Genesis 28:10-19a

Jacob had really blown it. And I think what God would say tonight is especially for those who feel they’ve blown it! We all feel at times that we’ve gone that one step too far; offended someone too deeply, done something which is irretrievable and maybe got ourselves into a corner which we have no hope of getting out of. If you feel tonight that you’ve blown it, I would say: There is hope.

Let’s look at Jacob’s history, to put this story of his dream of the ladder into its perspective. Jacob’s grandfather Abraham had been blessed by God, God had made a covenant with him that he would have a land, that his descendants were a chosen people who would inherit this land. They would be specially blessed by God and all nations would be blessed through them. Jacob’s father, Isaac, had been blessed too. And now Isaac life was drawing to its close: he was weak and frail. He had tow sons; twin boys Esau- the elder and a man’s man and Jacob, something of a weakling and a Mummy’s boy. By rights the inheritance and with it the blessing by his father; the passing on of God’s blessing should have been Esau’s. But, we all know the story.
  Jacob was Mummy’s favourite. Not an enviable thing for a growing lad to be Mummy’s boy. I grew up ‘Mummy’s boy’ and how I got ragged for it! But he’s persuaded by Mummy to deceive Isaac, to dress up as Esau, to put on a coat of animal skin, so his father would think he was manly Esau. Then he went a persuaded his father to give him the inheritance and the blessing. Esau, not surprisingly wasn’t amused. The trick backfired and Jacob had to flee for his life. He really had blown it! He knew he had lived up to his name, for ‘Jacob’ means ‘deceiver’
  But, let’s not forget that he had been blessed. Blessed by his father, but with God’s blessing and receiving the birthright.
   May God give you of heaven’s dew and earth’s richness..Be lord over
   your brothers..May those who curse you be cursed.
I tell you: If you have been blessed by God, you have been blessed. The Bible tells us that God’s promises are ‘without repentance’- which means that if God has blessed you, He won’t change his mind. If you have known God’s touch, if you have been born again of his Spirit into his family, God doesn’t change his mind about this. You may. You may think, you may feel that God has. But remember- He hasn’t and never will

So on to Genesis 28 and tonight’s story of Jacob’s dream at the place he then called Bethel. And I want to look and three verses in particular and see three points emerging from them
God makes a way of access
God has mercy
God was there though Jacob hadn’t known it.

Firstly, in verse 12 we read of Jacob’s dream. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
  In this we see that God makes a way of access.  This dream which we know of as ‘Jacob’s ladder’ means this. For the ladder is the way of access to God. What is this way of access? Well, the answer is actually there in the Bible and we had it in our reading from John’s Gospel, where the Lord Jesus Christ says to Nathanael I tell you the truth, you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.
  Now this access which God provides, He provides in his sovereign will and by his sovereign grace. We can’t conjure it up nor can we ever deserve it. Grace means just that- receiving what we do not deserve. Look at Jacob. He’d, so he thought blown it and that he was right out of favour. He’d fled for his life. He’d been a cheat. He didn't have home comforts. he had nothing but a stone as a pillow. Then he has this dream. You can’t conjure up your dreams. You don’t go to bed and say “I’m going to do such and such tonight in a dream”. Dreams come in the passivity of sleep’s unconsciousness.. There is a kind of given-ness in dreams. Psychologists tell us that well up out of our unconscious. maybe so sometimes. But I believe God can speak through dreams. I say, and say it with humility, I have known God to speak (not audibly) but without gainsay in dreams
   The ladder then is a sign of access to God. It’s an access we can never deserve. We can never invite ourselves into or gatecrash into God’s presence. It’s of his grace that he invites us and the invitation comes to us through His Son. I am the Way....no-one comes to the Father except through me.
  Jacob was overwhelmed. The next morning he took his stone pillow, poured oil over it and called the place ‘Bethel’, that is ‘house of God’. We have access to the Father. Are we overwhelmed?

So, God makes a way of access.
Then next we come to verse 13 where God says to Jacob, I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.
What are we to understand from this verse? To Jacob it meant something very special. It means that, and this is my next point
God has mercy.
Certainly for Jacob to hear this was mercy. If grace means ‘getting what we don’t deserve’ then mercy is its counterpoint. It is ‘not getting what we deserve’ And Jacob, who had blown it certainly knew he didn’t deserve to hear God’s voice, to have access to Him.
  Mercy. God has to bring us to the point where He can show us his mercy. Often He has to bring us down to rock-bottom. That’s how it was for Jacob and has been said ‘The darkest hour comes before the dawn’ Charles Wesley knew about God’s mercy when he wrote one of his greatest hymns:
               ‘Tis mercy all, immense and free,
                    for, O my God, it found out me
As Peter says in his first epistle
  Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy
There is this given-ness about God's mercy too. In Wesley’s words, mercy does ‘find us out’. Jacob probably never thought to hear God again; he thought he was totally excluded. Then God in mercy breaks in. God tells Jacob three things:
I am with you and will watch over you
I will bring you back to this land
I will not leave you
Too good to be true? Let me tell you. If you have known God’s blessing, if He has made you his own then let me tell you what He told Jacob, He would tell you too. You may feel you deserve justice. You may feel you deserve to be punished. No! God would say to you, “All your sin I have laid on my Son. It is all taken away by His Blood” John Baptist, in John 1:35 says to us Behold the Lamb of God.

So:
God makes a way of access
God has mercy
And finally to verse 16 which says in effect:
God was there though Jacob hadn’t known it.
God was there. God is with us and often we fail to recognise it. There are those special times, like Jacob’s dream when he ‘turns up’ as R T Kendall puts it in a special way. Always for a special purpose as was the case in Jacob’s dream. When God intervenes, do we recognise it; do we respond?

I don’t think there’s any special biblical criteria for when God ‘turns up’, or intervenes, though we are encouraged to draw near; we are told to be ready. Then we certainly won’t miss the occasion. Certainly as I look back at those times when God has specially intervened, it’s been totally at his initiative, but it’s quite clearly and self-authenticatingly been God. Just last year there was a time when I felt rock-bottom. It was then that God unexpectedly and quite clearly dealt with certain issues in my life and dealt with showing mercy at the same time. There was no doubting it had been God.

So- to try and sum it all up.
God will often lead us to a point where we feel we’ve blown it and maybe in a sense we have. But if we’ve been blessed by God in the past He won’t go back on it. He loves to sovereignly show his grace and his mercy. And we never know when He will intervene. Can I close with words from Psalm 95:

Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts

He won’t reject you but you may miss out on a blessing He has for you.
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