Genesis 35:1-29
June 2, 2019
preached by Doug Cooper
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Time of Reflection Quotations

“Thou didst seek us when we sought Thee not; didst seek us indeed that we might seek Thee.”

~ Augustine (354-430), bishop, theologian, philosopher and author

“Learn this lesson: …not to come to Him because you are fit to come, but to come to Him because you are unfit to come. Your fitness is your unfitness. Your qualification is your lack of qualification.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892), English pastor and author

“When we submit our lives to what we read in scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories, but our stories in God’s. God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.”

~ Eugene H. Peterson (1932-present), American pastor, professor, author, and poet

“A religion of effortless adoration may be a religion for an angel but never for a man. Not in the contemplative, but in the active, lies true hope; not in rapture, but in reality, lies true life; not in the realm of ideals, but among tangible things, is man’s sanctification wrought.”

~ Henry Drummond (1851-1897), Scottish evangelist, biologist, writer and lecturer

“Suffering, failure, loneliness, sorrow, discouragement, and death will be part of your journey, but the Kingdom of God will conquer all these horrors. No evil can resist grace forever.”

~ Brennan Manning (1934-2013), American author and former priest

“Christ is the center of the circle, and all stories in Holy Scripture, viewed aright, have to do with Christ.”

~ Martin Luther (1483-1546), German theologian, composer, author and seminal figure in the European Protestant Reformation.

“Jesus did not come with sword in hand, but with nails in hand. Not to bring judgment, but to bear judgment.”

~ Edmund Clowney (1917-2005), Presbyterian theologian

Sermon Passage

Genesis 35:1-29 (NIV)

¹ Then God said to Jacob, “Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.”

² So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. ³ Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.” ⁴ So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem. ⁵ Then they set out, and the terror of God fell on the towns all around them so that no one pursued them.

⁶ Jacob and all the people with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan. ⁷ There he built an altar, and he called the place El Bethel, because it was there that God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.

⁸ Now Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died and was buried under the oak outside Bethel. So it was named Allon Bakuth.

⁹ After Jacob returned from Paddan Aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him.¹⁰ God said to him, “Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel.” So he named him Israel.

¹¹ And God said to him, “I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will be among your descendants. ¹² The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.” ¹³ Then God went up from him at the place where he had talked with him.

¹⁴ Jacob set up a stone pillar at the place where God had talked with him, and he poured out a drink offering on it; he also poured oil on it. ¹⁵ Jacob called the place where God had talked with him Bethel.

¹⁶ Then they moved on from Bethel. While they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and had great difficulty. ¹⁷ And as she was having great difficulty in childbirth, the midwife said to her, “Don’t despair, for you have another son.” ¹⁸ As she breathed her last—for she was dying—she named her son Ben-Oni. But his father named him Benjamin.

¹⁹ So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). ²⁰ Over her tomb Jacob set up a pillar, and to this day that pillar marks Rachel’s tomb.

²¹ Israel moved on again and pitched his tent beyond Migdal Eder. ²² While Israel was living in that region, Reuben went in and slept with his father’s concubine Bilhah, and Israel heard of it.

Jacob had twelve sons:

²³ The sons of Leah:
Reuben the firstborn of Jacob,
Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun.
²⁴ The sons of Rachel:
Joseph and Benjamin.
²⁵ The sons of Rachel’s servant Bilhah:
Dan and Naphtali.
²⁶ The sons of Leah’s servant Zilpah:
Gad and Asher.

These were the sons of Jacob, who were born to him in Paddan Aram.

²⁷ Jacob came home to his father Isaac in Mamre, near Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had stayed. ²⁸ Isaac lived a hundred and eighty years. ²⁹ Then he breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people, old and full of years. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.