Joseph No.1 Father, son and brothers

Chapter 37, and it's at this chapter that the story of Joseph begins, the story so remarkable that it's divided between his humiliation and his exhortation, that we cannot avoid but see something of Christ in it, who he himself was humbled and then exalted. It also shows us a lot about Christians who must, through many tribulations, enter into the kingdom. Genesis 37, from verse 1, Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.

This is the account of Jacob. Joseph, a young man of 17, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhar and the sons of Zelphar, his father's wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age, and he made a richly ornamented robe for him.

When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. He said to them, listen to this dream I had.

We were binding sheaves of corn out in the field, when suddenly my sheath rose and stood upright, while your sheaths gathered around mine and bowed down to it. His brothers said to him, do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us? And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said. Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers.

Listen, he said, I had another dream, and in this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me. When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, what is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you? His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. If you turn over a couple of pages to chapter 49, and verse 22, Jacob has called together his sons.

He gathers them round so he can tell of what will happen to them in the days to come. Verse 22, Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine near a spring whose branches climb over a wall. With bitterness, archers attacked him.

They shot at him with hostility, but his bow remained steady. His strong arms stayed flexible because of the hand of the mighty one of Jacob, because of the shepherd, the rock of Israel, because of your father's God who helps you, because of the almighty who blesses you with blessings of the heavens above, blessings of the deep that lies below, blessings of the breast and the womb. Your father's blessings are greater than the blessings of the ancient mountains, than the bounty of the age-old hills.

Let all these rest on the head of Joseph, on the brow of the prince among his brothers. May God bless greatly his word to us this morning. I'd love to have been present at a Bible study that was conducted 2,000 years ago.

The teacher was our Lord Jesus, therefore the instruction was at a superb level. Actually, there were only a couple who were in attendance, not because he couldn't attract an audience, he could get thousands. He didn't even have a publicity machine to entice people to come along.

But this couple, they'd set off on an afternoon stroll, as you might go down by the promenade this Lord's Day afternoon, and they were somewhat disconsolate. Jesus was dead, so they thought never to come back again. And you know what it is when you're feeling a little down, you get alongside a valued friend and start to pour out your troubles.

And if he or she are in the same boat, then they also benefit by your fellowship as they tell you something of their problem. You remember how it says that Jesus drew alongside? I'm in Luke's gospel, you don't need to turn to it. And their hearts were quickened.

And in that journey, which may have lasted an hour or so, maybe two hours, the time just raced by, just like I remember in Westminster Chapel listening to Lloyd-Jones preach and wonder what happened to the three-quarters of an hour. Such a masterly ability. Will our Lord even more so? And there's a little summary text in Luke which says that Jesus went to the Scriptures and he taught them all things about himself.

To put it more precisely, he turned to the law, that's the first five books of the Old Testament, then to the prophets, that in Jewish estimation was the remaining books of the Old Testament. Wherever his memory recalled the teachings of the Old Testament, there he took them and from there he brought them back to himself. Charles Spurgeon once said that every road in England leads ultimately to London.

In other words, you can track a course by subroads, motorways, down to London. And he went on to say that every verse in the Bible ultimately leads to Christ. There are anticipations of the person of our Lord Jesus in Old Testament incidents and characters.

And that's what I want to try to show you in a somewhat random study of the character, the life of Joseph. One of the choruses I like most comes really from two, three decades ago. Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.

All his wonderful passion and purity, all thou spirit divine, all my nature refined, till the beauty of Jesus is seen in me. And now there is a sense in which you and I, because we're Christians, are partakers of the divine nature. So I should increasingly be seeing the Lord Jesus in you and you in me.

Our character, our humility because he was humble, our ability to forgive because he was the great forgiver, our concerns to enrich others because he was the great comforter and enricher. That character or those characteristics ought to be more increasingly displayed, my brothers and sisters, by yourself towards other people with whom you relate here in the tavern and elsewhere. The beauty of Jesus, seen in us.

Now in the Old Testament scriptures there were those people who partook likewise of the divine nature. And we can see something in their character, albeit fleetingly, of that which is absolutely declared in the person of our Lord Jesus. And there's no greater character who helps us to see something about our Savior than Joseph.

You remember on one occasion, reading on into his story, the brothers, they discover Joseph in Egypt and they say, behold, great astonishment, they didn't realize that this Egyptian Prime Minister was part of their family. Behold our brother Joseph. What I want us to be able to say as we go through this random selection of events from Joseph's life, behold our brother Jesus.

I don't want to leave you with Joseph. I want to take what Joseph was, bring it up to compound fashion so that you can see how Joseph caught, as the early light of the morning catches something of the sunrise in all its glory, later on in the day, I want you to see how Joseph catches something of the beautiful colors of our Lord Jesus Christ. No portions of Scripture are better known in the Old Testament are there than these.

Do you remember your days in Scripture classes at school, taking out your crayons, drawing the coat of many colors? How many millions of replicas of Joseph's coat have been drawn in British primary schools, I wonder? Remember the great enthusiasm with which you heard the stories? Aren't they the best ones, aren't they? Much better than any of the stories in English literature of Joseph going to his brothers and his brothers badly treating him, throwing him into a pit, being sold as a slave, going down to Egypt, getting a promotion in Potiphar's household, back in jail again. The wheeling and dealing in the jail, the bad memory of one of the two prisoners alongside him who, when released, forgot to tell Pharaoh of the man who'd helped him, as you and I often forget to do things for people that we have promised to help, though they have been kind to us. Do you remember how ultimately he sprung from jail, how he becomes the Prime Minister of Egypt, and then that remarkable, exciting series of events as he almost plays cat and mouse with his brothers and teaches them a lesson or two.

Then eventually that grand declaration as he declares to his brothers who he is. You meant evil for me in the way that you dealt with me, but God meant it for good. And he nails once and for all the doctrine of the sovereignty of God and that God in the life of an ordinary person wishes good, even though at times the fallout is unpleasant.

Well, that's just a summary, just to get you excited about some of the things that you have in store to be reminded of from the pulpit in regard to Joseph. But in these verses that Brother Ian read to us a few moments ago, let's select three words that will act as levers. I can't exhaust these verses, not in the time that I've got.

In fact, even if I had an abundance of time, there'd still be a lot more to be said, I'm sure. But let me bring you three words and use them as levers to open out some of the teaching in this particular life study. And then we'll take them through to the person of our Lord Jesus.

The first word that I bring to your attention is integrity. Integrity. That's what Joseph had, didn't he? And incidentally, that's one of the missing commodities, at least in many areas of life in the twentieth century.

Integrity, being able to believe someone. Jesus said on one occasion, Behold, an Israelite in whom there is no guile. Someone who can be utterly trusted.

You can trust Jesus. You could trust Joseph. Can we trust you? Can I trust you? You, me? Do we have the quality of integrity? Now, this comes to the forefront in Joseph's life, and is only really just a slip of a light.

He's seventeen years of age, mid-teens. The example of his brothers was not conducive to the nourishing of this condition, was it? You remember how Jacob's family name stank in the neighborhood because of the way that the eleven brothers, or the ten, we'll excuse Benjamin, shall we? The way they had behaved. If you want to know what I'm talking about, then read the previous chapters.

And when you think of what followed in the next chapter on the part of Judah, another older brother, you will understand what the preacher means when he says this morning that Joseph was not found in a family background where the relationships were conducive to the encouragement of the character of integrity, the characteristic of integrity, let alone the polygamous relationships of Jacob and all the problems that that brought. And yet here is Joseph, and he bounces high despite the unpromising background. Sometimes I think that commentators confuse us as we read Scripture, and so I am selective in my reading.

They annoy me when they suggest that Joseph was a bit of a sneak. You see, he brings, does he not, verse two, latter part, he brings bad report of his brothers' dealings to Father Jacob. I don't find that being sneaky.

I find rather that Joseph has anticipated what is clearly set forth in the law, in the book of Leviticus, where the family name of Israel is so honored, or is to be so honored and revered, that we're told, verse one of Leviticus 5, if a person sins because he does not speak up when he hears a public charge to testify regarding something he has seen or learned about, he will be held responsible. There are times when to communicate the evil doing of others within the redeemed community is necessary so that it can be dealt with. And Jacob was not always giving the example that he should have been given as a parent in disciplining his children.

Sometimes we thank God for the bad examples of Old Testament family life because at least it helps us to work by negative reasoning as to how we ought to condition our own families and control them. And so Joseph comes and he declares to Jacob some of the serious malconduct of his brothers. But when you live a holy and a righteous life in this sort of area, then it is that you bring unpopularity to yourself, as was the case, was it not, as far as our Lord Jesus was concerned? You remember it was because of the holiness of his life and the way that his life declared the sinfulness of others and the way that he exposed evil that he was not liked by his contemporaries.

Jesus didn't come to cover over sin. Do you know that? He came as a light to uncover the darkest sins of so-called respectable people. And the reasons why the Pharisees did not like him was because he would tell farther as to how the human race was conducting its life, and they felt uncomfortable as a result.

The holy man is always an unpopular man per se. That is why Jesus said, inspiring Paul to write the letters through his epistles, through the Holy Spirit, all who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Because integrity is not a virtue that many people are prepared to accept when it is applied absolutely.

You check the British stock exchange. We talk in terms of the wrong of criminals who break into houses, and rightly so do we condemn them. But millions are sometimes leaked away in shady deals.

Integrity is not running as the most popular characteristic in our British nation, and I don't say that with any sense of satisfaction being a Jeremiah, but Jeremiahs are necessary to expose what is wrong. There's integrity here, and that integrity, it endears itself to Jacob. Jacob loves Joseph.

Maybe Jacob sees in Joseph all that he would like to have been because nobody was better in the art of wheeling and dealing than Jacob, especially before Peniel, when he had an encounter with God. Somebody put it, you wouldn't buy a second-hand camel from Jacob. But as a result of the integrity of Joseph, he's loved.

He's beloved of his father. Verse three, now Israel, that's another name for Jacob, he loved Joseph more than any of his other sons. As an even greater than Joseph, he is given that accolade in Scripture as being beloved of the father, for God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son, and that one son of his was the center of his father's admiration, the apple of his eye, to quote the Old Testament.

And on occasions, father went public, and he said of the Lord Jesus at his baptism and his transfiguration, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. This is my beloved son. Hear him.

He's marked out by the father because of the integrity with which he conducts his life here on earth. But it was that integrity that caused him so much problem because he wasn't liked by the Jews, was he, for the way that he spoke out in regard to their conniving and hypocrisy. The school that I went to, High Storrs Grammar School, Sheffield, remember my headmaster, Mr. Mack, when he wasn't there, George, when we were talking of him in a more social context.

Our school's a good one. It's got a great name. I can remember him saying that now.

We had to wear school caps. Half was green, half was blue. We call them split peas.

Can you imagine, I was six foot by the time I was 13 years of age wearing a cap. Looked like Cardio Robinson. And he used to tell us that we were to live in such a fashion that our grammar school had a name that was better than any other grammar school's name in Sheffield.

Jesus is given a name, the human name, the divine name, Jesus Christ, Savior, Anointed One. The favorite son of Jacob is given the name Joseph. Check his birth and the writing, even in the authorized version of the Bible, the scripture will tell you that Joseph means adder, adding to.

The belief on the part of his mother, Rachel, that God would add another son to her because you'll remember her womb had been barren. And so Joseph has this name of adding to, of multiplication, of the piling up of blessing. That's really what his life stood for as you flesh it out, as you anticipate the end of this story.

And when you move into Egypt, you'll discover that he's given another name. We'll not anticipate it until we come to it, but the name has as a possible translation, the revealer of dreams. And the interesting thing is that when you take those two names of Joseph, adder, and revealer of dreams, it seems as though he's anticipating something of the ministry of Jesus.

I'll come back to it in a moment. Here's a thought for you. Adam could be called a great subtractor.

Not so. A.W. Pink said it's through Adam that man is lost. By one man's disobedience, many were made sinners.

But through Jesus, the righteous man, by his obedience, many are made righteous. Many are given eternal life. Adam subtracts.

Jesus adds. His life is lived in such a fashion that it raises the destiny, the hopes of all those who trust on him. He lived up to his name, Jesus, Savior, the one who adds through his human obedience to the Father the numbers of those who are brought into the family circle.

Jesus is not only the adder. Jesus is the revealer. As Joseph can reveal the mysteries of Pharaoh's dreams, so Jesus can reveal the secrets of men and women's hearts.

Not only does he reveal the secrets of our heart, but he reveals the secrets of the Father's heart to the extent that he can tell us that nobody knows the Father unless they come to the Father through him because he is beloved of the Father. And he retains the affection of the Father because of the integrity of his life. Jacob loves his son as Jesus is loved of the Father.

Integrity. But I anticipate my next comment, and therefore I can take it with a less amount of time. I anticipate the word hostility.

Hatred, hatred, hatred. It's there, isn't it, throughout the verses. Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons because he had been born to him in his old age, and he made him a richly ornamented robe for him.

When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. Verse five, they hated him all the more. And then later on, the ninth and tenth verses, another anticipation, or rather verse eight at the end, another example of the hatred that there was to Joseph on behalf of his brothers.

There was never a man more loved on planet earth than Jesus, not so. Turn that on its head. There never was a man more hated on planet earth than Jesus.

Time and time again you find in the Scriptures how the clergy, the establishment of his day, hated him for what he had to declare about them and their lifestyle. The Gospel of John especially, you get reference to the animosity that grew on the part of the audience, or some within the audience, of our Lord Jesus Christ as he taught them about himself. He says to his disciples in the seventh chapter of that Gospel, as he warns them about what's in store for himself, and the sixth verse, therefore Jesus told them, the time for me has not yet come, for you any time is right.

The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil. Jacob is told about the evil that his sons are doing, and as a result, Joseph the Informer is hated. On the same basis, our Lord receives heaped up abuse and hostility around the cross.

They not only are responsible for his physical torment, they take shafts of abuse and they hurl it at our Savior. And the reason for such dispatch is the envy that these men have ordained to the priesthood, therefore with a responsibility to help those who are in need, and surely a crucified person is in need, but they pass that one by as with evil animosity they pour their scorn, they send up their hatred towards the Lord Jesus. Great hostility.

Great hostility. You see, you can't be the Savior of the world, can you, unless you run the risk of being treated badly, and that's what our Savior did. He came into the world and he was so maligned he did not get the respect that he required.

What evil have I done, says an ancient cynic, to make all men speak well of me? Do you hear that? What evil have I done to make all men speak evil? It's when you do good, to make all men speak good of me, it's when you do good that people tend to speak evil of you. It was for Joseph. It was for Jesus.

You see, some people love Jesus as he revealed to them the nature of their sin. Not so. Others were so hostile to him.

Only the minority reckon, like the woman taken in adultery, that the Lord Jesus has revealed her sin in order that he can remedy it. But the majority of people who came into contact with our Lord Jesus, they hated him, like these brothers hated Joseph with an undue hostility. So my words thus far, integrity, hostility.

Let me put up a final one, and it is destiny. You remember the occasion, Joseph has a dream, verse five, he tells his dream to his brothers. His dream is easy to understand.

He doesn't need to use his spiritual gift of discernment to explain it to them. They may be spiritually dull, but they're not that thick. Sheaves of corn bow down to a central sheaf.

Stars in the heavens, sun and moon included, bow down to his star. Conclusion? Well, that Joseph himself is going to be revered, is going to be honored by all his brothers. A more penetrating conclusion? He has a destiny that has been sealed by his heavenly Father.

A destiny that's been sealed. Now listen, Joseph was more of a prophet than a politician, says F.B. Meyer, else he would have kept this to himself, when he could not but know that his brethren did already hate him, and this would but increase it. But the point is this, that Joseph has received from the Lord what has to be shared with his brothers, and he will not back off.

This is not some upstart, the commentators have got it wrong. This is not some man trying to pour more petrol onto a fire that's already blazing. This is a man who's called to a prophetical ministry, who refuses to water down the word that he has received from the Lord, because it is the Lord's word, and the brothers can either accept it or reject it, but the point really is they can't change it.

This is what God has decreed, the well-being of Joseph, a destiny that's sealed, and within the sealing of that destiny there will be benefits for the brothers who hate him. Not so? That's how it all worked out, didn't it? Panned out exactly as Joseph indicated so many years before, for we who've taken a sneak look at the end of the story know full well that the brothers bow down before the unknown Prime Minister of Egypt and beg for food. And Joseph discloses himself to his brothers as being the one who's gone into that position for the well-being of his family and to bring about the eternal purposes of God.

His destiny, you see, is sealed. Now, does not that apply to our Lord Jesus? You see, he speaks not capriciously, he speaks thoughtfully about his death and death by crucifixion. He knew, he's an astute man, that that is the most painful way that man has ever invented to rob his fellow of life, and yet when he speaks to the disciples about his impending death and the necessity for that death, he goes beyond, and he will always twin references to the crucifixion with parallel comments about the resurrection, as though bound up in the death of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus is not only his own destiny, but the safety of those who he came to deliver throughout the whole of an eternity yet to be.

Now, listen, the dreams of Joseph. One is of the earth, earthy, not so? Sheaves. No more obvious agricultural metaphor than that.

Harvest has come, the sheaves have been bound, and here are these sheaves that bow down to the central sheaf, to Joseph himself. But the second dream, it's of the heavens, it's heavenly, the planets, sun, the moon, the stars, they bow down, they bow down to Joseph, but I'm speaking of a greater than Joseph. I'm speaking of Jesus.

Jesus crucified on the cross, Jesus raised from the dead, Jesus given the name that is above every name, for why? For at that name things in heaven and on earth and under the earth shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. There will be the earthly acknowledgement of who Jesus is, all the human sheaves will bow down and worship him. Ah, but his glory transcends the earth, it envelops the universe.

Those in heaven shall bow down and recognize him, his destiny is as sure as God himself. So you see, my friends, how wonderfully adumbrated, how wonderfully caught up, to use a less complicated word, in these opening comments about Joseph, is the life and the potential of an even greater than Joseph, a man who is so full of integrity you can back your life on him or bet your life on him, a man who receives such hostility that it will make you weep when you become a Christian, to believe that those who he came to save, including yourself, could have handled him with so much contempt and abuse, but he endured that so that his destiny and yours might be secured. Do you know this? Am I making sense? Is Jesus Christ your Lord and Saviour? And do you bring to an even greater Father than Jacob, the God and Father of Jacob, and Isaac, and Abraham, and all the patriarchs? Do you bring him a sense of satisfaction, as Joseph warmed the heart of Jacob to the end that he gave him that multicolored long coat, and wept copiously when he thought that he'd never see Joseph again? Do you bring that same sort of affection to the heart of Father God, for the way that you live your life in integrity, meriting sometimes hostility, but basking in the thought of a sealed destiny? Do you bring your Father pleasure? Let's listen to Margaret sing for a moment.

Such love, pure as the whitest snow. Such love, weeps for the shame I know. Such love, paying the debt I owe.

O Jesus, such love. Such love, stealing my restlessness. Such love, such love, showing me holiness.

O Jesus, such love. Such love, showing me holiness. Such love, springs from eternity.

Such love, streaming through history. Such love, fountain of life to me. O Jesus, such love.

Melting all my bitterness. O Lord, I receive your love. Changing all my ugliness.

O Lord, I receive your love. I receive your tenderness. Melting all my bitterness.

O Lord, I receive your love. Changing all my ugliness. O Lord, I receive your love.

I receive your love. I receive. you you you you you you you