who you have had difficulties and problems. Maybe you've come here this morning not expecting to meet Christ. These men didn't expect him to meet Joseph. They were coming to the rule of Egypt. He talked to them through an interpreter and ordered them out and brought them in and he accused them of one thing after another to break them down, to make them admit that they had actually sinned in selling Joseph. That was the same thing that he wants to admit. They had received their father. Then an animal took him. A wild animal killed him. Now, when I was a boy and knew everything, I used to be very aggravated and annoyed at Wiltshire. And my reasoning was, if he was going to bless them, why did he hide the money in the march of his back to make them come back and hop on and tag him with them? Why did he hide his golden cup the next trip down in the month of the sack of corn and bring them back and tag them with him again and say, all right, bring your brother. Bring your younger brother. That was when the money was going to be. Then when Benjamin came up, he was his small brother. When Benjamin came up, he put his golden cup, put in Benjamin's back, transferred and passed with him, brought them back and said, Benjamin had to stay here at this place. He's stolen my cup. Why did he do this? If he was going to give them corn, why would he just give them the corn and let it be at that? Later on, when I didn't know so much, I got to the point where I could see that God had far greater blessing for them than merely giving his own. He wanted to break down their stubborn will to the point where they would know Joseph, recognize him, accept him as Lord, and give up their own country and come and live under his rule and authority in the land of Egypt. He had far greater things for them than ever I imagined, than ever they imagined. or anybody else. Now, you may think that this morning you came here by accident. You didn't. Any more than I came here by accident. I was just invited here by a letter, and I'm sure if I hadn't been able to come, they could have got lots of other people as good and much better than I. But it so happens that God brought me here this morning. And it so happens that in his own mysterious way, he has brought you and me and you and you here this morning too. And our child of God, And you who are trying to live your life without Christ, God is bringing you again into a personal confrontation with this Christ that is, once humiliated to the place of a slave and put in the darkness of death in the dungeon, and forgotten of us. They sealed the tomb and said, That, that. But you know that wasn't that. Death could not keep its prey. Jesus, my Savior. He tore the bars away. Jesus, my Lord. Up from the grave, he arose of a mighty time for his foe. He arose a vicar from the dark, the maid, and after the decision. And he lived forever with a sanctuary. He wants to bring other people into that room with him. And so they had the faith jolted, whether they wanted to or not. And so they did. We're not asking you to accept our religion. We don't have a religion. You're not asking you what your religion is, or even whether you have one. You don't care. It's not of much interest to us what particular religion you profess, or whether indeed you profess any. But we are deeply concerned about your personal relationship with Jesus Christ, because that will decide your eternal destiny. And that is why it's so important. after the invitation of a friend, perhaps because you always come on a Sunday morning, but don't think very much about it. Perhaps because you just wandered in? I don't know. But whoever you are, you're welcomed. A thousand welcomes to you. But this message is for you, first of all. They're standing in the presence of nobody, but they don't recognize you. And you know, we have to have our eyes opened by God before we can really recognize Jesus Christ as Lord. While we were yet sinners, we were damned, trespasses, and sins. We didn't recognize any beauty in Christ, how that earthly faith was a story of our attitude. For many it should be him. There was no beauty in him that we should be tired of him. We didn't recognize the duties. Now we should spend a week together, and we countenance the duties and glory as excellencies of Christ, could it, as believers. We would rejoice in it, and revel in it. We can sing about it, we can talk about it, we can listen to messages about it, we can read books about it, and we never tire of it. But once it was appraised into nuisance to us, we couldn't stand it. We didn't want to know him. And that was the way they were. He broke them down until finally Judah said, at the end of chapter forty-four, Oh, my Lord, as soon as he heard the fending this road happen to say, Oh, my Lord, let not my Lord be angry with his servants. Oh, my Lord, and he's on his knees before Joseph. That's what? He said he would never die. He is. You see, he is lying to you. Oh, my God. That's the first step of your life. A total change of mind about self and about Christ. You are the Lord. We are the servants. We thought that we were the Lord, the masters of our own destiny, and that we can whistle on you whenever we want it, and put you in a pit if we want it to. We got away with it. Oh, my Lord, don't be angry with your servants. They said, you are a saint. You have the power of life and death. So he said, we can't baptize Benjamin. This is what he wanted to hear. Were they changed, or would they sacrifice Benjamin for their own sins the way they had sacrificed him twenty years earlier? Was there a change required? Was there repentance? Did they, are they ready to admit that they have done that dastardly deed? Yes, they are. Judah speaks for them all. And there's one garden in the Old Testament that says, Hear, O Lord, the voice of Judah. Judah is the tribe of the king. And as Judah speaks for the lot, he said, My Lord, ask his servants. Have you a brother? Long ago they had muttered one to another in the presence of Joseph. They thought he couldn't hear Hebrew, but of course it could. And they muttered one to another when they saw this judgment descending on them. You know, God is punishing us for what we did to the last Joseph. We remember he's crying in the pit with thirst, and we wouldn't even give him water. God is judging us for our sins. Oh, yes, we're all coming back. All coming back. They're sins. Now, Judith says, we cannot sacrifice this sentence. How could I go back to my father? and say, Benjamin's lost too. It happened once over our other brothers, if you wouldn't have been right. But it happened once, if I've had other brothers, and we saw our father's tears. I couldn't live with my father's tears again. How did you live with them before? Oh, well, you're thinking differently now. How can I go up when the lad be not with me? How could I see my father's gray hair being brought to the grave in sorrow? No way. I will remain a slave. I will accept the eternal blame, he says. All the blame exists beyond me. That's repentance. And maybe a little more of it. Because I do not believe that there's ever genuine conversion without, first of all, genuine conviction about sin. And genuine conviction about sin brings genuine repentance, a total change of heart and mind. And from conviction flows repentance and from repentance we come on our knees to Christ. We need more of that these days. We've got too much of the easy, quicky, conversion thing. Just close your eyes while we come from him or other and let Jesus into your life. Give me a verse that says that. We need that. Repent. Save yourself from the untoward generation. We preach repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The Spirit, when he has come, he will convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. We need a little more conviction. We need a lot more repentance, and then perhaps we need a more genuine conversion. Their hearts are broken. The barriers are done. I will accept the blame, says Judah. I will stay a perpetual slave. as I always do. Then, that word is very important, then Joseph could not refrain himself. What does that then mean? It's like a pistol shot, isn't it? He has refrained himself for several years while they went back and forth. Why? Because there was no repentance. The Barniers were on their part. But as soon as they are on their knees in repentance, then Joseph could not. He doesn't say he didn't. He says he didn't. As soon as the sinner is on his knees before God, or her knees before God, in repentance, the barriers are down, and the ocean of the love and grace and mercy and compassion of God flows out over the building. My friends, the only thing that is keeping you from all the blessings that God has for you is your own stubborn refusal. The one who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. The broken heart, the contrite heart, God will not refuse. In the come unto me, I will in no wise cast out the barriers of the dead, and the barriers are in your part, not in God. God has been reconciled in Christ as a sacrifice. He calls on you, be ye reconciled to God. If God is satisfied with Christ, you are apparently not that failure. Now there are seven new things, and I have got, I think, nine minutes to touch on the seven things, and I think these might be helpful to newer Christians, and also to spread out the blessings of this whole thing before you, so I must do it very quickly. Seven new things creep into their lives at this marvelous moment. In verse one, Joseph could not restrain himself before all them that stood by him. He cried, Cause every man should go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. A new revelation. A new revelation. At last they understand who this is in the speaking series. It's a marvelous, marvelous moment when a sinner totally lost and undone gets done before God. And for the first time by faith, see, Christ reveals to him as a savior of sin. It's a marvelous revelation. There was a wicked sea captain sailed out from England whose name was John Newton, a blaspheming wretch That's what he calls himself. I'm not trying to throw stones at him. That's what he says he was. And he was not a slave trader, by the way. By the way, he was a captain of a slave transport ship, a wicked, evil man. And he writes to him, he got saved, and he writes to him, or wrote to him, one of the bus three hundred that he wrote, in company with the great English poet William Cooper. You may call him Kuiper, if you like, but you'll be sorry for the meeting in heaven someday if you mispronounce his name. In cooperation with this William Cooper, he wrote about three hundred gorgeous kings, and one of them was the story of his conversion, which he said, and even long I took delight on all thy shame of thee. And a new object left my sight and stopped my material. I saw one hanging on a tree in agony for his life. He fixed his languid eyes on me as near his cross on shore. There are many other verses, but he finally comes to say, a second look he gave, which says, I said, I freely all forgive. This blood is for thy luncheon's death. I died in the final spirit. John Newton became a transformed man. By that revelation of Jesus Christ, we were sinful souls. And he says, Sure, never to my dang day can I forget that look. No wonder, Paul saw Christ in the glory that transformed his life. Each one of us has seen it not with these eyes, not in some sort of a magic vision. but we think in the truth. Finally, it was revealed to us, and it's through the God, that this one is my Savior. My Savior. And on that moment, the barrier is down to the beginning of a flood of blessings which serve in the soul. He says, My sins, all the blessings, all the blessings, not in part, but the whole of nails in his cross. And I bear it no more, praise the Lord. revelation, a new revelation. Christ fills the whole horizon. Christ fills the whole vision and view of the heart, the soul, the mind, and everything else. Now, come down to verse four, verse five, if you will. Now, therefore, be not dreamed or angry with the shell, because it sold me hither. God did sent me before you to preserve light. Look at verse eight. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God. God was working out a plan behind the scenes, and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh and Lord of all his sons and rulers throughout all the land of Egypt. Take you. Go up to my father and say to him, thy son Joseph, thus death thy son Joseph. God hath made me Lord of all Egypt. That's because of a new relationship. This is one particular thing that many people are stiff fuzzy these days, and they speak of accepting Jesus. Now, I don't want to quibble over words, but I want to try to drive home a doctrinal truth which is embedded in the Holy Scriptures in the New Testament. Put your hand on the hand of the man of Galilee. The Bible no more says that. You are not believing on the humble prophet of Galilee. You are believing on a crucified Christ who is now exalted higher than the heavens, with a name that is above every name. And you do not accept him as a humble Nazarene. You accept him as the exalted Lord of everything and everyone in all times, in all places. These men did not say, Oh, Joseph. Nice to see you, bro. How are you? We've missed it these twenty years. Oh, no. They died down before him, and he said, you go and tell my father, God has made me Lord of Pharaoh's house and king of all ages. They had to accept Joseph not as he was, but as he now is. This is why I believe that it is a theological mistake with very deep undertones to say, I accepted Jesus as a coach of my life. No, you didn't. If you accepted him, you accepted him as Lord and Christ. Some people talk about accepting him as Messiah. And they say, we're just fulfilled or completed Jews. I'm sure they think more deeply than this. But I do not believe that Christ is offered to us in the New Testament to be accepted as Messiah. He came as Messiah and was rejected. Now he must be accepted as the risen Savior, who is the head of the church. Messiah will come later on. And if I were to do, if I am not, my wife is partly, But no Jew today is saved nearly as a Jew any more than I am saved as an Irishman. Or you may be as an Indian or a Polish person, Chinese, whatever you happen to be. That's not what this thing does. You're saved as a sinner, just as you are. And you rise to the Sovereign Lord, and there is a new relationship. He is not my Messiah. He is my Savior, and He is head of the body. To me. He is Lord. If I shall confess with my mouth Jesus as Lord. And I ran into him back as Messiah. We'll be coming back with him. And we'll be ruling with him. I'm a firm believer in messianic truth. But let's get our terms sorted out. They accepted him as he was at the new relationship. He's not little Joe that they knew once back at home. He is the Lord of all evil. He has the keys of all the warehouses at his belt. The keys of death. And of life. If he opens, men live. If he closes, men die. His lives are in their hands. Fontaine's Lord. And they do not accept him as little Joseph, the brother, the coach, the kid, the neighbor down the street. He's not so sort of a super spiritual psychiatrist who will get our marriages back on the track. Now he'll do that too, but that's not why we come. We come to him acknowledging him as Lord. Very quickly, verse ten. And thou shalt dwell. in the land of Goshen. You're getting a new country, and I got that, too. I told you already that I was an Irishman. I'm not proud of that, because I had nothing to do with it. I'm very glad of it, though, because it's quite distant. But you see, in Christ, there's neither Jew nor Greek barbarian simply in bondage. We have a new citizenship, truly our citizenship. We're not looking for Washington for a savior. If you are, you're going to be disappointed. We're not looking for Ottawa or to London, to Peking, Moscow, or Berlin, or wherever they are, born after those. We're not looking for any of these places for a savior because there won't be any savior come either. We're looking for a savior from heaven. Our eyes are fixed there. We are citizens of our own countries, and we give Jesus what belongs to a savior. We give to God the things that are God. And so he sings, I am a stranger here within a foreign land. My home is far away on a golden strand. And that with her to be, to realms beyond the sea, I am here on business in my field. We live in a new land. He has taken us out of the country in spirit where we once were. Our home and heritage is above. We are seated in the heavens in front of Jesus. They got a new country, a new citizenship. verse, the end of that verse, and thou shalt be near unto me. Thou and thy children, thy children's children. Near unto me, that's when you transition, you say, oh, now just a minute you're splitting hair, after all that they came up to motion, that would mean near unto him. Not necessarily. Not necessarily. He not only wanted them in his country under his rules, but he wanted them to be near to him, physically and spiritually, emotionally, in every other way. But I wanted to be near him. And that means it's very breezy and sinful and oppression. Sometimes some person who has been brought up in very humble circumstances, maybe a truck driver from Kentucky or something like that, and suddenly he becomes a world figure because he sang a song or did something or other, and he ends up in the movie to get to Hollywood and he where he tries the gold-plated Cadillac, a big mansion up on the hills and millions in the banks, and suddenly he remembers old Paranma back in Kentucky. And so he builds them a great height, and he brings them up. And they think this is great, because he moves in the high society of Beverly Hills or wherever, and they're going to come up and enjoy this. But he very soon makes it clear, and I know some time and life, and giving a high, and as a servant, I've given you so many million dollars, I want you here near, if you ever need me to pick up the phone, I'd be glad to do. The other thing I can, you're having a single one in the butt, and here's the grave, and I can do nothing about the words beyond that. But in the meantime, you know, I'd like you to get the point of, I move in a distance of five and a half. Just don't get too closely. I'll give you all the money, but I don't know, I have my friend who you didn't sit in very well, so I tell my mother how to eat very well, and they still have got the access, the advice, and they would be an embarrassment to him. In other words, in very bluntly what she's saying, don't get in my hair. You know, I'll help you. I'll give you everything. But your life will be yours. Mine will be mine. He won't get too close. It would be an embarrassment to you. The Lord Jesus Christ has brought us into this new country that he says, I want you to be near to me for me. He's not ashamed to call us that way. He brings us into his banqueting house. He doesn't say, put us in by the back door. And he says, sit and have a real sleep. No, he brought me into his banqueting house with his banner flying over me. as his bride. He loved me. He loved to say, this is my bride. And Christ is not ashamed of us. We're part and part and part and being. And so he said, I want you near to me. I hope you're all near to him today. That's where he wants you. That's a new nearness, a new position. Verse eleven, there I will nourish thee. That's a new diet. You're not going to eat the things you were eating before. I'm going to supply your diet from here on in. I don't know. I imagine it would be a very much better diet than the one they were on in Hammond Street in Judah, or Benjamin or whatever. It wasn't divided up among the tribes yet. But it would be a new diet, and I'm sure it would be a very good one. I remember a colleague of mine of years gone past, James Pink, an Englishman who's ministered here in North America mostly. As a matter of fact, I think he became a United States citizen. He was rather courtly, to put it gently. And I heard him once ministering at the Holy Book at the conference he was talking about the diet of heaven. You remember the trees, the river of light in the book of Revelation? On either side of the river, there were twelve trees bearing their fruits in their seed. The nations would eat of the fruit of those trees. And he remarked, We are going to live forever and ever on the fruit of the tree of life. And on that fruit diet, I shall at last be called Slim Jim. The diet of heaven, seriously, is not the food of the old person. Young Christians, you will never sustain the new life you have with the old style. Get off the garbage. Get off the spiritual junk food. Do not be ashamed. the things that come over the tube or the radio or the magazines or the news or even your classical books or whatever. They may help you to get a degree or whatever to be able to learn a better living that fine. They will never build you up spiritually because they won't capture you. Some of them may indeed be bad enough that they would hinder you and keep you from this book and keep you from the smooth attachment. If you're going to grow, you're going to have to eat smooth food. As newborn babe says Peter, earnestly desire the genuine milk of the womb. You will have to get down to the scriptures. Christ in those scriptures. There was a new diet for them. Verse twelve toward the end of the verse, the last clause. Your eyes see in the eyes of my brother Benjamin that it is my mouth that speaketh with thee. That's a rather odd sentence. It seems all wrong, of course. Your eyes see that it is my mouth that's speaking with thee. Why didn't he say, your ears hear. After all, you don't listen with your eyes. Funny the saying was, up to now I have spoken to you through an interpreter. But now you are in the place of nearness. There will be no more interpreter. You and I can communicate. So you can see there's nothing to see. I am speaking now directly to you. You have anointing from the Holy One. You are anointed by the Spirit of God, and you need not at any moment should reach you. Now you can hear Ministry for God's servant to be blessed by it. You can buy books and enjoy the exposition of the scriptures in those books. But you do not need some priestly cult between you and God. You can go to the Holy Spirit with those things. And you can see them. And he will speak directly to you, not merely through the Holy Spirit. And then finally a new occupation. You shall go and tell my Father of all my blood. and tell them to condemn as strictly as you possibly can. That was a new occupation. A new revelation, a new relationship, a new country and citizenship, a new position of nearness, a new diet, a new communication, direct from him to you, and a new occupation, what it is, telling out his glory. If you want sinners to believe, if you want to interest people in God's Don't bother putting too much emphasis on your own experience. It might build bridges. It might interest him and let them open up their ears to you, but that will never save you. Telling about yourself will never save you. Faith comes by hearing and hearing what he is about. Tell him about Christ. Go and tell my father of all known glory. He's telling like I said, God, you know what? Just as a lie. I don't believe in him. Well, he is. He saw the servant. He saw his own. He saw his favor. He talked to him. He gave us more corn. He said, I don't need it. I said, it was too long. He's been dead these many years. Well, they said, come outside and see a wagon. And they took them outside and there were the wagons with a track of Egypt on the front of the wagon to the interior of the wagon. And when he saw it, it says, depart this cross. Here were his words. Joseph, my son, is alive. He's not a dead figure. Joseph, my son is alive. this new land, this new revelation, this new relationship, this new diet, this new country, this new occupation, this new communication, all of it. Telling others of the glory of God, because you know that he's got a wife in a strange country, he's got two sons, all of the glory of God. May God bless his name to you, and may he help you to take it away. Shall we pray? O God, our Father, by before thee now, we can only pray that thou wilt bless thy known ways. touch-heartedly of it. Bring him near to the Lord Jesus. Bring repentance, conviction of sin and repentance into all our hearts, and lead us again to the Lord Jesus, in all his glory. Not a Christ languishing on a cross, but one who was on the cross and then on the tomb and was now exalted higher than the heavens, given to be both Lord and Christ, given the name that is above every name. And granted today some sinner or sinners might come to his sleep and take him as Lord and Savior as and sing as we never sang before. Lord Jesus, I love you. I know thou art mine. For we all, the pleasure to sing unto God. Blessed, I really pray, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Thank you for your question. Take your book and turn to number two hundred and seventy-three. Christ is the Savior of sinners. Christ is the Savior for me. And after we sing, we'll just sing the first and the fourth verses here. And after we sing this, Brother Dan, will you give thanks for the food? We'll give thanks together up here. I don't know if they're ready. downstairs. You may just want to visit a little bit up here and then we'll give you the word to come down. This shouldn't be but just a minute. Verses one and four. Christ is the Savior of sinners. Christ is the Savior for me. Long I was dreaming to darkness. Now by his grace I am free. Savior of sinners, Savior of sinners like me. Shedding his blood for my ransom, Christ is the Savior for me. And shall the glory be done me? Then his own face I shall see. Sing, oh, my soul in my clashes. This is the Savior for me. Savior of sinners, sinners like me, Getting his blood for my ransom, Christ is the Savior for me.