Our scripture reading this morning is from Genesis
chapter 49, and we have, I think, just
about two more messages in the book of
Genesis before we finish this wonderful book.
I feel as I have often done in
the exposition of a book for the first
time, and this is the first time I've
gone through Genesis in the detail that we
have on this, in this series, that I'm
now just at the place where I could
make a real study of the book of
Genesis.
It has been a great experience for me
to study through this first book of the
Bible, in which we have so many of
the great doctrines of the Word of God
in germ form here.
Now, the chapter that is before us is
one of the most interesting in the Old
Testament, and one of the important chapters on
biblical prophecy, containing one of the greatest of
the prophecies of the coming of our Lord,
and we want to deal with that shortly.
The scripture reading is the first 12 verses
of Genesis chapter 49, and so will you
turn there with me and listen as I
read these verses.
Now, remember that Jacob is nearing the end
of his life.
He has summoned again Joseph and his sons
to his bedside, and this is what we
read.
Then Jacob summoned his sons and said, Assemble
yourselves, that I may tell you what shall
befall you in the days to come.
Gather together and hear, O sons of Jacob,
and listen to Israel your father.
Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might and
the beginning of my strength, preeminence or preeminent
in dignity and preeminent in power.
Uncontrolled as water, you shall not have preeminence,
because you went up to your father's bed,
then you defiled it.
He went up to my couch.
Simeon and Levi are brothers.
Their swords are implements of violence.
Let my soul not enter into their council.
Let not my glory be united with their
assembly.
The word glory is another term for soul,
because in their anger they slew men, and
in their self-will they lamed oxen.
Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce,
and their wrath, for it is cruel.
I will disperse them in Jacob and scatter
them in Israel.
Judah, your brother, shall praise you.
Your hand shall be on the neck of
your enemies.
Your father's sons shall bow down to you.
Judah is a lion's wealth.
From the prey, my son, you have gone
up.
He couches.
He lies down as a lion, and as
a lion, who dares rouse him up?
The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor
the ruler's staff from between his feet, until
Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the
obedience of the peoples.
You may have an authorized version before you,
and of course it reads, to him shall
be the gathering of the peoples.
This word probably does mean obedience rather than
gathering, but of course you can see that
gathering, that idea is in this, for the
obedience of the peoples is to him, and
thus in their obedience there is a gathering
to him.
He ties his foal to the vine, and
his donkey's coat to the choice bind.
He washes his garments in wine, and his
robes in the blood of grapes.
Now you can see from this too that
the purpose of these last verses is to
express the marvelous paradise that shall exist at
the following, following the coming of Shiloh.
You can see that it is a picture
of excess of abundance and plenty, for they
tie their donkeys to the vines, and furthermore
there is so much wine, that wine has
become the means of the washing of clothes,
and furthermore blood of grapes is the means
by which robes are washed.
Now that expression, the blood of grapes, is
interesting because frequently you have people say, I
wonder why the Lord Jesus chose bread and
wine for the representation of what he did
on Calvary's cross, the bread suggesting the giving
of his body, and the wine the shedding
of his blood.
You can see that there is a tradition
in the Old Testament of the juice of
the grape being called blood, and his robes
in the blood of grapes, and so the
likeness between wine and blood is seen here
early in the Bible.
So it's not surprising that he should choose
the wine as representative of his blood, or
the bread as representative of his body, though
that is not spoken of here.
His eyes are dull from wine, or darker
than wine, and his teeth white, or whiter
than milk.
So the picture is one of plenty following
the coming of Shiloh.
May the Lord bless this reading of his
word.
This morning is the first of two studies
in the 49th chapter of the book of
Genesis, and our topic for both this Sunday
and the next will be Jacob's last words.
Jacob concludes his life in a manner worthy
of the patriarchs.
His last words are a brilliant prophetic blessing.
Now, the critics have carped at it.
They've said it's a case of Watakinia ex
eventibus, or of prophecies that have been derived
from the events that have occurred.
They have claimed that they are prophecies fabricated
from events that they appear to foresee, but
that the prophecies were really written after the
events, and that's why there is such an
agreement between the prophecies and the events that
are supposed to have come later.
Now, critics who say that, of course, do
not have any real reason for saying that.
Attempts have been made to find some, but
basically it means that they cannot accept prediction.
They cannot believe that it is possible that
someone shall look into the future and really
see the things that are going to come
to pass by virtue of the power of
the Holy Spirit.
Now, if we do come to the word
of God in faith, and we have thought
this through, and do believe that it is
unphilosophical to say that supernatural things cannot come
to pass, how can one prove that they
cannot come to pass, then we do not
have great difficulty with the prophecies such as
this one before us.
If you study these prophecies in the light
of the history that followed, it becomes evident
that they could not have been written after
the events, but these are prophecies that Jacob
was enabled by God the Holy Spirit to
give to his sons.
Others have said simply it is improbable that
a decrepit old man, 147 years of age,
should have uttered thoughts that are so clear
-cut and virile.
Now, Robert Orban said he did not even
remember when he was young that sometimes he
thought he went directly from Dr. Spock to
Dr. Scholl.
But Jacob was a man who had traveled
147 years, and he still had a great
deal of his mind about him, and this
was an important event for him.
And so he summoned up all of the
clarity of his mind, and God the Holy
Spirit gave him clarity that he did not
naturally have.
And so he spoke these words with remarkable
clarity and with remarkable wisdom.
Even Socrates in his Apologies said, I'm about
to die, and that's the hour in which
men are gifted with prophetic power.
The same idea is expressed in the lines
written by a poet, the soul's dark cottage,
battered and decayed, lets in new light through
chinks that time hath made.
Some have even said that the twelve sons
of Jacob are not really the twelve sons,
that they are really the twelve sons of
the Zodiac.
Well, Jacob's actions are very wise.
It's very nice to bring your family together
as you're about to die, and especially if
you have twelve sons like he did who
are going to be important in the history
of Israel.
It wouldn't be bad, you know, for believers
when they write up their will and they
designate the things that are going to go
to their survivors, to their children.
It wouldn't be bad at all if they
were to require that certain things be read
to those who shall be their heirs and
others who shall be affected.
Because it is well for us to remember
that the things that we pass on are
things that are given to us in the
grace of God, and we hold them in
trust.
And sometimes our children and other members of
the family need to know the things that
have guided us in our lives.
The saving and guiding grace of God manifested
in the lives of Christians, and given forth
as last words to members of the family
have a peculiar force.
So what Jacob did was not simply something
that was acceptable, it was something that was
wise.
And I suggest to you that it's not
bad at all for you to remind those
who shall be your heirs of the things
that have dominated you in your life.
And if you cannot say those things and
really mean them, then perhaps it would be
wise for your life to be modeled after
Jacob.
Now the blessings that he has set forth
here are beautifully constructed.
I wish it were possible for all of
us to read this in the Hebrew text.
There is rhythm about the poetry.
There are beautiful figures of speech.
There is play on words or paranamasia that
is remarkable.
It is a poem of exalted character, and
yet at the same time there is a
warm spirit manifested in it.
And even in the blessings that turn out
to be almost curses for some of the
children, there is some instruction for us.
Now some have said it's not even a
poem of blessing, it's rather a poem of
curses.
But that isn't what the Scripture says.
In the 28th verse we read, All these
are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this
is what their father said to them when
he blessed them.
He blessed them, everyone with the blessing appropriate
to him.
And so it was a blessing.
And even when he spoke sharply to some
of his sons, it was a blessing to
have their father speak to them in that
way.
Now the midpoint of the chapter may be,
in spite of the fact that this statement
occurs after the mention of the seventh of
the twelve children, verse 18, For thy salvation
I wait, O Lord.
And there Jacob gives us something of the
tenor of the disposition that marked him when
he made this remarkable prophecy.
But the high point of the prophecy, no
doubt, is the messianic prophecy concerning Judah the
lion in verse 10.
And I want to say right now, in
spite of what my friends north of the
Mason and Dixon line say, I'm going to
pronounce this lion, L-I-O-N.
I'm not going to say lion.
Every time I go north of the Mason
and Dixon line, they say, what were you
saying?
And I say, well, lion.
That's what we say in the language of
Canaan down south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Lion, it's lion.
And so they like to put a little
Y in there.
Now I'm just going to say lion.
So when you hear that kind of word
that just sweetly comes across your mind, it's
lion, L-I-O-N.
I'm not going to say anything more about
it because I have to stop and pronounce
the other and I'm liable to lose the
train of thought.
So this is the high point.
It's the prophecy concerning Judah the lion, the
lion of the tribe of Judah.
Well, let's look now at this great prophecy
and particularly we'll look at the 12 verses
which contain the prophecies to Reuben, Simeon and
Levi, and then Judah.
Now Jacob issues a kind of formal call
and that indicates that he's conscious of his
solemn look into the future which is being
given him by the Holy Spirit.
Then Jacob summoned his sons and said, assemble
yourselves that I may tell you what shall
befall you in the days to come.
Gather together and hear, O sons of Jacob.
Now the purpose of the call is said
to be he wants to tell them what's
going to take place in the last days.
This Hebrew expression, ba'akarith hayamim, which means
in the end of the days, is an
expression that points to the future and almost
always in the Old Testament points to the
messianic age.
Now from Jacob's standpoint, of course, he spoke
from the standpoint of long before the days
of Moses and consequently there were lots of
things in the immediate future that are in
the end of the days for him.
And you will find as you go through
this prophecy that the point of Jacob's prophecy
time-wise is not so much the future
of the second advent of the Messiah as
it is the entrance into the land of
Canaan.
Now the prophets of the Old Testament did
not have perspectives such as we are able
to have now and so they spoke of
the future and they put together prophecies concerning
the first coming and the second coming just
as if we were to look off, as
Chrysostom noted many hundreds of years ago, to
mountain peaks in a mountain range, not seeing
the valleys that lie between the peaks.
And so the first coming and the second
coming are in the same prophecies.
Now for Jacob speaking from the vantage point
at which he spoke, we have not only
the distant future in the coming of Judah's
land but we also have the immediate future
of the entrance into the land.
So in the end of the days encompasses
not only the Messianic age but the days
that precede that as they themselves look forward
to that Messianic age.
Now he asks them to gather together twice.
He uses two different Hebrew words but they
essentially mean the same thing.
And this double exhortation, assemble yourselves, gather together,
is designed to show us that the words
that he is uttering are doubly important for
us.
He begins as you might expect with Reuben
because Reuben was his firstborn son, the child
of Leah.
And there is a horrible contrast between the
calling of Reuben as the firstborn son and
his condition as it developed in his life.
Now the historical situation that Jacob has in
mind is described for us in the 35th
chapter and the 22nd verse and I don't
think we will understand what he says with
reference to Reuben if we do not understand
that one verse.
So I'm going to remind you, some of
you have been with me all along, congratulations.
There is such a thing as the doctrine
of the perseverance of the saints and I'm
so happy to see it manifested in your
life.
You were here with lesson number one and
you are now going to be here, I
hope, at lesson number 65 when we finish
the book of Genesis.
But in the 22nd verse, you may remember,
there was a rather enigmatical statement about Reuben.
We read, and it came about while Israel
was dwelling in that land that Reuben went
and lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and
Israel heard of it.
Now nothing is said at that point concerning
Jacob's response to the fact that his own
son went in and lay with his concubine
wife.
But now we have his evaluation of that
event.
He says in the third verse, Reuben, you
are my firstborn, my might and the beginning
of my strength, preeminent in dignity and preeminent
in power.
His providential position was the firstborn.
In other words, he was to have a
double blessing because he was the firstborn.
He was to have a double share of
the inheritance.
He was also to be the priestly head.
But that place could be lost by sin.
And in 1 Chronicles chapter 5, it is
set forth, he lost his position by virtue
of his sin.
And it was such a horrible sin.
There is a withering contrast between the majestic
phrases of verse 3, preeminent in dignity, preeminent
in power, and then the phrases of verse
4, uncontrolled as water.
You shall not have preeminence because you went
up to your father's bed.
Then you defiled it.
He went up to my couch.
And so wildness and weakness and undisciplined behavior
are manifested in Reuben.
And so the ignominious collapse is set forth
very plainly and frankly in the Word of
God.
We sometimes talk about a grand passion.
Well, words were never written more unflattering about
lust than these that Jacob wrote about this
son guilty of incest.
Now, I want you to notice how he
does this.
He does not smooth over things at all.
If you read this in the Hebrew text,
there are two things that mean, that show
that he emphasizes that last clause.
He went up to my couch.
In the Hebrew clause at that point, the
couch is thrown forward for emphasis.
And so he says, to my couch, to
my very bed, my marriage bed, this son
of mine went up.
But you'll notice also, not only does he
throw the word bed into the first of
the clause for emphasis, to my bed he
went up, but he uses the third person.
He's been speaking in the second person.
He says, you shall not have preeminence.
You went up to your father's bed.
You defiled it.
But then he turns to the other brothers
who were there, the other eleven, and says
to them, he, maybe this is the first
time it was revealed to them, he went
up to my couch.
And so it is frank.
Now when we say that this is a
chapter in which there is very little blessing
for some, there was not a whole lot
of blessing for Reuben, for he was exposed
here as a son who was guilty of
incest, who lost his rights by virtue of
it.
But nevertheless, you know, there is a blessing
in being told frankly the spiritual condition in
which we are.
And so Jacob very frankly and forthrightly speaks
to Reuben.
Reuben never amounted to much as a tribe
after that.
You can go through the Old Testament and
check it out for yourself.
But the curse of God or the discipline
of God rested upon that tribe in the
history of Israel.
Now the next words that Jacob has are
for Simeon and Levi.
And these two brothers, also the sons of
one mother, were the ones who were guilty
of the vendetta described in chapter 34.
There is a great difference between a massacre
that is set forth by God as the
divine will and a personal vendetta.
You remember the story in chapter 34.
Dana was violated, their sister was violated by
one of the Shechemites.
And then that man wanted to marry Dana.
And so finally there was an agreement of
sorts made and it was said to the
Shechemites that if they would be circumcised then
the children of Israel would live among them
and have part of their land.
But the sons Simeon and Levi waited until
those men were circumcised and then when they
were in great pain they took their weapons
and slew all of the men of the
city.
Now Jacob regarded that as the execution of
vengeance by men instead of God.
And so he spoke of how they had
brought reproach upon his name because of what
they had done.
Well that's what he's speaking about here.
He says Simeon and Levi are brothers.
Their swords are implements of violence.
They are two of a pair.
They are two sons of Leah.
And then he says let my soul not
enter into their counsel.
Let not my glory be united with their
assembly because in their anger they slew men
and in their self-will they lamed oxen.
Not only did they slay the men but
they went around cutting the tendon of the
oxen that caused the animals also to suffer.
So it was excessive ruthless spite.
Personal vengeance.
You know the Bible says vengeance is mine.
I will repay saith the Lord.
But frequently when people do us wrong we
say just think.
They've done that to me and God has
done nothing about it.
And so then we attempt to do something
about it.
In this case that's the same kind of
reasoning.
God has done nothing about it.
And so we will take it into our
own hands and it was murder.
In the final analysis anger is always an
attack on the sovereign providence of God.
And so he speaks cursed be their anger
for it was fierce and their wrath for
it is cruel.
I will disperse them in Jacob and scatter
them in Israel.
And so they were banded together for their
harm and he will disperse them for their
good.
You can trace the history of these two
tribes and you'll see the fulfillment of it.
Simeon was scattered.
Levi was scattered in a very interesting way
because Levi did not inherit any of the
land.
They inherited certain cities in the land 12
cities.
And they were scattered in the land because
they became the priestly tribe.
That was a blessing.
They were the ones who were responsible for
the ministry of the tabernacle and the ministry
of the priesthood.
And the reason for that is that they
were reversed or they reversed their own position
by the way in which they stood with
Moses in the sin of the golden calf.
For when there was undisciplined in the land
of Israel then and a lot of rotting
that was going on, Moses stood up and
said, who will stand for the Lord?
And the whole tribe of Levi stood with
him.
And the result was that in discipline God
through the Levites slew 3,000 of the
children of Israel guilty of idolatry.
And so Levi has reversed but not reversed
the prophecy.
I will disperse them in Jacob and scatter
them in Israel.
Simeon scattered in judgment.
Levi scattered in blessing because of the later
history of that particular tribe.
In Levi have come some of the great
names of the Bible, Moses, Aaron, Phinehas, Samuel,
Jehoiada, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Maccabees, John the Baptist,
one of the great tribes, the tribe of
Levi.
But now we come to Judah.
Really there are three oracles concerning Judah and
you will notice it if you'll look carefully
at 8, 9, and 10.
He says, Judah, your brother shall praise you.
Verse 9, Judah is a lion's wealth.
10, the scepter shall not depart from Judah
nor the ruler's staff from between his feet.
Now if you look at this in the
Hebrew text you'll notice that it is a
case of three oracles and you can tell
that not only from the subject matter but
also from the metrical arrangement of the verses.
So we'll look at it in that way.
Incidentally, Judah has some of the great names
from that tribe.
There is Caleb and Boaz and David and
Solomon and Hezekiah and Daniel and of course
the greatest of all, our Lord Jesus Christ
who was the lion of the tribe of
Judah.
Now there are three notes here in this
prophecy of Judah.
One is the note of dominance and that
is set forth in verse 8.
Judah, your brother shall praise you.
Your hand shall be on the neck of
your enemies.
And then there is the note of courage
and strength in verse 9.
He says, Judah is a lion's wealth.
From the prey, my son, you have gone
up.
He couches, he lies down as a lion
or as a lioness.
And so great stress rests upon the courage
and strength of the lion and therefore of
Judah.
And finally in verse 10, there is the
oracle of the regal rule of Judah.
The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor
the ruler's staff from beneath his feet until
Shiloh comes.
And the last two verses describe the overflowing
abundance that shall follow his coming.
There is a kind of note of glad
animation in these words that are spoken concerning
Judah and especially so because what he gives
us in Judah is a miniature of the
biblical scheme of history.
Because that's what we do have.
We have the coming of the Son of
God and we have as a result of
that the great blessing that shall flow from
his second advent.
And so the note of dominance, the note
of courage and strength, and then the note
of rule is just a foreview of everything
that the Bible teaches us.
Right now, the lion is waiting in his
lair, in his den, having overcome the serpent
and he's coming the second time.
And when he comes the second time, he
will destroy the opposition against the throne of
God and he will establish his kingdom of
plenty upon the earth.
Now we look at it.
And I want you to notice first the
oracle of dominance in verse 8.
Judah, your brother shall praise you.
Your hands shall be on the neck of
your enemies.
Your father's son shall bow down to you.
Now Judah's name means praise and he plays
on the name of Judah here.
He says, Judah, your brother shall Judahize you.
Or Yehudah, Yehudah is the name for Judah
and Yadah is the name for praise.
And so he uses both of those terms
here.
Yehudah, your brother, Yadah, shall praise you.
So he speaks then of Judah as the
one whom the brother shall praise.
Now that was the name that was given
to Judah by his mother.
Back in chapter 29 and verse 35 again,
we read, And she conceived again and bore
a son and said, This time I will
praise the Lord.
Therefore she named him Judah.
Then she, that is Leah, stopped bearing.
So Judah's name was praise.
And of course he looks on to our
Lord Jesus Christ.
It's not surprising that in the Bible he
is called the Lion of the tribe of
Judah because he came from that tribe.
And Judah right from the beginning is the
tribe that has rule among the sons.
And it is our Lord Jesus who is
the messianic king who comes and rules.
And so Judah then is an illustration of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
And the fact that he is described as
a lion is the figure that is taken
up in the New Testament and used of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the lion.
And so it's also not surprising that it
should be said that his brother should praise
him.
In fact, we who know the Lord Jesus
Christ as our Savior have been praising him
down through the centuries.
When his birth was announced, his mother praised
the Lord.
My soul doth magnify the Lord.
She praised him.
All who know him and know what it
is to have won the victory in him,
praise him.
And we praise him also because his hand
is on the neck of his enemies.
And you can think of the lion who
takes another animal and puts his paws around
the neck or his jaws around the neck
and squeezes in such a way that finally
the breath goes out of the animal and
it is dead.
That's what's transpired at Calvary's cross when the
Lord Jesus Christ there took the sins of
sinners upon himself and bore those sins to
the full.
And there defeated the serpent.
There defeated the opponents of the Lord God
and won the victory over sin and over
Satan.
And so we praise him.
As Christians, we praise the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now looking out over the audience, I'm not
sure about that.
Some of us do anyway.
The rest of you, I'm wondering about you.
But really, seriously, we do praise him because
we have salvation through the victory of the
lion of the tribe of Judah.
Now the next oracle is an oracle of
courage and strength.
And it's the picture of conquest.
He says, Judah is a lion's whelp.
From the prey, my son, you have gone
up.
So he's picturing a lion who has been
out foraging for food.
And the lion sees an animal.
And he attacks the animal.
And he conquers the animal.
He kills the animal.
And then he feeds upon the animal.
And then he goes back to his den.
Have you ever seen an animal settle down
upon its haunches, a lion?
There is nothing that is more agile and
more beautiful than a lion sitting down.
Just perfect control of strength.
And then the lion sits there with its
paws out in front of him.
That's the picture that he presents here.
From the prey, my son, you have gone
up.
He couches.
He lies down as a lion, as a
lioness.
Who dares raise him up?
And no one wants to try to raise
up a lion.
It's a picture then of Judah as a
lion.
And so when we read in the New
Testament in that great fourth and fifth chapter
of the book of Revelation about the lion
of the tribe of Judah, we're not surprised
that it should be a victory.
You remember the picture there in those chapters.
John in the Apocalypse is given a picture
of the throne of heaven.
Beautiful picture of the throne and then of
the angelic hosts gathered around, the elders and
the living creatures and the other angels in
vast numbers.
And then in the fifth chapter, he looks
and sees in the right hand of the
one who sits on the throne, a book.
And that book is sealed with seven seals.
It's an illustration.
It's a figure of a will or a
disposition of the affairs of the earth.
And the affairs of the earth include rule
over the earth.
And John looks and no one seems to
be worthy to open the book.
Well, that's for John, a signal that something
is wrong, because if no one's able to
open the book, then we not only are
not going to have rule over the whole
of the earth as God anticipated and called
man to in the first chapter of the
book of Genesis, but we don't even have
the forgiveness of sins.
And so John begins to weep.
And one of the angels says, John, stop
weeping.
The lion of the tribe of Judah has
prevailed to open the book.
What a beautiful expression that is, because it's
a picture of the fact that when man
has failed because of his sin, the lion
of the tribe of Judah has not failed.
He has come, he has entered into mortal
conflict with Satan on the cross, and he
has won the victory, overcoming principalities and powers.
He's triumphed over them openly in the cross
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And John looks around and sees not a
lion, but of all things, a lamb.
Now, he sees this lamb as it had
been slaughtered.
Now, everybody knows what a slaughtered lamb is
who knows anything about the Bible.
The lamb is the animal of sacrifice.
It's the submissive animal, as it pictures the
coming of the Messiah, who is submissive.
He'll not even break a bruised reed.
He'll not even bruise that.
He's that gentle.
But having been slaughtered, he's the sacrifice.
And so it proclaims as plainly as it
could be that there is no approach to
God apart from the shedding of blood.
So he sees the lamb as it has
been slaughtered, sacrificed.
But now, who has ever seen a lamb
slaughtered in sacrifice get up and stand?
But John sees this lamb standing in heaven,
the slaughtered lamb standing, because, of course, he
represents a risen Savior who has entered into
the victory of the cross, has won the
victory, and now stands by virtue of the
power of the resurrection.
It is he, John is told, who has
overcome.
And he has been able to take the
book in his hands.
And because of that, he is going to
rule and reign.
And the whole rest of the book of
Revelation is a detailed, through those great judgments,
detailed picture of how the lamb is going
to rule and reign.
But at the same time, he's the lamb
of the tribe of Judah as well.
You know, I've just come back from England,
and as is so often the case, when
you go over there, you go into lots
of castles and palaces, and then also even
some manor homes of individuals who've been prominent
in that part of the world.
And you often go in the door, and
shortly after you're in, you see the coat
of arms.
And you look at it and say, oh,
I wish I had a coat of arms
like that.
Johnson, from South Carolina and Alabama, and look
at this beautiful coat of arms signifying all
of the majesty of that particular family.
Now, our Lord Jesus Christ, if he had
a coat of arms, there would be on
it the lion caljant, because it beautifully pictures
him.
That belongs to Prince Emmanuel, because he's the
lion's whelp, and he has overcome.
So if I ever enter into my mansion
in heaven, I expect to find on that
great building in which we shall all have
a part, I expect to find a coat
of arms, and it's going to have a
lion on it, the lion of the tribe
of Judah.
Now, coming to the tenth verse, of course,
this is the important prophecy.
And verses eight and nine have given us
a sense of expectation, and now we find
it.
Dominion and sovereignty are his.
The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor
the ruler's staff from between his feet.
And I can see the lion in his
den and in his lair.
He's couching there, and he's full and satisfied,
and no one dares raise him up.
And there between his legs is the ruler's
staff.
That would be on the coat of arms,
too, because it belongs to him.
The scepter on his head, the ruler's staff
between his paws, a picture of the Lord
Jesus.
The scepter shall not depart until Shiloh comes.
Isn't it remarkable that the lion of the
tribe of Judah, or the Judah's tribe, has
remained even to the present day?
You study the history of Israel, and Judah
became the dominant tribe.
It became the tribe that was prominent.
And finally, the Lord Jesus Christ came.
And they put above the cross of the
Lord Jesus Christ, this is Jesus of Nazareth,
the king of the Jews.
Jew is the term from Judah.
The king of the Jews, not king of
Israel, the king of the Jews.
For then the term Jew has come to
represent the whole of the twelve tribes.
And so today we speak of the Jews,
and we refer to those who are Israelites.
So that name has become dominant, and it
was even over the cross.
And in the future, it shall be dominant
because our Lord Jesus is Judah's greatest son.
And it is he who shall rule and
reign, and the scepter shall never depart from
Judah.
Judah still has it.
Judah's greater son is in heaven now, waiting
for the time when he shall come and
rule and reign.
Now he says the scepter shall not depart
from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between
his feet until Shiloh comes.
Now it's unsafe for me to dogmatize over
the meaning of Shiloh.
If you've studied anything of the Bible at
all, here in particularly in Genesis 49, you
will know there's been a great deal of
discussion of this term Shiloh.
Some have suggested it's a place.
That's unlikely.
Some have suggested it's related to the Hebrew
word for sin, which is shalach.
Now of course our Lord Jesus was one
who was sent.
He was commissioned with all of the insignia
of the majesty of heaven and sent forth
as the son to do redemptive work.
But it's unlikely that it's a reference to
one's sin.
It has even been suggested that this word
is derived from a root that means son,
and some have suggested that meaning, until the
son shall come.
But that's very unlikely.
Of course our Lord is the son.
He is the son of God, and he
had to come as God, otherwise we should
have no real ultimate assurance that we do
have redemption.
Then others have taken the word from a
Hebrew word that means to be at rest
or to be safe.
The verb shalach have taken it to mean
rest giver.
Now of course that's very beautiful and very
true.
Our Lord Jesus is the rest giver.
Everybody else tells us we must do this
in order to be saved.
They say, observe the ordinances, be baptized, sit
at the Lord's table, be a good person,
be educated, be cultured, do good works, all
of the kinds of things that involve activity.
But the Bible says, for by grace are
you saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves, it is the gift of God, not
of works lest any man should boast.
One of the whole points of the word
of God is to teach us that it
is not by what we do that we
are saved, it is by what he has
done.
So the Lord Jesus finished his work and
said, it is finished.
That work is done.
Faith is resting in what God has done
in Christ.
That's all faith is.
Faith looks off hearing the message, Jesus Christ
has borne the sin of sinners.
I'm a sinner.
Evidently Jesus Christ has borne my sin.
And if he has borne my sin, then
he has paid my debt.
And if he has paid my debt, then
there is no way that heaven can demand
anything else from me.
And our Lord Jesus as the substitute has
borne the debt of those for whom he
came to die.
That's why we go free.
We have nothing to pay because he has
paid it all for sinners.
And so we think of him as one
who has done it.
And to rest is simply to say Christ
has done it.
I rest in what he's done and stop
trying to do anything in order to be
saved.
God rests in what Christ has done.
Faith is the rest of the believer in
what he has done as well.
It is as simple as that.
Mr. Spurgeon used to like to say that
when he heard the gospel and was saved,
he was saved from the text that said,
look unto me and be ye saved all
the ends of the earth.
And he has said he had been struggling
and trying to save himself by his activities
and worrying over it.
But when the preacher said, look, look unto
me, turn to me, he realized that what
the text said was that God saves and
God saves completely.
And the responsibility of a believer is simply
to look off to the work that Christ
has done and to rely upon that and
rest in it.
And he said he rested in it and
came to understand what it was truly to
be saved.
Well, he is the rest giver, but I
must confess I rather doubt that that's the
meaning of Shiloh.
Now, I think that this is probably a
proper name, but it's a name that is
figurative like Tzemach, the branch in the Old
Testament.
And so Shiloh is composed of a word,
sha, which is a relative pronoun, descended from
the Akkadian sha and sha, and it's descended
from the Akkadian sha.
And lo, the prepositional phrase in Hebrew, which
means to him, and it implies ownership.
So that the name Shiloh is like the
name branch.
He was the branch.
Many times in the Old Testament, he is
said to be the branch.
This name Shiloh means him to whom it
belongs.
And so it's a figure then of one
who controls things, who is the one who
owns everything by virtue of what he's done.
So the scepter shall not depart from Judah
nor the ruler's staff from between his feet
until Shiloh, the one to whom it all
belongs.
Now, Ezekiel picks up this in his 21st
chapter of his book and says essentially the
same thing, showing that, of course, Ezekiel has
read this prophecy and he's interpreted it just
like Lewis Johnson.
One of my students one time over at
the seminary thought he would have a little
fun and he did have some fun.
He put a picture on one of the
bulletin boards at the seminary of John Calvin.
And John Calvin was looking at a book.
It was obviously the Bible, but underneath were
the words which were a quote.
I wonder what Lewis Johnson would say on
this text.
Now, Ezekiel, I really appreciated that.
That's some clever students.
Very clever.
I wish them all the persecution they can
have in the ministry.
Now, it is likely that this does mean
then him to whom it all belongs or
him to whom it belongs.
So until Shiloh comes as a reference to
the Lord Jesus Christ as the one who
shall rule and reign.
And the Jews and Gentiles shall all gather
to him because he's the king.
Now, you'll notice that text says at the
end of verse 10, and to him shall
be the obedience of the peoples.
In the final analysis, the Lord Jesus is
the only center of true unity in the
world.
He is the only center of unity for
his people as well.
To him shall the obedience of the people
be.
The whole church has been exercised over the
last generation over unity, unity, ecumenism, the ecumenical
movement.
There is only one possibility by which people
who turn to the scriptures can ever be
in union.
And it is to be in union over
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the center of all.
And at the cross, we can unite.
Even Arminians and Calvinists can unite at the
cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, John Wesley and Charles Wesley were not
friends of Augustus Toplady.
For Mr. Wesley, all the Wesley's were Arminians
and Toplady was a Calvinist.
They both wrote hymns, incidentally.
Well, Mr. Toplady said about the Wesley's, he
said that I think it was Charles he
was speaking about, he said he was a
fox.
And one of these days he was going
to pluck him, he said.
And furthermore, you ought to be tarred and
feathered.
And the Wesley's said the same thing about
him.
But we open up our hymn books and
we read and sing, Jesus, lover of my
soul.
And then we read, rock of ages, cleft
for me.
And in our hymn books, Toplady and Wesley
are together, because they unite in the cross
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the true church of Jesus Christ, the
one basis of unity is the cross of
Christ.
Of course, we can differ on other points
and they are important points.
I do not think Arminians fully understand the
grace of God, but they speak about saving
grace.
And so we have to acknowledge that that
is what they believe.
We'd like for their faith to be a
little purer, of course.
But when we talk about the cross of
Christ, we can unite in the cross of
Jesus Christ.
It is there that the saints of God
do.
And in this audience here, there are probably
some here that have differences among themselves and
with me, perhaps, over things in the scriptures.
But we can unite around the cross of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
When the gospel of the cross is proclaimed,
God saves his people.
If you've ever seen a great pile of
things of disparate character, which also has a
lot of steel or iron in it, you've
marveled how it's possible to separate the iron
from the mass of other things.
And then you've seen a giant magnet come
down, and all of the true of the
iron is caught up to meet the magnet.
So in the preaching of the cross of
the Lord Jesus Christ, in an audience like
this, God, through that, draws to himself, to
that magnet, every man of the true metal.
And his elect are gathered as the word
of God is proclaimed.
In this audience, doubtless, there are some, perhaps,
who may not be among the elect.
But there are many among the elect.
And as the word of God goes forth,
God, through the Holy Spirit, works in your
heart, convinces you of your sin, and draws
you to him.
And you come to worship him and discover
afterwards you are one of those chosen in
him before the foundation of the world.
It is through the cross of the Lord
Jesus.
To him, to him shall the gathering of
the peoples be.
There even Baptists can be at sympathy with
people who are members of a Bible church,
or a Presbyterian and an Episcopalian can unite
around the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This wonderful secret brotherhood of those who have
truly believed in the Lord Jesus is the
company of the unified saints of God.
To him shall the gathering of the peoples
be.
And I want to say to you this
morning, if you have young people in your
family, if you have friends, if you have
fathers and mothers, it should be your constant
prayer that God would so work in them
that they would be gathered to Jesus Christ
too.
Ask him to gather your children to the
Lord.
Ask him to gather your fathers and mothers,
your brothers, your sisters, your friends to the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Pray that God the Holy Spirit may bring
them to Christ in his sovereign mercy.
Well, I know my time is gone.
I wish that it were possible to speak
about this last scene.
It's a kind of earthly paradise, exuberant, intoxicating
plenty, someone has said, has found here.
And it truly is.
This is a notable messianic prophecy.
It's a prophecy in which we have a
further narrowing down of the prophecies that point
to Jesus Christ.
In chapter three, we were told he should
come from the world of mankind.
He should be the seed of the woman.
In chapter nine, it was said that he
would come from the Semitic division of mankind
in Noah's prophecy.
And then in the words spoken to Abraham,
it was said that he should come from
Abraham and his seed.
And now it is said that he should
come from the tribe of Judah.
Later, it is said that he will come
from the family of Jesse in the tribe
of Judah and would be born in Bethlehem.
God is patiently identifying the Messiah so that
when he comes, there will be no misunderstanding
if we are interested in knowing.
Let me close on this note.
Jacob has called together his sons.
He has exhorted them to gather themselves together.
And they have gathered.
And we've said the true gathering place is
the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I want to say to you that if
you do not gather to the cross of
the Lord Jesus Christ in faith, you are
still going to be gathered to him.
If you do not gather at the cross,
you will gather at the throne.
But it will be the great white throne,
and he will be sitting upon it in
order to judge.
Every man must face Jesus Christ.
He must face him as Savior and be
saved, acknowledging his sins, acknowledging the atoning work,
or he must ultimately face him and be
judged by him.
And so the word will go out.
The word will go out to all of
the vast hordes of the past, all of
the Egyptians of the past, all of those
who lived in Noah's day, all who lived
in Moses' day, all who lived in the
days of the prophets, to the four corners
of the earth.
The word shall go out, gather, assemble yourselves
together.
But it will be an assembly to the
throne of the Lord Jesus, not to his
cross.
If you're here this morning and you have
never believed in our Lord Jesus Christ, you
shall meet him one day.
You shall meet him, but it will be
a throne.
And our plea is that you now acknowledge
your lost condition, acknowledge the love and grace
of God and the gift of a Savior
whose blood is sufficient for the sins of
all men, and come to him.
Acknowledge your lost condition.
Receive as a free gift salvation from the
hand of the lawn of the tribe of
Judah.
And you are sure that you shall have
the ultimate protection from wrath to come.
May God help you to come.
Come now.
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou
shall be saved.
Let's stand for the benediction.
Father, we are so grateful to thee for
these wonderful words that have been given us
by Jacob the patriarch.
Oh God, may the solemnity of them impress
themselves upon us.
We thank thee for the cross and the
forgiveness of sins.
And oh God, work in such a way
that there shall be not one person who
has heard this message this morning in this
auditorium shall ever have to face him before
the throne.
For Jesus' sake, amen.