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[0:00] How long have they been, at this point, how long have they been in Egypt?! 17 years, how do you know?

[0:16] Verse 28 of chapter 47, right. So, we know that they've been there 17 years. So, how long has the famine been over?

[0:30] 12 years. The famine, they came in when there were still five years left of the famine.

[0:42] They're still there. We are not told by God why. We're not told why they didn't go back, and they're not going to go back for a long time, as far as leaving Egypt.

[1:00] And we're not told why. At this point, though, we do know that they are prospering in the land of Goshen.

[1:17] In the land of Goshen. So, starting with verse 1. We didn't?

[1:30] What did I leave out? Okay.

[1:41] Well, I thought we had. I wrote it down that we did. But, Jacob has asked Joseph and his son, and Jacob's sons, the rest of his family, what are they to do with his body when he does die?

[2:00] Yeah. Yeah. He said, don't bury me here. Bury me where? Right.

[2:12] Which is in the cave of, I don't know how to pronounce that, but I call it Machpelah. It's where Abraham bought from the sons of Heth.

[2:28] Okay? Now, we begin with, it came to pass after these things. After what things? Well, yeah, everything that went before.

[2:49] No, not yet. Yeah, and after they're all settled, and after Joseph has purchased all the land, all the livestock, and all the people for Pharaoh.

[3:14] And he moved, he moved the people. He instituted the first industrial agriculture. You notice he moved the people off the land and into cities.

[3:31] It is. It is. But now they do the farming for whom?

[3:45] Mostly for Pharaoh. Or a fifth for Pharaoh. And 80% for themselves. Okay. Now, it's after those things.

[3:57] What came to pass? Okay.

[4:10] Joseph's still a high official in Egypt. He's still number two in Egypt. He's running the country. So, he gets word that your father is sick.

[4:26] So, what does he do? Okay. What are their names? Manasseh? Manasseh and Ephraim.

[4:39] Okay. So, he takes them to see their grandfather. Someone tells Jacob, then, that Joseph is there.

[5:01] Right? What verse was that? Is that in verse two? Okay. So, it was told to Jacob, your son Joseph has come.

[5:16] So, what does Israel do? He rallies his...

[5:29] He steals himself or rallies his strength and sits up. And he has some information for Joseph.

[5:40] What did he tell him? What did he tell Joseph? Okay.

[5:52] What else? What else? Well, that'll be coming.

[6:03] But he said... He will get a blessing and they'll have the land that was promised to Abraham and to Isaac and to him.

[6:16] What else did he say? I'm sorry? Okay. At... Where does he say?

[6:29] In Luz. We would refer to it normally as what name now? Bethel. That's where God appeared to Jacob.

[6:42] What happened there? We are climbing... Okay. There. That's where God appeared to him.

[6:53] Right? So, he had set up the stone and anointed the stone with oil as a memorial to what God had done and said to him.

[7:07] Now, he calls him... This will come up later in your readings.

[7:20] But he calls him God Almighty. Now, is that true or not? That's true. That's not the only time God has said, I am God Almighty.

[7:33] It has to do with his omnipotence. So, what is he incapable of accomplishing?

[7:49] Well, what does God say he can't do? He cannot lie. What else does he say he can't do? He cannot deny himself.

[8:05] What does that mean? We... We... I flip it off my tongue easily, but what does it mean?

[8:16] It's pretty important because Romans chapter 1 explains why every man is accountable. So, I am that I am.

[8:33] I am the self-existent one. I'm eternal. And... What God says specifically is he cannot deny himself.

[8:46] That means he cannot pretend that he's not God. I am the Lord. There is none other. I share my glory with no one.

[9:02] He does not share his glory with any other being. So, when... If we get in our time capsule, as it were, our time machine, and we go forward, and he gives the law, Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one.

[9:24] And you shall love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. Then he's going to say, You shall not make any graven image because I don't like images.

[9:38] No. He says, You will not make anything that represents me. You won't make anything that you can see that represents me.

[9:52] They... He demanded that they make cherubim on the ark, remember? However, he demanded... He showed them, or he showed Moses, the pattern that he was to do all the tops, if you were, the finish work on the post that held the tabernacle tents.

[10:16] Those were all engraved. They engraved many things, and that was fine. God told them to. But what he said is, You will not make any graven image and bow down to it.

[10:30] You won't make anything that represents God. You shall have no other God before me. Yes. Yes. Well, if you're talking about putting a face on Jesus, He is God, but He did have a face.

[11:14] He did become man in the flesh. That is... That is one of the great mysteries. Okay, I'm not gonna...

[11:35] I don't want any answers. How many of you do have or have had a picture of Christ kneeling at the rock?

[11:45] How many of you have had or been in a house that has had a picture of Jesus knocking at the door?

[11:56] I didn't want to know. No. Right. Right.

[12:17] That is not what God was talking about at the law. I... Yeah. Yeah. Well, the...

[12:32] Yeah. And that's an image. The... Did Jesus become... We're gonna take this side trip just a moment. Did Jesus become a man?

[12:44] Yes or no? Okay. Did people actually see His face? In fact, in 1 John, He's gonna say, What we saw, what we touched, we proclaim to you.

[13:01] In fact, Jesus, after His resurrection, and here is where I differ with the crucifix. They still have Him on the cross. It is in memory of what He's done.

[13:13] I don't want to get overly worked over. But the cross is empty now. The only thing on the cross is my sin. The only thing on the cross is the law that is nailed there.

[13:27] Taken out of the way and nailed to the cross, Paul tells us. That would be my thing. I'm not worried about people putting images on Jesus Christ.

[13:41] What I worry about is most of the paintings have a very effeminate Jesus, and I don't like that because that's not the biblical description.

[13:55] He was the lamb, but he's also the lion. And, incidentally, this has nothing to do with the lesson.

[14:07] David Ben-Gurion said, I know that in the last days the lion will lie down with the lamb, but even then I would rather be the lion.

[14:26] Anyway, that has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion. Yes? Yes? Yes. No, the name's interchangeable at this point.

[14:42] The name is interchangeable. Right. It will represent the nation that's not yet formed and not yet called out, but that's another image.

[14:57] So, I don't see it. Do you see a reason? I don't either.

[15:09] God changed Jacob's name at Bethel and said, you are Israel. The wrestling.

[15:21] So, prince of God or strong with God, mighty with God. Yeah. Yeah.

[15:36] Well, the first Jew as far as as far as what we will see as Jews later.

[15:49] Now, Abraham was called the Hebrew and if you use those names, that's where you get into be careful when it was given.

[16:02] But, right, because the nation is promised to whom first. Abraham.

[16:13] To whom next. And to whom next. Okay. Now, from here on, he's going to say God promised this.

[16:28] So, yes. Because his name was changed to Israel. Now, back to the image of God.

[16:45] Or, back to God Almighty. He cannot deny himself. That's why in Romans it says that he has made himself plain.

[16:56] His nature, that is, his eternal nature. And his holiness, he has to be outside. He can't create himself. He didn't create himself and nothing created him.

[17:11] God is God and there is no other. And he says that regularly. And he says, I will not share my glory. Because he cannot deny himself.

[17:24] This is the simplicity of God. It doesn't mean that God can be understood. It simply means that God is exactly in his person what he is in his nature.

[17:38] There's no difference. I wish I was that plain. But I'm not, am I? What I, even what I desire isn't going to be.

[17:52] Now, God is almighty and omnipotent or interchangeable words, and omniscient. So, what does he know?

[18:07] Everything. How well does he know it? Fully, perfectly. What does he not know?

[18:18] there isn't anything. What is there hidden from God? Well, there is one verse that tells us, well, there's more than one, but one in particular.

[18:41] He says, we are created and salvation is his plan. to display his glory and his wisdom to the angels.

[18:56] And that includes the fallen angels. This is the amazing thing about grace, isn't it? Not only that we're saved and we can approach a God like this, who created and sustains the universe, but that he has saved us so that he can lead us as it were a procession before angelic beings and say, see what I've done.

[19:30] It's for his glory. The earth, the heavens, everything from the macro to the micro and all in between is made by whom?

[19:51] It's made by whom? God.

[20:02] It's sustained by whom? Okay, these are verses, I did not write them down because I wasn't planning this, but these are verses that you will read or have read many times in your scripture.

[20:16] So, he says, I can do anything and I accomplish what I will to do. Now, how that works in my mind is beyond me.

[20:31] But, we know the apostle Paul will say, look, who's known the mind of the Lord? Who has ever been his counselor? Who's ever given to God that God should repay him?

[20:43] Those are all rhetorical questions, are they not? Job had a legitimate question, didn't he? Now, this time, Chris, don't answer.

[21:02] Who has ever thought, why this, Lord? And that was Job's question. Job's question originally, and all throughout the book of Job, was, I don't understand why this is happening.

[21:22] I have done everything I know to do to be righteous before God. I understand that he's my maker. In fact, he is going to say, Job is going to say, I know that my redeemer lives, and that on the earth he shall stand, and in my flesh I shall see God.

[21:48] Now, that's prophetic, God gave him that, but Job never lost his faith in God, he just didn't understand why it's going on and he wanted to know.

[22:03] And when God told him why it happened, what did God tell him? That's right, the silence is correct, God never told him what happened. In Job, we never get that answer.

[22:16] Now, we kind of read it in in the beginning that God in his discourse with the angelic beings when he called all the angels to himself and Satan had to appear, that God said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job?

[22:34] There's none like him in the earth, and so on. But that's me reading into it. He never really answers Job's question. He says to Job, where were you when I created?

[22:51] That's why he will tell the children of Israel when they go to the mountain, he will say, look, the secret things belong to God, the things that are revealed belong to you and your children forever.

[23:07] That is, the things that God hasn't revealed to us are not to be revealed to me. But the things he has revealed I'm responsible for.

[23:20] So, that's a long way around. So, God is omnipotent. So, when here Jacob will say, God Almighty blessed me at Bethel, it's accurate.

[23:37] This is the name that God gave to Abraham, this is the name that God gave to Isaac, and this is the name that God gave to Jacob. It won't be till much later that he delivers Jehovah to them as his name.

[23:53] But that's much later than this. Okay. Back. Back to, so, yes. Joseph brings his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, Jacob sits up and he tells him these things.

[24:15] Now, by the way, in chapter 12, God called Abraham and made this same promise, unto thee, I will make of you a multitude of people, give you this land for an everlasting possession.

[24:29] That was given to Abraham in chapter 12 the first time. It was given to Isaac in chapter 26. It was given to Jacob in chapter 28. Now, we're by verse 5 now in 48.

[24:43] Jacob now tells Joseph what? And this has to do with the land. It's kind of interesting, isn't it?

[24:59] What does he say? What does he say? Okay. Which two sons? Yeah. Your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, they were born here, but that, what does he say about them?

[25:19] They're mine. And then he goes on to say, and any others that come after, they're going to be yours.

[25:39] So, what is he doing? He is adopting Joseph's two sons. Well, yeah.

[26:01] Now, the division of the land has not yet been revealed. So, how many tribes will get an inheritance in Canaan?

[26:13] There will be ten tribes that get an inheritance and two half-tribes get an inheritance.

[26:33] There will be one tribe that gets no inheritance of land. But we're jumping ahead. we'll back up. In fact, it's, well, never mind.

[26:48] I'm jumping ahead. So, any issue that comes out of you after that, those are going to be yours. Now, verse 7, he reiterates, as for me, I buried Rachel where?

[27:07] Yeah. Yeah. Near Bethlehem. Okay? Now, Jacob says, he notices the two boys and he says, hey, who are these?

[27:25] And I don't know that this is absolutely chronological. And, and Joseph tells him these are Ephraim and Manasseh.

[27:36] and Israel then says to do what? Bring them to me and what?

[27:48] I'm going to bless them. I'm going to give them a blessing. So, now, Joseph is sitting down.

[28:00] his right hand is going to be the one that gets the best blessing. His left hand gets a blessing, but the lesser blessing.

[28:13] So, Joseph, who's the oldest? Manasseh. He puts Manasseh here, and he puts Ephraim here, and he pushes them to Israel.

[28:31] And what does Israel do? Now, now, wait a minute.

[28:47] Wait a minute. What's going on? We've seen this with Esau. We've seen it here. It's not the same thing, by the way, but we see it here.

[29:02] We saw it with Isaac and Ishmael. So, he crosses his hands, and he blesses them.

[29:16] What is, now, did Israel know what he was doing? How do you know that?

[29:30] Well, his eyesight was bad, so maybe he didn't know. So, was it an accident? Well, and the verse says he guided his hands what?

[29:46] How? How? Okay, you're before then. Verse 14.

[30:03] What is verse? Someone read verse 14 aloud. Oh, so it wasn't an accident.

[30:27] He did know what he was doing. Oh, yours doesn't say that? That part's left out? It consciously directing his hands.

[30:41] Yes. Yeah, because if you read it, it says that Joseph drew Manasseh toward the right hand.

[30:58] Manasseh was on Joseph's left. No, Manasseh was the older. So, he intended him to do this, but he did this.

[31:11] Okay, so that's what the scripture says. Now, what does Jacob then, you've already said it a couple of times, Joseph, what was Joseph's reaction to this?

[31:28] Right, so, so Joseph tried to move his dad's hands.

[31:40] No, no, no, you've got it wrong, dad. Now, in that blessing, back up in verses 15 and 16, the blessing he gave to the boys, he says something else again about God.

[31:58] the angel, he calls him the angel, verse 16, what's he say?

[32:18] Yes, the angel that has delivered me from all harm and fed me all the way.

[32:32] The angel that has delivered me. Now, if you go back, by the way, to that occurrence in chapter 28, God through the theophany says, I will keep you wherever you go and nothing evil will befall you until I have accomplished all that I intend to do with you.

[33:02] and that's what he's referring to, has kept me from, he hadn't forgotten who it is that's helping him.

[33:17] Incidentally, I need to remind myself, don't I? Because it's easy for me to forget who it is that is really blessing me.

[33:32] Especially when things are going smoothly. I sometimes forget who it is. Who's, when do I need the Lord?

[33:43] When I'm in trouble? Always. Always. In spite of what I may say, well, he's always there when you need him.

[33:59] He's always there whether you think you need him or not. Who needs him? Everyone needs him.

[34:10] Who thinks they need him? Very few. Comparatively. Okay.

[34:23] So, what does Israel reply to Joseph? Because Joseph has told him, look, this one's the oldest and your right hand's on the wrong kid.

[34:39] Well, rough paraphrase. I know it. What? However, what?

[34:58] Yeah. He'll also be great. However, his younger brother's going to be greater. He's not saying one of them's cursed and one of them's blessed.

[35:12] He's just saying it's not going to be equitable. Now, he obviously hasn't been listening to modern people. There's no equal outcome here.

[35:27] Here. Now, Israel then makes an interesting statement to Joseph.

[35:43] What is it? Well, look at verses 21, 22.

[36:04] See, he looks at Joseph and he talks future stuff.

[36:24] Joseph's not going to walk out of Egypt, by the way. Spoiler alert. His body is going to get carried out. But, what does Jacob say to him?

[36:38] You are going to go where? Yeah. God's going to bring you back to Canaan, the land of your fathers.

[36:55] Moreover, what? I have given you an extra portion, Ephraim, Manasseh.

[37:08] I've given you an extra portion above your brethren that I have taken from the Amorites with my bow and my sword.

[37:21] Now, we were not told this part, were we? So, we don't really know about what he's referring.

[37:33] I don't think it's probably, I don't think that it's where Levi and Simeon attacked the city and killed them all, Shechem.

[37:48] them. I don't think it's that because he condemned them for that. Yes? Yeah, I, I, there is, it is near, actually, let's look very briefly, and this will be our last thing.

[38:18] Joshua 24, Joshua 24, verse 32, tells us. What's he say?

[38:44] What's he say? 32? 32. 32. Okay, what?

[39:20] Okay, so that's what he's referring to. All right, so he says, as for you, I've given you an extra portion.

[39:31] This is going to be long to you. Ephraim and Manasseh, by the way, are going to represent Joseph as the tribes.

[39:42]  They are called the half-tribes. All right, have a great week.