"The One At The Top."
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I. Introduction.
I. Introduction.
Ladders.
Ladders.
I read some interesting quotes last week and I thought I’d share them with you today:
Ok, let’s see, one went this way:
“Mistakes are merely steps up the ladder of life.”
Another goes this way:
“Some people are at the top of the ladder, some are in the middle, still more are at the bottom and a whole lot more don’t even know there is a ladder!”
One writer wrote:“How sad to finally reach the top of the ladder only to realize it’s leaning against the wrong building!”
Another said: “You can’t push anyone up a ladder, unlesss they are willing do to a little climbing theirself!”
Every quote I found about ladders has to do with professional advancement or what some have called the rat race.
And it’s not a new idea.
All the way back to the Bloody days of that Roman Empire, there was a Latin noun that we still hear today, the “Cursus Honorum.”
It was the succession of offices and roles that a patrician Roman would fill on his rise in politics.
From the moment you were born, parents and family and society at large began to pressure you up the cursus honorum.
Little has changed.
“Climb! society seems to say!
And if you don’t get as high as they think you should, when you should, some folks will turn on you!!
As though your worth is based on your ability to achieve.
But I am so grateful that this is not the way Jesus sees us!
Yes, his invitation is ever upward, but his love for us is not based on our bank account, the corner office we work in or don’t.
He loves us because we are breathing!
Becasue he designed us!
And because we are His!
Allow me to point out that God is still the one in charge of the universe!
He still sits on Heaven’s throne!
He’s the one I want to please!
He’s the one I want to serve!
And it’s His approval I need more than anyone else!
Alright, there is another ladder that I want us to look at today.
It’s known as Jacob’s ladder.
He was the one God showed it to in the book of Genesis Ch 28.
And as we turn there, let us set the scene for a moment with a summary of Ch 27.
This was the place where Jacob the cheater, the liar, the conman, steals the birthright and blessing from His older brother Esau.
Now Jacob had some help from His Mom, who played favorites.
She had taught him how to cheat!
Little does he know that on her side of the family, lying and cheating was a family tradition!
Trust me, he will find out soon enough!
In his old age, his Father Isaac apparently felt that he did not have long to live.
And so Isaac was going to pronounce blessing on the heir Esau, before he passed or was unable.
He asked Esau, a great hunter to hunt game, fix it just the way he liked and afterwards would come the official pronouncement of blessing.
Jacob found out about this and so when Esau was gone, he brought in a dish of piping hot food, just the way Dad liked it!
Since Esau was a hairy man and Jacob was not, he took the skin of the animal killed and tied it around his arms and neck.
The nearly blind Isaac felt the hair on Jacob’s arms which confirmed who it was, and yet he makes this statement:
“Yeah, the arms are the arms of Esau, but the voice is that of Jacob.”
Well he goes ahead and blesses Jacob even though he has doubts.
BTW, We should always be careful when it comes to feelings.
They can lie to you!
Jesus said: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.
Yes, feeling is a wonderful part of life!
But if you make major life decisions on a feeling, you will probably come to regret it!
Better to wait until you hear the right voice!
And Jesus said: “My sheep know my voice.”
Freind, it’s not my message, but it will still help you:
Build your life on what you know and not what you feel!
Well, there they are in that bedouin tent, the big one, Isaac’s audience chamber.
The ceremony is about to take place!
In the ancient world the speaking of a blessing, like the signing of a contract in our day, gave the words binding force.
It was about to go down! And this family would be changed forever!
It’s true that Jacob went about things the wrong way.
And yet, I think the most frustrating thing to me about the whole thing is that I see Jacob’s point.
What he did was wrong, but I see where he was coming from!
I get it!
His brother did not value the brithright blessing of their people.
Esau had no apparent thought for the fact that they were special to God and had a special future as a nation!
Esau could not care less about the covenant between God and his family and he proves this by marrying HIttite women.
But still, have you noticed how even when you are right, if you do a right thing a wrong way, the ends do not justify the means!
It’s always best to trust God, and do your best, while he takes care of the rest!
Just Ask Abraham and Sarah!
Well, Jacob pulls off the con!
And then his brother finds out!
Here is a man who is what we would call a manly man!
Ever seen those strongman competitions?
Eddie Hall, Hafthor Jorgenson or the American, Brian Shaw: 6”8 440 lbs!
Well folks, if they had one of those competitions in the book of Genesis, Esau would likely have taken the title!
What’s more, he was a man of the field, a great hunter, and very good at killing !
Specifically, He was good at killing things that were running away!
And they didn’t have nice bolt action hunting rifles back then yall!
Not so much as a compound bow!
The work of killing was done close up back then.
A sharp stick, a stone or spear.
Esau was all about that.
Not so Jacob.
And when Esau found out what had gone down while he was hunting food for Isaac, His rage was a thing to see!
It’s right there in your BIble!
“I’m gonna kill him!!!!!
Whenever I have thought of this statment, in which one man promises violence to another, I figured he was just mad.
And he was!
But there’s more to it!
See, if Jacob is dead, then someone else has to get the birthright...
It has to go to someone after all!
Who better than the one it was supposed to fall to in the first place?
Esau has no legal way to reinstatement, unless his brother is in the ground.
And so the hunt is on!
“Jacob, you’re done for!”
Esau does’nt have to put a hit on you!
He’ll do it himself! With his own hands, and slow.
You’ll not go easy into that dark night Jacob!
And so it’s not surprise what Jacob does next:
He laces up his $275 Nike Zoom Alpha fly’s (He probably stole those too.) And Jacob ran for his life!
Literally, he ran for his life!
If the morning light finds me in this camp, I’m a dead man!”
“I may not be as big as Esau, thinks Jacob, but I can run!”
And so He does.
Now that is where we meet Jacob in Chapter 28, vs 10, and reading thorugh vs 19.
Now folks, The miles passed one after another. Built for speed and endurance, Jacob ran for hours!
His life hung in the balance! He knew he had to get out of Dodge!
And when he finally runs out of steam, falling to the ground, he slept like a dead man!
And this is where God showed him something He would never forget!!!!
And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that place Beth-el: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.
Here’s the vision:
A ladder that reaches from earth at the bottom, to heaven at the top!
This was not an unknown concept in the ancient world.
All over that part of the world, archealogists have excevated these towers known as Ziggurats.
Broad at the base they reach as high as the builders could build them.
And one such tower was built on the plain of Shinar.
The people had said: “We will build us a tower!”
It will reach unto heaven!
They wanted a portal, a bridge if you will, between heaven and earth, between God and man!
But what they didn’t know is that you can’t get to heaven on your own terms!
It’s gonna be God’s way or no way!
The time was not right for man to reach heaven!
God has another plan!
There will be a bridge between God and man!
But timing is everything!
God had to stop their tower and so He did.
So it was, tha when Jacob saw the ladder, He knew this was a bridge!
Angels are ascending and descending on errands of mercy!
And there is something, someone standing at the top of that ladder!
Who exactly?
Who is “The One At The Top?”
Let’s read it again:
13 And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;
The One at the top is “The Lord.”
Not “A Lord.” But The Lord!
The original world was Yehowa.
The Jewish national name of God.
And then just to make sure that we know exactly who is the One At The Top is, He speaks!
He identifies himself!
And He starts with this: “I AM.”
“I AM The Lord God!”
“I Am The Lord God of Abraham!
Yes Brothers and Sisters, The “I AM” is the one at the top of the ladder!
All those angels coming and going to minister to man, they are going on the orders of the One At The Top!
Okay, Jacob has some hard lessons to learn, but he grows into his birhtright eventually.
God will do big things for Jacob.
Let’s leave him there at Bethel, leave him, laying in the dirt and fast forward now from the Old Testament to the New...
John Ch 1!
Exciting thing are happening!
John the baptist has just baptized Jesus and declared him to be the Lamb of God!
The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me. And I knew him not: but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water. And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.
Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples; And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God! And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou? He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day: for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.
The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me. Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see. Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel. Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these. And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.
Jesus indicated that Nathanael’s old covenant faith must now center in him, the focus of the new covenant.
Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man, a term he used more than eighty times.
This title emphasized his humanity and suffering as well as the perfection of his human nature.
Jesus is making it very clear:
“Everybody thinks I’m just a carpenter’s wife’s son, a nobody from Nazareth, but in actual fact, I AM the one at the top!!!
I AM!
This is why the Pharisees hated him so badly!
When Jesus made his seven “IAM” statements, He was claiming to be God in flesh!
Which is exactly what and who He was and He is!
OH they hated him for it!
“Before Abraham was, I AM”
It was not bad grammer! You should hear Bro Raymond Woodward break this passage down!
Awesome!
Jesus did not get his tenses mixed up, past, present, future.
He was simply stating that before Abraham ever was, He was!
He identified himself as the same God who spoke out of the burning bush to a guy called Moses!
Only now, it is not a temporary manifestation, a theophony, now it is God, manifest in flesh for Good!
And for my Good! And yours!
And here’s the best part, here’s my sermon:
Not only is Jesus the One At The Top, but He is the ladder itself!
The one thing that connects the realm of God and man!
Fully God and fully man!
Jesus is the New Bethel, the New dwelling place of God!
Did you know that Bethel actually means “The house of God?”
It is the place where God revealed himself!
Fully God and fully man!
Jesus is not only the portal, the bridege between heaven and earth, between God and man, He is both himself!
He had to be God in order to represent God to humanity!
And he had to be man in order to represent humanity to God!
Bethel!
He is the gateway! He is the ladder himself!
II. Conclusion.
II. Conclusion.
I read something last night that broke my heart.
Tragic.
It is a poem, I happened upon titled:
‘A Pagan’s Dream of Worldly Sufficency”
And this is what it says:
I know the way to heaven. Where the
Ladder is hidden.
I would climb it but the King at its top
Has nothing I want.
My own magic suffices.
My worldly spells of slight existence
Satisfies my needs
And annihilation my greatest hope.
Oh dear God, my heart is the opposite of this!
Who among us today would say:
“I want Jesus!”
“I need Jesus!”
He is the way, the truth and the life!
If you feel that way, if you want this bridge, why don’t you tell Him!!