COME AS A CHILD LESSON 88 RETURNING TO BETHEL

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

The things that happened with Dinah did not make Jacob a happy father.  

The things his sons did to defend her had only brought troubles upon Jacob’s family in the land.  

It was probably a huge relief that there would be no mixing of peoples because of it; but this was only because Simeon and Levi had killed every man in the area that was not a descendant to Jacob!  They had obtained justice for one man's sins by killing many innocent men.  That isn't a very godly way to go about things! 

Jacob thought the other tribes nearby would hear of this and be very disturbed and decide to ban together against his family in the land.  He knew it was probably only a matter of time.  At a loss of what to do next, Jacob got down on his knees and sought God’s help.

God answered Jacob’s prayers by telling him to return to Bethel in the land of Canaan, where God had blessed him before.  Jacob had wrestled with God in that very place just before meeting Esau and he had previously seen the ladder to heaven there with the angels ascending and descending.  

We all have a Bethel in our lives.  A place in time  where and when God prevailed over our humanness and showed us His good and godly plans for us.  If we forget this and lose our way, God usually instructs us to go back to that sacred place.  We need to revisit the place where He instructed us in righteousness and holiness and there He shows us who he has meant for us to be all along.  It often takes several trips back to Bethel for the lessons of God to sink down into our hearts and souls enough so that we can be obedient enough to let God pour out more blessings on our days.  When we find we can LIVE in that place in righteousness, it becomes a permanent home in our hearts and the sacred enters the ordinary through the everyday events of our lives.

This was probably the most holy place on earth to Jacob. The people in the area seemed to be calling Bethel "Luz" at this point.  We have discussed the mysteries and legends around the land of Luz in previous lessons.  

Jacob still called it Bethel.  He knew the place was especially holy; and he knew he needed to clean up his family in order for them to be able to enter this land and walk on this sacred ground.  

What happened to Jacob in this part of the story happens to a lot of Christians.  You sin ,(Jacob stole Esau's birthright and deceived his father); you need to move away from all that God has given you because you have held on to that sin, (Jacob had not reconciled with Easu); you leave and go to live with pagans instead of God's people.  Then while you are there you maybe come to your senses and try to make things right where you are and you can't quite get there because everyone you have surrounded yourself with is pagan. 

 Your children are born in a pagan land and they pick up pagan practices and ways from those they have grown up with.  It is very, very hard to change this unless you come clean from your sin, (Jacob faced God and Esau) and begin to teach your household Godly ways and begin to live in righteousness. 

 The very first thing that has to happen is that your household idols must be destroyed.  I wonder how many in Jacob's household wanted to hold on to them?  It would have been so much better if they had never known of them! 

We live and learn and so did Jacob.  He was determined to work through this.  Jacob had changed, and he could be just as stubborn about his change as he had been about his deceptions.  He wanted his family clean before they entered Bethel!

He gathered them together and commanded them to give him all of their foreign gods, which they did.  They also had earrings in their ears that seemed to be inappropriate and Jacob took them too and put them with the idols and he buried it all beneath the oak tree at Shechem.

That old tree had seen some history by now! 

So Jacob told everyone in his family to purify themselves and to change their clothes.  He informed them that he was taking them to Bethel, the place where he would build an altar to God and they would worship.  He also stated that at Bethel God had previously answered his prayers when he had been in distress,  and Jacob noted to everyone that God had been with him everywhere that he had been since his experiences at Bethel.  It is almost like Jacob looked at Bethel as a place of safety and refuge that was sacred and hallowed and he was expressing this to his family so they would understand where they were going. 

When Jacob gathered everyone together, all cleaned up and idol free, they set out on the journey.  The scriptures say the terror of God fell on all the towns around them and they were not harmed in any way as they traveled through the land.  Of course, I'm sure the rumors of what Simeon and Levi had done to those Shechemites helped a little too!  That still didn't mean they did the right thing.  God has a way of turning evil and using the outcome to bring some good somewhere.  It keeps the godly from totally losing hope in many hopeless situations.  It always increases shattered faith among the people.

When they arrived at Bethel (Luz) Jacob built an altar to God exactly in the spot where God had revealed Himself to Jacob as he was fleeing from his brother.  Jacob called this place El Bethel, which means “God of Bethel.”

Shortly after they arrived in Bethel Rachel’s nurse, Deborah, died.  Deborah had lived with and faithfully served Rachel all of her life; and she had selflessly left her home land and family and everything she knew to go with Rachel when she married Jacob.  This must have been a great loss to Rachel.   Even though Deborah’s title was servant, she had been like a Mother to Rachel.  Jacob buried Deborah beneath a great oak just outside of Bethel.  They named the area Allon Bakuth, which means “Oak of Weeping.”

Has God called you to be a servant too?  If so, be a servant like Deboarh, one that loves like a mother, one that is faithful in all things, one that blesses a family in a million little ways and one that will be very missed when they are called away from life's journey.  Deborah seems to have been the servant of all servants, a female example similar to Eliezer, the exemplary male servant of Abraham.   

As Jacob and all of his family worshiped God upon first entering Bethel; God appeared to Jacob again.  Jacob was reminded of all the things that God had said to him before.  God had changed his name from Jacob to Israel, and God had said “I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number.  A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will be among your descendants.  The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.  God reminded Jacob of these things he already knew as he worshiped at Bethel, then the scriptures say “God went up from him.”  

Jacob set up a stone pillar in that place and poured out a drink offering to God.  He also poured oil on the stone and he called the place, Bethel, which means “House of God.”

COME AS A CHILD LESSON 75 JACOB'S DREAM

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Even after all that happened, we read in the scriptures that Isaac called Jacob to him and blessed him.  So, Jacob got the birthright, Esau’s blessing 
and a blessing of his own.  Jacob became the most blessed man on earth.

These were the words of the blessing spoken specifically over Jacob:

"May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples.  May He give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now reside as a foreigner, the land God gave to Abraham."

After Isaac blessed Jacob; he instructed him NOT to marry a Canaanite woman.  Isaac sent Jacob away just as Rebekah had requested, to find a wife in Paddan Aram, at the house of Rebekah’s father; Bethuel. Rebekah’s brother Laban had several daughters from which Jacob could chose a wife. 

When Esau heard that Jacob had been blessed and sent away and commanded not to marry a Canaanite woman, but to marry a woman from his mother’s household, he realized how displeased he had made his parents by marrying Canaanite women.  To remedy this, Esau went to Ishmael and asked permission to marry his daughter Mahalath, in addition to the two wives he already had. 

In the meantime, while Esau was marrying again, Jacob was on the way to Harran to find his first wife. 

He reached a certain place in his journey where he stopped for the night.  He found a stone and used it as a pillow for his head and he laid down to 
sleep.

Jacob then dreamed a dream where he saw a stairway resting on the earth with its top reaching to heaven and angels of God were ascending and descending on it.  Above the ladder stood the LORD who said “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.  I will give you and your descendants the land upon 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 people 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 you back to this land.  I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

Surely God had spoken to Jacob in this place the same as He had spoken to Abraham before him in this same place.  Abraham had built an altar and worshiped God on this very spot, but probably Jacob had no knowledge of this.  The promises of God were confirmed by God to both men in this same spot.

When Jacob woke up from this dream he thought “Surely the LORD was in this place, and I was not even aware of it!”  He was frightened with a fear of awe just thinking about this, and he said “How awesome is this place!  This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate to heaven.”

So he took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar.  He poured oil on top of it and called the place “Bethel.”  Before Jacob renamed it, this place was part of the city called Luz.

There are many old legends that are told of the city called Luz.  The fables are many and they describe an old almond tree with a hollow trunk that leads to a cave that takes you to the city that is surrounded by walls that cannot be penetrated.  Only those who know the way may enter.  People standing on high mountains far away can look down and see the city, but they cannot know how to enter it.  Only those who have learned the secret of the almond tree may go inside the cave that leads to the ancient city of Luz.  It is said that inside the city there is no sin and people have immortal life for as long as they live there.  Of course, these are made up stories, only used to teach wisdom to young children in ancient times.  

Jacob's dream, however, was real and true!  It is noted by some that Jacob gave truth to the place by naming it Bethel where the pagan inhabitants of Luz only knew fables fed by stories that were untrue.  Bethel was the name given to the place, but for many years after Jacob's dream the city itself was still called Luz.  Both names in the Hebrew language have meanings that relate to sanctuary, Bethel meaning "House of God."  Luz meaning "refuge" or "sanctuary" and the renaming seems to connote that the experiences of Jacob would build a house in a place of refuge and that God's people would find sanctuary from this place.

Jacob then made a vow to God stating that if God would be with him and would watch over him on his journey and give him food to eat and clothes to wear so that he could return safely to his father’s household, that the LORD would be his God and this stone that he set up as a pillar would be the cornerstone for God’s house.  Jacob vowed to give a tenth of all that God gave him back to God. 

We have heard of people bringing their offerings of first fruits to God all through the old testament stories so far, so giving back to God has always been emphasized, since the days in The Garden of Eden; but this time, at Bethel, is the first time we officially hear of anyone calling the amount to give back to God a “tenth.”   In the harvest days it had been called an "omer."   It would seem evident that God’s people tithing a tenth of all they are blessed with to God originated at Bethel with Jacob after the night of this special dream. 

Noting the conditions of God's promises to Jacob we can assume that his vow to tithe one tenth of his blessings from God related to God bringing about the ownership of the land he had promised.  Jacob did not obtain these blessings, hence the vow of the tithe was passed on to his descendants who did possess the land.  The vow of Jacob was given in relation to God fulfilling His promises first.  That promise of the land was what Jacob was referring to when he promised to give one tenth back to God.  God remembered this vow of Jacob and implemented it into the law given later when the Israelites inherited the promise land.  

So you might say that Jacob was the first to vow a tithe much like the system that is used in churches today.  However, Jacob's tithe was not promised for anything except the prosperity of the promised land.  He did not forget or overlook his vow to God, he simply did not get to see the gift of the promised land in his lifetime.  God's promise and Jacob's vow were specifically stated to include Jacob's descendants.

 Many churches today look back to Genesis 28 and read the last verse and relate it as a reason for giving the tithe of ten percent.  Jacob saw in his vision that God was establishing a "house" on earth and Jacob was pledging to help however he could in making that "house" come about as well as the means to provide the maintenance for it.  Most people don't get that part of the story.  They do not realize that Jacob was the first man to see a vision for a temple and to see a need for a priesthood to care for it and to desire to provide for that priesthood and the maintenance of God's House on earth.  Jacob wasn't bargaining with God in asking for provisions for his journey.  He was simply stating that if God would allow him to have what he needed to return to the land of his father that he would honor the wishes of God in every way that he could.  Jacob's eyes were opened to the greatness of God and the way that God had been looking after the descendants of Abraham for years and years now.  Jacob could see now that every blessing he had clearly came from God and every blessing that he would ever obtain in the future would also come from God.  Jacob had a new reverence for the power and might of God.

This story is also the first time we hear of any man wanting to establish a “house” for God.  Because Jacob had seen the ladder in the dream that led up to the throne of God, he began to call the place The House of God.  Jacob knew that God actually lived in this place, because he had seen it in his vision.  Why would anyone build a house for God anywhere else?  This spot was the place where Jacob had seen God.  

This story of Jacob’s ladder has been pondered by men for years and years.  The Jewish theologians have used the symbolism of the ladder to represent achieving different levels of spiritual enlightenment.  If you read those stories, please be careful of paganism.  They reek with it.  Men cannot achieve spiritual levels, only God can grant that. Men do not evolve into little gods, but God dwelling in a man makes him a better man.   It is not up to mere men, it is up to God and He does this how and when He pleases, not by our human and unholy accomplishments.  

As you can tell from the comments above, I disagree with this theory. I disagree because I know the only true enlightenment is that which comes from Christ, The Messiah.  It makes for pretty word pictures though and provokes thought.  Be careful what you think.  The mind of God is way beyond our finding out!

A million stories have risen from this one incident of Jacob's dream.  It is one of the most significant dreams ever known to men.  There are many explanations and theories as to exactly what this vision represented.  

To start with I think the dream clearly confirms to Jacob that God is still God and that the same God of Abraham is looking after Him, just as previously promised.  It clearly states that God meant it when he made the covenant with Abraham and He is keeping it through Jacob and his descendants.  

Others had told Jacob about God's covenant with Abraham, but now GOD was telling him, which must have truly helped Jacob’s faith to come alive.  Jacob had reasons to doubt his own purpose.  He was well aware of his sins of deception and lies.  For a short time he must have thought his power was coming from his own craftiness.  Then he realized how terribly wrong he had been.  He must have been ashamed and embarrassed.    He might have thought God would never see or hear him again after all that had transpired.  Apparently, Isaac, his earthly father, had forgiven him.  Jacob must have wondered if his heavenly Father would forgive him too.  Jacob's dream is a picture of God's mercy, grace and love for mankind.  Jacob in all of his sins, running away in fear represents all men living outside of God's will.  God comes to them in their imperfections and saves them from their selves.    

I have also come to believe that God was showing Jacob in this dream the way that Heaven and Earth would eventually be reconnected.  God would certainly use Jacob in this plan!  The Way, as we have all come to know is Jesus Christ, and He is represented by this ladder in the dream.  Christ is a bridge of grace and mercy that connects heaven and earth.   It is through the line of Jacob that Christ would come to be incarnated and dwell with men. 

Christ is the only One who has ever been able to bridge the gap between heaven and earth.  Jesus made Jacob’s ladder a reality for all of us.  Jesus is the bridge between heaven and earth, our way to God’s dwelling.  We can climb the ladder (or the stairwell as it is more correctly translated), but without it we are hopeless in finding our way to heaven.  Jesus is the way, He is the stairway to heaven.

It is interesting to read the words of Adam Clarke, an early 19^th Century Methodist, who wrote on the subject:   He said,  “That by the angels of God ascending and descending, it is to be understood that a perpetual intercourse should now be opened between heaven and earth, through the medium of Christ, who was God manifested in the flesh.  Our blessed Lord is represented in his mediatorial capacity as the Ambassador of God to men; and the angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man, is a metaphor taken from the custom of dispatching couriers or messengers from the prince to his ambassador in a foreign court, and from the ambassador back to the prince.”   

Well said Mr. Clark!  Jesus Christ is The Prince of Peace.  The angels are His heavenly ambassadors, and all believers are his earthly ambassadors.  The angels come and go with reports of the earth.  We lift our prayers and petitions up to heaven through Jesus.   Jesus alone gives us entry into heaven.  He is the door, the light and the way.  

Jacob's dream testified to all of us that God's grace and patience with mankind was clearly still in tact.  Despite Jacob's shortcomings, God was still faithfully at work building His people and His Kingdom.  God hears and does not forget Jacob's vow.  Jacob hears and does not forget God's promises.  Step by step the Kingdom is being built.  Stone upon stone the building is put together.   The pillar and foundation stone to the Temple of God was found by Jacob and anointed at Bethel.  The fabels of the land were dissolving and the truth of God was coming to the promised land day by day, minute by minute, generation by generation.  God never changes.  He always keeps His promises.