but it's going to get tested as we walk with the Lord. I think we need to bump that volume up a little bit if that's alright fellas? Okay let's turn in our Bibles please to Genesis and chapter 50, the book of Genesis. Genesis and chapter 50, in fact we're going to just reverse a little bit here and read from verse 29 actually of chapter 49 because these final verses of chapter 49 set the context and the scene for what takes place in chapter 50. So let's pick up the reading there in verse 29 of chapter 49 of Genesis and And he charged them, this is Jacob speaking, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people, bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite. In the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite for possession of a burying place. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife, there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife, and there I buried Leah. purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was from the children of Heth. When Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons he gathered up his feet into the bed and yielded up the ghost and was gathered unto his people. Chapter 50 now, Joseph fell upon his father's face and wept upon him and kissed him. Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father and the physicians embalmed Israel and 40 days were fulfilled for him, for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed. And the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days. And when the days of his mourning were passed, Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, My father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die. In my grave, which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. Now therefore let me go up I pray thee and bury my father and I will come again. Pharaoh said go up and bury thy father according as he made thee swear. Joseph went up to bury his father and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh the elders of his house and all the elders of the land of Egypt and all the house of Joseph and his brethren and his father's house only their little ones and their flocks and their herds they left in the land of Goshen. And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen, and it was a very great company. And they came to the threshing floor of Artad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation. And he made a mourning for his father seven days. When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the morning in the field floor of Etad, they said, this is a grievous morning to the Egyptians. Wherefore, the name of it was called Abel Mizraim, which means the field of the Egyptians. which is beyond Jordan. And his sons did unto him according as he commanded them. For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a possession of a burying place of Ephron the Hittite before Mamre. Joseph returned into Egypt, he and his brethren, and all that went with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father. And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure, hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which he did unto him. And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, So shall you say unto Joseph, Forgive I pray thee now the trespass of thy brethren and their sin, for they did unto thee evil and now we pray thee forgive the trespass of the servants of the god of thy father and joseph wept when they spake unto him and his brethren also went and fell down before his face and they said behold we be thy servants joseph said unto them fear not for am i in the place of god But as for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now therefore, fear ye not, I will nourish you and your little ones, and he comforted them and spake kindly unto them. Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father's house, and Joseph lived in a hundred and ten years. Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation, the children also of Matre, the son of Manasseh, were brought up upon Joseph's knees. Joseph said unto his brethren I die and God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land under the land which he swore to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob. Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel saying God will surely visit you and you shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph died being 110 years old and they embalmed him and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your goodness to us tonight and Lord, we thank you for your blessing and for your sustaining grace, Lord, for this series, Lord, which has now been two years running. We thank you for the book of Genesis and all the riches, Lord, that are there and surely we have not exhausted all of the treasures that are there because it is your infinite word. And so, Lord, we give you thanks tonight and we just pray that you bless this Final message, Lord, from the book of Genesis, that you administer it to our hearts, that you'd speak to us. Lord, we pray that you would have your will and your way comfort those who are suffering with trials tonight, Lord, and we pray for any who may not yet know Christ as their Saviour, we pray that you would move in their hearts and draw them to yourself. And so, Lord, we look to you, we need your help just as much this sermon as we've needed it for all the other sermons and we just pray that you would be with us now, give utterance and unction to the preacher, Lord, strength of heart and body and that you would also strengthen the saints as they hear, Lord give them ears to hear what you would have to say to them, we pray that each one of us would know your special touch through this message, we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen. The title of tonight's message is very simply, God meant it unto good, or God meant it for good. And here in this final chapter of Genesis we have the deaths and burials of two great heroes of the faith, Jacob and Joseph. It also contains Joseph's final recorded words and I think you'll agree with me as we go through here, they were words of forgiveness to his brothers and words of faith for Israel's future. Now this last chapter of Genesis covers approximately half of Joseph's life, the second half of his life. Joseph was 56 years old, if you look at the various references to age, time you will come up and you'll be able to see quite clearly that Joseph was 56 years of age when Jacob his father died, that means Joseph has a further 54 years in Egypt and they're just summarized very briefly here in the chapter Joseph living to a total age of a hundred and twenty years. The chapter before us also contains one of the most powerful statements made by Joseph that is recorded in the Bible, Genesis 50 verse 20, And we'll get to that, God willing, in the message tonight as we see that great victory in Joseph's heart again towards all the trials that had happened in his life. so what we're going to do is, we're going to give you three headings tonight, three points by way of an outline to just guide us through in our study tonight and I trust that we will be helped as we study our 80th sermon in Genesis, okay, sermon number 80. And I was checking the other day, we started Genesis, I believe it was end of September 2021, so Trust you've been blessed, it's been a lot of work but it's been a huge blessing to me as a preacher to go through this book and I hope that you've been blessed as well. But it's not over yet, let's get into it, okay? So let's look at this section of Genesis tonight. Number one, we want to look at the funeral for Joseph's father. and we go from 29, verse 29 of chapter 49 through to verse 13 of chapter 50, the funeral for Joseph's father and here we have Jacob's final words, his death and his burial. So let's look at a number of points under that. Firstly, the planning for Jacob's burial and we see this in verse 29 to verse 33 of chapter 49, we've read it already, But here we have Jacob charging his children, commanding his children to bury him with his fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite. There's a recurring theme you're going to see through this section. It was very much on the hearts of these godly saints of old, Joseph and Jacob, to be buried back in Canaan. don't think we can fully understand as Gentiles the kind of love that exists in the Jew's heart for his land and that is because God has given so many wonderful promises to the Jewish people connected with the land of Israel and so Jacob wanted to be buried back there and so we have planning here for Jacob's burial and I think we could say that there was some faith behind this. Jacob says, I am to be gathered unto my people, bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite. Jacob believed in life after death. He said, I am to be gathered unto my people. This is a reference in Genesis we see a number of times, a clear reference to the afterlife and the patriarchs clearly believed in the afterlife. They were to be gathered, life would not exist, obviously earthly life would come to an end but they didn't believe that that was it. They were looking forward to life after death and he said, I am to be gathered unto my people and Jacob's desire to be buried in the land was also an exercise of faith. Clearly Jacob believed the promises of God that God was going to come through for the Hebrew people and fulfill his promises for the people of God in relation to the land. Obviously as well there was some sentimental attachment there, it was quite natural that Jacob would want to be buried alongside Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah and Leah. Then as he finally dies, verse 33, we can note a couple of things, and when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed and yielded up the ghost and was gathered unto his people. There's at least two things we can learn about death from this verse and looking at Jacob as he passes out of this life. Number one, death takes place when the spirit leaves the body. Okay, it says, and he yielded up the ghost. The ghost obviously is the old English word there for spirit, often occurs in our Bible and so death takes place when the spirit leaves the body. Okay, it's not ceasing to exist, death is the doorway into the next life. Okay, so death takes place when the spirit leaves the body and the second fact about death we can learn here is, death is the doorway into the next life because the Bible says, and was gathered unto his people. So for Jacob as an Old Testament saint, he would have gone to the paradise section of Hades, also called Abraham's bosom in Luke chapter 16, a place of comfort, a place of joy, awaiting ultimately the coming of Messiah. And that's another whole study in itself. We know that after Christ was crucified, he rose again and he took the Old Testament saints that were waiting in that paradise section of Hades He took them back into the immediate presence of God and now as New Testament believers, when we die, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. But clearly Jacob had a faith that included a faith in the afterlife, he was looking forward to being gathered unto his people, that is the saints. And that's a very beautiful picture, isn't it, of the afterlife of the Christian. We have so much more revelation now from the New Testament. We know a lot more about the glories that await us. But at a very basic level, heaven is a place where we are with the Lord and with the Lord's people. And so death is the doorway into the next life. It's a good reminder, isn't it, to think about this. Are we ready to die? Could I ask you this question tonight? When you pass through the doorway of death, do you have hope and faith and assurance, like Jacob did, that you are going to step into paradise, into heaven, to use New Testament language, or do you have no assurance of that? Because the Bible makes it very clear there is no in-between and there is no purgatory. We were speaking to a man on the door yesterday who believed in purgatory and I took him to Luke chapter 16 and read, I said, look here you have a man begging Saint Abraham to have mercy upon him and to send Lazarus to dip his finger in water and to rescue him from hell or to alleviate his sufferings and Father Abraham couldn't answer his prayer. There's no purgatory, there's no chance after death. Death is the doorway into eternity and you are going to spend eternity either in heaven or in hell. Could I ask you with love tonight, if you were to die tonight and you were to go through the doorway of death, would you step into the glories of heaven or would you step into the flames of hell? Every single person under the sound of my voice is either going to spend eternity in heaven or eternity in hell. You say, but pastor, we're in church. I know that, but maybe you're here tonight and you don't really know that you are on your way to heaven. If you were to die tonight, you don't have full assurance that you would go to be with the Lord in heaven. May I encourage you tonight, don't leave here tonight without settling that matter once and for all on the basis of the word of God, so that you know for sure that you have eternal life. So important. The planning for Jacob's burial. Here we see planning going into this. That's a good thing to do. We plan for everything in life. We plan for our holidays. We plan for our retirement. Do you make any preparations for death? You say, I don't want to think about that. Well, you need to. You have to make preparations. It is a part of life, unless we be raptured, of course. But these things have to be thought through. So the planning for Jacob's burial. Number two, the preparation for Jacob's burial. And we go into chapter 50 now. And we note here mourning for the dead. mourning for the dead and Joseph fell upon his father's face and wept upon him and kissed him.' Can you see the scene there? The brothers are gathered around the deathbed, Jacob breathes his last breath and Joseph falls down, collapses in grief upon his father and just bursts into tears and gives his father a final kiss. I'll tell you what, can't you see something of the pain in Joseph's life again? Joseph had missed out on so many years with that beloved father of his. And weeping is an appropriate response times of bereavement and in times of suffering. You know, I heard the story of a Christian lady who lost her husband and as is very natural, she cried and cried at the loss of her husband and some foolish Christian came to her and said, you dishonoured the Lord by crying so much. Brethren, let's not get false concepts of spirituality in our minds sometimes. Tears are God's gift to us in times of suffering. we're not very good at crying at times in our English culture, sift up a lip and I'm not saying we should aim to be emotional wrecks all the time, I'm not saying that but there is an appropriate time for tears, there is a time to mourn and it is appropriate to cry at times like these. We know as believers we don't sorrow as others that have no hope but the Bible does not say we have no sorrow, We do sorrow when we say goodbye to a beloved saint in the Lord, there is sorrow but if they're saved it's not sorrow without hope, that's the difference. Tears are God's gift to us in times of suffering. You know actually, it doesn't concern me when I see the saints cry sometimes, what concerns me is when Christians don't cry when they probably should. Do you know it's not good for you, even physically, mentally and emotionally, to always hold it inside? And some believers are like that, they'll never open up about their burdens to another trusted brother or sister in Christ, they just keep it all bottled up, they're going to sort it all out on their own, they never cry, always hold on to the tears and that's not even a biblical thing to do, there is a time to weep. Do you know research has even proven that when you cry, oxytocin and endorphins are released that actually make you feel better. Have you ever had a good cry and felt a bit better afterwards? Maybe you're thinking, I've had a cry and still felt terrible afterwards. That happens as well but it's actually proven that these feel-good chemicals are actually released through tears that can help ease both physical and emotional pain. Ecclesiastes 7 verse 3 says, So there's a time to weep. Don't think it's unspiritual. Now of course we don't want to be just controlled by emotions all the time and sometimes maybe we do have to learn to cry a little bit less if we're inclined to be a tear bag all the time, okay, I understand that. But I'm just saying, here we have Joseph weeping upon his father, that is an appropriate response in times of bereavement. it's interesting, isn't it, to note that Joseph had his first 17 years with Jacob and then Jacob had his final 17 years with Joseph, have you ever thought about that? First 17 years of Joseph's life was with Jacob, they missed out on 22 years, Jacob comes to Egypt and had the final 17 years. I just see patterns of God's providence all over Joseph's life, just amazing, the fingerprints of the divine, So there's preparation for burial here, there's mourning the dead and then there's what I would call, mummifying the dead and that is exactly what happened. We know the Egyptians are famous for this and Joseph, in fact you can go to the Is it the museum? Museum in Adelaide and you can see Egyptian mummies. It's a bit of a spooky room in there but you can actually go and see these Egyptian mummies that are still there and preserved. And Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father and the physicians embalmed Israel and verse 3 tells us the process there, and 40 days were fulfilled for him. For so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed. So this was a 40 day process to preserve the body. it was based upon the Egyptians' pagan beliefs about the afterlife. Now Joseph clearly didn't believe those, I'll explain why he was embalming his father in a moment but the Egyptians believed in the transmigration of the soul, they had this idea of the soul passing through the afterlife and they believed that the soul would eventually return to that body and so therefore they went to great lengths to preserve the body ready for the spirit to return to it. Now often you find sometimes in pagan religions almost a perverted a concept of the truth. We know as Christians that the Spirit will eventually be reunited with the body but we don't have to worry about preserving the body for the Spirit to come back to it because God is going to give us a brand new body, a glorified body like under His glorious body, you can disintegrate in the earth, it's not going to worry the Lord, He will raise you by His power he'll give you a new body like under the body of the Lord Jesus. So we don't have to worry about preserving the old, we need to honour the body and bury it properly but we don't have to go to these kind of links. But Joseph had the Egyptians embalm his father and no doubt that was so that it would be preserved for a long journey back to the land of Canaan in order to be able to bury the body. I won't go through the gruesome details of how they went through that process They would put an instrument up through the nose and pull the brain out and other things. Anyway, we'll stop there. But they were very skilled at this process of preserving the body. It's amazing, isn't it, that they can dig up these mummies that are maybe 3,000 years old and get a very accurate idea of how that person looked 3,000 years ago. But the point was, Joseph wanted to have the body preserved, I believe, to be transported back to Canaan and he had the professional services of the physicians there to embalm his father and to make sure his father was given an honourable burial. It's just fascinating to me, things are repeated in the scripture for a reason and as I've studied through it, the amount of times it is mentioned, the cave of Machpelah, which was purchased from the children of Heth, it just keeps coming up again and again, a burying place. Burial is a Christian practice. I'm not trying to be harsh, if you have a family member who chooses cremation and that's outside your control, we understand, there's nothing you can do about that. But let me just reiterate, the Christian view is that we bury our dead. Cremation is a pagan practice. Study it. It's a pagan practice and it's dishonorable to the body. Now, we know that the spirit of the loved one, if they're saved, has gone to be with the Lord, but there's nothing wrong with honoring the memory of that person. A great honor was given to Jacob here. In fact, 70 days mourning was observed for Jacob. Do you know how long the Egyptians would mourn for their pharaohs? 72 days. So what Pharaoh was doing was giving Jacob the honor almost to the equivalent of an Egyptian pharaoh here, Jacob. Jacob, 70 days morning. So in the Bible, believers were never cremated, always buried, always. Bear that in mind, okay, and think about that. For me personally, I'm not going to put my beloved father or mother in the oven. Can't think of anything more dishonorable to do to the body there. Okay, Number three, the procession of Jacob's burial. Now we have this really royal procession that takes place from Egypt all the way to Canaan. Now that would have, all the way to Canaan, that would have been quite a trip. through the Sinai desert up into Canaan, a very long journey, probably taking several months I would imagine, and there was quite an entourage that made up this funeral procession. And in verse 4 to 6 Joseph makes a formal request to the house of Pharaoh to obtain permission to fulfill the promise that he made to his father and Pharaoh approves that. And then in verse 7 to 11 we see the kind of procession that was involved here, look at it there. Verse 7, and Joseph went up to bury his father and with him went up, here's the list of dignitaries, all the servants of Pharaoh. the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, so these are the dignitaries from the very household of Pharaoh, probably those in charge of different aspects of the running of Pharaoh's house, all the elders of the land, so you can imagine rulers of various areas in the land of Egypt, various cities were involved, Then in verse 8, we have all the house of Joseph and his brethren, so we have all of the Jewish people now, Joseph and his brothers, and his father's house, only their little ones and their flocks and their herds they left in the land of Goshen. So the little ones had to stay behind, presumably with their mothers and with the the livestock there. And then verse 9, they went up with him both chariots and horsemen, these were no doubt military personnel, to provide protection for this procession. But it's quite an impressive procession and if you want to get a further sense for just how big it was, the Bible says it was a very great company, verse 9. So this is a huge procession making its way all the way over to Canaan to bury Jacob. Now, you and I don't need something that big when we die, because we're not that important. Okay, this is Jacob though, one of the heroes of the faith, but there is a principle here, there is nothing wrong, in fact it is appropriate to honour the memory of the saint that has passed, especially if they have been godly and walk with the Lord, there should be appropriate respect paid to their memory. that's very important. So you can see this huge caravan making its way through to the land of Canaan and then they pause, the Bible says, at the threshing floor of Atad, which I understand is east of Jordan, and there they carry out a formal seven-day period of mourning and this mourning drew the attention of the local Canaanites, they were so impressed by it they called the place Abel Mizraim, meaning Meadow of Egypt. then Joseph and his brothers fulfill their promise and bury him in the cave of Machpelah, verse 12 and 13. Now we come number two tonight, to the forgiveness of Joseph's family. We've looked at the funeral of Joseph's father, now look at this further example of Joseph's forgiveness of his family members. You know, times of bereavement can awaken issues that have been there in the past in a family? The pain of the passing of a loved one can stir up old grief, old grievances, feelings of guilt. Have you ever seen that? You have a funeral situation and you have family members having to talk to each other maybe for the first time in years and try and work things out, it can actually be a very stressful time. do your family a favour and make your wishes crystal clear before you pass away so they don't all tear each other apart after you're gone. Just a thought there. But the point is, life has to go back to normal. There's a time for grieving, there's a time to pause and honour the memory of the deceased but now life is returning to normal, Jacob is no longer on the scene and old feelings of guilt and feelings of insecurity are awakened in the hearts of these brothers and they begin to fear that now that Jacob has gone, Joseph is going to take out vengeance on them for what they did to him. So let's look at this. Take note of their assumption about Joseph. Their assumption about Joseph, verse 14 and 15. That's a big assumption to make, isn't it? they're actually saying Joseph might now hate us and take out revenge on us. Now Joseph had shown them nothing but love and nothing but forgiveness but these brothers it seems just couldn't come to terms with the fact that Joseph had actually and sincerely forgiven them. You know it's one thing isn't it To have a situation where someone withholds forgiveness from another person, that's heartbreaking. There's also this situation which is also heartbreaking when someone won't accept forgiveness. Do you know it takes grace to accept forgiveness? Do you ever struggle as a Christian with accepting the fact that God has forgiven you? Do you ever have doubts about whether God has truly forgiven you? It's very human, isn't it? Clearly these brothers were struggling with a lingering sense of guilt over what they had done to Joseph in the past and they were struggling to believe that Joseph had really forgiven them. In reality, Joseph had freely and fully forgiven them and sometimes as believers we can struggle with doubts about God's forgiveness of sins. Let's... that God has forgiven us of our sins. Please remember that God's forgiveness of us is based upon His grace, not our goodness. fact, if we were good we would require no forgiveness. Forgiveness has been given to us out of the grace of God and could I encourage you tonight, maybe as a Christian you have struggles over this at times, I don't know if God has truly forgiven me, let me assure you, if you have come to Christ and In humility, if you have confessed your sin before Him, I can tell you on the basis of the Word of God, as far as the East is from the West, so far has He removed our transgressions from us, He has forgiven you. Those sins you committed, that you still feel so terrible about when they come to your mind, they're under the blood of Christ. They are gone, they are cleansed. You have been cleansed in the blood of Christ and sometimes we just need to be reminded that we can just have full faith in His forgiveness. He's forgiven. But what was going on in the hearts of these brothers? Well clearly they were struggling to accept Joseph's forgiveness, there were doubts about that but I would also suggest that these brothers were inclined to ascribe to Joseph thought patterns and motives that were representative of their own natural inclinations. Do you understand what I mean by that? have a tendency to suspect that others will act as we would be inclined to act in a given situation. Did you know that? Now I'm not saying there aren't times where, as Christians, we can exercise spiritual discernment in a situation and discernment even of another individual, there is that. But so often we assume that others are going to think the way we think. we assume that others would react to a situation the way we would, these brothers were really, really, what they said here revealed more about them than Joseph. Someone said this, in our suspicions of other people, we often reveal ourselves. Why were they suspecting Joseph of this? Because if they had been in a position of power, that's exactly the kind of thing they would have been inclined to do. Interesting dynamics of human nature there. So we have this assumption about Joseph. Pause, by the way. Be careful about making assumptions about other people's hearts and motives. Oh, I'm sure they hate me! You don't know that. I'm sure they would want to do this to me, you don't know that. Unless they tell you, you don't know that. I know what they're thinking, you don't even know what you're thinking sometimes. The only person who knows what you're thinking is your wife. When it's the other way around, my, Read sometime the book, His Brain, Her Brain, you think, what an amazing creature I married, this woman, you know, and her brain and all the connections and it's like a highway, the emotional connections, like a double-laned highway as opposed to our little, you know, little path. Why is it with books like that you come away feeling the woman is so much smarter than you as a man? Must have been written by, I don't know, I know what you're thinking, you don't know what they're thinking. I had to say to one brother, brother what you're suggesting, can I just put your mind at ease, that is not what I was thinking, that is not correct, are you now prepared to accept my own testimony of my own heart or are you just going to keep hanging on to this perception you have? Some people don't want to let go of a perception. Oh, I'm sure, yeah. Okay, brother, thank you for bringing that up. Actually, no, can I tell you from my heart, that is the least, that's the last thing on my mind. Ah, but I'm sure. Will you accept that? You have to accept what people say, as long as they're being honest. You've got to accept that. But here they are, doubting Joseph. So be careful and bear in mind that you will tend to, like I said, you will tend to ascribe to others things that are a part of your own nature. So be humble about that. Gossips tend to suspect that others are gossiping about them. They do. And we could go on. Okay, so we have their assumption about Joseph, then we have their appeal to Joseph and We see here just how much they had believed their own lie here because they wouldn't even approach Joseph personally to begin with, they send a messenger. Don't you feel like saying to some people, would you just come and speak to me personally? Oh, I'm so scared. Well, if you've got an issue you need to come and speak. Instead of sending somebody else or sending some message around the back door, you need to be man enough or woman enough to face the person and talk about the issue you're having. But they didn't feel they could even approach Joseph personally. They're clearly in doubt of Joseph's love here. They're in doubt of Joseph's grace. They're in doubt of Joseph's forgiveness. And so they send a message claiming that their father Jacob had given this final word about him forgiving them. And it's possible that Jacob, I could see a scenario where the dear old man's lying in his deathbed and the other brothers get in Dad's ear and say, Dad, we're really worried about what's going to happen to us after you die. And it can be hard when you're not really sure what's going on and you're getting ready for death. He may well have said this, please tell Joseph to forgive you for my sake. Maybe they just made it up. I'm inclined to believe that Jacob actually said this to his brothers because they were so fearful over this they probably consulted with him and got this out of him. And so, what was the message they sent? Verse 17, I suggest this is another hurt in Joseph's life. Do you realize how hurtful it is when you have sincerely forgiven someone and they're questioning your forgiveness? Now I understand sometimes in human relationships it can be hard because sometimes people lie and those sorts of things, there's doubt there, but one thing we should never be in doubt of is Christ's forgiveness of us. And if someone is genuinely sorry and if someone has genuinely extended forgiveness to you, you need to accept it. So Joseph was clearly broken-hearted that they thought this way and they had totally misjudged him. Did you know it's possible to be totally wrong in your assumption about someone's character? Just totally wrong. Please remember that your mind is not an infallible source of truth and you can believe some very silly things sometimes that it just comes out of your own head and your assumptions about the preacher or assumptions about another Christian and you better be humble enough to realize at times you are totally wrong in the assumption you made about that person's character, about their motives and so on. Then they follow up this messenger with a personal appeal, they come and fall down before him, they fall down before him and offer to be his slaves. Who'll be your slaves Joseph? Joseph says unto them, fear not for am I in the place of God. But as for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good. I just find Joseph responding in such a spiritual manner to these provocations in his life. I don't know about you, I'd be inclined to say, you mongrels! after all I have done for you, I mean, I forgave you, I've given you the land of Goshen, what more do you... that could be a response, you feel angry, how dare you suggest that I haven't forgiven you and yet Joseph was not like that at all. We see in Joseph again a God-centered approach and a God-centered answer. Let's look at this reply of Joseph. Joseph's God-centered response. And as we have seen consistently with Joseph's life and testimony to date, his response to this situation was God-centered. And I believe that Joseph understood a couple of key truths here. He understood God's place in his trial. Verse 19, he understood God's place in his trial and Joseph said unto them, fear not, for am I in the place of God? You know, Joseph had been exalted to the high position of being the second ruler of Egypt, but Joseph had a very clear understanding and a very clear view of where he stood in relation to God. What's he saying to his brothers essentially? I'm not God. I'm not God. that's a good place to be in, to realise that you're not God. Don't try and do God's work, don't try and take matters into your own hands. Joseph believed in the sovereignty of God and his trial. Don't be afraid of that term, the sovereignty of God, we are a long way away, we're nowhere near Calvinist in this church and we don't agree with the Calvinistic perversion of the doctrine of sovereignty but I believe in all my heart in the biblical sovereignty of God. Joseph here clearly believed that God's throne was above his and he was not going to try and take God's role in the situation. You're going through a trial, don't try and step into God's shoes. I believe we see in Joseph the outworkings of a New Testament principle found in Romans 12 19 where it says, Dearly beloved avenge not yourselves but rather give place under wrath for it is written vengeance is mine I will repay, saith the Lord.' You leave that in God's hands.' Joseph was not looking for revenge, if he wanted revenge he could have had it, but Joseph said, he understood, I'm not God, I'm not in the place of God. Illustration, out there we have a couple of parking spaces with the word pastor on it. they're reserved. It's just to give the preach, not because we're something special but you know we're very busy ministering, have a guaranteed park and so our wives who are pastors park there, no they're not, they're not pastors at all, I'm just joking, but we have, we let, as gentlemen, we let them park there, unload the children. But you understand that's pastor's car space, okay, I haven't seen anyone dare to park there yet. Now that I've mentioned it, someone's going to do it as a joke, Brother Ferguson for sure, he's thinking about it already. But in other words, that's not your place. Don't park the car of your life in God's place. I'm not trying to be irreverent, I'm just saying don't, just understand that God is in control, understand that God is on the throne and you let God be God and you trust Him in your situation. don't try and avenge yourself and get even with people. How could Joseph respond this way? He understood God's place in his trial, God was over this. Number two, he understood God's purpose in his trial, verse 20, but as for you, you thought evil against me but God meant it unto good. I think you'd agree with me, Joseph saw God's hand in his trial. Joseph was given grace by God to discern the hand of God working his grand purposes out through his trial. You'll only arrive, by the way, at this position through the eyes of faith. If you're looking at your trial through the eyes of sight, as it were, looking at it from the human perspective, you're never going to come arrive at this kind of spiritual position. You must look to God in faith. understand something of his character and something of his grace and something of his goodness. Do you know what I find really fascinating about this verse here? Look back at it, look at it there again. He says, but as for you, ye thought evil, underscore the word thought there, but God meant it for good. Do you know this word thought and this word meant come from the same Hebrew word? Exact same Hebrew word. And that word means literally, to plait, to weave, fabricate and therefore has the sense of to plan, plot, devise. Do you see the picture? The brothers planned evil for Joseph but God planned good. The brothers thought evil against Joseph but God thought good. The brothers tried to weave evil plans for Joseph's life, but God was weaving a tapestry of his grace for Joseph's life. That's the picture here. And what I love about this verse and about the life of Joseph is God's plans will always overrule man's plans. God's plans will overrule and will supersede the evil plans of wicked men. So while Joseph's brother's wicked hands were weaving a web of pain for Joseph, God's invisible fingers were taking the evil threads of Joseph's trial and weaving them together for good into a tapestry of his grace that would glorify him. Did you know God can do that? in your life, maybe you can see there are some evil threads, as it were, in the tapestry of your life. But isn't it amazing, as you continue to walk with God, as you trust God, as you go through those difficult times, over time you're able to discern that the hand of God has been there, to take even the evil threads, as it were, the bad experiences in your life, the trials that have happened in your life, and by His power and by His grace, He's able to take those things and weave them into a tapestry of His grace for His glory. You know, only God can do that. Only God can take bad things, evil things that happen to us, and work them together for good. You can't claim that, by the way, if you don't know Christ. Sometimes people get a hold of a phrase of Scripture, oh well, everything works out for good, excuse me, to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified. And whom He justified, them He also glorified. What shall we say to these things? If God before us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is He that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God. who also maketh intercession for us, who shall separate us from the love of Christ, shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, as it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Go through the trial with God, all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.' And we need that verse, it does not say all things are good, That's the point. God takes many things in our lives that are not good and works them together for good. You're going to find as a Christian that there's going to be things in your life that happen that are not good. But God can take those things that are not good and work them together for good. Psalm 18, 30 to 32. It's good to be in the centre of God's will, isn't it? And to stay there. So, the brothers planned evil but God planned good. Ye thought evil against me but God meant it unto good. Look back at the verse, to bring to pass as it is this day, to save much people alive. We've emphasised this point before but let me say it again, Joseph discerned that God's purposes went way beyond just himself as an individual. God was working things together for good for Joseph but it was much bigger than that, God was working to save many people alive, most importantly the fledgling nation of Israel. Please remember that, when God is working things together for good in your life, it is for your benefit, but it's to bless others. I'm going to say that again. I want some of these truths to sink into your heart because I tell you, you're going to get tested if you haven't already or maybe you're going through a period of your life where you're not being tested, you're going to be tested. I hope that one day in the future maybe, your mind might go back to some of these truths from the book of Genesis and say, I'm not going to get bitter. the grace of God. I don't understand what's happening but I know that God can take this dark picture and make the light shine. I know God can take the dark threads of what is happening in my life at this time and somehow weave it into the tapestry of his plan for my life. And remember, this is not all about me. Maybe God's allowing me to go through this for someone else. for their good and that I might be a blessing to them.' So Genesis 15 20 has been rightly called the Romans 8 28 verse of the Old Testament. But as for you, you thought evil against me but God meant it unto good. So we have Joseph's God-centered response, Joseph just turns his attention back to God and Number two, Joseph's grace-filled response. Joseph could have responded with anger and resentment to this hurtful doubting of his forgiveness but instead he responds with grace and love. Joseph comforts them with words of peace and words of promise. Don't miss that. Joseph could have said, that's it fellas, that's the last I'll do anything for you. How dare you doubt me? How dare you accuse me that I would want to take revenge on you like this? You scumbags. No! It says a lot for Joseph's character that instead of lashing out at his brothers at that stage, he took steps to comfort them and to assuage their fears and twice he says, fear not. Verse 19, Joseph said unto them, fear not. Verse 21, now therefore fear ye not. That's a word of peace, isn't it? don't we need that word of peace to our own souls? Just like the brothers doubted Joseph's forgiveness, sometimes we can doubt the Lord Jesus' forgiveness and we need to hear his word of peace to our souls as he says to us through his word, peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you, let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid, John 14 27. And to hear God's words, I have loved thee, an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. If you've been saved tonight, you are loved with everlasting love, nothing will separate you from God's love. Words of peace, words of promise, I will nourish you and your little ones. Joseph promises to preserve them, you thankful tonight that God promises not only to save us but to preserve us. Joseph was promising here to preserve them and to keep them and we see a wonderful picture again there of our Saviour who has not only saved us and forgiven us but also promises to nourish us, to keep us, we're kept by the power of God, 1 Peter 1.5, we are preserved in Jesus Christ, Jude 1 verse 1, John 10 27 28, my sheep hear my voice says Jesus Christ our Savior and I know them and they follow me and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. If you have been saved it's impossible for you to be lost. We unashamedly believe in this church, in the eternal security of the believer. We believe once saved means always saved. Jesus Christ will keep you. He will not let you go. You are in his hand. Joseph promised, not only spoke words of peace that he had forgiven them, but he spoke a word of promise that he would preserve them. And our Lord Jesus tells us the same, that he will keep us. be much of a salvation, would it, if we could just lose it? That'd be terrible! How does that work? You're saved by grace and now you're kept by works? Pardon? Excuse me, you're saved by grace and you're kept by grace. I'm not saying there aren't false professors out there that say they're saved and they're not and need to get saved, we understand that. If someone professes to know Christ and they have no fruit in their life, it's not that they were saved and lost it, they never got saved to begin with. So we have the forgiveness of Joseph towards his family. Number three tonight, the faith of Joseph for the future. We're almost done. last words. Verse 22, Joseph dwelled in Egypt, he and his father's house and Joseph lived in 110 years. You do see the lifespan just starting to reduce as you go through time here, after the fall of man. And Joseph saw, 110 is not bad though, And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation, the children also of Matthew, the son of Manasseh, were brought up upon Joseph's knees. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die, and God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land unto the Lamb, which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph died being 110 years old, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. These verses record a summation of Joseph's life in Egypt or his final, roughly the final half of his life, just slightly under half. they reveal more of Joseph's steadfast and abiding faith in God. Joseph's faith is demonstrated in a couple of areas. Number one, his conduct in Egypt, verse 22 and 23. We could call this the reward of faith. As you think about it, most of the first half of Joseph's life was filled with trials and with troubles and with battles, but the second half of his life, as far as we can tell, was largely a life of peace and joy and blessing. God won't suffer us to be tempted above that we're able. God will put us through what he needs to put us through but then there are blessings the other side and so it's just that there's not really anything, well clearly the Holy Spirit chose not to tell us anything really about those last 54 years apart from this brief summary here but we get a sense for some of the blessings here. Joseph saw his children, his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren. think that's the reward of faith, the blessings of faithfulness, he enjoyed the blessing of peace, dwelt at peace with his father's house in Egypt and the blessing of his posterity, he enjoyed the blessings of seeing his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. You know family blessings are amongst God's richest and most precious gifts to his children. Grandparents, don't complain if your children are having more children, that's going to be a blessing for you. Oh, they're having another child! Yep, that's good, you'll need to help. But you can always hand them back at that stage. Grandparents, you can enjoy the child, but you can always hand the screaming child back. Well, sometimes, unless your baby's sitting in for an extended period of time. But, you know, I think sometimes the world just misses out. real blessings. We don't really know much about what happened in those 54 years except Joseph got to see his children and their children and their children again, growing up. And what a blessing that is, the blessing of family life. Then we note his confidence in God's promises, verse 24 to verse 26. Joseph is now clearly at the end of his life, so we've fast-forwarded, Joseph was 56 in the first part of this chapter when he was burying his dad, then in two verses there we cover 54 years, verse 22 and 23 and we're right now at year 110, it's the end of his life and he says, I die. God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land unto the land which you swear to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob. I think we can see Joseph's faith here, Joseph says God will surely visit you. God will surely visit you. He says that twice, verse 24 and 25. Joseph had faith for the future and what God was going to do. What was the foundation of Joseph's faith? Well, the foundation of Joseph's faith was God's promise to Abraham because back in Genesis 15, 13, God had said to Abraham that his seed would be a stranger in a land not theirs for 400 years. so Joseph knew that God was going to fulfill his promise and bring the children of Israel out. So we see the foundation of his faith was the promises of God, the certainty of his faith, twice he says God will surely visit you. Joseph was certain that God's promises would be fulfilled. Then we note the action of his faith. Because Joseph believed God, he commanded the children of Israel that they were to take his bones with them when they departed from Egypt and bury them in the promised land. And this was literally fulfilled by their heirs. Look at Exodus 13 19 for a moment. Exodus 13 19. And Moses took the bones of who? Joseph with him. This is about, well probably close to 400 years later, I'll assume, since it was 400 years in captivity, minus some time from Joseph's life there. So, you know, we're talking hundreds of years later. For he had straightly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God shall will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you. If you turn over, you don't have to turn over there now, but you can look up later, Joshua 24-32, and Joseph was buried in Shechem, very close to the place where he was sold into slavery. Dothan's just a little way north from Shechem. So Joseph's body was embalmed and put in a coffin, an Egyptian coffin, so it would have been a wooden mummy case. I don't know why they call it a mummy, it's not my mummy but there you go. But you know, it's interesting, that means that Joseph would have been, he was preserved in that coffin and that coffin would have been kept somewhere, presumably in Goshen amongst the children of Israel and it was not buried for all those hundreds of years. That would have been a very visible reminder to the children of Israel, we're not here in Egypt forever. Joseph told us, God told Abraham, Joseph also repeated that God would surely take us out of Egypt and take us back to the land that God had promised to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. The land of Israel belongs to Israel. said that I believe last week but I'm going to say it again in light of all the anti-semitism that's even taking place in our country, mark it down, anti-semitism is satanic. I think I'm going to do a sermon on it when I get back from holidays. Read Revelation chapter 12 where God pulls back the curtain as it were with the great red dragon and he persecutes the woman who brought forth the man-child, that woman is Israel. Satan hates Israel. Be very careful too, I'm all for exposing corruption in the world, but some of the freedom fighters have got an anti-semitic bent. And that's because there have been, and probably are, very powerful Jewish businessmen involved high up in the One World Order. As there are, may I remind you, other people, Americans, Australians, there are wicked people in high places. That does not mean you should adopt an anti-semitic attitude to God's chosen people. It's wrong. Holocaust denial. Israel has had to do something they've never done before. They got a hundred international journalists and had to sit them down and show them some of the most horrific footage that no one should ever be able to see. Why? Because there is so many lies out there trying to deny that Hamas did what they did. They said, sit down and you'll have to watch the butchers at work. You see, a biblical understanding helps you to make sense of what's coming through the media. As a Christian, when all the arguing's over, you have to fall on the side of Israel. You have to be pro-Israel. That doesn't mean you have to accept every single thing the Israeli government does. That doesn't mean that the Jews aren't sinners like everybody else. They are. All are under sin. They need the Saviour. But all these disputes over Palestine, you know, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, they chant. What do they mean? Free of Jews. Their stated aim is to completely... they're not interested in a two-state solution. They want to exterminate the children of Israel. Never going to happen. Why? Because God is going to protect them and keep them. Because God has a future plan for Israel and Romans 11, there is a day coming when Israel will nationally turn to the Messiah. All Israel will be saved. No, no, no, from the river to the sea, the land belongs to the Israelis. That's what they should be saying, it is their land. And it's promised to them by God, God swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. It's their land and we as Christians need to just be aware of that. It's really quite alarming that the staggering rise in antisemitism and in some ways it's not surprising we would expect it as we move towards the end times. The Antichrist in the second half of the Tribulation is going to unleash a Holocaust like we've never seen. The antisemitism of the second half of the Tribulation is going to be absolutely horrific. so how do we get on to that? But because of the land, Joseph says God will surely visit you and he will take you out, bring you out of this land, into the land, under the land which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. Again, I don't think we understand how much love there is in the heart of the Jew for his land. We love our nation of Australia, not that much. There's something special about the Jews' love for his land and that's because there are very special promises connected with the land. God made no promise about the land of Australia. Now the earth is the Lord's, we understand that, it's part of his land but God didn't give special promises connected to our nation here like he did to Israel. And God has not finished with Israel and these promises have not been rescinded. Some of the Reformed theology has a lot to answer for in relation to the Holocaust. Very few Reformed pastors that spoke out during the Holocaust. Why? Because their theology led them wrong when it came to Israel. It's no coincidence that America has become Israel's greatest friend and America has the highest concentration of pre-tribulation rapture pre-millennial Christians probably in the world. Theology affects practice and it's because of the influence of a correct interpretation of the Bible that has really influenced America that has made her the greatest friend of the Jews, I believe. It's not coming out of the Catholic countries, by and large, not that kind of support and it's not coming out of Reformed countries either. It's coming out of a country that's been influenced and impacted by largely the Baptists and other Bible believers that take the Bible literally. the blessings of preaching the Last Sermon is I get to go as long as I like and that's your reward to me for the hard work in the series, okay? No, but that's important, I just want to say that's been burdening my heart and I think it's, you know, we need to just be reminded of that. We need to pray for the Jews' salvation, absolutely, and we don't have to accept everything even that the Jewish government does but we have to acknowledge that the land is Israel's. But by the way, All this talk about killing civilians, Hamas fires, they're firing thousands of rockets and if it wasn't for Israel's Iron Dome, where would those rockets be falling? On civilian populations. They are trying to kill civilian people in Israel. It's just, they're evil. They're evil and they're probably demon possessed, a lot of them, I think, to do the sort of barbaric things they did, you have to have the devil in you. So, Joseph's example we see that faith is hearing God's Word, believing it and acting upon it. He believed God's promise and he acted upon it, he said I want you to carry me up, God's going to visit you and I want you to carry up my bones from thence. So Genesis ends with this verse, so Joseph died being 110 years old and they embalmed him and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. Genesis 1-1 starts with, God created the heaven and the earth. Genesis ends with Genesis 50-26 with a man dead in a coffin. What a reminder of the fact that God is eternal, man is finite. What a reminder that while the best of men pass off the scene from this earth, God remains forever and his work goes on. As John Wesley said, God buries his workmen but his work goes on. G. Campbell Morgan observed, commit your life to God, see vision, do the work that's nearest, the work he appoints truly and well and faithfully and die knowing that you have started influences, delicate influences, dynamic forces which will proceed through every succeeding generation until they gather up the glorious, the harvest of glorious results about the throne of the eternal. The man of God has not finished his work in the world when they put him in a coffin. So Joseph died but God's work went on and obviously Joseph went to be with the Lord as we will if we die before the rapture. But the stage is now set for the Exodus. Do you kind of get a sense the story needs to continue from here? Well it does and Joseph's mentioned in Exodus chapter 1. So I think we should just go on with Exodus. That's the plan. I feel like the Lord's leading that way but just pray about the timing. When I get back from holidays I'm thinking at this stage to put a bit of time into the KJV series and some other messages in the lead up to Christmas. We may not get Exodus started this year, we might, otherwise it'll be early next year, God willing. But there we have it. Genesis, begin with God, are you ready to die? Two great heroes of the faith died or die and are buried, the record here is here of their death and burial, Jacob and Joseph. They went to be with the Lord, will you? One of my prayers has been that souls will be saved through this series in Genesis. God has saved some, but I trust that if you're here tonight and you're not saved, you will get saved tonight. Trust the Lord as your Saviour. By God's grace, Joseph finished his life well. Will you? And how are you responding in your trials? I'm going to ask it again. Are you growing better by God's grace or are you getting bitter? hope that you remember these truths when you're faced with trials, you remember the life of Joseph, God meant it for good. Let's pray. Father we thank you for the book of Genesis and we thank you Lord for your love for us Our Lord, we are so thankful that we serve the eternal, immutable, unchangeable God. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. We thank you for the great foundation the book of Genesis gives us to the whole of our Christian lives. We thank you, Lord, for the life of Joseph that reminds us that God's way is perfect, that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. We thank you that we can be reminded tonight that God makes no mistakes. So bless us as we conclude our service now, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen. We're going to have the ensemble come, we're doing something a little different tonight. I wanted to finish this series on Joseph with the song, God Makes No Mistakes. They're going to sing that for us and then afterwards, if we've got a bit of time, we'll sing it as well. Thank you.