What You Need to Know About the Stairway to Heaven | Pastor Allen Nolan Sermon

But here's the thing I want you to notice. When God spoke to Jacob in this dream, he said exactly what he said to Abraham. Wow, did you catch that? The very thing he promised to Abraham is the very thing he promised to Isaac. If you remember when we studied him speaking to Isaac.

Well, last week we finished chapter 27, so now we're ready to move on to chapter 28. But before we do, let me make one last comment about the last verse in chapter 27. If you would look at verse number 46 in chapter 27, notice what it says: "Then Rebekah said to Isaac, 'I am sick and tired of these local Hittite women. I would rather die than see Jacob marry one of them.'"

Now, women, here you can start using this as a, as a figure of speech. If you have some woman at the office that you don't like, just start with "the Hittite." But anyways, here Rebekah is, and she's saying, "I can't stand, I am sick and tired of these Hittite women."

Now, last week I asked you a question. I asked you, "Why do you think that this verse was inserted in this particular spot?" Because it really doesn't fit. Think about it. Esau has just threatened to kill Jacob just as soon as Isaac dies. So what does mama do? Mama says, "Jacob, you need to leave town and you need to leave quick." And I, I want you to understand that you don't need to come back until Esau cools off. Because what she was thinking is, if Jacob would leave for a while, he would be out of sight, out of mind, and eventually Esau would forget about him because, really, he was easily distracted and he didn't stay focused for very long. So what she wanted him to do was, she wanted him to leave, and then when Esau forgot about it and got over it, she could call for him and he could come home again.

And that's what we're reading about when all of the sudden things change in midstream. Out of nowhere, Rebekah turns to Isaac and she says, "I am sick and tired of these local Hittite women. I would rather die than see Jacob marry one of them." Now, what in the world does that have to do with the story that we're reading about?

Well, there's two reasons why this verse is inserted in this particular spot. First of all, the author of Genesis wants us to know just, just how rebellious Esau really was. You see, in their culture, marriages were arranged by the father, and the father wouldn't even consider arranging a marriage if he didn't think that his son was mature enough to get married. And it was also tradition for the older son to get married first. Now, Esau wasn't mature enough to get married, but Jacob was. But since it was tradition for the older, the older son to get married before the younger son, Isaac hadn't made arrangements for either one of them. Isaac was waiting for Esau to grow up, but Esau refused to grow up and he also refused to wait. So he took matters into his own hands and he went out and he didn't just marry one Canaanite woman, he married two.

Look back at Genesis chapter 26, verses 34-35: "At the age of 40, okay, Esau is tired of waiting. He doesn't care what the old man says, he's going to go get married. So at the age of 40, Esau married two Hittite wives: Judith the daughter of Beeri and Basemath the daughter of Elon." But Esau's wives made life miserable for Isaac and Rebekah. So that was the first reason that verse number 46 is thrown in here, so we could see just how rebellious Esau was, because he did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. He didn't care about customs, he didn't care about traditions, he didn't care about obedience to his parents. He was going to do what he wanted, when he wanted to do it.

Now, the second reason that verse number 46 is thrown in here is to give us more insight into Isaac. You see, Isaac had heard about Esau's threats. It wasn't just Rebekah that overheard this, oh no, no. Esau was the kind of guy that if he was in a bad mood, you knew about it. Everyone knew about it. So when he decided that he was going to kill Jacob just as soon as Dad dies, he started telling people about it. And I'm sure that Isaac heard it too. The only difference was, Isaac didn't take it seriously. In his mind, Esau's just talking, he wouldn't really do it. He loves his brother and he would never do anything to hurt him. But Rebekah knew better. But she also knew that Isaac wouldn't listen to her. So she had to give Isaac another reason for Jacob leaving and for going so far away. And the perfect excuse was to find a mate. So that's the second reason that verse number 46 was thrown in here. It was to convince Isaac that Jacob needed to leave and he needed to go to Haran.

Now, the correct pronunciation is Haran, but we don't say it that way in Oklahoma. So I'm going to stick with Haran. If that bothers you, and I doubt it will, because most of you grew up hearing it Haran, right? We're just going to keep on doing that. So now that you know that, we're ready to study chapter 28. So turn to Genesis chapter 28 and let's read verses 1-5.

"So Isaac called for Jacob, blessed him and said, 'You must not marry any of these Canaanite women. Instead, go at once to Paddan-aram to the house of your grandfather Bethuel and marry one of your uncle Laban's daughters. May God Almighty bless you and give you many children, and may your descendants multiply and become many nations. May God pass on to you and your descendants the blessings he promised to Abraham. May you own this land where you are now living as a foreigner, for God gave this land to Abraham.' So Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram to stay with his uncle Laban, his mother's brother, the son of Bethuel the Aramean."

Now, in preparation for Jacob's journey, Isaac does what he should have done in the very first place. He has the blessing ceremony, and he's designating Jacob to be the rightful heir of the birthright. Now, people, this is a public, and that's why Esau is there, and he heard everything that Isaac said to Jacob. Look at verse number six:

"Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take to himself a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he charged him, saying, 'In other words, he not only saw him bless him, but he heard everything that he said. He blessed him, he charged him, saying, "You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan."'"

Now, I want you to underline that word "saw." Saw is translated from the Hebrew word "ra," and it means that Esau physically saw him with his own two eyes. He saw Isaac blessing Jacob, and he heard with his own two ears everything that Isaac said to Jacob. He heard the blessing as well as the command not to take a wife from the daughters of the Canaanites. Which means that this was a public ceremony. This was the, the way the blessing was supposed to be given in a public ceremony with all of the members present, and many times all of your higher-ranking servants. So you would have this public ceremony, and for witnesses, you brought in others who weren't family. You would bring in those who were servants, but they were in management positions, and you would have the lower servants come in, and they would begin to feed at this banqueting table. But Esau is present, so we know this was a public ceremony.

Now, let's look at the blessing that Isaac gave to Jacob. Look at verses three and four:

"May God Almighty bless you and give you many children, and may your descendants multiply and become many nations. May God pass on to you and your descendants the blessings he promised to Abraham. May you own this land where you are now living as a foreigner, for God gave this land to Abraham."

Now, do you see anything missing in this blessing? Remember, there's two parts to the blessing, right? Yeah. So the first part, which ex-, which explained why Jacob was chosen, has been left out. Remember, the blessing had two parts. The first part was an explanation of why this particular son was chosen to receive the birthright, why he was worthy to receive it. And the second part was, was a special prayer invoking God, invoking God's blessings upon the recipient. But Isaac skipped the first part and went right to the second part. And this is the second time that he's done that.

Now, you see, you and I, we don't really notice these things. But if you were a Jew, especially around Jesus' time, or any time in the Old Testament, you would have recognized, "Well, Isaac didn't do it right the second time. He left out one of the important parts of the blessing." The first part, which explains why this son is worthy to receive the blessing. But Isaac skipped it and he went right to the second part. So why did he do that?

Well, it's kind of interesting because, let's be honest, he could have given a dozen reasons why Jacob was worthy to receive it. So it wasn't like, "Well, I got two sons and they're both worthless, and I'm going to pick the worst of, or the best of the worst." You see what I'm saying? Or the best of the, how would you say it, of the two. But he didn't do that. And, and what's interesting is when you look in Jacob's life, as we looked at what the Bible has to say about him, he was a righteous person, he was upright, he was a very obedient child. The only time that we ever see him as a child, underneath Isaac and Rebekah, his parents, seemed to do something that was wrong, it's when his mother said, "Listen to me, you do what I say." And he says, "Mom, this isn't right. What if he finds out and he's going to curse me?" "Say, 'You let me handle that. Put it upon me.'" So basically, he's obeying what Mom told him to do. So there were a dozen reasons that he could give as to why Jacob was worthy to receive the birthright, but he doesn't do it.

So why does he skip, or why did he skip the first part? Well, he skipped the first part because it was a public ceremony, and Esau was present. Esau was there, and Isaac did what most fathers of problem children do. He refused to voice the shortcomings of his problem child, Esau, and he also refused to publicly praise or acknowledge the accomplishments of the good child in the home, which was Jacob. You see, Isaac should have explained why Esau was being disqualified as the recipient of the birthright because he was the firstborn, and as the firstborn, he had a right to know why he was being disqualified. And everyone else also had a right to know because they were family, they were part of this family, so they had a right to know why Esau was being rejected and Jacob was being selected.

Look at the book of Deuteronomy chapter 21. I want to read verses 16 and 17 again. And the reason I say again is because we read this last week. But notice what it says:

"When a man divides his inheritance, he may not give the larger inheritance to his younger son, the son of the wife he loves, as if he were the firstborn son. He must recognize the rights of his oldest son, the son of the wife he does not love, by giving him a double portion. He is the first son of his father's verity, and the rights of the firstborn belong to him."

Now, yes, the law was given after the story. So this story was before this law. But you need to understand that the culture and the tradition of that time were consistent with this law. This was the way it was done. It wasn't that Moses came up with something new. Oh, God revealed this. No, no, no. This was the common law at the time. This was the tradition and the custom of the time. If the older son was to be disqualified, he wasn't going to receive the birthright, an explanation had to be made. And the reason an explanation had to be made is because the law stated that you couldn't just say, "Well, you know, because this is a polygamous society, I don't really love the mother as much as I love this mother, therefore I'm going to, in order to please her, give her son who's not the oldest, the birthright." He couldn't do that. The law didn't allow that. The only way that you could come in and not give the firstborn the birthright is if he proved to be unworthy. So you had to give an explanation, and you had to give it publicly.

But again, Isaac was the typical father of a problem child. He didn't voice or publicly acknowledge the shortcomings of Esau. But neither did he praise or publicly acknowledge the good qualities and the accomplishments of Jacob. In Isaac's mind, "Well, that would make Esau feel bad. And God knows, we don't want to do that. So let's pretend that we don't notice the behavior of our problem child. Let's not talk about it. Let's not acknowledge it. We'll all pretend that all of these things that he does and has done has never happened and will never happen again." Yeah. And he was thinking, "Let's not acknowledge the good behavior, accomplishments of the other children." Uh-uh. "That would make Esau feel like he can't ever measure up."

Now, some of you have problem children, and you can relate to Isaac. You do the very same things because that's the typical behavior of parents, and especially fathers, who have a problem child. That's why when I was teaching the series on problem children, I told you that Esau was the poster child of problem children. And I really didn't go into it. I gave a few examples of why I said that. But when you study the story, you can't help but see Esau was the poster child of problem children. But I'm going to go further. Isaac was the poster parent of a problem child. All the typical behavior of parents, what they do when they have a problem child, Isaac did.

Now, here's what's interesting. It's human behavior to do these things. But hopefully, as you read the Word of God, you will recognize that and change it. But the sad truth is, most don't. Most parents who have a problem child, without even realizing it, they do these things. They will never publicly acknowledge. They will never voice any of these things that the problem child does, not out in public. And they try to hide it from the other kids. But all the other kids know their brother or their sister is a problem child. But not only that, because they don't want this problem child to feel bad about themselves, before they realize it, they get to the point where they never acknowledge the accomplishments or the good things or the attributes or the characteristics of the other children in the home. Because, "Well, that will make the problem child feel like they can't measure up. That will add to the low self-esteem."

People, let me just tell you something about problem children. Many times they're very, very intelligent and they manipulate the whole situation. And this was Esau. And we're going to see that as we go through. But I want you to notice what God is doing. He's painting a picture of a very dysfunctional family. And the reason this is a very dysfunctional family is because Esau is a problem child, and Isaac is the typical father of a problem child. He takes the family and makes it even more dysfunctional. He ends up splitting the family because of the way he did things.

Now, let's look at the blessing again. "May God Almighty bless you and give you many children, and may your descendants multiply and become many nations. May God pass on to you and your descendants the blessings he promised to Abraham." Now, did you catch that? "May God pass on to you and your descendants the blessings he promised to Abraham. May you own this land where you are now living as a foreigner, for God gave this land to Abraham."

Now, here's what's interesting. This blessing was the very same blessing that was passed down from Abraham to Isaac. In fact, this blessing is linked to the promises that God gave to Abraham in chapters 12 and 17. So it began with God specifically making promises to Abraham. Those promises were then passed to Isaac through the blessing, which means that God's promises to Abraham would be fulfilled through Isaac's descendants, not Ishmael's. And now they're being passed down to Jacob through the blessing, which means that God's promises to Abraham were going to be fulfilled through Jacob's descendants, not Esau's. It's going to be Jacob's descendants, the Jews, through which the seed of the woman is going to come, Jesus.

So, as I told you when we began this study in Genesis, Genesis is the foundation for the entire Bible. It's, it's the foundation for the entire Old Testament. Do we want to know why God all of a sudden focuses in on the Jews? Because at the very end of this book, we're going to see the children of Israel, I should say this, the children of Jacob, God does change his name to Israel. But I want you to understand, I'm talking about Jacob's 12 children or sons. They're going to go into Egypt and they're going to multiply. God's going to bless them like he said. And in the book of Exodus, which is the second book, Genesis, Exodus, he's going to send Moses there and he's going to let, let lead the children of Israel out of bondage. And of course, they're going to wander around into the, in the wilderness because they didn't have faith. But eventually, they're going to come into the promised land. And from that time on, the whole Old Testament focuses in on Israel, the descendants of Jacob. But we wouldn't know why if we didn't study the Book of Genesis. And the whole reason it's so important that we stick with the Jews is because of the promise that's made to Abraham. But it actually goes further back. It goes back to the promise that God made to Adam and Eve after they fell: "The seed of the woman would bring salvation." And who is the seed of the woman? Jesus.

So we now have this promise of the seed of the woman. Then Abraham comes along, and we have the seed of the woman, the promise made to him, it's going to come through his descendants. And now he has two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. But now we're going to come in and say it's going to come through Isaac. And then, as Isaac has two children, Esau and Jacob, now we find out that the promises made to Abraham, especially the seed of the woman, is going to come through Jacob. So by the time we get to the end of the book of Genesis, we know why the Old Testament is focused on the Jews. Does that make sense?

Now, if there's any doubt that Jacob was the one receiving the birthright, that's dispelled in verse number five. Look at verse number five:

"Then Isaac sent Jacob on his way, and he went to Paddan-aram. So Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, who was the mother of Jacob and Esau."

Now, again, because of our heritage, because we're Gentiles and not Jews, we don't notice anything strange there. But did anyone notice anything strange at the very end of verse number five? Yeah, the names are reversed. Notice the order of the names in the last part of this verse: "Rebekah, who was the mother of Jacob and Esau." You see, the order of their names demonstrates preeminence of status that Jacob now has over Esau. Jacob is now being recognized as the firstborn, even though he was the younger. He has the birthright. So he's listed as the firstborn. And from, and from this time on, Jacob will always be mentioned first.

Look at Joshua 24, verse number four: "To Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. To Esau I gave the mountain of Seir, while Jacob and his children went down into Egypt." Now, notice that Jacob is mentioned first, as if he's the firstborn, because he is the firstborn, because he got the birthright. It doesn't matter who was born first. If the firstborn was disqualified from receiving the birthright, he was not listed first. He's not to be the patriarch.

Now, why in the world is this stated in verse number five? Going to look at another example in a second. I'll tell you why. The reason it's stated like this in verse number five, and it begins here, is to make sure that you understand that Isaac blessed of his own accord, not just because he was tricked once. He realized his eyes were open. "I was getting ready to be disobedient to God. I know better than to do that." When it was time for Jacob to leave, he goes ahead and has the public ceremony, and he comes out and he gives the blessing to Jacob. But the only problem is, he didn't give the first part. So the Jews would be going, "Well, I see the blessing ceremony, and I see the blessing itself, but why didn't he give the first part?" So in verse number five, they make sure you understand, by putting Jacob first, that this is what he was doing. Isaac was doing. He was giving the blessing to Jacob.

Now, look at Hebrews 11:20: "By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future." There it is again. Jacob is mentioned first, as if he's the firstborn, even though he wasn't the firstborn. Why? Because he received the birthright. It is through him the promises that God made to Abraham, those promises are going to come upon his descendants, and not Esau's.

Now, let's look at Esau's reaction to all of this. He was mad before, right? Yes. He's mad. He's mad because Jacob has stolen my birthright. Now, wait a minute. You sold that birthright. You even made a vow. There was no "fingers crossed, legs crossed, I didn't mean it." No, no, no, no, no. But see, he wasn't going to honor that. And so he got upset when Jacob comes in, and he, he feels like he's stolen the blessing. And again, as I told you, according to the law, Esau, all, I'm sorry, Esau, all Isaac would have had to have done was to say, "Wait a minute, you received that blessing through deception. I'm not going to honor it. In fact, I'm now going to curse you for what you've done." And that's what Jacob was so worried about. "What if he finds out? What if he doesn't? How's this going to work out? Mommy's going to bring the cursing." And she says, "You just leave it to me."

And I'm sure, because this isn't written in here, but it probably happened like this. I'm sure Rebekah had a talk with Isaac. "You knew better. And so now that Jacob's getting ready to go, he has this public ceremony, the blessing, and he publicly gives it to him." But the only problem is, he didn't give the first part. He goes right into the second part. And everyone knows he is now the one who's received the birthright. He's going to get a double portion of the inheritance. But not only that, he will be the patriarch of the family. But even more importantly, the blessings that God gave to Abraham will come through his descendants and not Esau's.

And so, let's see Esau's reaction to this. Look at, and, and let's read verses 6-9:

"When Esau saw, okay, I've seen it with my own two eyes, that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take him a wife from there, and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, 'You shall not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan,' and that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother and was gone to Paddan-aram."

Now, here's what's kind of interesting. And he saw that Jacob obeyed. This is what always ticked Esau off about Jacob. Goody-two-shoes, always doing what Mom and Dad says, always obedient, always doing what God wanted him to do, always doing what Mom and Dad did. "Stick up for yourself," that's what Esau's thinking. But Esau's a typical problem child. So once he sees that this is official, okay, we've had it, it's here, he's given it to him, he saw that he didn't want him to marry a Canaanite woman, and now Jacob's obedient, he's taken off.

Verse eight: "And Esau, seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father, he realizes that he knew it before. He understood that Mom and Dad were trying to make it work because they love Esau. He's a problem child, but he's still their child, he's still their flesh and blood. He's been disobedient. He didn't wait for the dad, for his father to make arrangements for the wedding. No, he did things on his timetable. He went out, got who he wanted to marry. They came in and they made Isaac and Rebekah's life miserable. But Mom and Dad are trying to make it work. And because they tried to make it work, Esau, like most problem children, is kind of blind to all the problems that his wives are causing. But now he sees that the daughters of Canaan please not Isaac his father. Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebaioth, to be his wife."

Now, I want you to notice that when Esau heard Isaac telling Jacob not to marry Canaanite women because he didn't approve of them, he went straight to his uncle Ishmael and he married one of his daughters. Now, why did he do that? Anyone know? There are two theories. There are two theories as to why he did this. The first theory is that he was trying to get his father's approval and get back into his parents' good graces. You see, they wanted Jacob to marry a daughter from Rebekah's brother, Laban. Look back at verse number two: "They told Jacob, 'Arise, go to Paddan-aram to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father. From there, take yourself a wife from the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother.'" So Esau reasoned that if they wanted Jacob to marry a daughter from Rebekah's brother, Laban, then he should marry a daughter from Isaac's brother, Ishmael, because that's the very same thing, except it's from Dad's side of the family instead of Mom's side. So that should please them, right? Well, that's why some scholars believe that. Some scholars believe that Esau was trying to gain his father's approval and get back into the good graces of his parents.

But I don't believe that. I don't believe that for one moment. In fact, I believe he did it just to spite his parents. This is tit for tat. You don't like what I did? You've disqualified me from the birthright? You've given it to Jacob? Now you want him to pick this wife? Now that I see what really ticks you off, huh? Guess what? What I'm going to do is spite you.

Now, why do I believe this? Well, if you remember, Sarah told Abraham that she didn't want Isaac to have to share any of the inheritance with Ishmael. Do you remember that? So his mother was given her freedom, and Ishmael was disinherited. If you remember, the law of the land, she was a concubine. And so when Sarah came along and realized she wasn't getting pregnant, she passed the time when she could get pregnant, she had entered into menopause, and so she could no longer produce children. So what did she do? She took her handmaiden, Hagar, and she said, "Abraham, you sleep with her, and we'll have a child through her." So she became a concubine. She is a servant in which Abraham is having sex with her, and she gets pregnant. Now, when she gets pregnant, she begins to despise Sarah. Do you remember the story? And the reason she despised her is because, "I'm young and beautiful. Sarah is older." Now, she still had to be a very beautiful woman, as you look at the other stories. But at the same time, she's older, she can no longer produce any children. And so I'm this young thing, I'm probably 17, 18 years old. Hagar's thinking, "I've given you this son." And as a result of that, she gets to thinking that she doesn't have to obey Sarah, who was her servant, I mean, was her master. Remember, she was Sarah's handmaiden because she thinks Abraham is going to exalt her to the status of an official wife. And Sarah says, "You get in there and take care of it." And Abraham knows which side of his bread that it's buttered on. So he tells her, "You do what you want to do." And she goes in there and beats the dog out of her. How many of you remember the story?

So Hagar runs off. God comes to her, and she goes back and she submits. But she now understands her place. She is not going to be elevated to the status of a full wife or to an official wife. She is a concubine. Now, according to the law, according to the law, Ishmael, even though he was the son of a concubine, still got a share of the inheritance. So when Isaac comes along, guess what? Isaac's going to have to share the inheritance.

Now, here's the interesting thing. Ishmael does not get the right of the firstborn because he's from a concubine. In the law, it states that you don't do that. This has nothing to do with wives. Remember Deuteronomy when it says you have two wives? She was not a wife, she was a concubine. Remember that? So here's what's interesting. Sarah looks over there and she says, sees one day that Ishmael is bullying and teasing Isaac. Now, if you remember, Ishmael is 14 to 15 years older than Isaac. And this is the time for him to be weaned, which means he was at least three years old, maybe possibly all the way up to five years old. That means that Ishmael was anywhere between the ages of 17 to 21, anywhere in there, and he's picking on her. And all of a sudden, Sarah has it. She doesn't want Isaac to have to share anything with her handmaiden's son. So she tells Abraham, "You get rid of her." Remember the law, if he will free her, then he doesn't have to give an inheritance to her son because she received her freedom in its place. See, most of us don't remember that. And boy, Abraham doesn't want to do it. He loves Ishmael. So God has a talk and says, "This is part of my plan. You do it. I'll take care of him." And of course, God honors that, and we show that.

But here's what I want you to understand. Understand something. Even though there was an open hostility between Ishmael and Isaac, they still didn't have a great relationship because in Ishmael's eyes, "Isaac, Daddy got rid of me. Yeah, set my mama free, but we left and you got it all." And Isaac remembers because I'm sure Sarah told him the problems that were created because of that and what took place. And so even though there wasn't open hostility between Ishmael and Isaac, they still didn't have a great relationship because Abraham could have married Hagar and elevated her from a concubine to an official wife, but he didn't do it. So even though those two were civil to each other, they still didn't get along. They didn't have a good relationship.

So this is my point. If Esau thought that he could get into, into Isaac and Rebekah's good graces by marrying one of Ishmael's daughters, he was stupid beyond belief. Does everyone understand that? And I don't think he was stupid at all. Esau was not a stupid person. Most problem children are very, very intelligent. They just think differently. So he wasn't stupid. He was just a problem child. And a problem child will just about always do the opposite of what their parents want. If you have a problem child, you know what I'm talking about. If you want your child to buy these pants, they're not buying those pants, they're buying those pants. If you want your child not to go to the party, they want to go to the party. If you want them to go to the party, they don't want to go to the party. Usually, with the problem child, they want just the opposite of what you want.

So Esau probably realized that his parents didn't want him to marry Canaanite women, and they would really hate it if he married one of Ishmael's daughters. So guess what? The first thing he does, right after the public ceremony giving him the blessing and finding out he didn't want Jacob to marry Canaanite women, "You don't want a Canaanite woman? What would I do, Mom and Dad? I'm going to bring home one of Ishmael's daughters." And he does it. That's exactly what he did, which just gives you more insight into the type of person that Esau was. But people, that is typical behavior of a, of a problem child. Whatever you don't want them to do is exactly what they're going to do. And the reason this is put in here is because God wants us to know that he's not being unfair and unjust. You don't want the promises of God going through Esau's descendants. That's not the way biblical principles work. And so, in the midst of this dysfunctional family, we take a step back and go, "My gosh, how in the world did you get someone as healthy as Jacob through this?" And you've all been taught that, you know, Jacob was just this horrible person till God got a hold of him, which is not true. We just didn't understand it through Jewish eyes. We saw it through Gentile eyes. So as you can see, Esau was a problem child from day one, and he grew into a problem adult. And there's no way that he should have received the blessing. And that's why God wants us to know. So that by the time we now begin to focus on Jacob, because he's going to Paddan-aram, which is just an area in which Haran or Haran is a part of, we realize why the focus is on him. He's the guy, and his descendants are the ones through which the seed of the woman is going to come through.

Now, let's look at Jacob's journey. Look at verse 10:

"Meanwhile, Jacob left Beersheba and traveled towards Haran."

Now, let me show you how far it is from Beersheba to Haran. A little bit about the country of Israel. Let me begin by, by familiarizing you with this map. Of course, this is the Mediterranean Sea. North of it is modern-day Turkey. South is Egypt. In between Egypt and Israel is the Sinai Peninsula. Here you have the Red Sea. It splits into two gulfs. The Red Sea continues on to the Suez Canal, takes you out to the Mediterranean Sea. Then you have the Gulf of Aqaba. Actually looks like rabbit ears, if you notice that. The Gulf of Aqaba takes you to the port of Aqaba. And Jordan owns all of this. This is the nation of Jordan. On the west side of Israel, now in Israel, you can see the Sea of Galilee. If you notice where my cursor is, it's the little hand that's there. From the Sea of Galilee, you have the Jordan River that flows down to the Dead Sea. Directly west of the Dead Sea, you have Beersheba. From, uh, Beersheba to Jerusalem, it's about 45 miles. Let me zoom in so you can see the distance between a few of these places. Here's Jerusalem. Beersheba is about 45 miles southwest of Jerusalem. It's about, um, 35 miles directly west of the Dead Sea.

Now, Haran is in modern-day Syria. You can see it up north here. The distance, let me zoom out just a little bit. The distance from Haran to Beersheba is about 4, uh, 60 miles as the crow flies. But of course, that's not the way Jacob would have traveled. You wouldn't be able to go through the desert. So you would have had to stay on the existing roads. And if you notice this purple line, that is the existing roads that they all would have traveled. So Jacob would have come from Beersheba, past Jerusalem, past Shechem, and then he would have crossed over the Jordan River, followed the existing roads all the way to Haran, which was a distance of about 550 to 600 miles on foot.

Now, the reason I was showing you that is because sometimes we think, "Oh boy, two or three days, he got there." No, no, no. It took him three days just to get to the point where he's going to have this tremendous revelation from God. He has the dream of the staircase. It's referred to as Jacob's Ladder. How many of you remember Jacob's Ladder? That's a very important story. In fact, Jesus will actually compare himself to Jacob's Ladder. So we wanted to spend a lot of time on Jacob's Ladder and what it means and how it was such an important turning point in Jacob's life. At this point, God's going to confirm that, "Yes, you were the one I chose to receive the birthright, and the promises of Abraham are going to go through you."

Last week we studied the first part of chapter 28 in the Book of Genesis, and tonight we're going to finish that chapter. Now, from verse 10 on, uh, the focus is all on Jacob, and he's going to be the main character until we get all the way to Joseph. Now, don't get me wrong, Isaac and Esau are going to be mentioned, but every time they're mentioned, they're secondary characters. You see, now that we know that the blessings of Abraham are going to be fulfilled through Jacob's descendants, the focus is all on him. Remember, the blessing designated him as the recipient of the birthright. Therefore, he's now become the patriarch of the family. So when we talk about the patriarchs, who are we talking about? We're talking about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So what we studied last week and the few weeks before that is monumental, because if you don't understand that he was the rightful heir to the birthright, you do not understand why he was one of the patriarchs. So this is why the story is all about him from this point on until we get to Joseph.

To help you see the big picture, let's talk about the main characters of the Old Testament and how the Bible is laid out. Genesis has six main characters, beginning with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. If you can remember those six guys, you know the Book of Genesis, because those are the main characters in the book. After Genesis, the next four books, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, has one main character. And who would that be? Moses. When Moses dies, the torch is passed on to Joshua, and he becomes the main character. He's the person who's going to lead the children of Israel into the promised land. And the sixth book of the Bible, named Joshua, is all about him and the conquest of the promised land, the fulfillment, or I should say, partial fulfillment of the promises that God made unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Now, when Joshua dies, there is no supreme leader over Israel. Instead, they are ruled by judges, and the Book of Judges records the stories of all the judges until finally the people demand a king. So Israel becomes a kingdom ruled by a king, and the first three kings, Saul, David, and Solomon, are the most famous. And then you have Rehoboam. Rehoboam is Solomon's son, and he kind of screws things up. He divides the kingdom. There's a big split, and from that time on, the 12 tribes were divided into two nations. The 10 northern tribes are referred to as Israel, or the nation of Israel. And if you don't understand that as you're reading through the Old Testament, it talks about Israel, you might still have this preconceived idea that Israel refers to all of the 12 tribes, but it doesn't. Once the kingdom splits, it splits into two nations. The 10 northern tribes are then referred to as the nation of Israel, and the two southern tribes, which are Judah and Benjamin, are referred to as the nation of Judah.

Now, most of the prophetic books were written during the period of the Kings, and the prophets, along with the kings that they ministered to, are the main characters in those books. But the focus is placed more on the messages of the prophets than the prophets themselves. And then you have this period known as the Babylonian captivity, and the books of Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Daniel focus on that period of time. And again, the focus is placed more on the message of the prophets than the prophets themselves.

Now, after the captivity period, you have the return period, where many of the Jews return to Israel. Now, the main characters during that period of time are Nehemiah and Ezra. Nehemiah is going to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem because at that time, you cannot have a city without walls, not unless you want to be conquered by everyone. So Nehemiah rebuilds the walls to Jerusalem. And then you have Ezra, and what Ezra wants to do is he wants to get the temple rebuilt and to do what? To get the people to obey the law, to get them back practicing Judaism. And that's a quick synopsis of the Old Testament books of the Bible. But my point is this: from Genesis 28:10 on, the main character is Jacob until we get to Joseph.

So now we begin the study of Jacob's life as an adult. Yes, we've had Jacob introduced to us, but it was as a child. Now we're going to focus in on the adult life of Jacob. So turn with me, if you would, to the Book of Genesis chapter 28. Let's read verse number 10 again:

"Meanwhile, Jacob left Beersheba and traveled towards Haran."

Now, the correct pronunciation is Haran, but we're from Cherokee County. None of us have ever heard it like that, right? Did you grow up hearing it Haran? We'll stick with that. So anyways, it says, "Meanwhile, Jacob left Beersheba and traveled towards Haran." Now, as I told you last week, Haran is about 460 miles from Beersheba as the crow flies. But of course, you wouldn't travel that way. Instead, you would have traveled the route that the caravans took, and that would add about 140 miles to the trip. So basically, we're talking about a 600-mile journey. Now, if you traveled about 20 to 25 miles a day, it would take you approximately one month to get there.

Now, contrary to what most Christians think, Jacob wasn't a young man when he traveled to Haran. I don't know why, but the majority of Christians think Jacob was in his early 20s when he traveled to Haran. I used to think that. I can remember when I first became a Christian, and I felt like I needed to read the Bible through. And so all those familiar stories that I had heard in Sunday school, I started reading about. And for some reason, I always pictured Jacob as being in his early 20s when he traveled to Haran. How many of you pictured him in his early 20s? How many of you knew he was in his 40s? You smart people. Yeah, there's a few of you that did. But what we need to understand is, he wasn't in his early 20s. He was over 40 when he started his trip to Haran in order to find a wife, and also to get away from Esau because of the threats that he had made.

Now, let me show you how we know that he was in his 40s. Turn with me, if you would, to the Book of Genesis chapter 26, verse 34: "At the age of 40, Esau married two Hittite wives: Judith the daughter of Beeri and Basemath the daughter of Elon." So how old was Esau when he got married? 40. It tells us. Now, right before Jacob left for Haran, Rebekah was complaining about Esau's wife. How many of you remember that? Yes, it was the very last verse in chapter 27. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, even though they're talking about the threat that Esau made on Jacob's life, all of a sudden Rebekah turns and begins complaining about Esau's wife, which tells us that Esau was married at that time. And since Esau and Jacob were twins, Jacob had to have been in his 40s when he left for Haran.

Now, does everyone understand the logic that I used right there? Good. So Jacob wasn't a young man in his early 20s when he left for Haran. He was in his 40s. Now, why in the world is that important? It's important because when you read different commentators, many of them overlook this. And that's always surprising to me because these are scholars, these are people who have been educated in the Word of God and how to study the Word of God, and that's all they do for a living.

They study the Word of God, and yet many commentators claim that oh, Jacob was a young man, and he never traveled away from home. He was a mama's boy. He's someone who stayed in the tents, and he was very frightened and scared, and God had to grow him up. So he went on this trip alone, 600 miles. But people, that's not true. Jacob would have been very comfortable traveling by himself because, in all probability, he was probably somewhere between 42 to 45 years old. He is a grown man. He was very responsible. He took care of the family business. He probably had gone on many trips with caravans to be able to go trade for what they needed, and also to sell some of the products that they produced. And as a result of that, he was very comfortable with that. So as you're reading these commentators and they talk about God is going to use this to grow him up, that's a bunch of hogwash.

Now look at verse number 11. At sundown, he arrived at a good place to set up camp, and he stopped there for the night. Jacob found a stone to rest his head against, and he lay down to sleep. Now we find out later on that the place that he stopped at is called Bethel. Actually, he names the place. It's really called Luz, but because of what takes place, he renames it, but it's Bethel. Bethel is about 102 miles north of Jerusalem, and it's about 50 to 55 miles away from Beersheba, which is where Jacob started. So Jacob was about 3 days into his journey when he stopped at Bethel for the night.

Now, normally, he wouldn't camp out. You need to understand that Isaac was a very, very wealthy man. Remember when we were studying Abraham, and I came to the point that I said that Abraham was, was not just rich, Abraham was filthy rich, and he was, he was one of the richest men in that area. But then Isaac got the majority of the inheritance, and Isaac was blessed by God, and so even though he had all of this wealth that he had inherited from Abraham, God blessed him, and he produced even more. So Isaac was a very, very wealthy man. So Jacob going on this trip isn't going to be camping out the whole way. No, he's, he's a very wealthy person. He's not even going to be walking. In all probability, he's, he, he's riding on a camel. And if he doesn't take a camel, we know it's at least a donkey, and he probably has several donkeys or camels behind him filled with supplies. So what you would do if you're traveling along with that is you're going to stay in lodges. You're not going to camp out. But the sun begins to go down as he's traveling, and because it's unsafe for him to continue to travel at night, he stops and he makes camp, which is a really interesting thing because the place he makes camp is also the place that Abraham had camped at when God first spoke to him. So he comes to this place called Luz, that he renames Bethel, and he makes camp.

Now, I can remember thinking when I was a child, as I read this story, why would Jacob use a stone as a pillow? Has anyone ever read that and thought the same thing? Because that would be very, very uncomfortable. How many of you camp out? I'm not talking about the nice trailer that's air-conditioned with its own bathroom. I'm talking about the tent, and you know, you look up there and you go, "Ooh, those public restrooms look pretty nasty." But when you camp out, maybe you kind of, uh, have a little bit of luxuries. You have the mattress, the nice, uh, sleeping bag that comes out. But the worst thing that can happen is you lay your bed out, and there's a rock, and that isn't that uncomfortable? So I can remember reading this and thinking, "Why in the world would he have a rock that he places as a pillow?" Well, we need to understand again that he's not walking all by himself, and all he's carrying with him is a backpack. No, he comes from a very wealthy family. You need to understand when Rebekah told him, "Go pack," it wasn't he ran to his tent and took out a few things. No, he goes and he makes preparation with the supplies he's going to need for a 600-mile trip. He's going to have the animal that he's going to be riding on, plus the animals that he'll need to transport all of his supplies. And on those animals is going to be plenty of blankets and possibly some pillows. So all he's doing is he's taking this stone and he's going to place it down in order to elevate his head, but then he's going to lay out all of these blankets and this pillow. So now his head can be elevated, but he has this pillow or folded blankets on top of it. So it's not the way that we think.

And then he falls asleep. And Jacob had a dream. Look at verses 12 and 13. As he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from the earth up to heaven, and he saw the angels of God going up and down the stairway. At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and he said, "I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father Isaac." And it's kind of interesting, he doesn't say, "and your God." Because up to this point, he is the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac, and even though Jacob is in his 40s, he is not the God of Jacob yet, because Jacob has not, not made that commitment yet. Let me just tell you something. You might come from a Christian home. Your grandparents might be Christians. Your parents might be Christians. Maybe you have someone in the family that's a minister, a pastor. That doesn't make you a Christian. You are not a Christian until Jesus is your Lord, and you have a personal relationship with Him. God, God has chosen Jacob to be the one that the blessings and the promises of Abraham are going to flow through him and his descendants. But Jacob has not yet made that commitment to God. So in this dream, he reveals himself, and he says, "I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham, the God of your father Isaac. The ground you were lying on belongs to you. I am giving it to you and to your descendants."

Now, this dream was a turning point in Jacob's life. In fact, the dream was to Jacob what the Burning Bush was to Moses, and what the Damascus Road experience was to Paul. It was life-changing. But this is not the only time that God spoke to Jacob in a supernatural way. Sometimes, as we're reading along, you know, we forget that God didn't just speak to Jacob one time. God spoke to Jacob seven times in a supernatural way. This is the first of seven. At least six other times the scripture records that God speaks to Jacob in a supernatural way. He spoke to him in Genesis chapter 31, verse number three. You jump down to verses 11 and 12, that's the same instance. Then he spoke to him in Genesis chapter 32, verses 1 and 2. Again, he spoke to him in Genesis chapter 32, 24 and 30. And then again in chapter 35, verse number one. And then at the end of that chapter, in verses 9-13. And last but not least, in chapter 46, 1-4. So all in all, God spoke to Jacob audibly, either through a dream or audibly speaking to him, seven times. But this is the first time that he's ever spoken to Jacob, and he does it in a dream. Now, just because I've told you that he spoke to Jacob supernaturally seven times, doesn't mean that he didn't speak to, to Jacob at other times. Those are just the seven times that he records, or the scripture records him doing so. Does that make sense?

Now let's look at the dream itself, because the dream is the very first time that God speaks to Jacob in a supernatural way. Look back at verse number 12 and the first part of verse number 13. As he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from the earth up to heaven, and he saw the angels of God going up and down the stairway. At the top of the stairway stood the Lord. Now, the dominant feature in this dream was a staircase that went from earth to heaven. It was almost as wide as it was high, because angels were going up and down it simultaneously. In fact, most of us don't catch that. There wasn't just a few angels. If you notice in the dream, it says, "and he saw the angels of God," almost as if he's saying, "I saw all of the angels of God." Now, if you remember when we were studying The Book of Revelation verse by verse, there are so many angels that you almost can't count them all. In fact, in the Book of Revelation, it's as if you can't count them all. There's that many. And so he saw this staircase with the angels of God, and the implication is the majority of them. So we're not talking about just a few angels. We're talking about a multitude of angels. And these angels are going up to heaven and coming down simultaneously. So you couldn't have this normal staircase. How many times have you tried to go down either a staircase or down a hallway that was very narrow, and someone else was coming, and they were a fat boy like me? What did you have to do to get by? You either had to turn sideways, which in my case doesn't really help, or you would suck in and try to get by. Well, Jacob has this dream, and there's this staircase. Now, it's kind of interesting, the Hebrew word that's used in the King James version is translated as "ladder," but when we think of a ladder, we think of different rungs. We think of, of two parallel pieces of lumber or aluminum or some type of material, and it has rungs in it, and you climb it like this. But that's not what it's talking about. It's talking about a stairway, and on this stairway, you have a multitude of angels, more than he can even count. He just assumes that it's almost all of the angels of God, because there's so many, and he's blown away because they're walking from earth up to heaven, and God is at the top of it. Now, we think, "Well, if it's so wide, how could God? How big is God? How big is he?" I don't know. But the Lord is at the top of the staircase, and these angels are walking up to Him, and simultaneously angels are walking down, and there's so many he can't even count them. So this staircase had to be extremely wide. And at the top of the staircase, in heaven, was, as I said, God. Now, again, the insinuation was that the angels were traveling from earth to heaven to report to God, and then traveling back down to carry out God's commands on the earth. Now, the scriptures teach that angels are supernatural beings that carry out God's plans and they listen and obey God's commands. Turn with me, if you would, to the book of Psalm 103, verse number 20. I could give you lots of scripture tonight, but I'm just going to give you a few. I'm going to give you this one and then one in Hebrews. Notice what it says: "Praise the Lord, you angels, you mighty ones who carry out his plans, listening for each of his commands." So angels are servants of God, but more importantly, they're spiritual beings, and their job is to carry out God's plans on the earth, and they listen for His commands. They don't do their own thing. They do what God tells them to do. Everyone with me? Now, the main function of angels is not just to carry out God's plan, but to carry out God's plans for humans. Yes, to carry out God's plans for humans on this earth. Look with me, if you would, in the book of Hebrews, the first chapter, verse number 14. Notice what it says: "Therefore angels are only servants; they do what God commands them to do, spirits sent to care for people who will inherit salvation." Sent, sent by who? God, because they listen to His commands. Their job is to carry out His plans, but they're sent for a purpose. They're sent to care for people who will inherit salvation.

Now, this is just a dream. This isn't real. It's a dream. So there's not a literal staircase to heaven on which angels ascend or descend. There's no such thing. The Bible isn't teaching that this was only a dream, but it's symbolic, and it's symbolic of something that's very real. And that reality is that God has angelic beings that He sends out to carry out His work on the earth, and many of those angels were being sent to protect Jacob and to help him. Because here Jacob is, and he's kind of been cast out of the family. He's excited about going to Haran because he's finally going to get a wife. And how many of you men know, he that findeth a wife findeth a good thing? And when you're in your early 40s, you're thinking, "My gosh, this is hard." So he's excited about going to Haran, but he's not excited about the circumstances. He would have never thought about trying to trick his father into giving him the birthright. Mama did that. And he really didn't know what to do. "Do I obey Mama, or do I disobey Mama? Because this isn't right what she's asking me to do." But he obeys her because she says, "You do what I tell you to do, and if there's a curse, let it fall upon me." And of course, now Esau threatens to kill him. Isaac, his father, goes ahead and he gives him the blessing because he realizes his eyes are open that God is the one who's chosen Jacob, that Esau is not worthy of the birthright, he's disqualified himself because of his character, or I should say, lack of character, and Jacob is the one who truly deserves it. And God has not only shown that to be true, but he's also specified before they were ever born that Jacob was the one who was supposed to receive it. So here Jacob is, he's done what God wants, but now the circumstances at home are not good. So he's being sent away, but he's also being sent away for a good thing. He's excited. But now he's here, he's a little fearful because, you know, I, I've received this blessing, and I know what it means. It means that I'm not only going to inherit a double portion of the physical inheritance of my father, but it means I'm the patriarch of the family, which means that the promises that God made to Abraham that I've heard about, and the promises that he made to my father Isaac, which I've heard about, are now going to be fulfilled through my descendants. And he's thinking, "Can this be?" And then he has this dream, and God's at the top of the staircase.

And notice what He tells Jacob in this dream. Look at verse number 13 again, and let's also read verses 14 and 15. "At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and He said, 'I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham and the God of your father Isaac.'" Oh boy, the top guy, the one who made these promises and and promised these blessings to come upon his grandfather and his father. "The ground you were lying on belongs to you." Oh, then God's recognizing the blessing should have come to me. I knew it. They told me it. But now I'm hearing straight from God. "I am giving it to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the earth. They will spread out in all directions, to the west and to the east, to the north and to the South, and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants. What's more, I am with you and I will protect you wherever you go." Okay, thank you, God, because, you know, even though he gave me the blessing, I didn't act righteously. I didn't act honorably. I did something I shouldn't have done. But you're telling me, in spite of that, "What's more, I am with you and I will protect you wherever you go. One day I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you." Now, wait a minute. He hasn't made a promise yet up until this time. Why is he acting like, "everything I have promised you," like it was made before this time? Because he's heard of the promises he made to his grandfather and to his father, and the implication was, they, those promises would not be fulfilled except through their descendants, and now I understand that these promises are going to be fulfilled through my descendants. I'm the one.

But here's the thing I want you to notice. When God spoke to Jacob in this dream, He said exactly what He said to Abraham. Wow, did you catch that? The very thing He promised to Abraham is the very thing He promised to Isaac. If you remember when we studied Him speaking to Isaac, we compared what He said to Abraham to what He said to Isaac, and it was exactly the same thing, a few minor changes because He's dealing with individuals. But it's the very same thing. And now He speaks to Jacob and He says the very same thing to him that He said to Abraham. Look at what God promised Abraham in Genesis 13:14-17. And as we're reading it, I want you to think in your mind, I want you to compare it to the promise that He just made to Jacob. That's right. Notice what it says in Genesis 13:14-17: "And the Lord said to Abram, 'After Lot had separated from him, lift your eyes now, look from the place where you are, northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever.'" There it is. Same thing He told Jacob. "And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth." Did you notice that? That's exactly what He told Jacob here in this dream. "So that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants could also be numbered. Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you.'" So basically, God is promising to fulfill the promises that He made to Abraham through Jacob's descendants.

Now, the meaning of this dream is very clear. As I said, this is a dream. There's not a literal staircase. But this is a symbolic dream, and the meaning of this dream is very clear. God has made specific promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and those promises will be fulfilled. No ifs, ands, or buts. In fact, God has a multitude of angels at His disposal to help Him carry out His plans, and those angels will not only carry out God's plans, but they will also supernaturally protect and help Jacob and all of his descendants until these promises be fulfilled. That's the meaning of this dream. All of these angels going up and these angels coming down are being sent out to do God's plans and to help serve and protect Jacob and his descendants till the promises are fulfilled. That's the meaning of this dream. Now, here's what's interesting. Almost 2,000 years later, Jesus comes on the scene in the beginning of His ministry, and He refers to Jacob's dream. Yeah, but before I show you what Jesus said about the dream, let me set the stage. Jesus is now choosing His disciples, and He has just chosen Philip to be one of them. And right after that, Philip goes to Nathanael, and he told him that, "We have found the Messiah. It's Jesus, or his name is Jesus, and he's from Nazareth." And of course, Nathanael is a little bit skeptical because many have come claiming to be the Messiah. In fact, you can just read Jewish history, and many people came claiming to be the Messiah. So when Philip comes and says, "We have found Him, the one that Moses wrote about, the one that the prophets prophesied about, the Messiah, his name is Jesus, and he's from Nazareth." So Nathanael's a little bit skeptical. And notice what he says: "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" So Philip told him, "Well, come and see for yourself." So as he's coming to Jesus, because it's quite a ways away, Philip had to go find Nathanael, and then they're walking back to Jesus. Jesus sees him coming, and He says, "Now here's a genuine son of Israel, and he has complete integrity." And Nathanael hears that and he replies, "Excuse me, I don't think we've ever met before. So how do we know You, or how do You know me?" And Jesus replies, "I saw you when you were sitting under the fig tree when Philip found you." And people, that blows Nathanael's mind, and he thinks, "Wow, he saw something without even being there. He knows exactly what happened. This guy must be the Messiah." So he says to Jesus, "Rabbi, which means what? Teacher, you are the Son of God, the King of Israel." It's kind of interesting because Jesus says, "You come to that conclusion after that one little thing? You haven't seen anything yet. You're going to walk with me, you're going to see me heal people without limbs, you're going to see me raise the dead, you're going to see my mighty miracles. This is nothing." Course, that's not exactly how He says it, but that's what Jesus is thinking when He says, "You come to that conclusion after that one little thing?" In fact, let's actually read the story. It's found in John chapter 1. Let's read verses 43-49. "The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, 'Come, follow me.'" Now, you know, I can remember being a kid and watching this and I'm thinking, "Man, these guys had such great faith because Jesus walks by and He says, 'Come follow me,' and they just get up and follow Him. They didn't even know Him." No, no, no, that's not true. Jesus had already started His ministry, and they're listening to His teaching, and they know He's a rabbi. And here's one of the things that rabbis would do: they would find disciples and then they would mentor them. And so they had heard Jesus, and so He's walking along, and Philip already knows that this man is a great teacher, and they're seeing just a few of His works. So He says, "Come, follow me." Philip was from Bethsaida, Peter's hometown. Philip went to look for Nathanael and said to him, "We have found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about. His name is Jesus, he's the son of Joseph from Nazareth." "Nazareth?" exclaimed Nathanael. "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" "Well, come and see for yourself," Philip replied. As they approached Jesus said, "Now here is a genuine son of Israel, a man of complete integrity." "How do you know about me?" in other words, "Excuse me, have we met before? How do you know about me?" Nathanael asked. Jesus replied, "I could see you under the fig tree before Philip found you." "You could see me? You knew where I was and what I was doing, and you've been here all day long?" Then Nathanael exclaimed, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God, the King of Israel." That's amazing because very few people came to that conclusion, even after seeing all the things that Jesus did.

Now I want you to notice Jesus' response. Look verses 15 and 51. Jesus asked him, "Do you believe this just because I told you I'd seen you under the fig tree? Son, you haven't seen anything yet. You will see greater things than this." And then He said, "I tell you the truth." Now, whenever Jesus says, "I tell you the truth," or He says, "Verily, verily," in fact, in the Greek, that literally means "Stop, look, listen. I'm going to say something very important." So here Jesus says, and He says, "I tell you the truth." In other words, "Stop, look, listen. Put your focus up here. I'm going to tell you something really important. You will all see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth." Now, of course, this is a reference to Jacob's dream. But did anyone catch what Jesus said about it in relationship to Him? Because now He's taking Jacob's dream, which was symbolic, remember, there's not a literal staircase. This is symbolic. But He's taking this symbolic dream and now He's relating the symbolism to Him. Did anyone catch how He related to Him? He said, "I am the Stairway to Heaven." Yeah. Look at that again. "I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man." Now, the reason I chose the NLT is because really, this is an interpretation, not a translation. It doesn't actually say in the King James version, "I am the stairway of heaven," but it's what it means in the Greek. He says, "You will see the angels of God going up and coming down upon the Son of Man." And the word "upon" is the Greek word epi, it means literally what the NLT says: "I am the staircase that the angels of God are going up on and coming down on." You see, until Jesus came, only angels could travel from heaven to earth. There was no stairway to heaven for man to get from earth to heaven. But Jesus came so that we could go to heaven. You see, after His crucifixion and His descent into hell, Jesus rose from the dead, and He opened the way to heaven. "He led captivity captive," is what the book of Ephesians tells us.

Now, here's what's interesting. Before Jesus came, the people who died, believed that God was going to send the Messiah. Those who lived out their faith, when they died, they didn't get to go to heaven. Why? Because there was no stairway to heaven. There was no way to get there. And the reason there was no way to get there is because their sins had never been completely paid for. They just had faith that one day it would be, that God would send this Messiah, this seed of the woman, and He would take away the sin of the world. Isaiah 53 is very clear on what's going to take place, and they were looking for this Messiah. But until Jesus came, their sins had not been paid for completely. So when they died, they died in faith that this Messiah was coming. So when they died, their body went into the ground, but their spirit went to a place called the bosom of Abraham. It was next to hell, but there was a great gulf between the two. Hell was a place of torment, but the bosom of Abraham was a place of comfort. That's why Jesus told the thief on the cross, "This day you will be with me in paradise," because this was considered to be paradise, but it wasn't heaven yet. So when Jesus dies, He's put in the grave. His body goes into the grave, but His spirit goes to hell. And He does what He, He comes in and He pays for our sins in hell. But then He actually does something that no one's ever seen before. This is such a great gulf that no one can pass between the two. The Gospels tell us, but He passes between them. And the scripture says that He preaches to those who are in captivity, who those in the bosom of Abraham. So when He is raised from the dead, the scripture says, Ephesians, that He takes captivity captive. Now there is a way to get from earth to heaven, and it's through Jesus. And so Jesus is talking about this symbolic staircase, and He says, "Man, you'll all see it. You'll see the resurrection. I am that staircase that once before, only angels could go. They could only angels could go from heaven to earth and from earth to heaven. But it said, uh-uh, I am the staircase, and what I'm going to do is going to provide a way for man to go to heaven." So Jesus is figuratively the stairway to heaven. He's the means by which man can get to heaven.

Now, the great thing is, Jacob's stairway applies to us today. Angels, people are still coming and going to protect and to help those who are Abraham's descendants by faith. Now, remember in this dream, the whole symbolic meaning of it is, "Hey, I've made these promises to you, and I'm here to tell you that I have the means by which to fulfill them." And he saw these angels coming and going, and he understood the meaning. God's got these angelic beings that are coming in, and they are manipulating situations and circumstances. They are helping and they are protecting, and they are here by our side to help fulfill these promises. And we need to understand that angels are still coming and going to protect and to help us, because we are Abraham's descendants by faith. You see, we've been grafted into the family of Abraham by faith, and God is sending out angels to help us, just as He did for Jacob.

Now let's get back to the story in Genesis chapter 28. "Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, 'Surely the Lord is in this place, and I wasn't even aware of it.' But he was also afraid and said, 'What an awesome place this is! It is none other than the house of God; this is the very gateway to heaven.' The next morning Jacob got up very early. He took the stone he had rested his head against, he set it upright as a memorial pillar, then he poured olive oil over it. He named the place Bethel, which means House of God, although it was previously called Luz. Then Jacob made this vow: 'If God will indeed be with me and protect me on this journey, and He will provide me with food and clothing, and if I return safely to my father's home, then the Lord will certainly be my God. And this memorial pillar I have set up will become a place for worshiping God, and I will present to God a tenth of everything He gives me.'"

Now, it's at this point, because he's had this supernatural experience and God spoken to him, that he says, "Ooh, you're going to be my God. God, you made these promises to me, and I'm going to step out, and as I step out and see Your faithfulness, I'm going to put my complete faith in You." And then he makes this vow. He vows that Jehovah and only Jehovah will be his God. And when he returns one day and he sees these things fulfilled, he will faithfully tithe to Him. Now, this is interesting because tithing is taught all the way back in the Garden of Eden. Abraham tithed. The scriptures tell us Jacob tithes. And something interesting happens. Now, later on, it's incorporated in the law. But remember, Galatians tells us the law was added because of transgressions. It was added in the law because people wouldn't keep it. But what's interesting is we get to the New Testament. Jesus taught tithing, and Paul taught tithing. But here Jacob is, and one of the reasons he knows about tithing is because his grandfather did it, and he'd heard the stories, and his dad did it, and he'd watched him. And he never quite got it, "Why are you doing this?" But when God speaks to him, he understands, "Man, you're the God of everything. You're going to give me all this. This is Your land, and You're telling me it's Yours to give, and You're going to give it to me, and You're promising all these things. You're my God, and God, I make this vow: You and only You will I worship, and I will tithe a tenth of everything I have." It's what tithe means is a tenth. But here's what's kind of interesting: it's written in the pile case, which means not a one-time thing. It means continual action, repetitive action. He's saying, "And I will always tithe whatever You give me." That before the law was ever given.

Well, turn in your Bible to the Book of Genesis chapter 29. And as you're turning there, let me give you a little bit of background information that you need to know. The next three chapters cover the time that Jacob spent outside of Canaan, and it covers a time period of about 20 years. So Jacob didn't return home until he was in his 60s, and by the time he did return home, his mother was dead. She'd already passed away. And something that most of us don't ever think about. Now, most commentators treat this period of Jacob's life as if it were a punishment from God for the way that he treated his brother Esau. But that's really a distorted view of this period of Jacob's life. And the reason I say that is because this was really a very happy and prosperous time for Jacob, believe it or not. It really was. Yes, he had his ups and downs, and yes, Laban deceived him, mistreated him, and took advantage of him. But God blessed Jacob in spite of all of that. So as we go through the next three chapters, let's make sure that we look at the good times, not just the bad, because of course, the story is going to focus in on certain situations, and when we look at just the situation, it's like, "Oh my, seem like everything's going wrong for Jacob." But really, it's not. It's just that those are critical points or critical times in this 20-year period, and we need to keep, uh, the right perspective on this. So turn with me, if you would, to verse number one, and let's study at least the first part of chapter 29. Notice what verse one says: "Then Jacob continued on his journey and came to the land of the Eastern peoples." In other words, after Jacob's experience in Bethel, where he had this divine dream and God spoke to him, Jacob continued on with his journey. Now, if you translated this literally from the original Hebrew, it would say, "Then Jacob lifted up his feet and he came to the land of the Eastern peoples." Now, the phrase "lifted up his feet" is a figure of speech that we still use today, and it means the opposite of dragging your feet. How many of you have ever been in a hurry and you are walking along with someone, and it seems like they're so behind, so you say, "Quit dragging your feet"? Anyone ever said that? Well, what's interesting is dragging your feet means that you're going slow, but picking up your feet is just the exact opposite of that. It means that you're picking up the pace. So what this is actually saying in the original Hebrew is that after Jacob's experience in Bethel, he picked up the pace. Now, why did he pick up the pace? Because now he's excited. You know, he was a little bit sad, he was having to leave his home, and under the circumstances in which he had to leave it, it really wasn't the best of times. And yet, when he gets to Bethel, and he has this divine dream, and God speaks to him, and God promises to not only provide for him but to protect him wherever he goes, it puts a spring in his step because now Jacob is excited about his future. And as a result of that, he picks up the pace and eventually he arrives at his destination, Haran, probably a little bit earlier than he had originally planned. So Haran was also known as the land of the Eastern peoples. Now, what's kind of interesting is when you look at this on the map, you would never guess that, because Haran is more north of Canaan than it is east. But we have to remember this, that the descendants of the people living in Haran came from the East. So Haran was known as the land of the, uh, the people of the East. And so that's exactly what it's saying there.

Now look at verses 2-8. "There he saw a well in the open country with three flocks of sheep lying near it because the flocks were watered from that well. The stone over the mouth of the well was large. When all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone away from the well's mouth and water the sheep, then they would return the stone to its place over the mouth of the well. Jacob asked the shepherds, 'My brothers, where are you from?' 'We're from Haran,' they replied. He said to them, 'Do you know Laban, Nahor's grandson?' 'Yes, we know him,' they answered. Then Jacob asked them, 'Is he well?' 'Yes, he is,' they said, 'and here comes his daughter Rachel with the sheep.' 'Look,' he said, 'the sun is still high; it is not time for the flocks to be gathered. Water the sheep and take them back to pasture.' 'We can't,' they replied, 'until all the flocks are gathered and the stone has been rolled away from the mouth of the well. Then we will water the sheep.'"

Now, this well was probably located just on the outskirts of Haran. And let me explain why I say that, because there's a lot of little details here that if you don't understand the culture at the time and the customs of the time, then you really won't pick up on it, and you really miss so many great details in the story. So what I'm, I'm going to do is I'm going to look at these little details and try to pull them out. It means we're going to go a little bit slower through chapter 29 and probably chapter 30, but I think it's going to be well worth it. Now, this well, as I said, was probably right on the outskirts of Haran. First of all, the shepherds at the well were young boys. I'm talking about pre-teen boys. And young boys kept their flocks close to home. Now, we don't think much about that, but it's true. They would keep their flocks closer to home, while their older brothers took their flocks further away to graze. In fact, it wasn't uncommon for the older shepherds, the older sons of a family, to take their flocks to graze at a location that were several days away. Let me give you an example to illustrate what I'm talking about. Turn with me, if you would, to the Book of Genesis 37:12-14. This is the story about Joseph. We're all kind of familiar about this. Joseph was Jacob's favorite, and he's getting ready to go check on his brothers. So follow along with me as I read verses 12-14. "Soon after this, Joseph's brothers went to pasture their father's flocks at Shechem. When they had been gone for some time, Jacob said to Joseph, 'Your brothers are pasturing their sheep at Shechem. Get ready, and I will send you to them.' 'I'm ready to go,' Joseph replied. 'Go and see how your brothers and the flocks are getting along,' Jacob said. 'Then come back and bring me a report.' So Jacob sent him on his way, and Joseph traveled to Shechem from their home in the Valley of Hebron." Now, most of us don't pick up on this because we're not familiar with Israel, and so we don't realize how far away they were. So what Jacob is telling Joseph is, "I haven't heard from your brothers in a while." And when he says "in a while," he's not talking about a few days, he's talking about a few weeks, because Hebron is actually about 40 miles, 45 miles away from Shechem. In fact, let me show you this on a map. Right down here is Hebron. Back in Abraham's day, it was called Mamre, but this is Hebron, and the Valley of Hebron is right there. Now, Shechem is all the way up here. Can you see how far it is to go there? You have to go from Hebron to Bethlehem to Jerusalem. That's Salem there, but it was the City of Salem, and that's where Jerusalem gets its name. Then you went on up to Bethel, and then there's Shechem. Now, what most people don't realize is it's 45 miles away. Now think about that. They're pasturing the flocks 45 miles away. By the time Joseph gets there, they're gone. He can't find his brothers. Dad sent him out to go find his brothers, to check on him, just to make sure everything's all right. He gets there, he can't find him anywhere. So runs to a stranger, says, "Uh, excuse me, have you seen my brothers?" And they said, "Who are your brothers?" He tells them, and he says, "I think they said something about going up to Dothan." And so here is Dothan. Dothan is 60 miles away from Hebron. But the point that I want to make is this: the younger boys, the pre-teen boys, they kept their flocks close to home, while their brothers, their older brothers, would graze their flocks further from home. So if these shepherds were young boys, and they were, and I'm going to prove why in just a little bit, that means that this well was very close to their home, because they weren't allowed to travel very far with their flock. It was just too dangerous. And I want you to think about this. Just imagine if you lived in this time, and you had four sons. The youngest is six or seven years old, the oldest is probably 18 to 20 years old. Now you have several flocks because you're pretty prosperous, and you can't keep them all together because there's not enough pasture land. They just graze everything to the point where there's nothing left, plus you have to be able to share water. So what you do is you divide these flocks up into four different flocks. Where would you ask them to go? Well, of course, the six-year-old, you want to keep close to town. You want to make sure that you can look out and you can see them if they get in trouble. They're there. If there's any problems, they can run home, or you can get there very quickly. And so the young boys, the six-year-olds, seven-year-olds, eight-year-olds, they still had a flock, but they stayed very close to home, while your older 18 to 20-year-old son, he might have to take them 20, 30, 35, 40, 45 miles away to be able to continue to graze and to be able to get adequate water. And we forget about that. But remember the story of Abraham and Lot. They were both so wealthy that it got to the point where they said, "You know, the land can't contain us. We can't even stay together. You go one way, and I'll go the other." And even then, Abraham had so many flocks that he had different people taking care of his flocks 30, 40, 45 miles away. And we find this with Jacob here.

Now, how do I know that the shepherds around this particular well were young boys? Well, several reasons. First of all, notice that the stone that covered the well wasn't rolled away until all the flocks were there. Look back at verse number three. "When all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds (plural) would roll the stone away from the well's mouth and water the sheep, then they would return the stone to its place over the mouth of the well." Now, that tells us that it required more than one of them to move the stone. But later on in the story, as we read just a few verses down, we find that when Rachel comes, Jacob wants to water her sheep, so he runs over there and he moves the stone and waters her sheep and then moves the stone back. Now, wait a minute. Was Jacob this big, hulky man? Was he a person that had Samson-like strength? If he was, why was he scared of Esau? No, no, no, no, no. He wasn't this big, burly guy with superhuman strength. The, the truth of the matter is, he was a man, and they were boys. And so they would have to wait until the other flocks came, and it would take several of the boys working together to be able to move the stone off and water it, and then move the stone back. Secondly, I want you to notice that Jacob rebuked the shepherds. Look at verse number seven. "Look," he said, "the sun is still high; it is not time for the flocks to be gathered. Water the sheep and take them back to the pasture." I want you to understand this is a rebuke and a command. He's rebuking them because, "Wait a minute, you shouldn't be here just waiting around. These sheep are thirsty. You need to water them, and then you need to take them out to pasture. Look, the sun's still high up. Now you water them and get out of here." Now, listen to me. In that culture at that time, Jacob, Jacob wouldn't have done that if these shepherds were men. Uh-uh. In fact, that would have been considered rude and socially unacceptable. And in that culture, he might have got whooped. You understand what I'm

About, but it was totally acceptable to speak to children in that way. So again, these shepherds must have been boys rather than men.

The other reason we know that this well must have been on the outskirts of Haran is because Rachel was able to leave the sheep and run to her home. She was able to run to her father. You see, if she hadn't been close to home, she would have never left her sheep. But not only that, she wouldn't have been able to run to her home; it would have been too far away. So this well was just on the outskirts of Haran.

And so when we're reading the story, we realize that there was this well here. It had to be close to town, but he still couldn't see the city. So it was probably just over a little hill. He came to this place, Haran, just over the hill. Here's this well, and you've got these shepherd boys with their flocks all together.

Now, when Jacob sees this well and the shepherds around it, he went over to gather information. And the first thing he wanted to know is where they were from. You know, it's not like it is today. You don't have these big highway signs that tell you that you're coming to Mogee five miles away or you're entering Fort Gibson. You didn't have that. So he comes upon this well, and he, he sees these young boys here. He realizes because they're young boys, so there's got to be a town close by. There's no way that these six, seven, eight, nine-year-old boys would be out here alone by themselves, ten, fifteen miles away from town. So the first thing he wants to know is, "Where are you from?" And they tell him, "Haran." Now, they didn't have to tell him that they were close to Haran because he already knew that by their ages.

So he asked about the next thing. He asked him if they knew Laban, which, of course, they did. Why? Because Laban was a very wealthy person, and we know that for several reasons, which I'm going to explain in just a little bit, and also next week too. And then Jacob asked them if Laban was doing well. Look at verse number six. Then Jacob asked them, "Is he well?" "Yes, he is," they said. "And here comes his daughter Rachel with the sheep."

Now, I want you to underline the word "well." That word appears twice in this verse in the original Hebrew. Now, if you're reading this in the King James Version or the New American Standard, you'll see this word "well" appears twice. But here in the NIV, it only appears once. But I want you to understand that in the original Hebrew, this word appears twice. Both times it's translated from the Hebrew word "shalom," which means peace. In fact, "shalom" is the word that the Jews use today to greet people and also to say goodbye. If you go over to Israel and you see someone and you make eye contact, it's polite to say "shalom," and they will say "shalom" back. And then when you leave, you will say the very same thing. It's kind of like hello and goodbye, but it literally means peace. But the reason you speak this as you leave is because it's actually a blessing. It means peace in the sense of good health, wealth, and tranquility. So when you say "shalom" to someone, you're wishing them good health, wealth, and tranquility. And you say this when you greet them and when you say goodbye because it's really a blessing.

So when Jacob asked them if Laban was doing well, he wasn't inquiring about his health; he was asking about his health, his wealth, and his family. In other words, he was asking, "Is he blessed? Is he shalom?" To which they replied, "Yes, he is. Yes, he's shalom; he's healthy, he's wealthy, and all of his family members are doing well." And then they said, "And look, here comes Rachel, his daughter, with her sheep."

Look at verse number six. Then Jacob asked him, "Is he well?" "Yes, he is," they said. "And here comes his daughter Rachel with the sheep." Now, you need to understand something. It wasn't customary for a woman to be a shepherd. And sometimes we don't pick up on that because we find several instances in the Bible where women are shepherds. Can you think of another example or another instance in the Bible where women were shepherds? Moses, yes, when he's running away from Egypt, and of course, he finds his wife Zipporah, but she is also a shepherd.

So when we're reading through the Bible, especially in the Pentateuch, sometimes we get the wrong idea. We get the idea that it was customary for women to be shepherds, but it wasn't. You see, a shepherd was considered to be a man's job. But if a man didn't have enough sons to watch the flocks, or he was so wealthy that he had more sheep than he had sons, they needed to be divided up. Maybe he had so many sheep that he needed to have seven or eight flocks, and he only had six sons. Then what do you do? Well, normally you would hire men out, but sometimes if you were cheap, you wouldn't do that. You would have one of your older daughters become a shepherd. Then, and only then, were daughters used in that way.

But, and this is what you need to understand because this is important to the story, if your daughter was a shepherd, they would keep their flock close to home, just like the little boys, while the older sons grazed their flocks further away. Now, Rachel had brothers. We know that because as we're reading through the story, we find out that the brothers get upset at Jacob. They're kind of mad at Dad. They think that Jacob's taking advantage of them and he's taking away all their wealth. So as we read the story, we understand that she had brothers. So the reason that Rachel was a shepherd was because Laban was wealthy and he had more sheep than he had sons. But we also find out as we read through the story that he's a tight-fisted man. He loves money. And because he loves money, he's not going to get a hireling, or if he does, he's going to make sure that they can give him more than what he expects from just anyone else.

So when Jacob asked if Laban was blessed, shalom, and they said, "Yes, he is, and he's coming with her flocks, that's his daughter," it meant that he had so many flocks his daughter Rachel had to be a shepherd. And that's just one of the reasons that we know that Laban was a very wealthy man. There are other reasons, but we'll have to wait until we get to the wedding ceremony to be able to see that, which is still in this chapter, but we won't be able to get to that tonight.

Now, let's look at verses 9-14. While he was still talking with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep, for she was a shepherd. When Jacob saw Rachel, daughter of his uncle Laban, and Laban's sheep, he went over and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and he watered his uncle's sheep. Then Jacob kissed Rachel and began to weep aloud. He had told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and a son of Rebecca. So she ran and told her father. As soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister's son, he hurried to meet him. He embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his home. And there Jacob told him all these things. Then Laban said to him, "You are my own flesh and blood." And Jacob stayed with him for a month.

Now, I hope you notice that verse number nine says that Rachel was a shepherd, which tells us two things. Number one, that this wasn't something that she was doing temporarily. No, this was her job. This is what she did every day. That's why she was referred to as a shepherd. If this was a one-time event or she did it every once in a while, it would not have said that she was a shepherd, but this was her occupation. Rachel was a shepherd.

The second thing that it tells us is that she was at least 15 years old, if not older. Now, if you read a lot of rabbinic literature, it will say that she is 14 years old here, but really, they need to pay attention to their own customs, especially at that time, and they would agree with me that she was at least 15 years old. And let me explain why I say that. You see, it was common for pre-teen boys, six, seven, eight, and nine, to be shepherds. And the older they got, the further they were allowed to graze their sheep away from the home. But my point is this: it wasn't uncommon to see six-year-olds as shepherds. Girls, on the other hand, needed to be trained in doing domestic chores. So the very first 14 years of a girl's life was dedicated to helping in the home and learning how to do domestic chores. You see, it wasn't like it is today. You couldn't go to the country store. Well, today it's Walmart, but even if you went back 40, 50 years, you couldn't go to the country store and just buy anything that you wanted. No, you had to produce much of what you had. In fact, you would shear your own sheep, you would take the wool, and if you go with me to Israel, we'll go to Nazareth, and we'll actually go to a village that's set up to be just like it was in the days of Jesus, and you'll be able to see how they would take wool and they would make their own yarn, and then how they would weave that yarn into all different types of clothing and blankets and anything that they needed. And you had to do all of this.

Now, no man wanted to marry a woman who did not know how to take care of a home, how to take care of a family. So in that culture, the first 14 years of a girl's life was dedicated to learning the domestic chores. And so you weren't able to work outside of the home if you were needed to do that until after the age of 14. Now, rabbinic literature says when you turn 14, you could. But when you begin to study things that are outside of Jewish literature, and then you take that into consideration with what Jewish literature tells you, you realize, no, they had to go through their 14th year. And so she would have had to have been at least 15 years old. She's now reached the age where she's learned all of her responsibilities and how to take care of a home so that she can be a good wife. But Daddy needs her, and so she goes out and she becomes a shepherd.

Now, this is interesting. A girl wasn't allowed to be a shepherd, as I said, until she was 15 years old. And then she had to keep her flock close to home, where all of the little boys were keeping their flocks. And the reason she had to do that is because no respectable family wanted any woman in their home hanging out with men. And so if you had a daughter who had to be a shepherd, you wanted to make sure that she never was hanging out with other teenage boys or older men, because older men took advantage of younger girls. So they had to keep their flock where the little boys kept their flock, so you wouldn't have to worry about your daughter being alone or around other boys. So she would have had to have been at least 15 years old, and she would only be around six, seven, eight, and nine-year-olds, possibly ten or eleven, but it wouldn't have been any older than eleven years old. And those are good things to know because she's a girl, and these six, seven, and eight-year-olds are waiting for all of the other flocks to come because they can't roll the stone off. But they probably looked forward to the time when Rachel came because at 14, I'm sorry, at 15 years old, she was probably stronger than any of the boys, and she was probably the one that had to roll the stone away. So all of these details are included in the story, and they help us to understand what's going on.

Laban is a very wealthy man, and he has more flocks than sons. But we see that he's also cheap. He won't go out and hire people to be shepherds, even to hire maybe younger boys who would be able to do this. No, he's got plenty of family members, and they take care of their own. Rachel's at least 15 years old, though rabbinic literature says she's around 14. I would beg to differ; she's about 15. Now, this is interesting because this is going to put her, put her somewhere around 22 years old when she gets married. Now, here's what's interesting: that's old by their standards. In fact, at 15 years old, to find out that she's not already in a pre-arranged marriage, what's wrong with this picture? Something's not right here.

Now, as we read along in the story, and most of you have, this is a very familiar story that you've studied in Sunday school, you find out that when Laban tricks him, tricks Jacob, what does he say? In our customs, the older must be married before the younger. You remember that. And we're going to find out that Leah is not a very pretty girl, and so Rachel can't even enter into a pre-arranged marriage until Leah is married. So here she is, 15 years old, and as we read through the story, she is a beautiful girl with a great figure. Yeah, the Bible says that. And so now you see this beautiful girl with this great figure, and she's very industrious, she's a hard worker, she has great character. Why isn't she already in a pre-arranged marriage? Why isn't she spoken for? Well, these are the things that we should know. And as we're reading through the story, and we see that she's a shepherd, everyone who understood Jewish customs and understood the customs of the time would say, "This is a 15-year-old girl. Why isn't she supposed to be married or getting married?" Very interesting.

Now, I want you to notice the first thing that Jacob does when he sees Rachel. Look at verse number 10. When Jacob saw Rachel, daughter of his uncle Laban, and Laban's sheep, he went over and he rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and he watered his uncle's sheep. Now, you, you need to remember, the Bible only says what it needs to say, but it also gives you every detail it needs to. It doesn't say that Jacob went over there and he rolled up his sleeves and he grunted and he sweat and he moved that stone away. No, no, no, no. Again, if you understand the culture and the customs of the time, you understand these are little boys, and he's a man among boys. Rachel comes, he doesn't think anything about it. He just goes over there and he just rolls the stone away and he waters the sheep.

But this also says a lot about Jacob's character. Think about it. He's traveled over 500 miles to get here, and it's taken him at least a month to reach this destination. And the first thing he does when he sees Rachel is to roll the stone away and to water her sheep. Now, what does this tell us about Jacob? It tells us that he's a worker. While Esau was running around hunting and fishing, Jacob was working and learning the family business. This is why he told the little boys that they needed to water the sheep and then they needed to get the sheep back to the pasture. You see, they liked sitting there. They liked waiting until all of them got there. They got a chance to play with each other and talk a little bit, and they kind of keep one eye to make sure the parents weren't coming, because then they really have to get to it. But if Mom and Dad weren't coming, then this was a time for them to have a good excuse. "We couldn't get the rock off."

But you see, when he gets there, he says, "Hey boys, you're big enough. Two or three of you, you move that stone, you water your sheep, and you get them out to pasture." In other words, he was telling those boys, "Quit being lazy and do your job." So when he saw Rachel, the first thing he did was he watered her sheep because work was the top priority. And only after he watered her sheep did he even introduce himself. I mean, here she comes, and all of a sudden she just sees this man that she's never seen before. He walks over there, he rolls the stone away. In fact, let me kind of give you the picture of this, because probably most of you have the wrong picture. Let's suppose that it was a circular well. It's probably a cistern that was there, some type of spring underground ran into it, or it's underneath the water table. They built this up in a circle with stone, and then they put a big stone over it, and it had a hole in the middle, and then they put a stone on top of that. And the reason they did that is because they didn't want dirt, they didn't want animals, anything falling into the well, and maybe an animal couldn't get out and then it died and would contaminate the water. And it's all about the water. So that's why they would usually put the big stone around it so nothing could get into it. And then they would cut out a little hole in the middle because that big stone is too big to get on and off. And then all you had to do is just reach over, push that stone away, and then you could draw the water up and water your sheep.

And so the first thing he did when he saw Rachel is he just walked over there, he pushed this, he pushed the stone away, and then he drew up water and he went over to these troughs and he poured the water in and he watered all of her sheep. And he didn't even introduce himself. And Rachel's looking at this and she's thinking, "Who is this man?" Because each of the shepherds would have had their own watering troughs, so that when you finish with yours, they go over to theirs and start putting theirs in. And he chose hers. But then after he does that, he goes over and he introduces himself. First of all, it says he gives her a kiss. Now, this wouldn't have been a kiss on the lips. In fact, usually members of the opposite sex did not kiss each other unless they were married, or it was a father-daughter, father-son thing. But it was very common for members of the same sex, as gross as it sounds, to kiss each other, not on the lips, but on the cheeks. So he does something very unusual. After he waters the sheep, and she's standing over there thinking, "Who in the world is this man?" He walks over and he kisses her on the cheek. It says one, it's a singular kiss. Explains who he is, and then he begins weeping. And then it dawns on her, "This is Aunt Rebecca's boy. This is my cousin. This is from the family of the, of the family that my mom and dad are always talking about." And she gets so excited that she takes off running for home and she leaves her sheep there. Very interesting.

Look at verses 11 and 12. Then Jacob kissed Rachel and began to weep aloud. He had told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and a son of Rebecca. So she ran and told her father. Mother, where was Jacob when Rachel ran off? He stayed with the sheep. He stayed with the sheep. He stayed behind to watch the sheep and to let them eat. Why? Because work comes first. So no matter, no matter how bad he wanted to go to Laban, he didn't follow Rachel. He stayed behind and he took care of the sheep. In fact, I have to be honest with you, when I'm thinking about this and I kind of put myself in Jacob's place, I bet you tend to one that he was tickled to see Rachel get so excited that she forgot about the sheep and that she took off running from home. Can you see why I say that? Here's a man that's in his early 40s. We know he was at least 40 years old because Esau got married when he was 40. And right before he leaves for Haran, what does Mama say? "I am sick and tired of these Hittite women." And and she tells him because what she's saying is, "I'm sick and tired of Esau's wives." Well, Esau didn't get married until he was 40, right? And they were twins. So this is one of the reasons why Jacob has come in the first place is to find a wife. So he's in his early 40s, she's probably 15 years old, and she gets so excited, she forgets about the sheep and she takes off running. Now, I'm thinking about this because, you know, I'm 51 years old. I'm thinking about him being 41, 42 years old, and there's this 15-year-old girl, and he does this for, and she's over there in astonishment. And then he introduces himself, kisses her on the cheek, and explains who he is, and she gets so excited, all of a sudden she just takes off. That probably tickled him.

Now, in my book, Jacob was a catch. He was a catch as a son-in-law. And I'm saying this as a father who has two daughters. You know, I have to be honest with you, as a father, very few men are worthy enough to marry your daughters. I'll be honest, my wife will tell you this is true. I don't even bother to learn their names until it's serious and they could be a son-in-law. It probably took nine months before I knew Aaron's name. I called him Eric for I can't tell you how long. And my girls would just giggle and say, "Dad, it's Air." And I said, "I don't care what his name is, he's doofus to me." And not because I'd ever met him, but it's like, you know, he's going to have to be a special guy to be worthy enough to marry my daughter. And you know, I have one of the greatest son-in-laws. He is a hard worker, great character, great integrity. I couldn't be more proud of him. I think he's the best son-in-law that a man could have. I'm praying for my other son-in-law. It's kind of funny. Now, Macy wasn't dating this guy, but she has a guy that's going through the same program, and he's from Michigan. And it was Thanksgiving, he couldn't go home. And so she said, "You mind if he comes to our house for Thanksgiving?" And his name was V. He's a Serb, you know, he, uh, actually lived through the Serbian war. And so he's had come over to America, speaks decent English, but he came home, and his name was V. But I couldn't get that down. And so he was Nikolai to me. And so I called him Nikolai. And of course, all the girls just giggle and say, "Dad, I'm sorry, V." You know, that's just my dad. And I said, "It doesn't matter if his name's V, Nikolai, whatever. Nikolai's a good Serbian name. That's what I'll call you, son, because it really doesn't matter. You're not dating my girl. I'm not going to allow you to date my daughter."

Now, I'm saying all of this because I want you to understand. I'm reading through the story. Some of you would probably be thinking that you would not have Jacob as a son-in-law. But as I'm reading through the story, I'm seeing it so totally different than the majority of Western Christians, because I'm reading this from a Jewish perspective. And as I said, as I look at him being a plain man, and the man of the tents, and I understand what that word "plain" means, it means he was a righteous, godly man. And I see what a hard worker he was, and I see everything that he does. And he was not the initiator of this plot to deceive his father. Actually, that came from Mama. And it put him in a dilemma. And we're going to find out that Laban does the same thing to his daughter, puts her in a pickle. What does she do? Does she obey her father or disobey? And so I, I'm looking at all of this, and I come to the conclusion that Jacob was a catch as a son-in-law. He had character, he was responsible, and he was a hard worker. It irritated him even to see these little six, seven, and eight-year-old boys not doing their job. And I know that because he wouldn't have said anything to him if he didn't really care. If he thought it was cute, "Oh, you boys, you really need to be working." No, he rebukes them. "You water your sheep. The sun's still high up. You get these sheep watered. This is not good for them, and you get them back out in the pasture." We can't do it because it takes several of us. There's three of you at least, or two, because it says shepherds.

Anyways, I want you to look at verse number 13 again. Now, as soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister's son, he hurried to meet him. He embraced him and he kissed him and brought him to his home. And there Jacob told him all these things. Now, why did Laban come running when he heard the news about Jacob? Now, in that culture, you really didn't do that, not if you're dignified. This is a wealthy man, but Laban comes running. Well, there's two reasons why he came running. The first reason was because he remembered what had happened the last time someone came from Abraham's family. Do you remember the story? Abraham's servant came, and he came bringing expensive gifts and jewelry, looking for a wife for Isaac. And his sister Rebecca was chosen, and they all received expensive gifts. Turn back to Genesis, chapter 24, verse number 53. Notice what it said in that story: "Then he brought out beautiful silver and gold jewelry and expensive clothing. He presented them to Rebecca. He also gave expensive presents to her brother and mother." So the last time this happened, a servant came, and he brought a lot of expensive gifts with him. And I'm sure Laban wanted to know if that was going to happen again. So he took off running in order to find this person to see, "Why have you come?"

Now, the second reason was because he hadn't seen Rebecca or anyone from her family in over 60 years. Now, people, all you have to do is do the math. Remember, Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebecca. And if you remember the story, she couldn't conceive, and finally, when she did, she thought that something was wrong. And so she went to ask the Lord about it. He said, "You have twins in your womb." Remember the story. But how old was she when she conceived? Well, the Bible says that Isaac was 60 when the twins were born. So if he was 40 when he got married, 20 years passed before they had children. Now, Jacob is at least 40 years old when he goes to Haran. So Laban hasn't seen anyone in Rebecca's family for over 60 years. So he comes running to see them, to find out what's happening. He's just happy they're here.

Look at the last part of verse 13 again. He embraced him, talking about Jacob, and kissed him, and brought him to his home. And there Jacob told him all things. Whoo, this says a lot about Jacob's character. I don't know if he specifically told him about his and Rebecca's deception with his father, tricking him to believe that he was Esau. But notice that it says that Jacob told him all these things. The way that it's stated in the original Hebrew means "the things we've been reading about." All these things that we've been reading about. And what have we been reading about? The birthright, the blessing, the deception of Isaac. So, in other words, he told him why he had come. He told him that his father Isaac had blessed him with the birthright, even though he wasn't the oldest, and that Esau, his brother, who was the oldest, was angry and had threatened to kill him, and that his mother had told him that he needed to come to her family, up to Laban, until Esau cooled down, and that while he was there, he was supposed to find a suitable bride from Laban's family. But all in all, he probably wouldn't be there but just for a few days. Remember, that's what Mama had told him.

Let's go back and look and see specifically what Mama had told Jacob right before he left. Look back at chapter 27, verses 43-45. "Now therefore, my son, obey my voice and arise, flee to Haran to my brother Laban, and stay with him how long? A few days." "Ha yom" is the word for day. "Ha" means the day or today. And so he comes along and says, "yom," which means several days, or two days, or more. So what he's saying is, "and stay with him a few days until your brother's fury subsides, until your brother's anger against you subsides, and he forgets what you did to him. Then I shall send and get you from there."

Now, notice what she says: "Stay there, and I will send someone to get you." Now, again, to make sure that you're following along, how long did she tell Jacob to stay with Laban? Just a few days. Look at verse 44 again. "And stay with him a few days until your brother's fury subsides." So Jacob did not intend to stay for more than a few days because he thought that any day now Mama's going to send a messenger telling him it's time to come home, and that Esau's gotten over it. But not only that, that when this messenger comes, he's probably going to bring expensive gifts, just like Abraham's servant came, because she told me, "You come find a suitable bride." So he's telling Laban, "She told me to come up here and find a suitable bride from your family." And you know, when he comes, because I'm supposed to bring, or supposed to find a suitable bride, he will bring the bridal gifts, the presents.

So guess what? Jacob stays with Laban as a guest for a month. But at the end of the month, Laban, because he is a cheap guy, doesn't like that he's a guest. "You're in my home, and he's a hard worker, I'm sure he's helping, but you know, how long are you going to stay as an extended guest? We've been here a month." Notice what verse 14 says: "Then Laban said to him, 'You are my own flesh and blood.' And Jacob stayed with him for a month." Now, we know the rest of the story. How long did he stay with him? 20 years. Why does it say a month? Because he stayed with him for a month as a guest. Both of them expecting at any time a messenger coming with Mama, and there would be camels loaded with bridal presents, because she told me to pick a bride, and they will bring the bridal price. But after a month, Laban says, "Hmph." But we have to understand hospitality. So next week, when we pick it up in verse 15, we see the interesting way that Laban presents himself to Jacob and why he enters into this agreement to work for seven years.