January 24
Gen 48:1-49 | PS 20 | Prov 4:20-27 | Matt 15:29-16:12
Day by day, year by year we are all writing our own stories. What is your story? How does your story end? What is the legacy that you will leave behind? We might like to point to others or at our circumstances for the choices that we have made. But in reality we are responsible and we all own the decisions that we have made. There is a story of a son who had to go through the personal remains of his father after he died. His father was a beautiful man in every regard. He was a good husband, a good father, and an all-around good guy. So, it was with trembling that he began to go through those things that the rest of the world had never seen about him. Much to his joy, his father's private life matched his public life. How will you fare when that day comes. Do you spend more time trying to hide what you don't want others to see, or do you try to go through life having your walk match your talk. The truth is none of us live a perfect life. This is why repentance is so important. Repentance is so much more than saying, "I'm sorry". It represents a flip from a previous mindset. No longer holding onto our old set of rights and wrongs, or comparing ourselves to other sinful people, we compare ourselves to an absolutely perfect and holy God, and realize just how lacking we are. We not only confess, but change our minds, realizing that God is right and we were wrong.
When people go to the reading of a will, most probably come with a sense of excitement to hear those last words and what has been passed down to them. We see this unfold as Jacob knows that his time is coming to an end, he gathers his twelve sons around him and gives his last words, his blessings, which we will see are fulfilled prophetically. in Genesis 49:1. Reuben, the firstborn is probably excited, being the firstborn, and after all that sin so long ago in Genesis 35:22, was probably long forgotten, "While he was living there, Reuben had intercourse with Bilhah, his father’s concubine, and Jacob soon heard about it." But we hear Jacob's final words for him in Genesis 49:3-4, "“Reuben, you are my firstborn, my strength, the child of my vigorous youth. You are first in rank and first in power. But you are as unruly as a flood, and you will be first no longer, For you went to bed with my wife; you defiled my marriage couch." Not only did no leaders arise from this tribe, but they were among the first to be conquered as they unwisely chose to settle on the east of the Jordan River. Simeon and Levi come next, and probably think that scheme when they murdered the entire town of Shechem is long forgotten, when they took revenge in Genesis 34. But we see Jacob's final words for them in 49:5-7, "“Simeon and Levi are two of a kind; their weapons are instruments of violence...For in their anger they murdered men,...A curse on their anger, for it is fierce; a curse on their wrath, for it is cruel I will scatter them among the descendants of Jacob; I will disperse them throughout Israel." We will see this prophecy come true as Simeon is eventually absorbed into the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and Levi (which demonstrates God's grace) becomes the priestly line and is dispersed throughout the land so as to minister to the people. Judah's past was not great. In Genesis 38 he treated his daughter-in-law poorly and even had sex with her. But he confessed and repented of his actions. In Genesis 37, he was the ringleader behind the selling of Joseph as a slave. But in Genesis 44, not only does he repent of sins publicly to Joseph, he even offers to substitute his life for his brother Benjamin's as we read in 44:33, "“So please, my lord, let me stay here as a slave instead of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers." So it is through Judah the next in line in whom the promised Messiah would come, despite his imperfect past, as we read in Genesis 49:10 (NKJV), "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor a lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes; And to Him shall be the obedience of the people." The term Shiloh as used here means "the sent", "the seed", all referring to the future Messiah. When the scepter, or the ability to adjudicate capital punishment was taken away by the Romans, roughly 6-12 AD, though the Jewish leaders mourned according to the historian Josephus since it appeared that this prophecy concerning the coming Messiah went unfulfilled, little did they know the prophecy came true (as they always do), that young Jesus was living in Nazareth at the time.
As you continue to chart your course in this life, from where and from whom are you getting your guidance from? Hear Solomon's plea in Proverbs 4:20-23, "My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart; For they are life to those who find them, And health to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life." Our times are difficult and confusing, but if we fix ourselves onto God's Word and onto godly counsel you can navigate these current storms of life. Jesus points to those who deemed themselves wise, but were lost and blind in Matthew 16:1-3, "Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times." Jesus warned His followers to be careful of hypocrites, liars, and of falsehoods in 16:12, "Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees." Sadly, we are being lied to in every facet of our lives. The wrong paths that are being laid out are too numerous to count and encompass every arena, sadly even in many places of worship. We will not have the right to point to anyone else as for the reason of the wrong path we choose. God has given us His Word, His unerring counsel, His ever relevant Word in the Bible to navigate these difficult times. If you choose not to read and abide in His Word, then that is your own decision. Please stay close to Him, keep short accounts with wrongs, repent where you have gone astray, and enjoy the peace that comes with being in His light and on His path, even while the rest of the world is walking along the wrong path.
Messages from Pastor Lloyd Pulley: