Sermons from Lone Rock Bible Church
Stevensville, MT
Index of LRBC Sermons: www.sermonlinks.com/Sermons/LoneRock/Sermons
Ju.y 31, 2005

Home at Last – Not Quite . . .
Genesis 35:1-29

After many, many years of being away from Isaac and his homeland, Jacob at last returns to Hebron. We might think he is finally home, but Hebron is not heaven. Let’s journey with our friend . . .

To Bethel (35:1-15)
To Hebron (35:16-29)

The pictures we save, the pictures we want to remember tend to be happy ones. They tend to be highlights. Sometimes, in reading the Bible, in interacting with others, in hearing testimonies, we can get the impression that the Christian life is supposed to be that way. A series of happy times and smiling snapshots – but life is not a snapshot. Life is a travelogue, unscripted, unedited. It is a journey that we take with God with highs and lows, successes and failures. Running like a river through the whole thing is the mundane. Just life, day after day.

That is perhaps why I am drawn to Jacob and his story in the Bible, because we get it all. We see through the consistency and the faithfulness, not of Jacob, not of Isaac, not of anybody, only of God. Jacob is going to take his final earthly journey in Genesis 35. If we could take anything away from Genesis 35, it ought to be a sense of how we need God until we are truly home.

The journey is really divided in two parts, to Bethel and to Hebron. This is sort of a geographical thing and really only maybe 70 miles of territory are covered from where they begin in Shechem to where they end in the southern end of the land in Hebron, with a significant stop at Bethel.

To Bethel (35:1-15)

¹Then God said to Jacob, "Arise, go up to Bethel and live there, and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau."
²So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, "Put away the foreign gods which are among you, and purify yourselves and change your garments;
³and let us arise and go up to Bethel, and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone."
⁴So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods which they had and the rings which were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the oak which was near Shechem.
⁵As they journeyed, there was a great terror upon the cities which were around them, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob.
⁶So Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him.
⁷He built an altar there, and called the place El-bethel, because there God had revealed Himself to him when he fled from his brother.
⁸Now Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and she was buried below Bethel under the oak; it was named Allon-bacuth.
⁹Then God appeared to Jacob again when he came from Paddan-aram, and He blessed him.
¹⁰God said to him,
         "Your name is Jacob;
         You shall no longer be called Jacob,
         But Israel shall be your name."
         Thus He called him Israel.
¹¹God also said to him,
         "I am God Almighty;
         Be fruitful and multiply;
         A nation and a company of nations shall come from you,
         And kings shall come forth from you.
¹²"The land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac,
         I will give it to you,
         And I will give the land to your descendants after you."
¹³Then God went up from him in the place where He had spoken with him.
¹⁴Jacob set up a pillar in the place where He had spoken with him, a pillar of stone, and he poured out a drink offering on it; he also poured oil on it.
¹⁵So Jacob named the place where God had spoken with him, Bethel.

We would think that tragedy would cause a person to think and in thinking, a person would repent. I remember hearing a story about a cowhand who had a fight with his wife. It was an unpleasant domestic scene. He decided he had had enough. He was feeling miserable about his life and his marriage. He knew that God expected better of him. He went out the door, jumped in his pickup truck, roared off down the road up in the hills, lost control of his vehicle, rolled down an embankment. He put it something like this, “When the vehicle finally stopped rolling, the hood was smashed down and kind of had me all scrunched over in a praying posture. I figure God had me where He wanted me and maybe I had better do business with Him,” and he did.

You would think that Jacob, after the tragedy at Shechem, would be shocked because of the Shechem tragedy. After all, had not Jacob dropped his guard, had he not settled too soon, had he not failed to be vigilant with regard to his family, particularly his daughter, Dinah? He had been presumptuous, spiritually lazy so God said ok Jacob, it is time to get back to Bethel where you said you would return many years ago. Remember your vow, Jacob.

Jacob knew it was time to get right and so he is turning with his entire family toward a spiritually familiar and meaningful place. Decades earlier, having fled from Hebron, going north at that time all by himself, a fugitive from the wrath of his impetuous brother, he stopped for the night many miles from home sure he was safe. There on the ground with a rock beneath his head for a pillow, Jacob met God for the first time. His entire life up to that point had been a life of manipulation and deceit and favoritism in the home. It had been a mess. He knew something of a promise from God but the God of the promise he did not know. But he met Him that night. A lone man beneath the stars, he saw the vision in his dreams of a ladder ascending to heaven with the angels and the voice of God making him a promise.

Jacob then made to God a return promise and now these many years later he is positioning himself to fulfill it.

Jacob calls his household around and now he has a large retinue of people, wives and concubines, and children and animals and servants and all kinds of holdings. He said, “We are going to Bethel.” Bethel means the house of God. We are returning where I had a meaningful spiritual encounter with God, where I was converted and now we are going back and going to honor that. We are going to get right with God. Give me all those little idols, those little statues. Give me those talisman earrings that some of you are wearing. We are going to be done with all the gods we used to carry around with us. I will bury them at Shechem. What better place is there to bury them than the scene of the heinous crime of his two sons?

So Jacob dug a hole and in went the statues. I’m sure he even made Rachel cough up with the one she had stolen from her father. Into the hole, we are finished with that. We are on our way to the house of God.

Sanctification is always a good idea, especially when drawing near to God. Unlike to his approach to Shechem, where he had just lived in tragedy, now Jacob prepared his way. He had not prepared for Shechem. He prepared when he knew he was going to meet Esau, and now he is preparing again because he going to meet with God. Put them away, change your clothes, and wash yourselves – symbolically indicating your readiness to meet God.

It’s interesting how the Bible is like a zoom lens. Here we are in the encampment of Jacob. Now the camera and scripture zooms back and we see what God is doing around them that they cannot see at the moment. He is going before them and striking terror into the hearts of all the neighboring tribes. They will leave him alone because God is in it and He is determined to get Jacob where He wants him to go. To Luz, or Bethel, he and all his people. That is significant because when he left all those years before, it was just Jacob. God made him a promise on this very spot way back then that he would return in a great company of people. God kept His word and Jacob is now back, Jacob and all those who are his.

Jacob built a serious altar there, not just out of the stone where he had rested his head. He stacked up the rocks, reemphasizes the name “God, the God of Bethel,” and Deborah dies.

⁸Now Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and she was buried below Bethel under the oak; it was named Allon-bacuth.

Interesting – a parenthetical verse. What does this have to do with anything? Who is Deborah? We have only met her indirectly, many chapters earlier.  She had come with Rebekah, Isaac’s mother. She had been Rebekah’s personal care nurse for years and years. She was there and then she died. This tells us back in Hebron, Rebekah now is gone. Isn’t it interesting that Rebekah, who was such a key player when it came time to be devious and manipulative and try to steal the blessing from Esau, but in all of her sin and her deviousness, she slips into Biblical obscurity and even dies without mention.

Rachel’s nurse is evidently more virtuous than she. With the death of Rebekah, where will Deborah go? She is no longer needed there. What better place to go than to the favorite son of Rebekah, Jacob. The Bible gives her mention in her honor. She was worth remembering and so Jacob remembered her with a funeral and a monument that would stick in the mind. God appeared to Jacob again. Verse 9 reaffirms the name change.

⁹Then God appeared to Jacob again when he came from Paddan-aram, and He blessed him.
¹⁰God said to him,
         "Your name is Jacob;
         You shall no longer be called Jacob,
         But Israel shall be your name."
         Thus He called him Israel.

The name Jacob means the one who trips us, the one who grabs the heel. He has wrestled with God now. He sanctified himself before God now. He has learned a bit over the years. His name is changed to “The one who strives with God.” He is no longer the man-oriented Jacob; he is now the God-oriented Israel. That is the name by which his descendants will be remembered even down to this day.

God renews His promise. The altar is built and consecrated. The language God uses with Jacob is identical to the language God used with his grandfather Abraham and with his father Isaac. The promise to Jacob now is sure. It is marked with a monument and then, God went up from the place where He had spoken to him. The renewal of God’s promise is always a key. We want to hear it over and over again as we go through life. “I am with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you. No one may snatch you from my hand. I am committed to you. If I gave Jesus I will give everything.” We hear God’s promises over and over again. Everybody needs a Bethel. Everybody needs an experience with God like Jacob’s where for the first time we come to realize that life is not only lived on a horizontal plane among other people. Real life is also lived vertically is relationship with the God of heaven who promises to take to Himself those who put all their trust in His Son alone. That is where it begins and everybody needs a Bethel.

The Bible says now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. Stop in your tracks where you are and bow before the God of heaven and surrender your heart to him. Put your trust in the one who paid your way to heaven, in Jesus.

Through life occasionally we need to return to those monuments. Not so much when things are going well, perhaps, but maybe we are prodded more pointedly when things are not well and we need a touch from God. Life is not lived in a snapshot. Life is lived in the travelogue, in the mundane, where there are occasional interruptions of grief or hilarity. We need a Bethel every day. We need to meet the God of heaven every day. A great preacher once said, “I preach the gospel to myself daily and then I go forth to meet what my Lord has for me.” Every day I remind myself that I don’t deserve to be right with God. Every day I remind myself that the blood of Jesus cleanses me from all sin. Every day I reaffirm my trust in who God and what He has done.

To Hebron (35:16-29)

The family rises and continues south to the city of Hebron, where today about 400 Jews live in company with about 30,000 Arabs. Hebron, where that massive structure was built by Herod the Great, who was king when Jesus was a baby. Inside the complex in the most unique place of religious geography in all the world. Inside there is a mosque, a chapel, and a synagogue because three major world religions trace their origins to father Abraham. He lived at Hebron. He is buried there. Now it is time for Jacob, having experienced this amazing pilgrimage, having met God individually at Bethel many years earlier, now meets him in a company that represents the promise of God fulfilled. It is time for Jacob, as did Isaac, as did Abraham, to go Hebron and live out the promise.

The mantle has fallen on Jacob and here he goes.

¹⁶Then they journeyed from Bethel; and when there was still some distance to go to Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and she suffered severe labor.
¹⁷When she was in severe labor the midwife said to her, "Do not fear, for now you have another son."
¹⁸It came about as her soul was departing (for she died), that she named him Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin.
¹⁹So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).
²⁰Jacob set up a pillar over her grave; that is the pillar of Rachel's grave to this day.
²¹Then Israel journeyed on and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder.
²²It came about while Israel was dwelling in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father's concubine, and Israel heard of it.
Now there were twelve sons of Jacob --
²³the sons of Leah: Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, then Simeon and Levi and Judah and Issachar and Zebulun;
²⁴⁽the sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin;
²⁵and the sons of Bilhah, Rachel's maid: Dan and Naphtali;
²⁶and the sons of Zilpah, Leah's maid: Gad and Asher. These are the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan-aram.
²⁷Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre of Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had sojourned.
²⁸Now the days of Isaac were one hundred and eighty years.
²⁹Isaac breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people, an old man of ripe age; and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

As they leave Bethel and head south to Hebron, kind of the last leg of the long journey, shouldn’t everything go well now? They had gotten right with God, removed the talisman earrings and buried the household idols in an appropriate place with great ceremony. They had met God at Bethel. He had spoken again to Jacob, reiterated his name change, and repeated his promise. They had built the monument, did the anointing. Everything ought to be right.

The first problem encountered within miles down the road was the expectant mother, Rachel, Jacob’s favorite, giving birth to her second son. When she gave birth to her first son years earlier, she named him Joseph, meaning, “He shall add,” which means “how about another one.” She had been barren; it was hard for her to conceive. When she had one son, she wanted another one. She is getting her other one, but it is her last act on this earth – giving birth to Benjamin.

She names him “son of my sorrow.” She has every right in the throes of labor and death to be pessimistic and name this little baby accordingly. Jacob, for reasons we may not understand, did not want to call him that. He said he would rather call him “son of my good fortune.” After all, he now has the full complement of sons; that is, twelve. He felt it was complete. He was delighted to have a son. He was grieved to bury a wife. Isn’t life bittersweet? Just when they leave Bethel we have a tragedy in childbirth, just when we have a funeral we have a new life. In these verses in chapter 35 there are three funerals, Deborah, Rachel, and eventually Isaac.

Deborah was very old and Isaac was very old. We come to expect that when people are very old, but Rachel wasn’t. A tragedy of the first order and she is gone, buried in a place called Ramah, which later would be the home of Samuel the prophet. It is almost a stone’s throw from the Mount of Olives.

They move on south, but we are not finished with the problem. Rachel is gone. I have no idea the dynamic in the home, but that leaves her handmaid, Bilhah, free. Reuben is the oldest. His mother is Leah, Rachel’s sister. Reuben is probably at this point in his mid to late 20’s. We don’t know what went on; we don’t know why, but in the absence of Rachel, Reuben transgressed. Was he infatuated? Had he been dwelling on this for a time? I suspect he had. Few acts like this are spontaneous. Was Bilhah complicit? Was she lonely? Did she have aspirations of being the matriarch of a large family? After all, Reuben is the oldest. Is she thinking perhaps, “Now this is my moment”?

We really do not know whether this was seduction one direction or the other but we know it was wrong. During the earlier sanctification, I’ll bet that Bilhah and Reuben buried stuff beneath the oak. I’ll bet they made it all well outwardly. I’ll bet they wanted to do right inwardly, but they learned the lesson that many learn in this life and that is whenever you move, you can leave some things behind but you always take yourself along. These two learned that lesson first hand.

The flesh does not die as easily as burying a trinket beneath a tree. The flesh is here to stay. In the case of these two, despite their best outward gesture and their location, they fell. Scripture says that Israel heard of it. What that means is that we are not finished with that. He will come back to it in Genesis 49 and Reuben will pay the price.

Rachel dies and Reuben transgresses. But Jacob has a full quiver and he arrives in Hebron. Isn’t that how life is? The twelve sons are listed here not to show the prolific ness of Jacob, but to show the faithfulness of God. Jacob went out empty; he came back full, even as God had promised that he would. Arrival in Hebron and old, old Isaac dies what might be called a good death. He is an old man. His two sons, Esau and Jacob – who had been estranged and are now reconciled – join together at the grave of their father. That had to have blessed the heart of the old man.

Hebron - home at last. He is home and how Jacob has arrived. Now his life should be an even keel, but it is not to be. More trials and joys await this man. We are finished with Jacob here, but God is not finished with Jacob. It will not be too long before his favorite will turn up missing. Jacob will be told that wild beasts have devoured Joseph as the other boys conspire together and lie to their own father.

There will be a famine in the land and Jacob will wonder where his next meal is coming from. There will be a report that there is food in Egypt and Jacob will know that it is Egypt where he must go even though it is shameful to leave the land of the promise. He will understand the shame but he will know the joy of reuniting with his son Joseph. His life, you see, is not over. Sometimes we are that way. We get to this station of life thinking finally I have a full time job, finally I have met and married the person of my dreams and now we can have a life, finally my kids are raised and off on their own living good lives and now we can at last . . . Or, now we are retired and we have freedom and time and fixed income and some flexibility. . 

Then we hit the lows. Then we hit the highs. We always think we are home, at least home free, and we never are, or are we? I heard a story long ago about veteran missionaries who had given 50+ years to medical missions in darkest Africa. They were well up in years when finally the ravages of old age took their toll. This dear husband and wife had to return home. This is long ago. They boarded a steamer from Africa and headed west across the Atlantic Ocean to dock at New York City. They were looking forward to being home and finishing their years back in the states and getting reacquainted with family and friends. They noticed as the ship was being tied up to the dock that a brass band had formed on the pier below them and that there were many people with streamers and banners and flags, “Welcome Home.” They looked at one another a little bit bewildered and then they realized there was a celebrity or royalty on the ship and this was all for that person.

Big welcoming committee. Huge music and celebration as the celebrity and his entourage go down the gangplank to dock and be embraced. The old gentleman looked at his wife and said, “For just a minute there, I thought that was our welcoming home party.” His wife looked at him through her old eyes and said, “Darling, we’re not home yet.