11 Traits of The People of God - Part 5
11 Traits of The People of God • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 4 viewsGoing over Dan (Judge) . Talking about the right way to Judge and view God's judgment.
Notes
Transcript
Lords Prayer
Lords Prayer
Before we begin today’s sermon would you join me in praying the words our Lord taught us to pray?
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done
in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: Amen
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Introduction
Introduction
Please stand for the reading of God’s Word.
Now when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister, and said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I die!”
And Jacob’s anger was aroused against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”
So she said, “Here is my maid Bilhah; go in to her, and she will bear a child on my knees, that I also may have children by her.” Then she gave him Bilhah her maid as wife, and Jacob went in to her. And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, “God has judged my case; and He has also heard my voice and given me a son.” Therefore she called his name Dan. And Rachel’s maid Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son.
This is the Word of the Lord, Amen?
You may be seated
Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray Pray
Well, we are now in part 5 of our series “11 Traits of the people of God”
Show Title Slide
In this series we are going through the first 11 of the 12 sons of Jacob, these 12 sons become the 12 tribes of Israel, the people God chose to call His own...
And each of these children have a unique and prophetically important name, so through this series we have been learning some Hebrew...
Reuben—( Reu’ Ben - See, a son)
We are seen by God.
Simeon—(Shamah - To listen, consider, and Act)
God hears our prayers and acts.
Levi—(Lavah - Joined)
We are joined to God like a husband and wife are joined together (even more so).
Judah—(Yadah - vocal public praise)
We put praise over problems, we praise first, our praise perseveres, we hail the Lion of Praise!
Now up until today’s scripture, it has all ben the Leah show… Leah the unloved older sister had all four of these boys, the first three she wanted to leverage for her husbands love… but she remains unloved, as we will see later...
Her fourth son though, she finally takes her eyes off her husband and focuses just on praising God…
Rachael, Leah’s younger sister, is also married to Jacob… and she falls into the sin of envy… and that sin causes her to say this prophetically horrific outburst...
Now when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister, and said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I die!”
We will learn why this statement “Give me children or else I die” is such a horrific thing for Rachel to have said when we get to the birth of Benjamin… for now, I want to keep focusing on the names of these children...
Rachel is angry, she blames her husband for not giving her children… as if he has control over that, I would assume they are doing the baby making routine often, because she is the one he loves, and the one he calls beautiful… so I would think the problem is NOT that they are not doing the deed… but the problem lies elsewhere, as Jacob rightfully, but angerly points out.
And Jacob’s anger was aroused against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”
Well, like her ancestors before her, Rachel decides to take matters into her own hands, and she gives her maidservant Bilhah to Jacob to sleep with and impregnate… and here we see this odd phrase “Bear children on my knees”.
So she said, “Here is my maid Bilhah; go in to her, and she will bear a child on my knees, that I also may have children by her.”
This reflects an ancient form of surrogacy or adoption… and there are two interpretations, either the new born would be taken from the surrogate mother and placed symbolically on the knees of the adopting mother, or as some suggest and I tend to believe from he most plane reading of the text, the two woman, Bilhah and Rachel, would lay close to each other, or maybe even Bilhah on top of Rachel, during delivery and she would give birth with the child passing through the legs of Rachel the adopted mother...
Either way, the ancient community saw this as a legal and socially acceptable form of surrogacy or adoption, and these children would for all legal proposes be considered Rachel’s, not Bilhah’s…
And that is exactly what happened, Bilhah quickly got pregnant and gave birth on Rachel’s knees…
And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, “God has judged my case; and He has also heard my voice and given me a son.” Therefore she called his name Dan.
ALLRIGHT… everyone caught up on the family drama that is Jacob, Leah, Rachel… and now Bilhah? Good, it’s a lot to take in, but we are taking our time going through it… I think we are all going to be experts on the tribes of Israel when this is all said and done!
So what does Dan’s name mean, and prophetically what does it mean for us? Because that is the meat of this sermon serries… the prophetic traits of God’s people as given as names to the tribes of Israel… well I am sure you can tell from the context, Dan’s name mean’s “Judge”… specifically it comes from the Hebrew word “Din”
דִּין (din)
to judge
to render a verdict
to vindicate or decide a case
So Rachel feels vindicated by God… She feels that it was HER RIGHT to have sons for her husband and that God had rightfully judged her case.
What now Leah?! Who’s having sons now?! God has vindicated me!!!
So she names her son Dan, vindication and judgment… and that is our next trait to talk about, as Christians we understand that God is our judge… but what does that really mean? And did Rachel, who gave the prophetic name… did she even understand this?
Dan - God is Our Vindicator
Dan - God is Our Vindicator
Arise, O Lord, in Your anger; Lift Yourself up because of the rage of my enemies; Rise up for me to the judgment You have commanded!
So the congregation of the peoples shall surround You; For their sakes, therefore, return on high.
The Lord shall judge the peoples; Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, And according to my integrity within me.
I chose this Psalm because it uses the word Din for judge… there are other Hebrew words for Judge that are used to describe God, but here the Psalmest uses the word Din to add that bit of “Vindication” or “Vengence” to the meaning of the word.
David wrote this psalm after being falsely accused of treachery, and probably of vilonce, and theft as well. We don’t have the story recorded of what exactly Cush said, but from the context it looks like Cush was making David out to be a villain in order to stay on King Saul’s good side.
And clearly this effect David because he wrote a whole song about it… And in this psalm David says “look, I didn’t do these things, God knows I didn’t do these things. God, vindicate me… judge the whole thing… be my judge and the judge of my advisaries...
I think Rachel felt the same way. She felt like she deserved all of Jacob, that she should be the one having kids… not the unloved Leah who stole her husband from her on their wedding night… I don’t know, maybe she was in the wedding scheme… but still, she felt like she was wronged and that God had made it right.
And honestly, this is a really wonderful thing about being a Christian, it is understanding that God shama’s our prayers, He hears our prayers… and He acts… He becomes the Din of our prayers, the judge, the vindicator…
And if God is my vindicator, that means that I *point to self* I don’t need to be my vindicator...
My job in life is not to prove myself righteous.
My job in life is not to prove myself innocent.
We know as Christians we will be falsely accused, they will make up lies about us, slander our names, go against us… sometimes it is the world who makes these accusations, sometimes it is people close to us who turn on us, sometimes it is other Christians…
What are we to do when we are falsely accused? When we are slandered and attacked?
I have had this conversation with people many times as a pastor “What am I supposed to do Pastor? They are saying this about me… people are going to think this about me… all of these lies are spreading about me… what am I supposed to do”.
And most of the time when people come to me when they are being falsely accused or attacked… what they want to do is vindicate themselves… they want to PROVE those liars wrong… they want to put them on blast…
But as Christians what we need to understand is that God is the Judge, God is the Din… He is the vindicator… it is His job to judge, not ours… it is His job to vindicate… not ours… so what is my advice to someone in this position? It is simple:
He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?
You simply need to keep doing what is right and just… to love mercy… to walk humbly with God...
Just keep living righteously, mercifully, and humbly… so that at the end of the day when the lies are told and the slander is slung… you can walk away with your head high, knowing that if only God knows the truth, that is enough, because God is the vindicator...
Listen, righteousness is called our breastplate for a reason, because when we live righteously, with the help of Christ, those slanderous attacks bounce right off our chest… I have seen it time and time again… Christians who walk rightly being slandered… and the Christian just keeps walking rightly… and as the slander flys people just kind of look at the slanderer funny and think “why are you bad mouthing that dude? He is the kindest, must merciful and humble Christian I know… I don’t think what you are saying is right”.
I as a pastor have to really live my life this way, because man I have a target on my back for Slander… and I refuse to be one of these overly agressive pastor trying to defend myself by calling everyone who attacks me a liar or a heritich… God knows the situation, God will be my Din… and that is enough… and church family, if you can learn to embrace this truth as a Christian it really removes a lot of pressure from you.
Society puts a lot of pressure on you to make sure you are persevered the right way… but when you say “God is my Din, God is my Judge, God is my vindicator… I will let Him do His job and I will do mine, I will love others, forgive others, love Justice and mercy… and I will walk with my God in humility… when you live life like that the stress of keeping up appearances just melts away.
BUT PASTOR?! You don’t know what they have done to me! THE INJUSTICE THEY HAVE DONE TO ME! YOU DON’T KNOW THE DEPTHS OF EVIL THAT THEY HAVE BROUGHT AGAINST ME… I DON’T JUST NEED VINDICATION I NEED VENGENCE...
Okay, I hear you, but my advice is the same…
Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. Therefore
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Vengence is MINE says the LORD… YHWY is the Vindicator, and YHWY will take vengence where vengence is due… vindication and vengeance are not yours to accomplish, they belong to the LORD. Your job remains loving others, even your enemies… doing what is write and merciful… living peacefully with others as much as it is possible with you… God takes care of the rest.
And here is the best part about living that way… God is a better Judge then you are… sometimes it is YOU who is really in the wrong… and when you seek vindication and vengence, but you are the one in the wrong… you find yourself coming against God… but when you allow God to be the Din, and you just strive to do what is good and acceptable in the eyes of the Lord, then when He comes to vindicate against you He will find a humble and merciful servant, not a churlish little rebel.
And this brings me to point two this morning… in as much as God is our Vindicator, He is also our Judge… and that is a terrifying thing when you are on the wrong side of the Law.
Dan - God is Our Judge
Dan - God is Our Judge
So she said, “Here is my maid Bilhah; go in to her, and she will bear a child on my knees, that I also may have children by her.” Then she gave him Bilhah her maid as wife, and Jacob went in to her. And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, “God has judged my case; and He has also heard my voice and given me a son.” Therefore she called his name Dan.
God has Judged my case… God has Dinned my case, He has judged it and vindicated me… She even throws in the word Shama into her praise, aslmost like a shot against her sister… she says “And He has also Shammad my voice and given me a son”.
But this really gets to the crux of Rachel’s issue… you see I am not sure Rachel is understanding this situation correctly… I am not even sure she was right to be married to Jacob in the first place… the whole thing is such a mess…
And now she says “God has vindicated me”… Really? Are you sure… ARE YOU SURE RACHEL… Has God really vindicated you… or did you fix this little problem yourself?
Because know your husband is sleeping with THREE woman… you thought it was bad enough having to share your husband with your brother, well now you have just introduced a new woman for him to shack up with, and Bilhah doesn’t even have weak eyes.
You see the problem with God being our Judge is that GOD IS OUR JUDGE… And not just in times where we perceive we have been wronged… but when we are in the wrong, God remains our Judge… and this is the ACTUALL Judgment that Dan’s name comes to mean… Dan is not an example of God vindicating the righteous, which we know God does in fact do… but Dan is an example of God judging the wicked.
So many times I have heard the statement “Only God can Judge me” said by wicked, evil people… And my response is “THAT SHOULD TERIFY YOU” because God is a perfect judge and judges even your thoughts, your heart, your intentions...
For God will bring every work into judgment, Including every secret thing, Whether good or evil.
Well God judges my heart… and even if my every action isn’t perfect He sees my heart, right? Right!
“The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?
I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.
That is a terrifying pair of verses… because God says “I will give to you according to your ways” but he starts by saying “All of your ways are deceitful and desperately wicked.
It is why we need a savior, because without Him we are wicked and we deserve just punishment.
Man if someone looked into my heart, especially before Christ, what would they see? They would see lust, they would see greed, they would see unjust hatred and bigotry, selfishness, and a whole lot of deceit…
That’s why I need a Savior to cleanse me, to redeem me, to make me right… to Graft me into the vine and make me one of His own… because on my own I am wicked… and if God were to Judge me before Christ He would rightfully find me to be guilty and He would be just to punish my sin...
But now I am a Child of God, amen? Now I am one of God’s people! Amen!
Simeon, Reuben, Levi, Judah, and Dan are natural branches of the people of God, but I have been grafted in, I am an adopted branch!
So then, does that mean that I should no longer fear the Judgement of God? NO IT DOES NOT… and the Tribe of Dan learns the hard way that being a branch of God’s people does not mean a guaranteed ticket into heaven for eternity… let me show you what I am talking about...
You see Dan as a person was pretty neutral, but his tribe, the Dannites… they became extremely wicked. The tribe of Dan would become infamous for worshiping false god’s, rebelling against the rest of Israel, and just straight up apostasy and idolatry.
In fact, when I was in Israel recently we did a hike through some of Dan’s historical territory, and it was there that we say Jeraboams false altar set up, a slap in the face to the true God and the true altar, the wicked king Jeraboam wanted his own alter set up and the People of Dan welcomed it and worshiped false idols there… the false altar is still in Tel-Dan to this day! Right next to what was known as a “High place” another wicked form or worshiping false God’s, also still there in what was Dan’s territory.
What does this have to do with God judging them? Well let’s turn to the final book of God’s judgment, the book of Revelation, and you will see...
[The angel said] “Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.” And I heard the number of those who were sealed. One hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed:
of the tribe of Judah twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Benjamin twelve thousand were sealed.
Did you notice who is missing? DAN IS MISSING! His name was replaced with Manasseh, one of Joseph’s sons.
If you remember from when we went through Revelation, this list is a list of people whom God goes out of His way to save and Seal… people God will call to Jesus in miraculous fashion, sealing them with His Holy Spirit.
This list shows God’s compassion for His people Israel without compromising the truth of the Gospel or the justice our sin demands...
Yet out of all of God’s grace and mercy and compassion… saving 12,000 extra people from the tribe of Israel… with all that grace, Dan is STILL excluded.
We must accept church, we MUST ACCEPT that God is a loving God, a gracious God, a merciful God… but He is also a just God… and He will JUDGE us.
You don’t get to live a life of sin, and apostasy, and false idol worship and then say “Well God will vindicate me”… no, God will Judge you, and GOD will be vindicated because you have spent your life sinning against Him.
The fact that God is our DIN, that God is our judge should TERRIFY us…
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
In fact the Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom...
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
So I know that God is Din, He is Judge… and I fear that Judgment because I know that that without the atonement of Christ that I will be found guilty of sin, and deserve to be rightly judged… and if I am rightly Judged without the forgiveness of Christ then I WILL BE FOUND GUILTY.
BUT PASTOR! I am forgiven by Christ! I said that prayer that one time, I got in the water, I did the thing, I have the certificate!
Well good, I am glad! But listen, you must STAY in the goodness of God. You have become one of God’s people, but you must STAY one of God’s people...
Because Dan was part of God’s people and he was cut off… that should be a warning to us as Christians that we to, being God’s people, if we turn form God and turn to Idolatry we too can be cut off.
Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.
Some people teach “Once saved always saved” but I don’t teach that. Why? Because God did not spare Dan, the natural branch of Israel… and God will not spare the grafted in branch either.
If you do not continue in the goodness of God Romans 11 says right here YOU ALSO WILL BE CUT OFF.
So let me conclude by wrapping these two points together as we look at what it means to be a Christian.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Turn On Children’s Class Lamps
So this series is 11 traits of the people of God… what does Dan teach us?
Dan teaches us that as the people of God we must not be ignorant of God’s judgment and our role to play in that judgment.
Our role to play is simple… walk in the goodness of God, love justice and mercy, do rightly, walk humbly.
Our role is to seek forgivness when we sin, and to forgive others when they sin against us.
We ought not seek to vindicate ourselves, as Rachel did by giving her maidservant to her husband to have children with.
We out not to seek vengeance for ourselves...
And we must always remember, we are bought with a price… everything good we have was bought with the blood of Jesus… and it is not worth throwing away for the pursuit of sin...
Oh church… how many men and women I have seen throw away thier lives for the pursuit of idolatry...
Decades of marriages thrown away for an affair… careers thrown away for alcohol… ministries that took generations to build destroyed by drug addictions… by greed… or by pride...
People who proudly say “I was grafted into the vine, so I can do what I want” and God responds “I cut off Dan, I will cut you off too!”.
So church, please, I don’t know who this warning is for… but please… live in the vine that you have been engrafted to… let God vindicate you, and stay in His goodness...
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
Gospel Call
Aaronic Blessing
יאר יהוה פניו אליך ויחנך
ישא יהוה פניו אליך וישם לך שׁלום
"May the LORD bless you and keep you;
May the LORD shine his face upon you and be gracious to you;
May the LORD lift up his face upon you and give you his peace."
You are dismissed from this place but not from His Presence
ye·va·re'·khe·kha' · Adonai · ve·yeesh'·me·re'·kha
ya·eir · Adonai · pa·nav · e·ley'·kha · vee·khoon·ne'·kah
ees·sa · Adonai · pa·nav · e·ley'·kha · ve·ya·seim · le·kha · sha·lom
"The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
You are dismissed from this place but not from His Presence
