This will be our third in a series
that we've been bringing. It's been gone on the fabric
of grace and a series in which we hope to show how the grace
of God is exhibited, shown through the types and shadows of some
interesting fabrics that we've run across in Scripture. And
the first one that we examined was that robe of Christ that
was woven from the top throughout. It was without seam, which could
not be rent. It was complete in every aspect
and every thread interwoven with other threads, each act of grace.
was interwoven throughout and all exemplified the grace of
God and salvation. And we read some scriptures from
Psalm 22, 18 that said, for my vesture, they cast lots. And we have the actual description
of that in John chapter 19, where they actually did that. And the
Roman soldier said, let's not rend it. They couldn't rent it. God had decreed that it would
not be rent from before the foundation of the world. Then we looked
at the robe of righteousness last time, the garment of salvation,
as described in Isaiah chapter 61, verse 10. And the beginning
of that chapter describes the Lord being sent. And he quotes
that in Luke as we discovered. And he said all these things,
the oil of gladness for mourning and all these things that sin
brings out. He says, he covered me with a
garment of salvation and a robe of righteousness. Today, our message is again from
the Old Testament found in Genesis 37. It has to do with the coat of
many colors. I know that's a popular flannel
graph thing for Sunday school for the little kids. This is a pretty elaborate description
and narrative given to us that goes from the mid part of Genesis
all the way through chapter 50. It's quite the revelation of
Christ in there. And our text verse from Genesis
37. 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 some time ago, In
some of our other Bible classes, we were studying various things.
We got on the subject of the rainbow and Noah's flood. We were examining that rainbow
and how there was only seven colors visible, but there was
an infinite number of actual colors that just aren't readily
visible to the human eye. We referenced a couple of verses
in the New Testament, one from 1 Peter 4, verse 10 that describes
the manifold grace of God. And that word manifold means
variegated, which means of many colors. So it's kind of the same
kind of terminology that we would see here in Genesis chapter 37. And also in Ephesians 3.10, it
was revealed to the church It says, the manifold wisdom of
God. Not only the manifold grace of
God from first Peter, but the manifold wisdom of God. And it
just describes this infinite array of things that are most
of the time beyond our ability to see. And God gives us a glimpse
of some of them as he does in the rainbow. We can see the seven
primary colors, but we can't see all the ones on either side
of it and even the ones in between that are just not visible to
our eye. We want to look at this coat
of many colors. What does that have to do with anything? We
should note by beginning a few preliminary things which will
kind of aid us in our search for Christ in these scriptures
because That's what we always do. Christ, as Mike pointed out
in Luke chapter 24, when Christ was talking to those on the road
to Emmaus, He pointed out in all the scriptures the things
concerning Himself. And the scriptures that they
had then was the Old Testament. And also, He said as He was alive
and was talking to people, to search the scriptures, for in
them you think you have eternal life, and they are they that
testify of me." So here we have a perfect example of scriptures
that talk about Christ, that gives us a foreshadowing of Him,
that tell us about a little something. It's made to tell us a little
something about Him, give us some clues. As we look for Christ in these
scriptures, it's just amazing the things. We're not going to
be able to look at all of them today, but I'm just going to
pick a few highlights because it's kind of a rather lengthy
section of the Bible. When we find one of the first
things we look at was Jacob. In the Old Testament, Jacob the
Patriarch. Remember, when he was born, he
was a Twani. Him and his brother Esau. We
find out that his name meant Jacob the Supplanter. That's
what Jacob meant. The one who by force or plotting
takes the place of another. He was kind of a devious guy.
He snagged on to his brother's foot coming out, and then he
took the blessing by unscrupulous means. They put some goat hair
on his arm to make his blind old father feel like, oh yeah,
this is Esau, my oldest dude, by rights should have had the
blessing. But when God blessed Rachel with children, He says,
the elder is going to serve the younger. He foretold that very
thing according to his purpose. So Jacob is also called the heel
catcher because of that very thing. Kind of a devious guy. Later on in life he said, When
he's looking back at his life, he says, few and evil have been
the days and years of my life. He was brought to that knowledge
through redemption, and it caused him to reflect on those things.
He says, man, almost everything I did just turned out bad, but
God overruled it for good. So, it seems like not too redeeming
of equalities. that would attract the eye of
God and cause him to react to that in
a positive way. He was a scoundrel and he by
subterfuge and trickery deceitfully took the blessing that by custom
should have gone to Esau. But in the fabric of grace we
find that the threads of grace all was part of the tapestry
of God's sovereign purpose in redeeming the church and a display
of his sovereignty. He controls what happens, what
goes on. In Genesis 25, 23, we have the
part where the Lord said unto Rachel, two nations are in thy
womb. Two men or people shall be separated from thy bowels.
One people shall be stronger than the other people and the
elder shall serve the younger. And we know that Esau, he went
on to form the Edomites, and they never did have favor with
God, still don't. And yet Jacob, who was just as
a scoundrel, found grace in the eyes of the Lord and according
to God's purpose. Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. We find that in Malachi in Romans
9 or 11 chapter, I believe it is. And so now in the fullness
of time, God has dealings with Jacob and he changes his name
from Jacob to Israel. He changes his name from the
scoundrel, from the supplanter, from the heel catcher to Israel. And in the new name, he imparts
to Jacob something of himself because his name is now a compound
from Sarah and El. which means to prevail and the
El is the mighty God. So he kind of puts a little bit
of himself in this name, same as he did with Abraham. When
he changed him from Abram to Abraham, he put a little section
in the middle that kind of reflected a part of God Himself. And so,
in Genesis 35 verse 9, God appeared unto Jacob when he came out of
Paddan Aram and blessed him. And God said unto him, Thy name
is Jacob. Thy name shall not be called
Jacob any more, but Israel shall be thy name. And he called his
name Israel. And we find that that's the name,
the symbolic name given to Jacob and also to his posterity is
in the New Testament. They are not all Israel, which
are of Israel. It's what the church is called
by that name quite a bit. And in Genesis 35, 11, God said
unto him, I am God Almighty, be fruitful and multiply. A nation
and a company, a nation shall be of thee and kings shall come
out of thy loins. And the land which I gave Abraham
and Isaac to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee
will I give the land. So now, next in our text, we
find that Israel is blessed with a son in his old age. And he
had 12 sons, 12 tribes. And one of those was a son that
he loved beyond measure because he was the son of his old age.
And he just loved him. And it kind of harkens us back
to God's sovereignty. Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. And so he loved this one son. Genesis 37-3 says, 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
again, he had 12 children. And this kind of gives us a hint
of, we're starting to get a little formulation of a picture here
in this fabric of grace. And we kind of get a hint of
how God the Father felt about his beloved son with whom he
was well pleased. He was an ancient son, a son
from eternity. And he loved him beyond measure. And so we find this son of Israel,
most beloved son, blessed with this symbolic coat of many colors. And as we go through the book
of Genesis, we're kind of brought to realize many things. And we
kind of see Joseph as a type of Christ, a foreshadowing of
Christ. And we see a lot of the things
that happened to him foretold of things that directly happened
to Christ. This coat of many colors, a coat
describes a covering, and many colors, this variegated coloring
that we looked at. In the definition it describes
kind of a long-sleeved tunic that's long enough to cover down
to the palms of the hands, made of many breaths or diverse colors
according to Strong's Concordance. So it's these vertical, I think
it described them as vertical stripes. And each color, each
stripe, We find kind of represents a grace of God in the redemption
of the church similar to the rainbow that we discussed here
earlier in the covenant of grace. We see sovereignty and grace
and power and holiness and faithfulness and goodness and patience and
mercy and love to name a few. And they're all attributes that
we find that Joseph displayed. They're all aspects of Christ
that Christ displayed. And so we find in these scriptures
regarding Joseph many things which foreshadowed and typified
Christ as he saves his people from their sins that are ruined
by the fall. And boy, his brothers give us
a good view of that. The apple did not fall far from
the tree. When they said Jacob was the
scoundrel, he was the heel catcher. He was the person that stole the blessing.
His sons just kind of took right after him. And they exhibited
a human trait that's from the fall. They were jealous. Dad
loved you more than me. And that's just part of our nature
because of the fall. In Genesis 37, 4, right after
we find that his father made him a coat of many colors, well,
his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren,
and they hated him and could not speak peaceably unto him.
And Joseph, and then it gets worse. Joseph has a dream, and he says,
I had a dream. Hey, brothers, gather around.
I had this weird dream last night. I want to tell you what it said.
And they hated him yet the more. And he said unto them, here I
pray you this dream which I've dreamed. For behold, we were
binding sheaves in the field, you know, they cut the grain
and then they gathered up a big shock of it and then they tied
it around with another piece of the grain and then leaned
it up and they made these piles and then they would go along
and gather them in to take to the threshing floor. And he says,
we were binding sheaves in the field and lo, my sheaf arose.
And also stood upright, and behold, your sheaves stood around about,
and made obeisance to my sheave." The sheaves that represented
you guys was bowing down to me. And they go, uh-uh. And they hated him yet the more
for his dreams. And they said, shall thou indeed
reign over us? Or shall thou indeed have dominion
over us? And they hated him yet the more
for his dreams. And he dreamed yet another dream. And he told
it to his brothers and said, behold, I have dreamed a dream
more. And behold, the sun and the moon and the 11 stars made
obeisance to me. And that did not go over well
either. But it kind of brings to mind
a scripture from the beginning of the Gospel of John. He came
unto his own, and his own received him not. The citizens hated him,
from Luke 19.14, and sent a message after him saying, we'll not have
this man to reign over us. That's what they said to Joseph.
We're not bowing down to you. I don't care what your crazy
dream was. They called him the dreamer.
Here comes that stupid dreamer again. And yet, like Christ, we find
that He just takes it and puts up with it. Christ did that all
the time. They were always trying to kill
Him, or stone Him, or say bad things to Him. He just went His
way. Because of sin and the fallen,
their jealous nature, they, like Cain in time, decide to slay
their brother. It just goes downhill because
of sin and fall. When they saw him afar off, even
before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to
slay him, from Genesis 37, 18. And then one brother kind of
sticks up for him a little bit, Reuben. Reuben heard it, and
he delivered him out of their hands and said, let's not kill
him. Reuben said to them, shed no
blood, but let's just throw him in this deep hole over here.
Let's cast him in this pit that is in the wilderness and lay
no hand upon him. He said, I'll just come back later and fish
him out of the hole and smuggle him back to dad and he'll be
safe. And that's kind of It kind of
reminds you of Peter in the garden where they come to capture the
Lord and take Him away to kill Him, and he smites off the ear
of the one, Malchus, and the Lord says, no, this is according
to the foreknowledge and determinate counsel of God, and it must be. So next we find the brothers,
they capture Joseph, they strip him of his coat of many colors
that they hated. Isn't that how man is with the
manifold grace of God? They hate it because it takes
them out of the loop as far as the decision making aspect. So
they strip him of his coat of many colors coat of many colors
and they cast him in a pit in which there was no water. Nothing to drink. And I don't
know about you guys, but if you've ever been in a situation where
you were out somewhere and you were working really hard and you're just dying of thirst
and you don't have any water. It's just misery. It kind of
It kind of reminds you of how the Lord was treated after His
capture. You know that He was thirsty
and they gave Him vinegar to drink. In Psalm 22, if you can kind
of where we're going with this, if you take all these things
that happened to Joseph and you kind of replace it with Christ
and look for parallels that we find in the Scriptures. In Psalm
22, he says, many bulls, my brothers, have compassed me about. They
gaped on me with their mouths as a ravening and roaring lion.
They called him Dreamer and no telling what other bad names. And I'm sure he looked at them
and said, they don't have any good intentions toward me, and
these are my brothers. He said, I'm poured out like
water. Can you imagine just the dejection that he felt? His brothers
that should have been looking out for him. I have a little
brother, and I had to kind of go to bat for him a lot of times.
That's what big brothers do. They stick up for the little
brother and defend him and take care of him and make sure that
he gets to grow up okay. But here, I'm poured out like
water. I'm so disappointed. All my bones
are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It's melted
in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like
a pot shirt and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws. I'm in a pit with
no water. Thou has brought me to the dust
of death. The dogs have compassed me. The
assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and
feet. I may tell all my bones and they
look and stare upon me and they part my garments. They took his
garment. They took his coat of many colors.
They stripped him of that, it says in Genesis 37, 23. It came to pass when Joseph was
coming to his brother and they stripped him out of his coat
of many colors that was upon him. They sought to strip him of this
coat, this symbol of grace, but the coat was only a symbol of
what was truly contained in the man. It just pictured those things. grace. They sold him for 20 pieces
of silver. They said, well, hey, you know
what? Let's not kill him. Let's just
sell him. We can get money for him. It is kind of like the sacrifices
that Norm has been bringing about in the lessons from the Old Testament. Why should we sacrifice a perfectly
good lamb? Let's We can sell that for a
profit and so on. In Genesis 37, 26, And Judah
said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother
and conceal his blood? Let's 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. Well, we feel a lot better about
that now. We're not going to kill him.
We're just going to sell him. to the Ishmaelites. Then there passed
by Midianite merchantmen, and they drew and lifted Joseph out
of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces
of silver, and they brought Joseph into Egypt. To complete their lie, according
to their own deceitful natures, they took that coat of many colors,
the symbol of love and grace, compassion, And they dipped it
in the blood of a goat. They killed a goat and then they
dipped that coat in it. And they brought that symbol
of grace, that lie, covered in blood to their father. And said, oh I think some animal
got him. Some wild beast tore him up,
and this is all we could find was this coat covered in blood. So we find that in Genesis 37,
31. They sent that coat of many colors
covered in blood to their father and said, this we have found. Is this Joseph's coat? if thou be the Son of God, just
tell us plainly. 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 his daughters
rose up to comfort him. You know how it is when somebody
is a faker and they try to comfort you. It's just non-effectual. He refused to be comforted and
said, I'll go down to the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his
father wept for him. It just reminded me of when the
Lord was going through the crucifixion and separation from the father. And what a picture, a tiny representation
of how he must felt in delivering his beloved son to the world
to be maltreated and killed. separated, just grief beyond
comprehension. And all this designed in the
purpose of God for the redemption of the church and for the furtherance
of the gospel. It's just not an interesting
story that, well, Moses said, I'm writing the Bible and I have
to have something between Genesis 36 and Genesis 51, so we'll just
throw in this story of Joseph. It's much, much more than that.
Each stripe of color in that fabric of grace accomplishing
the purpose of God. Now to Joseph, it was interesting
that some things that Mike brought up this morning from the scriptures. I had Craig read to us from Philippians. And Paul said, you know, a lot
of bad things happened to me. But it turned out it was all
for the furtherance of the gospel. It was all according to God's
purpose. And that's kind of how he viewed it. And we're always
looking at Romans, the 8th chapter in verse 28, where it says, all
things are working for good to them that love God, who are the
called according to his purpose. And Christ being delivered by
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, taken and crucified and
slain, and this furtherance of the gospel. Now, to Joseph, it
would seem on the surface that maybe not all things were working
for good to him. I've been thrown in a pit. My
brothers have turned on me. They swipe my coat. They sold
me to some Ishmaelites and they're going to take me down to Egypt
and sell me again. I don't see much good in that.
And if you don't look at things through the eyes of faith, that's
how you see things. But if we look at things with
the eyes of faith and trust in God, we may not see how the end
of that is going to work out. And we may never see it in this
life, but we have confidence and trust in God that somehow
it is working for good. Somehow it is for the furtherance
of the gospel because the Lord is working things out for the
redemption of the church, to bring the gospel to all of his
people. Now, we're kind of running out
of time here, but I want to note a few more types which are readily
apparent in the scriptures regarding Joseph in this coat of many colors. And we find he was taken down
to Egypt and sold to be a servant. He became a servant, Genesis
39, 1 through 4, the color of humbleness. He was tempted. yet without sin. The wife of
the master that he was a servant to said, come to me and lie with
me. And he said, uh-uh, not going
to do that. That would be wrong. Tempted
yet without sin, a picture of the color of holiness. He was
cast into prison. the color of sacrifice. He was
numbered with the transgressors. He was thrown into jail and he
turned out to be in the middle of, and this I thought was interesting,
there was a couple of fellas thrown into jail with him, a
baker and a butler. They were both guilty. They had
been, the pharaoh had said, you guys are guilty of this and this
and threw them in the jail. And Joseph, the dreamer, has
another dream. And he says, well, you're going
to live, to the baker, your dream means you're going to live. And
to the butler, he says, your dream, not so good. Your head
is going to be taken off you. And it kind of reminded me of the man on the crosses. He was
in the midst of these two men on the crosses. And they were
both guilty. And they both originally cast
these bad aspersions of Christ at him. But in the end, the sovereignty
of God determined mercy on one and not on the other. He was numbered with the transgressors,
the color of sovereign grace. All with whom Joseph came in
contact with saw grace. They saw the beauty of everything
he touched. flourished and was good. The
stripe of the color of providence arranged each person's meeting
with Joseph and blessings of the Lord. The stripe with the color of
providence again rules that Joseph's brothers are reunited with him
in a time of famine, which only the eyes of faith could be seen
as performing good. They are by providence directed
to Joseph who has the bread of life in abundance. The stripe of the color of compassion
and love prevailed in Joseph as he met
his brethren when he would have been justified in having them
killed. Because they were bad. He'd have been justified if he
would have exhibited wrath and punishment. But he said, bring these men
home and make ready for these men shall dine with me at noon. They tried to purchase life.
They brought money. He wouldn't take it. The color
of grace. He gave them what they wanted
and he put their money back in their pouches and sent them on
their way. Free grace. The color of free
grace. And in the end, Joseph was united
with his father. In Genesis chapter 45 verse 1,
Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by
him. And he cried, caused every man to go out from me. There
stood no man with him while Joseph made himself known to his brethren."
I've left out all the part where the Pharaoh made him in charge
of all of his granary and the seven years of famine. You can
read all that stuff. We're about out of time, but
I just wanted to touch on these things that exhibited this grace. And this is so like Christ. He reveals
Himself to them, even though they were at enmity with Him,
and sold Him, and wanted to kill Him. Joseph said unto his brethren,
Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said,
I am Joseph your brother, who you sold into Egypt. Now therefore,
be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that you sold me hither.
For God did send me before you to preserve life." God had determined
all of this from eternity. God had determined every aspect
of it. For these two years that the
famine had been in the land, and yet there's five years left
to go, God sent me before you to preserve a posterity in the
earth, to save your lives by a great deliverance. And so now,
It was not you that sent me hither, but God. He says, it was revealed
to me that all things are working for good to them that love God
who are the called according to his purpose. It was revealed
to me that all of this was for the furtherance of the gospel.
And he hath made me a father to Pharaoh and Lord of all his
house, a ruler through all the land of Egypt, a king. Haste
ye, and go up to my Father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy
son Joseph, God hath made me Lord over all Egypt. Come down
unto me, and tarry not. And thou shalt dwell in the land
of Goshen, and shalt be near unto me, thou and thy children,
and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds,
and all that thou hast. And there will I nourish you.
For there are yet five years of famine, lest thou in thy household,
and all that thou hast, come to poverty. And behold, your
eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is
my mouth that speaketh unto you. And ye shall tell my father of
all my glory in Egypt, and all that ye have seen. And ye shall
haste, and bring my father hither. And he fell upon his brother
Benjamin's neck, and wept. And Benjamin wept sore on his
neck. And moreover, he kissed all his
brethren. and wept upon him. And after
that, his brethren talked with him. And to all of them, he gave
each man a change of raiment." Where have we seen that? He gave each man a change of
raiment, but to Benjamin, he gave 300 pieces of silver and
five changes of raiment. And they went up out of Egypt
and came into 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 unto them. And when Israel said, it's
enough, Joseph my son is yet alive, I will go and see him
before I die." Kind of reminds you of Simeon in Luke chapter
2 where he says, he waited for the consolation of Israel. When he finally saw that babe,
he said, I can die in peace now. My eyes have seen Thy salvation. So he saw the wagons which Joseph
had sent to carry him, and the spirit of Jacob, their father,
revived. Israel blesses his sons, the
twelve patriarchs of the tribes. I just was going to mention a
couple of them today where he says, Judah is like a lion's
whelp. The scepter shall not depart
from Judah. nor a lawgiver from between his
feet, till Shiloh come, and to him shall the gathering of the
people be." Just a prophecy of the coming of the Savior. Joseph. Here's what he says about Joseph.
Joseph is a fruitful bough. He's a type of Christ. A fruitful bough by a well, the
well of living water, whose branches run over the wall, The archers
have solely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him. But
his bow, abode, and strength, and the arms of his hands were
made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob, from thence
is the shepherd, the stone of Israel. Even by the God of thy
father, who shall help thee, and by the Almighty, who shall
bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the
deep that lieth under, blessings of the breast of the womb, and
the blessings of thy father prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors
and to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills. They shall
be upon the head of Joseph and upon the crown of the head of
him that was separate from his brethren. And so we see the conclusion
now of the coat of many colors made from the fabric of grace.
As Joseph says to them in chapter 50, And verse 17, we'll read from there. So shall you say to Joseph, forgive
me 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 God thy Father. And Joseph
wept when he spake unto them. And his brethren also went and
fell down before his face. And they said, behold, we be
thy servants. And Joseph said unto them, and
this is what we typically find of Jesus that come to him in
that condition, fear not. 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 you not.
I will nourish you and your little ones. And he comforted them and
spake kindly unto them. All things were working for good.
All things were for the furtherance of the gospel as we have in this
beautiful picture of Christ that's brought to us through Joseph.
He reveals some things to us about himself. And so we'll stop
there in our third installment on the
fabric of grace and I don't know which one we're going to go to
next. Perhaps maybe the coverings of the tabernacle. There's these
different coverings that each represent something. So maybe
we'll look there. So until then, as always, be
free.