I think that quite often, the greatest difficulty in living the Christian life is being able to distinguish between the physical and the spiritual realities of our faith.  By that I mean, how does God operate in the physical realm, and how does God operate in the spiritual realm, and by extension, how are we to operate in both?  I have said from this pulpit repeatedly, that every physical healing or miracle presented in the gospels, is given to illustrate a spiritual principle.  For instance, what I mean by that is  when Jesus healed the paralyzed man, spiritually speaking He was giving life to that which was dead, so that it illustrated spiritual new life in Christ.  I hope we can all agree with that.

But let’s take that principle and work it out more thoroughly and I think you will realize it’s difficulty.  Does that mean then that God is not concerned as much about the physical as He is the spiritual?  Does the fact that we do not see paralyzed people restored to full use of their limbs today emblematic of the fact that the blessings of the kingdom of God are primarily spiritual?  Is it wrong  then to expect to expect faith to produce physical healing? Are miracles something that we should expect in this new life in Christ?  Or does being a Christian mean we find spiritual life which transcends physical difficulties?  And even if that is true, does that mean that all physical difficulties must simply be endured in suffering until we one day die and then in the resurrection given a new body?  Is our hope only in the resurrection? 

I don’t know if I can fully answer all those questions in our study today.  But I will truthfully say that I ask myself many of those questions on an ongoing basis.  I am quite familiar with all the arguments and doctrines on both sides of all those questions.  But in practice, in day to day living, I still find myself asking where is the line of demarcation between the physical world we live in, and the spiritual kingdom we belong to.  And I must confess that for me it is a daily struggle to walk that line and live within it’s limitations.  

But I believe that this question of the spiritual and the physical characteristics of the kingdom of God is exactly what Jesus is teaching in this passage.  And yet it is still difficult at times to understand precisely the limits of what our salvation qualifies us to expect.  And to be quite frank, even Jesus Himself seems at times to deliberately leave us with some questions unanswered even as He is teaching us the principles.  

The question though which is quite clearly presented in this passage is – what constitutes the kingdom of God? How do we understand it, grab hold of it, appropriate it from the spiritual realm into the physical realm and what does that look like?  And I think we find a key to answering this question in vs.15, as the people wished to make Christ king in response to His miracles, and yet Jesus obviously does not want that to happen, and so He withdraws from the crowd and disappears to the mountain alone, only to remerge walking across the storm tossed lake in the middle of the night and then arriving at the opposite shore, leaving the multitudes to try to figure out where He went.  

Now that would be almost comical if it were not such a serious issue.  Imagine a preacher today becoming so popular that the people want to make him president of the United States.  Most of us would think that would be a great opportunity.  Christians seem to think that is the answer to our problems, to get a Christian into the White House.  And then imagine that this immensely popular preacher disappears from public view and goes into hiding right before the national convention.  It would go against all reason for a successful, popular Christian preacher to act like that, and throw away such a great opportunity to exercise his influence in the nation.  And yet that is exactly what Jesus did. He disappeared. 

Now though it is not stated here explicitly, we know why Jesus refused to be king of Israel.  We know that He came to establish a spiritual kingdom and not a physical one.  He said to Pilate in John 18:36 “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”   But we might imagine that even after His resurrection He could have chosen to set up His rule on the throne of Israel and began to physically rule over the world.  But instead He chose to leave this world and send us His Holy Spirit to rule over our hearts.  So we know without a doubt from the vantage point of history that Christ did not come to establish a physical kingdom but a spiritual one.  We also know through prophecy that He will one day come again and at that time He will physically rule the world when the world will be spiritually and physically remade.

So there is this disconnect as Christians in determining how we live in God’s spiritual kingdom and yet live in the physical realm.  On the one hand, Jesus as God’s ambassador to Earth, reveals certain spiritual principles in physical manifestations of power, and yet on the other hand, He does not want to establish a physical kingdom by exerting His rule physically.  And as I indicated, not only was it difficult for the Jews to understand, but it is difficult for us to understand in this age.  On the one hand we read in Phil. 4:19 “And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”  And on the other hand we read in Phil.1:29 “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.”  It’s tough to make the right distinction sometimes as to what we are to expect in the spiritual life. 

And then to add even more confusion there are a lot of people out there which are teaching that as a Christian you never need to have to suffer at all.  But that we are to claim success or prosperity and God’s blessing on our lives so that we are able to live above the fray and have victory in all things.  They teach that the things which beleaguer the world such as sickness or hardship does not have to be the lot of people of faith.  If you have enough faith, you can create your own nirvana.  That is widely taught, and immensely popular, especially by certain preachers on television, but also in many churches throughout our country.  

So as I said, I don’t anticipate being able to fully answer all those questions and concerns here today, but I do believe that this discourse that Jesus engages in here is the beginning point for us to understand the distinctions between the spiritual and the physical.  So I want to look at five of those distinctions, in a sort of comparative manner, and I hope we will get some insight into understanding the difference between the spiritual and physical perspectives.  And so we are going to look at two types of appetites, two types of work, two types of signs, two types of bread, and two types of disciples.  

First two types of appetites.  Remember the context; Jesus had fed the multitude bread and fish on the mountain the day before.  Probably close to 15000 people had eaten dinner and been filled up from one little boy’s lunch of 5 loaves and two fish.  That was a dramatic miracle of great magnitude which 15000 people experienced.  The result was they wanted to make Christ king of Israel, but He disappears because that is not what He came to do at that time.  

So the next day the multitudes are looking for Jesus.  They can’t find Him, they know that He didn’t get in the boat with the disciples, and so eventually they get into boats themselves and go to the other side, thinking that somehow He will eventually go to His home to Capernaum and they will be there when He arrives.  Turns out, He is already there.  He walked across the lake in the middle of the night in the midst of a storm.  They don’t know that, so they say, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” 

This would have been a good opportunity for Jesus to put another feather in His cap, and tell them about how He walked upon the water and all of that story.  But Jesus doesn’t do that.  He instead discerns their motives for seeking Him, and so He cuts to the chase.  He says is in vs. 26, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.”

So here is the problem.  These people are seeking Jesus.  Most preachers would think that is a good problem to have.  People want to come to your church.  They are seeking you out.  But not so much for Jesus.  He wants seekers who are interested in the truth, not just looking for a free meal.  See, the difference is that they had an appetite, but for the wrong things.  They wanted to eat.  They wanted to fill their stomachs again.  They were hungry again.  And their appetite for physical fulfillment was what was driving them to Jesus.  

So there is an appetite which is geared towards the physical.  It’s an appetite fixated on finding physical fulfillment.  On being physically satisfied.  And for those people, they will find that nothing physical really ever satisfies.  We are programed to eat three meals a day everyday, because everyday we get hungry again. And that is a picture of the food which perishes.  

Jesus is offering another type of food.  Spiritual food.  He says the Son of Man will give you spiritual food, which gives eternal life.  But they could not understand that. They could only see the physical bread. That is why He rebukes them by saying “you seek me not because you saw the signs but because you ate of the food.” In other words, the miracle of feeding the 5000 was not an end in itself, to quench physical hunger, but it was to be a sign.  And a sign points to something.  A sign advertises something.  And what that sign should have revealed to them was the truth about Christ; that He was the source of eternal life.  

In Matthew 5:6, Jesus speaks of satisfying our spiritual hunger, saying, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”  So that is the comparison that I think Jesus is speaking of.  They were seeking satisfaction for their physical appetite, and consequently would not find satisfaction.  If they would have had a spiritual appetite, then they would have found Jesus, who can satisfy our spiritual appetite for eternity.

Then the second comparison He makes is two types of work. Vs.28, “Therefore they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?’”  Now obviously, two types of work refers to physical works or spiritual works.  The work that they are asking about is physical work, because they say, “what shall we do?”   This is really the quest of religion, isn’t it?  All religion is a system of works whereby man seeks to gain acceptance with God.  And that is what Judaism had devolved into.  A system of works, keeping the law, keeping the Sabbath, circumcision, sacrifices, etc.  This was the religion of  Judaism.  Remember what the rich young ruler said to Jesus in Mark 10:17, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” The Jews were conditioned to think in terms of works as a means of salvation.  

So when Jesus says that there is a work of God which results in eternal life in vs.27, they want to know what work that is.  Like the Jews that asked Jesus which is the greatest commandment.  And today in religion the question is the same; what must I do?  What work can I do to ensure my acceptance before God?  

Well, the answer to that question is that it’s not according to our works. Titus 3:5 says it’s “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.”  So on the one hand Jesus said in Matt.5:6 that we are to hunger and thirst for righteousness, but in Titus it says that it is not by our works of righteousness.  So then how are we saved?  Well,it must be by another’s work.  That is the answer.  By faith we appropriate Christ’s righteousness for ourselves.  

That is what Jesus is referring to in vs. 29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”  Believe in Him.  What does that mean?  They could see Him, so it could not refer to simply believing that He existed. To simply believe in God does not save you.  Then what?  To believe that Jesus was sent by God, that He was God.  And if He was God, then He was righteous and holy.  That there is none righteous but God. Romans 10:10 says, “for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

Note the contrast in what Jesus says though in vs.29; He says that faith is a work of God.They had asked what work they could do, and Jesus responds by saying what work God has done.  Faith is not a work of the flesh, but a work of the Spirit.  Ephesians 2:1 in the KJV says, “And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.”  The idea behind that verse is that God must give us spiritual life; eyes to see, and ears to hear, and hearts to understand so that we might believe.  Faith then is a gift of God.  It says that very thing just a few verses further along in Eph.2:8, “For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”  Neither grace nor faith is of yourselves.  But in the mystery of God He predestined us, and called us, and justified us, so that He might glorify us.  Salvation is a work of God from start to finish.  But the Jews thought that salvation was through their own work.  But like Jesus told Nicodemus in chapter 3, if you want to be spiritual, and receive spiritual things, then you must be born again spiritually.  So we are to trust in the spiritual work of God through Christ. That is faith, that is what it means to believe in Him.

Then they asked Him another question, and this one illustrates yet another comparison; the comparison of physical miracles or spiritual signs.  In vs. 30 they said to Him, “What then do You do for a sign, so that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform?  “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘HE GAVE THEM BREAD OUT OF HEAVEN TO EAT.’”  

This is the cry of the world, the cry of the unbeliever, the cry of the doubters.  Give us a miracle so that we might believe.   Jesus said to the crowds in Luke 11:29 “This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah.”  I have to interpret that as it is wicked to ask for a sign.  You can even go so far as to say that it is a sin to ask for a miracle, if you are asking as a precondition for faith.  Romans 14:23 says, “whatever is not of faith is sin.”  And remember what Heb. 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

I will admit to a similar failure of faith, and that is to doubt or fail to trust the Lord because He does not act in a supernatural method when I ask Him too.  I will say this with some degree of admitted confusion.  Sometimes it’s difficult to know what we are at liberty to ask for, and what things we need to trust God in spite of. I will admit to often wanting God to act in a supernatural fashion and when He doesn’t do it as I wish, I find myself doubting the goodness of God, or the reliability of God, or perhaps my understanding of God.  And in such cases I would just say that we must be careful not to treat God like a genie, which if we say abbra caddabra, in just the right formula, He is obligated to perform our wishes according to our command.  God is not a genie, nor is He our servant, but He is Lord, and we are His servants.  So we must come to Him not with an air of entitlement, but of entreatment for His favor, if it is according to His will.

So what they were looking for was a daily supply of food, like Moses seemed to provide.  The Jews followed Moses because everyday there was manna from heaven.  That was the daily evidence that they needed to follow Moses, even though they did not accept all that Moses said, yet they followed him because of the miracles.  But Jesus corrects their thinking.  Vs.32, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.”  

Now there is a lot in those verses which we don’t have time to expand on right now, but suffice it to say that it’s like what I said earlier; a sign points to something or someone.  And in the case of the manna from heaven, Jesus said Moses didn’t give them the bread, God did.  And the sign of manna from heaven was designed to point to the bread of heaven which God gave to the world, that is Jesus Christ.  They not only misattributed the miracle to Moses, but they completely missed the message of the sign.

That is I think the problem with the church today that is so taken with signs and wonders.  They point back to the signs of the apostles and say that since they had that power, then we should have the same power.  But they make the same mistake that these Jews made; they misattribute the power as residing in the apostles.  It was God who was working through them.  It wasn’t in the apostle’s power to perform miracles.  God had to do it, and He did it for a purpose.  And that purpose was to point to Jesus Christ.  The signs and wonders of the apostles was to attest to the fact that they spoke the life giving words of Christ.  And once that was established, and the Bible was written, then the signs and wonders ceased, even as the manna from heaven ceased. 

Jesus did not need to give manna from heaven everyday in order to prove He was the Son of God.  The life that He came to give was not physical, which is sustained by bread.  But the life He came to give was spiritual, and in that sense He gave Himself once and it was sufficient for all the world, for all eternity.

So that leads us to the fourth point, where we see that there are two types of bread. Vs. 34 Then they said to Him, “Lord, always give us this bread.”  Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”  I think that the Jews were still expecting physical bread.  I guess they could not really see what Jesus was talking about beyond what they could see, touch or taste.  They were sensual, physical, but spiritually dead. They desired an experience that they could feel or taste.  And so notice that they sound like they are asking for the bread of life, but the fact that they add “always” indicates that they still don’t understand the spiritual nature of what Jesus is talking about.  They are still hung up on the manna which fell from heaven every day for the life of the Jews.  That indicates they are still thinking about the physical.  That reminds me of those poor people that go to confession week after week, saying prayer after prayer, doing penance after penance, trying to find assurance of salvation.  Trying to earn their way into heaven by being good.  Instead of realizing that by one sacrifice their sins were put away forever they sacrifice Christ daily in an effort to effect their salvation.  But Heb.9:26 says, “but now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”

So there is a bread of self effort that results in only sustaining the physical.  But there is another spiritual bread which gives everlasting life, abundant life, spiritual life. And Jesus says if you eat of this bread, you will never be hungry again.  He obviously is speaking of something better than manna, better than daily bread, but bread which is eternal, which satisfies forever. 

I’m reminded of how back in the hippy movement, it was popular to use “bread” as the slang word for money.  I guess they were right to some degree.  Money is like physical bread.  It makes the world go around.  It really takes me back to the original statement of Jesus in vs.27, “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life.”  I think of so many people today who are working for the physical bread which perishes.  They are working for what they call the “blessings” of God according to the American Dream.  That means a nice house, cars, vacations, entertainment, the latest technology.  I particularly see our Christian young people seduced into thinking that they have to acquire those things first, at whatever expense spiritually it may take, and then at some point in the future they think that once they have achieved the American Dream then they will be able to focus more on God’s desires.  But the truth is, they have believed the lie of the devil that there is satisfaction to be found in the physical bread of this world.  It will not satisfy, and so in their old age they will still be looking for more, more of what will never satisfy.  

I can only hope that such people become truly followers of Christ.  Because the truth is that there were two kinds of disciples there that day in Capernaum listening to Jesus. All of the people there that day were following Christ.  And John even goes so far as to call them all disciples.  But he was using the word disciples as a very general term.  It means followers, learners, students.  But some were following Jesus for the wrong reasons.  They wanted the daily benefits to their life that He seemed to be able to give. They were looking for a healer. They were looking for a political leader to deliver them from physical oppression.  There were probably as many reasons for following Him as there were people there.  But when Jesus really laid down the requirements for what constituted true discipleship, then it says in vs. 66 “As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.”

Why did they fall away?  Because they did not believe His word.  Jesus said in vs. 35,  “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe.”  They believed in what they could see, taste and touch, what seemed good to them.  They did not believe in what they could not physically see, and so failed to appropriate spiritual insight.

Listen, we are going to continue this sermon of Jesus next week and we will look at all of this in more detail.  But I hope our study today has led you to examine yourself in light of the comparison between the spiritual and the physical.  What is your motivation for following the Lord?  Is it only in hope that He will fulfill your appetite?  Is your appetite for things of this world, for the physical, for the material?  Or do you hunger and thirst after righteousness?  How about your work?  Are you trying to work your way into heaven?  Are you hoping that in the long run your good deeds will outweigh your bad and so God will let you in?  Or is your work faith in what Christ has accomplished for you?  And how about your attitude towards the supernatural?  Have you found yourself trusting or not trusting God based on your efforts to manipulate God to do your will?  And then the ultimate question; have you eaten of the bread of life which satisfies, which saves forever?  If so, then you are truly a disciple of Christ.  But if you are seeking the bread of material gain, and trying to use Christ to fulfill that desire, then I’m afraid that you haven’t yet believed in all that Christ is, and came to be.  He came to be our substitute to pay the penalty for our sins, to be our Savior by His sacrifice, and our Lord and King when we surrender our will to do His will.  I hope that you are not one of those who turns away from the truth of Christ, but believes on Him unto salvation.

There are many degrees of faith.  Often, Jesus rebuked people for not having enough faith, or because they only had a little faith.  So as believers, it is important for us to consider our faith and examine it in light of what the word of God says. 

There are a lot of ecclesiastical statements out there which attempt to clarify what constitutes faith, but the best definition of faith is found in the scriptures themselves.  Several places in the scriptures speak of faith, but Hebrews 11:1 defines it very succinctly; “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Faith then is believing in what is unseen, but hoped for.

Many professing Christians however, if questioned, base their faith not necessarily on the unseen, but on a tangible or physical experience that they had sometime in the past.  Perhaps they were going through some sort of crisis and they prayed to God for help, and He seemed to bring about deliverance in some miraculous way.  And so they believed in God and now consider themselves to be people of faith.  They believe in the existence of God because of something tangible that happened which established their belief.

That may be well and good up to a point, but I would suggest that the sort of faith which is founded on experience is what Jesus would speak of as “Oh, you of little faith.”  I believe God does sometimes work in visible ways in order to bring about the beginnings of faith.  So that may serve as a starting point in our faith, but I think that is not the kind of faith that satisfies God.  I think that God desires us to grow in faith so that we believe what God says without having to rely on substantiating evidence. 

A good verse which speaks of that kind of faith is found in Romans 10:17, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”  This is the standard for faith in the scriptures.   The word of God speaks, and we believe it, and trust it, and then act in obedience to it.  So then our actions reveal our faith, and not waiting for God to prove it  before we act in faith.  That is the example we see throughout the scriptures, from Abraham through Moses, and on into the New Testament. God spoke, they believed and then acted in faith.  So faith that pleases God is that which trusts in God’s word and acts upon it.

Today in our exposition of this text we are going to see four examples of faith.  Two that were pleasing to the Lord and two that were not.  The Samaritan woman exemplifies the sort of faith that was pleasing to God.  You will remember she had a conversation with Jesus by the well, and though they started off by talking about Jesus being thirsty and wanting a drink of water, He skillfully turned the conversation around to spiritual things.  And in the process, He brought her under conviction of her sin.  She responded by trying to talk about religion and the difference between the way the Samaritans and the Jews worship God.  But Jesus continued to press her towards the goal of believing in Him.  And then Jesus made one of the most forthright claims to His divinity to ever come from HIs own mouth, He said in response to her statement about the Messiah, “I who speak to you am He.”

Now at that point is where she believed in the word of Christ and she was saved. She doesn’t have some out of body experience, she doesn’t walk down the aisle or repeat the sinner’s prayer, she isn’t baptized.  But the fact that she is saved by faith in Christ is evidenced by the fact that she leaves her water pot and goes back into town, telling everyone to come see the Christ.

There are a number of things that can be learned from this text.  But the main point which is brought out in this passage is that saving faith is believing in the word of God and then acting upon it. The Samaritan woman believes in the word of Christ, His declaration that He was the Messiah promised in scripture.  And she obviously believes Him and so begins to share her new found faith. 

Now much has been made by commentators about the way she phrases the question found in vs.29 as if she expected a negative response.  But I don’t think that’s really borne out by her actions.  I’ve looked at all the major translations of this phrase, and I think it is best understood as follows, “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; is this not the Christ?” Now that question still lends itself to some ambiguity.  But I don’t think she is really being ambivalent at all.  I think it’s evident she believes that Jesus is the Christ.  And obviously that is not all that she said, as evidenced by the men of the cities answer to her in vs.42: “and they were saying to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.’” Obviously she told them much more about Christ than that simple statement because what she had said was enough to make them believe in Him.  At least enough to be a starting point in their faith.

And there is another important aspect to her testimony.  She says “Come and see…”  Not go, but come.  She is inviting them to come with her to see Jesus.  I think she left her water pot by the well with Jesus because she was coming back. She was in a hurry to tell them, and didn’t want to be burdened by the water pot. She was bringing back something better – living water.  So she was coming back with her townspeople.  She was rejoicing in the news about the Messiah.  And she knew that her people would rejoice as well.  In spite of any flaws in the Samaritan’s theology they knew that the Messiah was the promised seed of Abraham, in whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed.  He was the Savior of the world, and so it was only reasonable that she would share it and rejoice in it.

What a contrast to most Christians view of sharing their faith.  I don’t know if it is a product of the PC culture, or just a reticence on our part to give testimony to our faith, but how many of us fall far short of the example given by this Samaritan woman.  She boldly goes back into town and begins to broadcast the fact that Jesus was just outside of town at the well.  And she invites them to come with her and listen to Him. 

Our lack of willingness to be a witness makes me wonder if we really believe what we claim to believe.  Do we really believe that Jesus is the only way to eternal life?  Do we really believe that our friends and loved ones who are without the Lord will end up being cast into outer darkness for eternity?  Do we really believe that there is coming a day when everyone will be judged by what they did concerning Jesus?  I’m afraid we must not really believe what the Bible teaches. 

You know, back to the Samaritan woman’s statement, I don’t think there’s a hint of unbelief in it at all, but she is issuing a challenge.   She is suggesting that they need to believe for themselves if Jesus is the Christ.  I know that some of you may feel intimidated about sharing your faith.  The culture is not very tolerant towards true Christianity it seems.  And maybe you feel intimidated because you don’t think you know enough to be able to answer people’s objections or questions.  But I would encourage you to consider this woman’s example as evidence that you don’t have to have all the answers to point people to Jesus Christ.  If you don’t feel adequate to explain everything, then simply invite them to “come and see.”  To come to church and hear the word of God for themselves. 

I will also suggest to you what else made her testimony effective.  And that is the transformation that she obviously exhibited.  There is no more effective testimony to the saving grace of God than a transformed life.  We don’t have a description here in the passage that describes her transformation.  But we do see the evidence of it.  When she began spreading the word about Christ through the town, all the townspeople started coming out to see Jesus.  Something about this woman was different than before she went to the well.  The transformation in her must have been very obvious.  And so people wanted to see this Jesus, since He had made such a change in this woman.  It’s evident from the text that she was a woman with a sordid past.  She would have been well known to everyone in a small town. But after being with Jesus, there must have been a noticeable change in this woman’s demeanor.  I believe she was rejoicing, for one thing.  And people took notice of that and wanted to examine it further. 

I remember when I got right with the Lord when I was living in California after years of being in sin and rebellion against God.  And the next night I stopped by the restaurant where I worked after the shift was over and all my coworkers were sitting in the lounge.  And when they saw me they thought I was drunk.  I wasn’t staggering around or acting boisterous or anything.  But I must have had a different demeanor than what I normally had. I guess I seemed happy.  And so they noticed it, and it gave me a chance to share with them about my faith.  It wasn’t too long after that my best friend who worked with me gave his life to the Lord as well, and he credited the change that he saw in me as a reason for him coming to the Lord.

So the first example of someone believing the word of God then is that of the Samaritan woman.  She believed, and was saved and she was converted/changed.  Consequently, she immediately began to confess Jesus as Lord in her community.  And people believed in Christ due to her testimony.  Vs. 39 says,  “From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, ‘He told me all the things that I have done.’”  God wants to use your testimony to bring people to Christ.  That is our mission; to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel, starting in our homes, then our neighborhoods, then our communities, and then to the ends of the world.  This woman may not have been the best role model before she was saved, but she is a great example of the transforming power of faith after she is saved.

There is a second example of faith that is given in this text as well.  It’s sort of understated, and so we need to read between the lines so to speak.  But this one is not an exemplary example of faith.  It’s what we might call a lower tier faith.  And that is the faith of the disciples of all people. They have faith, but at this point it’s a superficial faith that can’t see the spiritual and instead focuses on the physical.  Even to the point of neglecting their commission.

The Samaritans were considered outcasts, half breeds who the Jews would not even speak to.  And yet their response to the news of the Christ from the Samaritan woman is to come out from the city in droves to hear Him.  In fact, some commentators have suggested that when Jesus told the disciples that the fields were white unto harvest, He was referencing the white robed Samaritan’s coming out of the village and walking across the fields the half mile or so to the well. 

Jesus uses that illustration as an encouragement to the disciples to be about the business of the kingdom.  It’s ironic that all of the disciples had just been in the very same village of the Samaritans buying food. And yet in spite of the fact that a dozen disciples of Christ descended on this little village in Samaria, when normally Jews would go miles out of their way to avoid Samaria, yet not one Samaritan was presented with the news that the Messiah was sitting just outside the town by the well.  The disciples were just too focused on buying food. They were hungry.  They were in a hurry.  They didn’t like those people anyway.  So they missed an opportunity.  And in reality, they missed the purpose of their discipleship. They missed the purpose of their faith.

The disciples came back from their mission with the food and saw Him talking to the woman.  They were surprised by that, but were afraid to ask Him why He was talking to a woman, much less a Samaritan.  So they just kind of ignored it, and when she left they offered Him the food that they brought.  But Jesus isn’t thinking about food at that point.  He says, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”  And their answer is to ask did someone bring Him food while we were gone? 

You know, the disciple’s cluelessness would almost be funny if it were not so indicative of the way we are oblivious to the opportunities that God puts in our path to be about the kingdom of God. I’m afraid too many times that we can only see the physical, rather than the spiritual.  Our focus is on our appetites, our work, our little routines or duties that we do each day.  Instead of seeing opportunities to speak to someone about Christ. 

Jesus said to the disciples in vs.35 “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’  I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”

Now there is a whole sermon in that which I don’t have time to delve into today, but suffice it to say that Jesus is saying that half of the work has already been done, all you have to do is reap the benefits of what other’s have done. Now that’s pretty amazing isn’t it?  That should encourage you to witness to people that God puts in your path.  He is saying, I have already begun a work in those people’s hearts, they have already had the sowing of the word into their hearts.  Now if you will just be willing to act in faith and speak to them, you will reap what other’s have sown. 

But as I said, many Samaritans believed in Him simply by the word which He was preaching.  He did not do any signs or wonders or miracles in Samaria.  But then it says that He went into Galilee, which was His own country.  And the people were coming out to Him, but not because they had believed in Him before when He was among them, but because they heard of the miraculous works that He did when He was in Jerusalem.  So Jesus quotes to them what was probably a well known proverb; “that a prophet has no honor in his own country.” 

I can attest to the truth of that.  I’ve lived in this area 24 years, but not all of that time I was a pastor.  And the result of that proves another true proverb which is; “familiarity breeds contempt”.  In other words, it is much easier to go someplace where you are not known and be received with a certain respect than it is to live around people who think they know you.  I think that’s part of the reason why our summer services on the beach are well received by out of town people, but the locals rarely come. 

So Jesus had grown up in Galilee,  and now the Galileans are coming out to see Jesus, but they are not  believing in Him the way the Samaritans did.  They don’t believe Him for His word, but want to see His miracles.  So Jesus rebukes them when He responds to the nobleman’s request by saying, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.” I don’t think Jesus was necessarily rebuking the nobleman, but He was rebuking the Galileans who obviously were gathering together hoping to see a miracle.  Perhaps they would believe in Him if they saw some astonishing miracle, but not because of His word.

So the third group, the Galileans, receive a rebuke because they did not have the faith in HIs word, even though the Samaritans who were considered outcasts by the Jews believed in Him simply from His word. So the Samaritans were more noble than the Galileans.  And I’m afraid that most Christians today fall into that category of the Galileans.  We go from church to church, from concert to movies, to revivals, to conferences, all in the hopes of finding some new experience which is going to galvanize our infantile faith into something substantial.  But in fact faith comes by hearing the word of God, not by signs and wonders or music or concerts or movies or conferences.

And that leads us to the fourth group which is illustrated by the nobleman. He is from Capernaum, which is about 25 miles from Cana, where Jesus was at that point.  Cana, you will remember, was the site of the first miracle Jesus did in His ministry, in which He had turned the water into wine at the marriage feast.  Now Jesus has returned to Cana, and this nobleman, probably a member of Herod’s court, has heard that Jesus has returned from Judea.  So he made a 25 mile trip from Capernaum in order to come to Jesus and beg Him to come home with Him and heal His son who was at the point of death.

You know, when calamity strikes your child, there is nothing you wouldn’t consider doing to save them.  I would suggest that this example is given to us here for a number of reasons, but not the least of which is to provide a contrast between the apathy of the disciples who felt no pity on the Samaritans, and the anguish of this father for his dying son.  Would to God we felt the anguish over our brothers and sisters and loved ones impending death the way that this man felt over his son.  Perhaps it’s because we cannot see the cancer of sin which has condemned our loved ones to a certain spiritual death. 

So this man travels 25 miles in hopes of seeing Christ and convincing Jesus to come home with Him to heal his son.  And certainly, the Galileans who have gathered there are watching to see what Jesus will do.  Perhaps many of them would have followed Him to Capernaum if it meant they could see a miracle.  I’m not surprised that so many Christians will pay all sorts of money and travel great distances to see some supposed faith healer perform a miracle.  It was common then, it’s common today.  I had a business partner once who stole money from our business to fly to Charlotte NC to have a private meeting with Benny Hinn. It only cost him $10,000 to get a private audience and his blessing.  Didn’t do us any favors though.  Our business went bust 3 months later because of that kind of foolishness.

But Jesus is not going to go to Capernaum.  Not because He doesn’t commiserate with the nobleman, or because He isn’t compassionate. It’s noteworthy that no one ever comes to Jesus for help and leaves without Jesus helping them.   Jesus said in John 6:37  “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”

But Jesus doesn’t go to Capernaum with the nobleman because He wants to teach an important lesson.  And that is the lesson that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”  He wants this nobleman to believe in His word.  Jesus is going to heal his son.  But for 24 hours this man is not going to know that for sure.  He is going to have to take Jesus at His word. So Jesus said, “Go; your son lives.”

Now the rest of that verse is amazingly understated. It says, “The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started off.”  Let me tell you why it is understated. It’s understated not just because it took a lot of faith to believe Jesus could heal just by speaking a word from 25 miles away. But it is also understated because it doesn’t just mean that the boy was healed, but it also means that the nobleman was saved.  Jesus didn’t go with him because He wasn’t compassionate, but He didn’t go because He was compassionate.  Jesus wanted to give more than just the physical healing, He wanted to give spiritual healing as well. 

I have told you many times before that every miracle in the gospel is a spiritual parable which illustrates a spiritual principle.  And this one even more so.  Because as a result of this man’s faith, he was saved, his son was saved and healed, and his entire household was saved.

Vs.51-53 “As he was now going down, his slaves met him, saying that his son was living.  So he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. Then they said to him, ‘Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.’ So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, ‘Your son lives’; and he himself believed and his whole household.”

There are so many applications that we could take from this illustration.  But let me just try to leave you with a couple.  One, our faith is not founded on experience, but on the promises of God.  That is what we are talking about when we talk about the word of God.  We are talking about God’s revelation of Himself, what He has to say about Himself, and His plan and purpose for the world.  And He gives that to us in the form of promises.  He gives us His word, His promises, by which we may believe.  And when we believe in Him as He has revealed Himself through His word, He credits that to us as righteousness. 

Three times in the New Testament, in Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6, and James 2:23, it says “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.”  This is how we are saved, by grace through faith in the word of God, which is written down for us.  Notice it doesn’t say Abraham believed in God.  But Abraham believed God.  The Bible says the devils believe and tremble. So believing in God doesn’t save you.  But believing God, believing His word saves you.

Another application we can take from these verses is that when we are saved by faith, God can use our faith to save our families.  We saw that with the Samaritan woman.  I believe she started witnessing to all her former husbands.  That was probably half the town.  But the whole village responded as a result of this woman’s faith.  And of course this nobleman’s faith resulted in his whole household coming to the Lord.  And we see other examples of that in scripture.  I think of the centurion who called Peter to come and preach the gospel, and the whole house was saved.  I think of the jailer who was saved when Paul and Silas presented themselves after the earthquake, and his whole house was saved.  

The point being that you can have a confidence that when you believe in the word of God resulting in your salvation and you share that with your family, then they can be saved through your testimony.  I’m not going to say it is guaranteed.  That is not taught in this text.  But I do think it’s a principle that we can use to reach our families and that God will bless when we act upon it.

Well, let me close by encouraging you today to make sure that your faith is grounded in the word of God.  If God said it, then trust Him and obey.  God may give you an experience, He may give you a miracle, but more importantly He has given you His word.  And that is the greater miracle, which produces a greater faith, and a greater work in you.  Because God’s word is sufficient for every circumstance, for every day.  We don’t need to wait for a sign, when we have the word made more sure, the written word of God, tested and proven for thousands of years.  And that is what John calls this miracle – a sign.  It points to something greater, and that is Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. That was the purpose of the miracles Jesus did. They point to Him.

And then finally, don’t keep your faith to yourself.  God didn’t give your salvation to you so that you can say, “us four, no more, shut the door.”  God gave you your salvation so that you might be an ambassador of the gospel.  He has given you the good news to share with those with whom He has already started a work in their hearts.  There is no greater miracle on earth than leading someone to Christ.  As Jesus said in vs.36, there is reward in heaven for those that reap souls; “Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal, that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.”  We were saved that we might bear fruit for eternal life.  I hope that you will focus on the kingdom of God and accomplish His work in the time we have left here on earth. 

The other night as I was walking my dog after dinner, I was able to witness a particularly beautiful sunset.  There were these clouds that had reflections of all these colors in them and the sun’s rays shining through.  It was really amazing.  It’s almost sad though because it changes right before your eyes and soon it’s gone.  I can’t help but think that sunsets are kind of like life.  They are so beautiful, and yet so fleeting.  By the time you think it’s really going great it’s basically starting to dim.

But as tragic as that thought is, imagine what life would be like if you were only able to see in black and white. I couldn’t help but notice that my dog seemed oblivious to that spectacular sunset. From what I understand dogs are mostly color blind. But even so, they just don’t seem to appreciate things like the beauty of a sunset.  I would like to suggest that life without Christ is kind of like looking at the world in black and white and not realizing that there is so much more to it.  To live life without Christ is tragic because you are blind to the full life that God has designed for us. 2Cor. 4:4 says, “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”Jesus said in John 10:10, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” 

Last week my wife and I were in Pacific Beach in San Diego, visiting our daughter. We didn’t realize when we made our reservations that it is a big party town.  Being there on July 4th was kind of crazy. There were thousands of young people there for the holiday, most of whom seemed to be high or under the influence.  But seeing these masses of young people we couldn’t help but feel a sadness that most of them were unable to even comprehend the things of God. They were completely absorbed in trying to fulfill the desires of the flesh, and just as completely unaware of real life in the Spirit.  It’s like the Bible says in Galatians 6:8 “For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”

The fact is, Christianity is not just a religion.  It’s life as God meant it to be lived. Prior to coming to Christ we are dead to all that God has designed us to be.  We think we are really living, but we don’t recognize that we are living in black and white, instead of living color.

Last time we looked almost exclusively at the most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16, showing the universal predicament that all men are without hope, the universal love of God in reaching down to save sinners, the universal invitation that whosoever will may come, and the individual application of whosoever believes may have everlasting life.  But it’s a little bit limiting to focus on just one verse of scripture though and not consider the context in which it is found.  Today I would like us to consider the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey used to like to say.  But in doing so, I suggest that we will not find new truth, but we will find expanded truth.  In other words, verses 17-21 are just expansions on the principles found in the verses prior, especially vs.16.

But before I get started, let me say why this doctrine is so important.  On the one hand we need to know the doctrine of salvation so that we might have assurance of our salvation. Secondly, we need to know more completely the doctrine of salvation so that we might know God more intimately.  And third, we need to know the doctrine of salvation so that we might be able to share the good news with others. 

I am afraid that though most of us know the doctrines of salvation well enough, we do not put it to practice nearly enough in personal evangelism.  For instance, I think there is a tendency to kind of push away the idea that our unsaved loved ones might die without Christ and suffer the consequences of eternal judgment. I think that we have a tendency to push such thoughts to the back recesses of our minds.  We just try not to think of it.  We are glad we are saved, but somehow perhaps we either don’t really believe that God will judge the unrighteous, or we just don’t let ourselves think about it.  Otherwise, I don’t think that compassionate, loving people like most of you are could really sleep at night knowing that your loved ones stand on the precipice of eternity without Christ.  That at any moment they might pass away by some tragic circumstance and consequently spend eternity in torment, separated from you and from God forever.  I can’t help but wonder if we really don’t believe that.  Somehow we have deluded ourselves into thinking that one way or another, our unsaved loved ones and friends will escape the judgment. 

I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but there are no exceptions offered in scripture. Hebrews 9:27 says, “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.”  There is no consolation offered in scripture for those that reject the offer of salvation.  Today this passage of scripture is going to underline that truth.  And I would hope that it would compel you to witness more to those that are lost.  That it would move this reality of judgment from the back burner  to the forefront of your focus.

Let’s go back to the illustration that Jesus gave in vs. 14 for a minute.  Everyone in the camp of Israel had been bitten by the poisonous vipers.  They were dying. Unless they looked upon the serpent on the standard they would die.   There was no other remedy for their predicament.  There was no other prescription for their sickness. And that is the illustration Jesus uses to set the stage for Him being offered up on the cross.  All men have been bitten by the serpent’s sting of sin, and as such all are doomed to die. The wages of sin is death.  And all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  There is none righteous, no not one.  There is no other consolation, no other salvation, than to know Jesus as your personal Savior.  Otherwise you remain in your sins, and as such will stand before God a sinner, condemned to judgment.

So for those of us that know the Lord as our Savior, I hope that you will not push the thought of unsaved loved ones to the back of your mind.  But I hope this message inspires you to speak again to your loved ones about the urgency of their salvation.  Satan always tells us that there will be plenty of time.  But the devil is a liar and the father of lies.  Time is not your friend, but your enemy.

Now let’s look at the remainder of the passage, starting in vs.17.  Verse 17 is basically an explanation of the love of God.  It is expanding on the concept of God’s love.  And to do that, he says God did not send the Son, or give the Son to the world to judge the world but to save it.  Here is the situation;  the world was already judged.  God made His judgment concerning sin way back in the beginning of Genesis when He said whoever eats of the tree will surely die.  The sentence of death was already given before Adam and Eve ate of the tree.  But they rejected the truth and chose to believe the devil’s lie and as such they entered into judgment.  And that same judgment passed on to all men, all descendants of Adam are under the penalty of death, because all have inherited the same sin nature resulting in their sinful acts.  

And I’ll say more on the judgment in a moment. But John is saying that God loved the world so much that He sent Jesus to save us from our sins.  Jesus didn’t come to bring us what we deserved, which was death.  He came to bring us what we didn’t deserve, which is grace, because of His love for us.  He came to provide salvation from death.

We were all spiritually dead.  We had the penalty of death upon ourselves.  It’s like the man on death row.  Though he may be alive today, yet he is under the sentence of death.  But God sent His Son not to be our executioner, but to save us from death by taking our place as our substitute.  So verse 17 basically extrapolates on the love of God.  The motive of God sending Jesus to the world is love, not judgment. Jesus said, “greater love has no man than this, that a man lays down his life for his friends.”

Then verse 18 expands on the second half of verse 16, where it says, “that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”  So verse 18 expanding on that says, ““He who believes in Him is not judged.”  Believing in Him delivers us from the judgment of death which we had already received.  Therefore, if you don’t believe in Him, you remain in the same condition which you were in previously.  You remain under judgment of death.  18b, “he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

Going back to Jesus’ illustration, whoever looked upon the serpent on the standard would live, be delivered from death, but whoever did not look remained in the throes of death.  They did not believe or want to accept the fact that looking at the standard would save them.  It’s hard to believe that people would choose to remain under the curse of sin, but they obviously do.  And they do so because they don’t want to accept who Jesus is and what He came to do.  They would rather die than have to submit to Christ as Lord.

Why would anyone in their right mind reject salvation?  Well, to explain that, John changes his analogy.  He moves from the analogy of the serpent on a standard to another analogy –  a light in the darkness.  Remember back in chapter 1, Jesus was called the Light. Vs. 4-5  “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”

So in vs.19 of chapter 3 John goes back to that analogy of Christ is the Light in order to explain more completely the judgment due to those who reject salvation, and says,  “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.”  Jesus is the Light, the Father sent Him into the world to save sinners, and yet when men saw the Light, they rejected it because they loved evil. 

I’ve said it before, people don’t really reject God because there isn’t enough evidence of God, or even because they can’t understand Him.  People reject God because they want to do what they want to do.  They don’t want God to rule over them.  Given the choice between good and evil we choose evil.  That is the nature of man.  That’s why Isaiah 53:6 says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.” 

This is the judgment; that all men like sheep have gone astray.  They have turned away from God’s rule and turned to self rule.  Every man is like those in the days of the judges when there was no king in Israel, when everyone did what was right in their own eyes.  Men are like those who lived in the days of Noah, when every intent of the thought of their heart was only evil continually.  This is our nature.  This is the nature of man to love the darkness, because their deeds are evil.

You could make the argument that man is duped into thinking that such deeds do not really produce death.  You could argue that men think that what they are doing is enhancing life, embracing life, but that is even more reason for the compassion of God to shine the light of truth that leads to real life.

The key to life is seeing the truth, accepting the truth, and then practicing the truth. The truth is the light that shows us how to live, that distinguishes good from evil.  That is why it’s so important that the church proclaims the truth.  And truth is only found in one place – that is God’s word.  Only God’s word is the standard for truth.  And only the truth can set you free from death.  Jesus said in John 8:32, “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Jesus goes on to say in chapter 8 that the devil is the father of lies and there is no truth in him.  Remember back in the beginning when Eve was tempted by the devil, he said to her, “you shall not surely die?”  He appealed to her fleshly desires, her appetite and her pride, and offered an alternative suggestion which changed the truth of God into a lie.  In spite of what God had told them, Eve chose to believe a lie, and then acted on her desires.  And what resulted was the penalty of death.  Adam then chose to follow Eve instead of God, acting on his desires.  And what happened after that?  They tried to hide from the presence of God. Why?  Because their deeds were evil, and their conscience was awakened. They hid from the Light.

Coming back to our text we see that same scenario expressed in vs.20,21. “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”

Here is what he means.  Those that reject Christ love their evil deeds and so they rightly bring judgment upon themselves.  They hate Christ because He is the Light that enlightens every man.  In other words, His Light exposes the truth about themselves.  For the unsaved, their evil deeds are exposed when the light of God’s truth is shone upon them.  And so to protect their evil deeds and to keep on doing them, they reject Christ.  They hate the Light.  They love the darkness.

But those that practice the truth love the Light, come into the Light, which proves that their good deeds are the works of God wrought through them.  See, the Spirit of God in them has changed their hearts to desire the things of God, to desire good, to desire the truth.  I like how it says, he who practices the truth.  It’s not our nature to do good.  By nature we aren’t righteous.  As we already declared, our nature is to go our own way, do our own thing, and love the works of darkness.  But knowing the truth, we now practice the truth, following in the example of Jesus Christ we walk in His footsteps.  And as we do this, it illustrates to the watching world that we know the Lord, that He has indeed made us into His children, as we do the works of our Father in heaven.

Now the rest of the passage is really just using the discourse of John the Baptist to his disciples to illustrate the principle we just looked at.  That God sent Jesus to be the light of truth, which is given to every man that they may know the truth of God and be saved.  There are a number of sub points in there which could be stand alone truths in and of themselves, but the main thrust of the text is to show that Jesus is the source of truth, and therefore is the source of life.

Verse 25 provides a key to understanding how this text relates.  Notice they have a question about purification.  Now many commentators go off on tangents at this point trying to show that baptism is somehow the point of all of this.  But purification taken at it’s simplest meaning speaks of how a man might be made righteous before God.  How can man overturn the natural fallen state of sinfulness and become pure in God’s sight. 

Baptism never was given as a means to achieve righteousness.  But baptism is a public portrayal of an inward, spiritual transformation. Baptism symbolizes death to the old man and new birth of the new man.  That’s what baptism symbolizes, admitting you are dead in your sins, and that they only way to be made right with God is by being born again in the spirit.  Now that is exactly what Jesus was teaching Nicodemus.

So John the author picks up on that idea by going back to John the Baptist who introduced the baptism of repentance as a precursor to the gospel.  John the Baptist preached a gospel of repentance which was symbolized by being baptized.  But now his disciples hear that Jesus and his disciples are baptizing, and they are unsure what this signifies.

John the Baptist’s answer is to give preeminence to Christ.  There is no spirit of jealousy there.  He knows first of all that Christ’s ministry is from heaven.  That is what is under discussion here.  John’s disciples were comparing their ministry with Christ’s ministry.  So first of all John the Baptist says that Christ’s ministry is from heaven.  You know, only God can ordain a minister or a ministry.  There are a lot of so called ministers running around, and a lot of ministries on every other street corner, but not all are of God, and we know that because they do not practice the truth.  The truth is the plumb line; to teach and practice the truth of God’s word is the measure of a ministry as whether or not it’s of God.  Jesus manifested the truth of God. Jesus said in John 14:10  “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.”  So He speaks the words of the Father and does the works of the Father.  And so John says he knows that Jesus is from heaven.

Then John says, you are my witnesses that I told you I am not the Christ but merely His forerunner. (vs.28) He says,  I’m just the friend of the bridegroom.  I’m not the bridegroom, Christ is the bridegroom.  And so because I am His friend, I rejoice to see Him come for His bride. The church is the bride of Christ – those that have been saved are the church.  So according to what has been ordained from heaven, Christ’s ministry must increase, but my ministry must decrease.  My ministry was to announce His coming.  Once the bridegroom comes, there is no longer a need for an announcer.

Now that’s my paraphrase of what John said.  And what he alludes to is the very well known analogy of a middle eastern wedding in which the bridegroom makes every thing ready, and when he comes to take his bride, his best man runs into the village before him announcing to everyone that the bridegroom is coming.  That was their custom and everyone would have recognized that.  So John is saying now that the bridegroom has come, his bride is coming out to Him, everyone has been told the news, and so his job is coming to an end.

But in vs.31 John the Baptist changes gears a bit, and returns to our primary subject, and that is the origin of the truth which Christ manifested.  He says He, that is Christ, is above all.  That is Christ is one with God and from God and is God.  That’s what was declared in the opening words of chapter one.  Now John the Baptist is validating it again.  His testimony and other men’s former testimony is earthly because they come from the earth,  but Christ is heavenly, because He came from heaven.

Vs. 32, Since Christ is from heaven, He speaks the truth of God.  He testifies the things of God, and yet no one receives His testimony.  Generally speaking, though the Jews came to Jesus to see the signs that He was doing, they did not accept Him as the Son of God.  Jesus’s testimony was that He was the Son of God.  He called God His Father. John 8:18-19, 28 “I am He who testifies about Myself, and the Father who sent Me testifies about Me.”  So they were saying to Him, “Where is Your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.” … 28 So Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.”

Now notice vs.33 in our text: John the Baptist says, “He who has received His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true.”  So he says that whoever receives Christ’s testimony is agreeing that God is truth, therefore Jesus is the manifestation of the truth. In John 14:6 Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” 

This is the distinguishing principle of Christianity.  You can make all kinds of arguments concerning the similarity of religions.  You can make the claim that all roads lead to God.  Calling God “Allah” or Krishna or the Great Spirit, or any other name used for God may seem from a human standpoint to be so similar as to become indistinguishable.  But the truth of Christianity that sets it apart is that we confess and believe that Jesus is God in the flesh, and that no one can come to know God except through Him.  That is the claim of Christ Himself.  So Christianity is incompatible with any other religion in the world.  God manifested Himself in One person, that is Jesus Christ, and only by faith in Him and His redeeming work on the cross are we able to be saved and receive eternal life.

Vs.34, “For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure.”  What John is saying is that Christ is from God, He speaks the words of God, and God has given Him the full measure of His Spirit.  In times past, prophets were given a measure of the Holy Spirit.  Elisha, if you will remember, asked for a double portion of the Spirit that was given to his mentor Elijah.  But in Christ’s case, He is filled with the Spirit of God to the fullest, so that as Hebrews 1:3 says, “He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature.”

Vs. 35, “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.”  That the Father God loves the Son of God being both God and yet separate and equal is a mystery that we must believe even if we cannot understand it.  But what we can know is that all rule and authority on earth and in heaven have been given to Christ.  He is the author and finisher of our faith.  He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.  He is the Sovereign King of Glory, He is the Bridegroom coming for His bride.  He is the Creator of all life, and the source of eternal life.  All things are from Him and to Him and by Him all things exist and have their being.

So then, knowing these things, knowing who Christ is and His authority, John says in the closing verse of this chapter; “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” How can you resist Him?  To resist the source of life is to stay in the darkness and under the penalty of death.  To accept Him and receive Him is to be united with the source of life, even to receive eternal life. 

Now that’s the summation of a lot of theology and doctrine.  And hopefully, the truth of the gospel has produced salvation resulting in abundant life in all of you here today.  But now what?  What is the purpose of knowing all of this if we don’t share it with whoever we meet?  You know, I have an old high school friend who went on to be a state senator for Georgia.  And though he recently retired he is still actively involved in politics.  He recently posted on social media that he is committing to personally knocking on 15000 doors in his area to get the word out about his favorite presidential candidate.  He adamantly believes that the next presidential election is critical for the future of this country. 

And when I read that, I could not help but think of this passage.  If we truly believe that the truth of Christ is essential to being saved from the wrath of God and receiving everlasting life, wouldn’t we be as adamant in proclaiming it as my friend is in campaigning for his candidate?  I can assure you that the question of what will you do with Christ is of much greater importance than which candidate you are going to vote for.  Christ is the only hope for blind and lost people living in a colorless, dying world.  Our hope is not in a political system, but only in the One who is over all things, above all powers, above all dominions, in Him who is the glory of God and the Light of the world.  I pray that as His church we might start campaigning in earnest for the kingdom of God.

Today, in our continuing study of the book of Genesis, we come to the beginning of the story of Joseph.  I have decided to skip over a lot of history that was primarily concerned with Jacob and the children that were born to his two wives and two concubines.  But I do need to say that Rachel, the favored wife of Jacob, has by this time passed away in childbirth of her son Benjamin. And so there are 12 sons born to Jacob, with Reuben being the eldest, and Benjamin being the youngest.  Joseph was the 11th son. 

There was also a daughter born to Jacob, by the name of Dinah.  She was raped by a man of Shechem, and then the man asked Jacob for her hand in marriage. Her brothers convinced the men of Shechem that if they became circumcised as the sons of Israel were, then the men of that city could marry their daughters.  But when the men of the city were in pain from the circumcision, the brothers came upon the city with the sword and killed all the men that lived there.  So the sons of Jacob were odious in the eyes of the people of that region, but also perhaps looked upon with a degree of fear.  And I mention that because we will notice that the brothers are shepherding their sheep in that region later when Joseph is sent to check on their well being.

But Joseph has a special place in the heart of his father Jacob. Let’s read starting in vs 1, “Now Jacob lived in the land where his father had sojourned, in the land of Canaan.  These are [the records of] the generations of Jacob. Joseph, when seventeen years of age, was pasturing the flock with his brothers while he was [still] a youth, along with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives. And Joseph brought back a bad report about them to their father.  Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a varicolored tunic.  His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers; and [so] they hated him and could not speak to him on friendly terms.”

The scripture says that Jacob loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was the son of his old age. I wonder about that, because Benjamin is actually his youngest son. I believe he loved him more primarily because he was the son of Rachel his favorite wife now deceased.  I’m  not sure why he doesn’t feel that way about Benjamin since he also is the son of Rachel. Maybe because Benjamin is still quite young. 

But this preference that Jacob has for Joseph is perhaps a family trait that he inherited from his own parents, Isaac and Rebekah. The Bible neither openly condemns such parenting, nor approves it.  But it is obvious from scripture that such favoritism on the part of parents causes many problems in families. And Jacob’s family is ripe for dysfunction as there are four wives and children of each of them.

It also is evident to the other siblings that Jacob loves Joseph more. At 17 years old as Jacob was pasturing the flocks with his brothers, he brought back a bad report about his brothers.  We don’t know what they were guilty of, but it would seem they had misbehaved in some way.  Some commentators have tried to portray Joseph as someone that didn’t work, that was a spoiled brat.  But it clearly says that at 17 he was working as a shepherd.  The problem was that his brothers were all older, and he would have been under their authority, but he tells his father about their misdeeds and gets them in trouble. 

To top it off, his father seemingly wants Joseph to be the recipient of the birthright.  That would have defied tradition and be sure to cause more jealousy among his older brothers.  Then adding insult to injury, Jacob presents Joseph with a coat of many colors.  Much speculation has been made over this description.  Some have said it had gold and silver and fine jewels woven in the fabric.  Some have said the sleeves and the length of the robe indicated royalty, and that whoever wore such a robe could not work in it.  We don’t know for sure, but one thing we do know, is that the brothers reacted to it with hatred and jealousy.  In fact, they hated him so much that they could not speak to him on friendly terms. 

But it gets worse.  Vs 5 Then Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more.  He said to them, “Please listen to this dream which I have had;  for behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood erect; and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.”  Then his brothers said to him, “Are you actually going to reign over us? Or are you really going to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.  Now he had still another dream, and related it to his brothers, and said, “Lo, I have had still another dream; and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”  He related [it] to his father and to his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have had? Shall I and your mother and your brothers actually come to bow ourselves down before you to the ground?”  His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying [in mind.]

Again, many commentators have made much of Joseph supposedly “lording it over” his brothers by telling them these dreams. I’m not so sure about that.  I hesitate to criticize Joseph, particularly because he is presented so clearly in scripture as a type of Christ.  But although he is a type, that does not mean that he has to be like Christ in every respect.  Joseph was a sinner, just like all men are sinners. Christ was sinless.  But that does not negate the typology of Joseph in relation to Christ.  However, if nothing else, Joseph was naive in speaking so boldly to his brothers about the dreams.  How could he not know that their hostility towards him would only be exacerbated by these revelations.

But unlike many God given dreams that are recorded in scripture, these dreams need no interpretation.  Everyone seems to understand what they mean.  Usually, God has to provide interpretation to a dream in some way, usually by his prophet. In this case, everyone knows that the dreams indicate that they will one day bow down to Joseph.  And so because they are readily understood by his family, I think it was God’s will that his family  know the dreams.  I just wonder if Joseph could have recounted them more tactfully somehow.

So the dreams were given for the benefit of the family, to prepare them for the future, but also I believe they were given for the benefit of Joseph. Not to make him proud and boastful, so that he could lord his authority over his older brothers.  But so that he could withstand the trials that he was going to go through.  The road to his exaltation would come through intense suffering.  The kind of suffering that would make you think all the promises of God had been a lie.  But God was giving Joseph the groundwork for his faith, through the word of God.  And to his credit, as he goes through those trials, I don’t see Joseph ever denying his faith, nor falling away in his faith, in spite of 13 years of tremendous hardship.

James 1: 2 says, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,  knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.  And let endurance have [its] perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

Contrary to what the “word of faith” preachers teach on television, faith doesn’t guarantee immediate results. In fact, more often than not, Biblical faith illustrated in the lives of the patriarchs, involved learning patience, endurance through years and years of trials. Consider the faith of Abraham, waiting 25 years for the promise of God to be fulfilled by the birth of Isaac.  And even then, the trials of his faith did not end, but continued and became even more challenging. Joseph would undergo a trial by fire that he could never have imagined, and which would last for 13 years, but God’s word made him have hope and not completely despair.

Vs 12 Then his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock in Shechem.  Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing [the flock] in Shechem? Come, and I will send you to them.” And he said to him, “I will go.”  Then he said to him, “Go now and see about the welfare of your brothers and the welfare of the flock, and bring word back to me.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.

So as I said, the incident with Dinah and the slaughter of the men of Shechem has relevance because the brothers go shepherd the sheep in Shechem.  And the people of that region are probably not big fans of these sons of Israel.  Israel, remember is Jacob’s new name. It means God rules.  So Israel gets worried about his sons going to that region again.  I think he may have been more worried about what his sons were doing, rather than what the natives of that region might do.  His sons are notoriously blood thirsty, as we will see once again. But it’s interesting that Joseph is no longer with them. Perhaps his father is using him more as an overseer than a helper by this point or he recognizes the antagonism that the other brothers have towards Joseph and so he keeps him home.

So Jospeh arrives in Shechem after what might have been a two day journey and in Vs 15 A man found him, and behold, he was wandering in the field; and the man asked him, “What are you looking for?”  He said, “I am looking for my brothers; please tell me where they are pasturing [the flock.]”  Then the man said, “They have moved from here; for I heard [them] say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.'” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.  When they saw him from a distance and before he came close to them, they plotted against him to put him to death.  They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer!  “Now then, come and let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; and we will say, ‘A wild beast devoured him.’ Then let us see what will become of his dreams!”  But Reuben heard [this] and rescued him out of their hands and said, “Let us not take his life.”  Reuben further said to them, “Shed no blood. Throw him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but do not lay hands on him”–that he might rescue him out of their hands, to restore him to his father.  So it came about, when Joseph reached his brothers, that they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the varicolored tunic that was on him;  and they took him and threw him into the pit. Now the pit was empty, without any water in it.

The brothers obviously recognized Joseph a long ways off in order to have time to talk about killing him and coming up with a plan. I can’t help but wonder if they recognized him because  Joseph was wearing the multi colored coat.  Perhaps the gold and silver and jewels were shimmering in the sun as he walked along the road.  And so they see this figure coming towards them, and they say, “Here comes this dreamer! Now then let us kill him…’. What we can interpret from this is that the brothers were really conspiring to defeat God’s word.  All that God had promised concerning Joseph they saw as a threat to their position and posterity and prosperity.  And so like the Pharisees and high priests who would one day conspire to kill Jesus because He threatened their position and power and prosperity, these brothers do the same, thinking they could defeat the plan of God.

It’s shocking though to see such a vivid illustration of jealousy becoming hate, and hate becoming murder.  Jesus said, if you hate your brother, you are guilty of murder.  And so these brothers are guilty of murder, though they actually come short of actually killing him.  

So Joseph is about 17 years of age, and he is stripped of his cloak and thrown in a dry well, or a pit that he can’t get out of.  His own brothers have thrown him in there. He must have known that their plan was to kill him.  What kind of terror must he have been going through.  And what kind of evil does this reveal about the brothers!  Well for one, it reveals that they were cold hearted enough to sit down and have a nice meal and talk about killing him, while Joseph is alone in the pit. 

Vs25 Then they sat down to eat a meal. And as they raised their eyes and looked, behold, a caravan of Ishmaelites was coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing aromatic gum and balm and myrrh, on their way to bring [them] down to Egypt.  Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it for us to kill our brother and cover up his blood?  “Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our [own] flesh.” And his brothers listened [to him.]  Then some Midianite traders passed by, so they pulled [him] up and lifted Joseph out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty [shekels] of silver. Thus they brought Joseph into Egypt.

Ishmaelites are the children of Abraham’s exiled son, Ishmael. They were not exactly allies of Israel.  But as the saying goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”  And when Jesus was taken captive, the Herodians and the Pharisees, who were traditionally enemies, worked together to destroy Christ.  

But Judah intervenes and keeps Joseph from being killed. However, Judah is still guilty of selling him as a slave, of lying to his father, and of hatred. And the end result is that Joseph is brought up out of the pit and sold to these traders as a slave for 20 pieces of silver.  I can’t help but think of Jesus who was sold out by one of his own disciples for 30 pieces of sliver. We are told that 30 pieces of silver in Jesus’ day was the price of a slave.  In Joseph’s day, it was 20 pieces of silver.  But both Joseph and Jesus were sold for the price of a slave.

Reuben the first born, the eldest son who is responsible for his brothers, comes back to find that Joseph has been sold into slavery.  He had hoped to find a way to restore Joseph to his father.  Why he had been away from the camp we are not told, but it must have been a part of his efforts to get him back home.  Now he finds out that he is gone, and there’s no way to overturn the tragic events that transpired while he was away.

So they concoct a plan to deceive their father Jacob.  There is a lot of irony in this story.  The Biblical principle of “surely your sins will find you out” seems to be at work again and again. Jacob, the deceiver, who deceived his father by killing a goat and putting the skin on his arms and neck to fool him, now has a goat killed and the blood of the goat put on Joseph’s coat to deceive him so that he would think he had been killed by a wild animal.

Vs.29 Now Reuben returned to the pit, and behold, Joseph was not in the pit; so he tore his garments.  He returned to his brothers and said, “The boy is not [there;] as for me, where am I to go?”  So they took Joseph’s tunic, and slaughtered a male goat and dipped the tunic in the blood;  and they sent the varicolored tunic and brought it to their father and said, “We found this; please examine [it] to [see] whether it is your son’s tunic or not.”  Then he examined it and said, “It is my son’s tunic. A wild beast has devoured him; Joseph has surely been torn to pieces!”  So Jacob tore his clothes, and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son many days.  Then all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, “Surely I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son.” So his father wept for him.  Meanwhile, the Midianites sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, Pharaoh’s officer, the captain of the bodyguard.

In closing, I would like to point out a few correlations between Joseph and the Lord Jesus Christ. Joseph and Christ are alike in that they both are the object of the love of their father. The Lord Jesus at his baptism heard the words, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” And just as Jacob loved Joseph, so in the truest sense, the Father loves the Son and rejoices in Him. Joseph and Jesus Christ are alike and in that they both have a commission from the father. Joseph was sent out for the sake of his brethren, and so was Jesus Christ. In the fullness of time, God sent him forth, born of a woman, born under the law that he might redeem those under the law and bring to them the adoption of sonship.

Joseph and Jesus Christ are alike in that they both were rejected by their brethren. He came unto His own and His own received Him not, but as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God. Joseph and Christ were both sold for the price of a slave. They are alike in their humiliation: Joseph is sold into slavery and so the Lord Jesus comes as a servant, in the form of a servant, in the likeness of men, and ultimately in becoming the representative, substitutionary sacrifice. He reaches the epitome of humiliation, for the Son of God dies as a common criminal. He was obedient unto death, even such a death as the death of a cross, the death of the a criminal.

Joseph and Christ are alike in their exaltation for just as Joseph was humiliated, sold into captivity, and by the grace of God becomes the second in command over all of the land of Egypt and over all the world of that day, so Jesus Christ has been exalted to the right hand of the Father and one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord of all.  

They are alike also in that they both acquire a bride.  Joseph acquires a bride and the Lord Jesus Christ today is acquiring a bride which is His church. And finally Joseph ultimately will become the means of salvation of his  brethren and the Lord Jesus Christ is ultimately the means of salvation for His brethren.

I hope that if you are here today, you have not despised the Beloved Son of the Father, who suffered and died in your place, that He might save you from the wrath to come.  But you believe in Him, and trust in Him, and bow to Him as your Lord and Savior. 

In our study last time, we looked at the story of Jacob and his dream about the ladder. And you might remember that I told you that the dream of the ladder and the angel’s ascending and defending upon it, and the Lord standing at the top of it, was an illustration of the gospel. Jesus said in John 1:51 that He was the One on whom Nathanael would see the angel’s ascending and descending.  So we saw that the vision of Jacob’s ladder was actually an illustration of the gospel.  Jesus is the way to God.  He is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Him.

Today we are looking at the next major incident in Jacob’s life, which is his marriage to Rachel. And I hope to show you how this story is illustrative of the love that Christ has for the church.  The church, as I have often pointed out, is the bride of Christ. Ephesians 5:25 says that Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.  So as Jacob became a servant so that he might gain his bride, so also Christ became a servant and carried out His work because of His love for the church.

Of course, Jacob is the promised seed of Abraham through whom would come a nation, the seed through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And he has come to the land of Haran to seek a bride. And of course that is ultimately a reference to the promised seed, Jesus Christ, through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed, as He comes to earth to seek a bride, the church, made up of all the nations of the earth.

And so the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant is accomplished in Jesus Christ. Abraham is the first Jew, and in a sense, Christ is the last Jew of that lineage.  The line passed from Abraham to Isaac, to Jacob, to Judah, to David, to Christ. But the important aspect of the line was not blood lines, but a spiritual line of faith. And so the promises to Israel were fulfilled by the Messiah.  But the Abrahamic covenant continues to all nations through Christ. So that as Paul says in Rom 2:28-29  “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh.  But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.”  So the blessing was never based on genetics, but on faith.

So then faith is the scarlet cord that links the lineage of Abraham to the church, the bride of Christ. Just as illustrated in the women’s Bible study that they recently had on Ruth, she was a Gentile, a Moabite. But in her marriage to Boaz, a Jew, she was brought into the covenant of Abraham, just as through Christ the church is married into the covenant. This is also illustrated in the birth of Jacob and Esau.  Both were twins from the same father and mother – Jews.  And yet Jacob will be the son of faith, whereas Esau will be the son of the flesh. Jacob inherits the promises, Esau does not. Jacob becomes Israel through whom Christ will come.  But from Christ comes salvation to the Gentiles, so that ultimately, the children of Ishmael and Esau will also be brought into the family of God by virtue of marriage to Christ. 

So Paul can say in Gal 3:26-29 “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.  For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.”

Now that’s a heavy dose of big picture theology for a Sunday morning sermon, but let’s work our way through this historical account, and hopefully by it reveal some important doctrinal truths concerning the gospel.  Jacob has left his father’s house under duress. His brother was going to kill him.  He had deceived his father.  He had stolen his brother’s blessing.  So he ends up on the run from his brother.  His mother had convinced his father to tell Jacob to go to his mother’s country to find a wife, which was a ploy on the part of his mother to get Isaac to send Jacob out of harm’s way from the wrath of Esau.

Along the way, Jacob had a dream in which he sees the Lord standing at the top of a ladder which extends from his campsite to the heavens.  And angels are ascending and descending upon it.  As I said, this is really an illustration of the gospel.  The Lord extends to Jacob a series of promises that He will bless him, and protect him and preserve him. But Jacob falls short of appropriating those promises.  He basically says “prove yourself to me, and if you do all that you have promised, and bring me back safely to my father’s land, THEN you will be my God, and I will give you my tithe of all that I have.

So as I said last time, I think at this point Jacob fails to appropriate the blessing of salvation that God was promising to give him. Instead he opts for doing things his way, focusing on obtaining the carnal aspects of the blessing, and hoping that God helps him get what he wants.  He wants the blessing of God, for God to be his genie, so to speak, who will give him his desire for physical prosperity. But he doesn’t want the Lordship of God in his life at this point.  And so he embarks on a 20 year journey into self determination.

But the sovereignty and providence and calling of God are still at work, whether Jacob acknowledges them or not.  Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to [His] purpose.”  God was working providentially to bring Jacob to saving faith in Him, in spite of the willful rebellion of Jacob, and in fact even working through Jacob’s disobedience to achieve HIs purposes.

And so even though Jacob travels almost 500 miles, alone and through uncharted territory for him, yet he ends up right at the same well that Abraham’s servant found Jacob’s mother Rebekah all those many years before. Let’s read starting in vs 1 Then Jacob went on his journey, and came to the land of the sons of the east.  He looked, and saw a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep were lying there beside it, for from that well they watered the flocks. Now the stone on the mouth of the well was large.  When all the flocks were gathered there, they would then roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep, and put the stone back in its place on the mouth of the well.  Jacob said to them, “My brothers, where are you from?” And they said, “We are from Haran.”  He said to them, “Do you know Laban the son of Nahor?” And they said, “We know [him.]”. Laban, of course, is the brother of Jacob’s mother Rebekah. 

Jacob thinks he is the captain of his ship, but in actually, the Lord was directing his steps. Psalm 37:23 says, “The steps of a man are established by the LORD, And He delights in his way.”  Also, Proverbs 16:9 says, “The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.”

This journey of Jacob is illustrative of how the calling and election of God works.  It does not work by exclusion of the mind and will of man.  The mind and will of man are fully incorporated in the decisions that he makes.  Man is not a robot. He does not act by pure instinct like the animals.  But God is at work in directing a man’s decisions. He is providentially directing circumstances to guide us and direct us as we go through life, in order to bring us to His desired destination.  We cannot understand how both the will of man and the purposes of God work together, but we know that they do. Otherwise, how can man be held accountable for his actions, unless he is responsible for his decisions? So though the mind of man plans his way, yet the Lord directs his steps.

So after traveling 500 miles without GPS, Jacob has come to the very well used by his Uncle Laban to water his flock, and very likely, the same well that Rebekah came to water the camels of Abraham’s servant.  What luck.

And of course, Rachel just happens to be coming to water her sheep at the very same time.  Vs  6 And he said to them, “Is it well with him?” And they said, “It is well, and here is Rachel his daughter coming with the sheep.”  He said, “Behold, it is still high day; it is not time for the livestock to be gathered. Water the sheep, and go, pasture them.”  But they said, “We cannot, until all the flocks are gathered, and they roll the stone from the mouth of the well; then we water the sheep.”  While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherdess.  When Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother’s brother, Jacob went up and rolled the stone from the mouth of the well and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother.  Then Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted his voice and wept.  Jacob told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and that he was Rebekah’s son, and she ran and told her father.”

Some commentators say that Jacob was between 55-60 years old at this point. Rachel is presumably a young, unmarried woman.  And if she is as beautiful as the Bible says she is, then she must be quite young, as it would be unlikely for her to remain unmarried for long.  She is also working as a shepherdess, which is not the sort of job a married woman would have. So I guess Jacob could be accused of robbing the cradle.  But I think the culture norms in that region concerning marriage were a little different than they are today.

But it’s likely that Jacob has love at first sight for Rachel.  That might be evident from his showing off his strength in moving the stone on the well.  The other shepherds were waiting for the stone to be moved, and Jacob after seeing Rachel is able to move it all by himself.  The other curious thing is that he then ran up to her, kissed her and lifted up his voice and wept. I don’t know quite what to make of that.  Not usually a good way to pick up girls I would think.  But it seems to be expressive of the pent up emotions that he was feeling.  I will say though that the kiss is not a romantic type of kiss.  This is the customary kiss of greeting given by men and women of those days. And I suppose that if you or I had walked for 25 days through wilderness, and finally arrived at the exact destination, meeting the exact relatives that you had left to find, then you might be overcome with emotion as well. 

But I am reminded of Jesus who wept over Jerusalem. On what is called Palm Sunday, being celebrated by many today, Jesus came into Jerusalem on a colt of a donkey, and the crowds were calling out “Hosanna, BLESSED IS THE KING WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!”  And yet when He approached Jerusalem, He wept over it.  Jesus knew what He came to do, and that He had been born as the seed of Abraham who would crush Satan’s head, reversing the curse, bringing salvation to Israel, yet they would ultimately reject Him as their King, as their Savior and Lord.

So after Rachel hears who Jacob was in relation to her and her family, she runs to tell her father Laban. Vs13 So when Laban heard the news of Jacob his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. Then he related to Laban all these things. Laban said to him, “Surely you are my bone and my flesh.” And he stayed with him a month.  Then Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my relative, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?”  Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.  And Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful of form and face.  Now Jacob loved Rachel, so he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.”  Laban said, “It is better that I give her to you than to give her to another man; stay with me.”  So Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her.

It would seem that Jacob had arrived in Haran with just the clothes on his back. There is a Jewish tradition that says that Jacob had been robbed by a son of Esau when he was on the journey. And that might explain why he had no money, no dowry, or anything of his own when he arrived.  But that is not supported by scripture.  I would guess that he left in such a hurry that there was not time to get him any money or goods, and besides, he was only expected to be gone a few days or weeks until Esau cooled down. But whatever the reason, Jacob was broke.

So after a month passes, Laban says in a round about way, what do you want for your wages? Jacob was obviously working for his keep, and yet Laban knows that he must want more than that. And Jacob had no money for a dowry which was customary to give to the family of the bride. So Jacob says I will work seven years for your daughter Rachel. Seven seems to be a number associated with covenants, and so while that seems a really high price to pay for us, it was not considered a long time in that culture.  And the text says that because of his love for Rachel, the seven years seemed to him but a few days.  That’s interesting, because I would think that seven years would seem an interminable length of time to wait when you want to get married to the woman you love. But the opposite is true for Jacob. Seven years seem like just a few days because he was so much in love.

There is a parallel here to that of Jesus Christ, who humbled himself as a servant that He might perform His work on the cross to effect our salvation, that we might be joined to Him as His bride. I think we can find that servanthood expressed in Phl 2:5-8 which says, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,  who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, [and] being made in the likeness of men.  Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” And in regards to the joy that Jacob had when he suffered as a servant for the love of Rachel, we again see a correlation in Christ, of whom it is said in Heb 12:2 “who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame.

We come then in the story to Laban’s deception.  The deceiver gets deceived. Or you might say that the Biblical principle is illustrated of you reap what you sow. Gen 29:21-30  “Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give [me] my wife, for my time is completed, that I may go in to her.”  Laban gathered all the men of the place and made a feast.  Now in the evening he took his daughter Leah, and brought her to him; and [Jacob] went in to her.  Laban also gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah as a maid.  So it came about in the morning that, behold, it was Leah! And he said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Was it not for Rachel that I served with you? Why then have you deceived me?”  But Laban said, “It is not the practice in our place to marry off the younger before the firstborn.  “Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also for the service which you shall serve with me for another seven years.”  Jacob did so and completed her week, and he gave him his daughter Rachel as his wife.  Laban also gave his maid Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her maid.  So [Jacob] went in to Rachel also, and indeed he loved Rachel more than Leah, and he served with Laban for another seven years.

There would have customarily been a week long wedding feast for the marriage of Jacob and Rachel. I’m not sure how that would have worked out. Did Rachel participate in the wedding feast? I don’t know for sure all the traditions of those days and that culture.  But she would have been veiled, it would seem. However, I believe the bride and groom were kept separate at the feast, and then on the last day, the groom would go take his bride into the chamber.  

But on the last day, Laban has Leah dress in a veil and she is taken by Jacob to consummate his marriage.  It was presumably dark, and he never really gets to see her face until the morning. It’s kind of hard for us to imagine, but nevertheless, it did happen, and the fact that we are unknowledgeable about the wedding arrangements is a disadvantage to us. But that is also the excuse of Laban, that the custom of that day and country was that the younger must not marry before the older. I doubt that was actually true. It might have been the desire of the father to marry them off in chronological order, but that was probably not the truth of the matter.  He just saw an opportunity to marry off his older daughter and make Jacob responsible for her. Leah is considered less attractive, which is indicated by the phrase Leah’s eyes were weak.  No one seems to know precisely what that means, other than it it countered by Rachel was beautiful of form and face. So perhaps Leah was not found attractive for some reason and thus limited in her prospects for marriage.

I feel for both Leah and Rachel. Imagine Rachel’s disappointment.  She has been waiting 7 years for her wedding day, and she is deprived of it by treachery from her own father. And she has to endure the wedding night knowing that her sister is with Jacob instead of her.  Laban had to know that what he was doing was a great evil to everyone concerned.  And imagine Leah’s embarrassment and shame, knowing that she had contributed to this debacle.  And furthermore, that she was unloved. We don’t know if she was a co-conspirator or not. I would hope not but it would seem like she had to have wanted to participate.  But the father was in that time and place like a tribal chieftain.  What he said was law. And his daughters were completely under his authority. 

I will say though that there must be some correlation here between the loved and unloved daughters of Laban, and the twin brothers Jacob and Esau of whom one was loved and one was hated. And I cannot say that there is a direct comparison, but it would seem that God loved Jacob, and yet Jacob did not reciprocate that love for many years.  God continued to provide for him, to protect him, to offer his promises to him, but Jacob was determined to work out his “blessing” through his own deceitful efforts, though he didn’t mind if God helped things along.  But only after a long period of rebellion, did Jacob surrender to the Lord after we are told he wrestled with the angel of the Lord all night after leaving the employment of Laban.

Leah is unloved in the sense that she is not loved to the degree that Jacob loves Rachel. And perhaps that is the way that it should be understood when it says that God loved Jacob but He hated Esau.  God had no animosity towards Esau, but He does not love him with the redeeming love that He has for Jacob.

In the case of Leah, it would seem that Jacob did fulfill his obligations to her as his wife. It would have been adding insult to injury if he would have kicked her out the next morning since she would have been unable to remarry and would have been left destitute.  But God was able to use even the evil that man conspired for good. 

So vs 31 says, “Now the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, and He opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.”   Leah conceived and bore a son and named him Reuben, for she said, “Because the LORD has seen my affliction; surely now my husband will love me.” 33 Then she conceived again and bore a son and said, “Because the LORD has heard that I am unloved, He has therefore given me this [son] also.” So she named him Simeon.  She conceived again and bore a son and said, “Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore he was named Levi.  And she conceived again and bore a son and said, “This time I will praise the LORD.” Therefore she named him Judah. Then she stopped bearing.” So Leah has four sons in quick succession, and the fourth son is Judah, the father of the tribe of Judah, from whom the Lord Jesus comes. 

He is the one in whom all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. Though Christ is a Jew, the promised seed of Abraham, yet the good news is that all the nations, the nations that were initially represented as the unloved, will yet be given access through marriage to become the family of God through the representative seed of Abraham whose death atoned for the sins of the world.

The gospel of Jacob’s ladder, Genesis 28

In our study of Genesis, we come today to the story of Jacob’s ladder. I have titled my message, the gospel of Jacob’s ladder. And I hope you will see the presentation of the gospel as we work our way through this chapter.

But we should remind you of the context. Last time, we saw the deception Jacob played upon his father Isaac, which was masterminded by his mother Rebekah. He had previously bought the birthright from his brother Esau, and then when his father had planned to give Esau the blessing, he deceived his father and pretended to be Esau so he would get the blessing also.

Now Esau hated Jacob because he had stolen his blessing, and he promised to kill him. His mother heard of the plan, and she encouraged Jacob to go to her brother Laban to get a wife, but also to escape Esau’s plan to kill him. So she spoke to her husband Isaac saying that the wives of Esau were driving her crazy, and she didn’t want Jacob to marry a pagan woman, and didn’t he think that it would be a good idea if Jacob went to his relatives to find a wife. And Isaac agreed, not wanting to see his son marry a pagan woman.

And that’s where we pick up the story. [Gen 28: 1 So Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and charged him, and said to him, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. 2 “Arise, go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father; and from there take to yourself a wife from the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother. 3 “May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. 4 “May He also give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your descendants with you, that you may possess the land of your sojournings, which God gave to Abraham.” 5 Then Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau. 6 Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take to himself a wife from there, [and that] when he blessed him he charged him, saying, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan,” 7 and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Paddan-aram. 8 So Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan displeased his father Isaac; 9 and Esau went to Ishmael, and married, besides the wives that he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth. 10 Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran. 11 He came to a certain place and spent the night there, because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and put it under his head, and lay down in that place. 12 He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 And behold, the LORD stood above it and said, “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants. 14 “Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed. 15 “Behold, 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.” 16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” 17 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.” 18 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. 19 He called the name of that place Bethel; however, previously the name of the city had been Luz. 20 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, 21 and I return to my father’s house in safety, then the LORD will be my God. 22 “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.”

Notice the promise given in vs 5 “Behold, 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.” That promise is repeated in essence in Deut. 31:6 and then reiterated to those who believe in Hebrews 13:5; “I will never leave you or forsake you.” That is one of the greatest blessings of salvation. The continuing presence of Jesus with us forever. As Jesus said in Matt. 28:20, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” That is the blessing of salvation, that God is with us, in us, abiding with us, forever.

Now I am getting ahead of the story. But I do need to address the matter of this blessing that Jacob has received. In desiring the birthright, and desiring the blessing, did Jacob in effect become saved? Some Bible scholars see this stage of Jacob’s life as his path of sanctification. And sanctification comes after justification. We know that justification is by faith. Abraham believed God and He credited it to him as righteousness.

But have we seen Jacob believe God unto salvation? We have seen the predetermination of God to bless Jacob. We have seen the calling and election of God upon Jacob, even before he was born. But as I said last time, Jacob was not saved in the womb. Election does not save you. Believing saves you. And though Jacob desires the birthright and the blessing, and despite the fact that the birthright and the blessing have a spiritual quotient to them that Esau despised, despite all that, I don’t see that up to this point, Jacob has believed unto salvation. He wanted the blessing of God, but he did not want the Lordship of God.

So my position is that he is not saved yet. He is not a believer. And evidence of that I think is shown in this chapter, as well as in the last chapter when he said to his father “Because the LORD your God caused it to happen to me.” In other words, Jacob was claiming the help of the God of his father. He was not claiming the help of his God. Jehovah was not yet his God, He was his father’s god.

And that attitude doesn’t change even after this vision that he has, when God appears on a ladder to heaven. Even though he knows that God was in that place, that God had visited him, yet he says in vs 20 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, THEN the LORD will be my God.” Even after all this special revelation that he had received, yet he still is not willing to say the Lord is my God. But he puts a conditional promise out there that God must fulfill to his satisfaction before he will say the Lord is MY God.

Now let’s get back to the story and work our way through it to see what was going on in this event. First notice that poor Isaac is being hoodwinked again by his wife and son to give his blessing to Isaac and urge him to leave the land that God had promised them. Abraham, you will remember, refused to let his servant consider taking Isaac back to the land of Haran because he knew that it would end up trapping him there. So Abraham had his servant go there and get Isaac a wife and bring her back to him in Canaan. And perhaps that is what Isaac should have done. I can’t say that this departure on Jacob’s part from the land is God’s perfect will. It wasn’t so with Isaac, so why should it be different for Jacob? And we will see that it ends up being a 20 year detour, which God promises to overturn and bring him back to Canaan.

But they are all pretty carnal people and they don’t ask God what to do. They look at the situation around them and the hatred of Esau and they make a decision that this is what is needed. And yet for all the years of Abraham’s journeying, and Isaac’s wandering, God reiterated again and again that this was the land that he was giving them. That He would provide for them and protect them there. And yet again and again they leave the land.

And then Moses makes a side note about Esau, how he sees that his mother and dad did not like his pagan wives, and so he goes out and tries to accomplish what they wanted for Jacob, which was to marry a wife who was of the same ancestral background. But Esau goes to the family of Ishmael to find a wife, not realizing that he further confirms the choice that God had made to bless Jacob and not Esau. Ishmael was outside of the spiritual blessing that God had promised Abraham. But Esau doesn’t understand the difference between the spiritual and the physical and so further compounds his situation.

Do you see how Jacob and Esau are a type of the old man and the new man? Esau is a type of the old nature, and Jacob a picture of the new nature. We see that old man clearly in Esau I think up to this point, but we do not see any evidence yet of the new man in Jacob. Except that he was foreordained for salvation before he was born and that shows interest in acquiring God’s blessing. But he attempts to acquire it through the work of the flesh rather than the work of the Spirit.

But Jacob leaves his home and travels about 70 miles on his journey to Haran, which is about a 400 mile journey. Presumably he is traveling alone. And he comes to a place called Luz, where he decides to spend the night. And he makes a pillow for his head from a rock and goes to sleep. I’ve heard a lot of poor jokes preachers have made over the years about Jacob sleeping on a rock and none of them are worth repeating. But you do have to wonder if using a rock for a pillow affected his sleep.

So Jacob had a dream. Now I have to say that this experience of Jacob and other patriarchs who had conversations with God is not the primary experience of a believer today. Yet you might ask why is there a different way of God communicating with us today than there was in those days? And the answer is that they did not have the scriptures. They had no Bible, or any part of the Bible at that point. Moses writes this several hundred years after the fact and he writes the first five books of the Bible, known as the Pentateuch. Prior to that there was only the verbal traditions past down through generations of what God had said.

Furthermore, there are no real opportunities for hearing from any preacher or prophet in those days. In fact, the only people you could consider a prophet were Abraham and Isaac. Melchizedek we know was a priest of God, but he is probably long dead by this point as nothing further is said about him after Abraham’s visit. So if there is no scripture, and no prophet, no priest, then how is a person going to hear the gospel? God Himself will speak through the pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. It’s what is called a theophany. And that’s what we see here.

But I would say that we live in a different dispensation, when God speaks through preachers and His word. Heb 1:1-2 says, God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.” And His Son has spoken to us the Word of God which was written for us in the scriptures. And in Colossians 2:18 we are warned about giving heed to false prophets who base their doctrine on visions that they have seen, which are in violation of the word of God. So I urge you to beware of those who would claim visions and dreams with special revelation from God.

But God wants Jacob to hear the gospel. [Rom 10:13-14 says for “WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.” How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?” And so God gives Jacob a dream in which he sees a ladder stretching from heaven to earth, and angels ascending and defending the ladder and God standing at the top of the ladder. Now God verbally speaks to him, but we must ask ourselves what is symbolized in this vision. Because if God just wanted to speak to him He could have done so without this incredible vision. There must be some symbolism there that was also intended to illustrate the message to Jacob.

One commentator, H.C. Leupold, has said, “Such a clearcut dream must embody a deeper symbolism. Why a ladder? Why the angels? Why the Lord above it? Answer, in order to convey via visible sign what the words themselves also convey as Jehovah speaks.” In other words, this is designed to illustrate in symbolic fashion what is expressed by the words that are spoken at this theophany.

So if you have a ladder that reaches from earth to heaven, then you might deduce that it signifies communication from heaven to earth. And this communication is mediated by the angels. Hebrews 1:14 says that angels are ministering spirits sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation.

There is an old African American spiritual that I remember singing as a child which is called “We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder.” And the sense of that song indicates that there is a climbing towards heaven that is done on our part which is signified by the ladder. But that is not the intention of the vision of the ladder. Salvation is not achieved by climbing a ladder to heaven. The ladder symbolizes communication between God and man, or a bridge between God and man. But man doesn’t climb up to God, rather God comes down to man.

Now there is an interesting passage in the book of John in which this particular incident is referred to. It is at the time when Nathaniel was brought by Philip to the Lord Jesus. Now, Nathaniel, in that little incident at the end of John chapter 1, had evidently been meditating on Genesis chapter 28. It’s clear from a couple of things. It’s clear, because when he comes to the Lord Jesus, the Lord said to him, “Behold an Israelite, in whom there is no guile.”

Now remember an Israelite is a descendant of Jacob. So it’s almost as if he were saying, “Behold an Israelite in whom there is no Jacob.” Now Nathaniel was a man like that, he was a man who was guileless. He was a very frank man. He said, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” He did not realize, of course, that The Good Shepherd comes out of Nazareth. But when he comes to Jesus, the Lord said to him, “Nathaniel, before you saw me, I saw you sitting under the fig tree.” And sitting under the fig tree was, according to rabbinic thought, the proper place to sit when you wanted to meditate on the Bible.

So he was meditating, and furthermore, he was obviously meditating on Genesis chapter 28, because Jesus refers to this specific incident. And he says in his conversation with Nathaniel, “Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? Why you’ll see greater things than these.” Then He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you shall see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

So he’s been meditating on Genesis chapter 28 and Jesus says, “Look, you want to see greater things than you have seen when you were meditating on Genesis chapter 28? You’re going to see the heavens opened.” That’s interesting isn’t it? The heavens opened as if there was suddenly access to heaven for sinful men. And you’re going to see the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. There is going to be a communion between the opened heavens and this earth down here. And you’re going to see the angels ascending and descending not upon a ladder, but upon the Son of Man.

Did you notice that substitution? That’s what you call interpreting the Old Testament by the New Testament. He was, in effect, saying the ladder in the Old Testament is symbolic of the Son of Man. It is by virtue of the Son of Man, who has opened the way to heaven. It’s by virtue of his mediation that the heavens are opened and there is communion between God and man. That is, those who approach heaven through the ladder of the Son of Man, who is the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, except by Him. So, the ladder is symbolic of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Well that’s a magnificent symbolic illustration of the gospel, but the words that follow are just as great. Now notice the promises. First of all, he begins by identifying Himself, “I am the Lord. I am Jehovah. I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. The same God who had called out Abraham, who had given him the promises of which Jacob was the beneficiary. He says, “the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants.” That very piece of land on which Jacob was putting his head is to be given to him. So, he is talking about something very specific, but listen to the other promises. “Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”

And then the great climatic promise; “Behold, 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.” You know, our salvation is predicated on our belief in the promises of God. We don’t see our sins forgiven. We don’t enter into heaven immediately. We do not yet sense eternal life that is given to us. But we believe in the promises of God concerning these things. And that is faith, saving faith. Jacob is given all these magnificent promises of God’s blessing. And yet though he is awed by the experience of the vision, he doesn’t really believe the promises completely. He wants proof.

Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of [things] hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval.” Faith is not getting proof, it’s being convinced about things not seen. Jacob is impressed, but not convinced.

Jacob’s response is very interesting. You notice in verse 16 that the text says he awakened from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” How true that is of our experience. You know I have a hunch that there are lots of people sitting in this audience right now who do not realize that the Lord is in our midst. Perhaps you would rather think that the Lord is in heaven but not that He is standing in the midst of this congregation.

And the thought of the nearness of God induced fear in him. The KJV says “How dreadful is this place.” Now we do not want to be confused by the term “dreadful.” The New American Standard Bible has rendered it, “How awesome is this place.” It’s kind of like the way us southerners use the term awful. We say awfully when we actually mean “very.” Like for instance, I am awfully hungry. It should be I”m very hungry. “It would be awfully nice if you would give me some ice cream.” I don’t know why we say that. I’m awfully sorry. Well, in the KJV they say dreadful when they mean awesome.

You know, Solomon says in Proverbs that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I suggest that the fear of the Lord is necessary before we can experience the grace of the Lord. You have to know you are condemned to death before you can value being given eternal life.

The next morning in response to his dream Jacob got up and put a memorial pillar of rocks there. He called the place Bethel; the house of God. It was his way of responding to the experience that he had had. But it was a misplaced reverence. God had not said that He abided there, and Jacob could meet with Him there. God had said 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.”

The promise of God is to be with us, to indwell us, to keep us, wherever we go. That is the promise of salvation. That is the blessing that we should seek. To have communion with God.

Vs 20 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, then 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.” That’s all very nice, but he is making a conditional promise to God. And the condition is that he will wait and see if God really is with him, and really does keep him on his journey, and if He actually provides for him. And IF God really does all that, THEN Jehovah will be his God. Until He proves Himself, Jehovah is Abraham’s and Isaac’s God. Until then, Jacob thinks he is his own master.

Rom 10:9-11 says, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus [as] Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, “WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.”

Though God is under no obligation to prove Himself to anyone, yet by His grace He will prove His faithfulness to Jacob for the next 20 years. But Jacob will not confess the Lord as His God until he finally wrestles with the Lord and bows in submission to Him.

It’s possible to be called by God, to have an interest in spiritual things, to even be presented the gospel of God and yet not be saved. To be saved is to confess your sins, to believe in what God has done through Jesus on the cross to forgive you for your sins and to give you eternal life. I trust that you do not resist submitting to Jesus Christ as Lord, as your God, like Jacob did. That you do not test the Lord’s patience. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

In our ongoing study of Genesis, we come today to one of the greatest love stories found in the Bible. It is the story of Abraham finding a bride for his son Isaac. And though this is an actual history, there is also contained in it an allegory of God the Father finding a bride for his son, Jesus Christ.

The church is the bride of Christ. Paul said in 2 Cor. 11:2 “For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present [you as] a chaste virgin to Christ.” And God has appointed a bride for Christ, which is the church.

We see the church as the bride of Christ as spoken of in Eph 5:25-27 which says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.”

We saw last week in our study of how Abraham offered up Isaac as a sacrifice, that Isaac was a type of Christ. Isaac was a type of Christ, in that both were were promised before their coming. Both Isaac and Christ appeared at the appointed time. Both were conceived and born miraculously. Both were given a special name before birth. Both were offered up in sacrifice by the father. Both were brought back from the dead. Both were head of a great company to bless all people. And both prepared a place for their bride.

Now let’s look at the story of how this bride for Isaac comes about, bearing in the back of our minds that in many respects this serves as an illustration of the church being chosen as the bride for Christ.

And we find that this search for a bride is initiated by Abraham, Issac’s father. Genesis 24:1-4 “Now Abraham was old, advanced in age; and the LORD had blessed Abraham in every way. Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he owned, “Please place your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live, but you will go to my country and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son Isaac.”

Abraham has lived a life of faith in the promises that God had made to him, primarily concerning his seed who would live in the land of Canaan, and whose descendants would be a great nation through whom all the nations of the world would be blessed. On the strength of that promise, Abraham had been willing to slay his own son, because he believed so strongly in God’s word concerning Isaac, that he believed that God was able to raise him from the dead.

But part of that promise was that Isaac would have descendants. And at this time, Abraham is 140 years old, and Isaac is 40, and yet Isaac has not found a wife. So I don’t suggest that Abraham is getting worried about God keeping his promises, but at the same time, Abraham would like to see it fulfilled in his lifetime concerning Isaac finding a wife. Abraham and Isaac are living in tents in the wilderness, raising sheep, and there probably weren’t a lot of good prospects for a godly woman running around out there. So based on the promise of God, Abraham calls his servant to commission him to go find a wife for his son.

Now there has been some debate among Bible scholars as to who this servant is. It’s possible that it is Eliezer who he mentions in Genesis 15:2, who he described as the oldest servant of his house. But others see some significance in the fact that in this passage, he is unnamed. As the unnamed servant, some see a type here of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit being a title, not a name, and thus might fit in this picture or type of the unnamed servant who carries out the Father’s will and seeks the bride. And so in this passage you can see a picture of the work of the Trinity, Abraham being a picture of the Father, Isaac being a picture of the Son, Jesus, and the servant being a picture of the Holy Spirit.

That may be true. But some Bible scholars see in the servant a type of the faithful messenger, or minister, who represents the Lord and faithfully delivers His word. I’m not sure which one I see there. But the faithful minister by nature must also be empowered by the Holy Spirit if he is to be effective. And so perhaps both are represented by the servant, who may or may not be Eliezer.

But notice the following about the servant. He truly represented his master, not himself. Jesus said the Holy Spirit will testify of Me. So He told them that his master was great. He told them his master’s son was the heir. He sought out one who would leave her old home and live with the master’s son. And He pressed for a reply.

This oath that Abraham pressed upon the servant was to have him put his hand under his thigh. This may seem indelicate to expand upon, but it was a rite that required that he put his hand under the area where the circumcision takes place, so that there might be a reminder of the covenant of circumcision and the promise to his descendants which would come from his loins.

And notice that Abraham commissions the servant to go to his relatives to find him a wife. As I said, the land that they lived in was a land that was sparsely populated except in the cities, and they were pagan cities. Abraham knows the value of finding a godly wife. And the land of Haran is the place where some of his relatives lived. We saw at the end of chapter 22 that his brother Nahor had married and had eight children, and so by this time there was undoubtedly another generation born unto them who still lived in Haran. And they would seem to be believers in the Most High God. So Abraham has some confidence that there might be a suitable wife to be found there who was a believer. In fact, out of all the possible characteristics that Abraham could be concerned that the wife of his son would have, this seems to be the only one that he mentions. Not that she be beautiful, not that she be able to cook. But that she must be from the people of God.

It’s so important to find a mate that is a believer. A marriage in which one is a believer and one is not, is a marriage that has little chance to survive. Marriage in most cases has little chance to survive all the stress and difficulties of life, and without the Lord as the cornerstone for that marriage, there is very little chance for success. The scripture says in 2 Cor. 6:14-15 “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?”

So this reference to finding a wife from Abraham’s family is a reminder that the bride of Christ must be of the family of God. The passage in 2 Cor. 6 continues, saying, As God has said: “I will dwell in them And walk among [them]. I will be their God, And they shall be My people. Therefore “Come out from among them And be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, And you shall be My sons and daughters, Says the LORD Almighty.”

So in vs 5 The servant said to him, “Suppose the woman is not willing to follow me to this land; should I take your son back to the land from where you came?” Then Abraham said to him, “Beware that you do not take my son back there! The LORD, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my birth, and who spoke to me and who swore to me, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give this land,’ He will send His angel before you, and you will take a wife for my son from there. But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this my oath; only do not take my son back there.” So the servant placed his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and swore to him concerning this matter.

It’s possible that Abraham is concerned that he might not live long enough to see his servant carry out his commission, and so he gives him very detailed instructions. And one main concern that Abraham has is that if things don’t go as hoped, that he might take Isaac back to the land of Haran to find a wife. And Abraham knows that would not be according to God’s plan. God has promised to bless Isaac in this land, and if he should go back to Haran there is a good chance that he will stay there. That’s a picture of those who have been chosen by God for salvation going back to the world. As the scripture we just read in 2 Cor. 6 indicates, God says come out from among them and by separate. Do not touch what is unclean. It is a terrible thing to go back to the defilements of the world once you have been cleansed of it.

Vs10 Then the servant took ten camels from the camels of his master, and set out with a variety of good things of his master’s in his hand; and he arose and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor. He made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at evening time, the time when women go out to draw water. He said, “O LORD, the God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today, and show lovingkindness to my master Abraham. Behold, I am standing by the spring, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water; now may it be that the girl to whom I say, ‘Please let down your jar so that I may drink,’ and who answers, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels also’–[may] she [be the one] whom You have appointed for Your servant Isaac; and by this I will know that You have shown lovingkindness to my master.”

First notice that ten camels bearing gifts would have been a sign of a very wealthy man. Abraham was very rich in the world’s goods. So the servant takes this very long trip, perhaps 900 miles, and which would have taken many days, bearing the gifts of his master. He goes to the town designated by Abraham and stops on the outskirts where the women would go to the spring to get water. In that culture, it was the women’s job to fetch water.

And so the servant prays to God, and presents to Him a sign that the woman who gives him water and also offers to water his camels would be the one that God had appointed for Isaac. There is an argument for election there for those that would want to press it. The servant is not choosing, nor is the woman choosing Isaac, but God has appointed a woman who will believe and respond. And the servant recognizing this fact, presents a sign for God to show him who it is.

It can be dangerous for us to judge God’s will based on circumstances. Because we tend to see circumstances in the light we want to see them, as they may or may not be in agreement with our desires. But there is a difference in the servant’s approach in that he is not interpreting circumstances as they happen, but he presents them to God before they happen so that he may discern God’s will when and if they happen.

It’s also noteworthy that this is not some slight thing to expect of this young woman. I read that a camel drinks about 20 gallons of water. So this was going to take some time and a lot of energy. I also read in the same place that since there were 10 camels and each drank 20 gallons, then it would have been a good hours worth of work. I take it that person who wrote that has never drawn water out of a well. This isn’t like turning on your tap and watching the buckets fill up. This is hauling buckets from a well, probably one gallon at a time. 200 times. This woman would have to have forearms like Popeye to draw 200 gallons in one hour. It would have taken quite a while, and a lot of strength.

I think that is a pretty good assessment of one of the most important assets in a good wife. She needs to be strong. Able to do a lot of hard work and not get tired. Now it also turns out that Rebecca is beautiful. And that’s also very important. But maybe being strong is more important.

But seriously, I think this test reveals the servant’s idea of the most important quality in a wife. And that is she must have a servant’s heart. That is certainly a desirable character trait for the bride of Christ. And I suppose it’s also an important characteristic of a good wife. That doesn’t mean that she is your slave, however. But that she has a heart to serve, that is humble, and wants to satisfy the needs of her husband and family. That quality is a good thing to find. And it’s interesting that the servant choses this characteristic of a servant’s heart to be the defining thing to show him who God has appointed. Abraham’s servant cared nothing about the woman’s appearance. He wanted a woman of character, a woman whom God had chosen.

Vs 15 Before he had finished speaking, behold, Rebekah who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor, came out with her jar on her shoulder. The girl was very beautiful, a virgin, and no man had had relations with her; and she went down to the spring and filled her jar and came up. Then the servant ran to meet her, and said, “Please let me drink a little water from your jar.” She said, “Drink, my lord”; and she quickly lowered her jar to her hand, and gave him a drink. Now when she had finished giving him a drink, she said, “I will draw also for your camels until they have finished drinking.” So she quickly emptied her jar into the trough, and ran back to the well to draw, and she drew for all his camels. Meanwhile, the man was gazing at her in silence, to know whether the LORD had made his journey successful or not.

So it turns out that Rebecca is not only strong, not only has a servant’s heart, but is very beautiful. That’s a pretty rare combination, isn’t it? You might find one trait or another, but never usually all three together in one person. And when the Bible tells us that she is very beautiful, we should believe she was very beautiful. But that wasn’t the primary characteristic that God was looking for, nor what the servant was looking for. That was icing on the cake.

But how is the church beautiful to Christ? In the Song of Solomon, the bride is said to be beautiful by the king over 15 times. I would remind you of the scripture in Ephesians 5 we read earlier, which says, vs 25 “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. “ So the idea is spiritually beautiful, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but holy and blameless. That’s the beauty that God finds attractive.

Vs 22 When the camels had finished drinking, the man took a gold ring weighing a half-shekel and two bracelets for her wrists weighing ten shekels in gold, ($5000) and said, “Whose daughter are you? Please tell me, is there room for us to lodge in your father’s house?” She said to him, “I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor.” Again she said to him, “We have plenty of both straw and feed, and room to lodge in.” Then the man bowed low and worshiped the LORD. He said, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His lovingkindness and His truth toward my master; as for me, the LORD has guided me in the way to the house of my master’s brothers.”

So it turns out that this is exactly the family that Abraham had wanted his servant to find. And God providentially brought this young woman to him. So he gives here the gifts of jewelry, showing the riches of his master. And as the messenger of God, we should reveal the riches of God to those to whom we present the gospel.

There is an interesting statement that the servant makes which is best known in the KJV. “As for me, being on the way, the LORD led me to the house of my master’s brethren.” The statement of interest is “being on the way, the Lord led me.” Someone has said that it’s hard to steer a parked car. Being on the way indicates that before you know the final destination, or how it will all work out, you go where the Lord has told you to go, and then as you are going, the Lord will lead you. We step out in faith, and the Lord will lead us where we are to go.

So vs 29 through 49 the servant is invited to dinner with the family, the head of the family being the brother of Rebekah whose name is Laban. The servant basically retells the entire story to Laban of how Abraham sent him, how he prayed to God about specific details concerning the woman, and how she responded. He concludes in vs48 “And I bowed low and worshiped the LORD, and blessed the LORD, the God of my master Abraham, who had guided me in the right way to take the daughter of my master’s kinsman for his son. So now if you are going to deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me; and if not, let me know, that I may turn to the right hand or the left.”

Vs 50, Then Laban and Bethuel replied, “The matter comes from the LORD; [so] we cannot speak to you bad or good. “Here is Rebekah before you, take [her] and go, and let her be the wife of your master’s son, as the LORD has spoken.” When Abraham’s servant heard their words, he bowed himself to the ground before the LORD. The servant brought out articles of silver and articles of gold, and garments, and gave them to Rebekah; he also gave precious things to her brother and to her mother.

It was obvious from the account the servant gave, that the matter had been decided by the Lord. They wisely said that they could not speak against it. But that didn’t mean that they were totally without guile. But I think that they were unable to argue against the wisdom of God. And so the servant showed gifts of silver and gold and fine things upon her and her family. And the church as well has received great riches as the bride of Christ, and an inheritance that is beyond our imagination. As Paul said to the church in Ephesus, “[I pray that] the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.” Ephesians 1:18,19

Vs 54 Then he and the men who were with him ate and drank and spent the night. When they arose in the morning, he said, “Send me away to my master.” But her brother and her mother said, “Let the girl stay with us [a few] days, say ten; afterward she may go.” He said to them, “Do not delay me, since the LORD has prospered my way. Send me away that I may go to my master.” And they said, “We will call the girl and consult her wishes.” Then they called Rebekah and said to her, “Will you go with this man?” And she said, “I will go.” Thus they sent away their sister Rebekah and her nurse with Abraham’s servant and his men. They blessed Rebekah and said to her, “May you, our sister, Become thousands of ten thousands, And may your descendants possess The gate of those who hate them.” Then Rebekah arose with her maids, and they mounted the camels and followed the man. So the servant took Rebekah and departed.

Rebekah showed a remarkable willingness to leave everything she knew in order to be with a bridegroom she had never seen. Her words “I will go” were worthy words of faith. I might even suggest that “I will go” could be interpreted as saying the modern marriage equivalent, “I do.” As the scripture says, “FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. Rebekah consented to join Isaac as his wife, a man she had never seen. She committed to love him, a man she had never seen, but only heard about though the word of his servant.

What a picture of our commitment to Christ, whom we have not seen. As it says in 1 Peter 1:8-9 “whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see [Him], yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith–the salvation of [your] souls.”

Vs 62 Now Isaac had come from going to Beer-lahai-roi; for he was living in the Negev. Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening; and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, camels were coming. Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac she dismounted from the camel. She said to the servant, “Who is that man walking in the field to meet us?” And the servant said, “He is my master.” Then she took her veil and covered herself. The servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and he took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her; thus Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.

I would point out that Isaac was out meditating in the field towards evening. I think that indicates that He was rehearsing the promises of God and praying about God’s fulfillment of those promises. And the promise was fulfilled by the arrival of his bride.

In all this, we see the coming together of Isaac and Rebekah as a remarkable picture of the coming together of Jesus and His church. A father desired a bride for his son. The son was reckoned as dead and raised from the dead. A nameless servant was sent forth to get a bride for the son. The beautiful bride was divinely met, chosen, and called, and then lavished with riches. She was entrusted to the care of the servant until she met her bridegroom.

Isaac loved his bride, and Jesus loves His Church. Both Rebekah and the Church: Were chosen for marriage before they knew it (Ephesians 1:3-4). Were necessary for the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose (Ephesians 3:10-11). Were destined to share in the inheritance of the son (John 17:22-23). Learned of the son through his representative. Must leave all to be with the son. Were loved and cared for by the son.

If you are here today and you have not responded to the call of God to become the bride of Christ, then I trust that today you will simply say, “I do.” And be joined to Christ as His bride through the riches of salvation that He freely gives and to live with Him forever and share in the inheritance that He has prepared for you.