Turn with me to Genesis chapter
45, if you would please. Genesis chapter 45. My subject this morning is revelation,
divine revelation. Revelation means to have a surprising
and previously unknown fact revealed to you. It means to make known
to others what was previously unknown or secret. Here in Genesis
chapter 45, we have the story of Joseph revealing himself to
his brothers. Verse one says this, then Joseph
could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him. And
he cried, he calls every man to go out from me. And there
stood no man with him while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. Joseph made himself known to
his brethren. He revealed himself to them. His brothers didn't know it was
him. Jesus Christ has also made himself known to his brethren
that do not and did not know him. That's divine revelation. And divine revelation is what
must be given to us in order for us to know the mystery which
was kept secret since the world began, according to Romans 16,
25. Now I'm interested in knowing
that mystery, the mystery of Christ and Him crucified. But
I know that it has to be revealed to me if I'm ever to see it.
God in Christ has made known the mystery of His will. And aren't you glad? He did so
according to his own good pleasure, the scripture's very clear about
that, which he purposed in himself, Ephesians 1.9. Even the mystery
which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now
is made manifest unto his saints. Oh, that God would this morning
give me utterance and give you hearing and enable me to open
my mouth and boldly proclaim this mystery and that God may
give you the ears to hear, the eyes to see, and the heart to
understand the mystery of the gospel. That's going to take
a divine revelation. That's what Paul said. He said,
but when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's
womb and called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me, that
I might preach Him among the heathen. And then Paul said,
immediately, I conferred not with flesh and blood. When the
Lord asked his disciples, who do men say that I am? And they
said, well, they say that you're Isaiah, Jeremiah, one of the
prophets, even John the Baptist. And then he looked at his 12
closest friends and he said, who do you say that I am? And
Peter, who often seemed to be the spokesman for the disciples,
said, Lord, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And
do you remember what the Lord said? He said, blessed art thou,
Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal this unto
you. No, it can't be revealed by flesh and blood, but my Father,
which is in heaven, revealed this to you. And that's what
we have to come expecting this morning, to hear from God. To
know Jesus as the Christ, the son of the living God, takes
a divine revelation from God Almighty. Yet there's no better
story in all of scripture to illustrate how Christ reveals
himself to his brethren than the story of Joseph and his brethren. No one in the Old Testament scriptures
is a greater type of Christ than Joseph. He was loved of his father. He was distinguished above all
of his brethren. He was hated of his brethren
without a cause. He was taken by their hands and
discarded and left to die. He was sold into slavery. He
was wrongly accused while he served his master Potiphar. Thrown
into prison, but then raised to an exalted throne. You could
be just as well speaking of Christ as you could Joseph. Sounds a
whole lot like what happened to our Lord and Savior. Now Joseph
pictures our Lord in so many ways. And the 45th chapter of
Genesis is all about revelation. It's all about Joseph revealing
himself after so long a period of time. He must bring his brothers
to repentance. Did you hear what I said? He
must bring them to repent. He must cause them to see and
become sorrowful of their treatment of him so many years before.
May the Holy Spirit do the same with us. Now Joseph, best I can
find, was about 17 years old when they sold him into slavery. You remember the story of the
coat of many colors? Jacob loved Joseph and gave him
that coat, and his brothers were jealous and envious of him. They
went out one day and they took that coat and they dipped blood
on it and went back and told Jacob that Joseph had been killed
by a beast of some sort. And then they threw him in a
pit without water and sold him into slavery. He was 30 years
old when he interpreted Pharaoh's dream. So that accounts for about
13 years there. And they had just gone through,
when his brothers here come before the Lord, they had just gone
through the seven years of plenty, which Joseph told Pharaoh that
they would, seven years of plenty, and then seven years of famine. They'd gone through the seven
years of plenty, according to verse six, and then they're two
years into the famine. So that means nine more years
have gone by, and Joseph is now nearly 40 years old, 39, my math
is correct, and 22 years have passed. 22 years since his brothers had
laid eyes on him. You think about that. For 22
years, his brothers had lied to their father Jacob about Joseph,
their brother. For 22 years, they had justified
in their own minds and hearts what they had done. It's so easy
for us to justify our sin, isn't it? It seems that they had successfully
erased from their minds the evil and the wicked actions they took
against Joseph, their brother. Joseph had served 13 years in
prison, 13 years of slavery, but they'd moved on with their
lives. They had started families and they lived relatively a normal
life. But Joseph was in the dungeon
accused of something that he did not do. Does that sound like
someone else that you know? Out of sight, out of mind was
Joseph to his brothers. But then God sent a famine. It
was God that sent it. I know the world will take issue
with you on that. Well, God doesn't do that. That's
the devil's work. No, God sent the famine. The
scripture is very clear about that. In this famine, his brothers
begin to get hungry. To this self-sufficient family
that God had so blessed, the famine brought about great need. Those that are not hungry have
no need of food, but those that are hungry do. God sent a famine
and made the sons of Jacob hungry and they ran out of food. And
it was then that they began to have a great need. I see some
of you smiling. You know that's exactly how God
dealt with you, isn't it? Those that are well, our Lord
said, have no need of a physician. And those that are not hungry
have no need of food. Who does then? The hungry and
the needy. Are you hungry? And are you needy? Professing believers who don't
come to eat at the Lord's table simply are not hungry. Could
it be that they have no need? Oh, I hope that's not. What happens
when a man gets hungry? What happens when a woman becomes
hungry? They begin to look for food.
God sent a famine. He's done the same thing today.
He has sent a spiritual famine. And you know, Amos prophesied
this. He said, behold, the days will come, saith the Lord God,
that I will send a famine in the land. Now, not a famine of
bread, nor of thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words
of the Lord. We're in such a famine today.
better believe we are that's the famine that we are in not
a lack of bread not a lack of water but a lack of hearing the
words of the lord but david there are churches on every corner
everywhere you look preachers are saying thus saith the lord
there are churches and preachers and teachers online there are
men preachers and there are women preachers. There's young preachers
and there are old preachers and there are funny preachers and
there are serious preachers. There are singing preachers and
there's crying preachers. There are entertainers that preach
and preachers that are financial experts. We don't have a famine
of churches. We don't have a famine of preachers.
We have a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. We have a
famine of the preaching of the gospel. We don't have a famine
of entertainment. We don't have a famine of emotionalism. We have a famine of the preaching
of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But if God is pleased, dear sinner,
He can make you hungry. Are you hungry? Do you see your
great need? Oh, if God be pleased to give
you a real need, you'll seek out the one who has bread. You
sure will. So by the sovereign providence
of God, Joseph's sad, sorry, and pathetic brothers head to
Egypt to buy corn. And little do they know that
the one with whom they have to do is the very one that they
despised and rejected so many years before. You see what a
picture this is? They don't yet know that the
very one that they have to deal with is the same one that they
took with their wicked hands and betrayed. Again, verse one,
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. Verse
three, 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. And I looked that word troubled
up in the original language and it meant terrified. They were
terrified, terrified 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. I'm Joseph, your brother, not
just any man named Joseph. The Joseph you hated, the Joseph
you despised, the Joseph that you rejected, the Joseph that
you desired to kill. The Joseph you sold into Egypt,
the Joseph who you now stand before, the very one with whom
you had to do. I'm sure of this, they would
have to receive mercy and grace and forgiveness from the very
one that they had shown hatred, rejection, and murder to. It's
the same with you. You're gonna have to stand before
the very one that we took with wicked hands and crucified. Joseph
had, in plain view, successfully hid himself from his brothers.
He now reveals himself to them. Oh, I think about how Christ
had for many years hidden himself from me. But in the fullness
of time, in the time of love, just as Joseph did his brethren,
the Lord Jesus revealed himself to this wretched fool. This sinner
can certify that the gospel I preach is not after man. I can assure
you it's not after man, for I neither received it of man and neither
was I taught it of man, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. That's how we learn. That's how
we're taught. And there you have it. It's by
the divine revelation of God. God divinely intervened in my
life. We talk about men and women who
have a problem with drugs or with alcohol having an intervention. There was a show on, may still
be on. I don't know where. They have
an intervention. They intervene in someone's life. That's exactly
what God did to me. He's the one that intervened.
God intervened in my life. He revealed his son unto me and
he revealed his son in me. And if you ever truly see your
need of Christ, if you ever truly believe and rest in the gospel,
it will be only because of the revelation of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ. No doubt, his brothers were terrified. For the first time since their
crime, they're confronted with their sin. They've lived a lie,
but now they're confronted with their sin and they're confronted
by the one who their sin was against. And this is not the
testimony of one who saw these things from a distance. This
is the testimony of one whom the sin was committed against.
And with David, the child of God says, against thee and thee
only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. Oh Lord, that
you might be justified when you speak against me. And he is. The very one that they betrayed
is now the one who has their lives in his hands. I know very
well how these men felt. I too was a despiser and a traitor
to Christ. My sins were the nails that held
him on the tree. I was the one who sold my Lord
for 30 pieces of silver. And there they stood before Joseph,
who was second to none but Pharaoh. Legions of warriors were at his
beck and call. Why, he could have just spoken,
take these men, bind them hand and foot, and cast them in the
darkness of Egypt's dungeons. And who could stay his hand?
This is but Christ in type and picture. But in reality, friends,
Jesus Christ is God. And it's a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of a living God. He's a consuming fire. And under
the conviction of all these things, what did the 10 brothers do?
They begin to plead. They begin to beg. Nothing makes
a sinner pray like a sense of sin. When God really shows you
who and what you are. This is a prayer that a man cannot
help but to pray. Can a sick child cease from crying
for its mother? No, no. And a man who's in real
trouble cannot cease to plead for help any more than he can
cease to breathe. It's good for me that there was
a famine in the land and that I became hungry and that I began
to seek for food. Oh, what a gracious picture Joseph
is of the way Christ deals with the souls of men and women under
the conviction of sin. Are you convicted of your sin?
Joseph had always been their brother. Joseph had always loved
them. Why, even earlier, he had compassion
on them when he accused them of being spies. It was all done
to get their attention, to cause them to look within. Conscious
of our guilt, Christ may seem to be a stern and an angry judge. Joseph certainly did, but he
did so that he might bring his brother low before his throne. And it's the same with Christ
our Lord. He who loved you before the world's foundation was laid
is bringing you down so that he may lift you up He's going
to kill you before he makes you alive. Our Lord reveals to you
your sin so that he might reveal to you himself as your savior. That's what Joseph did. Joseph
brings his brothers to repentance in order that he might forgive
them. He made them confess their sins so that he might be merciful
to them. Christ shows us our sins so that
we might desire his mercy. In verse five, Joseph said, don't
be grieved. He said, don't be angry with
yourselves. He said, you sold me, but God sent me. It's the
same with us. We sold ourselves into sin. That's
what Paul said. But God sent his son to redeem
us. Just as Joseph did his brother.
God was behind it all. Every bit of it. Over and over
in the book of Genesis concerning Joseph, it says this, and the
Lord was with Joseph. It says that several times. hated by his brothers because
their father loved him so, the Lord was with Joseph. In the
pit that his brothers threw him in, without water and without
food, the Lord was with Joseph. Taken by the Egyptians, bound
in chains as a slave, the Lord was with Joseph. Falsely accused
in Potiphar's house, thrown into prison for something that he
didn't do, the Lord was with Joseph. And now on the throne
of Pharaoh, in all power and majesty, the Lord is with Joseph. And what does he do? He determines
to be merciful and gracious to the very ones that hated him
without a cause. What a gospel this is. Don't
tell me God's trying to do something and wanting to do something.
That's not my God. He'd never tried or never wanted
to do anything. Our God's in the heavens and
he's done whatsoever he had pleased. I love how Joseph, as a type
of Christ, tells his brothers in verse five that God sent him
to preserve life. That's exactly why God sent our
Lord, Jesus Christ, to preserve life. Joseph told them in verse
seven that God sent him to preserve their posterity. God sent me
to save your lives by a great deliverance, Joseph said. And
what a great deliverance it was. You see, our sin is great. Our
guilt is great. Our need is great. Nothing less
than a great salvation will do. Nothing less than a great deliverance
of sin can help us. How should we escape if we neglect
so great salvation? We cannot neglect Christ who
is our great salvation. Now Joseph here doesn't just
reveal who he is, he reveals his glorious attributes. In verse
eight, he says, you didn't send me here. God sent me here. He
later told them, but as for you, you thought evil against me,
but God meant it unto good to bring to pass as it is this day
to save much people alive. Is that not why Christ came?
Joseph went on to say, God made me a father to Pharaoh. You see
that? Now the word father there means a principal or a chief. a leader, a dominant and prominent
head overall. Joseph was certainly that. Again,
verse eight, Joseph said, God made me Lord over Pharaoh's house.
Beloved Jesus Christ is Lord over every house. Whether you
know it or not, whether you believe it or not, Jesus Christ is the
Lord of Lords. Joseph was a ruler throughout
the land of Egypt. Jesus Christ is the sovereign
ruler throughout all the universe. The greatness of Joseph was revealed
to his brother. The greatness of Christ revealed
to the psalmist. I just quoted what he said. Our
God's in the heavens. He's done whatsoever he pleased.
David said, for I know, it's been revealed to me. That's what
it is to know. He said that the Lord is great
and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatsoever the Lord pleased,
that did he in heaven and in earth and in the seas and all
deep places. Whatever the Lord pleased, that
did he. He does what he wants to. He
saves who he wants to. Christ's greatness is going to
have to be revealed to any and every sinner that is saved. I
love what Paul said in Ephesians chapter one, beginning in verse
17, he said that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father
of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation. There it is again. In the knowledge
of Him, in the knowledge of Christ, It comes by divine revelation.
The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, being illuminated. God's got to give you eyes to
see. That you may know what is the hope of His calling and what
the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. And
what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us who believe
according to the working of His mighty power. I can narrow that
down for you in a few words. Salvations of the Lord. We must
have divine revelation in the knowledge of Him. We must grow
in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ. Our eyes have to be enlightened.
Only God can do that. How are our eyes enlightened?
Through a revelation from Christ and a revelation of Christ. No
other way. Ephesians 1 that I just read
there tells us many things. It has to be revealed to us.
We have to be given knowledge of Him. Our understanding has
to be enlightened so that we might know Him, so that we might
have hope in Him, that we might see His riches, that we might
have His inheritance. We might experience His exceeding
greatness and that we might feel His mighty power. It's all about
divine revelation. No doubt that if Joseph had not
revealed himself to his brothers, they would have never known him.
If the Holy Spirit doesn't reveal to you and I the sinners that
we are, the things of Christ, we will never know them and we'll
never know him. This revelation given by Joseph
was done secretly. Joseph said, cause every man
to go out from me and there stood no man with him, we're told.
Only Christ could give this divine revelation. Christ alone saved
sinners, not Christ plus anything. Christ alone saves sinners. Christ
does not reveal himself to a crowd of sinners at once. That's not
usually the practice. He speaks to the hearts of men
and women secretly. Oftentimes in a small, still
book. Every man and woman must see that the righteous work of
Christ alone is what saves them. Not by works of righteousness
that we've done. No, sir. Forget about it. Your
works of righteousness are what Filthy rag. God won't accept
it. Knowing Christ died for others
and not for me, that doesn't give me any peace. No peace at
all. I need to know that Christ died
for me. Mr. Spurgeon once said, we go
to hell in bundles, but we go to heaven one by one. I suppose
that's correct, isn't it? Joseph revealed himself to 10
of his brothers. Seemed to do so at once, but
I can assure you that each one of them, from the oldest to the
youngest, they knew individually that their destiny was in Joseph's
hands. And I'm sure they said within
themselves, what am I gonna do? Yes, this revelation was done
in secret, but the first thing Joseph reveals to them was his
name. He said, I am Joseph. Thou shalt
call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin. There's no salvation in any other
for there is none other name under heaven given among men
whereby we must be saved. Blessed is that day when Christ
stands and says to the sinner, I am Jesus Christ. I am your
savior. There is no other. No one else
can help you. I'm the only one that can. And
when you're made to look away from your failures and look to
His success, things happen with Him. I'm Jesus Christ, look to
me, trust in me, put all your confidence in me. It's I who
opens the storehouses of grace. It's I who washes all your sin
away. Why would we look to anyone else,
especially ourselves? We've got to look into Him and
be saved. As those people who were bit
by the serpent looked to the brass serpent that Moses lifted
high upon the pole. Look and live. Oh, that God might
enable me to lift him up that you might look to him and live.
Salvation's of the Lord. We confess that, but you know
what? It really is. This is not just a little saying
that we stick on bumper stickers and on billboards. Salvation
is of the Lord. It really is. He's the only one
that can give us life. We're dead in sin. We're without
Christ, without hope, without God in this world. And then the
next thing that Joseph reveals to his brethren here is his relationship
to them. He said, I am Joseph, your brother. Oh, when I think about Christ
being my brother, my, my. Blessed is the man and the woman
who sees Christ as their brother, who sees him as bone of their
bone and flesh of their flesh. Being his brother means that
we have the same father. Being his brother means that
we're heirs of the heavenly father and joint heirs with him who
owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Christ in all his goodness
and righteousness and holiness gives that to me. Then notice
with love in verse four, Joseph grants those that hated him to
come to him. He said, come near to me, I pray
you. They were terrified, but yet he holds out his hands and
he says, come to me, I pray you. Does not Christ bid us to come
to Him? He says, confess to me your guilt.
Ask me for the pardon that you need, and I'll give it. Come
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. Does not Christ give us the pardon
that we need? With compassion, He says, I will
not smite you with the hand that bought you. I will not kick you
with the foot that was nailed to the tree. Come to me, and
I'll give you rest. And this is the hardest work
in all the world to get a sinner to come near to Christ. Joseph
didn't say, I'm angry with you. He didn't say that. Joseph did
not even say, I forgive you. You know what he said? He said
something much sweeter. He said, be not angry with yourselves. Christ's forgiveness of us is
not in question. His forgiveness for us is done.
How we must learn to not be angry with ourselves is the hard thing
to do. We often are, when we see our
sin and our savior, like Job who abhorred himself. We're much
like Isaiah who said, woe is me, I'm undone. And everybody
around me is in the same condition. I'm a man of unclean lips and
I dwell amidst among the people with unclean lips. We're all
in the same boat. There's none that doeth good,
no not one. We've all come short of the glory of God. Paul said,
I'm less than the least. Paul said, oh wretched man that
I am. Not that I was. I still am. So won't you come to Christ?
How does a sinner come to Christ? Come to Christ is to trust Him.
It's not to move from one location to the next. It's definitely
not to walk an aisle and come to the front of the church. To
come to Christ is to trust Him, to know that He and He alone
put your sin away. Will you trust Him? Will you
trust Him? Our Lord saves to the uttermost
those that come to God by Him. But the question is, will you
come? Our Lord gave us the answer in and of ourselves. He said,
you will not come to me that you might have life. You will
not trust me that your sin may be put away. He said, I receive
not honor from men, but I know you that you have not the love
of God in you. And how can you believe that
receive honor from one another and seek not the honor that comes
from God alone? The only way we can is to be
made willing to come. made willing in the day of His
power. Oh, Lord, send your power today. The Lord doesn't drag us to heaven
by force. He simply, by His almighty power,
changes our want to, and He makes us willing. Oh, this is the only
way that we can seek the honor that comes from God on. He makes
us willing. The only way we can be given
the love of God in our hearts is that God make us willing to
come to Christ, willing to honor Him, willing to love Him. It
takes the power of God to do that. Dear Lord, may today be
the day of your power in the life of sinners who are not willing
to come. Make them willing. From personal
experience, I can say with John the Beloved, for the life, the
word of life being the Lord Jesus Christ was manifested. It was
revealed. That's what it means. It was
manifested and we've seen it and we bear witness and we show
unto you that eternal life. That's what I'm trying to do
this morning. I'm trying to show you what's been revealed to me.
That which we've seen and heard declare we unto you. that you
may also have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship
is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. Don't you
imagine after this day that Joseph had sweet fellowship with his
brothers. Matter of fact, he said, go get my daddy. I want
him been on this too. This then is the message we've
heard of him and it's been revealed unto us. And we declare it unto
you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. What
a merciful and gracious God. May God be pleased to reveal
these things to you who are yet in darkness, and may He do so
for His own glory, for your good, and for Christ's sake.