If you would, open your Bibles
now to Genesis chapter 19. Genesis chapter 19. This text
or this will serve as our text this evening. Beginning in verse 30. And Lot went up out of Zoar and
dwelt in the mountain and his two daughters with him, for he
feared to dwell in Zoar And he dwelt in a cave, he and his two
daughters. And the firstborn said unto the
younger, our father is old and there's not a man in the earth
to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth. Come,
let us make our father drink wine and we will lie with him
that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their
father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and
lay with her father and he perceived not when she laid down or when
she arose. And it came to pass on the morrow that the firstborn
said unto the younger, behold, I lay yesterday night with my
father. Let us make him drink wine this night also, and go
thou in and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.
And they made their father drink wine that night also. And the
younger arose and lay with him, and he perceived not when she
lay down nor when she arose. Thus were both the daughters
of Lot with child by their father. And the firstborn bear a son
and called his name Moab. The same is the father of the
Moabites unto this day. And the younger, she also bear
a son and called his name Benami. The same is the father of the
children of Ammon unto this day. Let's bow before our Lord together
in prayer. Our Father, we come before you
this evening, a thankful people. How thankful we are for Your
mercy and Your grace, Your redemptive power that You have reserved
for Your people in our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, no matter what
else is going on in our lives, how much Your people have to
be thankful for. Oh, how we thank You for Your
mercy and Your grace. How we thank You for a Savior
who's successful, who's sacrificed completely, blotted out the sin
of His people. made us righteous and accepted
in him. Father, we're thankful. Father, we're thankful people
and we're also a needy people. We stand in need of your mercy
and your grace, your upholding power every second of every day. We stand in need of your grace
and your mercy, your forgiveness. Father, we stand in need of your
presence, your strength and your guidance to lead us through this
life here below. Father, be with us, we pray.
We're so thankful for your mercy and your grace of the past, but
we beg of you that you not leave us now, because while we're thankful,
we are a needy, a poor, and a needy people, continually dependent
upon thee. And Father, I pray that this
evening you give us the spirit of worship, that you'd send your
spirit upon us and enable us to forget about the many cares
and difficulties of this life Father, show us the good news
of Christ our Savior. Reveal him to us that we might
see him by faith, we pray. And Father, for those who are
hurting and sick, Father, we pray for them. We pray for Novi,
that you'd undertaken her behalf. Others, Father, who are preparing
for surgery and treatments and tests, and there's so many. Father, we're thankful thou art
a great physician. We pray that you'd heal. that
you touch their bodies and heal, and that you give a special portion
of your presence and comfort their hearts with your presence.
Give them, Father, we pray, grace that's sufficient for the hour.
But Father, again, I pray that this evening you'd show us your
glory. Enable us to glorify the name of Christ our Savior. For
it's in his precious name we pray. Amen. All right, and as
I told you last Wednesday, To me, Genesis 19 is probably the
darkest chapter in all of the Bible. Man's sin nature is made
so abundantly clear in this chapter. The sins found in this chapter
are things that people who got any sins don't talk about in
public. These things just seem too shameful
to talk about in good company. Earlier this week I told my wife
Janet what my text was going to be tonight and she immediately
said, ooh. And quite honestly, I would dodge
talking about these things if it was just me. I would dodge
talking about these things if they were not found in the word
of God. Now we need to remember that all of the word of God is
given to us for our instruction and for our learning to point
us to our Lord Jesus Christ. And you might wonder, where's
Christ? In the midst of all this darkness
and all this vile wretchedness, where is Christ in there? Well,
I believe that the Lord's given me something from this text that
will glorify our Savior and will be a help to all of us. I've
titled the message tonight, God Brings Good Out of Evil. Now,
we just read this passage, so let me just give you a summary
here of what's happened. Remember last week we saw that
the Lord came for, he's going to destroy Sodom. He told lot
now you escape from Sodom and you go to the mountain and lot
wanted to go to this little city. So are, he didn't want to go
all the way to the mountain and the Lord allowed him to do that.
He allowed lot his daughters to escape to this little city.
So are before he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and all the other
cities of that plane. And after that destruction, for
whatever reason, lot did not feel safe in. So, So he took
his daughters and he made, I guess he thought the Lord was going
to destroy that place too. So he took his daughters and went
to the mountain where the Lord told him to go in the first place.
I thought to myself, well, I wish I'd just do what the Lord said
the first time that he ended up doing what the Lord told him
to do in the first place. Now they're there in this cave and
from what we read, it kind of sounds like, Lot's daughters
thought the whole world had been destroyed. They didn't think
just Sodom and Gomorrah. They thought the whole world
had been destroyed. And it looks like they think their father
is the only man left alive on earth. So if they're going to
have children, their father is going to have to be the father
of their children, too. So they come up with this plan to make
their father commit incest with them. And they get their father
so drunk, he doesn't even know what's going on. And they have
incestuous relations with their father. And both of them become
pregnant of their father. Now that is so vile. We just
don't even want to think about it. I mean, I feel a little embarrassed
even saying this out loud. I mean, this is vile, vile. But it's good for us to look
at these things and remember, you know, you and I have the
same sin nature they had here. We have the same capacity to
do just as vile as they did here, if not worse. And we will if
the Lord doesn't stop us, if he doesn't prevent us from doing
it. So we got the same nature. We ought to be able to identify
with what's going on here with the sin and depravity because
we got the same depraved nature. Now, quite honestly, I never
wondered this before, but as I read this week, I read about
people who are kind of wondering and debating whether or not lots
daughters were believers. Are they righteous? Like lot
was, is righteous. And I don't know. I think it's
an exercise in futility to try to debate that simply because
scripture doesn't say, does it? But I do know this lots daughters
didn't look back at Sodom like their mother did. So maybe, maybe
they're believers. Maybe they were, they were righteous.
I don't know. But I pointed that out to, to
again, remind us that believers, are capable of any sin that unbelievers
commit, any sin, with the exception of unbelief and apostasy. It's
impossible for a believer to quit believing on God, because
God won't let them. I mean, it's not because of any
strength in us, it's because God won't let us. And if these
two girls were believers, this is what I can tell you about
them. Their sin was forgiven. The same way my sin's forgiven,
and your sin's forgiven. But they and the whole world
suffered because of the consequences of their sin. We shouldn't say,
well, let's sin that grace may abound, because however we sin,
our sin will be forgiven. Paul said, God forbid, first
of all, that we think that. And our sin is forgiven. The
sin of God's people is forgiven. But don't think there won't be
consequences for our actions, for our sinful actions. That's
what happened to these two daughters in the world because of them.
These girls gave birth. two boys. Those sons became the
head of the Moabites and the Ammonites, who both were bitter,
bitter enemies of Israel for generations. Probably still are. They just don't know they're
members of that tribe anymore. They probably still are. The actions
of these girls and Lot caused suffering for generations, for
thousands and millions of people. Now that's sad, isn't it? I mean,
that's sad. If the story ended here, that's
sad and dark and depressing, and we're just going to go home
pouting, aren't we? And you might wonder, well, preacher,
can you show me any gospel in this? Is there any light? Is
there any good news in this? Well, I believe I can show it
to you. The only reason I can't is because the Lord showed it
to me. I wouldn't see, no one would see any gospel here in
this chapter unless we studied the rest of scripture to find
out what does this mean. If you ever want to find out
what a passage of scripture, what a verse of scripture means,
you have to compare it with the rest of scripture to find out
what it means. If we just use our logic and
our supposition to say, well, this must be what that means,
we're going to be wrong every time. The only way we can find
out what a passage of scripture means and how it instructs us
to look to Christ is by comparing it to the rest of scripture.
So tonight I want us to see four examples of how God brings good
out of evil. I'm going to start right here
in our text. Number one, from this evil, we're able to see
the kinsman redeemer. And one of the very first things
I think about when I think about the mole bites is Ruth. Ruth
the Moabitess. You may want to turn over there
to the book of Ruth. Now, years after this evil had taken place,
there was a famine in the land of Israel. And a man who lived
there in Bethlehem, he lived in Judah, Bethlehem, Elimelech
was his name. He took his family and left Israel
and went down to the land of Moab because he heard there was
bread there. And while he was there, His two sons, in direct
violation of God's law, married two mole-bite girls. And while
they were there, Elimelech and his two sons died, leaving three
grieving widows. Now, Elimelech's widow, the older
of the ladies, Naomi was her name, and she said, girls, I'm
going back to Israel. You two girls, her daughters-in-law,
she said, you stay here in your country. You marry husbands from
your country, from your kindred, And she said, I pray God bless
you, give you children and give you happy marriages. You stay
here, I'm going back to Israel. One of them stayed. And one of
those girls told Naomi, Naomi, I don't care where you go, I'm
going with you. I don't care what you say, you
cannot talk me out of going with you. So she said, all right,
let's go. Here they go from Moab, walking
back to Israel, to Bethlehem. They finally get there. I mean,
they've been walking this whole way. They had to beg and borrow
food all the way. These two ragtag, bankrupt, dirty
widows show up in town. And Naomi sees some of her old
friends. Some of them, they can't hardly recognize her. And then
they recognize her from the years and the dirt and things. And
they says, Naomi. She said, don't call me Naomi
anymore. Naomi means pleasant. She says,
don't call me pleasant. Call me Mara. That name means
bitter. Call me bitter for the Lord hath
dealt bitterly with me. That's a sad case. These two
poverty stricken widows, nobody to provide for them, nobody to
help them. No social security, no welfare, no nothing. Well,
the Lord in his goodness provided for the poor people at that time.
by allowing them to go glean in the fields. They would go
in the fields, and after the reapers had gone through whatever
they missed or they dropped, the poor people, they'd pick
that up, and that would be their, the way that they would have
food. All right, Ruth chapter two, verse one. That's what Ruth
is determined to do. She's gonna go glean in the fields.
And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a mighty man of wealth
of the family of Elimelech, and his name is Boaz. And Ruth the
Moabitess said unto Naomi, let me now go to the field and glean
ears of corn after him, in whose sight I shall find grace. And
she said unto her gold, my daughter. And she went and came and gleaned
in the field after the reapers. And her hap was, it just so happened,
wasn't she lucky? She just so happened to lie on
a part of the field belonging unto Boaz, who was of the kindred
of the Limelight. And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem
and said unto the reapers, the Lord be with you. And they answered
him, the Lord bless thee. Then said Boaz unto his servant
that was sent over the reapers, whose damsel is this? And the
servant that was sent over the reapers answered and said, it's
the Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the country
of Moab. And she said, I pray you let
me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves. So she came, and she hath continued
even from morning until now, that she tarried a little in
the house. Then said Boaz unto Ruth, Hearest thou not my daughter? Go not to glean in another field,
neither go from hence, but you abide here fast by my maidens.
Let your eyes be on the field that they do reap, and you go
after them. Have not I charged the young men that they should
not touch thee? And when thou art athirst, go unto the vessels,
and drink of that which the young men have that she fell on her
face and bowed herself to the ground. And she said unto him,
why, if I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take
knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger. Oh, Ruth went out
to glean, and she met Boaz. And I'm telling you, this guy
was some specimen. He had muscles come out of places
I didn't know you could have muscles come out of. tall and
straight, sitting on his white stallion. He's got dark, thick,
curly hair falling down over his shoulders, you know, and
fine clothes. And here he comes riding in to
see how the harvest is going. And he must be a kind man. He
says to the reapers, Lord bless you. And they said back to him,
Lord bless you. And he's sitting there on his
stallion, and oh my, he sees a little girl, poor girl. gleaning. And he says, who's that? He just
instantly fell head over heels in love with Ruth. He loves her. And he's going to provide for
her. He's going to take care of her. And everybody knows the
end of the story. He's going to be the kinsman
redeemer for Ruth and Naomi. Now, in order to be the kinsman
redeemer, you had to meet three qualifications. You had to be
near kin. You had to be related by blood.
Second, you had to be able to pay the price. I mean, if you're
going to pay a debt, there's a reason. You've got to have
enough money to pay the debt. And thirdly, you've got to be
willing to pay the debt. A lot of people have the means
to pay the debt, aren't willing, are they? But you had to be all
three. You had to be related. You had to be able to pay the
debt. And you had to be willing to pay the debt. Well, Boaz was
all three of those. He was related to Lemelak, a
cousin or a nephew or something. He had the wealth. to pay the
debt. That's no problem. He had plenty
of wealth to pay the debt. And he was willing to pay it.
You know why he was willing? Because he loved Ruth. He was
willing to pay the debt. And Boaz redeemed everything
that Elimelech lost. And he went further. He married
Ruth. And he and Ruth had a little
boy. She got pregnant. She had a little boy. She's in
labor, and the child comes out. Not like today, where you've
got whatever you call them, images that you see. You don't know
what the baby is for, and there they did. This little boy comes
out. It's a boy. And Boaz and Ruth said, let's
name him Obed. Well, Obed is the father of Jesse,
who's the father of David. Ruth the Moabitess, this idolater,
widow, bankrupt, begging woman, is the great grandmother of King
David. Now I'm telling you, that's a
story of God's grace. This is such a clear picture
of Christ our kinsman redeemer. Christ our kinsman redeemer was
made flesh. He became a man, a human being,
so he could be related to the people that he came to redeem.
We had a price on our head, didn't we? Oh, he's God Almighty. He's got to wear with all to
pay the price. His blood is precious. And he's
willing to pay it. He's willing to pay the debt
for his people because he loves his people. Just to make sure we get it,
I love this, later on, when it comes time for the disciples
to write the Gospels. You know where you find the name
Ruth? This Moabitess Idolater. You know where you find her name?
In the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ the Redeemer. Christ the Kinsman Redeemer came
through Ruth. Ruth is a picture of everybody. Christ came to save. He identified
with those people because he loves them. And he came to save
those people. Now what Lot and his daughters did is unspeakably
evil. It never should have been done.
It's just really not something polite society even talks about.
But they did it. And the Lord brought good out
of them. He didn't just give us a picture of the kinsman redeemer
through this. He gave us the kinsman redeemer
himself. He brought good out of evil,
didn't he? All right, the second thing I thought of was Adam and
Eve in the garden. You know God created the garden,
he put man in it, and he said, you eat all the trees you want,
everything you want here, except this one tree, the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. The day you eat of it, Adam,
you're going to die. I don't know how long it was, but the
day came, Adam took that fruit, and he willfully, with his eyes
wide open, knowing exactly what he was doing, rebelled against
God, and took that fruit and ate it. And he immediately died. I hear people talk about Adam
and say, well, he loved Eve. Eve had already eaten of the
fruit, but nothing happened, did it? Because she was in Adam. She was in Adam, her federal
head. Nothing happened when she ate the fruit. But boy, she sure
died when Adam ate the fruit, when her federal head ate the
fruit. And I've heard people say, well, Adam knew what was going
on, but he took that in fruit because he knew that Eve would
be destroyed. He was going to be with Eve. Well, I know that sounds good,
doesn't it? And certainly Christ, knowing full well what was going
to happen to him, became a man to redeem his people from their
sins. But that's kind of like puffing Adam up a little bit.
There's no reason to be proud of Adam in this. He sinned willfully. And if he loved her before, Boy,
after he ate that fruit, he died. He sure did hate her. And he
tried to throw her under the bus for God Almighty. Adam's sin
brought death and sadness to the whole human race, to all
of creation, because he's the federal head of every one of
us. And even today, I mean, I just wonder how did Adam live with
that for 900 years? 900 years. Every single time
he saw a person or an animal or a plant die. He thought, I did that. And for 6,000 years after, well
I guess roughly 5,000 years after, even today, every time somebody
gets sick, every time somebody dies and we go down to the funeral
home, it's because of Adam's sin. It's a direct result of
Adam's sin. I mean the tragedy of that dark,
dark day when Adam decided to disobey God because he wanted
to be his own God. Look what it caused. It caused
damage and destruction everywhere. Now, what Adam did, he did willfully
of his own free will. But when Adam did what he wanted
to do, you know what he did? He accomplished the will and
purpose of God. Now I know God's not the author of evil, I'm not
saying that. But God did will the fall of man. That's right,
we have to believe that. We have to believe that God willed
the fall of man. If God is sovereign over all
things, Adam didn't do something God didn't want him to do. God
willed the fall of man. In that dark, dark day full of
death and destruction. Now where is the good news? Where is the light of the gospel
in that dark day? Well here it is. We never would
have seen God's mercy for sinners if Adam didn't sin and make us
need mercy. You don't appreciate God's mercy
unless you need it. Adam made us need it. We never
would have seen God's mercy unless Adam made us need God's mercy.
We never would have seen God's saving grace if Adam hadn't fallen
in sin and made it the only way we could be saved is by grace.
We never would have seen how God forgives sin. Adam didn't
fall and make us sinners and need forgiveness. We never would
have seen God's wisdom and how God is just and still justifies
the ungodly through the obedience and the substitutionary death
of Christ on the cross. We never would have seen that
wisdom unless Adam hadn't first fallen. Now, There is no excusing
Adam's sin. I'm not excusing it in the least.
But God sure brought evil out of it, didn't he? Adam fell,
but his people weren't destroyed. Because before Adam sinned, Christ
the Savior, in the eyes of the Father, is the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. His sacrifice had already redeemed
those people. And even though Adam fell, they
could not be destroyed. Because the sacrifice was already
provided. And I think now this is a good time to point this
out. Somebody, some smart aleck will think, well, if every evil
thing I do is God's will and God's able to bring good out
of it, well then it doesn't matter if I sin or not. No, no, no,
no. This is no excuse for sin. To
say that it doesn't matter if I sin because God willed it, that's blaming God for my sin.
That's blaming God's sovereignty for my sin. And to borrow a phrase
from the Apostle Paul, God forbid. God forbid that I blame my sin
on God. God forbid that I blame my unbelief
on God. God forbid. You know, you and
I are just like Adam. Our sin is our fault. It's our fault. And what we deserve
for it is damnation. That's what we deserve. And for
we're damned for our sin, you think of the harm that we cause
to the people around us in our lives because of our sin. My
sin is my fault. And I've never repented. I've
never truly begged for mercy until my sin is all my fault. And I know God will be right
in sending me to hell for it. I've never begged for mercy and
I've never received mercy until I see this is what I deserve.
I'm guilty and it's my fault. Now God saves sinners who have
fallen in Adam. He saves them by his grace. Isn't
that the sweetest story that's ever been told to mankind? God saves sinners by his grace. Oh, the destruction, the death
that Adam caused by his sin. But God's given us the good news
to go tell sinners, God saves sinners by his grace. Not by
your merit, because you don't have any. Not by your righteousness,
because you don't have any. God saves his people. He saves
sinners by his grace. Adam had, he didn't have a righteousness.
What he had was an innocence. And he could lose it if he disobeyed
God. And he did. Sinners saved by
grace have a righteousness they can never lose. Salvation in
Christ is a whole lot better than being created innocent like
Adam was in the garden. What good news we have for sinners.
And we never would have seen them. We never would have had
that sweet, sweet story of salvation by grace unless Adam fell first. Now, no excuse for what Adam
did, but God sure brought good out of it, didn't he? Then the third thing I thought
of was Joseph and his brothers. You all know the story of Joseph
Joseph was Jacob's favorite son. And Jacob made no bones about
it. Everybody knew Jacob had a favorite
son, Joseph. And you know, that made his brothers
jealous. And you can understand why it would. I mean, what a
horrible way for Jacob to treat his other sons, making Joseph
the favorite. You know, Jacob was a believer,
but he was not a good father. And generations paid for it.
Generations down the road, he didn't teach his sons to be good
fathers. And Joseph's brothers hated him because he was his
father's favorite. And what they decided to do one
day, we're going to kill him. Now, I mean, how evil do you
got to be to want to kill your little brother? And they're getting
ready to kill him, and they dug a pit and threw him down in there. Maybe they're going to eat lunch
or something before they killed him. Let's have a little refreshment
here before we kill him. And Reuben said, boys, let's
not kill him. Let's sell him into slavery instead.
And they thought, well, that's good. We can get a few bucks
out of this deal. And that's what they did. They
sold him into slavery. And they took Joseph's coat of many colors
that his father made for him, and they dipped it in animal
blood. And they came back and showed it to their father, Jacob,
so that Jacob would think his son Joseph was dead. They said,
is this your son's coat? They knew good and well he wasn't
dead. And these boys, who said they loved their daddy, let their
father bear this unimaginable heartbreak for nearly the rest
of his life, that his son was dead. And while Joseph was in
slavery, he suffered too, didn't he? Now, Joseph was a slave,
He ended up getting a pretty good gig at Potiphar's house.
He was in charge of all Potiphar's business dealings. I mean, he
made Potiphar a lot of money. I mean, Potiphar just quit worrying
about any of his business dealings. I guess he played golf all day.
He didn't have to worry about any of his business dealings
because Joseph was in charge of it. But Potiphar's wife had
a crush on Joseph. She tried to lure him. And when he wouldn't do it, she
accused Joseph of rape. and they arrested Joseph, they
threw him into prison. The scripture says while he was
there in prison, his hands and his feet hurt, because those
irons, they were just on him 24-7. Now there he is in this
awful dungeon, chained. And the only thing he did was
the right thing. I mean, this is not fair. How awful is this? But while he was in prison, The
Lord prospered Joseph again. He became the head prisoner.
He's still a prisoner, but he became the head prisoner. And
while he was there, he interpreted the dream of Pharaoh's butler
and his baker. They had been thrown in prison.
They'd upset Pharaoh somehow, and he threw them in prison.
And Joseph befriended them. He interpreted their dreams and
told them what their dreams meant. He said, your dreams mean you're
going to be set free from this place. And you know, whichever
one of them was, Baker, there was a baker. He said, now, you're
going to get out of here, and they're going to cut your head
off in a few days. But he told the butler, he said, they're
going to restore you. They're going to restore you.
And when you're restored, and you're there by Pharaoh's side,
you tell him about me. Get me out of this place. And
they promised old Joseph, we won't forget you. No, no, we'll
tell him about you. And as soon as they got out of
that dungeon, they completely forgot about old Joseph. I mean,
how unfair is this? However long it was after that,
one night Pharaoh had a dream. He didn't know what the dream
meant, but he knew it meant something important, but he didn't know
what it meant. Nobody could tell him what this dream means. Finally, the butler
remembers Joseph. He said, there's a fella down
there in the prison that can interpret dreams. So they called for Joseph
right quick. He came to Pharaoh, and he interpreted
the dream. Joseph told him what the dream
meant. Your dream means there's going to be seven years of plenty.
I mean, you just, oh, the economy's going to be booming. The crops
are going to be growing. This is going to be wonderful seven years.
But then there's going to be seven years of great famine.
And Joseph said, Pharaoh, now here's what you ought to do.
During those seven years of plenty, you ought to save up as much
as you can save up. Build new barns and new silos. And you
save everything up that you can so that during the seven years
of famine, people have something to eat. Everybody won't die.
Well, Pharaoh was so impressed. He made Joseph second in command
in all of Egypt, the most powerful nation on earth, most powerful
nation ever had been on earth up to that time. In one day,
Joseph went from the prison to the palace in one day. And over
the course of time, if anybody wanted anything, Pharaoh was
out playing golf too. He told him, you go see Joseph.
He got it all. I don't know nothing. Joseph's
got it all. He's in charge. Well, during that time of famine,
Joseph's brothers, his family, finally his father, they finally
ran out of grain. And Jacob sent those no good
boys down there to Egypt to buy grain. And oh, what a shock they had.
That brother they sold into slavery with wickedness in their heart
is on the throne. That brother that they sold into
slavery, that brother that they hated so bad that they wanted
to kill him. They threw him down there in
a pit where no water was. He was crying out, asking for
water. They wouldn't give him any. Now they got to ask him for grain.
And they won't get any if you don't give it to them. See the picture of a sinner brought
before Christ the King. We hated him without a cause.
We cried, crucify Him. We cried, I won't have this man
reign over me. I'm not going to believe in this man. He's
from Nazareth. Any good thing about Nazareth? The one we sinned against, the
one that we yelled, crucify Him, put Him to death. We won't have
life if He doesn't give it to us. We won't have grace if He
doesn't give it to us. We are totally in His hands and
we've done nothing to deserve the least of His mercies. Actually,
what we've done is deserve that he damn us it. Well, look at
Genesis chapter 45. All that transpired, and now
Joseph reveals himself to his brethren. And look what he says
to them, Genesis 45. Verse three. And Joseph said unto his brethren,
I am Joseph. Does my father yet live? and
his brethren could not answer him, for they were troubled at
his presence. And Joseph said unto his brethren, come near
to me, I pray you. And they came near, and he said,
I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. Now therefore
be not grieved or angry with yourselves that you sold me hither,
for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two
years hath the famine been in the land, and yet there are five
years in which there shall neither be earing nor harvest, And God
sent me before you to preserve you of posterity in the earth
and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not
you that sent me hither, but God. God's sovereign, God's the
one who sent me hither. And he made me a father to Pharaoh
and Lord over all his house and a ruler throughout all the land
of Egypt. And you know how Joseph took
care of his brethren. Look over at Genesis chapter
50. Now Jacob has died, and those
brothers are worried, Jacob's, Joseph's just been nice to us
because our father's living. Now that the buffer's gone, oh,
he's gonna let us have it. So verse 15 of Genesis 50. And
when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said,
Joseph will perventure hate us, and will certainly requite us
all the evil which we did unto him. 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 there's no denying that,
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. And Joseph said unto them, fear not, for am I
in the place of God. But as for you, you thought evil
against me, but God meant it unto good to bring to pass as
it is this day to save much people alive. Now therefore, fear ye
not. I'll nourish you and your little
ones. And he comforted them and spake
kindly unto them. And nobody ever hid the fact
that those brothers did evil. Jacob pointed out, Joseph pointed
out, you boys did evil. You did exactly what you wanted
to do, all the evil things that you wanted to do. And there's
no excuse for it. But God meant it for good. You
meant it for evil. God meant it for good. He brought
good out of evil. God is the one who brought me
here so I could save millions of people alive. God sent me
here to keep you from starvation. God sent me, see you're to be
blamed. But God's to be praised. He sent me here. Now don't you
see that's a picture of Christ? That's a picture of Christ. God
bringing good out of evil is such a picture of Christ. Our
older brother. The one who we've sinned against.
And he's the one who forgives all of our sin. And he tells
us, fear not. I'll nourish you. I'll nourish
you. All right, then the last thing,
this is the preeminent example of God bringing good out of evil,
is Calvary. Now everything the Jews and the
Romans did to the Lord at Calvary was wrong. It's the most wicked
miscarriage of justice, the most wicked outpouring of human depravity
that's ever been on the face of the earth. Because humanly
speaking, our Lord was innocent. He was innocent of every charge
and they knew it and put him to death anyway. They knew he
was innocent and they tortured him before they put him to death
anyway. They tortured him more than any
other man. Scripture says his visage was
marred more than any other man. He didn't even look like a man
hanging there on the cross. He just looked like a butchered
piece of meat. Those men did every wicked thing that they
could think up to do And it was their fault. It was their wickedness
on display. Yet when they did all the wickedness
that was in their heart, what did they do? They did God's eternal
will and purpose. And God brought the greatest
good out of the greatest evil. God glorified himself. In that
wickedness that men did, God glorified himself in saving his
elect to the slaughter, the sacrifice, That's what Peter preached in
Acts chapter 2. We won't read it, but if you want to tonight
and you go home, you read it. That's what you'll find out.
Peter said, you did what you wanted to do. In so doing, you fulfilled
God's eternal will. This is how God's going to save
his people. There'd be no salvation for God's elect if the blood
wasn't shed. His blood had to be shed. His
body had to be broken so that the price would be paid. God
brought the greatest good. The salvation of a number no
man can number out of the greatest miscarriage of justice there
was. Only God could do that. All right. I've said all that to say this.
Now listen to me. I want to apply this to you and
me today. There are many folks here in
this congregation and many all across the country who are suffering
greatly. I talked to a woman from another
place the other day, and I don't know how long we spent on the
phone, but she spent every minute of it crying, just in depths that are really hard
to imagine. Sometimes that suffering is because
of man's wickedness, man's meanness, just doing something mean to
us. Other times it's just the effect of sin in our body. The result of Adam's sin. But
it's suffering. And it hurts. Now listen to me now. This is
true. As bad as that suffering is,
as much pain as it causes, as much heartache as it causes,
It's been sleepless nights as it causes as much worry and anxiety
that it causes in your heart. I promise you this. God's going
to bring good out of it. I promise you. Yes, I promise
you. Yes, because that's what God
does. Now. I may never see it. I may never see it. But Aaron,
I don't have to see it to know God's gonna keep his word, do
you? I mean, I don't have to see it. This just comforts my
heart. What God is doing with me, he's
doing to bring good. Because that's what God does.
Let's close turning over to Romans chapter eight. Don't take my
word for it. Let's see what God says here.
I don't care how evil, how dark, the suffering. I'm not minimizing
the suffering. Believe me, I'm not minimizing
the darkness, but God's going to bring good out of it. Romans
8 verse 28. And we know now we know this,
but we got to be reminded of it pretty often. We know. That
all things work together, all things work together for good.
to them that love God, to them who are the called according
to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate
to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be
the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate,
them he also called. And whom he called, them he also
justified. And whom he justified, them he
also glorified. Now that's God's providence for
his people. Don't you love that? Well, am I gonna start questioning
God's providence when He causes me pain? No, He's sending me
through that to bring me here. Whom He justified, them He also
glorified. Now, what should we then say
to these things? Well, if God be for us, who can be against
us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for
us all. How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who should lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies it. Who
is he that condemneth? It's Christ that died, yea rather
that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who
also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from
the love of Christ? Now when you're laying there
in that turmoil, in that trial, now God saved you. He's revealed
himself to you. He's been gracious to you. Now
just because you're hurting doesn't mean God quit loving you. It
doesn't mean God forgot about you for a minute. What shall
separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, that
trial, that pain, that suffering, that gonna separate you from
the love of Christ? Or distress, or persecution, or famine, or
nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it's written, for thy sake
we're killed all the day long. We're counted as sheep for the
slaughter. Nay, in all these things, we're more than conquerors
through him that loved us. For I'm persuaded. that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now we know that,
don't we? Hope that's a good reminder.
God's gonna bring good. He always brings good out of
people. Let's bow together. Our Father, oh, how we thank
you for your word. How we thank you that you don't
leave us to our own devices, but that you seem fit to teach
your people by your spirit through your word. Father, we're thankful.
And I beg of you that you take your word and that you glorify
yourself through it. That you apply it to the hearts
of your people. Enable us to see and rest in the glory of
Christ our Savior. If we'll see, if you will show
us your glory, all these other things will sink back into some
insignificance. Father, bless your people for
your sake, we pray. It's in Christ's name, for his
sake, for his glory, we pray. Amen. All right, Sean.