Jacob's got a long ways to go, so
let me read verse 16.
And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and
he said, Surely the Lord is in this
place, and I knew it not.
And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful
is this place!
This is none other but the house of
God, and this is the gate of heaven.
Now, this is a passage of Scripture that
I use many times, and have used many
times, in dedicating new churches.
I have dedicated, I think that in the
past 20 years, I have dedicated, I think,
25 new churches.
And I've used this, I suppose, more than
any other passage of Scripture.
I have another one in Acts that I
use a great deal.
But how dreadful is this place!
And I think I shock some people, especially
when you've got a congregation that have come
in to dedicate the lovely new facilities they
have today.
And here I get up, and I look
around, and I say, How dreadful is this
place!
And then I proceed, during the rest of
the time, to try to win them back,
to become friends of me, by telling them
that the place is only dreadful to a
fellow like Jacob, running away from his family,
a trickster, a sinner, actually running away from
God.
And this is the thing he discovered.
He says, The Lord's in this place, and
I didn't know it.
When Jacob ran away from home, he had
a limited view of God.
He thought when he ran away from home,
he was running away from God also.
He thought he left God back down at
his home.
And he found out that he hadn't.
The Lord's in this place, and God says,
I'm going to be with you.
And because of that, how dreadful, oh, is
this place!
And the only thing that can make a
house of God dreadful is the fact that
you're a sinner trying to run away from
God.
And every house of God, every church ought
to be a dreadful place to any sinner
running away from God, because that's where he
ought to be able to meet God and
come face to face with God through the
ladder that's been let down from heaven, even
Christ.
And Jacob rose up early in the morning,
and he took the stone that he'd put
for his pillars and set it up for
a pillar and poured oil upon the top
of it, and he called the name of
that place Bethel.
But the name of that city was called
Luz at the first.
And Jacob vowed a vow.
Now, listen to Jacob.
You know, he's got a lot to learn,
and this is an evidence of it.
Listen to him.
If God will be with me and will
keep me in the way that I'll go
and will give me bread to eat and
raiment to put on so that I come
again to my father's house in peace, then
shall the Lord be my God.
What's he doing?
He wants to trade with God.
He says, now, Lord, if you'll do this
for me, and God's already told him He's
going to do it for him.
God has already said, every one of these
things, God says, I'm going to keep you,
and I'm going to bring you back to
this land, and I'm going to give you
offspring.
Now, Jacob turns around and says, if you'll
do this.
He wants to trade with God.
And he says, if you'll do it, then
I'll serve you.
God doesn't do business with us that way,
and He didn't do business with Jacob that
way.
If He had, Jacob would never have made
it back to that land.
God brought him out of the land.
God brought him back into that land by
His grace and mercy.
And when finally Jacob did come back to
Bethel, and he came back a wiser man.
And you know what he came back to
do?
To worship and praise God for His mercy.
God had been merciful to him.
You don't trade with God.
A great many people, even today, said, now
I'll serve the Lord, if He'll do.
You won't do anything of the kind, friends.
He doesn't do business that way.
He'll extend mercy to you.
He'll be gracious to you.
But He doesn't ask anything in return.
But He does say this, that if you
love Him, that you'll really want to serve
Him.
And that will be the bondage of love,
the same kind of love a mother has
for the little child, and she becomes its
slave.
That's the way that He wants you, and
that's the way He wants me.
And so old Jacob, he puts up, And
this stone, which I have set for a
pillar, shall be God's house.
And of all that thou wilt give me,
I'll surely give the tenth unto thee.
Isn't he a traitor to God?
And a great many of us are trying
to do business with God.
He's not doing business, friends.
He wants to become your Father through faith
in Christ, and you don't have to do
business with Him.