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"And God went up from him in the place where He talked
with him."- Gen. 35.13
Jacob is now at Bethel, fulfilling a vow he had
made many years before. When he was on his way out of the promised
land, the Lord graciously appeared to him at this place, and gave
him the fullest and most reviving assurance of His presence and
protection and love. With a heart full of gratitude, Jacob
acknowledged the gracious manifestation, and came under a solemn
vow to acknowledge it more suitably, when on his return to the
promised land he should have it more in his power to do so. he
vowed that he should then build an altar, and offer to God a tenth
of all he possessed. This service he had just performed; and
immediately after its performance the Lord again appeared to him
in a very gracious and remarkable manner. He appeared to him and
blessed him and spoke to him in words of the most encouraging and
consoling nature. It is then added "And God went up from him
in the place where He talked with him."
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In these words there are three things to
considered; first, God's talking with Jacob, "He
talked with him"; next, the place
where this condescension was vouchsafed, we read of "the place
where He talked with him.; and then God's going up from
him in that place, "And God went up from him in the
place where He talked with him."
We are here told that God talked with
Jacob, He admitted him to intercourse, and made known to him His
thoughts and purposes. This honour, though in a different way, all
His saints possess. They are all admitted to communion with God.
He talks with them, manifests to them the secret of His covenant
and declares to them what is in His heart. He talks with them, not
in an immediate way, or by any new revelation, but by means of His
Word and in His ordinances. We may gather from the context some of
the principal subjects of this gracious intercourse.
One subject is, their name and character
by nature. "God said to him, Thy name is Jacob,"
a supplanter; and our name by nature is Jacob, supplanters
deceivers and deceived. Of this the Lord reminds his people, when
He admits them to communion. he talks to them about what they were
and are in themselves. He reminds them of their guilt and vileness
and wretchedness and helplessness. He talks to them in words such
as these:" I found thee in a desert land and in a waste
howling wilderness"; "thy father was an Amorite and thy
mother a Hittite," and "thou wast cast out in the open
field, to the loathing of thy person on the day that thou wast
born; - and when I passed by, I saw thee polluted in thine own
blood." Be assured that God has never spoken to you savingly,
or admitted you to communion with Himself, if you have never been
brought to hear and believe such truths from His lips.
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Another subject on which the Lord talks to
His people is the privileges to which they have been or
shall be raised by His grace. "Thy name shall not be called
any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name; and He called his
name Israel," or a prince with God. he talks with them about
the wonders of His love, and the riches of His grace, and the
greatness of His salvation; and sometimes witnesses by His Spirit
with their spirits to their own interest in these blessings. He
speaks to them at times in words such as these: "And when I
passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said
unto thee, when thou wast in thine own blood, 'Live; yea I said to
thee, when thou wast in thy blood Live." "Though thou
hast lien among the pots, thou shalt be as the wings of a dove
covered with silver and her feathers with yellow gold".
"Thou shalt be called by a new name which the mouth of
the Lord shall name." "Thou art no more a servant but a
son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ." - Did
He ever talk with you in such words as those? If He did your
language was, "Who am I"; "Behold what manner of
love is this, that I should be called a child of God."
Another subject on which the Lord talks with
His people is His own name He said to Jacob here, "I
am God Almighty." God's name means Himself as
manifested. or manifestation of what He is. "I have
manifested Thy name," said Lord, "to the men whom Thou
gavest Me out of the world." This is the principal
intercourse between God and His saints, and is often spoken of as
such in Scripture. We find it in the Lord's talking with Abraham,
"I am the Almighty God," "I am thy shield and thy
exceeding great reward"; and in His talking with Isaac, "I
am the God of Abraham thy father, " ; and in His talking with
Jacob, "I am the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of
Isaac," "I am the God of Bethel where thou anointedst a
pillar, and where thou vowedst avow unto Me"; and in talking
with Moses, "I will make all My goodness pass before thee,
and will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and the Lord
passed by and proclaimed, 'The Lord, the Lord God , merciful and
gracious"; and in His talking with His people Israel, and
with all His saints from that time until now, "I am the Lord
thy God , who hath brought thee out of the Land of Egypt, and out
of the house of bondage." He has said of His saints, "They
shall know me from the least of them to the greatest." This
promise to them is, "Ye shall know that I am the Lord,"
and in the fulfillment of that promise their blessedness consists;
"for this is life eternal, to know the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom He has sent," that is, to know God in
Christ. That is life eternal, and in that consists the blessedness
of communion with God here. It consists in the saving knowledge
which His people have of His name as the Lord and as in Christ
their on God. Have you that knowledge? Did God ever make known to
you His name, and did you find that sufficient to answer all you
felt or feared on your own account? When you thought of your own
helplessness and weakness, and of the number and greatness of your
wants, and of the power and malice and subtility of your enemies,
did you find such a declaration as this sufficient to support and
comfort you, "I am the Lord , the God of the spirits of all
flesh, is there anything too hard for Me?" "I am God
Almighty."
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Another subject on which the Lord talks with
His people is His promises and blessings He has
promised. He reminds them of what He has said, and assures them
that he will not leave them until He have done that which He has
spoken to them of. In talking with Jacob here, He renewed the
promises which He had formerly given him respecting his seed and
the promised land; "A nation and a company of nations shall
be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins; and the land
which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, to thee will I give it, and to
thy seed after thee will I give the land." These promises
were peculiarly to Jacob's situation at the time. He was in terror
of the Canaanites, who, he feared, should gather themselves
together and destroy him and his family. The Lord therefore
assured him of the preservation, and even of the increase and
glory of his seed; and besides renewed the entail of the whole
land, in which they then sojourned, on him and on them. But these
promises looked beyond the mere literal fulfillment, and were
regarded by Jacob as securing better blessings than mere earthly
distinction and inheritance. They looked to the increase and glory
of the spiritual seed of Jacob, who have been and shall be an
innumerable multitude, a nation of priests and kings unto God, and
to the inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and unfading which
God has prepared for them. The apostle says, speaking of the
patriarchs, "Now they desire a better country, that is, an
heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for
He hath prepared for them a city."
God still talks with His saints about His
promises and their interest in them, especially those promises
which are peculiarly suited to their circumstances and wants at
the time. If they are burdened with a sense of guilt, He talks to
them in words such as these: I, even I , am He that blotteth out
your transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember your
sins." If they are burdened with deadness and the hardness of
their hearts, He talks with them in such promises as the
following: "I will put My spirit in you, and ye shall live";
"I will take away the heart of stone, and give you a heart of
flesh." If they are burdened with a sense of their
insufficiency for duty or trial, He supports and comforts them by
such assurances as these: "Fear not, for I am with thee; be
not dismayed, for I am thy God; I will uphold thee, yea, I will
help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My
righteousness." If they are troubled as to the supply of
their temporal wants, He supports against such fears by such
encouragement and tenderness as this: "Fear not little flock;
for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom";
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and
all these things shall be added unto you."
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If they are troubled by the state and
prospects of Christ's true Church, He removes or allays their
fears by talking to them, as He did to Jacob here, about His
promises to His Church, His promises relating to its members
individually, and to those relating to its general increase and
glory as a whole. Both are interesting and consoling and
encouraging to God's true saints. They love the prosperity of
Zion, and rejoice with Jerusalem in the prospect of her glory, as
well as in that of their own individual blessedness. Indeed, they
see both, at least in their ultimate accomplishment, to be wrapped
up together. The glory of the Church in the new Jerusalem, where
alone its glory shall be complete, and their own everlasting
blessedness, they see to be involved in one another. .
Independently of that, however, they desire the glory of the
Church, and rejoice in the assurance that it will be prosperous
and triumphant even here. This is a subject which lies very near
their heart, and which is often the matter of their prayers, and
the matter of their joy and thankfulness in some of their more
favoured moments, when the Lord by His Word and Spirit condescends
to talk with them. He talks with them about the prospects of His
Church, about its advancement on earth, and its perfect glory in
the heavenly world; and He talks with them also about their own
participation in that glory, showing them their interest in the
heavenly inheritance, and at times giving them a Pisgah view of
that land which is afar off. Indeed, the greater delight a
Christian has in thinking of the glory of the Church, or rather of
the glory of Christ in His Church, the greater assurance he has of
his own blessedness, the more generally assured is his own hope of
an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not
away.
On these subjects on which the Lord talks with
His saints when He holds intercourse with them. On these subjects
He talked with Jacob here.
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Our attention is here directed next to the
place in which God talked with Jacob. We read of "the
place where He talked with him." This place was
Bethel, the house of God, a place where God had formerly talked
with Jacob, and where Jacob had entered into a solemn covenant
with God, and a place to which, in obedience to the Divine
command, he had come up at this time to worship and to pay his
vows. There God met with him and talked with him.
Ordinances, whether of secret or private
or public worship are the Bethels or the meeting places
where God talks with His people.
The place of a Christian's secret
devotions and communings with God and his own heart is the place
in which God talks with him. Of the closet in which he prays in
secret, or of the field or path where he walks alone and
meditates, he has cause to say, "Surely God is in this place,
this is none other than the house of God." he has cause to
name it Bethel.
The place of private social worship or
Christian intercourse, whether it be the house or the way, is
another place in which God talks with His people. "While they
communed together and reasoned," it is said of the two
disciples, "Jesus Himself drew near and went with them."
Yes, and so talked with them, that they had cause to say, "Did
not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us by the way?"
The road between Jerusalem and Emmaus was a Bethel to them.
The place of public worship and public
Christian communion, is another place, and that in a peculiar
sense, which we may call Bethel, the house of God - a place where
He appears to His people and talks with them. This is the place of
their most solemn services, and of their most solemn engagements
and vows; and in waiting on God in these services, His people have
often seen His glory and felt His presence and enjoyed the first
fruits and foretastes of the blessedness of the heavenly temple.
In His house of prayer they have often heard and known His voice.
In that place they have often had their doubts removed, and their
fears dispelled, and their difficulties and perplexities solved. "Until
I went into the sanctuary of God," says the Psalmist, "then
understood I their end." In that place they have often had
their case laid open to them, and their inquiries answered, and
the way of duty made plain before them. The Lord has answered them
as by Urim and Thummim. They inquired in His temple, and He
answered them from His holy oracle. In that place they have often
been filled with consolation. The character and glory of the love
of God, and the excellence and fullness and freeness of His
salvation, have been so discovered to them that they have many
times been made joyful in the midst of tribulation, and enabled to
sing in the righteous ways of the Lord, and to go on in their
journey through the wilderness rejoicing.
Such are the places in which God talks with
His people
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Let us now consider, in the third
place, what is implied in God's going up from Jacob in
this place. "God went up from him in the place where He
talked with him."
He perceived God going up from him, a clear
evidence that he had known Him and felt Him to be present. Many
know nothing of God's withdrawing Himself and hiding His face, a
sure proof that they know nothing of the light of His countenance.
But Jacob knew both, and God's saints know both.
Again this going up from him suggests also
the inconstant nature of all earthly communion. In heaven only,
communion with God is uninterrupted. Here it is liable to many
changes, to many ebbings and flowings, and sometime to very sudden
and remarkable variations. A Christian's frame of mind in the
evening may be very different from what it was in the morning.
Yea, his frame at the commencement, or during one part of a duty
or service, may be quite changed before its close. At he
commencement of the duty he may be languid, and before its
conclusion may feel much fervour and enlargement; or, on the other
hand, he may begin the duty in a very lively frame, and before its
conclusion may find himself darkened and troubled and straitened.
Before he leaves the place where God has been talking to him, he
may perceive Him going up from him . In that very place He may go
up from him. This is to the Christian that his heaven is not here,
and to dispose him to look beyond the world for uninterrupted
blessedness. Here his enjoyments rise and fall; yea, sometimes,
when they have reached their heights, suddenly and perceptibly
cease. The enjoyment of the two disciples at Emmaus seems to have
reached its height just before the Lord departed from them. He was
engaged at the time in blessing and breaking for them. Their eyes
were then opened and they knew Him, and yet, immediately after, He
vanished out of their sight or ceased to be seen of them. In the
very place, and at the very time, at which He was made known to
them in the breaking of bread, He went up from them and
disappeared from their view.
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Here the Lord Goes up from his people. His
ordinances continue, and shall continue till He come again; but
his sensible presence in them is variously vouchsafed. As to His
sensible presence, He comes and goes. even at Bethel He went up
from Jacob; yes, and never afterwards, so far as we read, did
Jacob meet with Him there. This is another view in which we may
consider the changeableness that attaches to all earthly services.
Ordinances continue, and shall continue; but the places of waiting
on them may be changed. Jacob continued to wait on God, and to
receive subsequent manifestations of His presence, but not at this
place. The heavenly Bethel is the only one where the
services shall never cease - from which the worship shall never be
transferred to any other temple. Every earthly temple, or house of
worship, shall come to be abandoned or changed. My friends, in the
prospect of leaving this place of worship in which we are
now assembled, and in which the fathers of many of you, and even
the fathers' fathers for generations have met - we cannot refrain
from addressing to you a few observations, suggested by such an
occurrence. We do not, as you know, attach any holiness to places
or houses in themselves. There is a holiness in God's ordinances,
but none in any place or house where they are administered - at
least separate from their administration. It is the ordinances
that sanctify the house, and not the house the ordinances. It is
the ordinances that we are to honour, and not the mere place or
house where they are administered. Still there are associations,
often of a very interesting kind, connected with the mere
externals of religion, which may be improved for awakening or
deepening solemn impressions. The sight of a spot in which,
perhaps years before, a Christian enjoyed much joy and peace in
communion with God, will awaken to his mind many solemn and
interesting recollections. The sight of the stone pillar which
Jacob, more than twenty years before, had erected at Bethel on
awakening from his remarkable dream, would, we doubt not, very
powerfully affect him as he approached it on the occasion of his
present visit. we all know the power of association. In religion,
as in other things, it exists; and, like every other feeling which
in itself is not sinful, may be turned to good account.
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This house, in which we are now assembled
and which we are about to leave - and to leave forever, as a place
of God's public stated worship - has for generations been used
professedly for His service. Within these walls the Gospel has
been long and often preached. Here there have been some burning
and shining lights, men who held forth the Word of life, and who
were blessed as the instruments of bringing a knowledge of that
word to others, men who themselves had communion with God, who
knew and heard His voice, and who were honoured by Him to be His
moth to their fellow men. Within these walls such have spoken;
yea, God has spoken by their means. Here also, we believe, many of
His people have enjoyed sweet communion with Him. Here many a
longing soul has been satisfied, many a mourner comforted, and
many a tempted, burdened saint revived and supported and animated.
Here God has talked with His people. Here he has met with them,
while His name was invoked, or His message declared, or His
praises celebrated, or His sacraments administered. here also, we
believe, He said to many sinners, "Live;" yea, He said
to them "Live." Here many a stout heart has been made to
tremble, many a careless sinner cut to the heart and brought to
enquire about salvation, and many and inquirer directed, and made
willing, by God's grace, to repair to the Lamb of God who taketh
away the sin of the world. Here the Saviour has obtained triumphs;
here he Divine Spirit has often come down in His awakening,
quickening, and refreshing influences; here God has been magnified
and glorified, and Satan defeated, and angels made to rejoice in
the conversion of sinners and in the edification and conversion of
those who believed. There are souls, we doubt not, now in glory,
who look back to this house, and will do so throughout eternity,
as to the place where God met with them, and opened their
understandings and their hearts, and brought them to hear and
receive the message of salvation. While they remember all the way
in which the Lord led them and dealt with them, they will remember
that here they were brought to the knowledge of the truth, or were
built up in the faith and love of it, and they will bless bless
the Lord that they ever entered these walls. They will think with
interest of this place as that in which commenced, or in which was
carried forward, , their meetness for everlasting blessedness.
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Think you, will Saul of Tarsus ever forget through eternity that
spot between Jerusalem and Damascus, where the Sun of
Righteousness first dazzled him with His beam? Will Lydia ever
forget that "place by the river's side where prayer was wont
to be made," in which the Lord first opened her heart and
brought her to hear and know the joyful sound? No, never; and the
very fact of Scripture's being so particular in mentioning the
spot, shows us that even that is worthy of being had in
remembrance. Why else is it mentioned so particularly,
with regard to Lydia, that it was in a place by the river's side
she first heard and believed the Gospel? The place of Lydia's
conversion is thus particularly noticed; and perhaps, if you saw
the place, it would excite some interesting reflections in your
mind. Well, this house in which you are now assembled has been ,
we believe, a place of meeting with God to individuals who are now
in glory, as surely as Lydia is; and may it not then, and ought it
not, recall to your mind many solemn and affecting considerations?
When you think - and we speak not this at random; have you
yourselves not heard it with your ears, and have not your fathers
told you? - that here many sinners have been converted and many
believers edified and comforted; when you think how many a
precious word has been uttered within these walls, how many a
blessed Sabbath and how many a precious communion have been here
enjoyed, when you thinks how much of God's presence and power has
here been vouchsafed, you will surely allow that the place is
rendered interesting by such reflections.
But another consideration, and an awful
consideration this is, forces itself on us while we thus speak,
and it is this: If many a rich offer of salvation and of Christ
has been made in his place, and if that offer has been accepted by
not a few, here also that offer has been rejected by many who will
never here an offer any more!
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This house has been a place in which God has
talked with His people, and in which He called on others, but was
refused. Now it is to cease from being so - though the
consequences of what it was shall never cease to be felt - it is
to cease from being what it was; and this consideration may well
lead our thoughts to that which is to follow, even to that state
and place which is unchangeable. All the earthly worship and
services shall in like manner come to an end. God may grant us
another place in which to worship Him, but that, after time, we
shall leave to others. All the privileges of God's house on earth
shall sooner or later cease to be enjoyed, and of that we are
reminded in leaving this place. This voice is this day - this last
Sabbath of another year, and this last day of our stated
assembling in a place long devoted to the worship of God - this
voice is this day sounding in our ears; "All things earthly
shall come to an end; there shall be a removing of all things that
are made, a removing of them or a removing from them, till the
things only which cannot be removed or shaken shall remain; heaven
or hell, a long, an unchangeable eternity, shall follow, and shall
swallow up whatever was enjoyed, whether improved or abused , on
earth." In meeting for worship on this last Sabbath of
another year, and in bidding farewell, as we are this day called
to do, to this house as a place of worship, we should think of the
farewell which we shall one day have to give to all the joys of
time, and to all the means and ordinances of grace,, and to the
unchangeable state into which, on the back of that, we shall be
called to enter. can we bid farewell with resignation to these
joys and advantages, and welcome that which is to follow? You
remember the words of the dying martyr; "Farewell sun, moon
and stars; farewell, world and time; farewell, weak and frail
body; farewell, precious Bible and precious ordinances. welcome,
eternity; welcome, angels and saints; welcome, blessed Lord Jesus
and blessed Spirit of all grace, and welcome, God, the Judge of
all." Can we adopt the welcome that accompanied it? welcome,
eternity; welcome, ever blessed and glorious Trinity.
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But we have been speaking of this house,
merely as a place in which others have worshipped, and which is
henceforth to cease being a place of stated worship to an; but may
we not apply the matter more closely? It has been a place of
worship, for a longer or shorter period to ourselves. It is a
place in which God has talked with us. In one sense, though not in
the sense intended here, He has talked with all here. He has
spoken to us all. He has called and counselled and entreated us,
whether we listened or not to His voice.
Sinner, God has spoken to you here. he has
warned you of your danger. He has made known to you the way of
escape. he has urged you to flee for refuge to the hope set before
you. Ought you not now, in leaving this house, to inquire what has
been the result of all He has spoken and urged? Are you still
unaffected and unsubdued? If so, and if, as without a miracle of
grace will be the case, you continue to harden your hearts to the
end, then know that if there were no other witnesses - if
conscience were not a witness, if they who addressed you, and whom
you despised, were not witnesses, and if the book of God's
remembrance were not a witness - the very stones of this house
would cry out against you, would have a mouth given them to
publish your rebellion and guilt. But there needs not any such way
of discerning your unbelief. He who walketh in the midst of golden
candlesticks, and has been walking in the midst of us, has seen
and marked your feelings and conduct; and He will one day be your
Judge, and bright to light and punish your neglect and rejection
of His great salvation. he will punish with everlasting
destruction all "who know not God and obey not the Gospel"
Will you not then today, after so long a time, even today, listen
to His voice? We cannot promise you, and you cannot promise
yourself, another offer of Christ and salvation. Now, the offer is
made to you, made in perfect sincerity by God Himself; and in His
great and awful name we demand your decided, final answer. Are you
to leave this house with all your former rejections of the Saviour
lying upon you, and with the fresh rejection of this day made,
and, it may be, by that rejection to seal your doom forever; or
are you to receive the salvation which is freely offered to you, a
salvation which includes the forgiveness of all your past
transgressions, and of your past refusals of the Saviour among the
rest, and the enjoyment of every blessing you need for time and
eternity? Give your answer one way or the other, and let it be a
definite one. You have long enough delayed to give your answer.
You have said long enough, "When I have a convenient season I
will attend to this matter, and make up my mind." In God's
great name we tell you that never shall you have a more convenient
season than you have at this moment.
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Come to a point then. The patience of man is
wearied out by your indecision. That, however, were itself a light
matter; but you are wearying God also. He is wearied beyond
expression, and it may be beyond further endurance, with your
neglect and indifference and procrastination; and we have a
message to you from Him this day, and it is this: Either receive
His offer, or give it a plain unequivocal refusal, and let the
matter be at an end. He is saying to you, "I would thou wert
hot or cold." Be cold or hot then. Be one thing or another.
Receive or reject the Saviour who is offered you. We will take no
answer from you, for Christ will take no answer from you, but one
other of these two, "I take or I refuse the offered Saviour."
If you give no answer, then we can only tell you that that may be
taken as your refusal, and the Saviour may go from you, may go up,
from knocking at your heart, up never more to return. If you
knocked at the door of a house where you knew there were
individuals within to answer you, and if you received no answer,
you would, if you were really anxious for admittance, knock again
and again, and still more loudly; and the meaning of each such
knock would be, Let me be told whether I am to be admitted or not.
After continuing a time thus to knock, and receiving no answer,
you would take the silence as equivalent to a refusal and depart.
By this simple circumstance the Lord illustrates His conduct
toward you. He knocks and calls with the view of being admitted
into your heart. he knocks again and again, and calls more and
more loudly and earnestly. If His calls and warnings continue to
be rejected, He takes that as a refusal, and at length departs and
knocks no more! O lukewarm indifferent hearer of the Gospel, the
Son of God has been this day, as He has been for many days and
years before, knocking on the door of your heart. In this place,
where it may be you heard and rejected many a call before, you are
now receiving one other call, the last one in all human
probability which you shall ever receive within these walls. Oh,
reject it not, lest, in going up from striving with you in this
place, the Saviour go up from striving with you altogether, lest
He vow is His wrath either that you shall never hear another
offer, or , if you should hear it, that you shall hear it
unawakened and undisturbed, that you shall be suffered to sleep on
in your security, till the sound of the last trumpet awaken you to
the solemnities of judgement.
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Oh, are the services of this house - a house which, from being a
place of worship for the living, is now to become a repository for
the bones of the dead - are its services as a place of worship to
close and to leave you as dead and unaffected spiritually as the
naturally dead in the graves around or under your feet are to the
things of this world? Are you to leave it unaffected, and by so
doing, it may be, to continue unaffected till death and eternity
open your eyes? Are you to overstep the threshold of this house,
for the last time as a house of worship, and to leave within it
the guilt oif a continued rejection of the message here delivered
to witness against you, not merely in this world, but, if infinite
mercy prevent not, at the last day? Is this house to be to you as
Mount Gerizim or as Mount Ebal, a house of blessing or a house of
curses? Is it to be the repository for something more appalling
than the bones of the dead? Is it to be a treasure-house for the
curses written in this Book; and are these curses which, by your
rejection of the Gospel, you have been laying up for yourself
here, to be left behind you in this place till they be brought
forth to meet you in judgement? "Whatsoever a man soweth,
that shall he also reap." Whatsoever a man lays up for
himself, that shall he also be made to possess. If you have been
refusing to listen to God's voice addressed to you, His voice of
mercy and peace, you have, by doing so, been treasuruing up for
yourself wrath against the day of wrath, and the revelation of the
righteous judgement of God; and the wrath here laid up, the fruit
of the sins here commited, you shall assuredly, if mercy prevent
not, be made to possess and to feel.
Now there is pardon for all your sins. Now
the voice of blessing is addressed to you. Now Christ is
counselling and entreating you. He is unwilling to depart, and we
are unwilling to cease expostulating with you in His name. The
saviour is still standing - though He may be ready to depart - and
His language is, "How shall I give thee up? How shall I
abandon thee?". Will you force Him to abandon you. Will you
force him to leave you and say "What could I have done to my
vineyard that I have not done"; "Oh that thou hadst
known, at least in this day, the things that belong to thy peace,
but now they are hid from thine eyes"? We call heaven and
earth to record this day that we have set before you life and
death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life that you
may live.
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Professing Christian, this is a place, where
not only God has talked with you, as He has with sinners in
general, but where you have sealed and ratified your covenant with
God. This house has been in this sense a Bethel to you, that here
you anointed a pillar and vowed a vow to God. Here, over memorials
of a Saviour's love, you have sworn allegiance to your God and
Redeemer. some of you have here for the first time made that
solemn vow. This was the place where first you vouched the Lord to
be your God, where first you said, by an open and solemn
profession, "I am His." Is there nothing interesting in
that remembrance? Is there nothing in that consideration to affect
you? We should hope there is; we believe there is. We believe that
that solemn transaction which took place within these walls shall,
throughout an eternity of happiness or misery, never cease to be
remembered by God. God is going up from you in this place where
your vow was made; but the obligation of your vow remains and
shall remain. remember this, now that you are about bidding a
farewell to that place where first your oath was sworn, or where
it was once and again renewed. Remember the solemn binding nature
of your engagement, and remember that against you in a more
peculiar manner shall witnesses rise up to condemn you if you
shall be found unfaithful to your solemn covenant. God is going up
from you in this place where you received the pledges of a
Saviour's love; and never more, within these walls, shall you
drink of the fruit of the vine, never more, in all human
likelihood, shall you see a communion table spread on that spot
where you have oftenest, it maybe, seen it prepared. What is your
feeling, let me ask you, on looking back on the sacramental
occasions which you here had the privilege of witnessing and
enjoying, and what preparation are you making, or rather has been
made in you, for sitting down at that table which shall never be
remove, and for feasting, through eternity, not on the pledges of
a Saviour's love merely, but on the direct and immediate
assurances of it, the full fruition of His presence and favour? Oh
have you any evidence of a begun and progressive meetness for the
services of the upper sanctuary, or are you still of the number of
those, who , though they have eaten and drunk in the Lord's
presence, are yet in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of
iniquity, having never been taught to know and to do the Lord's
will? The Lord enable you to search and discover.
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But shall we not hope that there are
individuals here who think of this place, as Jacob thought and
spoke of Bethel? Are there not some here who have cause to say
with thankfulness that in this place God talked with them, not
merely spoke to them as He speaks to sinners in common, but gave
them to hear and to know His voice; that here He told them what
was in their heart, and told them also what was in His heart
toward them; that here they heard His voice quickening and
reviving them, and His voice of love filling them with peace and
joy? Are there not some here who heard Him say to them in this
place "Live," and who felt at the same time , the
breathing of His Spirit on their souls, and who heard Him say, "Fear
not," "Fear not, worm Jacob", "Fear not,
little flock " and who felt at the same time, His right hand
stretched out to support them, and put strength in them, and so
make effectual His command of grace, "Fear not ; be strong"?
And are there not some here, who in this place also, from love and
gratitude, and in acknowledgment of the Lord's interposition,
erected a pillar and vowed a vow - such a pillar as the Lord
Himself accepted, such a vow as He not only heard and marked, but
regarded with delight as the effect of the sealing of His own
Spirit, and with reference to which He has since spoken, and
continues to speak, in words such as these; "I am the God of
Bethel, where thou anoinedst a pillar and vowed a vow unto Me"?
The place, my Christian friends, in which
you have often enjoyed communion with God in public ordinances,
and in which you have made and performed your vows, you are now to
abandon as the stated place for the performance of such services,
and the enjoyment of such intercourse. Perhaps you may feel
somewhat in abandoning it. If this has been a place where God and
you have met, you will feel some drawing towards it, producing
perhaps something like a reluctance in leaving it, however willing
you mat be on other counts to abandon it. But what we have chiefly
in view in speaking of this, is to call you to improve the
circumstance
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You are leaving a place where God has talked
with you, and where he has heard and accepted your vows; be
incited then to praise Him for the past. Offer to Him the
sacrifice of thanksgiving. Set up your Ebenezer to the honour of
His grace and faithfulness, and inscribe on it this inscription,
expressive of your gratitude: "Hitherto has the Lord helped
us. Hitherto - thus far - even to the last Sabbath of another
year, and to the last day of assembling in this house of prayer,
He has helped us. He has stood by us, and strengthened us. He has
encouraged us under difficulty, and supported us under trials, and
preserved us under temptation from being overcome. He has cheered
us with the light of His countenance, and enabled us under
darkness to wait with expectation for His coming again with joy.
He has talked with us, and granted us communion with Himself, and
heard and answered the voice of our supplications. Hitherto He has
helped us, and now, in addition to these other pillars of
acknowledgment which in time past we have set up, we desire at
this stage of our progress to set up another Ebenezer, and to
acknowledge - in the midst of guilt and ingratitude the most
heinous and aggravated on our part - His renewed and continued
mercy and help. Before men and angels and devils, before friends
and enemies, we desire to acknowledge this to the praise of the
glory of His grace.
Again, on leaving this place where God has
talked with you, and on being reminded, as you thus are, that
there is nothing permanent on earth, not even what is connected
with the worship of God, and communion with Him; rejoice that God
Himself is unchangeable - an unchangeable habitation. Rejoice that
He is not confined to this or the other place, to this or the
other place , to this or that other building. If you are enabled
to draw near to Him through Christ, you will find Him, whatever
the place may be, a very present help to succour you. Where is the
house that we can build unto Him, or what is the place of His
rest? Not this or the other edifice; but to this man will He look,
whereever he may be, in a cottage or in a palace, in a mean or a
splendid edifice, even to him that is poor and of a contrite
spirit, and that trembleth at His word.
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Be reminded also, on leaving this house -
and rejoice when you think of this - that there is a temple
prepared for you, from which you shall go no no more out, but in
which you shall serve the Lord day and night forever - in which
you shall see His face, and enjoy His favour, and be satisfied
with His likeness. Everything earthly is dissolving; but the Lord
is preparing for you an house not made with hands, eternal in the
heavens, where He will go no more up from talking with you.
God is going up from us in this place where
He has talked with us. Oh, let our prayer be that we maybe fitted
for that place from which He shall never remove His people. Let us
pray also that He may go with us also to that other earthly house,
for which in the meantime we are leaving this one. This we know,;
if there are spiritual worshippers, God will be there as well as
here. That is what is required - spiritual worshippers. For that
then let us pray. Let us pray for the broken and contrite spirit,
which would make us true worshippers, that so the Lord may delight
to come among us and revive us. Let us pray also for the putting
forth of His power in the calling and quickening of sinners, that
the Lord would arise and the ark of His strength, and make the
glory of that other house greater than the glory of the former one
by giving still more glorious displays of His power and more
abundant communications of the influences of His Holy Spirit. Oh
may the Lord go with us! May the pillar of cloud, the symbol of
His presence, accompany us, and may the house to which we go be
beautified with His favour and the light of His countenance! Let
us go with such prayers as these on our lips and in our hearts: "Let
the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish Thou the
work of our hands." "Arise, O Lord, into Thy rest Thou
and the ark of Thy strength. "And may He hear these prayers,
and answer us in peace, for His name's sake. Amen.
Taken from Rev Alexander Auld's "Memorials of Caithness
Ministers", published 1911
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