"Precious in the sight of the Lord
Is the death of His godly ones."
Psalm 116:15 (New American Standard Version)
We ended our study yesterday on the life of Jacob and his 12 sons with Jacob's death and state funeral and Joseph's death. It has been a very colorful 12-week study of this Old Testament patriarch. Each of the other patriarchs had one son who was a genuine Jew and one who was not. Abraham had Ishmael, the counterfeit, and Isaac, the genuine Jew. Isaac had Esau, the counterfeit and Jacob, the genuine Jew. But Jacob had 12 sons, each one of whom was the genuine article, a true Jew, destined to bring God's light into the world through the nation of Israel.
Interestingly enough, though, we don't hear nearly the number of scandalous stories coming from the counterfeit sons, Ishmael and Esau, that we hear coming from the genuine Jews, like Levi and Simeon, who massacred an entire village of men in a revenge killing, or Reuben, who committed incest, or Judah who solicited a prostitute. Why?
As I mentioned previously in this blog about the life the of Jacob, it's not what we do that shows our true faith, it's what we do with what we do. Everyone sins. Not everyone repents. Esau is described in the New Testament as a "godless and immoral" man, not because of the scandals associated with his name, but because of his utter disregard for the things of God. Esau never felt the need to repent of his sin of indifference toward God. Why should he?
Ishamael became the father of nations that opposed God's people, the Jews. Again, he felt no need to repent of his contempt for Isaac, his half-brother, the promised son of Abraham, the great patriarch. Why should he repent? Wasn't it his mother who was mistreated by Isaac's mother, after all? Doesn't that justify grudge-bearing?
The nation of Israel would never have begun and grown like it did without the power of forgiveness and grace. Jacob had to forgive his sons for selling Joseph into slavery and deceiving him into thinking Joseph was dead. Joseph had to forgive his brothers and be willing to provide for their well-being in Egypt. The brothers had to forgive one another and themselves for what they had done. In order to function as a unit, which these 12 men needed to do in order to become the fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel, they had to forgive and be forgiven. And that is the difference between a sinner and a saint.
What makes the death of a godly one precious to God? Being forgiven.
--Posted by Mama O.
