Turn to Genesis 42. Let me read the first eight verses. I'll comment on the whole chapter.
When you go home, read this chapter. Now, before I do that, let me
mention the midweek service this week is on Wednesday. Fourth
of July is on Thursday, so we'll have it on Wednesday this week
at the same time. Now, when Jacob saw that there
was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look
one upon another? And he said, Behold, I have heard.
that there is corn in Egypt. Get you down there, dither, and
buy for us from thence, that we may live and not die. And
Joseph's 10 brethren went down to buy corn in Egypt. But Benjamin,
Joseph's brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren, for he
said, lest peradventure mischief befall him. And the sons of Israel
came to buy corn among those that came, for the famine was
in the land of Canaan. And Joseph was the governor over
the land and he it was that sold to all the people of the land.
And Joseph's brethren came and bowed down themselves before
him with their faces to the earth. And Joseph saw his brethren and
he knew them, but made himself strange unto them and spake roughly
unto them. And he said unto them, whence
come ye? And they said, from the land of Canaan to buy food.
And Joseph knew his brethren, But they knew not Joseph. They didn't know him. I titled
this message, this lesson, We Do Not Have to Die. We Do Not Have to Die. There is a famine in the land. had revealed to Joseph that there
would be seven years of plenty, and then there would be seven
years of famine, strong famine. And God used this, this is of
God, He used this to fulfill His word that He gave to Abraham. He said to Abraham that his seed
would go into captivity for 400 years. And Peter in the book
of Acts in Acts chapter seven repeats this. He repeats this
story. And it repeats how that God told
Abraham that his seed would go into captivity for 400 years. And after that, they would come
out with a great deliverance. So God uses this famine. God's
purpose is in this famine because He's gonna bring a people, His
elect out of Egypt with a great deliverance. Moses, as you know,
is that deliverer, which is the type of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So God's gonna use this famine here to fulfill His word. I was thinking as I was reading
this that, The fall of Adam was in the purpose of God. He
purposed it. Now, don't ask me to explain
that. I know this. I know you understand
the gospel well enough to know that God purposed it. That He's
going to bring out of this famine of sin and spiritual death a
people. and elect people just like he
did Israel out of Egypt. And God used that fall. He used
the fall of Adam, purposed the fall. He did not cause the fall. He let Adam have his way. He let Adam have what we call
free will. He let him do what he wanted
to do. And because of that, we have
this famine of sin that is in all the world. You notice this
famine here was in all the land. It was in the land of Canaan,
where Israel was, as well as Egypt. It was in all the land.
And sin has affected the whole world. It has affected God's
elect as well as all the others. We are children of wrath. It
says in Ephesians 2, we were children of wrath by nature,
even as others. We're born with the same fallen
nature as everyone else. We still, we partake of the same
famine that everyone else partakes of, spiritual death and sin. But God's got a people he's gonna
bring out of it, a multitude. A multitude of sinners that no
man can number and God's gonna bring them out. You know, Israel
went in 70 people. They came out a million plus. They come out a great number.
Now, I want you to notice something here. It says in verse two, Jacob
said, behold, I have heard. I've heard some good news. There's
famine in the land. If something doesn't happen,
they're gonna die. There's no bread. There's no bread. But Jacob said, I have heard
that there is bread, corn, in Egypt. And he believed it. He believed it. Faith comes by
hearing, hearing by the Word of God. He said, I have heard
that there's bread in Egypt and I believe it and so he instructs
his sons to go there and buy some bread. He says that we may
live and not die. We don't have to die, there's
bread. There's bread, there's food, the bread of life, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And he says to them, you'll notice
what he says to them here, he says in verse 1, Now when Jacob
saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said to his sons, Why do
you look one upon another? And he's saying here, there's
bread in Egypt. I've heard there's bread in Egypt, there's corn
in Egypt. There's food in Egypt. We don't have to die. Now, why
are you standing around looking at each other? That's what he
said. Why do you stand here looking at each other? The scripture says, today is
a day of salvation. Now is the accepted time. I remember
a statement Scott Richardson said one time in a message. I
heard him preaching, I believe it was 13th Street. He said,
why will you die when the water is so close by? Oh sinner, why
will you die when the water is so close by? And Jacob is saying
to his sons, why do you stand here looking at each other? Go
to Egypt. And the Scriptures teach us,
look to the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the bread of life. He's
the bread of life. And so they go to Egypt. Verses
three and five, they go to Egypt, except for Benjamin. Jacob didn't
trust them with Benjamin. He didn't trust those boys at
all with his son, Benjamin. That was the only one he had
left, he thought, from Rachel. His legitimate legal wife was
Rachel. And you remember she had Joseph,
and he made Joseph that coat, because he considered Joseph, basically his only begotten son,
his really true son was Joseph. The others were born from these
other two women, but this is the one left from Rachel, and
he says, yeah, he's not going down with you guys. I can't trust
you all with this. But they go down to Egypt, there
in verse six and eight, and they meet Joseph. They run into Joseph. He's the governor. He's over
all the land. He's over everything. This meeting
is not accidental. This is purpose of God. God sent
Joseph ahead of them to keep them alive. Our meeting of the Lord Jesus
Christ was not accidental. There is no accidental meeting
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I tell you this, As it says
here, they meet Joseph, but they didn't know him, but Joseph knew
them. The Lord Jesus Christ has always
known His people. He has always known His brethren. But we have not always known
Him. You know, when the Lord first
begins to deal with a sinner, He knows that sinner, but that
sinner doesn't know Him yet. Going to, and we'll see that
in the later chapters. But they didn't know Him. And
one of the things we see here is the blindness of men, all men, all men and
women. You cannot know nor see the Lord
Jesus Christ until He makes Himself known to you." Until He reveals
Himself to you. This is their brother. This is
Joseph. This is the one they sold. This
is the one they mistreated. This is the one they put into
that pit. This is Joseph. But they don't
recognize Him. They don't know Him. They don't
know Him. This is how blind and dead we
are. You know, the Lord can be preached
here Sunday after Sunday, you know, Thursday after Thursday,
and a person can sit here throughout their life, throughout their
life. And if God does not open that
person's eyes, they will never see Jesus Christ. They will never
know Jesus Christ. It's like those two guys that
walked with the Lord on the road to Emmaus. Here they are walking
with Him, talking with Him, and they don't know who He is. And
it wasn't until He made Himself known, when He spoke, then they
realized who He was. It's not until the Lord makes
Himself known that we can know Him. Until then, we can't know
Him. We can't see Him. But the good
news is this. Here's the good news. He knew
them. Brethren, the good news is that
the Lord Jesus Christ knoweth them. There He is. For 23 years, I did not know
Him. For 23 years. But He knew me. He knew me. He knew me before
I was born. He knew me before I was born.
He knew me when I was born. He watched over me all those
years. I can look back and you can look
back. And there was times I can look
back and I can say, I should be dead. I mean, there's some
things that happened that I should be dead. I had a good friend
that was killed in a car wreck at 19 years of age. I would probably,
more than likely, I'd have been with him. I should have been
dead, but he's watched over me. He kept me just like he has you,
just like he has you. You know, when you're young,
you're just young and you're so full of life and you think
nothing can take your life, you think nothing's gonna happen
to you. The only one who keeps us alive
is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one. We literally,
if you think about it, we're literally on a path of suicide. If he would take his hand back,
we're just on a path of suicide. We'd end up killing ourselves.
By our conduct and the things we do and the things we'd go
after, it would. It'd kill us. But he knew them,
and that's the good news. The good news is he knew me.
He knew me. Now we see here also in verse
7 how the Lord speaks, how Joseph, which is a type of our Lord,
how he speaks to them at first, roughly, and he made himself
strange to them. He didn't make himself known
to them immediately. He didn't just say, oh, you all
remember me? I'm your brother. But he spoke
to them roughly, and he made himself strange to them. This
is the work, listen, this is the work of convincing and convicting
of sin. This must happen. Before we really
come to know the Lord Jesus Christ, there is a convincing and a convicting
of who we are and what we've done to Him. Not just what we've
done as far as our life, you know, real repentance. Now listen
to me. Real repentance happens. It happens when we look on Him
whom we've pierced. Real repentance happens when
we realize that what we have done and what we are is against
Him. Now, the Lord may use something
that I have done to bother me, trouble me, and convict me, and
bring me to Him, but real repentance is when I look on Him whom I've
pierced. When I see Jesus Christ and Him
crucified and I realize my sins did that to Him. That's why David
said in Psalm 51, against thee and thee only have I sinned and
done this evil in thy sight. Did he sin against Uriah? Absolutely. His family, Uriah's family? Yes. But David said ultimately the
evil, now listen, the evil of my sin and my sins is this, it's
against God. It's against God. That's the
evil of sin. It's who it is against. My Creator, my Redeemer, God. God. And so we see here the work
of convincing and convicting of sin must be done. They are
going to be brought to acknowledge their evil doings against Joseph. We'll see this here in a minute.
Scripture says, "...they shall mourn when they look on Him whom
they have pierced." When the Lord begins a work of grace in
the soul, that soul doesn't recognize Him at first, and doesn't recognize
what's going on at first. But it's the Lord. It's the Lord,
and it's the Lord at work in us. Now, it says, if you notice there,
Jacob said for them, he says, you go down to Egypt. You got
to go to Egypt. That's down. That's down. In order for the Lord to save
us from this famine of sin and spiritual death, we got to go
down. We got to go down. We must be
brought down to be raised up. We must die to live. That's the
process. We have to go down. Down. Now it says in verses 15 and
17, Joseph proves them. He puts them in prison. He puts
them in prison for three days before he lets them out, but
he keeps one of them. Everyone whom God saves, everyone whom He saves, He saves
out of prison. He saves out of prison. You know,
I realize this now. Before conversion, I lived in
a prison of sin, Satan, the law had me. Whom the son sets free, he's
free indeed. But until the Lord sets you free,
you're not free. You're not free. You might live
in what we call a free country, but you're not free. You're not
free from the power of sin. But when the Lord sets you free,
the scripture says, sin shall not have dominion over you. You're
not free from the power of Satan until the Lord sets you free.
Then you're free from him. You're not free from the law.
You're not free from the curse of the law until the Lord sets
you free from it. until He sets you free. You're
not free. Joseph bound them and put them
in prison, and they began to realize, we are in trouble. We
are in trouble. That's what we are. And here,
I want you to look at verse 21. This whole thing right now, what's
been going on, they go down to Egypt to buy bread and they run
into the brother whom they don't know, but he knows them and he
proves them. He proves them, he tries them. Now look in verse 21. This is after he tells them to
bring the younger brother down and he's had him in prison, he's
letting him go. They said one to another, we are verily guilty
concerning our brother. They tried to sweep that under
the rug. They told Jacob, they lied to Jacob. They said a beast
has got him, killed him. They took that coat and they
dipped it in blood. All this lies. I'm telling you the truth. We live nothing but a life of
lies until God saves us. Until God saves us, we live a
lie. And they had been living a lie
all these years. All these years have gone by.
They let Jacob believe that. And they tried to just sweep
that out of the rug. They quieted their conscience. They did. They quieted their
conscience about it. And they just went on their merry
way. They went on with their lives and doing whatever it was
they were doing. Then, now. Now. See, they didn't see the hand
of God in this no more than you saw the hand of God in bringing
you to Christ. You didn't see that. Now you
do. Now you can look back and you
see it. But at the time you didn't. You didn't see it at the time.
And so they say here in verse 21, we are guilty of our brother,
what we've done to our brother, we're guilty. God is now reckoning
with us. They finally confess. their sin
against their brother. As I said, our sins are against
the Lord Jesus Christ. We've sinned against our elder
brother. We've sinned against him. This
is a true conviction of sin. This is when you and I are brought
to true repentance. when we see and we confess what
we've done to Jesus Christ, our elder brother. Now in verse 23, we see something,
we get a glimpse of the work of the Holy Spirit. It says,
they did not know that Joseph understood them. God knows the
heart. God knows the heart. They thought
that Joseph, you know, he was speaking in the Egyptian language. He knew their language, but they
didn't know his. They didn't know his, but he
knew theirs. And he understood what they were
saying. He heard their whole conversation between them. But
there was an interpreter there. Joseph spoke to them through
an interpreter. And when I read that, I thought
the Holy Spirit takes the things of Christ and shows them to us. Because we can't understand that
language. We can't understand that unless
He speaks to us through an interpreter. And the interpreter here is the
Holy Spirit. He takes the things of Christ,
He takes the Word of God, and He reveals Christ to us. He gives
us an understanding. When the Holy Spirit comes, He'll
give you an understanding of Christ, of salvation, of the
words of this book. This book is a closed book until
He opens it for you. And He opens it with the key
of knowledge, and the key of knowledge is the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's the key of knowledge. And then we see in verse 24,
the compassion of Joseph. He says, he turned himself about
from them. He listened to them. I thought of the scripture, his
compassions fell not, they are new every morning. He listened
to them. He listened to them talking to
each other and they're saying, we're guilty of what we've done
to our brother. They don't realize he understands what they're saying.
He said, you know, we're being, this is all happening because
of that, because what we did to our brother. And he listens
to them and he has to listen. And he turns himself about from
them and he wept. And then he returned to them
again and listen. So you see the first time it
says, In verse seven, and Joseph saw his brethren, he knew them,
but made himself strange to them and spoke roughly to them. He spoke roughly to them. What
are y'all doing here? You're spies, I know you're spies. What
are you doing here? But this time here in verse 24,
it says he communes with them. Now he's speaking to them as
their brother. He's speaking to them as their
savior because He's the one who has the corn. He's the one who
has what they need. He's the one who has life. There's a time when there's a
conviction of sin. There's a time when there's a
convincing of sin. And then there's a time when
the Lord communes with us. Come unto me, all you that labor,
heavy laden, I'll give you rest. Come to me. He communed with
them and took from them Simeon and bound him before their eyes."
But he's doing this, this is all out of mercy and compassion.
He knows he's going to save them. He knows what he's going to do.
He knows. The Scripture says, we have a
high priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He loves us. He loves us. He loved us before we loved Him.
He loved us. You know, those boys never did
love Joseph. They never did love Joseph. We were not born into this world
in love with Christ. We did not love Him. At no time
in our life, before conversion, did we love Jesus Christ, not
once. And those boys, they never loved.
They was always jealous of him. They hated him. But before this is over, they
will. Before this is over, they will
bow to him just like he said they would, and they will do
it willingly. They will love him. They will
love him. You know, it says there in verse
6, and Joseph was the governor of the land. And he it was that
sold to all the people of the land, and Joseph's brethren came,
and they what? Bowed down to him. Bowed down
themselves. He said they would. Here they're
doing it because they need bread, and they need the blessing, and
they need to buy some bread. They're not doing it here from
the heart. They're just doing this because they don't want
to get their head cut off, and they need some bread. But there'll
come a time when they will do it willingly. They'll do it willingly. They'll do it from the heart.
Now listen, Joseph proves his love to them before they even
know him. How many times has God proved
His love and grace to us? When you look back over your
life, before you ever knew Him. Before you ever knew Him. I think
Henry called it once, grace before grace. Grace before grace. Look in verse
25. Then Joseph commanded to fill
their sacks with corn, they're going to go back, and to restore
every man's money into his sack, and to give them provision for
the way, and thus did he unto them. At this point, they still
don't know Joseph. Joseph knows them, and Joseph
is merciful to them. He fills their sack with corn,
what they need, and he gives all their money back. You know
why? They are his brethren, and they're
not going to purchase salvation. Salvation is free. You and I are not going to pay
God for corn. We're not going to pay Him for
the bread of life. It's free. It's free. Now everybody else
had to pay for that corn. I'm not saying anybody else is
paying for salvation, but they went and came and got that corn
and just went home. But now these men, these are
his brethren. These are his brethren. And they're
not going to pay for it. They're not going to pay for
it. Joseph already paid for it. He was in prison for several
years. It's free. Salvation is free. And it says,
He put all their money in the sack and He gave them provisions
for the way. Who has really provided for you?
Who really? Our Lord has provided for us.
He's provided us our jobs. He's provided us our health,
our intelligence. He's provided for us. But here's
the message. We have in Christ all the provisions
we need for the way. In Christ, you're complete. We
lack nothing. You know, the Scripture says,
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And
what would He do? All these things will be added
to you. What you need will be added to you. And you know what?
That's all I need. That's all I need. Now, something else I want to
point out here. Grace revealed, but not yet understood. In verse 27, And as one of them
opened his sack to give his ass profiter in the end, he espied
his money, for behold, it was in his sack's mouth. And he said
unto his brethren, My money is restored, and lo, it is even
in my sack. And their heart failed them,
and they were afraid, saying to one another, What is this
that God has done to us? They took it. They took it as,
God's going to kill us. What has God done to us? We're in trouble. We're in trouble. Is that not your experience when
God saved you? You thought, the first thought
you had was this, I'm in trouble. What's this God's doing? I'm
in trouble. I've broken God's law. I'm in
trouble. What's this God's doing? I'll tell you what He's doing.
He's saving your soul. That's exactly what He's doing.
He's bringing you to Him. You know, there is a process
in salvation as far as you and I are concerned. God raising
us from the dead, giving us life, teaching us, instructing us,
making Himself known to us. Grace is not understood until
we see Him, until we see Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Even Jacob, in verse 36, even
Jacob thought all was against him. That's what he said, everything's
against me. In reality, it was all for him. All things work
out together for good to them that love God, to them who are
called according to His purpose. See, Jacob, if you'll read the
rest of that chapter, Jacob thought, this is against me. I lost my
son, Joseph, and now they want Benjamin. He said, I'm gonna
lose Benjamin. And you know, for a while, Jacob
wouldn't do it. For a while, Jacob said, I'm
not sending Benjamin with you. With you. I'm not gonna do that
lest I lose him. You guys can't keep anybody.
But God's will's gonna be done. God's
will's gonna be done. He ends up doing it because He
knows if He doesn't, it's all over with. Nobody's gonna live. Nobody's gonna live. Here's the
message. Here's the message. Go to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Go to Him. He's the bread of life. He's
the bread of life. Jesus Christ has all I need. All that I need to stand before
God, all I need to be accepted, I have in Jesus Christ. Go to
Him. Listen, we don't have to die. That's what Jacob said. Jacob
said, you don't, we don't have to die. There's corn, there's
bread. There's bread in Egypt. We don't
have to die, there's life in Christ. He's the bread of life,
He's the water of life. You're thirsty, come and drink,
He said. You're hungry, come and eat. That title jumped out at me this
morning when I was, I had titled this something else. And I was
reading over this, I thought, that's it, that's the message,
that's the message. We don't have to die.