Genesis chapter 42 and reading
from verse one. Now when Jacob saw that there
was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, why do ye look
one upon another? And he said, behold, I have heard
that there is corn in Egypt. get you down thither and buy
for us from thence, that we may live and not die.' And Joseph's
ten brethren went down to buy corn in Egypt. But Benjamin,
Joseph's brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren, for he
said, Lest peradventure mischief befall him. And the sons of Israel
came to buy corn among those that came, for the famine was
in the land of Canaan. And Joseph was the governor over
the land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the
land. And Joseph's brethren came and
bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth. And Joseph saw his brethren,
and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spoke
roughly unto them. And he said unto them, Whence
come ye? And they said, From the land
of Canaan, to buy food. And Joseph knew his brethren,
and they knew not him. And Joseph remembered the dreams
which he dreamed of them, and said unto them, Ye are spies,
to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. And they said unto
him, Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come. We are all one man's sons, we
are true men, thy servants are no spies. And he said unto them,
Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. And
they said, Thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man
in the land of Canaan. And behold, the youngest is this
day with her father, and one is not. And Joseph said unto
them, That is it that I speak unto you, saying, Ye are spies. Hereby ye shall be proved by
the life of Pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence except your
youngest brother come hither. Send one of you, and let him
fetch your brother, and ye shall be kept in prison, that your
words may be proved, whether there be any truth in you, or
else by the life of Pharaoh, surely ye are spies.' And he
put them all together into ward three days. And Joseph said unto
them the third day, This do and live, for I fear God. If ye be true men, let one of
your brethren be bound in the house of your prison. Go ye,
carry corn for the famine of your houses. But bring your youngest
brother unto me, so shall your words be verified, and ye shall
not die.' And they did so. And they said one to another,
We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the
anguish of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear. Therefore is this distress come
upon us. And Reuben answered them, saying,
Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child?
And he would not hear. Therefore, behold, also his blood
is required. And they knew not that Joseph
understood them, for he spake unto them by an interpreter. And he turned himself about from
them, and wept, and returned to them again, and communed with
them, and took from them Simeon, and bound him before their eyes. Then Joseph commanded to fill
their sacks with corn, and to restore every man's money into
his sack, and to give them provision for the way. And thus did he
unto them. And they laded their asses with
the corn, and departed thence. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. It is about 22 years since Joseph
last saw his brothers. 22 years. At that time, they assaulted
him, they stripped him, they threw him into a pit, and finally
they sold him to slave traders. They assumed that he was dead. but Joseph was very much alive. And during those years, God protected
him, preserved him, and promoted him to the top of the Egyptian
nation. He was second only to Pharaoh. By his God-given wisdom, he had
saved the Egyptian nation from starvation, and now he would
be used by God to deliver his own people and to sustain the
covenant promises that God had given to Abraham, to Isaac and
to Jacob. We read in our verses that at
first Joseph hid his identity from his brothers. He understood
that he was being used by God to deliver them. And he also
was able to recognize the way in which his own dreams were
brought true. He wanted to know about his brother
Benjamin, and he wanted to know about his father Jacob. His love went out to these men,
and yet he realised that to do them most good, and to do good
for all of them, he must have a plan and he must have a scheme. So at first he appeared rough
and condemning of them. Perhaps we sometimes think that
God's ways with us are rough and difficult. But the Lord's
people learn that greater good always flows from troubled times,
and trusting in the Lord will be rewarded. I have a couple
of lessons that I want to draw your attention to from these
verses before us today, and I think that we can learn from them. And the first one is that necessity
drove Jacob's decisions. Jacob was Joseph's father, of
course, but necessity drove his decisions. Sometimes people struggle
And maybe you do too, if you've thought about it very much. But
sometimes people struggle with the idea of God's sovereignty
versus man's supposed free will. And this passage gives us a good
example of how God's sovereign purpose unfolds. We talk about free will because
we all feel that we have free will. We tell ourselves that
we have free will and in one sense we have. Jacob was free to send his sons
to Egypt for food or not. These men were free to go to
Egypt for food or not. No one was forcing them to go. And we could say that in that
sense, Jacob acted on his own free will to send his sons to
Egypt. And yet, Jacob knew that his
family was starving. The crops had failed again in
Canaan, so he had to do something or all of them would starve to
death. Egypt had grain, so Jacob decided
that he would send his sons to get some. But we read in Psalm 105 these
words. Listen to this. He is the Lord
our God. His judgments are in all the
earth. He called for a famine upon the
land. He break the whole staff of bread. Now this is referring to the
famine in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan. And it
tells us that it was God who called for this famine upon the
land. Jacob thought that he was making
a free will decision, but actually he was simply reacting as best
he could to the circumstances that God had brought upon him. his family and the whole of the
country. God had already pre-arranged
this. In fact, God not only called
for a famine in all the land, including Egypt and Canaan, but
he had foreordained for Joseph to be sent there 22 years before,
and he had looked after him when he got there, and he had given
Pharaoh dreams and he had enabled Joseph to interpret those dreams
and he had brought all the events and all the circumstances and
all the providence together. So that while Jacob felt that
he was making a decision of his own, he was actually working
to God's will and God's purpose. God's plan was much bigger than
Jacob knew and God was working all things together for Jacob's
good and for the good of his church and for the good of his
people. Now here's another thought connected
with that. You might say, why? Why would God do it like this? Why would God do all these things? Why is God's plan all of these
years in outworking and in coming to pass? Why send Joseph? Why call for a famine? Why bring Jacob into Egypt? Well, remember what we've often
said. These events all speak about
the Lord Jesus Christ. These promises that were made
to Abraham were promises about the Lord Jesus Christ. These
events and experiences in the life of Jacob and Joseph and
the children of Israel, they all pointed to the Lord Jesus
Christ. The types all reveal something
about the gospel, the deliverer. We have the gospel preached to
us. today from the life of the Lord
Jesus Christ and the testimony of the apostles and the gospel
writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But the Old Testament
church, they had that same gospel preached to them by the prophets
and by the experiences of the nation Israel and its history. It was the same Gospel, it was
the same testimony and it's the same Saviour because both the
Old Testament and the New Testament speak of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the Lord brought these
events, these circumstances to pass to teach the people of that
day about the Lord Jesus Christ in picture and in practice and
type. And here's another lesson that
I want just to mention to you before we bring our thoughts
to a close. Joseph's brothers remembered
the sins that they had committed against Joseph when they were
in prison and the sin that we commit always stays with us. and a guilty conscience never
goes away unless the Lord Jesus removes them both. Joseph accused
his brothers of being spies and had them arrested and as they
talked in prison, They deduced that their trouble was punishment
for their actions. They knew that the things that
they had done to Joseph were wrong. They didn't know this
was Joseph. But they knew in their own hearts that all those
years ago, that sin that they had committed, it still preyed
on their minds and it still weighed heavy on their consciences. 22 years and they had not forgotten. I don't think that they had forgotten
one single day of their lives from that day until now. We must
live with the fact and the effects of our sin. But the message of
the Gospel is that there is freedom from sin and there is release
from guilt because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. In
fact, the Gospel tells us something amazing. It tells us that Jesus
Christ, the Saviour, has taken ownership and responsibility
and culpability for all the sins of his people. If we are one
of his people, then he has taken our sin as his own. He has taken it from off our
shoulders and he has carried it himself. These men would know
no peace until Joseph forgave them for what they had done to
him. And you and I will know no peace
until God forgives us for our sin against him. So let us go
to him for grace. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us from the life of Joseph. Amen.