Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #2 in Genesis 35, and we will read Genesis 35:2-5: 

Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments: And let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went. And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem. And they journeyed: and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob.

What we find here is that the Lord is moving Jacob, and He is using this particular point in time, which we would have to say is one of those lowest points in Israel’s history (after the slaughter of the men of Shechem).  We know that God moved Jacob to say these things, and to take the opportunity to come to his own household – his sons that were involved in the terrible evil to Shechem, and everyone else in his household – to reaffirm their relationship to God, to reaffirm their commitment to serving God, and no other gods.  Again, it says in Genesis 35:2-3:

Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments: And let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went.

And they do respond, as it says in Genesis 35:4:

And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem.

And following that, they journeyed.  It was a “cleansing ceremony,” at least outwardly.  It was a physical thing, as there were idols in the camp of Israel.  (We know Rachel had some idols.)  And now was the time to “clean house” before going up to the house of God.

You know, a cleansing is always good, and we saw this in church history with the Reformation.  From time to time, the Spirit of God would come upon the people of God and say, “You have to clean this up.  You have gone too far astray from the truth of the Word of God.  You have gotten yourselves involved with idolatrous doctrinal practices, and now you have to come back to the Word, the truth of the Bible.”  The Reformation was a time like that, and there have been other times in Israel’s history when a prophet would call unto the people of Israel, and they would say a similar thing. 

When we look at the word translated as “put away,” it is the Hebrew word “soor,” it leads us many times to incidents in Israel’s history where this same command of God is put forth.  And that is what we are going to do.  Let us look at this word, Strong’s #5493, which is translated in a variety of ways.  Here is it translated as “put away,” but let us look at Deuteronomy 11:26-28:

Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of JEHOVAH your God, which I command you this day: And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of JEHOVAH your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known.

We can see the relationship to obeying God’s commandment and staying “in the way,” which means to stay in Christ, because Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  The narrow way that the Bible prescribes for the people of God to walk in is determined by the commandments of God, the right doctrines of the Bible.  We do not walk in the Law (right doctrine) to get saved, but because we are saved by God’s mercy and the faith of Christ, as a result we will walk in the Law, as is described in Ezekiel 36:26-27: “I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh, And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes…”  That is what God has done with His people, and then we start walking the path that identifies with the truths of the Bible, the teachings that God reveals to our understanding to be faithful and true.  That is what we follow, and that is the way we go in order to reach the kingdom of heaven.  In the Day of Judgment, that is the path we are following day by day, as God’s Spirit guides us into truth.  We follow it, and that will take us through this Judgment Day period to the very end, and then we will finally enter into eternity to come.

This was God’s command in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament because it is the same Gospel.  If you obey the commandments, you will be blessed, and the only ones who can possibly walk in the commandments of God are those that are truly saved.  The unsaved Jews attempted to do so, and yet they failed again, and again, because in Old Testament Israel (like in the New Testament churches), the overwhelming majority of the Jews were unsaved.  Just a tiny remnant of those in Israel were truly saved.  So, too, it was with the churches, and the vast majority were unsaved.  Many were called, but few were chosen.

Here, God warned that if they would not obey, but if they would turn aside out of the way…and if you turn out of the way, you are going after other gods.  You cannot turn out of the way of following Christ, the true God, and turn to other things, whether religious or secular things.  You know, the broad way that leads to destruction is varied; you can pick a thousand different paths, but you are still on the same broad road that leads to being destroyed, ultimately.  And Satan does not care if someone is an atheist, a Buddhist, a Muslim, or a professed Christian, or anything else along the spectrum of what people might follow.  It is of no significance.  If someone is entrenched in their unsaved condition of being an atheist, or if someone is entrenched in their unsaved condition of worshipping a false god because both are solidly entrenched in their unsaved condition, and they are under the power of darkness, enslaved to sin and to Satan. 

But God’s true elect people have been set free, and we are set free to follow the Lord.  How are we going to follow the Lord?  We read the Bible, and as we understand by God’s grace the things He opens to our understanding, we believe them, trust them, and we take action where action is required.

Also, we read of the exact same thing in Deuteronomy 28:14:

And thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

Again, if you go to the left or to the right, either way it is following another god.  It is not the God of the Bible.  Men have the delusion of thinking, “Well, I do not go to a church.  I do not go to a synagogue or a mosque, because I do not believe in a God.”  They somehow think they are not involved in worship when they turn away from God and live their life according to their own dictates, understanding, and beliefs as they follow secular ideology, or they identify with atheism, or they are agnostic, and they think they are spared from being a part of all the world’s false religions.  But, actually, that is not true.  They have just gone to another “religion” where the god of that religion is man (although it is really Satan behind the scenes) and his secular doctrine they are saying, “We will determine our own way, and our own path.  We will trust in science and in mankind.”  It is making science and mankind their gods, and whether they go to the left or to the right, they have gone after other gods to serve them.  Then it says in Deuteronomy 28:15:

But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of JEHOVAH thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:

It has certainly done so as far as those that had identification with God, whether it was Israel of old, or whether it was those in the churches and congregations.  The curse of God has overtaken them, just as the curse of God will overtake the sinner.   There is spiritual death, and then he is subject to the second death, to die physically and come to the end of his existence and lose his life for evermore.  This is all part of the curse upon the sinner, and all have sinned, so all experience the curse.

If we continue looking in the Old Testament, we find this word constantly appears.  Let us go to Judges 2:16-17:

Nevertheless JEHOVAH raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. And yet they would not hearken unto their judges, but they went a whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves unto them: they turned quickly out of the way which their fathers walked in, obeying the commandments of JEHOVAH; but they did not so.

Notice that the “turning” is always in the context of going after other gods.  It is very matter-of-fact and clear: Follow God; obey God; and do the will of God.  Yes, God presents that option to every human being.  You can follow the Law and seek to obey God by keeping the Law, but you had better do so perfectly without a single transgression.  If you fail in one point, you are guilty of all.  Of course no one can follow the Law perfectly, and that is the reason Israel would constantly falter, and the judgment of God would come upon them.  He would raise up foreign nations, and they would oppress Israel and persecute them for a period of time.  But the Lord had a plan that required Israel to be around for many centuries, so He would raise up a judge to deliver them on that occasion, only to have it happen again, and again, and again. 

This was the history of Israel, and it is the history of the churches and congregations as they would go after their “high places,” and the churches would also go after their false gods which were mostly made from their false doctrines that were out of the minds of men.  The Armenian gospel, the “free will gospel,” is a prime example.

If we go to Judges 10, we find that the children of Ammon were threatening Israel, and we read in Judges 10:10-14:

And the children of Israel cried unto JEHOVAH, saying, We have sinned against thee, both because we have forsaken our God, and also served Baalim. And JEHOVAH said unto the children of Israel, Did not I deliver you from the Egyptians, and from the Amorites, from the children of Ammon, and from the Philistines? The Zidonians also, and the Amalekites, and the Maonites, did oppress you; and ye cried to me, and I delivered you out of their hand. Yet ye have forsaken me, and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more. Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation. And the children of Israel said unto JEHOVAH, We have sinned: do thou unto us whatsoever seemeth good unto thee; deliver us only, we pray thee, this day. And they put away the strange gods from among them, and served JEHOVAH: and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.

Then God raised up a deliverer, a judge Jephthah, and he delivered Israel from Ammon.  You see, God was done with them.  “That is it.  No more.  Go cry to the gods you have chosen throughout your history, and let them deliver you.”  Of course Israel did not do so because they knew deep-down that they were not true gods, and they had no power to deliver or save.  So they would come to the true God of the Bible, and they not only asked to be delivered, but they took action: “And they put away the strange gods from among them, and served JEHOVAH.”  That is, they made a recommitment: “Let us clean up.  Let us gather together all our idols of wood and stone, and get rid of them.  We will not serve Baal any more.  We will serve God.”  Then God would help them.

So what we are reading about in Genesis 35  after a particularly horrendous situation that took place in Shechem is very much in keeping with what would happen to the nation of Israel going forward almost a couple thousand years.  This would be Israel’s response.  They would go astray from God, and then they would be called back after God has raised up enemies against them.  And that is what Jacob feared, is it not?  He feared that the Canaanites and the Perizzites would come upon them.  I do not think that Jacob was so much fearing them as he was fearing that God would turn the fledgling nation of Israel over to them for severe chastisement and judgment.  So Jacob was seeking to stop it at its source before they took the trip to Bethel.  “Let us gather the strange gods that are among you, and be clean.  Change your garments.”  You see, that is language that identifies with salvation.  Cleanse your souls of sin, and take off the filthy garments of your own righteousness (which is no righteousness), and put on the garment of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you might have the righteousness of God, and be truly righteous in His sight.