Let's go back to the book of
Genesis tonight. Well, I told you something, I
guess it was last week, that now I cannot make good on. I had said that I would cover
chapter 49 of Genesis in two messages, and then the Lord willing,
next Wednesday, finish up with chapter 50. That's never going
to happen. As I continue to study this portion
of Scripture, I only got through four verses as I studied yesterday
and today. And so it's going to take me
one, two, probably four more messages before we finish up
the book of Genesis. But I'm not even... I take back
the four. I don't know how many more it's
going to take. But we'll get through it, the Lord willing,
in His time. And then at such a time as we
do finish our study in the book of Genesis, we intend to go into
the book of Leviticus. Well, Genesis 49 presents to
us a very serious and somber scene. Jacob is on his deathbed. And as he knows he's dying, and
we read last week at the end of the chapter that he gathers
his feet together and lays down in the bed and gives up the ghost
and his soul goes to join the spirits of God which had already
departed their bodies and with the Lord in glory. And here in
Genesis chapter 49, we hear him speak these last words to his
sons. You might call it his last will
and testament, perhaps. It reminds me of a couple of
things concerning our Lord Jesus. It reminds me that before His
death, He brought to Himself those men who truly loved Him. Judas has been dismissed from
the group at the end of John 13. And our Lord Jesus in John
14, 15, and 16 He speaks what I may reverently
refer to as His deathbed sayings. These are His words before He
lays down His life to redeem His people. In John chapter 17,
we hear Him lifting up His voice to the Father. And it's one of
those lengthy prayers, the only lengthy prayer of our Lord that
is recorded for our benefit in the New Testament. And that was
His dying words, His dying words. And I say to all of you, and
I say to myself, let's visit our Lord's death every day. May He summon us by His effectual
grace to give diligent consideration to that time when He laid down
His life, gave His life a ransom for His people. I say, visit
the Cross of Calvary every day. Every day. You can't visit too
often. You can't listen to His seven
words, His seven sayings spoken from the cross without it continually
doing you good, continually having a cleansing effect upon you. Always reminding you of what
your salvation cost. What did it cost the Savior?
It cost Him the sacrifice of His life. Because as I read there
in Hebrews 9, without the shedding of blood, there is no remission
of sins. Remember who died. Remember the
reason for his death. That God might be just and the
justifier of him that believeth on Jesus. And remember the result
of his death. Oh, what a glorious result. Our
sins were put away. He brought in everlasting righteousness. He satisfied God's justice. He bore the curse of a law that
we had broken. He bore it for us. Of course, the death of our Lord
Jesus was very much unlike, in many ways, the death of Jacob.
Because Jacob, he died, and his body has long since gone back
to the dust. And that body will be raised
again. Of that we're certain. But our Lord Jesus, His dying
words in John 14, 15, 16, 17, the seven sayings on the cross,
those were His dying words. Visit those every day. It will
do you good. But He's not still dead. He lives. He lives. That was a portion
of His exaltation. His resurrection, His ascension,
His enthronement, universal government, and someday universal judgment
has been given to our Lord Jesus. So I say, think often of our
Lord's death, His burial, and His resurrection. That's the
message of both of the ordinances, isn't it? That's the message
of baptism. What is baptism but a picture
of the fact that when our Lord Jesus was crucified, I was crucified
with Him. When He was buried, I was buried
with Him. When He was raised again, I was raised again in
Him. Baptism is a beautiful picture of the death, burial, and resurrection
of our Lord Jesus. Every time someone goes into
the baptistry, into the water, it's not to wash away their sins,
it's to acknowledge the way our sins were washed away. By His
death, by His burial, and by His resurrection. And then the
Lord's Supper. What is that a message of? What
is that a picture of? But the same thing, the Savior's
death, burial, and resurrection. This is my body, broken for you. Take, eat. Then he took the wine. He said, this is the blood of
the covenant, the new covenant. He said, shed for many. As often as you do this, do it,
what do you say, in remembrance of me. So I say you cannot go
to Calvary in your mind and in your heart and in the Scriptures.
You can't do it too often. Visit our Lord's death words. And remember what it took to
save you and to put your sins away. Well, as we come here to Genesis
49, Jacob has summoned his sons unto himself. He's gathered all
his boys to him. And I might even bring up this
question. What was the reason? What was
the very purpose for the Lord choosing Israel to be the nation
through whom He would work? What's the purpose of that? He
could have chosen any nation in the world. But he chose Israel. He even said through Moses in
the book of Deuteronomy, it wasn't because you was the biggest nation.
In fact, you was the smallest one. He says, because I loved
you. I loved you. Our Lord chose Israel. Twelve tribes of Israel. He maintained
that nation all through the the hundreds and hundreds of years
of the Old Testament, in order that they would keep the very
knowledge of God very much alive in this world. To keep the Word
of God alive. To keep the gospel of grace going. And He provided to Israel various
prophets who wrote and spoke the Word of God, all of which
is focused in on that One who would come into the world to
redeem His people. Last week we studied in verse
10, the Lord said to them, you can notice in verse 10, He says,
the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from
between his feet until this man called Shiloh come. A name that is not previously
used in the Word of God. That's the name of our Savior.
of His many names." This is indeed a precious name until Shiloh
come. And he says, "...Unto Him shall
the gathering of the people be." The gathering of the people be.
And I like the way that is worded. Of course, we love the way all
the Word of God is worded. But it says, "...Unto Him..."
Notice there in verse 10. until shallow come and unto Him
that they shall, shall the gathering of the people be. There's no
question about it. You see, let me liken it to this. Here's Jacob who has issued a
call to his sons. Come to me. I would say that's an effectual
call. This is their father. They come to me. And, you know,
the Lord issues to His people an effectual call. Come to me. Old John Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim's
Progress, he said the old barnyard hen has two calls. She calls
to her little chicks. And one of them is just little
friendly call, and they know everything's all right. Cluck,
cluck, cluck. But then she sees a hawk coming
overhead, and she gives an effectual call. She spreads out her wings
and here come the little chicks running to her. That's a call
that they're not going to resist. It's an effectual call. And that's
the way it is with the call of the Gospel. That's the way it
was with the call of Jacob. Come to Me. I've got something
to teach you. I've got some things to say to
you men. And isn't that a picture of what
God does to us by His Spirit? The effectual call of grace?
Come to Me. The Lord doesn't issue invitations. They said the king doesn't invite,
the king commands. The king has ordained and the
king orders. And in this word gathering includes
the idea, this word gathering includes the idea of obedience. Obedience, unto him there shall
be a gathering of the people. They shall come to him. Our Lord
Jesus said in John 6, "...all that the Father giveth Me..."
What did He say? "...shall come to Me." They shall.
"...and him that cometh to Me, I will let no wise cast out."
Well, why shall we come to Christ? Defectual call. It's not a general
call. It's not just a cluck, cluck,
cluck like the hen does in the barnyard. This is an effectual
call. It's a call to come to Him, to
draw near to Him, to gather under His wings as it were, and be
saved by His grace, and be brought by His grace to believe Him,
and to rest in Him, and to have repentance toward God. It's an
effectual call. Gathering has the idea of obedience,
but it also has the idea of cleansing. Our Lord Jesus, the one who will
gather his people, he's the one who makes an application of his
blood to us. Make no mistake, we were justified
when he died upon the cross of Calvary. That's when our sins
were put away. Justice was satisfied. But the
Spirit of God comes to us and makes an application of that
bloody sacrifice of Christ to us. Therefore, we sing the song,
Are You Washed? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Christ gathers His elect to Himself
by His Spirit, just like Jacob gathered his sons. You think
it could ever be that the Lord would ever call any of His chosen
sons to come to Him and they won't come? What heresy of free will is it
that the Lord issues this effectual call of grace, but some will
resist and say, no, I'm not coming. Let me tell you something. He
will break down your wall of rebellion if you're His. He will
break your will and save you by His grace. Well, let me pick
up tonight that at verse 13. And I'll talk about Zebulun,
and then I'm going to talk about Issachar, and then I'm going
to talk about Dan. That's as far as we'll get. Look
at verse 13. "'Zebulun shall dwell at the
haven of the sea, and he shall be for a haven of ships. His
border shall be under Zidon.'" I don't know whether you paid
attention to this or not, but you know when we studied back
here, and I forget now what chapter it was, back here in Genesis
earlier where all the sons of Jacob were listed, you would notice, if you go back
and refresh your mind on this, you'll notice Judah was the fourth
son. But now Jacob, he skips over
5, 6, 7, 8, 9, goes directly to the 10th one. I found that unusual. Just looking
at when they were born, their different names, knowing Judah
was the 4th, and now he jumps all the way to the 10th son,
Zebulun. Why? Well, I'm very certain since
these prophetic words of Jacob were given to him by the Spirit
of God and recorded in the Word of God forever, I'm sure that
the arrangement and the order in which Jacob gave these was
given to him by the Spirit of God. There's no question about
that. After all, Jacob had just blessed
Judah who is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, or reminds us
of the Lion of the tribe of Judah, our Lord Jesus, born of the tribe
of Judah. And in Revelation chapter 5,
the Lion of the tribe of Judah prevailed over all enemies in
order to open up the book of predestination and fulfill God's
eternal purpose. But now he's led to jump to Zebulun. And the reason is this. He has
just given us an outstanding view of the Lord Jesus. And now He jumps ahead to Zebulun
in whose land was Galilee. That's where our Lord was raised.
He lived there for 30 years. Go to Isaiah with me, if you
would. The book of Isaiah. Let me show
you this. Isaiah chapter 9. Isaiah chapter
9. By the way, since chapter 9 begins
with the word nevertheless, let me go back and kind of speak about the stinging words
that Isaiah had been inspired to speak to Israel. He spoke of days of coming judgment,
when Israel would be taken into captivity due to their idolatry,
due to their ungodliness, And as a result, in chapter 8, Isaiah
says God's going to send you false prophets. He's going to send you a time
of famine, not only literal famine, but a spiritual famine of the
Word of God as Amos sets forth in chapter 8 of his prophecy.
And he speaks of days of spiritual darkness that was going to come
upon Israel. So, as you finish up chapter
8 of Isaiah, if you have time to read it tonight, here's the
prophet of God speaking of gloomy times. No good news. No good news. And then we get
to chapter 9. Nevertheless. Don't you love
the nevertheless's of the Lord? He'll say something. He'll speak
words of judgment. And He lays it out. exposes our
guilt and our idolatry and our ungodliness. But then he says,
nevertheless, and then he gives some good news, and I'll go into
it here in just a minute, but that led me to do a little word
search, and I'm sure you've done it before in the word nevertheless.
David said in the Psalms, for I said in my haste, I'm cut off
before thine eyes. Nevertheless, thou heardest the
voice, of my mouth. Psalm 89, the Lord said, if David's
children, meaning Christ's children, forsake my law and walk not in
my judgments, if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments,
then I will visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity
with stripes. Nevertheless, My loving kindness
will I not utterly take from them. My covenant will I not break. In 2 Timothy, Paul writes of
two men, Hymenaeus and Philetus, ungodly men who erred concerning
the faith. They said the resurrection has
already passed, and they sought to overthrow the faith of some.
And then we read, nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth
sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His, and
let everyone that name it the name of Christ depart from evil. Proverbs 19.21, there are many
devices in man's heart, oh my. Many devices in man's heart.
Nevertheless, nevertheless, the counsel of the Lord, that shall
stand. Not the counsels of men, not
the devices of men, not the plans of men, but the counsel of God,
it shall stand. Psalm 106.43 says, Many times
the Lord delivered them, meaning Israel, but they provoked Him
with their counsel and were brought low for their iniquity. Nevertheless,
He regarded them in their affliction. He heard their cry. And don't
you often feel that way? You feel so bad about your attitude
toward things in life, maybe, and things are not going the
way you want them to go, and you grumble and you fuss a little,
and maybe not out loud, but in your mind and in your heart.
Nevertheless, the Lord doesn't take His mercy away from you.
He doesn't turn His back on you. How often have you turned your
back on the Lord? Nevertheless, He never turned
His back on you. Bill read back in the office
tonight from 2 Peter 3. Talked about the heavens. The
heavens being on fire shall be dissolved. the elements shall
be dissolved with fervent heat. Nevertheless, it's what Peter
said, nevertheless we according to promise look for a new heaven
and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. And so here we
find the word again, notwithstanding, notwithstanding Israel's idolatry,
their sinfulness, their iniquities, their departure from the Lord,
notwithstanding the judgments He's going to bring upon them
by sending them false prophets, and hard times of famine, anguish, great trouble and darkness. Nevertheless, chapter 9, verse
1, the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation earlier,
when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun
and the land of Naphthalon, afterward did more grievously afflict her
by the way of the sea beyond Jordan in the Galilee of the
nations. The people that walked in darkness
Did He leave them there? No. They've seen a great light. Nevertheless, though we walked
in darkness, the Lord has sent us a great light. The light that
is Christ Jesus. It says in the second part of
verse number 2, They that dwell in the land of the shadow of
death, upon them hath the light shined. We love darkness rather
than light, says in John 3. Nevertheless, He sent the light. He sent our Lord Jesus Christ.
And if you don't think this is speaking about our Lord Jesus,
look a little further down in verse 6. For unto us a child
is born, there is the light. Unto us a son is given, there
is the light. piercing the darkness. A little
over 2,000 years ago, the world for the most part was in spiritual
darkness. Iniquity abounded. Ignorance
was across the face of the earth. Nevertheless, the Lord sent His
Son. Here came the light down to pierce
the darkness. He says, "...a child is born,
a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and
his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the
Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, of the increase of
his government and peace. There shall be no end upon the
throne of David and upon his kingdom to order it, and to establish
it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever,
the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. Who's going
to do all this? How do we know this is going
to happen? Here is Isaiah prophesying the coming of our Messiah, the
great Savior. He's prophesying it hundreds
of years before it ever happened. How do we know it's going to
happen? The zeal of the Lord will bring it to pass. Zebulun. Zebulun. It's the land to which our Lord
came. And I won't read the Scripture
over in the book of Matthew, but you remember when our Lord
Jesus, of course, born in Bethlehem, the wise men saw the star, His
star, and went to Jerusalem, traveled many, many miles, got
to Jerusalem, They said, where is He that's born King of the
Jews? Well, we've seen His start. We're following the start. And
Herod called in the chief priests and the elders, the scribes,
and he says, where is Messiah going to be born? They said,
in Bethlehem. So he told the wise men from
the east, as Herod did, he said, well, He's in Bethlehem. And
when you get there, You worship Him. Do whatever it is you're
going to do. Give Him the gifts that you're bringing to Him.
And then when you come back through here, you tell me where He is,
because I want to worship Him. He doesn't want to worship Him.
He wants to kill Him. Because when the wise men said,
where is He that is born King of the Jews? Herod said, wait!
I'm the King of the Jews. No King but me around here. and
he intended to kill him. The wise men go. Interesting,
they don't go to a manger. You see the Christmas story,
you know, where the manger's seen and there's the shepherds
and you see the three wise men there. No, no. Hollywood did that and a lot
of other fiction thrown in there. They weren't there at the stable.
The scripture clearly says in Matthew chapter two, they came
to the house where he was. This is some 18 to maybe 24 months
after the Savior's been born. These guys have traveled a long
ways. And then they had a dream the Lord told them, said, don't
you go back by Herod. You go back another way. Because
he wants to kill Messiah. And so they did. And then the
angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph and said, Herod wants
to kill him. take him over into Egypt. He
did. And when Herod died, the Spirit
of the Lord said, it's okay to go back into Israel now. Go into
the land of Galilee, which is in the territory of
the tribe of Zebulun. And that's where our Lord lived
for 30 years. You see, the Word of God is not
chaotic. It's in order. This one who will be born of
the tribe of Judah, where is he going to live for the first
30 years of his life? In Galilee. In the territory
allotted to Zebulun. Zebulun. The Lord would take
care of the Lord Jesus. and provide for him. You notice
here in chapter 49, back to our text, it says that Zebulun shall
dwell at the haven of the sea. And I'll tell you what, the land
of Zebulun was indeed a haven for the Lord Jesus Christ. There's where he grew up, safe,
away from Jerusalem, away from the Pharisees, for the most part. And that's where he grew up.
And the land of Zebulun was, for our Lord Jesus, a safe haven. A safe haven. Jacob says, a haven for ships. Right there next to the Sea of
Galilee. But how did Jacob know that's
where the land of Zebulun would be? Listen, the land allotted
to the tribe of Zebulun was not allotted to them for another
200 years. And then it was by lot. But the casting of the lot into
the lap, that's of the Lord. And when the lots were drawn, you'll have this property. This
is your boundary of your land here. Nap the line. Go down the line. Zebulun, you're
going to be right here near the Sea of Galilee and not too far
from the Mediterranean Sea. And Jacob had said more than
200 years before this, You'll be a haven. Watch it. A haven of ships. A haven of
ships. And I'll tell you, our Lord Jesus
is the haven for all of His people. I'll tell you, He's our safety. And we run to
Him over and over and over again And we find out He's always our
safe haven. Always. He is our rest. He is our Sabbath. In the book of Psalms, Psalm
107 talks about He taketh... In fact, let's look over here.
Let me take time to read this. Psalm 107. Psalm 107. I don't want to misquote
it here. Psalm 107. Look at verse 23. They that go down to the sea
in ships, Psalm 107.23, They that go down to the sea
and ships that do business in great waters, these see the works
of the Lord and His wonders in the deep. For He commandeth and
raiseth the stormy wind which lifted up the waves thereof.
They mount up to the heavens, they go down to the depths. Their
soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger
like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end. Then they cry
unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their
distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so
that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad, because they
be quiet. So He bringeth them unto their
desired haven. Oh my friends, our voyage across
the sea of life is often a rough voyage. We thank the Lord for
sometimes smooth sailing, but a lot of times we're sailing
through stormy weather. And all of you here have had
your times of sailing through stormy weather. And you've had your times of
sailing through pleasant breezes, too. We're thankful for that. But I'll tell you what we can
rest assured of. He's bringing us to our desired
haven. He's bringing us to Christ Jesus. And all will be well. Well, go
back to the text real quickly. Back in Genesis 49. Here's Issachar.
Verses 14 and 15. Let's talk about him a little
bit. Issachar is a strong ass, couching down between two burdens. And he saw that rest was good,
and the land that it was pleasant, and bowed his shoulder to bear,
and became a servant under tribute. He was literally a servant or
a slave and forced labor. His name means reward or wages. Historically, we know this, that
Issachar was a very strong tribe, and they bore the burden for
much of Israel on the battlefield. But it says here, and notice
this, He's as an ass couching down
between two burdens. An ass, that picture's one who
is without understanding, foolish. That's us in our natural condition.
And I'll tell you what, we bear two very heavy burdens. Two very
heavy burdens that unless God takes them away, They're going
to sink us into hell. Number one, we bear the burden
of the tyranny of Satan. He holds all men captive at his
will. All men, you, me, everybody else. Little babies, little children,
old women, old men, everybody in between. He holds all men
captive at His will. That's a burden we bear and if
somebody doesn't take care of that burden, that burden is going
to sink us down to hell. Thankfully, our Lord Jesus came
and He slew the dragon. He conquered the evil one. I know Satan still is troubling
But the burden of being held in servitude to Satan has been
lifted by our mighty Savior. And the second burden we bear
is the burden of sin. Oh, what a heavy burden that
is to us. And it still, to a degree, certainly
burdens us. It troubles us. But never fear. Your sins have been paid for.
They've been duly put away by the mighty Savior. You stand
in His righteousness due to His substitutionary sacrifice upon
the cross of Calvary. Nobody can take care of your
two burdens but the Almighty Savior. I'm telling you, you
can't do it. And this is where modern religion
and false religion all along has been wrong. They say it's
up to you. It's up to you to take care of
these two burdens. I can't do it. I'm absolutely
powerless. I'm powerless before Satan. Religion can't free me from the
treacherous enemy of my soul. He's too powerful for me, but
He's not too powerful for my Almighty Savior. And He crushed
His hand at the cross of Calvary. And He's using that fiend of
hell to fulfill His purpose. and he's driven him out of my
soul, and he'll never inhabit me again, because the Savior
drove him out. And my sins, which were many,
they're all washed away. I know, I know, the name Issachar
means reward or wages, and the wages of sin is death. It's death. Somebody died for
me. Somebody suffered death in my
stead. So there's no condemnation of
those who are in Christ Jesus. Scripture says, God says, concerning
a new covenant promise, their sins and iniquities, will I remember
no more. No more. Do you remember the course that
we've seen? Burdens are lifted at Calvary. At Calvary. That's where it all
happened. That's where the burdens were
taken away. At Calvary. And realized by us
when we were converted by Almighty, Sovereign, Free Grace. Well, Brother Dan, you're going
to have to wait until next week. I'll get to you next week, Dan,
the Lord willing. Because we've got some interesting
things to say about him, but I don't want to overtax you time-wise. And we'll get to him next week. And then I'm looking forward
to talking to you about Gad. Tremendous message, I believe,
if God will enable me to preach it. concerning Gad. And then verse 18, where Jacob
right in the middle says, I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord. I'm looking for your salvation.
It's like Simeon was in Luke chapter 2, waiting for the consolation
of Israel. Well, we'll close right there.
Hope the Lord blessed you through the Word tonight and tried to
exalt our God. As is our responsibility to do.