Finding God in Every Moment || Genesis 28:16 - 29:1 || Session 47 || Verse by Verse Bible Study

Can a stone pillar change the way you see God's presence in your life? Uncover the deep significance behind Jacob's Ladder and how a simple stone became a powerful reminder of God's presence. Follow us as we discuss Jacob's transformative vision and his realization that God was always with him, even during his lowest points. We reflect on the practice of setting up physical reminders of spiritual encounters and debate their benefits and potential pitfalls. This episode is a heartfelt reminder that, like Jacob, we can recognize God's presence in every moment.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:19

Welcome back to Reasoning Through the Bible. My name's Glenn and I'm here with Steve Today. We're in Genesis, chapter 28, and we've just learned about the vision that we call Jacob's Ladder. Jacob had been running from his brother. He was at a real low spot in his life. God meets him at this place and gives him a vision of the heavens opened up, with angels coming up and down the ladder. He repeats to him the Abrahamic covenant, gives him a reassurance that he's going to bring him back to the land and that God is responsible for keeping the aspects of the covenant. Today we pick up in verse 16, where Jacob rises from the vision, and we see what goes through his mind in this passage. So, steve, if you could start in verse 16 and read down through 22.

Speaker 2 1:05

Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it. He was afraid and said how awesome is this place? This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. So Jacob rose early in the morning and took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on its top. He called the name of that place Bethel. However, previously the name of the city had been Luz. Then Jacob made a vow, saying If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take and will give me food to eat and garments to wear and I return to my father's house in safety, and the Lord will be my God, this stone which I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me, I will surely give a tenth to you.

Speaker 1 1:57

In this passage he says that God was here and I didn't know it. Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it. One of our questions is have we ever been in a place where we didn't know the Lord was with us and then we discovered oh wait, a minute, he's been here all along.

Speaker 2 2:15

I think that happens a lot. Where it happens, though, glenn, is in the previous session you talked about getting to a place where you just turn everything over to God, and I believe that that's mainly whenever you realize that when you're at that low spot, or when you're at that period where you decide I'm going to turn everything over to God, I'm tired of doing it on my own, then you realize this is God and we're meeting together.

Speaker 1 2:42

This is one of these lessons that we have to hammer home in our mind about the nature of God he's always with us. I remember I used to teach this to my kids when they were small. You're trying to teach these concepts in a way that a child could understand them, but sometimes us adults need the same lessons. I would always tell my children, I'd ask them can we go somewhere that God's not there? No, Dad. Well, how about way down in the bottom of the ocean? If we went there, would he be there? Oh, he'd still be there. How about if we go up on top of the mountain? Could we get away from God if we go up there? No, Dad, Wherever we go, God will be there. We can't go over the next hill and get away from God. He's been here with us all along and we can take reassurance in that. Then, in verse 18, what is Jacob doing in verse 18?

Speaker 2 3:30

He got up early in the morning and then he takes that stone that he had at his head and he sets it up as a pillar and he anoints it. He takes it and he has a little bit of a ritual there. That's marking this as being a very special place he builds what we would call a shrine.

Speaker 1 3:50

He builds an object that would remind him of this experience that he had. Question Steve is it okay to build something physical as a reminder of a point where something special happened with God?

Speaker 2 4:07

Yes, I think it is. I think it's something that we should do probably more often throughout Scripture. In Joshua, when they went into the land and judges as well, he told them take rocks out of the river and set it up as a special place to show this is where you crossed and this is where God was. So it's a recurring theme in Scripture. I think that it's something that should be maybe done more often in our life. It serves as a reminder.

Speaker 1 4:35

Is there ever a time when building a physical object as a reminder gets to be a problem, gets to be a problem? I would submit yes, simply because there are people and there's instances where we get so focused on the physical object the shrine that we lose track of the purpose for it. The purpose for the shrine is a reminder about God. There's cases where people make these pilgrimages and they go long ways to get to this one particular location. My response is to go back to what we teach the little kids. Can you go under the ocean and God's not there? Oh, he's still there. How about up on top of the mountain? How about your bedroom? He's just as much present in right where you are right now than he is.

Speaker 1 5:22

If you travel a long way to get to some shrine Building a physical object, get to some shrine Building a physical object. Nothing wrong with that. It's a good reminder of what God's done for us. But we shouldn't confuse the object with the purpose for the object, which is to remember the Lord. God. I don't get any more specially close to God by going to a shrine than I do if, wherever I happen to be at the moment, we can worship God anywhere and anytime, I don't have to be in a particular physical location, and too many people have made idols out of shrines. We need to be quite careful with that, because people focus on something physical.

Speaker 1 6:05

What did God do with the only statue in the tabernacle? He hid it behind a curtain and behind another curtain where only one person a year got to see it for a few minutes. It was not an object of worship, because people turn these things into objects of worship. That's just one of the lessons here. The next thing we learned from this, though, is Jacob has just had a great experience. He calls this place in one of the verses here he says this is the gate of heaven, because he was so overwhelmed by this experience. What role in the Christian life should be for special experiences? What should we do as Christians when we've had a great experience? What role should that play in our life? Should we go out and seek those experiences all the time, or are the experiences not worth anything, or what value should we put on?

Dangers of Seeking Religious Experience

Speaker 2 7:01

experience. We have to be careful with experiences because experiences are tied to emotions and emotions can fluctuate and we can get false reading from emotions. We can get euphoria, we can get depression. We should be cautious of experiences. Any experience that we have needs to be vetted against what Scripture says. If the experience that we have goes against something that Scripture teaches or says, then we've got to be cautious of it. One thing Second thing is once we get to these experiences, then we might start wanting to have more and more experiences. Sometimes that will bring about where we're causing the experiences out of ourselves, rather than them being something that is organic and is coming from God.

Speaker 1 7:54

There, are some Christian traditions that are very lively. In their worship services there's people moving around a lot. There's people singing loudly or doing various things very loudly, a lot of movement, and people would say, oh, that's a great experience. The people that just sit there and are quiet, they would say that's sort of a dead church. On the other hand, there's also people that go into a very well-built Christian church that's quiet and calm and it has a lot of lighting around it that produces calmness, and they say that's the holy and sacred experience. That's when I really get close to God, is when I'm quiet. And so I found, steve, that the experiences, as far as what they are outwardly, are very different from different people and different traditions. Some people, when they're quiet and calm, have the greatest, most profound experience, and other people, when they're lively and moving around and even dancing, that's when they have the greatest experience.

Speaker 1 9:02

But I guess my point here is that the experience is not the point and I'd say it's okay to have experience. But I guess my point here is that the experience is not the point and I'd say it's okay to have experience. I mean, we shouldn't feel bad when we go to worship God. I would hope we would feel good. I would hope we would have a profoundly sacred and holy feeling about us. The question is should we seek that feeling? Is that the point here? Is that, okay, it's okay to feel good and have a great experience, even a very profound one, like Jacob had, but should we seek after that?

Speaker 2 9:35

That's the question, and that's the danger of seeking after it. Like I said, then all of a sudden you're seeking the experience rather than seeking God. When you're seeking the experience, you will have a tendency to create something. You might think that it's God, but it's really just you doing something on your own. With some of those churches that you also gave a description of, Glenn, that becomes the expectation. Some of those people say, well, if I'm not doing what these other people are doing, then I'm not projecting a right experience. Then they also start jumping around or doing other things and it's all of a sudden you have the leader that is controlling the people and getting them to act in a certain way so that they can experience God. Like you said, that's not the focus. It should be the worship of God.

Speaker 1 10:33

The danger is confusing the experience. Again, nothing wrong with experience. I would hope people would have a good experience with God. But we shouldn't confuse the experience with whether or not we're actually close to God. But we shouldn't confuse the experience with whether or not we're actually close to God. That's the problem is because the feeling's going to come and go. Regardless of whether you're a lively kind of church service person or a calm, quiet church service person. The feeling is not going to be there the same time, every week, all the time, throughout your entire life. There's going to come a time where the feeling's not there. If we anchor our faith on the feeling, then as soon as we don't feel right, then our faith gets shattered. So we need to be very careful in making sure we're not chasing an experience and say you know, it's not like it used to be because I'm not having the experiences I used to be. Well, that doesn't mean you're not close to God, it just means we need to adjust and get into his word, maybe a little deeper.

Speaker 1 11:38

But we can't base our faith on whether or not we feel good or not we feel bad. I mean, look at what happened here with Jacob. He was in a very low spot, god shows up. There's places later in the Bible where people were trying to go after God, trying to manufacture an experience and doing it in the wrong way, and God's silent. We need to be careful to base our faith on facts and not on feelings. We should put limits on our desire for experience. Nothing wrong with experience. We should just not chase it as the highest thing of our faith. Validate truth in the sense that, okay, I'm trying to determine whether a particular spiritual question that I have is true or false. Oh, I had this profound experience. Did that validate what's true or false?

Speaker 2 12:38

Well, you're throwing some tough questions this way on this session. Glenn, I initially shook my head and said no, because how do you validate truth with an experience? I think maybe what you would say is, or what I would say is, is that an experiential feeling can sometimes validate that you're in a worshiping place with God. I say that from my experience that there are times whenever I am in a church service or even just in my home listening to a song or in the words, they just have a certain meaning for me that particular day or that particular worship and I am overwhelmed by just the presence of the Holy Spirit. It can be a confirming that you're in a worshiping way. But now, when you get to the question of can it confirm truth? I'm not so sure that experience in itself can confirm truth. I'm going to throw it back to you. How would an experience confirm that the words of God are truthful?

Speaker 1 13:44

Well, exactly that's my point. It can't. The reason I'm bringing that up is because I've seen people in churches that say, oh well, it had to be true because of this or that. Well, it had to be true because I spoke in tongues there, or it had to be true because this thing just knocked me over, or I had this great experience, or I was praying for an answer, and this person just walks up to me on the street and gives me a message. That's got to be the right one. No, those are all experiences. It could be true, but we need to validate it with the written word of God. That's the only way to objectively tell, because what happens in the Bible? It says that Satan has lying wonders. We can't base our feeling on what's true or false based on an experience, whether it's a positive one or a negative one, or something. Reality determines truth, not experience. How do we test our experiences to determine whether we've been deceived? Well, it's by the word of God. It's by the word of God. That's the only way.

Speaker 1 14:48

In this passage, verse 19, jacob names the place Bethel, which means house of God. This was the most profound meeting with God that Jacob had had. I think of Steve, there's cases where people have seen images of the Virgin Mary that appear on objects and oh, it's so profound. It must be a movement of God, or there's been these emotional revivals simply because there's a lot of great happiness and emotion. You know how to tell whether there's a revival. It's whether the places that sell sin start to close down. That's how you know whether there's a revival. It's whether the places that sell sin start to close down. That's how you know if there's a revival.

Speaker 2 15:31

Are you saying that that image that was on that piece of toast that went around really wasn't an image of Mary? Is that what you're saying, Glenn?

Speaker 1 15:39

Oh, there's been images of Mary in toast window screens, potatoes, I mean. It just goes on and on and on. The people see these images. There was one not far from where we live that one time had this image of Mary that appeared in this trash out back of this guy's house. Oh, there was an image of Mary that appeared there and it lasted until somebody broke out the streetlight that was making the reflection, and then the image was gone.

Speaker 1 16:08

We just can't base our truth on these experiences. There were thousands of people driving by to see this and it was really just a deception. There's been people that claim this angel appeared to them and gave them this message. Well, how do you know if it's true? The only way is to judge that experience by what we already have been revealed to us by the apostles in the word of God. That's the only way to tell whether these visions, the experiences, the messages are actually true.

Speaker 1 16:41

With this he sets up this remembrance, and God had promised to take Jacob back to this place. We should all have, as we said before, a place where we've gotten right with God, and we should remember that we should all have our own house of God, our own Bethel. That's the experience that we need to remember is when we got right with God. That's the one that we need to burn into our brain. We should all have a Bethel when we got right with God. If we look at verse 20 and following, he makes this vow Steve, what is the vow in verse 20 that he makes?

Speaker 2 17:17

The vow that he makes in verse 20,. It says if God will be with me and keep me on the journey, give me food, take care of me, I'll return here safely. Then he will be the Lord, my God, and I'll give a tenth to him. Some have taken this to mean that Jacob really wasn't sure and put this out there and saying if God does this stuff, then I'm going to worship him. Really, jacob is affirming what God has just promised to him and he's saying as God goes with me, provides for me and brings me back safely, I'm going to set up and worship him. I'm going to follow through with the faith and the belief in him and worship him here in this land that he has promised to me, and a tenth of what I have is going to be dedicated to the Lord. I take that, take on it. It's not a hey, if God does this, then I'm going to do it. I take it more, being that he's just affirming all the promises that God has given to him.

Speaker 1 18:22

I would agree. He just had this very dramatic vision. God had assured him of things. So he's not really doubting so much, but doing what you just said. I think the actual statement in a different circumstance could be in a poor way, like if we're determining what to do and we're not really sure, I say, well, if God blesses me, then I'll keep worshiping God. That's not a good vow.

Speaker 1 18:50

I do think there's something profound here, at the last verse in chapter 28. He gives a tenth. Now, remember we've already seen a tithe, a tenth earlier in the book of Genesis. In Genesis 14, abraham met Melchizedek. When Abraham met Melchizedek, he gave him a tenth. This tells me, steve, that the tithe was in place prior to the Mosaic law. Of course, the Mosaic law had commandments to give a tenth. Matter of fact, there was three different tithes that were given in the Mosaic law, given at different times, but those were commands based on the law of Moses that you were to give this tenth at this time.

Speaker 1 19:35

This here in Genesis 28 is way before Moses. This is centuries before Moses. What that tells me is that the principle of giving a tithe is not an Old Testament law principle. It crosses boundaries between dispensations and ages. It's prior to Moses, during Moses, after Moses. I don't think we're held today to a legal sense of like the law, because the law has been fulfilled and our righteousness is not held by how much money we give, but I think that the principle here of giving to God is valid. That brings us to the end of chapter 28. In the next chapter, 29, jacob is going to meet Rachel, who will be his wife, and 29.1 says this. Then Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the sons of the east. What had God already promised Jacob about the land of Canaan?

Speaker 2 20:34

What was the promise that he had given him just earlier in the last chapter he told him that the land of Canaan, everywhere where he was, was to the east, west, north and south he was going to give to him.

Speaker 1 20:46

He had, of course, deceived his father and his brother, so his mother had sent him off to find Laban. That's why he's going here. But the point we're bringing out is he has left the land of promise. What happens to people of the promise when they get outside of the land of promise? Almost always when a Jewish person gets outside of the land in the Bible anyways, problems occur. It happened to Abraham and it's going to happen to Jacob. He's getting away from the land of promise and he's going to end up with issues. Remember what did happen to Abraham when he went to Egypt he lied to Pharaoh. That's what happens when they get away from the land. The Jewish people will be forever connected with that land.

Speaker 1 21:34

How does that idea correspond to the church If we have this idea that Abraham, isaac and Jacob are supposed to remain in the land and when they get out of the land, that's when problems and sin starts to occur. They get out of the land. That's when problems and sin starts to occur. How can we take that analogy to the church? What is the modern day equivalent for the Christian of remaining in the land? That if I stay there I'll be right with God, and if I get away from there, then I'll fall into sin.

Speaker 1 22:07

How would we come up with some analogies on that, steve? I've got a couple of examples here, like one would be going outside the Bible for advice. If we stay in the Bible for advice, then we're going to be a lot safer and we're going to live a much better life. But if we start looking to the world for advice, then that's the church's equivalent of going outside of the land and we're going to end up with problems there. Church's equivalent of going outside of the land and we're going to end up with problems there. If we're going outside of the Bible, say for financial advice, then we're going to end up in trouble. Any thoughts on that, steve?

Speaker 2 22:41

I think another area would be doctrine that there is basic tier one doctrine of who Jesus is born of a virgin, that he died on the cross, buried, resurrected, those type of tier one doctrine of who Jesus is born of a virgin, that he died on the cross, buried, resurrected, those type of tier one doctrines that if you disagree on that or go outside of that, then you're outside of the land, using your analogy. So I think that's one area that we want to make sure that we stay doctrinally sound and congruent with what Scripture says.

Speaker 1 23:10

In the next passages, jacob goes out searching for his uncle Laban, and he meets Rachel near a well, we're going to stop here for today because we're out of our time, but Jacob is going to find out some interesting things about sowing and reaping. He's going to still have to learn some very hard lessons. We're going to learn that as we continue to reason. Through the book of Genesis.

Speaker 2 23:35

Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.