Genesis 42 and the first verse,
Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said
to his sons, Why do you 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 die not.
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 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 spake
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,
but they knew him not. And Joseph remembered the dreams
which he had dreamed of them, and said unto them, You are spies.
To see the nakedness of the land are you come? And they said unto
him, Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come. We are all one man's sons, and
we are true men. Thy servants are no spies. And
he said unto them, Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land
are you 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 our father, and one is not. And Joseph said
unto them, that it is that I spake unto you, you are spies. Hereby
you shall be proved. By the life of Pharaoh you shall
not go forth hence, except your youngest brother come back with
you, come hither. Send one of you and let him fetch
your brother And you 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 you are spies. And Joseph put
them all together into a ward three days. And Joseph said unto
them on 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, and so shall your words
be verified, and ye shall not die." And they did so. Now we're all familiar with the
story of Joseph and Jacob and Joseph's brethren and Benjamin. He says in verse 9, Joseph remembered the dreams
which he dreamed of them. Turn with me to Genesis 37. Turn back to Genesis 37. We'll
look at this. We'll see the dreams that he's
talking about. Genesis 37, verses 5 through 9. And Joseph, this
is when he was living at home. They're all, the brethren are
together. They're not separated yet. Joseph dreamed a dream and
he told it to his brethren and they hated him yet to more. And
he said unto them, Here, I pray you, this dream which I have
dreamed, and behold, we were binding sheaves in the field,
and lo, my sheave arose, and stood upright, and behold, your
sheave stood round about, and made submission, obedience to
my sheave. And his brethren said to him,
Shalt thou indeed reign over us? Shalt thou indeed have dominion
over us? And they hated him, yet the more,
for his dreams and for his words. And he dreamed yet another dream,
and told it to his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed
a dream more, and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars
bowed to me. And he told it to his father
and his brethren, and his father rebuked him and said unto him,
What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy
mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to
thee, to the earth? That's what happened in Genesis
42. Now, Genesis chapter 50. Genesis
chapter 50. Joseph made himself known to
his brethren. They didn't know him. He made
himself known. They got scared. They thought he's going to exact
vengeance for what we did. That was a long time ago. I think
last time we kind of looked at this, I think some writer said
it was 20, 22 years since he got thrown in that pit. And so,
yeah, I'd be mad if my brethren abandoned me, got sold into slavery,
and got thrown in jail, and Potiphar's wife, everything that betook
that happened to Joseph. But look at what Joseph says.
in chapter 50 verse 18 forward, and his brethren also went and
fell down before Joseph's 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 it to pass
as it is this day to save much people alive. So as we go back
to Genesis 42, as we consider this Joseph, we noted his dream,
what he said was going to happen, it happened, his meeting with
his brethren in Genesis 42, and then the summation of it all,
the summation of it all, and that is God in Christ took care
of his child. He took care of Joseph. And I
ask you this, and I ask myself as I prepared this, will not
our Heavenly Father do the same thing to you and I who are called
out by His grace? Yes, we must say and we must
acknowledge like our brother Joseph did before, God meant
it all for good. Romans 8.28, we don't have to
turn there, it comes to mind. All things, all things. So again,
we're just fresh into 2021. A lot of trepidation. A lot of concern. And there should
be. We may see, as we call them,
good days. We may see evil days. But as
we are the children of grace, in the Lord's sovereign hand,
they will be good days. It will be good days. So, what
am I saying? Do I mean that nothing is going
to cross our path or cross us? That nothing will happen that
will be hurtful? Trial? Sickness? A sword perhaps? Or any other
calamity? Is that what I'm saying? No,
because we are tried as other races and other people are. We're no different in that regard.
Yet, this is God's infallible word of grace to each one of
his people, every one of his elect. And as
he said in Genesis chapter 50, you meant it for evil, maybe
your boss, maybe your neighbor, maybe your brother. We get out
of sorts, we were in the flesh, but God meant it for good. Now look what that word meant.
The Hebrew, it means to weave, to plate. Well, like what Tara
does to the girls. I've seen you weaving their hair. It's intricate, and you're taking
your time, and you're weaving. God weaves our very existence,
every jot and tittle, for good. He's the master weaver. God meant it. God wove it for good. And the beautiful thing
about this is that the grace of God reigns in the believer.
We struggle with sin, we fall into sin every day. There's no
question our flesh is strong. But grace reigns through righteousness. And why did not, and I've talked
about this before, why did not Joseph become bitter? He's in
jail. for however many years it was,
and then he tells the baker his dream, and that's at least two
years, and that's a scriptural account. At least two years.
He's still in jail. Why does he not become bitter?
Everything's against me. I'll give you another example.
John the Baptist. John the Baptist was the one sent to prepare the
way before Christ. love Christ, worship Christ.
Now he's in jail. Well, when Paul was in jail,
do you remember what Paul said? How thankful he was the people
that visited him? How encouraged he was? What did
Christ do when John the Baptist went to jail? He went to a different
city. He never visited him, as far
as we know. Why didn't he become bitter? Because he knew for that
reason he was called to prepare the way. And if death came, holding,
standing firm in the gospel, that's fine. That's fine. So come what may, in this time,
in this country, I don't necessarily care about what's going on in
other countries, but come what may in Jackson, now how can I
say this? How can I say such a thing? Now
this leads us to our text. Genesis chapter 48, one verse. How can I say such a thing? Genesis
chapter 42 and verse 8. And Joseph knew his brethren,
even though, but they knew him not. Now, our heavenly Joseph
knows, intimately knows us. even when we did not know him
prior to regeneration. That's the beautiful thing. How
many times did we spit in his face? How many times did we care
less about him? We're more concerned about our
jobs, positions, our titles, recreation, our money, all these
things. But it says Joseph knew, knew
his brethren. Turn with me to Proverbs chapter
eight. Let's look at a few examples here. Proverbs 8. Speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ
and God the Father, at first here in verse 22, The Lord possessed
me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was
set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth
was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth. When there
was no fountains abounding with water, before the mountains were
settled, before the hills was, I brought forth. While as yet
He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part
of the dust of the world, when He prepared the heavens, I was
there. when He set a compass upon the face of the depth, when
He established the clouds above, when He strengthened the fountains
of the deep, when He gave to the sea His decree and the waters
should not pass His commandment, when He appointed the foundations
of the earth, then I was by Him, says the Son, as one brought
up with Him. And I, says the Son, was daily
my Father's delight, rejoicing always before Him." Now look
at this next verse. rejoicing in the habitable part of his
earth, and my delights were with the sons and daughters of the
covenant." So he knew us. He had us in his heart, said
one old writer, before we were not even yet born. Turn to Psalms
139. This is precious. Psalms 139,
verses 16 and 17. David speaking. Thine eyes, Psalms 139 verse
16, David speaking, Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being
unperfect. And in thy book all my members
were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as of yet
they weren't even existing, when there was none of them. How precious
also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of
them! When David, was he saying, when
I was out of form or being, yet I and we, every one of his church
and his bride were precious in the sovereign, glorious Redeemer's
eye. Or as the old writers would say,
in old eternity. We were precious in his side.
And still, after we were born, we were full of madness and vile
and sinful transgressions and full of iniquity, just like a
venomous snake. Every time we opened our mouth,
venom, hate towards God. Yet He knew us, loved us, and
would see to it that He would bring us to Himself savingly. Jeremiah chapter 29. Jeremiah chapter 29. And verse 11. God says to His
people, for I know the thoughts that I think towards you, sayeth
the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected
end. What is our expected end? It's
to hear the Gospel, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, be
baptized, and follow Him evermore. That's our expected end. And
then, to sit with Him in glory. That's where he's seated right
now. Our end shall be eternal justification by blood. This
will be a ransom fully paid at Calvary's tree. That's our expected
end. 2 Timothy 2. Paul writes to Timothy in verse 19. Nevertheless,
2 Timothy 2.19, nevertheless, the
foundation of God stands sure. Having this seal, the Lord knows,
like Joseph knew his brethren, even before they knew him, before
he revealed himself to them. The Lord knows them that are
His, and let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from
iniquity. The Lord knows them that are
His. Well, if that's the case, and
I can hear hyper-Calvinists right now nipping at my heels. Oh, if that's the case, I can
do what I want to do. The last of that, let everyone that names
the name of Christ depart from iniquity. So we have no excuse.
The believer is without excuse. We still sin, but He's promised. We confess our sins. He's faithful
just to forgive us all for Christ's sake. We sin way more than we
want to. But those people who say, well,
if I preach that, if I believe that, then I would just do, I'd
just go, no, you would, but if God owns you, you won't. Because
we're not ourselves. We've been bought with a price.
Who's sufficient for these things? Nobody. Nobody. Well, He affectionately and effectively
is acquainted with who we are and our serious needs. I know
them, the Lord knows them that are His. And we could look, turn
here, what we want, we could look at Psalms 37, which is the
same thing at Nahum 1.7, it says, I know the Lord, my thoughts
of you are of peace. Again, He knows us better than
we know ourselves. And back in our text in Genesis
42, he clearly says that Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew
him not. They knew him not. He was a lad
last time they saw him. It states very clearly, we did
not know him. We did not know him, seek Christ,
love Christ, worship Christ by ourselves. To know him must be
by divine supernatural revelation by God Himself as is in our story. Genesis 45
verses 1-5, this is how the brethren got to know who Joseph was. And
then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that
stood by, and he cried and called every man to go out from me,
Genesis 45 verse 1, and there stood no man with Joseph, while
Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. Verse 3, Joseph
said to his brethren, I am Joseph, I am Joseph. He said, come near
Me. Verse 4, I pray you, and they
came near. And Joseph, I am your brother
whom you sold into Egypt. Be not grieved nor angry with
yourselves that you sold Me, for God did send Me before you
to preserve life. That's when we see Christ. We
just get rid of all this religious stuff. Well, I'm the son of Jacob. I'm the son of a preacher. a
Sovereign Grace preacher. It doesn't matter. You're nothing.
You're nobody. I'm nothing. I'm nobody. It's
like Scott Richardson said, what's a preacher? A preacher is a nobody
who tells everybody about somebody who can save anybody. I've just
got to keep reminding myself that. Nobody. We're nobody. I'm nobody. We, by nature, birth
and practice, will not know our Savior until He reveals Himself
in the Gospel truth, by His truth. John chapter 1, not by the will
of man. You want to fight and struggle
with free will? Go ahead. You won't come. You
will not come to Christ that you may have life. I will not
come. I'm not able to come. I won't come. Matter of fact,
the things of the Spirit of God are foolishness. That's me and
you by nature. Which leads me to my next point. God, He will have a people and
called out to know Him. How is He going to do this? He
has a people. He has a people in Kentucky.
He has a people in Tennessee. He's got a people in Michigan. He's got His people in Russia. God will have a people, but how
does He do it? He does it through the declaration
of His everlasting Gospel, the sovereign grace of God in the
person of Jesus Christ. We could go a bunch of passages.
We're just going to go to a few. Ephesians 1. Ephesians 1 and
verse 13, You also trusted after that you
heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in
whom also, after that you believed, you were sealed with the Holy
Spirit of promise." Now, some folks, they get a little bit
too dotting the i's and crossing the t's. The gospel, you're going
to have to hear the truth. You're going to have to hear
the gospel. But who is that concerning? It says two times in this verse,
in whom? Go up to verse 12, Christ. Who
first trusted in Christ, in whom you trusted after you heard the
Word of Truth, the Gospel, and your salvation, in whom the Gospel
is the declaration of a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. Not the
God of our imagination, not a Savior or Redeemer of our imagination,
but the Christ. It's not a mere form or dogma
or ecclesiastical system. It's a person. It's a person. Now I just happened to look up
the word preached. It's used 61 times, 60 times
in the New Testament. And it means to herald, to evangelize,
to furnish, to utter, to talk, to proclaim. This is God's way. This is how He gets His message
out. That's why He scattered the early
church and they were all huddled in Jerusalem, remember? They
didn't want to go anywhere. So He goes, okay, I'll take care
of that. He scattered them. Now was that fun? I just assumed
staying in my home and calling people I know and not do anything.
That's not why we're here. We're here, He says in Matthew,
to go forth teaching and preaching in the name of Christ. I love
examples. Let's look at a few examples.
Acts chapter 8. You're familiar with this one,
the Ethiopian eunuch. Acts chapter 8. Before we get to that, look at
verse 12 of Acts chapter 8. But when they believed Philip
preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name
of Jesus Christ, they were baptized both men and women. That's the
short of it. That's the short of it. But the
long story in verse 26, In Acts chapter 8, the angel of the Lord
spake to Philip, saying, Arise, go to the south unto the way
that goeth down to Jerusalem, unto Gaza, which is desert. He arose and went, and behold,
a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace,
queen of Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasure and
had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning and sitting in
his chariot, read Isaiah the prophet. So he went to worship,
but he didn't know who he was worshiping. The Spirit said to Philip, Go
near and join thyself to the chariot. And Philip ran thither
to him, and heard him read the prophet Isaiah, and said, Do
you understand what you are reading? He said, How can I, except some
man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he
would come up and sit with him. And the place of the Scripture
which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter,
and like a lamb done before his shears, so opened he not his
mouth. And his humiliation, his judgment
was taken away, and who shall declare his generation? For his
life is taken from the earth. And the eunuch answered Philip
and said, I pray thee, of whom speaks the prophet this, of himself
or of some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth
and began at the same text, scripture, preached unto him history. preached unto him the five and
a half points, six points, seven points of Calvinism. He taught
them more perfectly in the theology of the day. He preached unto
him Jesus. And those who say baptism is
not important, And they went on their way and came to a certain
water, and Enoch said, see here is water, what doth hinder me
to be baptized? Philip said, if you believe with all your
heart, you may. And he said, I believe that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God. He spoke, he uttered, he furnished,
he talked, he heralded, he proclaimed Christ. Christ. And you know, these three examples that I'm
going to give, Everything was ordained by God. Philip was going
to come by that chariot at the exact time to hear that eunuch
reading Isaiah. No coincidence. This is how sovereign
our Lord is. If we think back to Genesis 42, Joseph knew his brethren. If our father does not know everything
about us, he can't maintain and he can't make sure that this
happens exactly, the Lord God reigneth. He's on the throne. Ask Nebuchadnezzar. Ask him. Ask any believer throughout all
ages. who have met the Lord Christ,
and they'll tell you the same thing. We may not understand
it all, and we get confused, but He is on the throne. And
we could look at 2 Kings 5, you don't need to turn there, but
he may use a little maid. Remember that? A little maid.
The story starts, Naamim, he was great in the host of the
Assyrians, but he was full of leprosy. And then there's this
little Jewish maid, a servant in the household. Well, she had
to be taken captive. She had to be separated from
her family. Now, that's not nice. God's going to have His way and
He's going to save His people. So he has this little slave Jewish
maiden say to Nahum's maiden, Oh, if my Master only knew that
there was a prophet in Israel, He would recover him of his leprosy.
He could save him of sin. Our God can save. He does save. He is saving. And
just, I don't know why, with the things going on, I always
think, I thought to myself, I asked a couple of preachers, I said,
do you think maybe the last elect has been born? Because we're
just waiting. We're waiting for that last.
That's a good thought. I don't know. John chapter 4. Christ says, I must need to go
through Samaria. Why does He say that? Because
there's one of my children there who I know. Who doesn't know
me yet? But I know her. I'm going to meet her at a well.
I must go there. So everything is ordered of God
in His providence. God's sovereign providence. I
could go on and we could go on and search this errorless, glorious
book on and on and find the same thing. He crosses people's path. We would see wandering sinners,
a loving Supreme Savior, Holy Spirit which causes His people
to be willing in the day of His power. That's just Psalm 110
verse 3. And I saw something in there
I've never seen because I've quoted this a lot. But He says,
His people shall be willing in the day of His power. I always
thought, well it's willing to come. But it's more than that. We submit and are willing to
see what we are. A good, a right view, a scriptural
view of ourselves. He makes us willing. Because
otherwise we'd be like Nebuchadnezzar. We'd walk out and say, oh, look
at this. I've done all this myself. He
makes us willing in the day to come unto Him, to bow to Him,
but He makes us willing in all aspects to admit our wrong, confess
our sins, to submit to Him, to worship Him, and we see a glorious
high God regenerating His chosen people for His own honor and
His own glory. So I close with these questions. Do we know the God? Joseph knew his brethren, but
they didn't know him. Do we know him? Do we know the
Christ? Do we know ourselves as sinners
of the worst degree? Flee to him Call upon him He
does say in the scriptures the fatherless in him the fatherless
find mercy Because we do not want to hear and this is a frightening
thought we do not want to hear what Matthew 7 says. Christ,
these people said, didn't we do this? We were good church
goers. I taught Bible class. I taught
Sunday school. I preached. I did all this in
your name. And Christ says, I never knew
you. Depart from me. I don't want to hear that. I
don't want to hear that. I want to flee to Christ and
lay hold. And if He touches my thigh and
I have to walk different for the rest of my life and He hurts
me, bruises me, if He's like Job, though He slay me, I want
to trust Him. Because He is the only one. He's
the only one that can save. And He's the only one that we
must have to do. It's fine to grow up and get
an education and work, and we teach our children these things.
These are good, they're wholesome things. We pay to Caesar, render
unto Caesar. These are all good things. There's nothing wrong
with that. But oh, to have all these things in the Miss Christ,
that one needful thing. Martha, Mary, show us Him. Tell us of Him. Philip, tell
me of Him. I want to be known of Him. If we are, we've got it all. We have Christ. He's our all in all, and that's
everything we need. Bruce, would you close us?