You will take your Bibles and turn to the 35th chapter of the book of Genesis. Our text this morning is going to be the entire chapter. So I'm going to begin the reading in Genesis chapter 35 and verse 1. Then God said to Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there, and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother. And Jacob said to his household, and to all who were with him, Put away the foreign gods that are among you. Purify yourselves, and change your garments. Then let us arise, and go up to Bethel. And I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and has been with me in the way which I have gone. So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hands, and the earrings which were in their ears. And Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree, which was by Shechem. and they journeyed. And the terror of God was upon the cities that were all around them, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. So Jacob came to Luz, that is, Bethel, which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him. And he built an altar there, and called the place Elbethel, because there God appeared to him when he fled from the face of his brother. Now Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and she was buried below Bethel under the terebinth tree. So the name of it was called Elan bakoth. Then God appeared to Jacob again, and he came from Paddan Aram, and blessed him. And God said to him, Your name is Jacob. Your name shall not be called Jacob any more, but Israel shall be your name. So he called his name Israel. Also God said to him, I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body. The land which I gave Abraham and Isaac I give to you. and to your descendants after you I give this land.' Then God went up from him in the place where he talked with him. So Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he talked with him, a pillar of stone, and he poured a drink offering on it, and he poured oil on it. And Jacob called the name of the place where God spoke with him, Bethel. Then they journeyed from Bethel, and when there was but a little distance to go to Ephrath, Rachel labored in childbirth, and she had hard labor. Now it came to pass, when she was in hard labor, that the midwife said to her, Do not fear, you will have this son also. And so it was, as her soul was departing, for she died, that she called his name Ben-Oni, but his father called him Benjamin. So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath, that is Bethlehem, and Jacob set a pillar on her grave, which is the pillar of Rachel's grave to this day. Then Israel journeyed and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder. And it happened, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father's concubine, and Israel heard about it. Now the sons of Jacob were twelve, the sons of Leah were Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, and Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. The sons of Rachel were Joseph and Benjamin. The sons of Bilhah, Rachel's maidservant, were Dan and Naphtali. And the sons of Zilpah, Leah's maidservant, were Gad and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob, who were born to him in Paddan Aram. Then Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, or Kirhath Arba, that is, Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac had dwelt. Now the days of Isaac were one hundred and eighty years. So Isaac breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his people, being old and full of days. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him. Let's pray. Our Father, we would pray for the outpouring of your Holy Spirit, Lord, that you would enable us to, me to preach and your people to hear the Word of God with great power and with great clarity, that you will exalt yourself through your Holy Word. And we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. John Newton famously described the pilgrimage of faith with these words, Our study of Jacob's life thus far has been a testament to the truth of those words. Think about it. He had had to leave his homeland and flee to his uncle Laban because his brother Esau wanted to kill him and was intent on doing him bodily harm. turned out that Laban himself was no picnic to live with either, and after 20 years of oppression under him, he fled from Laban only to have Laban pursue him, intending to kill him as well. Well, no sooner does he make peace with Laban than he finds out Esau is coming to meet him, with 400 armed men accompanying him in that way, and as he's thinking through his anxieties about meeting him face to face, Then a mysterious stranger appears out of nowhere and begins wrestling with him all night. A stranger that, as far as he knows, intends to do him harm as well. Of course, you know that stranger turned out to be God himself. Then God makes his peace, helps Jacob to make peace with Esau. And there's a few years of tranquility where Jacob is not disturbed by anyone around him. But then his peace is shattered by sins from within, that is sins from his own children. His daughter, Dinah, lost her virginity to a pagan Gentile by the name of Shechem. His sons, Simeon and Levi, took matters into their own hands and slaughtered all the men of the city of Shechem. And then his other nine sons joined in plundering the city, which put them in peril." And the chapter 34 ends with Jacob alarmed and concerned that now, because of what has been done, the surrounding Canaanite people will be attacking them and pursuing them. And so, yet in the midst of all these hardships, we find God appearing to him, giving him promises, reassuring him throughout all these things, and sparing him through all the issues that he goes through. Which brings us then to the chapter this morning, chapter 35. And you probably noticed as we read it, there's a whole lot going on in this chapter. First of all, God gives a commandment for Jacob to depart and go to Bethel, and Jacob obeys. In the midst of that obedience, Deborah, His mother's nurse dies and is buried. God then appears to Jacob, and Jacob worships him. Then Benjamin, his final son, is born, but Rachel dies and is buried. As Jacob rejoices over his son, but mourns over the loss of his wife, then he gets the news that his oldest son, Reuben, has committed sexual incest with Jacob's own concubine, Bilhah. We then read a complete list of Jacob's 12 sons, the first list of that nature that we read anywhere in all of scripture. And then we read that Isaac dies and is buried. The entire chapter is full of both blessing and adversity. There's grace being poured out, but there's also a whole lot of sin going on. God is worshipped, but there's also idolatry in the midst of Jacob's family. There's new life celebrated in the birth of Benjamin, but it's celebrated in the context of three different funerals taking place. Jacob's seed is multiplying, but as one of his sons commits incest, things that even the Gentiles don't do. Sounds a bit like our pilgrimage, doesn't it? that we journey and we follow after the Lord in the midst of all kinds of hardship. A friend told me many years ago that the Christian life is not one mountaintop experience after another, but neither is the Christian life lived entirely in the valley of despond and discouragement either. The normal Christian life is lived somewhere in between. As we look at this chapter, there's sorrow, but there's also rejoicing. There's defeats, but there are also victories. There's mourning, but there's also celebration. There's sins that grieve Jacob. Sins of his children. Sins from his oldest son. that causes a godly parent to grieve. At the same time, though, there's the outpouring of grace and of mercy. But no matter what Jacob goes through, there's also the steadfast love of God, which never ceases. And that's exactly how it is for you and me, isn't it? That the steadfast love of God never ceases in our lives either. And so we can praise God for that and thank Him for that. Well, as we look at this chapter, I want to preach it to you under four main headings. First of all, we see the command of God. Secondly, the appearance of God. Third, the faithfulness of God. And fourth, the servant of God. So first of all, the command of God. The chapter begins with a commandment. God says, take your family and travel to Bethel. Leave Shechem behind and go to the place I'm telling you. Interesting enough, in the last chapter, if you remember, The Lord did not even have honorable mention in the entire chapter. It's as if God seems to have left Jacob, but it only seems that way. God was very much at work, but isn't it true in your life and mine that there are times when God doesn't seem close? It seems that he's abandoned us, at least the way we feel he's abandoned us, yet we know because his word promises us that he never leaves nor forsakes his people. Well, even so, it must have comforted Jacob to hear God speak again, and to now give clear direction. You need to return to Bethel, the place that you were at more than 20 years ago, when you fled from the presence of Esau, and I met you there. Now, remember what happened at Bethel before. While Jacob was there, he had had a vision, he had had a dream. And in that dream, he had seen a ladder that touched heaven and that touched earth. And we know from the rest of scripture, from what Jesus himself says about that dream and vision, that the latter was a symbol of Jesus himself. That is one who is both God and man and can reconcile heaven to earth and earth to heaven. And so he's reminding him, go back to that same place where you were first told about the Messiah. Go and meet with me there. So in verses 2-4, we read of Jacob's preparations for the journey. He prepares his household not just for the journey, but also to meet with the living God. Notice in verse 2 that he gives three specific commandments and charges to his family. The first thing he says is, put away the foreign gods that are among you. There were foreign gods being worshipped inside of Jacob's household. Now that's a concern because first of all, where did these idols come from? One possibility is it was Rachel's theft of Laban's household idols that have become a snare now to Jacob's family. Or it could be the gods of the Hivites that were acquired when Jacob's sons plundered the city of Shechem. Or it could be a combination of both. But whatever the case, there were idols being worshipped, false gods being worshipped under Jacob's roof. And we should stop and think about that for just a moment because, you know, the reality is that he should have dealt with this a long time ago. The very fact that he was aware that there were false gods among them as the head of his home, he should have said, no, that's not acceptable. Get this out of here. The reality is, isn't it true that all of us, at different times in our pilgrimage, at different times in our life, we as heads of home have allowed things into our homes that we know are not pleasing to God? We've compromised His ways and allowed things into our home that we should not have allowed. Think of the Ephesian Christians. Do you remember when the seven sons of Sceva had the demon-possessed man beat them up and sent them out bruised and naked? The whole church was put in fear, and some in the church of Ephesus had been saved out of the occult, and yet they had secretly held on to their books of magic. And when this all happened, the Lord convicted them, and they realized this should not be under our roof. And so they had a big bonfire, and they burned 50,000 pieces of silver worth of books. They didn't sell them and say, let's sell it and give it to missions, or let's sell it and give it to the church. Rather than it being a stumbling block to anyone else, they burned it and destroyed it and turned it to ash. But again, here were people who were true believers in Christ, and yet they had things in their home they shouldn't have had. But if Jacob had failed to be the leader he should have been, better late than never. And now he says, put away your gods. The second thing he tells them in verse 2 is, purify yourselves. That is, repent of sin. Deal with sin in your life. Confess your sins to God and to men, and put away your sins. And the third thing he says is, change your garments. If you and I were going to go meet the president, surely we would dress in our best. Even so, he says, we're preparing to meet God, dress for the occasion. And so they do so. And verse three tells them we're about to go to Bethel. He gives them instruction and tells them what they're about to do. And then verse four, we find his household responding to him. Verse four says, they gave Jacob all the foreign gods, which were in their hands and the earrings, which were in their ears. And Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree, which was by Shechem. Now, frankly, I wish he hadn't buried them under the tree. I wish instead he had ground them to powder, just like Moses would later do with the golden calf. Because the problem is, if you bury an idol, somebody else can dig up that idol and they can stumble over it. Nonetheless, thank God he did as much as he did, but we do wish he would have done more. But in any event, they give to him their idols, and he buries them and hides them from them. And then we read in verses 5-7 of his obedience to the Lord. And note very carefully verse 5, And they journeyed, and the terror of God was upon the cities that were all around them, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. Remember that the last chapter ended with Jacob being afraid and terrified, that because of what his sons had done, the surrounding nations were going to attack them. that God Himself had promised, I will be with you wherever you go. And so He gives His command, and as He obeys that command, He also enjoys God's protection. And that's something we should bear in mind. When people intend to do you and I harm, whether it's physical, whether it's spiritual, whatever it is, we need to remember that the hearts of all men are in the hands of a sovereign God, and he directs them wheresoever he will. And men can't do anything against us without the permission of God himself. Even so, these nations may have intended and wanted to harm Jacob, to do it to him before they did it to them. But nonetheless, God restrained them and put his fear and terror upon them so they would not dare touch Jacob. He was obeying the Lord, and therefore he enjoyed the Lord's protection. And so the Bible tells us then, that he came to Luz, that is Bethel, which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him, and he built an altar, the second time we ever read of Jacob building an altar, and he calls it El Bethel. And he worships the Lord there, because this was the place where God had appeared to him when he had fled before from his brother Esau. Verse 8, then, suddenly seems to disrupt the narrative flow in some ways, doesn't it? Notice what it says, Now Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and she was buried below Bethel, under the terebinth tree. So the name of it was called Alon bakath, which is the terebinth of weeping. It seems to interrupt the narrative flow, doesn't it? Because we have him journeying to the place, he comes to Bethel, he builds an altar. The next thing we're going to be told is God is going to appear to him. And, oh, by the way, while all this was happening, the nurse, Deborah, died. Seems kind of strange, doesn't it, in some ways? Why does the Holy Spirit tell us about this here, at this present time? We have met Deborah once before. Deborah was the nurse of Rebekah, who was Jacob's mother, and she traveled with Rebekah after Isaac's wife Rebekah was her nurse, and she had traveled with Rebekah when she was brought by Abraham's servant to the land of Canaan, there to marry Isaac. And so literally, Rebekah, Jacob's mother, had grown up on this woman's knee. And it's obvious that Esau and Jacob had also grown up on her knee. So she was a matriarchal figure in the family, basically a surrogate mother and a surrogate grandmother to them. And so her loss was deeply felt when she died. But why does the Spirit of God tell us about this in the midst of this narrative flow? I think He's trying to tell us something. I think He's trying to tell us and remind us that we serve the Lord and follow the Lord in the midst of a fallen world. That is, things go on as normal, even as we follow the Lord, and just because bad things happen to us, it doesn't necessarily mean that we're under God's judgment at that particular time. In other words, we serve the Lord in the midst of working our busy schedules and working our jobs, cleaning our houses, changing diapers, going to wedding showers and baby showers and funerals and weddings and all the different things that we do. And as we do that, we live in a world that's full of sin and that's full of the curse. and things happen, even people, loved ones grow old and feeble and they die. And that doesn't mean necessarily that God is putting his judgment upon us because we go through such things. Here is Jacob. What sin would God be punishing him for? He's in the midst of building an altar to worship God himself. He's serving the Lord, obeying the Lord, and it's in the midst of his obedience that this mourning takes place. So, my point is, you need to consider that when you are serving the Lord, bad things can happen that doesn't necessarily follow that God is chastening you. Sometimes, certainly, He uses circumstances to chasten us, but just because bad things happen doesn't mean that the Lord is punishing you for some sin in your life. It's just the reality of living in a fallen world. These things should cut the strings that hold our hearts to this world, and they should make us look to the age to come in which there will be no more sickness and death. But nonetheless, these things happen as we go. Well, something else we should note. In verse 7, He built an altar there. It's something that I've said to you many, many times as we have gone through the book of Genesis. But everywhere that the patriarchs went, they built altars. They built altars so they could worship the Lord, and not just them, but their families with them. Now think about it. Who else was worshiping the Lord in the places where they lived? The answer is no one was. They were surrounded by pagans. They were surrounded by idolaters. But there was one family to be found in the midst of the land who was worshipping God. I've said it many times before, but let me say it again. You may live in a neighborhood where you don't have many Christians around you either. Where you're the only Christian on your street. You're the only person who really knows the Lord. Well, here's the good news. There is one house in your neighborhood where God can be worshiped consistently. And so you who are heads of home, you fathers and you husbands, especially I say to you, wherever you have family worship, whether it be in your living room or your kitchen or wherever it may be, Turn that place into a sanctuary. Make it so that your family is worshiping the Lord, so that there is a place in your neighborhood where God is consistently and constantly worshiped. This is what the patriarchs did, and this should be an example to all of us to do the same. Well then, we get to, we've seen the command of God in verses one through eight. What we see next is the appearance of God in verses nine through 15. Verse nine says, then God appeared to Jacob again. He had appeared to him in Bethel over 20 years earlier, and now he appears again. And he comes to, when Jacob has finally come full circle from Paddan Aram and he's arrived again in Bethel. And God says to him, your name is Jacob. Your name shall not be called Jacob anymore, but Israel shall be your name. This was a reminder of the fact that when he had wrestled with God all night, he had come away with a new name and also with a new heart. And so he's reminding him of that truth. And then in verses 11, through 12. God renumerates or reminds him of the great Abrahamic covenant that he had made with his forefathers and that he was now the heir of as well, and he doesn't give him any new information. He tells him the same old information. Notice what he says, verse 11. I am God Almighty, be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body. The land which I gave Abraham and Isaac I give to you, and to your descendants after you I give this land. Now, as we have noted in our study of Genesis, there is both a physical and a spiritual fulfillment to these promises. The physical promise, you will be fruitful and multiply, a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you. That happened literally. This happened, certainly, that Israel was established as a nation. There were other nations that came from Abraham's body. Things like that. Esau would become the nation of Edom, for example. But as we think through all those things, let's also realize this. In the book of Galatians, Paul tells us that more was intended by this statement than just the fact that Abraham would have physical nations come from him. In Galatians chapter three, verses seven to nine, he tells us that this was God saying that the Gentiles would receive the gospel and have the gospel preached to them. That is, the seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ, will be preached among all nations. And whoever believes on Jesus Christ becomes a son of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He becomes our spiritual father, even if you're a Gentile who is uncircumcised, if you believe on Christ, because he's promising you'll have a multitude of spiritual sons, not just physical sons. And then the giving of the land. God literally gave the land of Canaan to the nation of Israel. But the book of Hebrews tells us there was something even greater than this. That this was a shadowy reflection of a greater truth. That by saying, I'm giving you the land of Palestine, he was also saying, I'm giving you real estate in the new heaven, and in the new earth, in the new Jerusalem. And that Abraham was looking forward to that. Now here's the question. Why does God say the same things that he said so many times before to Jacob? He's not adding any new information here. Well, the reason is, we are so prone to forget. God tells us things, and we forget, and therefore the scripture has the repeated command, remember. Remember what I've said. Remember what I've told you. In fact, you and I, at the Lord's Table, every time we take the Lord's Supper, what is the commandment? Remember. Remember Jesus' body. Remember Jesus' shed blood. Why do we need to be told to remember about the gospel? Because we are so prone to forget. And I've been thinking about this. We can't take the Lord's table so long as we're having virtual meetings. And when this coronavirus has passed, I can't wait to that day that we get to come together on the Lord's day, preach the word, and be able to celebrate the Lord's table together. What a sweet thing it's going to be. Perhaps the Lord has providentially hindered us from taking it, so that the next time we do, absence will have made the heart grow fonder, and we'll rejoice to remember what Jesus has done for us. He says as well, kings will come from your body, and we know, of course, that's the literal truth. Just read 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and you'll see, yes, kings did come from Jacob's body, but I believe God also has in view the fact that the King of kings and the Lord of lords would ultimately come from his body, the Messiah. Well, God goes up from Him at the place where He talked to Him at verse 13, which again tells us something. This was a theophany, an Old Testament appearance of God. And as I've told you many times, I'm convinced that every single theophany in the Old Testament is a Christophany. Because the Bible tells us, no one has seen God the Father at any time. This was none other than the pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus Christ himself. So Jesus, the very one who is being prophesied, is here appearing to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and giving them a glimpse of foreshadowing of the great day that was to come. He went up from them, and Jacob responded by setting up a pillar in the place where he had talked with him, a pillar of stone. He poured a drink offering on it and poured oil on it, and God called the name of the place where God had spoke to him Bethel. He renames it again by the same name he had given it more than 20 years earlier. The one point I would drive home to you is this. Worship was Jacob's response to God's revelation of himself. And fundamentally, whatever else we can say worship is, it is response. It is God responding, or excuse me, it is us responding to God's disclosure of himself, his revelation of himself in his son as revealed to us in Holy Scripture. And so it's the response of men and angels to that revelation of himself. So what we've seen thus far is the command of God and the appearance of God. Third, let's consider the faithfulness of God. The faithfulness of God. Verse 16 says that they were on their way to Ephrath, that is, Bethlehem. They're journeying from Bethel onto another place. If you noticed, God had said to Jacob, be fruitful and multiply. He already had 11 sons and one daughter when God said that, but it seemed the guy was saying to him, you're not quite finished yet, having children. And so Rachel had conceived another child in addition to Joseph, and she was about to give birth to Benjamin. Now, something that's harder for us to appreciate here in the 21st century, surrounded by technology and all the medical benefits that we have, is that childbearing was a very dangerous occupation back in the day. Even as early as 150 years ago, one-fourth of all women who went into labor died in childbirth. And there was a high rate of infant mortality as well in those days, even when the wife did survive. So here is Rachel. who had at one point been barren. She's giving birth to her second child, and the Lord takes her home. She dies in the midst of all this. Now again, notice what happens. She dies on the hills of God himself, reiterating the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant. Again, we live in a fallen world, and death and burial is a reality. As she's dying, her midwife reassures her, don't be afraid. You will have this son also. Your son's gonna be healthy. He's gonna be okay. But in the midst of her sorrows, she names him Ben-Oni, the son of my sorrow. Jacob obviously did not want his son to grow up with a name that reminded him constantly of the death of his wife. So names him Benjamin, the son of my right hand. And so she dies and was buried on the way to Ephrath and Jacob buries her, sets up a pillar as a memorial to her. So the joy of a new life entering into the world is tempered by the reality that he has to bury his wife. But it's in the midst of all this, And then we read of what happens next in verse 22, and it's such a sad thing to think about. Here he's mourning the loss of his wife. And if that wasn't bad enough, his oldest son, Reuben, who was a son of Leah, gives him even more cause to be grieved. Look at verse 22. And it happened when Israel dwelt in the land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and Israel heard about it. This was incestuous. This woman, Bilhah, literally was old enough to be Reuben's mother. This was a woman that his father was married to, had slept with, and now here's Reuben committing sexual immorality with this woman. What was his motivation? We're not told. Perhaps it was just simply perversion of his own heart? Or it could be that he saw this as some way to secure the blessing of the firstborn. Remember when King David's son, Absalom, tried to overthrow his throne. He took a hold of David's concubines and slept with them in a tent that was set up for all of Israel to see. The idea was if you control a man's concubine, then you had controlled his throne and seized the throne. And perhaps that's what he's trying to do here. Reuben recognizes that Rachel is dead, that she was the favorite of Jacob. And as we will see very, very soon, he also favored her two sons, Joseph and Benjamin above all the rest. And here's the son of Leah, perhaps trying to secure an outcome of a blessing by taking a hold of this. But whatever the case, it's still perverted and sinful and wrong and disgusting. As a matter of fact, you can't help reading about this, but think about 1 Corinthians 5, where Paul said, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such is not even named among the Gentiles, that a man has his own father's wife. Here was a man sleeping with his own stepmother. And he says, put him out and give him over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh. So there's an incest and a perversion going on here. And this probably means that Jacob had no more relationship with, with Dilha, because if you remember when David was restored to Israel after Absalom, he took the concubines that his son had slept with and set them apart in isolation by themselves and did not sleep with them anymore. And so perhaps it means that Jacob not only has lost Rachel, now he's lost another one of his wives, functionally speaking, because of what has happened. And this, of course, would come back to haunt Reuben many, many decades later. You read in Genesis 49 that he rebukes Reuben for what he'd done. In fact, if you'll turn there, I'll let you hear this and see this with your own eyes. Genesis 49, verses three to four. Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power. Unstable as water, you shall not excel, because you went up to your father's bed, then you defiled it. He went up to my couch." So here, many decades later, his sin would come back to haunt him. More to say about him in just a moment. But notice what happens next. After this record and this description of this sexual perversion that took place with Reuben, verses 22 through 25 name the names of, and through 26 actually, name the names of all 12 of Jacob's children. Now, this is the first time that all 12 sons are listed together in a catalog like this. Why? Do you realize what this is doing? What the Holy Spirit is saying is, here are the 12 tribes of Israel. He's giving them a name. God had said to Abraham, I will make of you a great nation, and now God has not only given that nation a name, Israel, He's also given the 12 tribes of that nation names. God is fulfilling His promise. And the point I want you to see is this, in the midst of incest, in the midst of so many bad things going wrong, God is silently working behind the scenes to fulfill His promise. Even though His precepts are being broken left and right, nonetheless, His decree is being accomplished. Remember when we studied the very sad story of the competition that existed between Rachel and Leah and Bilhah and Zilpah, and we saw the conjugal madness, as Del Ralph Davis calls it, He calls it the patriarchal family and all their dysfunctional splendor. It's a horrible chapter. It makes for painful reading. And yet, in the midst of it all, the seed is multiplying. God is beginning to make the seed as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. That is, God is showing himself faithful despite of, and sometimes even through, the sinfulness of his people. And that's what we see here. Even in the midst of Reuben's sin, God is still multiplying the seed and growing the patriarchal family so he can bring Christ into the world. So what have we seen? We've seen the command of God, we've seen the appearance of God, we have seen the faithfulness of God in the midst of all these things, and finally, we see the servant of God. Notice verses 27 to 29. The servant of God I'm referring to, of course, is Isaac. We read much more about Abraham and Jacob than we ever do about Isaac, but Isaac, it's come time for him to go home to be with the Lord. The days of Isaac were 180 years. Remember, this is the very man whom God told Abraham to sacrifice upon the altar when he was but a lad. And yet here he is at 180 years, dying at a good old age, and he was gathered to his people. That is, his soul went to be in heaven with the souls of just men made perfect. He would be reunited with his father Abraham. He would get to know people like Abel and Noah, men who had believed on the Messiah who was to come. And now he was rejoined with them. One thing we should note, is that this is out of order. In other words, this is not put in chronological order because it's believed that Joseph was actually in Egypt as a slave for 15 years before Isaac died. But the scriptures are telling us about it right now for a reason, because once we turn our attention upon the patriarchs and the children, the 12 children, the 12 sons of Jacob, and especially Joseph, the narrative doesn't want to be interrupted. So it gives us the details of his death right here. Notice as well, though, that it was Esau and Jacob who buried Isaac. These two formerly estranged brothers now reconciled to one another, just as Isaac and Ishmael, who had formerly been estranged, were reconciled and were able to bury Abraham. We know from the rest of scripture that Isaac was buried in the cave of Machpelah, just as Abraham and Sarah, his father and mother, were. More about that in the days to come. What applications can we make of the things that we've seen this morning? I want to suggest three. First of all, have you permitted things into your home that are displeasing to the Lord? And if so, what are you going to do about it? Here was Jacob who knew there were idols in his home that were being worshipped by his children and perhaps by his servants, and yet he permitted this idolatry to persist and to go on, and was silent for the longest time. Thank God that he finally instructed his children to put away their idols, better late than never, but he should never have permitted such a thing in the first place. When God saved the Ephesians out of the occult, many of them secretly kept some of their magic books in the home. And the Lord had to show them their need of getting rid of these things. They lit a bonfire and burned it all and destroyed it before the Lord as an act of worship. You could say, why didn't they just sell it and give the money away to missions or to the cause of the gospel? Well, they didn't want those books to be a stumbling block to anyone else, therefore they destroyed them. What about you? What about you? Are the things that you've brought into your home that you know are not pleasing to the Lord? Books that dabble in sensuality, perhaps. Romance novels with explicit language in them, or catalogs that you know are not pleasing to God. Video games that are full of gratuitous violence, where you're splattering the guts of your enemy all over the computer screen and satisfying some kind of bloodlust. Things that dabble in the occult that you know you should not have. You know, it's not fundamentalist Baptists who run out and make bonfires and destroy things. This is something that God Himself moved people to do in the New Testament. There are sometimes that there are things in our life that we need to repent of and deal with before the Lord and get out of our home lest they be a stumbling block to others. Certainly we have liberty in Christ about a great many things. but beware lest you use your liberty in Christ as a cloak for vice. So if the Spirit of God is pointing His finger at something in your life, in your home, that is not pleasing to Him, submit yourself to Him and do accordingly. Secondly, Afflictions are not necessarily a sign that God is chastening you. Afflictions, sufferings, and tribulations are normal in a fallen and a sin-cursed world. Certainly it's true, God knows how to discipline His children. If you've been in Christ for any length of time, you know that God is a good disciplinarian. He knows how to take us to the woodshed, and He frequently uses our circumstances to correct us, and to chasten us, and to shape us. But just because you're going through hardship doesn't necessarily mean that there's any particular sin that God is dealing with in your life. Sometimes He is, and if He is, humble yourself under it, be teachable, repent of your sins, and know that when God chastens His children, He doesn't do so because He hates you. He does so because He loves you, because He delights in you, because He knows what's best for you. But, that being said, just because bad circumstances happen to you doesn't mean that God is displeased with you, per se. Jacob's surrogate grandmother, Deborah, died and was buried right in the middle of Jacob obeying God's commandment and meeting with God face to face. And his wife, Rachel, died after he had been reassured of the blessings that God was pouring out upon him in the Abrahamic covenant. These were not signs that Jacob was being punished. It's just the reality of living in a fallen world. Jesus and his apostles once met a man who had been blind from his mother's womb. And they asked the question, who sinned, this man or his mother, that he was born blind? And what was Jesus' response? He said, neither. He says, it wasn't him that sinned or his parents that sinned. He's blind for the glory of God. He's blind for a very different reason. Even so, just because you're going through affliction doesn't follow necessarily that you're being punished for something. And we need to remember that because oftentimes the accuser of the brethren comes on and begins to tell us things and whisper in our ear things that somehow God doesn't like you or you're somehow under God's curse. Brothers and sisters, don't listen to the devil. Don't listen to his accusations. Remember, even when God does chase in you, he does so because he loves you and delights in the son that he's punishing. Third and final application, and perhaps the most important one. If you're sleeping, wake up and hear this final application if you hear nothing else. Observe yet again that the salvation of God is given freely to sinners as an act of sheer mercy, and not as a meritorious reward for their good conduct." Now you say, where are you getting this from? Have you thought about the book of the Revelation over the years as you've read it? When you get to chapter 4 and 5, and all through the rest of the book, there's this vision of heaven. And there are 24 elders sitting upon thrones with crowns upon their heads, and they surround the throne of God like knights at the round table. Have you ever wondered, who are they? Who are these 24 men? Think about it. There's two dozen of them. Two sets of 12. Now, I believe when you come to the end of the book, in Revelation 21, you find out exactly what their identity is. Because the Bible tells us that the New Jerusalem descends from heaven, this city of God that we're headed towards. And John begins to describe what it looks like. He says there's 12 gates in the walls. And the 12 gates are named after the 12 tribes of Israel. And then there are 12 foundation stones that support the gates, or support the walls, and they are named after the 12 apostles. So I believe that when you come to Revelation 4, what we are reading about, the 24 elders are the 12 patriarchs, that is the 12 sons of Israel, and then the 12 apostles, which is a beautiful thing to think about, because what it tells us is this, the Old and the New Testament saints are one people worshiping one and the same God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As a matter of fact, we sang holy, holy, holy this morning. Do you realize what we were singing? Casting down their golden crowns before the glassy sea, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. That's exactly where the hymn writer's coming from. These 24 people, worshiping God, because Old and New Testament saints, there's not two peoples of God, there's not three peoples of God, there's one people of God. Old and New Testament saints alike, believing through faith in the same Son of God. But here's the thing that I would like to drive home to you. If what we're saying is true, if it's true that the 24 elders consist of the 12 patriarchs and the 12 apostles, that means that one of those elders, his name is Reuben, A man who committed incest with his father's concubine, seated in heaven with a crown upon his head. How can you explain that? There's only one way you can explain that, and that is that someone died in his place and took away his sin. That he's dressed in the righteousness of Christ because no one can be in heaven apart from the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. That means that when Jesus died, he died to save perverts. He died to save people who commit incestuous acts. He died to save women who have murdered their own unborn children through the sin of abortion. He died to set homosexuals free from their perversion. He died for people who, through slanderous gossip and maliciousness, have tried to destroy the reputations of others. He died for people who've taken God's name in vain. Jesus died for sinners. The only reason that the 12 sons of Jacob will appear in heaven is because of Jesus' sacrificial death in their place, and then being dressed in his righteousness through faith in the Messiah who was to come. I'm not suggesting that Reuben was a Christian at the time that he committed incest. What I'm suggesting is he became a Christian later. That he put his faith in Christ and was regenerated by God's Holy Spirit later. But the point I want you to see is this. Look at what a wicked, vile man this was. He did things that even the Gentiles don't do, and yet here he is, seated in heaven. And by the way, I mentioned 1 Corinthians 5 earlier, and how Paul said, put out this man who is in your midst, who has his own father's wife. Do you know that that man will meet in heaven as well? Because read 2 Corinthians 2, we find that same man being restored to fellowship with the church after he had repented. This is whom Jesus came to save. And if you're here and you're outside of Jesus Christ, if you're listening through this, and you don't know the Lord, you're not reconciled with God, you don't have peace with God, perhaps you say to yourself, I've committed so many wicked sins, so many vile things, there's no way God could ever forgive me. There's no way God could ever receive me to himself. Let me tell you something, Jesus didn't come to save people who've got their lives all together. He didn't come to save people who are righteous. As a matter of fact, if you think you're righteous, if you're trusting your righteousness, Jesus has nothing to do with you. But instead, if you are a sinner, if you're a guilty sinner, if you've made a train wreck of your life, that's exactly who Jesus died for. That's exactly whom He came to save. So fly to Jesus Christ, repenting of your sins and putting your faith in Him, trusting that He is able to save you and just as willing as He is able. We have a wonderful Savior who came to save sinners, guilty sinners, vile sinners, blasphemous sinners, perverted sinners. And he makes them into perverts no more, and to blasphemers no more, and saves them and turns them away from their sins. So fly to Jesus Christ that you might be saved. He's a wonderful savior who delights to save sinners. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your truth. We thank you for your word. We pray, oh Lord, that if anyone is here who does not know you, that your Holy Spirit would convict them and show them their need of Christ and grant them grace, they might fly to Christ and be saved. Bless us this day, Lord. Help us to sanctify this day unto you and to be an encouragement one to another. Bless us through this current pandemic. And we ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.