Thru the Bible

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in His excellent word.

Steve: In our last study, Joseph was in a very precarious position. He walked right into a trap set by his brothers. What's next for him? Well, that's what we're going to discover on this episode of Through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee. I'm Steve Schwetz, and as you grab your Bible and find your seat on the Bible bus, Greg and I have got a few minutes to share some encouraging responses from our ministry this time in Germany.

Greg: Yes, that's right. Our German ministry goes all the way back to 1996. Although the current translation, as many of our listening family know, we often will reproduce for various reasons. We might want to make a more current language production.

Steve: Yeah.

Greg: And I actually was able to train Kai Uva Walt Shock, which is the, he's the, he's a young guy, probably 50 years old and they love him. The listeners love him. Back in 2012.

Steve: I was going to say, you know you're old when you call a young guy 50.

Greg: Yeah, I know. I know, Steve.

Steve: Okay, well, let's get to the letters. This is a This is the first note from Elizabeth. Oh, this is a letter from a note from Elizabeth. For almost three years now, we have been working with your materials in our small group. We always listen to a podcast beforehand and then discuss it together. We are so grateful for the materials and feel truly blessed. Thank you so much.

Greg: Yes. And Steve, long before we started talking about Through the Bible radio home groups or home groups, the Holy Spirit has been forming home groups for decades.

Steve: Yeah, and they've been using it.

Greg: Yes, and he's he's a great organizer of ministry. All right, another listener writes this. We enjoy listening to the program with Kai Uva Walch and that's as I said, that's Dr. McGee in the German language. It is wonderful how vividly he teaches God's word. It makes me want to study often and learn more. And Steve, let me just give a little background.

I remember when I was training Kai Uva back in 2012, he was very intimidated. A lot of our speakers or they feel the weight of what they're being asked to do. And he said, I don't know, I don't know whether God's going to use me. And we said, brother, just stay with the material and God will use you. So it's great to see this, you know, wonderful response of his teaching.

Steve: Yeah, that is an encouragement. And here's another one. This is a German listener who sent this note to us. Our small group, there's another reference, has been using your teaching for over two years to study God's word and understand it better. By God's grace, our group has grown tremendously during this time and we always look forward to each episode.

Greg: Yeah, once again, we've been hearing this for decades. Back in the sort of radio only days, we would often get letters of people that would say, we sit around at night and we listen together and discuss or we actually have often over the years gotten letters that said that people formed churches and when it came time for the preacher, they just turn the radio on.

Steve: Yeah.

Greg: And so, you know, God has been using Through the Bible to minister to groups of people and churches.

Steve: Yeah, and I like the fact that we've now focused on the Bible companions for both the New Testament and we're going to be completing the Old Testament and and I have done it in small groups myself where we use one of those Bible companions available for free, by the way, on our website if you want to print them on PDF. Otherwise, you can order them through Amazon or through our website books of 10. And it's a great way to engage if you want to do something more than just listen to an individual program. So be sure to check those out. We don't want to focus a lot on that. We want to get to another listener letter here. But just a note to be thinking about if you're looking for resources to do a small group Bible study yourself.

Greg: Yes. I think we have time to hear from an app user who said, thank you very much for this truly valuable and very well-designed app. I am deeply grateful for God's word and am a joyful and faithful listener. Thanks be to Jesus Christ for this opportunity to hear His word. As soon as I am financially able, I will send a donation.

Steve: That is so encouraging. Greg, let me pray for us and and the program as we begin. Heavenly Father, we are thankful for the fruit that we're continuing to see all over the world, but specifically in Germany. I pray that you would continue to bless the German language program of Through the Bible as it goes out, that people would listen to it in many different forms, that Bible studies would be formed, that churches would be birthed in part as a result of the ministry of Through the Bible. Pray that you would bless the teaching as it goes out now in Jesus' name. Amen.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now, let's turn to Genesis 37 as we make our way through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee. We come back to this 37th chapter of Genesis. If you have your Bible and will turn there, we're going to put in at the 20th verse. We got down through the 19th last time. This is a chapter that actually tells us about Joseph. He becomes the very important one.

The next chapter we come to 38, which we'll get into today, is a chapter that again seems not to be necessary for the book of Genesis. Some think they wish it had been left out, but it's very important to the story, and we'll see why when we get to it. It has nothing about Joseph, however. Now, as we come back, we will recall, I'm sure, we saw that Joseph, at 17 years of age, had become the favored son of his father, and that he'd had these dreams that caused his brothers to hate him. They hated him before because his father was partial to him, and he apparently told his father about them, their evil deeds, and apparently they were engaged in quite a bit of it.

This poor man Jacob really found out that God didn't approve of this matter of plurality of marriage by any means, and it certainly caused sorrow in his home. Now we find that Joseph is sent by Jacob, his father, to seek his brethren. They had gone north. The fact the matter is they had gone all the way from Hebron up to Shechem, and when he got to Shechem, why, he couldn't find them. And the reason was the grass there wasn't too good that year, so they had moved on up to Dothan. And a man that saw him wandering around and asked him who he was seeking, he told him, and this man said, 'Well, the thing to do is to go up to Dothan because he said, I heard them talking it over,' and that's where they went.

And so when Joseph went to Dothan, he found them, and they saw him coming with this coat, apparently it had sleeves in it. That set it apart. In fact, that gave him a position above his brethren, and he certainly was not the oldest one by any means or even next to the oldest. And as a result, why we find that they are very jealous of him, and they've determined now to destroy him. In fact, they want to kill him. That's how much they hated him. And when he came up to them, they ridiculed, of course, and they said, 'Behold, this dreamer cometh.' And verse 20, 'Come now, therefore, and let us slay him. Cast him into some pit and we'll say some evil beast hath devoured him, and we'll see what will become of his dreams.'

Now, Reuben here, who is already lost his position as the firstborn. It'll be transferred to Judah. But Reuben actually stands out in a good light here. He has more mature judgment than the others. And in verse 21, I'm reading, and Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands and said, 'Let us not kill him.' They would have slain him right there and then. But Reuben intervened, and he rescued him and said, 'Look, brethren, let's not kill him.' And Reuben said unto them, 'Shed no blood, but cast him into the pit that's in the wilderness, lay no hand upon him that he might rid him out of their hands to deliver him to his father again.' That was Reuben's avowed purpose that when he was put in the pit that he would slip back and take him out of the pit and take him home to his father. And tell him what had happened. But when he was put in the pit, it came to pass, verse 23, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, they stripped Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colors that was on him. In other words, that coat was like waving a red flag in front of a bull because they hated him, that set him apart from them, and they certainly didn't like that by any means because several of them, according to the law of primogeniture, that is that the elder has prior claim, why there were several of them that were older than he was.

And they took him and cast him into a pit. And the pit was empty, there's no water in it. 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, going to carry it down to Egypt. These were traders that were going by. And Judah said unto his brethren, 'What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood?' In other words, Judah now intervenes, it doesn't seem to be a very good plan of his, but at least he doesn't want murder to take place and he doesn't want the blood to be on the hands of the brothers of Joseph.

And he makes this suggestion, 'Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he's our brother, and our flesh, and his brethren were content.' Well, they said, 'What we want to do is to get rid of him.' And if we sell him to these Ishmaelites, they'll take him down to Egypt, that's where they're going, and sell him into slavery, and that to us is just the same as getting rid of him. And slavery in many places was a living death anyway. It certainly they'd never hear from him again. And so we read verse 28, then there 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.

Now I'm sure that at this point you're saying, 'Well, Moses, make up your mind. You called him Ishmaelites at first. Then you called him Midianites. Now you come back and call him Ishmaelites again. What are they? And isn't this an error in the Bible?' I was handed many years ago now by a student, and it'd been handed them a little blue paperback book that showed I think a thousand or 2,000 errors in the Bible. I looked it over. I never found any errors except in that little book. And one of the errors was here that one place it says Ishmaelites, another place Midianites. Which is accurate.

Well, let's look at this for a moment because this is quite interesting and it reveals how the critic, those that hate the Bible, how they can manufacture actually that which reveals something of the accuracy of it. Now, who were the Ishmaelites? Who was the father of the Ishmaelites? Abraham. Who's the father of the Midianites? Well, Abraham. You see Ishmael was a son of Abraham by Hagar. Midian was a son of Abraham by Keturah that he married after the death of Sarah. Now, these are brethren actually, Ishmaelites and Midianites.

And they're akin to this crowd here, boys that are selling their brother too, by the way. And after all, at this particular time, even an Israelite, there are not but 12 of them. And how many Ishmaelites do you think there'd be at this time? I'd doubt whether there'd be over a hundred of them, that is, of all of them. And Midianites, how many of them would it be? Midian was born after Isaac was born. So that there could not probably been maybe a dozen Midianites. Well, with small groups like that, tribes in that day, and they're related, and the desert was a travelling to Egypt, at least in that day was dangerous.

So they just joined together. And what Moses is trying to make clear to us as we read this, is that the Ishmaelites and the Midianites had joined together. Small band of each made them stronger, and they're related. They understand each other. So they're on the way down to Egypt to do business. May I say that the Word of God makes good sense if you just let it make good sense. We are the folk that don't make good sense with it. And of course, ignorance adds a great deal to the contradictions that people think they find.

The contradiction is not in the Bible, but it's in the ignorance of people who read. And this, of course, is a good example. You can see how whoever wrote this knew exactly what the situation was in that day. Now, they sell Joseph, and they're taking Joseph down to the land of Egypt. And verse 29, and Reuben returned unto the pit, and behold, Joseph was not in the pit. And he rent his clothes. He returned unto his brethren and said, 'The child is not. And I, whither shall I go?' And they took Joseph's coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood.

Now, whether they brought Reuben in on this, I don't know. I'm of the opinion they did. I think they said, 'Well, we sold him in Egypt and he's halfway down there now.' So they've got now to get some sort of a cock and bull story to tell old Jacob about what happened to Joseph. Now, what do they do? They took Joseph's coat, and they killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood. And they sent the coat of many colors, and they brought it to their father and said, 'This have we found. Know now whether it be thy son's coat or no.' Pretty clever, isn't it?

Why, they act as if they never seen Joseph. All that they knew, according to their story, which is a lie, they said, 'Why, we found this coat.' And believe me, they knew that coat. They hated that coat. And they say, 'Why, we don't recognize the coat, but do you recognize it? Could this be the coat of your son?' Believe me, Jacob knew whose coat it was. And he knew it and said, 'It's my son's coat. An evil beast hath devoured him. Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.' This is the conclusion and the natural conclusion that he would come to, and the conclusion that these other sons of Jacob intended for him to.

But let's pause now a moment. Take a look at this. Does this matter of deceiving the father with a goat, does that remind you of anything that we've had before? Well, if you'll just think about this for a few moments, do you recall that when Jacob was a young fellow, he and his mother connived together to deceive Isaac? And the thing they did was they killed a goat, and they cooked it up, you know, made him savory meat to eat. And then they took the skins of the goat and put it on the hands of Jacob, and he went in and deceived his father. And the thing has to do with a goat. Now, the brethren of Joseph, the sons of Jacob now, they kill a goat.

They dip the coat of many colors in the blood, and they come and hand it to old Jacob and said, 'Do you recognize it?' Jacob said, 'I sure do.' He said, 'We found it up there. Looks like a wild beast or something must have got to him, something happened to him.' And old Jacob came to the conclusion that his boy's been killed. He's been deceived, will you listen to this? He is deceived in the very way that he had deceived. Chickens come home to roost. The Word of God says, and says it very specifically, 'Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.' Not something else, not something similar, but the same thing.

If you sow to the flesh, you will of the flesh reap corruption. This man Jacob did some bad sowing. He used deception, and in the same way in which he deceived his father, when he became a father, he's deceived in the identical way. You see, when you sow corn, you get corn. When you sow tares, you get tares. You get exactly what you sow. That's true in any realm you care to move it today, and it's certainly true in the moral and spiritual realm. And that's true today of any believer.

If you think you can get by with sin, and you're a child of God, you have another thought coming. In fact, you better take that other thought and not do the thing because God is no respecter of persons. He said, 'This is the way it's going to be.' And just because you are you, you don't get by with it. I talked to a minister, oh, this has been now at least five years ago, that it got involved with another man's wife. It was a sordid story. As I talked with him, he tried to justify himself on the basis that he was something special of the Lord's, that because he was who he was, he operated on a different plane and by a different rulebook than anyone else.

May I say, God's no respect of persons. In the very way in which this fellow had sinned, it had come home to him. God says, 'You don't get by with it at all. If you sin in this direction, the day will come.' It took it a long time for the chickens to come home to roost, but they came home to roost for this man. Now, will you notice the grief of Jacob? And this is something else to note at this point. And Jacob ran his clothes, put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. And all his sons, all his daughters, rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted, and he said, 'For I'll go down into the grave unto my son mourning.' Thus his father wept for him.

And somebody is going to say, 'My, isn't that a demonstration of how much he loved his son Joseph?' Well, I'll have to admit he certainly loved his son Joseph. But this man has not learned to walk by faith yet, friends. You remember the experience he had at Peniel. It was the deflation of the old ego, perpendicular pronoun I. The flesh collapsed there. But now he's got to learn to walk by faith. And he hadn't learned it, and he hasn't learned it at this point. You will notice when you get to the 11th chapter of Hebrews and the example of faith of Jacob, you find nothing in his life. It's not until you get to the time of his death that you find faith really exhibited in his life.

And if you want to know whether this is an exhibit of faith or not, compare the grief of this man to David at the weeping for his son, and also of his weeping over Absalom. Now, David loved his son Absalom and loved that little one that was born just as much as Jacob loved his son Joseph. But he also was a man of faith. And after he had grieved, he went on. He knew someday. He said concerning that little one, he said, 'That little one can't come back to me. That's for sure. My grieving won't help there a bit. But I'm going to the little one someday.' What faith. Poor Jacob, you see, is not walking by faith, friends.

This is abnormal grief. And Christian friend, and I'm talking, I'm sure, to some folk. You've lost a loved one. You can't get over it. I want to say to you, not brutally, but kindly, learn to walk by faith. You manifest the Christian life when you recognize that you can't bring that one back and your grieving is doing no good at all. But if the one you're grieving of is a child of God, you're a child of God. And walk by faith. You're going to see that one someday. And you're going to see that one and never be separated.

Now, look, can't you walk by faith? Don't exhibit that lack of faith that is in the people of the world. And that's the way they grieve today. Now, we read verse 36, the last verse here. And the Midianites sold him in to Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's and captain of the guard. Now, we're going to leave Joseph right there and we'll pick up his story in chapter 39. But we come to chapter 38. Again, another chapter that seems to be about as necessary as a fifth leg on a cow.

You just don't seem to need chapter 38 at all, and after you read the story, you'd rather wish it was left out of the Bible. I've had any number of people say, 'Well, why is that chapter put in the Bible?' May I say chapter 38 is the worst chapter in the Bible. We'll take it up next time and go into not too much detail, but some. But there's some names here. It's the sin of Judah, actually. It's the sin and the shame of Judah. And Judah is going to be the one, the tribe out of which the Messiah is coming. And there's some names that appear here that are quite interesting.

And you find a name like Judah, and then you find a name like Tamar. And you say, 'My, I've seen these names before. I wonder where it was I saw them.' Well, now if you would turn to the first chapter of the New Testament, Gospel of Matthew, you read a genealogy there, and it's the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you'll find there Judah begat Perez of Tamar. And of all things. You say, 'Well, you mean to tell me this is the line of the Lord Jesus?' Yes, friends, it happens to be the line that leads to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amazing thing, isn't it, that this reveals the awful sin. And the Lord Jesus came in that line, friends. He really took our place down here, didn't he? He came into a sinful line. That's what the Word of God's trying to tell us. He was made in all points like as we are, yet He himself sin apart. But He came into that line, that human line where all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We'll see that chapter next time. Until then, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

Steve: The fascinating story of Joseph continues next time as the Bible bus rounds your corner. And if you'd like to share this message with a friend, it's available anytime on our app at TTB.org or just call us at 1-800-65 Bible. I'm Steve Schwetz, thanking God for your company on the Bible bus and for His grace in all of our lives.