THROUGH THE BIBLE - Genesis..

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Would you please open up your Bible to the book of Genesis? We continue with a corporate reading of the scripture. And on this Lord's Day, we have chapter 44, 42 in front of us. Book of Genesis, chapter 42. So if you have this chapter in front of you, brothers and sisters, let's read together with reverent hearts and paying much attention to each one of the words.

This is Genesis, chapter 42. When Jacob learned that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, why do you look at one another? And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is grain for sale in Egypt. Go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live and not die. So ten of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt.

But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph's brother, with his brothers, for he feared that harm might happen to him. Thus the sons of Israel came to buy among the others who came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan. Now Joseph was governor over the land. He was the one who saw to all the people of the land. And Joseph's brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground.

Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke roughly to them. Where do you come from, he said. They said, from the land of Canaan, to buy food. And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him. And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them.

And he said to them, You are spies. You have come to see the nakedness of the land. They said to him, No, my lord, your servants have come to buy food. We are all sons of one man. We are honest men.

Your servants have never been spies. He said to them, No, it is the nakedness of the land that you have come to see. And they said, We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan. And behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is no more. But Joseph said to them, It is as I said to you, you are spies.

By this you shall be tested. By the life of Pharaoh, you shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here. Send one of you and let him bring your brother while you remain confined that your words may be tested, whether there is truth in you. Or else, by the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies." And he put them all together in custody for three days.

On the third day, Joseph said to them, Do this, and you will live, for I fear God. If you are honest men, let one of your brothers remain confined where you are in custody, and let the rest go and carry grain for the famine of your households, and bring your youngest brother to me, so your words will be verified, and you shall not die.' And they did so, and they said to one another, In truth, we are guilty concerning our brother in that we saw the distress of his soul when he begged us and we did not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us. And Reuben answered them, Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy?

But you did not listen. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood. They did not know that Joseph understood them, for there was an interpreter between them. Then he turned away from them and wept, and he returned to them and spoke to them. And he took Simeon from them and bound him before their eyes, and Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain and to replace every man's money in his sack and to give them provisions for the journey.

This was done for them. Then they loaded their donkeys with their grain and departed. And as one of them opened his sack to give his donkey Fodler at the lodging place, he saw his money in the mouth of his sack. He said to his brothers, my money has been put back. Here it is in the mouth of my sack.

At these, their hearts failed them and they turned trembling to one another saying, what is this that God has done to us? When they came to Jacob, their father in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them, saying, The man, the lord of the land, spoke roughly to us and took us to be spies of the land. But we said to him, We are honest men. We have never been spies. We are twelve brothers, sons of our father.

One is no more, and the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan. Then the man, the lord of the land, said to us, By this I shall know that you are honest men. Leave one of your brothers with me, and take grain for the famine of your households, and go your way. Bring your youngest brother to me. Then I shall know that you are not spies, but honest men, and I will deliver your brother to you, and you shall trade in the land.

As they emptied their sack, behold, every man's bundle of money was in his sack. And when they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid. And Jacob, their father, said to them, you have bereaved me of my children. Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin. All this has come against me.

Then Reuben said to his father, kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you. But he said, Jacob said, My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead and he is the only one left. If harm should happen to him on the journey that you are to make, you would bring down my great hairs with sorrow to Sheol. Amen, brothers and sisters, this is the word of God.

Beloved brothers and sisters, last week, one of the things or the thing that I wanted you to have in your mind is that in chapter 41, the Lord was showing us how through his providential work, he was exalting this man who had spent almost 13 years in jail. These men who had been sold by his brothers and at the age of probably 17 now had to spend almost 13 years in jail. And something that I wanted you to see is how the providential work of God had exalted these men from being a prisoner to be now the second one in power in Egypt. This is the exaltation of these men. Joseph, who is a type, who is a shadow of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We can see many things of the Lord Jesus Christ in the life of Joseph. And the way or the means by which this man was exalted is by a couple of dreams that were given to Pharaoh that were interpreted by him. These dreams were interpreted with this, that seven years of prosperity were going to come upon the land of Egypt or upon the whole land. And they were going to be followed by seven years of famine. And these seven years of famine were going to be stronger and more difficult than the seven years of prosperity.

Now, this timing, what I'm saying to you, that he was probably 17 years old and that he spent almost 13 years in jail. And after that, that the Lord gave this dream to him that also contains times seven years and seven years is very important because here in chapter 42, we found ourselves probably in the first year of the famine. So that is that seven years of prosperity have probably already elapsed, and now we find ourselves in the first year of the famine. So the Bible says that there was famine in the land, in the whole land, and the people in the whole land did not have sufficient food to survive and to live. So if in the previous chapter, the thing that I wanted you to see is how the providential work of God was working in Joseph to bring him from being a prisoner to be exalted as a second person in power in Egypt.

What I want us to see here is how this man is now going to be used by God to bring awareness and conviction of the reality of sin to the patriarchs, to his brothers. God is going to use this man here in chapter 42 to bring conviction of sin, the sin that they had committed against Him. God is going to use Him to bring this conviction, of course, through the Spirit, but also through His words, so that the patriarchs His brothers will start in what people say that this is the beginning of the workings of grace of God among the patriarchs. Now, brothers and sisters, this is very important because I don't know if it happened to you when you read this for the first time or even when you read it, but there is a sense in which you can feel, you can sense a little bit of bitterness in the heart of Joseph. in the way that he treats his brothers.

The Bible says that he speaks wrathfully to them. And then all the things that he does against them, there's a sense of, it seems that there is still a little bit of unforgiveness, of bitterness in his heart. But brothers and sisters, we have to understand that many years have passed already. And actually, the dealings of Joseph with his brothers are going to be dealings of grace. He had the power He had the power, the money, and the ability to do anything that he wanted to them in, you know, revenge for what they had done to him.

But rather, as we're going to see here in chapter 42, and then in the chapters that follow, the dealings of Joseph towards his brothers are dealings of grace, a grace that comes from above, a grace that has been given to him. He has been in jail for 13 years. He has been in power now for seven years, one year in this difficult situation. And now the ones who committed a sin against him, they're going to come before him and they're going to be presented before him. Now, brothers and sisters, remember that this man is a shadow of the one who came in fullness of truth and grace, Jesus Christ.

He is going to, the dealings of Joseph are going to take these men and are going to point them to the sin that already was still present in the life of these people. We can see some interesting things from this chapter 42. And for instance, when we start reading the chapter, we see how Jacob is still dealing with his brothers. And there is a question that is there in the text that sounds a little bit strong and difficult when he's actually asking the question, he says, Why do you look at one another? It's like, why are you just there?

I have heard that in Egypt there is sufficient food and we are here. What are you doing there, lazy people? What are you doing? Just go down to Egypt because in Egypt there is sufficient food for us. There is sufficient grain.

Another thing we learn about the situation of this family is that Benjamin had already taken the place of Joseph in Jacob's heart. Jacob, he thought that his son Joseph had died and that he had disappeared. But now Benjamin had taken that particular place. And these brothers and sisters, this is 20 years after Joseph had departed or after Joseph had died in the mind of Jacob. But he had still had this love towards his son Benjamin.

And of course, in his mind, he had the person of Joseph as well. But brothers and sisters, The spirit of God and God himself is going to use Joseph to bring conviction and awareness of this sin. And this is grace that is being extended to these men that have been lived, that have been living for many, many years with the guilt of what they had done against his brother. But now God is going to extend the grace and the way that God extends grace to a sinner. It is not by bringing just the solution of the problem of the sin, but first of all, bringing conviction of the sin that needs to be solved by the grace of God.

So then when these men are presented before him, Joseph, his brothers, they do not know that he is Joseph. Of course, they think that this is just a powerful man. Then when Joseph sees that these are his brothers, he's going to work conviction in their hearts by doing a couple of things. The first thing that he's going to do is that he's going to confront them. to define who they are, or just to bring to the table their identity.

So he's going to say, you are spies. You came to see the nakedness of the land. He's going to confront them to define who they are, the identity of who they are. And then by this period, these people come and say, we are the sons, there are 12 of us, and we are the sons of only one man. One of them is no more, but the other one, the youngest man, is still with our father.

We are not coming to as spies to this land, but actually we're just coming to receive the grain. The second thing that Jacob, that Joseph is going to do is not only confronting them to define as a family whose two brothers are not there, one is with the father and the other one is no more, but what he's going to do is that he's going to test the verity, to use an old word, or the truth of the statement that they were in the mouth of these people. So verse 15 says, by these you shall be tested by the life of Pharaoh. You shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here. And now he's going to give them a little bit of the taste of what he went through because he's going to take his brothers, his 10 brothers, and he's going to put them in custody or in jail for three days.

Now imagine, Brothers and sisters, this is 20 years after they had sold in slavery his brother and they spent three days in jail. And one would think, what were the things that they were saying to one another? And the Bible actually tells us what they were actually saying to one another. And that is that they were thinking about the things that they did to Joseph. Why?

Because God was bringing conviction of the sin that they had committed 20 years ago. And he was using all of this to bring this guilt, this deserving guilt that will be the pathway onto saving grace. So one of his brothers, Ruben will say, in truth, we are guilty concerning our brother in that we saw the distress of his soul when he begged us that we did not listen. That is why distress has come upon us. And Ruben answered them, did I not tell you not to sin against the boy, but you did not listen.

So there comes a reckoning for his blood. Brothers and sisters, we should not take this for granted. A sinner cannot come to conviction of sin when the door of grace is open, apart from the Spirit of God. It is only the Spirit of God that brings real conviction of sin that is going to open the door of grace, of saving grace. And Joseph and all of these circumstances were being used to bring that conviction of sin to this man.

These men had not used the name of God at all in this whole conversation, but Joseph said something very interesting to them in verse 18. On the third day, after three days that they had spent in custody or in jail, on the third day Joseph said to them, do this and you will live for I Fear God. Now, he was speaking probably in Egyptian, if that is the name of the language, but he was not speaking in Hebrew. We know that because there was an interpreter there that was interpreting in Hebrew. But he brought the concept of fear of God to the mind of these men who had not spoken of God so far, but the whole circumstances were just bringing into them conviction that was given of the Spirit.

Something else Joseph is going to do, and that is that he's going to put the money that they received from them, he's going to put that money back into the sacks. And when they are going back to their place to take Benjamin back, they're going to find that money in their sacks. But now the answer of the mouth of these sinners who are being convicted by the whole circumstances are going to change. Because now, once they find the money in their sackcloth, they're going to say something like this. He said, my money has been put back.

Here it is in the mouth of my sack. At this, their hearts failed them, and they turned trembling to one another saying, what is this that God has done to us? Now they knew. that because of the things that they had done 20 years ago, that the whole thing that was happening, it was just God working justice because of the things they had actually done. Now, brothers and sisters, when conviction knocks on the door of a sinner, sorrow is filled within the soul of that person.

But that is godly sorrow that opens the door of grace onto eternal joy that it is given by the Lord Jesus Christ. The patriarchs here, the ones who had committed a sin, an awful sin against his brother, they were being brought to this conviction of sin. And not only that, but now the Lord was going to give them the last pierce to their hearts. Because when they came to Jacob, who was a prophet, 20 years. Remember, this is not from one chapter to another chapter.

This is 20 years after Joseph had been, after he died in the mind of Jacob. Jacob is going to say something very interesting to these people, to the brothers of Joseph. In verse 36, after they came to him and said, this is what happened. And this man is requiring of us that we might bring our youngest brother, Benjamin. If not, our brother is going to remain there in custody.

This is what Jacob is now going to say to them. They were afraid. And verse 36, and Jacob, their father said to them, you have bereaved me of my children. to the 10 men or to the nine men there. You have removed the presence of my children from me.

You are guilty. You are the ones that caused this. Joseph is no more because of you. And Simeon is no more because now he remained in Egypt in custody or in jail. And now you will take Benjamin.

brothers and sisters, the heart of these men were being filled with the spirit, giving conviction of the things that they had done. So the dealings of Joseph towards them were dealings of grace. And then we will see in chapter 45, what happens between these brothers, when they reconcile and when Joseph is going to receive the brothers in grace and in love that we should never forget. that Joseph is a type and is a shadow of the one who brings salvation and eternal grace by his glorious work of giving us awareness of the judgment of God upon our souls. That's salvation.

Salvation is when a sinner is brought to the awareness of the judgment of God, of the wrath of God upon us. so that Jesus Christ is the only solution to bear with that wrath and with that judgment. And that would not happen apart from the work of the convicting power of the Holy Spirit that has operated throughout generations in the life of the saints, in the life of those who are the people of God. Here we see then that Jacob will say, I'm not going to send my son. If you take my son, I'm going to die.

You're going to take me to the grave. But then we will see then in the chapter that follows, because of the circumstances, they will end up going down to Egypt. with the son. But what we see beyond of the circumstances, the historical circumstances, brothers and sisters, is that the covenant that was given to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and then through his 12 sons, is going to be kept, is going to remain by the grace of God, working in them as a nation, but also working in each one of them in their hearts. Salvation has been always the same.

by grace, through faith in God, fulfilling or bringing to a reconciliation, the eternal debt, judicial debt that we have before God and that only God can actually solve. Amen.