Lasting Provision 1

We are coming to the end of this week’s study, where we have been receiving more and more each day. I am sure you’ll agree with me that you never saw such likeness to Jesus and Joseph in this well-known story of Joseph. Having been brought to deep, undeniable truths about Jesus, His Ever Living Presence and His Ever Loving Pardon, as we studied Joseph, we move on with alacrity to the final fact.

We do not take anything for granted and hasten to seek the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth and to grant us teachable spirits. We come with sincere hearts and minds, asking that the facts which have been revealed of Jesus and all that will continue to be revealed to us, will find full place in us. We want to live all that Jesus, our Brother, has given to us.

Brother Jesus, make us ever grateful and ever thankful, receiving all that You so lavishly pour out upon us. Amen!

We move on, from Living Presence and Loving Pardon, to Lasting Provision in the Name of Jesus.

The third fact is Lasting Provision. There is Lasting Provision in the Name of Jesus. This is what we heard in Genesis 45: 7 and 9b – 11.  And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not tarry. You shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you will be near to me, you and your children, your children’s children, your flocks and your herds, and all that you have. There I will provide for you, lest you and your household, and all that you have, come to poverty; for there are still five years of famine.

Straightaway, we are hearing Joseph’s joy and pleasure to draw his entire household to him, as their saviour, deliverer and provider. Joseph is speaking after his God. Listen to Joseph, in what I call one of the most awesomely divine, fulfilling moments in his life, if not the most. He presents himself to his family, under God, as their: -

Preserver – God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you.

It is all God’s planning and doing, nothing of Joseph’s doing. In other words, when his brothers sold him to those traders who were on their way to Egypt, God had already planned it to be the way by which Joseph would get to Egypt, ahead of his family, to preserve the generations to come. Joseph makes it clear that God is not just using him for his present generation, but for all generations to come. Do you hear it, deep in the recesses of your heart and mind? Almighty Sovereign God, sent Joseph before his family, so that he could provide for them in the present and in the future. God has used Joseph, to ensure that his people will be blessed. God blesses, not just one, but many. He does not make a promise for the present immediate family, but it includes those to come.

Do we not see it clearly with Abram? This is what God promised him. On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates. Genesis 15: 18. Do you see yourself as included in this promise to Abram? If we are his offspring by faith, then, in Jesus, who was in this world before us, God has preserved a posterity for us. This is what Jesus said about Himself. Most assuredly, I say to you, Before Abraham was, I AM. John 8: 58b.

What faith! What hope! What assurance!

We conclude tomorrow.