Apply Within

Bob Davis: You come to Jesus and you are saved, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us. It is His grace. None of us did it ourselves, so we need to stop acting like we are doing it ourselves now. There is a danger in that because you are pretty sure you got this, and you got yourself into a routine, but it could be a rut. And there is a danger there.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Apply Within, a verse-by-verse study of the Word of God with Pastor Bob Davis of North Country Chapel. We invite you to join with us as we, by the power of God's Holy Spirit, apply His Word within our own hearts as we study line upon line, precept upon precept, verse by verse through the Bible. Continuing in Genesis chapter 35, verse 2, Jacob tells his household to bury their false idols and get ready for Bethel. Here is Pastor Bob.

Bob Davis: Verse 2. Then Jacob said to his family, to his household, his wives, the children, the servants, all the servants that work with the flocks and everything. He has got a pretty good crowd going on here. He said to his household and to all that were with him, put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean. Change your clothing, put clean clothes on.

And let us arise and go up to Bethel, and I will make there an altar unto God because God just told him to. I will make an altar unto God who answered me in the day of my distress and was with me in the way which I went. He has been with me for 30 years. I haven't been with Him all 30 years, he says. I have been disobedient, but God is calling me.

So, Christian, if that is you and me, let's get up and get going with God again. It is a great time to do it. You look around you and a lot of people are needing a lot of questions answered, and many are asking about God. Why is God doing this? Why is God allowing this? God is big, He is good, and I am more and more convinced as I talk to some of the pastors and just look through scriptures that God is allowing this to happen so the church could become the church again and get outside of the four walls to where people are and minister to them and to share the Gospel.

Let us arise, 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 to 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.

I was going to just zoom through here. That was my plan. Get going. I want to get to Joseph, but there is something right here that we want to stop and look at. You knew that would happen, didn't you? So look right away. Jacob has been reminded of God's promises and of his own. It reminds him of the things he said. You are my God, You will be my God, and You are my God. Jacob strayed. Christians, we do that. It is easy, it is simple. You just relax and think you got this and you are pretty sure you are more holy than everybody else in the room anyway. You know John 3:16 and you can name a lot of the books of the Bible, so we are on.

But Jacob, just like you and me, he has to be reminded. He strayed. He has been living in disobedience and God is calling him back. So the first thing God calls him to do, and the first thing we watch him do, is repent. That word is all through scripture. It is not used right here, but the idea is just drawn out for us almost in a picture. Repent.

It is the first thing he does and it doesn't just include Jacob, who has been in disobedience. It includes everybody at his house. It includes everybody. And so he makes a note to everybody, his whole house as well, needs to come back. Jacob calls all his family together and his servants and all, and the first thing we want to do, the first thing to do, is put away your false gods. Get rid of things that don't belong in your heart.

Get rid of them, he says. Get rid of those false gods. Those are what you and I would call idols. You remember Rachel stole her dad's, Laban the weasel, she stole her dad's little gods and hid them because she thought they would bring us power and that makes Jacob really the authority over my daddy, and we will just hide these little gods here.

No, we have the one true God and God said, "I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have strange gods, any other gods before Me or around Me or besides Me." And so Jacob says here is the first thing we have got to do, everybody. We have to turn back to God once again. Repent. We have to turn back. The strange false gods, get rid of them. Don't just move them down to the hall closet. Don't just shove things around in your heart. Let's get rid of them.

And what he is going to do is bury them. Bury them under the oak tree, that big old oak tree, and leave them there never to go back. They are dead and they are gone, in other words. Bury them. Or Rachel, she is going to have to take her false gods and give them up. Get rid of all other gods. Only God do we serve. Only God do we listen to. Only God now.

And what else? Be clean. Hey, everybody, be clean. Jacob, be clean and put on clean clothes. We think that is kind of weird. Well, it is nice to have a shower, God bless you. That helps everybody. And clean clothes, that is nice too. But I think you understand the picture, but let me draw it out for you anyway. What is that supposed to do, washing yourself and putting on clean clothes? What is that all about?

In God's Word, washing the body and changing clothes symbolized starting over, symbolized a brand new beginning, a brand new start. In your Christian walk and in my Christian walk, in Jacob's life, he has been with the Lord, the Lord has been protecting him, defending him. The Lord is not going to leave him. We are saved by grace through faith. He is not going to leave me, He is not going to leave you. He is always with us, but He calls us at times saying, "Hey, get rid of this stuff. Get rid of this and turn to Me and let's go to where I am taking you. Don't stop here. What are you doing here? Come on, don't stop here."

So washing the body and changing clothes symbolizes making a new beginning and a brand new start. It is good sometimes to recommit. You say, "I am doing fine already." Good, that is a great time to recommit then. That is a great time to say, "Lord, I have gone this far and I just want to restart. Give me a jumpstart again. Let me recommit my life." You could do that every day. You could do it all the time and that is what he is telling Jacob to do, and everybody in the family should be doing that.

So get rid of the gods and be clean, symbolizing a new beginning, a new start. Let me put it this way: turning back to God. Jacob has been in and out like the Hokey Pokey Christian. He is sort of in and then this week, no big deal, whatever. The weather is good, I am going to go outside, we don't really need God right now. Okay, disease comes along, okay, well now we really need Him big, big, big. And then we are up and down and over and out and God says, "No, no, no, come on. Walk with Me. Come on and walk."

A new beginning, brand new start, turning to God. Before God gave the law to the children of Israel, and I know you probably remember this, Exodus 19. Before God gave the law at Mount Sinai, He called upon the people. Moses, tell the people to wash and change their clothes. Why? Because they were about to enter into a solemn covenant with God Almighty. It is a new thing. It is a beginning. You are born again by grace through faith and now we are going to walk on new, fresh, clean clothes, clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

So in Exodus 19, God says, "Get the people ready." What do I have to do? Well, what they need to do is to wash and put on clean clothes. We are going to enter into a covenant with God Almighty. Us and God. We entered into a covenant by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, through Jesus Christ. With God, we entered into His new covenant that He has been promising and promising and we entered in by grace through faith. So we wash our face and we wash our hands and we are cleansed and wrapped and clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ Himself.

These dirty old garments when he says to Jacob, "Everybody wash and put clean clothes on," we are starting brand new. Does He love them? Yes. Do they still belong to Him? Yes. Is He saying, "Oh, you almost weren't mine, but I had a second thought?" No. No, they are His and He will not break His promise, but notice, He wants our hearts and He wants my heart and yours and He wants us always.

And sometimes, we get into a rut. There is a thin line between a rut and a groove and it is hard sometimes to find it and maybe you are just in a groove right now or maybe it is a rut and you are doing this thing because that is what Christians do and it means nothing. And once it means nothing, it is nothing. It is just nothing. You have been living for 10 years in disobedience knowing that you were called over here and you are still not here. Get up, it is time to go. Jacob, get up, it is time to go.

These dirty old garments represent the old life, the old nature. Wash your face, put on clean clothes. Why? The old garments need to go. The old nature, it is with me, it is with you. We are Christians. If you belong to Jesus Christ and you are truly His, you know that that old nature is doing great and if you want to take two minutes off, the old nature says, "I got this then, I am with you." And it comes out and we are a mess. The old nature with all of its weaknesses and all of its failures.

Now, the word that the Lord often uses in the Old Testament and the New is one that we are very familiar with: repent. Metanoeo. Metanoeo. It means a complete change of heart and mind, a complete change. Turn around, you could say. A 180-degree turn. You are going straight south and God says, "Come on, Bob, come on, let's walk." And you just turn around and now I am going straight north instead of headed straight south, just instantly, spiritually, of course.

That is what it means to repent. We have got a calling to do. So think about repent. Think about that. That is what He is calling Jacob to do and Jacob is doing it. And he says, "Family, everybody, bring your little gods in, turn your earrings," because a lot of the jewelry was used in worship toward the etc. Tattoos were used. They would put tattoos on their bodies way back then about their gods and it was all part of worship.

So you see he is saying, "Turn this stuff in, we're going to bury it. It's dead to us. Bury under that big tree and we're going to leave. We're going to leave it all behind us. We're not going to turn around. It's gone. We're going to move on now." First thing is to turn to God. You say, "Well, I am saved by grace of faith." Great. So the first thing is to turn to God. You say, "Well, I am walking with Him." Great. Here is an opportunity to recommit just the same. Great.

All of Jacob's household brought their idols. That is what I read here. They brought their idols. They all brought what they had. Rachel, you had those, man, and I made fun of your... give me those things. Their false gods. Some of them with their jewelry. Many wore jewelry and it represented their God. Their earrings, their bracelets, their rings on their fingers and their bells on their toes, it all represented different gods.

And you see people today that just have stuff everywhere and you do wonder sometimes. I wonder what that represents. I wonder what it means. It doesn't matter. God still loves them, they can still come to Jesus, but that jewelry, they gave it all up. They gave everything up. Jacob buried all that garbage under a large oak tree there in Shechem. Buried, dead, gone, left behind. They have nothing to do with it anymore. They don't need it. It is back there at Shechem. It is out of God's will. That is the old and now we are walking in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Now we are walking once again.

So we go all the way to verse 5. And they journeyed. Maybe you should underline this. It is always up to you. It is a suggestion, not a command. 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. What? Something amazing here, something amazing.

Jacob is afraid. Look what you have done. You killed every man in town. Now the whole area, the Canaanites, the Shechemites, all, they are going to come after us. We can't take all them. We are dead. We are in trouble. So something here, amazing and powerful lesson for me and for you. All that call upon the name of the Lord, a fresh beginning, a brand new start, a new life in the power of God Almighty.

You come to Jesus and you are saved, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us. It is His grace. None of us did it ourselves, so we need to stop acting like we are doing it ourselves now. There is a danger in that because you are pretty sure you got this, and you got yourself into a routine, but it could be a rut. And there is a danger there.

But it is an amazing thing. A brand new start. Jacob was afraid after his sons had murdered, done that terrible thing after Dinah was raped. Killing all those men of Shechem, he was afraid that the Shechemites and with along the Canaanites would attack. But the Lord God kept His promise. See, He protected Jacob and his family and He continues to protect them.

Now, Jacob deserves to be attacked. His boys got out of line. He didn't stop them, so everybody is guilty in disobedience to God. But God in mercy does what? Because Jacob is afraid of the very thing that they are going to pay him back, and he knows he deserves it, the Shechemites and the Canaanites, the Bible says, were afraid to even touch Jacob or his boys. It was the terror of God.

Isn't that what I read? They journeyed and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them. They did not pursue after the sons of Jacob. Why didn't they go after them? There are many more of them. Well, they were afraid of the God of Jacob. One of these days, it's going to sink into our hearts that the one that the people should be afraid of is not me and you. There is nothing we can do, but they need to be afraid of God Almighty because God Almighty, the coming King, is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah and He will send seven years of God's wrath, full wrath of God on a Christ-rejecting world, and it is coming. And if this is not part of it, which it is not, imagine what it will be like when it is. We can't even imagine.

They were afraid of the God of Jacob. It was the terror of God that caused them not to touch Jacob and his family. The terror of God. It was not the terror of Jacob. They were mad at Jacob, probably liked to wish him a five-car accident with no survivors, but they didn't dare touch him because of his God. Because of his God.

Dr. Ironside wrote this: "When we fear God, we need fear no one else." And that is the truth. When we fear God, we don't need to be afraid of what man or women, what mankind can do to us. There is nothing they because they will never do anything that God won't allow. And if God allows it, it is for His glory for all eternity and for our blessing and for our lives because we don't stop when we leave here. Matter of fact, that is when life really starts according to the Word of God.

In Isaiah chapter 61, I was thinking about what Mr. Ironside wrote and I am watching here what verse 5 taught me. They journeyed and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them. They did not pursue after the sons of Jacob. When we fear God, we need fear no one else.

Isaiah 61, verse 10 says, "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He's covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, as a bride adorneth herself with jewels." How much does God love us? We don't have to be afraid of people, of governments. We don't have to be afraid of war. We don't have to be afraid of diseases. We don't have to be afraid of anything because our God loves us and He knows what's good, just like when you're raising your children, sometimes they don't get everything they ask for because you know what's good. And they will thank you as they grow.

Isaiah 41:10. Fear thou not. Now listen, Christian, listen people, if you belong to the Lord. Fear thou not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will strengthen you, yea, I will help you, yea, I will uphold you with the right hand of My righteousness. Will He do it? He will do it. Turns out that those are great verses for what we are seeing going around not just our own state or our own nation, but the whole world is under it. But I believe, probably in you and many of you, there is this peace and there's saying, "I don't want this, Lord, and help me to do what I can do." But there's deep inside there's a peace saying, "My God is good and I know He's got this and what He will do, I don't know, but I trust Him."

And let me do a few more and we will close. John chapter 10, verses 27 through 30. My sheep, Jesus says, Jesus is speaking, God Almighty in human flesh. My sheep hear My voice and I know them and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall anybody, any man or woman, pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them to Me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand. I and My Father are one.

Okay, Jesus and God are one. Therefore, I am in the hands of who? Yes. God, Jesus, God's Holy Spirit. He has me here. He has you here. Does that mean you'll never have a fever? Does that mean you'll always win the lottery? No. What it means is you are taken care of for all eternity, simply trusting and resting in Him.

Romans chapter 8, maybe familiar to you, verse 31. What shall we say to these things? Paul says. If God be for us, since God be for us, who can be against us? The answer is: nobody. The best laid plans of the devil are not going to get you. He can't touch you. The best laid plans of any of your enemies, they're not bigger than God, they're not smarter than God. It can't happen.

What shall we say to these things? Since God be for us, who could be against us? The answer is nobody. 2 Timothy 1:7. He's reminding Timothy and you and me, and this goes for Jacob too, hand this to Jacob if you like. For God has not given us the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a solid sound mind. Your mind still works when the world is falling apart and asking, "What's this? What's that? Why? Where?" Your mind, you say, "I can't maybe answer that, but I know the One who can, so let's go ask Him." Let's just go ask Him.

1 John 4:4, very familiar to us all. You are of God, little children, and you have overcome them, the world, because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. You are covered, you are taken care of. Jacob, the fear of the terror of God is what kept Jacob safe. The people were afraid of God. God's going to protect him, and he's going to take him all the way back, all 30 miles. And He could have done that so long ago and I am that way too, and you're that way too. We could have just a long time ago, but we stop here for a while. It's kind of, it works and it's okay and we're witnessing, Lord, don't worry. Just like Jacob.

Guest (Male): Thank you for listening to Apply Within with Pastor Bob Davis. Apply Within is a radio outreach ministry of North Country Chapel. Our Sunday morning Bible studies are at 9:00 and 11:00 AM. We also have a Friday evening Bible study at 7:00 PM and a Monday evening Bible study at 7:00 PM.

You can download today's message in its entirety at northcountrychapel.com/studies. That's northcountrychapel.com/studies. If you would like a copy of today's message, write to us and ask for the message with today's date. The address is Apply Within, 2281 West Seltice, Post Falls, Idaho, 83854. Or call us at 1-800-572-8851. That number again: 1-800-572-8851.

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