“When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought,
“Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” (Genesis 28.16)
One of the occupational hazards of being a preacher is that, without realising it or wanting to do it, you read the Bible in a different way. So, for instance, you read a passage and you think, ‘That would make the basis for a good sermon’, or ‘There’s a good way of explaining such and such a thing’, or ‘I know a good story that would illustrate that’. Can you see how that would happen?
But sometimes I come across a passage – or a verse – and I just know when I come to it, ‘This is for me’. I feel God saying, “Will you stop for a minute. Do you think I never speak to YOU? That stuff you preach about God communicating with his people – don’t you believe it?” And this was such a verse.
Now the fact that I have still chosen to preach on it is not because I didn’t listen to what God was saying through it to me – but rather that maybe God would want to bless YOU through it as He blessed me. And in fact this has been hard to prepare because when God speaks to us and blesses us it can be a very direct and personal thing and it’s not always easy to relate your personal experience to other people’s circumstances.
But at this stage he has conned both his twin brother and his father by pretending to be hairy brother and bringing the aging bind Isaac a bowl of his favourite stew and deceiving Isaac into bestowing upon him the father’s final blessing – which Isaac had intended for Esau.
Now, as you can imagine, Esau isn’t too happy about this; in fact he’s furious at his scheming brother and Jacob ends up having to flee for his life.
So the principle character of our Bible reading tonight is no saint; in fact Jacob is a swindler on the run from his brother, and now
camping out under the stars - on the journey.
Do you see what I’m trying to establish here? Jacob is not an obvious candidate to be the recipient of a special revelation and promise by God.
Yet that is precisely what happened here. Night-time approaches and he is tired, so he gets a stone, puts it under his head and falls fast asleep. And incidentally, as you probably all know, it is supposed to be this stone – used by Jacob that night – that became the Coronation Stone, handed back to the Scottish just ten years ago and which lies today in Edinburgh Castle (I think). They refer to it sometimes as the Stone of ‘Skoon’.
Now realistically, the chances of this being true are somewhat limited – but it’s a nice bit of folklore – and I understand arrangements are already in place to have it transported back to Westminster Abbey when the time comes for future coronations!
Anyway Jacob falls into a deep sleep – and he has this vivid dream. In this dream there is a large stairway which reaches up into heaven; and there are angels of God going up and down this stairway. And at the very top Jacob could see the Lord. And God says,
“ I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring youback to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
Now it would have been very easy for Jacob to wake up, scratch his head and mumble to himself, “Wow that was some dream!” (Do you ever wake up before a dream is finished and wish you could fall asleep again and see how it ends?)
You see Jacob is not a profoundly spiritual man – he’s not even an honest man – but he recognises that this experience while he was asleep was God intervening in his life.
He might have been on the run, and he might have been carrying a lot of guilt, he had messed up his life ‘big time’ – but God had visited him and given him a wonderful sense of his presence and of his purpose for the runaway’s life.
So Jacob says, “ Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”
Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel.” (Then the stone was taken to the nearest airport and flown by B.A. to London and put under the throne in Westminster Abbey!)
So we have an ordinary man – not a particularly good man but certainly ordinary – on the run – and in the middle of the desert somewhere – not a particularly good time in his life - but he is given this wonderful vision of the love, protection and purposes of God for him.
“Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it .”
So where am I going with this?
Well, sometimes we go through periods in our lives which if penning our ‘memoirs’ before we died – we would describe as bad times.
‘2002 was a bad year’, we might write. ‘I lost my partner; I was made redundant; I was sick all year; I hardly saw my family; I was lonely; I was depressed; I lost my faith; I didn’t know what I was going to do; I had so many problems.’ You know the kind of thing?
Indeed Jacob could have identified with many of those sentiments at this precise moment in his life.
But God appeared to him – and the wonderful revelation of God’s love and purposes for the runaway were given to him right there in the desert in the middle of the sorry mess Jacob had got himself into.
God didn’t say to Jacob, ‘You need to get your life sorted out before you hear from me again; you need to prove yourself worthy; you need to do some good for a change; you need to climb the stairway I’m placing before you and if you reach the top – maybe then I’ll reveal myself to you and you will be blessed.
No the messengers descended to the very place Jacob was – and Jacob knew himself to be standing on holy ground. God was in this place.
Back there when he had messed up, when he thought he hadn’t a friend in the world, when everything seemed hopeless – there was someone who was more interested in his potential and future than with his past failure; and until now Jacob hadn’t realised it.
You see we don’t normally choose the situations, events and circumstances of our lives. We might have some bearing on them through the choices we make – but many of the things taking place in and around our lives – especially the unpleasant, painful and worrying things – are not of our choosing.
And in most cases they are not of God’s choosing either because in this fallen world, this side of Christ’s return, God’s perfect will is thwarted by the evil in the world.
But that pain and suffering, that wilderness experience in OUR lives, doesn’t put us outside the scope of God’s love for us, and doesn’t render us of no interest or useful purpose in his plans for the world and for our lives.
If we had been able to speak to Jacob that day he would have said, “Right now’s not a good time in my life.” If he had written his memoirs he would have said, “That year was bad for me!”
But then he would have added, “But know what? God was in that place – and for the first time in my life I realised HE had plans for me!”
Do you remember how he described the place he slept that night? He said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”
It was the same place – a rocky bed in the middle of nowhere! But God was in that place and it was ‘awesome’.
I don’t know the precise circumstances of all YOUR lives. I see your courteous manner and your smiles – but I don’t REALLY know the pain and regrets you may be feeling – the confusion of your circumstances or your worries about the future or even your personal failures. I don’t know if this is a good time in your life.
But know this – GOD IS IN THIS PLACE! Your personal circumstances are not hiding you from his presence, nor are they rendering you of no interest to Him. He can redeem your circumstances and use them for your good and His greater glory.
For although you may have forgotten – God is in this place in your life!
Tonight when you go home, tomorrow morning as you waken and confront the reality of your problems, worries and failure – even there GOD IS IN THAT PLACE. And it’s awesome!
It’s unlikely that I will ever write the story of MY life. It would be too boring to write – never mind read!
But know what, in the chapter on ‘The year 2007’, despite how it may appear to have started (two month’s illness), I would record with conviction, ‘The Lord was in this place and I was not aware of it.’
Are you aware of him in the circumstances of YOUR life just now? If not then these words were not JUST for me – they were for sharing with you too.
Let’s try and lift our eyes beyond ourselves and our circumstances – beyond our desert – and behold with the eye of faith the awesome presence of God – right here in this place.
Hear Him say to US, as He said to Jacob,
“I am the LORD, the God of your forefathers . . . I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go. . , I will not leave you until I have done what I have purposed for you.”