I've entitled the message for
tonight, Willing Slaves. Willing Slaves. These people were willing and
happy to be the slaves of Pharaoh. They said, you saved us. Let
us find grace in thy sight that we might be your slaves. That's
what they wanted, willing slaves. Now you will remember how Joseph
interpreted Pharaoh's dreams. And the interpretation of his
dreams is there would be seven years of plenty. They'd have
more than they know what to do with. And after that, there would
be seven years of famine. Turn with me to Genesis 41. This is after Joseph has interpreted
the dreams to Pharaoh. We read in verse 32, And for
that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice, this thing of
seven years of plenty and seven years of famine. It's because
the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it
to pass. Now, therefore, let Pharaoh look at a man discreet
and wise and set him over the land of Egypt, Let Pharaoh do
this, and let him appoint officers over the land, and take up the
fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years. And let them gather all the food
of those good years that come, and lay up a corn under the hand
of Pharaoh, and let them keep the food in the cities. And that
food shall be for store to the land against the seven years
of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt, that the land
perish not through the famine. And the thing was good in the
eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of all of his servants. And Pharaoh
said unto his servants, can we find such a one as this, a man
in whom the spirit of God is? And Pharaoh said unto Joseph,
for as much as God has showed thee all this, there's none so
discreet and wise as thou art. Thou shalt be over my house and
according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled. Only
in the throne will I be greater than now. And Pharaoh said to
Joseph, see, I've set thee over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh
took off his ring from his hand and put it upon Joseph's hand
and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen and put a gold chain
about his neck. And he made him to ride in the
second chariot which he had. And they cried before him, bow
the knee. He made him ruler over all the land of Egypt, and Pharaoh
said unto Joseph, I'm Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man
lift up his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt. Isn't it a
blessing to know it's still like that? Nobody makes a move without
the Lord Jesus Christ. And Pharaoh called Joseph's name
Zaphnath-paneah. And he gave him to wife Asenath,
the daughter of Potiphar, the priest of own. And Joseph went
out over all the land of Egypt. And Joseph was 30 years old when
he stood before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. You can't help, but
think of the Lord being 30 years old when he began his public
ministry. And Joseph went out from the
presence of Pharaoh and went throughout all the land of Egypt. And in the seven plenteous years,
the earth brought forth by handfuls, and he gathered up all the food
of the seven years, which were in the land of Egypt, and laid
up the food in the cities. And the food of the field, which
was round about every city, laid he up in the same. And Joseph
gathered corn as the sand of the sea, very much until he left
numbering. For it was without number. The seven years have ended. Back to Genesis 47, verse 13. And there was no bread in all
the land. For the famine was very sore,
So that the land of Egypt and all the land of Canaan fainted
by reason of the famine. There was nothing to eat. And Joseph gathered up all the
money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan
for the corn, which they bought. And Joseph bought the money into
Pharaoh's house. And when the money failed in
the land of Egypt, now the currency was silver. They couldn't print
up dollars. Once all the silver was gone,
all the money was gone. And all the money was put into
Pharaoh's house. No one had any money. Pharaoh
had all the money. And when the money failed in
the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians
came unto Joseph and said, give us bread. Now they don't have
anything to pay for with. They said, give us bread. For why should we die in thy
presence? For the money faileth. We don't have any money. And
Joseph said, give your cattle and I will give for your cattle
if money fail. And they brought their cattle
into Joseph and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for horses
and for the flocks and for the cattle of the herds and for the
asses. And he fed them with bread for all their cattle for that
year. Now, not only does Pharaoh have all the money, he has all
the livestock and they have nothing. Now the famine's got five years
to go. Verse 18, and when that year
was ended, they came unto him the second year and said unto
him, We'll not hide it from my Lord. We're not trying to hide
anything. How that our money is spent. My Lord also hath our
herds of cattle. There is not aught left in the
side of my Lord, but our bodies and our lands. Wherefore shall
we die before thine eyes? Both we and our land. Buy us. Now notice they didn't say we're
going to sell ourselves. They said, buy us. Redeem us. Buy us. That's something every
believer is gonna ask. You know anything that the Lord
gives you, he's gonna cause you to ask for it. I don't care what
it is, you'll ask. They say, buy us and our land
for bread and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh.
And give us seed that we may live and not die, that the land
be not desolate. And Joseph bought. all the land
for Egypt for Pharaoh. For the Egyptians sold every
man's field because the famine prevailed over them. So the land
became Pharaoh's." He now owns everything. He owns the people. He owns the land. He owns the
livestock. He has all the money. He has
everything. Verse 21, it asks for the people.
He removed them to cities from one end of the border of Egypt
even to the other end thereof. Now, if you'll remember in the
reading in Genesis 41, what did he do with the food? He put them
in the cities. All the food was in the cities
and he moved the people into cities. Only, verse 22, only the land
of the priests bought he not. That's the religion of Egypt.
He didn't buy that. For the priest had a portion
assigned them of Pharaoh and did eat their portion, which
Pharaoh gave them. Wherefore, they sold not their
lands. Then Joseph said unto the people, behold, I have bought
you this day and your land for Pharaoh. You now belong to Pharaoh. But what does he say next? Lo,
here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land. Now that
you belong to Pharaoh, you're going to be given seed to sow
the land, and it shall come to pass in the increase that you
shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh. Have you ever heard
of that 20% flat tax? Probably you have. Maybe that
idea came out of here. And really, this was a good deal
for them, humanly speaking. How would you like it if all
you had to pay was a 20% flat tax? I mean, this was very generous.
It was very gracious on Joseph's part. You pay the 20% flat tax
and everything else is yours. I'm not making a political opinion
statement, but don't anybody think I'm doing that? And it shall come to pass in
the increase that you shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh,
and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and
for your food, and for them of your households, and for the
food of your little ones. Now here's what their response
was. They've lost everything now.
They're slaves. They don't have anything that's
their own. And here's their response. And they said, thou has saved
our lives. Let us find grace in the sight
of my Lord and we will be Pharaoh's slaves. Now in this passage of scripture,
when I first thought about it, notice, Verse 26, and Joseph
made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh
should have the fifth part, except the land of the priests, which
become not Pharaoh's. Moses wrote Genesis. Moses knew
all about what was going on in Egypt. And he said, this is the
same even up to this day, although this happened hundreds of years
before. This is true even up into this day. Now, when I first
read this passage of scripture, the thought came to my mind,
I wonder if it came to any of your minds, that Joseph and Pharaoh
were being opportunistic and taking advantage of this horrible
circumstance to enrich himself and Pharaoh. I've got to admit,
I thought that. I thought Joseph was supposed
to be such a beautiful type and here he is taking advantage of
this situation and making Pharaoh and himself rich and everybody
indebted to him. And that's not the way the Egyptians
thought though. They didn't think that. They
said, you saved our lives. Would you give us grace? May
we find grace in your sight that we might be your slaves. That
is what we want. Now what hit me about that, thinking
about myself, I sit in judgment on what the
Lord does. I'm saying, he shouldn't act
like this. I'm judging him. Somebody that
has the right attitude with the right point of view says, this
is pure grace. This is the only way we can be
saved. The same event, two points of view. One view says, this
is opportunistic. He's taking advantage of this.
Well, the people who were saved said, you've saved us. You've
saved us. Now in this passage, we have
the old, old story retold. about how God saves sinners by
his grace and makes them his willing servants. Thy people
shall be willing in the day of thy power. Verse 13, back to
our text, Genesis 47, verse 13. And there was no bread in all
the land. For the famine was very sore,
so that the land of Egypt and all the land of Canaan fainted
by reason of the famine. That which was necessary for
life, bread, they did not have. And there wasn't any in all the
land. Now, what's necessary for life? I could say a lot of things about
what's necessary for spiritual life. There's a lot of things
I could say that would be accurate, but what's the first thing that
comes to my mind? And I think this is scriptural. What's necessary
for life before God? Righteousness. Perfect righteousness. And it's the gospel that reveals
the righteousness of God. Now this is what comes first
righteousness. That's what's necessary for life.
I don't have it. I can't get it. And there was
no righteousness in all of the land. Romans chapter three verses
10 through 12 says there's none righteous. No, not one. Would that be true of you? There's
none righteous. No, not one. There's none that
understands. There's none that seeks after
God. They've all gone out of the way.
They have together become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good. No, not one. There was none of this in the
land. I had no righteousness in and
of myself. I can't produce one. What I need
for life, righteousness, I do not have and have no way of getting
it. Now, let me say this. If I do
not see myself in this light, the way I've been describing,
it's because really I don't know who God is and I don't know who
I am. If I know who God is, I'll see myself in this light. And
when you see yourself in that light, that's when you know,
he's going to have to give you righteousness. You know, righteousness
is called in Romans chapter 5, a gift. The gift of righteousness. I want this gift, don't you?
To where it really is mine. You know, what God gives you
really is yours. The righteousness of Christ is
called the righteousness of the saints. This is what I need for
life. I don't have, and I cannot produce. Verse 14. And Joseph gathered
up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the
land of Canaan for the corn which they bought. And Joseph brought
the money into Pharaoh's house." Now, they are not without hope
just yet. They have some money. They have
some money to trade with. after they bought all the corn
and there's no money left. And I love thinking about this.
They couldn't just print up more money. Once the silver was gone,
it was gone. That was their currency. Now,
what do they do? Verse 15, and when the money
failed in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the
Egyptians came unto Joseph and said, not sell us bread, We don't
have anything to buy it with. Give us bread. Give us that which we need for
life. Give us bread. We have no money. Give us bread. And what a blessing
when you and I find out that we can't pay for salvation and
we start asking him to give it to us. Do you realize that anyone
who asks him to give to them receives? There's never been
anyone in the history of the universe who asked the Lord,
please give me the righteousness of your son. And don't let me
stand on my own that the Lord refused. It's not, it's never
happened. It never will happen. Somebody
says, well, I asked him and he refused me. No, you didn't ask
him. He tried to bargain with him. You tried to strike a deal
of some kind. You said, I'll do this if you
do that for me. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about
asking for him to give you that which you cannot produce. Ask and you shall receive. Now they're asking. And the money failed in the land
of Egypt and the land of Canaan. All the Egyptians came unto Joseph
and said, give us bread for why should we die in thy presence?
The money faileth. And Joseph said, I guess they
never thought of this. Give your cattle. And I will
give for your cattle if money fail. And they brought their cattle
unto Joseph. And Joseph gave them bread in exchange for horses
and for flocks and for the cattle of the herds and for the asses.
And he fed them with bread for all their cattle for that year. When that year was ended, verse
18, when that year was ended, they came unto him the second
year and said unto him, We'll not hide it from my Lord. This
is very significant. We'll not hide it from my Lord. How that our money is spent.
And my Lord also hath our herds of cattle. There is not aught
left in the sight of my Lord, but our bodies and our lands.
We're not going to hide this. We don't have anything. Turn with me for a moment to
Proverbs chapter 28. What did Adam do after he fell? He hid. He hid. Now that was a fruitless endeavor.
How can you hide from omniscience and omnipresence? You can't,
but he became spiritually dead and he hid. What's the next thing
he did? He tried to cover his sins. with the fig leaves of his own
righteousness. That's what that represents. He tried to provide
a covering to hide his nakedness before God. So the main thing
that Adam did is he hid. And what do these fellows do
when they come into the Lord's presence now? They say, we're
not going to hide this from them. Now look here in Proverbs chapter
28. Verse 13, he that covereth, hideth his
sins shall not prosper. Now, remember he said, we're
not going to hide this from you. And the Lord says. He that covereth,
hideth, concealeth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth
and forsaketh them shall have mercy. Question, does that mean the
only way I will have mercy is if I first forsake my sin? Now, before I go on, you know
what? Me and you ought not ever sin
again. Sin's never okay. But I want
you to notice in verse 13, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh. Do you notice them as an italics?
If you have a King James version, you see that the them is in italics. read it like this, because if
you're having mercy is dependent upon your ability to forsake
some sin, you won't be saved. You believe that? Notice the
way this reads in verse 13. He that covereth his sin shall
not prosper, but whoso confesseth There's an agreement with God.
That's what confession is. It's agreeing with what God says
about your sin. It's taking sides with God against
yourself. You're on his side. You agree
with him. Who so confesseth and forsaketh. Forsaketh what? This thing of
trying to cover him. This thing of trying to cover
him. shall have mercy." You come into
God's presence confessing and not trying to cover up. Like
these people, we're not trying to hide anything. That's the
way they came into Judah. We're not trying to hide. Back
to our text. I think that gives a summary
of what they meant by we're not trying to hide. Verse 18. We will not hide it from my Lord,
having our money spent. And my Lord also hath our herds
of cattle. There's not aught left in the
sight of my Lord, but our bodies and our lands. Wherefore shall
we die before thine eyes, both we and our land?" Look at their
plea. Bias. We don't have anything to pay.
Bias. Redeem us. Is that your plea? Lord, buy me. Redeem me. Buy us and our land for bread.
And we in our land will be servants, will be slaves unto Pharaoh.
If you buy us, we'll be slaves. And give us seed that we may
live and not die, that the land be not desolate. Now, Notice how they're coming
to Joseph, and this is the way that a sinner comes to Christ.
They come to him as a sovereign. Bias. If you don't bias, we'll
start with this. We're in your hand. Our salvation
is completely dependent upon what you do for us. Bias. Redeem us. Now that's the way
every sinner who comes to Christ comes, they come, Lord, buy me. Redeem me. I don't have anything
to pay. Redeem me. If you don't redeem
me, I'll go to hell. If you don't redeem me, if you
don't buy me, I'll starve to death. I need you to buy me.
They didn't say we'll sell ourselves. Buy me. Buy us our land for bread. And
we in our land will be servants, slaves unto Pharaoh and give
a seed. You're the only way that we'll
continue to live is if you give a seed. Then we may live and not die
that the land be not desolate. Verse 20, and Joseph bought all
the land of Egypt for Pharaoh. For the Egyptians sold every
man his field because the famine prevailed over them. So the land
became Pharaoh's. He now owned everything. Joseph bought it all and everything
became Pharaoh's. And don't you know, everything
belongs to the Lord. The earth is the Lord's. and
the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein.
You know, I love living in my father's world. It all belongs
to him. And I love it that way. I'm just plumb satisfied with
me not having anything and being totally dependent upon him and
him having everything. Verse 21. And as for the people, he removed
them to cities from one end of the borders of Egypt, even to
the other end thereof. Now, somebody says, well, why
did he do that? Because you know, when, when the children of Israel
were in captivity, they'd pull them out of the land and put
them in different places. Is this some kind of way to manage
them? No, that's what the food was. That's what the food was. This was an act of mercy. That's
like church. That's what this is. Church.
Sheep were meant to be in flocks together, feeding on the gospel. He put them in the place where
food was. Verse 22, only the land of the
priests, body not. Now I think that's interesting.
Joseph had no love for Egyptian religion. He didn't buy that. He didn't
want it. Somebody says, well, there was
some kind of legal. I don't know what it was. He was happy to
not buy that land. You know, I don't want to have
anything to do with works, religion. You can have it. I don't want
it. I'm not going to buy that. Don't want it. Don't have anything
to do with it. I look at, quote, Christianity. And under that
name, I think, what in the world? Do people ever read the Bible? It's just contrary to everything
God's Word says. I don't want to have anything
to do with it. Come out from among them and be ye separate,
saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing. I really don't
want to have anything to do with human religion. Works religion,
you can have it. I don't want it. I love being
saved by the grace of God where he buys me and then he provides
for me all the way to the end. Verse 23. Then Joseph said unto the people, behold, I bought you. Don't you love that scripture?
You've been bought with a price. You know what that makes me wanna
do? Just be his. Just be his. Glorify God in your
body, which are the Lord's. You've been bought with a price. I have bought you this day. I love the way he says that I
bought you this day. And this is interesting. The
word bought where he says I bought you this day is in the Hebrew
in the perfect tense. It's a complete payment and it's
over. I bought you. I've completely
paid for you. I've paid all your debts. Now
what happens when the Lord buys somebody? Well, for one thing,
their sin's all paid for. Put away. Separated from you. When the Lord buys somebody,
you know what they are? They're justified. They stand before
God without guilt, without sin, perfectly righteous. Now, right
now, I stand before a thrice holy God without a shred of sin. Christ put it away, and I stand
before God perfectly accepted, perfectly righteous, Justification,
let me, you know, I say this a lot, but I'm going to say it
again. Justification is not just as if I never sinned, because
if it's just as if I never sinned, that means I did sin. If I'm
justified, I have never sinned. How can that be? The gospel. That's the only way to answer
that, the gospel. Christ put away my sin. He paid
for it. He made it not to be. He gives
me his righteousness. I have a new history, a history
of nothing but perfect righteousness. Now that's what happens when
Christ buys somebody. He said, I bought you this day. I've redeemed you. I bought you this day and your
land for Pharaoh for though Here is seed for you, and you shall
sow the land. Now, the Lord bought me. You know what he does? He gives
me seed to persevere. You see, everybody he bought,
he's not gonna lose them. They're gonna continue all the way to
the end in the faith, looking to the Lord Jesus Christ, his
seeds in them. He gives his seed. That's the
gospel. That's the new birth. The seed of God. I'll give you seed. You know
the reason you'll persevere all the way to the end? It's not
because of any strength and determination on your part, although we ought
to have that. But the reason you'll persevere
is he's put his seed in you. He's given you a new man. And
you look to Christ all the way to the end. And he says, I'm
going to give you this seed. Verse 24, lo, here is seed for
you, you shall sow the land and it shall come to pass in the
increase. He didn't say if there's an increase, there can be an
increase. You can just write that down.
This is God's work. God doesn't fail at anything. The Lord doesn't
fail. There will be an increase without doubt. And he says in
the increase, you'll give the fifth part unto
Pharaoh. And four parts shall be for your own, for the seed
of the field, for your food, for them of your household, and
for food for your little ones." Now, 20% tax. Could you deal with that? You
know, somebody says, well, no, that's talking about you need
to give 20%. No, Dad. If you can give 50%, give 50.
This is not about numbers. The point is, when the Lord saves
someone, Their great desire is to be a giver. That's very important
to you, to be a giver. Somebody says, how much? That's
between you and the Lord. Nobody should put a number on
that. Or somebody says, tithing. Well, the Bible Tithing was a
tax put upon the children of Israel. And if I have a percentage,
like if you want to tithe, tithe. But if you make a law out of
it, you're wrong. You're wrong. Give as unto the
Lord. God loveth a cheerful giver.
Give whatever the Lord impresses. But it was, they give. They give. 20%. And it was good. They had a whole
lot better life, didn't they? They had plenty of food for them,
for their little ones and so on. And they said, here's their
response to this. And they said, did they get upset? Man, can you believe he's doing
this? He's charging us 20% and he's taking everything we got.
Man, this is not right. No, they didn't say anything
like that, did they? They said, thou has saved our
lives. Now here is our statement of
faith. I almost, I receive quite a bit
of requests from people, do you have a statement of faith? The Bible. Well, Do you have
one more succinct? Well, I can tell what, well,
here's a good one. Thou has saved us. That's everything
we believe, isn't it? I love the scripture in Acts
chapter 15, verse 11, where they were having this issue. There's
some Judaizers that had come and said, well, faith is good,
but you also need to keep the law. You also need to be circumcised.
They put an ad. Uh, you also need to do this.
And I love what Peter said. Peter said, why tempt you God
by putting a yoke upon the brethren's neck that neither we nor our
fathers were able to bear. We try to put somebody under
law. We don't keep it. We're just being hypocrites.
We believe now here's, here's what we believe. We believe that
through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved
even as they. Now, that is spoken in such a
way as all three of these translations would be accurate. We believe
that by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we've been saved. Amen. We believe that by the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we're being saved. And we believe
by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we will be saved. That has saved our lives. We know salvation is the Lord,
And He saved us. And that's our experience. Now,
if my experience doesn't line up with what God's Word teaches,
I need to trash my experience. We believe that by the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ in every aspect. Oh, grace, I need it. Him to choose me by His grace.
I need Him to redeem me by His grace. I need Him to justify
me by His grace. I need Him to regenerate me and
give me life by His grace. I need Him to preserve me all
the way to the end by His grace. I need to be glorified by His
grace. I need His grace. You saved us. It is He that saved
us and not we ourselves. And look what He says next. Thou
hast saved our lives Let us find grace in the sight of my Lord.
Is that not your continual prayer? Let me find grace in your sight.
That's what Moses prayed. If now I found grace in your
sight. That's the continual desire of
the believer. Let me find grace in your side. Let me be found in Christ. Let
me be saved by your grace. Look at me in your favor. Give
me grace to look to you. Give me grace to receive your
grace. Give me grace. Let me find grace, favor, free
saving favor in your side. And we will be. Pharaoh's slaves. That's what we want. We want
to utterly be his servant. I want to be, I want to be a
willing slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what Paul said
he was. I'm a bond slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is it that
willingly? This is what I want. And the reason I want it is His
grace changed my want to. And Joseph made it a law over
the land of Egypt and to this day, you know, it still is. Still
is. This is God's way of saving sinners. I think of the song we sing,
Oh to grace. How great a debtor daily I'm
constrained to be. Let thy goodness like a fetter,
there's a fetter I want. I want to be chained up by his
goodness. Let thy goodness like a fetter
bind my wondering heart to thee. Let's pray. Lord, in Christ's blessed name,
we ask that you would give us grace that we might find grace
in your sight to be happy to be your willing slaves. Lord,
we want nothing else. Lord, we confess you bought us
and we're not our own. We've been bought with the price
of the precious blood of your son. Lord, what a blessed privilege
to know that I am my Beloved's and He is mine. Lord, emblazon
that into the heart of each person here according to your will.
In Christ's name we pray.