Here's the title of the message
that I have given to these few comments that I'm going to make
to you tonight. Joseph, and it's about predestination
and providence. Predestination and providence. Or purpose and performance. Purpose and performance. Predestination
and providence. As we get into the message, there
are two very important things that we would do well to remember
in our study of the life of this man, Joseph. Number one, the
Spirit of God has so set forth the life of this man, this one
of the sons of Jacob. The Spirit of God has so set
forth his life in such a way that he's a picture of our dear
Savior. And I would venture to say this,
and of course I'm not alone, there are many who would agree
with this, and I'm just repeating what many commentators have said. He's probably the best picture
type of our Lord Jesus in all of the Word of God. The Lord
brought Joseph down to Egypt. He brought him down. Egypt is
always a picture of the world in the Scriptures. Pharaoh is
always a picture of the evil one, the devil. So the Lord brought
Joseph down into Egypt. But he did that to ultimately
rescue his people and save them from the famine. And then under
the leadership of Joseph, Israel began to be a great nation. Even
so, our Lord Jesus, He came down. He was sent down by the Father
to do a work of grace, a work of mercy, to perform the work
of redemption, and to make a great nation, to bring a great nation
to a state of justification before God. because the work that our
Lord Jesus did was not an effort to save. He did save. He did
rescue His people. He did justify us. In fact, in
Romans chapter 4, we read that He was raised again, and here's
the reason, because of our justification, because He justified us by His
death. He made us righteous. Daniel
says in Daniel chapter 9, he talks about putting sins away
and he talks about bringing in everlasting righteousness. How
did he do that? By his obedience unto death,
even the death of the cross of Calvary. The Lord is going to
use Joseph to save many people alive. In fact, look over a little
further, and we'll get into this more fully in the next few weeks. Look in chapter 45 and verse
7. When Joseph makes himself known
to his brethren, chapter 45 and verse 7, he says this to them. God sent me before you to preserve
you, that is to save you, to deliver you, to preserve you
a posterity in the earth and to save your lives by great deliverance. Joseph says this to his brethren. His brethren, they're worried
about, you know, there's going to be vengeance on Joseph's part. He's going to get even. He's
going to get even with us because now we realize that he's the
top dog in Egypt. But Joseph said, God sent me. Oh, you were used of God. God
used their envy, God used their malice to work together for the
good of Joseph and actually to work together for their own good,
though they didn't realize it. And even as our Lord Jesus He
used, God used the envy and the jealousy and even the hatred
of the Jewish people against the Lord Jesus. He used those
things to bring to pass that which God had ordained to happen,
even the death of His Son. And I made this statement before
people say, well, I pray that the Lord will use me. He will
use you. He uses everybody. Everything
is under His dominion. And everything will fulfill the
purpose for which it was created. And though, like Joseph's brethren,
we have mistreated the Lord Jesus, rejected Him and crucified Him
when He came. All of that was ordained of God
too. It's all according to the purpose
of God. And we rejoice in that. You can
read in Acts chapter 2 and again in Acts chapter 4 how that God
brought all of the enemies of the Son of God together to do
what they wanted to do. We must understand that Herod,
Pontius Pilate, the Jews, the Romans, they all did what they
wanted to do. They fulfilled their will. But
in fulfilling their will, little did they realize they were fulfilling
God's eternal will. This is what God had ordained.
The death of the Lord Jesus was not an accident. It wasn't left
into the hands of these ruthless people. His death wasn't left
into the hands of the self-righteous religionists of the day. The
death of the Lord Jesus was purposed by God before He ever made the
world. When He entered into this world, it was to fulfill that
which God had determined, which God had predestinated ahead of
time. He died according to the will
of the Lord. And the Lord Jesus brings us
to Himself, just like Joseph brought his brethren finally
to Himself. And you know what He does? He
reveals Himself to us. The brethren of Joseph, they
didn't recognize Him. They didn't know Him. They stand
right in front of Him. And you know, we're always in
the presence of the Lord, but we don't recognize Him. We don't
see Him. Because there's a natural blindness
and inability. And we won't know Him. You won't
know Him. You won't know Him unless He
reveals Himself to you. I know in religion today, and
it has been this way with false religion all along, it's up to
your decision. That's not biblical. This is
not the hour of your decision. I hope and ask God it would be
the hour of revelation. That's what we need. We need
the Lord to reveal Himself to us. Reveal Yourself in all of
Your power, in all of Your grace, in all of Your mercy. Reveal
Yourself to me as the only Savior of sinners. As the Lord I need. As the one who is Lord indeed. So, the Holy Spirit, you see,
sets forth through the life of Joseph a beautiful picture of
our Lord Jesus. And as Joseph said very sweet
words to his brethren, to ease their fears, our Lord
Jesus said some mighty sweet things to his people. He says,
I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. He said to the woman caught in
adultery, neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. He said to another woman, thy
sins which are many are all forgiven. What sweet words. He says to
a leper, I will be thou clean. Our Lord always has very, very
kind and merciful words for His people. And so the Holy Spirit,
and there are two things here in this introduction that I want
to bring before you. The Holy Spirit sits before us
through the life of Joseph, a beautiful picture of our dear Savior. The Spirit of God teaches us
these double truths of predestination and providence. Words that you
have no fear of. I know some people really have.
They get all choked up on predestination. They can't hardly get it out
of their mouth. They choke on it. I don't choke on it. It's a beautiful word, predestination. Predestination is merely God
marking out a destiny ahead of time. That's what predestination
is. People say, I don't believe in
predestination. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. I beg to differ with that. And
I've used this sort of illustration before. You make plans for your
day. You've probably already made
some plans for tomorrow. That's your predestinating. You
are ahead of time determining that which you intend to do tomorrow. For me, I intend to get up, prepare
breakfast, have a nice breakfast. That's my plan. And then I plan
to make two visits down at the hospital and go by the nursing
home and make a visit. And then my plan is to go to
grocery store and get some groceries that my other half has ordered
me to go and get, or asked me to go and get. That's my plans. So I have, you see, predestinated
my day. We're having David and Suzanne
over for dinner tomorrow evening, so I've predestinated that. I've
got to go buy some food for that. I've got my day planned out.
And many of you do as well. But you see, all of my plans
may not come to fulfillment. I might get up in the morning
I get my breakfast and shower and shave and all that kind of
stuff, put my clothes on. Okay, honey, see, I'm going down
to the hospital to go out and have a flat tire. Oh, man. I don't have foresight to know
that. So that will interfere with my
plan. Or you say, well, you got two
vans, don't you? Yeah, I can get in the other one if it don't
crank. There are things that can happen over which we have
no power. We have no control. Things will
occur in your life tomorrow. You say, well, I intend to do
this, that or something else. But we know there are lots of
things that can interfere with what we intend to do. So we are
all predestinarians. Ahead of time, we determine our
destiny as best we can. But we don't have forethought. We don't have the ability to
use unusual wisdom. And we certainly don't know what
the end of the day is going to bring, much less the beginning
of the day. But you see, our God, He predestinated
all things before the world began, but with the Lord, there are
no unforeseen events. There's nothing to interfere
with what He's determined to do. Because not only does he
know the end from the beginning, the fact is he knows the end
from the beginning because he ordained the end from the beginning. So nothing takes him by surprise.
That's predestination. And anybody who says to you,
when you're talking about the subject of predestination, and
they say to you, I just don't believe, I don't believe that
doctrine of predestination. You can get them on that. And
a lot of people will say, not only do they not believe it,
they say, I don't understand it. I beg to differ on that.
They do understand, they just don't believe it. You see, there are a lot of truths
in the Bible that people say, I don't understand that. I beg
to differ with you. You do understand you just don't
believe the Word of God. That's the problem. It's a lack
of faith. It's a lack of bowing to the
Word of God. God has predestinated all things. He has already ahead of time
determined everything. Those of you who've been under
the sound of the Gospel for a lot of years, most all of us can
quote Romans 8.28, and we know that all things work together
for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according
to His purpose. Well, let me ask you this. And
those of you who are watching, let me ask you this. How do you
know, you who are the children of God, how can you be certain
that all things will work together for your good? How can you be
certain of that? And you respond by saying, well,
Jim, I believe the Lord when He says all things. Yeah, me
too. Me too. But the reason we can
be absolutely certain that all things will work together for
the good of them that love God, for them who are the called according
to His purpose, is because the God who predestinated all things
will bring all things to pass. Right there is our comfort. But
now, if you're one of those who say, well, God doesn't determine
all things. Well then, pray tell me how can
He give us the promise that all things will work together for
the good of God's people? Joseph's brothers envied him. They were ready to kill him. And then Reuben said, no, let's
sell him. And while they were kind of mulling
that over, the Ishmaelites took Joseph out of a pit, and they
took him, they did sell him into slavery, and he wound up in the
household of Potiphar, who was a ruler over a bunch
of soldiers under the authority of Pharaoh. I said, boy, it was lucky he
got in that house. Oh, that luck didn't have anything
to do with it. That's predestination. That happened according to the
purpose of God. And here's what I want you to
see also, and of course the rest of the life of Joseph, that which
God predestinated. Now, let's take the life of Joseph.
We know God gave him those two dreams to begin with back in
chapter 37. And Joseph told his family, he
said, you're all going to bow down to me. And they said, oh,
us bow down to you? You've got to be kidding. And
when Jacob heard that, he said, you mean, you think I'm going
to bow down to you? And then you get toward the end
of the book over here, they're all bowing down. See, to begin with, in that first,
in the dreams of Joseph, there we see predestination. And then,
there's the purpose of predestination, and then begins the process of
divine providence. What is divine providence? God
bringing to fulfillment that which He predestinated. That's
what providence is. Here's a delightful passage.
Look in Psalm 57. Look at Psalm 57. See, the Lord sent Joseph into
Egypt for the benefit of his people. Even as our God sent the Lord
Jesus into this Egypt, this world. for the benefit of His people
to save many people alive, to redeem us, to justify us, to
make us righteous before God. I'll tell you, when troubles
come your way, and all the people of God have troubles. I know
they're to a different degree. They may be physical problems,
they may be injuries, or it could be disease, sickness. all kinds of troubles that the
people of God are called upon to encounter. But when these
things do happen, nothing is more of a comfort to the people
of God, more helpful than the knowledge of God's all-wise,
good, unerring providence. God directing all things to the
end that He's predestinated. Look at Psalm 57. And I'll just
read, and we mustn't ignore these little words underneath Psalm
57 where it says, "...to the cheap musician outtasketh." Which
means, Destroy not. There are four of those Psalms.
They're called Alpaskan Psalms, which means destroy not. And
there are Mictum Psalms. Mictum comes from a word which
means gold, or that which is very precious. So this is a golden
psalm. and it is an outasketh mictum
of David. And then we're actually given
a little bit of information about the circumstances under which
he wrote this psalm. It's when he fled from Saul in
the cave, when he's running for his life. Here's a man who is
in physical danger. And Saul, he's
hunting him like a deer. Like a hunter would go after
a deer. I mean, he's out for his life. And so he says this, Psalm 57
verse 1, David says, Be merciful unto me, O God. Be merciful unto
me. O my soul, trusteth in thee. Watch it. Yea, in the shadow
of thy wings will I make my refuge. Now, he hid in a cave. And he goes in there. You see,
it is our responsibility to do what we can do. David didn't
just say, well, I know the Lord's going to be with me, so I'll
just stand out here in the open. No, he has a responsibility to
do what he knows in his heart to do. He hides in a cave. But
he also knows this, really, look at the last words of verse 1,
in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge. That cave is
really my refuge. It's under the shadow of the
wings of the Lord. That's where I find my refuge
until these calamities be overpassed. We do what we can do. knowing that ultimately, our
safety is in the hands of the Lord. Isn't that right? The same One who predestinated
the life and death of His Son, He's predestinated the life and
the death and the future of all of His sons that are adopted
into His family. Look at verse 2. He says, I will
cry unto God Most High. He believed predestination and
he also believed divine providence. But it didn't keep him from prayer.
It didn't keep him from praying. Somebody who says to me, you
know, I believe in predestination and the providence of God, so
I don't even bother to pray. You don't know the God of the
Bible. You don't even know Him. Because one of the things that
all of the Lord's children do is out to the Father. We ask the Father for mercy. He says, I will cry unto God,
Most High. I recognize He's the Most High
God. That's why I pray to Him. There's
somebody who can help, but He's got to be Most High. Now, He
can't be somebody who needs help. I don't pray, Lord, would you
assist me on this? Would you help me save myself? We just happened to think about
Nancy and I out on the road today. I took her somewhere. I said,
did you see that sign on that church? And from the church it
says, Thank Jesus for giving eternal life. Thank Jesus for
giving eternal life. So that's interesting. They put
that up there because they don't believe in the security of the
believer. What they ought to do is put
up there, I'm thankful that I chose the Lord and I'm thankful I'm
holding out to the end. If they'd be honest, Our God's most high. And if your
God, the God you worship, if He's not the most high God, you've
got the wrong God. And there are lots and lots,
scores, millions of people who have the wrong God because He's
not most high. There's nobody higher than God.
There's God and He rules over all. Nebuchadnezzar, a heathen
king. He learned this the hard way.
God made him a beast of the field after eating grass like the cows. And all of his fingernails grew
like bird's claws. Make me easier to teach than
that. I don't want you to have to bring
me to that. But whatever it takes to teach me, you are God Most
High. And the Scripture says, then
his understanding returned to him. God gave him understanding.
He said, I praised and blessed the God who is over all. The
armies of heaven, they're under his control. The inhabitants
of the earth, they're under his control and nobody can stay his
hand. Nobody can stop God from doing
what he purposes to do. What audacity that men in their
wretched so-called free will, they think they can stop or frustrate
or hinder the purpose of the Most High God. That's absolutely
ludicrous. That's stupid. Just foolishness. David says, I'll cry to the Most
High. You go ahead and cry to your God who needs help. I'll
cry to the Most High God. And here's the statement. Watch
this. Unto God that performeth all
things for me. You know what that is? That's
divine providence. That's what that is. The God
who performs all things. He predestinates all things.
And He is the one who's performing all things. The phrase is accurately translated,
God performs all things for me. All things in grace, He performs
them all for me. For all of His children. You
see, David, he's inside a cave, and it's like King Saul and the
rest of his army, they're like dogs barking after him. And yet
here David says, I cry to God Most High, unto God who performs
all things for me. Here I am in this cave, and I
believe God's performing all things for me. I believe everything
He's doing is working out for my good. Do you believe that? Sometimes we don't act like it,
do we? He performeth all things for
me. And this phrase also might be accurately translated that
this God, He is the one who finishes all things for me. It's the idea
of finishing that which He started. He who hath begun a good work
in you, Philippians 1.6 will finish it, perfect it, to the
day of Jesus Christ. The life of the Lord's children,
our lives are governed by the Lord who's directing our life
to the end that He Himself has predestinated. He's predestinated
our end and He's bringing us along by His providential care. And we're so foolish as to fuss
about the way He goes about bringing about His purpose. It's a good
thing the Lord has mercy on us. And it could also be interpreted
or translated this way unto Him, who will perfect, perfect that
which concerneth me. He'll bring it, to the very goal
that He Himself has set. You set goals in life. I taught our children growing
up and our grandchildren now. Set goals. Set good goals. Worthy goals. Set your sights
high. Well, the Lord has set a goal
for us. Now, as we set our earthly goals,
we may miss them. That's okay. Put forth 100% effort. It's okay if you miss them. God
has set forth his goals. Can he miss the goal? No. He will perfect those things
that do concern you. And the phrase could also be
accurately translated this way, Who fulfilleth all things for
me. He fulfills His covenant. He
fulfills His purpose. He fulfills His promises. I read something today that helped
me. As the believer waits, we may
rest assured the Lord works. As we wait. David's waiting in
a cave. What can you do? You just wait. That's all he could do is wait.
I hear him out there. I hear the enemy. I hear the
dogs barking. I hear the soldiers. I hear the
rattling of their swords and so forth and so on. And so here
I am, I wait. But rest assured, child of God,
while you wait, God works. Remember what our Lord Jesus
said to the Pharisees, and this just ticked them off in John
chapter 5. He said, my Father worketh hitherto,
and I work. Now He's finished the work of
redemption. There's no question about that, right? We know that's
finished. The work of reconciliation, that's
finished. The work of the removal of the
sins of His people, that's finished. But He's still working what is
at work called providence. as he goes toward the goal that
he himself set before the world began, and that's predestination. So you see, this is what we learn
from the life of Joseph. God predestinated where he's
going to wind up. And then we see God's divine
providence working it all out. And we just sit back in awe. Look at that! Isn't that amazing?
Then we'll get to even more of this next week as we look at
this passage. But I want to say to you, God's
not standing idly by. You know, preachers... Not God's
preachers, but false preachers kind of picture Him as leaning
over the banister of heaven thinking, where did I go wrong? I don't even remember when I
lost control. I sure wish I had it back. Well,
that's stupidity. That's just foolishness. He's doing His work. We wait. Israel at the Red Sea. You know what Moses said? Just wait. Stand still. Watch
God work. Watch God work. He will do His
work. You say, but Jim, How can I say with any degree
of confidence that God performs and perfects and He will bring
His purpose to pass? How can I say that? How can I
have confidence in that? Well, look what David continues
to say in verse 3. He shall sin from heaven and
save me while I wait. What's He doing? He'll send from
heaven. And He'll save me. He'll deliver me. He'll rescue
me from the reproach of them that would swallow me up. Selah. God shall send from heaven. He
sent His angels in the Old Testament, didn't He? Numerous times to
aid His people. He sent the angel of the covenant
to go before Israel, a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. He sent bread from heaven, didn't
He? The people were hungry. What
did God do? He didn't say, well, do the best
you can. He said, I'm going to send you bread baked in the ovens
of heaven. He called it angel's food. When Elijah was hungry, God said,
I'm going to send you, send the raven. Ravens will feed you. He sent His angels to comfort
the terrified shepherds. And He sent His Son. Watch, He
shall send from heaven. Who did He send? He sent His
Son. Send Him from heaven! to save, to redeem, to justify. He shall send from heaven and
save me from the reproach of Him that would swallow me up.
Well, with David, that would be King Saul. With us, it would
be Satan himself. He would just swallow us up.
But the Lord sent somebody from heaven to defeat Him, and He
did that by His death upon the cross of Calvary. And every day the Lord saves
us. He's delivering us. He's rescuing us. Certainly He
saved us in eternity past. He saved us at the cross. He
saved us when we were converted, when we were regenerated and
brought to repentance and faith, gifted with repentance and faith
by the Spirit of God. He continually saves us. He'll
save us one day and take us on to glory. And then there'll come
a day of resurrection and He'll raise these vile bodies and then
we'll be fully saved. I'll tell you, this is the right place
for the word Selah. Amen and amen forever and ever. Isn't that what you say? Look
at this again. He shall send from heaven. He
sent His Son. and save me from the reproach
of Him that would swallow me up, even Satan. Amen and amen
forever and ever, Lord. This is worthy of a great, great
pause. Meditation. We just read over
these words. That word Selah also has within
it. You just stop and you think a
little bit now. But there's something else here.
He says, God shall send forth His mercy and truth. Oh, that's
kind of like the clincher. He shall send forth His mercy
and truth. So often they're mentioned together. Psalm 16, 16, by mercy and truth,
iniquity is purged. And by the fear of the Lord,
men depart from evil. Psalm 85, 10, mercy and truth
are met together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other. See, mercy is always founded
with and linked to truth. There will be no mercy where
there is no truth. And where there is truth, there
will be mercy. They always go together. So we go back to Joseph. Let's
see if this passage in Psalm 57 fits Joseph. He will perfect
that. He will finish that, which concerns
me. And you know, I can understand,
though we don't read of Joseph belly aching or anything, but
I can understand Joseph, you know, he had his dream and then
years go by and even after the butler, he interprets his dream
and then two more years. I can understand how he could
get down in the dumps. I can understand that. Can't
you? To the reason I can understand
that and say, well, Joseph, don't worry about anything. Boy, I've
read the end of your story. But I can say to all of us, don't
worry about anything. Because He who predestinated
you to be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus, He who predestinated
you to be adopted into His family, He's directing all things in
your life to fulfill His purpose. He's working, my brother. He's
working, my sister. And I'll tell you what, we would
do well to wait and watch him work. Watch him work. He's all the time working. We're
just not paying much attention. That's the problem with us. Well,
we'll keep going with the story of Joel. I'll go back over in
a more fuller way this 41st chapter next Wednesday.