Let’s take our Bibles. Let’s take our Bibles and turn to Genesis chapter 50. Genesis chapter 50. As we come this morning to look at the subject of the matter of life and death, the matter of life and death. Let’s break in at verse 22 of Genesis 50. “So Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father’s household. And Joseph lived 110 years. Joseph saw Ephraim’s children to the third generation. The children of Machir and the son of Manasseh were also brought up on Joseph’s knees and Joseph said to his brethren, ‘I am dying but God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land to the land of which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.’ Then Joseph took an oath from the children of Israel saying, ‘God will surely visit you and you shall carry up my bones from here.’ So Joseph died being 110 years old and they embalmed him and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.”
The matter of life and death. The soldier was home on furlough before being sent to the front lines, and so he decided to visit his grandfather. He had a very close relationship with this man. His grandfather was aged and infirmed. He was an invalid afflicted with painful disease that was degenerative. And as they sat talking, the young man shared his fears for the future with his grandfather. They talked about the things of God. They found commonality and comfort in the things of Jesus Christ. And as the young man was leaving, he asked his grandpa if he would pray for him. He said, “You know what, Grandpa, would you pray for me as I go to the front line that God would give me the courage to die?” The old man looked up through eyes that revealed the pain that he had endured for many years and he said, “I will.” But he said, “I’ll pray for you if you pray for me. I’ll pray that God gives you the courage to die if you pray that God will give me the courage to live.”
Living courageously and dying confidently are two things worth praying for, are they not? Perseverance in life and peace in death are two worthy goals for anyone’s life. In living, none us want to roll over and play dead. And in dying, we don’t want to fear our own deaths. It’s the Christian’s desire, just like the Apostle Paul, to stay alive until we’re dead and then to enter upon a greater experience of life after death. He said in Philippians 1:21, “For me, to live is Christ to die is gain.” The matter of life and death. Nothing rivals the matter and the matters of life and death in importance. How we live affects how we die and how we die affects our eternity.
Let’s then turn to Genesis chapter 50 this morning and meet a man who has lived a long life, a fruitful life, and who is shortly to die. I think in looking at Joseph this morning, we’ll find a man who has lived courageously and a man who dies confidently and there’s much for us to learn here this morning and we’ll make a start. As we catch up with Joseph here at the end of the Book of Genesis, it’s been many years since he was carted off to Egypt when he was 17 years old. For 93 years he has lived in the Land of the Pharaohs and in the Land of the Pyramids. Some 53 of those 93 years were spent in the company of his beloved father and beloved family. He has lived long enough to become a great grandfather. We read here indeed of a third generation in verse 23. But the curtains are being drawn on Joseph’s life. He has learned to live with courage and he’s about to die in confidence. And you and I want to learn from this man’s life and from this man’s death.
Let me just say a couple of things by way of introduction concerning Joseph’s life and it’s a legacy. There are a number of things that you and I learn from his life and from his legacy. In fact, Joseph’s life provides us a striking series of illustrations concerning the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. While He is not mentioned as a type in the New Testament, there certainly is an outline of Jesus’ life and death in the history of Joseph. The Bible says that Jesus came unto His own but His own received Him not. Jesus was rejected by His own. He was humbled and yet He was ultimately exalted and became a savior even to those who rejected Him. And all the time He was beloved by the Father. As was true of Joseph, so it was true of Jesus.
The story of Joseph explains the development of the Hebrews in the land of Egypt back in Genesis 15:13-14, Abraham comes to see that his descendants would spend 400 years in a land in which they were strangers. And then God would come and deliver them and take them to that land promised to Abraham, they ultimately promised to Isaac and Jacob. And that’s exactly what we see going on here towards the end of Genesis. The story of Joseph is a bridge between Genesis and Exodus and shows us how God indeed fulfills His promises. The life and legacy of Joseph also is a splendid example of persevering faith and personal character. There’s no sin attributed to Joseph, that’s not because he was sinless, but here we have an exemplary life, a man who didn’t lose his faith or favor with God despite the trials and the temptations he went through. And he is there as an example of those who persevere in faith.
But I think one of the great lessons of Joseph is that he has remarkable proof of the quiet and unseen operation of divine providence, ruling directly and overruling indirectly in the affairs of men, great and small. His life exemplifies in living color and in three dimensions, Romans 8:28, “That all things work together for good.” No one teaches us that better than Joseph. So let’s look at him this morning. He’s a great example. He’s an historical figure that helps us understand the flow of redemptive history, and his life is lived against the backdrop of God’s sovereignty and providence. And he’s an outline of the life of Jesus Christ Himself. What about his life? What about his death?
Let’s look this morning only at the principle that governed his life and then soon, on a Wednesday night we’ll look at the prospect that governed his death. What about the principle that governed his life? The principle of Joseph’s life and the theme of this series is God’s sovereign government and providential care in the life of His people. Joseph teaches us that there is an upside to down, that God indeed can work all things together for good. He has lived 110 years, according to our text. And as he looks back upon his life, he can see how a sovereign God pieced all the pieces of the puzzle together and made sense of that which was confusing and disconcerting to Joseph. In fact, twice in the text of Genesis, he interprets his life from the perspective and the principle of God’s sovereign care and control.
Go back to Genesis chapter 45. The brothers come down to Egypt and they are shocked to find out that the one that they had sold into slavery is the one who holds the keys to the kingdom and who unlocks the doors to the storehouses where the grain is during a time of severe famine. And as Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, here’s what we read in verse four of Genesis 45, “I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt, but now do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me here before you to preserve life. For these two years, the famine has been in the land and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God.”
That’s the principle that governed his life. Joseph got a hold of the doctrine of God’s providence and was gripped by the thought of God’s sovereignty. 17 years later, following the death of their father, we come upon Genesis 50, turn there. And the brothers have a moment of insecurity and wonder if Joseph’s love for them was real. And he has to explain to them again that he doesn’t intend to wreak vengeance upon their evil because he has come to see that God used their evil and therefore he’s not going to work against the workings of God. Look at verse 20, “But as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant that for good in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.”
Joseph came to see that there is an upside to down, that God is constantly crushing and channeling the deeds of evil men to glorious and gracious ends, that there are no throwaway moments in your life or mine. That which doesn’t make sense to us makes complete sense to God. Joseph was to see, listen to this, write it down and think about it, Joseph was to see that every disappointment was an appointment, that there are no accidents, only appointments in the life of God’s people, that our times are in His hands and His hand is on our times. That’s the principle that governed his life. He came to see that God is not just a universal presence, but God is a universal pressure.
Ephesians 1:11 says that, “God works all things after the council of His own will.” Some people seem to believe that God is some kind of cosmic watchmaker. Like a clockmaker, He constructed His universe very much like someone would construct a clock. He winds it up and He lets it go and He retires from the scene. But the Bible wants us to know that God is not just the great first cause. God is not just the original mind behind things, but God remains intimately involved in His world. Our times are in His hands and His hands is in our times. And that’s a great thing to grasp. That allows you to live courageously and to die confidently because amidst the march of time, you and I live under the care and the guidance and the governance of a God who works all things together for good.
God brings good out of bad. God uses evil even to good ends. And we must learn, as Donald Grey Barnhouse notes, that the darkest moments in our lives are about the short corridors leading to sunlit rooms. And sometimes we get lost amidst the corridors, but we need to hold onto our faith. We need to exercise our confidence in God. We need to believe when we’re lost amidst the corridors that as for God, His way is perfect, as those are the words of David or the words of Job, “He knows the way I take. And when I am come forth, I shall come forth as gold.” Or the words of Paul, “All things work together for good to them that love God.” Or the words of John the Apostle, “Hallelujah, the Lord omnipotent reigns.”
Remember that the corridors which are confusing lead to sunlit rooms, that every disappointment is an appointment. This is fleshed out and worked out in the life of Joseph. The principle that governs his life is the doctrine of God’s providence. What you meant for evil, God meant for good. What do we mean by that? And then I’ll make two applications. The word providence is a word not to be found in God’s word, but the truth of it is all over the scriptures. It’s a word that speaks of seeing something in advance to see beforehand. But it’s more than just being a spectator to that which you see ahead of time. It’s not only to see it, but to see to it, to provide for the future, to govern in the light of what you know, directing all that is within your understanding. That’s what the providence of God is. It’s God’s knowledge of all things and in God’s control and directing of all things to a God-glorifying end.
Listen to the words of Louis Berkhof, the reformed theologian, when he defines God’s providence as, “The continued exercise of the divine energy, whereby the Creator preserves all His creatures, is operative in all that comes to pass in the world and directs all things to their appointed end.” End quote. What we’re talking about in God’s providence is God’s energetic, purposeful management and control of everything at all times. And you see how important that is in the life of Joseph. What a refreshing, reinvigorating doctrine, as over a period of time Joseph’s comes to see his times are in God’s hands and God’s hand is in his times. And that God has indeed exercised an energetic, purposeful management of all things and all times in Joseph’s experience. So much so that he can say here at the end of his life, after 110 years of experience, highs and lows, ups and downs, what you meant for evil, God meant for good.
Because within the doctrine of providence, we have what’s called the doctrine of concurrence. What’s the doctrine of concurrence? Well, the doctrine of concurrence is this, the commingling of the actions of God and human beings. We as creatures exercise our own wills. We make things happen. We do certain things. Some of those are good, those are bad. Some of those are within the borders of God’s moral law. Some of them are outside the boundaries of God’s moral law. But God sovereignly stands over and above all of our actions with His own actions and reactions. So while God incorporates into His will secondary causes, that is your will and my will, whether good or bad, ultimately His will prevails. He has the knowledge of what we’re going to do. And even when we mean evil, He can turn it to good. Not that God tempts any man to evil, not that God violates your will to purpose His own.
But in the mystery of providence and in the marvel of God’s sovereign purposes, God can take even that which we perpetrate outside of His moral will and incorporate into His sovereign will. And Joseph came to see that. I don’t think Joseph saw that right away, but he came to see that and he came to learn that and he came to live by that and it helped him persevere. It helped him to live courageously. And so it ought to do with us. Because when the hand of providence is chopped off, if you don’t believe that, then you’re left to live in a world that has no rhyme or reason. Everything is happenstance, everything is cold and fatalistic, but that’s not true. The doctrine of God’s providence teaches Christians that they are not in the grip of blind forces, fortune, chance, luck or fate. But all that happens to you and all that happens to me falls within the divine purview of providence. And we can live courageously because even our worst day is but a short corridor to something greater, something better. And even our deaths invite greater life.
Now that makes you invincible and indestructible, that makes you more than a conqueror through Christ who loves you. God could take the threads of hatred and cruelty and deceit and abandonment in Joseph’s life and weave them together and make something beautiful out of his times because God makes everything beautiful in His time, Ecclesiastes 3:11. That means, listen, with God, your darkest day may be the beginning of your brightest future. That means with God, your greatest loss may be someday exchanged for your greatest gain. That means that with God, your failure can simply become the back door to your success. That’s something to remember. That’s something to be governed by. Failure to grasp this leads to confusion and unbelief and despair.
Did you know that Ted Turner grew up in a Christian home? For the early part of his life he went to a Christian prep school with Bible training and daily chapel services, and one time he considered giving his life to missionary work. In fact, he said that in the church that he went to, he heard so many gospel messages that he thinks he was saved seven or eight times. But all that came to a screeching halt when his sister contracted a devastating illness. And then he prayed, but nothing happened. Listen, I prayed and nothing happened. And so when she died, Ted Turner couldn’t understand why a loving God would allow someone so innocent to suffer. And so he says this, “I thought about it and said to myself, I’m not sure I want any part of this. If God is love and all powerful, why does He allow all these things to happen? This interpretation that it’s just God’s will, well, I can’t get enthusiastic about that. And I began to lose my faith. And the more I lost it, the better I felt.” I’m not sure about that.
But certainly Joseph came to enthusiastically embrace this old doctrine that this is God’s will, that God governs in the sunshine and in the sunless days when the clouds blot out any sign of hope or health. And we need to grasp that. That shouldn’t cause us to lose our faith. That should cause us to lean upon God all the more in the knowledge that He’s too kind to do anything cruel, too wise to make a mistake, too great to be defeated and too deep to explain Himself. Joseph understood this more by looking back than by going forward, the Puritans used to say that God’s providence is like Hebrew, it’s understood reading backwards rather than forwards. And I don’t know where you’re at and I don’t know what you’re going through, but if you’re in one of those corridors that leads to a sunlit room, you’ve got to hold on. You’ve got to walk by faith and not by sight. You’ve got to trust the Lord, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” Because he’s working all things together for good. He’s too kind to be cruel, too wise to make a mistake, and too deep to explain Himself.
In a few minutes, I’m just going to make two quick applications which I think are really exciting and encouraging concerning the doctrine of God’s providence. Now, as we look at this principle that governed the life of Joseph towards the end of his life, I want you to see the doctrine of God’s providence in the light of the influence of the individual. As we look at God’s providence, think about the influence of the individual. Because Joseph was sold into slavery at the age of 17, just a stripling of a lad, totally confused, fearful, not knowing which way to turn. Yet God would take that young man, that one life and change the course of history. He would indeed preserve the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He would save the nation of Egypt. He would position the people of God on the borders of Egypt and the land of Goshen for the later Exodus. And He would even bless you and me because it’s through the line of Abraham and Jacob and his sons that indeed Jesus Christ would come as the savior of all mankind. Just one life, just one boy.
But when God is finished with that one life, its influence is tremendous. What did Pharaoh say of Joseph in Genesis 41:38 as he’s confused about his dreams and the butler tells him about the one who interpreted his dreams in the prison, and Joseph stands before Pharaoh and the Bible says that Pharaoh says of Joseph, “Can we find such a one as this?” Great men have shaped the face of history and great leaders have changed the course of history, and so it is with Joseph in the providence of God, this one life touched thousands of lives and the impact of this one life impacted generations to come and impinged upon our own futures in Jesus Christ. And I just think that’s a great encouragement.
You see in the providence of God, there are no small people and no little places and no inconsequential deeds. You and I don’t know how God just might use that act of kindness, that conversation, that dream we have in our hearts. You see, when you believe in a sovereign God who is energetically and purposefully managing all things at all times, then you’ll be amazed at what He can do with your small life or that which you’re willing to surrender up to Him. It’s a great lesson to be reminded of. In 1645, one vote gave Oliver Cromwell the control of England. In 1649, one vote caused Charles 1 of England to be executed. In 1845, one vote brought taxes into the Union. In 1868, one vote saved President Andrew Johnson from impeachment. In 1923, one vote gave Adolf Hitler control of the Nazi party.
Big doors swing on small hinges. In your life and in my life, you and I can be used by God to set in motion things that ripple across generations. There’s no small people, no little places. Listen to these words by G. Campbell Morgan, “Commit your life to God. See vision, do the work that’s nearest, the work He appoints truly and well and faithfully, and die knowing that you have started delicate influences, dynamic forces which will proceed through every succeeding generation until they gather up the harvest of glorious result about the throne of the eternal. The man of God has not finished his work in the world when they put him in a coffin.” The doctrine of God’s providence reminds us of that. The influence of the individual and finally the importance of the incidental.
Remember, nothing is small, nothing is insignificant in the hands of a God who energetically, wisely, unerringly purposefully manages the events of our life. There’s nothing haphazard in our lives. There are no throw-away moments. There are no uncalled-for experiences. “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.” Psalm 37:23. If you look at the life of Joseph, you can see how God engineered a chain reaction of events that would ultimately lead to the Exodus itself. We don’t have time to go back to Genesis 15:13-14, but there we read that indeed the people of Israel will spend 400 years in Egypt until God indeed delivers them. And it says, “And they will leave with great possessions.” And so they did. Read about the Exodus. And it all dovetails into the life of Joseph. Remember, he’s the bridge between Genesis and Exodus. How do we get from here to there? Joseph and the sovereignty of God in his life, no small or insignificant experiences or events in his life. They all added up to something. There was a domino effect.
When I was growing up in Britain, I used to watch this program called The Record Breakers. It was a program about the Guinness Book of Records, and one of the things I used to love was when they tried to beat the number for the domino toppling competition. And tens of thousands of dominoes would be set in an intricate pattern and just with the flick of one domino, a whole series of events would unfold with these beautiful patterns unfolding like peacocks and their plumage unfolding, all ending in a fireworks display should the last domino fall. In fact, this morning I went on to Google and found out that the record stands to a team of Dutchmen, 2009, four and a half million dominoes were toppled in one day. It all started with one. Took a lot of work for them to make sure that all the dominoes were in the right place because all it would take is for one domino out of place and the whole thing would come to an end and the record would never be broken.
And if you look at the life of Joseph, you see the domino effect of God’s unerring providence and plan and purpose in his life. The dream of a teenager that sparked the envy of brothers. Then the brothers selling him to a passing caravan train of Ishmaelites. He gets to Egypt, he’s on the slave block, and it just so happens that Potiphar comes along, the keeper of the jail in Pharaoh’s palace, the court official. Then after the episode with Potiphar’s wife, Joseph lands himself in prison with a butler and a baker who have fallen out of favor with Pharaoh himself, and it just happens that Joseph tells them the interpretation of dreams that have plagued them. And one day as the butler’s restored to favor with Pharaoh and Pharaoh’s bothered by these cows, fat and lean and heads of corn fat and lean, that the butler remembers that two years earlier that he indeed had dreams himself that had been interpreted by Joseph.
All those things just coincidentally all seemed to happen and fall into place really. The dream, the jealousy, the passing of the caravan, Potiphar, the butler. No. Because when you understand the doctrine of God’s providence, you’ll see the influence of the individual and you’ll see the importance of the incidental. There are no maverick molecules in the far reaches of outer space. There’s no haphazard moments on the unfolding of history. God is energetically and purposefully working all things after the council of His own will. Your life and my life right now is what God has willed it to be. That doesn’t mean there’s not awful things going on, hurtful things going on, things that you wish you could be done with going on, just like Joseph.
But if you travel the corridor to the sunlit room, you’ve got to believe that it’s all working together for good and you’ve got to continue to do what’s right. You’ve got to continue to hold on to God. You’ve got to continue to remain obedient because God will use your influence. God will indeed work together all those things that are going on in your life in a marvelous way. There are no disappointments without appointments. The God of heaven is not like one of the monarchs of England described by William Durant as a do-nothing king who reigns, but doesn’t rule. Our God reigns. Remember that old chorus we used to sing? Our God reigns and He rules all at the same time.
I think you’ve heard me tell this story before of the cowboy who was taking out for himself some health insurance, and he was asked if in the past year he had had any accidents. He says, “No, not that I can think of. Although, I was bitten by a rattlesnake and kicked in the chest by a horse.” The person who was interviewing him for the health insurance said, “Well, do they not qualify as accidents?” He says, “No, they did it on purpose.” There are no accidents in the life of a believer, only appointments. What you meant for evil, God meant for good. “You sold me here, but God sent me here. I am where God wants me to be. The path hasn’t been easy there. Not all the experiences is good, but they’re all working together for good. I’m the better for it because I’ve learned to trust God. And my character has been polished on the grindstone of suffering. And I can see that God is doing something beyond my hurt to the benefit of others. And therefore, I’m willing to be wounded that others may be healed.”
Listen to these words as the theme comes up and we sing as we move towards the table. These are the words of John Flavel, an old Puritan who wrote a book called The Providence of God. My father gifted me this book as we left Northern Ireland to come and train at Master’s Seminary, not knowing what the future held for us. And yet having visited Master’s Seminary this week and gone to the Shepherds Conference, I’m amazed to look back over the last 14 years of my life and to see how God has worked all things together for good. And in that book, The Providence of God, here’s what Flavel says. It’s a little archaic in language, but hang on to it, it’s worth listening to.
“What a transporting pleasure it is to behold great blessings and advantages to us wrought by providence out of those very things that seemed to threaten or ruin or misery. Oh, what a difference we have seen between our afflictions at our first meeting with them and our parting from them. We have entertained them with sighs and tears, but we have parted them with joy.” It’s a beautiful thought. No one exemplifies that thought better than Joseph. As he hangs onto the tail of a camel and he’s trailed down to Egypt away from all that’s familiar, that which provides him security, away from the love of family into a foreign land, he embraced that with tears and sorrow and confusion. But when he parted from the trial 110 years of age, 93 years later, he parts with joy. Because despite the beginning, in the end, God worked all things together for good.
That’s why James says, doesn’t he, count it all joy, when you fall into temptation knowing that the trial and testing of your faith produces good things. He has to use the word counter. It’s an accounting term. He’s saying you’ve got to take that which you would naturally consider a liability, you’ve got to take it and put it in the asset column and believe that God is going to use that in you, for you and through you in ways you can’t imagine. Embrace it in sorrow, live by faith, rest in the providence of God, and someday you will indeed not only count it joy, but know it to be joy. Because that corridor is but a short passage between the dark and windowless room of suffering into the sunlit room of blessing.
Let’s pray. Oh God, this is a comforting doctrine, but not one that’s easy to live out. Lord, we don’t naturally embrace those things that threaten us, harm us, rob us of our health, upset our family, bring anxiety to our hearts. But, God, help us to count all things joy, believing that all things work together for good. Lord, help us indeed to hold on and walk by faith, believing indeed that we may weep for a night, but joy will come in the morning. Oh God, amidst the jumbled up mess that perhaps is where any of us are today, help us to believe that that which doesn’t make sense to us, makes sense to you, and even the evil perpetrated against us is something that you can indeed weave. You can take those dark strands and weave them into the tapestry of your good purposes for us. Lord, forgive us for our failing faith, where we doubt your love in the darkness. Strengthen us today as we’ve considered the matter of life and death. Help us to live with courage, fortified by the doctrine of God’s providence. And everybody said amen.