"Tragedy, Not Triumph (Ephraim and Asher)" 1 Chronicles 7:20-40 Sunday Evening Worship Service

The book of 1 Chronicles begins with an overview of all of human history, so you can't accuse the chronicler of being modest.

He starts his description of where Israel got how Israel got into the Promised Land, going back to creation.

He really begins with Adam, but then he brings you through creation and through world history all the way.

The idea is he's going present day, all the way to Israel in the Promised Land, when the chronicler was writing this.

This is after exile.

He's explaining to the people reading it where they came from.

And there's a sense in which this is our history too.

We are not, perhaps most of us are not Jewish, so this is not our own ethnic history, but this is the history of God's people.

This is the history of how God called his people out of uh through Abraham, out of Ur, the land of the Chaldeans, how he led them into Egypt for 400 years, and how he led them out of Egypt and back into the promised land.

And of course, the crux of that story is found in Genesis with the twelve tribes.

The twelve tribes were the twelve children, of course, of Jacob.

And they had a convoluted family tree, didn't they?

Jacob, if you remember, was in love with Rachel.

Rachel was the pretty one.

He was the one he wanted to marry.

And lo, when he lifted up the wedding veil, there was Leah, who was not the pretty one.

I don't know what the opposite of pretty is.

I can't think of it, nor would I ever call a woman that, but there's some opposite of it.

And so then he finds himself with two wives.

And of course, the one that was beautiful that he loved did not get pregnant.

Instead, it was the I can't remember the word, but that other one gets pregnant and has six sons, for goodness sake.

And so eventually Rachel puts her own servant forward and tells Jacob, Sleep with my servant.

And Jacob does, and has two sons, Dan and Naphtali, that way.

And so Leah puts forth her servant, tit for tat here.

And Jacob goes to her and has two sons that way, Gad and Asher.

And then after all of that, finally Rachel falls pregnant and has child 11 and 12, the two that Jacob loved the most, of course.

Joseph and Benjamin.

Now, Joseph was first before Benjamin and the other brothers all conspired and tried to kill him.

That was their attitude towards the barren mother finally falling pregnant.

Like they could tell that this was dad's favorite, and now dad has a child through her, and so the other ten, it seemed like the reasonable thing to do to murder him.

And that's the story of Israel.

That's where Israel comes from.

Those are their people.

And we've been going through the 12 tribes.

Remember, all 12 of those uh descendants go on to have the 12 tribes named after each of them, blessed by Jacob at the end of his life.

And we'll look at the final two tonight.

But I do think it's helpful to zoom out.

We haven't been here in a week.

It's the weather's been wonderful and all of that, but it's here to zoom our few weeks because of Christmas and Easter.

So it's good to zoom out again and remember where we've been going and just look at the list of the 12 tribes on the screen so we can draw from them.

You'll notice that there's really only nine names on the screen because I skip eight, which is Benjamin.

We'll say Benjamin for um the story of Saul and where he comes from next week.

He's the one that's not kind of in order.

So we skip Benjamin, we'll deal with Benjamin next week, Lord willing.

Uh and then 11 and 12 is who we're dealing with today, Asher and Manasseh.

So before then, you have the other ten tribes, the nine tribes, and we had a lesson from each of them, if you remember.

Uh Judah was the lesson of the king, that God promised to bring a king, and largely the other tribes all revolve around Judah.

The promise of the Savior was going to be through Judah, and you recognize going through this list and the description in the book of Chronicles, same in Genesis, that the other tribes have their significance in as much as they relate to the messianic promise.

The promise was given to Abraham that he would have a descendant who would be the savior of the world.

That was the promise given to Adam.

That was the promise given to Noah.

That's the promise given to Abraham.

But now Abraham starts with the 12 tribes, and the promise doesn't go to all of the tribes.

It goes to the fourth son, Judah.

The scepter will be in his hand.

So that's where the chronicler begins.

That's the most important tribe.

The others revolve geographically, they revolve in a sense, literally and in a promissory sense, around Judah.

Simeon clings to Judah.

And so Simeon is protected.

And the lesson we got from Simeon is that you can be sheltered in the shadow of the Savior.

You can shield yourself from God's wrath by clinging to the Savior.

It's the lesson of Simeon.

Reuben was the firstborn and should have been first, but natural privilege can be forfeited.

That was the lesson from Reuben because of his violence, because of the thing with circumcision and how he deceived and used that as a battle ploy.

Because of his violence, really, he forfeited his natural privilege.

And remember, the cool thing, if I'm just speaking to you right here, that I've learned about these 12 tribes going through this study, I've learned that their attitude, like the lesson from their 12 tribes, is very much connected to the people, the actual individuals themselves.

Did you notice that the tribes took on kind of the flavor of their founder?

They all took on the ethos of that.

And the second thing I've learned is that the geography of the tribes all also reflect that lesson.

You know, Judah had the largest land.

Self-control, winning out.

But do remember that the lesson from those individuals and from the geography they get is reflected in their the lesson from the tribes that leads to Gad, strength and dependence on Yahweh.

Remember, Gad positioned themselves to be the gateway into Israel to get to Judah.

You'd have to go through him.

He's kind of the older brother that will fight you.

And he became known as a warrior, strength and dependence on Yahweh.

Manasseh shows you that the covenant can be abandoned.

Manasseh was the favored son.

Remember, Joseph split with his children.

Manasseh was supposed to be the favorite.

Joseph had two children, so there's not a Joseph tribe, remember, his two children split.

And the hilarious thing was Jacob was supposed to bless the older and bless the younger, because that's how Jacob rolled.

And it's funny, remember, Joseph was like, You're blessing the wrong child.

And Jacob was like, I'm old.

I'm gonna die.

Take your hand off of mine.

I'll bless who I want to bless.

So Manasseh should have been favored, but instead abandoned the covenant.

Levi showed that judgment could be redeemed.

Levi wasn't supposed to have land.

They didn't get land because of their violence, and yet God turned that into redemption.

Levi would become the priests.

Issachar shows you that blessing comes with submission to God's law.

Discernment is seen in God's law.

Issachar was the discerning tribe because they devoted their time to the study of God's word.

Benjamin, we'll look at that next week, right hand, wrong man.

Napoli, we looked at him in our last sermon that judgment starts on the edges.

They put themselves outside of Israel and God whittled them away.

Manasseh again, partial obedience is long-term weakness.

And that leads to our two tribes tonight.

Ephraim and Asher will jump into them, go to school with the two tribes here.

We'll jump into them.

The lesson from Ephraim is one of tragedy, that prominence without faithfulness equals tragedy.

Ephraim is certainly a tragic tribe.

Ephraim is one of Jacob's Joseph's two sons.

Remember, he had Ephraim and Manasseh.

Ephraim is prominence without faithfulness.

He was blessed.

He was dominant, but ultimately divided and judged.

Ephraim was the second of Joseph's sons.

So you remember, Manasseh was older than Ephraim.

Manasseh should have received the blessing.

As Joseph was getting older, Jacob was about to die.

Joseph knew that he got a double blessing.

Remember, Joseph saved the other tribes.

He saved Israel through starvation, through the famine.

He's the one, even though they tried to murder him, he forgave his brothers and fed them and multiplied Israel.

Because of Joseph's kindness, you get millions of Israelites instead of zero of Israelites.

That's the way it should have played out.

But Joseph was used to rescue them.

And so because of Levi's loss of land, Joseph was to divide his two children, Manasseh and Ephraim, and they were to be blessed.

Ephraim was the one that was blessed over Manasseh.

He was Manasseh's younger brother.

And Joseph went to have him blessed, and Jacob aimed for Manasseh and settled on Ephraim and wouldn't take no for an answer.

And so Ephraim had this like really ridiculous blessing.

They shouldn't have been as blessed as they are.

But that's the way God's election works.

That's the way Jacob was chosen, remember?

Esau was older than Jacob.

That didn't slow God down, didn't slow Jacob down, aggravated Esau until the day he died.

He fought God over it.

And later on in his life, when he wanted to repent, he couldn't, even though he begged God with tears.

And so Ephraim becomes a very similar story to Jacob.

They settle in the land and they become a dominant tribe.

They were so blessed by God.

Remember, Manasseh is so bugged by this, the tribe of Manasseh doesn't even cross the river.

They live on the fringes.

Kind of whatever it is, Israel, and they fall into captivity.

But Ephraim, they're riding high.

They should be the most blessed of the tribes.

Judah gets the king, but Ephraim should be the most blessed.

And they settle right in the middle of Israel.

You look at a map of Israel, Ephraim is like the bullseye.

They get the best land.

It's where the airport is now, the Tel Aviv airport, right there, right outside of Jerusalem, the fertile hills, the green rolling hills.

That's where Ephraim got.

They got the best land, really.

But they forfeited it so fast.

Because without faithfulness, their privilege became pride.

Their privilege became division.

Remember in the book of Judges, Ephraim's the one that's provoking fights with the other tribes.

They're provoking their brothers to anger and wrath, and eventually civil war breaks out because of Ephraim.

Even though they're close to Jerusalem, they went on to become the north.

They joined the north.

After Solomon died and Rehabam and split the kingdom, Rehobam and Jeroboam split.

Rehabam and the south in Jerusalem, and Jeroboam and the north took the north ten tribes away.

Ephraim went with those tribes, bounced on their brothers, left the covenant behind, left Jerusalem behind, left the tribe of Judah and the promise of the kingdom behind to start in and folding with the north.

And they begin to dominate the north too.

They're the older brother that picks on everybody.

They begin to dominate the north, so much so that by the end of the Old Testament, the word Ephraim just stands in for the North tribes.

At first they were called Israel, but the Messianic promise settles in with Judah, and so Judah becomes true Israel.

And Ephraim is just what the north is called.

They're taken into exile, of course.

They're taken into exile.

There is a story of tragedy.

And we join that tragedy in 1 Chronicles chapter 7.

1 Chronicles 7 · chapter mention

Look at verse 20.

The sons of Ephraim, Shutilah and Barod his son, and Tahath his son, and Eladiah his son, and Tahath his son.

Zabad was his son, Shethilah his son, and Ezar and Eliad, whom the men of Gath were born in, whom the men of Gath who were born in the land killed.

Because they came down to raid their livestock.

So there's just a little narrative twist in this.

So far in 1 Chronicles, you've just been getting names, names, names, names, names.

Oh, and here's two names.

They were both murdered.

So it's worth pausing when the chronicler throws in a little narrative, flourish like that, and asking, why that story?

Of all the crazy things in Israel's history, why do we get the story of Ephraim's great-great-grandsons murdered in the land?

Well, notice who killed them, the men of Gath who were born in the land.

They should have been driven out.

But Ephraim did not take care of their business, and so they left enemies in the land.

And so they're the descendants of Ephraim the man, his great-great-great-grandsons or whatever, are murdered in the land.

Couldn't protect their own livestock.

And they were killed.

Ephraim, their father, mourned many days.

And his brother came to comfort him.

Everybody's gathering around and weeping over the murder of these two kids.

It's tragic.

Ephraim went into his wife then, and she conceived and bore a son.

And he called his name Bariah.

Because disaster had befallen his house.

Bariah is a word that means disaster.

So that's lame.

What's your name?

Disaster?

Okay.

How many times do you say that's your name?

What's the person obviously gonna ask?

Whoever you meet your whole life.

What's the disaster?

Like they might even mean it as a pun.

You're like, what's the disaster?

Not knowing, oh, well, the kids that my dad loved, they were all murdered.

And so my parents reluctantly had me.

That's a disaster.

You know, it stands out because so much of the chronicles is just names, names, names, names, names.

You have this little narrative and then the prayer of Jabez.

That's why the prayer of Jabez is so famous.

Somebody should write a book called The Prayer of Bariah or something.

I mean, you're just reading a list of names and suddenly you're at a funeral.

The lesson from this, of course, is that covenant members are not exempt from grief.

God's people bury their children too.

Anyway, disaster falls on his house.

His daughter was Sherea in verse 24, who built both lower and upper Betharon and Uzan Sherah.

So she's out there building cities.

She's basically abandoned by her family.

They're all mourning her relatives and with a brother that nobody wants.

Well, everybody else is weeping.

The next generation is building.

And that is, I don't know, I don't want to read too much in this little flourish, but it is put in here for us to study for a second and think about.

It is very interesting.

While the parents are weeping, while the kid is named disaster and the whole family is focused on there, you've got the one sibling, this girl, who nobody's paying any attention to, is out building whole civilizations.

She's out doing work.

Well, everybody else is grieving.

It goes too far to say that grieving is wrong or anything like that, but obviously grieving dominated their family's life so much they named the new son after it.

Meanwhile, the daughter is out there building a world.

Anyway, the kids go on, verse 25, Raipah and Reshef and Telah and Tehan, Laden, Ahmed, it says, Elishima, his son, and then verse 27, Nun his son, and Joshua his son.

So Joshua comes from this line.

This line of tragedy, this line of grief.

Joshua comes from that line.

Remember, Joshua is the one who marched around Jericho, the walls fell, and he led the people into the promised land.

So if you're wondering, why did Ephraim get the best land?

Who did the dividing?

Joshua.

I know it was by lot and by the Lord's will, but you know, it was Joshua's drawn those lots.

And Ephraim gets the best land.

The lesson from this is that disaster can lead, of course, to blessing.

Ephraim is the tribe that had everything but couldn't escape the sorrow of loss and suffering.

And yet there's this thread in this tribe that will rebuild.

There's this thread in this tribe that will conquer cities and build cities.

And it's a very Joshua-like thread.

It's a life of tragedy, a life of blessing by God mixed with tragedy, but ultimately deliverance at the end.

The tribe that buried its sons at the beginning of his genealogy ends up securing the entire promised land for the rest of his brothers.

That's Ephraim.

Promise without faithfulness equals tragedy.

And that is their whole tribe takes on that ethos.

I know other tribes had kids die too, but none that are noted in this.

I mean, obviously, all these people died.

So the author, by drawing your attention to this, is letting you know like this is what this tribe is like.

That's the lesson of Ephraim.

Tragedy.

Lesson of Asher.

Asher is the opposite of Ephraim.

Asher is stability.

Asher is the son that nobody else remembers.

I mean, who cares about Asher?

Nobody remembers him.

Zilpha was his mom, Leah's servant, so not the attractive wife, but the other wife.

That servant.

In other words, this is the least favorite of the moms.

They have Asher.

So Asher's the forgotten child.

But Asher goes on to have a tribe that is stability.

An overlooked child who believes the promises and creates a tribe that likewise believes the promises.

Asher shows that God's goodness expressed in provision and stability and quiet participation in his plans and promises.

If Judah had the promise, think of it this way: if Judah had the promise of kingship and Levi had the promise of worship, Asher has the promise of stability.

It's not a big promise, right?

If you got to choose for the king coming from you or the priest coming from you, or a quiet, stable and overlooked life, which would you choose?

You know?

Of course you'd want the king.

Of course, the promise of priesthood is amazing, but I think there's some wisdom in saying, you know what?

The promise to lead a stable and quiet life and then be forgotten when I die is actually pretty appealing, you know.

To the young person, that's like, oh, who would want that?

Power and glory in the kingship.

But the older person might say, you know what, the promise to just be stable and float off the pages is alluring.

That's Asher.

And that's foreshadowed in his blessing.

When Jacob blesses Asher, pulls him aside, and his promise.

Remember, Jacob gets the Judah gets the kingship and Levi judgment and dispersion, and all the all the kids get something.

But Asher gets good fruit, good food with royal delicacies.

That's Genesis 49, 20.

That kid is promised good food with royal delicacies.

What in the world kind of promise is that?

That's not a promise of preeminence.

That's not a promise of judgment, and it's not a promise of really rescue.

It's a promise that you and your descendants will eat tasty food.

All right.

Never in charge, but well fed.

It's like the Italians.

There might be a better analogy, I don't know.

By the way, Moses repeats that prayer when Moses is dying.

Remember, Moses on his deathbed, as much as you can call it a deathbed, his death rock or whatever, goes back to the 12 tribes and repeats the promises to them.

And to Asher, this is Deuteronomy 33.

I'll read it.

You can listen or you can flip there if you want, but you can also track with your ears.

Deuteronomy 33 of Asher, Moses said, Most blessed of sons be Asher.

Just pause for a second.

Most blessed of all the tribes be Asher.

It's a strange thing for Moses to pray.

Let him be the favorite of all his brothers, and let him dip his foot in oil.

That's kind of cool.

That's how you make the olive oil as you step on it.

In other words, it's going to be abundance for him.

Your bars will be iron and bronze, and as your days, so shall your strength be.

There is no one like God, O Jerushim, which is kind of a sarcastic name for Israel, who rides to the heavens to your help, through the skies to his majesty.

The eternal God will be your dwelling place.

And underneath her the everlasting arms, and he will thrust out the enemy before you and destroy them.

That's Moses' deathbred prayer.

And he says, Asher is going to be the best of the twelve tribes.

All Jacob promised Asher was good food.

And Moses says, Man, you are, you're good, he's taking that to the extreme.

You're going to be prancing in olive oil with the best home security system, bars in all your gates.

Now, Moses praised us before they entered the promised land, before the land is assigned.

He says, You'll drive out your enemies and you'll have peace.

So when Asher comes in the promised land, they get, it's an overlooked part of Israel.

Like tour groups don't go there.

So I'd be surprised if any of you went there.

I do think the uh the ICS trip, the Emmanuel Christian High School trip that went to Israel, I do think they went there.

But it's not a common place to go.

It's behind Mount Carmel.

So Mount Carmel goes up to the ocean.

South of that is where Dan was supposed to go, Jaffa and where Jonah went out from.

But the other side of that, all the way up to Lebanon, that's where Asher gets.

It is rolling green hills.

I've never been there.

I've seen pictures.

Rolling green hills along the coast.

You can have like the best of the crops, and you can walk on the beach every night.

That's Asher.

And it's so hard to conquer.

There's no highways that go through it.

The highway from the valley of Armageddon goes above it over into Lebanon.

So it's nestled in there, safe and secure.

There's not, I don't even think there's a highway that goes there today.

You got to go out of your way to get there, but it's it's fun.

I looked it up this afternoon, imagining what would a tourist be doing in Israel right now, other than bomb shelters.

You could go here and like they have a cable car that goes up the mountain and overlooks the green fields.

It's kind of fun.

Maybe one day.

That's Asher.

And they get to live in strength and stability.

What's the danger with that?

Like there's a blessing to this.

Of course, there's a blessing, but what's the danger?

The danger is that you learn to love your food and your stability rather than the Lord.

And that is what happens to Asher.

As the generations go by, they stop sending people to Jerusalem to worship.

They don't need to go through the valley of Megiddo or Armageddon.

They can just stay up where they want to stay and eat their olive oil dipped food all day long.

If the warning of Dan was that idolatry destroys, if the warning of Ephraim is that politics destroys, the warning of Asher is that comfort can be lethal.

They settled into a life where they did not seek the Lord urgently.

So, in a sense, there's a danger with Asher.

Like, who wouldn't want stability and nice food?

But the danger is delighting in the comforts rather than the God who gives him, who gives them.

It is possible to be blessed by God and still be spiritually stagnant.

That's Asher.

That's Asher.

And you see that in 1 Chronicles 7, by the way, you're just back to the names.

The sons of Asher.

I'm not going to read you all the names, but you get some names in there.

Verse 32, you get a sister thrown in there.

The names multiply and multiply.

By the end, they're strong.

Look down at verse 40.

All these were the men of Asher, heads of the fathers' houses, approved mighty warriors, chiefs of the princes.

The number enrolled by genealogies for service in war was 26,000 men.

They got a massive army to defend Israel if they wanted to.

A massive army.

Not every chapter is a tragedy.

Asher's wasn't.

Sometimes God works through tragedy, like Ephraim, and sometimes he works through stability, like Asher.

And you can even put them in a comparison to each other.

It's very interesting the way the chronicler ends.

He's not going through the birth order of these kids.

He's putting them in this order so that he ends the 12 tribes.

Remember, Benjamin will save for next week, but he ends the 12 tribes with this contrast.

Some of the tribes had tragedy, and some of the tribes had stability.

God works through both of them.

God works through both of them.

Ephraim, God goes through death and grief to blessing and strength and victory.

Through Asher, God goes through comfort and provision, being well fed into a steady routine.

So with this on the screen, it is worth just thinking about your own life for a second and asking what is the danger in your life?

Some of you might be in an Ephraim period where you feel like you're going through tragedy, or a Bariah period, like forget tragedy, you're naming your tragedy.

Some of you might be going through an Asher period where life is just stable.

And it's easy to undervalue that, but it's easy to overlook the danger.

The New Testament extols both of these.

The New Testament teaches you that God works through trials to sanctify you.

James tells you that God takes you through trials, fiery testing of your faith to burn away that which isn't true and good and pure.

So what's left with that endures the test of fire gives you confidence in your salvation.

There's a huge blessing to trials because when you come out the other side of a trial, you are massively sanctified and have extreme confidence in your faith.

James also extols Asher.

James 1, every good and perfect gift is from above.

Paul extols Asher.

1 Thessalonians 4 11, work quietly with your hands, minding your own business.

I know people that get bugged by that verse.

Why is the Bible telling me to work quietly with my hands?

Shouldn't I have a dream to change the world for Jesus?

Sure, you can have a dream to change the world for Jesus, but don't undervalue the virtue of just working quietly with your hands, staying out of trouble, minding your own business as you serve the Lord in the background.

That's Asher, and the New Testament extols it as well.

By the way, famous, the most famous person from Asher, it's probably arbitrary.

I say the most famous person from Asher is Anna, the widow, who is minding her business in the temple, waiting for years.

Her husband died, she's forgotten, she's hanging out in the temple for years, waiting for Jesus.

Like that is the most Asher thing possible.

Just stable provision, waiting for the Savior to come.

Elderly, unknown, and waiting for Jesus.

That's the picture of stability.

And she went through a trial to get there, of course.

Philippians 4.12 is the lesson for us.

That God's work in your life is seen in both tragedy and stability, where Paul says, whether it's abundance or need, I will serve Christ.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, whether he gives me an Asher life or an Ephraim life.

Blessing, instability, or trials and loss, I can be content in both circumstances, Paul says.

I can be content in both circumstances.

Remember that God doesn't only work through tragedy, but he works through the ordinary, quiet faithfulness of Asher as well.

Now, in the end, if you go back to these tribes, you'll recognize that all twelve of these tribes have their fulfillment in Christ.

All these lessons are pointing you towards Jesus.

It's not just a silly like Jesus Duke at the end of the lesson of the 12 tribes, but it really is interesting how each of these tribes find their culmination or fulfillment in the person of Christ.

It's so obvious even with Asher, where Anna's waiting in the temple to hold Jesus when he's born.

But you can go through this list on your own and make all those connections for yourself.

For the mourning and the rejoicing, for those crying in life and those cruising through stability in life, the gospel is enough for all of those people.

The New Testament truly does show that the hopes and fears of all these tribes are met in Christ as he brings their story to completion.

Lord, we're grateful that Jesus from the line of Judah represents the ones those from Asher were waiting.

Jesus from the line of Judah brings Ephraim back as Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 31, is not Ephraim my son?

God says.

Perhaps even people feel like they're named Bariah.

I pray they would find their confidence and contentment in you.

I know many people in this congregation are leading relatively stable lives.

I pray that you would guard us from the apathy of Asher.

Guard us from just loving our food, loving our jobs, loving our provision.

Give us a sense of urgency like Anna as we eagerly await you.

There's so much truth in these twelve tribes.

We're thankful tonight for Ephraim and Asher, the lessons they have for us.

We give you thanks for them.

Seal them in our heart, we ask.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

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