I'm gonna ask you to take your
Bibles and turn with me to the book of Genesis chapter 46. Genesis chapter 46. We previously considered the journey of Jacob as Jacob
was preparing to leave Canaan, and he was going to Egypt. He was going to see his son,
Joseph. And the Lord had spoken to this
servant, Jacob, and he told him, in Genesis 46, verses 1 to 7. I won't read that
for the sake of time, but I've got a few verses that I'm going
to be looking at. But he told him in Genesis 46
verses 1 to 7, he said, fear not to go down into Egypt. Don't be afraid. I'm going to
be with you. I'm going to guide you. I'm going
to direct you. And so Jacob is assured, he has nothing
to be afraid of. He's going to be fine. The Lord
has told him that he will make of Jacob a great nation. He's told him that, I'm gonna
make of you a great nation. Now, in this particular passage
of scripture that we've come to, I've been, I looked at verse,
just verses one to seven, And after looking at verses 1 to
7, verses 8 through verse 27 basically is dealing with the
genealogy. It lists all the names of Jacob's
family. And I looked at it, and I'm just
gonna share my heart with you as I was looking at this. I started
looking at all those names. I've gone over them and over
them and over them, trying to see if I could pronounce them.
But I've decided you could go back and read them. It's just
the names of all the household of Jacob. It's his people, it's
his family. And we come to that portion now,
verses eight through 27, and we've come to see the exact number
of how many of Israel's family is coming into Egypt. It told,
it gave their names, it gave the families, it gave who was
whose son and whose was who. It mentioned one daughter and
one granddaughter, And I looked at those and I'd like to not
read every name, you can read them, it's just the names, it
was the names of the people, but what I'd like to do is I
want to consider not every detail of Jacob's genealogy, but I would
like for us to consider a few points. of these people that
were mentioned, and I want us to remember that in the recording
of all these names, you can go back and read them, it's just
the names, it's these Hebrew names that sometimes we have
a hard time pronouncing, and I struggled with how to handle
this, how to handle this particular passage of scripture, this family
with all these names. But here's one thing that I want
to just read, verses 26 and 27, and then we'll continue on. Verse 26, 27. Here's what the
scripture says concerning all of those people that went in
to the land of Egypt. All the souls that came with
Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob's
sons, wives, all the souls were threescore and six. And the sons
of Joseph, which were born him in Egypt, were two souls, all
the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore
and ten. So here we've come to realize,
we look at all these names, here's all the names, this one, this
one, this one, on and on and on. But here's what I know about
them. All of them that came out of
Canaan, They were coming to Egypt. They were coming there, they
were being led by Jacob. Jacob, the dad, they're gonna
make it, they're coming home. They're all coming home. They're
gonna go to Egypt. Not their final home, but they're
coming where God's gonna put them. And as I read that, I looked
at those names, and I just kept going over and over, and this
scripture came back to my mind. All scripture, 2 Timothy 3, 16,
all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and it's profitable. It's advantageous. It's profitable. For doctrine, that is for teaching,
for reproof, that is, that which is a thing to be proven. This is going to prove something. All these scriptures is given
to prove a fact, to prove the truth of. All things for correction,
that is, the restoration to an upright state. These scriptures
are given for instruction in righteousness. Now you've heard
that. But I was looking up these words. I want to know all these
names of these people. The Spirit of God had a reason
for this. For instruction in righteousness. That is the doctrine
concerning the way in which man attains a state of approval before
God. The scriptures tell you how.
how men and women stand before God, by God's grace, approved
and accepted. That the man of God may be perfect,
throughly furnished, that is, completely finished. These scriptures
tells us exactly how God has done what he's done, and he's
done it the way he purposed to do it, and he finished it, perfectly
finished it. unto all good works. So now,
while we may not consider or realize the fullness of every
name, like I said, you go back and read all the names. I've
read them. I don't know how many times I've
read them. Practice it, practice it, practice it. I'm gonna pronounce
them right. When I read some scriptures to
you, I'm gonna try to say it correctly. exactly how the spirit
of, but I don't want to consider that. I don't want to consider
and read every name, but all these names, I began to realize
that these were a particular people, a particular people that
God Almighty is directing, guiding into Egypt. It made me consider
this passage. and realize that Almighty God
has a people. And they were a picture. They
were a type. And they're all being drawn by the Lord to go
to Egypt. God is directing them. That's
how God directs His people. There's a purpose and a reason. This book right here is setting
forth exactly how God Almighty is bringing His people to Himself. I've said this so many times,
you just don't realize how many times I've thought about how
all of us got together. God got us here. The Lord put
us in this place. Robert Hawker, one of the old
writers, I love reading Mr. Hawker, he's an outstanding writer. He noted this, that it had been,
now it had been 200 years Mr. Hawker said, since God had promised
to make Abraham a great nation. And as of this point, what we're
gonna be looking at tonight for just a few minutes, as of this
point, 200 years since God called a man named Abram and told him,
he told him, he said, I want you to leave your father, your
mother, you know, when God called Abram and he said, I want you
to go, we're out, I'm gonna send you. 200 years has passed up
to the point that we're looking at tonight. And at the point
of our consideration, Abram's seed was 70 souls. 200 years, God had been guiding
and directing, leading, placing, raising up, putting down. 200
years, and there's 70 souls in this family, 70 souls, a remnant,
just a remnant, just a few, just a few are there. And I thought,
what a marvelous revelation of God's keeping grace. 70 souls to realize that God's
got a people And he's promised these people. And the Lord spoke
to Abraham years and years and years ago. But all these years
had passed since the Lord had first spoken to Abraham, but
a great lapse in time doesn't make the word of God
to have no effect. God had promised Abraham. The
Lord promised Abraham. I want you to turn with me. We'll
turn a few pages here. I want you to turn with me to
Genesis 24. Genesis 24. Genesis 24. I'm sorry. I said that. I'm looking
at the wrong 12. Go to 12. Genesis 12. Genesis
12. Now listen how this all started.
All these years. Genesis 12, one to four. Now
the Lord said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country and from
thy kindred, from thy father's house into the land that I will
show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation. I will bless
thee. I will make thy name great. Thou shalt be a great, wait,
I will bless thee. I will make thy name great. Thou
shalt be a blessing. I will bless them that bless
thee. I will curse him that curses thee. And in thee shall all the
families of the earth be blessed. That's what God told Abraham.
Abraham was 75 years old when God told him that. And then 10
years after God told him, 10 years passed and Abram had died. married his wife, Sarai, and
she was buried. God had told him, I'm gonna make
you a great nation, great, great nation. And 10 years later, she's
still a barren woman. 10 years have gone by. God had
promised, I'm gonna make you a great, great nation. The scripture says in Genesis
chapter 16, Genesis 16, one to three, Now Sarai, Abram's wife, bear
him no children. And she had a handmaid, was Egyptian,
whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, behold,
now the Lord hath restrained me from bearing. I pray thee,
go in unto my maid. It may be that I may obtain children
by her. And Abram hearkened the voice
of Sarai. Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar,
her maid, the Egyptian after Abram had dwelt 10 years in the
land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband, Abram, to be
his wife. I'm gonna make you a great nation.
10 years goes by. No kids. Sarah has no children. But great and sure, was the promise
of Almighty God to Abram. And the scripture says, turn
over to Genesis 17, next page here. The scripture declares that after
all this time, remember he started off, he was 75 years old. 85, he still didn't have any
kids by Sarai. 85 years old. He said, she said,
well, take my handmaid, that'll be, you know, well, you know,
Hagar. He had a son, Ishmael. And the
scripture says now that after a few more years, Abram was 99
years old. Now let's look at Genesis 17,
one to six. Genesis chapter 17, one to six,
and when Abram was 90 years old and nine, the Lord appeared to
Abram and said unto him, I am the almighty God. Walk before
me and be thou perfect and I will make my covenant between me and
thee and multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell upon his face,
and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant
is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Now, the Lord has told him. He
said, I'm going to make you a father of many nations. But it's been
a long time. Abraham, now look at verse five.
Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name
shall be called Abraham, for a father of many nations have
I made thee. I will make thee exceeding fruitful. I will make
nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. I will establish
my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee, and
their generations, for an everlasting covenant to be their God unto
thee, and to be thy seed after thee. He's old. Look at verse 15, 16. And God said unto Abraham, for
Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall
be her name. I will bless her. I will give
thee a son also of her. Yea, I will bless her. She shall
be a mother of nations, king of people. heard, then Abraham
fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall
a child be born unto him that is a hundred years old, and shall
Sarah that is ninety and nine years old bear? God told him at seventy-five
years old, I'm going to make a great nation out of you. Ten
years later, he still hadn't had a child through
Sarah. Now, at 99 years old, the Lord
talks to him again. He's an old man. And at 100 years
old, Genesis 21, verse 1 to 5. At 100 years old. Genesis 21. Oh, the mercy of God to keep men
in the midst of Our frailty. 21, and the Lord visited Sarah,
as he had said. And the Lord did unto Sarah,
as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived, and bare
Abraham a son in his old age, at that time which God had spoken
to him. And Abraham called the name of
his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac.
And Abraham circumcised his son, Isaac, being eight days old,
as God had commanded him. And Abraham was 100 years old
when his son, Isaac, was born unto him. Abraham's, now he's
had a son. Years after he first met with
Abraham. Abraham's 75 years old. 25 years
later, later. After God had told him, I'm gonna
make a great nation. 25 years later, 100 years old,
Abraham has this boy. And he named him Isaac. That's what God told him. Called
his name Isaac. Abraham's son Isaac grew up.
And Isaac married a woman named Rebecca. And whenever Isaac grew
up 60 years old. He was 60 years old. He'd heard
his daddy tell him what God had said, and God's gonna make a
great nation. And here's Isaac. Now, Isaac
is 60 years old, the scripture says. That's in Genesis 25, 26.
And he bore him twin sons, two boys, Jacob and Esau. Esau was the older of these twin
boys for a few moments, and he would have naturally gotten the
birthright. The birthright belonged to him
by God's command and the blessing. But Esau was not the man that
God had chosen to receive the birthright. Jacob, the younger
of the two, was going to receive the birthright, and we looked,
and as these boys were born, and in time, they, Jacob, I mean, Esau was out in
the field, he was hungry, and you know the story, and Jacob
was there, and he was kind of a mama's boy, and the scripture
declares that Esau came in one day, and he's starving, and Jacob
has been, He's cooking, he's got this food there, and Esau
says, give me something to eat. Jacob said, I'll swap you. I'll
swap you, I'll give you something to eat for the birthright. And Esau says, what's it gonna
do to me? I'm getting ready to die. Yeah, I'll give it to you,
that's fine. And he did, he gave it to him.
And after that, you know the problems that they went through,
and Jacob had to leave the house. Because Esau hated him. He said,
after daddy dies, he said, I'll tell you what I'm going to do.
I'm going to kill you. And so you know the story Rebecca
told Jacob. She said, you're going to have
to leave. You're going to have to go. And we studied and went through all
of that time of how Jacob had gone through all the trouble
and the trials and how he was just troubled on every side. And now, after all this time,
he's had sons. Joseph, his son, he thought had
gotten killed. He struggled, oh, how he struggled
in all these times of just bitterness inside and struggling. And here's,
now he's come, His son, as far as he was concerned, was taken
by an animal and was just ripped to pieces. That's what they told
him. We found this coat that you made
him, Dad. He's a coat of many colors, but
we didn't find him. We don't know what happened to
him. So as far as Jacob's concerned, Joseph is gone. He's just, you
know, he's just gone. And here he is. We've considered all of these
things. That's what we've looked at over the last many months
of looking at this lineage, this lineage that we had considered
here, the family of Jacob. And here they are. And we followed
all these years of Jacob's life and how he's now come to the
threshold of entering in to the land of because he's found out
that Joseph, his son, is alive. And he's brought to this place,
and he's getting ready to go in, and the scripture is set
forth. Now, these are all the people,
here's all the people that were in Jacob's family, Jacob's family,
the daddy. He's going to see his boy. He's
going to see Joseph. And he looks and he's preparing
that, now turn over to Genesis 46. Here we find, if you just
wanna look at chapter 46, and you can see how, you wanna just
look at those names, it starts in verse eight, and look at all
those names right there, coming on down. Verse eight, these are
the names of the children of Israel, Jacob, God changed his
name, came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons, Reuben, Jacob's
firstborn, sons of Reuben, and he'd go on and on and on. And all of these names, all of
these names of all the family, it was 70 of them. But the scripture
declares the names of every one of them that God had brought
there. And now we come back to that passage of scripture right
there in verse 26. All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt,
which came out of his loins. And look how the Lord directed,
ordered, all these things, to bring him to this very spot. Besides Jacob's sons, wives,
and all the souls were three score and six, sons of Joseph,
which were born him in Egypt. Two souls, all the souls of the
house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, three score and ten. Now we're coming down to this,
and we've considered Jacob's family, but I think about how
in the indescribable mercy and wisdom and kindness and long-suffering
and patience of God Almighty for his people, all these are
200 years have passed since God told Abraham I'm gonna make a
great nation out of you. And now on the very threshold,
here's Jacob. He's getting ready to go in. 70 of them. After 200, you're 70 of them. That's it. I told Glenda tonight,
I said, I just kind of thought about Katie right here. And I
said, you know, everybody probably, you know, we've got about 35,
so, you know, about twice as many as this congregation, about
twice as many people. You can put 70 people in this
building right here, easy, 70 people. That's how many were
in Jacob's family after 200 years of God promising him and directing
him. And I know that all these names
that I was reading, I know that these names may be strange to
us, But all the names of Jacob's household are pictures and types
of God's sheep, and though we might read these names, and they
sound strange to us, but they're not strange to God. They're pictures and types of
those that the Lord's everlastingly loved. chosen types and pictures
for sure. I don't know how many of them
out of Jacob's family were actually believers. I know how many of
them were in his family, 70. I can read that one. I don't
know how many of them knew God. I don't know. But God brought
all of them there, but they're types and pictures of all of
God's elect who were brought to this very place. And although
I can't They say that I know them. There are types and pictures
of those that God knows. He knows them all. They're all.
And I'll tell you how many of the 70. I know exactly how many
of the 70 that God had purposed. There was two of them that died. But I know how many. There were
70 of them total. Two of them did pass away, the
scripture says. I read it. But I can tell you
how many of them came into the land of Egypt. I'll tell you
how many of them that God had purposed to come into the land
of Egypt. I'll tell you exactly how many
it was. All of them. All of them. All of them. Turn with me in closing to John
chapter 10. John chapter 10. John chapter 10. Verse 14, 16. I am the good shepherd, and I
know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me,
even so know I the Father. And I lay down my life for the
sheep, and other sheep I have which are not of this fold. them
also I must bring, and they must hear my voice. And there shall
be one foal, one shepherd. Therefore does my Father love
me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No
man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power
to lay it down, I have power to take it again. This commandment
have I received of my Father. Scripture reveals that Almighty
God had brought a people into the land of Egypt. They were
his people, and Lord willing, as we pick up right here, we're
going to find out how many of them and where they went right
there as we consider the last chapters. And if the Lord wills,
we might look into Exodus and see what happened to them. after
that, but the point of the whole matter is this, that Almighty
God had a people, and 200 years before all of these people were
ever spoken of in the scriptures, God knew a man named Abram, and
he called Abram, and he told him, he said, I'm gonna make
a great nation out of you. I'm gonna make a great family,
a family of God out of you. That scripture that I read when
I first began, all the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt,
which came out of the loins of Jacob, all of them came, three
score and six, the sons of Joseph, chapter, verse 27, sons of Joseph,
which were born in Egypt, two souls, all the souls of the house
of Jacob, which came into Egypt, Three score and 10. You know,
there's some people scattered throughout this world. And though we don't know who
they are, those that belong to the Lord are gonna be found in
this spiritual household. This household of God's people,
God's elect. And just look at the magnitude.
When I told you the other day, it just amazes me how we all
got here. Me being the hardest one to understand
how I got here. But the thing is, is that here
we are all together. And God is drawing us together
and putting us together in Christ. And he's got a household that
he's everlastingly loved. There was only 70 of them right
there. How many of them are there now? I don't know. But God's
drawing them. And we rejoice in that. And I
pray that even though we were just looking at a genealogy,
just a number of names, these were those that represented God's
elect. And may God Almighty bless our
hearts tonight to realize when God told Abram, I will make of
you a great nation. And one of these days, by the
grace of God, we'll all worship together around the throne of
God and rejoice in Christ Jesus that God has been pleased to
draw us unto himself. Now, right now, we're fellowshipping
right now. Oh, but by his grace, there's
coming a time when we'll be around the throne, hallelujah chorus,
forever and ever.