The End of the Dash - Genesis 35:16-29

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starting this sermon on a somber note but to honor our text today in Genesis and to face the reality of life that we all experience
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I must tell you that each each of us will die this doesn't come as a surprise to you but it's something that most of our world if you think about it runs from the prospect that they will die even though everybody knows it is inevitable it's always sobering walking through a cemetery because you see gravestones that mark lives that were once lived on earth you have the year of birth and the year of death with the dash in between to explain the significance of that dash
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I'm going to read an excellent poem written by a former pastor named
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Joseph Fewton titled dash between the dates so I want you to listen closely to this poem this is what he wrote he said
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Napoleon's tombstone is huge Churchill's is simple that eternal flame burns over the grave of President John Kennedy very different lives very different markers as deferring as each was from the other their lives share at least one common mark the dash between the dates on every tombstone whether simple or ornate there is only one dash or hyphen between the dates the character and quality of our lives very greatly yet when all is said and done we become precisely equal they put one dash between the birth date and the death date we get one dash through life that's it no seconds no restarts everybody finishes some dash through life with great flair and style others become a quiet blur some were run with long strides leaving only toe marks in the sand most leave an erratic trail of footprints with more than a few heel marks many show evidence of being lost it having lost their direction they run all the faster the content of our dash varies but in the end the workmen still chisel only a dash and it reminds us of the stark truth justice man is destined to die once and after that to face judgment that's
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Hebrews 927 so Christ was sacrificed wants to take away the sins of many people in the end men reduce all living to the cold mark on the stone and those of us who live a life worthy of the
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Lord following in the footsteps of Jesus find the end of earth's dash to be the beginning of heaven's glory and quote as this quote mentions we all get one life and the choice you make concerning Jesus Christ determines whether you will go on to eternal happiness or eternal misery when one dies in Christ Christians rightly call this a home going we are sending this believer to their eternal home now today in Genesis chapter 35 16 to 29 as we continue our service series through Genesis we are going to see two home goings one was expected and one was not but in either case death was not to be feared since they belonged to the
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Lord so I encourage you to turn with me to Genesis 35 looking at verses 16 through 29 if you're using a red
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Bible in the page 35 the sermon is titled the end of the dash the end of the dash and our big idea our proposition is that death is no longer an oppressive enemy for the believer death is no longer an oppressive enemy for the believer we're gonna see two reasons why in this text the first reason why is that believers are able to grieve as those who have great hope believers are those who are able to grieve as those who have great hope and you'll see that in in the bulletin on the outline that's in there and we'll see this in verses 16 through 22 see but before we jump into our sermon text today
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I'm gonna give you a little bit of a recap of last week's sermon in Genesis the first 15 verses of chapter 35 we looked at another encounter where the
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Lord spoke directly to Jacob what we saw is that the Lord always leads his people to blessing we saw three ways how
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God leads his people to green pasture the first way how is by calling us to have both feet in in our walk with the
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Lord the Lord calls us to be all in for the most abundant life there is the
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Lord told Jacob to leave Shechem and to go to Bethel and Jacob's family and all his people were to give up their idols those metal figurines that Rachel and the rest of them had carried along with them they were called not to have part allegiance to the
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Lord and part allegiance to other gods but rather to have full allegiance to the Lord alone and the application for us is clear we must be all in for God he doesn't want to have one foot in and one foot out in the second way how we saw the
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Lord leads his people to blessing is by delivering us repeatedly through trials Jacob said that the
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Lord is the one who always delivers him in times of distress in the passage last week he delivered
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Jacob from distress by literally putting the fear of God in the Canaanites these people who outnumbered
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Jacob and his people by many miraculously feared Jacob probably because of the reputation the
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Lord had in this region they knew the mighty works he had done in the past and they knew
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Jacob belonged to him and in this way the Lord delivered Jacob from his distress by preventing disaster from happening and the
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Lord does the same for us he delivers us in our day of distress as we face trials throughout the life of faith and the third way how we saw that the
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Lord leads his people to bless it is by reminding us of our very bright future the
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Lord reminded Jacob who he was by telling him his name once again Israel that was the new name the
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Lord gave him and the Lord named Jacob Israel in chapter 32 when
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God wrestled with him he named him this because this was his transformation this was the moment when
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Jacob gave himself fully to the Lord so by reminding him that this is your name as we saw last week in that text what he's saying to him is that this is who you are and this is your bright future you belong to me and all these promises that I made to you
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I'm going to keep the promises that your people are going to enter the land of Canaan the land of promise and your offspring is going to continue to prosper and he says to him you are mine and how comforting that is to each of us to that the
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Lord makes these same promises to us as well and our future is bright in our position is such a bright position because of who we are in him and of course the
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Bible always reminds us of who we are and we can go anywhere in Scripture to see the play the pleasant and wonderful place we hold in Jesus Christ so with that this leads us to our text today last
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Sunday we saw that they journeyed from Shechem to Bethel remember they're going north to south and today we're going to see them continue their journey south in the land of Canaan and as they do this tragedy is going to strike so let's begin by reading verse 16 then they journeyed from Bethel when they were still some distance from Ephrath Rachel went into labor and she had hard labor but let's stop right there what we will learn in this narrative is that Jacob is heading south from Bethel to be with his ailing father
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Isaac given her from Isaac in a while but we're going to hear we're going to finally conclude his life here today these are
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Isaac's last days and Jacob wants to see him before he dies but before we get to that Jacob is about to face a death he did not expect verse 16 notes that Rachel went into labor and specifically the text says that this was a hard labor and as she's about to have this son the unthinkable happens verses 17 and 18 and when her labor was at its hardest the midwife said to her do not fear for you have another son and as her soul was departing for she was dying she called his name of Ben only what his father called him
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Benjamin so Rachel has a very difficult labor to the point where her body starts to give out and the midwife who was with Jacob and Rachel tells her before she dies not to fear because you are about to have a son and she's saying this because she wants to cheer her up she knows she's dying but in an effort to give her cheer she's telling him the
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Sun is on the way the Sun is coming out of your womb and why would this have been comforting to Rachel we have to remember back the story of Rachel earlier remember
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Rachel was the one who had difficulty having children Leah the other wife of Jacob had no trouble having children
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Rachel had to wait a long time until Joseph finally came and at the end of her life here she has her second son and his name as we see is
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Benjamin and as she faces death there was no cheer on her part because because of the physical pain that she was feeling as she's dying in verse 18 she notes that the name here is
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Ben only which in Hebrew means the son of my sorrow or son of my strength and she names him this in her grief as she's in tremendous pain as she's leaving this world however
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Jacob names him something more favorable a better name that fits him more appropriately and that is
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Benjamin this in Hebrew means son of the right hand we see the word right hand show up a lot in scripture it said that Jesus is at the right hand of the father what this means is that this is a place of honor this is a place of favor so you would be more of a favorable name for the son that came out as we read this we must understand how painful this would have been for Jacob losing
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Rachel we must remember that Jacob had two primary wives and two secondary servant women who are also his wives and yes this is polygamy and I explained polygamy before we always have a hard time understanding why was this happening in the
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Bible and I'll just give a reason here again polygamy is not something that scripture supports but the
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Lord tolerated tolerated it among his people for a time and out of these two wives
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Rachel was loved more than Leah Rachel was the woman of Jacob's dreams and now she suddenly dies and as Jacob was going to say goodbye to his father he did not plan on saying goodbye to the love of his life as well his grief would have been enormous we can see why
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Joseph and Benjamin would have been Jacob's favorite sons they both come from Rachel the woman he loved deeply and God is not teaching us that this is right but Jacob's favoritism is a reality that we see in the text the love that Jacob had for Rachel's son
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Joseph sets the stage for our future narrative that will be looking at for several months in Genesis chapter chapters 37 through 50 and we're almost to that point here and that long narrative will close out
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Genesis will spend lots of time with that down the road but I want to give you a little heads up about that right here as Jacob carried his grief with him his love for these two sons
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Joseph and Benjamin would only increase following her death Jacob gives a proper burial to his beloved wife verses 19 and 20 so Rachel died and she was buried on the way to Ephrath that is
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Bethlehem and Jacob set up a pillar over her tomb it is the pillar of Rachel's tomb which is there to this day so what
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Jacob does to remember Rachel's death is to set up a pillar over the place where she was buried you ever wonder why people throughout history have buried their dead and why people bury their dead today the belief inside people's soul
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Christians or not is that this life is not all there is this life is just the beginning and there's more to come in the future
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Ecclesiastes 311 explains God has put eternity in man's heart what that means is that we have this awareness that there's something after this life we all have this inherent belief in us because we're all created by God and the common practice among believers and unbelievers is burying the body and this symbolizes the continuation of life after death why did
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Egyptians embalm their dead by wrapping them in cloths or what we call mummies the
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Egyptians believe that the that the preserved body was a home for the spirit if the body were burned they believe that the spirit would be lost that's why they went through such pain to preserve these bodies so the belief that life goes on forever is not unique to biblical
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Christianity the belief that people cease to exist is very rare in human history the dominant belief that shows up in different religions and different cultures is that the soul continues after death and of course these beliefs have it right in that sense however only scripture tells us the truth about life after death the
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Bible teaches us that everyone either goes to heaven or hell at death you only enter paradise if you have genuinely trusted in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and for your salvation and if you look back at verse 18 you can see that when the soul departs from the body the body dies as the soul is departing
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Rachel's body here the body is done that's when death officially happens this is this is very interesting as we think about this humans have two parts we have a physical part and we have a spirit the body the material in the soul the immaterial soul and spirit means the same thing it's just different words and what scripture teaches us is that without the soul the body cannot live
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James 226 says the body without the spirit is dead so when your soul leaves the body you go either to a place of blessedness with the
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Lord or a place of torment in the New Testament in Luke 16 the parable of the rich man and Lazarus details this the rich man was an unbeliever and he went to a place of torment while Lazarus was a believer and he went to be with the
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Lord so as Jacob is mourning his wife he is not mourning as one who has no hope rather he is mourning as one who has great hope because not only did
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Jacob belong to the Lord but Rachel did as well so through burying her and putting up a pillar he is trusting that this is a goodbye for now not permanently the burial is intended to communicate the hope that there will be a future resurrection and that's why the body is being preserved through burial and you might wonder
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I wondered if I should even mention this is cremation okay as a question people have and what
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I'll say about that is it it's not gonna make a difference like God's not gonna curse you you know you know through cremation or anything like that but the history of the church and the history of the
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Jewish people the tradition has been always to bury the body because of the future hope in the resurrection of the dead you know it's like I said if you decide cremation or if someone your loved one has been cremated in the past don't don't fear and say you know we made a horrible mistake that would be superstitious and we don't want to go there but there the body has been traditionally buried in the history of the church and and so if you ask me
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Seth should I bury my body or cremate I'm gonna tell you to bury the body but again if you chose to cremate I wouldn't
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I wouldn't say it you know it's not a prohibition okay does that make sense kind of so it's not
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I wouldn't say it's sinful to do that but it's probably not the best path to take so anyway with that I didn't plan on saying that but I figured this might be the time to say that now 16th century reformer
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John Kelvin says it says this concerning her burial concerning the very over Rachel her burial is mentioned to which the
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Holy Fathers could not have attended with such religious care except on account of their hope of the future resurrection and whenever therefore we read concerning their burial the dead as if they were anxious about the performance of some extraordinary duty let us think of that end to which
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I have spoken for it was no foolish ceremony but a lively symbol of the future resurrection okay so he's saying they're not setting up this pillar to say oh look at us look at the life we lived and to try to leave that kind of a legacy but he's saying the burial of the body was with with Rachel here is to say there's going to be a future resurrection and that is what
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Jacob is doing here so what Jacob is doing here is he's saying goodbye to Rachel for now because they both had a relationship with the
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Lord Jacob has a sure hope that he will meet her again and how beautiful this is
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I want to close this first point by reading the last two verses of it and then
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I'll show you how this ties in with Jacob's grief in the midst of hope verses 21 and 22
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Israel journeyed on and pitched his tent beyond the Tower of Edir and while Israel lived in that land
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Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father's concubine and Israel heard of it okay let's stop right there now to remind you
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Jacob has he's had twelve sons through four women Rachel Leah and the two servant women
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Bilhah and Zilpah and through these women they've had twelve sons and one daughter the daughter of course is
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Dinah and what we see here is that Reuben did something very sinful so one of the sons here did something very sinful by laying with one of his wives
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Bilhah the author Moses only knows that Israel heard of it but he would not have been happy with this for two reasons number one obviously he committed adultery with the woman who belonged to Jacob and the second reason here is even more severe to Jacob and that is that this would have challenged
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Jacob's position as head of the household Reuben was Jacob's firstborn child and by flippantly having sexual relations with one of his father's wife he's putting himself in the position of his father we know that Jacob was furious with Reuben because of what the end of Genesis says that's the part of the book where he gives his blessings to his sons and whatever blessing he gave his sons would be this experience of the ancestors that came from that son and what he says in Genesis 49 3 through 4 he says concerning Reuben he says unstable as water you shall not have preeminence because you went up to your father's bed then he defiled it he went up to my couch so what
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Jacob did is he removed the firstborn label from Reuben for his transgression against him so Reuben's offspring would not have as great of experience in the future as they would have if their ancestor did not do such a foolish thing and in this context it's very sad what
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Reuben does to his father here Reuben came from Leah the woman that Jacob did not love as much as Rachel his son dishonored his father by sinning against him in this way to sin this way at any time would have been horrible but to sin against him grieving the loss of Rachel makes it even worse it takes it to another level but even through all this pain
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Jacob still has great hope he knows that he will be with the Lord when he dies and he knows that he will also see his wife
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Rachel again death no longer is an oppressive enemy for the believer and the first reason why is that believers are able to grieve as those who have great hope there will be a future reunion in the future with your loved ones and as I say that I want to emphasize to that we are main hope in going to heaven should not be to see our loved ones again it should be to see
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Jesus Christ and he's the one for whom we were created to be in the presence of God but that being said it's okay to long to be reunited it's just not as your greatest hope so that's the first reason why believers are able to grieve as those who have great hope the second reason why death no longer has is an oppressive enemy for the believer is that believers final moments will be very pleasant and we'll see this in the rest of our text versus the end of verse 22 through 29 now we are going to see a tremendous legacy that Jacob's father leaves as he dies and he's going to leave this world with the light shining since he belongs to the
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Lord and before we get to Isaac's death let's first look at the grandchildren that came from him the end of verse 22 tells us that the sons of Jacob were 12 and the birth of Benjamin as we have seen this passage tallies the total of Jacob's sons up to that number 12 he had 12 sons one daughter so we see here that the
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Lord has richly blessed Jacob with many offspring so let's read this line that comes from Isaac through his son
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Jacob now the sons of Jacob were 12 the sons of Leah Rubin Jacob's firstborn Simeon Levi Judah Issachar and Zebulon the sons of Rachel Joseph and Benjamin the sons of Bilhah Rachel's servant
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Dan and Naphtali the sons of Zilpah Leah's servant Gad and Asher these were the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Padan Aram now this is a rich legacy for Jacob and for Jacob's father
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Isaac we're about to read about Isaac on his deathbed and Isaac would have been very proud to have these grandchildren these 12 grandsons and his granddaughter
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Dinah now some of them would have grieved him right because they did some foolish things just like we saw
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Rubin do we saw Simeon and Levi do something very foolish last week when they when they slaughtered
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Shechem and all of the people with him as well and and Jacob was very ashamed that his sons had did this but still some of them would have been a blessing and the fact that the
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Lord is continuing his offspring in such a large number would have made Isaac very proud and some of you here today have grandchildren or great -grandchildren and and you know the wonderful blessing it is to have that line continue
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I know that we we just had Isaiah on March 13th and Brianna's parents of course were overjoyed to come visit him when he first came out of the womb and and then also my parents were so thrilled to come meet him finally and as parents of course you know the joy of having a child but you grandparents know the joy of having grandchildren as well and Isaac here would have would have been overjoyed to have all these children come from his line and I think quite a bit about the fact to with my own life that I'm continuing my grandparents legacy
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I most of all want to please the Lord with my life but I also want my grandparents who are with the
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Lord right now to be pleased with the life that I am living and I have a picture here actually
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I showed this to Mark and Rob the other day but this is a picture of this is my great -grandfather right here he's in a
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World War I uniform and then this is my grandfather I've talked about him quite a bit
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Mel Lysy this is from my mom's side of the family but this is such a neat picture because they're my great -grandfather he's in his
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World War I uniform and my grandfather Mel Lysy is in his World War II uniform and these two men were very godly men
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I have a long Christian legacy on my mom's side and so I'm thinking I want to continue that legacy with these men and that my mom continued after them and I want to continue as well if you want to look at this afterwards you can do that I'm not sure maybe you don't but if you do you can take a look it's kind of I know we like history in this church so it's a neat need to need to see that so I put that on my desk because it's an inspiration to me saying
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I want to I want to continue their legacy the that blessing from the
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Lord and what a blessing it is to have a strong Christian legacy from generation to generation and I want to note here too that if you're single and you've never married if you never had children you still can have a tremendous legacy it doesn't just come through having offspring which which is a legacy but that's not the only place where legacies are think about Jesus Christ he never married he never had any children and he has the greatest legacy of all
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I think about the Apostle Paul some people think he's the greatest Christian who ever lived he never married he never had any children and what a legacy he left so I so I want to note that here as we talk about the legacy of having children from generation to generation but certainly it is rich to have family that continues a
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God -honoring legacy after you now Moses after listing Isaac's legacy by listing
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Jacob's sons describes that Jacob was with Isaac when he died verses 27 through 29 and Jacob came to his father
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Isaac at Mamre or Kiriath Arba that is Hebron where Abraham and Isaac had sojourned now the days of Isaac were 180 years and Isaac breathed his last and he died and was gathered to his people old and full of days and his sons
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Esau and Jacob buried him so Jacob arrived at Hebron to see his father
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Isaac one last time in this life before he departed but once again this is only goodbye for now verse 27 notes that Isaac was at Hebron the place where Abraham had lived if there was a hometown for Abraham and Isaac Hebron would have been the place now verse 28 tells us that when
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Isaac died he was 180 years old and verse 29 tells us that Isaac breathed his last that he died and was gathered to his people we've seen the phrase gathered to his people before in Genesis in Genesis chapter 25 verse 8 and when
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I said way back when I preached that text is that this is referring to the afterlife the
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New Testament is a lot more clear about the afterlife than the Old Testament is but the Old Testament has hints of it and this is one of those hints right here in the context the place of blessing this is where Isaac was going to he was he was being gathered to his father
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Abraham and all of the Saints who had died before him that's what the phrase means gathered to his people and we can call this heaven in an
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Old Testament sense how it would have been at that point in history and what the text indicates is that Isaac was ready to die and I say this based on the words that he was old and full of days and what this means is he lived a life full of maturity in the
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Lord the same was said of Abraham in 25 verse 9 that text says that he died in a good old age an old man and full of years so you can see that this is describing a life well lived and as I was reading his words this week
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John Calvin again helped me out to see this I mentioned a quote of him earlier and this quote is worth listening to so I encourage you to listen to it closely what he says here and he's talking about the phrase old and full of days and this is what he wrote he says
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I refer these words not merely to the duration of Isaac's life the length of his life but also to the state of his feelings implying that Isaac being satisfied with life willingly and calmly departed out of the world for we may see certain decrepit old men who are not less desirous of life than they were in the flower of their age or so in the prime of their life they still want to live just as much then and with one foot in the grave they still have a horror of death he's describing unbelievers therefore the long life is reckoned among the blessings of God yet it is not enough for men to be able to count up a great number of years unless they feel that they have lived long and be satisfied with the favor of God and with their own age prepare themselves for their departure now in order that old men may have their minds formed to this kind of moderation it is wise of them to have a good conscience to the end that they may not flee from the presence of God for an evil conscience pursues and agitates the wicked with terror and quote you get that he's talking about the pleasantness of living a good life for the
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Lord and how it's it's pleasant to leave this life you actually want to leave this life where an unbeliever holds on to this life and they're agitated with anxiety because they don't know what's going to happen to them we all have the sense that we're gonna be judged right based on what we have done it's wise for each of us to think about the end of our life it's very wise there is a great satisfaction that can come over a person in whom the
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Lord has done a great work I've been with Christians before they have died and I've seen
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Christians who are content with the Lord's work in their life and they are ready to enter his presence and I know
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Rob and Karen you told me a story recently about a friend up in Superior where they used to live and he had
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Lou Gehrig's disease and he was towards the end of his life and he was a man who sent out verses of the day just like Rob is doing to some of our men now and they described how peaceful he was you know he knew he was going to die and he was right at the end and that's true of all believers there's a certain peace of mind that comes and what a wonderful place to be a ministry that I've been helped by is the ministry of desiring
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God and I've heard them say that their mission is to help people die well it doesn't mean just make people comfortable physically what that means is spiritually that you're ready to go and it starts when you are young and if you're not young it starts today if you're not walking closely with the
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Lord deciding to follow the Lord long before your death will lead to a remarkable peace of mind before you leave this world you will have a great contentment that is indescribable and this is not to say that it will that your death will be painless the physical pain that accompanies death will be there or may be there what
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I'm talking about is the mind the spirit the emotions the believers ending is peaceful while the unbelievers is not and to give you a real -life illustration of this so my grandfather
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I probably should have put it up on the screen I apologize for that but yes so he's right here so he died in 2009
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July July 6 2009 at the age of 87 and he was a man who lived from his youth to the age of 87 he lived a very faithful life to the
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Lord and I saw him take his last breath my family was surrounding him as he passed and the nurse noted she said he seems very peaceful he seems like he's ready to go and she also noted
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I found this very fascinating she said not all people are like this when they die and it made me think well unbelievers don't have that piece right but my my grandfather did because he knew the
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Lord so it's fascinating to it was fascinating to hear her say that he lived a life old and full of days just as Isaac did and he breathed his last and entered forever glory in the presence of God and we want everyone's life to finish with a pleasant ending a pleasant feeling in the soul that accompanies a life lived full of joy and full of years as this text describes so death is no longer an oppressive enemy for the believer the second reason why is that believers final moments will be very pleasant so to summarize our sermon here death is no longer an oppressive enemy and we've seen two reasons why the first is that believers are able to grieve as those who have great hope and the second reason why is that believers final moments will be very pleasant now as I say all of this all this applies to you only if you belong to the
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Lord as I've mentioned if you have believed that Christ died in your place for your sins at the cross and was raised from the dead on the third day in order into in order to bring you into a relationship with God then this can be said of you and you are in this wonderful position however if you are here today and you have never trusted in Christ for your salvation the offer is there it's right out for the taking and and I call you to believe in the
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Lord scripture says believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved and in this way you will have a sure hope and you'll never have to fear death that the passage
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I read earlier in the service today from Hebrews 2 death is this is this inevitable slave that hangs over everybody but when you know
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Jesus Christ it's gone you're free because you live for you live forever with him and this and death for the believer is the transition from one life to the next and then one day in the future when
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Jesus Christ returns to the earth he's gonna reunite your soul with a new body that will never grow old that will never be weak that will never have any decay and that's the hope that we have as followers of the
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Lord what a great hope it is I don't know what gets you out of bed in the morning that's what gets me out of bed and I pray that it would get all of us out of bed to have that great hope in the
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Lord knowing that if we were to take our last breath is this night tonight we could it could happen that we would be in the presence of God safe and secure to enjoy him forever let's pray
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Father in heaven what a great joy Lord it is to to know you what a great joy
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Lord it is to be with the people of God in this room what a joy
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Lord it is to be able to be set of us that we live life full of days and some of us
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Lord will die in a good old age and some of us may die younger and if that's the case Lord that's your plan for our life and and we trust the plan that you have for our life and I pray that we would trust the plans that you have for our life and I thank you
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Lord for the death is no longer an oppressive enemy for the believer what a great hope that is words can't describe how wonderful that is to realize
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Lord that as we get older each year and as each day we get closer to meet you we should not grieve but have greater and greater hope as the days go on and we say thank you to the to you for this