Genesis 31

Mizpah

Therefore was the name of it called Galeed and Mizpah, for he said, The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another. Genesis 31:48-49.

The sermon today is going to be about three things. The first thing is a stack of stones, the second thing is a ring, and the third is well, we shall see.

1. We have all seen a cairn, or haven't we? In fact some of us may have helped to make one. It used to be a customary thing to do to remember an occasion. After a picnic on some hillside and a good time hiking, someone might say, “Let us build a stack of stones in memory of this afternoon!” So everybody set to work and gathered stones and piled them in a certain spot, till there was quite an imposing heap a heap big enough to look like a tiny wart on the brow of the hill. And many years after you may pass that way again, and looking up you will exclaim, “There's our stack! Do you remember that lovely picnic?”

Yes, that is what a stack of stone is for. It is to make us remember. It becomes a monument. All stacks and they are many have some story attached to them. They are for remembrance.

Some are to remind us of a battle. If you go to Inverness you will be sure to visit Culloden Moor. There you will see a huge stack of stones raised in memory of the last battle that took place on British soil, the battle where the Highland clans fought and fell for love of “Bonnie Prince Charlie” and the Stuart cause.

The Culloden cairn is a very tidy solid-looking pile, and in its side is inserted a stone slab with an inscription. It is what we might call a “young” cairn. It has been erected comparatively recently, and that is why it has a slab telling what it commemorates. But the old cairns have no inscription. They are just heaps of rough stones, roughly piled.

Now, our text refers to one of the oldest cairns we know of. It was a great heap of stones with a single huge boulder standing beside it. It bore no inscription, but it had no fewer than three names. It was raised by two men, and the first man called it “Jegar-sahadutha,” and the second man called it “Galeed” both of which names just mean “a heap of witness.” Then a third name was added to these two. It was called “Mizpah,” which means “a watch-post.” And that brings me to the second part of the sermon.

2. A is a plain gold ring with the letters carved around it. If you asked the meaning of the word, the person who wearing it would have said, “The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.” And very likely the same person explained how the ring had been given to her for it is usually “her” by a very dear friend who was going far away, and who wanted her to remember that though they were to be so separated and could not take care of each other God was watching over them both, and He would let no harm befall. You felt that was rather a fine idea and that a Mizpah ring was more interesting than one with merely stones in it.

But though people have taken that beautiful meaning out of the word “Mizpah,” that is not what the two men who set up the first Mizpah meant by it. What they intended Mizpah to say to them was, “The Lord watch that neither of us does anything unfair to the other.”

You see Laban and Jacob had lived by taking advantage of each other for many years. First Laban had cheated Jacob, and then Jacob had paid back Laban in his own coin, and so it had gone on until both of them were tired of it. So they agreed that they would make a bargain never to deal unfairly by each other again. And as a seal to the promise they built their cairn their Mizpah. If they were ever tempted to break that promise the remembrance of the cairn and the thought that they had called God as witness to the bargain would check them.

Did they ever need their Mizpah? So far as we know they never did. But that brings me to the third point of the sermon.

3. And the third thing I want to speak to you about is your own special private Mizpah. You didn't know you had one? But you have. It is neither a cairn nor a ring. In fact it is not anything you can see, but it is there all the same. God gave it to you, and unless you willfully destroy it, it will be the witness to all your promises, the seal to all your bargains, the guide-post at many a cross-road of your life.

What is your Mizpah? Surely it is your sense of honor. If you have a sense of honor you need no heap of stones to prevent you from cheating or tricking another. If you have a sense of honor you will break neither a bargain nor a promise. If you have a sense of honor you will scorn to take advantage of enemy or friend. If you have a sense of honor you will do even more than you promised rather than risk not fulfilling your bargain.

They tell of Nelson, when he was a boy, that he and his brother were returning to school after the Christmas holidays. Their home was within riding distance of the school and it was their custom to return on horseback. Now it happened this Christmas that there had been a heavy snow-storm. And later the boys determined to turn back rather than go on. Nelson's brother William was not fond of school, so he welcomed any excuse. But when the boys got home and told their story, all their father said was, “If that be the case you certainly shall not go; but make another attempt and I shall leave it to your honor. If the road is dangerous you may return; but, remember boys, I leave it to your honor.”

So the two boys started out again. They found the snow really deep, and once more William was for turning back, but Horatio said, “No, we must go on. We can manage it if we try harder. Father left it to our honor.”

That was the boy who afterwards hoisted the famous signal, “.”

Boys and girls, God expects every one of us to do our duty by each other. That is why He gives us a sense of honor as our remembrance our Mizpah.