“PUT AWAY THE STRANGE GODS”
J. A. McLaren
I would like to say something about this last verse that I read. We have been speaking of being filled with the Spirit, and the great privileges that are open to us as together. I think we are often impressed, especially on Lord’s day morning, with the immensity of privilege we have in engaging in the worship of God, knowing that He who is so great values the responses and worship of His people. But to speak simply about this, it is a matter here of Jacob going up to Bethel, the house of God; it is Old Testament language of course. What impresses me particularly is what it says in verse 4, dealing with things that can keep us from functioning in the Spirit. It says, “And they gave to Jacob all the strange gods that were in their hand”. First of all there is the other side in verse 2, “Put away the strange gods that are among you, and cleanse yourselves, and change your garments”. That would remain. That would be Jacob impressing on each one individually the necessity for purification, and the necessity for right conditions to serve God. We each have to take that up for ourselves and it is an important matter.
But what I am thinking of especially tonight is that when it comes to putting things into effect in finality. Jacob hid these strange gods. Jacob did not leave it to them to hide the strange gods. I do not think they would see what Jacob did; they had handed them over to him. Jacob had the responsibility of putting them out of sight, and they would not know where.
Therefore they would not be able to go back and dig them up. That is my impression anyway.
If parents find that their family are leaning towards things of the world that would damage and hinder them (perhaps unsuitable books or other things not so easy to deal with), well, the parents would say, ‘No’, and put them out of sight.
Now we find that from the individual viewpoint, as young men and young women come to a certain age, we cannot absolve them from all responsibility personally; I am not suggesting that at all, but I feel that persons who have influence over children of all ages need to see that what is unsuitable is kept out of their way—anything that would hinder the work of the Spirit, that they might be guided and helped to avoid these things. May the Lord help us in this matter.
Word in meeting for ministry, Dundee
18 September 1990