Genesis 28 Jacob Meets YHWH

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for what you've done in our land.

You have done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.

We give you all the glory, all the praise, all the honor.

We say thank you, God, for what you've done to bless this nation.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.

And we thank you so much for what you did last night in the election.

And now, Lord, we pray for the teaching of your word, that we would delight in the words as you've given them to us.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Tim, Jeff, and I, we get together Wednesdays before we're here.

Our devotional was in Ecclesiastes 5, verse 19.

And it basically talked about the reality that we receive blessings, we receive

wealth, we receive all these things from God.

We even get to have the joy of toiling for God's glory and because of him.

So we place into perspective what has just happened over the last 24 hours.

We anticipate at this point in time, it appears as though God's going to give us a period of prosperity,

a period of time where the church is not gonna be under attack, and we rejoice in that.

But we can't lose sight that even these things that are going on,

God is the one that's sovereignly on the throne.

Jeff, I think it was three Sundays ago, you said you were gonna wake up Wednesday morning and whoever wins, you're

still gonna rejoice.

Jesus Christ is still on the throne.

That is something that the world can't understand.

They don't understand that our perspective, our worldview, everything that we

experience comes out of an understanding that God is in the throne.

The world can't understand that.

If you go into Ephesians, when you're in the flesh, you're basically dead.

Spiritually, you're dead.

There are, for each one of us here that I believe I know you, I believe that I know that you have found the means

and you have surrendered and you have accepted Christ, there was a before.

And then there was the moment where you do know you knew Christ and things change.

But that before is dramatically different than after you know Christ.

It's something that you have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you, and so life completely changes.

I think one of the poster children for that understanding has gotta be Saul,

who becomes Paul.

And so if we go into Acts 26, and if we were to read verses 12 to 18, it's

Paul giving his testimony about what happens to him.

He has a letter giving him authorization to persecute the Christian church, and

he's on the road, and he gets struck by a bolt of lightning, gets knocked off his horse,

life completely changes after that.

Because God in his sovereignty, not because of what Paul was, in spite of what Paul

was, God in his sovereignty calls him.

We're in a continuing story in Genesis 28.

Last week, Jeff, that was an amazing lesson you gave us on how,

in spite of Jacob, in spite of Rebecca, in spite of all of this, God's

will was going to be done.

Because in God's preordained plan, there was a blessing that needed to

continue to be passed on down.

And what's that blessing that had to be passed on down?

The seed promise.

The seed promise.

What is the seed promise?

Ultimately, Christ would come into the world to bless the world.

And so it didn't matter, really, which was first born, which was second born.

It's the seed promise that gets passed on down.

And so through deception, let's call it what it is,

Jacob goes to his father with a prepared meal

with some sort of fur on his arms, on the back of his neck, so that the father

would be completely fooled into giving the blessing.

Not a blessing, but the blessing.

And so when Esau comes back, he sees what has happened and he says, Daddy, Daddy, don't

you have a blessing for me?

Well, he could give him a blessing, but it's not the blessing.

So we have Jacob, who is going to now continue on his journey, and we're in

chapter 28.

Jeff, give me the first five verses of it.

Now, as we get into this, this is now, this is the chapter, I believe, where Jacob

really meets Yahweh, okay?

Prior to this, he probably knew of Yahweh.

His father would have told him about Yahweh.

But I think at this point in time, this is that aha moment for Jacob, where he actually

encounters and knows Yahweh.

You see, the reality is that in the flesh, I am dead.

But in the spirit, I get the opportunity to meet Yahweh.

That's that little symbol that I have down there, the tetragrammaton in Hebrew, that is Lord.

So when you see that in the Hebrew, when you see caps in your Bible, Lord, that is

Yahweh, that's who that is.

It's through the spirit that we even get the opportunity to meet him.

God's sovereign's blessing are always based on his sovereign will.

So here we have Jacob.

He has deceived his father.

He has received the blessing, and this is all in God's will as well.

But now we're going to learn a little bit more about Jacob on his journey as he actually meets Yahweh.

Give me the first five verses.

Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and directed him.

You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women.

Arise, go to Paddan Aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and take as

your wife from there one of the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother.

God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of

peoples.

May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land

of your sojournings that God gave to.

Abraham.

Thus Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan Aram, to Laban, the son of Bethuel

the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob's and Esau's mother.

Wow, lots of stuff going on in here, but taking it from the bigger picture, what we have is Isaac is

encouraging his son with the affirmations of the blessing, of instructions

regarding finding a wife, and a reminder of God's promise that comes all the way down through Abraham.

So he's giving him this reminder, and he's gonna send him on his way.

So we started out at the beginning of verse one, the blessing refers to the coming of the Messiah.

Now, that Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and directed him.

He's already given him the blessing.

That does not have to be re -imparted onto him.

I see the passing of the blessing from the father to the appropriate son, according to God's

will, similar to salvation.

You don't ever have to be re -saved.

You're saved, it is done, it is written, you are saved.

Jacob has already received the blessing.

And so at this point in time, he's not receiving the seed blessing.

That's already been given.

Now, Isaac is gonna give his son basically a word of encouragement.

He's gonna bless him to go on his way to follow after God.

Genesis 27 verses 23 and 35 talks about how Jacob received

the blessing.

So this is not the same, this is just now moving him on to continue on.

So what he's gonna do now is he's gonna talk to him about something that has

been a problem in the family, of finding the right wife and calling her the right wife and not

calling her a sister and establishing a godly lineage,

if you would.

Now, Jeff, you get the fun passage again next week because we're gonna learn about Jacob's getting

many wives and servants and everything else.

So I'm looking forward to you handling that one.

But he's gonna be sent on his way.

Now, Padamiram, if you remember, Abraham, when he was Abram, was from Ur.

That would have been way over to the east.

And he was called, his father was called, and they actually left Ur and went up north, and it's now northeast

of Canaan as we know it, into Haran, into Padamiram.

And that's where Abram really gets his first personal call from the Lord.

And that's where Abram had sent the servant to get a wife

for Isaac.

Don't take him from the land, don't take him from among the Canaanites.

Go back to the land of your family, to the land of Laban, and that's where Rebecca

has the encounter and the meeting with Isaac, Isaac's servant, when they're there.

So now he's on his way, and he said, don't go take a wife from the Canaanites.

What is the problem with God's people intermarrying

with people of the land?

Good answer.

In what way influencing them?

You're basically

answering right out of Deuteronomy 7, so that's a good answer.

Think of Solomon, think of Samson, think of how women have

taken men of God and diverted them from where they would be.

The one that I think, although he sinned out of lust, David with

Bathsheba, it doesn't seem like she pushed him away from having his heart.

He's still called a man after God's own heart.

But Deuteronomy 7 is gonna warn them.

Now this is after the fact, this account is before that.

But God's plan is not to intermarry with people of the land exactly as you said, Sue, because if you do,

that wife, that woman that comes into your life is going to actually move you aside.

This actually takes us right back to Genesis 3.

In God's economy, who is the spiritual head of the house?

The man.

And what is the curse that's placed on the woman?

Pain and childbirth, but what is the curse that's given to women?

Your desire?

To strive after the man.

Yes, to strive, and it says your desire will be after man.

That doesn't mean that the woman is gonna want this man, want this man, want this man.

What it really means is that this woman is gonna want this man's authority.

The woman is now going to be cursed with a desire to take the authority away from the

man.

Authority, I missed the word authority.

Yeah, authority.

Yeah, that's the key word.

That is the key word right there.

So the issue problem would be if the men were godly men, would they be

persuaded by the woman to follow after their idols?

The answer would be no, if they were really godly men.

But the concern is that if you've already compromised into not following God's plan, God's

economy, taking a wife where God would want you to, you're taking a God from the heathens, from

the idolaters.

You are going to be motivated, happy wife, happy life,

okay?

Your wife wants to worship in this way, and it will be a slow maybe, or even

a sudden shifting of where their heart would be.

So the concern that Isaac has for Jacob is similar to the

concern that Abraham had for his son Isaac.

Don't take a wife from the Canaanites.

It will only lead you astray.

And so he says, go back to Padamaram, the house of Beuthel.

I love that word, Padamaram.

You pronounce it Padamaram, whatever.

I like that name.

The house of Beuthel, your mother's father, take a wife from there, from Laban.

That is all gonna take us back to the story of Isaac's servant going there.

It's all part of the same story, but in this case, Isaac is telling Jacob, you personally go

there and find the one.

And as he does this now, Isaac is going to encourage Jacob on his

journey by reminding him of the God's covenant promise that was given

to his grandfather, Abraham, given to him.

And now it's a reminder that this is a promise for you.

So Genesis 12, 1 to 3 is the first passing of the covenant promise of God.

I will make you great, I will bless you, you will be a great nations, your offspring will be like the sands of the sea,

the stars of the sky, and in you all the nations will be blessed.

All of these promises are basically being passed on now from Abraham to Isaac

and now to Jacob.

And you're gonna take possession of the land of your sojournings.

The land that Israel is attempting to occupy and is being opposed by

Iran and all of their surrogates.

I'm sorry, the Bible says it, it's their land.

So we do know that.

So with all of this placed on Jacob to encourage him and to prepare him to go out,

what's beautiful is it says, and he went.

Isaac sent Jacob away and he went.

There's an obedience implication there in Jacob.

So he went to Padamaram, to Laban, to the son of Bethuel, the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob,

and Esau's mother.

So although Jacob had acted deceitfully in the last chapter, he was a man of deceit,

God's blessing, his sovereign will are not defeated.

It is going to be God's design for Jacob to end up.

I guess you have to say it was God's design that he would have Rachel and Leah as well as the other two,

because God is sovereign.

Why do you say it was God's design?

I have a big God.

Nothing happens outside of God's ordained will.

But he should have taken the first place.

That's where Jeff and I, we talk about this often.

Do you know what that means?

You're mixed up.

I am.

He put it much better than you did.

I'm going to quote that, though, I'm going to quote that.

I know you will.

Scripture is clear and there is no equivocation, God is sovereign.

Scripture is clear that even the casting of the lots is according to God's hand.

That's Proverbs - 1633.

1633.

There is nothing that happens that God did not preordain, including the sacrifice of his son.

Everything is according to God's will, yet, God says that we have a responsibility to make a

choice.

Jeff calls that compatibilism.

I call it Calvarymanianism, because I think that's fun to say.

Was it the way that Jacob should have

behaved in a godly way No, but was that outside of God's sovereignty?

No, that wasn't.

It's not outside of sovereignty, but yet Jacob is held accountable for what he did.

When I sat through my licensing counsel to become a pastor, they challenged me on this, and I

explained this away, and I said, my God is so big he can make both happen, and I can't explain how, but that's

okay because he's God and I'm not.

Jacob is accountable for what he did, but yet he didn't do anything outside the sovereign will of God.

Can you put it any differently?

That's perfectly said.

Well said.

John, I would also say that from our perspective, we have to make a choice.

That isn't to say that God doesn't know what choice we're going to make.

If that makes it predetermined.

We need to be careful on the progressive knowledge or insight of God, but

because before the foundation of the world, he already knew the sins that I was going to make.

So this is, man doesn't like to be that much under the

authority of God, but we are, but we are.

So that, yeah.

Two parallel lines that intersect in heaven.

Nowhere before.

Probably very well said as well.

I think he said it better.

I'm just confused.

And the word that you said before was calminian,.

Not calarminian.

Calv, Calvinist, calvarminian.

Yeah, but I think before you said calminian, but now you're saying calarminian.

So which one is it?

C -A -L -V, calv.

Calvminian or calvarminian?

Is that important?

Now I am really confused.

I just want to get the record straight.

Now we know you are confused.

So let's move on to Esau.

We've set the stage for Jacob, but Isaac's got two sons,

and one of them felt really slighted.

He did not get the blessing, and he felt really slighted.

So Jeff, continue on six through nine about Esau.

Genesis 28, six to nine.

Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to

Paddan.

Aram?

How do you say it?

Whatever.

To take a wife from there.

And that as he blessed him, he directed him, you must not take a wife from the Canaanite women.

And that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and gone to Paddan Aram.

So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac, his father, Esau went to

Ishmael, took as his wife, besides the wives he had,

Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nabal.

So Esau's jealous.

Let's just call it what it is.

Esau is jealous, and because of that, he is now gonna start to react in ways that are

contrary to God's design.

He's gonna make the choice.

His choices are gonna lead him down a bad path.

Now Esau, as it says here, heard Isaac's direction to his brother,

and in that, he told him how to find a wife, where to go to find a wife, and that he got the blessing.

And it says he saw Jacob's obedience, leaving and going to Paddan Aram.

He saw all of that.

And how did he respond?

Did he hold a going away party?

No. Anger.

If we go into Luke 15, we hear this story about the prodigal son, and that can be

studied from many different perspectives.

One of them is the other son.

And the other son, who stayed behind as his

wayward brother took half of the inheritance and went off and spent it all, he stayed working

the estate with his dad, and then back comes little Johnny.

I'm back, Dad, can you, and the father says, take the fatty cat.

And how did the other brother react?

He wasn't happy.

There is a self -righteousness, there is an aspect of

taking offense to the fact that I didn't get what my brother got, I don't have, and he did.

This is a lot of what Esau is experiencing right now.

And we can argue that what happened in chapter 27, he's justified because

not only did Jacob deceive his father but his mother was party to it as

well.

And his father was deceived, and he's on an island all by himself.

So we can see it, but it's not right.

Now, what Esau is going to do, having heard the direction that

Isaac has for Jacob, don't take a wife here, go to Bet -Amaran, and he's heard that the

blessing was given, he's heard all of this information, and he's seen his brother go, and instead of

trying to take stock, and what have I done with my life?

He says, I'm going to try to get on my dad's good graces.

So what does he do to try to get on his dad's good graces?

What does he do here?

Now, if we go back into Genesis 26, Esau took two wives from the Canaanites.

He already had two wives, but they were Canaanites.

And so Esau is now hearing his father say, it's not right, you don't take

Canaanite wives.

So instead of understanding where he's at, figuring out what do I do now, he concocts a plan to

perhaps get into his dad's good graces and he takes a wife not

of the Canaanites.

Who's Ishmael?

Ishmael was the, perhaps, first son, but not his true son, his true son, of

course, is Isaac.

He did what the hand did.

Yes, he did.

Ah, okay, now I get it.

Yes, he did.

I couldn't put it, yes.

Yes, he did.

And God does not put a thumb down on Ishmael.

Remember, he says, you will be a great nation, you will be a many people.

He tells him that.

Although the true blessing goes to Isaac, the seed blessing, the

care for and the taking care of the prosperity for Ishmael is actually prophesied as God

tells Ishmael he will be.

So instead of Esau figuring out what have I done wrong, he figures out how can I make my

dad not angry at me?

I got it, I'll marry one of his relatives.

It's not a Canaanite woman, so I'm gonna take another wife.

This time I'm gonna take one of the children of Ishmael.

Yeah, he would be related.

Second cousin maybe, something like that.

So if you did a family tree, Isaac is a brother to Ishmael,

half -brother.

And so yeah, I guess they're cousins.

But that was his plan.

So he takes the wife, figuring that this was going to make things right.

So you know, here's the problem with Esau at this moment, is that he wants to improve his

standing before his father, but what he does, because of his defiance against Jacob

and his disobedience to his father, he's basically gonna try to act to establish

self -righteousness for himself, that perhaps my father will accept me because of

this.

That's pretty much the end of that story.

Now we're gonna go back to Jacob.

Sandy, I'm gonna ask if you would read 10 through 16, please.

Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went, he

came to his head and

lay down in that place.

He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was sent on the earth with its top reaching to heaven.

And behold, the angels of God were ascending,

and then it said, Lord, the God of your father,

and to you, to

spread out to the west, and in your

descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

Behold, I bring you back

to you until I have done what I have promised you.

Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, surely the Lord is in this place.

On his journey to Padamaram, in obedience to his father, he's heading out to a land

that he doesn't really know.

Haran in the area, Padamaram, the village, to the house of his mother's

family.

And while he's up there, he's going to meet Yahweh.

And I said that for each one of us that have a relationship with God, there is that aha moment

where you do know that you know God.

And I believe this is it for Jacob in this section right here.

So he's on his way, he's on his journey, and it's gonna be a several day journey from where he is in central

Canaan, heading up northeast, outside of the land, to the land of Haran, to the village of Padamaram, to

Laban's family.

It's gonna take a number of days' journey.

Mike Lindell sells pillows.

Anybody here have a MyPillow pillow?

We have lots.

My previous husband did.

Anybody here sleep on a stone?

That one gets me that he felt comfortable in sleeping on a stone.

That's what he did.

He comes to a certain place and laid down, because the sun was down, and he took one of the stones under his head and laid down

in a place to sleep.

This is just facts as what's transpiring right there.

Nothing more than a day's journey is over and he's gonna sleep.

But it's while he's asleep that he has a dream.

There are times where God exposes himself, where he reveals

himself in some supernatural way.

And I think that this is more than a vision.

In his dream, I believe this is a reality, that what he sees is actually what he sees.

There have been times in scripture beyond this where God's, his presence

is so unexplainable, except that it's God.

Exodus 3, there's the burning bush.

And it says that Moses is tending for the flocks and he saw a bush that wouldn't burn.

And in it was an angel of the Lord.

That is not God, that is not the second person of God.

It is actually an angel.

Then he's gonna turn around and look, and then Yahweh sees that he turned around, and then Yahweh speaks

to him and reveals himself.

I am, I am.

That's gonna be the same I am that shows up here in the same Lord.

We go into Exodus Isaiah 6.

And one of my favorite passages, somehow the prophet is somehow transported,

metaphysically somehow transported into the very throne room of God.

Again, it's not reported that this is a vision, because some of the tactile experiences like having

burning coal touch his lips, it's more than just an imagined vision.

But he is actually taken to the very throne room of God.

In this particular case, Jacob has been prepared by God.

Jacob has been given a gift through the Holy Spirit to

experience this dream in a way as we read through this text that he knows this

is Yahweh.

And it says that he's asleep, and while he's asleep he sees a ladder.

I have a fear of heights.

Jeff, I think you do too.

A little bit.

You exposed that.

Ours were different reasons, but ladders freak me out really bad.

Sandy would be able to attest to that.

If I have to go on a tall ladder and get leaves out of my gutter, it's not pretty.

He sees a ladder.

It starts on the earth and it goes up into the heavens.

That's a pretty good -sized ladder.

And on this ladder, the angels are ascending and descending.

And the best I can get off of that picture is just this reality that God

dispatches his messengers, his angels, his guardians to come to earth to be part of

man's humanity.

I don't take it any deeper than that, except that as he looks, he saw at the

top, above it, the Lord.

That is the tetragrammaton.

That's the picture.

Here's Jacob.

And up until this point in time, I don't think we would describe Jacob as a Yahweh believer.

I think he knows of Yahweh.

First of all, scripture teaches us that the devil believes, that there's a difference between believing and

accepting.

The devil believes and he troubles.

Clearly, Jacob has heard the stories about God.

He has heard from his grandfather, his father, to know these things.

But this is now becoming an experience that opens the eyes for Jacob to

understand.

And he says, behold, the Lord stood above it.

And the Lord then speaks to Jacob.

I am, can you hear that right out of Exodus chapter

three?

I, the God of your, God of Abraham, your father.

And that he's revealing himself in a way that the Holy Spirit has opened the

eyes of Jacob's heart.

And he is going to understand.

We're gonna see that in just a minute.

That really was God.

It really was the Lord speaking to me.

And so now Yahweh is gonna encourage Jacob with more information than his

father Isaac had given him.

He had given him encouragement on the blessings, but here's this thing.

I am the Lord God.

The land in which you lie, I will give to you and your offspring.

Your offspring will be like the dust of earth and you shall spread from the east to the west and north to the south.

And in your offspring shall all the families of earth be blessed.

I am with you.

Can you hear this now in the beginning of Joshua?

As the nation has been in the wilderness for 40 years after they basically sinned at

Kadesh Barnea.

So now they wander for 40 years until that generation dies.

Now they're about to go into the land.

They're in camp at Shittim.

And Joshua now has the charge.

It's no longer Moses.

And God encourages him, says, do not be afraid.

I am with you.

I will go with you.

I will go before you.

And here it says, behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.

And will bring you to this land for I will not leave you until I have done what I promised to you.

I would almost encourage, take that last phrase, write it down on an index card

and read it every day until the meaning of that phrase is just so

deep into your heart that it changes your life.

For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.

The reality is that each one of us have been promised from God what he wants

us to know.

Each one of us has heard from God.

Should we listen?

Should we take time and listen?

Do you know what God's promises are for you?

And are you so confident in God that regardless of who won the election yesterday,

regardless of how that may have paid out, are you so confident that when you hear

Yahweh say, I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you,

we've wondered for a long time what is happening to our property.

Long -eared bats, you've got to be kidding me.

There aren't any.

Just shoot the little buggers.

A vernal pool?

Hello, everywhere in Mount Laurel, when it rains, there's a vernal pool.

A place where there is water sometimes and there isn't water other times.

But you can see it.

Yeah.

And maybe, maybe, maybe there might be some sort of endangered species in there.

The battle, it's spiritual.

It's a spiritual battle, folks.

And it seemed really stressful.

It could seem really stressful.

But take these words, I will not leave you.

I will not leave you, church.

I will not leave you, cornerstone.

I will not leave you, Pastor Jeff, until I have what I have promised you.

And that's the promise that Yahweh gives to Jacob in his sleep.

And it's not a vision and it's not a dream.

It is reality.

Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, surely the Lord is in this place.

I didn't know.

Catch that phrase.

He says, surely I know.

For this, I didn't know it.

That's why I believe that this is the passage, that aha moment where Jacob becomes a true

follower, a true believer in Yahweh.

Is this mean Jacob's tendencies to do things wrong is gonna go away?

No, but even that's encouraging.

Because none of us are perfect, but God is still with him and the seed promise has been given to

him.

He knows now Yahweh is in this place.

You see, when God meets you, when God takes that initiative through his Holy Spirit to open the

eyes of your heart and meets you, your life changes.

And for Jacob, life has changed.

Mary Elizabeth, please, read 17 to 22.

And 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.

So early in the morning, Jacob took the stone that he had put under the Lord's oil on the

top of it.

He called the name of Yahweh, it was Luz.

Then Jacob made a vow saying, if God will be with me, will keep me and will give me

bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my

father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God.

And this stone, which I have set up for a killer, shall be God's house.

And of all that you give me, I will give a full.

He has just met God.

Now, it was in a dream, but he has just met God.

And how does he respond?

In this passage, it's beautiful because there are six responses that Jacob

gives to his encounter with Yahweh.

The first one is fear.

He knows he is in the very presence of God.

And in the very presence of God, holiness is, that's the standard.

But he is a just God, he is a loving God, but yet we are to fear him in a way that we desire to

do nothing less than to be in complete obedience and response to who he is.

Then he erects a memorial.

There are things that we can do in our life to commemorate an

encounter with God, to commemorate a relationship, an experience with God.

That's what this is.

This is a memorial for him to remember, but it's also a

place that is set up that in generations to come, it's kind of like in, again, Joshua, where they set the stones up

from the river onto the, well, this is, in generations to come, what do these stones mean?

And it's like, well, this is where Yahweh safely brought us across the river, setting up memorials

to remember those times.

You can go back to them.

You can rejoice with them.

You can teach them to your kids, to your grandkids, and on down to generations.

Then he consecrates the pillar.

The picture there of pouring oil over it is to realize that this is not just

an earthly thing.

This is a holy moment.

The picture of pouring oil over it is to say, I consecrate this as a holy

remembrance.

It is to be for God and for him, not just for me.

Then he calls the place Bethel, and Bethel means house of God.

For me, my Bethel is my dorm room, the sixth

floor of Bancroft Hall, the first Friday in April in 1970 when I accepted the Lord.

That's my Bethel.

I'm not going back there, but in my mind, I can always go back to that place.

Or that moment that was in your mind where perhaps a son -in -law,

after years and years and years praying for him, finally says, John, I'm now a believer.

And that's, for me, that's a Bethel.

Take those places and understand them.

He then makes a vow to Yahweh.

It's like, I'm serious now about my relationship.

And we are warned in the Sermon on the Mount, be careful about making vows to God.

You can't swear by your head making one black or white.

You can't do all these things.

Let your yes be yes, your no be no.

And in this case, I am affirming in front of God, this is how I desire to live to you.

Cannot be taken seriously.

He then promises to tithe back to Yahweh.

And the tithe is just acknowledging that everything I have, everything I receive, everything I have in control over

is God's in the first place.

And I'm giving him 10 % right off the top.

In this passage, when Yahweh speaks to your soul, full, unconditional response

is the only correct response.

Don't equivocate, don't go partway, go after him.

My takeaway is meeting with God is always initiated by God's grace.

When God directs obedience, places a person in position to hear his call.

If God gives you a direction and you obey, that's putting you in a position to hear what he has to call you.

But yet, even that obedience is only enabled by God.

Because my flesh is going to get in the way.

Ephesians 2, one to four, which includes a prayer.

Father God, thank you for your grace in which we stand.

And now Lord, help us to respond fully to you, to give everything that we have back to you.

And Lord, help us to follow this example in giving our tithes.

Lord, that we would be willing to give that full tenth.

Lord, give us the faith to do that.

As an example, not as a law.

Lord, we follow and we thank you so much for the indescribable gift that was given to us.

Christ, crucified for our sins, risen from the dead, in whose name we pray.

Amen. Amen.

Thank you, folks.

And good luck next week.

Yeah.