20250907_IWillNotLeaveThee

[0:00] Okay, family. How do families compromise? What to do? Where to go? How to spend the money?

[0:15] ! You know, the compromise is, yes, dear, we'll do that. There are compromises that are legitimate.

[0:26] ! Then there are some compromises that are not legitimate. What are those? Moral compromise. It's wrong. Against God's Word.

[0:44] Unfortunately, sometimes I may be tempted to compromise what God has said or a moral truth. Another thing I thought of when, from last week, is I need to be careful about my social interaction.

[1:08] Where am I going to go for social interaction? Dinah went to socialize with the Canaanite girls. That didn't work out so well.

[1:21] And now, so we went through that. We went through Hamor, Hamor, Hamor, Hamor, coming to negotiate for what?

[1:41] He came to Jacob to negotiate what? Marriage. So who did he want to marry? His son. Dinah.

[1:56] His son. Shechem. Okay. So the negotiation was, I want your daughter, Dinah, for my son, Shechem.

[2:09] And Shechem said, name the price. Name the dowry price, the bride price. I'll give you anything you want.

[2:19] I want to marry her. So, Dinah's brothers answered deceitfully. What do they answer?

[2:33] This is all review. We're failing the quiz. What's that? What they agreed, but on what condition?

[2:49] For? All the men in Shechem. Okay. So we'll agree to this marriage only if, only if, every male of your city is circumcised.

[3:14] Now, what it, yes? Well, and part of it was that they wanted to intermarry, and so that's why, I think, that's why they said every male.

[3:26] Okay. Okay. So Hamor and Shechem not only negotiated for the marriage of Dinah to Shechem, but they also said, hey, take wives among us.

[3:43] You know, take our daughters for your wives, and we'll take your daughters for our wives, and we'll all be one big happy family. Anyway. So, now, what did Dinah's brothers answer?

[4:04] Well, we'll do it if you all are circumcised. Now, was that true?

[4:16] Was there a need for circumcision to enter into the family? That's kind of a trick question, yeah.

[4:31] Okay, if I was to be part of the promise to Abraham, did I need to be circumcised? Yeah. That was part of what God told Abraham.

[4:47] That's the sign of the promise. So, if anyone you acquire, any son that is born, anybody that wants to associate into your group has to be circumcised.

[5:06] That part's true. So, was that the end to which they intended this? We're going to get into that this morning, aren't we?

[5:18] Because the word of God says they answered him deceitfully. Now, that part had a truth in it. But that truth that it had in it did not have to do with their plan, did it?

[5:35] We're going to get into that. Okay, let's go ahead. Let's go ahead. We're beginning with verse 18. Well, we're really beginning at verse 24.

[5:46] So, Shechem and Hamor go to the men of the city.

[5:57] Do they sell this proposition? Yeah. The men agree. They agree because he sells it on the promise that, hey, look, all their possessions, the land's big, there's plenty of room, and this intermarriage will make them part, and all their possessions will become our possessions.

[6:23] So, the men said, yeah, that's a pretty good deal. We'll do this. And so, we begin with verse 24.

[6:35] Now, we saw in verse 13 that the word says that the sons answered deceitfully.

[6:54] What did this deceit involve? Well, the men of the city are circumcised. Now what?

[7:09] Okay. What happens? They knock them out. Yeah. So, while the men are incapacitated, because they've been circumcised, so at the height of their incapacitation, Dinah's two immediate brothers go into the town, and what do they do?

[7:39] They knock them out. What does that mean? They killed them. How many did they kill? All of the males.

[7:53] And that included Hamor and Shechem. And then they took Dinah, you see, and took her back home. They had never intended to make this promise good.

[8:08] They had intended this. This is the deceit. Now, do they stop there? Well, I see a no.

[8:23] What happened? Why do I say they didn't stop there? Well, they took Dinah.

[8:36] They took her because they were angry at what he had done. But they didn't just exact vengeance.

[8:50] Then they looted the city. What does looted mean? They pillaged it.

[9:01] Now, in battle at this time, it was common to spoil, for the victor to spoil the vanquished.

[9:13] That is, they took everything that they wanted of value. What did that include here? Children, livestock, and the women.

[9:30] Now, the women and the children are going to be what? I think I heard. Yeah. They're going to become slaves in the household.

[9:45] The livestock's going to be part of theirs. They've looted everything that they sought of value.

[9:55] Now, yeah, well, yeah, the men of Shechem were not necessarily planning all this great stuff.

[10:22] They were saying, look, hey, we'll do this because all their wealth will become our wealth. It's a picture not just of this culture.

[10:38] It's a picture of mankind, isn't it? It's kind of the way it is. I'm thankful for a Savior. I'm thankful for God's grace.

[10:52] That saves me not because of myself, but almost in spite of, but at least irrespective of myself.

[11:07] The only person, by the way, God respects, you know, the Word of God says, God is no respecter of persons.

[11:18] He does respect himself, and he respects himself, including in the Godhead, in the Son. So we are accepted, the Apostle Paul says, in the Beloved.

[11:32] Who's the Beloved? Christ Jesus. So we are accepted of God, not because God overlooks everything, but because he looks at Christ.

[11:48] That's pretty amazing to me. You will hear some people, you probably know some people who say, well, God accepts you just as you are.

[12:01] That's not true. He accepts you just as you are if you are in Christ. But if I am not in Christ, if I don't believe God, if I have not trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior, I'm still in my sin, and I still have no hope.

[12:21] So I'm thankful for grace, which saves me by God's gift, saves me not because of myself, but because of Jesus Christ.

[12:37] And so, as Nathan's been in Philippians, I stand before God, not in a righteousness of my own, but in the righteousness of Jesus Christ that comes by faith in Jesus and what he's done.

[12:56] Okay, so, they spoiled the city. They killed all the men. By now, we're at verse 30.

[13:10] Now, what's Jacob's response? Remember, his first response when he heard about Dinah was, he held his peace until the sons came. Now, what's his response after this?

[13:26] What have you done? Like, he didn't know what they'd done. Of course he knew what they'd done. But it was, why have you done this?

[13:37] And why is his response this? Yeah. He said, oh, there may be a lot of us, but there aren't as many as all these Canaanite cities around, and these guys are going to hear what we've done, what you've done.

[13:59] Now he's pointing the finger, see. They're going to hear what you've done, and then they're going to come against me and my family, my household. Which means all his livestock, all his people, everything.

[14:17] So he says, they're going to wreck me. Now, what, by the way, what was God's promise back at Bethel? When he's fleeing Esau. I will not forsake you.

[14:32] I will keep you. You will be safe until I have accomplished everything that I said to you. Which was the reiteration, if you remember, of the Abrahamic promise.

[14:44] Make you a great nation. Sometimes I forget God's promises in the heat of the moment, don't I? It's kind of a human, this is a human story.

[15:01] It's not just a Jacob story. It's a human story as far as the failings. It's a God story as far as, even though he's wavering, at this point, God's still going to fulfill the promise.

[15:20] And we're going to see that. So, Simeon and Levi give a pretty sound answer to their father, which apparently quiets him.

[15:36] What do Simeon and Levi say? Yeah. What?

[15:48] We're going to let this pass? They're going to treat our sister like she's a harlot and you're going to just let this fly? And apparently that silences him.

[16:00] At least we don't hear anything that goes on thereafter. Now, we're ready now for chapter 35, are we not?

[16:13] So, read a little bit into there, at least for the first four verses, and we'll get into some questions about what he's saying in there.

[16:28] Okay. Okay.

[16:41] God now speaks to Jacob. And what does God say to him? And I don't know how long, how many days this may be or may not be.

[16:52] We're not told. But what does God say to Jacob at this point? Arise, go to Bethel, and build me an altar and live there.

[17:07] Now, as far as I know, I don't know if you bring up any others, but as far as I know, this is the first record that God has told anyone to build an altar.

[17:28] We know that Noah did build an altar, but we aren't told that God told him to do that.

[17:41] We know that Abraham, or we can infer that Abraham maybe built an altar because he was to offer Isaac as a burnt offering.

[17:52] So, he went and did build the altar, but we don't know that God told him to build an altar. We do know that God told him to sacrifice.

[18:03] So, I can infer that maybe Abraham was told to build an altar, but I can't say that definitely. As far as I can definitely say, this is the first time that I know of where God said, build an altar to me.

[18:31] Yeah, that was a common thing. Raise up a cairn of stones, and he has set up a pillar and anointed it. This is the first time I know that God has told people to build an altar.

[18:46] Now, people built off altars before this, but the ziggurats were built to idols. They weren't built to God.

[18:58] And there, you know, Abraham would have been probably familiar with the ziggurats coming from Ur of the Chaldees.

[19:11] He came from that area. But as far as being ordered by God, literally in the scripture, this is the first time I'm aware.

[19:22] The next time, here's a question for you.

[19:33] The next time God does order, altar, is going to be where? The next time I could find that God orders about an altar, it's going to be an exodus at Mount Sinai.

[19:55] That's a long stretch. But we know, and we're speaking only of what the revealed word says, but we don't necessarily know if God did or didn't.

[20:15] I'm assuming he did not tell anyone else, but we don't know that. Now, As though, told Jacob to go to Bethel, build an altar, and dwell there.

[20:30] So, now we come. I guess we did make it. So, now we come to verse 2. Jacob tells all his household.

[20:44] Now, when the scripture here is talking about a household, they're not just talking about mom, dad, and the kids.

[20:56] Right? He's talking about everyone that has to do with them. So, he's talking about Jacob. He's talking about his wives.

[21:08] He's talking about his sons and their wives. And he's talking about all the slaves that they have.

[21:18] Now, what does Jacob say to them? Okay, that's the first thing.

[21:35] We'll get to the rest. Now, now I come to the question. What's this strange gods business? What's strange gods?

[21:52] Okay, foreign gods or strange gods. The word is the same. Has to do with God's unknown. Anybody not Jehovah at this point.

[22:07] So, what strange gods would they have had? Ones they've plundered? Okay.

[22:19] Any others? Which one? Okay. What did Rebecca have?

[22:31] Or Rebecca? I fell for it. What did Rachel have? Her father's teraphim. The idols from her dad.

[22:44] That she pretended not to have. So, she had those. What else were they to give up? Now, I can infer real quickly that I'm not to have idols, right?

[23:04] That's pretty easy inference. What else? Yeah. Changing clothes. We'll get to that in a minute.

[23:15] What else? Okay, does that mean that you're not to wear jewelry?

[23:29] Now, here comes the rightly dividing. You're not to covet it. But, there are some that will teach that it's wrong to wear jewelry.

[23:49] So, is that what this is teaching? The earrings, because he calls them strange gods and those earrings, I'm going to guess that these earrings, the jewelry they were to give up, had to do with talismans and amulets that they would wear for, oh, this is my patron.

[24:20] This is my safety. You know, I'm going to wear this. I'm going to carry this. It's a kind of a talisman kind of thing.

[24:35] Yeah, my rabbit's foot. Because he here is going to separate his family.

[24:50] From the foreign gods. From the strange gods. From idolatry. That's this separation. So, they dish them up.

[25:03] What does he do with them? He buries them under the oak tree. Okay, I'm going to bury it.

[25:13] He buried treasure. So, now you can go and try to find that oak tree and shechem and dig these up. They'll be worth a lot of money.

[25:27] He also talks about changing your clothes. Now, what does that have to do with cleansing myself from foreign gods?

[25:38] Who else had to change their clothes? You have to get in a time machine. When God brought them, we'll bring them to Mount Sinai.

[25:52] And he's about to descend to the mount. He gives them three days to prepare. And Moses is going to tell them, this is what you do.

[26:08] You baptize yourself. You wash yourself. You wash your clothes. You separate yourself from your wives. That doesn't mean divorce.

[26:19] That just means you're going to be celibate for three days. You are going to sanctify yourself. And I'm going to descend to the mountain.

[26:33] It's a symbolic cleansing. And the priests will be eventually required to do this every time they prepare to serve.

[26:47] But right now, Jacob is saying, change your clothes. It's a symbolism that I'm changing gears here. I'm leaving the old way.

[26:57] I'm going the new one. For the church, there's not a symbolic change. There's a change of heart.

[27:10] And we are not symbolizing a commitment. We are actually new creatures in Christ. The old things have passed away.

[27:23] Behold, all things have become new. You are a new creature in Christ. Whether you want to be or not. You're a new creature. Now, I should desire to be.

[27:39] But it's not symbolic. It's real. And it's not temporary. It's permanent. And it's accomplished not by what I did, but what Christ did.

[27:52] All of those things are wonderful things. And here, though, Jacob is making a shift. And he's saying, okay, get rid of this.

[28:07] And he said, let us arise and go there. To Bethel. Why? To build the altar.

[28:19] Why? Because God told me to do that. So, let's arise. We're heading to Bethel. Altar there. And he.

[28:35] I'm going to build the altar to the God who answered me. In my distress. Stress. So. What's his household do?

[28:52] They do it. They give them all up. And he buries them. Now. Yeah, he buries the household. No. He buries the talismans and the foreign gods.

[29:06] Okay. Yes.

[29:18] Verse 5. What had Jacob said to Simon and Levi after they'd slaughtered the Shechemites?

[29:32] Yeah. What have you done? You're going to make me stink in the. You're going to make a stink of us in the nostrils of these Canaanites.

[29:44] They're going to band together and they're going to come after us. Did this happen? No. Why not? Why'd they fear him?

[29:58] Why'd they fear him? Why'd they fear him? Yeah.

[30:09] God terrified them. For whatever reason. They didn't pursue because they were afraid. And God sent this fear upon them.

[30:21] So God is protecting Jacob and his household. Even though Jacob and his household. Or Jacob at least is fearful.

[30:34] God's protecting them. And he sends a terror upon them. Now. Will this be the only time God does such things?

[30:47] All the way. All the way, isn't it? Time and time again. God's plan will be brought to fruition. I'm thankful for that promise.

[31:00] That's part of why we study the history. You know, the Apostle Paul said, look. So that you may have hope in the scripture.

[31:11] So. We find. We find that God is faithful in that. Now. God has sent this fear.

[31:25] So they journey in peace. And. Where did they go? Okay.

[31:36] He uses both names. Of. Moses here is writing this. He uses both names of the place to.

[31:48] Just to. Remind us that. Originally. They. This area was named Luz. And now it's going to. It has been renamed. By Jacob.

[31:59] Bethel. What. Remind me. What does Bethel mean? The house of God. This. Now. Does God live here? How many of you were.

[32:12] Have ever. Associated. Or been told something. About. The church.

[32:23] You know. The church building. And say. This is God's house. Seriously. I want. I want to see how many of us. Beside me. Yeah.

[32:36] Don't run in there. That's God's house. Now. Does God live here? Another trick question.

[32:47] Isn't it? Does God live. Here. There it is. You see. This is a difference.

[32:58] This is a big difference. It's a big division. There is no longer. A sacred place. It's sacred people.

[33:12] The church. Is not a building. In this day of grace. The church is not the building. The church is the. People of God.

[33:24] When. When we depart. From this building. It's a building. Now. Don't get me wrong. It's a building that.

[33:36] Those who build it. Sanctified. If you will. They dedicated it. For a specific purpose. And that was so the church.

[33:47] Could meet there. But. It's not sacred. In and of itself. As. One of our brothers.

[33:57] Used to say. You know. You can meet in a pickle factory. And it's still the church. That's not the deal. So. But here.

[34:09] Bethel. House of God. And he says so. Because of. The vision God gave him there. And. Sets it up. So. No. He set up a pillar.

[34:25] And anointed it. When he named it Bethel. But it wasn't an altar yet. No. He set up a. Well. The stone of remembrance. He set up a stone.

[34:37] And he anointed it. And. Called it Bethel. Because. This. This must be the house of God. Because of the vision.

[34:49] But he did not build an altar. At that time. Now he will. Okay. So. They.

[35:03] They. Bethel. And Jacob. Builds the altar. Now. Something else happens. Besides arriving at Bethel. And building the altar.

[35:14] What else happens? Bethel. Now. Let's get this in perspective. Rebecca's.

[35:26] Nurse. Who's Rebecca? Jacob's mother. Her nurse. Dies.

[35:39] This woman's lived a long time. A long time. Now. Do you remember. Any time. Where.

[35:49] Her residence. Shifted. From Isaac's household. To Jacob's household. I don't either. And with scriptures. Not.

[36:00] Doesn't tell us. The scriptures. Quiet on that. Nevertheless. She's obviously. With Jacob. At this time. Because. Where did they bury her?

[36:10] They like oak. Don't they? They. I.

[36:27] I kind of think. There were a lot of oak trees. But. I don't know. There's nothing in scripture. That make. Makes it necessarily.

[36:38] Symbolic. Because. They didn't throw. Oak. Palm. Oak branches. In front of Christ.

[36:49] When he entered Jerusalem. They threw palms. They didn't. Plant.

[37:00] Oaks. They planted. Dates. Or. And figs. And olives. So. I don't know. About that.

[37:12] Although. You know. Abraham. Camped by the oak. Now. I doubt. Seriously. It's a pin oak. Or a white oak.

[37:22] Or a red oak. I think it's probably. More like. Most. English. Bibles. Will have a. What do I want to call it?

[37:33] A. A. Note. A footnote. On that. That says. Probably. Tamarisk. Tree. Or. Something. Along that line. Or.

[37:43] Terebinth. That's it. A. Terebinth. Tree. Something. A little more common. To that area. Than. Than oak trees. What did Absalom.

[37:54] Get hung up in? Did he get hung up. In an oak tree? I don't remember. Never. Nevertheless. They bury.

[38:06] They bury Deborah. And. They name it. What? The oak of crying.

[38:17] Or the oak of weep. The oak of weeping. Because. She was an important person in the household. She was his mother's nurse.

[38:27] This woman. Has to be pretty old by this point. So. God's given her a long time. She is now in Jacob's household. Now. She has died.

[38:38] And they bury her. At Bethel. And with that. I'm going to. Stop. And say. Have a great week.

[38:49] God bless you.