Good morning. If you would open
your Bibles to the book of Genesis. Genesis chapter 45. Genesis 45.
This is the portion Scripture where the ending of
the story of Joseph and his brothers. And what a great story it is. It's a story that has a great
bad guy in the brothers who betray their brother for no reason other
than he's more loved or more liked than them. It has a great
hero in Joseph who's betrayed but yet perseveres. He ascends
through trials and tribulations and ultimately gets to the place
where He has the lives of all the people in His hands. And
in chapter 45, verse 1, this is the ending of the story and
what Joseph does with his brothers. Verse 1 of chapter 45 says, Then
Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by
him, and he cried, cause every man to go out from me, and there
stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto
his brethren. And he wept aloud, and the Egyptians
and the house of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren,
I am Joseph, doth 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 ye sold into Egypt. Now therefore
be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye 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 the
which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. And God sent
me before you to preserve you a 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. And he hath made me a father
to Pharaoh, and Lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout
all the land of Egypt. Haste ye, and go up to my father,
and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made
me Lord of all Egypt. Come down unto me, tarry not,
And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be
near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children's children,
and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast, and there
will I nourish thee. For yet there are five years
of famine, lest thou and thy household, and all that thou
hast come to poverty." What a great story Joseph and his brothers
are. Unfortunately, For almost everyone,
that's all this is. A really great story. Unfortunately for many, they
don't realize that this story has a much greater meaning. That
the spiritual application of this story is infinitely greater
than this story. In the same way that Hollywood
has taken its chance at writing a story, or not writing, but
producing a movie to show this man Noah, who built a boat, and
a great flood came and all those in the boat, they lived and everybody
else died. But they miss the arc is our
Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And everyone that's not in Him
will die. And in the same way that David
and Goliath is a story as a child I thought was so great. This
underdog story of this little shepherd boy who shows up and
stands with a few stones before this enormous giant. And he's
victorious in the Israelites' win. But they miss that David
is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, our representative. that
we all are scared and we wouldn't and couldn't go face that giant.
We knew it was our death on His hands, but our representative
stood in our place and was victorious and won the battle over our sin.
As in Joseph here, as a picture of Christ, as the One who is
sent before us to provide for us. Without Him, we'd have nothing. We'd all be left to the famine
and we'd be left to our sins and die in them. So this morning
what I want to look at is I want to briefly go through this story
and look at it as the spiritual application. As these brothers
who are us, and it's not comfortable to see what we do and what we
say and the way we act to our Savior. And then Joseph here
is a representative of Christ. The one that was sent before
to save us. So turn with me to Genesis chapter
37. And we'll read a few verses here
to get started. And everything we'll go through
in this story, we'll look at this as Joseph as the Lord and
us as the brothers. And verse 1 says, And Jacob dwelt
in the land wherein his father was a stranger in the land of
Canaan. And these are the generations of Jacob, Joseph being 17 years
old, was feeding the flock with his brethren. Look at verse 3,
Now Israel, or Jacob, loved Joseph more than all his children, because
He was the Son of His old age and He made Him a coat of many
colors." God loves His Son. He loves the Lord Jesus Christ. That's who He loves. Verse 4,
"...and when His brethren saw that their Father loved Him more
than all His brethren, they hated Him and could not speak peaceably
unto Him." There is no justifiable reason why we would hate the
Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't sin, he's done no
evil, he's never done anything wrong, and only does wonderful
things for his children. Yet we hate him for whatever
reason. That's just who we are. That's
our nature. Look down in verse 16. And he said, Joseph said,
I seek my brethren, my brothers, tell me, I pray thee, where they
feed their flocks. And the man said, they are departed
hence, for I heard them say, let us go to Dothan. And Joseph
went after his brethren and found them in Dothan. And when they
saw him afar off, his brothers saw him, even before he came
near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him." This
is what we did to the Lord Jesus Christ. We looked upon Him and
we thought, how can we get rid of Him? How can we kill Him? And despite us living in the
day we do, it's very clear throughout the Scriptures, had we been put
in the situation, we would have yelled, crucify Him, crucify
Him. Look in verse 20. These brothers
thought, let's just kill him. Let's get rid of him and we'll
never have to deal with him. In these dreams it speaks of
the Lord reigning over us. It says, let's see how that will
happen now. We looked at the Lord Jesus Christ
and we wanted to slay Him because we want to be our own ruler.
We don't want to have somebody reign over us. We don't want
to have somebody tell us what to do. We said, we'll see what
happens to Him being the Savior now. In verse 21, "...and Reuben,
one of his brothers, heard it, and he delivered him out of their
hands, and said, Let's not kill him. And Reuben said unto them,
Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that's in the wilderness,
and lay no hand upon him, that he might rid him out of their
hands, to deliver him under his father again." Reuben here, whether
he's actually really trying to help or not, this is a good example
of the type of thing that we do and classify as a good work.
Our brothers are going to kill him. Our own brothers are going
to kill our other brother. And we step in and say, you know,
instead of killing him, let's just put him in a hole in the
middle of nowhere. It's really the same thing. But
of course, Reuben is going to say he did this. Look in verse
23, And it came to pass, when Joseph was come into his brethren,
they stripped Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colors
that was on him, and they took him and cast him into a pit.
And the pit was empty, there was no water in it. Reuben was
successful in his changing the plan. Let's not kill him, let's
throw him in a pit. But that last phrase sums up
what they were really doing. Summed him into a pit that was
empty and no water was in it. He had no hope. He couldn't do
this. He was going to die in there.
And then we look in verse 25, And they sat down to eat bread,
and they lifted up their eyes, and behold, a company of Ishmaelites
came from Gilead with their camels, bearing spicery, and balm, and
myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. And Judah said unto
his brethren, What profit us if we slay our brother and conceal
his blood? It is not good enough that we
kill him. What more could we possibly do?
It's not good enough that we kill him. Verse 27, Come, let's
sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon
him, for he is our brother in our flesh, and his brethren were
content. Then there passed by Midianites
merchantmen, and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit,
and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver.
Again, this sums us up so well. In one way, and this is what
we do in religion, Instead of, it's not enough to say bad things,
to cast him out, to speak evil of our Lord, but instead we have
to try to make money off of it. Filthy lucre. We need to find
a way to profit off of it. It's not good enough that we
kill him. And then we also see that these men here, his brothers,
they thought that it would be better if we didn't kill him. Meaning that let them kill him.
We won't be the ones who do it. Our sin is on our hands. Just
because we might not have thought we threw the stone or slid the
knife, we are the ones who are guilty of killing the Lord Jesus
Christ. And look in verse 31, And they
took Joseph's coat and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped
the coat in the blood. And they sent the coat of many
colors, and they brought it to their father and said, This is
how we found. Know now whether it be thy son's coat or not. It's not enough we did it, then
we have to lie about it. We just keep digging ourselves
further and further and further. Can you imagine the hatred they
had to have for Him? The hatred we have to have for
our Savior that it's not enough that we would want to kill Him.
It's not enough that we would want to make money off of it.
It's not enough that we would lie about it, but we would go
to our Father and act like we have no idea what just happened.
They bring the coat back and they say, we found this coat,
maybe it's his, maybe it isn't, knowing the whole time that obviously
it's his coat. Then verse 33, and Jacob knew
it. And he said, it is my son's coat.
And evil beasts hath devoured him. Joseph is without doubt
rent in pieces. And Jacob rent his clothes and
put sackcloth upon his loins and mourned for his son many
days. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort
him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, for I will go down
into the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him.
And again we go one step further. We try to go to our father and
comfort him. We are the ones who killed him
and we go and ask that we could comfort him for what we have
done. I say all this so we understand everything is our fault. We're
the sinners. We're the ones who've done all
the evil. We're the ones who caused the Lord Jesus Christ
to be in this position. If we had not sinned, He would
not have had to endure all this trials and tribulations. He went
through all of this, what we'll see here shortly, all the things
that Joseph went through, that the Lord went through on this
earth, was all because of our sins, what we did, our evil,
our hatred towards Him. That's the only reason the Lord
Jesus Christ came to save His people. And if we had not done
that, He wouldn't have had to. Everything He did is for us,
for the sinners. Okay, look, and we'll turn here
to Genesis 39. He now went to Potiphar, and
I'll just summarize what happens. Joseph went to Potiphar, and
just like our Lord, everything he did was good, yet he was betrayed. He did no wrong on this earth.
Our Lord Jesus Christ was perfect. He never sinned or anything,
yet he was left and right, betrayed and cast out and sent into prison. And as Joseph was there, he spent
the time there, and he interpreted wishes for the butler and baker.
He prophesied unto them, and yet they forgot him. The Lord
taught so many, preached to so many, and so many of us just
didn't hear it. We didn't want anything to do with it. And then
all of a sudden, Pharaoh had a dream, and he couldn't figure
out what it was. And that butler all of a sudden
remembered something he heard, and Joseph came forth. So turn
over now to Genesis 41. And look in verse 33. Pharaoh
had a dream, and Joseph interpreted it. He told him there would be
seven years of great harvest, and then seven years of famine.
And this is what Pharaoh said, Now therefore, let Pharaoh look
out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of
Egypt. There must be a man chosen to
save all the people. There has to be someone. Could
we possibly find someone who could do this? Look down at verse
37. And the thing was good in eyes
of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants. And Pharaoh
said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this is, a
man in whom the Spirit of God is? We have something that we
have to find a Savior. We've got a famine coming and
we're all going to die. We need to find one who can save
us. And what's the one characteristic
we need? We need a man in whom the Spirit of God is. We need a Savior. And in verse
39, and Pharaoh said unto Joseph, For as much as God has showed
thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou
art. For the problem ahead, there
was only one person who could possibly be the Savior. The Lord
Jesus Christ. There was only one who could
become a man and fulfill the work that had to be done. The
Lord Jesus Christ. So now Joseph is tasked with
saving his people. He's put in a place where everyone's
life is in his hands. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
this earth to save his people. That's the only thing he was
here to do. And in chapter 42, verse 1, It says, 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 ye down thither, and buy
from us from thence, that we may live and not die. It is so
often that we look around what we're going through and we think,
why do we have to go through this? Why do we have to have
this travail? Why do we have to have a famine?
You know Jacob and all those brothers all thought, why is
this happening? Why do we not have any food? Why is God doing
this to us? And the reason is simply because
we go through these trials so we are forced to go see our Savior. They had no reason to go find
Joseph, to go see him. Though he was the only one who
could save them, they had no reason to go until they were
put in a position that they didn't have any food. They were in a
trial and they had to go see him. Look now in verse 7, And
Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself
strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them. And he said
unto them, Whence come ye? And they said, From the land
of Canaan, to buy food. The Lord Jesus Christ knows His
children. He knows His family. He knows
His brethren. Yet we don't know Him. How in
the world could these brothers have known Him for 17 years?
That was the age He left, and it's been about that same time.
And how could they not know their brother? It's because they weren't
looking for Him. They thought He didn't exist.
And yet He knew them. Throughout all this trial and
everything that happened, the Savior always knows and sees
His people. We don't have to worry because
we fret, we forget, we go through these long periods of time to
where thankfully I come to church and I remember, you know, I need
to pray again. I need to look upon the Lord.
Yet through all that, the Savior always and always knows His people. He sees them, He looks upon them,
and He's always looking after them. Look in verse 21. And they said one to another,
we are verily guilty concerning our brother. Joseph has told
his brothers, you're spies. I know you're spies. You're guilty.
And his brother's reaction to that is they say, 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. Only when we are faced with our
sin do we remember how sinful we truly are. Every child of
God comes to a moment in their life when the Lord shows them
who they truly are. Now we really don't understand.
We just get a little glimpse of who we are. But when we see
how truly sinful we are, how evil we are, and the awful things
we've done, it truly convicts us. And we can be hard on these
brothers. I imagine that many of them would
have gone long periods of time, and it seems as if they weren't
really convicted about what they'd done, that they murdered their
brother until they were faced with it. Until they were faced
with this trial, they didn't really think it was that big
of a deal, or it didn't convict them. But now they are. Verse
22 says, And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto
you, saying, Do not sin against the child, And you would not
hear? Therefore, behold, also his blood is required." This
is us too. What do we do when we're convicted
by our sin? We justify ourselves. Reuben
here says, I tried. It wasn't me. You guys did this.
I told you not to kill him. We will constantly look at our
sin and find a way to justify it. That's just what we do. That's
who we are. It's easy to blame others. It's
easy to look around and say, well, they all have done plenty
of stuff, but I tried. Trying is just not good enough.
We might think that that will gain us something, but all our
good works are as filthy rags. We present one single good work
and it taints everything that the Savior did for His children.
Now look in verse 23. And the brothers did not know
that Joseph understood them, for he spake unto them by an
interpreter." These brothers were speaking in their native
tongue, and Joseph could hear every word they said. Every single
thing we do, every single thing we say, every single thought
that goes through our mind, our Savior knows it. And that should
be very scary. If these brothers had known he
could hear what they were saying, They would never have admitted
that they killed their own brother. But just like them, this is who
we are and our Savior knows. Which when we get to the end
of the story, jumping ahead here, how wonderful it is to see His
mercy upon us. Because it's not like us, where
we might give a little forgiveness from the little things that we've
heard you say about me, or maybe a look or an attitude you've
given me. He knows all the evil thoughts we've had towards Him,
yet He still loves us. He still chose to save His people,
to save us. So then Joseph tells them not
to come back without Benjamin, their youngest brother. And He
gives them all their money back. They brought money to buy food.
And He took all their money, hid it in their sacks of food
when they left. Our Savior will not accept a
penny from us. He won't accept a good deed,
a good work, anything from us. Our Savior provides everything
we need freely. It's free. Yet when the brothers
saw this, when they got back with the food and they saw their
money in it, they were smitten. They realized, oh no, he's going
to think that we didn't pay for this food. They don't understand
yet that the food was free. It was their Savior who was giving
them, providing them with their sustenance. There's no need to
buy life. There's no need to buy that.
It is free in the Lord Jesus Christ. Then we see Reuben with
the fateful, what I would say is one of the most uncomfortable
things in all of the Scriptures that a man says. When Jacob says,
how in the world am I going to deal with this? Joseph is dead.
They left one of the brothers back there and said, only come
back if Benjamin comes. He thinks one of my sons is dead,
another one I'll never get back, and I can't send Benjamin with
them because then I'm going to lose him too. And Reuben, one
of the brothers, says, I'll be the surety for him. Slay my two
sons if thou will not bring him back. I mean, that always hurt me. But now
that I have children, I can't... This is an example of the type
of thing that we do. It is nauseating to think, to
tell Jacob, to say, you know, you've lost two sons, let me
go back, and if you lose a third, you can kill two of your grandsons.
I mean, that's just awful. Yet, that's the type of thing
that we do to try to show that we want, or we act, or we can
prove that we deserve to be saved. That was his way of saying, I'm
good enough, let me show you I'm worthy. And it's just so
sad. In false religion today, we can
come up with so many ways that we either save ourselves, we
have a part in salvation, or it couldn't be done without us
making a choice. It's as awful as this man saying, you can kill
more of your family if I don't save more of your family. It's
just awful. But as this goes on, the famine
is great, and these brothers, Jacob does not send back his
kids to go get the food. He doesn't do it because he doesn't
want to send Benjamin. And again, only because the famine
is great and they run out of food. These brothers have already
seen the mercy and the generosity of Joseph, of the Savior. He
gave them all they could carry for free. Yet they're still scared
to go back to Him. Our Lord Jesus Christ is so merciful
to us. He is so generous to us. He gives
us every single thing we ask for, that we need. And what do
we do? We hesitate, we wait, we fear,
and don't go back to Him. Finally, when we don't have anything
left, we're stuck, we realize that we're going to die without
Him, we go back. So Jacob sent all his sons again
with Benjamin. This time they brought double
the money and more gifts. They brought more stuff this
time. They didn't take our money last time, we'll try to double
the value and buy it back. And as they go, they bring it,
and Joseph meets them again and greets them and sends them on
their way again with all their food. But this time, as they're
all leaving, he puts double their money back in the sacks with
them and takes his cup, the Savior's cup, and puts it in the bag of
Benjamin. And as they go, turn to chapter
44 and verse 7. He has given them everything
that they brought back to them and given them all their food.
It even said that He said, put all that you could possibly fit
into their sacks. Give them everything they could
carry for sustenance. Yet when they leave, it says
that Joseph sent his men to come after them. In verse 7 it says,
And they said unto him, Wherefore saith my Lord these words, God
forbid that thy servant should do according to this thing. The
servant came and said, My master said that you took something,
that you took something. And the brothers said, God forbid,
we would not do that. Behold, the money which we found
in our sacks, Mouse, we brought it again unto thee. How then
should we steal out of the Lord's house silver or gold? And this
is what we do. Starting in verse 9, we again
make foolish statements, foolish promises, foolish deals with
our Savior. It says, the brother says, with
whomsoever of the servants it be found, both let him die, and
we will also be my Lord's bondsmen. And the servant then said, now
also let it be according unto thy words. He with whom it's
found shall be my servant, and ye shall be blameless. Joseph
simply said, whoever has stolen this cup will be my slave. Yet
the brothers double down like we do. And he says, that's not
enough. You kill the one who it's found
in, and we'll all be your slaves. And they went through each of
the brothers' sacks, and it came oldest to youngest, and verse
12, and he searched and began at the oldest and left at the
youngest, and the cup was found in the Benjamin's sack. Then
the brothers, they all rent their clothes and laid it every man
on his ass and returned to the city." We are constantly reminded
of how sinful we are and how in trouble we are. These brothers
were constantly brought before Joseph in a dire situation. Yet they continue to compound
upon it and make it worse. That's what we do. As sinners,
we literally, we just keep piling on more and more and more. And then ultimately, we get to
the place where we realize we're undone. We're undone. And we
are going to now go before the Savior guilty. At this moment,
these brothers going before Joseph, guilty. So Judah beseeches to
Joseph for mercy. Judah says, I made surety for
Benjamin. If I don't bring him back, Jacob
is going to die. He's going to die out of sorrow
over this. He is beseeching mercy. And we should all do this. We
should all beseech our Savior for mercy. And the greatest part
about that is what Judah doesn't understand and what we don't
realize, the child of God already has the mercy that we're begging
for. Judah and his brothers are scared
to death. They don't know what to do. They
are lost. Yet what they don't realize is
the One that they're going before loves them. He is their brother. He is their Savior. He has provided
the whole time everything they need for nothing. And once we
see that, and we'll see it here in a second, it is the greatest
thing that we could ever hope for. So as we look here, in closing,
we'll look at these same verses here in chapter 45 and quickly
see how these verses is a great example of what our Lord Jesus
Christ has done for us. So they go before Joseph, and
in verse 1 of chapter 45 it says, Then Joseph could not refrain
himself before all them that stood by him. And he cried, Cause
every man to go out from me, and there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known
unto his brethren." Our Savior will make Himself known unto
His children. We will never figure out who
He is on our own. We won't do it. We can't do it.
It seems obvious. There's a book written about
Him, and everywhere you look, people talk and say things about
the Lord Jesus Christ, yet we can't see Him. We never see Him
until He reveals Himself to us. It's also important we see that
the Savior cast everyone else out. There's no audience for
this. There's nothing else with this
except the Savior showing His children who He is. Verse 2 says,
"...and He wept aloud." It says in the margin there, "...gave
forth His voice in weeping." This weeping has so many meanings
to it. The Lord went to Lazarus, and
it says, Jesus wept. He was about to raise Lazarus
from the dead. He loved him, and he sorrowed.
He knew what was coming, and he sorrowed. Do you imagine,
if we look at this as Joseph, the emotion he would be totally
overcome with, telling his brothers what had happened to him and
his story? About all that stuff that we see in a minute, that
you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. That emotion
is so intense. Our Lord Jesus Christ's emotion
for His children is infinitely greater than that. This is really
hard to comprehend for a sinner to think that the Lord Jesus
Christ is totally emotional and loves and has that kind of feeling
towards us. That's hard to imagine. But he
does. He loves his children. Look in
verse 3. And Joseph said unto his brethren,
I am Joseph, doth my father yet live? And his brethren could
not answer him, for they were troubled at his presence. When
the Lord Jesus Christ shows a sinner, one of his children, who he is,
this is the reaction. When we see who he is, we are
completely overwhelmed with who he is in comparison to who we
are. These brothers were just flooded
with the memories of all that they had done to him. As we are
reminded and we see who we are, We see, oh my, how much I have
sinned my whole life every day against this Savior. That He
would do this for me after all that I had done? Verse 4, And
Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. When the
Lord Jesus Christ calls His children and He says come near, they come. It's as simple as that. We won't
come, we can't come until He says, come. And then at that
moment, we come. When He calls His sheep out and
He says, come, there we are. And then it says, and He said,
I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. He has to
tell them again, I am Joseph. Our Lord has to tell us over
And over and over, I am the Lord Jesus Christ who saved your sins. This is why we have to come back
to church and hear certain messages over and over again. Because
I don't know if I'm the only one that can walk out of a service
and somehow find myself walking into the next service and haven't
given a single thought about what the Lord has done for me.
But we have to come back and we have to hear, because the
Lord will keep telling us, I am the Lord Jesus Christ. I am your
Savior. Then it also says, Whom ye sold
into Egypt. Every time we hear who He is,
we're reminded of who we are and what we've done. Now, that
alone is horrible. To be constantly told who you
are. If that's where we were left,
if we were left with someone saying, if God said, I am God,
and you're a sinner. If we were left at that moment,
That would be the worst thing that could possibly happen, to
be left in our sin. But look at verse 5. It says, Now therefore
be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither. Don't fret. Don't look at what
you have done. Instead, for God did send me
before you to preserve life. Don't concentrate on what you've
done, because that isn't an issue. I paid for all that you did and
it's done. Your record is clean. The Savior
paid the price. He went through everything He
had to go through to be the ruler over all. He paid for our sins. He died so that we didn't have
to die in our sins. Continue in verse 6. For these
two years hath the famine been in the land, and yet there are
five years in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest."
He tells them, for these two years have we suffered, but suffering
will be extended. Our Lord comforts us. He shows
us that you've gone through much, but there's more to come. But
don't fret. Don't fret because I have what
you need. This line that Joseph says, there's
still five more years of famine. Well, Jacob and his brothers
would all die. They don't have any means. But
it's not bad news because the Savior has everything they need
to live. Look in verse 7, And God sent
me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth. A posterity
means for future generations. God sent me before you. The Lord
Jesus Christ was sent for the many generations to come of His
children. He was sent and paid the price
for every single child of His that would come from there forth.
His victory, His work was perfect. It was so wonderful that every
single child of God, every name that's written in the Lamb's
Book of Life, every single one of them is perfect in Him. And then in verse 7, it says,
"...and to save your lives." He sent me to save your lives
by great deliverance. I love the phrase, a great deliverance. That is exactly what the Lord
Jesus Christ did for us. It was a great deliverance. It was a great deliverance both
because of the work He did was great, as well as the sin that
we had was so great that had to be overcome. The deliverance
for what we are and what we have, it has to be great. And our Lord
Jesus Christ provided a great deliverance. In verse 8 it says,
So now it was not you that sent me, but God. It wasn't you that
did all that, it was God. And He hath made me a father
to Pharaoh, He hath made me a father to kings, and Lord of all His
house, a Lord over all, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.
God hath made His Son the King, the Ruler over all, and the Savior
of all His children. He hath put me in that place.
This reminds us, don't take credit, the brothers are the ones who
thought they sold Him, who thought they put Him on this path, but
they didn't do anything. They meant it for evil, but God
meant it for good. And then verse 9, In these last
couple of verses we find so much comfort. Haste ye, go up to my
father and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath
made me Lord of all Egypt. Come down unto me, tarry not. And thou shalt dwell in the land
of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me. The Savior tells
his children, Go tell everyone. Go proclaim what I have done
for you. Tell everyone the work that's
been done." And then it says, "...thou shalt dwell in the land
of Goshen." He says, you no longer will be left to where you are,
but I'm going to bring you in and you will live with Me. You
will live in Me. The Lord Jesus Christ brings
His sheep in, brings His children into the only place of comfort,
in Him, in His bosom. That land of Goshen means the
land of plenty. The Lord brings His children
into the land of plenty. In the Lord Jesus Christ, there's
not a want or a need of any kind. Everything is provided in Him. And what's even better than that?
Keep going in verse 10. And thou shalt dwell in the land
of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children,
and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds,
and all that thou hast. It is so wonderful, the Lord's
mercy is so great. His forgiveness is so immense
that He doesn't just say, you come. He says, bring all you
have. He says, bring everyone, your children and everything.
The Lord Jesus Christ is merciful unto His children. Verse 11 says,
And there will I nourish thee, for yet there are five years
of famine, lest thou and thy household and all that thou hast
come to poverty. He says, I will take care of
you for all of your days. The Lord Jesus Christ will provide
for His children for all of their days. This application applies
to us here while we're still in this sinful body. Though we
want things, we desire things, we think we need things, the
Lord gives His children everything they need. Everything that we
get, what we think is good or bad, it's all perfect. His providence
is perfect. His provision is perfect. And of course we can't be satisfied
with it, we complain and fret. But everything He's given us
is perfect. But that again, this is just
a good story. The provision He provides is
eternal. The provision is for our souls.
That we do not have to pay for the sins we've committed. His
sacrifice on the cross meant that we get His righteousness. That coat of many colors that
we put on, that now is in His blood, That we're in Him, we
have nothing to pay for, and for eternity, every child of
God will live in happiness, in peace, in prosperity. There's
nothing we could ever need. All of that because God sent
His Son to die for us. And aren't we so happy that He
did? Alright.