Thru the Bible

Steve Schwetz: When you come to the end of your life and look back over the years, what do you hope will be said of you? Well, that day is coming for all of us, isn't it? And you know, it's worth thinking about now because it helps guide the steps that we take as we seek to live purposely for the Lord. Welcome to *Thru the Bible* with our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee. We're nearing the end of our study in Genesis, just a few lessons remain.

As we continue following Joseph's dramatic story in Egypt, our attention turns back to his father, Jacob. Remember Jacob? Earlier in Genesis, he was the man who manipulated to get what he wanted. And then he became the man on the run. And later he wrestled with God in his own strength. But at this point in our story, he's an old man. He's no longer running, and now he's walking by faith.

And I'm grateful that we've been given the full picture of his life, aren't you? Because in the end, Jacob walked with God. I hope the same will be said of each of us when our days on earth are finished. We're in Genesis chapter 46. And as you turn there in your Bible, listen to this remarkable story from Dang, a listener in Thailand. He writes:

"I used to be a shaman. I began this practice at 18 learning spirit worship and farming ceremonies. I traveled from village to village whenever people invited me to perform rituals. Every time, deep in my heart, I knew they were not real. The spirits could not truly help anyone. However, it was my occupation and people needed me, so I continued. Eventually, I became a high-level shaman and even able to perform burial rituals for the dead.

The more I practiced, the more I realized that those who died could never go to heaven. Their rituals spoke of surrender and captivity, lives bound behind doors stronger than iron, guarded by spells. I often thought to myself that if I died, I too would be bound by these same chains. I didn't want that. So I began searching for a way out.

One day I heard your program that Jesus saves. I didn't hesitate. I went to meet Christian brothers and sisters, accepted Jesus Christ, and destroyed all my idols by burning them. I began studying the Bible, praying and worshipping God. God gave me His promises and true hope. I became His child and by His grace, when I leave this world, I know I will go to heaven."

Wow, what an incredible story. Would you like to join us in praying for God's word as it goes out in Thai and more than 250 other languages? Well, you can by joining our World Prayer Team from our app or at ttb.org. God is answering. And as we just heard, Dang is living proof of it.

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, use your word to touch hearts and stir minds wherever it's heard. Thank you for your unwavering presence with us in Jesus' name, Amen. Here's Dr. J. Vernon McGee with our study of Genesis 46 on *Thru the Bible*.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now today, friends, we come to the 46th chapter of the book of Genesis, and we're getting now toward the end of this book and already folks are saying, "Where do we go from here?" Well, we're going to the New Testament and begin with Matthew. And we urge you now, if you do not have notes on Matthew, that you write in and ask for yours because we want you to have these and you'll find them extremely helpful.

Now let me tie our strings together here. You'll recall that last time we saw that Joseph's brethren returned back to their father, Jacob, and gave a report that Joseph was still alive down in the land of Egypt and that he wanted his father to come down. Now his father apparently had a notion of just going down and visiting him. And yet there was some reluctance and hesitation, I'm sure.

To begin with, God did need to appear to him, and he does here at the beginning of this 46th chapter. God needs to appear to him, very definitely, because God had instructed Abraham to stay out of Egypt and Abraham got in trouble down there. He'd said the same thing to Isaac. Now the question is, should Jacob go down into the land of Egypt? Well, he needs a little more encouragement than just an invitation from his son Joseph, and even from Pharaoh.

He needs something that is more than a printed invitation. He needs to have a green light from God, and God's going to give that to him, of course. And then there's another thing. The last time God had appeared to Jacob, He told him to go to Bethel and that that would be the place. Now we find this man wanting to go down and visit his son. And I'm of the opinion he only went down there to spend the holidays and come back home after he'd visited him, but he never returned except for his own funeral.

Now we read verse one, "And Israel took his journey with all that he had and came to Beersheba and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father, Isaac." He took his journey with all that he had and he came to Beersheba. And here's the amazing thing: he offered sacrifices unto the God of his father, Isaac. You remember the first time he left that land going down to the land of Haran and he came to Bethel?

Was he looking for God? No, he thought he'd run away from Him. And he's not seeking the mind of God at all, nor is he asking for His leading. What a contrast between Jacob and the servant of Abraham. The servant of Abraham never took a step without looking to God. Jacob took many steps and did not look to God. He wasn't counting on Him at all and didn't need Him in his life.

It took a long time for him to find out that wasn't the proper way to go through life, and it's not the proper motivation for living, especially if you're God's man. How many people today, Christians, go through the entire week and God's pretty much out of their program? They make their own decisions, do what they want to do. Then they come to Sunday and all of a sudden they find themselves very religious.

And they're willing on Sunday to do God's will and they think God's will is for them to go to church, maybe teach a Sunday school class. But they tell God goodbye Sunday night, especially when they turn on the TV, and the rest of the week why God's not in the picture. This man, Jacob, never looked to God, but now he is. He comes to Beersheba, that's on the way down, and he offered sacrifices unto the God of his father, Isaac.

Now notice, God is going to be gracious to this man and appear to him. Listen to this now: "And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I. And he said, I am God, the God of thy father. Fear not to go down into Egypt, for I will there make of thee a great nation." Now, God promised that He'd make of Jacob a great nation down in the land of Egypt.

The question now is, did God do that? Well, if you want to turn over a few pages, the book of Exodus, first chapter, verse seven, listen to this: "And the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly and multiplied and waxed exceeding mighty and the land was filled with them." There was really a population explosion of Israelites in the land of Egypt. What's the explanation? God's making good. "I'm the God of thy father. Fear not to go down into Egypt, for I will there make of thee a great nation." So God is making good that which He promised to him.

Now I read on, "I will go down with thee into Egypt, and I will also surely bring thee up again. And Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes. And Jacob rose up from Beersheba, and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, their little ones, their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him." Remember now Pharaoh had sent up these wagons. They just put Jacob in a wagon and here they go.

The thing is that Jacob had gone into that land with just a staff, leaning on his staff. He never got rid of that staff, but he's not walking anymore, nor is he running anymore. He went into that land walking, he came out running from his father-in-law, Laban, and then was afraid to meet his own brother, Esau. But now things are different. There's an improvement, definite improvement in this man, and I believe a man of faith.

Now we're going to see that man of faith down in Egypt. As we said at the beginning of the study of Jacob, there are three periods in his life that are actually geographical locations. There was the land of Haran, that's the manifestation of the flesh. Then he's back in the land of Canaan, that's where he did all of his fighting. And now he goes down to the land of Egypt, and we see the man of faith down there.

These three areas denote the three spiritual periods in the life of this man. That, I think, is true of a great many of us today. There's believers why we had that period maybe we lived somewhere else. And then we moved and came in contact with the gospel and the Word of God and we turned to Him. Then there was that period of that struggle, thought we could do it ourselves. And then there came the day when we did grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ.

Now God's appeared to this man and He's now encouraged him to go down into the land of Egypt. Now, friends, we have a whole section here and I'm sure you have taken a look at it and probably you thought about just cutting out the radio at this period because there's nothing in the world in here but a bunch of names. Here's another one of those long genealogies.

Now I'm of the opinion it would be profitable really to go through it. But don't get frightened. I'm not going through it. Even when we have five years to go through the Bible, we can't get bogged down even in genealogies and they're very important. But I want you to notice something now as I move on here. I'll read beginning at verse five, "And Jacob rose up from Beersheba, and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father."

Now verse six, they took their cattle, their goods, which they had gotten in the land of Canaan and came into Egypt, Jacob and all his seed with him. Now he went down there for a visit, but he had to take everything. Why? There's a famine in the land. They couldn't survive if they'd stayed back in the land of Canaan. Now they go down into this land. Now notice, "His sons and his sons' sons with him, his daughters and his sons' daughters and all his seed brought he with him into Egypt."

Actually, he had his children, his grandchildren, and I'm of the opinion some great-grandchildren along. And now we have here this list. "His sons, his sons' sons, with him his daughters and his sons' daughters, and all his seed brought he with him into Egypt." This is very important. This is a genealogy that's leading to Jesus Christ to begin with, and it'll be followed through the scripture.

"These are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons. Reuben, Jacob's firstborn." The sons of Reuben—and I'm not going through that friends. Then you have the sons of Simeon, the sons of Levi, the sons of Issachar. and you just keep going on down through that. And I'm coming down now to verse 26. You can see how I'm going through this genealogy.

But I want to call attention to some very important things. Let me read verse 26 of the 46th chapter Genesis: "All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls were threescore and six." That's 66. "And the sons of Joseph, which were born him in Egypt, were two souls. All the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and ten."

Now from Jacob, there were 70 that actually went down into Egypt. Of course, Joseph and his family were already down there in the land of Egypt. 70 souls. Now verse five of the first chapter of Exodus says, "And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were 70 souls, for Joseph was in Egypt already." Now we've already read the verse seven where it says the children of Israel, they increased, they were fruitful, and the land was filled with them. A regular population explosion.

Now I go back over this section and you say to me, "Well, I'm glad you passed over all those names because I personally find them very uninteresting." Well, I do too. I have to confess that. But here are 70 people mentioned by name, each one listed. The sons of Jacob and then their offspring. Why is all of that given in the Word of God? Couldn't he have given something to us more important than that?

Fact of the matter is, there's nothing more important than that. To begin with, this is the line that's leading down to the coming of Christ into the world. And part of this is in that genealogy that opens the book of Matthew. And then you move on over to the third chapter of Luke and there's another genealogy. Some of these names appear there. This is important for that reason and that reason alone.

But there's another side to this and it's very personal. Have you ever heard of the Lamb's Book of Life? And the question is, is your name written there? You get there by faith in Christ. Just as you got into the line of Adam, and we're all in that line, why you get in the line of Christ by the same way, a birth. Only now it's a new birth, and that comes about by receiving Him as your personal Savior.

Now when you do that, you become a child of God. How important are you? Well, the thing that interests me a great deal is that I don't know you and probably most of you do not know me personally. But God knows you. In fact, the hairs of your head are numbered. He knows you better than anyone else. He knows you and loves you more than your mother ever did. Your mother never counted the hairs of your head, I don't imagine. God did.

God knows you personally. Here are these names. They mean nothing to me. I was looking at the news on TV when they had these great big rock festivals that they've been having across the country. And in some of them, 100,000, 200,000 people. And you look at that mob of dirty, filthy folk. And that's what they are, the ones I saw. It rained and they, I understand, they didn't take a bath anyway, and believe me the rain didn't wash them off. It just put more mud on them.

And as you looked at all of those young people, God knows each one of them. And God loves each one of them. And Christ died for each one of them. And when you look at a great stadium today filled with football fans, with no thought of God whatsoever, but that quarterback down there is very important to them. They know a great deal about him. But they don't know anything about God.

And yet God knows each one of them, and each one is precious in the sight of the Lord. I don't know who you are, but in this day of this great population explosion with literally millions of people around us today, you are an individual to God. You run through these names here and you say, "Well, I'm not interested." And candidly, I'm not. I don't know them. God does. And God delighted in putting their names down here because they're His. And that again causes me to ask the question: Is your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life?

Now we come in verse 28 here and notice this. Joseph goes up to Goshen to meet his father, Jacob. Now notice: "And he sent Judah before him unto Joseph to direct his face unto Goshen, and they came unto the land of Goshen." You see, Judah had been down there before. Verse 29: "And Joseph made ready his chariot and went up to meet Israel, his father, to Goshen, and presented himself unto him, and he fell on his neck and wept on his neck a good while."

What a picture we have here. We have the picture of the prodigal son coming home. Well, he's not a prodigal son. Joseph is not. Actually, it's almost the other way around. His dad was an old prodigal, but Joseph wasn't quite like that. But here, oh, what a marvelous meeting this is. He fell on the neck of his father, embraced him, and he wept there. And the Word of God says it was a good while.

I don't know how long a good while is, but I mean it just wasn't a brisk handshake that may be meaningless. This is quite real. Verse 30: "And Israel said unto Joseph, Now let me die since I have seen thy face because thou art yet alive." What a joy this was to old Jacob. And frankly, friends, I think that the old man was about ready to die. And you're going to notice that he lasts a few more years down in the land of Egypt.

He barely made this trip, but he made it and got down to the land of Egypt. And now we find that Israel and Joseph brought together. And you notice he's called Israel here. "Israel said unto Joseph, Now let me die since I have seen thy face because thou art yet alive. And Joseph said unto his brethren and unto his father's house, I will go up and show Pharaoh and say unto him, My brethren and my father's house, which were in the land of Canaan, are come unto me.

And the men are shepherds for their trade hath been to feed cattle, and they have brought their flocks and their herds and all that they have. And it shall come to pass when Pharaoh shall call you and shall say, What is your occupation? That ye shall say, Thy servants' trade hath been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we and also our fathers, that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen, for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians."

Now they had the same problem in that day that they had in the West in the early days. I remember when I was just a boy in West Texas. I tell you, the man that tried to raise sheep in that area, he was in trouble. And I mean real trouble. He found out he didn't have any neighbors at all. And the Egyptians just didn't care for shepherds. It's interesting that the Word of God has had so much to say because these people were shepherds.

They raised sheep. They still do it in that land. And this is the figure of speech that is taken to speak of our Lord. He's known as the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. He's the great shepherd of the sheep today, He watches over them. And He's the chief shepherd, He's yet to appear. He is the shepherd. He calls Himself that. And the shepherds are still an abomination to the world.

He's not received today, of course. I mean the Lord Jesus as He is, not the one that liberalism has concocted. They've made an idol that doesn't even look like the Lord Jesus of the Bible. The one they talk about's not virgin born, He never performed miracles, and He never died for the sins of the world, and He wasn't raised bodily. Now may I say that's the Jesus of the liberal. Now he never lived.

There's no record of a Jesus like that. Only one we have record of, He died for the sins of the world. He was virgin born, He performed miracles, and He rose bodily from the grave. That's the shepherd that the world doesn't like. The one they've made, they like him very much. But this is now the shepherd that is not accepted. But here, the shepherds were an abomination unto the Egyptians.

Now Joseph's just a nice little word of caution. He says when you come in before Pharaoh, tell him you raise cattle. Well, is that accurate? Yes, they were cattle raisers. They had cattle and sheep. And you're going to find out though later on that after they give them the land of Goshen, that they also turn over their sheep because they didn't want to take care of sheep.

The children of Israel were the shepherds for the sheep in the land of Egypt. And we are going to see next time something quite wonderful, and I'd like to prepare you for that because we find that the family of Jacob is now dwelling in the land of Goshen. And that's going to be their home and it's going to be their home for a long time. And we find that Joseph is going to introduce his family now to Pharaoh.

And we're going to find out that they are going to stay down in the land of Goshen, which actually is the richest land down there, and that they will eventually, of course, after the death of Joseph will become slaves in the land of Egypt. But all that time God is with them. They become a great nation down there, and then it's Moses who's going to lead them out. Now God has not appeared to Joseph at all up to this point, and I just might add He's not going to appear to him.

It's the providence of God that you see in the life of Joseph now. And we can see that he has come ahead to prepare the way for these people to come down into the land of Egypt. All right, next time we'll have the introduction of Jacob and his family to Pharaoh. Until then, may God richly bless you, I beloved.

Steve Schwetz: We believe in the providence of God at work throughout Scripture and throughout our lives. No matter the twists and turns, the Lord will accomplish His plan and purpose, especially in and for His own people. And we believe God is working out His plan as we endeavor to take His whole Word to the whole world.

Will you stand with us in prayer so that people we may not meet until heaven will hear His Word and respond in faith? Somehow, in the ministry of prayer, God is using us in that marvelous process. I may not fully understand it myself, but I truly believe He honors the prayers of His people. Here are three specific ways that you can join us.

First, pray for the unhindered communication of God's Word across every medium and language, on radio, through the internet, by satellite, TV, apps, digital media, print, all of it, that His Word would go out freely and remain unstoppable.

Next, pray for the provision of funds and resources, so *Thru the Bible* can respond in faith wherever God leads us. And then third, pray for those who are hearing the message of forgiveness and love, especially as we conclude Joseph's story, that they'll see Jesus clearly and respond in faith.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, we'd love for you to join our World Prayer Team and receive regular prayer prompts. Sign up in our app. You can do it by going to ttb.org or call 1-800-65-BIBLE if we can help. I'm Steve Schwetz, asking God to bless you now as you walk with Him in His Word.