Genesis 28 Day 2
Sue’s Notes:
Genesis 28
Who are you God and what are you like?
Vs 1-2 Isaac calls Jacob and blesses him to go. It seems he has come into agreement with God on Jacob being the one to receive His blessing too! Sends him to Laban (Uncle) to marry one of his daughters. Gen 27:33 Trembled when realized blessed Jacob.
Vs 3-4 Confirms blessing of God to have many descendants and become many nations and to own this land. May God Almighty bless you.. This knowing God as El Shaddai (God Almighty as in Gen 17:1) passed from Abraham to Isaac and Isaac to Jacob. This is the God that is able and faithful, that we can truly, fully rest in!!! Video of hugeness of universe to intricacies of cells and tiniest particles of atoms!!! Isaac seems to have surrendered to God’s will. Rebekah still operating that she needs to protect Jacob, sending him away. Not a few days, but 20 years. Rebekah would die before Jacob returns.
Vs 5 Jacob going to Rebekah’s brother, Laban. He was integral in Rebekah’s life when Abraham’s servant found Rebekah for Isaac (Gen 24). First to rush out to meet Abe’s servant when he saw the gold on Rebekah 24:30. Family leader. Rebekah’s behavior is rooted in her family’s dysfunctional behavior. Gen 24:55 see Laban and his mother trying to get Eliezer to delay leaving. Mother and son scheming, hmm, sounds familiar.
Vs 6-9 Esau knows his father has blessed Jacob and sent him to Paddan-aram for a wife. Jacob obeys. Didn’t want him to marry a cannanite woman as he had x 2. So he goes to Uncle Ishmael’s family and marries one of his daughters, Mahalath, sister of Nebaioth. Trying to get parents approval and blessing. Again, trying to earn blessing on his own after he was indignant toward the blessing as the oldest, giving it away like it was nothing.
Jacob’s Dream
Vs 10-11 Stops in what seemed a good place. Can only imagine, first time away from home, the homebody. Is Esau chasing to kill? His thoughts had to be unsettled. Fears. Puts a stone under his head to rest, hmm. Can’t be comfortable. I know when I am all in fear at night, my pillow surely feels like a hard stone!!! In this place of barenness. In the rocky place of life! It’s all he had! Rest?? This seemed like anything but!
Bethel is a barren, rocky wilderness. Nothing special to suggest presence of God, except to look up and see the sky full of stars. The same stars that God had pointed out to Abraham to speak His promise of how numerous Abe’s descendants would be. Jacob too tired to look up!!! Have you been there!!! I have!!!! He has been working so hard to get what he wants and falls fast asleep on a hard rock!!! Men!!!
Dreams can come from all kinds of places. I know God can speak in dreams. Sometimes it’s the only time He can get our attention, when we are running hard, killing it for the kingdom or maybe empire. Been there.
Vs 12 Dreams of a stairway that reached from earth to heaven and angels were going up and down. Reminds me of the tower of Babel story, only this is reverse. Not man’s attempt to reach God, but God showing He is with us already, watching and active in our lives!!!
Vs 13-14 God knows how to show Himself to us. Did he come to Jacob because he was so faithful and doing good deeds? Did he come because of the great reverence he was showing God? No. All God! God spoke a promised blessing over Jacob through his parents before he knew God. Then He came in this place of great unrest, at his rock bottom to reveal Himself. To speak the promise over Jacob directly. That He is the One above all others!!! The Great I AM!! He has everything we desire and more!!! He is the blessing we’ve been chasing!!!
Vs 15 (Behold, pay attention) “And what’s more” (than being so blessed with descendants as numerous as the dust, and the land being yours), “I am with you and I will protect you wherever you go!” and “I will bring you back”. “I will not leave until I finish giving everything I promised!!!! WHOA! That is the God we have. He always accomplishes every promise. What are His promises? It’s God’s Presence with us, always, that is the greatest blessing of our life!!! He will protect and bring back and never leave!!! Psalm 23:4
Vs 16 Jacob awoke and thought God in that geographical location. The place is wherever we are!!! God is with him. Promised to be with him wherever he goes. He now knows God is closer and more accessible than he had thought before.
Charles Stanley: Everywhere is in God’s Presence, not He is everywhere.
Vs 17 This never gets old, all the fear of Jacob’s life, God is now beginning to bring awe/reverence of who He is, what He is doing!!! Not about what humans are doing or thinking, that brings fear. It’s about who He is, the Great I AM!!! El Shaddai!!! The Promise Maker and Keeper. Awe of God, right fear of Him! This draws us to Him, not running scared from Him! When we know He is with us, He is Our Protector, Our Savior, Our Redeemer, The Holy One, that He alone is able!!! We are in awe and drawn to Him!!! This was the beginning of Jacob walking with God and God transforming His heart.
Reverence=Awareness of God’s Presence, the two go together.
The Presence of God. We often struggle to know and even ask, God where are you, when we are in a hard or fearful place. Or when we are in the depth of sin. Sin dulls the spiritual senses. We lose the conscientiousness of God’s presence. God is everywhere though. We cannot escape His Presence. There is no God-forsaken place. But sin dulls the awareness. Or we can be deceived and think we have fellowship when we are actively engaged in sin. 1John 1:6 God is present but we do not have intimate fellowship. There’s a difference. Repentance/confession changes that.
Jacob hasn’t confessed yet.
From Got Questions.org (which I don’t think is absolute on everything, only the Word is, take it there).
But I liked this paragraph with much talk lately on the manifest presence of God. There is God’s Omnipresence in which God is always with us whether we know if or not, or believe or not.
There is the presence of the Holy Spirit in believers.
Believers always have the Holy Spirit with them. The Bible teaches the indwelling of the Spirit: “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). The Spirit will not be taken from us. He is our Comforter, our Helper, our Paraclete until Jesus returns (John 14:16). At that time Jesus Himself will be with us—manifestly and forever.
But the indwelling of the Spirit is not the same as the Spirit’s manifest presence. Every believer goes through times when he doesn’t “feel” saved or days when he goes through his activities unaware of the Spirit’s presence within him. But then there are times when that same indwelling Spirit visits the believer in a special, manifest way. It could be a song the Spirit brings to mind; it could be a coincidental encounter with a friend; it could be a prompting to prayer, a desire to study the Word, or an ineffable feeling of peace—the Spirit is not limited in how He reveals Himself. The point is that He makes Himself known. He is our Comforter. “By him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children” (Romans 8:15–16).
Should we trust in God’s omnipresence, even when we don’t feel He is with us? Absolutely. God, who cannot lie, says that He never leaves or forsakes us (Hebrews 13:5). Should we also seek God’s manifest presence? Absolutely. It’s not that we rely on feelings or that we seek after a sign, but we expect the Comforter to comfort His own—and we gladly acknowledge that we need His comfort.
Back to the dream. Jesus is the stairway and the gate.
John 1:51 Then he said, “I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth.[a]”
John 14:6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.
Phil 1:6 And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.
Vs 18 Jacob takes the stone and sets up a memorial to the place as the House of God, Bethel (Beth-House, Elohim-God). An altar to God. He thinks it’s about geography, but we know it’s about Jesus, God’s Promised One. He pours that beautiful oil, as Joy talked about. This is Jesus, who was pressed three times like the olives to make the finest oil used in lamps for light and soap to clean. He is the Promised One for Jacob and for us, to rescue us from our sin to have eternal life with Him. The Stone, the altar, the cornerstone of the Temple, our hearts!!! Jesus is the cornerstone of our hearts!!!
Vs 19 Word “if” in this case is not a question, more like “since”. Is Jacob bargaining or making a vow to God, declaring his life will be committed to God, who has come and shown Himself to Jacob.
Is Jacob bargaining with the Lord or restating His promises that since You are doing this, I will do this. Well, yes, both. Bringing his pattern of fleshly bargaining to the Lord and acknowledging the promises God has made. Our flesh is a walk with God over time, continually bringing it to Him knowing we can’t change it, and knowing He has the power and a better way!!! Starts out giving a portion of himself in response, and this is where we start. God is faithful and knows where to take us on the walk to the point of surrendering all to Jesus!!!
Back to Abraham giving Melchizedek a tenth. It’s agreeing with God’s promises, His Promised One who defeated death. Gen 14: 20
This whole chapter just speaks God’s Grace from beginning to end. Grace- that undeserved favor of God. We cannot earn, but He gives freely.
From (heard in Skip Heitzig YouTube on Genesis 28): Newell, William R.. Romans Verse-by-Verse - Enhanced Version
A FEW WORDS ABOUT GRACE
I The Nature of Grace
1. Grace is God acting freely, according to His own nature as Love; with no promises or obligations to fulfil; and acting of course, righteously—in view of the cross.
2. Grace, therefore, is uncaused in the recipient: its cause lies wholly in the GIVER, in GOD.
3. Grace, also is sovereign. Not having debts to pay, or fulfilled conditions on man’s part to wait for, it can act toward whom, and how, it pleases. It can, and does, often, place the worst deservers in the highest favors.
4. Grace cannot act where there is either desert (deserving) or ability: Grace does not help—it is absolute, it does all. (Complete)
5. There being no cause in the creature why Grace should be shown, the creature must be brought off from trying to give cause to God for His Grace.
6. The discovery by the creature that he is truly the object of Divine grace, works the utmost humility: for the receiver of grace is brought to know his own absolute unworthiness, and his complete inability to attain worthiness: yet he finds himself blessed,—on another principle, outside of himself!
7. Therefore, flesh has no place in the plan of Grace. This is the great reason why Grace is hated by the proud natural mind of man. But for this very reason, the true believer rejoices! For he knows that “in him, that is, in his flesh, is no good thing”; and yet he finds God glad to bless him, just as he is!
II The Place of Man under Grace
1. He has been accepted in Christ, who is his standing!
2. He is not “on probation.”
3. As to his life past, it does not exist before God: he died at the Cross, and Christ is his life.
4. Grace, once bestowed, is not withdrawn: for God knew all the human exigencies (need/problem requiring action) beforehand: His action was independent of them, not dependent upon them.
5. The failure of devotion does not cause the withdrawal of bestowed grace (as it would under law). For example: the man in I Cor. 5:1-5; and also those in 11:30-32, who did not “judge” themselves, and so were “judged by the Lord,—that they might not be condemned with the world”!
III The Proper Attitude of Man under Grace
1. To believe, and to consent to be loved while unworthy, is the great secret.
2. To refuse to make “resolutions” and “vows”; for that is to trust in the flesh.
3. To expect to be blessed, though realizing more and more lack of worth.
4. To testify of God’s goodness, at all times.
5. To be certain of God’s future favor; yet to be ever more tender in conscience toward Him.
6. To rely on God’s chastening hand as a mark of His kindness.
7. A man under grace, if like Paul, has no burdens regarding himself; but many about others.
IV Things Which Gracious Souls Discover
1. To “hope to be better” is to fail to see yourself in Christ only.
2. To be disappointed with yourself, is to have believed in yourself.
3. To be discouraged is unbelief,—as to God’s purpose and plan of blessing for you.
4. To be proud, is to be blind! For we have no standing before God, in ourselves.
5. The lack of Divine blessing, therefore, comes from unbelief, and not from failure of devotion.
6. Real devotion to God arises, not from man’s will to show it; but from the discovery that blessing has been received from God while we were yet unworthy and undevoted.
7. To preach devotion first, and blessing second, is to reverse God’s order, and preach law, not grace. The Law made man’s blessing depend on devotion; Grace confers undeserved, unconditional blessing: our devotion may follow, but does not always do so,—in proper measure.
Through Genesis, through the bible really, God keeps this contrast in front of us:
Tree of knowledge g&e Tree of Life
What is earned-death What is given freely-grace/life
Slave to sin Bondservant of Jesus
Empire Living Kingdom Living
Be our own god Relinquish all control by faith