Jacob No.10 Farewell

Let's stand up. The humble poor believe. The triumphs of His grace.

The triumphs of His grace. Let's come to our great God in prayer. Lord, we have just been singing some of the most choicest verses of praise ever written in the history of hymns.

The honors of the name of your beloved Son we would want to bring to you as we link together in an anthem of praise and holy worship. Lord, we're a congregation of differing units. Some have known you for many a long year.

More qualified than the preacher to proclaim the message. Some are just at the beginnings of the Christian faith. Hardly able to walk, let alone run.

Some are inquirers into truth, having not yet placed their hands in the nail-pierced hand of the Lord Jesus. Some are utterly cynical and skeptical. Whatever category we find ourselves in this night, we ask, Lord, that you will deal with us according to our need.

Around your word, many of us gladly come. But for others, the concentration count is a difficult one to rise to when we pray for help. Many of us are convinced that it is through preaching that you proclaim your word today.

We ask that the authority of your word may come through and hold each one of us spellbound. Lord, we just offer this service and all of us with all our great needs. And we ask, O Lord, that you will suit a blessing accordingly.

We thank you for one another. We thank you for the privilege of gathering together. And now we pray for 94% and probably more of worthy.

Lord, we thank you for a blessing that's not in church this evening, that was not in church during the Lord's day at all today. Lord, be with the church of the great unchurched, those who have not rejected you and yet have failed in the area of the discipleship that you want from them. And enable us to reach those who are sensitive by the power of your spirit to the claims of the gospel.

And may such be brought into a knowledge of salvation through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So hear us and do us good during this next hour and a half or so. In the name of the Savior, Amen.

Well, let me take you to Genesis. Because there, tucked away in the 47th chapter, are some interesting instructions. And they're fleshed out further in other verses in Genesis 49 and 50.

We've been making our way through the life of Jacob. He may not be meaningful to you, but he was a great historical figure. And you can actually, if you're prepared to concentrate, see a great deal of yourself and therefore a great deal of relevance in his life as we look into it.

But I want to show you not only about Jacob this evening, but also about one who was greater than Jacob. Jacob became a prince with God because, well, God astonishingly decided that Jacob was a fit companion for him. But a more wonderful prince was our beloved Lord Jesus.

And there is a sense in which Jacob anticipates, prefigures our Lord. Well, here is this aged man at the end of his life, and he's in Egypt. And we pick up the reading from the 47th chapter of Genesis and the 28th verse.

Jacob lived in Egypt 17 years, and the years of his life were 147. When the time drew near for Israel, that's another name for Jacob. Israel means prince with God.

And when the time drew near for Israel to die, he called for his son Joseph and said to him, If I have found favor in your eyes, put your hand under my thigh. That's a euphemism. To do what was being asked was actually to put the hand on the reproductive organ, which was a very solemn and a very sensitive and a very intimate thing in which to engage in the culture of that day.

If I have found favor in your eyes, put your hand under my thigh and promise that you will show me kindness and faithfulness. Do not bury me in Egypt, but when I rest with my fathers, carry me out of Egypt and bury me where they are buried. I will do as you say, Joseph said.

Swear to me, Jacob said. Then Joseph swore to him, and Israel, that is Jacob, Israel worshipped as he leaned on the top of his staff. Now the 21st verse of the 48th chapter.

Same context. Jacob, Israel, said to Joseph, I am about to die, but God will be with you and take you back to the land of your fathers. And to you, as one who is over your brothers, I give the ridge of land I took from the Amorites with my sword and my bow.

The 49th chapter. Jacob's now got all his sons together, and he predicts the pilgrimage, the sort of career that they will have. We pick out one.

Verse 9. He speaks to Judah. You are a lion's cub, O Judah. You return from the prey, my son.

Like a lion he crouches and lies down, like a lioness who dares to rouse him. The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs. The authorized version puts it, until Shiloah comes.

And the obedience of the nation is his. He will tether his donkey to a vine, his colt to the choicest branches. He will wash his garments in wine, his robes in the blood of grapes.

His eyes will be darker than wine, his teeth whiter than milk. And now the 33rd verse. When Jacob had finished giving instructions to his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed, breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.

Then we read in the 50th chapter how they set off. They contacted tribes of Alexandria, or maybe it was Dilestans, and they went off in a party to the land from which Jacob had come. Verse 10.

When they reached the threshing-floor of Attad near the Jordan, they lamented loudly and bitterly, and there Joseph observed a seven-day period of mourning for his father. When the Canaanites who lived there saw the mourning at the threshing-floor of Attad, they said, The Egyptians are holding a solemn ceremony of mourning. That is why the place near the Jordan is called Abel Mitzrayim.

So Jacob's sons did as he had commanded them. They carried Jacob to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field of Machpelah near Mamre, which Abraham had bought as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite, along with the field. After burying his father, Joseph returned to Egypt together with his brothers and all the others who had gone with him to bury his father.

Somebody has said, in fact, it was J.I. Packer, a great Anglican theologian, that your philosophy is not worth tuppence if it does not teach you how to die. I like the way the French say goodbye. Au revoir.

I like the way the Germans say goodbye. Auf Wiedersehen. Because within those two terms is the idea that your farewell is not final, that you will actually come that way again and you will continue the friendship that you have enjoyed.

C.S. Lewis, who was a great professor at Oxford in the 1930s, he once said to a student of whom he had grown particularly fond, as the student left Oxford courtesy of British Railways and pulled out of the station, Christians do not say goodbye. And Lewis meant that Christians invariably on this earth or in heaven meet again. Here we feature the story of Jacob saying goodbye to his sons.

But there is a sense, as I've already indicated, in which Jacob gives us some idea about the character of our Lord Jesus Christ, inasmuch as, par excellence, the Lord Jesus was a prince with God. In fact, he was the Prince of Peace. And what I want to try and show you, albeit with brevity as my goal, is how Jacob and our Lord Jesus approached death.

So there is some correspondence between what I was sharing with our congregation this morning and also our subject matter this evening. How did Jesus say farewell? How did Jacob say farewell? Well, if you die at 70 or 80, or if you die, as some people do prematurely, in your teens or in your 20s, what would be the most ideal way of saying au revoir? Well, Jacob died in the company of his family. He brought together all his brothers, or rather all his sons.

That's why I gave you just a little selection of readings. You see this old man, he is very old, well beyond the age that most people here live to, and doubtless there's an element of senility as far as his body is concerned, if not his mind. And as his sons are around him, he asks specifically Joseph to ensure that when he passes away, he will not be buried in Egypt, but he'll be buried in the land of promise from which he came.

And most mysteriously, when Jacob died, not only did he give a blessing to Joseph, but he called one of his sons, in fact all of his sons in front of him, and he suggested to them the sort of character that they would develop, and if you like, the sort of things that they would do. Some of his anticipation was most unpleasant. But the Bible is an honest book.

It'll paint its portraits, what and all. It'll tell you the truth. But it's especially when Jacob has Judah's ear that things really become exciting on Jacob's deathbed, because Jacob predicts that one day from Judah will come someone who is quite unusual.

Here is a prophecy that is messianic. It speaks of the coming into this world of our Lord Jesus. It talks about the authority of God being located in the tribe of Judah, and from the loins of Judah will come one who according to the authorized version shall bear the name of Shiloh.

Now, isn't it interesting, those of you who know the New Testament, that our Lord came from the tribe of Judah, our Lord Jesus Christ, and in a very wonderful way, it seems as though Jacob, even though his eyes may have been dimmed with age, had spiritual perception and realized that one day coming into the world, not only for the benefit of his descendants, of the nation that he and Abraham have established, but for the benefit of mankind totally, would come one who was called Shiloh. Do you remember Tim and I speaking on one occasion about Jacob wrestling with God? And during that encounter, Jacob says to his divine assailant, What is your name? Now, the Scripture doesn't say that the name was not supplied, and it doesn't say that it was. And F.B. Meyer, a preacher in the 1930s, says, He wonders if God whispered into the ear of Jacob, Shiloh.

One day, Jacob believes that coming into the world will be someone who will bring a great deliverance, not only for his descendants, but, as I say, for all mankind. Now, turn the pages of history over. It's no longer Jacob on his deathbed with the family.

It's the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, when he died, he had with him, some days previously, his, quotes, family. He had his disciples.

And around a table, like the one under my pulpit here, they were gathered. And Jesus took bread and wine. They had a feast, far more sumptuous than the small piece of bread that we'll offer you and the small goblet of wine, for that's just symbolic.

But when Jesus was speaking to the family on that occasion, he, too, made a prediction. Almost on the deathbed of Jesus, he says, Look, I want you to get out your diaries, because I want to write an appointment in the diary because I am going to see you again. One day we will eat of bread and we will drink of wine in my Father's kingdom.

Now, it's not often that a man on his deathbed makes an appointment to see somebody else after he's died, assuming that his mentality is intact. But the Lord Jesus, you see, he never spoke about his death without also speaking about his resurrection. The Lord Jesus dies, and just prior to his death on the cross, he has spoken to the family, as Jacob prior to his death spoke to his family.

And what is more, they were both conscious of some great inviolable promises. Inviolable means something that cannot be broken. We are told that when Israel Jacob died, he was gathered to his people.

He did not believe, apparently, that death was the end of his existence. It's interesting in the Old Testament how although you don't get the full realization as in the New, nonetheless there is this indication that when a man died physically, it was not the end of him. In other words, death is not like blowing out the flame of a candle.

Jacob says that when he dies, he will be gathered to his people. When you go to the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews, which of course is in the New Testament, you find a comment made about Jacob and others who lived at his time in history. It says, all these people were still living by faith when they died.

They did not receive the things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. But as the years went by, the promises that God made to Abraham, the grandfather of Jacob, became more and more precious to Jacob.

And he lived believing that those promises were utterly inviolable. And even though he did not himself live to physically inhabit in terms of being an owner of the promised land, he nonetheless believed that his future and the future of the nation that he would be the ancestor of would be covered by the promises of God. Our Lord Jesus, when he was on earth, said this, speaking of God, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Jacob.

He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. When Jesus comes on earth and he referred to Jacob, he did not refer to Jacob as though his total remains were a molding in the grave in some cave in the promised land. Jesus spoke of Jacob as though he were still alive.

When a man dies, it is his body that dies. It is not his spirit that is taken into a state of annihilation. The spirit goes on to the Lord who gave it.

Jacob is gathered to his ancestors. His ancestors, Isaac, Abraham, all the righteous dead in the Old Testament, they did not lose a consciousness in the sense that their souls were held in some suspended state. They went into the very presence of God.

And the New Testament describes them as being the community of the redeemed, the community of the firstborn who are in heaven. Now, when our Lord Jesus faced death, how did he face it? Well, of course, he's immersed in the Old Testament Scriptures. He knows what is contained there.

He was the inspirer behind them. And speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, the psalmist says, You will not leave my soul in hell. You will not allow Shiloh, your Holy One, to see corruption.

Now, don't misunderstand me. The threats upon Jesus' life were very real. And the bloody sweat which you see on his brow in the Garden of Gethsemane was real sweat because our Lord Jesus was truly human.

He's also truly divine. And he knows full well that he is not a pawn in the hands of Herod and Caiaphas and all those who would deal damnably with him. He is part of the eternal purposes of his Father.

He is Shiloh, who has come into the world not only to bless the descendants of Jacob, but I tell you again, to bless all the descendants of Adam. Our Lord Jesus dies conscious of the great, inviolable promises of Scripture. As Jonah was three days in the belly of a fish, so shall the Son of Man be three days in the heart of the earth.

And then, then he will be raised from the dead. You see the point? Jacob understands that the promises of God are bound to remain intact. They are inviolable.

A greater than Jacob remembers this. And both, so to speak, on their deathbed, slip into eternity with the promises of God at the forefront of their mind. What's more, Jacob, I put it to you, dies with the utmost dignity.

Look at the 33rd chapter, sorry, the 33rd verse of the 49th chapter. When Jacob had finished giving instructions to his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed, breathed his last, and was gathered to his people. Here is not appalling fright.

He is not dragged away as a criminal. He does not go struggling into that dark night, swearing and blaspheming. He goes quietly, calmly, manfully.

Can you see the scene? Here is this wizened old Jew in some Egyptian room adorned with its hieroglyphics, attended by his sons and also by the Egyptian courtiers. The latter have seen men die. They know something of the stigma of death.

You may know very little about Egyptian history, but you know about the pyramids. What are the pyramids? A glorified cemetery. What was it that occupied the minds of the pharaohs? How they could continue after death.

Egypt was almost obsessed by this. But here is a man, a man of nobility. Oh, yes, once he was Jacob the worm, once he was like a corkscrew, once he was the sort of Arthur Daly of the Old Testament, but God in his grace lifts him out of the shell in which he was, and he breathes into him his spirit, and Jacob has a nobility, which, incidentally, God can give to you.

And on his deathbed, that nobility comes into full play, as having done all, he brings his legs up to his chin, almost in the prenatal position, and he's called into eternity, gathered to be with his people. At a funeral, we bury something, not someone. It is the house, not the tenant.

Tuesday, I will not be burying a person. I will be officiating as the earthly remains of a man who lived in Worthing are dealt with respectfully and with dignity. When the man dies, he leaves his body, but he goes on.

Jacob recognized this. And there is an even greater dignity that you see in the person of our beloved Lord. The bloodiest death that man could ever have invented is his, tormented to degrees that are almost unimaginable.

The pain in the nervous system to describe the punishment of our Lord is more than my emotions would allow me to do, let alone my vocabulary have words to accurately delineate. But you don't find there the death of a man who's crushed. There are not the oaths and the obscenities that often echoed around that part of Jerusalem when Romans did criminals to death.

Why was the one alongside our Savior on the cross so impressed? Because of the dignity of Jesus at the point of his greatest human need. Why was the centurion so impressed to the extent that he said, surely this is a man like unto one of the gods? Because our beloved Lord, when he died, he died with dignity. If anyone lost control, it was the priests, especially the high priests.

But never, our beloved Lord, never once did he renege upon his manhood, for he was truly man, the perfect man. Never once did he let the Father down. He's in utter control, utter poise is his, even on the cross.

What's more, Jacob and the greater than Jacob died with an uncompromised citizenship. Remember? Jacob is in Egypt. Alas, I am old enough to remember the funeral service of Winston Churchill.

That doesn't make me too old. It was only in the 1960s, which for some of you is ancient history. You know, Churchill was a remarkable man.

They gave to Churchill in England what they have not given to anyone else outside of royalty. They gave him a funeral that was worthy of a man who had roared like a lion and brought courage to England and the United Kingdom and terror into the hearts of the Nazis. And Churchill was buried with all the pomp and the circumstance that he deserved.

There's a simple inscription on a flagstone in Westminster Abbey, Remember Winston Churchill. I tell you that there never was, up to this point in biblical history, on the part of a Hebrew, a funeral like that of Jacob's. All the courtiers of Egypt in attendance, the chariots there, the wealth of Israel, the wealth of Egypt, the authority of Pharaoh at the disposal of Joseph.

Here was a man, Pharaoh, who spends time constructing pyramids. Here is Joseph, who has been the savior of Egypt. Do you think it is going beyond the bounds of imagination, of reasonable imagination, to believe that Pharaoh suggested to Joseph, your father, a pyramid, say the day, choose the spot, and it's yours? But Joseph will not have Jacob in a pyramid in Egypt.

Why? Because Jacob is a Hebrew. And Jacob may be in Egypt, but Egypt was never in Jacob. And though Joseph spent his professional life in Egypt, Egypt never got into Joseph.

Joseph, like his father Jacob, was a child of the promise, a descendant of Abraham, and Abraham was promised the land, the land that God had counted special in this world. Theirs was a remarkable race. Theirs was a unique nation.

Theirs were promises that were utterly inviolable. So see this Egyptian retinue as it sets off in the process of this cortege, as it makes its way back to Palestine, and see the Egyptian courtiers with eyes that are wide open and jaws that are gape as they witness a cave and the ledge of a cave in which the body of Jacob is placed. For Jacob prefers to be in the sepulchral vault which houses the remains of Isaac and Abraham because this was Jacob in effect expressing in his last wish his certainty, his belief in the promises of God.

He dies with an uncompromised citizenship. He is a Hebrew. He is a Jew.

He is not of this world. And see the beloved Christ on the cross. If you be the Son of God, come down, show yourself.

So often that thrust, that torment, that temptation was dangled in front of him and so often he refused it. And when Jesus went to the cross and died, he died offering an uncompromised life to the Father. For though he was in the world, he was not of the world.

Though he is representative man, he does not participate in the sinfulness of humankind like you and me. That's what makes his death so very special. Three things.

Jacob died with his heart right with God, with his affairs straightened out, with his sons well warned and instructed. Somebody has said, be sure that when you come to die, that is all that you need to do. What do they mean? That your house is in order, that you have told people what you want done with your remains, but even more importantly, that your soul has been placed in the possession of God the Heavenly Father, as you have committed yourself to him and believe that the saving death of Jesus Christ is the means whereby your sins are forgiven and you are destined for, not a city on this earth, but rather that Jerusalem in heaven itself until heaven and earth become one in the new era when the new Jerusalem comes down from heaven as a bride and when God is all and in all.

Your future is dependent on your responding to the inviolable promises of God which state this, that if you confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you will be saved, that commands you to live in the world, but not of the world. The possibilities of being a prince with God are yours through the offer of salvation which Jesus Christ makes to you on the cross of Calvary. Let us pray.

In a moment, Brother Tim takes over, leading us in praise and in thoughtful meditation upon the cross and the resurrection of our glorious Lord. But just a moment for your own silent response to what you have heard and thank you for listening so well. As we have seen a greater than Jacob and as we have had evidence brought to us that both from Old Testament and New Testament literature, God remains true to his promises, will act on his word, and makes it therefore possible for you and me to be his children.

Lift up the throne of God above I am a son of God to praise my Creator He is holy but what can be bigger than Satan's death be to despair and to see all the guilt with him and see him there He sinned because the sinless they denied My sinful soul is now set free For all the justice that is right to the fallen and meek And the church by His blood my life is saved with Christ on high with Christ my Saviour This is what scripture says We lived in malice and envy being hated and hating one another but when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared He saved us not because of righteous things we had done but because of His mercy He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour so that having been justified by His grace we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life Father we want to thank you for those words and for the reality that we have found in them in our own lives kindness love mercy and grace all poured out on us through your dear Son Amen Faithful Jesus on the abundance of your heart and drink from your river of delight with you is the fountain of life in your life we love we are the shepherds of love with you is heaven faithful in your life