Lord, we come to the Almighty. Lord, we are leaning on Your everlasting arms.
One of the greatest lessons we can ever learn, Lord Jesus, is how we come to Thee today. We are also depending on Your Holy Spirit to anoint our time around Your Word. Lord, anoint to speak; anoint to hear.
Lord, we want to see Jesus as we share with one another this morning. Lord, open our hearts to Thee. Lord, do not allow us to escape those everlasting arms this morning, but may we be found embraced by them. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
This great old hymn was written by Elisha Hoffman. He had gotten word from two of his students that their wives had died—young wives. He went to the Lord because he wanted to comfort these men.
He went to Deuteronomy 33:27:
The eternal God is thy dwelling-place,
And underneath are the everlasting arms.
That was the inspiration for this song. Now, this song has been on my heart for quite a number of months. When I heard it, like I say, two or three months ago, it really pierced my heart, and it has remained on my heart.
As I began to prepare to share on the life of Joseph, it really hit me: Lord, here is a man who made the eternal God his refuge and who leaned on the everlasting arms, or he would have never made it through. He never would have.
He was put in situations by the hand of God that he could not contemplate, understand, or figure out a solution for. But here was a man who knew the eternal God and who cast himself on the everlasting arms.
Most other men would have become embittered by what he suffered and went through at the hands of his family and at the hands of a bitter woman. But through it all, he learned to lean on the everlasting arms.
Now, brothers and sisters, I hope we learn that lesson as we look at the life of Joseph.
Joseph is a most unusual man among the patriarchs. There are only two men in the Bible in whose lives the Lord does not choose to mention any sin. Joseph is one of them, and I think Daniel is the other.
That does not mean he was sinless, but the Lord chose not to expose any sin in this man’s life.
Quite a few words come to heart as I read some passages from Genesis. The king of Egypt said of Joseph:
Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom is the spirit of God?
—Genesis 41:38
In Psalm 105, it says that he was laid in chains of iron, and his soul entered into the iron.
In Genesis 50:20, speaking to his brothers who had treated him so evilly, Joseph said:
And as for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good.
When I think of Joseph’s life, a couple of other verses come to mind. Romans 8:28 says:
And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to His purpose.
And then there is 1 Peter 1:7:
That the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold that perisheth though it is proved by fire, may be found unto praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
What a man. What a man—tested even at such a young age. We remember that he was seventeen when his brothers threw him into that pit.
We have been sharing, brothers and sisters, and the overall burden that has been on my heart as we have gone through this book of Genesis is that we begin to see God: that God would open our eyes to see Who He is, to see His ways, and to see His purpose.
Now, the question I have this morning is: Do you want to know God? Do you want to know the Father? Do you want to know all the riches that He has in store for those who love Him and that He wants to share with you?
Do you want to know His heart? Do you want to know His purpose? Do you want to know His ways? Do you want to know Him, and not just know about Him?
If so, you must know Jesus Christ.
Jesus Himself said:
And this is life eternal, that they should know Thee, the only true God, and Him whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.
—John 17:3
Again, He said:
No one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him.
—Matthew 11:27
And again, He said to His disciples:
He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.
—John 14:9
I want to say this particularly to the young people, our younger ones: if you set aside Christ, God will be silent. You cannot set aside Christ in your life, because when you do, you stop seeing God.
When you set aside Christ, God is silent in His revelation to you concerning His Son. Christ cannot be secondary. He has to be first in your life.
That is why the Word of God is so important to us. The Bible is God’s letter to you. Think of it as His personal letter to you. It is the logos, according to the Greek—the written Word.
But God has poured out His Spirit, and by His Spirit He can make this Word living and real to you. He can give enlightenment to you as you read it. He can reveal Himself to you as you read it, and it becomes rhema, according to the Greek.
God has graciously given us His logos: Jesus Christ, Who was the Word. But Jesus can be made real to you through the Holy Spirit. Jesus can become living, rhema, to you, and not just a part of history.
That is how important this little letter is to us: to know Him. That is our heart.
So, as we continue—and as we share every week, regardless of who is sharing the Word of God—may we pray Paul’s prayer:
Grant unto us, Lord, the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
May the Lord show us Christ. That is what we are after. That is what we are pursuing. In knowing Christ, we will know God; we will know Who God is.
In Joseph’s life, we see the character of God. We see the ways of God in his life, more than probably any other person, particularly in the Old Testament. We see the character of God and the ways of God in the life of Joseph.
I want to begin by looking at the testimony of Christ in Joseph’s life through the types of Christ in Joseph’s life. Once we realize that we are searching for Christ, I want later to share in more detail concerning this burden:
He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with Me in My throne.
—Revelation 3:21
Joseph was a man destined for the throne. According to Revelation, God’s great desire for all of us—our destiny—is the throne: to reign and rule with Him during the kingdom age, to share in that throne life. In other words, to share in God’s government.
Joseph was one who overcame. He overcame misunderstanding. He overcame rejection. He overcame unjustified punishment. He overcame pain and suffering, not only in body but in soul. He overcame discouragement, trials, temptations, even fortune and power, to be God’s man and to rule over the kingdom of Egypt.
He made it to the throne. He overcame.
The last call in the Bible that I can see is the call to overcome in the book of Revelation. The first call to any of us is:
Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
—Matthew 11:28
In other words, the first call is to come to Christ and know Him as your life—eternal life—as your Savior. The second call is to take up your cross and follow Him as His disciple.
The third call we find in Ephesians: there is a corporate testimony that we are to be part of. We are to be the church, His corporate body, which is to become His bride. We are called to be that.
And the last call is to overcome. He says to those who overcome, “You will share the throne with Me.” I cannot imagine it, but that is His promise. His reward is the throne.
With that in view, let us look a little at Joseph’s life. It takes up quite a few chapters in the Old Testament. Most of us know and cherish the story of Joseph, and we have known it from childhood. But I am going to briefly outline it, and then we will begin to share on the types.
Joseph was the firstborn son of Jacob and Rachel. What was interesting about his birth was that Rachel’s womb was closed, and God had to touch her womb in order for her to have this child, Joseph.
He was a special blessing to Jacob because he was the firstborn of his first love, Rachel. He had had other children by Leah, of course, but this was his firstborn of Rachel.
As a young boy, Joseph was a shepherd. He was not in the promised land when he was born, but they were shepherds; and so, like David, he learned how to shepherd the sheep. He was in the field with the sheep.
God obviously greatly used that time in his life, because to be dealt with so tremendously at such an early age and not falter in faith under the testing, he had to have a solid knowing of God in his life.
Joseph was a shepherd, and he was greatly beloved by his father. He was the one who was given that special coat. We are told by scholars that it was a special coat, like a coat a priest would wear—a coat of priesthood.
He also received dreams from God concerning the fact that he would reign and rule over his brothers. Those dreams brought great offense to his brothers.
Between the father’s special love for Joseph and the dreams Joseph had received, his brothers resented him greatly. It says they despised and even hated Joseph.
At the first opportunity they had, when Joseph went out to bring a report from their father to his brothers in the field, they threw him into a pit. They stripped him of his coat, threw him into the pit, and sold him to the Midianites, a traveling band of nomads.
They sold him for twenty pieces of silver. At the age of seventeen, Joseph was sold as a slave and taken to Egypt.
He was sold to Potiphar, the captain of the guard in Egypt. Joseph was so diligent in his service to Potiphar that Potiphar put him over his whole house.
Then came the sad story of how Joseph was tempted by Potiphar’s wife. But he would not yield, saying, “I cannot do this wickedness that you are asking.”
In her bitterness, she accused him before her husband. Her husband, in anger, had him thrown in jail. Joseph went to jail unjustly.
While he was in jail, the king’s cupbearer and baker were thrown into prison. We are not told exactly what they had done, but the king was displeased with them both.
They were sad, and Joseph was trying to comfort and help them. They had dreams, and Joseph interpreted their dreams. He told the cupbearer that he would be restored before the king, but that the baker’s head would be lifted from him. And it happened.
Joseph told the cupbearer, “Remember me before the king.” Remember that little story? It says the cupbearer forgot. Two more years Joseph was in prison.
Finally, the king himself had a dream about the seven good cows and the seven bad cows, the seven good ears of corn and the seven bad. Finally, the cupbearer said, “Oh, I know someone who interprets dreams.”
Joseph came before the king and interpreted the dream. He told the king that there would be seven good years followed by seven years of famine. He also told the king that he needed to select someone over the land to gather and store grain during the good years so that they could make it through the bad years.
That is when the king said, “I have seen no one like this man in whom the Spirit of God is.” He selected Joseph to be second in command over all the land of Egypt.
Joseph made it to the throne.
Because of the great famine, his father and brothers back in the promised land were starving. So they went down to Egypt to get grain. We remember how the brothers were finally restored to Joseph, and he was able to say to them, “You meant this for evil, but God meant it for good. He sent me ahead of you that you might be saved during this famine.”
The brothers were restored, and the nation of Israel grew down in Egypt. It is interesting that God had to take them out of the promised land because they were tempted to mingle with the people of the lands.
But in Egypt they were despised. Shepherds were despised, and the Jews were despised. The Egyptians would not have anything to do with them, but they let them live there because of Joseph.
Because they were basically left alone, they had no one but God and Joseph to look after them. They grew and developed, and eventually Moses brought them out. But the point is that God’s purpose was served through Joseph.
God’s purpose was preserved, and this nation of testimony—the nation of Israel—was preserved.
The nation of Israel went into obliteration, except that the mercy of God, in 1948, restored them as a nation through a United Nations resolution. God has kept this nation as a testimony to this earth, even to this day.
That is why they are so hated. They are so hated because God has His hand on them, and the enemy is bringing everything he can against them.
But the issue is not just Israel. The issue is the testimony of Christ, brothers and sisters. We are called to bear the testimony of Christ, not only individually but corporately. That is why the adversary is so intent on destroying His testimony.
Brother Tom said he would be speaking for another hour and a half. Probably mine would take two hours if I shared on all the types—maybe three—but I will not do that.
I began to look at the types of Joseph and Christ. One brother had twenty-two types, another had twenty-eight, and a third had fifty-eight types. The more I looked, I said, “Boy, this could go on forever.”
It is amazing how much of the testimony of Christ and His life we find in Joseph’s life. So I will not do fifty-eight, and I do not want to do even twenty-two. But I will share the ones that seem like the Lord gave me to share on this morning.
I want to do this because we are all called to carry the testimony of Christ. No one person can. That is why He has a body, the church, so that all of us in unity can carry that testimony of Christ.
In their births, both Joseph and our Lord Jesus required supernatural action. In Joseph’s birth, his mother’s womb had to be touched and opened in order that she could have children.
Our Lord Jesus also had a special birth—unique, a birth that no other has ever had. We call it the incarnation.
It says the Holy Spirit overshadowed the womb of Mary. Think of this: Christ encompassed all the characteristics and all the life of God, and that life was put into tiny seed form in the womb of a woman. The Holy Spirit moved.
Our Lord Jesus Christ experienced the same thing in a womb that all of our children would experience, except, of course, He was filled with the Holy Spirit even in the womb.
Incarnation, brothers and sisters: a special intervention of God in mankind, in your life and in my life. I am amazed that God, in His plan, chose to come as a man.
But the Word of God is clear: none of us is able to save ourselves. But a kinsman-redeemer can come and save you. In order to be your kinsman, He had to take on the form of a man.
As your kinsman, He comes, and His blood is shed on your behalf. He dies on your behalf. That special intervention—the incarnation of God.
Both Joseph and Christ were from the seed of Abraham. Christ can be traced back to Abraham in lineage, and so can Joseph.
Why is this important? It is because the promise was made to Abraham that from his seed would come this One Who would bless all the nations.
We know that through Joseph, the nation of Egypt and all the known world at that time were blessed, because Egypt ended up having the food needed to keep the world going. More importantly, Joseph preserved the nation of Israel, this testimony of God.
Our Lord Jesus can also be traced back to Abraham. In Matthew, the lineage begins with Abraham because Abraham was a man of faith. That is the way we know our Lord Jesus: through faith.
He is the seed of Abraham. More importantly than that, it is through our Lord Jesus Christ that all the nations are blessed. He is the only One Who has given the opportunity to the nations for salvation—the only One Who can open the doorway to the kingdom of God.
Recently, I was reminded of those Scriptures in which our Lord said:
He that entereth not by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
I am the door.
—John 10:1, 9
He is the way to the kingdom—no other way. I feel strongly about this because I know that even in churches today they say, “We do not want to offend people by saying that Christ is the only way.”
Humanism has overcome Christianity, unfortunately. That is so sad. Christ is the only way. He has always been the only way.
Both were from the seed of Abraham. Both were shepherds.
Now, you will say, “Well, Jerry, our Lord Jesus was a carpenter.” All of us blue-collar types are glad for that. You know, carpenters—He was a carpenter.
But what does the Word of God say? What did He say? He is the great Shepherd of the sheep. Spiritually, He is the great Shepherd of the sheep. That is what our brothers have been sharing about.
Both were shepherds. Both had this shepherd heart.
Now, brothers and sisters, Joseph had to take care of some sheep. Think of the multitudes of sheep our Lord Jesus has to take care of.
What is so amazing about our Lord is that no one is forgotten. No one is left out. If you are His, you are His, and He sees to it. He keeps you in line, if you are willing.
If you are not willing, brothers and sisters, He is willing to discipline you to bring you back in line. He is willing to draw you back even when you say, “I want to leave the fold. I want to leave and go on my own.”
He will patiently wait, just like the father of the prodigal son who ran away. The Father patiently waits, and the Son goes and gets him and brings him back.
He is the great Shepherd. But Joseph had that shepherd heart. We need to know that. The shepherd heart is important.
Both were greatly loved by the Father. That is pretty evident in the life of Joseph, is it not? He was given a special coat. He was the one who became the heir, the one who inherited.
Jacob loved Joseph tremendously. His whole heart was wrapped up in Joseph.
Now, brothers and sisters, is this not a testimony to the love of the Father for His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ? He loves Him so much that He created this universe for Him.
All that we see, all that the Hubble telescope can possibly reach, was created for the Son. But there was something special and unique, more than this glorious universe, that was created: He created man.
Man was the only thing He created in His image and after His likeness. He built man from the dust of the earth, and He took woman from the side of Adam. Special.
Mankind was going to be special. We find out from the Word that mankind was to become His Son’s helpmate—His Son’s bride. Together in eternity, we will be together and serve Him. We do not know what that will mean at this point, but we know it is coming soon.
Both were greatly loved by their fathers. Twice, God could not restrain Himself. At our Lord’s baptism, He broke through and announced:
This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
—Matthew 3:17
And on the Mount of Transfiguration, He cried once again:
This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.
—Matthew 17:5
He could not hold back. Greatly loved.
Joseph was to become the one who inherited. Our Lord Jesus inherits all that the Father gives. But that is not the end of it. It says we will inherit with Him. He is choosing to share His inheritance with us. He does not have to, but He will.
Both had a word from God. Both were able to speak and share the mind of God.
We know Joseph had dreams that God gave him. Those dreams got him into a lot of trouble, but they were from God. Unfortunately, his brothers did not recognize that they were from God.
His father even rebuked him over these dreams, but it says the father kept the saying in mind. Jacob had had quite a few dreams from the Lord himself, so he knew that the Lord would speak that way.
Apparently, even after Jacob rebuked his son, he must have had a check from God and thought, “I had better consider this further.” Joseph had a word from the Lord.
Our Lord Jesus has a word from God. Do you all remember His message?
Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
—Matthew 4:17
The kingdom of God is at hand. That meant the King was at hand. This was His message from the Father.
We should recognize that the kingdom of God is at hand and that we should be submissive to our King, the Lord Jesus Christ, and make Him King of our lives.
Is He King? That was the question the brothers asked last week. I do not know how many of us really got down and thought about that, but that was the question: Is the Lord King? Is He the good Shepherd of your life?
Kingdom life—that was the message. And, brothers and sisters, how much trouble that message gave our Lord Jesus.
When He did miracles, men flocked to Him. But the message never changed.
When they finally began to see that Christ was not interested in being an earthly king and overthrowing the Roman government, they crucified Him. They rejected Him. He did not meet their expectations, so they rejected Him.
Brothers and sisters, as we go through our life with the Lord, sometimes God does not do things the way we expect.
It is a critical time in your life when this happens, particularly if it is a serious matter. We are so sure the Lord is going to do something, and He does not. What is our reaction?
Do we turn away? Do we become embittered? Do we reject Him? It is natural human nature, brothers and sisters. Expectations.
God is our eternal refuge. Lean upon Him. Lean upon the everlasting arms, particularly in those times when God seems to move differently than what you expect.
Lean upon the everlasting arms. Joseph did. He had God’s mind. He had God’s Word. And when he spoke it, men rejected it.
Both Joseph and the Lord Jesus went out seeking. Joseph went out seeking his brothers. He was going to bring a message from their father, and he was going to bring them a little food. But he was thrown into the pit.
Our Lord Jesus came to this earth seeking. He was seeking you and me. He was seeking His bride. He was seeking those who would be part of His bride.
He came to seek and save the lost—the sick, the troubled. They were both seekers.
I have to say, if there is anybody here today who does not really know the Lord, He is seeking you. He has been seeking you even while you were in the womb. He was making preparations to draw you to Himself.
Circumstances have arisen in your life through which He is trying to impress upon you your need for Him and His salvation. He is always seeking.
Both had an issue with coats. Joseph had this special coat, probably lamb’s wool, made of many different colors. It was a special coat, and the brothers recognized this.
When they threw him into the pit, they took the coat, tore it, put blood on it, and presented it to their father.
How is this a type of Christ? Christ was a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He was the Lamb. His blood was shed, and from Hebrews we know that He presented that blood before His Father.
Because the Father accepted His sacrifice on your behalf and mine, He can accept you.
Sometimes, when people are saved, they still struggle. They do not understand how God can really accept them. The issue is acceptance: “I have sinned. I am accepting Christ as my sin-bearer, but am I accepted by God?”
Your acceptance is assured because Christ will present His blood on your behalf before the Father, and the Father cannot ever refuse the blood of His Son. How powerful is the blood?
My brothers this morning were teasing me a bit about the way I was dressed today, because this is a bit uncommon for me. They were talking about outward dress.
My dear brother Dennis said, “Yes, but are you clean on the inside, brother?” I will tell you what: no.
But I can come and say, “Lord, Your blood is my cleansing.” That is the only reason I can speak this morning. The blood is still powerful. The blood is still effective.
Your sins—your current sins—you can take before the Lord, and the blood can cleanse them white as snow. Our sister prayed that today concerning the snow. Our blood-stain can be made white as snow.
I think that is an amazing miracle, brothers and sisters. Before God, you are white as snow. We still have a lot to deal with in our lives to bring us in line with the way God sees us.
But that is the mercy of our heavenly Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Both were rejected by their brethren. We have already talked about how Joseph’s brothers despised and hated him, and how they rejected him.
The book of John says:
He came unto His own, and they that were His own received Him not.
But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God.
—John 1:11-12
Rejected. Why was He rejected? He offered life. He offered reality.
We are always wanting more of this world—more worldly things, worldly goods, worldly fame, worldly power. This is what we seek. The Lord was offering them something different.
When they finally discovered that, they rejected Him. His own rejected Him. His own brought Him before Pilate.
His own were the ones who cried out, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”
But we have to make this very practical, brothers and sisters. Before we know Jesus Christ, while He is trying His best to touch your heart and your life and bring you to Himself, you are rejecting Him, and rejecting Him, and rejecting Him.
“Away with Him,” we want to say, particularly as rebels. “I do not want Him to be a part of my life.”
We hear the cry today: “We do not want Him to be on our coins. We do not want anything to do with God. We want to put Him out of our society totally.” Do that, and society will crumble.
They were both rejected.
Both became slaves. Joseph was sold for twenty pieces of silver to Potiphar. But Philippians says of our Lord Jesus Christ:
Who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped,
But emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.
—Philippians 2:6-7
He became a bondservant, taking on the form of man and becoming obedient even to death on the cross. A bondservant, a love slave of the Father—He became a slave.
Before He left the throne, He had all the rights of the throne, all the rights of God. But when He came as a man, He gave up those rights. He lived as we did, and He overcame on our behalf.
He was a slave, brothers and sisters—a bondservant. We too are called to be bondservants of our Lord Jesus Christ, love slaves.
Both were sold. Joseph was sold for twenty pieces of silver. Judas sold our Lord’s life for thirty pieces of silver. The parallels are amazing.
Both were tempted, yet without sin. I do not want to throw anybody’s theology off here. I know Joseph was a sinner. He had that nature. He needed the blood just as we do.
But in the Word, none of Joseph’s sins are ever mentioned. I think there is a reason for that. The reason is that he carried the testimony of Christ to the extent that the Lord chose not to expose his sin before men.
That is not true of the others. In the others we see faults and failures. Look at Peter’s life. But not so with Joseph.
Our Lord Jesus, it says, was tempted and yet without sin. There was no sin in His life. He did not have a sin nature, but He was tempted in every way.
As soon as He was baptized, the Holy Spirit led Him into the desert, and the enemy assaulted Him. If you read the temptations, you realize that all the temptations that man suffers were wrapped up in those temptations He suffered at the enemy’s hand after forty days with no food or water.
He was tempted, and He overcame. He overcame on our behalf. He is an overcomer. Therefore, we are in Him, and we can be overcomers too.
When Joseph was tempted, he did the right thing: he fled from Potiphar’s wife. But it was a little different with our Lord. The Holy Spirit led Him out there.
In that battle with the enemy, He overcame. He was able to go on to the cross for you and me. But He overcame—not only in the desert with the enemy, but through the enemy’s continual assault throughout His whole life.
Both were falsely accused. Potiphar’s wife falsely accused Joseph, and he was put into prison. We see nowhere that Joseph tried to defend himself.
There is no mention of Joseph defending himself in any way. I have to think that, though his master was angry with him, Joseph in no way dared offend his master. He would not raise any accusation.
Our Lord Jesus was taken before Caiaphas and before Pilate. He never defended Himself. He did respond on a couple of occasions, but not to defend Himself. His words judged the men who were judging Him.
He was falsely accused. I thought the false accusation was interesting because the accusation was really true. They said they wanted Him crucified because He claimed to be the Son of God.
He did not merely claim it; He was. His actions and Who He was declared that He was the Son of God.
They were both falsely accused.
They both willingly accepted the cup given to them. Joseph went into prison not for ten days or thirty days, but for over two years.
We see no bitterness in this man. He was unjustly accused and thrown into prison. Those prisons did not have televisions. They did not serve a nice plate of food. It was most likely a cave, a dark, damp cave where they were kept.
Yet Joseph never became bitter. In fact, he was so diligent that the jailer put him over the rest of the prisoners to help them. And he did.
That is why, when he noticed the cupbearer and baker were upset, he was concerned and went to them. He was in charge of them, and he asked, “What is going on?” That is how those dreams came about.
But it says of Joseph, while he was in prison, that his soul entered into the iron. There were iron bars. His soul was dealt with. There was a dividing of soul and spirit, which we also need. I will not go into that today; I will later.
The iron entered his soul.
When you think of Joseph’s time in prison, and how he was willingly submitting to God in that situation, I cannot help but think of our Lord Jesus Christ in the garden.
The iron entered our Lord’s soul. He said:
My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from Me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.
—Matthew 26:39
He was human. But He said, “Thy will be done.” And it was. They willingly accepted the cup given to them.
Interestingly enough, both had two men with them in their suffering. Joseph had the cupbearer and the baker. One lived and one died.
There were two thieves on the cross with our Lord Jesus Christ. We remember how one reached out to Christ, and the Lord said:
To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.
—Luke 23:43
He was given eternal life. The other did not respond, and he received eternal death. Two others in the time of trial.
Both experienced the silence of God.
Joseph had asked the cupbearer, “When you get before Pharaoh, remember me.” But the cupbearer forgot. Joseph was there two more years until the Lord finally intervened.
Those were difficult years. Those were the years in which it says his soul entered into the iron. But, brothers and sisters, his faith failed not. The eternal God was his refuge, and he leaned on the everlasting arms.
Seeming silence. “Where is God?” Seeming silence, but his faith did not falter.
When our Lord Jesus was crying on the cross, I think it is so interesting to read the account of His death. What was His concern?
He said, “Father, they do not know what they are doing. Forgive them.” He reached out.
He said to John, “I want you to look after My mother. She is My mother, but I want you to take care of her.” He looked after His mother, His family.
He was the oldest brother, and most likely, according to the scholars, Joseph had died while Jesus was still young. Jesus was only about thirty at this point.
His heart was on those for whom He was dying.
Then, at the ninth hour, darkness came across the whole earth. Brothers and sisters, thick clouds covered the earth on the day of our Lord’s crucifixion.
I am reminded that it says the earth was without form and void, but the Holy Spirit was moving.
During those three hours, the sins of the whole world came upon our Lord Jesus. This was an action between God and the Son, allowing this to happen to the Son.
He took on the sins of the whole world. He took on your sin. He took on my sin. He took on all the sins of the world.
It says He took sin on to such an extent that He became sin. A sinless God, as a man, had now become sin.
Then, in that last dark hour, He finally cried out:
My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?
—Matthew 27:46
Silence. He had never experienced silence from His Father in all His eternal existence. Think of that.
For three hours, out of eternity past and eternity future, God was silent. Our Lord Jesus had never experienced that.
He said, “Why have You forsaken Me, Father?” Did He lose faith? Of course not.
His last words were:
Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.
—Luke 23:46
The silence of God.
The father of Joseph and the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ both experienced great suffering.
Joseph’s brothers went back to Jacob and said, “Here is Joseph, your son’s coat. Obviously some animal has killed him.” We know that for seventeen years Jacob thought his son was dead, and it grieved his heart.
It grieved his heart all that time. So much so that when he finally came before the king of Egypt and was asked how it was with him, he said, “I have lived a long and difficult life, full of grief.”
It ripped the father’s heart out.
The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ had to see His Son suffer at the hands of men. He was beaten, spat upon, His hair pulled, whipped, unto the point that no one could recognize Him anymore.
But those were not the things that really killed Him. What killed Him was when He took on your sin and my sin.
Finally, the Father had to judge Him for your sin and my sin. He judged Him, and He died on Calvary’s cross for you and me.
But the Father’s heart—just think of the Father’s heart.
But that is not the end. It was not the end for Joseph, and it was not the end for our Lord Jesus Christ.
Joseph ended up interpreting the king’s dreams, and he was put in second command at the throne.
Our Lord Jesus Christ—the grave could not hold Him. He overcame even hell and death and rose from the grave.
He was forty days on this earth, demonstrating that He was still here. It was a spirit body now, not a fleshly body.
Then He went to the Mount of Olives, and He rose up into the clouds.
In Revelation, we see a picture of when He got back to the throne. We see Him standing as a Lamb slain before the throne. He made it back.
Not only does He sit on the throne as the Son of God, but He sits on the throne as the Son of Man: King, Lord of lords, King of kings.
He has gained a people for a testimony. He has become the Savior of the world. Through His sacrifice on Calvary, He has become your Savior and my Savior.
But in order for Him to be your Savior, you have to accept Him as such. You have to accept Him. You have to want Him to be your King as well as your Savior—Lord of your life.
That is the decision you have to make, a decision I had to make.
“Yes, Lord, I am a sinner, and I know in my heart You died for me. Lord, I want to confess You as Savior and as Lord.”
It says in the Word that if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will have eternal life.
So the Lord has gained a people, and God’s purpose of having a bride for His Son will be fulfilled, just as the nation of Israel was sustained through Joseph.
What a testimony. Just think of the testimony of the life of Christ in Joseph’s life. It is amazing.
All the events that happened to Joseph, everything that happened, so much demonstrates the character of Christ. He demonstrates the ways of God through the cross. He demonstrates the love that the Father has.
What a testimony.
The reason Joseph had that testimony is that the eternal God was his refuge, and he leaned on the everlasting arms.
This testimony that Joseph carried came at great cost. It came with great testing. It came with great trial.
But there were great results. He made it to the throne, leaning on the everlasting arms.
Are you leaning on the everlasting arms?
Lord, we just come to You today. In some ways, You have made—let me say it this way, Lord—life can be extremely difficult, but the way through is extremely easy.
You are our eternal refuge, and we will lean on Your everlasting arms. Amen.