Will you turn with me to Genesis chapter
50.
This is the last of our studies in
the book of Genesis.
And with the message today, we conclude our
exposition of this most wonderful first book of
the Bible.
Genesis chapter 50, and I'm going to read
the entire chapter.
Now remember, in the preceding chapter, Jacob's death
has just been recorded.
He breathed his last, and he was gathered
to his people.
And then in chapter 50, verse 1, Moses
continues his account by writing, Then Joseph fell
on his father's face, and wept over him,
and kissed him.
And Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to
embalm his father.
So the physicians embalmed Israel.
Now forty days were required for it, for
such is the period required for embalming.
And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days.
Notice that.
And 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
am 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.
And 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 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 mourning at the threshing floor
of Atad, they said, This is a grievous
mourning for the Egyptians.
Therefore it was named Abel Mitzrayim, which is
beyond, and that preposition really means in the
Hebrew text, near, or in the region of
the Jordan.
And thus his sons did for him as
he had charged them.
And 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.
And 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.
When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was
dead, they said, What if Joseph should bear
a grudge against us and pay us back
in full for the wrong which we did
to him?
So they sent a message to Joseph, saying,
Your father charged before he died, saying, Thus
you shall say to Joseph, Please forgive, I
beg you, the transgressions of your brothers and
their sin, for they did you wrong.
And now please forgive the transgression of the
servants of the God of your father.
And Joseph wept when they spoke to him.
Then his brothers also came and fell down
before him and said, Behold, we are your
servants.
But Joseph said to them, Do not be
afraid, for am I in God's place.
And as for you, you meant evil against
me, but God meant it for good in
order to bring about this present result, to
preserve many people alive.
So therefore do not be afraid.
I will provide for you and your little
ones.
So he comforted them and spoke kindly to
them.
Now Joseph stayed in Egypt, he and his
father's household, and Joseph lived 110 years.
And Joseph saw the third generation of Ephraim's
sons.
Also the sons of Machir, the son of
Manasseh, were born on Joseph's knees.
And Joseph said to his brothers, I am
about to die, but God will surely take
care of you and bring you up from
this land to the land which he promised
on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to
Jacob.
Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear,
saying, God will surely visit you or take
care of you, and you shall carry my
bones up from here.
So Joseph died at the age of 110
years, and he was embalmed and placed in
a coffin in Egypt.
May God bless this reading of his word.
The subject for today and the exposition of
the book of Genesis is the last words
of Joseph.
And of course, these are the last words
of Lewis on the book of Genesis.
And I am really rather sorry to come
to the end of the exposition of this
great book of the Bible.
I feel like now, after our two years,
I think, in time, at least, of the
exposition of this book, that I'm now in
a position to start over again and get
a great deal more out of the study
of this book.
But that is like the study of all
of the books of the Bible.
When you think that you have exhausted them,
then you discover that there is a whole
lot more there that you had not realized
was there.
But this is the last of the series
of studies in the book of Genesis, and
I certainly have enjoyed my own personal study
of this book.
The subject for this morning is the last
words of Joseph.
As I said a moment ago, how wonderful
it is to die as a believer.
What a difference it makes, both to the
person who dies and to those who remain.
The false prophet Balaam, reflecting on Israel's election,
exclaimed, Let me die the death of the
upright, and let my end be like his.
In the New Testament, we read, Blessed are
they who die in the Lord.
It was my sad duty this past week
to officiate in the memorial service of one
of the members of Believer's Chapel who went
home to be with the Lord.
But it makes a great difference to conduct
a memorial service for someone who was a
believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I noticed the difference immediately, the difference in
the atmosphere, the difference in the ministry of
the Word, the difference often in the people
who are there.
And at the graveside service in Durant, Oklahoma,
several people came up to me afterwards.
I'm sure there were many more who would
have, but it was rather warm out in
that cemetery there.
But several people came up to me and
spoke of the tremendous blessing that Lawanda McManus
had been to them through her eight years,
off and on, of illness.
It is a tremendous difference when a believer
dies.
And to go home to be with the
Lord is really a time for rejoicing, as
well as a time for lamentation and mourning
because of the loneliness and loss that that
means.
What are the marks of a believer's death?
Well, there are several, I think, and some
of them are found right here in the
context of the death of Jacob and the
death of Joseph.
There is, first of all, faith in the
promises of God that characterized Jacob.
He was very concerned about being buried in
the land of Canaan.
He remembered those promises that God had given
to Abraham and had confirmed to Isaac, and
he wanted to be sure that he was
buried in the promised land.
In Genesis chapter 47, we read, when the
time for Israel to die drew near, he
called his son Joseph and said to him,
please, if I have found favor in your
sight, place now your hand under my thigh
and deal with me in kindness and faithfulness.
Please do not bury me in Egypt, but
when I lie down with my fathers, you
shall carry me out of Egypt and bury
me in their burial place.
And the same thing is said by Joseph.
Happy is the deathbed where God is a
reality.
And I think it's interesting, again, that of
all of the experiences of Joseph that are
singled out by the writer of the epistle
to the Hebrews in the commemoration of the
faith of the great men of the Old
Testament, it is Joseph's word at the time
of his death that is singled out as
the expression of his faith.
In the epistle of the Hebrews, instead of
choosing any of the other great acts of
faith that Joseph accomplished while he was here,
he writes, by faith, Joseph, when he was
dying, made mention of the exodus of the
sons of Israel and gave orders concerning his
bones.
That is the incident in Joseph's life that
is singled out as the signal demonstration of
his faith.
He spoke about the exodus, that is the
promises of God concerning the exodus, and he
spoke also about his own bones and demanded
of his brethren that they should bury him
back in the land of Canaan.
So faith in the promises of God is
one of the marks of a believer on
his deathbed.
And I say happy is the deathbed where
God and his promises are a reality.
Love toward the saints.
Happy is the deathbed where alienations are absent.
And in the case of Joseph and in
the case of Jacob, those family alienations are
largely gone.
And happy is the deathbed in which the
hope of reunion with ones who have gone
on before is present.
That was true of Jacob, who spoke of
lying down with his fathers or having fellowship
with his or being gathered together with his
fathers, and also of Joseph as well.
In the New Testament, it is the hope
of the coming again of the Lord Jesus,
the resurrection of the body, and the comforting
assurance that there is a reunion of those
who have believed in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Isn't it interesting too that in these last
chapters of the book of Genesis, there is
a great deal of prominence placed upon the
patriarchal sepulchres.
Jacob makes special mention of the fact that
he's to be buried in a certain place.
Joseph makes special mention of the fact that
he's to be buried in a certain place.
Special mention is made concerning Isaac's burial.
Special mention is made concerning Abraham's and Sarah's.
Evidently, they thought that burial was a rather
important thing.
And you'll notice too that there is no
cremation in the burial of these individuals.
Now, let me hasten to say that if
you have some loved ones who have been
cremated, but who nevertheless were believers, God, of
course, is able to give them a resurrection
body like unto the body of our Lord
Jesus Christ, and able to give them their
own resurrection body.
But the Bible lays a great deal of
stress upon the resurrection of the body.
In fact, the Bible lays stress upon the
fact that the resurrected body that we shall
have is a body in which there is
continuity between the present body and that body.
It's different, it's glorified, but there is continuity.
It is the same body.
Just as a seed planted in the ground
may be quite different from the plant that
grows, but is nevertheless the same essential thing.
So the body of the believer that he
shall have in his resurrection glory is a
glorified body, but it is the same body.
There is continuity.
The writers of the New Testament make that
very plain.
So burial is a rather important thing.
It's a doctrinally important thing.
And consequently, cremation is not found in Scripture
because cremation seems to suggest that that body
has no further use in the divine program
or the divine plan.
I think it's rather interesting that so much
is said about the body.
It shows that the people of the Old
Testament, even though their views of biblical doctrine
may not have been quite as plain as
enlightened believers in the present age, nevertheless they
had the essence of the faith that has
come to full bloom in the New Testament.
The opening part of Genesis chapter 50 is
a record of the burial of Jacob.
As God had promised Jacob a long time
before this, it is Joseph who closes Jacob's
eyes in death.
Joseph was 56 years of age when Jacob
died.
And we read of the embalming of Jacob
in verses 1 through 3.
The Egyptians, incidentally, wept 70 days for Jacob.
We know from literature that they wept 72
days for their own pharaohs.
And so for Jacob, the Egyptians weep only
two days less than they do for a
king.
These proud, titled magnates, members of the most
exclusive society of the day, the Egyptian society,
weep and honor, weep for and honor this
old Jewish shepherd almost as they weep for
and honor a king.
That's remarkable.
For it's almost as if God is saying
in the death of Jacob and in the
weeping for him, he is important to me.
And of course, for the Egyptians, it may
have seemed something entirely aside to them.
But nevertheless, they wept for him because of
the reputation of Joseph the prime minister and
what they had seen of Jacob in the
years that he spent among them, 17 years.
He was embalmed.
Now, that's a rather interesting thing because usually
in mummification, there were certain pagan religious rites
involved in it.
We have no indication that that was true
here.
In fact, Joseph is the one who commands
the physicians to embalm his father.
Usually the physicians did not do it, but
they did it in this case.
And it may have been because Joseph oversaw
this.
Now it might be since embalming has been
thought at times to be a means of
preserving the body so that the resurrection would
be more easily accomplished by God, since he
could more easily resurrect a body that had
been embalmed than one that had not, it
might have seemed a rather pagan kind of
ceremony.
And you'll notice that Jacob is embalmed and
then later Joseph himself is embalmed.
But after the message this morning, one of
the doctors in the congregation came to me
and said, I think I know exactly why
Jacob was embalmed and particularly why Joseph was
embalmed.
Because after all, they wanted to go back
to the land of Canaan.
And if Joseph had been buried in the
land after several hundred years, his bones could
never have been taken back into the land.
And so the embalming, the use of this
pagan procedure, the mummification served the purpose of
God in accomplishing Joseph's burial in the land.
So that later on, as they made their
way out in the Exodus, they carried that
old mummy case with Joseph's bones in it
back into the land and buried Joseph there.
So even the pagan embalming procedure is used
by the Lord God.
Well, after Jacob dies, Joseph entreats the family
of Pharaoh for the privilege to go back
to the land in order to bury his
father.
And he's given that privilege, and not only
that, but he's given a large entourage who
went with him for the interment.
It's almost a rehearsal in miniature and in
monarchy of the ultimate homecoming of the children
of Israel as they make their way out
at the Exodus into the land of promise.
We want to move on and hasten to
the reassurance of the brethren, for in this
next section, which begins with the 14th verse
and concludes with the 21st, we have one
of the great statements on divine providence.
Well, after Jacob has gone, perhaps it's understandable
that the brethren, the ones who had been
responsible for Joseph being put in the pit
and sold into slavery, might have been a
little worried about what is going to happen
to them.
Because now that Jacob is no longer there,
they thought that perhaps Joseph had been treating
them nicely for Jacob's sake.
Perhaps it was difficult, too, for them to
believe in the nobility of Joseph.
Now, let me hasten to say there is
no truly noble man.
The Bible says that all men are sinners
and all men are depraved.
The Bible says, as a matter of fact,
that all men are totally depraved.
Not that they're as bad as they can
be.
That's not the meaning of the theological doctrine
of total depravity.
What it simply means is that sin has
touched all of their faculties.
It's touched their mind, it's touched their emotions,
it's touched their wills, so that we are
men who have been totally touched by sin.
That's the meaning of total depravity.
We don't mean that a man may not
do some noble work in the eyes of
men.
But we do mean, when we say total
depravity, that men do not do their works,
their good works for the glory of God,
and they do not do their good works
out of faith in the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
So in that sense, men are totally depraved.
So men are depraved.
But there are some men who do manifest
a nobility of character, and Joseph is one
of those.
And perhaps they found it difficult to believe
in Joseph's nobility.
At any rate, they send a message to
him, and they say that Jacob had said
that certain things were to be true.
They said this, Your father charged before he
died, saying, Thus shall you say to Joseph,
Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and
their sin, for they did you wrong.
And they add, Now please forgive the transgression
of the servants of the God of your
father.
So they decided to remind Joseph of Jacob's
words.
Or, as some commentators say, since there is
no record that Jacob actually said these things,
they really lied.
They just said that Jacob said these words
in order to be protected by Joseph, or
to gain his protection.
Now, if these words were true, when we
read that Joseph wept, then, of course, he
wept over the fact that Jacob had asked
him to do this.
But if they lied, then he wept out
of pity for their mistrust of him.
But the forgiveness that he gives them is
full and complete and reminds us of the
forgiveness of his antitype, the Lord Jesus Christ.
One of the great things about the forgiveness
of the Lord Jesus Christ is that it
is permanent.
And when that forgiveness takes place, it takes
place permanently.
And we are forgiven for the penalty of
our sins forever.
When the Lord Jesus died on the cross
and bore the sins of sinners, he satisfied
the divine justice for those for whom he
died.
And consequently, heaven can bring no further charge
against those for whom our Lord died, since
he has paid the debt.
And God does not require that he pay
the debt twice.
And so those for whom he died are
safe and secure because of the atoning work
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Joseph's forgiveness is a full and complete forgiveness
of his brethren.
Now, he responds to them in words that
are very significant.
And, in fact, one of the commentators, Derek
Kipner, who has written an excellent little book
on Genesis, I've read every word in it.
Some of the words I've read a half
a dozen times in this book.
It's a little small commentary on Genesis, but
it is worth its weight in silver, not
gold, but worth its weight in silver.
But now in this particular commentary, Mr. Kipner
says that these words that Joseph responds to
the brethren with are words that contain the
pinnacle of the Old Testament and the New
Testament faith.
They are found in verses 19, 20, and
21.
And I'll just single them out and say
just a word about them.
The first thing that he says as his
brothers came and fell down before him and
said, behold, we are your servants.
He said to them in the 19th verse,
do not be afraid for am I in
God's place.
He reminds them that God is the ultimate
judge of men and that all rights or
wrongs are to be righted by him.
Vengeance is mine.
I will repay, saith the Lord.
That right of judgment rests with the Lord
God.
It does not rest with us.
And so Joseph reminds them of that.
The next thing that he says in the
20th verse is that God is the ultimate
governor of the universe.
He said, and as for you, you meant
evil against me, but God meant it for
good in order to bring about this present
result to preserve many people alive.
Now that is a classical statement, but the
classic statement on the doctrine of providence in
the book of Genesis is the one that
is found in the fifth verse of the
45th chapter.
And Joseph also speaks this one.
And it's very closely related to the words
that he uses in Genesis chapter 50.
And I'm going to remind you of it,
although it was just a few Sundays back
that we looked at it in Genesis 45
and verse five.
Now he's speaking to his brothers and here
at the time of the reconciliation with them,
we read and now do not be grieved
or angry with yourselves because you sold me
here for God sent me before you to
preserve life.
Verse seven, God sent me before you to
preserve for you a remnant in the earth
and verse eight.
Now, therefore, it was not you who sent
me here, but God, but they did send
him.
He said that, but it was not really
you.
It was God.
In other words, the person who stood behind
the brothers as they put Jacob in the
Joseph in the pit and then sold him
into the hands of the Midianites was really
the Lord God.
That's the classic statement on divine providence.
You sold me, but it was God who
sent me.
Now the Bible is full of this and
it's only to me amazing that individuals can
read the Bible so they say and not
find out what the Bible says about God
and evil.
Now, God is not the author of evil.
He is a holy being and therefore no
unholiness proceeds from him.
But once we have said that, we have
not said all that the Bible says about
God and you must deal with these passages
of scripture.
You can say all you want to God
is not the author of evil, but God
does determine that evil exists in his universe
and he determines that evil exists in his
universe in order to accomplish a greater good
than would exist if he had not determined
that evil should exist.
Now, the reason for this is very simple.
He desired to manifest his grace and he
cannot manifest his grace if there is not
sin.
And since he controls everything in his universe,
he determines that sin exists in the universe
in order that he may manifest his grace
and also in order that he may manifest
his justice.
So we may say God is not the
author of evil.
He is however the one who determines that
evil exists in the universe.
Now that is so plainly taught in scripture
that I'm only amazed when people say that
God is not the one who determines that
evil exists.
It's so many times expressed in the word
of God.
If someone says that around me, I just
have to say within my mind, either they
have not read the Bible or when they
come to something that they do not like,
they pass over it as one passes by
a cemetery.
Now in chapter 18 and verse 11, we
read Jesus, this is John chapter 18, I'm
sorry.
In John chapter 18, the Lord Jesus says,
Jesus therefore said to Peter, put the sword
into the sheath.
The cup which the father has given me,
shall I not drink it?
It was the father who gave our Lord
to his death.
Turn over to chapter 2 and verse 23
of the book of Acts.
Now in verse 22 of Acts chapter 2,
Peter is preaching and he says, men of
Israel, listen to these words.
Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you
by God with miracles and wonders and signs,
which God performed through him in your midst,
just as you yourselves know, this man delivered
up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of
God, you nailed to a cross by the
hands of godless men and put him to
death.
Godless men, wicked men, put our Lord to
death.
That is the greatest evil ever committed in
the history of the universe.
There should be no question about that, the
crucifixion of the Lord Jesus.
And yet, Peter says in verse 23, that
he was delivered up by the predetermined plan
and foreknowledge of God.
It was God who planned the death of
Jesus Christ, the most wicked act in the
history of mankind.
It is God who is responsible for the
death of Christ in the ultimate sense.
It's the cup that the Father hath given
him, shall he not bear it?
Scriptures make this so plain, I could spend
the next five or ten minutes citing texts
that bear on that point.
Let's turn over to the fourth chapter and
the 28th verse.
In the fourth chapter and the 28th verse,
I'll read verse 27 while you're turning to
it.
For truly in this city there were gathered
together against thy holy servant Jesus, whom thou
didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along
with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,
to do whatever thy hand and thy purpose
predestined to occur.
Now there is no question about the responsibility
of man.
The Bible says there were wicked men who
put our Lord to death.
They are responsible for their act.
But at the same time, God predetermined that
certain things should take place, that that wickedness
should take place.
And many other passages of Scripture speak the
same thing.
So what we have in the Bible then
is a plain statement of God's providence over
everything, even over evil.
And evil is used by him for good,
although it does not proceed from his being,
for he is a holy God.
Now then that raises the question of the
doctrine of providence.
Divine providence.
What does divine providence include?
Well it includes preservation.
That is, it includes the preservation of all
persons and of all things in God's universe.
It includes also government.
He is the one who makes or moves
all things toward the certain conclusion of his
plan.
In other words, God's attention is concentrated everywhere
in this universe.
He is not just a person who sits
at home and or in his office and
when someone comes running in and says, well
there's some trouble over there in Dallas, Texas,
he rushes out and fixes the machine at
that point.
He's not like that.
He, his attention is concentrated everywhere.
There was a preacher who was one time
preaching on the fact that God's attention was
concentrated everywhere and he referred to the text
in which the Lord Jesus said, the very
hairs on your head are all numbered.
And he said, while some of you, my
heroes, do not believe that even your heads
are all numbered, but God has numbered even
the hairs of our heads.
Everything in this universe is under his control.
He works all things according to the counsel
of his own will, the Bible says.
Now you cannot evade these words from the
Apostle Paul and the other authors of Holy
Scripture.
Divine providence includes preservation, it includes government.
His attention is concentrated everywhere.
It is a providence that has to do
with all things, all creatures, and especially with
all men.
Professor Bury, whose books on ancient history I
studied when I was in college, had given
some rather rigid interpretations of history, but later
on he wrote that he had been too
rigid in his initial scientific assumptions, and he
came to the conclusion that the shape of
Cleopatra's nose altered the course of history.
Even such little things as that alter the
course of our Western world.
Why do you know that if a virus
were to hit Washington and a half a
dozen of our leading statesmen should come down
with this virus, that might change the course
of the Western world of which we are
a part.
God controls all of his universe.
His attention is concentrated everywhere.
Two or three years ago we were sitting
in the tape room on Monday morning, and
one of the ladies told us that week
in our little prayer meeting that the termites
had been discovered in our house.
She regarded this as a form of divine
chastisement.
We all tried to persuade her that God
often sent trials to educate us and not
simply to chastise us, but she said, yes,
but termites, that must be chastisement.
Well now, I have a great deal of
respect for termites.
I don't want the little beasts anywhere near
any house that I'm living in, but still
they might come for our education.
But I know this, that God controls even
the termites.
He works all things according to the counsel
of his own will, and they may come
for education, they may come for chastisement too.
He does control things that minutely.
Now, Joseph also in the 41st verse speaks
of evil repaid with forgiveness and with affection.
And he promises his own personal aid for
the brethren, and these anticipations of the New
Testament characterize his words.
But I want to move on in the
closing few moments to the account of the
death of Joseph, for this is the climax
of Joseph's life, it's the climax of his
faith, and it's also the climax of the
book of Genesis.
54 years intervenes between verse 21 and what
follows.
We read in verse 22, now Joseph stayed
in Egypt, he and his father's household, and
Joseph lived 110 years.
There are two great blessings mentioned in Joseph's
life.
He lived 110 years of age, to be
110 years of age.
Now that's interesting too, because I think I
read in one of the commentaries that in
ancient times, in the literature of ancient times,
27 times it is stated that the ideal
age was 110 years.
So Joseph here is given the age that
was regarded as the ideally desirable lifespan in
the land of Egypt.
It was God's gesture of approval upon the
activities of Joseph.
And then, that other great blessing, he was
allowed to see his grandchildren.
Joseph said, or Joseph saw the third generation
of Ephraim's sons, also the sons of Malkiah,
the son of Manasseh, who were born on
Joseph's knees.
Did you know the Bible speaks about that
as one of the blessings that God gives
to men?
Grandchildren are the glory of the Father.
And one of the blessings of an individual
is the privilege of seeing one's grandchildren.
And I have seen my grandchildren.
And it looks like I've seen all of
my grandchildren too, so far as I can
tell.
And I am grateful to God for the
privilege of seeing my grandchildren.
And I know exactly what this means.
In the Proverbs, it is stated that that's
one of the Psalms.
It is stated that that is one of
the blessings of God.
It was one of those little blessings that
God bestowed upon Joseph.
He was able to see his grandchildren.
Now, the last words remind us of the
fact that even the best of men must
die.
It's appointed unto men once to die, and
after this, the judgment, the writer of Hebrews
says.
But in his last words, Joseph says, I'm
about to die, but God will surely take
care of you.
He will visit you.
Now, that's an assurance of his unchanging presence
and his unfailing purpose.
God will visit you.
Don't worry.
God's going to be with you.
And furthermore, He will visit you and He
will accomplish His purpose.
Notice, He says that God will visit you
and He will bring you up from the
land to the land that He promised on
oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
You know what that means, my dear Christian
friend?
That means that when God promises to do
something, He will do it.
Now, He's not an Arminian God who makes
promises conditioned upon man's faithfulness.
He doesn't do things like that.
He makes His promises, and then in wonderful
grace, He gives men faith.
He works in the hearts of His believers
and brings them to faith in His promises.
It's true, we are blessed through faith, but
His promises are unconditional promises.
We do not worship a frustrated deity.
He accomplishes His purposes.
And that's one of the reasons that Joseph
was able to keep so restful amid the
trials of life.
And it's the reason that many of you
sitting out in this audience are able to
keep restful amid the trials and troubles of
life, and we all have them.
It's because you are convinced that God, who
makes His promises, fulfills those promises.
He's no frustrated deity.
He will visit His people, and He will
do exactly what He says that He's going
to do.
And Joseph's faith was not disappointed.
Scripture goes out of its way to point
out that Moses thought about these words.
They germinated in his mind, and as the
leader of the children of Israel out of
the land of Egypt and into the land,
who went along?
Joseph's bones.
The old mummy case in which Joseph's bones
had been placed went along with the children
of Israel.
And every time they took a look at
the mummy case for the hundreds of years
between the death of Joseph and the Exodus,
it was a reminder to them of the
fact that God is going to honor His
word.
So Joseph says, carry my bones up.
These two words, I think, God will visit
you, carry my bones up, epitomize the hope
of the Old Testament and the hope of
the New.
That is, each of the Testaments ends in
hope with reference to the future.
In the Old Testament, it is the hope
of the coming of the Messiah.
In the New Testament, it is the hope
of the second coming of the Messiah.
Behold, I come quickly.
The embalming of Joseph is described in the
last verse, and we read he was placed
in a coffin in Egypt.
From Canaan down to Egypt.
From Eden, the masterpiece of God's creative hand,
to a coffin.
And of course, what intervenes between God's great
masterpiece of creation and the coffin is the
sin and consequent depravity of man in the
Garden of Eden.
So the greatest of God's servants must die,
but God and they go on.
God buries His workmen, we say, but God
carries on His work.
He raises up new workmen to accomplish His
work.
If the Lord doesn't come, God will bury
this workman, and He will raise up others
in my place and carry on His work.
One of the most remarkable things, I think,
in the Bible is the way in which
the death of believers is described.
And strikingly, it's not something that is absolutely
unique, because even the heathen recognized that there
was a remarkable likeness between sleep and death.
But you will remember that in the Bible,
there are three words that particularly describe the
death of a believer.
And one that stands out is the word
sleep.
The reason for that is simple.
When a man sleeps, he's living.
When a man sleeps, he's resting.
When a man sleeps, he expects to wake
up.
That's true of every believer in Christ who
dies.
When he sleeps, he's living.
His body is placed in the grave.
The Bible doesn't teach soul sleep, the Bible
teaches body sleep.
The body is placed in the grave, the
spirit goes to be with the Lord, so
he's alive.
Second, he's resting.
He's resting from his labors.
And third, he shall have an awakening.
That is, the body shall be raised from
the dead, shall be made like unto the
Lord Jesus Christ's own glorious body, shall rejoin
the spirit, and thus ever with the Lord,
so that there is life, there is rest,
there is resurrection.
This is why the Bible uses the term
sleep.
Believers sleep, used only of believers in the
New Testament.
They sleep in death.
Others die, but they sleep.
Now, one of the most remarkable things, it
seems to me, about the Bible is the
way in which this is stressed, that death
is something that occurs to all of us,
but in a very special way, it is
the Lord Jesus who is with us when
we die.
Now, all the books that men are writing
today about life after life are nonsense.
Not that there's not something that is good
in the book, but no one knows anything
about life after death except the man who
has come from that place and who has
told us about it, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, he's told us some interesting things, and
the Bible tells us some interesting things.
Have you ever read Psalm 23 in the
light of this?
Did you know that Psalm, which all of
us know or have heard, begins with the
third person?
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
want.
He makes me to lie down in green
pastures.
He leads me beside the quiet waters.
He restores my soul.
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.
But now notice when he begins to talk
about death, what happens?
Even though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will fear no
evil, for thou art with me.
Thou rod and thou staff, they comfort me.
So when believers come to the time when
they pass from this earthly existence into the
existence beyond this grave, beyond the grave, the
Lord Jesus, in a special way, escorts his
own into his own presence.
Remarkable thing.
Have you ever noticed too about people who
sleep?
Well, you know, if you sleep, you can
sleep through lightning, thunder, the noise of children,
the noise of the neighbors next door.
I used to live in one place where
the Cotton Belt Railroad came right down, right,
came out through North Dallas.
It was just a few hundred feet away,
and the whole house would shake every night
at about three o'clock.
First couple of nights, I heard it.
After that, I never heard it.
The train was there every night, but I
didn't hear it.
But have you ever noticed a lot of
people that sleep just that soundly if you
go over to them and say, John, they
jump right up.
That's the way our Lord speaks and speaks
in death.
The personal touch.
God's servants die, but he carries them on
into his presence.
Well, shall God's work end in one poor
mummy case?
Joseph's words of faith were contrary to natural
vision, incidentally, because there was Israel down in
the land of Egypt.
They were getting wealthy.
Who wants to go back to the land
of Canaan when you're doing so well down
in the land of Egypt?
And furthermore, it wouldn't be long before Pharaoh
would arise, and he wouldn't be very happy
about them leaving.
And so it appeared as if his words
of faith were contrary to natural vision.
But that old mummy case over there with
those moldering remains, the bones of Joseph, was
a constant encouragement to the children of Israel
who were spiritually minded of the fact that
one day God would raise up a deliverer,
and they would go back into the land.
Now, wouldn't it be nice if we had
some bones?
Wouldn't it be nice if we just had
the bones of the Lord Jesus, like Mohammed's
bones in Madonna?
That seems to give the Muslim quite a
bit of encouragement.
They go to Madonna, and there they worship
the bones of Mohammed.
That would remind us that the Lord Jesus
Christ did live sometime.
No, the Bible doesn't give us any bones.
The thing that encourages the believer is the
empty tomb.
That's the thing that encourages us.
The assurance that our Lord Jesus Christ has
come forth from the grave and now lives
at the right hand of God the Father,
ever living to make intercession for the saints
and able to save to the uttermost those
that come unto God by him.
We have a living Savior, and we have
the assurance of a Savior who comes to
us in all of the experiences of life
and cares for us.
Oh, what a great thing it is to
be a Christian.
What a great thing it is to be
a Christian when death comes.
And what a great thing it is to
be a Christian and at the death of
a loved one know that that loved one
is a Christian and that there is reunion
with the Lord and with them.
If you're here this morning and you're not
a believer, oh, what you're missing.
We invite you to come to the Lord
Jesus Christ who has offered the once and
for all sacrifice for sinners.
It's available and that blood will cover all
of your sin.
Come to him.
Put your faith and trust in the Lord
Jesus.
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou
shalt be saved.
May God the Holy Spirit convince you of
your sin and depravity and come to him
and receive forgiveness of sins freely, not by
joining the church, not by doing good works,
not by praying through, not by being baptized,
not by sitting at the Lord's table, not
by culture, not by education, through faith.
Come and receive as a free gift the
Lord Jesus.
May God in his wonderful grace urge you
to come.
Shall we stand for the benediction?
How wonderful, Lord, it is to be a
Christian and to have the hope that is
signalized by the empty tomb, a living Savior.
We thank thee that we don't have any
mummy case filled with bones.
We thank thee for the living Savior who
ever lives to make intercession for us.
And we pray, O God, that if there
are some in this auditorium, we sense that
there are, who have not yet believed in
the Lord Jesus Christ, that they may come.
May in their own inmost being there be
the confession of their sin to thee and
the reception as a free gift of eternal
life.
At this very moment, Lord, move them to
confess their sin to thee and deep down
within to say, I thank thee, Lord, for
the gift of everlasting life through the blood
that was shed.
I receive it as a free gift.
May grace, mercy, and peace go with us
for Jesus' sake.
Amen.