The Provision

Genesis 46 and 47. We'll get you to open to that. We've seen in the past few weeks, as we've worked through the series, the series is called "When God Breaks, Shapes, and Makes His People" a Joseph series, a focus on the life of Joseph. But Genesis, at the start of the account of Joseph, actually says it's about the life of Jacob. Chapter 37, the start of the story, verse two, begins like this.

This is the account of, not Joseph, but Jacob. As much as has been happening with Joseph, as much as he was a powerful vehicle of the hand of God in these chapters between 35 and 50 of Genesis, the story is, and the question is this, will Jacob make it? Will his heritage survive? Will the promises of God, the promises of a nation that He made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, will those promises really be kept?

This is the account of Jacob. It starts. We work through this story, and we see that a mighty famine, one of the likes that have not been seen before, was threatening to wipe out the entire family of Jacob, all of his sons. The question is, will Jacob and his lineage survive? Today in this sermon, however, we see the result of God's grace, God's faithfulness to His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And we see it across two chapters, chapters 46 and 47, and what we'll be doing, because we can't read entire two chapters, we'll jump around. So let's have a look from Genesis 46 verses 1 to 7, and then verses 28 to 30, and then a few verses in chapter 47 as well. So Genesis 46 verse 1. So Israel, who's also named Jacob, set out with all that was his. This was after Joseph had revealed himself and said that I'm alive still to his brothers.

They go back, the brothers, and get Jacob to come to Egypt as well. Israel sets out with all that was his, and when he reached Beersheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. And God spoke to Israel in a vision at night and said, "Jacob, Jacob," here I am," he replied. "I am God, the God of your father," he said. "Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there.

I will go down to Egypt with you and I will surely bring you back again. And Joseph's own hand will close your eyes." Then Jacob left Beersheba, and Israel's sons took their father Jacob and their children and their wives in the carts that Pharaoh had sent to transport him. They also took with them their livestock and the possessions they had acquired in Canaan. And Jacob and all his offspring went to Egypt.

He took with him to Egypt his sons and grandsons and his daughters and granddaughters, all his offspring. Verse 27. Let's go from verse 26. All those who went to Egypt with Jacob, those who were his direct descendants, not counting his sons' wives, numbered 66 persons. With the two sons who had been born to Joseph in Egypt, the members of Jacob's family which went to Egypt were 70 in all.

Remember that number. Were 70 in all. Verse 28. Now Jacob sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to get directions to Goshen. When they arrived in the region of Goshen, Joseph had his chariot made ready and went to Goshen to meet his father Israel.

As soon as Joseph appeared before him, he threw his arms around his father and wept for a long time. Jump ahead to Genesis 47 verse 1. Joseph went and told Pharaoh, "My father and brothers with their flocks and herds and everything they own have come from the land of Canaan and are now in Goshen." He chose five of his brothers and presented them before Pharaoh. Pharaoh asked the brothers, "What is your occupation?"

"Your servants are shepherds," they replied to Pharaoh, "just as our fathers were." They also said to him, "We have come to live here a while because the famine is severe in Canaan, and your servants' flocks have no pasture. So now please let your servants settle in Goshen." Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Your father and your brothers have come to you, and the land of Egypt is before you. Settle your father and your brothers in the best part of the land.

Let them live in Goshen. And if you know of any among them with special ability, put them in charge of my own livestock." Then Joseph brought his father Jacob in, and he presented him before Pharaoh. After Jacob blessed Pharaoh, Pharaoh asked him, "How old are you?" And Jacob said to Pharaoh, "The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty.

My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers." Then Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from his presence. So Joseph settled his father and his brothers in Egypt and gave them property in the best part of the land, the district of Ramses, as Pharaoh directed. Joseph also provided his father and his brothers and all his father's household food according to the number of their children. So far, our reading.

The year was 1772. One of the thickest fogs had settled over the city of London. In a small flat, a dismal little shack crowded in the east end of town, a man by the name of William Cowper stood gazing into the fireplace. Overcome by emotions of discouragement and a deep depression, gripped by fears that he could not name, he threw his cloak around him and walked resolutely towards the door. He turned the key and walked out into the bitter night.

Carefully, he groped his way across the pavement and he felt for the familiar hitching post outside his house where the horses were tied up. From there, guided by the curbstone, he made his way to the nearest corner where he knew a horse drawn cab was always waiting. He opened the door and ordered the driver to the Thames, sir. In his deep depression, he was making plans to jump off the bridge. The trip should have taken fifteen minutes, but after an hour and a half of negotiating dark and foggy streets, they realised, both of them, that they were hopelessly lost.

In desperation, he, the man, decided to walk and pay the driver his fare. But as he exited the cab, his arm struck a familiar object. It was the same hitching post outside his house. After an hour and a half of wandering through the city, he had climbed out in front of his own home. So moved and impressed was he that he just climbed the stairs to his flat, lighted the lamp, and knelt to ask God to forgive him for what he had thought to do.

It was during this time that the man, William Cowper, wrote this hymn that some of us might know. "God Moves in a Mysterious Way." And it reads like this, "God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. He plants His footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. You fearful saints, fresh courage take, the clouds you so much dread, are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head.

His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower. Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan His work in vain. God is His own interpreter and He will make it plain." Have you ever doubted the hand of God in your life?

Perhaps even to the point of where this man, William Cowper, was, to the point of immense anxiety and depression? Have you experienced very, very deep disappointments or turbulent, precarious moments? Perhaps you're a father without work, struggling to make ends meet, struggling to provide for your family. Perhaps you're a mother who's felt that hopelessness of looking on to a sick child and knowing that you can't help, knowing that you can't save. Well, the man, Jacob, at the centre of this story experienced all of this.

He knew what it was like to have a hungry family. He knew the hopelessness of a child taken from him. In his mind, for twenty something years, thought to have been taken by a wild animal. But here, at 130 years of age, at the end of his life, we see three wonderful scenes, three wonderful moments that show us that we can trust God in every situation, that show us the beautiful nearness of God in some of the darkest valleys of our life, that show us the faithfulness of God to His promise. We see three scenes.

One, a family scene. Two, a gospel scene. And three, a personal scene. Let's have a look at these. Firstly, a family scene.

We see a marvellous, beautiful way that God has brought a family together again. Have a look at chapter 46 verse 5. We see that Pharaoh, the greatest emperor of that time, sends carts to transport the entire family of Joseph to Egypt. Joseph, think about it, sends carts to a foreign family to bring them in. Donald Trump sends a limousine to Mexico to bring a family in.

On one of these carts is a 130 year old man by the name of Jacob. Hundreds of kilometres later, this family enters Egypt and Joseph is given permission by Pharaoh himself to go out and personally meet this family. If you've ever watched the news, you've probably seen a big Boeing, a big jet that lands at the airport with some foreign dignitary, and you've seen the scenes of where they walk down the stairs and there's this whole band playing and there's people to greet and so on. You know how important that visitor is by the person that meets them. If you're just some low ranking government official, the person who meets you is your taxi driver.

If you're an ambassador of some sort, then you'll be met by some other diplomat of that country, of equal standing, more or less. If you are the president of the United States, Malcolm Turnbull will meet you on the tarmac. Who meets a person is a measure of their importance. In the middle of one of the most severe famines that had struck that region, Pharaoh sends his number one man who has managed the whole rescue mission to go and meet with this family, to go and meet this man, Jacob.

Verse 29 shows us that Jacob is treated with incredible dignity. Joseph's chariot, it says, is made ready, and he travels to the outskirts of Egypt. It's not even at the capital. He travels to the crossing, to the border, and he waits for this family to come. And when they meet, we see this wonderful, beautiful reunion.

James last week talked about the reunion of the brothers and all the emotion that is poured out there and all the weeping and the crying and all the snotty noses. But here we see Joseph finally seeing his dad and Jacob finally seeing his son. Verse 29 says that Joseph, when he sees his father, threw his arms around his dad. Another translation says that he threw his arms around his father's neck. And there is more weeping again.

But this time, have a look, verse 29. It's only Joseph that cries. In the previous chapter, chapter 45, when Benjamin realises that this is his brother Joseph, they see each other and they both hug each other and they both cry. Joseph is the only one who weeps. The question I can't help asking is why.

After not having seen his son, after being inconsolable with grief, chapter 42 says, he doesn't cry, Jacob. Later in chapter 47, Jacob says to Pharaoh, "My hundred and thirty years have been too short, have been too full of pain." It's possible that Jacob had shed too many tears in his life, that he was a broken man, that there was so much grief in his life that his eyes were dry. And I've known people like that. People who have lost incredibly painful things, that have lost loved ones, that have gone through horrendous hardship, and they've lost husbands and wives and sons and daughters, and they cannot shed a tear.

Jacob found no release, no relief through tears, and his son held on to him a long time, the Bible says, and he could not share in that emotion any longer. We see here a beautiful scene, but something is sad about it as well. Something is scarred. It's tinged with sadness. Why can't Jacob cry?

And I think it's this. Jacob realises that he is partly responsible, at least, for what has happened to Joseph. He is responsible for this whole mess. It was his favouritism, his cold treatment of his sons that drove them to a murderous, jealous rage that nearly killed Joseph but sold him in slavery instead. He had caused so much pain to his dear son.

Jesus speaks of the cares of this world strangling out joy and hope in God. The cares of this world strangling, squeezing out the joy and the hope in God's word and His promises. And Jacob, I think, is in real danger of dying a sad old man. Because in his middle years, those twenty odd years before, thirty, forty odd years before, he was not close to God. Previously, we had seen that Jacob was inconsolable.

No one could comfort him. His sons and his daughters, it says, came to him, and he refused to be comforted by them. He refused to be comforted by God. His tear ducts had dried up from grieving, but here in this family scene is a wonderful reunion that takes place and he says in verse 30, "I am now ready to die." There's a double message here for us, something that I think we should take note of.

Firstly, be careful of those middle years, men, women. We see it so often, see it in the life of King David as well. Those dangerous middle years where the stress of this world, the cares of this world, the pain, the anxiety of it squeeze out your faithfulness to God. When the passion of your youthful faith, wonderful first love that you had starts wavering and flickering, and you have to start worrying about a family now, and you have to start worrying about a career and providing. Don't allow God on the back bench.

It might just make you a sad, old Christian man. But secondly, and wonderfully, we also hear this from this family scene, a word to sad old Christian men and women that there is always restoration available. That God in His sovereignty and His grace shows Jacob his son again. That God is able to rescue even when hope seems lost. And that is what happened to Jacob.

He lost hope. The second thing we see is a gospel scene. And you might think, well, this is weird. This is Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament. We're talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ here.

How does that work? Well, Paul the apostle in Galatians 3:8 says that the gospel is preached to Abraham. The gospel was preached to Abraham before Jesus Christ came. Before Christ, the gospel, the good news of Jesus was given to him. When?

When did that happen for Abraham? Paul says Genesis 12:3 where it says, "God said to Abraham, I will make you into a great nation and through you, I will bless the nations." We see that Jesus comes from Abraham, the lineage of Abraham. We see that the Messiah comes from the Jews. The Saviour of the whole world comes from Abraham.

And so we see a miniature snapshot of this blessing in this story. We see it when Jacob goes to Pharaoh, and he's in the great palace there, and little old shepherd man, Jacob, is in front of the golden emperor of the world, and he walks in to see the Pharaoh. And it says in verse 18 of chapter 47. No, sorry, verse 10 of chapter 47.

Jacob blesses Pharaoh. Jacob blesses the Pharaoh. Now the Book of Hebrews says that chapter 7 of Hebrews says that the greater always blesses the lesser. The Prime Minister blesses me. The Queen knights someone lower than her.

What is going on here? Well, we see the wonderful blessing of the gospel coming to the nations. The blessing and the promise that God said, "Abraham, I will use you and your descendants to bless the nations" is starting to happen. Pharaoh is blessed by Jacob. The second thing we also see here is wonderful, and that is where we see how the people, well, we didn't read it, but the famine gets so severe in Egypt that in verse 18 of chapter 47, when the year is over, it says, they come to him. This is the Egyptians.

Come to Joseph and said, "We cannot hide from our lord the fact that since our money is gone and our livestock belongs to you, there's nothing left for our lord except our own bodies and our land." The famine gets so bad that the Egyptians come to Joseph and say, "Have us. We have to survive. We have to make a living. We have to give feed to our animals.

We have to get seed to plant, have our bodies. We sell ourselves to you as your servants." And we see the wonderful snapshot of Joseph who is the archetype of Christ. Jesus is our Joseph. Jesus who, like Joseph, was rejected, and we saw this in the past, was falsely accused, was humiliated, suffers unfairly, but rises to the right hand of power, now supplies the people for all their needs.

Who gives them bread, but Jesus would give the Bread of Life. But the people here, they realise their great need. They realise that they need Joseph, and they offer themselves to him. We see a wonderful little insight of the gospel. And so, friend, like we've already started reflecting on this morning, my life, my soul, my all, realise your great need of Him.

Don't forget that. Do not think that you are capable of rescuing yourself. Don't simply accept a statement about a man dying on a cross, but see it as your salvation. Realise where you would be without Him. See your very great need of Him and then give your very life to Him.

He is trustworthy. He is gentle. His burden is easy. His yoke is light. And then lastly, we see a very personal scene.

Remember, this is a story of Jacob. Flip back with me to the beginning of our passage, chapter 46. And we see Jacob getting ready to go to Egypt, but he only gets as far as Beersheba, which is still in Canaan. And he has to stop. He tells all the carts to stop for the night.

He needs to get out and pray. He needs to make offerings and sacrifices to God, and he starts praying to God. He is nervous. He is afraid, but the Bible says that God meets him there at Beersheba. And we know from previous chapters that this is where Jacob's father Isaac also met with the Lord.

At the same place, God comes to Jacob and he says in verse 3, "Jacob, do not be afraid." Now I have a degree in stating the obvious, but why does God say "do not be afraid"? Because Jacob was afraid. Why was he afraid? What is happening?

Jacob was warned by God, and Jacob's forefathers were warned by God not to go to Egypt, not to seek help from Egypt, not to align themselves with Egypt. And now he's being invited by his son to go and settle in the land of Egypt. Am I disobeying God or is God being inconsistent here or what's going on? There is anxiety here. Let alone the fact that he is migrating and we have a few immigrants here as well, that whole stress of moving country and culture.

So he doesn't even get out of Canaan. He gets to the airport terminal and says, "Okay. Bags down, everyone. I need to pray first." The scene is pretty dismal.

Again, we kinda get this sense of a rather pathetic old man who God had once seemingly blessed in the past beyond that golden age now, who for years had been holding on to the sorrow instead of losing his favourite son, not caring about his other sons. Jacob, the patriarch supposedly of this great nation that God would bless. We see a poor, stumbling believer anxious about that final last step. Jacob, and He says to him, "Don't be afraid. I am the God of your father.

I met him here like I am meeting you now. Take heart. I will be true to my promise." Who of us needs to be reminded more often that God is faithful to us? There are many, many true Christian believers who are a mass of troubling anxiety, who have fears that overwhelm them.

And we see Jacob's fear right here, tangible, but God starts putting reasons for hope on the other side of the scale. They are way down and God starts putting reasons to hope and to trust on the other side. Have a look at this. The first thing He reminds Jacob of in these verses is that His promise, His word is absolutely reliable. Listen to the covenant promise, the one made to Abraham being repeated again.

"I will make you into a great nation." There. The promise was "I will make you into a great nation" to Abraham. They thought it was Canaan. God says, "I will still make you into a great nation, but it's going to be somewhere else.

I am God, and I have the power to bless you even in a situation you thought is impossible to be blessed in. You thought that all hope would be lost. I am God and I am powerful enough, Jacob, to do it." This is driven home even more, even more spectacularly, beautifully, in that number 70 that I said we should remember. It says 70 members of Jacob's family went, 70 in total. Why 70?

Why is that important for us to know? We go back to Genesis 11 at the Tower of Babel, that watershed moment where the world itself, the nations set themselves up against God at the Tower of Babel, and God disperses them and sends them to the ends of the earth. There were 70 nations. And here God is saying, "70 members of a new nation. I am working through you to bring the blessing to the ends of the earth." 70 members is the beginning of God's new nation, new hope for the world.

God says, "I promised to Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation, that he would bless all other nations and bring them back to Me. Now I am assuring you again that this promise is true." What a wonderful reassurance to Jacob. Secondly, we look at another aspect of this where God is starting to tilt those scales a little bit. The second thing God says, and we're nearly done.

What does He say to Jacob? "I am with you. I will go down to Egypt with you." What a wonderful assurance. What a wonderful promise.

If God is with us, friends, we are invincible. Invincible. Remember the story of Jesus and His disciples in the storm, in a boat? And they see the storm, and they're so afraid, and they think they're gonna die, and Jesus is asleep. He's not helping out rowing with everyone else to try and get back to shore. They wake Him up and Jesus says, "You guys, with such little faith."

And Jesus in a word speaks and the storm is silenced. Jesus reminds us again that He is a God who can calm any storm. And as Jesus was with His disciples and there was nothing to worry about, this God is with you today. Lastly, see a touching moment, a touching promise to Jacob. God says your son Joseph will be the one that closes your eyes.

Now I'm a young man and there's quite a few young people here with us as well this morning. We may not understand this promise at all. We may not understand the significance of this, but if you are old, the gladness of knowing someone who loves you and cares for you is going to be there at the end. It's one of the deepest assurances, the greatest comforts that you can have. God says you've missed Joseph for so many years, but he's going to be there at the end to say goodbye.

He will close your eyes. And Joseph, Jacob rather, is perhaps for the first time comforted. Friends, do you have fears? Do you have anxieties? Do you wrestle with depression?

Do you fear the future? Do you mourn the past? The promise is that God is faithful. He is with you, and what He has given you in the past, will He not take away from you.

Let me pray. Father, how great is Your faithfulness? God of our fathers, God of our father's fathers, the God who is faithful to His covenant promise that He will bring this world and its future as He has already done in its past to perfect completion according to Your will. That there is not a hair that can fall from our heads. That there is no scheme of man, no plan of the devil that can frustrate, that can tear us from Your hand.

The God who can bless and bring out His promises in the most unlikeliest of places and situations, in Egypt. Father, we pray that You work in our hearts to confirm to us, to remind us of Your promise to be faithful to us, Your promise to not let us go, Your promise to serve and bless those family members that we also believe are within Your covenant. We ask, Lord, that You will be faithful to them, that You will bring them back to Yourself. Use us in that process as You used Joseph, as You used Jacob, as You used those brothers. Use us as vehicles, but please save those who are part of Your family.

Father, the trials, we just ask a special measure of Your grace to let us know that You are near. As You met with Jacob on that day in Beersheba, Lord, we pray that You will promise that You are with us, that You will go with us wherever we may go. And Lord, that You will be there to close our eyes. We thank You, Lord, for Your faithfulness to us this morning. We take it up again with new hope, with new courage for whatever we go into this week.

We pray, Lord, that we glorify Your name and rejoice in Your goodness. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.