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See largely on these first stories here, and tonight we better move, begin to move on at any rate to the second, uh, lot of stories. Any big emphasis that we have missed and should be said for the sake of completeness? Yes. Could it be said that all the chapters from thirty seven to the end are really the stories of a family, not a man, and the conversion of everything from a family to a nation down in Egypt, uh, and the incident with Judah is the messianic line in the family, just a suggestion, rather than the story of one particular man. Thank you, sir. Yes, I do myself think that, eh, these chapters thirty seven to the end give great prominence, and rightly so, to Joseph because he was the member of the family that proved in God's hand such a key to its development, but the stories as a whole are about the development of the family. Yes, I would agree that, and I think that is important to see that so that we get all the other stories in focus. Yes, these, it is the family of Jacob, alias reborn Israel, if you like, but not just the one man Israel, but the whole family, the nation, incipient nation. And, uh, it is the story, isn't it, how God, first of all, uh, saved the nation and the family, if you like, the beginning of the family, from disintegration. How easy it would have been for Judah and company to have gone off like Judah did here among the Canaanites and instituted all sorts of marriage alliances with them, and the whole family have got quite lost and indistinguishable from the Canaanites that were around them. That could easily have happened. And if you think of the monstrous, uh, uh, results that would have come from that, uh, regarding the line of our Lord and the coming of the Messiah, that is a very important thing, isn't it? And of course, down the centuries, Israel was forever doing that. In the time of the judges, they would persist in going off and marrying amongst the Canaanites and the Gentiles and the Hivites and Perizzites and Ammonites and all the others, and in grave danger of losing their identity, in grave danger of compromising their faith, their monotheism, you'll see. And that was not only in the primitive period, but you have to remember periods of Israel's history, such as in the second century BC, under Antiochus Epiphanes, how that there were renegade Jews in Jerusalem whose heart was set upon turning, uh, Israel and Jerusalem in particular into a Hellenistic state. And eventually, in cooperation with Antiochus Epiphanes, the Gentile emperor, they forbade reading of scripture, practice of circumcision, observance of the Sabbath. They put, uh, an idol on the altar of the Lord in the temple in Jerusalem. They had temple prostitutes like this good woman here. She dressed up like one, Tamar. But they had real ones in the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, if you please, and shrines to the pagan gods down the streets of the city of Jerusalem as late as hundred and sixty seven BC. And you just imagine if that kind of thing had triumphed in Israel, that when our Lord had come to Israel, uh, what would he have found? So that that is very important, yes? It's the early story of the family, it was in danger of disintegrating, and how God, I better not say using human sin, but overruling human sin. God, in his sovereignty, turned this to the preservation of the line of Judah, and therefore the ancestry of Christ. And similarly, through Joseph, how easily the family could have disintegrated. Well, they start disintegrating themselves, didn't they? Through their own jealousy of their God-appointed ruler, they nearly destroyed themselves by disintegrating the family and selling off Joseph to Egypt. And had they killed Joseph, of course, eventually the whole lot of them would have starved anyway. So once more, you see God overruling the sin of those brothers and turning it in his wonderful mechanism to the way of preserving the family. Extraordinary, uh, workings of the government of God in the lives of that early family to maintain it as a family so that the nation could begin. Yeah? Just following on from that, any thoughts on the Canaanite wives and who did marry an Egyptian girl? Uh, there might be something different to the Canaanite women and the other gentile wives. The Canaanite is supposed to be. Yes. It could have been, couldn't it? Well, wasn't the promise the message given to Abraham saying that the sin of the Amorites not yet full, so we know in four generations God was intending to take them away altogether? Yes, indeed, yes. Yes. Uh, that is perfectly true. Uh, though Joseph, uh, let uh, let us say that as far as Genesis goes, there doesn't appear to be any prohibition on the Hebrews at this time marrying Gentiles. And if one looks at it, uh, uh, from ordinary human standpoint, uh, unless Jacob's sons were going to marry their own sisters, they would have to marry Gentiles, wouldn't they? To get going. Do you see? Uh, Esau went off and married a lot of, uh, local girls, and they were, uh, an abomination to Jacob, uh, you'll see. Uh, so the text actually tells us in Genesis. And Abraham wanting a wife for Isaac, he got her from the Gentiles, but not the local Gentiles. He seems to have regarded them as particularly bad and offensive, and sent back to Padan Aram. And Jacob likewise went back to Padan Aram. They technically were Gentiles. You'll see the locals, they seem to have regarded as being very bad. Yes. One thing I did notice in reading just after this of of Jacob's sons that, uh, when Joseph was selling corn and making provision for the people, he included not only Egypt, but Canaan. Yes, yes. He speaks about the money being done in Canaan, and the the two lands are linked together, and maybe that, uh, at that time, well, God was quite content with these, these people as wives for the, the sons of Israel. Well, it could be, couldn't it? It seems certainly to preserve. Yes. The possibility is, of course, that, uh, at that stage, we cannot be certain of the actual date, but at that stage, possibly Canaan was under the imperial direction of Egypt anyway, and therefore they were in some sense satellite countries, if no more, and therefore, uh, would have traded with them, just like the Jacob and his sons came down to trade, so the other Canaanites would come down to trade. There is a record in history, I can't quote you the exact reference, of other people, nomads, Bedouin nomads, coming, uh, with their flocks and dwelling on the outskirts of Egypt, uh, in time of difficulty. Mm-hmm. You will have noticed, uh, of course, that the, uh, leader that we've had in these past weeks, Thursdays, uh, has missed out one very big theme, namely the dreams of these early chapters. Yes? Anybody got any contribution to make on the dreams? Why should dreams be a matter of great prominence? Joseph has his dreams here in this chapter here, doesn't he? And then when he's down in prison, the butler and the baker have their dreams, which he interprets. Then he is eventually brought out of prison to interpret Pharaoh's dreams. Now, will you allow me to pass by that as merely circumstantial detail for the moment? Uh, or does somebody want to comment on this? Do you see some great significance in it? Dreams have significance in the Middle East and among Muslims. A missionary has said that he doesn't know any Muslim who became a Christian who didn't start off with a dream of some sort. It could be. By the way, uh, God had talked very much in ancient times to people, isn't it so? In Daniel's time, it was very prominent. Yes, yes, yes. Didn't it or? And it's interesting all too, isn't it, in that connection that here you have once more the interface, as the Americans say, between Jews and uh, Gentiles. Yeah? Just, just picking up for myself the comment made concerning Moses. Uh, if the Lord would speak to him face to face, but if he's going to speak to anyone else, he would speak in a dream. Now that, of course, was later on. Mm. But it certainly does indicate that it was one of the ways, uh, that God spoke to people, and probably particularly those that he mightn't have been as intimate with, uh, or possibly his face-to-face contact would have, would have wiped the people out because of their sinfulness. I think in, on the day of Pentecost, the Lord, uh, Peter, quoting the prophet, promised to the old men dreams and to the young men visions. So it's obviously part of God's plan for today. Dreams. Dreams. When you say doctor for a man, it's sure to think of Jacob's ladder, he had a dream. Mm. Think of Pilate's wife, there are quite other significant incidences in the scripture. A lot of dreams, yes. Yes. I That did is thank totally you, sir. so. Mm-hmm. Well, uh, while you're thinking, uh, if I make some first, first, uh, floor level, you know, ground level, uh, observations about them, the dreams are about three different things, aren't they, to start with. The dreams of Joseph here, given him by God, were dreams of future glory for him personally and the role he was to play. Glorious dreams for a young man to get into his head. Uh, do you see? I, uh, suspect that as the years went by, whether he ever came to doubt those dreams or to wonder whether they would ever be fulfilled, and then perhaps to cling hold of them, that they were real. They tested his faith. It is an exceedingly important thing, isn't it, for young men and women to have dreams of what the future is going to be. And if you, I don't mean literal dreams that you get in the middle of the night either, necessarily, but visions, dreams, hopes. What is the hope of our calling? And if I could say to my younger brethren and sisters, eh, do you see, anybody under fifty or something, but particularly those under thirty, have you some dream in your heart of what you want to be by fifty? Because you better start, because the fifty will come very quickly. What are you going to be for God as the major job in your life? Do you think God does have? He had it for Joseph for an outstandingly brilliant career. What about us lesser fry? And we'll say, uh, perhaps we mustn't hitch our wagon to a star. Our dreams are important in that sense, aren't they? Of what future God has for us. I've known of, haven't we all known of people that wanted to be missionaries? And I've known of people that, uh, from early on wanted to be teachers of God's words, and others that wanted to be evangelists, and others that wanted to be this or that or the other. It's marvelous to, to have an objective, God-given hope and objective. Sometimes it takes years, God, uh, God years to fulfill it. And sometimes there are endless frustrations on the way. As the Psalm says, uh, Joseph was laid in chains, the iron entered into his soul, and God tested the man's faith and loyalty when all seemed wrong, but in the end it was fulfilled. Yes? A man of, uh, uh, dreams. Yes, there was, um, here second in the second place. It's not a question of his own future, but other people's future, wasn't it? With the butler and the baker interpreting the judgments of God, a man in whom the Spirit of God is, and could say that this one will rise to the resurre- I'm sorry, getting middle muddled up. This one will rise and be restored to his office in life. And this one will rise. Joseph uses the same term. He shall lift up his head, and this one will rise to the, to the perdition. A man in whom the Spirit of God is. Yes, of course, preeminently true of our Lord. And thirdly, a man in whom the wisdom of God is on daily practical matters of, uh, uh, foreseeing the future, what it would be wise to do in light of the immediate now coming future, these coming years. Divine wisdom in the organization and administration of affairs, because that's a wisdom that's kind of given to our older brethren, isn't it? Who can see the drift of the times and, uh, what might be needed in the next ten years... in the administration of a new church... on the development of the life of the people of God. Dreams? Anybody else got anything to say about dreams? Thought you all knew about Joseph. In Acts chapter two verse seventeen, Yes. The prophecy of Joel, I read that in quotation. And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh, and your young, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. They didn't do the dreaming in this case. Yeah. And, uh, the your old men shall dream the dream. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. A bit of a reversal to what you were mentioning there, that the younger men are going to do the dreaming, but here they The old man got visions. Yes. And the old men are going to dream the dreams. Where would you place that? Oh, I think myself. Yes, I think what Peter's, uh, uh, saying there, uh, so don't quote me out of court so I get into trouble, sir. I think what Peter is saying there is that he, we have now arrived in the last days. These are the last days. I believe they started at Pentecost, and that, uh, nevertheless, it is before the great and notable day of the Lord. The last days have already set in, but of course the great and notable day of the Lord has not arrived, and we're in between the two. There was a partial fulfillment at the time. Oh yes. And there will be a fuller Oh yes. Oh, yes. And, sir, you'll see, if I may come in there, uh, right from the very earliest time, Abraham having his dreams and so forth, now Joseph and others, uh, uh, Israel all down the century, if you like, to extend the term a little bit, had their dreams of a wonderful future, the coming of Messiah. And you'll see with the actual advent of Messiah, his birth in Bethlehem, his death, and now his resurrection, and the consciousness that the Lord Jesus the Messiah has come and he's triumphed at Calvary, sits at the right hand of God. Dear me, why shouldn't we have dreams? And, uh, old folks particularly, what comfortable dreams they could have amidst all the old aching bones and prospect of death itself. Why not, in addition, the dreams of what it's going to be like when the Messiah comes again? That is an exceedingly important thing. Dreams are important also in the life of Joseph, the husband of Mary. The Lord spoke to him in dreams. Well, one more may I, uh, uh, cite, and this is a, is a very recondite and recherche observation, but never mind, let me throw it into the pool of your thinking and then pass on. Let me read to you from John's Gospel, chapter eleven and verse fifty four. m Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews, but departed thence into the country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim. Hm. Eh, and there he tarried with the disciples. Now, if this weren't the fourth gospel, you might say to yourself, perhaps, well, Ephraim, that's the name of a little village around there, that's what it is, that and no more. But this is the fourth gospel from which we've read, and as you know, the writer of the fourth gospel, when he quotes you names and things, is inviting you to think back over history. And here is our Lord Jesus. He had just raised Lazarus from the dead, and the Jews were, uh, determined to destroy him, and he retired because of their determination to kill him. He retired to a city called Ephraim. And you say, who on earth is Ephraim then? What about Ephraim? Well, Ephraim was the name of Joseph's son, whom Joseph begat when his brethren had sold him, put him into the pit and sold him down to Egypt. Uh, and Joseph, rejected by his brethren, now come to glory, had a son whose name he called Ephraim, saying, God hath made me fruitful in the land of my affliction. Ephraim. And here's our Lord rejected by his people. He retires into Ephraim. And then he comes forth into chapter twelve. And one of the lovely and best known verses of chapter twelve is this, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone, but if it die, it brings forth much fruit. Why, look at, uh, Joseph. How did he come to have that fruitful son, saying, God has made me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction? Why? Because he fell into the pit and he fell into the dungeon. And because of his willingness to suffer, eventually he came forth and was fruitful not only in his own life, but saved Egypt, saved his family, saved all the nations around him in the then known world. Yes. So here's our Lord in Ephraim. Prepared to die and suffer that he might, uh, bring forth a very fruitful harvest. And he comes to Bethany as he comes to Jerusalem. And there's Martha and Mary, is that not so? And Lazarus, whom he's raised from the dead. And they made him a supper. Well, it was an ordinary supper, and they were grateful for Lazarus's resurrection. How nice that was. What do you suppose the Lord might have been thinking in his mind? Do you suppose he ever had dreams? Here he was sitting around a table. There was Martha and Mary, still very much alive, and Martha in particular. Here was Lazarus, recently dead, raised again, and the family reunited and sitting at the supper with the Lord. Well, perhaps see, our Lord didn't have dreams. I mustn't say he did because scripture doesn't say he did, but could you sit there? With these dear saints, the family brought together again, Lazarus from the dead, the others never having died, at the supper with the Lord, without having a few dreams? Cool, this wasn't heaven, but I tell you, someday something like this is going to happen. Yes. The dead shall be raised and the living changed. As we caught up to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And the next day, as he went out from that supper, they met him in Jerusalem, saying, blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord. Ooh, that has set a few dreams going, wouldn't it? Of a time when he shall come again, and Israel shall welcome their long lost Messiah. Oh, what dreams. And then the Pharisees in their anoint said, don't you perceive that you prefer nothing? The whole world is gone after him. Well, so it will one of these days. Dreams. It was at that point that our Lord said, you know, yes, yes, yes, yes, but if you want to translate dreams into realities... then except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die. It abides alone. If anybody serve me, let him follow me, and where I am, there shall my servant be. It is the universal law that for fruitfulness there must first come the dying of the seed. But that's an interruption, isn't it? Righto, I wonder tonight then if we may pass on, uh, do you see, and look now at this second side here, concentrate on it. This has been about God's marvelous providential governments, largely through Joseph and then through Judah, to preserve the family and keep it together, overruling human sin, uh, in order to save the nation. And we may well think of what the apostles kept telling their, uh, fellow Jews from the day of Pentecost onwards, him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you took by wicked hands and have crucified and have slain him. God has raised him from the dead, and this is the very means that God has to offer you forgiveness of sins. You and your wickedness crucified him. You used the hands of Gentile men to do it, lawless men, to kill your own Messiah. You meant it for evil. God has turned that very means into gaining forgiveness for you and salvation for Israel. The marvels of God's government in God's triumph over human sin and using, if I may say it, even the foolish and wicked machinations of men to accomplish his ways of redemption. Tremendous example, then, of what God has done in Christ. And as we saw last week, done it first of all through Joseph and his innocent suffering, and finally bring- bringing Judah to be prepared for his substitutionary suffering. The two elements that would preserve the nation, and again found in our blessed Lord in full. Now we come to this side. What's this side going to be? If we look at, uh, uh, the text itself, God tells Jacob as he goes down into Egypt what things are now going to be about. The chapter, of course, is forty six, as you see, verses one following. Let us read it. And Israel took his journey with all that he had and came to Beersheba and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac. And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I. And he said, I am God, the God of thy father. Fear not to go down into Egypt, for I will there make of thee a great nation. And I will go down with thee into Egypt, and I also surely will bring thee up again, and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes. So now it's not merely a question of saving the family, as was now done, from extinction and from disintegration. It was now a question of how would God go about turning that family into a nation, multiplying them and forming a nation that should, uh, play its tremendous role in the history of redemption. How would he form them into a nation? And so this is going to be the story of, uh, forming Jacob Israel into a nation, and God appears to Jacob. Was it right to go down to Egypt? Hadn't he and his fathers been called out to the Gentiles to live in the land of Canaan? Was it right to take the whole lot of them down to Egypt? All right, perhaps when father Isaac had stayed in Canaan and Jacob had gone off to get a living down in Paddan Aram. But was it right now, as the head of the house, to take the whole lot of them down to Egypt? That's a tremendous decision for Jacob to have to take, and how would he take it? You'll see, as he launches the family on this scheme, he will never himself come back alive. He is here told that Jacob will lay his hands on your eyes. I saw Joseph will lay his hands on your eyes. That is, that he will see his son Joseph, but eventually Jacob will die, and Joseph, as the best loved and dutiful son, will close hi- close his father's eyes in death. How then will the great promises of God be fulfilled? How can Jacob be sure that he's doing the right thing, taking this momentous step, and God will turn his seed and family into a nation for all that lies in the future? Tremendous step of faith now, and he starts out, uh, coming down from Shechem direction, he comes down to Beersheva. Of course, it's on the way down into Egypt. But as he comes to Beersheva, with all its hallowed associations, there God had appeared to Abram, and Jacob as a young man, as a toddler, had been told about it, about the God of Abram, his father, and the oath that God had sworn to his father, and the oath that had been given on Mount Moriah. Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And now, heir to those promises, he comes himself to Beersheba, and God appears to him at night at the well of the oath. So saying, yes, Jacob, I am with you. I want you to go to Egypt. I will make of you a nation, and I shall fulfill my promise for the great and the distant future. And a practical lesson arri- uh, arises immediately, doesn't it? In times of crisis, in times when we must make very big decisions, in times when we've got make to make decisions that go beyond us and affect our families and perhaps their spirituality and growth for years to come. It is a lovely thing to be able to come back to our best years and the promises of God as given. His love in time past, who knows the hymn has it, forbids me to think he'll leave me at last in trouble to sink. The great purpose of God, of which we are, sometimes we think of ourselves as our little selves, don't we? As individuals. Some better Christians, because they're parents, rise a bit higher than that and think of the family and what's going to happen to my children when I die. How lovely it is to think of ourselves for a moment as part of the great family of God, of the people of God, bound in the same bundle of life as Abraham himself, who is the father of us all, and the great ongoing purposes of God down the centuries. And I'm part of that. I occupy my little part. I never knew Abraham. Perhaps I shall be dead before the Lord comes, and I shall have to do like Abraham. These all died in faith, not having received the promise, but being persuaded of them, and take life's journey in the light of God's oath and covenant that the promise will be fulfilled. It was fulfilled, of course, here in part. They got down, uh, to Egypt, and they were given physical sustenance and allowed to build up their families there in Egypt, in Goshen, fed with the best of food under the administration of Joseph. But I don't want to concentrate myself on that tonight. Somebody will perhaps tell us about it next week. I want to come back to this bit. Physically preserved. Ha. But is it a question of the mere physical survival of the nation? What is God saying when he says he's going to build a nation? Is it merely a matter of multiplying them physically, so that twelve men presently turn into seventy and seventy turn into eventually seven million? Is it merely a question of developing a nation that way, or is there more to development than that? So let's come to that last big section and look first of all at a thing here in, uh, chapter uh forty eight. Poignant little thing. Forty eight one, Jacob is sick, and Joseph comes and brings his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. And Jacob prepares himself to bless the land. And as we saw last week, Jacob now adopts Manasseh and Ephraim as one of, as his own sons, lifting them up a generation. And you say, why did he do that? Well, he'll tell you if you listen to him, you'll see. Verse seven: as for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died by me in the land of Canaan in the way when there was still some way to come unto Ephrath, and I buried her there in the way to Ephrath, the same is Bethlehem. And we mentioned that on Sunday, didn't we? That very sorrowful occasion. It must have cut deep into Jacob's heart, when Jacob had come back into the land of Canaan, and God had met him by the way and said, Jacob, be fruitful and multiply. I'm going to bless you. And so he was. And Rachel, his favorite wife, he'd only had one son by her so far, that was Joseph. He very favorite wife. Be fruitful and multiply, says God. And presently Rachel was with child and died by him there. Could you understand if Jacob in his quieter moments had said, what is all this business about the promises of God? They given simply to mock me. How do you add this up? There's Leah, she can have all the sons she likes, and those others, the slave girls, and Rachel. He is thinking as the father of a family and of eventually a nation, and how part big a part of that nation will come from his loved wife, Rachel. And now he sees a lovely thing in his old, old age, says he presently to Joseph, Joseph, my boy, I hadn't thought to see your face again. I thought you were gone completely. And I got to the stage when even Benjamin, my last child by Rachel, when Rachel died, I thought he'd gone too. And that this is where the promises of God were going to end up. I hadn't thought to see your face, and now God has allowed me to see your two sons. I bag them as mine, he says. Because they would count as Rachel's sons. So we'd have Joseph and Benjamin and Manasseh and Ephraim, all counted as Ephraim's, as Rachel's sons. You say that's a stupid old man, he ought to have been above that kind of jealousy. All right, have a word with him when you get home to heaven and tell him so. But he went home happy. After the apparent disappointment when he dared to pro- trust the promise of God, and it had all come unstuck, so it seemed to him. Yet now fulfilled in the next generation beyond his expectation, and his two more sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. Now you think a little bit down the centuries how God fulfilled his promise to Jacob, be fruitful and multiply. In the actual history of the nation, how well did God fulfill it? Well, Ephraim became the biggest tribe, bar none, and the leading tribe among the ten, so that the nation was known as Ephraim and Judah. Two tribes went with Judah, that was Benjamin and Judah, so Benjamin was half of that lot, and Ephraim was the chief of the ten and the biggest tribe. Oh, how God fulfills his promises, even when at first, when you've trusted them, they seem to go wrong. And yet God fulfills them. Cor, if Jacob could have seen the long checkered history, hi- history of his nation to come and all the sufferings that there were to be on the way, but then God in his mercy, he who holds the key of all unknown, doesn't give us to see too much, does he? But asks us to trust his word about being fruitful, and if at the beginning it is bitter, yet in the end we shall find God has kept his promise and a thousand times enlarged it. Ah, but then here come the blessings in chapter forty nine. Well, not the blessings, the prophecies of the twelve sons. And what part do they play? Here they come, the blessings of the twelve tribes. What are we to make of these blessings? Well, I'm going to say to you in my innocence that there is more to building a nation than just multiplying them arithmetically, isn't there? What about the question of building character into people? Isn't that important too? Is the nation going to be like? And here comes Jacob looking forward to the future, not merely on these twelve boys or thirteen in front of him, but on their descendants and what shall happen to them, says chapter forty nine verse one, Gather yourselves together that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the latter days. Assemble yourselves and hear, you sons of Jacob, and hearken unto your father. So now I'm going to ask you please to do some hard thinking. He's about to tell them things to come. What things to come? What about it? My first question, are these prophecies simply personal to the twelve men that stood in front of him? For instance, the first one, Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power. Unstable as water, thou shalt not have the excellency. Because thou wentest up to thy father's bed, then thou defilest it. He went up to my couch. Is this merely telling Reuben, the actual man Reuben that went around on two legs, what is going to happen to him in these next twenty years? Or is this a prophecy that says not only what shall happen to Reuben, but the descendants of Reuben? Which is it? They're not mutually exclusive, sir. They're not mutually exclusive. Dr. Chapman holds, so it could be both. Yeah? It's prophetic portraits, yes, Mr. Go. I had heard, I heard this way, a synopsis of Jewish history. Yes. Which I thought was pretty concise because it takes the Jewish history right through. Well, that's very important. That's very good, Mister, Mister Gilbert. But you see now, now you've played in my hands, uh, right into my hands for the next question. Then, if this is a prophecy of what shall happen to the tribe of Judah, is it true that what Judah did, this particular sin he did, all his descendants are going to suffer for it. They did, they lost the birthright, they lost the first place in the nation. Well, yes, that is true, isn't it? Uh, One Chronicles five. yes. You say Judah instead of Reuben there. I think you meant Reuben. I meant Reuben, yes. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's the whole of the tribe of Reuben all down the centuries and right to the latter days, have they got to suffer because of what Reuben did in these far off days, at the beginning? Richie Dornan thinks they have. Yes? Be careful how you answer this one, because I'm coming back at you in a minute. Yes? Agreed? Yes, yes, Fred, what were you going to say? Under the third and fourth generation. Yes, under the third and fourth generation, yes. Anybody here suffering tonight because of what somebody did in the past? Adam's sin. Pardon? Adam's sin. Adam's sin, yes. I, I want to, I want to face us, us to face it seriously. Here is Jacob looking ahead to the development of the nation and to the development of character within the nation and position within the nation, and he is solemnly declaring that because of what Reuben did here now, all down the generations, his descendants will have to suffer. Is that a something that only happens to Adam and Reuben, or could it happen to us? Could it happen, sirs, that what you did, or what I do, brings a blight on future generations? Not necessarily our kindred on future generations, in the broader kindred life. Even today, I think it could be a factor of what you say now, that principle, like on the nation itself. What you said earlier on would be important even to ourselves as a, as a company here in Napseway. You talked about, uh, people with wisdom like Joseph administering, uh, and projecting their, their mind forward ten years and seeing what needs to be done. Uh, if that's not done by the leaders, then ten years time, the folks who are trying to carry on the work will suffer as a result of that. Yes, that's how it goes. Perhaps, sir, the, uh, the comment about Reuben is not punishment and suffering following it, but a statement of weakness of character. Ah, yes, now what do you mean by that, sir? The weakness of character which led him to go up to his father's couch, this instability is something that his children will have, not as a punishment, but because of the genes that are there and the mental attitudes and all that sort of thing. Ah, now that's an exceedingly important thing. Yes, it's not merely a question, is it, of God saying, now because Reuben has sinned, I will punish the rest. But Reuben was of unstable character, as Dr. Chapman says, how much of that was due to his own psychological makeup? And how much of that instability of character is going down the years through his descendants because they're born with father's psychological makeup? Is that what you meant, Dr. Javan? Could happen, couldn't it? Actually, it has been proved that character traits are inherited to a greater extent than even intelligence. Yes, that can be too. Yes, that can be too. Would you get the religious side of things in, uh, Genesis? How does it fit? Do you get my point, I wonder? How does it fit the ongoing story? Do you see? Yeah, I think Mr. Mr. Huot's going to say something, you know? Just wondering if you take away from some of them responsibility, if you say they are what they are because their father was what he was. Yeah. And after all, when you read the history of the Jews, eh, blessing was available, but it wasn't automatic. They had to obey Yeah. God's commandment Yeah. to get the blessing. Amen, sir. And now that's another point, isn't it? I wonder whether we can in fact combine the both, because presently, before we go home tonight, I'm going to have five minutes and bring it really home, and then set homework for next week. Ha. Do you see, suppose I am here on my physical and psychological side, the product of generations of people who were sinners because of what Adam did. And I am what I am. I didn't ask to be born. I come into this world, perhaps some people in my generations, four generations ago, were terribly immoral, and physically they transmitted down the generations weaknesses. Can happen. And I've got a load and a difficulty and a weakness to battle with that perhaps you haven't got. Perhaps your father was na- great, great, great, great father was Lord Killock or Napoleon the Great or something, and you come into life with a regal bearing. Ooh. You find it easy to command people and step on other people's toes.