Genesis 35: Hit List

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You'll find more and see more than I can ever articulate. Welcome to chapter by chapter, and today's chapter is Genesis 35, hit list. A hit list, and that's something you want to be on. I remember the first time I found out I was on a hit list. We just started our church in Detroit, and I found myself face-to-face with a demoniac. He made his way into the church lobby and found me. I knew I was looking into the eyes of hell and a murderer. I don't know how to describe what I felt, but I wasn't afraid, but I knew it was serious. I knew it was darkness, and I knew I had the name of Jesus on my side. I personally witnessed the power in the name of Jesus over a demon-possessed man. He made several attempts to come at me to do me harm, and every time I said stop in the name of Jesus, I rebuked you in the name of Jesus. He says, "If God put a wall of fire between us, there were six interns there with me who saw the whole thing. What this man said to me shocked me." He said, "I've been sent here to kill you, and we know about you." Hell took notice of this church in Detroit, and I was on my first hit list. The hit list was my confirmation that I'd been obedient to God and did what he asked me to do. It was just my first time realizing when you're obedient, sometimes you're stirring up a snake nest of devils. Obedience to God puts God into action to protect you as you follow His orders. I was just following orders to start a church next to a prostitution hotel, cross the street from a pornographic bookstore, and next to a strip club. In my naivety, I didn't realize it was in the heart of demonic activity, yet in my knowledge of the scripture, I did know God was with me, and He would defend me. And there were many more underworld hit list attempts on us, all coming to naught. Jacob was on a hit list because of the impetuous decision to take revenge by his sons on the city of Shechem. Diana, Jacob's daughter, was raped, and the sons of Jacob went to the city that defiled their sister and killed every male. Jacob said after the mass killing to his sons these words in Genesis 3430, then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, "You have brought trouble on me by making me odious among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the parasites, and my men being few in number, they will gather together against me, attack me, and I will be destroyed and my household." That's the hit list. Jacob was fearful for his life and his family's life. He knew that this was a death sentence decision by his boys. Something extraordinary happened, though. It was nothing but supernatural. The Bible says in Genesis 355, as they journeyed, there was a great terror upon the cities which were around them, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. I felt that. How did that happen? Genesis 3430 says, "We are on a hit list," and Genesis 355 says, "God is protecting us on this journey and no one is going to touch us." But in between these two verses is the key. It's an amazing obedience verse. Something happened that made them untouchable. It is in the first verse of Genesis 35. Listen to it. Then God said to Jacob, "Arise, go up to Bethel and live there, and make an altar there to God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau." This is the blessing. This is that is upon obedience. When God directs you, He will protect you. Let me say it this way. You are safer in the most anti-Christian country in the world. If you're in the will of God, then you are in some secure farmland in Montana, hoarding all your food and water for a doomsday, or even you being in some gated community with a guard shack. I'm not sure if sheckum is where Jacob was supposed to be. Think of the first command he was given when he was to depart Haran and his uncle Laban. God said to Jacob in 3113 of Genesis, "I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar, where you made a vow to me." Now, arise, leave this land, and return to the land of your birth. God wanted him back home, but Jacob detoured and stayed in Sheckum. It was on this detour that his daughter gets raped, and his sons turn into revengeful mass murderers. Obedience to God fights battles. You didn't even know existed and are being planned against you. Jacob was to go back to Bethel without idols. When Jacob knew he was on Sheckum's hit list, he did the best thing he knew what to do. He'd go back to God and God said this in Genesis 351. God said to Jacob, "Go to Bethel, live there, make an altar to God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau." So Jacob said to his household, and all who were with him, "Put away the foreign gods which were among you. Purify yourselves, change your garments, and let us arise and go up to Bethel." And there we will make an altar to God who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone. Their renewed obedience created a terror of the Lord that could not be created any other way. Obedience made their enemies afraid because God went to battle for them. Jacob already experienced it earlier when Laban was coming after him. His obedience to leave gave Laban a dream that he was not to touch them. What has God asking of you right now that has not resolved yet? What person have you not contacted yet to make things right? What apology or confession has not been made to reconcile a relationship? What tide has been reasoned out of because you decided it was too much? What gossip didn't you undo and stop? Why haven't you stopped? What you're still watching? I've learned that overwhelmed people are usually disobedient people. Jacob was overwhelmed because Jacob was disobedient. People are overwhelmed from fighting on all different fronts because they didn't do initially what God asked them to do. The fighting battles that would have been taken care of by their obedience. I have fought a generosity battle early in my Christian life. When I finally became obedient to generous giving, the peripheral battles were no longer battles. I didn't have to deal with worry or provision any longer. I didn't deal with worry of tomorrow. I didn't even deal with questions of net or gross tithing. I didn't even deal with the issue of money that was even owed to me. I believe disobedient people are drama people. They seem to complicate everything. Constant drama in someone's life is usually from an area of disobedience. I think Genesis 35 is God saying what did I tell you to do than do that? Go where you're supposed to go and I got you covered. Thank you for joining chapter by chapter. 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