We read in
our last study of how Joseph's brothers had
come to Egypt to buy grain from him
and how Simeon had been held back as
a surety or a guarantee to ensure that
they would go and bring Benjamin back, and
Joseph wanted to see, and they did not
know it was Joseph.
Chapter 43, verse 1, the famine was severe
in the land, and though Jacob did not
want to send his son, because he didn't
want to send Benjamin, when they had finished
eating the grain which they brought from Egypt,
their father said to them, go back, buy
us a little food.
We were considering how this famine that was
there in that part of the world is
a picture of the famine that the Word
of God says in Amos chapter 8, verse
11 and 12, will be there all over
the world in the last days, a famine
for the prophetic words of the Lord.
And when there is such a famine, those
who have not been careful in the years
of abundance have to go at that time
of need to those who have been faithful
in the years of abundance in order to
get the prophetic word of the Lord.
The challenge that comes to us is to
be faithful in the times of abundance.
It is easy to be faithful in the
time of adversity and poverty and struggle, but
it is if we can be faithful in
the times of abundance and ease and comfort,
which is much, much more difficult.
The children of Israel never worshipped idols, as
far as we know, in the wilderness, because
there were all types of dangers in the
wilderness.
But soon after they got into Canaan, where
everything was prosperous and in abundance, they went
to the worship of idols.
We must remember, brothers and sisters, that we
are in greater danger in times of abundance
than in times of difficulty and trial.
And so, if Joseph was faithful in the
times of abundance to store up for the
time of famine, and therefore those who were
not faithful in that time of abundance have
finally to come to him to get, and
of course he is glad to give.
However, Judah told his father that we cannot
go back unless we take Benjamin with us,
and explains the whole history there, how it
was not that they volunteered that information, but
that the man there, they didn't know it
was Joseph, the ruler in Egypt, had extracted
this information from them.
So finally, their father Israel says to them
in verse 11, If it must be so,
then do this.
Take some of the best products of the
land in your bag, and carry down to
the man as a present a little balm
and a little honey, aromatic gum and myrrh,
pistachio nuts and almonds, and take double the
money in your hand, and take back in
your hand the money that was returned in
the mouth of your sacks.
Perhaps it was a mistake.
There are two things I want you to
notice here.
One is Jacob's honesty, that that which was
put into your bag, make sure that you
return it.
It's a good example for fathers to teach
their children honesty in matters of money and
not having in their possession anything that belongs
to another when they come back from school
with somebody else's pencil or rubber, to teach
them to give it back.
It's a small thing, but it's in these
small things that we are to teach our
children absolute honesty.
We must never have a single pie with
us that does not lawfully, righteously belong to
us.
If somebody has by mistake given us something
which is in our favor, he may not
have known about it, we have to give
it back.
That is righteousness.
And we have to be very strict on
that, because we're living in days when people
who call themselves believers are not strict in
these matters, and that's why God is not
able to commit to them spiritual riches.
Very, very important.
And the second thing, a little phrase here
which I would suggest that each of us
keep in our minds.
You see, Jacob and his sons felt that
this man, this ruler in Egypt was offended
with them for some reason.
And when someone is offended with you, what
should be your attitude?
Jacob, if you have to go out of
necessity to such a person, Jacob says in
the last part of verse eleven, take a
little honey with you, carry a little honey
with you.
I thought of that little phrase.
It's really good if all of our lives
we can carry a little honey with us.
There's so many bitter things that we carry
around in our hearts and in our mouths.
It's good to always carry a little honey
when we go to meet with people.
Then Jacob says, take your brother and return
to the man, and may God Almighty grant
you compassion in the sight of the man.
Jacob believed that God was sovereign and powerful
to give them favor in the eyes of
such a senior official.
And that's another aspect of God's sovereignty that
we need to have faith in these days,
that God Almighty, he uses that title of
Almighty God, which means the one who is
totally sovereign, has power over people to give
us favor in their eyes.
Have you noticed this phrase that comes in
the Bible now and then?
God granted him favor in the eyes of
that king or in the eyes of that
official.
These things are written for our instruction, that
if we trust in God, he can give
us favor in the eyes of those with
whom we have to deal.
And so they come to Egypt and Joseph
arranges for a meal for them, verse 16,
and he sees Benjamin and the others.
And they thought they were afraid, and the
men were afraid, verse 18, because they were
brought to Joseph's house.
And they came to Joseph's steward and explained
to them that this money was in their
bag, and they had brought it back.
And Joseph's steward says, Don't be afraid, verse
23, I have your money.
And he brought Simeon out to them.
And then when Joseph came home, verse 26,
they brought into the house the present which
is in their hand and bowed to the
ground.
And he asked them about their father.
He said, Your servant, your father is well.
And he lifted his eyes, and he saw
his brother Benjamin, verse 29.
He said, Is this your youngest brother?
May God be gracious to you, my son.
And Joseph hurried out, for he was deeply
stirred over his brother.
And he sought a place to weep, and
he entered his chamber and wept there.
That's something we see about Joseph.
We've seen Joseph is the type of man
whom God uses in a time of famine.
We saw that in Psalm 105, God sent
a man.
Always, God's answer to any problem is a
man or a woman.
And when God sends a man or God
sends a woman to a particular, to fulfill
a particular purpose, it's really tremendous.
And the type of man whom God sends
is what we can study in the life
of Joseph.
And we see from this verse that he
was a very tender-hearted man.
He was the type of person who would
weep, not publicly.
There are many preachers who can weep in
public.
I'm not talking about that.
As far as we know, Jesus never wept
when he preached.
Never.
Not even once.
But we know that he wept in private.
And Joseph wept in private.
We can say the man whom God sends
is a man who knows how to weep,
not in public, for there can be honor
if we weep in public, but in private.
He went to another place and hid himself
and he wept.
He was tender-hearted towards people who had
been so evil to him, who had been
so evil and had tried to get rid
of him, just stopped short of killing him.
But his attitude to them was so different.
He was tender-hearted.
That is the type of person whom God
sends.
And that's a quality that does not dwell
in our flesh.
We're not like that naturally.
But the grace of God can make us
like that, tender-hearted towards people who've done
wholly evil to us, to be good and
tender-hearted.
It's not just being good on the outside,
but being tender-hearted.
Of course, it's good, it's easy in a
sense, if we have understood the truth, to
be good externally, but to be tender-hearted
in secret, in our attitude towards people who
have harmed us, that is quite another thing
altogether.
Then he washed his face and came out,
and he controlled himself and went to serve
the meal.
So they served him by himself.
And they were all seated, verse 33, the
firstborn according to his birthright and the youngest
according to his youth.
The men were amazed how this man knew
their ages to put them according to their
seniority.
And he took portions to them from his
own table, but Benjamin's portion was five times
as much as any of theirs.
So they feasted and drank freely with him.
And I just want to mention in passing
that Benjamin, as Joseph, is a picture here
of Christ.
Benjamin is a picture of the Church, of
those who come in last, who are given
the greatest reward, the greatest allowance.
And then we come to chapter 44.
And most of this is just history.
We can go through it quickly.
He told his house steward to fill the
men's sacks with food as much as they
can carry.
Put each man's money again in the mouth
of his sack, he said, and put my
cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of
the sack of the youngest, and his money
for the grain.
And he did as Joseph told him.
And as soon as they had just gone
out of the city, Joseph said to his
house steward, verse 4, follow after them.
And when you overtake them, say, Why have
you repaid evil for good?
And why have you stolen?
And they overtook them.
And they said, No, we have not stolen
any such thing.
And if anyone has stolen it, let him
be, we will be your Lord's slaves, verse
9.
And so they opened their sack, and they
began to search, and the cup was found,
verse 12, and Benjamin sank.
Of course, they didn't know how it came
there.
They tore their clothes and returned to the
city.
And you see here Judah's attitude.
And Judah came there, verse 14, and fell
to the ground.
What is this deed that you have done?
And notice, of course, Judah could have said,
But we never stole that.
We don't know how it came into our
bag.
But he doesn't say anything like that.
He says, How can we justify ourselves?
Verse 16.
God has found out the iniquity of our
servants.
Both we and the one in whose possession
the cup has been found, we are your
slaves from now on.
But Joseph said, No.
And here we can say that Joseph was
testing those ten brothers again.
He said, Far be it from me to
do this.
I don't want all of you to be
slaves.
But the one in whose possession the cup
has been found, that was Benjamin.
He shall be my slave.
The rest of you go up in peace
to my father.
Now these were the ten brothers who once
upon a time were glad to get rid
of Joseph and just seek their own.
And now Joseph was testing them to see.
When another younger brother, Benjamin, is in a
difficult situation now, let me see what your
attitude will be towards him.
Will it be the same attitude that you
had towards me nearly twenty years ago?
Or have you folks changed a bit?
You see, if he had seen that, Oh
well, that's all right, if they say that's
all right, let Benjamin be put in jail
here, we'll go back home, then he would
have seen that their attitude hasn't changed one
bit.
But we can see their attitude had changed.
Because Judah approached him.
And Judah was the one, if you remember,
in chapter thirty-seven, who said, Let's sell
this Joseph to the Ishmaelites, in thirty-seven
verse twenty-six and twenty-seven.
That was Judah, who said, Let's sell him
off to the Ishmaelites, get rid of him.
Now the same Judah, after more than twenty
years, he says, Please, don't be angry with
me, you're equal to Pharaoh, let me say
a few words to you.
We have an old father, verse twenty, and
a little child of his old age.
Of course, Benjamin was not a child.
Joseph must have been around thirty-nine by
now, and Benjamin perhaps thirty-five or so.
We read in another chapter that he already,
he was married and he had ten children,
Benjamin.
Well, he was the youngest, and in that
sense, the father's little child.
And yes, his father loves him.
And when we said that we cannot go
without him, our father was very disturbed, he
said.
And finally he agreed.
And if we go back now without him,
our father, verse twenty-nine, will come with
grey hair, will come down to shill and
sorrow.
And so he says, verse thirty-three, Therefore,
please, let me, that is your servant, remain
instead of the lad.
You see the difference now?
The same Judah who, twenty-two years ago,
was glad to get rid of Joseph, sell
him off to the Ishmaelites, now he is
so changed.
He says, Let me stay, and let Benjamin
go.
For how shall I go up to my
father if the lad is not with me,
lest I see the evil that would overtake
my father?
He never thought like that twenty-two years
earlier, how he could go back to his
father and tell him a lie, that Joseph
had been slain by wild beasts, but he
has changed.
And that's a good thing, if God has
been able to do a work so that
hard-hearted people have changed and become soft.
And then it was obvious to Joseph that
these brothers have really changed.
They are not the same old people who
will get rid of their younger brother and
seek their own.
They are now so concerned about their younger
brother that the same Judah is willing to
go into jail in order to let the
younger brother go.
Then Joseph could not control himself.
Have everyone go out from me, he says.
And there was no man with him when
Joseph made himself known to his brothers.
This is a very beautiful picture of Christ
making himself known to the Jews when he
comes again in glory.
The whole history of Joseph, as we saw,
is a picture of Christ who came to
his own, he came to the field to
look for his brothers.
We read in Genesis 37 that Jesus came
to the Jews, he came to his own,
but his own did not receive him.
They sold him for thirty pieces of silver,
just like they sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites.
But God raised up Joseph to a high
position, and God has raised up Christ.
But Joseph's brothers did not recognize him, and
the Jews don't recognize Christ as their Messiah
yet.
But a day will come when he will
return in glory, and it says in Zechariah
chapter 12, verse 10, that they shall look
on me whom they have pierced, and then
they will weep.
And so this phrase that Joseph made himself
known is a picture of that day when
Jesus will make himself known to the God
-fearing among the Jews, that they will see
that the one whom they rejected and sold
was really the Messiah.
And he wept so loudly, the Egyptians heard
it.
Then Joseph said to his brothers, I am
Joseph, is my father still alive?
But his brothers could not answer him, for
they were dismayed at his presence.
And then Joseph said to his brothers, please
come closer to me.
He said, I am your brother Joseph.
And then he uses a phrase three times,
which is the phrase we read in Psalm
105.
He says, don't be grieved or angry with
yourself, because you sold me here.
God sent me.
That's the phrase.
It's amazing when you think that long before
Romans 8.28 was written, without any Bible
in his hand, without attending any meetings.
As far as we know, for 20 years
he'd been in Egypt by now.
He had no contact with God-fearing people.
20 years, he was 17 when he was
sold.
He's 39 now, more than 20 years.
And he's kept himself pure, without fellowship, without
exhortation, without a Bible.
He's lived in the fear of God.
Tremendous example for young people who may be
living alone in a place where there's no
one to encourage them, and no one to
see them if they sin.
He kept himself pure.
He so cleansed himself of any bitterness or
an unforgiving spirit, that when he sees his
brothers, he says, don't feel sorry for what
you did.
You may have had wrong intentions, but God
sent me.
It wasn't you who sold me to the
Ishmaelites.
It was God.
Just like Jesus said to his disciples when
they tried to defend him with a sword,
and the soldiers came to capture Jesus and
get them.
He says, the cup which my father has
given me, not Judas Iscariot, the cup which
my father has given me, shall I not
drink it?
It's amazing that Joseph, living way back there
at the beginning, had that light and understanding.
It just teaches us one thing, brothers and
sisters, that it's possible to have a knowledge
of God, even without contact with other God
-fearing people, if we are wholehearted and God
-fearing ourselves, to know these truths.
It's possible to know them.
And Joseph's life is an example of that,
that God can sovereignly make the evil that
other people do to work for our good.
God sent me, he says, again in verse
7, God sent me.
Again in verse 8, it was not you
who sent me here, but God.
Very clearly, it was not you.
You may have sold me to Ismailites.
You thought you were sending me here.
God sent me.
What conviction!
And that is why it was easy for
him to forgive.
Why is it so difficult for us to
forgive someone who has harmed us?
Because we don't see God in that situation.
Our eyes are focused on that person, and
the devil magnifies that person's image before our
eyes, who has done us harm.
And there we can be put to shame
by Joseph.
To be able to say, it was not
he who did that.
It was God who allowed that.
Not he.
So that my...
I don't allow the devil to show that
person through a magnifying glass to me.
Not he.
God.
Think how David could say, when Shimei cursed
him, when Absalom had usurped the throne and
thrown David out, and Shimei cursed him, saying,
now God is judging you for your taking
the kingdom from Saul.
And somebody, one of David's party, like Peter,
said, let me go and chop off that
fellow's head.
If God has permitted him to curse me,
why should I object?
Do we have the faith that Joseph and
David had?
If God has permitted that man to speak
to me like this, why should I fight
with God?
If God has permitted that person to treat
me like this, why should I fight with
God?
It is not that person.
It's God.
If only we can say what Joseph said
here, it was not you.
It was God who sent me.
It's amazing how we can know so much
of scripture, and hear about these things again
and again and again in the church, and
yet not come to the faith that Joseph
had, which teaches us, it is not a
matter of intellectual understanding.
It's a question of fearing God in our
heart.
If we fear God in our heart, we
will know the truth.
If we don't fear God in our heart,
even if we hear it again and again
and again in the meeting, it will not
make an impression on our life.
Joseph feared God.
He kept himself pure when he was tempted,
in the time of temptation.
That's why he got a revelation from God,
that God allowed these things.
And so he could say to them, don't
be angry.
God sent me.
God sent me to preserve a remnant in
the earth with a purpose, to keep you
alive.
It was not you who sent me.
Verse 8, He has made me a father
to Pharaoh.
Amazing, that God took that young man, made
me a father to Pharaoh, means like a
father gives advice to his son as to
how to conduct himself, Joseph became the one
who was advising Pharaoh as to how to
solve the problems of Egypt.
It's amazing what God can do through one
man, if He can find one man who
is faithful.
I want to emphasize what we considered in
our last study, while the world looks for
numbers, a lot of Christians think that by
numbers we can impress people.
People ask, how many people in your church?
One hundred.
Oh, that's a good number.
That is all carnal.
Think if you had to say, there are
only two people in our church.
If they are wholehearted like Joseph, that's better
than a hundred people who are not wholehearted
like Joseph.
We have to train our mind away from
thinking like in worldly terms, that numbers makes
an impression before God.
If we are impressed because the chairs are
full, we don't know God yet.
We certainly don't know God yet.
Man looks on the output appearance, God needed
only one man in Egypt, in the world's
most powerful country in those days, Egypt.
He needed only one man.
He didn't need a hundred.
One man.
It's always been like that with God.
But that man has to be faithful.
One faithful man can accomplish a tremendous amount
for God.
And I really long with all my heart
that particularly you younger brothers and sisters will
be gripped by this truth.
With many who are older, many have missed
the bus.
They have taken it easy in their younger
days.
But with many of you who are younger,
just make sure you don't miss the bus.
Make sure that you're going to be faithful
in your youth, so that you can be
that one person who can influence multitudes for
God, particularly in the days of famine that
are going to increase as we approach the
end.
So he says, hurry up and go to
my father and say to him, thus says
your son Joseph, God has made me Lord
of all Egypt.
Notice there again the emphasis, his humility.
He doesn't say that Pharaoh found me to
be a very smart, clever person.
No, not a word about how he interprets
Pharaoh's dream and giving a testimony.
I'll tell you now how I came to
this position and glorifying himself.
None of all that.
His humility.
He says, God made me, gave me this
position.
God sent me here.
God gave me this position and this position
has been given to me to serve others.
Not for me to sit on a great
throne and enjoy myself, but to serve others,
to preserve a remnant in the earth.
Verse seven.
Think of that phrase, God has sent me
to preserve a remnant in the earth.
That's our calling.
God has sent us to preserve a remnant
for him in the days of famine.
A remnant who here, not just dry expositions
of scripture, but the prophetic words of the
Lord.
God has sent me.
God has given me this position.
And so it has come down.
And do not delay.
And you will live in the land of
Goshen, verse 10.
You shall be near me, you and your
children.
There I will also provide for you.
There are still five years of famine to
come, lest you and your household and all
that you have been impoverished.
Your eyes see and the eyes of my
brother see.
It's my mouth which is speaking to you.
Verse 13.
Now you must tell my father of all
my splendor.
And bring my father down here.
There again, when we look at Joseph as
a picture of Christ, we see something very
beautiful of the spirit of Christ there.
That what Joseph was enjoying, he did not
want to enjoy alone.
He wanted his brothers to share that.
There was no selfishness there.
There was no saying, oh, well, God's given
me this position.
I've been faithful, therefore God's given me this,
and I can enjoy myself.
Well, those fellows were unfaithful.
Just do better.
No.
He did not want to enjoy something which
he could not share with his brothers.
Think of that phrase.
He did not want to enjoy something which
he could not share with his brothers.
That is the spirit of Christ.
He did not want to enjoy something in
heaven which he didn't want to share with
us.
He wanted to share it with us.
In fact, he wanted to share it so
much with us that he came down and
died for us, that we might share what
he has in heaven.
That, my brothers, is the spirit of Christ.
It's the exact opposite of the spirit of
Adam, which is, if I got something, that's
for me.
That's for me and my family to enjoy.
Forget about the others.
And that's not the spirit of Christ.
Joseph did not want to have something which
he couldn't share with his brothers.
And the more we partake of the spirit
of Christ that we cannot share with others
who are the brothers of Jesus Christ.
This is the divine nature, the exact opposite
of selfishness.
All that he had, he wanted us to
have.
That's the spirit of Christ.
And there we can see what a lot
of selfishness dwells in our flesh.
Tremendous amount of selfishness.
And we see here further, when he fell
on his brother Benjamin's neck, verse 14, and
wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck, and
he kissed all his brothers and wept on
them, and afterward his brothers talked with him.
When the news was heard in Pharaoh's house
that Joseph's brothers had come and pleased Pharaoh
and his servants, then Pharaoh said to Joseph,
say to your brothers, do this, load your
beasts and go to the land of Canaan,
and take your father and your households and
come to me, and I'll give you the
best of the land of Egypt, and you
shall eat the fat of the land.
You see, because this one man's faithfulness, all
his family was blessed.
And that's another spiritual principle, that when God
finds one man in a family faithful to
him, that man, God's intention is that through
that man, he blesses that whole family.
And that should be a challenge to us,
that by our faithfulness, even if our families
initially misunderstand us and despise us, it doesn't
matter.
One day, God will bless our families because
of our faithfulness, if we are really faithful.
That's something to think about.
And verse 20, he says, don't concern yourself
with goods, for the best of all the
land of Egypt is yours.
Think of that attitude.
Joseph wanted to give the best to those
who had given the worst to him twenty
years earlier.
That is true spirituality, to want to give
the best to those who, when they had
power over us, gave us the worst.
What a spirit.
Not just to forgive them.
This is way beyond forgiveness.
This is a longing to do the very
best for those who have done the very
worst they could towards us.
Verse 30, 21, Then the sons of Israel
did so, and Joseph gave them wagons, according
to the command of Pharaoh, and gave them
changes of garments.
And to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces,
verse 22, three hundred pieces of silver and
five changes of garments.
And he sent ten donkeys loaded with the
best things of Egypt to his father, grain
and bread and sustenance.
And then he gives them an exhortation as
they go.
And so he sent his brothers away, verse
24, and as they departed he said to
them, Do not quarrel on the journey.
He knew the tendency these people have to
quarrel with each other, because they have to
go back now and tell Jacob what?
That Joseph is in Egypt.
And Jacob say, I thought you fellows said
that he'd been killed by an animal.
And then they have to confess their sin
of 22 years earlier.
And on the way they'll have to discuss
who will take the blame for this.
And then they can get into a quarrel.
He says, Now don't quarrel on the journey.
Think of that little exhortation of Joseph's, and
I want to exhort each of you to
take it as an exhortation for life's journey.
Don't quarrel with anyone on life's journey.
Be like Joseph, not like his ten brothers
who had a reputation for quarreling, that they
need such an exhortation.
It's a sad thing if we have a
reputation for quarreling, that such an exhortation has
to be given.
That's a closing exhortation as you go.
Don't quarrel.
Because I know you folks have a tendency
to quarrel with each other.
Dear brothers and sisters, we really need to
cleanse ourselves, so that we have a testimony
that it is impossible to quarrel with me.
Impossible.
Impossible to get me offended, first of all.
Whatever you may do, whatever you may say,
whatever you may not do, whatever you may
not say, you cannot get me to be
offended.
You can try anything you like.
I have finished with that.
Getting offended?
Impossible.
Quarreling with you?
Impossible.
That is the testimony of one who is
walking the new and living way.
Because it takes two people to quarrel, and
if you refuse, that's the end of the
quarrel.
That is very important that all of us
have such a testimony.
And then we read further, and they came
back to Jacob, and they said, Joseph is
still alive.
Indeed, he is ruler over all the land
of Egypt.
But he was stunned, for he did not
believe them.
Like the Jews today do not believe that
Jesus is exalted above all things.
And when they told him all the words
of Joseph, he had spoken to them, and
when he saw the wagons that Joseph had
sent, then he believed.
He said, It is enough.
My son Joseph is still alive.
I will go and see him before I
die.
Chapter forty-six.
So Israel set out with all that he
had, and he came to Beersheba, and he
doesn't forget to offer sacrifices to God there.
He didn't just get so excited by what
he was going to get, the prosperity and
honor, that his son was now the top
man almost in the world, that he forgot
about God.
He'd been broken at Peniel, so he bows
before God and makes a sacrifice to Him.
And when God sees that, God sees that
a man makes time for Him, then God
makes time for that man also.
If you make time for God, God will
make time for you.
And God speaks to him.
Very often God doesn't speak to many people
because they don't make time for Him.
And God spoke to Israel in a vision
and said, Jacob, Jacob.
We saw that in an earlier study.
This is one of the seven places in
the Bible where you have this double call,
like Abraham, Abraham.
Jacob, Jacob.
Samuel, Samuel, like that.
Jacob, Jacob.
And He said, Here I am.
And He said, I am God.
Go down.
Don't be afraid to go down to Egypt.
I'll make you a great nation.
I will go down with you to Egypt.
The important thing, brothers and sisters, is not
whether we go to Egypt or whether we
live where we are.
The important thing is that God can say
to us, I will go with you where
you are going.
Then we are all right.
It is not that such and such a
place is spiritual or such and such a
place is not spiritual.
The thing is for God to go down
with us in all our movements.
And that's what Jacob wanted to be sure
of.
Lord, years ago my grandfather went to Egypt
and he got into problems.
He brought back an Egyptian maid and got
a son through her called Ishmael that caused
problems.
And you told my father Isaac not to
go to Egypt when there was a famine.
You remember that?
We studied that in Genesis 26.
Now what shall I do?
God says, go.
God's will for another person is not God's
will for you.
He may tell one person not to go
somewhere.
He may tell you to go.
Each of us need to have an individual
contact with God.
The important thing is that we know that
God is with us in our movement.
And so he takes his children, the sons
of Israel.
They carried their father Jacob and their little
ones and their wives.
They took their livestock and their property and
came to Egypt.
His sons and his grandsons with him, his
daughters and his granddaughters.
When it says his daughters, we don't really
know whether it refers to whether Dina had
other sisters or whether it's referring to his
granddaughters, his daughters.
But anyway, they all came down and the
sons, there's a list given here of all
the grandchildren of Jacob.
And this is where we see that Benjamin,
verse 21, was, he had ten children.
He was not really a baby or a
small boy at that time.
He must have been past his mid-thirties.
And these are sons of, all the other
sons of all the children of Jacob, verse
26.
All the persons belonging to Jacob who came
to Egypt as direct descendants, not including wives,
Jacob's sons were 66 persons.
The sons of Joseph who were born to
him in Egypt were two.
All the persons of the house of Jacob,
including Joseph and Jacob and Joseph's two sons
were 70.
And then he sends Judah before him to
Joseph to point out the way before him
to Goshen.
And they came to the land of Goshen.
And Joseph, there we see something.
Goshen was quite a distance from where Joseph
was living in Pharaoh's palace.
But though Joseph was such a big man,
and though Joseph was around 40 years of
age, he still had such a respect for
his father that he goes out to meet
him.
He's a big man, he's 40 years old,
but he does not fail to respect his
father.
This is the man whom God sends.
This is the type of man whom God
sends.
Not one who begins to feel that he
is so important that he no longer knows
how to honor his father and mother.
Do you know that you have to honor
your father and mother all the days of
your life?
You don't have to obey them once you
leave your home and set up your own
home.
You have to live your own life, but
you have to honor them till the end
of your life, if you want to be
the man whom God sends.
He prepared his chariot and went up to
Goshen to meet his father Israel.
And he fell on his neck and wept
on his neck for a long time.
And Israel, of course, was very happy to
meet Joseph.
And Joseph said to his brothers, now I'll
go up and tell Pharaoh.
And will say to him, my brothers in
my father's household who were in the land
of Canaan have come to me.
And these men, my brothers, are shepherds, for
they have been keepers of livestock.
And they have brought their flocks and their
herds and all that they have, and shall
come about when Pharaoh calls you and says,
what is your occupation?
That you shall say, your servants have been
keepers of livestock from our youth even until
now, both we and our fathers, as you
may live in the land of Goshen.
For every shepherd is loathsome to the Egyptians.
Do you see something there?
The Egyptians loathed shepherds for some reason, because
the Egyptians were cultured, educated, refined.
They dealt with agricultural, agricultural work with the
land.
The shepherds looked after livestock, they felt were
barbarians out in the jungles, and they really
had no respect for shepherds.
And what we see here is Joseph telling
these people, tell them the truth, that you're
shepherds, and I'll tell him that you're my
brothers.
Even if they loathe you, you're my brothers.
My brothers are shepherds.
My brothers are not big shots.
My brothers are ordinary barbarians.
You see something of Joseph's humility there.
When Pharaoh asks you, oh, you're Joseph's brothers,
are you?
What are we?
We're just barbarians.
He says, tell Pharaoh that.
There's really so many things that we see
in Joseph's character, which is really stands out.
And he says, you get the land of
Goshen to live in, because that's, in a
sense, it'll turn out for your good, because
that's a good land, and the Egyptians won't
want you anywhere near them.
So he'll allot that land to you, and
that's a good land, and you stay there.
Well, that really struck me, that Joseph was
not ashamed to call these barbaric shepherds his
brothers, even in the presence of Pharaoh.
He says, when Pharaoh asks you, what are
you?
Say, we're shepherds.
And every shepherd loathes them to the Egyptians.
Chapter 47, verse 1, Joseph went in and
told Pharaoh, my father and my brothers have
come, and they're in the land of Goshen.
You see, Joseph, though he had such authority
in Egypt, that he could have just allotted
land to his brothers and said, well, you're
going to take Goshen, that's all.
But you see something there, that Joseph will
not do something without Pharaoh's permission.
He's not going to show any partiality to
his brothers.
He's not going to show some partiality to
his family, like a lot of people in
high positions do.
No.
He lets Pharaoh allot whatever land Pharaoh decides.
When it came to other people, Joseph had
authority.
He could have done it for his brothers,
and Pharaoh wouldn't have questioned him.
Nobody would have questioned him.
But he submits to authority.
He submitted to the authority of Pharaoh.
He said, my brothers have come, and please
allot them some land.
And Pharaoh asked them, what is your occupation?
And they said to Pharaoh, your servants are
shepherds.
Both we and our fathers.
And he said to Pharaoh, we have come
to sojourn in the land.
Please let your servants live in the land
of Goshen.
And Pharaoh said to Joseph, your father and
your brothers have come to you.
The land of Egypt is at your disposal.
Verse 6.
Settle your brother in the best of the
land.
Let them live in the land of Goshen.
And if you know any capable men among
them, put them in charge of my livestock.
You see, I believe there's something we can
learn there also from Joseph's life, that when
some tremendous authority is given into our hands,
that we don't take advantage of it for
our personal benefits, to benefit our family in
some way.
There you see Joseph is a man who
has tremendous power, and he's totally free from
corruption.
He does not use it to benefit his
own family.
He does not quietly allot the land of
Goshen.
He goes and brings his brothers before Pharaoh
and says, you allot the land, because in
this case this is my family.
I don't want to allot it.
There's really something we can learn.
I'm not surprised that God sent such a
man, a man who had been trained by
God in adversity and trial and discipline, tested
in righteousness, in area after area after area,
and every time you see Joseph shining with
a crystal clear character, never seeking personal gain.
That is the type of man God sends,
the man who will not seek to use
his position in the world or in the
church or anywhere to benefit his family personally,
but will let God do it, will submit
to authority and not seek his own.
And of course they get the best.
God always honors those who honor him.
And Joseph brings his aged father, Jacob, before
Pharaoh.
He's not ashamed of his aged father.
There's a man again, you see, who honors
his father.
He brings his father to Pharaoh, and Jacob
blessed Pharaoh.
Pharaoh said to Jacob, how many years have
you lived?
And Pharaoh says to Jacob, how many years
have you lived?
And Jacob says, the years of my sojourning,
130.
Few and unpleasant, verse 9, have been the
years of my life.
But it's those unpleasant experiences that he had
that made him into an Israel.
In other words, he didn't have a cushy,
comfortable life.
Jacob became an Israel because his years were
difficult, difficult years.
And Jacob blessed Pharaoh.
This man, who had been under God's discipline,
finally blesses the world's greatest monarch.
Think what God can do with a man
who is broken.
And so Joseph settled his father and his
brothers and gave them a position in the
land of Egypt, in the best of the
land, in the land of Ramesses, as Pharaoh
had ordered.
He didn't take that himself, as Pharaoh had
ordered.
And Joseph provided for his father and his
brothers and all his father's household with food.
He rewarded them good for all the evil
that his brothers had done.
There was no food in the land of
Egypt because the famine was severe, and the
people had finally paid up all the money,
buying grain, and finally, verse 15, they had
spent all their money.
And then the Egyptians came to Joseph and
said, our money is gone, now give us
food.
So Joseph said, give up your livestock, and
I'll give you food if you give me
your cattle, now that you don't have money.
And so they brought their cattle, and Joseph
gave them food in exchange for the horses
and the flocks and the herds and the
donkeys.
And he fed them with food in exchange
for all their livestock that year.
Verse 18, And when that year was ended,
their money was spent, and their livestock had
also been sold.
And they said to Joseph, nothing is left
for my except our bodies and our land.
So we'll sell ourselves as slaves in our
land also.
Joseph bought, verse 20, all the land of
Egypt for Pharaoh.
There again we see a total freedom from
corruption.
He did not take anything for himself.
He was so upright.
All that land, he didn't just write off
some of that land in his name, and
Pharaoh would never have known about it.
He did not do it, not one thing
in his name.
He bought it all for Pharaoh, a faithful
man who would not take advantage of his
position for himself in any way.
There are very, very few people like this,
very few, who will never take advantage of
their position in any way to gain something
for themselves.
And we see the world is full of
people who use their position to get some
benefit for themselves, even in the church, in
Christendom anyway.
And there we praise God that God can
raise up a testimony in the church of
people who are quite different from that.
And thus the land became Pharaoh's, and as
for the people, he moved them to the
city.
Only the land of the priests he didn't
buy, because they lived off an allotment Pharaoh
gave them.
Then Joseph said to the people, I have
bought you and your land for Pharaoh now,
and here is seed that you may sow
the land.
And at the harvest, t'was twenty-four,
you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh.
Everything is for Pharaoh.
Four-fifths will be for your own seed
and for your food.
And they were so grateful to this man.
They said, You saved our lives, let's find
favor in the sight of my Lord.
And Joseph made it a statute concerning the
land of Egypt valid unto this day, that
Pharaoh should have a fifth, and only the
land of the priests did not become Pharaoh's.
Now, notice here the wisdom that God gave
to Joseph to administer this whole land single
-handed.
Wisdom to know what to do when this
happens, and what to do, and yet, though
he bought these people to be slaves, they
were not bitter against him.
Which shows what a good attitude he had
to these people, that they were so grateful
to him.
At the end of it all, they said,
You've saved our lives.
That's really something that struck me, how God
could give a man like this administrative wisdom
at the age of thirty.
And that's in the Old Testament.
We don't have to wait till we're seventy
years old.
You can have wisdom, my brother, sister, when
you're thirty years old.
Wisdom.
Practical wisdom.
This is not just spiritual wisdom.
He had spiritual wisdom, too.
We know he had spiritual wisdom because he
forgave his brothers.
That's spiritual wisdom.
We know that he gave the best to
those who gave the worst to him.
That's spiritual wisdom.
But he also had practical wisdom in the
God needs to give us.
Practical wisdom in dealing with people, in dealing
with difficult situations, in handling it.
God can give it.
If we seek him, if we are faithful,
he can give us wisdom for the practical
situations of life when you're thirty years old.
When I see the number of young brothers
and sisters who go around making fools of
themselves continuously, I say, Joseph could have made
a fool of himself, too.
Well, he didn't.
How is it that this man didn't make
a fool of himself?
How is it that with all the responsibility
that he had and all the things he
had to do, he did it so wisely
and he didn't make a fool of himself?
That's a challenge to you, young brothers and
sisters, that you can live such a life
that you command respect from others, even at
the age of thirty, if you are faithful
in your private life.
That's the secret.
It's when you're not faithful in your private
life that God allows you to just make
a fool of yourself.
That's the proof that you're not faithful in
your private life.
That proves that you don't fear God, proves
that you're not humble, particularly humble.
Where God sees that any of us think
too much of ourselves, he just allows us
to do something so stupid.
If we have ears to hear what God
is saying to us at such times, you
are too high in your own thoughts.
My dear brothers and sisters, it is the
will of God that younger ones, particularly I'm
speaking about from your teenage years, it's so
easy for you to do such a lot
of foolish things.
It's possible for you to grow up in
the church so that by the time you're
thirty, people in the church respect you, really
respect you as a brother or a sister
whom God has sent to be a blessing
in the church.
That's the challenge I want to present to
every one of you, young brothers and sisters,
in your teens and who are in your
twenties, that by the time you're thirty, let
people in the church respect you.
They respect you for what you have to
say in the meetings.
They respect you because they see the way
you conduct yourself.
They respect you because they see the wisdom
you have, spiritual and in practical matters.
How shall you have it?
Humble yourself.
Go down in your own eyes.
Be faithful and fear God in secret, and
God will raise you up like he did
Joseph.
If he did that for someone in the
old covenant, won't he do much more for
us?
Sure.
That is the will of God.
He who has ears to hear, let him
hear.
Humility and the fear of God are the
secret to be saved from all folly and
submission to authority.
Joseph had that.
Humility, the fear of God, and submission to
authority.
He who has ears to hear, let him
hear.
Now Israel, in verse twenty-seven, lived in
the land of Egypt, in Goshen, and they
acquired property in it and were fruitful and
became very numerous.
And he lived seventeen years there, and the
time for him to die drew near, and
he called his son Joseph and said, Please
don't bury me in Egypt.
When I lie down with my fathers, you
must carry me and bury me in their
burial place, in Canaan.
Swear to me.
Verse thirty-one.
So he swore to him, and Israel bowed
in worship to the head of the bed.
So there we see Jacob's faith that I
will go back.
God will give the land of Canaan to
my seed.
This Egypt is a beautiful place.
It's a lovely place, very advanced culturally, educationally,
and all that.
Beautiful sites here to see, but my home
is there.
Here was a man who knew that God
had promised Canaan, and he said, Bury me
way back there.
A testimony on his deathbed.
My home is not here.
He was broken.
There was a time earlier on in his
life when he was seeking for money and
prosperity and all that, but not now.
He's a broken man, and he longs for
that inheritance which God has reserved for him.
That's how we are to live in this
world.
We look around and see so many things,
and we say, This world's not my home.
My home is somewhere else.
So we'll close there.
Ask God for grace that we can have
in our life those qualities that we have
seen in these characters we've seen in scripture.