Alright, our text is going to
be there where Art read. I appreciate you reading that
for me, Art. I just want to jump right into it. That's why I wanted
him to read for me. What we see here in Joseph is
a picture of Christ Jesus, the God-man, who is the keeper of
the storehouse of God's grace. Christ Jesus, the God-man, is
the keeper of God's storehouse of grace. You know what a storehouse
is? It's kind of like those silos
you see out beside barns or something on a farm where they keep the
food for the animals. That's a storehouse. These were
big storehouses where they kept food in Egypt. Well, Christ is
the keeper of the storehouse. First of all, we see a picture
of Christ with all authority. Pharaoh gave to Joseph all authority
in Egypt. In verse 41 it says, Pharaoh
said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of
Egypt. Verse 44 it says, or look at
verse 42, He gave him this ring upon his hand. That's a symbol
of power. That's the king's signet. He
gave that to Pharaoh so that authority went to Pharaoh. He
arrayed him in vestures of fine linen and put a gold chain about
his neck. He made him a king. And it says
verse 44, And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh. He's saying it's by my name that
I'm doing this. I'm Pharaoh. This is his decree.
I'm Pharaoh. And without thee shall no man
lift up his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt. Now that right
there, Brethren, is Pharaoh giving Joseph sovereign power over the
whole land? He said, a man can't even lift
up his hand or his foot in this land without your consent. That's
sovereign power. Well, according to the eternal
purpose and covenant of God the Father, God the Father being
pleased with His Son. Being pleased with what His Son
accomplished in this earth for His people. Glorifying God to
the highest. God also has highly exalted His
Son. And He's given Him all power
over all. As the God-man mediator. I was
going to read Ephesians 119 to you, but you're familiar with
it. I've read it enough in the past several messages. I'll just skip over that verse.
But I love it. He has all power over all. And
the thing I love about that verse is he's the head over all things
to the church and that church is the fullness of him. The fullness
of him. So if somehow one of his elect,
one of those he redeemed by his blood could be lost, which they
can't, thank our God for that, they can't. But if they could,
Christ's body wouldn't be full. And that won't happen. His body
will be full. And that's this one who has all
power over all that we're talking about. By God's royal covenant,
brethren, by His covenant, by His word, just like Pharaoh said,
My name is Pharaoh. God could swear by no greater.
He swore by Himself. He said, You are a priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek. And He raised our mediator, our
righteous redeemer. our advocate with the Father,
our intercessor, our head. He raised Him and He gave Him
all authority over all creation and all creatures. I love to
think about this. Christ Jesus is not only the
absolute sovereign God, He is absolute sovereign man. Absolute
sovereign man. He says, Jesus came and spake
unto his disciples and he said, All power is given unto me in
heaven and in earth. All power. Daniel 4, 5 is speaking
of Christ with this power. It says, He doeth according to
his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth and none can stay his hand or say unto him, What doest
thou? That's who our mediator is. Without Christ shall no man,
no angel, good or bad, no devil, move a hand or a foot without
His consent. He's that powerful. He's over
all. Brother Art, it's comforting. This is what's comforting. To
know. To know this. This One who has all power has
our names engraved on the palms of His hands. He has our names
engraved on the palms of His hand. He said, if I go and prepare
a place for you, I will come again to you, that where I am,
there you may be also. That's a promise, brethren. You
think anybody's going to stop Him from doing that? He said,
if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. Who's He talking about? He's
talking about His people. Anybody going to stop Him from
doing that? He's the one that gave Peter the words when Peter
said, we've been begotten again to a lively hope by the resurrection
of Christ Jesus from the dead. And it's to an inheritance that's
undefiled, that fadeth not away, that's reserved in heaven for
you. And who are these that it's reserved for? You who are kept
by the power of God, by the power of this God-man mediator. And
he says, and you're kept through faith unto that salvation, which
is ready to be revealed. You think anybody's going to
stop Christ from keeping his, from giving his child faith and
keeping his child in faith till he brings them to that salvation,
which he himself has ready made for them and is ready to reveal
to them? You think anybody's going to
stop them from doing that? Nobody. Nobody. Nobody is going
to frustrate him. You just think about how good
of news it was when they heard Pharaoh was elevated to this
grand position in that land and what he was doing in that land. When the news went forth of what
he was doing, that was great news to them. They didn't have
anything to worry about. We're going to be taken care
of. And this is better news. Christ is more powerful than
Joseph ever thought about being or Pharaoh. We got nothing to
worry about. Here's the second thing we see
in this. In type we see that Christ is the only one who's
fit to hold the key to the storehouse of God's grace. He's the only
one fit to do it. Look, Joseph was the only fit
person in all of Egypt. that could be in this position
to hold the key to the storehouses. Look at verse 38. Pharaoh said
unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this? He is a man
in whom the Spirit of God is. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph,
Forasmuch as God hath shewed thee all this, there is none
so discreet and wise as thou art. Could God our Father find
one as discreet and wise as his son? There is none. in whom the Spirit of God dwells.
So wise and so discreet as he is. You know what the father
did? He chose his son and he entrusted
all salvation into the hands of Christ Jesus because he is
discretion and he is wisdom. The psalmist said, a good man
shows favor and he lendeth. He will guide his affairs with
discretion. Now there's going to be a new
heavens and a new earth. That's going to be the creation
of Christ Jesus. And everything that's in that
new heavens and new earth is going to be all righteousness.
Everything. And we know from the scriptures
that Christ is the one who made all things in this heaven and
this earth. He created all things. All things
were created by him and for him. And without him was not anything
made that was made. He made everything. How is He
going to make that new heavens and new earth? Same way He made
this one. Listen to this out of Jeremiah. It says in Jeremiah
10 and verse 12, He hath made the earth by His power, He hath
established the world by His wisdom, and hath stretched out
the heavens by His discretion. That's how He's making the new
heavens and new earth. It's by His power, it's by His
wisdom, it's by His discretion. This is a wise Savior we're talking
about. Here's something else. God showed
Joseph this famine before it ever came to pass. The famine
hadn't got there yet when God showed Joseph what was going
to come to pass. But before the foundation of
the world, God our Father showed Christ how His people would fall
into the famine of sin and depravity. They would fall into. I know
that. You know that. Because even though
His people would fall in sin, you know what Christ did? He
entered into covenant. He entered into everlasting covenant
with God. He became our surety. so that
he would come forth knowing he would have to bear that shameful
death of the cross. He would have to bear that for
his people to save his people from sin and death and hell.
And knowing that, he entered into covenant agreement, became
our surety and said, I'll do the work. I'll do the whole work
for my people. There was one man in Egypt, just
one man in Egypt, that was fit to do that whole work. That man
was Joseph. And there's just one man by whom
many shall be made righteous. There's one mediator between
God and men, the man Christ Jesus. If you just look at Christ, just
think about, I like this, that when you look at Christ, there
is God, the fullness of the Godhead, and there's man. in one body. And just his person declares
what his work is. He's going to bring God and man
together in one. And the one he's bringing us
together in is him. He's the only one who's holy
God so that he can reach God and he's man so that he can reach
man. And he can bring the two together. And he's done that
by his work. And not only did Joseph have
this work given to him, He went forth and did the work. He went
forth and did the work. Look at verse 46. The second
part there says, Joseph went throughout all the land of Egypt,
and in the seven plenteous years the earth brought forth by handfuls. And he gathered up all the food
of the seven years which were in the land of Egypt, and laid
up the food in the cities. The food of the field which was
round about every city laid he up in the same. And Joseph gathered
corn as the sand of the sea very much till he left numbering it
for it was without number. Christ was told the work that
he had to do and then he came into the earth and did it. He
came into the earth and did it. And he did that work that God
the Father gave him to do and he accomplished that work. And
he accomplished that work in abundance. He accomplished that
work by the handfuls. He laid up grace for His people
so much so it can't be numbered. Out of His fullness have we received
grace. You want to number His fullness?
We can't number that. Out of His fullness. And He did
this by His work at Calvary. He went to that cross. and he
died on that cursed tree, and he bore our sin, and he laid
down his life, and he bore justice on that cursed tree, and he condemned
sin. He fulfilled the law, he magnified
it, he honored it, and he condemned sin on that cross. And he bought
the right by that to enter into his people and make us righteousness
fill us with righteousness, not by the law, not by works, but
by Himself entering in through the Spirit. So that when He enters
in, Christ our righteousness is the fulfillment of all righteousness
within us. He is our righteousness. So that
we have Him as all our righteousness. That's what Romans 8 is talking
about. Look there with me, Romans 8.
When He's talking about there, about how you're not in the Spirit,
You're not in the flesh, you're in the Spirit. He talks about
we've been delivered from the law of sin and death by the law
of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. The law had nothing to
do with this, brethren. The law didn't make us righteousness. Christ came and fulfilled that
law, redeemed us from that curse so that Christ could come forth
and reveal unto us He is our righteousness. He Himself is
our righteousness that makes us righteous. Look here, Romans
8, 3. He said, What the law could not do in that it was weak through
the flesh. God sent in his own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the
flesh. So he got sin out of the way.
He got the law out of the way. He got all that out of the way.
That's what Paul says. He nailed it to his cross. He
got all that out of the way. He condemned what was killing
us. Why did he do it? That the righteousness of the
law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh
but after the spirit. And he tells us later there the
reason you have life, spirits of life is because of righteousness. Because of Christ your righteousness.
That's why we've been born again. Remember Joseph, he did this.
Look at Romans 5. Joseph did this for some of those
people that had mistreated him in Egypt. He had been in prison
and he did this for some people who had mistreated him in Egypt
too. Christ did it for his people and all his people were enemies
toward him. Look here at Romans 5 and verse
7. Scarcely for a righteous man
will one die, yet perventure for a good man some would even
dare to die. But God commendeth His love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Much more than being now justified by His blood, We shall be saved
from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. You know
what that statement just said? We were reconciled to God by
Christ's death before yet you ever even knew it happened. Before
we ever knew it happened. We were running around calling
God our enemy. And we were already reconciled
to God by the death of His Son. And he says much more, being
reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. If he did that for
us when we were enemies, now that he's brought us to faith
in Christ so that we're reconciled to God, he says now we'll be
saved through his life. There's no doubt about that.
Now, so that's the second thing we see. There wasn't anybody
fit for this to hold the keys to this storehouse but the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now here's the third thing. We
see in type. that we must go to Christ if
we would be saved. That's who we must go to. Now,
most everybody here tonight, quite a few of you are believers,
very few that aren't, but here's the truth of the matter. We don't
ever stop coming to Christ. We have to go to Christ constantly.
We are saved, we are being saved, and we shall be saved. We've
got to go to Christ yesterday, today, and forever. That's how
we're going to be saved. He's saving us. unto whom coming. We don't stop coming to Christ.
Now look here at verse 55, Genesis 41-55. When all the land of Egypt
was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread. And Pharaoh
said unto all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph what he saith
to you do. And you just get that picture.
Here's Pharaoh. And they all come running to
Pharaoh thinking he's the one to go to. He's the ultimate power of the
land. They think he's the one we need
to go to for this. And Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians,
go unto Joseph and what he says to you is what you do. Brethren,
God has set Christ over all things. Now, Christ is sovereign over
all of providence. If it comes to pass, it was because
it was His will for it to come to pass. He's sovereign over
nature, everything that comes to pass in the storms and the
fires and the winds and the hail and the rain and everything else.
He does it. He's the one that does it. And
He's sovereign over all people. He turns the king's heart withersoever
He will. Here's what men don't like. Here's
what men don't like. Here's what's the offense of
the gospel. He's sovereign in salvation. He's sovereign in
salvation. Absolutely sovereign in salvation.
That means whatever His will is, that's what's going to come
to pass. He's not wanting to do anything. He shall do what
His will is to be done. So, God says this to us. He says this to us. He says,
you go to Christ and what He says to you, do. You go to Christ
and what He says to you, you do it. Well, what does Christ
say to us? What does He say to us? Turn
to John chapter 3. First of all, The Lord Jesus
Christ is going to reaffirm the words that God the Father has
said. He is going to reaffirm what
God the Father has done. Look here. He says John 3.35,
The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His
hand. Now that's what we've been talking
about. He's given Him all things. Everything is in His hand. So
everything that pertains to salvation is in Christ's hand. Now look
at what He says next. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life. Shouldn't He add something else?
Don't you just like how plain and straight and simple God is
in His Word? Christ is in His Word. You know
why it's so complicated to us? Because it's so simple. That's
why. He that hath the Son hath everlasting
life. He said... He says... And he
that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. And he that
believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God
abideth on him. Look at John 17. John 17. God said, Go to Christ and whatever
He says, that's what you do. What does He say in John 17 too?
He says, Christ says, Thou hast given Him, speaking of Himself,
He's speaking to the Father. He says, Thou, Father, hast given
me power over all flesh, that I should give eternal life to
as many as Thou hast given me. You see, He's reaffirming the
exact same thing that God said. I've given Him all power. You
come to Him, what's He going to tell you? He's given me all
power. And then He tells you what to do now. This is life
eternal. that they might know Thee, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." Well, how
am I going to know the Father? He said, if you've seen Me, you've
seen the Father. That's how we're going to know
the Father. We go to Christ. We go to Christ. What does Christ
say to do? Look at Matthew 11. What does He say to do? Look
at Matthew 11. Verse 28. He says, come unto me, all you
that labor and are heavy laden, you that are starving in famine,
in the dearth of your sin and your depravity. He says, come
to me, I will give you rest. Now you just think about it.
Think about what those people had to do when they were in Egypt. in order to be given anything
from Joseph from the storehouse. What did they first have to do?
First thing they had to do is they had to admit they couldn't
feed themselves. They had to admit, there's too
much of a famine here, I can't feed myself. And the second thing
is they had to turn from trying to save themselves. They could
no longer keep on in their works. They had to admit they that they
were in a famine and that they couldn't do anything about it.
And then they had to come to Joseph and ask him for mercy. He's the only one who had the
key to the storehouse. Well, in spiritual terms, brethren,
that's called repentance and faith. That's repentance and
faith. Now, here's what Christ said.
God said, go to Christ and whatever Christ says, do. Christ said,
we saw this Sunday, except you repent, you shall all likewise
perish. You hear men talk about how they
repented and how, you know, I repented, I remember repenting. And then
they turn around and start talking about, you know, their works
and how they brought themselves to God and how they did this
and they did that to be born again or how they did this or
that to mix their works with Christ's works. They haven't
repented. That's what you repent from.
That's what whenever the Pharisees came to John the Baptist, baptism,
and he said, bring forth fruit meat for repentance. John the
Baptist, he wasn't suggesting like men in our day do that,
now let me put you fellows up and watch you for about six months
to a year and see if you can show me some evidence that you
believe God. He was saying, leave your religion. He's saying leave your works,
leave what you've got your confidence in. You haven't done that, he's
saying. You just came out here to be
baptized because it looks like the thing to do. Everybody else
is doing it. You don't have a problem with that. Men don't have a problem
accepting the doctrine of election or the doctrine of predestination
or the doctrine of particular redemption or irresistible effects. They don't have a problem saying
those things are so, just so that they keep on saying the
other is true too. Well, that's not repentance.
That's not repentance. We have to repent from us completely.
Here's the next thing Christ said. He said it in John 6. He
said, except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His
blood, you have no life in you. That's believing. He said, except
you repent, except you believe on Me. Eat my flesh and drink
my blood. You don't have any life in you.
What is it to eat his flesh and drink his blood? Just think of
that. Think of that expression. Eat my flesh and drink my blood.
He's saying, unless you're living upon me only, you don't have
any life. To eat and to drink him is to
live upon him only. Unless we're completely, thoroughly
looking to him, resting in him, trusting him alone, living totally
upon Him with all our hope in Him alone. We're not living upon
Him. So, we have to repent, we have
to believe. What we have to do is lose our
life. Lose our life. Look at John 12. You still in John? John 12. We
have to lose our life, brethren. Look at this. We've got to repent from our
good opinion of ourselves, repent from our thoughts, from our ways
and our works. They all end in death anyway.
And then we must come to Christ who's the bread. He's the bread. He's the light. We've got to
come to Him. And He's got the key to the storehouse of grace.
He's the only one that can give this to us. And so this is what
He says. John 12 verse 24. Go to Christ
now and whatever He says, do it. Now listen to what He says.
John 12 and verse 24. He says, Verily, verily, I've
told you before, when he says that, that means this is of utmost
importance. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth
alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit. He that loveth his life, he that
will not fall into the ground and die, he that will not lose
his life, And he that loveth his life, he shall lose it. And
he that hateth his life, he that loses it, hates it, says it's
dead, it's not going to do anything anymore. Just like that corn
of wheat goes to the ground and dies, he that dies, he that loses
his life in this world, he'll keep it unto life eternal. If
any man serve me, let him follow me. And where I am, there shall
also my servant be. If any man serve me, him will
my father honor. Now, you imagine this. Think
about that land in Egypt. Think about it being a famine. And we're talking about bad. I mean, there was no way. It
was like something like our depression. We had to go to a certain place,
a soup line, a soup kitchen to get something to eat. I had to
go to this storehouse. Well, that's the kind of famine
we're in. Our flesh is like the land of Egypt. There's nothing
in us that's going to produce life. You can't get life out
of this death. It's a salt pit. It just won't
grow anything. Nothing's going to grow in this
nature that's fallen in Adam. We've got to go outside of ourselves.
We've got to go someplace else to find life. So you picture
this land in Egypt and it's just... there's nothing growing. There's
nothing around. It's a famine. And all the food
in the cupboards have run out. Nobody's got any food whatsoever.
Think about what it would be. Think about how foolish this
would be if some man... Everybody's going to Joseph. Everybody's going to the storehouse.
And Joseph's feeding everybody. But there's a man out here and
he just refuses. He's not going to go to Joseph.
And he keeps digging around in that dry dirt and there's nothing
out there but just old brown dried up weeds. And he keeps
tending to them and keeps trying to make something produce fruit
and trying to get some fruit out of that so he can live. And
he's just passing the day of grace by. Not going to where
he ought to go to get life. You'd look at that man and say,
That's a hard-headed man right there. He is just a hard-head.
He won't listen. He won't go to where there's
light. Well, that's how God describes us by nature. Stout-hearted,
hard-hearted, stiff-necked, just won't listen, just won't hear,
just refuse. I'm not going to hear. I'm not
going to listen. That's us by nature. But everything
that pertains to life, everything that pertains to salvation, everything
that pertains to mercy, redemption, righteousness, holiness, it's
all in Christ's hand. We've got to go to Him. We've
got to go to Him. That's the only place we're going
to get anything. Now here's the last thing I want you to see.
If you can come to Christ, Christ will open the storehouse. He'll
open the storehouse. Look here at verse 56. And the
famine, Genesis 41, 56. The famine was over all the face
of the earth. And Joseph opened all the storehouses. Now Joseph opened the storehouses
when it was the proper time to open the storehouses. When it
was the proper time. Now, if he would have opened
up those storehouses during the time of plenty, you know what
folks would have done? They'd have eaten a little bit
out of the storehouse, but they'd have kept on eating out of their
own fields and out of their own works. That's what they'd have
eaten. And that's what will happen. If God opens this storehouse
to us at the wrong time, we'll partly try to live off of Christ,
partly try to live off ourselves. And that's what's happened in
a lot of places. You know, men will start acting like they got
a little bit of conviction or something like that, and men
all of a sudden want to talk them into being saved and talk
them that you know, act like they're safe. And I was talking
to your mama Sunday, out here out front, and she was telling
me she said, I don't know what to think about myself. She said,
I'm worried I might be lost. And I said, I'm so glad to hear
that. And she she was shocked by when I said that. I said,
I'm not trying to get people saved. I'm trying to get them
lost. You got to be lost. Got to be lost. So Joseph waited
and he didn't open the storehouse till the famine was over. All
Egypt. He didn't open the storehouse
till they came crying out of desperation because they were
famished and they didn't have anything to eat. He didn't open
till right away. It says that when they came there,
they cried because they were famished. So when they first
started crying to open it, they've been without food a while. He
just left them there. He didn't open the storehouse
for a while. You see that you're famished. That's what we are. That's what we are in ourselves.
We're famished. We're famished. We need wisdom that we don't
have. We need righteousness we don't have. We need holiness
we don't have. We need redemption we don't have.
We need forgiveness we don't have. We need life we don't have.
We don't have anything. We're just famished. It was only
when the people were famished that they cried. That's when
they cried, when they just couldn't take it anymore, and they didn't
have any more choices. There was no point going to the
cupboard. There's nothing in there. No point going out in
the field. There's nothing out there. No
point looking to any seed that we might plant. We ate all that,
what was left. We don't have anything else.
We got no other choice but to go to Joseph. That's where we
got to be brought. That's where we got to be brought.
No other choice but to go to Christ. And then our Lord, He
will open the storehouse to us. He will open it. The very purpose
for which He suffered and bled and died was to give His people
life and righteousness and salvation. That's why He bled and died.
He came to save His people. He says, whose service shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. He'll open the
storehouse. There's no doubt about it. But
He won't open it. He won't open it until He's brought
us down to see that we're a sinner with no other choices. In Luke
19.10, He said, The Son of Man has come to seek and to save
that which is lost. That's where we've got to be.
Lost. Lost. He said, Go ye and learn what
that meaneth. Remember the Pharisees? They
came, they had everything. They had everything. They had
been in their religion, and they had
all this ceremony, and all this form, and all these traditions,
and why did sepulchers, he called them. And they, if you'd have
looked at them though, you'd have thought they were righteous,
the way they behaved, and how moral they were. He said, your
righteousness has got to exceed theirs. Got to exceed theirs. That's why he held them up, because
they looked righteous to people. But they came there and He said,
find out what this means right here. Find out what this means
right here. I'll have mercy, not sacrifice. He don't want our sacrifice.
What are we going to sacrifice to God? What are we going to
sacrifice to God? Everything belongs to Him and
there's nothing about you and me that won't be polluted if
we sacrifice it. What are we going to sacrifice
to Him? But He will save by mercy. He will hear mercy. You come
to Him begging mercy. That will be a whole different
story. You come to Him with a sacrifice that we've made. He said, I won't
hear that. But come to Him asking in mercy.
He said, now that's a different story. Why? Because He said,
I didn't come to call the righteous to repentance. I came to call
sinners to repentance. Sinners. What's a sinner? He
can't do a thing. He got any goodness, no goodness
in him. He can do nothing. That's what a sinner is. He's
just dead, he's in trespasses, he's in sins, he's an abomination,
a stench to God, and he can't change it. He can't do it otherwise.
That's what he is. That's a sinner. This is a faithful
saying, worthy of all acceptation, Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners of whom I'm chief. Most people can't say of whom
I'm chief. He's sinners. Sinners. Most people aren't sinners.
He came to save sinners. In the last day, the great day
of the feast, Jesus stood up and He cried and He said, if
any man thirsts, let him come unto Me. And He said, and let
him drink. And He said, he that believeth
on Me, as the Scripture said, out of his belly shall flow rivers. They'll flow in abundance. What
kind of rivers? of life, living water, living
water. Our God's the only one who can
say this. He sends his preachers to say this, but he's the only
one that can do this. He goes forth to dead folks, stands up
in front of dead folks and says, come to me and you'll live. Doesn't that sound crazy? How's
a dead man going to come to Christ? How's a dead man going to come
to Him? If we come to Him, what's He done? He's already made us
alive. If we can truly come to Him, He's already made us alive.
So, but what He says here now, if you're really thirsty, if
all you see in you is death, this is not, you know, you get
thirsty and you go to the water cooler and get a drink. It's
not that kind of thirsty. No, this is the thirst of death.
When He said, blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness,
this is not just, you know, you need a little midnight snack.
This is those that are hungry, those that are in a famine, those
that are dead. And they can't have righteousness
unless Christ gives it to them. He said, that person will be
filled. They'll be filled. They'll be
filled. Now, when you come begging mercy,
see, that's when Christ opens the storehouse. He opens the
storehouse then, but He don't open the storehouse until then.
He does secretly because He's made us alive and drawn us and
made us come. But He don't openly reveal everything
to us yet till He brought us to cry out for mercy and seek
mercy. But now look, He does all this
freely. Look here in verse Genesis 41,
56. Joseph sold unto the Egyptians.
When they came, he sold unto the Egyptians the bread of the
storehouse. But for every true sinner, I
mean a true sinner that comes to Christ, a true sinner, Christ
opens up the storehouse freely. You remember Isaiah 55.1, he
said, Ho, everyone that thirsteth. There's that thirst again. If
you're just so dry, you're dead. That's what the kind of thirst
we're talking about. Come ye to the waters, and he that hath
no money, come ye buy and eat, come ye buy wine and milk without
money and without price. That's the prerequisite to buy
at this storehouse of Christ is to have no money and to have
no price. He says, Wherefore do you spend
money for that which is not bread, and labor for that which satisfies
not? What's this money and this labor,
what's this money and this price represent? Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Our doing to try to get something
from Him. We are doing to get some of Him,
to pay for what He's given us. That's what it is. You know,
the only way you and I can spend in labor is to spend in labor
under the elements of the earth, what Paul kept calling the elements
of the earth. And the reason he called the
law that is what he was speaking about. The reason he called it
that was to remind you that your carnal and anything you do, it's
going to perish with you. That's what he said. It's going
to perish. You can touch not, taste not,
handle not all your life. And when you die, all the touch
not, taste not, handle not died with you. All our righteousness
died right with us. And so he says, you can't labor,
you can't bring a price that you've earned, that you've worked
up, that you've produced by your carnal hand and expect that you're
going to get spiritual life and spiritual blessings. It can't be because there's nothing
we can do to get it. We can't do that. We can't do anything to get spiritual
eternal life. What's this opposite as you can
get to that? What's this opposite as spending
and laboring and working and sacrificing and all your works
to try to get something from God? What's the very opposite
to that? I mean as far as you can go at
the opposite end of the spectrum. With the heart man believe us
unto righteousness. That's at the other end of the
spectrum. Let's just believe. Believe on Christ. Righteous.
Isn't that something? Isn't that light and easy? Believe
me, he said. Believe me, he said. Now, let
me read the rest of this to you. I pointed this out when we went
through Isaiah 55. Know what he says next? After he said,
don't bring money, don't bring price. He's saying, believe on
me. Listen to what he says. Hearken
diligently unto me. He's saying, hearken unto Me.
Listen to Me. Remember what the disciples said?
You have the words of eternal life. He says, listen to Me and
eat ye that which is good. Listen and you'll eat. Listen
and you'll eat. And you'll let your soul delight
itself in fatness. He said, incline your ear and
come unto Me. That's how you believe unto Christ. You cannot come to Christ, incline
your ear, Come unto me. That's how you come to Him. Through
the ear. Hear and your soul shall live. Hear and your soul shall live.
Does He have to give me ability to hear? Yeah. Spiritual ability
to hear. How's He going to do it? Through
this general call that's going out. You see, you'll be sitting
here listening to me preach, and you're sitting there and
all you can hear me in the background while you've got your mind a
thousand miles off, you can hear me in the background saying,
saying, incline your ear, come unto me, hear, and your soul
shall live. And out of nowhere, you won't
even know what's happening, all of a sudden He's made you alive.
And you start hearing. Inclining your ear and saying,
now what's He saying? And you're coming to Him that
way. You're coming to Him for the first time. And now He'll
start opening up the storehouse of grace to you. He does that
to us over and over and over, brethren, doesn't He? We don't
listen. Believers, we don't listen. We
just go on doing our thing and thinking we got to keep our laser
focus on whatever it is we got our hand on in this world. And
if we don't, everything's going to fall apart. And finally, He
just has to whisper in our ear and say, incline your ear. We listen. We hear Him because
He speaks with power. And we incline our ear. And then
we start coming to Him. And He starts opening that storehouse
of grace to us. But we can't work for life and
satisfaction with God for all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God. That's why we have to be justified freely
justified freely by His grace through the redemption that's
in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth as a propitiation. He says, why do you labor for
that which satisfies not? Why are you working and working
and working? It's not going to satisfy God. He says, but He
set forth His Son and He's the propitiation. He's the satisfaction. He's the bread that satisfies.
He's the bread that satisfies. He satisfies God and when He
gives you faith, in His blood, He'll satisfy us too, won't He? Do you believe in Christ's blood?
That phrase caught my attention. Faith in His blood. To believe
in Christ's blood is to believe that that blood purchased my
redemption so that Christ is all my redemption. And if I believe
in His blood, I believe that blood is enough. That blood,
that precious blood paid the ransom price. That precious blood
bought me and now I'm His purchased possession and He owns me. That
precious blood is enough. Faith in His blood. And so every
true sinner that comes to Christ with no money and no price, the
storehouse is opened freely by Christ and all blessings of grace
that He purchased are poured out because He purchased them
just for them. Everybody that comes to Him, He purchased them
just for them. Just for them. What do I need? What do you need? We need a long
table loaded down with lots of food, don't we? Our cupboards
are empty. We got nothing. What do I need?
I need wisdom. Of God is Christ made unto me
wisdom. What do you need? I need a helping of righteousness.
Make that a double portion. I need a big helping of righteousness.
Of God is Christ made unto us righteousness. Oh, I need some
holiness now. Don't forget the holiness of
God as Christ made unto us sanctification. I need a big dose of redemption.
I got to be brought out from under the curse, brought out
from under my sin, brought out. I need to be brought out, redeemed. Christ has made unto us redemption.
I need forgiveness of sins. Scripture says that in whom we
have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sin.
I need Christ for all. Of God is Christ made unto you
all. He's everything. He's everything. You know, after
Joseph did everything, he did all the work, he did everything
in this whole thing to save these people. You reckon after somebody
was starving, famished, had nothing, could do nothing, and they come
to Joseph, and Joseph loads them up, fills them up with bread.
You reckon they walked away from there bragging about what they
had done? Not hardly. Not hardly. And we don't go away... When
you really come to Christ starving and He delights to show you mercy,
it's Scripture says, as it's written, him that glories, let
him glory in the Lord. That's when we start glowing
in the Lord. I love this saying. I think Brother Todd says it.
You can't worship a God that's not sovereign. You can't worship
a God that hasn't done it all for you. And you think about
it, you can't. If there's something you're adding
to your salvation, you can't worship that God. You can only
worship a God who is absolutely sovereign and is absolutely all
your salvation. There's no such thing as worship
otherwise. It's the only way you can worship. Now look at
this. What about where I came from?
What if it doesn't matter what my background is, who I am? He
says, verse 57, all countries came into Egypt to Joseph to
buy corn because that famine was soaring all the land. Look
back up. I'm going to show you this one
thing and I'm done. Verse 45, it says, Pharaoh called Joseph's
name Zaphnath-paneah, and he gave him a wife. That name there
of Joseph's, some of the commentaries that I read said that this name
means Prince of Life of the World. our Savior of the world. That's
Christ's name. That's His name. And just like
Pharaoh gave Him a bride, God the Father gave Christ a bride.
Paul said in Ephesians 5, we're members of His body, of His flesh,
and of His bones. And he said, I know this is a
mystery, but I'm speaking concerning Christ and the church. We're
married to Him. Now, the reason Scripture calls
Christ the Savior of the world is not because He's going to
save everybody in the world. It's because He came to save
His bride who's scattered into all parts of the world. And so,
whenever the Lord calls us, He gives the general call in the
Gospel. He said, just go preach it to everybody. And the Spirit
and the bride say, Come! And let him that hear it say,
come. And let him that's a thirst,
come. Whoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.
With no money, no price, adding nothing to it. Just come and
take of this water of life. That's what he said. God's not
keeping anybody from coming to Christ. Those that don't come
to Christ don't come because they don't have will to come.
And he can't muster up a will to come. Because if they could,
if they could pay for it, if they could bring some sacrifice,
but they can't. He's free. And man won't take
that. That's too good a bargain for
a sinful, ignorant man. Free. Free. But when he brings
you to him, and he brings you to his feet, he makes you to
know you didn't choose him, he chose you. He blessed you with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places according as He chose
us in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world. And
because He loved us with an everlasting love, He drew us to Christ. And
when He brings you to be thirsty and He brings you to see what
you are, you bow to that. Because you know, if He didn't
choose me, I wouldn't have chosen Him. You don't have a problem
with that when you're really thirsty. When you're really,
really thirsty. And Revelation says, and they
sing a new song. We sing a brand new song. And
the song is, you're worthy. Isn't that different from what
we were singing before? Before we were saying, I'm worthy. Now
we say, you're worthy. Because you have redeemed us
out of every kindred tongue people and nation. See, it wasn't just
Egypt, it was different nations. Here's my last point. Did Joseph
let anybody starve? Nobody. Everybody was fed. Everybody was fed. Everybody
that belonged to Egypt was fed. And everybody that came from
any other land was fed. Every one of God's sheep, every
one of Christ's elect shall be fed, and not one of them shall
be lost. He said that. He said, This is the Father's
will which is sent me, that of all which He has given me, I
should lose nothing, but raise it up again at the last day.
There is no coming but by Him. For all who come unto God by
Him, He saves to the uttermost. He saves them to the uttermost.
Amen.