This is chapter 49, we are in the
middle of a scene where Jacob is sick.
Jacob has already called Joseph to his bedside
and made Joseph swear an oath that he
would not bury him in Egypt but back
in Canaan in the cave of Mephila.
Now he knew that Joseph had the political
clout to make sure that would happen.
So he had already called Joseph in to
swear that he would do that, thinking at
that time that he was ready to die.
He wasn't.
Time went on.
But now Joseph has gotten word that Jacob
is sick and Joseph now comes to his
father with Ephraim and Manasseh.
It says that when Jacob heard Joseph was
coming, interesting it changes, that Israel propped himself
up, his higher nature called as he stood
himself up, no doubt propping himself up on
his staff from Hebrews 11.21. And Joseph
came in and he spoke with Joseph and
he reminded Joseph of how God had first
appeared to him and then spoke to Joseph
how his mother Rachel had died.
And no doubt if Rachel had been his
first wife and that's what he intended, she
may have been his only wife and Joseph
may well have been his firstborn.
And because of the sins of Reuben and
Simeon and Levi, now Jacob has pronounced the
right of the firstborn on Joseph in that
not giving a double portion to Joseph himself
but taking his two sons and saying to
Joseph these two now will be called by
my name.
Any children you have after this, Joseph, are
yours.
But these two, Ephraim and Manasseh, will now
be called by my name.
They are now my children.
Their heritage will not be as princes of
Egypt and the wealth that comes to them
will not be a physical wealth from this
land but it will be a spiritual heritage
and they will be named now amongst my
sons among the tribes.
So Ephraim and Manasseh now have received a
blessing from Jacob.
He is blind.
It says the Lord is making his hands
to know as he places his right hand
on Ephraim and his left hand on Manasseh.
He is filled with the Spirit.
And after he blesses Ephraim and Manasseh, now
he calls for all of his sons to
come.
Evidently the same sequence.
Chapter 49 says Jacob called unto his sons
and said gather yourselves together that I may
tell you that which shall befall you, notice,
in the last days.
Jacob, blind, 147 years old.
Gather yourselves together here, notice, ye sons of
Jacob, but now harken which is to obey
unto Israel your father.
The man now speaking from the higher calling,
Israel.
Great privilege he has here.
Remember that Abraham passed off the scene and
we don't get many details of his death.
But in Abraham the stream was narrowed to
the Messianic line.
Ishmael was divided off and the blessing came
strictly upon Isaac.
In Isaac's life the stream was narrowed and
Esau was separated off and the blessing came
strictly upon Jacob.
But now Jacob, now the stream is widening
as it were, all 12 of his sons
are there and he now is able to
bless all of them and pronounce blessing on
all of them as he is ready to
pass off the scene.
And no doubt this is the highest point
spiritually in the man's life.
Now Hebrews chapter 11 verse 21 tells us
that.
It says, by faith Jacob when he was
dying blessed Ephraim and Manasseh and worshipped upon
his staff.
There it tells us that the highest manifestation
of faith in the life of this man
was in his passing.
And again, no doubt, I think for all
of us, you know Jacob, Jacob was the
man of a great contradictory personality.
He longed for the higher things, but he
always got his own hands involved.
You know, he, he believed in God, but
he trusted that God needed his help to
get things done.
And he always meddled.
And you can't relate to that at all,
I'm sure, by the blank stares on your
faces.
But he believed God, but he thought he
was God's little helper.
And on one side there was great faith
and the other side there was great mistrust.
And he was the great human portrayed before
us.
And we don't have any details really of
Abraham's death or Isaac's death, but we're given
great detail now of Jacob in his passing.
And I believe that's because it's at this
moment, he can't lend any of his own
energies to this.
He, at the end of chapter 49, it
says, will yield up the ghost and willingly
cast himself off into the hands of God.
And he has nothing to do with it.
He cannot contribute to this experience.
And yet it's in this experience that he
gives the greatest glory and trust to God.
And I think in all of our lives,
when that time comes, that is really the
crux of our faith, isn't it?
We believe that Jesus has forgiven our sins
and that we will have life beyond the
grave.
And with all the things that we do
from here, and we can say, I'm led
of the Lord and the Lord really give
me a burden for this.
And I want to be involved in the
missions field, the harvest crusade.
But there comes a point in time when
we know we're going to be breathing our
last.
And it's at that moment, if we move
into eternity with our hearts filled with faith,
trusting him and cast ourselves into the hands
of God, that is the greatest and clearest
testimony we can give to a lost world,
that we trust God as we step through
the veil into eternity, that his hands will
be there to receive us.
And in the life of Jacob, that's what
we see here in a remarkable way.
Now, again, I think this is the way
I want to go.
You know, I want to be, if the
Lord tarries and I have to die a
natural death, I'm hoping to be yanked out
here at a trumpet blast.
But if the Lord tarries, I would love
to be there with my children gathered around
my bed, filled with the Holy Ghost, prophesy,
bless them all, remember to clean your room
when I'm gone, you know, whatever I have
to say to them.
And then, and then it says Jacob gathers
up his legs into the bed and he
yields up the ghost.
He prophesies over all the kids, pulls his
legs up, says goodbye, blasts off.
And I think what dignity and what grace
and what beauty.
And I know there are many people that
die under very difficult circumstances.
There are Christians that die suffering from cancer.
And there are Christians who die at that
time shaken in their faith, maybe even doubting.
And I understand that.
And I don't have easy answers for them.
And I don't know why God in his
sovereignty allows everything that he allows.
But the assurances of his love are greater
than the amount of unanswered questions I have
to deal with.
The demonstration of his goodness far outweighs any
doubts that I can dream up about why
he does what he does.
And Jacob now here, filled with the Spirit,
calls all of his sons and begins to
prophesy.
Blind in his physical eye, but seeing further
in his heart than he ever has before.
Reuben is firstborn.
Thou art my firstborn, my might, the beginning
of my strength, the excellency of dignity, the
excellency of power.
Unstable, or boiling, your translation might say, as
water.
Thou shalt not excel, because thou wentest up
to thy father's bed, then defilest thou it.
He went up to my couch.
Remember, it was Reuben who went to bed
with one of his father's concubines, Bilhah, and
disgraced his father.
So it's very interesting to see these men.
And in each case, Jacob is taking a
reflection of their historic life and projecting that
onto the history of the tribe.
It's very remarkable, because as we hear Moses
reiterate in Deuteronomy 33, he's saying the same
things.
And most remarkably, when we get to Joshua
and they draw lots for the land, they
fall out exactly the way Jacob said they
would here way back hundreds of years earlier
in Genesis 49.
So this is a beautiful movement and is
very powerful.
He says of Reuben, something's going to characterize
the entire history of the tribe now, that
they won't excel.
And we know that it will be Reuben,
Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh that
will refuse to enter into the land.
They will go across to fight until there's
victory.
But then they're the ones that are first
defeated when the Assyrians come and other nations
invade.
So he says of Reuben, he won't excel.
Now he says the problem with the man
was he was given to lust.
He was boiling.
He went up to his father's bed, did
something disgraceful.
I challenge you this evening, if you are
given to lust, you need to make some
decisions.
Some very simple ones would be, do not
have pornography in your home.
Do not walk past magazine racks where there
is pornography.
There are people who are tortured by those
things.
There's a pastor that's involved with Calvary.
When he goes to a hotel, he won't
go into the hotel room until he has
them remove the TV from the room.
Because he knows his own struggles and he
won't even face the temptation.
I think that's wisdom.
And if you fall into sexual sin, how
much will you excel after that?
And the church is and I'm not saying
archers, but the church by and large is
filled with compromise.
People that are living in sin saying that
it's okay with God.
And there's a process there whereby people are
self-deceived.
First John says, first of all, if we
say we don't have to sin, we lie
to ourselves.
That's hypocrisy.
And then he goes on to say that
if we if we say that we don't
have sin, we deceive ourselves.
That's duplicity.
We lie to ourselves.
And you know someone when they're in sin,
they're lying to themselves.
They actually start to believe their own story.
And you look at them and think, what
is wrong with this person?
And ultimately it says, if we say we
have not sinned, we make God a liar.
That's apostasy.
Finally, when they're saying that God is approving
of their lifestyle.
And there's a process whereby we slip into
that.
Is restoration possible?
Yes, it is.
To what degree?
I don't know.
Will we ever be what we would have
been before we fell into sexual sin?
I don't know that.
Charles Spurgeon said when a man's repentance is
as far as as far known as his
sin, that maybe then it's time for restoration.
Alan Redpath said that David in his sin
was like a bird with his wings clipped.
He would fly again, but never as high.
And when we look at the life of
David, we think, how great of a man
might he have been if he hadn't fallen
into adultery, Bathsheba and killed Uriah?
Yes, God was gracious to him.
But this is a definite thing that plagues
the church and it plagues our society.
It's demonstrated in the life of Reuben.
And Jacob says he will not excel.
He was given to sexual desire.
Next, he prophesies about Simeon and Levi.
Simeon and Levi are brethren.
Instruments of cruelty are in their habitation.
O my soul, come not thou into their
secret, on to their assembly.
Mine honor be not thou united.
For in their anger they slew a man
and in their self will they dig down
a wall or they hamstrung oxen, depending on
your translation.
Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce.
And their wrath, for it was cruel.
I will divide them in Jacob and scatter
them in Israel.
Now, Simeon and Levi, remember the two brothers
that went in and slaughtered all the men
in Shechem, and it says evidently they willfully
had just hamstrung the oxen or tore down
the walls of the city as they slaughtered
the men.
Again, here is this pronouncement against anger and
being given to that kind of wrath and
outburst.
And it says because of their anger they
will not all will be honored.
That they'll be divided among Jacob.
The interesting thing was, of course, that Simeon
was absorbed into Judah, as we look at
the tribes, and Levi ends up without an
inheritance.
They end up being the priestly line, but
they end up without.
They're scattered amongst Jacob and Israel, just as
he prophesies.
But the point is, again, anger.
And you know what?
We all have anger.
Anger is a necessary thing.
Jesus had anger.
He overturned the tables of the money changers.
Anger is not a wrong thing.
What's wrong with anger is we do stupid
things when we're angry.
Punch holes in sheetrock walls.
I'm talking to the guys, unless your wife's
really something.
Break furniture.
You know, when you get tired of getting
out the Elmer's glue and the spackle, and
you know, and then once you get mad,
then you get madder because you got mad.
If you're given to that kind of thing,
you need to pray and you need to
realize, look, God gave us anger.
If I see somebody molesting my kids, I'd
better have anger.
I'd better have anger because I don't love
them if I don't.
Anger is a necessary part of love.
God has anger.
It's part of his nature.
He's angry at sin.
He's angry at Satan destroying the world.
Jesus was angry at the hypocrisy in the
temple when he overturned the tables of the
money changers.
Anger is a good thing and a necessary
thing, and without it, we'd be impotent emotionally.
But to be given to wrath in a
foolish, selfish way is wrong, and he condemns
it here.
They also not fulfilling their potential as men.
Judah now.
Now, as we go through this, Judah and
Joseph are the two primary focuses in these
prophecies.
Judah will represent ultimately the southern tribes, and
Joseph slash Ephraim, i.e. Israel.
Ephraim and Israel will be interchangeable, will represent
the northern ten tribes, and certainly these two
prophecies are the longest around Judah and around
Joseph, and they do end up to become
the dominant forces amongst the tribes.
So Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren
shall praise.
Judah means praise.
Thy hand shall be on the neck of
thine enemies.
Thy father's children shall bow down before thee,
the other tribes of Israel.
Judah is a lion's whelp.
From the prey, my son, thou art gone
up.
He stooped down, he couched as a lion
and as an old lion who shall rouse
him up.
Of course, we will see Jesus as the
lion of the tribe of Judah, and there
are many reflections here of the Messiah in
this prophecy.
The scepter shall not depart from Judah, that
is, one that will reign or a lawgiver.
The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor
a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh,
or the one to whom it belongs, seems
to be what Shiloh indicates come, and unto
him shall be the gathering of the people,
or the obedience of the people, and certainly
a prophecy of Christ.
Now, it is interesting that Moses will come
to power, but of the tribe of Levi.
Joshua will come to power of the tribe
of Ephraim.
Gideon is from Manasseh.
Samson is from Dan.
Samuel is from Ephraim.
Saul is from Benjamin.
It will be 640 years until David comes
to the throne.
He is of the tribe of Judah, and
then there is a succession of kings from
the tribe of Judah.
And the word Judah then becomes synonymous with
the word Jew.
As the northern tribes are carried away, and
finally Judah is carried to Babylon as they
come back to the land, and they are
known as the Jews.
It is about 4 to 6 A.D.
when the Romans take the right away from
the Jews to execute the death sentence.
They retained the right to stone those who
were taken in adultery, and stoning was their
means of execution, to stone those who were
guilty of premeditated manslaughter.
But about 4 to 6 A.D., as
Rome was in power, they took the right
from the Sanhedrin to execute the death sentence,
and it was at that time the high
priest went through Jerusalem weeping, saying that the
word of God had been broken because the
scepter had departed from Judah and Shiloh had
not come.
Of course, the high priest did not know
that in a carpenter shop in Nazareth, the
Messiah was making door jams ready to step
onto the scene, and the word of God
had been fulfilled exactly as the Scripture says.
So, it says, the scepter shall not depart
from Judah nor a lawgiver from between his
feet until Shiloh come, and unto him shall
the gathering of the people be, binding his
foal unto the vine, doesn't it sound like
the triumphal entry?
And his ass's coal unto the choice vine.
Then, it seems to look prophetically to the
last days, he washed his garments in wine,
Isaiah 63, his clothes in the blood of
grapes, and Judah being a very productive area
as far as vineyards.
And the eyes, his eyes shall be red
with wine, and his teeth shall be white
with milk, speaking of grazing, planting, plenty, agriculturally,
and certainly that is true of Judah.
Zebulun now, short prophecy, shall dwell at the
haven of the sea, and he shall be
for a haven of ships, and his border
shall be against Zidon.
So, he was adjoining Zidon, he was just
several miles from the sea, Asher reached up
between him and the sea, but Zebulun was
enriched by the trading from the sea, he
was close enough that that took place.
Moses also makes mention of it.
Issachar is a strong ass, counting down between
two burdens, like a donkey that is burdened
down between the mountain ranges.
Esraldin, the valley of Jezreel, the valley of
Armageddon, that's what we're talking about here in
the inheritance of Issachar.
And he saw that rest was good, and
the land that it was pleasant, and bowed
his shoulder to bear, and became a servant
to tribute.
Through the land of Zebulun there, the Vimarae,
the way of the sea, and the valley
of the kings that would travel.
Israel's a land bridge between Africa, Asia, and
Europe, and there was constantly struggle in that
part of the world, and particularly in this
inheritance of Issachar, rather, with the Vimarae, the
way of the sea, that they would travel
through the land.
So, he ends up in tribute to many
different kings, paying taxes and being subjection.
Dan shall judge his people as one of
the tribes of Israel.
Dan shall be a serpent by the way,
an adder in the path that biteth the
horse's heels, so that his rider shall fall
backward.
Now, we're not sure everything that Jacob is
seeing as he prophesies about Dan.
Dan is omitted in Revelation chapter 7.
There are some who say they believe the
Antichrist will come from Dan.
I don't know if that's true at all.
But as the 144,000 are named, Dan
is not named there in God's counting the
tribes in Revelation.
Dan certainly is a troubler of Israel, like
an adder biting at the horse's heel and
causing the horse to go up and the
rider to fall backwards and stumble.
Dan would be the one who would not
be satisfied with their inheritance, as the lot
would fall out.
Dan was one of the tribe that was
not agreeable to the portion that was theirs.
They moved north to finally the city of
Dan.
And it was there at Dan and at
Bethel where the golden calves were set up
during Jeroboam's reign.
They become a center of idolatry in Israel
and a stumbling block, like something making the
horse fall backwards.
And maybe as he talks of the serpent,
he sees the involvement of Satan.
He sees the prophecy in Genesis 3, the
seed of the serpent and the seed of
the woman.
Possibly because in verse 18, Jacob now just
cries out.
There's an outburst that isn't related to any
of the tribes.
And he says, I have waited for thy
salvation, O Lord, thy Yeshua.
Interesting word when you break it down.
The word Yeshua, Jesus, is in there.
I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.
Now he comes to Gad.
Gad, a troop shall overcome him.
Now you have to imagine the sons are
standing around the bed and they're thinking, you
know, first of all, Reuben really gets it
between the eyes.
He must be thinking, uh oh.
And then Simeon and Levi really gives it
to them.
They're going, oh man, this is a bummer.
Then it comes to Judah and that's a
pretty good prophecy.
And some of these are better, you know.
And each son must be thinking, oh, I
wonder what he's going to have to say
to me.
I wonder if Gad is excited.
Gad, a troop shall overcome him.
But he shall overcome at the last.
Transjordan also.
Reuben, Gadnath, the tribe of Manasseh.
Out of Asher, his bread shall be fat.
He shall yield royal dainties.
Very, very productive area.
When you go on the tour to Israel
today and your guide tells you, this is
the area of Asher.
Beautiful.
Covered with olive vineyard, olive orchards in particular.
And Moses will say in Duke 33 that
he will dip his toe in oil.
Just a very, very productive area.
Naphtali is a hind.
Let loose.
He giveth goodly words.
A beautiful area also.
Joseph now, the longest of the prophecies.
And this is his two sons through Ephraim
and Manasseh.
Ephraim becoming the dominant tribe.
Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful
bough by a well whose branches run over
the wall.
Speaking of his productivity.
Now look, we know the imagery here.
Blessed is the man who walketh not in
the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in
the way of the sinner, nor sit in
the sea of the scornful.
But he shall meditate on the law of
the Lord, someone says.
And he meditates on it day and night.
He shall be like a tree planted by
the rivers of water.
Shall bear fruit in the season and his
leaf also shall not wither.
You know, we have this imagery through the
Old Testament of being a vine or a
tree planted by a stream.
That even in a time of difficulty, in
the time of drought, because there is a
source of refreshment, of living water as it
were, of water, that even in difficult times,
those trees that were planted right by a
spring or by a well would flourish and
would do good.
Again, one of the commentaries I read in
missionary mentions being in Saudi Arabia and seeing
a row of palms and one palm a
third higher than all of the other palm
trees, and asked if that tree was older.
And they say, no, that tree hit a
spring.
We have a saying amongst the Arabs that
the palms love to have their head in
the fire and the roots in the spring.
And Joseph is depicted like that, of he
had this source that refreshed him and kept
him.
We look at his life, a seventeen year
old, a young man with a dream, and
somehow some marvelous thing planted in his heart
by God.
And then the great difficulties of being hated
by his brothers, sold to Egypt, part of
his wife trying to seduce him, refusing that,
then being sent to prison for rape.
And the great years and years that are
going by of difficulty and how he stayed
true to the Lord through all of those
things.
And certainly he was like a tree planted
by rivers of water that somehow maintained in
his own soul a current relationship with the
Lord through great difficulties.
And that would reflect Ephraim.
They would be fruitful as a tribe.
The archers have sorely grieved him and shot
at him and hated him, but his bow
abode in strength and the arms of his
hands were made strong.
Now, literally, they remained subtle.
Here's why.
By the hands of the mighty God of
Jacob.
From thence is the shepherd, the stone of
Israel, all the beautiful imagery, even by the
God of thy father who shall help thee
by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with
blessings of the heaven above and so forth.
So he says, Joseph is like a man
in battle as the archer sorely grieved him.
And no doubt in those years he had
great doubts as a man.
But he says he's like one who in
the battle and you know, in those days
it was swinging a big heavy sword or
pulling constantly on a bow.
After a little while of doing that, your
arms would tremble.
And he said, No, this is like a
man who in the midst of the battle,
his arms remain subtle and he's able to
aim and he's focused.
And it's because and there's a picture of
the God of Israel reaching around Joseph, putting
his hand on the bow, putting his hand
on the string and pulling for him and
giving him that strength so that he remained
focused.
And certainly through great trial, we see that
the archers had wounded him.
No, no.
I'm sure there were doubts that came.
I'm sure he experienced the bitterness of his
circumstances because he names his son Manasseh, which
means forgetting, he says, because I've forgotten the
bitterness of those years.
But in all of that bitterness, there was
a strength that was part of the man's
character that would also then become part of
the tribe's character as Jacob is prophesying here.
And it says it's because of his involvement,
God's involvement, the mighty God of Jacob, the
shepherd, the stone, even by the God of
thy father who shall help thee by the
almighty who shall bless thee with the blessings
of heaven above the rain, the blessings of
the deep that lieth under streams and springs,
the blessings of the breast and the womb
productive, the blessings of thy father have prevailed
above the blessings of my progenitors under the
utmost bound of the everlasting hills.
He says, Joseph, the blessing I'm pronouncing upon
you is greater than the blessings my progenitors
pronounced upon me, even as the hills are
above the plains, they shall be on the
head of Joseph and on the crown of
the head of him.
Notice that was separate from his brethren and
how God has called us to separation unto
himself.
Benjamin shall raven as a wolf in the
morning, he shall devour the prey at night,
he shall divide the spoil.
Benjamin known for its warriors and a tough
tribe, though it becomes part of Judah.
Now, all these are the 12 tribes of
Israel, and this is that their father spake
unto them and bless them.
Everyone according to his blessing, he blessed them
and he charged them and said unto them,
I am to be gathered unto my people.
Bury me with my fathers in the cave
that is in the field of Ephraim the
Hittite in the cave that is in the
field of Mephillah, which is before memory in
the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with
the field of Ephraim the Hittite for a
possession and a burying place.
He's making sure to let them know they
own this parcel of ground.
Abraham paid for it, bought it with money,
and they have a right to it.
There they buried Abraham and Sarah, his wife.
There they buried Isaac and Rebecca, who Jacob
loved greatly, his mother Rebecca, his wife, Isaac's
wife.
There I buried Leah.
The purchase of the field and of the
cave that is therein was from the children
of Hath, he reiterates again.
And when Jacob had made an end of
commanding his sons, this is amazing, he gathered
up his feet into the bed and he
yielded up the ghost and was gathered to
his people.
What a great scene.
As he is done prophesying, he must lay
aside the staff that he propped himself up
with.
And that staff, interesting, in Genesis chapter 32,
verse 10, as he had come back from
Padinarum, he said, Lord, I'm not worthy of
all of your mercies and of all the
truth that you've made known unto me and
all the goodness you've shown to me.
When I passed over this river, all I
had was this staff.
And now you have made me two companies.
Jacob there said, Lord, I'm not worthy of
any of your mercies.
I remember when I fled from Esau, I
had cheated my blind father.
I had lied to him.
I had scheming.
I had gotten the blessing away from Esau.
He was pursuing me to kill me.
And Lord, all I had to my life
was this staff that I'm holding on to.
And as he comes back, he still has
that staff.
And he says, Lord, I'm not worthy of
any of your mercies.
Here you've enlarged me.
I'm two companies.
And all I had when I left was
this staff.
Now, evidently, at the very end of his
life, he's still leaning on that staff.
And what a life it had been.
We're told in Hebrews that as he was
dying, he blessed and he worshiped.
And what a way to go.
Passing off the earthly scene, not worried about
himself, but about his sons and God's plan
in the earth.
He blesses others.
And then he worships leaning on the staff.
He's worshiping God.
And it says he yields up the ghost.
There's no fighting.
He is in complete agreement with God at
this point in time.
He is willingly giving himself into the hands
of God.
He's not fighting for his life.
There's no sign of fear.
He's not saying, you know, I'm going to
be part of the masses now that are
swept into the darkness at the end of
life.
And what will become of me?
No, he yields up the ghost and he
trusts himself in cooperation in the hands of
God, sending aside his the staff of his
pilgrimage and moving on.
What a great scene.
And Joseph fell upon his father's face and
wept upon him and kissed him.
Back in Chapter 46, when God had told
Jacob to go down to Egypt, he said,
you'll see your son, Joseph, and he will
close your eyes at death.
And here, Joseph is the one who falls
upon Jacob, weeping, no doubt praying, gently
reaching out and closing his father's eyes.
Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm
his father and the physicians embalmed Israel.
And 40 days were fulfilled for him, for
so are fulfilled the days of those which
are embalmed.
And the Egyptian mourned for him three score
and 10 days.
They mourned for him 70 days.
They mourned for him during the time of
his embalming, 40 days and then 30 days
after that.
They would mourn for a pharaoh for 72
days.
So the fact that they mourned for Jacob
for 70 days tells us what great regard
they held Joseph in and so his father
and the embalming process was a remarkable process.
They would wash them.
The brains would be drawn out through the
nose.
They would clean out the head, a small
cut in the left side.
They would take out all of the guts,
but just leave the heart and the kidneys,
take everything else out and stuff it with
the man with spices and so forth.
And then as they wrapped him, there would
be certain potash and sodas from some of
the marshes in the area.
It was really a remarkable process.
It took 40 days.
You were just about pickled when they were
done with you.
It was the same kind of stuff they
put in some of our potato chip dip
today.
You know, stuff you don't have to refrigerate
it and a month later it still looks
the same.
Mold doesn't grow on it.
You know, they had that process down too.
So possibly, by the way, I have not
been to Hebron where he is there and
the Abraham's burying place in this cave in
Mechphila, but evidently you would be able to
pick out Jacob because he would be the
one that would be preserved there.
The rest of them would have turned to
bone, gathered their bones and put them in
a pot as they disintegrated.
There is one there that's in pretty good
shape, and that's old Jacob.
He's the mummy there.
When the days of his mourning were passed,
Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh saying,
If now I have found grace in your
eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears
of Pharaoh saying that my father made me
swear saying, Lo, I die in my grave,
which I have digged for me in the
land of Canaan, there thou shalt bury me.
Now, therefore, let me go up, I pray
thee, and bury my father and I will
come again.
So he speaks to those in Pharaoh's household.
They go on behalf of Joseph and say,
Joseph is asking, he had sworn to his
father that he would bury him in Canaan.
Pharaoh said, Go up and bury thy father
according as he hath made thee swear.
And Joseph went up to bury his father
and with him went up, notice this, all
of the servants of Pharaoh and the elders
of Pharaoh's house and all the elders of
the land of Egypt and all of the
house of Joseph and his brethren and his
father's house.
Only their little ones and their flocks and
their herds left they in the land of
Goshen and there went up with him both
chariots and horsemen and it was a very
great company.
You have to imagine for the Canaanite and
for those in the land seeing this incredible
caravan come with chariots and soldiers and all
of the royalty and elders of Egypt, all
of them it says, coming with.
And Joseph in his splendor and all of
them coming, bringing now this coffin up into
the land of Canaan.
It says, And they came to the threshing
floor of Atod, which is beyond Jordan.
Now they're trans-Jordan, they're on the east
side of the Jordan River.
And there they mourned with a great, a
very sore lamentation and he made a mourning
for his father seven days.
And when the inhabitants of the land of
the Canaanites saw the mourning in the floor
of Atod, they said, This is a grievous
mourning to the Egyptians.
Wherefore, the name of it was called Abel
Mitzarim.
Abel, the mourning Mitzarim is the Egyptians.
The mourning of the Egyptians was beyond Jordan.
So they called the place of the mourning
of the Egyptians.
And evidently they didn't enter into Canaan across
Jordan, not wanting possibly hostility with the Hittites
or with some of the tribes of the
land, but they come up in a peaceful
mode.
They stay trans-Jordan.
They mourned there in a large company for
seven days.
And then evidently a small contingency of Joseph
and his family bring across the body of
Jacob to the cave that they had purchased
from Heth, the sons of Heth.
And it says, And his sons did unto
him according as he had commanded them.
Verse 12, For his sons carried him into
the land of Canaan and buried him in
the cave of Mephila, which Abraham bought with
the field for a possession of a burying
place of Ephron the Hittite before memory.
And Joseph returned unto Egypt he and his
brethren and all that went up with him
to bury his father after he had buried
his father.
And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father
was dead, they said, Joseph will perhaps hate
us and will certainly will require us all
the evil which we did unto him.
And they sent a messenger to Joseph saying,
Thy father did command before he died, saying,
So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive I
pray thee now the trespass of thy brethren
and their sin, for they did unto thee
evil.
And now we pray thee forgive the trespass
of thy servants, of the servants of the
God of thy father.
Now and Joseph begins to weep.
Now the brothers are still guilty after all
these years.
And they're saying, Well, now that dad is
dead, Joseph, maybe he was just being nice
to us because dad was alive.
You want to break dad's heart now that
dad is dead.
Maybe he's going to get us now.
You remember Esau had said, When my father
dies, I'm going to kill Jacob and then
all my heart will have rest.
And they're thinking, You know, boy, I hope
we haven't read this guy wrong all these
times.
Now that the father's gone, will the son
really love us?
And you know, I think that we all
relate to that because we have the son
of another father who has pledged his love
to us without condition.
If we come to him by faith and
we ask forgiveness of sin, judicially, heaven then
has pronounced upon us that we're justified, glorified,
sanctified.
And yet, I think because his love is
unlike any love we've ever known, even in
our relationship with God's son, sometimes we struggle
and think, well, maybe now he's going to
withdraw his love.
Maybe now that circumstances have turned this way
and I failed or I've made a mistake
or I've fallen, that he will withdraw his
love.
We're suspicious too, aren't we?
And I think how it must break the
heart of God.
I believe sometimes he almost weeps as he
desires to lavish his love on us and
we're so slow to respond sometimes, even as
Christians.
You know, if one of my kids at
home was always trembling when they're around me,
Do you still love me today, Dad?
You know, I ate cookies without asking you
yesterday, you know, or I was, you know,
I was playing with the television when I
was supposed to be doing my homework.
Do you still love me, Dad?
You know, I'm not worthy of your love.
And, you know, if I had a kid
that was doing it, it would break my
heart.
And his love is not like any human
love.
There is no barometer to measure it on
because it's holy like he is.
It is completely separate from all else that
exists.
And his mercy and his love and his
grace is born out of his very holiness.
And it comes to us not to be
compared with any other love that's known.
The ancient rabbis said God loves us because
he loves us.
That was the best answer they could come
up with.
There's no reason to it.
He loves us, not because we deserve to
be loved.
He loves us because of who he is.
And you see, we're used to conditional love.
We're used to loving somebody.
You know, if you like fishing and somebody
and you meet a girl and she likes
fishing and you like football and she likes
football and you hate shopping and she hates
shopping, you fall in love with this girl.
She's smart.
She's intelligent.
She's got all the same, you know, priorities
you do.
I mean, you know, our love is so
conditional.
We, you know, someone elicits our love from
us.
There's something in that person that draws our
love from us because there's some quality, there's
something in them we appreciate.
And then they disappoint us or they do
something we didn't expect them to do or
were there not who we thought they were.
And then there isn't so much eliciting our
love anymore.
You know, human love is like that.
Well, there isn't anything in us that elicited
God's love.
He did never love us because there was
something lovable in us.
He loved us solely because of who he
is and because of his plan from the
foundation of the world to offer up his
son.
He did not love us because we were
lovable.
He loved us because he was a lover
of men's souls.
And it leaves us in a position as
we hear of his love and of his
grace of being suspicious.
And I think of how many that, you
know, because they have learned to judge Jesus
Christ by the church or by Christians.
And then they take that and they and
they lay that on Christ.
And they think, well, that must be the
way Jesus is, because that's the way Christians
are.
And that's the way the church is.
And they got all these rules and regulations.
You have to dress this way.
You have to do this.
You have to do that.
And they and they get this idea of
who Christ is and say, well, I don't
want to be a Christian then.
No, who he is is separate from anything
we've ever known.
That's what holiness is.
His mercy is holy.
His love is holy.
His grace is holy.
And it comes for a reason that we
will never understand.
We just have to believe in it.
We have to get out of the boat
and walk on the water or we will
never experience his love and grace because there
is no reason that we can grasp with
our logic as to why he loves us.
He loves us because he loves us.
But it leaves us suspicious like these men.
They're doubting.
Maybe he's going to get us now.
Joseph, when he hears it again, we're told
that he wept.
Five or six times were told that he
weeps.
You know, Psalm 56 says that God keeps
record of all of our tears.
We see it here in Joseph's life continually.
We're told he wept when they spake that
to him.
His brethren also went and fell down before
his face, and they said, Behold, we are
thy servants.
And Joseph said unto them, Fear not.
Am I in the place of God?
You know, because he knew that vengeance belongs.
I'm not here to take vengeance.
You know, God is the judge.
He and he's going to tell them again.
You meant it for evil, but God meant
it for good.
You know, sometimes when when we have somebody
in a situation where they're groveling a little
bit, particularly if we know that for their
good, they need to grovel a little bit.
We can be of the mind where we
can make them squeeze them just a little,
you know, just while they while they're here,
Lord, I'll help you help them learn their
lesson.
You know, vengeance belongs to you, Lord, but
you get them and I'll be your instrument.
You know, Joseph, there's none of that in
him.
He's a remarkable character.
Am I in the place of God?
Romans says this.
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give
place unto wrath.
For it is written, Vengeance is mine and
I will repay, saith the Lord.
Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him.
If he thirst, give him the drink.
For in so doing, thou shalt heap calls
upon his head.
You know, it says this is a divine
matter.
It's not unto us to mete out vengeance
upon other human beings.
And I know we would like to sometimes.
Am I in the place of God?
As for you, you thought evil against me,
but God meant it unto good to bring
to pass as it is this day and
to save many people alive.
Now, therefore, fear ye not.
I will nourish you and your little ones.
And he comforted them and spake kindly under
them.
And Joseph dwelled in Egypt, he and his
father's house.
And Joseph lived a hundred and ten years.
Now, Jacob died when Joseph was fifty six
years old.
He's one hundred and ten now.
This is fifty four years after his dad
died.
When he took his dad to bury him
in Canaan, it was the first time he
had been in Canaan in thirty nine years.
He had left Canaan in a caravan sold
to the Midianites.
He had returned in a caravan with pomp
and royalty and a chariot and an army.
And now, fifty four years later, it's his
turn, one hundred and ten years old, to
pass off the scene.
Joseph saw Ephraim's sons to the third generation,
his great grandchildren, and the children also of
Maker, the son of Manasseh.
So Ephraim's, it seems, the great, great grandchildren
and of Manasseh, the great grandchildren.
They were brought up upon Joseph's knees.
Well, how much fun, you know, kids deserve
to be around their grandparents.
And if you're here, you're a grandparent.
You take opportunity of the time you have
with those kids because grandparents are special to
kids.
And what you do and what you say
weighs greatly on their little hearts.
And you stand, a great opportunity stands before
you to minister Christ to your grandchildren because
of how much they respect you.
They know that you are their dad's dad
or you're their mom's mom.
So that means you have clout because they're
kids and they still understand a mom and
dad have clout.
And if you're a mom's mom, you really
have clout.
So with grandchildren, there's great love.
Besides, you can spoil them and then go
home and leave them with their mom and
dad.
But your testimony of Jesus is very powerful
to the grandchildren.
Imagine Joseph here with his grandchildren and his
great-grandchildren and his great-great-grandchildren.
Imagine the kids, you know, saying, how old
is he?
When Joshua was little, we were visiting my
in-laws in the West Coast and Kathy's
dad has all, you know, wrinkles, crow's feet
around his eyes and everything.
And little Ryan, one of the grandkids, was
sitting at the table and said, why does
grandpa look like an alligator?
Kids, you can imagine great-great-grandchildren sitting
there with old Joseph.
Imagine him with white hair or no hair,
crow's feet, speaking to them about the things
he heard from Jacob.
When he was a boy of Isaac and
of Abraham and of Shem and of Noah
and of Adam and of the history of
redemption of the world before the fall.
Imagine the things that he had to say
to these kids.
And Joseph said to his brethren, I'm dying,
but God will surely visit you and bring
you out of this land and to the
land which he swore to Abraham and to
Isaac and to Jacob.
And Joseph took an oath of the children
of Israel saying, God will surely visit you.
You shall carry up my bones from this
place.
Now he knows that is, you know, he's
asking for his remains to be carried up.
He doesn't want to be placed in a
pyramid.
He doesn't want to be put in a
monument.
His heart is in Canaan.
His life at this point in time is
in Egypt.
He was called by God to be an
administrator there.
And by the way, as you look at
the great men in the Old Testament, whether
it seems it was Abraham or Joseph or
Moses or David, Daniel, Solomon, none of them
were Bible teachers or pastors.
They were all administrators.
I encourage you in the business world and
in the working world where you are to
take note that the majority of God's great
men through the scriptures were administrators.
They were men that excelled in the task
that God called them to.
And because of that.
Promotion came from God on their behalf.
He took an oath.
I'm dying.
God's going to bring you out of this
land and bring you the land that he
swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Joseph took an oath of the children of
Israel, saying, God will surely visit you.
You shall carry up my bones from hence.
So Joseph died being one hundred and ten
years old and they embalmed him.
And he was put in a coffin in
Egypt.
Now, a very strange way to end the
book.
We have covered in the study of Genesis
half of the Old Testament history from creation.
We are halfway through the Old Testament by
the time we come to Joseph being placed
in a coffin.
The period of time that is now ahead
of us from Genesis to Exodus, in fact,
from between Genesis forty six three, where God
appears under Jacob one last time and Exodus
three, two is a very dark period.
Four hundred years that God does not appear
to anyone until he appears to Moses.
We have no record of God appearing to
Joseph ever.
We have covered half of the Old Testament
history in our study.
Joseph's coffin ends up to be a mute
testimony laying in Egypt as things become difficult
and they are working there in the brick
kilns and they are under hard labor.
There is this coffin that will sit there
and speak to their hearts of a promise
of a better place.
You know, as we look at the the
book of Genesis, remember, Jesus said many will
come from the east and the west and
sit down at the table with Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob in the kingdom.
Won't that be some dinner?
Won't it be amazing to sit down with
them and say now in chapter forty six
where it says that what was that talking
about?
You know, won't it be amazing to sit
with them and to look at these men,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph?
Reuben, you're the one that Jacob.
Yeah, that was me.
It seems sad that the book begins in
the beginning.
God created the heavens and earth and it
ends with a coffin in Egypt.
But there it is harking of hope.
It is looking towards resurrection.
It is looking towards life.
Joseph wants his coffin to be carried up
and put in Canaan because when the Messiah
comes, he wants to wake up at the
right place.
He doesn't want to have to walk from
Egypt to Jerusalem to see him.
He wants to get up where he is
going to touch down.