What is the providence of God? That's a word that used to be
frequently spoken from the pulpits of this great nation, but not
so much anymore. Some of the early fathers of
our country used to speak of and write of the providence of
God I don't think very many of them at all had a knowledge of
the gospel of God's saving grace, but they did at least give some
sort of lip service to divine providence. But very briefly,
it is the Lord working out all the time everything that He predestinated. That's what providence is. You
say, well, what did He predestinate? All things. So here's what divine
providence is. Every day, 24 hours every day,
our Lord is working out that which He purposed to do even
before He made this world. That which He ordained, His providence,
always brings to pass. And it always brings to pass
that which He has purposed exactly, I would say precisely, the way
that the Lord ordained it. And so we read in Ephesians chapter
1 that He worketh all things after the counsel of His own
will. I'm sure there in John chapter
5, and I made mention of this passage of Scripture this last
Lord's Day, when our Savior said, My Father worketh and I work
hitherto. When He's speaking about the
Father working, He's working in bringing to pass all of His
decrees. Everything that God has purposed.
And that is divine providence. It is God I started to use the
word simply, but there's nothing simple about it. But to simply
state it, it is God directing everything to the end, to the
goal that He has purposed for things to reach. And in the story
of Joseph, We see a very clear passage of Scripture which sets
forth divine providence. The Lord ordained that Joseph
would sit as governor of Egypt. And that even his own family
would bow down before him and do obeisance unto him. The Lord
ordained that Joseph would be the deliverer. He would be the
Savior, in a sense, of all men, because He's the one who would
be in charge of filling the granaries of Egypt. But especially, He
would be the preserver of His own family. And Joseph, you see,
was not content to merely take care of himself. His goal, after
He is exalted to the head of Egypt in second position to Pharaoh,
His goal was all along to bring all of His family to Himself.
And you know, that's the goal of our Lord Jesus. He's been
exalted because he finished the work that God gave him to do,
the work of redemption, the work of reconciliation, the work of
putting away our sins. He finished that and his goal
is this, to bring us all, all of his true Israel, all of his
family, his goal is to bring us all unto himself. Joseph was not content to merely
have deliverance for himself and food for himself. He said
in his own mind and heart, I must have all of my family with me. And that's what Christ said.
Even before the world began. And though in this life all of
God's people struggle, and we have bouts of unbelief and doubt
and fear, make no mistake about it, that which God has purposed
for you and for me, even for you people who are having a lack
of assurance, who lack faith sometimes, He has ordained that
you will be with Him one day in glory. That's what our Lord
prayed in John chapter 17 in His high priestly prayer. He
said, Father, I will. I will. This is My will. We can't pray like that. We can
say, Lord, if it's Your will, and Lord, bring my will in conformity
to Your will." But we can't will anything. We can't decree anything. We can't ordain anything. But
He did. He's speaking as the triumphant
Son of God. He said, Father, I will that
those whom Thou hast given Me be with Me. Be with Me where
I am. that they may behold my glory
which you gave me, for you loved me before the foundation of the
world." And you see, this is the attitude of Joseph. Oh, he's
going to feed a bunch of people, but he has a special, he has
a love for, he has a desire for the deliverance of his family. And that's the way it is with
our Lord Jesus Christ. The picture is very clear. Yes,
there were those servants who went before Joseph's chariot
saying to everybody, bow the knee! Bow the knee to Joseph! Bow the knee! And preachers of
the Gospel go before our Lord Jesus. Tell you what, before
He visits you in grace, He will visit you with one of His preachers who will tell you the truth about
Christ. And they'll all say, bow the
knee. God made Him Lord. Submit to
Him. Bow to Him. Worship Him. Adore
Him. Christ the Lord. So, here we
see the providence of God in the life of Joseph, even as we
see it in the life and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Go
back with me to Genesis 37. Let me remind you of a couple
of things. Go back to chapter 37. Look at
verse 5. This is the very beginning of
the history or the revelation of the history of Joseph. Chapter 37, verse 5, And Joseph
dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren, and they hated
him yet the more. Now, back in those days, it was
not unusual for God to speak to people through visions and
dreams. In fact, hold your place there.
Look at Job 33. Let me just read this passage
to you. And I want you to turn over there
if you would. Job chapter 33. The Word of God
was not yet written. Especially Job, which a good
many commentators believe it's the oldest book in the Word of
God. And here's what we read in Job
chapter 33. Look at verse 14. For God speaketh once, yea, twice,
yet man perceiveth it not in a dream. God speaks in a dream. And He says, in a vision of the
night. And watch this, even when deep
sleep falleth upon men. Deep sleep. That's when you lose
all consciousness of everything that's going on, and God would
then speak to men through means of a dream. This is what He did
with Joseph. Joseph was asleep in a deep sleep. It's like the conscious world,
all consciousness of the world and the things going on, they
were locked out. This is a deep sleep. And God
spoke to him through a dream. And you can go through the Old
Testament. Frequently the Lord spoke to people in dreams. In
fact, even as late as Acts the second chapter. Peter quoting
Joel, the prophecy of Joel, said, your old men shall see visions
and dream dreams. God was still speaking to people
that way. The New Testament had not even
been written yet. But then we read in Hebrews 1, God spoke in many times and in
many ages, in the past to the prophets of God. But in this
last age, He's spoken unto us by His Son. He speaks to us through
Christ, who is the living Word. He is the incarnate Word. And God speaks to us now through
the written Word. So it wasn't unusual for God
to speak in dreams. Go back, I hope you kept your
place there in Genesis 37. Go back to Genesis 37 then. And so Joseph dreamed a dream. God gave it to him. God spoke
to him. He's in a deep slumber. He told
it to his brethren. And when he told it to his brethren,
well, they hated him all the more. And he said to them, Here, I
pray you, this dream which I have dreamed." Look at verse 7, "'For
behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheave
arose and also stood upright. And behold, your sheaves stood
round about and made obeisance to my sheave.'" Verse 8, "'And
his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? Or
shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated Him yet
the more for His dreams and for His words. The fact that He would
reign over them, they hated those words. That's what they hated
about our Lord Jesus. That He would reign over men,
that's what they despised about Him. And so they said, we will
not have this man reign over us. Not this man. Not this despised
Galilean. Not Jesus of Nazareth. We will not have this man to
reign over us. But he reigns anyway. Because
God has made him both Lord and Christ forever. Well, verse 9. And he dreamed yet another dream
and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed
a dream more, and behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven
stars made obeisance to me. And he told his father and to
his brethren, And his father rebuked him and said to him,
What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy
mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to
thee, to the earth? And his brethren envied him. And his father observed the saying. He kind of filed that in his
memory banks. And that which Joseph dreamed,
well, it came to pass. Because we read, go back over
now to chapter 42 and verse 6, and Joseph was the
governor over the land, and He it was that sold to all the people
of the land. And Joseph's brethren, they came
and bowed themselves before Him with their faces to the earth."
The dream is fulfilled. And later we will read that they
did obeisance to Him. They honored Him when they bowed
before Him. Now, as we view the circumstances
of Joseph, and there in chapter 37, he's 17 years old. And he
tells us that he's going to be exalted. If we did not have the Word of
God to know how all of this turns out, we would be scratching our
heads and saying, how is this all going to come to pass? We
do have the Word of God. We do know how it will all come
to pass. But he didn't know. He didn't
know. And you don't know what a day
may bring forth. You don't know how God will fulfill
all of these things in your life and bring you finally to the
end of the road which is at the very throne of Christ Jesus.
You know you're going there. You know you're going to meet
Him. You know you're going to be with Him. But between here
and there, you don't have a clue how the path is going to go.
You don't know how the road is going to wind. You just don't
know. You're not privy to that information. And it's a good thing we're not.
Therefore, the Word of God says we must walk by faith, not by
sight. Now hear me. There's only been
one man who not only knew when he would die, how he would die,
the reason that he would die, but he also knew every step of
the way unto his death that would happen at Mount Calvary. And
that's the perfect man, Christ Jesus. He knew everything that
would unfold in his life. He knew all the turns that the
providence of God would direct his path. because He Himself
was the One who predestinated all things concerning Himself. And He never flinched. He bowed
to the will of God. And the Lord took Him all the
way to the cross of Calvary where He paid the indebtedness of His
people And then having finished the work of redemption, he bowed
his head and gave up the ghost. And his soul went back to God.
Three days later, his soul rejoined his body. He's the exalted Lord
of all. As for you and me, God doesn't reveal to us the
means by which He will fulfill His purpose for us. Like I said,
we know His purpose for us is everlasting glory, right? His purpose for us is everlasting
joy. His purpose for us is to be with
Christ, which Paul says is far better. We know all of those
things. But He doesn't reveal to us the
route that we will take. I was looking again today. There's
a lovely passage of Scripture in Acts 27. And I want you to
turn here with me. I should have given you the title
of the message, Joseph and His Brethren is the title of the
message. And after I worked on this for
a while, I realized I'm not going to finish this tonight, so we'll
just call this part one, Joseph and His Brethren. But there's
a wonderful portion of Scripture here in Acts chapter 27, and
very simply, it's the Apostle Paul, and he's going to Rome. The Lord has already assured
him that he would stand before Caesar. He would preach the gospel
in Rome. No doubt about that. So they're
out on a ship. In fact, there's a bunch of people. 276 sailors, soldiers, and prisoners. They're sailing for Rome. And
a big storm comes up. Luke, the inspired writer, calls
it a uroclodon, which simply means a violent, a suddenly violent
storm. The wind coming out of the southeast
scared them all to death. It was a terrible storm. And
yet, in the midst of the storm, there's one man who remained
quite calm, and it was the apostle Paul. And he says this to the men on
board. Now look at chapter 27, verse
22. I want you to read this with
me, okay? Acts 27, 22. You read silently. He says, now I exhort you to
be of good cheer. In the midst of a urocladon,
a violent storm, just tossing that wooden ship, most likely
like a grain carrier, large enough to accommodate 276 people. He says, I exhort you to be of
good cheer for there shall be no loss of any man's life among
you but of the ship. But of the ship. The ship is
destined to be destroyed on this voyage. But there won't be any
loss of life. Well, how do you know that? Look
at verse 23. For there stood by me this night
the angel of God, the messenger of God, the messenger of the
covenant. I take this to be the Lord Jesus
Christ. And if you listen to the message
this past Sunday night, like Gabriel, the man who stands in
the presence of God. For there stood by me this night
the angel of God, whose I am. I belong to him. He bought me
with his blood. and whom I serve, who said to
me, fear not, Paul, thou must be brought before Caesar, and
lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee. Verse 25,
wherefore, sirs, and I say, wherefore, sirs, Ladies
and gentlemen, I'll say. Wherefore, ladies and gentlemen,
be of good cheer, for I believe, God, that it shall be even as it was
told me. O children of the Lord, Maybe you're going through a
Euroclodon. A violent storm. And I'll tell you, your vessel,
this body may not survive it. It may not survive it. But be of good cheer. For I believe God It shall be even as it was told
me." Albeit, verse 26, we must be
cast upon a certain island. We're going to get grounded,
and then the back of the ship is going to start to fall apart,
be destroyed. But here's what Paul says to
the centurion and to all of them in verse 31. And I'll say this
to all the people of God. Paul said to the centurion and
to the soldiers, except these abide in the ship, he cannot
be saved. There's no one who will bail
out of the good ship of grace. None of us will lose that salvation
we have in Christ Jesus. Having said that, I also know
this, true faith perseveres. Real faith doesn't quit. Don't
leave the ship. I don't care how bad the storm
gets. Grace always. Christ only. He's our only hope. He's our only place of safety. I'll tell you, I believe God
that it shall be even as He has promised, don't you? I do believe
that. And like all of these 276 people
on board, though the vessel in which you
are traveling is destined to fail, the body that is, this
tabernacle, all who are in Christ Jesus by
divine appointment, by sovereign grace, By full redemption,
by the new birth, we shall all safely reach the distant shore. Isn't that wonderful? We'll make
it. Hang in there, brother. Hang
in there, sister. Oh, but the waves are so high. The thunder, the lightning. Oh,
Jim, you don't understand it. I'm in a Heraclodon. Who sends
the Heraclodon? The Lord Himself. He's the governor
of the storms. And He who causes the storms
can just as easily, if He's pleased to do it, say to the winds and
the waves, Be still. That'll be the end
of that storm. But I'll guarantee you, another
one will follow. Another one will follow. So, here we find back over here
in Genesis, the family of Joseph, they're in a storm. It's called
a famine. Tough time. None of us have really, we've
never been through a famine. Always had plenty to eat. Maybe
there were times when you were growing up, you didn't have everything
that you wanted to eat, you didn't have the various kinds of foods
you would prefer, I remember hearing my grandparents and Nancy's mother and dad and
my mom and dad speaking about growing up during the Great Depression. Nancy's dad, he lived out on
a farm and they still had cows and pigs and chickens and had
gardens and that sort of thing and some of y'all may have lived
out in the country like that as well. But Nancy's mother,
Nancy's mother living in Baltimore, she said about all we had was
beans and potatoes and we'd have beans and potatoes for breakfast
and potatoes and beans for supper. They didn't have everything they
wanted but they had some need. We don't know anything about
a famine. But I will tell you this, this was a real famine here.
And I'll tell you, this famine to me, it pictures sin. The famine pictures sin. And
I know it says concerning this famine, It was all over the face
of the earth just like sin. You say, well, God didn't cause
Adam to sin. No. Adam did what he wanted to
do. However, God is the first cause of all
things. Now that's just a fact. And you
can have difficulty with that, or you can just believe it and
embrace and believe what you can't comprehend. The Lord's
hands aren't dirty, but He could have stopped it
had He wanted to. Adam was not more powerful than
God. And for the reason that the restoration
of people would bring the greatest glory to God, the Lord ordained
in His eternal purpose that sin enter into the world. Because while He's glorified
in creation, indeed, and glorified in providence, no question about
that, His greatest glory is the salvation of sinners by His grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. And so a famine
came into this world. And we are consequently without
God, without Christ, without hope. Without Christ means without
bread. That's the worst kind of famine
there is. Without the Savior. And yet, though the famine was
absolutely horrible, God would use it to force his people to come to
Joseph, which was God's purpose all along. And you see, sin,
though it is a spiritual famine, it's terrible and it's deadly. Yet God uses even that to disturb His people by the
power of His Spirit. and they come to Christ who is
the bread of life. And I'll tell you something else. The first thing is that God sent
the famine. The second thing is God caused Jacob and his family,
and here's some good news. Look at chapter 42, verse 1.
And when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said
to his sons, why do you look one upon another? What are you
waiting on? Why are you standing around here idle? Let's get with
it, boys. We don't have to die. There's
food over in Egypt. Look at verse 2. He said, Behold,
I have heard. Somebody gave him some good news. Somebody gave him some good news.
I have heard. Oh, but how shall they hear without
a preacher? Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the Word of God. I have heard there's corn in
Egypt. I have heard there's salvation in Christ. You heard that good
news, didn't you? Good news of the substitutionary
satisfaction of Jesus Christ for sinners. He satisfied God's
justice. He died instead of His people.
It's good news for people who are famished. Oh, that God would
make people famished for the bread of life. Oh, hunger. Blessed are those that hunger
and thirst after righteousness. You know what the promise is?
they shall be filled. They're going to get some bread.
They're going to get some water of life. Thirdly, God moved upon their
hearts to go. That's what Jacob said. Why do you look one upon another? Don't stand there thinking, what
in the world are we going to do? He said, get you down feathered!
Go now! Boy, that's what I say to you.
That's what I say to me. That's what I say to you who
are watching tonight. Run to Christ now! Go now! Well, I don't think I feel my
sin enough. You never will feel the total
weight of your awful sinfulness and depravity. What are you waiting
on? Let not conscience make you linger,
nor a fitness fondly dream. All the fitness He requires is
to fill your need of Him. Do you need Him? I need Him. And I need to hear about Him
every single message. I had a gentleman stop by and
talk to me yesterday. He's getting on up in years.
He said, I love the way you preach the Gospel and you're always
pointing us to Christ. He said, I watch all the time. And I say to you, go to Joseph. Go to a greater than Joseph,
even our Lord Jesus. God moved upon their hearts to
go. And they did. They did. They moved. Because
you see, even Pharaoh, Pharaoh said in verse 55 of chapter 41,
When all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to
Pharaoh for bread. And Pharaoh said unto all the
Egyptians, Go unto Joseph. That's what I say to you. Go
to Christ. And then here's the last thing,
and I'll quit and we'll kind of pick up with this next Wednesday.
In verse 7, here's the fourth thing I want to show you. God
brought a famine. God called His family to hear
some good news. God moved upon their hearts to
go to Egypt, to go to Joseph. And number 4, Joseph knew them,
but they didn't know Him. Verse 7. Joseph saw his brethren. I tell you, it's the look of
love. It's the look of love. He saw
his brethren. And he knew them. But he made himself strange to
them. Spoke roughly to them. The Lord
speaks roughly to us. Tells us we're sinners. Ungodly. Enemies. That's too rough! Oh, you need to hear it. You
need to hear your neediness. He knew them, but they didn't
know Him. You know what Scripture says
in 2 Timothy? The Lord knoweth them that are
His. This is a knowledge of love. That's what this is. That's what
foreknowledge is. Love ahead of time. Love before
time began. The Lord said to Israel, you
only have I known of all the families of the earth. And so concerning His people,
the Savior said, My sheep hear my voice, and I, what's the next
word? Know them. I know them. And they follow me. Oh, how blessed it is to be known
of the Lord. And before we knew Him, He knew us. To the wicked, however, he will
say in the last day, depart from me. I never knew you. Oh, don't want to hear those
words. Never knew you. Because I'll tell you something,
if he ever knew you, he'll know you forever. That's his grace.