“Glory to the Precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ”

Micah 2: 12, 13  “I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob, I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together like sheep of the fold, Like a flock in the midst of their pasture; They shall make a loud noise because of so many people.

The one who breaks open will come up before them; They will break out, Pass through the gate, And go out by it; Their king will pass before them, With the Lord at their head.”

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

Hallelujah

The Church has to stand in the gap for the land - as a pattern

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we are meditating regarding how God was with Joseph and all the deeds he did through him in Egypt. All these things are shown as a pattern regarding the things that are done by God through Jesus Christ in our lives. That is God is lifting up Joseph inside the palace of Pharaoh. God is blessing Egypt through this Joseph. Famine occurs even in Egypt. And the famine occurs all over the world in all the land. We see that God is fulfilling all the things that he told Pharaoh through Joseph.

In all the land of Egypt there was bread. We see that the reason was that God is creating certain circumstances to take the generation of Israel there. God hates the greatness of Jacob. Jacob, for the sake of worldly greatness made Joseph, the son he loved the most to wear a tunic of many colors. Due to this, his brothers hated him. In order to destroy the worldly greatness of Jacob, God gives Joseph into the hands of his brothers. God gave him into the hands of his evil brothers in order to correct Jacob. God is showing us as a pattern through Joseph that the church has to be corrected in Egypt. God is telling us that the robes that are washed in the blood of the Lamb will be white.

God is showing this to church in the following manner - Revelation 7: 13 - 17 Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, “Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?”

And I said to him, “Sir, you know.” So he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 

Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will dwell among them. 

They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; 

for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Those who serve God, whoever it may be are redeemed from the tribulation of the world and through the path of tribulation our Lord Jesus Christ was victorious over world for us and before that we must be redeemed from such tribulation. We must understand that this is shown to us as a pattern from the Old Testament through the generation of Jacob through Joseph from the tribe of Israel. My dear brothers and sisters, in our lives for our spiritual growth the seeds that were sown for our foundation is the Old Testament. We should not think of it as a story or as history but that the Old Testament books are a pattern for Christ to dwell within us.

When we are living in the bondage of Egypt itself, God feeds us with his food which is God's words. But when we are caught in the tribulation of the world and when we fall down in worldly worries and wordly pleasures we have decrease in food - that is there will be no God's word in our soul and a famine occurs within us. While we are in Egypt the food, that is the word of God that we collected comforts us when we have lost everything and are empty and when our soul becomes weary. This is what God shows as a pattern through Joseph. We are able to see that a severe famine occurs in Canaan and Jacob's generation who are the fathers of the ten tribes were sent by Jacob for grain to Egypt. But he did not send Benjamin.

When they went to buy the grain, they are going there not knowing that their brother Joseph was great there and he was selling grain for those who were suffering due to the famine. But they go to buy the grains, they are taking offering in their hands. But Joseph realizes that they were his brothers. God is punishing them this way for the cruelty they did to Joseph.

But he says that all of them have to be kept in prison for three days and that they were spies and come to see the nakedness of the land and will be kept in prison till the truth comes out.

But Joseph's brothers say in Genesis 42:13  And they said, “Your servants are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and in fact, the youngest is with our father today, and one is no more.”

Genesis 42: 14 But Joseph said to them, “It is as I spoke to you, saying, ‘You are spies!’ 

Genesis 42: 15, 16 In this manner you shall be tested: By the life of Pharaoh, you shall not leave this place unless your youngest brother comes here. 

Send one of you, and let him bring your brother; and you shall be kept in prison, that your words may be tested to see whether there is any truth in you; or else, by the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies!”

So he put them all together in prison three days.

Then Joseph said to them If you are honest men, let one of your brothers be confined to your prison house; but you, go and carry grain for the famine of your houses. And bring your youngest brother to me; so your words will be verified, and you shall not die.” And they did so.

Then they said to one another, “We are truly guilty concerning our brother, for we saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us, and we would not hear; therefore this distress has come upon us.”

And Reuben answered them, saying, “Did I not speak to you, saying, ‘Do not sin against the boy’; and you would not listen? Therefore behold, his blood is now required of us.” 

Genesis 42: 23 But they did not know that Joseph understood them, for he spoke to them through an interpreter. 

And he turned himself away from them and wept. Then he returned to them again, and talked with them. And he took Simeon from them and bound him before their eyes.

Genesis 42: 25, 26 Then Joseph gave a command to fill their sacks with grain, to restore every man’s money to his sack, and to give them provisions for the journey. Thus he did for them. 

So they loaded their donkeys with the grain and departed from there.

From this what we understand is that, each one of us should be God's church who is redeemed by Christ's blood. Our garment should be washed completely in the blood and made white and we must serve the one on the throne. If God has called us first, like Joseph we must be the reason for our whole family to be saved. Till his whole family reached him see how he is working. Our God meets us also in this manner. God has predestined us so that our whole land and those who are the blood of our blood and flesh of our flesh and through that the whole kingdom should know God and come to his feet. Therefore, we must remove all our self and in these days of famine we must give the grains that we have collected to our family - people in the world and to everyone around us. If we do this then God will meet the whole world. He is the Almighty God who is able to lead the people in the way of truth. May the Lord bless you all.

Let us pray. 

-To be continued