I want to read for you these
first seven 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,
all that were with you. 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 which 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. So Jacob come to Luz,
which is in the land of Canaan, that is Bethel. Now you remember
when Jacob first left his house and he came out to Luz, he built
there an altar. Well, actually, he laid his head
down on some stone. And God gave him that vision
of the ladder that reached from its base was on the earth, reached
all the way up into heaven. And when he awoke the next day,
he built an altar there and he changed the name of that place
from Luz to Bethel, House of God. And he built there an altar
and he called the place El Bethel because there God appeared unto
him when he fled from the face of his brother. Now at the end
of last week's study, I wish I had it on tape, but I don't.
But we left Jacob in a mess. He was in a mess. He was tired. He was weary. He left his house, fled to this
place called Luz. God revealed Himself to him there,
and he went down there, dwelled in the land of his fathers down
there, and He took him wives, had a bad experience with his
father-in-law, Laban, and he came back and he feared Esau
the whole time. Twenty years of strife and fear
and fighting and plotting. He was tired. He was tired. And now Esau was satisfied. Reconciled. Didn't want to kill
him anymore. Laban, his Lying father-in-law
was way behind him now. And Jacob's just tired. He's
not going full steam ahead like he was when he left that little
brook. And the Lord wrestled with him.
He was live or die, I'm going. I'm going. And he went and he
met Esau. And now this is over. And there's
just kind of a sigh. And he's tired. And he tells
Esau, go on. And he said, we're going to take
our time. And he looks over here, and I don't know what it was
about Chicum that drew him in. But whatever it was, it had a
kind of permanence about it. And I'm going strictly here on
my own experience and things. There's been times in your life
when you made a decision to do this or do that. You were drawn
into something, and it had some permanence about it. That's what
you wanted. It just suited what ailed you,
and this is what you wanted, and so you went after it. And
this place had buildings and barns where Jacob had lived in
tents for 20-some years. It was a place of business and
trade. There was prosperity there. He
wasn't struggling anymore. He wasn't fighting with his father-in-law
who robbed him blind anymore. There was substance here, and
permanence, and trade, and business, and the people were friendly.
They weren't hostile toward him. Folks were friendly, and they'd
come up and shook his hand. The place seemed to have exactly
what Jacob longed for. Except that ain't where God told
him to go. God told him to go to Bethel. Way back in Genesis
when we studied. I think it was clear back about
chapter 23 somewhere. He told him, he said, I'm the
God of Bethel. You remember me? You remember
the ladder? You remember my revelation to
you? I'm the God of Bethel. Now get out of this place. Get
back to the land of your fathers. Telling him to go back to Bethel.
But he didn't go to Bethel. He went to Shechem. Went to Shechem. God reminded him of all these
things. Reminded him that he was the
God of Bethel and to go back there. But here, here's old Jacob. Now he's down in Shechem. And here, he's going to learn
what that name means. You remember when we were back
when we were studying Abraham when he come to this place? You
remember what I told you it was? It's that place where you bow. It's that bowing. Receiving the
burden. That's where the burden was put
on. That's what this place is called. Place of the burden.
Bowing of the shoulder. But how could something so promising
bring about so much trouble? This place was promising. These
people were... You know, I know from my own
experience standing here, here's Jacob standing here now, in this
mess. How could a place be this inviting
and be this friendly and be this promising of rest wind up like
this? How could this be? His daughter's
been violated. He's been lied to by the king
and his son. His sons have told lies. And
now here he stands knee deep in corpses and his two eldest
sons covered with blood head to toe, swords strapped on their
sides. And that's not just Esau that
he has to fear. But he's got to fear the whole
outfit now. He's got to fear the Canaanites
and the Perizzites and all these ites. Everybody in the land's
going to hate him now. because of what these two kids
did. But here's what God's telling them. This is the way of the
world. I don't care what the world promises,
it's going to wind up in a mess. That's exactly what the Lord's
teaching. This is the way of the world,
and this is what every believer comes to know in his experience
with God. And that's the line that I did
my best last week to try to draw from this terrible story and
its tragic outcome. God overruled this whole affair.
God did. Jacob didn't. His two sons didn't. Actually, if you go through that
whole chapter, chapter 34, you won't be able to justify a single
person in it. They were all in the wrong, every
last one of them. And yet God overruled that whole
thing for his glory. Overruled the whole thing. whole
affair, and He did what was right and just, and He did what was
best for Jacob and his house, and He did what was in harmony
with His great name, and God did what He did without justifying
any one of them, or anything they said, or anything they did.
And He did what was right. And He always does. Always does. Now I want you to turn with me
to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. This world, this world, which
we live. Even the very ground we walk
on is under the curse of God. That has put you a marker there
in 2 Thessalonians 2. I'm going to be coming back to
it. God spoke to Adam in Genesis chapter 3, verse 17, and he said,
Cursed is the ground for your sake. Even the ground we walk
on, that ground you plant in watermelons, that's cursed of
God. That's why the weeds grew up in him. Cursed. He said, Cursed
is the ground for thy sake, and sorrow shalt thou eat of it all
the days of thy life. Of its inhabitants, God said,
every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continued. And this world, like Canaan,
is just filled with idolatry and wickedness. It's an evil
world. He said he would deliver us from this present evil world. It's hard to imagine that. I
mean, I know we go down through here and we see signs, church
signs and things, and you know the evil of it without me going
down the list and reading all these signs and things. what
these things stand for, and you see that evil, but it's just
hard to wrap your mind around the fact. In 1 John chapter 5,
John said, and we know that we're of God and the whole world lies
in wickedness. That's hard to conceive. Every
thought, every imagination of their thoughts, only evil continues. filled with idolatry and filled
with wickedness. I don't care what it seems to
promise. And whenever and wherever men ignore the light that God
gives them, they soon manifest that true condition of the heart.
And Sodom and Gomorrah were just prime examples of that. And then
the kings that we studied Sunday, I was talking with William and
Nathan before the service. And these two kings Asa in particular
and Josiah, one in 1 Kings 15 and the other one in 2 Kings
23. But when they were cleansing the temple and cleansing the
city, it said, and they ran out the Sodomites. He break down
the houses of the Sodomites that were by the house of the Lord.
And this is where this evil is in men. When God begins to give
a man over to himself, this is the gamut. This is the way it's
going. This is the trail. This is the course. I look at
this country, and I see this country, and the more religion
thrives in this country, the more these things become prominent,
until they're almost socially acceptable today. You get in
trouble if you don't let one of them be a deacon in your church.
up there fighting and arguing and trying to legislate laws
that allows them to marry one another and be legal and have
children, adopt children. I saw a thing on the internet
the other day that just totally just blew me away talking about
an education for child abusers, an education for child abusers
so that they wouldn't be quite so rough in their abuse of children. What in the world? That's religion. That's the end of it. That's
where it's headed. It's headed. That's this world. That's what's
in it. That's the reality of it. Now, it's covered up by other
things. And it's restrained by God. He
tells us that there in 2 Thessalonians 2. He said, only he that now
letteth will let till he be taken out of the way. There is a force
of God, the Holy Spirit of God, that restrains men and keeps
men by providence in these relationships that we were talking about before,
sir, keeps men from being as evil as he could be. He restrains
them by laws and he restrains them by relationships and society. Now, this chapter here in 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2 speaks of two types of people. It talks about a people
that's cursed under the spell of Satan and a people chosen
of God from the beginning unto salvation. Anybody read this
chapter, they're going to come up with that same conclusion
if they read it in truth. But Paul speaks in this chapter
of sin and its results and its ways and its means. He speaks
of the evil of sin and its influence on men. And especially he speaks
on Satan's rule over men and how he uses fallen men to accomplish
his ends. But what I want you to see in
this chapter is what he calls the man of sin and the son of
perdition. That's something you're going
to hear a lot about in our day. You turn on nearly any radio
station there is, and you're going to flip across through
there Sunday morning, and you're going to find some preacher talking
about prophecies, and in time, he's going to start talking about
Antichrist, and the Son of Perdition, and the Man of Sin. And when
he's coming, he's going to come. And when he comes, everybody's
going to have to have 666 in them. And how's he going to do
it? They've got computer chips being sewn under the skin, and
in the head, and tattooed, and I don't know what all. I've heard
everything I've sung. But here's what he said, 2 Thessalonians
2 verse 3, let no man deceive you, talking about that coming
of Christ, by any means for that day shall not come except there
come a falling away first. And that man of sin be revealed,
the son of perdition. Now it's verses like this one
and others like this that talk about antichrist and these things.
These are the foundations of unlearned men who go about trying
to convince folks of a coming incarnate evil man. This man is going to come. And
like Christ who is incarnate God, this man will be incarnate
Satan. And that's what they're looking
for. They're looking for the son of perdition. But Antichrist
is not a single man. And I want you to listen to me
for just a minute. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
embodiment of everything God has purposed to do. Everything
that God purposed to do, He purposed to do in the man, Christ Jesus. There's one mediator between
God and men. Now the mediator, that encompasses
all God's eternal purposes. That goes all the way back to
the everlasting covenant. One mediator between God and
men, the man, Christ Jesus. The first promise of salvation
to men and reconciliation was by the seed of the woman, it's
going to be a man. A man. All the promises of God
all the way down throughout the Old Testament all promise redemption
through a coming Messiah who is a man. A man is going to appear. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
embodiment of everything God has purposed to do. He is the
incarnation of God in a man. The Word made flesh who dwelt
among And everything that God has purposed from the beginning
and promised from the beginning, pictured in the types, prophesied
by the prophets, manifested in Bethlehem, had to do with this
man. He's the God-man. Now, Satan
is not God. He cannot produce a God-man. He can't produce a Satan-man.
He can't do it. He cannot merge himself in nature
with a man. He's not God. Only God can do
that. Satan's not God. Satan's powers
are not like the Son of God's. They're not equal with God's.
He cannot raise the dead. He can't cleanse lepers. He can't
heal the sick. He can't turn water into wine.
He's just Satan. He's powerful, but his power
is in his deceit. It's in his lies. But what he
can do is manifest his ways and deceit, his lies and his purpose
through men. And in the last days he does
this in pretense of being the promised Messiah. Not in an actual
person, but in the concept and representation of the person. He preaches another Jesus. You see what I'm saying? Now
when he's talking about that man of sin, that's what he's
talking about. He's not talking about a literal person, but he's
talking about that person promised of God. And this is going to
be this, except instead of being of God, he's going to be a man
of sin. It's going to be a sinful man.
It's going to be Satan's idea of the Christ. And this is what
the apostles called preaching another Jesus, another gospel,
and another spirit. It's a false representation of
the Christ. Now, I'm going to give you just
a couple of verses, and just be patient with me. I'm headed
someplace with this. In 2 John verse 7, he tells us,
for many deceivers are entered into the world who confess not
that Jesus Christ has come into the flesh. This is a deceiver
and an antichrist. 1 John chapter 4 and verse 2,
he said, Hereby I know you the Spirit of God. He's talking about
ministers here preaching. Every spirit that confesseth
that Jesus Christ is come into the flesh is of God. You notice
how he always ties Jesus into the Christ. This Jesus, he was
manifested of God. He was accompanied by God's miracles.
He manifested the name of God. He justified God in all that
he did. He exalted God's law. His death, his life, everything
that he did was in perfect harmony with the character of God. Jesus
is the Christ. He came into the flesh. And every
spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ has come into the
flesh, not of God. Not of God. And this is that
spirit of Antichrist. Do you see what I'm saying? This man of sin, this son of
perdition, this son of Satan's conception. And he says, whereof
you have heard that it should come and even now already is
in the world. It's the concept set before men
in a person like Christ, but who opposes. You see that there
in 2 Thessalonians 2? He opposes and exalteth himself
above all that's called God. 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 4, or
that is worshiped. so that he as God sitteth in
the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." This man they
preach, this other Jesus that they preach, is received of men.
They hold him within them. They worship him. They hold him.
And him within them gives the appearance, gives the result, of opposing God. He opposes God
in all that God stands for, in all that God is. He's totally
opposite. And he exalts himself above God. He totally ignores
God's will. He talks about man's will. He goes completely over top of
the purpose of God and talks about the free will of man. That's
just antichrist. It's a concept set before men,
so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself
that he is God. The concept of this false Christ
is set before men, received by men in such a way that they believe
and act as God, and allow men to worship them. You go to any
church, nearly in the land, and they're not in there remembering
the covenant, or remembering God, or talking about these things.
They got the oldest and the youngest mother up at the front of the
church. That's who they're honoring. They're not honoring God. They're
honoring one another. We used to have a whole service
on Wednesday evening. They called it a prayer meeting,
but it was a brag meeting. They all got in there and gave
stand-up testimonies of how they let God save them. Back in the day, I thought that
was a great thing. I thought that was a wonderful
thing. I missed that after I got out
of that church until I found out what it represented. Now
I see the foolishness of it. There it is. They worship them
and exalt themselves higher than God. They elevate their goals
above God's, their honor. They promote their will over
God's will. They receive the glory and works
of their own works. And they call that salvation.
They talk about my will, my works, my commitments, my rewards, my
peace. I remember when I made my peace
with God. My everything, my home, my church,
my Bible. You're talking, well, my Bible,
your Bible. I thought it was his Bible. I
thought this was his Word. In the last days, this Antichrist,
this other Jesus, this man of sin, this son of perdition, will
deceive the multitudes. Now watch this, Matthew 24, 21.
For them shall be great tribulation, such as was not seen since the
beginning of the world unto this time, no, nor ever shall be. We're living in those days right
now that our Lord sat before His apostles. He said, great
is the tribulation of that day. And except those days should
be shortened, there should no flesh be saved. It has swallowed
up everybody like a big black hole. It's just sucking everything
into it. The worse the days get, the worse
the economies get, the more the churches flourish. More members
rush down the aisle looking for answers. But he said, but for
the elect's sake those days shall be shortened. Then, if any man
shall say unto you, lo, here is Christ, or there, don't you
believe him. Don't you believe him. Now listen. For there shall arise false Christs
and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders,
insomuch that if it were possible, they'd deceive the very elect.
Now, that's what's going on with Jacob. That's where Jacob's at. That's where Jacob's at. Not
to this extent, as it is in this day, but this world and the religion
of this world, Satan rules these things. He reigns over human
nature. He knows you better than you
know yourself, and he can just twist you like a puppet. Sit there at the strings and
you just dance, do whatever he wants you to do. The picture of this is Jacob
and Shechem, lured into his house, deceived by his outward appearance,
drawn in by a smiling face and his restful promises. And now
see the reality of Antichrist. See where he leads you. See what
he does to your children. In 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul speaks
of the deceived down in verse 10, who received not the love
of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause,
God, now you watch this, God shall send them strong delusion
that they should believe a lie. Who sent it? God did. God did. The preacher, that wasn't
his intent when he got up. But he's a blind man leading
the blind. and they're both going to fall in the ditch. You see
what I'm saying? It wasn't Satan's. It wasn't
Satan's idea to fulfill the will of God. He despises the will
of God. But he did fulfill it. He did
fulfill it. And so did this false prophet.
And so did this man who swallowed up the lie. And God didn't justify
any of them. But he did according to his will.
And that's what happened in Jacob. That's exactly what happened. I see in this picture in Genesis
the natural sons of Israel promising peace through an outward obedience
and ceremony, but in the end killing everybody who bought
into that deceit. Killed everyone. Antichrist always
leaves God's elect in a bad light. And if he gives way to his lies,
he'll find himself and his house in peril. And that's exactly
where Jacob is. He's in peril. Now, the only
salvation that can overcome Antichrist is still in II Thessalonians
chapter 2. The only salvation. that's going to overcome Antichrist
is that salvation with God's purpose from the beginning. And
that's what Paul told them. He said, brethren, he said, I'm
thankful for you. I'm thankful because God has,
from the beginning, chosen you unto salvation through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth. Therefore, he sent me,
and I preach to you, and you receive what I preach. God gave
you and you've obtained that glory of Christ. That's the only salvation that
can overcome antichrist. I'm telling you, I don't care
what it is you believe. I don't care where it is you
go. I don't care whose company you go into. I don't care what
the name of the church is outside. If it's not preaching this gospel
and God doesn't have his hand on that man and on your ear,
You're going to wind up sitting under Antichrist, and you're
going to wind up knee-deep in corpses. And when you look over
your house, they're all ruined. All your children, all your relatives,
all your friends, all of them sitting there in total ruin.
And you know what you're going to say to yourself in that day?
It's my fault. My fault. I knew better. God
told me where to go, and I didn't go there. That's where Jacob's
at. Now God tells him the second
time, get up to Bethel. Get up to Bethel. His election was unto salvation,
and this salvation unto which Jacob was chosen had means. Sanctification
of the spirit and belief in the truth. And these means had an
effectual end. He was called by the gospel to
the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. And where
are these means employed? Bethel. You see what he's telling
you? He preserved him from that mess.
Preserved him. God has places in this world. I want you to hear me. where
he's purposed to make himself known. And he has places where
he'll never make himself known. Never. Never. And God has places. And when
he tells us where these places are and reveals these places
to us, the best thing we can do is rise and get up there.
That's right. Before the coming of the nation
of Israel, these places were known by the altars that men
erected, like this altar that Jacob's getting ready to erect. Then in Israel, when he established
Israel, he met with them in the tabernacle. Later on, he met
with them in the temple, and in our day, in local church assemblies. But to Jacob, this is what I
want you to see, Bethel was God's house. That was God's house.
That's where God revealed Himself to Jacob. That was God's house.
And wherever that is, where God reveals Himself to you, that's
God's house. That's God's house. And Bethel
is where this revelation of God began. And Bethel is where he
saw that ladder reaching from earth up to heaven. And he saw
angels ascending and descending And I know we always conjure
up this vision of these angelic beings and maybe that's what
he's picturing here, but that's not what I see. He calls these
angels ministers, ministering spirits. And these angels I see
as the ministers of God that God gives his messages and blessings
to and he brings them down to man. That's what I see coming
up and down that ladder, especially the Lord Jesus Christ himself,
the preacher, the word. And Bethel was the house of God
to Jacob. And Jacob saw how God's ministers
brought God's blessings to men and carried men's requests back
up to God. Angels descending and ascending
on the ladder. Now watch this. Now, here's where
I'm going with this whole thing tonight. Having now in his mind
and heart clear direction, clear understanding, Jacob begins to
understand a little bit more of what's going on. And he begins
to prepare himself to go up to Bethel and he looks around and
what does he find out? His whole house is full of idols. While he was down there enjoying
the rest and buying into this peace and buying into this fellowship
and buying into these things, God filled his house with idols. all of his servants and earrings
on their ears. You know what that is? He's not
talking about women's earrings here and there. He's not talking
about ornaments that women put on. He's not talking about that. What he's talking about is like
the bond slave who stood up and said and was incorporated under
that law of Moses and he'd stand up there by the door and he'd
say when it was time for him to go out, I'm not going out.
I love my master and I'm going to stand here and they take an
awl, a hot awl, and go up to the door and that man stand up
against that door frame and they take a hammer and they bore his
ear with an awl. And they didn't mark him with
a hole in his ear, they put a ring in it. And that ring is what
identified him as a bond servant. Well, here's these guys running
around here with these little fat Buddhas on their table and
all these other idols that they got. And they got earrings with
those images dangling down on them, showing themselves to be
bond servants to these images and these concepts and these
idols. You see what I'm saying? And
Jacob said, what is it? He said, get them things out
of your ears. Bring me them images. Bring me
these false gods. We're going to Bethel. We're
going to Bethel. You can't wear them things in
Bethel. Bethel's the house of God. That'll
burn you up, you come in there with them things hanging down
in your ears. Get them things off your face.
And they brought them to us. They brought them to us. Brought
all them idols. image that brought all them earrings,
give them to us. And Jacob went out there where
they belonged and left them right there in Shechem. He went out
under that oak and he buried them there. He put them out of
sight. And I don't think he buried them with them watching. I think
he took them out there where they couldn't find them and put
them under that oak tree. He didn't want them to find them.
He didn't want them to ever have them again. You know, every time we prepare
to go to God's house, we need to address these issues. We need
to sit down and clear our minds. You say, well, there ain't no
idols in my house. You ready to believe that? Your
mind's full of idols, same as mine. Covetousness, which is
idolatry. Come in here with that new car
on your mind, boy. Next week, I'm going down to
get you. That big new washer and dryer, it's on sale, boy.
I'll be over there at three o'clock in the morning to get it on the
first shopping day of the year. We're full of idols. I tell you,
we go up to the house of God because we see ourselves in need
of direction and help. That's when a man will start
going seriously, We go because we see ourselves and our home
threatened by this world. This world, here's this world,
now it's in his house. It ain't just out here on the
ground. It's in his house. His daughter's down here in the
house of her own will down there in the house of the prince who's
defiled her. They have to go down there and
take her out of the house. Ain't that where God found me
down in the house? We go because we see ourselves
and our house threatened by this world. We go because we need
strengthened and established in the faith. And we go because
God's presence is necessary to worship and pray. You can't worship
God without his presence. Huh? Oh, God help me to understand
that. All that mess I come out of with
that guitar and sitting up there and strumming that thing and
the drums going and the beat and everybody marching and standing
up and waving their hands and all that, that's not worship. You need God's presence for worship. God's presence. That's why He
wanted to go up to Bethel. He realized God wasn't down in
this place. Just Him. Just Him. And I tell
you this, we go because that's where God tells us to go. Huh? Isn't it? Forsake not. Ain't
that what He said? Better not forsake it then. Just
better not. Our hearts are full of this world
and this world is is always present in our house.
Always is. I've got to get my mind and my
heart out of Shechem and get it set on Bethel. So Jacob calls
upon his house to rid themselves of their idols. And in his zeal
to find peace in Shechem, his house was filled with all these little whatever they
were. There's no telling what they
were. Little silver snake gods and fat Buddhas and all kinds
of things. All these images of Mary. Ideas
of Christ other than how God set him forth. Them little pictures
they hang on the wall, you know. Banners and flags called Christian
flags. All these earrings hanging out
of their ears. You know what these images remind
me of? Baptism. Those earrings is what
marked the gods that they worshiped. Those earrings. People looked
at those earrings, identified them with that god. Isn't that what baptism is? Huh? They'll tell you. They got a
little schedule. They usually keep it up in front of church
up here. Got a little board here. How many was in church last Sunday,
how much the offering was, how many was baptized. Huh? That man was baptized. I wonder what kind of earring
I got on. Don't you? That's what Jacob was doing. Jacob knew where he was going. Playtime was over. He was going
up to meet with God. He was going up to God's house.
And man, he took a close look at himself and he looked at his
house. And his house was full of idols.
And he told them to get rid of them things, and then watch this.
He said, go take a bath. You go take a bath. You get cleaned
up. Now I know that when he's talking
about cleansing here and clothing here, that he's talking about
the atonement of Christ. He's talking about that cleansing
of his blood, and he's talking about that righteousness of Christ
that we put on. I know that. But I'm going to tell you this,
their bathing and their change of garments were in respect and
reverence to God. That was. It was. Now wait a
minute, preacher. This is just a building. This
is just a building. Is it? Is it? God appeared to Moses,
one of the first appearances of God to a prophet. He appeared to Moses in a burning
bush. And Moses turned aside to see
this miracle, this bush that burnt but wasn't consumed. And
he just turned aside and he walked right up to that thing and God
said, hold it right there. Get your shoes off. Now wait
a minute, that's just a mountain, isn't it? It's just a mountain
just like all the rest of the mountains. It's just a chain.
This mountain, that mountain, and there's this mountain Moses
is on. Ain't what God said. He said that ground you're standing
on right here, that's holy ground. Get your shoes off. Joshua came
upon Jericho, brought the armies of Israel up there, and that's
that city, that great city with those big high walls that stretched
up into heaven. that the spies seen and come
back and said we ain't going in. They got walled cities over
there and giants. And they're well fortified and
defended and we ain't going. Now here's Joshua and he comes
up and he sees these huge walls and this fortified city. And he stands there with the
armies of Israel except when Joshua came he saw the captain
of the Lord of Hosts. And he said, who side you on?
And the captain of the Lord of Hosts said, no. That's what he
told him. No. He didn't even answer his
question. He said, no. But I'm for me. And he said, you get
your shoes off. Because that ground you're standing
on right here in my presence, that's holy ground. The tabernacle
was just a tent. I know it had things inside.
I know it had things in there that honored and exalted God.
There were types and pictures. But it was made out of gold. It was made out of fur. It was
made out of woven material. It was made out of silver. It
was made out of chitin wood. It was just natural. It was a
tent, is what it was. Ain't no getting around that.
It was just a tent. But when God's presence settled in that
place, He said, You've washed before you come in here. And
he said, you put on the kind of clothes I tell you to put
on. You put on these linen garments when you come in here. You don't
come in here any way you want to come in here. You come in
here like I tell you to come in here. And he said the same
thing about the temple. He said the same thing all the
way down through time. He pictures this one thing. Now,
I'm not telling you that we all got to wear a suit and that we
all got to wear ties. What I am telling you is this.
When you come into this place, everything about you is a testimony
of the God you come here to worship. Everything. The clothes you wear,
your cleanliness, everything. Everything. The way you come,
how early you come, everything about this testifies of this
before God. And I'm as guilty of it as anybody. He said, we're going up to worship
God. We're going up to worship God. And I'm going to tell you
something, God hadn't changed. And His ways hadn't changed.
Not one out. The only thing that's changed
is our hearts under ungodly influence of antichrist religion. That's
what's changed. That's what's changed. And every
last one of us has this ungodly familiarity with God. We just
want to rush into His presence. Well, I'm telling you, when I
was in religion, we was on a first-name basis. I didn't even call him
the Lord Jesus. We just called him Jesus. We
don't first name. Me and Jesus got a good, we've
seen that. Got a good thing going. God is
my co-pilot. All that kind of nonsense. It's
an ungodly familiarity and it's carried over. It's in every one
of us. Because we grew up in this world. We're surrounded
by it. We're influenced by it and don't even know it. We need
to turn our minds toward it. God hasn't changed. It's just
us. This is God's house. And God
will have those who come here to worship Him come with a godly
reverence. Now I'll just leave that up to
you. I'll leave that up to you. A godly reverence. You know if
you reverence God in your heart or not. You know. But don't treat
these meetings the same as every other event in your life. Just
don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't you... If you make out
a schedule for your week, and you've got a baseball game, and
on Thursday I'm going fishing, and I've got to work every day,
and here's your schedule. Don't put church on the same
page. Put it over here by itself somewhere. Don't line it up with
these events. Don't put it in the same category
as these things. Put it over here and take these
things and arrange these things around this. Because if you don't,
you're going to take this and start arranging it around these
things. You see what I'm saying? A godly
reverence in your heart. Everything we do and say demands
attention before we go up to God's house. And I tell you this,
you set an example for your children when you get here. I don't have
any children here tonight, so I can speak freely. As parents,
set an example for your children. When you come in here, don't
let them romp and roar and tear and rip like they're at home
or out in the yard. It's okay out here in the yard.
I don't care. They're kids. They got energy. They got to
expend that energy. But in here, make them understand
this is the sanctuary where we worship God. Keep them quiet. They come in the auditorium,
keep them as quiet as you can. I've had kids, you can't, you
can't keep it, he'd blow up and it's like a lid on it, little
jiggler wasn't on that pressure cooker, it'd blow up and so will
a kid. They're going to, you know, they're
going to make a little noise. I'm not going to call one out
for that. But I'm just saying make it a
point, make it a point so that they realize as they grow up
a reverence for this place, a reverence. And then I say this, come early. I publish a bulletin back here.
Get that bulletin. Come in here and sit down and
read it. If the bulletin holds no interest to you, open the
Word of God and read it. But get your mind set on worship.
We're too prone to come and this just ain't the place to tell
about the one that got away. You know, we talk about that.
you know, at dinner someplace after. But not here. Here's the
place where you get your mind and your heart set on worshiping
God. And this is where Jacob was.
He was in a mess. We're in a mess. I'm telling
you, think about what surrounds us. Think about your family. Jacob was in real trouble. And
his trouble turned him to seek God, and his trouble sanctified
that familiarity he'd learned down in Shechem. And with a true
heart, he begins to prepare his house to go to Bethel. And when
he gets there, now there's already an altar there. He erected an
altar there. Now, I don't know if you caught that when I read
those seven verses, but in verse seven, Jacob builds another altar. He don't call it Bethel. He calls
it El Bethel. You know what El means? God.
Beth means house of. And he called it house of God
the first time when he got that revelation. Now God's gotten
him out of all these messes, reconciled him to his brother
Esau, got him out of this mess down here, and now calls him
up to his house. He hasn't let him go. He hasn't forsaken him.
He's still with him. Still with him. He'd bring him
up here and now Jacob begins to realize who God is. And he
builds another altar and this altar says, God of the house
of God. Too much I think we just flippantly
call churches the house of God. But some of them have God over
the house. God over the house. That's what
Jacob, he went back to Bethel and he built him one there and
he said, now this is hell Bethel. This is the God of the house
of God, and we're going to worship Him.