Return to Bethel

Genesis 35:1-15
Gerrit Buddingh’ | Sunday, November 13, 2022
Copyright © 2022, Gerrit Buddingh’

Let me begin by asking you a few questions. Do you remember the first time you met God? Do you remember that moment when Jesus Christ became your Savior and you surrendered to him as your Lord? Do you remember the thrill of those early days of serving Christ, when everything you did—when you studied your Bible, when you prayed, when you attended the church service, when you fellowshipped with others—everything was alive with God? Of course you do! It was such a wonderful blessing.

But who among us here would have to be honest and say that those memories have faded, that they are all we have left, or almost all we have left? Our Christian life has become routine. Our zeal in the Lord has subsided. Life with God has become mundane. Other interests predominate and we have lost our first love for the things of God.

Arguably, this was true of Jacob. He had had two wonderful encounters with God in a way that none of us have ever experienced. The first was in a dream, the dream that God gave him when he was running from his murderous brother Esau (Gen. 28). The second was more recent. While on his way back to Canaan, the night before he was to meet with his brother Esau, he meets with a stranger and wrestles with him only to discover that he has wrestled with God appearing as a man.

But life has now become more complicated. Jacob has settled down in Shechem where his pagan neighbors were evangelizing his daughter rather than his family evangelizing them. His daughter is then seduced by one of the pagans, and his two sons, Simeon and Levi, then murder all the local townsmen while they were incapacitated from just having had a rather sensitive medical procedure done on each of them. Jacob is understandably concerned about whether the men of the surrounding towns will join together and attack him, trying to wipe him out and wipe out his entire clan.

Like Jacob, we Christians sometimes sink very deeply into the painful trials that come our way. At times, it seems as if every earthly prop has been cut out from underneath us. What then? First Corinthians 10:13 tells us, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” The Greek emphasizes God’s faithfulness to his people. It read, “Faithful now is God . . .” Even in difficult times, underneath us are “the everlasting arms” of the Almighty. None of us can sink so deeply in distress and affliction but that the covenant grace of our ever-faithful God will still encircle us and bring us through.

You and I as Christians may find ourselves sinking under troubles from without and from within. But even then we cannot be brought so low as to be beyond the reach of God’s everlasting arms. They are underneath us and thus sustained all Satan’s efforts to harm us will be to no avail.

Let us now examine how God operates in Jacob’s life to bring about spiritual renewal in him. We will consider, first, “God Speaks to His Servant”; second, “Go Up to Bethel”; third, “Purify Yourselves”; and, fourth, “Back to God.”

1. God Speaks to His Servant

Genesis 35:1 begins with the words, “Then God said to Jacob.” In this way, God is telling us that the events of this chapter chronologically follow the tragic incidents of Genesis 34, where Dinah is violated, where the revenge killings of the local townsmen of Shechem by Jacob’s two sons take place, and where they take all the surviving females as captives and plunder the booty.

Jacob is distraught, and it is now God who unilaterally intervenes and directs Jacob specifically as to what he is to do. The last time we saw this happen was in Genesis 31:3, 13. It was perhaps as many as ten years earlier. Jacob was then living in Paddam Aram when God spoke to him: “Then the Lord said to Jacob, ‘Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you. . . . I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now leave this place at once and go back to your native land.’”

Since that time, Jacob had returned to Canaan and first lived in Succoth and then in Shechem. But this whole Shechem incident happens precisely because Jacob went to Shechem and settled in instead of going to Bethel, where he was supposed to be.

Now, at last, God’s divine direction comes to him. He is told, “Go up to Bethel and settle there.” Interestingly, Bethel is about 28–30 miles south of Shechem. It is not that far. It would be like God telling you or me to move from Davis to Fairfield, or to the Galleria in Roseville. It is also the last recorded place Jacob was at before he left the land of Canaan well over twenty years earlier. He was there previously, and there the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. . . . I will bring you back to this land” (Gen. 28:13, 15). As a result, Jacob himself gave this location the name “Bethel,” or “The House of El,” meaning “The House of God” (Gen. 28:19).

God now tells Jacob to go back and settle there. And Jacob built an altar there to God, who appeared to him when he fled from his brother Esau. That occurred back in Genesis 28. At that time, after his vision in the night of a ladder going up to heaven, Jacob had awakened and vowed this vow: “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth” (Gen. 28:20–22).

Although Jacob had built an altar at Shechem when he was there first (Gen. 33:19), it is now time to return to Bethel, the “House of God,” and build an altar there. It is time for Jacob to fulfill his vow made to the Lord decades earlier. And it is time for you and me to be where God wants us to be rather than where we think we would like to be. If God is your Lord, you will do and go and be where he wants you to go and be. So in the context of Jacob’s life falling apart, God directs Jacob back to Bethel, to the house of God, to return to what was his first love.

Perhaps your life this morning seems to be falling apart, and God is speaking to you, telling you what he wants you to do. It is time to get back to Bethel, back to God, back to the house of God. Things do not have to stay the way they are. God has a plan for you, and it is illustrated here in our text concerning Jacob. From his example, we will explore what we can expect when we return to the Lord after a time of being on the periphery. We can now get back to that place of intimate fellowship with him.[1]

2. Go Up to Bethel

Bethel is where many years earlier Jacob had stopped to camp overnight when he was running away from his brother Esau, who wanted to kill him. There Jacob had this vivid dream in which he saw a stairway resting on earth and going up to heaven. The staircase had angels of God ascending and descending on it. And there above it stood God, who said, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham, and the God of Isaac” (Gen. 28:13). Then God promised to bless Jacob with a vast number of descendants who would spread over all the globe, and that he would give the land of Palestine, of Canaan, to Jacob. More importantly, God promised to be Jacob’s covenant Lord, watching over and keeping him wherever he might go and then to bring Jacob back to Canaan. God then reiterated his promise never to leave Jacob until God had done all that he had promised, which is a way of saying, “I will be with you always” (see Gen. 28:10–17).

Let us now examine the impression this God-sent dream had made on Jacob’s mind. It is not clear from Jacob’s life when he was regenerated, truly born again, but it was probably there at Bethel when God first speaks to him.

Certainly, in every Christian’s life, there is a point in time best known to God when a person’s soul passes from eternal death to eternal life, when a child of wrath becomes a child of God. But while we are justified by faith, we are not yet made sinless.

This may cloud things from a human perspective, as it certainly did in Jacob’s life and it does in our lives. But we are nonetheless new creatures in Christ while at the same time our earthly lives are checkered with many spiritual failures as well as spiritual growth. And that process of sanctification is not over until our race in this life has been fully run. There is a real sense in which that old t-shirt initialization, PBPGINFWMY, is true of each of us: “Please be patient; God is not finished with me yet.” And this was true of Jacob’s life.

Jacob’s dream at Bethel was not an ordinary dream that just faded away with the shadows of the night as the morning dawned and as morning coffee kicked in. No, this dream had a real powerful and lasting effect on him. He was impressed with a sense of the presence and nearness of the invisible God who made a covenant to be his God and to watch over him for his good.

When Jacob awakened out of his sleep, he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it” (Gen. 28:16). He had had a clear conviction that the holy God had visited him in a significant manner. “He was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God’” (Gen. 28:17). Now, Jacob was not a baby-boomer, simply declaring, “Wow! Far out, man! Awesome!” Rather, he responded with a sense of fear. The King James Version renders what Jacob said this way: “Surely the Lord is in this place. . . . How dreadful is this place!” There is something intensively terrifying about a true awareness of the presence of the Most Holy God in your life. Maybe that is why Jacob avoided going back to Bethel. When the thrice-holy God reveals himself to you, you fall down before him and cry out, “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty” (Isa. 6:5).

Jacob was overawed and made a solemn pledge to God, essentially saying, “It is you and me, Lord. I am your bondservant now.” Notice Jacob’s piety: “If God will be with me and watch over me” (Gen. 28:20). He doesn’t ask for the advantage of powerful friends or riches in life. He counted the lovingkindness and care of God better than life, and the favor of God more valuable than worldly friends or honors. Such love for God is an essential feature of true piety.

Then, too, notice Jacob’s self-control. God promised that his descendants would be innumerable and spread over all the globe, that he would bring Jacob back to Canaan, that all the peoples of the earth would be blessed through him and through his offspring, and that God would be with him. But Jacob responds by saying, “It is enough, O God, that you are with me and will provide for my basics and safely bring me back here to my Father’s house.”

How few people there are who are content with Jacob’s request. I speak, of course, of those in the church who claim Jacob’s God as their God, but with whom there still seems to be a powerful, lingering attachment to the world and its allurements for which, although they have professed to renounced them, they are still wrongly striving and conniving like Jacob later did to obtain the world for themselves.

Witness here, though, Jacob’s gratitude to God. He acknowledged that all that he might ever attain in life was from the merciful gift of God, and that he, in turn, would acknowledge God as his covenant Lord and King by tithing back to God. “This stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth” (Gen. 28:22). Worldly men and women may be generous toward other people that they deem needy or worthy or who might give them some advantage. But such people are rarely generous toward God. And how important it is for us as Christians to properly begin life with God and then to continue it always expressing gratitude and thankfulness of all his many mercies to us.

Unfortunately, Jacob does not seem to then have gone on to live a particularly close life with God in Paddam Aram. In fact, Jacob seems to have for the most part ignored God. But God had not forgotten him. When Jacob is in trouble with his brothers-in-law for supposedly have stolen a significant portion of their father’s wealth, God intervenes (Gen. 31:3). He appears to Jacob and directs him to go back to the land of his forefathers and relatives. Most importantly, God again promises to be with Jacob.

But while Jacob does go back to Canaan, he isn’t fully surrendered to God. He doesn’t fully keep his word. He doesn’t go back to Bethel, where he knows God had manifested himself previously in such an intense way. Even though Jacob knew that God had watched over him and kept him all those years in Paddam Aram, and that God had most recently protected him from his father-in-law’s revenge and from his brother Esau’s wrath, Jacob seems to be half-stepping-it with God. And the question before us this morning is, are you half-stepping-it with God?

Jacob parks his family in Shechem. Yes, he acknowledges God as his God and builds an altar to God, calling it “El Elohe Israel,” meaning, “God, the God of Israel,” the new name God had given him. Yet Jacob stops short. He doesn’t go to Bethel.

How like us at times! We know the place God wants us to be, but we stop short. We know what God is telling us to do, but we drag our feet. We are not expressly told why Jacob did this. Perhaps he had gotten a deal on some land just outside of Shechem that had good pasturage and a clear view of the town. But it wasn’t where God wanted him.

This incident feels a lot like Lot’s behavior. Surely Jacob had heard his father telling the story of his great-uncle Lot moving his family and herds near to Sodom and then finally moving into that city. That didn’t go particularly well for Lot and his family, and yet Jacob seems to be repeating the same mistake.,

But there may be another explanation. It may be that Jacob is afraid of being too close to God. He likes God’s being with him to help him when he is in trouble. But he doesn’t want to fully surrender to God, to God’s daily oversight of his life. He knows that God is an all-holy God and that there is sin in his life and in his family’s lives.

There is only one cure for this worldliness. The only cure for worldliness is to separate from it. Jacob would have to leave Shechem and go to Bethel. That is where God wants him and his family to live, to dwell there in the house of God. And this has a direct application to you and to me. If you are one of God’s elect and he has directed you to do something, but you don’t seem to be ever getting around to doing it, God has a way of touching you personally. He might either touch your health or your spouse or your child or your security. Here God touches Jacob’s daughter and his family’s security. They are forced, in a sense, to move to Bethel and to God. Although Jacob had built an altar in Shechem, it is now time to build one in Bethel, the house of God. It is time to keep his vow made to God many years earlier.

3. Purify Yourself and Your Family

In Genesis 35:2 we read, “So Jacob said to his household and all who were with him, ‘Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you and purify yourselves and change your clothes.’” Here we see Jacob finally exerting his God-given calling to be the head of his household. He responds to God’s command with obedience.

Notice, however, that Jacob’s family gets right with God only as Jacob himself does. This again shows us the tremendous leadership role that a man is to have within his family as head of the household. A man resisting God will have the same negative effect on his wife and his children. A man who gets right with God will also see the godly effect throughout the whole family. This reminds us that the best thing parents can do for their children is to choose God, to choose God’s path for themselves, and to live it out in faithful obedience and worship to God at home and in the workplace and in the church.

Note, however, that Rachel had kept the household idols of her father, and Jacob’s children and servants clung to their foreign gods probably because of her example. And all the while Jacob said nothing.

Now, no matter how hard we try to teach our children godly conduct, they usually will continue to do as we do. Husband, it isn’t your wife’s responsibility to be sure the family makes it to the house of God for worship. It is yours. It is your responsibility to ensure that your household operates according to the standards of God’s word. It is your responsibility to have family devotions. It is your responsibility to set a godly example. And you, sir, will have to give an account to God of how well you led your family in the things of the Lord. I don’t know about you, but that makes me tremble.

We see in Genesis 35:2 that Jacob finally acts. He is no longer passive. He takes charge and commands his family and household to repent and rid themselves of their own idols. It is commonly thought among commentators was that this was speaking about the idols that Rachel had stolen from her father as they were fleeing from Mesopotamia. And certainly Jacob is addressing Rachel here. But not just her. In just a few verses, our text mentions other things that were included. Jacob returned with many servants from Mesopotamia, as we have already seen. They probably each had their own idols that they had brought along with them, and he had recently acquired all the women and riches of Shechem, and that probably included some more idols.

So as they are now preparing to move at God’s direction to the house of God, Jacob orders his household, “Get rid of the foreign gods that you have with you.” If they are going to worship God at Bethel, then they have some housekeeping to do. When you and I truly approach God, there is always some housecleaning that we each must do. There is some serious repenting that needs to be done because God is holy, and therefore we must live holy lives if we are to live in his presence.

In our text, repentance means getting rid of foreign gods. The one true and living God revealed in the Bible hates competing gods. Thus, he commands us to have no other gods before him. He will not put up with any competition in the life of a Christian. Anything in Jacob’s camp that detracts from or nullifies the worship of the true God is to be disposed of. Jacob and his family and we too are to now live singleheartedly for Christ, for God.

Jacob and his family now model this picture of repentance for us. Repentance is a change of mind that results in a change of direction in life. So they bury their idols, probably in a place known only to Jacob so that they can no longer be retrieved. They then also move on so that the idols are left behind them forever.

When a person repents of something, it changes his thinking about that issue and he turns and walks away from it, putting some distance between himself and that particular thing. Repenting means to turn and never return. Return to God, not your idols.

Perhaps there is someone here this morning who needs to do that very thing. There are some things in your life that you need to repent of this day. You need to change your mind about the value of those things, and you need to change your direction in life and walk away from those things that are causing you to sin. You need to put distance between yourself and those things.

In verse 2 Jacob says, “Change your clothes.” This is an important step, both literally and as a symbol of what is happening in Jacob’s and his family’s spiritual lives. Throughout the Bible, clothing symbolizes a person’s character. The inward life of the unregenerate man or woman is compared to a polluted garment. So it follows that washing and changing of one’s clothes is something that is seen throughout the Bible as being done in preparation for meeting with God.

We see this in Exodus 19:10, 14 at the giving of the moral law. “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes.’ . . . After Moses had gone down the mountain to the people, he consecrated them, and they washed their clothes.” Ephesians 4:22–24 gives a similar expression: “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

So Jacob instructs his family and household to clean up and be dressed in their Sunday best and be renewed in their spiritual thinking in order to come before the God that they had so long neglected. In verse 3 he says, “Let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.” In this statement, Jacob acknowledges his vow that he had made earlier to God.

Note, too, that in all the family’s newfound zeal to please God, the household gives Jacob all their idols—not just some, but all the foreign gods that they had. And they go one step further: the women give the earrings in their ears. Probably the earrings were some sort of talismans or religious charms, so the family gets rid of them. We see something similarly happening in Acts 19, where Luke records how a number of new converts in Ephesus who had practiced magic arts brought their occult books and burned them in the sight of everyone. From this, we see it is important for everyone in the household to take stock of what he or she may have in their life that is ungodly or connected with ungodliness or false worship or disobedience to God and get rid of all such things.

Here Jacob buries the offending articles under an oak tree in Shechem. This may be the oak of Moreh, under which Jacob’s grandfather Abraham had pitched his tent in Genesis 12:6. Moreh in Hebrew means “the early autumn rain,” the rain that comes after planting. (GJB) It is used this way in Joel 2:23: “Be glad, O people of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given you the autumn rains in righteousness. He sends you abundant . . . rains, as before.” Here God blesses Jacob’s and his family’s repentance with the blessing of his presence and protection. The autumn rain has come—the autumn rain of the Holy Spirit—and we need it too. And though Jacob’s family had been seriously disturbed by the local pagans, the terror of the Lord falls upon these wicked neighbors so that none of them pursue Jacob and his family (Gen. 35:5).

Having purged themselves of all that is unclean both physically and spiritually, Jacob’s family can now go boldly up the house of God to meet with God. Their clean clothes are an outward reflection of the inward faith they now have.

4. Go Back to God

Here we see that we are not just to put away sin, but we are also to go to God. Interestingly, in the sordid tale told in Genesis 34 about Jacob and his family, never once is the name “God” used. But in Genesis 35, where we find Jacob and his family turning wholeheartedly to God and moving to Bethel, God is mentioned over and over and over again, twelve times, plus eleven times more in names such as Bethel and Israel. God blesses our attempts to repent and turn to him, and he blesses it with himself. In repentance and in faith, there is found true fellowship with God.

Jacob and his family now arrive at Luz, and Jacob once again renames the place “El Bethel,” meaning “God of the house of God,” for it was there that he had first met God (Gen. 35:7). Jacob first had come all alone. Now he comes with four wives and at least twelve children, as well as servants, flocks of animals, and wealth. Everything that God had promised earlier to do for him had been granted in full. God had watched over him and protected him and blessed him with abundance. So now a grateful Jacob builds an altar to God in this place where God had earlier, decades before, revealed himself.

Back in Genesis 28, Jacob in response had made promises to God. He had made vows to God. He had said, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey and provide me with food to eat and clothes to wear, so that I may safely come back to my father’s house, then the Lord will be my God” and he promised to tithe (see Gen. 28:20–22).

He memorialized this oath by raising up a stone monument. Now, this “pillar of promise” set up decades earlier becomes an “altar of fulfillment” of that promise. In acknowledgment of it, Jacob calls the place “God of the House of God.” It is no longer focused on him, the God of Israel, although that is true. It is God. The focus is all on God and not on Israel, on Jacob.

Jacob had vowed, “If God will be with me and watch over me, I will serve him and him alone.” This was probably not stated as a condition on which Jacob would accept God, but rather the thankful acknowledgment of divine assurance, the acknowledgment that a son would make towards his father: “You are with me, and so I will follow you,” like a son who says, “Will you truly be with me? Then you will be my God.”

This commitment is memorialized, it is remembered, it is made a covenant commitment, a monument to the governing presence of God in his life. It is an expression of his submission to God. Jacob had promised to tithe to God. A tenth represents a share of the whole, and in this way Jacob recognizes God’s sovereign rule over his life. He yields his heart, his home, and his treasure to God. Have you done so?

Jacob promised to serve God, and God had promised his favor, his presence, his protection and his peace. God had fulfilled everything in full. Jacob promised his surrender and submission. But as it turned out, it was not full-orbed. Jacob had not fully made good on his vows. His vows were not fully repaid. And now God comes collecting.

Ecclesiastes 5 tells us that we should “guard [our] steps when [we] go to the house of God. . . . When [we] make a vow to God, [we must] not delay in fulfilling it. God has no pleasure in fools; so fulfill your vow. It is better not to make a vow than to make one and not fulfill it. Do not let your mouth lead you into sin. And do not protest to the temple messenger, ‘My vow was a mistake.’ Why should God be angry at what you say and destroy the work of your hands? Therefore fear God” (Eccl. 5:1, 4–7).

Now some say Jacob may have forgotten his solemn vows, but I doubt it. We all can conveniently develop amnesia when we think it is in our self-interest to forget, especially after when God has gotten us out of a jam or even a whole set of jams. We probably each have at some time or other offered up “foxhole” prayers in the heat of the battle: “Lord, get me out of this mess and I will serve you.” But how quick we are to forget when we are delivered and life becomes routine again.

God, however, does not forget. God always keeps his word, and he insists that we keep ours as well. God promised to watch over and protect Jacob. God was faithful. He sovereignly intervened in Jacob’s life and delivered Jacob from many troubles. But God, who does not forget his word, had not forgotten Jacob’s promises either—promises to serve God. And I might add that God doesn’t forget your promises either.

Jacob’s promise had been made about thirty years earlier, and now God calls him back to where he wants Jacob to be. He brings pressure to bear on Jacob and on us, through trials and difficulties, to make Jacob and us willing. But even in the wake of the disaster at Shechem, it is not until the Lord speaks to Jacob that Jacob starts to go back to Bethel.

In our text, we discover that God sovereignly and graciously directs Jacob to go back to that place of first blessing. God is calling him back to that place of first love, to that place where the things of God were fresh, alive, and exciting.

Now, I think it is safe to say that many Christians find themselves in Jacob’s condition today. Their lives display spiritual indifference towards God. Perhaps there are some people here this morning who started well with the Lord. You were saved by grace, and you started out zealously doing the things of God. But somewhere along the way, in living life, you have grown cold towards him. You now find yourself in that low place spiritually, a place that you never envisioned at first.

This is not a new problem. It was the problem of the church in Ephesus, and they were warned about it. In Revelation 2:4–5 we read, “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you first had. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.” That was spoken to the whole church, but it is also spoken to us individually and as a church here.

If you are in that place, in that low spiritual state, God has a word for you. The word is the same counsel that he had for the Ephesian believers: “Consider.” “Remember.” “Think back” to where God found you and what he has done for you in the past when he saved you by grace. Remember and realize that he both deserves and requires better from you now.

“Return.” God’s call to Jacob and the Ephesians was “Return.” “Turn about.” Stop going the way you have been going and do the next right thing in Christ. So the call is the same for you and me. When we wander away from God, he re-directs us to come back. And, thank God, he will receive us and he will restore us. When we return to him in humble repentance, he returns to us.

Then “Repeat” the first works. God’s call to Jacob and to the Ephesian believers is exactly the same. They were to do the first works of their first love all over again. In Genesis 28:16–22, Jacob met with God, and when he did, he began his walk with God by performing an act of worship. He humbled himself before God, he called on the name of the Lord, and he dedicated that altar and his life to God. Those early steps of commitment were essentially the same as what is described as “first acts of love.”

Now, Jacob returns to Luz (that is, to Bethel) with all his household and builds another altar (Gen. 35:6–7). The place is called “El Bethel,” because that is where God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.” In this way, Jacob is fulfilling his promises, his vows, made to God.

The name of the altar is worthy of inspection, comparing it to the name of the altar in Shechem (Gen. 33:20). In Shechem, the altar bore witness to God’s relationship to Jacob: “God, the God of Israel.” But now at Bethel, it is entirely lost. Jacob is, in a sense, out of the picture, and God alone is mentioned: “The God of Bethel,” “The God of the House of God.”

This was a higher and more noble thought. Instead of thinking of God in relationship to himself, Jacob now thinks of God alone.  His spiritual condition is higher and his conception of God is higher also. This is a return to his first love. The result is, God appears to him and blesses him. How wonderful is that word again! Reconciliation had been accomplished, and now there is no cloud between Jacob and God. God did not appear to Jacob at Shechem when he was still not fully in God’s will. But now that Jacob has obeyed God and fulfilled his vows made so many years earlier, God appears again and blesses him again.

God is calling his people in this place back to the place he had first in our lives. He is calling us to come back to the place where our souls were aflame with love for him. Remember those days when just the mere mention of the name of Jesus would bring tears to your eyes? Remember those days when singing “Our God Reigns” made you want to shout? And that is where God wants you to be again. Remember when you loved worshiping, loved reading the Scriptures, and loved fellowshipping with the believers? Remember when God was first and when he got your best?

That, my brother and sister, is where God is calling you back to. He is calling you back to Bethel today. That is where he bids you to return. Repent, and return in renewed vigor and re-dedication to serve and love God from today forward.

Friend, you don’t have to live in the memory of your past love for God. You can repent and return today, this morning, and he will receive you and forgive you and fellowship with you. First John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” God will restore you and bless you again. Jacob did this, and his life took a new direction, and yours can today too.

Finally, there are some here this morning who need to come to Bethel for the first time. You know that you have never trusted in Jesus as your Savior. You have never obeyed him as Lord. Turn to him today and be saved, for “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

May we each be able to leave here today saying with the psalmist, “Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will declare what he has done for me. I cried out to him with my mouth and praised him with my tongue. If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But God has surely heard; he has attended to the sound of my prayer. Blessed be God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld from me his loving devotion!” (Ps. 66:16–20, Berean Standard Version).

 

[1] For it is time for us to “leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God. . . . And God permitting, we will each do so” (Heb. 6:1, 3).