Let's be turning to Genesis chapter
42. Genesis 42. Now, since chapter
37, we've been looking at Joseph. And Joseph is a wonderful type
of the Lord Jesus Christ in many, many facets, many things. We
see this. And today, we're going to see
how that Joseph deals with his brethren who have erred, who
have sinned against him. And we're actually going to be
stepping through the next four chapters, 42 through 45 here,
in order to gain that understanding, to see how Joseph, in dealing
with his brethren, we see pictures of how the Lord deals with a
sinner. bringing us to see our sin and
to see our need of his grace and salvation. So understand
this, that every one of us is a sinner. We're all born of the
corrupt seed of Adam and we come forth speaking lies. We come forth in corruption.
We are sinners. in need of the grace of God. Paul tells us that we all were
dead in trespasses and sins so that you that are alive in Christ,
you that believe the Lord Jesus Christ have been quickened, made
alive from your trespasses and sins, from your death in them. And what the Lord does when he's
showing us that our dire need of salvation. When he shows us
that we're sinners, one of the ways that he does that is he
brings a famine into the soul. He brings a famine upon us, a
hardship upon us, so that we feel our hunger. We feel the
thirst of our need of salvation and grace. We feel our need of
his salvation. And this is pictured for us here
in this text. you look at the end of chapter
41 in verse 57, the very last verse there, we're told that
all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn because
that the famine was so sore that all lands. And so this this famine
pictures what the Lord does. Joseph even told Pharaoh back
in verse 32 of chapter 41 that the thing is established by God. God brought this famine for a
purpose. God made this famine so severe
that it caused Joseph's brethren to go down to Egypt and have
to speak to Joseph and reconcile with Joseph. They had to go to
him, that man whom they sold into slavery. and would not hear
his cries for them to be merciful to him. And now they had to speak
to him. They had to get bread from him. This thing is established by
God. God is able to work all things
to bring us to our knees, to bring us to seek God, to see
our need of him, and to cry out to him. He's able to do that.
And many of you know that he's able to do that. He knows exactly
where to put his finger. He knows exactly how to bend
our knee. He knows exactly how to break
our heart and to bring us to bow before him and beg him for
mercy and grace. He's able. He's able. And so
the Lord our God brings famine into our souls in order to bring
us to Christ that we would seek reconciliation and salvation
by Him who alone is the Savior of God's people. Now we see this
in Psalm 107. Let me just quote this from Psalm
107, verse 4 through 6, speaking of Israel. were told that they
wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way, in a way of the
wilderness. God brought them through a wilderness
way, where they were stripped of all fleshly comforts. They
found no peace, no comfort there in the wilderness. God had brought
them there. They found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul
fainted in them. Then, then, They cried unto the
Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses. God is able to do that. He knows
exactly what we need. And if he purposes to save you,
if he purposes to be gracious to you, he's going to bring a
famine into your soul to reveal that need and to bring you to
him. Had there been no famine in the
land, Joseph's brothers would never have come down there. They
had never been reconciled to Joseph. They had never seen the
grace and the power of God, who's sovereign over all things, to
bring them to salvation. And so had God not sent a famine
into our soul, none of us here would be here. None of us would
have a hope in Christ. None of us would cry out to him
for mercy. Thank God for those times of
famine. Thank God for those times of
wilderness travel. It's bitter to the flesh. It's
bitter to the taste. But we thank God for them, because
it's by his grace and power that we are brought to Christ. And
then after that famine, There's a hearing, all right? Only when
there's a famine, there's a hearing of good news. And we read there
in verse 1, Genesis 42, verse 1 through 3, when Jacob saw that
there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, why do you
look upon one another? All right, they were wondering,
what do we do? What do we do? And he said, behold, I have heard
that there is corn in Egypt. get you down thither, and buy
for us from thence, that we may live and not die.' And Joseph's
ten brethren, ten of them, went down to buy corn in Egypt." They
were hungry. They were starting to feel the
pangs of hunger. They were seeing their stores
of feed whittle down. They had animals, but those animals
were going to be dying. The grass wasn't growing. The
grain wasn't coming. They were in great danger. And that's when the good news
came to them. There's corn in Egypt. That's when they heard
the word. And it was of value to them.
That's when they cared about that word, when there was a famine
upon them, when their lives were in danger. And Jacob commanded
his son, saying, go, buy corn. Get you down to Egypt. Jacob,
ever the faithful preacher of that family. And he's the one
that heard from God, we're leaving Padana Ram, and we're going to
Canaan. And he told his wives. He preached
that word to his wives, and they heard, and they followed. And
then when he was, after that travesty there in chapter 34,
The Lord said to him, get up, go to Bethel. Go to Bethel. And he preached to his sons.
They heard, and they all went to Bethel. And they followed.
They heard. And now he's saying, there's
corn in Egypt. Go. Go. And that's what the Lord
does. He gives you a preacher to tell you, go to Christ. Get
you to Christ. He is the Savior. He is the bread
of heaven. He will feed your hungry soul. He is able. Go to Him. Don't
delay any longer. The word to us, the word to the
hungry, the word to the thirsty, we see in Isaiah 55, verse 1,
ho, everyone that thirsteth, 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. The Lord is showing us
this is of great value. Christ is of great value. His
blood is worth infinity of our understanding. We don't even
understand the fullness of it, but his blood is worthy, brethren. And we can't buy it with what
we do. We can't purchase it with our
works. and our abilities. We can't purchase
it. It's given. It's given freely.
It's of great value, but it's given. Wherefore do ye spend
money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which
satisfieth not? The Lord shows us that the things
we're turning to in this world, they're dead things that cannot
satisfy. If God's hand is in it, it cannot
satisfy your hunger and your thirst in this world. Everybody
turns to something in this world to find some peace, some relief,
some satisfaction. But if God's in that famine that
he sent into your soul, you'll find no rest or peace in the
things of this world. And you'll be troubled. You'll
be troubled. You'll be moved. But it's for
your good. It's for your good. And it's
for your salvation. And so Joseph's brethren, I'm
sure they were laboring. They were planting. They were
praying, hoping that a good, abundant crop would come. But nothing was coming. No rain
was falling. It was just dried up and dead.
And it was for their good. for their good, hearken diligently
unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight
itself in fatness." And so there's a time when we'll turn to the
left, we'll turn to the right, but there's no fatness there,
nothing to satisfy. I learned a while ago, a few
years ago, well, I don't like vegetables very much. But if
you slather them up with some coconut oil, and then you cook
them in that coconut oil, they're very satisfying. It'll hold you
over for hours, much longer than I ever knew. And that's the fatness. And it's the fatness of the Lord
that satisfies us, that satisfies that hunger, and makes us satisfied
and happy in Him, joyful in Him. He said, if any man thirst, let
him come unto me and drink. He says to us, I am the bread
of life, the bread which cometh down from heaven that a man may
eat thereof and not die. Not die. That's Christ. He's
the Savior whom the Father has sent. We must go to him. He is
the food for our souls. His words, we are satisfied with
him. and with his promise and his
word to us who are sinners, who have no righteousness of our
own, that we may flee to him and find hope and salvation,
rest and peace in him. So Joseph's brothers heard this
word and they go down to Egypt to get bread. And here we're
going to step through several verses of these chapters and
see how the Lord is showing us something of how the Lord deals
with us. to bring us to see our need and
how he satisfies that need, how he reveals himself to us. And we can go through this multiple
times, I'm sure, and see many more pictures, many more pictures
of Christ here and how he deals with us seen in Joseph. But we're just going to go through
it lightly here. First, we see that a man comes
to God his Savior thinking that he must pay. By nature, I thought
I must do something to earn my salvation of God. I'm not worthy
just to come to God. I've got to do something. That's
what I thought. That's what I thought. I was wrong. I was wrong. We
cannot pay for salvation. We do not earn salvation. We
do not obtain salvation by our works. And so in verse 3 of chapter
42, we're told Joseph's 10 brethren went down to buy corn in Egypt. And we see this pictured throughout
the scriptures. Naaman, the leper, went into
Egypt with an abundance of gold and silver, thinking he was going
to pay for his healing. And it was not so. It wasn't
so. The prodigal son, when he came to himself, said, I'll go
to my father, and I'll ask to be made an hired servant. I'll earn my keep there. And
it was not so. The father didn't take anything
from him. The rich young ruler said, what
shall I do to inherit eternal life? And he couldn't do it. You can't earn your salvation.
The Philippian jailer came to Paul and Silas and asked, sirs,
what must I do to be saved? And all they looked for was faith,
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, which isn't even of this flesh.
It's the gift of God. It's the gift of God. You that
believe, that is the gift of God. You that believe Christ,
it's God's gift to his child to turn us from the dead things
of this world to see Christ, to find our help and hope in
him. God's our Savior. If He's our
Savior, we're going to learn that salvation is not earned
by us. It's given freely in grace. He's going to make us to know
that. We may start off thinking it's something that we pay for.
We're going to learn, no, you can't earn this. You can't pay
for this. You can't settle your own debts. You need a Savior to do it entirely
for you. And second, We see that a man
comes and when God begins to strip him down, man will justify
himself. Man will seek to balance things
out with what he does. All right? And so in verse 7,
Genesis 42 verse 7, the Lord, it says, well it says, and Joseph
saw his brethren and he knew them. but made himself strange
unto them, and spake roughly unto them, and said unto them,
Whence come ye? And they said, From the land
of Canaan, to buy food. And in verse 9, he accused them
of being spies. He spake roughly to them. Here
they are, to buy corn. And they heard rough words. words
that shook them. And so they started to justify
themselves. They said, no, sir, we be true
men. We're true men. Look in verse
11. We're true. We're true. We're not here to
do that. We're good men. We're good people. You can give
us the corn. We're good people. You can sell
to us. Look at verse 30. When they got back, they said,
the man who was the Lord of the land spake roughly to us and
took us for spies of the country. And so we see Joseph is wearing
them down. He's stripping them down of their
confidences, of their hopes, of their defenses, till they
beg him for mercy. And that's what our Lord does
for us. In mercy and in kindness, he'll strip us down to see that
we need the Lord, that we're not true men, that we have many
faults. that we are corrupt, that we
are born of the corrupt seed of Adam, that we don't have any
light or understanding, that we need him to do for us because
we cannot do it for ourselves. And so the Lord does this because
when we come to him, we're coming to him as mercy beggars. Again, we might start off confident
in ourselves. We might think, I'm turning a
new leaf. I'm going to start anew, I'm
going to do better going forward, but the Lord's going to bring
us to see, nope, you're coming to me as a mercy beggar. You have nothing to earn my favor
with. Now third to that end, to break
us down of our pride, of our confidences and our self-righteousness
The Lord shuts us up in prison, right? He shuts us up so that
we see, we begin to confess our sin to the Lord. We feel our
shame and our corruption. Verse 17 of chapter 42, it says
that he put them all together into ward, that's prison, three
days. So before they could be exalted,
Before they could know Joseph, they had to be humbled and abased. They had to be brought low in
themselves. And he did that by putting them
into prison. And that's what the Lord does
for us, brethren. Even in, again, we see that three days, but you
think of the disciples. who fled from their Lord on the
night in which He was betrayed, who fled from Him whereby He
went to the cross alone to accomplish their redemption and the shame
and the guilt they felt for those three days. They saw how weak
am I, that I abandoned my Lord, that I abandoned my hope, that
I fled That's how weak we are. And the Lord does that. He shuts
us up in darkness. He makes us to know our shame. He makes us to know our corruption.
And sadly, to my shame, I can tell you, it's been more than
once that I've been shut up in prison and made to feel my sin,
made to feel how weak I am, made to know that I can do nothing
apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. And every time I get lifted up,
He'll bring me right down in mercy, in mercy, to show me how
desperate I am for the grace of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a mercy when he shuts us
up in prison, because God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to
the humble. And I would never be humble,
except God humble me, except he bring me low. Humble yourselves,
therefore. Let yourselves be humbled. Thank
the Lord when you see what he's done for you, under the mighty
hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. God will get
you lost before he finds you, before he has you found. He's
gonna get you lost. A man isn't saved from his terrors
until he knows he needs saving. If you're trusting in your own
self-righteousness, God is going to break you of that self-righteousness. and his will will be done. It'll
be done. And fourth, it was only after
his brethren were shut up in prison, that's when we see them
beginning to remember their transgression and sin against their brother.
That's when they began to think. We know why this is happening.
Verse 21, and they said one to another, we are verily guilty
concerning our brother in that we saw the anguish of his soul. When he besought us and we would
not hear, therefore is this distress come upon us. And so we see here,
this is a picture of us when we are brought under the law.
Why is the law given? To make us to know our guilt
and shame. To make us to know the exceeding
sinfulness of my sin. For me to see what a sinner I
am. We're brought under that law
so that we would know I'm not righteous. I'm not right. I've
not done good before the Lord. And I see it right here. I see
what a sinner I am. And so that picture of him putting
them in prison is them being put under the law of the land
there. They were put under that law. And that's what the law
has given to show us our guilt. Romans 3.19. Now we know that
what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under
the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world
may become guilty before God." Right? Stopped of our justifying
ourselves, of our self-righteousness, of our boasting, to see our guilt
before God, to see our need of salvation. I don't just need
a little help. I need a complete salvation from
beginning to end. And that's what Christ gives.
We're either saved entirely by him. We either come under the
blood of Christ, or we don't come at all. He saves us entirely,
brethren. Entirely. Or else we don't come
at all. Fifth, Joseph heard them confessing
their sin. Verse 23 says, they knew not
that Joseph understood them, for he spake unto them by an
interpreter. And so while Joseph was hiding
himself from them, not making himself known, they were feeling
their guilt and shame. They understood what they had
done was wrong. They understood that it was wrong.
what they had done to Joseph. But after they confessed their
sin, that's when he began to lighten the load for them. That's
when he began to lessen it for them and he began to show himself
more gracious. He began to show himself merciful
to them because that's what he was doing. That's what he was
making them to see. In verse 25, Joseph commanded
to fill their sacks with corn and to restore every man's money
into his sack and to give them provision for the way and thus
he did unto them and they loaded up their asses and off they went. And off they went. And it speaks
to the grace and kindness of our Lord to patiently. It's a patient work. What Joseph
is doing is a patient work. And that's how the Lord deals
with us in patience. He drives us so far, so fast,
and then he gives relief. But he ain't done yet. He's not done until he's done.
But he is able to deliver us from the captivity of our enemy,
to bring us out from the house of the strong man and to bring
us into his family, giving us a saving knowledge of him, taking
us from knowing absolutely nothing to seeing more and more and more
of the light of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He's able. So it's a patient, it's a patient
work. And I noticed in verse 24, We're
told there that after he wept, he comes to them again, and at
the end of that verse 24, it says, he took from them Simeon
and bound him before their eyes. And something struck me about
that this morning when I was looking at it. Simeon, his name
means hearing. And he took their ear. He had their hearing, right?
He kept Simeon there, so that he held their ear. So that when
they left, they were coming back. It was already determined they
would have to come back for their brother. And that's what the
Lord does. He'll keep your ear. He may give you a relief for
a time, but he's going to come again. He's going to draw near
to you and bring you further, near, draw you near to himself. And he knows how to get our ear. He knows how to get our attention.
And he'll do it. He'll do it in grace and in mercy. Six, things were quiet then for
a little while, but it wasn't long before trouble visited their
souls again. They were troubled again. So
that when one of them took down the bag and opened up to give
their animals a little provender, a little feed to sustain them,
they saw their money in the bag there. And they were troubled
by that. They thought, uh-oh, something's gone wrong here.
Something's gone wrong. And in verse 28, what is this
that God hath done unto us? They saw that they were put into
a fix and they were troubled again. And if the Lord's in it,
if the Lord is stirring you up, if the Lord is bringing famine
into your soul, you're not gonna go long before you're troubled
again. And until you see your need of him and you're brought
to him, he's gonna keep doing it. And it'll be a trying time. I remember as a young man, and
I was very ignorant of the truth. But I believe the Lord was dealing
with me, beginning to deal with me, to stir me up there. And
I was very self-righteous. I thought I had cleaned up my
act because I was a bad kid. I started to fix things and change
my life in many ways. And then I began to call myself
a Christian because of the good things that I was now doing.
And that was my hope. I wouldn't admit to having any
hope in Christ before, when I was just living in blatant sin. But
now that I was fixing things and cleaning them up, now I began
to tell others, I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian. And I only had
a couple more things. I thought, literally thought,
that I only had a few more things to clean up. And I'd be spick
and span clean. I was a good, clean Christian
boy. And the Lord destroyed that. He humbled me. He brought me
low in myself. And I tried to do good things
and come to the Lord with those good things. And he refused that
payment. He wouldn't accept it. I found
no peace in the things that I did. It was just returned back to
me so that I trembled. And I began to shake and be afraid. And I thought God hated me, but
it's because I was coming in my own self-righteousness. And
it wasn't until years later, when I began to hear the gospel,
that I realized God doesn't hate me. He's actually being gracious
to me by not receiving me coming in my self-righteousness, because
I can't be saved that way. And neither can you. We're saved
by the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the Lord,
he refuses payment. If you're his, he will not accept
that payment. You can't pay for it. I can't
pay for my righteousness. And thank God that he rejected
it. To show me, you need Christ. You need the righteousness of
Christ. You're not righteous, young man. You're a fool. You're in darkness. You're walking
in wicked works. wicked works, thinking that you
can earn my righteousness while refusing my son and rejecting
him. And that's what the Lord shows
us. And that's what they are brought
to. And they're afraid now. What
has God done? God's shaking me. He's shaking
me. Seventh, that famine persisted
so that they had to go back. A year had passed. And Jacob
says, time to go. We need more food, boys. And
they said, we can't go. Remember, he had their ear. We
can't go back without Benjamin. We can't show our faces unless
we go with the son, the well-beloved son. We can't go. But Jacob gives them a provision.
He says, take double the money, plus the money that you owed
last time. Take all this honey, these spices, all these goods,
and you earn his favor. You woo him. You go there. And so there's two pictures here
in this. First of all, we see this time
they came with the well-beloved son, with Benjamin. Verse 16,
when Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the ruler of
his house, bring these men home. And slay and make ready, for
these men shall dine with me at noon. And that's a picture
there. There's a picture right there
of us coming in the well-beloved sun, the last Adam. In the last
Adam. And that's when we're received.
you that come to the Father in Jesus Christ the Son, you are
well received of the Father for Christ's sake. Otherwise, we
don't dare show our face at his throne. We don't come in our
own righteousness. But with him, were well received. This is my beloved son, in whom
I'm well pleased. Hear him." We come in Christ.
And then another picture is, all the provisions they brought
with them, they did not go into their provision that Joseph made
for them. They added nothing. It wasn't
because they brought these goodies with them. No, they were received
for Benjamin's sake only. And that's how they were received,
and in salvation. All right, anything we do, it's
just a free will offering, if you will. It's just in thankfulness
what we do. We don't add to our justification.
We don't add to our sanctification. We don't add to our wisdom. We
don't add to our righteousness. We don't add to our redemption.
Christ is all, and Christ provides everything, just as Joseph prepared
the whole meal for them and provided everything for them. That's what
your Lord does for you. He provides everything in salvation. And then eighth, Joseph purposed
to reveal himself to his brothers, but it was entirely on his terms,
on his terms. And so he put back that meal. He put back all their money.
And this time he stuck the silver chalice in Benjamin's sack. And
he was going to keep Benjamin. He was going to keep him back.
Well, it says in chapter 44, in verse 4, When they were gone out of the
city, and not yet far off, Joseph said unto his store, Up, follow
after the men. And when thou dost overtake them,
say unto them, Wherefore have ye rewarded evil for good? And this caused them all to return
back to Joseph broken. They all bowed their faces down
to him. It says, verse 14 of that chapter,
Jude and his brethren came to Joseph's house. For he was yet
there, and they fell before him on the ground. And so that's
what the Lord does. He brings us to bow before Christ,
to break us of our confidence, of our self-righteousness, of
our pride, to bow before Christ and just lay it all out before
him. And Judah said, if we go back to our father without our
little brother, he'll die. And I don't want to see it. Take
me. take me. And there's another picture of
the gospel there in Judah, which Lord will and will see at another
time. But in keeping with our main
point, that's when Joseph revealed himself to them as their brother. And that's what the Lord does
when he breaks us. That's when the Lord reveals
himself to us as our dear brother who loved us, who was sent of
God before us for our salvation. Look at chapter 45, verse 1 through
5. 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." That's what
the Lord does with us. It's you and the Lord, no one
else. There's no priest between you.
There's no pastor between you. It's you and the Lord who is
your savior. You're gonna know him as him
who loved me and gave himself for me to put away my sins, my
sins. And he wept aloud and they heard
him. In verse three, Joseph said unto
his brethren, I am Joseph. And that's what your Lord, the
Lord Jesus Christ does. If you're his, I am the Lord
Jesus Christ. I'm your Savior. You look to
me," he says. Doth my father yet live? And
his brethren could not answer, for they were troubled at his
presence. And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me,
I pray you. And they came near. And he said,
I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. And that's
what the Lord does. clears out, he humbles us and
brings us near to know that this is our Savior, our God, who loved
us and gave himself for us. Now, therefore, be not grieved
nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither for God to
send me before you to preserve life. And that's what our Lord
does. He makes himself known to us. He draws us near to him.
He comforts us and gives us the confession to know who he is,
why he came, what he accomplished in his coming, and to hear the
word of his promise, that he provides everything till he comes
and brings us to be with him forever and ever, eternally. And then he sent them back to
Canaan for a time to go and to declare who Joseph is, that he
is alive, and what he's done for them, that he calls them
to himself. The whole family, they went and
preached that word, back to Jacob and the family there, and brought
them all down to Joseph again. And it's a picture of what our
Lord does for us, brethren. Now, he takes us from death,
hardness, hardness, pride, self-righteousness, self-confidence, breaks us of
all that, and makes us to find our all in the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray he do that for each and
every one of us, brethren. Amen.