to God's holy and inspired word. Then Jacob called his sons and said, gather yourselves together that I may tell you what shall happen to you in days to come. Assemble and listen, O sons of Jacob, listen to Israel, your father. Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the firstfruits of my strength, preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power. Unstable 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. Weapons of violence are their swords. Let my soul not come into their counsel, O my glory, be not joined to their company, for in their anger they killed men, and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen. 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. Your brothers shall praise you. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's son shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion's cub. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he crouched as a lion, and as a lioness, who dares to rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until tribute comes to him, and to him shall be the obedience of all the peoples. Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey's coat to the choice vine, he has washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes. His eyes are darker than wine and his teeth whiter than milk. Zebulun shall dwell at the shore of the sea. He shall become a haven for ships, and his border shall be at Sidon. Issachar is a strong donkey, crouching between the sheepfolds. He saw that a resting place was good, and that the land was pleasant, so he bowed his shoulder to bear and became a servant at forced labor. Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent in the way, a viper by the path that bites the horse's heels so that its rider falls backwards. I wait for your salvation, O Lord. Raiders shall raid Gad, but he shall raid at their hills. Asher's food shall be rich, and he shall yield royal delicacies. Naphtali is a dough let loose that bears beautiful fawns. Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring. His branches run over the wall. The archers bitterly attacked him, shot at him, and harassed him severely. Yet his bow remained unmoved. His arms remained agile. by the hands of the mighty one of Jacob. For there is the shepherd, the stone of Israel. By the God of your father who will help you, by the almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that crouches beneath, blessings of the breast and of the womb, the blessings of your father are mighty beyond the blessings of my parents up to the bounties of the everlasting hills. May they be on the head of Joseph and on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers. Benjamin is a ravenous wolf in the morning devouring the prey, in that evening dividing the spoil. All these are the 12 tribes of Israel. This is what their father said to them as he blessed them, blessing each with the blessing suitable to them. Amen, let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this word. We thank you, Lord, for the example of our spiritual forefather, Jacob, even as he blesses his own sons, Lord, and points them, oh Lord, to the source of true life and blessing that will be found, oddly enough, in Judah's son. We pray that for the sake of the lion of the tribe of Judah, the lamb who was slain, you would remind us of what you've accomplished through him, Lord, that you would cause our hearts to rest in him, and you would build us up, Lord, in the gospel. That is His and that is given to us forevermore. We pray this all in Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. I think we began to go through the book of Genesis two years ago. We've taken a couple of breaks in between that Genesis 1-1 and now the penultimate chapter. We've looked at the ins and outs of the story of God's people from Adam and Eve down through Noah and through the children of Abraham himself and then through his children on through now to Joseph and we're returning back to Jacob as he summarizes so much of what we've seen thus far and as he prophesies about what will come ahead. If there's one word that you could use to summarize the book of Genesis, one word that would accurately describe its contents and what God is doing. It would be the word blessing. Blessing as opposed to cursing. Blessing which was promised at the beginning of the book itself, the beginning of creation itself when God made men in his own image, male and female, he made them and he blessed them. And then he called them to subdue the earth, to take dominion over it and yet realize, we must realize that blessing first was on their head and yet it was quickly lost in the fall Yet God in his grace sought to restore what is lost in the story of Genesis and really the whole narrative of scripture from Genesis three to fall onward is God restoring blessing to his people through different means and measures, through ultimately his chosen people, men like Noah and then later Abraham and Isaac, Jacob here, Joseph, Judah and his brothers, and especially to the one who would ultimately come through them, the son of Abraham, the son of David, Jesus himself. Blessing is the thread that holds Genesis together. It's not a book about perfect people by any stretch of the imagination that's been one crystal clear theme throughout the book. But it's a book about God's persistent grace, God's persistent seeking to bless his people, and more than his people, actually to bless the ends of the earth, those who are made in his image, the nations of the world. And so it's appropriate that the book of Genesis end with blessing, just as it began. Now, we saw, I think it was two weeks ago, in Genesis 48, that Joseph begins this season of blessing. It's the last moments of his life. And he begins by blessing Joseph's children. Ephraim and Manasseh, with really, in many ways, the physical blessing of the firstborn. They would receive, or Joseph would receive a double inheritance because two of his children are adopted into the family of Israel. We saw a lot from that passage, how the younger was surprisingly chosen over the older. It's a demonstration of God's sometimes unmanageable grace. You don't know exactly what he will do, but he is always gracious and he gives the preeminency to the younger one. He welcomes them by adoption into his own family, into the family of God, like this is a big moment for Joseph and his son's life. And this chapter picks up right on the hills of that, as Jacob has blessed Joseph's children. Now he calls all of his sons together. If you look in verses one and two, he says, gather yourselves together. Notice this blessing goes beyond just a gentle sort of the Lord be with you, it actually involves prophecy. Jacob is a prophet and he speaks for the Lord here. And he says, I will tell you what shall happen in the days to come. And he assembles his sons and he gives them blessings. The last verse we read, verse 28 says, these are the 12 tribes of Israel. And this is what their father said to them as he blessed them with blessings that are suitable to them. Now, I stress that to say that a lot of the things we read here that Jacob says in many ways might seem not like blessings. in some ways like curses, especially for the older of the sons, Reuben and Simeon and Levi. Yet nonetheless, this whole chapter, along with their whole lives, is shot through with the gracious care and blessing of God. They belong to the covenant people of God. They have spiritual wealth and riches beyond measure. They have treasure in heaven. And Jacob is reminding them of this. together with what will happen. Now as we go through these, we're not gonna meticulously go through each description here, but we'll survey what God says through his prophet Jacob to the 12 tribes of Israel, the patriarchs of Israel, our own spiritual forefathers. And we'll see two basic points here, which you have outlined in your bulletin first. We'll see that this is a form of mixed blessings here, which is instructive, it's meant to teach us, it's meant to warn us in a way. There's mixed blessings for Jacob's sons here, but then ultimately this prophecy in this chapter is driving us to one particular son of Jacob, the lion of the tribe of Judah, who will conquer all his and our enemies, and that's the one that we will focus on as well. Let's begin as we look through this chapter and consider the mixed blessings that are for Jacob's sons here. Let's walk briefly through Each one, let's begin. Look in verse three. So it begins with Reuben. He's the eldest, he's the firstborn, and he has all of the promise of leadership and power attached to him. That's what the firstborn was. He was preeminent above us brothers. Not necessarily because he was the best baby, or the most good looking, or physically the strongest, but because he was the firstborn, which wasn't just like he experienced this privilege apart from any appropriate responsibility. He was given such privileges, or at least the firstborns were, because there was such a weighty responsibility attached to the firstborn. They were the ones who would carry on the covenant, carry on the faith of their father. They were the ones who were in many ways in the place of the father, like to care for their other brothers and sisters and their children and their children's children. The firstborn does have a place of preeminence. and a place of deep responsibility. Well, Reuben is confessed here to have such preeminent. He's got dignity, he has power, but notice verse four, he is unstable as water. Have you ever tried to take like a bowl of water and transport it? We used to, when we wash our dog, we put him on the back porch and I'd get this big Ikea metal bowl of hot water to bring out to help wash him. And you carry that thing carefully, the water sloshes around, just the little smallest tip of it, it'll roll over, it'll slosh, and the second it starts to spill, you can't stop it. The weight of the water shifts and takes hold and it spills everywhere. And it's not pleasant. Water is unstable. You can't control it. Floods and rains, like, show us that very fact. This reminds us of Reuben's sin. He's unstable, spiritually speaking. Why? Without going into deep detail, because he went up to his father's bed. He defiled it. Jacob even exclaims at the end of this blessing, he went up to my couch. He took as his own, Bilhah, Jacob's, Concubine now the result the judgment for that action is That his role as the firstborn his preeminence of on his brothers was forfeited You shall not have preeminence Jacob says Simeon and Levi come on the hills of Reuben here, and they're not remembered for their impulsive sort of immorality like I Reuben, but rather for their violence, which is itself unstable and unbridled here. Jacob recalls how they slaughtered the men of Shechem. Now, they had a good reason. If you remember that story as it unfolds, the men of Shechem, particularly Shechem themselves, violated their sister, Dinah. And they sought, Levi and Simeon, sought to bring revenge among these people, first saying, you should join with us, you should be one of us, but in order to do that, you have to be circumcised. And so they were circumcised. And then whenever they were all sore, the men of the city, what did they do? They went through the city and they put them all to the edge of the sword. They killed them. And their response was in a way godly, but excessive and cruel and vengeful. You can see that in Jacob's words here. For in their anger they killed men, and in their willfulness they even hamstrung the oxen. Like they went through the city, and even the oxen there, they took their sword to the legs of it to kill it in a destructive and cruel way. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and cursed be their wrath. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. We see here that this blessing is in many ways a judgment to them. it will be scattered throughout the land. And yet, just as a foreshadowing, later we'll see how this is transformed by God's grace as the tribe of Levi, which becomes the priestly tribe, which becomes the ones who will offer to God the sacrifices required, who will be the one to represent God to the people and the people to God, and will ultimately be brought into and folded into, or they'll be the chiefly, they'll be the chiefly tribe here who will even though they're scattered in the land and not have an earthly inheritance, they're given a spiritual inheritance with the Lord. Issachar here is called a strong donkey. That's his verse. Or as Jacob speaks to him as well, Issachar is one who is a beast of burden. He, this is verse 14 by the way, he is one who sought comfort and ease rather than perhaps even responsibility. Zebulun is one who, we're just told, dwells by the shore of the sea. He has a haven for ships. He has a great port city. So some of these blessings are small, earthly. Some of them are wild. and spiritual. Dan here is compared to a serpent in the way, which is not a good comparison in the book of Genesis. He is one who bites at the horse's heels. Actually, Jacob's description of Dan is chilling in light of Genesis 3, and it leads Dan to, or at least Jacob, even to cry out to the Lord, Lord, I wait for your salvation, oh Lord. And if you read on in the people of In what happens amongst God's people in Joshua and Judges, Dan is the tribe who sets up, in many ways, a rival priesthood that is to replace the Levitical priesthood. They also call the people to rival worship, not to go to the true temple of God, and for that reason, here, we see that they are like a serpent. They beguile God's people, try to tempt them with a different voice. There are others here. Raiders shall raid Gadd. That's a little bit of a play on words. The word for raiders and raid, it's the word Gadd or sounds a lot like it. It's like raiders shall Gadd Gadd and he shall Gadd at their heels. It means it's like basically they, this tribe will be constantly attacked and they'll return it in favor. Asher's food will be rich. He'll be the one to, amongst his people, bring royal delicacies. Naphtali is very beautiful. In other words, there is a lot here in these blessings. Some of them are very neutral or ambiguous, like you'll have a nice port city. or your children will be beautiful thongs. Some of them are in the sense, in the vein of warning that are sobering. Reuben and Simeon and Levi, beware of sexual immorality, beware of anger and wrath and justice that is doled out in an unjust way, which is a great application, by the way, especially for parents, because the sins of these fathers affected their children in many ways, patterns, examples, attitudes. This is what Jacob is warning us and his children in. Don't follow in the footsteps of your father Reuben, O children of Reuben. Or Levi and Simeon, O children of Levi and Simeon. It shows us as well that sins, well, they matter. And they affect us even if The consequence is small, at least in an outward way or on the outset. I mean, we moved past the events of, right, of just one verse where Reuben went up and took really kind of like his stepmom as his own. Kind of just read one verse and moved on. Yet here it is. Here's the judgment for it. The Lord sees and beware, your sin will find you out. These blessings teach us that point. Then there's Joseph. I include Joseph under mixed blessings here because there is a bit of surprise here. Now, Jacob's word for Joseph is long, his words are long, they're rich with metaphor and imagery. He's described wonderfully as, basically his whole history is described here. He's a fruitful vine. He was attacked, the archers attacked you bitterly, verse 23, shot at you, harassed you. And yet he remained strong. He became like the shepherd for Israel, like a rock for Israel, and that he was the one who ultimately brought them safety and deliverance. In many ways, he will do this for the entire world. We'll see that next week. God has been with him. That's been the theme in Joseph's life, that even in the depths of an Egyptian prison, God was there with him. Even at the heights of Egyptian power, God was still with him. He is one who has been blessed abundantly, even more so than perhaps his own father. And yet, with all that blessing, with all of the latter quarter of Genesis focused on Joseph and his life and ministry, there is one that excels him, surprisingly, and it's Judah. I say this is surprisingly because Right at the outset of Joseph's story, Genesis 37, it's like interrupted with Genesis 38, which I'll leave for you to read later if you don't remember the contents of it. It speaks very negatively of Judah in both his shrewdness and his sin and his hypocrisy, and it's a wild chapter. It's like soap operic in its proportions, and yet it shows Judah who begins to be humbled. And as we've seen throughout the last few chapters, Judah is one who has stepped up and has stepped into the role in many ways of the firstborn, who has stepped to take on that responsibility for his brothers, for their children and their children's children. And perhaps that's why he receives under God's grace and guidance the blessing he does, which will lead us to our second point here, which is the true blessing that comes through Judah and his seed. Now his blessing stands out. It stands out in its poetic beauty, but also in just the weightiness of what Jacob says to it, even theologically here. Let's look at it again. It's verses eight through 12. Look at this. Even how Jacob speaks to Judah with the language that Genesis has used to describe Joseph. Judah, your brother shall praise you. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's sons shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion's cub. He is the one from the prey. My son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he crouches a lion, and as a lioness, who dares rouse him? The scepter will not depart from him, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, or tribute comes to him. And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. He binds his donkeys to the choices of the vines in Israel. He washes his clothes in wine. His eyes themselves are darker than wine, and his teeth are wider. than milk. Now these are flowing, rich, poetic imageries that describe a king. And Judah is one who will, at least through his offspring, be the king of the line. The lion is, of course, the supreme imagery here, which is why we read Revelation 5, the lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered. He has come to the battle. He has slain his enemies, and he is now able to open the scroll. He is able to stand before God. He is able to take to himself the plan of God as it's opened up and brought to fullness, which is what's represented by the scroll. He is the one who has conquered, and he can go forth now to spread his kingdom to the ends of the earth. Let's consider what kind of blessing this king, this lion, brings. There's a number of things we can gather from what Jacob says to Judah here. First, know that he is blessed in his might, in his strength. Your brother shall praise you, your hands shall be on the neck of your enemies. That's a picture of strength, absolutely, isn't it? If you wanna subdue someone, go for the pressure point. Where's a strong pressure point? In the neck. Hold him at the jugular so he passes out. the way Judah as a king exercises his power. But he's also a lion, which is an imagery throughout the whole entire Bible, just as it is today on any nature television show or what you would see in any form of literature, a lion is a symbol of might, of king, like kingly rule, of power. Even the most decrepit lion in the zoo is still the king of the zoo. And you go there to see the lion. He is Mighty, he conquers all his and our enemies. Ultimately, as you think through the rest of scripture as this unfolds, this is the conquering of Christ who comes and conquers death and Satan and sin and all of its effects and its shame and its guilt, who conquers with power and authority. as the king of kings and lord of lords. This is why Jesus can go throughout the gospels and cast out demons and heal lepers and raise the dead to life because it shows his work as the lion of the tribe of Judah to conquer as a king of kings. So first we see his might here. And then connected to his might and his rule, or his kingly role, is the eternality of it, like he will always be this king. The scepter, which is a symbol of kingly might, like a staff, bejeweled with all manner of precious stones, illustrating and showing power. The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet. The lion of the tribe of Judah will rule, will reign forever, even as or until, notice this phrase in verse 10, tribute comes to him. Another translation of that would yield this, that until Shiloh comes, until peace comes, until finally there's an end of war, and all come and bow before this king, like that is what this savior, what this lion accomplishes. Earthly rulers rise and fall, but his kingdom will be truly eternal and everlasting. third the third blessing we see here is one of gracious abundance i love this one because they read here in verse 11 that he shall bind his foal to the vine and his donkey to the choice is fine what is this speaking about in the bible wine and of vineyards and things like that that that is a symbol of prosperity it's a symbol of Abundance and essentially this blessing here is painting the picture of extravagance and prosperity through this king, through this lion, through the offspring and the tribe of Judah. Like vines are so plentiful in the land where Judah reigns that when you go to tie your donkey to a tree, it's not a tree, it's a vine because they're everywhere. When you go to wash your clothes, what do you use? You use wine to wash your clothes because it's just flowing in free abundance. It's almost humorous here. Who would wash their clothes in wine? Yet this is the imagery here of great abundance here that there is through this king. Remember Jesus' first, according to John's gospel, his first show of glory, his first miracle, his first sign in that gospel, what is it? where he takes what is simple and without any grand... that which is everyday, like water, and he transforms it into wine. No one takes a glass of water, if they've been drinking up to that point, and says, this is good water. I mean, maybe every now and then you might, but... But he creates wine from this water, and it's not just regular wine. It's not what you'd expect. It's not like the, you know, remember the wedding feast. They've been feasting for days. They would have used up all the good wine at the first of the feasts and then brought in at the end sort of the bottom shelf, bottom label wine. Because who can take the difference when you've been having it all week? But no, he saves the best for last. And that's a picture of what this lion, the one from the tribe of Judah, will accomplish. He'll bring tremendous abundance as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, just as he did at the wedding in Cana. So this is, this blessing shows us and paints a picture of us as one who is powerful in his rule, in his reign, who is powerful against his enemies, and who is powerful to bring blessing to his own in the form of wine here, and that it flows and it brings delight to his people, just as he showed at that wedding in Canaan. But this all comes through what Judah does not, or Jacob, does not really outline here in full, but if you read the rest of the scripture, to fruition, especially in our passage from Revelation, that this lion will accomplish all of this by coming as a lamb. That's why there's that beautiful imagery in Revelation 5, as John weeps that no one is worthy to open the scroll, and then the elder comes to him and says, do not weep. The lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered, and then he looks, and what does he see? a lamb standing as it had been slain with his throat slit. Now it's a wild lamb with seven horns and seven eyes, yet is still a lamb. It's not a symbol of power and authority and might, it's a symbol of, well, meekness and humility. If one who has come to conquer, but to do so through death. By death he shamed death, he conquered death by submitting to, in a way, and being cruelly mocked by the Satan and those whom he led, and in the calls to crucify Christ, Christ ultimately conquers Satan. He brings victory, like this is what he accomplishes by becoming a lamb. The lion of the tribe of Judah who conquers is the lamb that was slain. And this is the heart of the blessing for not just Judah's line, but for all of the sons of Israel. And ultimately, as we'll see to the ends of the earth, that this lion who has conquered is the lamb who was slain. And he brings not just bare authority and bare might and bare sovereign power, but he exercises such power for the good of his own, both to bring them redemption and salvation, to bring you salvation as he has conquered on your behalf, to bring you redemption from your sins, to bring you relief from temptation and from the enemy, to conquer your enemies and his. He's done this, this is powerful and this is might. He's exercised his sovereign role in bringing redemption. And he exercised it as well to guard his people, to continue to keep them, and they're going out and they're coming in, to continue to come and fight. And even at the last day, the battle imagery of Revelation 19 and following, when this lamb comes again as a lion with a sword from his mouth to put to end all evil. Like this is prophesied, this is proclaimed to us here, and it comes through the lion who is also the lamb. Now what does this mean for us? How can we apply this to us? A number of ways. First of all, this prophecy that Jacob gives about Judah is good news to you, especially if you find yourself more in line with say, Reuben, or Simeon, or Levi, that is a sinner. center in perhaps even small ways or even big grand ways like they did ultimately their blessedness will not be in anything earthly will be a heavenly spiritual blessing of eternal life that comes through judas seed the one before whom they will bow down you know If you sin greatly, if you carry that shame of your sin, if you've wrecked your life, if you've failed in your leadership, in your purity, in your worship, if you're constantly angry, if you're guilty for that, if you hate that, then you have, in the line of the tribe of Judah, in the land who was slain, one who can bring you blessing and relief and forgiveness, so that you will no longer be unstable like water or enslaved to idols or in bondage to anger or lust or shame, Be hidden in Christ, secure in his hands, washed, sanctified, cleansed, and justified in the name of this lion, this lamb. Christ brings us blessing rather than cursing. Look to the lion of the tribe of Judah who has conquered and who brings true and lasting blessing that outshines, I don't know, the beauty of Naphtali, The rich delicacies of Asher outshines the wealth of a city that is port city on the sea. Look to this lamb and this lion and find true blessing, which is eternal life. And it sure is now as you trust in Christ. Let's pray.