Genesis 28:10-22: God’s Stairway to Heaven

INTRODUCTION

I dream every night. Waking up always interrupts a dream. In my dreams I find myself in all sorts of strange situations. The people who inhabit my dreams come different times of my past life. When I wake up I can seldom remember my dreams—even though some of them were so interesting, that I wish I could remember them.

I had a friend who told me that he kept a notebook beside his bed, and writes down his dreams as soon as he wakes up, before he can forget them.

I once read a book by a psychologist who believed that we could learn a lot from our dreams—and that we should write down whatever we can remember of them and think about them. But I can seldom remember.

But as we read the Bible we realize that in the olden days dreams were more important to people. God came to people in their dreams and instructed them.

I once had a dream in which I felt I experienced the reality of God. I heard myself shouting, “I’ll never doubt again!” When I woke up I asked Charlotte if she heard me shout in the night. She hadn’t. Even my shouting had been a dream.

Today I want to tell you about one of the most famous dreams that was ever dreamed. It is a dream that changed the world.

It’s the story of Jacob’s dream about the stairway to heaven. You learned this story in Sunday school. We read about it in Genesis 28.

I. We read in Genesis that the great patriarch Abraham had a son named Isaac, and Isaac’s wife was the beautiful Rebecca.

A. The Lord told Rebecca during her pregnancy that she would bear twins and that the elder son (that would be Esau) would serve the younger son (that would be Jacob).

We don’t know why the Lord told Rebecca rather than Isaac.

Isaac was rich. God blessed him. And God told Abraham that the promises made to him would be fulfilled through his descendents.

But the Genesis record never tells us anything that Isaac did that was remarkable. I get the idea that Rebecca was the brighter of the two. That often happens—the wife is brighter.

Anyway, God gave this important information to Rebecca—“the older will serve the younger.” When she delivered her twin boys, Esau emerged first. Jacob came second.

Isaac’s family was a dysfunctional family. Isaac’s favorite of his two sons was Esau because Esau was a good hunter. He brought in wild game that Isaac liked.

Rebecca’s favorite was Jacob. Jacob didn’t go hunting. He stayed at home and kept his mother company. From what we read, Jacob also did some of the cooking.

B. One day Jacob had made some stew when his brother Esau came in from the field from his hunting.

Esau was famished and asked Jacob for some of the stew Jacob had just cooked.

Jacob told Esau that he would give him some of his stew if Esau would give him the birthright.

The birthright would grant the headship of the family to Jacob instead of to Esau after Isaac died. Esau was so hungry that he agreed.

From this story we see that neither brother had a very attractive personality: Esau was willing to sell his birthright for a dish of stew, and Jacob ungenerously took advantage of his brother’s hunger to finagle him out of the birthright.

Then some time later, at the urging of his mother, Jacob again showed his crafty nature by tricking his father Isaac into giving him Esau’s blessing.

Actually, Jacob’s mother bears most of the responsibility for this bit of deception. She remembered that before the twins were born, God had told Rebecca that the older would serve the younger. Rebecca assumed that it was her responsibility to make sure this came to pass.

In his old age Isaac had become blind, and one day when Esau was out hunting, their mother suggested a plan by which Jacob could fool his father and get not only the birthright but also the blessing.

In those days a blessing was a serious thing. Once given, it couldn’t be taken back.

When Esau found out what had happened, he was so angry he wanted to kill his brother.

So Rebecca sent Jacob away to another country.

He was to find a wife among their relations in this foreign land, and then, when his Esau’s anger had cooled, he would come back. That was the theory, at least.

II. So Jacob set out, walking north, all by himself.

A. You can imagine the state of Jacob’s mind. His scheming had gotten him into a lot of trouble. He was a fugitive. Banished. Unemployed. Not a friend in the world.

The future was uncertain. It didn’t look like there was any chance he’d ever see the birthright—or that the blessing would do him any good.

If he could ever go home, he would have to face his brother, who hated him and wanted to kill him.

B. We read this story in Genesis 28:10-11:

Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place.

And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven. And the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

C. Our translation says the angels were walking up and down a ladder, but the same Hebrew word can mean staircase or a ramp. I think it was a staircase because angels were ascending and descending on it.

In the olden days people believed that the world is thick with angels. They fill the air; they are all around us. We just can’t see them.

The staircase Jacob saw was thick with angels, ascending and descending.

And the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south. And all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring.

Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

D. When Jacob woke up, he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I didn’t know it.” And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (vv16-17).

This vision met the need of Jacob’s heart. Up until now Jacob had relied on his wits to get what he wanted. Now he had experienced God’s grace. God had given him a promise.

Jacob must have been aware of his faults and ashamed of them. But from now on he would be a partner with God in the fulfillment of a divine purpose for the world.

E. Jacob made a vow to God. He said, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house; and of all that you give me I will surely give one-tenth to you” (vv 21-22).

Some people find fault with Jacob for this. They say he was bargaining with God.

But I think Jacob was just taking God up on his promise.

After all, he only asks for bread to eat and clothing to wear and to be able to return to his father’s house in peace.

Surely, all that was implied in the promise God had given him in the dream.

Jacob is going to put that promise in the bank and live on it.

From now on Jacob would belong, not to himself, but to God.

That was a big turn around for Jacob.

III. This story is one of the most important stories in the Bible because it pictures to us something about how God comes to us.

A. In Jacob’s dream, angels were going up and down the staircase to heaven.

I think that the ascending angels were carrying Jacob’s prayers and hopes up to God.

And the descending angels were carrying God’s goodness and blessings down to Jacob.

I think Jacob understood that.

I have a prayer I use often before I go to sleep. It’s an old prayer, from a believer of long ago. It contains these words:

“Let my evening prayer go up unto thee,

and thy pity come down unto me…”

B. Jacob’s staircase represents the bridge between heaven and earth, the stairway between us and God.

In John, chapter 1, we read about Jesus’s encounter with Nathaniel.

Nathaniel was meditating under a fig tree.

Fig trees were often trained so that their branches would enclose little private areas where people could pray or meditate out of sight of other people.

Jesus had just found Philip and called him to follow him. Philip found Nathaniel under the fig tree and told him, “We have found the one of whom the prophets wrote.”

And when Jesus saw Nathaniel coming to him, he said, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”

And Nathaniel, startled by Jesus’s knowledge of him, said, “Where did you get to know me?

Jesus told Nathaniel: “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”

Nathaniel was so startled that Jesus knew this that he exclaimed, “Rabbi, you are the son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

And Jesus told him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

So Jesus uses this story to tell Nathaniel—and us—something about himself. Jesus is the staircase—to heaven—to God…

C. We don’t need to have a dream because we have what the dream represented. Jesus is the way to God.

In Jesus we have God’s promise to go with us and bless us and make us a blessing until the end of time and beyond.

Jesus carries our prayers up to God in heaven.

And Jesus brings God’s grace and gifts and blessings down to us.

CONCLUSION:

Not many years ago an African queen was visiting the United States.

She was on a goodwill mission to the U.S. and was touring inner-city schools in New York City.

In an interview on a talk show, she told of this experience.

She had gone into a classroom where she saw a boy who was in “time-out,” over in the corner of the room. (You remember about “time-out.” When I taught, “time-out” was in the hall just outside the classroom door.)

The African queen asked the teacher about this boy and the teacher told her that he was always in trouble.

He was mean. He didn’t care whether he learned anything or not. He made it impossible for the teacher to teach her class.

His teacher said that he spent most of his time in time-out.

(If any of you have been teachers, you know just exactly the kind of child I am talking about.)

The queen went over to the boy.

She sat down beside him and took out a small scroll she had brought and gave it to the boy.

“Congratulations,” she said with a smile. This scroll makes you an honorary prince of my people.”

She went on to tell the boy about her tribe and what it meant to be a prince in Africa.

She told how African princes were men of honor. They watched out for others in the tribe. They always did what was good for the people.

The boy took the scroll and she left. He was impressed with his responsibility as an African prince.

The important part of the story is that the teacher later said that that experience transformed the child. Taking to heart what the queen had told him—that he was now a prince—the boy behaved himself.

I take this story with a few grains of salt, but it could have happened that way.

If the boy took to heart the new identity the queen gave him, it could have changed his attitude permanently for the good.

This is what God did for Jacob at Bethel. He told Jacob: “All the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your descendents” (v14).

Jacob hadn’t even been a blessing to his own family. But God gave him a new identity and a new destiny.

And though Jacob sometimes stumbled after that, he never forgot what he had learned at Bethel.

Some time later God gave Jacob a new name, the name “Israel,” and under the name Israel, Jacob’s descendants truly became a blessing to all the world—and we are sharers of that blessing.

This is what Jesus does for each of us when he takes us into his family and gives us the name of “Child of God.”

He gives us a new destiny, and something to live up to.

He opens up heaven for us, and lets us see Jesus.

Jesus is our stairway to heaven.

Now it’s up to us to live up to our heritage.

It’s up to us to let God fill our lives and make us a blessing to all the people we see and know.

That’s our job, even here at Village Place.

In the bottom of our hearts, our deepest desire is that our lives will bless others.

If we can know that our lives have brought goodness into the lives of other people, we can die happy.