Genesis chapter 50, Genesis chapter 50. And we're going to read from verse one to verse 21. So this is going to be the penultimate study. Penultimate means the one before the last, if you don't know what that big word means. So there's one more to come. We want to finish off with the death of Joseph. And it's a wonderful end to his life. at the end of the book of Genesis. So old Jacob having spoke to his 12 sons and told them the future, not just for them, but for their descendants. We ended last week with Jacob gathering his feet into the bed and gathered on to his people in triumph. A life that wasn't always lived well, a life that had many failures, but a life that ended well and ended up with him leaving this world and going straight out to glory. And no matter what we've done in life, as long as we end that way, that's the most important, isn't that right? And it's the most important for our own children and grandchildren that no matter what else they achieve in life, that they get eternal life. Verse one, and Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed him. Now Joseph is 56 years old. at this point. He's lived the majority of his life in Egypt. Remember, he went down at 17. So 40 years, 39 stroke 40 years, he's been away from Canaan. And he's had gone through many trials, ups and downs, but his heart is still tender. And you know, you can go through tough times, but tough times don't need to make you tough towards others. And even though he's the prime minister of Egypt, and greatly respected, and greatly revered, and greatly significant in the Egyptian empire, when his dad dies, he's broken. And he's not ashamed to let people see it. Verse two, and Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father, and the physicians embalmed Israel. And forty days were fulfilled for him, for so are fulfilled the days of those which are inbound. And the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days. When the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, My father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die, in my grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. Now therefore let me go up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come again. And Pharaoh said, Go up, and bury thy father according as he made thee swear. And Joseph went up to bury his father, and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, and all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's house, only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds they left in the land of Goshen. And there went up with him about both chariots and horsemen, and it was a very great company, and they came to the threshing-floor of Attad, which is beyond Jordan. There they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation, and he made a mourning for his father seven days. When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the morning in the floor of Atad, they said, this is a grievous morning to the Egyptians. Wherefore the name of it was called Abel Misraim, which is Befond Jordan. And his sons did unto him according as he commanded them. For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a possession of a burying place of Ephron the Hittite before Mamre. And Joseph returned into Egypt, he and his brethren, and all that went up with him to bury his father, and after he had buried his father. And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him. And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive I pray thee now the trespass of thy brethren and their sin, for they did unto thee evil. And now we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father.' And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. And his brethren also went and fell down before his face, and they said, Behold, we be thy servants. And Joseph said unto them, Fear not, for am I in the place of God. But as for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now therefore fear ye not. I will nourish you and your little ones. And he comforted them and spake kindly unto them. Now chapter 49 ended with this very solemn scene of the passing of old Jacob at 147 years of age. And Joseph mourned the passing of his father. He lost not just a father, but a friend. And Joseph felt it very keenly. No doubt all 12 of the brothers were stunned into silence at the loss of this great patriarch. And he was a great man. And particularly at the end of his life, he certainly was a great businessman throughout his life. But at the end of his life, he wasn't just a great businessman with a big reputation. Jacob was a great spiritual man who knew God, who testified of God, and God used him to prophesy of the future destiny, not just of his children, but of this world. And Jacob ended his life like this. Now, Joseph commands that his father is embalmed. No doubt this was to prepare the body for this 250-mile journey from Egypt back to the land of Canaan. Now, sometimes we go on funeral corteges and they take a bit of a journey, don't they? But not many will travel 250 miles for the burial. And remember in those days, there's no airplanes, there's no cars, there's no hearses. They have to go on this journey, will take many days. And Joseph, he sends word to Pharaoh for permission, can he go? Now he doesn't go directly to Pharaoh himself, I assume because he's considered unclean because of handling the death, the remains of his father. He wasn't able to go into the presence of Pharaoh, but he sends messengers to Pharaoh for permission. And Joseph shows respect even in that request to Pharaoh. And Pharaoh sends word, you go, Joseph. And you honor your father and you honor him according to his wishes. Now, Jacob doesn't say to Pharaoh about the family returning back to Canaan in the future. He just says, my father asked me permission to be buried back in his homeland with all his ancestors. And he just asked for that permission. And then Joseph leads the procession, verse seven, and Joseph went up to bury his father. With him went up all the servants of Pharaoh. So showing respect for the dead, especially those who have died in the Lord, is a biblical tradition. And sad to say, funerals are now becoming less important, have you noticed? Less people attend them. And funerals are becoming more flippant. Less funerals are happening in church. You just look at the obituary columns nowadays, and more and more funerals are happening in houses, in funeral homes, not in churches. And as a society, we're moving away from that. If you were to go to England, I grew up in England as a boy, and I remember funerals were far less significant than here. Whereas in this country, the tradition is still the neighbors, the friends, the relatives, the friends of the relatives will all gather. And often you'll have a huge congregation when it comes to a funeral service, because we respect that long standing biblical tradition to honor the passing of a significant person in the lives of our friends and our neighbors and our relatives. And Joseph, even though he's a very busy man, he's the second most powerful man of the world's most powerful empire. Just get that in your brain. Yet Joseph is going to take a long time to lead this family in this morning. And he doesn't see it as an inconvenience. He doesn't say, well, maybe Judah could do this, or Reuben could do this. I'll say my goodbyes, and I'll pay the bill for the funeral arrangements, but I'm too important, I'm too significant to do this. No, Joseph's going to make sure that he leads this, and he makes sure his father's requests are carried out. And it says, they left their little ones behind, and they made their way, this very great company, out of the land of Egypt. What a sight it must have been. The second, the Prince of Egypt, Joseph, the Prime Minister of Egypt, with all his wealth and his splendor and his power, leading this great cortege 250 miles to the promised land. What a testimony it must have been to all those that were watching. And Joseph's going to enter Canaan, really for the first time in 39 years. It's going to be a very emotional occasion for him for two reasons. Number one, he's going to bury his father. That's going to be emotional. And number two, he's going to enter the promised land for the first time in almost 40 years. The land that he left as a teenager. It's coming back now, it's a 56-year-old prime minister of Egypt. He landed, he left as a Canaanite farmer, and now he's coming back as a powerful Egyptian politician and leader. What a change. So many things have changed in 39 years in Joseph's life, and what an emotional occasion it must have been for him. And things change, don't they, so quickly? over time. I remember an uncle, a great-uncle of mine, came back to this country in his 80s. My grandfather, who was the youngest in the family, he came to him. He was still in primary school, and he came to him in primary school one day, and he says, Sam, I'm off to America to catch the boat. He left, and my grandfather was just a boy, just said, well, okay, bye. Didn't think anything of it, as children don't. And he never came back, never saw each other for over 60 years. Can you imagine? My grandfather got a phone call one day from the United States and said, is this so-and-so you, Sam, so-and-so Fergus? He's asked me. He says, did you grow up in such and such a place outside Cookstown? He says, yes. He says, this is your brother, Willie, and I'm coming to see you. And over 60 years had passed and what a change. in the family, what a change physically in them in 60 odd years. What a change in the country in 60 odd years had passed and what a shock it was for them to meet each other. And I can imagine for Joseph, what a shock it must've been for him and what an emotional thing it must've been for him to go back to Canaan after 39 years and all the Canaanites were told in verse 11, they were watching. What's all these Egyptians doing? Why have they traveled all this journey? What's the meaning of it? Why are they having such an extended mourning? What's the significance? And we said last time when old Jacob was giving the instructions to Joseph and the brothers how he was to be buried, that he wanted his funeral to be a testimony, not just to his own family, that one day God would keep his promises and bring them back to the land of Canaan. But he wanted to be a testimony to the Egyptians too, and to the Canaanites. And I'm sure some of them must have asked questions to Joseph and the brothers. You're so rich and so powerful. You've made it so good in Egypt. Why have you come back here? Maybe they said to them, because God has promised, that one day our descendants will come back to this land. He's promised to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, that one day this is going to be their land for an everlasting possession. And what a testimony it must have been. Now, having completed the task, We're told verse 14, Joseph returned into Egypt. Because there comes a point in life, and I say this with kindness, when you bury the dead, there's nothing more to be done for the dead. They're in heaven. Jacob is now gone and life is to be lived for the living. And I have to move on. And Joseph has a role to play. in the society that God has put him in. Joseph has children, he has grandchildren. In fact, we'll discover at the end of the book of Genesis that he has great-grandchildren by the end of his life. God has a role for him yet to play, and he cannot let his grief consume him to the point that he then becomes paralyzed. Sometimes it can happen with the best of intentions that people spend the rest of their lives almost mourning about the passing of a loved one. And sometimes they do it even for those who've gone to heaven. And in a way we can understand there's that sense of loss, but there has to be a point where you say, they're gone. They're not coming back. In fact, they wouldn't want to come back and I don't want them to come back because they're in a better place. They're in the best place they could be. and I'll see them soon. But God has left me here for a reason, and life must now be lived for the living, to honor their memory by serving him here. And Joseph, even though he feels the grief, we've already seen that, of the passing of his father, he goes back to where God had put him. And he goes back to work where God had put him. And as he goes back, the other 10 brothers, we assume Benjamin may be not involved in this, the other 10 brothers begin to fear. And their grief now turns to guilt for what they did to Joseph. And we're told in verse 15, when they saw that their father was dead, remember in their family, there was this tradition Because Esau swore, when my dad dies, I'm going to kill Jacob. And they had grown up in a home where there was this insecurity and fear that Esau would take vengeance upon their father. And they thought, looking at Joseph, that Joseph was just like them. It's just like Esau, just like the world. That when they saw an opportunity to take revenge, he would take it. And they were afraid. And they said to themselves, Joseph will peradventure hit us, now without dad in the middle to protect us. To speak to Joseph, to plead with Joseph, that Joseph in his grief at the loss of his father and the loss even of Cain, and maybe going into Cain and reminding him of what he'd lost from his childhood, being ripped away from his home. They said, Joseph's gonna hate us now. And Joseph, when dad's no longer there to restrain him in his grief, he's gonna lash out and take vengeance on us. And what did they do? Verse 16, they sent a messenger to Joseph. They didn't dare go to him. This was a real fear they had. And they sent a messenger saying, thy father did come on. So they said, they knew they couldn't, the best way to approach Joseph was to say, this is dad's last wishes. Now, I don't know if Jacob really did send this message, or they decided to make up the story that Joseph, that Jacob has sent this message, but he could well have. They could well have spoken to Jacob and said, can we use your name after you die to speak to Joseph? And the father's message certainly sounds in many ways like old Jacob, because it says in verse 17, say ye now unto Joseph, forgive, I pray thee now the trespass of thy brethren. And their sin, there's no sugarcoating it. Call it what it is. For they did unto thee evil. So there's honesty here. They're asking for mercy. And they're confessing they did him wrong. In fact, they said, we did evil unto you. And it says, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. So they plead for mercy. They plead for grace. Now what will Joseph do? And before you think about how Joseph is going to react to you, think about how you would react. If you had gone through what Joseph had gone through at the hands of his brothers, most of us can't forgive a petty insult. I'm not talking to her. I haven't spoken to her for years because she said X, Y, and Z to me. Joseph's brothers hated him, betrayed him, were going to murder him. And then when it suited their pockets, They sold him to a fate worse than death as a slave into Egypt, knowing that in all probability, not only would they never see him again, but his life would be virtually destroyed. And he'd never see his father again. And then they went home and concocted a lie to their father that broke their father's heart for over 20 years. So they did him a terrible offense. And yet, How will Joseph react when he hears that his brothers are afraid that he will take vengeance on them, revenge on them? Look at verse 17. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. His first reaction is not cynicism. It's not even annoyance. frustration, his first reaction, he's heartbroken, that his brothers would think that he had this attitude or even a hint of this attitude towards them. Says so much about Joseph, doesn't it? About his character, that despite all the hard things that he went through, he himself never became hard. And there's all kinds of Christians and they use their past to justify their present. And often you run into them and they say, I was hurt in such and such a situation, or I was hurt growing up with this situation, and I deserve to be bitter. And they'll even find some other half-wit Christians that will agree with them. And they'll say, yes, you do deserve to be bitter. You went through A, B, C, and D. Well, Joseph proves, no, you don't have the right to be bitter. You don't have the right to be hard. In fact, not just Joseph, but we could go through the Bible, there's many as one that went through far more difficult circumstances than anyone in this room, and they came out of it without a hint of bitterness in their hearts. And if Joseph could do it without a Bible, without a church, without even hardly a fellow believer to encourage him. If he could do it, you can do it, and I can do it. And his brothers come, and verse 18, they fell down before his face. Now, again, this is another fulfillment of prophecy. If you remember, God gave Joseph the dreams that his brothers would fall down before him. And notice what they said to him. Behold, we be thy servants. Really what they're saying is we're your slaves. In fact, that Hebrew word has the meaning of slaves as well as servants. Remember the brother said, well, there's the dreamer. We'll see what comes of his dreams. And here they are. Now they can say, well, the first time we met Joseph in Egypt, we didn't know it was him. And we fell down before him. But this time they do know it's Joseph. and they're still falling down before him and acknowledging him as their master. Now, how will Joseph speak for the first time to his brothers after the death of his father and the burial of his father? And Joseph is going to give them In these three verses, 19, 20, and 21, you could just preach two or three sermons on these three verses, because there's just so much in it. But these are three of the greatest verses in all of Scripture. Because in these three verses, Joseph is going to teach not just his brothers, but you and me, three great biblical truths. your place, who you are, that who is in control of every circumstance of your life, and how, thirdly, you are to respond to the changing circumstances of life, particularly the evil circumstances of life. And he's going to teach his brothers and us these great truths. And I sent Campbell the title of today's message. And I said, know your lane or stay in your lane. You hear that expression, stay in your lane. Well, Joseph knew how to stay in his lane by the very first statement he makes here. And notice what he says, read it carefully. Verse 19, fear not. So he immediately puts him at ease. And then he makes his first great statement. by asking a rhetorical question. He says, for am I in the place of God? I know my lane. I may be the second most powerful man in Egypt. I may be the second most powerful man on the planet, but I know who I really am before God. I know that Joseph may be great in Egypt, but God's far greater. Joseph may rule in Egypt, but God rules over Joseph in Egypt. And you know, when you get that straight in your mind, God can use a person. That God is God in your life and you are not God. When you understand who he is, you understand that he's sovereign, that he's in control, that he decides what's right and what's wrong in your life, that he leads you, not the other way around. You don't lead him and then say, bless what I choose. When you get that straight in your life, then God can make you great and use you in a great way. And even though Joseph himself, sometimes it's useful to pause and reflect on how great a man he was. He had great talents. He had great gifts. He was the second most powerful man on the planet. We discover he was a very good looking. His mother was a very beautiful woman. He was a very good looking young man. Indeed, part of his wife wanted, was attracted to him because of his looks. He had it all. He was the looks. He was a handsome man. He was a brilliant man. He was a powerful man. He was respectful. He was admired by everybody. He had it all. And yet, when his brothers came to him, Joseph says, for am I in the place of God? I'm not God. I know my place. I know my lane. I know where my authority ends. And it's not my job to take vengeance. That's God's job. And what he's telling his brothers through his own example is, know your place too, Reuben, and Judah, and Gad, and Issachar, and Naphtali. Benjamin, know your place, and all the grandchildren, and all the Egyptians watching. I'm sure Pharaoh never spoke like this. I'm sure they never heard a leader talk like this down in Egypt. In fact, the Egyptians regarded Pharaoh as a god to be worshipped. And Joseph says, no, no, I'm not in the place of God. God has his place in my life and my family. But then notice what else he says, verse 28. Some people have called this the Romans 8, 28 of the Old Testament. If you remember Romans 8, 28 says what? For all things work together for good to them that love the Lord, to them that are the called according to his great purpose. Well, this is the Old Testament equivalent of that promise, that great statement. Because Joseph says, but as for you, ye thought evil against me. So Joseph doesn't sugarcoat, he doesn't cover up, he doesn't dilute what they had done. He says, you thought evil against me. You attempted to do evil to me. Now he doesn't deny that what they did was evil. He doesn't deny that What they did didn't hurt him. Doesn't cover that up. Just says, ye thought evil against me. But then there's a semicolon and there's a but. This is one of the great buts of the Bible. He says, but God, meant it unto good. While you were plotting evil, while you were doing evil, God was working through your evil motives and your evil actions to produce something good. Now that doesn't mean that statement that everything they did to Joseph therefore was good. It just means that the ultimate purpose God had in permitting it was good. God meant it onto good to bring to pass as it is this day to save much people a life. Now, let me suggest just a few things. Why Joseph could make such a statement that God had brought good and meant it for good. Well, Joseph gives us the first reason, doesn't he? Because he says that through the sufferings, through their evil deeds, he says, God brought to pass as it is this day to save much people alive. So Joseph, in the immediate circumstances, with hindsight, he's now 56, of 39 years of hindsight, from when they first sold him as a slave, to this day, age 56. Joseph says, I can see one of the great purposes of God, how God brought good from your evil. And he says, God used your evil actions, your evil motives, your evil deeds to save the whole family. Now, he certainly means physically, because through Joseph becoming prime minister, What happened to the family? Unlike many other families in the famine, they didn't perish. In fact, Joseph's family not only survived the seven years of famine, they thrived in the seven years of famine. And they were blessed in the seven years of famine. So physically, Joseph going to Egypt saved the lives of his whole family circle, including his dad and his brothers. And Joseph acknowledges. He says, now with the hindsight of 39 years, I can see what God was doing all those times in letting me suffer, in letting me be sold as a slave, in letting me be betrayed by Potiphar's wife, in letting me be let down by the chief butler and the chief baker in the prison. He says, I know now what God was doing. He was doing it to make me prime minister so that I could save all your lives in the famine that was to come. But I think it goes much further. Because if you remember, Joseph becoming prime minister not only saved the family physically from death, but Joseph was able to use that position to lead his brothers to what? A spiritual deliverance from their sins. To lead them to repentance. And even old Jacob, came through it and his faith was strengthened and he became a new man by the end of his life. And it was a very different Jacob that emerged through the struggles and the tears and the trials of that long partying with Joseph. So not only did he save them physically, but he saved them spiritually as a family and they were changed spiritually. But it goes much further because Joseph didn't know all of this, that we know. Not only were the families delivered in the immediate period that they lived in, but then they were delivered to then grow as a nation, become a nation in Egypt and emerge out of Egypt as a great nation and become the people of God, the Jewish people. in the land of Israel, and what a blessing they've been to the world. And of course, through them, because salvation is off the Jews, as Jesus said, would come the Jewish Messiah, who's not just the savior of the Jews, he's the savior of what? Us all. But then something else that Joseph never would have seen, is that in 2025, in Lorne Mission Hall, would be gathered a number of Gentile believers who would be studying the life of Joseph and his reaction to his trials and his sufferings. And we would not only be convicted by it, we would be corrected by it. and we would be encouraged by it. He didn't know that. But it's just as true, isn't it? That we are still being blessed all around the world. People are being blessed by the life and the testimony of Joseph through his sufferings. through his sufferings. So Joseph is right to say to his brothers, you thought evil against me, you did evil against me, but God knew better. Because God was permitting it, because God had a better plan than your plan. God had a higher purpose than your purpose. God knew that in 4,000 years later, a group of Christians in Lorne Mission Hall would be learning from your story. and being blessed by your story. What a story that is, isn't it? That's why I say it's the Romans 8, 28 of the Old Testament. You thought evil against me, you did evil to me, but God meant it for good. God was working through it. And God was the chief reality in Joseph's life. And if you read Joseph's life, you'll see this all over. Example after example of God working in the shadows through providence in Joseph's life. You'll see him when his father sent him down to find his brothers. Do you remember at Shechem? And they weren't there. They were down in Dothan. And then he met a man to push him down the road to Dothan. And he went down to Dothan. And when he got there, his brothers, instead of killing him, put him into a pit. And the pit that he fell into, there was no water in. He survived. There was no wild animals. There was no snakes in it. There was no scorpions in it. And then they just happened to pass by the Midianites. Coincidence? No. Luck? No. God was in it. And the brothers, instead of killing him, sold him as a slave. And where were the Midianites heading? Of all the places they could go to sell slaves, where did they go? Egypt. By coincidence? No. God was directing the whole thing, silently in the shadows. And when he got to Egypt, of all the people that was to purchase him as a slave, who purchased him? Potiphar. And then what happened to him in Potiphar's house? When he found himself in prison, By luck? By bad luck? By coincidence? No, God had him in the prison at the right place at the right time, because God was bringing along two men, a chief butler and chief baker, and he got them into the prison at the right place at the right time to meet the right person, Joseph, and Joseph met, and through that interaction, one day the chief butler, was listening to Pharaoh tell of a dream that no one could interpret. And he suddenly remembered a meeting he had down in the prison with a fella called Joseph. And he said to Pharaoh, there's this man, he can interpret the dreams. And Pharaoh said, bring him up. Coincidence? Good luck? God was working through it all. And now Joseph's 56 years of age, and he looks back at all these crossroads, twists in the tail, hinges on the doors of history of his life, and he says, you thought evil against me, but God was really working through it all. And you know, if you look at your life, you'll see all these little moments and interactions And even if you go around a room like this, you'll discover that most of the people in this room didn't know each other growing up. Very little of us. And yet God has brought us all together to a meeting like this, to a church like this. in the most amazing acts of providence, working through circumstances and people and situations, sometimes through disappointments, sometimes through failures, sometimes through the sins and the consequences of sins of other people. We all find ourselves here today together as one people in Christ. What a chapter this is, isn't it? What a story this is. And just as Joseph has his story of the workings of God through the shadows in Providence, so you have a story, and I have a story, and we have a story as well. Now, next time when we come back, because I'm way past my time, we'll see how Joseph's story ends and what an ending there's going to be. As Joseph, the second most powerful man in the world, comes to the point in life that we all probably will come to, where we have to leave this world. How will he leave this world? It's a great story too. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for the story of Joseph. What a blessing it has been to all of our lives. What an instruction. What a correction. What an encouragement. Lord, we pray that we would learn much from him and apply it to our lives. What a lovely heart he had. What a gracious spirit. What a forgiving heart. Lord, give us that spirit, that heart that he had in our relationships. For we ask these things in Jesus' precious name. Amen.