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.

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 going to 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 going to wake up Wednesday morning and whoever wins, you're still going to 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 got to 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 blessings 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 Pat and 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 Pat and 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 going to send him on his way. So we started out in the beginning of verse one, the blessing refers to the coming of the

Messiah. Now, then 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 resaved. 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 going to give his son basically a word of encouragement.

He's going to 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 going to do now is he's going to talk to him about something that has been a problem in the family, 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 going to 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 going to be sent on his way. Now, but Abraham, 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 Padamaram.

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 it 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 still called a man after God's own heart. But Deuteronomy 7 is going to 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? 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 going to want this man, want this man, want this man.

What it really means is that this woman is going to 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, that's the word. 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?

Because 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.

Your wife wants to worship in this way and it will be a slow maybe or even a sudden shifting of where the 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 going to 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 nation. 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 going to 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 one. See, that's where Jeff and I, we talk about this often.

I'm a Calvarminiist. 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 16 .33. 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 Calvarminianism 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 council 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. John? 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, it's certainly for knowledge.

We need to be careful on the progressive knowledge or insight of God because before the foundation of the world, he already knew the sins that I was going to make.

So this is, 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.

That's probably very well said as well. I think she, 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 he, before you said Calminian, but now you're saying Calarminian. So which one is it?

C -A -L -V, Calv. Calminian or Calarminian? 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, for, for Jacob, but, 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 Panamaran?

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 Panamaran.

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 is jealous.

Let's just call it what it is. Esau is jealous and because of that, he is now going to start to react in ways that are contrary to God's design.

He's going to make the choice. His choices are going to 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 Panamaran.

He saw all of that. And how did he respond? No. Anger.

He was furious with it. 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, 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 Pet 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? He goes to Ishmael.

I had a question, but where does Ishmael fit in this thing? That's the question.

What's this all about? 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 perhaps the first son, but not his true son.

His true son, of course, was Isaac. Yes, he did.

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 of many people. He tells him that. Although the true blessing goes to Isaac, the seed blessing, the care for and the taking care and 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 going to take another wife. This time I'm going to 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 going to 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 going to go back to Jacob. Sandy, I'm going to ask if you would read 10 through 16, please.

Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and spent the night there, because the sun had set.

And he took one of the stones of the place and put it under 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 descending on it.

And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord, the God of your father

Abraham and the God of Isaac, the land on which you lie.

I will give it to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south.

And in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave 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, and I did not know it. 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 going to 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 going to take a number of days' journey. Mike Lindell sells pillows. Anybody here have a

MyPillow pillow? I have lots. My previous husband did.

Anybody here sleep on a stone? That one gets me, that he felt comfortable 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 going to 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 presence is so unexplainable, except that it's

God. Exodus 3, there's the burning bush. 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 going to 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 going to 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 expose 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 a gutter, it's not, 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, Yahweh. When we went to Sight and Sound, in their theater, in one of their programs, they had this ladder that started down in the audience and went up to nothing, and Christ was at the top of that.

That's the picture I'm seeing. That's the picture? Yeah. So 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 it says, Behold, the Lord stood above it, and the Lord then speaks,

I am the Lord. Can you hear that right out of Exodus chapter 3?

I am the Lord. The God of Abraham, your father, and the

God of Isaac. 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 going to see that in just a minute. That really was God. It really was the Lord speaking to me.

And so now Yahweh is going to 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, the 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 and 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?

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.

Yeah, and maybe there might be some sort of endangered species and 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 and I didn't know it.

Catch that phrase. He says, Surely I know. Before 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.

Does this mean Jacob's tendencies to do things wrong is going to 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 his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it.

He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at first.

Then Jacob made a vow, saying, If God will be with me, will keep me, and will keep me in the way that I go, 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 pillar, shall be God's house.

And of all that you give me, I will give a full tenth to you. He has just met

God. Now, it's 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 and 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, 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. For me, that's a Bethel. To take those places and understand them.

He then makes a vow to Yahweh. It's like, I'm serious now about my relationship.

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. In this case, I am affirming in front of God, this is how

I desire to live to you. It cannot be taken seriously. He then promises to tithe back to Yahweh.

The tithe is just acknowledging that everything I have, everything I receive, everything I'm 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, 1 -4. Would you close in 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.