Rather than simply quoting this,
I'd like you to look at this verse with me as the introduction
to this message. John chapter five, verse 39. John chapter five, verse 39. Search the scriptures. And that
is you search the scriptures. For in them, you think you have
eternal life and day or day, the scriptures,
day or day, which testify of me. They saw about the old Testament
scriptures. Does he mean all of them? Most of them testify of me. 42%
of them testify of me. 99% of them testify of me. No,
they are they, all of them, which testify of me. That is the message of this book,
all scripture. We were just reading Psalm 40.
Screams that out loud. Who was speaking? It's the Lord
Jesus Christ speaking. You read that Psalm and you see
this is, the writer to the Hebrews tells us it was Christ. He quotes,
um, that passage where he said a body is now prepared for me
and, uh, well, turn with me there. I'm not quoting it right. Psalm
40. This is one example. I waited
patiently for the Lord. Who did that? You? You? I don't think so. I waited patiently
for the Lord. He inclined into me and heard
my cry. He brought me up also out of
an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a
rock and established my goings. Look in verse six. This is what
the writer to the Hebrews quotes. Sacrifice and offering thou didst
not desire. Mine ears hast thou opened. burnt
offering and sin offering is thou not required? Then said
I, lo, I come in the volume of the book. It's written of me,
I delight to do thy will. Oh God, yea, thy law is within
my heart. Every word is the words of the
Lord Jesus Christ. They are they which testify of
me. And if I look at any scripture,
Outside of that understanding, I've missed it. I do not have
the meaning of that scripture. They are they, which testify
of me. Now, with that in mind, go back
to Genesis chapter 37. I've entitled this message, Joseph. And we're going to begin, sometimes
Sunday night, sometimes Sunday mornings. I don't know when yet. We're going to begin looking
at the life of Joseph. And in the book of Genesis, I
didn't know this until this week. There's more time devoted to
Joseph than there is to Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. More words devoted
to this man, Joseph. And he is the greatest. type of Christ in all the Bible. Now, there are a lot of types
of Christ, but Joseph is the most complete type of Christ
in the whole Bible. Now, Joseph had something in
common with me and you. He was a sinner. He was a sinner, just like you
and I are, a fallen son of Adam, but I love In the scriptures,
none of his faults are pointed out. They're not magnified. Now, if you read about Abraham,
you find all kinds of problems. You read about Isaac, you find
all kinds of problems, all kinds of sins. You read about Jacob. That's one of the things I love
about the scripture. The scripture presents things as they are.
They're honest in their presentation of men with all their faults
and flaws and sins and weaknesses. But Joseph, it's never pointed
out. You know why? Because he's such
a type of Christ. Christ never sinned. Now Joseph
sinned and someone might look at some things about him. Well,
he ratted on his brothers. He was a tattletale. Somebody
says, well, that was wrong. Well, no, not really, because
he's a type of Christ. He's showing the difference.
Look in Genesis 39. What about when he told the dreams
to his brothers? Somebody could think, well, he
should have known better than to tell them that. I mean, of course
they're going to hate him and be jealous of him when he tells
them they're all going to be bound down in the ground to him.
If I had a brother, if my brother told me that, I'd be mad too.
I'd hate him. I'd think, who do you think you
are? And I can imagine how they responded. But look in Genesis
chapter 39, verse seven. And it came to pass after these
things that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph. And
she said, lie with me. But he refused and said unto
his master's wife, behold, my master, what if not what is.
with me in the house, and he hath committed all that he hath
to my hand. There's none greater in this
house than I, neither hath he kept back anything from me, but
thee, because thou art his wife. How then can I do this great
wickedness and sin against God? And it came to pass as she spake
to Joseph day by day, every day he was confronted with this once
again. day by day that he hearkened
not unto her to lie by her or to be with her." And you know
the story. She became so angry that when
Joseph was in there and she grabbed him and he ran and she held on
to his clothes, he fled from the house naked And in her anger,
she said that this man abused me and raped me. And Joseph was
thrown into prison for his faithful actions. He never gave in day
by day. And this is demonstrating the
character of Joseph. None of his sins are brought
out. What a man. Now this has been
called, by many, the greatest story in
literature. It has everything you need for
a great story. And indeed, it does. As a matter
of fact, do you know that in the 1990s, Andrew Lloyd Webber
made a Broadway musical hit, Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. I think that's what the name
of it is. I even saw the play by some kids doing it. Some kids,
I think, went to church here. I can't remember what it was,
but I remember the play was very touching. There's so much to
be touched in this story of forgiveness. But if that's all I see, I've
missed it all together. This is a story of the gospel. Now we're introduced to Joseph
in Genesis chapter 30. His mother was Rachel. Jacob's
favorite wife. He had Leah, who he wasn't so
high on, and then the two concubines, Billa and Zilpah, and Rachel. And she was married. And she
watched as her competition wives had 10 children
before her. She watched, she watched, and
finally the Lord gave her Joseph. And she was so happy to have
him as her son. And the next time we read of
Joseph is when Jacob is returning to Esau. And he didn't know if
Esau was going to get revenge. You remember how horribly he
treated his brother. He swindled him out of his blessing
and he swindled him out of who knows how much. And Esau was
so mad. He said, when my dad dies, I'm
going to kill him. I'm just waiting for him to die. And he's out
of business. And so some 20 or 30 years later, Esau's returning,
and he now has 11 sons. Benjamin had not yet been born.
And he thought, what's Esau going to do to me? And so he comes
up with this brilliant idea. Here's who I'm going to send
out first. I'm going to send out the concubines and their sons.
They're more expendable. And if he kills them, the rest
will get away. After that, I'm gonna send out
Leah and her six sons. They're second most expendable.
And we'll, the last one is gonna be Joseph. Rachel and Joseph. I want them protected. Now how
do you think old Reuben and Simeon and Levi and Judah and Gad and
Asher and all that bunch felt about Joseph? I think the seeds
of jealousy began even then when they saw their father's blatant
favoritism toward Joseph. Oh, he, yeah, Joseph, everybody
else. They don't even count in comparison
to Joseph. Now in Genesis chapter 36, as
we saw a couple of weeks ago, there's a long detailed list
of the descendants of Esau. kings and the dukes and the various
men that made up his family, the great men of Esau. And then
in chapter 37 verse 1 and 2, And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein
his father was a stranger in the land of Canaan. These are
the generations of Jacob. Now, we had read in all of chapter
36 about the generations of Esau, all the kings And the Dukes and
this generation, this word means more than a genealogical list.
It's more than a period of time. It means the life and times.
The life and times. How you would describe this man. It'd be like, these are the life
and times of Todd Nyberg. Put your name in there. These,
this is everything that comes from you. The generations that
come from you. These are the generations of
Jacob. Joseph. There's my life and times. Joseph. Now what that means is, my life
and times, if you want to know the history of Todd Nybert, Christ. That's my history. What he did,
I did. He said to John the Baptist,
when John the Baptist came to be baptized of him, and he, John
the Baptist, you can imagine why he hesitated about this.
I need to be baptized of thee, comest thou to be baptized of
me? The Lord said, suffer to be so
now, for thus it becometh us, to fulfill. All righteousness,
that righteousness that Jesus Christ worked out, that perfect
obedience that Jesus Christ worked out, he did so not as an individual,
but as an us. I'm included in that. Here's
my life and times. Jesus Christ the Lord. His perfect obedience, His perfect
righteousness is my personal righteousness before God. And
there's my confidence. If it had anything to do with
me, I wouldn't have any confidence, I wouldn't have any joy, I wouldn't
have any peace. I would be afraid of what's gonna happen. But my
whole salvation is the Lord Jesus Christ. His life is my life. If you wanna know my history,
Well, whatever his history was that he worked out the 33 years
he walked on this earth and fulfilled God's law perfectly. And then
in his death, he put away sin. And in his resurrection, he was
raised from my justification. There's my history. You know,
I always think it is, I think it's almost weird the way people
wanna, here's my legacy. I wanna leave my legacy. You
know, I could care less about anything like that. My legacy
is the Lord Jesus Christ. His perfect life, His sin-atoning
death. That is why Paul said, Oh that
I may win Christ and be found in Him. This is my great desire,
this is my own. Like David said, I want to dwell
in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold
the beauty of the Lord. and to inquire in his temple. I simply want to be found in
the Lord Jesus Christ. These are the generations of
Jacob. Jacob was a rascal. I mean, if
you look at this man, the inconsistencies, the contradictions, the lies,
and somebody says, well, he got better as he got older. No, he
didn't. No, he didn't. I mean, you look at this history
of him, that history of him, I mean, it's just all the way
to the end. When he gave the summary of his life, he said,
few and evil have been the days of the life of my pilgrimage.
I've not attained the life of my father's. That's how he felt
about himself. He felt about himself that these
are the generations of Jacob. One name mentioned, Joseph. Now, verse two of Genesis 37,
these are the generations of Jacob, Joseph being 17 years
old. I was still in high school then
looking at that age of this young man was feeding the flock with
his brethren. And the lad was with the sons
of Bila and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, the
four children of the two concubines. And I don't know what they were
up to, but Joseph comes back and brings his father the evil
report of what these men were doing. Now this is kind of on
the side, but I think it's good advice. If you have young children
and they're playing with kids who have big brothers, watch
out. Watch out. A lot of the meanness that they
could learn, that boys learn, they learn from the big brothers.
I never had big brothers, so I'm not speaking by experience,
but it's something I've observed. And that's what happens. And Joseph, though, He went to
his dad and gave the evil report of whatever it was his brothers
were doing. I'm sure they hated him for it.
And you look at him and you say, was he a tattletale? Was he a
rat? No, no, there's sometimes when it's the right thing to
be a whistleblower. And he did that with his brothers. He brought
this evil report of whatever it was that they were doing to
his father, Jacob. Verse three. Now Israel 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. Now you think of the dynamics
that this created in this family. Reuben, your father loves Joseph
more than he does you. He didn't make any bones about
it. I can't help but think of that one time I was at a It was some kind of wedding party,
but at any rate, the man had his daughter and his two sons,
and one of the sons came in and was just upset. He said, you
always show her favoritism. And he said, and? That's the way Jacob was. He made no apologies for showing
this great favoritism toward his son. Joseph, he loved him
more than all of his children because he was the son of his
old age. And he made him a coat of many
colors. Now he didn't make this for the
brothers. He just made it for Joseph. And
I suppose that every time those boys saw their brother with that
coat on, all they could see was my dad loves him more than he
does me. He gets special favoritism. I
mean, everything goes to him. And, uh, I don't think, uh, Joseph
tried to make him feel that way, but they felt that way. They
were just, every time they saw him, he would irritate him. As
a matter of fact, scripture says they hated him. They hated him
because of his position with his father. But you will not
for a moment. They hated him because of his
position with his father. child of his old age." Now verse
three, now Israel 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. And when his brethren saw that
their father loved him more than all his brethren, guess what? They hated him. They hated him. And they could
not speak peaceably into him. They hated him so bad that they
didn't have anything good to say about him. They hated him. And with that hatred, I'm not
going to comment much on this because I'm going to preach on
soon, but let's consider this dream he dreams. And Joseph dreamed
a dream. He told it his brethren and they
hated him yet the more. And he said unto them, here I
pray you this dream which I've dreamed. For behold, we were
binding sheaves in the field and lo, my sheaf arose and also
stood upright. Behold, your sheaves stood round
about and made obeisance to my sheep. That's the word worship.
You worshiped me. You hit the dirt and bowed at
my feet. Now, can you imagine how this
would infuriate them? It would infuriate you. Don't
get too hard on these boys because you'd be the same way and I'd
be the same way. Verse eight. And his brethren said to him,
shalt thou indeed reign over us? Or 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 his brethren and said, behold, I've dreamed a dream
more. behold, the sun and the moon and the 11 stars. How many brothers did he have?
11. He said, even the sun, the moon,
and the stars are going to worship me. They're going to do obedience
to me. And he told it to his father
and to his brother, and his father rebuked him and said unto him,
what is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy
mother and thy brother indeed come to bow down ourselves to
thee to the earth? And his brethren envied him.
But his father observed the same. It resonated with him. It stuck
with him. Look in verse 18. This is when
he came to see about the welfare of his brethren while they were
tending the sheep. Verse 18 of Genesis 37 says,
and when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto
them, they conspired against him to slay him. They said, we're
going to murder this man. We're going to get rid of him.
Now that's anger, isn't it? Verse 19, and they said one to
another, behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, therefore,
and let us slay him and cast him into some pit. And we'll
say some evil beast hath defiled him and we shall see what will
become of his dreams. Now this is how far their anger
had reached. Their desire was to put him to
death. And what I love about these dreams,
these dreams would come true. You go on reading, and when he's
made the Lord of Egypt, and the head man in Egypt, and if you
were gonna eat, it was up to him. His brothers came to him,
and they didn't know who he was. You know what they did? They
bowed down at his feet and did obeisance to him. Now, this is
how Joseph is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everybody is going
to bow to him. Now, before we get into the story,
I want us to consider some things regarding him as a type of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And like I said, I hope to spend
some time on this most interesting story and the greatest type of
Christ in the Bible. And the first thing that I would
notice is his name. Did you know he has two names?
Two names. The first name means, well, Joseph
means adding. Adding, you know the way I, the
only way I'll enter the kingdom of heaven is if I'm in him and
I'm added in by him. That's the only way I'll enter
the kingdom of heaven is as I am in him. He is all my salvation,
he's all my righteousness. The only way I can enter the
kingdom of heaven is as I am in him. Our Lord said in John
chapter 14, verse six, I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. No man cometh
to the father, but by me. And let me tell you exactly what
that means. When the Lord ascended back to glory, you know how I
got there by being in him. That's how I'm in heaven. The
scripture says we're seated together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus
right now. Well, you only know that by faith, I realize that,
but it doesn't take away from the fact that it's so. In Christ,
I'm in heaven already. When people say, are you, I've
heard people say, I'm for sure for heaven, as if I'm already
there, I'm better than that. I'm already there, Christ. That's
the reality of this union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Joseph
means, added. There's going to be others. Others
are added. And the reason I'm added is because of his name. And the other name, I'm probably
going to mispronounce it. This is the name Pharaoh gave
him, Zathnath-paneah. And it means the revealer of
secrets. That comes from God giving him
the ability to interpret those dreams. You remember how he interpreted
the dreams of the butler and the baker, and then he interpreted
Pharaoh's dreams, and he's the revealer of secrets. Now everything with regard to
the truth, regarding God, who he is, who you are, how he saves
sinners, that's a secret that you'll never know unless God
is pleased to make himself known to you. We're totally and completely
dependent upon Him revealing Himself. We can't figure it out.
I can't sit down and say, well, I'm gonna find out, I'm gonna
read the Bible, and I'm gonna study until I figure out who
God is. It ain't gonna happen. The only way I can know God is
if He makes Himself known to me. The only way I can know Jesus
Christ is as the father makes himself known to me, the revealer
of secrets, the great secret of how a holy God can accept
me. He is the revealer of secrets. He, no man has seen God at any
time. The only begotten Son which is
in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. He's made known the secret. Now the second thing that I would
like to consider very briefly is his occupation. He was a shepherd. He was a shepherd. He was with his brothers tending
the sheep. Now, I don't know much about
a shepherd and sheep. I know this. Sheep are dumb.
Sheep are dirty. Sheep easily are led astray.
And they can't find themselves back once they are led astray.
And they're defenseless. They don't have claws. They don't
have fangs. They're defenseless. They're completely dependent
upon their shepherd. Christ is called that great shepherd
of the sheep. The chief shepherd. He said,
I am the good shepherd that layeth down his life for the sheep. And I can say with David, the Lord is my shepherd. The Lord. is my shepherd. I shall not want. I'll not lack anything because
my shepherd is the Lord. Oh, don't you love his occupation
as this great type of Christ? A shepherd. The great shepherd
of the sheep. Now, remember how Joseph's brethren
did evil. And Joseph brought this evil
report to his father. Now, I don't recommend anybody being
in Tattletail. I don't recommend that. But I do know this, this demonstrates
the great difference between Joseph and his brothers. There wasn't any evil report
to be brought about Joseph. Oh, the difference between Joseph
and his brothers. Now in this scriptural portrait,
he's good and they were bad. Now they were bad, weren't they?
His brothers, man, they were a mess, and they were vicious. I mean, they were gonna kill
Joseph, and Reuben tries to get him to not do it, and he's trying
to think of some way to deliver him out of their hand, because
he knew these were bloodthirsty men. He knew they'd kill Joseph
on the drop of a hat. These were violent, evil men. Jacob knew it. Jacob said that
with regard to Simeon and Levi instruments of cruelty are in
their habitation. I mean, they were bad dudes for
lack of a better word. Joseph was good. And this evil was displayed in
their hatred of their brother. They hated him. They hated him
more. They hated him all the more. And this is what evil is, not
loving Jesus Christ as he is, as he's revealed in the Bible.
To not love, they hated him. They hated him to the point that
the scripture says they could not speak peaceably unto him. Now their depravity is seen in
their hatred and their inability is seen and they could not speak
peaceably unto him. Thus, their hatred just controlled
them. And that talks about our sinful
nature, our natural hatred of Christ. Somebody says, I don't
hate Christ. Well, if you're unsaved and you hear
of who he is and what he's like, you will hate him. You won't
be indifferent about him. You'll hate him. Now you say,
I've not hated Christ. Maybe it's just because you haven't
heard who he is. If you know who he is, you will hate him
unless God saves you. And you'll be unable to speak
peaceably. You won't know anything about
the peace that's in Christ Jesus. Totally unable until God does
something for you. And our hatred for Christ is
expressed in the cross. Don't look at your feelings,
don't look at your actions. That's not gonna tell the real
story about you. The real story about me and you is seen in the
cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. When man was left to his own
will, that's me and that's you, don't think you wouldn't have
been right there with him. When man was left to his own will
to do what he wanted to to the Son of God, they nailed him to
a tree and killed him. That is sin. They could not speak
peaceably to him. And then the Lord Jesus Christ
is the favorite of the Father. Do you have any problem with
that? That the Lord Jesus Christ is the favorite of the father. This is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased. Oh, how the father loves the
son. He is the favorite of his father. He loves him more. He loves him
more. Why wouldn't he? He's altogether
lovely. He's the bright and morning star.
He's the fairest of 10,000. He's the express image of the
father. How can the father not look at
him with nothing but love and adoration and affection? He's
the son. He's the brightness of God's
glory. Of course, he loves him more.
But here's what is amazing. He said, this is my beloved son. Not with him I'm well pleased,
although he was, but in him I'm well pleased. And if you're in
the Son, the Lord said this, as thou hast loved me, so hast
thou loved them. Nothing shall be able to separate
us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. He is the Father's favorite. And as Joseph was the son of
his old age, Christ is the son of God's eternity. There was
never a time when he began to be the son. He's always been
the son, the son of God, the eternal son. In the beginning
was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. The same was eternally was in
the beginning. with God. And what about that coat of many
colors that he made for his beloved son? And he didn't make that
for the other fellas. He made this for Joseph. And
I have no doubt that every time they saw him wearing that coat,
as a matter of fact, they come to strip him of it. You're gonna
see that and what all that means, a stripping of it. But that coat
of many colors represents all the perfections of deity in the
Lord Jesus Christ. In him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily and you are complete in him. Fullness
of sovereignty, yet fullness of humility. Fullness of holiness, fullness
of grace, fullness of omnipotence, fullness of gentleness and generosity. Every attribute of God is what
makes up that coat of many colors. Let me also say this with regard
to that coat of many colors. That is the same coat that the
bride is granted in Revelation 19, 8. Unto her was granted fine
linen, clean and white. This fine linen is the righteousness
of the saints. You see, that righteousness of
Jesus Christ, the righteousness of God, clothes every believer. That is, he is, My righteousness
before God. Now notice in closing. Verse four, 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. Verse five
and Joseph dreamed a dream and told his brother and they hated
him yet the more. Verse eight, and the brethren said to him,
shalt thou indeed reign over us? Or shalt thou indeed have
dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more
for his dreams and for his words. Now they hated him, but you know
what? They would come to love him for
this. The very things they hated him
for. they would one day come to love him for. Because it's
only because of who he is and his power and his reign and his
glory that they are preserved. They hate him for it now, but
one of these days, by the grace of God, they're going to love
him for everything they hate him for now. Now, the natural
man has No love for Jesus Christ as he is. But, you know, there's
a whole bunch of sinners that God's gonna save that are gonna
come to love him for what they once hated him for. And this
glorious one, to be an encouragement, I hope to everybody here, these,
turn to Genesis 45. This is when Joseph makes himself
known. Genesis 45. Then Joseph could not refrain
himself before all of them that stood by him. And he cried, cause
every man to go out from me. And they stood no man with him
while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. Now this is
some 17, 18 years later. And he wept aloud, and the Egyptians
in 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. They thought, it's over. He's
going to put us all to death. That's what I would have thought
too. And Joseph said unto his brethren,
Come near to me, I pray you." And they came near and he said,
I'm Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. He hadn't
forgotten. Now therefore be not grieved
nor angry with yourselves that you sold me hither, for God did
send me before you. to preserve life. For these two
years hath the famine been in the land, and yet there are five
years in which there should 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's made me a father
to Pharaoh and Lord of all his house. and a ruler throughout
all the land of Egypt. 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." Terry Knott. And thou shalt dwell in the land
of Goshen, the good land. 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 thee had five years of famine, lest thou
and thy hast hold, and all that thou hast come to poverty. Now,
they were so angry at these dreams. They're happy about them now.
Let's pray. Lord.