Well, we come to Genesis 35,
and the text this morning is verse 1 of Genesis 35. And I've called this message,
The Gospel in Returning to Bethel. I've had several of these messages
from Genesis. The Gospel in various incidents. Because all Scripture speaks
of Christ. That's its purpose. These are
they, said Jesus, which speak of me. These are the Scriptures.
The Scriptures speak of me. That's what it's about. He began
with the disciples when he had been with those on the road to
Emmaus and preached to them, and then he came and met with
them in the upper room in Luke 24, and he expounded to them,
beginning at Moses and the prophets, he expounded to them in all the
scriptures the things concerning himself, because that is the
only message that matters. It's a message of salvation. Salvation from sin. Salvation
from condemnation. salvation that we might be qualified
for eternal glory, for the bliss of fellowship with the God who
made us. Do you know, we're made, remind
yourself of this, we're made in the image of God. We're not
the product of evolution, we're not highly developed apes, we're
made in the image of God. Everything speaks of that, it's
just the darkened mind of man who does not like to retain God
in his knowledge, that twists it to something else. And the
message of Scripture is a message of salvation accomplished for
a multi-ethnic multitude that God chose in Christ before the
foundation of the world, and accomplished all that was necessary
to satisfy divine justice on their behalf, that they might
be justly qualified for heaven. Nothing can go into heaven but
that which is as holy as God is, and in Christ he has made
his people who are sinners, by bearing their sin he's made those
same people the righteousness of God in him. Follow holiness,
without which no man shall see the Lord. Follow Christ. and
in Christ you have the holiness that God requires. That is the
message of Scripture. Don't let any religious person,
religious preacher, idolater, legalist, don't let any of them
tell you otherwise. That is the message of this book.
From start to finish, it's a message of accomplished salvation. It's
a message of nothing left for you to do. Nothing, nothing,
nothing. Oh, they'll go out and they'll
sin, and they'll commit terrible, horrible sins, they say. No,
they won't. Not if the Spirit of God has
come to them. No, they won't. And throughout this book, what
God calls the mystery of salvation, the mystery, the mystery of God
concerning His eternal purposes of salvation, He reveals it throughout
created time. Created time, this creation,
this world, this universe, is God's canvas on which He paints
the clear picture of salvation. It's a picture of electing grace
before time began. chosen in Christ then. Why? Why? For nothing other than the sovereign
grace of God. It's a message of redeeming love
in time, when the fullness of the time was come. God sent forth
his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those
that are under the... It's pure love that sent him
from glory to lay his glory aside. Let this mind be in you, which
was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God thought
it not robbery to be equal with God. But he laid all that aside
that he might come and bear the sins of his people. and minister
eternal life, lifted up for the transgressions of his people,
and raised from the dead for the justification of his people.
And it's a message of regenerating life as the Holy Spirit, that
wind of God, the Spirit of God that blows where it listeth.
And you hear the sound of it, but you can't tell where it comes
from or where it goes to. But it awakens this one and another
one in God's own time, in their own experience, to regeneration,
to know the truth of God, to reveal it to them, to make them
know that they are the recipients. On Wednesday evening we were
looking at Ephesians 1 verses 3 to 14, that glorious sentence
of, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Him. And there is just this glorious
exhibition of sovereign grace working out in love towards His
people. It is a glorious message, but
the Scriptures full of the truth of God as they are, they don't
attempt to hide human sin, even in the line of those who are
blessed of God. And Jacob and his sons are a
clear example. It says of Jacob, Jacob have
I loved. God said that. Jacob have I loved. Peculiarly loved. Loved in a
sovereign, gracious way. Not because of what he was, but
because Jacob means supplanter. The one who is the deceiver,
the sinner, the twister, the cheat, the liar. Jacob, the sinner. You'll no longer be called Jacob,
he said. You will be called Israel, for you are a prince with God.
A prince with God. And this is all the people that
God chose before the beginning of time. All the multitude of
the elect of God are by nature Jacob, but are made in Christ,
Israel, princes with God. God was revealed to him at Bethel. You know, he had to flee, having
stolen his brother's blessing from his father, Isaac, and the
birthright, he had to flee. And he met with God at Bethel,
at this place, entirely on his own, where he made stones for
his pillows, and he lay down and he dreamt. And in that dream,
God appeared to him. God revealed himself to him.
He saw a ladder standing on the earth. How is a man to be just
with God, asks Joe. Isn't this what you should be
asking? You mortal creatures, you sinners who must face God,
who is a consuming fire, into whose hands you must fall one
day. It is appointed to man to die
once, and then the judgment. How should a man be just with
God? It's in the Gospel of Grace.
For there, God revealed the Gospel to him. Here he is, a sinner,
the archetypal sinner. the archetypal sinner, here on
earth, bound to earth, entirely alone, with no human help. And
there is God in heaven, in holiness, in sublime glory, in that bliss
to which man made in the image of God should aspire. And there's
a ladder. What an obvious picture, isn't
it? How do I get to heaven from earth? Up a ladder. There's a
ladder in his dream. And the ladder has the angels
of God ascending and descending upon it. And that ladder is Christ,
as Jesus said to Nathanael in John chapter 1. If you believe
just because I've said this to you, I'm telling you Nathaniel,
you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and
descending, not on a ladder, but on the Son of Man, on the
Christ of God. He is that ladder. He is that
bridge of that chasm, that gulf between the sin of earth and
the sinless bliss of heaven. He saw the Gospel there, God
revealed the Gospel there, that one must come who is that ladder,
who must accomplish redemption, who must pay redemption's price
for the sin that would keep me from the presence of God. And
he knew the promised seed would come, he'd heard his father Isaac
teach him about it. He'd heard his grandfather, Abraham,
teach him about it. The seed that was promised to
Eve in the Garden of Eden after the fall. The seed that would
come and crush Satan's head. The seed that would come and
rescue the multitude from the condemnation of sin. He knew
that that one would come, and God had promised it would come
from Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. From him, the sinner, it would
come from him. He believed God. Yes, he did.
Just like Abraham believed God and Isaac believed God, but all
are frail. vessels of earthenware, earthenware
pots. He believed God and so easily
forgot, and trusted in the arm of the flesh. He'd gone away
from that scene at Bethel, and he'd worked twenty years for
his uncle, Laban. And there he'd found his wife,
Rachel. But not only that, he'd found three other wives, due
to trickery and all sorts of other wrong thinking, the troubles
of polygamy. Here's a man who should have
known that, God said, you know, the man should be bound to the
woman and they too shall become one flesh, not they five in his
case, but of the four wives came eleven sons by this stage, one
more is to come as we read at the end of our reading, a twelfth
one, Benjamin is yet to come, but there are now eleven sons
and these are strong young men and The family, it would seem,
you know, Jacob knew the truth, but he'd been a long time from
Bethel. He'd been serving in Laban's
household, and Laban was an idolater, we know that. Would the good
seed die out? Wasn't this the line through
which God had promised that the Christ would come? And yet they
don't look a very likely bunch, do they? You know, four wives,
11 sons, all sorts of trouble. And Jacob remembers God's promise,
the promise of God, chapter 28 and verse 13. And behold, the
Lord God stood above it, that's the ladder, and said, I am the
Lord God of Abraham thy father and the God of Isaac. The land
whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed. This
is where you really belong, Jacob, at Bethel. That's where you really
belong. You belong at Bethel. And so,
he has been enriched by the goodness of God. We won't go into the
details, but you can read it for yourself. But he ends up
with lots and lots of livestock. And he's rich. And he escapes
Laban. And Laban pursues him, but God
says to Laban, don't you dare touch the one that I have anointed,
that my favour is upon. And Laban lets him go, effectively. He's divinely protected, but
of course he's fearful of Esau, for he knows he has to pass through
the land where his brother, who has sworn to kill him. resided,
and he's left all alone. We saw this last week. He wrestled
with God. A man came and wrestled with
him, and this man was God in human form. It wasn't Christ
in his incarnation, but surely it was Christ. It was the second
person of the Trinity, came and wrestled with him. He experienced
a physical wrestling, and as a result, he said, I will not
let you go unless except you bless me, and the blessing is
confirmed. And he has a peaceful encounter with Esau. His fears
are removed. God has made it that Esau is
peaceable toward him. For God is the one in whose hand
is the heart of the king. So why not Esau? Anyway, he goes
on. He goes on to Succoth, then to
Shalem, which becomes known as Shechem, the family that lived
there. And instead of going all the
way to Bethel, he bought some land there. and he built booths
for his cattle. And he erected an altar there,
it's right at the very end of chapter 33, verse 20. He erected
there an altar and called it El Elohei Israel, where God met
with Israel, he's trying to say. And he seemed content, Jacob
seemed content, to settle short of Bethel. Remember, this is
the family unique in the earth. There's no other one that we
know of, no other one that God has revealed. This is the family
who is unique in the earth, from whom the seed, the Christ of
God would come to save his people from the curse of the law. They
are the family who uniquely sought a city. They looked for a city,
not an earthly city, but a city which has foundations, whose
builder and maker is God. But you know, the family had
met Esau and mingled with their relatives and their cousins,
and they'd seen what powerful and prosperous people they were.
In the later chapter, chapter 36, we read all about the descendants
of Esau and the dukes, and they were like a nobility. that they'd
become in Edom, in the land of Seir. They'd become nobility.
They were society. They were worldly society doing
really well. They were what, if you live in
England, you might call our posh relatives. You know where that
comes from, don't you? Port out, starboard home. It's
when people used to go to India. The ones that could afford it,
the posh ones, went port out and starboard home. They would
have said, Esau's family is our posh relatives. are societal
relatives, the ones who are the royalty of the area, the dukes.
They ought to have been separate from the world, but they began
to mingle and taste the high life of society, boasting of
their royal connections with Esau. Even those who know the
truth are easily enticed by the world's baubles and trinkets. They had even become tainted
with idolatry. In chapter 31, when they're still
back with Laban, In chapter 31 and verse 19, Laban went to shear
his sheep and Rachel, remember the love of Jacob's life, that
beautiful girl, his cousin that he'd met there when he went to
Paddan Aram. Rachel had stolen the images
that were her father's, the idols, the false gods, the idol gods
of her father. She'd stolen them. What was it
for? There's a hint that there was
a streak of idolatry even there. There was a spirit of worldly
idolatry amongst them. You know, God separates his people
from the world. If you read Revelation 12, again,
you know it speaks of the church and the accomplishment of salvation,
but God puts his people, the woman, the church, in wilderness
separation from the world around. And he calls his people to set
their hearts and their treasure in heaven, not on the earth,
to love not the world. Little children, says John, love
not the world. nor the things in the world.
Oh, I've got my most fantastic bucket list and I must do everything
on it to get the maximum, to wring the maximum amount of experience
out of this life. Bit tricky if that's your only
motivation in the last few months, isn't it? When it looks like
we're locked down and not allowed to travel anywhere by law throughout
the world because of this pandemic that's going on. No, the scripture
tells believers, love not the world. Jesus said, my kingdom
is not of this world. So we who believe, we think this,
you know, because you've got to go to work and you've got
to mingle with them, and you've got to live next door to your
neighbours, and surely the scripture says, as much as in you is, live
at peace with all men, so we'd better be sociable and get on
with them all, hadn't we? I believe God, I know this gospel
truth, I want to be his, I want to know that, but you know, You
know, I reckon with a bit of subtlety, I can manage to balance
both. I can have all the benefits of
saving grace, and yet not fall out too much with the world around
me. You know, get on tolerably well with them. I can stop short
of the things that are really bad. Don't we have to try and
live at peace with all men? So look at verse 1 of chapter
34. Dinah, the daughter of Leah, which he bear unto Jacob, Jacob's
daughter, Dinah, well they're mingling with society, and they've
got these connections with Esau and the royalty, and there's
this family of, what's he called, Hamor, and his son Shechem, Shechem
in this place, Succoth, it becomes known as Shechem, you know, where
Jacob was happy to settle, Dinah goes out to see the daughters
of the land, And this Shechem, the son of Hamor, the Hivite,
the prince of the country, he really fancied her. He thought
she was a gorgeous girl, Dinah was. And he took her, and he
lay with her. You know what that means. He
claimed to dine her and he wanted her to be his wife. This was a disgrace in Jacob's
family. This was terrible and the news
of it got out and she's still living there with them. She's
gone, she's deserted. Jacob's family and she's gone
and she's living with Shechem and Hamor in his family and you
know what happens is that they try and make peace to get Dinah
to be the wife. What did God always say? that
the sons of God shouldn't mingle with the daughters of men. Those of the holy line, of the
line from which Messiah would come, were not to mingle with
those from the rest. They weren't to do it. That was
God's word to them. And yet it had happened, and
they offered a peace treaty. Tell you what, Why don't we get
on well? You're very welcome in our land,
and you're going to prosper here, and you do really, really well,"
says Hamor to Jacob and to his sons. And look, I tell you what,
look, your sons can have our daughters for their wives, and
our sons can have your daughters for their wives, and yeah, well,
the sons of Jacob trick them and they say well yes but we've
got this thing of circumcision that all of you have to be circumcised
and then we'll do this then we'll make that a peace treaty between
us. It was a trick to get revenge
and to To cut a long story short, it says in verse 25, it came
to pass they were circumcised and on the third day when they
were saw, the sons of Hamor and Shechem and all of the others,
the men were incapable of defending themselves. When that was the
case, Simeon and Levi, two of the sons of Jacob, went and killed
them all, and killed them when they were weak. And look where
it comes to in verse 30. Jacob said to Simeon and Levi,
ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants
of the land. You've given me a dreadful reputation,
a reputation as a murderous family among the Canaanites and the
Perizzites. And we're just a small number. They're going to gather
up against me and slay me, and I shall be destroyed, I and my
house. What had God said to him? What
was the promise of God to him? You see, so easily he forgot.
But doesn't this sound, you know, you sort of think, is this the
Bible? Is this really the Bible? Yes it is, because the Bible
is truthful. The book that contains the message
of salvation is truthful. This is the line from which Messiah
will come. And if the seed is to come, something
must be done. From this situation, it sounds
that probably people outside of the UK will not know what
EastEnders is, it's a soap opera on BBC television, and it's set
in the East End of London, and the things that go on, well,
we don't watch it, we haven't watched it for years, but it
has a reputation of portraying the lowest aspects of human,
city, mingling and living. You name it, if there's sin and
there's crime and there's deceit involved, it's on that soap.
Well, this sounds like it, doesn't it? This is the line from which
the Messiah is to come. And if the seed is to come, something
must be done. So God calls Jacob to action. So verse 1 of chapter 35, Verse
1, You've got to be separate. from this worldly society in
which you now stink, Jacob. You've got to go back to the
Gospel. That's where you were heading.
From Laban you were heading to Bethel, but you got happy with
Shechem and stayed there. And look at the trouble it brought
upon you. You must go back to Gospel revelation. You must go back to Gospel principles. You must build an altar there.
What is an altar? altar is the way to the tree
of life. You know, Genesis 3 verse 24,
at the end there, God stood guard. and there was an altar there,
we think, it looks highly like, and that guarded the way. You
cannot just walk up to the tree of life anymore, you're sinners,
there must be an altar. A lamb must be slain, as Abel
learned and knew. A lamb must be slain, one had
been slain to clothe Adam and Eve. A lamb must be slain, speaking
of the Lamb of God, which will come and be slain for his people
and shed his blood, that sin's price might be paid to the justice
of God. You must build an altar there,
the way to the tree of life. If you want to worship God, if
you want to find God, you can only do it through an altar and
a sacrifice, which is looking forward, the type which is looking
to the anti-type, which is Christ, the reality. The type can never
take away sin, but by faith, by faith, It looks forward to
Christ who does take away sin. You must break all worldly ties
because the people of God, headed for heaven, are at best sojourners
in this world. We're just traveling through.
It's not our home, we're just traveling through. Look at Hebrews
chapter 11 with me. Hebrews 11 and verse 14. Let me read these verses to you.
Hebrews 11 and verse 14. Talking about the people of faith. For they that say such things
declare plainly that they seek a country. Not a physical country.
And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they
came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.
He's speaking about Abraham directly coming out of Ur of the Chaldees.
They would have had opportunity to have returned, but now, now
that they've come out at the command and the revelation of
God, they desire a better country. That is unheavenly. Wherefore
God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared
for them a city. That is what the people of God
should be looking for, that city. Go to Bethel, says God to Jacob,
and dwell there. Dwell there around gospel truth. You know, where you first saw
that ladder, such a clear picture of Christ and the way from sinful
earth to sinless heaven, the altar there, the way to the tree
of life via the way which is Christ, the way, the truth and
the life, the way of redemption accomplished, the price of liberty
from sin paid, redemption. That's what Christ did. He came
and redeemed his people from the curse of the law by being
made the curse that justice demanded in their place. And God's promise
is affirmed there. They're to be separate from society. They're to be separate from the
culture of Esau. Jacob's twin brother, but nevertheless,
full of worldly prosperity and goods and this is the life that
I want. No, it's not. Not if you're in the hands of
God. Be separate from that society. Go back to the good old waymark. The good old thing that marks
down the way to truth. Biblical gospel truth is the
good old waymark. Go back there. What about believers
today? You might say. How does this
apply to us? Well, Bethel may not be a physical place. But
is it not a call to be separate from this world and the culture
and the thinking of the world? 2 Corinthians 6 verse 17, You
who believe, Whatever state you're in, regarding
the world around you, and the society you live in, and your
career, and your family relationships, if you believe we need to get
back to our Bethel, where we met with God, to our inner holy
solitude. Do you know what I'm talking
about? Peace with God. You know, what's the main sense
that comes from believing the gospel of grace is peace with
God. Being justified by faith we have
peace with God. Peace! Why? Because blood has
been shed. What the law demanded has been
done. A quiet communion, an inner communion, that the world sees
nothing of and can know nothing of. and thinks that there is
a delirium. I read the account the other
day of a woman who was in her 80s and she was dying in hospital
because she'd been messed about with this Covid thing and the
doctor was treating her and this person that wrote this piece
was observing that this woman was quite contented. Now is her
time. She said, I've had a good life,
but I know it's my time to go. I know I'm not much longer for
this world. I believe in God. I know that my life is in...
This is what this woman said. And do you know what the doctor
wrote on her notes? This woman is clearly suffering from a delirium. Yeah, the world thinks that if
you believe what true believers believe, you're delirious, because
they cannot discern the things of the Spirit of God. He, Christ,
is the pearl of greatest price, outshining everything that the
world offers. And we're called to Christ. What
does he say? Seek ye first the kingdom of God. All these things
that you need for life, and even a lot that you don't need, the
oil, and the wine, and to make your face shine, and to make
your heart... He gives you those on the way. But, but, but, all
of these things for this life, don't seek them. Seek first the
Kingdom of God. And all these other things will
be had. I want to be happy. Yes, I know you do. Doesn't everybody?
But if you're in the hands of God, even what the world would
regard as the saddest state is actually the happiest state.
What does the world see when it looks at us? I'm speaking
to all of you out there listening to this now. When it looks at
your family, yourself on your own and your family, your values,
your riches and aspirations, the things that you value, is
it a godly house? Or is it indistinguishable from
the world? Go back to Bethel. Why Bethel? Because it is there that God
met with Jacob. This is God's house to me. Verse
20 of chapter 28, Jacob vowed a vow saying, if since God will
be with me and will keep me in this way that I go and will give
me bread to eat and raiment to put on so that I come again to
my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God and
this stone which I have set for a pillar shall be God's house.
This is God's house to me, where I meet and commune with God.
This is where I meet with him, on gracious gospel terms of acceptance
and peace. As long as he is settled in Shalem,
Shechem, this sin and this chaos and he stinks in that society.
But God brings Jacob to realize his mistake. Look what Jacob
does in response. Verse 2 of chapter 35, Jacob
said to 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 will make
there an altar unto God who answered me in the day of my distress
and was with me in the way that I went. And they gave unto Jacob
all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their
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. Even if society around
is bound to idolatry, and materialism, and godless thinking, and blatant
sin against God, not so my house. Like Joshua, choose you this
day whom you will serve, whether like the people around you, or
the God of our fathers. As for me and my house, we will
serve the Lord, says the head of his household. Heads of gospel
households, take the lead. This is God's way. It's completely
contrary to the culture of the world in which we live, which
despises this. But this is the truth of God,
and it's the blessing that God pours out. Heads of gospel households,
take the lead. By example, and with God-given
authority. He's authorized you, he's commanded
you to do it. Take all the idolatrous emblems
and the thinking that goes with them and bury them under that
grand old gospel oak. He buried those jewels and those
idolatrous symbols under an oak in Shechem. It's a gospel oak
that we need to bury them under. That's the place, you know there
is a place in North London, Hampstead I think, called Gospel Oak. And
it was an old oak tree where The gospel used to be preached,
you know, the Whitfields and the like used to go there. Gospel
oak. This is where all this idolatrous thinking needs to be buried.
And they returned to Bethel, and they went safely, it says.
Those that they feared, those amongst whom they had begun to
stink, it says that when a man's ways please the Lord, he makes
even his enemies to be at peace with him. And here at Bethel,
he builds an altar, El Bethel, El, God, Elohim, God, Bethel,
the house of God, God of the house of God, around the truth
of effectual redemption. That's what is maintained there
in that altar and the worship that took place there and the
sacrifices, the types that look forward to the anti-type, the
truth of effectual. Effectual gets the job done,
works accomplishes its purpose, effectual redemption, it's maintained
there in that worship. Whatever we do, wherever we go,
the God of Bethel must be our central focus. That should be
our prayer, shouldn't it, in our meditation. Lord, take not
your spirit from me, prayed David. Take not your spirit from me.
Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, the God of Bethel should be our
hope and our comfort. Does this mean all will be endlessly
materially well in life? No, because we still live in
this realm of sin and this veil of tears. Verse 8, Deborah, Rebecca's
nurse, died and she was buried beneath Bethel under an oak and
the name of it was called Alonbachoth, the oak of weeping. Surely everything
would have gone well with them now, wouldn't it? No, Deborah,
Rebecca was Jacob's mother. So Deborah would have been an
old lady, but it seems like she's been with the family for years
and years and years, and probably had nursed many, many generations
of their children. And she was very dear to the
family, and that which was so dear to them was taken away from
them. So dear to the whole family,
and she's buried under the oak of weeping. still in this life,
whatever our state before God, still in this life, in this flesh,
it's a veil of tears. And God who loves his children
as a loving heavenly Father, chastises his children for our
eternal good. There is divine pruning, you
know, it's often in scripture. The chastisement of God is pictured
as pruning. Pruning looks hard and cruel,
We've been doing some pruning in the garden, and it looks hard
and cruel, and the trees look very bare and sore and hurt as
a result. You watch in a few months' time,
it'll be a mass of green and growth. There's divine pruning
by God for our eternal, fruitful benefit. To remove earthly props,
let me give you an example. Rebecca was removed from them.
But think about a loved pastor, a loved husband, a powerful preacher,
taken from the people of God. I always remember when I first
started listening to true gospel tapes in the 1980s, and Henry
Mahan and Scott Richardson and Maurice Montgomery would often,
often refer to what old Barnard used to say, Rolf Barnard, who
ministered the true gospel when virtually nobody else was in
the 1950s and the 1960s. Rolf Barnard preached the truth
of God with great, great power. And just when everybody thought,
well, he's such a powerful, powerful, valiant for truth, God took him. God took him. Think about for
us over here, Bill Clark was such a valiant standard for the
truth of gospel grace against the rampant legalism that afflicts
the churches of this country. And Bill was the one that stood
against it. I remember him saying so clearly, set the people free
and how all the legalistic preachers nearly lynched him for saying
it. And he was such a pillar for the truth, and 22 years ago,
coming up for 23 this year, God took him from us. Powerful preaching
to the French-speaking world, God took him from us. Think about
Don Faulkner, less than a year ago, end of April last year.
Such a powerful preacher, such a friend of us, such a warm-hearted
friend, not to mention, the loss of him to Shelby, his wife. But
do you know, it's all in the hands of God. And it hurts and
it's painful, but it's to teach us not to lean too much on men,
but on God at Bethel. That's the thing. When that was
done, the eternal promises were reaffirmed. Look at verse nine,
God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out of Paddan Aram,
and finally he's come back to Bethel, and he blessed him. And
God said, you're Jacob, but you'll no more be called Jacob, but
Israel shall be thy name. Prince with God, and he called
his name Israel. And God said to him, I am God
Almighty. You be fruitful and multiply,
because from you all the nations of the earth are going to be
blessed. You be fruitful. Kings shall come from your loins,
not only kings, but the King of kings. Christ the Messiah
shall come from you. This is my promise to you. This
is how I am going to save my people from their sins and qualify
them for heaven. The land which I gave to Abraham
and Isaac, to thee will I give it, that there the Messiah might
come forth. To thy seed after thee will I
give the land. And God went up from him in the
place where he talked with him. You see, the idols of Jacob's
family were buried under the oak, the garments were changed,
the altar had been built, they were near to God, so God talked
with Jacob. They'd return to Bethel, where
God first appeared in gospel truth. You know, it says in Psalm
25, verse 24, the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him. You know, Jesus said to his disciples
in John 15, verse 15, he said, I call you no longer servants. Although he is the master, and
rightfully so, he says, I call you no longer servants, but I
call you friends. For I have shown unto you all
things that my father has shown unto me. He reveals his secrets. That's what friends do. They
share their secrets. The secret of the Lord is with
his friends, with them that fear him. And isn't it so familiar? God talked with him. God is a
consuming fire. God is the God into whose hands
it is a fearful thing to fall. He is a terror. God is angry
with the wicked every day. But this God here didn't boom
from Mount Sinai, you know when the people were terrified in
the days of Moses when they'd come out of Egypt. No, he didn't
boom from Mount Sinai, but he talked with Jacob. How does God
talk with us? In scripture, as we read it,
prayerfully seeking its meaning. in preaching as we listen to
those that God has clearly put his seal upon, as those who speak
with the Good Shepherd's voice, the under-shepherds speak, not
wolves in sheep's clothing, beware of them, even of your own company
you've got to beware, but when When a man is raised up to preach
and speak with the voice of the Good Shepherd, and his people
hear it, the voice, and know it, and follow him, it's there
that God speaks with his people. And in prayer, as we pray, we
don't just recite words, we pray from the heart, and God communes,
and we meditate on the truths. And it's a foretaste of eternal,
intimate communion. In verse 11, the promises are
reaffirmed, that of a company of nations, multitudes saved.
Jacob hadn't forgotten this completely, no, he set off back from labour,
he knew he needed to go back, he hadn't forgotten, but the
promise of God made back in Genesis 28, It had been relegated to
a dark corner of his experience. But now, at Bethel, it's brought
back out into light, in a new frame. Spurgeon used a very good
illustration of this point. He said, often the truths of
God in our experience become like dark old paintings hidden
away up in the attic. And you find them one day, and
what you went up there for was not the picture, but you find
this picture and you bring it down, and you put it in light,
and it's covered in dust and dirt, and you clean it up, and
the light shines on it, and you see it again in a new light.
Has that happened to you? That in a new frame of experience
in this world, the original experience of Bethel, that gospel experience,
seems ever new. Has it happened? Have you come
back to Bethel, And has God revitalized his promises to you? For the
promise is unto you, says Acts 2.39, and to your children, and
to all that are afar off, as many as the Lord our God shall
call. Everything good? Again, everything good? Yes,
but Rachel died. the love of his life, Rachel
died. You know, someone said, the hallowed flame of God, the
chastising flame of God, will consume much that our unhallowed
flesh would like to keep. So then, in closing, we must
believe, we who believe, we who believe, must always be conscious
that heaven is our goal, not the things of this world, not
worldly happiness, though God does promise to give us all that
we need for life and godliness as we progress through this life.
So let us seek always to reside at Bethel, wherever that place
physically might be, it doesn't matter. Whether it's a prison
or a palace, one end of the spectrum to another, it's incidental if
our souls are set in Bethel. Amen.