Genesis 35-36 Pain in the Journey

Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service. This message is by Lead Pastor Don Filseck and is a part of the series Beginning with God, Walking Through the Book of Genesis.

If you would like to contact us, please visit us on the web at recastchurch .com. Here's Pastor Don.

God Meets Jacob at Bethel After the Shechem Crisis

I encourage you to have your Bibles open in front of you, just like every week, this time to Genesis 35, and have it have it open there so that as we walk through the text you can see that what I'm saying comes from there.

Remember at any time during the message you can get up and get more coffee or juice or get up and stretch out in the back if the seats get uncomfortable. Don't feel like you've got to sit there in misery.

You can get up and stretch out or whatever. But last week we left off with the destruction of the city of Shechem. And it was destroyed by the sons of Jacob. We saw that in our text and Jacob was left in fear.

Where we left him last week was he was in fear for his life, fear for his family, that all the other villages would unite against him and destroy them. And so that's where we left off last week, was him terrified that he was going to be destroyed.

He knew that what his sons had done out of revenge last week, and we don't want to get into the details of that again, but what they had done out of revenge had made him, and the text concluded, had made him a stench to the other peoples in the area.

Okay, it was the word odious. It had to do with odor. Okay, he was, he stunk to everybody else around him, and that was his primary fear. But God tells Jacob to pack up and move on. How many of you think he might be eager to do so?

Right, like he's become a stench to all of those around him. But on the other hand, how many of you know that once he packs up his camp and moves, he no longer has the protection of what he knows? And so the moment that he's got to pitch his tent somewhere else for another night, he is vulnerable at the least.

And so I think that we still have a reason, he still has reason to fear, even as God is telling him to pack up and move. And all along in the history of Jacob for the last few chapters, God has been moving him back towards Bethel, the first place that God ever met with Jacob, and the first place that that he really acknowledged God's existence.

If you remember there at Bethel one night, he was running from his brother, his twin brother, who was going to kill him. And so he was terrified, and he was fleeing and heading off to his uncle Laban to find a wife, and his mom had sent him away, and all of that.

And he was scared. And there in the night, God met him in a dream, and we know the Jacob's Ladder situation. It's more like a stairway, but he saw the angels going back and forth to heaven there in a dream.

God appeared to him above there, said, I'm with you, Jacob. I've chosen you, not because you're super good, not because you're super sweet, but because I choose, and so I choose you. And he, and it says that that he woke up in the morning, and he said, surely God was in this place, Bethel, and I didn't know it.

It's like the the blinders were pulled back on his everyday life, and I think probably some of us can recognize that we go about our day, we go about our week, we can go about a month, we can go about a year, without having the blinders pulled back to something spiritual going on behind the scenes, and that's what Jacob found at Bethel.

Surely God was here. Surely God is here in this cafeteria. Surely God is in your workplace. Surely God is in your neighborhood. But do you know it? Are you cognizant of it? At Bethel, that's the type of interaction that Jacob had with God.

How many of you know that that kind of experience, when you realize God is real, and he is present, does that have the power to change your life? To transform you? Those moments, some of you can point back to times, and I talked in one message about the geography of God, and how we can go back to places, physical places, that it can be mapped, found on a map, where we can identify that God met me in this place.

Those are beautiful and glorious places, but that doesn't mean that every time you go to that place, God's gonna meet you. But here in our text, we're gonna see that he sees fit to do so again with Jacob.

So Jacob called a family meeting. He says, God's called us. He's once again told us to pack up and leave, and so he calls all the family together to set his house in order. Now, some of us might be tooling through the story of the Old Testament, just kind of rolling through Genesis, going, okay, you know, things are, they seem to be growing in their knowledge of God.

They seem to be taking strides, and then all of a sudden, we're hit by this. If they're going to be God's people, and they're going to go back to the house of God, which is what Bethel means, they need to take care of a few things, a few small, tiny things.

The first thing they need to do is get rid of their idols. What? Do you mean to tell me that Jacob's family has been worshiping idols all of this time? Anybody kind of go, wait a minute, I gotta go back and read what we just read the last few weeks.

If you, you, anybody with me on that? Kind of surprised that they have idols in their midst that they've got to get rid of? Now, some think, some scholars believe that maybe they obtained these idols, they just got done raiding Shechem, the city of Shechem, where there was idolatry.

So, maybe they just got these last week in last week's message, then they raided the town and they took them. So, that's possible, right? Maybe they haven't had these idols all the time. But, it's worth remembering that Rachel, the beloved wife of Jacob, had stolen household idols from her father Laban when they left and departed his household, and we never discovered what happened to those idols.

We never saw them disposed of or gotten rid of. I really do, I have a hard time imagining Jacob's family had idols to get rid of, and yet it's just plain and blatant right here in the text, they had these things.

And yet, it's abundantly clear that they have to get their house in order. Scripture doesn't paint humanity in a good light. Have you ever noticed that? It paints a picture of a humanity with spiritual ADD.

Looking for, what am I gonna worship? Okay, I'm here at church and church is great, and the next thing you know, we're worshiping something else. All of a sudden, right now in your mind, you might be thinking about your next meal, you might be thinking about all different kinds of things that give you pleasure or give you joy, and all of a sudden, your mind just wanders off into idolatry.

Wanders off into the things that would grab a hold of your life and pull you away from the one true God. This is all of us, this is not just Jacob's family that struggles with idolatry. The fact of the matter is that idolatry is a symptom of the human heart's desire to worship something.

Ecclesiastes says God has put eternity in the hearts of mankind. A longing for that which goes on forever and ever, a longing for that which is above us, a longing in our hearts for worship. I would suggest to you that worship is one of the most natural human behaviors.

We worship, we are designed to worship, and we will worship. The question is what? I would suggest to you that you will not find a human alive that does not worship something. I feel pretty bold in saying that, but I also feel pretty confident in saying that.

All humans worship. Ascribe more significant worth to something else. And even as Jacob takes the lead and encourages his family to jettison the idols on the way to the house of God, shouldn't we do the same?

Shouldn't we be bold in removing and cleaning our house? Cleaning our hearts of idols? I would recommend that every single one of us in the room here take an assessment of what things we have a tendency in our hearts to worship, what draws us in.

For most of us in the room, it's the same thing, and I can identify it and put a finger on it right now, and it's yourself. I would suggest to you that in America, we have no fewer idols, no fewer problems with idolatry than they had in ancient Greece or ancient Rome.

We just have different names for them. We don't worship Zeus. We don't worship Athena. We don't worship the high god of Jupiter. I would suggest that Jupiter and Zeus has been replaced by the self, us.

And then we've got this whole pantheon of other gods that serve the one God that we love the most, us, and that's pleasure and fame and wealth. And I would suggest to you one of the rising stars of the idols in our world, particularly in America, particularly here in Matawan in West Michigan, is entertainment.

We do an awful lot of what we do to be entertained. We work for the weekend, right, and everything is driven. I would suggest to you that money is beginning to take second place to entertainment in our lives, that many would give up wealth if they could just be entertained the rest of their lives.

Of course, you need money to be entertained, and so that ends up being subservient to entertainment. But are you getting what I'm saying in this? We need to take assessment of our own hearts and what things draw us away.

What are the gods and goddesses in our lives? And as we identify the idols that we see, we need to forsake them, we need to bury them, and we need to rededicate ourselves to the worship of the true and living God.

And I think there's an imagery in even just what I'm trying to communicate here about ourselves being the center of our lives. And then, in the New Testament, Paul goes on to say, Reckon yourself dead to sin.

Consider yourself buried to those things that would draw you away from Christ, or we have been crucified with Christ. Ourselves buried, the idol of self buried and raised to new life with God. Jacob's family, here in the text, gives up their idols.

They purify themselves in an outward ritual. There's a ritual involved in this where they change their clothes, they shower, they shave, they clean up the outside, but it's not enough to ever just clean up the outside.

They have an inward heart change of giving up and forsaking these idols. Jacob explains this trip to his family that they're going back to Bethel and reminds them that God is the one who has answered and continues to answer Jacob in the days of his distress.

That's how God has revealed himself. In the day of my distress, God is there to answer me. God has been with him and continues to go with him and has promised to go with him on this trip as well. But notice that this doesn't mean that he hasn't had his share of difficult days.

God has been with me even in and throughout all of the days of distress that I've experienced in my life. And even on this journey to Bethel, he is with him and still Jacob is going to encounter further, deeper, darker heartache.

I would suggest to you that what we see in our text is quite possibly the greatest hardship that Jacob faces in his life. Harder than reuniting with his brother. More difficult than the wrestling that night before he met with his brother.

That what he endures here is one of the pinnacles of difficulty. In verse 4, Jacob has a funeral service. Okay, so there's going to be three funeral services in this text. The first funeral service is for the foreign gods.

When the text says he hid them, it's a technical word, he buried them. He basically has a funeral service for these gods. They're buried under a terebinth tree. Some people translate that oak tree, terebinth tree.

But he buries them under a terebinth tree near Shechem. And I believe it's significant that the first time that God meets with a man and covenants with him and says, I'm going to make a great nation out of you, his name is Abraham.

He's Jacob's grandfather. And the very first time a man is met by God in that covenant relationship way, it's under a terebinth tree just outside of Shechem. And now we see Jacob bury these idols and be done with them under a terebinth tree just outside of Shechem.

And I think there's significance to that. I think if you're reading the book of Genesis, if you were to sit down and read it in one sitting, you would key in on this. You'd be like, there's something significant here.

I believe that it's significant and there's a lot of symbolism in this passage about him putting to death these idols in his life in the very location where God called out his grandfather. The text seems to imply that it's the same tree.

This section is, again, full of all kinds of symbolism and Jacob and family are renewing their commitment to let God be their God. And remember that Jacob is still, in the start of this text, he's still in a position of fearing those around him, right?

He's got a motive in his heart of fear and he's terrified, but God's calling him out and he's putting away all of these gods. But as they pack up and move out, it says in the text, God grips the villages around them with a supernatural fear of Jacob and his entourage.

And one more time, Jacob's fears for his own life are proven to be unfounded because God is protecting him and God is going to fulfill his promise to bring Jacob back to Bethel and eventually restore him to his family in peace.

The short trip between Shechem and Bethel and it's completed and he finally returns to the place that God originally met him, the place where God originally promised to be with him. He has returned to the place where God became real to him.

Have any of you ever taken a pilgrimage of sorts in your life where you've gone back to a place where God has significantly met with you just to remember and to reflect? Some of you need that. You're like, if you're at a place of spiritual darkness where you're kind of like, I just don't see.

And I'm not talking about this, again, the last thing I'm going to tell you is that there's anything mystical about the location or about the place, but there is something about remembering that is beneficial.

Would you agree with me on that? There's something beneficial about reconnecting with some of those places where God has met with you in the past. And he returns to the place where God became real to him.

And the second time around, to show that it is not merely the place that is significant, Jacob calls the place El Bethel. He tweaks the name a little bit. So now the name that he gives to this place is, as he's talking to his family and they're arriving, he's like, this is not just Bethel, this is El Bethel, the God of the house of God.

This is something like saying, it's not about the building, it's not the building that is special, it is not the geographical location that has something mystical about it, but it is the God who met me in this place that makes it special.

Jacob has become more and more understanding of who God is and how he rolls over the 20 years. He's had some maturing. He hasn't arrived yet. We'll continue to see that throughout his life, an ongoing struggle.

But he's come to some understanding and he says, it's not this place, everybody, as his family rolls in to Bethel, it's not the place, but it's the God who met me in this place. It's apparent that Jacob's mom's maidservant was sent out to meet Jacob at some point and all of a sudden, we're reading narrative, we're reading a historical account, and so every once in a while, you ever notice how occasionally in the book of Genesis, just like something's dropped in the middle of it, and you kind of like scratch your head and go, what's this got to do with anything?

Well, it's because it happened in the history. The author wanted to record it for us, but apparently Jacob's mom made true on her promise to send for him, but we find that Jacob's mom's maidservant is with him and the point of her death is recorded for us in verse 8.

We don't know how long Jacob spent at Bethel, but he built an altar and God appeared to Jacob again in this place. Now again, just going to a place where you met with God before doesn't guarantee that he's going to show up again, but here he does and he reminds Jacob of his name change.

He says, remember, your name has been Swindler, your name has been Cheater, your name has been Heel, your name has been the one who grasps after everything, but I'm changing your name to Russell's with God.

Now, some of you like scratch your head, didn't we hear that before? Anybody think that? Like, didn't we already see his name get changed? Why is this happening again? And you might get a burr under your saddle about that.

Does God change names multiple times? Did he forget that he changed his name? No, but I think Jacob did. I think we have a tendency to. I think we have a tendency to forget. Can you imagine a situation, many of us can relate to a situation or the way that God could change our identity and we are thick enough to need some reminders along the way.

Anybody relate to that? Where God might state, you are a conqueror in Jesus' name and you might need to be reminded of that from time to time. Where he's changed your identity through the blood of Jesus Christ and you're not holding on to it.

You're not grasping it. You're like forgetful about it. And God comes back and reminds us and he's faithful to remind us time and time again. Just like a good spouse doesn't say, well, I told you on our wedding day I love you.

Well, if anything changes, I'll let you know. Right? How many of you like to hear once in a while from your spouse, I love you. You like that. Okay. Only four of you. Okay. Take note whether your spouse raised their hand or not and you can roll accordingly.

We like to be reminded, don't we? We like to be reminded of the change of identity of who we are in Christ and Jacob needs that reminder. I think it's with intention. I think he slid away from the call of God in his life and we've seen a little bit of a gradual slide in him and God's coming back faithful to meet with him and say, I changed your name.

You are not Jacob. You are not a swindler. You are the one who wrestles with God and prevails. I met with you and we wrestled. And the almighty God reveals himself as one who can accomplish all things and this is key.

Look at verse 11. How does God reveal himself to Jacob in this situation? God said to him, I am God almighty. Jacob has faced many trials and many heartaches in his life. And how many of you, when you go through trials and hardships, you find comfort in the tough times when you can remember that God is powerful?

Does that bring some comfort to you? It does, doesn't it? It brings us comfort to know that he is a God that is powerful. But I would suggest to you that often in my life that's not sufficient. It is not sufficient to just remember he's powerful, right?

Just to remember that he can. Okay, how does that do? He can. Would we agree on that? Whatever you're thinking about in your mind, the answer is yes. He can. But now are you left with a secondary question?

Will he? Will he? He can. But that comes into a secondary thought here. He is meeting and talking with Jacob. He is good. He is in relationship. He is loving. He is compassionate. He is kind. So to say all powerful, awesome, but good, loving, merciful, compassionate.

Do you see how his love tempers and goes in together with that notion of his power to provide encouragement to us? Without those two together, one is, well, of course he loves us, but is he powerful enough to do it?

The other one is, well, he's powerful enough, but does he love us enough to do it? Does he love us enough to care for us? Do you see how, I mean, it goes to the age old, some of you memorized this when you were a kid, but there's theological depth to this prayer.

God is great, God is good, and we thank him for our food. Any of you ever pray that when you were a kid? Handful of you? But think about those two things that we're stating about God. God is great, and God is good.

There's power. There's understanding who God is. Jacob is on the nice edge here as we come to this text, but God's power when matched with his kindness is a comfort. His promise to be with us and his almighty power come together.

Those two things, his faithfulness to his promises, which is his goodness, and his almighty power come together in my life in a way that I am confident that even in the midst of heartaches and suffering that he is with me.

He has a plan, and his plan is good. But I want to be careful to explain to you that his goodness is expressed in his big picture, in the overarching thing that he is doing that you and I cannot do, and that is seeing the beginning from the ends and the means in between.

And so often we do suffer. Often there is heartache. But does that impact whether or not God is good? And the answer to that is no, because he has a big plan for us that Jacob can't see as he's walking through these circumstances.

So Jacob gets this reminder. God appears to him. Says, I'm almighty, and I'm here for you, Jacob. His goodness and his power expressed to Jacob. And Jacob stands on the edge of a cliff and does not know where he stands.

He does not know that the hardest pain in his life is just around the bend. But God is there with him. God is there promising to be faithful. God is there saying, I'm good, and I'm with you, and I've got a plan through you.

I'm going to do amazing things through you, Jacob. And at this point, God reminds specifically of some of those good things he's going to do through him. He's going to make him a company of nations. His line is going to be a royal line.

Kings are going to come from his offspring. And the land given to Abraham and Isaac will indeed belong to his descendants. And in this we see God reminding Jacob that he has a bigger picture in mind than just merely Jacob's comfort.

Often what we want from God is our own comfort, right? We want him to serve us. We want him to make us comfortable and make us happy. What if he has a bigger plan through you? What if he has something bigger he wants to accomplish through your life?

Are you open to that? A bigger plan that might entail some hardship, might entail some hospital stays, might entail losing some that you love. But what if his overarching plan is to do something beautiful in your life that isn't comfortable?

Is that possible? I think it's very possible. I think it's likely for each one of us because we know that we live in a fallen world where suffering is indeed real. Once again, it says God went up, God left Jacob.

At least the physical manifestation of him, the implications is that God actually met with him in some form, way, shape or form. And Jacob sets up a pillar and anointed it and gave a drink offering there to remember this meeting with God.

It's not just a second. He's had multiple meetings with God, but God has not left Jacob alone. Over 20 years have passed since Jacob last stood in this place at Bethel. He was on the run, fearful of his brother.

He had nothing but the shirt on his back and now he has returned to this place with a full family, wealth beyond count, 20 years of hard labor and hard knocks in real life and God has been faithful in the joys and distresses of Jacob's life.

Jacob now is hanging out in the area of Bethel. Again, we don't know how long he's there, but he likely caught word that his father is still alive but living down in Hebron. Now, if you ever have a struggle with understanding the space of Israel and trying to figure that out, a good way to measure it, and it works really good, is to think of West Michigan.

If you go basically from Grand Rapids down to the state border and then from Battle Creek over to the lake and it's almost the same shape as Israel and almost the same dimensions. So that gives you a perspective if Lake Michigan was the Mediterranean Sea.

And so for him to be pretty close to Hebron and catch word is just not that big of a deal. For him to find out where his father is living in that context would not be very difficult. It's likely that other people would be traveling through and he could catch word and find out that his brother, rather, that his father is still alive but living down and has moved on down to the area of Hebron.

And so he once again embarks on a road trip to reunite with his very old father, remembering that God told him that he would be brought back to his household in peace. That was a promise. But they don't get far into the trip until Rachel goes into labor.

Now, if you were raised in Sunday school, you were raised in a church, or maybe this isn't your first sermon you've ever heard in Genesis, and so you're kind of going through the text and you're like, okay, yeah, this is the part where Rachel dies, and you just kind of move on.

But if you get to this statement that she goes into labor, something is completely absent from the text. That if you were reading this for the very first time, you'd go, hmm, I didn't even know she was pregnant.

You ever thought about that? I mean, the text never tells us that she's pregnant. All of a sudden, she's in labor. They're traveling, they're on this road trip, and this is a big deal because Rachel had a hard time bearing children, and she's expecting and goes into a hard, difficult labor.

Something goes wrong in that labor, like so many women in ancient times, and she dies during childbirth. But the last thing she hears before her soul departs is the midwife expressing what Rachel would, without question, recognize as the faithfulness of God to answer a prayer that she had uttered chapters before in the book of Genesis.

Because even at the naming of her first son, Joseph, her only son, Joseph, she gave him a name that means, add another, please. Give me another son, she said. She's just given birth to a son, and she names him, give me another one.

I want another. She's already ready. She's ready to have more. And she's asked for more, and the midwife says, do not fear. God has answered that. He's given you another one, and the text says that directly.

But it's doubly ironic that at one point in Rachel's life, if you can remember back into the book of Genesis, she actually came whining to her husband, Jacob, and said, give me another son, or I will die.

She gets another son and dies. There is no question that we are meant to believe that Rachel was the most important thing on earth to Jacob. He worked for 14 years for her hand in marriage. No one in this room did that.

And it says that he loved her so much that the 14 years felt like a few days. That's how much his heart was woven together with Rachel. He loved her. 14 years of work, she's worth it. And now she's gone.

Just like that. Do you think Jacob might have some rationale and some reason to get angry with God? Do you think there's the possibility of bitterness setting into Jacob's heart? Do you think that you could imagine saying something like, God, we just met, and you promised to be with me.

You said you would be here. And now this? Can you understand? Can you understand a little bit about how he might feel that in his flesh? How, as a human being, you might think those kinds of thoughts?

I thought you said you were going to be here. And now this? You see, we all have a tendency to think the good things come from God and the hard things come from, and then we get creative. Hard things come from who knows where.

Oh, that must just be Satan. That must be circumstance. That just must be the way that the world rolls. That must just be something else. But let me recommend to you that we let God be God and have a big plan.

Take him at his word that he is both great and good. And his promises will never fail. Hear me carefully. God's promises will never fail, but I cannot recall anywhere that God has promised me that I will not suffer in this world.

I don't remember where that was. And maybe if you're convinced that God has promised you that you will not suffer in this world, then I'd like you to come and teach me. I'd like to learn that. I'd like to know where you find that.

I don't see that in Scripture. I don't see anywhere that one of his promises is that you won't ever suffer, that you'll never go through hardship, that you'll never go through difficulty, that you'll never go through loss.

He never promised to Jacob that he would not suffer. He did promise to be with him. And he did promise a big, big picture project that he was doing through Jacob's life. He did promise to bring Jacob back to his family.

He did promise to use him to create a great nation. He did promise to give his offspring a great land. And he did promise to bless all nations through the offspring of Jacob. And he has done it. He's done it all.

Jacob loses his wife, and on the same day gains a son. You cannot imagine the mix of emotions. And one of the things in life is just the darkness mixed with the light. Isn't that just a part of our lot in life, that we can go from these epic highs to these epic lows and everything in between in an hour?

She named him, with her dying breath, Ben-Ani, son of my sorrow. But Jacob refuses to call him by such a dour name. Can you imagine carrying that name for your entire life? Is it not enough to eventually know that his mother died giving birth to him?

Call him son of my sorrow. He can't stand for that name, and he names him Ben-Yamin. Benjamin, the son of my right hand, the son of my strength. Rachel was buried in a tomb. Scholars and some archaeologists believe that they found this.

The problem is the scholars and archaeologists believe that they found it north of Jerusalem, and it mentions Bethlehem or Ephrath, which is south of Jerusalem. So we don't really know exactly where this location is.

But you kind of go, well, why isn't she carried back to the family tomb or something like that? But when a person died in ancient times, they were buried soon. And so she's buried in a different location than the rest of the family.

But Israel journeyed on and spent some time near the Tower of Edir. I don't think I'm reading into the text too much to say that he's got a heavy heart. He has lost his beloved Rachel. And while he's at a low point, one of his sons seeks to usurp his authority.

What happens in verse 22 needs to be culturally understood, and I am seeking to be as vague as possible since we have our children, the young children in the service with us, and so you can read the text on your own and understand what I'm talking about.

But this is not primarily an act of lust that we see in the text as much as a measured attack on what Reuben perceives as his father's weakness. There are a couple of potential motivations, all of them evil.

What's motivating Reuben in this scenario? Some scholars believe that Reuben does this thing out of a desire to make sure his own mother, Leah, is not shortchanged or overlooked for the status of highest wife in the household.

And so he does this thing to ruin Bilhah's reputation. Some see that as the motivation that's going on in the text. Possible. Others see this like what Absalom does with his father's concubines when he tries to overthrow him.

It seems very unlikely to me that what happens in this text is a primarily lustful thing. There is something darker motivating this. And let me suggest to you that whatever you're thinking when you read this text, the motivation is much worse than what you have in your mind.

There is something that is evil in this behavior. There is something that is motivating Reuben that is beyond what is appropriate or good or right. And so then you kind of go, well, then what's Jacob's response to this?

How does he roll with this? And Israel heard of it, is how verse 22 ends. And he heard of it. And now let's go on to list his offspring. But regardless of motivations, this is a huge punch to the gut of Jacob.

Once again, he's been kicked while he's down in this situation. I wonder if Jacob's lack of response at this time indicates that he just didn't have any further emotional capacity to deal with the situation at the time.

But there will be significant ramifications later, even as the order of inheritance rights is spelled out in the text. And Eric, if you can throw up that slide just real quick. I just wanted to put this up there to just list the tribes for you in the order that they're given, and I wanted to have it graphically up there so you can think through this with me.

Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. This is the order of what is called primogeniture. It is the inheritance order. So it goes first according to the wives in the order in which they were married, and then their offspring.