You will turn with me in your
Bibles tonight to the first book in the Bible, the book of Genesis
chapter 37. Genesis chapter 37. I want to begin tonight to bring several
messages to us from the life of Joseph, from chapter 37 through
chapter 50 of Genesis, the life of Joseph is pretty much the
subject of each chapter. But we will pray, the Lord willing,
as we study these messages and look at the scripture, we will
pray that as we look at what is written of him, that is of
Joseph, we will see hints and types and pictures of the Lord
Jesus Christ, of that which will point us to him. Let's read the
first 11 verses tonight. And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein
his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan. These are
the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being 17 years old, was
feeding the flock with his brethren. And the lad was with the sons
of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives,
and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. 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. Joseph dreamed a dream, and 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 have dreamed.
For behold, we were binding sheafs in the field, and lo, my sheaf
arose. and also stood upright. And behold,
your sheaf stood round about and made obeisance to my sheaf. 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 it his brethren and said, behold, I have dreamed
a dream more. And behold, the sun and the moon
and the 11 stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his
father and to 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? And his brother envied him. but
his father observed the same. I have four parts to the message
tonight. First of all, Joseph at the age
of 17. Notice that is what we're told
in verse two. These are the generations of
Jacob, Joseph being 17 years old. Joseph's mother we know
was Rachel, She was the wife that Jacob loved at first sight. When he saw her the first time,
he loved her. When his mother, that is Jacob's
mother, Rebecca, told him to flee to her family's residence
to seek a wife, he was fleeing from his brother Esau. And in
the providence of God, God directed Jacob to the well where he first
met Rachel. Let's read about that back in
Genesis 29. Just as God had directed Abraham's
servant, when he went, commanded by Abraham to seek a wife, seek
a bride for his son Isaac, he prayed and God directed him to
a well. And that's where he first saw
Rebecca, who was willing to leave her family and come to be Isaac's
bride. But here, Jacob now, after many
years, he's fled from his brother Esau, who hated him, because
Jacob, we know, had deceived or tricked Esau more than once,
evidently. He tricked his father, didn't
he, in giving him the blessing. But anyway, when he comes, verse
1 of 29 says, Then Jacob went on his journey, and came into
the land of the people of the east. And he looked, and behold,
a well in the field. And, lo, there were three flocks
of sheep lying by it, For out of that well they watered the
flocks, and a great stone was upon the well's mouth. Then look
down to verse nine. And while he yet spake with them,
those men around that well, asking about his family, his mother's
family there, Rachel came with her father's sheep, for she kept
them. And it came to pass when Jacob
saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and the
sheep of Laban, his mother's brother, that Jacob went near
and rolled the stone from the whale's mouth and watered the
flock of Laban, his mother's brother. And Jacob kissed Rachel
and lifted up his voice and wept." Immediately, Jacob loved Rachel. He was penniless. He had nothing. He had the clothes on his back.
I imagine that was about it when he left his father's house. And
back in that day, to marry a person, a woman, you had to give the
father of the bride a dowry. Well, he didn't have anything
to give, so he agreed that he would work for seven years that
he might have Rachel to be his wife. And so he served Laban
seven years And on his wedding night, you remember that Laban,
his father-in-law now, gave him Rachel's older sister, Leah.
And the next morning when he woke up, he found out that he
had slept not with Rachel that night, but with Leah. And when
he complained to Laban, Laban said, well, the custom in our
country is that the oldest daughter, she must be married first. But
you serve me seven more years and Rachel will be your bride. And so he served seven more years
and Rachel became his wife. And I believe that we may assume
from the word of God that Joseph was a son like Samuel. Remember
Hannah later on in the scripture in the first book of Samuel,
Hannah, she was barren. Her husband had another wife
who had several children, and she was barren. The Lord had
not given her children. But she prayed, and she asked
the Lord for a child, and God gave her a child, and she named
him Samuel, which means ask of the Lord. Now Joseph was a son
like that. I know that because Leah immediately
had children. She had, I think, five sons. And then Rachel, she was barren. The Lord didn't allow her to
have children. And so she gives Jacob, her husband,
her handmaid to be Jacob's wife. And sure enough, there's children,
there's sons born to her. And then Leah, she gave Jacob
her handmaid, and there's more sons. born, but poor Rachel still
has no children. And remember, she said unto her
husband, Joseph, give me children or I die. And Joseph and Jacob
said, am I God? You know, you're asking something
I can't, I can't give you much as he loved her. Children are
an heritage of the Lord, aren't they? What a blessing it is when
God gives us children. What a blessing to have a wife
and children. Well, the Lord gave Rachel a child,
a son, Joseph. And that's the reason I say I
know he was like Samuel. He was asked of the Lord. Now he's 17 years old in this
part of the scripture. Some of you here tonight are
either 17 or close to 17 or close either under or above. I asked
a young man who was here last Sunday night, he's not here this
evening, how old he was and he said, I'm 17. So I know there's
people in the audience tonight who are about this age, about
17. And I'm going to mention Some things which at 17 were
most likely in the memory of Joseph. Some things that he had
experienced in his life that were probably in his memory at
this time. The first thing that I'll mention,
and there's many things, but I've chosen these four, but the
first thing, the fear, no doubt, He remembered how fear just seemed
to come into the camp when he, along with his father and his
large extended family, when they left Laban, his father-in-law,
and headed back to Canaan, and word came that Esau's coming,
your brother's coming, and he's got 400 men with him. The fear
that must have just permeated through the camp. And I believe
that because we see how Jacob, to meet his brother, remember
he divided the wives and the children and the flocks up into
divisions so that they would meet his brother first before
he met him. No doubt he had deceived his
brother. And so now he hears his brother's
coming. And the last word that Jacob
had concerning his brother, he's going to kill you. He's going
to kill you because you stole the blessing. And now he hears
he's coming to meet you with 400 men. Now, Joseph was in that
camp, and surely that impressed him. A second thing that no doubt
was in his mind, the first time he had Watched his dad, and most
boys, you know, they like to follow their dad. Girls do too,
but you know, get in their dad's boots or shoes and follow them.
He had watched Jacob, his father, walk. He was a strong man. He
worked hard taking care of Laban's flocks. He had watched him walk
strong, straight up. But one morning he came into
the camp and he was limping. He was limping. And he limped
for the rest of his life. And I would imagine, as most
children are very inquisitive, he asked his dad, why are you
limping? Why are you limping? You've never
limped before. And maybe Jacob told him, the
reason that I'm limping is I've wrestled this past night with
the angel of the Lord, and he touched my hip. Remember, Jacob
wrestled with the Lord and the Lord wrestled with Jacob. And
God touched him. And from that day forward, he
always walked with the lamb. You see, when God works in a
heart of a sinner, he brings that sinner down. Saul of Tarsus
is a prime example, right? He was on his way to Damascus
to arrest the the Christians and do harm to them, anything
he could to get them to blaspheme the name of Jesus, and God brought
him down in the dust. Blinded him, physically blinded
him. God saves a person, he brings
us down. By nature we're proud, haughty,
self-sufficient, and that's what society teaches people. You don't
need anybody. Believe in yourself. God brings a man down, a woman
down. Gotta get down to be lifted up. That's always God's way. He first
kills, then He makes alive. Not reverse. It's always He makes
poor, then makes rich. That's always God's way. That's
what happened to Jacob, angel of the Lord. And we know that
angel of the Lord was Christ. It was the Lord Jesus Christ,
the eternal son of God, who appeared there unto Jacob that night. A third thing that I assume was
in his mind was the family. Once they got into the land of
Canaan, they went to Bethel. And God told Jacob, take your
family and go to Bethel. Now that's the place where God
had appeared unto Jacob when he fled from his brother. And when they got to Bethel,
the whole family there, they built an altar and they called
the name of the altar El Bethel. Bethel means house, El, God,
the house of God. That's where God had appeared
unto Jacob. And maybe, I'm saying maybe,
that Jacob told his children, as all fathers have a concern
for their children, the spiritual well-being of their children,
that they might know the Lord. Maybe Jacob told his children,
that's where that ladder, the ladder, that I dreamed, the ladder
was set up right there at that point and reached all the way
to heaven. And maybe Joseph came then to
understand that ladder was a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, that
is the promised Messiah, the only way to God. Maybe it was then that Joseph
made God his God. From that point on, he was able
to call God my God, my Father, because he was granted by the
grace of God to realize what that was a picture of. And then fourth, I'm confident
of this, that he remembered what happened when they left Bethel.
It wasn't long, they left Bethel, all of them did, And his mother,
his mother who he loved, died. She died on the journey in giving
birth to his little brother, Benjamin. Now his mother was
full of sorrow and she wanted to name him Boami. I believe that's the way it was,
yes. Benomi, which means the son of my sorrow. But Jacob said,
no way. His name's Benjamin, the son
of my right hand. In other words, he's as dear
to me as my right hand is. Right hand is dear to you, right?
I mean, you do so many things with your right hand. That's
the way Jacob looked upon his youngest son, the child of the
woman that he had loved so long and so great. The second thing
we see about this passage, so his age, that's the first thing,
17, and I just mentioned a few things that would be in his mind
that he had remembered he had experienced in his life up to
this point. We see again in verse 2 that
Joseph was employed feeding his father's sheep. Well now, surely
we're going to think of Christ, are we not? The Good Shepherd,
the Great Shepherd, the Chief Shepherd. We're going to think
of Christ when we think of the fact that Joseph was tending
his father's sheep. Now it's interesting that he
was with the sons of Leah, or he was not, rather, with the
sons of Leah. The scripture tells us, but he
was with the sons of the two handmaids. Look in verse two, Joseph being
17 years old was feeding the flock with his brethren. And
the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and with the sons of Zippah. He was not with the sons of Leah. He was with the sons of the two
handmaids. And it's probably because the
sons of Leah, they considered themselves to be the original,
their mother to be the original. She was the first wife of Jacob
and that the blessing, the inheritance was theirs. They considered themselves
no doubt superior to these that were born of the handmaids and
born of Rachel because she was his wife secondly. Pride. Pride on their part. And pride
is a wicked sin that is prone to all of us. All of us. And many times we're proud that
we're not proud. Isn't that right? We're proud
that we're not proud. What are we? We're filled with
pride. We're filled with pride. To think we're not proud. Joseph, we see, did not consider
it beneath him to work with the sons of the handmaids. He was,
after all, the son of the woman that Jacob loved, his first wife. And then we're told he brought
an evil report. Joseph brought unto his father
their evil report. Now Joseph wasn't a little child.
He was 17. Little children love to tattle
on their brother or their sister, don't they? And you read this
and you think, well, that's what Joseph was doing. No, no. No,
don't think of it like that. No, his brothers, his brethren
that he was laboring with, working with, their conduct was such
that Joseph knew it would bring reproach upon their father. And
he loved his father. And he was loyal to his father. And so he brought the report
to Jacob so that Jacob might deal with whatever the problem
was. To be a father is a is a wonderful
thing, it's a blessing, but it has a lot of responsibility,
doesn't it? And you know, we read of one
of the priests, I believe it was, who failed to discipline
his children. David, that's pointed out about
him, a man after God's own heart. But Absalom, who was the son
who eventually led a rebellion against David, tried to steal
the throne from David. But the scripture says when Absalom
was doing things, David didn't forbid it. Parents have responsibilities. They have responsibilities toward
their children. And it's an awesome responsibility,
isn't it? You are the adult. Some children,
you know, their parents, they want to be friends with. Well,
we want to be friends with our children, but as a parent, we
are the adults in the room. And there are decisions that
must be made, and there are things that you cannot allow your children
to do. And Jacob needed to know, and
so Joseph brought this report. But the main thing is he's a
shepherd. He's feeding his father's sheep,
which reminds us of the Lord Jesus Christ, the good shepherd
who died for his sheep. And he's given gifts unto men. And remember what he told Peter. Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest
thou me? Yea, Lord, thou knowest that
I love thee. Feed my lamb. Simon, son of Jonas,
lovest thou me? Yea, Lord, thou knowest I love
thee. Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep. And the gifts that the Lord,
the ascended Christ has given unto his church, apostles, prophets,
pastors, teachers, why? For the perfecting of the saints.
In other words, for feeding the flock of God. Here's a third
thing. Joseph was loved of his father. We see that in verses three and
four. And I believe there's more here
than meets the eye. 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." We know
that he was born before his brother Benjamin, so when the scripture
here says that Jacob loved him because he was the son of his
old age, well, he was even older when Benjamin was born. Some
of the writers point out that the word that is translated the
son of his old age is literally son or disciple of elders or
senators. And the thought is that he was
a wise. Jacob loved Joseph more than
his other sons because he saw in Joseph something he didn't
see in his other sons. He was a wise and a prudent son. One old writer rendered it, because
he was a wise son to him. Jacob loved Joseph because he
was a wise son to him. Then the reason why Jacob loved
him more than all the others was because though young in years,
he was old in wisdom and knowledge. And they realized, his brothers
did, they realized that Joseph had unusual wisdom. And he made,
the scripture here says, he made him a coat of many colors. Now
it wasn't a coat like Dolly Parton sang about. A coat made out of scraps of
material and things like that. That's not what it's saying at
all. It wasn't a coat like that. It was a robe. It was a robe,
a long flowing robe, a robe that came down to the wrist, a robe
that came down to the ankles, and a white robe at that. It was a type of robe that rulers
used in some societies, in the Egyptian world especially. Those
who were in places of authority, they wore robes like this. Embroidered, no doubt, the many
colors was the embroidered work on the hand hole openings there
and around the border at the bottom. And what his brothers
saw is their father, they recognized, he intends to make him the ruler
over the whole family. Now his firstborn, remember Reuben,
had gone into the handmaid, Jacob's handmaid, and he had forfeited
that right that would have come to the firstborn. And then Simeon
and Levi, which were the next two sons, remember they had committed
that awful crime against the Shechemites. So they realized
when they saw this coat, their father's intention was to make
him their ruler. And this brought about hatred
on the part of his brethren. How many times in these verses
do we read they hated him? They hated him even more. And
doesn't that remind us of the scripture in the New Testament
that tells us, they hated me without a cause. There was nothing
in Joseph to provoke this hatred on their part, just as there
was nothing in the Lord Jesus Christ to provoke hatred on the
parts of men. But they hated him without a
cause. Joseph was loved of his father
and so was the Lord Jesus Christ. God testified of his love to
him at least those two times when he spoke from heaven and
said, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Now the last thing I wanted to
mention is Joseph had the future revealed to him in dreams. And
he told his brothers the truth, and they hated him even more.
What a picture that is of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Gospel
of John, chapter eight, in verse 40, he said, but now you seek
to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth which I have heard
of God. The dreams were of God. They
were of God, and when he told them, The scripture says they
hated him even more. Now I want to point out one word
in verse 11. And that is the word envied.
Notice that in the last verse that we read. And his brethren
envied him. Envy. Envy has been called that green-eyed
monster. The proverb says, wrath is cruel,
anger is outrageous, but who is able to stand before envy? We've all been guilty of it. Don't tell me you've never envied
someone, envied something someone else had, because I know we all
have. Anytime we feel this awful sin,
I'm talking to believers now, anytime we feel this awful sin
arising, it's raising its ugly head in us, then we should deal
with it immediately. And I say that because think
of this, if these brothers, when at this point they envied him,
if they had dealt with that envy, confessed it under the Lord,
mortified that envy in themselves, and maybe later on they would
have not been guilty of the awful sin of selling their brother
or putting their brother into a pit without water. But you see, they didn't deal
with it. And I think it's a good lesson for all of us that when
we have that envious spirit in us, deal with it. Don't let it
fester. Don't let it grow. Recognize God's providence, God's
goodness. God knows what is best for you.
He knows what is best for you. And what you may be envious of,
if you had that, that might be the worst thing that could possibly
happen to you. Believe God. Trust Him. And I'm speaking to myself. I'm
speaking to you, but I'm speaking to myself as well. That's an
awful sin. Every sin is awful. I understand
that. But what crimes, what atrocities have been committed because of
envy? Many, many. Well, I pray the
Lord will bless this word to us this evening. We're going to sing a hymn. We
have an anchor number 265. We have an anchor. And I'm thankful
tonight that we do, and that anchor is Christ. Number 265.