Genesis 41. We've been going
through Genesis for quite some time now, looking at Joseph. And every time I pray, we see
him as a picture of Christ. As you go through these scriptures,
and you look throughout, if you don't see Christ in it, you've
missed the point. You've missed. Some of these
old commentators, I'm thankful for them, and they wanted to
be diligent and thorough, and they wanted to hit every verse,
and sometimes they missed the mark. I guess they felt like
they had to say something. But if we miss him, and we only
see through a glass dimly. We only see through just a touch.
But if all we're getting is morality lessons, you're just going to
make a good neighbor, and you'll die and perish in your sins.
You'll meet a holy and just God that will by no means clear the
guilty. And His Son is the standard by which you'll be judged. You
will be in Him or against Him, one of the two. That's what this
Joseph, the story of him, and he just interpreted Pharaoh's
dream of seven fat years and seven lean years. Famine's coming,
but the Lord's gracious. He's going to give you seven
years of plenty before that. We've had a plenteous couple
years here, haven't we? Maybe we've got six years left. I don't
know. I don't know what the Lord might
be pleased to do, but while we have him. I tell you what, too,
everybody's concerned about where the gospel is. I've got brethren
out there, and I want to know them. But we know where it is. We ought to be where it is. I
hope it's in other places, but I know a handful of places it
is. If I'm traveling, that's where I'm going, buddy. I'm going
to go where there's corn. We see pictures of Christ all
throughout this story of Joseph. Everything bad mentioned of him.
All the way from his birth. Joseph was born to a barren woman.
She couldn't have children. The Lord Jesus Christ was born
of a virgin. Virgins can't have children,
can they? Not in that state. He was the
firstborn. He was the firstborn. Christ is the only begotten of
the Father. And Joseph's daddy, oh, he loved that boy. He was
the favorite. That was his favorite son. The
Father speaks of Christ. He said, this is my son in whom
I'm well pleased. Nothing else. Joseph's daddy
made him a robe. that distinguished him from his
brethren. He had a robe of many colors.
He stood out, didn't he? The Lord Jesus Christ has a robe.
That's his life that he lived. And that distinguishes him from
every one of his brethren, doesn't it? What he came and did and
lived for for his people. He's honored. Joseph was prophesying. He had a dream and he said, all
my brethren's going to bow to me. And they got mad. Didn't
they? I'm going to be in the place
of the king. They didn't like that. The Lord Jesus Christ,
the scripture say, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess
that he's Lord, Lord. We're going to bow to him. Joseph was sent to his brethren,
to his brothers. His father said, go down and
check on them. You're going to tend to them. Go tend to your
brothers. See if they need anything. What did they do? Threw him in
a pit and sold him. Didn't they? Our Lord became
bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. He walked this earth
as a man, the God-man. And He came unto His own, and
His own received Him not. Whenever they was getting rid
of Joseph, they sold him for 20 pieces of silver. Here's some numerology
for you. They sold Christ for 30. Why?
That's more. He was the revealer of dreams.
He went to Potiphar and that baker and that servant. He interpreted their
dreams for them. He said, no man can interpret
dreams but God. Tell me what your dream was.
What a picture. Christ is the prophet. He's the
prophet. He's the one that reveals truth.
We see things a certain way, don't we? Well, I think. That's
what the root word of heresy is. Opinion. What do you think
about that? It don't matter what you think.
What's God say about it? What's He say about it? I didn't
care if I was talking about that yesterday. People have a lot
of opinions. And I say, you know what? Can you shut this up real
quick? Look here. That's what God says. Settle. It's done, isn't it?
The heathen rage. Christ is the prophet. This knowledge
of Him, this understanding of who He is, to have God revealed
to us and in us, that's His doing. He's the prophet. Pharaoh, he
took Joseph and he made him ruler over all. Christ is Lord of all. King of all the earth, of all
creation, of all everything. And if anyone was ever going
to get anything during this famine, If anybody is going to have anything,
you are going to have to come to Joseph. Are you starving to
death? Do you have enough sense to know
you are starving to death? Are you too far gone? If you
are hungry, you are going to have to come to Him. Christ has
power over all flesh. To what? We have been looking
at this on Wednesday nights. To give eternal life to as many
as the Father has given Him. You're going to have life, you're
going to have to come to Him. You're going to have mercy, you're going to have to come
to Him. You're going to have grace, you're going to have to come to Him. Nobody else,
no thing else. Him, and come to Him. They're
not going to FedEx or Amazon corn to whatever country you
live in. You're going to forsake those things and come to where
He is. Come to Him. He has power over all flesh.
I was reading in Psalms this week and it says He knows the
birds. We always read, is it the cattle on a thousand hills
or He is? Keep reading. He knows the birds of the mountain.
And I always talk about them hummingbirds coming around my
house. There's a bunch of them right now. I saw one hovering
there yesterday and I thought, the Lord knows that one. He's
got a name. I don't know. He knows it. That's
His. Power over all things. Everything. And as we keep going
on here in the next week or two, we're going to see that all of
Joseph's brethren, those that's born of the same father, they're
going to be delivered. They're going to have life. They're
going to be restored solely because of Joseph. Not because of anybody
else. Not because of their good decision
making. Not because of good advice heeding. Not in their agreeance
that Joseph did have corn. They're going to eat the corn
solely because of Joseph. He will teach them some lessons
in that too. Christ said, because I live, you shall live. Because
I'm alive, that's the only reason you're going to have life. Where
is he at now? On his throne in glory. Ruling and reigning and
doing anything that pleases him. Where's Joseph at? He was on
the throne wasn't he? And Paris said, do whatever you want. You're
the man. You're discreet. You're the wise one. Ain't nobody
like you. Spirit of God's with you. He had the Spirit of God
as a man without measure. I get goosebumps thinking of
that. There's no words in the English
language to describe what that means. We'll know someday. I was thinking,
too, if I could articulate it like we looked at the first day,
we'd just clap and shout. He has everything. He has the
Spirit of God. Yes! Ha! That's good. Ain't that a little bit better
to lessen morality? Well, stock up. Have a year's
supply of rice and beans. Do that if you want. A fella
called me one time and said, times are getting rough. You
think I ought to put beans and rice up? I said, put beans and rice
up if you want to. Or don't. Bow to God. That's what y'all
can be doing. Know who sent it. All judgment and power is given
to Joseph. What a servant. What a servant
the man Joseph was. Now he was a sinner saved like
grace like every one of us are. Any child of God is. It ain't
no different. Just cause it wasn't wrote down what horrible things
he thought or said or did or whatever. And I'm thankful for
that. That's what the Lord sees in us. He sees Christ in us,
perfection in us. He was a good worker. Why'd he
work so hard? He was working unto the Lord.
Why didn't he complain when they threw him in that pit? The Lord
did it. God's on his throne. Why didn't he complain when his
brothers showed him? Why didn't he complain when unjustly, accused, wrongly,
Potiphar threw him in a prison? It's the Lord's prison. Talk
about making prisoners mad or wardens mad. One fell over in
England. He said, I'm writing from the
Lord's palace in Aenon or something. I can't remember where it was,
but from that prison. I'm in the Lord's prison. Eliezer
was a servant like that, wasn't he? Abraham's servant, Eliezer.
You'd turn your shop over to a fellow like that. They gave
him everything. Here's all my riches, here's
all the camels and all that stuff. Now you go and go find a bride
for my son. What a servant. That's just men. Admirable men. Working as unto the Lord. The
Lord Jesus Christ came as the servant. Humbled himself. Even to the death of the cross
for us. What a thought. What a thought. Well, there's
two pictures here in our text. They're going to bleed together.
I'd like to have real clear, concise points. And this is point
number one and this is point number two. And I can get you
to memorize them, but it just kind of flows. It's like talking
to believers. Did you see that home run hit
at that softball game? I like cigars. Me too. You know
what? The Lord is awful good to us. And look at all these
things He's made. It just flows right back. Can
you believe He saved us and done all this for us? Gave us all
these things. And Christ is our King. Boy, that's wonderful,
isn't it? Did you see that new Toyota that came out? It just
kind of bleeds just as much as that's homogenized in me that
old man and new man is whenever you're talking to brethren in
it. Here's my two points. We see a picture of our natural
condition in this famine. It's not hard times are coming,
put a bunch of stuff in your basement. You just have a bunch
of tuna fish in your basement, I don't know. It ain't going
to do you no good. This is our condition, our nature,
our instinct is what the world calls it. That's what we are.
Sin and famine and death. And it's a picture that we have
one hope. Only one hope. Get to Joseph. Get to Egypt. That's where the coin is. Look
here in verse 56. Genesis 41 verse 56. Joseph said there's going to
be seven years of fat and seven years of lean. And the famine
finally came. I wonder how many people fought
him that first year. Well, it couldn't be, but I don't want
it to be a famine. Look, I told you. There's fat
cows eating, or skinny cows eating fat cows right now. I told you. Try to tell them. But it said
this famine came, that seventh year was complete. Verse 56,
and the famine was over all the face of the earth. It was over
the whole earth. Well, not over there and that
other place. Uh-uh. Over the whole earth.
Well, they might have some corn in Morocco. Uh-uh. The famine
there, it run out. Only in Egypt. Only in those
storehouses Joseph had. There's famine over the whole
earth. Right now, there's some places
that have famine. But physically, especially in this nation, turn
on a TV, read a book, or travel a little bit. We got it made.
I mean, mate, our brothers preaching down here in Malawi on what we
would spend at one fast food restaurant. Plenteous physically in this
nation. Plenteous. Medical and everything else.
We got it good. What we pay in taxes is what
other people wish they made. We got it great. And that's just
physically. Physically we got it good. Maybe not for long,
but for now we do. But spiritually. Spiritually,
in this nation, and in every other nation, and in the bulk
of the world, there's a famine. People are dying by the droves,
meeting our holy God, thinking they're full. Do we just tell
them it's okay and shut them on to hell? I want to warn them
and tell them. Turn over to Amos 8. I've called
this a few times, but let's look at what the Lord says about it.
Amos 8. You got Daniel, Hosea, Joel,
Amos. It's an Obadiah turn left one
book. Amos chapter 8. Here in verse 11. The Lord says in Amos 8 verse 11,
The days come, that's more than one day, isn't it? The days come,
saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land. Not
a famine of bread. We have this famine of bread
in Joseph, in this picture, to teach us what the Lord's doing
here. Give us a physical example so we can learn. Not a famine
of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of the hearing of the words
of the Lord. It's awkward for me, but bear
with me. Despite me, in spite of myself, in spite of this broken
clay vessel that's standing before you and I know what I am, we
are blessed in this place. We are blessed in this place.
The things that we study on Wednesday nights and twice on Sundays,
We sit down and we look at this word, the word of the Lord, not
what I think and not what you think. And let's sit around and
have a powwow and not a good structure to raise your children.
Look at what God said. Here's his word, precept on precept,
verse by verse. We're going to be expositional
if you need a big word, what it means. We're going to look
at this text and we're going to go down. Here's what it says.
Here's what it means. And we compare scripture with scripture.
That's a feast. That's a feast. I remember some ladies, churches
and other places, they'd have you over and they'd say, we ain't
gonna cook much. We'll just have a little bit of food. I mean,
it's a 50 course meal. They won't stop feeding you.
Them sweet little grandmas, they tell me I'm too skinny. I don't
think they see good, but they feed you to death. That's just
physical. Where the Lord's people are gathered and he sends somebody
to preach to them, it's a feast. We don't like the word. Some
places, they don't even open a Bible. I watched a fella in
a ball cap and a t-shirt, probably had flip-flops on, just holding
a book up like this, and had a bar stool next to him, and
had a PowerPoint slide behind him. Didn't say a word that God
said. We have the Word. Saw an article
on the internet, said, 11 reasons why Christians aren't reading
their Bibles. I didn't even click on it. I
scared to death to know what it was. I got the Bible. I quit reading
that and go read His Word. I'm afraid to know what they
say. We have a feast here and we're blessed. Look at verse 12. I've lost it. Hold on. I'm going to say verse
12. They shall wander from sea to
sea and from north even to east and shall run to and fro to seek
the word of the Lord and shall not find it. I know people that
they get a taste of the gospel, buddy, and it's all consuming. You know a lot of people that
used to live here. They found it. They wouldn't
bounce around all the countries they could find. They found where
the gospel was, and buddy, they packed up and moved. And I was
talking one other day, the children didn't come with them, and they
said, y'all have to come, but we're leaving. I'm going. There's corn over
there. We're leaving. They moved a long
way to where the gospel was. I think of that Ethiopian unit. 2,400 miles or something. He
went to go for a week of worship. Go to one conference. And then
I know people that live literally 12 minutes away from a gospel
church and won't go. It's not that they can't, they
won't. 99% of people won't, 0.01% can't. And I feel sorry for those
of them, my heart hurts for them. It's not the other way around.
Starving to death. And they think they're fine.
I don't want to get ahead of myself. There's lots of churches everywhere,
people say. Why would you drive all the way down there? There's
a church there, there's a church there, there's a church there. Why would somebody
fly me? We'll have O.B. Williams come down and preach
for us next weekend, Lord willing. And that's expensive. It's going
to cost a lot of money. And then the hotel canceled on
me that's real cheap, and I had to get the expensive hotel, and
I'm scared to give care in the receipts. And I thought, what's
the gospel worth to you? It may have been a famine. That
means, why would I have somebody come from all the way over there?
Why not just have some Joe Blow down the street? They don't have
the words. They don't have the word of the
Lord. Lots of churches everywhere,
but we have the Lord's cornbread and milk. That may not be a common
meal out here, but it's good. Cornbread and milk. I thought
of Karen likes cornbread. She makes it like coarse grain. Oh, buddy, that'll fill you up.
It's good. I don't get it often, but when
I do, I like it. Those other places, they don't
go verse by verse. They don't compare spiritual
things with spiritual things. Why? They don't have a hunger
for Christ. They don't talk about corn in
Egypt. They ain't hungry. They're hungry for other things.
They're thirsty for other things. There's one thing needful. I
want my children raised right. I don't want to be in poverty
and on food stamps. And I want to get along with
my neighbors. And there's a lot of things I want in this life.
I like air conditioning. It's been real hot. It's real
nice. One thing's needful. What? Christ the bread. That
was Mary and Martha. The Lord loved both of them.
That's Martha's hope. Not that she did a bunch or she
didn't do a bunch. The only hope Martha had, or Mary had, or Lazarus
had, is because the Lord loved them. How can I say that? It
says so. It said he loved them. I don't
need to hear nothing else. You can give me every theological
argument you have that they were saved because of something. I
don't care. It says he loved them. That's it. But Martha was
working herself to death. And there's things that need
to get done. Trash needs to get took out. The lot bills got to
get paid. Things have to happen. But Mary
chose that one thing needful. She chose the good part, and
it ain't gonna be took away from her. Christ is the one thing
needful. He's it. He's the coin. You get
that? We're hungry because we need
Him, and then we go and we eat it. This ain't rocket science. But God has to reveal it. God
has to reveal that great need. Not like, well, that's handy.
If I ain't got nothing else going on that week, I guess I'll go
to church. I guess I'll go hear about the Lord Jesus Christ who
sits on his throne and rules and reigns and saves sinners
and won't lose one. No, there's a need. I have to
hear it. And I can't sit and hear nothing else. Talk about
sanctifying yourselves. I heard poor people, I feel sorry
for them, so I'm going to go listen to something bad to make
sure I can tell it's bad. Would you go try heroin to see
if heroin's bad? That's the dumbest logic I've
ever heard in my life. Stop it. That's ridiculous. Leave it alone. You have the
good part. Stick to that. If I got good cornbread, I ain't
diving in a dumpster to go find something to eat. That's ridiculous. Stop it. That need has to be
given by God. That hunger for Him, the one
thing needful. That thirst for that water of
life. He has to give it. It's a great need. Dead man don't
have needs. Show me a dead man can do anything
other than be a paperweight or rot. He has to give that life and
that need. It's a great need and it's a great need of a great
God. Like we looked at last time, He's terrible. He's to be feared
and He's to be revered. Oh, he's awe-inspiring. Just drop your mouth open and
gaze in amazement. Jesus the Nazarene. How he could
save a sinner like me. And that great sacrifice it took
to save him. That was a lot of work for seven
years, wasn't it? Joseph went city to city. Said, y'all got
to put that up. Put that up. Put it in the storehouse.
Somebody had to carry it. Work had to be done, wasn't it?
Well, we want to have a big party. You ain't having a big party.
You're putting it up. A fifth of everything. Put it in them
storehouses. He just physically had to work. The Lord Jesus Christ
had an infinite and eternal sacrifice for many. The sands of the sea. I can't enter into that. He said
it so. I can tell anybody. Whosoever, come to Egypt. There's corn. You'll live. You
won't die. Come to Joseph. Come to Christ
our King on His throne. Bow to Him. And I thought, you
know, one pone wouldn't do it. Do you know what a pone is? It's
a batch of cornbread. Joseph ain't going to feed all
of Egypt with one pone, is he? That wouldn't do. What a mighty
sacrifice. What was the sacrifice to save
his people? His blood. The blood of the Almighty God,
who could not die, but laid his life down for us. What a thought. So we could have plenty. So we
could have righteousness and pardon and restitution with the
holy God we offended. And be made holy. The ability
to sin in you who are the Lord's children right now is completely
gone. You have a holy nature in you. It ain't gonna get more
holy. You'll grow in grace and understanding and wisdom and
those things. But you're as equipped for heaven right now as you could
be. He's done that. Back in our text
there, that great need. This famine that we're in, this
is life and death. I say that. It's not just, I
don't want to hurt somebody's feelings. I study out of one
book. I don't read a lot of books.
I just read one. I put all my eggs in one basket. This is eternal
life and death. Eternal life and death. Look
here at chapter 42. Genesis 42. Verse 2. Jacob was speaking with his other
sons and he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt. Get you down thither and buy
for us from thence that we may live and not die. Life and death. To go down and get this corn
from Egypt, from Joseph, you're either going to have it and live
or not have it and die. I wish I could make that plan.
That's pretty plain though. This is eternal life and death. If you go without bread long
enough, you're going to die. If you go without Christ the
living bread, you're going to die. And those that are believers,
my soul hurts for them. The soul of a believer experiences
leanness. You're going to lose some weight
without that bread. If he hides his face or we neglect him or
whatever, we go, wow, you're going to get skinny on the inside.
You're going to get hungry. Go through leanness, go through
famine. And we know He that hath the Son hath life. If you got
the corn, you're going to live. That's what it said. He that
hath not the Son hath not life. If you don't have Christ the
bread, you're going to die. Come to Him. He's that manna from
heaven. That's what we looked at when
the manna is going to come down. We'll get there in Exodus, but
we looked before. He's the manna. That's whatness.
Just a little tiny ball of bread. Itty bitty thing come down. God
the Father fed us with something that's uncommon. We didn't esteem
Him. We yelled crucify. We want to
have this man reign over us. And that king conquered us, didn't
he? He put famine in us. He made us hungry. He made us
needful. And then showed us He's the one thing needful. He drew
us in. I want to do everything in my
power to tell folks there's corn in Egypt. Joseph has corn. Come to him. Christ is the bread of life.
He is life. Come to him. Don't analyze him.
Don't sit down and say, well, let's take a count. He couldn't
count the corn, but I probably can. Let's weigh it. And all
the technical astronomical stuff. Come and eat. That's all but
instinctive. Can you close your eyes and put
something in your mouth? Eat. Live, dry bones. Live and
go eat. Feast. He's the bread of life. Come to Him. And then the self-righteous
will sit around and say, well, I've got to get a little better
before I come to the Lord. I'm too bad. No, you'd think too
less of the Lord. You're not humble and you're
not thinking you're too low. You're thinking He's too low.
He ain't going to run out of bread. It's innumerable. Come. Come and eat. No matter
how hungry you are, the more you're going to eat. Isn't that
the man who was forgiven the most was the most thankful? I thought of this too. I know
more about it than I ought to. Intermittent fasting, autophagy,
and all these things. If you go without food long enough,
and you know you're having a good fast, if you're just dieting,
you know you're doing good when you quit being hungry. That's
when you know it's kicked in. I'm finally over my hunger pains.
I'm not having cravings for food anymore physically in this body.
Why? Because your body starts consuming
itself. You start feeding on self. And
you quit being hungry. And then actually, if you keep
going in starvation, you end up having phases of euphoria
and stuff and mental clearness and all these things physically
in the body. Because you're eating yourself. And then what happens?
Then you get to where you can't eat and you die. That's what
happens in this body. That's a picture, isn't it? When
Christ is no longer the sweet-smelling Saviour, when we loathe that
white bread, that manna, and we stop eating Him, and stop
consuming Him, stop being fed by Him, and go look in all the
other countries to try to find something else to tickle our
interest, you get hungry and leanness, and then your body,
you start just consuming you. Nobody else is saved but me.
No, but everybody's got that wrong but me. I know what's right.
I'll teach everybody. I'll instruct everybody. And
guess what? You'll get where you can't eat
nothing and you'll die. You'll die. When he's not the
sweet smelling savor, when he's not the bread of life, death's
on its doorstep. It's on its doorstep. Look here
in chapter 41 verse 55 again. And the famine, that's our condition
before all of God. In ourselves, without Christ,
we're in a famine. And it's over all the face of
the earth. It's everybody. There's none good. No. Not one. We're all in famine. And Joseph opened all the storehouses. All blessings. Are you blessed
with all blessings in heavenly places in Christ? Physically, have I lacked anything?
The Lord has let me do a lot of things on this earth and travel
a lot of places and see a lot of things. We go to a zoo and
all the animals are awake. I said, thank you Lord, look
at that. These things are like nocturnal. They're up moving
around. The Lord let us see these. Hummingbirds, I see them all
the time. We was going to go to Hawaii and our friend lived
there 30 years and had never seen an eruption. I said, if
you go with us, you're probably going to see it. The Lord might
let me see that. He's been good to us. He's opened
all the storehouses and sold them to the Egyptians and the
famine whacked sore in the land. Everywhere else there's famine.
Boy, we're eating good now. We're eating good now. Do what He says, isn't it? Look
here in verse 55, And when all the land of Egypt was famished,
the people cried unto Pharaoh for bread. We're starving. We're
dying. And Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph.
What he saith to you, do. Didn't Mary say that? She said,
we're running out of wine. He said, my hour has not yet
come. Why are you bothering me? She said, I didn't need wine.
He said, I'll make wine to him. She told those servants, she
said, do whatever he says. He's the doer of it. Do what
he says. Pope Pharaoh said, do what he
says. Do what he says. They cried to him. I thought,
man, it's Somebody's on the front row of a pew and they're crying. Give me bread or I'm gonna die.
I need mercy or I'm gonna die. I'm in a famine. Give me grace
or I'll die. I haven't earned anything. I'm
nothing. I'm dying. I got good news for you. Instead of crying from the
back pew, please get this over with. Hurry up. I got stuff to
do. Football game's coming on or
something. I've cried that. I've sat in the back. So I wish
that fella quit talking. And then the Lord made me cry
again, gave me hunger again. You can't find food. What's that
spiritually? The things that we have, the
meals. Wisdom. You can't find wisdom. You can't
find righteousness. You can't find sanctification. You can't
find redemption. You can't find it anywhere but
in Christ. It's His storehouse. He owns
it all. And don't tarry. Don't wait till you get older.
Don't wait till tomorrow. Don't wait till you get back
home. Right now, come to Him. Look here, chapter 42, verse
1. When Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, he knew it,
Jacob said unto his sons, Why do you look one upon another?
Why are you going to another man? Why are you... Well, so and so said this. Well,
so and so said that. Here's what God says. That's
where the corn is. Well, I was reading a bunch of
old dead fellas, and well, they're dead. This is a living word.
Read this. Why are you looking one to another?
This ain't a group effort. He said, Jacob said unto his
sons, Why do ye look one upon another? And he said, Behold,
I have heard, with a hearing of the ear, hadn't he? that there
is corn in Egypt. Get you down thither right now
and buy for us from thence that we may live and not die. Do it
right now. Don't look to nobody else. Don't
look to a baptism. Don't look to a profession of
faith and a little card you have when you're 16 years old and
that false religion. Look to Him and get there now. Go. So you can live. I have good news for those that's
starving. There's corn in Egypt. Joseph's on his throne. Our Lord
Jesus Christ is on his throne. We won't be one. I've been young
and I'm getting a couple gray hairs now. I wouldn't say I'm
quite old. Everybody's older than me. Y'all is going to be
older than me. Someday I'll be the old one.
I've been young and I've been middle aged. I've never seen
the Lord's people begging bread. I've seen some poor folks. But
I ain't never seen Him say, I want to see Christ and Him not be
really earnest, an earnest hunger, an earnest thirst, earnest desire.
It's never happened. If your soul, are you weary and
troubled, come to Him. Come to Him. Mercy there was
great and grace was free. Pardon multiplied to me. Our Lord said, come unto me,
all ye that labor. I thought, too, I'm trying my
best to grow corn in the desert. A fellow's come by, he said,
you know how many people in San Diego County are growing corn? I said, no.
They said, just you. It ain't hardly me high yet. I was late
getting to the ground. I'm fighting and troubling to put corn in
this desert and grow tomatoes and everything else. I wonder
that that's eighth year. After seven years of just bumper
crops. Do you think they went out and dug holes and started
watering and tried their best to get corn to grow? They're
laboring, wasn't they? Laboring. The Lord was pleased
to let that happen for a while, and He ended that chapter. He
said, that's over. And our instincts to keep laboring,
to keep doing, to keep doing. We've got to clean up outside
the cut, wipe the sepulchre, something. He said, come unto
me all ye that labor. That's a heavy burden to do that,
and are heavy laden. I'll give you rest. Come eat
some corn. Got good bread here. I wrote
this down. I'm going. I don't say go. I say come. I'm going. Let's
go. I want to go to that city of
refuge. For those who aren't hungry yet,
the Lord still has a people in this world that he hasn't called
yet. I know because this earth is still spinning. We're still
here. He has work in our hands to do.
He's going to save every one of his. He won't lose one. But
I have hope for them. Look at chapter 42, verse 7.
And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but he made
himself strange unto them. They didn't know him. They didn't
know that that was Joseph. They didn't know that that was
their firstborn, their brother, the favorite of the father. They
didn't know these things. They didn't know nothing about
him. But he knew them. That's our hope. That's our hope. He'll reveal himself to him.
If he has a child, he's going to reveal himself to him. But
he knows him. We'll forget our sucking child.
But he said, I know my thoughts towards you. I ain't going to
forget you. That's our hope. My brain may be gone. I may end
up not knowing my own name. But our hope's his. He knows
him. They didn't know him, but he knew them. That's good news,
isn't it? If you're weary and tired and
hungry and thirsty, there's plenty of corn. Come on. It ain't going
to run out. It's going to be good. And you
know what's going to happen next week if we keep looking? It gets
better than that. Can you believe that? It's going
to get better next Sunday. I pray so. That's pretty good.