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That's connectwithskip.com. Now, let's get started with today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. It's unrealistic to say, well, I can't understand what happened to my kids.
I took them to Sunday school one percent of their life when that parent himself or herself never really followed the Lord passionately or had an example to those children, so that 83 percent of the time the message they saw in their parents contradicted the message they heard one percent of the time. I remember when my son Nate was born right out here on the west side. I mean, not like out on the west side, but at a hospital on the west side. Yeah, we did it out just real natural, and I remember holding him. He was an average weight, average size, but I remember holding him, and it was the first time I'd held him, and I thought, first thought is he's so light. He's so light.
I hope I don't drop him. That was my first thought, my first fear. Then as I thought about it, he seemed heavier and heavier as the weight of responsibility for this life came upon me, and I saw, wow, the next many years must be devoted to training this child and making sure that what he sees and hears at home are the principles of the Scripture. Now, somebody once said a parent is simply a partner with God and discipling children.
God wants to disciple them, wants to nurture them, and he uses us to do it. It doesn't mean we're going to be perfect. No parent is. I've never met a perfect parent. I've met some good ones. I've met some bad ones.
Never met a perfect one. Here's the trouble. The problem is when we're really experienced at it, we're unemployed. Just when you get the rhythm, just when you get it down, just when you're just at your prime pace, they're grown up.
Fortunately, there's a lot of latitude and leeway. Children and I have found are very resilient, and when we make mistakes, it's sometimes as simple as, Son, Daddy did a stupid thing. It was a mistake. Would you forgive him?
And maybe even Jacob said, you know, your father's been dumb. He's not been going back to Bethel. He hasn't been serving the Lord. He's been allowing idols in the house.
Would you please forgive me for being a poor father? Now, get rid of the idols. And they did, as you'll see. Verse 3, then, let us arise and go 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. You can see his revived commitment to God.
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. So his kids, in seeing the commitment spiritually of the father, they follow suit. They follow his example. This guy's serious, man.
He's doing it. Now, there's a verse that I have heard more than any other verse, and I bet you have too. In fact, I'll ask you, what is the one verse you have heard more than any other verse by parents when it comes to their children as looking for hopes to the future? Train up a child, Proverbs 22, 6.
Train up a child in the way which he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. But the word train in Hebrew, hanak, comes from a word which has to do with putting one's finger in date honey and putting it to the lips of a child. It's a practice in the ancient Middle East where a parent would take some date honey in the little finger and touch the lips of the infant.
The sweetness would stimulate the sucking reflex and get the child ready to be fed from its mother. So the idea of hanak or train meant to stimulate one's taste. So when it says train up a child, it means far more than just give them information. Here's the information. Here's the book. Read it. Do this. Do that. Don't do this.
Don't do that. It's to live in such a way to live in such a way that it stimulates their taste for godliness and righteousness. They look at a life and it's so sweet to see a life governed by God and they go, I want that.
They have a relationship with God. I want that. That's what it means to train up a child in the way that he should go. Actually, our 16th president, president Abraham Lincoln had it right. He quoted this verse and he said, if a parent wants his child to be trained in the way that he should go, he should walk in that way himself.
That's the idea. Finally Jacob is doing it. His children are following suit. Verse five, and they journeyed. Now get this. This is interesting. 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. Now why is that?
What's that all about? Why would the terror of the Lord? Well, you remember what happened in the last chapter, how the sons of Jacob killed all of the Shechemites.
As news would get around the community, the rest of the Canaanite tribes would be seeking to avenge what happened in Shechem and to kill the sons of Jacob. But God was working behind the scenes, but they didn't know it. In the book of Proverbs, it says, when a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies be at peace with him.
Here's a beautiful example of that. Now God is always working behind the scenes, always. You don't know it, you don't see it, but he's working. John Nelson Darby used to say, God's ways are behind the scenes, but he moves all of the scenes that he is behind. And here he is moving the scenes, moving people into place, moving their attitude, protecting the children of Jacob as they go. The terror of the Lord was upon them.
God was protecting them. Years ago at the church, I had a little remote control car. I mean, here at this church, it was given to me as a birthday present.
I know what you're thinking, wait a minute, skateboards, cars, do you ever grow up? Probably not, but this was like a little remote control electric car, and it was just super cool. It had a great range on it, and it allowed me as people were walking across the campus to hide and aim the car at them. So as they walked, they'd see this car, they'd jump out of the way, and I'd sort of chase them. Usually I did it with staff that I knew. I was behind the scenes directing the car. They didn't know it. Who's doing that? Where is this person?
God's behind the scenes and powerfully at work. I saw this firsthand. I've told you this story years ago because it happened years ago. I went to the Philippines for the first time to the island of Mindanao, way down south. It was at a time of civil war, unrest, and a group called the NPA, the New People's Army. It was a guerrilla armed group trying to struggle against the legal government and take it over and assume control. They were traveling around and threatening people and trying to bring them under their control, and they would go into churches for their money, their funding, and try to rob the tithes and offerings of the church. Well, they went to one church that I had visited, or I was visiting at the time, and they told me what had happened in that church a few weeks before I got there.
First of all, you've got to know, when they told me the story, there was such emotion as they told it. They were so stoked, and then I discovered why. They said, a few weeks ago, the NPA in two jeeps pulled up outside of our church. The guys got out with their guns, walked right in the middle of a Sunday service, held their guns up, and said, we'll be back next week. We want all of the offerings of the church. If you don't, we'll kill you all. Now, they had killed several people.
Everybody was afraid of them. The next week, as the church met, now they're telling me the story. As they're saying, next week as the church met, I'm thinking, I wonder how many people actually came to church and met, knowing what might happen. They might just say, you know, honey, I don't feel really that great.
I'm just going to stay back, and I'll hear it from somebody else. Church was all. They spent the time praying.
They were on their knees praying, crying out to God. Minutes ticked by. The hour was completed. Hour and a half was completed. Their service was about two hours. After the two hours, it was all done.
No sign, no show. They had heard later on that day that those two jeeps were on their way on the windy road toward the church, toward the village on that island of Mindanao. Something happened, a freak accident that overturned the jeeps, and the soldiers were killed. And now this church was thanking God that the fear, the terror of the Lord had fallen upon their enemies, and God had protected them. Verse 6.
I don't know if we're going to get to 36 if I ramble on like this. 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 he called the place El Bethel. Now he had called it Bethel last time. Now he calls it El Bethel. Now that doesn't mean the Bethel.
This is not Spanish, this is Hebrew. He called the name of the place El Bethel because there God appeared to him when he fled from the face of his brother. El Bethel means God of the house of God. Bethel means the house of God. El Bethel means God of the house of God. And before we get to that, Bethel was the place where Jacob began his spiritual walk, right?
That was the highest level. That's where God would bring him back to, he said. And that's what Jacob said he would go back to.
But for years, he was at, let's see, Sukkot at Shechem, about 30 miles away from Bethel, until now. Finally, after lingering and meandering, he gets back to where God called him. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, the 1960s promised us an explosion of love and brotherhood.
But instead, they delivered a nation in turmoil, confusion, and moral decline. Fortunately, God has the solution for our damaged families. And in Beyond the Summer of Love, Relationships in the Real World, Pastor Skip Heitzig gives a biblical guide for marriage and families that can help restore relationships which have been damaged by sin. Beyond the Summer of Love is our thanks for your gift of at least $25 today to help share biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer, or call 800-922-1888 and request your resources when you give $25 or more today to help reach people around the world with the good news of Jesus through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Let's continue with today's teaching with Pastor Skip.
Now here's the principle of restoration. God always seeks to bring us to the highest possible level he can. Sometimes we want to allow him to bring us to Bethel to the highest level. We settle for a different level. We disobey him and we hang out here or there and we're not at this place of intimate fellowship.
Now God will always do the best for us at the level we allow him to bring us to, but he always seeks to bring us to the highest possible level. And that's why Jesus said to the church of Ephesus, remember from where you have fallen. Repent and do your first works. He didn't say remember where you are. You don't really have to remember where you are. You just look around. This is where I am. But remember where you used to be, where you started out at.
And if you want to find out where you have fallen or how far you have fallen from the first love, just go retrace your steps and you'll see that distance. So God calls him back. Now Jacob renames it from the house of God to God of the house of God.
You know why? Because now he's not impressed with the place. He's impressed with God. Before he was all impressed with the place. He goes, man, this is an awesome place. And he called it the house of God. But now he's not as impressed with the place. He's impressed with the God of the place.
You know what? Sometimes we can get so hung up on the house of God that we forget the God of the house. When I was a kid, I heard this over and over again by the priests in my church and the parents, my parents, because after church I would run up to my parents and run and chase my brother. I heard this, don't run in church.
It's the house of God. Now I like children running in church. I love them after church running and jumping and playing and it should be a happy place. Not during the service, but afterwards, no problem. We get so hung up on a place and we forget the God of the place. I mean, what is it like when somebody is just sitting in your seat one Sunday or Wednesday?
How dare they? That's the place. That's the place, man. That's my place. That's where God speaks to me. Well, question, if God is so big, couldn't God speak to you in another place?
No. We can sometimes do that with people. We can elevate people on a pedestal. And especially when we're younger in the Lord and we get fed or impressed or evangelized by somebody, we place them in such high esteem and they're on that pedestal. But as we grow in the Lord, we understand it's really not about them. It's about the Lord in them.
It's not the place. It's the Lord of the place. It's not the preacher. It's the Lord of the preacher.
So now his priorities are right. It's El Bethel, the Bethel. Just kidding.
Wanted to see if you were listening. Now Deborah, Rebecca's nurse died and she was buried below Bethel under the terebinth tree. So the name of it was called Alon Vakut, the oak of weeping. This was sad because that was the link to his early childhood development. That was his mother, Rebecca's nurse.
And she had obviously been with him for some time and her death would be a sad event. There's more to come. Then God appeared to Jacob again when he had come from Bedan-iram and blessed him. And God said to him, your name is Jacob. Your name shall not be called Jacob anymore, but Israel shall be your name. So he called his name Israel. Also God said to him, I am God almighty, El Shaddai. That's the name God spoke to Abraham under and introduced himself. I am El Shaddai, the mighty God.
Be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you and kings shall come from your body. Now here's what's interesting.
We have read this before, right? When he was wrestling with the angel of the Lord and he got the name, not Jacob, but Israel. Now the Lord appears to him and says what he already knows, no new information whatsoever. He said, your name isn't Jacob anymore.
It's Israel. And maybe he was thinking, I already know that. I think it's noteworthy that he didn't get any new information, but a reconfirmation of the old information.
Why am I even mentioning that? Well, because sometimes you'll meet someone who just has to have a new revelation, new information, a new word from God or a new experience. I believe what we need more than anything else is just a reminder of what God already said, because I don't know about you, but I've read the Bible a long time and I forget an awful lot of it. I don't need anything new.
I just need a fresh application of the old. Is that right? Isn't that exactly what Jesus did when he appeared to the two on the road to Emmaus? And it says, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them all the things in the scriptures that were written of him. It said, did not our hearts burn within us as he spoke to us?
Why did they have such heartburn? Was it a new revelation? No. Was it new information?
No. They were Jewish. They were raised, weaned, taught those scriptures and synagogue all their lives, but it was a fresh application of the old revelation.
Their hearts burned as will ours. You're Jacob, but now you're Israel. Not any new information, but the affirmation of the old. I heard a great story about William Randolph Hearst, the wealthy billionaire who had his mansion in California. It's still there to this day as a museum. William Randolph Hearst had heard of and then seen a picture of a piece of art that fascinated him, drew his attention in. In seeing the photograph, he said, I must have that piece of art. He ordered his purveyors to go throughout the world and all the private collections and find out who had it to see if he could buy it.
And so they looked for it and they looked for it and they came back about a week later and they told him that he already owned it and that it was in one of his storage facilities. Boy, that's pretty rich when you don't even know what you own. You know what?
No different than us. The Bible says we're blessed with all blessings, all riches in Christ Jesus in heavenly places. And here we are going, I need more. No, you don't.
You just need to read the bank book and find out what you already have. You have it. God has given us 2 Peter chapter 1, all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue. Now verse 12, oh, something I didn't mention. God appears to Jacob, right? God appeared to him. Keep this in mind because this is the last occasion of such an occurrence.
Doesn't happen anymore here. In the book of Genesis, God will stop appearing. Now what you're going to see in the next person that's highlighted, Joseph, is God doesn't speak through an apparition but through dreams. God decided to do that. A vision is what you see when you're awake.
A dream is what you see when you're asleep. God can speak through either or. So God appeared and now that's done. Verse 12, the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac I give to you and your descendants after you, I give this land. So whose land was it?
God's. That's the dispute today. Well, whose land is that? Does that belong to Israel or the Palestinians? Whose land is it?
Answer, short answer, it's God's land. And because it's God's land, God decides who gets to occupy it. And so he promised it to Abraham. But Abraham had many sons. The two most notable were Ishmael and Isaac. God didn't promise it to Ishmael but he did promise it to Isaac. Now Isaac had a couple of boys, Esau and Jacob. He didn't give it to Esau but he did give it to Jacob and the 12 tribes of Israel. So this land is pretty important because God will reiterate this covenant to Abraham, Isaac, to Jacob as they occupy that land.
I won't get too political though. I could wander away. So verse 13, then God went up from him in the place where he talked with him. So Jacob set up a pillar in that place where he talked with him, a pillar of stone and he poured a drink offering on it and he poured it out. This is the first mention in the Bible of a drink offering. And Jacob called the place or the name of the place where God spoke with him Bethel. Now later on when we get to Exodus, if we get to Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, the next three books in the Pentateuch, you're going to read about drink offerings and how they're regulated in the laws of Moses.
But those will be very different. This is a drink offering or a libation offering, which is the oldest type of offering that we can find in history. It is as simple as taking a drink, a jar or a cup of fluid like water or wine or whatever you would have and pouring it out either on a stone altar like this or on the ground. And it was a symbol of being poured out or pouring one's life out or into or over to the Lord. That language appears later on when Paul the Apostle writes his last book to Timothy, 2 Timothy, and he knows he's about to die. He says, I am already being poured out as a drink offering and the time of my departure is at hand.
My life is about to be poured out completely physically. It's also a picture of Jesus Christ in a sense. For in Psalm 22, the prediction is that he would be poured out like water. Isaiah 53 predicts Jesus the Messiah being poured out for our sins.
So here he is pouring out his drink offering to the Lord, saying, Lord, everything I have is yours. I'm not holding anything back any longer. A revival, man. Total commitment. Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We hope you've been strengthened in your walk with Jesus by today's program. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resources that will help you understand and follow God's plan for your relationships.
Beyond the Summer of Love, Relationships in the Real World by Pastor Skip Heitzig is our thanks for your support of Connect with Skip Heitzig today. Request your copy when you give $25 or more. Call 800-922-1888.
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