Genesis #47 - Joseph #8 - "In Preparing His People for Eternity" (Gen 48:1-49:28)

Redeemer Bible Fellowship

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Father, we thank you once again for your word. We thank you that your word gives us life. Your word strengthens us, your word encourages us.

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And so we ask that as we come to now the preaching and the hearing of it, we pray that your spirit would use the word to bolster our faith in Jesus, to deepen our love for him and to prepare us for the works of service to which you've called us.

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Father, it's usually our habit to pray for area churches, but this morning we take a moment to pray for a church a few miles north of us up in Eugene.

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Pray for our friends at First Baptist Church of Eugene. Over there, they've just selected a new teaching pastor.

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Pray for Pastor Darrell, I believe his name is, who will be beginning his ministry there, I believe this weekend. Pray for your blessing on that church.

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Pray for all the churches up that way. You would encourage them, you would strengthen them, that you would make their gospel labors fruitful.

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And that above all, you will be glorified, not just in Eugene, but throughout our wonderful state.

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Be with us now as we open up your word. We ask all this in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. These be seated.

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Oh, I said these be seated, you're already seated. Okay. This morning

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I wanna speak to you for a few moments on the subject of the hidden hand of God in preparing his people for eternity.

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Preparing his people for eternity. I think if we're all honest, death is not something we like to talk about.

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Being morbid, which by the way, the dictionary says morbid is, being morbid is characterized by an unusual interest in, interesting how the dictionary defines this, disturbing and unpleasant subjects, especially death.

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Interesting that the dictionary defines a disturbing and an unpleasant subject as death.

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Being morbid or people who are morbid are generally people we try not to be around if we can.

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And let's be clear, there is a weird way to talk about death. I think

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I've talked about this in some settings that I like listening to true crime content. Nothing will quite make you scared of people like true crime content.

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And you can always tell whenever you hear, one of the reasons I like, I don't like true crime for the gore and all of that stuff.

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I like it because I like good storytelling. And one of the things that you notice in the true crime world is whenever you have that person who's obsessed with death, everyone gets worried.

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You can almost tell, oh boy, this is not gonna end well. There's a weird way, there's a disturbing way to talk about death.

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And I'm sure you've probably encountered people like that in real life who talk about death with a little bit more excitement than they probably should.

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But the reality is we can't allow the fact that the occasional interesting person, shall we say, we can't allow that person to make us think that it's wrong to think about death or to talk about death at all.

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Because the reality is ignore it all you like, deflect it all you like and hope that it goes away.

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Do what you will. But if you are human, and all of us in this room are human, if you are human, the

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Bible makes it very clear to you, you will die. So when the fall happened in Genesis 3 .19,

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what did God tell Adam and Eve? Genesis 3 .19, you are dust, and you will return to the dust.

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Job says in Job 30 verse 23, that God leads us to death, that there is a place appointed for all who live.

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And of course, if you've been around church for any length of time, you know Hebrews 9 .27. Hebrews 9 .27,

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as it is appointed for men once to die. And after this, judgment.

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As the evangelist Ray Comfort puts it, the ultimate statistic is that one out of one people die. The reality of death is universal.

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But while the reality of death is universal, the experience of death, on the other hand, well, the experience of death is a little bit different depending who you talk to.

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While we will all die, the how of our dying can and does differ.

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There's a verse in the Old Testament that I heard years ago. It's not a funeral, of course, but I heard it and it stuck with me.

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I'd never heard it. Tell me to the book of Numbers for a moment. This is what you think this morning about the subject of eternity and preparing for it.

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Numbers chapter 23. If you know the book of Numbers, Numbers 23 is one of the moments where the prophet

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Balaam, who's an interesting character for a bunch of reasons, the prophet Balaam is giving these oracles.

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He's basically a prophet for hire, and he's been paid by the king of Moab to curse Israel, but it's not really working out that way.

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Numbers chapter 23, pick it up with me in verse 10. Numbers 23 and 10. It says, this is

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Balaam, he's speaking in his prophetic mode, as it were. Numbers 23, 10, he says, who has counted the dust of Jacob or numbered even one fourth of Israel?

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This is the part that got me. Let me die the death of the upright.

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Let the end of my life be like this. Let me die the death of the upright.

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Just basic observation. If there is a death of the upright, then there's a death of the not upright.

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And if Balaam says, I want my death to be like the death of the upright, that implies you do not want your death to be like the death of the not upright.

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You see, death comes for us all, but sinner and saint, sinner and saint alike. But how we experience death definitely differs from person to person.

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And I'll put it to you that part of what makes the death of the righteous different from the death of the wicked, part of what makes the death of the upright different from the death of those who are not upright, part of that is how we prepare for death.

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I won't say it's the entirety of it, but it is a big part of it. And as we come to Genesis chapters 48 and 49 this morning, we are encountering a man who is preparing to die.

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He can see that, at the old hymn that I love so much, he can see that great horizon coming up.

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And as he can see that great horizon coming up with clouds behind and life secure, as he can see that coming, there are some things

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I think we can learn from Jacob this morning, as we come to the book of Genesis, we can learn a thing or two from him about how the righteous are prepared to die well.

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The reality is whether it happens tomorrow or 50 years from now, I think the truths in this passage are helpful for any believer.

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Because if, whether we like it or not, whether our culture makes it palatable or not, we should be giving a little more thought to the fact that eternity is closer today than it was yesterday.

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So again, I raised that question. What is the difference between the death of the upright and the death of the wicked?

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Can we know with certainty what the differences are? Well, I put it to you that we can.

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In fact, that's kind of leading to my big idea for this message this morning. My big idea is a very simple one this morning, that it is faith in God's revealed will that changes the way the believer prepares for death.

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Faith in God's revealed will changes the way the believer prepares for death.

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One of the things that's gonna become very apparent in this passage is that Jacob doesn't show any evidence of being afraid that his death is coming.

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He doesn't show any sort of sense of, ooh, death is coming, I should get a little worried about this.

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There seems to be just a cool and calm and collectedness to this. Why?

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Because he has God's revealed will. And so I put it to you this morning that faith in God's revealed will changes the way the believer prepares for death.

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And so this morning, I want you to be prepared for death by learning from Jacob's two manifestations of faith as he approaches his death.

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Outline for this chapter, as you can see from the handouts, pretty simple. Chapter 48 gives us one manifestation, chapter 49 gives us another one.

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I want it to be prepared for death by learning from Jacob's two manifestations of faith as he approaches his death.

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What's the difference between the death of the righteous and the death of the wicked, the death of the upright and those who aren't?

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Well, I think we can learn from Jacob because Jacob, first of all, approaches death by resting in the unusual blessing of God.

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He approaches death by resting in the unusual blessing of God.

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I think I said it last week, but as we come to Genesis 48 and 49, this is Jacob's death narrative.

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He's about to perform essentially his final two acts as the patriarch of the clan.

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And both acts are acts of blessing. In a sense, Jacob's story has come full circle if you think about it, because he's now in the same position that his father was when he received the blessing.

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Think back all the way to chapter 25. And as he's in this final moment, as he is hitting the home stretch, so to speak,

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Joseph is told that his father is nearing the end. And recognizing the importance of this moment,

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Joseph takes his two sons, who you get the sense from the passage, they're not that old at this stage.

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He takes his two sons in tow and he goes into his father. And so as he goes into his father, pick up with me in verse three,

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Israel begins with a reminder of God's covenant blessing. So look at verse three.

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Jacob said to Joseph, God Almighty appear to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and bless me.

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That's the Jacob's ladder incident. God Almighty said to me, I will make you fruitful.

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I will make many nations come from you. And I will give this land as a permanent possession to your future descendants.

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I love that Jacob doesn't start with guys, I'm dying. No, getting old is not great.

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Some of the things I'm sure you've encountered people who are like this, who as they near the end, all they can think about is how much they hate that they're nearing the end.

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But you don't hear that from Israel in this passage. He starts with what God had told him.

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He starts with the fact that God had told him that he would be fruitful. Labor this point in our study of Genesis.

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So let me just simply add that that language of fruitfulness connects all the way back to creation. Genesis 1 26, where God blessed humanity and said be fruitful and multiply.

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God had promised that he would be fruitful. God had promised that nations would come from him. God had promised that the land that he had promised would be a permanent possession for him and for his descendants.

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Again, all this is nothing new. We've seen God reaffirm this time and time and time again. All that is well and good, but verse five in our passage is where things start to get interesting.

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Look at verse five. He says, your two sons born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt are now mine.

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Ephraim and Manasseh belong to me just as Reuben and Simeon do. Wait, what?

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I am all for adoption. Adoption is a great and wonderful thing. But this seems, Jake, Jake, Jake, this seems a little bit aggressive.

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You just met these boys. Now, my humor aside, let me clarify what's actually happening here.

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Jacob is not saying to Joseph, you are now down two kids. He's not saying, look at me, look at me.

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I am their daddy now. Like, that's not what's happening here. The key to understanding what he says actually comes in the next verse.

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Look at verse six. He says, children born to you after them will be yours and will be recorded under the names of their brothers with regard to their inheritance.

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The issue here is not who their father is. It's these two boys are now being included in the line of Israel's succession.

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They're not now a step removed from that like the other children would be. No, they're directly in the line.

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This is about succession and inheritance, not who the daddy is. The other children would inherit through Joseph, but Ephraim and Manasseh would now be in the line of succession from Israel himself.

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Did you notice that in verse 10, Moses draws attention to the fact that Israel's eyesight is poor?

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Again, it's for one thing, it's connecting us to the narrative surrounding

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Jacob. Because if you remember when they pulled off their little trickery, it was because Isaac's eyesight was dim and he couldn't see.

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But here, instead of the promise being stolen because of his lack of eyesight, it's given willingly by Jacob.

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But follow this little bit of information about his eyesight away, because it's gonna become important in just a minute.

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For now, Joseph recognizes the importance of this moment. So you see verse 13, so Joseph took them both with his right hand,

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Ephraim, towards Israel's left, and with his left hand, Manasseh, towards Israel's right, and brought them to Israel.

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So he recognizes, okay, this is gonna be, what he's just said is kind of major. Okay, kids, you might wanna get a little closer for this.

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Joseph recognizes the importance of this moment, but so does Jacob, because look at verse 14. But Israel stretched out his hand and put it on the, his right hand, excuse me, and put it on the head of Ephraim, the younger.

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And crossing his hand, put his left on Manasseh's head, although Manasseh was the firstborn.

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The parallels between Jacob and his father continue once again, because now you've got the younger one receiving the greater blessing and the older one not.

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Jacob and Esau were, you can put it this way, swapped in the presence of their father, of course, not willingly, but now

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Ephraim and Manasseh are swapped, and this is willingly on the part of Jacob.

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And of course, the question you have to ask as you read this is why would

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Jacob do this? I mean, he doesn't even know these boys. It's not like one of them offended him or he liked one more.

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There's no reason why he should do this, but that's kind of the point of sovereign grace, isn't it?

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God doesn't have to give an explanation for why he's doing this and neither does Jacob. Yes, this is unconventional.

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It's unusual. But actually, if you've read Genesis, it's not really all that unusual, is it?

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In our almost two years in this book, we have seen God step in time and time again with what you can call these reversals from the norm.

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Let me just paint a picture for just a moment. So Adam and Eve have two sons,

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Cain and Abel. Cain's the older one, Abel's the younger one. They both are asked to, well, it's interesting.

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The text says that at the time appointed, so they knew that there was a time they were supposed to offer sacrifices. So they come and they offer these sacrifices.

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Cain works the ground. He brings the best of his produce. Abel brings a lamb. And what's interesting is God doesn't say one is bad and one isn't.

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People sometimes read that into that passage, but it doesn't actually say that. But God delights in Abel's offering and not

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Cain's. Cain's the older one. You would think that he'd be the one, but he's not.

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This sometimes gets missed in Genesis chapter 12 when God speaks to Abraham. When God speaks to Abraham, Abraham's not alone.

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Chapter 11 tells us that he's with his father and his grandfather, but God doesn't speak to father and grandfather.

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He speaks to Abraham. Abraham has two sons, Isaac and Ishmael. Ishmael's the older one.

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You would think Ishmael would be the one to inherit. In fact, that's Abraham's understanding at some point. And God says, no, no, no, no, no.

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Ishmael may be the oldest, but he's not the one. Your son, Isaac, he's the one. Isaac has two sons, twins,

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Jacob and Esau. Esau's the firstborn. You'd think he'd be the one. And yet God says, no.

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Even before the boys are born, the older one will serve the younger one. Jacob, that's the one

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I'm interested in. Even in this narrative with the Joseph story, we've seen that Judah and Joseph in different ways have been preferred over the rest of their brothers.

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Okay, Kofi, what's your point with this? I think we're being told something here. I think we're being told that God is in the business at times of turning things on their head.

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That he's in the business sometimes of not doing business as usual, but doing business unusual.

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That he's in the business of working in ways that the fancy term that people use, that subvert, that flip the natural order.

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Actually, you see this theme of God doing the abnormal and subverting the natural order all over the

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Bible. So man says, for instance, you should judge things by, you should judge the worth of things by their appearance.

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What does God say in the Bible? 1 Samuel 16, seven. Humans don't see what Yahweh sees because humans see what is visible, but Yahweh sees the heart.

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Man says that there is strength in numbers and that might makes right. But it's interesting, Jesus says to his disciples,

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Luke 12, 32, don't feel little flock for it's the father's pleasure to give you the kingdom.

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Man says, it's not what you know, but who you know. But God says, 1 Corinthians 1, 26 to 31.

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Brothers and sisters, consider your calling. Not many were wise from a human perspective, not many powerful, not many from noble birth.

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Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

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God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world, what is viewed as nothing to bring to nothing what is viewed as something so that no one may boast in his presence.

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God's way of dealing with people doesn't always make human sense, but is

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God really bound to make human sense anyway? God's way might be unusual in the here and now, but I can put it to you that God's way works best for eternity.

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Before I move on, can I draw your attention to something else in this passage real quick? Turn back to Genesis 48, if you moved.

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Genesis 48, verse 16, as Jacob gives this blessing and he says, let me start on 15.

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Then he blessed Joseph and said, the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life, the angel who has redeemed me from all harm.

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This reference to the angel of the Lord, this person, this divine character. How do we know that? Because he says, may he, he equates

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God and the angel, by the way. May he bless the boys and may they be called by my name and the names of my father,

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Abraham and Isaac. And may they grow to be numerous. It's the point I want to focus in on for a moment.

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May they grow to be numerous within the land. If you've got a new

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American Standard or Legacy Standard Bible in front of you, translates that last phrase, not in, not within the land, but in the midst of the earth.

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Now, I try to avoid overly technical moments in preaching, but this is kind of important. The Hebrew word here can be the land or earth.

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It's kind of got a broad technical term, semantic domain, broad field of meaning that it could have.

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So is it right to translate it like the New America Standard or the LSB does, in the midst of the earth? It's not untrue.

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But as much as I love those translations, and I do love them both, I do think something gets missed with this translation.

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I think other translations, including the Christian Standard Bible, gets right. Let me see if I can paint a picture. All throughout

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Genesis, the emphasis when it comes to the blessing has been on a particular plot of land.

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The focus in Genesis has not been the entire world. That comes later in the Bible. The earth as a whole isn't where the promises find their fulfillment.

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It's not a human. It's a particular place within the earth, the land of promise.

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That's where the promises are fulfilled. Okay, Kofi, this seems like splitting hairs.

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Where are you going with this? Well, let me maybe borrow from one author that might be helpful here.

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I've recommended a number of times, Ian Duguid and Matthew Harmon's book, Living in the Light of Extinguishable Hope.

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In that commentary, here's what they have to say about this. Quote, what difference does the translation make?

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The answer is that you don't need any spiritual interest to desire the earth.

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You can inherit the earth while living in Egypt as easily as in Canaan. Inheriting the land, however, involves meekly receiving the portion that God has marked out for you, whether it is large or small, easy or challenging.

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Jacob was not asking that Joseph's sons should necessarily become great as the world reckons greatness.

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Rather, he wanted God to make them great in the promised land, the place where the

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Lord had chosen to place his name. That distinction provides a helpful yardstick for our own hopes and dreams.

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Do you long to grow great in the earth, to be the kind of person that everyone around you envies because you have it all, career, influence, the perfect family, uninterrupted health, or rather is your heart's desire to grow great in the land, to seek the spiritual blessings found in God's kingdom alone?

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Put it another way, and I think this is at the heart of what

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Jacob is getting at, that whatever blessing

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God had for his people was not going to be found anywhere else other than in the very place where God had put his name and said, this is what

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I'm giving to you. If I can pull that from the wilderness of Canaan into the Roe Valley this morning, the question really that we have to ask ourselves is this, when it comes to what

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God desires to do in the lives of his people, the question that we're faced with is, is it going to be thy will be done,

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O Lord, or my will be done? Are the great and precious promises of God found in the gospel enough for us?

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Is the place where God has put his name enough for us, or are we looking for something else in addition?

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I don't plan our scripture readings in line with the sermons, because honestly, where my text may go changes from week to week.

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But I thought it was interesting that we were in Psalm 37 this morning for our scripture reading. Did you notice in Psalm 37 that twice this idea of the people of God inheriting the land came up?

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So Psalm 37, 11, the meek will inherit the land, which by the way is what Jesus is referring to in the Beatitudes when he says, blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.

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Really bad translation, by the way. It should be, they will inherit the land because it's tying back to Psalm 37. Verse 39, the righteous will inherit the land.

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God hasn't promised to bless everything. God hasn't promised to bless everywhere, but he has promised to bless in line with the place where he places his name.

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Jumping back into Genesis chapter 48, let's get back into the narrative. Joseph was a little bit confused by what

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God is, by what his dad, excuse me, is doing. So look at verse 17. Verse 17, he says, when

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Joseph saw that his father had placed his right hand on Ephraim's head, he thought it was a mistake. Literally, it was displeasing to him.

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It was displeasing to him, and he took his father's hand to move it from Ephraim's head to Manassas.

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Remember I told you to fire away that little bit of information about Jacob's eyesight in verse 10? Here's why it becomes necessary.

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The word for seeing in verse 10, so look at 4910, now his eyesight was poor because of old age.

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He could hardly see that word. And the word for, it's translated as a phrase in the

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Christian standard Bible, thought it a mistake, literally displeased. Those words in Hebrew sound very similar.

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It's a play on words. And that play of words is meant to point out something that's pretty important.

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It's meant to point out that though Jacob's physical sight was bad, it wasn't as bad as Joseph's spiritual sight, it seems.

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It becomes apparent that Jacob knew something that Joseph clearly didn't.

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And that doesn't mean that Joseph was a bad person. I think he's grown up a lot from the teenager that we meet in chapter 37.

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I don't think he's a bad person at all, but it does mean that he doesn't have the level of insight his father has in this moment.

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And so Joseph tries to put the train back on the right tracks as it were, like, no, no, no, no, no, no, big blessing for the big boy, not so big blessing for the not so big boy.

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He tries to fix this, but you have to love Jacob's answer in verse 19. Verse 19, but his father refused and said,

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I know my son, I know, I know how this is supposed to go. He says, he too will become a tribe and he too will be great.

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In a lot of ways, this is now where it gets different from what happened with Isaac and his two sons.

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Remember, he saw the blessing he got weren't much of a blessing, but here, no, it is.

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He says, you know, he'll be a tribe and he too will be great. Nevertheless, his younger brother will be greater than he and his offspring will become a populous nation.

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So he blessed them that day, verse 20, putting Ephraim before Manasseh when he said, the nation

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Israel will invoke blessings by you saying, may God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.

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I love this answer because Jacob doesn't really explain why he's doing what he's doing. Because once again, a sovereign

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God does sovereign things. He does not have to explain to anybody why he does what he does. Before we move on to chapter 49,

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I love the personal note to Joseph as this scene wraps up. So verse 21, Israel said to Joseph, look,

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I'm about to die, but God will be with you and will bring you back to the land of your fathers.

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Over and above what I'm giving your brothers, I am giving you the one mountain slope that I took from the Amorites with my sword and my bow.

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We're not told where this piece of land is. Scholars try to figure it out. We honestly don't know.

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My general rule is, I don't speculate what the text doesn't tell me. So we don't know. But it's almost as though Jacob in this moment is saying, son,

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I know you don't get it now, but you're gonna get it later. Like, yeah, you might not understand now.

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I remember when I was young, my mom and my dad would sometimes do things and I'd be really annoyed by it. And they would say that like, you don't know why

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I'm doing this now, but one day my mom would say, one day you'll thank me. And now as a parent of two kids and as a married man, those moments come fast and thick.

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Says you might not understand it now, but you will then. God will be with you. Oh, and by the way, this land of promise, yeah, you've not been there for a while, but you have a stake in this too.

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A very real one. As Jacob nears his death, do you get this sense that he evidences this settled confidence in the will of God?

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That even when it's unusual in its manifestation, even when it doesn't make sense, he fully trusts in the blessing of God.

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And I put it to you that there is something to be said for that as we think about our own encroaching eternity, that our journey may be unconventional and God's work may happen in unusual ways, but the fact is

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God is still working. And as God is working, as we think about eternity, we would always do well to prepare for eternity with that thought in mind.

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Jacob prepares for eternity by resting in the unusual blessing of God, but he also prepares for eternity by point number two this morning, declaring the unusual will of God, by declaring the unusual will of God.

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So in chapter 48, he speaks to Joseph and his two sons, but now as we come to chapter 49, this is the official moment where he has something to say to all of his sons.

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And it's very clear that his words have a little more import than just a kind blessing as he's passing on into the life to come.

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Because look at verse one, says, then Jacob called his sons and said, gather around and I will tell you what will happen to you in the days to come.

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I wish I had time, but that phrase in the days to come actually comes up a lot in connection with Israel in its early years.

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If you have time, I encourage you, let me give you a couple of verses. Numbers chapter 24 and verse 14.

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Number 24, 14 and Daniel chapter 10, verse 14, this language of the last days is connected to God's plan for his people,

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Israel. And I think that's good to know because even in this moment, we're being taught that God is not just the

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God of the here and now. Human beings are beings of here and now, but God is concerned.

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He is as concerned, may I put it, with the future of his people as he is with their day to day.

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It's also worth noting that there was a very official tone to what you read here in chapter 49. Israel is very methodical.

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He works by birth order through each of his sons during this period. I'm not going to look at all 12 sons.

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I encourage you to do that reading in your own time. But I do wanna highlight the first three entries in this list of blessings and words that Jacob says because I think this is where the real meat of this section is.

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So first of all, there is Jacob's comments to Reuben. Jacob's comments to Reuben in verses three and four.

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And I say comments are not blessing because as you read these words, they ain't much of a blessing here. So look at verse three.

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Reuben, you are my firstborn, my strength and the first fruits of my virility, excelling in prominence, excelling in power.

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Turbulence is water you will not excel because you got into your father's bed and defiled it.

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He got into my bed. This should have been

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Reuben's crowning moment. This should have been the moment where the oldest son, which

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Reuben is the oldest, he steps into the role of the head of the clan. This should be the firstborn coming into his own.

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Instead though, Reuben sinned against his father. If you don't remember what that is,

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Genesis 35, 22. Reuben went and slept with his stepmother.

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That sin becomes his undoing decades later.

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You have to wonder, did Reuben think that this would not catch up with him at some point?

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Did Reuben think, dad hasn't, because in Genesis 35, 22, we're told Jacob doesn't say anything. So does he kind of think, maybe dad wasn't that bothered about it?

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Did he think, like lots of people think, time heals all wounds, enough time has passed.

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Dad won't bring that up again. Reuben should have been the one to be the head, but because of his sin,

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Jacob flat out declares he will not. Kind of reminds me, numbers 32, 23, what did

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Moses say to the children of Israel when they were invading the land? And he said, listen, if you don't go and help your brothers, be sure of this.

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Your sin will catch up with you. Might not be today, might not be tomorrow, but unconfessed sin will come back to haunt you.

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I generally don't like to talk about like current events in my preaching because I want to focus on the text, but I don't know if any of you have heard this story out of Texas involving this megachurch pastor.

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I don't need to name the name. You can go look that up for yourself. If you haven't heard it, a rather prominent megachurch pastor in the charismatic world came out this week that he abused a woman when he was in his twenties.

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She was 12. Oh, and when it first came out, he tried to say, well,

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I had an inappropriate relationship with a young lady. No, you abused a 12 year old. And he thought for years that would never come out.

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And now all emails are flying around showing that, oh, this woman confronted him for years. And he was like, oh,

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I'm gonna pray for you. And you know, we love you. Basically love bombing and trying to like evade. And now this whole thing has come out.

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He's had to resign from his almost 100 ,000 member church. I'm pretty certain when that week started, he didn't think that was going to come out.

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There's something about unconfessed sin that the longer you hide it, actually I say something, even the Bible acknowledges this.

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The psalmist says, because judgment isn't executed quickly against sin, the hearts of men grow hardened.

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Unconfessed sin might not be today, might not be tomorrow, but rest assured it will come back and haunt you. This is not starting well.

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And it's not about to get any better because you think that's bad. Jacob has some equally choice words for his next two sons.

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So verses five through seven, he talks to Simeon and Levi. So verse five,

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Simeon and Levi are brothers. Their knives are vicious weapons. May I never enter their council.

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May I never join their assembly. For in their anger, they kill men. And on a whim, they hamstring oxen.

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Their anger is cursed for it is strong and their fury is cursed for it is cruel. I will disperse them throughout

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Jacob and scatter them throughout Israel. In case you've forgotten, this is

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Genesis 34. You need a reminder, Genesis 34. Jacob makes the not so great decision to move towards this city called

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Shechem. As he moves towards this city called Shechem, his daughter Diana goes into the land and starts hanging out with the local foes.

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She's not in the wrong necessarily for doing that, but she is unfortunately sexually assaulted when she goes in there. Her brothers hear about this and decide, you know what, kill all of them.

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I should preach the whole message on that. As you go back and look at that in our series. And at the time, once again,

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Jacob didn't say much. He was a little passive back then when it came to this situation, but he's not passive now.

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And did you notice that he doesn't speak about this in the past tense? Did you know it's all the present tense language?

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Their knives are vicious weapons. In their anger, they kill men.

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And on a whim, they hamstring oxen. Their anger is cursed and their fury for it is cruel.

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Apparently their rage was legendary and it hadn't really abated much over the years. In fact,

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Jacob is so disturbed. Do you notice that he doesn't even address them directly? At least with Reuben, he spoke to him directly.

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All of this is in the third person. It's almost as though he doesn't even want to be associated with them.

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And so he even, just like he did with Reuben, he gives them a punishment. You know what their punishment is?

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They're to be scattered within Israel. Unless you think that, okay, this is just the words of an angry man about what happened.

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That's exactly what happened to him. Take a note, it's Joshua chapter 19. You can read the story of where Simeon's portion in the land is.

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They don't get their own portion. The text says that Judah has such a large portion, it's too much for them.

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So Simeon kind of gets landlocked within them. And over time, you don't really hear much about the tribe of Simeon anymore.

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They get more or less assimilated into Judah. What about Levi?

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Well, the tribe of Levi will go on to redeem themselves somewhat because they side with Moses in the golden calf affair.

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But even in that, Numbers chapter 18, God is clear. The Levites don't get an inheritance of their own.

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They get 20 cities scattered among everyone else. God keeps his word with painful accuracy.

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This is not going well. I mean, we're two out of 12 and he basically is like, you don't get to be the firstborn, you're done.

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And as for you two, I have nothing good to say about you. But then we get to Judah.

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And this is where things start to look up a lot. I'm gonna read verses eight through 12 in their entirety and then we'll come back and start to break it down some.

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Verse eight, Judah, your brothers will praise you. Play on his name because Judah means praise.

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Judah, your brothers will praise you. Your hands will be on the necks of your enemies. Your father's sons will bow down to you.

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Judah was a young lion. My son, you return from the kill. He crouches, he lies down like a lion or a lioness who dares to rouse him.

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The scepter will not depart from Judah or the staff from between his feet. In other words, from his family line.

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Until he who's right it is comes and the obedience of the peoples belongs to him.

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He ties his donkey to a vine and the coat of his donkey to a choice vine. He washes his clothes in wine and his blood in the, his robes, excuse me, in the blood of grapes.

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His eyes are darker than wine and his teeth are whiter than milk.

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I honestly would need a whole message just for these verses. But let's see if we can do what we can.

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First off, did you notice the language of dominion and rule that is scattered throughout this?

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Hands on the necks of enemies in verse eight, brothers bowing down to him in verse eight, the description of a lion on the prowl in verse nine, the language of the scepter, which we'll come back to in just a moment.

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What should have been Reuben's technically as the firstborn is given to Judah. Now, let me pull up here for a moment.

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So Reuben disqualified himself through his rebellion, which is really what, the act was not the sleeping with the stepmother.

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It's what that represented. Basically as the oldest, he was trying to basically say, I'm taking over the clan now.

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So Reuben disqualifies himself through his rebellion. Simeon and Levi disqualify themselves through their cruelty and viciousness.

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None of us would argue with that, I at least hope not. But if we are being fair, didn't

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Judah have an incident back in Genesis 38? So I seem to remember something about sleeping with a prostitute who wasn't a prostitute, turned out to be his daughter -in -law.

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Oh, the daughter -in -law that he then tried to have killed. Oh wait, and wasn't he the one who said, let's not kill

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Joseph, but let's sell him? Oh, by the way, this had to have been really awkward because isn't

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Joseph in the room at this point? If anyone should have been disqualified in this moment,

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Judah should be too. I mean,

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Jacob is just unleashing verbal beat downs left and right. I think Judah should hold one at least, but he's not.

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He should be next in line for some very strong words of denunciation and yet he isn't.

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Kind of like how God's grace is unusual sometimes and it goes against the grain of our sensibilities. I mean,

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Judah, I had to imagine that Judah had some commendable qualities. It can't have been all bad, but if fair is fair,

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Judah should have been ruled out too. And yet I seem to remember,

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I think it was the apostle Paul. I want to say it's Romans nine. Yeah, it's

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Romans nine, Romans nine, 14 and 15. What should we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not, for he tells

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Moses, I will show mercy to whom I show mercy and I will have compassion on whom

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I will have compassion. Our English translations kind of cleaned that up. It literally says, I will mercy who

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I want and I will compassion who I want. God didn't have to bless

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Judah. He simply chooses to because he can. If this isn't shocking enough, verse 10,

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I think it's just downright explosive. Verse 10, the scepter will not depart from Judah or the staff from between his feet until he who's right at his comes and the obedience of the peoples belong to him.

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The scepter, the symbol of rule and authority would not leave the line of Judah until, well, this is where I have to kind of pause and get a little more technical here.

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I wish I had more time to get into more detail. In the study guide, you see that little QR code? You scan that with your camera, it will take you to a folder with a couple of sections from commentaries that get into way more detail than I can possibly do in the time we have.

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For now, let me give you the headlines. This phrase in verse 10, the one whose rights it is, the

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CSB says, the ESV says, until tribute comes, the new

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American standard and the LSB translate this as a proper noun, they use the word Shiloh. This is actually a very debated word as to how to translate it.

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I will spare you all of the intricacies of grammar. You can read that extra material in your own time. Let me just jump to what

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I think is happening here. Sure answer, I think the CSB has it right.

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I think the, I see why the new American standard and legacy standard try to translate this as a proper name.

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I just don't think it works. What Israel is saying to his son here is that Judah's line would hold the kingship among Israel, reaching its peak when the ultimate descendant of Judah would arrive.

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The one who would have the undisputed right to rule and who would garner the obedience of his people.

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And I say his people and not the peoples in general, because the word for people here isn't the word that's used for nations.

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It's the word that's used for fraternal family, close family. I mean, this seems like kind of a big deal.

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So who is this person? Who is this one to whom the right belongs to rule and to whom the obedience of the peoples would follow?

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Well, actually, I think the answer is given to us, not here, but in the rest of the Bible. So for a moment, let's do a little bit of biblical theology.

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Biblical theology has asked the question, what does the entire storyline of the Bible teach us about any given topic? The key,

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I think, is in the images that Jacob uses in verses 10 through 12.

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Four of them to be exact. First of all, he says that Judah would yield a warrior.

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That's the image there of the lion on the hunt. Isn't it funny? One of the titles given to the

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Lord Jesus in Revelation 5 .5 is that he is the lion from the tribe of Judah. That's not by accident.

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There's the image of the warrior. There's the image of the ruler. And I don't have time, but Isaiah chapter 42, the language of rule is applied to the servant

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Messiah character in Isaiah. We get to New Testament.

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New Testament is explicit. Jesus refers to himself, Matthew 12, as having all authority.

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Ephesians one refers to him as the head of all things. Revelation one says that he is the king, ruler, excuse me, of the kings of the earth.

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There's the image of the warrior. There's the image of the ruler. The image of the vine is important. Don't sleep on that one.

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Now this one's a little more complex. Verse 11, he ties his donkey to a vine and the coat of his donkey to a choice vine.

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You need to understand a little bit about the ancient Near East for this to make some sense. Typically donkeys were beasts of burden.

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You use them for work. And so often what you do is you would, if you owned a vineyard and you were using the donkey to carry them, you would tie the donkey to one of the vines.

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But if you did that, you were guaranteeing essentially that the donkey was going to eat some of the grapes. So you typically wouldn't tie a donkey to a really productive vine, because that's bad for business.

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You had to be a different kind of wealthy to even think of doing something like that. And that's the point. This image carries this idea of prosperity on his part.

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He's so rich, he doesn't lose sleep over grapes being eaten off his best vine.

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Now someone would say, wait a minute, how can this apply to Jesus? Doesn't the Bible say about Jesus that foxes have dens and the birds of the sky have nests, but the son of man doesn't have somewhere to lay his head.

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Jesus was not that rich when he was alive. Yeah. If your assumption is prosperity equals money,

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I love what one writer, Philip Betancourt says. He says, quote, to begin with, even when Jesus takes on the humble form of humanity, he is still the son of the living

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God who possesses the cattle on a thousand hills. The incarnation does not rob him of this abundance so much as he puts the experience of it on hold and adds to it something even better.

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How? The new abundance in view is spiritual in nature and secured through his death and resurrection.

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While in his earthly lifetime, Jesus owns no vineyard and yet he becomes the true vine.

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Though he possesses no courts yet, he rides into Jerusalem on one humbly loaned him in the triumphal entry.

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Now he is seated at the right hand of the father in the place of abundance. And like a victor who disperses the plunder of his conquest to his people,

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Christ, the warrior King pulls out the victory gift of his spirit upon the church. How about this image in verse 11?

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The wine washed clothes. So verse 11, he washes his clothes in wine and his robes in the blood of grapes.

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You're gonna see this image again in the Bible. If you're taking notes, I don't have time to read it. Isaiah 63, one through six.

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Again, this messianic figure who is described as his clothes being read like one who treads a wine press.

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When you read the ministry of Jesus, wine plays a big role in the ministry of Jesus. It's quite surprising.

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Jesus' first miracle, remember what that one is? Water in the wine. When Jesus institutes the

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Lord's table that we're gonna partake of in just a moment, the Bible says that the fruit of the vine is connected to his shed blood,

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Matthew 26, 28. Oh, to tie it all together, when Jesus returns, again, don't have time,

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Revelation 19, 13 to 15, blood and wine, those images are mixed together.

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It says that the returning King, as he comes, he has a robe that is dipped in blood.

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In verse 15, he says that he tramples the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.

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You look at all these four images, and I put it to you that only one person could fulfill this perfectly.

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Judah might be the unlikely recipient of divine grace, but it's through him that the one who would ultimately fulfill the promises, it's through him that this one would come.

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This unlikely man with two illegitimate sons, it's from him that the Messiah, who is

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God's prophet, priest, and King, the Messiah would come from him. When Jacob started his journey all the way back in his father's tent in chapter 25,

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I have to wonder, would he have conceived of this even in his wildest imagination?

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I don't think it's likely, but as he approaches eternity, he does so, and I encourage you to read the rest of this chapter.

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Like there's no, you don't get a tone of lack of assurance in anything he says.

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He is definite, he is settled as he declares the unusual but unquestionable will of God.

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He could sleep the sleep of death knowing that God was fully in control.

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If I can pause for a moment, just get practical for a second. Much of the fear of death that we have, let's get practical for a sec.

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For most of us, if we have a fear of death, and again, I'm not presuming to know everybody in the room, but I've been around enough people to know that most of us don't like the idea of death.

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Might I suggest that for many of us, the fear of death comes from the lack of control over it that we have.

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Death scares us because it is out of our control in just about every way imaginable.

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As I start to land the plane this morning, can I give you some good news? Yes, death frightens us because we don't have control over the thing, but here's the good news.

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I don't have to have control over death. Someone else took that job. In Jesus, death is dealt with once and for all.

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That's what Paul can say in 1 Corinthians 15, 55, where death is your victory, where death is your sting.

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Ultimately, because we know the revealed will of God in his word, we don't have to fear death.

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When that day comes, the believer can say with the old hymn, abide with me, I think it's the last verse of that. Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes, shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.

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Heaven's morning breaks and earth's vain shadows flee. In life and in death,

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O Lord, abide with me. And why can we sing that?

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Why can we say that with full confidence? Because can

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I put it to you that it's in the cross where the will of God for his people is made loud and perfectly clear, that just as Jacob knew what the will of God was for his sons, and so he can speak with total confidence as he faces death, we know what the will of God for us is because he sent his son to die for us to make us his.

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Even as we face eternity, the reality is that in the Lord Jesus, in the ultimate son of Judah, death is not something we need to be afraid of.

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Why? Because the unusual blessing of God and the unusual will of God goes before us, even in death.

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And so we can be comforted in that reality. We can find hope and assurance in that reality.

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And Father, we thank you so much that though death is our enemy, it's not an enemy that gets to win in the end.

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That as the Lord Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believes in me, even though he dies, yet he will live again.

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And so Father, we can have confidence and assurance as we face the wave of death, as the song says, that as these trials give way to glory and we take our final breath, we will cross that great horizon, clouds behind and life secured, and the calm will be the better for the storms that we endure.

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Fathers, help us to have that confidence. Father, remind us as we proclaim the gospel to ourselves that we needn't fear the end, that the conquering lion of Judah has gone forward and he has defeated death and we walk in his wake.

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And Father, as we celebrate the victory of your son in this table, we're about to come to, may our hearts be reminded afresh of all that he has done for us.

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And may our souls be strengthened as we partake of his vital means of grace. We ask this in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen.