Genesis 45:9

In Genesis chapter 45 Joseph is speaking to his brothers, giving them the instructions that would bring Jacob and the rest of the Israelites to Egypt. The Bible says in Genesis 45:9-15 with Joseph speaking, “Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not: And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast: And there will I nourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty. And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you. And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen; and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither. And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. Moreover he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them: and after that his brethren talked with him.”

It is important to notice that Joseph said in Genesis 45:9, “God hath made me lord of all Egypt.” Joseph gave God all the credit and all the glory for the good things that happened in his life. What Joseph accomplished was not a minor thing. He became the second-most powerful person in the greatest country in the world at that time: Egypt. Joseph was gifted, Joseph was trustworthy, and Joseph was honorable. But the things that Joseph accomplished could not have been done without the leading and the blessing of God. The gifts that Joseph had came from God. The opportunities that Joseph had came from God. And therefore, Joseph gave the glory to God for the good things that happened. “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.” To recognize God’s involvement in your life, is to be thankful. A person who is not thankful to God, is a very selfish person. That is why Christians are told to always be thankful. When we are thankful, we are recognizing what God has done in our lives and we are giving Him the glory. The Bible says in Psalms 100:4, “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.” Jesus Himself was thankful. It says about Jesus in Luke 22:17, “And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves.” Christians are told in Ephesians 5:20, “Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Concerning the trip that Jacob made from Canaan to Egypt, the Bible says in Genesis 45:16-28, “And the fame thereof was heard in Pharaoh's house, saying, Joseph's brethren are come: and it pleased Pharaoh well, and his servants. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Say unto thy brethren, This do ye; lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan; And take your father and your households, and come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land. Now thou art commanded, this do ye; take you wagons out of the land of Egypt for your little ones, and for your wives, and bring your father, and come. Also regard not your stuff; for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours. And the children of Israel did so: and Joseph gave them wagons, according to the commandment of Pharaoh, and gave them provision for the way. To all of them he gave each man changes of raiment; but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver, and five changes of raiment. And to his father he sent after this manner; ten asses laden with the good things of Egypt, and ten she asses laden with corn and bread and meat for his father by the way. So he sent his brethren away, and they departed: and he said unto them, See that ye fall not out by the way. And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father, And told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt. And Jacob's heart fainted, for he believed them not. And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them: and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived: And Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die.”

Pharaoh’s heart was gracious and generous to all the family of Joseph. This was the work of God. God turns the hearts of men, and He turns those hearts just in the way that they need to be turned in order to accomplish His will. God changes the hearts of the leaders of countries and those in authority, of the rich and the powerful, and of everyone. These are important truths to be remembered by those who trust in the Lord. Most believers are not wealthy and are not powerful, and they have very little influence in governmental decisions. So, believers should be encouraged with the knowledge that God is directing the wealthy and the powerful in order to accomplish His will and to affect the lives of believers according to His plan. It says in Proverb’s 21:1, “The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.”

The brothers of Joseph went back to their father Jacob and told him some wonderful news. They said to Jacob in Genesis 45:26, “Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt.” The news was so great that Jacob could not believe it at first. For many, many years Jacob had lived under a shadow of gloom, after having lost his beloved son. But God, who is all-powerful, took away Jacob’s gloom and changed everything for the better. Having such a dramatic turn-around may not happen exactly this way in this life for every believer. But wonderful changes will happen for every believer when we get to heaven. In heaven all of our believing loved-ones will be there. We will be reunited in the victory that King Jesus will share with us all. Yes, some of us will have suffered great sorrows in this life; but God will have allowed those sorrows for a reason. Sorrow will finally be replaced by victory and joy and happiness forever. The Bible says in First Corinthians 15:53-57, “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Jacob started his journey from Canaan to Egypt. Before he gets to Egypt, the Bible says in Genesis 46:1-4, “And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beer-sheba, and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac. And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I. And he said, I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation: I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes.” These few verses are very revealing about Jacob’s relationship with the Lord. It says that Jacob “offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac.” Sacrifices were required in the Old Testament in order for people to approach unto God. A sacrifice involved an innocent animal being killed and its blood being shed. Of course, today Jesus is our sacrifice. Jesus replaced the Old Testament requirement for the repeated ceremony of an animal sacrifice. He died on the cross of Calvary for our sins. Speaking of the Messiah who would come, it says in the Old Testament in Isaiah 53:3-7, “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.”

Jacob knew that he was a sinner and knew that he needed forgiveness from his sins to approach unto God. To have such an attitude of repentance is an absolute requirement in order to come into the presence of the Lord, and to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus made this very clear in Luke 18:10-14 when Jesus said, “Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”

God wants a personal relationship with us. He wants us to talk to Him and He wants to talk with us. We also see that God had something to reveal to Jacob. In Genesis 46:2 the Bible says, “And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night.” The word that is translated “visions” comes from a word that is related to the word that means “to see.” In the night the eyes of man cannot see, but the heart can “see” whatever God chooses to reveal. There is an important point to make about the fact that God came at night to speak to Jacob. Sometimes people need to be away from the distractions of daily life in order to think about the things of the Lord. When Jesus was on the earth, He followed this principle. It says in Matthew 14:23, “And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.”

In every generation God has desired to reveal Himself to man. In our day God uses the Spirit of Jesus and the written Word of God to speak to man. The Word of God is eternal. Even before it was put into written form, the Word of God was revealed to people. “God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night.” God will always find a way to speak to people, and God can use many different means to do so. For example, God can touch hearts “in the visions of the night”, through the headlines in the newspaper, by a sensitive conscience, by sorrow or by joy, and in many other ways. But God can especially speak to man by His written Word. The Bible says in Hebrews 1:1-2, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.”

When God spoke to Jacob, at first God said simply “Jacob, Jacob.” In other words God called Jacob. God calls people. He calls people to repentance. He calls people to faith. He calls people to trust in Jesus Christ. Jesus said in Matthew 22:14, “For many are called, but few are chosen.” The Apostle Paul said about himself in Romans 1:1, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.” And Paul said to other Christians in Romans 1:6, “Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ.”

A person becomes saved when they are called of God to come to Christ, and then when they respond positively to the call. Only God can give this call. This call of God comes directly from God, and is directly addressed to an individual. This is Jesus being the soul-winner. And this is the only way that a person becomes a true Christian: by being called the Spirit to come to Jesus, and by responding positively to His call. When Jacob was called by Jesus, Jacob responded, and said to the Lord in Genesis 46:2, “Here am I.” Others have responded to the call of Christ and have said, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”

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