There is an old West African proverb which says, “The man who tries to walk two roads will split his pants.” (Janet Weiss, Leesburg, Florida, heard in a conversation by her father, a missionary to the Maninka tribe; www.PreachingToday.com)
That’s the way it is with those who try to live for the Lord and the pleasures of this world at the same time. They are trying to walk two roads, which can only lead to disaster in the end.
That’s what happened to Jacob. God had called him back to Bethel, but he chose to settle just 15 miles away in Shechem at the crossroads of trade where he could get rich. Sure, he built an altar there, but his attempt to live for the world and for the Lord at the same time tore his family apart. Jacob’s daughter fell in love with a man who violated her. His sons became murderers and thieves, and He was disgraced.
Adrian Rogers once said, “Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you’re willing to pay.”
Some of us have been there, haven’t we? We’ve walked away from God only to find it costing us more than we ever thought it would.
Even so, God in his grace wants us back for Himself. He calls us to come home to Him and provides a way back. You say, “Phil, I’ve made a mess of my life. How can I find my way back to God? How can I find my way back to joy in His presence again?”
Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Genesis 35, Genesis 35, where Jacob found a way back to God and shows us the way back, as well.
Genesis 35:1 Then God said to Jacob, “Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.” (NIV)
Even though Jacob had messed up so badly, God was not done with him yet. God in his grace calls him back to the place where they first met face to face, and Jacob listens to that call.
Genesis 35:2-3 So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. Then come, 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.” (NIV)
Jacob makes plans to go back to Bethel to meet with God, but 1st, he has to get rid of all the idols they have picked up along the way.
Genesis 35:4 So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem. (NIV)
Evidently, the rings in their ears were magic charms. You see, they had stopped trusting in God and had begun to put their trust in magic charms and other things, which didn’t do them much good, did it? So Jacob buried all their idols and charms, declaring that they were going to trust in God and God alone.
Genesis 35:5 Then they set out, and the terror of God fell upon the towns all around them so that no one pursued them. (NIV)
The Lord protected them like no other god could.
Genesis 35:6-7 Jacob and all the people with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan. There he built an altar, and he called the place El Bethel (i.e., the God of Bethel), because it was there that God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother. (NIV)
Jacob heard God calling him, “Come back to Me.” He got rid of all their idols, and he returned to the place where he first met God. And that’s what we must do if we want to find our way back to God. That’s what we must do if we want to find our way back to joy in His presence.
First, we must listen to God calling us back to Him. No matter how bad we’ve messed up, God desires us to be with Him forever. As Josh McDowell put it when he was here, “God is passionate about being in relationship with us.” That’s why He sent His Son, Jesus, to die on a cross for our sins and rise again. Jesus paid the penalty for our sins, so we could be in relationship with a Holy God.
So now, in His grace, God is calling us all to come back to Him, but before we do that, like Jacob, we have to get rid of the idols. We have to bury anything that we’re depending on for our security besides the Lord Himself, and Resolve to trust God and God alone. It may mean letting go of a relationship that we know is not right. It may mean letting go of some of the stuff that gets in the way of our relationship with God. It may mean giving away some money, which if truth be known has become our security, more so than God Himself.
That’s not hard to do when you realize that hanging on to these things is like “rummaging around the garbage piles of life and avoiding the true source of satisfaction.” Paul Copan, in his book, Is God a Moral Monster, says such behavior “reminds him of a comic strip [he] once saw of a dog who had been drinking out of a toilet bowl. With water dripping from his snout, Fido looks up to tell us, “It doesn’t get any better than this!” Instead of enjoying fresh spring water, we look for stagnant, crummy substitutes that inevitably fail us. (Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster? BakerBooks, 2011, p.35; www.PreachingToday.com)
Please don’t do it. Instead. listen to the voice of God calling you back to Himself. Get rid of the idols. And like Jacob come back to the Lord. In a manner of speaking, come back to Bethel. Come home to that place in your heart where you first met with God.
RETURN TO THE LORD.
That’s what Adoniram Judson did before he became the father of American foreign missions. When he graduated at the top of his class in college, he headed to New York City to seek fame and fortune as an actor and/or writer. He had left the God of his father, thinking he was beyond such “primitive notions.”
But such a life was empty for him. He was disillusioned, so he headed back to his home in Plymouth, Massachusetts, stopping for a night at a wayside inn. Adoniram had trouble sleeping that night, because a man in the next room was critically ill and moaning and groaning in pain. Obviously, his neighbor in the next room was dying. In the darkness of his room, Adoniram thought about the possibility of his own death and whether he was prepared for it. At times during the long hours he thought about returning to the Christian beliefs of his father, but then he imagined what his college chum Jacob Eames would say about his father’s faith. He waited for morning to come so that the terrors of the night would be forgotten.
Early the next morning, Adoniram went to the innkeeper. “That poor old man in the next room. How is he?” he asked.
“He passed away early this morning,” came the reply. “And he wasn’t old at all. He was a young man, about your age.”
For some reason, Adoniram asked, “What was his name?” It was a rather stupid question, because Adoniram certainly didn’t know anyone in that section of the country.
The innkeeper replied, “His name was Jacob Eames.” It was Adoniram’s college friend whose skepticism had turned Adoniram against the faith of his father.
Dazed, Adoniram Judson returned to Massachusetts and to his father where after three months of a mental and spiritual battle, he “made a solemn dedication of himself to God.” (William J. Petersen, 25 Surprising Marriages, Baker Books, 1997; www.PreachingToday.com)
How about you? Won’t you return to the Lord today? Return to the Lord and…
REMEMBER HIS PROMISES.
Return to the Lord and let God remind you of His commitment to you. Return to the Lord and let God tell you again how much He loves you. That’s what God did for Jacob.
Genesis 35:9-10 After Jacob returned from Paddan Aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him. God said to him, “Your name is Jacob (liar), but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel.” So he named him Israel (one who strives with God). (NIV)
God reminds Jacob of his new name – his new identity – and God reminds Jacob of the nation he would become.
Genesis 35:11-15 And God said to him, “I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will come from your body. The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.” Then God went up from him at the place where he had talked with him. Jacob set up a stone pillar at the place where God had talked with him, and he poured out a drink offering on it; he also poured oil on it. Jacob called the place where God had talked with him Bethel (i.e., the house of God). (NIV)
Jacob came back to the house of God where God reminded him of his new name and of the nation he would become. This was nothing new to Jacob. God had told him these things before, but he had forgotten them in his pursuit of worldly wealth. Now, after he came back to God, God assures Jacob, “I haven’t forgotten My promises even if you have.”
And that’s what God will do for you and me when we come back to Him. He will remind us of His promises and reassure us that He remains committed to us. The Bible says, “If we are faithless, [God] will remain faithful for He cannot disown himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). Even if we forget Him, He never forgets us.
When we leave, He longs for us to come back to Him, so He can bless us and reassure us of His love and His desire to protect and provide for us. That’s the way Jesus described our Heavenly Father in His story of the prodigal son. God is like a father who longs to put his arms around us and throw a party in celebration of our return. He has not disowned us. We are still his sons and daughters through faith in Christ. We still have a room in His house, and He wants to bless us even as He did Jacob.
Just come home to Him. Come back to Bethel, so to speak, and be reminded of His commitment to care for you.
Fred and Cheryl went to Haiti in 1985 to bring a child home that they had adopted. Addie was five-years-old. Her parents had been killed in a traffic accident that left her without a family, but as she walked across the tarmac to board the plane, the tiny orphan reached up and slipped her hands into the hands of her new parents whom she had just met. They described it as her “birth moment,” when in that physical act of grasping their hands, she expressed an innocent, fearless trust in their care.
That evening, back home in Arizona, they sat down to their first supper together with their new daughter. There was a platter of pork chops and a bowl of mashed potatoes on the table. After the first serving, their two teenage boys kept refilling their plates. Soon the pork chops had disappeared and the potatoes were gone. Addie had never seen so much food on one table in her whole life. Her eyes were big as she watched her new brothers, Thatcher and Graham, satisfy their ravenous teenage appetites.
Fred and Cheryl noticed that Addie had become very quiet and realized that something was wrong. Was it agitation, bewilderment, insecurity? Then Cheryl guessed that it was the disappearing food. She suspected that because Addie had grown up hungry, when food was gone from the table she might be thinking that it would be a day or more before there was more to eat. Cheryl had guessed right.
She took Addie’s hand and led her to the bread drawer and pulled it out, showing her a back-up of three loaves. She took her to the refrigerator, opened the door, and showed her the bottles of milk and orange juice, the fresh vegetables, jars of jelly and jam and peanut butter, a carton of eggs, and a package of bacon. She took her to the pantry with its bins of potatoes, onions, and squash, and the shelves of canned goods—tomatoes and peaches and pickles. She opened the freezer and showed Addie three or four chickens, a few packages of fish, and two cartons of ice cream. All the time she was reassuring Addie that there was lots of food in the house, that no matter how much Thatcher and Graham ate and how fast they ate it, there was a lot more where that came from. She would never go hungry again.
Cheryl showed Addie that she was home and would never go hungry again. (Eugene Peterson, Practice Resurrection Eerdmans, 2010, pp. 159-160; www.PreachingToday.com)
Please, come home to the Lord and let Him show you the same thing. Return to the Lord and let him remind you of His abundant provision and His commitment to care for you. But not only that, return to the Lord and let Him…
RENEW YOUR FAITH to face life’s sorrows.
Return to the Lord and gain the confidence to face the hard times as well as the good. Return to the Lord and find the strength to overcome whatever life throws your way. That’s what God did for Jacob. Look at verse 8.
Genesis 35:8 Now Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died and was buried under the oak below Bethel. So it was named Allon Bacuth (i.e., the oak of weeping). (NIV)
You see, coming back to God does NOT exempt us from sorrow. Jacob comes back home to Bethel, and faces the death of a very close family friend. Deborah was his mother’s nurse, who had come with her many years previously when she had left her home to marry Jacob’s father; and no doubt, she helped to raise and care for Jacob too!
Jacob comes back to the Lord and faces the sorrow of death,bBut it is not a sorrow without assurance and a bright hope for the future. Skip down to verse 16 where we see Jacob’s faith even in the face of his own wife’s death.
Genesis 35:16-18 Then they moved on from Bethel. While they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and had great difficulty. And as she was having great difficulty in childbirth, the midwife said to her, “Don’t be afraid, for you have another son.” As she breathed her last—for she was dying—she named her son Ben-Oni (Son of My Sorrow). But his father named him Benjamin (which means Son of My Right Hand or Son of My Strength). (NIV)
In the midst of sorrow, Jacob finds strength to rest in God’s promises for a glorious future. Death is not the end of the story for the believer. It is only the beginning of all that God has promised to us.
Genesis 35:19-20 So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). Over her tomb Jacob set up a pillar, and to this day that pillar marks Rachel’s tomb. (NIV)
It is a pillar of hope! Bethlehem is the place where our Lord will enter this world as a tiny baby laid in a manger. His mother will call Him Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.
Genesis 35:21-29 Israel moved on again and pitched his tent beyond Migdal Eder. While Israel was living in that region, Reuben went in and slept with his father’s concubine Bilhah, and Israel heard of it. Jacob had twelve sons: The sons of Leah: Reuben the firstborn of Jacob, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun. The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. The sons of Rachel’s maidservant Bilhah: Dan and Naphtali. The sons of Leah’s maidservant Zilpah: Gad and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob, who were born to him in Paddan Aram. Jacob came home to his father Isaac in Mamre, near Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had stayed. Isaac lived a hundred and eighty years. Then he breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people, old and full of years. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him. (NIV)
Jacob buried three people after he came back home to God: Deborah, a close family friend, his wife Rachel, and his father Isaac. Coming back to God did not exempt him from sorrow, but it did give him the faith to face life’s sorrows with a sure and certain hope for the future.
Please, let God do the same thing for you. Return to the Lord and let Him renew your faith to face whatever life throws your way.
William Carey, who is called the father of modern missions, began his missionary career to India in 1793. He served the Lord in that country for 40 years, never once returning to his home in England. And throughout those years he translated portions of the Bible into over a dozen Indian languages.
But one afternoon, after 20 years of hard labor, a fire raged throughout his printing plant and warehouse. All of his printing equipment was destroyed and most of his precious manuscripts. Obviously, in that day there were no computer back-up copies or even photocopies kept somewhere else. Tragically, 20 years of non-stop labor was gone within a few hours.
Many people would have been devastated over the loss, but not William Carey. This is what he wrote to his pastor friend, Andrew Murray, in England:
“The ground must be labored over again, but we are not discouraged. We have all been supported under the affliction, and preserved from discouragement. To me the consideration of the divine sovereignty and wisdom has been very supporting.” Then he quoted from Psalm 46:10, where the Lord Himself says, “Be still and know that I am God.” (Bill Mills and Craig Parro, Finishing Well in Life and Ministry, Leadership Resources International, pp. 101-102; www.PreachingToday.com)
Carey found peace and strength in God’s sovereign plan for his own life, even if it included times of devastating loss. & We can find the same thing if we return to the Lord. We don’t find exemption from sorrow, just supernatural strength to face it with hope and joy.
So come back to Bethel, so to speak, those of you who have left. Return to the Lord, and let Him remind you of His commitment to you, and let Him renew your faith to face life’s sorrows.
It’s like picking up the “chance” card in Monopoly, which says, “Return to Go – collect $200.” On the one hand it seems to penalize, but on the other it rewards. So it is with God. Often, he draws us back to the beginning, back to where we began with Him. (Jack Hayford, “Worship His Majesty,” Christianity Today, Vol. 32, no. 12; www.PreachingToday.com)
Oh my dear friends, go back to Him today. Return to the Lord. Return to Go and collect so much more than $200. Collect the hope and joy of being in His presence again.
