Genesis 35:2-4 Then Jacob said to his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean… Jacob did not break or burn the idols, but hid them. Jacob's besetting sin was double-dealing, and it appears to us the text is another example of the patriarch's special failing. He was not altogether weaned from his idols, he had a lingering regard for them; he did not, even yet, yield himself fully to Jehovah. Let us show — I. How WE MAY STILL BE GUILTY OF THE EQUIVOCAL CONDUCT RECORDED IN THE TEXT. 1. We are thus guilty when we retain privately those evil practices we have renounced in public. Iniquity is iniquity to God, whether done in the eye of the sun or wrought in thickest darkness; whether coarse or refined; whether called by its true name or wrapped in glozing gilded speech. Burke tells of that "sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness." This is rhetoric. When vice is divested of all grossness it has not lost a particle of its evil in the judgment of heaven; the secret idol, the idol skilfully veiled or richly adorned by taste, is equally hateful to God with the open and gross idolatries of inferior civilization. 2. We are thus guilty when we practise partially the evils we have renounced as a whole. In the days of the English Reformation, the reformers finding the coloured windows in the churches to be objects of reverence to the people, ordered them to be broken and replaced by plain glass. But where the authorities had a love for the beautiful they contented themselves by taking out a few panes here and there — a saint's head, a martyr's nimbus, an angel's wing, and having thus mutilated the figures, trusted they would do no harm. Somewhat after this fashion are men apt to renounce the world and sin. We deal delicately with things, habits, associations, pursuits, pleasures, employments, which ought to be utterly sacrificed, and sacrificed for ever. 3. We are thus guilty when we retain mentally what we have renounced in action. It is possible that the idols of life which have no longer any concrete existence may find asylum in the heart and brain, and be most steadily worshipped there. This is true — (1) When the evil renounced in the life is not also renounced in the will. (2) When the evil renounced in our life is cherished in our imagination we are victims of the patriarch's fallacy. It has been said: "It is possible to lead a life of imagination quite distinct from the active life." This is quite true. Our life may be as blameless on the practical side as it is stained on the mental side. (3) When the evil renounced in our life is cherished in affection we similarly err. We profess renunciation of the world — of its pomps and vanities; yet do we sympathize with the merely secular side of life. How intoxicated we are by a little prosperity! How depressed by a little adversity! The world has still a place in our heart; we are not altogether rid of the great idol. II. We must feel the importance of COMPLETE CONSECRATION TO GOD. This secret clinging to sin is a source of weakness, unhappiness, and peril. The apostle writes to the Romans, "ye are dead to sin." How completely this idea cuts us off from the world of evil! how utterly it separates us from all godlessness and wickedness! We once heard a converted Persian relate that when he was converted to Christianity his angry kindred considered him a dead man, and celebrated his funeral obsequies accordingly. They were not far wrong. When one is converted to Christ he has absolutely renounced sin, the world may justly count him dead, and all the vices follow his bier. (W. L. Watkinson.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments: |
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