Title: Jacob's Funeral (Genesis 50:1-14)
Contents Jacob's funeral (Genesis 50:1-14)
Jacob's funeral (Genesis 50:1-14)
Once a person is born, his life ends only when he dies. This is a funeral. Recently, a funeral was held in the family of our members every week. Life is all over when you die, so where is the need to live and struggle? But death is not the end of everything. After death there is always a judgment. Hebrews 9:27 says, “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” Today's text is the words of Jacob's splendid funeral, who lived a tumultuous life. Looking at the end of Jacob's life, there is a message of great instruction for us.
1. Life should end better than the beginning.
Jacob's life was, in a word, a year of blood and tears of hardship. Jacob deceived his brother, deceived his father, and stole the blessing of the firstborn. As a result of that incident, she was a mother-in-law for 20 years, acquired a lot of wealth, four wives, twelve sons, and one daughter, waiting for her older brother Esau on the way back home, praying for life and death wrestling with an angel at the Jabbok River Ferry I would have died dozens of times without God's help every time, the fear of coming to the land of Shechem and being raped by my daughter Dinah and having the men of that town circumcised and killed. Also, he lost his son Joseph, whom he loved, and starved to death due to drought and famine. He sent his children to Egypt to buy food, but in the end, he had to give up even Benjamin, who was like an idol. However, Joseph, who was lost in God's providence, became the prime minister in Egypt, and finally all of Jacob's family immigrated to Egypt. For a while, he found happiness in Jacob's life and lived well for 17 years, but Jacob ended his life .
But when death came before his eyes, Jacob was not like an ordinary man. According to the facts recorded in the text alone, it took 40 days to apply incense, and the Egyptians mourned for him for 70 days, and Joseph, the prime minister of Egypt, held the funeral of his father Jacob as a director. There are many people in the world who have become rich and have the highest authority, but have ended their lives miserably. A truly beautiful life is more beautiful after death than during life. How you live is important, but how you die is even more important. Jacob's life ended more beautifully than when he was young. Therefore, a person of faith should always prefer the latter than the first.
2. Life must leave a good legacy.
In his old age, Jacob worshiped at the head of the bed in Genesis 47:31. And in chapters 48 and 49, he made a will to his twelve sons. In Genesis 48:22, before he died, Jacob summoned his children and made a will. “I die, but God will be with you”. There is nothing more precious than a legacy of faith, a will of faith, asking God, serving God, and enjoying God's blessings forever. David also made a will of faith to Solomon (1 Kings 2:2-3), and Joshua also said, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). This is the will and the legacy of faith. Until we leave this world, we should worship God at the head of our bed and leave a will of faith and a legacy of faith to our children.
3. Our hometown is heaven, not this world.
When Jacob came down to Egypt and stood before Pharaoh, he said, “The years of my sojourn are one hundred and thirty years” (Genesis 47:9). When Jacob died, he asked not to bury his body in Egypt, but to bury it in his hometown of Canaan (Genesis 49:29). This was the last will. The land of Canaan is spiritually a symbol of heaven. Jacob lived his life as a stranger and then died as a stranger. He died in Egypt, a foreign country, but he returned to his homeland of Canaan without being buried there. Our hometown is not this world. We are just travelers who come and go. Our hometown is heaven. Paul said in Philippians 3:20, “Our citizenship is in heaven.” It is to return to the place where the ancestors of faith go first, that is, to the eternal hometown of Heaven. That is our hometown.
Now we too will die and leave this world through Jacob's funeral. No one is an exception. Let's go to heaven gloriously with beautiful faith at the end of life No matter how much honor, power, and wealth they enjoy in the world, the end of those who do not believe in Jesus is that they will fall into an irreversible curse of hell. The world we live in is not the whole world, but our hometown of heaven. To all the members of our church, I pray that you will become truly fashionable believers in the kingdom of heaven.