I would recommend to you that
you read from chapter 37 to the end of the book of Genesis as
much as you can in a single setting in order to get the whole impact
of what God has done here in recording the life of Joseph
for us. And when you do, hold it up to
the light of the New Testament and see through those pages the
Lord Jesus Christ in clear outline. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we pray
that though we are sinners, we might see in our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ, His glory and His grace and His goodness towards
us. And help us, dear Lord, strengthen us as we look in these verses
of Scripture. We see our deplorable selves
and see our wonderful Savior. Give us grace, Lord, to look
at Him and not be overwhelmed by what we are. but to come to
the light and find all of our works that are acceptable to
you done by him. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
I want to read the entire chapter with you, and then we will go
through here. Genesis 37. You'll notice, as
I mentioned last week, Jacob is the father of the Israelites. And as the father of the Israelites
with 12 sons, and he has this one son, Joseph, who is prominent,
God mentions him when he describes the generations of Joseph, because
God only mentions the Lord Jesus Christ when he wants to describe
himself to us. We can only know God in Christ.
Remember what Jesus told Philip and Thomas? In Mark, I mean,
in John chapter 14, he says, I am the way, the truth, and
the life. No man, no man comes to the Father
but by me. And then he went on to say, and
if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. And so we see in
this that the Lord Jesus is featured here in the life, the history,
the events, the words, all that Joseph did, he's held up to us
as a reflection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In 1 Corinthians
15, it says that the gospel is according to scripture. And this
is one of those scriptures that elucidates the gospel to us,
how that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures,
was buried, and rose again the third day according to the scriptures.
So in verse 1 we read, "...and Jacob dwelt in the land wherein
his father was a stranger in the land of Canaan." These are
the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being 17 years old, was
feeding the flock with his brethren. And the lad was with the sons
of Bilhah and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives. And
Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. In those days,
it's often the case in the Old Testament that men had more than
one wife. And we might wonder if that means
that it's okay to have more than one wife. It's not. But God doesn't
hold back when He describes the lives of His people. They're
sinners. And that's to be for our comfort that even though
we're sinners, That's the reason the gospel is given. It's good
news. It's the good news from heaven published to sinners.
And so we see here that Joseph brought to his father the evil
report of his brothers. He saw what they did. It was
evil. And he told his father. Verse
3, Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because
he was the son of his old age, and he made him a coat of many
colors. And when his brethren saw that
their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated
him and could not speak peaceably unto him. And Joseph dreamed
a dream, and he told it his brethren. And they hated him yet the more.
And he said to them, Here I pray you this dream which I have dreamed.
For behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf
arose, and also stood upright. And behold, your sheaves stood
round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. And his brethren
said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? Or shalt thou
indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more
for his dreams and for his words. And he dreamed yet another dream
and told it his brethren. And said, Behold, I have dreamed
a dream more. And behold, the sun and the moon
and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his
father and to his brethren. And his father rebuked him and
said to him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall
I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves
to thee to the earth? And his brethren envied him,
but his father observed the same. And his brethren went to feed
their father's flocks in Shechem. And Israel said unto Joseph,
Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? Come, and I
will send thee unto them. And he said to him, Here am I. That's what Joseph said in response
to his father's command. Here am I. And he said to him,
Go, I pray thee, and see whether it be well with thy brethren,
and well with the flocks, and bring me word again. So he sent
him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. And a
certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field.
And the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou? And he said,
I seek my brethren. Tell me, I pray thee, where they
feed their flocks. And the man said, They are departed
from hence, for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan. And
Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan. And
when they saw him afar off, even before he came near to them,
they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to
another, Behold, this dreamer cometh, in the margin it says,
master of dreams. Come now, therefore, and let
us slay him, and cast him into some pit. And we shall say, Some
evil beast hath devoured him, and we shall see what will become
of his dreams. And Reuben heard it, and he delivered
him out of their hands, and said, Let us not kill him. And Reuben
said to them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that
is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him, that he might
rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again.
And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that
they stripped Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colors
that was on him, and they took him, without his coat, and cast
him into a pit, and the pit was empty, there was no water in
it. And they sat down to eat bread,
and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and behold, a company
of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery
and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. And Judah
said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brethren,
conceal his blood? Come, and let us sell him to
the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he
is our brother and our flesh. And his brethren were content."
And then there passed by Midianite merchantmen, and they drew and
lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites
for twenty pieces of silver, and they brought Joseph into
Egypt. And Reuben returned unto the pit, and, behold, Joseph
was not in the pit, and he rent his clothes. And he returned
to his brethren, and said, This child is not, and I, whither
shall I go? And they took Joseph's coat,
and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood.
And they sent the coat of many colors. And they brought it to
their father, and said, This have we found. Know now, whether
it be thy son's coat or no. And he knew it. And he said,
It is my son's coat. An evil beast hath devoured him.
Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces. And Jacob rent his
clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his
son many days. And all his sons and all his
daughters rose up to comfort him. But he refused to be comforted,
and said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son, mourning. Thus his father wept for him,
and the Midianites sold him into Egypt to Potiphar, an officer
of Pharaoh's, a captain of the guard. Jacob loved his son. In fact,
he loved Joseph above all of his brethren. And it was for
that reason that his brethren hated him. I can understand that,
can't you? If your mother and your father
show favoritism to just one in your family, and openly lavish
gifts upon them, preferring them above all the rest, don't you
think that you would envy them and hate them? That's what these
brethren did. In fact, it says that they hated
him, and then when In verse 4, when his brethren saw that their
father loved him more than all of his brethren, it says, they
hated him and they could not speak peaceably to him. There
wasn't a word of peace between them. Constantly striving. Sometimes we offend one another,
but these boys, these men, were constantly at strife with Joseph. And he was the youngest. You
can imagine what that felt like in the family. A constant strife.
This family was full of men who were hateful. They were full of hate for their
brother. And they showed it. They didn't have a problem with
it. They did not speak peaceably to their brother. They could
not speak peaceably. They hated him so much that they
could not bring themselves to speak one word of peace to Joseph. Now in these things we see ourselves
and it's a very sad picture. There's really two things in
this account here, in the first part at least, that we see here.
One is our own wickedness, our own evil. We see that in the
lives of these brothers who hated and envied and plotted and conspired
against their brother Joseph. And then we see the grace of
God, that He would so purpose to make Joseph the cause of their
salvation, even in the occasion of their own hatred for Him.
And this is the grace of God. And so what we're going to see
here is the evil of His brethren, but the goodness of Jacob. And
in seeing that, we're going to see the love of God for His people. God brings good out of our evil. That's a fact. And until we understand
that, we won't understand God's salvation. Until we see ourselves
as sinners, we won't see the gospel as good news. Until the
gospel becomes good news to us, we won't love God. We won't love
Christ. We'll only hate Him, as these
men did. So they hated Him. They hated him without a cause.
There was nothing wrong with Joseph. There never was anything
God said in scripture about Joseph that was bad. It doesn't mean
that he wasn't, in real life, a sinner. It just means that
scripture chose not to mention any of his faults. And there
was a good reason for that. Because God is trying to show
us the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ in contrast to ours and
how there was no cause in Him and yet we hated Him. We hated
Him without cause. Sometimes I wonder if that's
possible. Did I? Have I? Have I ever hated
the Lord? I didn't think I hated the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so it's painful to consider
how this could be. Is it possible that we hated
him? They not only hated him, but they envied him. It says
in verse 11, "...and his brethren envied him, but his father observed
the same." Why did they hate him? Why did they hate Joseph?
Was there something sinful about Joseph? Did Joseph do something
wrong that they justly hated him for? There was nothing wrong.
He didn't do one thing wrong. He told on his brethren when
they were doing evil, he told his father, but that wasn't wrong
for him to do. He was simply telling the truth
his father had sent him to find out how they did. Then he brought
back their evil report. Did he do wrong to them that
provoked them to hate him? He had dreams, but where did
those dreams come from? They came from God. So he was
merely telling them what God had said about what would happen
in the future. And yet they hated him because
his father loved him. His father lavished this gift
upon him of this coat of many colors. And because of the dreams
that he dreamed. Because in his dreams God was
prophesying, foretelling that when a little later on in their
life Joseph was going to be exalted and have dominion over them.
And they were going to bow to him. And they couldn't bear that
thought. They couldn't bear the thought that Joseph, their youngest
brother, loved by their father more than them would have dominion
over them." They hated him because his father loved him. They hated
him because he was righteous. They hated him because God had
purposed to exalt him over them. And this is exactly what is true
of us. We hate by nature, not in faith,
but by nature what we are. In ourselves, as we're born to
our parents, what we receive from our parents, as we are in
the core of our being, our guilt is that we hate the Son of God. Now, let me show you some scriptures
to bring this to your attention, because this is a solemn charge,
isn't it? They hated him because he would
have dominion over them. They hated him because his father
loved him. He gave him a coat of many colors.
What is this coat of many colors? suggest to us? Well, if we see
that Joseph portrays for us God's thoughts of what the Lord Jesus
Christ is and what he would do, then we see the coat of many
colors is what his father, Jacob, thought of Joseph. He was so
beloved of his father that he wanted to to put this coat of
many colors on him to draw attention to Joseph in their eyes, in the
eyes of others, to see, this is the one I love. Why did God
love him so? Why did God love his son so?
Isn't it because of his perfections? Isn't it because he loved righteousness
and hated iniquity? Look at Hebrews chapter 1. This
is our Lord Jesus Christ that's being spoken of here. The Scriptures
speak of Him. And until we see Him in Scripture,
we haven't understood the Scriptures. Hebrews chapter 1. Speaking of
our Lord Jesus Christ, He says this in verse 8. But unto the
Son He saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever. A scepter
of righteousness is the scepter of Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved
righteousness, and hated iniquity. Therefore God, even thy God,
hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."
Doesn't that sound like what Jacob did to Joseph? Anointed
him, put upon him this coat of many colors, and arrayed him
in the beauty of his father's favor and love for him, because
he was righteous. He was loved. He was the son
of his old age. And isn't the Lord Jesus Christ
the only begotten, the eternally begotten son of his father? Never born, never began to be,
but eternal, uncreated, equal with his father in all things.
He had his father's nature. His father loved him. He was
the only begotten of His Father, and so He loved Him. And His
brethren hated Him because of that. They hated Him because
His Father loved Him. They hated Him because He was
righteous. They hated Him because He would rule over them. Look
at Luke chapter 19. In Luke chapter 19, this is spoken
of here, how Jesus was speaking in a parable there. And He speaks
of a nobleman. In verse 12 of Luke 19, he said,
Therefore a certain nobleman went into a far country to receive
for himself a kingdom, and to return. That nobleman, in the
parable, would have been the Lord Jesus. And he called his
ten servants, and delivered to them ten pounds, and said to
them, Occupy till I come. But his citizens hated him, and
they sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this
man to reign over us. This is the reason we hate the
Son of God by nature. We will not have this man to
rule over us. Well, you say, I still don't
see how I have hated the Son of God. Look at Romans, the book
of Romans in chapter 1. I'll show you a few verses here.
In Romans chapter 1, it describes how, in verse 18, God's wrath
is against us. And why? He says, the wrath of
God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men. And here's why. Because we hold
the truth. We suppress. We reject the truth
God has shown to us. And in suppressing it, we hold
the truth of God in unrighteousness. What does it mean to hold the
truth about God in unrighteousness? Isn't it to hate God's truth?
Why do we hate God's truth? Because it makes God, God. And
we don't like that. We want to be on the throne.
And so, he says in verse 19, "...because that which may be
known of God is manifest in them." All men, everywhere, at all times,
have an innate knowledge of God, and yet we suppress it. For God,
it says, has showed it to them. God has shown us the truth about
Himself. God Himself says He did it. And if God did it, you
better know we know it. And verse 20. He explains a little
detail about this. Not only has God revealed it
to us internally, but there's this huge witness that cannot
be that goes out into every land,
in all places, and in every language, testifying to the fact that God
is eternal, and all-powerful, and He rules over all things,
because He is before all things, created all things, and all things
were created for Him, to His glory. And we suppress that truth. It says in verse 21, "...because
when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were
thankful, but became vain." futile in their imaginations
and their foolish heart was darkened. Because they shut out the only
light, what was left? The darkness of their own heart,
professing themselves to be wise in our arrogance and pride. We
profess ourselves to be wise even while we suppress and deny
the truth about God He's shown to us and they became fools. And they changed the glory of
the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible
man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. So
we set up idols. And we ourselves are the God
who set up those idols. We dethrone God in our heart
and put ourselves on the throne. Is that a hatred for God? And
so he says, wherefore, because we in our heart suppress the
truth, the only truth and light there is, and made fools of ourselves
in our arrogance and pride and deliberate blindness, God says,
okay, I'm going to give you up to your own heart's lust and
make you evidently fools in the eyes of all creation. He says
this, wherefore God gave them up to uncleanness through the
lust of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves.
who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and
served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever.
And so he goes on and says in great detail, "...for this cause
God gave them up unto vile affections, for even their women to change
the natural use into that which is against nature, and likewise
also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burning their
lust one toward another, men with men working that which is
unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error
which was meat. And even as they did not like to retain God in
their knowledge, they wouldn't even allow God to be in their
mind." I don't like him. I don't like him. I hate him.
God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which
are not convenient. In other words, things that don't
make sense. Have you ever seen that? Especially
in the world today, you see people doing things and you think, that
doesn't make any sense. And it's obvious that it doesn't
make sense to everybody who's listening and watching. Except
to the person. They hold it to the truth. No,
this makes sense. I saw a news clip where a woman was asked,
well if we allow people, babies, if we want to take care of babies
when they come across the border, but we don't want to take care
of babies that are alive after the attempted abortion, what's
the difference? And the woman responded, well because We were
trying to abort that baby. But what's the difference? Well,
because that baby was just a fetus. Because we just wanted to abort
the baby. You see? That's foolishness. That's senselessness. And it's a deliberate, willful
rejection of the truth that God has shown to us. And God turns
us over to our foolishness in order to let this go on. So we
openly shame ourselves because we shamed ourselves before God.
And notice the conclusion here. In verse 28, and even as they
did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them
over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient
being filled. And he lists 23 things, but notice
in verse 30, haters of God. Haters of God. That's what we
are by nature. Haters of God. The Son of God. We hated Him. Look over at chapter
3 of Romans. He says this in verse 9, he says,
"...what then, are we better than they?" Paul takes himself,
he's the one writing, and he's bringing the case against us
to convince us that we're sinners. All men, without exception. But
now he sides with those condemned guilty sinners. And he says,
what then? Are we better than they? No, and no wise. For we have before proved, both
Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin, as it is written. Now listen to these words. There
is none righteous. No, not one. But the Lord loves
righteousness. No, but I don't. I'm unrighteous.
I hate righteousness. Well, what does that mean about
God? Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments, and
yet we're doing unrighteousness. What does it mean, therefore?
That we do not love Him. Not one time. Not one time have
we ever loved God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength.
In fact, we've always hated him in our natural self, being filled
with all unrighteousness. So here he says there's none
righteous. No, not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after
God. They're all gone. The very one
who created and upholds our life, we will not seek him. They're
all gone out of the way. To go out of the way is to go
out of the only way, the only truth in life. That's to hate
God. And look at 1 John chapter 3.
1 John chapter 3. What is hatred in its very essence? What does it mean? These men
hated their brother. They hated him, not for any reason
found in him, but for a reason found in them. The reason for
hatred was not in Joseph, it was in their own hearts. The
reason for man's hatred of the Son of God is not in God, it's
not in Him, it's in us. And so he says in 1 John chapter
3, he says, In verse 11, this is the message
that you have heard from the beginning that we should love
one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew
his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because
his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous. This is an overlay. It's saying
the same thing. We hated the Son of God without
cause because of the wickedness that was in us. Then he says
a little later, look at verse 15, "...whoever hates his brother
is a murderer, and you know that no murderer hath eternal life
abiding in him." If we've hated God by nature, if we don't seek
God, if we do unrighteousness, if we set up our own idols on
our throne, if we do not like to retain God in our knowledge,
and suppress the knowledge He's given to us, if we hate Him,
what is it saying that we want to do to Him? In our heart. Murder Him. Isn't that what happened
at the cross? Look at Romans, back at chapter
8 again. Romans chapter 5 actually. These
are just, I'm just bringing these out to show you what we are.
Because that's the first part of Genesis 37. What we are by
nature. Romans chapter 5, he says this.
If when we were enemies. If when we were enemies. We were
reconciled to God by the death of His Son. This is what we were.
We were enemies. Look at chapter 8, verse 6 of
chapter 8. To be carnally minded, that is
the mind we were born with, the mind we received from our parents,
a corrupt mind. A mind enslaved with sin. He
says, to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually
minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind, our
natural mind, what we are by nature, is enmity, hatred, hostility
against God. It is not subject to the law
of God. Neither, indeed, can be. We're
not able. We are not able to move out of
our hatred into a love for God. That's how evil we are. You can
imagine what it would be like if a man said, Your Honor, I
hated that man so much, I couldn't help but kill him. What would
the judge say? You're guilty. You couldn't help
it. That makes you worse. Lock him up. Throw away the key.
Isn't that what the sentence of scripture says about us? Haters
of God. The God who is love, we hated. The God who is holy and righteous
and only good, we hated. What does that make us? The most
evil. Our evil. That we would hate
God. Back in Genesis chapter 37. And it says that he dreamed
this dream. In verse 4, when his brethren
saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they
hated him and could not speak peaceably to him. They could
not speak peaceably to him. You see, our depravity is shown
here in two ways. The greatness of our depravity
and our sinfulness is seen in that we hated, naturally, we
hated the Son of God. We hated God's Son. What would
God do with those who hated His Son? What should He do? Isn't
that what hell is for? Those who hate the Son of God.
That's what we are by nature. And yet, not only are we that
bad, but it goes on and says they could not speak peaceably
to him. Their nature was so entrenched
in their hatred against Joseph, they couldn't find it in themselves
to speak peaceably. We're depraved and we cannot
help it because we're so corrupt. And we're doubly guilty because
of that. I'm so bad. I couldn't help but hate him
and kill him. Now, all of that, I point out all of this in order
to show us what we are, in order that we might see in contrast
here, the beauty, the altogether loveliness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Because it's only in seeing the
beauty and loveliness of Christ, in contrast to our own wickedness,
in His salvation, at the cost to Himself, that we can then
see how good He is to us. And God in that revelation not
only chose us that, but with grace gives us faith to see and
be persuaded. He saved me when I was his enemy. And that, that is what God does
in order to glorify his son. In order to give us this faith
that works by love for him and for his brethren. So they couldn't
speak peaceably. And so Joseph dreamed a dream. And you know the dream. Here
he is exalted. That's why they hated him. God
was going to glorify his son. He was going to put him rule
over all things. And men hate him. Men don't hate a Jesus who
doesn't rule. Men don't mind a Jesus as long
as they can get Him to do what they want Him to do. But that's
not the Jesus of Scripture. That's not the Son of God. The
Son of God is sovereign. He does what He will. He saves
whom He chooses and how He chooses. He does it by His grace. He has
mercy on whom He will. And until we recognize that we
stand before the sovereign, holy Son of God, and we have nothing
that deserves any mercy from Him, until we see ourselves that
way, and that He has absolute rule over us, We won't begin
to worship Him at all, will we? We'll think that we can manipulate
Him, that we can coerce Him to do what we want. But the Son
of God does what He wants. He saves whom He pleases, as
He pleases, when He pleases, and to His glory alone. And when
we see that, by nature, it offends us. It offends men. When you
tell men that the Lord Jesus Christ saves at His will, and
not by their will, by His decision and not theirs, by His works
and not their works, by His goodness and not their goodness, then
it completely takes from them all self-worth and confidence. And they begin to get concerned
about that and they begin to hate the One alone who can save
them. who alone can save them. And
so these men hated him the more because he would have absolute
sovereign rule. I mentioned it last week. Remember
the leper who came to Jesus in Matthew 8? He said to him, He
was brought by the Lord Jesus, by the drawing power of the Spirit
of God, as a leper. A leper, plagued with leprosy.
And leprosy signifies our corruption of our nature. The disease that
went deeper than the skin, it says in Leviticus 13, wherever
leprosy is talked about there. The priest would look at that
leprosy, and if it went deeper than the skin, then it was pronounced
a leprosy. That's the way our sin is. It
goes deeper. than the skin, deeper than what you can see on the
outside. It goes to the heart of man. And so this man came
to Jesus full of leprosy in Matthew 8. And when he came, he said
to him this, The sovereign Son of God in our nature, the leper
said, Lord, if you will, if you will, you can make me clean.
And then that's when the Lord Jesus said, I will. I will. You see, Christ's goodness is
so great, not only is he sovereign, but he sovereignly chooses to
have compassion on the sinner. He came to save sinners. And
until we find ourselves here described as sinners, haters
of God, we won't have a need of a Savior, will we? One who
can save by Himself, in spite of who we are. Even love as Joseph
loved his brethren, in spite of what they did to him. And
so, we see he dreamed the dreams, and he told it to them. And then
it says here, Verse 12, And his brethren went to feed their father's
flock in Shechem, and Israel said to Joseph, Do not they,
brethren, feed the flock in Shechem? Come, I will send thee to them.
And he said, Here am I. Jacob, his father, sent Joseph
to see how his brethren did in Shechem. And what did Joseph
say? Here am I. But wait a minute. Wasn't he the youngest? And wasn't
he the most hated? Why would he have any interest
in going out to see how his brethren were doing? Why wouldn't he say,
but couldn't you send a servant out, dad? When I get there, they're
just going to hate me. And I'll be all alone with them.
No. He went out. Here am I. And so
the Lord Jesus Christ, in the full intelligence of what we
are and what we had done, when the Father sent his Son into
the world, he said, Lo, I come. In the volume of the book it
is written of me to do thy will, O God. Yea, thy law is within
my heart. And so look at this in Psalm
40, where the Lord does say this. The Lord Jesus, when he came
into the world and took our nature, a body you have prepared for
me. That's what it says in Hebrews
10. I delight to do your will, O
God. And then it says here, I have not hid thy righteousness within
my heart. I have declared thy faithfulness
and thy salvation. I have not concealed thy lovingkindness
and thy truth from the great congregation. That's the church.
Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O Lord. Let
thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me. And
look at verse 12, in the full intelligence of what we are and
what we did, the Son of God came from heaven and he says this,
For innumerable evils have compassed me about, mine iniquities have
taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up, there are
more than the hairs of my head, therefore my heart faileth. The heart of the Lord Jesus Christ
He came to His own. His own received Him not. And
yet He took their sins, and He made those sins His own before
God, and felt in Himself the guilt of those sins, and cried
out, Mine iniquities. There are too many. There are
innumerable iniquities. They've gone over my head. They're
too heavy for me. I'm not able to look up. He came and He took our sins,
and He made them His own. And he bore them before God,
who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree.
1 Peter 2.24 He was made sin, who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. That's the Lord Jesus
Christ. God hath laid upon him the iniquity
of us all. Our sin, our hatred, our enmity,
our hostility. That suppression of God's truth.
That idolatry that's in our heart. All of that unprovoked evil.
A cauldron of evil. A cesspool of iniquity. That's
all we are. And the Lord Jesus took it. And
having taken it as His own and bearing it before God, He says,
My iniquities. Look at Psalm 69. I read this
with you earlier. Psalm 69. Notice how He says
it. He says, In verse 1, save me, O God, for
the waters are coming unto my soul, the floods of God's judgment. I sink in deep mire where there
is no standing. I am come into deep waters where
the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying, my throat
is dried, my eyes fail while I wait for my God. There's not
even a word from God. He's waiting under the burden
of our sins, bearing the shame and the guilt of it and the filth
of it in his own conscience before God as his own sins. He cries
this way. From the cross he said, my God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Because of our sins. He felt it. They that hate me
without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head. They
that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are
mighty. Then I restored that which I took not away. I brought
back and paid the debt I did not incur, but it was the debt
of my people. And I paid that debt of their
crimes that held them in the prison of the judgment of God. And I took it away. I made satisfaction
to God for it. and restored what I did not take
away, O God, thou knowest my foolishness." Verse 5, "...thou
knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from thee."
But he wasn't speaking of one's sins that he did. He did no sin. 1 Peter 2.21, "...in him is no
sin." 1 John 3.5, "...who knew no sin." And 2 Corinthians 5.21. But here he says, "...my foolishness,
my sins are not hid from thee." They acted foolishly, and now
it's mine, and I own it. Let not them that wait on thee,
O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake. Let none of those
that seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel,
because for thy sake I have borne reproach. Shame hath covered
my face. You see, the Lord Jesus, He knew
what we were. He came to us. And He lived His
life, the full life of a man, in our nature. And He only did
good for our souls. He did good to the souls and
bodies of men. And we took Him. And we accused
Him. And we hit him in the face, and
we covered his face, and then we took off the covering and
spit in his face, and plucked off the beard of his face, and
put a crown of thorns on his head, and hit him with a reed,
and stripped him of his coat, all of his clothing. and whipped
him on the back and nailed him to the cross because of our envy
and hatred. He endured what we are by nature,
what we had done against God. The reproaches of them that reproach
thee are fallen upon me. He came to his own as his father
sent him in order to save us from our sins. This is the sufferings
of our Lord Jesus Christ and is foretold throughout all of
this account of Joseph here. And so when they see him, he
says, when he got lost, he continued, he didn't give up. In verse 15
and 16, he sought his brethren, he kept looking for them until
he found them. And when he saw them afar off, in verse 18, before
he came near, they conspired against him to kill him. And
they said to one another, behold, this master of dreams comes. He was the master of dreams.
Wasn't all of God's will vested in him? Isn't he called the Word
of God? Isn't he the one in whom all
the promises of God are yes and amen? He's the one. He reveals God.
No man comes to the Father but by Him. And yet He's the one
who came to His brethren to lay His life down. He knew. Joseph
didn't know. In history, he might have suspected. But Joseph didn't know what was
going to happen to him. But the Lord Jesus Christ, He
knew. And yet He set His face like a flint. He said, If there
be any other way, let this cup pass from me. But nevertheless,
not my will, but thine, be done." And he took the cup of the bitter
dregs of the judgment against us for the foul, filth, shameful
sins that we committed in our hearts against God, and he drank
it until it was gone. And that's why he cried on the
cross, my God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" And they threw
him into the pit. They stripped him of his coat.
We stripped Christ, didn't we? There he hung naked. Put a purple
robe upon him and crown of thorns on his head to mock him. But
there he hung naked. Naked before men and shameful
before God in himself, in his conscience, guilty with our sins.
And so they threw him in this pit without water. No water in
the pit. And so when Jesus hung on the
cross, they gave him vinegar to drink and he wouldn't drink
it. In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." They didn't
care. And you know what his brothers
did when he cried? When Joseph cried? What did they
do? No, they didn't even have to stop their ears. They didn't
have any sympathy or pity for their brother. Look at Amos. The book of Amos. I know it's
in the Minor Prophets. It's hard to find. But if you
turn to Daniel and keep flipping past Hosea, then Joel, you'll
get to Amos. In Amos chapter 6, I want you
to see this. Amos chapter 6. Listen. It says in the last phrase of
this verse, Amos chapter 6, verse 6, they are not grieved for the
affliction of Joseph. You see that? Why does scripture
mention that? Because that's what Joseph's
brothers did in Amos 6, 6. He accuses these people of not
being grieved for the affliction of Joseph. But he's only using
Joseph As a prototype of what men do when they have no pity
on the man suffering unjustly. No pity. Look at Isaiah in chapter
53. Here's where this is fulfilled.
Verse 1 of Isaiah 53. Who hath believed our report?
That's what Isaiah asks. Who has believed our report?
What report? Let me tell you. To whom is the
arm of the Lord revealed? For he, Christ, shall grow up
before him, the Father, as a tender plant and as a root out of a
dry ground, for he hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall
see him there is no beauty that we should desire him. When you
look at the Lord Jesus Christ, you know how people would like
to have pictures of Jesus. The Lord says here, there's no
beauty. When you look upon Him, there's no beauty that you're
going to desire Him. Nothing about His natural appearance
that would make you desire Him. But moreover, there's nothing
in His nature that would make a sinner desire Him because of
our sin. And so He says in verse 3, Joseph
was cast into the pit. And you know he cried, but his
brothers would not hear him. They were not moved. They did not hear the crying
of Joseph. He is despised, despised and
rejected of men, hated. A man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces
from him. Not because we were horrified
by his sufferings, but because we had no pity on him in his
sufferings. He was despised and we esteemed
him not. But here's the gospel, surely
he hath borne our griefs, and he carried our sorrows, yet we
did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He was
wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities,
the chastisement, the beating we deserved. The chastisement
of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone
astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, but the Lord
hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. That's the gospel.
And that's what the Lord Jesus Christ did. He went to his brethren,
knowing what they were. They hated him without a cause,
because God would set him on the throne in order to save them,
and by their wickedness they brought him to the sufferings
by which we were saved. And He did it with full knowledge,
the full intelligence of what it would take to save us. That's
love. He never stopped loving. Now,
I say all this, and to conclude with this. All that Christ did
in His love for us in our dreadful sin, our horrible sin, magnifies
His goodness. It magnifies His perfections,
especially His grace and His love toward us. And what that's
intended to do is, when God gives us that faith, is to make us
see how lovely He is. Because He's altogether lovely.
The gospel is intended to draw us to Christ as sinners and find
in Him the healing of our sin-sick, dead souls. And so finding love,
the Son of God. 1 Corinthians 16, 22 or 23 says, that love not our Lord Jesus
Christ be anathema, because who wouldn't love Joseph? Who wouldn't
love the Lord Jesus Christ? Only a reprobate. May God save
us from our sins. That's the only way we'll ever
love Him, is if we see Him as He is. Let's pray. Lord Jesus,
we pray that you would move by your grace that moved you to
come from heaven to earth and bear our sins before God as your
own and answer for them in full satisfaction to remove God's
wrath from us and take our sins away and wash us so that God
would remember our sins no more. We pray, dear Lord, Lord Jesus,
that by the same grace and love you would now visit us by your
Spirit and move in our hearts so that we would truly believe
you find you to be altogether lovely, and our hearts would
run out to you in love, and we would seek for no other, and
extol no other, and serve none but you, and we would do it gladly,
gladly with our whole heart, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.