The Backside_of the Future

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Don Filcek; Genesis 49 The Backside of the Future

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Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Madawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service.
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This message is by Lead Pastor Don Filseck, and is a part of the series Beginning with God, Walking Through the
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Book of Genesis. If you would like to contact us, please visit us on the web at recastchurch .com.
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Here's Pastor Don. Our weekly email, and that weekly email is the primary way to connect, and so if your email address changes, you can change that on this card.
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If you're willing to share this with us for the first time, and turn that in in the black box, then please also do us a favor and take a free coffee mug back there.
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Our way of saying thank you for trusting us with your information and connecting here. I know that some of you, maybe you're here for a while, and it's like you're just kind of checking things out, and you're like,
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I'm kind of at that point where I want to take next steps, then this card really is the avenue for those next steps.
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If that means sitting down with me or Pastor Kyle and talking, there's a place to put check marks. If you are interested in a small group, this is the primary way.
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There's a check box there for that as well, a place to put prayer requests or suggestions on there as well. And then any offerings you choose to give also go in the black box, an envelope's been provided for you.
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If you don't intend to use this envelope this week, then you can put that in an acrylic thing to recycle it so we can reuse it next week.
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Just good stewardship there. And remember that anything that's marked expansion fund is going to go towards our goal of eventually building a building.
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We know, actually, this is the week that we are beginning to tear down everything, and then next week we have to set up and tear down again.
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And so we've been blessed by the schools that they're allowing us to keep this stuff set up for the summer, but we enter into that season again where there's going to be a lot of work to set up and tear down each week.
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And so we know that eventually our goal is to build a building. Anything marked expansion fund will go towards that end eventually.
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And the finances stuff is available on the website if you're curious. Even if you, when I mention expansion funds, some of you might be curious about the numbers, and that's all available for you.
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We have full disclosure on our finances, and so you can check that out and take advantage of that. So with all of that out of the way, just kind of introducing
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Genesis chapter 49 as we're moving towards, rapidly towards the end here, I want to point out that at Recast we're committed to the authority and the power of the word of God.
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And I say that often, and I hope that becomes, has been clear to those of you that have attended here for a while that you see that we open the word of God, we read it, and then we walk through it.
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And my belief, that flows out of my conviction and my belief that I could get up here and share a bunch of stuff about culture, a bunch of the headlines, or you know, my soapbox, and I could get up, and believe me,
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I've got soapboxes. So I've got issues that are really close to my heart, and you could hear that week in and week out, and hear what
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Don has to say, and I think that that would get kind of boring to you, and the extent of my wisdom would not carry you far.
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So that's why we dig into the word of God is my conviction that this is the place where the power is. So we march chapter by chapter through books of the
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Bible. Really what this has been, has been like an ancient text marathon. Some of you are, I mean, in all honesty,
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I'm grateful for the time that we spent in Genesis. I'm also looking forward to moving on to another book of the Bible, and I think probably some of you are as well.
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But I hope that it's been fruitful for you and beneficial for you as we've studied this book about beginnings and working through that.
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And we only have two more weeks, Genesis chapter 49 this week, Genesis chapter 50 next week, and then we're going to be moving on,
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I've mentioned before, to 1 Peter come fall. So I'm going to be gone for three weeks,
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Pastor Kyle's going to be filling in for me during those three weeks, and then we're going to pick up with 1
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Peter at that point. But when we're going through an ancient text like this, I think sometimes, and we're marching chapter by chapter, we can tend to lose the forest for the trees.
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We can see exactly, and each sermon is kind of a standalone sermon in a sense. That certainly ties in with the big picture.
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But it can be very easy for us to lose the flow of what God is trying to communicate to us in the book of Genesis. And what is this overarching picture?
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So at times I like to pull back for a second and remind us where we've been and what we've been looking at. So let's do a quick review.
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The review begins very simply with, in the beginning God, okay? That's the beginning of the book, in the beginning
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God. And certainly we know in the beginning God, the creator, he made it all perfect. But he gave an opportunity for humanity to express a will, and by expressing a will, in necessity disobey, if we express a will separate from God, that is disobedience.
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And there were only two options. We could either as humans stick with God's holy and perfect design, or we could go rogue.
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And Adam and Eve exercised their own will, and the created order was plunged into darkness and brokenness.
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And we experienced that. Is that, any of you relate to that? You've experienced some brokenness in your life? Have you experienced some of the fall?
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I think all of us on this planet have, I know that we have. And so when we experience that, we recognize that that's a component of what it means to live in a fallen world where Adam and Eve took that fruit in disobedience to God and exercised their will against him.
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But there was one glimmer of light, God gathered together the man and the woman and the serpent who tempted them and spoke with them and ultimately dished out some punishments to them in their disobedience.
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But in his conversation with the woman, he left a sliver of light in Genesis chapter three.
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God promised to send an offspring of the woman, speaking to the woman, he said, one of your offspring is going to crush the head of the serpent that tempted you.
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And he's going to restore the broken relationship between humanity and God. There is one coming who is born of a woman. Well, wouldn't that seem kind of strange because isn't everybody born of a woman?
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But what's the point there? And I don't know that the original readers, the original listeners to this story had any indication or understanding that the virgin birth was going to happen and that that was going to be a component of that, that this one who would come would be born indeed of the woman and only of a woman, which is obviously an intense and awesome miracle.
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Centuries pass though and that promise was given to the woman and throughout the book of Genesis, centuries pass with generations.
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There's this huge flood that we talked about. There's the dispersion of people across the planet through the tower of Babel.
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And then one day in Genesis chapter 12, we read about God approaching a pagan dude, a dude who lived in what is now modern day
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Iraq. And he said to this guy, if you follow me and let me be your
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God, I will make you into a huge nation. I will give to your huge nation a great land and I will use your people to bring forth the one who will be the blessing.
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The one that was foretold in Genesis chapter 3 is going to come through you. It's going to be born through you.
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Well, Abraham, I think, apparently liked the sound of this and so he followed God. And God reaffirmed his blessing to Abraham's son
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Isaac and then to Isaac's son Jacob. And now we find ourselves in a text about Jacob and we're closing out
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Genesis. We're seeing this man Jacob and his final blessing to his 12 sons. Our text today is straightforward.
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That's what it's about. It's him passing along this blessing. But let's not miss, again, the forest for the trees and recognizing that what we're reading as we're reading through Genesis, what we're reading as we're reading through the
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Bible is about a God who actively pursues relationship with people. Actively involved and engaged in drawing us in.
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He came to Abraham. He has walked with this broken family through the pages of Genesis.
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How many of you would agree with me that have been here for a while and you've been following through the book of Genesis that this is indeed a broken family?
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There's a lot of messes that are caused by the family of Abraham and yet God proves himself to be faithful time and time again to them.
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And this morning we're going to see through a prophetic blessing that he will continue to walk with his people to bring about his promises that he has made.
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So let's open our Bibles to Genesis chapter 49 if you're not already there. Obviously you can navigate over there in your app or open up your own
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Bible if you brought one. If you don't have a Bible in front of you, I just ask that you please raise your hand. We want everybody to be a follow along.
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I recognize that it can be a little bit hard to follow along if you don't have a Bible and so one of these gentlemen will bring you one. And then remember that if you don't own a copy of the
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Bible, you can take that one with you. So I ask you, we desire for everybody to have a copy of the word of God that you can read.
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Obviously in this day and age you can easily just download the app too, but to have a copy of the word of God to sit on your nightstand and read from time to time is great.
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Follow along as I read Genesis chapter 49 in its entirety. Recast, this is God's word to us this morning.
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Now Jacob called his son and said, gather yourselves together that I may tell you what shall happen to you in days to come.
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Assemble and listen, oh sons of Jacob, listen to Israel, your father. Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might and the first fruits of my strength, preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power, unstable as water.
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You shall not have preeminence because you went up to your father's bed, then you defiled it.
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He went up to my couch. Simeon and Levi are brothers, weapons of violence are their swords, let my soul come not into their counsel.
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Oh my glory, be not joined to their company, for in their anger they killed men and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen.
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Cursed be their anger for it is fierce and their wrath for it is cruel. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.
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Judah, your brothers shall praise you, your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies, your father's sons shall bow down before you.
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Judah is a lion's cub. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he crouched as a lion, and as a lioness, who dares rouse him?
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The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until tribute comes to him, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
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Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey's colt to the choice vine, he has washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes.
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His eyes are darker than wine and his teeth whiter than milk. Zebulun shall dwell at the shore of the sea, he shall become a haven for ships, and his border shall be at Sidon.
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Issachar is a strong donkey, crouching between the sheepfolds. He saw that a resting place was good and that the land was pleasant, so he bowed his shoulder to bear and became a servant at forced labor.
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Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent in the way, a viper by the path that bites the horse's heel so that his rider falls backwards.
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I wait for your salvation, O Lord. Raiders shall raid Gad, but he shall raid at their heels.
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Asher's food shall be rich and he shall yield royal delicacies. Naphtali is a doe, let loose, that bears beautiful fawns.
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Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring, his branches run over the wall. The archers bitterly attacked him, shot at him and harassed him severely, yet his bow remained unmoved.
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Yet his arms were made agile by the hands of the mighty one of Israel. From there is the shepherd, the stone of Israel.
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By the God of your Father who will help you, by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that crouches beneath, blessing of the breast and of the womb.
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The blessings of your Father are mighty beyond the blessings of my parents, up to the bounties of the everlasting hills.
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May they be on the head of Joseph and on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers. Benjamin is a ravenous wolf, in the morning devouring the prey and at evening dividing the spoil.
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All these are the twelve tribes of Israel. This is what their father said to them as he blessed them, blessing each with the blessing suitable to him.
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Then he commanded them and said to them, I am to be gathered to my people, bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephraim the
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Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, to the east of Mamre in the land of Canaan, which
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Abraham bought with the field from Ephraim the Hittite to possess as a burying place.
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There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife, there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife, and there
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I buried Leah. The field and the cave that is in it were bought from the
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Hittites. When Jacob finished commanding his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people.
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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father, we need your presence with us this morning.
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I know that there are all sorts of distractions, all sorts of things that would war for our attention this morning.
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There are good things that have happened this week that we could be mulling over or things that we look forward to this next week that could captivate our minds and draw our attention down and away from your word.
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There are difficult things that we experienced this past week or things that we are not looking forward to coming up.
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Projects that need to be completed and work assignments and things going on and getting back into the swing of school and,
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Father, just so many different aspects of the drawing to the end of the summer and, Father, I pray that you would bring us to a place of peace even now.
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So we have an opportunity to come before you in song. Father, would you allow even this worship time to be a resettling of our hearts, to leave before you those things that distract us.
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Father, to rejoice in you and delight certainly in your good provision for us, but equally to let go of those things that seem difficult and too hard and that we would recognize that you are with us, guiding us and directing us.
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Be present with us, that we would worship you in power and glory and in your majesty, in Jesus' name, amen.
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Amen. Thanks a lot to the band for leading us in worship. I'm always grateful for them. Remember that over the next 30 to 40 minutes, our goal is to dig into God's word and I recognize that there's all kinds of things that could be a distraction to you and so if the chair that you're sitting in becomes a distraction, you can get up in the back and stretch out.
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If you need more caffeine, there's more coffee over there. There's juice. I think there might be a few more donut holes up here and there were none over here.
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And then restrooms are out the door at the end of the hallway. Turn to the right and they're down there and they're well marked.
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So whatever you need. But I do encourage you to have Genesis chapter 49 open in front of you. Some of the things that we're going to be covering this morning are kind of poetic in nature.
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It's actually the first extended poem in the pages of scripture and so sometimes what
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I'm saying you need to like actually see it for yourself and dig in and look at it and have it open in front of you.
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Genesis 49 there. But right off the bat we see the very first word in our text and of course I do a lot of analysis on this so I'm digging in and this is what
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I do throughout the week is I'm certainly meeting with people and stuff but at the same time I'm digging in and I'm studying this.
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The very first word is then indicating some time and giving us some kind of a perspective on what's come before this and so we find out that verse 1 makes it clear that the private adoption and blessings that happened to Joseph and Ephraim, they happened last week and what we're coming to this text comes after that so that's already happened, that's already taken place.
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Ephraim and Manasseh have indeed been adopted by their grandfather. Last week we talked about how
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Joseph got the call that his dad was sick, was on his deathbed and was not doing well and to come quickly and so he took his two half -Egyptian sons.
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If you weren't here last week you can kind of go back and listen to that online and check that out and see the significance of them being half -Egyptian there but his two half -Egyptian sons and they were adopted in the place of Joseph.
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So in other words Joseph's line would have been in line to get a chunk of inheritance, one twelfth of the inheritance and instead by dividing that up they end up getting two twelfths of the inheritance or one sixth goes to Joseph's line.
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Now some of us might go well how fair is that that Joseph gets overlooked, well I mean how many of us would not love for our kids to get a double blessing from our parents, right?
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So it actually is indeed a blessing to Joseph that happened in our text last week.
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But Jacob calls all of his sons together now in this text, then Jacob called all of his sons and said gather yourselves together that I may tell you what shall happen to you in the days to come.
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He is intentionally gathering them together for a prophetic future telling of basically telling them what's going to happen down the road for them and he is going to be telling them later on we actually see in one of the verses it's called blessing and I use the word blessing in quotes because as you read this some of these guys you wouldn't want the blessing that they receive if you get my drift and so I think the word blessing is ought to be in quotes.
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What he's really doing is he's talking to all of his sons and talking about their future in relationship to their past.
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Now our tendency might be to think right off the bat that what Jacob is doing here is some type of saying nice things like that blessing saying nice things or wishful hopes to his children or dreams that he has for them, the types of things you know at the end of your life what kind of fluffy nice things might you say to your children on your deathbed to say man
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I just really hope good for you, I wish that things would turn out well for you and that kind of thing.
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You'll notice that the text starts off fairly harsh to a couple of his sons actually the first three are like boom right off the bat and so I want to make sure that you're understanding what's happening here.
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This is a God ordained future telling kind of event that is happening here. It is so much more than just wishful thinking for his sons.
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Despite the fact that verse 28 calls them blessings I believe that God is revealing to Jacob what to say.
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This is not something that every father is capable of emulating so if you think that the application you might be already kind of thinking about what the application is to this verse in this passage.
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Bless your kids. Right? That would be I mean if you've read this before that might have been where you went with it is like well you know at the end of life it would be great to sit down and bless your kids.
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Should you bless your kids? Yes, this is not the passage that you turn to to prove that you should bless your kids because what is happening here is actually as he looks at Reuben, as he looks at Simeon, as he looks at Levi, he is certainly in some sense capable of taking in their history and their past and what they've done and we're going to see that as we walk through each kid individually.
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He takes into account the way that they have behaved and the things that they have done simultaneously he is being granted
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God ordained wisdom on the future of each of these tribes. Things that indeed will come to pass in the history of Israel in the life of each individual tribe.
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Are you getting what I'm saying by that? We cannot purport, I don't encourage you to just kind of do some guesswork with your kids.
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Well, I'm kind of thinking that this is going to happen for you or whatever. I see Fortune 500 company in your future,
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I see you know, are you getting what I'm saying by that? So the types of blessings, certainly we should be blessing our kids, we should be encouraging them, we should be rebuking them as well.
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We live in a culture that is not so quick to rebuke, we are not quick to discipline and things like that and that all needs to be happening as well.
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But again, what specifically Jacob is doing here is not, I believe, free for every one of us to be capable of this type of God ordained future telling kind of blessing that he's giving.
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So they all assemble. Remember that their father is bedridden, he's able to muster all of his strength and sit up on the edge of his bed.
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And Jacob, as they're standing there, I don't know if they're standing in age order or how they're arranged around the bed, but they are all there present with him and he fixes his gaze on his eldest,
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Reuben. I picture almost kind of like a glassy -eyed look, I don't know why, I don't imagine that he's necessarily in a trance or anything, but I imagine he's wistfully carried away into the future as he looks at Reuben, thinking about the past, recognizing there's some reminiscing that goes on as well as looking towards the future and he sees
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Reuben. And Jacob begins with really good stuff about Reuben. Really awesome stuff.
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Consider that, and I want to set this in two contexts, there's the bedside context where this is being declared at the side of the bed, and then there's the revelation perspective where this is actually being read to the children of Israel when
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Reuben is now a tribe. It's a massive amount of people, 450 years have passed and now
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Reuben is a group of people standing at the base of a mountain where Moses is reading this to them.
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Do you understand how that context matters? And so we both have two contexts to look back at, this bedside conversation that was given to an individual that then is actually expounded out and is eventually given vocally, verbally, by the mouth of Moses to all of the people.
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And so as Moses is standing there reading this to the 12 tribes of Israel, it's written so that they're understanding their destinies and the conquest of the land that is about to be given to them.
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They are looking at the past in order to make sense of their present and things that are yet to come for them as a tribe.
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And so as Moses would be reading this, he gets to the words of Jacob towards Reuben and I imagine some high fives, there's some murmuring in the tribe of Reuben as they hear the things that are being said of my people.
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He's talking about us, God revealing something about us. And in verse 3 he says,
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Reuben, you're first born, yeah, tell me more, high fives all around, the first fruits of my strength.
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Anybody thinking, sweet, if you're in Reuben you're going awesome, first fruits of my strength, preeminent in dignity, preeminent in power, awesome stuff.
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If this was said about your clan, would you be pretty stoked? Would you be pretty excited about verse 3? Some of you are kind of like, yeah,
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I don't know, does it sound good? You know where it's going maybe? So you're kind of like, I don't know, it sounds like a setup.
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It is. Verse 3 is a setup for a significant fall in verse 4.
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Despite being first, despite his strength, despite his power, I picture by the description of Reuben, I think there's some physical things about him.
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I think he's an ox, I think he's a big man, I think he's tough and strong. And he's unstable as water.
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He's an unstable man. Anybody, oh, the guys are starting to kind of hang their heads, it's like we're high fiving and yeah, man, we're awesome, we're so, oh.
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Unstable as water, where is this going? He is not a dependable individual. Even in the incident with Joseph that we see in history that we were able to read in the chapter a few chapters ago, he refused to stand up for his youngest brother at the time.
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Even when he knew he should and the text is abundantly clear that he thought he should stand up for Joseph and he said, you know, they threw him in a pit and it says in the text that he intended to go back and rescue him and restore him, but he wanted to save face before his other brothers, so he didn't do what was right when it was time to do what is right.
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I think all of us have had that happen at some point, hopefully in lesser degrees than selling our brother into slavery, for example, or abusing him or trying to beat him to death.
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So hopefully, but I mean, I think there's been times where we were too late on obedience.
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The moment had passed us by and we needed to act and we needed to act quickly and do the right thing and the moment passed and we're like, oh, and we're trying to make it up, trying to fix it and that's like Reuben.
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But that is not the primary reason given in the text. The reason that he is overlooked for the status of firstborn, the reason he is overlooked for the preeminent position in the family that he deserves as the firstborn according to his culture, the reason was that sordid event where he got with his stepmom,
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Bilha, who was his father's concubine. As little mentioned text, as a matter of fact, it only covers one verse in Genesis chapter 35, a very short and brief mention and fortunately we were able to just kind of brush that aside when it happened a little bit.
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I mean, it wasn't an extensive text, but it happened, it was declared that Reuben got with Bilha and that Jacob knew about it.
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And that's all that chapter 35 tells us about that circumstance. And now it turns up at the end of life blessing from father to son.
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The way that Jacob speaks about it makes it clear how horrible a defilement this was and obviously some of us are even probably a little bit squeamish and, you know, this is what's going on here.
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Can you hurry up, Don, and get past this to the next part? But the word defilement,
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I think we need to camp here for just a second. We need to address this and understand something that I see as significant from the text, something that spoke to me and is pretty clear.
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The word defilement is a word that we don't use very often, but it pertains to something holy that is made dirty.
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Something that is good, that is right, that is in the eyes of God a good thing and a holy thing and a righteous thing and it is turned into something that is filthy.
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It only can be used in the context of something that is holy or set apart by God.
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And so what Jacob is saying here is worthy of taking just a moment to consider. The bed of a married couple is a holy place.
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It is a holy place. It is set aside. It is sanctified.
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It is not to be shared with any other. It is not to be defiled. We live in a culture where it just seems like every sitcom, every show is all about the defilement.
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And obviously this is not just talking about the physical bed. I hope you're able to think beyond those categories to actually understand what the text is implying here.
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It's not the physical bed, but it is the physical expression of the marriage relationship that is symbolized by the bed that is to never be defiled.
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And Reuben defiled his father's bed. Even in the absence of written law.
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You gotta remember that we are still 400 plus years away from the law even being given to this people.
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So could Reuben throw up his hands and say, hey, how fair is this? It's not written.
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How did I know? How was I supposed to know that this is wrong? He did wrong regardless. Regardless of what is written or not written.
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So many of us are quick to point to loopholes and try to get around things and, well this affects
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Reuben. This affects his clan significantly. He who was in line for the double blessing.
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He who was in line to be preeminent over his brothers. There is never a priest.
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There is never a prophet. There is never a king. And there is never a judge that ever comes from Reuben.
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None of the primary offices throughout the leadership of the nation of Israel are ever attributed to someone from the tribe of Reuben.
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I think it's fair to say what Reuben receives here is an anti -blessing. So maybe the next son will fare better.
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This is tough. Do you see why it might not be a good idea to guess at this with your kids? Are you getting what
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I'm saying in that? So maybe the next one will fare better, but you've read it already. Verse 5, we find that it's not just one that we're going to take, but we're going to take
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Simeon and Levi together. They're going to be taken as a pair. Now, you'll notice that they are actually together in verse 5,
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Simeon and Levi are brothers. Duh. Like aren't all of these brothers? Aren't they 12 brothers?
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So how many of you when you read that, you're like, why is that said? Well, I think that if you were to just read it literally like they are blood brothers or they're siblings, that's kind of dumb if it's interpreted literally.
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But these are, they are like two peas in a pod. They are always together.
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They are connected. These two were close. Simeon and Levi were raised up together in age, they were close.
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And they were brothers in arms together. They were brothers together in violence.
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How many of you have ever, like maybe you knew some kids in your neighborhood that were brothers and they were always together and they were always blowing stuff up or they were always starting fires or something.
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Do you know what I'm talking about? Maybe one of you can, like when you get together with your friend, you're like, hey, remember what we used to do? But I think that we know those kinds of people and we can relate to how two people can be together and they can be bonded by bad things, right?
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They can be together in arms or together in violence. There are a couple of different reasons why a person might carry a sword during ancient times.
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One being for protection. The other being for violence, to actually be aggressive towards others.
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And these two guys carried swords according to the text, swords of aggression, swords of violence.
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Proverbs 16 .29 says, a man of violence entices his neighbor and leads him in a way that is not good.
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There's a way in which a person of violence tries to breed more violence, tries to bring more into that with them.
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And Jacob says, I would discourage anyone from even taking counsel from them. I wouldn't take counsel from Levi and Simeon.
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I would not even be joined in their company. I wouldn't want to be found hanging out with them on the streets of St.
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Louis. No, I didn't say that, but violence, hanging out in their company.
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Harsh words spoken to sons. Would you agree with me on that? Hard words spoken to sons.
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Sons however, that the father clearly knows. They are two sons who have responded with blind rage and a feral, animal -like wrath.
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Remember that Levi and Simeon deceived the people of Shechem and convinced them to be circumcised so that they could come in with swords and wipe out all of the males while they were in recovery.
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Pretty heinous acts. Pretty horrible things that they did. They justified that slaughter because the leader of Shechem had defiled their sister
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Dinah. And the result is that Simeon and Levi, according to the prophetic word of Jacob, are to be scattered and divided in Israel.
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Well that actually proves to be the case. Simeon has a buffer of Judah all around.
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The only territory that Simeon ever holds in the land is completely landlocked by Judah.
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He doesn't have connection or interaction with all of the other tribes or borders with other tribes.
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He ends up being landlocked within Judah and eventually is actually assimilated by the tribe of Judah.
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Eventually his land is completely taken over by Judah. Levi is actually physically scattered throughout
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Israel, never possessing a land of their own. They become, it's interesting that God takes those who had a violent streak and actually uses them as protectors.
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So the Levites were the protectors of the sanctified places of God, the tabernacle and the holy places and so the tribe of Levi is in the service of God for the remainder of their existence.
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So in verse 8, we come to Judah. And Judah and Joseph account for almost half of the entire blessing monologue of Jacob.
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Judah means praised. And Jacob says that Judah will indeed be praised by his brothers.
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They all, including Joseph, Joseph's going to get a really good deal in this blessing.
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And yet it does not go to the level that Judah himself is blessed. Even Joseph, even the tribes of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh will indeed praise their brothers.
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By the way, the blessing that's given to Judah is the only one that is in contrast or in comparison to his brothers, where his brothers are mentioned in his blessing directly.
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Judah will be praised by his brothers and they will also bow before him, according to this text.
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Even Joseph, of whom it was said all of his brothers bowed, will eventually bow the knee before Judah.
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Judah will be the one. Not only that, but he will be powerful like a lion in battle, the poetic imagery there.
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From him will come the royal line of his people. Tribute will come to him from the nations. Whenever you hear tribute, it is something from external to the nation in which you are sitting and tribute will be brought to Judah.
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That means the nations are going to be attentive to Judah. And to Judah will be the obedience of all the peoples.
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All the people groups of the world will bow the knee at some historical point to Judah.
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Well, how is that, you might ask. What is going on there? We'll get there in a second. Not only that, he will have wine so abundantly that he could hitch a donkey to his best vine and not worry about that donkey having a meal.
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That's what's going on there. You're kind of like, what is this about hitching a donkey to the choicest vine? No concern. Wine is in abundance.
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Grapes are in abundance. No worries there. He could use wine, it says in the text, as wash water.
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Wine is so abundant in Judah that, and this is speaking of wealth. Not only that,
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Judah will be the source of the everlasting ruler. This is, of course, fulfilled by the great descendant of King David.
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King David coming from the line of Judah. King David who eventually the promise is given to him that he from his line will have a ruler who will sit on the throne forever.
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So Judah through David to Jesus Christ, our
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Lord and Savior. To that offspring, Judah will receive tribute through the descendant
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Jesus Christ. And in Jesus is the fulfillment of the obedience of all the peoples.
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There will one day before the throne of the Lamb of God be people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation who will bow before this descendant of Judah.
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The lion of the tribe of Judah. In honesty, most of the blessings in this text seem paltry in the light of the blessings given to Judah.
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He will be a royal line. All of the nations will come and bow before him.
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They will bring tribute to him. It should stand out as obvious that he is singled out as the most blessed even over Joseph.
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So we move on to some of these blessings. Zebulun will stretch between, which stretches between the Sea of Galilee to the area of the
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Mediterranean. They will be a seafaring group. Cool. Issachar gets a little bit dist in here and it can be a little bit confusing as you read the text.
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You're kind of like, what's going on? What the summary of Issachar is that he's going to be a strong donkey. He's going to be strong.
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He's going to be powerful and he's going to be satisfied to just sit down and chill out and have to be forced into labor.
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Not a super good prophecy for Issachar here. Dan, whose name means judge, will indeed produce an awesome and amazing judge.
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One of the most powerful judges is a Danite from the tribe of Dan. Anybody know his name?
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Samson. Samson from the tribe of Dan. Despite their small size, one of the smallest tribes, they're going to pack a wallop.
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Dan is likened to a viper that is small and able to hide, but has within its possession the ability to take down a whole horse.
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How many of you think that there's an amazing reality to nature that a viper can take down a massive horse?
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And that's the implication, is that even though he's small, even though, but he's feisty, he's scrappy, and he's going to send forth one of the most powerful men to ever live on the planet,
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Samson. Verse 18, we've gone through some of them, and then I believe just because of the nature of the word here, and the way that it's worded, that this does not tie in with Dan's, but is actually
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Jacob pulling back in the midst of all of this prediction, all of this, he's seeing the future, he's relating to the past, he's understanding all of this.
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And this is an interjection by him, and it's key, I wait for your salvation, O Lord.
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Who is the I? That is Jacob speaking. As the future is revealed, and he utters a prayer for deliverance of his people, he is seeing wisps, and visions of years of battle, years of war, and tragedy, and hardship for his people, as God is pulling back some of the curtain to reveal what the future looks like for the people of Israel, and he's getting a glimpse as he sits on the edge of his bed near death, and he's getting an opportunity to speak this to his people.
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And in the midst of seeing all that will come down the line, and all that God sees fit to reveal to him,
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Jacob's hope is firmly in the God who has promised to make them a great people, and to bring them deliverance, and really bring to them deliverance to all the peoples, to all the peoples of the world will come through them, and his hope is squarely on the shoulders of God.
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It'd be great for us to pause for a second and rest in this statement before we go on. Look at it again.
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I wait for your salvation, O Lord. Another way of saying that is, I wait for your deliverance. Some translations actually translate it that way, and it can really go back and forth, and it's a very easy word to translate in and out of those two things, salvation or deliverance.
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In the midst of blessings and cursings, in the midst of a reckoning of the past that has an impact on the future, we ought to exclaim,
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I wait for your salvation, O Lord. In the midst of looking at our past, and considering and contemplating the future,
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I wait for your salvation, O Lord. I look at my own sin -cursed past, the mistakes, the failures, the outright rebellion against God that I personally have committed, and I can only utter,
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I wait for your salvation, O Lord. I wage war with my sin in my life in the present, and sometimes it gets me down, and sometimes it is hard, and it is difficult, and it is a daily slogging through battles of sin and responding to people inappropriately, and wanting to do what is right, and wanting to be righteous, and I say,
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I wait for your deliverance, O God. I look at the effects of the fall on the world around us, from the suicide of a man who made us all laugh, to the brutal mass murder of hundreds of our brothers and sisters in Christ in Iraq, to the animosity of Palestinians and Jews locked in fierce battle and hatred towards one another, to the rise of nudity -based reality
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TV shows, and I want to shout, I'm waiting. I'm waiting for you, Lord. We are waiting for your deliverance.
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Come in your power, come in your glory, come in your majesty, come and do what is right.
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Wrap it up, and take it home. Finish this in your justice. Are we waiting for our deliverer?
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Are we stuck here trying to deliver ourselves? I think so many of us are looking to ourselves, we're looking to the very entertainment that is corrupting us, we're looking to the very things that would destroy us, and we're looking to them as deliverers, and there is one deliverer, and we should be pleading on our knees, come
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Lord, even come today, bring your salvation here.
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Take us home, finish this, wrap up this fight that we are waging in ourselves.
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Come in your power, come in your authority, come in your mercy. We are waiting for your salvation, oh
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Lord. Jacob was waiting for a Messiah yet to come. He was waiting for him.
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He knew enough, and enough was shown to him to know that there was one who was coming, who would crush the head of the serpent, who would restore things to the way that they ought to be, whose reign would last forever, clearly revealed to him here in this text.
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One was on the way, to whom tribute and obedience was due. And we, we are waiting for him to come a final time.
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So there in that interjection, we are waiting for your salvation, oh Lord. He moves on, and his eyes fall on Gad.
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Gad, he obviously, how much was revealed to him is unclear, but Gad actually settles on the eastern frontier, this is an extremely apt prediction for him.
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He settled on the eastern frontier, he was often raided, but often fought back with tenacity. He was not a large enough tribe to be able to handle frontal battle, but when somebody came in and raided, he was able to often get back what was his.
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Asher's people were good in the kitchen, with some of the most fertile areas for food production, and so he is, it's talked about him producing choice delicacies.
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Naphtali was one of the least military beset tribes, and they would just have a more peaceful domestic life, and that's what they're granted here.
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And I actually, I picture Naphtali being like, Dad, Dad hold on a second, he's sitting on the edge of the bed, they're like talking, you know, he's listening,
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I know you're old and stuff, but I'm a dude, enough with the doe analogy, okay?
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You know, like antlers and buck or something sounds better, but don't call me a doe, cut it out.
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But that's just the lot for Naphtali, was that he actually had a very peaceful and pleasant domestic, more pleasant and peaceful domestic life than the majority of the other tribes.
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As we know, Joseph's blessing will be passed along to Ephraim and Manasseh, so everywhere you read Joseph, read
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Ephraim and Manasseh in there, they are now the two tribes of Joseph, and they will prove to be on par with Judah as population, as they exit, go into the exodus, the numbers of people 400 years from these events, how many of them there are, they're going to be on par with Judah, so Ephraim, Manasseh, Judah, the most populous of the tribes, the ones who received the greatest blessing here at this time.
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They also end up proving to be on par with Judah when it comes to actual land holdings, once they conquer the land, you know, this is being read to the people at the base of the mountain, they have not yet entered the land, they don't know what the land holdings are and yet it's being told to them and they will prove to be the greatest, have the greatest land holdings.
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Now, there's a wordplay, there's a bunch of wordplays in here, I'm not covering every single one, but you notice how the word fruitful appears in Joseph several times and the word for Ephraim is actually double fruitful, that's what that word means, and so there's a sense of a double blessing, a double fruitfulness that is involved here.
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Even when attacked, the tribes of Joseph will be strengthened by the hands of the mighty one, the bow will be stayed and will be held firm and I want you to know that when you're shooting an arrow and there's a deer out there, it's kind of like you get that rush and it's like your shot is not always as straight and so the holy one will settle his bow, the one who is the shepherd, the one who is the stone of Israel will be a defender of Joseph.
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And in verse 25, the actual name for God, El Shaddai, occurs again in the text, the almighty one will bless
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Ephraim and Manasseh, he will bless them from above and from below, they will be fruitful and multiply greatly and have many offspring.
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Jacob openly declares that the blessing towards Joseph will exceed even the blessings that his fathers received, in particular his parents,
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Isaac and Rebekah. Joseph was clearly set apart from his siblings as one chosen to deliver the people during the famine and for that he receives a double blessing, an extra blessing.
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Finally, this portion, this poem is wrapped up with little Benny, little
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Benji is going to grow into a ravenous wolf who proves to be powerful in battle.
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And so wrapping that up, I mean we hear kind of some generalities and some things that we can go back and I could kind of walk you through a history of how those things are fulfilled,
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I've kind of chosen not to rather than get to the application and move through verses 29 through 33 where we get the record of Jacob's dying request, he wants to be sure again that he is buried with his forefathers in the tomb in Canaan that they purchased, actually it was purchased by his grandpa
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Abraham and then Abraham and his wife were buried there in that cave and his parents,
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Isaac and Rebekah were buried in that cave and his first wife Leah is buried there in that cave.
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Remember that Rachel was actually, she actually passed away en route and was not able to be brought there and so Leah is buried there and in verse 33,
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Jacob draws his feet into his bed after having, by God's grace, the ability to proclaim these blessings to all of his children.
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God, I would love it if God would shine on me and give me a chance to interact with my kids on my dying day, but we all know that we're not guaranteed that.
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He receives that by the grace of God, draws his feet into the bed and breathes his last and was gathered to his people.
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Jacob who lived 147 years old, who we've had the privilege of getting to know some through this text and one day we'll actually get to talk to him.
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These blessings may be interesting to some of us from a historical perspective, like some of you might actually be moved to go check them out in the judges when you see these tribes mentioned, kind of understanding the tribe from this and then some of you almost fell asleep when you heard me use the word history there for just a second, you're just, you lost me for a second.
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But what's happening here in this text is more than history. God is telling us something about the way that real life works.
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He's identifying something about the reality of what we are doing here and what's happening.
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According to verse 28, each son received the blessing that was suitable to him. It was suitable to them.
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It was in line with them, in line with their character. I believe that these are divinely ordered blessings.
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But at the same time, Jacob knows each of his sons and speaks words to them according to their character. I titled this message,
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The Backside of the Future, to be somewhat funny and somewhat serious. As obvious as this is, every future, are you ready for it?
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Every future has a past. Every destiny started in the past.
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Every legacy has events that created it. And in these blessings, we are seeing nothing less than a future for each son that is consistent with their past, according to verse 28.
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And in the bigger picture, each tribe, as they are poised to take the land, has been affected by decisions that were made centuries before them.
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And some of us might look at that and go, well, wait a minute, how fair is that? How is that fair that God would take into account? But, I mean, isn't that the reality?
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Were you in control of, I mean, think about where you were born, to which parents you were born, in what generation you were born?
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Did you have any control over that? And so do you shake your fist at God and say, why this, why that? Or do we understand that God has given us a time and a place and a purpose for where we are right now?
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A major application from this text is that how we live does matter. We are setting forth a legacy.
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And last week, I went on a little bit of a rant, kind of just highlighting how some people will say, you know, this next generation is going to be lost if we don't get our act together.
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And some of you remember that rant? Some of you remember me saying that? And now I'm saying what we do matters and we're leaving a legacy and all that.
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And it could sound like I'm just kind of backtracking on that and like, okay, well, and I think there's a balance in life, isn't there?
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Owning it all and assuming that we are God's solution and answer to everything is unreasonable, isn't it?
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To trust in God that he is using us and that we can be used by him. But at the same time, living our life with a sense of urgency and recognition.
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And so are you getting the balance in there? I'm not preaching that you need to own it all and you're God's solution to everything.
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Simultaneously, I'm saying don't be lazy. We need to work at this. We need to, especially when it comes to leaving a legacy for others behind us.
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We are making decisions that will affect those who come after us. Character does matter. And so our greatest hope must be tying in with God.
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Rather than to be moved to hopelessness in this life or fear that one slip -up will ruin it, let's be bold in our pursuit of God.
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Timidity is not the place of safety. I think many of us think of it that way. Timidity is a place of safety and security.
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But I would suggest to you a bold, aggressive, intense pursuit of God is the place of safety and security.
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It is the place for creating a godly legacy. Let's not shrink back into caution, but let's boldly press on for the cause of the kingdom of God.
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I believe that this is the reason why Jacob uttered verse 18 in the middle of his blessing. Why he said to them,
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I wait for your salvation, O Lord, as a model and as an example to his sons of where his hope truly was resting.
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Our hope is never meant to rest on ourselves. And so we live in this tension as fallen people pursuing
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God with our hope in him for our deliverance. I believe that that is one of the primary differences between Judah and Joseph on the one hand and Reuben and Simeon and Levi on the other.
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Judah, Judah was not perfect. We read some of his stories, we read some of his life, he was far, far, far from perfect.
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So you go, okay, Reuben makes one mistake and gets the ax. Judah makes a mistake and is forgiven and restored and given like huge blessing.
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And we could say, we could say that God chooses whom he chooses, right? And would that be a fair assessment that God chooses who he chooses?
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And we could leave it at that, but the text doesn't. The text actually goes on to say, Reuben, this is the reason why you are not being held up in this position.
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There's some effect here to the things that you have chosen to do. And I believe part of that is to go without repentance.
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Reuben never showed any signs of repentance. He showed himself to be unwavering, what was the word?
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Unstable as water. Judah showed clear signs of repentance.
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Judah showed us in the text that he desired restitution for the wrongs that he had done to his brother
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Joseph. And we see indications that he had a turn and a desire and a hunger for righteousness.
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Even turning at one point to Tamar and saying, you're more righteous than me. Indicating some desire, some hunger for what she had.
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So it's easy to become paralyzed by discussions about the way that our past influences our future. Have any of you ever experienced that before?
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Kind of like, oh no, what am I going to do? I mean, I'm stuck in this life and it's like things are moving forward and I might make mistakes and oh no.
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I mean, Levi and Simeon in a fit of rage set forth a legacy that remains for centuries. Is that intimidating to any of us?
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It seems that they curse their tribe and their anger. Reuben in some moment of lust loses the firstborn status and his tribe suffers and never attains the privilege of the firstborn.
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And so at face value, we could walk away with an application that looks pretty, pretty scary, pretty difficult.
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You could walk away from this text going, you better behave. One wrong move and you could curse your family.
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Can you imagine that kind of application coming out of this text? One wrong move, mind your P's and Q's, cross all your
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T's, dot all your I's or you could curse your family forever. Anybody kind of going, well, that preaches but it doesn't comfort.
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It doesn't bring any kind of sense of like direction or movement forward. It's like, to me personally,
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I'm telling you, it immobilizes me. That can be a terrifying thing. One wrong move, great. But I would suggest to you that there is a wrong move in this text.
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There is a wrong move. The wrong move is that when we sin, did you hear how I worded that?
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Not if we sin, but when we sin. Because we all sin, we all have sin, we all have a fallenness and a brokenness in us.
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But when we sin, the wrong move is to not come back to God for reconciliation. To sin and never seek
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Him. To sin and therefore keep Him at arm's length. To sin and to never trust
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Him enough to let Him in and to confess it before Him and to ask for forgiveness and to repent. To sin and let fear drive us away from the face of our good and merciful
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God. To sin and never turn. If we live a life of fear, then we are not letting the cross be what it was meant to be for us.
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At the cross, God proved Himself to be for sinners. He is on our side, working to bring forgiveness and restoration to anyone who recognizes their need for deliverance.
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So that anyone who cries out to God, I am a sinner, I am waiting for your salvation, oh
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Lord. Anyone who would come to God that way can be delivered from the consequences of their sins based on what
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Jesus has done for you at the cross. This is why we take communion each week. It's not snack time, it's not that you've sat and you've behaved and so you get a snack.
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It's about remembering what the promised Lion of the tribe of Judah has done.
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He has come to us and the first time He came as a lamb, humbly led to the slaughter.
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He died for us and we remember His blood shed for us and His body that was broken for us by taking the cup of juice and the cracker.
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But all who reject Him, all who turn away from this One who is the provision of salvation by God, all who reject
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Him in His deliverance are left with a fearful expectation of curse and judgment. What we do matters and the most important thing we can do is come before the
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Almighty, admit our sins and in humility ask Him for deliverance. Let's live lives of asking for His deliverance every day.
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Not in a sense that I believe that there's a time when you cross a line. I was eight years old and I prayed a prayer in a little room in the basement of the
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First Baptist Church in Middleville, Michigan during an AWANA program and I believe that I crossed a line. I crossed a line from being an enemy of God to being
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His child and one whom He dearly loves and I believe that there's a time of crossing that line.
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But do you and I need deliverance every day? We do. Would it be wise for us to ask for God's deliverance every day?
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It would. Even to say, lead us not into temptation.
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But what? Deliver us from evil. A gospel -centered life is one that recognizes that our sin is not trivial, but that our legacy is built based on our trust in the
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Almighty to deliver us. Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for a deliverance that is provided for us and as we look, we get a chance, we got a chance to look through this list of these blessings and anti -blessings to the tribes.
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It's intimidating to me. I look at it and I go, what would your words be to me in regard to my legacy, the things
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I'm leaving behind for my children and those who will come after me and even this church and the things that will be carried forward in my absence.
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And Father, I pray that you would calm our fears, those who are genuinely in your kingdom and are your children here, many with a sensitive conscience who would sit here and wrestle right now with their salvation and they are your children.
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And then there are others here who have been here and they are hoping that this Christian thing rubs off on them and that they can have a relationship with you through that.
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And Father, I pray that you would move in hearts exactly where they are at, that you would help us to have an accurate self -assessment of ourselves, whether or not we are trusting you and engaged with you.
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And Father, even as we have an opportunity to come to this communion table and together, unified as your people, gather around the celebration of what
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Jesus Christ has done for us, I pray that you would move us to joy, that you would move us to enthusiasm for what you have done for us, that we would boldly step out from this place, not in trepidation and fear and timidity that, oh, we might mess it all up, but in trust that you are in us and working through us to reach out more for your kingdom cause here in our community, in our neighborhoods, in the places that we work and all around us.