This morning, we turn to Genesis chapter 34. Genesis chapter 34, if you're visiting first book of the Bible, we are working through this book. This morning, we will consider the entirety of the chapter. And I'm going to back up and read at verse 13 of chapter 33. Before I begin, I have to say a few things about this. This is a very challenging section of Scripture to preach. I was reading one commentator who sort of sets a list of things that other commentators said about this passage. And this is what he records. This is, well, A.W. Pink skipped it completely in his commentary. Alexander McLaren skips it over in his. C.H. Leupold provides some commentary, but when he gets to the end of the comments in the section on the work entitled Homiletical Suggestions, how you really preach this, he says this, we may well wonder if any man who had any proper discernment ever drew a text from this chapter. I guess I have no discernment this morning. He does say after that that we cannot venture to offer any homiletical suggestions. So in other words, I just don't know how to preach this. That makes me somewhat nervous this morning because why am I so bold to preach it? Well, the answer is, is because it's the Word of God. The answer is, is because all of Scripture is given by inspiration. Now, it's one of those passages that won't feel very good going through it. And I think that illustrates the point of the passage. You're going to ask, well, where is hope here? Where is gospel? And it's going to be hard to find. And I think that's something in the Scriptures as you work through books that often the Lord does challenge us to think about. Imagine life without it. Imagine life without intervention. Imagine life without grace. Let's read this morning Genesis 33. We'll pick up at verse 13. But Jacob said to him, My Lord knows that the children are frail and that the nursing flocks and herds are a care to me if they are driven hard for one day all the flocks will die let my lord pass on ahead of his servant and i will lead slowly at the pace of the livestock that are ahead of me and at the pace of the children until i come to my lord and share so esau said let me leave with you with you some of the people who are with me but he said what need is there let me find favor in the sight of my lord so esau returned that day on his way to ser but jacob journeyed to suck off and build himself a house and made booths for his livestock therefore the name of the place is called suckah and jacob came safely to the city of shechem which is in the land of canaan on his way from padan 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 had pitched his tent. There he erected an altar and called it El Elohe Israel. Now Dinah, the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see the women of the land. And when Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he seized her and lay with her and humiliated her. And his soul was drawn to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob. He loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her. So Shechem spoke to his father Hamor saying, Get me this girl for my wife. Now Jacob heard that he had defiled his daughter Dinah. But his sons were with his livestock in the field. So Jacob held his peace until they came. And Hamor, the father of Shechem, went out to Jacob to speak with him. The sons of Jacob had come in from the field as soon as they had heard of it, and the men were indignant and very angry because they had done an outrageous thing in Israel by lying with Jacob's daughter, for such a thing must not be done. But Hamar spoke with them, saying, The soul of my son Shechem longs for your daughter. Please give her to him to be his wife. Make marriages with us. Give your daughters to us and take our daughters for yourselves. you shall dwell with us and the land shall be open to you dwell and trade in it and get property in it shechem also said to her father and to her brothers let me find favor in your eyes and whatever you say to me i will give ask me for as a great for as great a bride price and gift as you will and i will give whatever you say to me only give me the young woman to be my wife the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully because they had defiled their sister Dinah they said to them we cannot do this thing to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised for that would be a disgrace to us only on this condition will we agree with you that you will become as we are by every male among you being circumcised then we will give our daughters to you and we will take your daughters to ourselves and we will dwell with you and become one people but if you will not listen to us and be circumcised and we will take our daughter and we'll be gone the words their words pleased Hamar and Hamar's son Shechem and the young man did not delay to do the thing because he delighted in Jacob's daughter now he was the most honored of his father's all his father's house so Hamar and his son Shechem came to the gate of their city and spoke to the men of their city saying these men are at peace with us let them dwell in the land and trade in it for behold the land is large enough for them let us take their daughters as wives and let us give them our daughters only on this condition will the men agree to dwell with us to become one people when every male among us is circumcised as they are circumcised will not their livestock their property and all their beasts be ours only let us agree with them and they will dwell with us all and all who went out of the gate of his city listened to hamor and his son shechem and every male was circumcised all who went out of the gate of his city on the third day when they were sore two of the sons of jacob simeon and levi dynas brothers took their swords and came against the city while it felt secure and killed all the males. They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword and took Dinah out of Shechem's house and went away. The sons of Jacob came upon the slain and plundered the city because they had defiled their sister. They took their flocks and their herds, their donkeys and whatever was in the city and in the field, all their wealth and their little ones and their wives and all that was in the houses they captured and plundered. Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, you have brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land the canaanites and the parasites my numbers are few and if they gather themselves against me and attack me i shall be destroyed both i and my household but they said should he treat our sister like a prostitute may the lord bless the hearing of his word how often do you ever pause and think about where you would be if god did not uphold you Yeah, you ever stop and think about that? What if God did not uphold me? We sing, you know, prone to wander, prone to leave the God that we love. But do we really know how prone? Really? My guess is, is that even in the life of sanctification as Christians, even as we go through and we live the Christian life, we think of it now, after we've been saved, as kind of a bargain deal. That unless, you know, we do our part, we really will not be upheld. Well, there's great responsibility in sanctification, and I'm not at all denying that this morning. But unless God does the upholding, unless God does the upholding, you wouldn't stand for a moment. And I don't know how often we pause and how often we think about that. It would be scary if God said, okay, you want it, you got it, you go. He does that in Romans 1 with the non-believers at some point in their lives. He says, if you want it, go, I turn you over. You get what you want, and that's why you see society unravel at certain times. But what about the believer? What about the life of the believer when he wants it? I want you to listen to the Westminster Confession this morning just for a minute because it says something about God's providence in our lives that I believe is immensely helpful as we look at Genesis chapter 34 this morning. Listen to what it says. The most wise, righteous, and gracious God does oftentimes leave for a season. His own children to manifold temptations and the corruptions of their own hearts, to chastise them for former sins or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their own hearts that they may be humble and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon himself and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin did you catch that god sometimes departs god sometimes he doesn't withdraw his love you never become unloved as a believer but he does leave you for a season so that you would experience what the corruptions of your hearts really are and what you want and that you would learn that you would learn something through that that you would learn how deceptive your hearts really are because we really don't believe that i mean if you don't believe that just listen to what uh the mantra is of our society it is listen to your heart god says you want to listen to your heart let me let you taste your own heart for a little bit do you know what you're capable of do you ever think about it i don't think we realize where we would land if he were not grabbing us in chapter 32 and holding which is the imagery because there are times that he will let us taste it he'll let us experience it so that we would go on and when we return from the mess that happens because of it we realize how great his grace really is why do i say this this morning why do i open with that well god shows you through jacob exactly what that looks like i can't find a better passage that outlines what the westminster's trying to explain for us than genesis chapter 34 people have often struggled with the question can i lose my salvation you've struggled with that you struggle with that as as reform people as a matter of fact when i'm doing profession of faith with the young people i often ask them can you lose your faith and inevitably every time i get a pause because that seems to be what we experience in life with people people have struggled with that and we say this morning that's an impossibility since we believe that salvation is by grace through faith the whole way through he doesn't begin the work and then abandon the work he holds and keeps the whole way but here is something that can happen in the life of the believer you can go through a period of stumbling into real sin and setbacks backsliding is recorded for us in the scriptures to teach us about this so you studied this this morning and you asked the questions why does god want you to understand this as i as i was trying to summarize this and think about what the lord is teaching us using that framework of the westminster he wants to show you how great the presence of sin still is even for the life of the believer. We don't realize that. We don't comprehend that. And he wants you to know how strong and how wicked the world really is. To some degree, you're all very spoiled. And I'm going to touch on that here in a minute. He wants you to realize the words of Christ that without me, you can do nothing. That's my second thing I come up with. And then third, that all of us today by the end of this would marvel at the grace of God and that you would be confident of what Paul said at the end of that little chapter in Timothy, that what he is able to keep that which I have committed to him. He's able. So, I want to look at this this morning with these things in mind. We left off last time, which was something I believe was one of the greatest highlights and greatest high points in jacob's life it really shows how the christian life works you come from here and in the next chapter you end up down here i mean you're way up here and then you're down here chapter 32 was awesome and 33 and what we had in the last chapter was jacob just had reconciled with his brother it was beautiful he had reconciled with esau and that came after an overwhelming in confrontation in the wilderness with christ remember he took him down and he takes jacob and he grabs him in the wilderness and he gives him a new name and that birth from that one of the greatest scenes of reconciliation with his god and with men it was beautiful that is the i thought chapter 33 was one of the most beautiful demonstrations of brotherly reconciliation that we have in the scriptures i mean it was beautiful esau comes running the language member of the prodigal son is used he ran he fell he embraced him on the neck and he kissed him esau was the one doing this and jacob looks at that and he sees the grace of god in it he sees it as if god himself had received him that's how he's thinking i see your you i see the face of god he said you say look how far he's come In one scene of his life, the man has reconciled with his God, and in the next scene he's reconciled with the greatest mess with his brother that you have recorded in Scripture. But then I left off last time with one of the most confusing things. It's almost as if the Scriptures turned on us. Esau says, let's take our journey together, brother. Let's go together to Sarah. We'll go. I'll go before you. I don't know what exactly was in his mind, but I'm guessing he really didn't trust his brother. Whatever the case, he begins to lie. It starts with this lie. He says, no, no, I'll come to Seir, but you go on ahead. If I run my flocks too hard, they'll die. They're just too tired. And then after that, I'll come to my Lord in Seir, verse 14. And I'll leave some of my people. Esau says, let me leave some of my people with you. Jacob says, no, no, no, no, there's no need to do that, Esau. the imagery that we have is esau goes back and he waits waits for his brother he blows it in the next scene he wrecks the reconciliation and then i'm going to show you what else he does here in a minute um you pause from that and you say well who showed up better in that whole account it was the unbeliever that demonstrated more maturity and greater piety than jacob and i can't get over that gets worse so i told you this morning it's it's going to go down we're here in about 20 minutes we'll be down here verse 33 or verse 17 jacob journeyed to suck off built himself a house and made booths for his livestock therefore the name of the place is called sukkah then jacob came safely to the city of shechem which is in the land of canaan when he came from padan aram and he pitched his tent before the city and he bought the parcel of land where he had pitched his tent from the children of hamor shechem's father for 100 pieces of money Then he erected an altar there and called it El Elohei Israel. I didn't unpack this last time. Here's the scene. Jacob comes to suck off. What strikes you boys and girls if you have that open in that passage as wrong? He builds a house. If you're going to build a house, you're settling. If you're making booths for your livestock, you're settling. and this was as i go through the life of abraham you never had this kind of permanency emphasized in the life of abraham and the shock of it all is this suck off is outside of the land so i don't get it you know i i'm i'm confused everything's beautiful then he completely blows it with his brother he wrecks the reconciliation he lies and then in the next scene he refuses to come to his lord he is it's it's like he's single-handedly wrecked both reconciliations and if you look carefully at this text his behavior it almost seems erratic doesn't it as you're reading it in verse 28 all of a sudden he gets up from suck off and then he comes to shechem why is that important because shechem's inside the land so here's the imagery he's he's been all this progress from Haran. He's been coming. The Lord said, come back. He comes and he stops right at the border. Doesn't enter. Tries to root down just at the border. And then all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, he gets up and he goes to Shechem. And we read at Shechem, he buys land. Shechem was this powerful city of the Canaanites full of trade and and resource and what a great place to be at shechem he buys land he pitches his tent what does he do at shechem i think the last verse there at shechem well actually in chapter 33 the very last words of chapter verse 20 then he erected an altar and called it el elohi israel No, the God, the God of Israel. That's pious, isn't it? He puts up a place of worship. He erects a place of worship. He has boots. He has a place of worship. He's got his own place. He's near a resourceful sinner. And it's as if he uses God here and makes another house contrary to the house God declared to him. Why do I say that? Bethel, house of God, it's just 20 more miles. Why won't he go back? I don't get it. Why won't you go back? God had met him at Bethel and Bethel was the place before this whole stint of running where God drops a ladder to him and remember what God says I am your God Jacob God met him and he made a promise I'm going to be with you and guess what I'm going to do for you I'm bringing you back to Bethel and Jacob then makes a promise I'll come back he made a vow if God will be with me and do this thing for me if God will do this and keep me in the way that I'm going and give me bread to eat and clothing which he's done the whole time so that i come back to my father's house in peace then the lord shall be my god and this stone which i have set up as a pillar shall be god's house it was a promise i'm coming back to this house so it's almost as if the man is fighting to come home fighting against god he just won't come to the lord he this is the imagery he just won't come back to him how much of a problem is that how often does the preacher say come remember when jesus constantly was standing up and he'd say come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden i'll give you rest and the preacher publishes that he says that come come to jesus believe in jesus how many people just stop short how many people won't come so this lie starts and jacob is launched back into the old self i mean we're back into scheming jacob he then reverts back to doing whatever he wants he refuses to come to the lord he creates a different house for worship but here's where i think the real offense is in this intense struggle to come home he's fighting it just seems like he doesn't even want to come home to the lord just seems like he really doesn't want to come home to him it's almost as if he really doesn't want to leave what the world how do you get this far and then blow it i mean have you ever wondered am i going to live this whole life and then on my deathbed absolutely blow it and lose it all of you have had some kind of thought like that you have a backslidden saint here right now backslidden one pastor said he stopped 20 miles short of obedience 20 miles he wanted god and mammon it's amazing the other night an impact with our young people how many of the young people said you know pastor jacob's been so fascinating to study because i relate to him i relate to him it's my life up and down it's wonderful to hear young people say that God comes to us and he loves us and he's committed himself from the beginning he said I'm going to bring you home and look at how you treat him that's what just grabs me look at how you treat him you'd rather go do something else today you'd rather take a vacation from him today than be in worship and he works relentlessly and makes such progress i mean he has been progressing this man how much has he progressed you in the course of life where would you be today if he had not progressed you and then you work to tear it down how many lies have we told to our brothers and that really do hurt them and how much are we holding tight to this world and and desperately trying to root ourselves in it trying to find happiness and then we try to join the worship of the lord with that I mean, we try to say, hey, I went to church today. I did my duty. I el, el, hey, Israel. And yet, we really haven't returned to the shepherd and overseer of our soul. We go through what we call dry periods, periods of real backsliding. And deep down, here's the question that I'm posing today. What if God said go? What if God says, okay, you want it, you got it. You want that really in your life? go ahead go ahead to him who thinks he stands take heed what lest he fall and i think at this point what we have in genesis chapter 34 is a kind of withdrawal that the westminster confession is talking about to show us that that we would remember the goal understand our hearts understand the hidden strength and deceitfulness of sin and that god lifts the restraint here and lets jacob taste a little bit of it. Why do I say that? Because God's name's not even mentioned in the whole chapter. It's mentioned in chapter 33 and it's mentioned again in chapter 35, but you have nothing in this whole event, this whole section that mentions him. And in fact, what is the first thing that happens in chapter 35? Jacob finally dumps his idols. He's been carrying them the whole time. Everyone get rid of your idols in the camp. What do you mean? God's been carrying you the whole time and you're still carrying around those things and worshiping them you got to be kidding me and there's no mention of him in chapter 34 and i believe in fact this is one of the worst moments of his life um to teach us what a dark moment looks like in fact in chapter 35 again god's going to have to come and say did you um did you catch that in chapter 35 your name is jacob no longer shall your name be called jacob but israel shall be your name he had already changed it and it's it's almost as if the lord's coming along and saying i already did this stop stop do you know who you are and the bible goes back and forth using sometimes israel and sometimes jacob i think to make this point kind of romans 7 so now we get to the ugly it's already ugly but here's the ugly part now dinah verse 1 the daughter of leah whom she had born to jacob went out to see the women or daughters of the land jacob has pitched his tent where he should not be and now it sounds a little bit like lot doesn't it now his only daughter wants to go check out the daughters of the land notice it's not the men she wants to have friends she wants to see what's going on she's intrigued with it so she she goes out and what obviously happened is she connected with many of these daughters for they were must have been somewhere at a party or whatever and shechem sees her shechem was the great prince the son of hamor and obviously he had a whole city had been named after this guy dad really favored this son he was the most honorable in the house and in the course of things he takes her and he violates her the verbs are strong here he seized he lay and he humiliated it was aggravated rape and i think it's it's um proper at this point to stand back and and you know people see these terrible things happen in life what what what inevitably is that the great question that we hear when something awful like this happens where is god in something like that he could have prevented that in fact he did prevent it before when sarah was taken into the arms of pharaoh he plagued them and this is what would have happened to Sarah she would have been raped God stopped it and the question then is well why didn't God stop it and maybe the right question is is not where is God the question is where's Jacob isn't it why does God leave his children to face things at times in this life the Westminster says two reasons that we would be humbled that we would learn to depend upon him but then this that we would be more careful in the future against the occasions of what? Sin. He has no idea how dangerous this world is. All this man is known in the course, now think of your lives for a minute. All this man's known in the course of his life is God's blessing. All this man is known is God's care. Shielding care. I mean, this is the Psalms. He shields us. He guards us. He hedges us in. Job realized this. Satan realized this with Job. What's the danger when that's all you've known? A kind of naivety, isn't it? You become incredibly naive and you kind of become careless about sin. El Elohe Israel, I've got church. Our children this morning are so blessed to be nurtured in the Christian home. And think of how nurtured they are in the course of things as we have it set up here. You're born, you're given the sign of baptism. They're set apart to God as holy. They're raised in Christian homes of parents who are nurturing them and caring. And then we spend a lot of money to send them to the Christian school, right? I mean, that's the thing that often happens, that we put them in the Christian school to try to really shield them and protect them and give them a Christian education. What happens? At some point, do they really take seriously the problem of sin when all they've known is this kind of shielding? What begins to look really attractive to them? Isn't there a danger in this environment that we create that we don't really ever see the problem of the human heart? Do they have any idea of the antithesis? Did Jacob knew what it meant that God had separated him out to be holy? Did Jacob understand that? Did Jacob understand what it meant that the world has been crucified to me and I to the world? Do we understand that? I think the most painful thing about this is is that when the news was made known to him about what happened to his daughter Dinah, we read in verse 5, now Jacob heard that he had defiled his daughter Dinah but his sons were with his livestock in the field so jacob held his peace you know how that should be translated jacob was silent look in this culture you never let your daughter roam around unchaperoned especially if she's at marriageable age you never that's like letting your daughter who grew up in Hemet walk around in Amsterdam. Be awful. Here's what's more painful. This is the unloved daughter. This is the wife who Jacob did not love. This is the daughter of unloved Leah. So Jacob hadn't loved his wife. Now he doesn't love his daughter. No cry out. No shepherding. No care. This covenant child was abused by men. Men, do you shepherd your daughters? It starts with friends. She went out to see the daughters of the land. And now the ultimate happens. Trust me, the devil's eye is on our families. This is why in these events, you have major princes and pharaohs coming after these women. Shechem longs for her. he doesn't just use and abuse now he wants her his soul is drawn to her he loves this woman he speaks tenderly to her shechem sees this father you go get him dad you go get her dad i want i want her so two things happen at this point a great proposal is made and hamor speaks with them saying the soul of my son shechem longs for your daughter she come they come to jacob give her to him to be his wife make marriages with us give your daughters to us take our daughters for yourselves you shall dwell with us and the land shall be open dwell get property now that's not true because when they went back to convince the city they said it'll all be ours they're not noble but the unwritten character who's just stepped into the scene is who satan who in genesis chapter 3 God separated out the seeds as they're entering the land what does Satan desperately want to do right now he wants to mingle the whole thing up and extinguish them obliterate the distinction of Israel you see that the three sworn enemies here you have the world the devil and our own flesh so Shechem asked for Dinah's hand and Jacob silent just silent just silent doesn't stand up for the lord's covenant doesn't stand up for his distinctiveness doesn't outrage and cry about what they did to the daughter there's no i mean you see why this is hard this morning jacob's name means to seed and now lo and behold it's passed right on into the sons what notice what happens they propose a plan here we can't give you dinah they say the sons now take over negotiations we can't give you dinah why because you're all uncircumcised you're all unclean but i'll tell you what if you will go and you will circumcise all of the males in your nation we will give you dinah as wife remember what circumcision was a sign and a seal of god's covenant of what grace a sign and a seal of the righteousness that comes by faith. A sign of salvation. They take the holy sign and they make it something to accomplish genocide. Can you imagine inviting Escondido in, baptizing them all, and then wanting to kill them? Shechem is so excited. Verse 19, he takes delight in Dinah. They go to the gate of the city. They speak to the whole city. The men are at peace with us. Come, let's do it. They'll be one with us. They all heeded. And as they're sitting there in pain on the third day, Simeon and Levi take swords and they come in and they hack them. They utterly destroy them. In Humboldt County, when I grew up, there was the terrible Indian Island massacre. I remember reading about that. where a lot of the loggers and a lot of those who were settling came in with axes and destroyed them. House to house, screaming wives, screaming children. This sin was returned with the worst kind of revenge I've ever read about in the Scriptures. Holy family here, the holy family, lies, deceit, disobedience, no leadership, no love, Hatred of enemies, not a blessing to nations. Genocide, and it ends with Jacob bewailing that he now is not going to be liked in the land. You know how many times I is used here in how this ends? You have brought trouble on me, Simeon and Levi, by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land. My numbers are few. I shall be destroyed. I and my household. I mean, it's all about me. No concern for his God. Didn't Christ change his name? After this name change, Jacob is used 45 times. Israel is used 23. And I think it's telling us something. Simeon and Levi say, should they treat our sister like a prostitute? Should they? On his deathbed, Jacob will curse his sons. Simeon and Levi are brothers. Weapons of violence are their swords. Let my soul come not into their counsel. Oh, my glory, be not joined to their company. For in their anger they killed men. In their willfulness they hamstrung oxen. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce in their wrath, for it is cruel. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. Wow. Now, I told you, what a mess. Are you angry? Are you offended? if I didn't cause some kind of offense today, or there's two options. I didn't do my job or you weren't listening. Let's believe I did my job. There's a verse now you see that takes on a whole new meaning. The human heart, it's deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Why is God telling us about this this morning? He's opening up a window into the life of Jacob to show you, what if he completely withdrew? What if God in your lives completely withdrew from you? You would absolutely ruin your lives. And here's the problem this morning. Everyone's thinking, where's gospel, pastor? I'm trying to find it. I'm trying to find it here. And I think that's the point. That if God had let it remain like this, be done. The nations would come and slaughter them. But he doesn't. And when you come to a section like this and God for a season withdraws to let us learn about the human heart and how much we really need him, you know what that produces in the Bible? It's called a book. It's called a certain book called what? Lamentations. I called on your name, O Lord, from the lowest pit. You've heard my voice. Do not hide your ear from my sighing, from my cry for help. You drew near on the day I called to you and said, do not fear. Lord, you have pleaded the case for my soul. You've redeemed my life. That's what this births. You know what Jacob's going to say at the end of his life? He's standing in front of Pharaoh. Here's what he says. The days of the years of my sojourning are 130 years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life and they've not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their sojourning. I made terrible mistakes in life and it caused me a lot of grief, few and evil. It did not compare to Abraham and Isaac. I was a mess. Remember, oh Lord, your tender mercies and your loving kindness for they are from old. You understand why Romans says that in his forbearance he passed over the sins that were previously committed that he might demonstrate at this present time his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus Christ. He didn't just let this go. He passed over it for a time and the fierceness of his wrath was poured out on the right time on his beloved son, Jesus Christ, to demonstrate his immense justice and that he can even freely acquit somebody like Jacob who does this and the sons who do this. And if God revealed this kindness and this wickedness in the life of Jacob, if God could say all over the Old Testament, the God of Jacob is with us and he inspired that so that you could take that. The God of Jacob is with us. You know what that means for you this morning? He can deliver you too. There's nothing you could do. There's nothing you could do that could empty the cross of its power. And that he loves to freely acquit. He loves to freely justify all those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. God never quits on us. And if God revealed this kind of wickedness in the life of Jacob and say this over and over again. Then he says the same to you today. Don't tarry in coming home to me. Why do you want to flirt with all that? Why do you want to stay out there and open yourself up to that? Don't dabble, don't taste, don't touch. Come out, be holy. I am your God and you are my people. I'll finish the work. But you don't want to experience this. Come to Bethel. Sing his praises. For he still will bring Jacob there. And he promises all of you this morning that he will bring everyone home who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that wonderful? He'll bring you home. If you can have hope in this kind of mess, you can have hope in your life that nothing indeed can separate you from his gospel love. Amen. Gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us hope in the midst of this and for not forever departing after Genesis 34 from your servant. And thank you for completing the work that you said you started in us. Give us the faith to believe you, the faith to trust you, to walk according to your revealed will, to treasure what you treasure, to desire what you desire, but also, O Lord, to love to be where you are. to love to come home to want to come home to not root ourselves here we're pilgrims may we remember that you have called us out to proclaim your praises so that we are no longer mastered by the darkness but are guided in the light of our Lord Jesus Christ in his name we pray, amen