From Eden's Garden to Egypt's Coffin

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Genesis chapter 50 and hold your place at verse 22.
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One of the prevailing secular beliefs on the origin of man is Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.
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This concept is based on the idea that through the process of natural selection, living organisms have adapted and improved over time, increasing in strength and intelligence along the way.
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According to Darwin, all life began with a single-celled organism.
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Over time, that common ancestor gave rise to all the living things that we see around us.
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And most of us, especially those who went to public school, were taught some form of this theory in our science classes.
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But when we look at the Bible, what we realize immediately is that Darwin's theory does not fit with the narrative that we're given in Genesis.
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In Genesis, God does not begin with a single-celled organism.
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God begins by speaking the world into existence, and then he commands all kinds of creatures to come forth and to reproduce after their kinds.
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Complex life forms do not come from lower life forms, but God creates the higher and the lower all together by speaking them into existence.
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And this is especially true of man.
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Man is not the descendant of some lower ape-like creature.
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But Genesis tells us that man was created from the dust of the ground, likewise he created woman out of man, and he endowed man kind with a very special and particular status, that which is called the imago dei, or the image of God.
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But mankind did not stay in this place of honor, but rather he sinned against God, he brought judgment upon himself, and in doing so, he brought death, disease, and destruction into the world.
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So, what we see in the Bible is not evolution, but devolution.
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We don't see increase, we see decrease.
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We don't see abundance, we see degradation.
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Creation does not begin in a primitive lower state and then begin to improve.
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Creation begins in a state of honor and perfection, sin enters the picture and brings about successive degradation.
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And beloved, that is the story of Genesis.
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Today's sermon is called From Eden's Garden to Egypt's Coffin.
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This is our last sermon in the book of Genesis.
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We started on September the 1st, 2019.
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I went back and looked, that was my first sermon in Genesis.
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So we are coming to the conclusion of this series.
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After three years, this is the 111th message, and over these three years, we have read and examined every single verse of this book.
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And what we have seen is we have seen it go from God's wonderful creation to a successive series of sin, destruction, and death.
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And I remember when it was first pointed out to me, the interesting connection between Genesis 1-1 and the last verse of Genesis.
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And this is the connection.
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Both of them have a prepositional phrase.
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Actually, the last verse of Genesis has two.
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The beginning of the Bible begins with a prepositional phrase, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
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But it ends with two prepositional phrases, in a coffin, in Egypt.
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In the beginning, God creates the heavens and the earth, and it is perfect.
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But it ends in a box of bones, in a land that is not the promised land.
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It's interesting, I remember my professor pointing that out to me, and that stuck with me.
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And it just kind of reminded me that we don't see evolution, we see devolution.
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We don't see things getting better, we actually see things getting worse.
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But it's all building to a point.
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And the point is, though we have, through sin, brought degradation and destruction into the world, we know that God has a plan to redeem this world.
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And today we're going to examine these final verses of Genesis, and then we're going to conclude by looking at the theological overview of the book, and we're going to see what is it that we have learned these last three years.
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So let us stand together and read our opening passage, our main text, it's only five verses.
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Beginning in Genesis 50, verse 22.
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So Joseph remained in Egypt.
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He and his father's house, Joseph lived 110 years.
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And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation.
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The children also of Mekir, the son of Manasseh, were counted as Joseph's own.
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And Joseph said to his brothers, I'm about to die.
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But God will visit you, and bring you up out of this land to the new, excuse me, to the new land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
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Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.
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So Joseph died, being 110 years old.
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They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I pray even now, Lord, that you would, by your mercy, keep me from error, as I am a fallible man.
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I pray that you would open up the hearts of your people to understand the truth, and by it be changed, and further conform to the image of Jesus Christ.
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And I pray for those, Lord, who have not yet bowed the knee to Christ, that today they would see the desperation of being outside of Christ.
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Lord, that the believer would be edified, and the unbeliever terrified.
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And all would be pointed to Christ, is my prayer in Jesus' name, amen.
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It has been a blessing to see so many new folks the last few months.
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And we have new visitors almost every week, and that's a wonderful thing.
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But sometimes coming in at the middle of a series of sermons is like parachuting into the middle of a battle.
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It's kind of hard to get your bearings as to what's going on.
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And moreover, coming in at the end of a series, very last sermon, might be even more difficult still.
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So allow me to bring everyone up to speed, if it's possible.
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We have been looking at Genesis now for quite a long time.
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Genesis has two main parts.
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The first 11 chapters deal with the beginnings of earth and humankind.
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And the last chapters, beginning at chapter 12 to chapter 50, are the beginnings of the Hebrew people.
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The word Genesis means beginnings.
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So it has the beginnings of man and humankind, and it has the beginnings of the Hebrew people, God's chosen vessels.
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And God chooses one man to be the patriarch of those people.
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His name was Abraham.
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Abraham had a son named Isaac.
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Isaac had a son named Jacob.
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And Jacob would later be called Israel, and he would have 12 sons.
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These would become the 12 tribes of Israel.
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One of them was named Joseph, and he was hated by his brothers.
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He was sold by them into slavery.
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And after a series of events, including slavery and imprisonment, God raised him up to be the second in command, ruler of Egypt, and he saved the world, as it were at that point, the known world, from a famine.
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God brought about reconciliation with his brothers who sold him into slavery, which is what we saw in our last message last week.
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They came to him thinking he was going to be angry, thinking he was going to bring about their destruction at the death of their father.
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And he shows them forgiveness, he shows them grace, he shows them mercy, and it says essentially that they lived out their days in that state of forgiveness in Egypt.
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And this brings us to today's passage.
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And what today's passage is, verses 22 to 26, what this really is, is this is a bridge and a conclusion.
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That sounds weird, because it sounds like those two things would be mutually exclusive.
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A bridge takes you somewhere, and a stop sign stops you.
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Well, this is the stop sign of Genesis.
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It's concluding the book, but it's also building a bridge to the very first chapter of the next book, which is the book of Exodus.
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And just so you know, I'm not going there next week.
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I'm not going to start another long, long narrative.
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It'll be a little while before I do that again.
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But that's what this section is.
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And really, it's not just about the death and final commands of Joseph.
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It's about preparing them for the next major event on God's celestial time clock.
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Because here's the thing, for about 400 years, 430 years, we're not going to hear from God.
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Now whether or not the people of Israel had any revelation during that time, it's not given to us.
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Similar to the time between Malachi and Matthew.
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There's about a 400 year period, which we call the silent times, or the times where there was no revelation, where God did not speak that we know of through the prophets.
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And so we have that same situation here, where it's Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, but when Joseph dies, it's 400 years of history before the next time we hear the word of the Lord.
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So that's where we are.
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We're at this conclusion of Genesis and this bridge to Exodus.
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And it tells us about the death of Joseph.
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And I find this interesting, it doesn't tell us about the death of anyone else.
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We don't hear about the death of Judah, we don't hear about the death of Reuben or Simeon or any of the other brothers.
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All we are given is this one person's life ending and his final words.
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We know that all the families stayed in Egypt.
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We know that they are still there.
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That sets the stage for Exodus.
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If any of them had gone back, then we wouldn't have what we have later, which is all of the tribes moving out.
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Exodus begins with a recounting of the brothers coming to Egypt, how they were fruitful and they multiplied and they continued to multiply to the point that the Egyptian king, who didn't remember Joseph, was afraid of them because they had gotten so large that he puts them into slavery.
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That's how Exodus begins, that's what happens in that 400 year period.
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So all of this is bringing Genesis to a conclusion and setting the stage for Exodus.
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Now here's the outline, I'll put it up on the screen for you.
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The outline is simple.
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We're going to actually just look at this in five parts because there's five verses.
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And each verse sort of stands on its own with its own idea as to how it's ending and what it's focusing on.
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We're going to look at the final years of Joseph, verse 22.
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The offspring of Joseph, verse 23.
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The prophecy of Joseph, verse 24.
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The command of Joseph is verse 25.
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And the death of Joseph is verse 26.
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So let's look first at the final years of Joseph.
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Look at verse 22 with me.
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It says, So Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father's house.
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Joseph lived 110 years.
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Now we are not told why Joseph and his family remained even though the famine was long gone.
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Think about this.
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That famine had been gone for years at this point.
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There was no more famine.
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There was no more need to be in Egypt.
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But they were still in Egypt.
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Now, some people say, well maybe they stayed because Joseph was in a politically powerful position and he didn't feel like he could break away because he had this relationship with the Pharaoh and he had to stay.
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The text doesn't tell us that.
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That would be conjecture.
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It's reasonable to assume that his position of power made it important that he stay.
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It could also be though that they were in the lap of luxury.
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The people of God were now in Egypt and they were happy because they were eating the best of Egypt's food.
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They were living in the best of Egypt's land.
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They were enjoying the most politically prosperous leader of Egypt's time.
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And so they get to enjoy this time that even though they're not in the promised land, they're happy.
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Kind of seems like we should be able to draw an application from that, huh? Just the idea that they can be happy even though they're not in the best place for them.
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Little did they know that by lingering in Egypt, they were going to bring about the enslavement of their descendants.
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Little did they know that in just a few short years, their prosperity was going to become drudgery as they began to have to serve as slaves, the leaders in Egypt.
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Rather than being seen as a blessed people, they would be seen as a curse.
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Sometimes it's hard to see how our current decisions will affect the future and our children's future.
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Had they known the terrible conditions that lingering in Egypt would produce, it's reasonable to assume they wouldn't have stayed.
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But they were happy.
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They were content.
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They were satisfied.
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Why leave? We have everything we need.
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Now I'm not discounting God's sovereignty.
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They stayed because it was God's decree that they do so.
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Because God had decreed to demonstrate his power by leading them out in the exodus, amen? But there's still the human element of responsibility.
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At any time, they could have chosen to go back home.
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They could have chosen to go back to the promised land.
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That land that had been promised to them by God to their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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They had already went home once to bury the bones of Jacob.
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But they decided to stay in Egypt.
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As I said, God had a plan for it.
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There was a purpose for it.
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But it doesn't make those years of slavery any less bitter.
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Now it says Joseph lived 110 years.
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That is a significant lifespan among the Egyptians.
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In fact, among the Egyptian people, 110 years was considered to be the optimal lifespan or the best a man could get.
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Now we, in our modern day, we talk about what? Our three-score and ten, right? Did you know that comes from the Bible? Psalm 90 verse 10 mentions our three-score and ten.
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And by the way, if you don't know what three-score, I never knew what a score was.
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I always heard, you know, Abraham Lincoln, four, score, and 70.
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I never knew what that meant.
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A score is 20 years.
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So three-score is 60 and add 10 to that is 70.
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So the idea of the modern man is I'm going to look forward to my three-score and ten unless you're Jack Bunning and you killed that a long time ago and you keep it on trucking.
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And Paul as well.
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You guys who are over 70, you're pushing hard and you're strong and you're healthier than I am.
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And praise God for that.
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But again, the expectation of our modern life, three-score and ten.
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But for the Egyptians, the optimal life of what was not what was necessarily expected but what was considered to be the blessing was 110 years.
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And Joseph met that 110-year lifespan.
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His life was long but his life was short when you compare it to the other patriarchs.
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Because his life was 110 years.
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Anybody remember the life of Abraham? It was 175 years.
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How about the life of Isaac? It was 180 years.
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Even his father Jacob lived 147 years.
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So compared to his ancestors, he lived a shorter life.
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But if you think about his ancient ancestors, it was way shorter.
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Because who was...
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How many years did Adam live? 930 years.
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How many years did Seth live? 912 years.
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What's the oldest man in the Bible? Methuselah.
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Methuselah lived 969 years.
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You realize if you live 969 years, that means you were alive to see the great schism? The great schism happened in 1054.
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That means you were alive then and you're still alive today.
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I think this is another picture of the devolution of Genesis, by the way.
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It begins with these long lifespans.
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It begins with these extremely...
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A man living to a millennium.
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And by the end of Genesis, 110 years is the best he could get.
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It's just an example.
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And where are we now? Now, I mean, it's 3 score and 10, right? It's just an example of how things change.
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And how things have not gotten better, but have actually gotten worse.
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So we see the final years of Joseph.
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Now we see the offspring of Joseph.
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It says in verse 23, it says, "...Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation.
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The children also of Mekhir, the son of Manasseh, were counted as Joseph's own." Now it's an important note to understand why this is included.
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Because it seems like it's a rather irrelevant point as we begin to wrap up the book.
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But it's not an irrelevant point, because it's saying two things about the offspring of Joseph.
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One, it's saying that he lived long enough to see his great-grandchildren.
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By the way, children are a blessing from the Lord.
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Okay, I was waiting for that one, yes.
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Grandchildren are also a blessing.
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I don't have any yet.
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I don't have any yet, but for those of you who have grandchildren, it's a different type of blessing.
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To see your children's children.
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But then imagine, this is what it says.
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It says, "...he saw them to the third generation." That's his children's children's children.
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The great-grand...
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Anybody here got great-grandkids? I know Jack does.
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Paul, a few people with their hands raised have great-grandchildren.
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What a blessing it is to see your children's children's children come up and hand you the baby.
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Look at what our line has produced.
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Proverbs 17, 6, "...children's children are the crown of old men, and the glory of children are their fathers." So this is speaking of Joseph's blessing.
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He had the blessing of seeing his children to the third generation.
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But it mentions one in particular, and that is Mekhir, the son of Manasseh.
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And the reason why it mentions Mekhir, the son of Manasseh, is because Manasseh was really no longer considered to be Joseph's son.
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Do you know why? Do you remember why? Because Jacob, his father, adopted Manasseh and Ephraim as his sons.
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And what did he say to Manasseh and Ephraim? Their children will be your children.
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That was in the text.
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He said, their children will be yours.
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Because these two are now becoming mine by way of adoption, their children are going to become yours.
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So now he sees Mekhir, the son of Manasseh, not as a grandson, but as a son.
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He sees him as his offspring, and he takes him in as his offspring.
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And what's interesting, if you go through, and this is why I think this is here, by the way.
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You may disagree, and that's okay, because this is an opinion, and it's all right to disagree.
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I believe the reason why this one is mentioned, is because if you follow down the line through the books of Numbers, and through into the books of Joshua and Deuteronomy, you see the Mekhirites actually have significance among the people of Israel.
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And so, who is this book being written to? Who is the original audience of Genesis? The people of the Exodus, which would have included the Mekhirites.
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And by the way, Gilead is a descendant of the Mekhirites.
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And so, this is a pointed, just like earlier, we saw earlier in Genesis 50 and in Genesis 49, it's pointing to something that's going to happen later, and have great significance.
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And so, all of this would have been very important to the people to whom it was written.
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Even though we look at it and say, who's the Mekhirites? What does that matter to us? It mattered to them.
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It mattered to the original audience.
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And sometimes historical facts like this are for that purpose.
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Moses is including this here, I believe, because it makes a difference to the original audience, the people who are reading it.
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Hey, you guys, you guys, you Mekhirites, this is about you.
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This is the blessing that you have.
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Now we see the prophecy of Joseph.
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Verse 24, it says, And Joseph said to his brothers, I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
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Now, Joseph, like his father, is giving a last word to his family.
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And in these words, he's making a prophetic oracle.
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Understand this, verse 24 is a prophecy.
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Notice what he says.
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Not a prophecy about his death, because I think he knew he was going to die.
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I don't think that's necessarily a prophetic oracle.
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I think he just knew his time was near.
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But he says, But God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
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Let me ask you a question.
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What is that a promise of? It's a promise of the exodus.
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How long away is that promise to be fulfilled? 430 years.
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This is a 400 year prophecy that is coming out of the mouth of Joseph.
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He's making a prophetic announcement that God is going to visit you.
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And here's the reason why I think this is important.
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Joseph is essentially leaving his family.
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And he has been the point of protection for them up until now.
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From the moment they came to Egypt, what was Joseph? He was their protector.
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He was, as we've said, their savior.
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He gave them food during the famine.
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He gave them land to live in.
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He gave them political protection.
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He gave them everything they needed for prosperity, growth, and strength.
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And now he's going to die.
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And he doesn't say, Hey, when I die, I'm going to appoint Gary to be my next in line.
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And Gary is going to be the second in command of Egypt.
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Sorry, Gary, it weren't you.
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He says, I'm about to die, but God will visit you.
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We often talk about that phrase, but God.
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Thinking about specifically Ephesians 2.
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You were dead in your trespasses and sins, but God.
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And here he says to them, He says, I'm about to die, but God will visit you.
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You're not going to have me to protect you.
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You're going to have someone better to protect you.
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You're not going to have me to lead you in the exodus.
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You're going to have someone better to lead you in the exodus.
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You're not going to have me to provide for your needs.
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You're going to have he who provides all things and has promised you that he will be with you.
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And he's going to bring you up out of this land.
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And he's going to take you to the land that he swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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Now, here's what's interesting too.
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When they go to leave, it is going to be a much different people than the group that we don't know how many are there now.
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We know that it's been several decades that they've been in Egypt and certainly children have been born.
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But do you know how many children had been? Well, not how many children.
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Do you know how many generations had come in that 400 years and what it had been built to according to the book of numbers? The level of people, the amount of people that were Hebrew in Egypt.
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Does anybody remember? The number of fighting men was 603,550.
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That means they were old enough to fight and young enough to fight.
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So that does not include small children and boys.
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It does not include older men who are no longer able to stand on the battlefield.
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So 603,000 that...
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And by the way, if you want to address for that, it's numbers 145 and 46.
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It says the number every man able to go to war in Israel was listed 603,550.
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Now assume every one of those men had a counterpart woman.
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Well, now you're over a million people.
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And assume that those had maybe a child among them.
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Well, now you're into almost 2 million people.
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And don't ask me to do math past that.
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I just know a lot of folk.
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Is that...
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So we're looking at a bunch of people.
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This prophecy about God leading them out is not just a small caravan.
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Every time I see a movie where they try to redo the Exodus, it's always like 25 people going across the desert, you know? Man, this was a nation.
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What's the population of Jacksonville? Yeah, right at a million, right at a million.
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Twice the population of Jacksonville were led out of Egypt.
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This is a major prophecy.
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This is a major event in the history of the world.
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This promise that God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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This is a prophecy for the whole next book and what is about to happen.
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And here's the thing.
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Joseph is not telling his immediate audience, you're going to experience this.
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He's not saying Judah and Simeon.
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We don't even know if they're still alive at this point.
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But he's not saying to his brothers and their children, God's going to leave you up in the sense of you personally.
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God's going to lead your descendants out of this place.
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And I want to show you something very quickly.
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And I will ask you to turn in your Bibles.
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Turn back to Genesis 15.
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Because just in case we think that God is somehow reactive to what we do.
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I want to show you this was God's plan all the way back when he first made his covenant with Abraham.
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Because you know he made the covenant with Genesis.
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He called Abraham in Genesis 12.
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But he made the covenant with the smoking fire pot and the flaming torch in Genesis 15.
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And right after this covenant was made, look what he says in verse 13.
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Genesis 15 verse 13.
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It says, Then the Lord said to Abraham, Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for 400 years.
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Notice he gets it right.
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He said they're going to be there 400 years.
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What's he talking about? He's talking about Egypt.
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But what does it say? But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve.
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By the way, that's why they're there.
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Do you understand that God allowed the people of Israel to stay? Or no, I'm sorry.
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I'm going to say allow.
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He decreed that the people of Israel stay in Egypt 400 years because he had a plan to bring judgment upon Egypt.
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And he did it in the Exodus.
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How do I know that? Go to Romans 9.
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For this very reason have I raised you up that my power might be shown in you.
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He says to Pharaoh that very thing.
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The whole reason for the Exodus was to put on display the power of Almighty God over the most powerful ruler in the world.
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That God is more powerful than him.
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And he is able to deliver to the uttermost those who trust in him.
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That's the picture.
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And that's the reason for this.
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So he says I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve.
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And afterward they shall come out with great possessions.
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I was hollering too.
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It's all right.
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Praise the Lord.
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I was loud.
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I got him going.
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But that's the thing.
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All of this is pointing to that Exodus.
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Because that Exodus is a picture of deliverance.
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And guess what that picture is to? Jesus Christ.
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It's a picture of deliverance.
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God's work.
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It's a grandiose picture of what God can do and will do in the life of his people.
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All right.
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So let's look at the command of Joseph.
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In verse 25 it says, Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, God will surely visit you and shall carry up my bones.
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You shall carry up my bones from here.
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Now I think that this is important to mention.
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That this is an example of a man who is dying in faith.
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Because he knows he's going to die in Egypt.
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But he also knows that Egypt is not his home.
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He is part of an inheritance that was promised by God.
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It was promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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By the way, the verse we just read right before this.
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That's the first time the phrase Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is used all together.
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As the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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Showing that by this point that understanding of the covenant of God.
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Is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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And he's saying by commanding.
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Not asking.
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By commanding that his bones be taken back.
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He's showing that he knows he was never, never an Egyptian.
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He was always a member of God's covenant family.
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Bruce Waltke says this.
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He says, The theme of the patriarchs is on Joseph's lips at death.
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The land is a divine gift to the elect family.
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So Joseph makes them swear.
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Take my bones back to Canaan when you go.
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Now, it was a long time, weren't it? 400 years.
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But do you know what happened? You don't have to turn there.
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But in Exodus chapter 13 verse 19 it says this.
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It says, Moses took the bones of Joseph with him.
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For Joseph had made the sons of Israel swear.
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Saying God will surely visit you.
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And you shall carry up my bones with you from here.
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See, Moses quotes Joseph.
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And he fulfills the command in Exodus 13.
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But he doesn't bury him right away.
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In fact, it wasn't even Moses who delivers him to the promised land.
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Because guess what? Moses didn't go to the promised land.
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Moses saw the promised land.
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But he didn't go in.
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So his second man, Joshua, takes the responsibility of doing what was commanded.
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And he takes the bones of Joseph.
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And in Joshua 24.32 it says, As for the bones of Joseph which the people of Israel brought up from Egypt, they were buried at Shechem.
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So right there is the fulfillment of this command.
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To do what Joseph had called them to do.
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And finally we reach verse 26.
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The last verse of the book.
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And it says, So Joseph died, being 110 years old.
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They embalmed him as they had embalmed his father.
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That doesn't say that.
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But that's my commentary on that.
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They had embalmed his father.
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Now they embalmed him.
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And he was put in a coffin in Egypt.
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As I said earlier, I think this ends on somewhat of a sullen note.
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Because Genesis begins with that great preposition.
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In the beginning God created.
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And now it ends in a coffin in Egypt.
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And this shows the direction of mankind throughout the book.
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Really of all mankind of all times.
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But it's not as if this is a hopeless end.
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And this is the point I really hope to stress for you.
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As we begin to draw everything together.
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In the face of this negative ending.
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In the face of this coffin in Egypt.
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We know the story doesn't end there.
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By the way, if you're a believer in Christ.
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Your story won't end in a coffin in the ground either.
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The story doesn't end there.
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God has no intention of leaving his people in a box in Egypt.
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And God has no intention of letting sin have the final word.
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God is providentially working in all of this chaos.
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What we think is chaos is God's working out of his plan.
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And he is bringing about the plan of redemption one step at a time.
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Even when we see coffins.
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And we see death.
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And we see pain.
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And we see destruction.
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God is still at work.
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And there is deliverance coming.
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The exodus is on the way.
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And that exodus from Egypt will prefigure the greater exodus.
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The greater deliverance of God.
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Which he will provide through his son Jesus Christ.
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All of this.
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All of this is a prelude to the greater work of Christ which is to come.
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And I will tell you this.
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After three years.
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After 111 messages.
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That is what I want you to take away from this study.
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Is that everything in this book was significant to the lives of those who are narrated in it.
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It was significant to the people who it was written to.
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But it is also significant and relevant to us thousands of years later.
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Because it is the seed of truth which would later find its fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Christ is the purpose of Genesis.
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Christ is the center of Genesis.
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Christ is seen through Genesis in promises and pictures.
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He is promised in Genesis 3.15 as the coming serpent crusher.
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He is pictured in the ark which saved his people from a watery wrath of God.
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He is seen as the angel of the Lord speaking to Hagar.
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Speaking to Abraham.
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Wrestling with Jacob.
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He is seen exemplified in the sacrifice of Isaac.
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In the substitution of the ram.
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He is illustrated in the life of Joseph.
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Who though great trial and rejection and tribulation came.
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He ended up as the savior of his people.
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He is promised as the lion of the tribe of Judah.
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Who would come and take the scepter and have authority in his hand forever.
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This book is about Jesus.
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Therefore a study of Genesis should make you a better lover of Christ.
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All of this should make us love Christ more.
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There are a lot of theological principles we've looked at in the last three years.
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Genesis gave us the foundation for our concept of covenant.
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A concept which is the basis of the whole scriptures understanding of God's way of redemption.
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It gave us the first instance of sacrifice.
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Which the law would later articulate into the entire ceremonial system of worship.
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It gave us a proper view of God's providence and God's promises.
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Which are based in his character, his mercy and love.
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But again, all of these are not to be seen as separate or distinct theological truths.
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Because all of them have one goal.
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Whether you're talking about the covenants.
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Or whether you're talking about God's providence.
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Or whether you're talking about God's promises.
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All of it has one goal.
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And that end goal is Jesus.
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Genesis is the beginnings.
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But it's not the end.
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It points to a greater end.
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And that end is Christ.
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And I pray, I pray that through this series you have learned to love Christ more.
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That you have seen the beauty of the new covenant.
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As it has been displayed throughout the Old Testament scriptures.
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But I know for some of you that is probably not true.
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Maybe there are some of you who are here today who have not realized yet.
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Just how important Jesus is.
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Maybe there are some of you today who even in this series.
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Have been very interested in the stories of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Sarai.
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And all these different people.
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And you've gotten interested in the stories.
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But you haven't seen Christ.
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I want you to understand this.
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There's nothing more important than I or Brother Mike or Brother Andy.
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Or any man or any woman in this church can ever tell you.
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Than to understand that the very center of this book is the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And that's what it's all about.
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We often say in this church.
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There are only two kinds of people.
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And beloved that is the truth.
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There are those who have by grace entered into a saving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And there are those who have by the rejection of that.
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Stand outside of that saving grace.
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And you are either on one side or you are on the other.
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You are either in Christ or you are in Egypt.
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And let me tell you something.
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That separation, it don't matter.
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It's not an economic distinction.
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It's not a national distinction.
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It's not a racial distinction.
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It's not a linguistic distinction.
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It's a distinction of having been born again.
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And brought to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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So I would ask you this.
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As we draw all of this.
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All of this study to a close.
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If you're a believer.
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Do you understand better now? How your Savior is pictured in this first book of the Bible.
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Do you understand better now? How to understand the way that God has managed history to exalt Christ.
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But if you're not a believer.
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If you have not yet come to that knowledge.
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I would ask you this.
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How can you look at what we have studied over this period of time? Seeing Christ pictured in the ark.
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And in the ram.
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And in the sacrifices.
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And in the angel of the Lord.
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And in all these things.
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How can you look at Christ and still reject him? How can you look at Christ and say no.
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He's not the one.
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He's the only one.
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He is the way.
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The truth.
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And the life.
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And no man comes unto the father.
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Except through him.
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Let's pray.
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Father I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for your truth.
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I thank you for your Christ.
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Who you sent.
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In the fullness of time.
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Born of a woman.
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Born under the law.
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That he might redeem those who are under the law.
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And give us the adoption as sons.
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And Lord I thank you for the redemption that comes in Christ alone.
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I thank you for the salvation that comes in knowing him.
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And I do pray even now oh God.
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That if there are those today.
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Who stand outside of Christ.
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That they would no longer mock.
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That they would no longer wait.
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That they would no longer procrastinate Lord.
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But that they would run to the cross.
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That you would open their hearts to believe.
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And that Jesus would be more beautiful now than he ever has been.
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Lord make us all lovers of Christ.
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And love him more.
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In Jesus name.
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Amen.