There is nothing we will do that will prevent God from accomplishing His will among His people.  Jacob was chosen from the womb by God to be the one who will carry on the promise He had given to Abraham, “the father of all nations.”  Rebekah’s deception to get Jacob in position to do God’s will was wrong and unnecessary. 

How we carry out the will of God is as important as answering the call of God. God doesn’t need our help, only our obedience.  Jacob is learning what God taught his father and his father—to obey is better than sacrifice.  To manipulate people and circumstances by deceiving others, thinking you know better than God with how to accomplish His will is dishonoring to the God we say we love and serve.  We are only serving ourselves, thinking we can do better. Yikes.  Jacob will learn there is no one like our God!

Genesis 28 

So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him. Then he commanded him: “Do not marry a Canaanite woman. ² Go at once to Paddan Aram, to the house of your mother’s father Bethuel. Take a wife for yourself there, from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. ³ May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples. ⁴ 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.” ⁵ Then Isaac sent Jacob on his way, and he went to Paddan Aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, who was the mother of Jacob and Esau.

⁶ Now Esau learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and had sent him to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he commanded him, “Do not marry a Canaanite woman,” ⁷ and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and had gone to Paddan Aram. ⁸ Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac; ⁹ so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had.

Jacob’s Dream at Bethel

¹⁰ Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. ¹¹ When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. ¹² He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. ¹³ There above it stood the Lord, and he 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 on which you are lying. ¹⁴ 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. ¹⁵ 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.”

¹⁶ When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” ¹⁷ 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.”

¹⁸ 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. ¹⁹ He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.

²⁰ Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear ²¹ so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God ²² and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

The call of God upon the hearts of those He has chosen humbles us or it wells up a pride within us.  This pride nature must be controlled and leashed.  Unleashed, pride blocks our view of how God wants us to accomplish what He has given us to do.  Walk with God, avoid running ahead of God!

Isaac gives Jacob his final blessing with direction.  He is to go to Rebekah’s family to choose a wife from among the clan of the chosen.  Esau, still bitter from the manipulating and deception by his mother and brother; marries a Canaanite woman and adds her to his haram just for spite.  This will not go well for him.

Although Jacob was a reluctant player in his mother’s scheme, but he obeyed his mother and did what she said.  God is now going to put Jacob back on the right path to walk with Him as did his grandfather, Abraham!  On his way to seek a wife; Jacob is not rebuked but humbled and affirmed by God in a dream.  Notice how Jacob responded to God!

Jacob responds in worship in these ways:

1. Jacob recognizes God for who He is and what He does with a grateful heart.
2. Jacob hears the message of affirmation from God.
3. Jacob honors God in that place by turning his pillow into a memorial to God.
4. Jacob responds with a vow of dedication to God’s provision.

Jacob may have left with only a father’s death-bed blessing and prayer, fleeing an angry brother who wanted him dead, with the command to seek a wife from among “our people,” but God was with Him and God wanted Jacob to know that.

God is with us.  And God wants US to know that!  God came down from heaven as promised through the preaching of God’s prophets. Jesus, who was God in the flesh left the glory of heaven, moved into the neighborhood of humanity, and became a servant.  God’s Promised Son was called Emmanuel, the Hebrew name, which means “God with us.”

Emmanuel was sent to be the Savior of all who would believe in Him and call on His Name.  To the world; He was to be called Jesus.  Jesus, Savior who is Lord, was a demonstration of God’s love for us who laid down his life for all sinners of whom I am one of them and so are; “for all of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” and in need of rescue.  (Romans 3:23)

“But while we were sinners, Christ died for us,” a demonstration of God’s relentless, abiding, never-ending, unchanging, love for us!  (Romans 5:8) We join Jacob in worship of our awesome God! “Surely the Lord is in this place” as we read the story of God through his people who answer his call with obedient praise and honor!  Yes, God is with us right now, right where you are!

I pray that we, too, will be attentive and recognize God when He calls.  May we hear God with grateful hearts.  May we worship, believing God when He says;

I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go…

I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you—eternal life because of Jesus who by believing gives us entrance into the throne room of God!

Lord,

May we all truly realize the depth of love you have for your created.  Thank you for being with us as we read your story and learn from those who followed you.  May we learn from their mistakes and shortcomings with how to come back to you, learning from our sins’ consequences.  Thank you for your saving grace and amazing mercy.  Thank you for saving me and making me whole.

In Jesus Name, Amen