I trust we're finishing up Genesis Chapter 42. I'll tell you one thing else about the jail, and it's a blessing to be able to preach there, because those guys are real. They're not necessarily church guys, although it's interesting when you talk to these guys, you find out their backgrounds. It's a blessing, I guess, of being an American, is that most of those guys were raised with the knowledge. of salvation. They were raised with the knowledge of who God is, that there is a God, that there's a Bible. A lot of those guys actually read the King James Bible. They want the King James Bible. They prefer the King James Bible. I had one guy come up to me after, and he said, you mentioned the King James Bible, because I had told him you can't learn this stuff without a King James Bible. You're just not going to be able to learn it. I gave him the illustration. I said, You know, how many of you have ever been to a Bible study where they sit around and say, and I pointed at them, I said, you know, what does your Bible say? And what does your Bible say? And what does your Bible say? And what does your Bible say? And I said, at the end of it, you don't know what the Bible says. And you know what they said? Amen. So one guy came up to me after and he was very sincere and he was a young guy. And he says, he says, what do you think about the new King James Bible? And I said, well, what about it? And he says, well, that's what I have. I said, well, I really don't want you to read the new King James Bible. I said, I could show you some problems with it. I said, I would rather have you read a King James Bible. Is that a problem for you? And he said, no, I think I can get a King James Bible. But you know, they listen and they're receptive. And so anyway, they get a lot out of it, but they're real. And it's good to be able to preach to them because you can tell them things that you can't tell the average church going Christian outside of a prison. The people in an average Baptist church this morning are looking to be soft-pedaled, stroked, lifted up, edified, and give me something good I can go on. Those guys are looking for truth, and so it's a real blessing. I know that's the way this church is, too. We're looking for truth, but anyway, back to this Genesis 42. I don't know how I got into that again, but Genesis 42. And we'll start in verse 18, up to this point, this is now Joseph's brothers, just a reminder, Joseph's brothers are confronted with him, they don't know it's him, they've never seen him in, I don't know, 30 years or whatever it is. A long time, well not 30 years, more like about 20 some years. And so here he is, they're standing before him, they don't know who he is, and they've come, and he accuses them of being spies. And of course, he's just messing with his brothers. Now, he's not messing with his brothers to get back at them. He's not trying to be vengeful. He knows not to do that. He what I believe what he's trying to do is what the Lord does with us. Joseph is a type of Jesus Christ. And what the Lord does to us is he brings things to our minds to see if we'll respond in repentance. We're going to talk about that later in the lesson about repentance today. And he's trying to bring them, I believe, to a place of repentance. And so he accused them of being spies to see what they'll say. And then they spill their guts and say, no, we're we're we're brothers. And we've got a father back home and we got a younger brother. And so they get to verse 18 and Joseph throws him in prison and three days in war, it says in verse 17 and verse 18, and Joseph said to them the third day, this do and live, for I fear God. If ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison. Go ye, carry corn for the famine of your houses, but bring your youngest brother unto me. So shall your words be verified, and ye shall not die." And they did so. And they said one to another, we are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear. Therefore is this distress come upon us. And Reuben answered them, saying, spake I not unto you, saying, do not sin against a child, and ye would not hear. Therefore, behold, also his blood is required. And they knew not that Joseph understood them, for he spake unto them by an interpreter. And he turned himself about from them, and wept, and returned to them again, and communed with them, and took from them Simeon, and bound him before their eyes." So we'll stop right there. But Joseph continues his effort to draw a confession from his brothers. and he tells them that I'm a man that fears God, and he puts them in jail, and they're sitting there, and you can imagine in three days in jail, the conversations that they're having that aren't recorded in the Bible. And you get a little glimpse of it here, and no doubt they were, and this is the thing that, this is basically, and we'll get to this too in a minute, we're gonna get to it throughout this lesson, it's always the goodness of God that leads you to repentance. Right, that's what the Bible says in Romans 2, 4, I believe it is. And you get to Romans 8, 28, and the Bible says this, all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. Now, that's a universal principle throughout history. That's one of those truths that's not dispensational. It's across the board. Now, I don't believe these brothers necessarily believed in God like Joseph did. I don't believe they believed in God like their father Jacob did. But I do believe that they believed in God and feared God. And I believe that's why Joseph said that to them, for I fear God, to put the fear of God into them, that he's a God-fearing man. And so they're getting the message that, oh, we're standing for this ruler. He's accusing us of being spies. We're not spies, but we're guilty. And you know, it doesn't matter what it is, the sin that you're guilty of. The Bible says if you've broken one of the commandments, you've broken all the commandments. So God might just as soon accuse you of this or that, and it doesn't matter, we're still guilty, right? And we all ought to consider our guiltiness, and that's what they were doing. They were three days in prison, and he reveals that he fears God to them, and this must have struck the fear of God in them as well. The most powerful man in the world held their fate in their hands, and most likely prayed. You know, here's a man that he's the ruler. He's controlling our fate. He's got us in prison. We're starving. Our father's back home, probably wondering, you know, when we're going to get back there. And all the things that are running through their minds, and they know they're guilty. And now God comes into the picture. And that's what, again, the goodness of God. You say, that's the goodness of God? Yes, the goodness of God. I would rather be under such extreme pressure from God. I would rather be under such conviction of God that it makes me throw up. and it makes me sick to my stomach, and it just ruins my day than to spend one day in hell. Now, I'm not going to hell. If you're a Christian, you're not going to hell. But you understand, if you're lost and God is putting you under conviction, He's putting you under conviction because He's good. He's putting you through trouble because He's good. He would rather have you suffer for that temporary time than to have you spend any time in a lake of fire that was not prepared for you, by the way. It was prepared for the devil and his angels. Jesus did everything he could possible to set men free from that fate. But the majority of men choose the broad way, the way to destruction. They choose the devil and they make him their father instead of God their father. So it's a good thing what's going on here, the fear of God being struck in them. But no doubt this was also Joseph's way of conveying that they could trust him to keep his word. Uh, and so, uh, he's holding one of their brothers back. He challenges their integrity in verse 19. He says in verse 19, if ye be true men. So he's challenging them, uh, what they're going to do about that. Are they going to continue on in their lies and deception? You know, their, their, their guiltiness has never been dealt with. What they did years ago to their brother, whom they're standing right before and don't realize it, it's never been dealt with. It's just been covered up, covered up, covered up. And the Bible says that if you just cover your sins, then God can't do anything with that. There's a verse in Proverbs I'm thinking of right now. You have to confess and forsake those sins in order for God to, that's true repentance. And so he's questioning their integrity and this caused conviction to intensify. Look at verse 21 and 22. It says, and they said one to another, we are verily guilty concerning our brother. Now they confess it to one another. In that we saw the anguish of a soul, and when he besought us, and we would not hear, therefore is this distress come upon us. And Reuben said, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child, and ye would not hear? Therefore, behold, also his blood is required. You know, there are no atheists in this world. Even these guys, even these brothers who have turned their back on God and haven't been walking with God and forsook the God of their father, or fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and now Jacob, and were willing to sell their brother into slavery, and they probably thought he was dead. They probably thought there's no way he could have made it. He's a scrawny little 17-year-old kid who got sold off, and chances are he's dead by now, because that's probably what happened to most people who got sold off into slavery. They realized, though, that even after all the forsaking of those things, and all of what they've done, and all the lives that they lived, and probably prospered up until now, that God is bringing about and forcing the issue to deal with something that they have never dealt with. And we can apply that. There are things that are in our lives that God is still trying to get out of our lives that we would confess, that we would forsake. and get rid of. And we hang on to that thing, and we hang on to that thing, and God is saying, well, I can't move forward unless you want to move forward. And even the lost world, the atheists, they'll sit, they'll go through life, and you get to a point here where they're gonna get down the road, he's gonna let them go, and they're gonna find the food and the money, the money is back in their sacks, and then they say, look what God is doing to us. They realize now that this is not just random, this is not just coincidence, this is not just, You know, karma paying me back. This is God dealing with me. So they're being challenged here very deeply. And that's, again, the goodness of God. They were cut to the heart as their future children to be. Turn to Acts chapter 7. Now, realize you're reading about right now, what you're reading about in Genesis are the patriarchs. That's what we would call them. These are the 12 tribes of Israel. These are the fathers of the tribes. And despite all their sinfulness, and despite all the things that they did wrong, they are still the 12 tribes of Israel. But you get over to Acts 7, and over and over in the Bible, you find that God always talks about the Israelites as not very favorable. He does and he doesn't. He says they're his son. He brings them out of Egypt. He brings them into Egypt to prepare them and to make them a people. And he calls them my people. And God is espoused and married to the children of Israel. And he will bring them back one day into Jerusalem after the tribulation, into the millennium. And they are his people. But all along through the Bible, he says they're stiff-necked and rebellious people. He told Moses at one time, he says, Moses, stop praying, get out of the way, because I'm just going to kill every one of them, and I'll start a whole thing over again with you. And Moses stood in the gap, and he said, no, Lord, don't do that. But these people, this is their tendency, and right now, the Jew is still rebellious and stiff-necked. In fact, Romans tells you that the Jew is the enemy of the cross of Christ. And they're not getting saved in droves today. They're not getting saved hardly at all. They are constantly doing what they did here in Acts chapter 7. But in Acts chapter 7, and look at verse 54. This is the preaching of Stephen. Well, let me just get to verse 51. It goes right with it. And Stephen's preaching. He said, Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears. You do always resist the Holy Ghost as your fathers did. So do ye. Which of the prophets have not your father persecuted? And they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the just one of whom you have been now the betrayers and murderers who have received the law by the disposition of angels and have not kept it. And when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart and they gnashed on him with their teeth. We'll stop right there. But that's the future. What comes around goes around. And what you do as a parent, and this is thousands of years later, goes on with your children. And sometimes those Bible talks about generational sins and the tendencies that go on, and the only way you're going to break generational sins in your family is to get saved. and to confess and forsake the wickedness that you are a part of as a family. You say, well, that's what my family has always done. We've just always done that. Well, stop always doing that. Break that chain so that your children don't face... These people, ultimately, what they did is they crucified Jesus Christ. They killed their Messiah. And you know what resulted of that? For the last 2,000 years, you have the majority I dare not put a percentage on it, but the majority of Jewish people, God's people, my people, who I'm going to restore, the majority of them have been going to hell for the last 2,000 years. because of what the way their fathers behaved. And so God is constantly over and over and over. The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance constantly over and over and over trying to get the children of Israel to see. In fact, you know what you and I are. We've said it many times here. You and I are a provocation to who? to the Jews. One of the reasons God's dealing with us as Gentiles is that he's trying to provoke his people to jealousy to see him and come back to him. So anyway, getting back to the sheet here, as God is dealing with them and cutting them to the heart, and when God cuts you to the heart you may want to listen. When God gets on you real heavy you may want to realize that that's just not him being mean to you. If God wanted to be mean to you, he'd kill you right now. If God wanted to be mean to you, he'd put you in a wheelchair as a quadriplegic, and he would just make you suffer. He's not trying to be mean to you when he points these things out. He's trying to be helpful to you. Listen, when you correct your children, you love your children, right? You don't correct them so that you can just be mean to them. You correct them for their own good. And when the Lord cuts you to the heart, you can take that as God is actually trying to help me. And he wants all things to work together for good in my life. He's showing his goodness to me right now because he doesn't want me to go away. That's going to lead me to destruction. And so that's what he's doing for them. So they held back. Simeon was held back in verse 24 as the prisoner. And by the way, little did they know that Joseph heard and understood every word of what they were saying. And, you know, that's just the picture of Jesus Christ again, that, you know, he's all knowing he's omniscient. Pastor said it the other day, it was Thursday when he was preaching, he said that, you know, the devil probably doesn't even know your name. He doesn't know your address. He doesn't even know you exist. You know there's 8 billion or almost 9 billion people in the world. Do you think he keeps, he's not omniscient like God is. He's not everywhere, he's not all-knowing, he's not all-powerful. But God is, and God hears everything that we say anyway. So our lives are exposed before God, and if we would get a hold of that idea that nothing is done in secret, nothing is done in private, God knows and sees everything anyway, so why don't we just be upfront with him? And why don't we just deal with him as we should? But this brings up something that I mentioned the last time we were together, and I didn't get into it, and I'll get into just a little bit of it today. Simeon was held back as one out of 10 brethren. Now, here's Joseph, he was the 11th. He was standing right there, but they didn't know he was there, so we don't count him. You've got Benjamin back home, but he's back home, he's not with them. There's 10 brothers that come to a place called Egypt. Egypt is a type of the world. Go to Revelation 11 in verse 8. Revelation 11 in verse 8. This is talking about Jerusalem in Revelation 11. A song about Moses and Elijah are coming back, and they're going to be slain in the streets. It says in verse 8, "...and their dead bodies shall lie on the street of the great city, which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified." This is a picture of that. You've got the brethren coming to a place called Egypt, which in the Bible is a title for Jerusalem. In this time, in the book Time of Revelation and Tribulation time, you're going to have the Antichrist sitting in the temple declaring himself that he is God, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. Right? And so it's going to be the place of wickedness. It's going to be defiled. And the Bible tells you right here, it's spiritually called Sodom and Egypt. So you've got a picture of these brethren coming into Egypt. And it's symbolic or it's representative of, keep your hands in Revelation because, well, I don't know if I'm going to have you go there anymore. is symbolic of the Jews who will be reassembled. They're reassembling themselves right now. Since 1948, they've been coming back into Jerusalem, right? They've been coming back into Israel. And pretty soon, they're gonna be rebuilding a temple so that they can set it up for the Antichrist to come in. And because they don't believe in Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and the majority of them have been rejecting him, they're gonna trust him. And there's gonna be a peace treaty, and the whole world's gonna fall for it. Well, most of the world will fall for it. But there will be Jews that will be in Jerusalem And what does the Bible tell you? We're not gonna get a deep dive into this, but the Bible tells you in Matthew that if you're in that and you see the abomination of desolation, that you're supposed to get out and run for the hills, right? If you're a Jew, that's your admonition, to get out of there. And you go to the wilderness, and just like they wandered in the wilderness before, and God fed them with manna from heaven, he's gonna do that again. But the ones who don't will be left behind. Go over to Amos chapter five. Now, this has to do with the tithe and a tenth. Simeon was one out of ten brother. He was kept back in Egypt. All right. A place that will be that is in the future is a representative of Jerusalem and the place where the Antichrist will be. Right. So you've got Amos, chapter five, and look at verse three. Well, it's in verse one. It says, Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel, the virgin of Israel is fallen. She shall no more rise, for she is forsaken upon her land. There is none to raise her up. For thus saith the Lord God, the city that went out by a thousand shall leave a hundred, and that which went out by a hundred shall leave ten to the house of Israel. Now that's a tenth, right? That's a tenth. Both of those numbers represent a tenth. What did Abraham give when he saw Melchizedek? A tenth. Why did he give a tenth? Well, because the tithe, whether you know it or not, is more than just giving your tithe to the church to pay the bills around here. A tithe is actually a Jewish thing. It was instituted by Abraham, right? And a tithe is representing, whether Abraham realized it or not, is representative of what the future, just like this incident here with Joseph, is representative of what's going to happen in the future. It's a tithe. And so go over to Isaiah chapter six. This is talking about a tenth of the people shall be left. Now, I can't prove this. This is all speculation, what I'm giving you, really. Not total speculation, but about the number of people. I believe that the majority of Jews will run, and there'll be a tenth that will stay behind in the future. And Isaiah 6, 13 gives you something really interesting here. Let's see, let's go back up to verse 11, Isaiah 6, 11. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered until the cities be wasted without inhabitant and the houses without man and the land be utterly desolate song about the tribulation and the Lord have removed men far away and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. But yet in it shall be a 10th. And it shall return and shall be eaten. As a teal tree. and as an oak, whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves, so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof." Now, this may be a stretch, but you know, it's been going on for years. When you watch TV or movies and things like that, there's been some strange popularity with vampires and the eating of blood, right? And when you go back to the eating of flesh, and things like this, and people find that entertaining. I don't find that entertaining at all. I think horror movies are disgusting, and I don't know how anybody can find those things entertaining whatsoever, but they do, because people are, they're warped and they're twisted. That's demonic. That's truly demonic, and what's gonna happen one day, and by the way, when you go back to Abraham and he gave a tent to Melchizedek, he also had the bread and the wine present, which is representative of what? the Lord's Supper, the Lord's body, if you don't eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no part of me, right? And he's talking spiritually, but also he's talking literally, because if you don't have his blood running through you, you don't have eternal life. You don't have God's blood, you have man's blood, and man's blood perishes. And so one of these days, and the devil is the great imitator, right? And the devil has always tried to eliminate the Jew throughout history. He's done his best, and that's one of the miracles that you can point to with people who don't believe in the Bible, who don't believe in God, who don't believe in prophecy. You can let them know, well, hey, then what about Israel? All through history, you know what, Israel, and I could give you, I don't have it in front of me this morning, but I've given it to you before, all the UN declarations, United Nations declarations against Israel. They are stacked in the United Nations against Israel. Anything that you can get away with as a country, Israel cannot get away with. We will hold them accountable for. And so it's the odds are always been against them. Hitler, as you know, went after them. And all through history, they've been hated and despised and kicked out. Even the Romans couldn't put up with them very long. And ultimately, they got dispersed. And so what I'm saying is, how is it that they're still a people? Right? How is it that they're still, now they're coming back to their land, and they're a world power actually right now, and the whole world is focused on Israel, Israel, and you turn on the news, talk about the Middle East, you're going to hear about Israel. Right? And so, what's going to happen is those, the tenth that are left, I believe the tenth that are left in Jerusalem, the Bible is telling you here in Isaiah 6.13 that they're going to be eaten. The devil is going to show his true colors at that point, and he's going to start to cannibalize and vampirize, if that's a word, these people and eat their flesh and drink their blood and offer it as a sacrifice in the temple, just to prove to the world that the Jews are not God's people. And the ones that are out there in the wilderness, you go find them and you go kill them and hunt them down because they need to be destroyed. but God's gonna take care of them, and there's gonna be quite a battle taking place. It's gonna be a time. I mean, I told those guys in the jail yesterday, I said, we had the board, and I had all the dispensations lined up, and ever at the end was the tribulation and the millennium. I said, there's one time you don't wanna ever be a part of, and it's that one right there, because there's gonna be some wild things going on during that time of history. But that's just a little Bible study on that, and the idea that one of the brothers got left behind, a 10th got left behind, but that didn't happen to him, of course. It's just a picture. But verse 25 through 28, back to Genesis 42, then Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn and to restore every man's money into his sack and to give them provision for the way. Thus did he unto them, and they laid their asses with the corn and departed thence. And as one of them opened his sack to give them his ass provender in the end, he espied his money. For behold, it was in his sack's mouth. And he said unto his brethren, My money is restored, and lo, it is even in my sack. And their heart failed them, and they were afraid, saying one to another, What is this that God hath done unto us? Not the Egyptians. I would have been thinking, probably, you know, look, they put my money back. No, they're saying what God did, because on their minds right now, they have been cut to the heart, and they're under such deep conviction that only God could have made this happen. And again, when that happens, folks, it's the goodness of God. It's not God saying, ha ha ha, I've got you now, just wait till tomorrow, what I'm gonna do to you tomorrow. It's not like that, it's what will you do, I'm trying to wake you up. And so, because what they didn't realize is that that's exactly, Joseph being a type of Christ, that's exactly what Joseph was trying to do for them. He was trying to wake them up. He was trying to reveal to them, hey, I want to tell you I'm my brother, but I can't tell you right now because you guys are so proud. You guys are so deceptive. You guys are so concealing that you don't want me to know. You don't want anybody to know. And so I can't do anything with you in that situation. So anyway, he fills their sacks with corn and restores every man their money. So just as Jesus will miraculously feed the Jews during the tribulation, he is feeding his brothers now, sending them home with more food than they need. Joseph is feeding his brethren. However, the brethren view it as a judgment from God. But that's again, as we mentioned, a perfect example is Romans 2.4. Romans 2.4 being the goodness of God leads to repentance. And Romans 8.28, all things work together for good to them that love God. And little did they realize that Joseph was trying to make sure they came back. You see how that works? The circumstance was there's a famine in the land. That's a bad deal. Who wants a famine? Nobody wants a famine. This is disrupting my business. This is disrupting my life. I mean, I might lose everything and so I have to go to Egypt. Little did they know they go to Egypt and they find their brother. And their brother is the most powerful man in the world and their brother still fears God and their brother still loves them. You know, that's what we were saying earlier, God commended his love toward us and that while we are yet sinners, Christ died for us. You know, the world would get saved like that. I believe that they would know if they realize that. God actually loves me and has a place prepared for me and wants to give me this and wants to give me that, wants to take care of me. He wanted to put his brothers in the land of Goshen, the land of Goshen where they allowed the shepherds. You know, shepherds are an abomination to the Egyptians. You're going to read down in the story where Joseph sits down to eat with his brothers. He can't even eat with his brothers because he's supposed to be an Egyptian. And it says it's an abomination to eat with a Hebrew. But after all that, Joseph is still trying to do the best for his brothers. And this is what God is trying to do with all mankind. He's trying to give them the free gift of eternal life. And they turn their backs on it and say, no, I think what I'd rather do is just hide, hide, hide, and run, run, run, and do my own thing, and just leave me alone. Well, ultimately, we've made our choice that we've chosen against God. There's no black and white with God. You can't serve God and mammon. Can't be on both sides of the fence. Verse twenty nine through thirty eight. It says, And they came into Jacob, their father, under the land of Canaan and told him all that befell them, saying, The man who is the lord of the land speak roughly to us. That's what I always think when I read that they speak roughly to us. and took us for spies of the country. And we said unto him, we are true men, we are no spies. We be twelve brethren, sons of our father. One is not, and the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan. And the man, the lord of the country, said unto us, hereby shall I know that ye are true men. Leave one of your brethren here with me, and take food for the famine of your households, and be gone. And bring your youngest brother unto me, then shall I know that ye are no spies, but that ye are true men. So will I deliver to you your brother, and ye shall traffic in the land. That traffic in the land just means you can come and go in the land and do as you please in the land, okay? Verse 35, and it came to pass as they emptied their sacks, that behold, every man's bundle of money was in his sack. And when both they and their father saw the bundles of money, they were afraid. And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children. Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away? All these things are against me. And Reuben spake unto his father, saying, Slay my two sons, if I bring him not to thee. Deliver him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again. And he said, My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he is left alone. If mischief befall him by the way in which you go, then shall you bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. Now, this is a great illustration of what we've been talking about. Here you've got Jacob, and we all know the history of Jacob. He's a deceiver, right? Now, his name now is Israel, and he's hopefully turned over a new leaf, so to speak, and he's with God, and he's supposed to be. But at this point in his life, which happens to be a tendency of ours as we go on, we get real sentimental about what we've done in our lives. Our families, our accomplishments, our homes, our lands, everything I've worked for. And now instead of worrying, he's worried all about losing everything. And he's back to his, you know, looking at himself again. Joseph's brother returned home and explained everything to their father. Of all the negative things that could be said of these boys, they seem to have come to honor their father, at least that. They want to go back. They want to get Simeon out of there. They want to get more food. They want to do what Joseph said, but they're going to listen to their father. They're actually submitting to their father, something they had never done in the past. You remember when they went back and they slaughtered all the people in that land over their sister? They didn't want their sister to be looked at as a harlot, so they just killed her. Jacob was disgusted with that. He said, you've caused my name to stink. Well, now they've come to a point where they actually come to honor their father, which is not a bad thing. But this doesn't take away from the fact that they've also made him miserable. Jacob declares his misery. We already just read it in verse 36 and 38. And so, you know what, children of parents, if you have parents that are living, you know, one of the things you don't want to do is what these boys have done. Now, they honor them with this lip, their lips. And God talks about that. He said, You honor me with your lips, but in your hearts, you don't. And these boys have done everything they've wanted, all the time they've wanted. And they've gone behind their father's back. They got rid of their brother, Joseph, years ago. And now they went up there and got exposed. And now they've lost Simeon. And now they want to come take Benjamin. But they're still submitting to daddy. And one of the things that you don't ever want to do is get that way with your parents. You don't ever want to get to the point where you're just talking behind their backs, but when you're around them, oh, you know, father and mother, and we love you, and you know, and all the things that we try to do to be courteous to our parents. but then behind their backs, you know, they're senile, they're old, they don't know what they're talking about, and boy, they're so dumb, and if they would just do what I say, and that's what happens. You know what happens, Pastor has been through a lot of this, he's shared a lot of this with me, I haven't seen much of this, but he says, John, one of the worst things you ever wanna do is get together with family after the parents have passed away. He says, because then the devil comes out in everybody. I want this and I want that and the kids are, they didn't care about mom and dad at all. All they cared about was mom and dad's stuff. and what they can get out of mom and dad. You don't ever want to be that way. That's the way these boys were. They honored their father with their lips, but their hearts were far from him. And you don't ever want to be that way with the Lord. Oh, praise the Lord. Thank God, you know, he's been good to me. And I wondered that yesterday in the jail. You know, when we get in there, we start singing and we give them a chance to testify. And so I want to just thank God for giving me a sound mind. I want to thank God for waking me up this morning. I want to thank God for another day. I want to thank God for, you know, and they're always thanking God. But then you start preaching and they're like, You know, and we can be that way, too. We can come to church, and we can put on a show, and we can dress up nice, and we can act like everything's good, and then we get out of here, and then just the cares of the world just take over, and our lives just take over, and we just honor God with our lips. And as we already said, they didn't understand. Joseph understood everything they said. I mean, you'd really think that you're hiding that attitude behind God's back? that I'm just going to show everybody that I'm a Christian, but tomorrow I'm going to live like I want. You're really only living before God. You understand that one of these days we're only going to stand before God. We're going to be judged in front of Jesus. You might as well just start living for Him. You might as well just yield to Him. The Bible talks about in Romans yielding your members to Jesus Christ. You might as well. Why? Because He sees it anyway. And you can fool me. What do you want to fool me for? I'm nobody. Why would you care what I think? And frankly, why would I care what you think? Right? I don't stand before you someday. I stand before God. Now, that doesn't mean I'm a jerk and I don't care what you think. You know, that's not that at all. You do care what people think. You do want a testimony. But you understand what I'm saying, right? Let's look at chapter 43 and move on in the story. And the famine was sore in the land. We'll read all the way through verse 14. And it came to pass when they had eaten up the corn which they had brought out of Egypt, their father said to them, go again, buy us a little food. Now this, I don't know how long this took, maybe as long as a year. I don't know how much food was in their sacks, but Simeon's sitting back there, and he's waiting, he's like, where are they? They're doing to me what they did to Joseph. I mean, come on, and they're just eating all the food and sitting back there having a good old time, and he's back, he's probably, you know, there's no cell phones, there's no text message. There's nothing like that, but Jacob says, go again, buy us a little food. Now, you see what happens when the pressure gets on when you're getting hungry? See what's going to happen in the tribulation time when they get hungry? You see what would happen with you if you lost your job, and you started to get hungry, and you couldn't pay the next bill, and you couldn't pay the next bill, and you couldn't pay the next bill? What's going to happen? All of a sudden, you remember the conversation we just read? Well, slay my two sons and I'll go back. No, I don't care about that. You're not taking my boy. You already bereaved me of my sons, and you already took away Joseph, and now you're not going to take away him. You're not going back. Just three verses later, go again and buy us a little food. See how that goes? Our bellies rule our lives. Our bodies, the flesh is more powerful than we give it credit for. Our flesh decides what we do next, not our spirits most of the time. Verse 3, And Judah spake unto them, saying, The man did solemnly protest unto us, saying, Ye shall not see my face, except your brother be with you. If thou wilt send our brother with us, we will go down and buy thee food. But if thou wilt not send him, we will not go down. For the man said unto us, Ye shall not see my face, except your brother be with you. And Israel said, Wherefore dealt ye so ill with me as to tell the man whether ye had a brother? And in my Bible, and we talked about it before, I have a little note, don't say more than you have to, but that's what they did. Verse 7, and they said, the man asked us straightly of our estate. Now do you remember reading that in chapter 42? Do you remember Joseph asking them of their estate? No. He didn't say anything, but now they're adding, I think they're either adding to the story or filling in the blanks, you decide. The man asked us straightly of our estate and of our kindred, saying, is your father yet alive? Have ye another brother? I mean, what a question. Why would they ask? Why would Joseph? Do you have another brother? He wouldn't. I don't know. I don't know. I think they're just making this up to try and appease their father and to cover their tracks. And we told him, according to the tenor of these words, could we say, could we certainly know that he would say, bring your brother down? Verse eight. And Joseph said to Israel, his father, send me the lad, send the lad with or Judah said unto Israel's father, send the lad with me and we will arise and go that we may live and not die. Both we and our and thou and also our little ones. I will be surety for him, of my hand that shalt thou require him. If I bring him not to thee and set him before thee, let me bear the blame forever. For except we had lingered surely now, we have returned this second time. And their father had said unto them, if it must be so, now do this. Take of the best fruits of the land in your vessels and carry down the man a present, a little balm, a little honey, spices and myrrh, nuts and almonds, and take double money in your hand, and the money that was brought again in the mouth of your sacks, carry it again in your hand. Peradventure, it was an oversight. Take also your brother and arise, go again unto the man. And God Almighty, now he's talking about God Almighty for the first time that you're reading this in two chapters. He's invoking the name of God Almighty, give you mercy before the man that he may send away your brother and Benjamin. If I be bereaved of my children, I am bereaved. So, Several months had passed by, maybe as long as a year. The food was running out. And Jacob's tune was changing. And we mentioned that. Be careful when your tune changes. Sometimes circumstances, God allows circumstances just like he sent them to Egypt for a famine. He's going to send them back because of the famine. So God was in this. But Israel, Jacob and the brothers weren't thinking like that. They were just letting their stomachs dictate to them what they were going to do next. And a lot of people do that. Well, I have to leave the area. I know this is a good church. I know this is where I should raise my family, but I have to leave the area. Why do you have to leave the area? Because I need a better job. Well, do you need a better job? Have you tried for a better job right where you're at? Have you been praying about it? Yeah, I've been praying about it. And you know, just for a dollar more per hour, people move and take off and they sacrifice so much just to do that. But anyway, and that will be more serious during the Tribulation. People will be faced with a choice. You know, what do I do? Do I take a mark, or do I feed my baby, or do I let my baby die? Well, Jacob said here, if I be bereaved of my children, I be bereaved of my children. I am going to do what I need to do. So he's now willing to let his boys go back to Egypt, even if it means losing his children. And this will be the dilemma of every person during the Tribulation. They will either lose their soul, or lose their children. That's how serious it will be. You take a mark in the tribulation time. None of you should be there for that, by the way. But if you take the mark in tribulation time, you know what you've done? You've sold your soul to the devil for a for a morsel of food. Because this flesh is hungry, because I don't want this flesh to suffer, because I don't want this flesh to go a day without, because I don't want to feel the pain of this flesh. I'm willing to sell my soul and spend an eternity in hell for one more day of pleasure. And that's how ridiculous and that's how insane your flesh is. That's how depraved and defiled your flesh is. It will trick you and deceive you and take advantage of you every time it can. And when we listen to that, and that's why the Bible says if you walk in the spirit, you won't fulfill the lust of the flesh if you feed the white dog instead of the black dog. And so that'll be happening. That'll be happening in droves. in the tribulation time. People will be choosing their flesh. They have no resilience. You know what you might want to do? I've given this before, but I think it's been a while. I have a friend of mine, a good friend of mine up in Michigan that we used to talk to and spend time fellowshipping with. He said to me sometime, he goes, John, you know, I asked him, I think it was about a movie or a book or something. He says, no, I haven't seen that. I said, you haven't seen that? Everybody has seen that. He says, well, no, I'm not interested in that. He said, I'll see it sometime. I said, well, if you're going to see it sometime, you might as well see it now. He said, you know, John, one of the things that I do, he says, if a new movie comes out, or if a new thing comes out, and everybody's doing it, he says, I intentionally don't do it for at least a year, just because I want to tame my own flesh. I want to tell my flesh, you don't need that. You can wait on that. And if someday, maybe we'll never do that. But at least right now, you're not going to have your way, flesh. You said, well, it's just a movie. Yeah, it's just a movie. I went out to Pensacola, up to Pensacola where Dr. Ruckman's school is, PBI, and I was there, happened to be there on a Saturday when they were going street preaching. and I was, so I decided I'd go out preaching. My father-in-law was in school there, and I said, okay, I'm gonna go out, we'll go out with him, and we'll see what this is like. So we're standing around waiting to go out. Everybody's assembling in, they have a gym, and we're assembling in there. And a guy walks up to me, he didn't recognize me, and he said, oh, you're new around here? Are you going to school here? I said, no, no, I'm just visiting. Oh, who are you visiting? And we started talking. And he says, you're gonna go out on the street? I said, yeah, I'll go out on the street and see what this is like. I said, it's pretty hot out there. He goes, yeah, it's hot out there. And he says, you know what some of us do? He goes, I said, at least I can get in the car and I can get a little air conditioning on the way there and on the way back. He goes, you know what some of us do? He goes, we don't even use our air conditioning. I said, what? He said, yeah, we don't use our air conditioning because we want to just crucify this flesh all the more. I said, you're crazy. But he said, no, this is just something we, and it's a spiritual thing that they're talking about, just something to do to make sure that you're keeping this flesh under control. Now, I would recommend that when you leave here, you turn the air conditioning on in your car, and you keep it on in your house. But you know what? You can do little things like that to tame yourself, if you will, to train yourself, not to give in to every whim of this flesh every time it beckons you. Americans have been conditioned to choose safety and security over freedom. You realize that they are conditioning us all the time. And one of the things you saw during COVID, and that's over, thank God, but one of the things you saw during COVID was safety first, safety first, right? Not personal liberties, not go where you wanna go, not keep my business open if I wanna keep my business open, not eat where I wanna eat and not walk where I wanna walk, even the beach, you couldn't go to the beach, how ridiculous, right? Or church. But you know what they're trying to do? They're trying to control you. They're trying to, oh, peace and safety, safety, safety, safety first. You know what safety first is? Me first. Take care of me first. Give me food. Give me the mark, because I need to eat. And Americans will be the first in line for the mark of the beast, because they've been conditioned that, oh, we just take care of ourselves, and we need this and need this. We don't need personal liberty. I couldn't possibly choose my own fate. Well, you better. So God used an extreme circumstance to force Jacob's hand. We've talked about that. And he put him back into where they needed food again. Once again, all of this could have been avoided had he and his sons believed Joseph's dream in the first place. Now, just as the tribulation can be avoided if you believe the gospel today. But here's the deal. All of the things we're reading about right now, all of the history that took place here, was a result of them not believing the Word of God as a 17-year-old boy gave it to them. Because they didn't like the messenger, because they didn't like who was delivering it, because they didn't want daddy's boy telling us what we were supposed to do. They didn't like the fact that God actually revealed something to him in a dream, and what they would have to do to submit to their brother. So they rejected God's Word, and here they are, Years later in this circumstance, you know, there's a lot of things that can be avoided in our lives. We might look back and regret and maybe realize a few things that a lot of things could have been avoided in my life if I would have just. You know, everybody back then was warning me that my kids would rebel if I did this, but I didn't care. I didn't listen. I wouldn't have been in this situation with my job, or with my marriage, or with my friends, if I would have just listened. That's a good lesson. You may not be able to change everything in the past, but you certainly can change the trajectory of your future. And you can say, well, you know what, from now on, when the goodness of God shows up and he tries to get me to repent, I might just go ahead and do that this time and trust the Lord, whether or not it seems hard on my flesh or not, whether or not it seems like that's going to be the most difficult path, and whether or not I'm just kind of throwing my life out. What he's saying here, what is happening in this situation, he's saying, if I'd be bereaved of my children, I'd be bereaved of my children. I'm just throwing myself at the mercy and the hand of God. Look down later in the paragraph here, just before the bottom of the sheet, just before verses 15 to 23. This is one of the rare, if you can find there, this is one of the rare times he places complete faith in God. And here's a quote, actually, that I took from a commentary, which I thought was really good, and I put it on your paper. Here is fatalism and the acceptance of misfortune as necessary and certain. while at the same time there is a full recognition that God Almighty can alter time and circumstances and show mercy to sinners which will help them avoid calamities. This is also known as dying to oneself. So you understand what you're reading there? It's kind of a mixture of the two things. Fatalism. Fatalism, the idea that, well, what will be, will be. I'm just going to throw myself at the mercy of fate and see what happens. I'm not going to try to control the circumstance. I'm just going to let it go. And you know what? That's what we have to do with the Lord. There's a lot of times that we don't know what tomorrow will bring, and we know that if we trust God in this matter, that means I'm going to lose my job. If I trust God in this matter, that means I'm going to lose my family. I'm gonna get kicked out of the home. If I go ahead and get saved, a lot of people are faced with that dilemma around the world, not necessarily in America, but if I go and get saved, I'm gonna be cut off from the family, they're gonna kick me out of the house, and I may even die. But you know what? That's a form of fatalism. But you know what you're doing? You're trusting God in that situation. It's not fatalism. It's not taking a chance. It's not putting your life out there and saying, well, what will be, will be. You're trusting God, but in a sense, it's the same thing. You don't know what tomorrow will bring. You know what the Hebrew children said when they were going to get cast in the fire? They said, well, we're confident that God could deliver us from the fire. But if he doesn't. If he doesn't, he doesn't. I'm just going to put myself in the hands of God and I'll die doing right rather than preserving my own life and preserving this old flesh that is trying to dictate to me what I ought to do and maybe displease God in the process. So it's a lesson for us. to die to ourselves. That's what Matthew 16 talks about that. Galatians 2. Paul talked about I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I. In the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. And so that's every step we take is like that. There was a movie, I don't know if you are into Raiders of the Lost Ark, but I was when I was younger. and watching those movies, and you've got a situation in one of the movies where, what was his name, the main character? What? No, no, you got the wrong movie. Harrison Ford. I can't remember his name in the movie, but anyways, there's a chasm, there's a gulf, and he's got to get to the other side. And they told him, they said, now, but if you, how are you going to get to the other side? All those people got to the other side. How'd they get over there? There's no way to jump. There's no kind of rope to get out. They said, just, you got to believe. And so what he did is he was, he was debating in his mind. He was fighting it. There's a whole long scene and he takes a step out into nothing and he steps down and there's all of a sudden there's a step that shows up there. And then he takes another step and there's another step that shows up there. Now that's a movie. And that's worldly, but that's it. You know, that's a perfect illustration of what we do with God. There's a lot of times we don't know what we're what's going to happen if we obey him and do what we're supposed to do. But that's what he wants us to do. And lo and behold, something shows up that we never thought would happen. We could have never even imagined how that could have happened or how that could have come about. That just came out of nowhere. Yeah, that's how that's how you know what Bible says, that faith, that it's impossible to please God without faith and that he desires us to have faith. And that's why he doesn't show us every step of our path. That's why he doesn't reveal everything that we're going to do. And we're not going to be able to finish here. But this is exactly why he put Jacob one more time and his brethren in this position, because they still hadn't learned the lesson of faith to trust the Lord. They didn't trust the words of their younger brother and his and his beloved son back years ago. And now they're paying the price for it. And here again, but the goodness of God is still with them. And he's saying, listen, I'm gonna give you another chance to trust me. You wanna trust me? Go ahead, send Benjamin. Your simian is still okay. You get over there, and guess what? Who's awaiting you is someone that you've been dying to see for over 20 years. Someone that you wished was alive and isn't alive, and if I could've just put my arms around him one more time, if I could just tell him I love him one more time, if I could just have him at home one more time, and he's waiting for you, And the Lord is up in heaven, and He's done everything He can. He's waiting for mankind to receive. Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. I will give you rest. Cast your cares upon Me, for I care for you. He's there. He's good God. He's not a mean God waiting to chastise us. You know why the Bible says He chastises us? Because He loves us. He's the only one that you can count on that will ever chastise you for your own good. and He wants to bring about good in our lives. We're going to have to stop there.