If you have a copy of the scriptures, let me invite you once again to turn to the book of Genesis. And if you've been worshiping with us recently, you know that we are working our way through a portion of the book of Genesis. And today we're going to be looking at Genesis chapters 35 and 36. And we'll be spending the mainstay of our time in Genesis 35. We're going to look at the entirety of that chapter and a good part of verse 36. But for now, we're just going to read verses 1 through 5 of Genesis 35. And so let me invite you, as you're able, let's stand again in honor of the reading and hearing of God's word. Again, I'm reading from Genesis 35, wherein Moses faithfully records. And God said unto Jacob, arise, go up to 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. Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments, and let us arise and go up to Bethel. And I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went. And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears. And Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem. And 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. May God bless again today the reading and the hearing of his word, and let us join together in prayer. Let us pray. Gracious and loving God, we give thee thanks again for this opportunity to stand within the hearing and under the reading of thy word. And we pray today as we approach thy scriptures that you would give us the illumination of the Holy Spirit that you would open our eyes, unstop our ears, loosen our minds and hearts to receive thy word. We ask this in Christ's name and for his sake. Amen. And you may be seated. Well, we are continuing today this exposition of the book of Genesis. this foundational book in our canon of the Christian scriptures. And here of late, we have been looking at the life of the patriarch Jacob. So the three foundational patriarchs, beginning in Genesis 12 was Abraham, and then after Abraham, Isaac, and then Jacob. And we've been noting of late, and I wrote about this in the Vision article this week, the process of the sanctification of Jacob. In the beginning, it didn't seem like there was much commendable about him. Certainly, God did not choose Jacob because of any merit in him that God sovereignly chose him. But we're beginning to see, as we talked about this the last couple of weeks, signs of spiritual life, sanctification. that God is working in Jacob. The Lord chose him, the Lord gave him a new name, Israel, a new identity, and the Lord was progressively sanctifying him. In our passages today, we're going to see how Jacob, as the leader of his household, he's going to call for reformation. We just read about it. He's going to call for reformation within his own household. He will call upon his family members, those within his entourage, his servants, all within his house, to put away the strange gods that were among them. We see that in verse 2 of chapter 35. And so we're going to see maybe the height of the sanctification of Jacob as he is bringing reform to his old household, bringing his old household to worship. Genesis chapters 35 and 36, in some ways, will bring to an end the sort of summary record of Jacob and his household. It'll end with a listing of his 12 sons. And God will have established through him This nation that he had promised to Abraham, I will make your seed into a great nation. So we've got the framework for the nation, Israel, that is being put together. And what we'll see is after Genesis 35, and it establishes that for Jacob, Genesis 36, if you were to look ahead, is a listing of the household of Esau, Jacob's brother Esau. And as we're going to see, we see the benevolence of God extended even to Esau, even though he wasn't the bearer of the covenant in the way that Jacob was. And this is going to set the stage, after we finish Genesis 35 and 36 today, for Genesis 37. And it'll be a turning point. And the focus in Genesis 37 will be on Joseph. And Joseph will, although he's not the one through whom the covenant promise will come, that'll come through Judah. David and then the Lord Jesus Christ will come from the line of Judah. But Joseph, the firstborn of Rachel, he will be providentially used of God to lead the descendants of Jacob into Egypt. And that'll set the stage for what happens in the book of Exodus. But you should know, those who are regular attendees, that after today, we're going to be taking a break. We've taken Genesis, we're taking it in three stages. We did Genesis 1 through 11, then we took a break and went to the Johannine epistles. Now we've done Genesis 12. Today, God willing, we'll get to Genesis 36. Then we're going to take another break and we're going to go to the prison epistles. So we'll get back in the New Testament starting next Sunday. We'll start in Ephesians and Philippians and Colossians. And then eventually we'll come back and we'll go to Genesis 37 through 50. You've got to have the long haul, you know, when you're an attendee or a member here, right? Come along enough and hopefully we'll cover most of the scriptures in time. But anyways, we're at a turning point. This is our last time for a while to look at Jacob. Now Jacob's going to continue. He'll be there in the life of Joseph. But this sort of brings to a conclusion the major part of what was described about the life of Jacob. And he'll pass the baton, as it were, on to his son Joseph. When we look at this passage and we think about expositing it together, we can very easily break this passage into two parts. Obviously, the way the chapters are divided. Chapter 35 describes spiritual reformation that Jacob brings to his household. Whereas Genesis 36, the account of Esau's household, will show God's goodness, his benevolence towards Esau, even though he is unlike Jacob, will not be the one who will bear the covenant promise, the covenant blessing given to Abraham. So most of our focus today is going to be Genesis 35. Don't worry if I spend lots of time on Genesis 35 and you're wondering, how is he ever going to get to Genesis 36? We're going to do a flyover of chapter 36. But most of our time is going to be here in chapter 35. And so let's turn and let's meditate together on Genesis 35. And I've suggested the theme is that Jacob was used of God to bring about spiritual reformation in Israel. Now, the King James Version translators divide this chapter, chapter 35, into six parts, not five, as we've noticed before. But I'm going to look at it all together. We're going to look at it all together. We've seen so many of these chapters get divided into five parts, this one into six. But we're going to look at it in toto. And I want you to remember, though, the immediate context. Remember what was happening in Genesis 34. In Genesis 34, Jacob, having left Laban, his father-in-law, with his wives and his children and his household, he eventually went to a place called Shechem. And in Shechem, remember, his one daughter, Dinah, was attacked and abused by a man named Shechem. And they tried to enter into Shechem, and his father came and tried to talk Jacob into intermarrying with them and overlooking the abuse of Dinah. And Jacob's sons, you might remember, they entered into negotiation. They said, all you need to do is be circumcised. And they foolishly were circumcised. And then, remember, two of his sons, Simeon and Levi, who were the full brothers of Dinah, They went into the city of Shechem. They killed the males. Then the brothers came and they took the spoil of the city. And remember Jacob's response. Jacob apparently didn't know what his sons were going to do. And look at chapter 34, verse 30. Jacob said to Samuel and Levi, ye have troubled me. to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites, and I, being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me and slay me, and I shall be destroyed, I and my house." So given what had happened to the Shechemites after the abuse of Dinah and what his sons had done in wiping out the men of Shechem, Jacob was worried now that he was going to become a stink to the surrounding nations, and they would be attacked, and his household would be wiped out. And so it's no surprise that at this point, as we start chapter 35, the Lord graciously intervenes to protect Jacob and his house by directing him to leave the land of the Shechemites. And so look at verse 1. And God rather said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to 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. And you might remember that when Jacob had left the household of his father to go to Paddan Aram to get a wife, that the Lord had appeared to him at a place called Bethel. He had seen the ladder into heaven and the angels ascending and descending upon it. And now the Lord intervenes graciously, and he directs Jacob to leave Shechem, to go to Bethel, and to set up an altar and to worship the Lord there. And so in verse 2, Jacob, as an act of obedience, begins to prepare his family. And he prepares them not only materially to travel, but more importantly, he prepares them spiritually to be able to worship the Lord. And so we read in verse 2, then Jacob said unto his household and to all that were with him, that is all his servants, put away the strange gods that are among you and be clean. and change your garments." And so now we learn of this reformation. And Jacob offers to his household three commands. The first of those is, put away the strange gods that are among you. You may wonder, wait a second, this is Jacob. This is the household of Jacob. They are worshipers of Jehovah, the one true God, What are the pagan gods that are among them? But remember that Jacob had been in the land of Paddan Aram for 20 years. And 11 of his 12 sons had been born outside of the promised land in Paddan Aram. And although he had gone there, his father had sent him there because unlike Esau, his father wanted him to find a wife from his extended Ken, who knew Jehovah, who knew the one true God. But there had been a lot of spiritual declension among those Israelites who were back in the homeland where they had originally started from. And remember Laban. Remember the character of Laban. Not only the character of Laban, remember the practices of Laban. Remember that when Jacob had fled from Laban that Rachel had gone in and taken the household gods, the terathim, which Laban had within his house. And so there had been spiritual declension. There had been syncretism. There had been the mixing of paganism with worship of the one true God. And so Jacob's first command to his household was, put away the strange gods that are among you. Some of his sons apparently had carried on the practices of Grandfather Laban, and they had brought out with them some of these false gods. And we all know that the God of the Bible is a jealous God. He will share devotion with No one, with no thing. I think I've told you all more than once about a conversation I had some years ago with a young Korean woman who was coming to know the Christian faith. And she was talking with me and another man who were witnessing to her. And she said, well, sometimes I pray to Jesus, and sometimes I pray to Buddha. And we tried charitably to say to her, that doesn't fit with praying to Jesus. Because he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. And to know the God of the scriptures is to know one God and to give him all devotion. And so here's Jacob. bringing about reformation, revival, as he calls for them to put away the strange gods. We can think also, remember when we were in 1 John, how the book of 1 John comes to an end. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. And then the second command is, be clean. Be clean. This is a call for spiritual purity. We read or we sung at the beginning of the service Psalm 24. Psalm 24 verse 3 says, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Who shall stand in his holy place? And it continues in Psalm 24, for he that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. And so There's a call for spiritual purity, spiritual cleanness. And then thirdly, Jacob says to his household, and change your garments. In the Old Testament, often there are places where someone will, because of the changing spiritual circumstances, will change their dress, garments, or appearance. Often when they're expressing repentance, sorrow for sin, right? They put on sackcloth and put ashes on their head. And now He's saying, change your garments. In this case, probably it means put off that which is filthy and put on that which is clean and pure, following up on the call to put away the idols and to be clean, to be pure before the Lord. And we know that this is an image that is used not only in the Old Testament, but the Apostle Paul will pick up this same metaphor in the New Testament. And he will describe the transformation that happens in the life of a believer. And he'll use language everybody knew from changing clothes, put something off and put something new on. And he sort of complicates the metaphor a little bit by saying the Christian life is a matter of putting off the old man the old garment and putting on the new man. And so in Ephesians 4, verse 21, Paul says, If so be that ye have heard him and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, that ye put off concerning the former conversation, former conduct, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that ye put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. So Jacob calls for reformation within his household. And we see in verse 3 also his act of obedience to God's command. Look at verse 3. And let us arise and go up to Bethel, and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went." And so he explains to his family his intention to go to Bethel and his intention to build the altar. And notice he says that his intention to do this is because of God's acts of faithfulness toward him. And in particular, he mentions that God had delivered him answered him in the day of his distress. And what does he have in mind there? He probably has in mind what is recorded for us in Genesis 32. Remember when his estranged brother Esau was there perhaps to wipe him out, to threaten him. And Jacob, in his distress, had called out to God. And in Genesis 32, he said, I'm not, and verse 10, I'm not worthy of the least of all thy mercies and of all the truth which thou hast showed unto thy servant. Then he makes a petition in Genesis 32 11. Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother. And then what did we see that happened? in Genesis 33, but when he went to meet Esau, God answered his prayer. And Esau saw him on the horizon, Genesis 33 and verse 4, and embraced him, fell on his neck, kissed him, and they wept. And so now, Jacob is calling this to remembrance. We're going to Bethel. We're going to build this altar so that we can give thanks for God answering us. Answering our prayers in our distress. Not only that, he says, we're going to thank God because we're going to worship Him because He was with me in the way which I went. And here's Jacob acknowledging the Immanuel presence of God that had been with him. And this is what God had promised to Jacob when he had left to go to seek a wife. If you look back at Genesis chapter 28 and verse 15, God had said to Jacob, and behold, I am with thee and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest. And God said, we'll bring thee again into this land, for I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. And now Jacob is remembering that. And this is his motive Now to go to Bethel and to worship, God had answered his prayer. God had kept his promises. And the proper response is worship. Friends, why are we here today? Why are we coming to worship? I mean, it's not really very entertaining with respect to the flesh. You could stay home and watch a good film on Netflix or something if you wanted entertainment. Why are we here today? Well, in part, we have come because we say, God has answered my prayers. I was in distress, and he heard me, and he helped me. He made promises to me by his word, and he has kept his word to me. And how will I respond to that? Will I lay on the couch a few hours? Will I go out and do some gardening? Or will I build up an altar and come before Him and worship Him and give praise and thanks unto Him? Now, in verse 4, we see the response of the people. It says in verse 4, And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand. What does that tell us? They had these things with them. And so he was right to call for their removal. And then it continues, And all their earrings which were in their ears. Now I could see some some fundamentalist cult saying, this is a proof text for why women shouldn't wear earrings or men. And we could have that discussion about the ethics of wearing about dress and modesty and propriety in dress. But what's being conveyed here is that in the ancient Near East, slaves and devotees of these gods would often have earrings And there's even a place in Deuteronomy, in the book of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 15, 17, that talks about slaves among the Israelites. And they would take them to the doorframe, and they would drive an awl through their ear into the doorframe of the house. And they would have a mark then on their ear to show that they were slaves. And when Jacob says, bring out the earrings, what he's saying is, Bring out the things that were the visual symbols of your slavery and your slavish worship of these false gods. Give those things over to me. Give those things over to me. And then he collected probably these idols. and these pagan signs of devotion that were collapsed through the ear. And it says in verse 4, and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem. And so probably this was a place where he literally dug a hole in the ground and it was a depository for vile things, for pagan things. for sacrilegious things and they were buried there in the ground. When I read this I thought about the account in the New Testament in Acts chapter 19 when the gospel first came to the city of Ephesus. And there were many people in Ephesus who came to believe in the Lord And when they came to believe in the Lord, what did the apostles tell them? You got to turn your back on the paganism. You got to turn your back on the occult practices you used to be a part of. And there's this account in Acts 19 verse 18 and following, which says this, and many that believed came and confessed and showed their deeds. Many of them also, which use curious arts, brought their books together and burned them before all men. And they counted the price of them and found it 50,000 pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed." So in this case, rather than digging a hole and putting the things in, they burned them. But the idea is the removal. And let's not stress, let's not get all caught up with the means. But the thing was the removal of these things. And this was a sign of their purity of heart and of their changing their garments and becoming committed to the worship of the Lord and the Lord alone. In verse 5, it says, and they journeyed. And so now they set out, and what we see here in verse 5 is the supernatural protection of the Lord extended to his people. And the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them. These pagan people were filled with fear of the Lord, awe before the Lord. And it says in verse five, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob. What was Jacob afraid of? That he had become a stink to the surrounding pagan nations. But the Lord himself intervened and he put fear in the hearts of those that would attack them, and he protected them so that they were not pursued. One of the great images of the Lord's protection for His people in the Psalms is that of the Lord acting like a shield over His people. And here, although that word is not used, we sort of see this idea of the Lord enveloping, shielding His people. Psalm 33, verse 20 says, Our soul waiteth for the Lord. He is our help and our shield. And would you Take verse five and maybe meditate upon it and think for a second of if you know the Lord and if you're under His shield and you're under His protection. You know, sometimes we start to have the complaint list of all the things. Why did God, why did you allow this, that or the other thing to happen in my life? But have you ever considered this? How many raining blows, how many attacks of the enemy were cast down at you, and the Lord shielded you from them, and the Lord protected you, and the Lord kept you. Well, we could certainly think on that. In verse 6, then, he arrives. Look at verse 6. So Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan. That is Bethel. And we know Bethel. Where is there Beth? Meaning house El. Meaning God. The house of God. He and all the people that were with him. Here's a picture, by the way. We had our men's fellowship yesterday. Here's a picture of a man leading his family. Leading his family to Bethel. taking a role of spiritual leadership, not being passive, but leading his family, bringing about reformation in his family, and coming to Bethel. And then in verse 7, we read, and he built there an altar and called the place El Bethel. And again, we said El means God. So it's God, house of God, or maybe the God who is over the house of God. because their God appeared unto him when he fled from the face of his brother. And now we're seeing there's a mirror image here. When he went to the land of Paddan Aram in Genesis 28, God met with him at Bethel. And now as he's leaving that land and returning, God meets again with him at at this place called Bethel. And so God is there. It's interesting in Psalm 121, verse eight, it says, the Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in. And here God was meeting with him at Bethel and is going into the land of Paddan Aram and is coming out of it here in Genesis 35. There is a note there in verse seven about him again, building this altar. And then in verse eight, there's a there's a note here about Deborah, Rebecca's nurse. But Deborah, Rebecca's nurse, died and she was buried beneath Bethel under an oak. And the name of it was called Alon Bakut. And it's a curious note. It's doubtful that Deborah, Rebecca's nurse, would have been there, but simply maybe it's telling us that she was buried there at Bethel. And it's interesting, the place that she was buried, the name of it was Alon Bakut. And that means in Hebrew, the oak of weeping. And so there was this burial place. And I thought, wow, that's a name that could be placed over every cemetery or burial ground, a place of weeping, a place of tearful partings. And then in verse nine, we read, and God appeared unto Jacob again when he came out of Paddan Aram and blessed him. And this is, as I said, the God who is over Jacob and is going out and is coming in. And so God is there meeting with him at every point along the way. And notice, especially, it says that he blessed him. And what we're going to see then from this point on in the next couple of verses is that God repeats to Jacob some of the things that he had done earlier. There's a repetition. And we might say, well, why is it so repetitive? As we've noted a number of times here in various messages we've seen in the Scriptures, why is there a lot of repetition? Because there's a lot of repetition in the Christian life. There are a lot of things we hear one time and then we hear it a second time, a third time, and a fourth time. And we hear it and we don't understand it, we need to hear it a second or third time. We hear it and we don't obey it, we need to hear it a second or a third time. Anybody hear a parent and you just have to tell your children one time something and then they're good to go? They know it ad infinitum from there on out? No. Being a parent, is repeating things over and over again. Don't touch that. Don't do that. Complete this task. Do that. It's repetition. And God our Father is often repeating to us, his children, the same things over and over. This is the common life we have as Christians. You might say, I've already heard a sermon on Genesis 35. It was back in the 90s. I heard a sermon on this. I'm done with that chapter. I can move on. No. It's Lord's day by Lord's day, day by day, reading the same Bible, hearing the same instructions, receiving the same promises and assurances, that help us faithfully to live out the Christian life. And so God says some of these things unto him that he said before. Look at verse 10. And God said unto him, thy name is Jacob. Thy name shall not be called anymore Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name. And he called his name Israel. He did this when he wrestled with the angel. He told him, your name is going to be Israel, a prince of God. And then in verse 11, God says to him, I am God Almighty. El Shaddai in Hebrew. Be fruitful and multiply. Well, this is a repetition of what was said to the first man, wasn't it, in Genesis 1, verse 28. Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. This was also, by the way, said unto Noah and his sons, when they came from the Ark in Genesis 9.1, be fruitful and multiply. And now it's said again, the promise is repeated again unto Jacob. And then he tells him, a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee. It's a prophecy. From you, from your 12 sons, will come the nation of Israel and other nations or tribes. And he says, king shall come out of thy loins. From Judah will come David. But more importantly, out of Jacob, there will come a new nation, a new covenant people. And from the line of David will come the king of kings and the Lord of lords, the son of David. the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's a prophecy of Christ. He mentions the land in verse 12 in the land, which I gave Abraham and Isaac to thee, I will give it and to thy seed after thee, I will give the land. And God went up from him and the place where he talked with him. So there's a promise of the land and there's a, there's a fuller fulfillment behind that. We've talked about it before in Hebrews 11, the heavenly country is there. And God, having repeated these promises, departs from Jacob. And then in verse 13, we see God went up. And what does Jacob do? Verse 14, And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he talked with him, even a pillar of stone. And he poured a drink offering thereon, and he poured oil thereon. And so this is Old covenant worship, there's a setting up of a pillar and the pouring out of these items. It's fit for Old Testament saints, if not now fit for New Testament saints. A pillar is set up, drink offerings, oil are poured out. And the place is called, verse 15, Jacob calls the place where God spoke with him, Bethel, the house of God. We can call any place where the Lord meets with us and speaks to us Bethel, the house of God. I would pray that many times this little meeting house sometimes has been for us a Bethel, a house of God where God has been pleased to speak to us through His Word. Well, having obeyed God's command to go to Bethel, then Jacob is directed again, look at verse 16, and they journeyed from Bethel And there was but a little way to come to Ephrath. And Rachel travailed, and she had hard labor." I agree with one interpreter who said it was after Jacob was at this high point, high point of sanctification, high point of faithfulness and obedience, that there's next described difficult, setbacks, and discouragements. One of these is described here, the death of his beloved Rachel. The fact that Jacob was the chosen of God, the sanctified of God, the used of God, doesn't mean that he was spared the loss of loved ones, for example. Rachel, and it's a pathetic scene. She's pregnant. She's travailing. She has hard labor. And men, don't we all have respect for our wives when we've seen them go through the travails of labor and the things that God, the ways God has designed them to be able to endure that, to bear children. Birth is the most natural thing in the world, but in a fallen world, it also means risk to the mother. And this was especially the case in days of old. And so she was struggling here. And it says in verse 17, it came to pass when she was in hard labor that the midwife said unto her, fear not. The midwife tries to console her. And she says unto Rachel, thou shalt have this son also. She says, you're going to have a son despite all this pain and this travail. And then sadly in verse 18 we read, and it came to pass as her soul was in departing. That's interesting because it fits with what we've been talking about in our afternoon series about eschatology, personal eschatology. What happens when a believer dies? The soul leaves the body. We are made up of souls and bodies. Here in the Old Testament, it's the word nefesh. Her nefesh, her soul, as her soul is leaving her body, as she's dying, she calls the name of her son, Ben Onai. Ben Onai. And that name in Hebrew means, son of my sorrow. We can hardly blame her, can we? As she's been in this hard labor and is literally dying. And she says, the son that I should delight in, as the son of my sorrow. And we're told that Jacob then intervened. It says, but, verse 18, his father called him Benjamin, Benjamin, which means son of my right hand, son who will bear authority and strength for me. And so again, it's a terrible scene, isn't it? Jacob had had all these, he went from Bethel to this sad place where his beloved wife died. I've recently been reading through the biography or the journal really of John Patton, a missionary, Scottish missionary, Presbyterian missionary who went out to the New Hebrides in the South Pacific Islands. And not long after arriving there, his wife and his infant child died. And he had to go out and bury them. And he laid on the grave and wept over them. But Jacob went through this distress of losing his dear wife, although, again, and God's mercy of Benjamin. And Benjamin, this is completing what? Completing the 12. This is the 12th son who will be the head of a tribe. Who will come from Benjamin? Well, King Saul will come from Benjamin. Who else will come from Benjamin? The Apostle Paul. This is God's providential plan for the Apostle Paul. The Apostle to the Gentiles. It's coming through this tragic loss. God is working out a providential plan of blessing and of spreading the gospel, even though it seemed like an incredibly terrible providence, a frowning providence. But God was working out his will in this. Verse 20 says, and Jacob set a pillar upon her grave. That is the pillar of Rachel's grave under this day. This was there when Moses wrote this. Still, there was that marker for the grave site of Rachel. And then he has to go on, and not only does he have to deal with a tragedy with the loss of his wife, but then he has to deal with another type of tragedy in what appears to be the rebellion of a son. Look at verse 21, it says, And Israel journeyed and spread his tent beyond the tower of Eddar. Verse 22, And it came to pass, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben, Reuben was his firstborn son from Leah, went and lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine. Bilhah had been the maidservant to Rachel. And this was not only something that was disturbing because It was a violation of what will later be called in Leviticus 18 the laws of affinity that does not allow a man to have relations with a woman who's a member of his household. This was a woman who had borne children to Jacob. So it was a violation of that. But really, it was most likely a sign of Reuben challenging the authority of his father. It was a rebellious act. So here's Jacob. He's been to Bethel. He loses a wife. Has a rebellious child to deal with. And so he's not spared by virtue of being even God's elect patriarch. He's not spared having to deal with frowning providences in his life. In verse 22, Though we read, and Israel heard it, meaning they expressed their disapproval. Israel, meaning Jacob, and I think the whole household. And then, at the end of verse 22, it lists for us, finally, again, and this sort of brings the capstone to the Count of Jacob. Now, the sons of Jacob were 12. And we get a summary of them. Verse 23, the sons of Leah, Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, and Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Zebulun, the sons of Rachel, Joseph, and Benjamin, the sons of Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid, Dan, and Naphtali. Verse 26, the sons of Zilpah, Leah's handmaid, Gad, and Asher. These are the sons of Jacob which were born to him in Paddan Aram, And Benjamin is included in this as well, even though he was born on the aftermath, but all inclusively through Rachel. The plan was made for him in Padana Ram. Then verse 27, Jacob came into Isaac, his father, unto Mamre, unto the city of Arba, which is in Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac sojourned. Remember when Abraham had met with the angels at the Oaks of Mamre in Genesis 18? Now Isaac is there. Isaac, we learn in verse 28, Jacob's father, was 104 score years, 180 years old. And then here's yet another difficult. Loses a wife as a rebellious child. loses a parent. And Isaac gave up the ghost and died and was gathered into his people, being old and full of days. And so there's the summary. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him. The sons who had been estranged from one another had been reconciled by God's grace. They meet at the funeral and lay their godly father into the earth. Again, I told you we're going to spend most of our time in Genesis 35. Y'all ready for hour two on Genesis 36? We'll pause there. No. Genesis 36 then simply tells about Esau and Esau's descendants. Though Esau was not like Jacob, the one who would bear the blessing of Abraham. He was not overlooked in God's benevolence. And so, It's interesting the way sometimes it's presented. Let me just hit just a couple of verses as highlights to give us a little taste for what is said about Esau and his household. It starts off in verse 1. Now, these are the generations of Esau. Who is Edom? Esau would be the father of the Edomites, who would be enemies with Israel, whereas Jacob would be the father of Israel, covenant people Esau is the father of Edom and There are reminders of this several times throughout this and and even with Esau and his household and God was always making provisions for Jacob. Look at verse 6. And Esau took his wives and his sons and his daughters and all the persons of his house and his cattle and all his beasts and all his substance which he had got in the land of Canaan and went in the country from the face of his brother Jacob. For their riches were more that they might dwell together, and the land wherein they were strangers could not bear them because of their cattle. Thus dwelt Esau in Mount Seir. And if we hadn't gotten it in verse 1, look at verse 8. Esau is Edom. Jacob is Israel. Esau is Edom. Look at verse 19. These are the sons of Esau. Who is Edom? And these are their dukes. And look at the way the whole account of Esau's household ends in verse 43. He is Esau, the father of the Edomites. It says in Psalm 145, verse 9, the Lord is good to all. And though God had chosen from the womb Jacob, to bear the covenant promise the Lord was good to Esau. Friends, we've worked through the passage. What we see, as we've seen countless times throughout this narrative, is the way that God was working out his plan of salvation. That plan went through Abraham and Isaac and then through Jacob. When Jacob and Esau were in the womb, the Lord chose to work through Jacob. We know that passage in Romans 9.13 that's often talked about in discussions of Calvinistic soteriology, Reformed theology, where Paul cites the prophet Malachi. Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Genesis 36 will temper and inform, however, our understanding of hate. Though Edom would not be Israel, the Lord was still good to them. Christ in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5.45 says the Lord causes the sun to rise on the good and the evil and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. The Lord was good to Esau. And what will happen later on when the Messiah comes? He will tell his disciples, the 12, the reconstituted people of Israel. He will tell them, Matthew 28, 19, and 20, go and teach all nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Teach them to observe all the things I will command you. And lo, I will be with you always, even to the end of the world. One day, Edomites will be joined into the people of God also. Even at this point, they're held as a people apart. And when we look at the descriptions here, when you read Genesis 36, there's almost no spirituality in it. It doesn't say, God said to the men of Edom, put away your gods. Be clean. Change your garments. But he does say that to Jacob and to his house. God has special expectations of sanctity and obedience for those who are his people. And who, pray tell, is the Israel of God now? They are all who trust in Christ, whether they are the physical seed of Abraham, or Gentiles, like most of us here. And we could say that in this passage, we can hear a call to us to go to Bethel, to go to the house of God, to raise an altar, to put away strange gods that are among us, to be clean, to change our garments, If there's one thing you could get from going to church today and being here and listening to this message, it might be that you would take verse 2 of chapter 35 and mull it over in your mind and say, what are the strange gods? I've noted before that when we went to add Joseph to our family and we went to China, where he was born, and we went into a Buddhist temple and we saw people bowing down before idols. I'd never really seen anything like that. It's the first time I'd actually seen something like that. And parents bring their children and showing them how to bend their knees before these idols. I mean, that's almost easy enough. Although there are, sadly, people who do bend their knees to idols here in Virginia. But for the most part, the idols that we have are things that are unseen, aren't they? which makes it sometimes even harder. What are the things I place before God? What are the things I give more attention to in my life than God and the things of God? Put away these strange gods. Be clean. Be pure. How many men, Christian men, suffer with lust, with Watching and seeing things they shouldn't see. And it's not just men either, is it? It's women too. Be clean. Change your garments. Put off that which is dirty and filthy and put on that which is clean, pure, and right, steadfast, and true. It's a call. There's an evangelical spirit here in Genesis 35 too. But let me say something else about this, the last thing. We ought to do that. We ought to put away the gods, the strange gods. And we ought to strive towards being clean and pure before God. And we ought to change our garments. But guess what? in the same way that it took the grace of God to save us, it will take the grace of God to sanctify us. It will take the grace of God to save us. It will take the grace of God to sanctify us. Here's the good news. There will come from the line of Jacob, from the line of Judah, there will come one who is the son of David, And he never in his life bent his knee to an idol. He never sinned. He was without sin. And he never had a spotted garment. And he gives to believers all of his righteousness. He wraps us in His righteousness. He not only takes away our sin, but He gives us His righteous life. Put away those strange idols. Be clean. Change your garments. And thank the Lord He has done it for us in Christ. Amen? We invite you to stand together. Let's join in prayer. Gracious and loving God, we give thee thanks for this old story, this ancient account, inspired account, which is 100% true and faithfully records precisely what happened, what transpired, but is also a living word that speaks to us today. And we ask that you would help us to receive this, meditate upon it, apply it, As we live out the life that is ahead of us, we ask this in Christ's name and for his sake, amen.