Thru the Bible

Host: Welcome to Through the Bible. I'm Steve Schwetz and our adventure through God's entire word continues in Genesis 28. As Dr. J. Vernon McGee is going to take us through a lonely night that Jacob spent as he was running scared.

But as is often the case, God uses this pivotal situation to meet him in a special way. So as you find your seat on the Bible bus, here's a great voicemail from a fellow listener.

Guest (Male): My name is Bob. I'm calling from Maplewood, Missouri. And I love Through the Bible and I love the Bible how it speaks to hearts and minister to needs.

I saw the World Prayer Team prompt for Kenya this morning and it reminded me of an incident that I had four years ago, actually almost five years ago in 2021, in April of 2021, when I was in the hospital. I was reading J. Vernon McGee's commentary on Genesis when a nurse walked in and she asked me what I was reading. So I explained to her what it was and about Through the Bible and I showed her the app on my phone.

And I said it's over in 150 different languages and she surprised me. She said, oh, is it in Swahili? I said, well, let's look. So I started scrolling through the languages. I showed it to her and she saw it before I did. The Swahili language. And so I clicked on it, and of course the music and the teaching came on and Swahili and she was so excited about it.

So I showed her how to download it on her phone, which she did. And the next night she came in and she said, I want you to know I downloaded the app on my phone and I'm listening to the study. And that was the last time I saw her even though I was in the hospital for two more months after that.

I've also through the bus passes have been able to share Through the Bible with a dental assistant from Vietnam, a gentleman from Italy at the phone store, and also a Russian nurse who was taking care of my wife at the time that she was in the hospital. I've given Bible bus passes to our pastor and he's passed them on to missionaries going to other countries. A former pastor of mine did a mission trip over to Africa in Uganda.

And I gave him some Bible bus passes and he handed about over there, him and his assistant, and he handed about over there in Uganda and Kenya and a number of other countries over there and he said the pastors and people that had received them just loved them. So, and also I've been retired for several years and I lost my wife unfortunately of 48 years in November, this past November 17th, in answer to Jesus' prayer in John chapter 17, verse 24. She's now home with the Lord.

And my adventure is over. But it'll be retired. Yes, I'm grieving, but I'm also being refired through Through the Bible broadcast and through the prayers of the World Prayer team. Thank you and God bless you, daily beloved. Have a blessed day. Thank you. Bye bye.

Host: Well, Bob, your faithfulness especially in the midst of grief is clearly bearing fruit. So thank you for scattering His word so generously.

Share your story or find out more about the Bible bus passes that Bob mentioned by calling 1-800-65 Bible or emailing Bible bus at ttb.org or dropping a note through the feedback tool in our app. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you that you are always at work, shaping us. As we study, Lord, strengthen our faith and then guide us in the way that you would have us to go in Jesus' name. Amen.

Here's our study of Genesis 28 on Through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now, last time, we saw one of the most despicable and honory things that any man could do. And that's what Jacob did and he did it at the behest of his mother. And this is not a case of where I think that we can say, well, the reason I'm such an odd ball or I do certain things and I'm so mean is because my mother didn't love me when I was a boy.

Believe me, Jacob couldn't say that. Jacob was loved and spoiled and asked to do something that is not quite the honorable thing to do. And so he did it. He stole the birthright from his brother. It is already his. The formality of his father giving the blessing wasn't necessary at all. Abraham hadn't given it to Isaac.

God had, and it's God that gave it to Jacob. And this thing that he's done was not necessary, but God will deal with him because of it, and you can be sure of that. Now, the thing Rebecca's thought up, and it's very plausible, logical. In fact, it was the thing to do in this case, was to send him back to her brother, so that he'd get away from the wrath of his brother Esau, which Rebecca didn't mention to Isaac, but she did mention the fact that he could choose a wife back there in her family.

And so Jacob now is going to be sent away from home. And Isaac called Jacob, and I'm reading now at verse one again, and I'll read on from here. "And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, 'Thou shall not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan.'"

"Arise, go to Padanaram, to the house of Bethuel, thy mother's father, and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban, thy mother's brother. And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people. And give thee the blessing of Abraham to thee and to thy seed with thee, that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham."

Now, obviously, Isaac understands that the blessing that had been given of God was transferred to him, and now he understands it's to be passed on to his son Jacob. Verse 5. "And Isaac sent away Jacob, and he went to Padanaram unto Laban, son of Bethuel, the Syrian, the brother of Rebecca, Jacob's and Esau's mother."

When you ask the nationality of these people, you have to say, they're Syrians. That's what they're called here in Scripture. Now you could say that actually of Abraham, that he was a Syrian. That is the way that you could designate him. Sometimes the question is asked, was Abraham a Jew? Was he an Israelite? No, he was not. He was not an Israelite until we come to Israel, until you come to Jacob, not until you see his 12 sons. The line came from Abraham, but Abraham is the father, but you're not going to call Abraham a Midianite, I hope, and yet he's the father of the Midianites also.

Now, Isaac sends Jacob away, though, and he's to make this trip. Now notice verse 6. "When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Padanaram to take him a wife from thence, and that as he blessed him, he gave him a charge saying, 'Thou shall not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. And that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother and was gone to Padanaram, and Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father.'"

"Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had, Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife." And here Esau goes out and marries daughters of Ishmael. He thinks that will please his father. You see what a lack of spiritual perception he had, that the Ishmaelites were as much rejected as any of the Philistines were rejected, or any of the Canaanites.

Now, will you notice? I'm going to read it at verse 10. "And Jacob went out from Beersheba and he went toward Haran." Now he's traveling north. "He lighted upon a certain place and tarried there all night, because the sun was set. And he took of the stones of that place and put them for his pillows and lay down in that place to sleep."

Now the place he's come to, we'll see in a moment, a name of it is Bethel, the house of God. I want to say a word about it, but before I say a word about it, you'll notice that he's traveled quite a distance. Actually, Bethel, where he came the first night, is 12 miles north of Jerusalem. And he was, I would say, a good 20 miles south of Jerusalem and probably more than 20 miles south, probably 25 or 30 miles south.

Well, that means that he covered at least 40 miles that day. You can see that he's really hot footing it away from Esau. He wants to get as far from him as he can. But the farther he gets from Esau, the farther he gets away from home. And this is Jacob's first night away from home. What do you think his feeling was that night? Well, he was very lonely. That is for sure.

He also was homesick. This is his first night, as far as the record is concerned, that he was away from home. Do you remember the first night that you were away from home? Do you recall that? I certainly remember the first night I went away from home and it was just down the road. We lived in a country in a little place called Springer, Oklahoma. And they tell me it hasn't done any springing since then that it's still a small place. A wide place in the road and we had some neighbors and some very wonderful friends that lived down the road.

I don't suppose it seemed to me like in that day it was five miles. It couldn't have been over a mile, I'm sure. I was amazed when I went back there later on to find out how close things were together. I thought it was pretty well spread out, but it wasn't. They were close together and so this must not have been over a mile, but it seemed like five miles to me in that day. And I never shall forget these people invited me to come down and spend the night. They had a boy about my age and I don't know how old I was, nine, ten, maybe. And so I went down with him. He'd come up to get me and we went down.

I never shall forget, we had a delicious dinner and I enjoyed it that evening with these folks. It was in the country, good country dinner. And then we played hide and seek and it got dark and I didn't pay too much attention, but every now and then I looked into the darkness and I began to get just a little homesick. But it wasn't until somebody said it's time to go to bed and they put a pallet down in the front room, no living room in that day, just put a pallet down. And I had brought my little nightshirt under my arm and I put it on and I lay down on that pallet.

Friends, I have never been as lonely in my life as I was then and homesick. Oh, how I wanted to go home. And you know what happened? I rolled and tossed there for a long time. I finally dozed off and I slept for a while. But I waked up very early in the morning, and you know what I did? I took my nightshirt off, put on my clothes, put my nightshirt under my arm, and I started running home, and I didn't stop till I got there. Nobody was up. But I sure was glad to get home. First night away from home. And after that, I went a long ways from home, but I never was any more homesick than I was that first night.

I've always thought that Jacob, he's a pretty big boy at this time. He's a man. But he's homesick. This is the first time he'd been away from Rebecca. He'd been tied to his mama's apron string all of his life and now it's untied and he's out on his own and this is the first night away from home. Now will you notice what happens? He lies down, he puts stones for pillows. And this is a pretty dreary place. I'd like to give you a description of it that's given by another.

It's been described as a bleak moorland, large, bare rocks that are exposed, 1,200 feet above sea level in the hills. And I suppose that there are many places out on the desert here in California that would correspond to it. Fact the matter is, I know it. I remember going up through that country in a bus, and that was the disadvantage of being with a bus tour. I wanted to go up there. Others wanted to go to other places that to me were not nearly as important as Bethel. I wanted to see it. And all we got in, I suppose, a half a mile of it, the bus driver pointed it out, and I said I'd like to walk up, he said, well, we don't have time.

And so I didn't get up there, but I could see it in the distance, and this certainly is an apt description of it. It's a bleak and forbidding place as far as the topography is concerned. But it was the high point spiritually in the life of Jacob, not only here, but later on. And this is the place that he came to. And we're told as he lay that night and he was asleep, he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, "I'm the Lord, God of Abraham, thy father, the God of Isaac. The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed." And it was right in that area, by the way, where God first appeared to Abraham there in the land. Verse 14. "And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth. And thou shalt spread abroad to the west, to the east, to the north, and to the south. And in thee, and in thy seed, shall all the families of the earth be blessed."

Now God is giving to this man, you see exactly what he had given first to Abraham. He repeated it to Isaac. Now he confirms it and reaffirms it to Jacob that he'll do this. Now God says to him, verse 15, "And behold, I'm with thee and will keep thee in all places, whether thou goest, and I'll bring thee again into this land. For I'll not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of."

Now, you can see how this would be comforting and helpful to a lonesome homesick boy that has really had to leave home in a hurry. And he's on the way to a far country, and this was a great comfort and help to him. God says, I'm going to be with you, Jacob, and I'm going to bring you back in this land. But the vision that he gave him in that dream was of a ladder that reached up to heaven, and God spoke to him. Now what does that ladder mean?

Well, our Lord interpreted that when he called Nathanael. Nathanael was a wise acre, by the way. He said, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? And our Lord, I tell you, he dealt with this fellow and when he said, how in the world you know me? Well, he said, I saw you under that fig tree. Well, he said, rabbi, thou art the son of God, thou art the King of Israel. The Lord Jesus said, you're pretty easy to convince. And he was. He was a skeptic at the beginning of the ministry of Christ. It took Thomas three years before he got the light. But notice this man, Nathanael. The Lord Jesus said to him, because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou, thou shalt see greater things than these.

Well, what will he see? And he saith unto him, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, hereafter, ye shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man." Now what is that ladder? Well, that ladder is Christ. And God from the top of the ladder, in heaven, a voice out of heaven said, this is my beloved son, in whom I'm well pleased. And God is speaking to man through Christ today. You can't come to God directly. I hear people say today, every now and then in a testimony, somebody said, well, when I was converted, I just came directly to God. I have access to God. You do not, my friend.

You come through Christ. We have access through Christ, through the grace that we have in Christ. That's the only way you and I get into God's presence. This is the ladder let down from heaven that sinners might not climb while the angels of God are ascending and descending on it. You see, they come from him, the Lord Jesus himself. Now, it is first given to old Jacob, usurper. Nathanael, our Lord said to him, you're an Israelite in whom there's no guile, that is, there's no Jacob. He's no trickster. Nathanael wasn't. He's just a wise acre. He's just being humorous.

But this man Jacob, God is going to have to deal with him. And he gives him this wonderful, glorious promise. But now listen to Jacob. Oh, he has so much to learn. Isn't that true of all of us today? No wonder God has to school us. No wonder God has to discipline us. Every son he receives, we're told that he scourges him. He disciplines him. He did Abraham. He did Isaac. He's going to do Jacob. Everything's been going Jacob's way. You know, so many people are just members of the church. They don't know the Lord at all. They're just church members and just the biggest hypocrites in the world. And the Lord has to shake us, you see. And these things come to us. They discipline us. They put iron in our backbone. They put iron in our blood too. And they put courage in our lives. And enable us to stand for God.

Jacob's got a long ways to go. So let me read verse 16. "And Jacob awaked out of his sleep and he said, 'Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not.'"

"And he was afraid and said, 'How dreadful is this place? This is none other but the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.'" Now, this is a passage of Scripture that I use many times, and have used many times in dedicating new churches. I have dedicated, I think that in the past 20 years, I have dedicated, I think, 25 new churches. And I've used this, I suppose, more than any other passage of Scripture. I have another one in Acts that I use a great deal.

But how dreadful is this place? And I think I shocked some people, especially when you got a congregation that have come in to dedicate the lovely new facilities they have today, and here I get up and I look around and I say, how dreadful is this place? And then I proceed during the rest of the time to try to win them back to become friends of me by telling them that the place is only dreadful to a fellow like Jacob running away from his family, a trickster, a sinner, actually running away from God. And this is the thing he discovered. He says, the Lord's in this place and I didn't know it.

When Jacob ran away from home, he had a limited view of God. He thought when he ran away from home, he was running away from God also. He thought he left God back down at his home. And he found out that he hadn't. The Lord's in this place and God says, I'm going to be with you. And because of that, how dreadful is this place? The only thing that can make a house of God dreadful is the fact that you're a sinner trying to run away from God. And every house of God, every church ought to be a dreadful place to any sinner running away from God because that's where he ought to be able to meet God and come face to face with God through the ladder that's been let down from heaven, even Christ.

And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it, and he called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of that city was called Luz at the first. "And Jacob vowed a vow." Now listen to Jacob. You know, he's got a lot to learn. And this is an evidence of it. Listen to him, "If God will be with me and will keep me in the way that I'll go and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God."

What's he doing? He wants to trade with God. He says, now, Lord, if you'll do this for me, and God's already told him he's going to do it for him. God has already said every one of these things. God says, I'm going to keep you, and I'm going to bring you back to this land, and I'm going to give you this land, and I'm going to give you offspring. Now Jacob turns around and says, if you'll do this. He wants to trade with God. And he says, if you'll do it, then I'll serve you. God doesn't do business with us that way, and he didn't do business with Jacob that way. If he had, Jacob would never have made it back to that land. God brought him out of the land. God brought him back into that land by his grace and mercy. And when finally Jacob did come back to Bethel, and he came back a wiser man. And you know what he came back to do? To worship and praise God for his mercy.

God had been merciful to him. You don't trade with God. A great many people even today said, now I'll serve the Lord if he'll do. You won't do anything of the kind, friends. He doesn't do business that way. He'll extend mercy to you. He'll be gracious to you. But he doesn't ask anything in return. But he does say this, that if you love him, that you'll really want to serve him. And that will be the bondage of love, the same kind of love a mother has for her little child and she becomes its slave. That's the way that he wants you and that's the way he wants me.

And so old Jacob, he puts up and this stone, which I've set for a pillar, shall be God's house and of all that thou will give me, I'll surely give the tenth unto thee. Isn't he a trader to God? And a great many of us are trying to do business with God. He's not doing business, friends. He wants to become your father through faith in Christ and you don't have to do business with him. And so until next time, may the Lord richly bless you, my beloved.

Host: Go deeper in your study of God's word by visiting ttb.org. Or if we can help, call 1-800-65 Bible. I'm Steve Schwetz, grateful to spend this time with you and looking forward to welcoming you back aboard the Bible bus next time, wherever and whenever you listen.