Chapter 43. Genesis chapter 43. Let me read down through verse 14. Genesis
43, and the famine was sore in the land. And it came to pass, when they
had eaten up the corn which they had brought out of Egypt, their
father said unto them, go again, buy us a little food. And Judah
spake unto him, saying, the man did solemnly protest unto us,
saying, you shall not see my face, except your brother be
with you. If thou wilt send our brother,
If thou wilt send our brother with us, we will go down and
buy thee food. But if thou wilt not send him,
we will not go down. For the man said unto us, you
shall not see my face except your brother be with you. And
Israel said, wherefore deal ye so ill with me as to tell the
man whether you had yet a brother? And they said, the man asked
us straightly of our state and of our kindred, saying, Is your
father yet alive, hath ye another brother? And we told him according
to the tenor of these words. Could we certainly know that
he would say, bring your brother down? And Judah said unto Israel
his father, send the lad with me, and we will arise and go
that we may live and not die, both we and thou and also our
little ones. I will be surety for him of my
hand shalt thou require him. If I bring him not unto thee
and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame forever.
For except we had lingered, surely now we had returned this second
time. And their father Israel said unto them, if it must be
so now, do this, take of the best fruits in the land in your
vessels and carry down the man a present, a little balm and
a little honey, spices and myrrh, nuts and almonds, And take double
money in your hand, and the money that was brought again in the
mouth of your sacks, carry it again in your hand. Peradventure,
it was an oversight. Take also your brother, and arise,
go again unto the man, and God Almighty give you mercy before
the man, that he may send away your other brother and Benjamin. If I be bereaved of my children,
I am bereaved. If it's the Lord's will to take
him, he resigns here. Jacob resigns to God's will.
This is where God brings us all his children. We do, in time,
resign to his will. And he does so here. But the
title of this lesson is, I will be surety for him. I'll be surety for him. The famine
is in the land. They have eaten up all the bread,
which is a good picture, an example that the bread that perishes
gives no life. It gives no life. You know, the
food we eat doesn't give us life. It helps sustain the life of
this body, but it doesn't give life. God's the giver of life. So here Jacob tells his sons,
you go back to Egypt and buy more corn. In all of this, God's
will is being done, even though they can't see it. We have the
advantage and the privilege of reading the story, but Jacob
had to live through it, just like we are living through our
lives right now. But when I read this first verse,
he said, you got to go back down to Egypt and buy more food because
we're out. And I see that here in the providence
of God, of bringing them to Egypt as he said he would. And I thought
of this scripture in Philippians 1, he which hath begun a good
work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. God's
will is gonna be done. They are gonna come to Egypt
and they are gonna meet Joseph and they're gonna find out who
Joseph is and Jacob's gonna find out that his son's still alive.
God's purpose is being done. And in all this that you and
I go through, God is working his will and good pleasure in
us. And he will not give up on us
until Christ be formed in us. That's good news to me. That's
good news that God will not give up on us. He will not give up
on me. Once he has begun a good work
in you, he will finish it. You could mark it down. He will
finish that work. He will not let it go. So Judah
tells Jacob, he said, we can't go back there without Benjamin.
Joseph said, don't you come back here without your brother. Judah
believes in his heart, it's just a death sentence to go back there
without their brother, Benjamin. And Jacob didn't want him to
go, but he finally submitted to God's will. And then in verse
eight and nine, Judah said to Jacob, send the lad with me and
we will arise and go that we may live and not die, both we
and thou and our little ones. If we do not go to Joseph for
bread, we will all die. If we stay here, we will all
die. The message in this is this.
If we do not go to Christ, the bread of life, we will die. If we do not go to Him, if we
do not apply to Him, we will die. Turn over to John chapter
6. In John chapter 6, look in verse
35. And Jesus said unto them, I am
the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger. He that believeth on me shall
never thirst. Then look over in verse 48. I
am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat man in the
wilderness and they're dead. This is the bread which cometh
down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am
that bread. I am that bread that cometh down
from heaven that you may eat of and live forever and not die,
not die. And look in verse 51. He says
this three times here in this chapter. I am the living bread
which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread,
he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. I
am the living bread. Judah said, we've got to go down
to Joseph and buy bread if we're gonna live. We have to go to
Christ, the bread of life, if we're gonna live. But here's the message I'm getting
to. In verse nine, here's the message. I will be surety for
him. Jacob was refusing to send Benjamin
down. But Judah says here to Israel,
he says, listen, I'll be surety for him. Of my hand shalt thou
require him, if I bring him not unto thee, and set him before
thee, that let me bear the blame for every." Here is a very clear
picture of the Lord Jesus Christ as our surety. I'm his responsibility. There's no better news. There's
no better news to a sinner than when a sinner finds out that
he is Christ's responsibility to bring home. I'm his responsibility. Now,
assurity is one who becomes responsible for another. In Strong's Hebrew
dictionary, assurity means this. It means to braid. It means to
intermix. It means to mingle oneself with. It means to become and undertake.
Our Lord came into this world, became bone of our bone and flesh
of our flesh. He intermingled with us. He intermixed
with us. He became responsible, responsible
for a multitude of sinners given to him by the Father. Back in
chapter 42 in verse 37, I want you to look over there in verse
37. Reuben, Reuben talks about being a surety. And Reuben spake
unto his father, Jacob. He's saying, Slay my two sons
if I bring him not to thee. Deliver him into my hand and
I will bring him to thee again. And if I don't, if I don't bring
him back, slay my two sons. Slay my two sons. That's like
me saying, I will, you trust me, I'll sign the note. You trust
me, I'll sign the note. And if I don't pay it, Doug will. Doug will pay it. That's like
he said, that's not a surety. That's not a surety. Reuben's
saying, if I don't bring him back, you can take my two sons
and kill them. Reuben, why don't I just kill
you? That's a surety. On the surface it sounded good,
but that's not a surety. Reuben's willing to let his sons
bear the blame and not himself. What Judas said is a real surety. He says, if I don't bring him
back, let me. Now here's the picture of Christ.
Reuben is not a picture of Christ. Reuben is basically a picture
of us. We're gonna let somebody else
bear the blame. By nature, that's us. But Judah said, let me bear
all the blame. Don't blame my family, my wife,
my children, nobody else, me and me only. I'll bear all the
blame if I bring him not back. Our Lord is our surety in this
way. Just as Judah drew near to Jacob
and swore He swore to us that he would stand good for Benjamin,
even so, even so, our Lord Jesus Christ drew near the father and
swore to be surety for all his Benjamins, all his Benjamins. Christ promised to bring them
home safely. I'll bring them home safely. I'll go into the world. I'll
become bone of their bone, flesh of their flesh. I'll pay their
sin debt. I will pay it in full. And I will bring them home debt
free. Debt free. I'll bring them home
spotless, without blemish. without a trace
of sin, I'll bring them home. What would it be nice somebody
just walking here and you're in say you're a heavy in debt
and they just pay all your debt because you can't pay it no more. Christ fully pledged to the father
in that covenant of grace to be responsible for all the elect
of God. He's responsible to bring me
home. Never let that grow old. Never
let that grow cold. Never let that just, you know,
when you hear something so many times, you just kind of let it
go. Don't ever let that, let it be like that. Because in that
covenant of grace, our Lord has pledged to bring everyone home. Debt free, debt free. And like
Judah, our Lord's surety ship was voluntary. Judah stepped
forward and said, and he made this pledge. He stepped forward
and said, I'll bring him home. And if I don't, you blame me
and I'll bear all the blame. But he did this voluntarily.
And our Lord voluntarily, willingly struck hands with the father
to do this. I'll do this. He wasn't forced to do it. He
said, I'll do it. Willing to do it. He willingly
took the responsibility of paying the debt. He willingly took the
responsibility of suffering, of dying in our stead. He willingly did that. He's our surety. He's our surety. Now there's something I want
us to understand here. When we become surety for someone, We
pledge to pay the debt if they cannot pay it. And you are hoping
that they don't mess up. You don't sign that and say,
don't worry about it. No, you sign it, you say you'd
better pay it. But I'll pay it if you can't
do it. That's not the kind of surety he is. When Christ pledged
to be our surety, He assumed all the debt of all the elect
immediately because we could not pay it. He assumed, listen,
He assumed my debt before I was born. He assumed my debt before
I, and you. He assumed our debt before we
were born. He came into this world and paid
my debt before I was born. That was 2,000 years ago. He took care of it. Wouldn't it be something if before
your children were ever born that you paid all their debts
for the rest of their lives? It was already taken care of.
They'd never have a debt. Although I know and understand
something of my sin debt, it was paid before I was born. It was taken care of before I
was born. Now that's the surety we have. That's the one we have. And Judah said, if I bring him
not unto thee and set him before thee, healthy, alive, not a dead body,
but a living person, I'll set him before thee. If I don't do
that, let me bear the blame forever. If anyone perishes for whom Christ
died, Christ must bear the blame forever. If I don't bring those
whom you've given me, then I'll bear the blame forever. And note
the word here, the word set. He says, if I bring him not unto
thee and set him before thee, this word means to place permanently. It means to place permanently
before thee. It's what it means. It means
to establish. Our Lord said, I go and prepare
a place for a permanent place. You know, we have to leave this
life sooner or later. We have to die. And leave this
life and go and go be with the Lord. But we'll never experience
that again. When we leave this life and we
go before the Lord and we are in his presence, there, we're
there forever. There's no change. It also means
this, to present. When I said him before, present
him, the scripture speaks of Christ presenting us faultless
before his throne. And it means to stay. I will
bring him, I will place him permanently in your presence. I'll establish
him, I will present him, and he will stay here. He will stay
here. All the Benjamins I'll bring,
and they will stay here in paradise. They will stay. We have a permanent place established
by our surety in the presence of God. We have that. Meditate on that. Think about
that. These are the things our minds
should be upon as much as possible. Now, in closing, how can I be sure that Jesus
Christ's suretyship is for me? It's for me. It says in Hebrew 725, wherefore he is able also to
save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him. He never limit to make intercession
for them. Those who come Those who come relying solely
on the person and work of Jesus Christ can be sure, you can be
sure that He is your surety. If Jesus Christ is literally,
truly all my hope, all my righteousness, all my sanctification, all my
wisdom, all my redemption. If He's my all in all. I've been
humming that song this morning. Telling Craig, I've been humming
that song. Jesus Christ is made to me all I need. I got it from
this. And I was reading this, He's
my surety. I'll be surety for Him. And that song came to my
mind. Jesus Christ is made to me all
I need. I don't need anything else, don't
need anyone else. And this gives me hope and comfort
and encouragement and assurance that when I come before God,
I can say, look to Christ. I can tell him to look to Christ
as I look to Christ. He's all I need. He's all I desire. I don't need anything else. You
don't need anything else. We know that, don't we? We know
that. Thank God. Thank God we're not
trying to add to it or take away from it or do anything else with
it. We have a surety that has paid
the debt that we owed and could not pay. We owed it and we couldn't
pay it. But that debt has been paid.
Now, brother, that's good news. Well, all who believe find that
to be good news. It's actually the best news you
can hear. I have someone that's paid all my debt. I'm actually
standing before God right now debt-free. Debt-free. All right.