The Montgomery advertiser. [volume] (Montgomery, Ala.) 1885-1982, 1904-07-04
MR.. GILMORE'S SERMON
BESEMER MINISTER AT LOCAL
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
At the Morning Service His Text WIS
Let Us Arise and Go Up
to Bethel.

Rev Robert Campbell Gilmore of
Bessemer. preached yesterday morning
and last night at the the Central Pres
byterian Church. filling the pulpit of
the pastor Rev Neal l.. Anderson, who
Ia absent in North Carolina and will re-
turn before next Sunday.
Mr.. Gilmore is a young man of strong
intelligence. He has fine delivehy and
his sermons were listened to with
marked attention and interest by the
two congregations.
At the morning service Mr.. Gilmore
chose his text from Genesis xxxxv:3:
Let US arise and go up to Bethel.
He spoke as follows:
More than twenty years had passed
away since Jacob had left his fathers
house and gone in search of his moth
er's people. More than twenty years
end gone Certain p S%se as sa the night
fell around him, the traveller
took a stone for his pillow and lay
down to the full sleep of the weary.
But in the midnight of that deep
slumber there came dream so vivid
in outline. so perfect in detail. so beau
tiful in conception that for all these
centuries 1t has been the ideal dream.
A ladder set up on the soil, it's top
reaching to Heaven. God standing
above 1t and his angels ascending and
descending in their ministry to men.
God was no longer to Jacob the local
deity of the altar. sanctuary of Beershe
ba. He is the ever loving, ever pres
ent helper of His people. No wonder
that on waking Jacob had raised a pill
lar poured an oblation of oil upon It,
made a vow to return there to worship
and called the name of that place Beth
el-the house OF God.
But more than twenty years had gone
by and that vow was still unkept. years
L. ta1 h0A t4h trfal
with trickery and deceit with deceit
until finally breaking all restraint, he
had returned to his native land. But
he came back to Shechem and not to
Bethel.
He became welded to that beautiful
country. bought land there with the
evident intention of remaining always.
1t was only when overwhelmed with
disaster 10 his family and trouble
with the Shechemites that he, at Gods
command arose to return to Bethel.
And this experience is not exception
al we think we would have gone at
once to pay our vows. But has our
conduct warranted any such conclu
sion? Our Bethels-the scenes of our
vowing lie far behind us. Many of us
are jewellers with the Shechemites. we
have wandered far. the visions have
faded from our minds and their inf1u-
ence from our hearts, we have forgot
ten our vows and they are still unkept.
Now comes this invitation to all of us,
arise and let us go up to Bethel. Back
to our vowing places, back to our for
mer visions-back to the first freshness
OF our spiritual life.
remark for our thought that there
is such place as Bethel. To every
man who has ever made any vows
there is such place. There was TO ia
cob. 1t was local place. Out in the
wild country was the place where God
had met him.
There was such a place in Jacobs
heart, a secret place into which he had
invited God.
There is such a place to us, a local
place, how II seems to come before us
today
There is such a place in our hearts.
So change of the local place can affect
this spot in our hearts. No matter how
long the doors may have been closed
or how we may have neglected this
place. it is still there. There is such a
place to God. He remembers all our
vows and waits for their fulhllment,
i remark again that there are rea-
sons why we should go back to Bethel.
There were reasons to Jacob. God
commanded him to do so. Jacob had
made promises and he should keep
them.
He had missed the way of true life,
both in his dealings with Satan and at
Shechem.
His failure to instruct his children
had brought forth bitter fruit There