Now, will you notice, I begin reading at
verse 10.
And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and he
went toward Haran.
Now he's traveling north.
He lighted upon a certain place, and tarried
there all night, because the sun was set.
And he took the stones of that place,
and put them for his pillars, and lay
down in that place to sleep.
Now, the place he's come to, we'll see
in a moment, the name of it is
Bethel, the house of God.
I want to say a word about it,
but before I say a word about it,
you will notice that he's traveled quite a
distance.
Actually, Bethel, where he came the first night,
is 12 miles north of Jerusalem.
And he was, I would say, a good
20 miles south of Jerusalem, and probably more
than 20 miles south, probably 25 or 30
miles south.
Well, that means that he covered at least
40 miles that day.
You can see that he's really hot-footing
it away from Esau.
He wants to get as far from him
as he can.
But the farther he gets from Esau, the
farther he gets away from home.
And this is Jacob's first night away from
home.
What do you think his feeling was that
night?
Well, he was very lonely, that is for
sure.
He also was homesick.
This is his first night, as far as
the record is concerned, that he was away
from home.
Do you remember the first night that you
were away from home?
Do you recall that?
I certainly remember the first night I went
away from home, and it was just down
the road.
We lived in a country, in a little
place called Springer, Oklahoma.
And they tell me it hasn't done any
springing since then, that it's still a small
place, wide place in the road.
And we had some neighbors and some very
wonderful friends that lived down the road.
I don't suppose it seemed to me like
in that day it was five miles.
It couldn't have been over a mile, I'm
sure.
I was amazed when I went back there
later on to find out how close things
were together.
I thought it was pretty well spread out,
but it wasn't.
Very close together.
And so this must not have been over
a mile.
But it seemed like five miles to me
in that day.
And I never shall forget these people invited
me to come down and spend the night.
They had a boy about my age, and
I don't know how old I was, nine,
ten maybe.
And so I went down with him.
He'd come up to get me, and we
went down.
I never shall forget we had a delicious
dinner, and I enjoyed it that evening with
these folks.
It was in the country, good country dinner.
And then we played hide-and-seek.
And it got dark, and I didn't pay
too much attention, but every now and then
I looked into the darkness, and I began
to get just a little homesick.
But it wasn't until somebody said it's time
to go to bed, and they put a
pallet down in the front room.
There was no living room in that day.
Just put a pallet down.
And I had brought my little night shirt
under my arm, and I put it on,
and I lay down on that pallet.
Friends, I have never been as lonely in
my life as I was then and homesick.
Oh, how I wanted to go home.
And you know what happened?
I rolled and tossed there for a long
time.
I finally dozed off, and I slept for
a while, but I waked up very early
in the morning.
And you know what I did?
I took my night shirt off, put on
my clothes, put my night shirt under my
arm, and I started running home.
And I didn't stop till I got there.
Nobody was up, but I sure was glad
to get home.
First night away from home.
And after that, I went a long ways
from home, but I never was any more
homesick than I was that first night.
I've always thought that Jacob, he's a pretty
big boy at this time.
He's a man, but he's homesick.
This is the first time he'd been away
from Rebecca.
He'd been tied to his mama's apron string
all of his life, and now it's untied,
and he's out on his own.
And this is the first night away from
home.
Now, will you notice what happens?
He lies down, and he puts stones for
pillars.
And this is a pretty dreary place.
I'd like to give you a description of
it that's given by another.
It's been described as a bleak moorland, large
bare rocks that are exposed 1,200 feet
above sea level in the hills.
And I suppose that there are many places
out on the desert here in California that
would correspond to it.
In fact, the matter is, I know it.
I remember going up through that country in
a bus, and that was the disadvantage of
being with a bus tour.
I wanted to go up there.
The others wanted to go to other places
that to me were not nearly as important
as Beth-El.
I wanted to see it.
And all we got in, I suppose, a
half a mile of it, the bus driver
pointed it out, and I said, I'd like
to walk up there.
He said, well, we don't have time.
And so I didn't get up there, but
I could see it in the distance.
And this certainly is an apt description of
it.
It's a bleak and forbidding place as far
as the topography is concerned.
But it was the high point spiritually in
the life of Jacob, not only here but
later on.
And this is the place that he came
to.