Genesis 49 The Backside_of the Future

Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Madawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service. This message is by Lead Pastor Don Filseck, and is a part of the series Beginning with God, Walking Through the Book of Genesis.

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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. We've been blessed by the schools. 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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We have full disclosure on our finances, so you can check that out and take advantage of that. With all of that out of the way, just kind of introducing Genesis chapter 49 as we're moving 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. I say that often, and I hope that 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.

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 my soapbox, and I could get up, and believe me, I've got soapboxes, so I've got issues that are really close to.

My heart.

You could hear that week in and week out, and hear what Don has to say. I think that that would get kind of boring to you, and the extent of my wisdom would not carry you far. 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 Bible. Really what this has been is like an ancient text marathon. Some of you are, I mean, in all honesty, 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.

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. 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, I've mentioned before, to 1 Peter come fall.

So I'm going to be gone for three weeks, Pastor Kyle's going to be filling in for me during those three weeks, and then we're going to pick up with 1 Peter at that point. But when we're going through an ancient text like this, I think sometimes when we're marching chapter by chapter, we can tend to lose the forest for the trees.

We can see exactly, and each sermon is kind of a standalone sermon in a sense, certainly it ties in with the big picture. 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? 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.

The review begins very simply with in the beginning God, okay? That's the beginning of the book, in the beginning 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.

And there were only two options, we could either as humans stick with God's holy and perfect design, or we could go rogue, and Adam and Eve exercised their own will, and the created order was plunged into darkness and brokenness.

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? 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.

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.

But in his conversation with the woman, he left a sliver of light in Genesis chapter three. 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.

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?

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 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.

Centuries pass though, and that promise was given to the woman, and throughout the book of Genesis, centuries pass with generations, there's this huge flood that we talked about, there's the dispersion of people across the planet through the Tower of Babel.

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 Iraq. And he said to this guy, if you follow me and let me be your 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.

The one that was foretold in Genesis chapter 3 is going to come through you, is going to be born through you. Well, Abraham, I think, apparently liked the sound of this, and so he followed God. And God reaffirmed his blessing to Abraham's son Isaac, and then to Isaac's son Jacob.

And now we find ourselves in a text about Jacob, and we're closing out Genesis, we're seeing this man Jacob and his final blessing to his 12 sons. Our text today is straightforward, that's what it's about, is 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 Bible, is about a God who actively pursues relationship with people, actively involved and engaged in drawing us in.

He came to Abraham, he has walked with this broken family through the pages of Genesis. 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?

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. 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.

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 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. 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 Bible, you can take that one with you.

We desire for everybody to have a copy of the Word of God that you can read. 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.

Follow along as I read Genesis chapter 49 in its entirety. Recast, this is God's Word to us this morning. Now Jacob called his son and said, gather yourselves together that I may tell you what shall happen to you in days to come.

Assemble and listen, O 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.

You shall not have preeminence because you went up to your father's bed. Then you defiled it. 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.

O my glory, be not joined to their company. For in their anger they killed men, and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen. 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.

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. 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?

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. 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.

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. 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. 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. I wait for your salvation, O Lord. Raiders shall raid Gad, but he shall raid at their heels.

Asher's food shall be rich, and he shall yield royal delicacies. Naphtali is a doe, let loose, that bears beautiful fawns. 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. His arms were made agile by the hands of the mighty one of Israel. From there is the shepherd, the stone of Israel.

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. The blessings of your Father are mighty beyond the blessings of my parents, up to the bounties of the everlasting hills.

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. 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. 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 Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, to the east of Mamre in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephraim the Hittite to possess as a burying place.

There they buried Abraham and Sarah, his wife. There they buried Isaac and Rebekah, his wife. And there I buried Leah. The field and the cave that is in it were bought from the 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.

The Need for God's Presence in Worship and the Authority of His Word

Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father, we need your presence with us this morning. I know that there are all sorts of distractions, all sorts of things that would war for our attention this morning.

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, or there are difficult things that we experienced this past week, or things that we are not looking forward to coming up, projects that need to be completed, and work assignments, and things going on, and getting back into the swing of school.

And 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, 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? 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.

Be present with us, that we would worship you in power and glory, and in your majesty, in Jesus' name, amen.

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.

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. 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, 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 gonna be covering this morning are kind of poetic in nature.

It's actually the first extended poem in the pages of scripture, and so sometimes what I'm saying, you need to actually see it for yourself and dig in and look at it, and have it open in front of you, 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 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.

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 one 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.

Ephraim and Manasseh have indeed been adopted by their grandfather. Last week we talked about how 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, 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, 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.

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? So, it actually is indeed a blessing to Joseph that happened in our text last week.

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. 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 ought to be in quotes.

What he's really doing is he's talking to all of his sons and talking about their future in relationship to their past. 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, at the end of your life, what kind of fluffy, nice things might you say to your children on your deathbed to say, man, I just really hope good for you, I wish that things would turn out well for you, and that kind of thing.

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 wanna make sure that you're understanding what's happening here.

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. Despite the fact that verse 28 calls them blessings, I believe that God is revealing to Jacob what to say.

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 and this passage, bless your kids, right?

That would be, I mean, if you've read this before, that might have been where you went with it, it's like, well, you know, at the end of life, it would be great to sit down and bless your kids.

Well, 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 gonna see that as we walk through each kid individually.

He takes into account the way that they have behaved and the things that they've done, and simultaneously, he is being granted 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.

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. Well, I'm kind of thinking that this is gonna happen for you, or whatever.

I see Fortune 500 company in your future, I see, 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.

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. 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.

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, 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, 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 Reuben, and Jacob begins with really good stuff about Reuben.

Really awesome stuff. 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 Reuben is now a tribe.

It's a massive amount of people, 450 years have passed, and now Reuben is a group of people standing at the base of a mountain where Moses is reading this to them. 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.

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 in the conquest of the land that is about to be given to them. 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.

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.

He's talking about us. God revealing something about us. And in verse three he says, Reuben, you're firstborn. Yeah, tell me more. High fives all around. The firstfruits of my strength. Anybody thinking, sweet.

If you're in Reuben, you're going, awesome. Firstfruits of my strength.

Preeminent in dignity.

Preeminent in power. Awesome stuff.

If this was said about your clan, would you be pretty stoked? You'd be pretty excited about verse three?

Some of you are kind of like, yeah, I don't know.

Does it sound good?

Well, you know where it's going, maybe?

So you're kind of like, I don't know.

It sounds like a setup. It is. Verse three is a setup for a significant fall in verse four. 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.

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. 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.

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.

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. 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. So hopefully, but I mean, I think there's been times where we were too late on obedience. 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. 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, Bilhah, 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.

I mean, it wasn't an extensive text, but it happened. It was declared that Reuben got with Bilhah and that Jacob knew about it. 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.

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 this is what's going on here. Can you hurry up, Don, and get past this to the next part?

But the word defilement,.

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. The word defilement is a word that we don't use very often, but it pertains to something holy that is made dirty, 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. It only can be used in the context of something that is holy or set apart by God. 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. It is a holy place. It is set aside. It is sanctified. 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.

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. 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.

And Reuben defiled his father's bed. Even in the absence of written law, you gotta remember that we are still 400 plus years away from the law even being given to this people. So could Reuben throw up his hands and say,.

Hey, how fair is this?

It's not written. How did I know? Well, how was I supposed to know that this is wrong?

Well, he did wrong regardless.

Regardless of what is written or not written. So many of us are quick to point to loopholes and try to get around things.

Well, this affects Reuben.

This affects his clan significantly. He who was in line for the double blessing. He who was in line to be preeminent over his brothers. There is never a priest. There is never a prophet. There is never a king.

And there is never a judge that ever comes from Reuben. None of the primary offices throughout the leadership of the nation of Israel are ever attributed to someone from the tribe of Reuben. I think it's fair to say what Reuben receives here is an anti-blessing.

So maybe the next son will fare better. Okay, whew, this is tough. Do you see why it might not be a good idea to guess at this with your kids? Okay, are you getting what I'm saying in that?

So maybe the next one will fare better,.

But you've read it already. Verse five, we find that it's not just one.

That we're gonna take,.

But we're gonna take Simeon and Levi together. They're gonna be taken as a pair. Now, you'll notice that they are actually, together in verse five, Simeon and Levi are brothers. Duh, like aren't all of these brothers?

Aren't they 12 brothers? 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, but these are, they are like two peas in a pod.

They are always together. They are connected. These two were close. Simeon and Levi were raised up together in age. They were close. And they were brothers in arms together. They were brothers together in violence.

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.

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? 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. One being for protection, the other being for violence to actually be aggressive towards others. And these two guys carried swords according to the text, swords of aggression, swords of violence.

Proverbs 16, 29 says, a man of violence entices his neighbor and leads him in a way that is not good. There's a way in which a person of violence tries to breed more violence, tries to bring more into that with them.

And Jacob says, I would discourage anyone from even taking counsel from them. I wouldn't take counsel from Levi and Simeon. I would not even be joined in their company. I wouldn't wanna be found hanging out with them on the streets of St. Louis.

No, I didn't say that, but. Violence, hanging out in their company. Harsh words spoken to sons. Would you agree with me on that? Hard words spoken to sons. Sons, however, that the father clearly knows.

They are two sons who have responded with blind rage and a feral animal-like wrath. 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.

Pretty heinous acts. Pretty horrible things that they did. They justified that slaughter because the leader of Shechem had defiled their sister Dinah and the result is that Simeon and Levi, according to the prophetic word of Jacob, are to be scattered and divided in Israel.

Well, that actually proves to be the case.

Simeon has a buffer of Judah all around. The only territory that Simeon ever holds in the land is completely landlocked by Judah. He doesn't have connection or interaction with all of the other tribes or borders with other tribes.

He ends up being landlocked within Judah and eventually is actually assimilated by the tribe of Judah. Eventually, his land is completely taken over by Judah. Levi is actually physically scattered throughout Israel, never possessing a land of their own.