Well, let's go to the book of
Genesis again tonight, and I'm going to endeavor to give you
an overview of Genesis chapter 45. As you well know, Joseph was
a picture, a portrait of our Savior. And Joseph has now been
brought to rule over all things under King Pharaoh. And all of these things that
are going to happen that Joseph is making them to happen is in
order to bring his family out of the land of Canaan into Egypt. This is the goal. Joseph has been made the ruler. All things are under his dominion. I just read to you out of Psalm
105. He controlled the destiny of
even the princes of Egypt. He was entrusted by Pharaoh to
teach his senators wisdom This was an unusual man, and God,
in His marvelous sovereignty and providence, has elevated
him to be over all the land of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh. And as we shall see tonight,
the Lord made him to be a father to Pharaoh, made him to be a
lord over all the Egyptians, made him to have authority over
all things. And this is the man who is a
type of our Lord Jesus. Now Joseph is going, he's making
arrangements. And of course this is done under
the authority of God. He is arranging to bring his
father and all of his family into Egypt, into the land of
Goshen. That is a very, very small family
now. It's a very small nation. When
all is said and done, we will learn at the end of the book
of Genesis, there's only 70 of them. And as I read to you there
in Psalm 105, it says there were just a few, a very few, a very
few. But God has ordained that they
would not stay in the land of Canaan. They're a weak people. But remember
this, they are the people of God. That is the church of our
Lord Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. There they are. Out of all of the world, these
are the people of God. These are the ones God has saved
by His grace, or He's going to save them by His grace. These
have been chosen unto salvation. They will be redeemed when our
Lord Jesus Christ comes hundreds and hundreds of years in the
future, and the Spirit of God is going to teach them the gospel. You see, the Lord's aim is to
get them out of the land of Canaan and bring them to Egypt. Now,
the reason He's going to do this is because the land of Canaan
is ruled by the Canaanites. And they're ungodly. They're
an idolatrous nation. And at this juncture of time,
the Israelites are very weak spiritually. They're not ready
for the battles. Not physically and not spiritually. And so the Lord arranges all
things and Joseph, by the leadership of the Lord, is directing these
things to bring all of the family of God out of the land of Canaan
and not merely into the land of Egypt. Because you see, if
they were just generally to be mixed in with the population
of the Egyptians, well, the Egyptians are just as ungodly and just
as idolatrous as the Canaanites. No, the Lord is going to make
provision for them to live in the land of Goshen. Because the
Egyptians, you see, they were very much a segregated society. We've already noted that. Go
back to chapter 43. The Egyptians wouldn't even eat
with the Israelites. They're not gonna live with them
either. Look in verse 32 of chapter 43. And they set on for him,
that is for Joseph, by himself. He had a table for them by themselves. There's his brothers. And for
the Egyptians, which did eat with him by themselves, because
the Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews, for that's
an abomination unto the Egyptians. But this is going to work out,
you see. You see, there are some times
when segregation is a good thing. And the Lord says, I don't want
my people mixing in with the ungodly Egyptians. And so they're
going to live in the land of Goshen by the firm decree of
Pharaoh. He says, Joseph, you and your
family, you live over there. That's your land. And we'll live over here. That
just fit right into the purpose of God because it's the purpose
of God being fulfilled. so that they would not be contaminated
with the idolatry of either the Canaanites. And now when they
come into Egypt, they won't be contaminated by the idolatry
of the Egyptians because they'll be over in the land of Goshen
where they'll grow spiritually, they'll grow numerically, and
they will be under the leadership, under the nourishment of, under
the tutorship of Joseph. He's going to care for all of
them. So this is the purpose of God all along. Because He
will not let the gospel die and He will not let the gospel be
meddled with or compromised in any way, shape, or form. So this
is the goal. We know what he's doing. He's
bringing his people into the land of Goshen. Now, right at
the end of chapter 45, Judah, as we know, and it's a beautiful
portion of scripture that Judah makes this urgent and emotional
plea to Joseph. In fact, if you want to delve
a little deeper into things, the Hebrew Bible, the division
is not where our King James Version is divided, here at Genesis 45
verse 1 and then in chapter 44 ending with verse
34. The Hebrew Bible, it divides
it this way from chapter 44 and verse 16 with that great emotional
speech of Judah. And then it continues on and
really that And I appreciate chapter divisions and verse divisions,
but really, this continues on in thought until chapter 45 and
verse 15. And that's the way the Hebrew
Bible divides it. Because, you see, as we get to
chapter 45, Joseph has listened to what Judah has to say. And Judah, in telling Joseph
what the situation is, Judah makes this argument. It's kind
of a two-fold argument that he presents to Joseph. Look at chapter
44, verse 32. He says, number one, I became
surety for Benjamin. I became surety for Benjamin.
I gave my word to my father that I would watch over, I would protect,
and I'll bring Benjamin back to Joseph. They will unite again. I'm surety for Benjamin. That's what he says. He tells
Joseph, Judah does, my father looks to me. for the safety of
Benjamin. And of course, our Lord Jesus
is the surety of the new covenant because God looks to Him for
the safety, for the salvation of all of the elect. And we love
to think about the covenant of grace and our Lord Jesus being
the surety, the guarantor of all the promises of the covenant
of grace. The Father looks to Him. And this is the first argument
that Judah uses to Joseph. I told my father, I'll bear the
blame myself if I don't bring the two of you together. If I
don't look out for Benjamin, I bear the blame, and he said,
you'll remember forever. So that's his first argument.
His second argument is this. Look at verse 33. Not only would he be the surety,
but he says, I'll be servant. Now therefore, I pray thee, let
thy servant abide instead of the lad, a bondman to my Lord,
and let the lad go up with his brethren." In other words, he's
not only the surety, but here's what Joseph says, take me, I'll
serve you. Because that's what Joseph had
said about the one in whose bag the silver cup was found. He's going to be my servant.
He's going to be my slave. And now Judah says, take me. Take me instead. Let Benjamin
go free. I'll be the servant. I'll be
the bond servant. I'll be the slave. That's what
Christ did for us. And so often, especially in the
book of Isaiah, but other places as well, our Savior is called
the servant of Jehovah. He served. We ought to have served
Him perfectly, but nobody has. Nobody can. We're imperfect servants. And we willingly serve Him now,
having been brought by sovereign grace to believe Him and rest
in Him. We're the servants of the Lord,
but our servitude, we have to confess, is a pitiful failure. And all of our service is marred
by sin. But there was a perfect servant
who stepped in, the perfect bondman, our Lord Jesus. And He said,
I'll serve in their stead. Let them go free. And lo, 2,000
years ago He came. Who came? The perfect servant. Or as it says in Isaiah chapter
53, the righteous servant. He came to render unto God the
service that God demands, the service that's only rightful
to be rendered to God, and He served God perfectly.
And He was obedient, alone, all the way up to and including death,
the bondservant of God. So this is Judah's two-fold argument
to Joseph. Of course, he doesn't know he's
Joseph yet. But he says, please, please, I'm surety for the boy. And I'll be your bond servant.
I'll be your servant. So now we arrive in chapter 45,
Now we discover that heartfelt presentation to Joseph by Judah
was a very successful plea. And Joseph's heart is touched. Let me just touch on a few things
here. Now, the chapter is about Joseph
revealing himself to his brethren. So that's the title of the message.
Joseph reveals himself to his brethren. But it begins this
way, and I'll just give you several points here. Number one, Joseph
will not reveal himself while the Egyptians are still there.
Now look at verse one. And then Joseph could not refrain
himself before all of them that stood by him. And he cried. This is a command. This is an
order. And they will have to obey. Here's
his command. Cause every man to go out from
me. All you Egyptians, leave. This is not for them. It's not for the enemies of the
gospel. You see, when our Lord, when
He comes to reveal Himself to us, like Joseph is going to reveal
Himself to his brethren, when our Lord comes to reveal Himself
to us, He gets us off to ourselves. He separates us. He separates
us from the masses. You see, the Lord's people are
His beloved people. These men standing before Him,
here are His brothers. He loves them. That's part of
the church of God right there. But the Egyptians aren't. And that which He has to say
to His brethren, is really none of the business of the Egyptians.
This is not for them. It's not for them. The Lord's people are special
to Him. The Egyptians were not. This
doesn't involve them. There's a specific people that
Joseph will speak to and reveal himself to. His family. Not the Egyptians. Here's another
thing. Secondly, notice Joseph had a
compassionate heart. Keep reading. There stood no
man with him while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren.
And he wept. aloud. And the Egyptians in the
house of Pharaoh heard it. He's weeping so loud. This is
a great lamentation. And even outside the shut door,
they can hear him weeping. In fact, you go through, you'll
find seven times that Joseph is set forth as one who wept. And even that one of whom Joseph
was a It's spoken of as being the man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. Our Lord, it's recorded two times
that He wept. He wept at the tomb of Lazarus. He wept over Jerusalem. He's a man of compassion. Isn't your salvation the grace
of God dealing with you? Isn't that an evidence of divine
compassion toward you? He singled you out. He set you apart. You were with all the Egyptians.
Like all of them, you didn't have any interest. But then He isolated you. And maybe not physically, but
He did spiritually to deal with you and make a revelation of
Himself to you. Now remember, these were brethren
who hated Him, but He never hated them. He always loved them. He has feelings for them. He
knows who they are. They're blood kin. They're His
brethren. He knows them, but they don't
know Him. Not yet. Not yet. And even before they came to
know Him, even before He revealed Himself to them as being their
elder brother, He loved them. He showed them compassion. I
don't know how far along in life you were when the Lord showed
saving grace and compassion to you, those things happen according
to the sovereign purpose of God. But you know there was a time,
maybe many years, when you had no interest in Him, you had no
love for the Gospel. Perhaps you acknowledged on some
level, well yeah, there's a God, there's a Jesus, I've heard about
Him, and every year at Christmas we celebrate His birth, and Easter
we celebrate His resurrection. But you had no real interest
in Him. But I'll guarantee you He had
an interest in you. That's why He came into the world.
Because of His interest in His people, because of His great
compassions, which never fail. And then the third thing is in
verse 3. He reveals Himself. And Joseph
said unto his brethren, I am Joseph. And the next thing is, does my
father yet live? And His brethren, they couldn't
answer Him for they were troubled at His presence. And you know,
I think there's an application here also for us regarding the
Savior. When He first begins to reveal
Himself to us and we hear the Gospel of Christ, and then we
hear the grace and the mercy, we say, can it be? I've ignored
Him all my life. I haven't had any time for Him.
I haven't been thankful. I haven't read His Word. I've
just lived in utter disregard of this Savior, of the God of
the Bible. And now He's going to reveal
Himself. I'm afraid of who He is. He creates fear. Oh, but the
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It's the beginning
of knowledge. that something's happening to
these brethren. And it's all because of Joseph's
revelation of himself to them. I am Joseph. Let me tell you something, they
would never have known his identity had he not revealed himself.
And our Lord can never be known by any man naturally, because
the Scripture says, there's none that understandeth, there's none
that seeketh after God. He must seek us as the shepherd
seeks his lost sheep. And then give us an interest
in seeking Him. So we read in Isaiah, the Lord
says, I was found of them that sought Me not. Hey, this is way yonder more
than Joseph's brethren could have ever dreamed of. They could
never have imagined how this is going to turn out. I mean,
Judah had just made this impassioned plea, this emotional Oratory
to Joseph. Please, please don't keep Benjamin. I'm his surety. I'll be your
slave for life. And now they find out the one
who has all power is their elder brother. Wasn't that a wonderful
thing when you found out who the Savior is? He's Ken. He's head of the family. Head
of the family. And so Joseph reveals himself
to them. It reminds me of the Samaritan
woman to whom our Lord spoke. The woman said to him, I know
that Messiah cometh, which is called Christ, When He comes,
He will tell us all things. Jesus said unto her, I that speak
unto thee, am He. Oh, blessed day. Oh, blessed
day when He introduces Himself to you. Now, no introduction of you to
Him is necessary. He's known you from all eternity. But you need to know Him. And
He'll make sure that you do. It's like in Acts chapter 9,
Saul on the road to Damascus. Bright light blinded him, knocked
him off his horse. Who art thou, Lord? I am Jesus,
whom thou persecutest. And we know in John's Gospel
alone, our Savior identifies Himself seven times with this
expression, I am, I am. Now the first time that Joseph
says that I'm Joseph, his brethren couldn't answer him, they were
troubled at his word. But I'll tell you this, When
he says this to his brethren, when he introduces himself, he
then says this. Here's the fourth thing. Joseph
calls them to himself. The next thing he says is in
verse 4, Come near to me. I pray you, come here. That's
the effectual call of grace. Come here. Come unto Me, all
ye that labor and are heavy laden. I'll give you rest. You men are
troubled? You're troubled? And I'm sure
they're troubled at hearing he's Joseph. Uh-oh. We're worried
now. He's going to get even with us.
No. He's not going to get even. And
when we hear about the Lord Jesus and think of our sinfulness,
our rejection of Him, our lack of interest in Him, all of our
iniquities, we're troubled. But He says, come to Me. Come
to Me. And notice what He says. And
they came near. See, when He says, come near,
you will come near. This is the effectual call of
grace. And He said unto them, He says it again, I am Joseph,
but now He adds, your brother. I'm Joseph, your brother. He
could have said, I'm Joseph, your Lord, with a lowercase l. He could have said, I'm Joseph,
your governor, I'm Joseph upon whom you're dependent for any
food? I'm Joseph that you violently
mistreated?" But he says, I'm your brother.
But he did put this in just a reminder, whom you sold into Egypt. And I'm sure that stung. When
we come to the Savior, He reminds us we're just sinners. We're a bunch of failures. But He says to them in verse
5, don't be grieved. Don't be angry with yourself
that you sold me hither. And then notice this. He keeps
repeating that God sent him. God sent him. He proclaims God
to be the first cause of all of this. Now watch it. Look at
the latter part of verse 5. Three times he's going to say,
God sent me. Verse 5 says, Now therefore be
not grieved nor angry with yourself that you sold me hither, for
God did send me before you to preserve life. God sent me. God
sent me. Look in verse 7. And God sent
me before you to preserve you of posterity in the earth and
to save your lives by great deliverance. And over in the center column,
if you have a center column, it says to put you for a remnant. God sent me here. God sent me
here to save a remnant. A remnant according to the election
of grace. God sent me. and he repeats it in verse 8.
So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God. God sent me. And He has made me a father to
Pharaoh and Lord over all his house and a ruler throughout
all the land of Egypt. You see, I don't see how Joseph
I don't see how it could be so forgiving. I don't see how it can be so
tender toward these men. Some of them wanted to kill him.
And they wound up selling him as a slave. You see, how could
he possibly get past all of that? because he understood something
that we have very little understanding of. All things are of God. So he says this three times,
God sent me. He could have said, you did it.
You wanted to kill me, didn't you? And you threw me in the
pit, didn't you? And then all of you together
said, let's just sell him. Didn't you? He didn't say any
of that. You say, but Jim, weren't their
hands dirty? I mean, weren't they involved
in all of this? Well, sure, they bore responsibility,
but Joseph looked on past what they did And he saw something,
and this really struck me, that I wish I could always remember
it. And if I could remember it, I'd never get frustrated or angry
with anybody ever again. I wouldn't have hard feelings
toward anybody ever again. I'd never hold a grudge ever
again. Here's what he understood. God
sent me. That's when we'll be a forgiving
people then. When somebody wrongs us, like
that fellow that cursed David. And his general said, I will
cut his head off right now. All you got to do is say the
word. And that'll be the end. He won't never curse you again,
I'll tell you that. David said, no, don't do that. He cursed me because God ordained
it. He didn't leave him alone. See, David understood that too. God sent that man to throw rocks at David and curse
his name. Joseph had a great understanding. He really believed all things
are of God. He didn't hold any animosity
toward his brothers. We'd be a more contented people,
all of us, if we'd remember and if God would truly impress this
upon our hearts. It's all of God. I tell you,
divine sovereignty and divine providence, that's two of the
most blessed truths you'll ever hear. Well, Joseph had been made Lord
of the land, in verse 8. Father to Pharaoh, Lord of the
house, ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. Notice this, right
there in verse 8. He didn't say, Pharaoh made me
Lord of his house and ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. He said,
God did. He doesn't attribute anything
to Pharaoh. Because you see, he understood
this. Pharaoh, he's just a pawn in
the hand of the Lord. A pawn, if you ever play chess,
have all these little guys up front, they're pawns. They're
kind of the, in a way, kind of insignificant,
though if you get playing chess, they do serve a purpose, but,
I mean, they're not a king, they're not a knight, they're not a bishop,
anything like that. They're not the queen, they're
just a pawn. Everybody's a pawn, and God moves
them according to his will. See, the Lord made Joseph the
ruler of the land. And he's going to be their provider. That's the next thing. Look at
verses 9-11, and I've got to go real quick. But he says, Haste
ye, go up to my father and say unto him, Thus saith thy son
Joseph, God has made me Lord of all Egypt. Come down unto
me, tarry not. And thou shalt dwell in the land
of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou and thy children,
thy children's children, thy flocks, thy herds, and all that
thou hast, and I'll take care of you." That's what Christ says
to us. I'm going to take care of you.
I'll nourish you. He says, but there are five more
years of famine yet. We're just two years into this.
Stay over there. See what you can do with the
famine. You come here and be with Me. I'll take care of you, and you
won't come to poverty. And he says this, here's another
thing, verse 13, he says, tell my Father of all my glory, And
that's our responsibility. What are we supposed to do? Tell
people the glory of Christ Jesus. Tell people who He is, what He
did, why He did it, where He is now. That's what we try to
do. Speak of His glory. The glory
of His person. The glory of His attributes.
The glory of His redemptive work. The glory of His intercessory
work. The glory of His sovereign rule
over all. The glory of the coming judgment. Joseph said, go speak of my glory. And then, verse 14, he fell upon
his brother Benjamin's neck, wept. Verse 15, he kissed all
his brethren. It doesn't say they kissed him,
he kissed them. I tell you what, This matter
of the love of the Lord for us is truly amazing. It's like the
father who ran out to embrace the prodigal son and kissed him. He kissed him. Well, then Pharaoh
learned, and I won't read it, but you can read verse 16 through
20 at your leisure. Pharaoh learned what happened,
and he is happy about it. And he says this, telling these brethren, look
at verse 20, he says, because he's going to tell them, hook
up your wagons. I'm going to load them down for
you. Take them back to your dad. And he says in verse 20, also
regard not your stuff. Man, we're really bad about regarding
our stuff, aren't we? Regard not your stuff, for the
good of all the land of Egypt is yours. And the Lord says to
us, don't regard your stuff. I've given you all things in
Christ. Every spiritual blessing in Him. The things of this world,
it's just stuff. That's all it is, just stuff.
Oh, what the Lord gives us. Everlasting. Everlasting. So Joseph provided abundantly
for them for their trip. That's verses 21 through 24.
But he says this at the end of verse 24, as he sends his brethren
away, he says this, last statement. See that you fall not out by
the way. Because brethren tend to do that.
They fall out with each other. Now don't you start this trip
back to Canaan and say, It was your fault. We wouldn't have sold him if
it wasn't for you. Well, you wanted to kill him.
He said, don't fall out on the way. Hey, everything's alright. Everything's alright. It's easy
to fall out with a brother or a sister. It's easy to get upset
with a brother or sister. They disappoint you or you disappoint
them. Don't fall out along the way. Rejoice in our great Joseph. So he sends his brethren on their
way, and here's the last thing I want to show you. Verses 25-27. They came up out of Egypt, came
to the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father, and told him, saying,
Joseph is yet alive. And he's governor of all the
land of Egypt. And Jacob's heart fainted. This
is too good to be true. He couldn't believe him. And
they told him all the words of Joseph which he had said unto
them. But when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry
him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived. Revived. And Israel said, I've called
Jacob now. He's called Israel, he's a prince
with God. He said, it's enough. It's the best news I've ever
heard, he said. Joseph, my son, is yet alive. I'll go and see
him before I die. And I'll tell you, What Christ
has provided for us, which is all spiritual blessings, that's
enough. Oh, my soul, that's enough. Hey, the angels of God, they
surround you. Listen to the birds sing in the
morning. I get up early, go out on the
back porch with a cup of coffee. I was out there before six this
morning. The birds were singing, and I
thought, thank you, Lord, for having those birds sing so I
can hear them and rejoice. All is well with the world. You
say, oh, it is such a mess. All things are under the sovereign
authority of God. Now just take it easy now. Don't get upset. It's easy for
us to get upset. I tell you, having Christ, we
have all things in Him.