Keep sharing good news without ads.
Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Genesis 48:1-22
Well, this morning we complete chapter 48, and we are coming toward the end of our time in Genesis rather quickly. And chapter 48 is a very special passage for me personally, as I'll explain later on this.
Morning.
Of course, up to this point we've seen Joseph resettle his entire family, that is, the entire household of Jacob, his father, in the land of Goshen. And it's been somewhere along the path of 17 years now where Joseph recognizes his father is on his deathbed, desires the blessing of his father, not only for himself, but more importantly for his sons.
And so that begins chapter 48, and we're reminded that this death of Jacob is drawing us even closer to the end of Genesis, and the next stage of God's work in this unfolding drama of redemption. Genesis 48, beginning in verse 1.
Now it came to pass after these things that Joseph was told, indeed your father is sick. And he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. So the report comes that his father is sick. It's been a long time that Jacob has been suffering and struggling throughout his life.
This isn't the first time that it seemed that his end was nigh. But of course, now he knows, perhaps by divine revelation, that it is indeed time to gather his sons and to pass on the patriarchal blessing.
And that will take not only chapter 48, but chapter 49 to accomplish. This news prompts Joseph to leave his post and bring his sons to his father on his deathbed there in Goshen. We remember that these two boys were born to Joseph through his Egyptian wife, Asenath.
Manasseh, the firstborn, meaning to cause to forget or forgetfulness. And Joseph, of course, when Manasseh was born, said, look how the Lord has dealt with me. He's caused me to forget the troubles of my home, to forget my homeland and my siblings altogether.
But of course, in the ironic unfolding of God's dealing, Joseph was remembered by God and God brought about a great reconciliation. And Ephraim, who was the second born son, which means fruitfulness, and it's a dual form in Hebrew, so it's like double fruitfulness.
And of course, this also was a recognition that not only had Joseph been exalted in Pharaoh's court, but was married and indeed has sons of his own, that God had blessed him with fruitfulness, even according to his goodness.
Verse two and following, Jacob was told, look, your son Joseph is coming to you. And Israel strengthened himself and sat up on the bed. I love details like that in a narrative. It really does paint the picture for us just how weak is Jacob on his deathbed.
But he girds himself and strengthens himself to sit on the bed so he can address his son and his grandsons. And Jacob said to Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and he blessed me and he said to me, behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply you.
I will make of you a multitude of people and give this land to your descendants after you as an everlasting possession. So land, descendants, possession, remember, these are the key themes that we've been tracing from the very beginning of Genesis, land, seed, dominion, land, descendants, possession.
The desire of Joseph to receive Jacob's blessing is matched by Jacob's desire to bless. Joseph is eager to come and receive the blessing for himself and his sons. But notice how eager Jacob is to bless his son.
This is very reminiscent of how God the Father deals with his children. We come to the Lord eager for a blessing, but we can never outmatch the Lord's desire to bless. Jacob is dwelling, of course, in the midst of Egyptian splendor.
He doesn't have the heart of his uncle Esau, does he? Not at all. He doesn't say, blessing, what could you give me? What blessing? Do you know that you're living off my coattails right now? You know, I have everything I need here as governor over all the land of Egypt.
There's really nothing that I need to inherit from you. In fact, I'll come to give my condolences, but I really need nothing from you, Father. That's the farthest thing from Joseph's faith. Joseph says, not only do I want the blessing, I want my sons, these princes of Egypt, to have the blessing of the God of Canaan.
I want to have them be blessed by their grandfather because I want them to walk in the faith of their grandfather and his father and his father before him. And so, of course, we're reminded of this language that we see in verses two and three and following when Jacob tells Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan.
And then we have a rehearsal of the promises that God made when he appeared at Luz. Luz, of course, was given the name Bethel, house of God, in Genesis chapter twenty eight, when Jacob had been on the run and felt that he had lost everything, his homeland, everything that he sought.
He had this inheritance from his father, but it was all for nothing. He's in exile now as he runs for refuge toward his uncle. But of course, now here at Bethel, God had found him. God had revealed himself and had affirmed that the promise indeed had been passed on to Jacob, that he would be God to Jacob.
And the Abrahamic covenant being confirmed to him included the idea of an everlasting possession. And so there in Goshen, in the land of Egypt, Jacob reminds his son, God promised to me that my descendants would be fruitful and that I would enter into the land of an everlasting possession.
Now, again, Jacob, not only Joseph, but Jacob himself is now dwelling in the midst of Egyptian splendor. But even he looks beyond these things. Even he says, this is wonderful. I love ostrich fan. I love, you know, grapes and olives on demand.
I love platters of pistachios at my feet. But I wish I could go back to my tent in Canaan because that's the land that God promised to me. And as he's there dwelling as a shepherd, abominable to the Egyptians, he will not forget the promise that God had made to Abraham, the promise that God had confirmed to Isaac, the promise that was confirmed to him, the everlasting possession in the land.
And so Jacob's faith is anchored in the Abrahamic covenant. And out of that covenantal promise, he seeks to bless Joseph and Ephraim and Manasseh. In other words, Jacob knows the ground of any blessing is the promise of God.
And that's true for every believer. Do we know that that's the case? The ground for any blessing is in the promise of God. There is no ground for blessing in any other way. Another way of putting that is there is no blessing unless God maintains his covenant.
If God fails in his covenant, then we cannot be blessed. But because God is faithful to keep his covenant, we will be forever blessed. Verse five, now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, they are mine.
As Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine. Joseph brought his son so that they'd be blessed, but he wasn't expecting a blessing like this. He was hoping for a blessing, some good word, some good notion.
He wasn't thinking that his sons would enter into the inheritance of Jacob. After all, they're half Egyptian and they've only ever known Egypt. They've never even met Abraham or Isaac. They've never really formally understood what the family dynamic was.
How could they then enter into the inheritance of it? But Jacob formally adopts his grandsons, Manasseh and Ephraim. He says, now they're my sons. In other words, now they, like all of my sons, have an inheritance that the land that was promised to us, they will have a division in that land.
They will take their place as my sons, like Reuben, like Simeon. In other words, as if they are the firstborn, Reuben, Simeon being the firstborn sons of Leah. And here we're led, almost ironically, to the bypassing of Reuben and Simeon for the sake of this blessing.
Joseph receives a double portion. In other words, Joseph is hoisted over Reuben to have that firstborn status, the double portion inheritance. But Ephraim and Manasseh take the portion, as it were, of Reuben and Simeon.
And so we see in the unfolding history of Israel how Ephraim becomes synonymous with Israel. The ten northern tribes after the Solomonic divide are simply called Ephraim, Isaiah 7, Isaiah 11, Hosea 5.
Ephraim is Israel. And so we see that already here in Genesis 48. Ephraim, notice, is mentioned first, but he's the secondborn. Manasseh is the firstborn. So already we see this ironic reversal that's about to come being hinted at.
It is said, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to you. Joseph lets it pass. The old man, he must mean Manasseh and Ephraim. He must be getting forgetful in his old age. Verse six, your offspring whom you begin after them will be yours.
In other words, any other children that are born to Joseph will take their inheritance as through the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. They will be called by the name of their brothers in their inheritance.
Verse seven, but as for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died beside me in the land of Canaan on the way when there was but a little distance to go to Ephrath. And I buried her there on the way to Ephrath, that is Bethlehem.
Verse seven almost comes as a parenthetical statement. It really adds nothing to the core of Genesis 48. It's information that we do not need rehearsed. It adds nothing to the blessing that's given to Joseph, Ephraim or Manasseh, but it's included.
I think we get here the sense that as Jacob knew he had fallen ill unto death, he had time to review the whole course of his life, all of the low valleys, all of the high mountaintops and everything that he's rehearsing now to his sons are the things that he's been viewing in his mind, reflecting on in his memory.
He's thinking of God's faithfulness first and foremost. But right underneath that is the sorrow of losing Rachel, even still decades later. He almost spontaneously brings up Joseph's mother, Rachel. As for me, he says, Rachel died beside me.
He still can't let go of that loss. And it's almost as though he's seeking to bless Ephraim and Manasseh in a tribute to his beloved wife. He wants Joseph to know, I loved your mother so much. See, this is why I bless you.
This is why I adopt your sons as my own. Now, Rachel has three sons, not only two. And then almost in a way we can see many waters cannot quench love. Scars remain. I think God wants his people to see that in his word.
He's sympathetic to that. The scars of loss remain. Even when saints live by faith and look for the great transcendent hope, scars still remain. Verse 8. Israel saw Joseph's son and said, Who are these?
Joseph said to his father, They are my sons whom God has given me in this place. And he said, Please bring them to me and I will bless them. Now, the site prompts the question, Who are these? Which to us seems strange.
He already knows Ephraim and Manasseh over the course of these 17 years. He probably would have met them quite often. Grandpa, as they would have clutched his his feeble knees as he brought out buckets of Legos or whatnot to play with them.
But more likely, this is actually formal ritual language. You have rehearsed questions like this that are commonly part of ritual in the Old Testament. We see that, for example, in Exodus with the Passover.
What is the meaning of this? Formal questions that are part of the ceremony. And it seems with this adoption here, who is this is the question that gives this ritual response. These are my sons whom God has given me.
It reminds us of Genesis 27, when Jacob himself was seeking the blessing deceitfully. And there was sort of this formal engagement, formal interaction between his father, Isaac, and himself. Joseph, just like Jacob, though Jacob did it sinfully, acknowledges God has brought me here.
God has given me these sons as a blessing. Verse 10. Now, the eyes of Israel were dim with age so that he could not see. And Joseph brought them near him and he kissed them and he embraced them. Once more, we see this ironic parallel with Genesis 27.
Now, like father, like son, even Jacob can't see that well. Who is it, my son? Come near. No goat hair arms, but still dim eyesight. The godly grandfather, he embraces his newly minted sons. Now they're his sons.
He, like Joseph, understands that children are a heritage from the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward. And though these boys had been growing up as princes, as as rulers in the land of Egypt, Jacob's heart is just like Joseph's heart for them.
They want them not to be raised to be like the Egyptians, but to be raised to be like those who follow Yahweh. I love what Barry Horner says here. Joseph's so much more desires that they be princes of Israel rather than princes of Egypt.
How many fathers today have such a right sense of priority? Most fathers today would their sons be princes of Mammon rather than princes of righteousness. Isn't that true? Most fathers today would rather have images and paragons of success, according to the world's eyes.
Rather than images and paragons of faithfulness, according to God's sight. And Israel said to Joseph, verse 11, I had not thought to see your face, but in fact, God has even shown me your offspring. I never thought I'd see you again, much less see your own sons, your own children.
Joseph brought them from beside his knees and he bowed down with his face to the earth. And Joseph took them both, Ephraim with his right hand toward Israel's left hand, Manasseh with his left hand toward Israel's right hand and brought them near him.
So the word of Jacob again, he's reflecting on his whole life as he's on his deathbed and he can't help but consider God's gracious providence to him. I never thought to see your face. Look what God has done now.
God has even brought these boys to me. Here I am being provided for in the midst of famine. And all of this is God, God's gracious dealing with his people. The fact that my whole household has been saved is all because of God's gracious dealings with us.
Joseph draws nears with his boys. Remember, he has the second best chariot in the land of Egypt outside of this dwelling place in Goshen, dressed in the finest linens. Who knows what kind of bejeweled, bespoke jewelry he has.
Servants attending to him, ushering in him toward Jacob. As soon as he sees his aged, decrepit father shaking, as it were, on his deathbed, he brings his sons to him and he bows on the ground. The servants must have been struck by that.
Here's the Lord of the land and he's prostrate on the ground before his elderly father. Now, this, of course, is just Christianity 101. This is just the fifth commandment in seed form. I love what interesting exchange.
Adam Clark, who's an old 19th century commentator, and he very rarely gets into a tussle with other commentaries. This is the first time I've ever noticed that. But he reacted quite strongly to a man named Thomas Delaney, who basically said, you know, when I see Joseph prostrate before God, I know that's his duty.
When I see him prostrate before Pharaoh, I know he's respecting the office. But when I see him prostrate before his father, here I marvel, here I wonder. And Adam Clark says, this is insufferable. And I can't resist sharing this.
He says, by the law of God and nature, Joseph was as much bound to pay his dying father this respect as he was to reference any king or even worship God. As to myself, I confess there's nothing peculiar on this part of Joseph's conduct.
He simply did what God required of him, what nature requires, what decency requires, what common sense requires of him. You see, this is what, in Adam Clark's mind in the 19th century, this is what a son does to his father.
It doesn't matter how elevated, how exalted that son is. The fifth commandment is the commandment of God. Though Joseph lived and ruled in Egypt, he remained loyal to God's way, to God's dealings. He had covenantal piety and the duty of children to their parents only ceases when the parents have passed, when they no longer can exercise that duty to the parents, maybe only in remembrance or in testimony or in sharing or in being faithful to what the parents had been laying down before the Lord in front of them.
So circumstances may change, Joseph's circumstances change, but no change will take away the the impact of this commandment, honor your father and your mother. And Joseph here on display honoring his aged father because of his reverence for God, the father, and that's true for every believer, whether we like that or not, whether our fathers fail us or not.
That's true of every believer. Now, you see this expected lineup. Manasseh, of course, is the older one. And so being the older one, Joseph maneuvers him to be in front of the right hand of Jacob, Ephraim's the younger son.
And so as the second born son, Joseph maneuvers him to be at the left hand of Jacob. The right hand is the hand of power, of prestige. If you're to receive the priority of the blessing, you're at the right hand.
Think of Jesus being exalted to the right hand of the father. Think of believers embraced in the church being extended the right hand of fellowship. This is a Hebrew way of thinking. Jacob's, of course, has a very different understanding of what needs to take place.
Verse 14, Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it over on Ephraim's head, the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh's head, guiding his hands knowingly, for Manasseh was the firstborn. And he blessed Joseph and he said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has fed me all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil.
Bless the lads. Let my name be named upon them in the name of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. So now what had been hinted, bring Ephraim and Manasseh to me, now it comes fully clear.
This is the first instance in the Bible of the laying on of hands. This is the first time that we see the transfer of blessing or the identification of God's covenantal transfer being passed on through the laying on of hands.
That's a little trivia for our own Second London Confession. It was adopted and amended in various ways over the subsequent centuries. And a very significant revision was in 1742, what we call the Philadelphia Confession of the Philadelphia Association of Baptists said, we love the 1689, we just want to add a couple of things to it.
So they added a chapter on the singing of hymns and then they added a chapter on the laying on of hands. And that was between baptism and the Lord's Supper, between chapters 31 and 32. So the laying on of hands is actually very significant in our own tradition, in our own understanding of not necessarily a transfer, an impartment of of spiritual gifts, but rather a recognition that you indeed belong to God and his covenantal blessing is upon you.
The significance to that. Notice verse 15, he blessed Joseph, he has his hands on these boys, but verse 15 says he blessed Joseph. So how is Joseph blessed? Joseph is blessed because his children are blessed.
This is the blessing for Joseph. Jacob essentially says, son, this is how I will bless you. I will bless your sons. For so many Christians, that's the only blessing we want from God. Lord, you've given me more than enough.
I have faith in you. My hope is fixed on you. If you could bless me, bless my children, give me my children, let them know you, let them walk in the faith of their mother and father. This blessing is given to Joseph, but it's on Joseph's sons.
Jacob's eyes may have been dim, but his spiritual sense was crystal clear. Now, as we'll see, Joseph is going to try to reverse this. He's going to try to peel back these wrinkly old hands and get them on the right head.
But the man who had strengthened himself on his bed, regirds himself and says, no, no, no. Of course, Joseph had been the one who was reversed over Reuben, even when he was given the coat of many colors, he was given that special appointment of his father's favor.
And we see here also in the way that Joseph dealt with Benjamin, it was the youngest that received the greater blessing. So, so Joseph is reacting against this, but his whole life has been marked by this ironic reversal of the younger receiving the greater blessing.
Notice, notice the blessing. Jacob invokes God, the God who has fed me all my life. Now, that's a translator's decision to use has fed, that verb fed, because in English, the word shepherd is a noun. It's not a verb, but in Hebrew, it's literally the God who has shepherded me.
So to get rid of that awkward verb shepherded, translations just say the God who has fed me. But it's significant that the one who had been a shepherd in Goshen, because shepherds are abominable to the Egyptians, the one who's now living in Goshen among Egyptian splendor as a shepherd, says God is the one who has shepherded me.
The man who in Canaan had lived his whole life as a shepherd sees himself as a sheep and says God has been my shepherd. God has related to me as though I was a sheep that had often gone astray, often fallen into ditches and come among brambles and thorns, often been in danger by ravenous wolves and beasts of the night, by theft during the day, by raids.
And God has protected me even as I protected my sheep. A profoundly intimate understanding. It wasn't just the hilltops that God was present and then the valleys that God was absent. No, no, no. That's not how it is when you're a shepherd.
The shepherd has to retrieve the sheep, whether he's leading them to greener pastures or leading them out of dangerous valleys. The shepherd is constantly, continually interacting with the lives of the sheep.
And so it is. Jacob understands with God he was always present. He's been my shepherd my whole life. He didn't just appear when I was in a jam and he finally had to leave the throne of heaven and come down to me in some manifestation.
And OK, what have you gotten yourself into this time? That's not how God deals with his people. Spurgeon says. Because God would so much be a shepherd to his people. Despite their willfulness. He shepherds as the God of the covenant.
Dear saints of God, you to whom years are being multiplied, give praise to your God for having been your shepherd. Bear your witness to the shepherding of God. For this may lead others to become the sheep of his pasture.
That certainly seems to be Jacob's desire. I wish you would know this shepherd Ephraim in Manasseh. We read of David's great psalm, the shepherd's psalm, really the sheep's psalm. And wouldn't this be true of Jacob's own experience throughout his life?
The Lord is my shepherd. That's what Jacob is confessing here in this blessing. The Lord has shepherded me my whole life, even to this day. In the midst of famine, there he is in Goshen with food at his beck and call.
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. I shall not need anything. There's nothing that I shall lack. He makes me to lie down in green pastures, this image of sort of peaceful pastoral setting, and here he is in Goshen, surrounded with a reconciled family.
God has caused him to lay down in peace. He leads me beside the still waters, he restores my soul, leads me in passive righteousness for his namesake, and Jacob knows that it's his namesake. This whole blessing is replete with testimonies about who God is and what God has done and what God has promised.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. That was a long valley for Jacob, not just here at the end of his life. That's how we use this phrase metaphorically, the shadow of the valley of death, meaning when you're on your deathbed.
But in many ways, for decades now, Jacob has been in the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil. You are with me. It's what he promises Joseph at the end. God will be with you. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Egyptians are around me, and yet I have a table prepared before me. You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.
You shepherded me my whole life, even to this day. And David takes a step farther where Jacob stops. I'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever. That's where Jacob's going to go. Not only does Jacob invoke the God who has shepherded him his whole life long to this day, he also invokes the angel who has redeemed him from all evil.
The angel here, of course, is not merely speaking of a messenger, but the messenger, the angel of God, the Lord. We're thinking of Genesis 32, where he wrestles with an angel of the Lord, and yet he confesses that he had seen the Lord, that he worships and bows down to his God.
And then he names the place the face of God. And so in this place, in Peniel, in Genesis 32, perhaps this is what Jacob is being reminded of. God had in many ways striven with Jacob so that Jacob, named Israel, could strive with God.
And in that way, he redeemed, he untwisted Jacob from all of the evil in his life. And it was there in Genesis 32 at that divine encounter that Jacob walked away limping, a completely changed man. Truly, we could say he was redeemed.
And we saw from that point forward, all of the old habits and ways in his life began to substantially shift, not perfectly because it's never perfect, but truly, it could be said Jacob was a new creation, a limping creation who had encountered the grace of God and the power of God and the mercy of God.
This word, the angel has redeemed me, so significant. This is the first time in the Hebrew Bible where we come across this language of God being the redeemer of his people, exclusively one of the ways we think of what God does for his people on the cross.
He redeems them. So, Jacob, beginning to draw us even closer to Christology, the blessing is theocentric, it's all about God. The blessing is generational, covenantal, it's a hope for his children. It incorporates them into the promises made to Abraham and Isaac and even to himself.
Verse 17. When Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him, so he took hold of his father's hand to remove it from Ephraim's head onto Manasseh's head. And Joseph said to his father, Not so, my father.
This one is the firstborn. Put your right hand on his head. But his father refused and said, I know, my son, I know. He shall also become a great people and he shall be great. Truly, his younger brother shall be greater than he and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.
And so he blessed him that day, saying, By you Israel will bless, saying, May God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh. And thus he set Ephraim before Manasseh. So here's this reversal again taken to its crowning moment.
Jacob blessed Ephraim even as he had blessed Joseph so long before. But what I love about this exchange is the tenderness of his father. Picture Joseph as he's kind of prostrate on the floor, gathering himself up from this this place of abject humility before his father, and he sees the hands cross over on his son's and his heart drops to his feet and he rushes forward to to say, Oh, it must be because you can't see.
It must be because you're confused. You understand this is the firstborn. And here's this tender but firm response. I know, my son, I know. I love that response. It's so indicative of the way that God often counteracts our mistakes when he's doing something in our lives.
And and we say, no, no, it's not supposed to be this way. And we we, as it were, try to rest the hands of providence to be the other way around. And it's as though that divine response comes. I know, my son, I know.
God so stills his people, what can Joseph do but simply drop his hands and step back, acknowledge that this is indeed what God has desired. Jacob is tender toward Joseph, but he says firmly Ephraim will be greater.
This is our family history, Joseph. This is what God has done from the very beginning, appointing Seth over Cain, Shem over Japheth, Isaac over Ishmael, even me over Esau. And so it must be that Ephraim is greater than Manasseh.
And this is a principle of grace. This is in premature form, the principle of how God operates by his grace, that it won't be by might, by wisdom, by power, by strength, by by gifts. It will be against those things ordinarily.
In extraordinary ways, God desires that his grace will be seen to be all sufficient. His grace will be all sovereign. First Corinthians 129, therefore it is written, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.
God removes all boasting in the way he calls people into a relationship with himself. Divine grace makes mysterious choices. We even as Christians look around us at times and we see people who we think, oh, they'd be a wonderful Christian.
They have so much worked out already and look how lovely their family is and they've got a booming business and great instinct and they're just so fun to be around.
It would be great if they were Christians.
And then in come us, people who are not that way. And we're the ones that God in the mystery of his grace has chosen to compose his bride. Lots of wrinkles, lots of blemishes, lots of spots to iron out.
But he's chosen us by his grace. So we ought to, I think I've shared this before, we ought to have an eye for the unlikely as Christians. I love what Lars said, you know, some someone would pray, please pray for my coworker.
You know, he's an abusive drunkard and, you know, his whole life is lived in abject rebellion against God. If there's any man who's filled with poisonous blasphemy, it's this man. I don't know whether to pray for him or, you know, or just send him off to the devil himself.
And Lars would say, that's a kingdom prospect. That's a prospect for the kingdom. That's how Christians ought to view other people. Verse 21 and 22, then Israel said to Joseph, behold, I am dying, but God will be with you and bring you back to the land of your fathers.
Moreover, I've given to you one portion above your brothers, which I took from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and my bow. In saying I am dying, we must read that as Jacob being filled with peace.
Only someone, I think, who has truly peace from the Lord, peace with their end, can say I am dying. And usually in those situations, it's the family that can't wrap their hands, their minds around that.
No, no, you can't think that way. Don't say that. You don't know. Well, we got to call your physician on that.
No, no, no, no, no.
I'm dying. It's OK. And in fact, all I'm concerned right now is what needs to be shared with you and what needs to take place in your life. And I can't make up for the time that I missed to share these things now, but I'm going to use this opportunity.
It's truly those who have peace with God, peace to the end of their life that can say like Jacob here, I am dying. I'm not gripping with white knuckles on to do you think I'll be OK, do you think I'll make it?
Not will God be with me, but notice I'm dying. God will be with you. You see, God's been my shepherd my whole life, I trust him in this dark valley. But more than anything, I want I want you to know that God will be with you, Joseph, Ephraim, Manasseh, my children, I'm dying, but God will be with you.
Joseph is given the double portion, and again, the contrast is amazing, he has a double portion of a twin dwelling inheritance in the land of Canaan, the only deed is the cave of Machpelah and this possession, which is most likely Shechem that was taken from the Amorites by Bo, and that's his inheritance.
It's it's kind of a downgrade when you're the lord of the land of Egypt and you have all of its might and treasury at your disposal, but this is the inheritance that Joseph desires. Is something about this is the land of my father and my grandfather and my great grandfather, this is our land, this is this is our soil, this is our promise, this is our inheritance, and it may not yet compare to the grandeur of Egypt, but Egypt will be a backwater, Egypt will be desolate.
God will make this land fruitful. There's something about the pull, I think we as Americans, we're so severed from history in some unique ways, we we don't necessarily trace our history as a culture, as a society back as compared to many other nations where it goes back centuries and beyond centuries, millennia, and that sense of place is really significant in ways that as Americans, especially in our modern age of of mobility, we can move around so easily with no sense of of belonging to a place, to a land.
It's hard for us to connect to the significance of this. Joseph is given a double portion in the land, and even though most of his life has been lived in exile from the land, that's the blessing that he desires.
How do we know that that's the case? Because when in two chapters time, when we get to the very end of Genesis, he says, just like my father, bury me in the land. Don't bury me in Egypt. That's not where I want to rest.
That is not my rest. Bury me in the land, the land that I've been a stranger to for most of my life. Well, moving toward application. As I mentioned at the beginning, this passage is very important to me.
From Genesis 48, I preached my paternal grandfather's funeral sermon. Because in my mind, knowing him throughout his life, he was a very Jacob-like man. And it seemed to be in the last 20 years of his life that his faith really became something to display.
I think he had had a evangelical faith ever since he got out of the Navy in World War Two, and a friend had witnessed to him and brought him to the Lord. And I think a lot of that was just somewhat straddled, somewhat lukewarm, somewhat uninformed.
And then in that last 20 years of his life, when he buried his beloved wife, my grandmother, I saw in his life, year after year, this increasing desire for the things of the Lord. An increasing desire to gather his children around him and to testify to the Lord in their lives.
And one of the last things he did about a year before he died was bring one of my aunts to faith. And she was baptized about a year before he passed. He was known to the church I grew up in as Elder Bob rather than Grandpa Bob.
One of the things I loved most is we would have these cookouts and all the relatives would be around us. And if I sat next to Grandpa Bob, we were just going to talk about Knox, Calvin, Luther for the whole afternoon.
And then it would just be the two of us before long, sitting on plastic chairs with, you know, half-eaten hamburgers talking. And, oh, yeah, and then Luther did this thing. And no one else wanted to be around that conversation.
There's something that I appreciate about him. He used to teach church history for a Sunday school class. And one of the things that people who study church history realize is we all have giants and heroes in the faith that we look up to.
But when you understand church history and even kind of the way we've been looking at Genesis, these real giants of the faith, the patriarchs, what you realize, it's really not the giants of the faith, but their faithful God that makes the difference.
And so when I read Genesis 48, verse 15, "...the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day.". I can't help but be reminded that God is first and foremost on Jacob's heart.
Because unless God had been faithful, Abraham would be lost. Unless God had been faithful, Isaac would have been lost. Unless God had been Jacob's shepherd his whole life long to this day, Jacob knows there's no chance for me.
There's no chance.
God had to be my shepherd, and God was willing to be my shepherd, and God has been faithful to be my shepherd. No matter how far I've run astray, no matter how I've recoiled from his hand, from his leading, his prompting in my life, God has been a faithful shepherd to me, to my soul.
God before whom my fathers walked. And he's saying that as a father to Joseph, as a father now to Ephraim and Manasseh. And so the first thing we see here is a generational confession. It's a blessing, of course, and we're just looking at the invocation of verse 15.
But even in that invocation, there's a confession, a testimony, and it's a generational testimony. He's saying, look at me and think of my father and my father's father. Realize that you're standing in a heritage.
Realize that the path before you is not a path in Goshen. It's not a path in an Egyptian court. It's the land that was promised to Abraham. Only in that promise will you find the fulfillment for your life.
Jacob, in other words, is passing down a legacy. He's impressing upon them a lineage. You don't belong to Zaphnath-Paneah. You belong to Jacob and the God of Jacob. Here is the weight of one man's faith on his deathbed, yearning toward those who will work as he worked, love as he loved, stumble as he stumbled, grow old, wrinkled, and eventually clasp their grandsons.
And he's saying, what matters most now is that you would know the God of your fathers. That you would be faithful to walk in your lineage. I'm seeking to raise you in the way you must go, so that as you get older, Ephraim, as you get older, Manasseh, you will not depart from it.
This is the godly lineage of your family.
We follow the God of Jacob.
So this is not just keeping up appearances. It's not simply to carry along some token claim on the next generation. This is how we're supposed to talk. This is just spiritual Christianese language. We're saying, no, there's something about this promise of God.
We desire God's blessing upon our children because children are heritage from the Lord. Jacob is not speaking in the abstract. He's not speaking from inexperience. He's not speaking agnostically. Notice how personal this is.
God has been my shepherd all my life to this day. He's very tenderly, I imagine, taking hold of these boys and telling them that the maker, the creator of the heavens and earth, the one who stretches the galaxies abroad, the one who only gives us the pinhead of what the James Webb telescope can present to us in pixelated form, the God who spoke that into being, that he's been a shepherd.
A shepherd.
With his hands in the wool, he's been a shepherd to me my whole life long. Guarding, providing, protecting, keeping. The greatest thing that a father can leave their children, the greatest thing that a father can leave their children, is a godly heritage.
It's the greatest thing. The greatest thing that a father can leave his children is a heritage of being brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Patient, humble, but urgent. If you give them a godly heritage like that, there is nothing greater.
And when you're on your deathbed like Jacob is here, you will have no regret. Most Christians are on their deathbed saying, I wish I had more time to speak and influence and guide and testify than I do now.
That's the wonderful thing about Jacob, isn't it? The excuse is, well, what can I do? I'm in my 60s, I'm in my 70s, I'm in my 80s. That ship has sailed. What influence could I have on my children now?
That's what I love about my grandfather. He was in his 80s, and he said, now is the time. I can't make up for the time that I've lost. All I can do is be faithful now. And Jacob is 130, pushing 140. So you won't get an excuse from Jacob.
You won't get a pass from Jacob. A heritage of the Lord. What a tremendous gift for the children in this church that is so easily taken for granted. In fact, it's like, can't we just look like the Egyptians?
Do we really have to be the shepherds? Maybe you had to be the shepherds, but can't we only be like half shepherd? You know, like we'll wear the shepherd cloak, but we'll also shave. And then maybe the next generation says, well, we'll shave, but we're not going to wear the cloak.
We're actually going to live in the city now. And before long, within three or four generations, there is no influence. There is no desire after Canaan. There is no sense that we're somehow called to something different from the Egyptians.
And so Jacob here is laying down this lineage to say you have been given a gift. You have been given a heritage. Do not spurn it. Do not ignore it. Do not think you can circle back to it. Do not think you can straddle with the world for 50 years, and then when you retire you can become a Christian.
That's not how it works. And so the calling for children is just as great as the calling for parents in this passage. Jacob is a reminder that though we can fail greatly, God is the one who redeems us from all evil.
God will redeem our testimony. God will redeem our influence. God will redeem wasted time, wasted word, mistakes, wounds. God is the one who redeems His people. Charles Spurgeon was once asked, what accounted for the influence that God gave him in the world?
You know, your sermons are attended by thousands. They're wired across the Atlantic, printed in newspapers, collected in books. How can you account for this influence of your ministry? And he said there's two things.
He said the truth of the word.
It's not my ministry, not my particular way of presenting. It's just the truth of the word. And then the next thing he said was, my mother. My mother. Spurgeon understood there was an influence on his life that made the difference for his whole ministry.
If I had had a different mother, a different upbringing, a different nurture, Spurgeon is saying, I might not have a ministry. I might have no ministry at all. I might not be a Christian. God blessed me with a godly heritage.
Like Lois and Eunice blessed Timothy. What did God say in Genesis 18, verse 19 regarding Abraham?
I have known him.
God says, I have made myself known to Abraham. I have known him in order that he may command his children after him, that they will keep the way of the Lord to do righteousness and justice so that the Lord will bring to Abraham all that he has promised.
So what is God's concern? Is it ultimately for Abraham? No, we know it's ultimately for the seed. It's ultimately for the descendants, which will come to the seed, Galatians 3. The seed who is the Lord Jesus Christ.
But alongside that is this desire. And on the way toward that is this desire. I have called Abraham so that he will command his children after him in the way of the Lord. This is not something we lop off and say, well that was then, this is now.
We don't command our children to the way of the Lord at all, right? We're New Testament Christians, red letter only. We're no different than Abraham if we have the faith of Abraham. We command our children in the way of the Lord.
It's not easy. Like Jacob's own sons, they buck against it. They hate the yoke. It's not fun to kick against those goads. And so that's why we do it on our knees. I think you start out more often with the wooden spoon in your hand when your children are rather small.
And then you drop the wooden spoon and you just do more of your parenting on your knees.
Before the Lord.
Because you're commanding them in the way of the Lord. You're leaving for them a godly heritage. The amazing thing about Jacob's life in the gallery of faith in Hebrews 11, where you have recounted Abraham and Isaac and here Jacob and all these great by faith testimonies,.
The gallery of faith.
And what is Jacob's great display of faith? We've been looking at his life for half a year now. There's so much we could point to, right? So many great episodes of his faith. Was it when he wrestled with the angel of the Lord?
Was it when he went before Esau and sent gift after gift, wave after wave? Was it when he worshipped and sacrificed at Bethel? What was it that was his triumph of faith according to the writer of Hebrews?
Hebrews 11, verse 21. This is the great sentence of Jacob's faith. By faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph. That's his faith. That's what the writer of Hebrews is saying.
If there's anything that we're going to commend from the life of Jacob, if there's anything that we're going to point to to say, this is what faith looks like, faith that pleases God, it is this here, chapter 48, Jacob blessing the sons of Joseph.
And we say, how is that faith?
How is that walking by faith? Well, we understand it's the testimony of his faith. It's the desire of his heart. It's the yearning for his son and his grandsons to walk in the way of the Lord. That, the writer of Hebrews says, is the greatest testimony of his faith.
God, who has been my shepherd all of my life long, not a shepherd all of my life, not even the shepherd all of my life, but my shepherd. It's personal. It's intimate. God has been my shepherd my whole life.
It's as intimate as Jesus in John 10 saying, my sheep hear my voice, and they follow me, and I know them. I give them eternal life so that they don't perish. No one can take them out of my hand. You see, Jacob understood something about God's grasp of grace upon his life, and he could say, God has been my shepherd down to this day.
Is that a testimony that you have, brothers and sisters? Can you say like Jacob, God is my shepherd? Can you say like David, the Lord is my shepherd? The Lord is my shepherd. Can you confess like Jacob in so many words?
Like David in so many words? God has been good to me. Remember what he said to Pharaoh? My days have been few and evil. Here he is on his deathbed, grasping the suns, grasping Ephraim and Manasseh, and in so many ways blessing the God who has so upheld him by grace, and it's as if he's saying, God has been good to me.
I was reading, interestingly, I didn't know that it would connect at all. It was just sort of an interesting thing that I was reading, a book about a nautical disaster off the Isle of Lewis in the western Hebrides of Scotland, and where my grandfather grew up.
And there was a famous disaster at the very end of World War I where HMS Isler, which was a yacht for the Royal Navy, and most of the men, most of the sailors and fishermen from the Isle of Lewis were on that vessel.
And 201 drowned in a stormy night. Though they probably didn't know it at the time, they were only 50 yards from shore. In fact, the masts, you can go see the tip of the mast to this day. And there was a book that was written about it, interviewing not the survivors, but often the children of survivors and some of the children who remembered even that night and the weeks and months and years that followed.
It was a book by John MacLeod called When I Heard the Bell. And the significance of this is the Isle of Lewis is so remote. My great-grandfather grew up there, and my grandfather visited it as a boy.
They still speak Gaelic up there. Not many speak English easily. And it's just stone houses burning peat bricks, and it's super remote. And so 201 sailors to us, that's a tragic loss. But even in a town like Barrie, even a town like Hubbardston, that's not as significant of a dent as remote fishing villages in the Hebrides.
This wiped out a generation. There was a whole generation of men missing, a whole generation of widows and orphans. It was a complete tragedy. And one of the sailors that died, his name was John Murray, and his wife was Delina Murray.
And the book interviewed her daughter Peggy. And this is from John MacLeod. Peggy Murray was well aware of her mother's dire straits. They had no croft of their own, no home of their own, no corn or potatoes, no milk, no eggs.
The little pension they had from the Admiralty with the irregular givings from the disaster fund minimized charity from others around them, but they lived off of charity. Delina Murray would toil all day for neighbors on this or that shore of the season, and unlike others, lending assistance would be rewarded at the evening's end with a scant bucket of potatoes or a creel of peats.
Survival depended on wisdom, resourcefulness, careful budgeting. We had to buy everything, Peggy remembered 70 years later, wry pride still evident. Everything depended on how we used the pension. We were never well off, but we never starved.
Miss Murray, Delina Murray, ended up losing another son in a torpedo off of Malta during World War II. Her heart was such that she took two little old sisters, two elderly sisters, when they became too feeble to walk to the local church there, the Free Press Church.
She simply had them live with her under her own roof because it was so close to the church. The daughter, Peggy, by 1955 had become a Christian, married a reverend named Donald Gillies. Her mother was 64, still dressed in black.
She wore black every day of her life until she was buried in white because of the loss of her husband. And as she moved in with her daughter, Peggy, and as grandchildren were born, this is what McLeod records, she was so proud to live with them.
She rejoiced in the life of the home, in the life of the church, in her growing, doting grandchildren. And one day she said, You know, my dear, near the end of her life, the Lord has been very good to me.
That's knowing that the Lord has been your shepherd your whole life. It doesn't mean it's a bed of roses. It doesn't mean you go from hilltop to hilltop. Even in the most tragic, inexplicable losses that mar and bind your life, if it's a life that has been upheld by this gracious shepherd, you too will strengthen yourself on your bed and say, The Lord has been good to me.
And my greatest desire is for you, my children, to know this God. What power there is in this phrase, the Lord has been my shepherd, knowing that we were like sheep who had gone astray, but the chief shepherd, the overseer of our souls, came and offered himself for us all.
Is the Lord your shepherd? That's the resounding question out of chapter 48. Can you say it with Jacob? Can you say it with David? Can you say it with Delina Murray? Can you say it with all the saints?
The Lord is my shepherd. Let's pray. Father, we are in awe of your faithfulness, of your grace, so easily, Lord, we're ignorant to it. The pressures of life, Lord, often distract us from your hand. The demands of the day and of the season, they often turn us from your provision, your kingdom, your righteousness.
Help us, Lord, to contemplate our end so that we can live presently by faith and by hope, that we can live seeking your kingdom and your righteousness. That we can see the way, the surprising ways you surprise us in the way you provide.
And even be moved by faith to provide for others, knowing that we're always better off than so many. Teach us, Lord, what it means to be your sheep and to hear your voice and to follow your leading. Teach us, Lord, what it is to have this yearning heart to pass on our faith and raise a godly heritage unto you.
We pray, Lord, for the youth, for the generations in this church, generations that are, generations that will come. May you strengthen the hearts of moms and dads here, Lord, that are, that are yet to be.
Enlarge our desires and give us the faithfulness we lack, Lord, the consistency and perseverance we lack. Let us not be led astray by the deceiver to think our time is wasted, our time has passed. Let us remember that even in the closing sunset of life, we have much influence and much testimony to bear, perhaps even the most at that time.
We pray that you would answer the many prayers of your people, Lord, knowing that this is all your work and we're utterly dependent upon you. We only pray for your grace to be faithful to your calling since you have been the shepherd of our lives.
Even to this day we pray in your son's name, amen.