Most gracious Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for gathering us together. Thank you for the work that you are doing here and continue to do. And it starts at the individual level with hearts that are being transformed rather than conformed to the ways of the world. And so as we come to your word today, Lord, we ask that you would use this time to transform us, to grow us in the likeness of Christ, to break us free from conforming to the ways of the world in order that Christ would be glorified in our lives. Use this time to grow us in understanding and in conviction, to act upon what we know. from your word for the glory of Christ. Amen. Well, if you have your Bibles with you, you'll want to turn to Genesis chapter 50. Actually, I'm going to start with reading the first question and answer from the Heidelberg Catechism. And it starts with something that's very relevant to the passage that we'll be looking at today. The question is, what is your only comfort in life and death? And the biblical answer, and you can see that there are biblical citations underneath, the answer is that I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and he has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head. Indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, By His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him. We will not be concluding our study of Genesis today, but we will be inching closer and we'll finish up next week, depending on your worldview. Life is an easy thing to talk about, but death sometimes is not. It can be a very difficult thing to talk about, or it can be a very easy thing to talk about depending on death is not some, if you affirm personally what the Heidelberg Catechism says, death is not something that is difficult for you to talk about because you have a comfort in life and death. But the reality is that most people fear death. And the result is it's something that they don't really like to think about. If you think of their consciousness as a stream that's flowing down a mountain, they've diverted every stream that relates to death away from their stream of consciousness insofar as it's possible to do that. But you know, death consistently ranks as one of the things that people fear the most when they do think about it. But do you know what almost always ranks higher according to many studies? Public speaking. Now, this isn't my own observation, I'm borrowing it, but do you realize that that means that if you're at a funeral, there's a good chance that you would rather be in the coffin than be the person giving the eulogy? I mean, it's kind of a funny story, but it's true. James Boyce tells kind of a funny story of a young Presbyterian man who, upon entering college, joined a frat house. And in this fraternity, he constantly boasted of how superior Presbyterianism is to the Baptists. And it just so happened that most of the other young men in the fraternity were Baptists. And so one night, as he's boasting, the Baptists decide that they're going to slip a sleeping pill into his drink. And once he is out, once he is knocked out, they carried him to a cemetery, they placed him in a makeshift open coffin, and they went and hid in the bushes waiting for the young man to wake up. And so when the son finally came up, the young Presbyterian, who was still laying in this casket, started to stir. And his Baptist brothers were still in the distance, you know, waiting and watching for his reaction to waking up in a cemetery in a coffin. And so finally an arm comes out and the young man sits up. He looks around and he jumps out of the coffin and he yells, hallelujah, it's resurrection morning. And the Presbyterians are the first to be raised. It's another funny story, but here's the truth. The truth is that the beliefs that we have about God and about his character, the truths that we have, or the beliefs that we have about God and his faithfulness, the beliefs that we have about God and his promises, these are all things that are very instrumental in shaping and influencing how we feel about death and how we view death. The previous chapter of Genesis ended with the death of Jacob, or Israel, if you will. Jacob, whom God had renamed Israel, had become this man of great faith by the time he died. He had urged his sons from his deathbed to bury him back in the promised land, if you remember, because he firmly believed that God would be faithful to the covenant promises that he had made to Abraham in regards to the land. And the fact that Jacob finally comes around after being a swindler and somebody who relies on his own cunningness and his own ability to work things out. But the fact that he finally comes around and becomes this man who has incredible faith, incredible confidence in God's promises and provision. It's all a testimony to the way that God's grace works in the believer. But like us, And like every child of Adam, Jacob had to face death eventually. The first half of the 50th chapter of Genesis shows us the way that Joseph dealt with his father's death. And it's something of a model for us as Christians to the way that we should respond to the reality of death as well. We'll be looking at verses one to 14 today. And the point of this passage is that we can face death, whether that's our own death or the death of a loved one or whoever, we can face death with hope in the certainty of God's faithfulness. And yet there is room to grieve the death, the loss of a loved one. So we start in the wake of Jacob's death. It ended just, it happened just at the end of the end or just at the end of the previous chapter. If you remember he had called his sons to bless them and to give them some final instructions on where to bury him before he drew his final breath And Moses tells us that he was gathered to his people. That's the euphemism that Moses used. And I love that euphemism because it actually reflects the truth and the hope that we have when we're facing death. And we'll come back to that before we're done here today. But the narrative immediately continues in the first line of the next chapter. Let's look at verses one to three of Genesis chapter 50. It says, then Joseph fell on his father's face and wept over him and kissed him. Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father, so the physicians embalmed Israel. Now 40 days were required for it, for such is the period required for embalming, and the Egyptians wept for him 70 days. So we should remember the moral failings of the three oldest brothers, Reuben, Levi, and Simeon. While the covenant promises would not pass through them, they would pass through Judah, who was the fourth oldest, if you remember. But it was really Joseph who had become the leader of all the brothers at this point. He was at least something of a spiritual leader, but he was also a distinguished leader, remember, in the land of Egypt. Joseph's immediate response to his father's entry into Egypt was recorded back in chapter 46 verse 29 where we saw that Joseph fell on his neck and wept on his neck a long time. Now, of course, at that point, those were tears of joy. Those were tears of great happiness, of overwhelming happiness to be reunited with his father, to see his father again. Maybe you would say regaining his father, but now Moses tells us that he falls on his father's face. again weeping over him and kissing him and needless to say this time it's tears of grief, tears of sorrow, tears that are mourning the loss of his beloved father. Now When you think about it, this might, from our worldview, from our cultural mindset, this might really feel kind of weird. Because in a culture like ours where death is everywhere, but it's also so ignored, people perhaps aren't encouraged to grieve. as much as they should be. They certainly don't often grieve the way that Joseph grieves here. It seems like in our culture, there may be more of an emphasis on getting over it, being strong, and just being done with it as quickly as possible. But Joseph grieves. And he doesn't just grieve mildly. He goes all out. I have never seen somebody grieve the way that he's described grieving here. You may not have either. But can you imagine somebody in our culture doing what he did? You know, falling on the face of a loved one, bathing it with tears and tender kisses. And we might think, wow, he's kind of being overdramatic. He's going too far here. But don't think for a second that any of us are stronger than Joseph or that any of us are wiser than Joseph. See, it's okay to grieve when a loved one dies. It's okay to go all out. with grieving and it's okay to take your time in grieving the death of a loved one. We should remember that even Jesus, the one time that he was overwhelmed to the point of tears was in his grief over Lazarus's death. One of the things that characterized Joseph was his ability and his willingness to cry. And yet we're never told that he cried for himself. He had a lot of things to cry about, didn't he? If you look at his life and the things that he could have cried about, the things that he faced, there were a lot of things that he could have cried about, but we're never told that he cried for himself or over his own circumstances. But we are told that he cried over his brothers when, by the grace of God, they began wrestling with their guilt over what they had done to Joseph so many years ago. We also saw that he cried when he was reunited with his father, and he cried when his father was gathered to his people here. And Joseph is a man's man. I mean, he's not some overly feminized man who emotionally melts like an ice cube in a furnace or anything like that. No, he's a man's man, but his heart was filled with love and tender compassion. for others as it is here when his father breathes his last breath and is gathered to his people. Back in Genesis 46, God specifically told Jacob that Joseph was going to be the one who would close his eyes and here that prophetic promise is fulfilled. The other brothers, we have no reason to doubt. You can't doubt that they were also distraught at losing their father. But Moses is focusing our attention here on Joseph, because Joseph is not only the one who closes his father's eyes, but he's also the one that will make arrangements for Jacob's burial back in Canaan. And so while Joseph enters into this time of prolonged grieving, he still nevertheless takes care of business. He nevertheless makes arrangements for the embalming of Jacob's body. And from the Egyptian point of view, This was something that was ritualistically and religiously very important. The Egyptians were known for embalming people. They were obsessed with death. They were obsessed with a very false view of the afterlife, a pagan view of the afterlife, so much so that students of the ancient Egyptians have referred to it repeatedly, have referred to their culture repeatedly as a culture of the dead. For the Egyptians, the practice of embalming somebody was really an attempt to cheat death, to deny the reality of death. They believed that the body of the dead had to be embalmed in order for them to enjoy the afterlife. However, we should also note when we're looking at what the ancient Egyptians did in terms of embalming, if you didn't have a lot of money, your body might just be left out in the sun to dry up. Other people were sometimes packed with salt. to kind of preserve the body. The middle class would commonly be disemboweled and filled with juniper oil, again, as a means of preserving the body as much as possible. But you know, when we think about what the Egyptians did with dead bodies, we think of what? We think of like mummies, right? It was actually very few people, only the elite, that were really wrapped in linens as mummies. And you know, I do understand the temptation here. There's a temptation for us to think that what Joseph is doing is letting the world influence him. That he's following the practices of Egypt, he's following the practices of the world, and so thus he's in sin here. That's actually what Calvin thought. Calvin said this, he said, Joseph stooped more than he ought to the perverted manners of the Egyptians. But I would argue that the embalming of Jacob, of his father, was probably done more for practical reasons and not for religious reasons. There's never any indication that Joseph participated, other than maybe this degree in the religious rights of the Egyptians, other than maybe this one passage. But I would argue that there were more practical reasons for him to do it, such as making the trip back to Canaan, easier, less messy, less odorous. I mean, it's a month's journey from Egypt back up to Canaan. And if you're carrying a decomposing body from Egypt to Canaan, it sounds very messy. So it seems to me that there's a more practical reason that he embalmed his father Further, and this is more related to what the text tells us, the text tells us that it was the physicians, look at verse two, it was the physicians who embalmed Israel. Jacob, it wasn't the religious priests. And those were usually the guys to do the embalming because they were the ones who carried out all the religious rites and everything like that. But verse two specifically tells us that Joseph sought the help of the physicians. So Joseph's grieving here over his father's death. I think we can all agree that it's understandable. grieving over the death of a loved one is always understandable. That's normal. And while Joseph, you know, he did trust the Lord and he had an understanding of God's sovereignty. He had a better understanding than almost anybody of God's sovereignty over life and death. How much more privileged than him are we? I mean, he knew that death would be overcome. He knew the promises that were given back in Genesis chapter three, undoubtedly. But we have the full canon of God's revealed word recorded for us, and it reveals the bright and the unassailable hope that we have for the future. Even in the face of death, we know that Christ is coming again, and we know that he will resurrect the dead. We know that there's gonna be a new heaven and a new earth. We know that we'll be eternally separated from the presence of sin. We know all these things. How much did Joseph know? Well, I think he knew the promise that was given back in Genesis chapter three for the offspring. But we can't be sure how much he knew beyond that. He knew the covenant promises that were given to Abraham. But how much more do we know? We don't know. But what we can be sure of is that Joseph here has a hope that transcends every pain, that transcends every loss, that transcends even death, even the death of his beloved father. He has a hope instilling confidence in God. So the question might be how can you have hope and grieve? Because they seem to be at odds with each other because one seems so different than the other. Having hope seems to not allow grieving. So how can you put those two things together? And I'd say that it's because death isn't natural. Death isn't natural. Does that sound strange? I mean, if you sit in a, if you listen to a science lecture, you know, something about biology, it might sound strange to say that death is not natural, but scripture's clear about that. Death is not natural. Death seems natural, doesn't it? Because it's all around us. We see things die. And yet we know that in the beginning when everything was good, when everything was as God created it, there was no death. So we can grieve even though we have hope because death is an enemy. and it's still an enemy. Now you might say, now wait a minute, doesn't the Bible tell us that the death is defeated, that Christ has defeated, he's conquered death? Yes it does, he did, but it doesn't say that he rendered it completely non-existent yet. The victory that we have in Christ over death is sure, but it won't be fully realized until he returns to give us our resurrection bodies. Until that glorious day, we grieve over death. We grieve over death because death is a reminder that the wage of sin is costly. And death is a reminder of God's curse upon our sin. So Joseph reminds us that we can face death, whether it's our own death, or the death of a loved one, with hope in the certainty of God's faithfulness. And yet, there is still a place for grieving over the loss of a loved one. Let's continue, verses four to 14. It says, when the days of mourning for him were passed, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh, saying, if now I have found favor in your sight, please speak to Pharaoh, saying, my father made me swear, saying, behold, I'm about to die in my grave, which I dug for myself in the land of Canaan, there you shall bury me. Now therefore, please let me go up and bury my father, then I will return. Pharaoh said, go up and bury your father as he made you swear. So Joseph went up to bury his father, and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his household, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, and all the household of Joseph, and his brothers, and his father's household. They left only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds in the land of Goshen. There also went up with him both chariots and horsemen, and it was a very great company. When they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, they lamented there with a very great and sorrowful lamentation. And he observed seven days mourning for his father. Now when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the morning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, this is a grievous morning for the Egyptians. Therefore it was named Abel Mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan. Thus his sons did for him as he had charged them, for his sons carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre, which Abraham had bought along with the field for a burial site from Ephron the Hittite. After he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brothers, and all who had gone up with him to bury his father. As we consider this passage, one of the things that we always wanna do when we're reading the Bible is make note of things that get repeated a lot. Sometimes it's a single word, sometimes it's several words, it's a phrase. Sometimes it's just an idea that gets repeated, but in this case, between verses four and 14, we see one word over and over and over again, and that word is bury. In fact, we see it eight times in this text. And so we might be tempted to think that the point of this passage is focused on the burial per se, but I would say that it's not aimed so much at the burial itself as it's aimed instead at the location of the burial. So Joseph goes to, the household of Pharaoh to speak rather than going directly to Pharaoh himself. And you might wonder why he did that since he was close to Pharaoh. Pharaoh trusted him and was always gracious to him. But it's probably because Joseph is in this time of mourning. And part of his mourning was very likely not shaving, perhaps not bathing. And so to go into the presence of Pharaoh like that was worthy of death. But he's always tactful. This is one of the things I love about Joseph. He's always tactful. He makes requests for sometimes big things, but he does it in such a tactful way, it's hard for people to say no. Because he wouldn't want to just come right out and say, hey, could you guys go and tell Pharaoh that my dad didn't want to be buried in Egypt? Because you guys represent the world, and you guys are worldly and pagan. He could have done that. I mean, wouldn't that have been a true statement? It would have been, but let's remember that wisdom is revealed not only in what we say, but how we say it. And so he speaks humbly. Very humbly, he says, if I have found favor in your eyes, even though he's a very powerful man in Egypt and he has the right to ask for this, but he makes it contingent upon the favor that he has in Pharaoh's eyes. Very humble. But the truth is that there was a very good reason that Jacob wanted to not be buried in Egypt, but wanted to be buried instead in Canaan, aside from the fact that he just didn't want to be buried in Egypt. But it's because the burial in Egypt was a reflection of his confidence in God's promises. Let me say that again. The reason that he wanted to be buried in Canaan was a reflection of his confidence in God's promises. Soon after making his request, Pharaoh grants Joseph permission to go and do that, to go and bury his father as Joseph swore he would do. And so not only does Joseph go, but Jacob's funeral begins to look like something of somebody who's very rich and powerful, very influential and widely loved. John McCain's funeral yesterday, how many people were there? How many agencies were represented? I mean, it's crazy when you think of how many for them. Jacob was the father of the man whose wisdom from God saved Egypt from starving to death, right? So look at verse seven with me. Here we see that it's first the politically powerful and the cultural elite that attend this procession to Canaan. We see the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his household going, and we see the elders of the land of Egypt all going first. These are the rich and famous, the powerful, the influential leaders of Egypt. And Moses tells us specifically that they all went there. They all showed up. Next in verse eight, we're told that all of Joseph's household came. They left the children, the brothers would leave their children, they left their flocks, they left their herds back in the region of Goshen back in Egypt. Verse nine tells us that horsemen and chariots attended. That's telling us that there was a military presence there. It seems likely that the military did have a desire to honor Jacob, but their presence there would also ensure the safety of all these people, all these very, very powerful people. I mean, if you think about it, there was a lot to lose if these people got kidnapped or killed while they were going to and from Canaan. So sending a security detail along with them was a wise move. But moving this many people, I mean, you gotta think, there were thousands and thousands of people that were going from Egypt to Canaan. This should remind us of something else. This should be a foreshadowing. We should see it as a foreshadowing of something that was to come, a day when the Hebrew people would partake in an exodus out of the country of Egypt, a day that was still several generations away. This time it's, Jacob being, it's the bones, the body of Jacob being moved to the promised land. Next time, it's gonna be the bones of Joseph. This time, the Egyptian military was ensuring that they had a safe journey and providing safety and security. But next time, they'll be coming after the Hebrew people with murderous intentions. A reminder, by the way, of just how quickly the world is capable of turning against God's people. But the fact that this is a foreshadowing of this exodus that would come in the next book is supported by the fact that they lamented and mourned Jacob's death at the threshing floor of a place called Atad. That means that they took the long way to Canaan. They went around the south end of the Dead Sea and they came up the east side of the Jordan, which is the same route that the Hebrew people would take in the future when they exodus. But it's significant to note that the word atad here means, in Hebrew, thornbush. It means thornbush. Think about that for a second. What's the significance of a thornbush? I mean, it's a significant place to stop and mourn the death of somebody. In our minds, when we think of Thornbush in this context, in the context of this book, it should remind us of Genesis chapter three, where God declared that part of the curse of sin that would fall on creation as a result of Adam's sin was that the ground would produce, what? Thorns, thornbushes. And so on that day, on that day when Adam sinned, death entered into creation and thornbushes along with it. So there's a connection between death and thornbushes. Death is the wage of sin and here they are in the region of the thornbush, the threshing floor of the thornbush, mourning over death. How much did the Egyptians partake in this morning? You know, we really can't be sure, but what we do know, and this is pretty significant, what we do know is that the people of the land of Canaan saw all the mourning that was going on, and they saw that the Egyptians were mourning, and so the location was renamed Abel Mizraim, which means mourning of Egypt. Now, was it actual mourning, or was it mourning because Pharaoh would put them to the sword if they didn't? Who knows, but they were mourning. And so finally the procession advanced to Hebron where the sons of Jacob carried his body to the cave of the field of Machpelah. Remember, this is their rightful land. This is land that Abraham himself had purchased in order to bury Sarah many, many, many years prior. After Abraham's death, he too was buried in this cave in the field. Isaac was also buried in there along with his wife Rebecca. I mean, by entering this place, by going to this place and entering in, the brothers are all simultaneously declaring their faith in God's promises. That the land, the entire land, would be theirs. That it was the promised land. And they believed in the promises of God. So the passage ends by telling us that after burying their father, Joseph and his brothers returned to Egypt as he had promised along with his family and everybody else who had come along. You know one of the more impressive or maybe even amazing things about Joseph is the way that he strikes a perfect balance here in everything. He seems to have a very good balance in everything. You know, if he hadn't grieved at all, what would people have thought of him? I imagine they would have thought, this is a man who plays the role and who doesn't really love, doesn't really wanna honor his father. But if he had grieved too much, he would have given everybody the impression that he had less hope than they did about the afterlife. So what a difficult thing to do, to strike this balance in the midst of grief and the way he did it. was by truly having a sense of grief, but of course, also having a heart calming death transcending hope in God's promises. So I gotta ask you, how do you view death? How do you feel about death? Whether it's your death that will come if the Lord tarries, or the death of a loved one, how do you grieve? I mean, it's okay to grieve. because death is an enemy. And yet if you are in Christ, your grief should be tempered, should be mixed with a sense of peace instilling hope because death as an enemy has been defeated. And thus we know that the grave, yes, is painful, but we also know that it's only temporary. It's only a temporary location for the body. See, the way that we, the beliefs that we have about God and His promises and His character, these should shape how we feel about death. The way that we view and respond to death should be totally different than the way that the culture that we live in views it and responds to it and feels about it. And friends, there is no doubt that American culture If you think that the Egyptian culture was death-saturated, the American culture is far more death-saturated than they were. Death is absolutely everywhere in America, if you think about it. I mean, we are exposed to death in one form or another, over and over and over again. First of all, we see it in television shows and in movies, right, where we see somebody get shot. or mutilated in a very quick and sterilized fashion. You watch a show where somebody gets shot in the arm, and the good guy gets shot in the arm, and he's perfectly fine by the next episode. It's very sterilized, and it's very unrealistic. But I remember watching a superhero movie recently in which there's this huge battle that takes place, which happens in all superhero movies, but it takes place in city limits and the superhero and his arch nemesis are going flying and crashing through buildings and across roads. And I remember thinking that if such an event actually happened, it would have resulted in hundreds, if not thousands, if not tens of thousands of deaths. But the movie didn't even draw your attention to that. It made death kind of an afterthought. The attention was completely fixed on the superhero and the villain. It's a sterilized, unrealistic view of death. We don't only see death all over the place in TV shows and in movies, but it's also all over news outlets. It's all over the internet where you can find videos of brutal car accidents and videos of shootings in which people are being killed in brutal fashion. And it's all very sterilized. You're removed from the pain of it. You're removed from the ugliness of it. You can see it also in video games. It's all over the place in video games where deaf actually receives positive reinforcement. From a psychology aspect, do you know how dangerous it is to get positive reinforcement for murdering somebody? That's crazy. You earn points. You advance to higher levels after killing or murdering or assassinating characters that these days are just looking more and more and more real. We have games that our kids are playing that involve the reenactment of graphic and brutal wars. And so when all is said and done, between all these places that people are just constantly being bombarded, constantly being exposed to death, the average child sees and maybe even reenacts death, maybe even causes death or murder more times before they're out of grade school than people from previous generations would see in 10 lifetimes. And what do you think? happens as a result of all this? What do you think happens to the human brain as it's being exposed over and over and over to a very sterilized view of death? What happens is it becomes very indifferent to death. Death loses its seriousness. So from a psychology standpoint, you would say we become systematically desensitized It's like being immunized from the seriousness, from the true weight, the heaviness of death. And we wonder why there are mass shootings. It's not because of guns, friends. It's not because of guns. Guns are just an instrument. It's because we're in a culture that is far too casual about and maybe even entertained by the idea of death to the point that it's just another thing that happens. It's not that big of a deal. But that's just on an individual level. The effects go much further than just beyond the individual. They extend out into the culture. We see it so much that, I mean, nine out of 10 people won't even flinch at the idea of abortion. And instead of calling it what it is, it's murdering a child, we euphemize it and call it women's healthcare or something like that. while hundreds of millions of little females who would have been women, who would have needed healthcare themselves, have been murdered around the world through abortion. And we euphemize it, we clean it up. We become immune to the seriousness of it by calling it something that sounds necessary. How dare anyone euphemize the act that is really the height of selfishness by calling it healthcare, by saying it's a woman's right to do that. But even if you don't endorse abortion, you can't deny that America as a culture idolizes the opposite of death, and that is youthfulness. It becomes an idol for us. And really for a lot of people, it is an idol. It's something that we wanna hold on to at all costs because being young and being full of energy, being ambitious and fit, these are all things that are seen as highly, highly desirable, if not even maybe virtuous. As one commentator notes, he says, quote, in America, death is not the last enemy, as the Bible describes it, but an enemy to be defeated now through gyms, spas, facelifts, health foods, and other body enhancing pastimes and procedures, end quote. And so as our culture, as the West has embraced godless ideologies like evolution, and as our kids have been indoctrinated into the orthodoxy of secular humanism in our school systems, we have lost something that previous generations had and held very dear. And that is the idea that life, truly is precious, that it is a gift to be cherished and to be protected. People 200 years ago, you think back to what was there, the awful reality of death, but they never allowed themselves to grow comfortable to it, comfortable with it. They had high infant mortality rates, they had low life expectancy ages, but most of them, the culture at least, had instilled in them a biblical or a Christian worldview that allowed them to view and consider death in a healthy way. not where they were casual about it, but where they saw that life was something worthy of being protected. See, there are basically three views of death, three ways that a person or a culture maybe even would view death. First, there's a death accepting attitude. Think about atheists. Does an atheist accept death? Yeah, but it's not a big deal for them. The atheist says that death is just a natural part of existence. And he accepts the idea that just like everything around him, he's gonna die and he's simply gonna cease to exist. And so his atheism is ultimately his way of living at ease with himself on the road toward the day when he will stand before his maker and will be judged and condemned. And he knows it. He knows it, but what does he do? He suppresses the truth about God in his unrighteousness. But if he stops doing that, if he stops suppressing the truth about God in his own unrighteousness, he will not be able to live with himself. He will not be able to live knowing that he is day by day marching toward that judgment seat. And so he'll tremble at the thought of standing before a holy and righteous God in judgment. His atheism allows him to ignore reality and thus have a death accepting attitude. That's the first way a person can view it. The second way is to have a death denying attitude. a death denying attitude. And this is, if you think about Hindus, they kind of have a death denying attitude. They believe in reincarnation. So death is not the end. It's not that they are accepting death necessarily, but it's not the end. It's just the beginning of another phase or another type of existence. Or if you think about the Christian science cult, Maybe you haven't heard of the Christian science cult, but they think that every, that evil, that pain, that death are just a condition of the mind. Mary Baker Eddy, who was the founder of Christian science, the Christian science cult, thought that death was just an illusion. It was just an error of the mind. It didn't really happen. And she famously noted that health is not a condition of matter, but of mind. And I have to wonder, right before she died. Was she still believing in that? I mean, that's so ridiculous that it's just an illusion. She's changed her mind now, I'm sure. But many people in our culture do the same thing. They deny death in one way or another. So we see euphemisms like saying so-and-so passed away or they went to a better place. And we say that about people even who are not Christians. So we see a God-hating celebrity die, and then we see people say, rest in peace. We as Christians should know, we should know better than anybody that that's not something that you say to somebody who did not know the Lord, or about somebody who didn't know the Lord. So the cultural say, rest in peace instead of, I hope you enjoy your death. I don't know what else you'd say. But there is a place for euphemisms here. Isn't there? There is a place for talking about death euphemistically. Because the Bible uses euphemisms for referring to death. Moses ended chapter 49 by saying that Jacob had been gathered to his people. Paul used the euphemism of sleeping. He talked about those who were sleeping as a euphemism for death. These are not death denying euphemisms though. Rather they are death defying. They defy death. They reflect the hope of this third way of thinking about death, and that is with a death-defying attitude. And isn't that the attitude of Paul when he wrote in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 55 to 57, he says, oh death, where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. It's death defying attitude. This is the attitude that Joseph himself modeled in response to the death of Jacob. He accepts his father's death. He grieves over his father's death. His heart experiences sorrow over his father's death. But he himself, but Joseph himself isn't crushed. He's not overwhelmed by grief. over his father's death, because he has this death transcending confidence in God's faithfulness in the wake of his father's death. Like Joseph, friends, you and I can face death, whether it's our own death or the death of a loved one, with hope in the certainty of God's faithfulness. And yet, there is a place for grieving over the death of a lost one, because death is still an enemy. The death of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are all described as them being gathered to their people. And that's a wonderful euphemism. It's a euphemism that expresses hope and confidence in all of God's promises. It reflects a hope that there's something else, that the death isn't the end, but that there's something glorious for those who belong to God beyond death. Paul says that our hope is rooted in the resurrection of Christ in 1 Corinthians 15. And he says that that's our proof. That's proof of our final resurrection or our future resurrection. And he says that if there's no resurrection, then our faith is in vain. And of course he said that as a way of demonstrating, of proving that our faith is not in vain because Christ rose from the dead to prove that one day we will be too. Consider his words, consider what Paul said to the Thessalonians in chapter four, verse 13 of his first letter to the Thessalonians. He said, we do not want you to be uninformed brethren about those who are asleep. There's the euphemism, those who are asleep. So that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. See these were people who should have had more hope than the culture. These were people who thought that those who died before the return of Christ would not see the return of Christ, would not be able to live in his presence forever maybe. And Paul is reminding them that for those who repent and believe in Christ, death is not final. But the implication here is clear. If you do not repent and believe in Christ, You don't have any basis for confidence or hope in the face of death. The Bible clearly tells us that apart from faith in Christ, the person who dies will go to a place of eternal conscious torment, a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. And here's the thing, death comes often at the most unexpected times. So tell me, friends, would you be ready to stand before a holy and righteous God tonight if death came knocking at your door this afternoon? What we believe about God and what we believe about his promises will shape, they will influence how we feel about death. If you have never trusted in Christ for salvation, I urge you to do it today. Let today be your day of salvation because you do not know when death will come for you. And as we consider the death of Jacob, let us not neglect to consider that our time is coming as well. Every one of us, if the Lord tarries, will also face death. And yet we know, and not only do all who believe in Christ is in light of the fact that God has promised that for all who believe in Christ, all who believe in his only begotten son, there is an eternity of blessedness that lies ahead for us. If you are in Christ, this world is the most miserable thing you will ever experience. But if you're not in Christ, this is the greatest it's gonna be for you for all of eternity. But we have hope. We who are in Christ have this great hope, knowing that there's an eternity of blessedness that lies ahead of us. Yes, we do believe that death is an enemy. Yes, we grieve over death, but we also know that death is an enemy that's been defeated. Jesus died, he was buried, and on the third day he was resurrected. He rose again, and he's promised that all who believe in him will not perish, but will have everlasting life. And so, we have hope. And when we grieve over death, we don't grieve as those who don't have hope. Rather, we face death with the confident hope and the certainty of God's promises. Let's pray. Most gracious Father, thank you for your word and thank you for the grace that Joseph shows in the wake of his father's death and the lessons that we can learn there. We pray Lord that your son would return soon, that Jesus would return soon. But if he should tarry, we pray, Lord, that as we consider death, maybe even as we're confronted with death, that you would fill us with your grace to temper our grief. We thank you, Lord, that because of what Christ did, we have hope in the certainty of your promises. And so teach us, Lord, to look to Christ for all of our comfort, and for all of our assurance in life, knowing that our only comfort in life and death is that we are not our own, but that we were purchased at a very high cost by the blood of Christ, and we belong to Christ. And let that, Lord, be our hope. Teach us, O Lord, to live in light of this hope that Christ will be glorified. In his name we pray, amen.