with Elder Elico Manenji
_1️⃣Genesis 28:1-5: Jacob is sent to Bethuel's house to get a wife with blessings._
Jacob is finally blessed by his father knowingly and charged to keep the promises of the covenant as did Abraham and his father Isaac.
Those that desire to have the blessing of God must keep the charge annexed to it as charged by the Apostle Paul saying, "Do not become partners with those who do not believe, for what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship does light have with darkness?
And what agreement does Christ have with Beliar? Or what does a believer share in common with an unbeliever?
And what mutual agreement does the temple of God have with idols?
For we are the temple of the living God, just as God said, “I will live in them and will walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people" (2 Corinthians 6:14-16)
All who inherit the promises of God will first receive the remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost to keep this charge of the promise.
Those that are entitled to peculiar favours must be a peculiar people, for if Jacob was to be an heir of promise, he was not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan, so also those that profess religion should not marry those that are irreligious.
_🗝️Text_ "And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds said through Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:7)
It must not be strange to know that those who shall inherit the blessing of God, the blessing of a holy nation, a peculiar people before God must expect persecution from the children.of wrath like Esau did with his brother Jacob, those who have peace in Christ shall have tribulation in the world.
Jesus said, "These things I have spoken to you, that in me you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33)
_2️⃣ Genesis 28:6-9: Esau tries to please his parents by marrying Ishmael's daughters._
Even when Esau was granted the blessing of the greater man, of a conqueror and a fighter of his brethren, Jacob was given the blessings of a better man, the inheritor and keeper of the covenant promises.
First, Esau married the Canaanite women which did not please his parents without consulting or seeking their advice.
Second, Esau seeing it did not please his parents married a third wife of the daughter of Ishmael, the son of the bond-woman who was cast out and sent away and was not to inherit with Isaac and his seed the promises of the covenant.
He thus again joined himself with the family which God had rejected and he sought to strengthen his own pretensions by the aid of another pretender.
Esau married to please his father and not to please God, now that Jacob was sent away, he hoped to humour his father as to prevail with him to make a new will, and a new testament with him but without reformation and repentance.
_Text_"Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right...That it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth" (Ephesians 6:1,3).
Hypocrites hearing of blessing upon others, pretend to make to it as well as any, when they see the obedience of saints they would try and imitate it, but in all their pretended imitations of the saints, hypocrites add sin to sin and will perish together with the unbelieving.
Never play church when there is no church in you, never play God when their is no obedience to his will, laws, statutes and commandments in you as did Esau.
The wiseman says, "My son/my daughter, hear the instruction of your father, and forsake not the law of your mother"(Proverbs 1:8).
_3️⃣Genesis 28:10-22: The Lord is in this place, it is the gateway to heaven._
Jacob was sent alone to Haran, how different it was with Isaac, he did not go himself to Bethuel's house, but for Jacob it was he himself who had to go, and introduce himself to Laban his mother's brother. Repentance need a person's decision not a collective decision.
He went alone but he was accompanied by the Father who sees all things, the Father who sympathizes with our infirmities, the Father who forgives sin that had been repented of, the Father of grace and mercy.
As the sun set upon him, he rested on a hard stone for a pillow, the heavens for his canopy and curtains and the cold earth for his bed, he lay cold and with uneven thoughts about his father's forgiveness, the cheating he had done to his brother Esau, the insinuations that brought now his misery from his mother, he lay as a traitor away from the grace of God, unforgiven, abandoned and unreconciled to his father and brother.
Yet God gave him a dream in the coldness of the night, a ladder from the earth into the heavens and angels of God descending and ascending on it, so representing the providence of God as His counsels are executed on earth and that His actions and affairs are all known in heaven and judged there.
So this is shown to Jacob who was now the type and representative of the whole church of God with the guardianship of which the angels are entrusted.
This represented the mediation or mediatorial work of Christ.
He is this ladder, the foot on earth is His human nature which connected the earth, the Church on earth to the top of heaven in His divine nature.
For with one hand, He clasped the hand of mankind with all their sinfulness to join them to God and reconciling the two once again.
By Christ's humanity, the inhabitants of the earth are weaned from their former humiliation of sin to the exaltation as children of God.
In Christ, all the intercourse between heaven and earth since the fall of humans is by this ladder, Christ the righteous One, He is the Way, the Truth and the Life to all God's favours that come to us as all our services go to Him as long as we dwell in Him, He will abide with us.
_Text_"Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in me"(John 15:4).
Jacob was going into exile discomforted but God promised him to bring him back again to his land, the land promised to Abraham.and Isaac for an inheritance.
He seemed to have been forsaken of all his friends but God here gives him assurance that He will not leave alone, those whom God loves He will never leave alone.
The Psalmist says, "The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even for ever more"(Psalm 121:8).
Appeal
Jacob called the place of his dream, Bethel or the house of God, the meeting place, the gateway to heaven and he erected a memorial of the event this wonderful event.
He resolved to make God supreme in all his thoughts and actions, so you too can make that resolve, to make God your guide, your trust and your dwelling.
The Psalmist says, "For you are my rock and my fortress; therefore for your name's sake lead me, and guide me"(Psalm 31:3). Amen!!!
Elico Manenji
(+263712952704).
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