No turning back. No turning back.
Lord, as we come to You, the great issue in life is finding the Lord Jesus Christ, and then, Lord, the greater issue of following You all the way to the end.
Lord, we come to You. Most in this room have already made that decision. Lord, this morning, we just want to refresh our hearts in this decision that we made years ago: that we will follow, and that there is no turning back.
Now, Lord, we ask You to use Your Word, that sword that can really, Lord, touch our spirits, get through our soul to our spirit, Lord, that can really work in our hearts. But, Lord, we need Your Holy Spirit to speak to us. Man’s words fall to the ground, and they do not abide. Lord, Your words abide forever.
So we come to Thee this morning. We are asking for the anointing both to speak and to hear Your words, Lord. Only You can really, really touch our deep parts. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, we have been talking about a man who decided to follow the Lord at an early age, and he never turned back. He never turned back. He went through thirteen years of severe discipline, but he remained faithful and never turned back.
Now, this morning, to finish up in the life of Joseph, I am going to have to read quite a few Scriptures. So just bear with us as we read these Scriptures.
The first one is out of Revelation 3:21. It has kind of been the theme for Joseph’s life.
To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne,
even as I also overcame, and sat down with My Father in His throne.
The Lord has made a promise to those who follow Him. If you are faithful and overcome, then He will have you sit with Him in His throne.
And we know that Joseph ended up on the throne of Egypt, second in command only to Pharaoh, making decisions for the entire land. He was reigning and ruling. God had raised him up from a shepherd to that of kingship. And that is what the Lord wants to do in our lives.
Now let us go and read Genesis, beginning with Genesis 42. Unfortunately, it is a considerable amount of reading, but unless you have read it within the last few days, it will not be fresh in your heart.
Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another?
And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt: get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die.
And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them; and he said unto them, Whence come ye?
And they said, From the land of Canaan to buy food.
And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him.
And Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them, and said unto them, Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land ye are come.
And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us.
And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is required.
And they knew not that Joseph understood them; for he spake unto them by an interpreter.
And he turned himself about from them, and wept; and returned to them again, and communed with them, and took from them Simeon, and bound him before their eyes.
Then Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn, and to restore every man’s money into his sack, and to give them provision for the way: and thus did he unto them.
And he said unto his brethren, My money is restored; and, lo, it is even in my sack: and their heart failed them, and they were afraid, saying one to another, What is this that God hath done unto us?
And the famine was sore in the land.
And it came to pass, when they had eaten up the corn which they had brought out of Egypt, their father said unto them, Go again, buy us a little food.
And God Almighty give you mercy before the man, that he may send away your other brother, and Benjamin. If I be bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.
In other words, the brothers told their father that the man demanded that Benjamin come back with them, the youngest brother. Jacob is expressing his grief.
And the men took that present, and they took double money in their hand, and Benjamin; and rose up, and went down to Egypt, and stood before Joseph.
And when Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the ruler of his house, Bring these men home, and slay, and make ready; for these men shall dine with me at noon.
And the man did as Joseph bade; and the man brought the men into Joseph’s house.
And the men were afraid, because they were brought into Joseph’s house; and they said, Because of the money that was returned in our sacks at the first time are we brought in; that he may seek occasion against us, and fall upon us, and take us for bondmen, and our asses.
And they sat before him, the firstborn according to his birthright, and the youngest according to his youth: and the men marvelled one at another.
And he took and sent messes unto them from before him: but Benjamin’s mess was five times so much as any of theirs. And they drank, and were merry with him.
And he commanded the steward of his house, saying, Fill the men’s sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put every man’s money in his sack’s mouth.
And put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack’s mouth of the youngest, and his corn money. And he did according to the word that Joseph had spoken.
As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away, they and their asses.
And when they were gone out of the city, and not yet far off, Joseph said unto his steward, Up, follow after the men; and when thou dost overtake them, say unto them, Wherefore have ye rewarded evil for good?
Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren.
And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard.
And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence.
And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God.
Now let us go to Hebrews 11:22. This is the chapter—the hall of faith, they call it.
By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones.
He commanded them not to leave his bones in Egypt, but to carry him up when they were finally delivered, to go back to the promised land and bury him there.
We have been sharing on our brother Joseph’s life. He has quite a story. He was taken from the pit, and now he is reigning on the throne of Egypt.
Brothers and sisters, in order to qualify to reign on the throne of Egypt, Joseph had to go through severe discipline at the hand of the Lord. He had been given revelation in those dreams as a child of reigning and ruling, even over his brothers. He did not fully understand the import of that, but it had to do with God’s great purpose to have a nation of testimony on this earth.
God was faithful. He had those dreams, and his brothers became angry with him, and they threw him in the pit. He was humiliated. It was humbling to be in that pit. The pit of despair is humbling.
I remember Saul, whom the Lord met and changed his name to Paul. Later, the Lord had to give him a thorn in his side to humble him because of what he had seen—the great revelations that he had seen.
And here we see this young man of seventeen, who had great revelation from God, having to be humbled in the pit of despair.
Now, brothers and sisters, as Christians, none of us welcome the pit of despair. But that is the pit in which the Lord Jesus is able to humble us as Christians and get us to the place where we are teachable and pliable in His hands.
So Joseph was humbled. He learned obedience as a slave. We all must become slaves. He learned obedience to the Master.
His soul was laid bare as a prisoner. The cross had to do its work in his soul-life, in his self-life, to be eliminated so that God could speak, so that God’s will could be done. It took a deep work of the cross. It took prison.
It says in Psalm 105 that his soul entered the iron bars in that prison, indicating the deep work of the cross in this man’s soul: that his soul would not be in control of his life, but God would be; the spirit would be.
And now he has been made ready to reign and rule. He is in the position that he can now reconcile, restore, and recover his family and his brethren to God and to God’s purpose.
Now I want to challenge us all immediately this morning. Have you been humbled in the pit of despair? Are you humbled before the Lord? Are you pliable? Are you still teachable in the Lord’s hand? Is the Lord still able to deal with you?
Have you become the Lord’s slave? Are you fully obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ in your life? Are you obedient to the Holy Spirit within, the unction within, speaking for our Lord in your life?
Obedience—not out of duty, but obedience out of love for the Lord Himself.
Have you become a prisoner of the Lord? Has your self-life so been dealt with that the only will that matters in this life is the will of God—what God wills, what God is after?
Is it only His will, or is it still your will that counts? What about your mind? Are you seeking His mind, or are you using your own to make the decisions for yourself? What about your emotions? Are they in control of your life, or are they submissive to the Spirit within?
These are the things that have to be done. If so, you are qualified to reign and rule with Christ. If so, you are qualified.
Now, how many are qualified? I have to put my hand down too. I do not see any hands raised, though.
Brothers and sisters, God uses the life of Joseph to show us what He demands.
If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.
Unless you are willing to take up your cross daily and follow Him, you cannot really be His disciple. This is what He did in Joseph’s life. Joseph had to give his life on behalf of the Lord.
Now, this matter of qualification to reign and rule: when you really see what God has to do in our lives to bring forth an overcomer, and you realize the transformation that needs to take place, then you look and say, “Honestly, Lord, I am just not there. I am not qualified. I am not ready.”
Sometimes, brothers and sisters, as we get older, we kind of give up to despair. We just settle down, satisfied with where we are. We become a little bit hardened and no longer as pliable in the Lord’s hand. We just have to say, “Well, it is good enough. What I have gained in Christ is good enough. I will just settle down here.”
“The pathway is a little too difficult, Lord.”
But Paul has encouraged us to finish the race. He has encouraged us in Hebrews not to faint when we are under the Lord’s discipline, under His training. He said, “Do not faint.” Later, the Word says that we need to humble ourselves under His mighty hand until He chooses to raise us up.
We cannot do it. But there is a life that we have been given that is able to do it. That is what we need to see this morning.
I was reminded of the story of the rich young ruler. He came to the Lord, remember, and wanted to follow the Lord. He said, “Lord, what must I do to be Your disciple?”
He was a rich man, and the Lord said, “Well, it is very simple. You need to sell everything you have and give it to the poor, and then follow Me.”
It says that the Lord looked upon him, if you remember the story, and loved him. How the Lord loved him. How the Lord wanted to show His love and embrace this young man. But the Lord had to be honest with him. He said, “If you want to follow Me, you have got to give it all up.”
Now I want to be honest with all of us this morning. That is the Lord’s demand. He wants it all. You have got to give it all up to Him—your money, your retirement, your family, your work. Everything has to be given up for the sake of the Lord.
But the rich young ruler walked away sadly. I have always found it interesting that the Lord did not try to call the man back and give further explanation. The man had asked what it took to be His disciple, and the Lord had told him. That was enough.
But he walked away sadly. What was his failure? Lest we make the same failure, he saw he could not do it. He just could not do it. Now, that was okay.
But what was his failure? What was required? He did not really see the Lord for Who He was. He really did not.
I think he saw the Lord as a great man, a great teacher, like many saw Him, and wanted to follow Him in His teaching, but not really recognizing His lordship, His deity, Who He was.
Because if he had seen it, he would have said, “It is worth it.” If he had really seen the Lord that day and really met the Lord, he would have said, “I give it all up. It is worth it.”
You might say, “Well, that is pretty tough.” Remember Zacchaeus, the story that follows right afterward? Zacchaeus in the tree. The Lord says, “Zacchaeus, come down. I am going to dine with you today.”
Zacchaeus met the Lord. He said, “Lord, I am going to return four or five times what I have taken from other people.” It was an immediate reaction. To him, the Lord was worth it. He had seen the Lord for Who He was.
If the rich young ruler had seen Who the Lord was, he would have said, “It is worth it.” But he would probably also have had to say, “Lord, I do not know if I can do it.”
What the Lord is after is a willing heart. If that young man had just said, “Lord, You are worth everything I own, but I just cannot bring myself to give it up. Lord, I am willing to do it if You can just work in my heart, Lord, to make me willing. I am willing to be willing. I just cannot do it right now.”
You know, the Lord takes us on that basis: willing to be willing. I think that was his great failure too. One, he really did not see the value of the Lord; and number two, he was not really willing. If he had just been willing to be willing.
Well, brothers and sisters, if we are truthful with ourselves and our call to follow the Lord—to get to the place of reigning and ruling with the Lord—if we are truthful, we probably have to say, “I love myself too much.”
The Lord has asked me to be a slave, but I do not want to give up my rights. I like to retain a few of them. I do not think I can pay the price. I just do not think I can go the way of the cross, to make my soul a prisoner to the Lord’s will, to make my being a prisoner to the Lord’s will and the Lord’s way.
But can you say, “Lord, I am willing to be willing. Lord, I have to confess, in my heart I just do not know that it is there. Lord, I do not know that I can do this. Lord, I have seen something of what Your call requires. My eyes have been opened to see a little bit of what Your demands really are, and I just cannot meet them. But, Lord, I do not want You to give up on me. I am willing to be willing.”
I believe the Lord takes us at that. And the Lord will do as He has promised. He is the Author and Finisher of our faith, but He has got to at least have a willing heart.
“I cannot do it, Lord, but You can.”
Now, at seventeen Joseph was thrown in the pit, sold as a slave by his brothers. He went through thirteen years of discipline, and at the age of thirty he was reigning on the throne of Egypt, second in command.
There had now been seven good years. Joseph was thirty-seven years old, and some amount of time—which we are not able to discern, maybe a couple of years—had passed in famine. So Joseph is now approaching the age of forty.
He is on the throne, and those dreams that he had, he probably occasionally thought about them, but he certainly did not see their application, even though he was reigning on the throne of Egypt. He was not sure totally what those dreams meant anymore.
But I think he was sure of one thing: they were from the Lord. The Lord had given him those dreams. They were not just a child’s fantasy. God had spoken to him.
The reason I think that is because he went through those years of being mistreated, being a slave, being a prisoner for something he did not do, and he remained faithful the whole time.
Now it was time for God to use Joseph to reconcile and recover His testimony in this earth—His witness upon this earth—to recover his brothers and the family.
His brothers needed to be reconciled—for their sake, for the Lord’s sake, and for Joseph’s sake. But it was more than just a matter of forgiveness. Frankly, as we know Joseph’s heart, that forgiveness was already in his heart. He was already willing.
Any pride in our brother had been humbled. He was willing. He desired his brothers and his family. But they had sinned with the sins of pride, jealousy, hatred, and even murder in their hearts.
But there was no vengeance or revenge in Joseph’s heart. Reconciliation requires forgiveness on Joseph’s part here, but reconciliation is more than forgiveness. It is a process.
So the brothers’ conscience had to be awakened. What they had done to Joseph, they had buried deep in their hearts and in their conscience. Their hearts had become darkened over this issue.
Now God uses a crisis in their lives to confront them. They go to Egypt and meet Joseph. They do not recognize who he is, but he immediately recognizes them.
It says that he broke down. He had to get away a little bit. He was weeping. He saw who they were, and it says that he remembered the dream.
That was significant, brothers and sisters, because all of a sudden Joseph saw that these dreams God had given him—God was moving. He could not just immediately grab his brothers, hug them, and forgive them. Something had to be recovered. They needed to be reconciled.
When he remembered those dreams, he realized, “Okay, this is the work of God. I have got to follow what God is doing in this.” And praise the Lord, he does. So he restrains himself.
But it is interesting, the words he uses. He accuses them of being spies. If you go back and read the story, when Joseph first came to them while they were shepherding the sheep out in the field, they said to him, “What are you doing here? You have come to spy on us.”
That was their word: “You have come to spy.” And now Joseph said, “You are spies.”
Oh, how the Lord does things to kind of tweak our memories, to begin to bring that thing so buried in our hearts up to the surface.
Listen to their response. Now they do not realize Joseph can hear them: “We are all one man’s sons. The youngest is still with our father, and one is not.” Another one—one is dead. One of his sons is dead.
Why would they even say that? Because God, through the Holy Spirit, was working on their conscience. The pressure of being challenged as spies was beginning to work in their heart.
Joseph is very wise because he knows this is the Lord’s work. He puts them, not in jail, but off to themselves for three days, guarded. Let them think about this a little bit.
You know, that is what the Holy Spirit does. He gets us into places, and He makes us think about it.
When they come back before Joseph, and they are talking with one another, Joseph is able to hear them. They do not know it.
We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us in the pit, and we would not hear him; therefore is this distress come upon us.
You see what has happened? Their conscience is being awakened. The Lord is bringing their sin back to their remembrance, and there is confession. There is confession. They admit what they have done.
Once again, Joseph turns away weeping. Then he gathers himself, comes back, and binds Simeon. He says, “All right, I am going to keep Simeon here, but you need to go back. Come back to me with the younger brother. Then I will believe you are telling me the truth.”
So he fills their sacks with food and grain, and he puts their money back in the sacks. They are not aware of this, but as they are going back, one of the brothers opens his sack and discovers the money.
Do you know what he said to the other brothers? “What has God done?” He was fearful. All of a sudden, this money is back. God is doing something. God is going to have them killed or enslaved forever, because this man is going to think they stole his money.
They report back to Jacob, and of course the story has to be revealed a little bit. This man has held Simeon, and they want Benjamin to go back with them. Jacob refuses. He waits and waits until all the grain they had gained was gone and their money was gone.
I do not know how long that took. It could have been another year or two years. Just a good time of waiting.
Finally Judah comes to him and says, “Look, I will be surety for Benjamin. Me and my family will be surety for Benjamin if I do not bring him back.”
I am sure Jacob did not think much of the offer, but he did yield. Simeon was gone. Joseph was gone. And now his greatest love, Benjamin—other than Joseph—was gone. He was greatly grieved.
Now, you have to remember, at this time Jacob was still being dealt with by the Lord as well.
When they return, Joseph arranges a meeting with them. He says, “Bring them to a noon meal with me.”
The brothers—this is what a guilty conscience does—looked at each other and said, “Uh-oh, we are in trouble now. He has discovered we have all that money, and he is going to make us all slaves. He is just trying to find an excuse to enslave us all.”
Their guilty conscience was still working.
Joseph puts them at table. It is so interesting, the Word puts this in there. He sits them at the table by age, the oldest first down to the youngest.
Fear enters the hearts of these brothers again. They say, “What is going on? How did this man know us that well, that he could distinguish the oldest right down the line? What else does he know?”
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, brothers and sisters. Fear was working in their hearts because they knew God was dealing with them.
Joseph begins to test the brothers. This is really the Lord testing them through Joseph. Do you know what he does at the meal? He gives Benjamin five times as much food. Very obvious who he prefers, is it not? It is a test.
Remember how jealous they were of Joseph. That was why they decided to kill him. They had become so jealous of Joseph because he was the father’s favorite. Would they once again turn to jealousy?
There is no indication that they did. No reaction to the youngest getting the most and getting rewarded the most. They passed that first test. Their hearts were changing.
Well, it was not quite enough. So Joseph, through the wisdom of the Lord, sends them back, fills their sacks, puts some money back in their sacks, and sends them off. But before he does that, he has the guard put his silver cup in Benjamin’s sack. They did not know it.
So they start on the way back, and it was not very long before Joseph said, “I want you to go out now. Say, ‘My silver cup is gone. I want you to find the silver cup and bring back the one who took my cup.’”
When the guard approaches the brothers, of course they immediately deny it. “Who would take the cup of the king? He gave us all this grain and money. No, no way. None of us have taken the cup.”
They say, “Well, if any of us has taken the cup, then you can kill us. You can kill whoever has taken the cup.” They did not know.
Of course, the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack. Can you imagine the grief, how deep and fearful these brothers must have been, as to what was going to happen to them and to their father? They knew he would die of grief.
They were really struck. The Holy Spirit had brought full conviction upon these men. They could no longer yield, but it was a test. They sacrificed Joseph. Would they sacrifice Benjamin to save their own lives?
We know the story, or you may remember. What happened was Judah stepped up. He took Joseph aside, using the interpreter, and said, “Look, I will take his place. You take me. You kill me. But let him go. If you do not, my father will die of grief. He will not be able to stand it.”
Before that confession, when the guard approached them about the silver cup, his first words from Joseph to them were, “Why have you rewarded evil for good?”
That was their sin. When Joseph came and was going to be with those brothers in the field, he was bringing bread to them. It was a good thing, and they turned it to an evil thing. It was their sin. They rewarded evil for good.
Judah was willing to offer his own life in place of Benjamin.
At that point, Joseph knew that God had finished His work in their hearts, and they were ready for forgiveness. Joseph wept. He sent all the other servants and guards out of his room, and he embraced Judah and his brothers.
He could no longer restrain himself, as he did not need to. They were terrified when he said, “I am Joseph. I am the one you threw in the pit.” They were terrified. They did not know what to do exactly.
But Joseph reassured them. His words were, “God sent me before you to preserve life. God sent me before you to preserve life.”
As you know the story, they returned, and Jacob and the whole family came down to Egypt. There were sixty-six of them, and if you include Joseph, seventy in the family. Seventeen years later, Jacob died.
On his death, what did his brothers do? They were scared. They said, “Uh-oh. Dad is dead. Now Joseph is going to take his revenge on us. The only reason he has not is because our father was alive.”
They went to Joseph and said, “Dad said that you were not supposed to have any vengeance on us because of what we did in the past.”
It says that Joseph wept when they told him this. There was not any vengeance or revenge in Joseph’s heart, and it broke his heart that his brothers would think there was.
He said, “No. You meant it for evil, but God planned it for good.” What a statement.
Now let me say this much, because I think this is important. We break God’s heart sometimes. We ask for God’s forgiveness, and sometimes we do not believe, it seems like, that He has done it.
We have been Christians for years, and there is something in our life that we have asked forgiveness for.
You know, the Word of God says that when we sin, if we confess our sins, He is just and faithful to forgive us our sins. He will do it. That is His Word. Do you believe Him?
But I think sometimes we have such a hard time, because of the depth of our sins, to believe that He can really forgive us. It binds up many Christians for a large part of their life. Sometimes they never get over it.
It was Joseph’s heart that was broken because they did not believe he had forgiven them. That is the way it is with the Lord. He forgives us. He loves us. And when we say, “Lord, I just do not believe You have forgiven me,” it just grieves His heart.
I want you, if you have not, to accept God’s forgiveness today. It is important. If you have confessed your sin beforehand, He has forgiven you.
And more than that, He has reconciled you with the Father. He has gone back to the Father and said, “Father, it is okay. He has confessed his sin. He remembers My blood shed for him. It is okay.”
I want to assure you of that this morning. This is reconciliation, brothers and sisters.
Oh, time is my enemy this morning. In 2 Corinthians 5:17-19, it says:
And all things are of God, Who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.
Brothers and sisters, before we were Christians, our sins had separated us. Our disobedience made us at odds with God. How are we to be reconciled? Just as Joseph had to suffer, our Lord Jesus Christ suffered.
He suffered at the hands of men, and He suffered on Calvary’s cross. It says that He took your sin and my sin upon Himself. God’s judgment fell on His Son rather than you and me. Therefore, on the basis of Calvary and the suffering work of our Lord Jesus Christ, our sins have been dealt with, and He can forgive us.
But it does require that we ask Him to be our Lord and Savior and accept His forgiveness.
He is willing. He has already paid the price for every man on this earth. But to receive His forgiveness, you have to ask Him. You have to accept Him as Lord and Savior.
Even as Christians, we find sometimes that our disobedience and our sins have separated us. We sometimes try to bury it. We are not willing to face it. We keep it buried.
But be assured, brothers and sisters, that the Lord will bring a crisis, just as He did with these brothers, to bring it to our remembrance, to bring us back, to test us, to prove us, and to turn us around. That is the business of the Holy Spirit.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful to forgive us. But, brothers and sisters, I want to be very clear about this: forgiveness is not necessarily the end.
After He forgives us, often He disciplines us—not to punish us, but to keep us from falling into that sin again. He brings some form of discipline into our life.
The best example I could think of is David. Remember when David sinned with Bathsheba? The Lord had to awaken his conscience, and He sent the prophet to him.
The prophet said, “There is this man who has all these sheep, and he saw this other poor man’s sheep, and he took it from him for his own.”
David said, “Bring him here, and I will kill him.”
The prophet said, “You are the man. You are the man, David. You have taken another man’s sheep.”
The Lord convicted David, and he immediately fell down on his knees and asked God to forgive him, and God immediately forgave him. But if you read David’s life, you see that he was under discipline the rest of his life.
In this case, the initial discipline was David’s appeal for the child that Bathsheba was bearing. The Lord said, “No, I cannot give him to you. I am going to have to take him.”
When the child died, David got up, washed his face, and the servants did not understand why he was not still grieving. David said, “The Lord has done what He needed to do, but I will be with that child.”
So do not worry about your children, brothers and sisters, before they accept Christ. There are hints in the Word of God that God loves the children. He is going to take care of them. David said, “I will be with him again.”
But David goes on. Remember, his son Absalom rebelled against him. So he was under discipline for the rest of his life.
Now, the Lord does not always put us under discipline the rest of our life. Sometimes the Lord forgives us and does not immediately discipline us. He works with us according to our needs.
Now, brothers and sisters, this story of reconciliation is far deeper than just these brothers being reconciled to Joseph. God was trying to reconcile and recover this family that was to be a nation of witness and testimony on this earth.
If you remember, when we started, this is the last message in Genesis. I cannot believe it. I do not know how many years it has taken to get through Genesis.
God, the Creator, created with a purpose. He created and brought forth Adam and Eve. Adam He made from the dust of the earth, and Eve He took out of the side of Adam—a picture of Christ and His bride.
Even in the very beginning, we see this purpose. Adam and Eve were to be His witness upon this earth, His testimony on this earth. But we know that they failed. God did not give up.
He made provision of the lambskins for them. A lamb had to be slain for their covering, looking forward to the day in which Christ would die as the Lamb of God for man’s sins. They believed God, and they were saved because of it.
They went on, and in those days God began to have His testimony—His witness—on this earth through the patriarchs. They were individuals.
Then God began to move and raise up a family through Abraham, a family of witness and testimony in this earth.
We know that after four hundred years, they spent another four hundred years in Egypt. They became in bondage and slaves in the land of Egypt. They became a nation, a witness on this earth, as God delivered them out of Egypt.
They failed in their witness when they did not accept Christ as their Messiah, and they crucified Him on Calvary’s cross. But at Pentecost, out of Calvary, out of the blood and the water that came out of our Lord’s side—the blood for redemption, the water for life—came the birth of the church, His witness upon this earth.
God never gives up.
In the last days, it shares with us that the church fails and is in failure. And He says, “My witness will be those who overcome”—those who overcome in the church, not leave it and become a special group.
God had promised Abraham a great nation, a nation of witness to God on this earth. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob carried this in their hearts.
They had been in the promised land, from the time Abraham entered until Jacob and his family went down into Egypt, for two hundred and fifteen years. Two hundred and fifteen years, and they were only a family of seventy.
They were in danger of being annihilated by the surrounding tribes. They were also in danger of being amalgamated with them. If you remember some of the story, one of the princes loved Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, and said, “We need to marry your daughters, and you need to marry our daughters. We can become one great family mixture.”
That was their danger.
Then the two sons went and slew all those men. So all the surrounding neighbors became angry. They could have risen up and wiped them out.
So God uses Joseph. He sent him ahead of time and prepared him. He takes this family, this small family, down into Egypt where they will be secure. The Egyptians are not going to intermarry with them. They despise them. They do not think they are worthy of anything, even though they let them stay there.
So they are there to themselves, and they are protected because nobody is going to attack the Egyptians. They are in the land of Goshen, where there is plenty of grass for the cattle. They grow to over a million before they are delivered.
But look at them. Two hundred and fifteen years after being in the promised land, they were not really a great nation—just a small family.
Reuben, the oldest, had committed a gross sin with Jacob’s concubine. The brothers continued in the jealousy of the four mothers of all these children. Remember how they were jealous of one another, always bickering with one another? That is the way the brothers were.
There was a lot of strife and jealousy in that family. It turned into hatred, and even murder. Brothers and sisters, when you really look at this story, they had become murderers—not just of anyone, but their own brother.
This was all in their hearts. You see the heart of this witness on this earth for God—how far it had fallen, how far away it was. It was a weak and failing testimony.
This family had lost their sense of purpose, of God’s purpose. They had lost their sense of God ruling in their lives. They were living for themselves and their families. They had fallen into a state of not really being concerned about God and His purpose, but about themselves.
God had to recover His witness on this earth. He had to awaken their conscience. He had to confront them with their condition. He had to bring them to repentance and save them from themselves. And He used Joseph to do it.
This thing of witness is so important. God will have His witness.
I read the part out of Hebrews about Joseph saying, “Look, you do not bury me here. We are coming out. We are going back to the promised land, and that is where my bones are going to be buried.”
That was faith.
If you go back and read the story in Genesis 15, God told Abraham that they would be in a nation and serve strangers for four hundred years. I am sure Joseph was aware of that.
So he said, in faith, “I want you to carry my bones. We are coming out. We are going back.” It was faith. It was a testimony, his witness to God on this earth.
If you will give me about five more minutes, I was reminded of a television movie called Taking Chance. How many of you happened to watch it? Nobody is raising their hands. Ah, we do—a young man.
You might remember it after I tell you a little bit of the story. There is a lieutenant colonel who had served in Vietnam. He had come back and was serving as a recruiter and working office desk jobs.
He took an assignment, volunteered, to escort the body of Chance—I cannot remember Chance’s last name—back to his home. He had been killed, I think, in Afghanistan. He volunteered to take him back.
You may or may not know this, but when family members who died in war come back, they have an escort that goes with them, a military escort that follows the casket all the way.
It is a story of him taking Chance back to his family and being buried in Wyoming. He is a lieutenant colonel, which is a bit unusual. Usually those of lesser rank do this, but he had volunteered to do it.
In this story, his own conscience is bothered because he never actually served in combat duty. He felt like he needed to do this for this young man of twenty who had given up his life.
It is quite a moving story. But I remember, in the story, he comes right before the night before the funeral. He is with a group of the men who knew Chance, and they were talking about him. There was one older veteran there.
They go outside, and the lieutenant colonel just kind of breaks down a little bit. He says, “Look, I am doing this because all this time I have just had an office job. I have never been in combat. I am not worthy even to take this man back to be buried.”
The veteran looked at him and said, “Who do you think you are? You have no idea who you are. You are a witness to this man, for this man. Without a witness, we disappear.”
Oh, how that struck me: without a witness, we disappear.
Without a witness on this earth for Christ, does He disappear? Of course not. But as far as the world is concerned, He does. As far as the unbelievers go—and maybe for many Christians who are not really following the Lord—He seems to disappear.
The Lord is looking for that witness.
This man had a tremendous job. He was this young man’s witness, and this veteran understood that.
You know, brothers and sisters, in the beginning, over forty years ago, the Lord drew us together here to be a witness to Him on this earth, to be a testimony here, to be joined together under the headship of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We saw that we should be His body, where every joint supplies. It was not one man’s ministry, but every man’s ministry. Every man had some ministry.
We were called to be His house—a house where the Lord could be comfortable, where He was loved, where He was welcomed, where His presence was recognized, and where He was remembered.
We were called to be His priesthood, to be those who worship Him and those who serve Him in the priesthood—not the ministry of just a few, but all.
We are to be His family on this earth, His holy nation on this earth, called to be His bride in union with Him. That is what God called us to. That is God’s purpose.
Sometimes we get away from that. The cares of life, family, the trials—we forget our Lord, and we forget one another. We forget what the Lord is after.
But God needs a witness, and He will wake us up. It is a time, brothers and sisters, I believe, to be awakened to the Lord.
The conference is about the King and the coming kingdom. He is coming soon, and He wants to return. But where is His witness on this earth that is calling Him back?
That witness that so speaks to His heart that He can no longer linger, but has to come back to receive His bride.
He is looking for those who can reign and rule with Him.
Oh, brothers and sisters, how much the Lord loves us. I do not know if I can really express it—I know I cannot really express it—but He does. He never gives up. But He does want us to respond to Him and His love.
Lord, we come to You this morning. We thank You for this story of Joseph. But, Lord, it is the Holy Spirit making this story alive in our hearts that makes a difference.
We do pray, Lord Jesus, that You will move all of our hearts to be drawn back to our King. Lord, move all of our hearts to be willing to pay it all, to be willing to be Your slave, willing to be Your prisoner—willing, Lord, willing.
We just pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.