Genesis chapter 45 and verse
25 it says that after Joseph had sent these wagons and commanded
his brothers to go back and get his dad and all their family.
In verse 25, I mean actually in verse 24 it says, so he sent
his brethren away and they departed and he said to them, see that
you fall not out by the way. And they went out of Egypt and
came to the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father. and told
him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the
land of Egypt. And Jacob's heart fainted, for
he believed them not. And they told him all the words
of Joseph, which he had said to them. And when Jacob saw the
wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob
their father revived. And Israel said, it is enough.
Joseph, my son, is yet alive, and I will go and see him before
I die. Now I want you to pick up where
we ended up last week, which is on this exhortation by Joseph
to his brothers. See that you fall not out by
the way. Joseph knew his brothers. He
knew what they were like. And though they were wicked,
and though they had treated him so cruelly, and he had suffered
much because of them, he had forgiven them. He had forgiven
them frankly and freely. There was nothing that they did
to deserve his kindness to them. Just in the same way, the Lord
Jesus Christ receives us. Not for anything in ourselves,
but for his sake, to the glory of God. He has received us in
Romans 15, 7, to the glory of God. It is to God's glory that
he forgives a matter. In Exodus chapter 34, Moses asked
the Lord, show me your glory. Show me your glory. And he said,
I'll make all my goodness to pass before you. And he passed
by Moses and he hid Moses in the cleft of the rock and he
said, the Lord, the Lord God, gracious, forgiving, sin, and
iniquity, and transgression, all kinds of sin, all sin, great
sin, small sin, secret sins, motive, sins of motive, and words
and deeds. That's God's glory is how he
forgives sinners. And so God does it at the expense
of his own, a total expense to himself. He
gave his son and the Lord Jesus gave himself. So Christ receives
us to the glory of God because it's to God's glory that he forgives
a matter. And so it says in Proverbs 19,
the discretion of a man deferred his anger. Joseph didn't take
vengeance on his brothers. In Proverbs 19.11 it continues,
The discretion of a man deferreth his anger, and it is his glory
to pass over a transgression. So we see here the glory of God
in Joseph. Joseph was a picture of Christ
and Christ is the one we see in whom we see the glory of God
in His saving grace. God can be intimidating. God's
fury and wrath are just against us. But God chooses to be gracious
to His people in Christ. In Hebrews 1 verse 3 it says
that Christ is the brightness of God's glory. And right after
that it says, when he had by himself purged our sins. So it's
clear that God's glory is seen in his work of sin of atonement
whereby he took our sins away from before God's face and took
away God's wrath because he satisfied God's justice. And so Joseph,
with tears of love, made himself known to his brethren, even though
they deserved vengeance from him. They had no thought of him
forgiving them, and yet he forgave them freely and frankly. And it was a great humility on
his part to do so. He wanted to reconcile them to
himself. And in the Lord Jesus Christ,
He has reconciled us to God. He reconciled us to God in justice
when He offered His blood in satisfaction. That's what atonement
is all about. It's making compensation to God
for His people. The Lord Jesus did that. He actually
made atonement. When the high priest would go
in on the day of atonement to make atonement for the people,
he came out and he had made atonement. And so Christ, the Lord Jesus,
made atonement for the sins of his people so that God's wrath
is taken away from them. And their sins and iniquities
are remembered no more. They're washed in his blood. And so Joseph
is teaching us that here. But he tells them, don't fall
out by the way. Don't quarrel. Don't bicker. Don't look at one
another for someone to blame. That's what we're prone to do.
When we get in trouble, we always want to shift the blame and try
to spread it out evenly. You're at fault, too. Why did
you suggest that we cast Joseph into the pit in the first place?
Why did you strip him of his coat? Why did you pretend that
he had been eaten by an animal and take his coat back to his
father, dipped in blood? Why'd you do that? I can hear
them arguing and bickering. And Joseph tells them beforehand,
don't do that. Don't do that. Because hatred
stirs up strife. Love covers sin. And so he was
trying to teach them. Their sins had been covered by
Joseph. He didn't hold them accountable. In fact, he said God's will,
it was God's eternal will that he would use their wickedness
to bring Joseph there in order that he might save them and their
families alive. You threw him into the pit. And
you did all these things and wouldn't hear his crying, but
he didn't, he didn't hold it against him. And here he tells
them, don't fall out by the way. Don't grieve Joseph, because
he's forgiven you. Just like God tells us, don't
grieve God's spirit by holding bitterness and anger and wrath
towards one another. But forgive one another as God
has forgiven us for Christ's sake. And in that, in doing that,
be followers of God as dear children. That's what Ephesians five, verse
two, one and two says. Because God has received Christ
to his glory and in great satisfaction. He was a sweet smelling savor.
He gave himself for our sins. And God found that to be the
most satisfying, obedience, just as satisfying thing that the
Lord Jesus, that anyone has ever done. And so God has forgiven
us just for Christ's sake. So we see here the Lord Jesus'
love for his people, and we see how he commands us to love one
another. Whatever has happened in the
past, whatever is brought to our remembrance against our brother,
we're to forgive one another in the same way God has forgiven
us. And how did he do that? On what basis did God do that?
What was the reason for it? Only for Christ's sake. And so
we can forgive one another in the same way God does. God has
received satisfaction. Are we satisfied? Are we able
to come to God on the basis of the satisfaction and the obedience
of the Lord Jesus Christ alone? Can we come to God asking him
to receive the answer Christ gave of himself for us in judgment? where he offered himself and
bore our sins and judgment. Are we able to do that? Are we
able to trust him for that? Then why wouldn't we also trust
God to forgive our brother for all of his sins against us? And
so he exhorts us in these ways, don't fall out by the way. And
this is the tender mercies of Joseph. And we see the tender
mercies of our Lord Jesus Christ and his treatment of his brothers
when they deserved everything but kindness. But then in verse
25 it says, And they went up out of Egypt, and they came to
the land of Canaan to Jacob their father, and they told him, saying,
Joseph is yet alive. Joseph is yet alive. So they
brought the good news that Joseph told them to their father. Joseph
said, I want you to go to my father, and this is what I want
you to tell him. Tell him about all my glory in Egypt. Tell him
how God has exalted me from the prison to the throne and given
me all the authority, all this provision to provide for all
these people and save their lives. God did that. He did it even
through your disobedience, even through your wickedness. He says,
and tell him, tell him about these things. And so they came
back and they said to their father, Jacob, Joseph is yet alive. Now you can imagine what that
shock was like to Jacob. To Jacob, Joseph was dead at
one point. He had seen the evidence of his
coats ripped apart and the blood on his coat of many colors they
had given to him. And his brothers even pretended
that, yeah, we think that he died. We don't know what happened.
And they tried to comfort him in hypocrisy and deceit. They
were so wicked. But now, to Jacob, he who had
been dead is alive again. His son, who he thought was dead,
is now alive. And so to Jacob, it is as if
Joseph had risen from the dead. And can't you see in that? The
Lord Jesus, the Son of God, risen from the dead, and the delight
it gave to His Father to raise Him from the dead, because He
received from Him all that He gave Him to do, and He brought
His people with Him. This is good news. This is the
good news of the Gospel, that Christ has accomplished all,
to the glory of God, to the delight of God the Father. And so he
is risen from the dead. But it's also a delight to us
who are sinners, to us for whom the Lord Jesus Christ has died,
those who have been given the grace of God to believe Christ. It's good news to us. There is
no better news in all the world. There's no better news. There's
no more needful news than this, no more needful work than this.
And so when they said to Jacob, Joseph is yet alive, it is as
if Every believer is hearing the good news of the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ, that he's been raised from the dead. And
what does that resurrection mean? It means that all the reasons
that God gave him up for his people, delivered him up for
them, have been met. All the will of God has been
fulfilled. All the enemies of God's people have been subdued
and defeated. And now God in glory, in his
great glory, shows mercy to sinners on the basis of justice. And
all of his law is magnified through the obedience of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And so we see this, that everything that God has promised
and everything that God has determined to bless his people with is satisfied
and given to them because Christ did it all. And his resurrection
proved it. He obtained eternal salvation
for us. in his own death on the cross. In Romans chapter 5, I want to
just read this one verse to you. It shows how we receive this
life. He says, Our sin deserves death and so
as sinners we were under the subjection of sin as our master
and had no power over it. We couldn't answer God for it
and we were corrupt in our sins and had no ability to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. So as sin hath reigned unto death,
our death, even so now. might grace reign through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. The resurrection of
Christ means that grace reigns. It reigns on the basis of righteousness,
the righteousness of Christ. And because of that righteousness,
we receive eternal life on the basis of what Christ has done,
a free gift of God. But not only did Jacob hear that
Joseph had essentially risen from the dead, because that was
what he thought, he was dead, now he's alive, but they also
told him he's governor over all the land of Egypt. And so they
said he's yet alive and he's the governor. And so we see in
this again, the Lord Jesus Christ, not only has he risen from the
dead in conquest over all his enemies and ours, But also he's
risen, God has set him on his own right hand and given him
all honor and power and authority in heaven and earth. And with
that power and authority, doing the will of God, he's able to
save us to the uttermost. And so Jacob hears that and we
see this, that all of the promises of God are fulfilled in the Lord
Jesus Christ in his sin atoning death. And he's raised from the
dead, he's fulfilled all of God's will, and so we hear it here
in this type. And it says, at first that Jacob
could not believe the news, it was too good, it seemed too good
to be true. He says here in verse 26, and
Jacob's heart fainted, for he believed them not. His sons,
he couldn't believe it, and so his sons told him the words of
Joseph. What was the remedy for Jacob's unbelief? Tell him the
words of Joseph. How do we get faith? How does
faith come to us? Do we determine to believe? Do
we make up our mind? I'm going to resolve to believe
God. Finally, I'm tired of being a
sinner. I'm just going to turn my life around. Is that the way
it comes? No, because in Ephesians 2,8 it says faith is not of yourselves. It doesn't come from you. You
can't produce it. This is a gift of God. And it's
a gift of God's grace. It doesn't come to you because
of something you've done. You don't influence God in order
to get faith. God is pleased to give us faith
by His Spirit, by His operation in our heart. When we hear the word of God,
just like when he commanded the light to shine out of darkness
in Genesis, it was God's word that brought with it the power
to carry out and to perform his word. And so when the gospel
comes to us, God himself applies that gospel to us in saving power. and upholding faith. He not only
gives us faith once, but he upholds us and causes us to continue
in it. It's all by his grace. And so they told him Joseph's
words. They told him about all of the glory that he had been
given in Egypt by Pharaoh, which is a picture of all the glory
God has given his son. in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
so on hearing the words about Joseph, Joseph's own words to
his father, just like the Spirit of God gives us life in hearing
the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ sent from heaven by Jesus
himself, so Jacob's heart was revived. He saw the provision
that Joseph had sent to carry him to Egypt. And this is what
the Lord Jesus, hasn't he provided us everything? Isn't it out of
his riches in grace that he sends his spirit to us and brings the
gospel to us and actually gives his spirit to us to dwell in
us to give us this life and uphold us in this life and this walk
of faith so we trust him not only once but throughout our
life we cling to Christ with everything that we have we know
this is true we're persuaded of it and we trust him this is
God's work and so he sees all the blessings that Joseph sent
to him And this was all by Joseph's will and Joseph's place of authority
and honor. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
just says that God has given him all things for the church.
He's given him all things for his people. The blessings that
Christ obtained for us, he obtained for us in order to give them
to us because of what he had done. Ephesians 1 verse 22 and
23 says so. And so Jacob's spirit revived. When his sons led him to believe
that Joseph was destroyed by an evil beast, he experienced
in himself a death, as it were, because his life was so bound
up with Joseph's life. When it was reported to him that
Joseph was dead, it was as if Jacob himself died at that point. He lost his son, his beloved
son, Joseph, the one he loved above all of his other sons.
And so when he heard their words at the first, when they lied
to him and tried to cover up their sin against Joseph, he
received that news. It was the worst news he ever
received, the greatest sorrow he ever knew, as if he himself
died. But now, on hearing that Joseph
is alive, he receives a reviving in his spirit. It was because
his life was tied up in the life of his son. Jacob's life was
essentially so connected to Joseph's life that on hearing that Joseph
had died, he himself felt the sorrows of death. And he said,
I'm going to go to my grave mourning for my son, Joseph. I'm going
to go to my grave. That's what he thought. But when
the believer hears, like Jacob did, that Christ is risen because
his life, the believer's life, is tied up in the life of Christ
before God, our life is in Christ. Jesus said in John 14, 19 to
his disciples, he said, because I live, You shall live also.
I am the resurrection and the life. Paul said, I'm crucified
with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. In the life I now live in the
flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. That's the believer's
life. Christ is our life, Colossians
3 verse 4. And so when Jacob hears these
words about Joseph, that Joseph sent his brothers to tell his
father, his life was revived, his spirit was revived, just
like our spirit is raised to life through the preaching of
the gospel. Romans 8 verse 10, take a look
at this with me. I remember years ago, Olivia's
dad and I were talking one time and he says, so how do you know
that we've been raised from death to life from scripture? And this
was the verse that came to my mind in Romans chapter eight. It says in Romans chapter eight,
verse nine, you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if
so be that the spirit of God dwell in you. Now, if any man
have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And, verse
10, if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin,
but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. Here, our body
is dead because of sin. Our old nature and our body are
corrupt. There's no good in us. Paul the
Apostle said in Romans 7, just a chapter before this, there's
nothing good in my flesh. Oh, wretched man that I am. But
here he says the spirit is life because of righteousness, not
because of our own righteousness, but because of the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ, we live. And so Jacob revived in
his spirit, just like the believer hearing the gospel of Christ,
that my salvation before God is in what God thinks of his
son, what his son has done. And that raises, that's the word
of God's command, whereby he qualifies us to believe on him. And he gives us that faith so
that we see. And in agreeing with God, in
being persuaded in our heart of what God has done and received
from Christ for us, then we enter into the salvation that Christ
accomplished for us. And so we see these things in
Jacob's response to the words here. The apostle Paul said, if in
this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most
miserable. We don't have hope only in this
life, do we? Our hope is that because Christ rose from the
dead, we also will rise from the dead. That's our hope. If
our only hope is now in this life, then we are miserable people.
Because we have a hope that's futile. A hope that's not going
to lead us to anything more than just the grave. But Christ conquered
death. He conquered the grave. Oh, death,
where is thy sting? Oh, grave, where is thy victory?
The Lord Jesus Christ took away the sting of death when he bore
that sting in himself. And he answered God's law, and
so the law has no strength over us because Christ made satisfaction
for us. And so Jacob's life was bound
up in the life of his son. And so we see this in these things
here. So let me also go on to chapter
46 here in the text that we're reading. It says, and Israel
took his journey with all that he had, and he came to Beersheba
and offered sacrifices to the God of his father. And God spake to Israel, that's
Jacob's name, in visions of the night and said, Jacob, Jacob.
And he said, here am I. And he said, I am God, the God
of thy father. Fear not to go down into Egypt,
for I will there make of thee a great nation. I will go down
with thee into Egypt, and I will also surely bring thee up again. And Joseph shall put his hand
upon thine eyes. What's going on here? What is
the Lord doing here? Well, God is appearing to Jacob
and he calls him Israel now because he's in believing the words of
Joseph. He's walking now as a child of
God, as a prince with God. He's walking in the grace of
God. His name is, he's called Israel
here. His name is also Jacob because as a believer he has
these two natures and we see him in the weakness of his faith
with the name Jacob and we see him in the character of the believer
with his name Israel. And so Israel took his journey
and God appears to him. And when he appears to him, he
says, I am God, the God of thy father. You see, this is the
language that God used when he made a covenant with Abraham.
God made a covenant with Abraham. And that covenant that God made
with Abraham is actually a covenant that has everlasting consequences. Not only does it have everlasting
consequences, but God made it from everlasting. And He revealed
it to Abraham when He spoke to Abraham. In the New Testament,
the Lord Jesus, when He gave the cup to His disciples, He
said, drink this. This is the New Testament in
my blood. This is the covenant, God, that
the Lord Jesus Christ made with His Father on behalf of His people.
And in His blood, in shedding His blood, He brought that covenant
to fulfillment and brought the blessings of that covenant upon
His people. And so God is speaking to Jacob,
called Israel here, in this relationship to Him as His covenant God. I am God, the God of thy fathers. And in this relationship as the
covenant God, He's going to receive the blessings of the covenant.
And what are the blessings of the covenant? Well, in Romans
11, verse 27, it says, This is my covenant unto them when I
shall take away their sins. This is God's main promise in
the covenant of His grace towards His people. He's going to remove
our sins from us. He's going to separate our sins
from us as far as the east is from the west. Psalm 103, verse
12. And so much so that he would
receive a full payment from Christ and he would never remember our
sins anymore. And because Christ died for our
sins so that they're put away, Christ need not die anymore.
because they're fully satisfied. He's perfected forever those
God gave to him to sanctify them by His own blood. And He perfected
them forever in that one sacrifice. And God says in the New Covenant,
therefore I remember their sins no more. It was God's prophecy
that upon receiving payment from Christ for us in His blood, that
our sins would never be remembered, full payment. God has received
full satisfaction. And so the Lord is speaking to
Jacob here as his covenant God, because he's the covenant God
of his people. And the first and primary blessing
of that covenant is that in Christ, God would take our sins away.
and He would remember them no more. And because of that, He
would give His Spirit to us. I will put My Spirit within you.
I'll take away the stony heart, and I'll give you a heart of
flesh. This is the covenant promise. And you'll know the Lord. How
will you know Him? How will you know the Lord? His
name is what? Jesus. For He shall take away, He shall
save His people from their sins. In 1 John 2.12, the Apostle John
writes to them and he says, I write unto you little children because
your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake. And in John
17, 3, Jesus says in his high priestly prayer, this is eternal
life, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom thou hast sent. This is the covenant blessing
of God. They know the Lord in his saving grace, whereby he
takes our sins away in the Lord Jesus Christ. God persuades us
of this. He makes this the issue in our
life. He persuades us that we're sinners
and we have no hope before God and no strength and we have wronged
God, we have offended God. We deserve the death that all
the people listed in scripture receive for their sins. Just
think about it. Cain, the murderer. Or Ananias
and Sapphirus, the embezzlers. All these people. Paul, who persecuted
the Christians and blasphemed Christ. Peter, who denied the
Lord, and Judas. All these sins are our sins,
aren't they? And when God convinces us of
that, we have no strength before Him, and He reveals His work
in Christ to save His people from their sins. Then it becomes
a blessing to us, because He shows us our great need, and
He shows us His full supply. in the Lord Jesus. So he speaks
to him here in his relationship to him as a covenant God. He
would bring them out of Egypt. I'm going to go down with you
into Egypt and I'm going to bring you up out of Egypt. And how
did he do that? How did the Lord bring up Israel
out of Egypt? Well, you know about the 10 plagues.
But what was the one plague that was the plague in which they
were actually delivered from Egypt? Wasn't it the Passover?
And isn't Christ, our Passover, sacrificed for us? 1 Corinthians
5, 7, he is. And God saw the blood of the
Passover sprinkled on the doorposts. And he said, when I see the blood,
I'll pass over you. And so the Lord Jesus is our
Passover. And because God was going to save Israel from Egypt,
he's teaching and preaching to us here in scripture that as
our covenant God, he's gonna save us from our sins through
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is an amazing thing, how
he appears to him here and blesses him and promises these things
to him. And so we're, in the same way,
we're saved and we're kept because of what God promised to do. Throughout Israel's history,
they were sinful. When they went into Egypt, you
know what they did in Egypt? They started worshiping the idols
of Egypt. And God said, put away those
idols. And they didn't. They clung to
those idols in their heart. And God says, I'm gonna pour
out my fury upon you. And they kept clinging to their
idols. But God didn't pour out his fury.
Why? Because of his covenant, because
of his namesake, for his namesake. What if God would have destroyed
them? Well, later on, he brought them out of Egypt and they were
in the wilderness. And there again, they served idols. They
ignored his laws and despised his laws. They wouldn't keep
his Sabbaths. What did he do? I'm going to pour out my fear.
I'm going to wipe you all out. I'll make Moses. I'll make a
nation out of you, Moses. And Moses, he intercedes for
Israel. Lord, if you destroy them, what
will their enemies say? What will your enemies say? They'll
say, you couldn't do it. You couldn't actually save them.
They were too sinful for you to save. So the Lord said, I
will not destroy them because of my namesake. He's not going
to go down as the God who's unfaithful to his promises, who's unable
to save sinners, who can't do what he promised to do. He is
going to save his people and nothing is going to stop him,
not even our wickedness. If the Lord didn't save us by
his grace in spite of our wickedness, we would all be damned. God saves
for his namesake because of his covenant. And so salvation is
not because of what we've done. Salvation is because of what
he has done in Christ. And now there's a catalog here
in Genesis 46 of Jacob's sons and daughters. He had 12 sons,
remember? And he had one daughter, Dinah. And they all had children. Dinah,
there's no record that she ever had any kids. I don't know if
she did or not, but that's not important. The point here is
that through these sons, they had children. And all these children
were called the children of Jacob, or the children of Israel. And
God is going to bring all these children of Jacob, called Israel,
into Egypt. Joseph said, bring everything.
Bring my father. Bring all of your kids. All of
your kids. Bring your wives. Bring everybody.
into Egypt. And so they came. And so the
Lord tells us who these were that came. He lists them. In
verse 8, He begins the list and He says, These are the names
of the children of Israel which came into Egypt, Jacob and his
sons. And then He lists Reuben, the
firstborn and so on. And I'm not going to go down
this list, but if you count these names If you start with Jacob
and then you count his son, Reuben, but don't count his wives, and
don't count his son's wives, then you end up with a number.
And he's gonna tell us what that number is here. He says it in
verse 15 at the end, he says, all of the children of Jacob
by his wife, Leah, were 33. You see that? Actually, if you
count them, it's not 33. It turns out there's 34. But two of them had died in Canaan,
so you subtract those two, and it's now 32. But how did 33 get there? Well,
it's because the Lord is counting Jacob in that number, himself,
as the head of the family. And then he goes on and he says,
Zilpah, who Leah's maid, had a bunch of kids, too. There were
16, if you see it at the end of verse 16. I'm sorry, verse
18. It says, 16 souls. So 33 and
16, if you want to do the math, Then Rachel had some. Remember
Joseph and Benjamin. Benjamin had a bunch of kids.
I think there's like seven here. You could go count them. But
it ends up in verse 22 that Rachel by Jacob had 14 through Joseph
and through Benjamin. And then in verse 23, it goes
on and talks about Rachel's made Zilpah, or Bilhah, sorry, and
how she had some kids. She had seven through her, or
Jacob had seven through her. So if you add all these up, seven
by Bilhah, 14 by Rachel, and 16 by Zilpah, and 33 by Leah,
it comes to the number 70. You add all those up, you can
do the math yourself in your own spare time. But then it says
later down here, it says in verse 26, all the souls that
came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides
Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls were threescore and six,
or 66. So you wonder, how did that number 70 get down to 66? Well, because Jacob isn't counted
in that number because he's speaking here of the souls that came with
Jacob. that came out of his loins. Jacob obviously was the father,
so he's not included in that number. And Joseph was already
in Egypt with his two sons by Asenath, which was Manasseh and
Ephraim. So take away Joseph and Manasseh
and Ephraim and Jacob and you end up back to 66 from 70. So that's where those numbers
come from, in case you were curious. I won't talk about the place
in Acts 7 where Stephen says there were 75 souls. I'll leave
that to you as a puzzle to figure out. But that's not the real
point I want to make here. The point here is that all of
Jacob's household went down to Joseph, all of them. even his
son's wives, and God reckons them. It's amazing, I was telling
Denise on the way here today, I think there's only two girls
in this entire collection of children, only two. Dinah, and
I think one of the other kids that said they had a sister.
That's a lot. That's a lot of boys, isn't it?
All these boys. Man, there was a shortage of
girls in that family, wasn't there? Where are all their wives
coming from? That's gonna happen later. It
was God's pleasure, though, to bring all of Jacob's household
to Joseph, just like it's God's pleasure to bring all of his
elect people to Christ. Who is Jacob? Wasn't he the one
of whom it was said, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated,
in order that God's purpose according to election might stand? Romans
9 verses 11 through 13. This is God's purpose. To save
His people, called His elect people in Christ. He has chosen
us in Christ before the foundation of the world. Those are the ones
who are going to be brought to Christ. And so you see this.
His whole family is coming down there. but I want you to see
what happens next. It says in verse 28, And Jacob
sent Judah before him to Joseph to direct his face unto Goshen. And they came into the land of
Goshen, and Joseph made ready his chariot, and he went up to
meet Israel his father to Goshen. So Jacob is coming with all of
his family, these 66 Children and he doesn't have Joseph with
him. He's obviously in Egypt doesn't have Joseph two kids
But the rest of them are all going is 66 plus the wives which
are not numbered here of his brother of his sons They're all
going and when they get close Jacob sends Judah ahead Go tell
Joseph. We're on our way and we're close
Judah goes on to tell Joseph and Joseph gets in his chair
and he comes out to meet his father So that's the setting
here. What does it mean? Well, who
was Judah? He was Joseph's brother, Jacob's
son, but who was he? We saw in chapter 43 and 44 that
Judah was the surety, the one who took responsibility to his
father Jacob for his brother Benjamin, Jacob's son of his
old age. This was Judah. He was the surety
for Benjamin to his father. So Judah was the one also who
when he comes to Joseph who sat in the judgment seat, Judah pleaded. He made an advocacy for his brother
Benjamin. He advocated to Joseph for Benjamin. out of the love that his father
Jacob had for Benjamin. So Judah is this mediator, the
interceder, the advocate for Benjamin on behalf of his father
to Joseph who sits in the seat of judgment. That's what Judah
did. And he prevailed by his arguments, by his pleading with
his brother Joseph in the seat of judgment, the one who was
the governor over all the land, as if he were the judge over
all. And he had power over them too.
But because of Judah's pleading to Joseph for Benjamin on behalf
of his father, acting in the place of a surety, he offered
himself to Joseph to answer for all the accusations against Benjamin. That was Judah. That was Judah
the surety. We went over this in our sermons before. So what
does it mean? Well, when Jacob comes close
to Joseph, who does he send? He sends Judah, the surety. When we come to God, how do we
come? We come pleading our surety,
don't we? We come, as it says in Hebrews
10, 9, through the blood of Jesus. That's the only way we can come.
When we stand in our conscience now before God, in our conscience,
how do we come? How do we answer Him? How are
you going to answer God in judgment? How do you give an answer to
God for yourself? How will you? How do you do it
now? What is that thing that you take refuge in? What is it that you take refuge
in now? Where do you flee when the awareness of your sins are
heavy upon you? What is the message that you
cling to? What is the message that you speak out of your mouth
that comes from your heart that in the pressing time of tribulation,
what is that one answer that you bring to God to give an account
for yourself? And what will you answer God
in judgment? How will you answer Him? I remember
asking a man who came to my door as Jehovah's Witnesses, a Jehovah's
Witness. I wasn't sure how to, you can
argue all day with a Jehovah's Witness and you never get anywhere.
So I decided not to argue with him. I decided to ask him the
question, how will you answer the Lord Jesus Christ when you
stand before his throne? How will we? Isn't that the question? Well, the answer of Jacob was
the surety. The answer of the believer, God
has taught them in their heart, my answer is that Christ has
died. And that's my only hope. I cannot
argue what I've done. I cannot argue my works. I cannot
argue my sincerity. I can't argue my religious experience. I can't argue that I've been
good throughout my life or that I haven't done too much wrong.
I can't plead anything. Job said, if I justify myself,
my own mouth will condemn me. My conscience will well up within
me and my words will come out before God who sees all, Christ
who searches the hearts, and I won't have any plea. I won't
be able to say anything. But this is the answer of every
believer, Christ crucified, accepted by God. And if God doesn't accept
me for the answer he gave, then I have no hope and God will justly
condemn me to eternity in hell. And so Jacob sends his son Judah. But then notice what goes on,
it says here. It says that Joseph presented
himself to his father. In verse 29, it says, Joseph
goes out to meet his father in this charity. He went up to meet
Israel, his father, to Goshen, and presented himself to him.
And he fell on his neck. This is Joseph now. He's coming
to his father. He gets out of his chariot and
he comes up to his father and he falls on his neck and he wept
on his neck a good while. A good while. You can imagine
this reunion, can't you? You can feel it. It's dripping
from these words in scripture. It's a heavy, the air is heavy
with the love of Joseph for his father and the love of Jacob
for his son Joseph. It's so heavy that when we read
these words and we hear these words, it gives us a pause. We think about it, how? How can
this be? Joseph finally reunited and so
he He comes down and he presents himself, just like the Lord Jesus
comes to us in the gospel and presents himself as our mediator,
as the one who brings us to God. And when he does, he falls on
his father's neck, wraps his arms around his father. His father
was an old man. He was 130 years old, or 137,
I can't remember what it was here. He's gonna say it in chapter
47. He says in chapter 47, he was
130 in verse 9. So he's 130 years old, and here's
his son. I don't know how old Joseph was,
about 40 at this point. And he comes to his father. 90 years older than he was. Is that
right? 90 years older. That's a really
old age, 130. And he showed it, too. He was weathered. He was worn
and tired, carried in a wagon from Canaan, living all his life
as a pilgrim and stranger in that land. And now he's brought
by famine and by Joseph, by God's... And here his son comes to him
and falls on his neck. The one with all the authority
in Egypt. The one who forgave his sons
of the wrong they did to him. And he falls on his neck and
he weeps. And he stays there a long time.
A long time. These were tears of sorrow and
joy, weren't they? It's interesting how that our
tears can be both. Tears of sorrow and joy at the
same time. There were tears of sorrow because
Jacob and Joseph had been deprived of one another's presence and
of one another's love for a long time. It had been, I think, around
22 years that Joseph was separated from his dad. And so there were
tears of sorrow. I've been deprived of your love
for all these years. Those tears of sorrow. But then
there were tears of joy because now they were together again.
And Jacob knew now that his son was alive. Now that Joseph saw
his father's face and Jacob could see his son's face, there was
no greater joy. And so there were tears of joy.
This was an unexpected joy. This was a blessing unparalleled
to Jacob. There was no higher blessing
than this, to be with his son again. His life was tied up with
him. When we see the Lord Jesus Christ
in glory, I'm confident that He will embrace us a good while. Every believer, I'm confident,
wants to bury his face in the bosom of the Lord Jesus Christ
and unburden every fear and shed out all the tears of sorrow that
our sin would have separated us from His grace and from His
presence for such a long time and we'll be sad that we held
to our sin and despised and rejected our Savior for so long. But we
will, our sadness for our foolishness will be turned to joy. We will
long for our Savior. to present himself to us and
hold us in his own bosom and his own love and in his own acceptance. And like the Apostle John, we
will want to stay on his bosom for a long time. All the tears
of sorrow will then be erased in that one embrace. And our
sorrow will be turned to joy when the Lord Jesus receives
us to glory. We will then know that we shall
never be separated from Him. All sorrow, all fears, all of
our sin, no more, all will be put away in that one embrace,
and we will be like Him when we see Him as He is. We will
know unspeakable joy in this unbroken fellowship He will make
a full disclosure of himself in his love and his eternal grace
to us in his work and in our life. And we will then know as
we're known and we will be satisfied when we awake in his likeness.
These are the words of scripture. Jacob's life was so bound up
in Joseph's life that Jacob's life was fulfilled knowing that
Joseph was alive. Look at it in verse 29, I just
read that, verse 30. And Israel said to Joseph, now
let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet
alive. What is this? This is Jacob saying,
everything that I've longed for is fulfilled in seeing your face,
everything. My life is fulfilled in your
life. And isn't this the truth of scripture? That because Christ lives, that
our life is fulfilled before God in his righteousness and
his sin atoning death. Nothing compares to Christ's
love for his own people. Nothing will compare to our joy
when we see him. And this is what scripture says.
And then it goes on, he says in Joseph, and let me just read
to you from Psalm 73. It says in Psalm 73, Asaph is
speaking there, I think. He says, so foolish was I and
ignorant. I was as a beast before thee,
when he considered the prosperity of the wicked and envied them.
He said, nevertheless, I am continually with thee. Thou hast holden me
by my right hand, thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and
afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? There is none upon earth that
I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth.
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
You see how Jacob longed for nothing more than his son Joseph.
And so God teaches us as believers in Christ, there's no one in
heaven we have but him. And our desire is for him. And
we won't be satisfied until we enter into that full fellowship
with the Lord Jesus Christ in unfettered disclosure of his
grace and love. And so Joseph, in verse 31, it
says, he said to his brethren and to his father's house, I
will go up and I will show Pharaoh and say to him, my brethren and
my father's house, which were in the land of Canaan are come
to me. And he tells them about how he's gonna tell Pharaoh that
they're shepherds and so on. And here I see again, Joseph,
his brethren, his brethren were a despicable bunch, weren't they?
Wouldn't you find it a shameful thing to own them as your brothers?
These men are such sinners. They're so deceitful and wicked
and cruel. And yet Joseph is not ashamed
to present them to Pharaoh because the Lord Jesus Christ is not
ashamed to call us his brethren. He came to earth and took our
nature. And in that nature, he bore our sin. And with our sin,
he bore the wrath of God. And in our nature, he rose from
the dead. And in our nature, he sits in heaven in glory and
power. He's not ashamed to call us his
brethren. And one day, he will confess our names to his father
and to the holy angels and to the onlooking universe. The Lord
Jesus Christ will not be ashamed of his brethren, not for anything
in them. but because he has clothed us
with the garments of salvation in his own righteousness and
washed us from our sins in his own blood. Here we have the gospel
preached to us from the book of Genesis. Let's pray. Father,
we thank you for your mercy in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are
sinners. We deserve your wrath. There's
nothing in us we can look to or plead to try to justify ourselves,
but we come to you on the basis of your word, asking you for
your namesake because of your eternal covenant in Christ to
receive us by that payment of compensating blood to your justice
in answer for all for us and receive us even as you receive
your son this is what your word says we pray lord do as you've
said make us your own and teach us in our heart that we have
none in heaven or on earth but the lord jesus christ and help
us to long for him with all that we are and have in jesus name
we pray amen