Jacob's Ladder - Grace Unsought - [Genesis 28:1]

Two Religions: Works and Grace

There are two and only two religions in the world. You might look at a book and it will say the 900 religions but when you boil them all down there are two and only two. Every religion except Christianity falls into the first category and it's a religion of doing good, being good, saying no to self, saying yes to other things, trying to be virtuous, trying to get to heaven by your own merit.

It's a religion of works, it's a religion of being nice, of trying to keep the law. Then there's another religion and it's Christianity and it's a religion that says that mankind is so sinful because of Adam and his fall that everything that we do is tainted by sins and we can't get to heaven.

You just can't get there on your own. Heaven has to come down. Someone has to come and rescue you. You can't climb up to heaven. Heaven has to come down. So today we're going to look at a passage, turn to Genesis chapter 28, about a passage that links heaven and earth by the grace of God.

We need heaven and earth to have communion, to have fellowship, holy heaven, the God of heaven with sinful mankind. How can it be done and it can only be done by the grace of God. Not our own merit, not our own climbing.

As George Whitfield would say, if you want to get to heaven by your own good deeds, it would be like climbing a ladder made out of sand to the moon. How far up would you go? You wouldn't get very far at all.

So heaven has to come down and this is that great passage in Genesis chapter 28, Jacob's Ladder. You say, well it's kind of Christmas time, why did you pick Jacob's Ladder? And you'll find out very quickly it's perfect for a Christmas message because heaven does come down, except his name is Jesus Christ and he is, as we'll find out today, the ladder that connects holy heaven and sinful mankind.

A great passage, Jacob's Ladder. Now before we look at the text, when I say Jacob's Ladder, what pops into your mind? For me, lots of things pop into my mind and I did a little research online. The first one is Jacob's Ladder cardio machine.

There's a cardio machine that uses low impact exercise to optimize physical training and it's just a stair that goes on and on and on and it's called Jacob's Ladder. Do you have one of those? All right.

Jacob's Ladder is also a high voltage traveling arc, a device for producing a continuous train of large sparks that rise upwards and it kind of looks like a ladder and it's been called Jacob's Ladder.

There's also something that you've probably played with before. It's called Jacob's Ladder the toy. Who knows the Jacob's Ladder toy? Some do. They found one in King Tut's tomb, but the Puritans loved it because finally they could play a game on Sunday, the Sabbath as they called it, because it was called Jacob's Ladder.

Every other game was pagan, but since this had a Christian name or a Bible name, you could play with these tumbling blocks that were held together by ribbons or strings and it was kind of the optical illusion.

You'd hold it up and the blocks would fall down. That's called Jacob's Ladder. Well, if you'd like to buy a house in the Berkshires, there's a Jacob's Ladder realty. I assume they're hooking up people who need a house and those that have a house and they're the ladder in between.

There's a band called Jacob's Ladder. There's a plant called Jacob's Ladder. But most likely when I say Jacob's Ladder, you think of the song, the spiritual, the folk song, Climbing, Climbing Jacob's Ladder.

Who has sung that song? And you even admitted it. Think about those two religions again. The religion of trying to get up to heaven, Climbing, Climbing Jacob's Ladder, or the religion of Christianity where Jesus, the eternal son, cloaks himself with humanity and he descends to earth to live the life we were supposed to live but didn't and couldn't.

And then also to die on the cross as a substitutionary representative. So Jacob's Ladder, the song, goes something like this. We are climbing, climbing Jacob's Ladder. We are climbing Jacob's Ladder, soldiers of the cross.

Every round goes higher, higher. Every round goes higher, higher, soldiers of the cross. Sinner do you love Jesus? Sinner do you love Jesus? Soldiers of the cross. And so lots of people have sung that, by the way, just for an FYI.

Pete Seeger sang it, Staple Singers, Arlo Guthrie, and Bruce Springsteen. But let's find out what Genesis 28 actually says and then we'll look at the New Testament reference to this as well in John chapter 1.

So this morning before we get into Malachi in a couple of weeks, Genesis 28 and John chapter 1, Jacob's Ladder, and what does God mean when he wrote it. There's all kinds of meanings to this passage, but I want to know what God's meaning is.

Don't you? I want to know what authorial intent is so we can think about it properly and we can think about it reverently. So when you want to study the Bible, what do you do? You say there's a close context, Genesis 28 is preceded by 27 and followed by 29.

It's also set in a book context, the book of Genesis, and if you wanted to wrap your arms around Genesis, it's super simple. You do it this way, 50 chapters, 4 people preceded by 4 events. So there are 4 events in the first 11 chapters, 4 people.

What would be those events? The 4 events of Genesis 1 to 11, creation, the curse, catastrophe or flood, and chaos, Tower of Babel. So you've got creation, then the fall of mankind, then the flood, then the Tower of Babel.

Those are the 4 events in Genesis. And now between Genesis 12 and 50, you have 4 people. Who would those 4 people be as we look at Israel's maybe like national tree, their family tree is what I meant, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.

And so now we parachute into Genesis 28, Jacob. And Jacob is on the run. Remember he's a deceiver, he's a person who tricks and who is full of guile and he has robbed Esau out of his blessing. And look at chapter 27 for close context, verse 42, to pick us up so we know where we are.

Genesis 27, 42, but the words of Esau, her older son, were told to Rebekah. So she sent and called Jacob, her younger son, and said to him, Behold, your brother Esau comforts himself about you by planning to kill you.

That's how he receives his comfort. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice, arise, flee to Laban, my brother, and Haran and stay with him for a while until your brother's fury turns away, until your brother's anger turns away from you and he forgets what you've done to him, you stole his blessing.

Then I'll send you, send and bring you from there. Why should I be bereft of you both in one day? And Rebekah said to Isaac, I loathe my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women like these, if he marries a pagan, one of these women of the land, what good will my life be to me?

And so we move to chapter 28, verse 1, Jacob obeys the first five verses. Then Isaac called Jacob, blessed him, directed him, you must not take a wife from the Canaanite women. Genesis 28, verse 2 says, arise, there's an urgency here in the original, go to Paddan Aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, take as your wife from there one of the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother.

Esau is angry, Canaanites are bad to marry into, but I need you to go find a nice wife. He's probably 60, 70 years old by now. And so flee, get out of here. My uncle lives there, Laban lives there. And now language of the Abrahamic covenant, verse 3, El Shaddai, God Almighty, the sovereign power God who creates something and everything out of nothing.

This great God, may He bless you, make you fruitful and multiply, doesn't that sound like Genesis 1, 2? That you may become a company of peoples, be fruitful and multiply. Not just you, but the nation behind you, the company of peoples.

And the blessing continues, verse 4, may He give the blessing to Abraham, to you, to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham. Isaac now is finally getting it.

Even though Jacob got the firstborn blessing in a conniving way, in a deceitful way, it is the sovereignty of God and He acknowledges that, does Isaac. Thus Isaac sent Jacob away, verse 5, and again we're just learning some of the background before we get to our main passage.

He went to this place, to Laban, son of Bethuel, the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob, and Esau's mother. And in that order, Jacob and Esau's mother, that is the divine order. I wonder what Jacob was thinking about.

Away from mother, out in the middle of the wilderness, he's kind of a homebody. I wonder if I'll see my mom again. I wonder if I'll see my father again. I wonder if he had pangs of guilt for all his deception that he had.

I wonder what he's thinking, a solo journey. Was he really alone though? Now here's a little flashback to verse 6, 7, 8, and 9. Esau thought, you know what, Jacob's obeying, maybe if I do the same thing, I might get my father's blessing too.

It's a day late and a dollar short. As one man said, it's like closing the barn door when the horse was gone, but he tries anyway. Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, yeah, I want that blessing, sent him away to Padamaram to take a wife from there, that he blessed him and directed him, you must not take a wife from the Canaanite women, and that Jacob had obeyed his father.

So I think I'll obey too is the idea. Verse 8, so when Esau saw the Canaanite women did not please his father, Esau went to Ishmael and took as his wife, besides the wives he had. So instead of saying, I'm going to divorce my pagan Canaanite gods, or pagan gods rather, I'm going to take another wife, Mahalath, by the way, her name means sickness.

I don't know when you want to find a wife who you look for, but maybe sickness might not be the best. And I've married sickness, the non-chosen Esau finds a wife from the non-chosen line of Ishmael, thinking somehow that my past sins, my past delinquencies, my past problems will be all solved now if I do things in my kind of human way.

Of course it doesn't work, and now Jacob heads out. I wonder if he'll be like his brother, will he marry the right person? Verse 10, Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. Okay, he's got to go 400 miles, and he's going out by himself, and he's about 50 miles in.

Okay, a lot of rocks, by the way when I was younger and I asked the question to my Sunday school teacher, why do people in Israel stone other people? One of the answers I got was because there's just stones everywhere, right?

It's just a rocky place, all kinds of rocks everywhere. And here, Jacob comes to a certain place, verse 11. Three times you'll see in this verse, place, the sovereignty of God, place, perfectly orchestrated by God.

He came to a certain place, stayed there that night because the sun had set, taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and laid down in that place to sleep. Verse 19, we're going to find out this place is called Luz, a place of separation, and he's going to now, because of what God has done for him and to him, it's going to be called the house of God.

He just happens to end up at this place accidentally on purpose, as it were. And he uses a stone pillow, what's this all about? Oh, they used stones back then for all kinds of things, for memorials, says in Exodus 17, Moses' hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it.

What are you going to use for a chair? Stones. What are you going to use for a pillow? Stones. What are you going to use to throw at people? Stones. That's just what you have, stones. And he uses a stone, he puts it under his head.

And verse 12 says, three times, see if you can see the words behold in verses 12 and 13. And he dreamed. And behold, there's a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am Yahweh, the Lord, God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie, I will give to you and to your offspring. Now, let's think about this.

He has a dream and there's a ladder. King James says ladder, and here's what we think of when we think of ladder. I think of rungs, climbing a ladder. But the language here is a stairway, a staircase.

And it's wide enough to have angels go up and down on it, and it's tall enough to go to heaven. And here's this staircase, some kind of ramp, and God's at the top. There's a staircase that goes up to heaven, and God's at the top of it.

What are you thinking if you've read Genesis before? What's your background theologically? Let's say you've read Genesis 1 to 27, and you're thinking about a tower or a large ramp that goes up to heaven with the God at the top.

Answer what that sound like. Pardon me? Tower of Babel, go there if you would, please. Genesis chapter 11, and let's think through this. Now, back in those days, they would build these large ziggurats is what they were called.

And they would have a shrine at the top, and the shrine would always be blue because it would blend into heaven, and they would think that God was at the top. So God's at the top, and we build a shrine to get to heaven.

How do you get to heaven? We build a shrine all the way up. Some people say, well, they built this shrine in Genesis 11 because they wanted to have a high place in case God flooded the earth again. Well, that wouldn't have worked.

They're going to build an attempt to get to God. How do you get to God on your own? Well, for people today, it's, I'm nice to people. I've been confirmed. I attend church. I'm a member. I get baptized.

I got dunked. I didn't just get dunked one time in water. I got triple dunked. I saw that once, by the way, at a church. I baptized you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. I thought, I hope that pastor's got good chiropractors, is what I was thinking.

I'm doing something so God may be pleased. It's my attempt to get to heaven on my own. And by the way, friends, as I'm thinking about this, the overarching problem with all this kind of, I'm going to get to heaven on my own, when you think of the language of Scripture, think of Galatians chapter two.

I'll just read it for you. It says, and by the works of the law, no one will be what justified. If you could get to heaven on your own, then Christ died for no purpose. I don't need Jesus to die for me.

I'm good enough to get to heaven on my own. And that kind of thinking was prominent back in Genesis as well. I don't need God's help. I'll just get to heaven on my own. Do you see Genesis chapter 11, Tower of Babel?

The whole earth used the same language and the same words, same language. They all had one lip. That's the Hebrew. My father, I could just hear him saying right now, don't give me any what. They had all one lip.

They all spoke the same thing. They came about as they journeyed east. They found a plane, settled there, said to one another, come, let's make some bricks and burn them. Let's build for ourselves a city and on a tower whose top will reach into heaven.

Let us make for ourselves a name. You can just see the pride. Lest we be scattered all over the face of the whole earth. Out of the ark, God says to Noah, I want you to be scattered and fill the what? Earth.

No way. We're not going to do what God says. We're going to all get together. We're not going to populate the entire earth and we're going to build our own way to God. We'll worship the way we want. Build the ziggurat.

I mean, this is the first Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame. We'll do it on our own. Thank you. We don't need your sacrifice. We don't need grace. Can you imagine? I don't need your grace. It's crazy. It's like the two men in the insane asylum.

First guy says, I'm Napoleon. Second guy, how do you know? First guy, God told me. Second guy. No, I did not. Defiance. We will do it our way. Thank you. We don't care that it's by grace alone, through faith alone, through Christ alone.

If they knew about Jesus, the second person, the Trinity, that's what they would be saying. We'll do it our own way. Thank you. And if you ever want to know if there's humor in the Bible, verse five, it starts pretty early in Genesis, and Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower, Genesis 11, 5, which the sons of men had built.

How puny, how mad these schemes are. One writer said, but from the real heaven, all this looks like something built by brownies, goblins, and lilliputians. So tiny and microscopically small that it can't be seen with the naked eye.

And so you see the satire language, this anthropomorphic language where God has to go down there and get a magnifying glass because it's so small. The Lord came down and then he confused the language.

So let's go back to Genesis 28. The idea is a tower that goes up to heaven with God at the top. Remember Genesis 28, God is speaking at the top, but this isn't made by human hands. This is not, I want to get to heaven by being good.

This is God doing it. God's speaking at the top and he's the one graciously initiating everything. You see it back in verse 12, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And God is at the very top of this speaking.

Verse 13, behold, the Lord stood above it. It's not some false God at the top with some kind of blue color faded in. This is the God of the universe and he's at the top. And there is now communication between heaven and earth.

There's access between heaven and earth. How can you be in the holy heaven if you're a sinful man? Could there be any access? Is there any hope? Is there any mediator? Remember Job chapter 9. Job 9 is like, if I only had to go between, if I had an arbitrator.

God is holy. I'm sinful. Is there a mediator? Is there someone who can mediate, arbitrate, who could be an advocate? And we know his name, don't we? Of course we do. We need a bridge between God and man.

By the way, what's the Latin word for bridge? Pontifus. We need a maximum bridge. Who is the maximum bridge builder between heaven and earth? Holy God and sinful man. We need Pontifus Maximus. And if you think he's got a hat on in the Vatican, you would be mistaken.

We need a bridge builder and his name has to be God. Because what he does is holy. Jacob is out in the middle of nowhere. He's by himself. And he doesn't know if through himself, the scheming, deceitful Jacob of a man, that God will still be with him.

Will God be with me? I've sinned so much. I've finagled. I'm this kind of guy. Will God be with me? But God has promised, not because of Jacob, but in spite of him. And I am here. And heavens open up and the angels go up and down.

And in spite of his character, in spite of him going to Canaan, there's a reiteration of the Abrahamic promises. Look at verse 14. Your descendants shall be also like the dust of the earth. Wait a second.

I don't have a wife yet. I'm on my way to get my wife. Yes, in fact, God is saying you'll get your wife. And look at how many descendants you'll have. I'll spread out from the west to the east, to the north, to the south.

And in you and in your descendants shall all of the families of the earth be blessed. He was single. Behold, what do you need out in the middle of the wilderness if you're by yourself? What's the most comfort out of anything that could happen?

I am with you. And we'll keep you wherever you go. I'll bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. Now, think. Back in those days, it was a localized deity.

Here's what would happen. For us, it's very simple. God is omnipresent. He's the God of everything, the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry lands. He's the God of everything. But back in those days, it was a localized territory.

So here's what you do. You would have the God of Clinton. And when you left Clinton and you went to Lemonster, you'd have a new God. And then when you left Lemonster and you went to Fitchburg, you'd have a different God.

And you'd go from place to place to place, not saying anything about Clinton or Lemonster or Fitchburg, although I want to. Localized deities. He's out in the middle of nowhere. I'm your God. I'm the only God.

And I'm going to be with you. We're not changing deities as we go. I am with you. Jacob deceives his dad and gets the blessing. But in the providence of God, God now is saying, I sovereignly bless you.

You do get the blessing. Not because you're a deceiver, but because I'm gracious. You get the land to the promise of the land and the descendants. What a gracious God. And I'll keep you wherever you go.

Even Fitchburg. Why does Fitchburg always get a bad rap by the way around here? Is anybody here live in Fitchburg? Thank you made it. I won't leave you. What do you need to hear from God? I won't leave you.

One man said, that's the most precious promise of all the Bible to Jacob. I won't leave you to Moses before you cross the Jordan. I won't leave you to Joshua before he assumed leadership. I won't leave you to Solomon before he builds a temple.

I won't leave you to the disciples at Matthew 28 and low. I'm with you. What always? And to us, even today, Hebrews 13, I will never leave you, nor will I ever forsake you. And we shall confidently say, the Lord is my helper.

I will not be what afraid. Now we look at Genesis 28, 16. At least you're listening. My own daughter just helped me. Jacob, dad, that is Jacob. If I say a kid's name in a sermon, they get a dollar, my own kids.

But now you owe me a dollar grace. Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, see, he knew it. Surely Yahweh is in this place. And I didn't know it. Verse 17, and when you know you're in the presence of God, sinful man or sinful woman in the presence of holy God, he was afraid.

How awesome is this place? This is none other than the house of God, Bethel. And this is the gate of heaven. The language is tremble. He's awestruck. He is revering God. By the way, that's a word used exclusively of God.

God is awesome. And only God alone is awesome. God is to be revered. And only God is to be revered. When I first got here 17 years ago, Scott Ferris said, Mike, you know, what do we call you as the new pastor?

What do you prefer? And I said, well, probably your kids should say Pastor Abendroff. Pastor Mike, maybe it's hard to pronounce, Abendroff. And I said, Scott, for you, you know, we're friends. We're just both men.

So I said, High Holy Father will do. But anything but revered. There's nothing that those of you that know me well enough would realize. There's nothing to revere in Mike. I want to point you to the one who is to be revered, who is to be feared, who is awesome.

And Jacob was out there in the middle of nowhere, rocks and dirt and bleak. And all of a sudden he goes, God is here. I didn't even know it. It's a gate of heaven. God, you are with me. You're superintending.

You're far away and transcendent, but you're close to and eminent. It's worship. And what do you do when you worship back in those days? Verse 18, got up early, took the stone that was under his head, set it up as a pillar for a memorial, poured oil on its top.

This is all worship. Feared the Lord. He put the stone pillar there as this memorial. Every time you walk by this place in Bethel, you'd say to yourself, God came down and he called that place Bethel, house of God.

However, previously, the name of the city had been separation. I think he just got saved right here. Jacob made a vow. God's with me, will keep me on this journey that I take and will give me food to eat and garments to wear.

I'll return to my father's house and safety. Then the Lord will be my God. I don't think he's bargaining. He is. If it's true, no, since this is assurance, the stone I've set up as a pillar will be God's house.

Jesus as Jacob’s Ladder in John 1

All that you do give me, I will surely give you a tenth in worship. Now, where would you go in the New Testament to see Jacob's ladder? If you had to go between Matthew all the way to Revelation, where do we get Jacob's ladder in the New Testament?

Well, let's find out, because this is how everything's tied together. John chapter one, John chapter one. If you have a plan to read through the Bible in the coming year, I would think that'd be a great thing to do, because then you're going to see the flow.

You're going to see that all scripture is written by the same divine author, even though we have different human authors. And the plan is to show the great ladder himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, John chapter one, Jesus is demonstrated as God himself, same essence of God, same nature of God, very God of very God.

And John the Baptist in verse twenty nine of chapter one has seen Jesus and he said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, language of sacrifice. Jesus is the substitutionary sacrifice for Jews, for Gentiles, for English, for German, for everyone else.

And verse forty three, it says this. Here's the tie in to Jacob's ladder. The question in the Old Testament may be what happened at the ladder? The question in the New Testament is who's the ladder? The next day, John one forty three, Jesus decided to go to Galilee.

He found Philip and said to him, follow me. Don't you love that? That's like with Abraham. Basically, follow me. These are sealed orders. Where are we going? Not told. Explanation. Not told. Why? Not told.

How long? Your whole life. Follow me. OK, now, Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathaniel. You can also call him Bartholomew if you'd like. And he said to him, you can just feel the intensity, too.

We found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Jesus is the Messiah. Yes, he's from a little podunk place called Nazareth and Nazareth. And yes, he's the son of Joseph, but he's the Messiah.

Moses wrote about him. The prophets wrote about him. Nathaniel said to him, remember, Nathaniel was from Cana, another Galilean town. They thought they were better than the Nazarenes. Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

And you could see what the writer John is doing. Jesus, the person from Nazareth, this lowly place. He probably could have said Jesus, the one from Bethlehem, this great place in Judah. But he says, no, Jesus, the Nazarene.

Can any good thing come? Nazareth, that's like Crete. Crete's got a bad reputation. What will you find in Crete? Probably some liars, probably some evil beasts and probably some lazy gluttons. What will you find in Nazareth?

You mean the Messiah is from Nazareth? Come and see. That's good evangelism. Come check it out. Find out for yourself. Verse 47, Jesus saw Nathaniel coming to him. And said, behold, an Israelite, indeed, in whom there's no guile.

There's no deceit in this guy. There's no fraud in this guy. There's no hypocrisy in this guy. He's not talking about Nazareth in a bad way. This guy's upstanding. Matter of fact, this Israelite, there's no Jacob in this Israelite, because that's what Jacob means.

There's no heel grabbing. There's no deceit. There's no scheming. Here's a particular Israelite, and there's no Jacob in this Israelite. No crookedness. Now, here's where we focus in and we start thinking about Jacob's ladder.

Nathaniel said to Jesus, how do you know me? Jesus answered and said to him, before Philip called you, you know, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. The omniscience of God. Three times, I think, in the book of Revelation, it talks about Jesus's laser-like eyes, the eyes of omniscience.

He knows what's going on. Jesus is fully God. He's fully man. And often and regularly, you'll see certain cases like this, where the omniscience of God comes through and he knows what's going on. Sitting under the fig tree.

What does that have to do with anything? What do you do under trees? Well, you know what you'd do under a fig tree if you were Jewish? You'd pray. You'd have your devotions. Where do you like to have your devotions?

Well, in the wintertime, it's not under a fig tree. But for them, their wintertimes, they easily could. Under a fig tree. I couldn't see you with my eyes. I just saw you coming here. But I couldn't see you with my eyes when you were under the fig tree, studying the Bible, having your devotions and prayer.

But I saw you because I'm God. I saw you. What does Philip do? How does he respond? I mean, he's under the tree. When you realize you're in the presence of God and he's omniscient, he knows these things about you.

Nathanael answered and said to him, how did Nathanael talk to Jesus in verse 48? How do you know me? But it's different now. Three things he calls him. Rabbi, so much more respectful. You are the son of God.

You have to be because you're omniscient. You can see places that you can't see with your eye that I couldn't see. You're the son of God. You're the Messiah. You're the one that Moses talked about. I think of 2 Samuel chapter 7.

I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. Talking about the Messiah. I think of Psalm 2 verse 7. The Lord said to me, you are my son. Today I have what? Begotten you. You're a rabbi. You're the son of God.

You can think of Daniel 7 language. And what else? You're the king of Israel. Hey, I'm an Israelite and you're my king. There's an Israelite in whom there's no guile. And this particular Israelite realizes that he has a king and his name is not Caesar.

King of Israel. I remember when I was in Corinth. And you could just go over to this little spot. And it was a little monument made out of stone. And this is where once a year you just had to take a little pinch of incense and walk over to it.

And you only had to say in Latin or in Greek, Caesar is Lord. Just one little pinch of just one little pinch of incense. That's all you have to say. Caesar is Lord. And you go on and go worship anybody else you wanted.

Or no one else that you wanted. Many people lost their lives because they couldn't do that. Because they know Jesus is alone. The son of God, the ultimate rabbi. And what does the text say? The king of Israel.

Zephaniah 3 talks about the son, the eternal son. The king of Israel, the Lord is in your midst. Nathanael, at the beginning of his ministry, you're the king. And then those people at the cross, years later, he's the king of Israel.

Let him save himself. How does this tie into Genesis 28? The next two verses tell us. Verse 50. Jesus answered him. Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree. Do you believe? I just used some of my omniscience and I saw you under the fig tree.

That is so impressive to you that you believe. By the way, you're going to see greater things than these. You're going to see so many greater things. By the way, what are those greater things? Answer.

John 2, John 3, John 4, John 5, John 6, John 7, and all the way through. You think that was impressive? Wait till I turn water into wine. You think that's impressive? Wait till I talk to the most respected preacher in all of Israel, Nicodemus, and tell him you must be born again.

Wait till I heal the blind. Wait till I heal the lepers. Wait till I raise people from the dead. You think that's impressive? You're going to see greater things than these. Verse 51. Oh, I have a question for you before I read it.

Remember, Nathanael's under the fig tree. He's probably having his devotions and probably praying. We're not told that, but that's most likely what's happening. What was he reading, by the way? What book of the Bible was he reading?

Maybe he was reading Psalm 51, created me a new heart, O God. Maybe he was reading, trust the Lord and do good. Maybe he's reading Proverbs 3. Trust the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding and in all your ways acknowledge him and he'll make your path straight.

Maybe he was reading some of those things. What was he reading under the tree? Answer. Genesis 28. Nathanael's under the tree and he's reading about Jacob's ladder and he's reading about Jacob and the angels descending and the place called Bethel.

And I know that for what reason? Why? Because Jesus ties it in. I saw you under the fig tree. You'll see greater things than these. What are those things that you're talking about? Jesus said to him, Amen, amen.

Nobody talks like that except Jesus. Nobody talked like that during those days except Jesus. He puts the truly, truly up front. The verily, verily. The amen, amen. Amen, amen. I say to you, you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending.

There's more to the verse, but you're reading underneath the tree, the angels of God ascending and descending. And here's God at the top speaking to Jacob. And I'm with you no matter where you go. I'm with you.

You want to see something greater than that? You will see heaven opened. Access. Sinful men have access to holy heaven. It's open. And the angels of God ascending and descending, not on the ladder, not on the staircase, but on the Son.

On the Son of Man. You are going to see greater things than what you've looked at in Genesis 28, where heaven and earth commune through the angels ascending with God at the top. Now God comes down in his Son, the second person of the Trinity.

By the way, you there both times in John 1 51 is plural, talking to all the disciples, emphasizing these major truths. Heaven comes down and his name is the Son. This is amazing. Look at John 3 13. Only God could do this.