Brother Willie said something else wrong. No, no, I'm afraid to compound it. No, he misquoted himself. What he said this morning was, I believe, by accurate quotation was he was looking forward to my last message. That does a lot for a speaker. Especially when I, as I mentioned earlier in the week, when I remember that I've been here at a week when everything is at bargain rates. It's been one blow after another all week long. Now, let me hasten to elucidate. I did not catch him saying that. It was not I, lest you think I would be opposed or hurt because of anything like that. Two of the brethren down yonder met me at the door and said, did you hear what he said about you? And I said, no, I'm sorry. I must have been thinking about the Scripture or something. And they told me, and they weighed on him, lest you think that I was hurt by it or looked for things like that. But I know this is true. It's very difficult to speak as many times as he has to speak, or some of us have to speak without getting something wrong backwards and forwards, and especially are you frightened when you remember that everything you say here is not only heard by the brethren, but also by the tape recorders. And a word is like an arrow shot. It can't be recalled. It can be edited, fortunately, but it can't be recalled. So that was it. Well, here we are at the last meeting of the current series. Right? Is that all right? All right. That's all right. And it seems that the week has gone fast. At least it has for me. I hope it has for you, too. And we have much to say by way of thanks to everybody who has made our week so enjoyable. My wife especially has appreciated being able to be here because her mother had a stroke the first of November. And after being in the hospital for a month, her mother and her husband came to stay with us and were with us until a little while ago when my wife got sick and we didn't know what it was she had and fearing lest it might be something contagious. Her mother and her husband moved out and went to live in their house in their house in New Smyrna, and my wife has been greatly run down and so forth, and it's been a relaxing and refreshing time for her to be here and to simply be able to take naps in the afternoon when the gang at the shuffleboard court hasn't been too boisterous. Also, to be able, as ladies say, it's a great thrill to be able to eat somebody else's cooking for a while and then just to get up and leave the table, not have to worry about the dishes. And so it's been refreshing for her as well as for me to be here. We appreciate all the warm fellowship. Of course, we could use a little bit more of it tonight, but there's wonderful warm fellowship in here, anyway. And we appreciate the congenial, convivial atmosphere at Park of the Pound. There seems to be a real love, one for another. Haven't heard any complaints, haven't heard any criticisms, haven't picked up any gossip that I can take the next place I go and use for sermon illustrations. It's been a very wonderful family-type, warm relationship, and I pray to God it shall always continue. It's a wonderful experience to be in a place where people sing with such bourbon gusto and where everybody apparently is so much concerned about the well-being and spiritual welfare of all the rest of the folks around and about. We've appreciated the wonderful food up in the dining hall, and also appreciate all the times of fellowship that we have had after the meetings when we've been invited hither and yon for strawberry shortcake and for pie and for cake and for cookies and for scotty shortbread and all of these other things. I think for the first time in my life I have been grateful that I have gotten my just desserts. Of course, now our prayer shall be that the Word of God might bring forth fruit. We don't gather together just to be stimulated intellectually or to try to hear or to tell some new thing or the old story put in a new way. This is just carnal curiosity to come with this intent. But we pray that the Holy Spirit might use the seed that has been sown and bring forth fruit unto the glory of the Lord Jesus and to the edification of His people tonight. Now, perhaps it's apropos that as we turn to the Scriptures tonight, we have recorded for us in that particular narrative three different meetings. Perhaps it's apropos that this should be our closing message. Our last meeting together would also contain three meetings in this brief time that we've had to spend together in the rather lengthy life of Joseph. And so we're turning tonight to Genesis chapter number forty-six. and beginning with verse number forty-eight and going through chapter number forty-seven and verse number ten beginning in Genesis chapter number forty-six and verse number twenty-eight going through the next chapter verse number ten now before we read and study together let's bow once more in a word of prayer our father we would commend every aspect of the meeting unto thee tonight we pray father that speaker and hear might be used and blessed of the Holy Spirit to gain those things which are needful tonight. We pray, Father, for the spiritual needs which are manifested in this building. Perhaps there's one or several who know not Christ as Savior, and we have the joy and the privilege of telling them the gospel, which is the good news of salvation. Perhaps, Father, there are Christians here who are faced with some anxiety. something that is fretting them or causing them to be fearful. Perhaps, Father, there is a moment of loneliness or a feeling that no one cares anymore. Father, whatever the need might be, we ask thee that thou shalt meet it tonight through the word, that thou shalt once again show us the Lord Jesus, who is our all-sufficient one. Now, Father, we ask thee that thou shalt be with us in the word tonight, cause us to bring forth fruit that is pleasing to thee. We pray thee, and through it all thou shalt get praise to thyself. And we shall be very careful to give thee all of the praise, for we ask it in Christ Jesus' matchless name. Amen. Begin reading in chapter forty-six of Genesis with verse number twenty-eight. And he, that is Jacob, Jacob sent Judah before him unto Joseph, to direct his face unto Goshen, and they came into the land of Goshen. And Joseph made ready his chariot and went up to meet Israel his father to Goshen, and presented himself unto him, and he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while. And Israel said unto Joseph, Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive. And Joseph said unto his brethren, and unto his father's house, I will go up and show Pharaoh, and say unto him, My brethren and my father's house, which were in the land of Canaan, are come unto me. And the men are shepherds, for their trade has been to feed cattle. and they have brought their flocks and their herds and all that they have. And it shall come to pass when Pharaoh shall call you and shall say, What is your occupation? That ye shall say thy servant's trade has been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we and also our fathers, that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen, for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians. Then Joseph came and told Pharaoh and said, My father and my brethren, and their flocks and their herds and all that they have are come out of the land of Canaan, and behold, they are in the land of Goshen. And he took some of his brethren, even five men, and presented them unto Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto his brethren, What is your occupation? And they said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds, both we and also our fathers. They said, Moreover unto Pharaoh, for to sojourn in the land are we come. For thy servants have no pasture for their flocks, for the famine is sore in the land of Canaan. Now therefore we pray thee, let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen. And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, saying, Thy father and thy brethren are come unto thee. The land of Egypt is before thee. In the best of the land, make thy father and thy brethren to dwell. In the land of Goshen let them dwell. And if thou knowest any men of activity among them, then make them rulers over my cattle. And Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and set him before Pharaoh, and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art thou? And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years. Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from before Pharaoh." Now we skipped over the first part of chapter number forty-six. We have not followed it consecutively in our study in the life of Joseph, and we do not mean to suggest that there is never a spiritual blessing as you read over genealogies. There is much by way of spiritual refreshment and lessons to be learned as you try to connect together the various generations, and especially if you have a book that gives to you the various meanings of the names. Sometimes you can get a spiritual picture out of the way the different names are attached together. And so we have not skipped over the genealogy that is in the first part of Genesis chapter forty-six because we feel as if it is a minor part of the book. This is not the case. In fact, to try to prove this sort of principle to us, in verse number thirteen of that genealogy, one of the sons of Issachar is listed, and his name is Tola. Now that's a rather strange name, because if you translate it, it translates as worm. Now we can ill-imagine why a loving mother and father... having been blessed with the birth of a little baby boy into the household would desire to call him Worm. Now, you're not supposed to name kids after names like this. You're supposed to name them after his father, or if the little one is born as a girl, then you name her after her mother, or if you have a rich relative somewhere along the line that hasn't passed on yet, then you name the kid after the rich relative, hoping to make your days of retirement a little easier. this sort of thing. You don't go around naming kids worms. But Issachar did, for some reason or other, name him worm. And I took my mind back to Abigail's husband. Remember Abigail, one of the wives that David had? Her first husband's name was Nabal, which means fool. And when Abigail was talking to David about her husband, she said, as his name is, so is he. He is a fool and folly is his name, and that's just the way he acts. And his servants didn't think much better about him. They complained to Abigail that he is such a son of Belial that a man can't speak to him. Now, why would Nabal's parents name him fool? I don't know. Why would Issachar name his son Word? I don't know that either. But, you know, by the grace of God, very often it doesn't turn out that way. And if you take time to turn to First Chronicles, chapter number seven... We find that Tola's name comes up again. First Chronicles chapter number seven and verses one and two. First Chronicles seven, one and two, where we have the listing of Issachar's children again. And we find that they are listed, and Tola is the first one mentioned there. And in the middle part of verse number two of First Chronicles seven, it said they were heads of their father's house to wit of Tola. they were valiant men of might in their generations, whose number was in the days of David two and twenty thousand and six hundred. Now, if there was that classic adage ever given, it's proven here, apparently the worm turned. For how did a worm ever get to the point to where he would foster these whom the Holy Spirit calls to be valiant men of might in their generations? And I like to see in it a picture of the grace of God. For I started out the same way, a sinner by birth and by choice, but by the grace of God I am what I am, a child of the King. Not that it inflates my ego at all, because I'm still the sinner saved by grace, but to think that he is not ashamed to call us brethren, to think that when I address the supreme being of the universe, I can say, Our Father. who art in heaven. And I may have started with a very mean and humble beginning, but by the grace of God and by the work which the Lord Jesus Christ has done upon my behalf, the Lord has made something out of me. All praise be to him tonight. All merit go to him. And even though the child may start out with the name Worm for some reason or other, by the grace of God, and I think it's amplified here, he can turn into something by the wondrous grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is that not the same prophetic picture we have of the Lord Jesus Christ, when in the words of prophecy he said, I am a worm and no man? And yet to turn to Philippians chapter number two, we read that because he has done those things, wherefore God has given him a name which is highly exalted, that at the name of the Lord Jesus Christ every knee should bow and every tongue should confess in his Lord to the glory of God the Father. Brethren, it's a marvelous thing what the grace of God can do. There might be someone here tonight who knows not the grace of God. Your life is broken tonight. You are greatly discouraged. You feel as if life holds no promise, no future, no hope, no help, that the world is bathed in hypocritical teachings and actings and workings. The grace of God is for you tonight. The Lord Jesus Christ died for you, that He might lift you out of the myri clay and put your feet upon the solid rock. In the heart He implanteth a song. Praise be His name. And so we don't skip over genealogies because we think they're too hard to read or simply because it is the catalog of people who lived in a forgotten generation. This is not it, but that we might continue on in the life story of Joseph, and so we do here tonight. We find that also, as the verse twenty-seven closes, that is the verse prior to our reading tonight, We find the sons of Joseph, which were born unto him, were two souls. All the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were three-score and ten." Now you'll recall perhaps that in the seventh chapter of the Book of Acts, Stephen recalls this very historic narrative, and he says there were seventy-five souls that came into Egypt, and some of those so-called higher critics about whom we spoke earlier today would say, you see, the Bible contradicts itself. You see the discrepancies there are in it. The Old Testament says seventy. The New Testament says seventy-five. You can't believe anything the Bible says because it contradicts itself backwards and forwards. But you remember that Stephen was of the Hellenistic culture, and he was probably reading the Septuagint version, which was the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and this version includes the genealogies given in the twenty-sixth chapter of the Book of Numbers. which includes the children and the grandchildren of Joseph, Manasseh, Ephraim, and their children, which would bring the number up to seventy-five. But whether you consider seventy or whether you consider seventy-five, now it's been about two hundred and fifteen years since God promised Abraham that his seed would be as the stars of the sky and as the sand of the seashore without number. Two hundred and fifteen years have gone by, approximately, and there's only seventy or seventy-five people that you can account for. It looks like it might take a long time, doesn't it, to get to the progeny, to where there at the point is the sand by the seashore is without number. Sometimes it seems to us as if the promises of God take a good time in the fulfillment thereof. And ever since the truth of the return of the Lord, has been taught. Every generation of Christians, I believe, has thought that the Lord would certainly return in his or her own generation. I shall not see death, but the Lord shall take me from the state of the living to meet him in the air. I had a maternal grandfather who was a Presbyterian evangelist, and he believed the Lord Jesus would come to receive him in his lifetime, and he died in nineteen thirteen. And every generation since, for nearly two thousand years, has believed surely the Lord will come in my own lifetime. But is the Christian discouraged? No. I heard a person say at this last watchnight service, I've looked for the Lord every day in nineteen seventy, and thus far up to almost the midnight hour the Lord hadn't come, and I'll look for him again in nineteen seventy-one. And if he doesn't come in nineteen seventy-one, I'll look for him in nineteen seventy-two. I'm not discouraged because the Lord doesn't come when I think He ought to come or when I wish He would come, because I know that He is long-suffering, not willing that any should perish. And whether I am taken out of the state of the living or whether I go through the experience of death, I know that I shall see the Lord face to face when He does come again. And so after two hundred and fifteen years, we can only count seventy or seventy-five people. But we ought not to be discouraged with the promises of God, because these folks are really going to multiply in Egypt, aren't they? Six hundred thousand men are going to cross the Red Sea, and this is not counting their women and children, and the Jewish folks always did believe in large families. Between two and three millions of people probably are going to make the trek across the Red Sea, and that's a conservative number. So let's not be discouraged if the promises of God are not fulfilled when we think they ought to be fulfilled, and now we go into the study tonight. Here they were. Jacob sent Judah before him unto Joseph to direct his face unto Goshen. Judah is sent out before, because Jacob knows not the land of Goshen, knows not where it is, nor how to get there, nor how to settle in it, nor any such situation as this. And I like to think this is the picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. In my father's house or many mansions, I go to prepare a place for you. Now, I think he was speaking here more of simply than going into eternity's day. I believe this includes going by way of the cross. But I'm so grateful that we have the Lord Jesus Christ, who has gone on before and who has even gone through this life before ahead of me. Because I know not the way where and I ought to go. It is not in man to direct his own steps. There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. And I am grateful that I have somebody who knows the land, who has been there before to direct me and to guide me and to cause me to know this is the way, walk ye in it. And Jacob says, all right, Judah, you've been here before, and you go to the man who has lived here all of this time and ask him about the land and where we ought to settle and how we should get there and let him chart the course for us, let him lay out the pathway, and this is what Judah did. It's something similar, I think, to what we have in the sixth chapter of the book of Hebrews, when it speaks there of our forerunner, the Lord Jesus Christ. In Hebrews chapter number six and verses eighteen to through twenty. Hebrews six, eighteen through twenty. There we read that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil. whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. The forerunner who has for us, before us, ahead of us, entered into that which is within the veil. Now we know all this has occurred. The Lord Jesus Christ came to earth in the fullness of time, performed his miracles, set his face to go to Jerusalem, died there upon the cross of Calvary, was buried, rose again the third day, ascended unto the Heavenly Father, and is seated now at the right hand of God. And this we know, no problem here at all. But the Word of God says, He has gone ahead of us as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast. And it's nautical terminology. We understand that go back to the time of the Apostle Paul, in this first century Christian church that we're speaking of here in Hebrews, of course. We understand that heavily laden freight boats of the first century had a little skiff which they carried on board that was actually called the forerunner. And before the days when the Army Corps of Engineers would come and dredge out our rivers and our harbors course and construct canals halfway across the state and then stop, But before this was going on, this heavily laden freight boat would very often come to some of those harbors in Greece and Corinth and so forth and find that it couldn't get over the bar except at high tide. Well, the heavily laden freight boat would stay outside of the bar, take the forerunner, the little skiff off deck, put a man in it, he would carry the anchor from the big ship over the harbor, drop the anchor inside the bar. Then the little skiff, the little forerunner, would come back again. And then when high tide came, it was a simple matter then to winch the big heavy freight boat up to where the anchor was, and then everything was safe inside the harbor, you see. And this is nautical terminology that's given to us here in the last of Hebrews six. Do you see what it's explaining? The Lord Jesus Christ is unto us, that anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast. Here we are out here in the ship, the heavily laden ship. And, brethren, what we're doing now is waiting for high tithes. And one of these days, the ship and everything on it of all of these generations will be carried up to where the anchor has been all of this time. That's a refreshing thing to realize. especially in these days of instability in which you and I live. When, as someone has said, the only thing that we can be sure of is that things are going to be unsure. And in this life in which we live, where there is no stability at all, to know that this thing is all settled, it's all plain, God is just ticking off the days on his calendar until everything is then in completion, and then the ship will be brought up to where the forerunner has for us entered. safely within the harbor, within the veil, the Lord Jesus Christ, the anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast. So Jacob says, Judith, you go on. You find Joseph. You ask Joseph, where about we're supposed to land? How we're supposed to get there? What route we're supposed to take? The right road so that we don't end up in the upper Nile somewhere, you ask us. And so he did. I think this is the same thing that the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us as well. And when Joseph hears that the caravan is coming along, he makes ready his chariot, the Word of God says, and went up to meet his Father to Joseph and presented himself unto him. That must have been a terrifically emotion-charged meeting, don't you suppose? A quarter of a century or more? And it almost seems as if the Bible is classic here in its understatement, Joseph, the long-lost son, the long-thought-dead son, went up and presented himself to his father. The word says, and they fell on each other's neck. And the word of God says he wept on his neck a good while. However long that is, I don't know, but it says a good while. They've had twenty-five years of crying to catch up on. And while Joseph fell on Benjamin's neck and wept, when he fell upon his father's neck, he wept a good while, a much longer while. Apparently there was more love for his father than he had for Benjamin, even though that was a magnificent love. And so I think Joseph is always one who put his father first in everything. For how many times in the life story of Joseph do you read when he inquired of his brethren, Is the old man yet alive of whom he speaks? Is your father yet well, the one that you've been telling us of? And it seems as if almost in every interview that Joseph had with his brethren, His continual inquiry is about the welfare of his Father. Doesn't this also speak of the Lord Jesus Christ? Lord Jesus is the only one who ever walked upon this earth who could say, I always do those things which please him. We as Christians, I pray, could say most of the time I do those things which please him. Perhaps we'd have to say some of the time I do those things which please him. But the Lord Jesus Christ was the only one who ever walked who could say, I do always those things which please him. His continual concern was for the welfare of his father and of his father's will. And so it was here also in the life of Joseph. And they wept a good while. They wept a good while. Now we turn, if we had time, we could turn to Revelation twenty-one four, and it says, God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. Apparently the Lord won't allow tears in that new Jerusalem. because apparently tears are always associated with some aspect of human sorrow. Apparently this is the case. Now I know at weddings very often the bride's mother cries and the bridegroom's mother cries and sometimes the bridegroom cries. Sometimes this occurred and said, what are you crying about? I'm crying because I'm happy. You know, you just can't understand the female mystique. But this is what happens. Sometimes we cry because we're sad, sometimes we cry because we're happy, but apparently the Lord will not even allow that which we would call tears of joy in that new Jerusalem because, brethren, apparently even tears of joy are associated with some aspect of human sorrow. That is, apparently there's some comparison. We say, why are you crying? This is a happy occasion. Oh, I'm crying because so-and-so didn't live to see this day. There's an aspect of human sorrow, death because of sin. And even though these are tears of joy that we are shedding, we shed the tears of joy because we feel that there has been some weakness or discrepancy or something missing or some failure along the line that is even connected with our tears of joy. So God says we shan't have even tears of joy here. There'll be nothing that will connect us with any sort of sorrow or failure or something that's gone wrong or any aspect of any failing at all until God to wipe away all tears from their eyes. Now you see, these are tears of joy that Joseph and his father are weeping here, and they wept at good while, of great while. But you see, it's connected with the fact that they've been separated for a quarter of a century. For the fact, you see, that all of this time Joseph has been mourning and grieving for his son, Jacob has been mourning and grieving for his son Joseph, whom he thought had been devoured by that wild beast. And it's connected with failure and with sorrow and with lying and chicanery and all of the rest of it. So God says we shan't have any in that new city. And so it is. That's the first meeting, Joseph meeting with Jacob. Now there's also a meeting when the brethren, or at least a representative number of them, go with Joseph to meet Pharaoh. Now this is a tremendous thing when you recognize Pharaoh is the leader of the land, and Joseph, dressed as he is, and the position of government that he has, is not ashamed to take the humble shepherd brothers of his, undoubtedly dressed as they were, into the audience with the great Pharaoh. And Egypt at this time, you recall, is enjoying its golden age, a very highly and complicated civilization. And he is not ashamed to take these poor, humbly-dressed, shepherd brothers of his in to see the great Pharaoh. He is not ashamed to call them brethren. Sounds like Hebrews, doesn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ takes those whom he calls brethren, sinners saved by grace. Yes, with all of our failings, to this day, even as Christians, with our selfishness and everything else that's still about us, and he still presents us before God the Father. He saves to the uttermost those that come unto God by him. And if any man sinned, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is still not ashamed to call them brethren. And so they say unto him, or he says unto them, what is your occupation? What is your employment? Literally, what are you busy about? And as I read through the Scripture again, I had to stop here and say, well, what am I busy about? It would be an embarrassing question to ask a Christian sometimes, wouldn't it? What are you busy about? I heard a man who loved to quote the Lord saying, Occupied till I come, but he usually misquoted, and he'd say, you know what the Lord said, be occupied till I come. Well, a lot of Christians are not only occupied, they're preoccupied until the Lord comes. Brother, can you do this? Well, I'm busy here and there, you know. While the sermon was busy here and there, he was gone. And Pharaoh asked these brothers straight out, what's your employment? What do you do? What do you do? Christian, what do you do tonight? Don't tell me you're retired. When the Lord retires you, he'll take you home. Tell me what you're doing for the Lord tonight. What's your occupation? Well, I don't know. In this and that and several other things, the Apostle Paul says, this one thing I do. Many times we as modern day Christians would have to say, these forty things I dabble in. and I don't do any one of them well. Rather than trying to win a hundred people to the Lord this year, why not concentrate on winning one to the Lord? Just one. If you think of what could happen if the folks here in this assembly, if each one could just win one person during this coming year, it'd have to have two meetings like this to get all the people in, wouldn't you? Pharaoh says straight out, what are you doing? What on earth are you doing? What's your occupation? What's your employment? I don't want any groans here in Egypt. What do you do? What's your occupation? What is your engagement? These things are so necessary. All right? He is not ashamed of his brethren. And Joseph has instructed them as to what to say and so forth, but the dispensing of the blessings comes from the man who is upon the throne. The entire land is done. You remember when two came to the Lord Jesus Christ, one desiring to sit on the right hand and one on the left, and the Lord Jesus says, It is not mine to give, but he who is upon the throne. He dispenses the favors. So the similar situation is here between the brethren of Joseph and Pharaoh who is upon the throne. He dispenses the favor as well. Now, there's one other meeting, and we hurry on with this. There's one other meeting, and that is when Joseph presents his father, Jacob, to Pharaoh. Now again, this is a very wonderful picture of great discrepancies. Here is a very, very aged patriarch, Jacob by name. You remember he has to limp every step that he takes since his thigh has been put out of joint at Penial. He's a very ancient man. He has gray hairs, and he thinks that he is standing on the brink of the grave itself, and he goes before Pharaoh. And for a man to live to be a hundred and thirty years of age was an unusual thing in the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh is so impressed by it that he asks Jacob, how old are you? And Jacob gives his particular testimony, the days of the years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years. Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage. I'm a hundred and thirty years old. Now I was impressed, though, with the testimony which Jacob gave. In the first place, he reckons it by days. And this apparently is the way the word of God figures time. As your day is, so shall your strength be. We like to live from week to week, or from month to month, or from birthday to birthday. A young man told me not long ago, he said, I'm wishing my life away. And I said, what do you mean by that? And he said, well, I'm not particularly happy in the job in which I find myself. And when Monday morning starts, I wish it were Friday afternoon. And he says, I just wish myself through the week because I enjoy the weekends, because I don't have to work on the weekends. And this young man, almost in the prime of life, early prime of life, said, I'm wishing my life away. Jacob says, I have learned to live day by day. I think that's good advice. I think that's what the Word of God would teach us tonight. Don't worry about what's going to happen tomorrow, but be sure today, take care of itself. Sufficient unto the morrow is the evil thereof. Jacob says, I have learned to live one day at a time. But I'll also tell you this, Pharaoh. He says, I reckon my life here on earth to be that of a pilgrimage. I don't reckon that this life is all that there is to my existence. I'm simply passing on this earth from one point to another point. This is the day of my sojourning. I'm engaged in a pilgrimage. And I think here Jacob would quote the Hebrews. They look for a city which has foundation whose builder and maker is God. And they might have returned. but they didn't want to return. It's simply a pilgrimage. I'm not finding all the satisfaction of my existence in living out my life here upon earth. I'm looking for a far greater destination. I'm looking for far more wonderful experience, and that is when I finish this pilgrimage to enter into that rest and that home which God has prepared for me and for all of those that love him. I believe this is what Jacob is telling Pharaoh. But on the other hand, while it's a good testimony at one point, it's a rather discouraging testimony at another point. Because it's all rather negative, isn't it? Few and evil have the days of my pilgrimage been. It's a rather unfortunate thing. He might have given a better testimony if he'd gone over into chapter number forty-eight and verses fifteen and sixteen. Jacob blessed Joseph and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the angel, capital A, an angel, the angel which redeemed me from all evil, blessed the lads, and let my name be named on them, and so on and so forth. Now that's a positive testimony. And if only he had had opportunity, Jacob had to give this testimony to Pharaoh. Rather than saying, well, few and evil have the days of my pilgrimage been. If he had told Pharaoh about that redeeming angel, for so the word is, he might have had opportunity to point Pharaoh to belief in Jehovah God of heaven. I wonder, brethren, sometimes if our testimony sometimes have a tendency to discourage, rather to encourage. If there's some sort of a problem, if there's some sort of an upset. We should never mention it to unsaved folks. We're trying to point them to the Lord Jesus. Do we need to convince them that to become a Christian they're going to have more trouble than they have now? That to become a Christian their life is going to be worse off than it is now? You'll never point them to the Lord that way. Rather than saying the days of my pilgrimage have been few and evil, so forth, might say the redeeming angel has been a major part of it, and he has fed me, he has led me all the days long until this time, and he wants to do the same thing for you. That's a better testimony, isn't it? But we never have a record where Jacob had a second opportunity to give his testimony to Pharaoh. Not a second chance, apparently from the teaching of Scripture, the same as the magistrate who talked unto Paul and said, at a more convenient season, I will call upon thee, but as far as history is recorded, he never had a more convenient season than that, and never apparently came to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it is. I think also of Peter chopping off the ear of Malchus, you recall. Now, I really don't think that Peter meant to cut his ear off. I think Peter meant to chop his head in two. because you will agree with me that whatever Peter did, he did with all of his might. There was no halfway measure about Peter. And I think he whipped out that short Roman sword, and I started a vertical slice down toward the top of the fellow's head, and was going to give him a permanent part. I think Matthew dodged a little bit, but not quite enough, and off came the ear, to which, of course, the Lord had to work the miracle and restore the ear back to the head again. But now what do you suppose happened if Peter said, I think I'll go call on Malchus this afternoon and try to point him to the Lord. Malchus would have looked out through that little peephole in his front door and said, there's Peter, he's come back to finish the job and snap the chain rather than open the door. And sometimes Christians go around, they chop off ears here and there and they leave ears laying all over the place and then wonder why they haven't been able to point anybody to the Lord all year long. If you go around shopping off ears, you're not going to be able to open hearts for the Lord, are you? And so we would, to God, that Jacob might have left a little better testimony, although you notice the Word of God says that when Joseph brought Jacob into Pharaoh, that Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and in verse number ten, when Jacob left Pharaoh, he blessed him again. Perhaps this is Jacob thinking, well, I wonder... what I might do for Pharaoh. Here's a man that has more than heart could wish. I can't bring him a present like I sent a present down to Joseph when I thought him simply to be the Lord of the land. I can't send Pharaoh a little balm, a little honey, a little spices, this sort of thing. This man has these things by the barrel full. What can I bring to Pharaoh? I can bring him something that nobody probably has ever brought him before. And that is the blessing of God. Here I am. I'm just a poor shepherd man. I've come out of a land that is stricken with famine. I have to limp as I go all the way down Pharaoh's royal hall till I get to the audience chamber. I'm a very aged man. I've got gray hairs. A few in evil have been my days and so on and so forth. But there's one thing that I can give Pharaoh. And I can bring him a blessing when I come, and I can leave him a blessing when I go. And Christian, that's what you can do for a lost and dying world. Here's a man that lives in the finest house in your town, drives the finest automobile. What can I do for him? Shall I send him a box of chocolates? Shall I do something else for him? This man may own a chocolate factory. What's he need with my chocolates? But I, as a Christian, can do something for this fellow that perhaps nobody else has ever done. I can go and tell him about a person who loved him enough that this person went to Calvary's Cross to die for his sins. I can bless him when I come and I can bless him when I go. And, brethren, that's the only reason for the existence of the Church upon earth today. We're not supposed to be in social welfare work as far as I can determine from biblical teaching. Paul wasn't, Christ wasn't, John the Baptist wasn't. I don't think we're supposed to be in anything except that which has to do with the evangelism of the lost world and the edification of God's people. And the problem with churches is today, and the reason they can't hold their young people and so forth, is because as far as God is concerned, they've lost their charter for existence, which is to tell the good news, the gospel story that the Lord Jesus Christ died for sinful men. There's a lot that I can't do for folks around and about me. They've got more than I have. more education, more wealth, better homes, all of these things. Nothing I can give to them that would advantage them, except my testimony, and to tell them the gospel story. So here's this poor, very aged shepherd man, but he says there's one thing that I can tell the highest potentate of the whole world, I can tell him about the God of heaven. He blessed him when he went in, and he blessed him when he went out. And would to God that might be our testimony tonight. In closing, I wonder if we might sing hymn number three, five, six, number three, five, six. I trust this is the testimony of everyone here in the meeting tonight. Satisfied with thee, Lord Jesus, I am blessed. Peace which passes understanding on thy breast. No more doubting. No more trembling. Oh, what rest. occupied with thee, Lord Jesus. Pharaoh said, what's your occupation? And you as a Christian sing this tonight. Occupied with thee, Lord Jesus, and thy grace, all thy ways and thoughts about me only trace deeper stories of the glories of thy grace. I trust each of us can sing this with a clear and a pure heart tonight. And if not, should there be one here who is not a Christian, would you not stay for a moment following the benediction? Let us know that you'd like to be saved tonight, that we might point you to Christ in Scripture. Now may we think of these things as we sing hymn number three, five, six. Satisfy with me, Lord Jesus, I am. deeply expressive understanding of my breath. No more doubting, no more trembling. Oh, I rest. Oh, oh, Oh. occupied with thee, Lord Jesus, and thy grace. All thy ways and thoughts of our way, only praise. Deepest glories of the glory. of thy grace. Of thy grace. Taken up with thee, Lord Jesus, I would be. Finding joy and satisfaction, I Thou the nearest and the nearest unto me, unto me. listening for thy shepherds, Jesus, in the air. When thy saints shall rise with joy, will meet thee there. Oh, what gladness! No more sadness! Our Father, we thank thee for this hymn that we can sing. We pray thee that each one of us tonight can sing it from the depths of our hearts with all sincerity. Father, we pray thee that it should be those here tonight who know not Christ the Savior. Before they leave the building, they shall know what it is to be saved and have the knowledge of sins forgiven. We commend the meeting, Father, to thee, unto salvation and edification. May pray it all in Christ Jesus' matchless name. Amen. Thank you.