Blessing of Jacob

We read from the very beginning.

Thank you, Jesse, for reading the first two verses of Genesis.

And this is a cycle that has been repeated for many centuries, and with the end comes a new beginning.

So this new beginning is an opportunity for renewal and restoration.

Could anybody use a little bit more renewal in your life or restoration? In Genesis one, verse one, we read about God having created the heavens and the earth out of nothing.

And then in Genesis one, two, we read about the emptiness of the world, even the chaos or disorder.

The world that we live in now had such a beginning, and in many ways it carries both the beauty and the disorder even now.

Can you confirm that? And yet we begin again with confidence because we know that our Redeemer lives.

We're looking at how to fall in love and rightly deal with a 2,000 plus year old ancient Jewish document.

And it is our attempt to understand the full arc of the biblical narrative where did it begin where is it going why are things the way they are in certain books and in different ways in other books and so we started from the book of Genesis and we have run all the way through so we looked at the Pentateuch we have been looking at the Tanakh which is the Hebrew Bible the Old Testament as we call it and we have run through the first five books and then since then we started dancing into very interesting territory and then last week we arrived at the first book of Samuel and when we're starting I had said to you that the book of Samuel is actually not first and second is actually one book and it was because of the length that it was actually broken into two Now, when we are transitioning from the judges who are judging Israel, we did a pit stop and we met a woman who was called Ruth.

And we established that if you get nothing at all from the book of Ruth, the fact that there is a book of Ruth in and of itself is a message because it should not belong there.

And when we were leaving Judges, we were told, I have started work already, so follow me.

Yahweh is the main man, I mean the main person that we're dealing with in the book of 1st and 2nd Samuel.

And if you decided to take only David, Saul and Samuel, you could teach each of them for another six months so it would take us 18 months looking at those three guys and if you look at the work that God is doing behind the scenes when it comes to this you will still have a lot to deal with then there are the women in the book of first and second Samuel because there is Bathsheba who is somewhere in the book we also need to do with Michal who is an interesting one because I will deal with her today and hopefully will help a lot of women uh we'll look at mikhail the woman in the window the woman in the window we'll get there and then there is uriah and when you want to go into the use there's also uzza who tried to touch the ark and then there is the journey in of the ark if you want to understand uh so so there is too much packed into the book of first and second summer What I'm going to do is that I am going to walk you through very sensitive areas and then arouse something in you so that even though you are currently studying Philippians and you are excited, something in 1 and 2 Samuel will move you.

Are you with me? And so the first thing I want to do is to draw your attention to the fact that the entirety of the monarchy as we see in the book of 1 and 2 Samuel is actually hidden in the book of Genesis.

In the book of Genesis.

Now, let's join today's Life Study.

You've joined us for the Life Study of Genesis with Witness Lee.

Ron Kangas is here once again to help us with our Life Study.

And Ron, welcome back.

I've been thinking about all of the ways that I've tried to know the Bible better, and I've pursued many ways of studying the Bible.

But Living Stream Ministry and Witness Lee have been the most illuminating teachings of my experience.

The life study of Genesis is just showing me God's plan for man to become a mature expression of God.

And not only do I faithfully listen to the broadcast, but I've also begun a library of Living Stream books so that I could get more water of life freely flowing through my Bible study at home.

Now, let's join today's Life Study.

If you have previously thought that God's plan was just to take us to heaven, you will most definitely want to stay with us for another marvelous life study of Genesis with Witness Lee.

God's plan is much higher than that, as we will see in today's message.

And we have a life study today that may challenge some of our old understandings of God's ultimate plan for us.

And here once again to help us as we look at Genesis chapter 49 is Francis Ball.

And Francis, it's nice to have you back as always.

Thank you, Chris.

Something they're producing.

And this is where this all comes back.

And then you see here in Genesis 49.

I'm in the Levites, our brothers.

Their swords are not permitted of violence.

But for now, we hope you enjoy today's program.

Welcome to the Life Study of Genesis.

This is program number 116, which corresponds to printed Life Study message 102.

And with me for the program today is Bob Denker.

Before we begin today, could you tell us briefly the main points of what Jacob said to his sons.

Yes, Matt.

In Genesis 49, we see Jacob's prophecy concerning his 12 sons.

And this prophecy was with blessings to them.

It's nowhere close to what Christianity ended up becoming and I think was destined to always be.

When we go back to the Old Testament, when we find the roots of proto-Christianity or what the Hebrew religion of the Old Testament was, we find out early on in Genesis, in Genesis 49, that there was a prophecy that the scepter would not depart from the royal house until the coming of Shiloh, one of the famous messianic prophecies.

In other words, we already have within Genesis 49 an early promise and statement of a coming king.

This conflicts with a lot of people's understanding, especially of the book of Judges or places where we find Samuel criticizing the possibility of the Israelites creating or having their own king due to the desire to be like the nations around them.

If we look at the book of Judges with a closer eye, we realize that the book of Judges isn't actually saying that the monarchy itself was inherently bad or a failure.

And we see even within this passage a distinction of spheres, the sphere of the king realm of the priesthood and the sphere of the state.

These distinct spheres, symbolized, of course, by the double-headed Byzantine eagle, become pretty much a standard for even the aberrant versions of Christendom until we get to a very important part of the 11th century that I'll get to in a second with the rise of the papacy in the 11th century to be its own papal state.

In Genesis, we had many predictions that we said that there would be a royal lineage.