Jacob's settlement with his family at Bethel. This was a solemn renewal of the covenant to the patriarch at the end of his pilgrimage. It was the occasion for a new dedication of himself and his household by vows and offerings, and by separation of themselves from all heathen things and thoughts around the newly-erected altar El-Bethel.

I. REVELATION the basis of faith. God went up from him after he had spoken with him, and there he set up a pillar of stone, and poured a drink offering thereon, and he poured oil thereon.

II. PERSONAL EXPERIENCE the background of a consecrated life. We should make the memory of Gears goodness the foundation on which we build up the monuments of our life. Mark the places by offerings. Let the Bethel of our worship be the Bethel of his praise. - R.

Spiritual life is a thing of growth; never finished here (Philippians 3:13; Hebrews 6:1). No doubt the all-important question is, Art thou in Christ? And in every Christian life there is a point, known to God, when the soul passes from death to life (1 John 5:12). For by nature children of wrath. Still there is a life's work. The spirit may have chosen Christ; but the flesh is weak, and the law of sin still works. Most commonly in such a life certain times will stand out, connected with special lessons and special dealings, when some window of the soul has been opened to heavenly light, some line of action pressed upon the mind.

I. THE LESSON LEARNED BY JACOB HIMSELF. We know not when his spiritual life began. Probably before he left home; for with all his faults he desired a spiritual blessing. But at Bethel and Penuel great steps were made. He learned the presence of God, and the protecting care of God, as he had never known them before. Yet the lessons were chiefly subjective; they regarded his own attitude towards God. And this generally comes first, but it is not all. "Arise, go up to Bethel." Take up again the lesson book. Is there not more to be learned from it? Those angels ascending and descending, were they charged with thy good only? The Lord who stood above, did he care only for thee? With all thy possessions thou art in "a solitary way" (Psalm 107:4). Here Jacob seems first to realize his responsibility for the spiritual state of others (cf. Psalm 119:136). The Christian character is not thoroughly formed till it is felt that the possession of truth hinds us to use-it for the good of others. Being "bought with a price," we are debtors to all (Romans 1:14); and chiefly to those with whom we are connected (1 Timothy 5:8).

II. THE WORK HE TOOK IN HAND. To press upon his household -

1. Single-hearted service of God. "Put away the strange gods." Sincerity lies at the root of all real renovation. Hitherto the semi-idolatry of teraphim seems to have been tacitly allowed. Jacob's fondness for Rachel may have kept him from forbidding it. Hence a divided service (2 Kings 17:33; Mark 7:7). Putting away does not refer only to formal worship. It is putting away service of the god of this world: covetousness (Colossians 3:5), worldly aims (John 5:44), gratification of self (Luke 12:19; Luke 14:11), traditional maxims of conduct and judgment (Mark 3:21; 1 Peter 4:4). It is seeking first the kingdom of God, and resting in him (Psalm 37:5).

2. "Be clean." No toleration of evil (Matthew 5:48). Christians are to be a holy people (1 Peter 2:9). This is much more than a mere upright and honorable life. The Levitical rules, strict and minute as they were, faintly shadowed the extent of the law of righteousness. See the Sermon on the Mount. Vast difference between an upright life and a holy life. The one is a following of rules, the other a walk with God.

3. "Change your garments." Under the law this a necessary part of purification. Contrast the garments, Psalm 109:18 and Isaiah 61:10. The explanation, Zechariah 3:4. In New Testament language, put on Christ. The root is atonement, the covering of sins (Psalm 32:1), the forgiveness of the sinful (Romans 3:26). No real renovation without this change - casting away self-righteousness, and clinging to the work of Christ (Jeremiah 23:6; Romans 10:4). Many have said trust in free grace points to sin. God's word from end to end declares it is the only way of holiness. - M.

Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be ye clean, and change your garments: and let us arise, and go up to Bethel. "When thou vowest a vow, defer not to pay it," says Ecclesiastes (Genesis 5:4); but Jacob had deferred. He made a vow at Bethel, and he seems afterwards to have ignored it. If he thought of it, a number of things had been ever ready to present themselves as excuses for delay. His faithful services given constantly to Laban, his efforts to make good his position in the land, and then to avert the anger of Esau, had apparently absorbed so much of his attention that he had forgotten his vows. These solemn promises had been made at a very critical period of his life, and God had not forgotten them. He reminds Jacob of them in a very emphatic manner. Jacob had failed to see in the circumstances in which he was placed with respect to the people among whom he dwelt that there was a hint of neglected duty. God permitted Jacob to be made uncomfortable that he might be made considerate. The way in which his sons had treated the Shechemites had brought him into great danger. He and all his were likely to be cut off by these enraged inhabitants of the land. He is reminded of the danger in which he was once placed from the vengeance of Esau. The similarity of the circumstances forcibly and very naturally turn his thoughts to the One who alone can be his defense. Thus circumstances and Divine communications impel to the performance of duty. How merciful is God in his treatment of souls! How he leads the wanderer back to duty! Jacob, when about to strike his tents and remove to Bethel, wishes that his sons and servants should go up with him, and that they should go up in the right spirit. He therefore says to them, "Put away the strange gods," &c.

I. NEGLECTED DUTY IS A HINDRANCE TO APPROPRIATE AND ACCEPTABLE WORSHIP. That Jacob should have been obliged to give such an injunction to his household shows that he had not sufficiently kept before his sons and servants the duty they owed to God. He had allowed himself to strive for worldly success until they might have even imagined that he was no better than the rest of them or their neighbors; but deep down in the heart of this man was a reverence for God and a desire to do his will. His neglect to carefully instruct his sons had borne bitter fruit. Had he instilled into his sons ideas more in accordance with the character of the God he served, they would not have taken such mean methods as are mentioned of revenging themselves on those they had come to dislike. His neglect necessitates the sudden and difficult effort now put forth to induce his sons to seek with him to serve God. He feels that he cannot rightly worship God unless his children and household are with him in spirit. He wishes to foster in them a belief in his own sincerity. To have one in a family looking on indifferently or sneeringly is death to successful worship. Jacob's neglect had led to carelessness by his sons of the Divine service. He could not himself enter heartily on the service until he had discharged, in a measure, his duty as guide and instructor to his family.

II. ANOTHER HINDRANCE IS THE ATTACHMENT TO OBJECTS WRONGLY HELD IN REVERENCE. The sons of Jacob had admitted false gods into their affections. Idolatry was rife among them. Even his wife Rachel had so much faith in her father's idols that she stole them when she left home. The sons caught the spirit of the mother, and indulged in the worship of strange gods. Perhaps they worshipped secretly the gods which Rachel cherished, or they may have given adoration to the idols they found among the spoils of the Shechemites. They may have had little images which they carried about with them, as many superstitious Christians carry the crucifix. Amulets and charms they seem to have worn on their hands and in their ears, all indicating superstition, false worship, and wrong ideas. God is spoken of in the Bible as "jealous." This is with respect to worship given to representations of gods having no existence. The jealousy is right, because it would be an evil thing for man himself to think there were many gods, or to select his own god. When, in after ages, the descendants of these sons of Jacob yielded to the sin of worshipping other gods, ten of the tribes were swept away, and have never been rediscovered. Indeed the stream was tainted in source, and "grew no purer as it rolled along." When Achan brought the Babylonish garment into the camp of Israel, the chosen of God could not stand before their enemies, but when it was removed they were again victorious. So strange gods must be removed from our homes and from our hearts, or we can never be successful in the conflict against sin, or in the acceptability of the worship we offer. It is for each Christian to search his soul, and to see whether there is any desire, habit, or practice which in the least militates against the worship of God. Many who were incorporated with Jacob's household were Syrians, who brought their evil practices with them. When any enter God's Church they must leave behind them the practices of the world; nor possessions nor potation must be the gods then worshipped, "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him."

III. THE HARBOURING OF ANY SPECIAL SIN WILL BE A SURE HINDRANCE. The sons of Jacob had not only outward false objects of reverence, but inward evil propensities. They were treacherous, cruel, lustful, envious, murderous. See how they treated the Shechemites, and in after years their own brother Joseph. What scandalizing, jealousy, and even opposition, are found in some homes! How hard it is to alienate sinful habits from the heart and the home I how hard to get the right tone for devout service in the home I Certain habits of temper, ridicule, sarcasm will chill and check all worship. Jacob urged his sons to be "clean," - pure, - "to change their garments." They had need to do the latter, for they had been spotted with the blood of the men they had murdered. Jacob meant that they were to put on the garments kept for the worship of God. Rebekah had garments by her in which Esau as eldest son worshipped God, and which she put on Jacob. It is probable that it was the practice under the patriarchal dispensation to perform certain ceremonial ablutions prior to entering on the solemn worship. "Cleaniness is next to godliness." It leads to it. The need of purity in the worship or God is thus indicated by ablutions and change of garments. But how easily we may have the outward without the inward. We need cleansing in the holy fountain opened by Christ, and to be clothed by his righteousness.

IV. A great hindrance to successful worship is HAVING LOW IDEAS OF THE DIGNITY OF THE ACT, AND THE MAJESTY AND HOLINESS OF HIM WHOM WE WORSHIP. God must be made to appear great to us. He is "high and lifted up." He made not only these frames of ours, but this vast universe. He is worshipped by worlds of intelligent spirits, and has been worshipped from the depths of eternity. He is holy and full of majesty. Shall we be indifferent as to the duty or the mode of worship? What a marvel that we should be permitted to have fellowship with our Creator I If we have it, it must be in the way and place he appoints. For Jacob it was at Bethel, for the Jews at Jerusalem, for Christians at the cross. To Jacob and the Jews it was by annual sacrifices, to us it is by the offering of Christ "once for all." - H.

Genesis 35:16-29. These family records mingle well with the story of God's grace. The mothers "Ben-oni is the father's Benjamin." Out of the pain and the bereavement sometimes comes the consolation. A strange blending of joy and sorrow is the tale of human love. But there is a higher love which may draw out the pure stream of peace and calm delight from that impure fountain. Jacob and Esau were separated in their lives, but they met at their father's grave. Death is a terrible divider, but a uniter too. Under the shadow of the great mystery, on the borders of an eternal world, in the presence of those tears which human eyes weep for the dead, even when they can weep no other tears, the evil things of envy, hatred, revenge, alienation do often hide themselves, and the better things of love, lessee, brotherhood, amity come forth. Jacob was with Isaac when he died, and Esau came to the grave. - R.