Destiny by Decree

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn to Genesis 37 and hold your place there at verse 1.
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We'll be reading verses 1 to 11.
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We come today to one of the most common, or rather, excuse me, one of the most familiar passages in the Bible.
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Just about every Sunday schooler, especially those of my generation, were taught this story as part of their younger education.
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It's been printed in children's illustrated Bibles.
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It's been retold in countless cartoons.
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And it makes sense because this whole chapter and beginning, this whole section of Genesis is just filled with drama.
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Fatherly favoritism, sibling rivalry, youthful naivete, murderous plotting, devious scheming, and sincere heartache.
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Just this chapter alone is filled with bitterness.
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The word hatred, or hated rather, is used three times in the first 11 chapters.
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His brothers hated him threefold.
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But before we go through the text and remind ourselves of that which we are familiar, I think it's important that we understand how this narrative, how this story fits into the larger narrative of Scripture.
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You'll remember that I have talked about through our series in Genesis how important the headings are.
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The headings not in the English Bible, but the headings in the Hebrew, which give us 10 marking posts through the text, 10 places in the text.
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And those 10 places are called the Toledotes in Hebrew, or the phrase, these are the generations of.
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And each of those 10 begins a new section of the book.
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We saw last week the Toledote of Esau, the generations of Esau, which told us about the nation of Edom.
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But today we begin the Toledote of Jacob.
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And this will take us through the end of the book.
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This will take us throughout the rest of Genesis.
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It will be the generations or the heritage.
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That's another way to translate the word Toledote.
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It is the heritage of Jacob.
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And, of course, what is the heritage of Jacob? 12 sons, the 12 nations, the 12 tribes.
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In fact, we're going to note that one of the sons is going to take a very important place.
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His name is Joseph.
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And I want to if I had my I don't have my whiteboard, and maybe I should have brought it.
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There's something interesting in the Hebrew, and you can't see this in English.
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But what the Hebrew literally reads in the first few verse are the first four words of Genesis 37 is this.
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Ale, Toledote, Yachov, Yosef.
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And what that says is these are the generations of Jacob, Joseph.
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Literally the next word in that line is the word Joseph.
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So it's again, it's these are the generations of Jacob.
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Boom, Joseph is the first one.
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And that might make us think that Joseph is the focal point of the rest of the book.
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And many people do think that many people think the rest of this book is really about Joseph.
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But what we must not forget is it's not about Joseph only.
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This is about all of the brothers.
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And actually, the one who plays an important role in the background is actually Judah.
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From the perspective of a biblical narrative, I want to ask you a question of between Joseph and Judah.
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Who really holds the place of preeminence? It has to be Judah, right? Because Judah will take not only precedence toward the end of the book, especially when he offers himself up as a sack, a seeming sacrifice later in chapter 44.
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But there will come a time when Judah will be told you will be the one through whom the kings come.
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The scepter shall not depart from Judah.
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And then we know David is the son of Judah.
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He is he is of the tribe of Judah.
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And then, of course, Jesus is the son of David, which David, which makes him the from the tribe of Judah.
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I want to read what Bruce Waltke says in this text.
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Listen to this.
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More more than a so-called Joseph story, though, it opens the curtain on Joseph as a teenager and closes upon his death.
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This account concerns God's covenant.
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Listen, this account concerns God's covenant dealings with the patriarchs and the establishment of his plans for the children of Israel.
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He keeps covenant by transforming all of Jacob's children, particularly Judah, to make them his covenant partners.
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You see, Abraham was God's covenant partner.
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Isaac was God's covenant Parker partner.
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Jacob was God's covenant partner.
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And now he is using this event to transform the sons of Israel.
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Particularly Judah.
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So if we ask the question and this is a question we should always ask, where is Christ? Anytime we're reading the Old Testament, we're studying the Old Testament.
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We ask the question, where is Christ? Well, Christ is is pictured for us in two ways in our text.
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One in the person of Joseph, and I'm going to talk about that a little later.
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Joseph becomes a type of Christ, but it's also pictured in the loins of Judah.
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Christ is in the line of this one called Judah.
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So as we read this text, we will dive into some of the small details.
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But let us not lose the bigger picture.
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Let us not lose the providential hand of God who is working out his plan in redemptive history, not just in the life of Joseph, not just in the life of Judah, but in the life of all of us as he looks forward to bringing forth his son out of this family filled with drama.
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So today we're going to focus on verses 1 to 11.
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I was thinking of trying to do the whole chapter, and I think I'm going to start slowing down a bit.
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I've been taking chapter by chapter for several months now, and I'm going to slow down and just do a few verses today so that we can really focus on the introduction to this section.
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Let's stand and read Genesis 37 verses one to 11.
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Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojournings in the land of Canaan.
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These are the generations of Jacob.
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Joseph, being 17 years old, was pastoring the flock with his brothers.
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He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives.
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And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father.
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Now, Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons because he was the son of his old age.
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And he made him a robe of many colors.
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And when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.
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Now, Joseph had a dream.
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When he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more.
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He said to them, hear this dream that I have dreamed.
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Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field and behold, my sheaf rose and stood upright.
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And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.
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His brothers said to him, are you indeed to reign over us or are you indeed to rule over us? So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.
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Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, behold, I have dreamed another dream.
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Behold, the sun, moon and 11 stars were bowing down to me.
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But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, what is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come and bow ourselves to the ground before you? And his brothers were jealous of him.
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But his father kept the same in mind.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I want to pray first and foremost, Lord.
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That you would keep me from error.
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For Lord, I am a fallible man.
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I'm capable of preaching error and I don't want to.
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I've said that hundreds of times, but it's the truth.
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Lord, I don't want to preach that which is incorrect.
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So I pray that you would keep me from that.
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Pray that by the power of your spirit, you would speak through your word and through your messenger.
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But Lord, that it would be your spirit who goes out and teaches the heart.
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Lord, that it would make it past the ear and past the brain and into the heart.
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And Lord, for those who are believers, that today would be a day where we are confronted with the truth of the word and conform to it.
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Lord, for those who do not know Christ, whether they be young or old, whether they be visitor or member.
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If Lord, if there are those today who know not Christ for whatever reason, maybe they've made a false profession.
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Lord, let today be the day that you turn them from sin.
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That you reach down into the muck and the mire, you pull them out and you wash them clean in the blood of the lamb.
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Lord, may we see Christ today.
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In Jesus name.
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Amen.
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Earlier in my introduction, I used the word type.
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And for a moment, I want to just mention what that means, because I understand that many of you know already, but some of you may not.
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And it's always important to explain when I use words exactly what it is that I'm talking about.
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And by the way, this is a reminder of something Adam said earlier.
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He mentioned that tonight is a class in the academy that everybody's welcome to come to.
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Ordinarily, it's only for the students of the academy.
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But tonight's class is seeing Jesus in the Old Testament.
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That is the class.
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And we're going to look at how Jesus is pictured throughout the Old Testament in types and shadows and illustrations.
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And so if you are not a member of the academy, you're still welcome to come, because that is an important thing that Christians need to know how to see Christ in the Old Testament.
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Having said that, we are seeing a picture of Christ about to rise up before our very eyes, because Joseph has been seen by many commentators and including, you know, myself and others have seen Joseph as a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ in many ways.
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When we think about what is how does that work? How what do we mean by a type? Well, in the New Testament, there are times where Jesus talks about being in the Old Testament.
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You remember in Luke, chapter 24, when he was talking to the men on the road to Emmaus, those disciples.
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And he says it says that he explained to them himself from all the scriptures, starting with Moses.
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So Jesus explained how he was pictured in the Old Testament, starting with Moses.
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And we see these throughout the New Testament, as in like Adam is a type of Christ.
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First Corinthians 15, 22, as an Adam, all die.
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So in Christ, all are made alive.
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First Corinthians or Matthew 24, 37, as in the days of Noah.
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So will the days of the son of man be John 3, 14, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.
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So must the son of man be lifted up.
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Matthew 12, 40, as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale.
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So will the son of man be three days and three nights in the belly of the earth.
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All of these are pictures of Christ.
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They're illustrations, types and shadows of Christ.
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Some of them are not explicitly stated, but are inferred.
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The ark is a type of Christ.
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Those who come into the ark are protected from the wrath of God, which is outside.
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And Jesus says, all who come into me will be saved.
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All who are in Christ are saved from the wrath of God.
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The ark then becomes an illustration of Christ.
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The ram that was caught in the thicket that substituted for Isaac when Isaac was on the altar and Abraham was about to plunge his knife into his throat.
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The ram becomes a substitute and thus becomes a picture of Christ.
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The scapegoat where the high priest would pray over that goat and would send that goat out into the wilderness to carry the sins of the people and to expiate their sins.
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That is a picture of Christ who carries away our sin.
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And we go through the Old Testament and there are people, Moses, Boaz, David.
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All of them are pictures of Christ.
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They're illustrations of the Messiah who was to come.
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And then we look at the story of Joseph and we say there's such a wonderful picture of Christ in the person of Joseph.
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Joseph was adored by, exalted by, and sent by his father.
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Joseph was hated by, despised by, and humiliated by his brothers.
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Joseph receives a promise of authority from God.
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Joseph is sold for money.
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He becomes a servant.
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He resists temptation.
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He's falsely accused.
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He makes no attempt to defend himself when he is accused.
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He's numbered with transgressors.
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And what's interesting about that is those two transgressors that he's numbered with.
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One is blessed.
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One is cursed.
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Jesus is numbered with transgressors.
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One is blessed.
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One is cursed.
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There's so many parallels in the life of Christ, in the life of Joseph.
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And there are many more.
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There's a list of some 60 some odd comparisons in the life of Joseph, in the life of Christ.
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He saves his people, most importantly.
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He becomes a figure of a savior.
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That's why I've titled today's lesson, Destiny by Decree.
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This was no accident.
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Nothing that we are going to read for the rest of Genesis.
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Could anyone come to the conclusion, well that just happened by chance.
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By the way, nothing happens by chance.
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You realize that, right church? You're not here today by chance.
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You don't do anything by chance.
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You don't do anything that is not a part of God's decree in your own life.
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God is the one who is sovereign, not you.
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God is the one who is in the driver's seat, not you.
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People always want to flout their independence and their superiority and their authority over their own lives.
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God is sovereign over the very heart that's beating in your chest.
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And God will show that to us in the life of Joseph.
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Because from the very moment we are introduced to this young man, we see God working in his life throughout the book to accomplish his purpose.
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And by the way, here's the thing that you need to understand.
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We're going to really key in on this in chapters 41, 44, and 50.
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We're going to really key in on this idea that whatever you're going through in life, God has a purpose for it.
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Because oftentimes we get so upset because we don't understand why we're going through what we're going through.
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And I understand.
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I get it.
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Sometimes we're going through hard times and we don't understand what the reason is.
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But understanding that God does not have anything that we go through that does not have a greater purpose.
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And sometimes that purpose is simply his own glory in our life.
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And that's what we see in the life of Joseph.
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God's glory is being magnified through this situation.
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So we're going to look today at three parts.
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We have a simple outline.
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I normally give you a broader outline today.
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Real simple.
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And here it is.
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Three parts.
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We're going to look at the reporting of the brothers, the receiving of the robe, and the recounting of the dreams.
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And we'll see if we can get all that in in our normal time.
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Let's look first at the reporting of the brothers.
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It says in chapter 37, verse 1, it says, Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojournings in the land of Canaan.
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Now, by the way, just just to throw this out there, verse one is actually not where the chapter break should be.
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If you were actually doing the chapter breaks, whoever wrote whoever put the chapter breaks in, whenever they came in, we know that was well after the original was written.
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This actually first one is actually connected to the last.
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Narrative, because what is last week, you guys were here.
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It's about the the the the Toledot of Esau.
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And the Toledot of Esau was that Esau took his family, left the promised land, moved to Syre, which is south, and he established the land of Edom in Syre.
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And what happened in the promised land? Jacob takes over.
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Jacob becomes the one who is the authority in the promised land.
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That becomes his land.
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And so verse one, it says, Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojournings in the land of Canaan.
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That's actually connecting back to the last chapter.
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And this chapter actually begins at verse two.
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Verse two says this.
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These are the generations.
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This is the Toledot of Jacob.
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Joseph being one or excuse me, seven and ten.
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That's the way the Hebrew reads it being seven and ten years, which is 17, which means he was a he was a young man, but still considered basically an adult.
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He was pastoring the flock with his brothers.
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He was a boy with the sons and it calls him a boy or a child or young man.
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He is a young man, a child with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah.
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Now, who are Bilhah and Zilpah? They are the concubines or called the wives.
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They are the they are the handmaidens of Leah and Rachel.
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You remember, Jacob only wanted one wife.
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He wanted Rachel to be his wife.
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He worked seven years for Rachel.
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Dad pulled the old switcheroo.
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He got the wrong wife, woke up the next morning.
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Surprise.
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Now I've got Leah and I've got to work another seven years to get Rachel.
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He gets Rachel and then he gets two handmaidens.
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And from those handmaidens, he gets four children of the twelve.
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Six of the twelve are from Leah.
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Four of the twelve are from Bilhah and Zilpah.
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And two are from his beloved wife, Rachel.
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And the four that are from Bilhah and Zilpah are the ones that he is working with in the field.
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This would have been Naphtali, Dan, Asher and Gad.
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And he's out working in the field.
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And it says he brought a bad report of them to his father.
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Now, just for a minute.
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Sometimes I encourage you.
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I always say, you know, we need to read, not read into the text things that aren't there, but we need to imagine sort of the picture of what's happening in the text and sort of try to put ourselves in a situation that can say, OK, help it.
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R.C.
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Sproul called this reading existentially.
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Not as an existentialist, but existentially in the sense that we understand these are real people at a real place at real time with real emotions, real feelings.
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They're real.
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They truly existed.
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And when we read, we need to try to understand what's happening.
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Joseph is out in the field working with the sons of the two wives.
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Something has happened that is wrong.
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And Joseph decides that it is his duty to take that information back to his father.
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And I want to ask you a quick question.
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Do you think that that increased his popularity? Nobody likes a tattletale.
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That is just the way it is.
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And we see the hatred of the brothers begin with this moment.
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And by the way, I want to tell you something.
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You know, I don't read a ton of commentaries because as I was talking to Mike Ward, we had lunch yesterday.
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I said, you know, there's so many commentaries out there blow your mind.
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And you've got to kind of read only kind of the best ones you can get and sometimes read people disagree with you.
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That way you can be challenged.
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But you can't read 20, 30 commentaries.
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You know, you've got to kind of limit it to the best ones.
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But even the ones that I do read, the few that I do consult as I'm going through my exegesis, they were all over the map about this.
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Some guys really lay into Jacob.
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I'm sorry, Joseph.
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They really lay into him as he is a bad guy.
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In fact, one of them even interpret this.
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The term bad report here in the Hebrew can be translated false report.
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And one commentator really ran with that saying Jacob told or Joseph told a lie about his brothers.
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There's nothing in the text to indicate that this is a lie.
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But there are those who would believe Joseph.
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And what I think they're trying to do is I think they're trying to hang some kind of guilt upon Joseph.
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But what's interesting, though, is the Bible never does that.
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Now, I'm not saying Joseph was sinless.
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He is not sinless because he is a fallen son of Adam.
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But the Bible never, never hangs any guilt.
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He is one of the men in the Bible we would call above reproach.
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Right? And I think they're just trying to find something to hang on him.
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This guy, he did this because he was vindictive.
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He did this, it was a false report.
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There's nothing indicating that.
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In fact, I prefer to look at this a much different way.
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Because even Bruce Waltke, who I love.
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Bruce Waltke says he is a pestering little tattletale.
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I don't think of it that way.
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Even though I respect Bruce Waltke.
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Here's what I think.
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I think Joseph demonstrates in this moment.
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A concern for what is right.
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He is concerned for what is righteous.
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Now we can call people tattletales and maybe people shouldn't be telling tales or whatever.
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But the brothers were doing something wrong.
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The brothers were doing something unrighteous.
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And Joseph brings that report back to his father.
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Not necessarily to get them in trouble.
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But because something was not right.
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Joseph has a concern for what is right.
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And he brings back to his father a report.
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Something has been done wrong.
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I mean, think about this.
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I use a police officer, for example.
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You're sitting right here.
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Think about a police officer that sees another police officer doing something that is wrong.
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And he chooses to go to his superiors and say, look, this was illegal.
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This was wrong.
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And he knows he's going to make himself the enemy of his brothers.
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But there's something more important than the friendship and brotherhood.
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It's righteousness.
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Yeah, I know.
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There's something more important than brotherhood.
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And that's righteousness.
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And Joseph is concerned with righteousness.
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And you may look at it differently.
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You may come to me later.
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Oh, I think he was a tattletale.
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Fine.
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You and Bruce walkie.
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Go have coffee.
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Whatever.
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You can agree with him.
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But I'm preaching right now.
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And I'm simply giving you another perspective.
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Because I think everybody looks at Jacob or Joseph as this sort of young, pestering little tattletale.
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Rather than saying, wait a minute, this is God's man.
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We're going to see in just a few verses.
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God chooses Joseph to raise him up over his brothers.
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And God calls him as his man in his day to accomplish his task.
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That's an important reality.
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But it must not be forgotten that Joseph for sure in doing this inspires the hatred of his brothers.
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Because nobody wants to be told on.
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Nobody wants themselves to be the object of someone's letting out the story or letting the cat out of the bag.
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So that happens.
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Now we go to the next portion, which is verses three and four.
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This is the receiving of the road because immediately following.
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It's funny how the story goes.
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He goes out in the field.
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He's working with his brothers.
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They do something wrong.
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He comes back.
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He tells on his brothers.
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They hate him.
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But the father responds differently.
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Notice verse three.
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It says now Israel loved Joseph.
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Israel, by the way.
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Oh, and I want to just point this out.
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We're going to see throughout the rest of the Old Testament or throughout the rest of Genesis.
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We're going to see Jacob and Israel, Jacob and Israel being used back and forth.
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Even though his name has clearly been changed to Israel by this point, even in verse one of this very chapter, his name was called Jacob.
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And now he's called Israel.
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We'll see that go back and forth.
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So just don't forget it's the same person.
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Jacob and Israel are the same person.
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It says now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his sons because he was the son of his old age.
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Now, right away, anybody who is a parent, we immediately bristle at that because we start to think, wow, it actually says he loved one of his children more than the rest.
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But I want you to take and step back for a moment.
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Is this unique to Jacob? No, because his father and his mother had the same problem, didn't they? Isaac and Rebecca.
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Isaac loved Esau.
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It says it very clearly.
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He loved Esau and Rebecca loved Jacob.
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So this seems to be a a sin of USA or an unwise expression that is common.
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And it says that Jacob or Israel love Joseph more than other.
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And it says for a weird reason.
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I want to say a weird reason because you would think that what it would say is he loved he loved Joseph more than the others because Joseph with the son of his favorite wife.
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And I do think that that does play into a part because he shows particular deference to Joseph and Benjamin, both the wives are both the sons of Rachel.
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But the text doesn't say that the text says he was his son of his old age.
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And you say, now, how does that fit in? Because actually, the son of the old age was Benjamin.
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Benjamin was the son that was the youngest son, and he was the son when he was the oldest.
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Well, I'll be honest with you.
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I think it's it's it's not impossible to figure out.
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But I think it is a rather difficult thing because, again, Joseph is not his youngest son.
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He's not the son of his oldest age.
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And I think, again, when we look at the Hebrew, we can see a little bit out of this.
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The Hebrew rendering actually is rather than the son of his old age, it simply says son of old age.
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And it may mean something like he was the son closest to him in his old age.
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And I think that they may be the better idea here is not that he was the son that came to him in his old age, but as he aged, this was the son who was closest to him.
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Now.
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I'll give you an example from my own life, and I've told this story before, but just just to quickly draw an example of my life, I had a grandmother who I loved.
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She had many grandchildren, but I was very, very close to her because I would go to her house after my mom and dad separated or divorced.
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I would go to her house and I would spend days with her.
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My dad would be working.
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My mom would be out of town and I would spend days and sometimes weeks at my grandmother's house.
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And so I was very close to her in her old age versus my other cousins who were not as close.
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Now, she loved us all, but we had a very special bond in her old age.
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So that could be what this is saying, Joseph and his father have a very special bond and he loved him in a way that was unique from his brothers.
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And so he made him a gift to symbolize that affection.
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Now, I want to say this, parents, this is an awful idea.
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This is an absolutely atrocious thought.
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Don't do this.
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He makes him a special outfit.
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Now, we have always and I know many of you, it's always been described as the code of many colors.
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But if you look at the ESV translation and you go back down to the bottom, you'll notice there's a superscript, which actually says that the Hebrew here is better translated the code of long sleeves.
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Rather than the code of many colors, it's the code of long sleeves.
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It's actually the Septuagint that introduces the idea of a multicolored robe and the Vulgate picks up on that.
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And that's why we end up in our English translation with a code of many colors.
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The Hebrew actually is a little more difficult to translate.
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And the idea of a long sleeve coat was a long sleeve coat was used for people who did not work in the field.
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Those who went to the field had short coats and short tunics.
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Those who worked in the house or rather were in management had the long sleeved garments.
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And they were the ones who were pointing out what everybody else were supposed to do.
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So could it been ornate? Yes.
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And I think that it's very.
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I think that may have been where the Septuagint writers picked up on the idea that it wasn't just long sleeve, but it was a long sleeve ornate robe.
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In fact, the only other place where this particular word is used is way over in 2 Samuel 13.
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The daughter of David named Tamar is wearing a gown when she goes to her brother.
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Remember, her brother takes advantage of her.
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She's wearing her priestess or not priestess, her princess gown is essentially what it was.
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It's the same word as this word.
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So this this robe, this whatever this was, it was a positional thing.
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It showed position.
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It showed being uplifted, being put in a position, in a sense, a position of authority.
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I think it was a robe of promotion.
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Because here's the idea.
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Joseph goes out to work with the brothers.
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They come back.
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Joseph tells on the brothers and demands that what was wrong is right.
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And God says, here's my foreman.
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This is the guy who's going to he's going to make sure it's done right.
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This is the guy who needs to be in charge.
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So he takes this outfit and he bestows it upon him as not only as a show of love, but a show of position.
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He gives him this robe as a show of a position.
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And notice what it says.
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But when the brothers, verse four, saw that the father loved him more than all of his brothers, they hated him and they could not even say Shalom.
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That's the word here in the Hebrew.
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You guys know Shalom.
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You've heard the word Shalom.
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It's very common.
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Jewish greeting means peace be unto you.
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And they can't say it.
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They hate him.
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And one, he told on them, not cool from their perspective.
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And two, dad has now adorned him with this robe that demonstrates his position of superiority.
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Not cool.
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So now it's double hate.
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And then we get to the third thing, which is the recounting of the dreams.
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Now, let me say this about this part.
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Joseph is about to do something that many people would say is very unwise.
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Because he is going to receive a dream which puts him in a position where all of his brothers will bow to him.
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And the first thing he chooses to do is make that public.
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Look at what it says.
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It says, now Joseph had a dream.
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This is verse five.
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And when he told it to his brothers, right there, first thing he did, he woke up, eyes open, feet hit the ground.
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I got to find all of my brothers who already hate me.
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I will say this about Joseph.
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I love him.
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And I do think the Bible paints him a very, very, very positive way.
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But at this moment, is there not a little bit of feeling of naivety? But I'm going to explain why he did it in a moment, why at least I think he did it.
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But at least in this moment, you got to think, was there not at least some pause going, they're not going to like this.
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Did he not realize they hate him? I'll tell you this.
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I will say this.
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And we're going to get to this next week.
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Yeah, next week, I'll be in this text again next week.
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The thing that we're going to notice is I don't think that the brother's hatred was as obvious as we might suspect, because if the brother's hatred were that obvious, I don't think the father would have sent him alone.
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I mean, he's already got two sons that were willing to kill a whole city because they were offended.
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Remember, Simeon and Levi, they went and just struck everybody down.
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So the idea that Jacob would Israel would then say, OK, Joseph, go with no bodyguard, no help.
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Just go by yourself 50 miles.
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So it seems to me that at least the brothers were probably hiding their disdain, at least.
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From their father, Joseph has a dream, he wakes up, he goes and tells them and they hated him even more.
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Verse five says, verse six, he said to them, hear this dream that I have dreamed.
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Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field.
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Sheaves are when they would tie the grain up into their into bundles.
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We were binding bundles in the field and behold, my sheaf, the one I was binding, stood upright and behold, your sheafs gathered around.
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Of course, this is an anthropomorphic thing.
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The sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.
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And his brother said to him, are you indeed to reign over us or are you indeed to rule over us? You can almost hear the anger dripping off their lips as they asked.
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Are you going to be in charge? You're the boss of me.
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So they hated him even more.
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That's the third time I see the word hated.
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Hated him even more for his dreams and his words.
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Three times, by the way, I remember we talk about the Bible using the threes, you know, when we see through, especially in Hebrew literature, three is to show superior, a superlative like we would say most.
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They hated him most.
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Verse nine, we see a second dream.
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Then he dreamed another dream and it was told to his brothers.
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Or and he told it to his brothers and his father.
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Let me start again.
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I'm reading it wrong.
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Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, behold, I have dreamed another dream.
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Behold, the sun, moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.
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But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, what is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you? And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the same in mind.
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Now, real quick, even Jacob is offended.
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That needs to be pointed out that there is there is a sense in which Jacob is understanding what the dreams are.
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And that's the other thing, too.
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These dreams are not hard to interpret.
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OK, let's say like Nebuchadnezzar, who has a dream of a of a big statue and each statue has different parts, you know, the gold head and the silver chest and the bronze stomach and all that.
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This is not like that.
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I mean, think about the simple illustration.
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One sheath, eleven sheaths, and they all bow down.
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By the way, those are yours.
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And then there was a sun and moon and eleven stars.
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How many of you? Oh, there's one.
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There's eleven of y'all, mom and dad.
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And you all bow down to me.
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There was even it wasn't even an attempt at a at anything.
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It was just y'all going to bow down to me.
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So Israel, Jacob, he knows what he's saying.
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He knows what the implication of this is, and he rebukes him.
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And because of that, some commentators like Ted Hughes, Ken Hughes said.
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It was a sin, he shouldn't have told him.
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And I vehemently disagree with that to say that what Joseph did was sinful because he said the first he said first, he said the first dream telling him was naive, but the second one was pride and pride is a sin.
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And I ask again, I'm not Ken Hughes, a great guy like his commentary, but I want to say we're in this Texas and say Joseph is prideful.
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It does not that you can infer that, but I don't infer it.
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And here's the reason.
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Joseph is right now a conduit for God's prophetic word.
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Joseph is receiving a message from the Lord in these dreams, and therefore he is functioning in that part or in that way as a prophet of God.
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And what does the prophet of God do with the message of God? Proclaims it to the people of God.
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I do not think this is an episode of pride, I think this is an episode of prophecy.
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He's saying to his brothers, God has given me a message and this message is for all of you.
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Because they're involved as well.
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In fact, this message is very specific.
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One day you're going to bow down to me.
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And oh, it's going to be tied with the idea of grain, and it's going to be tied with the idea of authority, sun, moon and stars, like being high and lifted up.
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All of this is God's message.
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The Bible tells us, and I want to take a quick side note and talk about this, because the Bible does tell us that God spoke through dreams in redemptive history.
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In fact, Hebrews 1 tells us this, Long ago at many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.
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Think about all the ways God spoke.
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He spoke through a burning bush.
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He spoke through a cloud by day and a pillar of smoke by night.
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He did all of these things in different ways and at different times.
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And Joseph is not the only dream interpreter.
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Daniel is going to come along and have a very similar situation where he interprets dreams and is lifted up in a land that's not his own.
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Very similar to Joseph.
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He's going to be lifted up in a land that's not his own, and he functions as God's mouthpiece.
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Now people ask me this, and I want to address this.
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People ask me if God still uses dreams today.
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Now, hold your seats.
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I believe we have to be careful in answering this question because some people will immediately say, No, God doesn't work that way anymore.
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And let me respond to you by saying this.
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Have you ever met Scott Phillips? And Scott Phillips has preached in this pulpit many times.
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And what did Scott tell us about? That when he went and met the Tao people, that he was received by them, welcomed by them and loved by them because their ancestors were given a dream that one day there was going to be a pale-skinned person who was going to come and give them a message.
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And that's why he was received and welcomed.
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So while we have to be careful and not imagine that every dream we have is something that is a message from God, because it could have just been a bad burrito, guys.
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You don't know what caused the dream.
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We cannot discount God's ability to continue to work in whatever way he sees fit.
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I'll say this, though.
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I did go into a Christian bookstore one time, and I saw a book entitled How to Interpret Dreams.
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I would recommend it gets that way.
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Because like I said, you've got to be careful, right? We can't bind God and say God can't do something or God wouldn't do something.
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But at the same time, we know that there are those out there who every time they bump their toe on something, it's God giving them a message.
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And you've got to be careful of that, too.
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God's primary method of speaking to us right now is through this.
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And if a message comes that doesn't agree with this, it ain't from God.
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And if a message comes that does agree with this, we still have to consider it.
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You know what the Bible says in Deuteronomy about prophets? It says that there are prophets who come and really do speak the truth, but they're not from God.
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And you say, well, how can that be? It says because they eventually lead you away from the living God.
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They can come and say something true, but then later lead you away from living God.
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We have to be discerning when we're listening to anybody who says they're speaking God's word.
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Absolutely.
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So having said that, I believe Joseph is a conduit of God's prophecy.
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These dreams are prophetic.
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In fact, I want to show you one quick thing.
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If you don't mind, turn over to chapter 41, because when Joseph is talking to the Pharaoh about the Pharaoh's dreams, and you remember the Pharaoh had dreams.
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He had two dreams, just like Joseph had two dreams.
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Joseph had two dreams, the one about the sheaf and the one about the sun, moon and stars.
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Pharaoh had two dreams.
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One was about cows, seven plump, seven thin.
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And then one was about ears of grain, seven full and seven wilted.
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When Genesis 41, 32, when Joseph is explaining to the Pharaoh that this is from God, notice what he says.
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He says, and the doubling of Pharaoh's dreams means that this thing is fixed by God and God will shortly bring it about.
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Notice what he says.
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He says the fact that you got two dreams from God is God fixing this in his decree and it will come to pass.
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Now take that idea back to Joseph, back to his 17th year when he receives a dream from God.
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He received how many? Two.
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Why did God give him two according to that verse? To confirm that this is fixed in the decree of God.
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He received two dreams from God in the same way that Pharaoh would receive two dreams from God.
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Now, that's how he understood it.
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And I think that's how he understood his own dreams.
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That God has given this to me twice is an affirmation that this is God's will.
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My brothers will bow down to me.
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But how did the brothers respond to God's word? They hated it.
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Let me ask you a question.
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Today, when the word of God is preached, how do many people respond? They hate it.
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In fact, the brothers of Joseph are much like the people of the world today.
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When the word of God is preached, they don't want to hear it, especially when it calls them to submission.
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They don't want to hear it.
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I'll say this.
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Most of us, most of us.
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It's not the parts of the Bible that we don't understand that bring us the problem.
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Most of us, it's the parts that we do understand and don't want to obey.
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That's the part that gives us the problem.
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There was nothing about these dreams that was hard to interpret.
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There's 11 sheaves.
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They bow down to the one sheep.
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There's 11 stars that bow down to the one.
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It's all simple, but they didn't want to hear it.
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They didn't want to obey it.
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Beloved, that's us.
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We hear the simple truths of God's word, and we do not want to hear it.
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And understand, when those brothers rejected Joseph's words, they were not rejecting Joseph.
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They were rejecting the God who gave Joseph those dreams.
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In the same way that when someone rejects the man preaching God's word, they're not rejecting me.
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They're not rejecting you.
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They're rejecting the God of the word.
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And that leads us to the last thing we look at today, and that's Jacob's response, the father.
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It says that he rebuked him, but he kept those words in his heart.
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He kept those words.
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I think Jacob knew.
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I think Jacob knew this was not just a mere dream.
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This was not just a midnight stack gone awry.
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But this was a message from God.
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In fact, later, when he thinks Joseph is dead, I've often wondered what he thought about that.
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Has the decree of God been unfulfilled? Don't we often think like that when things don't go the way we think they're supposed to go and we look at the way things are going in our life and we say, has God failed? God had made a promise.
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Did God's promise fail? And as we know, they certainly did not.
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But these dreams are significant.
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They're significant as prophecy and they're significant as instigation because these dreams become the instigation that will lead to the hatred where the brothers will finally blow up into murderous rage and decide in our next study how they're going to bring the demise of their dreaming brother.
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Now, most of us know that this message of destiny by decree, after Joseph has received a robe from his earthly father and a dream from his heavenly father, that the story is going to take an awful turn.
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And that's what we're going to look at next week.
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This story is going to take an awful turn.
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The bitter hearts of his brothers are going to give way to a murderous plot, devious scheming, and it's going to lead to a season of struggle in the life of Joseph, first as a slave and then as a prisoner.
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But the one thing I want to end with is this.
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Throughout all that, throughout all of Joseph's life, one thing we never see, at least it's never recounted in Scripture, if it did happen, it's not told.
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We never see him become bitter.
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We never see him become hateful or spiteful.
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You want to know why? Turn two chapters ahead.
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Now, the next chapter we look at is going to be all about Judah.
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But when we get back to Joseph's story in chapter 39, I want to show you something.
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Look at chapter 39, verse 1.
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It says, Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of the guard, excuse me, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian had bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there.
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Look at verse 2.
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The Lord was with Joseph.
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Read it again.
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The Lord was with Joseph.
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Did you hear that? The Lord, Yahweh, is going to be with Joseph this whole time.
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He's going to be with Joseph when he's in the pit.
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He's going to be with Joseph when he's in the caravan of traitors.
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He's going to be with Joseph when he's in the house of Potiphar being accused of rape.
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He's going to be with Joseph when he goes to the prison.
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He's going to be with Joseph when he's forgotten.
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He's going to be with Joseph when he's alone.
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He's going to be with Joseph when he's brought before Pharaoh.
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And he's going to be with Joseph when he's lifted up a second only to Pharaoh.
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The Lord is with him.
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And Joseph knows it.
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By the way, that's the definition of faith.
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He doesn't just know God.
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But he knows God is with him.
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Spurgeon said this.
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The delicate, delicate child of an indulgent father who had been clothed with a princely garment of many colors, must now wear the garb of a slave and march in the hot sun across burning sand, but never was a captive more submissive under cruel treatment.
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He endured as seeing him who is invisible.
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His heart was sustained by a deep confidence in the God of his father, for his God was with him.
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You know, God is with you today.
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I mean that.
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I mean that seriously and truthfully.
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Can you say to yourself? I know that wherever I'm at in life, whatever I'm struggling with, what I'm hurting, whatever I'm going through, God is with me.
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I have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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The Holy Spirit has made his abode in my heart.
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And God is with me.
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If you can't say that, if you don't know that, why? What is it? Well, Pastor Keith, I struggle.
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I struggle.
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That's not it.
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But maybe it is because you have not yet believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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You see, Joseph had a true faith that worked itself out like this.
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I know that my God is with me no matter what.
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Is your faith grounded in that same truth? Based upon the fact that you have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you know without doubt that he is with you.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I pray even now, Lord, that those under the sound of my voice would know that they would know if you are with them.
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Lord, I can't say that you are with everyone in this room because your word tells us that there are those who have not yet come to faith and there are those who have made false professions.
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But Lord, I know for those who have made genuine professions in the Lord Jesus Christ and have been recipients of the gift of the Holy Spirit that you are with us.
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And I pray for those who do not know that today might be the day that they come to a true and firm faith by the power of your spirit giving them life in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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I pray now as we remember what the Lord did for us on the cross that we would see that as another reminder that he is with us.
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He tells us he is with us.
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In Jesus' name, amen.