forgotten, so the meaning of the ladder was spiritualized or allegorized. Philo of Alexandria explained how the ladder represented the highs and lows of a life of virtue. In Philo’s view, righteous people are like Jacob at the “gate of heaven.” They’re in a transitional state, caught between heaven and earth, pulled toward heaven or hell depending on the quality of their deeds. In this interpretation, God’s favor and our salvation are based on our deeds. C. An Assurance of God’s Continual Presence Other interpreters view the ladder to heaven as assurance of God’s continual presence. The church father John Chysostom (in AD 347–407) focused on how Jacob’s dream demonstrated God’s love for Jacob, even to the point of identifying Christ’s involvement in the story: Notice here the extraordinary care of the loving God. When he saw [Jacob] consenting to the journey in accordance with his mother’s advice, which came out of fear of his brother, and taking to the road like some athlete, with no support from any source, leaving everything instead to help from on high, Christ wanted at the very beginning of the journey to strengthen Jacob’s resolve. And so he appeared to him with the words “I am the God of Abraham and the God of your father Isaac. I have caused the patriarch and your father to experience a great increase in prosperity; so, far from being afraid, believe that I am he who fulfilled my promises and will shower on you my care.” Genesis 28:13-15 In Jacob, we find a reluctant patriarch—one hesitant to acknowledge God’s sovereignty and place trust in Him. But through his story, we encounter a God who cares for His people, blesses them, and keeps His promises. God’s Promises Are Not Dependent on Our Faith - Unlike Abraham, whose faith carried him to an unknown land, Jacob fled to a faraway place to escape a dangerous situation his own misdeeds had created. When the God of heaven approached him at Bethel—declaring promises of protection, blessing, and prosperity—Jacob was in awe, but he still wasn’t ready to trust Him. It’s one thing to hear about what God can do; it’s another to experience it in our own lives. Jacob responded to God’s generous promises with a deal: God, if you will do this, then I will let you be my God. What Jacob didn’t yet realize was that God will be God, regardless of whether we “let” Him. Jacob liked to hold the reins to his life, and his grip was unyielding. So the longsuffering God of Abraham and Isaac took Jacob on a long journey of letting go. As everything comfortable and familiar crumbled around him, Jacob would learn that God can indeed be trusted. Many of us find a kindred spirit in Jacob. We understand his reluctance to embrace God’s promises. After all, we just never know what God might do if we yield control of our lives. But the Bible affirms again and again that God—and only God—can be trusted. Any trust we place in human strength or ability, including our own, is misplaced. Human resources are limited. People will disappoint us. Our own strength will fail. But as Jacob would learn, God is unable to fail.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Jul 2013 20:46:57 +0000
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