Sermon Audio

Scripture: Genesis 45:8 “So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.”

Preached in Bethel Free Presbyterian Church, September 2nd, 2018.

Stream or download From Prison Cell to Pharaoh’s Court – the story of Joseph

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God’s purpose in Joseph’s life involved him going to jail and that for quite some time. Many have lived to bless the days of affliction and distress through which God caused them to go. They discovered, like Manasseh, (II Chronicles 33:12) that affliction often causes us to think upon our ways and to consider the Lord. So it was with the Prodigal son in Luke 15:14-17. The jails of Ulster have been places where the purpose of God has been wrought out in mercy in the lives of those who otherwise would never have been reached with the gospel. Joseph was able to say to his brothers, whose wickedness had been the cause of him being taken as a slave to Egypt in the first place,  — Genesis 50:20.
We can learn some very important gospel lessons from the experience of Joseph recorded in Genesis.

I. GOD’S PURPOSE WAS TO PLACE JOSEPH UPON THE THRONE.
“God . . . hath made me . . . . a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt”, Genesis 45:8.

1. In this we have a picture of the purpose of God in the gospel. It is to take poor sinners and place them upon a throne. A far greater throne than that of Egypt. I Samuel 2:8.
Christ  asks that His Father bring them to His throne that they may see and share in His glory, John 17:24.  All of God’s elect will see Him in all His majesty.  All who are saved and washed in the blood of the Lamb are made unto our God “kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth”, Revelation 5:10. We shall literally reign with Him when the Saviour returns to make the kingdoms of this world His.

2. But it is the privilege of the child of God to live now as a king where once he was a poor slave.  Romans 6:14. As Joseph ruled where he once had been a poor miserable slave, so the Christian is enabled by God’s grace to rule where once he was a slave to sin and uncleanness.  See Joseph sitting upon the throne and imagine all those who had authority and dominion over him in past years now bowing before him in submission. See his brothers coming down and bowing before him, they who had cast him into a pit and sold him into slavery. So it is with the Christian. Upon receiving Christ, he becomes a new creature, “old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new”, II Corinthians 5:17. He arises out of his prison cell of sin to “walk in newness of life”, Romans 6:4.

Scripture: “And he said, Who art thou, Lord?” Acts 9:5.

Stream or download An educated man’s confession of a fatal ignorance!

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I want to consider the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, better known by his later name, Paul the apostle.

Two men in the mid-18th century, both lawyers, Gilbert West and Lord Lyttleton, were determined to destroy the basis of the Christian faith. West was going to demonstrate the fallacy of the resurrection and Lyttleton was going to prove that Saul of Tarsus had never converted to Christianity.

But both men came to the opposite conclusion and became ardent followers of Jesus. Lord Lyttleton writes: “The conversion and apostleship of Saint Paul alone, duly considered, was of itself a demonstration sufficient to prove Christianity to be a Divine Revelation.” He concluded that if Paul’s years of suffering and service for Christ were a reality, then his conversion was true, for everything he did began with that sudden change. And if his conversion was true, Jesus Christ rose from the dead, for everything Paul was and did he attributed to the sight of the risen Christ. The works of the two men were published in 1747.

Undoubtedly, the conversion of Paul was an event of major importance. That is emphasised by the fact that three times in the Acts of the Apostles mention is made of it, chapters 9, 22 and 26, not to mention Paul’s many references to it in his epistles, 1 Cor 15:8-9; Gal 1:13.

Paul was undoubtedly a very learned man. He spoke of his education and that before a hostile mob of Jews who would have been quick to contradict him if what he said was false.“I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God,” Acts 22:3.

Paul was a linguist. He could speak perfectly in Hebrew and Greek. Acts 21:37, 22:2.
His intellect has been acknowledged by all on the basis of the epistles he wrote and which are still amongst us and which have been the fountain of so much good in this world.
Having said all that, I want to point out that this intelligent, learned man was once grossly ignorant of that most important of all knowledge – HE KNEW NOT GOD! When he saw Christ he didn’t know Him!

His ignorance is that of all men by nature! “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe,” 1 Cor 1:21.

I. PLEASE NOTE THAT DESPITE ALL HIS RELIGION HE KNEW NOT CHRIST!

1. Paul lists his religious upbringing. Php 3:4-6.
2. He puts no value on his ‘religiosity’ in the light of the gospel truth. Php 3:7-8. ‘Loss’ = ‘that which is damaging.’ ‘Dung’ = ‘utter waste, utterly distasteful!’
3. He spent his life trying to show people that mere religious acts would not save! “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified,” Galatians 2:16. “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them,” Galatians 3:10.

II. BUT PLEASE NOTE ALSO THAT PAUL WAS AN ENEMY OF CHRIST!

“And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” Acts 9:4.

Saul persecuted Christ. Just what was Christ calling Paul? “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you,” Matthew 5:44. Those words serve to highlight natural man’s attitude to Christ.

1. Remember: all the time he thought he was doing God’s will.
2. How wrong man can be about this most vital of matters. Romans 3:9-20.
3. This why men refuse and oppose the gospel. It is contrary to all they think! “But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear,” Zechariah 7:11. “When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. . . . . Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord,” Acts 7:54, 57.

III. BUT IN A MOMENT ALL THAT WAS CHANGED.

1. The Saviour revealed Himself. “And the Lord said, I am Jesus . . . ” Acts 9:5. See John 9:35-38. Here is the light that all sinners need!
2. His sins were all pardoned. “Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief,” 1 Timothy 1:13. All his religious works had not brought forgiveness BUT Christ can forgive. “Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins,” Acts 13:38.
3. That wonderful mercy became the centre of his message. Acts 26:13-18.

Scripture: “Ask ye of the LORD rain in the time of the latter rain; so the LORD shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field,” Zechariah 10:1.

Never was the mercy and grace of God more evident than when we consider the goodness of God to those who have long defied and dishonoured Him by backsliding. Not only is there an urging of them to return and the proffering of much mercy but there is clear and simple instructions as to what they must do in order to enter again into the enjoyment of His bounty. Our text is just one such demonstration of this goodness.

The drought was an evidence of their departure from the Lord, 2 Chron 7:13. How we need simple instruction when we have been away from the Lord. How dark is our understanding and dull is our mind. We are like someone laid low in their bed by an illness. They must learn to use their limbs again. They are as weak as babes until that strength and dexterity returns to their enfeebled legs. Much knowledge has been lost by the people of God today. We need such simple instruction as that set down in our text.

Stream or download Ask for rain