The Redemption of Judah

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I want to invite you to take out your Bible and turn with me to Genesis, chapter 44.
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Do you remember what you were doing 20 years ago? I had just begun seminary, we didn't have yet any children, and we had no idea that one day I would pastor this church, and certainly did not have any idea that we would be going on to our sixth child at the age of, well, it's over 40, we'll just leave it there.
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Twenty years is not much time in the grand scheme of eternity, in fact it's not even a blip on the radar, but 20 years is a long time in the life of a man, and a lot can change in 20 years.
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Well it's been over two decades, it's been over 20 years since we saw Joseph's brothers throw him into prison, or rather throw him into a pit which led to him going into slavery and then later into prison.
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At that point in their lives, their only thought toward their younger brother was murderous rage.
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Well today we're going to see the other side of that 20 years.
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We're going to see the ones who abandoned Joseph to slavery be unwilling to abandon their brother, Benjamin.
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And most importantly, we're going to see one step above the rest, and he is going to offer himself up as a substitute for his brother.
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This one who would in many ways become a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, in fact it is he who would be the one to bear the line that Christ would come through, for Christ is the lion of the tribe of Judah.
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We're going to stand as we read, we're going to read Genesis 44, all the way to the end, it's only 34 verses.
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Then he commanded the steward of his house, fill the men's sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put each man's money in the mouth of his sack.
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And put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest, with his money for the grain.
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And he did as Joseph told him.
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As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away with their donkeys.
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They had gone only a short distance from the city.
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Now Joseph said to his steward, Up, follow after the men, and when you overtake them, say to them, Why have you repaid evil for good? Is it not from this that my Lord drinks, and by this that he practices divination? You have done evil in doing this.
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When he overtook them, he spoke to them these words.
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They said to him, Why does my Lord speak such words as these? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing.
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Behold the money that we found in the mouths of the sacks we brought back to you from the land of Canaan.
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How could we steal silver or gold from your house, or rather from your Lord's house? Whichever of your servants is found with it shall die, and we also will be my Lord's servants.
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He said, Let it be as you say.
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He who is servant with it shall be my servant, and the rest of you shall be innocent.
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Then each man quickly lowered his sack to the ground, and each man opened his sack, and he searched beginning with the eldest and ending with the youngest, and the cup was found in Benjamin's sack.
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Then they tore their clothes, and every man loaded his donkey, and they returned to the city.
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When Judah and his brothers came to Joseph's house, he was still there.
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They fell before him to the ground, and Joseph said to them, What deed is this that you have done? Do you not know that a man like me can indeed practice divination? And Judah said, What shall we say to my Lord? What shall we speak, or how can we clear ourselves? God has found out the guilt of your servants.
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Behold, we are my Lord's servants.
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Both we and he also, in whose hand the cup has been found.
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But he said, Far be it from me that I should do so.
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Only the man in whose hand the cup was found shall be my servant.
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But as for you, go up in peace to your father.
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Then Judah went up to him and said, O my Lord, please let your servant speak a word in my Lord's ears.
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And let not your anger burn against your servant.
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For you are like Pharaoh himself.
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My Lord asked his servants, saying, Have you a father or a brother? And we said to my Lord, We have a father, an old man, and a younger brother, a child of his old age.
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His brother is dead, and alone is left is his mother's children, and his father loves him.
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Then you said to your servants, Bring him down to me, that I may set my eyes on him.
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We said to my Lord, The boy cannot leave his father.
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For if he should leave his father, his father would die.
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Then you said to your servants, Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall not see my face again.
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When we went back to your servant, my father, We told him the words of my Lord.
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And when our father said, Go again, buy us a little food, We said, We cannot go down.
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If our youngest brother goes with us, then we will go down.
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For we cannot see this man's face unless our youngest brother is with us.
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Then the servant, my father, said to us, You know that my wife bore me two sons.
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Only one left me, and I said, Surely he has been torn to pieces.
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And I have never seen him since.
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If you take this one from me, and harm comes to him, You will bring down my gray hairs in evil to Sheol.
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Now therefore, as soon as I come to your servant, my father, And the boy is not with us, Then as his life is bound up in the boy's life, As soon as he sees the boy is not with us, he will die.
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And your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant, our father, With sorrow to Sheol.
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For your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father, Saying, If I do not bring him back to you, Then I will bear the blame before my father all my life.
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Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy, As a servant to my Lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers.
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For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father.
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Our Father and our God, I thank you for your word.
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I pray even now, Lord, that as I seek to give an understanding of your word, That you would keep me from error.
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For Lord, I pray this knowing that I am a fallible man, Incapable of preaching error.
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I pray that you would keep me from that for the sake of your name, For the sake of your people, and for the sake of my own conscience.
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And I pray, O God, that as your word is proclaimed, The saved would be edified, and the lost would be terrified.
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That they might know that there is only one true and living God, And only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
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And it is in his name we pray.
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Amen.
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Judah, mute the pulpit.
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Thank you.
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I was getting some feedback there in my ear.
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In previous sermons, I have mentioned that it is hard sometimes for us to wrap our minds around just how much time is passing from one chapter to the next.
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Because as we read the text, it goes for us very quickly.
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You read one chapter into the next, into the next, and often you miss the fact that you're actually sometimes covering 5, 10, or 20 years at a shot.
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And that's the way it's been for us over the last few weeks.
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And over just a few weeks, we have gone through 20 years of time.
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Joseph began in the pit at 17 years old.
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He faced Pharaoh and became the second in all of Egypt at the age of 30.
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He went through 7 years of plenty.
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Therein we come to the 20th year.
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And now his brothers have gone away and come back, and we're somewhere probably around the 22nd year.
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And in those 20 years, Joseph and Judah have both done a lot of living.
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Everybody remembers Joseph's story.
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Those of us who went to Sunday school as kids.
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Anyway, we remember Joseph's story.
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Joseph was thrown into a pit.
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He was sold into slavery.
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He was taken into the house of Potiphar.
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He was then accused of rape and put into prison.
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And then while he was in prison, he had two men that he interpreted their dreams.
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One of them was put to death.
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The other was put at the right hand of Pharaoh.
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Two years later, that man remembered him, brought him before Pharaoh.
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He's brought out, and now is the second in command of all of Egypt.
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Joseph's story is so easy, I didn't even have to look at my notes.
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But, very few of us remember Judah's story.
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And it is happening at the same time as Joseph is going through all of these ups and downs and trials and terrors and being exalted and humiliated over and over.
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Judah is also experiencing life.
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Sometimes I think when people go out of our sight, we forget that their lives continue also.
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And that's why when we see somebody we haven't seen for years, maybe a child that we haven't seen since they were five, and then we come face to face with them, and they're eyeball to eyeball with us, and say, how did you get so big so fast? Well, you haven't seen me in 20 years.
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Things happen.
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Things change.
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Well, Judah has experienced 20 years of living.
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And his story is bound up in one chapter, chapter 38 of Genesis, where he departed from his family.
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He met a friend named Hira, the Adullamite.
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And him and Hira had quite the time.
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Judah had a wife, and he bore three sons.
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And the first son had a wife, and her name was Tamar.
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And boy, was that a story, because it says that he was so evil that God took his life.
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We don't know how evil.
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We don't know what kind of evil.
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We just know that he was so evil that the text literally says God took his life.
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And then his wife Tamar goes to the next son.
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And that son does a wicked thing before the Lord.
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He tries to hold back his ability to give her a child, and there God takes his life.
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And so Judah says, no, no, no, she can't have the third boy.
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So he hides back Shelah, the youngest son.
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He says, you can't have him.
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And he sends her off as a widow to live with her father.
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And she devises a plan to receive a child through Judah himself.
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She dresses as a prostitute, and she waits for his day of revelry where he's going out to the shearing of the sheep where there's all this revelry going on.
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She dresses as a prostitute.
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She gets him to lie with her and give her two children, twins.
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And the reason why I'm bringing this, I mean, most of you have been here.
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You've heard these previous sermons.
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The reason why I'm reminding you of these things is I want to show you, just as we introduce today's text, that we are actually seeing the third in a series of redemptions of Judah.
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And this one, I would say, is the true and full redemption of Judah.
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But the first redemption actually came when Tamar, his daughter-in-law, brought to him his staff and his signet and said, this is the man who gave me the child.
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And what did he say? Do you remember from that chapter? He said, she is righteous, not I.
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So he recognized his sin.
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He recognized what he had done wrong.
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He recognized he was the one in the wrong.
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And there was a step of growth for him in that moment.
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But what we don't realize is that moment is really close to this moment.
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I mean, how long does it take to have three sons, and then no sons to have sons? It takes some time, say about 20 years.
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You see, all of this has been going on in the background of what's been happening in the life of Joseph.
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And here, Joseph and Judah are about to meet again.
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Judah has had his first redemptive moment in the life of Tamar when he recognized his sin and said, she is righteous, not I.
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He has a second moment of redemption when he faces his father.
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And he says to his father, you let me take Benjamin.
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You let me take the boy.
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And I will be a surety for him, a pledge, a guarantee.
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You send him with me.
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And if he doesn't come home, you can blame me, not just for the rest of my life, but you can blame me for eternity.
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I will bear the guilt of my brother if he doesn't come home.
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So that's the second step, if you will, in the redemption of Judah.
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We've seen first at the situation with Tamar, second at the situation with his father.
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But now he faces the one that he does not realize is his brother.
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Bring the wireless down a little bit.
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I'm still hearing an echo in my ear.
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He sees this, or we arrive rather at this opportunity for one more act of redemption.
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Now here's the outline for today.
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This is how we're going to outline chapter 44, is in three parts.
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We're going to see first the final test, which is verses 1 to 12.
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Second is the unified return, which is verses 13 to 17.
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And finally, the substitutionary plea, which is verses 18 to 24.
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So we'll begin first with the final test.
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Beginning of verse 1, it says, Then he, that is Joseph, commanded the steward of the house, fill the men's sack with food, as much as they can carry, and put each man's money in the mouth of the sack, and put my cup, my silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest, with his money for the grain.
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And he did as Joseph told him.
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As soon as morning light came, the men were sent away with their donkeys.
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Alright, I want to remind everybody what happened last week.
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Joseph has invited the brothers into his house.
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They don't know who he is.
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He's had a meal with them, and it's a celebration.
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It says they ate and drank and were merry.
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They think everything's fine.
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They think they are in a state of reconciliation.
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They think all is well, but all is not well.
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And so, they wake up the next morning.
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They get their food, which the whole reason they came was to get more food.
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They get their food.
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They put it on their animals.
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They get on the animals.
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They begin to leave.
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And I'm sure as they left, they were saying, Thanks for supper.
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Thanks for the meal.
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Thanks for everything.
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They don't realize Joseph has one final test that he's going to put them through.
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And this final test is going to be the real test of their integrity.
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Because Joseph is going to repeat what had happened 20 years before.
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He's going to put their youngest brother in peril, and see how they respond.
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So he puts within the youngest brother, Benjamin, he puts within his sack a silver chalice.
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And as they go, they are happy.
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They think all is well.
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We're good.
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We're on the way home.
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We got the food.
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We got the meal.
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We have the favor of this man.
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All is well.
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What's that dust? Guys, do you all see that? And as they're going, they're looking back, and they're seeing dust rise up behind them.
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And they're hearing the galloping of hooves, and they're saying, what in the world is happening? Maybe we left something behind.
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Maybe they got my iPhone.
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Would you stop? Maybe they're bringing us something.
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Maybe they want to give us more food.
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They really seem to like us.
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Nobody else got to go to the house of the man in charge.
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Nobody else got to have a meal like that.
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Nobody else got to eat, drink, and be merry.
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What in the world are they chasing us for? They catch up.
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After a short while, v.
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4, it says, they had gone only a short distance from the city.
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Joseph said to his steward, Up, follow after the men, and when you overtake them, say, Why have you repaid evil for good? He's got a plan.
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He's got a plan.
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V.
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6 says, When he overtook them, he spoke these words to them.
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He accused them of being thieves.
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And their immediate response, v.
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7, Why does the Lord speak such words to us? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing.
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Behold, the money that we found in the mouths of the Sacks, we brought back to you from the land of Canaan.
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How then could we ever steal gold or silver from your Lord's house? This is a great argument.
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I mean that.
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I'm not being sarcastic.
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This is actually a good argument.
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The last time we went home, we realized we had our silver with us, so we brought it back, and we showed it to you.
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Why then would you think that we would now steal silver from you? We weren't willing to keep the silver before.
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Why do you think we would do it now? You see, there's an indignancy because, here's the key, guys.
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They're innocent.
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They didn't do this.
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They didn't steal the chalice.
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Even Benjamin, who's going to be found with it, he didn't do it.
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But the steward knows.
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How does the steward know? He's the one who put it there.
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And by the way, there's a great irony in this, because it says that the steward goes to search their sacks, and he starts with the oldest.
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Why start with the oldest? Because he's increasing their confidence.
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Because as he opens the oldest, there's nothing in here.
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As he opens the next oldest, and by the way, remember last week, he actually knows who the next one is, because Joseph knows the order in which they were born.
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So he begins, he starts with Reuben's sack, and then he goes to Simeon and Levi and Judah, and he's going down.
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Nothing.
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And what are the guys saying? If you find that chalice with any of us, that man will die.
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The Bible is filled with foolish vows, isn't it? Men who say, oh yeah, I'll give my daughter if you give me this, you know, if I...
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You remember? Who was that guy? Jephthah? You know? Foolish vows are all over Scripture.
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And this is a foolish vow.
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He says, if you find that chalice with anyone, that one deserves to die.
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You've got to think the steward at that moment had to have at least a moment's pause.
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Do these guys know what they're saying? They couldn't possibly realize what they have just done.
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So he gets to the final sack.
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Benjamin's sack.
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And it says they discovered, and it's really just a short section.
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It says in verse 12, and he searched beginning with the eldest and ending with the youngest, and the cup was found in Benjamin's sack.
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That's the test.
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That's the test.
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And this test is brilliant.
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Last night when they had dinner together, or actually yesterday at noon, when they had dinner together, they had put in five times as much food on Benjamin's plate.
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Remember what we talked about that was last week? That was a test.
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Will they look at their brother and be angry that he receives favor as they had with Joseph? Will they look at their brother and think why he gets more than we get as they had done with Joseph who got the coat of many colors and they were angry? Why would he get more than we? So Joseph has already tested them once by giving Joseph five times the amount.
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But now there's a new test.
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And this test is brilliant.
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It's the test of abandonment.
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Will they abandon him like they did me? Because when I was given extra, they hated me.
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I give extra to Benjamin.
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Will they hate him? They abandoned me.
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Will they abandon him? But there's a spark of hope in verse 13.
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Because in verse 13, it actually says they all tore their clothes.
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By the way, that is a statement of remorse.
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It is a statement of sadness.
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It's a statement of broken...
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It's used in different ways in Scripture when Jesus pronounced who he was before the Pharisees and said they stood up and tore their clothes.
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It was a statement recognizing the emotion of the event and the power and the weight of what has happened.
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And it says all the brothers saw that silver cup come out of his bag and they tore their clothes.
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And this is what is more important than that.
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It says, and every man loaded his donkey and they returned to the city.
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Don't miss this because this is why we're going into part two.
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The fact that all of them went back and they didn't have to is a huge statement.
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Because not one of them said, alright guys, it wasn't me.
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I'm out.
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I'm going home.
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I'm not going back to face that guy again.
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I'm not going to put myself in that position.
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Benjamin, hey, love you, but you know what, I've got to go home.
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I mean, it's, you know.
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But none of them do that.
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None of them look to Benjamin and say, you know what, you made your bed, now lie in it.
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Because by the way, none of them know he's innocent.
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The only one who knows in his heart that he's innocent is Benjamin and the steward.
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Because the steward put it there.
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The other brothers could have looked at Benjamin and said, hey man, I don't know why you did this to dad, but we've got to go.
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But they don't do that.
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Everyone to a man tears his clothes and lights upon his animal and goes back into town to face this together.
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I call this the redemption of Judah, but you can see how there's a redemption among them all.
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Because not one of the men was willing to abandon their brother.
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Verse 14 is interesting because it actually puts Judah in first place.
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If you notice in verse 14 it says, When Judah and his brothers came to Joseph's house, notice it's putting Judah in the place of preeminence there.
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It's Judah and his brothers came to Joseph's house.
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He was still there.
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And they fell before him to the ground.
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Again, this is the third time that they bowed down to Joseph.
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Remember, Joseph had dreams about his brothers bowing down.
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And they said, we will never bow down to you.
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This is third time.
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They bowed the first time.
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They bowed last time.
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And now they're bowing again.
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But this time they're bowing in mortal fear.
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And Joseph says, What deed is this that you have done? Do you not know that a man like me can indeed practice divination? Now, by the way, I didn't get into this earlier.
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The whole thing about the cup, practicing divination, there was a practice in the ancient Egyptian, among the ancient Egyptian sorcerers and magicians, where they would take water in a cup and they would pour oil into the water and that oil would make shapes in the water.
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And much like a modern Warshak test, the sorcerers would look at that shape and they would interpret that shape as something.
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I do not believe that Joseph practiced that form of divination.
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But he was in a culture where that was prominent.
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And remember, he is putting on the position of being part of that culture.
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He's putting on the position of being among them.
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So when he says, Don't you know I can practice divination? This is all part of the ruse.
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This is all part of the scam.
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I don't think Joseph...
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Joseph knew the one true and living God.
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He interpreted Pharaoh's dreams by the power of God, not by looking in a cup and interpreting a Warshak test.
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But he's using this to further disguise himself.
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And he's saying, Don't you know that I practice magic? And not like David Copperfield.
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I practice the voodoo, witchcraft.
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I can do it all.
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And I see all and know all.
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And don't you know that I would have known that you took my cup? Verse 16.
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And Judah said, What shall we say to my Lord? What shall we speak? Or how can we clear ourselves? And notice this.
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Do not miss this.
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God has found out the guilt of your servants.
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Now, it could be that Judah is simply addressing the stealing of the cup.
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Because that's the sin in view.
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That's the sin that's been discovered.
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That's the sin that is now in front.
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But it seems as if Judah is in this verse, in this sentence, actually confessing much more.
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He's saying, God has recognized that we are not the honest men that we claim to be.
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Remember the first time they came to Joseph? And Joseph said, You're spies.
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What was their response? We're not spies.
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We're honest men.
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Oh yeah, except for our oldest brother who slept with our dad's wife.
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Yeah, he's not too honest.
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And the other two that committed entire genocide against the Shechemites.
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They're a little bad.
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And then, of course, Judah who slept with his daughter-in-law.
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Oh yeah, and all of us saw our brother into slavery.
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But yeah, we're honest men.
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You see, he's standing before the judge.
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And he's recognizing his sin has been found out before God.
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I have to tell this quick story.
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It's a quick little side story.
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It's a Billy Graham story.
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I don't tell a lot of Billy Graham stories.
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I can get away with one a year.
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Billy Graham tells a story about when he was a kid.
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He said the neighbor to his father's land had a watermelon farm.
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And his father said, Do not go take that man's watermelons.
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Do not go steal that man's watermelons.
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Those don't belong to us.
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If we're going to get some, we're going to buy some.
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But do not do that.
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He said, As a little boy, I couldn't help myself.
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I climbed the fence.
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I took a watermelon.
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And I went behind daddy's shed.
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And I ate that watermelon all by myself.
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I broke it on a rock.
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And I ate it by myself.
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He said, It was the best thing I ever tasted.
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He said, It was so great.
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He said, And nobody knew.
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I threw the rind away.
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Nobody ever knew.
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Until the springtime came.
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And the seeds that I spit onto the ground began to make a crop of watermelon.
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And dad knew he ain't planting no watermelons.
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And so old Billy Graham said, Your sin will find you out.
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Well here is Judah standing before his judge.
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And he says, God has found out the guilt of your servants.
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Behold, we are my Lord's servants, both we and He, and also whose hand this cup has been.
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Verse 17, Joseph responds, Far be it from me to do so.
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I'm not taking you all as servants because you all didn't steal the cup.
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There's only one of you who's guilty.
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It's the youngest one.
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It's Benjamin.
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He is the one who is going to suffer this punishment.
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Now again, 20 years earlier, they would have already been gone.
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20 years earlier, they would have been like, See ya.
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Wouldn't want to be ya.
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We're out.
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But now, God has wrought a change in these men.
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Particularly in Judah.
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And what we find, this is the substitutionary plea beginning in verse 18, what we find is the longest continuous speech in the book of Genesis.
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The longest continuous speech of any speaker, that being Abraham, Isaac, or any of the rest, the longest continuous speech in the book of Genesis belongs to Judah.
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In chapter 44, what we just read, 18 to 34 is his plea for his brother's freedom.
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And I want you to understand something.
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He's not pleading for his brother.
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He's pleading for his father.
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Verses 18 to 29, he basically tells the story again.
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He says, Judah went up to him and said, O Lord, please let me speak a word in my Lord's ears.
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Let not Your anger burn against Your servant, for You are like Pharaoh himself.
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My Lord asked His servant saying, Have you a father or a brother? And basically, he's telling what happened the first time they came.
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And how Joseph had interrogated him about his family.
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And he tells about what had happened.
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But notice what he says in verse 22.
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He says, We said to my Lord, the boy cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die.
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Notice the point that Judah's making.
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This boy's life and my father's life are tied together.
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And if this boy dies, my father is going to die.
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And he tells the story of how they went home and the father said to go buy more food.
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And they said, We can't go unless Benjamin goes with us.
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And look at verse 27.
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This is important.
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He says, Then Your servant, my father, said to us, You know that my wife bore me two sons.
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I just want to make a point about verse 27.
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That is a huge verse.
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In the midst of a very long conversation coming from the mouth of Judah, he makes a statement that we must not miss.
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How many sons did Jacob have? Twelve.
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Twelve.
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How many wives did Jacob have? Four.
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But when Joseph is being talked to by Judah, Judah says, My father has two sons.
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You understand, that's been the problem this whole time.
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Is that Jacob has always acted like he only had two sons.
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He had the others, but he favored the two.
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And that was why they hated Joseph.
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That was why they discarded him into the pit and sold him into slavery.
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Because of that love that the father had for their brother.
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And they hated it.
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But now, Judah has reconciled with that.
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He has come to the point of understanding, My dad's love for my brother is not going to be my point of hatred towards my brother any longer.
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But I'm going to say, My father has two sons.
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From one woman.
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His wife.
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Notice he says his wife.
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And by the way, if you go back to the story of Jacob, Leah was there by trickery.
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Zilpah and Bilhah were there by custom.
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But Rachel was there by love.
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That was his wife.
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Those were sons.
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And he's pleading.
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See, here's the thing.
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Judah has learned to love his father.
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You have to understand that what he did to Joseph was not because he hated Joseph.
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It was because he didn't love his dad.
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And we know that because he came back to his dad and he was willing to watch him mourn for twenty years and never tell him the truth.
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But now, he has come to love his father.
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Now he has come to be reconciled with his father.
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And he says, My father.
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Your servant, my father.
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You know my wife bore me two sons.
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One left me.
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And surely he has been torn to pieces.
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And I have not seen him since.
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And if you take this one from me, and harm happens to him, you will bring down my gray hairs to hell.
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Teshiel.
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Verse 30.
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Now therefore, as soon as I come to your servant, my father, and the boy is not with us, as his life is bound up in the boy's life, as soon as he sees the boy is not with us, he will die.
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He is not even going to wait to have an explanation.
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He is not going to wait to hear what happened.
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If he sees on the distance ten donkeys and not eleven, and he begins to count, and he sees Simeon, and he sees Levi, and he sees Reuben, and he sees Judah, and Gad, and Asher, and he starts doing the count, and he realizes one is missing, he is not going to live to hear our explanation.
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Verse 32.
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Your servant became a pledge for safety for the boy to my father.
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And I said if I do not bring him back, then I will bear the blame before my father all my life.
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Now therefore, please listen to this.
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Please don't miss verse 33.
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Please let your servant remain instead of the boy.
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By the way, the word instead of there means as a substitute for the boy.
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As a servant to my Lord, let the boy go back to his brothers.
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For how can, or back with his brothers, for how can I go back to my father if this boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father.
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Understand, this is a master class in persuasion.
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Because Judah has stood up, and he doesn't appeal for himself, he doesn't appeal even for Benjamin, but rather he appeals for his father.
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If this boy doesn't come home, my father will die.
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Therefore, take me.
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Bruce Waltke said this.
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This first instance of human substitution in Scripture reveals a different Judah than the one who sold his brother into slavery.
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A formerly calloused Judah is now compassionate.
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Twenty years it's taken.
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Twenty years for redemption.
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But Judah, the one who said, hey, we can get a little silver from selling our father's favorite son, is now the one who says, I will stand and take his place.
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Now I have mentioned several times over the last few weeks that Joseph is a type of Christ.
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I've talked about what typology is.
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Jesus' typology is the study of a figure who represents the work of Christ in the Old Testament.
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And Joseph certainly is a picture of Christ in his humiliation and his exaltation and his power and all of those things.
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The parallels between Joseph and Christ are numerous.
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But at this point in the narrative, it is not Joseph who is a picture of Christ, but rather Judah is a picture of the Savior.
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Judah loves his father and is concerned about doing his father's will.
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Judah stands as an advocate for his apparently guilty brother.
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And Judah offers himself as a substitute in his brother's place.
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Now you think in your hearts about the greater Judah, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
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He loved his father.
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And the Bible says he did only what pleased his father.
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He stands as the only advocate, the only mediator between guilty men and a holy God.
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And he offered himself a sinless substitute in our place on the cross.
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Now there are distinctions to be sure.
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Judah is not a perfect man.
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Jesus is.
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And Benjamin is not really guilty, but we are.
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So there are some distinctions.
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And analogies always break down over time.
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No Old Testament type is perfect, but they all point to Christ.
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And this is one big glowing neon red arrow pointing to Jesus.
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This is a Gospel picture.
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It carries the themes of redemption, reconciliation, repentance, restoration, and renewal.
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And best of all, it's based on love.
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Judah is doing this because he loves his father.
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He's learned how to love his father and love his brother.
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We must never forget, no matter how deep and broad our theology gets, the heart of Christian worship and the heart of Christian theology is love.
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For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.
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Greater love hath no man than this that He lay down His life for His friends.
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And this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
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Understand this, beloved.
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If you are saved today, it is because God has shown His love to you by sending His Son as your substitute.
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You stood guilty before the God of the universe.
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You stood with nothing.
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Remember what Judah said when he was brought back before Joseph? We can't say anything.
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And you know what? That's what the law of God does to us.
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According to the book of Romans, it shuts our mouth where when we stand before God and His law, the weight of that law is placed upon us, it says our mouths are stopped because we can't say anything.
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We stand guilty before the judge of the universe.
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And then, we have a substitute who loves us, who steps up for us, and out of His love for His Father and for His brother, He stands in the gap and He takes upon Himself our punishment and He becomes our surety.
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He takes the punishment we deserve so that we can have the righteousness we do not have and that is the Gospel.
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That's the beauty of this.
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It's a picture of this.
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Christ took the punishment we deserved and because of that, we are redeemed, reconciled, and restored through Him.
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Judah stood for his brother willing to take the punishment.
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Next week, we're going to see the blessed conclusion of this narrative.
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It's not the end.
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There's still five chapters in the book.
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But we're going to see where Joseph finally unmasks himself.
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What a beautiful picture.
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I almost went there today, but I was like, no way I'd have time.
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But he's going to unmask himself.
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I hope you're here for that.
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That part is beautiful.
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But I want you to understand as I draw to a close, this redemption moment didn't happen overnight.
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This redemption moment took 20 years.
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This past week, I shared a picture on social media.
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It was a picture of a man who was being baptized.
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He was very old.
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I don't know how old he was, but he was an elderly man.
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And the caption on the picture, there was two men in the baptistry.
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Two men had to hold him up.
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He was an elderly man.
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And they were holding him so that they could baptize him.
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And the caption of the picture said, this man's wife prayed for him for 67 years.
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And he has come to the Lord in faith and repentance.
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Judah's redemption took 20 years.
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That man's redemption took 67 years.
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What are you waiting on? If you're in Christ today, you've been redeemed, reconciled, and restored in Christ.
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But if you're not in Christ today, what in the world could you be waiting on? Turn to Christ and live.
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Turn from your sin and trust the Savior.
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There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
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There's no other Savior coming or has come but Jesus.
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I implore you.
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I urge you.
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This is what makes preaching, preaching by the way.
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Brother Mike and I have been talking about this.
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I can teach you a lesson on the history of Joseph and the history of Judah and all these things.
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But preaching is the urging you to turn to Christ.
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And if you are in Christ, to walk more closely with Him.
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It always demands a verdict.
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What are you waiting on? Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for this picture that we have in Judah, a picture of substitution and sacrifice.
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And Lord, we know that there is a great ending coming.
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But Lord, there's so much more that we're going to learn even in the weeks to come.
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But as we are faced today with this concept of substitution and sacrifice, Lord, would You by Your mercy give us grace to understand.
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And Lord, for those who are saved, that they would have a closer walk with Christ, recognizing yet again the promise of the Gospel.
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And for those who have not yet bowed the knee to Christ, that they would see Him as beautiful and winsome and wonderful and turn from their sins and turn to Him.
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In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.