Ladder Dream
Israel was one man who helped port the ark. He also brought his Toshiba cord for my Toshiba to work better. He provided meals and watched for ways to help us in the meetings. He shared his dream that was His story of salvation.
He
had a dream in 1994 that he was climbing a ladder with a heavy burden. He saw a
platform on the top and three men up there with backs to him. They were talking
together about him. They mentioned how he had been with the world but now wanted
to be with them.
The dream was over and he pondered what it meant. He was taking his Bible to work and during break times, he was studying. He loved to read the Bible. He had a desire to find a church which kept the Ten Commandments. He and his wife began the search. As they discovered the Seventh Day Adventist church they drove by slowly but noticed they did not dress the same.
Finally they got up courage to visit and were shunned as they expected. One did befriend them however. Marta. She helped them and studied with them till they were eventually baptized.
Before
baptism again there was another dream nine years after the first one of a
person in white throwing down a burden. As he looked at it closely, he noticed
it was his own burden. He was glad it was thrown down but wondered why.
Later on the day of baptism, he wondered why the room looked so familiar. Then he realized it was the one room he saw in his dream where the burden was thrown down.
Jacob
in the Bible had his name changed to Israel after he had his dream of a ladder.
That ladder was God's promise to Him of access to heaven if he wanted. The
ladder is a symbol of Jesus. His angels go up to heaven to report all that goes
on here on earth. Jesus will be ready to meet people where they are. He is the
ladder at their feet inviting them to begin the climb of becoming more like Him.
Heaven can begin right here.
The dream helped Israel realize God was willing to help him. It is a very precious experience to him.
END
In the vision the plan of redemption was presented to Jacob, not fully, but in such parts as were essential to him at that time. The mystic ladder revealed to him in his dream was the same to which Christ referred in His conversation with
Nathanael. Said He, "Ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man." John 1:51. Up to the time of man's rebellion against the government of God, there had been free communion between God and man. But the sin of Adam and Eve separated earth from heaven, so that man could not have communion with his Maker. Yet the world was not left in solitary hopelessness. The ladder represents Jesus, the appointed medium of communication. Had He not with His own merits bridged the gulf that sin had made, the ministering angels could have held no communion with fallen man. Christ connects man in his weakness and helplessness with the source of infinite power. {PP 184.2}
All this was revealed to Jacob in his dream. Although his mind at once grasped a part of the revelation, its great and mysterious truths were the study of his lifetime, and unfolded to his understanding more and more.
187
{PP 184.3}
Jacob awoke from his sleep in the deep stillness of night. The shining forms of his vision had disappeared. Only the dim outline of the lonely hills, and above them the heavens bright with stars, now met his gaze. But he had a solemn sense that God was with him. An unseen presence filled the solitude. "Surely the Lord is in this place," he said, "and I knew it not. . . . This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." {PP 187.1}
For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:11. {OHC 75.1}
We ascend to heaven by climbing the
ladder--the whole height of Christ's work--step by step. There must be a holding fast to Christ, a climbing up by the merits of Christ. To let go is to cease to climb, is to fall, to perish. We are to mount by the Mediator and all the while to keep hold on the Mediator, ascending by successive steps, round above round, stretching the hand from one round to the next above. . . . There is fearful peril in relaxing our efforts in spiritual diligence for a moment, for we are hanging, as it were, between heaven and earth. {OHC 75.2}
We must keep the eye directed upward to God above the ladder. The question with men and women gazing heavenward is, How can I obtain the mansions for the blessed? It is by being a partaker of the divine nature. It is by escaping the "corruption that is in the world through lust." It is by entering into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, laying hold of the hope set before you in the gospel. It is by fastening yourself to Christ and straining every nerve to leave the world behind.
The ladder which Jacob saw in the night vision, the base of it resting upon the earth and the topmost round reaching unto the highest heavens; God himself above the ladder, and his glory shining upon every round; angels ascending and descending upon this ladder of shining brightness, is a symbol of constant communication kept up between this world and heavenly places. God accomplishes his will through the instrumentality of heavenly angels in continual intercourse with humanity. This ladder reveals a direct and important channel of communication with the inhabitants of this earth. The ladder represented to Jacob the world's Redeemer, who links earth and heaven together. Every one who has seen the evidence and light of truth and accepts the truth, professing his faith in Jesus Christ, is a missionary in the highest sense of the word. He is the receiver of heavenly treasures, and it is his duty to impart them, to diffuse that which he has received. {CE 155.2}
When, after his sin in deceiving Esau, Jacob fled from his father's home, he was weighed down with a sense of guilt. Lonely and outcast as he was, separated from all that had made life dear, the one thought that above all others pressed upon his soul was the fear that his sin had cut him off from God, that he was forsaken of Heaven.
455 {2MCP 454.3}
In sadness he lay down to rest on the bare earth, around him only the lonely hills, and above, the heavens bright with stars. As he slept a strange light broke upon his vision; and lo, from the plain on which he lay, vast shadowy stairs seemed to lead upward to the very gates of heaven, and upon them angels of God were passing up and down; while from the glory above, the divine voice was heard in a message of comfort and hope. {2MCP 455.1}
Thus was made known to Jacob that which met the need and longing of his soul--a Saviour. With joy and gratitude he saw revealed a way by which he, a sinner, could be restored to communion with God. The mystic ladder of his dream represented Jesus, the only medium of communication between God and man.--SC 19, 20 (1892). {2MCP 455.2}