There's a clear pattern here. The natural heir does not get the blessing. God chooses in his grace who gets it. It's usually one of the younger ones. And yet there's a great difference between Joseph and the previous three generations. God never calls himself the God of Joseph. Angels never appear to Joseph, though they certainly did to the others. And then his brothers are not rejected. His brothers are included in the godly line of Seth, so there isn't the same contrast, though his brothers are not too good to him at the beginning. God never speaks directly to Joseph. Maybe you've not noticed that. Now he certainly reveals things in dreams and gives him interpretations of dreams, but he never actually talked to Joseph directly, nor, so far as the record goes, does Joseph ever talk to him.
[00:01:55]
It's an astonishing story, all the way down the social ladder and all the way up again to the very top, something about that appeals to us. And in between we've got the envy of his brothers and the key to it all seems to be dreams. Mind you, I don't think Joseph was the most tactless, tactful person in the Bible. I think he was quite tactless. Fancy telling his brothers, I had a dream in which you all bowed down to me. That is not the way to win friends and influence people but it was the truth. He had the dream whether he should have shared it but then we all mistake when we should share revelations from God so we mustn't blame him for that.
[00:06:01]
God is in this story. Even though he doesn't actually talk to Joseph, he's behind the scene. He's the invisible God arranging circumstances for his purposes and plans and he chose to reveal through dreams. People will accept things in dreams more easily than when they're awake.
[00:07:04]
God is in fact the main actor in the story, though that doesn't come out in the musical. God is behind the scenes organising all this. No direct miracles, but providential circumstances, and often that is a way that God works. It's not so spectacular or so sensational, but God has a way of arranging meetings with people and the course of your life has changed. He's behind the scenes, bringing about the fulfilment of his purpose. He's overruling. This is the very opposite of believing in luck.
[00:07:59]
Joseph didn't believe that. He believed his circumstances were overruled by God and that God was behind the things that happened to him. He didn't see that at the time, but he saw it later. And you can often see God's hand on your life in hindsight, where you didn't realise at the time what was happening.
[00:09:06]
God allows things to happen. He doesn't force anyone to do harm to another, but he does allow it and sometimes he allows it for his own purposes and that was the faith that Joseph had. God sent me ahead of me ahead of you. And of course that was in fact the result because he became the minister of food. He interpreted the dream of Pharaoh that there would be seven fat years with good harvests and seven lean years to follow and he said, we'd better store up food now and then we'll have enough to live on. And his foresight through that dream actually saved the whole nation of Egypt and his own family family when they were short of food and came to Egypt.
[00:10:31]
God wanted them to become slaves. It was all part of his plan to rescue them from slavery so that they would be so grateful to him, they would then live his way and become a model for the whole world to see of how blessed he was. people are when they live under the government of heaven. That was the plan. And so he let them get into such problems, working seven days a week, no pay, no land of their own, no money of their own, nothing of their own. And it was then that he reached down and rescued them with his mighty hand.
[00:12:51]
There is nothing said about Joseph that is bad. Now we've seen already that the Bible tells the whole truth about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and they certainly had their weaknesses and sins. But not one word of criticism is leveled at Joseph. I've told you already the worst thing he ever did which was just to be a bit tactless and tell his brothers about the dream. But there's no trace whatever of a wrong attitude or reaction in Joseph's character.
[00:14:01]
Even his reactions to going all the way down the social ladder, there's no trace of resentment, no complaining, no saying, why has God done this, no sense of injustice that he should finish up in prison on death row in Pharaoh's jail. Furthermore, even though he was far from home and totally unknown, he maintained his integrity when Potiphar's wife tried to seduce him. And when she tried, his reaction was, how could I sin against God? Like this. And you know that she falsely accused him then, which put him on death row in the jail. But not one word of criticism even of Potiphar's wife? This is an astonishing portrait.
[00:14:37]
The man even at rock bottom, his concern seems to have been primarily to help others. There was Pharaoh's cupbearer and his baker on death row, and Joseph sought to comfort them. He is a man who seems to have no concern for himself but a deep concern for everybody else. And all the way down he never once questioned God, never once doubted that God knew what he was doing, whereas we do.
[00:15:27]
I don't know which is the bigger test of a man's character, being taken all the way down to the bottom or being lifted up to the top. I think probably the second is the biggest test of his character. But look at his reaction to the brothers who'd sold him into slavery. He gave them food, food and he wouldn't charge them for it. He put the money back in their sacks. He forgave them with cheers. He interceded for them with Pharaoh and he purchased for them the best land in the Nile Delta, a land called Goshen, and said, I'm going to look after you. They'd thrown him out and told his old daddy was dead, but here he is providing every need of theirs. What a man!
[00:16:04]
Joseph is unspoiled either by humiliation or by honour. He's a man of total integrity. He's the only one so presented in the Old Testament. There isn't any other character presented like this. Even King David, you know what his faults were and you will find in every other full portrait we get the whole picture, but here the whole picture seems to be blameless, very unusual.
[00:16:53]
We're getting very near to the reason why the story of Joseph is there, but we haven't yet got there. I want you to put together in your minds the three levels at which we have discussed this story so far. The human story of a man who was taken all down to the bottom and then right up to the top and who became and is called the Saviour of his people and the Lord of Egypt. Then we're looking at God's overruling of this man's life that he allowed that to happen and planned it to save his people. Then we've looked at a man of total integrity who all the way down and all the way up remained a man of truth and honest goodness. Who does that remind you of? The answer is Jesus himself.
[00:18:55]
Joseph becomes what we call a type of Jesus, a foreshadowing of Jesus way back in the Old Testament. It's as if God is showing us in the life of Joseph what he was going to do with his own son, that his own son like Joseph would be rejected by his brethren and taken all the way down to utter humiliation and then raised to be Saviour and Lord of his people. It's all there and the parallels are remarkable.
[00:19:50]
The more you read the story of Joseph, the more you see this picture of Jesus, as if God all along knew what he was going to do and was going to give hints to his people. We find that all the way through the Old Testament.
[00:20:25]
Jesus himself said, search the Scriptures for they bear witness of me, and yet he's talking about the Old Testament. Now when you read the Old Testament, you should be looking for Jesus, for his likeness, for his shadow.
[00:20:55]
Now when you read the Old Testament, you should be looking for Jesus, for his likeness, for his shadow. Jesus is himself the substance, but his shadow falls right across the pages of the Old Testament and especially in Genesis.
[00:21:05]
Once you've seen that, that Joseph is a picture of Jesus, of God's answer. As Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are models of our faith in God, Joseph is a model of God's response to that faith and how he can take the life of a man and deliver his people from their need and lift him up to be Saviour and Lord.
[00:21:24]
If you are in Christ you are reading your own family tree. This is our genealogy. These are the most important ancestors we have because through faith in Christ you become a son of Abraham. You become part of this line. You are in Christ and you've inherited this history. So you're not reading about their history now, you're reading about our history now. This is your family tree.
[00:22:37]
It's interesting that in Genesis 24 it says Isaac was Abraham's only beloved son. And I've told you already that Isaac was not a boy. He was in his early thirties when that happened and therefore he was strong enough to resist his father, but he submitted to being bound and put on the altar. Now God stopped Abraham at the crucial point and provided another sacrifice. It was a ram with its head caught in thorns. Behold the ram of God that takes away the sin of the world.
[00:24:37]
Centuries later when Jesus met a man called Nathanael, he said to Nathanael, I saw you sitting under the fig tree, I noticed you, and you're a Jew in whom is no guile, no deceit. You're an honest Jew. And Nathanael said, how did you know that? He didn't deny it, but he acknowledged that Jesus knew him intimately. And Jesus said, you think that's wonderful? What will you think if you see angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man? An amazing thing to say, isn't it? He's saying, I'm Jacob's ladder. I'm the link between earth and heaven. I'm the new ladder.
[00:28:16]
There's a contrast here. They both began a human race. Adam was the first man of Homo sapiens. Jesus was the first human being of Homo novus. I was born Homo sapiens. I'm now Homo novius. The New Testament talks about the new man, the new humanity. In fact, there are two human races on earth today. You are born Homo sapiens. You're born again Homo novus. You're either in Adam or you're in Christ. There's a whole new human race and it's going to inhabit a totally new planet earth, indeed a whole new universe.
[00:30:24]
I said, I'd like to tell you that I know the man who made the Niagara Falls. I said, I met him when I was 17 and we've been friends since. Well, they looked at me sideways as if I was crazy. I said, his name actually is Jesus and without him, nothing was made that has been made. So I said, he made the in Niagara Falls. I said, before he made chairs and tables, he made the trees so he'd have some timber. And before he preached the Sermon on the Mount, he made the mountains so he'd have a pulpit. Now this is incredible really, isn't it? That a carpenter from Nazareth should be involved in creating our universe.
[00:32:25]
The whole planet earth on which we live was the result of a carpenter's work from Nazareth and his name is the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:34:19]
Nobody seems to be interested in the reason why it's all here. And the answer is, Jesus is the reason why. He is the Logos of the whole universe. It was made for him and through him and by him. And to him be all praise and honour and glory and power for ever and ever.
[00:36:03]
