Putting The "El" In "Behtel"

with it, sin and righteousness together, it’ll do.

NO.

We don’t want the land of "it’ll do," we want the

land of "This is very Good!" We don’t just want

Bethel, we want EL Bethel! First, we have to see

that we’re not where God wants us.

(2) We have to Confess. Jacob told his family to

gather the foreign gods, and cleanse your clothes,

and change them. (If anyone wants to find

scriptural support for clean, nice clothes for

church, this is it Illus. Wife was sick, sent

husbandto church. When he got home she

pestered him with questions about people, "What

was so and so wearing, who was -- sitting with?"

Hubby couldn’t answer any questions to which the

wife said, "A lot of good it does y o u to go to

church!")

Confess means you agree with God. You don’t

just see it, you say it! Honesty, no hypocrisy, no

denial, facing Where you are, and calling it wrong.

In this Jacob finally took a clear stand for God

with his family; until now he’s tolerated a lot of

compromise; their tents were filled with

statues, magic charms. their earrings were magic

charms, amulets, The Devil couldn’t have been

prouder. Well no more, he made them get rid of

the foreign gods. He had them bring them to him,

and buried them.

(3) They had to leave something. They didn’t just

talk about getting rid of their idols, they did it,

Cheryl and I don’t like horoscopes, they’re

satanic, and they’re false gods. Why believe the

stars, when we know the One who made the stars.

Years ago in Malta, my Grandmother came to

visit. Everyday we’d cut out the horoscope from

the paper and throw it away; every day my

Grandmother was wondering what this big hole in

the Newspaper was. We finally shared and she

was so struck by what we said, that, shortly

afterward, a 64 year old lady asked Jesus to come

into her heart.

Frankly cutting, burying, burning, all is fairly

easy. Jacob’s god wasn’t so easy. He wanted the

right to interpret God’s word his own way. God

clearly said, Go, Gen. 31, he clearly understood,

Bethel. So why is he in Shechem? Well close is

good enough. Jacob interpreted the Command

and applied it the Shechem!

His god was his right to his own interpretation.

This is the biggest god of our generation. We have

a couple of generations that believe they have a

right to pain free, luxurious life. And if we don’t

get it, we resent it, blame, complain, get depressed,

get angry, seek revenge, kill things, ram things,

break things! We seek out a theology that will get

us what we want. A life of Luxury, free of pain.

Years ago, Christian people believed both good

and bad came from the hand of the Lord, and

they submitted, sometimes with tears, but

they would always say, "The Good Lord sent this,

we’ll just have to thank him." "God is good, we’ll

just have to trust Him, I need this because God is

working in me a deep work."

Today, we rise up in our pride and say, "How

could God do this to me." "I don’t like God right

now, what else could happen, this is so evil."

"Where is God?" We can’t understand Lou

Gehrig standing in Yankee Stadium his career

over, staring into the face of a life full of pain,