Just a short reading tonight as we come to this final study in the life of this most remarkable man, Joseph. Genesis chapter 50, just going to pick up the reading at verse 22, just five verses. And then we want to pick up one verse in Hebrews chapter 11 that gives us further commentary on this section. And after we finished, God willing, Genesis, we'll start on the minor prophets, so-called minor, but there's nothing minor about them. They have a major message. And I'm sure many of you have never studied Nahum or Sephaniah. Maybe you don't even think it's in the Bible. Well, we're going to go through all of those books over the next few months, and you're gonna learn that these ancient prophets have great insight and application for your life and for the world that we live in today. But we'll be looking at them, God willing, over the next number of months. Let's pick up the reading of verse 22. And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father's house. And Joseph lived 110 years. And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation, so his great-grandchildren, the children also of Machir the son of Manasseh, were brought up upon Joseph's knees. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die, and God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land unto the land which he swear to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph died, being a hundred and ten years old, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. Now let's jump to Hebrews 11 and just pick up this one verse, which The New Testament writes as a commentary on this section. This is a great chapter of faith, and there'll be so much in Joseph's life the Holy Spirit could have picked as an example of faith. And it may even surprise us that the Holy Spirit picked this particular aspect of Joseph's life. We may have thought, well, they picked by faith. Joseph endured the betrayal and the suffering and the loneliness of life in Egypt. But no, God chose the last moments of Joseph to record an example of faith. And in verse 21 of the chapter, it mentions how Jacob died in faith. And then it says in verse 22, by faith, Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel. and gave commandment concerning his bones. So both Jacob and Joseph are commended by God as examples of faith in how they died, which lets you and I know that how we leave this world is also important, and how we give testimony as we depart this world is notable. And we should think about that as well in our own lives. So let's go back to Genesis chapter 50 with that in mind. There's one thought I didn't mention or didn't get time last week to refer to in the verse that leads up to verse 22, verse 21. Because Joseph said, now therefore fear ye not, I will nourish you and your little ones. And he comforted them and spoke kindly unto them. And we saw last week how Joseph said to his brothers, don't be afraid. I'm not in the place of God. I won't hurt you. I won't return evil for evil. In fact, he goes much further than that. He doesn't just say, I forgive you, and I've forgotten what's happened, and I'm going to move on from what's happened and draw a line from the past. In fact, he does something far greater even than that, because he says in verse 21, don't be afraid, but then he says, I will nourish you. I'll take care of you. I'll be positively good to you. Now, sometimes, you know, when people do evil to us, particularly family members, We have a tendency to say, well, I'm not going to bring it up. Let's leave the past in the past, but don't you come near me again. I'll see you at Christmas. I'll see you at the next wedding or the next family funeral. And that's it. But Joseph didn't take that attitude. Joseph wasn't passive here. He didn't say, well, if you ever need me in the future, just come and see me and I'll see what I can do. could have left it at that. In fact, a lot of Christians would have left it at that, wouldn't they? But Joseph didn't do that. He says, not only should you not fear, not only do I want nothing between us, but he says, I'm going to be actively good to you. I'm going to seek out opportunities to be a blessing to you and your families. Now that's real grace, isn't it? That's amazing grace. And the only way Joseph could have acted like that and talk like that was because Joseph understood the grace of Jesus Christ to him. That Jesus Christ not only forgave him and was good to him and left his sins in the past, but Jesus Christ extended grace to sinners like Joseph and said, I want you to be my child. I want to be with you. I want to never leave you or forsake you. I want to be your friend that sticketh closer than a brother. I want you to be my child. I want you to reign with me throughout all of eternity. And because Joseph understood what Jesus Christ had done for him, maybe we could say it like this. Joseph understood it better almost than any other Old Testament writer or thinker or individual. He really understood the grace of Christ. Now, it's amazing because he didn't have a Bible. This is 2,000 years or so before even the birth of Jesus Christ. More than 2,000 years. And yet Joseph understood he had been greatly forgiven. And likewise, he should extend great forgiveness to those who had hurt him deeply and should show kindness unto them. And I'll leave that thought with you. Maybe there's people here and you say, well, I've forgiven those who have hurt me, let me down, betrayed me, but I haven't forgot. And I don't want them too close. I don't want to be hurt again. And Joseph said, no, not only will I take the risk of being hurt again, but I'm gonna put myself in a position where I could be hurt again by these brothers. And that's what made him such a great man, because the image of Christ was stamped on this man in his life and in his testimony. And now we come to the last step of Joseph's life, because from verse 21 to verse 22, There's many years, 50 years have passed. In fact, more than 50 years. Joseph was about 56 when his father passed away. And now he's 110. So half a century had passed in just a verse. And one of the things you have to notice about the Bible, it doesn't record every single incident in a person's life. Have you noticed that? It often jumps decades, sometimes even centuries. between people's lives, particularly those Old Testament saints like Enoch, Noah, that jump centuries. And God only records certain information because he only wants you and I to learn from that particular piece of information. Nothing's redundant and nothing's irrelevant and nothing pads out the Bible. So the Bible jumps 50 odd years. between the conversation Joseph had with his brothers, and now this final conversation Joseph has with his children, his grandchildren, and his great-grandchildren. And we discover in this section that death now comes to Joseph. Just as death had come to old Jacob at 147, Now death will come to Joseph at 110. And Joseph will not live longer than his father. It might surprise us. But God has a different plan for each one of us. And Joseph's journey will just be 110 years on this earth. And it says, and he will come to die. The clock of time ran out for Joseph too, just as the clock of time will run out for each and every one of us, if the Lord Jesus Christ tarries. And even the greatest of men or women are not indispensable in the work of God. And Joseph is going to face the cross from time to eternity with the same courage and faith and determination and wisdom that he lived 110 years on this earth. And he will leave this world with a great testimony just as he lived in this world with a great testimony. before those around him. And that's why the author of Hebrews chapter 11 selects this incident from his life for you and I to learn with. Now, he gathers his children and his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren in verse 22. In fact, we're told they were brought up on Joseph's knees. There's a sense there of intimacy, isn't there? that even though Joseph was this incredibly powerful, wealthy, no doubt, prominent, busy man, respected man, he had a love for his family. We saw that he had a great love for his father, Jacob, and a great love for his brothers, despite the fact they were very unlovable in many, many ways. and didn't reciprocate to him. And here we have Joseph with all his own descendants, his children, his grandchildren, his great-grandchildren, and he has them brought up on his knee, the sense that he's close with them. They're in and out of his house. He takes time with them. He wants to know them. He wants to influence them for right and away from the wrong. Joseph has them all gathered around him. And he gives a wonderful instruction. Someone put it this way, a wonderful instruction from the graveyard. He's one foot in the grave. And yet he's something to say, just like his father Jacob had something to say. And he had something prominent to say. And Joseph is going to leave this earth with the fulfillment of God's promises unfulfilled. 200 years before his death, God had promised his grandfather, Abraham. It was his great-grandfather, wasn't it? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and then Joseph. So his great-grandfather. That the land of Canaan would be the land of Abraham's descendants. And yet 200 years had passed since God had given that great promise, way back in Genesis chapter 12. and 17, those promises. And yet Joseph still believed, even though the 200 years, even though they were now all living in Egypt, even though it appeared that they were settled in Egypt, Joseph still believed that what God had said all those years ago, God could be trusted to fulfill. And Joseph knew that he would die, but he knew that God's promises would never die. And that's a good way to leave this world, with your heart rooted in the promises of Almighty God. And notice how he speaks to his children, and his grandchildren, and his great-grandchildren. Look at verse 24 very carefully. He begins with a very honest, and Joseph was always an honest man. He just says, I die. My time's up. And God has said, the clock is up for you, Joseph. And Joseph is not in denial about this. He's not running to the doctors to say, could you give me another month? Could you pump some type of vitamins into me to squeeze out another few hours? No, Joseph, no, God, this is the time that God has given me. It's not as long as my father or my grandfather, Isaac. But this is what God has given me. And he says to his family, he says, I know I'm dying. My time's up. But notice what he says to them. You know, I often keep repeating this. When you look at what someone says and what the Bible says, always look for what's not said, as well as what is said. Because remember this man who's about to die, of all the descendants of Abraham, of all the Old Testament saints was materially, spiritually, you could say the most successful. Here's a man who was born in Jacob's home and at 17 years of age was sold into slavery. And yet by the age of 30, till he dies at 110, became the second most powerful man in the world's most powerful empire. Just think about that. He went from slavery, a foreigner in Egypt, to become prime minister, second to Pharaoh, of the world's greatest, first great civilization, the Egyptian empire. An empire that still to this day in many ways was the greatest In terms of its achievements, we still don't understand how they achieved things that they achieved. We don't know how they built the pyramids. You have all kinds of theories, but no one really knows. How did they understand astronomy and mathematics? They say that the first battery was developed by the Egyptians. They were brilliant people, brilliant thinkers, brilliant astronomers, mathematicians. They were way ahead of all the other civilizations that followed, like the Babylonians and the Greeks and the Romans. The Egyptians were the greatest, in my view, in terms of their abilities and their thinking, centuries ahead of everybody else. And yet Joseph was the greatest thinker in Egypt. That's some accolade, isn't it? And he became Pharaoh's most trusted confidant. to the point where Pharaoh would almost say, here's the keys to the kingdom, Joseph, you run it and tell me if you need anything. And here's this man, 110 years of age, who had gone from the very bottom of society to the top of society in a relatively short time and had stayed there, who was immensely popular, who was immensely powerful and successful. No doubt it was a very handsome man, born the daughter of the most beautiful of Jacob's wife, Rachel, the favorite son, the most gifted son, the most spiritual son, a man who God spoke to in dreams. And yet when he comes to die, notice what he doesn't talk about. He doesn't talk about Joseph. No boasting. No saying to his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren, let me just tell you how great your grandfather was. Your great-grandfather, let me just tell you what he achieved, where he came from. I want to remind you of his successes. Doesn't talk about any of those things. And yet there was so much for him to talk about. Nor when he came to die, Does he boast in his children's achievements? Or his grandchildren's achievements? Or his great-grandchildren's achievements? Nor does he try to point them to any of these things that men think are so important. He doesn't say to his great-grandchildren that it's really important for you to get the best education and to become the most successful political person or business person or philosopher in Egypt. He doesn't talk like that at all. He doesn't mention any of those things that the world that we live in thinks are so important. So what does he say? We can see what he doesn't talk about. So what does Joseph speak to his family about in his last words? Well, notice the great subject of the sentence. He says, I die. And then he brings up the great subject of all of Joseph's thinking. The person who was at the center of his life, who guided and directed Joseph's life, the person who was always in his thoughts, from when we first meet him at 17 years of age in the land of Canaan. This great person that dominated the thinking and the vocabulary of Joseph, God. Here he is at the end of his life, and he's still talking about God. Isn't that wonderful? 110 years, having achieved so much, having suffered so much. In fact, I should have mentioned this as well. The other thing he doesn't talk about is his sufferings. And he had suffered more probably than any man. Certainly any man in the Old Testament, outside maybe of Job, never suffered what Joseph had to go through. And yet, as he comes to the end of his life, he's talking about God. Now that's not a coincidence. This is not a fake piety by Joseph, because we've seen all his life, that's the way he talks. It's just so natural to him. It just flows out of him. Because God was at the center of his thoughts and his thinking. And what does he say about God? Verse 24, he says, I die and God will surely visit you. Now, as I said earlier, 200 years had passed since God had promised to Abraham that the land of Canaan would be the land of his descendants. Abram had died without claiming that promise or seeing it fulfilled. Isaac had died, lived a very long life, longer even than Jacob. And yet the promise was unfulfilled. Old Jacob lived 147 years and he died in Egypt, having not seen the promise fulfilled. And here's Joseph having lived 110 years with this great promise unfulfilled, that one day God would give the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession to the Jewish people, to the descendants of Abraham. And Joseph on his deathbed says, I am dying, but God will surely keep his promise. And he says, God will surely visit you. I don't know when exactly, he says, but I know he's going to do it. And he says, which he swear to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob. What's old Joseph rooted to? Two things as he comes to die. Look at carefully the verse. His heart, his thinking, his faith is not rooted to the wealth and power and prestige and positions of Egypt. He may dress like an Egyptian, but his heart, he's a son of Israel, a child of the covenant. His heart is rooted to these two great pillars, which your heart must be rooted to in order to live his life and to die his death. And here's the two pillars, the person of God and the promises of God, those two things. And if your heart is rooted to those two things, nothing can shake you. The prisons of Egypt, the Potiphar's and the Potiphar's wives, and the betrayal of his brothers, you can never be shaken in your confidence if your life is rooted to those two great pillars. the person of God, who he is, the eternal God, the unchangeable God, the God who has all power, the God who can speak a universe into existence, and then the promises of God, the one who said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. The one who said, he who has the Son has life. The one who said, I love the world and whosoever believeth in my Son shall not perish, but shall have everlasting. If that's your heart and your thoughts and your soul is rooted to those promises, then nothing can shake you. Even death cannot shake you. And Joseph here wants his final hours, his final words, his final minutes to be a testimony to his family that he still believes in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And he still believes in the promises of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now that's how you end life well. That's how you depart this world the right way. Now, he then, to emphasize his belief, verse 25, he took an oath of the children of Israel. And he says, God will surely, you see that again, twice in the two verses. It's God. Keeps bringing up, God's going to do this. God's going to do this. God will surely visit you and ye shall carry up my bones from fence, everything Joseph viewed from the vertical, from God's perspective. God's going to do it. I want my life anchored to his promise. And even though Joseph no doubt could have got a beautiful pyramid, beautiful tomb in Egypt, even though he could have been buried with great honors like a Pharaoh, he said, I don't want that. I want you to promise me. that when God eventually keeps his promise, and he will keep his promise to take you out of Egypt, you carry my bones up with you, and you bury me with my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather in the land of promise. I love Egypt. I've served Egypt for 93 years, but my heart is still in Canaan. because God has promised that's to be our homeland as an everlasting possession. And Joseph is a man who thinks of God and God's promises. And you know, too often God is incidental in our life. Maybe we give God a few hours on Sunday and we think, well, that's enough. But Monday we devote ourselves to squeezing every penny in the pound. to getting what we can, to achieving what the world offers, as much of it as possible. But success to Joseph was to see his children and his family respect the God that he served and he loved. And Joseph made it clear that his faith was the most important thing. in his life. And verse 26 says, so Joseph died, just as he knew, being 110 years old, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt, just as he had asked for, his last request, keep my body in this coffin, because I'm going home with the rest of you, back to the promised land. And the very next book, the book of Exodus, if you have your Bible, just turn to the next chapter, because the very next chapter shows that men came and went, great men like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, came and went, but the God that they served and honored He still remained. Because notice what happens in verse seven. And the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, and multiplied and waxed exceeding mighty, and the land was filled with them. What does that tell us? Joseph had gone. In fact, Joseph had been gone now two centuries. but the God of Joseph was still at work, still blessing, still guiding, still directing the lives of his children. And Joseph's faith in the promises of God was not misplaced. Because what's the book of Exodus the story of? The title of the book even gives you the clue, doesn't it? The Exodus from where? from Egypt to where? The promised land. What did Joseph say before he died? God shall surely visit you and bring you out of this place. Because 200 years before I died, Joseph says, he promised my great-grandfather and God can be trusted to keep his promises. And 200 years after the death of Joseph, we read in Exodus 1, verse 7, that God's still at work. And who did they carry up out of Egypt? The bones, Joseph's bones. And they buried them in the land of Canaan. Who buried him in the land of Canaan? The children of Israel. When did they bury him? When they entered the promised land. Just as God had said, just as God has promised. And today, of course, every time we switch on our news, we hear of Ukraine and Russia. People are still fighting. Man can't solve his problems. But there's one country we always hear about. Sometimes we hear about the Falklands, those of you who are old enough to remember. And then that just disappears from vocabulary, doesn't it? Never hear about the Falklands anymore. And then we heard about places like Kuwait. Do you remember the Kuwaiti war and there was all the rockets and there was a big fury about that for a while. It came and it went. And then we had Afghanistan, 9-11 and all of that. And that was in the news and it came and it went. We had the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Iron Curtain, the USSR, it came and it went. But there's a little country in the world that no matter what they try to do, always just keeps appearing. And there's a city that always just keeps coming up. Sometimes it's not so prominent for a few months, a year or two, but invariably it'll come up again. And then the whole world goes mad about it. And everybody has an opinion about it. And all the great and the good, so-called, not too many of them are good. Just call them all the great and the bad. They all have an opinion, and they're all going to solve it, and they try to solve it, and they can't solve it. And which country is it? Right in the center of the world. And the city of Jerusalem, the city that Jesus came to die in, to be buried in, to rise from the dead, and the city he promised to come back to the next time. Which city, which country? The country that God promised all those years ago to Abraham. They're going to be your descendants for an everlasting possession. And Satan is doing everything he can to destroy that nation and to destroy that country. And yet, what does history tell us about that promise? that when God makes a promise, nobody can break it, nobody can change it. Few modeled grace, love, forgiveness, mercy better than Joseph, not just in the Bible, but in all of history. And God was the center. That's why he was so successful. God was at the center of his life. But Joseph, as he died, was letting you and I know he had God at the center of his family. Not just for his children, Ephraim and Manasseh, but for his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren. And Joseph, right to his last breath, is testifying of the goodness and the greatness of God. We need more believers like Joseph, don't we? Be like him. You know, if he could live this way and he could die this way, so could you, so could you. He had far less advantages than you. I keep emphasizing this. He didn't have the story of Joseph to learn from. He didn't even have a Bible. He didn't have a church to go to that he could find other Christians to pray with him and encourage him and lift him when he was discouraged. He didn't have any of the advantages. In fact, he grew up in a home which was, to use the modern term, dysfunctional. All right. Civil war between his father's wives and concubines and his siblings broke out everywhere. And there are all kinds of sins prevalent in the family home, wicked, vile sins, murder, and rape. And all kinds of sexual immorality went on in that family home, and idolatry even, and deception. And yet through it all, Joseph never wavered. In his walk with God, he was the same godly individual at home as a teenager in Canaan, as he was as a slave in Potiphar's home, as he was as a prisoner in the jail, as he was as a servant of Pharaoh and prime minister of Egypt, and as he was as a father, as a grandfather, and as a great-grandfather. You pray, God make me a man and a woman of God with the heart and the grace and the example of Joseph. Pray that your children will be like Joseph. What a wonderful example of Christian grace this man was, one of the greatest men of all of human history. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for the story of Joseph, What a rich example he is of the love and grace of Jesus Christ. How he walked with God 110 years. 93 of those years he spent in Egypt. 93 years God took him out of the land of promise. No doubt, as a 17-year-old, he never imagined that for the next 93 years his future would be tied up in Egypt. But God's plan is never revealed in advance. God has many twists and turns in every child of God's life. We thank you that Joseph never wavered, even though he testified that he had gone through great afflictions. God had to put iron in his soul to go through the sufferings in Egypt. We thank you that he went through it well. And even as he came to the end of the journey of life, he's talking about God. He's witnessing to his family about the things of God. Lord, help us to be like him. We pray for our children. We pray for those who have grandchildren. Some even in this room have great-grandchildren. Lord, we want to see them all like Joseph. Talk like Joseph. Walk like Joseph. Live like Joseph. For these things we ask in Jesus' precious name. Amen.