Well, let's go back to the book
of Genesis again this evening. The book of Genesis. And we got
to the end of chapter 42 last week. Just to kind of bring you
up to speed on the historical narrative here, nine of the sons
of Jacob have come back from Egypt. Joseph accused all ten
of the sons who went, Joseph accused them of being spies,
and of course they didn't recognize Joseph, though he recognized
them. He said, you're just a bunch
of spies. They said, no, we're sons of
a man in Canaan. Joseph said unto them, still
disguised of course, he said, well if you're on the up and
up, if you're really being honest with me that you've got a younger,
your youngest brother is back home with your father, then you
fellows go back and take corn with you. But I want to see your
youngest brother, and that will be the evidence that you're telling
me the truth. And to make certain you come
back, I'm going to hold one of you here, and that would be Simeon."
And so the other nine sons of Jacob go back, they go back to
the land of Canaan. They go back to their father.
And now, verse 35 of chapter 42. I want to break into this
reading here. And I'm going to give you one,
two, three points to this message. And the first one is Jacob is
upset with his sons. Look at verse 35 of Genesis 42. And it came to pass as they emptied
their sacks, and behold, every man's bundle of money was in
his sack. You can't buy the mercy of God
or the blessings of God. They can't be purchased. Joseph
is a beautiful picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. And He dispenses
of His gifts absolutely freely. Like it says in the book of Hosea,
I will love them freely. And Romans chapter 3, we're justified
freely without a cause in us. You can't buy or bribe your way
into this salvation. It's fully gifted by God through
the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, Joseph puts the money
back in their bank, money that they had thought to pay for their
grain with. And actually, they did think
that they had bought the grain, but Joseph put the money back
in. So, it says, when both they and
their father saw the bundles of the money, they were afraid. their father said unto them,
Me ye have bereaved of my children, Joseph is not, and Simeon is
not, and ye will take Benjamin away. All these things are against
me. Jacob is very unhappy with the
circumstances he found himself in his life. And he proceeded to turn against
his sons. And he blamed them. He's not happy with the way things
are. And really, this is a sad commentary
on Jacob as pertaining to his view of the providence of God.
But he dared not verbally accuse God of doing wrong. So he strikes
out against somebody he can see. And he strikes out against his
sons. And Jacob, this is what he forgot,
and I certainly touched on this a little bit last week, but it
bears repeating. Jacob, he forgot that God will
either avert all evil from his people, Or, God Himself will
turn it to our advantage, make it work for our good. And all
of the lives of the children of God in your life, doesn't
matter what it is, no evil shall befall thee. and that which would
appear on the surface with the physical eye, that which appears
to be evil or hurtful or painful, God will in reality work that
for your good. And only a sovereign God who
governs all things totally Only that kind of God can do that.
Only He can make those things that are very unpleasant to work
together for the good, the overall good in the life of a child of
God. I would remind you that all of
the church of our Lord is now in the land of Canaan and the
family of Jacob with the exception of Joseph who is in Egypt. And here is the church of our
Lord. I don't know what the population
of the world was back in these days. I'm sure it can be looked
up. I didn't bother to do any searching
as to what the population of the world was. But I do know
this, the only ones who knew about God The only ones who knew
that salvation was by grace, the only ones who knew that the
only way to draw near to a holy God was by means of a bloody
sacrifice, the only ones to know that were these people in the
family of Jacob, and of course, Joseph, who is also of the family
of Jacob. And yet, here is the church of
our Lord in affliction. When you think about this, of
all the people in the world, this is the church. There's nobody
else. And it is a church in difficulty. It's a church in trial. Here
are people who are hurting because that famine that God sent, the
devil didn't send it. God sent the famine. It not only
affected the ungodly world, it affected the church too. It affected
the Lord's people. You remember in Revelation chapter
7, John sees all of these people, a multitude which no man can
number, and the question is raised, who are these? Well, these are
they that have washed their robes and made them white in the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, where'd they come from?
They came out of great tribulation. All of them. You say, I've had
tribulation, but I'm not having any right now. I'm thankful for
that. You will, because all of the Lord's people come out of
tribulation. Here is Jacob and all of his
sons and all of their families, because we know that there are
70 of them who will come out of Egypt, and that includes Joseph
and his wife and two sons. Altogether, this is the church
of our Lord. Seventy. That's all it is in
the whole world. And they came out of great affliction. but the Lord was with them, and
no matter what might befall you, O child of God, you must always
remember this is according to the purpose of God, the One who
cannot make any mistakes. And that which is best for us
in times of affliction is to focus on the very wine of the
Gospel. Remember what our Lord has done
for you in Christ and by Christ. He has established righteousness
for you. He has put all of your sins away. You're accepted by God in the
beloved, and you always will be. And yes, that grace that
God gave us, that justification, that sanctification that we enjoy,
it does affect the way we live. But I promise you this, the way
we live doesn't affect our justification or sanctification. Our standing
before God is sure because it is founded on the man Christ
Jesus, who is also God, who satisfied every demand of God and met all
of our needs, dying for us, arising for us, living for us, reigning
for us, and all things will work together for your good. The very key to having peace
in your heart in the midst of the circumstances of life that
may very well trouble you is to focus upon your covenant God,
and the salvation that is finished by our Lord Jesus Christ. So
here is the church of our Lord in a great affliction in tribulation. And Jacob lays the blame on his
sons. Now, we do not deny the reality
of bearing responsibility for our actions. We don't deny that. But though we are responsible
for all that we do, and certainly Jacob's sons, they were responsible
for what they did to Joseph. And some of them said, let's
kill him. And Reuben said, no, let's sell
him. They do bear responsibility, but over and above the responsibilities
of these sons, there's God's eternal purpose. And it's being
worked out, it's being fulfilled, notwithstanding the blunders
and the sinfulness of these sons. You see, I know that people in the health
and wealth religions of the world, they say things like, you know,
if you are saved, that'll be the end of your troubles.
You're going to have lots of money and have good health, live
long lives, you're not going to have any difficulties. You come to Jesus, your troubles
are over. Well, it has never been, it has
never been the purpose of God that His people avoid trouble
or elude tribulation. It's never been the purpose of
God. Rather, oft times, He takes us right into the teeth of the
storm. That's what He did with His disciples
on the on the Sea of Galilee, while our Lord Jesus was asleep,
He had that ship in which His disciples were also occupants,
passengers, He had that ship go exactly in the direction that
He was bringing an awful storm. Well, could he not have avoided
the storm? Of course he could. He could
have said, you know, told the ship's captain or whatever, go
another different direction, or more than that, he could have
said to the storm, don't come this way, go that way. But he
didn't. And they've got to sail right
into the very heart of the storm. But that's the direction he took
them. And when you find yourself in
the midst of a storm or a tribulation, just remember this. That's the
way the captain of the ship is steering you. And hey, you're going to have
some choppy waters. You're going to have some big
waves. The wind's going to be very, it's going to beat upon
your ship. But remember who is always with
you. That's what we remember. Well,
it was at this time, after Jacob had been upset with his sons,
blaming them for everything, it was at this time that Reuben
spoke up and said in verse 37, hey, you killed my two sons. if I don't bring Benjamin back
safely. Just let Benjamin go with me, and I promise you I'll
bring Benjamin back safely to you, Dad. And if I don't, hey,
you can kill my two sons." I'm sure those two sons said, thank
you very much for throwing us under the bus. And Jacob said, absolutely not. Absolutely not. And so, that
brings us to the end of verse 38, or to the end of the 42nd
chapter. And verse 38 says, and he said,
my son shall not go down with you, Reuben. Later, he will say
in chapter 49, he will speak of how unstable Reuben is. There's no stability there. He says, my son shall not go
down with you, for his brother is dead, and he is left alone. If mischief befall him by the
way in the which he go, then shall you bring down my gray
hairs with sorrow to the grave. He's saying this, you boys are
killing me. You're just killing me. That's the reasoning of the natural
man. It's all against me. Which brings
me to my second point this evening. Not only is Jacob upset with
his sons, but the second thing I want us to consider is Benjamin
had to go to Egypt. Well, time goes on. The famine continued until all
the grain that they brought back with them into the land of Canaan
from Egypt is nearly gone. So verse 1, the famine was sore
in the land. Verse 2, chapter 43, came to
pass when they had eaten up the corn which they had brought out
of Egypt, their father said to them, go again and buy us a little
food. And then Judah was there to remind
him of the situation. Judas spake unto him, saying,
The man did solemnly protest unto us, saying, Ye shall not
see my face, except your brother be with you. He says, If thou wilt send our brother
with us, we will go down and buy thee food. But if thou wilt
not send him, we will not go down. For the man said unto us,
Ye shall not see my face, except your brother be with you. Listen dad, if Benjamin doesn't
go into Egypt, don't you understand we're all going to starve to
death? And that includes Benjamin. The
sentence of death is on us unless Benjamin goes down into Egypt. And notice verse 6, and Israel
said, name change. Of course, his name had been
changed earlier, but usually Moses, who is the inspired writer,
the Lord led him in most cases to identify this man as Jacob. But now it's Israel. In other
words, he is now beginning to think more like a man who is
a prince with God. He's beginning to speak and to
think and to reason more like a man who has power with God. And Israel said, Wherefore dealt
ye so ill with me, as to tell the man whether he had yet a
brother? They said, Well, the man asked
us. He asked us straightly of our state and of our kindred,
saying, Is your father yet alive? Have ye another brother? And
we told him according to the tenor of these words. Could we
certainly know that He would say, bring your brother down?
How are we to know how He would respond to that? And notice as we continue reading,
And Judas said unto Israel his father, You send the lad with
me, and we will arise and go, that we may live and not die,
both we and thou, and also our little ones. Let me make this
note. Judah realizes that the lives
of the whole family were dependent upon Judah, upon Benjamin rather. He realizes that. And Judah presents
the situation as clearly as he could to his father. Here's the
bottom line, dad. Benjamin goes down, we live. Benjamin stays with us, we die. That's the situation. And Benjamin,
you see, is here a type of our Lord Jesus. He's a picture of
our Savior. Our Savior who must come down
if we're going to live. And I remind you that Egypt in
the Word of God often speaks of as a picture of the world.
If the Son of God doesn't come down, guess what? We die. There's no life. There's no bread
from heaven unless He comes down. If He comes down, all of His
people will live. But if He doesn't come, there's
no hope for us. You see, the existence and the
salvation and the continuation of the family of God has always
rested on the Son of God coming down from glory into this Egypt,
into this world to do the work of salvation. It's always rested
on Him coming down. He had to come down. If He doesn't make an appearance
in this world, He'll still be God. God will still be all that He
is in all of His attributes, but there won't be any salvation.
And of course that's an impossibility because God purposed this from
before the foundation of the world. Thank God our Lord Jesus
has come into the world. Now once in the end of the world,
we read in Hebrews chapter 9, He appeared to put away sin by
the sacrifice of Himself. As Benjamin had to appear in
Egypt, our Lord Jesus had to appear in this world. And in
His case, He must face death in order to save his brethren
from death. Everything was dependent upon
Christ. Hear me. Your salvation has never
been dependent on you. Never. It's always been dependent
totally upon the Savior of sinners, the Lord Jesus Christ. You remember
the words of a man by the name of Caiaphas in John chapter 11? The Sanhedrin met together and
this man, Caiaphas, he said, it's necessary that one man die
for the nation, that the whole nation perish not. And what he's
teaching is substitution. Though the scripture then says,
this spake he of the Spirit of God. He didn't even know what
he was saying. And from old eternity, God purposed
to send His Son down into this world to save His family. Judas says, Dad, Benjamin's got
to go into Egypt. You want to live, Dad? You want
all of us to live? He's got to go with me. If not,
We're all going to die. Which brings me to the third
point, the surety. And certainly this whole thing
is about the surety for Benjamin. Look at verse 9. Well, I'll read verse 8 again.
I'll read all of it. And Judah said unto Israel, his
father, send the lad with me. We will arise and go, that we
may live and not die, both we and thou, and also our little
ones. I'll be surety for him." Such a vital word in the Scriptures. Of my hand thou shalt require
him. If I bring him not unto thee
again, and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame forever. For except we had lingered, surely
now we had returned this second time." We should have got on
the move here several days ago. And their father Israel said
unto him, if it must be so now, do this. It's the only way. It says, take the best fruits
and the land in your vessels and carry down the man a present,
a little balm, a little honey, spices and myrrh, nuts and almonds. Take double the money. Still
thinks these things can be bought. Take double money in your hand
and the money that was brought again in the mouth of your sacks,
carry it again in your hand. Pert Venture was just an oversight. Take also your brother, and arise
and go again unto the man. And God Almighty, who appeared
to Abraham, who appeared to Isaac, and who appeared to Jacob, God
Almighty, give you mercy before the man, that he may send away
your other brother. And Benjamin, if I am bereaved
of my children, I am bereaved. I leave it all in the hands of
God. Surety. What is a surety? Webster's Dictionary defines
it this way, one who voluntarily commits himself or binds himself
to stand good for another person. It's one who makes himself personally
responsible for the safety of another person, or puts himself
under obligation to pay the indebtedness of someone else. The root word
of surety is, of course, the word sure, which means of certainty,
of a certainty. Judah is saying to his father,
I'll make sure, I'll make certain that Benjamin is kept safe. And
I promise you, my father, that you and your youngest son will
be reunited. And in pledge thereof, I promise that if I don't bring
him back safely to you, I'll bear the blame forever. Notice
this. This man, Judah, is a picture
of our Lord Jesus, who is our surety. I read to you there in
Hebrews chapter 7, He's the surety of the covenant of grace. He's
the surety of the elect people of God. God chose a people unto
salvation and our Lord Jesus received those people as a gift
and He pledged Himself to be surety for those people. I will
represent them. I will take care of them. All
of their indebtedness, look to Me to satisfy all of it. I bear full responsibility for
the salvation of, for the righteousness of, for the reconciliation, Father,
of all of Your children that You've chosen unto salvation. And if I don't bring them all
to You, holy and spotless and without blemish. May I bear the
blame forever." But that can never happen because he cannot
fail. Our Lord Jesus is the eternal
surety. In Judah's case, he had a two-fold
responsibility. And so does our Savior. Number
one, Judah has responsibility to his Father. First of all,
to His Father. He entered into a surety agreement,
not with Benjamin, but with Jacob, with Israel, with the Father. And in the covenant of grace,
our Lord Jesus entered into this eternal suretyship with the Father. He answers to the Father. The
Father commissioned Him what to do, and our Savior volunteered. He took this responsibility upon
Himself that He would fulfill the Father's will of redemption
and salvation. He put Himself under obligation
to the Father. Note the words again that Judah
used there in verse 9. Let me bear the blame forever. Our Lord Jesus in covenant grace
received the elect as a gift from the Father to make us righteous,
to save us, and this is what He puts on the line. I'll bear
the blame forever if I don't do it. And He'll bear the blame of the
Father Because this covenant, this contract, this binding agreement
in the everlasting covenant of grace between the Father and
the Son made with them our Savior, the Lord Jesus. He pledged to
the Father. He would do everything necessary
to bring all the children safely home to God. He promised to present
the entire church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. And He won't fail to bring all
of the sheep home to the fold. So He's responsible, first of
all, to the Father. But secondly, He is responsible
to Benjamin. Because Benjamin's safety, Benjamin's
welfare, now rested not upon Benjamin. Take care of yourself,
Benjamin. You're on your own now. No, you're
not on your own. You are fully the responsibility
of Judah. All the safekeeping, all the
preservation, all the provisions that Benjamin would need on this
journey, all the protection he would require, that all falls
upon the shoulders of Judah. He accepted this surety ship,
and he owes it to Benjamin. And our Lord Jesus is going to
take care of his people. He's going to take care of His
people. You know, Judah's name means praise. And our Lord Jesus
is going to receive the praise for saving all of the children
of God. You see, He will either receive
all of the praise for saving all of His Benjamins, or He's
going to get all the blame. And He'll get all the blame.
Praise. He pledged Himself. No wonder the psalmist quotes
the Father as saying in Psalm 89, I've laid help upon one who
is mighty. He is the mighty God. Let me
give you a few verses to look at and then we'll go home. Turn
to Proverbs, if you would. Proverbs chapter 6. Look at Proverbs
6. Just do a little word study on
the surety. Proverbs 6. Verses 1 and 2. Here are the
Proverbs of Solomon. Chapter 6, verse 1, My son, if
thou be surety for thy friend, If thou hast stricken thy hand
with a stranger, or the word with can also be translated for,
if thou hast stricken thy hand, you've shook hands with a superior
for a stranger, literally for an alien, then
thou art snared. And the word means you're trapped.
You're trapped with the words of thy mouth. Thou art taken
with the words of thy mouth. Judah did not offer these words
of being a surety for Benjamin lightly. Because when he offered
this to his father, he snared by his own words. You promised,
Judah. You gave your word. You pledged
that the safety of Benjamin rested solely upon you. And I'll tell you, our Lord Jesus, the salvation of our souls, our
eternal safety, it fell on Him because He took it on Him. You see, to a man of honor, this
is a willing, a suretyship is a willing and voluntary bondage. Judah, when he said, I'll be
surety for Benjamin, he's bound by his words. And I'll tell you,
there's nothing more binding than the everlasting covenant
of grace. That's why David said, this is
all my desire, it's all my salvation, is in the covenant of grace.
Look at another reference, Proverbs 11. Proverbs 11 and verse 15. Just a few pages over. He that
is surety for a stranger, and that's us because we're alienated
from God. That's what the word stranger
means. An alien, one who is alienated. He that is surety for a stranger
shall, he'll smart for it. He'll suffer for it. And he that
hateth suretyship is sure. Somebody who says, hey, I'm not
going to be surety for anybody. Well, you're in the clear. Because
you have no responsibility. That's what that means. He that
hateth suretyship is sure. He's fine. It's when you enter
into suretyship, that's when you're bound by your words. He that is surety for an alien,
he shall smart for it. And of course, this is an old
English word. Years ago it had, I know now
we use the word smarty, very intelligent person. But I've
even used the word, a lot of people use the word, you hit
your thumb with a hammer. Man, that smarts. That's smart. What does that mean? It hurts.
It's painful. And here's what Solomon is saying.
Somebody had become surety for a stranger, it's going to be
painful for him. And it was for our Lord Jesus.
He was wounded and bruised for our iniquities. He bore the very
pain of the wrath of God and then died under the wrath of
God to save his people from their sins. You see, Christ was our surety.
Which, by the way, not only means He's responsible for us, but
He's responsible for our debts. And we have a huge indebtedness
to divine justice. Proverbs 22. Proverbs chapter
22. Look at verse 26. Proverbs 22,
26, and 27. Be not thou one of them that
strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts. And here's the reason. If thou
hast nothing to pay, why should he take away thy bed from under
thee? You say you're going to be surety
for somebody, it means you've got to take care of their indebtedness.
Before you enter into that suretyship, you better make sure you're able
to pay their debts. Otherwise, the law is going to
come take everything you've got, even your bed. Do you have enough to pay? You
assume the debts of this person? Can you pay? When Ethan wanted
to buy a car, pay for it, make the payments and so forth, to
get him a better interest rate, I signed for it. And legally
signing for that, he signed and I signed. If he can't pay, Granddad's gonna have to pay.
So I had to make sure, hey, look at my finances here. Can I handle
this? I don't want them to come take
my bed. I don't want them to come take everything I got. Am
I going to be able to handle this on top of my other financial
responsibilities? And Nancy and I came to the conclusion,
the 100 and whatever $45 or $50 it was that he owes per month. We decide we can handle that
if need be. I sign. Our Lord Jesus, as it were, he
signed as our surety. I will pay all their indebtedness. Was he able to pay? Oh yes, he
paid to the fullest extent and he didn't become bankrupt in
the paying either. Not at all. It was a full payment. And what's more, he was glad
to pay. Because that's how much he loved
us. Our surety, he promised to faithfully
perform all that God required for the salvation of his people.
Because justice had to be maintained. That's something you don't hear
very many preachers talking about. You go listen to some of these
television preachers or radio preachers, they're not talking
about the justice of God. They don't know about it and
don't much care about it. But justice has got to be satisfied. That's the reason we say so often
God had to do something for Himself before He'd do something for
us. He had to satisfy His own justice. Our Lord Jesus was our
surety. He satisfied justice. He put
away our sins. He brought in everlasting righteousness. He quickened us from a spiritual
death. He resurrected us. He will raise
us up one day to glorification and perfection. And then He will
present all of us to the Father. See, this whole thing about Judah
is bringing Benjamin and the Father back together. And this whole thing with our
Lord Jesus Christ is all about bringing all of the Lord's Benjamins,
all of His people, and the Father back together. Restoration. So that our Savior will say in
the end, Behold, I and the brethren, I and the children, thou hast
given me. And as it says in John chapter
6, Christ said, this is the will of Him that sent me. Of all He
hath given me, I should lose nothing, but raise Him up at
the last day. And in the end, all of the Lord's
Benjamins will be raised up at the last day, perfect in Christ
Jesus, and all to the praise of the glory of the grace of
God. We have a surety for Benjamin.
Thank God we have a surety for us. We've satisfied God. And I'll tell you, I'm satisfied
with Him, aren't you? I won't know it. It's the only
salvation I want to preach about, I want to hear about, is this
salvation wherein the full responsibility rested on the mighty shoulders
of the Son of God. Let's close in prayer.