to Genesis chapter 47. I want to read the whole chapter. The focus of my sermon is going to be the second part of the chapter, speaking of the famine and Joseph's resolution of that situation. Genesis 47, may the Lord bless the reading of his word. Then Joseph went and told Pharaoh, and said, My father and my brothers, their flocks and their herds, and all that they possess, have come from the land of Canaan, and indeed they are in the land of Goshen. And he took five men from among his brothers and presented them to Pharaoh. Then Pharaoh said to his brothers, What is your occupation? And they said to Pharaoh, Your servants are shepherds, both we and also our fathers. And they said to Pharaoh, we have come to dwell in the land, because your servants have no pasture for their flocks, for the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. Now therefore, please let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen. Then Pharaoh spoke to Joseph, saying, your father and your brothers have come to you. The land of Egypt is before you. Have your father and brothers dwell in the best of the land. Let them dwell in the land of Goshen. And if you know any competent men among them, then make them chief herdsmen over my livestock. Then Joseph brought in his father Jacob and set him before Pharaoh. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh. Pharaoh said to Jacob, how old are you? And Jacob said to Pharaoh, the days of the years of my pilgrimage are 130 years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage. So Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from before Pharaoh. And Joseph situated his father and his brothers and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Ramses, as Pharaoh had commanded. Then Joseph provided his father, his brothers, and all his father's household with bread, according to the number in their families. Now there was no bread in all the land, for the famine was very severe. So that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because of the famine, And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan for the grain which they bought, and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house. So when the money failed in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, give us bread, for why should we die in your presence? For the money has failed. Then Joseph said, give your livestock, and I will give you bread for your livestock if the money is gone. So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for the horses, the flocks of the cattle, the herds, for the donkeys. Thus he fed them with bread in exchange for all their livestock that year. When that year had ended, they came to him the next year and said, We will not hide from my Lord that our money is gone. My Lord also has our herds of livestock. There is nothing left in the sight of my Lord but our bodies and our lands. Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants of Pharaoh. Give us seed that we may live and not die, that the land may not be desolate. Then Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh. For every man of the Egyptians sold his field, because the famine was severe upon them. So the land became Pharaoh's. And as for the people, he moved them into the cities, from one end of the borders of Egypt to the other end. Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had rations allotted to them by Pharaoh. And they ate their rations which Pharaoh gave them, therefore they did not sell their lands. Then Joseph said to the people, Indeed, I have bought you and your land this day for Pharaoh. Look, here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land, and it shall come to pass in the harvest that you shall give one-fifth to Pharaoh. Four-fifths shall be your own, as seed for the field and for your food, for those of your household, and as food for your little ones. So they said, You have saved our lives. Let us find favor in the sight of my Lord, and we will be Pharaoh's servants. And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt to this day that Pharaoh should have one fifth, except for the land of the priests only, which did not become Pharaoh's. So Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the country of Goshen, and they had possessions there, and grew and multiplied exceedingly. and Jacob lived in the land of Egypt 17 years. So the length of Jacob's life was 147 years. When the time drew near that Israel must die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, Now if I have found favor in your sight, please put your hand under my thigh and deal kindly and truly with me. Please do not bury me in Egypt, but let me lie with my fathers. You shall carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burial place. And he said, I will do as you have said. Then he said, swear to me. And he swore to him. So Israel bowed himself on the head of the bed. Amen. As I said earlier, I want to focus especially on the part of this that deals with Joseph's dealing with the famine. You'll recall that back through the whole period of the prosperity, of the great plenty, that Joseph had collected 20% of a fifth of all of the harvests that had come in. There was great harvest, there was great plenty. He collected and stored because of the vision that he'd had that there would be great famine. He stored up a fifth of it. that was incidentally a much more lenient tax than... most ancient empires would engage in. Most ancient empires, they would do wealth taxes instead, where the tax man would come to your farm and he would just look around and see everything that you had, all the possessions and all the herds and all the buildings and everything, and he would take a tax of the whole. So it was a wealth tax that tended to keep most of the people in poverty. and enrich the empires. This instead was an income tax where there was a percentage of what came in that went to Joseph to store up, to provide for the time of famine. And so, During the famine, when that comes, then they have all this store. They have all this surplus. And the people come and they purchase. The first year, they purchase. They have money, gold, and silver stored up. And they come and they exchange that for grain. And when that runs out, they come and they trade their animals, all their herds and livestock. And in the third year, they come and they say, we have nothing left. So we'll just be your slaves rather than die. And what Joseph institutes instead is not slavery, is something a little bit more akin to feudalism. We hear the word slave and we think, you know, people in chains and the masters can treat them any way they want and they just work them until they're dead. And that word slave or servant in the Bible, that's a broad word that can mean that sort of thing, but can often mean something different than that too. And as we see, what Joseph has in mind is something different. Now, Joseph could have used the opportunity to simply cement the pharaoh's power and to guarantee the pharaoh was greatly aggrandized. But what he actually does saves the people's lives and also provides them a path back to independence and freedom. He, it says he gathers them into cities. Again, that might be a little misleading because when we think of cities, we think of like, you know, great big urban developments where everybody lives in apartment complexes or something like that. That's not what this means. It means organized communities. It means that they were gathered in where they had certain allotments because they'd sold all their land. So he gathers them into communities and allots land to all of them. and gives them seed out of the storehouse, gives them seed, tells them to plant, tells them to work, and they would keep 80% of what they grow, and 20% would go back to Pharaoh. And we'll talk about that more in a moment. But the result of all of it, the people of Egypt say, he says, you've saved our lives. You've showed us great mercy, great grace. They are overjoyed. with what Joseph has done. So Joseph has not put them all into bondage, put them all into chains, and made them all, you know, work on Pharaoh's work gangs. He could have done something like that. But it's not what he did. And remember, given the fact that They are all working land that all entirely belongs to Pharaoh. The plan that Joseph has is remarkable for its generosity. Now, people becoming slaves in the ancient world in order to pay back debts, that was very common. That was often done. The Bible even made provision for that. The biblical laws of slavery, when a fellow Hebrew sold himself into slavery because of his debts, the biblical law was all set up to ensure, first of all, that he was treated well. The common kind of idea in the world, if you were a slave of another man, that meant you were his property. and he could treat you any way that he wanted. That's not a biblical idea. Certainly the Bible restricted if a master abused his slave, caused any kind of permanent damage or anything like that, then the slave would go free for that. And furthermore, the laws were set up to ensure that the slave would be, it promoted a return to independence and a return to self-sufficiency. so that it couldn't be longer than seven years, and at the end of seven years, the man had to send his slave, free his slave, and send him out with flocks and herds and, you know, an ability to get started on his own. He didn't just send him out empty-handed. Now, Joseph, of course, this is hundreds of years before the Mosaic Law is given, but nonetheless, you can see these same principles are motivating Joseph in what he does here. So he uses the power that he has, and this is the big point that I want to make. He uses the power that he has, the authority that's been given to him, not for his own personal benefit, not for the aggrandizement of Pharaoh, but for the good of those under his power, those under his authority. He uses it to preserve life and do good for others. Government is instituted by God, for the restraint of evil. In the Noahic Covenant, when God institutes a covenant with Noah and with all mankind in Noah, one of the elements of that covenant is he said that he who sheds man's blood, by man will his blood be shed. Many theologians, myself included, believe that that is the place in the Bible where civil government is instituted. A provision is made for the establishment of civil government. The warrant is made. Like, what right do men have collectively to execute justice among them? Well, it's because it's given to us by divine right in the covenant that God made with Noah. People needed a degree of order, structure in our lives. protection from evildoers, regulation of daily life, collective decisions like what kind of side of the road do we drive on and all those kinds of things. The government can of course become very dysfunctional and abusive, tyrannical. The amazing thing really, given human nature, is that it doesn't more often than it does. is that so often government, despite being occupied by sinful, depraved men, nonetheless actually is a force of relative good. And indeed, it would have to be an extremely dysfunctional, sociopathic government to be worse than no government at all. Government in general serves a good role in human life. It's part of God's common grace to us. And even when we disagree, with government decisions, as we all do, of course. Many of you who've known me or talked to me on the subject, to any degree, knows I have my strong opinions on the subject. But nonetheless, we should recognize all of the good that God does for us through civil government. The restraint of evil and the provision of order. And that was true, you know, Paul wrote Romans 13 at a time when Nero was the emperor of Rome. And despite the fact that there was an extremely wicked man who was the head of the Roman government, Paul nonetheless recognized that the Roman Empire as a whole did restrain evil and provide order, more so than would be the case without it. Now the New Testament teaches us the obligation to submit to authority and that's not an absolute obligation. No human authority is absolute. We're not going to talk about that a great deal today. The line though, or I should say, but we do read in the New Testament also a fair bit, even though there isn't any kind of what you would call a political philosophy laid out for us in the New Testament. Nonetheless, there is a great deal in the New Testament about how we should use authority when we have it. It talks, it gives instructions to fathers, to husbands, to masters. How it is that each is to view their role and how they're to use the authority that God gives them. To use it for good, to use it for service to others, to recognize that any earthly authority that we have is temporary and very, very relative. Peter points out, for example, and says, you masters, you know, you're going to have to answer to God. Just as the servant answers to God for how he's submitted to the authority, so the master answers to God as well for how he uses that authority. And so from that perspective, even though on an earthly level there are these differences, These differences are very, very small and minor and inconsequential compared to the equality we all have before God, that every one of us is going to have to answer to God to how we use whatever privilege or position or authority we're given in this life. I'm gonna read a few verses from Matthew chapter 23. which is a great illustration of abusive, selfish, hypocritical authority. Speaking of the Pharisees, I just want to read the first 12 verses of this. Then Jesus spoke to the multitude and to his disciples saying, the scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do. but do not do according to their works. For they say and do not do. For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders. But they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do to be seen of men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments. They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, Rabbi, Rabbi. But you, do not be called rabbi, for one is your teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your father, for one is your father, he who is in heaven. And do not be called teachers, for one is your teacher, the Christ. But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant, and whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. There is a tremendous amount of very valuable teaching here about authority and about the right use and the wrong use of authority. The Pharisees were authorities. They were in positions of authority. It was religious authority. But in those days, the line between religious and civil authority wasn't near as bright as it perhaps is now. Religious and civil authorities, they kind of blended together. The Pharisees had a lot of authority in in Judean society. And how did they use that? They used that to aggrandize themselves, status. And we shouldn't underestimate the degree to which that always is a motivation for people and could be a motivation for us as well. Simply the desire to be regarded well by others. You might think that's a, you know, when we think of history and politics and we look at the big grand affairs of men, and how much really is it that just people just love to walk around and be called, oh, hey, Senator. How are you doing there, Governor? It's good to see you, Mr. President. You know, all that sort of thing. And get puffed up in their egos and get the best seat at the restaurant and have everybody respect you because you hold this office. In political matters, in, Ecclesiastical matters as well should always be wary of that temptation. They use their power to burden others. The Pharisees did. They lay heavy burdens on you and they won't move one little finger to lift that burden themselves. that tells us some important things about what government should be and should not be. As he himself says, that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And he makes that point too in other places, when he washes the disciples' feet. He's the master, he's the Lord. And he uses his authority to serve. He humbles himself and lowers himself to serve others. And that's the right use of authority, of power in this earth. So that tells us some important things about government. That's our subject here. Like I said, the Bible, the New Testament doesn't... lay out all the specifics for us, for sure. But when we find ourselves, any Christian that finds themselves with any political authority ought to be instructed by this, to use that political authority for the good of others, to recognize they, and we even recognize that in the names we call them, we call our public officials, we call them ministers. That's, in Europe, that's the term they would use, the minister of agriculture, the minister of defense. Here we use the term secretary or something like that for the same thing. But a minister was a servant, and that was the idea, that you had this position, you had this authority in order to serve others, not to serve yourself. And as we know, that fails very often in application. But political authority should always be used to serve others according to biblical wisdom, and not to engrandize and enrich ourselves. Now, in a republic such as ours, well, we vote. We have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, to advocate for positions, to advocate for candidates. And all too often, Christians, as much as anyone else, will vote for the candidates or the laws that will personally enrich them. that this will put more money in my bank account if I vote for this candidate or this position or advocate for this policy. This will be good for my business or my industry without examining how it will affect their neighbor, how it will affect the society as a whole. They'll be happy to receive a stimulus check without considering who is going to pay for that check, how that is going to impact the economy as a whole. Whatever authority we have, even if that authority seems very small and inconsequential to you, nonetheless, we are to use that authority in a biblical way to serve our neighbors, to do good for others, rather than simply seeking whatever will benefit me personally. It doesn't matter whether you are the emperor or a mere citizen, the principle is the same. Authority, power is always to be used for the good of others, not simply to benefit myself. That's what Jesus teaches us here. And just because I only have a little bit of authority is no excuse for me to be selfish with that authority. Excuse me, sorry about that. Like I said, just because I have only a small amount of authority, I don't know what's going on here. Just because I have a small, no, that's not gonna work. I'll just speak up. Is no excuse for me to use that authority selfishly. We all know the story of the hall monitor in school or the crossing guard that has this tiny little position and gets all puffed up in power and is so excited to be able to tell everybody else what to do with that tiny little bit of authority they have. As I said before, there isn't much in the New Testament about how specifically government ought to operate. Except that we do read that government is God's instrument for good to reward good and to punish the evil. And of course it's not man's opinion which determines what it is that's good and what is evil. Biblical wisdom teaches us that. And the Old Testament has a great deal about government. Now we have to be careful when looking at the Old Testament for instruction in government. Much of that was laws that were given to the nation of Israel, and Israel occupied a unique place in God's redemptive economy. The laws specifically that were given to Israel were specific to Israel and they expired when Israel ceased to exist as a political nation. Nonetheless, we can learn a great deal about biblical conceptions of justice and right from those laws. But I want to read a couple of passages. First one is from Psalm 22. One of the hymns that we sang earlier was taken from Psalm 22. You might recognize the paraphrase. Psalm chapter 22 is, the ends of all the earth shall hear. Psalm 22, at the end of it is speaking of the triumph of the Messiah over the world. But in Psalm 22, verse 27, 28, we read this. All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord. And all the families of the nations shall worship before you. For the kingdom is the Lord's and he rules over the nations. Whether the nations of the world acknowledge it or not, or realize it or not, God is the ruler over all the nations and governments of the world. And not just in an abstract, deterministic, or providential sense, but that the governments of the world owe their obedience to God. They have an obligation to govern in a biblical way. Now, they don't do so most of the time. But that doesn't change the truth. That every governor, every ruler, every king, every emperor, every citizen will one day give an account as to whether they used that authority in obedience to God's command or not. That's what this is saying. Or Psalm 2 could be cited too. Speaking of the kings, therefore you kings of the earth, kiss the sun That is to obey, to submit, to bend the knee, lest you be angry and you perish in the way. Another passage, Proverbs chapter 8. And I just want to read a couple of verses from there. This is... This is the discourse of woman wisdom, her appeal to the simple young man, saying listen to me and not to the seductress. The personification of God's wisdom. Proverbs 8 verses 15 and 16, By me kings reign, and the rulers decree justice, all the judges of the earth. Excuse me, I skipped a part. By me kings reign and rulers decree justice. By me princes rule and nobles, all the judges of the earth. What does that mean? That means that every king, every ruler, every prince, every governor that has ever governed any body of people at all, however great or small, to whatever degree they were successful in that at all, they did so by God's wisdom. whether they acknowledge it or not, whether they knew so or not. God's wisdom underlies everything in the universe. It was, and this is the point that Woman Wisdom made earlier, was by me, God created the world. The principles that govern interactions between human beings, between individuals, families, communities, nations, it is God's wisdom that determines all of those things. And so to the degree, whether they know it or not, To the degree that anybody knows any truth about human affairs, they know that because of the wisdom of God that was given to them. God reveals himself in nature and in history as well as in the scriptures. Natural revelation can teach someone a great deal, and so they can learn By looking at the world, by looking at history, there have been pagans, unbelievers, who were wiser than others, and ruled according to wisdom, and were successful because of that. By me, king's reign, by wisdom, And this is, again, this is true, so this idea that wisdom underlies everything, it's just as God's wisdom specifically underlies everything, is just as true for politics as it is true for anything else. Now, politics, the interaction of human beings in civil society, is an extremely complex subject. But everything we're talking about when we talk about politics, everything we're talking about was created by God. And therefore, God's wisdom underlies all those things. And as we seek to take dominion in our lives, as we seek to have our lives governed by the truth of God's word in matters like how we do our jobs, how we treat our spouses, how we raise our children, so too, we need to seek to be governed by God's wisdom and how we engage in civil affairs as well. God has determined the rules by which all those things operate. How wealth is created, how wealth ought to be used, how families or individuals interact with one another. God created all of those things and therefore God determines the rules. Now throughout Joseph's journey to the top of Egyptian society, Joseph has always credited God. God gave me this, God brought me here, God did this for me. And yet, it was Joseph making decisions, it was Joseph working, it was Joseph saying we should do this and not that. So why does God get the credit? Well, because Joseph knows that it was the wisdom that God gave him, the wisdom that God taught him, that even in those cases when God didn't actually give him a dream and say, do this, Nonetheless, it was still God's wisdom that guided him along the way. It wasn't his wisdom. God opened his eyes and showed him the right way to think and behave in the situation that he was in. So too, rulers and governments today, whatever kind of government that is, if they are to rule well, must rule by the wisdom of God. There is no other wisdom. And like I said, they can learn some of that wisdom just from natural revelation, from looking at the world and coming to understand. But God still gets the credit. And how much better, how much fuller and higher is the wisdom we gain from the Scriptures? History bears this out. It's no accident. that the form of government that has given the highest weight to human dignity and human rights, that resists tyranny and oppression the most consistently, it is no accident that those forms of government arose in the Christian West, in the Christian world, and not in other places. The history of most of the world, most of the places of the world, alternate between times of great slavery and depression, and on the other hand, times of great anarchy and bloodshed when everybody looked back longingly to the periods of great slavery and oppression. It was Christian principles of human nature and biblical ethics that gave rise to comparatively much greater levels of freedom and prosperity than was true whenever Christianity was absent or a weaker force. There would be those that would say this violates the idea of separation of church and state, that's such a valuable principle in our society, and they misunderstand what that ever meant. Separation of church and state never meant separation of religion and politics. Separation of church and state meant those institutions were separate, that the church shouldn't tell the state what to do and the state shouldn't tell the church what to do. To any of those advocating the separation of church and state, the idea that you could divorce religious principles from politics was complete nonsense. And it is nonsense. It is not a question of whether religious principles will motivate your political philosophy. It is a question of which religious principles will motivate your political philosophy. But political philosophy will always be motivated by religious principles, by your fundamental commitments to what reality is, to what law is, what morality is, what human beings are, what a man and a woman is, what a family is, all those kinds of things. And those things will be derived from one's religious and philosophical principles, which will then flow from there to one's political views. A government will always be based on those things. And that's why when you have competing religions in a society, societies are stable when societies have a majority religion. When societies don't have a majority religion, when you have competing religions, competing worldviews, what you always have is war as a result. War is the way that competing religions and worldviews make themselves dominant. And so we as Christians, we as Christians should not be ashamed to advocate for the Christian worldview as the underlying principle of good government. Now our goal in life is not earthly. And this is why, by the way, Christianity actually allows for a much greater toleration of other religions and philosophies than any other religion or philosophical perspective does. Because we're not advocating for religious utopia. Our goals are not earthly. We know that you cannot compel another person to be a Christian. Our goals in life. But while we are here, we're to do good for our neighbor. And so when we advocate for rights for freedom, rights for free speech, rights for economic freedom, for example, rights of private property and so forth, we do so not because that benefits us individually, but because we're seeking the good of our neighbor, because we're seeking to love those that are around us. And we recognize that such principles are good for society as a whole. They are good for our neighbor as well as being good for us. One of those principles, and we see this going back to our story, is a value of labor. When you read this story, at first glance, you sort of say, wow, that Joseph, he's kind of a hard nut, man. He's selling them the grain, right? And he takes all their money, and he takes all their cattle and all their property, takes all their land, makes them slaves. Well, that's one way of reading it. It's a fairly superficial way of reading it. Yes, He does sell them grain. A fantastic way to make someone truly a slave is to just give it to them. The Bible gives value and dignity to work. The Bible gives value and dignity teaching us that God's will is for us to work what is good with our hands, to work hard at whatever the Lord gives us to do. That it's degrading. The ancient world thought that work was degrading. The ancient world thought that for a man to work hard with his hands, that that was degrading to that man and that only peasants and slaves should have to work hard. That the goal in life was to be a man of leisure, right? If you were an important man, then you were a man of leisure and you didn't have to work. It was one of the great As I've said before in a lot of different contexts, to understand biblical principles well, sometimes it's necessary to look at what they replaced. The idea of leisure, that work was just for commoners, for low status, and the goal was to transcend that and just live lives of leisure. But the Bible gives value and dignity to work. God sanctifies us through work. And so that anybody that is able to work, anybody who has a capability of work, ought to work. And our story reflects this in an interesting way. Again, after they've lost their grain, they've lost their money, they've lost their cattle and livestock, they've lost their land, and now they're just saying, well, that's it for us, we're pretty much done, we might as well be slaves. But you see what Joseph does after that. He allots them all land, he gives them grain, not grain to eat, grain to plant. And he says, now plant. And he says, you'll keep 80% of what you grow. Pharaoh will take 20%, but you see what that does for them. That actually provides them a way forward for dignity, for independence, to regain their wealth, to regain perhaps their land one day. That's what Joseph is actually accomplishing. He owns them. He can do whatever he wants. He doesn't have to give them 80% back. Why does he let them keep 80% of their harvest? Because by doing so, he gives them a way to become independent again. What a tremendous, a beautiful thing that he does for them. Again, if he wanted to make them slaves, he could just give them the grain. He says, okay, here, I'm going to give you grain and now I own you and I can do whatever I want. And that has brought down many an empire. That's why Rome fell. One of the reasons that Rome fell was by the end of its time, most of the people who lived in Rome were dependent on the government for the bread handouts. And therefore, they didn't work. They didn't have any dignity. All they cared about was bread and circuses. They didn't even care when Rome fell. None of it meant anything to them. They were slaves, even if they could do what they wanted with their time. They had free food, so they didn't care. And as I said, that's been the collapse and the fall of many an empire in the past. Joseph takes another approach to encourage work. And the scripture takes the time. Again, I'm pointing out, this story is drawn out for us. The narrative gives us instruction here and shows us what Joseph does and shows us what the result of it is. And the result of it is in the words of the peasants themselves. They say, Joseph, you've saved our lives. After all of this, not just because he gave them bread, but because he gave them their lives back. There's an old proverb that says there's five ways to gain wealth. That you can steal it, you can win it, you can marry it, you can inherit it, or you can earn it. And of those five ways, only earning it will really last. Bible says something similar, Proverbs 13 verse 11. It's a little more narrow focus here, but it says, Wealth gained by dishonesty will be diminished, but he who gathers by labor will increase. We have to recognize, and the Bible shows us, teaches us very clearly, as does natural revelation, that any wealth that exists is always produced by somebody's labor. Everything else is just redistribution. Sometimes that redistribution is voluntary. It's charity, gifts, inheritance and so forth. And those can be good things in the right context. Very good things. But sometimes that redistribution is involuntary through theft and extortion and fraud. That's why when Paul teaches a man not to steal, he says, let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good. That hard work producing wealth with your hands is the opposite of stealing. Now taxes are necessary, even here in our story, Joseph uses taxation, but government should seek to ensure that taxes are only used for necessary activities of the government. Instead of, as is so often the case, Using taxes just to prop up their own power and to enrich and aggrandize themselves. Wise government will seek to do good for their people. Wise citizens of a nation will seek to advocate for good principles of government. And understands the wisdom of God. Understands what the Bible says about all of these things. About what a family is. About what wealth is. About the value of work and all of those things. A wise government will seek to encourage labor and productive work, knowing that it will be good for the individuals who are laboring and for society as a whole. And this is one good question always to ask yourself of any proposed government policy. Will this policy encourage hard work or will it discourage it? And that is a good signal about the value, the wisdom of such a policy. It's not uncompassionate to put people to work. As we see when we read this, it shows us how modern we think about so many things. When we see this and we see that Joseph sold them things, sold them the grain, and then put them to work. Didn't just give them food, but gave them seed to plant and work and let them keep most of what they made as a result. There are many that would say that's uncompassionate. That wasn't uncompassionate. The uncompassionate thing to do would have been just to give them grain. Because then he would have made them truly slaves. In Ezekiel chapter 34, the prophet there attacks the shepherds of Israel. The shepherds of Israel that fed themselves and did not feed the sheep. A shepherd was a common term for leaders in general. Religious leaders, political leaders. Again, the line between those things was not near as bright then as it is now. What was the solution that God promised? He said that God himself would care for the sheep. He would send a good shepherd who would care for them. People need leadership. And good leadership is rare. We all have authority of one kind or another. Even just the authority, as I said, in a free society like ours to vote, to advocate for good government. How will we use that authority? We'll just neglect it, ignore it, refuse to go to the trouble, or simply push for those policies which will personally benefit my pocketbook. You know, we're being trained to be kings and priests before God, to take dominion over all things, and that includes our engagement with civic affairs. But as we all know, politics is very frustrating. Sin corrupts everything. And while this shouldn't drive us to neglect our duties and despair, it also should remind us of where our real hope is. Our true shepherd, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the one whose government will never end." Now Joseph was a wise governor. Even he though was operating in a corrupt system and we see some hints of that in the story about the priests who they don't have any taxation, they just get their own land. And he couldn't overcome all of that. And the biggest problem is, even when there was one of those rare kings or governors or high priests or whoever, who was a good and honest and hardworking man that cared about the people and did a good job, and the people as a result would be blessed and prosper, the problem with such a man was that he would one day die. And who would be his successor? Odds are, not a wise man. That's the whole problem. The tragic irony is sometimes the wisest and most successful rulers merely build a very strong system for a wicked and evil man to use after him. Joseph gave instruction, though, that his bones be buried in Canaan, just like Jacob did. There's that story at the end where Jacob makes Joseph swear that he'll bury his bones in Canaan. And Joseph makes his sons make the same promise. And that's a signal that both of them knew that their hope was not in Egypt, it was not in the governments of Egypt, it was not in the Pharaoh. That their hope was in the promise, their hope was in the covenant of the seed who would one day come. The one who would perfectly exemplify all these principles. Every king, every priest, every prophet in the Old Testament is a shadow, is a sign pointing forward. In their failures, they point to the one who would have no failures. And in their successes, they would point to the one who would succeed even more and who would never die. The one who used his authority to serve, to save others. We read Proverbs 8 earlier, wisdom saying, by me kings reign. Me there is the personification of wisdom, the wisdom that underlies the universe, the principles of truth that govern all reality. Personified as a woman there in Proverbs 8. And there's another woman personified in Proverbs as well. The seductress. The liar. The one enticing young foolish men to come take to have what isn't really theirs. That same analogy, that same image is paralleled in the book of Revelation. Where again we see two women who represent two communities, two authorities. There is the Bride of Christ, the New Jerusalem, and there is also Babylon, the whore, the seductress who entices whole nations and kingdoms to their destruction. We can choose to listen to one of those or the other. The wisdom of God or the empty and seductive promises of the world. And what a joy it is though to know that one day, The One who now reigns in our hearts will return and reign on earth, over heaven and earth. The One who Himself personifies that wisdom and who will never die. He who died once for all for us and lives again forever. He who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the wonderful Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Amen. Now let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you, Lord, for civil government. Even as it frustrates us and causes problems for us sometimes, yet we know, Lord, that it is your instrument for good, and that you restrain evil, and you accomplish your purposes through that government, weak and imperfect as it is. We pray that you would help us all and give us all wisdom to advocate for good government, to advocate for wisdom in the affairs of men as you have taught us. But above all to look forward in hope to know that no human government will ever be our salvation. No human government will, that everyone will fall short and usually very far short of your wisdom. But that there is one coming, the King who is your wisdom. who will rule over us forever, and what a glorious joy that will be. And we pray these things in His name, amen. Amen, and let's conclude our worship this Lord's Day by standing and singing hymn number 345.