God has Surely Visited His People!

GOD HAS SURELY VISITED HIS PEOPLE!

An Exposition of Genesis 50:22-26 and

Wrap-up of the Genesis Series

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: September 29, 2024

Series: The Book of Genesis

Note: Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard   Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT

Holy Scripture says:

²² So Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father's house. Joseph lived 110 years. ²³ And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation. The children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were counted as Joseph's own. ²⁴ And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” ²⁵ Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.” ²⁶ So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. (Genesis 50:22-26)

INTRODUCTION

Well, we knew that if the Lord tarried, this day would finally come – the day when the last sermon in the Genesis Series is preached. The introductory sermon in the Genesis Series was preached on January 23, 2022. In that first sermon I expressed uncertainty as to how long the sermon series would prove to be, but I predicted that when we finished the 2024 presidential election would be in the rearview mirror. I was wrong, since the presidential election is still five weeks ahead of us.

As a preacher, there is a certain sadness in completing a sermon series through a long book. I have lived in the Book of Genesis for almost three years, and in all likelihood this will be the one and only time in my life that I preach through the entire Book of Genesis from beginning to end. The good thing for me is that my favorite book of the Bible is whatever book I’m currently preaching through, and so I’ll get over it quickly as I have the opportunity to settle down into a new book.

But first things first: if my count is right, this sermon is the 78^th sermon in the Genesis Sermon Series, and to the substance of the sermon we now turn. I would like to accomplish three things in this sermon: first, I would like to trace some of the themes that develop through the Book of Genesis; second, I would like to summarize and apply this final text (Genesis 50:22-26); and finally, I would like to remind us how the entire book directs our attention to the promise of the Messiah.

FROM LIFE IN THE GARDEN TO DEATH DOWN IN EGYPT

So first, I’d like to trace the line of thought that travels from life in the garden to death down in Egypt.

In the beginning

In the beginning, God set forth a dark, empty, and formless canvas, and went to work as the Master Artist. The one, true, and living God spoke light into the darkness, shaped the undefined mass into sky above, dry land, and seas, and filled it with plants and fruit trees, lights in the sky, and living creatures everywhere – sky creatures, land creatures, and sea creatures. The pinnacle of God’s handiwork was the creation of mankind in God’s own image. As image-bearers of God, we are made for fellowship with God, and our purpose is to know God, reflect His character, obey His commands, and exercise dominion over this world on His behalf.

The world that God made “was very good” (Genesis 1:31). No tears, no death, no grief, no pain, no curse. God planted a garden in Eden, and this well-watered garden was the first home of the first man and woman, Adam and Eve. In it was “every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.” (Genesis 2:9) Man’s basic responsibility was to work and keep the good garden that God had made, and to export its beauty and goodness to all the earth by raising up children and sending them forth on God’s mission.

The possibility of death

Although there was no death, death was a possibility. God designed life to flourish within certain moral boundaries, but when those moral boundaries are violated, the fabric of life is torn, and death rushes in. And so, God presented Adam and Eve with a test: “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17) One restriction in a world of generosity, abundance, and freedom. Will you trust the wisdom of God? Or will you throw caution to the wind and experiment with what is forbidden?

God also allowed a tempter to apply the test upon Adam and Eve. The devil hijacked the serpent and told Eve that the forbidden fruit was the path to finding her inner goddess. She took the bait, ate the fruit, and gave some to her husband. The man chose to honor created things above the Creator himself, and when he did, the fabric of life was torn, innocence gave way to guilt and shame, the beauty of the world began to fade, and corruption spread everywhere. The artwork rebelled against the Artist, and the masterpiece became a tragic ruin. Pain and conflict, accursedness and suffering, thorns and thistles, and inevitable death descended upon the human race. And exile: the Lord banished Adam from the garden of Eden. Paradise was lost. And now human life would have to be navigated in a spiritually, morally, and physically unsafe world.

This fallen world

And in this spiritually, morally, and physically unsafe world, bitter things happen. Cain murders Abel (Genesis 4:1-16). Lamech boasts in his self-willed violence (Genesis 4:23-24). The entire human race, from “every intention of the thoughts of his heart” (Genesis 6:5) to corrupt and violent actions (Genesis 6:11-13), was in bondage to wickedness. That world was washed away in the global flood, but the heart of man remained unclean.

And so, the corruption and folly continued after the flood. Men, forgetting God and chasing after their own fame, said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4). These sophisticated builders of the tower of Babel speak for all sinners: in our sinfulness, we all seek to build our own kingdom with our own agenda, and we do it in our own wisdom and strength, and we do it for our own self-preservation and glory. Apart from God’s grace, every generation of sinners runs the same play, indeed every sinner runs the same play, to his own demise.

And every generation of sinners faces standard problems. “Now there was a famine in the land.” (Genesis 12:10) “[There] was strife” between Abraham’s men and Lot’s men (Genesis 13:7). There was regional warfare in Genesis 14:1-16. There was some combination of internal family stress, intrigue, deceit, selfishness, or dysfunction in Genesis 16, 19, 25, 27, 29-31, 34, 37 – and, well, you get the point. If you have some combination of stress, intrigue, deceit, selfishness, or dysfunction in your family or extended family, let me take this opportunity to welcome you to the club.

Genesis 19 showed us that a prosperous civilization can, through pride and selfishness, go completely off the rails, to the point of extreme sexual perversion and exceeding violence. It never ends well, and America should take note.

There is also incest (Genesis 19:30-38), a property dispute (Genesis 21:25-34), selling a birthright (Genesis 25:29-34), stealing a blessing (Genesis 27:1-40), and going into exile because of hatred among brothers. Esau hates Jacob, and that sends Jacob running into a twenty-year exile in Haran with his Uncle Laban. And Joseph’s brothers hate Joseph, and they sell Joseph into slavery, which ends up exiling him from his family during his first twenty-two years down in Egypt. There is misguided vengeance (Genesis 34), more incest (Genesis 35:22 and Genesis 38:12-26), false accusation and unjust imprisonment (Genesis 39:7-23), more famine (Genesis 41:54-47:27), the fear of retribution (Genesis 50:25), and a whole lot of death.

Death

The Book of Genesis began with light and life, abundance and provision. But after the litany of deaths reported in Genesis 5, and the deaths of everyone except for Noah and his family in Genesis 7, and the deaths of everyone in Sodom except for Lot and his daughters in Genesis 19, and the death of Sarah in Genesis 23, and the death of Abraham in Genesis 25:8, and the death of Ishmael in Genesis 25:17, and the death of Rachel in Genesis 35:19, and the death of Isaac in Genesis 35:29, and the deaths of Rebekah and Leah that are alluded to in Genesis 49:31, and the death of Jacob in Genesis 49:33, it is fitting that the final verse of this great book tells us that “Joseph died” (Genesis 50:26). For ever since the fall of mankind into sin, this is the world that we inhabit: a world characterized by sin and death.

The very beginning and the very end of Genesis give us a striking contrast: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) And: “So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.” (Genesis 50:26) At the beginning, we encounter the living God, the eternal God who is unbounded by space and time, who does whatever He pleases, who creates and shapes a world, and who gives life. At the end, we encounter the corpse of a man, a body that is now lifeless, embalmed, and entombed in a foreign land – in Egypt.

Down in Egypt

Don’t miss the significance of those final words: “in Egypt”. The Book of Genesis concludes with God’s covenant people away from home, in a place other than their homeland. This is significant for a couple of reasons. First, in terms of the near future, God has promised to give the land of Canaan to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and to their descendants. God called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees, and led him to the land of Canaan, and promised it to him and his offspring. However, during his lifetime, Abraham remained an outsider – a foreigner and pilgrim – within the land of Canaan. He bought a burial plot for him and his family, but he didn’t inherit the land. Neither did Isaac or Jacob or Jacob’s sons. And now, as the Book of Genesis comes to a close, the budding nation that stems from Abraham is in Egypt, very obviously outside the promised land. Right on schedule, just as God planned. God plans for seasons of exile, times away from home, to teach us to wait patiently for His plan to come to fruition in His time and His way.

But there is a second reason why it is significant that Genesis ends with God’s covenant people away from the promised land. In terms of the bigger picture, there is the spiritual reality that the entirety of our life in this present world occurs away from home, outside the promised land, far from the promised destination. This is the reality of life in this fallen world: all our experiences in this present evil world take place east of Eden, outside the garden, far from paradise. And so even when Israel does finally make it physically and geographically into the land of Canaan, the earthly land of Canaan is itself a symbol and pointer to spiritual and heavenly realities. We look forward to that day when the holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem, descends from heaven and becomes the joy of the whole earth. “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14) – the city of God, the city that is a-waiting on the other side of this present world, in the well-watered paradise of God. As one hymn-writer put it:

“I’m homesick for Heaven, for Jesus my Lord,

For loved ones who’ve gone on before;

To dwell in that city, not builded by hands,

With Jesus as King evermore!

“In this foreign land there is sickness and pain,

There’s sorrow and grief everywhere;

But there in God’s home ‘twill be nothing but joy,

Which we, praise the Lord, soon shall share!

“I’m homesick for Heaven, I long to be Home,

I’m weary of this strange old world;

I’m homesick for Heaven, I long just to see

The banner of Jesus unfurled!”[1]

Yes, there are many sorrows in this present world, and the news cycle is a perpetual testimony to this fact. A hurricane and fatal floodwaters in the southern United States. War between modern-day Israel and terrorist groups. War between Russia and Ukraine. Political dysfunction in our own country, undergirded by moral rebellion. But for all that, the sorrows of this present world are known to us only too well in our own hearts, our own homes, our own broken relationships, our own heartbreak over loved ones who are not well. And after all that, death comes as the great equalizer, the great leveler, one individual at a time. “So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.”

One day, God would bring up His people Israel out of Egypt. One day, Jesus would come as the embodiment of true Israel, and He also would sojourn in Egypt, and then return to the promised land. As it is written: “Out of Egypt I called my son.” (Matthew 2:15, quoting Hosea 11:1) Out of Egypt, Jesus is called forth. And not only out of Egypt, but out of death itself Jesus is raised up! All in due time, from the vantage point of Israel in Genesis 50.

So we’ve traced out one line of thought from life in the garden of Eden to death and burial down in Egypt.

GOD’S GRACE IN THE MIDST OF THE MADNESS

But now we need to trace out a second line of thought: it is possible to receive God’s grace in the midst of the madness. God clothed Adam and Eve with garments of grace. Enoch walked with God. Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Righteous Lot, though apparently not the brightest of the bunch, was rescued from the rebellious city. Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Isaac followed in his father’s footsteps. Jacob wrestled with God, and prevailed. God was with Joseph, and that made all the difference, even in very difficult circumstances. Joseph suffered, but his character was not soured. Joseph was exiled, but his heart was not embittered. His body was bought and sold against his will, but his soul was not poisoned. God is able to shape your inner self into something beautiful even though adversities and afflictions press upon you from the outside. Will you trust Him?

As we look at Genesis 50:22-26, we see two manifestations of God’s grace in Joseph’s life.

God’s grace in Joseph’s family

First, by the time that Joseph died at 110 years old, he had experienced the goodness of the Lord in terms of a growing family. Joseph came to Egypt when he was about 17 years old. He came Egypt’s prime minister when he was 30, and his father and his father’s family moved to Egypt when he was 39. He got to spend the next 17 years of his life in fellowship with his father, but Jacob died when Joseph was 56. Joseph went on to live another 54 years, even as he and his brothers and all their families remained in Egypt.

The very births of Manasseh and Ephraim back in Genesis 41, when Joseph was in his 30s, were demonstrations of God’s goodness to Joseph. The name Manasseh signified to Joseph that “God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father’s house.” (Genesis 41:51) And the name Ephraim signified to Joseph that “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.” (Genesis 41:52) There is hardship and affliction in this present world. But God’s grace can work in your life in such a way that you forget much of that hardship and experience blessing in the midst of affliction. And the blessing didn’t stop with Manasseh and Ephraim as newborn infants. They grew up. In Genesis 48, their grandfather Jacob blessed them in a special way and prophetically declared that Manasseh would grow into a great multitude and that Ephraim would be even greater, and that they would become standard-bearers of blessing for all of Israel (Genesis 48:15-16, 19-20). Ephraim had children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren while Joseph was still alive. And so, Joseph got to enjoy having great-great grandchildren through Ephraim (Genesis 50:23a). At the same time, Joseph got to enjoy having great-grandchildren through Manasseh, as Manasseh fathered Machir and Machir fathered children (Genesis 50:23b). A growing family that includes children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-great grandchildren with whom you are in good relationship, and from whom you are not estranged, is one of the most wonderful blessings of this present life. On the other hand, where there is broken relationship and estrangement, there is behind it some of the greatest pain and regret in all the world.

God’s grace reflected in Joseph’s confidence

Second, as Joseph was on the cusp of death, he was confident in God’s promise. Just like his father Jacob! Fifty-four years earlier when Jacob was approaching death, Jacob had spoken the following words to Joseph: “Behold, I am about to die, but God will be with you and will bring you again to the land of your fathers.” (Genesis 48:21) Fifty-four years pass, and Joseph carries in his own heart the same confidence that his father had. This time Joseph speaks these faith-filled words to his brothers: “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” (Genesis 50:24)

Joseph knew the story that had begun back in Genesis 12:1-3, when “the LORD said to Abram [Abraham], “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3) Just a few verses later, after Abraham had set foot in the land of Canaan, “the LORD appeared to Abram [Abraham] and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.”” (Genesis 12:7) Joseph knew the divine calling that had been placed upon Abraham and his people. Joseph knew it, believed it, experienced it personally, and died with the confident expectation that God is the faithful promise-keeper who would make good on every promise.

It is worth noting that one of Joseph’s descendants is the well-known Joshua. Joshua also lived 110 years. And after Joshua had led the children of Israel into the promised land, when Joshua was on the cusp of death, he said: “And now I am about to go the way of all the earth, and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed of all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one of them has failed.” (Joshua 23:14) God is the faithful promise-keeper, the God who keeps covenant with His people, the God who watches over His Word to perform it. Joseph knew it, looking forward to what the Lord would do. And Joshua knew it, looking back to what the Lord had done. Don’t you yourself know that the Lord is the faithful God who keeps His Word? Don’t we ourselves know that it is we who are the fickle ones: we are the ones who forget, go astray, and prove unfaithful. But God is not like sinful men: He alone is faithful and true.

Joseph expressed his confidence in God’s promise not once, but twice. For after the initial comment in verse 24, he followed it up in the next verse with the insistence that his bones be transported from Egypt to Canaan at the time when God would visit Israel to bring them to Canaan: “Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.”” (Genesis 50:25)

Taken together, Joseph’s two comments in verses 24-25 are highlighted in the New Testament as an expression of Joseph’s faith. It says in Hebrews 11: “By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.” (Hebrews 11:22) Joseph knew that God would come and lead His people out of Egypt and into the promised land, and when that happened, Joseph wanted his bones to be in the promised land, the land promised to his forebears, the land where the bodies of these forebears had also been laid to rest. Joseph had lived 93 of his 110 years in the land of Egypt, and in Egypt he had prospered and become prominent. But Joseph wasn’t oriented toward Egypt. Joseph was oriented to God’s solemn promise, God’s covenant people, and God’s appointed place. Joseph knew where home was. Do you?

And so, “the sons of Israel” did swear to carry out Joseph’s wish, and in due course Israel’s descendants made good on their promise. When centuries later the time came for Israel to depart from Egypt, Scripture tells us: “Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here.”” (Exodus 13:19) At that point, the bones of Joseph begin to be in transit with Israel for the next forty years. But the Book of Joshua eventually closes the loop, telling us: “As for the bones of Joseph, which the people of Israel brought up from Egypt, they buried them at Shechem, in the piece of land that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred pieces of money. It became an inheritance of the descendants of Joseph.” (Joshua 24:32)

All this goes to show that Joseph’s confidence in the Lord’s promise was spot on. On the day of resurrection when dead human beings rise again with their bodies, if a person’s resurrection location is at the place where his bones are buried, then Joseph will rise again in the land that his descendants received from the Lord as a tribal possession. That said, there is nothing magical or superstitious about the location of Joseph’s bones. What is important is the beauty of Joseph’s faith, by which he was confident that the Lord would fulfill his promises? Do you share Joseph’s confidence? Do you have that living faith in the life-giving promises of the living God?

GOD HAS SURELY VISITED HIS PEOPLE!

One more thing begs to be proclaimed, as we approach the end of this sermon and this entire sermon series: I want you to get a clear view of Jesus one more time.

The phrase “God will surely visit you” points forward to redemption: at the appointed time, God visits His people in order to redeem them. When the appointed time came, the Lord said to Moses: “I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8). But the exodus out of Egypt was itself only a preview of a much bigger work of redemption that God was planning to do. In Ezekiel 34, after rebuking the leaders of Israel for their abject failure to love the people under their care, the Lord pledged to personally visit His people:

“For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel” (Ezekiel 34:11-13).

The Divine Shepherd promised a new exodus.

The trajectory of “God will surely visit you” finds its ultimate fulfillment in the coming of Jesus Christ. Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, celebrated this divine visitation: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David” (Luke 1:68-69). In Jesus Christ, the Divine Word became flesh, the Eternal Son became man – the perfect embodiment of grace and truth. The deliverance that we need is not deliverance from Egypt or deliverance from the nations, but deliverance from sin:

“For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3:3-7)

In Jesus Christ, God Himself has visited us in order to bring us out of our sin and into His salvation. By sheer grace. Because of the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the cross.

Seeing Jesus through the book of Genesis

Who is this Jesus Christ? He has been the focal point of the Book of Genesis all along. Let’s ponder the glory of Christ that is revealed throughout the book:

He is the Word through whom the world has made.[2]

He is the image in which mankind was formed.[3]

He is the second and better Adam with a wound in His side, out of which a radiant bride is fashioned for a love story that shall never end. He is the second and better Adam, who crushes the lying serpent’s head. In fact, He crushes the lying serpent’s head by the wound in His side. It is not lofty ideas, but incarnate and crucified truth that wins the heart of His bride – that wins my heart, and yours too if you are His.[4]

He is the One greater than Abel, whose sacrificial offering is accepted in the court of heaven.[5]

He is the One greater than Noah, who brings us relief from the painful toil of our hands.[6]

He is the One greater than the ark, who brings us safely through judgment into the light of salvation.[7]

He is the Righteous Judge who reverses the judgment at Babel and gathers into one body people from every tribe and tongue on earth.[8]

He is the One greater than the animals that were sacrificed in the Lord’s covenant-cutting ceremony with Abraham: the Lord was resolved to take upon Himself all the weight of upholding the covenant, even though it meant it would crush Him to death at the cross.[9]

He is greater than the two angels who visited Lot in Sodom: He saves us from the wrath of God, and pulls our hesitant hearts out of grave danger.[10]

He is greater than Isaac: the son, the only son, the son that the Father loves, about whom it is written: “He [God]… did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all” (Romans 8:32).[11]

Of course, the near sacrifice of Isaac on Mount Moriah may also be viewed from the perspective of the ram caught in a thicket. Isaac had asked his father, “where is the lamb?” Abraham replied, “God will provide”. And immediately after the Lord halted Abraham’s knife, Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the ram, which he promptly offered instead of Isaac. Jesus is the One greater than that ram. He is the lamb who is sacrificed in our place. Jehovah Jireh: “The LORD will provide”. “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.” On Mount Calvary it was provided – paid in full.[12]

He is the One greater than Jacob’s ladder. We don’t build a ladder to the heavens, as the foolish builders at Babel had attempted. Instead, we do nothing, and God by sheer grace condescends to us and shows us the way and brings us home. In Jacob’s famous dream, God caused there to be a ladder on earth that reached up to heaven, and God’s angels were ascending and descending on it. In the New Testament Jesus tells us that we will see God’s angels ascending and descending on Him. He is the Way, and there is no other. Not in a mere dream, but in reality, He came from heaven to earth, in order to make a way for us to come home to the Father.[13]

What more shall I say?

He is the lion of the tribe of Judah, the promised king who deserves to be praised, honored, and obeyed by all people everywhere.[14]

He is the One greater than Joseph, the beloved son and blessed man who, through suffering, becomes the bread of life to all the world.[15]

He is the One greater than Melchizedek, the king of righteousness, the king of peace, the priest of God Most High, the priest-king who outranks every Levitical priest and every other Davidic king. Melchizedek brought out bread and wine to Abraham after the battle of kings, and he blessed Abraham. Jesus brings out bread and wine as well, but with deeper meaning: His body was bruised, and His blood was shed, and by taking the accursedness of sin upon Himself, He brings you the blessedness of redemption and eternal life. Here is a King who serves His people by paying the full price of having fellowship with His people. He bids you come only as a grateful recipient of what He has done for you. Don’t try to pay for what He freely gives![16]

In the words of Pontius Pilate: “Behold the man!” (John 19:5) He is the seed of the woman, the promised serpent crusher; He is the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who brings blessing to all the nations of the world; He is the laughter of Sarah, the source of true joy; He is the seed of Rebekah, who possesses the gate of His enemies; He is the praise of Leah, who is praised by his brothers and by all the peoples of the earth; He is the greater answer to Rachel’s prayer, for He is another Son that has been given, the Son of the Father’s right hand; He is the hope of Israel, who restores true peace to this broken world; He is the confidence of Joseph, who visits the people of His choosing.[17]

Behold the Messiah, the son of Mary, to whom the angel declared:

“Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” (Luke 1:30-33) 

Praise the Lord, for He has surely visited His people. The main point of the Book of Genesis, and the main point of the whole Bible, is to behold and believe this God who graciously comes, the one and only Messiah King, our Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed are all those who take refuge in Him!

ENDNOTES

[1] From the hymn “Homesick for Heaven” by Luetta Snyder. I quoted the first two verses, plus the chorus. Copyright 1940, by Robert Fraser.

[2] Genesis 1:1-2:3

[3] Genesis 1:26-28

[4] Genesis 2:21-24, 3:1-15

[5] Genesis 4:4

[6] Genesis 5:28-29

[7] Genesis 6:11-8:19

[8] Genesis 11:1-9

[9] Genesis 15:7-21

[10] Genesis 19:1-29

[11] Genesis 22:1-19

[12] Genesis 22:3-14

[13] Genesis 28:10-17, John 1:51

[14] Genesis 49:8-10

[15] Genesis 37:2-41:57

[16] Genesis 14:17-20

[17] Genesis 3:15; Genesis 22:18, 26:4, 28:14; Genesis 21:1-7; Genesis 24:60; Genesis 29:35; Genesis 30:22-24, 35:16-18; Genesis 48:15-21, 49:1-28; Genesis 50:24-25