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angry with yourselves that you
sold me hither, for God did send me before you to preserve life."
Friends, we come to this very marvelous chapter, Genesis chapter
45. Really it's a chapter bursting
with application. One could really spend a lot,
a long time in this chapter, but we're going to just go through
it go through the whole chapter this evening and try and pick
up some points from it. I'm sure you will see many other
applications and many especially other parallels that there are
here to the Lord Jesus Christ. So many that makes me, again
I've said it before, I wonder how people can say that Joseph
is not a type of Christ when it's so apparent and so clear
in so many ways. But in our previous study, we
listened in, didn't we, to that speech, a very moving speech
of Judah as he spoke on behalf of his brethren and on behalf
of his brother. He spoke to Joseph. He didn't know. that he was his
brother and he was speaking to and he made a very emotional
plea right from the very depths of his being and his heart. He
pleaded for his youngest brother. He wouldn't leave Benjamin alone
as they had left Joseph to go alone into Egypt. There's a change
that has happened in them. There's a great care now for
their aged father. They were not so worried about
how he felt. Take robbing him of Joseph and
his life initially, but now there's such a tender concern. They don't
want to hurt him. They don't want to harm him.
For them to go back Without the young lad, Benjamin, it's going
to break the father's heart. He won't be able to manage. It
will be the end of him. He will surely die. And so he
stands and pleads for these things. And it's a plea that doesn't
go without reaching its target. It tugged away and it tugged
away mightily at the heartstrings of Joseph. And now it's so evident,
isn't it, in these brothers that they are truly repentant of the
wrong that they have done against Joseph. No longer, Joseph can
see, will they leave their brother in a foreign land. No longer
are they willing to subject their father to the grief and pain. There is now very real concern
on their behalf, a genuine concern for their father and also for
their young brother. Well, Joseph himself, that's
it. He can hold back no longer. He's been restraining himself
all this time, but he can do it no longer. The time has come
for him finally, and he's been waiting for the day. It's been
a long wait, but finally the time has come for him to reveal
who he really is, and the true relationship that he bears to
them. He is their brother. He's their
kith and king. He is the one whom they had sold
into Egypt. Now is the time to tell them
these precious things. That's also the time to put off
and to put away that severe front that he's been wearing all this
time to the Egyptian lord, as it were, who is somewhat severe
in his dealings with them. He can put it away. He can put
off that garment. He doesn't have to act in that
role anymore. He's been wearing it since their
first arrival in Egypt. But no more is it necessary.
It's time, especially, to reveal to them, friends, His forgiving
love. He harbors in his heart no resentment,
no bitterness for all the things that they have done against him. No, he's already looked beyond
these things to see God's hand in it. The plan of God, the wonderful
overruling of evil that they had done for good, all the time
has come for him to reveal these things to them. He has refrained
himself for such a very long time. and he had wished to reveal
himself earlier to them. His heart ached, we can say,
to reveal himself to his brothers every time he saw them. It was
necessary, as you said, for them first to show fruits that are
worthy of repentance. Oh friends, Christ is here. Again, didn't begin to love us
when we turned to him. And when we repented of our sin,
that was not when He began to set His affection upon us. It was while we were a long way
off from Him. While we were in a foreign land,
in sin, far away from Him, even then He set His love upon us. Even then He wished to reveal
Himself to us. And He ached, we can say in His
heart, to reveal Himself to us when We began to seek Him for
salvation. His heart, the heart of Christ,
longs to reveal Himself to the sinner. But He had to restrain
Himself even with us, until we came to a realization of something
of the evil of our sin against God, until we came to a genuine
repentance ourselves, and then He holds back no longer. And
then he comes to us and reveals himself to us to be our God and
our Savior, and in such a wonderful way as happens here, even with
Joseph and his brethren. But Joseph caused all, with the
exception of his brothers, to vacate the room. All the Egyptians
are asked to leave and he stands now alone with his brothers. He won't have the Egyptians to
be present. This is an intimate moment that
he has with them and he's going to reveal himself to them and
moreover we could say It's a very kind act on his part, because
he knows he's going to bring up their sin of the past. He knows he's going to have to
mention that they had sold him into Egypt. And what he's doing
here is he's actually covering the sin of his brethren. He knows that the Egyptians,
if they were present and they heard these things, well, they
would be filled with shock and horror. How could these brothers
do such a dreadful thing to their own brother? And here we see
that the love of Joseph even covers a multitude of sins. Of course, they would find out
a little bit later some of it, but he moves to act in this loving
way. But with everyone out, We read
that the floodgates opened and he wept aloud. This emotional
man who's wept a number of times already in secret, now is willing
to share, publicly open and weep before his brethren Egyptians. I don't know if they're listening
outside, standing by the door, must have been wondering, and
looking at each other in a strange way, saying, what on earth is
going on here? What is he crying about so loudly? He didn't just
weep in a restrained way like sometimes we do. It was all very
loud and it got everyone's attention. Surely the brothers must have
wondered as well. What is happening here? I am
Joseph. Doth my father yet live? I don't know how he said it.
I don't know what kind of a tone he said it. Would it have been
a gentle? tone, I'm sure, but his familiar voice now comes
back. Maybe he'd been acting in a different
kind of voice, the voice of Joseph now, as they probably know it
and are familiar with. They say one thing about us,
isn't it, our voice never changes, and sometimes you hear these
old preachers and You know they're weak, and they're frail, and
they're almost on their last legs. But their voice is still
the same as years and years ago. And it's a marvel, isn't it?
But the voice is one part of us that hardly changes. And now
he begins to speak in his native tongue. He's spoken before through
a translator. But now he speaks in a language
that they are so familiar with. I am Joseph, does my father. yet live, and his brethren couldn't
say a word. They couldn't answer him anything. Far from being overjoyed at this
revelation of them, they're troubled, dismayed. In fact, they're petrified
by this thing. Joseph the brother that we sold
into Egypt, the brother who we hated without a cause is standing
before us, the one who we stripped of that garment that the father
had given to him, that beautiful garment, the one we sold for
a certain sum, and the one who really we desired to kill, selling
him into Egypt. Well, that was the second option.
The first choice, preferred choice maybe of the majority, was to
kill him, to get rid of him. And now he's here. He's standing
before us. They couldn't say anything. All
these thoughts and more rushed into their minds. Fear gripped
them, and they are left speechless. It reminds me of Saul on the
road to Damascus. He was persecuting the Lord's
people, trying to extinguish the church of the living God
of Christ. And the Lord met him and said,
and said, Saul, Saul, you know, and he said, Who art thou, Lord?
He said, I am Jesus who you are persecuting. I'm sure for a moment
he must have been petrified to hear that Jesus who I've been
trying to extinguish and who I've called and thought of as
an imposter and a deceiver and leading people astray, He's appeared
to me. He's alive. And he must have
been greatly troubled, as he ought to have been, at least
for a period of time. Verse 4, Joseph is very quick,
really, friends, you see here, to speak a comforting word to
them. He says to his brethren, come
near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he repeats
again, I am Joseph, your brother. whom he sold into Egypt. He doesn't let them stew in their
fear and in their panic amid this revelation. He doesn't revel
himself in the pain that they would feel. Perhaps, you know,
we would be inclined, isn't it? Humanly speaking, people are
inclined to them. Somebody does us wrong and then
they're in trouble. Well, good for them. Let them
feel the pain. Maybe it's in our power to help
them out, but we don't want to do it. Let them feel what I went
through. He doesn't think anything like
that. He immediately comes to speak
in a comfortable and kind and comforting way to them. No vengeance
in his heart at all. Come near to me. Oh, you could
have a gospel message on that. Come near to me, the Lord says.
Come near to him. Come near, believe, sinner. Come near and trust in him. Come
unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden. I will give
you rest. What a word of comfort. Come
near to me, Joseph says. I am your brother. Be not grieved
or angry with yourselves for setting me. God sent me here. This was God's doing. And he
did it for a purpose, so that through me being raised to this
high and glorious position, the family may be preserved alive. Now look here, he says the famine's
going to last for another five years. So verse 7, he says to
them, God sent me before you to preserve, he repeats again,
a posterity in the earth and to save your lives by a great
deliverance. So now it was not you that sent
me hither, but God. And he hath made me a father
to Pharaoh and Lord of all his house and a ruler throughout
all the land of Egypt. But what kind words those were,
isn't it? Be not grieved nor angry with
yourselves, he says. They would have probably felt
that way. They had done wickedly, and there's
no excuse for what they had done. They had sinned against God.
They had sinned against their brother. And it is right that
they should grieve over it, but here Jacob, sorry, Joseph moves
to alleviate them because they already are repentant. Their
sorrow is there, it's genuine, they're shown. It doesn't need
to go on and on into deeper and greater depths and into an excessive
kind of sorrow. There comes a point in time when
those who have been sorrowful need to hear that word of comfort
so that they can come out. Blessed are they that mourn and
go on mourning all the days in a deeper and deeper way. No.
Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. So they have to be ready and
encouraged to be comforted. The mourning prepares them for
the comfort, but it's not God's intention that people go on mourning
over sin day after day until they reach glory, but that they
know and enjoy the peace of comfort that comes from the Lord himself. As we mentioned, neither do I
Condemn you, said the Lord very quickly. to the woman caught
in adultery. It's a pity some people come
up and say, well, that passage of scripture shouldn't be in
the Bible at all. They're robbers of that, because
it is. And it is a very precious event
and words that we take very much to heart. And excessive sorrow
is not what the Lord wants us to go through. You remember how
even that a brother in the Corinthian church. And he had sinned, he
was immoral, he was with his father's wife and he had to be
disciplined for his sin. But then in the second Corinthians,
Paul says he's repented now. He's shown true signs of sorrow
and repentance and grief over what he's done. He's a changed
man. Therefore you must forgive him and comfort him. lest perhaps
he be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow." And he goes on to say,
lest Satan should get an advantage over him because we are not unaware
of Satan's devices. And this is one of Satan's tricks
and his plans. How do we keep a soul from Christ? Well, you know, either make them
unaware of their sin, and just let them think that their sin
is nothing, or the other extreme where they get so anxious like
John Bunyan was over their sin, and they think they can never
be forgiven, and it's then he keeps the soul in that way, be
so discouraged. Well, our crimes, dear friends,
are very great, but they're not too great to be forgiven. And
we know that there is hope. We cannot say there's no hope
of reconciliation. To us who feel, and the seeker
who feels the weight of his sins and is sorry for them, Christ
speaks that comforting word, be not grieved. And I have blotted
out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud your sins." Now
friends, Joseph, don't get him wrong, because he is, when he
says these things, and when he says that God did it, and God
arranged it, he's not minimizing their offense. He's not absolving
them from what they have done. They've done wrong. They have
committed a sin and a crime. They are guilty. But he does
say, I want you to see God's hand in it. I want you to see
God's hand overruling all things. Your actions, yes, they were
evil. But even through your evil actions,
God was working out his own purposes. It's all included in the providence
of God. It was all a part of God's design. Now people are trying to work
this out for themselves, and our young people have been discussing
that for a big time in their fellowship. But it's something
that we cannot fully fathom. It's the providence of God, how
He uses and even how it's all part of even His design and His
will to use the evil and sinful actions of men for His will,
for His purposes, for His glory. And this is what he does. He overrules even the evil that
was intended. Joseph is saying, you intended
evil for me, but God brought good out of it. God used it,
your evil intentions and actions, to bring me to Egypt and then
to exalt me to this high position in Egypt in order that the family
from whom the Messiah was to come would be preserved and would
be kept. Let me see the same do we not
in in christ And it's coming to save the elect. It was the
design and purpose of god For him for christ not just to come
and live a good life and earn righteousness But it was written
of him that he should be delivered into the hands of wicked and
evil men it was through the instrumentality Of wicked hands that he was destined
to go to the cross through the opposition of the scribes and
the Pharisees and the way they took him and arrested him and
condemned him to death. Are they, they are culpable for
their actions? But at the same time, God overruled
all things. And God brought good out of their
evil intentions. So just say a little bit on that,
friends. But there are so many applications,
really, here. To save his, sorry, big one,
the memory of our sins is another thing we could mention. Often
the memory of our sins fills us with sadness. but at the same
time Christ comes along and he assures us that in all things
God is sovereign, and even in our life of sin. that our particular
path that we trod, even that has led us to a place where we
have come to know Him, to believe in Him, and trust in Him. God
overruled even in our own lives. Providence is such a wonderful
topic. Providence usually We often think of providence in
only one way. Something good happens to us
or, you know, something just at the right place, the right
time. Oh, providence, we say, when the good things happen.
But even when the bad things happen, we should say providence,
really, because God works even all things for our good, but
he doesn't promise us that they will always be good things that
he sends our way. Oh, one more thing before we
move on. These verses also teach us something about the preciousness
of the Church of Jesus Christ to him. God did all this with
Joseph, all these actions from many years
ago, all this planning, just to save the family of Jacob,
to preserve them through whom the Messiah will come. So also
we can think about today in Providence, things are not just happening
in the world for its own sake. Things are happening, everything
in this happening, really the central thing in God's plan is
his church. is the church of Jesus Christ,
and all things are being worked out for the good of the church,
for the preservation of the church, and to give time and space for
those elect people of God to come in to the church, those
who are yet unsaved. The church is the very center
of all that God is working out to preserve and keep it. Well,
hurry back, he says, and tell my father all about me. that
God hath made me Lord of all Egypt. He gives the God the glory,
and rightly so. Are you doing well in life? Are
you promoted recently to a higher position, getting more salary? Are you liked and trusted by
your boss? Do you have favor with your employer? Well, friends, give God the glory.
That's the way God has brought me to this position. Tell Father,
he says, to come down and the whole family too. I will take
care of you all. and provide for all your needs. Filial care, fraternal care,
he is concerned to look after his elderly father, but he extends
even to the whole family, bring them down, I will provide for
them all. And then look at verse 13, and
he shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt and of all
that ye have seen." What did they see? They saw the splendor
of His home. They saw His disposition. They saw all the servants being
subject unto Him. They saw the authority that He
had. They saw His riches. All the
glory. Go back. Tell dad everything
that you have seen about my splendor, about my glory. And he wants
him to come, of course, and behold his glory as well. Well friends,
what a parallel with our Lord Jesus Christ, now exalted to
the highest place that heaven affords. John 17, 24, he prayed,
Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with
me where I am. that they may behold my glory."
What tremendous words. That you, a believer, this is
your end. You will see one day the glory
of the Lord Jesus Christ. His majesty, His authority, His
kindness etched in His face. The marks that are upon him,
isn't that his glory as well? The marks of his crucifixion
he still bears. Oh, so many things that time
fails us to go any further. But after a time of hugging and
weeping, finally now the brothers feel free, that they're able
to speak. And when Pharaoh hears that Jacob's
family have come, he is very happy, very glad to hear this
news. And he even commands Joseph to
send wagons to fetch Jacob and the whole family. Don't bring
anything down with you. You don't need to. I will give
you everything that you need, he says to the family. I will
give you land. and the good of all the land
of Egypt is before you, it's yours. And so it was with this
that the brethren set off on their journey home with wagons
and donkeys laden full of good things. And as they are sent
off, Jacob sends them off with this parting word of caution
in verse 24. He says, as they departed, he
said unto them, see that ye fall not out by the way. Don't quarrel with one another
as you're on the way home. Don't fall into that blame game
on your way home. You know, maybe one would have
piped up one of the brothers. I knew I should have believed
those dreams. I was saying at the very beginning you should
believe the dream. Now you dissuaded me out of it. You told me not to believe the
dreams. And now look, it's all come true. You wanted to kill
him. It was your idea to sell him. It could have gone on and on. Whose idea was it to kill an
animal and smother his coat with blood and show that to father
and let father make his own deduction? Who came up with that plan? It
was you, wasn't it? that sort of quarrelling on the way back. He says, don't quarrel with one
another, don't fall out is concerned even for them in such a way. Oh brethren, let us, who are
brethren, not fall out with one another along the way, along
the way to glory, along the way to heaven. Let us not fall out
with one another next week. under retreat, so close, living
closely to one another. It's not the easiest thing, I
have to say, for us all. We're still in the flesh and
we'll be seeing, it's one thing seeing each other three, four
times a week. It's another thing staying in the same building
as one another and seeing each other for breakfast, lunch and
dinner. But it does, it can cause conflict, you know. So let us
be careful that even then, We don't fall out with one another,
but continue to love and care for each other. While Jacob can
hardly believe it when he hears from his sons, Joseph is yet
alive. Joseph is yet alive, just like
the disciples. They couldn't believe it when
the women came and said, Jesus is yet alive. He's not dead. He is alive. In fact, he didn't
believe, Jacob didn't believe them at all at first. His heart
fainted. We read, for he believed them
not. It was only when he saw the wagons
that were sent to carry him that his spirit then revives. And he says there in verse 28,
it is enough. Joseph, my son, is yet alive. I will go and see
him before I die. Matthew Henry says this about
this verse. He says, death is as the wagons
which are sent to fetch us to Christ. The very sight of it
approaching should revive us. Well, friends, I close with this
thought. I'm sure that these brothers
of Joseph would forever remember the day that their brother revealed
himself to them. How could they forget it? How
could they forget the tender way in which he had dealt with
them? How could they forget his kind
words, his gentle, comforting words when they knew they deserved
something harsher and harder? Oh, this was a story, a true
story, a true experience. They could never forget and they
called their children They would tell their children. Another
day they would call their grandchildren. And over and over again, they
would repeat the same story. This is what happened on that
day. And Joseph, your uncle, that he revealed himself to us. This is what happened. And they
were never tired of telling the story of his love, of his forgiveness. Friends, the lesson is obvious,
isn't it? Don't forget. the day that Christ himself revealed
himself to you. Don't forget it and tell other
people about it. Don't keep it to yourself. God has given you a testimony.
You can tell others about it. Tell it to your friends. Tell
it to your family. Tell it friends over and over
again. Surely we never get tired. of
telling our testimony. You hear me mentioning mine in
the preaching, but you have yours. And we are to tell it out to
others what God has done for us, how he has treated us, not
as our sins deserve. May the Lord bless us with these
words. Amen.
I am Joseph
Series Jacob and Joseph
Here is Joseph's revelation of his identity to his brothers, demonstrating a willingness to overlook past wrongs and embrace a divine plan that ultimately preserved his family and paved the way for the Messiah. The message emphasizes God's ability to orchestrate good from evil, mirroring the grace and mercy extended by Christ, and calls listeners to embrace forgiveness, share their testimonies, and recognize the enduring power of divine love and purpose.
| Sermon ID | 7182592522271 |
| Duration | 30:43 |
| Date | |
| Category | Bible Study |
| Bible Text | Genesis 45 |
| Language | English |
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