Genesis 28:17

‘HALLOWED GROUND’

“How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’

Genesis 28:17

I. It must have been the freshness of Jacob’s sense of recent sin that made a spot so dreadful and so blessed seem to him a ‘dreadful’ place. Everything takes its character from the conscience. Even a Bethel was awful, and the ladder of angels terrible, to a man who had just been deceiving his father and robbing his brother. The gates of our heaven are the places of our dread.

II. Strange and paradoxical as is this union of the sense of beauty, holiness, and fear, there are seasons in every man’s life when it is the sign of a right state of mind. There is a shudder at sanctity which is a true mark of life. The danger of the want of reverence is far greater than the peril of its excess. Very few, in these light and levelling days, are too reverent. The characteristic of the age is its absence.

III. Our churches stand among us to teach reverence. There are degrees of God’s presence. He fills all space, but in certain spots He gives Himself or reveals Himself, and therefore we say He is there more than in other places. A church is such a place. To those who use it rightly it may be a ‘gate of Heaven.’

Rev. J. Vaughan.

Illustration

(1) ‘We also, in our Christian pilgrimage, have an unerring Guide, who never mistakes the way. Have you not heard of the wonderful powers of those Indian guides? Egerton Young was much struck by their sagacity and shrewdness. When he started to go on a pastoral visit to the Nelson River he had a journey of nearly 400 miles over frozen lakes, through dense forests, and across hills and ravines. But no matter whether clouds obscure the sky or not they never lose their way through the primeval forest.

Our pilgrimage is just as tangled, and our Guide is just as reliable. He is never at fault. He who led Abraham forth to new lands, who was Jacob’s guide, and who led Israel like a flock through the desert, will lead His pilgrims in safety through perplexing duties, and perilous pathways. Jesus Christ promised to the disciples that after His departure the Holy Spirit should come to them and guide them into all truth. And that same Holy Spirit was the guide of Christ’s human life. It was owing to the fact that the Holy Spirit was given to Him without measure that his life was so great.’

(2)‘Our blest Redeemer, ere He breathed

His tender last farewell,

A Guide, a Comforter bequeathed

With us to dwell.

And His that gentle voice we hear,

Soft as the breath of even,

That checks each fault, that calms each fear,

And speaks of heaven.

And every virtue we possess,

And every victory won,

And every thought of holiness,

Are His alone.’