‘Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.’ He lies down a godless man; he gets up as a man who God has spoken to, and who is changed forever.
We need a sense of God. ‘How dreadful’ – we might say today, how awesome ‘is this place!’ This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven’, the access to heaven. And it is, when we preach the gospel: we want it to be the gate of heaven. We want it to be accompanied by awe and a sense of God, given a fear of him, as well as a joy in the possibility of sins forgiven and a walk with the Saviour.
If only someone can see there is a spiritual experience to be had. You can be in a church hearing the gospel, or you can go home and find a quiet place, but if you repent of your sin and pray and trust Christ for new life, then that place will be the gate of heaven for you. Can you say, ‘I have been shown favour by God, a pardon I never deserved, the grace and favour of God’?
That overfamiliarity with God which is so common today was alien to him. The reception of God’s word instead filled him with fear at the God who was so great and yet had drawn near to his servant. He rejoiced that such a God had shown favour to him for he was aware of all the mercy and kindness of God in this revelation. But at the same time he saw how dreadful was this place because God who spoke was so full of power, so holy, and so utterly sovereign over the affairs of men. This fear was not however such as to drive him away from God, but to cause him to come near yet with the utmost reverence and humility.