Psalms 105. You and I have been looking in the book of Genesis at some
pictures of salvation, and we've been studying for the last few
weeks on Abraham. We've looked at Abraham and Sarah
and Hagar. We considered them the covenant
of grace and mercy. I remember we went through that.
We looked at Abraham and Isaac going up Mount Moriah. We then
went to Abraham's son Isaac. We spent a couple of weeks Isaac
getting him a bride. That was very interesting. And
tonight we're going on from Jacob. We looked at Jacob. And we're
going tonight to Joseph. Joseph is one of the most interesting
prophets, patriarchs, Old Testament characters. To me, anyway, I
think that there is, and for different reasons. One is, I
don't know of another prophet or another patriarch that mirrors
the Lord Jesus Christ and His work as much as the man Joseph
does. 14 chapters, 13 chapters in the
book of Genesis, 37, and then 39 on through deals with Joseph. And if you've never studied that
and read that, I would encourage you to read those 13 chapters
about the study of Joseph. We're going to begin tonight
to look at them for a couple of weeks. But this is a man who mirrors the Son of God in his
humiliation, in his exaltation. He went down to Egypt. He was
in a pit. He was in a dungeon. He was lifted
out of that, exalted to be king and ruler on the throne in Egypt.
And through him, through Joseph, he was a channel of blessings
to multitudes of people. And not only to save many of
the Egyptians and basically that portion of the world, But he
brought his own brethren to acknowledge their sin and brought them to
repent. So it's just a beautiful picture
of the Son of God. And that's what we want to look
at this evening, just for a few minutes. And this speaks of Joseph
here, a psalm probably of David, maybe of Moses. But it speaks
here of Joseph in verse 16 of Psalms 105. Moreover he that
is God, the Lord God, called for a famine. upon the land. And by this famine he break the
whole staff of bread." Ran out of bread. A great famine. Seven
years. And the Lord sent a man before them, even Joseph, who
was sold for a servant. His feet they hurt in fetters,
and he was laid in iron. Until the time that his word
came, the word of the Lord tried him. The king sent and loosed
him, even the ruler of the people, and let him go, and made him
lord of his house and ruler of all his substance, to bind his
princess at his pleasure and teach his senators wisdom." Now
that's what I want us to look at this afternoon, and I want
you to turn back with me to the 37th chapter of the book of Genesis. And if you're familiar with these,
you'll be able to stay with me just a little bit better. But
if you're not, you'll have to go home and read these and get
caught up on our lesson. In Genesis chapter 37, we're
told, first of all, that Joseph's brethren hated him. I mean, they
just despised him, and we'll see that in a minute. He had
eleven brothers, and ten of them despised him. And it's a beautiful
picture, if you call it that, of even the Jews, the Jewish
nation, his brethren, despising the Lord Jesus Christ. And let's
compare them together. Look here in Genesis 37, and
I want to show you three reasons. In verse 2, I want to show you
three reasons, beginning here, why Joseph's brethren despised
him. First of all, look in verse 2
of Genesis chapter 37. Look at this. These are the generations
of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years
old, was feeding the flock with his brethren. And the lad was
with the sons of Bela and with the sons of Zelpha, his father's
wives. And Joseph brought unto his father
their evil report. First of all, this is one of
the reasons that they despised young Joseph. It wasn't that
he was a tattletale. Don't think that about it. It
wasn't that he was accusing them. But Jacob had some pretty rowdy
sons. If you've studied the book of
Genesis, you'll see that they were pretty rowdy people. They
committed some pretty horrible crimes. And sometimes when they
were off plotting those crimes, I can just about hear them. What
we're going to do, what we're going to sneak and do, just don't
anybody let Dad know we're doing it. Well, Joseph despised that. He saw that as rebellion against
his dad and his mother. He would go back and tell his
dad what they were plotting. And they hated him for it. You've seen this in siblings,
haven't you? You know, where the little one
tells on the big ones. But Joseph, he didn't do it just to be a
tabletale. But he'd do it because his dad
needed to know. And they hated him for it. He
was faithful to expose their evil. And you know, this is why
the Jews hated the Lord Jesus Christ. Because He was so faithful,
because He was so true. He told them one time, He said,
you know, He told His disciples this, He said, you know, the
world can't hate you, but me it hates. And you remember why
He told them the world hated them? Because I testify of it. that the works thereof are evil."
And he said, because I do that, I am light. I come as light in
the world. And what does light do? It exposes
darkness. And he said, he that doeth evil
deeds, he hates the light, and he won't come to the light lest
his deeds be reproved. If the Lord Jesus Christ has
nothing to say good about the natural man and the natural heart,
and the natural works of man, it's not because he would not.
He cannot. He has to tell the truth. He
told you the truth, didn't He? About yourself? He made you love
it too, didn't He? But you know, there's a lot of
people. Boy, they hate Him for that. The Jews hated Him. Even His own brethren. His own nation hated Him because
of that. Here's the second reason found
in verse 3 and 4. Joseph's brethren hated him.
In verse 3, look at it. Genesis 37. 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,
they hated him and could not speak peaceably unto him. They were jealous. Jealous. They got jealous because he made
Joseph a coat of many colors. I doubt if he made them a coat.
But it was obvious to them that their dad loved the younger brother
more than he did them. You know one of the reasons the
Jews hated the Lord Jesus Christ? Because he said, the father loves
the son and hath committed all things into his hands. The Father
loves the Son and shows Him everything that He's doing. The Father's with me. He's not
left me alone. I do always those things that
please Him. And they got so jealous about
that. You're calling yourself the Son
of God? You're telling God loves you and you're living pleasing
unto Him in everything? Yeah. He said, My Father sent
me and He's with me. He'll never leave me. Never leave
me alone. And He loves me. And you know
they envied Him. You remember one of the reasons
they delivered Him to Pilate? Because they were jealous for
envy. Remember when the Lord in John
chapter 9, He healed that man that was born blind? And the
scribes and the Pharisees called Him up to counsel with Him and
said, Who healed you? And He said, The man called Jesus.
And they said, Don't you give Him the glory for it. You give
God the glory, but don't you give Him any glory because that
man is a sinner. And remember what that blind man said. If
this man were a sinner, if God wasn't with him, he couldn't
do what he just did. Whoever heard that any man had
his eyes open that was born blind, if this man were not of God,
approved of God, and loved of God, and sin of God, he could
do nothing. And you know what they did? They
said, you get out of this temple and don't you ever come back
in here again. Why? Because they were jealous, weren't
they? Envious. Envious. of the Son of God and
the love that the Father had unto Him. But thirdly, look here
in Genesis chapter 37, here in verses 5 and through verse 9,
Joseph dreamed a dream. And he told his dream unto his
brethren, and they hated him yet the more. But what did he
dream? Well, what in the world would
he have dreamed that made them mad? Well, look in verse 6. And he
said unto them, Here I pray you this dream which I have dreamed.
For behold, we were binding sheaves in the field." Most of us, you
know, we look out to an old corn field where they used to be.
Some of you may have seen them. They'd gather up all the corn
and shuck it up. Shocks of corn. That's what I
picture here. Probably so high, maybe some
kind of grain. I'm not sure what it was, but
the little shocks out in the field. And he said, we were all
shucking this corn and binding these sheaves in the field. And,
lo, my sheep arose, and also stood upright. And, behold, your
sheep stood round about, and made obedience to my sheep. They bowed down before my sheep,
and did reverence and worship." And look at verse 80, "...his
brother said unto him, Shall thou indeed reign over us? or
shall thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet
the more for his dreams and for his words." And you know that's
one of the reasons why The Jews, especially the religious Jews,
hated the Lord Jesus Christ. They asked Him one day, they
said, we are jury by God that you tell us if you be the Christ,
the Son of God. And He said, I'll tell you this,
I'll tell you this. He said, there's coming a day
when you'll see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of
the power of God, coming in great glory. And boy, they got so angry
about that. You mean to tell me you're on
the right hand of God? You're sitting there in authority?
You're coming again in your glory? And the high priest jumped up
and ran his clothes, and he said he spoke of blasphemy. What should
we do with such a man? And they said, kill him. Kill
him. Why did they hate him? The same
reason they hated this man, Joseph. Same reason. Look here in verse 18 of chapter
37. Look how much they hated him.
Look in verse 18 of chapter 37. Oh, how they hated Joseph. Jacob, their dad, had sent Joseph
to check on them. They were up in Dothan keeping
the sheep. And Joseph is coming out to check
them several miles away. And look what he said in verse
18. And when they saw him aforeall, Even before he came near unto
them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said
one to another, Behold, this dreamer comes. Come now, therefore,
and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will
say, Some evil beast hath devoured him, and we shall see then what
shall become of his dreams." Well, they are going to kill
him. They are going to kill him. Reuben talked him out of it.
But still, look what they did to him in verse 24. And they
took him and cast him into a pit. And the pit was empty. There
was no water in it. And then in verse 27, Come and
let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon
him, for he is our brother, and our flesh and his brother were
consent. And they sold him as a slave
down into Egypt. Sold him for 30 pieces of silver.
But there's two things in here that reveals just the hatred
of their heart. Not just indifference towards
their brother, but look at the hatred. And this will come out
in play next week. Look here in verse 23. And it came to pass when Joseph
was coming to his brethren, they stripped Joseph out of his coat,
his coat of many colors that was on him. They hated even his
garments. Tuck his garments off of him.
Who does that remind you of? Remember somebody else they stripped?
Shamed him. Tuck his garments from him. And
after they put him in the pit in verse 24, look what they did
in verse 25. And they sat down to eat bread. Could you throw your dear loved
one in a pit? strip his garments from his beautiful
coat, and then go over and sit down and enjoy a meal? They were
calloused. They hated their brother, Joseph. And don't we see the same thing
in the Lord Jesus Christ with the Jewish brethren? Remember
when Pilate, Paul said, Pilate was determined to let him go.
Pilate sought ways to release Jesus Christ and not crucify
Him. He sent him to Herod. Herod's
men of war set him at naught, beat him, plucked some of his
beard out, shamed him, mocked him, sent him back to Pilate.
Then Pilate sent him down with his soldiers. Can you imagine
what a band of rough Roman soldiers would do to a Jewish person?
That their king, their governor said, You take him down and flog
him. They beat him. They laughed at him. Spit upon
him. Cleared their throats and spit upon him. Pulled more of
his beard out. Flogged him. Curls down deep
in his back. Put a crown of thorns on his
head. Drove it down on with a reed. Holes in his crown. But there's
a reason that Pilate did that. He thought when I bring him back
out here, and he's standing here all humble, And his eyes beginning
to swell, and his beard has been plucked for the most part, and
blood soaking through his clothes. They're going to feel some pity
for him. And they're going to say, let him go. That's enough.
But when Pilate got him back out there, and there he stood
humiliated in his shame, in his suffering, you know what they
say? Crucify him. Crucify him. Our enemies, I mean,
there's a limit to what we will do to our enemies if we see them
suffering, isn't there? But boy, not with these people.
And there was a reason. They hated Him. They despised
Him. Why do you want me to crucify
Him? What evil has He done? We just hate Him. Why do you
hate Him? We don't need a reason. We just
hate Him. They hated me, He said, without a cause. And He came
unto His own, the Scripture says. And his own received him not."
Even his own received him not. But it doesn't stop. Our story
doesn't stop with Joseph being betrayed by his brethren and
sold as a slave. But they sold him down to Egypt.
And in chapter 29, look at this. In chapter 29, his sufferings
followed him down there too. Down here in Egypt he was accused
of an abominable crime and sin against God. They sold him to
a man by the name of Potiphar. He was an official of Pharaoh. And he was over all of Potiphar's
house. In chapter 39 you can read this
account. 39 of Genesis. And Potiphar's
wife tried to get Joseph to lay with her in a carnal way. And he said, I'll never do that. He said, I'll sin against God.
Your husband trusts me with everything. Should I sin against God by doing
such a thing? And she pressed him day after
day, and he kept avoiding her. One day he came in the house
to do his job, and there was no men there, and she laid hold
of him and tried to literally drag him into bed with her. And
he left his coat. And she was so embarrassed and
angry that she felt so scorned. She called the other servants
and said, look here what he's done. He's come in here and tried
to rape me. And she kept the coat that night
and told her husband, look what this Hebrew's done. You brought
him into this house and he's tried to molest me. And look
here in chapter 39 and look in verse 19 and follow. And it came
to pass when the master heard the words of his wife. when Joseph's
master heard what she said, her false accusation. After this
manner did thy servant to me, that his wrath was kindled, and
Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, a place
where the king's prisoners were bound, and he was there in the
prison. And I read to you that account
in Psalms 105, whose feet they hurt in the fetters, and he was
bound with iron. They hurt him during the prison.
His feet swollen. Put him in fetters and in arms. False accusation. An abominable
sin. And you know our Lord Jesus Christ,
He not only was despised and rejected of His own people, His
own nation, but the Gentiles hated Him too.
It was the Gentile kings and governors that tried Him. They
had the power to release Him, but they didn't need Him. It
was the soldiers that whipped Him and cursed Him. It was the
Gentile soldiers that drove the spikes in His hands and crucified
Him. So He was despised and rejected
of His own. He was despised and judged and
falsely accused of Gentiles as well. And they put Him on a cross,
crucified Him, put Him down in sepulcher, and there he was held
by the fetters of death, by the pains of death. And just as Joseph
thought, poor people's forgot about me. Nobody knows where I'm at. Nobody
knows. The Lord Jesus laid in the tomb
one day, and don't you imagine His disciples felt like it was
eternity. The second day, if he's going
to raise, he'd have raised by now. Too late. He's cold by now.
The third day, he's probably decaying by now. And finally,
they got so despondent that they said, we're hopeless. We're hopeless. This is the third day. And we
thought for sure he was the one that was to redeem Israel. Boy,
Joseph was put in prison, and from all accounts, He's forgot
about now. He's down there in prison. He's
in the dungeon. He'll never come out of there. Christ is in the
grave. He'll never come out of there.
Let's go on about our lives. Let's go back to Emmaus. Let's
go back to Galilee. Let's go back to our fishing.
He's gone. Seemed hopeless, didn't it? And add to this in chapter 40.
Here in chapter 40, we see something else. When Joseph was here in
prison, There was two men put in there that were officials
in Pharaoh's house. One was a butler and one was
a baker. He got mad at them and put them in prison where Joseph
was to determine what he was going to do with them. They both
had dreams. And the baker had a dream and
the butler had a dream. And the butler dreamed that he
was squeezing out grapes in a cup and giving the cup to Pharaoh.
And Joseph said, God can interpret that dream for you. And here's
what it means. He told him what it means. He said, three days.
He said, Joseph, Pharaoh is going to lift you up and restore you
to your job. Well, the baker said, man, that's
pretty good. Then I'll let him interpret my
dream. So he said, what does my dream
mean? I had a basket of bread on my
head and the birds kept pecking all the bread that was gone.
What does that mean? He said, three days, Pharaoh
is going to take your head from your shoulders and crucify you. And boy, sure enough, three days.
Three days. That happened. And this butler
was on his way out of prison and Joseph said, listen, remember
me. Would you remember me? But he
didn't, did he? Two more years. whole years,
the Bible says. He forgot it. He forgot it. It seemed like hope was gone
for Joseph. And it seemed like hope was gone
for Christ, too. Did you know that? Tell us one
person. Tell us one apostle. Tell us
one woman, one disciple anywhere that went there waiting on Sunday
morning for the Lord Jesus Christ to rise. Nobody was there. Hope is gone. They were hiding
out and weeping. Hope is gone. Oh, how quickly
God can cause His purposes to ripen. How quickly. Here in chapter 41, look in chapter
41, we have Pharaoh, and now he dreams. Two years after the
butler had got out and was restored, to Pharaoh's house to give him
his wine and his drinks. Two years after that, Pharaoh
goes to bed and he dreams a dream. And he has a dream and he sees
seven beautiful, fat, healthy cows come up out of the river. Some of the prettiest, healthiest
cows he had ever seen in his life. Then while he was dreaming
that dream, he saw these seven wretched, poor cows come up out
of the river and started eating the healthy cows. And they kept
eating the healthy cows until they'd eat them all up and they
were still just as poor as they were when they started eating.
And Pharaoh woke up and he thought, what in the world? What in the
world does that mean? And he finally went back to sleep
and he dreamed another dream. There were seven ears of corn
on one stalk. And they were full, long, huge
ears of corn. And then he saw seven ears of
corn that had no grain on them. It looked like it was blasted
with the east wind. And he ate up the seven good
ears of corn. And he woke up and he said, my
goodness, that's like the first one. What does that mean? And
he called his magicians. And he said, interpret to me
this dream. And he told them. They said, we have no idea what
that means. The butler was standing there. of all men, the butler
was there. And he said, I do remember my
fault this day. What's your fault? There was
a Hebrew lad over there in the dungeon when you got mad at me
and the baker, and you sent us over, and we thought, sure, you
were going to kill us. I had a dream, and he told me the interpretation,
and he told me you were going to restore me, and that's exactly
what you did. What happened? What happens now? Look here in
verse 14. You think God's purposes don't
ripen fast? Look in verse 14 of chapter 41.
And Pharaoh sent and called Joseph and brought him hastily out of
the dungeon. And he shaved himself and changed
his raiment and came in unto Pharaoh. And you read the rest
of this chapter on down to verse 37. He interpreted this dream. And
here's what he said, he said, those fat cows, seven cows that
you saw, those are seven years of plenty. The next seven years,
God's going to bless this country and you're going to have plenty.
Grain to eat, and then those seven bad cows, that's going
to be famine. Seven years there's going to
be no rain, no gardens, no fields of crops, there'll be nothing.
And those seven years of corn, same way. Seven years of plenty,
seven years of famine. And he said, Pharaoh, pick you
out a wise man, and you set him over your things, and let him
take one-fifth every year, one-fifth of all the grain that's grown.
Plant all the grain you can and bring it all into your barns,
one-fifth every year. At the end of those seven years,
then you'll have plenty to live on. And Pharaoh said, well, what
better man could I have than you? Why would I want to go find
somebody else? And here's what he said. Look
here in verse 38. And Pharaoh said unto his servants,
Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom is the Spirit
of God? And Pharaoh said unto Joseph,
Forasmuch as God hath shewed thee all this, there is 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 thou. And Pharaoh said unto
Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. And
Pharaoh, now look at this, look at this, ain't this amazing?
Here one instant, one instant, here's a man in the dungeon,
in fetters, and the next instant, hastily, he's exalted to the
throne. Look what Pharaoh says. Verse
42, Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, put it upon Joseph's
hand, arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold
chain about his neck, and made him to ride in the second chariot
which he had. And they cried before him, Bow
the knee! Bow the knee! Orders from the
king! Bow the knee! And he made him
ruler over the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph,
I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man lift up his hand
or foot in all the land of Egypt." Now, I don't even have to tell
you how he mirrors the Son of God, do I? You already see Christ
in that, don't you? Here He is dead. He went from
the depths of humiliation, the depths of sorrow, the depths
of hatred and violence to His person. There He lies in a tomb,
but God raised Him from the dead, gave Him a name that was above
every name, sent Him over all principalities, all powers, all
dominions, all thrones, put everything under His feet and gave Him to
be head over everything, and says, Son, set it in My right
hand, and reign here until I make your enemies your pursuers. I
mean, He went from the lowest depths unto the highest heights. And you know there's not a hand
today that raises, there's not a foot that moves, there's not
a worm that wiggles, there's not a bird that flies through
the air, there's not a grain of sand that makes its way, but
at the will of the Son of God. Did you know that? He's Lord
with absolute authority. He rules and reigns in heaven
and in this earth. The Lord Jesus Christ. And what
makes that so wonderful is the depths to which He stoops. Not
only to be barned of a woman, but to take to himself the form
of a servant and become obedient unto the most shameful death
any man could ever suffer. But out of that, God has given
him a name. And I'm telling you what now.
The Holy Spirit, the servant of the living God, through His
preachers and His church, is saying this, Balvenie, Balvenie. And many of us have, haven't
we? But you know there's coming a day and everybody's going to.
There's coming a day when everybody's going to bow the knee to the
Son of God and say, He's the Lord. He's the Ruler. That's
Him. Boy, I tell you, the early church,
those apostles and those preachers, they loved the resurrection of
Christ. They loved His exaltation so
much. That's all they preached. You
read Peter through the book of Acts. We went through that turn.
That's all they preached. Every message that Peter preached,
you took him and by wicked hands you crucified him and slain him,
but God has raised him from the dead. And he seated him there
at his right hands in the heavens. They loved that, didn't they?
We do too, don't we? We do too. And oh, how quickly,
how quickly the Lord did it. In the grave one day, and the
next day he was exalted with all power in heaven. and in earth. Look here in Genesis 41 at this
now. Look here at these two or three
things right quickly. In verse 45. Now look at this. This is strange. And Pharaoh
called Joseph's name Zaphnath-pe-aneh. Now I don't know if that's the
right way to pronounce that, but it doesn't matter because you
don't know either, do you? It wouldn't do you a bit of good
if I could pronounce that Hebrew word or whatever. You couldn't
remember it. That's what he named him. And
he gave him to wife Asenath, the daughter of Potiphar, priest
of On. And Joseph went out over all
the land of Egypt. Now, this is a very strange thing.
You remember when Abraham came out of Mesopotamia, he brought
his wife with him. Sarah came from the old country. When it come time to get Jacob's
wife, Remember, they sent back to the old country. My people.
My people. You take a wife out of my people.
Where did Jacob go to get his wife? Back to the old country,
didn't he? My people. My people. Where did
Joseph get his wife? She was a stranger. She wasn't
an Egyptian. And what does that teach us?
When Pharaoh lifted him up out of the dungeon, he gave to him
his wife. But she was a Gentile woman.
She was not out of the old country, you see. And you know something? When God raised His Son from
the dead, He gave Him a strange wife, too. He gave Him a Gentile
wife, did He not? I'm looking at them. I'm looking
at some of them. There's not a Jew by nature in this house,
is there? Paul said there was a time when
we were strangers, didn't he? We were strangers from the covenant
of promise. We had no hope. We weren't Israelites. We were dead dog Gentiles. And
the Lord said, I'm not sent to the Gentiles yet. I'm sent to
the house of Israel. But you know, when God raised
Him from the dead, He gave Him a Gentile wife. And you know
what? He's pretty happy about that. Joseph loved this woman. You know how I know he loved
her. I want you to look down in verse 51. Joseph had two children
by this woman. And look what he says here in
verse 51, chapter 41. And Joseph called the name of
his firstborn Manasseh. You know what that means? Caused
him to forget. He called him Manasseh. What
did he forget? Well, look. For God saith He
hath made me forget all my toil and all my father's house." Now,
I'm telling you what, if you marry a woman and make you forget
your father's house, when he loved his father like he did,
and loved his brother like he did, and loved his country, and
he said, I've forgotten it. You must love a woman, boy. You've
got a woman like that. You leave father and mother and
everything else and say, man, God's made me And look what else
he said in verse 52. He had this second son, and he
named him Ephraim. That means double fruit. For
God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction. And that's why I'm saying the
Son of God loves His church. Even the church that He's taken
out of the Gentile world, He loves them. And you know something,
today, while you and I are here, the Son of God is in heaven,
and He's forgot His pains. He's forgot His humiliation.
He's not suffering anymore, brothers and sisters. He's reigning in
joy. Who for the joy that was set
before Him, ended their cause. And He loves His church so much,
it's made Him forget His toil. It's made Him forget His pain.
And look how fruitful God has made Him. I mean, he's got people
coming to him from all over the world. Has he not? That's his
wife. And some of the fruit's right
here. I believe that. Some of his fruit's right here.
Oh, what a beautiful picture, then, of the Son of God. But
here's something else. Look here in verse 55. First
of all, then, He exalted him and gave him a wife. And secondly,
look in verse 55. Here's something else. Look at
this. This is a wonderful thing to
think about. Verse 55, And when all the land of Egypt
was famished, all the drought came, famine came, ran out of
food everywhere else. The people cried unto Pharaoh
for bread. And Pharaoh said unto all the
Egyptians, Go unto Joseph. Go unto Joseph. What He said
unto you, do it. You know, this is the very thing
that Mary said about the Lord Jesus. When they come and said,
we've run out of wine. And she went to Him and said,
they have no wine. And she said, whatever He tells you, do it.
That's the same thing she said. And look in verse 56, And the
famine was over all the face of the earth, and Joseph opened
all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians. And the famine
waxed sore in the land of Egypt. And all countries came unto Egypt
to Joseph for to buy corn, because that the famine was sore in the
land." Isn't this a wonderful picture of the Lord Jesus Christ?
God exalted Him to be a Prince and a Savior and a Ruler. And
poor, hungry sinners are coming to Him from every quarter and
have been for 2,000 years now to fill their need and to quench
their thirst and for life. For 2,000 years that's been going
on. Why do men come to Jesus Christ? They're hungry, aren't
they? You'd think these people would
have been making the trip to Egypt if they weren't starving. I mean, it was necessary. They
come out of necessity. We're out of corn. We're dying.
So they come. Why do men come to Christ? They're
dying, aren't they? Out of my poverty, out of my
bondage, out of my sorrow, Jesus, I come to Thee. That's why we
come in. He healed those who had need
of being healed. If any man thirsts, Let Him come
unto me and drink. That's why we come. We have need
of Him. And brothers and sisters, it's
a blessed thing. It's a blessed thing when God
calls for a famine in a man's soul and dries up everything that
He had delighted in. This world's pleasure, the flesh,
self-salvation just dries that up. and leaves him decaying in
his guilt and fear until he brings him to his son for the bread
of life. Oh, what a blessing. Ain't that
a blessing? People would have never come to Joseph if God hadn't
called for a family. And people won't come to Christ
if God don't call for the family. That's when they come. And in
closing, consider this. This is a wonderful thought.
Who did this woman here marry in this chapter. Who was it she
married? She was married to Joseph. But
when was she married to him? While he was in the dungeon?
No. It didn't happen there, did it? Not when he's in the pit.
When was this woman given to him in marriage? When he was
made Lord and made ruler of all the land. When did these people
come to him for food? When Wally's down in the dungeon
was it? It's when he was exalted on the throne. Had Pharaoh's
ring of authority on. That's when they come to him.
And what am I saying? I'm saying this. That you and
I come to the same Christ that lay in a manger. We come to the same Christ that
hang on a cross. But we don't come to Christ in
a manger. We don't come to Christ even
on the cross. We come to the exalted, Lord and Savior. Don't we? That's where our fellowship
is. That's where our unity is in
this exalted Lord and Savior. He reigns. He rules over our
hearts. We don't have fellowship in a
denomination. We don't have fellowship and
unity in a church. We don't have fellowship in a
system of theology. But we fellowship and we have
unity in the person of the exalted Son of God, Jesus Christ our
Lord. Ain't that wonderful? That's
wonderful. Well, next week, we'll have to
quit here. Next week, we're going to look at these same fellows
that betrayed their brother and hated their brother. This story's
not over with yet. Now, these fellas are getting
hungry. Now they're going to have to
come down and deal with their brother, and he's going to deal
with them. And that'll be a sight to see. We'll look at it next
week.