Genesis 49:8–12

0:00 Well, amen. If you know the lyrics to O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, you've had the gospel preached to you, I think we can just all go home now. Now, let's not. Let's study the Bible. You ever noticed how stores and most of society tend to rush into the various holidays that we have throughout the year?

0:33 You ever notice how they start trying to sell you stuff basically as soon as the prior holiday is finished? So, for example, before you've got all your American flags wrapped up and your fireworks packed away on July the 4th, they're trying to sell you jack-o'-lanterns and chocolate. I swear you walk into a Walgreens you walk into a Kroger in July and they already have that stuff on the shelves and it's basically because there's no holiday between July 4th and October 31st at least not a big one that we tend to decorate for so they start packing the shelves by the time you get the last piece of candy eaten from Halloween you start seeing Thanksgiving stuff and then by the time you get the leftover turkey in the Ziploc bags it's time for Christmas some of you I bet Put your Christmas tree up before you even had the turkey.

1:23 Shame on you. You should never put a Christmas tree up until December. Thank you. My work is done here for today. And then you know how it is. I mean, before you get the last Christmas cookie swallowed, what are they going to be trying to shove down your throat next? Little shiny heart boxes for Valentine's Day, right? You get a little bit of New Year's stuff, but basically they move on to February 14th, immediately after December 25th.

1:56 You know, there are a lot of Christians, though, who poke fun at us as evangelicals for rushing to Christmas. And they do it not just in the kind of way that I was poking fun of, Kroger and Walgreens right there, but they do it in a more theological sense. And in a way, I think they're absolutely right. we as evangelicals tend to rush to Christmas rather than sitting in the time of waiting and longing and deep reflection that is the Advent season. I mean, you know how it is, right? As soon as December hits, you come to church, and bam, there's the sparkly lights, and there's the sparkly trees out there, and we're already moving on to Christmas songs. I mean, we've tried to sort of ease into Christmas this year. You know, we're doing some Christmas songs in our service, and some that aren't exactly Christmas songs, trying to ease into it a little bit, but we as evangelicals tend to rush through Advent in order to get to Christmas, which is a little bit of a shame, right? I mean, it's fun, and we all have fun doing it, and there's nothing particularly wrong with it,

2:58 but the way the church has sort of celebrated Christmas through centuries and millennia now is that there's a period of waiting for several weeks before the glory and the light and the joy of Christmas dawn. It's a period of weeks that are called Advent, and it's meant to be a time of quiet longing, of deep reflection, of waiting. Now, most Christians, most evangelicals, especially if you're here at Third Avenue and you've been here for a while, you're familiar with Advent. You're familiar with what Advent is for. You're familiar with the time of waiting. You're familiar with the fact that during the Advent season, we sing songs like, Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel, or, you know, the songs about the prophets, right, and the longing that Israel has for the coming of her Messiah. But did you know that in the church calendar, as Christians have celebrated it for centuries, Advent is a season of waiting not for the birth of Christ on that first Christmas morning. It's actually a season of waiting for the second coming of Jesus. Did you know that? Advent is a season that

4:03 celebrates and focuses on the second coming. So, for example, think about the Advent song that we sing often, Joy to the World. Did you know that's not a Christmas song? It's just not. You can read the words of Joy to the World, and it doesn't say one thing about the birth of Christ. It doesn't say one thing about Christmas. There are no reeds, there are no trees, there are no shepherds. It's not a Christmas song. It's a second coming song. Now, isn't it interesting? I mean, think about the logic of this so in the church calendars it's been celebrated for centuries you get first advent which is a focus on the second coming of the king in glory coming before the season of christmas which is a celebration of the king coming as a baby now that's out of order isn't it i mean why would the church have set it up like that why wouldn't you have the celebration of the birth of jesus and then And after that, a season of waiting for the king to come back in his glorious second coming.

4:59 Why is it reversed? Well, I think the reason has got to be something like this. The story of a baby becoming a king is not all that surprising to us. We don't have any problem with it. I mean, all you got to do is like look at, you know, the movie Gladiator, for instance, or really any movie like it. And the basic story of it is going to be somebody coming from poverty, from a low estate and rising through the ranks to become king of something or other, a protector of Rome or whatever you want to call it. That trajectory is not a surprising story to us.

5:32 And so if the church had celebrated first the coming of the baby Jesus and then the coming of King Jesus in the second coming, it would not have struck us nearly so much as doing it the other way around. Because the wonder of this whole season of Advent and Christmas is not so much that a baby became a king, it's that a king became a baby. Now that's striking. That's surprising. That's something that we don't put in the movies very often.

6:04 And yet it's the source and foundation of all the wonder that we have in this Advent and Christian season because it's the source of our salvation as Christians. We're going to be talking about that this morning as we kind of look back into the Old Testament and sort of, you know, as it were, look back through the mists of time and all the weight and rolling of the centuries. We're going to look back at some prophecies that talk about the coming of Jesus. We're going to be beginning a short and really very, I'd say, unusual series of sermons today that's going to run for the next three weeks, so right up until Christmas Eve, in which we're not so much going to be looking through a single book of the Bible.

6:41 That's what we usually do at Third Avenue. pick out a book and we just make our way through that book. That's what we do almost always. We'll start that up again in January with another book. But for the next three weeks, we're not going to be doing so much that, as much as looking at several different passages that help us understand the significance of this Christmas season. But maybe even more than that, my hope is that as we look at these, it's going to end up being five passages. So three today, one next week, and one the next week. So as we look at these five passages of Scripture, my hope is that these passages of Scripture will not only help you understand the significance of this season in a kind of intellectual sense, but that it will also help you feel the wonder of the fact that 2,000 years ago the eternal Son of God became a man in order to save us from our sins. That is something wonderful.

7:36 It's something mind-blowing, and these texts that we're going to look at, I hope, will open up your heart and mind to see that and to experience it. You know, in some really important ways, Christmas is always, the Christmas season is always about the here and now, isn't it? It's just very much about things that happen here and things that happen now and things that have to happen here and now. And some of those things are just unavoidable, right? There are celebrations to be had. There are gifts to be bought. There are white elephants to be found. There are parties to be planned. There are decorations to be put up.

8:07 There are travel arrangements to be made. All of that is here and now stuff, and all of that has to happen. And Christmas, just kind of by design, by the way that we celebrate it, is a time when we very much live in the moment, when we enjoy kind of what's right in front of us in terms of the blessings of God. And in some very important ways, that's good. We should learn to see and enjoy the blessings that God has put right in front of us, especially at a time like Christmas. I mean, for some of you, you're going to have all kinds of blessings in the here and now that you're able to look at this Christmas.

8:39 You're going to be able to look into a face, maybe, of a new baby. Maybe you're going to be looking into the face of a new grandbaby or a new son-in-law or daughter-in-law. Maybe you're even looking into the face of a new husband or wife. Some of you have brand new blessings to be thankful to the Lord about. I mean, maybe that's not you, though. I mean, maybe this Christmas for you is going to be a matter of acknowledging yet again blessings that God gave you a very very long time ago that's good it's good to look around it's good to look at what the Lord has done for you and see his blessings and and and see what good God has done in the here and now and give thanks to him for those it's a good use of the Christmas season but I think also that as much as Christmas is a time to appreciate and enjoy what's right in front of us, it should also be a time for us to look up from the here and now to stop and reflect on what God has done in centuries past. In fact, I think it ought mostly to be a time when we let the voices

9:44 of centuries and millennia past fill our minds up and wonder at what God has done for us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. I mean, the fact is, this book, this book that we study here every Sunday in and out. The Bible. It's an ancient book. I mean, it's pretty and modern, right? It's got this modern cover on it, a nice gold leaf, really nice print. They can make thousands of them. It's a very sort of modern book when you just look at it, but it's ancient. I mean, the prophecies that we're going to look at today, the oldest of the prophecies we're going to look at today is 4,000 years old. The newest of the prophecies that we're going to look at today is 2,700 years old.

10:30 This is an ancient book. It reverberates with centuries and millennia. It's good for us to look into that and to understand this epic story that this book tells of how God looked at a ruined and sinful humanity that deserved his wrath and decided instead of pouring out his wrath that he would save us. It's an epic story that the Bible tells. Kingdoms rise, empires fall. Cities are conquered, armies are destroyed. Crowns are placed on kings' heads and then a few years later they topple into the dust and are forgotten.

11:05 Thrones are kicked over, never to be seen again. And through all that up and down of history the prophets, one right after the other are pointing their bony fingers down through the centuries and saying and yet in the midst of the cataclysm a great king is coming who's going to set it all right. that's the story that unfolds in the Bible. That's the epic story that unfolds in these 4,000 to 2,000-year-old pages. And it's a story that finally comes to rest on the shoulders of a little baby in the little town of Bethlehem on the first Christmas.

11:40 So over the next three weeks, that's what I want to try to do. I want to try to put our eyes as Christians on that story. I want us to feel the weight of the centuries. I want us to hear the whispering voices of the prophets. And I want us to stop and pause in the middle of all the here and now for just a little while to stare at what God has done. Maybe in the midst of it, there will be a moment when your eyes as a Christian will widen just a little bit yet again. And wonder that 2,000 years ago, the eternal word of God became flesh.

12:19 Today I want to do something unusual, like I said, which is not just to take you to one passage of Scripture, but to three, three different prophecies from the Old Testament that themselves are separated by vast stretches of time. And yet all of which point to the same moment, the coming of the King. So I want to take you first to Genesis 49, then to Numbers 24, and finally to Micah 5. And we'll start by just reading it. They're short little prophecies, won't take long to read them, but I want to just read all three of them at once so you can kind of see them all together.

12:50 So take a Bible, if you've got one, turn over to Genesis chapter 49. I'm going to start reading in Genesis 49, 8, which you can find on page 42 if you're using one of these Red Pew Bibles. So page 42, you'll see the big Genesis 49 there, and go down about halfway through that column, and you'll see verse 8 that starts with the word Judah. That's where I'm going to start reading. So here's what Jacob says to his son, Judah. Judah, your brothers shall praise you.

13:23 Your hands shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's sons shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion's cub. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he crouched as a lion and as a lioness. Who dares rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until tribute comes to him. And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey's colt to the choice vine. He has washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes.

13:54 His eyes are darker than wine and his teeth whiter than milk. All right, turn now to the next one, Numbers chapter 24. That's going to be on page 133. Numbers 24, page 133. I'm going to begin reading in verse 15. So this is what Balaam says. Numbers 24, 14.

14:26 Or 15, sorry. 24, 15, page 133. Here we go. And Balaam took up his discourse and said, The oracle of Balaam, the son of Baor, the oracle of the man whose eye is opened, the oracle of him who hears the words of God and knows the knowledge of the Most High, who sees the vision of the Almighty falling down with his eyes uncovered. I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. It shall crush the forehead of Moab and break down all the sons of Sheth.

14:59 Edom shall be dispossessed. Sire also his enemies shall be dispossessed. Israel is doing valiantly. And one from Jacob shall exercise dominion and destroy the survivors of the cities. Okay, now on to the third one, the book of Micah. Micah. I bet more of you are going to need the page number for this one and the other two. Micah chapter 5, 778, if you're using a pew Bible. Micah chapter 5, starting on 778.

15:41 All right, verse 1. Here's what Micah says. the name of the Lord is God, and they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth, and he shall be their peace. All right, so you've read them all now, you've heard all three of the prophecies that I want to take your mind to this morning. I think what's fascinating about these prophecies is that it doesn't take much, maybe even just one reading, to see that they're basically talking about the same theme. All three of these prophecies have these same themes woven into and out of them so there's the promise of a coming king right you surely notice that there's

16:46 the hope of a new world that this king is going to usher in of peace and abundance there's the promise of an end to God's enemies the destruction of the enemies of the people of God all of those themes are present in all three of these prophecies but what's fascinating I think about them is that all three of them are separated in history by absolutely enormous stretches of time. So the Genesis prophecy that we read back in Genesis 49, you know when that was written? Sometime around 1900 BC, 4,000 years ago.

17:24 You know when the one in Numbers was written? 500 years later, 500 years later in about 1400 BC. And then this last one in Micah, when that was written, about 700 years after that, in about 700 B.C. So you see what I'm saying here? These prophecies are given over the three prophecies that basically say the same thing, are given over the span of 1,200 years. The first one in 1900 B.C., the third one and most recent one in 700 B.C., and they're all pointing to the same thing.

18:01 They're all pointing to the fact that the entire hope of the entire world is bound up with the birth of a baby who would become a king. That's what they're all saying. And what you'll see, I think, as we look at each one of these in a little bit more detail, is that when you look at them together, when you kind of let them have a sort of kaleidoscope view through history, what you're going to see is that they paint an absolutely mind-blowing and incredible picture of why that baby came in the first place and what that king accomplished. I think there are a few carols, Christmas carols, that for me, anyway, every Christmas season, they really kind of capture the awe and wonder of the Christmas season.

18:37 So, you know, I think, for example, about Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas Is You. I think about the Christmas Shoe song. I think about Dan Fogelberg's Auld Lang Syne, or what is it, Same Auld Lang Syne? No, I don't think about any of those, actually. I think about ones that capture the sort of mystery of the season. Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel is one of those. In a kind of very different way, Hark the Herald Angels Sing. But every single Christmas, I notice that there's this one Christmas carol in particular that just captures my imagination because to me, it carries in both its words and its melody the whole weight of the biblical epic story.

19:16 You know what that hymn is? Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. And we've sung it here at Third Avenue before. I'm sure we'll sing it at some point during this Christmas season. But it's beautiful. If you've heard it, you know. Let all mortal flesh keep silence, and in fear and trembling stand. Ponder nothing earthly-minded, for with blessing in his hand, Christ the Lord descendeth from the realms of endless day. I got them mixed up. It's easier to sing it. But you know what I mean? It's got this amazing mystery to it.

19:48 Keith and Chris and Getty have recorded a version of it. It's brand new, I think, this year. Go find it on YouTube and put it on while you're driving around. I think you'll be encouraged by it. Anyway, when I hear it, when I hear that song, Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, I can just hear the words of the prophets echoing in the words and melody of that song. In fact, what I noticed as I was studying these three prophecies this week is that the points that I wanted to make out of these three prophecies ended up lining up pretty well with a few phrases from the song, Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence.

20:26 So I'm going to give you three things through the course of this morning that we can learn about the Messiah from these ancient prophecies. And I'm going to give them to you as phrases from that hymn. So number one, here it is. Number one, first point, with blessing in his hand. He comes with blessing in his hand. Number two, he comes that the powers of hell may vanish. That's the second one. And third, he comes, alleluia, God most high. So those three phrases, those three things that I want us to learn from these prophecies.

20:58 He comes with blessing in his hand. He comes that the powers of hell may vanish. And he comes, alleluia, God most high. All right, let's start looking at them. Turn back to Genesis chapter 49. And we're going to talk about each one of these three prophecies in a little bit more detail. Genesis chapter 49, we're going to be looking at verses 8 through 12. Again, it starts on page 42. As with all of these three prophecies, this one that we read from Genesis 49 doesn't come individually wrapped. It's not an individually wrapped little piece of chocolate that you can just put in your mouth and fully, you know, taste it and understand it.

21:31 It's set in a story just like all these prophecies are. And the very point of that story is that when you get to Genesis 49, especially 8 through 12, it's supposed to come as a shock to you as a reader. Because if you've read the first 48 chapters of the book, then what happens in 49 is that it just comes out of nowhere. And you're supposed to look up, you're supposed to be reading along in your Bible, and you're supposed to come, especially to verse 10, and you're supposed to go, oh my gosh, that's utterly unexpected.

22:03 It's supposed to shock you. Let me help you understand why. Chapter 49 of Genesis comes at the end of the story of Joseph. It's a long story that goes on for like 16 chapters, really long story of Joseph. He's the youngest son of one of the main characters in Genesis, Jacob, who gets his name changed to Israel, right? He's the father of the nation and he has 12 sons and the youngest of them is Joseph, who nobody expects to amount to anything. And yet he winds up through a series of, you know, twists and turns, getting sold into slavery, taken to Egypt, thrown in prison, and ultimately, through all these twists and turns, he becomes like the second in command of the entire Egyptian empire. There is nobody higher than him in the entire kingdom except for Pharaoh himself. Well, it's a fascinating story, but the long and the short of it is that by the time you get to chapter 49, this extremely powerful man, Joseph, second in command of all Egypt, has brought his whole family to Egypt now. And his father,

23:05 Jacob is about to die. Before Jacob dies, though, in chapter 49, he gives a blessing to each one of his 12 sons. So he calls each one of his sons up and he blesses them. He puts his hand on them and he blesses them. He says words of prophecy over all 12 of his sons. And so that's what you get here in chapter 49. You get those, you get those blessings. Now, if you've read chapter 49 at some point in your life, you know that it's not entirely accurate to call all these things blessings because some of these things look a whole lot more like curses.

23:37 I mean, if you just look up at, you know, verses 5 through 7, for instance, that reads a whole lot more like a curse than it does a blessing. But there's even more going on in this story. By the time you get to 49, Jacob's blessing his sons, right? And you get to this one of Judah, and it's supposed to just blow your mind. Why does it blow your mind when you get to the blessing on Judah? Well, because by this time in the story, there is this burning question that's sitting right at the center of the whole story of Genesis. And in fact, it's the question that's been driving the drama of the story ever since really chapter three of Genesis. So in order to understand what that question is, we've got to go back to the very beginning. Most of you know the story of the first three chapters of Genesis, right? God creates the world. He creates human beings. He tells human beings what their job is in the world. He tells them, gives them some limits on their authority, right? They're supposed to be king and queen of the cosmos under God. He sets some limits on them, and they, tempted by Satan, break those limits, right? You know that story. I don't have to go

24:40 into detail. And so they come under the sentence of death, right? You rebel against God. You try to take God's throne and God's crown. The natural fitting response to that is that you die, and so that's what God tells them is going to happen to them. They're now under the sentence of death. And so by the time you get to like the middle of chapter three, everything is just in cataclysm, right? The world was supposed to be perfect. It was supposed to be ruled well by Adam and Eve as they reflect God's rule over the world. And yet when they join the war of Satan against God, everything is in curse and cataclysm.

25:13 And then you get this one verse in the middle of chapter three. Chapter three, verse 15, which ends up setting the agenda for the entire story of the Bible. Remember what that verse says? God is talking to Satan, and he says, I'm going to put enmity, enmity means enemy-ness, right? Hatred, I'm going to put enemy-ness, enmity between your seed and the seed of the woman. And the seed of the woman is going to come, and on the last day, he's going to crush your head, Satan, even though you bruise his heel.

25:48 So it's a great promise that comes. And the question then that the whole Bible starts to organize around is, okay, if there's this new king coming who's going to crush the head of the serpent, even as he gets his own heel bit, if there's this new king coming that's going to do what Adam should have done in crushing the serpent, who is he? And that's the question that drives the whole rest of the story of the Bible. And immediately it comes up because Eve has a third son named Seth. And you can tell from her words that she thinks her new son, Seth, is the fulfillment of Genesis 3.15.

26:23 She thinks he's the new king. He turns out not to be. Noah's father, Lamech, you can tell by his words, thinks that Noah is that coming king. Turns out he's not. In fact, it turns out that nobody is again and again and again and again. And by the middle-ish of Genesis, first, third of Genesis or so, all of those promises from Genesis 3.15 of a coming king come to rest on the head of Abraham. Right? So God says, it's through you, Abraham, that I'm going to bring this king.

26:55 All the promises are given to Abraham. Then they fall to Isaac. Then they fall to Jacob. And there are all kinds of surprises in there. Like, you're not expecting the promises to fall to Jacob. And yet, there they are. Jacob, I'm going to bring this great new king from you, Jacob, not from your brother Esau, but from you. So he gets the promises. And then what happens? Well, Jacob then has 12 sons. And the whole question of the book of Genesis becomes, okay, to which one of Jacob's 12 sons are these promises going to fall?

27:29 Now, who's going to get them? Now, did anybody when you were a kid ever play the game where you have a football, right? And you run around in a field with a bunch of kids, and basically the idea is that one kid gets the football, and you run around as long as you can until the other kids tackle you, crush you to the ground, and then you have to throw the football up, and another kid grabs it, and they run around until they get crushed. Did you ever play that? Utterly and totally pointless, and yet so much fun, right? I don't know what you guys used to call that game, but we as kids called it Kill the Carrier.

28:03 So the carrier was the football person, and he ran around, and the option of the game is to kill him and get him to throw the ball up so somebody else can catch the football. Well, once Jacob has 12 sons, the entire book of Genesis becomes one gigantic game of kill the carrier, because the promises of God look like they fall to each one of those sons in turn, and every single one of them gets crushed, usually by sin. So the firstborn of Jacob's sons, you're thinking, okay, it makes sense that the firstborn should get the promises, right?

28:34 The Messiah, the promised king of Genesis 3.15 needs to come through the firstborn, Reuben. So the promises fall to Reuben and what does Reuben do? He promptly goes and commits adultery with his father's concubine, right? So he's crushed, the ball goes up and it falls into the hands of the second, maybe the thirdborn, Simeon and Levi. What do they do? They promptly go and sin in a ridiculously gross way and that I'm not gonna tell you about now and the ball goes up and who does it fall to? you think it falls to the fourth-born Judah.

29:06 Boom, right? And what does Judah do? He manages to get into the Bible literally one of the grossest chapters that shows up in the whole thing. So I'm not gonna tell you about that one either. You can go read it later. It's Judah and Tamar chapter 38. Boom, the ball goes up and we're not sure where it goes for a really long time. It just stays up in the air until finally, against all odds, it falls into the hands of the littlest and youngest son of all, Joseph, right? And everything looks great. Joseph runs forever.

29:40 I mean, that dude's got a coat of many colors. Remember that? What's that all about? It's not, it's not just fashion sense. It's a rainbow, right? It's a coat. He is literally wrapped in promises of God. He looks good. And then he goes off and he gets sold into slavery. So you're wondering what's going on with that but then he becomes the grand vizier of all egypt and you're thinking yep this promise was of a king that's the guy look at him flying straight and true like a starship there he goes and then he dies and you never hear from him again in the whole rest of the bible he's mentioned here and there but his story doesn't continue you never hear from him again so so what happens then to the to the football well that's where these promises come in So look, look at 49.1.

30:30 Now we're going to find out where the football lands. Then Jacob called his sons and said, gather yourselves together so that I may tell you what's going to happen to you in days to come. And they're all wondering who gets the ball. Assemble and listen, oh, sons of Jacob. Listen to Israel, your father. And then you get some really not surprising stuff at all. Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might and the first fruits of my strength. You are preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power. Sounds really good, right? stable as water, you shall not have preeminence because you went up to your father's bed and you defiled it. He went up to my couch. That's what that's supposed to sound like. So Reuben's waxed.

31:09 Not going to happen. Five, you get the second and third born, Simeon and Levi. Simeon and Levi are brothers, weapons of violence. He doesn't even say anything nice about them. Weapons of violence are their swords. Let my soul not come into their counsel. My glory be not joined to their company in their anger. They're killing. And it just goes on and on about how they're violent and they're Violence disqualifies them from the promises of God. Forthborn there is Judah. And you're thinking, well, this one's going to be just as bad as the others because Judah basically wrote the worst chapter in the entire Bible with his sin. Right? So you're thinking Judah's about to get waxed.

31:42 But then you get Judah. Your brothers shall praise you. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's son shall bow down before you. And you're thinking, surely he's going to turn on him like he did Reuben, right? But he keeps going. He's a lion's cub. And in 10, the scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until tribute comes to him. Do you see what that's doing? The ball, the promise of Genesis 3.15 is falling to Judah. The great king is going to come from you. Okay, now the first thing I want you to notice about that is just how surprising it is that the promises fall to Judah.

32:19 He's a disaster. He's a total wreck. And yet God gives the promises to him. And that's the first lesson you need to learn from this. Never, ever, ever underestimate the astonishing reach of God's grace. Never underestimate the astonishing reach of God's grace. Judah was hopeless. He was wrecked. He was destroyed by his own choices. And nobody in this story would have ever guessed that the great promise of Genesis 3.15 would drop into his arms.

32:50 And yet it did. Friend, you need to know that God's grace, no matter how bad you think you are, no matter how embarrassed and humiliated you are by your sin, you need to know that you are not outside the reach of God's grace. I know you think you don't deserve God's grace, and that's exactly the point. Judah didn't deserve it either. Judah was worse than you. If you'll believe in Jesus and trust in him, then you can go find Judah when you get to heaven, and you guys can have a big discussion about how neither one of you deserved God's grace.

33:26 It'll be glorious. He didn't deserve God's grace. He didn't deserve God's compassion. He didn't deserve God's forgiveness. He didn't deserve God's love. You don't either. And yet there's God giving it all to Judah anyway and offering it to you as well. I want to look at it some more, though. A couple more details about this. what Jacob says there in 8 and 9 is surprising enough given what we know about this sordid past that Judas got. He basically in 8 and 9 presents him as a, we don't have to look at the details, he just presents him as a victorious warrior, right? He puts his hand on his enemy's throat, he chokes his enemies out, he pounces on his enemies like a lion. In the first line of it, he's even accepting the great praise of his brothers for his exploits. But then look at the last line of verse 8 because that's where it really starts to get shocking. Jacob says that Judah's brothers will bow down to him. And that's the point when you're really supposed to go,

34:30 oh, what in the world? How can this be? Because the promises that the family was going to bow down to somebody were not given to Judah. It was Joseph who had the dreams of his family bowing down to him. And yet here, it's as if the promise of those dreams has now been transferred to Judah. now the family may have bowed down to Joseph for a moment because he was like basically the king of Egypt but it's Judah and his family who are going to rule over them forever why is that well it's God's grace but it's also because of this jaw-dropping prophecy in verse 10 if you look at verse 10 that's the center of the prophecy that's the climax of the whole thing I mean you remember this question of that drives Genesis right who's the king going to be who's who's the who's the king that's promised in in 3 15 who's that going to be well this verse finally answers that question it says judah the scepter shall not depart from you nor the ruler's staff from between judah's feet until tribute comes to him easy to understand right there's nothing hard about it a scepter is a

35:35 a symbol of royal authority the ruler's rod is another symbol of royal authority and what jacob The saying is those symbols of royal authority and power, Judah, belong to you until tribute comes. Now that phrase there, the third line, until tribute comes to him, it's difficult. There's no way around it. It's a difficult Hebrew phrase. And the reason it's difficult is because this part of the Bible is written in poetry. And the fact is when we look at the Hebrew words that underlie that phrase, until tribute comes to him, it's just unclear what it's saying.

36:09 There are a bunch of options. One of them is this one right here. And it makes sense if you think that's the right way to do it. The staff will stay with Judah. He will be the royal tribe until tribute comes to him, until the Messiah comes, right? That's a possible way to read it. The best way to read it, though, is down in the footnote of your ESV Bible. And that is, the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, Until he comes to whom it belongs.

36:41 Until he comes to whom it belongs. In other words, Judah's going to be the royal tribe. The promises are going to be with him and his descendants. Until that last one comes to whom the scepter actually, really, and finally, and ultimately belongs. In other words, until Jesus is born in Bethlehem of the Virgin Mary. But look now at 11 and 12 because this is what's, I think, really unique about this prophecy. It starts to describe this sort of world that once the Messiah comes, once he comes to whom the scepter actually belongs, once he comes, this is what's going to happen.

37:16 Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey's colt to the choice vine, he has washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes. His eyes are darker than wine and his teeth whiter than milk. So you see what that's doing there? It's describing the kind of world that this coming king is going to bring. And the point of it is that it is a world of crazy abundance. Crazy abundance. In fact, what it says is that this world the Messiah, the king brings, is running so thick with wine.

37:50 There are so many vineyards and vines for making wine. There are so many of those that you can tie your donkey to the choicest vines in the world. I mean, imagine that. So many vineyards, so much abundance of celebratory wine, that the best wine-producing vine in the world becomes just a hitching post for a donkey. It's sort of the same idea as the streets paved with gold in the new heavens and new earth, right? And look at the second part of 11.

38:22 So abundant is wine that you can actually wash your clothes in it. You don't have to use water. It's not being literal in that sense. Nobody actually wants to wash their clothes in wine. It would ruin them and turn them all red, right? But you could if you wanted to wash your garments in wine. We're not sure, honestly, what verse 12 means. It's obviously a description of the king himself, but we're not sure what its significance is. The best guess, just from looking at other little phrases in other places of the Bible, is that it's a picture of a celebrating king.

38:54 It's a picture of a king whose eyes are sparkling, right, and whose teeth are white, and you can tell it because he's smiling. That's the best guess that we've got as to what this means. But it's a picture, probably, of a celebrating king. But whatever it is, whatever that last verse 12 is about, The whole thing, obviously, means that the world the Messiah is going to create is going to be one of celebration. What you've got here after the king arrives is a picture of unbounded abundance and joy and celebration. That's what Jesus came to bring.

39:26 In fact, in John, we studied it several years ago, actually. In John 2, when Jesus does his first miracle, do you remember what he does for his very first miracle? He keeps a party going by turning water into wine. That's what he does. He keeps a party going. He keeps the fun going. You might say that the very first miracle of Jesus was that he created fun ex nihilo. I think so often Christianity is seen as this killjoy set of rules and rituals that we all have to do.

39:59 But friends, that's not Jesus. We have a happy, celebrating king who rules over the universe. He comes, as the song says, with blessing in his hand, not condemnation. So no matter what we face, no matter what hardships we suffer, that reality of a joyful, celebrating king, that ought to suffuse our lives. That's why Paul says that we can rejoice in the midst of our sufferings. Brothers and sisters, I don't know what you have suffered over these last months of this year.

40:33 I don't know what you're facing. I don't know if you've, some of you have lost loved ones, some of you have lost friends some of you are going to have empty seats at your holiday table this year some of you because of a lost job or because of something that went on with your income or buying smaller less expensive gifts for your children I know that but I can also tell you this press on brother press on sister because your king is waiting for you and he is a joyful king who when you get there is going to welcome you and wipe away every tear from your eyes and kill the fattened calf and wrap you in a robe and put a ring on your finger and say my son my daughter is back. I want you to notice one last thing before we carry on. I want you to notice that phrase in verse 11 that he's washed his garments in wine. Now on the surface of course this is another picture of abundance right? There's so much wine that you can wash your clothes in it if you want to.

41:32 But as you read it carefully, there's a thorn in it, isn't there? He washes his vesture in the blood of grapes. What a strange way to put it in a picture of celebration. He washes his vesture in the blood of grapes. You know how that imagery gets developed? Through the rest of the Bible.

42:03 Let me show you. Isaiah 63. This is in fact the Messiah speaking. It's the anointed conqueror. If you remember from our series in Isaiah. He's speaking and he says, I trampled down the peoples in my anger. I made them drunk in my wrath. And I poured out their lifeblood on the earth. Here's John describing Jesus in Revelation 19. He says, he will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

43:05 And on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. What's the point of that? What's the point of that? The point of that is that this is deadly serious. It's deadly serious. Christmas is deadly serious. We serve a joyful king, but friends, we serve a king nonetheless. see this this prophecy here in genesis 49 even even in a little seed form undeveloped it takes millennia for it to get developed but even in seed form here it presents a choice you as a human being who have rebelled against god in your sin you are presented with a choice you can have joy or you can have destruction There's nothing in between, and there's no avoiding the choice.

44:01 You come to Jesus in faith. You come to the king. Bow your knee to him. Tell him that you know you can't save yourself, but you know that he can through his life, death, resurrection, and your place. He can save you. You'll have joy. You'll be welcomed into the kingdom of this smiling, happy, laughing king. You reject him, though. You reject him. And he will tread the fury of the wrath of the winepress of Almighty God. And you'll be in it.

44:35 He comes. He comes with blessings in his hand. The question is whether you're going to take them. Here's point number two. He comes that the powers of hell may vanish. He comes that the powers of hell may vanish. So, Jacob died after he blessed his son. Sometime later, he died in Egypt. Joseph also died in Egypt. So did Judah, for that matter, the one that the promise was finally given to. He died also in Egypt, and so did then generations and generations of their descendants until basically the entire nation of Israel found itself in slavery to the Egyptian pharaohs making bricks without straw.

45:12 Well, in time, after about 400 years, God rescued his people spectacularly from that slavery. That's a story for another time. And finally brought them to the moment when he was about to bring them again into their ancestral homeland. So where Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, where all of them originally lived. And he brought the whole nation out of Egypt, wandered them through the desert for about 40 years. And he was finally on the cusp of bringing them back into their original land. The problem with that plan, though, of getting them back home, was that standing right in the way was a kingdom called Moab.

45:48 And it's king, Balak. Okay, so what do you do? If you're trying to get into the promised land, but you're blocked by this kingdom and it's King Balak who basically hates you. Well, what you do first is ask if you can peacefully pass through their territory. So that's what the Israelites did. They sent messengers to Balak. Hey, King Balak, we want to pass through your territory to get to ours. Will you allow that? Balak says, absolutely not. That's not going to happen. And he comes up, Balak does, with what he thinks is an ingenious plan. He's going to curse the nation of Israel.

46:20 See, Balak, this king of Moab, knew of a famous spiritist, I guess you would call him, who lived in the mountains. He was a kind of witch doctor who had become famous basically for wrestling down the various gods of the nations. He was a god wrestler, a witch doctor. And so what Balak thought was, I'll go to this guy named Balaam, right, this witch doctor, and he will wrestle down Yahweh. He'll put Yahweh in his place, and then he'll curse the nation of Israel. So he goes to Balaam, and he says, I'll give you a whole bunch of money if you will stand on the top of the mountain, Look down over the nation of Israel as it's down there.

46:52 And if you will curse the nation of Israel, I'll pay you a ton of money. So Balaam's all about it, right? He's a pagan. He's a witch doctor. He's wrestled down gods before. So he struts out to the edge of the mountain, looks down over the, you know, however many millions of Israelites are down there. And he starts to utter a curse against them. And what trumbles out of his mouth is blessing of them, which makes Balak furious. He's like, I paid you all this money to curse these people, and you are blessing them.

47:24 What is up with that? And Balaam says, well, look, basically, I can't wrestle this God down. So when I start to speak any kind of blessing, this God sort of wrestles me, or curse, this God wrestles me down, and I end up saying blessings to them. There's other funny stuff that happens in the story, but basically, it's this hilarious back and forth where Balak tries several different times to pay Balaam money to curse, and he ends up blessing. Well, when you get to Numbers chapter 24, turn there now, Numbers 24, you get the third time that this has happened. You can see there in, this is page 132, Numbers 24, you get the third oracle, same thing happens. Balak pays him, right, or promises to pay him, and then he goes up to curse him, and what comes out is blessing again, and now look what happens in verse 10 of 24.

48:16 Not surprisingly, and Balaak's anger was kindled against Balaam, and he struck his hands together. He's just, he's so mad, he's like clapping at Balaam. And Balaak said to Balaam, I called you to curse my enemies, and behold, you've blessed them these three times. Therefore, now flee to your own place. I said, I know that I said, I will certainly honor you. In other words, pay you, but the Lord has held you back from payment, so I'm not even going to give you the money now. And Balaam said to Balaak, did I not tell your messengers whom you sent me? If Balak should give me his house full of silver and gold, I can't go beyond the word of the Lord to do either good or bad of my own will.

48:51 What the Lord speaks, that will I speak. Did I not tell you that? And then he just sort of gives up. He's had it. And now, behold, I am going home, right? And you can just see it's almost like he really thinks he's going home. It's like he turns to head off toward home, and then he's like, and one more thing. Come, and I'll let you know what this people will do to your people in the latter days. So he's got one more thing to say, and that's what brings us to this prophecy. So look at what he ends up saying there. So he took up his discourse and said, the oracle of Balaam, the son of Beor, and goes on and describes himself.

49:25 And then look at 17. He says, I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. It shall crush the forehead of Moab and break the skulls. That's really what that is. Break the skulls of all the sons of Seth. And it's really kind of a beautiful and haunting prophecy, isn't it? I mean, you can just kind of see the mists of time in those phrases. I see him, but not now.

49:59 It's blurry. It's clouded out. I see him, but not right now. It's just a figure. It's a shadow. I behold him, but he's not near. It's going to be a long time. You can just see the mists of time in that. The heart of it is right after that, where he says yet again basically what Jacob had promised to Judah, that a king is going to come out of Israel. That's what the star is. Stars often represent kings. A scepter obviously represents a king. But the unique promise in this one, besides this prophecy of a king, the unique thing about this one is what comes next.

50:33 That this king, it's said, and this is new info, is going to crush the forehead of Moab, So Balak's kingdom is going to crush the forehead of Moab. And then that next phrase is actually crush the skulls of the sons of Sheth. Well, sons of Sheth are Moabites. It's an ancient name for Moabites. So it's like two things. Crush the forehead of Moab, crush the skulls of the Moabites. That's what it's doing there. Now, why is that important? That particular phrase, he'll crush the head of Moab, he'll crush the skulls of the Moabites.

51:05 Why is that important? And why do you have all this gross imagery about crushing foreheads anyway? Well, it goes back again. Think about it. It goes back again to that prophecy of Genesis 3.15 where God promises to send a new king. And you remember what God says that king is going to do? He's going to crush the head of the serpent. He's going to put an end to the enemy of God's people. And here's the thing. Once God says that's what the king is going to do, he's going to crush the head of the serpent, for the rest of the Bible, the rest of the story of the Old Testament, You actually get multiple rehearsals of that main event.

51:45 You get rehearsals of the king crushing the head of the servants of the serpent. You know what the most famous one is? David and Goliath. Right? The point of David and Goliath is not that you need to pick up your five stones of Bible reading, church attendance, prayer, and whatever else to defeat the giants in your life. That is not the point of that story. The point of that story is that Goliath stands as a servant of Satan. He stands as a servant of Satan.

52:17 And what happens to him? The king of Israel marches out in the strength of the Lord and hurls a stone at him. And where does it hit him? It crushes his head. Same thing's happening here. This is another rehearsal. Moab, Balak, Balaam, all of them stand as servants of Satan. And what Balaam says here is a rehearsal of that great final battle between King Jesus and Satan. Moab's forehead is crushed and so will Satan's be.

52:48 Friends, that's an incredible promise that you and I have. It is an incredible promise that runs all the way back from Genesis chapter 3 and all the way forward to Revelation chapter 22 that Jesus is going to crush the head of our great enemy. Friends, we live in a world where Satan runs rampant. and where evil seems almost unstoppable i was i spent 10 days just this past week or two in in a couple of countries in africa and it's incredible to see the evil that has infested even christian witness in most places in africa let's told stories i mean the people that i was with are great they're doing great work let's tell stories about pastors who consider themselves Christians, who sell themselves to their people as Christians. And they'll tell people things like this. They'll say, oh friend, you want to have a baby? Or you want to find a spouse? Well, here's what we're going to do. You're going to pray about it for a week. You're going to tell God about it.

53:52 Tell God your prayer to have a husband, to be healed from this sickness, to have a baby, whatever it is. Do that for a week. But if that doesn't work, then you can come to my backyard and we'll sacrifice a chicken together to the ancestors. And they call themselves Christians. They call themselves Christian pastors. You see the claws of the serpent, the claws of the dragon, sinking deep into those people. Unless we think we have it any better here in the United States. You know, the past two years, just about every single effort that we have made as a society to pass laws to protect unborn babies in the womb have been routinely crushed at the polls by our fellow American citizens.

54:37 children are mutilated in a satanic practice that our society calls gender-affirming care. The presidents of three of our most prestigious universities in our country can't even say clearly that calling for the genocide of an entire nation of people is unethical. All they can say is it depends on the context. Friends, we live in an evil age. And all the good that we can do can seem like trying to hold back the tide with a toothpick.

55:10 That's what it felt like to me when I was in Africa and looked at the work that these friends were doing in Africa. It's good work, and they're helping hundreds of people, probably even thousands of people. But you look at it, and it just looks like they're saying to the ocean, stop, I've got a toothpick. But brothers and sisters, listen to me. Our king is coming, and he's going to crush the serpent's head. He's going to set it all right. He's going to end evil. That's why he's come, so that the powers of hell may vanish.

55:46 And they're going to. Praise God, on the last day, they're going to. And what do we do until then? What do we do until then? We try to hold back the tide with a toothpick. Or at least what looks like a toothpick. We pray. We preach. We tell people about our great king. And we do good in his name. Friends, the powers of hell are going to vanish.

56:17 They are. But until then, I say let those powers tremble to hear us saying again and again, And again, to everyone who will listen, King Jesus saves sinners. And Satan, your day is coming. Here's the third and last thing, much briefer. Alleluia. He comes. Alleluia, Lord Most High. Turn over to Micah again. The book of Micah. Chapter 5.

56:53 So after Balaam, Israel settled into the land. David was eventually crowned king in Israel. The prophets began to prophesy. And there were dozens of prophets throughout the history of Israel. But Micah was one of those. So turn over to Micah chapter 5. Again, it's on page 778. He basically makes a promise to this beleaguered and crushed and besieged nation that she's not going to be finally destroyed. So look with me at Micah chapter 5, verse 1. He says, now muster your troops, O daughter of troops.

57:25 Siege is laid against us. With a rod, they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek. But you, but you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth from me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from old, from ancient days. And it goes on and describes again the kind of world this king will establish. Do you see the story of this, though? When you look at verse 1, what's the story? You've got a beleaguered, besieged nation, a defeated nation. And at the end of verse 1, you even have with a rod, they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek.

58:01 The judge there is not separate from the king. That is the king. He's sometimes called a judge in the Old Testament. So they are striking the king of Israel on the cheek. It's humiliating. The great kings of Israel, the great kings of Judah, the ones who reigned in power and surrounded by gold in the capital city of Jerusalem, have been destroyed. But then in verse 2, you get the great promised ruler again. But you, you, you, oh little Bethlehem, you're too little to be among the clans of Judah.

58:35 You know why it says that? It's because every time the metropolitan areas of the country of Israel are listed out in the Old Testament, Bethlehem is left out. It's just never even seen as significant enough to be counted among the clans and towns of Israel. It's left out every time. And yet God is saying, look, the great kings of Jerusalem have been defeated. The great kings of Jerusalem have been humiliated. But you, O little Bethlehem, you who are too little to even be mentioned from you, will come the great ruler.

59:09 Now the rest of it goes on to hit a lot of the themes we've already seen. that this king is going to put an end to evil, that he's going to establish a world of peace. But the last thing I want to show you is the unique thing that I want you to see here in this prophecy. It doesn't show up in the other twos. It's filling out the picture of who this Messiah is. Look at that last phrase of verse 2. This ruler who will come out of Bethlehem has his coming forth. You could translate that as his origin.

59:41 His origin is from of old. It is from ancient days. Now, what does that mean? Well, some people have said, well, it just means that his origin is the same as David's, right? David was born in Bethlehem. This new king will have his birthplace in Bethlehem, just like it was for David in the days of old. But David's birth, by the time Micah's writing, David's birth was really only 300 years prior to that.

1:00:14 Just 300 years. And if you think about it, would you ever refer to something that happened and say, I don't know, 1723 as the ancient days of old? No, of course you wouldn't. It doesn't make sense because those days are not that ancient. They're certainly not the ancient days of old, right? So this has got to be talking about something far, far deeper than that. And in fact, the whole rest of the Bible unfolds it. Let me read you just a couple of things. One from Proverbs and then one from the beginning of John.

1:00:46 Here's what Proverbs says about, I think, the second person of the Trinity. It's the second person of the Trinity, I think, talking, in fact. The Lord begat me, says the Son of God, I think. the lord begat me at the beginning of his work the first of his acts of old ages ago i was set up at the first before the beginning of the earth when there were no depths i was brought forth where there were no springs abounding with water before the mountains had been shaped before the hills i was begotten before he had made the earth with its fields or the first of the dust of the world when he established the heavens i was there when he drew a circle on the face of the deep when he made firm the skies above when he established the fountains of the deep when he assigned the sea to its limit so that the waters might not transgress his command when he marked out the foundations of the earth i was beside him like a master workman and i was daily his delight rejoicing before him always rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of

1:01:50 men. And then here's how John starts his book. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. His origin was from the ancient days of old. You see what Micah's doing here? Do you see what he's doing? He's telling you that this great king is not just the king it's the second person of the trinity become man friends all of this presents you with a choice it presents you with a choice to come to this king and be saved or to reject this king and be destroyed a friend use this christmas to see jesus for who he really is not just a nice person not just a teacher, not just a tradition, but the eternal son of God become flesh so that he might crush the

1:02:54 head of our great enemy, the dragon, the serpent of old. And for you Christians, for you don't let this season pass without taking some time to just peer back through the centuries, to feel their weight, to hear the voices of the prophets, and maybe, maybe, just maybe stand in a little bit of awe and wonder at what god has done for you rank on rank the host of heaven spreads its vanguard on the way as the light of light descendeth from the realms of endless day alleluia alleluia alleluia god most high let's pray our lord we thank you that you are the incarnate son of god that you came to save us and we pray oh Lord that in the midst of this busy Christmas season you might help us to hear the words of the prophets to look into the story of the Old Testament and to worship you for who you are and what you've done we pray all of this in your name always to your honor

1:03:54 and glory amen