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Ever since our first parents fell, Adam and Eve, and were cast east of the Garden of Eden, human beings have been trying to return. We've been trying to get back, back to the Garden, back to the Mountain of the Lord, back to the Tree of Life, or sometimes we call it the Fountain of Youth. We've been trying to get back into the presence of God. And that explains the irrepressible religiosity of humans across time and across space. Every part of the world, human beings are religious creatures. Aristotle called mankind a rational animal, but it would be just as accurate to call mankind a religious animal. We develop systems of worship. We build temples. We go to high places. We appoint mediators, religious leaders, officials, priests, and the like. We develop cultic practices. Human beings from our very earliest days have been religious, trying to find some way to get back to what we lost in Genesis 3. The psalmist asks, who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord? And we all know deep down that on our own we can't. So that's why we develop these practices to try to get some way there. This text this morning starts us into God's answer for how can a human being come into his presence.

So let's read it. It's Genesis chapter 28, beginning in verse 1. Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and directed him. You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women. Arise, go to Paddan Aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and take as your wife from there one of the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you so that you may become a company of peoples. May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you so that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham. Thus Isaac sent Jacob away. And he went to Paddan Aram to Laban, the son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob and Esau's mother.

Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and had sent him away to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there. And that as he blessed him, he directed him, you must not take a wife from the Canaanite women. And that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Paddan Aram. So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac, his father, Esau went to Ishmael and took as his wife, besides the wives he had, Mahaleth, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebaioth.

Jacob left Beersheba and went towards Haran. And he came to a certain place and stayed there that night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south. And in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.

Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it. And he was afraid and said, How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. So early in the morning Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called the name of that place Bethel. The name of