In our last session we were looking at the death of Jacob and Jacob had finished blessing all twelve of those sons and that was after he had blessed Ephraim and Manasseh who were the sons of Joseph and he said that he wanted to be buried in the cave of Machpelah which Abraham actually bought. Isaac and Rebekah were there Abraham and Sarah. And Leah, we find out, was also there. And Rachel, though, his favorite wife was not there. She was buried in Bethlehem. Now this is the only mention that we looked at last week of Leah's life. And it's interesting is that what she could not get, what Leah could not get, was close to him during life. She was close to him in death. This is an interesting parallel. You know, the way that works out is that she, her body was going to be there until they're resurrected. So that's several thousand years. And he pulled up his feet when he was done with all the prophecies and he just died and he departed this earthly life. He didn't have any struggles over it. He had finally become one with God. He's in the other side now. And the age of this man was 147. 147. He had many, many sins. But Jacob was nevertheless a man of God and he grew immeasurably over his life. Over his life. He desired God. He loved God his entire life. And he looked to God. He just didn't always act out the way that he should have. But he learned in life where his blessings came from and what he had to do. He fought with God, but he became a man of God that had the privilege of passing down the covenant to his twelve sons. And he knew that they were going to populate the earth as the sands of the sea. And they have become a major nation on the earth. if not in complete population of the Jews, at least in terms of political importance. And as we've noticed in many other instances, that they're in the news every day, all the time. So Joseph is the one that's charged with the burial and the funeral. So he loves His dad, his dad loved him. He was the favorite son. And Joseph knew God. He lived his life as though he knew God. He had a knowledge of the hereafter. He knew that the weeping he was having for his dad was not going to last long. We don't weep like the heathen do that just don't know what's on the other side. We know that there's another side. Because we've seen these people go before us. And we know where we're going to be. We have the promises of God in this. It's natural to mourn for people when they die. The animation's gone. They lie there. The color's gone from their faces. And they're gone. They're gone. They're not inside those bodies anymore. But we are going to be connected together with them. We will be connected together with those loved ones of ours that died in Christ. We will know them. For the time being, though, we feel the sting of death because it's a shock. It's not something we deal with every day. I remember when I was in college, I met a guy who worked and an undertaker, and he was constantly going down for death certificates at the county. This is in Detroit years ago, and he just said, man, it seems like everybody in the world is dying when you're in this business. We don't see that. It's not like we're seeing people dying all the time. So it's a shock when somebody dies, even if you're expecting them to die. Let's say they're very, very sick. It's still a shock. It's a sting. But someday there will not be any more death. It will finally be over. Revelation 21.4 tells us that. There won't be any more separation. Death will be done. Now, Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm Joseph. or excuse me, Jacob. Joseph did not want the embalmers to do it because they engaged in these magical arts. The embalming process that Herodotus, the father of history, tells us is that they would empty out the contents of the cranial cavity and they would fill it with wine and some other chemicals and they would use something called naton, which evidently quickly dried the bodies out before they had an opportunity to decompose. and they would take out the internal organs but leave the heart and take out the rest of the internal organs and they would put them in bottles and dedicate those to Horus, one of their gods, and they would have some spiritual ceremony about this and that's what Joseph was trying to avoid. He did not want that to happen, but he had to embalm him because it was going to be a while before that body could get transported back to Canaan. You know, there was going to be a period of about 40 days of mourning for the Hebrews, 70 days of mourning for the Egyptians, because the Egyptians loved this guy. I mean, this was the family, essentially, that Joseph represented, who had saved them from this famine. So they really thought highly of them, and they wanted to have a pretty elaborate ceremony for this. And they then went to Canaan in a funeral procession that was authorized by Pharaoh. Joseph didn't even go to Pharaoh himself. He had somebody else go to Pharaoh. And it's interesting that he did that. It's not 100% clear why he did that. But it may have just been because of administrative responsibilities, it may have been the bureaucratic procedure that was there, or he may have just thought that to honor Pharaoh even more and make sure that he was able to go back to Canaan, he would go through the proper channels. And what he basically said to Pharaoh was, 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 Cairn, and there shalt thou bury me. So they did. They got a royal procession after the embalming and after the mourning process. And it was huge. It was people from the state. It was people from the community. They even had an army and servants. The only people that didn't go was the little kids in the flocks in the herds. Everybody else went. All the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt. I mean, this is an incredible procession going back to Canaan, which must have taken them a week or more just to get there. And they had banners. It was a funeral like we haven't seen. Maybe a military funeral would be something analogous to it. chariots and horsemen, and they went through a desert with a very large army, and it was a very great company. They got to a place called the Threshing Floor of Atad. They renamed it Abel Mitzrayim, and that's one of the words for Egypt, Mitzrayim. And they had the service there. It was in two stages. The first stage was the service at the threshing floor of a tod, which was a large area where grain was tramped out by oxen. and it could accommodate all the people that were there for the funeral. When the first part was over, the other folks left and the family went back on their own to the cave of Machpelah where the body was finally interred. And they were just the immediate family. Of course, the immediate family was several hundred people by then. So this was not a small group. And Jacob knew that Joseph would do what he wanted. So that's why he put Joseph in charge of this. They brought him back to Machpelah, which Abraham bought and was buried there. So in the end, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Leah, and Jacob were all placed there. And that's where they are today. I'm not sure we know exactly where the cave of Machpelah is today, but they are there. Jacob's life came to an end and he rested in that family burying place and that ended the life of Jacob. We're going to finish the book of Genesis today with finishing the story of Joseph and looking at what the scripture says about the very end of this book. What's interesting is that we're going to see the death of Joseph. The book of Genesis starts with life being created. Life starts and in the end of the book of Genesis, Joseph dies. So you've got a life at the begin, created of all, and then you've got the death of one of the patriarchs there, Joseph, who dies at the end of this book. The first section we're going to look at is Genesis 50, from 14 to 21. where Joseph's brothers get afraid of him. They're still afraid of him, which really gives us some insight into human relations. We're going to see today some really good lessons for the Christian community to understand about family relations and dynamics between people. It's important we understand this. So the text of the scripture says, And Joseph returned unto Egypt, he and his brethren, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father. And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will perventure 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, you 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 the funeral was over. The whole celebration had taken place. They were all back in Egypt. Jacob was in the cave of Machpelah. Now they're going to start life without the patriarch there. And these ten brothers who had been cruel to him start thinking, uh-oh, Jacob's gone. They're thinking that Jacob was the one that was keeping Joseph from getting his vengeance on them. They still didn't know all of the generosity that Joseph had towards them. Everything that he did for them, they were still thinking, boy, he's going to get us back. He's going to get us back. They still hadn't learned fully that Joseph loved God. Joseph wanted God's commandments, God's ways. Always is what he wanted throughout his entire life, and they still didn't get this. If you look back on the 17 years that this family had been in Egypt under Joseph, they never sought forgiveness that we know of from Joseph for what they'd done, and they were criminals basically for what they did to him. And Joseph never said, I forgive you. He, his actions showed us that he was kind to them, but he was wary of them constantly because he knew what kinds of things they did. They must have lived those whole 17 years being anxious about what he might do to them. And he never did. He never did anything. He wasn't going to be vengeful. But they're just thinking, hey, look, Jacob is the wall of protection here, and he's gone. Joseph is going to have to do this. He's going to have to come back at us. You see, evil people will think evil things of other people, whether or not they're thinking it or not. And these guys were evil. They were evil. And so they're thinking, well, he's going to do this. I would do it, so therefore he would do it. they still hadn't come to the realization of Joseph was a man of God. So they send a message to Joseph through a third party. They didn't even want to confront him here. It's sort of similar to what Joseph did to Pharaoh when he wanted to go back and bury his dad in Canaan. It's probable that this was Benjamin. Benjamin was too young in the beginning when Joseph was only 17 to have participated in this. He was just a real little kid at the time. And he was the blood brother, the full brother of Joseph. So it's probable, although we don't know for sure, that he was the one that was the intermediary. And they began to think that Joseph was just trying to avoid any pain to his father. for all these years by not extracting his vengeance. So they appeal to Joseph with a fictitious claim. Jacob never said this. The scripture would reveal this if Jacob had said this. He didn't. He didn't. So they come up with the story. Well, dad commanded, you know, he said, Dad 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." Joseph didn't have any thoughts of retribution. He wasn't going to do this. He knew what they had done. I mean, look at the whole process of how these people got back there. Joseph wanted them out of Canaan. He wanted them in Egypt. He did everything he could to bring them over there. He had to use a little subterfuge and he didn't let them know who he was. But frequently, in these meetings with his brothers, he would turn away from them and go into another room and cry over the whole situation because he was so sensitive. He wasn't going to hurt them. He tested them. He tested them frequently because he knew what they were like. And he was just overcome by emotion now and in the past over this reconciliation. So what do they do? They fall down in front of him after Joseph is expressing his emotion over this, and they say, look, we'll be your slaves. They're still not getting it. They're still not getting it. They're still not understanding this forgiveness and the way he has treated them. They still say, well, look, we have to do something. We can't just accept this. We have to do something. So they wanted to be his slaves. And his response is just classic. If you don't remember anything else about this message, just remember this. Fear not, for am I in the place of God?" In other words, he's not God. Yeah, he had a high political administrative position in the greatest country in the world at that time. But he didn't rule a cosmos. He's not God. He is not God. And he knew that. So then he goes on to say, but as for you, you thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good. And we're going to discuss this in a few minutes because that is such a difficult concept to understand. It is very difficult and we are not going to understand it. It's like we're not going to understand what we looked at in Ephesians 1 of God chooses and we choose him. There's a predestination and the will of man. You're never going to understand that because it's outside of human understanding. Well, the same thing is here. Joseph finishes this by just quickly outlining the events of the kidnapping and the slavery and the famine and the rise to power. He just makes reference to it. But it's because all this happened to save them as a nation. It was God's divine providence to orchestrate the events to save that nation Israel. He loved, Joseph loved God. But he also knew that he was not God. And that is so important. So many people that get into the Christian community begin to think somehow or other that they're God. I don't know where this comes from, but I've seen way, way, way too many to take that attitude. Joseph knew that he could never have conceived and orchestrated events that were so vastly complex to bring about this entire scenario whereby these Jews became a nation, got saved out of the famine, got plenty of food, and began to develop in Egypt. You know, human actions and their consequences are far, far, far more complex than we will ever understand. It appears to us as chaos in many instances, but God has control. That is what's so hard to understand. So hard to understand. God will use man's evil purposes as a tool for ultimate good. And it's way beyond the knowledge, the understanding, or the realization, or desire, or anything of the people involved. It's way, way, way beyond that. And we can't understand this, but we have to see in this story, that basic fact, that God uses all of the activities in this human sphere, in this planet, including evil, to achieve his purposes. He has a causative will, where he causes things to happen, and he's got a permissive will, at least. He's probably got a lot more than us, where he allows things to happen. I don't understand it, but I know that this is what he does. You can see it here. The text never says that Joseph forgave his brothers, but it infers that he did because of the way that he treated them. But he, again, he didn't trust them. He didn't trust them. And we shouldn't either. We shouldn't either trust the people that hurt us, but we have to forgive them. Have to forgive them. Just don't make yourself vulnerable to the people that are hurting you, because they're going to do it again. That's the way they are. And then you get hurt again, and you wonder, well, why did you do that? I forgave you. Because that's what they do. But you've got to forgive them. I mean, Christ forgave the people that hung Him on that cross. Remember what He said? They don't know what they're doing, Father. And that is the way the world is. The people that are without Christ don't understand. And the only way you can explain it to them is by bringing them into the family of God if God has chosen them to be in the family of God. Because once they come in and the Spirit enters them, they'll be illuminated and they'll see what it is that you're talking about. Before then, they never will. They just won't get it. That forgiveness that we see that He inferred gave Him the ability to comfort them and assure them that He's going to feed them and care for them and their families with food and kindness. If He hadn't forgiven them, He wouldn't have been able to do that. He'd never be able to do that because without forgiveness, we harbor an animosity that is like a wall between us and the people that have harmed us that won't break down. We have the ability to break that wall down. I'm not saying we forget. I'm not saying that we go back into those situations and get harmed again. I'm just saying you've got to forgive them because they don't know what they're doing. They don't know what's driving them. They don't know why they're doing what they're doing. We do. We do. And you can't even explain that to them. You may get somebody once in a while that is willing to listen, but it's so difficult to explain to somebody that doesn't know God. I put a few Proverbs down here that I want to read. The first one is 16.9. It says, A man's heart diviseth his way, but Jehovah directeth his steps. In other words, the individual on the earth is doing what he or she wants to do. Hey, I'm in charge. I'm doing what I want. God is all the time somehow directing these events. And I don't know, you know, I've listened to people trying to explain that to me and they get fanciful. You know, we're like puppets and God's a puppeteer and just moving your hand. He's controlling that. It's far more complex than that. And we're not going to understand that. Proverbs 19.21 says, There are many devices in a man's heart, but the counsel of Jehovah, that shall stand. That shall stand. God retains sovereignty and control. I don't understand it, but I know it's true. Proverbs 20.24 says, A man's goings are of Jehovah. How then can man understand his way? And that's the concluding proverb there. I put that in there intentionally so you can see this. We are directed by God in a broad sense. And again, I don't understand this. And a man is not going to understand this. We're not going to understand this. But we have to know that God is in control and God's will will always prevail. In the middle of these passages here are probably some of the most important lessons that we will ever learn about God. One, that he's in complete control of everything. And I will say this again, we're not going to understand it, but God is in complete control. Lots of people continually try and explain this and I've listened to so many and read so much. They can't. They can't explain it. Not adequately. or they'll take verses out of context, or they'll take something that God does in the Bible and assume he does that particular thing all the time, and they fall short. Then they build theologies around this, and boy, it gets even stranger from there because it doesn't make any sense. When you build a theology around a speculation, you've got speculations on top of speculations with a weak foundation. It doesn't work. It just doesn't work. Yeah, we have choices here. God gives us some degree of sovereignty. The best I've heard is God has ordained everything and he's given man responsibility. He's given man responsibility. And that doesn't tell the whole story. We're not puppets. We're not puppets. And he's not the puppeteer, but he has a degree of control that we will never understand. Maybe when we get to the other side, maybe when we meet him face to face, we will understand it. But for now, we're not. We're just not going to. And he gets his will done. He always does. We worship him. We love him with all our souls, our hearts, our minds, and our strength. And what we have that has been given to us is the mind of Christ to help us understand. 1 Corinthians 2.16 says, For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. So we have an understanding of what God wants from us, how he wants us to think, and how he wants us to live. But we're never going to understand, at least on this side, all of the dynamics between God's control, which He exerts and gets things done, and our responsibility and how those two mesh together. Suffice it to say, God wants us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And from there, we have that relationship with Him where we want to do His will. How else He orchestrates things is way beyond us. The second major aspect here is that forgiveness for a Christian is not an option. You don't choose to forgive somebody or choose not to forgive them. I've heard people say those things. I'm just not going to ever forgive him or her. Don't you read the Bible? Don't you see what the Lord Jesus said about these things? God has forgiven you. If you don't forgive others, why should God forgive you? You've already been forgiven. You know, people have asked me, why does God send people to hell? He doesn't. We did it on our own. We're all going to hell until you accept the offer of salvation. And it's a free offer. It's a gift. God doesn't purposely send people. As a matter of fact, everywhere I look, I see people trying to talk about Jesus, somehow get people to understand God wants us to be with him on the other side. He doesn't want that people will not be saved, but people through their own will will resist God and not do it. When we're right with God, we have a right relationship with God, we want to forgive others. As I said, Doesn't mean you forget and doesn't mean you put yourself back in a vulnerable position. You just get that wall down of animosity and angst and being upset with people for what they do. Because once you forgive them, that just dissipates. That just dissipates. All have sinned and fell short of the glory of God. We've got to stay close to Him. We've got to pattern our thoughts after Him. And look at Joseph. He forgave them. He forgave them. I mean, it's just a wonderful story on reconciliation. But he was still wary of them. He didn't trust them. But he reconciled them. He took care of them. He did what he had to do. And he knew what they were like. You know, if he had placed too much trust in them, he'd be foolish. Absolutely foolish. God doesn't call us to be fools. He calls us to use our minds. He gave them to us with logic and reason. And to trust God above all, not man. Not man. And we should do that. So we've got to forgive others, but don't be vulnerable. And that will take that burden of any malice that we have towards others away. Doesn't make the sin less, or the sinners any less guilty, but it sure contributes to the glory of God. And that's what we are to be doing, glorifying God. So when somebody sees us forgive somebody that has harmed us, they just wonder, how can you do that? How can you do that? I don't know if any of you have read the story of Corrie Ten Boom and the Hiding Place, but it is just phenomenal. Man, it just sends a chill up my back to think of her meeting one of her tormentors after the war in that concentration camp, asking her for forgiveness. And she said, the first thing I thought of was just, no way. Look what you did. My family didn't know it, but I knew I had to. That is powerful. That is really powerful. And other people saw that. Other people read that book. Other people know that. And learn from that. And learn from that. Romans 12, 19 says, Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. And we've got to remember that we are not God. We are not God. Joseph made that very, very clear. Am I God? No way. No way I'm not God. We are not to seek vengeance. There's a big difference. I've been asked to write some things on the Lord Jesus' statement in Matthew 5, which he said that, turn the other cheek, because that has been so mischaracterized in the Christian community. It's been tied to vengeance, and in all areas you are just supposed to turn the other cheek, you know, and let the evil run over you, and that's absolutely untrue. What he was saying in that passage, the Sermon on the Mount, was not to take personal vengeance for personal infractions against us. We use the civil authorities. We use those authorities that are in place. In other words, there's nothing wrong with going to war. There's nothing wrong with having police stop things. Nothing wrong with protecting yourself. But it's a personal vengeance that he's telling us to avoid. The big difference, he's not telling us to never have war and be a pacifist and so on. Not at all. He's telling us, you don't seek personal vengeance on your own. Not at all. So the text moves on and we're going to finish the book of Genesis with the death of Joseph. And Genesis 50 verses 22 to 26 say, And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father's house. And Joseph lived 110 years. And Joseph saw Apriam's children to the third generation, the children also of Makar, the son of Manasseh, were brought up on Joseph's knees. And Joseph said to his brethren, I die, and God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land, into the land which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. And Joseph took an oath to the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph died being 110 years old and they embalmed him and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. He was 56 years old when Jacob died. Just think about that. He was 17 when they brought him to Egypt when his brother sold him to the Ishmaelites. That's a long time. He was on the throne for a long time. And 17 years later, his dad dies. And then 54 years after, he died himself. Abraham was 175. Isaac was 180 when he died. And Jacob was 147. It's interesting. From the great flood until the end of the book of Genesis, you see the longevity of the people declining. They're dying at earlier and early ages. That's part of the factors that we looked at at the beginning of this book. Entropy at the fall, the speed of light declining, and in general, the decay that entropy brings with it. It's causing life to slow down, to grind down. Joseph lived long enough to know some of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I mean, Manasseh had two sons, Makar and Asriel, and I put down the references of where we see their names. Manasseh's grandson was Gilead, who became the Gileadites, and all this was a fulfillment of Genesis 49, 25. Ephraim's children were not named, but we know that he had them. Gilead had Shem, Japheth, and Sheresh. This is a different name than Shem and Japheth that were Noah's sons. Sheresh had Ulam and Rakam. So 54 years later, Joseph dies on his deathbed. He's giving an oath to these brothers saying, God will visit you and you shall carry my bones from here. In other words, you are not going to stay here as a nation forever. You're going back to Canaan. He knew from the Abrahamic covenant that they were given that land. And 400 years later, just as the covenant came to Abraham, they went back to Canaan. They took Joseph's embalmed body with them when they went back to the promised land. We see this fulfilled in Exodus 13, 19. or discusses the removal of his bones from Egypt, Joshua 24, 32 says, they buried his bones in the land of Israel. And Genesis closes with an assurance of the redemption of these Jewish people, this Hebrew nation. The people of Israel will possess the land pledged to them by God to those patriarchs. They are in the land today in unbelief, they are still not in belief, and there are several passages in Ezekiel 20 that describe them coming back to the land in unbelief after a persecution and before persecution. And I think Zechariah 12 says the same thing, that there's a persecution that they came out of and that is the Nazi persecution where one-third of the entire Jewish population of the world died. And the persecution that is coming is in the Great Tribulation. In the middle, three and a half years into the Great Tribulation, the Antichrist is going to go into the temple and he's going to sacrifice something there. He's going to set up the abomination of desolation. He's going to say to the Jews, I'm attacking you now. And two-thirds of them are going to die over the next three and a half years. And that closes this book. It's a fantastic book. You'll never read it the same now that you know a lot more about it. Each time you read anything in Genesis, you'll remember these things and it will add a richness to your understanding of what God has done here in the creation of the universe and finally the development of the nation Israel. So we saw the creation, we saw the fall, we saw the flood. So after the flood we saw the commingling of the angelic demons with human women trying to prevent the Messiah from coming. That was actually before the flood, excuse me. And we saw that massive flood and described that in great detail. And then finally the call of Abraham, which was right after the Tower of Babel. The language was confused, dispersed. Abraham, his son, the promised son Isaac, the not promised son Ishmael is still battling today with Isaac, the progeny of those two. Jacob has probably the most space, I think. I haven't measured it, but it seems like he's probably got the most space in the book of Genesis. And then the story of Joseph. And finally, they're down in Egypt and they will come out 400 years later. I put a couple of charts in your notes today. One was just showing you when the patriarchs were born and how many years elapsed. And then the last one was the human chronology of all the people in the seed lines of the book of Genesis. Adam, of course, was born in year zero, entitled with that, and he lived to be 930, and his first son, the seed son, if you will, not his first born, but the seed son, which is Seth, was born when he was 130 years old. Can you imagine that? 130, he has a son. Longevity was a lot different the closer we get to the fall. After the flood, it really started declining. But those are the dates there and the data. It's kind of fun to look at that and see who died when and how old were they when they had the son, which was the next in line. And so ends the book of Genesis. Shall we pray?