(Genesis) Genesis 46:26-28

Let me read verse 26 of the 46th chapter of Genesis. All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins besides Jacob's sons, wives, all the souls were threescore and six, that's 66. And the sons of Joseph, which were born him in Egypt, were two souls.

All the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and ten. Now, from Jacob there were 70 that actually went down into Egypt. Of course, Joseph and his family were already down there in the land of Egypt.

Seventy souls. Now, verse 5 of the first chapter of Exodus says, And all the souls which came out of the loins of Jacob were 70 souls, for Joseph was in Egypt already. Now, we've already read verse 7, where it says the children of Israel, they increased, they were fruitful, and the land was filled with them.

A regular population explosion. Now, I go back over this section, and you say to me, well, I'm glad you passed over all those names, because I personally find them very uninteresting. Well, I do too, I have to confess that.

But here are 70 people mentioned by name. Each one listed the sons of Jacob and then their offspring. Why is all of that given in the Word of God? Couldn't He have given something to us more important? The fact of the matter is, there's nothing more important than that.

To begin with, this is the line that's leading down to the coming of Christ into the world. And part of this is in that genealogy that opens the book of Matthew. And then you move on over to the third chapter of Luke, and there's another genealogy.

Some of these names appear there. This is important for that reason and that reason alone. But there's another side to this, and it's very personal.

Have you ever heard of the Lamb's Book of Life? And the question is, is your name written there? You get there by faith in Christ, just as you got into the line of Adam, and we're all in that line, while you get in the line of Christ by the same way of birth, only now it's a new birth. And that comes about by receiving Him as your personal Savior. Now, when you do that, you become a child of God.

How important are you? Well, the thing that interests me a great deal is that I don't know you, and probably most of you do not know me personally, but God knows you. In fact, the hairs of your head are numbered. He knows you better than anyone else.

He knows you and loves you more than your mother ever did. Your mother never counted the hairs of your head. I don't imagine God did.

God knows you personally. Here are these names. They mean nothing to me.

I was looking at the news on TV when they had these great big rock festivals that they've been having across the country, and some of them are 100,000, what, 200,000 people, and you look at that mob of dirty, filthy folk, and that's what they are, the ones I saw. It had rained, and I understand they didn't take a bath anyway, and believe me, the rain didn't wash them off. It just put more mud on them.

And as you looked at all of those young people, God knows each one of them, and God loves each one of them. Christ died for each one of them. And when you look at a great stadium today filled with football fans, with no thought of God whatsoever, but that quarterback down there is very important to them.

They know a great deal about him, but they don't know anything about God, and yet God knows each one of them, and each one is precious in the sight of the Lord. I don't know who you are, but in this day of this great population explosion with literally millions of people around us today, you are an individual to God. You run through these names here, and you say, well, I'm not interested, and candidly, I'm not.

I don't know them. God does, and God delighted in putting their names down here because they are His. And that again causes me to ask the question, is your name written in the Lamb's book of life? Now we come in verse 28 here, and notice this.

Joseph goes up to Goshen to meet his father Jacob. Now notice, and he sent Judah before him unto Joseph to direct his face unto Goshen, and they came unto the land of Goshen. You see, Judah had been down there before.