I was musing on some of the words
of that last song we just sang. I love to tell the story. The songwriter brought out two
different groups of people that he likes to tell the story for. Those that know it best and those
that never heard it. I never noticed that before.
That was good, good lines. I'm gonna ask you to take your
Bibles and turn with me to the book of Genesis chapter 45. Genesis
chapter 45. We're coming to the end of this
45th chapter. And through this blessed chapter,
this chapter right here, I mentioned when I was last week in Tennessee,
I was talking to Todd Nyberg, and I told him where we were,
45. And he said, oh, I love that
chapter. He said, just story of Jacob's sons and just,
he said, I love it. I said, well, we've had a wonderful
time with it. And so I'd like for us to look
as we come to the end of this 45th chapter, behold that which
the spirit of God has been pleased to set forth. Jacob is in the
latter part, of his life. And he's still in Canaan. His sons are in Egypt, and they're
preparing, they're making preparation to come back to Canaan to get
their daddy. But before they can leave, they've
got to make those preparations that set forth the glorious truth
of all the preparation that Almighty God has made, the bringing home
of his people. And as I looked at this chapter,
the last four verses, I'm gonna look at verses 25 to 28, Lord
willing, in a moment. And I read this chapter and I
looked at how they were making preparation, they're gonna come
back to get their dad and Joseph has revealed himself to his brethren
and he's comforted them and he was telling them after they realized
who he was. of what they had done. He told
them in Genesis 45, five. He said, now therefore be not
grieved nor angry with yourselves that you sold me hither. They'd
sold him out. For God did send me before you
to preserve life. You know, is it not a marvelous
thing to behold? when the Lord takes one of his
people and he teaches us something of the providential mercy and
grace that has been shown. All of the things that Joseph
went through, all of the troubles, all of the trials, Joseph told
his brethren at the end, don't be mad at yourself. Don't be
mad. God sent me. Boy, what a sweet
spirit. Oh, what a, that just, don't
be grieved over what you've done. Now all this preparation's been
needed and it's been provided by God. Not Pharaoh, not Joseph. The Lord has provided all that
is going to be needed in the bringing home of his brothers,
his families, back to their father, Jacob. Oh, I think to myself,
oh, the preparation that Almighty God has eternally accomplished. I mean, we're just, This life
is just unfolding before us and the Lord's ordering all these
things, but all of this was finished. All of this was finished from the foundation of the world.
It's always been finished. Isn't that a comforting thing?
Nothing here's surprising God. He's bringing these things about. Let's look at verses 25. I want
to read these verses. And let's just behold for just
a minute, this last few verses in this 25th chapter, or 45th
chapter, 45, Genesis. Genesis chapter 45, verse 25. And they went up out of Egypt
and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father, and
told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he's governor over
all the land of Egypt. And Jacob's heart fainted, for
he believed them not. And they told him all the words
of Joseph which he had said unto them. And when he saw the wagons
which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob, their
father, revived. And Israel said, it is enough. Or actually, looking
at those words, the first two, it is, they're in italics. And
Israel said, enough. Joseph, my son, is yet alive. I will go and see him before
I die. Now, if we look at these verses,
and just behold the heartwarming reunion that's taking place. I mean, we've gone through these
chapters now together, and we've seen what's happened, we've watched
what happened to Joseph, and he was lied on, and thrown in
jail, and just on and on and on. The Lord exalted him there
in Egypt, made him second only to Pharaoh in authority. And we look at all of these precious
truths and just the heartwarming reunion that took place when
he sent all the people out except for his brethren. And I could
just, every time I read that, I told you this before, every
time I read that, it just blesses my heart. Tears just wanna well
up in my eyes. And he told them, he said, I'm
Joseph, I'm your brother. I'm your brother. And they just,
they couldn't believe it. They were fearful. What in the
world is he going to do to them? But here's the precious reunion,
reconciliation between these brothers that's gone through
so many struggles and a precious reunion is coming forth one day
for All of God's sheep. This is what's pictured here.
There's gonna be a grand open reunion. All of the people of God died
in the faith. They're alive. Around the throne
of God singing praises. All I know is what I read. I
can't figure all this out, but all of God's people We are one body, one body. We're the body of the Lord Jesus
Christ, praising him, honoring him. Oh, what a, what a blessed,
blessed reunion. I want you to take your Bibles,
hold your place there, turn to Ephesians 4, Ephesians chapter
4. Ephesians 4, one to three. Ephesians 4, oh, that precious
reunion that they had. Chapter 4, verses 1, 2, 3. I,
therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk
worthy of the vocation wherewith you're called, with all lowliness,
meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring
to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. David said
in Psalm 133, 1, Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together
in unity. What a, these brothers, these
brothers now, they know who he is. Oh, and he treated them with
love and respect and kindness. And these brothers now, they're
going back. They're going back to get their
daddy, Jacob. And they've gone home now. This is where we pick
up in verse 25 Chapter 45. And they've gone home and they've
arrived and they've related to their dad the wonderful truth
that Jacob is alive. Jacob is alive. And he's in Egypt,
they told him, and he's ruling. He's a ruler in Egypt. And Jacob, their daddy, He hears
these things, that's what he said, in verse 25, 26. They went out of Egypt, they
came to the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father, and they
told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he's governor over
all the land of Egypt. In Jacob's heart, the scripture
says, fainted, for he believed them not. Oh, Jacob heard what they said. Here's all, now here's all of
them. They're all, all of them together. Now this is, you know,
they've, they've, they've mistreated their dad. They said some things
that they never should have said. They've kept things from him
and just, buddy, what they've got right now is some good news
to them. And they, they just tell him, Jacob's alive. He's alive. And though Jacob
heard these things, He didn't believe them. Now,
I looked the words up to find out and make sure I knew what
I was talking about. He heard what they said and he
did not believe them. Jacob's heart fainted and he
believed them not. It's been years. It's been years. He hadn't seen Jacob. As far
as he knows, last report he got, he had that bloody garment. Surely
an animal's got him. They had taken him and sold him.
And as far as their daddy knows, Jacob, I mean, Joseph is gone. He's gone. And now we hear these
words. He hears what they're saying
in his heart. faints, he doesn't believe them.
I'm gonna deal with what that word faint means in just a minute,
but I'm taking the words just like it says. Jacob's heart fainted,
and he believed them not. Now you take those words as they're
set forth, and I can understand it. It's been a long time. Been years. And the probability
of Joseph being alive, as far as Jacob is concerned, is slim
to none. I just don't believe it. When they told him all the words,
the scripture says, that Joseph said unto them, at 27th verse, they told him all the words of
Joseph. which he had said unto them.
I read that again today and I thought, you know, he doesn't say exactly what he said
in every case, but have you ever thought, there's just some things
that I've had people tell me before and they would be the
only ones that would know that. Somebody tell me something, you
know, Marvin, you remember years ago when, down in Louisiana and
we did so and so and so and so. I think, well, you'd had to have
been there because you wouldn't have known that. You couldn't
have figured that one out, yeah. The scripture says when they
told him all the words of Joseph, these brothers now, they're telling
their daddy, Joseph is alive and he's a ruler. And they're
relating to him things that Joseph said to him. And I can just imagine
their dad, how would you know that unless you knew him and
was there? And when they saw the wagons
which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob, their
father, revived. It was made alive. It was emboldened. It was made alive. And as Israel said in verse 28,
enough. That's enough. Joseph, my son,
is yet alive. I will go and see him before
I die. You know, if we just stop right
there, that'd be a wonderful story. That'd be a marvelous
story We could truthfully say what a blessing has been set
forth when God Almighty has overruled all that's been done and he's
brought this family back together and he's got these boys back
to their daddy and they say, listen, we're not kidding you.
I'm telling you, Joseph is alive. I can tell you some of the things
he told me. And he's a ruler, he's ruling.
And the spirit of God says it's his heart. And he said, I'm going back to
see my boy. I'm going back to see Joseph. Well, like I said, that'd
be a wonderful, heartwarming, blessed story of truth. That's
what happened. God has reconciled his family.
But I looked at that passage of scripture right there and
I saw something that was truly a blessing to me out of the same
words that I just looked at. And it was a beautiful picture
of how almighty God in infinite mercy and grace has been pleased
to show mercy and compassion to his people in glorious regeneration. calling them out of darkness.
Now, I want us for just a few minutes now to look at these
verses, these four verses. And I want us to look at Joseph. Joseph. Now, Joseph, he's one
still back in Egypt. He's ruler. Joseph is a picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Savior of sinners, the only
begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And Jacob,
Jacob, the daddy. He's a picture and a type of
all God's elect. Those who, in this scenario right
here, are yet to have been called out of darkness. Heirs of salvation. God's elect. God's people, but
yet not called out of darkness. Now just get this in your mind. And these boys, Joseph's brethren,
they are set forth in this as the proclaimers of the truth
of the gospel of God's free grace. Now here you got the proclaimers,
sons of Jacob. Joseph brothers. You've got Joseph,
a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you got Jacob, an heir of
salvation, but one yet dead in trespasses and sins. That's how
I looked at that passage of scripture. And I looked at that and went
over and over and over and prayed, God, give me some light on this.
I kept coming back to the same and I want to share it with you.
It was a blessing to me. Now let's look at this for just
a minute and just see how this is how God calls his sheep out
of darkness. All right, let's go back and
just read verse 25 and 26 again. And they, now who are they? Now they're the brothers. They're
the proclaimers. They're pictures of God's preachers,
preachers of the gospel, preachers of good news. Preachers of victory
and life. They've got some good news. We're
going to tell you something. What are they going to tell?
They're going to tell their daddy that their brother, his son, is alive. They've got some good news to
tell him. Here's what had happened. In verse 25, they went up out
of Egypt and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father,
and told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive. And he's governor
over all the land of Egypt. Now let me ask you something.
Is that not what the preachers of God preach? Joseph is a picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I got some good news. He's
alive. He's alive. And he rules. He rules in the army of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his
hand or say unto him, what doest thou? We've got some good news. They told their daddy, say in
verse 26, he's alive. Joseph is yet alive and he's
governor over all the land of Egypt. But Jacob here, he's a picture
now. the object of God's mercy, one of God's elect, yet to be
called out of darkness, Jacob's heart fainted, for he believed
them not. He believed them not. These boys gave that great, glorious
report. We've got a report. We've got
a record. Who hath believed our report. Who would say that? Were the
proclaimers of the gospel sent of God to tell the report of
the Lord Jesus Christ? Who hath believed our report?
And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? We have a message to be preached,
a message of Christ and Him crucified, the message which alone is the
power of God unto salvation. But consider this, these boys,
these proclaimers, pictures of God's heralders of the glorious
gospel of free Christ. Christ is alive. He rules. But Jacob, a vessel of God's
mercy, yet to be called out of darkness. His heart fainted when
he heard that. He fainted. It means his heart
was numb. That's what the word means. It
means numb. And I went into a little bit
deeper understanding of that word. That word fainted, numb. It further and further revealed
as I went down through the explanations. It's a picture that means to
be spiritually dead, sluggish, ceased, to be feeble, to become
cold, to fail, inefficient, void of warmth. That's what it means. He heard the message. Joseph
is alive. He's ruling. He didn't believe
him. He didn't believe what they said.
He didn't believe. Oh, is this not the natural state
of all men born in Adam? All God's sheep being found dead,
spiritually dead in trespasses and sins, insensitive to the
voice of Almighty God through His preachers. Jacob's unbelief
was just like all of our first reactions in hearing the glorious
gospel before we were given eyes to see and ears to hear. You
that believe. Let me ask you this, you didn't
always believe. You that believe always been
an object of God's mercy. You've always been his. He's
always loved you. If he's your, if you belong to
him, he's always known you, always loved you. But the first time
you heard the gospel, I'll just go ahead and confess, I didn't
believe it the first time I heard it. I heard the gospel of God's
free and sovereign grace preached as clearly as it could ever be
preached. And my first reaction, Don, was this. You gotta be kidding
me. That can't be right. That can't
be right. Jacob, a picture of the object
of God's mercy, heard what these boys said. They were eyewitnesses. They'd seen Joseph. And they
said, I'm telling you, he's alive. I'm telling you, we all saw him.
He's alive. And he's ruling, too. We've seen
him. We've seen him. Jacob saw all these things. He
saw these, all of them. the wagons that Joseph had sent
to carry him. And the scripture says, in verse
27, now here we begin to see something that's gonna happen.
And here's a beautiful picture of what happens when God's pleased
to take that message and make it effectual. Again, you that
believe, if you're honest, you're gonna have to say this, I didn't
always believe. You may have always grown up
in this church. You may always have sat under Brother Scott. You may have done that, but you
didn't always believe. There was a time when God called
you out of darkness. Jacob here is a picture of God's
elect yet to be called out of darkness. He heard what his boys
said. They were pictures of the preachers.
He heard what they said, and he didn't believe them. He was
numb, void. He was numb to it. He did not
believe them. In verse 27, they told him all
the words of Joseph, which he said unto them. And when he saw
the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob,
their father, revived. Spirit was made alive. It lived. That's what it means.
When he saw, faith is the evidence of things not seen. Faith by
faith, we believe. He had not believed at first.
Jacob heard the words that Joseph had said. And he saw the provision
sent by him. And the scripture says, and his
spirit revived. Before his spirit revived, everything
was there. Wagons were there. Food was there,
all of that, all of it was there. But before his heart was revived
and made alive, he didn't believe. Is this not the way it is with
all of us before faith is imparted unto life? The gospel may be
heard as clearly as it can be stated, We may behold the evidence
of salvation. I can look around and I can see
people that God's called out of darkness and given life. But
me beholding somebody having life without the Spirit of God
giving me life, I don't believe you. I don't believe you. Faith
cometh by hearing. Hearing by the Word of God. It's
given unto you to believe. It's given unto you to believe.
You're not going to just figure it out. All of these provisions
that he saw. I want you to take your Bibles.
I'm going to wrap this up. I want you to turn with me to
Ezekiel. This is so beautifully set forth here. I'm going to
show you this. Here's what I'm saying. Jacob
heard what they said. He heard the truth, but as a
picture of God's elect before God gives life. He didn't believe
them. He didn't believe them. Ezekiel 37, I'm gonna read the
first 10 verses. The hand of the Lord was upon
me and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord and set me
down in the midst of the valley which was full of dry bones and
caused me to pass by them round about and behold, there were
very many in the open, open valley and lo, they were very dry. And
he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered,
O Lord God, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, prophesy
upon these bones and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the
word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto
these bones, behold, I will cause breath to enter into you and
you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you
and bring and bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with
skin, put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall
know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded. These boys, what did they do?
They went back to where Jacob was and where they were from,
and they did just exactly what they, Went to do, Joseph is alive. Ezekiel said, so I prophesied
as I was commanded. And I prophesied and there was
a noise and behold a shaking and bone came together, bone
to his bone. And when I beheld lo, the sinews
and the flesh came upon them and skin covered them above,
but there was no breath in them. They look like men. He may have
mimicked something, like a bird, a mighty bird or something, but
as far as being alive, breath, there was no breath in him. Then
said he unto me, prophesy unto the wind. under the breath, prophesy,
son of man, and say to the wind, thus saith the Lord God, come
from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain,
that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded
me, and the breath came unto them, and they lived, and stood
up upon their feet, an exceeding great army." Everything was there. Wagons were there, food was there,
the boys were there. Joseph is alive. I don't believe you. Everything
was there, they saw it all. Jacob told them exactly what
he believed. He just didn't believe them.
There was no breath, there was no life. Back in Genesis, Chapter
45. Scripture says in that 27th,
and I'll read 27, 28, wrap it up. They told him all the words of
Joseph, which he had said unto them. And when he saw the wagons
which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob, their
father, revived. There was life. There was life. Now I want you to notice something.
Verse 28. Jacob, in verse 27, his spirit
revived. Look at verse 28. And Israel. Same man. New nature. New nature. What is your name? My name is Jacob. That's what
Jacob told the Lord. He said, not anymore. Name is
Israel. You're a prince with God. Jacob,
Jacob heard. Israel said, Israel believed. And this is what he said. Enough. Enough. Joseph, my son, is yet
alive. I will go and see him before
I die. When the spirit of God enters an object of God's mercy. They live. They're alive. Spirit Jacob revived. Here he is now. Remember, picture
and type of God's sheep. But oh, but look what happens
when faith is given. He didn't believe at first. I
don't believe you. But he believes them now. By
faith, he believes. Faith is the evidence of things
hoped for. All of God's people, when they
by faith, by faith, hear the gospel preached and see with
new eyes, by faith, the marvelous provision of God toward his people. When they see it, you that believe,
do you see? Do you see eternal life? Can
you touch it? Can you smell it? But you have
it. You that believe. You know it. You believe it. God has given
it to you. And in your heart you say, God
has said to me, there is now no condemnation to them that
be in Christ Jesus. God Almighty were robed in His
glorious righteousness, and this is what we say. It's enough. Oh, the peace of soul and joy
of heart being convinced of that which is enough. To the believer
in the Lord Jesus, He is enough. He's enough. His death in my
stead, It's enough. His life imparted
unto this needy sinner is enough. His word which shall never pass
away, it will never return unto Him void, it's enough. Faith in Him alone, it's enough. I pray that God bless this to
our hearts for Christ's sake.