Hello and welcome to another broadcast. We're looking on the little subject that Jacob went on his way. This is our fifth message concerning Jacob and his trip. Stay tuned for our broadcast. Well, in our last broadcast, we see Jacob traveling through life. He is on his way, it says here in chapter 32, verse number 1. And in our last broadcast, he had a meeting with the Lord. Well, we see here in chapter 32 and verse 1, his way, as we mentioned in a previous broadcast, is not where he traveled with his feet, but his manner of life is what it's talking about here. And as Jacob went on in this new manner of life, he has changed things quite a bit here now. And as he went on, we read here that God met him. Well, we read in verse number 26 that Jacob said to the Lord, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. And there's the secret of the whole thing. As we get into chapter 23, we read in verse one, and Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau came. Esau came. Well, he's got 400 men with him, and how is this going to turn out? Turns out pretty good. We read down here in verse number four, and Esau ran to meet him. and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and they wept." And we have a beautiful story of forgiveness and reconciliation. Well, we got two boys from the same family, but they are on totally different pages. And so we see here that really Esau spent some time trying to convince Jacob to come with him to Seir. Now, Seir was not the promised land. And so we read back here in verse number 12, he said, let us take our journey and let us go and I will go before thee and so on. And he is trying to get Jacob to travel with him. Well, that's not what God's plan was. These two boys are not the same. These two boys are very different. Now they're from the same family, but they are very different. So Esau says, let us go to our journey. No, we can't do that, and I think Jacob is way too apologetic on how he handles this here, but he does handle it. And we do read in verse number 16 that Esau returned to Seir, and in verse 17, Jacob traveled on. Well, we've said many times our lives are just simply an outcome of the choices that we make. We make our choices, and at the end of those choices is the consequences that we have to face. With Esau, you go down through this, and if you study it carefully, he was making decisions in the light of things that were monetary and what would bless him financially. And as you look through and follow his descendants, you'll find that from Esau came the Amalekites, who were the enemies of Israel. You remember that Aaron and Hur held up the hands of Moses as Joshua fought against the Amalekites. They were the descendants of Esau. And so they both went their separate ways. Now, once again, very important to understand. They're both from the same family, but they were on totally in different pages. Esau was referred to back here in Genesis 25 and verse number 27 as a man of the field. And Jesus said in Matthew 13 and 38, the field represents the world. So we see them going in different directions, same family. We have the situation today, and that's why God talks about ecclesiastical separation. Not everybody who's from the same family is on the same page. And in Romans 9 and 13, concerning the ways that they took, God said, Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated. didn't hate the people, he hated the direction that they went. Well, Jacob went on his way, and of course, we see here that Jacob is a man who is a type of, shows us that as believers today, we have an old nature and a new nature, and sometimes we're doing things the way God wants us to do it, and sometimes we're not. And so, he makes a major mistake here on his trip. His heart is right, he wants to do the right thing, but we read here in verse number 17 in chapter 33, that Jacob returned to Succoth and built him a house and made booths for his cattle, therefore, and the name of the place is called Succoth. And Jacob came to Shalem, a city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan." Now, what happened here was he took a little side trip. It's interesting that The word Shalom here is not a city. It's referring to the city of Shechem that he went to, but Shalom means Shalom. And it just, you know, what happened? Jacob was tired. I mean, he had all this nonsense with Laban for 20 years. Now he had all this pressure of meeting with his brother, and how will that turn out? It didn't turn out too bad at the time, but he wanted some peace. He just wanted some peace. Now, he was not supposed to go to this place, Succoth. The Bible says that God has made it very plain in Genesis 31, verse 3, God said, and thy kindred, and I will be with thee." Well, he decides he's going to take a little side trip here, and he's going to just relax for a while, and that side trip, well, God says, if you go where I tell you to go, I will be with thee. If you're going to make the side trips, you are on your own. Well, as you get down into chapter 34, we see the outcome of his little side trip, and his daughter is defiled, she is raped, and her two brothers by the same mother there, of course, they go back in and slaughter everybody in the city, and it's a terrible chapter. Well, you get down to verse number 35, or chapter 35, rather, and we read, And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go unto 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. He said, Now, why don't you go where I told you to go in the first place? Could have saved all this trouble if he'd have done that. Well, in verse number one it says, God said unto Jacob, Arise and go unto Bethel, and dwell there, and make there an altar unto God. Now, first of all, we see that God said, that's what it says in verse number one here, God said. Now, here's a question. Are we listening for what God has to say? God said. I mean, He could talk, but if you're not going to listen, Isaiah said in Isaiah 6 and 8, I heard the voice of the Lord, and He said, Here am I. Are we ready to listen to what God has to say? The songwriter has said, Speak, my Lord, and I'll be quick to answer thee. Is that our attitude? Well, it's Jacob's attitude here. He's learned again some lessons the hard way. should have just gone on to Bethel in the first place, but he's learning, and he's listening, and that's why he's learning. So the second thing he says is arise and go. Jacob, this is not my plan for you, and everyone listening to my voice right now, God has a plan for you. And you have to decide whether you're going to be in that plan or whether you're not. Now, Jacob, he said, I want you to arise. I want you to go. And this is where I want you to go. I want you to go to Bethel. And then, he said, when you get there, I want you to make an altar, make an altar unto the Lord. Well, in verse 1, we read, God said, and in verse 2, we read, then Jacob said. Now, God spoke, and Jacob listened, and then God had something that he wanted Jacob to do, and that was that he wanted him to lead his household in the direction that God wanted him to lead his household. Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, to all that were with him. Not everybody's with him, but he's going to talk to those that are, and he says to them several things that they need to do. Now, first of all, when it comes to directing our household, we need to keep in mind that Paul said this in 2 Corinthians 1.24, not for that we have dominion over your faith, but we are helpers to your joy, for by faith ye stand." Now, you know, they're either going to listen or they're not going to listen. And the devil would like to put a guilt trip on us when we try to lead our household in the way of the Lord, and they don't listen. Paul said, I have no dominion over your faith. We don't have dominion over your faith, what you believe. We are simply helpers to your joy. And they're either going to listen or they're not going to listen. And if they don't listen, that's their choice. You can't make them do it. But he went on to say, for by faith, that is their faith, ye stand. Faith is what you believe or what you don't believe. Jacob's going to talk to his household, and he's going to tell them to do some things, and they are either going to listen to him, or they are not going to listen to him. Now, the first thing he says here, in verse number two, is, What were they doing with strange gods among them? Well, it's interesting that we remember that Rachel, she stole the gods of her father, you remember, and they still had him. He said, you got to get rid of those things. Get them out of here. And so today we don't maybe have some images and little statues that we stick up to, but something that is a god is something that demands all of our time, and whatever is demanding all of our time, put it away. From among you and then second he said be clean be clean the only Bible says if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness If we confess our sins, there's a big F there. Okay. He says put away the strange gods those things that are taking your attention away from God and And be clean, confess your sin. Then he said, change your garments. Isn't that interesting? Now look at it. It says it in verse 2. I didn't write that. It says it right there in verse 2. The first thing you've got to do is put away the things that are getting your attention away from God. Be clean, confess your sin. Then he says, change your garment. God wants us to look like Christians. You know, you can look out into the world there and you can say, that's a policeman. I can tell that's a policeman by how he is dressed. And you can look over there and you can say, well, that is a soldier. Look at that. He's got on his uniform. And I know that he is a soldier. And you should be able to look at a Christian and say, that person, by the way they dress, are different from the ways of the world. We are living in an age right now when even what we call fundamental independent Baptist women are getting their directions on how they should dress out of a magazine, or out of a catalog, or on a TV commercial, rather than out of the Bible. God says, change your garment. Then he says in verse number three, let us arise and go up to Bethel. Let's get out of this area and let's get to where God told us to be in the first place. Then he said in verse three, I will make there an altar unto God as a leader in your family. Do you have a family altar? Do you have a devotional time with your family every day? Or you just put them in front of the television and let them grab all the garbage they have. He said, I will make an altar unto God who answered me in the day of my distress and was with me in the way which I went. Now, that's what he said. What are they going to do? Well, in this case, praise the Lord, they listened. It says in verse number four, And they gave unto Jacob all their strange gods which were in their hands, and all their earrings, isn't that interesting, which were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the oak which was in Shechem. Get those things out of here and hide them under the oak tree in Shechem. Leave them there where they belong. What'd they do next? They journeyed. They said, okay, Jacob, if this is what you say we need to do, let's go where we need to go. They journeyed, and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob. Now, you remember, that those two boys had just slaughtered all those people because their sister had been raped. And Jacob said, now they're going to come after me. They're going to kill me. No, if you do what God says to do, he says that he'll make even your enemies to be at peace with you. So how does it turn out? Verse six says, they came to Luz, which is another name for Bethel. He and all the people that were with him, all the people that were with them. Now they're either with them or they're not. he took all the people that were with him and what did he do it says in verse 7 and he built there an altar and called the place Al Bethel because there God appeared unto him when he fled from the face of his brother well things are really going well praise the Lord everything's going to be sunshine and roses right no it says in verse 8 but Deborah Rebecca's nurse died and she was buried beneath Bethel under the oak And the name of it was called Alon Bethuth. Now, life goes on. We're going to get on with the real life here. We live in a real world. Just because we're going to do everything God says to do doesn't mean to say that everything is going to be sunshine and roses. There's going to be some storms, and if there is roses, there's going to be some thorns. Well, that's not very nice. We have a funeral. Well, it says here in verse 9, "...and God appeared unto Jacob again, And when he had come out of Paddan Aram and he blessed him, and God said unto him, thy name is Jacob. Yes, okay, I know my name. Not anymore. Thy name shall not be called anymore Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name. And he called his name Israel. Why? Because we see here, and we've said before, that he is a picture of a man, a God, a Christian with two natures. And he has both natures and he said let's get on with with building this new nature I'm going to not call you jacob the schemer. I'm going to call you israel Israel means god prevails. Well, we're out of time tune in again tomorrow. We'll carry it on from here We'll try to make it plain and we'll try to make it simple