And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell
there, and make there an altar unto God that appeared unto thee
when thou fleddest from the face of Esau, thy brother. Then
Jacob said unto his household, and to 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 which I went.--_Gen.
35, 1-3._
The passage before us refers to a very interesting part in the
history of Jacob. To escape the fury of his brother, Esau, whom he
had deprived of the patriarchal blessing, Jacob, at the proposal
of his mother, Rebecca, flees to the house of his uncle, Laban. On
the first night of his journey he dreamed he saw a ladder reaching
from earth to heaven, angels ascending and descending upon it, God
standing at the top; and God also speaks to the poor pilgrim resting
on a stone beneath. He assures Jacob that He was the Lord God "of
Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac." He promises to give the
land of Canaan to his seed, to render his offspring illustrious
and innumerable as the stars of heaven, and finally, in one of
his descendants, to bless all the families of the earth; and to
accommodate Himself still more to the condition in which Jacob then
was, He added: "And behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in
all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this
land; for I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have
spoken to thee of."
Deeply impressed with this vision of God's presence, Jacob arose.
But before he proceeded upon his journey, he vowed a vow, saying:
"If 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,
and of all that Thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto
Thee."
Twenty years had passed since that occasion, years of hard service
and vexation, when Jacob resolves to return home. He crosses the
Ford of Jabbok, where he wrestled with the Angel, and comes to
Shalem. Here he buys a piece of ground, builds an altar, and lingers
for seven or eight years; he was now enjoying the delights, the
comforts of home and of plenty. God had fulfilled His engagement
with him to the letter,--He had been with him and defended him,
led him back to his country in peace and prospered him, who had
had nothing but a staff in his hand when he fled before the face
of his brother, until he was now two bands. But where is now his
vow, where his altar, where the tenth of all his possessions, as he
had promised? Nor does he show the least disposition to redeem, to
perform it; and so it becomes necessary for God Himself to stir him
up; and thus reads the first verse of the text: "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."
From this little piece of history let us seek to derive some
instructive observations, and pertinent with this Sunday, the
character of which is well known to you.
First, we may note how soon the influence of impressive scenes
wears away, how quickly we lose the sense of God's mercies, and
the religious feelings they produce. If a person had seen Jacob
on the morning after his vision, when he was leaving the spot
made sacred by his experience there, and had said to him: "God
will accomplish all thy desires; He will guide and keep thee, and
bring thee back enriched and multiplied, but thou wilt live year
after year unmindful of thy vow," he would have exclaimed, "What!
is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?" How were the
Israelites affected when God appeared at the Red Sea? They sang
His praise, they resolved to distrust Him no more. They said, "All
that the Lord commandeth us will we do." But they soon forgot His
words and the wonders He had shown them. They murmured, and they
rebelled time and again; all their vows and promises were written in
the sand, and the first returning wave of trouble washed them out.
If some kind of spiritual device, after the manner of our present
day, could be invented to secure our feelings in certain periods
and conditions of life, so that we might afterwards review them
and compare ourselves, what revelations it would disclose! Like a
sieve, full while lowered, but, when raised up, empty and dripping,
or like water, which has a natural tendency to be cold, if it has
not a perpetual fire below to keep it warm, so do we constantly
need means and helps; so necessary is it to have our minds stirred
up by way of remembrance; and as we learn from our text, God also
does that. He reminds His people of forgotten duties. Various are
His ways of doing so. One of His principal designs are afflictions.
When difficulties are upon us, it is then that we remember former
deliverances and vows, and our ingratitude in not keeping them.
Another such witness and monitor is man's conscience, which accuses
the transgressor, and often presses a thorn into man's side.
Ministers of the Gospel are also God's remembrancers. Their business
is, not to bring strange things to your ears, to entertain you with
novelties or speculation, but their calling is to remind you of
things you already know. As St. Peter writes: "I will therefore put
you in remembrance of these things, though ye once knew them," and
St. Paul says: "If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these
things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ." And our
text furthermore shows us that good and pious characters give heed
to these reminders. There is where we perceive a difference between
Christians and others. Christians, it is true, are encompassed with
faults and infirmities, they may err; they may fall, but there is in
them a principle which secures their rising again. A man who is only
asleep is easily distinguished from one who is dead; the difference
will appear as soon as you try to wake them; the one remains
motionless, the other stirs and springs up. The branch of a tree may
bend down to the earth under a pressure, but remove the load, and it
is upright again. When our Lord looked only upon Peter, "he went out
and wept bitterly." Jacob here does not argue the matter with the
Lord. He does not seek to excuse himself.
Thus reads the second verse: "Then Jacob said unto his household,
and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are
among you, and be clean, and change your garments." Here we may
stop a moment to emphasize the truth that there may be wickedness
in a religious family. We find "strange gods" even in Jacob's, the
patriarch's, household, and we may view such a condition in two
ways,--first, as a good man's affliction, and also as a good man's
own fault. An affliction it certainly is to behold wickedness in
one's family. It is bad enough to have bodily sickness and ailment
in the house, but it is immensely worse to have sin, the plague and
pestilence of the soul.
But, could we see things as God sees them, could we trace back
effects to their cause, we would ofttimes not be surprised at the
disorder and wickedness which prevails. How many masters of families
resemble Eli, whose "sons made themselves vile, and he restrained
them not,"--or David, "who had never displeased Adonijah at any time
in saying, Why hast thou done so?"
Others, again, have provoked them to anger, till they are
discouraged; while they preach humility and meekness in words,
they practice pride and passion by example; while they send them
to receive the nurture and admonition of the Lord at the hands
of others, they rarely or ever recommend religion by their own
personal behavior,--and they then wonder at irregularities in their
households. Rather ought they wonder at their own folly in seeking
"to gather grapes of thorns and figs of thistles." Observe Jacob
here, he would not go alone, but calls upon his family, and all
that are with him; everybody must attend. And thus our religious
interest should not be confined to ourselves alone, we must bring
our families along with us to the exercise of devotion.
In our own families we possess authority and influence, and this
authority and influence we are to employ for religious as well as
civil purposes. God holds us answerable for it. There is nothing
more lovely than the members of a family going to the house of God
in company. Such families are nurseries of their churches, and it is
with delight that a minister addresses a hopeful audience made up of
a number of amiable, orderly, serious-minded families. But oh! how
it pains one to see you separated, and coming in alone,--the wife
without the husband, the father without the son, the mother without
the daughter.
Reflect on these things, my beloved. It is sometimes said that so
few of those who make their confirmation vow remain loyal. To me
it is inspiring that so many do remain loyal when you consider the
influence and the atmosphere in the homes they come from. Never
a Christian word escapes the lips of the mother; all kinds of
political, secular newspapers and books are daily read, never a line
of God's Word or a church-paper. All sorts of time set aside for
visits and trivialities on God's day, never for divine service.
There remains yet the third and last verse: "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." Jacob arrives at Bethel, he looks around, he discovers the
stone, now covered with moss, which, twenty-eight years ago, had
served as his pillow. What feelings must have throbbed through his
soul! what shame! what joy! And he fulfills his vow, erects an
altar, does God honor and service, and gives the tenth to Him of all
he possesses.
The application of all this? To you who have this day laid down upon
God's altar your vow of allegiance, let Jacob be to you an example
of warning. God greatly disapproved of Jacob's delay, his forgetting
and breaking of promise, and, as we heard, he himself suffered
by it,--wickedness, strange gods, had gotten into his household.
Vastly more noble than his conduct was that of the woman who one day
appeared in the temple leading by the hand a lad, and, presenting
him to the high priest, said: "For this child I prayed, and the Lord
hath given me my petition which I asked of Him. Therefore, also, I
have lent him to the Lord; as long as he liveth, he shall be lent
to the Lord." You know who he was--Samuel, afterwards Israel's high
priest and judge. May you prove to be Samuels brought hither to the
temple, become useful members. It is only thus you may glorify God.
Or, those who, perchance like Jacob, have neglected their vows, who
blush to recall them, let them take this episode to heart, strive
with the aid of that God who called Jacob's vow to remembrance to
fulfill their engagements; following the patriarch, may they say:
"Let us go up to Bethel," that means, to the house of God. The Lord
grant you Christian courage and determination! Amen.