All right, brethren, let's turn
to Genesis chapter 47. Genesis 47. Now, if all we see in our text
this morning is Pharaoh and Joseph and Israel and the Egyptians
We're going to be like most of the commentaries I read. Most
of the commentaries charged Joseph and Pharaoh with taking advantage
of the Egyptians. They were so used to governments
that oppress and governments that tax and tax and tax to where
when we see something like this, we look at it with carnal eyes
and we just see a government taking advantage of the people. But I want you to remember God
was ruling over this. God was ruling over this. And
Christ said all these Old Testament scriptures speak of me. All these
Old Testament scriptures. We've been seeing how Joseph
is such a beautiful picture of Christ. Alright, now let me begin
here in verse 11. Genesis 47, 11. Now this is before
our text begins. This is before, this is in the
beginning, before our text begins and we read verse 11 and 12.
Joseph placed his father and his brethren and gave them a
possession in the land of Egypt in the best of the land, in the
land of Ramses. That was the land of Goshen.
As Pharaoh had commanded, And Joseph nourished his father and
his brethren, and all his father's household with bread according
to their families. Or as the margin reads, as a
little child is nourished. Now, before the foundation of
the world, Christ entered covenant and God put all his people in
Christ. He's our land of Goshen. The land of Goshen was where
the king's cattle were kept. And Christ is where God's sheep
are kept. We've been in Christ since before
the foundation of the world. He blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places according as He chose us in Him.
And then in the end of our text, go down to verse 27. In the end
of our text, we read this. And this is where all God's elect
will be in the end, when all this is over. It says, verse
27, and Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt in the country of Goshen. Same place, and they had possessions
therein and grew and multiplied exceedingly. When all this is
over, we're going to be in Christ. We're going to be in our land
of Goshen where we started from eternity past. But in between
that time, we're in this land of Egypt. And while we're in this flesh,
our sinful flesh, even for the regenerated believer, our sinful
flesh is no different than all the rest of the Egyptians. In
my flesh dwells no good thing. It's just like every other sinner.
And we were children of wrath even
as others. So our flesh is just Egyptian.
Into my spirit there's a new man. Christ the bread, Christ
the life, and then me, that's the real me, that's the true
Israel of God, that inner man. This outer man is Egypt. And this Egyptian flesh lusts
after everything but Christ. Your Egyptian flesh lusts after
everything but Christ. Thinks that there's salvation
in everything but Christ. And so our Lord is continually
nourishing His people, and He's doing it by making us be turned
in our affections from all this death that we think is life,
and we think is salvation, and He's turning us to Christ and
showing us and making us know He is our life. He is our righteousness,
our holiness, our all. Now, I've titled this, Exchanging
Death for Life. And that's what I want you to
look at this as, not so much as being a purchase. If you just
look with carnal eyes, you're going to see a purchase. But
if you look with spiritual eyes and look at Christ taking away
from us our death, everything we thought was salvation in exchange
for Christ the bread. It'll be a blessing to you. Now,
first of all, Christ is going to teach his people by showing
us our famine of sin. Our famine of sin. That's where
it all begins, is showing us our sin. Verse 13 says, 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. Now there's no bread, there's
no life in you, there's no life in me, in all this land. Whether
in Canaan or Egypt, all the land has fallen in Adam and all have
sinned. You remember before all this,
Joseph told them there's going to be seven years of plenty and
seven years of famine. And Pharaoh chose Joseph because
he had the Spirit upon him. He was discreet and wise. And
Pharaoh chose Joseph to be over all his house, to be over all
the land of Egypt, to have all the power. And all the people
would have to go to Joseph. And Joseph, when he stood before
Pharaoh, he was 30 years old. Well, God chose Christ to be
over his house. And Christ came into this Egypt,
under covenant with God, and came into this Egypt, and when
he was baptized and entered his public ministry, he was 30 years
old. And he stood before God, and God, the Spirit descended
on him without measure. And God announced to all the
world, like Pharaoh announced to all Egypt, and he said, this
is my son, hear ye him. So Joseph went forth and he bought
a fifth part of the corn. In those times of plenty, when
the land was bringing forth by handfuls, he went forth and he
bought. He didn't just take the corn
from the people, he bought it. Pharaoh provided all the expenses,
everything necessary, and Pharaoh went forth and he bought the
corn. Fifth part of the corn. And he
laid it up. He laid it up in cities, where
the storehouses were, in the cities. Well, Christ came forth
and bought us. He bought us. And Christ is the
life. He's the bread. And He's laid
up in heavenly Jerusalem in the city, in heavenly Jerusalem,
and he puts his people in his churches, where he feeds us from
heavenly Jerusalem, where the storehouse is. So, when Joseph
bought that corn, now, you got to think about this. Not only
did they have plenty of corn, now they got plenty of money
too. Joseph has come forth and bought it all. Bought the fifth
part, so they got plenty of money and plenty of corn. Now, during
that time of plenty, They didn't look to Joseph. They didn't look
for life from Joseph. They had plenty. They had bread. They had money. What did they
need with Joseph? What did they need with him?
Well, then our text says the famine came. The famine came. And it was very sore. Very sore. They fainted because of it. There
was nothing they could do. Now that's where Christ is going
to bring you and me. When we are in times of plenty,
we think we have all necessity, we don't need Christ. He's going
to bring you to see the feminist sore. You don't have Christ,
you don't have life in you. You've got to be brought there
to see our need of salvation. And that's what He'll do. Remember
Hosea and Gomer? I'm going to take away the corn,
I'm going to take away the wool, the wine, the flax. Christ is
going to take away everything we trusted in, everything we
had confidence in. That Egyptian in our flesh got
to be brought down. Alright, now, not only does He
reveal our sins, He's going to turn our affection from every
false confidence to Him. Now, the first thing they had
to be turned from was looking to their money. Looking to their
money. Verse 14 says, 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. Now this famine was so bad, they
ran out of corn, they ran out of bread, and they were starving
to death. They were absolutely starving
to death. Now, here they are, they got
money. And they once thought that money
was their salvation. They thought as long as we got
this, this is our salvation. But they can't eat that money.
That money can't give them bread. Now, only one place they can
get the bread, and that's to go to Joseph. And to get that
bread, Joseph's going to make them lay that money down. Now,
like I said, if you just look at this with carnal eyes, you
just see them going and buying money. Well, that's not so spiritually. Christ said, come buy without
money and without price. But you can't come with money. You have to lay the money down.
And then Christ will give you the bread. And that's what happened
here. In exchange for the money, in
exchange for life, Joseph gave them bread. And that's where
we have to be brought. One thing men think is salvation
is money. Money. If we don't have it, we
don't think we're safe. If we got it, we think we're
safe. You can have a man that's poor, don't have much, and threaten
all the time, give him some money, and all of a sudden you'd think
he owns the world. Everything's good, he's safe.
But the truth of the matter is, money won't set us on high, money
won't protect us from the power of evil. The only thing it can
protect you from is some kind of carnal evil, but that's just
for a moment. Just for a moment. Habakkuk 2.9
says, Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house. Why is it evil? Why is it an
evil covetousness? A man that's wanting to gather
up money and just save up his money. Why is that evil? That
he... that he may set his nest on high. Who's our salvation? Christ is. We can't be looking to something
else to think that we're going to set our nest on high. Christ
is our salvation. that He may be delivered from
the power of evil. See, He's trying to deliver Himself
from the power of evil. We need Christ to deliver us.
It's impossible, therefore, for you to serve God and to serve
Mammon. Impossible. The Lord Jesus said,
No man can serve two masters. He'll either hate one and love
the other, or else he'll hold to the one and despise the other.
But you cannot serve God and Mammon. We can't look to our
riches and look to Christ. It's an impossibility to do both.
So as long as we're coveting money, you see what we're doing?
We're erring from Christ for those riches. You know what scripture
tells us to do? It says the love of money is
the root of all evil, which while some coveted after that, they've
erred from Christ. They've gone from Christ to that.
And the scripture says right after that, O man of God, you
flee those things and you lay hold of eternal life. Let go
of the riches and go to Christ. Lay the riches down and go to
Christ. But now I have to say this too.
Many saints in this world have been very wealthy and they've
used their money for the furtherance of the gospel. God gave them
a heart not to sit on it but to use it to further the gospel.
So it's not just money. The riches in the scripture also
represent self-righteousness. Self-righteousness. And I think
the reason money and riches represent self-righteousness in the scriptures
is because money and self-righteousness are the two chief things that
sinners look to for their salvation. Isn't that so? You want to cause a fuss and
get under somebody's skin, You declare to him that his money
won't save him and his righteousness won't save him. And you've just
taken away all his salvation. Every bit of it. But that's what,
from the beginning of our conversion throughout the life of faith,
Christ is going to turn us from our riches, whether they be literal
money or self-righteousness, and He's going to turn us to
Him. He does it in conversion and He keeps doing it. Because
this old Egyptian flesh keeps looking back, looking back, and
he keeps turning us, keeps turning us. Exchange death for life. Alright, then their money ran
out. Then their money ran out. So now they're going to have
to come back to Joseph again. But they've still got something
they're looking to. They've got their cattle. They've got their
cattle. Look at verse 15. When the money
failed in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the
Egyptians came to Joseph and said, Give us bread. For why
should we die in thy presence? For the money faileth. Brethren,
the money is going to always fail. Self-righteousness is going
to always fail. And everything else is going
to fail. But Christ never fails. Why should we die in thy presence? Isn't that a good question? They
ask themselves that, why should we die when we're in the presence
of one that has bread? Who is the bread? Why should
we die? Why should you die while we're
in the presence of Christ the bread? Isn't that foolish? So
what's it going to make them do with this cattle? Verse 16,
Joseph said, give your cattle. If money fell, and they brought
their cattle to Joseph, Joseph gave them bread in exchange for
horses, and for the flocks and for the cattle of the herds and
for their asses. And he fed them with bread for all their cattle
for that year. Behind their money, their cattle
was their most prized possession. Well, we don't have the money
anymore. We had to lay that down. But we still got our cattle now.
Got our cattle. You know folks in Texas and down
south, places that have cattle. You measure wealth by how much
cattle you got. How much cattle you own. And
that's us. We measure our wealth by how
much stuff we have. Our houses, our cars, our...
That's our cattle, our stuff, our possessions. Well, Christ
won't have our affections set on our stuff and not on Him. He's going to turn us from having
our affection on that to our affection on Him. And again,
you can look at this stuff in religion. This cattle in religion
is like Religious programs and religious professions and religious
fruit that men bring forth that they think is going to make them
accepted with God. All that stuff's got to be...
We've got to be turned from that. We've got to be turned from that
to Christ. The Lord said this, I'll declare your righteousness
and I'll declare your works. They shall not profit thee. There's
nothing you and I have that's going to profit us with God.
Nothing we can produce is going to profit us with God. It's not
by works of righteousness we've done. But by His grace, by His
mercy He saved us. He has to wash us in regeneration
with the Holy Spirit. He has to justify us. He has
to purge us with His blood. And it's all through our Lord
Jesus Christ. He's going to bring you to lay
down your cattle. Alright? So the cattle ran out.
Now all they have left is their bodies and their land. What's
going to happen to that? Verse 18. 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 of cattle. There is not aught left
in the sight of my Lord but our bodies and our land. Now we come
down to where our real problem is all along. You see, our real
problem is not the money and it's not the self-righteousness.
It's not the religious professions and it's not the religious fruit.
Our problem is us. Our land, that's our problem,
is us. It's us. So Christ turns us from
us and makes us to be willing servants to Him. Verse 19, Wherefore
shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land, by us,
don't you like that, 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. We need life. We need life. Take me. Take, take, buy me. And he bought his people. He
bought his people. And he gives us seed. He gives
us life within. And he gives us seed. We need
him to regenerate. We need him to feed us and to
regenerate those that he's going to call out. So that the land
won't be desolate. We don't have any way of bringing
forth any life. He has to give us the seed and
make it increase. Look here at verse 20. 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. Turn to Matthew 16. I want to
show you, I think, the Scripture that sums this up spiritually
for us. Matthew 16. Here's what I'm trying
to show you. It's what Christ said right here. Matthew 16, verse 25. Let's begin in verse 24. If any
man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross,
and follow me. For whosoever will save his life
shall lose it. If they had hung on to that money,
and that cattle, and their bodies, and their land, what would have
happened to them? They would have had no bread, no life, they
would have died. Did you notice there, every time
he took something from them, he gave them bread. He gave him
bread. He gave him bread. And we had to be made to lay
everything down for the bread. But if we try to save our life,
we're going to lose it. But whosoever will lose his life
for my sake, he shall find it. For what is a man profited if
he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? What shall a man
give in exchange for his soul? There's nothing you can buy salvation
with. And if you hang on to all that
stuff, you're exchanging your soul for just dead, lifeless,
temporary pleasure. For the Son of Man shall come,
He's coming again in the glory of His Father with His angels,
and then He shall reward every man according to his works. Now when He comes, you want to
be standing in your dead Your dead salvation and your dead
hope and your dead works and your dead self-righteousness
and with your dead riches and all your death, you want to be
standing there and be found of Him? Or you want to be found
in Christ? Having nothing but Christ the
bread, nothing but Christ our righteousness, nothing but Christ
the life. That's where I want to be found. He's coming. He's coming again. Alright now,
did you notice there? I showed you that He gave them
bread, bread, bread. Now watch this. At last they
gave themselves to Joseph. And when he did, he provided
for them from then on at his own expense. At his own expense,
he provided for them. Look here in verse 21. As for
the people, he removed them to cities from one end of the borders
of Egypt even to the other end thereof. Now I read every faithful
commentary I could find on this. And every one of the commentaries
had the same thing to say. They said Joseph so that the
people wouldn't have a sentimental attachment to their land. He
said if he left them there they'd have this sentimental attachment
to their land and eventually they'd rise up in rebellion and
say we want our land back. That's looking at it with carnal
eyes. Joseph took those people from the wilderness, from the
country, and at his own expense, he moved them to the cities.
Why did he do that? Go back to Genesis 41, look at
verse 48. If you don't see something and
understand something, the commentaries are good, they'll help you, but
if you can't, go to the Scriptures and look, because that's where
you're going to find the answer. Commentaries sometimes will mislead you. even
the most faithful of men. Look at verse 48. Joseph gathered
up all the food of the seven gears which were in the land
of Egypt and laid up the food, where? In the cities. In the cities. Round about every
city laid he up in the same. See, the cities is where the
storehouses were. That's where the storehouses
were. That's where the bread was. And you know, you live out in
a country, just on a literal level, you live out in a country
and the economy goes bad, you know who gets hit first? People
in the country. They grow in the crops and living
off the land and when a famine hits, they're going to suffer.
They're going to suffer. Folks in the cities have a little
more cushion. But you see, here's the picture,
the spiritual picture. Joseph moved them to the cities
because that's where the storehouse was. And Christ, at His expense,
at His expense... You know, we moved up here to
this city. I'm talking about this church.
And He puts you in His heavenly city, His heavenly Jerusalem,
where He feeds you with the living bread. And we moved up here and,
you know, we look at it and we think, well, we had some expenses
in doing that. What did we spend that was ours?
Nothing. Every bit of it came from Christ's
hand. He moved us here at His expense. Every bit of it was
from Him. Just give it to us. Remember
what David said when he dedicated that temple that day? God, it's
of Your grace that we can give this much in abundance. Everything
we're given came from You. And so, just like Joseph here,
he takes his people, Christ takes his people, and at His expense,
He breaks down every wall, every barrier, every obstacle, and
moves his people He plants them in His city, in His church, where
He feeds them the living bread from then on. Alright, now look. The rule that He brings us under,
that Christ brings us under, is so light and so easy. The
rule that we're under is light and easy. Look here now, verse
23. Then Joseph said to the people, Behold, I have bought you this
day and your land for Pharaoh." You know who Christ bought us
for? He bought all His elect for God, for His Father. He bought
us for His Father. Lo, here is seed for you, you
shall sow the land. That's what He... He puts you
in one of His heavenly cities and He says to you now, here
is some seed for you. Now you go and spread this gospel
throughout the land. You sow the land with this gospel.
And it shall come to pass in the increase. He didn't say if
there is an increase. He said it shall come to pass
in the increase. Christ's going to make sure there's
an increase when we sow His seed. He's going to bless it, bring
forth fruit. And in that increase, you'll give the fifth part unto
Pharaoh. And four parts shall be your
own. For seed of the field, for your food, for them of your household,
for food of your little ones. Now Christ bought us and gives
us that seed to sow the land, and Christ says to you and me
now, when the increase comes, you give the glory where the
glories do. Who did all that? Who sent Joseph? Pharaoh did. Who gave him everything
needful to come there and purchase the bread in the times of plenty?
Pharaoh did. Who was it that told them all
to go to Joseph? Pharaoh did. And like that, brethren,
God our Father chose Christ. He sent Him forth. He was with
Him. He provided all for Him. And
He says now, Christ says to you, now, I bought you for Him. Now
you give the glory to Him. In the increase, you give Him
the glory. And all this bread, all this
bread is yours. It's all yours. Isn't that a
light yoke? Isn't that a light and easy yoke?
Glorified God, and just live off the bread. Glorify God and
just live off the bread. Give it to your little ones.
Give it to your households. Just live off the bread. Christ
said, if any man is laboring and heavy laden, He said, come
to Me, I'll give you rest. He said, take My yoke upon you
and learn of Me. I'm meek and lowly in heart.
He said, My yoke is light and easy. He's not sending you back
to the law. I was reading and they said that
when heathen nations, heathen governments would take over a
land like this, they would do it, you know, just in a carnal
way. They would come and take their
land, and take their cattle, and take their money, and bring
them into servitude, and then heap a giant tax on them, so
that they actually became slaves to the king. That's what the
next Pharaoh is going to do. This Pharaoh was under the hand
of God. And he didn't do that. He didn't
bring them under a heavy tax. It was a light one-fifth, and
the rest is yours. They were willing servants. They
were willing servants. And that's what He does. He makes
you praise Him. He makes you praise Him for what
He's done for you. Look here, verse 25. They said,
and here's what Joseph was teaching them all along. It's what Christ
is teaching us all along. Thou, thou, you Joseph, have
saved our lives. You've saved our lives. Let us
find grace in the sight of my Lord, and we will be Pharaoh's
servants." And he makes you to see, we found grace in his eyes. And he saved our lives, and he
makes you willing now to say, I'll be your servant. I'll be
your servant. Well, there's one more thing
I want to show you. I know the carnal man sitting here, and
he's thinking, He's thinking, well, if I give up all these
things that I have my affection set on right now, I'm going to
be the loser. I'm going to lose out for doing that. We never
lose. We never lose when Christ strips
us of everything that we hold dear in this life and brings
us to His feet to lay hold of Him. We never lose when that's
the case. Now, you're going to have to
have some spiritual eyes to see this. Ready? Verse 22. Only the land of the priests
bought he not, for the priests had a portion assigned them of
Pharaoh." That means beforehand, they had a portion assigned to
them. These were the Egyptian priests. And they did eat their
portion which Pharaoh gave them, wherefore they sold not their
lands. Every child of God in Christ is what? We're a priest
under God. We are priests unto God. And
even though Christ strips our Egyptian flesh and brings us
down and turns us from those things we held dear in this world,
in this Egypt, we already have our portion assigned to us by
God before the foundation of the world, and that portion is
Christ. And we never lose our portion when He strips us of
those things. We have Christ, our portion,
given to us by God, given to us by God's Son, And we always
have that portion. He's our portion. Well, what's
going to happen when all this is over? When the end comes,
we're going to be right where we were from the beginning. Verse
27, Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt in the country of Goshen.
And they had possessions therein and grew and multiplied exceedingly.
When we come to the end, we won't be Egypt anymore. We're going
to lay off the Egyptian flesh and all there will be then is
just that new man, Israel. Dwelling with Christ our Israel
in our land, in Christ, in our Gushen. And we'll multiply and
grow and we'll possess everything. Now turn to John 6 and I'm going
to sum it up with this. This is what Christ said. John
6. Verse 37. He said, all that the
Father... He told them up here, He told
them not to labor for the bread that perishes, but for that bread
that's eternal. And now He's telling them who
that bread is in verse 37. Now look at verse 35. I'm the
bread of life. He that comes to me shall never
hunger. He that believes on me shall never thirst. But I said,
you've seen me and believe not, but all that the Father giveth
me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me, I'll
in no wise cast out, for I came down from heaven, not to do mine
own will, but the will of him that sent me. Remember Joseph,
whose will was he doing? Doing Pharaoh's will. And Christ
came doing God's will. He said, And this is the Father's
will which is sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I
should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last
day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone
would seeth the Son, and believeth on him. You know what that means?
You can't believe on Him and believe on your money and believe
on your self-righteousness. You can't believe on Him and
believe on your cattle, your stuff, your possessions, your
so-called religious fruit. You can't believe on Him and
look to our bodies, our land. To believe on Him is to look
to Him alone. And He said, now all that believe
on Him may have everlasting life. Not temporary bread. Not the
temporary bread that that stuff is. But everlasting life. And I will raise Him up at the
last day. We'll be with Him in Goshen. Right where we started from eternity. Alright. Let's stand together. Father, give us eyes to see Christ
in the Scriptures. Give us eyes to Adore Him and
worship Him, rejoice in Him. Lord, strip us. Strip us of everything
that would divide us from You. Make us lay hold of You. Help
us now to worship You, Lord. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.