A Pilgrim�s Marker, Genesis 28:10-22
Introduction
The famed preacher of the 19th Century, Charles Spurgeon, used to tell of a road which had been cut in red marble. It was so smoothly polished that, even when it was free of its usual thin coating of snow, it was dangerous in the extreme. Even though steps were hewn and rough marks made across the granite, he would be foolhardy who should try to ride along the slippery way, which is called Helle Parte (Hell Place) for reasons which glisten on the surface.
There was a sign at this place which read, �Dismount,� and none were slow to obey it. There are many such Hell Places on our pilgrimage through this life �smooth places of pleasure, ease, flattery, self-content, and the like. It will be the wisest course, if any pilgrim has been fond of riding the high horse, for him to dismount at once and walk humbly with his God.
Transition
We do well to remember that we are very much pilgrims passing through this life. The tests of our character and the opportunities for genuine spiritual and personal growth happen �out there� on the highways and byways of this life.
Christian character is produced � shaped � not in beautiful comfortable sanctuaries of worship, but in the grueling hot sun, sandaled feet trotting dusty trails, hands callused from our walking sticks as we follow the master of mercy, Jesus Christ.
In today�s Scripture reading we read of an incredibly important event which took place in the life of Jacob. This was a turning point in Jacob�s pilgrimage of faith and therefore, a turning point in the faith of the future Nation of Israel, and indeed the entire human race. We read of the beginning part of the pilgrimage of Jacob.
Jacob�s Blessing
In the chapter preceding today�s reading, chapter twenty seven, we learn the reason why Jacob was out in the desert. Jacob literally means supplantor or �heel grabber.� Isaac�s sons, Jacob and Esau were twins and it says that even in the womb they wrestled and at birth, Jacob grabbed his Brother Esau�s heel, perhaps in an early attempt to be the first born son of Isaac.
The story goes to tell us that Jacob and his mother, Rebekah, conspired to trick Isaac into giving Jacob the birthright over his slightly older brother, who had been born first. Perhaps you have already heard the story?
It is told in Genesis 27:15-29, �Then Rebekah took the choice clothes of her elder son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob her younger son. And she put the skins of the kids of the goats on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. Then she gave the savory food and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob. So he went to his father and said, �My father.� And he said, �Here I am. Who are you, my son?� Jacob said to his father, �I am Esau your firstborn; I have done just as you told me; please arise, sit and eat of my game, that your soul may bless me.� But Isaac said to his son, �How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?� And he said, �Because the LORD your God brought it to me.� Isaac said to Jacob, �Please come near, that I may feel you, my son, whether you are really my son Esau or not.� So Jacob went near to Isaac his father, and he felt him and said, �The voice is Jacob�s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.� And he did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau�s hands; so he blessed him. Then he said, �Are you really my son Esau?� He said, �I am.� He said, �Bring it near to me, and I will eat of my son�s game, so that my soul may bless you.� So he brought it near to him, and he ate; and he brought him wine, and he drank. Then his father Isaac said to him, �Come near now and kiss me, my son.� And he came near and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his clothing, and blessed him and said: �Surely, the smell of my son Is like the smell of a field Which the LORD has blessed. Therefore may God give you Of the dew of heaven, Of the fatness of the earth, And plenty of grain and wine. Let peoples serve you, And nations bow down to you. Be master over your brethren, And let your mother�s sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, And blessed be those who bless you!� (NKJV)
Jacob gained his blessing by deceit. As it turns out, the family through which God would ultimately bless the entire human race is just as dysfunctional as any of ours! Jacob, the man of faith, started his faith-pilgrimage as a lying cheat of a brother. Isn�t it amazing how God chooses the foolish things of this world so that in using broken vessels He, not us, is glorified?
It is an important side note that the blessing of Jacob is given over a meal; showing us the importance of ritual in religious life. Jesus broke bread with His disciples. We break bread in celebration of communion as we celebrate the life of spiritual community that we share as partakers of that feast.
By using the younger brother Jacob, God goes against the grain of culture. It was always the older brother who received the father�s blessing. In using Jacob in this way, we are invited to consider the way in which God goes against the grain of our culture to call us and draw us into a life of spiritual pilgrimage.
Jacob�s Pilgrimage
When Esau hears that his younger brother has received his father�s blessing, he is furious. In all reality Esau forfeited his birthright to his brother what is only a chapter ago in the Bible!
Genesis 25:29-34 says, �Now Jacob cooked a stew; and Esau came in from the field, and he was weary. And Esau said to Jacob, �Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary.� Therefore his name was called Edom. But Jacob said, �Sell me your birthright as of this day.� And Esau said, �Look, I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?� Then Jacob said, �Swear to me as of this day.� So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils; then he ate and drank, arose, and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.� (NKJV)
Esau had sold his birthright to Jacob�s deceit and Jacob had carried that deceit further in getting his father to bless him over his older brother. Jacob�s pilgrimage began not as a result of a deep life of prayer or an abiding sense of God�s prompting him to leave, but out of fear for his life from Esau, who sought his life.
Jacob�s Dream
Jacob has now deceived both his brother and father and fled. His pilgrimage now changes, though, from that of a running man fearing for his life from his stronger and more violent brother, to that of a man following after God. Indeed, even though Jacob had taken God�s blessing in deceit, God turns things around and creates in Jacob a man of genuine lasting faith.
God is always at work in our lives even when we are filled with false motives, selfish desires, and wrong ambitions. God, in His total and absolute sovereignty, chooses to reveal Himself to us, speak to us, and use us for His glory. Jacob is an example of what God can do even in a life that is not completely yielded to Him.
Jacob had been traveling for about two days at this point. He had gone around 60 miles on his nearly 550 mile journey to Haran, where his uncle Laban lived. Jacob stops to rest for the night. He lies on the ground, taking a stone for a pillow.
It is here, lonely, running for his life, uncertain of what tomorrow will bring, that he receives the dream, the vision, from God that will change the course of his pilgrimage forever; transforming it from a flight of fear to a journey of faith!
That night Jacob, in his dream, sees a latter with angels descending and ascending.
In this dream, the Lord was standing beside Jacob saying to him, �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 shall 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.� (Genesis 28:13-15 NKJV)
Jacob�s Marker
Jacob arose early the next morning, took the stone on which he was laying that evening, anointed it with oil, and set it up as a pillar in remembrance of the dream and in honor of God. He names the place Bethel, which means, �House of God.�
This event in the life of Jacob marks the beginning of his having reoriented his life away from self and toward the worship of the one true God. This was the place where Jacob had received his spiritual sight as He realized the majesty of God.
The hymn writer Fanny Crosby gave us more than 6,000 gospel songs. Although blinded by an illness at the age of six weeks, she never became bitter. One time a preacher sympathetically remarked, �I think it is great pity that the Master did not give you sight when He showered so many other gifts upon you.� She replied quickly, �Do you know that if at birth I had been able to make one petition, it would have been that I should be born blind?� �Why?� asked the surprised clergyman. �Because when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior!�
One of Miss Crosby�s hymns was so personal that for years she kept it to herself. Kenneth Osbeck, author of several books on hymnology, says its revelation to the public came about this way: �One day at a Bible conference in Northfield, Massachusetts, Miss Crosby was asked by D. L. Moody to give a personal testimony. At first she hesitated, then quietly rose and said, �There is one hymn I have written which has never been published. I call it my soul�s poem. Sometimes when I am troubled, I repeat it to myself, for it brings comfort to my heart.� She then recited while many wept, �Someday the silver cord will break, and I no more as now shall sing; but oh, the joy when I shall wake within the palace of the King! And I shall see Him face to face, and tell the story � saved by grace!�� At the age of 95, Fanny Crosby passed into glory and saw the face of Jesus.
Jacob placed a marker at the place where his vision became clear, where he first began to see God clearly, where he personally entered into covenant with God according to the promise that had been given to his father Abraham and Isaac.
Application
Just as Jacob placed a stone as a pillar in recognition of the place where his pilgrimage changed from running from something, the wrath of his brother Esau, to following after something, the one true God of is fathers, so too, we ought to build some markers in our life in recognition of what God has done.
Has there been a time when you saw clearly the hand of God moving in your life? Has there been a time when God saved you from affliction, carried you through a trail, or held you near as you walked through the deserts of this life?
Certainly we all can recall times when the Lord revealed himself to us. For some of us, it may well have been an actual dream. For others, it may have been a dream that He placed in our hearts; perhaps to be a mother, though you had difficulty conceiving the child that God had promised to you. There are near countless ways in which God reveals Himself to us.
Speaking of the receiving of the Ten Commandments by Moses, Deuteronomy 5:24 says, �And you said: �Surely the LORD our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire. We have seen this day that God speaks with man; yet he still lives.� (NKJV)
The Lord is busy revealing Himself to us, speaking to us; if we will but listen we hear His voice, see His visions, and dream His dreams. Then, let us, like Jacob, build a marker to remember the place on our faith pilgrimage where God revealed Himself to us so that we can fix it in our minds to encourage our faith.
This is, in fact, where Jacob commemorates the tithe, the giving of a tenth of one�s treasure to the Lord. Jacob declares that he will give one tenth of his wealth to the Lord as a sign that God has spoken to him and that his life is now in covenant with God who has told him that he will be with Him. The point has little to do with money and everything to do with commemorating God�s faithfulness, power, and having a strong testimony of God�s presence and power in our lives!
When others passed by the stone monument that Jacob had built I suspect that generations later they marveled at what God had done in the life of Jacob. Surely, they heard the tales of his early deceit and his later faith filled following of God. Surly, the story of Jacob was a great testimony to the reality of the one true God.
So it is with us. We must listen for God�s voice and then place markers, perhaps not of stone but of strong testimony, for what the Lord has done in our lives so that others may see them and marvel at the majesty of God! Today, listen closely for His voice; do not forget what God has done! Let the works of God in your life ring out to a world in need of His love as a testimony to His grace! Amen.
