QUESTIONS.
1. What were the names of Isaac's two sons? 2. What had God promised Isaac? 3. Which son had the first right to the promise? 4. But which cared about it most? 5. What did Esau want? 6. So what did he give up for the sake of the soup? 7. Could he get it back again? 8. What are you an heir of? 9. How could we lose the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven? 10. Shall we be able to change after we are dead? 11. Then what must we care about most? 12. Why could not Esau get his father's blessing? 13. What did he like better than waiting for what he could not see? 14. Can we see heaven? 15. But when we get there, will it not be better than anything we can see here?
SECOND READING.
"This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."—Genesis 28:17.
YOU know that Isaac, Abraham's son, had two sons, whose names were Esau and Jacob. Now Jacob had grieved Esau by gaining God's great promise, for which Esau was so angry with him, that he had to go out away from his father's home, all alone. But Jacob knew he was not alone, for God was with him. He went on till night came. Then he was in a dismal stony place, with no house or shelter near—only big stones, and here and there a thistle.
He said his prayers, and then he lay down, with a stone for his pillow and the sky over him. But in the night he saw a wonder. There was a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, and God's angels were going up and down, and the Lord Himself stood at the top of the ladder. And He told Jacob that He was going to give his children all the land he saw—North, South, East, and West; and that He would take care of him, and be with him wherever he went, and in time bring him safe home.
JACOB'S VISION OF ANGELS.—Gen. 28:12, 13.