1924 Wholesome Words - page 3

YOUNG MEN’S CORNER.

care, revealed the purpose of God through him, and established his faith in God. �We may note the stages of the revelation as light came into Jacob’s soul.

(i Surely God is in this place and I knew it not. "

" This is a dreadful place. "

" This is the House of God. "

" This is the gate of heaven. "

Jacob associates the place with God’s revelation to him, " God is in this place, " and so: Jacob feared, and called it a dreadful place.

That is, Jacob realised the presence of God and his own weakness and sin.

He called the place Beth-El which means House of God.

In chapter 35. Jacob is told by God to go up to Beth-E l ; we judge from this that the place was important, and that the name given to it was suitable.

He built an altar, but before going to Beth-El we notice how they put away their idols. �Further on in the history of Israel God chose a place for His Name where He could dwell with His people.

There is much in Jacob’s experience to remind us of God’s House.

The pillar he set up would speak, we suggest, of testimony and his promise to give God a tenth is surely a characteristic of this truth.

It is the blessed privilege of God’s gathered people to give to God.

God seeks worshippers.

Jacob also said, " This is the gate of heaven. " The ladder speaks of a way to God for man.

That way is through Christ who came from God to man, in order that man might go to God.

In spirit and faith as believers and worshippers, we can do this now and realise, like Jacob, this is the House of God and the gate of heaven.

From CARLUKE. --In Genesis 28. we have Jacob be-fore Isaac his father.

He blessed him, the heir of the same promise (Hebrews 11. 9). �We have in Jacob obedi-ence and uprightness, [?] and he goes out from Isaac to take a wife of the daughters of his mother’s kindred, and from the lips of his father he heard the words, God Almighty bless thee.

Alone, he is truly a stranger in a strange land with the fear of Esau in him, for he fled from before him (Genesis 35. ). �We find him at Luz which is afterward called Beth-El.

Genesis 28. 11.

God was watching and directing the trail of this man’s l i f e ; His promises were to be fulfilled in him.

Now we have God dealing with him.

Jacob is asleep and he dreams no ordinary dream.

God causes him first to see the ascent and descent of angels of God betwixt earth and