We're going to begin at verse
15 on this subject, God puts us in our place. And this is
after Jacob had died and they had buried him. And it says in
verse 15, when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead,
they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us and will certainly requite
us all the evil which we did unto him. And I read that and
I thought, you know, Joseph had already taken his brothers in
and spoken kindly to them. He'd already spoken to them in
terms, he'd already said that it was God that did all of this,
ultimately that God was in control of all of these events, even
though they were accountable for their wicked and evil thoughts
and actions. But when I read this, I thought,
you know, that's like the natural man right there. Here's what
they're saying in their minds. This is the product of the natural
man's natural feeling of guilt because we have that even as
lost people. Somebody told me one time that
the psychological problems of man
and those who are in institutions is full of people who see themselves
as guilty. in some way or another and they
can't get over it. And so the natural man like Joseph, they
knew they did wrong. They knew in some sense they
deserved for Joseph to get restitution. They understood that part of
it. And they knew, we're gonna see later on, they had to connive
around to try to work something their own way. But even the natural
man knows something about legal repentance and restitution for
the wrongs he's done. And really now, let me say this,
there's nothing wrong with that in our relationships with one
another as far as if I've done you wrong, making restitution.
But when it comes to a relationship with God, when it comes to putting
things right with God, Even our very efforts to do that by our
works are wicked and evil in the sight of God. And why is
that? You know, a person says, well,
I've got to start straightening up and do right, and they should
straighten up and do right, but when they say, I've got to straighten
up and do right to get right with God, well, you can't get
right with God by straightening up and doing right. If you could,
then we might as well say it, folks, salvation is by works,
isn't it right? Why is that so evil in God's
sight? Number one, it denies the glory of God who saves sinners
who cannot make things right, who cannot save themselves. It
denies the glory of God who saves by His grace through the works
of Christ. That's God's glory. The glory
of God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. And then secondly,
it denies Christ. If I think that I can, I know
I'm not, you know, people say, well, I know I'm not perfect,
and I know I can do things to get right with God. Well, if
I think that, then I'm denying the finished work of Christ.
Why did Christ come to this world? He came into the world to save
sinners, of whom I am chief. That's what Paul said. If we
could save ourselves, if we could make things right with God by
our works, Christ would not have had to have come. And you remember
what Paul wrote in Galatians 2.21? If righteousness comes
by the law, by our works, by our efforts to make things right
with God, then Christ died in vain. So a person who thinks
that they can finagle around in some way, by religion or efforts
or works or sincerity or decisions to make things right with God,
that person is a living testimony of a denial of the glory of God
in Christ. And I thought about that when
I read this because here they are, they do know they did wrong.
I mean, they're not trying to cover that up. And listen to
the way they say it again, verse 15. When Joseph's brethren saw
that their father was dead. Now we're gonna see in the next
verse, they thought that their father being alive was their
only way out of this mess. They said, Joseph will peradventure
hate us and will certainly requite us. In other words, he'll get
revenge. Requite us all the evil which
we did unto him. So they recognized that what
they did was evil. But they don't know the way out
of this mess. That's the natural man. I never
forget one time a man told me, he said, I knew I was saved when
I knew that God would be just to damn me. And I said, well,
now wait a minute. That's true, that God would be
just to damn any of us, wouldn't he? But if that's all you know,
That's not good news, and the gospel's good news. I know I
was saved when I knew how God could be just to save a sinner
who deserved damnation, and that's in Christ. So think about that. Well, look at the verses 16 through
18. It says here, and they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying,
thy father did command before he died, saying, so shall you
say unto Joseph, forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy
brethren and their sin, for they did unto thee evil, and now we
pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of
thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake
unto him, And his brethren also went and fell down before his
face. And they said, behold, we be
thy servants. Now think about all of this in
the life of Joseph. First of all, there's no record
that Jacob told his sons to tell Joseph this. So we could probably
surmise that they're telling a lie to cover up their guilt. to shield themselves from Joseph's
wrath. But there's no record in scripture
that Jacob said this, what they said, they told the messenger,
you tell Joseph, now dad said, you forgive him. So they were
pleading their dad as the mediator. And I thought about this, that's
the way of man by nature, he's trying to finagle around with
a lie to get out of this mess. And that's what a false gospel
is. That's what false religion is. It's man finagling around
in his own ways to formulate a lie, which he doesn't know
is a lie, but it's a lie to get himself out of this mess with
God. There is a way that seems right unto a man, but it's a
way of death. False gospels. How am I gonna get out of this
mess? Well, there's only one way to get out of this, and that's
for God to act in sovereign mercy through Christ, who is the way,
the truth, and the life. No man comes under the Father
but by Him. But notice when Joseph, when
he heard the message from his brothers, he wept, wept with
tears. That's the only way to weep,
isn't it? But the point is, is that he wept a lot. It's almost like you think somebody
weeping so much that the handkerchief gets soggy. And so Joseph's heart,
his heart was drawn out toward these wicked brothers who had
wickedly treated him. And isn't that a picture of our
God and Father through the Lord Jesus Christ? He loves his people with an everlasting
love, an unconditional love that we don't deserve. We wickedly
treated his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet he loves us with
an everlasting love, an unconditional love, unconditional towards us,
but conditioned on what Christ accomplished. And so there's
a prophecy fulfilled here. In verse 18, when it says again,
as he prophesied years before this in Joseph's dream, his brothers
came to him and fell down before his face and they said, behold,
we be thy servants. You remember Joseph's dream?
When he had his brothers bowing down to him and that's when they
got jealous? And here they are bowing down
to him. Well, look at verse 19. This is where I got the title
of the message. And Joseph said unto them, fear
not, for am I in the place of God? What he's saying is I'm
where God put me. You think I'm where you put me.
Well, he's not where they put him. They put him down a hole
and then sold him into slavery. They marked him for death and
adversity. But he says, what you don't know
is I'm where God put me. I'm in the place that God put
me. And that's why I titled this, God Puts Us in Our Place. Is
there any doubt? You think about this. You look
at the life of Joseph and how all the things that he'd gone
through, Read that biography in the last chapters of Genesis,
how Joseph was brought down to Egypt as a slave, sold into Potiphar's
house, seduced by Potiphar's wife, and wrongly accused, put
in prison. Met all those guys and they forgot
him, but then later on, Pharaoh had a dream, nobody could interpret
it, and then, who was it, the baker, I think, he said, I remember. This old boy that was down there
in prison with me who could interpret dreams. Do you all think that
was chance, happenstance, or as the Muslims call it, kismet? No. What's going on here? God's
in control, and God brings him up out of there, takes him to
Pharaoh, and he interprets Pharaoh's dreams, and Pharaoh makes him
second in command in the most powerful kingdom in the world
at that time, Egypt. Second only to Pharaoh. What's going on here? Well, if
there's any doubt that God's in control, that should remove
it. But you know what? Everybody
will say God's in control. I've only heard one false preacher
on television one time. He said, God's not in control.
He was a guy that always talks about money and how you can make
money and give it to him, of course. And he made this statement. He said, there's a lot of Christians,
he said, who are acting under a fallacy. And what was that
fallacy, he said? He said that God's in control.
He said, God is not in control. Now he said, God will be in control
one day, If you help him. Think about that. Is that the
God of this book? Absolutely not, that's an idol.
It's like God said, you thought I was one such as yourself. But
he said, I'm not like you. There's nothing, no one like
God. He's gonna teach Moses that,
I am that I am. There's nobody like God. None
to be compared with God. But you know, a lot of people
who claim to be Christian, they'll say God's in control, but they
don't really believe it. They like, I always use the term,
they think God is like some cosmic chess player. You make your move,
and then he makes your counter move. Or he makes a counter move. He's waiting on you, and then
he'll move. That's not a God in control,
that puts you in control. He wasn't waiting on Joseph or
Joseph's brethren. Another analogy, many people,
they think God is like a cosmic janitor, you might say. We make
a mess of it, he comes behind us and sweeps it all up and cleans
it up, sets it right. That's not the God of the Bible.
Our God determines the end from the beginning, not the beginning
from the end. How things begin and continue
and end, that's God's determinate will and counsel. He works all
things after the counsel of his own will. And then there are
others who see God as a crystal ball gazer. He knows what's gonna
happen in the future, but either he cannot or will not change
or control things because he doesn't wanna step on our dignity
and especially the dignity of our free will. Well, my question
to that is, is where do you find that in the Bible? Because all
I got news for you, it's not there. It's not in the word of
God. God says, I declare the end from
thee. I'll work my counsel. His counsel
now. When God works all things after
the counsel of his own will, Ephesians 1 11, that's the determinant
counsel and foreknowledge of God. That's not God just looking
at things as they unfold. But he's the one true and living
God. He works all things to good. Romans 8, 28, for his glory and
the good of his people. And I know these truths are mind
boggling. For example, Joseph, as we said,
he'd suffered a lot from the hands of wicked people. He'd
been the brunt of their evil and their wicked for years. He
was always, but he was always under God's protection. And he
was always headed toward the goal and the place that God had
set for him. That's why he says, I'm where
God put me. This is not the way Joseph would,
you think Joseph would have chosen to go down into the well, to
get sold into slavery, to be bought by Potiphar and be seduced
by his wife and then go to prison? You think Joseph would have chosen
that way? Well, no. But Joseph wasn't in control
here. And it wasn't up to Joseph's so-called, quote, free will,
unquote. It was all God's sovereign will.
Isn't that amazing? And even though God is not the
author of sin, and there's no sin in God, and even though God
does not tempt any person with evil, I'll tell you what the
Bible teaches. God sovereignly overrules and
controls even the sinful plans and actions of people for his
glory. And Joseph knew this. And he
told his brothers that God had placed him here. God put him
in his place. What's Joseph saying there? He
said he believes in the true and living God. He's saying I'm
totally dependent upon the true and living God. He trusted God
to guide him and preserve him and bless him and his family
according to God's promise. Well, think about this. Just
as God put Joseph and his brothers in Egypt, and he says in the
next verse, to save much people alive, God has placed, listen,
all persons and managed all events to place all persons where He
wants them, and He's arranged all events to save His chosen
people in Christ, the ones He chose before the foundation of
the world to the praise of the glory of His grace. And we can
see that in so many examples, but let me give you one of the
supreme examples. God the Father put God the Son, the second person
of the Trinity, in the place of preeminence as the surety,
the substitute, and the redeemer of his people. He was appointed
by the father. And then the father sent his
son to this sin-cursed earth, placed him here. God sent forth
his son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem his
people who were under the law. God sent his son to this place,
he put him in this place, This world. God-man made of a woman. And then God the Father, listen
to this, placed his son on that cross to die for our sins and
establish righteousness by which he's justified all of his people.
Didn't Isaiah say it pleased the Lord to bruise him? Didn't Christ cry from the cross,
my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Didn't he say before
he gave up the ghost, into thy hands I commit my spirit? God
raised up Christ from the dead and set him at his right hand
to make intercession for all for whom he died and arose again. That's his place now. He's been
given a name which is above every name. But now this sovereign
work of God also includes the actual application of salvation
to his people, to his elect. Because you know what God does?
He arranges our lives according to his will in order to bring
us to a place where he and the power of the Holy Spirit is gonna
communicate the gospel to us. And we're gonna be born again.
I love that passage, I preached on a television message on this
in Romans 6, Romans 6, 17, where it says, but God be thanked that
you were the servants of sin, that is in unbelief, spiritually
dead, but you've obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine
which was delivered you. Literally, that means which you
were delivered to. God delivered me. to a place where he would
communicate the gospel to me. And in your lives, if you've
been born again by the Spirit, God delivered you at some point
in time to a place. Now you may not know the exact
time and date, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm just saying
God is the one who worked in your life. You were a lost sheep
and the shepherd found you and he picked you up and he brought
you and put you in your place. He put me in my place where He
would reveal Himself in the glory of His person and the power of
His finished work as the righteousness of God in the gospel. That's
what God did, He put us in our place. And you know when He did
that, when the Holy Spirit brought us, gave us life and brought
us, He put us in our place as sinners who couldn't save ourselves
begging for mercy. Old preacher friend of ours,
Scott Richard, he said, make your headquarters in the dust.
That's our place. Don't exalt yourself. We don't
have anything to exalt. Don't bring your filthy works,
your filthy rags to God. Take your place. What are you?
I'm a sinner. I've got nothing to recommend
me unto God. I don't have any credentials to present to God. I don't have any merits. He put
me in my place. I thought I was a pretty good
fella. I found out not. Just an old sinner that if God
left me to myself, I didn't even have the desire to come to God
until he gave it to me. Isn't that right, folks? And he put us in our place. But
thank God he didn't leave us down in the dirt. He lifted the
beggar off the dung heap. Tim James used to say that was
our former address, Dungheap Drive. But he lifted the beggar
off the dungheap and he put him in Christ, high places. That's
our place, our place now, it's in Christ. Now we've always been
in Christ in the mind of God. But by nature we're born, we
fell in Adam, born spiritually dead and trespassed, and even
enemies in our minds by wicked works. But God changed all that.
He brought us down to bring us up, and he set us on high with
Christ, and that's our place now. Sinners saved by grace,
righteous in God's sight. Think about that. I'm not righteous
in myself, neither are you, but I'm righteous in Christ, and
that's a real righteousness. It's imputed to us. God cannot
charge us with our sins. The scripture said He charged
them to Christ and Christ put them away. We've been redeemed
by the blood of the crucified one. And now His place, God raised
Him up from the dead and brought Him up and set Him at His right
hand to ever live to make intercession for us. And that's His place
now. But that's our place because
we're in Him. He pleads for us. His name is
Jesus Christ the righteous. That's what happened. Look at verse 20. Now, Joseph said, for am I in the
place of God? What he's saying, am I not in
the place of God? I'm where God put me. And he
said in verse 20, now, but as for you, you thought evil against
me, but God meant it unto good. Now, the word thought there has
to do with their evil plans. The word meant there is the same
word translated differently by the King James translators. That's
okay. That's God's glorious plan. You thought evil against me,
but God meant it under good to bring to pass as it is this day
to save much people alive. You know, after hearing what
Joseph said to his brothers, Here they come and they say,
oh, Joseph, you know, we're, they bow down. Please be merciful
to us. And he tells them, he said, now,
look, don't fear. Don't be afraid of me. Don't
be afraid of my vengeance. I'm where God put me. Now you'd
think that his brother would stand up and say, wow, boys,
we're off the hook now. We're fine. You know, what we
did was okay. We were just doing the will of
God. Not so. Joseph said, now you meant it
for evil. God meant it for good. You see, the absolute sovereignty
of God gives us no justification for our sin. We have to still
answer to God. Now unbelievers see this as being
unfair and unjust, don't they? Who has resisted his will? Nobody. And they say, well, that's not
fair, that's not right, that's not giving us the dignity we
deserve. And what's the answer? Well,
the only answer God gives is like a wise creator putting those
whom he created in their proper place. And he says it this way,
nay, but old man, who are you to reply to argued debate against
God? Child, the thing formed, say
to him that formed it, why have you made me this way? Has not
the potter power over the clay and the same lump to make one
vessel under honor and another under dishonor? You know what that's saying,
don't you? Shut your mouth. God's God and you're you. Like
that old false priest said in his frustration, before he died. He said, I've been studying the
Bible. I've been studying theologians. I've been listening to preachers.
And he said, there's only two things I know. He said, what? He said, there is a God and I
ain't him. Well, thank God we know a little
more than that by the revelation of God. But you know what? When people talk about, well,
if that's the case, I'll just go out and sin all I want to,
there's basically two reasons in scriptures why that is so
wicked. Number one is because of our
limited power. We don't have any power to arrange
and work things so as to overrule evil for good. We don't have
that power. If we do evil, our intention
is evil, and it's gonna work out to evil. We don't have the
power to overturn that and overrule it for good. Only God does that.
So to say I'm just gonna sin because I'm doing the will of
God is trying to play God. And secondly, because of our
limited wisdom and knowledge. There's a lot of things we don't
know, and there's a lot of things we do foolishly, and I always
go to this verse in Deuteronomy 29. Verse 29, listen to this. The secret things belong unto
the Lord, but those things which are revealed belong unto us and
to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this
law, what God commands. We're not God. Proverbs 3.5 says,
trust in the Lord and lean not to your own understanding. You
know what we're commanded to do? We're commanded, you know,
when we read things like this and we can't figure it out and
can't wrap our minds around it, stand in awe and worship God. What was it Paul wrote over in
Romans 11? Let me read this to you. Oh, the depths of the riches,
both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, How unsearchable are
his judgments and his ways past finding out? For who hath known
the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counselor?
Who hath first given to him? And it shall be recompensed unto
him again for of him and through him and to him are all things
to whom be glory forever. Amen. Somebody said, well, I just can't
figure out God. Or I just can't wrap my mind
around God. Well, that's because he's God
and you're not. Is that right? Actually, think about this. Would
you want a God you can figure out? Because if you can figure
it out, he's not God. He said, my ways are not your
ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts. So high above us is
his ways and thoughts. Well. Well Joseph said here the
whole purpose of this was to save much people alive. And that
refers to the preservation of the Hebrew children in spite
of what was coming in the future. You remember the Pharaoh rises
up, no Joseph, and he puts them in bondage. And so God's gonna
preserve them through that enslavement, bring them to the promised land
and keep them there as a nation until the Messiah would come.
Well listen, the ultimate spiritual and eternal fulfillment of that
is found in the eternal salvation of God's elect. Why did Christ,
why was he put on this earth, this place? Why was he put on
that cross, that place? Why was he laid in the tomb,
that place? Why was he raised from the dead
to return to this place? Why was he ascended unto the
Father in that place? To save much people alive, his
elect. given him by the Father before
the foundation of the world. And in the same way that God
predetermined and controlled all the events of Joseph's life,
he predetermined and controlled all the events in the life, death,
and resurrection of Christ. He predetermined and controlled
all the events in the lives of his people and even their enemies
to bring them to the place where they hear his gospel and he brings
them out of that darkness into light. Place of darkness to the
place of light. And then verse 21, we'll conclude
here. Now therefore, fear ye not, Joseph said, I will nourish
you and your little ones. And he comforted them and spoke
kindly unto them. That's what God does to his children,
isn't it? Joseph said that they can be
comforted and they can experience Joseph's kindness and his power
to preserve them in love. And it's because of God's purpose
fulfilled in Christ, that every believing sinner can experience
and know the kindness, the grace, mercy, love, and power of God
to save us from our sins, to provide all righteousness for
us, and to bring us to glory. All right.