"They Conspired Against Him"

Grace Reformation Bible Church

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Well, it's certainly good to be back. I feel a little more comfortable here, in some ways, although I do miss

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Gaga being a few yards away. That was quite fun. But it certainly is wonderful to be back, and not only are we back in the familiar setting here in Berry, but we're also back in a familiar book, in the book of Genesis, as we continue forward this morning in chapter 37.

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A few weeks ago, we began chapter 37 with Joseph's dreams, the two dreams that he had, as well as the highlighted jealousy of his brothers, which we're going to see in further detail this morning in verses 12 through 20.

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We already concluded two weeks ago with verse 11, his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the word.

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His father kept the matter in mind. So we have this kind of subplot of the brothers' jealousy, which has been bubbling underneath the time span between verse 11 and the events of verses 12 through 20.

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It's hard to say how much time has passed, not too much time. We're given some age ranges, but a murder plot doesn't hatch overnight, generally speaking.

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There's been further opportunity for them to become more provoked, more jealous, more outraged, as they were aware of the revelation from the dream, and as they had time to observe their father's affection for Joseph, and as they saw his outstanding character, his almost goody -two -shoes demure,

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I think they were brought further and further into rage. And so it's perhaps an understatement to say his brothers were jealous of him, just like it's an understatement to say the scribes were envious that the whole world was going out to Jesus.

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Envy isn't even the half of it. They had hatred, they had murder in their hearts.

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This morning we want to look at these verses really in three parts. First, we want to notice how they conspire against Joseph.

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They conspire against Joseph. Secondly, in sort of our thematic look at the typology, two weeks ago we defined typology, what it means for a type and what it means for that type to represent the anti -type, the corresponding fulfillment, and we said

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Joseph is perhaps the premier type of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we want to consider first how they conspire against Joseph, but secondly how they conspire against Jesus.

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So we're looking at it typologically. And then for application, we'll do application on the way, but thirdly they conspire against us as followers of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. So they conspire against Joseph, against Jesus, against us.

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Beginning in verse 12. And his brothers went to feed their father's flock in Shechem.

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And Israel said to Joseph, are not your brothers feeding the flock in Shechem? Come, I will send you to them. So he said to him, here

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I am. Then he said to him, please go and see if it's well with your brothers and well with the flocks and bring back word to me.

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So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron and he went to Shechem. It's ironic. You'll notice in verse 14, please go and see if it is well with your brothers.

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There in the Hebrew, see if it is at peace with your brothers. The word there is shalom, which is, it's a good translation.

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Is it well? Is it safe? It's a sort of Swiss Army word in the Hebrew language. And the context here is, is it well with them?

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Are they whole? Are they healthy? Are they safe? But of course the connotation of peace here is ironic given the fact that while they're in Dothan, they're plotting the murder of their brother.

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And so they're not at peace. In fact, they're at rage. Now Jacob, you'll notice as we begin verse 12, he's concerned about his sons.

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We've seen the affection he has uniquely for Joseph. And perhaps that was a fault, a stain on Jacob's parenting.

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But at the same time you could not say he has no concern at all for his other sons. We see that in verse 12.

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All of a sudden he is concerned about his other sons. He doesn't say, well, at least I've got my Joseph. I don't really care what happens to them.

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At least I've got my favorite. In fact, he's willing to send his favorite son out of concern for his other 11 sons.

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And so that tells us something about Jacob's concern for his whole household. And perhaps this concern is being triggered by the fact that he knows his sons were headed toward Shechem.

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And it's been a while. The phone calls stopped coming through. They usually only call when they need money or laundry or groceries, but that stopped coming.

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The postcard stopped coming. I haven't heard from them in a while. Don't we have a lot of enemies in Shechem?

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Aren't there some wanted posters of Simeon and Levi posted on the telephone poles around that city?

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So maybe he's thinking, really in a panic, what if our enemies took revenge upon my sons?

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What if now, out of revenge for that massacre and assault of my daughter, now they've finally obliterated my sons?

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Joseph, you need to go. Let me know if they're safe. Let me know if they're well. Or maybe he's even thinking, what if Simeon and Levi did it again?

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What if they massacred another people group out there? You better go check if they're at peace. Joseph is willing to go, and that's the emphasis here in verses 12 through 14.

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Here I am. You see the father, he doesn't even command it.

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This is translated so well in verse 14. Please go and see. Please. He doesn't say, go and see.

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It's not a command. It's actually an entreaty in Hebrew. Please go. Are you willing to go?

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I'm willing. Here I am. Notice what Joseph does not say. He does not say, am

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I my brother's keeper? They can fend for themselves. They certainly treat me all the wrong ways.

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I'm not gonna go seek after them. I don't really care if things are going well for them or not. I hope things are going hard.

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He's not of the spirit of Cain, in other words. Here I am. I will go after my brothers.

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You see the prompt obedience of Joseph's heart. He doesn't question his father's request.

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He doesn't compromise when he actually makes it there, and they're not to be found. He doesn't say, well, you know, technically

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I did what he asked me to do. I went to check him. Looks like they're going home now. He keeps going further, following after the intent of his father's request.

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And so we see this integrity in Joseph's life. He's a righteous man, and we see that just in the prompt obedience he shows to his father.

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Here's a good application. Children, do you promptly obey the commands of your parents?

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That's part of what makes you righteous. That's part of what approves you before God. If you don't show prompt obedience to the authority of your parent, you will not show prompt obedience to the authority of the

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Lord. So you can't have it both ways. You can't introduce hypocrisy here. If you're going to show obedience to the

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Lord, you must show obedience to your parents. It's good for us parents to set that bar and make that an expectation.

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To not hear, to not respond, to dwindle and to linger and to do it, you know, a week later, that's not righteous.

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That's not having integrity. That's not demonstrating what God requires of his people. Joseph is a righteous young man.

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Talk about a rare breed. What kind of 17 year old is this? Prompt obedience, and this isn't like go in your backyard and check or do a

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FaceTime call and see if they're okay. This is about a 60 mile journey, at least from the Vale of Hebron to Shechem.

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So it's like pack your tent, load up some granola bars and hit the road. This is going to be a long journey to see if things are well with your brothers.

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Verse 15, he gets to Shechem and there's no brothers to be found, but he finds a certain man.

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Interestingly, Jewish interpreters, and they have no reason to claim this, think this is the angel Gabriel. But they find a certain man and there he was wandering in the field.

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That is, there Joseph was wandering in the field. And the man asked him saying, what are you seeking?

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And so he said, I'm seeking my brothers. Please tell me where they're feeding their flocks.

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And the man happened to know. Verse 17, he said, they've departed from here. And I heard them say, let us go to Dothan.

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So Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan. So this is now setting up all of the events that we're not quite moving toward this morning.

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Next week we'll actually get to the plot as it's fulfilled. But just look at Joseph's prompt obedience, the fact that he doesn't just end his pursuit in Shechem.

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He follows his father's desire and seeks them until he finds them. I will go because my father has sent me.

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I go willingly and I will pursue them until they are found, the ones that my father has sent me to retrieve.

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Please keep that in mind when we get to the second part. This man in the field touches on a theme, doesn't it?

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This man providentially knows exactly where Joseph ought to go. The Promised Land is a pretty big open space.

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Dothan is a pretty remote area. It becomes built up in the days of Samuel, as we'll see, but at this point, it's just more area to graze.

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There's not much more than perhaps a village or two in the vicinity. And yet this man is there providentially to point

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Joseph toward his brothers, providentially to put Joseph in the sights of his brother's rage, providentially to set

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Joseph on this irreversible path for God's blessing and glory, though it will lead first through a cross.

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And this theme of providence, we're going to see not only this week and next week, but also as we move to this little moment with Judah and Tamar.

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Again, in the Joseph cycle, this theme of God's providential control over every aspect of life comes to the fore.

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Joseph seeks his brother. He presses forward in the pursuit. He doesn't back down. And we even detect a note of tragedy when he says,

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I'm seeking my brothers. It's like, if only he knew what he would find when he found them.

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I'm seeking my brothers. There's almost this, they're in Dothan, and he hits the road. There's a jump in his step.

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Maybe as they saw him from afar, his heart was all excited. My brothers, is it well with you?

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I'm seeking them. But verse 18, when they saw him afar off, even before he came near to them, they conspired against him to kill him.

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Maybe he was out of sight, out of mind, and they were just tending to the busyness of the flocks and the needs around them.

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We don't know why they left Shechem. Maybe there was a reason that they had to get out of that place. Maybe the food supply wasn't good, or maybe there was some heat, some pressure from the locals, and they were starting to get the heebie -jeebies around the campfire at night.

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For whatever reason, they're found in Dothan. Joseph's perhaps not a concern, but once they see him, and not even up close, once they see the glint of that colorful robe coming toward him, murder begins to sprout in their heart.

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John Gill says, they knew him as soon as they saw him by his stature, and especially his coat.

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The distances remarked here particularly, not to show that they're keen of sight, but to show how their passions were raised instantaneously, how intense their malice, how quick they were to devise a way to destroy him.

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As soon as they saw him, they're like, how can we kill him? How can we be rid of him?

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This is the perfect place, the perfect setting. Only we would know about this. And so they say to each other, verse 19 and following,

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Look, this dreamer is coming. Literal translation, this master of dreams is coming.

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Oh, here comes the dreamer, the keeper of dreams. Does he have another dream to tell us about how we're all going to worship him someday?

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Come therefore now. This is like, you know, should we tease him? Should we bully him?

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Look it, look it. Let us kill him. Let us kill him and cast him into some pit.

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We don't even have all the details worked out. All we really want to do is kill him, and then let's just find a pit to throw him into.

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Complete disdain for the life of their brother. We're just gonna, we're not gonna give him a proper burial. We're just gonna throw him into some pit after we murder him.

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And then let's say this, some wild beast has devoured him. Then we'll see what becomes of his dream.

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You see the hatred in the hearts of the patriarchs of Israel.

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They slighted the dreamer. And of course for them that is something to be mocked, the dreamer.

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Here comes this dream. But as we said they should have known that this is a way that God has communicated his purpose and his power in the lives of their own father

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Jacob. At Bethel when he was revealed in that dream, they as boys would have crowded around to that pillar at Bethel twice.

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Twice he erected in worship of God a pillar at the site of Bethel, and they would have recounted in vivid detail all the words of their father about the dream that he saw when

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God spoke and then fulfilled all that he revealed to Jacob. And so it's not so much that they're slighting the dreamer

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Joseph, but slighting the one who gave Joseph the dreams. In other words, they're slighting the revelation of God.

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They don't like the words of that revelation when it flows from his lips, when it's glowing through his life, when it's evident in his coat and in the beaming approval of his father.

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And so the only answer for them is to kill him. Well for Simeon and Levi, this is just another

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Tuesday, right? They're already mass murderers. We know how to do it. We've done it before.

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We'll skip the circumcision and just go right to it. Their consciences were already seared in the fields of Shechem.

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The Jewish tradition, interestingly, says it was likely Simeon that proposed to murder

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Joseph, because remember in Genesis 42, it was Joseph who first bound Simeon when all the brothers were there in Egypt.

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So perhaps that was telling of who was really leading that suggestion. It certainly wasn't Reuben, as we'll see next week.

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Reuben is the one trying to find a way out. But all the other brothers seem to consent. Yes, let us kill him.

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The unity of the brothers is held in their mutual hatred for Joseph. Not only do they hate

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Joseph, but in a way they hate their own father. You could say, what do you mean? They love their father.

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In fact, their love and need for their father's approval is part of all the events of Genesis 37.

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But they hate their father in that they're willing to deceive him. They know how much he loves Joseph, and this is how little they think of Jacob.

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Let's tell them that his precious boy, his favorite son, was torn apart by some wild animals. He doesn't need to know that we actually murdered him and threw him into a pit.

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You see here, brothers and sisters, that sin is almost always a package deal. The only sin they really want to commit is murder, but if they commit murder, they also have to lie.

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So now they have to deceive their fathers. They also introduce this guilt and this shame into their conscience, which we'll see by the time they get to Egypt.

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They had to live with the remorse and the guilt and the shame of what they had done. Sin always comes with consequences.

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Sin always comes with unintended consequences and other sins. There's one willful exercise of a sin, and then what comes with it is many unwilling, unintended sins.

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Deceit and a web of lies and hypocrisy and all sorts of other sins begin to compound that one act, that one sin, that was the only thing you intended.

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But sin is a package deal. Verse 20, look at the disdain, then we'll see what becomes of his dreams.

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This isn't again so much about Joseph, but it really is about the revelation of God. They might as well have said, then we'll see if God's revelation actually comes true.

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It's just like Esau's plan to murder Jacob after he had been blessed. You will surely be blessed, and it's like Esau, I'll see about that.

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Let's see how blessed he is when I kill him. And that's essentially what the brothers are doing here. Let's see if we bow down to him as a dead man.

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We will see who will be Lord over us. We will see who reigns us. We will see who exercises dominion upon the family.

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And so John Calvin, in his commentary, talks about how they mock, not Joseph, but the revelation of God.

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What God has revealed is what will be true. And they will not be able to circumvent it, though they will try.

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These words were unpleasant to hear, as sometimes God's revelation is unpleasant to hear.

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To sinners ears, God's law, it's like the rumbling thunder. It's unpleasant to hear, but do we bless it as the revelation of God?

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The warnings of God to sinners ears are sometimes unpleasant. But do we tremble and humble ourselves before that word?

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Because it's a divine word. It's a divinely revealed word. The brothers not only hate the revelation that comes through Joseph's mouth, but they hate the impact of Joseph's life.

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It exposes all the ways that they're crooked and corrupt. It exposes their guilt and their shame.

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He's righteous. He has integrity. He is loved. And so ultimately, they hate Joseph's actions.

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But beyond that, they hate the revelation concerning Joseph. And they think in this act of evil that they can actually derail

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God's purpose, God's revelation. And in the irony of the story, in the beauty of God's providence, it will be in their very attempt to derail the purpose of God that they fulfill it.

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In the very act of evil that they will launch into, as we'll see next week, they will unwittingly hoist

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Joseph to the throne of Egypt and bow down to him. So let's consider how this relates to Jesus typologically.

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We saw how they conspired against Joseph. Well, how does that relate to Jesus? And they not being these specific 11 brothers, but what they represent.

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Fallen man's response to the Lord Jesus. Well, we touched on that last week, the unique affection that Jacob showed to his son, enigmatic of the unique way in which the son, who is eternally begotten from the father, is most blessed, most loved.

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This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

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We see this father sending his son to seek out his brethren.

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Jacob sends Joseph just as the father sends Jesus. The son of his love, the son of his affection, and he says, will you go?

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Will you go and seek out your brethren? Will you go and seek out they who are lost? Here I am,

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I will go. I will pursue them until they are found. Of all that you've given to me, I will not let one of them perish, father.

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I will return them to you. Though Jacob has a special love for Joseph, he sends him out of a loving concern for his other children.

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That's gospel. That's gospel. Though none of these other children could compare in the father's eyes.

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All of these other children are warped, stained, rebellious, trying to undermine and usurp the father's authority.

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Going to the couch of Bilhah, trying to take over the family in hostility, mass murdering, committing all sorts of evil and deceit, doing wicked things in the field that Joseph reports to his father, bringing back that bad report.

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Though they're wretched and rebellious, not loyal, not loving, not children to be proud of, unlike Joseph, this son of integrity, this righteous son, the son whom

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I love, this blessed son. The father says, will you go for them?

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Will you go and seek them? And so in this way, Joseph willingly saying yes,

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I will go. He's acting as it were as a mediator between his father and his brothers.

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He is as it were the emissary, the mediator to say, my father wants to know, are you at peace?

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Is it well with you? My father has a concern for you and he has sent me and I'm the only one that can communicate between you and the father.

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I am the one he has sent. And we see this enigmatically. He's wandering in the field.

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Isn't that an interesting little detail in this narrative that was composed thousands of years before Jesus entered into the fullness of time.

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There he was, that is Joseph, wandering in the field. There's Jesus, wandering in the wilderness, walking through the cities and the villages, seeking the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

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I'm seeking my brothers, he says. The son of man came to seek and to save that which is lost.

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And his willingness, he wasn't put up to this.

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He didn't do this begrudgingly. He didn't do this half -heartedly. He ran to do his father's will.

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Come, I will send you to them. Here I am. My food, he says in John 4, is to do the will of him who sent me.

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Father, this is my meat and this is my drink. This is my life. This is my strength to do your will.

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What does he say in Hebrews 10? It's quoted, here I am. It is written about me in the scroll. Here I am.

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I have come to do your will, my God. And he understood exactly what that meant.

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Joseph unwittingly was led to seek out his brothers, not knowing that he would be cast into a pit.

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But Jesus went to seek the lost, knowing that the only way he could find them would be if he was cast into the pit of judgment.

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And as soon as they see him from afar, the one who comes with the symbol of his father's love, the symbol of his father's authority, when men in the fullness of time see him coming from afar, not even seeing him up close, not even hearing the words, when they just see that light, men love darkness rather than light, he came to his own, and they would not receive him.

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What John Gill said about Joseph is certainly true about Jesus.

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See how soon their passions were raised, how intense their malice, how quick they were to devise a way to destroy him.

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Men loved darkness rather than light. And so they reject him.

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It's amazing. We're meant to just like, why? What happened? He just shows up.

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He's trying to find them, and now they're just going to kill him? It seems so arbitrary, so needless, so pointless, so cruel.

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It's just evil. And that's the point, isn't it? Because this is ultimately bringing us to the story of Jesus and his fulfillment.

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And so we're meant to say, why? As in that great hymn from Samuel Crossman written in the mid -17th century.

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Why? What has my Savior done? Why do you want to kill him?

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Why do you hate him? What makes this rage? What makes this spite? He made the lame to walk.

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He gave the blind their sight. Why do you want to kill him? Look at what he's doing.

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Look at the mercy. Look at the truth. Look at the grace. Look at his preaching.

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Look at his integrity. Look at his righteousness. What makes for this rage? What makes for this evil scheme?

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The brothers reject him as the righteous stone, which the builders reject. The brothers reject him as the son who the master sends into the vineyard,

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Matthew 22, saying, surely they've killed righteous

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Abel. They've slaughtered the prophets, but surely they will respect my son.

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But when they saw the son, Matthew 22, when they saw him from afar, when they saw the son, they said among themselves, this is the heir.

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Come, let us kill him. Jesus picking up language here from Genesis 37 to say, this is what you're doing to me.

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If you want to understand who I am and who you are and what God intends, you need to read the story of Joseph carefully.

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Come, let us kill him. And they caught him, and they cast him out, and they slew him.

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And so this brothers, the brothers' rejection shows this rebellion to God's sovereignty, to God's revelation, to God's purpose.

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It's sinful fallen man at every juncture of God's light saying no.

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No. Fallen man mocks the revelation of God.

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They're saying no to what God has revealed as true. And the scent of that truth is odious because they are perishing.

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And Jesus says in John 7, the world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify of it that its works are evil.

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And so the brothers' wickedness here in Genesis 37 is the world's wickedness all around us. The church is hated when it testifies that the works of the world are evil.

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If the world does not hate the church, could it be that the church is failing to testify that the works of the world are evil?

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The brothers could not tolerate Joseph's holiness. He was separate from them, and they knew it.

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And the world cannot tolerate the church's holiness.

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What does Paul say in Romans 8? The mind of flesh is at enmity with the law of God.

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It is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be. The mind of flesh is at enmity with the

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Lord, with the Lord's ways, with the Lord's revelation. The mind of flesh cannot do any other.

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It must be against. Indeed, it cannot become subject, cannot be humbled to receive the revelation of God.

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That is the mind of flesh. That is what composes the old fallen nature of men and women and children.

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They will not willingly subject themselves to the Lord. We have a description in Romans 8 that's illustrated well by Genesis 37.

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Human inability to receive the revelation of God unless there is an initiating grace of God.

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And apart from the grace of God, ears cannot hear, eyes cannot see, hearts of stone cannot become hearts of flesh.

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There is not a single person in this world who can respond to the Lord Jesus Christ in faith unless the

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Spirit of God makes Him new, births Him anew, gives Him eyes to see and a heart to respond.

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There is no faithful response from fallen flesh. We have to be crystal clear on that.

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So then what is the response of fallen flesh when the Son of Man, when the

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Beloved of the Father is seen from afar, is heard of from afar, is testified on the lips of His followers?

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There is something that rises deep within human nature in furious resistance saying, let us kill

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Him, let us resist Him, let us be done with Him, let us flee from Him, let us have anything but Him.

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And Paul could say, such were some of you. You know that's part of your testimony.

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Maybe not every Christian has had that exact conscious experience. The Lord is merciful, and in some ways that experience of coming to faith and coming to life in the

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Lord is very different, but there are some who know exactly what it's like to furiously resist the

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Lord Jesus and then be brought in subjection to bow down to Him. There are people who have blasphemed

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His name saying, I will never follow Jesus, who now worship

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Him joyfully and freely all over the world this morning. The brothers hated

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Joseph because of the righteousness he displayed, because of the Father's love set upon him, because he exposed their guilt and their shame.

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They hated him ultimately because they hated the word of God concerning him. And an identical event will occur with the

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Lord Jesus. They hate Him for all the same reasons, and they come to the same conclusion.

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Let us kill Him. Crucify Him, the crowds shout, seeing this righteous one from afar.

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Give us barabbas. Give us murderers and rapists. Give us people we're comfortable with, people like us, but this righteous one.

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Get rid of Him. Crucify Him. And just like Joseph, just like the hateful brothers thinking that in this attempt to derail the purpose and the plan of God, they will somehow prevent

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Him from having authority over them in their very act of evil, in the very conscription to the cross, in the very act of crucifixion, they are ultimately enthroning the

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Lord Jesus. And out of this great act of evil, the most horrific event in human history,

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God has brought forth the most glorious reality imaginable, the

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Lord Jesus risen and enthroned. And all will now be brought in subjection underneath His feet.

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He reigns even now until all of His enemies are put beneath His footstool.

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And on that day, as we recite in the great Christ hymn of Philippians 2, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess.

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They thought they could be rid of Him. And in their very act of trying to be rid of Him, they only brought

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Him to power and glory and endless dominion. Who will be the

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Lord? Who will reign over us? Who will have dominion? This sounds just like Psalm 2, doesn't it?

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Why do the nations conspire in people's plot in vain? Remember we said last week when you approach a psalm, you ask, what's the mood?

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How is this being written? How is it to be recited? How is it to be sung? What's the mood of Psalm 2?

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Why do the nations conspire in the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the

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Lord and against His anointing saying, let us break their chains, throw off their shackles.

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What's the mood? Is it lament? Why do they conspire in rage?

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Why do they try to break off the shackles? Oh Lord, deliver us. Is that the mood? That's not the mood. The mood is incredulity.

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The mood is mockery. The one enthroned in heaven laughs.

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He scoffs at them. They're mocking my authority? He rebukes them in his anger, terrifies them in his wrath, saying, nevertheless,

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I have set my king in Zion. So against that rage, against that spite, against that conspiring and scheming, against the murder in their hearts, he who sits in the heavens laughs.

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He holds them in derision. And he says, nevertheless, I've set my king in Zion. Nevertheless, cast him into a pit.

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Nevertheless, I've set my king over Egypt. Crucify him on the cross. Nevertheless, I've set my king over all the world.

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And so Genesis 37 shows us typologically the glory of the

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Lord Jesus as the nevertheless moment over against the plotting and conspiring of fallen man, the man who hates the light and rejects the light, the man who conspires to be rid of him, to put him away, to kill the son that was sent into the vineyard.

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But also, importantly, as we'll see not only this morning but heading into next week, Genesis 37 also shows us that before the holy hill of Zion, there must be the pit.

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Before the glory, there must be the suffering. Before the enthronement, there must be the cross.

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And the life of Joseph shows us that. The blessing, the fulfillment of the dream will not float down from heaven like manna to all of a sudden be fulfilled in the life of Joseph.

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He will have to walk by faith day by day and year by year, possessing his vessel, maintaining his righteousness, walking in integrity in the fear and admonition of the

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Lord until the Lord sees fit to vindicate him and fulfill all that was coming to him in that prophecy.

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Before the enthronement, there must be the cross. That was what Satan was trying to subvert Jesus from, wasn't it?

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He gave him a glimpse, as it were, of the whole world. All of the nations. All of that potential power.

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And all you have to do is just bend your knee to me. Just two seconds. Not even two seconds. I'll just say the word,

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A, and then you can rise up. It'll be like it never happened. Half the angels won't even notice it. Just bend your knee real quick.

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Glory. Power. Authority. That's all before you now. No cross.

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No suffering. No shame. No guilt. No rejection. No derision. None of that. By the way, is your father really that good?

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Boy, as I started listing these things, he wants you to go down that path? Are you sure he loves you?

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You're righteous, and he wants you to go through that? Look carefully at the life of Joseph.

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I love what Macintosh says here. I'm redeeming Macintosh, because he was the one in chapter 36 that said, there's many interesting things here, but we're not going to rehearse them.

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We're moving on. Well, here, he redeems himself in chapter 37. Earth and heaven were at issue in reference to Christ, and they're at issue still.

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Man crucified Him, but God raised Him from the dead. Man placed Him on a cross between two thieves.

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God set Him at His own right hand in the heavens. Man cast Him to the lowest place on earth.

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God gave Him the very highest place in heaven. When we look at Joseph in the pit and in the prison, but then afterward as ruler over all the land of Egypt, we see the difference between the thoughts of men and the thoughts of God.

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And I would draw your attention specifically to the pit, which is typologically the cross.

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Who would have thought that a place of such abject evil would be the necessary, indeed the only way, for the

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Lord Jesus to be enthroned? When we see

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God's providence in the life of Joseph, as we'll rehearse it next week, we have to ask that question. Who would have thought that this evil, this treachery, this despair, this rejection, this sin, this pit, would be the only way that Joseph could be enthroned?

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The point here is not just that sin and suffering is something that God allows and God uses it.

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That's there thematically, of course. We always have that as an old standby. But the point, I think, really is this.

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Vindicates His people. God vindicates His people. You will notice that Joseph at no point in this walk and trial of faith attempts to vindicate or position himself.

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He is entirely subject to the hand and the will of God. He does that typologically to show us forth the

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Lord Jesus Christ, Who puts not in His own power, in His own strategy or positioning, the way to promote

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Himself or to vindicate Himself. That was His Father's business. His business was to do

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His Father's will. That was His food. That was His desire. And as Christians, that needs to be our will, our food, and our desire as well.

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I'm not trying to vindicate myself when I'm rejected, when I face hostility, when

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I'm cast into a pit, when I struggle through this or that, when I'm trying to be righteous and have integrity, and flack is being shot at me from left and right.

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I trust that my Father will vindicate me. And it's because the

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Father vindicates Him that these persecutors are saved.

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It's because of the pit. It's typologically because of the cross that the very persecutors, the very people shouting,

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Many of them are saved. God is in the business of saving

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Saul on the road to Damascus. And one of the reasons that we bear up meekly under persecution is for that very reason.

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Christians receive rejection, receive persecution, and the whole time we pray, Lord, spare them.

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Father, forgive them. Lord, show them mercy. Bring them into Your kingdom.

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Give them mercy and a testimony and light. We see the heart of Christ in the life of Joseph, don't we?

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What a contrast. What a contrast between Joseph and his brothers. What a contrast between the

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Lord Jesus Christ and fallen men. Charles Simeon, a 19th century preacher, he says, see how our

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God and Savior acted toward us in our fallen state? Instead of rejoicing in our misery,

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He sought to redeem us from it. He sacrificed His own happiness and glory to do so, right?

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He left His Father's side, not in the veil of Hebron, but in heaven.

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He left His Father's side. His own happiness, His own glory, the splendor of unmitigated worship and communion with the triune

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Godhead. He left that. He sacrificed that in order to seek out those who were lost.

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The envious man recoils at the happiness of others. Why are you so chipper?

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Someone needs to take you down a peg. Things are going too well for you. But look at God. Rather than recoiling at the happiness of others,

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God is grieved at their misery. The envious man seeks the destruction of others while God labors for their welfare.

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The envious man breaks through every restraint to bring about their ruin, even if it costs his own soul, while God takes upon Himself all of the pains of hell in order to bring us to the place of blessedness.

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The envious man is hostile to those who have never even injured him. Isn't that amazing? Do you know people of this type?

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It's true. They're injurious to people who have never even said a word to them, never done anything against them.

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I don't really like that buzzword, toxic. I think it's used in less than fitting ways, but I think there is a place for it.

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Some people are just toxic. But how is God? If the envious man is hostile to those who have never even injured him, the kind of praise of Lamech, what's

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God like? He adorns with His own benefits those who have lived in a constant rebellion against Him.

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That's what God is like. He adorns the wretched brethren with His benefits day by day, though they've been in constant rebellion against Him.

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So third and last, we saw how they conspired against Joseph.

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Typologically, we saw how they conspire against Jesus, but what about us? They do conspire against us.

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If we're believers and we're following after Jesus and we're being conformed from one degree of glory to the next into His image, then we can expect the sufferings that Jesus experienced, the hostility and rejection that Jesus faced, to be true to our own experience as His people.

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If we don't experience that, chances are we're not the anomaly in church history, the anomaly of Christians that we know.

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Chances are we're failing to actually put Jesus on display because this is the universal effect of walking toward the lost brethren that cannot stand to see the image of the

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Son. The believer who follows Jesus faithfully will face hostility and rejection.

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The believer who follows Jesus faithfully will face hostility and rejection.

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Now we can say amen from Joseph that that will never, that rejection, that hostility, whatever it may be, that will never interrupt

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God's plan for our lives, that will never disturb His purpose to bless us.

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In fact, as we see in the life of Joseph, that will be God's plan to bless us, that will be

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God's purpose for our lives. And so there's a great encouragement that like our Lord Jesus, we can face whatever pit, whatever scorn or rejection may come, but as 1

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John 3 says, do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you. And I still to this day marvel.

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It's like, haven't we learned this in the past 2 ,000 years? Why am I still aghast when

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I read some op -ed that's targeting evangelicals? I'm like, wow, you know, where is this coming from? This is amazing.

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Do you read between the lines? See the vitriol there? And I think the Apostle John would say, why are you so surprised?

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What did you expect? You thought they were going to appreciate you? Are we marveling that the world hates us?

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If you've never experienced the rejection of the world, I think you would probably marvel at it, wouldn't you?

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One of the things that I keenly remember at probably around 8th grade, going to public school, was

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I was very drawn to the Lord and I had a very tender walk with him and I heard enough sermons about the need to be evangelistic that I really wanted to be winsome to my friends.

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And I remember, now this is going to break all sorts of parameters of what I wouldn't do or advocate for today, but this is what

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I did. There was an image of Jesus. It almost looked like something from Passion of the

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Christ, though that wouldn't come out for quite some time. But it was sort of his face in agony, you know, with his mouth open.

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And so it was a sort of image of him, just his head, just his face, as it were, on the cross.

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And so I was praying and I said, I'm going to wear this to school and if anyone asks me about it, I'm going to tell them about the gospel.

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And I remember just kind of bracing for impact and going in there. I had my kind of iron resolve, like,

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Lord, I'm not going to deny you, Lord. I'm not going to deny you. And I sat down and most of the lunch table, my friends didn't even notice.

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They were just too busy eating Doritos and talking about nonsense. And one person asked, she's like, oh, is that the guy from Aerosmith on the shirt?

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And I felt so deflated. I thought, here, I'm going to take this stand for Jesus. No one even can interpret the

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T -shirt. And so I'm like, well, how do I? No, this is Jesus. That's Jesus? How do you even know that that's

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Jesus? Well, I mean, we don't know that it's Jesus. And then pretty soon you're scrambling and it's like the whole thing was a wash. It's like, give me a break.

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You know what would have been better than a T -shirt? If I just lived righteously in front of them.

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If I said, you shouldn't say that thing. You shouldn't watch this kind of filth. You shouldn't do that.

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You shouldn't treat your parents like that. How could you be like that to someone else? Do you know what the Bible says? Do you know what

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God's Word says? Have you ever been to church? That would have been so much better than some

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Steven Tyler looking Jesus shirt. God forgive us. We're ignorant.

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Do you marvel that the world hates you? Do you even know that the world hates you? We spend so much time.

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We invest so much energy. We utilize resources. We use media to find ways to make ourselves palatable and presentable to a world that hates us for who we truly are in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Don't marvel that the world hates you.

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Don't camouflage who you are in the Lord to try to be more presentable. More likable.

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And where that's hard. And it's not as hard as you get older perhaps as it is when you're in that kind of crucial developmental age.

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Becoming a teenager. Taking your foot out in the world. Thinking who am I? What am I going to be? What am I going to do in life?

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What kind of relationships am I going to have? You think your friends are everything because you just don't know better. Your brain is still forming along with all sorts of other things.

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And that's when it seems to matter so much. And that rejection, it's searing. It's searing to not be in but to be out.

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To not fit. We say, well, I know I'm different.

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I just say I'm homeschooled. I pray and I'm a little different. But I still, you know, what ways can

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I fit? How can my life become like putty and I'll just try to squeeze into the gaps of the world?

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And scripture is saying, the world hates you. The world hates you.

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Don't be surprised at this. Gradually, every position that has been true for most of Western civilization as a given will now become the catch word of what defines bigotry and hatred.

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Christians that have done nothing but downgrade or watered down Orthodox doctrine of the past 1 ,800 years will actually be called extremists of Christianity.

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We're like, oh, we wish we could be extreme. We've actually lost a lot. No, no, you're the extremists.

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You see, what the world likes to do is redefine. We don't mind evangelicals.

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We're just against extreme evangelicals. And then even there, well, no, no, we're okay.

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We appreciate the new moderate evangelicals that butcher children and endorse, you know,

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X, Y, and Z. And all, you know, we like that moderate evangelicalism. We just don't like these extremists, these bigots over here.

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Let's not be surprised that we're always the end of that gutter of vitriol. Do not marvel, my brethren, that the world hates you.

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Positions that were once taken for granted will be means, evidence, bases on which to persecute

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Christians. To stand against something as obvious in our minds as the mutilation of children directed by authority figures in their lives, in the school system, through secular counselors.

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Just to stand against the mutilation of children is now bigotry. Don't marvel that the world hates you.

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To stand for life. Man can devise all sorts of things.

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They can replicate things, and that will only increase if the Lord spares this country any longer.

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He can take the Roman Empire and turn it into the Dark Ages real quick if he wants to. But you can't replicate life.

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There's something precious, God -given, God -breathed about the miracle of life. It's precious, but to maintain that as a

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Christian today means you hate women, or you hate freedom. And there's plenty of Christian spokesmen and pundits out there that will say, well, this is just reasonable.

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As one said, I forget his name, I'm not trying to hide him by anonymity, you know, sometimes

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Alexander deserves to be publicly shamed. He said, well, this is just the cost of living in a free society. I thought to myself, you know,

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I could see him in about 30 years on a cart on the way to the concentration camp going, this is just the cost of living in a free society.

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What's the standard? Let's not marvel that the world hates us. But how do we respond?

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The world hates us, the world around us, and all the people that do not have the presence of God's Spirit convicting them, compelling them to stand, to not buckle, to not warp, to not cast me into the pit,

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I will not sin against God. I will not deny my conscience. Right? All the people that don't have that presence of Spirit, that are erstwhile allies, they'll begin to buckle and fold, and pretty soon they, too, will not directly, privately, but publicly endorse the ghoulish mutilation of our children.

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It's just a matter of time. So how do we respond to this ramping up of chaos and aggression when they conspire against us?

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Well, let me talk about two paths that I think we have to avoid. We'll have time, I hope, to reflect and pray, and more time to consider and discern together as a body the ways that we are possibly to respond.

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But let me just, for the time we have left this morning, give us two paths that we must avoid. Two paths that we must avoid.

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The first path that we must avoid, if we're to bear up under hostility and persecution, is compromise.

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Compromise. A compromised church is not going to suffer persecution. Because a compromised church does not take their directives from the authority of God's revelation.

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They take their directives from the authority of the culture. And they disguise it as what makes them winsome.

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This is just how we're going to evangelize. We're becoming all things to all men. And we say, yes, you are.

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And you're sacrificing the authority of God's Word to do so. Proverbs 3, 31,

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Do not envy the oppressor. Choose none of his ways. Because the perverse person is an abomination to the

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Lord, but his secret counsel is with the upright. I love that it says the secret counsel, the hidden things of the

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Lord are with the upright. It's not evident that that's the case. It seems to be a losing battle when you're in a pit in Dothan.

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How is the Lord going to do anything now? Maybe I shouldn't have been so upright before my brethren. Maybe I should have kind of gone in with some of their schemes and committed some of the sins that they did.

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Maybe I wouldn't be in this pit. But the secret counsel of God is with the upright. And the curse of the

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Lord is on the house of the wicked. So His secret counsel and approval is with the one in the pit.

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Meanwhile, the wicked has a household, has ease and comfort, has power. And they think they're blessed.

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Proverbs 3 is saying it's the other way around. He blesses the just. He scorns the scornful, but He gives grace.

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So how do we bear up under persecution? We refuse to compromise. When it comes to our oppressors, we choose none of their ways.

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We don't return evil for evil. We're hoping God will turn persecutors into Christians.

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So one of the ways we avoid compromise is as a church we need to be informed about the doctrines of Scripture.

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And when we're firmly rooted and established in not the milk but the meat of God's Word, then we discern like the sons of Issachar, we seek to know the times.

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And that's a process that we continually engage in. And why do we engage in that?

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Why do we want the children in this church to grow up doctrinally grounded in the confessions of the faith?

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Grounded and strengthened in the Scriptures, discerning the time, being able to say no, that doesn't line up with God's Word here, therefore it is wrong, it is poisonous, it is toxic, it is destructive.

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Why do we want them to do that? So that they can stand up against persecution without compromise.

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And that they'll be willing to do so whatever the cost. That it's okay if the people that I call friends don't view me as a friend and I'm on the outside rather than the inside and I don't look and I don't talk like Vanity Fair and that exposes me and they throw me into the cage in front of Kangaroo Court because I find my solace in a son of man who was likewise rejected and I live by faith in him and I'm following his steps in his way.

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He knew what it was like to be scorned and rejected, despised by those he came to save.

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And if he will commune with me and call me friend then that's all the friendship I need. If he will approve of me, then

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I don't need man's approval. We must avoid compromise as a church, but brothers and sisters, we must avoid compromise in our own personal lives.

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It's when the church compromises on doctrine or on integrity, they will never resist persecution.

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They'll constantly give in to persecution. And we'll talk about how that takes place in the second path.

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They'll keep rationalizing why they have to make the decisions they do and it's because they lost the spinal cord of their doctrinal integrity and therefore they're subject to be tossed to and fro by every wind and wave and they can no longer discern what's north and south, east or west.

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But if we only discern that as a church, if we're only seeking to do that as a church and we're not keeping careful watch over our lives, keep a close watch on your life, if we're only paying attention to the doctrine and we have compromise in our lives, we'll buckle under persecution for entirely other reasons.

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There's no will to fight. There's no resolve to stand. We're already dressed in our shame and our guilt.

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We don't have integrity in our own personal walks with the Lord. Why would we have integrity corporately as a church?

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Why would we have integrity publicly? We'll keep retreating until I need to work on this and I need to work on that and then maybe someday

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I'll be able to take a stand. Maybe someday I'll feel like a Nehemiah. Maybe someday

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I'll be willing to be a Joseph. You must keep a close watch on your life.

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If you don't have integrity in your life, if you don't have personal holiness like we talked about last week, you will not be able to stand up under the hostility of fallen man.

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So the second path. I call this, barring from a man named

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Eric Foley, the privatization of persecution. He was reflecting on 2

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Timothy 3, verse 10. Yes, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

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There's no qualifications that Paul gives Timothy in that sentence. He just says, if your life's looking like Christ, you're going to start to experience what

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Christ experienced. Rejection of men. And don't marvel when the world hates you. And so Eric Foley, who's a sort of a, not necessarily a minister, but an administer, and he's working with underground churches in North Korea.

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And so he's involved with them with communications and other aspects of provision and support.

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And he wrote this article, and I thought it was very interesting because he was trying to get at the question of persecution.

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And I liked that he said, you know, we're quick to say we're not persecuted. It's all those other countries out there where our brothers and sisters are facing real persecution.

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And he was saying, no, we're persecuted. But before you go, yeah, we are persecuted, right? You know, I knew

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Tucker Carlson was right on that. Before you do that, he slows you down and he says, well, think about this, though.

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Listen, this is from Eric Foley. And he didn't coin this phrase, but I'm coining it.

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Persecution as privatization. Many American Christians with whom I speak are always worried that persecution will take the form of someone invading their home, preventing them from holding a

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Bible study. They want to be assured of and what they're worried about losing. What they want to be assured of and what they're worried about losing is the private pursuit of their faith.

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You can have the public square, you can have the school systems, you can have the civil magistrate, just let me have my living room for a little

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Bible study. Is that too much to ask? That would be persecution. Persecution is not being chased out of every other aspect of public life so long as we have our little private corners to pray and read.

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They don't want to be beaten by government thugs wielding baseball bats demanding that they recant their faith in the name of political correctness.

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But Americans who fear this kind of persecution really don't need to worry. This is so insightful.

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Are you worried about losing your private exercise of religion? Then don't be afraid about persecution.

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It won't touch you. The private pursuit of faith rarely raises the hackles of even the most restrictive government.

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He's dealing with North Korean Christians and he's saying the church wouldn't be persecuted in North Korea if they just had private faith.

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If Christians around the world would just act like American Christians privatizing their faith, there would be almost no persecution in the world today.

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The most common form of persecution does not involve home invasions and the roughing up of those who profess a relationship to Jesus.

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Instead, the most common form of persecution is something that sadly most American Christians embrace as actually being reasonable.

01:01:11

And then he just kind of plays this out in this way. It begins with the claim, well, we can all say religious violence is inexcusable.

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Wasn't that an evangelical that shot up? Well, at least that was on his Facebook page. He had ties to such and such an upbringing.

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Well, religious violence is inexcusable. And therefore, we reasonably as Christians can allow the government to make some measures against our exercise of religion.

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At least let them be aware of what we're teaching in our media and our contacts.

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And the average American Christian says, yes, that is very true. And so the government begins its persecution by not addressing the private exercise, but by just making reasonable measures and injunctions against the church.

01:01:54

And then it moves second. Well, we've established that, but no one should really in a free society have religious propaganda shoved down their throats.

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Don't we know that this actually excites acts of violence? And so for public safety concerns, we need to make sure that propaganda is mitigated.

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Of course, people should be able to freely seek out information about religions, but they should do that in the privacy of their own homes.

01:02:20

Yes, quite right, the average American Christian thinks. And so the government continues to persecute through what's reasonable.

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And now that we're at it, children should not have their parents' religion shoved down their throats either. Let the children decide for themselves when they come of age.

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Give them to us, and then we'll let you have them back when they're 18. And see, he says, see, no baseball bats, no home invasions.

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And this is why when people ask me, how can I prepare for the coming Christian persecution in America, I reply, if you are not presently being persecuted,

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I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. Because Christian persecution is not the result of state aggression.

01:03:07

Christian persecution is the result of seeking to live a godly life in Jesus. Do not marvel when the world hates you.

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But, lest we close in despair, when you find yourself in the pit of Dothan, hopeless, pointless, undone, saying like the words of Lamentations 3, my enemies without a cause are hunting me down.

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That's how Joseph would have felt. They've silenced my life in the pit, throwing stones at me, waters flowing over my head, and I'm cut off.

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I called on your name, O Lord, from the lowest pit. You've heard my voice. Don't hide your ear. O Lord, you've seen how

01:03:54

I am wronged. Judge my case. You've seen all their vengeance against me, all their schemes against me.

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You've heard their reproach, O Lord, all of their schemes against me, the lips of my enemies, the whisperings against me all day long, you see.

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When you're in that pit at Dothan, you need to be reminded that you are not alone.

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Because Jesus doesn't just say through the Apostle John, do not marvel that the world hates you. But he says, it didn't hate you first.

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It only hates you because it hated me. And therefore, whenever you face the hostility and the hatred and the scheming and the conspiring and the rejection of smiling faces even, people that you're clamoring after, people that mean things to you, you're not alone.

01:04:47

You may feel alone. You may be, as it were, in the pit of Dothan, but you're not alone. It's interesting.

01:04:53

I was searching Dothan in the Bible, and to my knowledge, it only appears in one other place of significance, which is in 2

01:05:01

Kings 6. It's in the place where Gehazi is freaking out because the king of Syria has mounted his armies and brought them before the prophet.

01:05:12

And it's in the very field of Dothan where Elisha prays and says, Open his eyes,

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Lord. Let him see that those who are with us are far more than those who are with them.

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And he looked around, and there were warriors and chariots of fire surrounding him. When you stand against the hatred of the world in solidity with your

01:05:36

Savior, there are more with you. Throughout this world, facing the same sufferings, facing the same persecutions, there are more with you.

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In heaven on high, crying out as they look at you, saying, How long, O Lord? There are more with you than there are with them.

01:05:56

Let's pray. Father, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight.

01:06:08

The sin which so easily ensnares us, let us run with endurance the race set before us looking unto

01:06:14

Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

01:06:28

Help us, Father, consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest we become weary and discouraged in our souls.

01:06:38

These things we ask in Your Son's name. Amen. Well, now's our time for interaction.

01:07:18

I think you're next up at the back. Thank you for that exposition.

01:07:25

You really clarified the typology for me on... I never really put that together about the...

01:07:32

It was there all the time, but I never really put it together like that. And it's interesting that you think, why would

01:07:41

Jacob send him, a 17 -year -old, to all his brothers who hated his guts, basically, in a 60 -mile journey?

01:07:49

And all you can say is, well, it's the sovereignty of God and God directing the whole play, basically, because Joseph has to end up going into Egypt and becoming a slave and suffering in order for him to save his people.

01:08:06

It just amazes me. It's always been my favorite story, and I'm still getting more and more nuggets out of it.

01:08:13

And then the certain man, you know? It's like, why would he care what this kid's looking for? He's out in the middle of nowhere, and he's like, why would he care?

01:08:20

Because God put him there to point him in the right direction. It's pretty amazing. Amen. And there's actually some who pressed the typology to describe that man as the

01:08:32

Holy Spirit. And the idea is that the Father is sending the Son into that far country, and the

01:08:39

Spirit is pointing him to the lost. And Jesus begins his ministry being filled with the

01:08:46

Spirit, the Spirit descending upon him like a dove and then driven by the Spirit into the wilderness. And the idea is the

01:08:52

Spirit, throughout his ministry, is the one leading and guiding him, helping him to understand who was given to him from the

01:09:00

Father. And we would say, from the Father, by the Spirit. And so maybe even another nugget still.

01:09:16

Mike. Well, hey, thanks for your sermon.

01:09:24

You know, I never really thought about when you first broke out your three conspiracies against Joseph, Jesus, and against us.

01:09:33

I never would have really added the us, so thanks for pointing that out. You know, back on the 17 -year -old, that just says how far we've degraded,

01:09:41

I think, as a society. We can't trust our – well, I guess if you have no expectations, then you'll get no really results, basically, on that because we people and kids can probably handle a lot more than we currently do.

01:09:56

Obviously, where you parked a lot towards the end and where I probably got a lot from is, you know,

01:10:03

I have a few things hitting me, obviously. You know, the world hates us because they hated

01:10:09

Christ, and you talked about, at the end there, compromise. And that's a tough thing because we all compromise, and it's not necessarily – you know, it's like the foxes.

01:10:21

Those little things you compromise. Like I don't say anything, you know, there's a transvestite or there's, you know, whatever else, or there's –

01:10:29

I don't go to people usually and say, I heard so -and -so say you're cheating on your wife. What are you doing? Or I don't really – and then even from last week,

01:10:36

I hate to admit this, but when somebody says the Lord's name in vain, I just kind of cringe, but I don't say, What are you doing?

01:10:42

and things. And I guess that's probably wrong. I guess it's too easy to – the sins of omission and commission or something.

01:10:49

It's too easy to not participate and just not say. I don't think

01:10:54

Christ would have not said, though. You know, so I really need to work on that because it's easy to not partake, but it's hard to – or – it's hard, but it's –

01:11:05

I think we're very – in today's society, we don't want to say anything because of the way society is.

01:11:11

I honestly have more people who hate me because I'm a conservative, not because I'm a Christian. Then I have other people who put up with my

01:11:18

Christianity because I'm a conservative. That's probably not right, obviously, that I'm more hated for my political views, which are aligned with the

01:11:29

Bible, but they don't know that. So I don't know. I guess I'm kind of confused a little bit from the end because I guess do we need to be more in people's faces?

01:11:41

I mean, I don't know because we can sit back and not partake. We can take a stand on things, but unless I guess you're out there with the abortion poster, are you taking a stand on abortion?

01:11:50

Unless you're out in the public eye, are you taking a stand? I don't know. I think this is something that we need to discuss a lot and pray about a lot as a church, not in an afternoon, but repeatedly, continuously.

01:12:04

I think there's a lot of different things that should and could be said about that question and probably a lot of discovering what that's going to look like for us.

01:12:15

Sometimes maybe you don't even start out in the best way and you just learn. Well, we were bold, but we weren't meek.

01:12:21

How can we do both? And working these things out as the Lord helps us, but I think to your point, where I see your heart is, that's better than not doing anything, and we need the

01:12:33

Lord to give us discernment about these things. Thank you,

01:12:44

Ross. This was a particularly meaty sermon, and I really appreciate it. One thing, and it's only emphasizing a point you made in the typology, and I'm sure there are so many more nuggets, as you called it, that can be found, but I was just struck by the parallel between what

01:13:06

Joseph says after Jacob dies in Genesis 50 and what

01:13:12

Peter says in Acts Chapter 2. Both of these are passages where we tend to go when we're speaking of the compatibility between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility and how those two things work together.

01:13:26

Yet I had never realized they were so related by the typology of one for the other.

01:13:33

Yes. But as you know, Joseph, in responding to his brothers who are afraid after Jacob dies, says,

01:13:42

But as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day to save many people alive.

01:13:52

And then in Acts Chapter 2, Peter speaking here,

01:14:00

Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which

01:14:08

God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves also know. Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death, whom

01:14:21

God raised up. And it goes on. But especially this passage in Acts Chapter 2 really kind of sums up a lot of what you were saying today about Christ.

01:14:37

Being this perfect, sinless messenger from God, as it were, who ungodly men rejected.

01:14:46

And God used the very wrath of man to achieve his greatest purpose. So it's just glorious.

01:14:55

Again, nothing remarkable in what I'm saying here, just foot -stomping a point you made. The content is what's remarkable.

01:15:01

This is the gospel in Genesis 37 through 50.

01:15:06

It's amazing. It's incredible. I personally just find it very building to my faith to see this.

01:15:14

There's no way that man could have planned such a parallel in Joseph.

01:15:21

Amen. I realize this is interaction and not monologue, but something

01:15:36

I really feel needs to be said. I'll try to be brief. One of the reasons we have a church fellowship is because Christians are called to face the scorn and rejection of men.

01:15:49

But because we're made in the image of God and being human means being social, even if you're an introvert, believe it or not, you're still social at one level or another.

01:15:59

God has created a new community, a new family, a new place to actually find the comforts and the approval and the things that make us human, communal creatures.

01:16:11

And that's very much what a church is meant to be. And so there ought to be something winsome and alluring about the approval and the warmth and the bonds of affection within a church body that the world cannot answer.

01:16:25

When the gospel went forth in the first century, as Jesus said, and it's still true today, it often divided mother from daughter and son from father and spouse from spouse even.

01:16:37

Where are you going to make up for things that were so cohesive in ways that we can only daydream about?

01:16:42

Family unit cohesion, tribal cohesion, where are you going to get that repaired, redeemed, restored?

01:16:50

It was going to be in the church. And so we have to really take that to heart. The church is meant to be the alternative community in which we find some of our needs met in these very ways.

01:17:03

And I would dare say Jesus found that among his disciples. One of the most poignant moments is when he gives a very hard teaching in John 6, and everyone who had been clamoring after his teaching leaves.

01:17:16

And it's a very disarming experience where he turns to his disciples and says, are you going to leave me also?

01:17:25

I don't think he's saying that out of like, you better not, or he's not speaking out of divine foreknowledge.

01:17:31

I think he's just speaking as a man who knows what it's like to be carried on by relationships.

01:17:37

And he looks to those that he's poured so much of his life and time into who he loves, and he says, are you going to leave me too?

01:17:43

So we really can bring these needs and these concerns and hopes to the Lord.

01:18:08

You know, Ross, I think it was one of the last points where you had said, and you referenced,

01:18:19

I think, 2 Timothy, you referenced 2

01:18:24

Timothy 3. I thought it was 10, but I think I wrote it down wrong.

01:18:32

Was it 12? Yes, 12. Yes, in all who desire to live godly, to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

01:18:42

So, you know, maybe some of the men can answer, but how does that...

01:18:49

So it almost seems... I agree. I agree. But it almost seems as if there isn't much victory here on earth.

01:19:06

So in terms of the post -Mill View, it seems like this seems to be a constant truth, at least while we're here on earth.

01:19:18

How does that... I mean, does it feel the same way? I mean, how does that work out?

01:19:25

It's we expect, live godly, suffer persecution. That obviously means that, you know,

01:19:33

Satan is the king of this age. Doesn't seem like that will end, right?

01:19:40

I think from generation to generation and nation to nation, the irony of the story of Joseph is played out among the body of Christ and that the very way his kingdom is built and his gospel advances is, as it were, from pit to throne in the lives of his people, in the life of his church.

01:20:04

Now, there's always examples that prove and examples that may be disproved, but I think in the grand scheme of things, our post -Mill hope, if I can put it like that, shouldn't be naively optimistic if we think post -Mill means do the hard work now and we'll be able to coast for the next, you know, half millennium.

01:20:26

I think it looks like the life of Joseph. I think that is almost patently the way that God brings about triumph.

01:20:37

So that's probably where I would start thinking about it, but it's a very deep question and when you start thinking about parts and times in the world, it gets even more complex.