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Frederick the Great ruled the kingdom of Prussia for 46 years in the 18th century. He once wondered about how he could know that God existed. So he asked a Catholic priest this question. His answer to the king was one word, Israel.
Of all the things he could have said, he told the great Prussian king that Israel's existence shows God's existence. Israel is, of course, God's chosen people, starting with Abraham. When we look at all the peoples in Old Testament history, there are many peoples.
We see the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the list goes on and on. These peoples were morphed over time into other peoples. But there is one ethnic group that has never morphed into another, and that is Israel.
The continued existence of this people is remarkable when we look at world history. They have faced extinction many times, from Antiochus Epiphanes' effort to destroy the Jews in the 2nd century BC to Adolf Hitler's effort in the 20th century.
What one can see clearly is that the Lord has protected his people throughout history. People have always had an irrational hatred toward the Jewish people, and we see it to this day. This can only be explained by the fact that people's hatred of God leads them to hate his people, and certainly Satan is influencing this as well.
In the present day, there are some 14 million Jews in the world. So why does the Lord keep Israel around? He keeps them around because he's not done with his ancient people, with whom he has made very great promises in ancient times.
In Romans 9 -11, the Apostle Paul explained that a temporary hardening has come over Israel that will be removed in the future. This is why so many Jews do not believe in Jesus Christ. This hardening will be removed when Christ returns at some point in the future.
At Christ's first coming, Jesus was largely rejected by the nation of Israel. But when he comes in the future, he will be received by many Jews alive at that time. The prophecy in Zechariah 13 -8 says that one-third of the Jewish people will be saved.
When Jesus returns, they are going to believe in him. So when Paul says, all Israel will be saved, he is referring to the one-third of the Jews in Zechariah 13 -8. The Lord will not only save Israel in the future, but he will also restore them to the land promised to Abraham about 4 ,000 years ago.
The Lord promised that he would give them the land from the Euphrates River in present-day Iraq to the Nile River in Egypt in Genesis 15 -18. At no point in history has Israel held this full piece of land.
And I'm afraid that many Bible interpreters overlook this important fact. The Lord also promised in Genesis 17 -8 that Israel would possess this land forever. When the Lord led Joshua and the Israelites in the 13th and 14th centuries BC to take over the promised land, this was only a partial fulfillment of these promises.
For the Lord to be true to his promises, Israel must have the land of Canaan, the full land, from the Euphrates River to the Nile River, and they must have it forever. And you may wonder, where does the Bible teach that this will be fulfilled?
The answer is in Revelation 21 -6. The period known as the Millennial Kingdom. The Millennial reign of Christ. This is why I believe it is important to hold to a literal future millennium. For the Lord to be true to his promises, he has to finally fulfill his promises to his ancient covenant people.
When Christ returns, he will then reign in Israel with God's people for 1 ,000 years. This is why God keeps Israel around. And this is the very bright future he has for them. So as Christians, we should be those who have a special love for ethnic Jews and a great hope for them with the bright future the Lord has promised them.
What we saw earlier in Genesis 12 -3, many, many months ago, probably over a year ago, we saw that the Lord will bless those who bless Abraham. In other words, the Lord will bless those who bless Israel, Abraham's offspring.
We should be those who pray for them and treat them well, in a similar way we do with the church, with our fellow believers. So why do I begin this sermon by talking about Israel, past, present, and future?
I bring this up because the focus of the sermon is God keeping his promises to his covenant people. And as he keeps his promises to them, so he keeps his promises to us, 21st century Christians in the church.
As we continue our sermon series through Genesis, we are going to be looking at Genesis 46 this morning. So I encourage you to turn there with me. If you're using a red Bible in the pews, it's on pages 46 and 47.
This sermon is titled, God's Far-Off Promises. And our big idea, our proposition is this. The Lord always keeps his promises to his people. And we only have one point this morning. We have one way how the Lord keeps his promises to his people in this text.
And that is by fulfilling first promises that anticipate far-off ones. By fulfilling first promises that anticipate far-off ones. And we'll see this in verses 1 through 27 of our text in Genesis 46.
But before we jump into this sermon, I want to give a little recap of last week. Last week in our sermon, we looked at Genesis 45 where Joseph had recently revealed his identity to his brothers. The brothers were surprised to find out that this powerful man whom they feared was the same brother whom they sold into slavery all those years before.
What we saw is that Joseph had a forgiving spirit toward them. Instead of punishing them, he wept with them and asked about their father Jacob. Once it was clear that Joseph had forgiven his brothers, what we saw is how well he treated them.
This was evidence that he did indeed forgive them. What I showed you is that we should not see Genesis 45, 9 through 28 primarily as how we should treat our biological family. We should, of course, love our biological family abundantly.
But the focus of this text was how to treat the family of God, your brothers and sisters in the Lord. What we saw earlier in the chapter in verse 7 is that one of the reasons God sent Joseph to Egypt was to preserve the offspring of Abraham, also known as Israel.
And what we saw in the remainder of the chapter is how one should treat others who belong to the family of God. In verses 9 through 23, we saw Joseph show generous hospitality to his brothers. This was one Israelite showing hospitality to another Israelite as he provided for them abundantly.
And when they went back to Egypt to retrieve their father, this is the way that they went back from Joseph's hospitality that he showed them. Joseph also promised them a nice piece of land in Egypt that would be their new home.
And the application for us is clear. We should show generous hospitality to our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Eureka Baptist Church should be a place where different kinds of hospitality take place regularly.
We also saw in verse 24 that Joseph told his brothers not to quarrel with one another. This brought out the clear application for us that we should not quarrel with each other but be unified. We should always aim for unity and peace and not be those who are okay with division and staying in conflict.
Those were the two house rules that we should follow as a church. And if we do this, we will experience the blessing of the Lord. That brings us to our text this morning. We are going to be looking at chapter 46 where Jacob leaves his homeland to go to Egypt along with his whole family.
And finally, the reunion between Jacob and Joseph will occur. The point I already made is we will see the Lord assuring Jacob that his promises to him and his offspring are firm. Let's begin by reading verses 1 through 4.
So Israel took his journey with all that he had and came to Beersheba and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. And God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here I am.
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 will also bring you up again.
And Joseph's hand shall close your eyes. So as we saw at the end of chapter 45, Joseph's brothers arrived in Canaan to tell their father the wonderful news that Joseph was still alive and that he had risen to be the number two man in Egypt.
So what we see in verse 1 is that Jacob leaves Canaan to head to Egypt. And as he went on his journey from his hometown of Hebron, the first place he arrived was Beersheba. There he offered sacrifices to the Lord.
Jacob's following in the footsteps of his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac as they offered sacrifices to the Lord. And these were sacrifices of praise to God. These were just an act of worship to the Lord.
Later on in the sacrificial system that was set up through Moses, there were different kinds of sacrifices. Some sacrifices were intended to pay for sins, while other sacrifices were merely meant as worship and praise of God.
And that's what Jacob is doing here. Then as the Lord has done in several places in Genesis, and as He has done before to Jacob, the Lord speaks to Jacob in a vision. Verse 2 says that the Lord called out Jacob's name twice.
Jacob, Jacob. And Jacob says in return, here am I. What's interesting about the Lord's conversation with Jacob and his forefathers is He typically tells them the same thing. Think about this. If you could say one thing to a specific person, what would that be?
This is what the Lord does to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He tells them one thing, typically, and what He tells them is the Abrahamic promises. That they would have many offspring, as many as the stars in the heavens.
That they would inherit the land of Canaan forever. This is what the Lord tells Jacob. He says, I am the God, the God of your father. Earlier in Genesis 28, during Jacob's latter dream, the Lord told Jacob that He is the God of his fathers.
And then told him the Abrahamic promises that his offspring would have the land of Canaan. So as Jacob is hearing this from the Lord, I am God, the God of your father. The Abrahamic promises would come to his mind here.
He would be thinking about what the Lord told Abraham in Genesis 15. And what He told Isaac, and what He's already told him. So in verse 3, when the Lord reminds Jacob that He is the God of his father, this is what He wants him to be thinking about.
Jacob needs to hear this at this moment because he may be afraid of these future promises not coming to pass. And the reason is, if they settle in Egypt, are the promises still firm? These promises that were made to them in Canaan.
The specific promises that they would have the land of Canaan. The Lord tells Jacob in the second half of verse 3, that he should not fear going down to Egypt. The promises still stand. The Lord is not going to leave him and his ancestors in Egypt, never to return again to the land the Lord promised to them.
The Lord is going to keep His promises as He always does. The Lord tells Jacob that I am going to prosper your offspring in Egypt, and He will make His people into a great nation. Then in verse 4, He tells Jacob that He will bring him up again.
This is not referring specifically to Jacob. In this part of the verse, Jacob represents his people. We've seen this before. The verse I already quoted in Genesis 12, 3, Abraham represents his people.
If you honor Abraham, you will be honored. If you dishonor him, you will be cursed. That's not just referring to Abraham. That's referring to his people. The same goes here. This isn't just referring to Jacob coming back to Canaan.
It's referring to his offspring coming back. And this will fulfill the Abrahamic covenant. And not only does the Lord promise Jacob that the whole nation is going to come back to the land of Canaan. He also promises Jacob that his body will be buried.
And it will be buried near Mamre, the same place that his grandfather Abraham was buried and his father Isaac was buried. So this would have been comforting for Jacob to hear. And after being reminded of the certainty of the Lord's promises, he sets out from Beersheba.
Now let's read the brief description about the journey to Egypt in verses 5 through 7. Then Jacob set out from Beersheba. The sons of Israel carried Jacob, their father, the little ones, and their wives, in the wagons that 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 his offspring with him, his sons and his sons' sons with him, his daughters and his sons' daughters, all his offspring he brought with him into Egypt.
Okay, let's stop right there. So Joseph's brothers brought Jacob along with their wives and their children, and they trekked to Egypt. To remind you, this is not just a biological family moving from one place to another.
This is a nation, the nation of Israel. This small nation of ethnic Israelites are settling in a foreign land. This is a significant historical event. This nation would dwell in a foreign land for hundreds of years until Moses would later lead them out, and then Joshua would finally lead them to the Promised Land.
It's fascinating to see how generous Pharaoh is to them. Later on, they would run into a Pharaoh, a different Pharaoh, of course, that would treat them very poorly. In fact, the future Pharaoh would force them into slavery.
So we're seeing the opposite here. This Pharaoh is showing hospitality to them. And the future Pharaoh in the time of Moses is going to force them into slavery. And to remind you, Moses is writing this, and as he's writing this, he explains to his readers how they ended up in Egypt.
And his readers are also reminded that Egypt is not where they belong long term. Their future is in the land of promise, the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now after getting this report of the Lord's conversation with Jacob and the trek of him and the family to Egypt, we run into a genealogy in verses 8 through 27, and you might be wondering, oh no, another genealogy.
Typically our first instinct when we see a genealogy is, this isn't important to me, this is boring, we should just skip over it. But what we know from 2 Timothy 3 .16, it says, So let's see what the Lord wants us to see in this genealogy.
And we're going to see what this means to the original audience and also to our audience here in the 21st century. And what I want you to keep in mind here is that as Moses is writing this to his fellow Israelites in the 15th century, these events occurred only several hundred years before this.
So they would know these ancestors. These would have been names they recognized. It's kind of like us learning about our founding fathers. And you can even trace your ancestry back to maybe people who were in this country early on.
So this would have been interesting to them. And what we're going to see here is this is a genealogy of the 12 tribes of Israel. The 12 tribes of Israel are the 12 sons of Jacob and the lions that come from each of the 12 sons.
So let's read this and then we'll see what we need to get out of it in verses 8 through 27. This is an extended reading, so stay with me here. Now these are the names of the descendants of Israel who came into Egypt.
Jacob and his sons, Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, and the sons of Reuben, Hanak, Palu, Hezron, and Carmi, the sons of Simeon, Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jakin, Zohar, and Shal, the son of a Canaanite woman, the sons of Levi, Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, the sons of Judah, Ur, Onan, Shela, Perez, and Zerah.
But Ur and Onan died in the land of Canaan, and the sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamu, the sons of Issachar, Tola, Puvah, Job, and Shimron, the sons of Zebulun, Sered, Elan, and Jalhil. These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob and put on a ram, together with his daughter Dinah.
Altogether, his sons and his daughters, number 33, the sons of Gad, Ziphion, Hagi, Chuni, Esbon, Eri, Erodi, and Ereli, the sons of Asher, Imnah, Ishva, Ishvi, Beriah, with Sarah their sister, and the sons of Beriah, Heber, and Melchiel.
These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah, his daughter, and these she bore to Jacob. Sixteen persons, the sons of Rachel, Jacob's wife, Joseph and Benjamin, and to Joseph in the land of Egypt, were born Manasseh and Ephraim, who Asenath, the daughter of Potipharah, the priest of On, bore to him.
And the sons of Benjamin, Bela, Betcher, Ashpeel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Mupim, Hupim, and Ard. These are the sons of Rachel, who were born to Jacob. Fourteen persons in all. The son of Dan, Hushim, the sons of Naphtali, Jaziel, Guni, Jezer, and Shelim.
These are the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to Rachel, his daughter, and these she bore to Jacob. Seven sons in all. All the persons belonging to Jacob, who came into Egypt, who were his own descendants, not including Jacob's sons, wives, were sixty persons in all.
And the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were two. All the persons of the house of Jacob, who came into Egypt, were seventy. Okay, so let's stop right there. Let's take a deep breath after reading all that.
So what we read here is that about seventy people who descended from Jacob made their way to Canaan from Egypt. I should say, yeah that's right, from Canaan to Egypt. But the text mentions in verse 26 that Jacob's sons' wives were not included in the number.
And you'll notice here that sons are included and not daughters. And we can guess there's probably not just boys who are being born, but girls who are being born as well. So the number here might be somewhere over a hundred people.
But again, this is not just a biological family relocating from one place to another. This is a nation relocating. So what did the original audience need to see in these verses? And what do we need to see?
The key verses of this whole chapter are verses 3 and 4. Every passage of scripture has a main point, and we need to find that main point by looking at the key verses. In verses 3 through 4, the Lord told Jacob that he is the God of his father.
And what I already told you is that when he tells him this, he wants him to think of the Abrahamic promises. The Lord is going to multiply Abraham's offspring, make them into a great nation, and bring them back to the land of Canaan, giving them the land as their possession.
What we need to see here is that the Lord is a promise-keeping God. When the original readers read this, they would have been reminded that God is going to bring you back to Canaan. So when the 15th century Israelites read this story of their first ancestors going to Egypt, their ancestors from the twelve sons of Jacob, who were listed here, they would have been reminded of God's promises.
All these people that came down to Egypt mattered dearly to the Lord because the Lord was going to be faithful to his covenant people. The Lord told Jacob in verse 3,. Now sadly, the first readers of this in the 15th century, we know from biblical history that they rebelled and they did not make it into the land of Canaan.
It was the generation after that that was given the promised land. But the generation that went into the land would have been greatly encouraged by this genealogy and these promises not to be afraid to be in Egypt because the land of Canaan is going to be yours in the future.
This passage should be a great encouragement to you and I also. When the original readers read this passage, the promises were in process, but they had not yet been completely fulfilled. They saw their offspring multiply greatly, but they had not yet entered the land.
And what this meant is that they were a growing nation, but they were not yet an organized nation where they had their own land and own government. They had to trust that was coming later. They had already seen some of God's promises come to pass, so He had already multiplied their offspring.
But surely, if this was the case, then the other promises were going to take place also. These promises are firm. And if you think about it, this is very similar to our experience as present day believers.
We see the Lord's promises happening all around us. The Lord promised that He would save many and build His church. Jesus said, I will build my church in Matthew 16, 18. I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
In Romans 8, 29, it says those whom He predestined, He also called. Those whom He called, He also justified. Those whom He justified, He also glorified. That verse in Romans is called the golden chain.
You'll notice that every one of those verbs is in the past tense. Which means that they are a done deal for believers. The Lord planned for you to be saved. Then during your life, you are called. When you believed, you were justified.
And because all these things have happened, in the future, you will be glorified. And to be glorified means that you will enter a state of perfection in the future, in the presence of God, where there will be fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore.
So let me put this together. Since God is a covenant-keeping God who always keeps His promises, and we already see His promises coming to pass in our lives, as He has saved many in this room, and we already see His promise that He is making us more like Him, what we need to pull from this as an application to us, is that God will finish His promises, just as He planned to keep His promises for Israel, to bring them into the land.
We are in the process of seeing the Lord fulfill His promises, and we should be encouraged by the certainty that He will fulfill His promises completely to us. Theologian J .I. Packer, who wrote a wonderful book titled Knowing God, he describes something here in summary.
I'm summarizing this here. He says, sometimes Christians worry that he or she will be the only one who will somehow be exempt from God's promises, that he is going to somehow bail on this person, but he's going to keep his promises to everyone else.
That's not what God does. He keeps His promises to all His people, and He brings them to pass completely. If you belong to the Lord here today, you should have utter confidence in Him. And if you do not know the Lord, I call you to believe in the Lord Jesus so that these wonderful promises would be yours.
Jesus died in your place. He was raised from the dead. He paid the penalty for your sins so that you don't have to face future punishment. Believe in Him this day. We should have utter confidence in the promises of God.
The promises we experience now give us confidence in the far-off promises. And if we are honest, the concept of one always keeping his promises is so foreign to us. Most of our experience with promises comes from people who don't keep their promises.
Either someone doesn't keep their promises to us, or we don't keep our promises to them, and we get hurt by that. But the Lord isn't like that. He is perfect in character. He can never break His promises, and so He always keeps His promises to His children.
We should be greatly encouraged that the Lord always keeps His promises. You can always live in eager anticipation of the fulfillment of His glorious promises. Now as we close out this chapter, we are finally going to see the reunion between Joseph and Jacob at the end here.
So let's read this in verses 28 -34 as we wrap up today. Let's read this together. Now let me die, since I have seen your face and know that you are still alive. Joseph said to his brothers and to his father's household, I will go up and 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 until now, both we and our fathers, in order that you may dwell in the land of Goshen. For every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.
So Goshen is the land where Jacob and his descendants are going to live. So that is where Joseph met Jacob and his family. And as you might expect, when they saw each other, they wept. It had been over 20 years since Jacob and Joseph had seen each other.
Jacob thought he was dead and Joseph thought he would never see his father again. So this reunion was very sweet. In verse 30, Jacob says that he is ready to die now that he has seen his son. And when Jacob first learned the false report that his son had died in Genesis 37, remember what he said?
He said he was so sorrowful that he would always be sorrowful until the day he died. And now that he hears this news, he says, Now I can die because I am going to die in joy. And in the last four verses of this chapter, the Lord informs his brothers to make sure to tell Pharaoh that they are shepherds.
And the reason he does this is because Joseph wants to give them the land of Goshen. Joseph does not want the offspring of Abraham to be combined with another people group. He wants to keep them separate.
This is God's providence here. One of the ways he keeps them separate from becoming a different people group and losing their identity as a nation. So the land of Goshen is where he wants them to be. So by telling the Pharaoh that we are shepherds, this will ensure that they are not put in a place where they are combined with another people.
So this wraps up the chapter. What we must see as the main idea in this chapter is the Lord's commitment to his people. Jacob was comforted from the fact that going to Egypt with all his family did not nullify the great Abrahamic promises that his people would inherit the land of Canaan and that this would be their forever possession.
The trustworthiness the Lord has shown already assured them that he would be trustworthy in the future. And the same goes for us. We can trust the Lord. With the far off promises, he has already been so faithful to us.
Now next Sunday, we will look at Genesis 47. We're going to look at the first 12 verses of the chapter. And we're going to see Jacob and his family settle in their new home in Egypt. And I look forward to opening the word to you.
Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the word of God. I thank you that it's living and active and it's sharper than any two-edged sword. And it does so much more than we can see. And I pray, Lord, that you would use this message to impact anyone who can hear me right now.
Whether it's someone who needs to believe in Christ for the first time or whether it's a believer who needs to hear these promises today because of the hardships of life, the Lord that you're not going to abandon them.
You are going to stand with them. You are going to keep your promises to the end to your people. So encourage your people today and beyond with this word. In Jesus' name, amen.