Notes from a sermon by Dr. David Platt in December 2007
The text is from Genesis 28, 31:3, 33:18-20, 34, 35
Is half-hearted commitment to God acceptable to God? According to Barna polls, up to 50% of people claiming to be Christians say that they are moderately or less committed to Christ. Is this really okay? What would people say if you told them that you were 95% committed to your wife and 5% committed to someone else? Does God deserve any less?
The text of the message is about the story of Jacob after he had stolen the blessing of Isaac from Esau. He decided it would be a good idea to get out of town for awhile, so he left to go to Paddan-aram.
After one day's journey, he stopped for the night and had a
vision from God in which God told him that he would give him the land that he was sleeping on and that his offspring would be numerous as the dust. When Jacob woke up, he made a vow to God that if God would go with him, that he would one day return to Bethel and live there and worship God there.
Fast forward 14 years. God calls Jacob to return
home. By this time he has a large family, wives, sons, servants, wealth, etc. So he goes back from Paddan-aram to Bethel, where he had promised God to return to. Except he didn't quite make it.
Gen 33:18 says
"And Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, on his way from Paddan-aram, and he camped before the city. And from the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father, he bought for a hundred pieces of money the piece of land on which he pitched his tent. There he erected an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel (God, the God of Israel)".
Shechem is only 20 miles from Bethel. After traveling almost 1000 miles, he stopped 20 miles short.
Sin is very subtle.
It wasn't like he abandoned the plan of God, he came close, 99.9% there. This is devil's plan, not to get us to abandon the plan of God, but to stop just short. If we do it once, we will be tempted to do it again and again. We think that as long as we are close to where God wants us to be, it is good enough.
We compare ourselves to others, rather than to God's holiness. "I only look at a few porn sites, not like other people who do much worse". Maybe they are not things we do, but rather things we don't do. If we don't drink, party, have promiscuous sex, we can be perceived as a great Christian. But could be weeks since we have last prayed or read the Bible. Sin is subtle.
What is the first thing Jacob did when he stopped at Shechem in disobedience? He set up an altar. Religion is the biggest cover-up for disobedience in our lives.
Compromise is costly
The very next verse after Jacob stopped at Shechem (
Gen 34:1), Jacob's only daughter Dinah is raped by the town leader's son. The people of the town tried to make peace with the men of Jacob's household and agreed to be circumcised so that they could do business together. Three days later, while they were still in pain recovering, two of Jacob's sons went into town with their swords and killed every single man that was there, taking all the women and children captive and looting the place completely. Jacob was afraid that this would cause the surrounding nations to rise up against them, but his sons answered "Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?".
Anger and rage fill the passage, his two sons are now murderers, all-out war is now a possibility and in Jacob's house, it is filled with idols. Jacob had no idea what the cost of his compromise would be not only to him, but to the people around him. The cost is great. Sin does not just affect us, it affects our families, our children, the church and the unreached people around us. People whose lives are at stake for eternity because they need to see the power of God in our lives.
God is gracious
In chapter 35, God comes to Jacob and tells him to go to Bethel and build an altar. Jacob
responds by calling his household together and making them cleanse all of the idols and idolatrous things from among themselves, saying "let us arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and
has been with me wherever I have gone". God does not leave His people in their sin. He did not leave him in Shechem. Also, the purity of grace is demonstrated, as Jacob was commanded to purify his house of idols and move on to Bethel.
This grace is available to all of us.
1 John 1:9 says the same thing: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness". It is time that the church got serious and stop covering over sin and being satisfied with less than complete obedience. When we see Jacob get to Bethel again, God
appeared to him again and this time changed his name to Israel. And He gave him a new promise, this time He said that kings shall come from your body. One of Jacob's sons was Judah, from whom eventually came King David, through whom finally came King Jesus. Although he probably did not realize it at the time, he came within 20 miles of missing being part of the greatest blessings God has given to man.
