Joseph: Faith in God’s Future Deliverance (Hebrews 11:22)

Kootenai Church

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When you find your place, let's pray together before we begin. Father, we pray that You would open our eyes to Your Word and our hearts to be obedient to it.

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We pray that the unfolding of Your Word today may bring to us light to our souls, encouragement to weary souls, and strength to those who are weak.

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We pray that You would be honored and glorified through our understanding of Your Word and the preaching of it this morning in Christ's name.

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Well, there is a hazard to preaching and teaching, and it is a hazard that anybody who has an ever preached or taught or stood behind a pulpit hates to run afoul of, hates to run aground of, and we do this far more often than we ever want to.

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Of course, you never want to run aground of a preaching hazard. But the hazard is this, to have something that is crystal clear in your own mind and then believe in your heart with all confidence that you will be able to explain this difficult thing in the moment when it comes time to explain it.

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But then somehow those crystal clear thoughts that you don't even need words or notes to articulate, you just… you know that you're going to be able to explain it, sometime between the brain and the mouth, someplace in there is a sausage grinder, and all of those ideas go into that grinder and come out in a form that is completely unedible.

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And then in the moment while you're preaching or teaching, you're thinking to yourself, I could continue to throw thoughts into this grinder, but there's no hope because what

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I've already said is already so much of a disaster, I might as well just quickly edit the sermon and move on to the next point and either hope that everybody was asleep and that those who weren't asleep understood what

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I was trying to say. I hope that that doesn't happen today, but it did happen last week when

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I was trying to explain the difference between the Genesis account of Jacob and the Hebrews account of Jacob.

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In Genesis we read that Jacob worshiped at the head of his bed, and in Hebrews we read that he worshiped while leaning on the top of his staff.

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And after the sermon last week, I thought, well, I hope that that was somewhat helpful what I said, but then in having a conversation with somebody, one of my own children who can usually make sense out of the whatever comes out of the mouth after the sausage grinder, he said to me, oh, now that you say that, now it makes a lot more sense.

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So then, okay, now I… after getting very little sleep this whole week, what I want to do right now is back up and take another run at this.

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I hate being unclear, so here it is. In Hebrews we read that by faith

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Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worshiped leaning on the top of his staff.

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That's Hebrews 11, 21. That passage is cited from Genesis 47, which reads, then

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Israel bowed in worship at the head of the bed. Now why the difference? Leaning on the top of his staff and bowing at the head of the bed.

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The Hebrew word for bed and staff are the same word when they are written, not when they are pronounced, but when they are written.

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When pronounced, the Hebrew has vowel sounds in there, but when written it's just a series of consonants.

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So the word for bed and the word for staff would look identical to your eye, especially without the vowel points which were added later because Hebrew is just a series of consonants.

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So you could take the reference to staff or bed to be either staff or bed because it is just the consonants in that word.

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Does that make sense so far? So imagine that English were like that. You would be reading along and you would, without any vowels in the

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English language, you came across the word PCK. What would that be? It could be pack.

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It could be peck. It could be pick. It could be pock. And it could be puck. It could be any one of those words, couldn't it?

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You would not know unless you looked at the context what was intended by the author when he wrote PCK.

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So when the Hebrew Old Testament was translated into Greek, resulting in what is known as the

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Septuagint, the translators used the vowel sound for that word which would have translated it as staff.

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And that is the translation, the Septuagint, that Jesus and the apostles used. That's the translation that the author of Hebrews uses in Hebrews chapter 11.

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So when they came to Genesis 47, 31, and they read…he leaned on…they would have read that leaning on the top of his staff, and that was why the author of Hebrews cites that and uses that phrase because that was the translation that he had.

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Hundreds of years after Jesus and the apostles, and thus also the Septuagint, the Masoretic scribes added vowel pointings, vowel pronunciation in the form of dots and dashes to the words which indicated how those words would have been pronounced.

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And they came to the word which could be the word for staff, could be the word for bed, could be pack or peck, they came to that word, and they saw it as a reference then to bed.

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That's how they would have understood Moses' intention to make that bed. So that is not a contradiction, it is two different renderings of the same

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Hebrew word, either of which would fit the context, and either of which would make sense in that context.

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So that's why it's a difference. I feel better about that.

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I hope you do as well. So thank you for indulging me, not that you had anything to do with it, you just sat there, but at least you allowed me to get that off my chest and I'll be able to sleep this week.

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But Jacob is not our focus this week, Joseph is, and you may be wondering, how is he going to transition from that into Joseph?

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I'm not even going to try. Hebrews 11, verse 22 is our text, and just for context, I want to go back to verse 17.

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By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son.

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It was he to whom it was said, in Isaac your descendants shall be called. He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.

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By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even regarding things to come. By faith

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Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshipped, leaning on the top of his staff.

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By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel, and gave orders concerning his bones.

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Now that is our passage, that is our text, Hebrews 11, verse 22, by faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel, and gave orders concerning his bones.

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He only gets a brief mention here in Hebrews chapter 11, but a lot of text is dedicated to the story of Joseph back in the book of Genesis.

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And before we turn back there, I want you to notice a couple of details again, just generally speaking from Hebrews 11, before we run back and see what it is that the author is describing or making reference to here in the book of Genesis.

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First, as I've mentioned the last three, two, three times that we've been in this passage, the example cited from the life of Joseph comes from his dying moments.

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That is the same with Isaac, and with Jacob, and now Joseph. These are examples coming from their dying moments, and I think that that is intentional by the author.

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I want to just bring it to your attention again, and we'll move past that. Notice the second thing, there are two things that are said of Joseph here that demonstrate his faith.

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The mention of the exodus and giving orders concerning his bones. There's something else that is true of all three of these last examples,

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Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. What the author cites as an example of their faith is something, not something that they did, but something that they said.

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With Abraham and with all of the examples before that, it was something that they did that is cited. Noah built a boat,

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Cain offered a better sacrifice, or Abel offered a better sacrifice than Cain. Noah built the boat,

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Enoch walked with God. These are examples of things that they did which demonstrated their faith. With all three of these,

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Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, it is not what they did that so much emphasizes their faith or highlights their faith, but something that they said.

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Now, you might argue semantics and say, well, isn't the act of blessing really something that they did? It is, but not in and of itself.

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If the blessing was merely, hey, when I die, you get my guns and my furs, and you get my knives, and my tools, my power tools, and you get my land, if that was what the blessing was, it wouldn't have been so much an act of faith.

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But when those dying men in their dying moments talk about something that they have never possessed that was promised to them, and they're about to die, and they start partitioning out that inheritance, something that they have not even seen or held themselves, but they start giving that to their descendants, that is faith.

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So it is a blessing, but it is what they say in the blessing. They're speaking of things that are yet to come, things that they have never seen, and they were confident of them.

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So with these men, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, it's what they say that is emphasized. And one other thing quickly that I want to mention about that all three of them have in common, and this is something

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I just realized was brought to my attention this last week. For Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, none of those three men were the oldest in their family.

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Now it was the ancient custom, and it was the cultural custom, it was the custom of the day for everything that was passed on to the next generation to basically the bulk of it to be given to the oldest person, especially the biggest blessings in the family would go to the oldest born son.

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But God's way is opposite of everything that we might expect from a human perspective. Isaac was not the firstborn of Abraham's son,

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Ishmael was. Jacob was not the firstborn of Isaac's sons, Esau was. Joseph was not the firstborn of Jacob's son.

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He was the 11th of 12 sons. See, God's electing purposes, the way that God intends to do this is not according to what we might think as human beings, and God demonstrates for three generations here that His way of accomplishing

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His purposes and fulfilling His promises is not what we would just consider cultural convention. It's not something that we might expect.

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It actually goes contrary, the exact opposite of what we might expect. Paul makes mention of this in 1

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Corinthians. It's not the powerful, it's not the rich, it's not the noble, it's not the elite that God calls.

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Whom does God call? The foolish, the unwise, the little things in the eyes of the world.

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Those are the ones that God calls and uses, and this is an example of that. Now, back to Genesis chapter 37.

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That sort of helps set the stage for us, helps set the stage for us. Genesis 37, we're going to be looking at the example of Joseph and just taking one week to cover

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Joseph's life, though more could be done. I was begged by more than one person to do something more than just one sermon on Joseph.

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He is, and I could do that, I could easily justify a whole series of sermons on the life of Joseph because Joseph is one of my,

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I'd have to say he is probably my favorite Old Testament character. His story takes us from Genesis 37 to the end of the book, and it overlaps his father

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Jacob and his brothers who come down into Egypt to be reunited with him. Joseph is not introduced in chapter 37.

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He's introduced back in chapter 30. You don't need to turn there, but in chapter 30, Joseph is born. He is the eleventh of twelve sons.

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He is the oldest child of Rachel, who was Jacob's favorite wife out of the four.

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Rachel ended up giving birth to one more son after Joseph. That was Benjamin, Joseph's younger brother, and she died during childbirth.

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That's in chapter 35. In chapter 37, the narrative switches, as it were, from Jacob and the other sons of Jacob to Joseph particularly, verse 2 of chapter 37.

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These are the records of the generations of Jacob. Joseph, when seventeen years of age, was pasturing the flock with his brothers while he was still a youth, along with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives.

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And Joseph brought back a bad report about them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a very colored tunic.

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His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and so they hated him and could not speak to him on friendly terms.

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Joseph was obviously the favorite of all of Jacob's sons, and we saw last week how Jacob put Rachel and Joseph at the back of the pack when he was getting ready to be reconciled to Esau, fearing that Esau might still be in his murderous rage.

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He put all the other sons and all the other wives out there and reserved Rachel and Joseph for the back of that collection.

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Well, Jacob's favoritism towards Joseph was obviously so overt, so clear to all of his brothers that they all had that reason to hate him.

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Another thing that it says here in the text is that Joseph brought back a bad report to Jacob.

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What does that mean, brought back a bad report? Was Joseph tattling on his brothers?

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Was Joseph…or was Joseph just being honest? When he came back, did Jacob ask him a question, and Joseph said, well, look,

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I've got to give you the bare truth of what's going on out in the field. And so he tells his father what had happened, and maybe his father took that and obviously did something that caused his other brothers to know that Joseph had made mention of what was going on out in the field.

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Joseph then had two dreams of his own preeminence over them. Look at verse 5, then Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more.

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He said to them, please listen to this dream which I've had, for behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood erect, and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.

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Then look at verse 8, and let me just pause there for just a second. You would think that by this point,

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Joseph…I mean, it has been said by commentators that there's nothing ill that is ever reported about Joseph, that he almost has a sinless reputation in terms of the portrayal of him in the book of Genesis.

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I would disagree. He may have just lacked the wisdom and discretion that was necessary to know when to bridle his tongue.

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Look at verse 8, then his brothers said to him, and here is just,

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I think, the most beautiful phrase in all the story, are you actually going to reign over us? Are you really going to rule over us?

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So they hated him even more for his dreams and his words. This was preposterous. The idea that the older would serve the younger, how absurd was that to Jacob's sons?

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And here's the irony, they saw in their own father that that is what God had determined.

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Before Jacob was born, the Lord revealed that the older will serve the younger. That's why Jacob had the promises and not

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Esau. But they thought this was preposterous, that the youngest among them would rule them in some way.

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Then Joseph had a second dream. He didn't learn from telling them the first one. The second one, verse 9, now he had still another dream and related it to his brothers and said, lo,

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I've had still another dream, and behold, the sun and the moon, the eleven stars were bowing down to me. He related it to his father and to his brothers, and his father rebuked him and said to him, what is the dream that you have had?

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Shall I and your mother and your brothers actually come to bow ourselves down before you to the ground? His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept that saying in mind.

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They hated him so much that shortly after this happened, then Joseph went out to the field to check on them, and his brothers saw him coming from a distance and plotted to kill him.

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Reuben, one of the oldest of the sons, planned to deliver him from their hands. They put him in a pit, and Reuben was going to go back later on and deliver

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Joseph from their hands, but they ended up selling him instead to a passing band of traders, not traders,

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Genesis 37, verse 28, and some Midianite traders passed by, so they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit and sold him to the

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Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver. Thus they brought Joseph into Egypt. Now keep in mind, these were distant cousins of Joseph.

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They were Midianites. The Midianites were the descendants of Abraham through another one of Abraham's wives, Keturah, and they're called

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Ishmaelites because at this point, by the time Moses writes this, anybody who was not of the chosen seed of Isaac was referred to as Ishmaelites.

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So these were Abraham's, so Joseph's great -great -grandfather, his father, grandfather, great -grandfather, his great -grandfather, this is one of the sons through their great…one of the descendants from another son through their great -grandfather.

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Now I don't know if that makes them uncle cousins, cousin uncles, cousins, cousins once removed, second cousins, third cousins.

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I don't know what that would make them, but let's just for the sake of simplicity, refer to them as cousins, they're

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Midianites. So when they see the traders coming by, Ishmaelites, Midianites, they say, hey cuz, come on over here, check this out, we got something for you.

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Here's one of our brothers, we can sell him into slavery, take him down to Egypt with you and sell him to the highest bidder, which they did.

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Then there was this cover -up, they took Joseph's garment, they dipped it in blood and brought it back to Jacob, and Jacob assumed that Joseph must have been killed by a wild animal, and even though the brothers knew that that was not what had happened to Joseph, they did nothing to correct

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Jacob's leap to that conclusion, and they let him live with this deception. They became complicit in that deception, and here's another irony of the story,

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Jacob then is deceived. Remember what Jacob's name means, deceiver, trickster, heel -tripper, right?

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He was known for his deceptive ways, and now he suffers the deception from his own sons, a deception that results in him living for almost 25 years, thinking that his youngest son at that time was dead, chapter 38, or second youngest son was dead.

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Chapter 38 is the story of Judah and Judah's immorality, and you read chapter 37 and you think, okay, this is a story about Joseph, we're now talking about Joseph, he goes down into Egypt, then chapter 38 is the story of Judah, Joseph's brother, who hires a prostitute, and that whole thing about the staff and the symbol and the seal and all of that, raising up children, and I don't want to get into any of that, but you read chapter 38 and you wonder, why is that there?

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Because chapter 39 goes right back to Joseph. You know why that's there? You know why that one single chapter is there? It is to highlight

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Joseph's integrity, his moral purity, his uprightness with his brother

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Judah. Here was a guy who was taken off to a foreign land, put amongst pagans, and look how he behaved himself, and here was

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Judah who had all the advantages of his family and his brothers and the religion of his father, and look how he behaved himself.

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It's a contrast, because it sets up chapter 39, where in chapter 39, after Joseph is sold into Potiphar's house, he serves

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Potiphar well. Potiphar ends up giving him control over the entire household, verse 6, so he left everything he owned in Joseph's charge, and with him he did not concern himself with anything except the food which he ate.

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Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance, and it came about after these events that his master's wife looked with desire at Joseph, and she said, lie with me, but he refused and said to his master's wife, behold, with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has put all that he owns in my charge.

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There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you because you are his wife.

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How then could I do this great evil and sin against God? How different that is from Judah and his debauchery in chapter 38.

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And Potiphar's wife was relentless with her advances, and Joseph was unyielding in his integrity and his purity and his obedience.

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She seized him and he fled, and he left in her hand probably a loose -fitting outer cloak which she used to falsely accuse him and frame him for trying to rape her.

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So Joseph was falsely accused and put into prison, and by the way, Joseph's integrity and his moral purity cost him more than probably it has cost any other man in the history of humanity.

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He was thrown into a prison with no hope of ever being released. He could have been executed for that crime in Egypt.

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He could have been executed. He got off light with life in prison. That was what he had to expect. Joseph soon learned that hell hath no fury like what?

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A woman scorned. You know that because it's in the book of Proverbs, right? No, it's not. But it should be in the book of Proverbs.

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Some of you going through the Proverbs class are saying, is that in there? Did I miss that? In Genesis 39 verse 23,

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Joseph being put into prison, distinguished himself by his service. The chief jailer did not supervise anything under Joseph's charge because the

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Lord was with him and whatever he did, the Lord made to prosper. And some years into that period of time, Joseph met

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Pharaoh's cupbearer and baker and candlestick maker. I may be a little shaky on the details because as Dave said during the announcements,

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I'm only on my second time through the Bible. But these two men, cupbearer and baker, had dreams which

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Joseph interpreted, and the dreams, according to Joseph's interpretation, turned out to be prophetic statements of what would happen to the cupbearer and the baker.

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The cupbearer was exalted back to Pharaoh's right hand where he served Pharaoh in his court again, and the baker was executed just as Joseph had interpreted the dreams.

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And then before the cupbearer left, Joseph asked the cupbearer, please remember me before Pharaoh. Make mention of me.

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Get me out of this place. I don't deserve to be here. Chapter 40 verse 23, yet the chief cupbearer did not remember

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Joseph but forgot him. Chapter 41 verse 1, now it happened at the end of two full years.

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Pharaoh had a dream. Now, Pharaoh's dreams end up being prophetic. I'm not going to go into Pharaoh's dreams, but there were seven years of abundance that were to come, followed by seven years of famine.

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Joseph offers Pharaoh some counsel. Look, during the seven years of abundance, you ought to store up some food, and then during the seven years of famine, you have food for your nation.

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You'll preserve everybody. It seemed like wise counsel, so Pharaoh made Joseph ruler over all the land of Egypt.

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Chapter 41 verse 38, then Pharaoh said to his servants, can we find a man like this in whom is the divine

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Spirit? So Pharaoh said to Joseph, since God has informed you of all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you are.

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You shall be over my house, and according to your command, all my people shall do homage. Only in the throne will

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I be greater than you. Pharaoh said to Joseph, see, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.

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Then Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph's hand and clothed him in garments of fine linen and put the gold necklace around his neck.

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He had him ride in his second chariot, and they proclaimed before him, bow the knee. And he set him over all the land of Egypt.

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Moreover, Pharaoh said to Joseph, though I am Pharaoh, yet without your permission, no one shall raise his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.

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Then Pharaoh named Joseph Zappanah -Paneah, and he gave him Asenath, the daughter of Potiphar, a priest of On as his wife.

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And Joseph went forth over the land of Egypt. He has made second ruler over the entire nation. Verse 46, now

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Joseph was 30 years old when he stood before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and went through all the land of Egypt at 30 years old.

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We're only told Joseph's age at three points in his life. When he is sold into slavery, that's the age 17.

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When he is made ruler over Egypt, that's at the age of 30. And when he dies at 110 at the end of the book of Genesis, which we're going to get to here momentarily, 17, 30, and 110.

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This means that Joseph was in either or both Potiphar's house and prison for a combination of 13 years.

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When he's taken out and made ruler of Egypt, he's 30 years old. When he's sold into slavery, he's 17. So that's 13 years that he spent between prison and Potiphar's house.

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We're not told how much in each side, but we do know that he had at least two years that he spent in the prison after interpreting the dreams of the two men, and he had time in prison before that in order to distinguish himself amongst all the prisoners and to be entrusted with all of the keeping of the prison under the watch of the prison guard.

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So he had to have been in prison for a period of time. When he stands before Pharaoh at the age of 30, now here's where we're going to get into a little bit of math to show this overlaps the lives of the other patriarchs.

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All the kids who listen, they're listening for the word of the day that I might mention whatever it is. Exodus? There you go. They're waiting for me to mention the word

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Exodus. All the adults sit here with bated breath waiting for me to do complex math in front of everybody. This is your chance.

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Adults, this is it. Pharaoh is 30 years old when he stands before Pharaoh and is made ruler in Egypt.

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That's followed by seven years of abundance, and then we find out later on that it is in the second year of the famine that his brothers come down, there's still five more years of famine left.

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So he's 30 plus seven plus two, which means that when Jacob and the brothers come back down into Egypt, Joseph was 39 years old.

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Let's call it 40. We can round up a year because we do have all of the travel time when his brothers came down to Egypt to buy grain, did not recognize who

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Joseph was, left one of their brothers there, went back to their father, and they ate up all the grain, and then their father,

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Jacob, sends them back down into Egypt, and this is not...it's not like traveling from Kootenai to Pend Oreille. You're talking about a long distance, a long period of time to get from point

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A to point B. So they go back down in the second time to buy grain again, and there Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, at which time they go back to Canaan to fetch

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Jacob, and they have to ready all of their family, all of their possessions, all of their flocks and everything and get back and make the trip all the way back down into Egypt.

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So let's allow a year for that. So let's say that by the time Jacob got down into Egypt, he was 40...or

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sorry, Joseph was 40, and we know from later on when Jacob stands before Pharaoh that when they get down to Egypt, Jacob is 130.

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So if Jacob is 130 when Joseph is 40, that means that when Joseph was born, Jacob was how old?

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Ninety years old. So Joseph was the son of his old age. Which means that since Jacob buried

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Isaac when Jacob was 120, that would have been about the same time

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Isaac dying, about the same time that Joseph was in prison, which means that when his grandfather died, Joseph had already been sold 13 years earlier into Egypt, and he was either in prison or just coming out of prison and standing before Pharaoh.

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The first 17 years of Joseph's life, he would have known Isaac. After Jacob gets to Egypt, he lives another 17 years and then blesses

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Joseph's sons. So if Joseph was 40 when Jacob arrived and Jacob lived another 17 years, that means when

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Joseph was blessed, Joseph's sons were blessed by Jacob, Joseph was 57 years old.

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If Joseph was 57 when that blessing was given and 110 when he died, that means that after his sons were blessed,

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Joseph lived another 53 years as ruler in Egypt after that. Chapter 50, verse 22, done with the complex math, now we can move on.

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Verse 22 of chapter 50, yes, go forward to chapter 50 because I just, in explaining all of that, kind of gave you the whole history of what he got down there and how everybody got down there, and Jacob dying.

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Chapter 50, verse 22, now Joseph stayed in Egypt, he and his father's household, and Joseph lived 110 years.

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Joseph saw the third generation of Ephraim's sons, and the sons of Makar, the son of Manasseh, were born on Joseph's knees.

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Joseph said to his brothers, I'm about to die, but God will surely take care of you and bring you up from this land to the land which He promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.

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Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, God will surely take care of you and you shall carry my bones up from here.

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So Joseph died at the age of 110 years, and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.

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Now that is the event that is mentioned in the book of Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 22, by faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel and gave orders concerning his bones.

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The two things that demonstrate his faith, two things that he said, made mention of the exodus and giving orders concerning his bones.

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The mention of exodus is in verse 24. He doesn't use the term exodus here, but he does describe what the exodus was in verse 24.

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I'm about to die, but God will surely take care of you and bring you up from this land to the land which He promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

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And the order concerning his bones is in verse 25. Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, God will surely take care of you and you shall carry my bones up from here.

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Now, those two events are connected. They're connected not just because in the exodus they had to carry Joseph's bones up there, but they are connected because both of those commands that Joseph gives, both of those statements that he gives to his descendants and to his brothers expressed his faith in the promise of God to give to Abraham and his descendants the land that he promised.

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Joseph knew that God had promised the land to them, and therefore the exodus had to happen.

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Whatever it would look like, whoever might lead it, whenever that might happen, at some point Joseph knew that God was going to take all of those descendants out of the land of Egypt and bring them into the land of promise.

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Why did Joseph know that? Joseph was confident that that exodus would happen because, by implicit deduction, he knew that God would fulfill the promise that He had made to Abraham and to his descendants.

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Joseph knew that all of those children of Israel down in Egypt, with that in play, that God would not redefine the terms of the covenant, that He would not allegorize the covenant, that He would not spiritualize the covenant, that He was not going to make

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Egypt replace Canaan. He was not going to do any of that. Joseph was convinced that God would do exactly what

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God had said He would do. Joseph didn't know how that would unfold. Joseph didn't know who would lead that exodus, but eventually

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Moses would. Second, because God had already spoken of their time in Egypt to Abraham, and Joseph would have known of this and would have remembered it,

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Genesis 15 verse 12. Now, when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him.

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God said to Abram, know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years, but I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.

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As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace, you will be buried at a good old age, then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the

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Amorite is not yet complete. So Joseph knew God had promised him the land, and Joseph knew that God had already told them you're going to spend a good portion of time, a good deal of time, three or four generations in another land as servants and slaves in that land, a land that is not theirs.

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And that promise of God, that God would bring them up, that they would come out of that land, had to have served as an encouragement and a blessing, not just to Joseph during all of his time in Egypt, but also to all of the children of Israel after Joseph's time when they were being enslaved and suffering.

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I wonder if in the darkness of the prison, sitting there wondering as all of those years passed, sitting in that prison, if Joseph was thinking to himself,

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I'm outside of the land and I'm the only descendant of Jacob that's outside of the land, and so God has promised that He'll take us out of this.

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So however this is going to unfold, God is going to do something to put us into this land, to keep us in this land, to preserve us in this land.

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And I can't help but think that at some point Joseph might have thought to himself, I wonder if one of these days all of my brothers are going to show up, our paths are going to cross in some way.

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And Joseph would have remembered his dreams, right? The sheaves bowing down to him, the stars bowing down to him.

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And then when Pharaoh makes him ruler of Egypt, did Joseph at that moment think, okay, now I see it unfolding right in front of my eyes, everything that God had promised.

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I see how this is going to happen. And this really shows Joseph's great faith that he had in God.

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Because keep in mind, from a human perspective, there was nothing about what Joseph saw that would have made him think that leaving the land of Egypt was a possibility.

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There's nothing that he saw. Four generations had passed, four generations had passed since the promise was given.

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And his father had died without seeing the promises. His grandfather had died without seeing the promises fulfilled.

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His great -grandfather had died without seeing the promises fulfilled. In fact, from the time that God appeared to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12, when

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Abraham was 75 years old, to the time of Joseph blessing the children of Israel and giving these commands at the end of the book of Genesis, do you know how much time has unfolded?

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Two hundred and eighty plus years have unfolded from the time that God promised that to Abraham to the time that Joseph is banking on it with his sons and his brothers.

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Two hundred and eighty years, that's longer than we have been a country, and certainly longer than we will be a country from this point forward.

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It's a long time, a long, long time. And all the children of Israel there, all the descendants of Jacob, they're all in Egypt.

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They've settled down there. They're prospering there. They're starting businesses. They're exchanging. They have adopted the

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Egyptian currency. They're enjoying the time, the refreshing time and the luxurious time along the banks of the

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Nile. They're owning businesses and they're buying lands and settling in and understanding the culture and maybe even learning to speak a little bit of the

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Egyptian language. From a human perspective, there was no reason that Joseph should have believed that they would ever leave that land.

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How then do you take years after that, while the inhabitants of Canaan are growing stronger and more numerous by every passing year, how do you take that group of people without any weapons and lead them off to conquer that promised land?

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Maybe they would think, maybe God will just sort of change the promise and give us Egypt. I mean, we're already here, and this spot along the banks of the

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Nile River is a beautiful spot. We love going down to the river and enjoying the time. There's fish there. There's leeks.

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There's melons. This is a great land. We don't need to go back to that desert land of Canaan. It could have reasoned all of that.

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But why does Joseph believe that God is going to take them up from the land? He has nothing to go on, nothing at all, except the bare word of God.

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That's all Joseph needed. There was nothing in his circumstances, nothing that he saw that would lead him to believe that that would ever happen.

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But he was convinced that it would. Chapter 50, verse 24.

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Joseph said to his brothers, I'm about to die. God will surely take care of you and bring you up from this land to the land which he had promised.

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See, that's what he's banking on. It's the land that God had promised. He expected to receive that land and to possess it.

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There is no hint, by the way, that any of these patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob or Joseph, there is not a hint that any of them thought that these promises would be fulfilled spiritually.

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Not a hint that any of them thought the promises would be fulfilled spiritually. All these men understood that these promises were literal and that they would be fulfilled exactly as they were promised.

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None of them expected it to be fulfilled in any way other than literally. Everything that they have said because everything that has been said to them banks upon the fact that this is a literal fulfillment.

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And the only way that this can be fulfilled, since the promises of the Abrahamic covenant have not been fully fulfilled to this day, the only way that this can be fulfilled is if all of the dead are raised in glorified bodies,

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Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph included, and they take possession of that land with the righteous descendants of Abraham and all the righteous, and this is exactly how it will happen.

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In the millennial kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the dead will be raised and they and us will rule and reign with Him for a thousand years in that land, that heavenly land.

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That is what's going to happen when the Lord returns. And if it does not happen, then these men who expected to possess that land, not as strangers and sojourners, but as owners of it, if that does not happen, then these men were deceived because that is what they expected it…how it to happen.

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These men expected a heavenly city to come to that land and make that land a heavenly land and that they would be given that land with all of those borders that we've looked at in the past.

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That is what their expectation was. Now if God is not going to fulfill that, if God is not going to do that, if something else is going to happen, it's going to be fulfilled spiritually in some way, then the best thing we can say is that these men were in some way deceived as to what these promises were or that they misunderstood it.

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And if they misunderstood the promise, then their faith is not at all commendable. It's lamentable. If you believe something, no matter how strongly you believe it, that God is going to do something that God has not promised and He is not in fact going to do, that is not faith.

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Faith is taking what God has said and believing that it will be fulfilled exactly as God has said it. And Joseph was convinced that God would do exactly what

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He has promised and that He would give to them the entire promised land, fill out that entire boundary that He gave to Abraham back in Genesis chapter 12 and 15.

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And it is that connection to resurrection which explains Joseph's next words in verse 25. Joseph made the sons of Israel swear saying,

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God will surely take care of you and you shall carry my bones up from here. He was certain that God would take care of them.

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Joseph had to have known that there would come a time when they would be oppressed and they would be enslaved and they would suffer in that land because that's what

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God had promised to Abraham. But Joseph was also convinced that because God had promised to take them up from that land that God would take care of them and preserve them through that.

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Verse 26, so Joseph died at the age of 110 years and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt. Not a tomb, not a crypt, nothing permanent, a coffin.

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There's something that marks a coffin that doesn't mark a crypt or a tomb. You know what it is? A coffin is mobile.

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It's mobile. You can pick it up, you can move it. Joseph could have been afforded a lavish tomb in the land of Egypt, a lavish tomb.

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That was a man who had preserved the entire nation of Egypt through a severe seven -year famine that would have wiped out other nations in a heartbeat and it did.

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But because of Joseph's wisdom and because of what he did to preserve that nation, he would have been honored and loved and revered by the entire nation.

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He saved Egypt and he was known throughout the land. He had all of the wealth and treasures that you could possibly want from the land of Egypt.

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His family had access to all of that so that when Joseph died, Ephraim and Manasseh would have inherited all that Joseph had access to and Joseph had access to all the treasures of Egypt.

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And the people of Egypt, including whoever was Pharaoh at the time, would have not spared any expense to erect over Joseph's body any kind of a monument that he or his family could have wanted.

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They had all the resources to do that, but Joseph just insisted that he be put inside of a coffin. And I'm convinced that if Joseph...yeah,

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I'm convinced that if Joseph had not specifically asked that he be taken out of that land in a coffin and buried in the

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Promised Land, if he had allowed himself to be buried in Egypt, there would probably be something akin to a pyramid over his body to this very day.

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That is how much they revered him. Joseph didn't want any of that. He wasn't interested in any of it. Such was his faith.

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He believed that he and his descendants would walk in that land. That's what he believed. He was convinced of it.

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And his instructions here are testimony to coming generations that they should not set their heart or affections on Egypt, or even in this world.

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I want you to notice a couple of things. Notice that Egypt and its treasures had not corrupted any of Joseph's faith, not corrupted his faith.

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He was a servant in Potiphar's house, which brought its own temptation. What was the temptation in Potiphar's house as a servant?

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Lie with me. Not once, not twice, repeatedly. The woman was incessant. There are few men on the face of the planet that would stand that kind of temptation.

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Joseph did. Lie with me. Lie with me. Lie with me. Every single day was the temptation.

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That was the temptation of Potiphar's house. But prison brought its own temptation, or sorry, not prison, the luxury of being a ruler in Egypt brought its own temptations, and that is the temptation that Joseph would fix his hope on the uncertainty of riches.

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Listen to what Spurgeon said. Joseph's position after he had passed through his first trials in Egypt was a very eminent one.

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He possessed unbounded riches. He was the viceroy of the entire country, and Pharaoh had said to him, only in the throne will

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I be greater than you. He was in all respects, except in name, the absolute lord of that great nation.

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He could do as he willed. He was surrounded by all the state of royalty, and when he rode in his chariot through the streets, the heralds cried before him, bow the knee.

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Yet all this did not prevent Joseph's possessing faith in God, and a faith which preserved, persevered even to the end.

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My dear brothers and sisters, the trials of faith are usually those of poverty, and right gloriously does faith behave herself when she trusts in the

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Lord and does well, and is fed even in the land of famine. But it is possible the ordeal of prosperity is far more severe, and it is therefore a greater triumph of faith when the rich man sets not his heart upon uncertain riches and does not allow the thick clay of this world to encumber his pilgrimage to heaven.

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It is difficult to carry a full cup with a steady hand. Some spilling will usually occur, but where divine grace makes rich men and men in high position of power and authority to act becomingly and graciously, then grace is greatly glorified.

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You who are rich should see your danger and let the case of Joseph be your encouragement. God will help you if you seek

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His merciful aid." And then Spurgeon says this, "'Be it remembered, too, that Joseph was not only tried by riches, but that the trial lasted throughout a long life, from almost his early days to the close of his career.

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I suppose that sixty or seventy years at least he stood in the high position of Lord Lieutenant of Egypt, with all the wealth of that great people at his feet, and yet all the time he remained true in heart towards the

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God of his fathers.'" Tried by riches. How many of you would like to be tried by riches?

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That phrase caught my attention. Joseph was tried by riches, and yet we are tried by riches, aren't we?

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You live more comfortable, every person in this room lives more comfortable than Solomon did, the richest man in the world.

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I can walk over to this wall and adjust the temperature in here to within one degree. One degree.

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We travel at speeds and in comfort that Solomon could never dream about. Running water, hot and cold running water, instant hot water, microwaves, the abundance that we enjoy.

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We live better than kings. We know what it means to be tried by riches, right? It is a trial because we understand that rich things and things in this world can distract us from eternal and significant things.

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The things of this world can latch our heart to this world and the comforts in it, and yet Joseph had all of that temptation and he trusted in God, and his faith was as strong as any example that we've seen so far in Hebrews chapter 11.

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So Egypt and its treasures had not corrupted his faith, nor had it clouded the promise, neither the passing of time nor the treasures of Joseph's present caused him to doubt that God was going to fulfill

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His Word. Notice that Joseph's heart, though his body was in Egypt, his heart was still in Canaan, and he had not lived any of his adult life in the land of Canaan.

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From the time that he was 17 to the time that he was 110, we know of only one trip that Joseph took back to Canaan, and that was to bury his father

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Isaac. Other than that, we don't know that Joseph ever went back to that land. And the longer that Joseph would have lived, the more faint and the more clouded and the more passing would be the memories of what it was like before he was 17 to live in that land.

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And certainly by the time he was 17, he had never even glimpsed a portion of the land that was promised to him. And yet though his body was in Egypt, his heart, his mind, his soul, his expectation, his hope was in Canaan.

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He was buried in a coffin in Egypt, but his heart was never there. His hope was never there. Nothing clouded his hope, not the passing of time, not the physical distance from the land, not the fading of his memory, not the comforts of Egypt.

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He knew with certainty that his real inheritance was not on the banks of the Nile, but on the banks of the

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Jordan River. That's where he knew he belonged, and that's where his heart was, even though he never got to live in that land, never got to live in that land.

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The kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ in which you and I will reign and rule with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the rest of the righteous, made righteous saints, that heavenly kingdom which will be brought by a resurrected

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Lord to the land of Canaan and will be established there and transform that land, that will make all of the comforts and all of the conveniences and all of the wealth of Egypt look like nothing by comparison.

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That kingdom will be more glorious than you and I can imagine, and Egypt at the height of its glory and at the height of its wealth and at the height of its power is not even worth comparing to the kingdom of the

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Lord Jesus Christ that you and I will inherit. In fact, if you were to compare Egypt in the height of its power and glory to the coming kingdom of the

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Lord Jesus Christ when He returns with His saints to rule and to reign in this world, if you were to compare those two, it would be like comparing our neck of the woods to some slum in Detroit.

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They're not worthy to be compared with each other. And the joys of ruling the land of Egypt that Joseph would have enjoyed, those joys and all that would come to him because of his rule in Egypt would be like toiling in a diamond mine when compared to what it is going to be like to serve the

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Lord Jesus Christ in that kingdom and to rule and reign with Him there. Joseph understood all of that, and his command here to his descendants was a way of warning them not to get attached to Egypt or any of its trappings.

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They were not going to settle there. This was not their inheritance. They were not Egyptians. They were not going to live in this land.

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The Nile was not their home, and the coffin that Joseph was placed in was a constant reminder to them. I can only imagine if I had been alive at that time,

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I would say, I want that coffin displayed right in the middle of the land of Goshen, right up high where everybody can see it, up on a pedestal.

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I want this to serve as a constant reminder that this is not our home. Joseph told us we're going to leave here someday.

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It would be like a packed bag next to the front door when you're about to go on a trip. Just that packed bag right there would remind you, okay,

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I've got an airplane to catch. I'm going to be leaving here soon. And that packed bag can sit there as just a constant reminder that we're leaving here soon.

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That's what Joseph's coffin was. It was the packed bag by the front door. The entire nation during good times and bad could look at that and say, if it's good,

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I cannot let my affections and my heart be set on Egypt because this is not my home. God's going to take us out of here.

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Joseph knew it, and Joseph knew it because Jacob knew it, and Jacob knew it because Isaac knew it, and Isaac knew it because Abraham knew it, and Abraham knew it because God promised him that.

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And if God promised him that, then it most certainly will come to pass, and since that's what Joseph was expecting, we have to be ready to leave in a moment's notice if the

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Lord should deliver us and take us up. It would be not only a reminder to them that they should not set their affections on Egypt, but it would be an encouragement to them when they began suffering at the hands of the

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Egyptians as slaves. They would be able to constantly remember while looking at Joseph's coffin, this place is not our home.

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We're going out of here. God is going to bring us up. That in itself would serve as a constant reminder and encouragement to them.

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So Egypt and his treasures had not corrupted his faith, had not clouded the promise, and most striking of all, Egypt and his treasures did not change

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Joseph's identity. He never regarded himself as an Egyptian, but as a son of Israel. That is what is most striking of all, as a son of Israel.

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His body was in Egypt, but his heart was in Canaan, and though he was a ruler in Egypt, he really was a stranger in this land, in this world.

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He lived and died in Egypt, but he did not live and die as an Egyptian. You and I live in America. We will die in America, most likely, but we ought not to live and die as Americans, especially as everything goes to the tank around us.

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We don't set our affections here. This world had no grip upon Joseph. The treasures did not turn his heart.

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The power did not corrupt him, and Egypt did not allure him one bit. In many ways, he's just like Moses, who regarded the sufferings of Christ as greater than the treasures of Egypt, and was willing to walk away from that.

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Well, the end of the story, in the Exodus, Moses did take the bones of Joseph. Exodus 13, 19, Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying,

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God will surely take care of you, and you shall carry my bones up from here with you. After the conquest, when they entered the land of Canaan, so this is more than 40 years later, because they're 40 years wandering in the wilderness, they carried that coffin around with them for all 40 of those years, and then in all of the years that it took them to conquer the land, after coming across the

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Jordan River into that land, they finally, at the end of the book of Joshua, just in case you're following the bones of Joseph around in your mind, you've got to get to, where do they, when did they finally bury him?

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Joshua 24, verse 32, now they buried the bones of Joseph, which the sons of Israel brought up from Egypt at Shechem, in this piece of ground, which

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Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for 100 pieces of money, and they became the inheritance of Joseph's sons.

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That's the end of the story, Joseph's bones. One last final consideration about Joseph that makes his faith so remarkable, keep in mind that Joseph was removed from everything that you and I might consider as a strength and encouragement and a support of faith,

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Joseph had all of those things removed from him when he was only 17 years old. He was afflicted and enslaved and betrayed by his brothers.

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He was cut off from his people, his family, his father, his support structure. He was placed among a heathen people with not a single person who worshipped his

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God, not a single one who shared his religion, not a single one who understood his faith or the covenant that God had promised.

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There was no prayer in Potiphar's house, there was no fellowship in the prison, there was no spiritual brethren, no counselor, no teacher, no confidant, no mentor.

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Joseph never enjoyed what you and I are enjoying right now, and that's gathering together with hundreds of other people to worship and praise the true

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God of heaven. He never enjoyed this. From the time of 17, he was cut off from everything that was necessary to make his faith strong.

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He enjoyed none of those supports or encouragements, and on top of that, he finally wed, because Pharaoh gave him this wife, he finally wed the daughter of a priest of a pagan religion.

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Do you not think that that created its own set of difficulties in the home of Joseph? When his wife was the daughter of a pagan priest of one of Egypt's many religions?

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And Joseph would have had to raise all of his children in a culture that viewed his children as Egyptians, and Egyptians first, and Egyptians only.

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And Joseph would have had to raise his kids in that culture, in that custom, and he would have had to remind Ephraim and Manasseh constantly, we are not

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Egyptians, we are Israelites. This is not our home, we have another. You've never seen it, you've never been there, but you and your descendants will go there someday.

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But this is not our home. He had to raise his kids in that context. And how much, unless he converted his wife to worship of the one true

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God, Yahweh, Joseph would have had to do this without any of the support of a believing spouse.

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And he would have had to constantly convince his kids, do not let the world get its grip on you, do not be allured by the treasure of Egypt. And Ephraim and Manasseh would have been descendants of Joseph, would have had access to all of the wealth and all of the comfort that Joseph enjoyed.

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Joseph had to wage war against the false religion, possibly in his own household, but certainly in Pharaoh's court, when everyone around him was an idolater.

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Friends, you will live and die in this world, but you must do so as a soldier. Being in this world but not of this world, being in this world but not having the world in you, being in this world and keeping your hope on the world that is to come and understanding everything around us is passing away.

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We're going to lose all of it, it's all going away, and it is all meaningless. Listen to what

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Spurgeon says, and with this I close. Do not forget that during a great part of that time, Joseph had not one single person to associate with who was of his own faith.

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Think what a trial that must have been to him. Joseph was removed to a place where there was no prayer in the household, no friends, no godly teacher to speak a word with, no one who knew of Yahweh or the covenant made with Israel.

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He was all alone, alone, alone in the midst of an idolatrous people with all the temptations of Egypt before him.

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He was possessed of its riches and its treasures and tempted to live as the people lived in all manner of heathenism, and yet for all that, listen, he endured as seeing him who is invisible, and at the last he died full of confident, joyous, and godly belief in the

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God of his fathers." May God grant us the grace to do the same. Let's pray.

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Our Father, we do praise you for your goodness to us. Thank you for saving us out of a wicked and corrupt world, and we pray that we may be constantly encouraged by the example of Joseph, who though he enjoyed such lavish wealth and blessings did not allow them to make his heart to cling to this world or to the treasures that he possessed.

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We pray that by your grace you would strengthen us and encourage us in our faith that we may be bold in it, and that you would strengthen our hearts for all that you have appointed for us in this life.

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Be glorified, we pray, through our obedience, and give us this kind of faith to end our days joyous and confident, fully assured that you will bring to pass all your good pleasure and everything you have promised to your people in Christ Jesus, in whose name we pray.

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Amen. To those who are called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ, may mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.