gave me a very high honor. They moved into their new building
down there in Arkansas, and when he got up to introduce me on
Saturday night, he said that since I was brought up in that
church, heard the gospel there first, was baptized there, I
married my wife there in the old building. My mother, my father, my grandmother,
and my sister are all in that church. He wanted the first visiting
preacher to preach in their new building. to be me. And I thought
that was a very, very great honor. And we had a really good meeting,
a very special meeting. And so I was very thankful for
that. Alright, let's go to Genesis
45. Now there is a people for whom
the Lord Jesus laid down His life. There is a particular people
for whom Christ laid down His life. And He's redeemed that
people. He's justified that people. He's
put away the sins of that people. And there's a time set when Christ
will reveal Himself to His people. There is a time set called the
season of God's love when He will reveal Himself in the hearts
of His people. And that's the picture we have
in our text today. Now Joseph here is a type of
Christ. He's a type of Christ. And we
come here now to this time when Joseph reveals himself to his
brethren. And his brethren are a picture
of every elect child of God. Joseph's a picture of Christ,
his brethren a picture of the elect children of God. Now let's
read this first 15 verses, Genesis 45. Then Joseph could not refrain
himself before all them that stood by him. And he cried, cause
every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him
while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept
aloud, and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard. And
Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph. Doth my father yet
live? And his brethren could not answer
him, for they were troubled at his presence. And Joseph said
unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came
near. And he said, I am Joseph your
brother, whom you sold into Egypt. Now therefore, be not grieved,
nor angry with yourselves that you sold me hither. For God did
send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath
the famine been in the land, and yet there are five years
into which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. And God
sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth,
and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not
you that sent me hither, but God. And he hath made me a father
to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout
all the land of Egypt. Haste ye, and go up to my father,
and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made
me lord of all Egypt. Come down unto me. Terry Knight. and thou shalt dwell in the land
of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children,
and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds,
and all that thou hast, and there will I nourish thee. For yet
there are five years of famine, lest thou and thy household,
and all that thou hast, come to poverty. And behold, your
eyes see, in the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth
that speaketh unto you. And you shall tell my father
of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that you have seen. And
you shall haste and bring down my father hither.' And he fell
upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and he wept. And Benjamin wept
upon his neck. Moreover, he kissed all his brethren,
and wept upon them. And after that, his brethren
talked with him." It's Christ who reveals Himself to His people. That's the first thing we see
here. Verse 1 says, Joseph could not refrain himself before all
them that stood by him. And he cried, cause every man
to go out from me. And there stood no man with him,
while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. Now that's
a picture of Christ revealing Himself. Joseph made himself
known to his brethren. They didn't know Him. They didn't
know Him. And if Joseph had not revealed
Himself to them, they would have never known Him. Nor really wanted
to know Him. All they really wanted was, they
wanted to live through this famine. They just wanted to be saved
from the famine. But they had no heart for Joseph. None at
all. And that's us by nature. You
know what we want by nature? We don't want to go to hell.
That's what we want by nature. But we don't want Christ by nature.
We don't know Christ and we don't want Christ by nature. So he's
got to reveal himself. But see, even though they didn't
know Joseph, Joseph knew them. He knew all of them. He knew
every one of them by name. And that's true of the Lord and
His people. Last Tuesday we were on our way
to the airport in Monroe, in Monroe, Louisiana. We passed
a church sign. And this church sign read, God
abides in the hearts of those who let Him in. Now if that was
so, what we see here in this picture, if that was so, God
would never abide in any heart. Because our dead, depraved, sinful
hearts will not let God in. We don't want God in. by nature. Listen to Scripture. The carnal
mind, the mind we're born with, the carnal mind is enmity. That means hatred against God. That's not my word, that's God's
word and that's what we all are by nature. We don't want God. We won't have anything to do
with God. God's got to give us a new heart. And He does that
by revealing Christ in us. We come to this world dead in
sins. We don't know God. We're ignorant
of the true and living God. But here's the blessing. Here's
the great... This is what gives God the glory
and Christ the glory. Nevertheless, the foundation
of God standeth sure, having this seal. The Lord knoweth them
that are His. We don't know Him, but He knows
them that are His. God the Father chose His people
before this world was made, and He gave them to His Son. He didn't
leave anything in the hand of sinners. If He had, we wouldn't
be saved, brethren. But God chose His people and
gave them to Christ, and Christ knew His people from eternity.
Christ became the surety for His people. He said to God, I
will be responsible for this people. Don't ever look to this
people for anything. I will be responsible for this
people. I will bring this people to you. I will make this people
righteous. I will make them holy. I will
make them without spot. And I'll bring this people to
you. That's what God promised the Father. He knew these people
long before we knew of Him. And all along when we were in
our rebellion and we were dead in sins, He fed us. He clothed us, He preserved us,
He protected us, because the sinner for whom Christ died cannot
die. And God won't allow him to die
until God's brought the gospel to him and made him to have life
and faith in Christ, His righteousness. God's going to do that. He will
not... He's going to preserve His child, even when we don't
know Him. When we were home, I passed by
this crossroads that brought back a very frightening memory
of when I was about 16 years old. I was 16 years old. I was riding the passenger side
of my friend's truck. And we were on the side road
coming up to this main highway that crossed this main highway.
It was a crossroads there. And on this main highway, It
was the highway I grew up on, and this main highway always
was full of traffic. I mean, there was always, and
usually it was 18 wheelers. It was a cutoff between two towns
they could go through, and it wasn't a very big road, but it
was just always full of traffic. And my friend, when we were coming
to this crossroads, my friend just put his foot on the accelerator
and never stopped, never looked, just went right across that crossroads. It scared me to death when it
happened because I knew how busy that intersection was. You know
why an 18-wheeler didn't just t-bone us and take us both out?
God would not let me die until he revealed the gospel in me.
And that's so. God will not let His people perish
in our sins. He won't let us perish and go
from this world in spiritual death because He's going to bring
His child to life and make us see and behold and believe Christ.
That's just so. That's just so. We see here,
Joseph loved his brethren. It was his chief desire to make
himself known to his brethren. It says there, Joseph could not
refrain himself before all them that stood by him. Now that was
Joseph's heart toward his brethren the whole time. That was his
heart toward them all along. Even when he spoke roughly to
them, we saw that was his heart towards them. He went in that
other room at one point and wept over them. His heart, his desire
was to reveal himself to them. Aren't you thankful that's Christ's
desire toward his people? His desire is to reveal himself.
Listen to this. The Lord hath appeared of old
unto me, Jeremiah said. Yea, this is what he said. Yea,
I've loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving
kindness have I drawn thee. We hated God, but our hatred
of God could not quench God's everlasting love. Aren't you
glad? You know, our love is so fickle. Our love, we say things, we make
vows, And it's all conditional. There's no such thing with us
as unconditional love. No such thing. It's conditional. Because you let yourself be treated
evil, wicked, whatever, and you'll stop loving the person that you
vowed you'd love. And they'll do the same to you.
We couldn't stop God from loving us. You can't do that. And it's Christ's glory to reveal
Himself and His Father to His people. This is His glory, rather.
You see, free will and when we say, well, I gave myself life
and I mustered up faith in myself and all these things, that's
to steal God's glory. It's Christ's glory to reveal
Himself to His people. That's His glory. That's His
honor that God's given to Him. In Matthew 11, verse 27, this
is what Christ said. He said, All things are delivered
unto Me of My Father. And nothing is left not delivered
to Christ. Everything is delivered to Christ
of His Father. And He said, No man knoweth the
Son, but the Father. Neither knoweth any man the Father,
save the Son. And He to Whomsoever the Son
will reveal Him. It's Christ that's going to reveal
His Father and Himself in the heart of His people. When He
reveals Himself, He's revealing His Father. Because He said,
I and My Father are one. If you've seen Me, you've seen
the Father. And when He reveals Himself, He's revealing the Father.
That's His glory. God gave Him that glory. The
Father gave Him that glory. And no man's going to take that
glory away from Him. You know what my chief prayer
is this morning? I was sitting here this morning
just thinking, Lord, Please reveal yourself to somebody today. You
know, we come here week in and week out. I mean, even if you
know Him, my prayer is reveal yourself to somebody. I want
to know Him more, don't you? And I pray that somebody here
that doesn't know Him, that God will reveal Himself to you. That's
my prayer. Alright, notice this next thing
in our text. When Christ reveals Himself,
It's private and it's personal. In verse 1, he cried, "'Cause
every man to go out from me.' And there stood no man with him
while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept
aloud, and the Egyptians in the house of Pharaoh heard it." Now
Joseph put all these men out of this chamber he was in, this
room he was in. He put all men out except his
brethren. and the Egyptians in the house
of Pharaoh, they could hear that something was going on. They
could hear through the wall or through the door or whatever,
they could hear something going on in there. They could hear
Joseph crying and something was happening. They had no idea what
was happening. They didn't have any idea what
was going on in there. Now listen carefully and hear
this Scripture, what it's saying here. You might be seated here
today with all your family and your friends around you, And everybody around you may
hear this gospel that's going forth. But when Christ comes in power,
and He enters into that secret chamber of your heart, Christ's
going to give the command, make every man go out from you. Make
every vain thought go out from you. He's going to purge your
conscience. And He's going to speak, and
it's going to be private, and it's going to be personal. And
I guarantee you this, when He does that, you could be in a
crowd of people, and there won't be anybody but you and the Lord,
because the Lord is speaking to you. It's a private matter.
It's a personal matter. You hear me talk about bowing
to Christ, believing on Christ, and you think, well, how in the
world do you do that? You won't have to wonder when God speaks
in power. It will be just you and Him.
and you will begin to hear the Lord speak. You will. We have so many distractions
in our day. I think the devil's goal is to
have our attention focused on a screen of some sort all the
time. You know, we're either looking
at a computer screen, a telephone screen, a TV screen, a movie
screen, some sort of mobile device all the time. And if we're not
looking at something like that, we always have something in our
ears where there's a noise coming in our ears. And this world is
in such a sinful, God-hating condition. I understand why we
want to be distracted all the time. We want something to numb
us from it all the time. I get it. But that's the devil's
desire is to have you distracted from God all the time. And God
will come in power, though, and He'll make a man to cease being
willfully ignorant. He'll give that man a new heart,
and He'll take away every distraction, and He'll make you get alone,
just you and Christ. One day my mother called me.
She said, Clay, I don't know what's going on. She said, but
Melinda is in a boat, in the pond, at the back of the pond,
which is her and her Bible. And I thought, God done got that
girl alone. And He did. And that's what's
going to happen. God will get you alone. He will
take away the distractions and He will make you heed His Word
and pay attention to what He's saying. He'll give you an understanding
of it. For the first time, this jigsaw
puzzle called the Scriptures, all the pieces will fall in place.
I'm not saying you're going to know everything. We know in part,
but I'm saying you begin to see Christ as the key. And He unlocks
these Scriptures to you and you begin to see His glory. And now
you begin to delight in it. You quit going to the Scriptures
then looking for life in something you can do. And you start going
to these Scriptures looking for life in what Christ has already
done. That's the difference between an unregenerate, dead, will-working
sinner and a man that's been regenerated and given grace to
bow to God's will. The will worker goes to this
book trying to find out, now what can I do to have life? Christ
said, you search the scriptures for in them you think you have
life. And they are they which testify
of me. And you will not come to me that
you might have life. But you will when He speaks in
power, when He gets you alone and reveals Himself. Now look
at this next thing, the third thing here. When Christ reveals
Himself, at first it will be troubling. It will be troubling.
Verse 3, Joseph said unto his brethren, And I am Joseph, doth
my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer
him, for they were troubled at his presence. Can't you imagine
how troubled they were at his presence? Here's this man that
they think is this mighty ruler over Egypt, that's just this
great ruler over Egypt. He's got another name now. And
that's all they've heard him called by. And all of a sudden,
he says to them, I am Joseph. Can you imagine? The last time
they saw Joseph, they had stripped him naked, they had thrown him
in a pit, and then they got this better idea, let's profit off
of this man. They sold him for 20 pieces of
silver to some merchant men that were on their way to Egypt. And
then they took his coat and they dipped it in blood and they went
home and lied to their father and said, a beast killed him. This is all that's left of him,
this bloody coat of many colors. That's the last time they saw
Joseph, until now. And now Joseph's sitting there
telling them, I'm Joseph. And these boys couldn't say a
word. They couldn't even talk. Before, they never ceased talking. Every time Joseph would say something
to them, they would talk back. We're not sinners. Oh, no, no,
no, we're not sinners. Now, Joseph said, I'm Joseph. And all you can hear is the crickets,
because they can't speak a word. But you know what? That's when
God will start teaching you then, when He shut your mouth and made
you to see there's nothing you can say. That will happen when
He reveals Himself. When He does that, it causes
us to be troubled. There is a fear. And that's a
healthy thing, a fear. It's a reverential, respectful
thing that makes you bow. And the Lord said, and that's
the beginning of wisdom. And the reason it's the beginning
of wisdom, He said in Zephaniah 1.7, Hold thy peace at the presence
of thy God. Remember what we saw in 1 Corinthians
1? No flesh will glory in His presence. When we're running
our mouth and trying to object to God's gospel, we're glorying.
But when God comes in power and comes into the heart of His child,
you're not going to glory in His presence. You're going to
shut up. He's going to do the talking.
You're going to do the listening when He gives you ears to hear.
And that's when he spoke. And that's when he drew himself
to them. Look here in verse 4. Joseph said unto his brethren,
Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. Can you think
about that? When he said, Come near to me,
they don't know what Joseph is going to do. They have no idea
what Joseph is going to do. They knew what they would do
if they were in Joseph's shoes because look at the evil they
did to Joseph when there was no cause. What would they have
done if they were in Joseph's shoes? They'd have said, come
here. And when he walked over there, they'd have chopped his
head off. And they don't know if Joseph's going to do that
to them. But there was a gentleness and a meekness in this command
and a power in this command that made them draw near. And that's
so with Christ. He says, come unto me, all ye
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He
says, Come unto me and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly
in heart. You picture that as Christ being
low, meek, low. And by nature, you know where
we are? We're haughty up here in the clouds. If you're going
to hear Christ, you know where you're going to have to come?
You're going to have to come low. That's the only place God's going to
speak to you is when He brings you low. But there's a meekness
in that command, there's a lowliness in that command that makes you
come down and draw near and hear Him speak. In verse 4, He said,
I'm Joseph your brother whom you sold into Egypt. Now therefore,
be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that you sold Me hither,
for God did send Me before you to preserve life. You know, doesn't
it make your heart sink when you And to your own self, God
discovers to you that you're busted. You're guilty. You've
got nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, nothing to say to justify
yourself. You're guilty. That makes your
heart sink. That makes you... Have you ever
done anything in this life that you looked at it and you thought,
this was so stupid of me. Why did I do this? I wish I could
undo that. I wish I could take this back.
Because now, you know, I'm fixing to be shamed. You know, this
is hurting people. You think all those things. And
you become, actually, you become angry at yourself. And grieved
at yourself. Because how shameful this is
being. Why did I do this? That's where
you got to be brought before God in your sin. You've got to
become angry at yourself and grieved at yourself because you've
sinned against God and God alone. That's where we've got to be
brought. We don't believe that by nature. You know, a man can
get religion and he can say, Oh, I've sinned against God and
I've sinned against my brethren. Oh, we've all done that. No,
no, that's not it. God's got to bring you to be
grieved at yourself and angry at yourself because all you are
is a sinner against God. And then He'll speak and He'll
say to you, now therefore, don't be grieved for yourself, nor
angry with yourself that you sold Me hither. Don't be grieved
and angry that you put Christ on the cross. That's what His
people did. We rejected Christ. We crucified
Christ in our hearts. Don't be grieved, don't be angry
with yourself, Christ will say to His child, because God did
send me before you to preserve life. Do you know who sent Christ
to the cross? God did. Wicked hands took Him
and nailed Him to that cross, but they were just instruments
in God's hand. They were doing whatsoever God
determined before to be done. God sent Christ before us to
preserve life. Our sins had separated us from
God. And the only way that God can
have any dealings with a sinner is for that sinner to be made
righteous and holy. And God sent Christ to do the
work. And Christ accomplished it. Christ has made His people.
When He enters into your heart, He's going to make you holy.
by His presence in your heart. And when He makes you holy, that's
when He's going to make you hear and understand and know Him and
see that He is your only righteousness and your only holiness. We don't have any room to boast
in anything. This is all because God in pure
grace to us sent Christ before us to preserve life. Isn't that
good? Don't you rejoice in that? And
when He draws you near in faith, then He teaches you this truth,
and He sets you free. Look here in verse 6. He said,
these two years hath the famine been in the land. You know, He
shows you, look at how many years you've been in a famine of sin
and ignorance. And He says, yet there are five
years in which there shall neither be yearning nor harvest, long
as you live in this life. All you're going to find in this
field right here is husks. Nothing to eat, nothing to live
upon. That's all you're going to find
here. He says, and God sent me before you to preserve you a
posterity in the earth and to save your lives by great deliverance. See, there's no way we could
preserve our life, brethren. No way. Let me just, alright,
let's see how powerful your will is. Let's just say you don't
have any food in your cabinets at home at all. No food there. Can you by your will just say,
I just will that there'll be some food there and there's going
to be food there. Can you do that? You can't do it, can you? Well, neither can we will that
we have life. We can't do that. We can't preserve
our life by our will. Only God can. Only God can. And that's why He sent Christ,
to preserve a posterity, to preserve a generation called that holy
generation. He called His people to preserve
a posterity for Himself. That's why He did it. That's
why He did it. And He did this by a great deliverance. Think of the great deliverance
Christ worked for us, brethren. He's great in His incarnation.
He's great in His satisfaction that He made for our sins. He's
great in His resurrection. He's great in His intercession.
He's great in His power to rule everything, to bring us under
the power of the gospel. He's great to make that affection
in our heart. He's great to keep us and preserve
us. And He'll be great to come again
and take us home to Himself. It's a great deliverance, brother.
Every aspect of our salvation is a great deliverance by God. So now all God's elect, are delivered
by God in Christ. And they're going to be made
to know it in their heart. Look here, verse 8. So now it was
not you that sent me hither, but God. And he hath made me
a father to Pharaoh, and Lord of all his house, and a ruler
throughout all the land of Egypt. God did it, not you. We can't
take credit. God did it. And he's made Christ
the father of all rulers and kings. Every pharaoh, Christ
was the ruler over him. Every president, Christ is the
ruler over him. You take the highest, most powerful
men in the world, Christ is ruling them. He has power over all. He's Lord over all. And He's
Lord of God's house. And now then He says this to
His child. He says, now, go up to your father. Have you noticed how often Joseph
said that to his brethren? He'd fill their sacks with food.
He'd return their money to them. He'd say, now go to your father.
He said, I'm taking Benjamin. I've put this cup in him. I've
made him to possess that thing that made him guilty. Now he's
going to be guilty, and he's going to be my servant. And as
for you, now you're free. You go to your father. Picture
a substitution by Christ being made sin for us. Now you can
go to your father. And here again, when He reveals
Himself in your heart, He's going to say, now you can go to your
Father now. Look at this, verse 9. Haste ye, go up to my Father. Don't you like that? Remember
what Christ said when He came to His apostles after He was
resurrected from the dead? He came to them and He said,
you go and you tell Peter, I'm going to my Father and your Father,
my God and your God. See, we're one in Christ. Whatever
God is to him, that's what God is to us. He says, now you go
to my father and say unto him, thus saith thy son Joseph, God
hath made me Lord of all Egypt. You go to God, Christ says, and
you say, you brag on Christ, you say God has made Christ Lord
over all. He says, and come down unto me,
and tarry not. You can go to God the Father
now. Because Christ has opened the way into the holiest of holies.
And we have a high priest over the house of God. And now we
can go to God and say, Father, come down to me. And look at this. Thou, and thy
children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and
thy herds, and all that thou hast, and there will I nourish
thee. Christ is nourishing us. For
yet there are five years of famine, yet we got to go through this
life of famine. And we need Him to nourish us,
lest thou and thy household and all that thou hast come to poverty.
You see, if He's not nourishing us, that's what's going to happen
to us. We'll come to poverty. Behold, your eyes see now, and the eyes
of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh
unto you. That's what you find out. This
is really Christ speaking to me. Right now, some of you sitting
here, you know what you hear? You hear a sinner speaking to
you. Just a man, and in your mind
you're saying, it's just a man, what does he know? But when Christ
speaks, you'll hear, you'll see, this is really Christ speaking
to me. Look here, verse 13. And you should tell my Father
of all my glory. We don't come to God telling
God of all our glory. No, sir. We come to God telling
God of all Christ's glory. And of all that you've seen.
And you shall hasten and bring down my Father hither, And he
fell upon his brother, Benjamin's neck, and he wept. And Benjamin
wept upon his neck. Moreover, he kissed all his brethren
and wept upon them." That's when they learn by experience what
true grace is. Can you just... You know, let
me see if I can put this in an illustration. Say you've offended
your husband. And you've, I mean, you have
done something that is so wicked against your husband, evil against
your husband. And he has every right to be,
to deal with you in strict justice. But he comes to you and wraps
his arms around you and kisses you and says, I forgive you. You're forgiven. I'm not even
going to remember this. And He just kisses you and kisses
you and kisses you. With every one of those kisses,
you know what you're experiencing? You're experiencing grace. Experiencing
grace and mercy. And that's going to melt your
heart. Wouldn't it melt your heart towards
that husband? You'd just be melted to say, man, I want to be the
best wife I can be to that husband. Look at the grace He's shown
to me. And that's what Christ does when He comes to us. He
kisses you and kisses you with these kisses of grace. And He
melts your heart to where you say, I just want to be, I want
to be the best bride for Christ I can be. I want to serve Him
because He's shown me so much grace. Law didn't make you want
to do that. The law came to you and whipped
you, that husband came and smote you and said, you're just a sinner,
you're wicked, you're evil, and that just made you want to sin
more against that law. But that grace that comes and
kisses you, and kisses you, and loves you, and hugs you, that
makes you want to serve Christ. It's the goodness of God that
leads you to repentance. The goodness of God. Look here
now. And after that, his brethren
talked with him. See, they couldn't talk with
him before. They knew they were guilty. They knew they were just
guilty. And here's this one they had
crucified, sold. They couldn't say a word. But
now they experienced these kisses of his free grace. And when they
experienced that, it loosened their tongue and they could talk
to Him. You can talk to Christ now, can't
you? Don't you just, don't you look forward after a busy, hard
day of trouble and trial and tribulation, don't you just look
forward to being able to, wherever it is you like to go and where
it's quiet and just pour out your heart to Christ. Don't you
look forward to that? You can tell Him things you can't
tell anybody else. Why? He's kissed you. He's loosened your tongue where
you can talk to Him now. I pray that God would do that
for somebody. Reveal Himself, kiss you with
these kisses of grace and make you able to talk to Him honestly. Alright, brother. Let's stand
together now. Father, we thank You. We pray
now You'd reveal Yourself in the hearts of Your people. Forgive us, Lord, of our sins,
and do this for Christ's sake, do it by Christ, through Christ,
through Your Spirit. We ask Your will to be done,
to Your glory and Your honor and Your praise. And in Christ's
name we ask it. Amen. Alright, brethren, we'll
take a little short break.