ALONG COMES GOD
GENESIS 28:10 19
Have ever been told you’re a dreamer?
Being a dreamer can be good...but it can also be bad depending on what kind of dreams you have and what the basis is for those dreams. Where do dreams come from? Are they products of our own fertile imagination? Are they an escape from reality?
Did you ever wonder about the significance of a dream...or a vision you may have had. I heard someone say that a vision is just a dream you have in the daytime...or at a time when you're not asleep. Have you ever had a dream or a vision that you know was not just a normal thing...but one that was an encounter with a living God? Read Gen. 28:10 19
Crossing a barren wilderness, Jacob came by night to a lonely place where he lay down and slept, using a stone for a pillow. In his dreams he saw a ladder reaching from earth to heaven...and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
He heard God calling him by name and making him the same promise that he had made to Abraham and Isaac...that he would possess the whole land that his descendants would be without number and that through them all the families of the earth would be blessed.
When Jacob woke from his sleep he could still feel the presence and hear the voice and he thought to himself, "Surely the Lord is in this place and I wasn't aware of it." Then he was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God...and this is the gate of heaven."
I find this a deeply stirring story. Jacob had a dream that really touched him...and actually it was more than just a normal dream like all of us have had from time to time. There was something very special about this dream of Jacob. But before we get too carried away with this, remember that we're talking about the Old Testament...and back in those days God was different than He is today, right?
We would never expect God to speak to us in dreams and visions in the 1990's, would we? And yet, Joel prophesied that in the last days people would dream dreams and see visions. And he wasn't talking about dreaming you'd hit the lottery or seeing Elvis at a 7 11.
Peter, on the Day of Pentecost spoke of such events and said that this prophecy of Joel was now being fulfilled. And this is something that may have crossed our minds before. Probably many, if not all of you, have often longed for such a vision as the one that given to Jacob. And the reason we likely desire a dream or vision from God is that we want a vital, tangible, unmistakable experience of God to confirm all that we believe about Him...or to confirm what we may think led to do.
Let's be honest for a moment. It's difficult just to have faith and go on trusting a God we can't see...especially in our day of skepticism about Christianity as a whole. I mean, how can we be sure of His direction...how can we be sure of His specific will in certain areas of our lives?
If only God, in a dream or a vision, would come to us, once and for all, and dispel our uncertainty and doubt. Wouldn't that be great? Other people tell us how it happened to them, and we've always thought it was supposed to happen in the religious life...but most people can't honestly say it's ever happened to them.
Most Christians today can't point to a single place, a single time, or a single experience in their past where we can say with complete assurance, "There I saw and heard God." And yet we still long for Jacob's ladder to bridge that gap between heaven and earth.
I think we still, somehow and to some degree, live in a hope that one day God will take the initiative and bring us to the time and place where we can say, even with fear..."This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven." The story of Jacob speaks directly to our need. There are three truths I see in this passage that I feel we need to see and understand when it comes to having a vision an experience with God in the world today.
1. The vision of God comes to us in an unlikely place. For Jacob it was a rocky wilderness...bleak, forbidding. lonely, a place of craggy mountains and deep ravines...a dangerous place inhabited only by wild beasts...the last place in the world where a man would feel close to God. I say that because we seem to have our own ideas about the environment where God is to be found. Like in a beautiful old church, for example...or a majestic mountain valley...or a lovely flower garden...etc.
Yet God came to Jacob in the most undesirable surroundings. It should become clear that it's not man but God who picks the place of a divine visitation. It might be a house of worship as it was for Isaiah...but it may be in a desolate prison, an ancient Alcatraz like the island of Patmos where John encountered the living God and saw what we know as the Book of Revelation.
The story of Jacob tells us, first of all, that we must be prepared for God in the place where we least expect Him. God is not an actor who makes his entrance on the stage of life only when the props are perfectly placed and the scene is set...the lights are dimmed and the audience is hushed and waiting.
God creates his own stage...and it may be one that is disorganized and unlovely. Or it may be that one day you'll look back and say of some quiet, ordinary place, "Surely the Lord was in that place, and I wasn't aware of it."
2. The story tells us that the vision of God came at an unlikely place...but also at an unlikely time. Take a closer look at this man Jacob. He's acting like a fugitive in the wilderness...in fact he was a fugitive. Jacob was not only running away from his brother...he was also running away from God.
He ran away in shame...and in this most distressing hour of his life he expected no favor from God. Yet God picked the hour of his shame as the exact moment to come to Jacob and give him a vision of heaven and a gracious promise concerning his own destiny. This is really remarkable but it characterizes God all through the Bible. God has a way of tracking men down and bringing them into His blessing when they least deserve it.
Remember something. The God we serve is not a moral snob...One who only associates and cares for the "cream of the crop" or the "upper crust of society." If He were, He'd have sent His Son to be born in the holy of holies in the temple at Jerusalem...not in the cold and filth of a Bethlehem stable.
If God were a snob, his Son Jesus would have called fire down from heaven on the people that rejected him rather than allow them to put him to death as a common criminal. But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners...Christ died for us. God never withholds His grace until we are worthy of it. He doesn't come when we deserve him...He comes when we need him!
Now, I have to tell you that at times His coming may seem like judgment, but even as judgment it is still grace and we can pray with hope, "Forgive our sins." It may be that one day you will look back on the hour of your greatest shame or the time of your greatest discouragement and say, "Surely the Lord was in this place, and I didn't know it."
3. The O.T. story tells us that the vision of God comes in an unlikely place...at an unlikely time...but also in an unlikely experience. (Read Genesis 32:24 31) Jacob came away limping from this violent encounter...but the lame Jacob was a better man and closer to God than the Jacob who hadn't been lame. This is one of the hardest lessons of life to learn.
We have difficulty realizing that God may be in our pain...and in many of the harsh and traumatic experiences of life. We aren't as realistic as the men who wrote the Bible. They believed that all of life comes under God's sovereignty and that even in the dark and distressing experiences if we look at them long enough, and carefully enough we may see a vision of God.
These men saw God...they found His presence and heard His voice not only in the sunshine, but also in the storm...not only in the flower but in the earthquake...not only in health, but in sickness...not only in victory, but in defeat. They recognized God in life's troublesome as well as in its pleasant experiences...and they saw His relationship with them not in terms of comfort but in terms of power.
Many a man has been able to look back on the most disappointing...most frustrating...most humiliating experience in his life and, because of what it did for him, say with conviction, "Surely the Lord was in this place, and I didn't know it."
Where are you today? Are you at a difficult place...going through trying circumstances...running from people or maybe even running from God...are you at a place where you need strong, clear direction for your life?
Maybe God is wanting to reveal Himself to you this morning. Maybe the Lord is in this place...and you weren't even aware of it until right now. And He's not just here because we're so close to Him that He couldn't bear to be away from us. He's here to meet you at your time of need...He's here to give you a hope and a promise. He's here to bring you to a closer, deeper relationship with Him.
