Amen. So we're there in Genesis 49. We're coming to the end of Genesis. So this overview of the
Bible is actually taking quite a bit. It's not taking quite a year, but it's taking some time.
And you know, of course, the goal is to go over some of the major events of the Bible
that people just aren't familiar with anymore. And this is actually one of the most
It's a famous event, it's a major event, Jacob's last words to his 12 children, and they're
pretty insightful, pretty prophetic, it's a very interesting part of scripture.
But just really quick, to set this up, I've got a ton of notes, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna
make an attempt to give it to do justice to this chapter, this chapter really probably
requires a series, but for today, I'm only gonna focus on the overview, right?
But in conclusion, just I'm giving you the conclusion because it's the intro, right?
Jacob basically is giving blessings and rebukes
And he's prophesying the future of not only his children, but their heritage right the next the 12 tribes of israel
And some received honor really like juda and joseph
Really and the rest of them really suffered the consequences of their past sins like ruman simian levi
Of course some of them are just kind of I mean, I guess you would say neutral and then of course we see
Jesus being spoken of in Genesis 49 and it's actually really cool. I broke this down
I can't take credit for learning this. I learned this a long time ago
I can't even remember if it was like within some of the first
I think Pastor Cobb might have preached about it and actually
I do remember it was like 2018 that he preached on Genesis 49 and I learned this and then
I did some more research as I was preparing for this and it's actually really cool.
But let's go there to Genesis 49 verse one.
We will go through every verse, but we're not going to go through every point in my
new detail, but just really quick.
The first thing I just want to point out in the introduction is that they should have
listened to their father, right?
The end of Genesis is the fact that Israel basically set up for failure, for disobedience,
for the lack of submission, right?
I mean, the majority of Jacob's children.
are young and rebellious.
They end up leading different lives
and even we have the tribe of Judah,
which actually is the lineage of Jesus Christ.
So everybody can be redeemed later in life,
but it would have just been better to have been like Joseph
and just lead a good life from the very beginning, right?
And we see this as in Jacob called unto his sons
and said, gather yourself together
that I may tell you what ye shall befall you
in the last days.
Gather yourself together and hear ye sons of Jacob
and harken unto Israel, your father.
Basically Jacob at the end of his life was making the plea that any father would make even at the beginning of their life
Which is you know, you need to listen to me, right?
And unfortunately they didn't listen at first
So I think that maybe there's a bit of and I'm just making this is my opinion
But I would think that not only do you want to leave any last words to your children
But it's almost his last final plea like hey, you didn't pay attention at first
But maybe you need to listen to me now
Here's some strong words that you need to take with you as I prepare to go to the grave and in Proverbs 4
You don't have to turn there
But in verse 1 the Bible says hear ye children the instructions of a father the instruction of a father and
Attent to no understanding for I give you good doctrine
For sake ye not my law for I was my father's son
Tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother, he taught me also, and said unto me,
Let thine heart retain my words, keep my commandments, and live.
Get wisdom, get understanding, forget it not, neither decline from the words of my mouth
for sake or not, and she shall preserve thee, love her, and she shall keep thee.
Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom."
And with all thy getting, get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee, she shall bring thee to honor, when thou dost embrace her, she shall give to thine head an ornament of grace, a crown of glory shall she deliver thee.
Here, O my son, and receive my say, excuse me, and the years of thy life shall be many."
You know, we think about life.
And even though when we're saved, we think about the fact that life is better in heaven, right?
The Bible tells us that, but Paul's like, hey, I'm stuck between two places, wanting to be in heaven or being here.
But it is more needful for me that I'm here. That's what Paul said, right?
So while we're here, why wouldn't we just want to have a long and
Prosperous life and the thing that we need to do is what get understanding get wisdom with everything that we can do
We need to get it and Jacob, you know it with all his fault
He was a man after God, right?
He was the man that was faithful and if his children would have just listened things would have turned out differently
but of course
you know, we're all rebellious, but the one thing that the theme of Genesis that really stands out
is that salvation by grace is completely
evident in the fact that it's in the very first book.
There is literally nobody in the book of Genesis that you could say, yeah, this guy earned it.
Like literally there's no, even the lineage, where does Jesus come from?
mean Joseph who's the one that's sold into slavery where Ephraim and Manasseh come out those tribes of Israel you would think that that
You know Jesus would come from that tribe
But then all of a sudden Jude is the one that has chosen to have Jesus come from and I think that you know
The reason that's done is just to prove a point that it's not even coming from the greatest of the 12 children
You know just it's not by anything that we do but by grace through faith, right?
But let's go through the children.
I'm going to go through some of these really quick.
Some of these, I'm going to spend a little bit more time.
The very first one, of course, is Reuben and the Bible says there in Genesis
three verse forces, Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my mighty and the beginning
of my strength, the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power.
He said, Hey, you had it all.
unstable as water thou shall not excel because thou wentest up to thy father's
bed, then defile us thou it, he went up to my couch." And what's the problem with
Reuben? Reuben, Reuben let the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye take
over him. I mean he literally was, when it says he went up into it, it means that
he was intimate with his father's wife.
Says, you know, even though he acknowledged him that he's the firstborn that he's full of strength and dignity
The Bible also says that he's unstable as water, right?
And what it made me think of as I was reading this is one of the things I do every morning is I'll make my some mudwater or some coffee
and I usually go upstairs to my office to work
when I'm working from home.
And if I'm in a hurry,
sometimes I'm about to get on a call.
And if I go up too quickly, I spill it on the carpet
because it's not a stable element, right?
It's just all over the place.
And that's literally what Jacob's saying about Reuben
that he just never had stability in his life.
Well, you know how you get stability in Christ.
That's why I started there in Proverbs 4, right?
It says,
With that lack of stability, he just never excelled.
He had the first birthright, he had the preeminence, and still he didn't excel.
You know that and why did he do this one Genesis 35 and you don't have to go there with me
I'll tell you when to move because I'm like I said
I have 11 pages of notes
But it's not that I'm gonna go through all the other pages like in my new detail
But in Genesis 35 22 the Bible says and it came in a past
When Israel dwelt in the land that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father's concubine in Israel heard it now
The sons of Jacob were 12 and so I mean he did this wicked thing
You know in 1st Corinthians the Bible tells us that you know if somebody's doing that they literally need to be kicked out of the church
Right, you don't want that kind of a stability in the church
And then in 1st Chronicles 5 the Bible is is telling us what happens because of this it says now the sons of Reuben
The firstborn of Israel and 1 Chronicles 5 verse 1 says for he was the firstborn and it's in parentheses, right?
But for as much as he defiled his father's birthbed, his birthright was given unto the sons of Joseph, the son of Israel.
the genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright for Judah prevailed
above his brethren and of him came the chief ruler but the birthright was
Joseph. So it's crazy because ruin messed up so much the birthright is
actually given to who? Joseph right the second second to the to the youngest I
mean from the going backwards right but the lineage is given to who to Judah
Which I mean it broke it basically messed the whole thing up and I could kind of relate to this
Because I would feel really bad if my parents
had removed that
Being the firstborn child, I guess title from me and what I mean by that is I
Don't know. I mean, it's it's pretty much in a lot of cultures
But you know in this in Mexican culture, especially if you're a boy and you're the first born. It's a big deal
You know, and I'm the firstborn, I'm the first boy, you know, and my parents always make
sure that my brother and sister knew that.
As a matter of fact, in a way, I carry some authority in my family.
You can ask my wife, like, my brother and sister respect the decisions that I make for
the family whenever there's a family emergency, just because I'm the oldest.
You know, I have that authority that's just basically been handed out by my parents.
It's just the fact that that's what my parents did over time, but here Ruben's been removed that,
right? And we see not only in Ruben, who else did something similar? Esau, right? I mean,
so it's just basically people taking for granted, people being just ungrateful for the things that
And I have little titles here, some of them stand out more than others, of course, Ruben's unstable as water.
See me in Levi, the Bible says that they're instruments of cruelty.
Man, that just sounds horrible, right?
In Genesis 49, verse 5, the Bible says,
Simeon and Levi are brethren.
I mean, this is a father, this is what he's calling his children.
He said, Ruben, you're my firstborn, but you're unstable as water.
Which also tells me something about the state of society today, before we go there.
It tells me two things, number one, we've lost our ability to parent.
Because everybody thinks that we need to be nice and tippy-toe and not hurt, you know,
so-and-so's feelings.
The Bible says you need to be clear, you know, you need to be direct.
I remember when my, and it's interesting, that old school mentality.
Of being direct, you know, and that's one of the things that I try to do with of course
I mean do it within reason, right? These are grown men like my children
I'm not as blunt with my children as I would be with them if they were adults
But I remember when my my mother-in-law passed away. My son was how old was in these is like three and four, right?
They were he was four so Lucy was five so and he gave us four and Lucy was five and
We got the news on April 1st. It was like a Friday and it was in the evening
And so we had to make some decisions quickly and we came down and we told the kids, hey,
we're going to go to Mimi's house and they got excited, you know, every time that they
heard it, they're jumping around.
So I knew in the cruelty of the thing that I couldn't let them think they were going
to a good thing.
Like I had to deliver the news right then and there that their grandmother had passed
away.
Right.
But before that, surely before that, I had called Pastor Cobb and I kind of had asked
No, actually, then it was direct.
I'm sorry.
I'm getting my timeline a little wrong.
But anyway, so I let him know, you know, I dropped the hammer, like, hey, Mimi's gone.
We're not going to a fun time.
It was kind of a shock, but they were still young enough.
It wasn't all hitting on all cylinders.
But then when the time of the funeral came, you know, everybody had an opinion.
Everybody has an opinion, right?
Especially on how to raise your children.
You want to learn how to raise your children, just ask anybody else.
You know, you don't need to know how to raise your children.
sit there and ask anybody how they think you should raise your children. I guarantee you
everybody's going to have an opinion. It's kind of the worst thing ever, right? You're about to
have children and everybody's like, well, don't do this and you should do that. And by the way,
I would never do this. And why would you, anyway, that's a whole other thing. But I remember calling
Pastor Cobb and I said, Hey, Pastor Cobb, my thought is that I should just, my kids should see the
And I said, but you know, we're getting kind of back and forth and everything like that.
And he's like, he's like, that's how we used to do it.
He wasn't as blunt as I'm saying it, but he's like, that's how we used to do it.
He's like, they're going to have to learn about it at some point, life and death.
I remember that was his words.
He's like, at some point you're going to have to face this.
It's better sooner than later.
Right?
And that's a very biblical concept.
I mean, Jacob's not tippy towing around the fact that he's about to die.
He's like, look, Ruben, you messed up.
You know, I'm still remember the fact that you know, I'm he might have forgiven him
But he's like I still have to call you out for the fact that you were basically
sleazy and depraved and wicked and then when he gets to sit me in a Levi
He literally right there in verse five. He says sit me in a Levi our brethren
Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. Oh my soul
Coming out thou in their secret
unto their assembly, mine honor be not thou united."
Literally, Jacob's like,
I don't even want to be united with them in honor.
For in their anger, they slew a man,
and in their self-will, they dig down a wall,
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.
And what did the brothers do?
Like I said, I'm not gonna go through everything.
Times will play this by time.
But basically, remember, Dina is taking advantage of,
but it almost seems like she was also willing
in that situation.
And what did they do?
They basically lied to the man that wanted to marry,
the man that wanted to marry his daughter.
They told him to get circumcised.
And then when they were healing,
they killed them all and they gave their dad a bad name.
And so the brothers are condemned for the cruelty in slaying the Shechemites, right?
And their anger is cursed, and what happens?
They're scattered all over Israel.
The tribe of Israel became the weakest tribe, and the tribe of Eli, I mean Levi, they became
the priests.
They had no inheritance, of course, they're all of a priestly manner, but what does the
Bible tell us in the New Testament, in the book of Hebrews, it says, none of them
Were ever worthy of being priests because even they had to go and shed blood for their sins, right?
There was only a high priest, which is who? Jesus Christ. He is the high priest
And so you don't have to turn there
But in Joshua 19 verse 1 the Bible says and the second lot came forth to Simeon
Even for the tribe of the children of Simeon according to their families and their inheritance
Was within the inheritance of the children of Judah
So, these are like really prophetic, strong words, like Jacob's basically telling them
how their lives are going to turn out because of all their sin.
In Exodus 32, the Bible says that Moses stood in the gate in verse 26.
This is then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said who is on the Lord's side?
Let him come up to me and all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him and he said unto them
Thus sayeth the Lord God of Israel put every man his sword by his side and go in and out from the gate
To gate throughout the camp and slay every man his brother and every man his companion every man his neighbor
And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses and their fellow of the people that day about
The, you know, Levi's, the Levites basically served.
They were servants to the Lord.
They, they didn't have no inheritance.
So there's not, it's not a super negative thing,
but they were scattered abroad.
They never had, you know, their, their own,
you know, when they, when they divvied up the land,
basically they didn't get land.
And Simeon, even though they got some land, it was part of Judah's land.
It was like overlapping territories.
And you know what happens with overlapping territories?
Nobody's ever happy.
I mean, just ask Mexico about the state of the United States of America, right?
They're like, well, they took our land or asked the Indians in their reservations.
Everybody's always saying that somebody took their land.
I don't get it because nobody's from anywhere, but you know, that's just how people tend to feel
But let's just go back there Genesis 49 now. We will spend a little bit of time here. This is where probably we'll spend most of our time
We're gonna talk about Judah now. This is where he's giving his blessing to Judah and
Judah really gets the scepter of what of kingship
And Judah says in verse, I mean in verse eight, it says Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren
shall praise, thy hands shall be in the neck of thine enemies, thy fathers children shall
bow down before thee.
So it wasn't just Joseph, but Judah somehow became preeminent, because God chose it that
way, right?
It says Judah is a lion's wealth.
From the pray my son thou art gone up. He stooped down. He couched as a lion and as an old lion
Who shall rouse him up? That's why Judah is always associated with what a lion right because the lion's what the king of the jungle and
Then this is that verse that the pastor preached a long time ago
And this is the one I want to break down a little bit. It says the scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a law giver from between his feet
until
Shiloh come and until him show the gathering of the people be any you know
Before ever listening to that sermon from Pastor Cobb every time I read this I just thought Shiloh the city
I mean, that's just I'm not I wasn't wrong in my thinking because it is a city. The Bible actually refers to Shiloh quite a bit
But actually verse 10 is not referring to Shiloh the city verse 10 is referring to Shiloh
Our heavenly refuge who is Jesus Christ. It's actually talking about a person. This is why the King James is so important
This is why the translators were so important because they knew how to read and translate properly
They knew also not only
Proper translation, but proper grammar.
Right, which is an also lost art in in America today. Like people just writing, right?
I don't have I'm not the greatest English writer, but I did learn some things the only negative
I have that my wife would attest to is that she says that I have a the the bad habit of a run-on sentence
Remember those, but you know my tea and she's not wrong because that was the one thing my teachers always corrected me on
They're like, this is a run-on sentence. I was like, I just have great thoughts. You don't you don't get me, but
If we, we look at this, let me just break this down as this phrase until Shiloh come
It implies that Shiloh is the subject who is arriving.
So if you don't remember your old, your English lessons, I'm going to give you one today, right?
It says it implies that Shiloh is the subject who is arriving, right?
So if we go there, it says, the sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from
his feet until Shiloh come, right?
directly refers to a singular person indicated unto him.
So the parallelism in the prophecy is that this, you know, obviously also and before that the antecedents, right?
We have the scepter symbol of kingship and the lawgiver or the authority are associated with Judah.
And until Shiloh comes, meaning Shiloh is a ruler or a kingly figure.
So, everything is pointing to the, that it's a person, right?
The subject, the Shiloh, and Shiloh is not, can't be a city because it's getting a scepter
and it's a law giver and it's until the people come.
It's speaking of other people, but even, even better, right?
We see here the subject to verb agreement and the clause structure, clause not CLA, C-L-A-U-S-E.
Right.
So the phrase into Shiloh, come, come follows a subject verb structure where Shiloh is the
subject and come is the verb and it's a subjunctive mood, common and older English for future uncertainty.
Right.
So since Shiloh functions as the subject of the verb come, it strongly indicates that Shiloh
or an entity capable of arriving, right?
And then we have the pronoun reference or antecedent.
So the next clause and unto him show the gathering
of the people, B contains the pronoun him,
which is singular masculine.
And the antecedent for him is naturally Shiloh,
confirming that Shiloh is a singular masculine figure.
So I just want to make sure,
and then there's more, right?
We could get into the semantics
and the contextual coherence.
I'm not going to do that,
but basically what it comes down to is that both the,
syntactic structure, which is the subject-verb agreement pronoun reference, and the semantic
meaning, the royal imagery, the parallelism, and prophetic language support the Shiloh's
a person, not a place or abstract idea.
Why spend so much time on this?
Because people sometimes like to argue that the Old Testament is different than the New
Testament, but it's not.
Jesus has been there from the very beginning.
And not only that, this is actually a very significant verse because Jacob is giving
prophecy of who, of Jesus Christ.
That means that his knowledge wasn't just some vague knowledge of like, oh, we know
that something's going to happen and then later on it's revealed to us in the New Testament.
No, he had clear understanding that Jesus was the Christ.
They just didn't know his name, right?
And we know this because if we were to read in Hebrews 11, that's why I love Hebrews 11,
really the ones that we see it with most is Abraham and with Moses.
But who squeezed in there between Abraham and Moses is Isaac and Jacob.
Moses literally says that he gave up the pleasure of sin for a reason, I mean for a season because
of the recompense of Christ.
In other words, they didn't have some vague understanding of the coming Messiah.
Right and we need to take that how do we apply it to today because obviously Jesus isn't coming to die on the cross for us
But Jesus is coming again
So in order for us to have the faith that the old prophets had we need to just live like the old prophets had literally
by blind faith they didn't see Jesus they didn't know Jesus but they knew he was
coming right they knew some prophecy was gonna be fulfilled I mean so much so
that Jacob says Judah because through your line you know Jesus is coming
they'll never you'll never be without the scepter you'll never be without a
lawgiver you know he's gonna be the one that's gonna rain
And so, I just think it's really cool because as you read it, I mean, it lies up, right?
Let's go to verse 10.
It says, the scepter shall not depart from Judah, and the scepter is always a sign of
kingship, right?
They're walking around.
And this says, nor a law giver from between his feet, well, who fulfilled the law and
the prophets, Jesus Christ, right, unto Shiloh come, and unto him shall the gathering of
the people be.
And then we go to verse 11.
and his ass is cold unto the choice vine.
And this is obviously profit.
There's way more ways that you can look at it,
but for me, my mind takes me immediately to remember,
he says, hey, go into the city and grab the cold.
And if they ask you for who is it,
the master requires it, right?
It says, he washed his garments in wine
and it's closed in the blood of grapes.
His eye shall be red with wine
as teeth-wided milk of this prosperity.
And so we see that Judah gets the lineage.
of Jesus Christ, including who? King David, right?
And so we see this wonderful thing.
So I will have you turn there.
Go over to 2 Samuel 7, go over to 2 Samuel 7.
I want to go through these verses with you guys,
but in 2 Samuel 7, David's coming to the end.
And it says there in verse 12, it says,
And when thy days be fulfilled,
Thou shalt sleep with thy fathers.
I will set up thy seed after thee,
which shall proceed out of thy bowels,
and I will establish thy kingdom.
He shall build an house for my name,
and I will establish thy throne of his kingdom forever.
I will be his father, and he shall be my son.
If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him
with the rod of men,
and with the stripes of the children of men.
But the mercy shall not depart away from him,
Saul's from what tribe the tribe of Ephraim
Says who might put away before thee and thine house and thy kingdom shall be established forever
Before thee thy throne shall be established forever
So even though there's not an earthly kingdom right now after the kingdom of David
It doesn't matter because this is not in reference to an earthly think which is temporal is in reference to Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ's throne has been established before the beginning of the earth forever and ever
Turn over to Revelation 5, but I'll read for you really quick Matthew 1 and Revelation 5
In Matthew 1 the Bible says the book of the generation of Jesus Christ the son of David the son of Abraham
Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Judas, speaking of Judah,
and his brethren.
And Judas begat Pharis and Zarah of Thaymar, and Pharis begat Ezraim, and Ezraim begat
Aram, and we would go on and on and on and on until we get to who?
To Jesus.
And then in Revelation 5, in verse 1, the Bible says, And I saw through the right hand
of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside sealed with seven
And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice,
who is worthy to open the book and to lose the seals thereof?
And no man in heaven, nor in earth,
neither under the earth was able to open the book
neither to look out thereon.
I love this, because John's like,
he understands this is a real, like this is an important book.
And it says, and I wept much because no man was found worthy
to open and read the book, neither to look thereon.
But then there's that hope says and one of the elders said to him weep not
Behold the line of the tribe of Judah the root of David hath prevailed to open the book and to lose the seven seals are up
So literally from Genesis all the way to Revelation
Jesus is present as a matter of fact
We need Jesus because there's nobody anywhere that could even open this book whenever this this happens
I mean just just for the sake of this book. I'm glad that Jesus exists
But really I'm glad it exists because of our salvation right because it's a free gift
Because of the things that we're able to do it's all because of Jesus
So, I don't know, I remember when when Pastor Cobb preached a long time ago, it just stayed
in my brain and just stayed there and I've been ruminating and I was like one day I'll
probably end up preaching about it and then just be able to go deep into it and so.
I hope it was as cool for you as it was for me, but you know, it's just one of those things that you read a bunch of times.
I mean, Genesis is one of the most read books in the Bible, right? Everybody starts in Genesis.
They've probably read Genesis 49, glossed over it, never thinking twice about the fact that that sense of structure is referring to who, Jesus Christ.
Literally, Jacob is like, here I'm telling you of the coming Messiah.
Let's go over to Zebulin and go back to Genesis 49. These these next ones are quick and then we'll make another pause
But Zebulin is just basically he's the haven of the sea just becomes a
good
Basically, he's a Navy man, right? He's a he's a man of the sea. He's a shipmaker. He's probably a really good
Transporting and fishing and trades but in Genesis 49
In verse 13, the Bible says, Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea, and he shall
be for an haven of ships, and his borders shall be unto Zidon."
Right?
And so really, all that, all, all, needless to say, all that is pointed out is that Zebulun
dwells near the sea, and he's a haven for ship.
His tribe led her settled near trade routes, where they benefited economically, right?
You know, God makes us Fisher of men. So, you know, it just points to just the fact that we're we should be soul winners
Right and we should focus on the Lord Jesus Christ and in Deuteronomy 13 18 it says it's Ebulon
He said rejoice Ebulon in thy going out Nizekur is a car in thy tents
They shall call the people into the mountains there
They shall offer sacrifices of righteousness for they shall suck of the abundance of the seas and of the treasures hid in the sand
And then Isaiah nine one, the Bible says,
nevertheless, the dimmest shall not be.
Such as was in her vexation when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of zebulin and the land of naftali and after did more
Greavously affect her by the way of the sea
Beyond Jordan and Galilee of the nation. So this theme just carries through right? That's that's all I'm really trying to say is
Jacob wasn't just spewing out words. These were prophetic words that we're gonna become true
Later on in their life and this is why it's so important to listen to our parents because not only I mean Jacob has
obviously, direction from God. But before God, just earthly parents that are worldly,
you should listen to your parents just because they've been around longer than you have, period.
Right? I mean, just on the simple fact that I can tell you, just by the way my kids are acting,
whether they're up to no good or not, should tell you that I have a little bit more wisdom than they
That just makes the whole thing even better because now they're guiding you
with the word of Jesus Christ. They're being submissive to Christ. And as a matter of fact,
kids should witness their parents obeying the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know, we don't want to see, we don't want to ask our kids to just, you know, what is it,
what is that famous saying?
Do as I say, not as I do.
No, they should do as I say, because I do, right?
In other words, my kids shouldn't just obey
the Lord Jesus Christ because I have asked them to.
They should obey because they see their dad and mom
obeying the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's why when it comes to church,
like it's a serious thing.
There are consequences if we're not ready for church.
And if people complain for church,
because you know what?
I feel like complaining for church too.
But the Lord doesn't want me to do that. So I don't want my kids to complain. So guess who's not complaining about church
I'm not even when I don't feel like coming in. I mean, I'm just gonna be honest with you
There's times where I just I know you guys don't feel like coming to church sometimes
I mean, let's just be really really frank with you if anybody here nots that you you're 100% happy to come to church all the time
You're lying, right? Because I mean, there's just sometimes you're sick. Sometimes you just you got in a fight. You just don't I don't know
Sometimes you just don't want to go to church
Let's go back to Genesis 49. Let's go through these really quick, and then we'll stop. We'll make a pit stop there at Dan
But eyes is a car
He's a hard-working servant. So the only thing that I would I guess I'm gonna make a tiny joke if you ever meet these
black Hebrew roots
Israelites right
These guys are about the most racist people you'll ever meet and I've already told that story. So I'm not gonna go too deep into it
but basically
The white man is is the enemy and everybody else is cool
And when I went to a soul wedding marathon several years ago, this is back in like 2018 2019 on Detroit
We were out soul wedding and the in the ghettos
predominantly black
Right there on mile eight and we opened we knocked on one of the doors and one of these black Hebrew Israelites came out
And he was, I mean, he was aggressive.
I thought he was gonna like physically attack us.
And then I guess at some point he asked me like where I was from or who I was and I said, you know
I'm Mexican and I don't I don't always look Mexican if I let my mustache grow out
I do but you know for the most part if I clean this up you can't really tell I'm Mexican unless you know that I'm Mexican
I don't know if I look wider or
Middle-E I don't know what I look like
But I don't look Mexican all the time like what people think Mexican looks should look like right?
I don't look like Jose, you know the roof maker or whatever. I just don't don't look like that
And when he found out that I was Mexican, he said that I was of the tribe of Isacar.
So then all of a sudden he became cool with me.
He was no longer wanting to hurt me or kill me or whatever.
And the only thing that I thought was it's interesting because Isacar is like this hard
working servant and isn't that what Mexicans are known for?
Like these hard workers.
So I guess he wasn't that off, right?
He just doesn't have all his doctrine correct.
We just need to correct a couple of things.
But there is a car, go to verse 14 and says, Isacar is strong, is a strong ass,
saw the rest was good in the land that it was pleasant and bowed his shoulders to
bear and became a servant unto tribute. And so basically what he said is he's a
hard worker but he's also basically he's a servant to the highest bidder right
instead of just working for the sake of working he's working for
Money but not in the way that like building a business. He literally is like the day laborers right instead of day laborers
Working hard for like building a business where they can run it and they did not you know
most of your
Mexicans or Hispanics that come over they make a lot of money, but you know what they also do they work really hard
They like never take a day off
And they're literally always for hire to the highest bidder.
Like that's, that's literally a, so I don't know if there's some truth to maybe those
guys that did some research or maybe they just tied attributes to that, but it just
seemed like that.
But the one thing is that it just, it became consistent.
I'm not going to, like I said, I won't, I'm not going to go too deep into these, but in
judges five, it says in the princes of Isacar wearing D'Bora, I mean, I'm sorry, Deuteronomy
33 says, and of Zebulon, he said, rejoice Zebulon in thy going out.
and Izikar in thy tents. So it makes a reference to the fact that
Izikar is always traveling and working, they're moving to their highest bidders.
In 1 Chronicles 12 32 says in the children of Izikar which were men
that had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do,
the heads of them were 200 and all their brethren were of their commandments. So
because of their hard work they probably did have a lot of understanding,
but they just never really stood out.
And I know this because most people wouldn't even know if I said, Hey, is the car is the
tribe of Israel?
I guarantee you that if we're going over major doctrines of the Bible and major events, most
people would never think the word is a car is tied to like a tribe of Israel, right?
People would understand.
Maybe if I said Judah or.
Joseph or Manasseh maybe if for him, but never nobody ever thinks of Isacar as a type of Israel
I mean, I'm just it's gonna be really honest with you
They just don't stand out in the realm of like the biblical history
So let's let's let's move on because they just don't don't stand out like that now Dan does
Dan does for a couple of reasons
Judges come out of Dan, but also there's an interesting thing that happens in the book of Revelation with the tribe of Dan
So in Genesis 49 verse 16 the Bible says Dan shall judge his people as
one of the tribes of Israel
Right, but Dan shall be the serpent by the way and adder now
What does the serpent usually represent the devil right?
It says an adder in the path that bided the horse's heel
So that his writer shall fall backwards, or backward,
I've waited for thy salvation, O Lord.
So basically, what is it describing?
If Dan is causing the horse to throw the writer down,
he's being deceptive about it, right?
Because most writers wouldn't think
that the adder caused the horse to buckle.
they would, they would blame the horse, right? Dan is not a good guy. It's basically what it comes
down to. He's given the ability to judge, but he doesn't judge righteously. And so the one thing
that we're starting to see here with all the children of Jacob or Israel is that none of them are
Because if they were, God would have stuck to the just the one, right, Joseph, but he chose Judah.
Because that's the whole point of the Bible, is that everything points to Jesus Christ, right?
The whole point of the Bible, especially the book of Genesis, is that it's not about Joseph,
it's not about Dan, it's not about Simeon or Levi, it's not about Judah, it's about Jesus.
I mean, Judah doesn't even really...
kind of hit your radar until all of a sudden he's given the scepter of a king. You're like,
wait a minute, wasn't it Joseph who like suffered all this and became second in command? And he
said, you didn't, you know, you meant it for, for evil, but God meant it for good. Like it would
make more sense from a, from a fist, like for me as a human, than Joseph would be the one to get
the scepter, but Jude is the one that ends up with the scepter, right? But there Dan,
He judges Israel, but he's also just he's a bad judge
Right and who who's one of the one of the bad judges that we with the stands out Samson, right?
Samson's just he doesn't do a good job
Samson is of the tribe of Dan if we go to judges 13 verse 1 you don't have to go there
I'm gonna read for you real quick
What I do want you to go is revelation 7 because I want you to notice something about the tribe of Dan
But in judges 5 verse 1 is it fine. I'm sorry. Give me a second here guys
Judges 13 in verse 1 the Bible says in the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord and the Lord
Delivered them into the hand of the Philistines 40 years and there was a certain man of Zorah of the family of the Danites
Whose name was Manoa?
And his wife was barren and barren out, and the angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now, thou art barren and bearest not, but thou shalt conceive and bearest son.
Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine or strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing. For lo, thou shalt conceive and bearest son, and no razor shall come on his head, for the child shall be a Nazarete unto God from the womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines."
But Samson got caught away with what? Lust.
Right? Not only lust, but pride. His strength got to him and eventually it was his downfall.
Not only literally like, you know, his eyes were plucked out and he was in prison,
but even at the end of his life, he lit. I always think when I'm out preaching the gospel, I'm like,
You know, we'll ask especially Hispanics. I'll be like, hey, if you believe in Jesus Christ, can you lose your salvation?
They're like, no, I was like, well, what if you kill yourself? What if you commit suicide? They're like, oh, yeah, you can
I was like, well, earlier you said you couldn't right? This is where I'm trying to clear that up
Then like in the Bible
Samson asked God for permission to kill himself. I mean isn't that really how it went?
He's like Lord give me strength this one last time that I may you know take out all these enemies
And who's going down with him?
He knew he was going down.
I mean, literally,
Samson kills himself to redeem himself right at the end
because he just did such a bad job
with the gifts that he was given.
In Judges 18 verse 26,
we see more of the same thing, right?
It says,
and the children of Dan went down their way
and when Micah saw that they were too strong for him,
he turned and went back onto his house
and they took the things which Micah made
and the priests which he had and came unto Leish unto people that are quiet and secure and they
smote them with the edge of the sword and they burnt their city with fire and there was no deliverer
because it was far from Zidane and they had no business with any man and it was in the valley
that lieth by Bethrehab and they built the city and dwelt there and then they called the name
of the city Dan after the name of Dan their father who was born unto Israel how be it the name of the
layish at the first. Now the children of Dan set up what? The graven image. And Jonathan,
the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, he and his sons were the priests to the tribe of Dan
until the day of the captivity of the land. And they set up, and they set them up Micah's graven
image, which he made all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh. And if you remember the story,
Micah basically sets up his own church, his own false religion. Dan likes it so much,
Like, dance is the, you know, that the tribe is just bad.
And this is what happens to them.
In Revelation 7, you're there in Revelation 7, we see this lineage and it says in verse
4, it says, And I heard the number of them which were sealed, and they were sealed at
144,000 of all the tribes of the children of Israel.
Of the tribe of Judah were sealed 12,000, of the tribe of Reuben were sealed 12,000,
of the tribe of Gad were sealed 12,000, of the tribe of Asr were sealed 12,000, of the
tribe of Naphthilim were sealed 12,000, of the tribe of Manassas were sealed 12,000,
of the tribe of Simeon.
of the tribe of Levi, of the tribe of Isacar, because it's all 12,000, right?
Of the tribe of Zabulin, of the tribe of Joseph, and of the tribe of Benjamin.
You know who's not there? Dan. He's missing. Because obviously, if he represents a serpent,
the serpent's not going to be as part of the tribes. So it's just a bad, you know, it's just a bad
situation. Now let's go back to Genesis 49.
I told you I'd go through some of these really quick, but I do want to cover them all.
And so Gad is just known for what?
Overcoming enemies in Genesis 49 verse 19.
Gad, the Bible says, a troop shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the last, right?
And the one thing that's just stating now is all these things that they're doing are
just because by God's grace.
Kind of driving that point home because remember these guys are bad guy
I mean they were willing to kill their own brother if it wasn't for Ruben stopping the thing they were gonna kill Joseph
Like this was not some like while I just on the wind plan
I mean they saw him coming from a far away and they literally sat there. They're like, how do we get rid of Joseph?
They're like, let's kill him
But you know, and then they like they're going through what what if scenarios? What about that?
What about dad? What are the consequences?
That's where it comes in is like we'll throw him in a pit and then he leaves and they're like then we'll sell him to slavery for money
which is all pictures of Jesus, but
One of the things is Gad becomes just this great troop, right?
They even though they get attacked they always win battles at the end or they secure their victories
And the Bible is clear on that Deuteronomy 33 verse 20 says in and of Gad he said blessed be
He that enlarges Gad he dwelleth as a lion and teareth the arm with the crown of the head
And he provided the first part for himself because they're there in a portion of the lawgiver was he seated and he came
With the heads of the people he executed justice of the Lord and his judgments were with Israel in first Chronicles 5 18
The Bible says the sons of Ruben and the Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh of
Valiant men men able to bear buckler and sword and to shoot with bow
and skillful in war were forty and four thousand seven hundred and three score that went out to
war so they were always you know counted with with those mighty men of war. Jeremiah 49 verse
one says concerning the Ammonites thus say the Lord hath Israel no sons hath he no heir why then
doth her king inherit Gad and his people dwell in their city so so this is a pretty harsh saying
What he was telling him
I'm gonna be honest
I mean, it's just sometimes you just don't realize the things, you know
That are happening. The reason I believe this is because I
Remember being a young man and my dad giving me advice on stuff, right?
They just didn't resonate at the time remember that you guys remember just being young and your parents telling you stuff
They just didn't make any sense and then how you look back. You're like, oh
That's exactly why they told me that that's why my dad told me to do this or that's why my mom said don't do that or you know
Now I understand the sacrifices that they made or you know, it's not sometimes things are hindsight
But what's what what is better? There are things that I did listen to
that even though it didn't make sense at the time, it rewarded me later.
Now there's things that they told me that I didn't listen to
and then I just had to suffer the consequences.
Which one do I prefer better? The one that I listened to
that came out to be true and it was better.
In life, we should just listen to our parents and to the word of God.
Right. It's kind of like a side point, but it's a very important point. Look, I you you have two choices
And you can do both of them will reap the same result
You can taste alcohol and come to conclusion that alcohol is bad
But then you've tasted alcohol and you've opened up that door and you've probably done some damage and it's just not good
Or you could just listen to your parents and never taste alcohol
You know the result is the same except one is going to be blessed way more
If and but the challenge is the results only the same if you're able to come out of the pit of alcohol
Or out of the pit of drugs some people never get out of it
Whereas if you just never taste it, you know what you're never snared in that pit
right like I
Drank alcohol as a young man. It's not you know, I don't talk about it often because you know, it's not I'm not one of those
You know like
Old school preachers. It just tells you about how rough their life was. I'm not you know, everybody's got a rough life
You know some worse some better
I'm not trying to make myself like this bad out of hell that just got ripped
You know redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ, and so that's why I cleaned up my life. No, I just stopped drinking alcohol
Actually, I was already kind of stopped. I already had kind of stopped drinking alcohol by the time I got saved
Because I just didn't like the effects of alcohol
The Bible just made that more clear for me, so it's interesting because I can't
like say, oh, it was because I got saved. No, it was because I actually didn't like alcohol,
right? But some people, I have friends who became alcoholics and they just never got out of it.
I have this friend. I don't even think he watches. I mean, he went, or actually, he's not even a
friend. He was a colleague in college. He was a friend then. So this is over 25 years ago,
so I'm not, I think I'm safe.
Chewy we called him El Chewy. That's his name to this day El Chewy and the guy from from what I can tell lives the same
Exact life. He's a little bit older than me. He's probably close to 50
He still wears the same jerseys the same shorts. He drinks every weekend. He never got married
He he just he lives the same literally like his life just stopped
right then in college and it just never continued
And you know what I attribute to, I also believe it is alcohol abuse, because he's just one
of those guys that could, I mean, nobody could out drink Chewy, Chewy's, and he always kept
it together.
He wasn't one of those crazy drinks.
The nicest guy you'll ever meet, Rowe Ebenkeel, and he just, he never got out of the snare.
And it didn't allow him to grow up.
It stunted his growth emotionally and, you know,
morally and all those things.
It just, now that's not that bad of a consequence.
I guess being lonely would be,
but there's people that just die, you know,
cirrhosis of the liver is real, drunk driving is real.
I mean, fits of rage, blackouts.
Forget it. I don't know how I got an alcohol
But I the point I was trying to make is the fact that you we want to listen to our parents, right?
And alcohol is one of those things that they warn us about. I wish I would listen to my parents because honestly I
Could have learned that lesson
Without having to go through some of the things that I did because you know when you
People say oh, I'm a I'm a social drinker. I can drink alcohol or whatever
Well, the only way you learn to be a social drinker drink alcohol is you have to have a bad experience with alcohol at one point
Anybody who's ever drank alcohol drank too much alcohol the first time or the second time because nobody knows how to drink alcohol because
Nobody's ever taught you how to drink poison, right?
Like it's not like you're you know, my kids are growing up and like here son
Here's some poison. So when you get older, you can know how to deal with poison
It's stupid, right?
So just don't do it, it's basically what it comes down to.
But let's go over to Genesis 49.
So Gad overcomes enemies, Asher, we're only going to spend a few seconds here, but basically
he's just attributed it with an abundance of food.
If you read verse 20, he says, out of Asher, his breath shall be fat.
and he show yield royal dainties.
So basically his lands rich, producing royal delicacies.
His descendants lived in fertile regions,
supplying food for royalty.
I'm not gonna go through all those verses.
Then we go to Nephthili, very similar,
but with prose and words and song.
You know, you attribute Nephthili with swiftness and beauty.
In verse 21 it says,
Nephthili is a hind, let loose.
He giveeth goodly words, right?
When you describe, you know, a hind or a deer, a swift, you know, being able to speak beautifully
Just try to produce poets and the warriors, they're known for their eloquence, right?
And so we see these things kind of stand out
The only one that I really want to point out here is in Matthew 4 verse 13 it says and leaving Nazareth. He came
This is in the Gospels and he came and dwelt in Capernaum
Which is upon the seacoast in the border of Zabulun of Neftalee that it might be fulfilled
Which was spoken by his eyes the prophet saying the land of Zabulun and the land of Neftalee
By the way of the sea beyond Jordan Galilee and the Gentiles, so they're all part of the prophecy
Now we get to Joseph let's spend a little bit of time there as we start to wrap this thing up but in Joseph
We see verse 49. I mean verse 22 of chapter 49 says Joseph is fruitful bow
Even a fruitful bow by a well whose branches run over the wall
The archers have sorely grieved him and shot at him and hated him and a fruitful bow is just basically like a branch
It's super fruitful. And so it's it's how it's weighed down
We don't see that that often in today because we get all our produce at the grocery store
But if you own an orchard, you'd have some trees that produce more than others and
they'd basically be toppling over, right?
It says, but what, what happens with being fruitful?
You're hated.
That's why, you know, I'm kind of looking forward to being more hated.
We were actually at lunch, some of the church members, we got together at lunch today.
It just happened, I guess, with time change, everybody's just kind of, you know, thrown
off a little bit.
So it worked out that we all could go to lunch.
I went with brother Trey and Heath and his wife, and we were just talking about how like
one of the things I'm trying to do is we want to push to be more productive, right?
But I'll take hate as long as we're productive any day of the week, right?
You know, I'd like to be like Joseph. Joseph is a fruitful bow
And a bow whose branches run over the wall the the archers have sorely grieved him and shot at him and hated him
but his bow a
Bowed his strength and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob
From thence is the shepherd the stone of Israel
Even by God of thy father who shall help thee, and by the Almighty who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above
Blessing the deep that lie thundering under blessing of the breast and of the womb
I just love this because it's just like a tongue twister of what blessings, right?
This is the blessing of thy father
Have the blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto whom the utmost bound of the Everlasting Hills
They shall be on the head of Joseph and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren
So, I mean Jacob was true to the dying is the last dying breath
Joseph was his favorite and even in his words you can tell I mean he's like I'm gonna bless you upon blessing
In case you didn't know
That I'm blessing you I want to know that you're I'm blessed to be able to bless you because we're blessed
I mean, that's what it sounds like, right?
It's just like let me bless you son and it's a blessing that you're blessed by your dad
Who's blessing you over all this blessing that you're gonna get and all the blessings in life and it makes sense, right?
He's compared to the to a fruitful vine
And Joseph was blessed by God, obviously he was able to provide in famine, he literally
gathered for seven years, and what comes out of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, right?
Which became some of the greatest tribes in Israel.
So we have Ephraim, we have Manasseh, and of course because the sons of Levi, they didn't
have an allotment in the land, these are the tribes that are split up.
We've already talked a ton about Joseph. So I have some verses here, but really we know the story of Joseph. I mean Joseph had it rough
Joseph
Prevealed Joseph is now with his dad and the only reason
That his brothers are getting even a reproof from their dad on his last dying breath is because of Joseph
This this chapter wouldn't even occur if it wasn't for the fact that Joseph prevailed because God was with them
So, as much as they hated him, you know what, never stop, God's blessings on your life.
And so, we should look forward to being productive and hated knowing that no matter what, God's
always going to provide for us.
And, not only is it going to provide for us, but the, the, the, uh, what is it?
Basically, I guess the, the, the by factor or the, the, the byproduct, that's the word
I was looking for.
The byproduct of our work, even if we're hated is that others are going to be blessed
because of it as well, right?
We're just going to emanate blessings all over the place.
Let's go over to Benjamin Benjamin in verse 29 27
He's the warrior tribe is this is Benjamin shall be a raven as a wolf
In the morning he shall devour the prey and at night
He shall divide the spoil and if we had time we'd go into all of that
But let's go ahead and just close out
right there in verse 28 and
As we close out it says all these were the 12 tribes of Israel and this is it that their father spake unto them
bless them, everyone according to his blessing, he blessed them. It's
interesting what the Bible says, right? It says that he blessed them, everyone
according to their blessing. So, even though some of these things, this is
how, this is the blessing. Sometimes you know what the blessing is, then you heard
the truth, right? We have it all twisted in our mind about how we need to talk to
people. I mean, literally, I mean, God's not a liar. If he's saying that Jacob blessed
then the blessing, even though it sounds negative,
is the fact that I have to be tough on you.
That's just life sometimes.
You know, and we have parents that are biblical
and they're tough on their kids,
but we also have parents who just never want to tell
their kids the reality, right?
You got 40-year-olds living at home,
because mom and dad don't have the gumption to say,
hey, you need to get out and get a job.
Well, but but you know, how am I gonna do it? I you know dad and mom like I don't have any money. We'll figure it out
Eight billion people figure it out every day. Well, I don't know maybe not eight billion
But a large portion of them you can figure it out, right? It's a blessing to be told the truth
good or bad
And really it's only good or bad to you. The truth is the truth period in the story
And then verse 3 says,
and he charged them and said unto them,
I am to be gathered unto them, my people,
bury me with my fathers in the cave
that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,
in the cave that is in the field of Macfella,
which is before Mamre in the land of Canaan,
which is Abraham bought in the field of Ephron,
the Hittite for possession of burying place.
And we already read all this,
but basically he's buried with his family, right?
And in conclusion, is where I started.
Take up,
It basically gives us, dulls us these blessings out.
Really the only positive ones are for Joseph and Judah.
Some of them are mentioned like as a, hey, you know, you're going to do this and you're
going to do that.
And then the rest of them are just really bad, right?
But the thing that I want to say is our last words, if I had any last words, they should
be truth.
If this was the last thing anybody heard from my mouth, it'd be great, right?
I die, you know that the last things I said to you were honest, but sometimes in life
we're not so honest.
And, you know, the one thing that I, uh, that dominates, that should dominate your life
or that I try to have our life dominate and I tell my children all the time is we should
always be truthful.
And the only way to honestly always be truthful is to always be preaching the Word of God.
Because sometimes we think we're in truth. We don't know right. I was listening to oh, what's his name?
Who's that black guy that this is scientist and whatever, huh?
Not him, but something like no, he's a he's a scientist
Tyson is whatever his anyways. He's like Bill Nye, but he thinks he's really
He does yeah outer space and all that stuff, but anyways
He was talking about how as time speed, you know, as, as you speed up time slows down easy, you know, and that's true
So he's like, but when you reach the speed of light time stops
So he's like, here's a really crazy thought. He's like when a photon
Exploded from the Big Bang theory. It's exploded at the speed of light. So when that photon of light went in your eye
It just it was the photon of light that was 13.8 billion years ago now. That's how fast it was
I'm listening this guy. I'm just thinking that's not truth. That's just you know hearsay, right?
The only one that time stands still for is who so they do understand. They just don't want to credit is God
Now when God said in the beginning
Got created the heaven and the earth
Then when we hear it, we're hearing for the first time. It's like as if it was in the beginning for him, but not for us
The only one who's outside of time, who can control time, is Jesus Christ, is God Almighty,
God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
So we should always be preaching truth because falsehood is no good.
So I hope this was helpful.
I know it was a little bit more like, I don't know, like a college lesson, but it was the
only way I could think of breaking it down without making it even super long.
That's a whole other series because you could go through each one of the children and preach an entire sermon on just what each one of those tribes
But let's go ahead and close in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, Lord. Thank you so much for today
Thank you for your blessings. Thank you for the ability to be here, but Lord
Thank you for Jacob's last words and thank you that they were a blessing unto his children
And really the lesson here is that truth is always a blessing
even if that truth is only to remind us of the things that we need to clean up in
our lives and that we need to improve in our lives. Ultimately, our goal is to be
perfect, but we won't be perfected and incorruptible until we get to heaven. But
we can be perfected or we can be completed in your Word.
So, Lord, thank you so much for the ability to read the Bible.
Thank you so much that we live in a country that it flows so freely that it's just accessible
at any point, at any time, as long as we need you, Lord.
Don't let us take that for granted, but instead, let us focus, anchor in and just be more grounded
in your word every day and preach more truth and be more fruitful and be more hated because
we're fruitful.
and go out there and do your will.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.