We're going to read three portions from Holy
Scripture today.
The first you will find in Genesis chapter
37.
We're reading that first four verses here.
And then we are going to turn over
to Luke's Gospel chapter 15.
And in Luke's Gospel chapter 15, we're going
to read from the verse 11 to the
verse 22.
First of all, the 37th chapter of Genesis,
and the verses 1 to 4.
Let's read it together, taking your time from
me please.
And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his
father was a stranger, in the land of
Canaan.
These are the generations of Jacob.
Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the
flock with his brethren.
And the lad was with the sons of
Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his
father's wives.
And Joseph brought unto his father their evil
report.
Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his
children, because he was the son of his
old age.
And he made him a coat of many
colors.
And when his brethren saw that their father
loved him more than all his brethren, they
hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto
him.
Then turning over to the New Testament, to
the 15th chapter of the Gospel of Luke,
and we're reading from verse 11.
And he said, that is our Lord Jesus,
a certain man had two sons.
And the younger of them said to his
father, Father, give me the portion of goods
that follow to me.
And he divided unto them his living.
And not many days after, the younger son
gathered all together, and took his journey into
a far country, and there wasted his substance
with riotous living.
And when he had spent all that there
arose a mighty famine, and he began to
be in want.
And he went and joined himself to a
citizen of that country, and he sent him
in to his feeders to feed swine.
And he would feed and fill his belly
with the husks that the swine did eat.
And no man gave unto him.
And when he came to himself, he said,
Are many hired servants of my father's?
Have bread enough unto spare, and I perish
with hunger.
I will arise and go to my father,
and will say unto him, Father, I have
sinned against heaven and before thee, and am
no more worthy to be called thy son.
Make me as one of thy hired servants.
And he arose and came to his father.
But when he was yet a greatly off,
his father saw him, and had compassion and
wrath, and fell on his neck and kissed
him.
And the son said unto him, Father, I
have sinned against heaven and in thy sight,
and am no more worthy to be called
thy son.
But the father said to his servant, Bring
forth a bathrobe, and put it on him,
and put a ring on his hand, and
shoes on his feet.
Ending our reading at verse twenty-two.
And God will stamp these readings to our
heart by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Let's turn in our Bibles together to these
two portions of the Word of God.
First of all, in Genesis chapter thirty-seven,
verses one to five, or one to four
rather, we have the indication of a father
whose first gift is noted to his son.
The gift of the coat of many colors
or many pieces, as you will see in
the margin of your authorized version.
And then we have, in the second portion
of Luke's gospel, chapter fifteen, we have the
father who said to his servant, Bring the
bathrobe, put a ring on his hand, and
then the last gift was shoes on his
feet.
When you go home many a time, especially
from a wedding, the question is asked, How
were people dressed?
Because dress is a characteristic that marks the
person.
Dress indicates who we are.
Dress distinguishes the person.
One of the most interesting and instructive and
intriguing sons in the whole Bible, apart from
the blessed Son of God himself, is Joseph,
the firstborn son of Jacob, and his beautiful
and dearly beloved wife, Rachel.
Joseph means fruitful.
How fruitful he became.
By his act he saved his whole family,
his father, his father's wives, and all his
father's offspring.
He saved them from famine and from death.
His evil brothers meant it for evil, but
as Joseph said, God meant it for good,
to save much people alive.
If you study the life of Joseph, you'll
find it is a series of the act
of changing his clothes.
Many, many times the clothes of Joseph were
changed.
There's no doubt when he was born, his
beautiful mother, Rachel, dressed him as became the
firstborn son of Jacob, the last of the
great patriarchs.
There are three great patriarchs in the Bible,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Abraham is the patriarch of salvation, and that
is underlined in his great experience of faith
that justifies.
He learned the truth, that just shall live
by faith.
Then the second patriarch was the patriarch Isaac.
He was the patriarch of sacrifice.
He was willing to obey his father, and
he was willing to be put on the
altar.
For he cooperated with his father, who laid
him on the altar.
The third patriarch was Jacob.
He was the patriarch of supplication.
He wrestled with God.
The day that he entered the prayer meeting
to wrestle with God, he was a supplanter,
a twister.
But God took the twist out of him,
and when he limped away from the wrestling
arena, he was a prince he had revealed.
Now it was Jacob that made a coat
of many colors or pieces.
He gave it to Joseph because Joseph was
going to be his heir.
Joseph was a firstborn son, not of Jacob's
first wife.
And of course, the firstborn son of Jacob
was Reuben.
But Reuben failed, failed miserably, failed disastrously.
So he forfeited the heirdom, and so it
passed to Joseph.
By no doubt, the clothes that Rachel made
for him were nice clothes.
But when he came to the age of
seventeen, he got a special dress.
He was given a coat that was made
by the father's hand.
No doubt his mother made his other clothes,
but Jacob himself made this special coat for
his heir.
He didn't wear it too long.
His evil brethren tore it from him.
And he became a slave and was sold
as a slave when this coat was removed
from him.
He went down into Egypt.
He was sold and was put in the
garment of a servant.
And one day, that evil woman, the wife
of Potiphar, she laid hands upon him and
attempted to seduce him.
And he left his garment in her hand
and hastened away from her temptation.
As a result, he was put into prison
clothes.
And for many, many years, from seventeen to
thirty, he was imprisoned, wearing prison.
Pharaoh had a dream.
He wanted to know the interpretation of the
dream, and no man could tell him.
And then the butler, who had been incarcerated
in the same prison as Joseph, was reminded
that Joseph was a man who interpreted his
dream for him.
And so the butler told the king, and
the king sent for Joseph.
And we read that Joseph shaved himself and
changed his ribbon.
He put on the ribbon of a subject
of the king.
But after he had interpreted the king's dream,
the king dressed him with the garments of
the ruler of Egypt.
And you can read about those special garments
that he got when he was exalted to
be the ruler of Egypt.
And then later on, he had another change
of garment.
He was clothed in the garment of the
bridegroom and was given a bride.
Every look at Joseph, in the rapid changing
of his garments, reflects the Lord Jesus Christ
and his life of humiliation.
And you can work that out for yourself.
What did Christ's mother do?
She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid
him in a manger.
What did his heavenly father do?
The heavenly father attired him in the coat
of our humanity.
We read, a body hast thou, the father
prepared a body for his son.
That was the coat of many pieces which
the Savior was going to wear, not only
in time, but for all eternity.
I'll come back to that, for that is
the substance of the first part of this
sermon.
But Christ also wore the garment of the
slave and servant.
Joseph's brothers ate it by Judah got twenty
pieces of silver for him.
Judah's got thirty pieces of silver for Christ.
Judah and Judas.
And Judah in the Hebrew is Judas in
the Greek.
Mark the semblance of the name.
The garment of the servant was also worn
by Christ.
He said, I am among you as one
of that servant.
And in the upper room where no one
would wash the disciples' feet, the Lord Jesus
laid aside his garment.
And he put a towel around himself.
And he knelt down before all the disciples,
even Judas.
But he had to say, of course, I
have washed your feet, but not all of
you are clean.
Because Judas could not be cleansed by water.
And could not be cleansed by anything.
Jesus Christ wrapped up those garments.
They were all found wrapped up and were
never to be used again.
For Christ who lives never dies again.
And does not need to die again.
He says, I am he that liveth and
was dead.
And behold, I am alive forevermore.
And I have the keys.
And when he rose from the dead, like
Joseph, he put on the garments of the
King of kings and Lord of lords.
And now he has put on the bridegroom's
garment.
And he is waiting.
He is waiting for the great marriage.
When his whole church shall be married to
the bride.
When his whole church, the bride, shall be
married to the Savior.
O Christ, he is the fountain.
The deep sweet well of love.
Streams on earth I've tasted.
More deep I'll drink above.
There to an ocean fullness, his mercy doth
expand.
And glory deathless.
Now there's a very sharp contrast between the
first gift of the father, Jacob's coat of
many colors.
And the last gift of another father, the
prodigal's father, a pair of shoes.
There is a consideration of comparison and a
consideration of contrast.
And you would do well to spend some
time thinking of the comparison and the contrast.
Joseph's coat was of the planned thought of
the father's love.
His father, under the constraint of God, designed
the coat.
It was diverse, but one perfect whole.
It had many pieces in its making.
And there were also many colors of material.
The coat which Jacob made was mysterious.
Only his father and himself really knew what
it was like.
Only the father, only the son, and only
the Holy Ghost knew exactly what the human
body of Christ was.
A body has now prepared us.
That body was different from every other human
body.
The blood of that body was different from
any other human.
The making of that body was different from
the making of any other human body.
You know what the Lord Jesus said?
He said, he that has seen me has
seen the fire.
Did you ever think of the significance of
those words?
That in human flesh, God was a body
has now prepared.
Oh, that we might behold the Son of
the Father, the only begotten, full of grace
and truth.
Oh, to see the body prepared for Christ
that was wrought mysteriously and miraculously in the
virgin's womb.
Oh, to gaze upon the Father's created flesh
for that body.
Oh, like John the Apostle, to handle it
and see that it is real flesh and
blood.
To put our finger into the print of
the nails and thrust our hand into the
side and be not faithless but believing.
But what of the shoes which enabled the
prodigal to dance in the Father's home?
I hope you understand that and read it
all.
Those shoes were the shoes that he danced
with when the music broke out and the
dancing took place.
You see, he had travelled home and he
had nothing.
He walked on bare feet as a vagabond.
But now, the sackcloth and ashes were still
on his soul, but he had the shoes.
And when he looked down, every time he
looked down and saw those shoes, joy filled
his heart.
The shoes had a special place and a
special message for this returned prodigal.
These shoes given to him by his father
brought home to him as nothing else, the
joy of his acceptance.
The shoes made him jump for joy.
It was an end of a very long
and very hard road.
But now, he had the shoes of comfort
and of temptation.
Mercy always embraces the sinner who comes to
God for mercy.
Mercy endures forever.
The body of flesh and blood which the
Father created for us is one of the
most wonderful things which God the Father ever
set His loving and omnipotent hand to perform.
We are not told how many pieces or
how many colours were in that coat that
he made.
That was the secret of the Holy Trinity
of God.
Joseph's coat was mentioned by the name of
its maker.
It was Jacob who made this coat.
Only the Father and His Son knew the
number of the pieces.
You say, but I could look at Joseph's
coat and I could see.
No, you could not.
You could only see the outside of the
coat.
You never saw the lining of Joseph's coat.
Nobody saw that but Joseph himself.
What touched his heart was the inside of
that coat.
And I'm glad something has touched my heart.
It's the inside of the humanity of the
Son of God who gave His life, a
ransom for my soul.
That's a secret between the soul that's saved
and the God who has saved them.
No one can impart to you the assurance
of salvation.
After I was converted, I had no assurance
that I was saved.
I talked to the greatest preachers in the
world and they were no good to me.
And they talked this way and that way
and the other way.
And then one day I was returning from
school with a broken heart and anxiety of
soul.
And God spoke to me and said, will
you not believe me?
Don't go around believing preachers.
Come to me.
I could take you to the very place
on the street and the very stone on
the street in Ballymena where I stood.
And suddenly and gloriously and everlastingly I got
the assurance of my heart.
Oh, He touched me and oh, my heart
is filled with joy.
Yes, I can dance with joy.
I've got the shoes and you need to
know from God that you're a born again
person.
It's the inner lining that covers the heart.
The only one who handled Joseph's coat were
those murderous brothers who stripped it from off
his body.
The only time Christ's body was handled by
those wicked men who stripped him and hung
him up stark naked on the cross.
But what a wonderful coat was that of.
The father had seen it on his son
as he left that day to do his
father's bidding.
But the next time the father saw it,
it was stained.
For those men killed a kid and they
put the blood on the coat.
I am glad that the father has seen
the body of Christ stained with the Lamb's
blood.
For that's our only hope for heaven for
all eternity.
Stained with the Lamb's blood.
The coat of Joseph stained with the Lamb's
blood was used by those evil men to
spread a great big lie that Joseph was
killed by an evil beast.
The body of Christ was claimed to have
been stolen by His disciples.
This was a big lie to try and
prove that Christ did not rise from the
dead.
But Christ is alive forevermore and has the
keys of hell.
And I am sure that poor stricken Jacob
often looked at that coat and groaned and
cried over what he thought.
But you know I was reading and studying
this message and I discovered that Christ's coat
appeared again.
I saw heaven opened and behold a white
horse and he that sat upon him was
called faithful and true.
And in righteousness he doth judge and make
war.
His eyes were as a flame of fire
and on his head were many crowns.
And he had a name written that no
man knew but he himself.
And he was clothed, clothed with a virtue,
with a vesture dipped in blood.
And his name is called the Word.
And he had on that vesture and on
his thigh a name written King of Kings.
Please remember that only godly hands ever touched
the body of my Lord.
It was Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus with
that special burial.
But let me take a quick look in
closing at another father's last gift to his
returned son.
It was the best robe for his person.
It was the best ring for his finger.
He had been barefooted but now he had
been promoted.
He was given the shoes.
His feet had been unprotected but now they
were protected.
He had safe feet.
His position had been challenged but now he
was not unheartened.
And God says, this
man had peace in his heart.
But that promotion, that protection, that position, that
peace led to progression.
This man walked the way back.
He walked the way in.
He walked the way up.
He walked the way through.
And he walked the way to the end.
Which included the music.
He could not have done it without God.
God's gifts are perfect.
He provides for every need of the son
that comes home.
May God bless his word to our heart.
Heavenly Father, we thank thee for the sweetness
of thy word.
Write it on our hearts.
And oh God, may everyone here have the
experience of seeing that vesture dipped in blood.
Hear this, our prayer, for Christ's sake.
Amen and Amen.