I'm gonna ask you to take your
Bibles and turn with me to the book of Genesis chapter 41. Genesis
41. I'd like to look at one verse,
verse 45. Verse 45. And Pharaoh, called Joseph's name Zaphnath-Paeonea. He gave him to wife Asenath,
the daughter of Potiphar, priest of own. And Joseph went out over
all the land of Egypt. Joseph has been exalted to be
ruler over all of Pharaoh's house. Joseph is a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ, who as the submissive servant of Jehovah has been exalted
over all flesh, all power, has been given unto the Son, that
He should give eternal life to as many as the Father has given
Him. Now, tonight, I'd like for us
to consider this one passage of Scripture that I just read.
And I pray that the Spirit of God bless this passage to our
understanding to show us the glorious mercy of our Lord to
hell deserving sinners. And I encourage all of us at
this moment, ask the Lord, ask the Lord to bless this passage
of scripture to us. This one passage of scripture,
I had it in my heart that I was gonna finish this chapter tonight. And the more I looked at this
one passage of scripture, the more I'm convinced I can go no
farther than this one verse tonight. Now, the scripture declares that
Pharaoh has not only exalted Joseph to a new position. Now this, I mean, this took place,
everyone pretty well is in agreement. This all took place in one day.
Joseph was taken out of prison He was brought before Pharaoh.
Pharaoh told him his dream. Joseph told him, he said, there's
a God in heaven that reveals dreams, that reveals his secrets.
I can't do it. But he said, God Almighty can.
And he told him what it was. And Pharaoh told him, he said,
with this kind of wisdom, I need a man to oversee what's gonna
happen. He heard the interpretation of
the dream. They're gonna have seven years of good and plenty
in the land and seven years of famine. He saw that in that dream,
he saw those cows and he saw that corn and how one was plentiful,
one was lean and empty. And so he, Exalted him, he put
him in a position second in the kingdom, only to himself was
Joseph found to be inferior. And he bestowed not only this
new position, but he gave him, the scripture says, he gave him
a new name, and Pharaoh called Joseph's name Zaphnath-Paeonea. Now, that name right there, was
given unto Joseph by Pharaoh, very significant. And Pharaoh
called, Pharaoh proclaimed Joseph's name, that is his reputation,
his fame, his glory. He gave him that name. Believe
me, I listened to it, I listened to the name in Egyptian. pull it up and listen to it,
how that's an Egyptian name. And believe me, I'm not saying
it the way it's actually pronounced. That's as close as I can say
it, though. But now, let's not lose sight
of something. He gave him a name. Daphnef,
Paeonea. And we wanna remember that this
is a picture of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Pharaoh
is a picture of the father, Pharaoh. Pharaoh gave Joseph a name, a
name exalted, a name of prominence in the land of Egypt. But that
name that he gave to Joseph, blue letter Bible translates
it, treasury of glorious rest. But in the Egyptian meaning,
the Egyptian meaning is this, the savior or salvation of the
world. The Hebrew meaning is revealer
of a secret. But whatever the meaning of the
name is, they're all pictures and types of the glory of our
Lord. They all magnify the Lord Jesus
Christ. Who is the revealer of God's
secrets except the Lord Jesus Christ, God's prophet? Who is
the salvation of the world? For God so loved the world. Told
you what that means. Doesn't mean what everybody is
saying it means. God never set forth that God
loves everybody in the world. God so loved the order of man. God loved mankind. It means the
human race. Look it up. When you see world
right there, look it up. It means the human race. God
loved the human race because he loved the human race. He chose
a people out of the human race before the foundation of the
world and gave them to the Lord Jesus Christ because he was going
to preserve the human race. If he left the human race to
the human race, he would have to damn all of us. God so loved
the human race. that he gave his only begotten
son. So who is the savior? Who is the salvation of the world,
the human race? The Lord Jesus Christ. So here,
Pharaoh gives Joseph a new name, Zaphnath-Paeonea, savior of the
world. And concerning the father, giving
the Lord Jesus Christ a name. Listen to this scripture. Philippians
2, 9 to 11. It says this, Philippians chapter
2, 9 to 11. Wherefore God also hath highly
exalted him and given him a name which is above every name. Now what is that name above every
name? Here it is, he tells us that
at the name of Jesus. Jehovah is salvation. That at the name that is given
that's above every name, the name Jesus, every knee should
bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the
earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord to the glory of God the Father. So here's Pharaoh, exalted
Joseph to a position of prominence in Egypt. The father has exalted
the submissive and willing obedient servant, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who humbled himself and made himself of no reputation. God's
exalted him. He'd given him a name above every
name. At the name of Jesus, every knee gonna bow, and every tongue
gonna confess. But not only in this scripture
do we see that Pharaoh called Joseph's name Zaphnath-Paeonea,
but he gave him to wife, Asenath, the daughter of Potiphar, priest
of Om. Joseph gets a wife, too. He gets a new position, he gets
a new name, and he gets a wife. Now, I want you to consider the
beauty of this whole scenario as it's unfolded before our eyes. Here's Pharaoh gives, in particular,
he gives a wife to Joseph. It gives Joseph a wife. And can
we not see in that beautiful gift the bride being given unto
the Lord Jesus Christ? Who gave the bride to Joseph? Pharaoh. Pharaoh. Who gave the
bride to the Lord Jesus? The Father. The Father, the scripture
says, hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. He
gave unto the Son a bride, a bride though that the Lord Jesus, being
one with the Father, will in purpose and has in purpose betrothed
unto himself. The father gave us to the son,
and the son, again, one with the father, betrothed us unto
himself forever. He said, yea, betrothed us unto
himself in righteousness, judgment, loving kindness, and mercies.
A wife that he would betroth unto himself in faithfulness. Hosea 2, 19, 20, a wife that
would know the Lord, know Jehovah. So here's the father giving us
a son as Pharaoh gave, giving us a bride as Pharaoh gave a
bride unto Joseph. But this wife that was given
unto the Lord Jesus Christ is gonna be a wife that will submit
herself unto him In regenerating grace, she's gonna behold him
as her glorious husband who loved her and gave himself for her,
that he might sanctify her and cleanse her with the washing
of the word, that bride that was eternally precious to him.
I've loved you with an everlasting love, always with the Father,
one with the Father and the Spirit, And he gonna present this bride
unto himself, a glorious church without spot or wrinkle or any
such thing, holy and without blemish. Oh, what Joseph's bride
set forth. I was thinking just a few minutes
before I came and I got to thinking about the brides that have been
given unto the patriarchs. I got to thinking about Abraham's
bride, Sarah. God gave Sarah to Abraham. And then there's Isaac. Abraham told his servant, he
said, I want you to go down to my family and I want you to find
a bride for my son. We started this chapters ago. And he said, don't go to the
land of Canaan. Don't go to a heathen place.
You find a bride for my son out of my family. So he found a Rebecca
and she was willing to go. So Abraham had his Sarah and
Isaac had his Rebecca. And they had a couple of boys,
Jacob and Esau. And Jacob was loved of the Lord. Esau was hated. God had purpose
to give the birthright to Jacob. He was not the firstborn, Esau
was. But Esau sold his birthright
to Jacob. He got the birthright, got the
blessing. And Esau hated him. Said, I'm gonna wait till daddy's
dead. I'm gonna kill you, I'm gonna kill you. And so Rebecca,
his mama, told him, she said, I want you to leave. You go back
to my home place. Go back to Laban's house, brother. You stay with him. Jacob gets
over there and he sees the bride he wants. He sees Rachel. And he makes a deal with Laban
for Rachel. Worked seven years for her. But
Rachel wasn't the firstborn. Rachel was second born. Isaac gets Leah. That's worked
seven more years for Rachel, for the one he loved. Abraham
had his Sarah. Isaac had his Rebecca. Jacob
got his Rachel. And now, here's Joseph. And he's in Egypt, exalted, second
in Command, second in the land. He's got a new position of authority.
He's got a new name. Savior, Savior. Now he's got
a new wife. And I want you to look at the
heritage. I got to thinking about the wives that had been given
to these patriarchs. Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca. And now
here's Joseph. And he gets a woman, scripture
sets forth her name is Asenath, the daughter of Potipharah, the
priest of On. I thought, now, who was this
lady? And who's her daddy? Well, I
found out Asenath, what it means is her name means belonging to
the goddess Neith, N-E-I-T-H. sun god. And her daddy, Potiphar,
he's not saying, that's not a different rendering of Potiphar. It wasn't
the one that put him in prison. This is a different name. His
name, Potiphar, means gift of the sun god. So from the wife's name, belonging
to the goddess Neith, who was the sun god. And her daddy's
name, Gift of the Sun God, they were idol worshipers. They worshiped
idols, that's what they were. They were idol worshipers. Now here's all of these women
that had been given under these patriarchs, Sarah, Rachel, And
now here's Joseph, a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
he's given a bride. He's given a position, a high
position. He's been exalted in the land
of Egypt. He's been given a new name, Savior
of the world. And he gets a new wife. She's an idol worshiper. I looked at that and I asked,
In my heart, I just went through my mind. You know, we might ask,
how could an Egyptian, how could a heathen, a heathen woman, an
idol worshiper, typify the wife of the Lord Jesus? These wives,
they were pictures of the bride. Well, in this right here, I began
to look at this and I began to see the wonder. and the marvel
of God's amazing grace to creatures like ourselves. The Spirit of
God directed a prophet, a prophet named Ezekiel, to set forth the
bride of the Lord Jesus Christ as she was found in Adam's fall. the way she was born into this
world, how she came forth into this world in Adam's transgression. If we'd like to see, if we'd
like to understand and find out just what do we have to boast
in? You know, the Pharisees, they
loved to boast. You know, listen, we're Abraham's
sons. We're sons of Abraham. I tell
you where we came from. We're not like these Samaritans,
these half-breeds over here. I'm telling you, we're Abraham's
children. That's who we are. Well, the
Lord moved. I want you to hold your place
there and turn over to Ezekiel 16. If you want to know where
God found us, I'm talking about the Lord who's been exalted and
given a name above every name, the Lord who is the Savior of
the world. If you want to see who his wife
was in her fallen state. Here she is, I want you to look,
Ezekiel 16. I'm gonna look at actually the
first six verses, just touch upon them. Ezekiel 16, verses
one and two. Again, the word of the Lord came
unto me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations. Here's what God told Ezekiel
to do. Ezekiel, I want you to tell My
people, I want you to tell them what they actually are in themselves.
Here we behold the truth of what God has to say, not about how
good the bride is by birth, but how evil, how wicked she is by
birth. You tell her, Ezekiel, how impure
and disgusting She is, not only in her birth, but in her actions
and in her thoughts. You cause her to know, verse
two, her abominations. You tell her about her foul sins
and multiplied transgressions. You tell her about her love for
lewdness and idolatrous worship and how she loves spiritual adultery. You tell her, you tell her. what
she is in herself. You tell her. Verse 3 says, And you say, Thus
saith the Lord God unto Israel, Thy birth and thy nativity is
of the land of Canaan. Thy father was an Amorite, and
thy mother a Hittite. Here, Ezekiel was instructed
to relate to Jerusalem, actually the city which was a pictured
type of of God's covenant people. You tell her, you tell her where
she came from, that she might not have any ground on which
to exalt herself above other people. You tell her when she
begins to think high and mighty of herself, looking down on others,
you tell her where she came from. Like I said, although self-righteous
religionists would think that they've got an advantage over
others. We came from Abraham. I don't
know about you, but I'm one of the elect. Bless God, by the
grace of God, you are. But God's gonna remind us where
we came from. Why? That we be not exalted above
measure. What did he do to Paul the Apostle? Paul the Apostle
went to the third heaven. Heard things he couldn't repeat,
couldn't say, didn't know how to say them. And a thorn in the
flesh was given to him. Why? Lest it be exalted above
measure because of the revelations. He said, you remind her where
she came from. You tell her, tell her where
she was born. You tell her about her spiritual
darkness. And when she starts setting forth,
Her glory of being found as a descendant from Abraham holds a place in
Ezekiel. Turn over to Joshua 24 for a
minute. Joshua 24, lest we forget where Abraham came from. Joshua
24, verse one and two. Joshua 24, one and two, and Joshua
gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem. and called for the
elders of Israel, and for their heads, and for their judges,
and for their officers, and they presented themselves before God.
And Joshua said unto all the people, thus saith the Lord God
of Israel, your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood
in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father
of Nechar, and they served other gods. When you start bragging, you
think you got all your bragging rights in being sons of Abraham. You inform her that where she
came from was from a people that were idol worshipers. You remind
her of that back in Ezekiel 16. And as for thy nativity, in the
day thou was born, Thy navel was not cut, neither was thou
washed in water to supple thee. Thou was not salted at all, nor
swaddled at all. None I pitied thee to do any
of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee. But thou was cast
out in the open field to the loathing of thy person in the
day that thou wast born. What weakness! What helplessness. By nature, this was our lot by
birth. Totally ruined in the fall, and
no pity was found from any creature for our condition. For our condition
was common to all. We were born like everybody else.
God's people, God's elect, those everlastingly loved, those found
in Christ before the foundation of the world, that they should
be holy without blame before him in love. You tell her where
she came from. You remind her of that. You tell
her that she was cast out to the loathing of her person. And if left in that state, nothing
but everlasting damnation would have been her eternal end. We
were born in ourselves with no hope in us, none whatsoever. Cast out, navel wasn't cut, wasn't
salted, wasn't cleaned up, laying there in your own blood. Verse six, if you want something
in which to boast, we're gonna boast in him. Verse six, and
when I pass by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood,
I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, live. Yea, I said unto thee, when thou
wast in thy blood, live. Now brethren, this is our only
cause, our only hope of recovery from the penalty of what we are
by nature. We don't have anything else.
We have nothing. I want you to notice that nothing was said
there about our will, about our decision, about our works. No, the Lord said, when I passed
by thee. Thank God that salvation is by
God's grace and not by our merit and not by our work. Here we
see nothing in a sinner but sin and death. That's all we have,
sin that's worthy only of God's wrath, worthy only of God's justice,
and that the Lord would pass by and see such filthiness at us and see us in our blood,
see us for what we are, and say unto us that which goes forth
from him in power, that word that goes forth and accomplishes
the purpose for which it was sent. And this is what he said,
he said, I passed by, I saw thee polluted in thine own blood,
and I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, live and I'm
telling you when he says live and repeated it to the confirmation
that mercy and grace that that continual repeating I thought
about I read that this a little bit ago, when I saw thee in thy
blood, I said, live, and yea, I said, when I was in thy blood,
live. You know, do we ever get tired of hearing the Lord repeat
the same things to us? Help me again. Tell me one more
time how God in mercy saw me in my blood. Tell me one
more time how God walked by me I think how many people I've
crossed paths with growing up. How many people did I cross paths
with? I don't know this for a fact.
I have no idea. I'm just talking to you right
now. I was just thinking, how many people
I went to grade school with, junior high and high school.
You can think the same thing, can't you, Neil? You can say,
how many people did you go to school with? How many people?
How many people did you go to school with? How many do you
know that you went to school with? I was in college. I wonder how many people I ran
around with, got into more junk than you can shake a stick at.
How many of them that I know of, that I know of, that I can
remember, that I was in school with, doing the same thing they
were doing. And almighty God would walk by
me and look at me and my blood when I was cast out. Just nothing,
nothing good to look at. And look at me in mercy and compassion
and power and say, live. You live. You. But for the grace of God, I'd
be doing the same thing everybody else is doing. But almighty God
walked by and passed by me just like he did you. I know you can
enter into this. Why? because scripture says that
God had found a ransom and he was the ransom. He said to him,
when we knew him not, when our blind eyes could not see him,
when our dead ears could not hear his voice, he spoke. And I'm telling you, when he
spoke, he told Ezekiel, was that Ezekiel, who spoke to
the dry bones? Whichever one it was. Say to
these dry bones, oh ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. You prophesy to him. I'll cause
the wind to come. You tell him. And when he comes
by and he speaks in power, ears that could not hear of themselves,
He gives new ears, eyes that couldn't see. He gives new eyes.
And he irresistibly quickens us to life by his spirit. He speaks and the sheep hear.
They always do. He said, my sheep, hear my voice.
Saul of Tarsus breathing out threatenings. God Almighty shone
his glory around him and he spoke to him. He said, Saul, Saul.
Who art thou, Lord? I'm Jesus that you're persecuting.
Lord, what would you have me do? What would you want me to
do? God's people hear the voice of the Lord. I said, do you live? And she lived. Oh, what a beautiful picture set
before us. Joseph was given a new name,
Zaphnath Paonea, savior or salvation of the world. and he was given
a wife, Asenath, belonging to the goddess Neith. The Lord Jesus
Christ was given a wife, and he took her, and he took all
of her guilt. She was just as guilty, as putrefying
as everybody else, and he bore all of her guilt. And he went
to the cross, he went to Calvary, and he answered the law's demand
for her. That Asenath that we are, that
worshiper of idols, worshiper of self, and he robed her in
his righteousness. She who was an idol worshiper
before, now she looks upon him and she says as Thomas, my Lord,
my God, Oh, what you've done for me. Last part of that last verse,
back in Genesis 41. Scripture says, verse 45, Pharaoh
called Joseph's name Zaphnath Panea, gave him to wife Asenath,
the daughter of Potiphar, priest of Omm, and Joseph went out over
all the land of Egypt. He'd been given a position as
a ruler over all the land. He went out, but even in that
last part of that verse, did we not see our Lord who was given
a work? Joseph was responsible to make
sure everything that was going to be given to Egypt in those
seven years of plenty, it was Joseph's responsibility. to make
sure that it was distributed where it's supposed to be. And
all the cities, overseer. And he went out over all the
land of Egypt to make sure that the work of Pharaoh was done. The Father has given the Lord
Jesus Christ to work. He said in John 9, 4, I must
work the works of him that sent me while it's day. While the
day of his life on earth. was still shining. He said, for
the night cometh, that night of his removal out of this world
after he'd finished the messianic work of the Father when no man
can work. Let me ask you this, who's gonna
work to save the Lord Jesus Christ? Not by works of righteousness
that we've done. According to his mercy, he finished the work.
I pray the Lord bless this to our hearts for Christ's sake.
Amen. Okay, Gary.