The shingles is healing, but
she's developed a secondary condition from the shingles, which is called
hepatopic neuritis or something. In other words, it's a problem
with nerves, and it could be a lifelong condition. They don't
know it could go away, it might not, but it's not good. She's
in real pain, so remember her in your prayers, as well as Drew
Dietz, who's recovered from a quadruple bypass, Jim Bird, who's going
in tomorrow for a heart cath, and all the others who requested
prayer also. And Sharon, yeah, who's in the hospital with a
gallbladder attack. We don't know the results of
that. She'll call me when she finds out something, so. One
of them days. One of them days. Hymn number
255. 255, Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine. Blessed assurance,
Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory
divine. Care of salvation, purchase of
God. Born of His Spirit, washed in
His blood. This is my story, this is my
song. Praising my Savior all the day
long. This is my story, this is my
song. ? Praising my Savior all the
day long ? Perfect submission, perfect delight ? Visions of
rapture now burst on my sight ? Angels descending bring from
above echoes of mercy, whispers of love. This is my story, this
is my song, praising my Savior all the day long. This is my
story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long. Perfect submission, all is at
rest I in my Savior am happy and blessed Watching and waiting,
looking above Filled with His goodness, lost in His love This
is my story, this is my song Praising my Savior all the day
long. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my
Savior all the day long. Hymn number 226. 226. And a skill too. ? What God hath will, what God
hath plan ? I only know at His right hand ? Is one who is my
Savior ? I take Him at His word indeed ? Christ died for sinners
this I read ? For in my heart I find a need Of Him to be my
Savior That He should leave His place on high And come for sinful
man to die You count it strange, so what's did I Before I knew
my Savior and all that he fulfilled may see the travel of his soul
in me and with his word contented be as I with my dear Savior. Yea, living my strength, my solace from this
spring, that he who lives to be my king, once died to be my
savior. Genesis chapter 50. We'll read
verses 23 through 26. And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he
in his father's house. And Joseph lived a hundred and
ten years. And Joseph saw Ephraim's children
of the third generation, the children of Matthew and the son
of Manasseh, were brought up upon Joseph's knees. And Joseph
said to his brethren, I die, and God will surely visit you
and bring you out of this land into the land which he swore
unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. And Joseph took an oath
of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and
ye shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph died, being
110 years old, and they embalmed him and put him in a coffin. in Egypt. Let's pray. Our Father,
we thank you for this book, the book of beginnings, that so much
set forth the glories of our Lord Jesus Christ, so many aspects
and wonders. We thank you for the gift of
it, to see all the firsts, to see creation and the new creation,
to see the flood and the salvation of your people in the Ark of
the Covenant, where the Ark had pictured Christ. We thank you
for every sacrifice that is offered up, for every great man of the
faith who proved to be what they were just being, but sinners
saved by grace. We thank you for the record we've
studied of Joseph and how he pictures our Lord Jesus Christ.
as the stone that the builders refused that became the head
of the corner, as the nourisher and caregiver of his people,
as the man who was sent to save much people alive and did so.
We thank you, Father, for this book altogether, for the glory
of it, for the beauty that lies within the poetry and syntax,
for the sweetness and the strength and power of these words. We
bless you that you have left us with such a witness. Father,
we pray for those who are sick. We remember especially those
of our congregation. Sharon, ask Lord that you be
with her. We pray that you bring Cheryl
back to a good measure of health. Pray for Wanda. She's been diagnosed
with this new condition. We pray that it'll be a temporary
condition and not one that will last her the rest of her life.
Pray for Brother Drew as he's recovered from this heart operation.
Pray for Brother Jim as he prepares for heart cath tomorrow. Pray
for our shut-ins, Father, that you'd watch over them and be
with them. Pray for those who can't be with us tonight. Watch
over them. And Father, be with us, we pray,
as we look at this final portion of the book of Genesis. It's hard to leave this book,
for I know that though we've studied it for many years, it's
still so much there that we have not touched upon. But we thank
you for it. Help us now to worship you as
we consider the death of Joseph and the promise made. Prepare our hearts to receive,
our minds to understand and believe. We pray in Christ's name, amen. as I began the final study, and
this is our final study in Genesis. We finish up tonight, and I guess
next week we'll start on Exodus, because that's the next step
in the history of this nation. So I looked at the first book
I opened up of this study. I found that this study started
three years ago, almost to the day. We started the 13th of February
in 2019. Three years later, on February
the 16th, 2022, we finish. Today we come to an end of this
book. Genesis means the generation
of the beginning. It's a book of first things.
This great old historical and spiritual account of God and
his people sets forth the glories of Jesus Christ, the people to
whom he has given faith, and all their appointed ends. One
remarkable thing is about every hero that we run across in this
book, we buried somewhere. They're all gone. They all go
in the pages of this great book. His people are recorded plainly.
Their weakness and frailty and the sin of God's elect is also
recorded along with their faith and faithfulness to the promise
of God and the grace of God is seen as the only hope of mankind. Human history began in the purpose
of God before the world began. It began with the first human being,
the true human being, the human being that is the mark and measure
that all human beings should aim for and what human beings
ought to be. It began with the Lord Jesus
Christ the Lord Jesus Christ displayed for all eternity as
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He was and is the
eternal surety of his people having assumed their debt before
they even existed. They came into this world, those
sinners all, and worthy of eternal death. They came into this world
not owing God a debt for sin, Because Christ had assumed that
dead is their eternal surety. He said, it's my dead and I'll
pay it. He's the eternal surety of God's
chosen race. And this immutable man, this
immutable man disclosed in eternity, he superseded what would become
the mutable man. His name was Adam. a man created
and made from the dirt of the ground by the hands of him who
sat upon the throne." The first earthbound man in this book is
Adam. The last earthbound man in this
book is Joseph. Joseph is perhaps the most prolific
type of our Lord Jesus Christ that is in all of Scripture.
Some have said there are over a hundred ways that Joseph is
a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we read, as we just read,
that his life is about to end. And as his life ends, so ends
the Book of Beginnings. And it ends on a high note. The people of God, the twelve
tribes of Israel, the sons of Jacob, have arrived at the beginning
of a fourth century period that will grow them into a great nation
whose existence brings fear to the great and powerful Egypt
eventually, And now at the end of Joseph's life, they've been
in the land of Goshen many decades, and with them all is well. Everything's
going good. God would not allow a dog to
bark against them. When the plagues would later
come and the rain would get on the cattle of Egypt, not one
bacteria flowed across that wondrous wall. The grace that God had
built did not infect one cow. They're privileged people and
they will be for many years. All the life of Joseph, they
will for all the life of Joseph. He lives to be 110. And all of
those days, except for his first 13 years, have been spent in
Egypt. Except for 13 years, this has
been where he's lived. And he's there for the sole purpose
the singular purpose of saving a nation that only exists at
this time in the loins of 12 men, but will reach to what some
have conjectured above a million people when they're carried out
of this place, when they are delivered by the blood of the
Lamb. He was prepared for the office of Savior from his youth. He was prepared for the office
of Savior through trial, through hatred of his own, through betrayal,
through false accusation, and through God-given wisdom and
the gift of faith. He was a wondrous man, and he
pictured the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me read you what the Lord
said about Christ in His preparation for being the Savior of His people. It says, in hebrews chapter five verse
eight it says though he were a son yet he learned obedience
by the things which he suffered and being made perfect he became
the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him called
of god to be a high priest after the order of melchizedek he learned
obedience he's god He is omnipotent and omniscient, knows all things. Nothing is new to Him, yet as
a human being who lived upon this earth in preparation for
Him being the perfect sacrifice, He learned obedience through
the things that He suffered. He came to that cross having
been betrayed, having been hated by His own, He came to the cross
being the wisdom and the righteousness of God. Joseph is described for
us in his final hours in our text. He is described as a kind
of loving and kind and generous great granddaddy. That's what
he is when he's dandling upon his knees the great grandchildren
of his. It says in verse 23, And Joseph
saw Ephraim's children of the third generation, The children
also of Nature and the son of Manasseh were brought up upon
his knees. He is pictured as living to see
his great-grandchildren and is holding them and dandling them
upon his knees or in his lap. I thought what stories he had
to tell them and what wisdom he had to impart You know, the
mark of a society that is about to be desolate or become desolate
is they care not for the ancients. That's the mark of the society.
Our Lord, in describing how he would do away with Israel, said
in Israel chapter 3, and this is one of the things he talked
about, In Isaiah chapter 3, he said in verse 5, And the people
shall be oppressed, and every one by another, and every one
by his neighbor. And the child shall behave himself
proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honorable.
Back then, in the days of Joseph, they held the ancient in high
esteem. I am glad to live where I live,
in this nation, where at least yet the ancients are esteemed
and held in high and honor. But the mark of a nation is when
they no longer honor their ancients. How well the wisdom he imparted
was employed to these young men is not recorded. Probably because
these little ones were also long gone by the time this nation
was delivered. But they died knowing the kindness
and love of their great-granddaddy. He was a family man, wasn't he?
Loved his brethren. And as he was about to pass from
the world to the next world, he reveals what he is. Joseph is a believer. a man to
whom God has given faith. He brought his sons together
and told them what he, by faith, knew. He first told them what
he knew concerning the promise of God that was given to Abraham. On the ninth day Abraham saw
the seed and believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
On that same night in Genesis chapter 15, God gave Abraham
a vision, and it is about to start to be fulfilled in spades
as we approach the book of Exodus. In Genesis 15, God says to Abraham,
Know of a surety, in verse 13, that thy seed shall be a stranger
in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them And they
shall afflict them four hundred years. And also that nation whom
they shall serve will I judge. And afterward shall they come
out of that nation with great substance. That's the prophecy.
And here it is. Joseph, long time later, centuries
later, is now talking about that very thing. Joseph says in verse
24, God will surely visit you. God will surely visit you. You see, when God visits you,
it's a good thing if you're His. It's a bad thing if you're not.
When I read that, I thought of Naomi in the land of the Moabites,
poor, destitute, having nothing. And she heard something. She
heard that God had visited Israel in giving them bread. So when
God comes to His people, He comes with the bread, the bread of
life, the Lord Jesus Christ. God will surely visit you. For
the believer, there can be no better news than this. And if
God visits, there is a reason for His visiting. And according
to the word, the reason is predestinated bondage followed by predestinated
deliverance. He's already predestinated their
bondage and their deliverance way back in Genesis chapter 15.
And this is the visit that he's talking about, their ultimate
deliverance. This nation, yet to be fully
formed, has every step that they take ordered by the Lord in all
things, and it's sure. he will visit you to bring you
out of this land," he said. Now think about it. Things are
going pretty good right now. Why would I want to leave? What did this really mean to
these young men as he spoke to them about this? Going to bring
you out of this land. The tribes had it pretty good
now. They may have thought that being brought out of this land
was not such a good idea. In fact, even after they were
brought out in the Book of Deuteronomy, many of them said, why don't
we make us a captain and take us back to Egypt? for the leeks
and the garlics and everything was better there than it is out
in this wilderness where we have manna every day. This is bread
that our soul hateth and water from a rock and that's all we
got. In fact, they said we don't even have water. We're thirsty.
The water was right there. They said we don't have any bread
to eat and the bread was there every morning. They said we don't
have it. Maybe this didn't mean anything
to these men. I've often thought that the only time the gospel
really means anything to any of us in reality is when we're
in trouble. It's true. The tribes had it pretty good.
A believer cannot imagine this thinking that a person would
desire bondage to liberty But the legalist religion fears freedom
more than they fear slavery. For sometime the tribes will
enjoy the leeks and garlic of this great land. They will have
it all in Goshen near the Nile where the crops grow. They will
have children like crazy. They will have no problems until
another king arises that don't know Joseph. That's when the
problems will begin. That's in the first chapter of
Exodus. Deliverance was probably not
in their mindset, but long after these gathered here will perish,
their progeny will cry to the Lord to be saved. Why? Because God's prophecy will be
fulfilled. God will surely visit you and
bring you out of this land into the land which he swore to Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. Over in Deuteronomy chapter 6,
this is the very language of Moses as he spoke to these people. Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verse
23, he says, He brought us out from thence that He might bring
us in. Why did He bring you out of slavery?
to bring you into the fold. Why did he bring you out of darkness
to bring you into the light? That's why he did it. He didn't
bring you out to leave you there. He brought you out to bring you
in. And that's what Joseph has said. He's going to bring you
out of this land to bring you into the land that he has provided
for and he has promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And Joseph
made his brethren swear that when the Lord visited them that
they would not leave his bones in Egypt but carry them with
them to the promised land and bury them there. And this was
recorded in the New Testament as an act of faith for Joseph. Joseph was acting and speaking
as a man of faith. You see, Joseph died, he died
in faith. He died believing the Lord. In
fact, in that great chapter of Hebrews, that great cloud of
witnesses has spoken of in Hebrews chapter 12. It speaks of all
that cloud of witnesses in Hebrews chapter 11. This is recorded
in that great chapter in Hebrews chapter 11 in verse 22. It says,
By faith Joseph when he died made mention of the departing
of the children of Israel and gave commandment concerning his
bones. He made mention that God is going
to visit him He's going to bring them out in order to bring them
in. And we know He did that. Why?
Because He believed God. He believed God. Think about
that. Now, they didn't have the written Word of God when this
was written. Genesis wasn't written until Moses wrote it. And he
wrote Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. All
of this was vocally transferred from generation to generation.
words were spoken promises they'd sit around the fire perhaps or
in the tent and they'd say well way back yonder Abraham was taken
up on a mountain by God and God said look at the stars can you
number them? Abraham couldn't he said well
my children are going to be greater than the number of stars or the
sands of the seashore and Abraham believed him because
God said your seed I'm going to make of a great generation,
a great number. He wasn't talking about Isaac,
in Isaac shall thy seed be called, but he was talking about the
seed of Israel, Jesus Christ, or it says in Galatians 3. God
didn't say seeds, he said thy seed, which is the Lord Jesus
Christ in Galatians chapter 3. And they told that story. generation upon generation, from
father to child, grandfather to grandchild. It's a vocal thing. We would call it a legend, perhaps. It's a vocal history. They didn't
have it written down. We got it written down. We can
read exactly what happened. We know exactly what happened
over the years. Think about that. I thought about
it often. I thought about how these people did these things
because somebody had spoken these words to them. They said these
words to them and it was carried. And they followed along for centuries
before that prophecy would be fulfilled until centuries later
they went on based on what the word was. I spoke a word and
I think in the beginning was the word. and the Word was with
God, the Word was God, the same was in the beginning with God.
Nothing was made that He didn't make, speaking of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Is it any wonder that faith is foolishness to
the world? We have the written Word of God. We gather three
times a week or twice a week and we sit down and listen to
some jacklegs stag on his hind legs and tell you the same story
over and over again. And you act like you enjoy it.
You love to hear it. Tell me again, preach. Tell me
that thing about the cross one more time. Tell me the old, old
story. Repeat it again and again. Why?
Because that's what does my heart good. And the world says, that's
all you got. We say, that's enough. Because
that's all there is. To the believer, the word of
God is sure, true, and an unshakable foundation. an unshakable foundation. So the record is that our old
brother Joseph died. It was embalmed and his body
was put in a coffin. He died in faith. The coffin, this is the only
time this word coffin is translated coffin in the Word of God. It
means a chest and many writers of old say it means a hope chest.
And many ideas have been put forth as to where his bones were
kept all these 400 years. His bones ain't gonna be moved
for 400 years. You think about it. This chest
that kept his bones was kept somewhere, somewhere for all
those centuries. All those centuries. And many
ideas have been put forth. If you read Jewish writers or
Egyptian writers, they'll come up with all kinds. Some historians
say he was buried in Egypt and Moses dug up his bones. Some
say that he was put in catacombs. Others say his coffin was cast
into the Nile. I don't know how that one works,
but they said it was. Others say that his coffin was
a sarcophagus and was leaned up against the wall for 400 years.
That's what people say. I don't know. What I do know,
and what we know, is that when the Israelites left this land,
were delivered by the blood of the Lamb, when they crossed that
Red Sea, and went through that wilderness, when they entered
the Promised Land, when they left Egypt, they had His bones
with them. That's what the Scripture says
in Exodus chapter 13. Next is chapter 13 and verse
19, it says, And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for
he had straightly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely
visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you. So we know that happened. When
Moses and the children of Israel left Egypt, they got that casket
that had been there 400 years, and they put it on their shoulders,
and away they carried it with them. And we also know this,
that Joseph's body was buried in the Promised Land over in
Joshua, the last chapter of Joshua. Joshua 24, verse 32, it says, And the bones
of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought out of Egypt,
buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground, which Jacob bought
of the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for an hundred pieces
of silver. And it became the inheritance
of the children of Joseph." What we do know is this, if God
has given us faith, we know that what God has promised, He will
perform. In our hearts, we know it. We
can't convince anybody of it, but we know it in our hearts
that he's promised it. Abraham, when God told Sarah
that he was going to have a child, both of them were past the age
of childbearing. Abraham was too old, and Sarah
had stopped producing eggs. She wasn't able to bear children.
God said, you're going to have a baby. She laughed. And he said,
Abraham staggered not at the promise of God. believing, being
persuaded that God was able to perform what He promised. And
so it was. As I end this chapter and our
studies in this book, I don't know who the elect of
God are and neither do you. So we preach the gospel in every
creature. And we say, in God-given faith, as Joseph said to his
brothers, God will surely visit you and bring you out of this
land and to the land which you swore to Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. For as Paul said to Timothy, it is God who has saved you,
or has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according
to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which
was given us in Jesus Christ before the world began. This
all began in eternity. This whole scenario of the 50
chapters that we just read speak to one thing. That Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world came down here among men. God
visited us. Emmanuel, God with us. The Word
was made flesh and dwelt among us. He visited us and He took
us out of the land we were in. Took us to a whole new land.
the land of slavery and bondage, we were removed to Emmanuel's
land, a land of peace and light and joy. Father, bless this true
understanding, we pray in Christ's name, amen.