Let's turn in our Bibles this
morning to Genesis chapter 50. Genesis chapter 50. I appreciate
Ron reading the account of all that Joseph's brothers did to
him in Genesis 37. We now are at
the end of the story which you know that Joseph wound up down
in Egypt by God's providence and he became Pharaoh down there. He became the king of all of
Egypt. And read with me here in verse
14 of Genesis 50, the conclusion of the matter. Joseph returned
unto Egypt, he and his brethren, and all that went up with him
to bury his father, after he had buried his father. And when
Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph
will for adventure hate us and will certainly require us all
the evil which we did unto him." It was quite a string of evil
there that Brother Ron read about, didn't it? What they did to him.
Naturally speaking, we would all be going, uh-oh, uh-oh, now
that Daddy's dead, let's see what happens. So here's what
they did in verse 16. They sent a message unto Joseph,
saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, So shall
you say unto Joseph, Forgive I pray thee now the trespass
of thy brethren and their sin, for they did unto thee evil,
And now we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants
of the God of thy father.' And Joseph wept when they spake unto
him. And his brethren also went and
fell down before his face. And they said, Behold, we be
thy servants. And Joseph said to them, Fear
not, for am I in the place of God. But as for you, you thought
evil against me, but God meant it unto good. to bring to pass,
as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now, therefore,
fear ye not. I will nourish you and your little
ones and be comforted them." And he comforted them and spake
kindly unto them. And Joseph dwelt in Egypt. He
and his father's house and Joseph lived 110 years. And Joseph saw
Ephraim's children of the third generation and the children also
of Mater, the son of Manasseh, who were brought up upon Joseph's
knee. And Joseph said unto his brethren,
I'm going to die now. And now pay attention here. God
will surely visit you and bring you out of this land into the
land which he swear to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. And Joseph
took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely
visit you and ye shall carry up my bones from hence." So Joseph
died being 110 years, and they embalmed him, and he was put
in a coffin in Egypt. Notice he wasn't buried there.
They put him in a coffin, and later they did take him up there.
God's Word always comes to pass. But I want you to notice the
word visit. It occurs two times, once in
verse 24 and once in verse 25. Now, if you look that word up
in the dictionary, you'll see that it means to go to stay with
someone or someplace for a short period of time. That's all the
word visit means. And we've all been to visit somebody
or we've had someone come to visit us. But this says God visits
his people. Joseph said, God will surely
visit you two times. It says that and it declares
he actually Joseph declares an oath. And that means here he
swore a declaration that God would visit his brethren. And
the purpose of the visit is to bring them out of Egypt, to go
up into Canaan, the promised land. Joseph didn't declare that
God might visit. He didn't declare that God should
visit. He didn't declare that God could
visit. But rather what he said is God
would surely, absolutely, of a truth, in fact, God will surely
visit them for a purpose. Now, if you came here today looking
for some good news, I'm about to give it to you. This is as
good as it gets. If you and I are brethren to
the Lord Jesus Christ, you know what God's Word promises? He
will surely visit you to take you out of this place and to
take you up to a better place forever. That's as good as I
know how to tell it right there. It's a promise God swore by Himself. He can swear by no greater. He
promised the brethren of the Lord Jesus Christ. God's Word declares, I will surely
visit you to bring you out and carry you up. Now, some things
happened in Joseph's day before this event here. Notice Joseph
said to his brethren, You thought evil against me?" Now, boy, there's
an understatement, isn't it? When we read about what those
boys did in Genesis 37, boy, they were one nasty lot, weren't
they? I mean, how could you plant it
any more diabolically evil than to do what they did? It wasn't
enough that he was their little brother and had no position,
authority, or anything else. All he did was keep the sheep.
and be their daddy's messenger boy. And yet they said, let's
sell him. First they said, let's kill him.
God wouldn't allow that. And he said, let's throw him
in a pit and he'll just die there. And then Reuben said, no, that's
a little harsh. Oh, gee. So they said, let's
sell him into Egypt and they'll take him down there and work
him to death. He'll be a slave down there. And he'll just die
of hard work if he doesn't die of thirst in the pit first because
there was no water in the pit. And then they sold him and off
he goes down to Egypt. And if that's not bad enough,
you know what they do? They take his coat and kill a lamb and
put blood all over his coat and take it back to their daddy and
say, Joseph's dead. Some wild beast ate him. Boy,
when it says they meant it for evil, That's an understatement,
isn't it? Boy, that's a terrible truth
about you and I, isn't it? Do these boys remind you of anybody?
Boy, they do me. I can see me doing everything
they did. They remind me of me. By nature,
there's no bounds to our evil. But the story continues, and
it gets even more evil. Joseph is taken down there and
he's sold to this fella Potiphar. And do you know who Potiphar
really was? If you look it up, he was the executioner of Egypt. By rights, anybody who came into
Potiphar's hands, they died. But Potiphar, God touched his
heart and he made Joseph. a servant in his home, and when
it was all said and done, Joseph became the head of his whole
house and land and everything. And Potiphar prospered. And of
course, we know that Potiphar's wife made false accusations against
Joseph, and he gets thrown into prison. Now, I don't know what
an Egyptian prison was like, but I got a feeling it was not
good. And he's there for years. But God in his mercy prospers
him in prison down there. And he makes him the head of
the prison down there. And then when the Pharaohs, Butler
and Baker, get thrown into prison, they have a dream. They don't
understand their dream. And Joseph interprets the dream.
He says to the baker, he said, well, you're going to go back
and get your head cut off. And he says to the to the butler,
he said, you're going to go back and be restored. And he said,
but when you go back, he said, will you remember me? And of
course, the butler said, sure, no problem. Well, he got sent
back. Two years go by, he hadn't given
Joseph a thought. Until Pharaoh has a dream. And
all his wise men and seers and religious folks can't interpret
the dream. And the butler says, oh, you
know, there's a fellow down in prison who could do dreams. He
understood dreams. Pharaoh said, send for him. So
they cleaned up Joseph and brought him there. And you know, he interpreted
the dream about the seven fat calves and the seven thin calves. He told Pharaoh what it meant.
And you know what Pharaoh did? He said, well, you're the wisest
man I ever met. He said, I'm going to make you king. All of
a sudden, Joseph has gone from the betrayed prison keeper to
the king of Egypt. Sound familiar to you? I'm the wicked one who God has
made a son. What a picture. of what God has
done for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, how merciful indeed. Now, you there in Genesis 50,
stay right there a minute. And of course, what happened
is God's promise came to pass. The famine came, and after all
that plenty, and Joseph's brothers and family were starving. And
Abraham said, Go down there and get some Jacob said, go down
there and get some corn for us. And they get down there and they
walk in this room. And what do they see? You've
seen pictures of those rooms in Egypt, haven't you? Those
massive columns with all that fancy stuff. And they come in
and here sitting on a high throne is a man. And they don't know
who he is, but they know what they need to do. And they hit
the floor. They bow down. Imagine that God's Word came
to pass. The dream of Joseph came to pass.
And they bowed down before him. And you know the story, how it
goes, where he sent them back and said, Don't come back unless
you bring your brother with you. And so they do. And all this
was done to Joseph at the hands of his brethren. And they meant
it for evil. But God meant it for good. This
is a famous verse, even by all standards, in Genesis 50, verse
20. But as for you, you thought evil
against me, but God meant it unto good to bring to pass, as
it is this day, to save much people alive. God took the evil
of these men and used it to save untold thousands from starvation
in that day. Can we imagine how many would
have died in seven years of famine if Joseph hadn't been used to
do what needed to be done to deliver them, including Joseph's
wicked brethren. Here's the picture. God took
the evil of men that was done to his son at Calvary. Evil men
took the Lord Jesus Christ. They meant it for evil. And let's
not fool ourselves. If we'd been there, we'd have
been anxious participants. Wrestle with the guy for the
hammer. God took the evil of men that
was done to Christ at Calvary and used it to accomplish great
good. He saved a vast number of people
from eternal death. God had mercy on the wicked brethren
of Christ. How? Just as Joseph suffered
great evil at the hands of his brethren that one day he could
show mercy to them. Christ was made sin and punished
for it that his brethren could be saved alive. Had Joseph not
endured all he did, he never would have been the king who
could save his brethren from dying. And had Christ not endured
the death of the cross, his brethren could not be saved, could not
have been delivered from their sin to eternal life. Joseph's
brethren retreated. You know what? He treated them,
after all this, as they were princes in Egypt. Well, imagine
this, after all we did, we crucified the Son of God, He's made His
people sons. We are sons and daughters of
the living God. Because of the great things Christ
has done, because of His perfect life and His righteousness, His
people are made princes. Turn with me to Jeremiah chapter
50. All of this had to happen before
Joseph declared or made this oath that I mentioned, God will
surely visit you. All these things transpired.
And I said earlier, God visits everybody. You know that every
man, woman and child on this planet is going to get a visit
from God. This word visit is very unique. It means the same thing, but
can be Received in two different ways. The purpose of it can be
two different ways. God's going to visit every man,
woman and child on this planet. But you know what that word can
mean? It can mean to visit, to visit with friendly intent. With
good intentions. It also can mean to visit with
hostile intent. Uh oh. Uh oh. Everybody thinks
they want a visit from God. Well, I want a visit in mercy,
but not in judgment. Oh, oh, oh. If God visits with
hostile intent, it's a very bad visit indeed. God may forbear,
but when God visits in judgment, He comes quickly. In Jeremiah
50, verse 31, Behold, I am against thee, O
thou most proud, saith the Lord God of hosts, for thy day is
come, the time that I will visit thee." You see it there? "...and
the most proud shall stumble and fall, and none shall raise
him up, and I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it shall devour
all round about him." God warned Sodom and Gomorrah,
didn't he? And then he visited in judgment. And the firestorm didn't last
long. It was a very brief visit. And we would think, well, nobody
wants that kind of visit. Surely not. Won't folks heed
the warning? The terrible consequences of
Adam's fall and our sinful nature. You know what? When Adam ate,
what that did to us is by nature, we can't hear the warning. We
can't hear it. By nature, we can't see what's
coming over the horizon. We can't see what's ahead for
us. By nature, we're full of hatred
for God's Son, we're determined not to bow, just like his brothers. What would have been wrong with
them if Even if Joseph's dream would have been, I'll be the
king of Egypt and you'll come down and bow to me, they'd have
gone, nah. If he'd have said, you're going to be starving to
death and I'll give you food, but you've got to bow to me.
No. It's our nature. We don't want to bow. We refuse. We'd rather die in our sins than
to ask God to visit us in mercy. That's hard, isn't it? But thank
God, He still visits some in mercy. He does. Acts chapter
9, thrown over there with me. Let me show you an example of
a visit in mercy. It really bothered me at first
when I read that word visit, and stay with me here and understand
why it bothered me so much. I want to visit in mercy from
God. But, you know, a visit, by definition, is a brief thing,
a short period of time. And I thought, I don't want a
brief one. I want a long visit. I want it to go a long time. And then I realized God's Spirit
can accomplish more in a millisecond than you and I can in a lifetime.
How often have we devoted years and years and years on our children
trying our best and just got terrible results? It doesn't
matter how merciful we are, how generous we are, how good we
are to them. Sometimes it just doesn't matter,
does it? They don't get it. They don't get it. And I thought,
I want a long visit. I don't want it to stop. Well,
God's Spirit can change one of God's children in literally one
heartbeat. That's all it takes. And here's
an example in Acts 9, verse 1. There was a man named Saul who
yet breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples
of the Lord. And he went unto the high priest
and desired of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues,
that if he found any of this way, any of the way of Christ,
Whether they were men or women, that he might bring them bound
unto Jerusalem. And as he journeyed, he came
near Damascus. Oh, and suddenly, it was a visit
came suddenly. There shined round about him
a light from heaven. And he fell to the earth and
heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute
me? And he said, Who are you, Lord?
I don't know you. This is my first visit. I don't
know you. And the Lord said, I am Jesus
whom you persecute. It is hard for thee to kick against
me. You can't fight my tensions.
No, sir. And Paul, trembling, astonished,
said, Lord, what do you have me do? In that little visit,
in those few words, God came and visited Paul and showed him
who he was and who the Lord Jesus Christ was. And the Lord said
unto him, Rise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee
what ye must do. And the men which journeyed with
him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man."
You see, they had a visit too. They were there, weren't they?
When God visited Paul, did it have the same effect? Did they
go, Lord, what would you have me do? No, they went, what is
that? Thunder? What is that? I don't
know who that is. In verse 8, And Saul arose from
the earth, and when his eyes were opened, he now saw who Christ
was. He saw no man, but they led him
by the hand and brought him to Damascus. And he was there three
days without sight, and neither did he eat nor drink. The Spirit
of God has to come for just a visit. And there will be three certain
results. Number one, the visit, the results
will be permanent, everlasting. The visited in mercy, they don't
go back. Paul never, never picked up the
warrants and started hunting Christians again. No siree. The visit, the results will be
profound. The visited in mercy are never
the same again. You read about Saul of Tarsus,
and then you read about the Apostle Paul. They're two different people,
aren't they? You get a mercy visit from the Lord Jesus Christ
by His Spirit, you're not the same anymore. You're going to
change. And then the third result will be immediate. The visited, they change. They
turn. They repent, and they're baptized.
Always the same with a visit. And Paul's a perfect example.
Listen to those results applied to Paul as we read about him
in the scriptures. One day he despises the gospel. He hates what Christ is, who
Christ is and what he teaches. He had a visit. Now he's preaching
that gospel. One day, Paul was killing the
people of Christ. He had a visit, and now he's
trying to save them. One day, Paul was persecuting
Christians. He got a visit. Now he loves
them. One day, Paul cursed the Lord
Jesus Christ. He got a visit. Now he worships
him. Christ visited fishermen, and
he made them fishers of men. Christ visited a blind man, Christ
visited a crazy man and left him in his right mind. Christ
visited lepers and made them clean. Christ visited a palsy
man and enabled him to walk. Christ visited a tongue-tied
man and enabled him to talk. Christ visited a cheating publican
and made him an honest disciple. Christ visited a man's dead daughter
and gave her life. Christ visited a widow's dead
son and gave him life. Now, I've got a question for
you. This morning, what's your problem that a visit from God
wouldn't cure? Have we got a problem? By nature,
we do. But a visit from God will fix
it. He'll change it. Yes, it will. If you've never
had a visit from God, would you like to be visited? Let's not
do this. Let's not sit here this morning
and deceive ourselves, thinking somehow it's all going to work
out OK, somehow, some way, some other. No, no. If we've never
had a visit from God, may we be made to know it right now.
Philip said to that eunuch, do you understand what you read?
Y'all understand what I'm saying up here this morning from the
word of God? How can I, the eunuch said, unless
some man show me? Well, I can't show you, but God's
Spirit can if He visits this morning. May God show us today
with a visit from Him. Now, I know we've got problems. I said, what's your problem this
morning? Well, I've got plenty of them, don't you? I mean, if
it's not one thing, it's three others, I understand. But I was
going to say this. I don't have any real problems
anymore. Not really. No, no. The visit in mercy took
care of my problem. My problem. Took care of my sin
completely. Christ put it away at Calvary.
Took care of my own righteousness. Christ gave it to me. Gave me
His. He's let us know Christ can take
care of all our real trouble. put away our sin and give us
His righteousness. And we're still going to have
trials and afflictions, but our real trouble went away with God's
very first visit. If anyone here doesn't know what
I'm talking about, if you've never had a visit from God, I
beseech you to beg God to come see you this very hour, in this
very moment, to visit in mercy. Now, some folks, listen to me
here, you know, some folks never have a visitor. They never do. Never do. And do you know there's
only one reason why they don't? Now, this is just plain talk. If we never have a visitor, there's
only one reason. It means we never ask anybody
to come visit. And I'm not getting after any
of you ladies that may not have the gift of hospitality and having
big groups at your house or anything. That's not what we're talking
about. We're just saying if nobody ever knocks on your door and
says, came to see you, there's only one reason. We never ask
anybody. Try it sometime. Pick up the
phone. Dial your brethren here. They'll come visit you if you're
lonely and you're tired, what have you. And if anyone never
has a visit from the Lord Jesus Christ, there's only one reason
why. We never ask for one. Christ never comes to visit you.
There will only be one reason. You didn't ask Him. And you say,
well, wait a minute, the Scriptures teach election. What if I'm not
one of God's elect? Well, true enough, if we're not
one of God's elect, He won't come visit us in mercy. But all
the blame will still be mine. Why? Because I never asked Him
to come visit. We can't blame that. for our
lack of a visit in mercy. Turn to John 14 with me. Can a person know if God has
visited them in mercy? That's a good question, isn't
it? I'd like to know, wouldn't you? Well, here in John 14, verse 15, we
read, If you love me, keep my commandments. Now. Verse 16, read that to how I
will pray the father and he shall give you another comforter that
he may abide with you forever. You know, I'm by nature not able
to keep the commandments. I'm not just not doesn't matter,
you ever get up in the morning and say, I'm going to break them
all today. No, no, no, no. Nobody does that. But if you
get up in the morning and go, I'm going to keep them all today,
well, you don't have much chance of that either. No chance of
it. So this doesn't mean if you keep the Ten Commandments, God's
going to visit you in mercy. No, no, no, no, no. God's going
to visit you in mercy because you kept the Ten Commandments.
Kept them all. You say, how did I do that? Somebody
did it for you. When the Lord Jesus Christ lived
those 33 years, He kept them all perfectly. And if you're
in him and he's in you, you kept them too. So when we read this,
if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. Well, we love him
because Christ is in us and we kept them. And I'll pray the
Father in you shall give you another comforter that you may
abide with you forever. Look at verse 17. Even the Spirit
of truth whom the world cannot receive because it sees him not,
neither knows him, but you know him. Why? He dwells with you
and shall be in you. Now stay with me here a minute.
This is a blessing. If God comes and visits in wrath,
He visits, it's done. He's there and He's gone. It's
over. If He comes in mercy, He visits. But you know what happens? This
is such good news. He comes and visits and says,
I'm going to stay here. You know what the word abide
means? It means to come and never leave.
That's the good news to us who want to visit in mercy. It's
okay if it appears brief at first. He's not left. He is with us
always, the Scripture says. If the Spirit of God abides in
you, you know it. You know it. You know how you
know it? My daughter-in-law, Megan, just found out she's with
child. And you know how she found out?
They're riding back from a long road trip, and she says, I don't
feel good. She's sickly for a couple of
days. And she's like, something's not
right, or something's real right. Anyway, of course, they went
out and got a test and took one, and it was positive. They went
out and bought four more. And it's been some weeks now,
and you know what? She's getting to feel like there's
something going on here. And you know, months down the
road, it will be obvious to everybody. There's something going on. If
there's someone living in you, it becomes obvious to you and
to all around you. What's the difference? God's
people get a visit from the Lord Jesus Christ by His Spirit. He's
called the Comforter. And he grows in you. You're a
new person in Christ Jesus. He abides there. And in verse
18, he says, I'll come and dwell with you and shall be in you,
verse 18, and I'll not leave you comfortless. I will come
to you. Yet a little while and the world
sees me no more, but you see me because I live You shall live
also at that day. You shall know that I am in the
Father and you're in me and I'm in you. Do we see how this works? It's mysterious and yet so wonderful. And I don't pretend to understand
it, but I sure will rejoice in it and believe in it by the grace
of God. When Christ comes to visit, he he never leaves. And that's That's our source
of comfort and peace and joy in this life. We're not alone. No, it wasn't a hi, how are you,
and I'm gone now. I didn't walk down front, shake
a preacher's hand, it's a done and over now. No, no, no. No,
no, no. He never leaves. Verse 21, And
he that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that
loveth me. And he that loveth me shall be
loved of my Father, And I'll love Him and will manifest myself
to Him." I said a few minutes ago, I said,
if you never get a visit from Christ, it will be because you
didn't ask. I'm going to prove that to you
by the Word of God. All this we've just read about
Christ visits and abides and never leaves and the Comforter,
this is so wonderful. Look what comes right before
that in verse 13. Whatsoever you shall ask in my
name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the
Son. If you shall ask anything in
my name, I'll do it. You ask for a visit, you'll get
one. You'll get one. I don't care
whether you think you're elect or not. You ask. He'll come. He'll visit. Now, is that glorious
or what? I mean, that's good news. One
more quick scripture. Turn to 1 John 3. God's people,
when they've had a visit in mercy, what happened is that the Spirit
of God came to visit and never left. And here's what's wrong with
modern religion. They try to tell you if you behave
and do what's right and so on and so forth, then God will save
you. He'll come visit if you do all
those things. No, what the gospel says is I'm
going to come visit you because I know you'll never do those
things. You can't do them. You can't keep the commandments.
But there's one who did. And I'll send him. to be your representative, to
visit you. And when somebody knocks on the
door and says, who's living in there? If I answer, it's like,
I don't want to visit you. But when they knock and Christ
is there, I'd like to come in. I'd like to visit you. Why do
we want fellowship with one another? It's not because the natural
man in us sees so much to like about one another. It's because
we see Christ in each other. the hope of glory. That's why
we love to fellowship and to come together to worship. I want
to open that door again. Just come on in. Give me more. Give me more visit. In 1 John
3, here it is one more time. Verse 22, Whatsoever we ask,
we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments and do
those things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is his
commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son, Jesus
Christ, and love one another as he gave us commandment. Don't
get this backwards. We don't ask for a visit so that God will save us. No,
we ask for a visit because he already has saved us. Do we see
the difference there? We don't have to do anything.
We don't have to keep the commandments and then go, OK, now am I good
enough to be saved? No, no, no, that's all upside
down. In Christ, we've already done all that's required to be
saved, and therefore, He's happy to come visit us because He's already in us. When did Joseph's brethren go
to Joseph? When they were starving. When
will a sinner beg Christ to come for a visit? When we're so lost
and starving, when we're so helpless and miserable, when we're so
disgusted with ourselves, when there's no hope or no help at
hand, then and only then will we cry, Oh God, be merciful to
me, the sinner. The answer is always the same.
I'll come visit you. I'll abide with you." And the
proof of that is our Lord said about that man, he went down
to his house justified. He went down to his house with
someone in him he didn't know was there until that instant. God saved that man because he
abided in him. He went down to his house justified.
He was okay now. It's all alright. God's Spirit
flew to that man. You ask Him, He'll come visit
you. On the authority of God's Word, He'll visit you. And it
will never be the same again, will it? Alright. May the Lord
bless His Word.