Well, Happy Monday, folks and welcome back to the another work week. No worries, Motivation Monday is here to equip and encourage you as you begin this week with our series THE WHOLE BIBLE IN 16 VERSES. If this is your first time reading MOTIVATION MONDAY, we welcome you and pray that this will be an encouragement to you. If you are a returner, then welcome back, friends.
One of my favorite book series is C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. Throughout the series, Lewis writes about a world filled with people like Peter, Susan, Edmond, Lucy, Prince Caspian, talking beasts (with Trufflehunter the badger being one of my favorites), Aslan the Lion, and walking trees. In Prince Caspian (The Chronicles of Narnia), Trufflehunter makes the following statement, “Narnia was never right except when a Son of Adam was king.” Throughout the series, Narnia’s best days were under the reign of Adam’s descendants. Even though Lewis’s stories about Narnia are fantasy, as believers in Jesus Christ, we know according to the Bible that the promised King is a true son of Adam, a son of Abraham, and as we will see today, a son of Judah.
“The scepter will not depart from Judah or the staff from between his feet until he whose right it comes and the obedience of the peoples belongs to him.” Genesis 49:10, CSB (Bold/Italics added)
Last week we looked at Abraham and how God promised (made a covenant) him that through him, he would become a great nation and that God will bless him and make his name great. Today, we see God’s promise carrying on through the line of Judah. God’s promise started with Abraham continued on with Isaac and then on to Jacob. As you read the Bible, we see that God keeps His promises even in the midst of the dysfunction that happens with His people. That is no more truer than with the line of Judah, one of the twelve sons of Jacob. God used Joseph to preserve Abraham’s line and you might think that Joseph would be the one that Jacob would bless with the royal blessing when he was on his death bed.
However, as he laid upon his death bed, he blessed each of his sons in a different way. But when it came to Judah, he was the one who received a royal blessing: “The scepter will not depart from Judah or the staff from between his feet until he whose right it is comes and the obedience of the peoples belongs to him.” Isn’t it ironic that Jacob would choose Judah? After all, Judah was pretty rough and had some questionable moments within his life time, but that’s the beauty of God. The first time we hear Judah speak was when Joseph’s brothers had thrown him into a pit and were trying to decide what to do with him. Judah suggested that instead of killing him, they sell him into slavery (Genesis 36:26-27). From there it only got worse for Judah. His first son died with no children. So, Judah’s second son married his brothers widow (as was custom), but he too died without children. Instead of allowing his third son to marry Tamar, Judah sent her away. However, she would later trick him into sleeping with her and she would have his twin sons… or grandsons too! True story and it would be hard to make this stuff up!
But, it was to this broken family line that God promised the scepter of kingship, the rulers staff. The descendant of Judah would not only be the king of Israel, he would also be a king over the nations. It will be through Judah that the covenant blessing will come into the world…
Pastor David Platt talks about it in this way, “Genesis 49:10 is a stout promise that was just made to Judah about Judah’s line, that through the line of Judah would come a king who’s scepter would rule and tribute would be brought to him. Not just any tribute, but the obedience of the peoples, the tribes, the nations.We take the gospel to the nations because to Him shall be the obedience of all peoples. Jesus is worthy of the praise of every tribe and tongue.That’s the language here, that all the nations. This isn’t just about the people of Jacob, or the people of Israel, the people of Judah. No, this is about all peoples one day giving their obedience to a king from Judah’s line. This is a clear promise, that takes us all the way from the first book in the Bible, to the last book in the Bible, when John looks, in Revelation 5, and he sees a vision of the lion of the tribe of, you guessed it, Judah. Bowing down before him is every nation, tribe, tongue, and people, every people group in the world.”
Just like it was true in Narnia when Trufflehunter says, “Narnia was never right except when a Son of Adam was king”, so it is today that through the line of Judah, Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It’s a beautiful thing to see how Judah’s blessing changed the world forever.
Thanks for joining us today and I pray that you have a blessed week. Next week we start to pick up the pace a little as we take a look at the sacrifices and law of Moses. See you next week.
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