William Cowper had had some comments
on Psalm 51. He said if any of them apply
to me, that's the one. He worded a little different.
He goes, that's my song. What some hymns he's wrote, I
really appreciate it. We'll turn to Genesis 42. Genesis
42. Might be a little noise above
us. Today, I got here about six o'clock this morning and there
was some handymen, big ol' long screwdrivers. I don't know where
you grew up, but handymen don't work six o'clock in the morning
on Sundays and have big ol' long screwdrivers in an empty parking
lot. So I thought, well, I don't want to have to deal with this,
but I do. They're working upstairs. Trying to get in some overtime.
Hope they won't be too loud. Lord give us ears to hear. Genesis
42 I mean the title my message come out of verse 28. What is
this that God hath done unto us? So Jake Joseph's brethren
Said he's about halfway through dealing with them and as we go
on I look forward to this. It's a it's a wonderful Story,
it's so full and and and where to pick up and where to leave
off hard sometimes because there's there's anger and in this story
of Joseph and his brethren. And there's rejoicing. And there's
sin and evil. And there's graciousness. And
so many ups and downs. It seems like there were just
a couple of verses. But Joseph, he was the firstborn
of Jacob's legitimate wife, Rachel. Now there were other boys born
before Joseph was born, chronologically. But his daddy said, that's my
firstborn. I have one son, Joseph. He was the preferred one. He
was the firstborn. How could that be? How can he
be the firstborn if you already got four or five other sons?
You know what? That same question the Lord presented.
He went to those Pharisees, they're gathered together. And he asked
them, walked up to them, said, what think ye of Christ? Whose
son is he? And they said to him, he's the son of David. Well,
they knew everything, didn't they? He said unto them, How then doth
David in spirit call him Lord, saying, Thee, Lord, send unto
my Lord. Set thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies
thy footstall. If David then called him Lord, how is he his
son? This goes against every cultural
understanding we have. That's still in some cultures
to this day. I saw a boy who was about four months older than
another boy. And the younger one disrespected him from South
Korea. And that man turned around and slapped him right in the
mouth. He was about 16, 17 years old.
And I said, oh, they're going to get in trouble. And he said, no, no, that's their
culture. He just stuck his head down and said, I'm sorry, I had
that coming. That's still some eldership. Respecting the elders
is still prevalent in this world in some places. So how could
this be that this is going to be David's great, great, great,
great grandson or whatever? How could he call him Lord? Our
Lord's asking these Pharisees. And no man was able to answer
him a word. These things don't matter. They
still thought this flesh mattered. That customs and courtesies and
protocol mattered. They didn't see the eternal God. Neither does any man ask him
from that day forth any more questions. This firstborn among
many brethren. He has brothers, don't he? And
just like Joseph's brethren, we're all born in sin. Every
one of us, whether we came before him or after him, all of us came
after him chronologically, right? We're all born in sin. That's
our nature. And in that, whether we was the
best actor and play in church there ever was? Well, we were
in a heroin house somewhere. It doesn't make a difference.
Being born of Adam, we hated our elder brother. We rejected
our elder brother. He come to us and said, I got
something to tell you. I got some words. Like Joseph
came to his brother and said, I'm going to tell you my dreams
I had. And we would not hear his words. We would not have
this man reign over us. They despised their brother.
How much? They threw him in a pit, and it was going to kill him,
and then Reuben talked him out of it, so they sold him into
slavery, and then they lied to their daddy. They don't know
what happened to him. But Joseph didn't despise them.
And they said, why don't y'all close your eyes and kneel down
before me? Come on. And some executioner came in and chopped
all their heads off. That's what they had come to them. He despised not
his brethren. Hebrew writer tells us, for both
he that sanctifies and them who are sanctified are of one. What
do you pray there? And John, we looked at Wednesday
night. I pray that all of them be one as we're one, one family,
one body in it with one head for the witch calls. He's not
ashamed to call them brethren saying, I will declare thy name
unto my brethren in the midst of the church. Will I sing praises
unto them? under the, that we come in kicking and screaming
and moaning and we would not have a Span ran over us and we're
gonna have it my way. And he come to us and said, I'm
gonna sing your name father to him. Joseph spoke harshly to him in
the beginning, didn't he? He said, you're spies. What's
that mean? What if we had spies from Russia? That's the enemy,
isn't it? Or from some other country we
ain't friendly with this week. That changes pretty quick, don't
it? They're enemies! He said, you're enemies. And
he threw them in prison for three days. And they said, we're true
men, we're true men. And he threw them in prison for
three days. How much could we dwell on that? Put them in prison
for three days. But while they were there, the
Spirit of God worked in them. Joseph had come to them. He spoke
harshly to them. And this is in love. This is
in wisdom. This needed to happen. And he put him in prison for
three days. He said, you're gonna bring me your brother and y'all can live. You
got this younger brother you said ain't with you. You bring
him to me and everybody. Bring me your brother and you live.
Lot there too, huh? I don't want you. I want your brother. I want the
preferred one. The Spirit of God worked in him.
Look here in Genesis 42 verse 21. Genesis 42, 21. And they
said one to another. We are verily, you remember what
that word means? Truly, truly. We are truly guilty. We're truly guilty. We spies,
worse than that. We are truly 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. The reason all this judgment
that we're in right now, we come down here just to buy some corn.
And now all of a sudden we're with the prime minister. He's
got us on the carpet, as we used to say. And now he just threw
us in jail and he gave us some demands that I don't think is
going to go over well. And one, we can't do it anyway.
We're in prison. And guilt came on him because he spoke harsh
to him and said, you're enemies. And guilt came on it concerning
our brother. All this judgment is just because we didn't care
about the anguish of his soul. That was 20-some years ago. Not
that we should have went to another part of Egypt. Maybe they had
storehouses around. Maybe we should have went to...
You should have picked a different storehouse. We looked last hour, blaming
other people? Or you should have talked to the customs officer
differently whenever we got our passport stamp coming this off.
It's your fault, Judah. It's your fault, Reuben or somebody,
right? It wasn't those things. We wore the wrong clothes. We
didn't come dressed up. We want to meet the prime minister,
buddy. We'll put on your Sunday best and you coming here wearing
it. What's wrong with you? That's your fault. That's your
fault. You can't do this." They said, we're guilty concerning
our brother. This concerns something that's guilt from a long ago,
isn't it? And they're still guilty today. Isaiah wrote this. He is despised
and rejected of men. A man of sorrows acquainted with
grief. And that's so. He bore our grief
in his body on a tree, didn't he? And we hid as it were our
faces from him. What's that mean? I just looked
the other way. He was despised. We esteemed him not. That's what we did to our elder
brother, wasn't it? We heard of whose Christ he is and what
he accomplished. and we would not hear it. I know
what's right. I have my systematic theology,
and you ain't gonna tell me something like that. Or I'm an atheist,
and I don't believe there's a God, and this one I don't believe
in, I'm awful mad at. It's dumb, isn't it? Every one of us. And my difference,
somebody told me one time, so I grew up in a gospel church
where Christ was proclaimed for birth. And they said, well, you
probably have less grave clothes. And I said, are you crazy? I
have a grave tuxedo. I'm born Adam like anybody else
is. That's proof to me. This is nature, buddy. This ain't
a product of environment, product of conception. And I was right, and I picked
right, and I knew, and I found the right place, and I did all
these things, and I was an apologetic Apologizing to nobody because
I was right Then God broke me and he showed me I wasn't so
big-headed as I thought I was and and every day it seems like
I just know less and less and he's bigger and bigger I Wouldn't
hear we didn't believe him The Holy Spirit came and convicted
his people and God's people, those given to Christ before
time was, whether it already happened, is happening today,
I pray so, or shall happen if there's a tomorrow, convicts
us of sin. Why? Because we believe not on
me, he said. Remember when you didn't believe
God? Of righteousness. Not that I
got to clean up outside the cup, quit smoking and drinking, quit
cussing and quit reading the wrong books, quit watching the wrong
movies. That's not righteousness. Of righteousness because he goes
with the Father. He ascended. That's holy. That's a perfect
life of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.
I ain't got to fight Satan. I ain't got to fight nobody.
I ain't got to do nothing. It's done. Judgment's been satisfied. What he said he was going to
do, he did it. Now thank him. They said, give us Barabbas.
Do you mean different than that? We ain't. Well, thank you, Arbor
Jane. Give us Barabbas. And Pilate
said, are you sure about that? Think this one through, boys.
Come on now. And all the people answered. Then answered all the
people and said, his blood be on us and on our children also. Back in Genesis 37, they saw
Joseph coming. Because remember, they went out
to Shechem, where their sister was defiled. And they come out
of the world, but boy, she was tied to it awful hard, wasn't
she? That's where we feed our sheep. And Jacob said, Joseph, go check
on your brothers. Go look after them. And he went
down there to benefit them for their good. And they saw him
afar off. And even before he came near
unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said,
one another, behold, this dreamer cometh. And they said, we're
going to kill him. We'll put him down in his pit.
We'll see what kind of dreams he's got coming true then. It's sad, isn't it? Every child of God, everyone
he purposed to save in Christ is brought to confess and to
know for a truth verily that we're guilty concerning Christ
and Him crucified. I put him on that cross. It was
me. That's why he's there. Joseph's
hearing every word of this. They're talking about this and
we're guilty because of what we did to our brother that we
loved. 22, 23, 24, whatever it was years ago, a couple decades
ago, I was wrong and I've been wrong a long time. I'm wrong
right now. And he's listening, and he speaks Hebrew, they don't
know this shit. Remember, he had to get a new name, he had
to get a new town, he had to get new customs, and new shoes,
and new wardrobe, and a new language, and he didn't complain the whole
time. He knew God was doing it, he just shut up and did it, was
thankful. He's hearing them. He's hearing every repentant
breath that come out of their mouth, and they don't know that
yet. He hears them. Look at verse 23, Genesis 4 to
23. And they knew not that Joseph understood them, for he spake
to them by an interpreter, And he turned himself about from
them and he wept. He turned and he cried, didn't
he? What a picture that is. We have a high priest, which
cannot be touched with the feeling, if we have not a high priest,
which cannot be touched with the feeling of infirmities. But
he was in all points tempted like we are yet without sin.
He knows our frame. You think Joseph knew his brothers?
Bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, ain't they? He hadn't
done nothing wrong. He didn't cut their heads off.
He just waited. He knew what he was doing. He's
wise. What a picture we have, isn't
it? There in the garden, our Lord went to pray. He took Peter,
James, and John with him. He was so amazed. Very heavy,
and he said, my soul's exceeding sorrowful unto death. Terry,
ye hear and watch. And he's, well, I'm gonna go
pray to my father. And he went forward a little, and he fell on the ground, and
he prayed that if it were possible that this hour might depart from him. He wept,
and oh, what heaviness, I can't even imagine. He prayed these things, they
come back, and Simon was asleep, wasn't he? He found them sleeping,
and he said to Peter, he said, Simon, sleepest thou? Can't you
watch for an hour? Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter
into temptation. The spirit's truly ready, but
the flesh is weak. I know in you, I put that in
you, I know what it's doing. You want to stay up with me,
you want to pray with me, but your flesh is so weak, you can't
even stay awake for an hour. What time I'm praying to God
and weeping. And he went away again, and he prayed the same
words, and he'd come back and he found him sleeping again,
for their eyes were heavy. And they didn't know what to
say to him. They was not what to answer him. I said, I couldn't
stay awake. And he said to him the third
time, cometh the third time, he said, sleep on now and take
your rest. What tenderness, isn't it? It's enough the hour cometh
and behold, the son of man is betrayed in the hand of sinners.
He didn't come harshly to him this time, did he? He didn't
say like a proverb, he said, not how long wilt thou sleep,
O sluggard. He didn't say that to Peter,
he said, you'll wore out, I know you frame. He wept, didn't he?
He says, rise up, let us go. He's the betrays us at hand.
Those are tears of grief because he knew what he had to bear,
he knew he had to bear us. But Joseph, I thought too, that's
tears of joy. And he hears his brethren weeping and mourning
and repenting over what they did to their brother, to him,
years ago. It's like David said there in
the psalm, against thee and the only have I sinned and done this
evil. And I said, we've done it. They didn't know it was Joseph
standing there and listening to them. They said, we've done
this to our brother. We did it. Our Lord said in Luke
15, He said, I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven
over one sinner that repenteth, more than nine unjust persons
who need no repentance. They'll be crying tears of joy.
There in verse 23 it says, And they knew not that Joseph understood
them, for he spake unto them by an interpreter. He spoke that,
he wasn't speaking Hebrew in front of them, he'd learned a
language. He was speaking that Egyptian language. He had a different
name. Back in Genesis 41, it says Pharaoh called Joseph's
name when he appointed him. He said, we need somebody discreet
and wise. That's you. You'll run in the country. And
he gave him a new name. Zephnath-Pananiah. It's the only
time it's mentioned in the scripture. Big, long name. I'd say them
10 brothers probably couldn't even pronounce it. We just know that's him when
they say that. But he spoke to them through an interpreter,
and verse 24 says, and he turned himself about from them and wept,
and returned to them again, and communed with them. Communed
with. This time he's not speaking harshly,
is he? He sits down and communes. That's what God does. When man
communes, let us now have communion together and fellowship. There's
four times communed is mentioned in the New Testament, and you
know all four of them is bad. That's us doing it. It says in Luke
6, they're filled with madness and communed one with another
that they might do to Jesus. How can we kill him? That's what
Judas did. He went his way and he communed
with the chief priest and the captains how he might betray
him unto them. What a sad thing. What's the
Lord do when he comes to us, when he has pity on us? He delights
to show mercy and he communes with the sinner. He comes to
us and he sits with them and he eats with them. What's that
look like? Isaiah 118, come now, let us
reason together. Sit down, have a ham sandwich. I'm gonna talk to you a minute.
Though your sins be as scarlet, and they are, throughly, all
the way through, right? They shall be white as the snow.
Though they be like crimson, they shall be as wool. And I'm
gonna do that. He sat down and communed with
them. He turned himself about from them and wept and returned
to them again and communed with them. Then he does something
different. He took from them Simeon and
bound him before their eyes. That seems a little out of place,
doesn't it? What did he commune with them? Probably ate with
them and talked kindly to them. Threw an interpreter. We'll get
to that in a minute. That's precious to me. Threw
an interpreter, he spoke to them. And then he took Simeon, one
of the brothers, and he bound him right in front of them. One has got
to be bound so the others can go. You're going to go fetch
your brother, this brother's going to get bound. You're going
to bring what I demand, somebody's got to be bound. What a short
picture of Christ we have here in Simeon. They came to him there
in the garden. They said, he said, who do you
seek? They said, Jesus. And he said, I am. And they fell
back. That always gets me. Just carnally, run for the hills.
What are you doing? Why are you fighting this man?
Our instinct, our nature. Kill him. Put him in that pit. He said, I've told you that I
am. If therefore you seek me, let these go their way. You can
bind me. My brethren's going to go free.
One had to be bound, didn't it? I thought about those nine. They
were about to leave Simeon bound and go fetch Benjamin and bring
him back all for corn for life. What's he going to do to Benjamin?
All this they were told through an interpreter. All the interpreter
did was tell what Joseph had to say. That's what ambassadors
do. They go on behalf of our leaders,
our leader, king or president or whatever, they go to another
country and they just say what that one says. I've been the representative
of a powerful person before. And I had one star general come
up to me and said, where we sit? And I said, you sit over there.
Okay, there you go. I didn't lie to him. The boss
would chop my head off. I'd be in trouble. All the interpreter
does, I just say what he says. I just say what he says. But
I thought, you know, Either they ask that interpreter's personal
experience. He can't understand what we're
saying. I'll just talk to you. You're like me. You speak the tongue
I speak. We're gonna speak plainly to one another. Simple words.
What's your, uh, your personal experience with this man? This Zephaneth Pia. This guy's
telling us to do all these things behind our brothers. What's your
dealings with him? What do you think about the man?
Or they didn't ask. And then this interpreter just boldly
told him, because he saw it in their eyes, he looked at them.
And he knew their need, and he may not know that as a brethren,
but he's gonna tell them. And he said, this is a good man,
whether ask or not ask. Apart from what was said, he
goes, I tell you my experience, he's faithful. Everything that
he said he's gonna do, he's done. He's wise, he's discreet, he's
the doer of everything. If anything was done, Joseph
was the doer there. I might be talking to you, but
he set me up. He sent me some language coaches
and taught me Hebrew. This is his doing. I might just
be the one talking to you, but he did everything. Just wait
and see. He's generous and kind. You come
here for a little bit of corn, but you want to gain some weight.
Just trust me. I know. I know. And whatever
he says to do, do that. I understand that. Old brother
Bill Clark said that years ago in England. Somebody just pastoring
to death and he's tired and he's been up all week, sleep two hours
a night or whatever. And I said, how's a believer
supposed to live? He said, believe Christ, do whatever you want.
And you understand, I get that. And you'll do what the Lord says,
right? How about believe Christ, do what he says? Ever considered
that? He says, do it, do it that way. Daddy said so. It was children. We get that. He said, whatever
he says, do it. He said, trust this man. And
he said, he says, bring your brother Benjamin, your youngest
one. Don't you come back without him. That's what he says. That's what needs to be done.
Nothing else. Don't add nothing to it. Don't bring two or three
brothers. Bring that one he talked about. Don't bring half of him.
Don't bring his rings or his shoes. You bring him. Whatever
he said, do it. Isn't that what our Lord's mother
said? That first miracle we performed at the wedding. Whatever he says,
do it. Verse 25, And 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 did he unto them. Well, didn't he command it? Didn't
servants go and fill them sacks? Of course he did. Who was the
doer thereof? Joseph was. He did it. He commanded their
sacks to be filled with corn. He commanded all their money
to be restored into their sacks. He commanded there be provision
along the way. And they laid their asses with the corn and
they departed thence. He said, give them all their money back.
Load down them sacks. I mean, all the way up to the
seams, completely full. And give them provision for the
way. They said, give them some snacks.
They might need some trail mix for that journey back to where
they're going. Well, probably. whatever's needed, whatever's
needed. Provision, provision. I thought of security. You think
about being in some dystopian society like that, rather than
post-apocalyptic junk or whatever nowadays. Bandits are on the
loose. There's a famine in land, has
been. Everybody's hungry, and you see these guys that looks
a little round in the cheeks, and they're coming down the road
in a carriage, and they got sacks full of corn and money sticking
out the top of it. Who you think happened? It's
hard to think like a thief sometimes. They get robbed. That's what
happened. They get stabbed or something,
kidnapped. That's included too. He said,
you send my army out in front of them. They'll scout out the
way, they'll recon. And then you send my army behind
them too. They'll protect their six. They'll cover the rear,
rear security. Watch out for them. Get up in
the hills on either side. You watch over them. All the provision. Is that what the Lord does for
us? Guards going ahead and behind. Remember that? My brother Spurgeon
said that was the Lord's watchdogs. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life. Goodness to go ahead, paving
the way of providence. Mercy behind to cover all of
our tracks, all of our sin, all of our impression in this world.
Verse 27 says, and has one of them opened his sack to give
his ass provender in the end? He aspired his money, for behold,
it was in his sack's mouth. He went, they was at a motel,
and they stopped, this is all real important, stay with me.
I'm gonna touch on it briefly, just stick with me just for a
second. They were at a hotel, it was at an inn. They hired
a room, and they said, you know what, that ass is probably hungry.
And they went into the sack to give it some of the corn meant
for humans, and Jacob and Benjamin, and they gave it to the ass.
and fed it, and while they was in there looking, they said,
behold, there's money in here, and this is real full. Were they
staying in a tent? As in a hotel, wasn't there?
In a time of famine, in a time of economic demise. They had
plenty, didn't they? They had plenty. The Lord sent
those out to preach, the 70, and he said, don't take a purse
or a script or shoes, you're gonna live on the gospel or come
home. I'll provide for you. And they came back and he said,
I told you to go out with all these things. Have you lacked
anything? You done with that, you starved to death? Has your
animals starved to death? They said, nothing, Lord. We've
lacked nothing. They gave provisions to the ass. That old saying, if the Lord
works in somebody, even their dog is going to be able to tell
the difference. That dog we had ate better than
50% of this world does. High-quality peanut butter and
jelly sandwiches, or the crust thereof, right? All my steak
trimmings, and she could do nothing for me. And I was reminded of the compassion of the Lord
to this dog. That'll make you compassionate on something else,
won't it? You think it has any difference in somebody that's
barely guilty? One of those brothers that threw
their brother in the pit, and they deserve nothing, and they've
been provided for in abundance. Just a donkey. He fed me. I'll feed this one. It ain't
nothing, is it? That's what that Canaanite woman
come to our Lord. She said her daughter's vexed
with the devil. She had a problem, didn't she? Have mercy on me,
oh Lord, because my daughter's vexed with the devil. I got problems.
I need you to have mercy. That ain't the source of mercy,
is it? Everybody's got problems. Things are tough all over. Well,
that's what you're talking about, making excuses for children.
They had a hard week or they just started back to school.
So what? Everybody's got tough problems,
don't they? He didn't even answer her. He didn't even speak. And they said, Lord, do something
with her. She's crying after us. He said, I'm not sent me
to the lost sheep of house Israel. And she came worse and said,
Lord, help me. Help me. I need help. I've done
an OK job, but I just need a little push to get on over there and
everything else. I've got squared away. And he
said, it's not me to take the children's bread and cast it
to dogs. He ignored her. He come, looked her dead in the
eye and said, you're a dog. What'd Joseph do to his brother?
He said, you spies, you enemies. If that offends me, you ain't
gonna talk to me that way. Ain't no man gonna talk to me
that way. I'm gonna take my toys and I'm gonna go home. Go on,
you go too. Lord, to whom shall we go? She
said, of a truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat the crumbs which fall
from their master's tables. And he says, O woman, great is
thy faith. Lord's never gave me crumbs.
I had just a taste, and then he's filled me every time. From
his table, a crumb? I could eat on that for a year,
couldn't you? I thought of Elijah, that widow.
He went to that brook. That's where the Lord would have
him. And he sent ravens to feed him, because that's where the
Lord would have him. And then the ravens were still coming, but
the Lord dried the brook up. There was a drought in the land. And
so he went somewhere else. That ain't brain science, and
that ain't rocket surgery, is it? And he went to a widow woman. And he said, go to this widow
woman. I've commanded her to sustain you, Elijah. And he went
to Zarephath, and he went there, and she was gathering sticks.
And he said, give me something to drink. So she brought him
something to drink. And he said, why don't you get me a morsel
of bread? You make me something to eat. And she says, on the
Lord that liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal
in a barrel. I don't have a big sack full of corn. I got to reach
all the way down in there, and all I got is one handful left.
and it's just enough for me and my son, and I'm gonna make it,
and we're gonna die. And Elijah said unto her, fear
not. Go and do as thou hast said, but make me thereof a cake first,
and bring it unto me. And after that, make it for your
son and you. And I thought that widow probably
said, didn't you hear a word I just said? Don't you know how these things work? But she went and did according
to the say of Elijah. He told her, he said, the barrel's not
going to run out and the crucible won't fail. And she went and
did it. And her and her house did eat many days and the barrel
of meal wasted not, neither did the crucible fail, according
to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah. He speaks to us. It's never run
out. It may look like it's going to. But he says, ho, this ain't
talking about physical provision. Lord dried up some brooks and
moved some folks. He sent some famines and moved Naomi and Ruth
and killed a bunch of folks. Did a whole lot of things, didn't
he? This is talking about provision
for our souls. He said, ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye into
the waters. He that hath no money, come ye and buy and eat. Yea,
come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Come
unto me all you that labor and have you laid, and I'll give
you rest. It won't cost you a penny. You'll go look, and you got all
your money in your pocket. Verse 28, and he said unto his
brethren, My money is restored and low even in my sack. And
their heart failed them. And they were afraid, saying
one to another, What is this that God hath done unto us? What
is he doing to us? The Lord's done this. We have
a guilty conscience. and a rejoicing heart over the
same portion of providence many times. Do you know that? How
could this be meant? I looked up that word afraid
and that's not fearing the Lord and honoring and reverencing
him. That's scared. Sometimes we're scared and sometimes
we honor, don't we? And it could be over the same
thing. Typically we're scared first and we honor at the end.
That's normally how that goes. But we know what the Lord has
done is what they're saying, but we don't know what he's doing. I've thought that before. Maybe
I've been fattened up for the slaughter. And another time, look at this
miraculous provision. I mean, you got your wits end. How are you going to make ends
meet? And walk out to the mailbox, and there you go. What provision? That happens over and over. And more as time goes on, we
see that it's miraculous. But it's hard to be thankful.
That's hard. We ought to be. It's a hard thing
to do. It's a hard thing to trust the Lord. It shouldn't be. It's
the most logical thing. We know Him. I'm His. It's fine. He's gave
me provision, protection and everything. It's hard sometimes,
isn't it? Some are bound, some brethren
we have, are bound like Simeon. They're bound in fear, they're
bound in anxiety, they're bound in unbelief. Look here at old-aged
Jacob. Here he's over 100 years old.
They went to him, verse 29, and they came unto Jacob their father
into the land of Canaan, and told him all that befell unto
him. They tell him the whole story. Here's everything that
happened. We showed up, just as it happened, they told him
that. And we got put in jail, and they said this, we gotta
bring Benjamin. And they said, he kept Simeon there with him,
but we come back, we gotta get Benjamin, and we'll take Benjamin
back, and then he won't kill none of us, and we'll have full
provision if we bring our brother. Poor Jacob, verse 36. And Jacob
their father said unto them, me have you bereaved of my children? You've done this, you rotten
boys. Joseph is not. Last time I saw
him, he was with you, and he's dead. Now Simeon's not. He might
be dead. He might be tied up. I don't
know what's going on. I just know he left with you,
and now he's not here. And you're going to take Benjamin
away? Woe is me. Poor Jacob. All these things
are against me. You know what's going to happen?
Jacob's going to be real happy. Not one of these things are against
us. It's for us. If God be for us, who can be
against us? It's for our good. He won't let Benjamin go. Hasn't
Jacob learned? He's over 100 years old. Well
over 100 years old. He ain't learned. He needs to
learn that we do too. Us sons of Jacob have to be taught
by God, don't we? He won't let Benjamin go, so
everyone obeys, and they stay there with him, and they eat
up all the corn. That's pretty bold, isn't it? I'm going to
give you enough corn to make it to go get your brother and
come back. And they just sat on their hind parts and just
ate the corn. They started running out, and they said, we've got
to get some more corn, daddy. We're going to have to take Benjamin,
or he's going to kill us. Genesis 43, verse 3, And Judah
spake unto him, saying, This man did solemnly protest unto
us, saying, You shall not see my face, except your brother
be with you. We have to take Benjamin. We're gonna die. They're
in the same pickle again, ain't they? They're gonna starve to
death? I thought of the Lord saying to Moses, Thou can't see
my face, for there shall no man see me and live. That's your
bringing your brother. In Christ we see him, don't we?
Well, that's what Judah said. Next week, Lord willing, we'll
see Judah being the surety of Benjamin. He said, I'll take
him. I'll be surety for him. What
a picture that is, isn't it? All right, we'll be with you.
Brother Trevor and Cass, if y'all would, come hand out the elements.