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Thank you very much. Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you could find your seats and grab your song books. Let's turn our hymnals to song 288, I Am Resolved. Song 288, I Am Resolved. 288, I Am Resolved. I am resolved no longer to linger, charmed by the world's delight. Things that are higher, things that are nobler, these have allured my sight. I will hasten to Him, hasten so glad and free. Jesus, greatest, highest, I will come to Thee. I am resolved to go to the Savior, leaving my sin and strife. He is the true one, He is the just one, He hath the words of life. I will hasten to Him, hasten so glad and free. Jesus, greatest, highest, I will come to Thee. I am resolved to follow the Savior, faithful and true each day. He what He sayeth, do what He willeth, He is the living way. I will hasten to Him, hasten so glad and free. Jesus, greatest, highest, I will come to Thee. Lord, thank You so much for this day and thank You for the opportunity to be in church this evening. Pray for all those that are still sick that You just put Your hand upon them and heal them, Lord. And pray that You bless every aspect of this service tonight. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. For our second song, we'll go to Song 224, There Shall Be Showers of Blessing. 224, There Shall Be Showers of Blessing. 224, There Shall Be Showers of Blessing. There shall be showers of blessing, this is the promise of love. There shall be seasons refreshing, sent from the Savior above. Showers of blessing, showers of blessing we need. Mercy drops round us our falling, but for the showers we plead. There shall be showers of blessing, precious reviving again. Over the hills and the valleys, sound of abundance of rain. Showers of blessing, showers of blessing we need. Mercy drops round us our falling, but for the showers we plead. There shall be showers of blessing, send them upon us, O Lord. Grant to us now a refreshing, come and now honor Thy Word. Showers of blessing, showers of blessing we need. Mercy drops round us our falling, but for the showers we plead. There shall be showers of blessing, O that today they might fall. Now as to God we're confessing, now as on Jesus we call. Showers of blessing, showers of blessing we need. Mercy drops round us our falling, but for the showers we plead. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you don't already have a bulletin, you can slip up your hand nice and high, and we'd love to get a bulletin to you. On the front we have our Bible memory passage, John chapter number 1 verse 8. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. So any of the kids that can quote that one, get some ice cream. Also on the inside we have our service and soul winning times, as well as our church stats. From this past Monday, we had one from Brother Goodwin. He texted me. Two for Monday. What about Tuesday? Anything from Tuesday? One for Tuesday. What about this evening the church van had one. Was there anything outside of that by chance? Keep up the great work on soul winning. Also on the right we have our list of expecting ladies, and continue to pray for them. We also have our prayer list, and we have a couple things to add to that. So I'm going to go ahead and go through this. We have our several church family members that are in here listed for help. We have the Negara family, if you continue to pray for their health. Miss Lucy's mother, her tumors, if you continue to pray for her. Brother Cameron Hall's leg, if you continue to pray for Verity Baptist Manila with Brother Stuckey, the evangelist out there. Pastor Kevin Sepulveda in Australia. Miss Stephanie Weathers, actually this one has changed a prayer request. They have a congratulations on the birth of their son William. So William was born, he was born on the 10th at 9.37 pm. He weighed 6 pounds 7 ounces and measuring 20.08 inches long. So you got to get that .08, okay, right in there. And now he was born a little bit early. I don't remember exactly, but he is born a little bit early. So he was put in the NICU, and I guess that she had tested positive for COVID. And so they're not even letting her see her own son. And so they've been asking that we just pray that whatever needs to happen will happen as soon as possible so they can be reunited and everything like that. And so it is exciting, but obviously they want us to help pray for them as they go through this trying time. But as soon as they get back, they will forget about all of it and it will be good. But we do want to pray for William and the Weathers family. Also we have Jeremy Gore. His surgery was postponed, so that's really frustrating. I think it was by COVID too. He showed up and was all ready to go, and then they postponed his surgery or something. But we continue to pray for him. Brother Dago was asking for prayers for his family. Brother Goodwin was praying, asking for prayers for his brother-in-law Michael, salvation and some other legal issues. Brother Richard Capito was asking for his health and his dad's recovery. His father had had a bicycle accident. Also, we still have had a lot of families out due to sickness. And man, it just seems like it's just the whole world. It's like, man, everybody's been sick the last week or so. And so definitely continue to pray for health for everybody. The Spurgeons were asking for prayers for their health, their family. Brother Jimmy and Don Stewart were praying, asking for health. Brother Suhail is trying to get back here, and so he needs a negative COVID test. So he's hoping that we would just help pray for that as well. Also, we had the Wood family was also in the hospital, and they have a congratulations on the birth of their daughter, Lydia. And so we have another family that had a child just recently. I have the stats here on my phone. I need to pull them up real quick. She was 4 pounds 11 ounces, and she's also, I guess, been in the NICU a little bit. And so that happened today at 5.17 a.m. So congratulations to them. A couple of new additions to the Church family, which is really cool and exciting, but we want to continue to pray for their recovery and that everything will be going well with them. I think that's pretty much all I had for announcements. We'll go ahead and say a quick word of prayer for those that were mentioned. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for our church. Thank you so much for giving us this opportunity to meet together and to be gathered. I pray that you would just be with all the expecting ladies, that you continue to bless them and help them with their deliveries upcoming. I pray that you would also bless the rest of our Church family with their various health concerns. I pray that you would just help both of these new additions to our Church family that are in the hospital, that you would just help them to be healthy, that you would give favor and wisdom to the physicians that are in the hospital, that you would just give our Church family members favor, and that you would just help them to have health. I pray that you would also bless our friends abroad, that they would just be able to have free course to preach the gospel and to serve you. I just thank you that you give us so much freedom here, and I pray that we wouldn't take it for granted. Rather, we would use our freedom to preach the gospel and do great exploits for you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Also in the back, this Sunday I'm having an ordination service. Our church is for Brother Tanner Furr. He's going to be evangelist for the Oklahoma City Church plant, and he's already been doing a great job up there. This is kind of more of a formality, but hopefully it will help empower him and that church to go to the next stage and to do even more, and that the Word of God would increase there in Oklahoma City. Also there's a baby shower for Miss Tina Galasso and her baby boy, Saturday, January 29th, from 12.30 to 2.30 here at the church. If you're able to bring a dessert, please do. All ladies are invited, but it is nursing's only preferred. If you would like to get them a gift, she's registered on Amazon. That's pretty much all I have for announcements at this time. We'll go ahead and go to our third song for the evening, One Hundred Day by Day. The song number One Hundred Day by Day. Song One Hundred Day by Day. One Zero Zero Day by Day. Day by day and with each resting moment Strength I find to meet my trials here Trusting in my Father's wise installment I've no cause for worry or for fear He who's hard is finally on a measure Gives unto his day when he feels best Loving leads part of pain and pleasure Mealing tall with peace and rest Every day the Lord himself is near me With a special mercy for each hour All my cares he made would bear it cheer me He who's name is Counsellor and Power The protection of his child and treasure Is a charge that on himself he lay As I daze, thy strength shall be in measure This the pledge to be made Help me then in every tribulation So to trust, I promise, O Lord That I lose, not fix, with consolation Offer me within thy holy word Help me, Lord, with joy and trouble leading There to take this from my Father's name One by one the gates of hope is fleeting Till I reach the promised land Amen. As the offering plates are passed around, please turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 42. Genesis chapter 42. We're going to read the entire chapter prior to the sermon this evening. Genesis chapter 42. The Bible reads, Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another? And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt. Get you down thither, and buy for us from thence that we may live and not die. And Joseph's ten brethren went down to buy corn in Egypt. But Benjamin, Joseph's brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren, for he said, Lest paradventure mischief befallen. And the sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan. And Joseph was the governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph's brethren came and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth. And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them. And he said unto them, Whence come ye? And they said, From the land of Canaan to buy food. And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him. And Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them, and said unto them, Ye are spies, to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. And they said unto him, Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come. We are all one man's sons, we are true men, thy servants are no spies. And he said unto them, Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. And they said, Thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan, and behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not. And Joseph said unto them, That is it that I spake unto you, saying, Ye are spies, hereby ye shall be proved. By the life of Pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence, except your youngest brother come hither. Send one of you, and let him fetch your brother, and ye shall be kept in prison, that your words may be proved, whether there be any truth in you, or else by the life of Pharaoh surely ye are spies. And he put them all together into ward three days. And Joseph said unto them the third day, This do, and live, for I fear God. If ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison. Go ye, carry corn for the famine of your houses, but bring your youngest brother unto me, so shall your words be verified, and ye shall not die. And they did so. 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 has this distress come upon us. And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child, and ye would not hear. Therefore behold also his blood is required. And they knew not that Joseph understood them, for he spake unto them by an interpreter. And he turned himself about from them, and wept, and returned to them again, and communed with them, and took from them Simeon, and bound him before their eyes. Then Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn, and to restore every man's money into his sack, and to give them provision for the way, and thus did he unto them. And they laden their asses with the corn, and departed thence. And as one of them opened his sack to give his ass provender in the inn, he espied his money, for behold, it was in his sack's mouth. And he said unto his brethren, My money is restored, and lo, it is even in my sack. And their heart failed them, and they were afraid, saying one to another, What is this that God hath done unto us? And they came unto Jacob their father unto the land of Canaan, and told him all that befell unto them, saying, The man who was the lord of the land spake roughly to us, and took us for spies of the country. And we said unto him, We are true men, we are no spies, we be twelve brethren, sons of our father, one is not. And the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan. And the man the lord of the country said unto us, Hereby shall I know that ye are true men, leave one of your brethren here with me, and take food for the famine of your households, and be gone, and bring your youngest brother unto me. Then shall I know that ye are no spies, but that ye are true men. So will I deliver you your brother, and ye shall traffic in the land. And it came to pass, as they emptied their sacks, that behold, every man's bundle of money was in his sack. And when both they and their fathers saw the bundles of money, they were afraid. And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children, Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away, all these things are against me. And Reuben spake unto his father, saying, Slay my two sons, if I bring him not to thee, deliver him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again. And he said, My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he is left alone. If mischief befallen by the way in the witch ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for Genesis chapter 42, and for the opportunity that we have tonight to gather in your name, to listen to the word of God being preached. I pray that you fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit now, and give him clarity of mind so he can further explain this chapter to us, and help us to pay attention so we can learn more about your word. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. Amen. So we've been going through the book of Genesis, and we're in chapter number 42, and all of the lands have come to Joseph to buy corn. So it says, if you look at verse 57 right before we get in our text, it says, And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn, because the famine was so sore in all the land. So in our context of our story, when God was putting a famine on the land of Egypt, it wasn't just Egypt, it was really the whole world, essentially. At least all the area that was there, which is basically all of human population at that point in time, is kind of all in that general area. And so this famine is causing everyone to seek Joseph, and come into Egypt in order to get food. And I kind of talked about in the previous chapter that kind of is an illustration of how if you want to get salvation, you have to go to Jesus only, just like if you wanted that bread physically, you had to go to Joseph, and to get the bread of life, you only go to Jesus. So this is going to cause his brethren to have a need to come and to see him in the land of Egypt. That's why it says in verse 1, Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another? So it's very obvious that everyone realizes the only place to get food is in Egypt, and essentially Jacob looks at his sons and he says, Why are you guys not going down to get food? Obviously we're going to die if we don't have food. The only place that has food is Egypt. Why are you guys all looking one to another, or one upon another? Now, I want to think about this verse for just a second from two different perspectives. Let's first take it from Jacob's perspective. Why is he questioning them? Why is he frustrated with them? He's probably in his mind just thinking that these people are lazy. He's just looking at the bread they're in and he's kind of just thinking these guys are lazy. Why are you guys not going down there? Why are you not getting the food? And really, when it comes to this world, it's frustrating that a lot of people, they kind of have this attitude of just expecting other people to get things done for them. They're just kind of sitting around just hoping things will just work out, or that food will get put on the table, or that someone is going to do something to fix it. You know what it makes me think of? It makes me think of Donald Trump. And why it makes me think of Donald Trump is because it was like he was claiming that there had been all this election fraud, that all these bad things had happened. And it was like he was just sitting around just hoping someone else would just fix it all. You know, just hoping that someone else would take care of it. You know, whether that's the Supreme Court, or Mike Pence, or the governors, or just volunteers that are going to do an election recount or something. But he was just basically hoping someone else would do something about it. And it's like, why don't you do something about it? Other than just complain and bellyache or whatever. And at the end of the day, you know, it'd be the same as a man, a grown man, living in his house today, complaining that they don't have any money, complaining they don't have any food. It's like, okay, well go out there and get some. You know, instead of just complaining or hoping that someone else is going to do your job for you, you need to anticipate that in your life, if you don't do it, it's not going to get done. That is the reality we live in today, is that if you don't get it done, no one's going to get it done. That's why we also take this kind of approach to spiritual matters. You know, we don't look around and say, you know, why doesn't someone start a good church in this area? It's like, we'll start a good church in this area, right? It's not like, well, when is someone going to knock on doors and get someone safe? No, it's like, we'll knock on doors and try to offer someone the gospel. You know, when is someone going to take a missions trip down to the Bahamas, down into Mexico, down and do great exploits? When is someone going to do a small town soul-winning marathon in Wichita Falls and Jareveport? It's like, instead of just sitting here wondering when someone's going to do something, it's like, we'll do something. You know, we'll go out and we'll go and do the work, we'll go on the highways and the hedges, and we'll model for people how to get work done. You need to be a man of action, not a man of just sitting around watching everybody. You know, this is your first Facebook, okay, wherever you're just looking around upon one another. It's like, what does that accomplish? What does social media really accomplish at the end of the day? It's like, it's all fun and good and everything like that, but it's really just a waste of time if, you know, we're all honest with each other, right? And I'm not against, you know, talking with people and having fun and fellowship and, you know, there's good aspects of, you know, communication and everything like that. But at the end of the day, the talk of the lips tended only to penury is what the Bible says. Meaning what? You know, you don't really accomplish anything in your life by being active on social media. You know, unless you're just peddling some MLM or something like that, I mean there's really not a lot of benefit to these type of activities and there's not really a benefit when Joseph's brethren are just sitting around wondering, you know, what's going to happen. That's kind of the perspective that I have from Jacob and I feel like we can get a little bit of benefit from this to just realize that we need to go and do stuff, right? But let's now take it from the perspective of his brethren. Why do you think that the brethren are not going into Egypt? I'll tell you why. Because they sold their brother into Egypt, okay? And so, you know, in the back of their mind, that's probably the last place they want to go because they don't want to run into him. You know, if you sold your brother into Egypt, you know, you're not going to want to go and just run around in Egypt and accidentally run into your brother because you're going to feel like the piece of crap that you are because you sold your brother, you know, into slavery, okay? So when you do some bad thing, whenever you're kind of guilty or whatever, there's this natural tendency to avoid that area, avoid that situation, otherwise do not feel guilty about it or, you know, basically be reminded of the evil or the wickedness that you've done. So it's probably in their mind, they're thinking like, man, if it was anywhere else, I would just run down there and get the food already. But they're kind of like, I don't want to go to Egypt, you know, that's where we sold, remember? That's kind of where we sold Joseph, you know, what if we run into him or what if we go see him there or whatever? You know, it's kind of like people will have a relationship go sour and then they start avoiding all the places that they used to go with that particular individual. You know, especially like maybe a couple gets divorced or they, you know, they break up or whatever and then people stop going and doing all the same activities they did previously so as not to run into that person, you know, not to see them at church or not to see them at the grocery store or not to see them at, you know, whatever restaurant or whatever. And so I believe that the reason why they're kind of being so lazy and slothful here, dragging their feet as it were, is because they've been reminded of the fact of that's where Joseph is, okay? Now it says in verse number two, and he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt. Get you down thither and buy for us from thence, that we may live and not die. Joseph's ten brethren went down to buy corn in Egypt, but Benjamin Joseph's brother Jacob sent not with his brethren, for he said, Lest peradventure mischief befallen. Sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan. So notice the Bible makes it clear the famine's not just in Egypt, the famine's also in the land of Canaan, but they're driven to Egypt in order to get food. Verse six, And Joseph was the governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the land. Joseph's brethren came and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth. That's a really interesting verse because it literally fulfills the scripture that we had already read previously. Keep your finger and go to Genesis chapter 37, Genesis chapter 37 verse number seven. Genesis 37 verse seven, For behold, we were binding sheaves in the field. So this is Joseph telling them his brethren his dream. We were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheave arose, and also stood upright. And behold, your sheaves stood round about and made obeisance to my sheaf. So he's saying, hey, I had this dream where there was this sheaf, and basically I'm that sheaf, it's my sheaf, and you guys come and you all bow down to my sheaf. Now, pretty soon in the Bible we're going to run into a story where literally his brethren come and they bow before Joseph, and what's the point to get food? And what does the sheaf represent? It represents the food, it represents the money or the food that they basically need in order to survive. And so exactly like the Bible described it, it happens. And of course, you know, Joseph is not going to forget that. Joseph's going to be like, wow, that's incredible that God drove me all the way to this position for that to happen. Now, here's something that's interesting about this process, though, okay? He also had another dream where not only the brethren but even his dad would come, okay? But beyond that, at this point, Joseph doesn't really have much to go on, if you think about it. Like, the Bible makes it clear that his brethren are going to bow down to him, okay? But then that's kind of the end of the dream, right? What happens next? Well, kind of at this point, it's now in Joseph's hands, it's a sense, right? Now Joseph is in the driver's seat of what's going to happen. He doesn't have a dream that's now saying like, and then I slew all of you, you know? And then I beat you guys up, or then I did, you know, whatever. We don't know. All we know is we've kind of gotten to this point. So up to this point now, it's kind of Joseph getting to determine or decide the future and what's going to happen to some degree because God has led him to this point, okay? Now, it says in verse number seven, if we go back to our story, it says, And Joseph saw his brethren and knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them, and he said unto them, When's coming? They said, From the land of Canaan to buy food. Joseph knew his brethren, they knew him not. Now, this is also interesting because, frankly speaking, you know, neither party, neither group, as it were, has seen each other, okay? Joseph hasn't seen his brethren this whole time. Brethren haven't seen Joseph. They knew he was in Egypt, okay? They're coming from the land of Canaan, so he would know. But for some reason, Joseph recognizes them, but they don't recognize him. And, you know, there's a lot of cool parallels in the Bible of Joseph and Jesus. I feel like there's an interesting parallel here of Jesus Christ. Go to John chapter number one in the Bible, John chapter number one, where the Bible's kind of illustrating how Joseph knows them, but for some reason, they don't know who he is, okay? But here's the thing. They should know who he is. It's not like they're not capable of knowing who he is or they shouldn't know who he is. Why is it, though, that Joseph's brethren doesn't recognize Joseph, okay? Well, number one, because they basically disregarded him. They wanted nothing to do with him. They don't like him. They've kind of rejected him, in a sense. And on top of that, now they've kind of forgotten about him, right? Well, when Jesus comes onto the scene, he's coming to his own. The Bible says in John chapter one, look at verse number 10, He was in the world, and the world was made by him, the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. Think about this. He came unto the Jews. The Jews should know Jesus Christ. But here's the problem. Why do they not know Jesus Christ? The same thing. They've rejected Jesus. They don't want to have anything to do with him, and so they've forgotten the Lord. They've forgotten who Jesus is. Because often when Jesus is interacting with the Jews, with his disciples even, he's constantly rebuking them, saying like, have you not read? Yeah, have you not read? He constantly is reminding them of like, oh, you fools and slow of heart to believe all of the prophets have written. You know, it's like, how do you guys not know this? How do you not know who I am? How do you not know the scriptures? How do you not know the prophecies? How are you not anticipating it being me, right? And essentially, you kind of have this parallel where Jesus is talking to his people. He knows them. They don't know him. Fact, right? Joseph's talking to his brethren. He knows them, but they don't know him. And when he speaks to them, he speaks a little roughly, you know? But here's the thing. Doesn't Jesus kind of speak a little rough to the Jews? I mean, he's pretty much, you know, handing their hat to them, as it were, okay? He's really humbling them and speaking pretty roughly to them. And in fact, you know, Joseph, we haven't gotten to this point yet, but we kind of already read it. He speaks to them through an interpreter, in a sense, and you know, Jesus kind of speaks cryptically to the Jews, speaking through parables and speaking in other ways. We kind of have a little bit of a parallel here, right on the surface of Jesus and Joseph and some of those similarities. Go back, if you would, to our story in Genesis 42. I just think that's kind of an interesting parallel of how they kind of interact, okay? But it says in verse number 9, Now, he remembers the dream. So, he basically puts it all together. Oh, wow. God told me, you know, that y'all were going to come bow down to my sheaf. It's happened exactly like that. Now, his reaction, though, is not like, isn't that cool, guys? Remember when I dreamed? No, no, no. He sets up this interesting scenario where he starts accusing them. He starts kind of accusing them of being spies and being wicked and being evil. And, honestly, they're false accusations. But we understand that he's trying to test them. He's trying to figure out what his brethren are like. The last time he saw them, they literally sold them into slavery, okay? So, you know, not necessarily the best last memory of these men. So, he calls them spies and he says in verse 10, He are all one man's sons. We are true men. Thy servants are no spies. And he said unto them, Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land, ye are come. And he said, Thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan. And behold, the youngest is this day with our father and one is not. And Joseph said unto them, That is it that I spake unto you, saying, Ye are spies. Hereby ye shall be proved. By the life of Pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence, except your youngest brother from hither. Send one of you, and let him fetch your brother, and ye shall be kept in prison. And your words may be proved, whether there be any truth in you, or else by the life of Pharaoh surely ye are spies. And he put them all together into war three days. And Joseph said unto them the third day, This do, and live, for I fear God. If ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison. Go ye, carry corn for the famine of your houses, but bring your youngest brother unto me. So shall your words be verified, and ye shall not die. They did so. So Joseph kind of sets up an interesting scenario here where he wants, initially he wants only one of them to go back, and basically the remainder of the brethren to stay there, and the one to go get his brother and come back, and to kind of test him. Then after a few days, he changes his mind, and he ends up letting all of them go except for one. And he wants them to still return with their brother, in order to basically retrieve the other brother that they would have had left in prison. And from Joseph's perspective, he doesn't really know what his brethren are like or what they're going to do. And you kind of think about some of the life circumstances they had. Think about some of the stories we had, right? Simeon and Levi, they ended up tricking Dinah's boyfriend, Shechem, the son of Hamor, into basically doing circumcision. And then they slew all the males and ripped all those people off and took all their goods and everything like that. So how does he know that they aren't being spies then? How does he know that they are going to be honest or truthful about their interactions? Maybe they're pulling another Simeon and Levi scenario or something like that with the Egyptians. Also the fact that he lied about his brother and hurt his brother by selling him into slavery and everything like that. They're like, we're true men. I'm sure that he's sitting there like, yeah, okay. You guys are such honest guys. You guys are such good guys or whatever. From his perspective, and think about what was his perspective of his brethren before he was ever sold into slavery? Didn't he come into his dad and say he gave an evil report of his brethren? How they're basically probably lazy, they're not taking care of things, they're not taking care of the sheep. I mean, from Joseph's perspective, these guys are kind of like scumbags. I mean, he already had an evil report, then they sold him into slavery. Do you think that evil report got any better? Do you think his perspective of his brethren is like, these guys are wonderful guys? You know, these guys are just awesome or whatever. He probably has harbored a lot of bitterness, a lot of anger, potentially a lot of resentment. He probably thinks that they're really bad evil people. What's interesting is he's going to dream up kind of a scenario to test them. Now, I don't know exactly why he changed his mind, but I'll just give you my opinion of why he kind of changed his mind. He first wants to bind them all and then just send one, okay? But here's the thing, that doesn't really tell you what all these guys are like. It only kind of tells you what one of them is like. And ultimately, if only one returns to his father, maybe his father is going to insist that they bring the younger brother and then they rescue him. And Joseph kind of plan fails a little bit in the sense that he doesn't really know what these guys are like. He doesn't end up getting a very good test on what these guys are like. So then he changes it where he's letting all of them go except for one, okay? And if we read a little bit further, let's read a little bit more about this. It says in verse 23, I'm sorry, verse 21. And they said one to another, we are very guilty, verily guilty concerning our brother in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us and we would not hear. Therefore, as this distress come upon us, Reuben answered them saying, spake I not unto you saying, do not sin against the child and he would not hear. Therefore, behold also his blood is required. They knew not that Joseph understood them for he spake unto them by an interpreter. And he turned himself about from them and wept. He turned to them again and communed with them and took from them Simeon and bound them before their eyes. And Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn and to restore every man's money into his sack and to give them provision for the way and thus did he unto them. They laid their asses with the corn and departed thence. And as one of them opened his sack to give his ass for vendor in the end, he spied his money. For behold, it was in his sack's mouth. And he said unto his brethren, my money is restored and lo, it is even in my sack. And their heart failed them and they were afraid saying one to another, what is this that God hath done unto us? So, he takes Simeon and binds him alone. He bound all of them. Then after a few days, he only takes Simeon and binds him. Okay. Then he lets them all go back. But with the admonition, you have to bring the younger brother or Simeon's mind essentially. Now, on their journey back, not only that, Joseph gave them all their money. He put all their money back into their back. Okay. And then he's sending them back. Now, I believe this is because Joseph's very, think about it. Joseph's one of the smartest guys ever. Okay. Why would Joseph go through all this ordeal? Well, if you think about it, what Joseph has successfully done as he's put his brethren in the exact same scenario that they did to him to test what they're really like. Think about his scenario. Okay. What was his scenario? They're going to sell one brother. They're going to basically betray one brother to where? To Egypt. And they're going to get money. Okay. And then they're going to have the opportunity to tell their father whatever they want, frankly speaking. Right. What if the brethren just came back to Joseph and said, some evil beast took Simeon on the way. But here's the money or here's the food. And they could even pocket the money. Because does their dad know that they got the money? No. And wouldn't that be the exact same thing that happened with Joseph? Basically, Joseph was sold. They got, they pocketed some money from the Ishmaelites and then their father's none the wiser. So basically, he gives them the exact same scenario to see what are they going to do. Are they going to do the exact same thing they did to me? You know? And in this scenario, he at least rescues Simeon from their clutches, you know, or basically Simeon becomes his brother at that time. But he gets to test all of them again and see what they're like. I believe that's why he sets up the scenario that he does. If you think about it, he's basically just recreating what happened to him. Let's see what these guys are going to do round two, okay? Now, in verses 21 and 22, what's interesting is that whenever they're going through this kind of trial, as it were, of Joseph, this scenario that Joseph has concocted, they end up bringing up Joseph, you know? And it says in verse 21, we are verily guilty concerning our brother. Now, if you think about this, this is like possibly 16 years ago. Anywhere from like 14, 16 years ago that this happened and they're bringing it up. You know why? Because they have a guilty conscience. And you know what? There's nothing like having a guilty conscience that just haunts you every single day. That's why it's also a bad idea to sin. Because you know what? You hurt your brother, you do something really wicked like that, and you know what? He can literally haunt you for every day of your life. You know, there's certain sins, there's certain evils that people do, and it haunts them every day of their life, you know? How about abortion? Here's something that will literally haunt people their entire life. You know, every birthday, every anniversary, every Christmas. You know, these women literally have to go through those things and they remember, they know, they can count. Look, my wife can remember everything, okay? So I know your wife can too, all right? And that would be a horrible thing to have to constantly be reminded of all the past sins that you've done. And look, if you've confessed it to Christ, you should theoretically be able to forget, you know, forget like God did, but just often it doesn't happen that way. And we don't even know if these guys have sought forgiveness. Here's the thing, there's a good reason not to commit sin and not do evil so that you're not constantly reminded about it. You know, how about people who commit adultery, you know, constantly reminded about having committed adultery. Doing drugs, you know, doing any kind of evil in their life, getting arrested, stealing something, whatever. It's just something that can constantly just haunt you every single day, every single step of your life. And you basically just feel like God's just around every corner ready to get you. And the fact is, sometimes that's true. Sometimes it's literally true that you commit that evil and you don't know when your day of reckoning is coming, but it's coming. And you're going to reap what you sow. That's why you want to constantly sow good. That's why you want to constantly do that which is right so you're not constantly in fear of when God's going to finally catch up with you. You know, God's going to finally be around the corner. And they've gone to Egypt and they were all terrified of going to Egypt. And it's just like in my mind, you know, understanding the story, why were they so hesitant to go? Because they're thinking like, I don't know if things are going to catch up to us in Egypt. They go to Egypt and exactly their worst fear happens to them. It all catches up with them, doesn't it? And God has a sense of humor that he always likes to basically bring your biggest fear upon you. Whatever you dreamed up to give to somebody else happens to you, okay? And so they're just like, man, you know, exactly what we didn't want to happen, happened. Now, when they look and find their money, they're also in all kinds of distress, right? Why are they in all kinds of distress? Well, because they know that the governor is not stupid. And if he feels like they ripped them off, you know, they're just that much more likely to never recover their brother, to be in bigger trouble or to have all kinds of problems. They didn't want it to be perceived like they're spies. Well, stealing their money back would make it seem like they were spies, wouldn't it? So they're just like, man, everything that can go bad is going bad for us. You know, we're trying to do the right thing here. We're trying to make it right here, do good. And it's just like nothing is going our way. Now, keep your finger here and go to Psalms chapter 7 for a moment. Go to Psalms chapter number 7. And, you know, we should be terrified of the Lord because no matter how good you are at everything, how smart you are, how much you plan, how much you do right, if God wants to get you, God's going to get you. And notice when they open up their bag, they're like, what has God done unto us? Because, you know, God can put you in any situation He wants. He can turn all of your good wisdom and all your smart accolades and all your money, He can turn it all against you. He can just make everything go bad for you. And the people that just basically do evil and not thinking about consequences, it just shows they have no fear of God, okay? But look at Psalms chapter 7 verse 8. The Lord shall judge the people. Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to mine integrity. That is in me. Now, here's the thing. When it comes to salvation, we totally understand, look, I only have filthy rags to offer to the Lord, okay? It's God's imputed righteousness through the shed blood of His Son that gets me into heaven, okay? And, of course, there's none righteous, no, not one. The Bible says that very clearly. There's not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not. And we want to understand all those verses and believe all those verses. But there is, that does not mean, though, that you should just live however you want. We still have our own responsibility for our actions. And we still have our own righteousness in the sense of, you know, when we decide to do right and the good things that we do, okay? And the psalmist here is literally asking the Lord to judge him according to his righteousness, what he's done. Saying, like, I am following your commandments. I am doing that which is right. You know, please judge rightly. And when we think about a situation, there's going to be situations if you're serving God where you're in the right and someone else is in the wrong, okay? And that's the side of the equation you want to be on. And you want to look at the Bible and say, like, have I done right? And you're like, yeah. And then you're like, okay, John, please judge according to what you said. I want it to be done right. You know, I haven't done anything wrong here. I've tried to do that which is right. I tried to follow your commandments to the best of my ability. Please give a righteous judgment here. Don't let the wicked get away with his wickedness. Don't let this person rip me off. Don't let this person do evil against me. You know, judge him rightly. And the person that fears God wants to be judged. And he wants the judgment to come exactly how God described it. He's not afraid of righteous judgment. The wicked are afraid of righteous judgment. Now, you think about Joseph. He didn't want to leave all his brethren wrapped in prison and only send anyone back. Because notice what he said, I fear God. Meaning that even though he's probably justly angry at his brothers and his brothers have done a lot of evil unto him and everything like that, he didn't want to just totally overreact or avenge himself here. He kind of wants to let God do his thing. That's why he ends up letting them all go except for one. Because he still wants to have the test but he doesn't want to have God be mad at him. He doesn't want God to basically punish him for avenging himself or doing wickedly himself. And that's what we should do. We should make sure that we're right with God no matter what other people do to us. And let God take care of avenging us and letting God take care of doing basically the righteous judgment upon others. That doesn't mean that you don't seek law enforcement or you don't seek proper authorities in a situation of conflict. Basically you have to let them take care of it, not yourself. Not avenging it yourself. It says in verse number 9, O let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, but establish the just. For the righteous God trieth, the heart reigns. My defense is of God, which saveth the upright in heart. Notice again, who does God save? He saves the upright in heart. Meaning there's a benefit to following God's commandments. There's a benefit to being upright. There's a benefit to being right with God. And that's who God's going to save. That's who God's going to deliver. That's who God's going to give the righteous judgment. He's praying that the wickedness of the wicked would come to an end. You know, that verse just becomes more true every single day. That you have this scenario where wicked people are doing wickedly and you're getting frustrated that it's not coming to an end. And you're just kind of like, God, let's get an end date here. You know, like, I'm ready. Like, please judge the situation. Please let it come to be. And that's where faith comes into play, doesn't it? Because sometimes you just get to this point you're just like, so we can just do whatever we want, God? And no one's going to, you know, no one's going to ever get punished? Wouldn't that be the attitude that a righteous person could have? And you kind of get that thought like, well, I see these wicked people getting away with murder and getting away with theft and getting away with, you know, wickedness and adultery and whatever. Why don't I just do that? It doesn't seem like God cares or whatever. And see, that's a wicked attitude. And you know what? God does care. And they are going to get what's coming to them, okay? And you just have to have patience. You have to have faith to know the Lord is going to do it, okay? And notice his defense is of God, not himself, not how strong he is. It says in verse 11, God judges the righteous and God is angry with the wicked every day. You know, it's not like God's up in heaven just like, you know, playing video games or something, not knowing what's going on, not paying attention, taking a nap or whatever. Notice what the Bible says. God is angry every day. And I know why, because there's a lot of bad stuff going on. And you know what? It makes God angry every single day. You know, God's not just going to do nothing. Verse 12, if he turn not, he will wet his sword. He hath bent his bow and made it ready. He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death. He ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors. The old, he travaileth with iniquity and hath conceived mischief and brought forth falsehood. Now, in verse 13, it's talking about God. Okay? Saying that God is preparing death for the evil, for the wicked. But in verse 14, it's switching to the evil person. It's talking about the evil person. What does the evil person do? He travaileth with iniquity. What does travail mean? In the context of, like, giving birth, right? So, when it says travailing iniquity, it's like this guy's birthing sin. This guy's coming up with sin, inventing sin, new iniquities, new evils. He's the arbiter. He's the originator of this sin, of this evil. I mean, this guy is just producing and birthing all kinds of evil and all kinds of wicked, okay? And hath conceived mischief. What is conceive? You know, we think about conception. It's the origin. It's the starting point. So, it's saying, like, all of the evil is starting with this guy. It's being birthed with this guy. It's coming to fruition through this guy, okay? And brought forth falsehood. Notice that the wicked, what do they like to do? They like to bring lies, deceits, evil, wickedness, just anything that's just not true. They birth it, they conceive it, they dream it up, they cause it to happen, you know? They're always dwelling in that which is not true. Verse 15, he made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made. That's where we finally get it, okay? So, notice what the guy did. He dreamed up something wicked, something that's not true, and then he birthed it into being. He dug that pit, and then he fell in his own pit, okay? That's the ending of the story. You know, sometimes you're in the process of watching the wicked, and they're in the conception phase. Then they have to go to the birthing phase. Then they go to the digging phase, okay? And you don't know when they're going to fall in. But the temptation is to want to push them in, you know? The temptation is to want to help trip them in, you know what I mean? But what you have to do is you just have to wait because he's going to fall into it. He can't help himself. Eventually, he's just going to fall into his own pit which he made. Verse 16, his mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate. The word pate is only used one time. It means head, okay? It's basically the same word there. Because I will praise the Lord according to his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High. Now, why did I bring up this passage? Because if you think about the sons of Jacob, exactly what they dreamed up against Joseph is happening to them. And so, why are they so terrified? Why are they saying, like, what has God done unto us? Because they should be reminded of chapters like this and saying, like, oh, man, if we're wicked, it's going to happen to us just exactly like we dreamed up. We need to then seek the Lord and seek forgiveness and not do that which is wicked so that it doesn't return unto our own pate. It doesn't return upon our own head. That's why it's important to fear God. And when you see the wicked doing evil and just presumptuously sinning against the Lord, it's because he has no fear of God. It just makes me think these people are atheists. You know, when you can watch someone just do evil against the Lord or against God's people or to just lie and steal and cheat and deceive. And here's the thing. You can trick a lot of unsaved people. You know what? You could trick the justice system of this world. You can trick a lot of people out there. You can trick people with videos online. You can trick people with newspaper articles and magazines. You can censor things. Do you know who you're not tricking ever? It's God. God knows that you're a liar. God knows that you're a deceiver. And why do you believe that you're going to get away from God? It's just because you don't have any fear of him. Because you're ignorant. Because you're foolish. Because you're stupid. And we don't want to be those type of people that just do all kinds of evil and wickedness and think we're going to get away with it. Here, from a human perspective, how are the sons of Israel going to get caught at this point? They can't. There's no man that's going to figure this all out and hold them accountable, probably. And, you know, most likely, Joseph being sold into slavery, he's not going to end up becoming the governor of the land. You know what I mean? Like, he's probably just going to die in some ditch or just be a servant for the rest of his life. He was never going to have the recourse to end up being like, they sold me or whatever. Now, we realize that he does, but at the end of the day, you know, they're probably going to get away with it scot-free. But notice they're constantly being haunted by the fact that God is going to repay them, that God is going to come after them. So as evil as the sons of Jacob are and as many evil things as they've done, don't we still see, though, that they have some fear of God? They do have some fear of God, and they have a little bit of redeeming quality here in the sense that they realize, like, you know, oh, man, like, God is still there. God can punish us. They have some fear of him. You know, they have respect for the Lord to some degree. And you should. You should have the fear of God in your life. You know, the Bible says, Whoso digeth a pit shall fall therein, and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him. So we want to make sure that we're not planting evil, digging ditches, rolling stones for others, because it may just return upon our own head. Go view it back to our story of Genesis chapter number 42, Genesis chapter number 42. And we need to be more like the Josephs of this world that say, you know what, I know a lot of evil's happened to me, and I keep seeing the wicked get away with it, but you know what, God will avenge. God will eventually take care of it, and, you know, it's going to be better than what you could do anyway. You know, we can never dream up the punishments that God ends up giving to people and doling out. I can't think of a better punishment than hell. I can't think of better punishments that happen to these people in the Bible, and they always seem to get way worse than I would probably even dream it up. You know, we watched Pharaoh losing his firstborn son. You know, if you hadn't read that story, I don't think I would have ever dreamed that up. I would have never planned that or thought about. I mean, you read the ten plagues, most of you probably couldn't even quote the ten plagues right now, and you've read it. If I said, hey, tell me all ten plagues, you'd probably struggle on a few of them, wouldn't you? But, you know, it's like you forget the boils. But it's like, look, if you had boils, you wouldn't forget that one, okay? You know, you might forget some of the punishments and the evils that happen. I mean, the things that God dreamed up, you know, we can't dream those up. God's going to take care of it. You know, Haman being hung on his own gallows, perfect. They're like, great. You know, the fact that they want to throw Daniel in the lion's den, God's like, I'm going to up the ante. You and your whole family are getting thrown in the lion's den, and they just got hung here because they haven't had a snack. You know, Daniel didn't get any of it. You know, they heat the furnace seven times hotter, and then all the men they were going to throw, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they get tossed in, and they get consumed by the fire. You know what? God always dreams it up even worse for them. We can't even conceive how God's going to do it, and he's better at it than we are. We're really kind of being prideful when we think that we're going to get people back better than God is going to get them back, okay? Look at verse number 29. The Bible says, And they came unto Jacob their father in the land of Canaan, and told them all that befell unto them, saying, The man who is the lord of the land spake roughly to us, and took us for spies of the country. We said unto them, We are true men, we are no spies. We be twelve brethren, sons of our father. One is not, and the youngest is this day, with our father in the land of Canaan. The man, the lord of the country, said unto us, Hereby shall I know that ye are true men. Leave one of your brethren here with me, and take food for the famine of your household, and be gone. And bring your youngest brother unto me. Then shall I know that ye are no spies. If they are true men, so will I deliver you, your brother, and ye shall traffic in the land. And it came to pass, as they emptied their sacks, that behold, every man's bundle of money was in a sack. And when both they and their father saw the bundles of money, they were afraid. So they have the right response here. You know, they're in the same scenario as with Joseph, but this time they're doing the right thing. Right? This time they're afraid. This time they're honest with their father. This time they, you know, want to actually do right. So they haven't really done anything wrong. They've been trying to remedy the situation, and they're genuinely afraid. At least now they're afraid of God. At least now they're afraid of what's going to happen to them. Okay? Verse 36, And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have you bereaved of my children. Joseph is not, Simeon is not. And will you take Benjamin away? All these things are against me. Now, think about Jacob's perspective. He's like, you guys suck. Like, you weren't doing your job. I sent Joseph. Now he's gone. You weren't doing your job. I sent you to go get me some food, and now Simeon's gone. Like, what good is it going to be to send you Benjamin now too? You guys just screw everything up. And, you know, I mean, it's always against Jacob. You know, it's against him. Honestly, we could sit here and point the finger at these guys, but isn't this just kind of a picture of us? How we always just screw up, and we always do wrong, and we always do wickedly, and it's always against God, and there's none righteous, no, not one. And, you know, it's really easy for us to look at them and be like, oh, you guys are a bunch of screw-ups. But I think if we were to get a laundry list of all your problems, you might not feel so hot. I mean, what would you rather have, us read the laundry list of what they did or what you've done? It's like you're like, their list is a little bit better than mine. And in some cases, in a lot of cases, it is at the end of the day. So, you know, it's important that we realize that while these men are sinful and they have problems, that we don't get this puffed-up attitude that we're somehow much better than these people. Because, again, these people have their sins posted for all of eternity for us to read about and to hear. You know, we might read about Reuben. He's like slept with his father's concubines or something like that. But it's like, okay, well, what if we were to mark everyone in here that's commit fornication? You know, I think a lot of people would be ashamed to have that written in the Book of Life for all of eternity, you know, or you've stolen or you lied or you didn't even. Now, hopefully, you didn't sell your brother into slavery. But I'm just saying, like, you might have some issues too. Okay, we all have issues, we all have problems, and they're a bunch of screw-ups. And at the end of the day, they're never going to rectify the situation by their own righteousness, by their own good works. That's why we needed Jesus, that's why we needed the Savior. Now, by telling them that they're screw-ups and they've done wrong and all this stuff, what is Reuben's response? He says in verse 37, And Reuben spake unto his father, saying, Slay my two sons, if I bring him not to thee. I'm sure his two sons are like, crap. What? You know, like, thanks, Dad. You know, and isn't that kind of a weird response? It's like, you know, man, you guys keep screwing up and you can't do right. Well, why don't you take my sons in, you know. If we screw up, you can have them. If I bring him not to thee, deliver him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again. And he said, My son, do not go down with you, for his brother is dead and he is left alone with mischief befallen by the way, and the witch he go. Then shall you bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. So, we have here a picture of Reuben, basically, saying that he would take the responsibility. But here's the thing. Reuben already screwed up. Reuben already screwed up with Joseph. You know, it's kind of Reuben. Reuben's the eldest. And Reuben was going to try and deliver Joseph out of their hand, but he failed. And I think that Reuben kind of just illustrates our own flesh and our own works, how when we try to strive for salvation and those things through ourselves, it's just never going to work. You know, it's never going to succeed. We're going to basically come up short. We're not capable of rescuing Joseph from his brethren, just like we're not capable of stopping sinning or stop doing, you know, evil. And Reuben's just a picture of failure in the Bible. And really, in every way, he just failed. Just like every aspect of Reuben's life is a complete failure. And, you know what, him offering his sons here, I just, to me, it kind of almost seems like he's even passing the buck again. You know, he's just like, well, you can kill them or whatever. You know, if he's already failed, you know, why doesn't he take a little bit of personal responsibility and put it upon himself? And I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but when we get to the next chapter, Judah's going to make an offer to go down. Judah says, take my life. You know, Reuben's like, you can have their life. Judah's like, why don't you put my life on the line? Which seems to be a little bit, you know, potentially more skin in the game. And here's the thing. We say, well, what about God the Father? You know, God the Father sacrificed his son. But here's the thing. God the Father loves Jesus Christ. Okay? Not everybody loves their children. So sacrificing their children's not always that big of a burden or that big of a sacrifice. In fact, a lot of children of Israel sacrifice their children to false gods throughout the Bible. Or they don't really care that much about their children or about their sons or whatever. And Reuben to me, I mean, I don't know. We don't know that he has a great deep love for his children. So you could kind of interpret this two different ways. Maybe it's a picture of the ultimate sacrifice, but I would say probably not because Reuben's just a bad character throughout the Bible. It kind of probably illustrates the fact that he's just, you know, burned his children. You know, a lot of people burn their children. A lot of people won't care about sacrificing their children's future, sacrificing their children's life. They'll take a big risk. Here's another reason. Like, why sacrifice your children's lives for your brother? Because at the end of the day, you know, to me, my children are more important than my brother. And I'm just being honest with you, and it should be for y'all as well. Also, my own personal achievements or my own personal pride. You know, if I screwed up, it doesn't mean that I need to go and double down on that screw-up and basically risk my children's future. Why can't I just be humble enough to say, well, maybe I'm just not the right guy or I've screwed up, and I'm going to just basically invest in my children and let them succeed or do good. I'm not going to sit here and risk it all on them and risk it all, you know, destroying their lives. And a lot of people have tough decisions. You know, some people get divorced. And it's like, well, but if I go and get remarried, even though it's a sin, it's an adultery, I'll be happy. Yeah, but what will that do to your family? What will that do to your children? You know, I've known women who decide to get remarried after having been divorced, and then they literally marry a pedophile. And then that pedophile molests their children that they had. So basically, they're taking this huge risk and putting it upon themselves to somehow do it right, even though they screwed up the first time. And it's like, look, if you got divorced the first time, that already shows you have a poor choice of character, you know, in the sense of like you're not very good at judging that situation. Why do you think you're going to magically do it better the second time? And often the people that are going to marry you, they've also shown that they have poor character and poor judgment because they married you that are divorced, okay? They probably were divorced. And that's why literally when you see divorce statistics, it's mind-blowing. It's like marriages are about 50% likely to get divorced, but then if you've been divorced the second time, it's like even higher, like 60% or 70%. And then the next one's like 75%. And the next one's like, it's like it's just more and more likely to escalate and to get worse and worse and worse. And look, I'm not here to condemn or damn people that have been divorced. What I am saying is if you haven't already made those kind of decisions, you know, decide in your mind is this going to be beneficial for my children though. You know, is every decision I'm making, am I willing to just throw my children on the altar here, or should I say, you know, maybe I should just humble myself and realize I've already screwed up a lot, let's just limit the damage here and allow my children to have the best life that they can and to succeed in the ways that they can. And what you have to understand is our life is going to be a test. If I were to summarize this chapter, you know, in one word, it's a test. Okay? And we've all screwed up. But you know what? God gives us a second test and then a third test, a fourth test. Think about it. Didn't the brethren already screw up pretty bad by selling Joseph into slavery? But guess what happened? God gives them a second chance. Now they have a second opportunity to be tested. Now what are you going to do? You know? You say, well, I screwed up my first marriage. Okay, we got a second one. Now what are you going to do? You know, or a third, okay, or a fourth. I don't know where you're at, right? But, you know, God gave you a lot of grace. You know, where do you find yourself in the test of life? What decisions are you going to make? You know, maybe you screwed up one kid. You have another kid or you have a grandkid or you have whatever. What am I going to do with that opportunity now? You know? Whatever opportunities you have before you, you're still in that test. Okay? Go over to Exodus chapter 16. Go to Exodus chapter 16. And if you think about it, Joseph is testing his brethren's honesty and their integrity. Okay? How honest are they being with me? And what kind of integrity do they have? Because I gave them money, they could walk away scot-free, couldn't they? We're going to test what kind of people they are. We're going to test, you know, what they're going to do with the money. We're going to test if they would just abandon their brother again and save their own skin or their own neck. We're going to see how they're going to handle their younger brother. Are they willing to sacrifice their younger brother? Because we know later he's going to test them even further by trying to basically sell out the younger brother, take the younger brother and be like, you guys go back. You know, see how they handle that scenario, right? He's going to be testing them. And here's the thing. I think this is kind of a picture of Jesus and God. And if you think about how he came into his own, he's kind of testing them again. He's giving them another opportunity. He's preaching them the gospel. How are the Jews going to respond to Jesus Christ's testing? You know what? God is long suffering with us. God wants to give us all kinds of chances to get things right and to learn and to grow and to mature. And what's bad is when we harden our hearts and we don't basically take heed and try to basically pass the test the next time around. You know, God doesn't get as mad at us failing the test as he does when we just keep failing the test and just keep doing wrong and keep doing wickedly. You know, a just man falls seven times and rises up again. We need to keep going at that and keep trying and keep pushing ourselves to do right no matter how many times we screw up before. Don't get discouraged. You know, maybe you've already quit on the New Testament challenge for January. But see, maybe you already quit last year in January too and the year before that and the year before that. And see, the other thing, God keeps giving you an opportunity. Well, now's your opportunity to say, you know what, I'm going to pick it back up. And even if I finish it in February and don't get the prize, at least I still read the Bible. And that's the real prize. Okay, the real prize is the Word of God. And if you double down, maybe you can surprise yourself. But here's the thing, just don't quit. God's testing you every day, every moment. He's saying, okay, we screwed up a bunch, but what are you going to do now? Look at Exodus chapter 16 verse 4. So God's testing them every day. Are you going to go and gather the food like I said or not? And what's that man of picturing? The Bible. Picturing Bible reading, isn't it? Go to Exodus chapter 20. Go to Exodus chapter 20 to see what kind of integrity you have. See what kind of honesty you have. You know? And yeah, obviously skipping Bible reading is not selling your brother into slavery in Egypt. But we all screw up. And praise the Lord, he has new mercies every morning. And he's like, okay, well you screwed up a lot. What are you going to do today? How are you going to respond today? Okay. Exodus 20, look at verse 20. Here's another reason though. You say, why get it right? Because you should be afraid that God's going to punish you. You know, it's not like God's punishments are reserved to the unsaved. In fact, he typically is going to punish the saved more on earth than he is the unsaved because they're going to hell. You know? So it's, you should be afraid, you know, it's hard because God gives us so much grace on a regular basis. Go to Deuteronomy chapter 8. I want to show you another one here. That I think sometimes we think that there's no punishment for sin. Right? Can't you kind of, God's grace will sometimes lull people to sleep in the sense that they feel like, oh, I guess it doesn't matter what I do because, you know, there's no real punishment. Right? If you don't read your Bible tomorrow, there may not be a real obvious punishment. You know? Your tires might not just bust. You know? You might not get fired. You might not, like, have a bill. You might not get a ticket or something like that. I mean, you might not just have this immediate, just obvious punishment that comes. And so there could be this temptation to think like, oh, I guess it doesn't matter then. No, no, no. You need to be reminded that there's a reason to fear God that God can punish you, that God can cause everything in your life to go wrong just like it was for the sons of Israel. I mean, they show up. The guy's mad at them. The guy jails them. They find their money in their sacks. It seems like now they're spies, and they're just like, oh, man, what happened? And you know what? Sometimes God does that to ring your bell to get you back into serving Him or to test you or to see what you're going to be like. Do it on chapter 8. Look at verse 16. Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee and that he might prove thee to do thee good at thy latter end. So God often will try to test us and prove us to do us good in our latter end. And here's the thing. He's testing the sons of Israel now so that He can do good to them in their latter end. Because think about it. If they succeed in this test, if they succeed in this proving that Joseph is doing and ultimately it's the Lord doing through Joseph, what's going to happen? They're going to get to dwell in Goshen and get to reap all the benefits of Egypt and basically have all these goods and have prosperity and have health and God's going to do all this good unto them. They're going to see their brother. Their dad's going to be happy again. Everything's going to work out. What if they fail this test? There's nothing that's going to happen, okay? Just total misery and woe. And so even though they've really screwed up and even though you may have really screwed up, God can still bless you greatly in your latter end. And we have to take every test that He gives us seriously. And you say, what's every test? It's every day that ends in Y. Every day that you wake up is just another test. Are you going to read your Bible? Are you going to pray? Are you going to love on your children? Are you going to teach your children the Bible? Are you going to drag everybody to church? Are you going to drag yourself out soul-winding? Are you going to be honest on the job? Are you going to let the Lord avenge you and not avenge yourself? All these different things. Are you going to bless the poor? Are you going to seek the Lord? Are you going to refrain from sin? Are you going to turn from the iniquity that you had in 2018 and 2019 and 2020? Are you going to finally turn from it? Are you going to finally give it up? And these type of things, we have to constantly be pushing ourselves with the fear of the Lord and say, you know what? There's a God on the earth that judgeth, and I don't want that to return on my own fate. I fear the Lord. I fear God. I need to keep striving and see how I'm doing on this test. Never stop taking the test of life. God is there to prove us every moment. You know, we might be confused as to why God's doing things. If you look at it as a test, it will always make sense. Right? If you're going through something really hard, you're just like, man, God just really wants to test me right now. You know, God must think that I'm worthy to be tested in this way, and he's putting me up to the challenge to see what I can do. I mean, imagine, you know, I like to use examples that make sense to me, but like in weightlifting or whatever. If, you know, someone's like, I want to see how strong you are. See how many curls you can do with this four-pound dumbbell. You'd be like, what's that about? You know, it's like a million? You know, like, why that? How many times can you lift this pencil, man? You know, how many times can you lift this pen? You're just like, come on. You'd want them to give you something real heavy, you know, or you'd be flattered if they pull out and it's like, here's a 500-pound dumbbell. And you're like, I can't quite do that one. But, you know, like, they would think of you with a high respect, right? They're testing you. They're trying to prove you. And here's the thing. If God's giving you really difficult challenges in this life, he must think that you're pretty strong. He must think you're worthy of doing something real difficult. And maybe there's a big blessing there. You know, you mothers that have a lot of children, God must think that you're pretty strong. Because that's real hard. Having one kid's tough. Two is, like, really difficult. Three is impossible. Everything above that, you're drowning and trying to hold babies. Okay. I don't know. It's just like, it's insane. But at the end of the day, you know, it's a test. How are you doing with that test? You know, if you want God to keep rewarding you and keep blessing you, you know, you need to keep striving. The worst thing you can do, typically, is just quit. You know, it's better to fail than to quit. And that's the encouragement I have for you guys out there. We're going to fail. We're going to come short. But you know what? If we just keep striving and we keep trying and we keep doing that which is right, you know, God can give us that grace and God can help us through. And then our latter end will be blessed. Let's close in prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father for this chapter. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to be tested every single day that our lives matter. That even though we may not feel like you're always there or we may not always realize the plans that you have for our life, that through the faith of Scripture, through the sight of Scripture, we know that you really are there. You really do see everything. You really are angry with the wicked every single day. That there is a reason to serve you and to follow your commandments. I pray that we be motivated by the fear of the Lord to do that which is right, realizing there's a reward for doing right and there's a punishment for doing wrong and that we would strive to please you in all things that we do. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright, for our final song of the evening, we'll go to song 203, The Windows of Heaven. Song 203, The Windows of Heaven. We'll sing it through twice. 203, The Windows of Heaven. The windows of heaven are open, the blessings are falling tonight. There's joy, joy, joy in my heart since Jesus made everything right. I gave Him my old tattered garment, He gave me a robe of pure white. I'm feasting on manna from heaven and that's why I'm happy tonight. The windows of heaven are open, the blessings are falling tonight. There's joy, joy, joy in my heart since Jesus made everything right. I gave Him my old tattered garment, He gave me a robe of pure white. I'm feasting on manna from heaven and that's why I'm happy tonight. God bless you, Lord Smith.