Lesson 16

Genesis chapter 32 please if I remember my text correctly. Genesis chapter 32. Let me take a quick peek here at our online group this morning. Good morning to everybody. Good morning Gibbons family. Good morning Howard's. Good morning Gabriel. Good morning lakes. I'm glad the sound is good. I got it hooked up properly this morning so I'm glad you all can hear me well. Alright and there's some others on here that I don't know who they are. I can't see who you are but I do see the comments from those people so that's why I said hi to them. If I missed you it's because you haven't commented and I just don't see you watching that's all. So Genesis chapter 32 and we left off last week we'll go to our chronological chart here. We left off last week Isaac had Jacob and Esau. Remember the promise of the Savior, the coming Savior, was given to, well it came through Seth and then through Noah and then through Sham. It was then passed down to Abraham that the coming Savior would come through his lineage and then it was passed down to Isaac and then it was passed down to Jacob. We saw that last week. Okay and now we're going to move forward in time. If you would take God's precious word and look with me now in Genesis 32 verse 22. Genesis 32, 22, time has passed Esau and is no longer wanting to kill his brother Jacob. Jacob's coming back home and as he does he encounters God again just like he did. Remember last week we saw Jacob having a dream of a ladder being set up on earth in the top reach to heaven. Angels were going up and down that ladder and we saw then that God gave him this covenant that the Savior would come through him that in Jacob all nations of the earth would be blessed. And so we then saw that Jesus revealed in the New Testament that he was Jacob's ladder. He was the one through whom he told Nathaniel, he said, "Hereafter you will see the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. " I am Jacob's ladder. They'll be coming up and down on me. All I will bridge the gap between heaven and earth. And so now Jacob is going to have an encounter with God again, a very unusual encounter. Genesis 32, 22, and he rose up that night and took his two wives and his two women servants and his eleven sons and passed over the four of Jabbok. And he took them and sent them over the brook and sent over that he had. And Jacob was left alone and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. Now Jacob's alone yet there's a man with him. It's strange, isn't it? And what this is is what we call, I'll get my chalk here. This is a pre-incarnation of Christ. And what that means is this. Whenever we learned about God being a trinity, and we learned how we were created in the image of God, we learned that the vegetation God made, which was the first thing he made, that vegetation has bodies. Plants have bodies. They take in nutrients. They take in air. They take in water. They have bodies, but they don't have souls. They don't have a mind, motion, and will. Animals do. The moving creature that hath life is how God described the animals in that part of creation that we called animation. Just to remind you, we had illumination, first part of living creation, vegetation, animation, and the last one was, can you remember when God created man? Inspiration. Man was created with something that animals didn't have. God gave us a spirit. Jesus said that God is spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. So we have a spirit so we can know God. That's why we come to church this morning, animals, it's just another day for them. They have no God consciousness at all. They have self-consciousness, but no God consciousness as we do. Well, we learned then that there's three parts to us. We are three parts that make up one person. We're body, that's what you're looking at now. We're soul, that's the inner part of me, and then there's the spirit. And so you cannot see the spirit and the soul part of me. But my thoughts on the inside, the part you can't see, are expressed by the outer man that you can see. And so it's the same way with God. God is spirit. He is not three parts that make up one person. He's three persons that make up one God. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. All right, not three gods, but one God, three persons. The Holy Spirit you do not see. God the Father you do not see. But God the Son, that part of God, is what manifests God to man. And so we see often, several times in the Old Testament, God appearing as a man. He appeared as a man to Abraham. He appeared as a man to Adam and Eve, whenever he walked in the garden in the cool of the day. And so here he appears to Jacob as a man. Anytime you see God appearing as a man, it is a pre-incarnation of Christ. It is the same Savior, is the same person who was born in a manger, before he took on human flesh. He appears as a man, but he hasn't been born as a man yet. It's just an appearance, like an angel. Sometimes it'll appear as a person. And you can look and see them. But this is Christ before he was made flesh in Bethlehem and born in a manger. Makes sense? So here's Jesus and Jacob, and they're wrestling with each other. Okay? So verse 24, "And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he that is the man Jacob was wrestling with saw that he prevailed not against him, he that is Christ the man Jacob wrestled with touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him. " Let me give you an understanding of what's taking place here, which you'll see here in a little bit. Jesus shows up. Now, you remember how Jacob was all about getting a blessing. He stole his brother's birth--well, he didn't steal his brother's birthright. That's not true. He purchased his brother's birthright at a very discounted price. But his brother agreed to it. He didn't steal it. Now, he stole his blessing. He stole his blessing from his father. But now here comes the Savior. Here comes the Lord. Here comes his Creator, and he appears to him. He'd already appeared to him once in a dream above that ladder, and now he's appearing in person. And Jacob is not about to let this opportunity pass. He grabs hold of the Lord, and he says, "Bless me. " The Lord says, "No, I'm not going to do it. " He says, "Bless me. " "No, I'm not going to do it. " But Jacob would not let go of the Lord. Now, of course, the Lord could have killed Jacob if he wanted to. He could have evaporated him if he wanted to. But he's allowing this wrestling match to go on, not in the wrestling in the sense that they're throwing each other around like on WWF or anything like that. But in the sense that there's this struggle, "Let go of me. " "No, I'm not, and bless you, bless me. " If you'll look here in verse 26, and he said, "Let me go for the daybreaketh," or it's almost morning time, "Let me go. " And he that is Jacob said, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. " You see that there in verse 26? We'll see this again when the Lord is incarnated, after he is born in Bethlehem, and he grows up to be a man. We'll see it again when there will be someone like the Gentile woman that comes to Jesus. And she'll say, "Sir, my daughter's dying. Please come heal her. " He'll say, "No, it's not right for me to take the children or the Jews' bread and to give it to dogs. " And he'll just tell her no. And she'll say, "Yes, that's true, Lord, but the dogs do eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table. " And then he healed her daughter. And what he's doing is this. By telling him no, "No, I'm not going to bless you. " He's seeing how determined Jacob is to get this blessing. In fact, he injured Jacob when he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh. Jacob leant off from this when you keep reading. He injured Jacob. Jacob still wouldn't let go. He would rather be injured, rather be physically disabled, but to be blessed by the Lord. That's how important it was to him. And the Lord was revealing that here. Just like he tested Abraham when he told him to offer his only son. Let's just make this difficult and see how serious you are about this. That's really what the Lord does sometimes with us. So after he said, "I won't let you go unless you bless me," verse 27, "and he that is the Lord said unto him, 'What is thy name? '" And he said, "Jacob. " And he said, "Thy name shall be called no more, Jacob, but. . . " What? "Israel. " So now, which means a prince with God or a power with God, okay? So now, the Lord changes Jacob's name to Israel. See how it says, "Jacob 4/Israel? " So now you've got a man named Jacob whose name has changed to Israel, a prince with God. By the way, in Hebrew, "el" means God. "El," any time you see "el," like "beth El" in the Bible, "beth house El God," "house of God. " Here, "Israel," "prince with God," okay? Or a victor with God. Now, Israel, when you see Israel on a map like this right here, or Israel here, okay? When you see Israel on a map, "Israel" can mean a place, a nation, but it also means a person. So here's what happens historically. I love the bow tie. You almost look like a weatherman or something. You should be on TV forecasting weather. So Jacob's name has changed to Israel. Israel, the man Israel, ends up having 12 sons. These are his 12 sons, okay? Those 12 sons have sons and daughters who multiply. And as they continue to marry and to have children, these 12 sons populate and become 12 -- anyone have a guess? No, not nations. Tribes. Thank you, Jonathan. Of course, Jonathan. Twelve tribes. Yeah. So we now have the 12 tribes of Israel. See how we get that? As these 12 tribes expand, they then comprise the nation of Israel. Now, if you were to go to Oklahoma and you were to be traveling down the highway, you may enter the, what, Choctaw Nation or something like that. Well, the word "nation" -- you're talking about a people group, right? Not necessarily a governmental entity, but a racial entity, okay? And so when you see Israel, yes, it's the governmental entity of the racial group. Israel, okay? So now when you think of Israel, all those Jews over there, they're just people who descended from Shamm, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and they're part of these 12 tribes. That's it. They all came from these 12 men here. And we have all the genealogy here that links them all together, okay? So now that we've got that established, eventually, with Jacob returning home, we have the nation of Israel in the Promised Land at this time. Let's move forward to Chapter 37. Sometimes you'll see Jacob be called Jacob after this. Sometimes you'll see him be called Israel after this. But the Bible uses it interchangeably. That way you'll be able to distinguish between the man and the nation. Makes sense? Chapter 37, verse 1. "And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger in the land of Canaan. " All right? So now Jacob is here. He's dwelling in the land of Canaan. See Canaan right here? This is the Promised Land where his father dwelt. Says he was a stranger because he never actually fully possessed the land, okay? All right. Now let's go here to verse 2. "These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being 17 years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren. " All right? Let's look up here. You see Joseph here? He's out. He's only 17. Benjamin's the youngest. Here's Joseph. He's feeding the flock with these men right here, okay? Here we go. 17-year-old whippersnapper. I don't know if -- do y'all use whippersnapper up north, those who are watching this that are from up north right now? I'm just curious. We'll use it down here. Look here now. Verse 2. "He's feeding the flock with his brethren, and the land was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. " Do you know what that means? Joseph was a tattletale, okay? So he comes and brings them their evil report. If they don't do what they're supposed to do, Joseph snitches on them. Now, Joseph was right. Joseph didn't play along to get along. Joseph obeyed his father. He obeyed the rules. But his brothers didn't like him because he was a tattletale. Verse 3. Not only was he a tattletale, but he was father's favorite boy. Verse 3. Now, Israel -- okay, watch this now. In verse 1, he's called Jacob. See? In verse 3, he's called Israel. Same person. But after God changed his name to Israel, the writer Moses used them interchangeably here in the same chapter to let us know who he's talking about. "Now, Israel loved Joseph more than all his children because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a coat of many colors. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him and could not speak peaceably unto him. " We have a dysfunctional family where you've got sibling rivalry. They were so jealous of Joseph, they didn't even want to talk to him. Verse 5. "And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren, and they hated him yet the more. And he said unto them, Here I pray you this dream which I have dreamed. " Now you're going to see why they hate him. Verse 37. I'm sorry, verse 7. Chapter 37, verse 7. "Behold, we that is me and my brothers were binding sheaves in the field. " Now you know what sheaves are, right? They cut down wheat or barley stalks, and then they bind them up and stack them in the field. Yeah. So we're binding sheaves in the field. "And lo, my sheaf arose and also stood upright. And behold, your sheaves stood round about and made obeisance to my sheaf. " So here's the dream. Joseph says, "Hey, we're all out in this field. We're harvesting sheaves. My sheaf is bound. It's on the ground. My sheaf stands up straight. And when my sheaf stands up, all of your sheaf starts bowing down to my sheaf. They hated him. " And so look what they said here in verse 8. "And his brethren said unto him, 'Shout thou indeed reign over us, or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? ' And they hated him yet to mourn for his dreams and for his words. " Well, it only gets worse. Verse 9. "And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, 'Behold, I have dreamed a dream more. '" Now he's not trying to be rude. He's just sharing what God's given him. "And behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. " That means they bow down. "The sun, the moon, the eleven stars bow down to me. " Verse 10. "And he told it to his father and to his brethren, and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, 'What is this dream that thou dreamest? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth? ' And his brethren envied him, but his father observed the saying. " So here's what's going on. He says, "I have this other dream. There's sun, there's moon, there's eleven stars. " Who are the eleven stars? That's his eleven brothers. Who's the sun and the moon? "The sun is daddy, the moon is mama, and they all bow down to him. " And Joseph says, "Are your mother and I really going to bow down to you? " And his brethren envied him, but Joseph, he observed the saying. He started thinking, "Maybe I ought to listen to this. There may be something to this. " Why? Well, Joseph had a dream too once, right? He dreamed about the latter. He had met with God, and he's thinking, "Maybe God's giving him these dreams. Maybe there's something to this. " Why did the brothers envy him? They were saying they hated him for all this. Now they envy him? Well, hate and envy go hand in hand. You don't envy someone without hate. Because if you tell me God's going to do something good to you, and I become envious and I don't like God blessing you, I is not out of love. If God's going to bless you, I should be happy with you. So, yeah, they're hateful and they're envious of them. And so here's what happens. For time's sake, I'll give you a rundown, then we'll get back into the Scriptures. So his brethren go out and they're feeding the flock one day. And as they're feeding the flock, Israel tells his son, "Go check on your brothers and see how they're doing and see how the flock's doing. Come, let me know. " All right? So Joseph runs off like Dad says, like Israel says. And when his brothers see him coming, look what happens, verse 18, "And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, 'Behold, this dreamer cometh. " Oh, here's the big dreamer. "Come now therefore and let us slay him and cast him into some pit. And we will say some evil beast hath devoured him and we shall see what will become of his dreams. " So what they're saying, "Hey, when he gets here, let's kill him. We'll chunk him into a pit. No one will ever find him. We'll tell Dad some animal ate him up, and we'll see what will become of his dreams. " We'll see what happens here. Yeah, verse 21, "And Reuben heard it. " Reuben's one of the brethren up here, older brother. "Reuben hears it, and he delivered him out of their hand and said, 'Let us not kill him,' verse 22. And Reuben said unto them, 'Shud no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness and lay no hand upon him, that he might rid him out of their hands to deliver him to his father again. '" So Reuben's like, "Hey, don't kill him. Just throw him into the pit. " You know, because Reuben's idea was, after they left, he could come back, get his brother out, and take him back home. All right? Verse 23, "And it came to pass when Joseph was coming to his brethren that they stripped Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colors that was on him, and they took him and cast him into a pit, and the pit was empty. There was no water in it, so a dry pit. And they sat down to eat bread. " Here, they're going to have supper now. They got their brother in a pit, and the-- Yeah, it is cold. It's very cold. "And they lifted up their eyes and looked, and behold, a company of ish-mill lights came from Gilead with their camels, bearing Spicerie and Balm and Mer, going to carry it down to Egypt. " Who are the ish-mill lights? They're the descendants of ish-mill. Remember? Ish-mill and Hagar. So these are Arab people coming. They're stepbrothers, so to speak. They're coming. And they see them coming. They're on their way to Egypt to sell. And let's see what happens here now. And they--let's see here. Where's my ish-mill lights? I just lost my place here. Here we go, 27. "Come and let us sell him to--" I see, verse 26, excuse me. "And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood? Come and let us sell him to the ish-mill lights, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother in our flesh, and his brother in working ten. In other words, hey, let us don't kill him. Let's just sell him into slavery. You know, after all, he is our brother, you know. So they're, "Well, yeah, yeah, we'll do that. " Then they're passed by, verse 28, "Then they're passed by Midianites, merchant men, and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit and sold Joseph to the ish-mill lights for twenty pieces of silver, and they brought Joseph into Egypt. " They bought Joseph for the price of a slave, and they take him into Egypt, all right? "Then they then take Joseph's coat that his father made. They kill one of the animals, put the animal's blood on the coat. They rip it up and tear it. They then come back to Israel, and they say, 'Hey, we just found this coat. Is this Joseph's coat? ' And they didn't tell him. They just said, 'We just found this coat. '" You know? And so Israel then assumed that an animal killed my son. He's dead, and he's heartbroken now, okay? And so verse 36, Genesis 37, 36, "And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's and captain of the guard. " He sold to these Arabs, these Ishmaelites, Arabs take him to Egypt. There's a man named Potiphar. Potiphar was the captain in the army. And when Potiphar gets him, man, Potiphar realizes this young man's smart, and everything he puts his hand to, God blesses me, or I get blessed in this house. So make a long story short, Potiphar put Joseph in charge of everything in his house. In time, Potiphar didn't even know how much money he had in the bank to put it in our modern-day language. He let Joseph take everything. Potiphar was becoming a very wealthy man. Joseph is living well and ruling Potiphar's house. But something took place that went wrong, and that is Potiphar's wife started flirting with Joseph and trying to get Joseph to commit adultery with her. Joseph, being a righteous man, would not. He says, "I'm not going to do my master that way. " And so finally, they say, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. " So finally, being scorned by Joseph and resisting her advances, she then tells Potiphar that Joseph tried to rape her. So now Joseph is falsely accused, and Potiphar puts him in prison. If you'll look here with me now, Genesis 39, verse 12. "And she called him by his garment, saying, 'Lie with me. ' And he left his garment in her hand and fled and got him out. " Verse 14, "She called unto the men of her house and spake unto them, saying, 'See, he hath brought in--" in Hebrew, that's a Jew--"unto us to mock us. He came in unto me to lie with me, and I cried with a loud voice. And it came to pass when he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried that he left his garment with me and fled and got him out. " All right, so verse 20, Genesis 39, 20. "And Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, a place where the king's prisoners were bound, and he was there in the prison. But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph's hand all the prisoners that were in the prison. And whatsoever they did there, he was the doer of it. " So he's in charge of Potiphar's house. He gets falsely accused. He now is in prison, and the person in the prison puts him in charge of the prison. All right, but he's still in prison. Again, make a long story short. One day, Pharaoh starts to have some dreams of his own. And he cannot figure these dreams out, and they're very vivid dreams, they're very realistic dreams, and they're troubling Pharaoh. And so Pharaoh starts asking all the wise people in Egypt, "Interpreter these dreams for me. " Nobody can. Nobody can figure them out. Except Joseph. Absolutely right. And finally, someone says, "Hey, there was a man I was in prison with, and God used him to interpret a dream for me. Pharaoh, maybe he can interpret this dream for you. " So Pharaoh called him up out of prison. He now stands before Pharaoh. And this is where we're going to leave off today, because we're almost out of time. This is where we're going to take up next week. He stands before Pharaoh, and Pharaoh tells him his dream to see if he can interpret it. But here's what I want you to see so far. You remember how we've learned in this study that in the Old Testament, we keep seeing fingerprints of Jesus everywhere we go, like when the lamb was substituted for Isaac. That was a picture of Jesus who died and became a substitute for us. And like the ladder set up that bridged heaven and earth. Now we see another picture of Jesus, and we'll see it even more vivid next week. But I want you to watch what's happened here. Joseph becomes a picture of Jesus, the coming Savior. He's loved by his Father. His Father sends them to his brethren. They're out feeding the flock. Joseph comes unto his own, and his own received him not. That's what the Scriptures say about Jesus, by the way. He came unto his own, his own received him not. Who cried for Jesus to be crucified? The Jews, his own people. Once he was rejected by his brethren, Joseph was sold for the price of a slave. By the way, which is what Judas sold Jesus for, the price of a slave. Going price of the time. So he comes unto his own, his own received him not. They sell him for the price of a slave. He commits no wrong. He does nothing but good, but then he's accused and punished for a crime he did not commit. See that? So now he's put down in the dungeon, the king's prison. But he didn't stay there. He rose again to stand before the king. Isn't that amazing? Absolutely amazing. And it keeps getting better as we continue the story. So we just jumped pretty far into history here. And next week we'll move from this block to this block. And we'll see how Israel got into Egypt. And what all took place there. And Lord willing we'll see you all back online next week and see you all next door.