Joseph No.22 Farewell to Father

Let us make silent Alleluia We are the kingdom come Thy will be done In earth as it is in heaven Give me breath and forgive me now In our series of readings in the life of Joseph, we've seen the very moving account of his reunion in Egypt with his brothers and his father Jacob. Jacob then lived in Egypt for 17 years. Now, knowing that the end of his life is approaching, he has, in a special way, given a blessing to the sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh.

Jacob has then called all his sons around him and given a personal word to each one. For some, this was a difficult word, and for others, a blessing. We come now to the account of the death of Jacob, and of the tribute paid to his memory, not only by his own family, but, on Joseph's account, by the whole court of Egypt.

Then he gave them these instructions, I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephraim the Hittite, the cave in the field of Machpelah near Mamre and Canaan, which Abraham bought as a burial place from Ephraim the Hittite, along with the field. There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried.

There Isaac and his wife Rebecca were buried. And there I buried Leah. The field and the cave in it were bought from the Hittites.

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. Joseph threw himself upon his father, and wept over him, and kissed him. Then Joseph directed the physicians in his service to embalm his father Israel.

So the physicians embalmed him, taking a full forty days, for that was the time required for embalming. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days. When the days of mourning had passed, Joseph said to Pharaoh's court, If I have found favor in your eyes, speak to Pharaoh for me.

Tell him, My father made me swear an oath and said, I am about to die. Bury me in the tomb I dug for myself in the land of Canaan. Now let me go up and bury my father.

Then I will return. Pharaoh said, Go up and bury your father, as he made you swear to do. So Joseph went up to bury his father.

All Pharaoh's officials accompanied him, the dignitaries of his court, and all the dignitaries of Egypt, besides all the members of Joseph's household, and his brothers, and those belonging to his father's household. Only their children and their flocks and herds were left in Goshen. Chariots and horsemen also went up with him.

It was a very large company. When they reached the threshing floor of Eitad 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 Eitad, they said, The Egyptians are holding a solemn ceremony of mourning. That is why that place near the Jordan is called Ebel Mizraim. So Jacob's sons did as he had commanded them.

They carried him 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. This is the word of the Lord.

And I'd be grateful if you'd have your Bibles open at the passage so beautifully read to us by Karen. So we come to the last few verses of Genesis in chapter 49, overspilling because it's larger than the Bible. into the narrative of the 50th chapter.

We're nearly through this fairly lengthy series, which was not contemplated, wasn't planned as being so long, on the life of Joseph. And I'm grateful to the Lord and to those of you who've put pen to paper or who've made personal contact with me and said just how you've discovered that in the reading through of these historical narratives and the focusing in on incidents that God has spoken to you. I've tried to demonstrate, as Eric Land on many occasions with a greater eloquence than myself will have done, that the message of the Old Testament and the message of the New Testament is contemporary, it's up to date.

And in the most mystical, almost magical way, and let's use a better word without making any apology, in a supernatural fashion, the word of God relates to personal incidents. So you sometimes find people coming into the tabernacle, they're not regular attenders here. They've gone through certain situations in their life and they come along and they listen to an address being given.

And it seems as though the preacher has been informed about their circumstances. They just came in on this sort of one-off and the word of God applied to their own hearts and they wondered, well, what was it all about? How come that you can suddenly find yourself an anonymous member of the congregation? The word of God becomes as an arrow that hits your heart. Well, you see, that's the mystery of preaching.

You see, the preacher is not a politician. The preacher is not a lecturer. The preacher is not depending on his own intellect or he thanks the Lord for whatever resources of understanding he naturally gives him.

By and large, the preacher is handling eternal truth and he's trying to bring eternal truth to the attention of the congregation and because it's eternal supernatural truth, there is that about it that makes it fit a particular circumstance, a particular condition. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, God brings into a congregation this, I do believe, men and women who are to hear a particular message. Well, here we are, somewhat incredible considering the circumstances that have already been referred to in this service this morning.

Here we are confronted with a family. A rather remarkable family, perhaps the most remarkable family outside that of the family of our Lord Jesus, whoever lived. A family of 12 boys and one sister, though our attention is on the boys, on one boy in particular, whose name is Joseph, and one man, the father figure of the family.

A remarkable man, an annoying man, lovable and yet unlovable. Times you admire him, at times you want to distance yourself from him. And you find that this man has been used in the purposes of God to bring into this world 12 boys who will become the stuff of which the nation of Israel shall evolve.

This man who's dying is a direct descendant of Abraham and Isaac and the great covenantal promises that God gave to these illustrious forebears he's passed on to Jacob. The man has had a fairly lengthy life. He's known heartbreak, he's known sorrow, he's known what it is to let his Lord down on many an occasion.

And here he is on his deathbed. In fact, he's not just on his deathbed, we're dealing with a moment of him passing. And the family has to say farewell.

Farewell to father. It's no credit, let me say to all the friends and middle and younger year friends for that matter, it's no credit to your heavenly father for you to be reluctant to go home. Somebody has died, poor chap.

No. When the godly man, when the godly woman dies it's not a poor chap or a poor lady. S. Lewis is right when he says the survivor takes the brunt.

They go on into the immediate presence of the Lord. They go on to appreciate in fuller measure than you can ever understand down here the truths of God's word. They move into the place where God is and all that they'd anticipated, all that they'd expected, all that they had premonitions of down here when God on occasions kisses them in a most intimate and affectionate fashion all that is now raised to the absolute.

Absent from the body, present with the Lord. The survivor takes the brunt. They go to their father's house and they are to be envied for the experience into which they've now passed.

So how do you say farewell? It's not easy to say farewell to someone you love and to a man with a furrowed brow and greying hair to someone who gave you support down the years of your life. Not easy to say farewell to a mother. Not easy sometimes when you have said farewell to stop the tears coursing down their cheeks even though they've departed some years ago.

Not easy to say farewell to your husband who was faithful to you or to your wife who ministered down the years of your life. But the time comes when all of us in some degree in family relationships or amongst closest friends who've become to us as our own brothers and sisters, the time comes when we say adieu for we're not here forever. We're creatures of time.

Our souls are immortal but these bodies are corruptible. These bodies are mortal. These bodies will shed themselves like leaves are shed from trees but the spirit goes on and still some remain and have to say goodbye after they've seen the falling of the leaf.

Farewell. Farewell Elder Father, how did Joseph feel? How did those lads, those adult fellows feel? What was their particular responsibility at this time in the history of this family group which was ultimately to have such huge historic importance? Well, it seems to me that you say farewell by engaging your memory and then it seems to me that you say farewell by constructing a memorial. First of all you engage your memory.

Here is Joseph and he's already had past intimation before his brothers of the immediacy of the death of his father and what Israel Jacob said to Joseph in the last verses of the 48th chapter so he has in effect said to the rest of the sons from the 29th verse and onwards of this 49th chapter. He has already informed Joseph's sons of something of the nature of his own pilgrimage through life. You remember when he stood before Pharaoh on the first occasion? He said to that all powerful monarch when he was asked what the years of his life were, what his lifespan was, few and evil, I quote from the authorised version of scripture, few and evil have been the days of my years and there is a sense in which that was quite true.

He had done that which was wrong. He'd known great difficulty. He'd known bereavement.

Sometimes his troubles had come like one cloud after another cloud after another cloud. Few and difficult or few and evil have been the days of my life. These boys now are to engage their memory.

You see it's wrong to romanticise about past loved ones. They had their strong points, they had their weaknesses. You can't eulogise a man the best of men as Spurgeon would have told us are men at best.

They have their foibles, they have their frailties, they have their contradictions. So don't over romanticise but thank God for what you learn. Thank God Joseph for the way that your father in his middle, in his retiring years had a tremendous encounter with the Lord again to the extent that though you called him Jacob in those earlier decades, he became Israel, a prince with God in the last few years of his life.

It's interesting to run a parallel between old Jacob and Saul. Saul of course was not known to Joseph. Saul was to live years later.

He would be the king, the first monarch of Israel. And he started off so well. He was a tall man head and shoulders above his fellows, not only physically but also seemingly spiritually.

And yet you saw a deterioration. It was a marked thing. He slumped from one point to another point to another point until before his death he's actually consulting a medium a witch to ask with her clairvoyant skills what to do in the circumstances that were puzzling him.

How different Jacob Israel. He starts off so mean. The supplanter, the cheat, the one who deceived his own father.

But as the years go by as he moves from one critical experience to another, so God builds into him those traits which will ever cause for Jacob the accolade of being referred to when God uses his name, the God and father of Abraham, Isaac and of Jacob. These boys, they engaged gear, the gear of memory as they thought of what their father had done. And what is more it seems to me that they must always have had not only immediately but in the years that were to come in their minds they had knowledge of the way that he had died.

This man dies with dignity doesn't he? I'm about he says verse 29 I'm about to be gathered to my people bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite. Verse 33 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. This was no heifer being pulled to the slaughter this was a man who'd seen the hourglass run out of sand this was a man who reached the pinnacle of faith this is a man who knew in the most surprising expression that you find here in the Hebrew and repeated earlier on in terms of Abraham and Isaac who knew that he was going to be gathered to his people.

I would be exaggerating to suggest that the Old Testament warriors the Old Testament people of God had the fuller understanding of eternal life and what happens immediately after death to the degree that you and I have we are favored with the revelation that Jesus Christ brought. But I contend against the critics who say that in the Old Testament there is no seed of immortality of immortality that is part of the conviction of men like Abraham and Jacob. It seems to me that there's all the difference in the world between those two expressions.

Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephraim. There he is geographically identifying the place where he will be entombed. And this remarkable phrase when he says I am about to be gathered to my people you will discover that when Abraham dies a similar sort of reference is discovered in the 25th chapter and the 8th verse of this book.

But mark you Abraham is the man who has bought that particular plot of land in Canaan the only plot that he ever owned. He who had been given the covenantal promise of God that the whole of that area would belong to him. He went to his grave and all that he had in terms of rights of ownership was the burial plot.

But when Abraham died references made to him being gathered to his people. Think it through logically. There was no one else entombed there.

Later on obviously there will be Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and their respective wives. So you can't use that Hebraism and get out of the difficulty or the critics can't by saying well Abraham is going to be gathered to his people the remains of his people in the cave there were no remains. Abraham is the first man whose body shall be entombed in that sepulcher.

He's gathered to his people. Someone has said that when a man sees God it's impossible for him to die. When you have a naked experience of God and you recognize that there is something of God within you you begin to appreciate that life is not ridiculed by death.

That ultimately there is the beyond. That was the great distinction as I see it between Jacob and Esau. Esau was very much a materialist.

He wasn't concerned about his birthright. He was concerned about the here and now. But even in the beginning of Jacob's life with all that is unpleasant and unlovable you discover that he's a man who's got his eye on the future.

He's always moving towards the ultimate and the day comes when he realizes that the ultimate is not to be appreciated solely on this earth but there is that which lies beyond. There are the eternal purposes of God. And when Jacob dies, Jacob Israel, he says not just bury me in that plot of land that Abraham bought but when you've buried me remember I, Jacob Israel, said this, I'm going to be gathered to my people.

I find it almost impossible it strains my ingenuity to feel that you could take even a sentence like that and I could bring many many other scriptures from the old and the new testament to buttress my point to believe that therefore he wouldn't have known who his people were. Some folk are troubled about this. Will I know my husband? Will I know my wife when I get to heaven? Will I know the loved ones that I've known before? Tell me.

If one of the great joys on earth is knowing one another and we're going into our father's house would father deny from us one of the greatest innocent purest blessings that there is on earth? That of recognition. That great clan that Jacob is going to be called into their company. How would he know that his clan, I argue, if he didn't know who his people were? So he dies with dignity in front of dear Joseph.

He draws his feet up into the bed with mental clarity, his right to the end. He breathes his last. He's gathered to his people.

Joseph will never forget. The sons will always remember the way dad died. As they said farewell they said farewell to a man a man who died full of faith.

A man who had done harm but had done a great deal of good. A man who was their father. A man who when he died had ensured that his heart was right with God, that his affairs had been straightened out and that his sons had been warned and instructed.

I say again younger friend and older friend, ensure that when you come to die all you need to do is just die. Ensure your affairs are in order, that you told all that you needed to tell about the good gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you don't go into the company of the redeemed having left mess on this earth. Ensure I tell you that your affairs are in order so that no one else has to come along and sort of sweep up and tidy up after you.

And so that I refer to the material front, so that on the spiritual front you can go into the presence of God having told those who need especially to know from you about this good and great God and his purposes for them as Jacob the granddad talked to Ephraim and Manasseh Joseph's children who'd never been to Palestine about his great God and reminded them that they too were sons of the covenant. You can say farewell to a father with pleasure in your heart who has done his best with all the foibles and frailty of human nature to tell others about the purposes of God. So I argue they said farewell by engaging in memory as you and I will do some of us tomorrow and some of you more personally in regard to your own kith and kin in future days but not only by engaging in memory but by constructing a memorial now listen to me carefully the Egyptians knew all about memorials you take a ticket to Cairo go with John Milne when he's visiting the Middle East and helping and encouraging the folk of the Middle East media to get literature out to Egyptians and to Arabs and they will take you here you and John and colleagues will take you to the pyramids there and you'll see them these great mausoleums that still survive after all the years.

You ask yourself why were so many people engaged in building these things and how old really are they? Well they go back to the time to the time of Joseph they go back to the pharaohs of Genesis and they really testify to man's great conviction that the end of life is not the end of being and with that we'd be in full support but they're also a contrived way of ensuring that somehow life lives on by well the various stages of treating the body ensuring that servants and chariots and what have you are entombed in the pyramid with the pharaoh who dies so that all can go together into the land that lies beyond or so the Hebrew the Egyptians inaccurately and accurately there was a mixture of error and wishful thinking as well as reality as they conceived but you see here the memorial that I'm referring to that Joseph and his brothers are going to set up for their father it's not an Egyptian memorial Jacob lived in Egypt but Egypt didn't live in Jacob you see you've said that before I know I say it because I'm frightened some of us live in this world and the world lives in us and the memorial that we want erected is not a memorial that God recognises you see the memorial plaque that I want when God takes me to be with him must surely if God be gracious be the memorial of people who have given their hearts and lives to Jesus Christ as a result of the deficient ministry that I've offered in the service of the King of Kings when Paul writes to the Philippians and the Thessalonians he talks about them being his joy and his crown on the day when he stands before the judgment throne of God and the memorial that Joseph and his brothers were to erect as they said farewell to father wasn't to be something equivalent to the pyramid that the pharaohs would have in Egypt their memorial would be in ensuring that all that Jacob Israel lived for and sharpened and brought into full focus in the latter years of his life they continue to hold dear you see Jacob believed that life was controlled not by chance but by the divine purposes of God he believed that when he went down into Egypt in a most remarkable way because God had told him this would happen he would meet up with Joseph that he'd no need to be afraid as an old wizened man to go down there because God would ensure that Joseph his beloved son would use his own hands to close his eyes the 46th chapter and verse 4 and Jacob who had believed in God throughout the years of his life will discover his memorial will be erected as Joseph and his brothers copy the example of their father the thing that makes Jacob Israel sweet as far as death is concerned not being afraid of it is because underlying all the human activity in Egypt is the demonstration of the sovereignty of God don't be afraid to go to Egypt because Joseph will close your eyes if the Lord Jesus will close my eyes in dying why do I need to fear death I sing with childlike simplicity and without betraying my manliness be near me Lord when dying the memorial that Joseph and his brothers would raise to Jacob Israel would be in accepting that when God spoke he would bring about what he promised and living in the light of that revelation it's interesting isn't it just how much detail is given more information no one exception Sarah is the exception to the rule more information I was going to say about this burial than any other in the book of Genesis why are we told about the embalming process and the 70 days of mourning of the Egyptians before ultimately Jacob is returned to Palestine and why does the historian time and time again Moses by name write in the fact that the tract of land where Jacob will be buried is the place where Abraham also had been entombed because don't you see that in the last hours of Jacob's life not only has he then in living fashion indicated his faith in God and in the purposes of God but he wants his brothers also he wants his sons also when he is dead to appreciate that God will vindicate his word to them if he is buried in Egypt the possibility is that they will never think of Palestine when they consider Jacob their father but if their father is taken to the cave where Abraham has been entombed if they all have to process there then there will be the great visual demonstration that ultimately in the purposes of God all of their sons and their descendants will leave Egypt and settle again in Palestine because that is what God has promised and what Jacob Israel wanted from his sons in terms of a memorial more than any mausoleum was that they would keep Christ that they would keep true to what God wanted from Abraham and his descendants and so they set off one of the most remarkable funeral cottages of all times Dilleston and tribes I speak with respect couldn't cope with it the Egyptians came as well as the sons came and they left Egypt as though here is a prophetic anticipation that one day the Israelites with all the wealth of Egypt will leave at a time when there's a different pharaoh Moses will take them all every man, every woman, every child, all their inheritance he'll take them from Egypt back to Palestine and it's all encapsuled if you like in this incident of the funeral of Jacob Israel who's taken back to the land the promise the reference is made in the 10th verse to the river Jordan and depending how you translated it seems and I think it's most likely that they crossed the Jordan River too to get back into the land of Palestine Jacob Israel I use the term in an affectionate fashion was a wily man he got it all sussed out he knew his boys he knew the reminder that they required and so he puts this challenge to them don't bury me here but bury me with my fathers and when I'm gathered to my people ensure that you keep to the last detail my request and this will ever be the memorial that you raise to me I don't know what's happened to this clock it's gone faster in the last half hour I must conclude don't you realize my friends at a funeral service we bury something and not someone did you get that they didn't bury Jacob Israel in the sense of having his spirit they had what would have been his fast decaying remains the process of decay has been slowed down because of the expertise of the Egyptians who spent so much time anointing the body making it ready for that long trip back to the cave where Abraham had been buried when tomorrow some of us stand by the open grave of Eric Gland so called his grave we won't be burying him he's been gathered to his people we'll be burying something not someone and you say farewell to father by reminding you of the fact yourself of the fact that as for this man he died in the fullness of faith I saw him just two days before he went and in a way that old people sometimes can for three or four minutes his mind cleared I tell you exactly as it happened no exaggeration whatsoever we talked about the Lord and I said how are you doing and he said he'll never leave me he'll not let me down I said you're safe with him and Mr. Land was almost annoyed that I was actually repeating or affirming that to him he says I know I am I know I am we prayed together and then just as I was leaving the ward he turned over and tried to half wave his hand at me and that was the last time I saw him how do you say farewell to father you remember that he died in fullness of faith and you build a memorial not a mausoleum but you continue where he left off you take on the baton and you carry it too because one day I'll pass the baton on to someone else unless the Lord comes first or redirects me from this pulpit and then I'll have passed it on already that's how you say farewell you see and it's not goodbye full stop it's au revoir until we meet again for if you have entrusted God's revelation to the world our Lord Jesus and acknowledged him as your personal saviour then for you death ushers you immediately into his presence and you fear no evil and you go there to be with him always farewell to father thank you Lord for Israel Jacob thank you Lord for Erikland Amen 504 we sing it as an anthem forever with the Lord, Amen, so let it be life from the dead is in that word is immortality 504 504 504 Amen Father we think of that group of lads around that cave with the Egyptians away in the distance we think of that time of family committal to you the words ringing in the ears of those fellows that Jacob Israel had gone to be gathered to his people we thank you for all that stemmed from the life of Jacob we thank you for all the potential that stems from our own lives help us to live with our ultimate destination fixed into the purposes of God and may every decision that we make be made in the light of that knowledge that we have that one day ultimately we shall go with you, to be with you leaving here all that we had taking with us all that we have been enable us to trust Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour prepare us for that moment Amen Amen