In this sermon, the speaker begins by praying for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in understanding the word of God. The sermon focuses on the story of Joseph from the book of Genesis, particularly his time in prison and the significance of the bread and wine mentioned in chapter 40. The speaker draws parallels between Joseph and Jesus, highlighting their shared experiences and the symbolism of the bread and wine. The sermon concludes with a reminder to apply the lessons from Joseph's story to our own lives and strive to please God.

Welcome to the 22nd study in the book of Genesis conducted by Chuck Missler. The subject of this tape, Genesis chapter 37 through 39. We're, uh, I'm going to, I know last time that we met, just before Christmas, we did start into Joseph. But since there are so many of you here for the first time, I will just pick it up with the story of Joseph. We're in essentially Genesis chapter 37. For some of you, this will be a review. But while we're getting sort of collected and organized, well, I guess first of all, let's start with a word of prayer. Because we want to indeed make sure the Holy Spirit has this hour, not Chuck Missler or any other thing. And so let's open with a word of prayer. Father, we just praise you for the privilege, the unspeakable privilege, of gathering again to behold Jesus Christ. Father, we just thank you for your word and this opportunity to open it to our understanding. We would ask that your Holy Spirit just open our hearts and eyes and minds to what you have here for us. And Father, we would just ask that in all these things we might behold Jesus Christ. And Father, too, that we might, in all of these things, obtain that for our feeding which you have for us, that we might take these things and apply them to our lives in such a way as to be pleasing in thy sight. For it is to this end that we pray and invoke the authority of Jesus Christ with whom we have to do. Amen. Genesis typically, well, it can be divided in many, there's probably a thousand ways to organize the book of Genesis. They always say that there's two kinds of people in the world, those that divide things in two places, in two ways, and those that don't. So you can do that with any number of things you want, and of course the book of Genesis can be divided in many ways. But typically, the first 11 chapters are treated, in other words, pre-nation, from Adam up to but not including Abraham, as one section. We spent quite a bit of time on that with all the usual interest in evolution and so forth. Then we took on the story of the nation Israel. And some people would say from Abraham to the end of the book is the other major division. But most authors or commentators or students would outline the book from Abraham, then through the patriarchs, up to but then set apart the story of Joseph, even though it's a continuation of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, then Joseph. Joseph somehow sets apart. And with the exception of Genesis 49, which will come to a sort of a special chapter just before the end of the book, the rest of the book is really the story of Joseph. And it's a very strange portion of scripture because we have more detail about Joseph than probably any other character. Very, very, very, very interesting thing. We have more detail about him. He's also one of two people in the scripture, only two people, about which no evil is spoken. I'm, of course, excluding Jesus Christ, the author of the whole thing. But at another level, there's only two people that of which there is no evil spoken, Daniel and Joseph. And one of the things that I will have reproduced for you, I was going to say next time, but I'll allow myself some leeway for following up because the old man is still in. But I do have an outline that runs some one, two, three, four, five, six pages. And I'll have that reproduced and available for you, if not next time, the time after. It'll be whatever time you've missed, if you've missed the next several times. But what this is, it's going to be sort of an outline that we'll work from for the study of Joseph because it has one interesting characteristic. It will enumerate 101 ways that Joseph is a type of Christ. Now, some of them you'll look at and say, oh, Chuck, you're stretching a point or two. Fine, throw away half of them. That's only 50. Still interesting. And it has the verse in the Old Testament, the phrase about Joseph, and then the New Testament fulfillment as it was in Jesus Christ. And now what I'm going to do is I'll try, I really will try to have them next time. And then I will also point out to you that it's incomplete, that there's a few things I've added, but I've resisted the temptation to retype it because I figured there ought to be some benefit to being here and filling in the things that I'll add verbally, you see. So just, you know, it's very important to me not to be a crutch for you to lean on, that you do your own study. I will, I might, before I get printed, put Acts 17, 11 at the top so that you won't believe any of this, that you will search the Scriptures daily to prove whether these things be so, or whether Chuck Missler's all followed up. Ask anyone, they'll answer that question, but I mean in terms of the details. All right. What I'd like to do, even though I recognize it's a slight review, is I'd like to start, Joseph, with Genesis 37, verse 1, recognizing some of you that were here just before Christmas got a preview of what we're getting into. You people can regard this as a review. Or I might want to mention one other thing, just again to put Joseph in perspective before we jump into the detail. We generally speak of four patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. And those of you that may recall, in Romans chapter 8, Paul gives us some theology, but he uses as his outline the book of Genesis. He says, for whom he foreknew, whom he predestinated, whom he predestinated, whom he also called, whom he called, whom he also justified, whom he justified, whom he also glorified. Remember that passage in Romans chapter 8? If not, make a note of it and look it up later. Predestination, Abraham, called of the heathen by God's arbitrary sovereign election. Abraham earned nothing. God called him out of the heathen world. He was chosen of the heathen to be the beginning of the nation. Isaac speaks of the sonship, and Isaac shall Lysade be called, whom he predestinated, whom he also called. Isaac is contrasted with Ishmael of the flesh. Isaac was the supernatural birth, versus the natural birth, versus the supernatural birth. Isaac was a supernatural foreordained birth, in contrast to Ishmael, which was the son of the flesh. Okay. Jacob speaks of justification, and we can't help but be amused that this conniving schemer could be justified as a patriarch. And we take comfort in the fact that if God can justify him, there's hope for you and I. But he also speaks of the conflict of the spirit and flesh. And it isn't until God actually wrestles him to the ground and lames him, that the spirit has triumph. And Joseph is interesting, because Joseph is the son of his old age, i.e., his spiritual, after spiritual birth. We're gonna, he, Joseph was probably five or six years old when they left Mesopotamia. The other sons were in the household, amidst all the scheming and chicanery between Laban and Jacob. And as you, I think, are all well aware as parents, the children tend to be influenced by the tensions or the atmosphere of the home. And you can recognize that between these quarreling women and their handmaidens, and all the other hassles that were going on between Jacob and Laban, the family environment for the eleven was pretty messed up. Joseph was the son of his old age, and his greatest center of influence would have been after Jacob had his new name and his spiritual rebirth. And I think that may be, it might be, it's a speculation, might be of interest, try it on, if it fits, fine. Joseph does speak of airship. And he suffers first, then reigns in glory. The incredible story of Joseph is going to be a fascinating drama. It's probably one of the most dramatic, I might say screen-worthy, episodes in the scripture. And yet it's also one of the most dramatic episodes prophetically. And that's one of the things, this is, after all, not just a study of Genesis. As you know, our original stated purpose and attempt is to review the book of Genesis as a book of prophecy. And we've done that in several different ways. We've done it in quite mystical terms in the early eleven chapters. We had the, perhaps the high, the pinnacle of typology with Abraham's offering of Isaac and all of that. Here we're going to again see a style of typology, somewhat extenuated perhaps, but I think you'll find the prophetic story of Joseph provocative. We all know the story of Joseph. It's been in our coloring books in small children. It has been, it's a very popular story, but its prophetic significance is something that I think will capture what I'll presume is our more adult perspective. So that's what we'll be trying to highlight a little bit. Okay. Anyone know what the word, what the name Joseph means? Adder. Being added to. You can get that from Genesis 30. We're going to discover, when we get to chapter 41, that Joseph gets another name, Zaphnathpaneia. It's an Egyptian name. It means the revealer of secrets, for obvious reasons, as you'll see as the story unfolds. And each of those has, of course, a New Testament fulfillment. And if you, in terms of Joseph's prophetic name being fulfilled in Christ, you could turn to John 12, 24, and in terms of his prophetic name of the revealer of secrets, Luke chapter 2, verses 34 and 35 are examples. You can note those if you want. They'll be in your notes that I'll hand out next time. I won't take the time now to chase those down specifically because we've got others to jump into. Let's start with Genesis chapter 37, verse 1. And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a traveler, a sojourner, in the land of Canaan. And these are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being 17 years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren. And the lad 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. Well, the first thing we might note of Joseph is what was his occupation? He was a shepherd. Abel, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and David, for starters, were shepherds. Who was the good shepherd? Okay, so against Genesis 37.2, you could pencil in Psalm 23 if you were going to make little column notes in terms of Old Testament, New Testament fulfillments. That's easy. Okay, we notice that he's opposed to evil. And if you wanted to take a look at Jesus Christ in terms of John 7.7, he obviously, that was his mission. We're going to get into more of that. Let's move on to another few verses. Verse 3, Now Israel, now that's interesting, we stumble right there, because it's not very often that Jacob's new name is used. To the best of my knowledge, he's the only person in the Bible who has his name changed, but then it isn't always used. I mean, the new name isn't always used. We can make a long list of people who have an event in their life occur where God changes their name from Abraham to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, Saul to Paul, and so forth. Here's a case where Jacob becomes Israel. In all the other cases, once the new name is given, the new name is essentially used. There may be an exception to it. With Jacob, it's the other way around. His new name is used as an exception. So when he's called Israel, we often even falter. We don't get, we're not used to thinking of Israel as Jacob. We think of Israel the nation, or what have you, but Israel as the given, the new name of Jacob, is something we sort of stumble on. And yet, when we speak of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, no, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, even in the context of that, we speak of Jacob. We think of him in terms of the old man. Indeed, justified. But in verse 3, we notice it says, Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a coat, and the classical rendering is a coat of many colors. Now, there is, this comes from the Septuagint and the Vulgate translations. However, there is a level of scholarship which will argue that that's a mistranslation. Now, before I get into the mistranslation, if we talk about the coat of many colors, I can give you several verses in the scripture which causes you to infer that a coat of many colors implies rulership. Those of you that want to chase those things down as just a parallel line of inquiry can look at Judges 5.30 and 2 Samuel 13.18. In both cases, the multiplicity of colors on a robe implies status. However, before hitting that too hard, I should point out to you that I'm personally persuaded by the authors I've read that argue that that happens to be, while a very traditional rendering, probably an error in translation, that what Jacob actually gave Joseph was a long-sleeved robe. A long-sleeved robe. Now, what makes that interesting to me, it certainly in any case was a unique robe. And by the way, the long-sleeved robe also implied rulership. A sleeveless robe being the robe of a worker, and a long-sleeved robe being one of the, perhaps more subtle, marks of rulership. In any case, the intent, the concept that we're talking about is essentially the same. Namely, it was a source of envy among the brothers, because he obviously was getting favored treatment of his father. And why? Why would Jacob favor Joseph? Well, he's the youngest, and he's the youngest son of Jacob's old age. We can look at that in a humanistic way, just as a father might favor the youngest child possibility. Another possibility is that this was indeed the son that grew after Jacob's, I won't call it conversion, but certainly his experience, his spiritual experience wrestling with the angel. It also, frankly, we could visualize Jacob's favoring Joseph, if for no other reason than the character and conduct of the other bunch, which were a brutal, treacherous, conniving, incestuous bunch, pretty rough crowd. In fact, we'll take up a study of the 12 tribes when we get to Genesis 49. It'll be convenient to do so then. But the one thing you might just be sensitive to, you could probably not find a more diverse group of characters. In fact, it can probably blow out the window a lot of theories of genetics and personality and so forth, that this bunch of characters were in the same family. Wild, wild bunch. The only people that might feel comfortable with that are people who have families who realize how diverse brothers are. I'm always amused about people who adhere to astrology to explain why twins always have the same personality. I'd love to hear them explain that, but that's another whole thing. Getting back to this. Okay, so here's Joseph with his coat of many colors. Verse 4, 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. And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brethren, and they hated him yet the more. And he said of them, here I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed. For behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf arose and stood upright, and behold, your sheaves stood round about and made obeisance to my sheaf. His brethren said unto us, Should thou indeed reign over us? They obviously understood the suggestiveness or the imagery of the dream, implying that the one would rule over the others. And they said, Or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams and for his words. Now, just to share with you one other thought, I think is valid, is that I believe that the reason those dreams were offensive go far beyond the fact that he just happened to have being a young kid mouthing off about these dreams. We've all sat around a breakfast table and heard our kids talk about some crazy dream and why we make kid or might be annoying or might be irritating. We generally don't take them that seriously. What made these dreams significant, in my opinion, is that Joseph understood or took the view that they were prophetic. In the absence of the prophecy content of the dreams, they're nothing more than annoyance. To the extent that Joseph regarded these as prophetic utterances or occurrences or suggestions, to that extent it becomes a serious grave matter to the brothers who are threatened by them. Something that may be obvious, on the other hand, I felt was worth noting. Now, let me take this down to, oh, about verse 11. Verse 9, And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren. And said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more. And behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. Here again, it's the same model. There are 12 elements and 11 of them are making obeisance to the 12th. The first case, it was sheaves of grain in the field. But in this, while there are two things, now we're suddenly using a different alphabet of ideas, namely sun and moon and stars, except in this case, there are 13 items making obeisance to the 14th. There are indeed the 11 brothers, implied by the stars, and the sun and the moon. And this dream carries several other implications, not the least of which is that it involves the father. Notice verse 10. And he told it to his father and to his brethren. This time the circle of annoyance is broadened. The father rebuked him and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to the earth? So this dream is not just sort of a recount of the earlier one in different symbols. It goes one step further. It also implies that the prophecy that's implied by the dream is that Joseph will reign not only over his brothers in the sense of somehow exceeding the rights of the firstborn, but even his father and mother will be making obeisance to him. Now, this dream has a very, very key value to you as a student of the scripture because it's also an unveiling of the book of Revelation chapter 12, the identity of the woman. Most commentators will argue that in Revelation chapter 12, which is the most difficult interpretive chapter of the book of Revelation, and much of what you deal with there hangs on just who is the woman of Revelation 12, because she has the sun and the moon and the stars at her feet. And many commentators erroneously stumble and assume that it somehow relates to the Zodiac or some other thing. Adopting the principle that everything in the book of Revelation is explained somewhere in the scripture, here none other than Jacob himself unravels Revelation 12 for you. I won't spend more time on that tonight. If you're interested in that, you can get the tapes on Revelation 12 and discover that Jacob is your commentator to help you avoid some key errors there. So, the sun and the moon and the stars is maybe a strange but nevertheless valid idiom for the nation Israel. Now, notice verse 11, his brethren envied him. What did his father do? His father observed the saying. Now, this little passage has the same atmosphere as Mary with Christ. When there were things that she didn't fully understand, she just pondered them in her heart. They obviously took meaning many years later. And here Jacob is in the same role. He's annoyed. He's obviously really upset with this, his favorite son mouthing off with these kind of grandiose ideas. But he apparently gives pause and retains some allowance in his heart to see what will come of all of this. Now, continuing our little summary typologically, we've obviously made note of the coat, whether it be long-sleeved or many colors. I believe it's a long-sleeved robe. And we obviously are drawn to the robe of Christ, which was so unique that some 800 years before he was born, the psalmist, in describing the crucifixion more graphically than you and I could write, if we were going to try to describe the crucifixion as if we were hanging on the cross with all the benefit of the New Testament description, we would probably fall short of the description of the crucifixion in Psalm 22, which is a description of the crucifixion as if it was written by Christ himself hanging from the cross. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me is the way it opens. And Christ, in effect, calls our attention to that psalm from the cross. And as we read the psalm, it mentions almost all the physical details, both in feeling and in vision, from Christ from the cross. And among those things, as he looks down, he sees the soldiers, right, part my garments among them and they cast lots for my vesture. Because the prize thing was this long-sleeved robe that Christ had at the, they didn't want to divide, it was to, they threw dice for or whatever. And I commit to you, Psalm 22, if that isn't a familiar experience, that's a fascinating piece of message written as if hanging from the cross some 800 years before Christ was born in Psalm 22. The hatred of his brethren, it's interesting what John chapter 1 opens up, he came unto his own and his own received him not, and so forth. We can, you can, and Psalm 212 is another example of that. Why was he hated? Why was Joseph hated? Because of his words. Why was Jesus Christ hated? Because of his words. You can find John 7, 7, John 8, 40, 5, 18, John 10, 30, and 31, and John 6, 41, it's just examples of where he spoke and they got so upset, they not only hated him, they plotted his death. Why? Because of what he was saying. They hated him because of his words. Okay, we also, he's obviously conscious of his prophetic future, as I've suggested to you, and of course, as we sang earlier this evening, from Isaiah 9, 6, his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor of the Mighty God, the Prince of Peace, and so forth. And Luke chapter 1, there are a lot of examples of not only his Christ's prophetic future, speaking of Christ now in the antitype, but also his consciousness of that prophetic future. Now, in Genesis 37, verses both 7 and 9, we have Joseph's future sovereignty foretold. These prophetic visions described his future reignship, or sovereignty. And needless to say, Jesus Christ said the same thing. In fact, the only statement that he makes when he's under oath in court is to attest to his second coming. It's interesting, not only was Christ conscious of his future sovereignty, but it was the only statement or assertion that he allowed himself to make while under oath before the Sanhedrin that night in that illegal trial. Refused to defend himself in any meaningful way, but when the high priest invoked on him the legal requirement to respond, I adjure thee by the living God, tell us whether thou be the Christ or no. He was bound under the law to respond, and he did. Henceforth you shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds. Right? If that's Matthew chapter 26, verse 64. He not only attested to his second coming, it was the one statement he made while under oath before that court. So he foretold his sovereignty, and of course his sovereignty is also foretold in Revelation chapter 12, where the woman brings forth a man-child. The man-child is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron and so forth. Revelation chapter 12. Okay. We also see that he's envied by his brethren. We have a clear vision that Joseph was delivered up due to envy. Right? Why was Christ delivered up? Maybe this is time to do a little turning. Let's turn to Matthew 27. Matthew 27, verse 18. The famous Barabbas scene. Which one will you choose? And so forth. Remember they had a custom of releasing a prisoner to feast, and they had a notable prisoner called Barabbas. Right? And Pilate, as a stratagem, hoping to get out from under the predicament he was in, assumed that they'd naturally take this neat guy and let this conspicuous murderer, robber, and so forth, be left. But they, of course, being bribed, so it said, Therefore, when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Will ye that I release to you Barabbas or Jesus who is called Christ? For he knew that for envy they had delivered him. That is the leaders. See, the leaders had delivered him for envy. So he figured by appealing to the people, he might get out from under this predicament. Remember Jesus Christ said in John chapter 5, I have come in my father's name and ye receive me not. Another shall come in his own name and him you will receive. And he was, of course, speaking of whom? The Antichrist. But all these prophecies have a double fulfillment. Here's a guy in whose name, his own name, Barabbas. Who do they choose? Barabbas. So in a very local small, perhaps insignificant sense, it's fulfilled here. And obviously the context of that prophecy is much broader in terms of the person that we like to call the Antichrist. You all know enough Hebrew to understand what Barabbas means, right? Bar means what? Bar-Jonah, son of Jonah. What does Bar mean? Son of. What does Abba mean? Father. So here we have Barabba, son of the father. Which father? Look at John 8. Ye are of the father. Ye are of your father, the devil. And the deeds of him ye will do, he says in John 8. So it's interesting. There's something prophetically happening here that is kind of interesting. But the main point I turn here to is verse 18, speaking of Pilate, he knew that for envy they delivered him. How did Jesus get delivered up? For envy. Why was Joseph sold? For envy. Why was Christ sold? Envy. Interesting. Now you may, some of you may feel, gee, this is getting kind of tedious and you're making a lot of nothing, and maybe so. But bear with us and get a feeling, get a sensitivity to what's happening here. In addition to the very dramatic historical narrative, the Holy Spirit is doing some other things as we go. But okay, verse 12. And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? Come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said unto them, Here, or here am I in your English, but it's really just, okay, you know, it's great. Here I am. Let's go. Send me. I'm all set, right? And he said unto them, Go, I pray thee, and see whether it be well with thy brethren, and well with the flocks, and bring me word again. So he went out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. I want you to notice, Joseph was sent forth by his father to seek the welfare of his brethren. Jesus Christ was sent by whom? To whom? To Israel. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. Remember? But to as many as who did receive him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God. John chapter 1. Very important to understand what the father was doing. Sent forth by his father to seek the welfare of his brethren. Now he was sent forth from the vale of Hebron. According to some authorities, the word Hebron can mean fellowship or communion. And he came to Shechem. Now the word Shechem, if you look and try to find out what the place name can be translated into, seems to mean shoulder. That's what you'll usually see in the margin of your Bible. In this particular area, there is a word that describes it much more accurately than your Bible dictionary. You know what the proper name for Shechem would be if we translate it into English? Saddleback. Do you know that? It's a shoulder. A saddleback is a curvature in two directions. It's a very unusual kind of curvature. It's a specific thing. It has mathematical names I won't bore you with, but it's a saddleback's the common name. It's a space and decision theory also, where you have a minimum, max kind of thing. It's also a point of decision, because things will go one way or the other. It's a choice point, decision point. But it can mean shoulder. Shechem, though, connotatively, certainly to the mind of Israel or Jacob, was a place of sin and sorrow, looking back to Genesis 34 and some of the events that occurred at Shechem. It was a place of brutality and trouble and problems. So he sent them from Hebron to Shechem. Verse 15, the certain man found him, and behold, he was wandering in the field. And the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou? And he said, I seek my brethren, tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks. And the man said, They are departed from here. I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan, or Dothan, whatever. And Joseph went after his brethren and found them in Dothan. Now you may wonder, gee, why does the Holy Spirit take all this trouble? The father says, Hey, we're here in Hebron. They're over in Shechem. Go see how they're doing. And when he gets to Shechem, he finds out they're not really there. They're over in Dothan. Okay, and he finds them in Dothan, and the story continues. Why these place names? Well, it's kind of interesting. If you look at it prophetically. Historically, they were in different geographic locations, not far away, fine. Why does the Holy Spirit make the point of this? Now, if you're a cynic or a secular author, you say, Well, that's just part of the, you know, you missed the point. If you recognize that the Holy Spirit has engineered this message by attending to every detail, and all things are written aforetime for our learning, then it sometimes is worth the trouble to find out what might be hidden behind these place names. Let's take a look at Joseph again and visualize him as a type of Christ. And it says, Behold, he was wandering where? What is the field according to Matthew 13? The world. And who's he looking for? His brethren. Where does he find them? In Dothan. The word Dothan happens to mean the law. In the sense of being custom, a custom or a practice, a rule, tradition. Isn't that interesting? Strange coincidence, isn't it? And Joseph went after his brethren and found them in Dothan. And when they saw him afar off even before he came near unto them, he conspired, they conspired against him for what purpose? To slay him. That's interesting. We find in verse 18 that Joseph was conspired against. Jesus Christ was conspired against. According to our insight in the Old Testament given to us from Revelation 12, we know he was conspired against from the time that God declared war on Satan, Genesis 3.15. And we covered that then, but just by way of review, Genesis 12 highlights the fact that Satan's attack on the royal line focuses increasingly tightly as prophecy continues to illuminate the thread that's going to produce Jesus Christ. When it was Abraham the nation, when first of all it was the seed of the woman, it became Abel. And Abel was slaughtered by his brother. And right on through. When it was Noah was saved from the world, first of all the world then was contaminated by the sons of God and the daughters of men, leaving the last perhaps uncorrupted thread being Noah. And God destroys the rest and saves Noah. But Satan can now work on Noah. And as Shem is the favored one prophetically by Noah's prophecy, the Shemit line was focused on. And you can just walk, you can just look through the whole Old Testament and see a conspiracy. And as it's Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, as it goes, as we discover it'll be the royal tribe of Judah. We'll discover the royal tribe of Judah has specific problems. As it becomes known through prophecy that it'll be of the house of David, whose house do you think is singled out by Satan? An attempt to corrupt it and destroy the royal line. All the way through. And if you do a study on Revelation 12, get the tape, or go back when we review this earlier in the book and you'll probably find that a very fruitful study. So he's conspired against, but in a more specific sense Jesus Christ is conspired against when he was born by none other than Herod. He pulls the same stunt that Pharaoh set the precedent for with Moses. Slaughter all the babies. But of course he's conspired against in a much more specific case in Matthew chapter 12. And of course the conspiracy becomes tighter and tighter. And we'll talk more about that as the conspiracy around Joseph gets tighter and tighter. So let's move on a little bit. Verse 19, And they said to one another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, therefore, 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 shall become of his dreams. I'm going to suggest to you that they hated his words, but also his words were disbelieved. What's implicit in the cynicism and this attack, obviously, is that the brothers don't believe he's going to reign over them. And that's obviously the presumption under an attack on Jesus Christ is that the word can be broken. And that's Satan's presumption also. And that's the reason that Satan has to continue to push on the Messianic Jew and attempt to thwart the second coming of Jesus Christ. And if you're interested in that theme, it may be wrong. It's just an idea, but it's an interesting idea. We've covered that when we had the Zechariah study, chapters 12, 13, and 14. So you can get those tapes and dig into that. It would be disruptive to get into all that now. But recognize that the scenario isn't finished in the sense of a continuing conspiracy against the remnant of Israel, the believing remnant of Israel. Israel at large, but specifically the believing remnant. And that's what we're going to cover today. And that's a theme I will invite you just to dig in on your own from the Zechariah study as a point of departure. Come now, therefore, 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. Verse 21, And Reuben heard it, and delivered him out of their hands, and said, Let us not kill him. Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him, that he might, and Reuben said this, that he might rid them out of their hands to deliver him to his father again. In other words, it may not be obvious to you, Reuben's concept was to assume the leadership to dissuade the group from actually murdering Joseph, proposing a less extreme alternative with the thought that he would secretly come and free him and let him go home. This implies, by the way, in my own mind, that Joseph was in that pit for a while. He wasn't in there for a few hours. I have the private suspicion that I cannot prove from Scripture that he was in the pit for three days. But that's just Chuck Missler's quaint poetic suspicion. No evidence for it. Verse 23, And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren. See, all this was talk prior to his arrival. He's approaching. Verse 23, And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stripped Joseph out of his coat, that is his coat of either long sleeves or many colors as you prefer, that was on him. And they took him, and cast him into a pit, and the pit was empty, and there was no water in it. Now you may say to yourselves, for heaven's sakes, what a strange thing to mention about the pit. Why would you presume there was water in it in the first place? You know, I mean a pit's a pit, right? Well, let's turn to Zechariah chapter 9. Zechariah chapter 9 is a chapter that should be very familiar to us as students of prophecy. We all know chapter 9, 9, that is the ninth verse of chapter 9, because it's a fulfillment of the Daniel 70-week prophecy, the so-called Palm Sunday episode. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, thy king cometh unto thee. Which king? Which king? Jesus Christ. Why? Because he's riding upon a donkey. And this was the earmark. Riding upon an ass, upon the colt, the foal of an ass. And this is why Jesus Christ, in a very premeditated way, on a very specific day, has his disciples stage his entrance into Jerusalem to comply with his prophecy, because that was the very day that Daniel had predicted to the day some 173,880 days prior. That's the whole 70-week story, and I'm sure most of you are familiar with it. If not, that is something I commend to you to dig into. But I want you to skip down here and look at verse 11. As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit. What? In which there is no water. What kind of pit is that? Is that a pit that's sort of dug in the ground that happens to be dry at the bottom? No. The pit wherein there is no water is a scripture. What's the scripture talking about? Sheol, where Satan has kept his prisoners. Or sin has kept the prisoners wherein he was delivered. Okay. I shouldn't, well, I shouldn't say Satan kept his prisoners. I've fumbled into a Dante-ism. I didn't mean to do that. But, except in an indirect sense. But anyway, the prisoners out of the pit in which there is no water. And you can find other passages in the Psalms and Isaiah speaking of the absence of water in the pit that is idiomatically speaking of the Abuso or Sheol or of the netherworld, and so I won't get into those technicalities tonight. But it's interesting to me to notice that the pit that Joseph is put into, a sort of a holding place while the brothers figure out what to do with him, is described by the Holy Spirit in Genesis 37 as a pit that happens to have no water in it. And it's my belief that I just share with you for your own consideration that the absence of water highlighted here by the Holy Spirit is to point your attention to the mystical parallel that is going on with the narrative that's actually happening. You follow what I'm saying? Am I making sense? And they sat down to eat bread and they lifted up their eyes and looked and behold a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh and going to carry it down to where? Egypt, right. Okay, by the way, I want you to visualize, we visualize Joseph in the pit and these guys are sitting down to eat bread. I want you to turn to Genesis 42 verse 21. Now this, we're skipping ahead to look back and we're going to catch the brothers sometime later repenting of this deed, but I want you to notice what they said to themselves. Verse 21, chapter 42, Genesis 42 verse 21. And they said one to another, we are verily guilty concerning our brother in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us and we would not hear. Therefore, is this distress come upon us? And Reuben goes on and there's more talks about it and so forth. Also, by the way, those of you who want to study this further, Stephen in Acts chapter 7 also comments on this. Stephen's comments in Acts chapter 7 are marvelous commentary in the Old Testament because he happens to even sometimes adds nuances and details that we would not draw from the direct text. But the net of it is, I want you to visualize the brothers sitting there, sitting down to bread, while in the background, here's Joseph screaming out of this pit, hey you guys, let me out of here. You guys are nuts, you've lost your head. Repent of what you're doing or whatever, right? How long did it take him to hear Joseph? 22 years. 22 years later, they hear him. A little different context, we'll get to that. We'll get to that. Okay. Verse 26, Judah said to his brethren, what profit is there if we slay our brother? What profit is there? Let's turn about while we're at it. What profit is there if we slay our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brethren were content. Judah's got a scheme. Let's turn about while we're at it. Furthermore, we'll be guiltless of his actual blood because we're just going to sell him into slavery. Okay. And then they're passed by Midianites, merchantmen, and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for 20 pieces of silver. And they brought Joseph into Egypt. 20, not 30. Christ is preeminent in all things. And Reuben returned unto the pit, and behold, Joseph was not in the pit. And therefore, he tore his... Now, the impression you get from verse 29, while all this is going on, Reuben was absent. He was in this conspiracy. He was absent when they actually did the sale. He comes back, realizes that Joseph isn't in the pit, and is really shook. Why should Reuben be shook? He's responsible. You would get the impression he was the firstborn. He actually had forfeited the actual rights of the firstborn by virtue of his incestuous conduct with the concubines and so forth. But he's the oldest and thus one that the father would probably hold accountable. So Reuben is pretty rattled. And he returned to his brethren and said, The child is not, and I, where shall I go? They took Joseph's coat, killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood, and sent the coat of many colors, or long sleeves if you like. And they brought it to their father and said, This we have found. Know now whether it be thy son's coat or not. And he recognized it and said, It is my son's coat. And evil beast hath devoured him, and Joseph is without doubt torn in pieces. And Jacob tore his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. How ironic that Jacob, who deceived his father with the skins of goats to get the birthright, is now deceived by his sons with a kid of goats over his son. It's interesting how God deals retributively with these issues. That the deceiver is now deceived. The conniver is out connived, if you will. That his own sons defraud him in the same way he had defrauded his brother. Using the same idiom, the kid of goats. Very fascinating. So Jacob's pretty shook that his favorite son is apparently lost. Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son many days. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. He said, For I will go down to Sheol unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him. Okay. We could continue our little outline of parallels with Jesus Christ, obviously, in the sense that he was insulted, he was stripped, he was cast into a pit, he was bodily lifted out of the pit, and he also was exposed to hypocrisy mingled with hatred. And we see that in the conduct of the brothers with respect to Joseph. And of course, we find that also present at the crucifixion, the hypocrisy and the hatred. In fact, in both places. Let's turn to Matthew 27 again. A couple of subtle things. Just little things, perhaps, but it shows you the level to which I would hope you would tend to get sensitized to reading your scripture. Let's turn to chapter 27. And of course, the mockery and hypocrisy, there's many examples in terms of making king, putting on the purple robe by the Romans, and also the putting of the king of kings statement on top was viewed by them in that way and so forth. And that was an accusation. But notice verse 35, they crucified him, parted his garments among them, casting lots that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet. And that's, of course, speaking of the psalmist. They parted my garments among them and upon my vesture, they did cast lots. Verse 36, and sitting down, they watched him there. Sitting down. Now, we know we always see it from the movies, Christian movies, they're always standing there. But the scripture says they sat down and watched. I think it's fascinating. What did the brothers do when Joseph was in the pit? They sat down. Little things, but it's interesting. And you can go to John 18 and extract some other things, but let's move on so I don't spend the whole hour with the details. I do want you to notice something. Who negotiated the deal? Judah. And if you take the anglicized version of the Greek name of Judah, what do you think you get? Judas. Isn't that interesting? Who negotiated the bargain on Jesus Christ? Judas. Who predicted the exact price, the terms of payment, the location of the transaction, and the ultimate destiny of the money? Review question. Zechariah. Zechariah. Don't you know that? Oh, come on, we've got to take a quick peek at that. I get the impression that surprised you. I'm sorry. Turn to Zechariah, just quickly. Chapter 11. Zechariah chapter 11, verse 12, and I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price, and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter, a lordly price that I was prized at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord. The price, thirty pieces of silver. Where was the transaction taken? In the house of the Lord, the temple. Who ends up with the money? The potter. When Judas ruses transaction, he ruses bargain, comes back to the high priest and says, Hey, I've betrayed innocent blood. He links silver with blood, Levitically, ironically enough. But more importantly, the high priest cannot take the money. There's a rule against that. That's blood money. And first of all, he says, You've done your bargain, see to it. He throws the money on the temple floor and he goes out and hangs himself. The high priests are confronted with thirty pieces of silver that they cannot put legally, put back in the treasury. So what they do with it is relieve a payable with it. They have an obligation to have a field to bury strangers in the land in. And they have that, they're saddled with that burden. They have to buy space for that. So while they can't put it in the treasury, they can relieve a contingent liability. And they do that. They go buy a field for that. Who do they buy it from? A potter. Who ends up with the thirty pieces of silver? A potter. Where does the transaction take place? In the temple. How much was it? Thirty pieces of silver. Who dreamed that up? Zechariah. What? Six, seven hundred years before Christ was born. Fascinating. Fascinating. Anyway, according to the model in Genesis, we notice that Judah negotiates the deal and on we go. Something else is kind of interesting. We notice to whom was the substitutionary blood presented? To the father. And if that intrigues you, I commend to you Hebrews chapter 9 verses 12 and 13. To whom was the blood presented? The father. Obviously in a different sense. Here we're speaking in a substitutionary sense. What does Leviticus talk about a scapegoat? A substitute, right? What kind of an animal is used as a scapegoat? A goat. What kind of blood is used here? A goat. Interesting. A lot of interesting, interesting coincidences. But at this point we're going to have a slight deviation. It would seem that the Holy Spirit has now changed the subject because we have chapter 38 in here and chapter 38 is going to make no sense at all because it's a totally different story. It's got nothing to do with Joseph. Chapter 38 is this horrid little tale of Judah shaming himself in effect. And let's quickly, let's just quickly go through the story. And at first glance it would seem that 38's got nothing. It breaks the continuity from chapter 37 to 39. And indeed I was tempted to separate it out before we got into Joseph. But now and then I show some reverence for the order of the scripture and I thought this might be a good time. Oh before we start, we missed one verse before we get into chapter 38. We notice verse 36. And the Midianites sold Joseph into Egypt unto Potiphar the officer of the pharaohs and captain of the guard. That's where we're going to leave Joseph for one chapter. His brothers sold him to the Ishmaelites, you know, slave traders, caravan passing by. They head to Egypt and when they get to Egypt they sell Joseph to the pharaoh's own household. And the guy that's the heavy, the big gun, is a guy by the name of Potiphar. And Potiphar of course is the an officer of the pharaoh. In other words he reports directly to the pharaoh. That makes him a big gun. And he's captain of the guard, the palace guard. Now the word officer there, by the way, is the word that gets translated elsewhere in the scripture as a eunuch. Daniel reported to the king of the eunuchs in chapter whatever it was one of Daniel. And from that we conclude that the word eunuch means what you and I think it means in terms of the oriental hierarchical system where you had someone taking care of the harem who in fact was a eunuch in the physiological sense. There is some evidence, by the way, and this is one of the places that the word translated eunuch doesn't necessarily mean someone who has been castrated because of his office. Which is what the word implies in the English. Because Potiphar has a wife. Okay? So there's some evidence scholastically that the word for officer is a broader term than what you and I think of in terms of a eunuch in the oriental culture. Just a comment as we go. It's perhaps more meaningful into understanding Daniel than it is this passage, but I mention it as we go. Okay. Now you get to chapter 38 and we have sort of a parenthetical thing going on here. It came to pass at that time that Judah went down from his brethren and turned into a certain Adolamite whose name was Hira. And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shuah. And he took her and went in unto her and she conceived and bore a son. He called his name Er. And she conceived again and bore a son, called his name Onan. And she yet again conceived and bore a son and called his name Shelah. And he was at Chezeb when she bore him. And Judah took a wife for Er, his firstborn, whose name was Tamar. And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord and the Lord slew him. Now we don't know much about Er, but we knew he was an error, huh? And it really, it causes a lot of speculation because we see some pretty egregious conduct in the scripture that the Lord sometimes seems to at least pass for a while. And then every once in a while we get confronted with this crisp, tight little episode, you know, that that, you know, Er was wicked in the sight of the Lord and the Lord slew him. Period. Paragraph. New subject. Staggering. Scripture doesn't dwell on why or what the extent of it was. It is awesome. We see sort of a, it reminds us of that passage in Acts where, you know, they withheld the money and all that and they got a little lesson in the stewardship, sort of late in their career. And any case, Judah said unto Onan, Go into thy brother's wife and marry her and raise up seed to thy brother. And I'm sure most of you in this room are familiar with the Law of Moses, even though I recognize this is before Moses, it was a, it's still a, you know, it was a practice that was codified in the Laws of Moses, that if a wife was childless from a dead husband, that it was the obligation of the brother to raise up seed to the dead brother's family. He would marry her, take her in a household, have children by her, but the children would be the means of conveyance of lands that were... See, by the way, the key, there's a, the concept of title to land and genealogies are much more tightly linked in the Scripture than we think of it. We think of land as being transferred by being bought and sold. Scripture did not. You didn't really buy and sell land in Israel. You leased it. There were circumstances under which it would revert eventually back to the tribe to which it was deeded. So the concept of genealogy and succession is very tied up with the land and vice versa. In any case, Judah instructs Onan to do the, assume the responsibility of the brother, of the dead husband. And that's why Onan knew that the seed would not be his. That is, the offspring of the union wouldn't be his. And it came to pass when he went in unto his brother's wife that he spilled his seed on the ground, lest he should give seed to his brother. So Onan here is engaging in a misconduct because he's being disobedient to what his obligation was. Now, many people take this passage and ascribe to it other meanings. They go beyond the intent of the text. I don't plan to do that tonight. I don't plan to spend a lot more time on it either. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord, wherefore he slew him also. You get the impression it was a rough time. And what gives us pause is it's hard for us to visualize too much that these guys were any worse than you and I. And yet it's awesome to realize that the Lord here did not fool around. Then said Judah to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, Remain a widow at thy father's house till Sheila thy son, excuse me, my son, be grown. For he said, lest perhaps he die also as his brethren did. And Tamar went and dwelt in her father's house. Now, Tamar is pretty bitter because she has been twice disenfranchised of the line. So you need to try to put yourself in where Tamar is coming from. And we could spend the whole hour talking about the widowhood and the rights here in the land and tie it to Ruth and all of that. But I'll leave that for those of you that are interested that can dig out your notes on Ruth and draw some perils if you like with Tamar. But in any case, verse 12, in the process of time, the daughter of Sheua, Judah's wife, died. And Judah was comforted and went up unto his sheep shearers in Timnah, he and his friend Hira the Adalamite. And it was told Tamar, saying, Behold, thy father-in-law goeth up to Timnah to shear sheep. In other words, he's out on the road. He's traveling a long way from home. So she put her widow's garments from off of her and covered herself with a veil and wrapped herself and sat in an open place, which is by the way, by the highway, if you will, on the way to Timnah. For she saw that Sheua was grown and she was not given to him as his wife. Now get the impression, get the picture. Tamar is put out because her father-in-law, Judah, had promised her after having failed to get, after her husband died and the brother didn't do his part, that she was going to get Sheua to follow through, to give her family, to give her heirship and lands, what have you. And she sees it's not happening. So she's, in some sense, justified at being pretty upset with Judah. So she hatches a plot here that gets pretty grisly. So she puts aside her widow's garments and dresses in the role of a prostitute and sets up shop along the highway that Judah is going to pass. Okay. Verse 15, When Judah saw her, he thought her to be a harlot, because she had covered her face. And he turned unto her by the way, and said, Come, I pray thee, let me come in unto thee. For he knew not that she was his daughter-in-law. And she said, What wilt thou give me, that thou mayest come in unto me? In other words, what's your proposition? And he said, I will send thee a kid from the flock. And she said, Wilt thou give me a pledge, till thou send it? And he said, What pledge shall I give thee? And she said, Thy signet, thy bracelets, and thy staff that is in thy hand. Now just leave your wristwatch and what have you. Okay. And he gave them to her and came in unto her, and she conceived by him. And she arose and went away, and laid off her veil from her, and put back on the garments of her widowhood. And meanwhile, Judah goes where his flocks are, sends a messenger with the kid to go retrieve his identity, you know, his credit cards and things. And Judah sent the kid by the hand of his friend, the Adolamite, to receive his pledge from the woman's hand, but he found her not. That's got to confuse him at first, and then rattle him later, because he expected to, you know, retrieve his personal things. Verse 21, Then he asked the men of that place, saying, Where is the harlot that was openly by the wayside? And they said, There is no harlot in that place. And he returned to Judah and said, that is the messenger returned to Judah and said, I cannot find her. And also the men of the place said that there was no harlot in this place. And Judah said, Let her take them to her, lest we, let her take them to her, lest we be ashamed. Behold, I sent this kid, and thou hast not found her. In other words, he's just going to let the thing be buried. He doesn't want to particularly take it to court or bring it up before the city council, the local better business bureau or what have you. He's going to let that slip. Verse 24, And it came to pass about three months later, that it was told Judah, saying, Tamar, thy daughter-in-law hath played the harlot, and also, behold, she is with child by harlotry. This is three months later. Okay. And Judah said, Bring her forth and let her be burned. By golly, we can't have sin in this place. Verse 25, When she was brought forth, she sent her father-in-law, saying, By the man whose these are, am I with child? And she said, Discern, I pray thee, whose are these, the signet, the bracelets, and the staff? That must have been quite a scene. You know, I, I, I'm really, I'm intrigued with all the, the interest in Hollywood and findings extracting certain dramatic scenes out of the scripture to make a movie around. They've missed a few. And this has got to be a singer. Verse 26, And Judah acknowledged them and said, She hath been more righteous than I. Notice Judah's perception here. Yes, obviously, you know, he has been tricked. Yes, indeed, he shouldn't have been doing this, but he, he gets right at the real core of the matter in his mind, at least. She has been more righteous than I because that I gave her not to Shalem, my son. And he knew her again no more. It came to pass in the time of her travail that behold twins were in her womb. And it came to pass when she travail that one put forth his hand and the midwife took it and bound his upon his hand, a scarlet thread saying, this came out first. This came out first. And it came to pass as he drew back his hand that behold, his brother came out and she said, how has now broken forth this breach be upon thee? Therefore, his name is called Perez breach. Okay. And afterward came out his brother, which had the scarlet thread upon his hand and his name was called Sarah. Okay. Now a couple of things. First of all, a historical note, very strange occurrence occurs in the book of Ruth. When we studied the book of Ruth, we're fascinated with this incredible love story, how Ruth, a Gentile sticks with her mother-in-law after her husband dies, Naomi, and they go back to Bethlehem, which was his native home and in the form of a destitute widow and her daughter-in-law and they fall into the surveillance of a Boaz. Anyway, and Boaz, of course, is in the role of the kinsman redeemer. And we have an incredible love story, a very important story to understand the nature of things in Israel, the legal transfer of title. It's also a very important story prophetically because here we have Naomi, a type of Israel who was restored to the land by the kinsman redeemer doing his part at the same event causes the kinsman redeemer to take a Gentile bride. And it's a very important story prophetically because it's obviously a type of both Israel and the church different, but both redeemed by the kinsman redeemer. It's also an interesting story prophetically because in the marriage feast when they're all toasting at the climax in chapter four, they say, may your house be like Perez. And you sort of wonder what kind of a neat thing is that? Because you look back and you read Genesis 38 and say, gee, Perez was the son of Tamar who had this incredible mess with Judah. What kind of, may your household be like theirs? And you sort of wonder what's that all about? Well, if you dig into Leviticus, you discover that in the illegitimate son, there's no inheritance to the 10th generation. And you discover that the 10th generation after Perez was David. Because from Perez flows the line that flows to Boaz, which flows through Ruth to Obed and so forth to Jesse and ends up being to David. If you count the generations in the genealogy, you discover it's the 10th generation that inherits. And the 10th generation was David. And it gives us a whole different perspective. When we read the study in first Samuel of how Israel wanted a king and you sort of get the impression God didn't want him to have a king, but he reluctantly allows them Saul after being pestered. And of course, Saul turns out to be a mess. And David comes and you sort of get the impression David's sort of a repair job afterthought. Wrong. God had David in mind 10 generations before he was born. And what you really were saying is, well, be patient. I've got your man, but they wouldn't, they wanted Saul. So he lets them see what a king chosen after the ways of men turns out to be like. But that whole thing is an interesting story. But furthermore, before we leave Genesis 38, let me mention a couple of other things. I personally suspect that this chapter is not here by accident. The Holy Spirit decided to put it here. He stops this narrative of Joseph when Joseph is in the hands of the Gentiles, right? We're going to pick that up again. But in the meantime, we have this story of Judah. I'm going to notice it's Judah. I'm going to suggest to you that the house of Israel, the other 10 tribes, ceased to have a separate history long before the rejection of the Messiah. It was under the Assyrians, some 800 years before Christ was born. Now, I'm going to suggest the possibility for you to study yourself and come to your own conclusions that this story of Judah might prophetically typify the history of Israel since the rejection. The word Canaanite means merchant. The word Shua means riches. And I think that you can track yourself. The three sons, Ur, Onan, and Shelah, obviously didn't have a very distinguished history. They were cut down. Ur means enmity. Onan means iniquity. And Shelah means sprout or branch. And you can wrestle through that yourself since the hour is late. But the thing that's most significant, if this is true, I say if because I don't know that it is. I, as you know, by now as we've gotten acquainted a little bit, you recognize that I tend to wander out in left field. And I take the refuge in the fact that it's up to you to search the scripture daily to prove whether these things are so. My job is not to teach. My job is to stimulate you to do your own homework. So using that license, I allow us as a group to wander a little bit in speculative areas. And if this recounting of Judah stuck in here is engineered to be here by the Holy Spirit for a purpose, that's one possible purpose it might have is to give us some insight into Judah's history between the time of his rejection and his return. And if that's true, then it's very, very possible to make some more, take a little closer look at these offspring. We discover that there are two offspring. There are two babies in the womb. And I'm going to suggest to you the possibility that this might point to two companies of people in the tribulation. One of them being at a breach with God, typified by Pharaohs, and the other being marked with the scarlet thread. What's the scarlet thread mean to you and me? The blood of Jesus Christ. The redemption. Now, this is way out. It may not be valid. And I don't know that it is, but I know it will be constructive for you to do your own thinking and digging on this subject and come to whatever conclusions the Holy Spirit leads you to. But if that's valid, it's very, very fascinating to me because it does imply two companies of tribulation, the believing remnant and the rest of Israel. We're speaking of Israel here. But it's also interesting that his hand came out first with the scarlet thread. And I don't know what that means. I'll let you decide that between now and next week. Chapter 39 resumes the story of Joseph. And there's a very interesting juxtaposition between this and chapter 38. Because in chapter 38, Judah makes a mess of himself. In chapter 39, Joseph exalts himself by not falling to the wiles of Potiphar. Let's slip through chapter 39 quickly. Joseph was brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of the pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, brought him of the hands of the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there. And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man and was in the house of his master, the Egyptian. And I want you to notice he was pre-prospered. Joseph prospered. You can find prophecies that the servant of the Lord shall prosper, Isaiah 52, 53, and so forth. And his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand. So the master recognizes that something's unique about our friend Joseph because he's got that green thumb, if you will, using a gardener's idiom. Joseph found grace in his sight and served him, and he made him overseer of his house and all that he had put into his hand. And it came to pass that from the time that he had made him an overseer in his house and over all that he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake. And that the blessing of the Lord was upon all that he had in the house and in the field. And he left all that he had in Joseph's hand, and he knew not anything he had save the food which he did eat. And Joseph was a handsome person and well-favored. So Joseph, if you will, has it made. He is, in effect, in command as the overseer of all this officer's affairs. And it came to pass that after these things that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph and said, Lie with me. But he refused and said unto his master's wife, Behold, my master knoweth not what is with me in the house, and he hath committed all that he hath in my hand. In other words, he not only has given me all responsibility, he doesn't even cause me to account for it. I'm my own boss, if you will. He doesn't even know what I'm commanding. I'm in charge. There is none greater in this house than I, neither hath he kept back anything from me but thee, because thou art his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against whom? God. That's something we might all take to heart. We would generally think that we generally would construct this sin as being against his master. If I lie with this guy's wife, I'm injuring the husband. You'll notice both here and in the words of David, the sin is not against the husband, it's against God. When David repents of his sin of Bathsheba in Psalm 51, he says to God, Against thee and thee only have I sinned. Speaking of the sin of Bathsheba. And that makes it pretty heavy on all of us. If we get into a form of sexual uncleanness, that the sin is clearly against God, which is another testimony to the notion that the marriage is a mystical unit, not simply a sociological or physiological or other. We look at that with five or six other variations. The marriage has been ordained by God to be a mystical unit, to be the mechanism by which he reveals himself and his relationship with the church. And to violate that is something far beyond simply a form of improper conduct socially or some other way. Far heavier sin. And it's interesting to notice that all the places in scripture that sexual uncleanness is a sin against the Lord, not the injured spouse, as we would think of it. That puts a pretty heavy trip on that. It's also interesting to notice it was a capital crime in Israel. That didn't take, it wasn't light. Any case, how can I sin against God, he asks in verse nine, chapter, verse 10. It came to pass as he, as she spoke to Joseph day by day, that he hearkened not unto her to lie by her or to be with her. You know, that has to be impressive. Here's a guy who's a young man, handsome, well, you know, healthy guy being pastored by this gal, who's obviously not only, obviously attractive if she's going to be in the hands of this kind of a guy that could have these degrees of freedom, i.e. Potiphar, but also be pestered by her and enticed by her day after day and not yield. You've got to be impressed with this guy. How much, how many of us are virtuous by due to, due to control, lack of opportunity? Seriously. Seriously. How many of us really protect ourselves by making sure we're not exposed to opportunity? That is the first resort, to make sure you don't have an opportunity to make provision for the flesh. But how many of us would have the strength when confronted, having an opportunity thrust upon us, still would be faithful to the Lord? Very, very embarrassing question for most of us. It came to pass about this time, verse 11, that Joseph went into the house to do his work and there was none of the men of the house there within and she caught him by his garment saying, lie with me, and he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out. He actually left, slipped out of his coat and slept out of there. He just shot out. But he left, you see, some incriminating circumstantial evidence that she uses. It came to pass when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and was fled forth. Then she called into the men of the house and spoke to them saying, see he hath brought in a Hebrew unto us to mock us and he came in unto me to lie with me and I cried with a loud voice. There hath no scorn, what, no fury like a woman's scorn? Is that the way it goes? And it came to pass that when he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried that he left his garment with me and fled and got out. And she laid up his garment by her until his Lord came home and she spoke unto him according to these words saying, the Hebrew servant whom thou hast brought unto us came in unto me to mock me and it came to pass as I lifted up my voice and cried he left his garment with me and fled and came to pass when his master heard the words of his wife which she spoke unto him saying after this manner did thy servant unto me that his wrath was kindled. Period. You notice it doesn't say his wrath was kindled against Joseph. I believe he didn't believe her. He was really upset. But if he believed that Joseph did the deed, what would he have done? He would have had Joseph put to death. That kind of value structures in any tribal society. He doesn't do that. He puts Joseph into prison. He has to take action. He has no choice. His wife's got him in a spot. He probably knows she's lying through her teeth. She can't be this kind of a woman without the husband being sensitive to it. What's he going to do? What are his alternatives? Pretty tough. So he takes what probably is the only viable course of action he has. He has to go through the appearance of punishing Joseph. But it's my personal suspicion by just inferring from the narrative that he couldn't have believed her in part because she had evidence easy to kill Joseph. He knew Joseph was a good guy. He'd observed him in his demeanor. He knew his ability to keep a commitment. And that goes with the stewardship that he'd given him. And he knew the Lord's hand was up on him for crying out loud. So, anyway, his wrath was kindled, period. Paragraph verse 20, and Joseph's master took him and put him into prison, a place where the king's prisoners were bound, and he was kept there in prison. That's all we have. 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 into Joseph's hand all the prisoners that were in the prison, and whatsoever they did there, he was a doer of it. And the keeper of the prison looked not to anything that was under his hand because the Lord was with him, and that which he did, the Lord made to prosper. Very interesting analogy between Joseph and Daniel. Every place Daniel goes, he prospers. The Babylonians, he rises to power to be the number two in the kingdom. They get taken over by the Medes and the Persians, and it isn't very long when Daniel's running that portion of the empire for Darius the Mede. It's also interesting that both of them rise to power by the Lord giving them the interpretation of dreams. Very interesting analogies. They're also both, as I mentioned before, two men of which no evil is spoken, and I always take heart to that because they were obviously both professional executives, which is a point that I've noted very closely to myself. That brings us probably to the end of a reasonable sitting period, and let me suggest that next Monday night, I'll try to remember to have the notes for you for handouts. I'll also have copies of the bibliography that many people have asked for, but chapter 40, I commend to your attention because this is one of the key milestones in the whole narrative of Joseph. He's in prison, and he has this episode. He is numbered among the malefactors. Christ was on Calvary with how many people? Two. How many is Joseph in prison with? Two. Interesting. One was saved, one wasn't. Furthermore, the one that was saved is saved by what? The elements of wine. The bread is broken. It's interesting that the bread and wine are introduced here as elements in chapter 40, and you can make a lot of that if you like. What's also interesting that in both cases, the key issue is three days long. How long was Jesus Christ the tomb? Three days, three nights. What two elements did He give for remembrance for us? The bread and the wine. The bread was broken for us. You'll see all that unraveled here. You'll also discover that the birds did eat, and you know who the birds are from Matthew 13. Chapter 40 is going to be relatively pivotal. We'll go through, of course, and this lays the groundwork for what subsequently, sometime later, becomes the episode before Pharaoh that is even recorded in secular history, which alters the whole economic structure of Egypt that even carries to this day. The way the taxation and so forth goes back to this period where there was a prime minister under Pharaoh. This, of course, is all part of God's plan for the nation Israel, and we'll try to explore some of that next Monday. Let's stand for a quick word of prayer and let you go. Heavenly Father, we praise you for this evening, for the opportunity to be in your word and to see this foreshadowing of our Lord and our Savior. Father, we would ask that as we go forward this week, that you would give us a hunger for these things, that you would increase our appetite for your word, that you would lead us by the Holy Spirit down those paths that you would find fruitful for us, but that in all these things, you might take these into our lives and our heart, that we might be pleasing in thy sight, that we might behold more clearly that which you would have of us to be pleasing in thy sight. Oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen. See you next Monday.