All right, in Genesis chapter
44, the brothers of Joseph had had a good time in Joseph's house. They don't know who he is yet,
but we're told that their time with him was merry. That was
the adjective described for their time there. And now these men
begin their journey home to Canaan. And what we'll see here is that
Joseph had a purpose in proving them. He intended to prove his
brethren. He wanted to know whether they
had regard and affection for their brother Benjamin and their
father Jacob. He wanted to know, did they hate
Benjamin the way they hated me and abused me and sinned against
me by selling me into slavery? Did they have any any repentance
wrought in them concerning what was done. And what we'll see
today in this is that the trial, they're put through a trial.
He proves them by a trial. And this trial proves that there
is indeed a genuine, true love there for their brother and for
their father, Jacob. Peter speaks something of this
to us, because brethren, we go through trials. We are given
trials by the hand of our sovereign Lord, and we're told it's to
prove that work, to verify and prove that work which he has
done in us. And Peter said it this way in
1 Peter 1, verse 7, that the trial of your faith, being much
more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried
with fire, might be found, might be found unto praise, glory,
and honor at the appearing of Jesus Christ. And so it's to
reveal that work which the Lord has worked in you. It's to reveal
that work. It's not that he doesn't know.
It's to make known unto us what he has done for us. And it's
to reveal himself to us in it. And so these men needed this
exercise. This needed to be done for them. And the church, we today reading
this, need to see this. It's put there, it's recorded
there by the Spirit for our learning, for our instruction, that we
might understand the mysteries of God and how the Lord works
in his people, how he gives salvation in his people. Now, to begin
here, let's see verse one. Joseph commanded the store of
his house, saying, fill the men's sacks with food, as much as they
can carry, and put every man's money in his sack's mouth. And so, what we saw last time,
last week, when we were in chapter 43, What we saw there is that
these brethren were brought into Joseph's house by the store. Joseph commanded his store to
bring these men into his house, saying, I will eat with them
today. And this details something of
the commission which our Lord gives to the church, to his stores,
to his ministers, to preach the gospel. That's how the people
of God are brought into the house. And that's where we're instructed
in the house being living stones built up in this house by our
Lord. And so he's commissioned the
church to preach the gospel. Why? That's how the Lord chose
to save his people, to reveal salvation in them. He saves his
people by the Lord Jesus Christ. And he reveals this, he brings
this forth through the preaching of the gospel, making us to,
he gives us a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. So that by the
preaching of the gospel, men are brought into the house of
the Lord Jesus Christ, just as these men were brought into Joseph's
house by the store. And we saw pictures of the fruit
which our God has ordained in the preaching of the gospel.
He makes his people to know that they are sinners. That was the
first thing the brethren saw. The first thing that came into
their mind was, we're sinners. We're in trouble here. They're
bringing us here because of the money that was not paid for the
grain. They tried to pay, but it was
returned to them. And so they knew their sin, and
that's what the Lord does. He makes his people to know that
we are guilty in transgressing the law of God. We are guilty
of breaking the law of God. We are guilty of rebelling against
the true and living God. And then these men we saw sought
peace and comfort. They tried to talk their way
out of it. They tried to explain what had happened and to justify
themselves in it. And yet, that is not what delivered
them. That gave them no peace and no
comfort. That was refused by the store. Instead, what gave
them comfort and peace was the store declaring to them the good
news. The good news. He made known
that their debt was paid. They didn't know anything. He
said back in chapter 43, verse 23, peace be unto you. Fear not,
your God and the God of your father hath given you treasure
in your sacks. I had your money. Your debt is paid. That's what
he's saying. Your debt was paid in full, in
full. And then we saw how these living
stones, the living stones in Christ's house, had their sins
washed away. They were given water to wash
their feet. We're washed clean by the blood
of Christ, and then the Lord has ordained that we should hear
the gospel week after week, because that's where the Lord washes
our feet, as it were. from the filth of this world,
reminding us of what he has done for us, the accomplished salvation
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then we saw them bear the
new fruits that new creatures bear, and how they were ministered
to by the care and tenderness of Joseph to them, and many other
spiritual fruits were witnessed in that chapter there. But now,
they're released to go to their respective home in Canaan. And Joseph commands his store
to fill the men's sacks with food, as much as they can carry,
and put every man's money in his sack's mouth. So here again,
we see what our Lord commands his stores of the mysteries of
God. to declare to you the people
of God whom he gathers together to hear this word, to preach
to you the glories of our God in the face of Jesus Christ. We are commanded of God to feed
the hungry, to quench the thirst of the thirsty, to lift off the
burden of you that are burdened with guilt. by the preaching
of Christ, because through this man, the Lord Jesus Christ, is
preached unto you the forgiveness of sins." And so we are ambassadors
for Christ, as though God to beseech you by us. We pray you
in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. We declare to you that
are thirsting, come ye to the waters. And he that hath no money,
come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come buy wine and milk without
money and without price. That's the picture there of him
putting that money back in their sack's mouth because it costs
you nothing. Christ paid it all to justify
you. to bless you, to provide for
you, to sanctify you, to redeem you, he paid the debt in full. Therefore, going forth, the work
of our Lord is proved unto us that there is none like the true
and living God. There's billions in the world
that are very religious and laboring for their righteousness to justify
themselves, but there is none like God who saves by grace,
who accomplishes our redemption and salvation by his hand. by his righteousness, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so this is seen here now,
this proving of this mysterious work is seen in verse two, and
put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack's mouth of the youngest
and his corn money. And he did according to the word
that Joseph had spoken. Now this cup, as we'll see, is
going to seem to be a bitter thing to these brethren at first. It's gonna appear as a bitter
thing to them. However, they're not going to
drink the bitterness of that cup. They're not going to bear
that. They're not going to drink it.
Instead, it's going to prove the work of the Lord that he
has wrought in them, the repentance which he has given to them. And
so there's a purpose in this trial. There's a purpose in the
trials which the Lord gives you. There's a purpose. And it's that
they might know him that saves them by him leading them down
through a deep trial of experience. They're going to be brought into
a deep trial, a hard trial, where they experience and know the
grace of God. It's going to be proved. It's
going to be revealed in them. So let this silver cup. beyond your mind the next time
the Lord detains your heart with a trial, with a difficult trial.
Remember this silver cup because like with these brethren, he
means to draw you back to himself. He means to draw you nearer to
him and to reveal himself to you in a way that only the family
of God is made to know. Just like only Joseph's brethren
would be made to know and understand this, what he's done here. Continuing
now in verse three, as soon as the morning was light, right? It's a picture of that first
resurrection of grace, which is given to every child. As soon
as that morning light arises in your heart, the men were sent
away, they and their asses, right? They being a picture of the soul,
their asses being a picture of this flesh, And when they were
gone out of the city, and not yet far off, Joseph said unto
his store, Up, follow after the men. This is a picture of our
being pursued by effectual grace. The Lord's not going to let his
people go off into death. right off into spiritual death.
He's going to pursue them. And when thou dost overtake them,
say unto them, wherefore have you rewarded evil for good? Is
not this it in which my Lord drinketh and whereby indeed he
divineth? Ye have done evil in so doing. And so there's layers being laid
forth, being put forth here in this chapter, in these very verses
here. There's layers of truth here being declared. For one
thing, if any man take that which only our Lord Jesus Christ can
bear, if we would take to ourselves that work which only he is able
to do, we do an evil thing. We do an evil thing, and it shall
not deliver us. But there's also something familiar
here to us in the experience of the believer in this. There's
something familiar in this, where we're given times of rest from
our labors, where we're given times of peace and a respite
from our trials and our difficulties, as these men had received when
they were in Joseph's house, when they were making merry in
Joseph's house there. And now you can imagine, as they're
loading up, as they're cinching up the saddles on their asses,
and they're getting ready to head out of town, they're probably
feeling a great sense of relief right now. And as soon as they
got outside the city, they must have started breathing a deep
sigh of relief, thinking, I think we're finally free. I think we
got out of here without any issue. We got Benjamin with us, and
dad's going to be pleased. And we're going home now. We're
going home. here, and yet Joseph now sends
a minister to buffet them in the flesh, to bring them low
in themselves. Lest they should be exalted beyond
measure, there is now a trial that comes upon them. Look at
verse 6, and he overtook them, and he spake unto them the same
words that Joseph had told them to say. And they said unto him,
Wherefore sayeth my lord these words? God forbid that thy servants
should do according to this thing. Behold, or remember, the money
which we found in our sacks mouths we brought again unto thee out
of the land of Canaan. How then should we steal out
of thy lord's house silver or gold? This doesn't make sense. We would never do such a thing.
With whomsoever thy servants it be found, both let him die,
and we also will be my Lord's bondmen. Now, in the deep things
of our God, in whom the seed of grace is found, which is pictured
in this silver cup here, that seed of grace, that purpose of
God to do good for these men. That purpose of God, in the deep
things of God, we do die with our Lord. And we are made willing
bondmen, bond slaves unto our Lord. Our Lord works that in
us. We do mortify the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit of God.
We live and die with our Lord, we're his. But on the surface
here, this was a very rash thing for him to say. And he was very
confident in himself. And that's us by nature. We're
very confident in ourselves. The Lord's not going to find
nothing on me that'll stick. Yes, he will. Yes, he can. He
is able. He's able to show us, to strip
us down, and show us our nakedness, to show us our folly, to bring
us to the end of ourselves. And so it was a rash thing to
say. And the store seizes on that
in order to bring to pass the purposes of his master, of his
Lord. Verse 10, and he said, now also
let it be according unto your words. He with whom it is found
shall be my servant and he shall be blameless. Then they speedily
took down every man's sack to the ground and opened every man
his sack. You can imagine just how confident and cocky they
were at this moment. They're thinking, we got this.
This guy's going to see that he shouldn't even be here. And
he searched and began at the eldest and left at the youngest,
and the cup was found in Benjamin's sack. As I was reading this,
knowing that this silver cup signifies the purpose of God's
grace for his children. I could not help but pray and
ask the Lord, when you search the hearts of men, Lord, may
this silver cup be found in my heart, where you have determined
your grace for your people. May it be found in the hearts
of your people to reveal that purpose of your grace for what
you do for the sinner, to save us from our sins and deliver
us And so they rent their clothes and laid every man his ass and
returned to the city. You can imagine what they're
thinking. Of all men for this to happen to, it has to be Benjamin. Out of all of us, it had to be
Benjamin in whose sack this cup is found. And again, it's a reminder
that when the Lord will grab our attention, he knows right
where to put his finger. He knows exactly where to touch
us. He knows exactly where to weaken us in ourselves. He touches
the very thing most prized by us to get our attention. He'll
do it. He's able to do it because he
knows us. He knows our heart. He knows our thoughts. He knows
what we are by nature. And so he put his finger upon
Benjamin, the beloved son in whom Jacob's life is bound to
his son, tied up with his son. So long as Benjamin lives, he
lives. If Benjamin dies, he dies. And so his life here is at stake. If Benjamin becomes a slave in
Egypt, that's as good as him being dead to Jacob. And so it's
a picture here of judgment. If Benjamin be not delivered,
it's a picture of judgment coming upon that family, upon Benjamin,
upon Jacob, upon that whole family. And so the picture here points
to our very soul. Our very soul hangs in the balance,
as it were. If we hang on to that, to that
life, as Jacob wanted to hang on to Benjamin, He would have
died in the famine and all his family with him. Benjamin himself
and all his sons and grandchildren would have all perished in the
famine. But if that son go, if that son
be put in the hand of one mightier than he, that son will live.
And that's what's at stake here. It teaches us something about
our lives, our spiritual life, our salvation, our inheritance.
If we try to do it, we'll die. But if by grace, by faith, we
trust the Lord and believe him, we shall live. And our life is
bound up in that. And you that trust Christ have
committed all to him. and trust him for all things
to save you, for which you cannot justify yourselves. And that's
what the scripture is showing us. We're all sinners, dead in
trespasses and sins by nature, and cannot save ourselves, but
the Father hath sent one, the Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver
us, to save us, to do for us what we cannot do, and do it
perfectly, to finish the work in us by his grace and power. And so this brings us now to
Judah laying their case out to Joseph. Verse 14, and Judah and
his brethren came to Joseph's house, for he was yet there and
they fell before him on the ground. And Joseph said unto them, what
deed is this that ye have done? What ye not or know ye not that
such a man as I can certainly divine? Meaning, don't you know
I'll figure this out? Don't you know you're the only
ones that were here? Besides my servants, you're the only
ones that were here. Don't you know that I would know what you've
done and figure this out, that you took my silver cup? And Judah
said, what shall we say unto my Lord? What shall we speak?
He owned it, because he understood a deeper purpose is here. That's
what's being shown. Or how shall we clear ourselves?
God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants. Behold, we are
my Lord's servants, both we and he also with whom the cup is
found. Without saying it to Joseph,
they're confessing their sin. Without putting it in those words,
they're confessing their sin at the root of all this, their
sin here, because of the sin of he and his brethren has been
found out by God. It's so obvious to them now.
God is repaying us according to our sins. How so? They sold Joseph into slavery.
They sold Joseph into slavery, and now God is repaying them
in like manner, putting them into slavery. That's what they're
seeing there. And so God hath found out the
iniquity of thy servants. Behold, we are my Lord's servants."
And Benjamin, William Benjamin. Indeed, the guilt of their sin
was crying out against them, crying for justice, like the
blood of Abel cries for justice. But thanks be to God that the
blood of Christ cries out a more gracious thing. All right, he
saves us, he delivers us from judgment by covering our sin
with his blood. And so God's purpose here is
much deeper than what these men think it is. It goes much deeper
here on what the Lord's doing. Verse 17, Joseph said, God forbid
that I should do so, but the man in whose hand the cup is
found, he shall be my servant, and as for you, get you up in
peace unto your father. By doing this, he's proving then
to see whether or not they love their own lives and love this
world more than they love their brother, Benjamin, and their
father. He's proving, do you love the
world? Because you can go free. Go back. Go into the world. Go
do what you want. You're free to go. But Benjamin's
staying here. Do they love Benjamin and their
father's life, or do they love their own lives and this world
to go free? And so for us here, it's the
trial of faith. We're very rich in this world. We're very rich in fleshly things.
We're very rich, especially compared to the world. We are very, very,
very rich. And when the times of taking
and trial and difficulties come, and that proving, and the Lord
knows how to prove us. He knows where to touch us. He
knows exactly what to do. It'll reveal, do I love this
world, or do I love my Lord? Do I love my own life, or do
I love the life of my brethren? And do I love my master, my Lord,
my savior, my God, my all? All right, where's my heart in
all of this? And so. The Lord's going to see
whether we seek to prove our own lives and preserve our lives,
or are we made willing to lose it for Christ's sake. That's
what he reveals in the trial. That's what he proves. Again,
he knows. He knows, but he's proving it
to his child. He's proving it in the body. Love not the world, neither the
things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the
love of the Father is not in him. And our Lord Jesus Christ
said, for whosoever will save his life shall lose it. But whosoever shall lose his
life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. And so this silver cup appears
to be a cup of wrath to them right now. If Benjamin doesn't
return to Canaan, it's a death sentence for that family. This
looks like a very difficult, a very trying situation here.
And don't miss what it says to us concerning us as sinners with
an eternal soul, what the Lord's revealing to us here, that by
nature we're born under the wrath of God. And we cannot deliver
ourselves. We cannot save ourselves. And we will die in our sins and
suffer the wrath of God, except God be gracious to us and deliver
us from it, from the coming wrath and judgment of God. Now Judah
here takes up a most blessed character. Judah takes up here
a type of Christ. He appears as a type of Christ
as the intercessor for his people, as the surety of his people. And surety means that he pays
what we cannot pay. And they cannot pay this. They
cannot leave Benjamin there. They can't do it. It's a death
sentence to Jacob. And so he takes on the character,
he's a type of Christ, our shorty, our intercessor. Verse 18, then
Judah came near unto him and said, O my Lord, let thy servant,
I pray thee, speak a word in my Lord's ears. And let not thine
anger burn against thy servant, for thou art even as Pharaoh.
How blessed we are to have a Savior who drew near to the Father,
to intercede for His people, to plead for His people to the
Father. That's the picture here. My Lord,
He says, asked His servants, saying, Have ye a father or a
brother? And we said unto my Lord, We
have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little
one, and his brother is dead, and he is left alone of his mother,
and his father loveth him. Now let me just say one other
thing here on trials here. Just thinking of Joseph and Benjamin
here. If you recall how Rachel was
tried severely, she could not conceive a child for many years
as Leah's getting pregnant and just popping out son after son.
after son, she can't bear. And it was a great trial to her.
It was a difficult trial and a long trial for her before Joseph
ever came along. But now we begin to see the Lord's
design in delaying the conception of Joseph. Joseph wasn't born
and mixed up in with these other brethren here. And we see now
something of the Lord's purpose And not only using Joseph to
save many people in the world, because Joseph was just old enough,
he just came into the family enough time for them to hate
him, to know that they hated him and despised him, to sell
him into slavery. And it provided for many people. Him being there, the wisdom that
the Lord had given him. But it also gives us greater
types of Christ in this. Now we see the design of our
Lord in this, not only for this family, but for the whole family
of God. For us to see the many characters,
the many offices fulfilled for us by the Christ of God, who
He is, to show us that He has dominion over all things, And
as Adam had dominion over the world and lost it very quickly,
Christ has dominion over all things. He's our head. He's our
savior. He's our husband. He's the one
that saves his people to the uttermost. And so when your trial's
going long and it keeps on going, And going, and going, and going. And your patience is wearing
thin. And all you seem to be doing is drilling deeper and
deeper into experience, into experience, and experience. And
all you can pull out of that is hope. Because that's what
trials do. They work patience, patience,
where it's experience, experience, hope. And you're wondering, what
is going on? Well, like Rachel. who never
even knew this side of glory. She didn't understand the design
of God. But trust the Lord that even
in the trial, though you and I seem to play a small, insignificant
part, and a difficult part at that, each one of us going through
the trials and bearing the things that the Lord calls us to bear,
Though we don't see it always or we don't see it now and may
never see it like Rachel never saw it, know that your God has
a perfect fit and a purpose for all that he does to accomplish
his purposes in the earth. We may be laying down our lives
for the benefit of another brother or sister that we may not know,
but the Lord knows. And he makes the heart be good
enough with that, be satisfied with that. Not my will, Lord,
but thy will be done. So he's able to do that. It's for his glory. Now, verse
21, and thou saidst unto thy servants, bring him down unto
me, that I may set my eyes upon him. And we said unto my Lord,
the lad cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father,
his father would die. And thou saidst unto thy servants,
accept your youngest brother, come down with you, ye shall
see my face no more. And we saw, that's a picture,
that except there be faith wrought in the new man, we shall not
see the face of God and live. All right, accept the Lord, reveal
that life of Christ in us. We'll have no part in it. We
won't stand before him and live. And so it came to pass, when
we came up, we told our father your words. And then in the time
when it came for us to go again, when he said, go get us more
food, we told him, if you give us Benjamin, we'll go. Otherwise,
we're not going, because the man told us plainly that we shall
not see him. And he said to them, if ye take
this also from me, if you take Benjamin from me, and mischief
befall him, ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to
the grave. Now therefore, Judah says, when
I come to thy servant my father, and the lad be not with us, seeing
that his life is bound up in the lad's life, It shall come to pass when he
seeth that the lad is not with us, that he will die, and thy
servants shall bring down the gray hairs of thy servant our
father with sorrow to the grave." And so we see here, we're reminded
again how in Benjamin as a type lies the issues of life. That's
where it pictures our very souls, our very need of salvation and
grace here. How that if we stay with Jacob,
as it were, if we keep it to ourselves, as Jacob would have
kept Benjamin to ourselves, we all would have died in the famine.
We all would die of hunger and thirst for righteousness, and
find it not. We all would die. But in the
hand of Christ, pictured here in the hand of Judah, there is
life and salvation. We shall see how Judah, as a
picture of Christ, delivers us, delivers our soul, releases us
from the snare of the fowler, as it were. And he said, because
thy servant became shorty for the lad, unto my father, saying,
If I bring him not unto thee, then I shall bear the blame to
my father forever. And this, brethren, reveals the
redeeming work of the Lord Jesus Christ, who covenanted with his
Father, agreeing, vowing, that I shall bring thy children back. And if I don't do it, I'll bear
the blame forever. This is how Judah is a picture
of Christ our surety. I'll pay the price. I'll do what's
necessary to bring back Benjamin to my father. And so here he
pleads with the judge, as Christ pleads. Really, it's a picture
of Christ pleading with Christ. Christ is our judge, to whom
the Father hath committed all judgment into his hands. And
here he is saying, I've paid it all. Let them go free. Let them go free. So he bore
the punishment that we might go free in him. And here it is,
verse 33. Now, therefore, I pray thee,
let thy servant abide. Let me, Judah, abide instead
of the lad, a bondman to my Lord, and let the lad go up with his
brethren. So that is what Christ did for
us. he took our place, he bore the
punishment due to us that we might go free in him and have
life in and by him. For how shall I go up to my father
and the lad be not with me, lest peradventure I see the evil that
shall come on my father." And so this made it clear that Judah
truly regarded his brother Benjamin and the life of his father more
than his own life, being made willing to lay his life down
that his brother Benjamin might return to the Father alive. And Jacob lived. And so that's
a beautiful picture there. And so that's what our Lord did.
He established the covenant of grace that the Father might be
just to justify you. Not because you worked and obtained
your life, but because he obtained it for you in such a perfect
way that the Father is just to forgive us of our sins and to
give us life and to give us his spirit and to reveal the salvation
in us by his grace. And so through him, brethren,
we have life. We have salvation in him. Through
Christ, that silver cup that cried out for wrath against us
is now, through Christ, made unto us the cup of salvation. And what he did for us, we are
saved. We are delivered by him, because
Christ our Savior paid his vows unto the Father to deliver us
from our punishment and the wrath we deserve. So I encourage you
later to read Psalm 116 where it shows us Christ who paid his
vows before his brethren to take the cup of salvation that we
in him might live forever. and released from our sin and
death. So I pray the Lord bless us that
the Lord find in us that that cup of that silver cup of salvation
that he puts there by grace.