If you would open your Bibles
with me to Psalm 94. We'll be looking over in Genesis
in a few moments, but I wanted to read Psalm 94. It's our scripture
reading this evening. Oh Lord God, to whom vengeance
belongeth. Oh God, to whom vengeance belongeth. Show thyself. Lift up thyself,
thou judge of the earth, render a reward to the proud. Lord,
how long shall the wicked? How long shall the wicked triumph?
How long shall they utter and speak hard things, and all the
workers of iniquity boast themselves? They break in pieces thy people,
O Lord, and afflict thine inheritance. They slay the widow and the stranger,
and murder the fatherless. Yet they say, the Lord shall
not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it. Understand
ye brutish among the people, and ye fools? When will ye be
wise? He that planted the ear, shall
he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall
he not see? He that chastiseth the heathen,
shall not he correct? He that teacheth man knowledge,
shall he not know? The Lord knoweth the thoughts
of man, that they're vanity. Blessed is the man whom thou
chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law, that thou
mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, and to the
pit be digged for the wicked. For the Lord will not cast off
his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance, but judgment
shall return unto righteousness, and all the upright in heart
shall follow it. Who will rise up for me against the evildoers?
Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity? Unless
the Lord had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence. When I said my foot slippeth,
thy mercy, O Lord, held me up. In the multitude of my thoughts
within me, thy comforts delight my soul. Shall the throne of
iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief
by a law? They gather themselves together
against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent but
the Lord is my defense, and my God is the rock of my refuge,
and he shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall
cut them off in their own wickedness. Yea, the Lord our God shall cut
them off. Thank God for his word. Let's
bow together in prayer. Our Father, we come before you
tonight, a people who've come seeking a blessing from the storehouses
of your mercy, and your grace that you have reserved for your
people. Father, you know the dry and barren world that we've
been in this week. You've gathered us together out
of it. Father, I beg of you that you would give us a word from
thee, that you give us a refreshing from your word by enabling us
to one more time see and find our rest in the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, I beg that you would
enable me in this hour to rightly divide the word of truth, and
in clear and simple terms, preach Christ and him crucified. Father,
enable me by thy spirit to point your people to Christ the Savior. And Father, I pray that you give
each heart here this evening a hearing ear, a believing heart
that would lay hold upon the Lord Jesus Christ as he preached.
Enable each of us this evening to leave here rejoicing in Christ
our Savior, whose blood cleanses his people from all of their
sin, makes us accepted in thy sight. Father, how we thank you
for your blessings to this congregation. You've blessed us more than tongue
can tell. And it's so humbling to think
of your mercies to us. We are so undeserving, yet how
rich in mercy and grace you've been to us. Father, we thank
you. Father, we also beg that you not leave us alone now, that
you continue to be merciful. You continue to bless your people.
A whole new generation coming up here in the gospel. Father,
I pray you'd bless for thy great namesake and for the good of
our little ones, the good of our children, the good of our
loved ones that don't know you. Father, bless. Get glory to your
name, we pray. And Father, we dare not sin against
thee in forgetting to pray for your people that are in times
of great, great difficulty. Those who are sick and in various
different deep, deep waters, Father, we pray that you'd be
with your people. We pray a special blessing for our brother, D.
Parks, and his family at this time. Father, you comfort their
hearts with your presence. Do for them, Father, what only
God Almighty can do. All these things we ask in that
name which is above every name. In the name of Christ our Savior,
amen. All right, now if you would,
turn back to Genesis chapter 34. It's a rather lengthy text
this evening. I thought I would just read it
as we go through and make a few points. And I'll tell you from
the get-go, the story that we're about to read is another one
of those horrible stories that we read about. Seems like there's
so many of them in the book of Genesis. These things should
never happen anywhere at any time. And I'll just be completely
honest with you, it makes me a little uncomfortable to talk
about these things in mixed company. Just in polite society, we just
don't talk about such things. But this story happened. It happened
to real people. And it's recorded in the word
of God. So we ought not be worried about talking about it. And since
it's recorded in the word of God, Jonathan, I know this, Christ
is here. I know he is, since this is recorded
in the word of God. Redemption in Christ is here.
And that's what I pray the Holy Spirit be pleased to show us
tonight. Let's look here at Genesis 34, verse one. Edina, the daughter
of Leah, was she barren to Jacob, went out to see the daughters
of the land. And when Shechem, the son of Hamor, the Hivite,
prince of the country, saw her, he took her and lay with her
and defiled her. Now at this time, Dinah is 13
or 14 years old. Now you think about a 13 or 14
year old girl. Her family just moved to a new
town and she wants to go out and see what the girls in town
are like. What kind of clothes are they
wearing? What kind of sports do they play? What kind of music
do they listen to? And 13, 14-year-old girls, what
else do they want to know? What are the boys like? She's looking
for some friends. And while she's out and about,
she meets the prince of that land, and he raped her. That's what he did. Today, we
would call it statutory rape. Now apparently, Dinah did consent
to this, but she's not old enough. to make an informed consent about
doing such a thing. So this is statutory rape. It's
also rape because a person in power pushed this young woman
into a sexual relationship. Now, it's just impossible for
a 14-year-old girl to tell the prince of a country no and make
it stick. He's got all the power here.
So there's no question that this is rape. And if you'll allow
me for just a moment to give you a little piece of advice,
this is for all of us, but especially for our young people. If you'll
take a piece of advice from your pastor. Jacob was never supposed
to be in this city. He's never supposed to be here.
When Jacob was at Laban's and God told him, you go back home,
to the town where you were raised, where your mother and father
were. He told him again, you go home, go home where your mother
and father used to live. And Jacob was on his way and
he stopped short. He stopped short in this city,
Shalem, and he didn't go home like God told him to. Now, none
of this ever would have happened if Jacob had done what God told
him to do and just go back home. Now I said that to say this, please be careful. Don't expose
yourself to stuff by being where you're not supposed to be. I
mean, I'm telling you this, this is the same advice I gave my
daughters before they went to college. Now don't you be going
to some of these parties, you know places you're not supposed
to be. Stuff's going on that you're not supposed to be around,
don't you go. Don't you go. You just be careful.
Just don't expose yourself to what's going on there. You know,
I don't need to mention and give you a list of all the things,
places you could go and things that could be going on there.
You know right from wrong. You know if you should be there
or not. I'm telling you, you'll be a whole lot safer. You think,
well, I just won't do that. I mean, other people will be
doing it. I won't do it. It'll be okay if I'm around as long as I don't
do it. I'm telling you. You'll be a whole lot safer if
you just don't go. Just don't expose yourself to
it. Now listen, it won't save you
not to go there. It won't make you more holy if
you don't go there. But your body will be a whole
lot safer if you don't go. So save yourself some heartache.
When you've got no business being in some place, don't go there.
Now I hear myself saying this, I know, especially you young
people think, well Frank's an old man, he doesn't, I know what
I sound like, but I wasn't always an old man. I know what I'm talking about.
And I tell you this because I care about you. I care a great deal
about your soul and your body both. So if you don't spare yourself
some heartache, spare your pastor some heartache, Don't expose
yourself to these things. Just remember this. None of this
would have happened to Jacob's family. If Jacob had took him,
where was he supposed to go? All right, verse three. And his
soul, this prince, his soul, clave unto Dinah, the daughter
of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spake kindly unto the damsel.
And she came and spake unto his father Hamor, saying, Get me
this damsel to wife. Now this prince has done a vile
thing, You do have to say, he tries to do something right afterwards. He loves this young girl, he
wants to marry her. And Jacob, when he hears about
this, he doesn't say a thing about it. He didn't say anything,
he didn't do anything. But his sons do. Look at verse
five. And Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter.
Now his sons were with his cattle in the field, and Jacob held
his peace until they were come. And Hamor, the father of Shechem,
went out unto Jacob to commune with him. And the sons of Jacob
came out of the field when they heard it, and the men were grieved,
and they were very wroth, because he had wrought folly in Israel,
and lying with Jacob's daughter, which thing ought not to be done.
And Hamor communed with them, saying, The soul of my son Shechem
longeth for your daughter. I pray you, give him to wife,
and make him marriages with us, and give your daughters unto
us, and take our daughters unto you. And you should dwell with
us, and the land should be before you. dwell and trade ye therein
and get you possessions therein. And Shechem said unto her father
and unto her brethren, let me find grace in your eyes. And
what ye shall say unto me, I'll give. Ask me never so much dowry
and gift, and I'll give according as ye shall say unto me. Forgive
me the damsel to wife. And the sons of Jacob answered
Shechem and Hamor his father deceitfully. and said because
he had defiled Dinah, their sister, they said unto him, we cannot
do this thing, to give our sister to one that is uncircumcised,
for that were a reproach unto us. But in this will we consent
unto you. If you will be as we be, that
every male of you be circumcised, then will we give our daughters
unto you, and we will take your daughters to us, and we'll dwell
with you. We will become one people. But
if you'll not hearken unto us to be circumcised, then will
we take our daughter and will be gone. Now the prince says,
this is what he's saying, you name your price. I mean, just
name any dowry as big as you want to make it. No price is
too high. You name it, I'll pay it. That's
how much I love your sister Dinah. That's how much I want to marry
her. And her brothers say, We don't want your money, but we
do want something. We want every male of you to
be circumcised. If you'll do that, then our sister
can marry you. Well, I mean, you know, the prince
isn't real thrilled about this thing. You know, he thought he
was going to be paying out money. This is going to be a painful proposition,
but he's willing to do it because he loves this girl. He wants
to marry her and he convinces the rest of the men to do it.
Verse 18. And the words pleased Hamor and
Shechem, Hamor's son, and the young man deferred not to do
the thing, because he had delight in Jacob's daughter, and he was
more honorable than all the house of his father. And Hamor and
Shechem, his son, came into the gate of their city and communed
with the men of their city, saying, these men are peaceable with
us, therefore let them dwell in the land and trade therein
for the land. Behold, it's large enough for
them, Let us take their daughters to us for wives, and let us give
them our daughters. Only herein will the men consent
unto us, for to dwell with us to be one people. If every male
among us be circumcised, as they are circumcised, should not their
cattle and their substance and every beast of theirs be ours?
Only let us consent unto them, and they shall dwell with us. And unto Hamor and unto Shechem
his son hearkened, All that went out of the gate of his city and
every male were circumcised. All that went out of the gate
of his city. Now the prince tells the men,
yeah, this is going to be short-term pain, but it will be long-term
gain because we're going to gain these trading partners. We're
going to become partners and trade with these rich people.
And they all agree. Now verse 25. And it came to
pass on the third day, when they were sore, that the two sons
of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brethren, took each man his sword
and came upon the city boldly and slew all the males. And they
slew Hamor and Shechem his son with the edge of the sword and
took Dinah out of Shechem's house and went out. The sons of Jacob
came upon the slain and spoiled the city because they had defiled
their sister. They took their sheep and their
oxen and their asses and that which was in the city and that
which was in the field And all their wealth and all their little
ones and their wives took they captive and spoiled even all
that was in the house. Now some of the writers say that
Simeon and Levi were the ones who did the circumcising of these
men. If that's so, I'm confident of this. They used dull and dirty
knives, don't you reckon? They wanted to make it more painful.
They wanted to maybe make it more possible for the men to
become infected and so forth. And on the third day after this
happened, when the men would be the most sore, Simeon and
Levi came in and killed every last one of them. Now maybe I'll not feel this
way, but this is the way I feel. I would respect these men if
they came and did that in a fair fight. But what they did is shameful. They went in and killed defenseless
men. took their wives and their children
as hostages, as slaves. That's what Jacob tells his sons,
verse 30. 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. Now our English translation doesn't, Let us see exactly what
Jacob is saying here. In the original Hebrew, everything
Jacob is saying is in the past tense. Like, this is so sure,
this has already happened. That's the way Jacob saw it.
He's been brought so low, his reputation, he stinks. To everybody
that knows him, to everybody that knows about this whole situation,
he's just certain. This is the way he feels like
the heathen have already come. They've already killed him. They've
already killed all of his family. They destroyed his house. And
this is the way they answered their father, verse 31. Should
he deal with our sister as in Harlot? You know what these boys
are saying is, father, what else could we have done? We had to
defend our sister. What we did is right. That's
what they're telling their father. All right. Now that's a horrible
story, isn't it? I mean, it's not a story we read
our children as a bedtime story. So where's Christ in this passage?
Let me see if I can show you three things. Number one is this. We are defiled by sin. Back here in verse two, it says
that Shechem defiled Dinah. And that's what our sin has done
to us. It's defiled us. You know, sin is worse than just
not doing what God told us to do. Sin defiles our soul. It's a, it's a filth of sin,
a filth upon our soul. Sin pollutes our soul so much. We're dead in sin. Nothing can
live in this pollution, this defilement of our sin. We're
defiled. This word defiled means to become
low. I'll tell you when Adams, when
Adam, and he fell, we fell. I mean, we fell low. We fell
so far, we can't get any lower. We've fallen so low, we can't
get any more down and out than we already are. We've fallen
so low, we cannot possibly get further away from God than we
already are, because our sins defiled us. That word defiled also means
afflicted. That's what our sin has done to us, it's afflicted.
our soul. It's afflicted us so much, so
deeply, we're already dead in sin. But even before we're born,
we're already conceived in sin, we're born dead, dead in sin. And then that word defiled also
means humiliated. Our sin has left us humiliated
before God, because it's left us naked before God. Our sin
has made us appear before God without a righteousness. That
became the problem the moment Adam ate that fruit. But Adam
failed. This became the problem. Adam
and Eve knew they were naked and they were shamed. They tried
to cover themselves with those fig leaf aprons. And the reason
they did that is they didn't want to be humiliated before
God. They knew they needed to cover
them. Now they didn't know what would cover their sins. They
find out right quick that the fig leaf aprons, they didn't
cover them, did they? It might've covered some of their body, but
it didn't cover their sin. It didn't cover their shame.
It didn't cover their nakedness before God. They knew they needed
a covering. They just didn't know what it
was. So our sins have defiled us. It's brought us low, hasn't
it? It's humiliated us. Well, that brings me to the second
point. Our works of the law just make the situation worse. Yosemite
and Levi, Big brothers, right, this is the way big brothers
are. They went in, they saw, okay, here's a problem. Maybe Jacob's too old to take
care of the problem. We're not. Simeon and Levi said,
we went in, we took care of this problem. Or so they thought. See, these boys knew the law,
didn't they? It's interesting. I don't know how many years it's
gonna be till God gives the law to Moses at Sinai. Everybody
already knew this was wrong. Everybody already knew all this
was wrong. These boys knew the law. And
you know, when they knew the law, you know what they focused
on? What somebody else should do. They knew what Shechem should
have done. They knew what Amor should have
done. They knew what everybody else was supposed to do. They
knew what he did was against the law, but they ignored what
the law said to them. They ignored what they were supposed
to do. They ignored the way they were supposed to handle this
and how they were supposed to go about doing it. See, they
knew Shechem should not have done that to their sister. Everybody
knew that. Everybody knows this is wrong. It's against God's
law. It's against that law that's written on every man's heart.
Now according to the law and the custom at that time, it was
right for them to go kill him for doing it. And it would have
been right if they had a trial with witnesses, you know, or
they would have at least had a fair fight or something. But
what they did was so cowardly. and was so deceptive to wound
these men in circumcision, make it so they couldn't defend themselves,
and they couldn't defend their families, and then go in and
kill them. That's so devious. That's so
deceptive, isn't it? Reckon where they learned that
from? Boy, they didn't have to go far to learn that from their
father Jacob, did they? They went in and they took vengeance. And again, I know I'm not supposed
to feel this way, but I'm just sure of this. I'm sure of this.
They felt real good. I mean, they felt real good that
they had done this. They had defended their sister.
They defended their family name. They felt like, I defended the
law. And they come to their father,
and they said, Dad, didn't we do good? Dad, aren't you proud
of us? Look how we upheld the law. Look how we did this, Dad.
And Jacob says, boys, I just seen him shaking. He said, boys,
you didn't help at all. Don't you see what you've done?
You've made the situation worse by what you've done. You've made
me stink. You made my reputation. Here we just moved to this town.
Now my reputation already stinks to the heathen. The heathen that don't know God
say I stink. They're gonna all gather together,
they're gonna kill us all now, and who can blame them? You made
the situation worse. Now you know what that is? That's a picture of what man
tries to do when we find out we've been defiled before God
by our sin. I mean, it's just the automatic
reaction of human nature. I'm gonna try to take the situation
into my own hands. Now I'm gonna look at what the
law says, and I'm gonna try to obey it. I think now if I just
get real legalistic, and I get real moral, and I just really
put my mind to this thing of obeying God's law and doing the
best that I can, I'll just take care of this problem of sin.
I'll just start sinning less and make God happy with me. That's
what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna follow all the rules,
all the regulations, all the motions and ceremonies of religion.
I'm gonna do them all. God be happy with me. But this is what scripture teaches
us. Every single time we try to establish our own righteousness
by our deeds of the law, what do we do? We make the situation
worse. And here's why we make it worse. We're just adding sin upon sin
upon sin. And that what Simeon and Levi
did. They just added sin upon sin. I think of those two men
that went up into the temple to pray. The one was a Pharisee. Boy, he did everything right,
didn't he? And he wasn't afraid to tell God about it. He went down to his house with
the wrath of God upon him. But that poor old publican, the
smoke upon his breast wouldn't even look up toward God. and
said, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. That man who didn't try to do
anything, he didn't try to take matters into his own, he didn't
try to fix himself up, he threw himself on the mercy of God.
And the Savior himself said, that man went down to his house
justified. Let's quit trying to take matters
into our own hands and cast ourselves on the mercy of God. See, Simeon
and Levi, they knew what the law said, but they misapplied
it, didn't they? They just paid attention to part
of the law. In their case, and in this us,
they paid attention to the part somebody else is supposed to
do. My, my, my. But this is what we do by nature.
We take God's law and we misapply it. Now here's the reason God
gave the law. God gave the law to show us how
sinful we are. God made the law so obvious that
it's just obvious we can't keep it. It's obvious we can't obey
it. Just, it's impossible. God gave the law that way so
the law would show us how sinful we are and how much we need Christ,
how much we need to run to him and beg for mercy and beg for
forgiveness. If we think we can keep the law
well enough, to earn a righteousness before God, we've misapplied
the law. We're using it in a way that God never intended it to
be used. But this is what our dead spiritual mind thinks. Why? God gave the law because I can
keep it. I can't think of any other reason why God would give
the law other than if I try my best, he'll be pleased with me.
That's what a dead mind thinks. But that's not why God gave the
law. God gave the law so that we'd run to Christ and beg for
mercy, because I can't keep the law. You know, the very best
so-called obedience that we can produce, the best we can do is
just partial obedience. Mostly it's none, but the best
we can produce is partial. That's what Jacob did. God told
him to go back to his home place, and Jacob was partially obedient. Jacob did the part he wanted
to do, leave Laban's house, but he didn't do what God said, and
he stopped, because Shechem looked like a rich trading ground. And
look what his partial obedience caused him to suffer. Now we've defiled ourselves because
of our sin. And we've made matters worse
by trying to clean ourselves up by our own acts of the law.
We just keep defying ourselves because we add sin upon sin upon
sin. Well, is there anything that
can be done? to take care of this defilement
of sin, to cleanse me from the defilement of my sin. Is there
any hope? Well, yes, there is. And that
brings me to my third point. The only hope of cleansing of
sin we have is found in Christ. Look at chapter 35. You know,
there's no break here. There's no paragraph break. There's
no subject break. This chapter division is just
there so we can find this particular spot in Genesis. They tried everything
they could think of to do, and Jacob says we're hopeless. Chapter
35, verse one. 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 fled us from the face of
Esau thy brother. Now the only way that we can
be cleansed from the defilement of our sin is by looking to Christ,
by depending upon Christ, That's what Bethel represents. Why is
it so significant that Jacob go to Bethel? It's so important.
And you'll see through the rest of our study in Genesis, Jacob's
constantly going back to Bethel, constantly going back to Bethel,
constantly going back to Bethel. Why is that so important? Because
Bethel is the place that Jacob first met Christ. Oh, he knew
about the God of Abraham. He knew about the God of his
father, Isaac, before this, but at Bethel, That's where Jacob
met Christ. That's where Jacob met him. Remember
Bethel is the place Jacob's on the run from his brother. He
makes him a place there on the ground. He has a pillow as a
rock for a pillow. As he's asleep, dreaming, the
Lord revealed a ladder to Jacob, a ladder that reached from heaven
to earth. And that ladder that Jacob saw
as Christ, Christ referred to that during the Lord Jesus referred
to that during his earthly ministry. That ladder Jacob saw is Christ. That ladder went from heaven
to earth. That's Christ, the son of God.
He came all the way from heaven, all the way down to earth. And
here's why he did it. God in heaven had a sinful people
who were on earth that he had purposed to save. Somebody's
gotta save them. And Christ came down. He came
from heaven to earth so he could save those people from the defilement
of their sin. Now a ladder takes you from a
high place to a low place, but a ladder also takes you from
a low place to a high place, doesn't it? Christ, oh how low
he came to leave heaven and become flesh like you and me. To suffer
and to die and to lay in the tomb for three days, how low
he came. That goes from a high place to
a low place. But this ladder that Jacob saw also went from
earth to heaven, from a low place to a high place. Christ is the
ladder. He's the only way that we can
go from earth to heaven. The only way that's possible
is in Christ. Christ is the one that must bring
us to God. He must come to the low place
where we are and take us from the low place to the high place
to be with God. That's what Christ, he's the
ladder. Now, we need that ladder, don't we? We need somebody else
to come and obey the law for us, to establish righteousness
for us. We need somebody else to come
and be sacrificed and shed his blood to cleanse us from this
defilement of sin. We need the ladder, don't we?
Well, Christ is that ladder. That's what Jacob saw at Bethel.
Christ came. Now, this is what Jacob saw.
By faith, he understood this. Christ is coming. He's going
to establish perfect righteousness for His people. He's going to
come to earth and obey the law for His people. So they're righteous. They're righteous because Christ,
their representative, obeyed the law perfectly. And before
Christ ascended back to His Father, He sacrificed Himself. He shed
His blood, He suffered, and He died for the sins of His people.
put that sin away to pay the debt and to cleanse them from
all of their sin. And the savior took his blood
before the father and put it on the altar. And the father
said, that's enough. My justice is satisfied. That's
enough. The price has been paid. See,
that's Christ. He's the ladder to God. He's
the only way any sinner like you and me could ever go to God.
is through the blood, through the merit of Christ. And if you
go to God in Christ, you'll always be accepted. Always. You'll never start up Christ
the latter and realize he won't get you all the way to glory.
No, he goes all the way from where we are to where he is.
If you go to God in Christ, you'll always be accepted. And God told
Jacob, this time when you go to Bethel, build an altar, build
an altar. Now we need a ladder, but we
need an altar too. What do you do with an altar?
Well, you don't just look at it. It's not like a decoration. When you have an altar, you intend
to have a sacrifice, a blood sacrifice, a burnt sacrifice.
And the altar and the sacrifice offered on the altar, they're
both Christ. They're both Christ. Now we need
an altar. The only way we can be cleansed
from the sin that defiles our soul, the only way we can be
cleansed from our sin that separates us from our God is the blood
of Christ. He must be sacrificed. He can't just live a perfect
life. At the end of that perfect life, he must die. He must be
sacrificed and shed his blood to satisfy God's justice. Christ
must shed his perfect, sin-atoning blood. He must die. Because God
said, without the shedding of blood is no remission. Over with
the shedding of his perfect blood, there is remission. There is
cleansing from sin. The perfect blood of Christ has
cleansed all of his people from all the defilement of their sin
and washed them white as snow. Now, we'd never know this is
the way to be cleansed from our sin. God had to tell us. He had
to be the one to accomplish it, and he had to be the one to tell
us about it, didn't he? See, that's why it's so important
we keep going back to Bethel. We've got to keep going back
to Bethel, because that's where God's pleased to reveal himself.
That's where he's pleased to show us how our sin can be put
away. We can't do it by our works of
the law. So just quit. Christ has already cleansed His
people from all of their sin by His precious blood. Now just
trust Him. Just rest it. Just look to Him
and be cleansed. That's the message. That's the
message of Bethel. And you know, before we could
see the beauty of Bethel and how wonderful it is to go to
Bethel, Before we get to Bethel, we had to go through that awful
story, didn't we? We had to go through that awful story that
reveals our sin. We're not reading that story
to see Jacob's sin. No, we're reading that story to see our
sin. Our sin. Oh, I wish I could paint our sin
as ugly and black and vile as it is. If the Spirit's ever pleased
to show us just a hint of that, and we probably couldn't take
any more than that, could we? If we saw the real depths of it,
we'd be in the same asylum. But if the Spirit's ever pleased
to show us just a glimpse of how defiled we are, just how
hopeless we are because of our sin, oh, how we'll love to go
to Bethel. And this time, When God told
Jake to go to Bethel, we'll pick up here at Lord Willing next
week, he went to Bethel. Boy, he sure was happy about
it, I bet, don't you? All right, well, maybe we will
be, too. God take us to Bethel time and
time and time again. All right, let's bow together
in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
for your word. How we thank you that through this awful, story
that shows the blackness of our sin, the dead, defiled blackness
of our nature, that you could show us the joy of salvation
in our Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, I pray you'd be pleased
to show each one of us here tonight how defiled with our sin that
we are. And Lord, would you be pleased
to call us to Bethel and reveal Christ the Savior to us? Fathers,
in the name of Christ our Savior, for his glory and his sake we
pray, amen. All right, Sean, come lead us
into closing hymn, if you would.