Introduction

Good morning!  Turn with me in your bibles to the book of Genesis, chapter 46.  We are going to be covering another large block of text this morning, all of chapters 46 and 47, which gives an account of Jacob and the whole of his family moving to Egypt.  As we begin our story this morning, it seems that Jacob is unsettled about leaving the land that God has promised to him.  We will talk about that a little more later,  but equally important is that this land is the place where Jacob knows God is present and with him.  

What we see historically is that many of the pagan (demonic) gods were regional in scope and influence.  As a result it was common for them in these days to be uneasy about traveling to other territories that existed outside of the protection of their preferred god.  There is plenty of biblical support for this and I don’t want to spend too much time on it but I will support this thought from Daniel 10.  An angel is sent to give a message to Daniel and when the angel arrives he tells Daniel that he was delayed 21 days struggling against the “prince of Persia” and one of the chief princes (the archangel Michael) had to come and help him.  

So there exists within the spiritual realm this territorial struggle with fallen angels, or little g gods, or whatever you want to call them, claiming and defending certain regions on Earth.  This is of course also supported by all the regional mythology (greek, roman, norse, etc.) we have throughout human history which I contend is not made up stories but rather regional shadows of the truth and/or regional deception of the truth. So why do I bring that up? 

To establish the theme of our passage this morning that God himself gives us right at the beginning and supports throughout these two chapters.  God speaks to Jacob in his uneasiness about leaving the region and going to Egypt and tells him, “do not be afraid, I myself will go down with you to Egypt and I will bring you up again.” Our God, the true God, is not a territorial God nor is he bound regionally, nor is he the God of Canaan only.  The true God goes where he wishes and plans as he pleases because he is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. I pray the Lord shows us that this morning.  So the theme I want to support this morning is that our God, the one true God, is with us wherever we go.  Please stand with me once more as we read from Genesis 46, starting in verse 1. 

So Israel took his journey with all that he had and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. 2 And God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, “Jacob, Jacob.” And he said, “Here I am.” 3 Then he said, “I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. 4 I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph’s hand shall close your eyes.” 

5 Then Jacob set out from Beersheba. The sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons that Pharaoh had sent to carry him. 6 They also took their livestock and their goods, which they had gained in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob and all his offspring with him, 7 his sons, and his sons’ sons with him, his daughters, and his sons’ daughters. All his offspring he brought with him into Egypt. 

28 He had sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to show the way before him in Goshen, and they came into the land of Goshen. 29 Then Joseph prepared his chariot and went up to meet Israel his father in Goshen. He presented himself to him and fell on his neck and wept on his neck a good while. 30 Israel said to Joseph, “Now let me die, since I have seen your face and know that you are still alive.” 31 Joseph said to his brothers and to his father’s household, “I will go up and tell Pharaoh and will say to him, ‘My brothers and my father’s household, who were in the land of Canaan, have come to me. 32 And the men are shepherds, for they have been keepers of livestock, and they have brought their flocks and their herds and all that they have.’ 33 When Pharaoh calls you and says, ‘What is your occupation?’ 34 you shall say, ‘Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth even until now, both we and our fathers,’ in order that you may dwell in the land of Goshen, for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.” 

23 Then Joseph said to the people, “Behold, I have this day bought you and your land for Pharaoh. Now here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land. 24 And at the harvests you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh, and four fifths shall be your own, as seed for the field and as food for yourselves and your households, and as food for your little ones.” 25 And they said, “You have saved our lives; may it please my lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh.” 26 So Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of Egypt, and it stands to this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth; the land of the priests alone did not become Pharaoh’s. 

27 Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen. And they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly. 28 And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years. So the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were 147 years. 

God in Egypt

I need to begin by making one more small correction from last week.  I hope I don’t make a habit of overlooking these small details but there was another famine mentioned in Genesis other than the two I referenced last week and that was a famine during Isaac’s life, just after the story of Esau selling his birthright for the soup.  In the mention of that famine (Genesis 26) the text says that Issac was making plans to go to Egypt but the Lord appeared to him and told him not to go to Egypt but to stay “in the land of which I shall tell you”.  Jacob almost certainly would have known this or been told of this exchange with the Lord so I think we can be pretty certain that this added to Jacob’s uneasiness about leaving the land now to go to Joseph.  

Was he betraying the commands of God? Was he doing the right thing? As Jacob is departing, he first arrives at Beersheba.  Beersheba is the same place where the Lord appeared to Issac in a night vision and told him to not be afraid, that he was with him and was going to bless him and as a result of that vision Isaac built an altar to the Lord there. So now Jacob arrives at the same place and offers a sacrifice on perhaps the same altar and receives the same night vision and comfort from God.  “Do not be afraid, I am with you and I will bless you.” With Jacob though, differing from his father, God tells Jacob it is ok to leave the land and go to Egypt.  So what changed? Why was it not the plan before but it is the plan now? 

I think all we can say to that point is that it wasn’t the time then but it is the time now.  Trying to make sense of some of these things is perhaps to miss the point. With God sending Joseph into slavery in Egypt first he is illustrating, among other things, that through slavery comes salvation.  There can be no salvation for man unless there is something from which man needs to be saved.  Having the benefits of hindsight, we can see that Joseph’s slavery became not only his salvation but the salvation of many.  We also see that this exile that Jacob is about to enter is the joyous and tearful beginning of a long road of slavery that Israel will travel culminating in their salvation/deliverance by God through Moses.  So begins the continual back and forth of bondage and deliverance that plagues the people of God until Christ.   If we put ourselves into this story, into this history we can feel the longing for deliverance.  “save us from the famine.” “Save us from this slavery.” “Save us from this sin that plagues us.” There is salvation but only when we experience the want of a savior.  

More on that soon. So Jacob goes to Egypt having the blessing of God and the presence of God and is reunited with Joseph.  After a 22 year separation from his father Joseph presents himself to his father and weeps on his neck for a good while.  I don’t want to go off too far on a tangent but can you imagine the emotion of being reunited with someone whom you assumed dead for 22 years only to find out they were still alive? Can you imagine what it would be like to hug and embrace again someone who you assumed death had separated you from? 

55  “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

There are more than a few necks that someday I will weep on for a good while. 

There is also another connection that is worth mentioning here.  After they finished their good deal of hugging Jacob says to Joseph, “Now let me die, since I have seen your face and know that you are still alive.” He is saying, “I can rest easy now, my hope is still alive.”  This will sound very familiar if you aware of the passage from Luke 2 when Jesus is presented to Simeon at the temple and upon seeing Christ he says, 

 29  “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; 30  for my eyes have seen your salvation

Very similar language that again demonstrates that the hope of salvation and reunion that offered peace for Jacob in Joseph was a clear foreshadowing of the assurance of salvation and eternal reunion that offers us all peace in Jesus Christ.  

These are all supplementary points to what I believe is the main point of this first section and that is that God is clearly with them in Egypt.  From the reunion of Jacob and Joseph to the mercy and favor shown to them by Pharaoh in giving them the choice land to settle on, it is clear that God has come down to Egypt with them as he promised and is granting them favor here.  This is also seen in the fact that Jacob, when presented before Pharaoh doesn’t not bow down to worship him but rather stands up and blesses Pharaoh.  This is mentioned twice in the text and the significance being that God promised Abraham that he would bless anyone who blesses Abraham and his descendants and here we see the fulfillment of that promise as God blesses Pharaoh through Jacob for him having blessed Jacob and his descendants.  This is somewhat of a blessing fest but the point is clear, God is here and his hand is clearly at work in all parties involved.  

God Stays With Them

God is not just present with them upon their arrival in Egypt and their settling in at Goshen but God stays with them and continues to bless them and prosper them.  They (Jacob and all his family are not just given a place to stay for a while, they are actually given a holding or a possession in Egypt.  A place that is their own where they can live and prosper and multiply.  They are given enough food according to the number of their dependents, meaning they are fully provided for.  All this worry about what Joseph may do to them (before they knew it was Joseph), what Pharaoh may do to them, what the famine may do to them, what God may do to them for leaving the promised land, all of these worries are addressed and fixed by God who is continually with them.  

Further God is with not just them but with all the Egyptians.  As the famine deepens and people become even more desperate God continues to provide for the Egyptians through Joseph.  I will briefly touch on the how of this provision.  It was the custom and culture of the day that people didn’t accept any form of charity while they still had something to part with.  So when we read that when the people ran out of money to buy grain from Joseph they started trading their livestock to get food and then when they ran out of livestock they started selling their land and themselves to buy grain we should not think of this as Joseph taking advantage of a difficult situation.  We live in a culture that almost considers it cruel to ask someone to pay their debts but this was not so in ancient times.  These people were glad to have things to depart with in order to pay for the food they needed and would never accept a handout while they still had something to sell.  

Agree with that or not, this was the culture and the habits of the people and it is nothing short of a blessing from God that they had access to the grain on account of Joseph.  Also, in these situations the tax that was normally charged was upwards of 40% or more so for Joseph to only apply a 20% tax on the crops they yielded from the seed he provided to them is in itself a very generous blessing.  These things may seem a little foreign to us but these were indeed blessings and proof that God is with the Egyptians as well and is graciously providing for them as well.  This is made clear in their response to all this in verse 25 of chapter 47, “You have saved our lives, may it please my lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh.” 

God With Us in Christ

So I hope I have demonstrated how God was not only with Israel in Canaan but clearly went with them into Egypt to bless them and prosper them.  God also clearly stayed with them in Egypt to preserve his remnant and to bless Pharaoh and the Egyptians for their kindness towards the people of God.  I now hope to further demonstrate how such things foreshadow the greater reality and that is that God was and is with us in Christ.  

We see this in the holding or possession of land that Israel is given in the foreign land of Egypt.  In the same way Jesus grants to us, as children of God, a holding or a possession of land in his eternal kingdom.  Hear the words of Jesus from Matthew 25: 33-34

And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

and the words of Peter from 1 Peter 1: 3-5

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 

So God in Christ is not just blessing Jacobs family with a place here on Earth but he is blessing all of Israel, that is those who trust Christ, his own children, with an eternal place.  A heavenly dwelling, a deliverance from famine, from hunger, and from want.  He is blessing us with that which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.  An eternal home.  

Secondly, as we talked about a couple weeks ago, I think, just as Joseph offers food in the form of bread to save the people from hunger, God is with us in Christ by offering himself, the bread of life, to save us.  Again the words of Christ.

 32 Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” 35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

Moses’ bread and Joseph’s bread are not the true bread because they only offer a temporary relief of hunger.  But Christ, the bread of God, the bread of life, when received by faith gives relief from the hunger of your soul that will never fade.  When you feast on Christ, you shall never be hungry again.  When you dine at his table, he satisfies you for all eternity.  

Finally, we see the ultimate and final fulfillment of God with us in the person of Christ.  God tells Jacob do not fear, I myself will go down with you to Egypt.  This is made complete when an angel appeared to Joseph and told him the child in Mary’s womb would be the fulfillment of the prophecy, 

23  “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us.)

And so it was that the Apostle John says, 

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 

and about whom the writer of Hebrews says, 

3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

To say that God was with Jacob and Joseph is perhaps a bold claim but to say that God actually became flesh and lived with us as a human but also being the pure radiance and imprint of God himself is lunacy, unless it’s true.  And it is.  And Christ is still presently with us in the sending of the holy spirit to dwell within us so that his parting words will ever be true. 

 And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

This is what it truly means that God is with us and this is certainly the substance that was foreshadowed to us in Genesis.  

Conclusion

You know I can’t close without giving us some form of application so let’s consider three points quickly.  First, this text should be a great comfort to us that God is always with us.  This means that you are never alone, never hung out to dry, never lost or forsaken, never without a help in time of need or comfort in time of sorrow.  “Oh but I can’t see him or I don’t hear him.” Far be it from us to think differently than what he promises to us and reveals to us in his word.  He says he is there always and will never leave you, take comfort in this.  If you have trouble discerning his presence then I assure you the issue is not with God.  One only needs to,

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

For who would ever ask to receive comfort from their father and not find it.  If a son asks for bread does his father give him a stone? He is there, I think the problem is that we don’t ask, seek, and knock. 

Secondly, the text compels us to live assured that he has prepared a place for us.  Again the foreshadowing is clear, Christ has gone ahead of us and has made a place ready for us to receive.  He did not leave Jacob to fend for himself in Egypt, right? He is waiting for you to arrive and will see to it that your passage is safe.  It won’t be full when you get there and he won’t run out of space.  Don’t worry! If you are in Christ, there is a place for you in glory. 

Finally, the text calls us to be confident that our salvation is assured.  He orchestrated everything to preserve his people in Egypt during the famine, right? There was no chance that the people of God were ever going to starve to death in Canaan or in Egypt.  That was never on the table and God made sure that all the pieces fell into place.  Are you a child of God? Why then would you ever think that your soul perishing is ever a possibility? Does he lose any of his own? Certainly not, and he will not lose you.  Everything has been orchestrated. As sure as it was that God coming to earth in flesh was going to accomplish its purpose it is equally sure that God will not lose a single soul that he saved.  This is why the apostle Paul can say,

 6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Dear Christian, God is with you, he has saved you, and he is surely waiting to meet you in glory.  Amen.