Sermon Tone Analysis

! Close Encounters Of The God Kind

!

A Close Encounter Through A Dream

Genesis 28:10-22

 

 

/The following report was given by Jan M. Faust, ABCNEWS.com,

March 23./

At midnight on Tuesday, March 24—presumably Central time—some predicted Channel 18s everywhere would broadcast God.

Don’t adjust your set, says Heng-ming Chen, leader of the God’s Salvation Church, a Garland, Texas, group whose beliefs blend Buddhism, Christianity and science fiction.

This “appearance” is just a scheduled preview of God’s return to Earth on Tuesday, March 31, says the church.

It’s being billed as a 20th-century Second Coming, played out with television cameos, press conferences and flying saucers.

It’s the shared vision of approximately 150 people who’ve left everything behind to pursue a religion in a new land.

The Taiwanese group, whose Chinese name, Chen Tao, roughly translates to “God Saves the Earth Flying Saucer Association,” has come to tell America that the end is near.

As you can see flying saucers are everywhere, even in religion.

Whether these accounts are ridiculous or credible, they are becoming far too common place to simply ignore.

So, as I thought about the theme of “Encounters With God,” I began to notice some strong similarities between professed close encounters with aliens and close encounters with God.

Consequently, I felt impressed to use the subject of “Alien Encounters” as a launching pad for our biblical discussion of “Encounters with God.”

We are presently involved in a series of messages entitled:  “Close Encounters Of The God Kind.”

This title is taken from the UFO science fiction film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

In this series, we are studying close encounters with God, by likening them to close encounters with UFO’s.

Whether you believe in alien “Close Encounters” or not, you must admit that anyone who claims to have had one is changed forever!

Similarly, when a person has a close encounter with the Jehovah God, it is an experience that changes that person’s life forever.

In addition, when a person has a close encounter with a UFO, it cannot be totally explained.

Likewise, when a person truly encounters God, something happens that he~/she cannot totally explain or rationalize.

A person must use his~/her spirit to leap beyond the natural and begin to entertain the supernatural, the miraculous, the ineffable, the transcendent, the eternal.

\\         In first three sermons in this series, we worked hard to develop a definition for a “Close Encounter Of The God Kind.”

That definition is

 

A “Close Encounter Of The God Kind” is a face-to-face meeting with God that cannot be totally explained, but which—when fully experienced—will bring about a response of genuine worship or celebration, which includes the remembrance of a redemptive past and~/or the conviction of a liberated future that changes people forever; causing them to move and grow by over-recording the intuitive tapes of their core belief.

In the fourth message in this series, we explored one of the major barriers to experiencing a close encounter with God.

We called that barrier:  “The Brain Barrier.”

“The Brain Barrier” *is the American, Greek influenced tendency to separate and exalt the intellect above the emotions.

*

        We then began to explore twelve “Close Encounters Of The God Kind.”

In the fifth message, we explored Abraham’s *first* encounter with God.

In that first encounter, God encountered Abraham through His Word that He might commission Abraham to be the forefather of the Messiah.

In the last message, we explored God’s encountering of Abraham through a test.

God tested the faith of Abraham with a severe test, that He might approve Abraham for service and to ultimately reign with Him.

 

/(This brings us to the next encounter that we want to explore.)/

*In this message, we are going to see that God uses a dream to encounter one of His servants.*

This story is found in the 28th chapter of Genesis.

The servant that we shall be looking at is Jacob.

I hope that we are all familiar with the story of Jacob.

I took a couple of messages on Jacob and Esau some months back during the “Family Mess” series.

Nevertheless, for those who don’t remember and those who are unfamiliar with the story, let me summarize the story for you.

Isaac, the son of Abraham took Rebekah to be his wife.

Rebekah was barren, but Isaac prayed for her and she conceived.

Rebekah was pregnant with twins that struggled within her womb.

This troubled Rebekah and she inquired of the Lord about what was going on inside of her.

The Bible says in

 

Genesis 25:23, “And the Lord said to her, ‘Two nations are in your womb; And two peoples shall be separated from your body; And one people shall be stronger than the other; And the older shall serve the younger.’”

After the boys were born their struggle continued and Jacob, the younger, the supplanter, the cheater, bought the birthright from Esau for a bowl of lentil soup.

He would eventually also wrestle away from Esau the blessing of the first born.

\\         In the “Family Mess” series we studied how mother and son, Rebekah and Jacob, conspired to trick their elderly, blind husband and father, Isaac out of the blessing.

Because of that act:

 

·        We saw Isaac trembling and shaken;

·        We saw Esau embittered and threatening to murder his brother;

·        We saw Rebekah bereft of both of her sons, and probably a good relationship with her husband; and

·        We saw Jacob have to flee from His brother, losing his family, his home, his country, and seemingly his destiny.

(*FAMILY MESS!*)

 

*And Jacob went through all of this for a birthright and blessing that were already prophesied and promised to Him by Jehovah God!*

This is where we pick up the story today, with Jacob fleeing from his brother, Esau.

Notice with me please Genesis 28:10-22.

There are many ways to preach through this narrative, but I want to explore this narrative from the perspective of a “Close Encounter Of The God Kind.”

As Jacob was fleeing from his brother, Esau, he came to an ordinary place to stop and rest.

*But Jehovah God turned that ordinary place into a sanctuary.*

When he went to sleep that night, Jacob had an “experiential encounter” with Jehovah God that engendered worship.

*God encounters Jacob through a dream.*

When Jacob rested for the night, God showed Jacob a ladder whose bottom was on the earth, but whose top reached into heaven.

In addition, angels were ascending and descending this latter.

There are many things to study here, but remember we are only looking at this narrative from the perspective of a close encounter with God.

This is no doubt a face-to-face meeting with God.

We get some words that seem to explain this dream in the New Testament, in Jesus words to Nathanael, in

 

John 1:50-51, “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe?

You shall see greater things than these.’

And He said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you shall see the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.’”

In these words of Jesus, He seems to refer to the dream that Jacob had.

That was a dream to Jacob, but Christ is himself the bond of fellowship between heaven and earth, between God and man, for Jesus is both ‘the Son of God’ as Nathanael said and ‘the Son of Man’ as Jesus here calls himself.

*God and man meet in Christ.*

*He is the true Jacob’s Ladder.*

This same Jesus said,

 

“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

·        He is the Way to heaven.

·        He is the Mediator between man and God.

·        He is the spiritual ladder or passageway between earth and heaven.

His body was firmly planted on the earth, but His nature was firmly planted in heaven.

He is the God-Man and the Man-God.

He is the “Theanthropic One.”  /Theos/ means God and /anthropos/ means man, and yet the two never intermingled.

His deity and his humanity are joined together in a hypostatic union, i.e. one hypostasis or person.

He had two natures and yet He was one being.

He was as much Man as if He had never been God, and as much God as if He had never been Man.

He represented both God and the human race.

So, in this dream, Jacob experienced a face-to-face encounter with the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ.

This is “A Close Encounter Of The God Kind.”

Now, I am about to make a very bold statement.

*“I believe that God sometimes still uses dreams to encounter us!”*  Now you should be thinking, “Why is that such a bold statement?”

*It is a bold statement, because many have done away with all supernatural manifestations or encounters with God and reduced our relationship with God to a cognitive endeavor.*

This reduction also includes dreams.

Most churches today have no theology of experience or spiritual manifestations.

Therefore, the world that we live in, which is deeply spiritual, is looking for a way to deal with spiritual manifestations like dreams.

We live in a post-modern society and post-modern people are spiritual.

They have their own experiences and spirituality, but they are looking for someone to help them interpret those experiences and spirituality.

Unfortunately, they are looking to Eastern Mystic religions and 1-900 numbers for answers.

Why are they looking there?