Book of Genesis - Ch. 37, Vs. 19-36 (07/31/2016)

Well, I suppose that those of us who are going to be here are here, and if not, we'll go ahead and start and let people catch up as they will.

Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank You for this day. Thank You for giving us Your Holy Word written in a form and guided by the

Holy Spirit so we can understand those things that You want us to know. Bless us and keep us and protect us through the day.

Go through all the services, in Jesus' name we pray, amen. We are in Genesis 37, and Jacob has just sent

Joseph to check on his sons. Joseph, being the obedient son, didn't question his dad, he just took off.

And now he is approaching Shishim. Well, actually he's been to Shishim, and he has been referred to Dothan.

A gentleman there told him that, yes, I overheard them, and they said they were going to Dothan. And we talked about the reason that they went there.

They thought they went there for good grazing. What they really went there for is because God wanted them there so that they'd be on the caravan path to facilitate

Joseph's trip to Egypt. And so they see him coming, and they say one to another.

This is verse 19, by the way, 37, 19. And they said one to another,

Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, therefore, let us slay him and cast him into some pit, and we will say,

Some evil beast hath devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.

What do you think they feel like? What do you think their attitude is toward Joseph? They hated him.

Why did they hate him? Probably because he was acting kind of haughty from their point of view.

They thought he was acting kind of haughty. Okay, I can understand that. Yeah, you know, he thought he loathed the

Lord over you. Yeah, you're going to bow down to me. Indeed, that was one of the things.

There was another reason, a more important reason, though, for why they hated him.

Not just because of what he said. That's right, and it was more than just a fancy coat.

It was a sign of his authority over them. Jacob has now selected

Joseph to be the preeminent son, the son of the inheritance.

You know what's interesting? That's not the one that God chose.

Which son did God choose? Let me give you a, what son did

God choose to be the line through which his son would come?

Judah. Judah. Now, this is kind of a jump off into the reason that we have the next chapter.

We're going to get through 37 today. And, you know, you think you're getting ready to step off into the life of Joseph.

And there's just like a sidestep. And where do we go? We go to Judah.

And we'll have a lesson so bad that week that we're going to have to ban the children.

Because Judah, if ever there was a depraved man,

I can't say that. We're all depraved. And I think, not to get ahead of myself, but I think that one of the reasons that the

Holy Spirit put this chapter 38 where it is, is to let us know how depraved

Judah was and is until God redeems him.

Okay. So what's happened is Joseph is on his way. He's coming up to the hill.

And they see him and they make plans. And what plans do they make? They make plans to kill him and throw him in a pit.

Bloody his coat, take it back to his father, and say some evil beast devoured him.

Well, that's their scheme. And they make a little comment. And we'll see what will become of his dreams.

They're not happy because of his dreams. They're not happy because of who he is. They're not happy of anything about Joseph.

But in spite of all their scheming, they will indeed see what will become of his dreams.

But it won't happen for a while. It won't happen until way toward the end of the book of Genesis.

So now we are at the planning state. I thought it would be a good time to comment that Reuben, in spite of his flaws, the eldest son, did make an attempt to intervene on the part of Joseph.

In his own way, Judah is also going to intervene on the behalf of Joseph.

Reuben's intervention is really more impressive than Judah's.

And we'll see that as we go on. But before we do that, since we're considering Joseph as a foreshadowing of Jesus, I'd like to ask you a question.

Did anyone attempt to intervene on the part of Jesus at his trial?

Pilate did. Anybody else? Peter did.

Anybody else? You know what? I'm going to tell you something

I thought was kind of curious as I go through. I have heard Baptist pastors for years criticize

Adam. For listening to the advice of his wife.

And they kind of like lay the blame on Eve because she suggested that he do something.

And he did. I haven't ever heard anybody criticize

Pilate for not listening to his wife. Sometimes the inside of the wives are worth listening to.

There are four events that I'd like to explore. One of them is not an attempt at an intervention.

But it was just interesting to me. Go to Matthew 26 verse 6.

We're going to find a woman there who's going to be really criticized. Matthew what? Matthew 26 verse 6.

We're getting up close to the crucifixion of Jesus. Now when

Jesus was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper. There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment.

And poured it on his head as he sat at meat. So why did she do that?

She took a really powerful expensive like a perfume and poured it on his head.

Why did she do that? Preparing for his burial.

Because she, unlike the disciples, recognized that he had been saying for a long time.

I am soon to be executed.

And she believed him. But when the disciples saw it, they had indignation.

Saying, to what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much and given to the poor.

Now I don't know, but I can just see Judas as the ringleader of this group.

Judas had the money purse. He had the money pouch. And he was concerned that they were wasting his money.

When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, why trouble ye the woman? For she hath wrought a good work on me.

For you have the poor always with you, but me you have not always. For in that she poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial.

So that's the reason she did it. She knew that he was about to be executed. And she was doing this in preparation for his burial.

She is not going to do anything to prevent or to attempt to prevent his death and burial.

But she is going to do what she can do. And because of that, Jesus says this, Verily I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also be this that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial for her.

So he is honoring her for what she did and recognizing that he was soon to be dead and preparing him for his burial.

She recognized the imminent death of Jesus. And she did what she was able to do.

Now here are the outtakes. The disciples were apparently unaware of Jesus' coming death.

And therefore they were incensed. I think there is some of that involved.

Peter certainly, I believe, thought that. In fact, he says, no way, no way

Lord, you can't do this. You've got the power. Well, Jesus is going to tell them why in just a minute.

The woman received honor for her actions. But the outcome, how was the outcome altered?

He just smelled better. The outcome was only altered in that he smelled nice.

I say he's not altered at all, but that's okay. Unlike our plans, the plans of God carry additional weight, the weight of completion.

When we plan something, most times it doesn't happen. I have never planned anything in my whole life that I can remember that went exactly like I thought it was going to go.

Sometimes it went better than I thought it was going to go. Sometimes it went worse. Sometimes it was very close.

But I don't ever remember planning anything and everything falling out in place just like I planned it.

Do you ever remember doing that? Do you ever remember anything that you did coming out exactly as you planned it to do?

Well, I certainly don't. But God always does. When God plans something, it's not just the plan.

It's reality. It's what happens. What God plans is always achieved, always exactly like it was.

So that's one person that made an attempt to intervene in some way in Jesus' death.

Now we're going to go to the next one. And it's going to start out with a person, but this is not the person that we're dealing with.

Matthew 26, down to verse 14. You can see how quickly this is all happening.

This first passage was Matthew 26, verse 13.

And now we are verse 14. And one of the twelve, called

Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priest. And he said unto them, What will you give me, and I will deliver him unto you?

And they covenanted with him for 30 pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.

Now, skip on down to verse 48. He had made his arrangement with the priest, and now he has come back with his group of banned men.

Now, speaking of Judas. Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying,

Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he. Hold him fast. And forthwith he came to Jesus and said,

Hail, Master, and kissed him. And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come?

And then came they and laid their hands on Jesus and took him. And behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand.

Now, if we were in the Gospel of John, reading this same account, this one would be identified as Peter.

One of them that were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck a servant of the high priest.

And we would know his name too if we were in John. And smote off his ear. Then Jesus said unto him,

Put up again thy sword into its place. For all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

And talk about taking things out of context. That's a verse that's often taken out of context. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

That's not really what this is about. Look at verse 33. Thinkest thou that I can not now pray to my

Father, and He shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?

I think on the way over here I was listening to the guy at First Baptist and a legion was six thousand men.

So, not 72 ,000 men though. These are 72 ,000 angels.

One night one angel destroyed the whole Persian army. I mean angels are powerful guys.

Thinkest thou that I can not now pray to my Father, and He will presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?

So, if I wanted the outcome to be different, it would be different.

You're not going to change anything by chopping off the ear of the servant of the chief priest.

You're not going to change anything at all. But if I do that, he continues, but how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must be?

So why did he not call on the legions of angels? Because it was the plan from the very beginning that Jesus die, and be buried, and be resurrected.

That is the gospel. That is what all of our hope is reliant upon.

That may be the reason that this is the last attempt by His disciples to rescue

Him. Or it may be that they were just afraid, and they do show some fear later.

But that was prophesied too. The shepherd shall be smitten and the sheep shall be scattered.

And that's what's going to happen. Now, going on down in Matthew to chapter 27, we'll find the other two people that I wanted to mention that attempted to intervene on the behalf of the

Lord. Remember, we're kind of relating this to Joseph and those who attempted to intervene on his behalf and Virgil.

How successful were they? How successful was Reuben and Judah in preserving

Joseph? Okay, but you're exactly right.

Now, one of the things that I thought was interesting is Reuben's plan was totally foiled from the beginning.

But Judah's plan wasn't. Judah's plan was actually carried out pretty much like he wanted it to be.

Now, so far we've had two people that have attempted in some fashion to intervene. The woman who prepared his body for burial.

I don't know that I should have counted her in here. I just wanted to talk about her. And then

Peter who said, I'm going to save the Lord with my sword. And the

Lord told him, no, no, no, no, no. If I wanted it to be different, I could make it different. Your sword is not the answer of the, how many legions?

Twelve legions. The twelve legions of angels. They would make a difference.

Isn't it interesting? I never really thought about that in a year.

You should have known this had to happen. Okay, I see what you're saying. Not that he physically couldn't hear. He didn't understand.

He heard, he was with Jesus for three years. And he was physically hearing everything he said.

But he doesn't know, he doesn't know that Jesus from the beginning has told him, I am going to be crucified.

I'm going to be buried. And I'm going to rise again on the third day.

He has heard that dozens of times at least. And he didn't hear it at all. Absolutely. Absolutely.

We'll let it go because the Master says it's okay. But this is a crazy woman. And it was the crazy woman that heard and understood.

So moving on down to Matthew 27 verse 15. We'll see two more people attempting to intervene.

Matthew 27. Now at that feast, the governor was wont to release unto the people a prisoner.

Now Jesus has already been convicted. He is standing before the people.

And at that feast the governor was wont to release unto the people a prisoner whom they would.

So they could have anybody they wanted released from prison. And his sins would be forgiven him from the point of view of the state.

And they had then a notable prisoner named Barabbas. Therefore, when they were gathered together,

Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you, Barabbas or Jesus?

He picked just about the most despicable man he could pick. Whom will ye that I should release unto you,

Barabbas or Jesus, which is called Christ? For he knew that for envy they had delivered him.

And when he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Hath thou nothing to do with this just man?

For I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him. I don't know that he was revealing to her what he was, but I do know this.

He was revealing to her that Jesus was not guilty of anything, and that Pilate had better leave him alone.

And he should have listened to her, but he didn't. Who did he listen to? The people.

Okay, so we're going to go down a couple of verses and see what he does. And Pilate said unto them,

What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called

Christ? Because they've said, Release Barabbas. And he says, Okay, what shall

I do with Jesus, which is called Christ? Now I know that this is stretching it a little bit.

And maybe I'm stretching it too far. But this will be the salient question to all of those who stand before the great white throne judgment.

That is to say, the non -elect. What did you do with Jesus? That will be the question.

Now, to be clear, their answer to this question doesn't determine the fate of the non -elect.

They're not in the book of life. That fate has already been determined. They have already chosen what they're going to do with Jesus.

They're going to reject Him. They're going to reject Him because they can't hear Him. They can't see

Him. They can't understand Him. And I didn't say they didn't see

Him and they didn't understand Him. I said they couldn't because they're not of the elect.

They're not in the book of life. There's two books that will be out there. The book of life. And if you're on the book of life, you're not standing before the great white throne judgment.

And if you are standing before the great white throne judgment, they're going to talk about a lot of things.

But what's the most important thing they're going to talk about? What did you do with Jesus? And they will all have to say, we rejected

Him. Barabbas was a rebel.

And he was really, you know, I said the most despicable man.

I'm not even sure I could even say that. He would have had a group of followers. He was in rebellion against the

Roman Empire. So with regard to the Jews, he may not have been that big of an evildoer.

But if Rome wanted to get rid of one, they would have wanted to get rid of Barabbas.

So I may have painted the picture a little bit too strongly. He did that, didn't he?

Well, they answered the question, what shall we do with Jesus? They say, let Him be crucified.

And the governor said, why? What evil hath he done? Talking about Jesus.

But they cried out all the more, saying, let Him be crucified. And Pilate, when he saw that he could prevail nothing, but rather a tumult was made, took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying,

I am innocent of the blood of this just person. See ye to it.

Now, I am innocent of the blood of this just person. I'm sorry?

Oh, that was my question. I stumbled around too long, didn't

I? Was Pilate correct? He was correct in that he was a just man.

But was he correct in saying, I am innocent? Was he really innocent of the blood of Jesus?

No, because water doesn't do anything. Water doesn't do anything. The water baptism doesn't help you, and washing your hands doesn't help you either.

Now, I preface this by saying, I don't think so. Now, you guys are much more adamant, so I'm going to change my mind and say, no way.

Let's just say this.

He had no choice either, because he was, and I don't know, maybe that's part of it too.

He was following for Jesus to be crucified. Yeah, now there was a comment, and I'm going to get

Brother David, if he can, to find this one for me. When dealing with, not

Pilate, but with Judas, there is a passage somewhere that says, he did what he had to do, but woe be unto he that did it.

Something to that effect. He wanted to do it. It's supposed to happen that way, but he's still responsible.

He wanted to wash his hands of it, but you can't. Did I give you enough heads up,

Mr. Dave? Well, can you paraphrase it better than I did?

Yes, but of course, it would have been better for that man. It would have been better for that man that he had never been born, but it was not better for God's plan, because he was born, and he was born to do this specific task.

But, at the same time, he's responsible for what he did. We all do what's

God's will. And we all do what we want to do.

Okay, I'm going to tell you what, and I preface this with, this is what I believe. I believe he was guilty.

If you have the authority to act to prevent a wrongdoing, and you know of the wrong, if you have the authority to act to prevent a wrong, and you know of the wrong, and you don't prevent it, then you're guilty of the wrong.

That's my interpretation. We're told not to have our own special interpretation, so I hope that fits with the

Lord's. But, understand. Well, it is

Judas that he's talking about. And you can apply the same rule, basically, to anybody that does what he has ordained in Scripture to do, and is punished for it.

There's been a lot of people that did that. Pilate is an example.

Pilate did what he was ordained to do. And he was punished for it.

Okay, then verse 25, What about the people?

Were they correct? The people were correct. And they knew it.

And the blood of Jesus is on them, and on their children. So Pilate did attempt to release

Jesus. But like Reuben, he was not prepared to do that which needed to be done to accomplish his task.

So let's go back to Reuben. Verse 21, I'm not sure he was involved in the plot, but I'm not sure he wasn't.

And Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands. And he said,

Now that's all he told his brothers. I stopped there at the semicolon. That's not the end of the verse.

He says, That's what his brothers know.

That's what he told his brothers. The scripture, though, tells us a little bit more. It tells us his motive for doing that.

So we can know that he had a noble motive. That he might rid him out of their hands to deliver him to his father again.

So his motive was, he was going to take them out of their hands, come back and retrieve him, and take him back to his father.

A moment of responsibility from the eldest son. But only for a moment.

He was the eldest son. In the eyes of the sons, he was the preeminent son.

He was the boss son. He was the son of authority over the shepherds.

He had the authority to say, He could have said that.

He could have said, Don't touch Joseph. I'm going to take him back to his father. Leave him alone.

But he didn't say that. He left the brothers with the impression that Joseph would be abandoned in the pit to die.

So along comes Joseph. And it came to pass, when Joseph came unto his brethren, that they stripped

Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colors that was on him. The very first thing they did is what?

Remove his emblem of authority. They don't want him in authority over them. Now, I have no idea to the answer to this question, so maybe somebody knows.

Where was Reuben? Was Reuben there with them, helping remove him of his authority, or not?

I don't know. It doesn't say here. There may be something somewhere, but I don't know of it.

So they, that may include Reuben or it may not, I'm not sure. They took him and cast him into a pit.

And the pit was empty, and there was no water in it. I'm inclined to believe that Reuben was with them.

That's how he knows the location of the pit. But that's just putting together dots that are really far apart.

So that may not be the correct thing. So they took him and they cast him into the pit.

Now, they have just rid themselves of their tormentor, of the person that's lording over them.

And they're not worried a bit. What do they do? They sit down and eat.

You know, I would probably be too emotional at this time to eat.

But they weren't. They sat down to eat bread. And they lifted up their eyes and looked.

And behold, a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.

Now, here comes Judah. And Judah says unto his brethren,

What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the

Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother and our flesh.

And the brethren were content. So they said, we can make a nickel out of this, so we will sell him to the

Ishmaelites. And he'll spend his life in bondage, and he will be bowing down to other people, and we'll never have to bow down to him.

You know, I don't know the answer to that. They certainly were offended that he had the audacity to say that they had bowed down to him.

Did they believe it? I think there was more to it than just annoyance.

If we're comparing it to Christ, which we should, because this is a picture of it, we just read that the

Jews knew the blood was on them. Do you follow me?

So I think that they, I think Ron's right. I've never seen things parlayed out.

But they knew what Joseph was telling them was true, deep down.

Well, Judah is going to develop, and he's going to show more character later, but not yet, and not even very quickly.

Between now and then, we're going to have a really sordid story about Judah.

And it's going to lay open just how righteous you have to be in order for God to love you.

And what we'll find is, God doesn't love you because you're righteous.

The best you can be is totally depraved.

Okay, Judah will develop and show more character later, but not yet. Then passed by the

Mennonites. I thought they were Ishmaelites. No, these were two ways of expressing the same group of people.

That would be like, the

Mennonites were an area from whence these people came. The Ishmaelites were sons of Ishmael, and they lived in this land, and they were so intertwined by marriage and by alliances that people referred to them all the same way.

I was trying to think of a way to relate it. You know, we're

Texans. We're members of the United States. But we're

Texans. And even those of us who are not

Texans pretend to be Texans. I don't think that's a good example.

Forget that. Matthew 26, 15.

And they said unto them, What will you give me?

I will deliver him unto you, and they covenanted with him for 30 pieces of silver.

Remember that? So they sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. The brothers sold

Joseph for 20 pieces of silver. Now that's really not to lay some sort of value on that Jesus is more valuable than Joseph.

Certainly he is. But if you were basing that, it wouldn't be 20 to 30. It would be a whole big different number.

That was just the standard going price for a slave. In Exodus, the price of a slave is established as 30 pieces of silver.

If an ox kills a man or a male servant or a maid servant, he shall give his master 30 shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned.

So if an ox destroyed a slave, the value of the slave to the slave owner was set to be 30 pieces of silver.

And then you had to kill the ox. Okay, Reuben returned unto the pit, and behold,

Joseph was not in the pit, and he rent his clothes. Reuben was certainly upset, but he was more upset for himself than he was for Joseph.

How do we know? Look, he returns to his brethren and says, The child is not, and I, whither shall

I go? And so what did they decide to do?

They take Joseph's coat and kill a kid of the goats and dip his blood in the coat.

That they includes Reuben. Reuben is in on this part.

And they sent the coat of many colors, and they brought it to their father and said, This we have found.

Now, know now whether it be thy son's coat or no. So they take the coat to the dad and say,

We found this. Does it belong to Joseph? And he knew it and said,

This is my son's coat. An evil beast hath devoured him. Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.

And Jacob rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon his loins, and he mourned for his son many days.

And all of his sons and all of his daughters rose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted.

And he said, For I will go down into the grave and to my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him.

Now, I think it's interesting that the sons, every one of them knew where Joseph was.

They, everyone knew, except Benjamin. They, everyone knew that he was not dead.

And they let their father mourn in hell. And why did they do that?

Because they would have had to deal with even a more difficult story to tell their father that we sold him into slavery.

We were tempted to kill him, that we found we could turn a quick buck, so we sold him to the Midianites. As far as Jacob is concerned,

Joseph is dead. And the

Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's and a captain of the guard.

Joseph, as far as Joseph is concerned, as far as Jacob is concerned,

Joseph is dead. But Joseph's story is just now beginning. And we'll take a time out next week for Judah, and then we'll leap into Joseph.

Ron, could you dismiss us from the prayer, please? And teaching us even this day, as these things happen for Jesus, we thank you for the learning that we have in this place,

Lord, your house. And we give you glory and praise beyond anything we can ever. Thank you,

Lord, for this day. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. It's just been on my mind all through the lesson about comparing

Jesus and comparing others. Even though we know the

Father doesn't like something, we still do it. And we're still going to be held responsible for it later on.

Which they probably never thought they would ever be caught. You know, maybe you're right.

Maybe they thought every second of the day that they would never be caught. But they weren't.

Most people think. And even when we stop and realize, I can see everything.

Yeah, we don't have anything from it. That's what we used to tell Kenner. You may be lying, you may not, but God knows, doesn't he,

Kenner? You know, and it wasn't necessarily to scare or whip her into shape.

It was just, I really believe that, that she needed to keep that in the back of her mind. Well, we all do.

We all need to keep in mind that we're not, the boys may have hid their sins from Jacob, but you can't hide yours from the

Lord. Right. Because after all, this is just a picture. But you know, it's really,

I mean, I remember what Otis told us, and he said, don't think that you would do anything different.

Oh, it was Peter, I mean, you know, about denying him. Don't think that we would do anything different. We would do the same thing.

We just think that, because we know the whole story, we may not be able to, we may not be able to speak to you.

But if we all want to, we can do the same thing.