THROUGH THE BIBLE - Genesis..

Welcome to Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church. Thank you for using and sharing our resources. What you're about to hear is God's Word from one of our teaching elders. We trust that God's Word will inspire, instruct, and bless you. For further teachings or information on our ministry, please visit us on our website at cornerstonerbc.

com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Would you please open up your Bibles to the book of Genesis? So good to have you worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ with us.

We've said this many times, but you should never take this for granted, brothers and sisters, that we have the privilege to come around the Word of God, that our hearts may not be indifferent or dull or filled with obligation to come to this place, but rather filled with joy. We're going to be doing the corporate reading of Scripture, but just before we start and before we do the reading, I just want to remind you that for the first time today, we're going to be doing the kids' room, I suppose that we will call it. We're going to be doing the kids' room in which kids, after the Genesis, after the reading of the Scripture, the corporate reading of the scripture are welcome to come. There's going to be two sisters there that are going to be looking after the kids and making sure that they are there during the sermon. The aim of the kids room is that the adults can be all here together receiving the word of God, especially in these initial stages of the church in which receiving the word of God is so foundational for the souls of the adults and for the families.

We thought that it is the wisest thing to do for now that kids, for those parents who desire and who want, may take their kids to the kids room. As I said, there's going to be two sisters there that are going to be helping with the kids during the time of the sermon. However, we do want kids and families to be together during the Genesis. And after the prayer, the parents that want to take their kids to the kids room, they are welcome to do it. There is no obligation to do it.

If that is what you have in your heart and you want to take your kids to that room so that you're welcome to do it, there's going to be two sisters helping with the kids. May the Lord bless that and help us to grow as a church around His word. So now, brothers and sisters, if you have your Bibles in front of you, would you please open them up to Genesis chapter 37. And now we're going to be reading together corporately scripture, as we always do. And I want you to pay special attention here to this chapter 37, because there's going to be a transition in the book of Genesis.

The story is going to shift from Jacob. Now it's going to shift to the person of Joseph. And I want us to read carefully this chapter and meditate and see how Jesus Christ is portrayed in this chapter. Genesis chapter 37. This is the word of God with reverent hearts and paying much attention to each one of the words that we have in this book.

Let's read together. Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojournings in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being 17 years old, was pastoring the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilah and Silpah, his father's wives.

And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a robe of many colors. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him. Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, Hear this dream that I have dreamed.

Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheave arose and stood upright, and behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheave. His brothers said to him, are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us? So they hated him even more for his dream and for his words. Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, behold, I have dreamed Another dream.

Behold, the sun, the moon, and 11 stars were bowing down to me. But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, what is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you? And his brothers were jealous of him. But his father kept the same in mind.

Now his brothers went to pasture their father's flock near Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them. And he said to him, Here I am. So he said to him, Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock and bring me word.

So he sent him from the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. And a man found him wandering in the fields, and the man asked him, Why are you seeking? I am seeking my brothers, he said. Tell me, please. where they are pasturing the flock.

And the men said, they have gone away. For I heard them say, let us go to the thumb. So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at the thumb. They saw him from afar. And before he came near to them, they conspired against him to kill him.

They said to one another, here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him and we will see what will become of his dreams. But when Reuben heard it, he rescued him out of their hands saying, let us not take his life. And Reuben said to him, to them, shed no blood, throw him into this pit.

here in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him, that he might rescue him out of their hand to restore him to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the robe of many colors that he wore. And they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty. There was no water in it.

Then they sat down to eat, and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels, barren gum, balm, and myrrh, on their way to carry it down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh. And his brothers listened to him. Then Then Midianite traders passed by, and they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver.

They took Joseph to Egypt. When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes and returned to his brothers and said, the boy is gone, and I, where shall I go? Then they took Joseph's robe and slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe into the blood. And they sent the rope of many colors and brought it to their father and said, These we have found. Please identify whether it's your son's rope or not.

And he identified and said, It is my son's rope. A fierce animal has devoured him. Joseph is without doubt turned to pieces. Then Jacob tore his garments and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted and said, no, I shall go down to Sheol to my son mourning.

Thus his father wept for him. Meanwhile, the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard. Amen. Brothers and sisters, this is this is the word of God. Now, beloved brethren, we have, as I said, a very important chapter here in which the story is going to shift is going to change from the person of Jacob and Esau.

Now it's going to change to the person of Joseph. And here we're going to have kind of like an introduction to the book of Exodus in which the nation of Israel is going to be taken in slavery. So it's very important that we acknowledge and that we understand that chapter 37 is a very important chapter in the transition of the book. Now, I want you to go back to chapter 35 because I think that there is a verse that is going to help us to understand what we have in chapter 37. So if you go to chapter 35, There is going to be a verse here that is going to give us two elements that will help us to interpret the chapter that we have, chapter 37.

That is, in chapter 35, verse 22. Brothers and sisters, pay attention to what the Word of God says here. Verse 22 in chapter 35. The Bible is going to give us two pieces of information that are very important for us to interpret chapter 37. It says, While Israel lived, In that land, Reuben went and lay with Bila, his father's concubine, and Israel heard of it.

And the sons of Jacob were twelve." And after that, the sons of Jacob are going to be listed. Now here, the author of Genesis, Moses, is giving us two pieces of information. The first one is that Reuben is going to defile his father's bed. And the second one is that the book is going to start us to give the genealogy or the offspring of Jacob.

This is very important, and I'm going to start with the second point, because the chapter that we have in front of us is starting in a very particular way. Chapter 37 starts saying, Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojournings in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob. It says these are the generations of Jacob, but there's no generation that comes after that. It comes the story of Joseph.

Why would the author do that? Rather, because he's actually coming to a close in a statement on something that he has developed and that he has explained from chapter 35 verse 22 all the way through chapter 36. In chapter 35 he gives the genealogy of the offspring of Jacob, and then in chapter 36 he is given the offspring of Esau as our brother explained to us yesterday. So now here Moses what wants us to see is that we have these two, Esau and Jacob, and there's something very different between these two. The last verse of chapter 36 says that Edom, or Esau, that he dwell in the land of his own possession.

So Esau lived or dwelt in the land of his own possession. But Jacob, brothers and sisters, your attention, please. Jacob did not dwell in the land of his own possession, but rather he dwelt in the land that was promised to his father, Abraham and Isaac. That's where he dwelt. This is a very important point because now Moses is going to start telling us the story of the people of Israel in the land, in the promised land through the person who the promise was given.

This is Jacob, who was away from Ishmael. Joseph is introduced, brothers and sisters, and Joseph is one of those characters of the Bible that is very loved by every single Christian. He's an example of many things that need to be done. But the only thing that I don't want you to be pointed to the fact that Joseph, brothers and sisters, is only a very good example of what a Christian should be. But rather, Joseph is perhaps one of the most clear or one of the best types or shadows off the Lord Jesus Christ.

The person of Joseph from Chapter 37 all the way through Chapter 50 is going to portray many messianic things that are going to be pointing to the Messiah that is gonna come. and is going to rescue the people of Israel. Now we are going to find, as we progress through every single chapter, that in every chapter there's one, two or three types or three shadows of the Lord Jesus Christ that are contained in each one of those chapters. Now, how do we see Jesus Christ in the chapter that we have here in front of us? And I'm going to present the shadowing of Christ or the or the typing of Christ or the or the eschatological view of Christ from this chapter by us analyzing the relationship of Joseph in this chapter.

Joseph is presented here as the son of Jacob and as the brother, of course, of his brothers. So I want us to see Jesus Christ from these two relationships of Joseph. a relationship to his father, Jacob, as his son, of course, and the relationship to his brothers, the brothers that hated him, of course, as his brother. The first thing what the Bible says, look very carefully what it says, brothers and sisters in verse. In the last section of verse two says that Joseph brought a bad report to them, to their father, Joseph was the son of Jacob's trust.

Jacob trusted his son and that he, Joseph, will bring reports on how his brothers were behaving or were doing the things that they were supposed to do. If you go to verse 14 of verse 13, Jacob is going to tell Joseph, go and check your brothers and see what they are doing, if it is well with them. And then he says, go now, see if it's well with your brothers and with the flock and bring me a word. Joseph was the son of Jacob's trust, but it was beyond these brothers and sisters. It was not only that he was the son of his trust, he was the son of his heart.

The chapter that we have here, it says that Jacob loved Joseph beyond all other brothers, that he loved him more, that the heart of Jacob was more given towards this son, Joseph, that he loved him more. And this is demonstrated in two facts. The fact that he, Joseph, is honored by Jacob in the receiving of this robe of many colors. And then when we get into the end of the chapter, when Jacob thinks that his son has been killed by an animal, you can see the mourning of of Joseph, of Jacob, that even when daughters and sons come to comfort him, he does not accept that comfort. And he mourns a lot for what he thinks is the death of his son, Joseph.

So brothers and sisters, Joseph. was the beloved of his father. Joseph was the beloved of his father. Joseph was the one that had a special place in the heart of his father and the special place that Joseph had in the place in the heart of his father defined the relationship that he had with his brethren, with his brothers. because his brothers, the Bible says the here in verse four, it says.

But when his brothers saw that their father loved him, when the brothers perceived with his eyes or with their eyes that the love of Joseph was given to Joseph or the love of Jacob was given to Joseph, his brothers hated him more. They hated him. They hated him because Jacob loved him more. And look and pay attention. We could do a very good.

ethic or moral teaching from here, from this verse 14, because it says that they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him. See how the tongue is connected to that which abides in the heart of a person. These people hated him and therefore they were unable to speak peacefully to him. The relationship that Jacob had with Joseph defined the relationship that Joseph had to his brothers is when Joseph has this dream about the sheaves and the other ones bowing down to him, that the Bible is going to continue explaining to us, brothers and sisters, the development of this hatred within the heart of Joseph's brothers. It says in the end of chapter of verse eight, so they hated him more for his dreams and for his words.

It was not now only the love that Joseph had towards his son, but now who he was that was causing hatred within the heart of his brothers. And this discontinues because now this hatred is going to turn into jealousy. In verse 11 says, and his brothers were jealous of him after the second dream. And after that is this hatred that that's not allowed a person to speak peacefully to the other. And then this hatred that is within the heart of this person that takes the takes the heart of them to be jealous and to be envious of the other person takes to what the Lord Jesus Christ is in Matthew, that if you hate your brother in your heart, then you are a murderer, because this is what they end up doing in verse 18.

They conspire conspired against him. to kill him. Now, brethren, brothers and sisters, even though they did not end up killing Joseph, they are murderers at their heart. Because this is what the Bible says in Matthew, that if a person hates his brother within his heart, that person is a murderer in the sight of God. Here, brothers and sisters, we have the beloved of the father rejected and despised by his brothers.

The despising of the brothers towards this man end up in the selling of this man by 20 shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites or to the Midianites who are Gentiles. I don't know if words are needed here, but I'm pretty sure that you see Christ because Jesus Christ, brothers and sisters, he's the beloved of the father is the one who holds a special place in the heart of the father. There's no object of law of the love of the father, except than Jesus Christ. We are loved in so far as we are united in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world. We are loved by the father because we are in Jesus Christ.

He is the beloved of the father. And when he came to this world, he came to his own people and his own people despise him and rejected him. And this Jesus Christ was sold by those who call themselves to be their brothers with a kiss for 30 pieces of silver so that he will be given over to the hands of Gentiles. the Romans, that they will take him to the cross and die upon the cross for the sake of those whom he chose before the foundation of the world, his church brothers and sisters. I don't know about you, but every time that we go through a scripture, it's amazing to see how the Lord in his providence and his sovereignty and everything, his wisdom, how he works all things so that they will be entirely meaningful to the immediate audience from a historical point of view, because the life of Joseph is meaningful from a historical point of view completely.

But at the same time, the Lord is so marvelous and is so majestic that in the life of the man, he's already portraying the life of his son, the one that is going to come, the one that is going to be righteous and perfect and is going to fulfill the requirements of the law to give freedom, to give freedom, brothers and sisters, from our sin, what we have in front of us. Is Joseph coming from his glory, this precious place that he had next to his father as the beloved one, as the one who was protected, as the one who had everything from his glory to misery? Because when he is sold in slavery, all the glory that he had in the house of his father is changed with misery. And this is exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ did for his church, that in the abundance of his glory or in the abundance of who he was and who he represented, God himself, he did not grasp those things to something to hold, but rather he made himself one of us. And I want to point you to a verse in 2nd Corinthians, brothers and sisters.

As I was doing my devotions this morning, providentially, I came across this verse, and it speaks very well of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us and what Joseph went through. Second Corinthians chapter eight. Verse nine. Joseph's glory was changed for misery. Joseph's freedom and power was changed for slavery and being away from his own.

The Lord Jesus Christ went through the same thing. And in verse nine, it says, for, you know, speaking to the church, for, you know, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, that though he was rich, yet for your sake, speaking to the church, he became poor. so that by his poverty might become rich, that the church may become rich through the poverty of the Lord Jesus Christ. Just as we are going to see that is through the trials and the tribulations and the misery of Joseph, that the people of Israel, the people of Israel or the nation of Israel is kept and is protected in Egypt. Just like that, through his misery, a people is protected and kept.

is through the mystery or through the poverty of the rich beloved son of God, the father that the church brothers and sisters is made rich. I hope and I pray that the Lord may give us eyes to see what the Christ, the Christ of God, the Christ of Israel, the Christ of the church has done for us so that we may not be being Christians, with empty principles, but rather with hearts that are transformed and that are born again of the Spirit. Amen. Let's pray.