There's so many lessons for us
to learn from this story, and it's much more than a story,
but here's the first thing we can learn. The sovereign providence
and purpose of God Almighty in the life of Joseph. Oh, God's
providence, His sovereignty in it, the purpose of God in the
life of Joseph, bringing him to be a shepherd boy, Hebrew
shepherd boy. and then taking him into Egypt
and then raising him up to be on the throne and to have control
over everything in Egypt. And oh my, God ruled. Here's the thing about God. This
thing about His providence, God rules. That's what providence
means. It means to govern things. And God ruled and overruled all
events, all creatures. and all their actions, everything
that they did to accomplish His will and His purpose toward Joseph. I tell you, beloved, our Lord
Jesus Christ, God in His blessed sovereign providence, Raised
up the Lord Jesus Christ. Raised Him up to be ruler over
this world and everything that's in it. And He overrules all creatures,
all actions, and everything that happens in this world for His
elect and His elect only. And God's sovereignty was not
only over men, not only over all the men, but over the weather.
He controlled the weather. And he controlled the crops.
He controlled the heathen nations. And he even controlled men's
dreams. And gave them dreams that only
Joseph could interpret. And here's another thing too.
Oh, what a lesson here. The faithfulness of Joseph. The
faithfulness of Joseph. Oh, he loved God, he served God,
and he knew God. And he had the greatest trials. He had the greatest adversity
and he had the awfulest surroundings. And yet in all of those things,
Joseph walked with God. And he, in those trials and adversities
and things that went on in his life, God made him faithful,
gave him an abundance of grace. But he walked with God. And he
maintained a strong, strong testimony to truth. Strong testimony to
grace. And even he lived in a heathen
nation. A heathen nation. And Joseph
glorified God and blessed Him in all that he did. But this
story, it boils down to this, this is the long and short of
it. This entire story, as like in all the rest of the scripture,
is given to us to praise, honor, and bless our Lord Jesus Christ
and to reveal Him and His blessed and redemptive work. I read it
to you Sunday morning, when our Lord Jesus said, beginning at
Moses, and the prophets, and the Psalms. He opened their understanding
to the Scriptures, and all things concerning himself. He said,
these things speak about me. Ought not Christ to have suffered
to enter into His glory? So everything in this is about
our Lord Jesus Christ. And during the seven years of
famine, Joseph had rule over... Pharaoh said, you take care of
the crops, You take care of what necessary to be done. And Joseph
supervised all the crops, and he filled the storehouses, filled
them up. And when that famine, when that
famine came over the land, it says that Joseph opened the storehouses. Look what it said, ain't that
what it says there? Verse 56, And the famine was over all the
face of the earth. And Joseph opened all the storehouses. And all the people who ever came
to Joseph was people who was hungry. And you know, and here's
the thing about it, all the food was prepared before anybody ever
got hungry. Christ was prepared before anybody
even knew they had a need, before they ever knew that they would
be hungry for the Lord Jesus Christ. And here's the thing,
here's the first thing about our Lord Jesus Christ and Joseph
being a type of him. Joseph opened the storehouses
by royal authority. Pharaoh said, Joseph, and he
told him, he says, he said, now put him in his chair and gave
him his ring and put a big chain around his neck and said, everybody
bow to Joseph, everybody bow to Joseph. And Pharaoh gave all
things, all authority and all the food into the hands of Joseph. And when people came to Pharaoh,
he sent them to Joseph. He sent them to Joseph. And by
God's royal decree, God's decree, by God's blessed design, all
things, all things pertaining to life, pertaining to salvation,
pertaining to mercy, pertaining to grace, pertaining to heaven,
God put everything into the hands of His blessed Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Our Lord Jesus says, The Father
loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hands. And
our Lord Jesus Christ has said again, Thou hast given Him power. authority over all flesh, that
He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him. Our Lord Jesus Christ, God gave
Him everything into His hands. You want mercy? It's in His hands. Grace is in His hands. Life is
in His hands. I tell you the scripture says
that all the fullness of the Godhead bodily dwells in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And I tell you the scriptures
tells us that He is the head of all principalities and powers.
It's by Him all things exist and by Him all things consist
and by Him all things are upheld and He is the head of all principalities
and powers. And what did God put in His hands?
All spiritual blessings. That's what He put in His hands.
All fullness that we need, God put in His blessed hands. Where
did He put it at? In His blessed Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. He chose us in Him before the
foundation of the world. And why did He do it? It pleased
God. It was the good pleasure of his
father's will. That's what it is. Oh, listen. Joseph had all the authority.
God gave Christ all the authority. And men are going to one of these
days rule the day. We'll rule the day. that they
missed the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, they'll rue the day that
they didn't take the Lord Jesus Christ as the Bible describes
Him. Here's the second thing about Joseph. Joseph was the
only fit person to open the storehouses. He was the only fit person to
open the storehouses. Joseph was the one who told them
there's going to be a famine. Nobody else didn't know it. Pharaoh
didn't know it. The wise men didn't know it.
The magicians didn't know it. You know who told them it's going
to happen? Joseph did. Joseph did. And I tell you what,
he told them, beloved, he told them, said, we're going to have
seven years of plenty. This is what we're going to do. And I
tell you, Joseph went out and gathered all the corn and stored
it up in storehouses all over. And oh, bless His holy name.
Our Lord Jesus is the only fit and qualified man and the only
fit and qualified one to open the storehouse of mercy to sinners
like ourselves. Anybody else fit to do it? And
ain't you grateful? Ain't you grateful that he's
fit? Aren't you grateful he's qualified? And the only one qualified
to open the storehouse of mercy to sinners? And I'll tell you
something, I'll tell you something, before, before God ever put Adam
in the garden of Eden, our Lord Jesus Christ stood as a lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. And I tell you, he
knew that Adam was going to fall. He knew that there would be a
famine of you in the human nature. The human nature had absolutely
nothing in it good. There was a famine in the soul,
a famine in the mind, a famine in the heart. There was a famine
about everything. Man had nothing. Nothing. And I tell you, beloved, he saw
this famine in human nature, and he knowed to fall. And then
God, in His blessed mercy, purposed, purposed an everlasting covenant
of mercy. Oh my, an everlasting covenant
of mercy. Paul told the Hebrews, he says,
that God of peace who brought again from the dead, that Lord
Jesus Christ, that great shepherd of the sheep, brought him again
from the dead through the blood of the everlasting covenant.
And I tell you what, Christ sealed that everlasting covenant with
His blood. And that covenant is just like
God. It started with Him who's everlasting. It's everlasting now and it'll
be everlasting throughout eternity. I tell you that Lord Jesus Christ,
He sealed that covenant with His precious blood. And I tell
you He done that so He can show mercy. Show mercy. And a people, a people could
be saved from Adam's fallen race. And I tell you, had not God provided
this for us, we would have been like everybody else. We didn't
have nowhere to go. Wouldn't it be awful to know
the need that you have, and be hungry, and know the need of
your soul, and not have no one to go to to meet that need? And then in this everlasting
covenant, talking about Joseph being the only fit person, Christ
is the only fit, the only one qualified to open the storehouse
of mercy to sinners. He came to earth and because
of this everlasting covenant of mercy and grace, our Lord
Jesus Christ in the fullness of time, He came into this earth.
And He came into this earth and assumed the likeness of sinful
flesh. When you looked at Him, He looked
just like anybody else. When you saw Him, you saw a man.
But He was so much more than just a man. He was the God-man. He come on here and He looked
like flesh. And He was flesh. He was flesh and blood. But he had no sin, born of a
virgin, God's blessed Son. And our Lord Jesus Christ come
into this world in the likeness of human flesh, and He come here
one reason, to face God and deal with God on behalf of those that
were given to Him in that everlasting mercy of grace. I tell you what,
He come to fulfill all righteousness, and to take God's holy law, and
to face it head on, and render obedience to it. And then, beloved,
because of the ones he represented, he was willing and able to take
the curse. That was due them. And that curse
of God, cursing is everyone who contendeth not all things written
in the book of the law to do. That was all of us. And Christ
stood as our surety. And He obeyed that law. So all
of us whom He came to die for and live for, every one of us
might have a righteousness of God Himself. The righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The righteousness of God. And
the only way you can get a righteousness before God is keep His law. Keep the Ten Commandments. We
didn't. Christ did. And He turned around and gave
us His righteousness. I was talking to Todd today and
he told me about a preacher. Famous, famous, famous preacher. that he was preaching what Todd
was going to preach out of Hebrew, uh, uh, uh, Ephesians 6 on the
whole armor of God and that breastplate of righteousness. Todd said,
I heard this preacher preach this, I was listening to him
and he says that this breastplate of righteousness is our own personal
purity. It's our own purity and all that
armor of God is that we might live a victorious life. I wouldn't
get no comfort in that. Having a personal purity of my
own? How can you have a greater purity
than Christ? What is the purpose of Christ
coming if we had any purity at all? What is the purpose of Christ
coming if we had any righteousness of all? And I said, Todd, write
him. Send him a letter. Write him
on his web page. And he said, write him a letter
and tell him what a mess he made out of things and how it offended
you. He said, I'm going to do that. He said, I believe I can
do that. So I'm sure, I hope he did. That's an awful thing. And this fellow is supposed to
be a grace preacher. How can we talk about our righteousness
and the righteousness of Christ? How can you talk about Christ
obeying the law and then us being obeying the law? How can they
both be right at the same time? What glory does Christ get out
of us if He didn't do it all? What glory would God get out
of it if Christ didn't do it all? And if righteousness ever,
ever, ever come by the law, then Christ is dead and vain. But
Paul said, we're not going to frustrate the grace of God. We're
not going to do that. We're not going to make it void.
We're not going to do that. He said, I'll tell you one thing
we're going to do. We're going to glory, we're going to honor,
we're going to magnify, we're going to bless God for the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's what he said. And I'll
tell you what, our Lord Jesus Christ, He came before God's
law. fulfilled all righteousness for
us, and then He went to the cross in this covenant of mercy. And
on that cross, He bore the burden, He bore the guilt, He bore the
shame, He bore the curse, He bore the sin, He bore the failures,
He bore everything that was against His people. And he was raised
again from the dead to justify all of God's people, justify
us in God's sight. And I tell you what, and he filled
the storehouse. Our Lord God, oh listen, he filled
the storehouse. He filled God's storehouse. God's storehouse is plump full! Plump full! Was it full of grace? Was it full of mercy? Was it
full of righteousness? Was it full of forgiveness? Was it full of everything that
I need? Everything that I need. Oh my. It's like His disciples. And
oh my, all those who came to Joseph T, they had to come to
Him. And if you want mercy and grace, you've got to come to
Christ. It's like His disciples, a whole bunch turned and walked
with Him no more. And He said, do you all go away? And it's like the rest of us.
We say, Lord, to whom shall we go? You've got the words of eternal
life. And I'll tell you something about
our blessed Savior. He's the only one who has the
capacity, the capacity and the ability to contain all the fullness
of God Almighty. Huh? Oh, He's the only one that
can contain all of God in His body. the fullness of only God
is dwelt in our Lord Jesus Christ and not only that but he's the
only one who has the wisdom the wisdom to give out the fullness
of God only one got the wisdom to give it out and the only one
who has the eternality to continue to be our fullness In the world
and in the world come. You know, He fills us full here. Of His fullness have we received.
And when we get to glory, it's still going to be His fullness.
Still going to be His fullness. Things ain't going to change.
We're just going to change geographical places and have a new body. But
we're going to still be filled with His fullness. Huh? Oh my. No wonder Paul said, I
know whom I have believed. And I'm persuaded that he's able
to keep that that I've committed unto him against that day. And
oh listen, not only was Joseph and our Lord Jesus Christ the
only fit and qualified one to open the storehouse of mercy
for sinners. Joseph did open the storehouses. Look what it said again in verse
56. And the famine was over all the
face of the earth. And Joseph opened all the storehouses
and sold unto the Egyptians. And the famine waxed o'er all
the land. And all countries came into Egypt
to Joseph for to buy corn, because that the famine was to soar in
all the land. You know, Joseph opened the storehouses,
and you know why he opened them? Because he had them full. He had them full. You know why
God opened the storehouses? It's full. It's full. That's
why he filled the storehouses. So people might have something
to eat. That the people might have something to eat. That's
why our Lord Jesus Christ became our surety. Our surety and our
sin offering and our sacrifice. The sinners might be saved by
His blessed grace. You know when we talk about Christ
being our surety. You know a surety is for people
who are incompetent. Incompetent. Have no ability
to take care of their own affairs. who have no ability to do anything
for themselves and if they have a great debt they have no ability
to pay that debt. Well our Lord Jesus Christ is
our surety and I mean every one of those things that I just mentioned.
I'm incompetent to face God on my own. I'm unable to face God
on my own. I'm unable to save myself. I'm unable to do anything for
myself. And that's what our Lord Jesus
Christ said. He says, without me, without me, you can do nothing. And He said, except it were given
to Him of my Father, no man can even come to me. That's what
he said. He said, except my father with
that Sidney, draw you, draw him, draw him, he cannot come. And
I tell you what, bless his holy name, Joseph filled the storehouses
so people that was hungry could get something to eat. And our
Lord Jesus Christ came and became our surety. became our sin offering. I was reading just today or yesterday,
they came to John and said, who are you? I'm not the Christ. Are you the Christ? No. Are you
that prophet? No. No. Who are you? I'm just
sent to bear witness of the light. I'm just sent to tell you about
Him. And then he saw him, because
God said that when you see that person that you baptized and
the Holy Spirit coming down upon him in the form of a dove, you'll
know that's the one. And I tell you what, when that
happened, John said, behold the Lamb of God. John went off preaching. And I tell you, the Lord Jesus
Christ come walking down by Jordan one day, and John said, look,
and he said, told him, some disciples was walking with him, said, there's
that Lamb of God. There's that Lamb of God. What's
a Lamb for? To be a sacrifice. What's a Lamb for? To be slain. What's a Lamb for? To save sinners. What's a Lamb for? God provided
for him. And I tell you, our Lord Jesus
Christ was led as a lamb before the slaughter, and He opened
out His mouth. And He became our sin offering.
And oh, that's what He was. That's why He was the Lamb of
God. To be our sin offering. We need a sin offering. I need
a sin offering. And He did it so that sinners
for whom He died might be saved. Gabriel, you know what Gabriel
told Mary? She said, Thou shalt call His name Jesus. You know what that means? Jehovah
Savior. Jehovah our Savior. Thou shalt
call His name Jesus. Why? For He shall save His people from their
sin. But he couldn't do it, unless
he became their sin offerer. And oh my, and he came, he came,
not for the whole, but for the sick. And I tell you what, listen
to this, to have kept the storehouses closed, in a time of famine,
would have brought no glory to Joseph and certainly wouldn't
have done any good to the people he had plenty oh he had plenty
but if he had kept it to himself he would have got no glory and
nobody had any good but he had plenty and he delighted delighted
to open them storehouses open them storehouses and folks lining
up Coming to get something to eat coming to get some bread
and our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh His storehouse is open. It's
so open. Oh John Bunyan said God has bags
of mercy. He's not yet broke. Oh Our Lord
is plenteous in mercy plenteous in mercy delights to show mercy
And you know what his chief glory is? Moses said, show me your
glory. Show me your glory. Oh Father
show me, God show me your glory. And he told Moses, there's a
cleft here in the rock, I'm going to put you in and put my hand
over you. Because as you can see it's my hand apart. And the
scripture said, and he calls all the goodness of God to pass
before him. That's God's chief action. Goodness. You ever run across anybody God
not been good to? God's been good to every human
being that's been born on this earth. He's good to the animals. He's good to the birds. I love
to listen to these birds sing. I'll tell Shirley, one will sing
this way, another will sing that way, another will sing this.
And I said, God gave everyone of these birds a song to sing.
And He gave them all the notes and gave them the songs to sing.
And that's what I, when I hear them, that's exactly what I think.
Oh, sang birds sing. You know why they sang? God gave
them a song to sing. You know why we sang? God gave
us a song to sing. You know why we praise Him? God
gave us something to praise Him about. You know why we bless
Him? He gave us something to bless Him for. And oh, he just,
he's plenteous in mercy. And I believe, and I tell you
what, he delights. He just delights and enjoys showing
mercy. And his goodness, oh his goodness
passes before us. And he said, and you know he
stood on that great day of the feast and he said, if any man's
thirsty, let him come and drink. And you know the only people
who came, was people who were thirsty. Scott used to say that
all the time. He said, if there is ever a promise,
if God gave a promise, you had to meet the qualities and character
of that promise. He said, oh everybody is thirsty.
Come to me. You know who didn't come? People
who weren't thirsty. That's all the people didn't
come. But everybody else that was thirsty, they lined up. They lined up. And I tell you,
our Lord Jesus Christ, He opened up the door of mercy. He opened
up the grace of mercy. He opened up everything for us.
And I tell you, Joseph opened the storehouses at the right
time. At a fit time. Look what it says
there in verse 55. And when all the land of Egypt
was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread. Oh, they're
crying for bread. Cried out for bread. Oh, my. And you know what he said? Go
to Joseph. And what he says to you, that's
what you do. That's exactly what our Lord Jesus Christ said to
his mother. at the wedding of Cana, whatsoever
he saith unto you, do it. And I tell you that's what he
said. And so Joseph, when they went to crying for bread, when
the people cried for bread, that's when Joseph says, time to open
the storehouses. Time to open the storehouses.
And everybody that was hungry would be fed. And I tell you
our Lord Jesus Christ Everyone who's hungry can come to Christ. And I tell you what, I don't
know about you all, but I stay hungry. I really do, I stay hungry. And I know a lot of the folks
there that I'm preaching to tonight and with you all here. They're
all hungry to be in the services. They're all hungry to come hear
the gospel. They're all hungry to come and be with the Lord's
people. I know they are. And our Lord
Jesus Christ said it like this, or Paul told the Romans, he said,
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And Paul said, When it pleased
God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by
His grace, to reveal his son in me I tell you what God has
made a way for sinners to be saved and for bread from heaven
to be given to us and I tell you this and I'm about done here
Joseph opened the storehouses to all who came to all who came
now let's look here in verse 57 oh my He opened the storehouses to
all the Egyptians. And then all countries came into
Egypt to Joseph for corn. Because all the famine was sore
in all the land. All the land. And Joseph opened
the storehouse to everyone that came. Everyone that came. It didn't make no difference
who it was. Not to the Egyptians only, but all nations came to
Joseph. All nations came to Joseph. And
our Lord Jesus Christ opens a storehouse of grace to Jew and Gentile,
male and female, bond and free. Ah, you know, Joseph opened the
storehouse and said, I don't like your looks, I ain't going
to give you nothing. No, no, no. Joseph was just like
our master, no respect of persons. If he was hungry, he came. And
our Lord Jesus Christ opened the storehouses of His grace
to Jew and Gentile. Well, then you know there's no
distinction in God's sight in these things. Ponder free, if
you're a servant or a free man. And I tell you what, our Lord
Jesus said in Revelation 21, 22, 17, Whosoever will, let him
come and take the water of life freely. And our Lord Jesus Christ
He said, come unto me. Oh, come unto me. And as the
famine is universal, I mean there's no place on the face of the earth
that you can go where there's not famine. Where there's not
famine. I'm talking about the famine
of depravity. Famine of man. And that famine
is all over the earth. And the command in the gospel
is the same all over the earth. It's as universal as sin is. As men being in an awful famine
condition. And I tell you what, and we're
commanded to preach to all men everywhere to repent and believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know what they said?
He is able. He is able, He is able to save
to the uttermost them, them that come unto God. How? By Him. And I tell you what, you know
what that means? Once He starts He ain't going to stop. Once he started, he ain't going
to stop. Ain't you grateful for that? Old Bruce Crabtree wrote
a little article. I need to put it in front of
our bulletins. He wrote a little article. I
can't mess it up. I can't mess it up. And that's the way it
is with this. We can't mess it up. If we could
have messed it up, it would have been messed up years ago. Ain't
that right? But you can't mess up something
that God did. You can't mess up a salvation
that Christ accomplished. You can't mess up a salvation
of the Lord. Now you can mess up a fellow's
free will religion. You can mess up people's holiness.
You can mess up people's professions. But you can't mess up salvation.
Can't mess it up. And I'm thankful. And folks,
I love you and appreciate you. And listen, we got five, six
here tonight. And if you want to come Sunday
and got plenty of room for everybody to scatter out a little bit.
But it was such a blessing to have them all here tonight and
look at them while I'm preaching. And God bless every one of you.
Stay safe. And we pray for you. And let's
have prayer together. Our Father, our precious, precious
Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we bless you and
praise you for being so merciful, to being so gracious, to being
so good to us. Oh, you're indeed good to Israel,
good to your people, good to your people, good to them like
you're good to all men, but Lord, you're especially good to the
household of faith. And God bless these dear saints
that gathered out tonight. Bless these dear saints that
listened. Encourage them, we pray for Don, we pray for Shelby.
God have mercy on them. Give them abundance of grace
for this very trying time. Bless you for Joe and Bruce and
pray you keep your hand on them. And Lord, bless us, keep us till
we can all meet together again. Oh Lord, what a day it'll be
just to be able to gather again in a worship service with all
the saints. We praise you and thank you in
Christ's name. Amen. turn your eyes upon Jesus look
full in his wonderful face and the things of earth will grow
strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. Good night and God bless you.