Our subject is when the time
draws nigh. When the time draws nigh. Let's start reading in verse
28. It says, Jacob lived in the land
of Egypt 17 years. So the whole age of Jacob was
147 years. And the time drew nigh that Joseph
must die. I mean that Israel must die.
And he called his son Joseph and said unto him, If now I have
found grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my
thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me. Bury me not, I pray
thee, in Egypt. But I will lie with my fathers,
and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying
place. And he said, I will do as thou
hast said. And he said, Swear unto me. And
he swore unto him. And Israel bowed himself upon
the bed's head. Now brethren, God has appointed
the time that we must die. And that time we'll draw now.
That time we'll draw now. Every second of this, every day,
we're getting closer to it. It's coming nearer and nearer.
You see there that Jacob lived 147 years. That's a long life. But then it says, the time drew
nigh. That Israel must die. And we're going to all die. Now
the book of Genesis is the book of beginnings. It's the book
of beginnings. That's what Genesis means. New
beginning. And it starts within the beginning
God. You know how the book ends? A
coffin in Egypt. A coffin in Egypt. We all died
in Adam, so we're going to all lay down in a coffin. And they're going to bury that
coffin in this Egypt. That's certain. That's sure. The Lord said in the garden when
He cursed Adam, and Eve and all mankind, He said, in the sweat
of thy face thou shalt eat bread. You ever wonder why life is so
hard? Ever wonder why it's so difficult
to make a living? Why you have to sweat and toil
and fight briars and everything else the whole time? It's because
we're under a curse. God said, in the sweat of thy
face thou shalt eat bread till thou return unto the ground. For out of it was thou taken,
for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Job 14.5 says,
Man's days are determined. The number of his months are
with God. Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass.
He cannot pass. All go to one place. All are
of the dust. All turn to dust again. And then
the spirit that God gave goes back to God. And that's why the
Scripture says it's appointed unto men once to die and after
this the judgment. Because every one of us, death
is not the end. Death is not the end. Physical
death is not the end. We're going to stand before God
in judgment and answer. Answer God for this life. And we're either going to be
found in Christ or we're going to be found standing in ourselves
without the righteousness we need. So, but death now, when
you talk about death for a believer, death for a believer is not a
thing to be feared. It is a new beginning. It is
the new beginning for the believer. But to get to that new beginning,
we have to go into that coffin and have that coffin laid down
in Egypt. So my question is, knowing that the time is drawing
near, knowing it's drawing near for every one of us, Are you
ready to die? Everybody here can say, I'm ready.
If today's the day, I'm ready to die. How do you get ready? How does
a sinner get ready to die? How do you prepare to meet God? That's what I want to talk about.
The first thing we see here Well, our main point for the message
is this. We're only prepared to die when we have Christ and
we have His covenant promise to deliver us, all together deliver us out of
this body and out of this Egypt. That's when you're prepared,
when you've got Christ, when you have Christ. Now let me show
you this in our points here and then we'll get into our message.
The first point we see is a sinner must look only to Christ. We've
seen Joseph as a picture of Christ throughout his life here. And
Jacob, now when he's getting ready to die, who does he call
on? He calls on Joseph. That's the only one he called
on. And the only one we must call on to prepare to die is
Christ. He says there, he called his
son Joseph. We must call Christ. He's the
only one. Then secondly, Jacob's desire
was for Joseph to take his body out of Egypt into the land God
promised, into Canaan. That was His one need, was for
Jacob, I mean, Israel, I mean, for Joseph to take his body out
of Egypt into Canaan. Well, our one need is for Christ
to deliver us out of this Egypt into God's promised Canaan, which
is heaven, His glory. That's what we need. That's our
one need. And then thirdly, Jacob would not and could not rest
till he had a promise from his son, a covenant promise from
his son that his son would indeed deliver him. That is the only
way he was going to be able to worship God and rest is knowing
Joseph would deliver him. It says there, he said, Swear
unto me, and he swore unto him, and Israel bowed himself upon
the bed's head. The only way you and I can have
any rest and assurance knowing that we are prepared to meet
God is to have His everlasting covenant promise. Christ's everlasting
covenant promise. Now let's look at these three
points a little more closely. First, a sinner must look only
to Christ. He must look only to Christ and
Him alone. Christ alone. Christ alone. He's the only one we must look
to. Jacob looked nowhere but to Joseph.
It says there, he called his son Joseph, and said unto him,
if now I have found grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee,
thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me.
When God makes a sinner alive, calls us, and that has to happen
first. He's got to quicken you and got
to make you alive before you're going to be made willing to call
on Christ. You've got to be made to see your sin, you've got to
be made to see your need, or you will never call on another
to save you. You've got to see that you can't
save yourself. The fact of the matter is, men
who say they're calling on Jesus, but if they're having to add
something to what He's done, they're not really calling on
Christ. Because to call on the true Christ, the way you call
on Him is to know, I cannot at all save myself. That's truly
calling. When you can't do anything, you
need Him. But when God calls you, quickens you and calls you,
He's going to send you to Christ to call on Him. God's going to
have all His elect call on Christ. The Scripture says, It shall
come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord
shall be delivered. He's going to have you call on
the name of the Lord. They shall call on My name and I will hear
them. And I'll say it's My people and
they shall say the Lord's my God. Now Joseph, the reason Jacob
called Joseph, Joseph was the only one that had the power to
help him. He was the only one that had the power to help him.
Remember, Pharaoh gave Joseph all the power in Egypt. So Joseph
had the power to take Jacob's body out of Egypt and take it
back to Canaan. Well, that's true of Christ.
He's the only one that has the power and ability to take us
out of this world and deliver us into heaven. You see, we need a righteousness
and we can't provide that righteousness. You need a righteousness. I need
a righteousness and we can't provide that righteousness. I
need to be justified from my sins and I cannot justify myself
from my sins. You'd have to be spotless to
lay down your life for another. We can't do that for one another.
We're full of spots and full of sin. We can't justify ourselves. We can't justify another. No
man can justify you. No man can justify me except
the God-man. We need to have our sins totally,
thoroughly purged and we can't do that. We can't wash ourselves
clean. We need to have everlasting eternal
life. I can't give myself that. You
can't give yourself that. We need to be preserved. How
are you going to, and I who believe, how are we going to persevere
in faith? We just going to muster up that power in ourselves and
that strength in ourselves and just do it? We can't do anything
without Christ. Christ is the one who strengthens
us. He said, I'm the vine, you're the branches. Without me, you
can do nothing. We need Christ. We need Christ. And then when
it comes to the end and our bodies, our physical bodies lay in that
grave, how are we going to be resurrected? You know, this right
here ought to show you everything else about salvation. It's impossible
for you. If you can resurrect yourself,
then you can do the rest of it. You can do everything that came
before that if you can resurrect yourself. Can't you resurrect
yourself? Of course not. Well, we can't do any of the
rest either. See, God is the Savior from beginning to end.
Beginning to end. And we need Him to save us. What
man is he that liveth and shall not see death? Shall he deliver
his soul from the hand of the grave? Selah. You know what selah
means? It means think long and hard
on this. Knowing every one of us here is going to see the grave,
what man among us here can deliver yourself from the grave? A preacher, I don't believe that.
Well, if what you say so, I'm all right. I'll be in the same
boat you are. But if what I say is true, you're going to be in
a bad shape. And what I say is true. This
is the truth. Suppose you're drowning in the
ocean and there's two men you can call on. One of these men
is a gold medal swimmer. The other man don't even know
how to swim. Which one are you going to call on to save you?
You see, trusting in anything you do and trusting in anything
I do is like calling on a man to save you from drowning that
don't even know how to swim. Christ is the one you need. He's
the only one you need. And therefore, when you know
you can't deliver yourself, and you know you can't do anything
to give yourself this righteousness, when you come to Christ, when
you do come to Christ, by God's grace, He's drawn you to His
Son, how do you come? Do you march to Christ and say,
alright, I'm going to let you save me? Is that how you come? Look how Jacob came to Joseph. Verse 29, If now I have found
grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh,
that's a symbol of covenant, and deal kindly and truly with
me. Do you see how humbly he approached
him? I was reading something the other
day. He says here, now, if I have
found grace in thy sight. You remember the scripture says,
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. It means the Lord
looked down on Noah and said, I'll be gracious to him because
I'll be gracious to him. Not because of anything in him,
but I'll be gracious to him just because I will. That's how you
are saved. Salvation is by the sovereign
grace of God who can choose whom He will. And He can pass by whom
He will. Well, Noah found grace in the
eyes of the Lord. Jacob comes to Joseph here and
says, if I found grace in your sight... I was reading something
the other day and a man said this. It was his exact words.
He said, God found grace in me. And that's how come He saved
me. That's what most men think. That's just the opposite of what
the Scripture says. God found grace in me. That saying,
I decided to be gracious to God and allow God to save me and
allow Him to have His way with me. That makes man's will sovereign
in God at the mercy of man. That's not how it is. We're at
God's mercy. So we don't come flippantly.
We come to Him saying, if I have found grace in Your sight. We
don't even take for granted His grace. If I found grace in Your
sight. We come there bowed down saying,
I pray Thee. I pray Thee. I beg of Thee. We
come there saying, please deal kindly and mercifully and truly
with me. We come bowed down. Now secondly,
a sinner only has one need. You know, we get to talking about
all our needs, and, oh, I need this, and I need that, and we
got all these things in the world we need. We only have one need. And usually what we call our
needs is not even close to this one need. We're worried about
all these other things that we don't really need, and we miss
the one thing we do need. The one thing that we truly need,
brethren, is for Christ to deliver us. That's it. We need Christ
to deliver us. If you've got Christ and know
you've got Christ to deliver you, then you'll know this. You'll know that everything else
that comes along in life is just gravy. And you'll be content
with whatever else. I've got Christ to deliver me.
Whatever else happens is just icing on the cake. I've got Christ. I've got Christ. You've heard
the story about the man that all he had was a piece of bread
to eat. And he's sitting there eating that piece of bread. He
said, just think, I've got all this and Christ too. That should be the attitude.
I've got Christ. Anything else, even if it's just
one little morsel of bread, I've got Christ. I've got it all.
Verse 29, he said, Bear me not, I pray thee in Egypt, but I will
lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt,
and bear me in their bearing place. And he said, I'll do as
thou hast said. In the community where I grew up, there's a cemetery.
My great-grandfather's buried there. My grandmother's buried
there. My grandfather's there. That's where my mother and daddy
will be buried. That's where my sister will be
buried. And that's probably where I'll be buried. It doesn't matter. I don't really care where I'm
buried, but you get the point. But folks that even move off,
usually they'll end up bringing their body back to that cemetery,
and they'll bury them there by their mother and their father
and their sisters and brothers. Well, there was some of that sentimentality
in Jacob. He wanted to be carried back
and buried where his family was. You understand that. But there's
a whole lot more to it than that. This desire to go back to Canaan. Canaan's a picture of heaven.
It's a picture of glory with God. And you know, God's moving
everything that's taking place here. He's showing us in this
an illustration of the believer's heart. We really want to be with
God. We don't want to be in this Egypt.
We want to be carried out of it and be with God. Canaan's
a picture of heaven. That's designated by God for
His particular people. When God chose a people, He chose
a place where He's going to bring those people. There's a name
written in heaven. of each sinner he's going to
save, and there will be no empty places in heaven. He will save
everyone that he determined before to save. Every one of them. Canaan
was freely given to his people. They didn't work for it, he gave
it to them. They had to go in and take it, but that's a picture
of faith, brethren, and you and I can't take it if he don't deliver
it. We saw that Thursday night. They
decided to compromise, remember, with the enemy. And so the Lord
said, therefore I won't deliver them. I won't deliver you. I
won't drive them out. See, they couldn't do anything
without God doing it for them. And we can't either. It was God's
covenant promise that Canaan was given to this people. You
see, it's God's covenant promise to give glory to His people. That's our hope. We got a good
hope because it's founded in God and His promise. And then
Canaan was the place where God did indeed drive out their enemies,
those that trusted Him. And that's the thing with us,
brethren. God's going to drive out all our enemies. He didn't
drive out all their enemies to test them. He left some to test
them. But God's going to eventually drive out all our enemies. Christ
has done so now in that He's justified us and made us righteous
and made us holy. He's called us. He's given us
faith and repentance. He's given us everything that
pertains to Godliness. Everything came from Him. And
eventually, He is going to destroy death and He is going to crush
Satan's head finally forever. He is going to deliver us from
death. He is going to deliver us into heaven finally and fully
forever. Salvation into heaven is to be
entirely delivered by Christ. That's it. Joshua said, I will
do as thou hast said. Joshua wasn't going to depend
on Jacob to help him at all. Jacob wouldn't be able to help
him. He said, I'll carry you in. I will do it. And Christ
is going to do it. Listen to this now. I've showed
you how this heaven and this earth is going to be destroyed.
It's going to be burned up with the ferment heat. Literally. But you know that's not going
to happen. This is how entirely Christ is going to deliver His
people. That's not going to happen until every one of His blood-bought
sons and daughters till their bodies have been raised from
the grave immortal." He's not even going to let our bodies
perish in the grave. He's going to raise us immortal.
Immortal. You think, how in the world can
He raise my body? Some people have been dead already
for thousands of years. How's He going to raise their
body? There's nothing left of their body. He's God. He can do it. How did He raise
Adam's body? Of the dust. He can raise us,
but He is going to raise us and make us immortal. Turn over to
1 Corinthians 15. This is kind of lengthy, but
I want to read this whole passage here. I think it will help us.
1 Corinthians 15, 20. Verse 20. 1 Corinthians 15, 20. Now is Christ risen from the
dead. and become the firstfruits of
them that sleep." He's the first one to raise from the dead. He's
the firstfruits of those that are dead. He's the forerunner. It shows that He's risen. They're
going to rise. For since by man came death,
by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam,
all who he represented died, even so in Christ shall all whom
he represented be made alive. But every man in his own order
Christ the firstfruits, and afterward they that are Christ's at His
coming. You see, Christ first, and then they that are His at
His coming. Then comes the end, when He shall have delivered
up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when He shall have put
down all rule and all authority and power. That's what I just
showed you. He delivers from all our enemies.
For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be
destroyed is death. Verse 35. But some man will say,
how are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?
Anybody here thought that? When I start talking about resurrection,
I guarantee you somebody will sit here, how in the world is
he going to do that? Well, isn't God marvelous how
He knows what you're thinking? He asks the question, how are
they going to be raised up? What body do they come forth
with? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except
it die. You know that if you sow a seed
in the ground, you don't get any fruit from that unless that
seed dies. That seed's got to die. Why did
God design it that way? Christ had to die. He had to
die. He's the seed that had to die.
in order for Him to come forth the vine and produce the branches
and the fruit on the branches to produce me and you who He
saved and produce fruit in us. He had to die. And so now we're
going to have to die. Before we can be raised up, we're
going to have to die. Look here now. And that which
thou sowest, verse 37, that which thou sowest, thou sowest not
that body that shall be, but bare grain. You just sow a little
seed, that's all. It may chance of wheat or some
other grain. But God giveth it a body as it
hath pleased Him, and to every seed His own body." You've never
planted peas and got tomatoes. You get what you plant. You have
a seed, His own body. Verse 42. So also is the resurrection
of the dead. It's sown in corruption. It's
raised in incorruption. It's sown dead and dies, it's
raised in incorruption. It's sown in dishonor, it's raised
in glory. It's sown in weakness, it's raised
in power. It's sown a natural body, it's
raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there
is a spiritual body. And so it is written, the first
man Adam was made a living soul. The last Adam, Christ, was made
a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which
is spiritual, but that which is natural, and after that which
is spiritual. The first man is of the earth,
earthy. The second man is the Lord from heaven. Now that's
true of Adam and Christ, and that's true of me and you. The
first body that's born is earthy. We're of Adam. The second man
that's born of Christ is spiritual. He's spiritual. He's of heaven.
He's of Christ. That which is second is not first. That which is spiritual is not
first. That which is natural is first. Then comes the spiritual.
So it is when we die, the natural is going to happen first. Then
the spiritual is going to happen. Alright, look here at verse 48.
As is the earthy, such as they also that are earthy. And as
is the heavenly, such as they also that are heavenly. As we
have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image
of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, Flesh
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Neither does
corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery.
We shall not all sleep. The word sleep here is talking
about die. We shall not all die. Death for
the believers, just sleep. That's all it is. You're going
to just close your eyes like you do at night. You know how
at night you close your eyes and it just seems like that. You wake up and it's another
day. That's what death is going to
be for the believer. You close your eyes and open them up and
the new day is here. Look here now. But we're not
going to all die. Some are going to be alive when
Christ comes back. If Christ was to return right
now, we all got loved ones that are dead. But we're all alive. See, some's going to be alive
when He comes back. Now look, but we shall all be changed.
We're all going to be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound,
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible. The dead. This is where the dead have something
that's going to be better than what you and I have. They're
going to be the first ones to be raised. They're going to be
raised incorruptible. Those that died in Christ are
going to be raised incorruptible. And after them, those who are
yet alive, we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put
on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality. So when
this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortal
shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass
the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. And
that last enemy, like all our other enemies, is going to be
destroyed by Christ. Look here. O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and
the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. He satisfied the
law, He put away sin, and He put an end to our death. You
can't have a hold on us, not justly. So we're going to be
raised. All His people are going to be
raised. Now that's the entire deliverance. That's Christ. That's what He's going to do.
Now, let's go to this last point. This last point. A sinner can
only rest and worship God when we have Christ's covenant promise
to deliver us. You can't rest until you've got
His covenant promise, because that covenant promise can't be
broken. Verse 31, He said, Swear unto Me. And Israel, and He swore
unto Him and said, I'll do it. And Israel bowed himself on the
bed's head. This bowing himself is a picture
of worship. He bowed himself on the head
of that bed and worshiped. We bow ourselves towards our
head, Christ the Lord, and we worship Him. And the only way
you can do that is if you have the everlasting covenant promise,
knowing it's all taken care of. I am going to be saved. Now let
me ask you, do you have this covenant promise? Do you have
Christ? Is He your one need, Christ to
deliver you? And do you have the everlasting
covenant promise knowing it'll never be broken? It's ordered
and sure in all things and He shall deliver me. Do you have
this? You see, I can lay down at night and rest easy. When
death comes, it's not going to be It's not going to be easy
for anybody, even for a believer. We're going to have to have God's
grace to face death, because you and I both know right now,
if you got that news, it would make you tremble, because it's
an unknown. But by God's grace, we're going
to face it, knowing I have peace with God. We're going to face it like David
did, knowing He's made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered
and sure in all things, and this is all my hope and all my salvation. This is all of it. His covenant
promise. My prayer for you, for everybody
here, everybody under the sound of my voice, I pray God would
make you see there's only one who can save you, Christ. He's the only one that can save
you. You can't save yourself. If you
put your hand to it, you defile it. You cannot save yourself. Only Christ can. I pray God will
make you know that. I pray God, number two, will
make you see the only true need you have in this life, turn you
from this world and all these things you think are important,
make you see the one need you have is Christ to deliver you
out of this Egypt into God's presence. And the third thing
I want you to see is what you need to hear to have peace in
your heart is you need to know those that Christ calls, those
that He's redeemed, those that He's saved, He's working out
everything in this covenant. He's not left any conditions
to be made by you or me. The everlasting covenant is everlasting
because He hadn't put any part of it in our hands. It's by faith
that it may be by grace, so that the promise, that everlasting
covenant promise might be sure. You see, if it was in our hands,
it wouldn't be sure, but it's in His hands. He's sure. I pray
God to make us, everyone here, hear that and know that. Rest
in Christ. Alright, let's stand together. Heavenly Father, we ask You now, make this Word not just a picture
to us. Make it life to us. Make this
Word quick in our heart. Make us to see these things are
so. And make us cast all our care
on Christ. Lord, there are sinners here.
They're perishing. The time is drawing near. It's
drawing near quickly. Everyone here is going to die.
We pray, Lord, if it be Your will, we pray You, Lord, if we
found grace in Your sight, we pray You'd deal kindly and truly
with us. Save us for Your mercy and Your
justice' sake. That mercy that's in Christ and
that justice that's satisfied by Christ, save us for His sake.
Forgive us, Lord, of our sins. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.