THROUGH THE BIBLE - Genesis..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to church. Would you please open up your Bible to the book of Genesis, the book of Genesis chapter 50.

So by the grace of God, now we arrive to the end of this first book of our Bibles, and we're going to be reading corporately together as we as we do every week, the word of God. So open up your Bibles to Genesis chapter 50. And let's read together the Word of God, paying much attention to each one of the words, and with reverent hearts. This is the Word of God. Genesis chapter 15.

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 it, for that is how many are required for embalming. And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days.

And when the days of weeping for him were past, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found favor in your eyes, please speak in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, My father made me swear, saying, I am about to die in my tomb. I'm about to die in my tomb that I hew out for myself in the land of Canaan. There shall you bury me. Now, therefore, let me please go up and bury my father. Then I will return.

And Pharaoh answered, Go up and bury your father as he made you swear. So Joseph went up to bury his father. With him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his household, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, as well as all the household of Joseph, his brothers, and his father's household. Only their children, their flocks, and their herds were left in the land of Goshen. And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen.

It was a very great company. When they came to the threshing floor of Atat, which is beyond the Jordan, they lamented there with a very great and grievous lamentation, and he made a mourning for his father seven days. When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning on the threshing floor of Atat, they said, this is a grievous mourning by the Egyptians. Therefore the place was named Abel Mizraim, it is beyond the Jordan. Thus his son did for him as he had commanded them.

For his sons carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, to the east of Mamre, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephraim that he tied to possess a burying place. After he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had gone up with him to bury his father. When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, They said, it may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him. So they sent a message to Joseph saying, your father gave this command before he died. Say to Joseph, please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin because they did evil to you.

And now please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father. Joseph wept when they spoke to him. His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, Behold, we are your servants. But Joseph said to them, Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today.

So do not fear. I will provide for you and your little ones." Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. So Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father's house. Joseph lived 110 years, and Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation.

The children of Mechir, the son of Manasseh, were counted as Joseph's own. And Joseph said to his brother, I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up. of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here. So Joseph died, being 110 years old.

They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. Amen. This is the Word of God. Brothers and sisters, we have, as I said, by the grace of God, arrived to the end of this last chapter of the first book that has been given to us by the Spirit through His prophets, the book of Genesis. But this is not the end of the story of the history of redemption.

Actually, this is the very beginning of the history of redemption as it started. And what I want you to see or what I want us to meditate upon as we have read this chapter and the things that are contained here is in the contrast. that we find in chapter 50, the last chapter of the Book of Genesis, and chapter 1 of the Book of Genesis, when we first started our reading through the Book of Genesis, because that is the beginning of the history of creation, and this is the beginning of the history of humanity and everything that has been created. But as we said back then, 50 weeks ago, it is also the beginning of the history of redemption, of how God is going to redeem His people. And I want you to see the contrast, beloved brethren, because in chapter one of the book of Genesis, we have God giving life and creating this life upright, righteous life, God created the heavens and the earth and everything that is in them.

And He gave life from Him into this man who was going to be the pinnacle of creation, and who was going to be the headship of everything that was created. But now here in chapter 50, we have the presence of death. the life that was given in chapter 1 by God, now it is tainted by the corruption of sin, and what we see in chapter 50 is death. The Apostle Paul, in Romans 5, chapter 12, he summarizes that, "...by the disobedience of one man, sin entered into the world, and through that sin death, and that death spread to all people, because all people sinned."

Brothers and sisters, the story of redemption is a story that has, or the history of redemption is a history or a story that has sin as one of the main characters. Sin is the reason why redemption was necessary. Sin is the reason why God promised that He was going to save a people for Himself. So sin is a category, is something that we need to understand when we interpret the history and the story of redemption. And I want us to do that as we see here this chapter 50, to see it in light of this history of redemption that is started in Genesis 1 and that is coming to a very important climax point in chapter 15, light of the effects of sin.

And as this relates to the history of redemption, because brothers and sisters, The wages of sin is death. This is what the apostle says in chapter 6 of his book of Romans, verse 23. The wages of sin is death. And that is the first thing that we witness in this chapter 50 of Genesis. That Jacob, one of the fathers of the covenant people of God, one who had received the promise of God, that he dies.

That it does not matter how good is your relationship that you have with God. It does not matter that you are in covenant with God, that because of the entrance of sin into this world, that we are all going to face death. that a patriarch, that a father of God's covenant people is facing death. The wages of sin is death. Beloved brethren, we are not going to see the glory of the redemption that we have in Christ if we don't see the blackness of the unrighteousness and sin and what it produces, that is death.

Because sin and death and unrighteousness is everything that is opposite to the righteous standard of light and life that God gave in Genesis 1. Now, brothers, the effects of sin are not only the death that we can see and witness here in the life of Jacob that is coming to an end, but also sin brings grief. and sorrow. This is what happened with Joseph's sons, that they had grief and sorrow because his father had passed away. And then when they took the body to the land of Canaan, the people in the land of Canaan would say in the Egyptians and in great sorrow, they say, they say grievous lamentation.

These are the effects of sin and death that is brought into these glorious story of creation and everything that the Lord did. But brothers, Not only sin brings death, the death that we see in Jacob, and the sorrow that brings to those people who witness the effects of sin in the life of a person, but it also brings fear and insecurity. Do you see what happened with Joseph's brothers? Now his dad is gone, he has died, and they heard from the mouth of Joseph that he was going to provide for everything. But the guilt of their sin that they had committed was in the back of their conscience, accusing them for the things that they had done.

And then the effects of sin is not only death and it's not only sorrow, but it's also fear of condemnation. fear of receiving the penalty that we deserve because of the things that we've done wrong. So then now they are doubting of the promise or the things that Joseph had said before, and now they are going to approach him to ask him, are you going... or in their minds at least, they had this doubt that he is going to do what he was supposed to have done time before. Brothers, these are the effects of sin.

Sin brings death, and brings sorrow, and also brings fear. Fear of a guilt, and a condemnation, and a penalty that we deserve. But this sin, that it is a main character in the history or the story of redemption, it's always governed by the sovereign power of God. Because the same sin that caused Jacob's death, or the same sin that brought sorrow to all of these people, or the same sin that was bringing this condemnation or this guilt to Joseph's brother, is the same sin, or is the same nature of sin, that God in His providence is now going to use to bring about the plan that he had. So, in the ways of how God is now going to communicate this in this chapter, in verse 20, he says, As for you, when Joseph is communicating to his brothers about the evil that they had committed, and that they thought that it was going to be the cause of the punishment of this Joseph, once Jacob was dead, that now Joseph is going to give us a very important theological teaching here, and a doctrine here, that even though in this history of redemption, sin is a main character, that our God is in control of everything.

So he says in verse 20, As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. Beloved brethren, even the sin that has caused death to all of us is a sin that is governed by God. God is in control of everything that happens. He is not the cause of sin. He's not the author of sin.

But He rules over everything that is created. And even the evil that we commit is under the sovereign power and the eternal decree of God, as He brings it about through His providence. And He accomplishes that which He destined for His people and for the glory of His name. But brothers, there's a third very important element in this chapter that I want you to see in light of this history of redemption as it comes to this climate, to this very important point. And that is not only that death is produced by sin and sorrow and distress in the mind or guilt, and also the providence of God uses that sin to bring about the purposes of God.

But it's that in the bringing the purposes of God to existence, God gives to his saints the power to be united to his Son unto salvation. And that's reduced and summarized in one word, faith. That is the faith that we see in the life of Joseph when he was dying. Go to verse 24. This Joseph had been exiled from the land of Canaan.

He was sold by his brothers. He had spent all of this time as an Egyptian, all of this time in this Egypt, in Babylon, away from the covenant people of God. Yet he had the certainty of the things that God was going to do with his covenant people. He had absolute certainty of the promises that had been given to Abraham, Isaac and to Jacob. Joseph is going to say with all certainty in verse 24.

And Joseph said to his brothers, I am about to die, but God will visit. If you have a different translation, it will say, God will surely visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. He was basically saying in all confidence that is given by faith, that is produced by faith, God is going to accomplish. the promise that was given to our father Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob of bringing you back to the land of Canaan, which is the promised land. Brothers and sisters, Israel was in a very good situation at this point.

They had everything that they needed. They had a good land. They had the favor of Pharaoh, at least at this particular point. Yet Joseph knew that this was not the place where God's people were going to remain, that the promise that God had given from the beginning of the story of redemption was going to be accomplished. The promises of God are only grasped by the power of the Spirit-given faith.

And the Spirit given faith gives peace to the saints, even in the moment when they are dying. So then, this is what will happen in verse 25. It says, Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here. Brothers and sisters, sin is one of the main characters of this history of redemption. Sin produces death and sorrow and guilt, but God, in His providential power, uses this sin to accomplish for His covenant people that which He has decreed.

And He does that through the faith that He gives to His sons and to His daughters. And you know, We are just hearing this transition in this book in which we move from families and now we move on to Israel as a nation. And as you progress through the history of redemption, you will see the same thing. The presence of sin among the people of God, the graces and the providence of God dispensed and given to His people, and the faith of the saints that takes them to endurance until the end of their lives. And this story, this is the way that finishes Revelation chapter 21.

Revelation chapter 21. This is how this story that has just begun in the book of Genesis is going to end. And the best thing about our redemption is that we know that Christ has been victorious already, that He conquered. And because He conquered, our faith can be empowered by the promises and by the certainty of what God has said. But because then the saints can join God in joy.

and in confidence, and read what it says in chapter 21 in the book of Revelation. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, the promised land. coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with men.

Men had been ejected from the garden, but now in the consummation of things, the dwelling place of God is brought to a consummation. He will dwell with them, that is God, and they will be with his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every triumph from their eyes, and death shall be no more. That's because sin has been removed. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

May the Lord give us life, beloved brethren, to see our lives, not only in the immediate, temporary aspect of our lives, but to see ourselves in this whole history of redemption and knowing that God is going to accomplish that, what He has purposed for His church and for our lives. So that then, as the author of Hebrews says, that because of His blood that we can give ourselves entirely to serve this living God. Amen.