Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Genesis 28:11-12 When Jacob reached a certain place, he stopped for the night ... and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven ...
THE STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN -- BLUEPRINT
Stairways are built because of a need for access. We human beings have a desperate need for access to God. We need a "stairway to heaven." But our sins have made a great gulf between God and us. We have each rebelled against God and gone our own way, and the chasm between us sinners and the righteous God is unbridgeable -- at least by us.
Jacob shows us why. We sinners by nature do things our own way. He used trickery and deceit to get what he wanted from his brother. Why? He didn't trust God to bring about what He had promised. The result? Jacob became a man on the run. His brother Esau had vowed to kill him at the earliest opportunity after their father died.
Man's attempts to bridge the gap between us and God always fail. For human beings design access that depends on their own doing. These stairways always fall short. A divine design is needed -- the one true God's blueprint. He must bridge the gap between himself and sinful humans.
God revealed the basic blueprint of this plan in the dream of the stairway to heaven that He granted to Jacob. God there clearly took the initiative and showed that access to Himself would have to be His doing. God there promised to make a way between us sinners and Himself in order to bless us. And God's plan is not just to bless Jacob and his offspring, but through them to bless all nations. Yes, Jesus would finally bridge the gap between us sinners and the loving God. We are included in God's plans. His blueprint is drawn that we also might be blessed forever. Yes, forever -- God's plan is not just to bless people here in this life, but to bring them "to dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
