Alright, back here in Genesis
37, Joseph is a well, well, well known type of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Well known type. He goes from
the lowest position to the highest position. He goes from being
hated and despised And all these dreams that he had, it happened
just exactly the way he said the dreams would happen. Exactly
that way. But like our Lord Jesus Christ,
he was despised and rejected. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. And like our blessed Lord, when
he was cast out by men, he was exalted by God to be a prince
and to be a savior. You know the story of how that
he was taken out of the pit, taken to Egypt, slave in Potiphar's
house, kept in prison for not any sin of his own but the sin
of somebody else. Taken out of prison and exalted
to be all over Egypt and over the storehouses. And if anybody
got anything in Egypt when there was a great famine on, they got
it from Joseph. But here he starts out and says
he's 17 years old. Tells us plainly there in verse
2, these are the generations of Jacob, Joseph being 17 years
old. He is a shepherd. He was a shepherd. Was feeding the flock with his
brethren. But I want you to notice he was
despised by his brethren but beloved of his father. Look here
in verse 3. Now Israel loved Joseph more
than all of his children because he was the son of his old age.
And they made him a special coat. coat of many colors. And when
his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren,
they hated him and could not speak peaceably unto his. Now see here, here our Lord,
you're talking about a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. The
one beloved of the Father. His father loved Joseph more
than anybody else. Loved him so much he made him
a special coat. Took all these different pieces and all these
different colors and put them on Joseph. Joseph stood out. And beloved, he stood out because
of the love that his father bore to him. And I tell you, and it
talks about our Lord Jesus Christ, though He was beloved of the
Father, look what it said about Him, His brethren hated Him,
and could not speak peaceably unto Him. And our Lord Jesus
Christ, His brethren, He came unto His own, and His own received
Him not. And I tell you the envy and jealousy,
and remember how they told Him, you know, that in John 6.53 says,
neither did His brethren believe on Him. His own brothers didn't
believe on him. They told him, if you really
can do these things, go up to Jerusalem and do them. His own
brother didn't believe on him. And then he was in a house preaching
one time, and his brethren was outside, and they said, well,
he's beside himself. So his mother come and said,
listen, somebody went in and said, your mother wants you outside.
He said, he's lost his mind. And you know what our master
said? He said, this is my brother, this is my brethren. These are
who my mother and brethren are. He that heareth my word, and
believeth on him that sent me. That's what he said. And so I'll
tell you what, when his brethren hated him, they hated him without
a cause, just like our Lord Jesus Christ. And the Bible tells us
that envy and jealousy is crueler than the grave. You find somebody
who's got a lot of envy, a lot of jealousy towards other people,
and there the cruel jealousy and envy will make a person crueler
than even the grave. And that's why it says, his love
of his father and hated of his brethren because his father loved
him. And that's what they couldn't
stand about the Lord Jesus Christ. His faith talked about his father
all the time. And they said, well, he's a blasphemer.
Why? Because he makes himself one with God. In other words,
he said if he's one with God that means that he is God himself
and they understood that clearly And I tell you what and they
despised our Lord Jesus Christ for that and then I'll tell you
something else and we read about his dreams and it says And Joseph
dreamed a dream, and told his brethren, they hated him yet
the more. You know why? He said, because you're going
to bind sheaves in the field, and my sheep will arise, and
you'll all stand upright, and you'll bow down, and I'll stand
upright, and you'll all bow down to me. And all his brethren said unto
him, look in verse 8, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? Shalt thou
indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more. He said, listen, you're going
to bow to me. You're going to bow to me. All
of you are going to bow to me one of these days. And that's
what he's telling them. And they understood that. And
that's what our Lord Jesus Christ told men. He told them over and
over and over again who He was. And they told Him, He said, we
will not have this man to reign over us. And men still won't
have Christ to reign over. They'll accept Him as Jesus.
They'll accept Him as a Savior. And then, beloved, if He does
not reign over you, Christ can't be in a kingdom without having
subjects. And you can't have Christ without
Christ reigning over you. That's impossible to be in the
kingdom of God and Christ not reign over you. Ain't that right? And you know what a king does?
A king has subjects, and the subjects do the will of the king. And the king is responsible for
all of his subjects to feed them, to clothe them, and care for
them, and keep them from all enemies, and protect them, and
preserve them. And our king does all of those
things, and yet men say, we will not have this man to reign over
us. And that's what they said. And
that's why they told him, they asked him, the Pharisees asked
him, when a whole bunch of peoples bleebed on him, they said, is
any of the rulers? Believed on him? Well, man, we know what's going
on in this world. We read our Bibles. We run the synagogues. We do the preaching and the teaching
around here. Has any of us ever believed on
this man? Well, he's nobody. We know he's brethren. We know
he's mother. We know he's father. We know
he's sisters. He's just a man. He's just a
man. And that's what they told Joseph.
And Joseph said, and you know it happened just exactly like
Joseph said. Remember when his brethren came to him and they
found out that it was Joseph? And they were scared teetotally
to death. Said, he's gonna get even now. But oh my. And they gave him
this dream and then he talked about his mother and father.
They were gonna even do it. And oh my. And our Lord Jesus
Christ, and they hated Him yet the more. And you know what they
hated Him yet the more for? For His words. For His words. That's what they hate about our
Lord Jesus Christ, was His words. And those are the very things
we cherish, is the words of Christ. And you know, people have red-letter Bibles.
There's nothing wrong with a red-letter Bible. But people say, well then you
can see the words of Christ are in red. All of it's the word
of Christ. It don't have to be. All of it's
the word of Christ. I don't have to say, it don't
have to be in red for me to know who's speaking to you. I mean,
you know, it's all coming from, it's all about Him. It's all
about Him. And I, you know, if you got one,
I'm not trying, listen, I'm not on to you about that, but I'm
just telling you, it's all of it's about Him. All of it's about
Him. And then look what happened to
Him. Not only did they hate Him for His words and what He said,
and that's what our Lord Jesus Christ, He told them, He said,
if you reject Me, you reject the Father. And he that receiveth
my word, receiveth me. And he that receiveth me, receiveth
my Father. And our Lord Jesus Christ, not
only did he speak words, and here's the problem with men,
they understand what Christ said. They understood clearly what
Christ said. You remember when he was in Luke, and he just got
through preaching in the synagogue there in his hometown, starting
his ministry. And all they said, oh, he said,
what gracious words come from this man. And then he turned
around and said this, he said, you know, there was lots and
lots of widows in Syria and Israel in the times of Elijah. But Elijah
is only sent to one. And she was in Syria. And you
know there was lots of lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha. But Elisha was only sent to one,
Naaman. And boy they understood right
quick that he was talking about election, sovereign election. that Christ is looking and God's
looking outside of Israel, that He looked to these pagans, these
heathens, and healed two of them, and did what He would for them,
and then they went from talking about gracious words, and then
they pick up stones to stone Him. Just like from going out
of the synagogue and talking to Him, and then immediately
going to throw Him over a hill. So I tell you what, I said, words,
words, And you know, there are so many words that
men don't like. Oh, I love them. I love the word
election. I love the word of Christ laying
down His life for the sheep, predicting redemption. I love
predicting redemption. And it doesn't bother me for
God to call me a sinner. Can Christ come to save sinners?
That don't bother me. He calls me a worm. That don't
bother me. He said, I'm like grass. What's
that grass worth out here around this building? What's it worth? What do you give for it? Is it
worth anything? He said, that's what you are. Those words don't bother me.
Do they you? When our Lord Jesus Christ said,
I lay down my life for the sheep. Only thing I'm interested in
is am I one of the sheep? When Christ said, if you believe
not on Me, you'll die in your sins. I want to know that I believe
on Christ because I don't want to die in my sins. And our Lord Jesus Christ, He
told me and He said, do you want to come to my Father? The only
way you can come to my Father is through and by me. Well, if
that's the way I get to God, I'm going to go the way He said.
I'm going to go through Him, by Him, and because of Him. I
love those words like that, don't you? Oh, they got mad at it. They
got mad at Him. Oh, they envied Him. They despised
Him. And then He was plotted against. They plotted against him. And
he goes down here and look down here in verse 13 and 14. And his brethren went off to feed
sheep. Verse 11 said his brethren envied
him, but his father observed the same, paid attention to the
dream. And Joseph, in verse 13, Israel
said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem?
Come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said, Here I am.
And he said unto him, Go, I pray thee, see whether it be well
with thy brethren, and well with the flocks, and bring me word
again. And he'll go down there and talk
to them, see how things are going with the sheep and the flocks,
and come back and tell me how things are. So he sent him out
of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. And look what
it went now in verse 18. And when they saw him afar off,
even before he came near unto them, they conspired against
him to slay him. What did they do about our master?
How many times do you read in the Gospels that they conspired
how to kill him? One time they was going to take
him, but they said if we take him, it will cause the whole
people to get in an uproar. So they figured out and sat down
and often times tried to figure out a way that they could get
to him. And they already had in their mind that they was going
to slay him. But look what is said here now. And they said
one to another, behold this dreamer, come now therefore and let us
slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say some evil
beast hath devoured him, and we shall see what shall become
of his dreams. My, said them words again. We're not going to bow to you,
Joseph. We're not going to bow to you. If we have to kill you,
we're not going to bow to you. If we have to slay you, we're
not going to bow to you. And that's exactly the way they
thought about our master. They said, all the world's going
after him. And oh, how often did the rulers
conspire against our Lord, not just to hurt Him, but to slay
Him. In fact, they hired men to come
and lie on Him and tell things against Him that were not true.
And how many times did our Lord Jesus Christ know what they was
thinking, know exactly what they was thinking and tell them what
they was thinking. But they said, oh my, we've got to do away with
this man. We've got to. We've got no choice. If he says who he says he is,
he's going to run the whole world. And you know how our Lord's conquered
the world? Here's a mystery. Here's something for you to think
about. Our Lord has conquered the world. There's not a place
on this earth where you cannot go and find the Lord's people.
Not a place on this earth where you can't go and find some of
God's elect. There may be just a very, very
few here and a very, very few there. Maybe just six in one
place. I've preached in a lot of places.
I've preached in several places where there'd be four or five
people. But I say this, you know how
the Lord Jesus Christ conquers people? He didn't do it like
the Jews did. How they took Him and slew Him.
He doesn't do it like the Muslims. Did you know how He conquered
them? Through the preaching of the Gospel. He conquered this
world with His Word and by the Holy Spirit. The only thing,
the only person that can use the sword of the Spirit is the
Holy Ghost sent by Christ and when He yields that sword, beloved,
He gonna cut your heart open, He gonna lay your soul bare and
the next thing you know you say, Lord you see me, have mercy on
me. But oh, they conspired to slay
Him. And look what else they done to Him in verse 23. And it came to pass when Joseph
was come unto his brethren that they stripped Joseph out of his
coat, his coat of many colors that was on him. They stripped his garments off
of him. Do you remember when our Lord Jesus Christ was at
the cross? You see that garment that he
had on? That distinguished him. And our
Lord Jesus Christ, he had on a garment that was without seam. I mean it was woven from top
to bottom. And they took that robe off of
him. And you remember when he was
on the cross, they were at the foot of that cross gambling for
his garments. Gambling for his garments. They
stripped our Lord Jesus Christ. They stripped him of his garment
And I'll tell you what beloved. That's what men want to do They
strip Christ of his glory strip Christ of his power strip Christ
of his authority strip Christ of his Grace and strip Christ
of his blessed blood and righteousness counted as a nun as a common
thing but all my And they stripped him, and when they stripped our
Lord Jesus Christ, I tell you one thing they never stripped
off of him, they never stripped his righteousness. And I tell you what, that garment
of righteousness that he had on, that he was born with, lived
with, died with, and rose again being the righteous one, servant
of Jehovah, that he had enough righteousness to give all of
us his righteousness, and we got the same one he does. We
stand naked before God, but not as far as our own self-righteousness
goes. But with Christ's righteousness
on, beloved, we are spotless, his God's own son. And then look
what else they did to him in verse 24. Excuse me. And they took him
and cast him into a pit. And the pit was empty and there
was no water in it. You know why they did this? They
wanted Him to suffer. They wanted to inflict agony,
pain. That's what they wanted Him to
inflict on Him. It's like our Lord Jesus Christ when He was
on the cross, when He said, I thirst. Did they give Him water? He was in that pit, that pit
of going into the darkness without God, without help. With men's
hatred and enmity being shown towards him. And they asked for
a dress and he said, I thirst. And they gave him gall and vinegar. Gave him gall and vinegar. You
reckon vinegar would satisfy your thirst if he was really
thirsty? That's what they gave him. So they wanted him to suffer. They wanted our Lord Jesus Christ
to suffer. He wants something to drink.
Here, there's some gall down here. There's some vinegar here,
let's pour that on this sponge. And I'll tell you, our Lord was,
He wasn't that much, probably wasn't that much high off the
ground. He wasn't way, way up on a great, way up high on the
cross. He, you know, because He had a conversation with His
mother and James and John and them around the cross and those
three marriages, He had a conversation with them. So he wasn't very
high off the ground. And so when they said, I thirst,
they could have got him a drink of water and gave it to him and
been no problem. But they said, we don't want
him comfortable. I'll tell you, we ain't even through causing
him to have grief yet. We're not through causing him
agony yet. We're not through causing him
to suffer yet. He's thirsty? Let's give him some vinegar.
That'll make him feel good. Oh listen, I'll tell you what,
you're talking about men with enmity. And I'll tell you the
ungodly, I'll tell you this much. The ungodly, I don't care if
it's his brethren or those that hated Christ, they can have no
power except it be given them from heaven. They have no power
whatsoever. And you go through the scriptures,
and you find everywhere where God's people were hated, the
three Hebrew children, they told, said, don't you, you gotta bow
down to this God, and if you don't, we're gonna put you in
that furnace. Well, they wouldn't bow. They would not bow. They heated that furnace up seven
times hotter, threw them in it, that it's so hot that the fellows
that threw them in it, it killed them. Oh and Nebuchadnezzar come
over there and he looked and looked inside that furnace, had
a window and he looked inside that furnace and said, those
fellows are walking around in there. And there's one that looks
like the Son of God with them. And they come out of that furnace
and that was, you could never tell they'd even been in a fire.
Oh my. And Paul and Silas, they put
them in prison. Put them in stocks. Put them
in stocks. You ever been up to Williamsburg,
Virginia? They got them stocks up there,
you know. Of course, they really used to use them. But you put
your hands in there and they put that thing down on you and
they clamp it down. And you got to stand there. They put them
in the stocks. There's probably sitting down
some on their feet. And old Paul and Silas, they sat in there
and you thought, boy, them fellas going to wail and moan and groan,
say, oh, why is God letting this happen to us? We're serving the
Lord and here we are, we're suffering so much. No, they began to sing,
the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. They began to sing
the song, they began to sing, and to praise the Lord at midnight,
next thing you know, God shook that prison. God made a jail
break for these two men. He shook that prison. And I tell
you what, Paul and Silas come walking out of there. And they
had stripes all over their back where they were beaten. And you
know God done that for this reason. If any prisoners ever got away,
they slew the guard, the man that was over that prison for
letting them get away. And that Philippian jailer got his sword
and fixed to kill himself. Paul said, oh no, no, no, no,
stop, stop, stop. Don't do yourself no harm. And Paul and Silas, they sat
right where they was. All the chains are gone, all
the stocks are gone. And God did all that so that
Philippian jailer would say, sirs, what must I do to be saved? God gave him a chance to preach
the gospel. And our Lord was put in the place
of death itself. And I tell you what he did with
death, he slew death, he slew sin, he conquered hell and when
he come up out of that awful pit and delivered he come out
a victor and I mean he won the victory forever one for whom
he went there for oh my well let me tell you something else
they did to Joseph look what they did down here in verse 25
and they said down here's what they did after they did all that
in verse 25 they sat down to eat bread You talking about hatred
for their brother. Put him in a pit that was empty
and no water. And they sat down to eat. Sat
down to eat. And they lifted up their eyes
while they were sitting there eating, and they saw a company
of Ishmaelites come from Gilead with their camels, bearing spicery,
balm, myrrh, going down to carry it to Egypt. And Judah said unto
his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother and
conceal him? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let
not our hand be upon him. And so then there passed by the
Midianite merchants, and they drew out and lifted up Joseph
out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites, for twenty
pieces of silver and they brought Joseph into Egypt. Now here's
the man that the father loved sent him to do an errand and
come back and tell him and it's going to be years and years and
years and years before he ever sees Joseph again. But he is
sold as a slave and here they took him this man that was beloved
of his father He was made of no reputation. They made him
and took his reputation, took his glory, took his authority. No regard for his person. No
regard for his innocence. No regard for how his father
loved him. Sold him. Sold him as a common slave. But
I tell you what, God didn't leave him like that. Look over here
in Genesis 39 verse 2. And the Lord was with Joseph,
and he was a prosperous man. You know what he said about our
master? He said, Pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his
hands. And I tell you what, they sent
him down there and they thought, well, that's going to be the
end of him. But he got down there and he was put in Potiphar's
house and the Lord was with him. And the Lord caused him to prosper. And that's like our Lord Jesus
Christ. He told his Father, I finished
the work. Finished it. Another sheep I
have which are not of this fold. I got to go and get them. And
instead of 20 pieces of silver, our Lord Jesus Christ was sold
for 30 pieces of silver. But I do know this, that the
pleasure of the Lord prospers in His hands. People say, why did God save
you? Because it pleased Him to do
so. And it pleased him to put all,
as old Barnard used to say, all of his eggs in one basket. And
that's the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm putting all my lock,
stock and barrel, I put it in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I
tell you what, beloved, then he was falsely accused, but the
Lord was with him. That's when, you know, when Potiphar's
wife tried to get him to lay with her and he wouldn't do it. And finally she falsely accused
him and they sent him into prison. And our Lord was so falsely accused.
So falsely accused, so lied on. They hired men to lie on him. And Joseph went to prison. Not
for anything that he did. He went because of what somebody
else did. Somebody else has sinned. And
our Lord Jesus Christ went. In the prison for us. In the
place where God was not. God forsook him for us. He himself had no sin. He was
there because of our sin. Amen. Our Father. Oh, our precious,
precious Father. In the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ, we thank you for your blessings. Thank you for your
word. Pray it was a blessing to you,
dear saints. And we thank you that we could see the Lord Jesus
Christ. You blessed us to do it. We never
saw Him until you made us see Him. We didn't know Him until
you made us to know Him. We never come to Him until you
brought us. We never believed on Him till You gave us faith.
We never bowed to You till You gave us a willing heart. We never
loved Him until He first loved us. So Lord, to Thee be all the
glory. To You be all the blessings to
be in You. May You be honored. May You be
magnified. May You be worshipped. And may
all of us find ourselves at the feet As Joseph's brethren ended
up at his feet, may we all end up starting here at the feet
of our Lord Jesus Christ and look forward to the day when
we'll worship Him without this flesh. God bless our dear brethren. Again, remember those who we
prayed for and keep us now as we go our way until we can come
together to worship again. For Christ's sake, Amen. He's the Savior of my soul.