Abraham's Bosom vs. Sheol

Let us pray Lord God bless your word wherever it is proclaimed Make it a word of power and peace to comfort those not yet your own and to confirm those you have brought to saving faith

May your word pass from the ear to the heart from the heart to the lip from the lip to the life as You have promised your word may achieve the purpose for which you send it all of this through Jesus Christ our

Lord Amen. All right last week We well actually the past few weeks.

We've been studying the story of Joseph and one of the things we have been doing is noting that in the story of Joseph what we are seeing is if you would almost address rehearsal for the incarnation humbling exaltation of Christ and We last week we ended with the great reveal

Joseph's brothers came from Cana and they have they had been dealing with Joseph and they had no idea that it was

Joseph and We noted the fact that as part of the big reveal the thing immediately leading up to this was

Judah's great well Substitutionary plea the idea being this is that we know that the

Lion of the tribe of Judah is Christ and He does his substitutionary work and that's a big motif in Scripture that Christ dies in our place

He takes our sin upon himself and Judah in type and shadow does this?

regarding his brother But let's return back to Judah's Statement and if you if you're if you're paying attention

Joseph hasn't yet revealed who he is Judah is making a plea.

They've been brought back. They that that you know, his chalice was found in Benjamin's sack and you know,

Benjamin is going to be held accountable for this theft and Judah steps forward and it says this verse 18

Judah went up to Joseph and said, oh My lord, please let your servant speak a word in my

Lord's ear and let not your anger burn against your servant for you Are like Pharaoh himself?

My lord asked his servant saying have you a father or a brother? We said to my lord

We have a father an old man a young brother the child of his old age

His brother is dead. He alone is left of his mother's children and his father loves him

Then you said to your servants bring him down to me that I may set my eyes on him

We said to my lord the boy cannot leave his father for if he should leave his father his father would die

Then you said to your servants unless your youngest brother comes down with you. You shall not see my face again

When we went back to your servant my father We told him the words of my lord and when our father said go again buy us a little food

We said we cannot go down if our youngest brother goes with us Then we will go down for we cannot see the man's face unless our youngest brother is

With us a little bit of a note here Okay in the ancient way of thinking seeing someone's face, especially if they're a ruler

Yeah, it's it's a fascinating thing is is that if a if a ruler's face

You see it and it's good. Well, you have blessing in favor If he is not in your favor and against you you can't even see his face there's a interesting thing here and in scripture

You're familiar with the the the blessing that I give the benediction with each service

May the Lord bless you and keep you may the Lord make his face To shine on you and be gracious to you.

All right in the Hebrew This is the face to face thing in in the eschaton We will always see

Christ's face We don't see his face right now, do we?

So this is kind of an interesting motif that the ancients pick up But it's also very vital in understanding

God's favor. What does Christ say about the angels? They always see my father's face

Christ says of the angels They always see his face We do not see his face

God is hidden if you would So for we cannot see the man's face unless our youngest brother is with us

Then your servant and my father said to us You know that my wife bore me two sons one left me and I said surely he has been torn to pieces and I have never seen him since if you take this one also for me and Harm happens to him.

You will bring down my gray hairs in evil to shaol shaol in the

Old Testament is the place where you go when you die Shaol had two compartments and I say had it doesn't currently have two it only has one had two compartments

One was called Abraham's bosom Remember the story of the rich man and Lazarus when he dies.

He goes to Abraham's bosom and They're the righteous those who have faith are and then the other

Compartment is a lot like the warm -up band for hell It's the best way

I can put it Okay, people are in agony. They're in flame. That's the idea Technically no

Hades and shaol are the same all right, and as we get into New Testament revelation regarding what's coming?

All right We understand that Hades is is is synonymous with shaol

And if you die and you end up in Hades, that's you know The same place is shaol those who currently die in the

Lord. They are with the Lord in his presence They are with him in heaven, which is an odd place for us to be

No purgatory there's no such thing as purgatory and to which we could all say Amen, y 'all understand the you know, kind of the

Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory Its basic premise is this is that in this lifetime?

You're supposed to really work hard at your sanctification to the point where you can get to sinlessness and if you don't

Well, then you're not ready to be in God's presence because God cannot be in the presence of evil so you end up in purgatory and purgatory is

Almost identical to hell Where you kind of burn off the dross of your sinfulness and once that once the cleansing is complete in the fires

Then and only then are you able to? Go into heaven Here's the funny thing the answer is there yes, they have what's called the

Apocrypha now as Lutherans We can read the Apocrypha and say there's some interesting things in there But not even the

Jews of Jesus's day considered the Apocrypha to be Scripture. All right, and so in the book

I forget if it's first or second Maccabees, so I'm a little rusty on my Roman Catholic theology here It's in the

Maccabees. Here's where they get the doctrine of purgatory from that when the Maccabees Came back from fighting a battle and they had lost men in battle it says that they went and offered sacrifices on behalf of the men who died and So therefore awful if you can offer sacrifices on behalf of the person who died then they

Extrapolated from that all this other stuff Now my grandfather died on March 11th 1988

March 11th 1988 and For the first couple years after his death

My grandmother would pay money to have masses said for my grandfather and as as she can afford them and the purpose of that was to Help ease his sentence in in purgatory so If you remember what starts the the the

Reformation is the posting of the 95 thesis and what's the thing that initially? Sparks Martin Luther to nail the 95 thesis to the door of the castle church at Wittenberg It's the sale of indulgences you know

Tetzel was out raising money for st. Peter's in Rome and The pontiff the

Pope had issued a special indulgence where you could literally no joke

You know If you had relatives who were in purgatory You can purchase these you can purchase these indulgences and take millions of years off of their time in purgatory

No, the scriptures do not teach this doctrine and the ancient church knew nothing of it. It's not

Catholic. It's Roman It's not universal. It's Roman. And so here's the idea scripture says and this is where it's very helpful

When Christ returns the church is caught up with Christ in the clouds

And what does it say about the Christians, huh?

No, no, no, I'm talking about the day that Jesus Yeah, we'll be with God hang on a second.

I'm looking for something see if I could find it in my New Testament really quick here. Ah, here it is.

First Corinthians 15 once Corinthian one Corinthians 1552 is our verse but let's get it a little context and this is very helpful for us

First Corinthians 15 so it is with the resurrection of the dead What a stone is perishable what is raised is imperishable it is stone and dishonor

It is raised in glory. It is stone and weakness. It is raised in power It is stone a natural body.

It's raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is a spiritual body Thus it is written the first man

Adam became a living being the last Adam became a life -giving spirit But it is not the spiritual that is first But the natural and then the spiritual the first man was from the earth a man of dust

Second man's from heaven as was the man of dust So also are those who are of the dust as it is in as is the man of heaven

So are also those who are of heaven just as we have been have born the image of the man of dust

We shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. This is referring to Christ So this is where important theology comes into play and that is is that Adam the first Adam made from the dust?

He sins we are just like him Christ is the second Adam and the resurrection of Christ.

He is the firstborn of the new creation and What Christ is?

We will be when we are raised again That makes sense. That's Paul's argument So I tell you this brothers flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable

But hold I tell you a mystery We shall not all sleep but We shall be all changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet for the trumpet will sound the dead

Will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed Notice how quickly we go from perishable to imperishable how quickly?

Twinkling of an eye. I don't know how long it takes for your eyes to twinkle I have never done any of the mathematical measurements on eye twinkling, but I assume that it's a pretty brief moment

So in the twinkling of the eye, we will all be changed For the trumpet will sound the dead will be raised imperishable

We will change this for this perishable body must put on the imperishable this mortal body must put on more

Immortality when the perishable puts on the imperishable the mortal puts on immortality Then shall come the past the saying that is written death is swallowed up in victory.

Oh death. Where's your victory? Oh death Where is your sting? So the idea is this Scripture does not teach that you have to if you die without achieving sinless perfection in your life

Like anybody can do that anyway That somehow you have to go and go through a fiery cleansing process

Whereby all of your your sinful nature is finally done away with all of that happens in the twinkling of an eye

Literally Exactly Exactly, so and in the

Roman Catholic system then who are the Saints the Saints are those who in this lifetime achieve that sinless perfection.

Oh And it gets really interesting Yeah, that's right after they're dead they have to perform three miracles, but here's here's the idea is that the

Roman system Their way of looking at salvation is like a banking system

No, I'm not joking. It's they call it the Treasury of Merits so the idea here is is that by achieving sinless perfection and Getting to the point where your good works are no longer necessary for you

Those extra good works that super irrigation of good works gets put into what's called the

Treasury of Merits And this is the bank account from which the Pope is able to Withdraw indulgences from to help people get out of purgatory quicker

He's sitting there. Where does the Bible teach any of this answer? It doesn't this is pure man -made

Mythology. Oh, yeah, they've made a lot of money and they still continue to make a lot of money with this

Treasury of Merits We said

Psalm 62 Psalms 62 the last verse

Once I'll read the last two once again God has spoken twice I've heard this the power belongs to God and that to you

Oh Lord belongs steadfast love for you will render to a man according To his work. Is that what you were thinking?

That's good. That's that we are saying that God will render his work.

Yeah Okay, so Where do we not think that works do not matter?

Hmm. We owe they do They do matter But let me help you

Hold on, but this is what I was thinking I understand that works do matter, okay but in a different context that But I can see where the other people could get twisted if they did not understand that Yeah Now see you would if had you been in Aletheia you may have actually you know ask the question right after the sermon but Yeah, let me answer it let me answer the question biblically here's where you have to be a careful exegete

You have to be a careful exegete and let the exegete somebody who reads out what scripture says

You have to you have to pay attention to what how the Bible teaches us to understand it.

I'll give you a cross -reference This is the gospel of John chapter 6 Verse 28 they and they the

Jews said to Jesus what must we do to be doing the works of God?

Got your interest. All right, so Jesus answered him. This is the work singular of God That you believe in him whom he has sent

So God does render according to your works If you believe that you are saved by your

Doing the law by your works of the law by your obedience to God you will perish because the one who believes in the one whom the

Father has sent has the forgiveness of sins and a right standing before God and Has been regenerated and does good works because they are a

Christian And This is one of the reasons why over and again the

New Testament hammers on that Yeah, and we heard it in the epistle text today not because of works done by us and righteous and even this and this is where the greater breath you have of understanding of the whole book and How the old and the new work together and the terms that the scriptures define?

Don't approach it acting like you understand how this works, but approach it and say Lord teach me Then you'll see that God's Word teaches you to rightly understand it so that when we see something like Psalm 62 verse 12

We we don't sit there and go. Oh, oh, oh Oh Pull out the scorecard.

I'm way behind. I'm never gonna be saved. Yeah Because here's another song Psalm 32

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered Blessed is the man against whom the

Lord counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit For when I kept silent my bones

Wasted away through my groaning all the day long for night and day your hand was heavy upon me My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer

And then when you ever see this word in the Psalms sell -off, you know, it means pause stop

Think about what you just read It's like it's like a speed bump All right.

Let's slow down. Take that again night and day your hand was heavy upon me My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.

I acknowledged my sin to you and I did not cover my iniquity

I Said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin

That's how I'm familiar in our confession of sins at the beginning of the service part of that's taken here salah

So let everyone who's godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found Surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him

You are a hiding place for me and you preserve me from trouble. You surround me with shouts of deliverance

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my eye upon you

Be not like a horse or a mule without understanding which must be curved with bit and bridle

Or it will not stay near you Many are the sorrows of the wicked but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the

Lord Be glad in the Lord and rejoice. Oh righteous and shout for joy all your upright in heart

And so here's what God's Word over and again teaches God is merciful slow to anger abounding in steadfast love forgiving iniquity and then he instructs us in the way that we should go and We go that way because we are forgiven and we listen to his instruction because we are loved

We don't do these things in order to be loved we do them because we is loved bad grammar on purpose

I They are important and and this is where we would pay attention to James Just as the body that is not breathing is dead

Faith without works is dead. There's no such thing as a Christian that doesn't do good works there's no such thing as Spiritus the hymn night writer wrote in that hymn you all love to sing because it has ten stanzas

Good works cannot avert our doom. They help and save us never Works work to show that faith is alive

That's one of the thing if scripture points to this so we should we shouldn't shy away from this concept now

Do they do a perfect job of showing that? No, and the reason being is because oh man

Even our best good works are just soiled with sin He said they're going why

I feel great about that, but man, I could have done that better So the idea then is this and notice the admonition from the

Lord do not be without understanding on these things We as Christians must know the whole breadth and the whole counsel the

Word of God so when we see works come up and we see God's Word admonishing us to works and Saying that we will be held accountable

By our works or that God remembers them and rewards them We don't sit there and go and then so ah,

I'm no longer saved by grace I'm gonna dive into the works pool and start getting busy saving yourself by your works is well

Like if you lived in Southern, California holding your breath and swimming to Catalina underwater

Good luck You know if you come up for a breath you lose That's what it's like But the one who is forgiven

Breathes all the way to Catalina and beyond if they want to doesn't matter get in the pool and start swimming

It's lots of fun. The water is great. So all of this because we talked about shale cool

Yeah, all right, so your loss where it's the GPS say Okay Uh -huh

Yeah Yeah, I think that I think that is a

I think saying he descended into hell can be confusing Yeah, I know

I understand that and and and and here's the funny thing if we were using a different Lutheran him him

No it would say descended into hell and This is where it's the job of the pastor to actually make a distinction because if you really want to get technical

Christ descends into shale, which is Hades He does not descend into hell hell in the truest sense because when we think of hell

What do we think about day of judgment? Okay, we think of the lake of fire You know the devil and his angels are tossed into that thing, right?

What okay No, no, no, he in fact

Jesus is descent into Hades He's not there to put to be punished for sins

There's only a few scant tiny Microscopic references to Jesus's descent into hell.

Do you know why he went and we call it Hades? It should be correct Say that again

Maryland That's part of it. Yeah, what's the other part? Proclaim his victory.

That's right two passages of Scripture Mentioned this I think one is in first Peter The other is in Ephesians if I'm doing this from memory, right and the first Peter passage talks about how he goes to shale to preach to the prisoners there and the purpose of his preaching is pretty much basically say

I Won you lost you didn't believe in me. I Won that's what he goes there to do

It's a it's a vindication story and I think it's in first Peter 3 if I'm not mistaken Give me a second here to fold this up First Peter 3 18

Christ also suffered once for sins the righteous for the unrighteous That he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh made alive in the spirit in which he went and Proclaimed and that's the

Greek word keru so which means to preach its preach preach Proclamation to proclaim or preach to the spirits in prison because they formerly did not obey

When God's patience waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared in which a few that is eight persons were brought safely through water so part of The reason

Jesus descends into Hades and I know we say hell and I think that's a little bit confusing

I think it's a little theologically muddied. It's supposed to work the opposite way

Yeah, you know because like I said when we think of hell we think of the lake of fire In the day of judgment, that's what we think of when we think of hell

Hades is the temporary place It's a holding tank. It's a lot like hell

But it's a holding tank. So Christ goes there and he proclaims to the spirits in prison now

Remember prior to Christ's descent there was two compartments there and the other compartment contained those who had faith in Christ What does scripture say happened to them and Marilyn actually brought this up?

Let me see if I can find it Yeah, here it is Ephesians 4 grace was given to each one of us verse 7 according to the measure of Christ's gift

Therefore it says when he ascended on high he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men all right, so this is kind of the second part of it and and after this scripture doesn't really say anything so Christ descends into Hades.

He says to the people who didn't believe in him. I It's to proclaim his victory and then all of you here who've trusted in me until I came and bled and died for you we're out of here and now we are

Temporary home after our death is not shale It's heaven, right?

Yeah, I'm so glad I can twist you all up Yeah, well now now, okay, so Currently when somebody dies and they do not have faith they could go to Hades and They await the judgment and they're held in punishment until the day of judgment

Those who have faith in Christ there with Christ in his presence in in heaven, right?

And scripture says to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord because Okay, you know physical bodies

We're still we're still awaiting the new ones. I don't know if you've noticed the one about about the one you have

It's getting worse. Yeah mine, too Okay Yeah, we're all heading there.

We're on our way out there. Okay Yeah, yeah, we're suffering from a terminal illness called sin and so we're all dying but For us when we go to be with the

Lord in heaven We're human beings We were never created to be

Disembodied spirits for eternity Spirits that don't have bodies are called angels

We're not angels. We're human beings So the idea then is this is that when

Christ returns in glory to judge the living and the dead like we read in first Corinthians 15 we're called out of the grave and We're resurrected

It's gonna be a great place to be right there on that day All the

Saints come flying out of their grave And this is one of the reasons why one of the reasons why we we bury people facing a particular way

The reason why we bury him facing east is because Christ is in Jerusalem when he comes back

So when he calls everybody from the grave, they're gonna come out facing Jerusalem Do you know that Yeah, exactly

Longer to look Okay, so Scott we're gonna bury you facing west and when we come out we're gonna say turn around dude

Right exactly Yeah Yeah, I would wouldn't be awful like on the very first day right out of the resurrection

You're gonna have to get directions from a woman where Jesus is I'm just saying yes, every time

I'm in a car and I'm lost. She wants to tell me where to go and it's like Yeah Paradise okay.

So Abraham's bosom is paradise That's the other term for it where the Saints are So the thief on the cross dies just a few hours after Christ dies

You know, so he's he's actually his death is hastened by the breaking of his legs and he asphyxiates and he dies

Christ is still down in Sheol. And so that guy shows up.

It's like hey, I told you you'd be with me here so Sheol the two compartments Abraham's bosom, which is also called paradise and Then Christ takes that thief on the cross and there's no longer on the cross with him when he ascends

He leads captives in his train and now he's in the heavenly kingdom awaiting the resurrection Mm -hmm

Yeah This is the picture that scripture paints now there's

I'm gonna touch on it on a real quickly a false doctrine regarding Christ's descent into Hades if you've listened to Joyce Meyer or Kenneth Copeland or Well, yeah,

I don't know see might actually teach it here's what they teach they teach that Christ descends into hell and The purpose of him being in hell is in order for him to continue his suffering

For our salvation. I know it's like there's one really clear passage that comes to my mind

Jesus is there hanging on the cross and he cries out it is

Finished to tell us die So he ain't got no more suffering to do

He if their doctrine were correct, then Jesus should have shouted almost there

Just a little farther. Are we there yet? Oh That's when the soldier the soldiers at the foot of the cross recognized that Christ was the

Son of God because he dies of his own accord and He died quickly

It's like it's like he was totally in control of his death and the soul and the soldiers that are Stationed there at the cross one of them recognizes truly this man was the

Son of God They see that his you know, his his control over his own death as proof that he is

Exactly who he claimed to be the Son of God So we did a little s catalogical You know jaunt through shale

Hades in a little bit of hell good No, that's okay I Let me remind you of the rules for Sunday school.

They are ask Questions lots of them if you have one don't hold back

Yeah, exactly. Yes pulling out a machine gun. Yeah, huh? Okay, all right, you know

I you're right I don't You're you're you're famous on at least 34 continents

All right, let's come back to our text Let's come back to our text

So Judah is doing his substitutionary work. He's speaking to Joseph and he's talking about his father

Yaakov or Israel and how if anything happens to his son

Benjamin it would bring hit the hairs of his head down to Shaol Judah continues now therefore as soon as I come to your servant

My father and the boy is not with us Then as his life is bound up in the boy's life as soon as he sees that the boy is not with us

He will die and your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant our father with sorrow to Shaol For your servant has become a pledge of safety for the boy

To my father saying if I do not bring him back to you Then I shall bear the blame before my father all my life.

He's going to bear the blame Substitution here now Therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord

Let the boy go back with his brothers for how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me?

I fear to see the evil that would find my father chapter 45

Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him. He cried make everyone go out from me

So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers and he wept aloud

So that the Egyptians heard it in the house of the Pharaoh heard it and Joseph said to his brothers

Ani Yosef I am Joseph is my father

Still alive his brothers could not answer him for they were dismayed at his presence.

So first Inclination on the part of the brothers is oh we are so hosed here.

Oh We're dead oh Boy, we oh, you know, this is like when the you know, how's that song go from stick?

Oh Mama, I'm in fear for my life from the long arm of the law

Exactly and see if you don't listen to it. I'll sing it to you. Yeah Okay Yeah, she volunteers yeah,

I've heard it many times I haven't memorized pastor you don't need to sing it ever again Yes, the

Lutherans do believe there are Saints a little bit of a side note Everybody who is a penitent believer in Christ is a saint and that's what scripture teaches

Saint by the way, the Greek word is ha gios. It means somebody who's holy

The ha gioi plural are the Holy Ones and how are we made holy?

by Christ he shed blood Yeah, they do and they ought not because as we covered a couple weeks ago

There is one mediator between God and man the man Jesus Christ So I don't need to pray to st

Teresa Pope John Paul the second or anybody like that or Anthony or even faux saints like st

Christopher who never existed Yeah Yeah It's a waste of time and it takes your focus off of Christ Yep, so let's now let's come back to this.

I'm with you. I'm with you. We prayed to Christ the God man All right.

So Joseph asked is my father still alive? His brothers could not answer him. They were dismayed at his presence

So Jace Joseph said to his brothers come near to me, please And they're checking him for knives and things like that, right?

They came near he said I am your brother Joseph whom you sold into Egypt and now

Do not be distressed or angry through yourselves because you sold me here for God sent me before you to preserve

Life for the famine has been in the land these two years and there are yet five years in Which there will be neither plowing nor harvest and God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to keep

Alive for you many survivors So it was not you who sent me here, but God He has made me father to Pharaoh Lord of all of his house ruler over all of the land of Egypt Hurry go up to my father and say to them thus says your son

Joseph God has made me Lord over all of Egypt come down to me

Do not tarry you shall dwell in the land of Goshen and you shall be near me you and your children and your children's children

And your flocks and your herds and all that you have there I will provide for you for there are yet five years of famine to come so that you and Your household and all that you have do not come to poverty and now your eyes see and the eyes of my brother

Benjamin see That it is my mouth that speaks to you You must tell my father of all my honor in Egypt and of all that you have seen hurry and bring my father down here

Then he fell on his brother Benjamin's neck and he wept Benjamin wept upon his neck and he kissed all of his brothers and wept upon them and after that his brothers talked with him

We noted last week that this Since he's a type and shadow of Christ shows

Christ's great love for you because God the

Father sent Christ ahead to save us and we Betrayed him for 30 pieces of silver

We had him crucified and what we meant for evil God has turned for good and worked for our salvation what they meant for evil by selling their brother into slavery

God has worked for their salvation You see how the theme works

It's wonderful. So when the report was heard in Pharaoh's house

Joseph's brothers have come it pleased Pharaoh and his servants and Pharaoh said to Joseph say to your brothers do this load your beasts go back to the land of Canaan take your father and your households and come to me and I will give you the best of the land of Egypt and you shall eat

The fat of the land and you Joseph are commanded to say do this take wagons from the land of Egypt for your little ones and for your wives and bring your father and come have

No concern for your goods for the best of all of the land of Egypt is yours the sons of Israel did so Joseph gave them wagons according to the command of Pharaoh gave them provisions for the journey to each and all of them

He gave a change of clothes, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred shekels of silver five changes of clothes

By the way clothes were quite expensive back then you couldn't go to Walmart to purchase them

So when you hear about clothing, you know as if that's a big deal. Well, it was a big deal

So to his father he sent as follows ten donkeys loaded with the good things of Egypt ten female donkeys loaded with grain

Bread and provision for his father on the journey Then he set sent his brothers away as they departed.

He said to them do not quarrel on the way So they went up out of Egypt and came to the land of Canaan to their father

Jacob and they told him Joseph is still alive and he is a ruler over all of the land of Egypt and his heart became numb

For he did not believe them This smacks of the truth, he doesn't immediately rejoice he goes

What? No, you're lying But when they told him all the words of Joseph Which he had said to them and when he saw the wagons that Joseph has sent to carry him

The spirit of their father Jacob revived and Israel said it is enough Joseph my son is still alive.

I will go and see him before I die What a great reunion how many years did he suffer and believe that his son was dead 21 22 years

It's a long time Israel took his journey with all that he had

He came to bear Sheba offered sacrifices to God the

God of his father Isaac and God spoke to Israel and visions of the night and Said Jacob Jacob He said here

I am And then he said I am God the God of your father Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt for there.

I will make you into a great nation I myself will go down with you to Egypt and I shall also bring you up again and Joseph's hand

Shall close your eyes. Yeah Yeah And he's working salvation here

Now notice that Jacob doesn't say I've been calling for 22 years You could have picked up the phone a little bit earlier and told me what was going on Right.

I kept texting you and you never answered none of that God is

God His ways are not our ways So then

Jacob set out from bear Sheba the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father There are little ones and their wives and the wagons the

Pharaoh had sent to carry him They also took their livestock and their goods which they had gained in the land of Canaan and came into Egypt Jacob and all of his offspring with him his sons and his sons sons with him his daughters and his sons daughters all of His offspring he brought with him to Egypt.

Now. Here's a weird little archaeological note There was no Instagram at that time

In order to take a photograph somebody would have to paint it in hieroglyphs on a wall there is a hieroglyph in Egypt of this event

The children of Israel coming into Egypt. I am not joking Somebody took the time to chisel an

Instagram photo and put it up on a wall in Egypt All right, I should bring that in and show it to you

But this event is actually recorded in Egyptian history in hieroglyphs on a wall.

We've got it a little bit of a note now these are the names of The descendants of Israel who came into Egypt Jacob and his sons

Reuben Jacob's firstborn the sons of Reuben Hanak Palu Hezron and car me the sons of Simeon Jami well

Jamin. What a great name. He's Jamin He likes to dance Norwegian style anyway,

Oh hod Yakhim Zohar and Shaul Shaul that's an interesting way name the son of a

Canaanite woman the sons of Levi Gershon Kohath Marari the sons of Judah er

Onan Shala Perez and Zerah Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan and the sons of Perez were

Hezron and Hamel So by this time er is dead Onan's dead.

We heard about that Perez is alive and His sons are

Hezron and Hamel Tells you how long they've been there, right? Yeah, and the the idea here behind these names this

Does this is the exact opposite of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away That's mythology right or this is not once upon a time

This is human history That we're talking about here. This is human history and when you start to see it as human history

It's going to start messing with you And the reason why is because if this is human history,

I can trace back descendants all the way back to who? Jesus but farther back all the way back to Adam and if I have that list and I know how long they lived

That tells me how old the earth is It was the earth a bazillion years old

No, it's a little longer than that It's not millions It's thousands 2016 since Christ's death and resurrection

Yeah, right right so start working the math and it's gonna fly in the face of modern interpretations of science one of the reasons why scientists will say well the earth has to be this has to be old is

Because the universe is expanding and we by seeing light From bodies out in the heavens, right that are a bazillion light -years away

How did that light get to us if it didn't travel that long to get here answer?

God can make light do whatever it wants to do Yeah Yeah, that's a whole other story.

It's a whole other story So I won't read the whole list here, but this list tells us we're dealing with human history not with myth all the persons belonging to Jacob who came into Egypt verse 26

Who were his own descendants not including Jacob's sons wives were 66 persons in all?

It's best Sons wives. Okay his own descendants total descendants not including

Jacob's sons wives so excluding the women were 66 persons in all

The sons of Joseph who were born to him in Egypt were to all The persons of the house of Jacob who came into Egypt were 70 70 total

He had sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to show the way before him to Goshen They came into the land of Goshen.

Then Joseph prepared his chariot went up to meet Israel his father in Goshen He presented himself to him and fell on his neck and he wept on his neck a good while I mean this has all the hallmarks of a great story a

Great story including the great reunion at the end now type and shadow type and shadow

Joseph has died and he's risen again You want to know what this pictures something that still hasn't happened yet?

This pictures our great reunion with our loved ones on that day when Christ returns in the new earth

We're all gonna have a good cry And a good laugh. Oh And there's a big party coming to Don't worry about what you're gonna wear your clothes are provided.

So Israel said to Joseph now, let me die Since I've seen your face and know that you are still alive

Joseph said to his brothers and his father's household I will go up to Pharaoh and tell tell

Pharaoh and will say to him my brothers and my father's household Who were in the land of Canaan have come to me and the men are shepherds for they have been keepers of livestock

And they have brought their flocks and their herds and all that they have when Pharaoh calls you and says what is your occupation?

You shall say your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth even now until now

Both we and our fathers in order that you may dwell in the land of Goshen for every shepherd This is fascinating is an abomination to Egyptians Okay now

That's not exactly a throwaway line It's culturally true at the time but from Moving forward.

Okay at this point in the story Egypt is kind of a stand -in for heaven the

Great Reunion death resurrection We're all back together and then united together again and salvation has been worked

Moving into the book of Exodus Egypt turns into the ultimate symbol of idolatry and evil so it changes a little bit and Then moving from beyond that as you get into the latter part of the

Old Testament Egypt kind of disappears and then the ultimate pinnacle of evil is

Babylon So there's a little bit there's always kind of a little bit of a changing of the symbols and in this symbol

This is starting to begin to open up the changing of what

Egypt is Representing that every shepherd is an abomination to the

Egyptians Think of Jesus our Good Shepherd Just kind of tuck that away.