JOSEPH #50 | JOSEPH IN EGYPT #32 | LAST WORDS OF JACOB #21
Pastor Christopher Choo
Lesson 3646
JOSEPH #50
JOSEPH IN EGYPT #32
LAST WORDS OF JACOB #21
10. NAPHTALI #2
"Leaving Nazareth He went and lived in Capernaum …so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: ‘The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali… Galilee of the Gentiles — the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light’” (Matt. 4:13–16).
Capernaum was located in the former northern kingdom of Israel, in the area allocated to Zebulun and Naphtali, tribes lost to the Assyrian invasion and later exile.
Jesus used Napthali territory as His ministry base and started His evangelistic mission there which, as Matthew tells us, is the fullest realization of Isaiah's prophecy in Isaiah 9:1–2 that the inhabitants there have seen a great light - the dawning of their Messiah who is the Light of the world!
In Jesus, the Father is doing what many had thought impossible: He is restoring the vanished northern tribes to worship and throwing off the yoke of sin, the greatest of all oppressors.
Moreover, Christ’s merciful willingness to heal and preach to the nations drew crowds from even the Gentile Decapolis (Matt. 4:25). Thus His ministry attracted even the Gentiles!
By His life, death, and resurrection, Jesus did the work needed to bring repentance and life to God’s elect from every nation and to inaugurate the restoration of all things (Amos 9:11–12; Acts 1:6–11).
Men of faith longed for this future and were dismayed when sin remained.
By the time of the Babylonian Captivity, Daniel - who himself was taken captive to Babylon - saw that his people had not repented, but he asked the Lord to return the tribes of Israel to their land anyway (9:1–19). God graciously did just that through the Persian king Cyrus (2 Chron. 36:22–23), but the glorious restoration God promised did not materialize.
This restoration was still a possibility if those who bore His name would repent (Deut. 30:1–10; Zech. 8:14–17).
However, by the end of the Old Testament period, it was clear that repentance and restoration were going to be delayed (Mal. 4:5–6).
Of course, God knew the people would not turn to Him immediately and purposed to bring about the full and final restoration of His people Himself. He sent His Son as Israel’s representative, to gather in the northern tribes and reunite them with Christ’s own tribe of Judah.
This is the point of today’s passage.
Another prophet Ezekiel made it clear that upon the repentance of all of God’s people, our Lord would restore the twelve tribes of Israel to the Promised Land and bring eternal blessings (37:15–28).
God allowed both His faithful remnant and the wicked to go into exile but would bring them back when the faithful turned from their sin and trusted Him.
Great numbers of Gentiles who had been converted to the one, true God and who would serve the Messiah would also share in this glorious restoration.
Let us pray that spiritual leaders will catch the vision that until the world accepts Christ as the answer, divisive religious and political differences will remain.
This is the Endtime contribution of Napthali as a tribe for our warning and exhortation - that like his doe emblem, we must rise to the challenge - to spawn more believers in Christ by sharing the gospel in fulfilment of our calling to be His ministers of reconciliation.
