If you wouldn't open your Bibles
with me to the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 35. We'll read
the first 15 verses. And God said unto Jacob, arise,
go up to Bethel and dwell there and make there an altar unto
God. that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face
of Esau thy brother. Then Jacob said unto his household
and all that were with him, put away the strange gods that are
among you and be clean and change your garments and let us arise
and go up to Bethel and I'll make there an altar unto God
who answered me in the day of my distress and was with me in
the way which I went. And they gave unto Jacob all
the strange gods which were in their hand and all their earrings. Apparently they had names of
idols or something inscribed on their earrings. That's why
they gave the earrings, which were in their ears. And Jacob
hid them under the oak, which was by Shechem. And they journeyed
and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about
them. And they did not pursue after
the sons of Jacob. So Jacob came to Luz, which is
in the land of Canaan. That is Bethel. he and all the
people that were with him. And he built there an altar and
called the place El Bethel, because there God appeared unto him when
he fled from the face of his brother. And Deborah, Rebecca's
nurse, died, and she was buried beneath Bethel under an oak.
And the name of it was called Alon Beikuth. And God appeared
unto Jacob again when he came out of Padan Aram and blessed
him. And God said unto him, Thy name
is Jacob. Thy name should not be called
anymore Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name. And he called his
name Israel. And God said unto him, I am God
almighty. Be fruitful and multiply, and
a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall
come out of thy loins. And the land which I gave Abraham
and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee
will I give the land. And God went up from him in the
place where he talked with him. And Jacob set up a pillar in
the place where he talked with him, even a pillar of stone.
And he poured a drink offering thereon, and he poured oil thereon. And Jacob called the name of
the place where God spake with him, Bethel. And we'll end our
reading there. Let's bow before our Lord together. Our great God, our holy heavenly
Father, Lord, we bow in your presence this evening. We bow
seeking a word from thee. We bow before the King asking
that you would open your storehouses of grace and that you'd give
us another taste of your mercy and your grace you have reserved
for your people in the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we come begging
your grace. We don't want what we deserve.
We don't want any recognition for anything we've done. We come
seeking your pure grace and pure mercy. Father, would you be pleased
to bless us tonight and enable us to have a true worship service.
Father, I pray that you send your spirit upon us. Father,
enable me to preach your gospel in truth, in sincerity, with
a heart of compassion. and love for thee and love for
thy people. And Father, enable us to hear, enable us to truly
hear and believe the things of Christ that we hear preached
this evening. And I pray, Father, that you'd
be so gracious to us that each one here this evening could leave
here resting in Christ our Savior. Father, I beg of you that you
would reveal yourself in mercy and grace to your people. Father,
we thank you for this week of Bible school that we've just
had, how thankful we are for each one of these young ones
that you've given to us. And Father, how we pray your
mercy upon them. We pray that you'd bless your
word as it's been taught, that you would cause it to take root
in their hearts. And Father, we beg that you'd
be merciful to them in your time, that you would be pleased to
reveal to them who and what they are. Cause them to see the Lord
Jesus Christ and run to him, we pray. Father, we thank you for the
many blessings of this life. We should be a thankful people.
Oh, how richly you've blessed us. And we know everything we
have has come from thy hand, and Father, we thank you. And Father, while you've blessed
us so richly, you've also called your people into the time of
trouble and trial, heartache, worry, and sorrow, and sickness.
Father, we pray that you'd be with your people in a special
way, that you'd heal. that you comfort their hearts
with your presence until you see fit to deliver them. In all
these things we ask and we give thanks in that name which is
above every name, the name of Christ our Savior. For his sake
and his glory we pray, amen. I've titled the message this
evening, Let's Go Back to Bethel. That's what the Lord tells Jacob
to do in verse one here of Genesis 35. God said unto Jacob, unto
Jacob, arise and go up to Bethel and dwell there. And make me
an altar there unto God that appeared unto thee when thou
fled us from the face of Esau thy brother. Now the Lord tells
Jacob, go back to Bethel. And you know this happens to
Jacob several times over the course of his life, wherever
he's wandered off to, the Lord calls him and says, now go back
to Bethel. Now you remember Bethel means
the house of God. Back in Genesis chapter 28, that was when Jacob
was fleeing from his brother. He cheated him out of the blessing.
God appeared to Jacob in a dream that night. That's when he revealed
to Jacob that ladder that reached from earth all the way to heaven.
And it was there that night that the Lord confirmed the promise
that he had made to Abraham and Isaac. He confirmed it to Jacob
on that night too. He promised Jacob, I'll be with
you wherever you go. I'll bless you in everything
that you do. And he told Jacob, one day your descendants are
gonna own this land that you're lying here sleeping on. And he
promised them, all nations of the earth are gonna be blessed
in thee. The Messiah, the Savior is gonna come through your loins.
That was God's promise to Jacob. And Jacob woke up and he called
the name of that place Bethel. Remember that meant the house
of God. This is where Jacob first met the Lord. Now Jacob, he knew
something about the God of his father, Isaac. the God of his
father, Abraham. He knew about him in theory.
He knew what his father and mother and grandfather taught him. But
this is where Jacob met the Lord. He called it Bethel. Jacob woke
up and he was kind of frightened. He said, surely the Lord's in
this place and I didn't know it. This can't be anything but
the house of God. That's why he called that place
Bethel. All right now, Jacob's been to Bethel. He's been to
the house of God. Jacob has met Christ. He believes
him. He trusts him. Jacob has received
the promise of God. God can't make a better promise
to him. He's received the promise of God. Jacob knows God. He knows him. He trusts him.
Jacob already knows and believes everything he needs to know and
everything he needs to believe for the salvation of his soul.
Jacob's got it all. He got it all from Bethel, didn't
he? He's already got it. Why go back? Why go back to Bethel
again? Well, it's for all the same reasons
you and I today need to keep going back to Bethel. It's because
we need to be reminded. You'll see this, this time when
Jacob goes to Bethel, he doesn't hear anything new. The covenant,
the promise, everything God said to him is exactly the same as
it was the first time he went to Bethel. He went back to Bethel
to be reminded. That's why I read that passage
in Philippians chapter three, where Paul said, it's not grievous
to me to write the same things to you. No, for me to write the
same things and repeat to you what we've preached to you before,
Paul says, for you that's safe. We need to be reminded. So we,
as our study here through Genesis, when we got to Genesis 28, I
brought a message entitled, let's go to Bethel. Now this evening,
I want us to look at this message, this title. Let's go back to
Bethel. Let's go back to Bethel and see
the blessings that God's people have. God has blessed his people
so richly because we can continually go back to Bethel, continually
go back to the house of God. And I'm not talking about a building. I'm talking about the place where
God speaks to his people. Let's go back to Bethel. We are
so blessed here. to be able to go back to Bethel
time and time and time again to hear from God, to see the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ again and again. Isn't
that a blessing? And there are four specific blessings
I see that Jacob has here in going back to Bethel. And we'll
have the same four blessings when we go back to Bethel. Number
one, we go back to Bethel, we're reminded of Christ's sacrifice
for our sins. God told Jacob, now you go back
to Bethel and dwell there, and you make an altar unto God there,
the God that appeared unto thee when you fled from the face of
Esau thy brother. Now God told Jacob, go back to
Bethel and dwell there. Dwell there, Jacob, don't go
somewhere else, dwell there. And you know, if we dwell in
Bethel, and dwelling in Bethel just means this, that we arrange
our lives so we can be near the place where God speaks to his
people. where Christ is preached. We
just arrange our lives so we're near there. I promise you, it's
a whole lot easier to keep going back to Bethel if we're already
there. As he just said, just dwell there. That's the easiest
way I can think of to hear from God. Just be there. This is the
house of God. Be there where God speaks. And
then God told Jacob, when you get there, Jacob, build an altar. And Jacob, when you get there,
first thing you're to do is to build an altar. Now, why was
that? Why didn't he build a house first?
Why didn't he dig a latrine first? Why build an altar first? Because
the altar is gonna be used for the sacrifice for sin. God cannot
be worshiped without a blood sacrifice on the altar. Blood's
got to be shed. You and I are sinners. I mean,
we're sinners through and through. We need a sacrifice that will
atone for our sin. The only way a holy God can ever
accept us is if there's a sacrifice for our sin. So we need an altar. There's got to be an altar that
the sacrifice can be offered to God upon. And you know, that's
exactly what the Lord's reminding Jacob of here. The way the Lord
said this reminded Jacob of his sinfulness. He said, Jacob, remember
the first time you went to Bethel? Why were you there? You're fleeing
from your brother Esau because you just cheated him. You just
cheated him. I already told you you'd have
the birthright. I already told you you'd have the blessing.
And you had to take matters into your own hand and cheat your
brother out of it. He was after you and it was your
fault. That's our sin. That's our sin. And when we go back to Bethel,
a believer is reminded of our sin. If the gospel is preached
right, the believer is reminded All of us are sinners. Everything
we do is sin. There is no hope in anything
about us. There's no hope in anything that
we can do. But then if the gospel's preached right, we're reminded
of Christ's sacrifice on the altar. He's the altar and he's
the sacrifice. We're reminded of him. His sacrifice
did what all those animal sacrifices never could do. It put away sin. It paid the sin debt of God's
people, and that sin, the sin of God's elect, is gone. God said, I don't see it anymore.
God said, I won't remember it anymore. He didn't say, I can't
remember it anymore. Janet has to tell me things two
or three times sometimes, and I forget. I was looking for a
spatula this morning. or I was at lunch, I was gonna
fix me some, I was gonna be this big cook and fix me an egg. I
go, where is that spatula? And she said, you mean this one
right here? I mean, it was right in front of me. She said, I've told you
that a hundred times. I can't remember. That's my problem. God didn't say I can't remember.
He said, I won't. I won't. And you know why God
won't remember the sin of his people? Because there's nothing
to remember. The sacrifice of Christ took
it away. Now, the heart of a sinner is
blessed to hear that. Let me go back to Bethel. I mean,
I've had a tough week living with myself. I've had a tough
week. Remind me one more time. My sin's
been put away under the blood of Christ. That's a blessing,
isn't it? All right, number two. When we go back to Bethel, we're
reminded not to trust in our idols. Verse two, Jacob said
unto his household and to all that were with him, put away
the strange gods that are among you and be clean and change your
garments. Now many, if not all of these
idols were those idols Rachel stole. Remember she stole those
idols from her father Laban as they were leaving, she stole
them. And I read that, I wondered, maybe you wonder the same thing,
why on earth Did Jacob let them keep these things? Why is Jacob
letting everybody keep these idols? Well, I believe I know
why he did. It's so that Jacob could be a
picture of us. So he'd be a picture of every
believer. Now, you who believe God, you
believe him, don't you? I mean, really, you really, truly
believe God. You really do trust. all of your salvation to the
Lord Jesus Christ, don't you? Trust it all to him. That's the
only way the new man born of God can believe. The only thing
that that new man born of God can believe is Christ and Christ
alone. But we don't just have a new
man, do we? We've got a new man, we've got an old man. And that
old man keeps wanting us to get our idols out and worship them
and trust them. And he keeps doing that because
that's the only thing the old man can believe. He can only
believe in idols. He can only worship idols. Now,
I really don't think, I mean, I think I know everybody here
well enough to say this. I don't think anybody here has
any problem with wanting to worship a little stone or ceramic figurine. I mean, you don't have any desire
to do that. But we still have a problem with
idolatry. We surely do. And you know who,
the idol we have a problem with? Ourselves. That's the problem
we have. The old man keeps wanting us
to trust the salvation of our souls to some work we can do.
Something we can do to make God happy and say, look God, I did
this, now you bless me, now you save me. Me, that's the worst idol I can
think of to worship. Because everything we do is sinful.
And every believer carries that old man around with them everywhere
we go, constantly wanting us to trust in something we've done.
And when we go back to Bethel, there's only one message we hear.
It's the message of the gospel of Christ. In the gospel of Christ,
we hear that Christ is our righteousness. He's the one that has established
righteousness for his people. That's why Jacob tells his family,
y'all change your clothes. What you're wearing not fit to
wear to Bethel. Change your clothes. Throw away
the rags of the works of your righteousness. Throw away those
rags you think you've earned worshiping that idol and be clothed
in the righteousness of Christ. Change your clothes. Get rid
of those rags and put on the robe of Christ's righteousness.
See, this is the message. This is what Christ has done
for His people. He made them righteous. He took their sin
away from them and traded them His righteousness. You know,
we talk about Christ's righteousness, that robe of righteousness. Don't
think that's a robe that we put on that just covers our sin and
iniquity, the filth of what we are and just hides our sin, even
though it's still there. When Christ took the sin of his
people away from them and he gave them his righteousness,
he made them righteous all the way through so that there's no
sin left. He gives them a righteous nature. So you're telling me that if
I trust Christ, I'm righteous. I'm the righteousness of God
in him. Oh, let me hear that message again. Let me hear that
message. That'll comfort my heart. Then
the gospel reminds us that Christ is our holiness. You know, the
old man keeps telling us, now your holiness is your moral living. Is you, you know, doing right,
living right. The gospel when it's preached,
when you go back to Bethel, We hear the gospel, you know what
the gospel says? Christ is our holiness. Christ is our holiness. If I trust Christ, I'm holy. As holy as He is. Now hearing
that message, that lets me rest in Christ. I'm gonna go back
to Bethel and hear that message and give me rest. The gospel
reminds us that we're free from the law. Free from it. Completely and utterly free.
If you're a believer, you have absolutely no relationship with
God's law whatsoever. You're free from it because Christ
kept it all for us. We're free from everything that
the law requires. I mean, the law covers pages
and pages and pages and pages. So many requirements. You're
free from every last one of them if you trust Christ. because
he obeyed him for you. And here's the thing that we
dread about the law the most. The law demands our death if
we broke it. Well, believer, you trust Christ. You're free from having to fear
the law because Christ already died. He already satisfied the
law demand. There's got to be death for sin.
Christ died, so you never will if you believe him. You don't
have to fear death At all. Now I'm telling you, hearing
that message, that's the message I hear in Bethel. That lets me
rest. I don't have to look to the law
to see how I'm doing. Every time I look to the law
to see how I'm doing, you know what I find out? I'm not doing
very good. I'm not doing any good. Oh, but
if I look to Christ, I see perfection in Him. That makes me sing. Free from the law, oh happy condition. Free from the law. And at Bethel,
we hear not only does Christ save his people, he keeps them
saved. He preserves his people. And
he does it by the power of his grace. Not by our good works
to keep what he's given us, by the power of his grace. It's
not our works, it's his grace, his power, his purpose. Now,
hearing that message lets me just rest free. I just live the
life God's given me, looking for Christ's return. He's coming
back soon. This place is not all there is. We need to be reminded of that.
We're passing through this place on our way home. And I tell you,
when the gospel's preached, when Christ is preached, You don't
just say, I'm not talking about you just hear the right set of
doctrines. I mean, when you see Christ in the message, you will
automatically get rid of your idols and you'll be looking to
Christ. Look at verse four. And they
gave unto Jacob all the strange gods that were in their hand
and all their earrings, which were in their ears. And Jacob
hid them under the oak, which was by Sheikah. Now that's what
we do when we see Christ. We hear Christ, I'm getting rid
of my idols. Just bury them over there under
the tree, I'm done with them. Sean, the only thing is I wish
I didn't know where they were, dig them up again. And that's
what the old man does, doesn't he? He keeps going back there
under that tree and digging them up again. And the only way I
can take them and bury them again is by going back to Bethel and
looking to Christ. hearing of Christ, and keep burying
them, and keep burying them, and keep burying them. And we're
gonna do that until the Lord calls us home, and then we'll
see him face to face, and we'll have no more problem with those
idols. Because the old man's gonna be buried with them. The
old man's gonna be buried with them. But we need to go to Bethel.
Until then, we need to keep going back to Bethel and being reminded,
look away from yourself. Look away from yourself and look
to Christ. We need to be reminded of that,
don't we? And God's people, they'll be blessed when they hear that. All right, number three, here's
the third blessing. When we go back to Bethel, we
hear of God's sovereign power. Verse five says, and they journeyed,
and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about
them, and they did pursue after the sons of Jacob. Now God's
sovereign power, it is one of the great pillars of the gospel.
The gospel of God's free and sovereign grace only carries
weight if God's sovereign. He's powerful enough to carry
out his will. God's sovereign power to choose
who he will save and then to save them to the uttermost by
his mighty power. That's the only way the salvation
of a sinner can be sure. It's got to be accomplished by
God's power. And God's sovereign power over
absolutely everything so that God can work every event that
happens in human history together for good, his sovereign power,
that is the soft pillow that every believer can rest comfortably
upon. Our God is able. Our God is in his sovereign power,
has already defeated every spiritual enemy that we have. That's the
only way our salvation can be accomplished. Our Savior has already defeated
the sin of His people. Now our sin demands our death,
but Christ has defeated that sin. He paid for it with His
blood. He washed it away, washed His
people white as snow. That sin's defeated, it's gone.
Our Savior's already made His people righteous by the power
of His obedience. that he gives to his people.
So sin is gone. It's defeated. If you're in Christ,
you don't have to worry about sinning. It's gone. Then our
Savior defeated Satan. He's an enemy. He's a mighty
enemy. But our Savior defeated him.
Did just exactly what God told Adam he'd do. He crushed his
head at Calvary. All Satan bruised his heel. But
Christ crushed his head. Put him out of business. Took
away his power to deceive God's people. And here's how he did
it. The sacrifice of Christ purged
the sin, all of it. Every sin, every stain, his sacrifice
purged it away from his people. Well, Satan's the accuser of
the brethren. Well, he'll just accuse till the cows come home,
but he can't make any charge stick if Christ has made Genesis. You put him out of business.
He's got no power to harm God's people anymore. He's defeated. And then our Savior's defeated
death. I would say every human being would probably say death
is our enemy. Something everybody dreads, something
everybody's trying to avoid, you know. But if you trust Christ,
you don't have to fear death. He's already defeated death for
his people. And you know how he did it? He
did it by dying himself. It's not just that he banished
death so it can't touch anybody. Christ defeated death by dying
himself. Dying in the place of his people.
And then, by his power, raised himself from the dead. Now you
wanna talk about power. A dead man gives his own self
the power to rise from the tomb. That's power. And that's the
power of our savior. And he uses that very same power
to give spiritual life to the dead. All of God's elect are
born dead in sin. And our savior is sovereign over
that death. He uses that same power to give
his people spiritual life so they can never lose it. That's
why scripture calls it eternal life. So if you trust Christ,
You love his sovereign power, don't you? You just can't, you
can't tell me enough about God's sovereign power. He's sovereign
over all of our spiritual enemies. And you know, he's sovereign
over all our fleshly enemies too. Don't forget that. Remember
after Simeon and Levi, we looked at this last week, went and killed
all those men. Jacob was so afraid. Remember that prince had defiled
their sister and they went and they didn't just go kill the
prince. They killed every man in town. And Jacob was afraid. Look back here at verse 30 of
chapter 34. And Jacob said to Simeon and
Levi, you've troubled me to make me stink among the inhabitants
of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites. And I being
few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me
and slay me. And I shall be destroyed, I and
my house. Jacob said, there's so many of
them, we could never fight them off. Well, Jacob traveled to
Bethel and not one of his fears came to pass. Not one of them. You know why? God's sovereign. For absolutely no earthly reason
whatsoever, everybody was afraid to attack Jacob's family, even
though they had strength in numbers. There were so many more of them
than there was of Jacob's family, but they were afraid to attack
him. That's God's sovereignty. over
the minds of men. He's just turning the hearts
of people, whether so ever he will, just like he does the rivers
of water. All of us are guilty of worrying
what our enemies are gonna do to us, what they will do to us,
what they can do to us. But isn't it comforting to go
back to Bethel and be reminded, our God's sovereign over them.
They can't do anything unless God allows them to do it. And here's the thing that comforts
my heart maybe the most about hearing about God's sovereign
power. He uses his sovereign power to defeat my biggest enemy,
which is me, which is my flesh. My flesh would leave Christ in
a heartbeat. My flesh would quit trusting
Christ in a heartbeat, but God and his sovereign power won't
let me do it. No man can pluck me out of his
mighty hand. He's sovereign over all those
enemies and he's sovereign over me too. It's his sovereign power,
keeps me from jumping out. He keeps me by his sovereign
power. That's the message we hear in
Bethel. The message of God's sovereign power. Now that's the
message I want to hear. That's the message, that's the
only message that can comfort your heart. If, you know, maybe
God will do this and maybe he can do that, maybe he won't,
it all kind of depends on you. There's no peace there. There's
no comfort there. All that's gonna do is worry
you to death. But if we hear the message of God's sovereign
power, oh, our hearts are just, everything's at peace. Then here's
the fourth thing. When we go back to Bethel, we're
reminded one more time of God's covenant of grace. In verse nine,
God appeared unto Jacob again when he came out of Padaenorum
and blessed him. And God said unto him, thy name
is Jacob, but thy name should not be called anymore Jacob,
but Israel should be thy name. And he called his name Israel.
And God said unto him, I am God almighty. Be fruitful, multiply. A nation and a company of nations
shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins. And the
land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it,
and to thy seed after thee will I give the land. And God went
up from him in a place where he talked with him. Now, what
God just said to Jacob there is an exact repeat of what he
told Jacob the first time he was at Bethel. That's what we
need. We need to have the gospel repeated
to us. We need to hear it over and over
and over again. Every person here tonight knows
the covenant of God's saving grace. We've heard it many, many,
many times. Every time somebody stands up
to preach in this place, in some way, some form, some fashion,
we hear of God's covenant grace, God's saving grace to his people.
God the Father elected a people to save out of Adam's fallen
race. He promised he'd save those people.
And the Father gave those people to his son. He put them in his
son to save. And son promised he'd save them.
Those are a sinful, vile people. but the son loved him. He loved
those people. He came in the flesh to do everything
that it took to save them from their sin, to satisfy God's justice
against their sin. The Lord Jesus Christ came in
the flesh and he obeyed God's law perfectly. As the representative
of his people, he didn't have to obey God's law to make himself
righteous, he's already righteous. In the flesh, he obeyed the law
to make his people righteous, to give them an obedience and
make them righteous in him. And then, like I said a little
bit ago, he took the sin of his people. He took it away from
them. He traded them his righteousness. And he took their sin into his
own body upon the tree, and by his sacrifice, put it away. He paid the sin debt of God's
elect in full. And with his sinless, precious
blood, washed them white as snow. And in God's time, that's already
been accomplished. In God's time, the Holy Spirit
comes and he lets God's people in on what God's done for them.
He lets them hear the gospel, he brings them to bed. So they
hear the gospel and he gives them life. He gives them faith
to believe Christ when they hear him preach. Now all that is is
God and the trinity of his persons fulfilling his covenant of grace. It's just God doing what he promised
to do before human time ever began. Now everybody here has
heard that covenant time and time and time again. This is
how God saves his people. But you know, hearing of that
covenant never gets old. If you're a sinner, if you're
a sinner that needs to be saved by grace, if you're a sinner
who can't do anything for yourself, that needs God to do everything
for you, you cannot get tired of God's covenant of grace. Jacob's
heard this before. He's heard this promise of God
before. God's talked to him this way before. Don't you just know
it thrilled his heart to hear it again? After his wanderings
and stumblings and bumblings and the way his family's mishandled
things, don't you know it comforted Jacob's heart for God to come
to him in blessing? How many more times has God got
to bless Jacob? He's blessed. That's what God
does in his grace for his people. He blesses them over and over
and over again, just heap upon heap upon heap upon heap. That's how God blesses all the
sons of Jacob, over and over and over again, even though we
don't deserve one of them. Jacob told his sons, you've made
me to stink to these and a half, you've ruined my reputation,
you've ruined my name, but this is what everybody's gonna think
about me. Don't you know it thrilled his heart to hear God say, yeah,
your name's Jacob, but that's not your name anymore. Now your
name's Israel. God called him Israel. You know
what that means? He is Israel. He's not a chief. He's not a supplanter anymore.
Now he's a prince with God. Oh, he loved to hear that. I
don't have to be known by my worthless name anymore. God's
given me a new name. He's given me a new name to match
the new nature He gave me. So that's a picture of the new
birth. A believer can't get tired of hearing about the new birth.
That God by His power causes a new man to be born in you.
You can't get tired of hearing that because all your old man
ever reminds you is how sinful and how vile you are. You spend
all your time trying to get away from him. You can't do it. All
you love to hear, God's caused us to be born again. And here's how real this is. God's given his people a new
name, because he's given them a new nature. He's united them
to Christ so much. They're so one with Christ that
God in his word says, this is the name wherewith she shall
be called, Jehovah Sidken. but Lord, our righteousness.
Oh, tell me about that. You know that through Jacob.
Tell me about that again. I'd love to hear that again.
And then the Lord confirmed his promise to Jacob. Your seed will
inherit this land. You be fruitful. You multiply. You're not gonna have so many
of them, they will overrun this land. This land's gonna support
them all. They're gonna have this land.
And Jacob, the Messiah is coming through you. God will call himself
the God of Jacob, because that's who God saves, Jacob. And how
many years later it was, the Lord Jesus Christ was born in
Bethlehem. And sure enough, you can trace his lineage right back
to Jacob. I sure am glad God kept that
promise, aren't you? Because this son of Jacob needs that
savior. Christ is coming. This is what
he's telling Jacob. Christ is coming to save a bunch of Jacobs.
And it's just exactly what he did. And then the Lord reminded
Jacob, I'm going to give all the sons of Jacob. I'm going
to give the sons of Jacob. All that is, is every sinner
God chose to save. God promised Jacob, I'm going
to give them everything I promised. I'm going to give them eternal
life. I'm going to give them an inheritance with Christ in
glory. Because that's what I promised to give them before human time
began. And their sins aren't going to
stop me from doing it. I'm going to put away their sin and bring
them to me. Now Jacob heard that before.
You reckon he's thinking, when is God going to be done here
so I can go eat? No. Let me soak this in. This is
God's promise tonight. I can't get over it. God's making
this promise to me. Oh, let me stay here and worship. Let me stay here and worship.
See, doesn't that comfort your heart to hear God's covenant
of grace over and over and over again? You've got to trudge through
this world below, through the muck and the mire and the slime
to get through this world. Doesn't it comfort your heart
to hear God's covenant promise to you? You just wait to see
where I'm bringing you. Oh, a needy. Dependent sinner
never gets tired of hearing about God's promise of grace. So verse
14, Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he talked with
him, even a pillar of stone, and he poured a drink offering
there on, and he poured oil there on, and Jacob called the name
of the place where God spake with him, Bethel. Now Jacob set
up this pillar of stones, and what that pillar was was a monument.
It was a monument to God's covenant grace. Could be Jacob set up
that pillar of stones and made him a whole lot easier to find
the exact spot next time he's coming back to Bethel. This was
the exact spot God spoke to him. Well, that pillar of stones,
that represents the gospel that we preach. It's easy to know
if you're at Bethel. It's easy to know if you're in
the house of God by listening to the gospel that's being preached.
Is it the gospel of Christ? Is it the good news of who Christ
is and what he's done? Or is it the bad news of what
you got to do? If it's the good news of who Christ is, what he's
accomplished, that's Bethel. It's easy to know if you're in
the house of God. It's easy to know, am I hearing from God or
am I hearing from me? It's easy to find out. Is the
gospel of Christ being preached? Is Christ the subject? Does the
message force you to look to Christ alone, trust Christ alone?
Then you're in Bethel. I know a lot of Bethels around
here, don't you? And that's where I want to be. There's a lot of
them around. There's a lot of them around
that pillar. God's free and sovereign grace. I know it's few, but there's
a lot of them around. I sure am glad God's given us
one here, aren't you? We can come and be reminded again. Reminded again. Look to Christ. Have your heart come. All right,
let's bow before our God together. Our Father, how we thank you
that in your mercy and your grace to your people, that you've seen
fit to provide a place where you speak to your people. Will
you remind us again who and what we are and remind us who our
Savior is, that he's made us complete in him, that nothing
is lacking in him. How we thank you that you've
given us a place we can be reminded of your covenant of grace, of
salvation, is by your grace, not our words. Father, how thankful
we are. And how I beg of you, that you
give us the faith to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, to
rest in him, to have your word, as we've heard it preached tonight,
thrill our hearts. Father, bless it for your glory,
we pray. It's in Christ's precious name, for his sake we pray, amen. All right, Sean can lead us in
the closing hymn, if you will. you