Let's go back to the book of
Genesis tonight, Genesis chapter 49. These are the prophecies
of Jacob. The last words of Jacob are here
recorded in Genesis chapter 49, the last words to his son. They
pertain to what's going to happen, not so much to each individual's
son, but to those, their posterity or their tribe, things that were
going to happen in the future. And there's no question about
it. In this chapter, when he speaks
to his sons, there are two great mountain peaks. And everything
seems to lead to these two. And the mountain peak goes up,
and we are introduced again to Judah, who is our Lord Jesus
Christ. And then things kind of drop
back down, and then once again we're introduced to Joseph, and
there's the second mountain peak in these last words of Jacob
to his sons. These are very important things
that are spoken. And here we find a gospel, a
gospel trail. And we know this, whenever you
open the Word of God, doesn't matter where it is, in Genesis
or Exodus or any other book of the Old Testament or New Testament,
there's always a path that leads you to the Savior. There's no
question about that. And if you read a portion of
Scripture and you give some diligence in studying it, and you don't
see, well, I really don't see how this passage, this context,
and reading it, all the verses beforehand and the verses afterward,
you say, I really don't see how this is a passage that is a road
map or a path to our Savior, then you need to read it again
and ask for the leadership and the understanding of the Spirit
of God. The book is about Christ Jesus. This is indeed more than
a book of history. It is a book of His story. And so we see this in this passage
of Scripture. Now, Jacob begins with the birth
order of his sons, so he goes first to Reuben. Reuben had a
great standing with Jacob. He's the firstborn. He had the
preeminence in the family. He was a mighty man. The Scripture
says that in verse 3. Jacob says, he was the beginning
of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency
of power. He had great dignity. He was
somebody. This is the firstborn of the
nation of Israel. He's the first one. And he reminds
me of Adam. God made man in his own image
and there was Adam. My, what a man. His dignity. His uprightness. A man of good character. A man
who had no sin. A man of might. But as we read in verse 4, something
happened to Reuben. He became unstable as water. And his father said, you will
not excel. And we know something happened
to Adam. He fell. And God could rightfully
say to Adam, and to all of Adam's posterity, that's all of us. Everybody who is born is a result
of a union of a man and a woman. The Lord could say to all of
us, thou shalt not excel. You have fallen. You have fallen. In Adam we fell. How far did
we fall? All the way to the bottom. We
lost our dignity, we lost our excellence, and we became sinful. By one man, the scripture says,
sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed
upon all men, for that all have sinned. That is, all have sinned,
and Adam, that representative man, What he did affected all
of us, whether you like it or not, whether you agree with that
or not, really has no bearing upon the fact of it. You're a
sinner. You were born a sinner because
Adam did not excel, but rather he failed. He's as unstable as water, and
that's man at his best state. There is no stability in man. Not even, not even a converted
man. I know we're stable in Christ
Jesus. We're built on the solid rock.
Sovereign grace has put us on Christ, the solid rock. And we
have a perfect righteousness in Him. But within ourselves,
we know there's still a great conflict. There's still sin. And in ourselves, we will never
excel. The only way that we have become
excellent people is because of our union with the Lord Jesus.
Who is our righteousness? Who is our holiness? Reuben. He fell. See our fallen Adam. Now watch this. Simeon and Levi. In verses 5 and 6. Violent men. You notice this about Simeon
and Levi. Nothing good is said about them. You see, Reuben, to begin with,
something good was said about Reuben. But then, like Adam, of whom
Reuben was a picture, he fell. And now his brothers, His brothers,
and I tell you, we're brothers to Adam. A preacher friend of mine was greeting
folks as they went out the door. As we typically do. And he would
say, good morning brother. Good morning, brother. Good morning,
brother. Good morning, sister. Good morning,
sister. And somebody said, you didn't even know that guy who
just went there. How do you know he's your brother?
He said, he's my brother. He said, you don't know that?
He said, oh yeah. I'll catch him in Adam or I'll catch him
in Christ. But he's my brother one way or the other. And here
are the brothers, Simeon and Levi, they're brethren. And we're
the brethren of Adam. And of Simeon and Levi, it is
said, they're instruments in cruelty. That's in their habitations. Instruments of cruelty. Oh, my
soul, verse six, don't come into their secret. Unto their assembly,
mine honor, be not thou united. For in their anger they killed
a man, they slew a man. And in their self-will they dig
down a wall. Simeon and Levi, they remind
me of all of us by nature. We read in Romans chapter 3,
the fallen man, their feet it swept to shed blood. That's the
way it is with men. Feet swift to shed blood. And they were especially swift
to shed blood when it was the blood of the Son of God. Here's the only true, the true
man, who lived and walked and communicated with people. This
is the God-man, perfect in all of his ways, in every thought,
in every motive, in every dream, in every imagination. Everything
he said, thought, and did was solely for the glory of God,
the only good man who's ever lived, and people were angry
with him. They sought to put him out of
business. And like Simeon and Levi, those who crucified our Lord
Jesus were instruments of cruelty. Instruments of cruelty. They
killed a man in their anger. Behold the anger of the enemies
of our Lord Jesus Christ. In their anger, in their wrath,
in their malice, see the high priest. as he ripped his clothes. You said you're the Son of God,
is that right? He said, you said it. Oh, he
got so mad, just tore his clothes. And he said to the rest of the
court, you heard what he said. What are we going to do with
him? Have him crucified in their anger. In their anger. They slew a man. Oh, what a man. But watch this. They were instruments
of cruelty. You see, an instrument is that
which somebody uses, right? A hoe or a rake or a shovel. That's something you use in the
kitchen. It's a frying pan, a spatula, or whatever. Instruments of cruelty. Like Simeon and Levi, those men
who had our Lord Jesus crucified, they were instruments, instruments
of cruelty, instruments really in the hand of God. You say they
were instruments in the hand of Satan. No disagreement there. But there was a greater hand.
An omnipotent hand. The hand that ruled the world.
The hand of the sovereign God. And He is manipulating everything
that had to do with the substitutionary death of His Son. And those who
crucified the Savior were instruments in His hand. instruments of cruelty. And they had no idea that when
they put the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, to death, God was
using them. Oh, they couldn't make the Lord
Jesus the Savior. And what they did didn't satisfy
justice. But they put Him on that cross.
And God used that to teach people, this is what happens due to sin. There's got to be punishment. There's got to be judgment. And
of course, all they could do was punish His body. God punished
His soul. So that all that came to pass
at the cross of Calvary was God using these men. has instruments of cruelty. No wonder in verse 7, Jacob says,
Cursed be their anger. It was fierce. And their wrath
for it was cruel. Oh, what a dark picture Jacob
is now painting. It starts with Reuben. And Reuben
fell. He defiled his father's bed. And then he's followed here by
Simeon and Levi, brethren, instruments of cruelty. And you say, Jacob,
you're painting such a dark picture. Well, that's what the Word of
God does. It shows us we're sinners. We're
ungodly. We're helpless people. And then
comes the good news. Judah. Ah, there's one who came forth
from the tribe of Judah, even that one who is the lion of the
tribe of Judah. And as a lion, he conquered his
enemies. He conquered Satan, he conquered
our sin. He conquered every foe of all
of his people. And he laid down his life to
satisfy God's righteous judgment. bearing all the sins of his people
and his own body on the tree, and the wrath of God fell on
him. And then he said, it's finished.
And he bowed his head, gave up the ghost, and the lion went
home to glory. And Jacob says, the last statement
of verse 9, who shall rouse him up? Who shall rouse Him up? He's seated at the right hand
of the Majesty on high. And one of these days, He's going
to be roused up for judgment. For judgment. And all those who
are in opposition to Him, He will deal with them in the fierceness
of His wrath. Well, I sure am glad there's
some good news here, aren't you? You see how the path, the path
of this takes us, it paints a black picture. No preacher, I don't
care who he is, no matter how gifted, no matter if he's a great
orator, has a tremendous grasp of the English language, No preacher
is able to fully paint the picture of the blackness and the awfulness
of man's transgressions and sin. Our total depravity. It's worse than we can ever imagine. And so no pen of the greatest
writer, not even an angel above, could speak of the fullness of
the wonders of the glories of our Lord Jesus Christ, that one
who is Shiloh, Shiloh, the sent one, the Savior of his people. And then Zebulun in verse 13,
a haven. Our Lord Jesus is a haven for
poor, weary, wandering, struggling sinners. Find a safe haven for your soul
in the Savior. Anchor your soul in this haven
of rest, even our Lord Jesus Christ. And one of these days,
We will wind up our voyage across the sea of life, and we will
arrive safely in this haven. We'll see Him face to face and
be with Him forever and ever. Well, in verse 14, here's Issachar. And again, again, the picture
is painted dark. He's a strong ass couching down
between two burdens. He saw that rest was good, the
land was pleasant. He bowed his shoulders to bear
and he became a servant to tribute. Isn't it amazing that we find
pleasure in sin? We find some degree of satisfaction
in the servitude of Satan and the sinfulness. And you see people every day,
they're quite contented. They're very happy. They're very
happy. To them, it's good. It's all
good, they say. It's good. But what about those
burdens you're bearing? Well, it's not so bad, really. It's worse than you can imagine
because Satan controls you by his own will. And that burden
of sin may not seem like much of a burden now, but it's going
to be like a millstone around your neck and sink you down to
the lowest part of hell someday. And people are contented. They're
satisfied. Another evidence of our depravity Surely that's proof that the
natural man is absolutely ignorant of his own condition. Don't you
know you're standing on the precipice of eternity? You're standing
on the verge of hell? Isaiah pictures hell as opening
her mouth to swallow up another one. And there you are, and you're
standing on the very edge of it, and you're smiling and laughing
and jovial. seemingly without a care in the
world. This was what troubled David
in the Psalms. He saw the wicked like a green
bay tree. It seemed like everything he
touched turned to gold. And he said, so foolish was I. I envied him. And then I saw
his end. I saw his end. I didn't envy
him anymore. Go ahead and have your good time. Enjoy life as you think you're
enjoying life. Because you're not going to enjoy
anything else unless God saves you by His free and sovereign
grace. And then there is Dan, verses
16 and 17. Dan shall judge his people as
one of the tribes of Israel. Now, we know there's a book in
the Bible named Judges, and of course there were several judges
for Israel. And with most of the judges, We talk about him judging Israel,
and I suspect that most of us have the idea of somebody who's
ruling and deciding cases. Really, the word judge is more
of the idea of delivering, a delivered people. That's what a judge did
primarily. And of course, out of the tribe
of Dan was Samson, the great deliverer. And he was a picture
of our Lord Jesus in several ways, but most especially in
his death. For in his death, he saved many
in Israel in killing the enemy. But Dan, the tribe of Dan, was
a godless tribe. They got into the land of Israel.
Everybody's getting settled and, you know, staking their claim
in the land and so forth and so on. But that tribe of Dan, they were
looking for land. They went to a house. They sent five spies out to a
house of a man by the name of Micah. And he went into the house
of Micah. He had his own priest. And he had his own little gods.
And those five men of Dan, they were backed up by, what, five
or six hundred armed soldiers. Well, those five spies, they
go into the house of Mike and they stole the priestly garments
and the idols. Let me tell you something, and
remember this about Dan. The very germ of idolatry in
Israel began with Dan. That's important to remember.
This is where the infection began. And eventually, all the ten northern
tribes became idolatrous. And it started with Dan. And they go into this man's house
by the name of Micah. They steal the priestly garments,
and the priest was being kind of held by the armed soldiers
at the gates of the city. And this guy said to them, he
said, what are you guys doing? You're taking my priestly vestments? And you're taking our idols?
Those five men said, well, let me ask you a question. Would
you rather be a preacher to one, this man Micah, or be a preacher
to the whole tribe of Dan? Well, he said, hey, I'm in it
for the numbers. He said, fool you with Micah.
And so they stole Micah's gods and all the priestly vestments.
And that's how idolatry found its way into Israel. And then finally, by the time
the kingdom divided, remember Saul, then David, then Solomon. At the end of Solomon's reign,
the kingdom divided. And Rehoboam, Rehoboam, who became
the king of the northern kingdom, he established gods, both in
Samaria, which became the capital of the northern kingdom. And
I've said this to you before, and most of you who are students
of the Word of God, you know this, that the northern ten tribes,
ten tribes in the north, two in the south, Jude and Benjamin.
Those ten tribes in the north, they never had a godly king.
Ever. Ever. And really, boom, he established
idolatry in Samaria and in Dan. And people would go from one
to the other. If my math was correctly trying
to figure out how many miles in an inch, it's about 160 miles. So they'd go to conferences.
People would travel to conferences from Samaria over into Dan. About 160 miles. And they'd do
that every year. Just have a wonderful conference
of idolatry. Of idolatry. It was a rotten tribe. You see
what sin has done to us? made us idolaters. Can you imagine? Can you imagine
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, whose name was Israel, these men? Can you imagine their ancestors
of the tribe of Dan bowing down To a brazen idol? A golden calf? This is what they did. But you
see, man is by nature an idolater. And of this you may be certain.
Every person by nature is religious. Oh yeah. Oh, to believe and understand
and grasp salvation by grace through a crucified, buried,
risen, exalted Savior? Now that takes the effectual
call of grace. That takes a regenerating work
of the Spirit of God. We're thankful for that. But
every man is religious by nature. I don't care who he is. Man's
got to have a God. And he will have a God. And oftentimes,
the God is himself. And indeed, this was the temptation
to Eve from the serpent. Ye shall be as God yourself. You'll be the master of your
own fate. And nobody's gonna tell you what to do. Nobody's
gonna have any authority over you. You're the final authority
in your own life. That's what free willism is. And that's why I say free willism,
that's just an idol. Men have made an idol out of
man's free will. Oh, that God would crush that
idol of free willism, of you're the master of your fate. Oh,
that He would crush it in your own heart and in my heart. and rip the idols away from us
that we may worship only our God and King who made us, and
who preserves us, and who sustains us. Oh, Dan. In Amos chapter 8, you
can read more about the idolatry of Dan. People in Samaria, They swore
and said, Thy God, O Dan, liveth. Little G. Little G. And like I say, in
Samaria and in Dan, there was a golden calf erected over here
in Samaria, capital city of the northern kingdom. That's pretty
big, capital city. Golden calf over there and a
golden calf in Dan. Let's have a Bible conference.
We'll go over there this year and we'll come back over there
next year." And that's what they did. Oh, it wasn't a true Bible conference
though. It was a meeting of the minds
of people who were anti-Christ and anti-God and anti-grace. No hope. No hope. You want to know how subtle false
religion is? Look at verse 17. Dan shall be a serpent by the
way, and adder in the path, that biteth the horse heel, so that
his rider shall fall backward. They pulled the wagons and they
had the ruts, you know, where the wagon wheels turn, and horses
would go. And they had these brown adders
who would hide in the sand. And they were deadly. And first
of all, get the horse you was riding and bring him down, then
he'd get you. I'm telling you, false religion.
Oh, hear me. It is deadly. And it hides itself
where you can't see. You'll think there's nothing
wrong at all. It'll sink its teeth into you,
and you'll believe a very poison of false religion, of willed
worship and works worship. That'll be the end of you. Oh,
Jacob, you paint another dark picture. Oh, but wait! Verse
18, right after that, I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord."
Oh, good news! God has salvation. For people
who are like Issachar, burdened and don't even know it. Helpless and don't even know
it. For people who are idolaters like Dan, God has His salvation. And Jacob says, I've waited for
it. And what he's saying is, I'm waiting for the Savior. I'm
waiting for Him. Who can get us out of this mess? Who's the remedy to our malady? I read these words. Jacob said,
I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord. I think of the words
of a man in the book of Luke, chapter 2, by the name of Simeon.
And he saw the Lord Jesus being carried in the arms of Joseph
and Mary. The Spirit of God had said, you're
going to live. I'll make sure you live till
you see the Lord's Christ, till you see His salvation. The Savior
came in, wasn't a halo over his head. Looked like any other little
baby boy. But the Spirit of God said, that's
the one right there. That's who you're waiting for.
That's who you're waiting for. Well, he looks ordinary to me.
And he looked ordinary to most everybody else too. Does he look
ordinary to you? Or do you see in his face the
very glory of God? Simeon's heart, his heart beat
faster. He said, Lord, I'm ready to die
now. For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation. I've been waiting for it. I've
been waiting for it. I've been trusting that He'll
come. And here He is. And then Anna came in and she
saw Him. She just rejoiced and she began
to tell everybody who was looking for redemption in Jerusalem. She said, He's here. He's come.
You know what? Jacob didn't see a plan. It wasn't a plan of salvation.
It was a person. I won't ever forget, I don't
think as long as I've got some mental faculties at halfway work. I'll never forget in Winston-Salem,
North Carolina, many years ago, some 50 years ago, a preacher from this very church,
Brother Mahan was preaching, came to hold a meeting for us.
I had some, I had some, I had right doctrine. But like Brother Barnard said,
you can have right doctrine, you can be as straight as a gun
barrel and just as empty. I was kind of empty. And I've
been preaching salvation is in a plan. It's in God's plan of
salvation. And back when I was an Armenian
preacher, I had God's simple plan of salvation, if you ever
saw that track. And it's still out, God's simple
plan of salvation. But anyway, I'd been saying that
and Henry was preaching and God used him. It was like nobody
else was there but me. He said, you've heard of God's
simple plan of salvation. It's not a plan. God's salvation
is a person, that's what he said. Whoa! It just hit me. Hit me right in the heart. And I ain't got over it to this
day. And I thank God for any man. Doesn't matter whether it's Henry,
Bill, even me, or any other preacher. I am so thankful for that man
who will get behind the pulpit and say, God's salvation is somebody. The Lord Jesus Christ and His
work of redemption. Boy, I tell you, it's a blessed
day when it hits your heart, isn't it? When it hits your heart. You get over religious experience. You get over that emotionalism.
I'll tell you what, when God takes the arrow of His grace,
and He aims it at your heart, that's the target. And when He
shoots at a target, He doesn't miss. He hits the target. You'll know who shot the arrow,
and you'll know you've been hit. Oh boy. And old Jacob says, I've
waited. He's on his deathbed. I'm still
waiting. I'll tell you what, Jacob, you're
going to have to wait a few more minutes. And you're going to
put your feet up in the bed and lay back down and homeward you're
going to go. And you'll see the Savior face
to face. There's always a gospel road
to Christ. Find it and stay on it. Well,
let's close in prayer.