Life & Times of Jacob Pt3!

I had trouble sleeping. And there was really no mode to preach because I was a witness of the mess afterwards. I won’t trouble you with what I saw. It absolutely devastated me. And then to think that there are Congress people in the United States who doubt that there ever was a problem. And the fact that just recently a professor was released from York University, Toronto, because he refused to acknowledge the Holocaust, how could they have ever hired such a person in the first place. I had a problem with one of those people who showed up

in my church when I was pastor in Red Deer. Someone hastily came to me before the service and said, you need to know that fellow that’s been in the news, who only lived about 20 miles away. They said, he’s here. I went and confronted him right in the lobby. I said, you are not welcome here. Either walk out or believe me. I’m capable. I’ll carry you out. You’re not welcome here.

You’re a liar. You’re a deceiver. I’m very, very troubled by all of that aftermath, that mess. And 6 million Jewish people, their lives were eliminated in those ovens. And it’s just so troubling. And I have visited more death camps since then. It’s not let I have this thing about visiting those kinds of places. But when the opportunity affords and someone says,

I’m happy to take you, I go. It’s kind of like bitter medicine. But I have to tell you that the spirit of that mess is alive and in Canada right now. Never mind the United States. The huge riots, the terrible demonstrations that are going on on the campuses of the United States of America. It’s absolutely deplorable. But we’re on our way in Canada because there are troubles happening on our university campuses. And young people who are barely out of diapers are screaming, death to the Jews. Who are they? Where are they coming from? This is despicable. And it’s terrible. But I want to share with you today, it is totally predictable. These are the last days. Think about it. Those of you who are at least in your senior years, have you ever witnessed antisemitism like you’re seeing right now?

And have you ever witnessed any kind of antisemitism that lacked all sense of knowledge and historical value? These people who are going on the rampage and saying, we are Hamas. We are this. We are that. Death to the Jews, whatever, whatever. They don’t even have an education. And it’s ever so troubling. So it’s kind of like a euphoria that is rampaging.

And it’s so interesting that a media person captured the witness of a young woman as they said, what do you know about this demonstration? I don’t know, but I’m a part of it. Yeah. Okay. Good for you, sweetie heart. But I believe that so many of them are in that very position. So I’m done with my ranting. Somebody said, thank God and help him Jesus. Now for the good news. Hello? So I’m reading about Jacob. It’s all going to be sewn together. What I just ranted about the last few minutes, it has some value. Well, you can decide. But I’m reading now out of the book of Genesis in chapter 28. Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Heron. 

I pause now to remind you that the reason why he’s heading in that direction is that Esau is setting out to kill him because Esau feels hard done by. He made a huge error. You know the story. And then his mother came to Jacob and said, your father is going to die soon. And you won’t last any time after your dad’s dead. Your brother is only holding off from murdering you until your daddy is dead. You got to run. You got to go. She also went to Isaac and said, you’ve got to talk to Jacob. He’s got to get out of here. His life is at stake. And so Isaac did ask Jacob to come. He spoke to him and said, you better go, son. It’s not good for you here. But he gave him specific instructions. 

You go to our kindred. You go and you speak with Laban. And you settle there and you find yourself a wife there. You see, Isaac was still smarting over the fact that Esau had gone and married two Hittites. That troubled him. These people were despicable people, desperately ungodly. And after dad had said, now look, this is the family line. And it’s important who we marry. It’s important who we join to. And so I want you to marry within our realm. But Esau was disobedient and married two Hittites. And those two women then, of course, came to the big ranch. I’m going to call it. However they live together as a family, they reside together. And you can read it for yourself. That those two Hittite women were making life miserable for Rebecca. And she went to her husband and said, those two women are driving me crazy. And so daddy spoke to Jacob. He said, now you go to Laban.

Now who’s Laban? Well, Laban is actually related to Rebecca. Abraham had a brother, Nihor. And it’s a long story, but three or four generations later, Rebecca has a brother who’s over there in another part of the land. So Jacob is on his way to meet up with family. So we headed out from Beersheba. He’s going toward Heron. So we came to a certain place and stayed there all night because the sun had set. It says he came to a certain place. The writer is not identifying the place. He’s just saying, it’s certain. There was no question where he stopped for the night. But you’re going to learn a little bit later in the passage where that was. It turned out that he named the place Bethel, the house of God. He came to a certain place, and he stayed there all night because the sun had gone down.

And he took one of the stones from that place and put it at his head. All my days I struggled with the fact that a fellow with the. . . I don’t know how important a pillow is to you, but I have trouble sleeping without a pillow. Few times in my life I’ve been on a journey. I didn’t have a pillow. I took all my dirty clothes and wrapped them up in a bundle and I made a pillow. But I stoned for a pillow until I started visiting African tribes. And the men there, they craft this cute little stool that when they set it down on the ground and they put their head back on it, their neck rests on that thing because they have such ornate hair dressings. In fact, they’re far more beautiful than the ladies. 

And if they were to lay on their hairdo it would crush it and they’d have to start all over again and wash it and then repack it with mud. And it’s such a tedious task of putting the mud back in and getting it all nice. And so these fellows actually sleep on this little wooden stool, their head dropped draped over the back.

So the fact that he chooses a stone isn’t quite so ominous now. At least there’s a little bit more support. And so then he fell fast asleep and he dreamed and he saw a ladder set up on the earth. I quickly mentioned to you that in doing some of my digging I’ve discovered that that word ladder would be better, better translated staircase, a stairway. As the angels were going up and down they weren’t grabbing onto the rungs and looking, hoping not to stumble and fall. We almost lost a baptismal candidate years ago when we had a ladder going into the baptismal. And she was a lady who couldn’t see her own toes. I shouldn’t have said that. And as she was going down her foot got mismanaged and instead of getting on the rung her leg went through and she started putting her weight down and she lost it and the lady fell back. Her leg is hooked onto the ladder. 

There’s a little fellow by the name of Paul Jared in the tub with her and he’s afraid she’s going to drown. So he drops on his back. He’s underneath her holding up at the back. Jack is reaching over the side. He’s trying to rescue her. Everybody is dying. They think she’s going to drown. I’m sitting in the front row. I forgot my microphones on. I’m laughing myself into oblivion. It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

So when I think of it, yeah, she survived. They finally got her to float and got her to stand up. She was so wet from head to toe and she turned to Paul who was in the tank with her and she said, do I still have to go down? He said, I think you’re done, sister. It’s fun to be a pastor, you know. Hello. I used to. I stopped baptizing people because I had a tendency. I wanted to make sure it was done right to help them down until I saw a bubble. So people didn’t want me to baptize anymore. But to think about angels going up and down a ladder. That doesn’t work. But going up and down a beautiful stairway, that kind of makes sense, right? Because there would be an elegance to that. 

But the important thing is not so much about the angels. They play a part, but it says, he dreamed a dream and he saw a stairway set up on the earth and its top reached to heaven. And there the angels of God were ascending and descending, going up and down. I think there’s a beautiful spiritual truth there. I’ll come back to it a moment and behold the Lord standing above that. I am the Lord God of Abraham, your father and the God of Isaac. So the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac is about to become the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He saw Yom Mestet. Yom Mestet, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I am the Lord God of Abraham, your father and the God of Isaac, the land in which you lie, I will give to you in your descendants. What right do the Jews have to be there? What year was this in antiquity? Do you know how long ago this was? 

Islam has only been around since the year 700. This is going back a couple of thousand years. Hello? More than a couple of thousand years. What right do the Jews have to the line called Palestine? It wasn’t known as Palestine until the Romans got upset and they didn’t like the word Israel. They changed it to Palestine. It’s always belonged to the Jewish people because actually it belongs to God. And he says, these are my children, these are my family. I will give it to you and I’ll give it to your descendants. The people who are Jews now in that country are Abraham’s descendants. Also your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth and you shall spread abroad to the west, to the east, the north, and the south. Can I repeat that? It’s going to come up again. Your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth. You shall prepare. You shall spread abroad west, east, north, and south. I quickly mentioned they didn’t go abroad scattered all over the earth because they wanted to.

They got pushed out. And in you and in your seed, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So here’s a prophetic word. The people who are being blessed because of the promise to Abraham, Isaac, and now to Jacob have got really very little to do with their specific bloodline. It’s got everything to do with this fact. We’re told in the book of Romans, we have been grafted in. We now are also the children of Abraham, the man who established a race of people who follow after God and it came about by his faith. So the earth is being blessed because of Abraham’s faith and we are the recipients of the same. Behold, I am with you. Somebody needs to send a telegram, a text message to you, to Neah and remind him, God bless them, Lord, keep them and keep them wise and keep them strong. And that does not mean that I’m comfortable with the bloodletting and all the rest of it. But if Hamas had laid down their instruments of torture and of death a year ago and said, okay, let’s get this over with. 

The hostages would have been released and there would have been some semblance of peace, but they’ll have none of it because they are filled with a murderous hate. And now that hate is on the campuses of Canada, they’re shouting, we are Hamas. We are Hamas. They should just yell, we’re the devil. I will be with you. I will keep you wherever you go. Canada, when you go to Montreal, be sure to go over to the Jewish Quarter and get some bagels. Two o’clock in the morning, you can go to a Jewish bakery. When people came to visit us where we lived in Montreal, we said, you’ve got to go with us tonight. Get some rest because we’re going out tonight. We wouldn’t leave the house until midnight. Go down into the Jewish Quarter, go to our favorite place. And here these Jewish fellows were there putting out the bagels, and they had a cooler there where you could get some cheese and whatever and sit in the car. They give you a little plastic knife. Is it there?

And eating bagels in the middle of the night. God blessed the Jews. They make good bagels. But listen to this, you’ll be scattered all over the world, but I will keep you. Somebody said, said, should send a message to you, not in Nahu. We pray for you. We care about you. And God is with you, sir. And all these people are called Jews. He said, I’ll keep you wherever you go. And we’ll bring you back to this land. I’ll bring you back. 1967. April and I were in Montreal at that time. We’ve lived in Montreal a couple of times. No, I don’t speak French. I know a lot of sign language. And so I got an invitation to go and visit the home of a Jewish family. And there I met a beautiful young lady. She would have been 22, 23 at the most. And her story that night was, I’m leaving for Israel in seven days. I’m leaving my mother and my father at this point. I’m young. I’m strong. I can go. 

And this was at the time, you know, the war with the Arabs and whatever. I mean, everything was so tense. I said, why are you going? She said, it’s my land and it’s my people. I said, oh, were you as a family there? No, no, mom and dad said, we came to Canada a long time ago. I said to the young lady, so how many times have you been there? I’ve never been there, but I’m all excited. I said, what are you going to do? She said, I’m going there to defend the land and defend our people. God gave us that place. And I found out that we’re thousands of young people who were heading to Israel. They’ve never been there before. He said, I will call you back. I will bring you. I’ll bring you to this land for I’ll not leave you until I have done what I’ve spoken to you.

Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, surely the Lord is in this place and I didn’t even know it. And he was afraid and said, how awesome is this place? There’s none other than this is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven. And that’s why he called it Bethel. I got a news flash. Hey, Jacob, you stopped at what’s just identified as a certain place. Might have been the home of Rocky Balboa for all we know because it was one of those stones that acted as his pillow. Jacob, if you had parked anywhere else on that desert, in that wilderness, anywhere, God would have met you there. That was not the house of God. That was the place of visitation. 

God does not live on that piece of sand amidst those rocks. He’s everywhere that you are. He’s omnipresent. And no matter where you had chosen to sleep that night, God would have visited you. The ladder, the stairway of heaven, comes into your house in Fort Erie, your house in Wellen, your house over in Beamsville, your house in Faunt Hill, your house in St. Catharines, your house at Punky Doodle Corners. The stairway of heaven comes to all of us, whosoever will may come, the Lord is everywhere. But it’s good. It’s good that Jacob had that glorious experience, wonderful experience. And he named the place, Bethel. I’m sure he couldn’t wait to get home at some point. It took years.

By the time he got home, his dad was dead, his mom was dead. But what he would have longed to do is to say, Dad, you know that God you talk about all the time? I met him too. And he made me a promise. So the Lord promised that he would bring the people back. And I want to read some scriptures to you. Deuteronomy 28 verse 64, Moreover, the Lord will scatter you among all the peoples. The Lord will scatter you. The Lord will scatter you. Do you know how many various conquerors invaded that piece of the country and took over, leveled and decimated Jerusalem, tore down the Romans, were among the last to do so, and destroyed the temple? Because the Jewish people were obstinate. They didn’t want to leave. It’s quite a story. 

That country’s been overrun by conquerors again and again and again. And here they were now living in Germany because they got pressed out of that place. They were in South America. They were all over the world, Jewish people. They were in Montreal. There’s some right probably in our region right here, precious people. They went all over the world because they weren’t welcome anywhere else. God was drawing them back, he said, I will scatter you and then I will bring you back from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth and their shell and there you shall serve other gods. I’m going to scatter you. You’re going to go elsewhere and you’ll serve other gods. Some of them worship the bank of Montreal. Hello? A little bit of cheekiness there. But for many of them, their God is their bank account. But they’re just like everybody else. Have you noticed the price of a loaf of bread? The farmers aren’t getting more money. Somebody’s collecting the money.

You’re going to serve other gods of wood and stone which you or your fathers have not known. Leviticus 26, you however, I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out a sword after you as your land becomes desolate and your cities become wasted. And then the Lord said in Deuteronomy, in Ezekiel, rather, in Ezekiel 12 verse 15, so they will know that I am the Lord when I scatter them among the nations and spread them among the countries. Jeremiah 18, like an east wind I will scatter them before the enemy and I’ll show them my back and not my face on the day of their calamity. God’s a harsh God, why did he pull this off? Why did God do such things? It’s interesting in our little Bible study that this week was in my house. We go to different houses on Thursday evenings. We have, I think we have a wonderful time. I sure enjoy talking. And I guess they enjoy listening. If they don’t enjoy it, they don’t say anything.

But sometimes we have to tantalize them with a roast beef dinner. They come like ants to a picnic. It’s what I love. But I’m teaching from the book of Hebrews and I was sharing with them just this last week where the apostle is saying, if the message delivered to the Old Testament saints was reliable and came with a lot of discomfort if you disobeyed the Lord, how much more trouble are we going to be into if we disobey the New Testament words of grace? They didn’t experience grace in the Old Testament. It was the time of law. It was a time of strictness from the Lord. The Lord was a hard taskmaster and when they did not obey they paid dearly for it. Dearly we scattered all over the world. Jesus came into Jerusalem riding on a cold. Jerusalem I’ve come, I’ve come.

I would have gathered you like, yes, yes, yes. But it was only hours later that they called crucify them, crucify them. That was their last chance, Israel, their last chance to experience the redemption that was planned for them. And so the Lord gave them what they wanted. He walked away from them and he scattered them all over the world. First Kings 14, for the Lord will strike Israel as a read is shaken in the water. And he will uproot Israel from this good land which he gave to their fathers and will scatter them beyond the Euphrates because they have made their ashram provoking the Lord to anger. Jeremiah 30, for I am with you, declares the Lord, I am with you to save you. I will destroy it completely. Shh, here it comes.

I will destroy completely all the nations where I scattered you. But I’ll not destroy you completely. But I will chase you justly and will by no means leave you unpunished. Ezekiel 11, therefore says the Lord God, though I had removed them from far away from the nations and though I had scattered them among the countries, yet I was a sanctuary for them a little while in the countries where they had gone. It’s a desperate thing what the Germans did to the Jews back then, but I’m not going to take you through. It would be worthwhile to go back and read the history of how the rejection of the Jews started. It’s not unlike what we’re hearing today because you see the natural regime said, this is how you’re going to think and this is how you’re going to talk because this is the wave of the future. It’s best for Germany. And if they did not cooperate, they paid dearly. And Hitler and his regime recognize these Jews will never buckle down. They were like that king Nebuchadnezzar. He’d heated up the furnace seven times. I’ll burn you alive.

They said, you can burn us if you will, but we won’t bow. We won’t give in to you. And that is how the Jewish people are even today. They will not give up their land. They will not buckle down. They will not bend their knees. They will not surrender. So the Germans came up with the final solution. I shudder when I hear those words, the final solution. And how was the final solution? Gas furnaces that burned with immeasurable heat. Nebuchadnezzar. So sad. I didn’t realize this until I was digging. 70 years before 1948, 1948 Israel became recognized as a nation worldwide. 70 years before that date in 48, Jews were heading home from all over the world by the thousands. They came all from all over the world, wherever they had been to a country they had never been to before. They bought their water transport, came by boat, came by whatever means they could, and they were asked, where are you going? I’m going. I’m going to Israel. Have you ever been there before? No. Who’s going to be there waiting for you? God’s going to be waiting for you. They set out like Abraham looking for a city whose builder and maker was God. The spirit of Abraham is so strongly within them, and I identify so very much with them, but they fear us. 

They fear everyone who’s not a Jew. It was an occasion back in the 70s when I was visiting Israel, and I went to put my head down on my pillow, a little softer than a rock, and that suddenly occurred to me. I forgot my little calendar book. It was called a day timer. It was in this slick little leather package. It was worth a lot of money at the time, and it had my whole life recorded in it. Where did I leave it? I left it in Nazareth at the church of the Nativity. So I got dressed again and went out, and I don’t know how I managed to find a taxi. And I said, well, you take me to the church of the Nativity in Nazareth. Yes, jump in. So he said, sit in the front seat. We can talk.

And as we’re traveling along, where are you from? I’m a Canadian. What brings you to Israel? I said, love brings me to Israel. Oh, he thinks it’s going to be a wedding, you know. He said, tell me about her. I said, her name is Israel. His head almost flew off of his shoulders.

I said, I’m with the people in Canada who love Israel. What’s your love? I said, the land is God’s land, and the people who live there are God’s people. He was astounded at my words. 

But why are you here? I said, because we love you. He got upset and he said, don’t say that. I said, why? Because I don’t believe it’s the truth. I said it is. Somebody told me later, when you hold up your fist to a jewel, he’ll show you his chin. Make your best shot. When you tell him, you hate him. He can handle it and say, pick a number. You’re among the majority. But when you say to a Jewish person, I love you. I care about you. Their defenses are washed and they’re thinking, I don’t believe this. When I’m in an airport,

if I see the fellows that are clearly identified by the little curls you know, or by those big, I’d love to get one of those black hats. You got to be a Jew to even know where to buy one. But I’ll walk up to them and I’ll say, please, can I shake your hand? They’re scared to death. I think I’m, I’m, I, sister, something. I’m gonna, I’m gonna say, I’m a friend. I’m a friend. And I’ll say to them, I pray for you. I’m a pastor and we pray for you. They’re blown away.

They almost stutter. They don’t know how to handle it. We need to tell them we love them. When we need to support them in every which way we can. But of course, that’s politically incorrect right now. The universities, the professors, they’re our professors and the universities of Canada who are saying that, on that morning of October, I celebrated it. You dealt with that, tune into yesterday’s radio broadcast by a fellow whose name is green. I found him on the 900 a.m. dial. He was interviewing a lady from, from who knows where, but she studies everything that’s going on. She’s very much in tune with what’s going on in the university. She said, we’ve got professors in our universities who are telling the students down with Israel they have no right to be there. She said, it’s anti-Semitism. This was before, this was before that October date. When they came in and they raped and they pillaged and they did unspeakable things.

No, this is a spirit that is among them. They will come from all over the world to a place that they’ve never been to. The Jewish people have long to return to their land for thousands of years. 700,000 have arrived from Arab countries. A few hundred thousand have come from, originally from the death camps, the concentration camps all over Europe after Germany lost the war. A million have gone from the Soviet Union. Ethiopia has been goodbye to 100,000 people who really believe that they have Jewish roots. Amos 9, 15, I also will plant them on their land and they will not again be rooted out from their land, which I have given them, says the Lord your God. I’ve been told that there are more pastors who are silent on anything to do with the Middle East, totally silent. More pastors are silent than our spokesman. I think it’s a tragedy because even God’s people are being deceived. There are people in our own church organization who are saying, well, you know, Israel has no right, but they don’t know the book. 

If the pastors aren’t teaching the book, the people will follow CNN, the liar of all liars. Even CBC is not dependable and the CTVs are not dependable. They’re not revealing the truth. And so people are being deceived, right and center. But the Lord said, do your best because I’m on their side. Micah 2, I will surely assemble all of you, Jacob. I will surely gather the remnant of Israel. I’ll put them together like sheep in the fold, like a flock in the midst of its pastures. Zephaniah, at that time I will bring you in, even at the time when I gather you together. Indeed, I will give you renown and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortune before your eyes. Psalm 107, let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from the land of the adversary and gathered from the lands from the east, from the west, from the north, from the south. Ezekiel 39, then they will know that I am the Lord, dear God, because I made them go into exile among the nations. And then I gathered them again into their own land. I’ll leave none of them there any longer. I choose to conclude my message with Jewish people singing a song, a cry that’s in the heart of every Jewish person on that side of the world, a cry, let’s do our best.

Let’s bring them home. There’s a cry, let’s go and get the people that they have trapped in the tunnels under Gaza. Let’s bring them home. There are Jewish outfits in Israel that are working to help Jewish people to leave Canada, to leave Argentina. Let’s bring them home. Let’s bring them home. Let’s bring them home now. I’m inviting my friends to help me to bring it together. They’re defiant. God bless them. I know that God will be from here. I know that God will be from here. I know that God will be from here. God bless them. God will be from here. I know that God will be from here. I know that God will be from here. I know that God will be from here. I know that God will be from here. I know that God will be from here.

I know that God will be from here. God said to Abraham, he reaffirmed it to Isaac and he spoke it again to Jacob. I will bless those who bless you. I’m calling on the Prime Minister of Canada to stand with Israel who’s been bludgeoned to death. I hear the calls against Israel. I don’t hear the calls towards Hamas. I don’t hear any calls. I don’t hear any politicians. I don’t hear my Prime Minister coming out and strongly denouncing what’s going on right now and calling for the release of the hostages. How can they ever live?

They say that they’re starving, that they’re being treated cruelly. We won’t know for sure until we either see their bodies or we hear their own voices. Let’s stand, shall we? Gracious God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. You said, whoever blesses Israel, I will bless. It’s your land. It’s your people. It’s your blessing. So Lord, we as a congregation today declare our blessing toward Israel. We pray for your blessing upon them, O God. We can’t imagine what it’s like to hear missiles flying at them.

They’ve been living with this for 40, 50 years. It’s been endless, endless and bombings and the buses in the, everywhere, everywhere they live. Tormented, tormented by terrorism. Oh God, we pray for Israel. We pray for the Prime Minister in Niatnahu. Lord, we know nothing about His walk with you, but we declare He’s a son of Abraham. He is loved by the Lord, God of Heaven and Lord. I believe you put Him in that place for such a time as this. The man is relentless. He’s stubborn and He will not back off. He will not back off.

Lord, thank you for a powerful leader. No Lord God, I pray that there will be a settlement in our own hearts and lives. May we pray for Israel every day. May we not fail to lift up Israel in the name of Jesus. Lord, I believe that there’s going to come a glorious revival in Israel. And it’s highly unlikely it’ll come anytime soon. But Lord, when all hell starts to break loose in this old world, the Word of God shows us. The Jew will cry out, where is the Lord God of Israel? And you are going to reply. Lord, thank you for the great in-dad gathering that’s going to come. But we do know there are many Jews turning to you.

And we know there are many Arabs turning to you. And we know that there are Christians who are hunkered down in Gaza. We pray for them, oh God. And we pray, Lord, that as those IDF soldiers have to go in, what a frightening thing to even have to go in there, where everything is booby trapped, everything is just a death cave. Lord, God, protect those soldiers. May they do very little harm to the civilians. And may they find the devils and root them out. And we ask it in Jesus’ name.