Genesis 188 – An Age of Rage

Genesis 188

An Age of Rage

Genesis 49:5-7

January 12, 2025

Dr. Andy Woods

Let’s take our Bibles this morning and open them to Genesis 49:5.  We are seeking to cover at least Genesis 49:5-7 this morning.  We are continuing our verse by verse study through the Book of Genesis.  The title of our message this morning is “An Age of Rage.”  We’re actually coming to the tail end of our study in the Book of Genesis.  I know I’ve been saying that for about six months now, but we’re now at the story of Joseph.  And we’ve gone through it and how God has used Joseph so strategically to be God’s instrument, or vehicle, to get God’s people out of Canaan into Egypt, where they will reside for a period of 400 years.

Now, as the Book of Genesis comes to a conclusion, and consequently the account of Joseph comes to a conclusion, you have a very touching scene in Genesis 49.  Here Jacob, Joseph’s father, begins to bless Jacob’s sons, including Joseph—Jacob’s dozen.  Jacob, at the age of 147, is about to die.  His death is recorded at the end of this chapter.  And just prior to his death, he summons his 12 sons, who are destined to become the 12 tribes of Israel, and he begins to pronounce various blessings upon them.  And it’s obvious as this is read that these are not just blessings for them.  These are blessings about their future tribes.  And in the process of giving these blessings, he starts to, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, give various prophecies, if you will: predictions of these 12 sons.

One of the things that happens to us as Christians, when we’re on our one year Bible reading program (which is a good thing to do, by the way), is that we’re on a schedule.  We have to meet a quota.  And so we rush through this and it looks really weird to us and we don’t get it completely.  That’s sort of akin to going to the movies and coming in five minutes late and missing some key fact at the beginning of the movie, so that the rest of the movie is confusing to us.  If we don’t really stop and take some time to understand these prophecies, we can’t understand what happens subsequently in Scripture.

Some have called this section the spine of the Old Testament.  What has happened is that Jacob is giving these blessings and prophecies just prior to his death.  Last week, in Genesis 49:3-4, we saw some specific things he predicted related to Reuben.  Reuben, although he had all the potential in the world, did not finish well.  And that actually becomes a prediction about his tribe.  Very sadly, you have the same kind of thing happening in the verses we’re looking at now, Genesis 49:5-7, in what Jacob says about Simeon and Levi.  Things will not get more optimistic until we hit Judah in Genesis 49:8-12.

But before we hit Judah, let’s take a look at what the Lord said to Simeon and Levi.  Here’s an outline that we can use to look at Genesis 49:5-7.  First of all, Jacob points out the similarities between Simeon and Levi.  There are two similarities.  Number one, these two are full brothers.  But sadly, the comparison doesn’t stop there.  They don’t just share in full brotherhood, but they share equality in terms of violence.  And it relates to something that they did back in Genesis 34, which we’ll bring to your attention today.  But notice, first of all, Genesis 49:5, first part of the verse.  It says, ” ‘Simeon and Levi are brothers;’ “ meaning that they’re full brothers.  From Jacob and Leah came not just Reuben, but also Simeon and Levi.  So they are full brothers from the union between Jacob and Leah.  But unfortunately the similarity doesn’t stop there.  They were also equal in terms of violence.

Notice the second part of Genesis 49:5.  It says, ” ‘Their swords are implements of violence.’ “ Now what does that mean: ” ‘Their swords are implements of violence’ “?  It has to do with an incident that we call “the Dinah incident” back in Genesis 34, when their sister Dinah was sexually violated in Shechem.  And what they did at that point is that they hatched a plan to have the Shechemites circumcised.

They [Simeon and Levi] did this under very deceptive means.  While the Shechemites were recovering physically from the circumcision, they went and killed every single male throughout Shechem.  And as horrible as it is to have one’s sister violated by rape, most agree that what they what they did was completely out of bounds and disproportionate to the crime.  In other words, they didn’t exact their wrath on the criminal, but they killed every single male within Shechem—innocent people.  You might recall that back in Genesis 34:25-26 it says,

“Now it came about on the third day, when they were in pain”

—that’s the Shechemites—

“that two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword and came upon the city unawares, and killed every male.  They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah from Shechem’s house, and went forth.”

I think that what is being spoken of here is that they didn’t practice a principle that was going to be to be articulated at Mount Sinai, called “let the punishment fit the crime.”  In our own United States Constitution, we have something called the Eighth Amendment.  And the Eighth Amendment protects us from cruel and unusual punishment by the government.  And typically cruel and unusual punishment is completely out of bounds and disproportionate to the original crime.  This is a principle that God introduced at Mount Sinai.  I think you pronounce this the Lex Talionis principle.  You see it articulated in different biblical passages.

For example, Exodus 21:24-25 says, in terms of a punishment, “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.”  And your average person in the twentieth or twenty-first century looks at that and says, “Wow, isn’t God a meanie?  I mean, what kind of God ordains this kind of punishment: ‘eye for eye, tooth for tooth’?  You take out my eye, I get to take out your eye.  You take out my tooth, I get to take out your tooth, etc.”  Well, actually, it’s a very compassionate principle because it prevents the punishment from being out of bounds in comparison to the original crime.  So, one eye deserves another eye, not complete destruction to a person and complete destruction to a civilization.

What you have with Simeon and Levi is that they didn’t practice that principle.  And they went into a state of rage (you can understand why they were upset, given the fact that their sister had been sexually violated) and they killed all males within Shechem.  This was the character of these two.  They were full brothers in the biological sense of the word, and they were also full brothers in this area of violence.

The reference to the sword there: ” ‘Their swords are implements of violence,’ “ helped us interpret Genesis 48:22, where it says, ” ‘I give you one portion more than your brothers, which I took from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and my bow.’ ” This is speaking of Jacob’s well that he got in Shechem.  And how did he get his hands on this particular piece of property, this well, that he could then bequeath to Joseph?  Well, it talks in that verse, Genesis 48:22, about his sword and his bow.  So the sword and the bow were actually Simeon and Levi.  And I’m comfortable with the interpretation that because they’re called swords here, in Genesis 49:5, that [their act of violence in Genesis 34] secured that entire territory [of Shechem] for Jacob’s well.  But it went so far beyond the crime that these two were known for their violence.  And unfortunately, that character of violence is going to negatively affect their progeny in this prophecy given by Jacob.

So again, Genesis 49:5 says, ” ‘Simeon and Levi are brothers; Their swords are implements of violence.’ ” If there’s something that God hates—and He hates many things—it is unprovoked violence; or violence that comes into the life of an innocent person.  You see this in Proverbs 6:16-17.  It says, “There are six things which the Lord hates,” which is interesting in and of itself, because we talk so much about the love of God: the love of Jesus Christ for the world.

You know: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son .  .  .  .”  “Love is the goal of our instruction.”  First John 4:8: “God is love.”  And we focus so much on that—and rightfully so: God is loving—but sometimes in the process, we take our eyes off the fact that He’s also holy.  And if you emphasize the love of God and suppress the holiness of God; or you do it the other way around: you elevate His holiness and suppress His love; what you’ve created at the end of the day is a golden calf.  Because to understand God properly, you have to understand all of His attributes.  Is He loving?  Yes, but He’s also holy.  And if you put those two together, you can understand the cross of Christ.

God loves us too much to see us fall into condemnation because of our sin.  But at the same time, someone had to pay the price for sin because of God’s holiness.  And Jesus’ final words on the cross were, “It is finished”: tetelestai, meaning “paid in full” in the Greek language.  And that event on the Cross, that we call “propitiation,” reconciled the two natures of God.  Sin has been paid for because of what Jesus did for us.  And because sin has been paid for, the condemnation for sin does not have to fall upon us if we receive by faith what Jesus did for us 2,000 years ago.

So my point is that you can’t even understand the cross unless you understand all of God’s attributes coming together simultaneously.  God in His holiness hates certain things.  Even Jesus, when He was speaking to the church at Ephesus in the Book of Revelation—in Revelation 2 He says to the church there, “There’s something you have going for you.”  I believe it is around Revelation 2:6 that He says to the church at Ephesus, “You have something going for you.”  He says, “You hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.”  So, before Jesus condemns things going on in the church, He says, “Here are some things that are good.  Here are some things that are thumbs-up.  You hate what I hate.  In this case, you hate the false teachings of a group called the Nicolaitans operating there in Ephesus.”

So as God’s people, we are given permission to hate certain things just as God does.  We don’t hate people, but we hate the sins that put people into a state of bondage.  And so there are things that God hates.  One of the things that God hates among seven are hands that shed innocent blood.  Proverbs 6:16-17 says, “There are six things which the Lord hates, Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And”—right in the middle of that list—“hands that shed innocent blood.”

This becomes the reason that Jacob gives the prophecy that he does here concerning Simeon and Levi.  Yes, they were right to avenge their sister, but they didn’t follow the Lex Talionis principle.  The punishment was completely and totally disproportionate to the crime—they killed every single male in Shechem.  As a result of this, Jacob himself, when this happened in Genesis 34, disassociated himself from what his sons had done.  And you see that disassociation there in Genesis 49:6.

Notice what Genesis 49:6 says: “Let my soul not enter into their council; Let not my glory be united with their assembly.”  In other words, “What you guys have done I want nothing to do with,” as Jacob said back in Genesis 34.  You might remember his exact words.  Genesis 34:30 says,

“Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, ‘You have brought trouble on me by making me odious among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and my men being few in number, they will gather together against me and attack me and I will be destroyed, I and my household.’ “

In other words, “You’ve brought upon me an odiousness amongst the Canaanites.  I mean, because of what you have done, these Canaanites are going to work overtime trying to exact revenge.  And so I am completely and totally disassociating myself from your over-reaction.”

There comes a point in the Christian life where we have to disassociate ourselves from certain people, certain groups, and certain sins, because they’re involved in things that God does not honor.  Second Corinthians 6:14-16 says,

“Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?  Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?  Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols?  For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them; And I will be their God, and they shall be My people.’ “

As God’s people, we are in the world, but we are not of the world.  We’re around sin and unsaved people constantly.  You couldn’t function in the world if that weren’t the case.  But we are not to be in a position where we are yoking ourselves to evil—partnering with evil.  This is what Jacob is role modeling for us: “I mean, these sons of mine, they did something that’s displeasing to God, and I’m distancing myself from their action.”  I’m reminded of Ephesians 5:11.  It says there, “Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness (in other words, yoke oneself), but instead even expose them.”  So we are “children of Light” (Ephesians 5:5).

We are called “salt” and “light” of the earth, and our presence is to expose evil rather than to partner with it.  Be very careful about entering into intimate relationships at a personal level—even a partnership at a business level—with those that have a different agenda than you.  Once you enter into those sorts of situations, you find yourself living outside of your calling.  We’re called to disassociate ourselves, as much as is humanly possible, from evil.

A lot of people feel really bad if their church becomes liberal or apostate, and they feel really bad about leaving that church and instead yoking themselves to a different church, that is not a perfect church but a more faithful church.  And they talk about their friends and their ministries and the things they left behind.  But the truth of the matter—and I’ve been in this situation more than once—is that sometimes apostasy and liberalism reaches a point where your presence in that church is telling the unsaved world that what’s going on in that church is okay.  At some point, you just have to make the call and cut yourself off from certain groups and churches and peoples and align yourself with something else that’s hopefully more akin to what God has for us.  We are not to partner with wickedness, apostasy, or evil.  That’s what Jacob is doing here with his own two sons.

What was their sin?  What what did Simeon and Levi do that was so bad?  Well, they did two things: They did something to men.  And then they did something to the animals.  And God was not happy with either of these things.  So, what do they do to men?  Genesis 49:6, continuing on through the verse, says, “Because in their anger they slew men.”  They violated, in other words, what would become the Sixth Commandment, that would later be given at Mount Sinai: “Thou shalt not murder.”

People read these things in the Bible, these “thou shalt not” ‘s.  And they say, “Isn’t God a big meanie?  He’s always saying don’t do this, don’t do that.”  The truth of the matter is that God is not a big meanie.  God is very positive.  And even when He says something negative—”stay away from this,” “don’t do this,” “thou shalt not do that”—He’s protecting something positive.  So when He says, “Thou shalt not murder,” He’s protecting a principle: the sanctity of human life.  When He says “Don’t murder,” there’s the positive that He’s trying to protect: Sanctity of Life.  When He says things like “Don’t commit adultery,” He is protecting the sanctity of marriage.  When He says things like “Don’t steal,” “Don’t covet,” He is protecting the sanctity of private property.  That becomes a very different way of looking at the Ten Commandments.  They’re not so much ten negative statements as they are guardrails, because God is trying to protect and promote something that is positive.

These two sons of Jacob did not honor those principles.  They put innocent men to death, and God was not happy with that.  This violated the Ten Commandments later given at Mount Sinai.

By the way, this violence that took place in Shechem, this had spread all over the world before the Flood.  This explains why God brought the global Deluge.  Humanity was violating constantly this Sanctity of Life principle.  It says in Genesis 6:11-13, just prior to the Flood,

“Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence.  God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.  Then God said to Noah, ‘The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth.’ “

Now notice here that I’ve got the word violence underlined, and I’ve got the Hebrew word for violence in brackets in Genesis 6:11 and 13.  Most people are shocked to discover that the Hebrew word for violence is hamas.  Sound familiar?  Coming from sort of a similar Semitic language: hamas.  And of course, we know all about Hamas, right?  Hamas—they’re the ones that caused all the terror for Israel coming from Gaza in the events of October the 7, 2023.  The naive Western mind looks at Hamas as a group that wants peace in the Middle East when their very name means “violence.”  We find it interesting to say that just prior to the Flood, hamas—widespread violence and terrorism—filled the earth.  This is the reason that God brought the Deluge, the Flood—one of the reasons, anyway.  To God people matter.

People irritate us.  People can get in the way of our plans.  But the truth of the matter is that people matter to God, because they share His status as an image bearer.  All human beings have value to God, whether you like them or don’t like them, whether they irritate you or don’t irritate you, whether you get along with them or don’t get along with them.  All people are precious to God—even the people in our society that are the most unloved.  You know, you think of drunkards; and people that smell, and haven’t taken a shower in a month or two because they’re living under a bridge.  That kind of outcasts of society.

As we’re driving our car, it’s really easy to just turn our head where we don’t have to see them, and to keep the windows rolled up and the doors locked.  But to God, that person matters, because God evaluates people based on the Sanctity of Life principle.  It doesn’t matter how good-looking they are.  (We’re living in a society that worships youth and beauty.) It doesn’t matter how wealthy they are or aren’t.  They’re a human being, a lost soul that Christ died for.  I mean, even the people that are completely opposed to everything you believe in—the obnoxious LGBTQU etc., etc.  type of person.  You have to look at them through the lens of the Scripture and say they are a soul for whom Christ died.  That person, although involved in something destructive, matters to God, because in the Scripture we have the Sanctity of Life principle.

See, the world operates by quality of life.  Humanism, which has been taught in all our public schools for a long time now, says that people are valued based on their quality.  How do they look?  Are they healthy?  Can they make a living?  God’s view of humanity is completely and totally different.  He doesn’t value people based on quality.  He values people based on sanctity, which includes people that are making no productive contribution to society at all in the eyes of man—even the elderly person that can’t control their natural bodily functions anymore.  That’s a person that God values because that person bears God’s image, regardless of appearance, regardless of economic productivity, regardless of upward mobility, regardless of where they live.  It is the Sanctity of Life.  That’s what was lost in the days of Noah, and that’s why God brought the Deluge.

This is why Jacob is down on what these two sons of his did in Genesis 34, in Shechem.  I don’t know if you followed this story recently about that insurance executive that was gunned down, shot in the back several times.  I guess I wasn’t shocked that something like that happened.  It’s terrible.  I guess what I was shocked by was the number of people that were justifying what happened.  Here’s something that I ran into from Axios, December 27, 2024, when the shooting happened.  It says, “Most Americans think the insurance industry bears some blame for CEO killing.”  Our society is to the point where people are saying, “Yeah, the killing was bad.  But you know what?  If I put myself in the shoes of the killer, he really didn’t have any more options left because the insurance industry is so corrupt.”  Elizabeth Warren, a senator, I think, from Massachusetts, said almost those very words in the wake of this assassination—this murder: “Yeah, the killing was was awful.  But you know what?  The guy had no options left.”—opening the door to murder as if it’s okay.  Just track that through logically and see where that that that ends up.

I mean, does that give me permission to fill someone with bullets over any issue I have with, let’s say, the person working at the grocery store?  I don’t like the prices.  I don’t like how they’re treating me.  I don’t know if they understand that the customer is always right.  So why not just fill that person with bullets—or anybody with bullets that you happen to disagree with?  And I’m here to tell you folks that this is a sign of the last days.  Jesus Himself was very clear.  “Hey, tell us, Jesus, about the end of the age.”  And He doesn’t say that there’s going to be some big, sweeping global revival.  Of course, I pray for that.  But He didn’t say that.  He says, “If you want to know what it’s like at the end of the age, ‘as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be.’ “

You know, what was it like in the days of Noah?  Hamas spread all over the globe.  Dr. Henry Morris in his Genesis commentary indicates, mathematically, that there could have been as many as eight billion people on planet Earth.  That’s interesting—that’s the same number of people on planet Earth today.  ‘As it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be.’  And it was a society that had absolutely no regard for the Sanctity of Life.  And I think that’s where our culture is at today.  And as Christians, we ought not to think that way.  We ought to value people not based on quality of life, but based on the Sanctity of Life.  Simeon and Levi violated those principles.

And you know what else they did?  They did some stuff to the animals, and God wasn’t happy about that either.  If you look at the second part of Genesis 49:6, the very bottom of the verse, it says, ” ‘And in their self-will they lamed oxen.’ ” This is referring to something that Simeon and Levi did in the midst of killing all of the male Shechemites.  They injured the animals as well.  It says in Genesis 34:27-28, “Jacob’s sons came upon the slain and looted the city,”—there they violated private property rights—“because they had defiled their sister.  They took their flocks and their herds and their donkeys, and that which was in the city and that which was in the field.”

So they took vengeance on innocent human life, which is the most significant.  But they also took vengeance upon animals.  Now, I have to be honest with you: I’ve never been the world’s greatest animal lover.  Getting two cats recently has changed that.  The Lord has really taught me a lot of lessons through these two cats.  For example, they don’t come when you tell them to come.  And, I say to the Lord, “What’s wrong with these cats?”  And the Lord says, “Well, what’s wrong with you?  You’re the same way towards Me.”  So there’s all kinds of spiritual lessons I’ve learned through these two cats.  And it’s interesting getting these two cats.  Suddenly, I’m stumbling on all these Bible verses that tell a person to be kind to their animals.

Have you read Deuteronomy 22:6-7 lately?  It says,

” ‘If you happen to come upon a bird’s nest along the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young; you shall certainly let the mother go, but the young you may take for yourself, in order that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days.’ “

So, when God brought the nation of Israel to Mount Sinai later on, as you study the Law of God, you will see that there are certain protections that God ordained for the animals.  Deuteronomy 25:4: ” ‘You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing.’ “ You know, interestingly, that’s applied to a New Testament Bible teacher.  ” ‘You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing.’ ” Don’t interfere with the work of a New Testament Bible teacher.  (I don’t know if I appreciate that analogy too much because I guess I’m the ox.)

Proverbs 12:10 says, “A righteous man has regard for the life of his animal, But even the compassion of the wicked is cruel.”  Now, of course, we should be kind to the animals, not cruel to the animals.  But unfortunately, now we’re living in a society that has gone the other way, where animal life is elevated over human life.  That is going the opposite direction because humans are different from animals in this sense: human beings bear God’s image; the animals do not.  That goes back to Genesis 1:26.  It says,

“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.  God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ “

Man is different from the animal kingdom in two ways.  Number one, man is an image bearer; the animals are not.  And number two, God’s original design for man was to give man a position of authority over the animals, not for man to be ruled by the animals, but for man to rule over the animal kingdom.  In fact, Psalm 8:4-9 says, “What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him?  Yet You have made him a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty!  You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, All sheep and oxen, And also the beasts of the field, The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.  O Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth!”

What is the correct understanding of [the relationship of] man towards the animal kingdom?  It is not a perspective of meanness, cruelty, and deprivation.  We’re never given permission by God to be cruel to the animals; but at the same time, we’re not to reach a point in our thinking where the animals are somehow more valuable than people.  They are not, because animals do not bear God’s image.  Human beings do.  It’s interesting how easy it is to be kind to an animal and rude to a person, and we should not be that way, because when we get that way, we’re living outside of biblical boundaries and biblical proportion.

Our image-bearing status continues on even into the Fall.  Genesis 9:6 says, ” ‘Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.’ ” So even though we’re in a fallen state, we still have immeasurable value to God because the Fall did not erase our image-bearing status, although it effaced it.  This is why Jesus makes comments constantly about people who go too far in their treatment of animals, elevating [animal life] over human life.  He says, for example, in Matthew 6:26, ” ‘Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not worth much more than they?’ “

“Boy, I don’t know if my economic needs are going to be met.”  And God says, “Well, do I take care of the animals?”  “Yeah.”  “Do I take care of the birds?”  “Yeah.”  “Well, why would you think I wouldn’t take care of you?  Because you’re much more valuable than they.”

By the way, in this area of God taking care of us, do you notice how the birds are always busy?  They’re working.  The Bible never promotes sloth or laziness in this analogy, but as we work unto the Lord, God promises to provide for us.  And He provides for us even in those situations and seasons when we’re out of work or out of employment.  And we should expect God to protect us and provide for us because He does such a great job with the animals—won’t He do it for us also?  Oh, ye of little faith.

There’s the problem: I just don’t trust God the way I should.  Matthew 12:2-12 involves an animal that fell into a ditch, and the Pharisees are all mad at Jesus because He’s violating their Sabbath traditions.  Jesus comes and heals a person on the Sabbath.  The Pharisees are all bent out of shape about that.  And Jesus makes this statement in Matthew 12:12 after He says, “Don’t you pull your own animal out of a ditch on the Sabbath?”  ” ‘How much more valuable then is a man than a sheep!  So then, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.’ ” “Don’t criticize me,” Jesus says, “for healing someone on the Sabbath, when you yourself are a blessing to your animal who fell into the ditch on the Sabbath.  You work to pull him out.  And so I can work through a miracle and heal someone on the Sabbath.  And you should expect that to happen, because a human being is more important than an animal.  It’s more valuable than an animal.”

So should we treat the animals correctly?  Of course.  Should we worship the animals?  No.  Should we elevate animal life over human life?  No.  Well, why is everybody doing this?  Because they’re taught evolution routinely in the public school classroom, evolution which says that man is nothing more than a naked ape.  In other words, it’s this kind of chain of being.  If you want to visit your relatives, go down to the county zoo and look at the orangutans.  And so they think, through this misguided teaching, that human beings are no different from the animals.

By the way, people say, “Why do these kids today act like animals?”  Well, if you teach them they’re animals, they’re probably going to act like it, right?  Thank you, evolution.  Now, the Bible has a completely different set of standards, a completely different set of priorities.  We are higher than the animals as image bearers.  We are to rule over the animals, but let’s not go the other way and start abusing the animals.

That’s what Simeon and Levi did.  They went too far the other way.  They took revenge in a disproportionate way, not just against every male in Shechem, but also against the animals in Shechem as well.  So you come to Genesis 49:7 and Jacob pronounces a judgment on what these two did.  This is interesting, because it affects their future tribes.  Their future tribes, Simeon and Levi, became what they became because of this heritage of violence that their progenitors had.  So what does Jacob say here by way of judgment?  First, he criticizes their deeds, first part of Genesis 49:7.  And then secondarily, he criticizes their seed, also part of Genesis 49:7.

Notice Jacob’s pronouncement.  He says, ” ‘Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce; And their wrath, for it is cruel.’ “ The first deed that Jacob condemns in the character of these two sons—these two full brothers, Simeon and Levi—is their propensity for anger.  Because they had a propensity for anger, they had a propensity to overreact to situations.  And boy, how the Bible over and over again tells us to keep our anger under control.  In fact, you have within you the resources of the Spirit of God that allow you to do that.

This issue of anger, my father used to tell me, is almost like temporary insanity.  You get angry at something, and you just fly off the handle, and you find yourself saying things and doing things that you would never say or do in a state of right mindedness.  Anger is a lot like a hurricane that quickly blows through an area and destroys it.  And although the hurricane came through very, very fast and very, very quickly, it leaves in its wake all this destruction.  And the long-term destruction has a tendency to stick around a lot longer than the moment of anger.  There are hurt feelings, misunderstandings, and sometimes physical abuse.  As sinful human beings, we have this propensity for anger.

I’m not speaking here about righteous anger.  I’m speaking about the ambition and the desire for vengeance.  You know, as the old saying goes, “Don’t get mad, get even.”  We can very quickly say a lot of things and do a lot of things in the heat of the moment.  It’s almost like a time of temporary insanity.  And now that we’re all on social media, angry words can be put out there and if you don’t hit delete, they’re there for generations to see—stuff that you would never say.  I’m sort of embarrassed by these things on social media that will bring up something that you posted five years ago.  I see some of the things I posted and it’s like, “Whoops, let’s delete that one.  Wish I had never said that.”  because I remember that when I posted I was really not in my right mind.  I was angry at something; angry at somebody; or angry at this circumstance that showed up.  I was angry about something in the past, and the poor person that I vented on has no idea about that.  But I vented, and I damaged my testimony in the process.  I damaged my credibility as a minister of grace and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

How in the world do you tell people Jesus loves them and God has grace for them when you’ve just verbally annihilated them?  I mean, you can’t do that.  The more we’re given to impulsive anger, the less effective we are as God’s people.  Ephesians 4:26-27 says, “Be angry, and yet do not sin.”  So apparently there’s a place for righteous anger—not personal anger, which is what we’re talking about here.  “Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity.”

The first time I saw this—“do not let the sun go down on your anger”—I said to myself, “I need to move to Alaska.”  There the sun never goes down and I could stay angry all the time.  But if I’m angry for personal reasons, what have I just done?  I’ve just given the devil a foothold, the Bible says—I’ve given the devil an opportunity.  As a New Testament Christian, the devil and demons cannot possess you; but because your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, it’s hard for me to believe that Satan and the Holy Spirit can be roommates.  I don’t think you can be possessed as a Christian by Satan or the demons, but I do believe that when we cater to the sin nature—which I don’t have to, but the sin nature is always there to invite me back—when I cater to the sin nature, I just gave Satan a foothold.  I gave him an opportunity to influence my life.

There have been many times where unkind words have come out of my mouth, aimed at people that are totally innocent, because I’m mad about something else.  And when that happens, how in the world can God use you to extend His grace and love to a person.  We’re just giving Satan an opportunity to influence us in a negative way when we let the sun go down on our anger.

So what’s the solution to anger and bitterness?  The interesting thing about anger is that it’s not the human being, and psyche is not designed by God to contain boiling over anger.  It’s going to come out.  And sometimes it comes out from something that happened years ago.  And typically when it comes out, it comes out on your spouse, it comes out on your kids, it comes out on your parents, it comes out on your ministry—it comes out on people that never had anything to do and have absolutely no knowledge of what happened to you years ago that you’re angry about.  And so what’s the solution?  How do I walk with God without being an angry person who’s constantly giving Satan a foothold?

The answer is at the end of Ephesians 4—Ephesians 4:32.  It says, “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”  We’re in absolutely no position as New Testament believers to demand justice from somebody else who hurt us in the past.  Why is that?  Because God decided not to treat us with justice.  He decided to treat us with grace.  And the better I understand the grace of God—the unmerited favor of God—the better I’m able to look at circumstances in my life where I have been treated unfairly, and I’m upset about it.  And I just say, you know what?  I’m just going to let it go.  I’m just going to treat the whole situation with grace.  You say, “Well, they deserve your wrath.”  And maybe they do.  But grace is not giving people what they deserve.  Grace is unmerited favor.

And why should we treat people with grace?  Well, that’s how Jesus treated us.  The fact is, you probably know that in Matthew 18 there’s a whole parable about this, about the guy that owed somebody, you know, millions of dollars.  He was forgiven; and he found a fellow that owed him a few bucks, and he demanded that every penny be paid, and had the poor guy thrown into debtor’s prison.  And that whole parable by Jesus in Matthew 18 is designed to show us how foolish we look—how silly we look—as unforgiving people.  How in the world could I be an unforgiving person when Jesus has forgiven me of every sin I’ve ever committed—past, present, and future?

“Well, hold on pastor.  You don’t know what they did to me.”  No, I don’t.  But I know what He—Jesus Christ—did for you.  And I learn as a New Testament Christian to just walk in that Spirit.  As I walk in that Spirit, what did I just do to the Satan’s opportunity to use me?  I just shrunk his influence.  Satan can’t use me the way he wants if I’m walking in forgiveness.  Unfortunately, I’ve heard people say this, “I’m not going to forgive so-and-so until they come and apologize.”  I’ve actually heard very prominent Christian theologians and counselors say that.  You know what that’s going to do?  That’s going to leave you in a state of anger your whole life, because they never may apologize.  In fact, they might not even know they hurt you.

Remember what Jesus said on the cross?  “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”  (And Stephen said it to, Acts 7: ” ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them!’ “) You just reach a point where you say, “I’m going to let them off the hook.”  I do find something very interesting at work, though.  When I let people off the hook, now they’re on God’s hook.  And I have found that God has very interesting ways of dealing with people, that are much more creative than things coming out of my depraved mind in terms of revenge.  I mean, when you forgive someone and you put them on God’s hook, God says, “It’s My business now.  I’ll take care of it.”  “Well, how are you going to take care of it, Lord?”  “That’s none of your business.  They’re on My hook.  I’ll deal with them the way I want to deal with them.  Now you go and be a minister of grace, where God has you.”  And you can now do that now because Satan’s influence over your life has shrunk.

Simeon and Levi didn’t do that.  The Bible says this, in Proverbs 16:32, “He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city.”  If you can take anger and you can keep it under control through a spirit of forgiveness, the Bible says that you actually have more power than someone that comes in and conquers a whole city.  Proverbs 22:24-25 says, “Do not associate with a man given to anger.”  There are many people in my life that I just don’t have contact with anymore: because they’re hotheads.  And I know that if I’m around a hothead, I’m going to become a hothead.  Proverbs 22:24-25 says, “Do not associate with a man given to anger; Or go with a hot-tempered man, Or you will learn his ways And find a snare for yourself.”

A lot of people excuse anger based on their heritage.  “Oh, I’m Irish—I just lose my cool.”  “I’m German—I just lose my cool.”  Well, you may be Irish and German, but you’re also carnal.  Explosive anger is connected with the sin nature.  By the way, this is where a lot of trouble brews for people in the area of murder.  This is how the first murder happened in human history.  It says in Genesis 4:5-8,

“but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard.  So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.  Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry?  And why has your countenance fallen?  If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up?  And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.’ “—

“Cain, there’s a war going on right now in your mind.  You’re angry about something, and that anger is trying to master you.  And you better master it before it masters you.”  And Cain didn’t do that.  He let it control him.  And that’s what led to the first murder in human history.

—“Cain told Abel his brother.  And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.”

And Cain has to spend the whole rest of his life with a protective mark on his hand because civilization was trying to kill him because he killed his brother. “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground.”  God said.  And the whole the whole thing was avoidable—if Cain had followed the exhortation in Genesis 4:7: to get sin under control before it gets you under control, because otherwise you’re about to give the devil a major foothold.  You might want to jot down 1 John 3:12.  You’ll see Satan in the picture there.  And the whole thing is avoidable if you were to simply not let the sun go down on your anger.

Did not Jesus say a lot about this in the Sermon on the Mount?  You know the verses.

” ‘You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.’ “

I read that and I just say to myself, “Thank you, Lord, that Your righteousness has been transferred to me, and that You no longer hold my sins against me.”  Because if that’s the standard, without the transferred righteousness of Christ, I would be the first to bust hell wide open, as the saying goes.

And then there’s the final prophecy that’s given not just about the deed, but about the seed.  At the very end of Genesis 49:7, Jacob says, concerning Simeon and Levi, ” ‘And scatter them in Israel.’ “

Arnold Fruchtenbaum, about that prophecy, says,

“Second, his judgment falls on their seed: I will divide them in Jacob, And scatter them in Israel.  In keeping with the judgment, neither tribe received its own territory in the Land; their territories were within the territory of other tribes; they did not receive their own tribal holdings.  Simeon turned out to be the weakest tribe in number.  In the first census (Num.  1:23), his tribe numbered 59,300.  In the second census (Num.  26:14), it went all the way down to 22,200.  A member of Simeon’s tribe was involved in the sin of worshipping Baal-Peor (Num.  25:14) through immorality.  Simeon is omitted from the tribal blessings of Moses in Deuteronomy 33.  When the Jews did get the Land of Israel, Simeon settled, not in his own territory, but in the southern part of Judah’s territory (Josh.  19:1–9, Judg.  1:3).  In subsequent history, Simeon smote the inhabitants of Mount Seir (I Chron.  4:42–43).  The Tribe of Levi did side with Moses in the sin of the golden calf (Exod.  32:26–29); but in keeping with Jacob’s curse, Levi did not receive his own territory.  Rather, the Tribe of Levi was scattered in forty-eight different Levitical Cities throughout the other Tribes of Israel (Num.  18:20–24, 35:1–8; Deut.  10:8–9; Josh.  14:4, 21:1–42).”

Jacob condemned the deed, but now the seed.  See, this didn’t just affect Levi: it also affected his seeds.  That’s why I was going to call this sermon “Levi Genes,” but decided not to do that.  In other words, exactly what Jacob said here happened.  “Your seed will be scattered.”

Now, Simeon did not get his own land.  Simeon only had land within Judah.  Simeon, by the time of the conquest, is a territory within Judah, not having its own allotment of land.  And as far as the Levites are concerned, the Levites never got their own land.  They were scattered amongst the forty-eight Levitical cities.  Interestingly enough, the tribe of Levi is where the priests came from.  But this prophecy about being scattered in Israel—exactly what Jacob said would happen as God was leading him—these things happened.

What happened here with these two affected future generations?  That’s something to think about when we sin.  The consequences of sin don’t just fall upon us.  They could have a negative effect on future generations as well.  This is why I recommend to you over and over again this book by Dr. John Walvoord entitled Every Prophecy of the Bible, because he brings up these issues and shows you how all God’s short-term prophecies happened in real time, exactly as God said.  We would expect that because it’s impossible for God to lie.  And if God is this trustworthy, everything that He says that is yet to come—an area of theology called eschatology, including the Rapture, the seven-year Tribulation Period, the Kingdom, the Eternal State, the Second Coming, the Great White Throne Judgment, the Bema Seat Judgment—all of it’s going to happen because God has a prophetic track record.

By way of conclusion, an exhortation concerning anger: It’s a wonderful thing to understand that God’s anger against sin has been satiated or satisfied.  The fancy name for this is “propitiation.”  God is angry at sin.  And yet Jesus stepped into the line of fire to absorb that wrath in our place.  So if I find myself in Christ by way of faith, because I receive what He done for me as a free gift 2,000 years ago; you know what’s great about everything?  God’s not mad anymore.  It almost frees up God’s other attribute: His attribute of love to be exhibited towards His people.  His holiness is satisfied.  What other attribute does God have than love?

So everything that happens in your life is a manifestation of His love, because “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  Anger can be a very scary thing, particularly when it comes from God.  Hebrews 10:31 tells us that “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”  It’s a glorious thing to understand that through what Jesus did 2,000 years ago—propitiation—His wrath has been satisfied.  And I invite anybody within the sound of my voice to enter into that relationship with the Lord now.  You do that simply by receiving by faith what Jesus did for us 2,000 years ago.

Even as I’m speaking, I’m trusting that many, many people within the sound of my voice are putting their faith in the transaction of Jesus for the propitiation of their sins.  It’s not a matter of joining a church or giving money.  It’s not a matter of New Year’s resolutions.  It’s a matter of privacy between you and the Lord, where the Lord convicts you of your need to do this and you respond to it by trusting in the work of Jesus for the full propitiation of one’s sins.  I hope that many, many people, even as I speak, are doing that.  You don’t have to walk an aisle to receive this.  There’s one step that’s necessary, and it’s the issue of trust—trusting in the finished work of Jesus for your eternity and the safekeeping of your soul.