Genesis 47. Let me start reading
in verse 13. And there was no bread in all
the land, for the famine was very sore, so that the land of
Egypt and all the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine. And Joseph gathered up all the
money that was found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of
Canaan, for the corn which they bought, and Joseph brought the
money into Pharaoh's house. And when money fell in the land
of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph."
Can't you just see the Gentiles coming to the Lord Jesus Christ?
When I read that, I thought of us Gentiles coming to Christ.
All the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, Give us bread, for
why should we die in thy presence? For the money faileth. And Joseph
said, Give your cattle, and I will give you for your cattle if money
fail. And they brought their cattle
unto Joseph, and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for horses,
and for the flocks, and for the cattle of the herds, and for
the asses, and he fed them with bread for all their cattle for
that year. When that year was ended, they
came unto him the second year, and said unto him, We will not
hide it from my Lord how that our money is spent, My Lord also
hath our herds, our cattle. There is not aught left in the
sight of my Lord, but our bodies and our hands. Wherefore shall
we die before thine eyes, both we and our land by us and our
land for bread. And we and our land will be servants
unto Pharaoh. and give us seed that we may
live and not die, that the land be not desolate.' And Joseph
bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for the Egyptians
sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them.
So the land became Pharaoh's, and as for the people, he removed
them to cities from one end of the borders of Egypt even to
the other end thereof. Only the land of the priest bought
he not, for the priest had a portion assigned them of Pharaoh, and
did eat their portion with Pharaoh, which Pharaoh gave them, wherefore
they sold not their lands. Then Joseph said unto the people,
Behold, I have bought you this day, and your land for Pharaoh. For lo, here is seed for you,
and you shall sow the land. I titled this lesson, Joseph
delivers all to Pharaoh. Joseph being a type of the Lord
Jesus Christ, as we know, and here, Pharaoh, I'm gonna use
as a type of the Father. And everything that Joseph does,
all that he accumulates, he turns it over to Pharaoh. And we will
see how that our Lord Jesus Christ When all this is over, we'll
deliver up everything to the Father. That's what it tells
us in 1 Corinthians, I think it's 15. But we'll get there.
Now it says in verse 13, there's no bread in the land because
of the famine. Because the famine was sore in
the land, there's no bread. And I tell you what, where there's
no bread, there's no life, there's no hope. They are starving to
death. Nothing that they planted prospered. Everything they did died. They
couldn't grow grass. It was so dead. The famine was
so sore in the land. And without Christ, the bread
of life, there is no life. We have no life apart from the
Lord Jesus Christ. I know we have natural life,
but we don't have spiritual life without the Lord Jesus Christ.
And without Christ, there's no hope. There's no hope. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only hope a sinner has before God. Listen to Ephesians 2.12. Paul writes that at that time
you were without Christ. He was talking to these Gentiles,
Ephesian Gentiles, and he said, there was a time you were without
Christ. And listen, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel
and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope. If
you do not have, if I do not have the Lord Jesus Christ, there
is no hope. There's no hope. He said, having
no hope and without God in the world. If I have not Christ,
I have not God. If I have Christ, I have God. Emmanuel, God with us. Now we see in verse 14 how Joseph
owned all the money in the land of Egypt. They brought all the
money in the land of Egypt. The old saying is, money is power. Whoever has all the money has
all the power, right? All the currency, all that's
in this world belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. The money
in my billfold, the money in your billfold, in your bank account,
in my bank account, belongs to Christ, doesn't it? It doesn't
belong to me, it's my money. No, it's not, it's His money.
Remember here at the end of this, that everything was turned over
to Pharaoh, and then he, well, I'm getting ahead of myself,
but he gives them seed, and he blesses them by giving this seed
to sow, and then he says, now fifth part, you give back to
Pharaoh. In other words, you give back
what you've been given, because what you have, you've been given. All belongs to the Lord Jesus
Christ. My money, my, and it says here
in verse 15, notice this, and when their money failed, how
many times has that happened? When their money failed. All
you gotta do is look at history. The Great Depression, money failed. It will fail every time. Solomon
said, riches have wings and they fly away. They fly away. Everything, and one thing we
will see here, how that everything failed during his famine except
Joseph. Whatever Joseph was over, whatever
his hand was on, did not fail. Everything else failed. Everything
in this life will fail. Everything. Sooner or later,
it'll fail. Everything failed but Joseph.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the only person who cannot, did not,
will not fail. as it is written in Isaiah 42,
"'Behold My servant, he shall not fail.'" It's not possible. It's not possible. And then you'll
see there in verses 16 and 17, after the money failed, they
came to Joseph, and then they brought all their horses, their
flocks, and their cattle, everything they owned, all their possessions
became Joseph's. They gave all that over to Him. As a man said to me one time
that I was working with, he said concerning his wife, he said,
you know, I've learned that her money is her money and my money
is her money. That's the way it is with the
Lord Jesus Christ. All that's His is His and all
that's mine is His. Really? It is. All that's mine
is His. Joseph owns everything. And then in verses 18 and 19,
the year ended. When that year ended, they were
still just as dependent on Joseph as ever before. The year ended
and there was still a famine. We will always depend on our
Lord to supply our needs. There's never a time in our life
as believers, there will never be a time in our life that we
can now go on by ourself. We depend on the Lord Jesus Christ
right now as much as the day we began. The year ended and they still,
they still were completely dependent on Joseph. over in Philippians 4. Look over
in Philippians 4. I want you to read it. This is a scripture that came
to my mind as I was studying this. In Philippians 4.19, he says, shall supply all your need according
to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Never apart from Him. Always
by Him, through Him, in Him. But God shall supply all your
need according to His riches in glory
by Christ Jesus. There's never a time that we
can go alone. Never a time. And from time to
time, the Lord has to remind us of this. From time to time,
He has to remind us of our dependence upon Him. And notice what they say here
in these verses here, 18 and 19. They say, buy us. They're
in verse 19. Purchase us. by us and our land." Now, see,
Joseph has all their money. Joseph has all their cattle.
And now Joseph is going to have all their land. He's going to
own all the land now. Through this famine, Joseph is
going to own everything. Everything. And they say to him, buy us and
our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto
Pharaoh. And give us seed that we may
live and not die, that the land be not desolate. Buy us willing
servants. When I read that, my first thought,
My first thought was, Lord, purchase me. Let your blood, this is my
first thought, I wrote it down here. Let your blood be propitiation
for me. Purchase me, buy me. Sold out,
lock, stock and barrel to the Lord Jesus Christ. What we see
here is willing servants, by us, and we will serve you in
Pharaoh. We'll serve you, willing servants. Because if you don't, listen,
if you don't, we're gonna die. Do you really realize that? Give
me Christ or else I die. If I do not have Christ, if he
does not purchase me with his blood and put away my sin, I'm
going to die. And I don't mean just die and
be buried out here in the ground. I'm gonna die eternally. I'm
gonna end up tasting that second death the scripture speaks of.
Purchase me. And then verse 20, and Joseph
bought it all. We see this here in verse 20.
And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh. Now he's
got their money, he's got their possessions, and now he's got
their land. Land that had been passed down
and families owned it, now it all belongs to Joseph. Joseph
bought all the land of Egypt for who? Pharaoh. You notice how selfless he is
in this, Joseph is? He doesn't take any of it for
himself. He does it for Pharaoh. All that our Lord has done, he
has done for the glory of his father. He bought all the land of Egypt
for Pharaoh, for the Egyptians sold every man his field because
the famine prevailed over them. That's right, sin. I tell you
what, because of sin, The Scripture says that we are
sold under sin. But Christ has purchased us.
He's purchased us. And now we're His servants. We're
not our servants. We're His servants. But Joseph here, he buys this.
He buys all of it for Pharaoh. It says in Revelation 11 and
15, And the seventh angel sounded,
and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms
of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His
Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever." This world and all that's in
it, they belong to our Lord by creation. But it also all belongs to Him
by purchase. He made it all. And in a sense,
He purchased it all. It's all His. All the kingdoms
are His. And then He has a special people
in this world that He purchased. They are His. And then notice what Joseph does
in verse 21. Joseph moved the people to the
cities. He took them, moved them off
their lands and put them in cities. I see here the sovereignty of
our Lord. Joseph moves them to cities because
they're His. They sold themselves, their land,
their cattle, their money, everything's His. And Joseph did with them
as he saw fit. And he moved them to the cities,
all of them. Our Lord puts us where He will. You were not accidentally
born or living in Spring Lake, North Carolina. God put you here. And the Lord put me here. He
brought me here. God moves His people where He
will. Not only does He move His people
where He will, He moves this whole world where He will. You
see people start migrating to a place and then all of a sudden
you've got these cities that rise up. Well, they didn't just
happen to do that. The will of God's in that. The
purpose of God's in that. He moved them to those cities
as He sovereignly saw fit. Now, Joseph said to the people
there in verse 23, I have bought you and your land for Pharaoh. You're not your own. You know
what it says in Corinthians? You've been bought with a price.
You are not your own. And the sooner we realize this,
the better. It's really not, what am I going
to do today? What do I want to do today? You
know, me and Vicki have asked each other, what are we going
to do today? What would the Lord have me do today? Or Lord, direct
my steps. And I need to recognize every
day that the Lord is directing my steps. I'm not just walking. I'm not on a stroll. It's not
a stroll I'm on. The Lord is directing my steps. It is written in 1 Corinthians
15, 24, Then cometh the end. When he shall have delivered
up the kingdom to God, that is the Lord Jesus Christ, will have
delivered up the kingdom to God, the whole church, even the Father. When he shall have put down all
rule and all authority and all power. And when the end comes,
he's delivering it all up. What did it say here? Joseph
said, I bought you and your land for Pharaoh. Christ is coming
to this world. He has purchased everything.
Everything, everything is gonna be delivered up to the Father
through the Lord Jesus Christ. And then verse 23, Joseph blessed
the people by giving them seed to sow. First of all, all blessings
come to us through the Lord Jesus Christ. All blessings. Come to us. Don't ever think,
well, I'm really intelligent here. This is really happening
because of my intelligence. No, the Lord's a blessing. He
blessed you with intelligence. Who gave you that? I had to say
to a man that I know very well that's rich, that's what I call
rich, he was talking about his accumulations and what was going
on and stuff. And I had to tell him, I said,
you know, the Lord said, I make rich and I make poor. I lift up and I bring down. And Joseph takes now, he takes
the seed and he gives it to the people that they may sow and that they may live and they
are blessed. through him, just as we are blessed
through the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything we have, God's given
it to us through him. But he tells him here in verse
24, a portion is to be given back to Pharaoh. Isn't that what
we do here? We bring our portion in here
and put it in the offering and support this ministry, we support
the gospel. You know, we don't bring in our
whole paychecks and put it in there. It's just, think about
this. Everything you and I have, God's
given to us. You know, if you have a gift,
if I give you $1,000 or let's say I give you a million dollar
gift, how much of that does the government take? About 50%, what
is it, about 50, 40, 50%? That's about 40, 50%. All they had to do was bring
one-fifth. They were able to keep four.
All they did was bring a tenth. Even under the law, all they
did was bring 10%. You and I don't pay 10% taxes. It's more than that. How generous our Lord is to us. How little, really, how little
we give back compared to what God's given to us. Especially
when you consider salvation, when you consider you're not
going to hell. You're not gonna be under God's
wrath forever and ever and ever. Whatever we give is little, whatever
it is. And the people recognize, in
verse 25, they recognize Joseph as saving their life. They recognize
Him as their Savior. They say, You've saved us. And
they said, Thou hast saved our lives. Isn't that not what our
Lord has done? He has saved us from our sins. He has saved our lives. He's
given us life and He's saved our lives. Let us find grace
in thy sight." That's all we want. Lord, let me find grace
in your sight. Unmerited favor. They knew, they
were brought down so low, they knew that if Joseph did anything
for them, it would be grace. It would be grace. Oh, he said, let us find grace
in thy sight. Oh my Lord, and we'll be Pharaoh's servants.
I wrote out by that, whose servant are you? Whose servant am I? We sent somebody, not our own. Oh, they say, we'll be Pharaoh's
servants, willing servants. If we find grace in your sight,
we'll be willing servants. Then we see here, Joseph made
it a law, I mean, first of all, verse 26, Joseph made it a law
over the land of Egypt unto this day that Pharaoh should have
the fifth part, except the land of the priest, which became not
Pharaoh's. And then verse 27, it just takes
another direction. But I'm going to go ahead and
finish this out. It takes another direction. The focus turns to
Israel, Jacob. It turns to Jacob. And he dwelt
in the land of Egypt in the country of Goshen. And they had possessions
therein and grew and multiplied exceedingly. Well, all this famine's
going on. All this famine's going on. They
are growing. They're multiplying. It says
exceedingly. But I noticed here, and this
is the thought that came to me, Israel lives in Egypt, just as
we live in this world, and he had possessions in Egypt, just
as we have possessions here. It's not wrong to own anything. It's fine to own a house as long
as it doesn't own you. As long as what you possess does
not possess you. That's the difference. But he
had possessions there. But remember, they're just temporary
possessions. That's why the Scripture says,
set your heart on things above where Christ sits, at God's right
hand. So you're going to give everything up. In a little while,
you and I are going to give everything up. I say this to Vicki often. She probably gets tired of me
saying it. But I tell her often, and this, of course, I think
of aging. I'm getting older, she's getting
older, we're getting older. And I say it to her, I said,
let's enjoy what the Lord's given us today, and let's learn to
enjoy each other today. And tomorrow comes, let's enjoy
each other, and let's enjoy the time we have together, because
there's coming a time, this is gonna be dissolved. It's gonna be dissolved. I said,
let's learn to enjoy it. And she's, you know, full agreement.
She's full agreement. But I realized that because verse
29, And the time drew nigh that Israel must die. Now, I don't
know my time. I don't want to know it. I do
know that my times are in His hands. I know that. But I know there's a time I must
die. We all have to die. And this ought to get our attention. What is the most important thing
to you? It better be your relationship,
my relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the most important. I really believe that if that
is sought after, everything else just falls in place. Everything
else. As the Lord sees fit. And in verse 29, 31, Israel,
he wants to be buried with his fathers. He said, don't leave
me here in the land of Egypt. Carry me back and bury me with
my fathers. When we die, I've already mentioned
this, but when we die, we want to be carried to paradise by
our Lord. We want to be with Him. Paul
said, having a desire to depart and be with the Lord. There is
a real desire to depart and be with the Lord. And I think that
desire grows as we get older in the Lord. If we grow and mature
in Christ, that desire grows. Now when you're young and you
have kids, you have young children, you wanna live and take care
of them. I understand that, I've been there. You wanted to raise
your children, you wanna do that. But I think as we mature in Christ
and we grow in Him, we have a desire to depart and be with Him. I
don't want to stay here. You want to stay here, Ed? You
don't want to stay here. Here is just trouble. Here is
just trouble. I don't want to stay here. Lord,
take me home to be with you and the rest of the family. I want
to be with the family. All right, that's it.