PROCLAMATION
“And
he charged them, and said unto them, ‘I am to be gathered unto my people; bury
me with my fathers in the cave that is in the end of the field of Ephron the
Hittite … in the land of Canaan … There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife;
there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah …’ And
when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into
bed, and yielded up the ghost …” Genesis 49:29-33 (KJV)
EXPLANATION
These
are the words of God which were revealed to and written by Moses under the
influence of The Holy Spirit of God. After Jacob blessed the two sons of
Joseph, intentionally giving the younger son Ephraim the blessing which should
have gone to the oldest son Manasseh, he blessed Joseph. (Genesis
48:8-20) Then Jacob called his twelve sons together and blessed each one
of them and spoke prophetically of their individual futures. (Genesis
49:1-28) They would become the twelve tribes of Israel. Then
he gave instructions to his sons to bury him in the land of his fathers, where
he buried his wife, and not in Egypt. When he finished giving
them his burial instructions, he breathed his last breath and died. (Genesis
49:29-33)
APPLICATION
People
make promises to other people all of the time and, unfortunately, we break most
of the promises that we make. Many children are often “crushed” by
the broken promises made to them, especially by their parents. However,
there is something special about the promise one makes to a dying individual on
their deathbed. Those promises are usually held in very high regard
and are often honored. We should be very careful when we give our word to
someone regarding something we plan to do in the future. The old saying
goes, “You are only as good as your word.” We need to pray for
faithfulness in the promises that we make to others. We also need to be
more faithful in the promises that we make to The Lord. We make a
lot of promises to God when times are bad that we somehow forget when things
get better. He doesn’t break His promises to us, and we need to keep
the promises that we make to Him.
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