If you would take your Bibles and turn with me to the 49th chapter of Genesis. We began the series in Genesis in the first Lord's Day in January of 2019, so just over a year and a half ago. And this morning we're coming to a conclusion and coming to the end of our study of this wonderful, wonderful book. So you're in Genesis chapter 49. We're going to begin our reading in verse 29 and go all the way to the end of the book at the end of chapter 50. Then he, that is, Jacob, then he charged them and said to them, I am to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite as a possession for a burial place. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife. There they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife. And there I buried Leah. The field and the cave that is there were purchased from the sons of Heth. And when Jacob had finished commanding his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people. Then Joseph fell on his father's face and wept over him and kissed him. And Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father, so the physicians embalmed Israel. Forty days were required for him, for such are the days required for those who are embalmed. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days. Now when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found favor in your eyes, please speak in the hearing of Pharaoh, saying, My father made me swear, saying, Behold, I am dying. In my grave which I dug for myself in the land of Canaan, there you shall bury me. Now therefore, please let me go up and bury my father, and I will come back.' And Pharaoh said, Go up and bury your father, as he made you swear. So Joseph went up to bury his father, and with him went all his servants, the servants of Pharaoh, and the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt. as well as all the house of Joseph, his brothers, and his father's house. Only their little ones, their flocks, and their herds they left in the land of Goshen. And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen, and it was a very great gathering. Then they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and they mourned there with a great and very solemn lamentation. He observed seven days of mourning for his father. When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the morning at the threshing floor of Attad, they said, this is a deep morning of the Egyptians. Therefore, its name was called Abel Mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan. So his sons did for him just as he had commanded them. And his sons carried him to the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, before Mamre, which Abraham bought with the field from the Hittite as property for a burial place. And after he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brothers, and all who went up with him to bury his father. When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, Perhaps Joseph will hate us, and may actually repay us for all the evil which we did to him. So they sent messengers to Joseph, saying, Before your father died, he commanded, saying, Thus you shall say to Joseph, I beg you, please forgive the trespasses of your brothers and their sin, for they did evil to you. Now please forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of your father. And Joseph wept when they spoke to him. Then his brothers also went and fell down before his face, and they said, Behold, we are your servants. Joseph said to them, do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? But as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring it about as it is this day to save many people alive. Now, therefore, do not be afraid. I will provide for you and your little ones. And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. So Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father's household, and Joseph lived 110 years. Joseph saw Ephraim's children to the third generation, the children of Makar, the sons of Manasseh, were also brought up on Joseph's knees. And Joseph said to his brethren, I am dying, but God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land to the land of which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Then Joseph took an oath from the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here. So Joseph died, being 110 years old, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. Let's pray. Father, how we need the dew of the Holy Spirit to fall upon the seed of your holy word. I pray, Lord, that you will enable me to preach with power and purity, and that your people will listen with power, that they will hear that this is your word, not the word of a mere man, but the word of God himself, and that you will transform us. Sanctify us and make us more like Christ each and every day. Use these things to sanctify us, Lord. Draw us near to yourself. And we pray for any here who are among us who do not know the Lord, that you will have mercy upon their souls and draw them near to yourself. We ask in Christ's name. Amen. We come this morning to the end of our study of Genesis. As we do so, Andrew Fuller points out that these 50 chapters cover the first 2,369 years of human history. Fuller goes on to point out something else. It's not an exhaustive account of what happened in those more than two millennia, is it? And, as a matter of fact, isn't it interesting that the Holy Spirit does not focus upon people that the world would regard as mighty, or as events that the world would regard as significant. Instead, it focuses upon an obscure, hand-to-mouth band of nomads wandering through the desert. who are worshiping a God that nobody else in the world cares about, a God who is telling them things like this, I'm going to do great things for you, I'm going to do great things in you, and I'm going to do great things through you, but you're going to die before you ever see these things come to fruition. But trust me and believe me that it's so, and live like it's true. And they did. And you know something? Nothing has changed today. The things that really are important to God don't make it for the headlines and CNN. What's really important to God is what is going on among His people and what's going on in His church. However small, however persecuted, however insignificant the world may think they are, that's where the action is. And that's where God has His eyes upon most particularly and governing everything in the world for His glory and ultimately for the good of His people. Well, with nothing more than that by way of introduction, I want to dive right into our text this morning, which divides very neatly and very obviously into three different points. First of all, we see the death of Jacob. Secondly, we see the plea of Joseph's brothers. And third, we read about the death of Joseph. So first of all, the death of Jacob. Israel has just finished this very day giving prophecies about the destiny of the 12 tribes. He's prophesied these things and now he says, I have one more command to give you. He knows his hour has come, that he's about to depart from this world. And he says, I have one more thing to ask of you. I have a commandment to give to my sons, and that is don't bury me in Egypt. When I die, take me, take my body, go back to the land of Canaan, go to the cave of Machpelah, and bury me there where my grandfather and my father and their wives are buried, where Leah is buried as well. Now, when I read about the cave of Machpelah, and you're going to think this is kind of weird, but I get really excited. I get real excited. Years ago, in the year 2005, this church sent me to England and Scotland on a mission trip. There was a young teenager named Richard Zolnick that was on that trip as well. And the man who was leading our trip was a man named Don Curran. We had two other pastors and we had 25 young people there with us. And while we were in London, we did some touring and we went into, of all things, a graveyard. I love walking through graveyards. Yeah, I know, I'm weird. But you knew that. But we went through a graveyard called the Bun Hill Cemetery. And Don and myself, we were getting so pumped up and so excited as we went from one sepulcher to another. And the young people had this weird look on their face like, you guys are really weird. Y'all need to get out more because you're getting excited about being around a bunch of dead guys. But the reason I got excited was because we were standing at the graveside of John Bunyan. And then, 50 feet to our left, we stood at the grave of his good friend, John Owen. When you think about John Owen, the influence that that man has had upon our lives in ways we don't even realize. I came to believe in particular redemption because of John Owen's writings, his book, The Death of Death and the Death of Christ. But also, he was the chief editor of the Savoy Declaration. Our own Baptist Confession of Faith is built more upon the Savoy Declaration than it is even upon the Westminster Confession of Faith. I did not know it at the time. If I ever get to go back, I will definitely seek out this grave. There's a man named Nehemiah Cox who's buried in Bunn Hill Cemetery. Isaac Watts is there. Nehemiah Cox was the chief editor, probably, of Our Own Confession. Very influential in our life. How much has that shaped my own heart and life over the years? Then to stand at the graveside of Joseph Hart. We have sung his hymn so many times, Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Wretched. And here is this wonderful free offer of the gospel spoken of in this wonderful hymn. You read his sepulcher. I literally took a notebook out and wrote verbatim what his tombstone reads. He obviously wrote it himself. It says this, it says, Joseph Hart was by the free and sovereign grace of God delivered from the bondage of mere profession into the glorious liberty of the true sons of God through the full and effectual atonement of Jesus Christ. And as I read all those things, it got me excited, because here we're in a place that's full of death, and yet, what am I getting? I'm getting life. I'm getting the gospel that's been handed down to us from previous generations, and some of these men were the ones who passed that faithfully in their own generation, and that's why we have it today, because God used men like that. When I look at the cave of Matpila, The same thing comes to my mind, and I'll tell you why. There's two things significant about this as I see it. First of all, by saying to his sons, don't bury me in Egypt. Bury me in the tomb of my fathers in the promised land of Canaan. What was Jacob doing but saying, I do not belong here? I am a stranger in a strange land. I am a sojourner and a pilgrim, and this is not my home." Now think about it. He had been living comfortably for 17 years with everything he needed supplied to him through the generosity of Pharaoh and of Joseph. He'd been living for 17 years in Egypt, but he says, when I die, don't bury me here. Bury me in the land of my forefathers. You know, that land that God promised to give us, but He never gave me so much as a square foot of real estate to call my own? Because He's not going to give it to me, He's going to give it to my children's children's children hundreds of years from now. He's dying in faith, saying, that's what I'm going to receive. That's what my descendants are going to receive, so bury me there. But Hebrews tells us that when Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were confessing they were sojourners and pilgrims, and they had this promise before them of real estate in Palestine, that they understood that God wasn't just promising them real estate in Palestine. He was promising much more. You see, the promised land that they were going to inherit was just a symbol of something even greater. You're going to receive real estate in the new heaven and the new earth. You have been given eternal life through the coming Messiah, and you're going to inherit a city who is not built by men, but whose builder and maker is God. In other words, they understood the land promise was just the type and shadow of even a greater promise. You're going to have land, real estate, a place to put your foot in, in the new heaven and in the new earth. You have been given eternal life. And so what he's saying when he says, don't bury me here, He's saying, I'm just a sojourner in this present age. I don't belong to this world. I belong to the age that is to come. I belong to eternity, but I'm stranded in time, to use Michael Card's phrase. And brothers and sisters, the point I would drive home to you is if you're in Christ, the same is just as true of you. This world is not your home. You don't belong to this present age. You are citizens of a different kingdom. You are citizens of a kingdom that is to come and our hearts don't need to be here. Our hearts need to be there. Because that's the real place that we own. And you say to yourself, but if you're so heavenly-minded, you won't be any earthly good. No, that's not true. It is the people in history who have been the most heavenly-minded who have proven to be the most earthly good. Because they always point those around them to Christ and the coming kingdom, and the fact that there is a judgment yet to come. So the world is not your home. But the second thing that's significant about the cave of Machpelah is this, and this is what gets me really excited every time I read about it, is the inhabitants of the tomb stand out to me. Because if you'll notice, in verse 31, Jacob identifies exactly who's buried there. He says, My grandfather Abraham is buried there, as is my grandmother Sarah. And then my father, Isaac, and my mother, Rebekah, are also buried there. But don't miss the significance of the end of verse 31. And there I buried Leah. Now stop and think about that for just a minute. Remember back a couple of chapters ago, back in chapter 48, verse 7. Jacob was prophesying to Joseph and telling him about the destinies of Ephraim and Manasseh, and how they would be counted and numbered among the tribes of Israel. And as he did so, he paused and he said, I buried your mother, Rachel, on the way to Bethlehem. He pauses and says that, and then he goes on and continues to prophesy. But now he says, bury me, but don't bury me next to Rachel. Bury me where I buried Leah. Now remember his relationship with Rachel and Leah. Who was his favorite? His favorite wife this entire time had been Rachel. And as a matter of fact, we read the horrible story of how he sinfully neglected Leah. Didn't pay attention to her. Neglected her. As she had children, she kept saying, well, now maybe my husband will love me. Now maybe he'll pay attention to me. Now maybe he will. And finally she just said, well, praise the Lord. Let me look to God and I'll trust Him. I can't wait around for Jacob to start loving me. And yet here is Jacob saying, I didn't bury Rachel in the tomb of my forefathers. I buried Leah. And when I die, I want you to bury me there, too. Next to her. Why? Isn't it? That's very un-Jacob-like, isn't it? Very uncharacteristic of what we've seen this entire time. Why was Leah buried there, and why did He want to be buried next to Leah? And I'm going to tell you exactly why. It's because Leah had a son named Judah. And it was through Judah that the Messiah was going to come. The Messiah didn't come through Rachel, which is not a slam on her because she gave birth to Joseph, the godliest son that Jacob had. But the Messiah is going to come through Leah. And so what he's saying is this, it's as if even in my burial I want things to be Christ-centered. That tomb is shouting to us, the Messiah is coming, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Jacob and Leah's son. Even here it's pointing to the future hope that they were dying in expectation that God is going to send the promised Messiah who's going to deliver us all from sin, and from Satan, and from tyranny. And so, I hope you can see why I look at the cave of Machpelah, this thing that's full of dead men's bones, And yet what I see is a proclamation of life. It's Jacob saying, I'm dying with my eyes fixed on the Messiah who is to come. And I want others to think about that cave and think about the lion of the tribe of Judah whom God is going to send. So, beautiful, beautiful things. Well, he says all these things, makes the men promise, his sons promise that he's going to, they're going to do this for him. And then notice what it says. Verse 33 of chapter 49. Jacob had finished commanding his sons. He drew his feet up into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people. His heart has beat its last beat. He's taken his last breath in this present age and he died. Something that all of us someday will face. came to his end. And it's an amazing thing, really, when you think about it. Because Jacob didn't start well, did he? And the truth is, he was saved later in life. He was in his 70s before he was converted, if I'm understanding his conversion right, when he wrestled with God all night and then came away a new man. He was converted late in life, and yet, despite the fact that there was so much in his life that is not worthy of imitation, so many things to regret, nonetheless, here we find him finishing well. He finishes with his last breath with his eyes upon the Messiah who is to come. Now that's how to leave this world, isn't it? Andrew Fuller says of this, quote, End of quote. He finished well. As I've told you many times, finishing well. There's nothing more important than finishing well. There are men who start well and don't finish well. But to finish well. To finish well and to have on your tombstone faithful. If that's all that can be put on your tombstone, that's a very, very big deal. I've told you many times the story of how I was talking to Steve Martin years ago, and he said to me, we were talking about Jim Elliott, who was speared to death by the Aka Indians in Ecuador in the 1950s. He was only 27 years old, but he was pretty young when he was killed. And Steve Martin meant no disrespect whatsoever to our brother who was martyred, but he said this, he says, you know it's easier to be run through with a spear when you're 27. than to be found faithful when you're 85. And he's absolutely right. Jacob was found faithful. You need to be found faithful. I want to be found faithful by God's grace. So a man who did not begin well, but he finished well. May God grant us grace that all of us may finish as Jacob did. But then notice chapter 50 and verse 1, and don't miss the significance here of what's going on. Then Joseph fell on his father's face and wept over him and kissed him. Do you recognize something here? Once again, God is fulfilling prophecy. Seventeen years earlier, remember when the news was given to Jacob, your son Joseph is alive. And remember what God said to him, don't be afraid to go up to Egypt. Your eyes will see your son Joseph, and he will lay his hands upon your eyes. The idea is this, you thought he was dead for 22 years. You're going to see him, he's still alive. And here's the thing, don't be afraid that you're going to see him, and then he's going to die, and you're going to lose him again. Because he's going to outlive you. And when you die, he's going to put his hands upon your eyelids and close your eyes in death. Which may sound morbid to us, but to Jacob that would have been a great encouragement. Because parents are not supposed to have to bury their children. And so, here it is. Joseph is right next to his bed when he dies. He falls upon him and doubtless the point is he put his hands upon his eyes, closed his eyes in death, just as God had said. Have we seen it over and over and over again in Genesis? The Holy Spirit goes out of His way to tell us what God says will happen always happens. Whatever He prophesies, it will occur over and over and over again. You can trust His word. You can believe him, that everything he says is true and trustworthy, and all his promises are yes in Christ Jesus. Well, there's a command given by Joseph. He tells his physicians to embalm his father. Even this was a part of obeying what Jacob's instructions were. You have to take a body and transport it many hundreds of miles away from Egypt to the land of Canaan. And if you don't embalm it, then it's going to decompose along the way. And so they do this so that they can make the body portable, as it were, and take it and bury it in the cave of Maqpala. And so Joseph goes to Pharaoh, kind of in an indirect way, and asks his permission. Can I leave the country for a time being? I will come back. But my father gave me a command to bury him in a specific place. And of course, Pharaoh is very obliging and says, yes, you may go. And so he goes, and he doesn't go by himself. There's an entourage that goes with him. Scores of people from Egypt. Chariots and horses and mighty men. Isn't it amazing that here's this sojourner who was a desert nomad and yet at his funeral, suddenly there's a massive procession. It's like the biggest funeral in the ancient world. And they go all the way to the cave of Machpelah. tells you something about how great God's grace had made Jacob, and how much respect he had with the outside world. It's not just that Joseph and his brothers mourned. The Egyptians mourned, the Bible says, 70 days. Now you realize something about that. They mourned 70 days, and then there were seven more days, because Joseph, when he got to the cave of Machpelah, mourned for another seven days. And there's something I want to drive home to you. Don't be tempted to think that when you mourn for a loved one that somehow your mourning is self-centered and self-serving. Because it's not. And it's interesting, when you read about the saints of the Old and New Testament, they knew how to party. And I mean that in the best possible sense. They knew how to rejoice and they knew how to celebrate. They also knew how to mourn. The average person mourned 40 days for their loved ones. 40 days, that's six weeks. And here we have the Egyptians adding a whole other month to that, another 30 days. And then Joseph adding seven more days on top of that. That's not sin, and that's not selfish, and that's not self-serving. It's saying someone has died who was created in God's image. Someone who meant the world to me. And there's a hole left in my heart that no other person will ever be able to fill in this present age. And mourning for them is a way of honoring their memory and saying, it mattered. It mattered that they were here at any given time. And I feel their absence keenly. Think about Stephen. He died a glorious death in so many ways. He died a death of martyrs. He saw Jesus standing at the right hand of the throne. We know He was ushered into heaven that very day. What rejoicing there is! And yet the Bible says that His brothers from the church made great lamentation over Him. They mourned. They wailed. What a blessing has been taken from us, that no longer is our brother here, who meant so much to us and pointed us to Christ so faithfully. And the Bible doesn't set forth their lamentation as something worthy of censure, but rather something worthy of our imitation. That it matters when someone dies. And don't beat yourself up and don't let the devil beat you up, because you mourn. We're supposed to mourn. Death is an unnatural thing. It's a normal thing, but it's unnatural. And we feel the loss, and we feel that horrible enemy called death comes along. Never forget, death is our enemy. Jesus will conquer that enemy on the last day, by the resurrection from the dead. So what we're told in verses 12 and 13 of our text is that they did for him exactly as they commanded him, as Jacob had commanded. They buried him in the cave of Machpelah. And the point is that Abraham had to buy it in order to have a place to bury his wife because God gave him not so much as one place to put his foot on in the land of Canaan. He died in faith believing he would give it to future generations. True to his word, verse 14, Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brothers and all who were with him, after they had buried his father. So we've seen, first of all, the death of Jacob. Secondly, we see the plea of Joseph's brothers. The brothers come back after Jacob's been buried, and they have a royal huddle. They huddle up and they say, You know, Joseph's been really nice to us for the last 17 years, but that may have been because Dad was around. And now that Dad's gone, it may be trouble for us. It's like, all right, now that Dad's gone, I'm going to do for you what I've been intending to do for a very, very long time. And so they're concerned about that. He's going to repay us. Now notice verse 15. I do am encouraged by this. For all the evil which we did to Him, they don't deny that they had sinned. They're acknowledging their sin was very real. Think about sin. Sin is inexcusable. It's not unforgivable. but it's inexcusable, right? We have to give an account for it. And what they had done to Joseph was very inexcusable, but they're thinking to themselves, maybe he hasn't really forgiven us. And so they send messengers to Joseph. They don't go in person at first. Kind of reminds me of the way that Jacob met Esau. He sent servants ahead of him with a whole lot of gifts. Maybe this will appease him, and by the time I get to see him face to face, he'll have cooled down and everything will be well. So they send the messengers ahead, and it's a little disappointing. The message they put in their mouth is a little bit disappointing. Verse 17 says, "...thus you shall say to Joseph, I beg you, please forgive the trespasses of your brothers and their sin, for they did evil to you." Notice verse 16, "...tell them, before your father died, he commanded, saying, thus you shall say to Joseph, I beg you, please forgive the trespasses of your brothers and their sin, for they did evil to you." There is no record that Jacob ever said any such thing. Go tell Joseph that Dad, before he died, told us to tell you, after he died, that you should forgive them. That's playing upon his sympathies. My point is this. By this time, as we'll see in just a moment, these men were regenerate. But some old habits die hard. And they were still men with feet of clay. And it's disappointing that they actually introduce a lie in order to find a way to obtain mercy. But then the latter half of verse 17 is a little bit more encouraging than the first half. He says, now, please forgive the trespass. This is their own words now. Forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of your father. Two things I note there. First of all, if you sin against someone, you have the obligation, the moral obligation, to go and make it right. that it's your duty to go to that person and seek their forgiveness. It's not just to confess sin to God, but to confess your sin to the person you sinned against, and to seek their forgiveness. And that's what they're doing here, and that's commendable. But the other thing that's interesting is notice what they say. They call themselves the servants of the God of your father. We. We are the servants of the God of your father. That's an extraordinary thing. Because for most of the narrative of Genesis, Joseph's brothers haven't cared a bit about the Lord. As a matter of fact, when Jacob was going to lead the family out of Shechem to another place where God had told him to go, he had to tell his sons, put away your idols. Give them all to me and let me bury them and get rid of them. Set them aside so we can serve the Lord our God." There's evidence that Judah was serving the Canaanite gods. The whole fiasco with his daughter-in-law, Tamar, and the whole issue of him sleeping with a prostitute, this was a seasonal thing that happened where the Canaanites would worship their Canaanite gods by indulging temple prostitutes. And the Bible says that she dressed as a temple prostitute. So he was engaged in pagan worship. Certainly their conduct has repeatedly shown that they were not the sons of God, but rather the sons of the devil. But now something has changed. Now they're saying we self-identify as those who are bound as servants to the God of Jacob. It reminds me of Jesus' half-brothers. We're in the Gospels when it says that even his own brothers did not believe in him. They'd grown up with him. Imagine the Messiah as your big brother. You've seen him. You know he's perfect. Of course, your parents all your life said, why can't you be more like your bigger brother? And you look back at your parents and say, why can't you be more like our bigger brother? Because nobody can be like him. But they don't believe him. They don't believe that he really is the Son of God. And yet, something changes. Something changes after His death, His burial, His resurrection, and His ascension. Because in Acts chapter 1, we read about the upper room, and there's 120 people who are self-identified as the disciples of Christ. And among them is numbered Mary and her sons. Something changed. And actually, we know some of these sons because they've written books of the Bible. James and Jude. These were two of the half-brothers of Christ. The point is, something changed between his earthly ministry and his ascension. So they had come to believe in Jesus Christ. And if you have family members who don't believe, remember Joseph had brothers who didn't believe too. And Jesus had brothers who didn't believe. And yet God, in His mercy later in life, converted them and drew them to Himself. He has the power to save your family. We get desperate sometimes. We get concerned. We think, my parents, my brothers, my sisters, they'll never come to know the Lord. Their hearts are so hard. As long as there's breath in their nostrils, there's hope. There's hope. Because God's sovereign. Because their salvation doesn't depend upon them anyway. It's a sovereign God who has the power to change their hearts and draw them irresistibly to Christ. God has the power to do for them what they cannot do for themselves. So keep praying, keep giving them the gospel, keep daring to believe that God has the power to save them. And in due course, perhaps He will. Well, Joseph hears this, and when these servants come to him, notice the response. And I kind of wonder, did the brothers send the messengers first so they could kind of get out of Dodge real quick if the response was not good? All right, we can run and get out of the land of Goshen and flee for our lives and scatter to the four winds. Well, he responds by weeping. And they say, well, he's responded well to the servants, so let's go now ourselves. And to their credit, verse 18, his brothers also went and fell down before his face. And they said, behold, we are your servants. Do you see something again happening here? God is fulfilling prophecy again. How many years earlier? It was actually 56 years earlier, because by this time Joseph was 56. So it would have been 56 years, but it would have been a number of decades earlier. God had given a dream to Joseph, two dreams actually, prophetic dreams. Your brothers will all bow down before you. And when he told his brothers, you're going to bow down in front of me, what was their response? We will never bow down before you. And first of all, when they met Joseph in Egypt, when he was 39 years old, they bowed down before him, not knowing who he was. But we've read repeatedly how over and over and over again they have bowed down. This is like the fifth or sixth time. And this time, they know exactly who he is, and they voluntarily bow down before him. And they present themselves and say, basically, we're your slaves. We are under your authority. Voluntarily. My point is this. The men themselves said this will never happen. God said it would. And when God says something's going to happen, it happens. It doesn't matter what men do. It doesn't matter what devils say. God's word will prevail. And here are men bowing down before them. Joseph's response to them is a three-fold response. And it's one of the, I think in my opinion at least, one of the greatest passages in all of Genesis. The way he responds to them. It's a three-fold response. First of all, this. Vengeance belongs to God and not to me. Notice what he says, verse 19. Joseph said to them, Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? He had watched his brothers, Simeon and Levi, take vengeance in their own hands against the men of Shechem. He had heard his father Jacob rebuke them, and then he's just heard in recent days how the Holy Spirit has rebuked them through Jacob's prophecy. He's learned a lesson. It's not my place to take vengeance for myself. Vengeance belongs to God. What he's saying to them is, I'm not your judge. You'll give an account to God, but not to me. I'm not going to be the one taking vengeance against you. The second thing he does is he recognizes the good theology of first and second causes. The good theology of first and second causes. Verse 20. Notice, first of all, he doesn't let them off the hook in saying, well, it's okay that you sinned against me. He calls their sin, sin. You meant evil against Me. You didn't do this in ignorance. You did it purposely. You meant, from the heart, to do Me harm. And it was sin. But He's not bringing it up to rub their nose in it. He's acknowledging, yes, you sinned against Me. But God meant it for good. You meant to destroy Me, and God meant to save you. And that's what He's done. Now, we've encountered this already. Remember when the brothers came back to Egypt for the second time, and they immediately made known to Joseph Steward, the man who managed his household. They said, when we bought the grain before, the money was returned to our sacks by mistake, and here it is. Take it. And remember what the steward said. The steward who lived in Joseph's house had been taught the doctrine of first and second causes. He says, God returned your money to the sacks. And then he says, I returned the money to your sacks. Well, which is it? Well, it's both. It was God who was the prime cause, and He used me as a secondary means to do it. But it was God Himself who returned it to you. And then when Joseph was identified to his brothers, he said to them, don't beat yourself up over the fact that you treated me wrong, because God sent me here, you didn't. It was God Himself who sent me here, not you." And that's what he's acknowledging here. God has ordained everything that comes to pass. And nothing happens by just His bare permission. He has proactively ordained every single thing that happens. When a car drives down a dusty road and all the particles of dust fly up in the air, do you realize that from before the foundation of the world, God decreed the movement of every single one of those particles of dust? When you play a game of chance, you play Catan with your family, or whatever it is you play. And you're playing that, and you roll the dice. Nothing is coincidental about the roll of the dice, because the lot is cast into the lap, and it's every decision is from the Lord. How many decisions? Every decision. Everything is providence. There is no coincidence. There is no accident. Nothing is just by chance. Even when you think about the man, remember when King Ahab tried to dress like the king of Judah, so that nobody would know that he was the king, and he was trying to hide from everybody, and a man, an archer, along the other army, pulls up his bow and arrow at random, the Bible says, he lets go of the arrow, and it flies and it goes right into Ahab and finds the chink in his armor and goes right through it and kills him. Remember Jim Renahan saying, that arrow had Ahab's name written on it from all eternity. For the man, it was a random act. But for God, it was a purposeful act. God was governing everything that happened. And while God is not the author of sin, nor is He the approver of sin, you need to recognize that He's sovereign even over sin. Acts chapter 4 tells us that the lawless men of the Gentiles and the Jews took Jesus and crucified Him. They murdered the Messiah, and that was sin. But they did so as God had preordained it to happen. Because nobody could take Jesus' life from them without God Himself granting the ability to do it. Jesus said, no man takes my life from me. I lay it down on my own accord. In other words, it was impossible to kill the Messiah if God Himself did not grant you the ability to kill the Messiah. So these sinful men, for as wicked as they were, were fulfilling God's purpose. They intended to destroy the Messiah, and yet through their sin, our salvation was secured. That's how God works. That's how God operates. And that's what Joseph is recognizing here. Yes, my brothers sinned against me. They sinned against me horribly. And they meant to do me harm, but he's able to look and say, but God had a better intention. And by submitting himself to the sovereign grace of God, by saying his providence had a purpose, he was able then to show mercy to the ones who had done him wrong. Because he saw what God was doing and trusted Him to lead him in the direction he should go. More about that at the end. The third thing we see then is God extended, or excuse me, Joseph extended mercy and forgiveness and kindness to his sinful brothers. Notice verse 21. Now therefore do not be afraid. Don't be fearful that I'm going to retaliate now. I will provide for you and for your little ones. I'm going to watch after you. I'm going to make sure you're well taken care of. I'm going to show you kindness in exchange for your sin. Now the only reason he could do that was God's grace. The only way he could do that is to see a bigger picture of what God was doing through even the sin of his brothers. And so he comforted them and spoke kindly to them when he could have torn them down. So we've seen what? The death of Jacob. Secondly, the plea of Joseph's brothers. And finally, we see the death of Joseph himself. Joseph was 56 years old when his father, Jacob, died. How do we know that? Well, he was 39 years old when he was reunited with Jacob. Jacob lived for 17 more years, so 39 plus 17 is 56. We are told in the text that he lived to be 110 years old, which means that when he was 56 years old, he lived just roughly a year over half of his life. He had 54 more years to go. So notice in verse 22, it says Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father's household, and Joseph lived 110 years. Verse 23 is beautiful. Joseph saw Ephraim's children to the third generation, the children of Macher, the son of Manasseh, were also brought up on Joseph's knees. In other words, not only did he see his sons grow up and become adults and get married, but he saw his grandsons born to them, and he saw his grandsons' sons. And they grew up on his knees, the Bible says. In other words, he was a frequent guest in their homes. They were a frequent guest in his home. Now we have seen over and over again how godly a man Joseph was. Imagine having a grandfather like that. And the influence, the incalculable influence of having him actively involved in your life would have left an indelible impression not only upon Ephraim and Manasseh, but upon their boys and upon their boys' boys. What a glorious thing. I don't doubt at all that they carried the imprint of His godly legacy for the rest of their days. And I'm sorry, I can't help but think of it. I think of my dad. My dad, who raised three children to love the Lord, and then got to see his 21 grandchildren, and then got to see like 14 or 15 of his great-grandchildren, and they're still being born. And I'm so thankful all six of my children got to be influenced by my father. And I trust they will carry that legacy with them to the day they die. What an influence a godly man has upon those around him, not just to the children he raises, but their children and their children's children. That is such the legacy that Joseph left to his sons. And what a glorious thing. I remember asking my dad just about a year before he died, I said, did you ever think that not only would you see your grandchildren, but you'd see your great-grandchildren? He goes, absolutely not. And an amazing thing to think that he got to hold his own great-grandchildren in his hands. Well, this is what Joseph got to do as well. Well, verse 24, he's 110 years old, and he knows he's dying, just like his father before him. 54 years earlier, his father had died, and he says to them something very similar, I am dying. But then notice what he says, that God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land to the land of which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. That is a remarkable statement. But remember hundreds of years earlier, way back in Genesis 15, when God made his covenant with Abraham, what did he say to him? In verses 13 and 14 he said this, Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them. and will afflict them 400 years, and also the nation whom they serve I will judge, afterwards they shall come out with great possessions." Here is Joseph. He's not living to see this in his own lifetime, but he says, that was what God said hundreds of years ago to my father Abraham, and because God cannot lie, I know it's going to happen. So he's going to visit you in the future, your descendants, and when he does, I've got instructions for you. Here it is. Verse 25, Then Joseph took an oath, he makes him swear, from the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here. Here is the man who is the second highest, most powerful man in the entire earth. Second only to Pharaoh. He's lived most of his life in Egypt ever since he was 17 years old. He's only left it one time to bury his father. That's it. He's known riches. He's known power. He's known wealth. And yet, what's he say? This is not my home. I don't belong here either. Just like my father, and my grandfather, and my great-grandfather, bury me in the land of Canaan. And again, what's he doing? Just like Jacob, he's saying, I understand that I don't belong to this present age. I belong to the age that is to come. Bury me with my fathers. And so it tells us, verse 26, Joseph died, being 110 years old, and they embalmed him because, again, his body has to be portable and they've got a few hundred years to wait before it's time to move him. And they put him in a coffin that they can carry with them. And he was put away in a coffin in Egypt. The stage is set for the sequel, which is Exodus. Everything's in place for what's going to happen next. Let me show you two things, two different texts of scripture before we make some applications. Turn with me to Exodus chapter 13. It must have been amazing for Moses to write the book of Genesis and to realize these prophecies that were being made because he lived to see their fulfillment. Next is chapter 13, verses 18 to 19. The people have finally been left. Pharaoh has finally let them go after the destruction of the firstborn. They're leaving out of Egypt. Verse 18, so God led the people around by the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea, and the children of Israel went up in orderly ranks out of the land of Egypt. And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had placed the children of Israel under solemn oath, saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry my bones from here with you." 400 years later, we find them being obligated to carry out this oath. Then turn to Joshua 24. You know what happened? The people wandered for 40 years before they actually were able to enter into the land of Canaan because of their unbelief and their sin. But finally, the next generation, led under Joshua, was able to make a conquest of the land. Chapter 24 of Joshua, read verses 31 and 32. Israel, that is the nation of Israel, served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had known all the works of the Lord which he had done for Israel. The bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had brought up out of Egypt, they buried at Shechem in the plot of ground which Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for 100 pieces of silver, and which had become an inheritance of the children of Joseph." The same place where later Jesus would meet the woman at the well near Sychar. But the point is, the very things that he said you must do, 400 years later the children of Israel did. Three applications that I want to make from our text this morning. The first is, the truth of first and second causes is a very practical help in forgiving those who sin against you. Think about Joseph. I doubt there's any of us here, maybe there are, but I doubt there's any of us here who have been as horribly treated as he was. His own brothers conspired to kill him and murder him. Reuben turned them from their purpose, so instead they threw him down into a dry well. And while he cried and wept and pleaded for mercy, they ignored his cries and laughed and had a big party, had a supper. Then they saw the band of Ishmaelites coming through and said, let's sell him in slavery. We'll line our pockets and we'll get rid of him. And so they did so. Worst of all, cruelly, they let their father think for 22 years that Joseph was dead. And because of those circumstances, Joseph became a slave. And then, not because he was a slave, he was in a circumstance where he could be falsely accused by Potiphar's wife, which then meant he became a prisoner. The Bible says, when you think of prison, don't think of a place that's got a cable TV and three square meals a day. He was chained to a wall. His hands were hurt by fetters. And then he rose in the ranks and eventually came to the notice of Pharaoh and became the highest ruler in all the land. But all the things that happened to him befell him because of his brother's sin. And now he had the power to lop their heads off. He had the power to exact revenge, and he doesn't. Instead, he shows them love and kindness. What was his secret? His secret was that he... First of all, they did repent, and thank God for that, even if their repentance wasn't quite as great as we want it to be. Don't lie about dad and say that he's told you, forgive me, before he died. But nonetheless, they did acknowledge their sin, so thank God for that. But what was Joseph's secret? He recognized that behind his brother's sins was providence. That God in his providence had given him a vision, first of all, a prophecy, you're going to be a great ruler. But in his wildest dreams, he would have never thought that the straight path to becoming a great ruler was being a slave and then being a prisoner. We know the benefit of hindsight. That's exactly, it was a straight path of how he became to Joseph, to Pharaoh's attention. But here's the thing. He was able to submit himself to it and say, God in His providence has called me to be something right now. And you know what He's called me to be? He's called me to be a slave. So I will put my hand to the plow and I will be the best slave I can be. He became first in Potiphar's house. And then God's providence called him to be a prisoner, falsely accused of a crime he did not commit. But he looked at it and said, God's providence has given me a new vocation. That's to be a prisoner. So I will be the best prisoner I can be to the glory of God. He put his hands to the plow. And then the next thing you know, the prison warden is giving him command of the entire prison. And it's because of this that he comes to the attention then of Pharaoh. But I will submit to you that those times were not incidental to making him a leader. Those were the fiery trials by which he was forged into the leader God wanted him to be. But he had to submit to some hard providences. in order to do it. And because he saw what God had done, because he could see it, and because God fulfilled everything he had said, and then he saw the fruit of it, because his family was spared, and Egypt was spared during the years of famine, and then he saw that he was indeed installed, as God had prophesied he would be, as second highest ruler in all of Egypt. Because of all that, he could look upon his brothers with mercy and forgive them. You know, we admire Joseph for that, but we don't really want to imitate him. We don't want to have to be showing mercy to our enemies the way he did. But I will say this, because I know different ones of us have had different issues like this, family members who've hurt us deeply, professing Christians who've wounded us in just inexcusable ways. That's happened to all of us in different times. Let's remember this, sanctifications by degree. And Joseph didn't come to this overnight. He had 22 years to think about it. He had 22 years to wrestle with God. He had 22 years to struggle with the bitterness and the anger and the hatred that he must have doubtless felt for his brothers because he was human just like we are. God, and he also had the privilege of seeing the fruition of the things God had promised to bring to pass. In other words, my point is, he didn't just snap his finger and suddenly say, well, I'm a slave, but my brothers, God bless them, I forgive them. It took time. And brothers and sisters, it may take time for you and me too. Healing when we've been wounded takes time. and realize that. Joseph was given time by God's providence, but he kept wrestling, and God was able him to do something that left to himself he never would have been able to do, and that is to extend mercy to people who treated him wrongfully. And we hear it echoed in Christ's words, how are we supposed to treat our enemy? Love your enemy. Pray for those who persecute you and treat you wrongly. Don't return evil for evil, but return good for evil. And we find it modeled here in Joseph, but he could only do that by God's grace. So keep on wrestling. Keep on coming to God for fresh supplies of the Spirit and for grace to help you to do the thing that, left to yourself, you would never do. Second application. All of God's promises are true and trustworthy. Man, have we not just been driving home to us over and over through our entire study of Genesis for the past year and a half that God says something and it happens just as He says it will, despite the fact that there's all kinds of obstacles that say, no, it can never be. And yet, despite all the obstacles, God breaks through those obstacles and does the very things He says He's going to do. We see it in the very chapter we're looking at. Here we have Jacob having his eyes closed by Joseph, just as God had said. Here we have the brothers bowing down once again before their brother Joseph, just as God had said. Here we have even the hints of what is prophesied in chapter 49. That Shiloh will come, he who's the scepter is, he'll come from Judah. And to him will be the obedience of all the people. And we know how the story ends, don't we? We know how the story ends, and Jesus did come. born of the tribe of Judah, just as Jacob had said." More importantly, just as God had said. I've told you this so many times, you're probably sick of hearing it, but let me say it one more time before we leave Genesis, right? Because God cannot lie. He's always true to His Word. Whatsoever He promises, He will perform, and whatever He's prophesied will come to pass. And the application for you and me is to dare to take Him at His Word, even when it seems our reason says there's no way this could ever happen. If you're outside of Jesus Christ, let me tell you something, God makes a promise to you. And that promise is this, if you'll come to Christ, if you'll come to God through Jesus Christ, repenting of your sins, forsaking your trust in your own righteousness, and putting all your hope of salvation in Him, putting your faith in Him alone to save you, to do for you what you can't do for yourself, He will accept you. You know, so often we talk about accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior. You know, the Bible never says that one time. It never talks about accepting Jesus. It talks about receiving Jesus, but it never talks about accepting Jesus. What the Bible does talk about is Jesus accepting sinners. And that's the more amazing thing to me. That Jesus promises to accept sinners, and you say, but you don't understand. You don't understand my past. You don't understand how immoral I've been. You understand that I aborted my own children. You understand how many different people I've wounded and hurt and betrayed. How many times I've blasphemed God's name with my lips. There's blood on my hands. I am a sinner. And if you knew about my sin, you would have nothing to do with me." That's exactly whom Jesus came to save. He didn't come to save the righteous, He came to save the ungodly, the unholy, the wicked, the perverted. Those are the whom He came to save. And He promises, if you'll come to Him, He'll receive you, and He'll give you a new heart, and He'll forgive you for your sins, and He'll reconcile you to God the Father. If you believe that promise, take Him at His word, and fly to Christ. Flee to Christ that you might flee from the wrath that is to come. But what about you who know the Lord? God makes promises to you as well. Promises like this draw near to God, and what will happen? He will draw near to you. If you really believe His promise, it will make you diligent and fervent in prayer. But if you don't believe Him, you'll lack fervency, And you will not be diligent in your prayer because you don't have the faith you need to have. You don't believe him that he will respond to your efforts to know him. That if you come to him and draw near to him, I love Jeremiah's language, he says, you will seek me and he will find me when you search for me with all your heart and I will be found of you says the Lord. If he promises that and you really believe it, it will change the way you live, won't it? It'll change the way you pray. We have a lot of unbelief in our believing hearts, don't we? If you believe that God has promised to work all things together for your good. Man, is Joseph not an illustration, just a living illustration of Romans 8.28? He just screams Romans 8.28. All things work together for the good of those who love me, to those who are called according to His purposes. Make me a slave, make me a prisoner, and still things turn out for my good. If you really believe that, then you'll recognize everything in your life is not a coincidence. that God has a purpose. And you may not know what the specific purpose is. There's times I've prayed, Lord, I don't know what you're trying to teach me. Whatever it is, I've learned it. Can we get on to the next thing and get out of this trial? You ever feel that way? Sometimes even looking back at things I've gone through, I don't know why I went through them sometimes. And I probably won't know until I get to glory. Some things I get to see and go, okay, that's what he was doing. Even I was talking to Jacob this morning, I was just saying, you know, sometimes you talk about the church and you go, Lord, I have no idea what you're doing with your church, but you know what you're doing with it. All I can do is be faithful. You know what you're doing with your church, and you're the head of the church, and you know how to build it. Well, there's a lot of things that we can't understand, but if you really believe that all things are working for your good, you know this, that whatever the lesson God's trying to teach you, it's this, be more like my Son. Be more like Christ. Look at things like Christ. Think of things like Christ. Act like Christ. Respond like Christ. Be more like my Son. That's why I'm taking you to the good, and that's why I'm taking you to the bad. I promise you, if I was the sovereign of the universe, I would not ordain any bad things to happen in my life. If I was the sovereign of the universe, I wouldn't even ordain anything bad to happen in your life, okay? Good news, I'm not the sovereign of the universe, and neither are you. God's ordained good and bad, because He knows what He's doing. And he's wise, infinitely wise. And the best news is he's infinitely loving. He's doing what's best for us, even though we don't know it's best for us. And if you really believe that, it will keep you from becoming bitter, and it'll help you get better. There's an old saint that Angela and I know. She's fond of saying, bitter old men were once bitter young men, and bitter old women were once bitter young women. I'm a middle-aged man, and I pray with some frequency, Father, help me not to be a bitter middle-aged man, because someday I don't wanna be a bitter old man. I wanna submit myself to your providence, even though I don't always understand it, and trust you that you know what you're doing. God has promised his son is gonna return. Do you believe it? Seems like it'll never happen. Seems like it'll never happen, but God says it will. Do you believe it? And if you believe it, then you have hope. You don't have to be despairing. You can have joy even in the midst of trials because you know this isn't going to last forever. This age will come to an end. It's just momentary light affliction, Paul calls it. Not worthy to be compared with the glory, the greater weight of glory that will be revealed in the age to come. And if you really believe that He's coming again, it will cause you to pursue holiness. because that's the effect of believing this. The third thing, final application, as we come to a close of our study of Genesis. I want to close by kind of giving a summation of Genesis in this way. Several commentators make an important observation about the way Genesis ends and the way it begins. Genesis opens with the creation of a pristine world in which there's no sin, there's no decay, and there's no death. Do you notice it ends with two deaths, two embalmings, and two funerals? And that's significant. What's it telling us? That the atoms fall into sin was a cataclysmic event that turned the entire universe upside down. And even though God has given us grace, and even though He has sent His Son, and promised to send His Son, we're reminded that even men of God, like Jacob and Joseph, die. That we are still in a fallen world. Man was ejected from paradise, and the way back was barred. And what we're told at the end of Genesis is this, we have not been yet restored to paradise, and we still live in a sin-cursed, fallen world. And that's the reminder. It's a sober reminder. A reminder that we're still living in the now rather than the not yet. But that being said, Genesis also ends very triumphantly. Creation and fall are dominant themes in Genesis, but so are redemption and new creation. The very confession upon the lips of Jacob and upon Joseph. Don't bury me here, because I'm a sojourner and a stranger. Bury me somewhere else, because I belong to another land and another age. What is that but a looking forward to the paradise that is to come? We've been barred from paradise, but you know what? The paradise ahead of us is far better than the one we left. Because in the one that is to come, there is the tree of life, just like there was in the one that we left. But there's no devil in the one that is to come. There's no serpent to tempt us, and there's no tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In other words, once we go to that paradise, you can't fall again. And you can't be ejected, and you can't be kicked out anymore. Because God will free us from the remaining sin, and our wills will be immutably holy forever. and will be with God and with His Son, Jesus Christ, forever. And that's the hint that's being given to us as we come to the end of Genesis. But not only that, the cave of Machpelah is crying out. Here's the irony of it all. A place full of dead men's moldering bones, and yet it's crying out, the Messiah is coming. The Lion of the tribe of Judah, Jacob, and Leah's son, He's coming. And He's going to set us free from all of it. He's going to set us free from sin. He's going to set us free from death. He's going to enter a new creation. All these things He's going to do. That's how it ends. For Joseph and for Jacob, it was roughly 2,000 years ahead of them, before the Messiah would come. We have the advantage now of living in a period where that was 2,000 years in our past, because the Messiah has come. The lion of the tribe of Judah came to this earth, born of a virgin, the seed of the woman. He lived a perfectly sinless life, trusting his father to supply him with the Holy Spirit so that as a man he could resist every temptation and fulfill every righteous requirement of God's law. But then he died, was slaughtered as a lamb in our place, Our sin was imputed to Him. He was punished for it. The wrath of God was satisfied. God's justice was satisfied. And He's alive. And He's at the right hand of God the Father. And you know what? He's sitting on a throne. Shiloh has come, the one whose scepter it is, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And you know something? Just as God promised, all nations on earth have been blessed, all nations on earth are being blessed, and all nations on earth are going to be blessed. Because God, through the missionary enterprise, is making the Messiah known to people in various lands and various people groups who've never heard of Him before. and is redeeming out of them, saving out of them people who believe on Jesus Christ. So we live in an era where the promised Son of Judah has come, and we're waiting for Him to come again. And so I don't think there's any more fitting way to end our study of Genesis than by this simple cry. Even so, Come, Lord Jesus. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that your word is truth. We thank you you've given us a sure foundation to build our faith upon. We ask for the outpouring of your grace and the outpouring of your spirit for any here who don't believe on Jesus Christ. Father, would you grant them grace that they may flee from their sins, flee from their own righteousness, and flee to you. Do a great and a mighty work among your people. Father, for us, help us to believe you more, to dare to believe your promises are true and steadfast, and to live each day as if they are true. Help us, Lord. Deliver us from ourselves. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.