8th Sunday After Pentecost. July 23rd, 2023. Series

Genesis 28:10-19, Psalm 139:1-12, Psalm 139:23-24, Isaiah 44:6-8, Psalm 86:11-17, Romans 8:12-25, Matthew 13:24-30, Matthew 13:36-43

A). AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER WITH GOD.

Genesis 28:10-19a.

GENESIS 28:10. Jacob had defrauded his brother Esau of both his birthright and his blessing. So now Jacob was on the run from his brother Esau, headed back in the direction of the city which their grandfather Abraham had left behind so many decades ago (cf. Genesis 12:1). Jacob’s mother Rebekah devised this escape under the pretext of Jacob’s need to find himself a wife out of the right family.

GENESIS 28:11. About 55 miles into his journey north and eastwards, Jacob came to (literally) “the place.” The sun had set, and Jacob took of the stones of “that place,” and put them for his pillows, and lay down in “that place” and slept. Jacob was at a low point in his life, but it was in this place that God was about to reveal Himself to him.

GENESIS 28:12. Jacob dreamed, and in his dream he saw a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven,” and he beheld “the angels of God ascending and descending on it.” Men are constantly trying to reach upwards towards God: but this ladder is no ‘tower of Babel’ of man’s devising, but, like the Cross, it is totally of God’s devising. Perhaps this is the passage which Nathanael was meditating upon under the fig tree when Philip called him to Jesus (cf. John 1:48-51.)

GENESIS 28:13. The picture is of the LORD above the ladder, inclining towards Jacob to speak to him. The LORD introduced Himself: the God of your fathers, and the God of your descendants. The land which the LORD had previously covenanted to give to Abraham’s seed, and to Isaac’s, He now covenanted to give to Jacob’s seed.

GENESIS 28:14. And Jacob would have a plentiful seed. Also, “in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” I am inclined here to think of the singular seed, ‘which is Christ’ (cf. Galatians 3:16), in whom the whole world is indeed blessed.

GENESIS 28:15. Jacob was on the run: but wherever he was going, he was assured that God would be with him. And God would bring him back to this land, and would not fail to fulfil all His promises to Jacob. This is the promise to all Christians: “I am with you; I will keep you; I will not leave you.”

GENESIS 28:16. “Surely the LORD is in this place.” Jacob rested here merely because he was tired: but it turned out to be God’s appointed place for the renewal of His covenant promises. We do not know when God might appear to revive and renew His church: it is He who sets the agenda. We do not know that a place is holy until God appears.

GENESIS 28:17. Jacob’s fear was a reverent fear: “How dreadful is this place.” It is the awesomeness of the presence of God that makes it so. “This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

GENESIS 28:18-19a. Jacob set up the stone that he had used as a pillow as a pillar to memorialise his encounter. In the absence of the resources for a sacrifice, Jacob anointed the stone with oil. Jacob called the name of that place, “Bethel” meaning ‘the house of God.’

B). THE OMNISCIENCE OF GOD.

Psalm 139:1-12, Psalm 139:23-24.

When we read Psalm 139, sometimes it is hard to tell whether we should read it with a sense of dread: The LORD knows me (PSALM 139:1); He knows everything I am doing (PSALM 139:2); He knows where I am going (PSALM 139:3); He knows my every word even before it is spoken (PSALM 139:4).

Or whether our sense of the LORD hemming us in (PSALM 139:5) has more to do with gratitude at His protection than with any sense of foreboding. This might depend upon whether we are looking at the LORD from outside a personal relationship, or from within. Either way, the concept of an all-knowing God is quite incomprehensible to the finite mind (PSALM 139:6).

We are reminded of Jonah, who tried to run away from the presence of the LORD (cf. Jonah 1:3). Yet the prophet discovered that we cannot hide from the Spirit of the LORD (PSALM 139:7): not in the highest heights of heaven, nor in the deepest depths of hell (PSALM 139:8); neither in the easternmost sky, nor in the westernmost sea (PSALM 139:9). Wherever we care to run, we discover that the LORD got there before us (PSALM 139:10).

Read PSALM 139:10 again. Is there not a hint here of the love of the LORD? Like the father of the prodigal son, He allows us to try out our wings in the far country, if that is what we have set our minds to do. But He is waiting to embrace us when we ‘come to our senses’ and return (cf. Luke 15:17-20).