Genesis 35:3

When there is failure or decline, the Lord calls the soul back to Himself. "Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first." This is the divine principle of restoration. God must recall the soul to the very highest point. He must bring it back to the divine standard. The Lord does not say, "remember where you are." He says, "remember the high position you have fallen from." Only this way can a person learn how far he has slipped, and how to retrace his steps.

The thought of God's presence made him remember the false gods. It awakens this conviction in him: the gods this world adores can never be kept alongside a faithful God. Nothing else can awaken this conviction. No amount of experience can ever have the effect that the presence of God produces on a soul. Such experiences are useful to humble us; they are a means of stripping us of ourselves. Still, only the presence of God as light can make us condemn ourselves. Only it gives us power to purify ourselves from our deepest idols — the ones we know well, yet keep hidden.

Garments speak of people's habits, the part of a person others see. God's character must shape them where the people of God gather. Someone takes his place at the breaking of bread, remembering the Lord Jesus in His death. He then stands completely apart from the world around him. He takes this place as sanctified, so his habits must match it... An idol is anything that comes in between the soul and God.

He fully acknowledges how faithful God had been in keeping His promise. But about his own vow to God on that occasion he says nothing at all. It has taken him some time to learn that God is truly more faithful than Jacob was. But even as believers we fail here far too often. We forget to give God credit for being completely dependable in every detail of His ways with us. And we think too highly of our own faithfulness.

Here he is, after all the discipline and trial, worshipping God as the faithful God. That God had answered him in the day of his distress, and had been with him in the way he had gone. The moment God put him under discipline, He said, "Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go." And Jacob says, "He has been with me. Yes, He is the God who has been with us all the way, even while we failed on the road."

When was the day of his distress? Not Luz, but Jabbok. God would recall Bethel to his mind; Jacob's thoughts turn back to Peniel. The Lord poured out grace at Bethel, but at Peniel Jacob sought, and by force obtained, a blessing after his own mind. The God of glory he cuts down in thought to someone who was with him in the way he went — a crooked way, a transgressing way indeed.

It was at Bethel that he had learned what God was, and not at Shechem. So he must get back to Bethel again. The altar there must rest on a totally different basis, and carry a totally different name, from his altar at Shechem. Some think it makes no difference how they are mixed up with impure things in the worship of God. They feel that being true and upright in heart is enough. They think they can worship God at Shechem, and that an altar named "El-elohe-Israel" is just as much according to God as an altar named "El Bethel." This is clearly a mistake.