Let's be turning to Genesis 39. Genesis 39. Going back to Joseph
here in Egypt, and we find that the trials. The trials, the many
trials that just keep coming upon Joseph, they show us pictures
of our Savior. The Lord is showing us that Christ
is all from the volume of the book. From the beginning of the
book, it's speaking of Christ. It's turning our attention, our
eyes upon him who is the one thing needful for our salvation. And so Joseph, at the moment,
is still in Potiphar's house. Something's going on here, where
he's been tempted by Potiphar's wife to lay with her. And he spurns her advances. He rejects her advances. He wants
nothing to do with that, to sin against God in that way, or to
do this thing against his master, who's treated him very well. And so because of this, she's
angered with Joseph. She wants him dead, basically. She's basically consigning him
to death if Potiphar wants to. He could put him to death. And
so it says in chapter 39, we pick up in verse 16, she's already
spoken to the servants in the house. it says there that she
laid up Joseph's garment by her until his Lord came home. And you could see right there
the hypocrisy of holding on to his garment as a covering for
her sin. But it's all hypocrisy. It's
hypocrisy. She has his garment in a very
wicked manner, to cover her sin with it. It's a picture of self-righteousness. It's a picture of what we are.
We like to put on the show that we have a covering for our sin,
all the while in our heart is nothing but lies and hypocrisy,
just vain hypocrisy. And she spake unto him. According
to these words saying, the Hebrew servant, which thou has brought
unto us, came in unto me to mock me. Again, we're reminded of
how the Jews were using the law, that law which typified the covering
of Christ's blood. The law pictures, it shows us
that we need a covering. We need the blood covering of
the Lamb of God. And the Pharisees, they used
the law to justify themselves by their own works, all the while
accusing Christ of wrongdoing. They were the ones who had murder
in their heart, who despised the Lamb of God, and rejected
the Lamb of God, and blamed him, and had him put to death, accused
him of wickedness. And so, who's mocking God? Who's mocking God? She's mocking
God. The Pharisees mocked God. They
were trusting their works by claiming to believe the truth
and claiming to be the truthful ones, all the while they were
the liars. And it came to pass as I lifted up my voice and cried
that he left his garment with me and fled out. And so, what's
so familiar about this situation is the animosity that we find
the Pharisees having against Christ. It's very familiar because
they were very much against Christ. And, you know, if our Lord, just
like Joseph, if Joseph had joined himself to this woman, this wouldn't
have come up. This wouldn't have been an issue.
This wouldn't have been brought out to Potiphar unless they were
caught. But in like manner, had our Lord
just approved the works of the Pharisees, if he had approved
their customs and approved their manner of doing things, their
traditions, had he, when a sinner came up to him, had he said,
ew, get back from me, sinner. Don't touch me. I'm holier than
thou. If he did that like they did
that to sinners, they would have loved him. They would have brought
him in. Those meals would have gotten
warmer and warmer and more cozy between them all, and they would
have put up with him at least. But instead, because he exposed
their wicked works, because he called them out on their self-righteousness
and showed them the folly of their vain religion and their
self-righteousness, they hated him for it. And we see this with
Joseph, who's rejected her advances, wants nothing to do with her,
is not a partaker with her wicked works, and therefore she hates
him now. She hates him. She goes from
lusting after him to just pure hatred, wanting him destroyed
by accusing him to her husband, who had the power in his hand
to destroy Joseph. And so we see, we're reminded
of the Pharisees who were moved against Christ in hatred. We saw not too long ago in Luke
chapter 11, in verse 53 and 54, it says that as he said these
things, when he rebuked them, woe unto you Pharisees, for their
self-righteousness, woe unto you. It says that the scribes
and Pharisees began to urge him vehemently and to provoke him
to say many things. They were trying to catch him
and snare him in his own words that they might accuse him and
have him put to death. They wanted to catch him in something.
Three other times in Luke, it says that they watched him. They
were watchers, waiting, watching to catch him in something. Their
heart was set on evil. Even if someone bothers you,
don't watch them. Don't seek their evil. Don't
seek their hurt. Pray for them. Pray for grace.
It does us no good to set our heart on evil. It just pollutes
us. It just fills us with hatred
and blackness and darkness. It makes us bitter. It makes
us angry. It doesn't produce the fruits
of righteousness. of the fruits of the spirit.
There's nothing like that. All it does is bring out what?
The flesh. More and more. To more and more
evil. And more and more justification
of our own flesh and our own wicked works. And so they watched
him. Two times it was to see if he
would heal, if he would heal on the Sabbath day, as if that
was this horrible thing. And the other time, they watched
him to catch him in his words so that they would have something
to go and accuse him of with the Roman government. They wanted
to accuse him of wickedness, of insurrection,
basically, against the Roman government. And so this wicked
woman, she falsely accuses Joseph while clinging to his garment. It's very reminiscent. It reminds
me of the whore of Babylon, really. She's the whore. And she's got
this picture there of false religion, this self-justification, this
self-righteousness, all the while accusing the righteous one. even
though she's the guilty one of great whoredoms and just twisting
everything and turning everything in lies and wickedness. And so, again, it pictures It
shows us what Christ, our Savior, our Lord and Savior, His faithfulness
in coming here in the midst of all this pollution and filth
and wickedness in order to deliver His people, to take you and deliver
you from that self-righteousness. Because we all be partakers of
this by nature. if left in darkness, if we didn't
hear his words and see what he's showing us here, we'd all just
have continued on in self-righteousness and religion, in dead works religion,
dead letter religion, thinking this was our righteousness and
justifying ourselves. And then, for doing that, he
suffered. He suffered. And it does show
us, if you oppose the whore of Babylon, if you oppose dead-letter
religion, you're the one that's going to suffer for it. Because
they always seem to have this upper hand and this power. They're
well accepted in the world because they're of the world. And so
the world loves them. But you, if you oppose the works of darkness,
you're going to suffer. You're the one that's going to
suffer. and they're the ones gonna do the suffering, the ones
who should be suffering themselves, but you're the one that's gonna
suffer. And we see it in the Lord. We see it in Joseph, picturing
our Lord, who is holy and harmless and undefiled and separate from
sinners, and yet he came to save sinners and to do for them what
they need. We're told here that eventually,
It came down to the Pharisees hated Christ so much that it
took two false witnesses finally coming in to have what they needed
to take him to the governor and to accuse him of insurrection
and being an enemy of the state, basically. And so this wife,
she tells her husband Potiphar her story, verse 19. It came
to pass when his master heard the words of his wife, which
she spake unto him, saying, After this manner did thy servant to
me that his wrath was kindled. And more than one commentator
has noted that it doesn't say whose anger his wrath was kindled
against. He was angry with his wife. I
believe he was angry with his wife. Because she set this thing
up. He knew what kind of a woman
she was. She sets this thing up. Now he's got to deal with
his faithful servant that he could trust everything to. Now
he's got to put him away. He's got to put him away because
of her. And I say that because look how
she spoke of her husband. Look how she trashed her husband.
It says back in verse 14, She's speaking to the other house servants,
and she says, he, Potiphar, hath brought in in Hebrew unto us
to mock us. She's throwing him under the
bus. She's speaking ill of her husband. And then she blames
her husband to his face. After this manner did thy servant
to me. You did this. You did this. And this is how the wickedness
of man, in this case a woman here, but this is how man justifies
himself. He's the victim. Everybody else
is the problem. It's all their fault that I did
this, that this came about here. And they're the ones that are
the ones in wickedness while accusing others. So Pilate, this
is like Pilate, right? Potiphar is like Pilate. Many,
many years later, he goes along with the whole thing knowing
that it's all just a ruse. It's just a setup here. And he
did it so that why? He could just keep peace in the
house. I just got to do what I got to
do here. I don't like it. It stinks. I
know this isn't the way it is. But I got to keep the peace here,
lest I be shamed, lest I come to shame here. And so he locks
Joseph away in prison. If he believed his wife, he had
the power in his hand. He could have put Joseph to death
immediately. But instead, he puts him in a prison. He locks
him up in a prison. And so even though Pilate said
to the Jews what? I find no fault in him. I don't see what the problem
is here. I find no fault in this man,
but because they were accusing Christ of being opposed to Rome
and causing an insurrection against Rome, now he was an enemy of
the state. And if Pilate, you know, he knew
if you put your confidence in another man, like that, it might
come back to bite you. If anything happens further,
then he's going to be out. Now he's going to look bad to
Roman and the emperor, even though he found no fault in Christ.
He found no fault in him at all. Joseph now, here's another picture. We see Joseph, who's now been
betrayed by his own brethren, the Jews. He's been betrayed
by his own brethren and turned over to the Gentiles to finish
the job, to take care of him. That's what they thought. Why
should we kill him? Let the Gentiles kill him. And that's exactly
what they did to Christ. And Peter said it this way in
Acts 4, or when the brethren were praying, this is what they
said to the Lord. They said, the kings of the earth
stood up and the rulers were gathered together against the
Lord and against his Christ. Psalm 2. For of a truth against
thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and
Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were
gathered together. For to do whatsoever thy hand
and thy counsel determined before to be done. And then, like our
Lord, we read of Joseph not protesting it at all. He didn't say a word,
doesn't record anything that he said. And because he knew,
what's Potiphar going to do? It's his wife. And he's going
to save face. And Joseph is silent. And I don't know what Joseph,
I mean, Joseph knew the dreams. But how much he understood, I
don't know. But he quietly just bore what
the Lord gave to his hand. That's what's so amazing is this
man was righteous. And Peter speaks to that, right?
If you're going to suffer, don't suffer because you brought it
upon yourself. I know that kind of suffering
very well. I bring problems to myself all the time by my foolishness
and sin and folly. But this man was righteous, did
what was right, and yet still he suffered. And the Lord shows
us that. Our Lord did it, and he gives
us grace and his spirit to bear that too. Because he's turning
us from self-righteousness. He's showing us it's death. It's
death. It's the way and the works and
the words of the whore of Babylon. Don't be partakers with it. It's
all going away, but be patient. Just bear it patiently, because
the Lord's doing his work. He's doing his work. And what
do we see with Joseph? Joseph had to go to this prison. If Joseph would have defended
himself and got out of this, he couldn't save his brethren.
But this was the path. This was the way that he had
to go in order to save his brethren. And again, I don't know what
Joseph knew, how much he understood that, but he trusted God. He
was patient. He patiently bore it, trusting,
Lord, you're the Lord. You're God. You know exactly
what you're doing. And so he bore it and went to
the prison. Verse 20, and Joseph's master
took him and put him into the prison, a place where the king's
prisoners were bound, and he was there in the prison. Doesn't
that, I see something in that, just reading that now there of
how it's the king's prison. If you're bound, if you're suffering,
it's because our king, our lord, has determined it for our good. You can rest in that. You can rest in his providence,
you can rest in the suffering you're enduring, whether it be
physical, spiritual, mental, any external hardships, you can
rest that the Lord has meant it for your good. Just seek the
Lord in him. He may be teaching you something.
He may be chastening you. You may not deserve chastening. But whatever it is, you're in
the king's prison. He's bound you. He's bound you. He's put you there for your good. And you can go to him and thank
him for it. You can thank him for the thorn
in the flesh, because it's a minister to you. to teach you that even
when you're weak and low and insufficient for the task, His
strength is made perfect in weakness, and you can keep looking to Him.
Even if you're the one put yourself there, repent of it, cry out,
Lord, forgive me, but you can trust Him that He put you there
for good. And so just keep looking to him,
because he's the one that's going to reveal the flower. The bud
may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower. You
know what Cowper said? It's sweet. And so trust him
in that difficulty. Turn with me over to Psalm 105.
Psalm 105. And put a marker there, because We'll look at a few verses and
then come back to it in a moment later. But picking up in verse
16. Moreover, verse 16, he, the Lord
called for a famine upon the land. He brought the famine.
He break the whole staff of bread. And this speaks to our fallen
nature. We're sinners. We've come into
darkness. We're spiritually dead. We're
ignorant of the things of God. But what does the Lord do for
our good? He brings along a famine to make us to know our death,
to make us to know that we're in the wrong, that we're sinners,
to see the exceeding sinfulness of our sin. He gave the law. And what does the law do? It
gives the knowledge of sin. It makes us to see, whoa, I'm
way out of line. I'm way off. And I can't even
do righteousness. Though I try, and I spend, and
I labor, and I strive, and I try to be good, all I see is that
it stirs up enmity in my heart against the true and living God.
And so he makes it. He brings that famine into the
land. And what happened? That famine
did what? It was the means that brought
the brethren to Egypt and showed them, brought them to see their
sin. We'll see that when we get up
there, but it made them to see, to know we should have never
done this. What did we do when we did this
to our brother? This is the Lord dealing with
us now. And that's what the famine did,
and that's what the Lord does. He stirs up those famines to
make us to see, I'm the sinner, and I need salvation. I need
his grace. Verse 17 says, Before them, even Joseph, who
was sold for a servant." Again, a picture of God's servant. Behold, my servant, mine elect,
whom I uphold, I've given him for this purpose. The Lord Jesus
Christ came as the servant of God to walk that path of suffering
of rejection, of hatred, for doing what? Being righteous,
doing righteousness for his people in order that he would deliver
us from the death and the famine, to give us life and sustenance
and health, and to sustain us through this valley of death
until he comes again and raises us anew in Christ. And here's
the suffering, verse 18, whose feet they hurt with fetters. That's painful. I remember as
a kid, sometimes we would play those things and somebody put
something on you like that, like a shackle, and it hurts. It digs
in. And it's very uncomfortable. And he walked miles as a slave. He gets to Egypt and he just
continues on in that servitude and now he's being accused of
unrighteousness while he's the one that's righteous. And he
was laid in iron. And that laying in iron is when
they took him and cast him into prison. And it pictures the grave
for us, which is iron. We cannot break out of the grave. We cannot deliver ourselves from
that prison. It's too strong. It's like strong
iron. And you're not going to get yourself
out. You can bribe. You can try to
bribe. You can make promises. You can say, I won't do this
anymore. I'll do this when I get back. I'll give you that. Death
doesn't care. It could care less. The grave
doesn't care. It's not moved by those things. It's not persuaded. It's iron. And we're shut up.
in it and cannot free ourselves, but what the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, laid aside His glory and came down here as a
servant like unto His brethren, made like unto His brethren,
but without sin, and didn't sin, didn't go the way of wickedness
at all, and went into that iron grave to deliver us from that
iron grade, that He went into it with His brethren, bearing
us in Himself as our surety in our room instead, and was raised
again, and we were raised with Him, and in Him, and delivered
from it. And we now have eternal life,
eternal life in Him. So hold your place there in 105,
Psalm 105, and let's go back to Genesis 21, 39, 21, sorry. Genesis 39 verse 21. And here we see that our Lord
greatly pleased his father in all things. Verse 21, but the
Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy and gave him favor
in the sight of the keeper of the prism. It pictures the satisfaction
that the Lord Jesus Christ made for us, brethren. The law? Satisfied. The justice of God? Satisfied. The Father? Satisfied. Everything we needed, Christ
satisfied the Father on our behalf. so that we, like him, will not
be kept in that prison, will not die there, will not remain
there. We are raised with him. Our old
man, Paul said, is crucified with Christ that the body of
sin might be destroyed. to the satisfaction of God the
Father, it is destroyed, your sins are put away, your sins
are washed in the blood of Christ. You that are his, you that believe
him, you that confess Christ and believe in your heart that
God hath raised him from the dead, meaning he's my righteousness,
and by him I too shall be raised from the dead unto eternal life,
just as he's promised. All right, and so we see that
now returning back to Psalm 105, Psalm 105 verse 19, until the
time that his word came, the word of the Lord tried him. And so he entered that grave,
that iron grave, and yet he was tried and found righteous in
everything he did. Never once did Christ curse God,
he never once didn't believe him. He trusted, my God, my God. He trusted him. He remained faithful
through it all, believing him. And then it says now in verse
20, the king sent and loosed him, even the ruler of the people,
and let him go free. And so we see there that Christ
finished the work. And because he finished the work,
since he cried from the cross, it is finished. God the Father is well pleased
with him, and sent and loosed him, raised him up from the dead. And so we see there, brethren,
how that Joseph here is a picture of our Lord who satisfied our
God for our sins on the tree, and his dead body was laid in
that grave, and he was raised again by the word and power of
God, who raised him up. Verse 21, he made him Lord of
his house and ruler of all his substance. That is Christ. That is a picture. Just as Joseph
was made Lord of all and ruler of all his substance. So Christ
is given a name, which is above every name. And to him, every
tongue will confess and every knee shall bow that Christ is
Lord. He's Lord, and that's what he's
making us to see in these beautiful pictures here, throughout, to
turn us from dead works and self-righteousness, to see what we are by nature,
to see ourselves as Joseph's brethren, and that we're the
sinners, we're the filthy ones, and he brings that famine into
our souls, thankfully. lest we be confident in our own
works and confident in his flesh to bring us to see our sin and
to cry out, Lord, forgive me, save me, have mercy upon me,
Lord, save me. Now back in Genesis 39, 22, and
the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph's hand all the prisoners
that were in the prison and whatsoever they did there, he was the doer
of it. See, Christ is the vine. We're
the branches. We don't bear any fruit apart
from him. And the Lord's making us to see
that Christ is all. He's the fruit bearer in us.
We're his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. In John 15, Verse three, our
Lord says, now are ye clean through the word which I have spoken
unto you. He makes us to hear this word
of his grace, not your righteousness and what you did to save yourselves,
but what he did and the salvation he accomplished. That's his word,
that's the good news. And it's good news for sinners
who are dead, and in trespasses and sins and had to feel the
pangs of hunger in their soul for the famine that the Lord
by grace and mercy brings into our soul for our good and separates
us from those dead works to behold and look to the Savior whom he
sent. Christ is all and in all, verse
23, the keeper of the prison. looked not to anything that was
under his hand, because the Lord was with him, and that which
he did, the Lord made it to prosper. And so that's what the Holy Ghost
has put this word here for. This is what he's showing us
time and time again. This word, just like Christ said,
you search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal
life, and there they which testify of me. It's all testifying of
the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the salvation of God for
sinners. He is the Savior. He's all brethren. He's our Joseph. He's our Savior. He's all, our all. So I pray
the Lord, root us in him, fix us in him. He's the vine, we're
the branch. We cannot bear fruit apart from
him. We can do nothing but by him. And so it's all in his hand,
just like it says there. Genesis 39. I pray the Lord bless
that word to your hearts, brethren. Amen.