Jacob blesses his Sons

Well, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. It's 1115. Maybe it's lunchtime for you. Maybe you need to grab a little bit of coffee during your lunch break to get through the rest of this Friday. Well, we have some coffee. We'll pray and we'll get into the Lord's word. My other mug let's pray father. We thank you so much for this day We thank you for the blessing. It is to get to read your word It is a huge gift from you That you have even spoken to us and that you have given us your word in your Providence kept pure And that we were able to read it in the language that we understand Father we pray that you would please help us now to understand it in Jesus's name. Amen. All right, so we are at We are at Genesis chapter 49. Oh, my bookmarks gone. There we go. Genesis chapter 49. And we will read the first 28 verses. Genesis chapter 49, the first 28 verses. And Jacob called his sons and said, gather together that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days. Gather together and hear you sons of Jacob and listen to your father.
Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might and the beginning of my strength. The excellency of dignity and the excellency of power. Unstable as water, you shall not excel because you went up to your father's bed. Then you defiled it. You went up to my couch. Simeon and Levi are brothers. Instruments of cruelty are in their dwelling place. Let not my soul enter their council. Let not my honor be united to their assembly, for in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they hamstrung an ox. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel.
I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. your father's children shall bow down before you judah is a lion's whelp from the prey my son you have gone up he bows down he lies down as a lion and as a lion who shall rouse him The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the people.
Binding his donkey to the vine and his donkey's colt to the choice vine, he washed his garments in wine and his clothes in the blood of grapes. His eyes are darker than wine and his teeth whiter than milk. Zebulun shall dwell by the haven of the sea. He shall become a haven for ships, and his border shall adjoin Sidon. Issachar is a strong donkey, lying between two burdens. He saw that rest was good and that the land was pleasant.
He bowed down his shoulder to bear a burden and became a band of slaves. Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent by the way, a viper by the path that bites the horse's heel so that its rider shall fall backward. I have waited for your salvation, oh Lord. Gad, a troop shall trample on him, but he shall triumph at last.
Bread from Asher shall be rich, and he shall yield royal dainties. Naphtali is a deer let loose. He uses beautiful words. Joseph is a fruitful bow, a fruitful bow by a well. His branches run over the wall. The archers have bitterly grieved him, shot at him and hated him.
But his bow remained in strength and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob. From there is the shepherd, the stone of Israel. By the God of your father, who will bless help you and by the almighty, who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb. The blessing blessings of your father have excelled the blessings of my ancestors up to the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills.
They shall be on the head of Joseph. and on the crown of the head of him who is separate from his brothers. Benjamin is a ravenous wolf. In the morning he shall devour the prey and at night he shall divide the spoil. All these are the twelve tribes of Israel. And this is what their father spoke to them. And he blessed them. He blessed each one according to his own blessing.
Well, We need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do? All right, well, it's taken us over six minutes just to read this. So let's work through it quickly. Jacob is at his dying days, and now he has final words to say to each son. Right? And now he talks to Joseph, right?
These are the 12 tribes of Israel, actually in verse 28. And these are the 12 tribes of Israel. This is the first time in the entire Bible that that phrase has been used, the 12 tribes of Israel. And Jacob isn't many, many of your translations might even say Jason Jacob blesses his sons. But notice, not all of them are blessings.
Some of them he's just speaking straight to. And that might be the biggest blessing in their lives, that their father speaks directly to them. He speaks about Reuben. He says, You were my firstborn man. You were the strength of my bones. Right. You were my vitality and my excellency.
Then you wouldn't have laid with one of my wives. And Simeon and Levi, man, you guys, I wouldn't want to cast my lot with you. Remember what you did to those men when you promised them that we would give them our daughters and they would give us their sons and we would be a strong united people? And then you had them be circumcised and you used that to kill people and to hamstring their oxes. I don't want to be like you. Some of these things are hard for them.
But then he talks to his fourth boy, Judah, the one who had come up with the whole plot to have Joseph killed and sold into slavery. But it's Judah who has seemed to reform as God has taken a son and taken a son and then He was proven to be ungodly and seems to have repented, even offering up his own life as surety if he brought down Benjamin to Egypt and didn't bring him back up again.
And he says, Judah, Judah, you're going to be the head. You're going to be the king. The scepter is going to be in your hand and you're going to rule the people. And he goes down each child, speaking something about them, pointing something out about their character, and even sometimes telling them what's going to happen in the future. Right, Zebulon, you're going to be a seafaring dude.
You're going to live next to the next to the shores. That's where you're going to make your money. I've noticed that you love to go fishing. I love I noticed that you love to trade. And so that's what you're going to be. It's a car. You're a strong man. You're able to work hard, boy, able to put those shoulders down and get to work. And that's a blessing to you. Dan, Dan's name literally means judge.
You're going to be a judge, right? You're going to have elders come from your people. You're going to have, be the one who tells people to wait upon the Lord. Yad, right? You're going to, you're going to suffer difficult things. People are going to trample over you, but you'll have the victory at last. Asher, right? Asher, you're going to be the one who, who will actually be like the bread basket.
You're going to be the one who's going to be a blessing of rich food and trade to people. Neftali, you're good. You're good with words. You've got a poet's heart. You're like a doe going through the field. Everyone looks at what you say and what you write and they admire what you do.
And he just says, Joseph, the longest portion here besides Judah is Joseph. And he recalls how strong Joseph was, how resolved he was, even though people tried to destroy him, God had blessed him. He says that and the arms of his hands were made strong and by the hands of mighty God of Jacob from there the shepherd the stone of Israel by the God of your fathers who will help you and by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above right and he's going to bless him so much that Ephraim and Manasseh become two of the largest tribes in Israel. It says, God didn't ever forget you.
And he looks at his youngest boy, Ben, says, Benny, Benjamin, son, you're going to have mighty warriors that come from you. Right. What does he say? Benjamin is a ravenous wolf. In the morning, he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil. And indeed, when the army of Israel is gathered together, later on, what we find out is Benjamin, Benjamin is like the special forces. Right men who are able with our right hand to bear us a sword and with our left hand are able to sling stones See he's calling out his boys and he's pointing out something special about them He's got something to say for each of them about each of the tribes of Israel Some of them for good Some of them calling failures But each one of them he knows What's going on here? Right. Why has he gathered together his sons? These are his final blessings or final words. To his boys.
To different tribes and prophetically speaking to them where their place will be in the economy of God. Well, what are we what's the best verse to summarize this? Well, in verse 28, it does say he blessed them. Verse 28, And all these things, all these are the twelve tribes of Israel. And this is what their father spoke to them, and he blessed them. He blessed each one according to his own blessing. He gives them each one his own asherah. Asherah is this Hebrew word for blessing.
He speaks a word to each one of them. Sometimes the best blessings are being told the honest truth. Sometimes the best blessings are remembering what God has done to redeem us. Sometimes the best blessings are to remind us of the repentance God has wrought in our hearts. Sometimes the best blessing is to know that that character trait that might be difficult for us to handle and to constrain, God will use for the furthering of his kingdom. So this is their father blessing them.
You can imagine as he's looking upon all of his boys thinking, I remember going to Badan and it was just me. I had to go find a wife and it was just me. And now here I am in Egypt. They're tribes. God has kept his promises, and he is dying a man surrounded by his family, knowing that God had kept his promises. Do you? Can you look on your family, look on your life and know it's not a perfect family? There never is. But can you know that God is gracious? That he is loving? That he keeps his promises?
Maybe it might be a good helpful thing for you to take this pattern and maybe think even in your own life. Maybe you have children who are grown, maybe you're older in your age. Maybe it might be wise of you to write down those blessings for your own children that you might hand it to them and they might know before you die. the words that you would want them to be remembered by. What are the things you take to heart about your children?
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much that you are a wonderful God. We do thank you for our families. We thank you for our mothers. We thank you for our fathers. We thank you for our brothers and sisters. We thank you for many of us that you have given us children and grandchildren. And we pray, Lord, that we might be a blessing to them. And that they might be blessed by you in Jesus's name. Amen. Well, may God bless you as you continue to rest upon him your rock, your shield and your strength. And I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.