Latest / Israel: A Prince with God / Back to Bethel

Transcript

Back to Bethel · Israel: A Prince with God

• 0:00
  Chapter eleven of Israel A Prince with God by F. B. Meyer.
• 0:05
  This LibriVox recording is in the public domain ret by Marianne, Chapter eleven.
• 0:10
  Back to Bethel, Genesis, chapter thirty five. O God, a man's
• 0:17
  heart is darkened. He will not understand. Show him thy cloud and fire,
• 0:22
  and with thine own right hand, then lead him through the desert back
• 0:27
  to thy holy land. E A proctor in itself, Bethel was not much
• 0:36
  imagine a long range of broken hills running north and south. The eastern slopes,
• 0:42
  bleak and tempest riven, descend to the Jordan. The western slopes lie
• 0:46
  towards the more thickly peopled parts of Palestine. In the valley at their foot
• 0:51
  runs the main thoroughfare of Palestine, which has been trodden by centuries of travelers,
• 0:56
  a rough, broken mountain roadway following the uneven course of the valley and
• 1:00
  intersected by innumerable water courses. From this track and upwards, the mountain slopes
• 1:06
  are strewn with large sheets of bare rock, most prone as gravestones, some
• 1:11
  erect as druid crumlachs. No house is within sight, No cultivated lands break
• 1:17
  the stretch of mountain pasture. No domestic animals share the rule of the eagle,
• 1:22
  the wild goat, and the rabbit. But to Jacob Bethel was the
• 1:26
  most memorable and sacred spot in all the earth. It was there, on
• 1:30
  the first night of his flight from home, that the mystic latter had seemed
• 1:34
  to link Earth to Heaven, thronged by angels engaged in holy ministry. Many
• 1:40
  years had passed since then, years of searching discipline, which had revealed the
• 1:45
  meanness the craft, the weakness of his nature. He had fallen far below
• 1:49
  the promise of his early vows. His better nature had held but a spasmodic
• 1:55
  supremacy over his worse. Even the angel Rustle had only momentarily lifted him to
• 2:00
  the level of Israel the Prince, and of late, it would seem that
• 2:04
  even worse symptoms had begun to show themselves. His life at the Gate of
• 2:07
  Shechem had done much to lower his standard and aims, and to assimilate them
• 2:12
  to those of the people with whom he had been associated. He seems even
• 2:15
  to have winked at the idols which were in common request among his people,
• 2:20
  and of the presence of which he was perfectly well aware. There had been
• 2:23
  a time when if his dearest wife wished for graven images, she must have
• 2:29
  them surreptitiously. But now he had become so lax himself that there was no
• 2:34
  need for concealment on the part of any verse two Alas, what a fall
• 2:38
  was this for the man who had built so many altars to Jehovah, and
• 2:43
  was the chosen depository of those truths for which the world was waiting. For
• 2:46
  the world's sake and for his own, it was essential that he should be
• 2:51
  compelled to regain the ground which he had so grievously lost. It was then
• 2:54
  that he said to his household, let us arise and go up to Bethel.
• 3:00
  This impulse was natural. The emigrant who lives in the soft bermudas or
• 3:05
  in a Canadian log house, as he reaches mature life, will find a
• 3:09
  strange yearning rising within him for the highland glen in which he was born.
• 3:14
  He sends many a longing look towards the northern stars, and at last starts
• 3:19
  on pilgrimage. He may find the scene desolate and deserted, Yet he is
• 3:23
  not wholly disappointed. He needed the glut of reality to satisfy the long fever
• 3:28
  of his soul. It was something like this that came to Jacob a voice,
• 3:32
  shall I not call it an instinct? Within him? Cried go and
• 3:37
  dwell for a season at Bethel. Gaze once more on the familiar scene.
• 3:40
  Put your head down again upon that stone which you set up for a pillar,
• 3:45
  and review the way in which the Lord, thy God hath led thee.
• 3:49
  But his untoward circumstances gave a yet further reason he was in terrible trouble.
• 3:54
  He had settled himself down and sunk a well for his supply, which
• 3:59
  became so famous as to be known through all succeeding time as Jacob's Well.
• 4:03
  He was intimately identified for several uneventful years with the life of the locality,
• 4:09
  and then his sons made his name stink among the inhabitants of the land by
• 4:13
  the frenzied passion with which they had revenged their sister's dishonor. He was an
• 4:17
  imminent danger of destruction from the infuriated tribes around him. He must go somewhere,
• 4:23
  And it was at this moment that the impulse came to him to go
• 4:26
  up to Bethel. He might not have heeded it if the waters of earthly
• 4:30
  comfort had sufficed for his urgent need, but now that they threatened to fail,
• 4:35
  and even to turn to poison, he was the more ready to try
• 4:40
  what Bethel might afford of comfort and safety, of satisfaction and restoration. A
• 4:46
  drying well will often lead the spirit to the river that flows from the throne
• 4:49
  of the Lamb. But above all, that impulse originated in God himself.
• 4:56
  God said, unto Jacob, arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there.
• 5:01
  No human ear now catches the tones of that majestic voice. Yet God
• 5:05
  often speaks to us also through our own consciences and within our own souls.
• 5:12
  Yes, and he speaks oftener than most of us are aware. We do
• 5:15
  not always distinguish the voice within us to be the voice of God. We
• 5:18
  act on an impulse we know not why. But as we review our path
• 5:23
  from the sweet summit of religious revival to which we have been led, we
• 5:27
  recognize with thankful awe that the voice to which we listened was none other than
• 5:31
  the voice which Jacob first heard speaking to him in his angel haunted sleep.
• 5:36
  Has it not been so with you? You have followed an inward impulse,
• 5:41
  not knowing whence it came or whither it led. You have wandered blindly on
• 5:46
  reaching positions of which you had never dreamed, but which are evidently your special
• 5:49
  sphere. And it is only on looking backwards that you realize how every step
• 5:54
  of your way has been ordered by a wisdom not your own, How the
• 5:58
  impulse originated in him who prompts the swallows to follow the sun to warmer climes,
• 6:03
  and how the voice that called you was the voice of God. But
• 6:08
  there is something better than this blind obedience, and it would be a happy
• 6:12
  thing if every child of God had reached it. God is always speaking to
• 6:15
  us in the incidents of daily life. He has a meaning and transmits to
• 6:20
  us a message in everything which He permits to happen. We are wise therefore,
• 6:26
  when we set ourselves to decipher the hieroglyphics in which his meaning is enwrapped,
• 6:30
  and to question each event as to the tidings which He has entrusted it
• 6:33
  to bring. We are wiser still when we lovingly yet joyfully accept and unquestioningly
• 6:42
  obey. And why did God wish Jacob to go back to Bethel? Because
• 6:47
  Bethel was associated with one of the most blessed spiritual experiences of his life,
• 6:53
  and the summons to go back to Bethel was equivalent to an invitation to return
• 6:57
  to that fervor, that devotion, and those holy vows which had made that
• 7:01
  bare mountain pass the very house of God and the gate of Heaven. Come
• 7:05
  back and be as near to me as you were when you first set up
• 7:10
  that stone and anointed it with oil. There are some words which cannot be
• 7:15
  spoken in our ears without arousing in us an immediate and touching response. They
• 7:19
  come on us as a strain of music or a whiff of perfume on the
• 7:24
  summer breeze, awakening far off memories and exciting emotions long gone by. So
• 7:30
  must the word Bethel have sounded in the ear of Jacob, stirring all his
• 7:33
  better nature, bidding it arise and come forth from its long death sleep,
• 7:39
  and lighting up the nobler spirit of his life. It met with an instant
• 7:43
  response. Then Jacob said, unto his household and to all that were with
• 7:47
  him, put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean
• 7:51
  and change your garments, and let us arise and go up to Bethel.
• 7:57
  And so he came to Bethel. Protected by God's watchful care, and he
• 8:01
  built there an altar, and God appeared unto him again. One many Christians
• 8:07
  are suffering from spiritual declension. They hardly realize it. It has crept on
• 8:13
  them so quietly, but they have drifted far away from their Bethel and Penniel.
• 8:18
  Gray hairs are on a man before he knows summer fruit is beginning to
• 8:22
  rot within long before its surface is pitted with specks, the leaf's connection with
• 8:28
  the branches severed, even when it looks green. The devil is too shrewd
• 8:33
  to make judases. At a stroke, he wins us from the side of
• 8:37
  Christ by hair breaths. We would never think of letting Delilah cut off our
• 8:41
  seven locks of hair, but we do not so much object to her binding
• 8:45
  it with green rise, though she will creepond to the other. So insensibly
• 8:50
  have you been slipping back until you are infinitely farther from God than you were
• 8:54
  in the sacred happy days that are past. Two idols are the inevitable symptom
• 9:01
  of incipient decay. Go at autumn into the woods and see how the members
• 9:07
  of the fungus tribes are scattered plentifully through the unfrequented glades. All through the
• 9:11
  long, scorching summer days. Their germs were present in the soil, but
• 9:16
  they were kept from germinating by the dryness of the air and the heat of
• 9:18
  the sun. However, there is now nothing to prevent it. Nay,
• 9:24
  the dark damp of decay is the very food of their life. Where the
• 9:28
  shade is deepest and the soil most impregnated with the products of corruption, they
• 9:33
  love to pitch their tents. Wherever therefore, you find these fungus growth,
• 9:37
  you may be sure that there is corruption and decay. Similarly, whenever there
• 9:41
  has set in upon the spiritual life the autumn of decay, you will be
• 9:46
  sure to find a fungus growth of idols, the sorrowful symptoms that the bright
• 9:50
  summer time has passed or is passing away from the soul. You may hide
• 9:56
  your idols like rachel, but they will not remain hidden. They will work
• 10:00
  their way forward, until what was hidden as a sin becomes paraded as a
• 10:03
  boast. It may be that some backslider shall read these lines, conscious that
• 10:09
  things are not now what they were between him and God. Such a one
• 10:13
  will bear witness from his own bitter experience that in proportion to the decay of
• 10:16
  the inner life, there has been the growth of some idle love. You
• 10:22
  have set your heart on making a reputation or a fortune. You have loved
• 10:26
  some worthless friend with an inordinate affection. You have lavished yourself on something or
• 10:31
  some one outside of God. And as your energies have waxed in this direction,
• 10:35
  they have waned in the other. No man can serve two masters.
• 10:41
  Either he will love the one and hate the other, or else he will
• 10:43
  hold to the one and despise the other. Three these idols must be surrendered
• 10:50
  before there can be victory or peace. The reason for Jacob's flight before those
• 10:54
  alien tribes was, of course the censurable and merciless action of his life suns.
• 11:01
  But above and beyond this lay the fact that Jacob had been giving some
• 11:03
  measure of countenance to the existence of idolatry in the camp. I always find
• 11:09
  in Christian experience that failure and defeat indicate the presence of some idol somewhere,
• 11:15
  and the need of more complete consecration to God. It may be a hidden
• 11:18
  idol, and it may be hidden by the rachel of your heart, lovely
• 11:22
  and beloved but if it be there, it will be the certain cause of
• 11:26
  disappointment. You say that you do not find yourself able to overcome besetting sin,
• 11:33
  that you are tripped up before you look to Christ, that you are
• 11:35
  sometimes hot as juniper coals and then cold as ice. You talk about your
• 11:41
  experience as if Christ has failed. No such thing. Get down on your
• 11:46
  knees, search out the idols, ransack all the camel baggage. In spite
• 11:50
  of all that, Rachel may say, bring out the accursed things and bury
• 11:54
  them. Put away the garments spotted with the flesh. Only thus will you
• 12:00
  enter upon the life of victory, or will God appear to you again?
• 12:03
  How wise it was for Jacob to bury those idols right away. If he
• 12:07
  had kept or carried them with him, he might have been tempted to bring
• 12:11
  them out again. It was so much better to leave them right there under
• 12:15
  the oak in Shechem before he started for Bethel. I do not think he
• 12:18
  could have counted on God's delivering care. If he had not acted with such
• 12:22
  promptness and decision, God would not have been the escort of a pack of
• 12:26
  idols. Burn the books that had balluted your mind, cut off the hand
• 12:31
  that has made you offend. Renounce the drink that has obtained such a power
• 12:35
  over you, and pour the contents of your cellars down the gutter, lest
• 12:39
  you be tempted to return to them again. Burn your bridges behind you,
• 12:43
  hide the idols under the oak. Mother, said a betting man. I
• 12:46
  have taken the first step to Christianity. I have burnt my bedding books.
• 12:52
  We cannot be surprised at the mighty work of God in Ephesus, after the
• 12:54
  splendid ottaud Fey that took place in the market place, Acts Che nineteen,
• 13:00
  verse nineteen. What a man is that, in most cases his family will
• 13:05
  also be When Jacob's camp saw that he was himself in earnest, they gave
• 13:09
  him all the strange gods that were in their hand, and all the earrings
• 13:13
  that were in their ears. What a solemn responsibility rests on us all in
• 13:18
  our family life, that we should not, by our silence, connive at
• 13:22
  either follies or sins. If those around us see that we are consistent and
• 13:26
  determined, they will not let us go to heaven alone. Christiana and her
• 13:31
  children will sooner or later follow Christian. Jacob came to Luz that is Bethel,
• 13:37
  he and all the people that were with him. This, then,
• 13:41
  is our closing message. Put away your idols and get back to Bethel.
• 13:46
  Repent and do the first works. Pray as you used to pray. Study
• 13:52
  the Bible as you used to study it. Spend the Lord's day as you
• 13:56
  used to spend it. Build now an altar on the same site on which
• 14:00
  you built it years ago. Give yourself again to God. True. A
• 14:05
  sad life of wasted opportunities lies behind you. But do not waste more time
• 14:09
  in fruitless regrets. Forget the things that are behind, stretch forward to those
• 14:13
  that are before. And God will appear to you again and will renew the
• 14:18
  princely name and the princely blessing to which you might have thought that you had
• 14:22
  forfeited. All right moreover, He will promise you marvelous fruitfulness in service and
• 14:28
  far reaching possessions in the land of Promise Verses eleven and twelve. All these
• 14:33
  things are in store for you, if only you will bury your idols and
• 14:37
  go up to Bethel and dwell there. Goodness and mercy shall follow you all
• 14:43
  the days of your life, and you shall dwell in the house of the
• 14:46
  Lord forever return ye back slighting children, and I will heal your backslidings.
• 14:52
  Behold, we come unto THEE, for thou art the Lord, our God.
• 14:58
  End of Chapter eleven.