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Genesis 50:4-6 Remember to remember that Egpyt is not your home. Day 48

Good evening brothers and sisters,

Hope you had a blessed Sabbath (originally from 10/18/20).  Encourage you to reflect with me about some lessons from Genesis.

Blessings

Jeff 

Well here we are at the end of Genesis already!!!  50 days for 50 chapters.  Adam to Abram (12 chapters for many generations).  Abram to son of Israel (38 chapters for 4 generations).

Looking forward to Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Numbers.  4 books for 40 years, with not much said about the 400 years in Egypt which fulfils prophecy to Abraham in Gen 15.  

All the empires and civilizations that start and take root in this time are not even mentioned.  The story of the Bible is about God and his chosen people.  Redemptive history is all that God is concerned with.  I may have mentioned the Sinclair Ferguson quote that the whole Bible is a footnote to Genesis 3:15, the promise of a son who would crush the serpent's head.  That is the story line that impacts eternity.

So taking the body of Jacob back to Canaan for burial doesn't seem to be a big deal.  We have been looking at Daniel and Esther in women's and men's Bible studies with the theme of "life in exile".  While Judah was in exile due to disobedience in their time, all of Israel is reminded by Jacob's burial that their home is not Egypt.  They must not loose sight of their real home land.

We too must not loose sight of our real home.  Our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a Savior.  We are strangers and pilgrims on earth.  Every day brought Israel closer to leaving Egypt, what would become a house of slavery.

As Mel Sharp said in the sermon this morning, do we see salvation as a miracle that shapes all other experience?  Israel was special because God chose to love them.  They had hope because of that love even when they became slaves.  Let us have hope because of the love from another country, that is completely foreign to our understanding.

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